Chapter Text
Dorian was tired, but in overall good spirits as he sat next to the toasty fire of the inn’s tavern with a book lying over his knee and a cup of spiced wine in his hand. He was only a three day ride from Skyhold and after being away for a couple of months, the longest he’d been away since the world was saved, he was anxious to go back to see his friends and reunite with Iron Bull. While it was good to be back in his homeland again, to stroll along the same streets lined with old historic buildings from his childhood, to breathe in the sharp scent of incense from the market, and eat food with heat and flavor, he constantly missed the Iron Bull during the months that he was away.
Tevinter would always be his homeland, but the Iron Bull was rapidly becoming his home.
Dorian and his small group of retainers, which Josephine sent from the Inquisition to escort him, made an unexpected stop for the rest of the day at a large inn only a day’s ride from the base of the Frostback Mountains. They planned to pass by it since they still had plenty daylight, but it was the last place to sleep in a real bed until they made it to Skyhold and everyone in the party was weary from travel.
He bought a good meal for himself and his retainers, along with the first round of drinks before dismissing them from their duties for the night. Appointed as Tevinter’s ambassador to the Inquisition after the defeat of Corypheus, Dorian was once again bestowed with titles and cash, something he missed more than he liked to admit.
After dinner, his retainers sought their own entertainment with cards and drink. Dorian wanted to join them, but he was aware that few people wanted to relax with their employer and settled on sitting by the fire on his own.
The inn’s tavern was pleasantly warm after braving the bitter autumn wind and provided a palatable selection of wine for a backwater little Fereldan town, the combination of the two were making Dorian’s eyelids heavy. It was still early in the evening, but Dorian wasn’t surprised by his exhaustion and decided to retire to his room early. If he was of the mind, he could write to Bull about the kind of greeting he was expecting from his lover and send it by raven in the morning.
But as he made his way upstairs to his private room, Dorian found that he was too worn-out to even write a filthy letter to Iron Bull. His legs were unsteady and his head swam as if he drank far more than two glasses of wine. It was a small miracle that he made it to his room without falling over in the hallway and he barely got his boots off before tripping and falling onto the soft bed. Dorian wondered if he was coming down with a fever as his face felt flush from more than just alcohol and his head was beginning to demonstrate its displeasure.
The room was unusually dark, a servant must have come in to draw the curtains for the evening. Dorian was annoyed that someone had also put out the fire in the small fireplace, leaving the room chilly and without any light. And at that moment, he didn’t trust himself to light anything with his magic.
Groaning as he sat up, Dorian knew that if he didn’t drink some water before sleeping that he’d regret it terribly in the morning. That was when he heard the creak of the floorboards and Dorian whipped his head up, alert and tense. He instantly reached for his magic, hoping to use lightning to stun whoever was in the room, but found his mana pool depleted and it hit him that he wasn’t ill or drunk, but drugged with magebane. The spices in his wine assuredly masked its taste.
Dorian pushed through his haze and quickly scrambled to his feet as his trembling fingers grasped at the dagger on his hip, a gift from Inquisitor Adaar, regretting that his staff was on the other side of the room. Whoever was in the room with him anticipated his move and someone large and fast rushed him, knocking the dagger out of Dorian’s hand and pushed him back onto the bed as Dorian let out a strangled cry for help.
His attacker quickly straddled his waist, a heavy weight pinned Dorian to the mattress and he was helpless as his attacker grabbed both of his wrists in one hand and held them over Dorian’s head. Not knowing what his attacker’s intentions were, terror filled the mage, which didn’t diminish when a damp, sweet smelling cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose.
Knowing that whatever was soaking the cloth was going to knock him out, Dorian started to thrash, kick out of his legs, and struggle to pry his hands from the large hand gripping his wrists. There was only so long that Dorian could hold his breath and it wasn’t long before he breathed in the cloyingly sweet and medicinal stench of herbs from the cloth. Finally his thrashing died down, his limbs were far too heavy while his head felt too light. The cloth didn’t move from his face, but the hand holding his wrists let go and fingers carded through his hair while someone soothingly shushed his whimpers of fear as he gave into unconsciousness.
---
Dorian woke up slowly and rather uncomfortably. Sunlight was in his face, hurting his eyes and making his poor head pound and every muscle and joint in his body screamed, like he spent long days riding in an awkward position. And to top it off, his mouth was dry and sour from what tasted like a stale mixture of elfroot potions, vomit, and sleep.
At least the bed was comfortable and the blankets were thick and fluffy, though he couldn’t remember how he got to bed. A pained moan escaped Dorian’s lips as he turned his head away from the sunlight, causing his chin to hit something unyielding and cool around his neck. His fingers grasped at it and cold dread settled in his already churning stomach when he found a metal collar with runes etched into it secured around his throat.
He sat up and the blankets pooled around his waist, revealing Dorian’s state of complete undress. Gathering his wits and looking around him, Dorian noticed that he was in a cramped one room cabin that he had never seen before.
Panic overcame Dorian upon realizing that he had no idea where he was and the collar prevented him from accessing his magic. He’d never been captured by an enemy before, never been collared, and he found that he couldn’t breathe. His chest wheezed as he clawed at the collar, his nails biting into the tender flesh of his throat.
The mattress dipped down behind him, large hands grabbed Dorian’s and lowered them safely into his lap. Then the voice he wanted to hear most said reassuringly, “You’re safe, kadan, you’re safe. I’ve got you. Now breathe for me, kadan, nice and slow. That’s my good boy. Here, drink this.”
A cool glass pressed against Dorian’s lips and he immediately opened them, thankful for the cold water that washed away the staleness in his mouth.
“Good boy.”
Just the sound of Iron Bull’s voice brought tears of relief to Dorian’s eyes and once he could properly breathe again, he turned in the bed to find Bull sitting there, both worry and fondness evident on his fatigued looking face. Dorian slumped against Bull and his tears fell as Iron Bull wrapped his arms around him, holding him closer, and kissed his forehead.
“Amatus,” Dorian sighed and Bull squeezed him tighter. “Amatus, where are we? What happened?”
“The Inquisitor received rumor of Venatori activity near the Frostbacks with a specific threat to you. I went to meet you at the inn, I was worried and wanted to help escort you back to Skyhold, but you were already taken by the Venatori,” Bull explained, ducking his face into Dorian hair. “I was almost too late.”
“My retainers? Are they safe?”
“Yeah, or at least I think so, they’re the ones who reported you missing the morning after you were taken, but they had already left the inn to look for you when I arrived. Do you remember what happened?”
Dorian started shaking his head, then paused as memories of a struggle, of someone holding him down on the bed floated up in his mind. “A little. Someone was waiting for me in my room. I couldn’t use my magic.”
“Anything else?” Bull pressed.
“No, nothing at all. How long was I missing?”
“For a few days.”
That wasn’t encouraging to Dorian, he didn’t like that he couldn’t remember his captivity. He squinted at the cabin, it didn’t look like anywhere in or near Skyhold. “Where are we? Why aren’t we at Skyhold?”
“We’re at an old safe house of mine,” Iron Bull answered easily, “I used this place for drops and passing on information to my contacts. You were too weak to make it to Skyhold and most of the Venatori cell is still out there, I just barely rescued you. I also can’t get the collar off of you, so you can’t fight,” he gently touched Dorian’s neck, causing Dorian to shiver. “I sent a raven to let the Inquisitor know where we are, we’ll have to wait it out until reinforcements come.”
More questions flooded Dorian’s head and he was unnerved to be in a Ben-Hassrath safe house. “Is the house still in use?”
“Just by us.” Iron Bull seemed to notice Dorian’s unease. “Hey, I’d never put you in danger, you know that, right?”
“Yes, yes, I know, amatus,” Dorian replied swiftly. “Why didn’t you bring the Chargers or some of Cullen’s men? Why did you come alone?”
Bull shifted at the mention of the Chargers. “The boys are on a job and as I said, the information was just rumors and the Inquisitor didn’t want to spare the resources, so I left on my own to find you.”
Dorian frowned. That didn’t sound like Adaar at all as she was constantly throwing resources at stranger requests than a rumor of Venatori threats. Like saving spirits, tracking down Grey Warden relics, finding books, hunting down amulets to prevent spirit binding that end up being useless, and bags and upon bags of flour for baking cookies that she and Sera would just hurl from the roof. To think that she wouldn’t spare a few men to accompany Bull to follow up on the rumor of a threat on Dorian’s life seemed odd. He was actually more surprised that Adaar didn’t accompany Bull herself, since she was such a busybody.
“Why wouldn’t Adaar give you any men? Did I anger her?” Dorian asked, frantically trying figure out what he might have done to so egregiously offend her. He wrote to her several times while he was back in Tevinter, but nothing of a scandalous or offensive nature.
Iron Bull hesitated for a half a second. “I really don’t know, kadan. You’ll just have to talk to her when we get back.” He stroked Dorian’s hair. “You should take a nap and I’ll wake you up for dinner.”
More sleep was the last thing Dorian wanted, but his body was still sore like he was having the worst hangover of his life. Lying back down, he let Iron Bull tuck him back under the covers, though Bull was in no hurry to leave. He leaned against the headboard and his hand tangled itself in Dorian’s hair.
Dorian’s mind was racing with what Bull told him, wondering about the threat on his life, being unable to get the collar off, Adaar’s refusal to send anyone with Bull, and their apparent inability to make it back to Skyhold. Whatever happened though, it certainly took a toll on Iron Bull.
There were more lines on his lover’s gray face, making him look older, and causing guilt to rise up in Dorian for making Bull worry. The more Dorian stared at Bull’s face, the more concerned Dorian became when he spotted the dark circles under his eyes and the tightness around his mouth. He was certain that it was no picnic for Bull to run around, trying to find him, and fighting Venatori on his own.
“Are you ok, amatus?”
Bull’s single eye blinked in surprise and looked down at Dorian. “You’re the one who was kidnapped and hurt, kadan, and you’re asking me if I’m ok?”
“You just … You seem worn out, amatus, I worry about you.”
A warm smile appeared on Bull’s lips. “You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?”
Blushing, Dorian buried his face into his pillow. Their usual banter helped to put Dorian at ease and he even managed to forget about the weight of the collar around his neck. “I’ll have none of your slander and lies.”
Dorian reached out and placed his hand on Bull’s stomach, frowning at the white linen shirt that Bull was wearing. It was an odd sight since Bull rarely wore shirts, only when he was forced to by Josephine and Vivienne or when he wore one under his full plate armor.
“You look weird with a shirt on,” Dorian mumbled grumpily.
“Just trying something new, kadan,” Bull’s smile widened. “Don’t I look more civilized?”
Dorian snorted. “I prefer to have my view of your chest unobstructed.”
The gaze that Iron Bull gave him was filled with both happiness and lust. “Perhaps I’ll give you an unobstructed view later tonight.”
Dorian gave Bull a filthy grin, though he didn’t really feel it. He wanted to be back in Skyhold in their room where they could properly enjoy each other without the threat of being attacked by the Venatori or with a thick metal collar on him. At some point, in midst his troubled thoughts, Dorian must have dozed off, because the next thing he was aware of, Bull was gently shaking his shoulder and helped him sit up with a bowl of spicy ram stew and a cup of tea.
“Could I have some clothes, amatus?” Dorian asked, mindful of his naked state and not eager to spill hot stew on his bare skin.
Iron Bull shook his head. “Yours are wrecked, I haven’t had time to try and salvage them.”
Dorian almost asked for the shirt off of Bull, but decided not to and concentrated on eating. The food was spicier than what Iron Bull usually made when they were on the road, but he was also usually catering to southern palates. Dorian only ate half of his dinner before he had to put his bowl aside and was ready to sleep again. His cheeks were warm and flush, and his limbs became boneless and pliant.
Iron Bull eagerly slipped into the bed with him, strangely still clothed, but Dorian didn’t protest as long as he was in Bull’s embrace. The heat of Bull’s body and the scent of his skin reassured Dorian that, for at least the moment, all was well.
“Tell your amatus what you need,” Bull whispered, his arms wrapped around Dorian’s waist.
There were a lot of things Dorian needed. He needed to remember what happened to him, he needed the Venatori who attacked him killed, he needed some clothes, he needed to be at Skyhold and to find out what was wrong with Adaar.
“Kiss me, amatus?” Dorian settled on that instead, rolling on top of his lover.
The pure joy in Bull’s eye made Dorian’s heart skip a beat. “Anytime, kadan.”
The kiss was hungry and searing, making it seem like they were apart for two years instead of two months. Bull was intent on exploring every inch of Dorian’s mouth with his tongue and kept a firm grasp on the mage’s hair, not letting him break the kiss for several minutes. His lips practically throbbed when Bull released him from the kiss and Dorian unconsciously ground his hips into Bull’s, already half hard, but too exhausted to do anything about it. A growl rose up from Iron Bull and he grabbed at the mage’s ass, but Dorian was already drifting off, his head pillowed on Bull’s chest.
“Later, amatus,” Dorian slurred, his eyelids fluttering shut.
A breathless chuckle escaped from Bull. “Alright, kadan, later.”
---
Gray light from the dawn roused Dorian from his uneasy sleep. While his body had shut down, his brain kept on going and relived the short, terrifying moments when he was attacked. Parts that he hadn’t remembered the night before became clearer in his dreams. The weight of his attacker’s body against his own, the smell of the cloth held against his face, and the gentle fingers in his hair before he passed out.
Dorian pressed himself closer to Bull’s side, who was still snoring through the early morning. Without his magic, Dorian was helpless in a way he never experienced before, but he was safe as long as Iron Bull was with him.
Sometime during the night, Dorian’s hand worked its way under Iron Bull’s shirt and he didn’t remove it when he woke up as he enjoyed the sensation of their skin touching. It wasn’t often that Dorian was awake before Bull, but when he was, he liked tracing the lines of Bull’s muscles, the curve of his stomach, and the pattern of his scars. Dorian moved his fingers carefully over Iron Bull’s skin, knowing exactly how firmly he could touch his lover without waking him up.
He traced over memorized lines of muscle and the softness around Bull’s belly. His fingertips crawled along scars and Dorian tried to recall all of the zealously told stories that came with them. There were a couple scars that Dorian couldn’t remember and he wondered what kind of mischief Iron Bull and his Chargers were up to while he was away. As his hand crept up Bull’s torso, Dorian encountered a large, jagged scar under Bull’s ribs that alarmed him.
From the size of the scar, it was a grievous injury and it had to have happened recently as there was no way that Dorian would have missed it. Dorian was immediately upset that no one thought to inform him that Bull had been injured while he was away. If Dorian was told, he would have departed from Tevinter immediately to be at Bull’s side as he recovered.
It didn’t make sense though, Dorian thought, the wound was long healed over and its texture was similar to Bull’s older scars. The wound wasn’t healed with magic, Dorian was sure of it, otherwise the scar would’ve been a lot smaller and not as rough. Even Dalish, who wasn’t apt at healing magic, wouldn’t have left such a mark behind.
Slowly and silently, Dorian untangled himself from Iron Bull and really looked at his lover. There was a smattering of white to Iron Bull’s stubble that wasn’t there before, the lines on his face were too deep and ingrained to be caused from mere worry, and there was a small chip on Bull’s left horn that Dorian couldn’t remember and he knew Bull’s horns like the back of his own hand.
Dorian reexamined everything that Bull said the previous day. The story that he came to find Dorian alone, that Adaar wouldn’t provide people to follow up on a rumor about the Venatori, that it was too dangerous to go back to Skyhold, and that Iron Bull went to the inn looking for Dorian. The last one was what made Dorian pause, he didn’t tell Iron Bull that he would be staying at the inn and Dorian himself didn’t know that he was going to stay there until the group decided to make the detour the day of.
It was plausible that his retainers sent word to Skyhold that he was missing, but it didn’t add up with the timeline of Bull’s story.
He remembered parts of his abduction and the more he thought about it, the sicker he felt. The large hand easily holding both of his wrists, the body straddling his, the fingers carding through his hair, they were all painfully familiar. A member of the Venatori would not have been so kind in subduing him.
After wiping his damp eyes, Dorian quietly slipped out of the bed, years of practice of leaving lovers’ beds undetected coming in handy. A quick look of the one room cabin didn’t reveal where his clothes or his boots were, but he did find an extra shirt in a pile of gear near the bed and slipped it on. He also grabbed a dagger from the pack on the floor, slowly sliding the blade out from a side pocket as to not jostle anything. He was tempted to take everything, but he was too concerned about the noise.
The sound of the door opening and closing was far too loud to Dorian, but he didn’t dare look back as he slipped out of the cabin. Outside was significantly colder than inside the snug cabin, the ground was frosted and hard under Dorian’s bare feet and the wind tore through the thin fabric of his stolen shirt. He wouldn’t make it far before hypothermia would overtake him, that knowledge making Dorian keenly aware of how vulnerable he was without proper clothing and his magic.
Looking around, Dorian could see that the cabin was in a small clearing without any other structures or signs of civilization in sight. The scenery was discouraging, the cabin was situated up in a set of hills that Dorian couldn’t identify and surrounded by a lush green forest with one overgrown trail leading down the hill and into the woods. Thankfully he saw a tiny barn a short walk away on the other side of the clearing and made his way towards it, hoping to find a horse. He was shivering by the time he reached the structure, but he found it was worth the effort.
“Thank the Maker,” Dorian muttered at the sight of a large brown horse inside the barn, along with all of its riding gear. The horse was definitely not Iron Bull’s mount, a huge blond Fereldan mare he called Daisy, and Dorian had never known Bull to willingly travel without his beloved horse.
He didn’t have much time. Putting the dagger down, Dorian started getting the horse ready to ride until the squeak of rusty hinges alerted Dorian to the fact that he was no longer alone. Dropping the saddle, Dorian picked the dagger back up and faced the Qunari standing several paces away and blocking the only exit out of the barn.
“I suggest wearing a pair of pants if you want to go horseback riding,” the man wearing his lover’s face said with a lazy grin.
“Who are you?” Dorian demanded, nervously clutching the weapon.
“You know who I am, kadan,” the imposter said lightly. “Why don’t you put down the dagger and we’ll talk inside.”
The Qunari took a step towards him, causing Dorian to stumble backwards till his back hit the rough surface of the wall. His body shook, he couldn’t win in a fight against a fully grown Qunari without his magic or a staff, but he wouldn’t be taken quietly, even if he dreaded the confrontation.
“Stay back,” his voice cracked.
“You’re shivering, kadan, come back inside and warm up by the fire.” The imposter took another step forward.
“Don’t call me that!” Dorian snapped as he raised his weapon. “I told you to stay back.”
A soft smile appeared on the man’s face, looking fonder than anyone who was being threatened with a blade should. “You’re always so fiery, kadan,” the man said affectionately before he suddenly closed the distance between him and Dorian.
The movement startled Dorian and he tried to lash out with the dagger in the way Adaar taught him, but he was too inexperienced and his captor was too skilled. Dorian could easily kill demons and men alike with a staff or polearm without having to use his magic, but even then he could keep them at a distance and wasn’t used to close quarter fighting. It also didn’t help that his attacker had the same face of his lover, making Dorian hesitate and giving the Qunari the chance to easily knock the dagger from Dorian’s hand. With the Qunari so close, Dorian didn’t have enough room to throw a punch or kick and he soon found himself restrained in a tight embrace.
“You’re not getting away, we both know that. So let’s go inside and talk,” the imposter said in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.
“I’m done listening to you,” Dorian snarled.
“Dorian, you can walk back to the cabin with me or I can carry you.”
In the end, Dorian chose the dignity of walking, though his bare feet protested as he slowly walked across the cold and rocky ground. He also felt less dignified by the fact that the Qunari maintained a firm grip on the back of Dorian’s neck, right above the blighted collar he was wearing. It only served to remind Dorian of how powerless he was. His captor didn’t let go of him once they entered the cabin and steered Dorian to a chair next to the fireplace. The imposter kneeled in front of him to take a look at his feet, keeping a firm hold on Dorian’s legs to discourage him from kicking the man in the face.
“I should have carried you,” the Qunari chastised himself as he carefully poked at a shallow cut on Dorian’s left heel. He quietly cleaned Dorian’s feet with a warm washcloth and applied a salve to the cut. “There, that should heal up nicely. Now, will you promise not to do anything else stupid?”
Dorian bristled at the question. “What do you think?”
“You do enjoy being difficult,” the man chuckled before standing up, lifting Dorian out of the chair and all but tossed him on the bed.
“What are you doing?” Dorian demanded, but he soon got his answer when the Qunari grabbed his left hand and hauled it up to the headboard, securing his wrist to it with a manacle. The iron shackle fit firmly around his wrist and there was a soft lining inside it that prevented it from cutting into Dorian’s skin, however that was the last thing Dorian was worried about as he began to frantically tug at it.
“You’re just going to hurt yourself, kadan.”
Climbing onto the bed, his captor gathered Dorian up in his arms and held him to keep Dorian from struggling. Dorian silently cursed his body as it automatically relaxed against the warm chest he was pressed against, the scent of the Qunari soothing him. The imposter felt so much like Iron Bull, but Dorian refused to believe that this person was his lover. The differences were subtle, but they were there and too many for Dorian to ignore.
“Who are you?” Dorian asked, his words muffled by the man’s shirt. “You’re not a demon.”
The man shuddered and laughed at the same time. “I really hope I’m not, but how do you figure that?”
“A demon wouldn’t be so elaborate, wouldn’t go through all this trouble. And the differences are too physical, the problem with envy demons imitating humans is usually the personality and memories, not appearance. So, who are you if not the Iron Bull or a demon?”
“I’m your amatus.”
“I think we both know you’re not,” Dorian retorted and the man only held Dorian tighter. Drawing in a ragged breath, Dorian started, “Adaar once told me that after her appearance in Val Royeaux, before I joined the Inquisition, that Fiona, or who she thought was Fiona, approached her and invited her to Redcliffe. When Adaar went to go meet the rebel mages, Fiona had no idea what she was talking about.”
A rough palm slid up Dorian’s arm, a comforting gesture that was all too familiar.
Closing his eyes, Dorian steeled himself and continued, “After we went into the future together, Adaar hypothesized that the Fiona who approached her in Val Royeaux came from a different time, an alternate time, to try and steer Adaar towards the mages. I didn’t think that was plausible and with Alexius locked up and everyone in Skyhold squeamish about time magic, I never had the chance to study it. Now I’m wishing I had.”
The imposter didn’t confirm or deny anything Dorian said, but praised him, “You’re so smart, kadan.”
“Of course I am. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you suddenly decided to wear shirts? That I wouldn’t see that chip in your horns or that giant scar?”
“I wanted to wait to explain it to you, for you to recover before telling you the truth.”
“The truth?” Outrage seeped into Dorian. “Were there any Venatori to begin with? Or did you just think it’d be fun to drug and kidnap me?”
“I regret having to do that,” the Qunari had the nerve to sound sorry.
“You wanted to talk, so talk. Though I guess then the question isn’t so much ‘Who are you?’ and more ‘Where or when do you come from?’”
---
Hissrad could have died without regret. He could have betrayed Lavellan, the Inquisition, his friends, and his kadan to the Qun without regret if he had died. He didn’t die though, his body was stubborn and strong, and the staff blade didn’t sink in far enough into his flesh to be immediately fatal. So instead of dying without regret, Hissrad was forced to live with it.
He thought about being reeducated again, to scrub his mind of the Chargers, his former boss and friends, and his kadan, and reemerge with new purpose within the Qun. However the thought of erasing Dorian from his memories repulsed him. Even though Hissrad raised his greatsword against Dorian, he couldn’t strike him, even as he caught Varric in the gut with the pommel, even as he gave the Seeker a new scar on her face, even as he slammed Lavellan to the ground.
He betrayed the Inquisition, but he still loved his kadan and fervently hoped that he wouldn’t live past the day when he came through that door on the command of Viddasala and attacked his friends. But he did. He lived many more days afterwards.
The memory of the twisted expression of grief, despair, and rage on Dorian’s face as he stabbed Hissrad with his staff blade wouldn’t leave him. The sobs and bitter words after the battle still rang in Hissrad’s ears. The Chargers’ lives didn’t sway Hissrad to become Tal-Vashoth, but his grief and Dorian’s despair did.
Hissrad wandered by himself for a long time and scrounged whatever information he could on Dorian, not too difficult considering his status as a Magister with connections to the Inquisition, the Divine Victoria’s new honor guard. From all accounts he heard, Magister Pavus was a man with virtually no personal life and driven solely by his work. There were countless attempts on Dorian’s life and close calls as he worked to bring about reform to his homeland, but he made no effort to heighten security at his estate or increase the number of guards that followed him.
Magister Pavus was also known to visit Kirkwall from time to time, enjoying the company of the viscount and other companions from his time with the Inquisition. Hissrad couldn’t travel unnoticed into Tevinter, but he could get by in Kirkwall.
He followed Dorian around the city-state from a safe distance, knowing that his size and horns made him stick out in the crowds. During his visit, Dorian didn’t go anywhere special, he visited a few shops and taverns, but mostly he walked aimlessly through the streets without a single guard or servant. One day he and Varric went to a tavern together where, Hissrad found out, several former members of the Inquisition were waiting for them. Sera, Thom Rainier, Cullen, Dagna, and Scout Harding all let out a hearty cheer at the sight of Dorian and Varric.
Finding a spot in a dark corner where he could observe them without notice, Hissrad watched his kadan and former companions drink and catch up. He couldn’t hear what they were saying and Hissrad was always crap at reading lips, but he could easily read Dorian’s body language. His kadan leaned away from the group, he quickly withdrew from physical contact, kept his arms crossed, his smiles were strained, and he never laughed. It grieved Hissrad that he was the cause of such behavior and he ached to touch Dorian, to make his smile genuine, and hear him laugh.
After a couple pints of beer though, Dorian loosened up and Hissrad could see that his body was tilting towards Cullen. Cullen’s hand rested casually along the back of Dorian’s chair, careful not to touch, but close enough that Dorian had to know it was there. And Dorian’s smiles became easier, shyer, and mostly directed towards the former commander.
Hissrad didn’t know how long he sat there staring at Dorian, but when the group broke apart and went their separate ways, he was compelled to follow Dorian. He’d been tailing Dorian during his entire visit, but now he wanted to speak to him, to beg for forgiveness, to kiss him one last time. Dorian left the tavern alone, going in the opposite direction of Varric’s house and towards one of the nicer hotels in Kirkwall, and in the direction that Cullen departed in five minutes before. The street was mostly empty with plenty of alleyways, giving Hissrad the opportunity to speak to Dorian in private.
“Don’t.”
Hissrad froze and found Cole next to him.
“Don’t. You’ll kill him.”
Hissrad flinched. “I’m not going to hurt Dorian again.”
Cole shook his head, his eyes hidden by the wide brim of his hat. “You want Dorian to be happy, so you need to leave. If he knows you’re alive, it’ll kill him. He holds onto the hurt so fiercely, grief, anger, betrayal, shame, all twisted together, only soothed by the fact that he corrected his mistake, he killed you.”
That caught Hissrad off guard. “Dorian’s glad he killed me?”
“No. Not like that. He grieves for you, for the love he once had. But you’re gone and can’t hurt him anymore, it protects him. If you’re alive, then you can hurt him and he can’t take it, he won’t survive it. Then Cullen will kill you.”
All of the words on Hissrad’s tongue dried up at that last sentence.
“It’s taken so long to heal, to trust,” Cole continued mournfully. “Scar on his mouth that pulls when he smiles. Warm amber eyes watching. Strong hands that hold, care, protect. ‘I haven’t cared for anyone since—’ Breath stutters, heart pounds, those warm eyes won’t leave his. ‘It’s ok, I won’t hurt you, I’ll protect you.’”
Hissrad didn’t need to hear anything more. He understood. It was too late, he already damaged Dorian in ways a lover was never supposed to. There was no way to go back prevent his betrayal, to make sure he never hurt Dorian to begin with. Hissrad wondered if that was to be Dorian’s fate, to be betrayed by those he loved and trusted, and if there was any way to end the cycle.
“I’ll remain dead then.”
Dorian needed to heal and if Hissrad was alive, then his wounds would remain open and bleeding until there was nothing left.
---
“You came to prevent your own betrayal?”
“No, not really. I doubt that there is much I could say to convince myself otherwise, but I can protect you from being hurt in the first place.”
“But nothing you said makes any sense. Why would Bull even work with the Qun? He’s been Tal-Vashoth for over a year.”
“I figured he might be, since you mentioned the Chargers. Inquisitor Lavellan told me to save the alliance and I assume your Inquisitor Adaar told me to save the Chargers.”
“Of course she did! She loves the Chargers. Honestly, so much is different between our two worlds that the events you described may never even come to pass. Now, as you can see, I won’t be betrayed, so would you be so kind and unshackle me from the bed?”
Hissrad made no move to either let go of Dorian or unchain him. “You don’t know that, you don’t know that he won’t betray you. He might even kill you to get back into the Qun. I can’t allow that.”
“You don’t know that either!” Dorian insisted. “How did you even get here? I certainly didn’t send you.”
“You said Alexius was locked up, the Alexius of my time was put to work for the Inquisition and was still working on his time magic on the sly. I happened to discreetly borrow him and persuaded him to help me.”
“Maker, Alexius sent you? You’re not even a mage and I doubt even I could unravel what years of research Alexius had to figure this trick out, how do you expect to get back?”
“I don’t.”
That really didn’t bode well for Dorian. “Do you expect me run away with you? Disappear with you and spend the rest of our days on some Free Marcher beach, leaving behind Bull and my entire life?”
Hissrad frowned and shook his head, “No, not without convincing.”
“And why don’t you ‘convince’ your own Dorian?”
“I hurt him too much, just knowing that I’m alive would destroy him. But you still love your Bull, you can be convinced.”
“I loathe to ask,” Dorian choked, “but what you mean by convincing?”
“I'm guessing that you know about reeducation.”
Blind panic consumed Dorian, he couldn't see past the tears in his eyes and struggled against Hissrad’s grip, but it did no good. The thought of having his mind hollowed out and being reduced to a mindless husk horrified Dorian beyond words. He remembered barely escaping his own father’s plans of altering him, to be made compliant, and felt the bitter betrayal of having his mind broken by a deranged version of his lover.
“No, please no. Please don’t take my mind. Katoh,” he sobbed, “katoh.”
“Ah, kadan,” Hissrad murmured, having the gall to rub Dorian’s back and rock him. “I'm not going to break your mind, I promise. Just rewrite a few things in the margins, to make you accept me.”
Dorian closed his eyes, fat tears of fear running down his cheeks. “No, no … You can’t replace Bull.”
“Don’t worry, kadan, you'll still have your amatus.”
Hissrad ended up taking away the shirt Dorian stole and chained him to the bed. At first, Dorian recoiled and assumed the worst. “I'm not going to force myself on you, kadan,” Hissrad stroked his hair and pulled the covers over Dorian’s naked body. “I’ll wait until you're ready, when you willingly prepare yourself and beg for me.”
Dorian’s stomach turned, not from disgust, but from worry that he would get to that point soon enough.
At the very least, Hissrad’s reeducation proved to be slow and gentle, showing his unwillingness to harm Dorian. Hissrad could have easily used pain and pleasure to quickly break Dorian, but he didn’t. Instead his touches were innocent, keeping his hands above Dorian’s waist as much as possible. He could have also forced the drugs down Dorian’s throat, but it was obvious that Hissrad didn’t want to treat Dorian roughly and took to lacing his food and water. Though it meant that that Dorian ate and drank as little as he could without provoking Hissrad into force feeding him.
It gave Dorian the benefit of time to try to think of a chance to escape, as dismal as those chances looked. Dorian never left Hissrad’s sight, even humiliatingly to wash and use the chamber pot, reinforcing Hissrad’s complete control over the situation. While Hissrad kept Dorian warm by providing him with blankets, he gave Dorian no clothing and even shredding his own shirts now that he didn't need to wear one to cover his scar. Dorian knew enough that Hissrad was trying to strip Dorian of every possible defense, leaving him even more helpless and more likely to give in.
---
Mealtimes filled Dorian with both dread and treacherous relief. All of his food and water was drugged, making him more accepting of Hissrad’s words and soft touches. Dorian hated how sluggish and fuzzy he became and how readily he ate up anything Hissrad said, but there was also a terrible relief when the anticipation was gone and the drugs freed him of his fears.
Hunger and weariness persuaded Dorian to eat half of his dinner, stopping when he could feel the effects of the potions fog his mind. He sat the bowl down on the side table he could just barely reach from the bed.
“Eat a couple more bites.”
He shook his head.
“Dorian, you hardly ate lunch.”
He gritted his teeth. “I’d eat more if you weren’t drugging me all the damn time.”
Hissrad was unmoved and picked up the bowl, scooping a piece of stewed meat with the spoon. Dorian’s jaw became tight, but he knew that one way or another that he was going to end up eating the couple of bites Hissrad insisted on.
“I’ll feed myself,” Dorian growled, but Hissrad didn’t give back the bowl. He spoon fed Dorian until the mage’s indignant anger melted away to unhappy resignation.
Dinner was always the worst. It was his third dose of the day and by the evening Dorian was exhausted from trying to keep himself together. He fought the conditioning throughout the day, calling his captor Hissrad, refusing every touch, answering questions with peevish remarks, and concentrating on the large scar right below Hissrad’s ribcage, reminding Dorian that the Qunari in the room was not his amatus. But by the end of the day, he was at his worst and most receptive to Hissrad’s manipulations.
“What do you need, kadan? Tell your amatus.”
Dorian slowly blinked up at Hissrad after finishing his meal, who was cradling Dorian’s head in his lap cupping and rubbed his thumb along Dorian’s bottom lip. He blinked again and saw Iron Bull, relaxed and happy, sitting on their bed in their shared quarters in Skyhold.
“Amatus?” Dorian didn’t recall returning to Skyhold, but it hardly mattered that since he was with Iron Bull. He melted into the touch. “I missed you, Bull,” his words came out slurred.
“I missed you too, Dorian. You’ve had a long journey, let your amatus take care of you.”
It was like drowning in warm water, letting his head slip under a sea of sensation and accepting the peace that was offered to him. The slide of rough palms against his skin, whispers of praise and love, and lips peppering kisses along his face. He moved his arm, wanting to hook his hand behind Bull’s neck to bring him closer, but his arm stopped short. A chain clanked loudly in Dorian’s ear and his whole being jerked.
Bull was gone and there was only Hissrad.
“No!” Dorian snapped. “Katoh!”
“It’s ok, it’s ok, you’re safe.” Hissrad petted his forehead.
“No, no, no.”
“You’re safe,” Hissrad repeated until Dorian believed him and went limp in his arms, letting the cycle repeat itself.
---
Mornings were not much better. At night Hissrad chained Dorian’s ankles to the bed, being considerate enough to worry that Dorian’s arm might get too cold or uncomfortable while he slept. Hissrad then crawled into bed next to Dorian, maneuvering the mage so he was halfway draped on top of him. Dorian couldn’t escape the feel and smell of Hissrad’s skin on his own, couldn’t get away from the heat rolling off of his body, and he responded in the predictable fashion every morning.
Dorian woke up wrapped in familiar arms, pressed against a strong chest, and achingly hard.
“Amatus,” Dorian murmured, barely awake and wonderfully comfortable. He shifted his hips to rut against Bull, not an unusual way for him to wake up with his amatus in his bed.
“Kadan,” a rumble came below him and a hand stroked his lower back.
The warm light of the morning sun hit Dorian on the left side of his face, making him frown in confusion. The window in his room faced west and the direct sunlight didn’t hit his room until the afternoon. This wasn’t his room.
Dorian recoiled, flinging himself to the empty side of the bed as far as the chains would allow.
Hissrad made no comment, but got his eye full of Dorian’s arousal. He left the cabin, presumably to feed the horse in the barn and to give Dorian a sliver of privacy to take care of business. But Dorian refused to touch himself and instead clutched onto the blankets as he buried his face into the pillow to weep.
---
When Dorian was clear headed, Hissrad read out loud to him from one of Varric’s novels and tried to play mental games of chess with him like he once did with Solas. They quickly needed to switch checkers, the potions Hissrad kept feeding Dorian were making him more confused by the day and he couldn’t keep track of all the pieces. Dorian suspected that he wasn’t keeping up with the checker games as well, but Hissrad didn’t say anything about it.
Dorian also watched Hissrad as he moved around the little cabin. He made note of where Hissrad kept the keys to the shackles, where Hissrad’s weapons were, where the knives for cooking were kept, when he left the cabin to feed the horse or get water, and how he limped slightly with the rain. One thing that Iron Bull taught him was to observe, to seek out any weakness or opening that might present itself to him.
Sometimes Dorian would close his eyes, pretending that he was only ignoring Hissrad, but was actually trying to reach his magic. It quickly became apparent that the collar kept him from casting, but it didn’t muffle his other senses connected to the Fade. Dorian sensed a thunderstorm approach before he ever heard or saw it, the nearby lightning tickling his skin as it always did, raising his spirits with that knowledge. So he reached, trying to sense the presence of magic nearby, but came up empty.
And when Dorian felt particularly sharp, he talked. He always enjoyed the sound of his own voice and his natural curiosity of Hissrad kept his mind active, instead of stuck in the sluggish mess of potions and confused emotions and sensations. He talked to keep sane.
---
“Hissrad, be a dear and unshackle me.”
“Are your limbs getting sore, kadan?”
“Yes, I do fancy a bit of a walk to stretch my legs. Maybe to the nearest town?”
“Another day. And I told you to call me Bull.”
“But Hissrad is more fitting, I’ve been told it means liar.”
A rueful smile tugged on Hissrad’s lips. “That’s ok, kadan, you’ll call me Bull soon enough.”
---
“Why did you attack him?”
“I didn’t, I couldn’t. I beat up the rest of the party, but I couldn’t strike you. I was glad when you stabbed me, before I might have hurt you.”
“You mean him, not me. Two different people.”
“Semantics.”
“He should have sank the blade in deeper to finish the job.”
Hissrad only grinned and touched the scar under his ribs, given to him by his own Dorian. “Yeah, he should have, but he was always gentle under all that bluster. When you’re ready, I’ll teach you to gut a man with your staff blade.”
“Can I use you as practice? Right now?”
A light chuckle accompanied Hissrad’s reply, “Perhaps later, kadan. Are you ready for some lunch?”
“Oh, you mean my sandwich seasoned with Qunari mind altering potions? Yay.”
---
“You ignore me when I say katoh. Did you not have a watchword with your Dorian?”
“I did, it was the same.”
“Then I would very much like it if you continued to honor it. It took so long for Bull to get me to trust him to actually stop, I’d hate to see all of his hard work undone.”
Rough fingertips traced Dorian’s jawline. “I promise I will, but right now I can’t.”
“That’s what you do, isn’t it? Get someone to trust in you so completely that they won’t see it coming when you betray them,” Dorian spat. “Say katoh and I’ll stop, no questions asked, he said once. Now he says, I can’t.”
“Kadan—”
“Don’t call me that.”
Dorian could only imagine that the bitterness and betrayal growing inside him was only a fraction of what his counterpart experienced when Hissrad drew his sword and pointed it at the mage.
---
“Tell me about your Inquisitor. Lavellan, was it? That sounds rather elvish.”
“She was always in her own head, angry from the way humans treated elves and looking for a way to elevate her clan. Probably why she liked Solas so much, he was all about ancient elves and how great they were. Then he dumped her after they fucked.”
“She was romantically involved with Solas!? Ugh, that is a mental image I could have lived without. Do erase that as you’re rooting around in my head, will you?”
“Be thankful you didn’t have to actually see it.”
“Some much more unfortunate version of myself that did and that knowledge is scarring enough, but it makes me even happier that Sera is Adaar’s beau.”
“Sera? That’s great! She and Lavellan could hardly stand each other, Lavellan was too elfy she said and Sera didn’t revere her ancestors enough for Lavellan. Then the Inquisitor helped Vivienne become Divine and Sera pretty much stopped talking to her.”
“Maker, your Vivienne is the Divine? Your timeline is worse than I thought.”
---
“Lavellan banished the Wardens? Maker, what happens if the Blight breaks out in Orlais? From how I understand your world, I half expect that it’s already overrun with Darkspawn.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
“Did your Inquisitor do anything not incredibly stupid and dangerous?”
“She was … good to some people. She tried to help you reconcile with your father even though it was a shit show, but she meant well. She also stopped Cullen from taking lyrium, taught Cole to be human, and helped Cassandra rebuild the Seekers.”
“And she let the Chargers die.”
“There’s that.”
---
“So Cullen and I? I must say that I’m impressed, the Commander was always a catch, though I can’t imagine myself retiring to some Fereldan farm.”
“Makes me wonder if you always had a thing for Cullen,” Hissrad grunted.
“I certainly did and how could I not? He’s precious and wonderfully fun to admire, surprising that I never had a hint that he was so inclined in my way. Perhaps it’s another quirk of your time. I do wonder what kind of lover he is.”
“I’m sure that Cullen treats you better than I did.”
“You’ve always treated me well, amatus.”
It took far too long for Dorian to realize his mistake.
---
“Are you hungry, kadan?”
Dorian was starving. “No.”
“Dorian, you need to eat more.”
“Maybe I would eat more if you didn’t poison everything. Also, I’m tired to eating ram.”
“I’d kill a deer for variety, but they’re faster and I’m shit at hunting.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before kidnapping me and taking me to the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, kadan. Here, have a snack. It’s just an apple, see, nothing in it.”
A slice of sweet fruit pressed against Dorian’s lips. Hunger got the better of Dorian and he opened his lips and let the slice of apple slide into his mouth. Halfway through the apple, Dorian was licking the juice off of the fingers feeding him.
“That’s my good boy.”
---
“Amatus, we should take tea in the gardens this afternoon. I brought that tea you like so much from Tevinter. I think I left it in my trunk. Where … Where did I leave my trunk? I don’t remember seeing it ...”
“I’ll find it for you later, kadan. Have you ever considered making a visit to Antiva with me? Get away for a while.”
“Oh, that does sound lovely. I would like to stretch out on a white sand beach and have you oil me down while servants bring me fruity drinks.”
“And I’d like to take you there and give you what you need. You work too hard, the Inquisitor can spare you.”
“Hm, I do work rather hard, I certainly deserve ... “ Dorian trailed off as he looked around him.
This wasn’t Skyhold and this wasn’t the Iron Bull.
---
Dorian knew that he was losing the Iron Bull. As the days slipped by, he was calling Hissrad by amatus or Bull too frequently, he became confused more often, and he found himself staring up at Hissrad’s face instead of the ugly scar below his ribs. It wouldn’t be long before Dorian completely gave in and accepted Hissrad as the Iron Bull, and from the way Hissrad smiled, he also knew.
His resolve might have been strengthened if Hissrad was cruel, but he never as much said a cross word to Dorian. Instead he smothered the mage with warmth and patience, acting too much like Iron Bull with his easy smiles and letting every insult roll off his back. It bothered Dorian greatly.
But a small hope blossomed in Dorian one day when he tried to reach his magic again. He couldn’t cast, but he sensed a small inkling of fire being pulled from the Fade and bursting into life. It was too far away for Dorian to be able to tell the style of spell being used, to tell if it was Dalish out there in the woods, but it gave him some much needed hope. It encouraged him to pull together the partially formed plan in his head.
There was only one way Dorian could think of that would convince Hissrad to unchain him completely and while he was repulsed by the idea, he didn’t have much of a choice. In the morning, Dorian almost always woke up erect and while Hissrad wouldn’t touch him, Dorian saw the hunger and longing. All he had to do was take advantage of it.
---
“Amatus,” Dorian moaned softly, letting out quiet noises half faked and half real as he rubbed his hardness against Hissrad’s hip.
Hissrad was already awake that morning, but hadn’t gotten out of bed yet, and Dorian figured there was no better time than the present. The Qunari carefully eased away from Dorian, which was what he was afraid of.
“Amatus,” Dorian whined, thrusting his hips in the space that Hissrad vacated, and opened his eyes to peek at Hissrad, who had a mixture of surprise and desire on his face. “You left me chained last night,” Dorian pouted at the manacles on his ankles. “That wasn’t nice, but perhaps you’ll make it up to me this morning?”
“Kadan.” The word was rough with lust.
“Unchain me,” Dorian urged.
Hissrad’s hands twitched, but he didn’t move towards the key.
“Unchain me, Bull,” Dorian repeated, a sleepy smile curling on his lips. “I need my legs for what I’m going to do.”
Hissrad finally obeyed, reaching for the keys hidden in his boot and unlocked the shackles, setting the ring of keys carelessly down on the side table. He snatched one of Dorian’s freed legs and pressed a kiss on the inside of Dorian’s ankle and started working his way up.
Dorian laughed, his tone light and teasing as he pulled his leg away and said, “None of that. I’m going to punish you for leaving me shackled all night, I’m going to make you watch.”
It seemed that Hissrad was ensnarled by Dorian’s ruse, because he kept his hands to himself despite the deep growl that rumbled from his chest. That was good, because Dorian wasn’t sure what would happen if Hissrad touched him, other than that any hope of escaping would be completely gone.
“Pass me the oil, amatus. The jasmine scented one.”
Hissrad hastily grabbed a vial of oil from his pack and pressed it into Dorian’s waiting hand. “We only have unscented left.”
“I suppose I’ll make do,” Dorian sighed dramatically as he coated his fingers, making Hissrad smile.
He propped himself up on the pillows and spread his legs wide for Hissrad to see as he teased his entrance before pressing inside and stretching himself. His head fell back with a groan at the pleasure building up in him, the satisfying stretch of his hole that warred with the ache and longing for Iron Bull. He avoided going in too deep and touching his erection, though he made it look like he was doing that on purpose, like he was tormenting himself for Hissrad.
“What do you need from your amatus?” Hissrad asked.
“Watch me, amatus, watch me,” Dorian panted as his hips rocked down onto his fingers and he whined sharply as he accidentally brushed his prostate.
Dorian struggled to stay present, to keep his mind on his plan and not give into his body’s urges as his mind blurred the lines between Hissrad and Iron Bull. It would be simple to fall into the fantasy that he constructed for Hissrad and convince himself that this morning was just like any morning Dorian had with Iron Bull. Whenever his eyes closed, the cabin fell away and Dorian was back in his room in Skyhold with Bull sitting on the bed, watching Dorian perform for him. He forced his eyes open and tried to dig his heels into reality.
“Touch yourself,” Hissrad commanded breathlessly.
Without thinking, Dorian obeyed, his hand closing around his cock and starting stroking it slowly.
“I want to take you in my mouth and then lick you open.”
“Maker, yes, Bull,” Dorian answered mindlessly and he saw Bull in front of him, watching Dorian with his single, dark eye.
Hissrad moved closer towards his spread legs, lowering his head towards Dorian’s leaking cock and Dorian managed to pull out of his fog of pleasure long enough to see both Hissrad and his window of opportunity. As fast as he could, Dorian slammed his knee into Hissrad’s face and as Hissrad snapped upright in shock, he kicked out and his foot made a strong and solid connection with his captor’s crotch. It was enough to make Hissrad howl loudly and stunned him to give Dorian time to scramble out of the bed, snatch the ring of keys from the table and a dagger from Hissrad’s pack, and he fled the cabin.
This time Dorian didn’t try to get the horse, it would be the first place Hissrad would look for him, and he had no idea how long he had before Hissrad recovered. Instead he headed straight for the woods, running in the direction where he felt the inkling of magic a couple days ago, hoping that he would find someone, anyone.
Adrenaline kept Dorian moving as the forest undergrowth ripped up his feet and low hanging branches tore at his exposed arms. Dorian felt his involuntary idleness almost immediately as he lungs burned, screaming for more air, and his legs ached from the strain, but his brain yelled at him to keep moving, to put as much distance between him and Hissrad as possible.
He didn’t know how long he had been running when his foot caught itself on a raised root, wrenching both Dorian’s right knee and ankle and sent him face first into the ground and slammed his knee into a stone hidden by a layer of dead leaves. The suddenness of the fall gave Dorian a few seconds before the pain in his leg eclipsed everything, making Dorian to bite his lip until it bled to stop himself from crying out. Tears of both agony and frustration obscured his sight, and it took several precious minutes for Dorian to calm down enough to think. He lost the dagger, it disappeared into the forest’s dense foliage, but he still had the keys.
Dorian needed a place to hide. The hollow log a few feet from him looked too obvious, as did a large cropping of stones, but he thought that the small gathering of shrubbery near a downed tree in front of him might work. It looked too small to hide a grown man, but Dorian was sure he could conceal himself there. Moving was slow and painful work, it was virtually impossible to put weight on his ankle, and Dorian did his best to cover his tracks. There was no use in hiding if he left a clear trail to where he was hidden.
As long as he pressed his body half under the fallen tree, Dorian was well out of sight. Once he was settled, another concern popped up as he began to shiver from both the cold and the pain in his leg and feet. If he didn’t find someone soon or if Hissrad didn’t recapture him, Dorian didn’t doubt that he may very well freeze to death in the middle of the night.
Looking down at the ring of keys in his hand, Dorian hoped that one of them belonged to the collar around his neck. With his magic, he stood a chance of surviving this, he could fight Hissrad if necessary, fight off wild animals, build a fire to keep warm, or send a signal flare. He slowly tested each key in the lock of the collar, trying to keep the noise and movement to a minimum. When none worked, he tried them again. And again.
When none seemed to work, Dorian found the largest key on the ring and used it to saw at one of the runes, hoping that if it was damaged enough it would give him access to a little of his magic. Each time he heard a noise, Dorian froze and waited before sawing away to the collar. Surprisingly, Dorian could feel a trickle of his magic and he nearly cried in joy when he could warm one hand and make a tiny spark of electricity.
His joy was short lived as Dorian heard the unmistakable crunch of footsteps and he held his breath, worried that the slightest thing might give him away.
The footsteps were light and even measured, not what one would expect a Qunari to sound like. He couldn’t see through the foliage, but he knew that Iron Bull could be deceptively light on his feet and was sure that Hissrad was the same. Then the steps stopped. Dorian left a pretty obvious trail for when he ran, especially since his feet were bleeding. At the time he was only concerned with getting as far away as possible, but in hindsight he wished he took more care in concealing his tracks.
For several long and literally painful minutes, Dorian laid perfectly still on the cold ground, breathing as silently as he could through his nose and listened carefully. He thought he could hear movement, but he didn’t know if it was the person, an animal, or just the ambient noise of the forest. Dorian was on the verge of hyperventilating when he certainly heard movement near him and even kept a hand firmly over his mouth to muffle any sound he might accidentally make.
The shrubbery around Dorian suddenly rustled and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Oh, kadan, what did you do to yourself?”
Warm, large hands grabbed at Dorian’s cold body.
“BULL!” Dorian screamed, his last ditch effort as he was taken from his hiding spot. “BULL! HELP! ANYONE, HELP!”
“Shh, you’re safe now, Dorian, you’re safe.”
Dorian opened his eyes and instantly spotted the scar under Hissrad’s ribs. He didn’t fight as Hissrad lifted him up, but sobbed pitifully, “Katoh, katoh, katoh.”
“You’re so clever, kadan,” Hissrad said kindly, sounding proud as he spotted the damage done to the collar. “You’re so strong, that’s why I love you.”
Dorian just buried his face into Hissrad’s chest, trembling from cold, pain, and hopelessness. There would be no other chances for escape now. By the time his leg healed, he’d already long under Hissrad’s influence and Hissrad would not allow another opportunity to pop up.
He made a small whimpering sound as his injured and swollen leg was jostled and Hissrad murmured in concern. “I know it’s going to hurt getting back to the cabin, but I’ll take care of your leg and your feet once I can. Then I’ll draw you a hot bath, have you eat something, and maybe we’ll finish Hard In Hightown today.”
As miserable as Dorian was, all of that sounded divine after running and hiding in the woods all morning.
“Will you be good for me, Dorian?”
“Yes.” There was nothing left. Only acceptance of his fate and defeat.
“Thank the Maker!”
The relieved outburst rang out in the woods, startling Hissrad so much that he nearly dropped Dorian.
“It’s a good thing you shriek like a damn banshee, Altus,” a crisp, Tevinter accent called out. “How did you find him so quick, Chief? I thought you were behind me.”
“Krem,” Hissrad uttered the name so quietly that Dorian could hardly hear him.
Hissrad turned around and stiffened at the sight of the Tevinter lieutenant. Dorian, on the other hand, drank up the sight of Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi. There were dark circles under Krem’s eyes, his hair and face were unwashed, and his armor was scoffed, and he had never looked better to Dorian. Krem himself stood in horrified silence looking at Dorian, naked, scratches all over him, and a collar around his neck.
“Fuck, Dorian, what happened to you?” Krem took a step towards them.
“Krem, get back!” Dorian warned quickly as Hissrad drew in a sharp breath. “Go find Bull!”
Krem was startled and his eyes widened, really looking at Hissrad. “Aw fuck, is that a demon?” Krem drew his sword and unslung the shield on his back, obviously not going anywhere without Dorian.
“Chargers! Horns up!” A deep voice boomed the familiar battle cry, echoing in the forest, and making Dorian’s heart soar.
With all of his strength, Dorian kicked his good leg and lashed out with one arm, managing to smack Hissrad in the face and causing the Qunari drop him. His leg exploded into agony when he hit the ground and automatically he curled into a ball, unable to move from the shock of pain.
A dull, wet thud roused Dorian long enough to look up and see an arrow sticking out of Hissrad’s left shoulder. Then Dorian saw Bull. Bull in the Emerald Graves, an arrow sticking out of his left - or was it the right - shoulder, blood coming in little streams down his chest as he merely grunted in annoyance. He stood over Dorian, who’d been downed by a blow to the head, and was protecting him from the warrior that wanted to finish the job. But it was Dorian’s leg that hurt, not his head, his leg and ankle throbbed.
No. Not Bull. It was Hissrad.
Then everything faded away.
---
Everything was moving, that was all Dorian was aware of. The bed he was on swayed with the crunch of wheels and the overcast sky slowly crept by overhead. Blankets weighed him down, but his face was exposed to the cold autumn air. Dorian remembered being cold all over, shivering in the dirt, trying to remain silent. He wasn’t in the dirt anymore.
“Where?” His voice cracked from the desert dryness in his mouth, thick with the taste elfroot.
“In a wagon, on our way home. Go back to sleep, kadan, we have a long trip back.”
Fingers massaged Dorian’s scalp and he turned his head to see a single dark eye staring down at him, surrounded by tight lines and set in a haggard gray face. Lowering his gaze, Dorian spotted strips of white bandages stretched across a wide torso, blocking his view of the spot right under the ribs. Dorian closed his eyes, choosing to believe that he was with the Iron Bull.
“Cold,” Dorian complained, though his limbs were too leaden to shiver. There was rustling and then another blanket was draped over him, washing him with Bull’s scent.
He cracked open an eye, staring up at the clouds that crawled by above. He wasn’t in Skyhold. He wasn’t in the cabin. He was moving, going somewhere.
“Where?”
The fingers in his hair stilled and a quiet sigh was barely audible to his left. “We’re going back to Skyhold. Go to sleep, kadan, you need to rest.”
Dorian obeyed.
---
There were sounds all around him as Dorian drifted in and out of various states of consciousness. Sometimes he heard his name, other times there was the crackle and pop of a fire, and almost always there was the soft murmur of people talking around him. There was always someone with him, someone urging him to eat, someone bathing the stinging wounds on his feet, someone petting his hair, whispering to him that everything was ok.
Until it wasn’t ok.
Dorian snapped into full consciousness as he convulsed on the bedroll, his arm flailed and knocked away the glass vial that was held against his lips as a hand massaged his throat to help him swallow. He spat out the liquid in his mouth and tried to get away when multiple hands held him down. His whole being was on fire, his skin was slick with sweat and his throat stung with acid trying to claw upwards from his stomach. It hurt, he couldn’t identify what, but everything just hurt.
“Keep him still! Dalish, get me another potion, he needs it before the worst of the withdrawal symptoms set in.”
“You mean this gets worse!?”
“Damn it, Chief! What was that son of a bitch giving him?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” a deep voice cursed above Dorian.
Hands were holding Dorian down, trying to make him consume another potion. Hissrad’s patience must have worn thin. He didn’t want it. He wanted his mind to be whole again and he was afraid that he was going to go over the edge.
“No, no, no, no!” His mouth moved on its own. “No! Katoh! Katoh!”
“Get off him! Let go! Now!” A voice thundered and the hands disappeared.
Before he realized what was happening, Dorian curled into himself and sobs wracked his entire body. It stopped. Everything stopped, no questions asked.
“Kadan. Kadan, please.” There was begging, but no one touched him. “Please, you need to take this before you get worse. Please, Dorian.”
His arm trembled as he reached out from under the blankets and nodded his head just a fraction. A loud exhale of relief came and a cool glass vial was given to him. Dorian drank and shook under his blankets until he drifted off again.
---
“How long to Skyhold?” Dorian asked, fairly confident that they were going to Skyhold. His mind was unclouded for once, but he felt all of the scrapes and cuts on his feet, his broken ankle, and badly bruised knee.
“Couple more days. That thing dragged you out to the ass end of nowhere,” Krem answered, leaning against a barrel in the wagon. The whites of his eyes were pink from a lack of sleep and a bandage covered a healing gash on his cheek.
“How long was … How long did he …?”
“You were gone three weeks when we found you.”
Dorian swallowed. He lost more time than he originally thought. “I only remember two.”
“Fuck.”
“Is he …”
“Whatever’s left of it is smeared on the side of that hill.”
Dorian vividly recalled being in the dark future with Adaar and the great boom the doors made as the demons invaded the throne room. Iron Bull’s red lyrium riddled body was tossed aside by one of the demons, an image haunted Dorian for good long while as he grew closer to Bull. The thought of Bull’s - Hissrad’s - remains left out to rot on a lonely Fereldan hillside bothered Dorian. He couldn’t stop thinking of Bull’s lifeless form being flung carelessly by a demon, this time down a hill in the woods.
“How is the Bull?”
“The Chief? Physically, he’s fine, that wound will heal up fine. Emotionally, he’s … scared for you, has been since this whole mess started. Three weeks of searching for you was rough on him, rougher on you, I know, but I’ve never seen him so terrified.”
A thick silence lapsed between them.
“You think you can eat something? Stitches says we need to fatten you up.”
His stomach hurt, demanding nourishment, but food was his enemy. It dragged him under, made his brain soft and malleable.
“No.”
---
The bedroom door burst open, making Bull visibly tense, but it was only Adaar who strode into his and Dorian’s quarters, looking both annoyed and overjoyed. “I distinctly told the guards to get me the second you got back.”
Dorian was sitting up in bed just half an hour after the Chargers returned to Skyhold. “I refused to see you until you were at your best,” he retorted weakly as she sat down on the edge of the mattress.
“Welcome home, you son of a bitch.”
Tears brightened Adaar’s eyes and she pulled Dorian into a tight embrace. Gray flooded Dorian’s vision, bringing in an edge of panic, but Adaar smelled distinctly of lilac oil mixed with metal and cotton, grounding him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I should’ve gone with Bull, but Josephine was like, ‘You must help seal rifts at this duke’s place, peasants are getting eaten,’ and I was like, ‘Fuck that duke, someone took my vint.’ But then Josephine somehow won that argument.”
Dorian snorted into Adaar’s shoulder, the Inquisitor had yet to let go of him. “You’re forgiven this time. Thank you for sending the Chargers.”
“As if I could stop them.” Then Adaar’s voice thickened with grief, “I’m so sorry, Dorian.”
“Boss,” Bull said softly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Adaar sniffed as she untangled herself from Dorian, “it’s late and Dorian needs his beauty sleep. But tomorrow, your ass is mine, Pavus, and we’re getting drunk. If Stitches clears it.”
“I demand only your finest and strongest alcohols,” Dorian replied and bid the Inquisitor goodnight.
Her departure left him and Iron Bull alone again.
“I can sleep in my old quarters,” Bull started. “If you don’t want to be alone tonight, I’ll get whoever you want.”
“I want you.”
The apprehension in Bull slid away and he slipped into the bed next to Dorian, keeping his distance. Dorian smiled tentatively and reached out so his fingers brushed against Bull’s arm. He was back in his own bed, next to his amatus, and when his eyelids fluttered shut—
It was Hissrad. His ugly scar under his ribs. White speckling his stubble. Chip in his left horn. Face draped in grief, regret, and hunger.
“Oh, kadan, what did you do to yourself?”
Hands grabbed at Dorian, stripping him of his clothes—
“Will you be good for me, Dorian?”
—a metal collar weighed down his neck, no—
“Tell your amatus what you need.”
—no. No. No. Katoh. Katoh.
Dorian woke up the entire wing with his screaming.
---
“It was me who took you, wasn’t it? He wasn’t a demon.”
“He wasn’t you, he was a Hissrad from a different time, one who lost everything.”
“Fuck, Dorian, I did this to you.”
“No, he wasn’t you, that’s the only thing that kept me sane, amatus.”
“When you look at me, kadan, what do you see?”
Tears rolled down Dorian’s cheeks as he closed his eyes, blocking out the naked anguish on Bull’s face.
“Hissrad.”
---
It took a while to accept that Skyhold was not an illusion of Dorian’s desperate mind. The cool stone walls scraped in just the right way under his palms. There was the familiar constant movement of guards, servants, soldiers, nobles, merchants, and ambassadors at all hours of the day. The tavern still smelled of stale beer and the bard’s songs echoed in the horrid acoustics of the building. And Dorian’s quarters were as he remembered them, plush rugs covering the floor, a little writing desk with a pile of unanswered correspondence, a vanity cluttered with cosmetics, his wardrobe was still on the verge of bursting, and stacks of books peppered every available surface.
There were smatterings of Iron Bull in the room as well. Bull’s favorite battleaxe was mounted on the wall over the small fireplace, large boots were neatly lined up on the floor, a whetstone sat on a stack of books, five different jars of horn balm crowded the vanity, and various dragon figurines decorated the room.
The only thing that was missing was Iron Bull himself.
The bitter reality of Dorian’s recovery was that his captor was Bull’s copy in almost every way and it did little to help fix his fragile psyche. He saw Bull when he could handle it, but they hadn’t shared the same bed since the disastrous first night of Dorian’s return. He missed Bull and was terrified of him at the same time.
A solid month back at Skyhold and Dorian still felt like his life was taken away from him, that he was irreversibly changed. But he didn’t want Hissrad to win, he didn’t want to belong to Hissrad.
With those thoughts, Dorian made his way into the tavern, hobbling along on the crutches Stitches outfitted for him, the bones in his ankle were still mending and his knee was tender. There was a slight pause in the chatter of the tavern before it returned full force and allowed Dorian pass through mostly unnoticed to the back of the main floor where Iron Bull and the Chargers usually sat. They were drinking, flirting with barmaids and servers, and busy giving each other shit.
Bull sat in his chair, slumped far down with his hand around his hardly touched lukewarm pint of beer. His tired eye watched the Chargers idly and smiled when necessary.
“Altus!” Krem spotted Dorian first and raised his glass and everyone else followed suit. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
A cheer rose up from the Chargers, all of them happy to see him. Even Skinner graced him with a rare smile that didn’t involve talking about killing shems. Bull sat up and a real, but brittle, grin lit up his face.
“Kadan.”
“Good evening,” Dorian smiled at the Chargers and Bull, grateful when someone brought a chair over for him to sit in. Without asking for permission, he carefully swung his injured leg up and plopped it on Iron Bull’s lap. Bull beamed like Dorian had given him the head of a dragon and rested his hand above Dorian’s ankle.
Dorian let himself be lulled by the Chargers’ conversations, not participating, but content to just be there. He hadn’t spent much with them since they brought him back to Skyhold, but he realized how much he missed their company, how much they were an extension of Bull. What it cost Hissrad to have that part of him severed so suddenly.
Shaking his head, Dorian stared at Bull’s face and memorized all the little details there. The darkness of his stubble, every scar, every line, and his wide and flawless horns. He was the Iron Bull. When Dorian closed his eyes, he stayed the Iron Bull and no one else took his place in Dorian’s mind.
“Kadan, do you need help back up to your room?” Bull asked, snapping Dorian out of his doze.
“Uh, yes, thank you.” Dorian held his hand out to Bull, who happily took it and helped Dorian onto his good leg and balance on his crutches.
“But you just got here!” Dalish protested, even though Dorian was sitting there for an hour.
“You hardly touched your beer,” Rocky frowned as he was quick to pick it up and down it.
“I promise to come out and play again soon,” Dorian teased.
“We’re holding you to that, Altus,” Krem tipped his head to Dorian.
The walk back to his room was slow as it required a lot of stairs which were tricky. The slowness of the walk was emphasized by the fact that they didn’t say anything the entire way, both of them well aware of the fact that since Dorian’s rescue it wasn’t often that they were alone together.
Bull opened the door to what was once their shared room and gave Dorian a crooked smile. “Sleep well, kadan.”
“Come inside,” Dorian said impulsively as he entered the room and eased down onto the bed.
Bull hovered in the doorway for a couple heart beats, then stepped inside and shut the door behind of him. He stood close to the door, his hands flexed into fists before relaxing and then flexing back into fists, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Sera still spending the night in here?” Bull nodded to her bright red tunic that was thrown over Dorian’s desk.
“Less often now,” Dorian replied, though Sera slept in the bed with him the night before. Sera was a safe, solid presence. “She is at the disposal of our dear Inquisitor tonight.”
“And you’re eating ok now?”
“Both sleeping and eating, I promise. Maybe a little less than Stitches would like, but more than before.”
“You’ll get there, kadan, you can’t rush it.”
Dorian shook his head and scooted over on the bed, patting the empty space. “Come lie down with me, amatus.”
“Dorian, I just said—”
“I need you to lie down with me. Just … please, I miss you. He … He tried to take you from me and I’m not going to let him. I love you. I love you too much for that, amatus.”
Bull’s face crumpled and Dorian thought he was going to leave, but then Iron Bull took a step further into the room, standing before Dorian. His hand rose, hovering close to Dorian’s face and Dorian closed the space by leaning into the touch, his breath hitching at the contact.
“I love you too, kadan, and I miss you, every second.”
Every muscle in Dorian relaxed. “Help me undress?”
Bull swallowed. “Sure.”
Dorian sat perfectly still as Bull kneeled in front of him and unlaced the one boot Dorian wore, removing it slowly. Bull grunted softly as he got back up and leaned in close to undo all the straps and buckles of Dorian’s outer robes and pushed them off. He stopped at the soft cotton under robe and didn’t touch Dorian’s dark leggings. Then he removed his own boots, eyepatch, and harness, stopping at his atrocious green and red striped pants.
The bed sank under Bull’s weight and they laid together, side by side, inches feeling like miles. Dorian squirmed until his clothed shoulder was pressed against Bull’s and the knee of his uninjured leg dug into Bull’s thigh.
“Goodnight, kadan,” Bull’s voice was watery.
“Goodnight, amatus.” Dorian didn't sound any more stable.
It wasn’t a restful night of sleep for either of them. Dorian woke up in fits over and over again throughout the night and he was pretty sure that Bull didn’t sleep at all and just laid there staring at the ceiling until the morning. But they made it to the morning and when Dorian opened his gritty eyes, it was Iron Bull at his side.
It was Bull who shared breakfast with him that morning in bed. It was Bull who laughed and joked, easing the fear and tension between them, who let Dorian throw grapes into his mouth, and who brushed a kiss on Dorian’s knuckles as he got up to leave. And it was Bull who let out an undignified squeak when Dorian jumped up and threw himself at Bull, catching Bull’s mouth with his own.
It had been too long since Dorian last kissed his amatus. The heat of Bull’s lips against his, the scratch of his stubble, the puff of breath on his cheek from Bull’s nose, it all felt familiar and right. Nothing was magically fixed, Dorian was aware of that, but just being with Bull was a good step. It was like coming home.