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Dorian is doing wonderfully, all things considered.
He didn't freeze to death in the mountains; no one's killed him in his sleep. The Inquisitor will insist on dragging him to and fro through the wilderness, but the worst that's come of it so far is an excessive number of blisters and the scar one of those wretched Venatori managed to leave before Dorian cast the killing blow. Fortunately, it's healed up well and can justly be categorized as "dashing" rather than "disfiguring".
He's managed to come to a tentative truce with most of the Chantry sisters hanging about in Skyhold, which is to say he pretends he can't see them and they return the courtesy. There are still whispers, and he does catch more than a few looks askance in his direction. But—well. He had expected the Inquisitor to keep him around, after their nightmarish little adventure with time travel. Dorian's only tried it the once, admittedly, but it seems that experiencing a near-apocalyptic possible future together creates something of a sense of fellow-feeling with a person. But everyone else—
The Inquisitor's closest companions were clearly going to have to find ways to work with each other. The Inquisitor's most trusted advisors were practical enough to realize that the unbridled power of a Tevinter mage could be useful, despite the blot he leaves on the Inquisition's otherwise increasingly-respectable reputation.
But Dorian hadn't necessarily expected any of them to like him. And he definitely hadn't expected to end up fucking one of them.
Truly, life is full of surprises.
While Dorian may accurately be described as a great many things, one thing he isn't is stupid.
He understands how it's going to work, this thing he's doing with Cullen. Oh, the first time they'd sat down for a board game together, it could have gone any which way—maybe it would be fun, maybe they'd discover they hated each other, maybe it would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And then it turned out that Cullen didn't mind when Dorian cheated outrageously, that in fact it made him laugh, and—
And Cullen didn't laugh often enough, Dorian found himself thinking, and it was all very predictable from there.
At least on his end. He's always liked a bit of stubble, a nice pair of shoulders, a self-aware sense of humor; it's only natural he'd find himself particularly weak for the combination. It does startle him a bit, the first time he notices Cullen's gaze following his fingers as he tips a game piece this way and that—and then Cullen catches himself, looks up and finds Dorian watching him with an eyebrow raised, and promptly flushes all the way to his ears.
But when Dorian thinks about it, it makes a certain amount of sense. Cullen's carrying quite a lot of weight on those lovely shoulders of his, and he's in dire need of a bit of distraction. If he wants to distract himself with Dorian, well, Dorian certainly isn't about to talk him out of it.
So: they start fucking, and they don't stop. And Dorian knows how it's going to work. It'll be good, even great. He'll enjoy it—hopefully they both will. It'll be lovely and easy and they'll keep it simple. And Dorian will wring every pleasure he can get out of it, before its inevitable and unceremonious end.
That's how it's always happened before, and there's no reason why this time should be any different.
It's only that—well.
It's never lasted this long before. When Dorian did this in Tevinter, it had been with casual acquaintances, schoolmates, that sort of thing. But he and Cullen are both living in Skyhold, and however far Dorian wanders with the Inquisitor, he'll always be back sooner or later. It's all very—dependable. Reliable.
In other words, treacherously easy to get used to. Not that Dorian's lost his head completely. He does know better than to start making ridiculous assumptions. He's fond enough of Cullen to spare him any ugliness; the least little cue, the barest gentle hint of boredom or disinterest, and Dorian will take his leave. He's promised himself as much.
But, as luck would have it, Cullen doesn't get bored. Cullen's interest doesn't waver. He always looks pleased, to lift his head and see Dorian lounging in his office doorway; he never begs off or resents the interruption, when Dorian happens by of an evening and casually leans a hip against his desk. He reaches for Dorian readily, eagerly, kisses him with undeniably flattering heat, and when he's close to the edge he makes the most deliciously desperate gasping sounds, squeezing his eyes shut as though Dorian is too bright to bear.
Which isn't to say it all goes flawlessly. Dorian is well aware that he can be—difficult, and Cullen is an ass when he puts his mind to it.
But it works better than it has any right to, and neither one of them calls a stop to it, and perhaps that's why it lasts long enough for Dorian to get just a little too comfortable.
There's nothing unusual about the day that it happens. It's not that it's been a while, that Dorian's been away; they fucked just yesterday, in fact. If anything, Dorian is too appreciative of the luxury of being able to sleep with Cullen four or five days in a row, and chooses to indulge in it a little too often.
But he's just as bad as Cullen: even after all this time, climbing the stairs up to the walltop sends hot anticipation curling up his spine. The wood of Cullen's door underneath his hand, the moment just before Cullen looks up and sees him—the way Cullen's expression changes after, warm and self-consciously pleased.
"Hello, soldier," Dorian murmurs, and Cullen snorts half a laugh through his nose and shakes his head, rubs a wry hand across the back of his neck, but he's already smiling.
And what a distinct and unearned pleasure it is, to be allowed to reach for that smile, to trail a greedy fingertip along the too-brief dip of a dimple. Cullen's eyes are dark, intent, on Dorian's—he's not watching Dorian's hand, but Dorian's face, and the dimple vanishes as his expression softens, deepens, into something that makes Dorian's breath catch almost as well as his smiles do.
"Dorian," Cullen says, low, and catches Dorian around the waist to tug him in behind the desk.
They manage not to fuck on the desk this time, which is an epic feat of restraint—they've done as much twice, and it was spectacular both times. But Cullen was very firm, after the second time, about not doing it again without moving all his papers first; and Dorian can't help but feel that dashing cold water on the spontaneity of the thing reduces its charm somewhat.
He also doesn't particularly want to interrupt the proceedings just to climb up to Cullen's bed. "I'm going to lock the doors," he murmurs instead—it's important to warn Cullen before casting spells in these situations, Dorian has learned—and Cullen gasps agreement into his ear and lets Dorian bear him down onto that lovely red rug.
And Dorian handles it all wonderfully. He keeps as tight a rein on himself as ever, during the proceedings; there aren't any warning signs that he's about to slip. He doesn't gaze into Cullen's eyes any more raptly than usual. He doesn't let his hands linger over the delightful muscled angles of Cullen's hips, ass, thighs. He doesn't sigh poetry or faint or press himself against Cullen any more desperately than average, when he comes.
He has absolutely no reason to think he's about to ruin everything, when Cullen's finally caught his breath enough to say, "I'm starting to think you have a thing for this rug."
And Dorian cracks an eye open, just far enough to peer at Cullen over his own outstretched arm, and says, "Well, I don't see why you should be surprised. It makes me think of you, amatus—and red is such a passionate color, wouldn't you agree?"
The beat of silence that follows feels terribly long. Dorian stares into the crook of his own elbow, distantly appalled, and then squeezes his eyes shut.
Because it's just so ridiculous, that's all. To have done so well for so very long, to have been so careful and so judicious, and then to wreck it with such an idiotic slip of the tongue—does Cullen know any Tevene? Perhaps Dorian could pass it off as an insult, if an unmistakably fond one. But perhaps that will only serve to drag the thing out, instead of allowing it a clean and natural death. Of course this had to end eventually, Dorian did know that, but he'd hoped at least it wouldn't be by his own hand.
He allows himself a sigh, short and frustrated, and braces himself. Because just as he is familiar with the rules these matters are governed by, he's familiar with the consequences when they're broken. The conversations that follow Dorian's inevitable foolishness differ in their details, their presentation, but never in their conclusion. Affairs of this sort are temporary, ephemeral; enjoyable, perhaps, but to ascribe them any meaning beyond that is simply ridiculous. That's what Dorian's preferences mean, in the end, and he knows it. All his past experience in this particular area has only served to demonstrate as much. He gets to fuck men—men he likes, even, if he's lucky—but he doesn't get to love them.
He wonders tiredly which line of reasoning Cullen is about to pursue. I'm getting married next year, common though it might be in Dorian's tally up until now, seems unlikely in this particular case; Cullen's much too focused on the Inquisition to have had time to arrange anything like that. You know that's not what this is, perhaps. Simple, straightforward, a little apologetic. Yes, that's plausible.
Plausible, but that doesn't make it bearable. Dorian swallows. He'll find some way to endure it. He'll have to.
Has it been as long as it feels? Dorian doesn't particularly want to know, and yet—surely Cullen should have said something by now.
He draws a slow breath, lets it out, and forces himself to look over. And then he blinks. Cullen is—
Cullen doesn't look like a man who's uncomfortable, or trying to work out the best way to say something that can't be said well. He doesn't look upset, or displeased, or even dismayed.
He's staring back at Dorian with wide, startled eyes, pink heat stealing its way up his cheeks. "Was that—Tevene?" he says unevenly, after a moment.
"Yes," Dorian says slowly, watching him. Dorian had been prepared to hurl himself bodily into the depths of despair—and he still might, in a little while, but for now his curiosity has been piqued. And he's never been particularly good at apologizing for himself, but perhaps—dare he think it?—Cullen isn't going to ask him to. "Yes, it's Tevene, and it means precisely what it must have sounded like it meant."
"Oh," Cullen says, and looks away. Dorian can't follow all that passes across his face, then, but it's impossible to miss the firming of the jaw, the determined little dip that carves itself into place just over the bridge of the nose. "Dorian, if you—if you'd like to—that is, I know I'm not very—" He stops, clearly frustrated with himself, and shakes his head once, sharply. "I'm not good at this."
Dorian raises his eyebrows. "What a peculiar thing to try to lie to me about," he murmurs, "when you've only just finished demonstrating that you're excellent at it."
"Not that," Cullen says, exasperated, and then bites his lip and grimaces. "I know that I'm not—I—" He stops again, rubbing a hand across his mouth, and then says all at once, "You do realize you aren't in Tevinter anymore."
Dorian stares at him, and then makes a show of glancing about the room. "Why—you could be right!"
"I mean," Cullen continues, doggedly ignoring this show of wit, "no one here is going to mind if you want to—have someone. I know it couldn't have been easy for you in the beginning, but the people here know you now. They like you. You have options, if you want them. You don't need to settle for—"
—me, he doesn't say, though he obviously can't work out a suitable word to shove into its place. He falters again and then goes silent, staring off fixedly at the wall and wrapping a hand around the back of his neck—which has the convenient and presumably not-so-accidental effect of shielding his face just a little from Dorian, obscuring the line of his cheek and jaw with the angle of his wrist, the sweep of forearm.
Because he thinks—what? That Dorian's just passing time, with him; that Dorian's slip of the tongue reveals some sort of abstracted desire for deeper affection in general, and not the extremely specific deeper affection Dorian's already welling everywhere, brimming helplessly over.
What an idiot, Dorian thinks distantly.
And perhaps he is trying to say that he's not suited for what Dorian wants—that if Dorian's longing for a love affair, he'd better look somewhere other than Cullen. Perhaps he didn't like the way beloved sounded coming off Dorian's tongue.
But Dorian thinks about the look in his eyes right after, the soft startled shape of his mouth, and can't quite convince himself that that's the truth of it.
"Excuse me?" he says aloud, voice as steady as he can make it, face arranged in a fond parody of outrage. "I don't settle, Cullen. The very idea is insulting. I'll have you know my taste is exquisite," and oh, what a mad risk this is he's taking, but if he can have this, if he can only have this one thing he'd thought forever outside his grasp— "and I'm very difficult to satisfy."
Cullen twists to look at him with the first word, face pale and jaw set; but the longer Dorian talks, the more bewildered he looks. "Really," he offers cautiously, when nothing else is forthcoming.
"Oh, yes," Dorian says. "Which means, of course, that once I've found something that pleases me in every respect, I won't be parted from it."
And surely, surely, that must be enough—yes, there's the slow dawning of comprehension. Still too much uncertainty in it for Dorian's taste, but then—
But then they have plenty of time to work on that, after all.
"Is that so," Cullen murmurs, gaze flicking back and forth, searching, across Dorian's face.
"Indeed," Dorian assures him, and dares to slide a hand up the line of Cullen's back; and nothing's ruined after all, it can't be, not with the way Cullen shivers under it. "Absolutely. I'm like a fat spoiled child. Just unbearable."
"You? Surely not," Cullen says, and he's glancing at Dorian's mouth and then up again, down, up. But there's just a little too much doubt lingering in those lovely warm eyes, and all at once Dorian can't stand it.
"Oh, I would never lie to you, my darling," Dorian tells him softly, and then tugs him in close enough to kiss him properly.