Chapter Text
It was a long, hard journey through the Exalted Plains, and the strong walls of Skyhold are a welcome sight. You were on a mission to help Cassandra hunt down some old Seeker target, and you knew you might need Cole to pick a lock for you along the way, and frankly you don’t feel safe going anywhere without the Iron Bull anymore, so unfortunately, your company was full and Dorian had to stay back. Neither of you was happy about it.
You’re buzzing as you fly up the stairs into the main keep. You’re excited to see him, of course, but also a bit nervous, because you’ve resolved to have that conversation you’ve been putting off. It’s been spinning through your head since you arrived at the Exalted Plains and met that Dalish clan.
He’s standing in the library when you come up the stone stairs, brow furrowed, scanning a book like he’s looking for something. The sun filtering through the nearby window highlights his keen eyes as they flit across the page.
You lose a step, just looking at him. He’s beautiful.
He notices your approach, and you get to watch how his whole face lights up. He gives you that half-smile that drives you mad and says, “The inquisitor’s work is never done, I see.”
You’re tempted - as usual - to forgo your endeavor and just pull him in for a kiss. But this is too important.
“I need to talk to you.”
You wince internally, hearing the words as Dorian would, as the thing you always say when you’re trying to get him to your quarters.
Dorian clearly recognizes it as well. “Oh, ‘talk’, he says. Certainly.” And he gestures for you to lead the way.
Well, probably better this conversation happens in private anyway.
Dorian immediately foils your plans, because when the door to your quarters swings shut, he is on you.
The sun is about to set, casting a golden light over the room. You press your lips to Dorian’s shoulder, and he twitches a bit, as if you’ve just caught him on the edge of dozing off. His warm, solid back is pressed against your front. You feel it expand with a deep sigh of contentment.
“You know, I did actually want to talk to you about something.” You say, mouth still pressed against his shoulder.
You feel him turn to stone in your arms. All that lax comfort, gone from his body.
His tone reveals nothing beyond his usual dry wit. “Ah. Perhaps you should find a different code for inviting me to your bed, then, if ‘talk’ does mean talk.”
“Well, I’m certainly not sorry for the fantastic diversion.”
Ah, f*ck, you’ve done it again. You hear the words as Dorian will hear them. Dorian, who is so used to accepting affection as a passing flight. Who couldn’t believe you would care for him as more than just a good f*ck now and again.
You pull gently at his shoulder, wanting to see his face, but he will not come.
Dorian clears his throat slightly, and you know he is misreading you just the way you feared.
“Look at me. It’s nothing bad.”
After another second, he rolls over to face you, and for just a second you lose your breath.
“Wow.”
“What?” He asks defensively.
“I think I’d like to spend this time every day with you, so that I can always look forward to the way the setting sun illuminates your eyes.”
Dorian half-rolls his eyes and mutters, “Flatterer.” But he can’t suppress the beginnings of a smile that you can tell is genuine.
“You deserve a little flattering.” You lean in for a quick kiss, and he allows it.
“Alright, enough with the sweet nothings. What did you want to talk about?” He gives you that same little smile from the library, and although the tension hasn’t fully left his body, he isn’t poised to flee immediately. That’s good.
“I just wanted to tell you a bit about my culture, and how it relates to this -” You take his hand in yours and bring them between your chests, between your hearts. “- because I think there may be some cultural differences we should address.”
“‘This’... as in, sex?”
“‘This’ as in relationships. Partnerships…” Your eyes flit away from his. “Love.”
You hear a surprised exhalation and look back up at Dorian. Neither of you have professed to be in love yet, (although you feel yourself falling fast), and this isn’t necessarily a proclamation, but Dorian still looks at you like you hung the moon.
You watch him decide not to call you on it, to request a more specific declaration. You watch him laugh at himself briefly for thinking the worst of you, when you said ‘we need to talk’ and he reacted with fear. You watch him bring your held hands to his face, pressing his cheek against the back of your hand, and look at you softly.
“Partnership?” He asks, sounding almost wary. Not daring to hope.
You want to crush between your fingers every man who has ever made Dorian feel like a pastime first, and a person second. You force the feeling down. “Yes. I’ve come to think of you as a partner. In here, out there. I’m yours and you’re mine. If- if that’s alright, if you’ll have me.”
Dorian blinks slowly, as if taking a moment to absorb the words, before he smiles. “It’s more than alright with me. I’m- I never thought I’d-” He swallows heavily. Presses a kiss to your hand, and then lets your hands fall back to the bed between you. “Alright. Tell me about love among Dalish elves.”
You can’t help it. You lean forward to kiss him again. He accepts a quick kiss, but then leans back and prompts you to begin with a little nod.
You clear your throat. You thought a lot, on the road, about how you would say this.
“I understand that in Tevinter, family names and bloodlines are significant. Arranged marriages, controlled breeding, all that. In the Dalish clans, it couldn’t be more the opposite. A clan is a family, with little distinction drawn beyond that. Parents, siblings, children, all together. And Dalish clans being quite small and usually either wandering or living in close proximity with other clans, people move between clans often and easily.”
Dorian frowns. “How do you avoid inbreeding, if you don’t track blood relations?”
You tap your face. “The vallaslin. They don’t only represent an elf’s patron god, they tell of that individual’s parentage. I would know a child of Lavellan anywhere, regardless of how far they’d wandered or if they changed their name.”
Dorian traces the ink across your face gently. “I’d been told they originated as slave markings?”
You nod. “That was the case, long ago. Now, it’s nearly the opposite. The free Dalish clans have integrated the tattoos into our culture, and slavers pulling people from the alienages don’t bother with them anymore.”
Dorian’s face twists. The topic of slavery is a heavy one in any conversation, let alone between an elf and a noble from Tevinter.
You try to pull the conversation back onto its rails. “This is all to say that, for Dalish elves, families don’t need to be two parents and their direct offspring, it’s more blended. There might be three parents, or two parents with a lover outside the clan. It’s common for people to have two, three, four lovers at a time, sometimes in groups, sometimes as separate connections. The man who birthed me had three partners-”
Dorian blinks hard. “Sorry, wait, the man who birthed you?”
“Yes?”
“Men… Give birth? In Dalish clans?”
“Sometimes. Do they not in Tevinter?”
Dorian scoffs- “Of course not. Well, not unless they’re - hm. Actually, we don’t have a word for people like that in Tevinter that isn’t cruel.”
You frown deeply, remembering a conversation you had with Krem and the Bull. Clearly you underestimated the hostility Krem managed to escape.
Dorian shakes himself. “Sorry, not the point. Go on.”
“Well, the man who bore me had two wives and a husband, although we don’t use those words. One of his wives was also partnered with the husband, but the other wife was not involved with the others at all, although she had a partner in a neighboring clan. We're not certain who among them sired me, but it doesn't matter. We were all just clan. Family. They loved each other.”
Dorian's eyebrows could not be higher. “That sounds chaotic.”
You huff a laugh. “It sounds it, but in practice, it's simple. If you meet someone you like, and they like you, you pursue it. Sometimes it doesn't work out, sometimes it's just a bit of fun, but sometimes, it's forever. The Dalish have a reputation for being flighty, unable to commit, but that's not true at all. We love hard and commit fiercely, just often to more than one person.” You let the thought hang for a moment.
His face darkens rapidly as your intention sinks in. Dorian squints at you. “So, you’re saying that it’s uncommon for Dalish elves to have only one lover.” He sucks his teeth for a moment. “And you’re telling me this now because, what? You’ve found another? Of course you have, you’re wonderful, who wouldn’t jump at the chance... Who is it? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
He’s going cold again, closing himself off from you. You take his face in both of your hands and bring his gaze back up to meet yours.
“I’m telling you this, because I want you to understand the kind of love I am accustomed to. If I tell you that someone has caught my eye, I want you to understand that it in no way means my feelings for you are dimming.”
Dorian won’t meet your eye. “’It’s not you, it’s me’, then?”
You sigh. “You aren’t hearing me.”
Dorian sucks his teeth. “I’m hearing you alright. You’ve got one foot in the next boat, and-”
“Stop.” You interject firmly, and he obeys.
You duck your head to catch his eye. “I haven’t put my foot anywhere. Since the first time you kissed me, it’s only been you. For some time since before then, actually, as well – it’s been a chaotic year or so and I’ve been busy.”
His lips twitch like he wants to laugh, but he won’t let himself release the anger.
You cup his cheek in your hand, gently tracing little circles with your thumb. “I care for you, Dorian. So much. I meant it when I said I think of you as a partner."
He pulls his face back, out of your grasp. “But, what? If I can’t bear the thought of sharing you, it’s over? Whatever you say, goes, and if I can’t meet your Dalish ideal, then I’m not good enough for you, your Worship?” He bites out.
You recognize this. Dorian lashes out when he feels threatened. You force yourself not to take it personally.
“I am not saying that. If you cannot stomach the thought of me lying with another, then I will not. Your presence in my life means more to me than that. I only wanted to be honest with you about my feelings. I understand that in a traditional human relationship, even admitting an attraction towards another is enough to end in heartbreak. But I will not hide the truth from you. The truth is, I have a bit of a crush. It is natural for me, as a Dalish elf who is mostly accustomed to love being given and received freely. But I haven’t acted on it in any way, and I won’t do that so long as you’re uncomfortable with the idea. I couldn’t knowingly do something that would hurt you. I would never, ever do that.”
Dorian scans your face for a moment, searching for falsehoods. Finding none, he deflates and rolls onto his back, his eyes on the ceiling. “Maker, that’s almost worse.”
This reaction, you did not anticipate.
“What?”
His gaze is unfocused and unmoving. “You, the most amazing man I’ve ever met, are telling me there’s some part of your culture you’d like to act on. Like a human wanting to walk across an open plain, or a dwarf wanting to build a stronghold underground. It’s in your nature. And here I am, acting like you’ve wronged me.” He sighs, defeated. “You deserve better than me.”
You pull yourself up to your elbow so that you can search his face. It is empty. He’s giving up. He still can’t rationalize this conversation as anything but the end.
“No one deserves anything. Life is random. The point is, I want you. I need you. I -” you trip over the word. You won’t tell him that you love him now, not like this, when it will sound like a bargaining chip. “I care for you, Dorian. Did you hear me? I will do nothing to drive you from my side. There is no end of this conversation which results in me walking away from you.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Stop it.”
“No, I’m serious. I wish I could hear what you’re saying and believe it, really believe it in my heart. That love can be free. That you could care for me and care for another without one of us winning you or losing you entirely. I wish I could think of you in the arms of another and feel joy that you are happy, and not only roiling jealousy and devastating loss, that you are no longer mine. I wish I could tell you to pursue this other, and not believe that it means my own abandonment. But I can’t.”
He turns to look at you, with that heartbreaking little smirk that says ‘isn’t it all just the worst? Luckily I don’t care at all’ and means just the opposite.
“I wish I could think of the right thing to say that would convince you to leave me, so that you might be happy with someone who understands you, who lets you live in a way that feels natural to you. But I can’t. And if I could, I wouldn’t. Because I’m selfish. And if my days with you are numbered, then I want to soak them up entirely. Wring them out for every moment.”
His eyes are welling with tears, and you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes. Drama queen.
You sigh and thump him gently on the chest.
“Alright. Don’t believe me. But watch. Day in and day out, I will choose you. I will sidle up to you in the library and say ‘can we talk?’ and I will bring you back here to my bed. I will bring you into the field with me, because there’s no other mage I’d rather have at my back when battling demons. I will seek your counsel on matters of politics, of the arcane -” You let your hand run down his side, towards his hip. “- of pleasure. I will seek your company over drinks in the tavern, or at dinner in the main hall. If there’s nothing I can say to make you believe that I will not leave you, then I will prove it to you.”
Dorian smiles at you, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “I hope that I am wrong. But I so rarely am.”
“You’ll see. I'll show you.”
So you do.
For days, and then weeks, things are normal between you two. You spend time together, you travel together, you fight together. You eat, sleep, f*ck, train, laugh together. For the first few days, there is a bit of a ghost over Dorian. His laughter is half-hearted, his smiles only shadows. But he still turns his face to you like a flower towards the sun, and as long as that is true, you know things will be alright.
In the field, he is just as fierce a fighter and protector as always. At a particularly nasty fade rift, you are taken out by a despair demon and just before you lose consciousness, you hear Dorian cry out for you. When you come to, the Iron Bull and Cole are still duking it out with the same demon in the corner of your vision, so you know it can’t be more than a few seconds that have passed. Taking up much of your vision is Dorian’s frightened face. He is reviving you, and in your foggy state, you can do nothing to protect him from a wraith’s blast. He weathers it with little more than a wince before he continues trying to rouse you back to consciousness, not even stopping to return fire.
You get back on your feet and successfully close the fade rift. It’s not the first time you’ve gone down in a fight, and it won’t be the last, but you give Dorian a lingering kiss as thanks anyway.
“You always have my back. Thank you.”
Dorian smirks. “Can’t very well leave the Herald of Andraste lying unconscious on a battlefield, now, can I?”
You’re freer with affection, out here in the field. Skyhold is constantly crawling with Orlesian nobility who have little better to do than gossip. But out here, it’s just you and your squad. Cole makes himself scarce, as he so often does, and Bull doesn’t bother you beyond a (deserved) wolf-whistle every now and again.
That night, back at camp, Dorian pulls you into his tent, just to hold you tightly while you sleep. As if you might shatter apart without his arms around you.
Back at Skyhold, you find him in the library, and the two of you have a long conversation about finding out Corypheus’ true name. Dorian seems to think it will cause some political shockwaves to reveal that he was just a man once, and you go back and forth about ways to liberate that information. You love watching him work through a problem like this, the intelligence glittering in his eyes as he excitedly closes in on a solution.
“Dorian, you’re a genius, where would I be without you? I’ll bring this to Leliana, see what she can accomplish.”
Dorian blushes, and it takes you off guard because it’s so rare to see him truly flustered. “Oh, it’s hardly- Well… if it pans out it might help a bit.”
You cast your eyes around briefly and see that the coast is mostly clear. You press a quick kiss to his cheek and then say quietly, near his ear, “I’m so lucky to have such a clever strategist for a partner.”
You back away, about to head to the war room to act on this intel immediately, and you get to watch Dorian’s smile turn thoughtful. Hopeful, almost.
You can see the wheels turning. He’s thinking, maybe he isn’t yesterday’s news. Maybe he isn’t just biding his time with you, waiting for the axe to fall. Maybe you were right about everything you said to him that evening. Maybe he is worth it.
Believe it. You think to yourself.
