Much Ado About Stuff

Dorian raises his right hand, palm cupped face-up as a small flame crackles to life within. It only flickers bright enough to illuminate a pair of steely eyes and a sly little grin, and he barely has a moment to exhale a sigh of relief before it’s swallowed up into a kiss. Gloved fingers slide into his hair, and as the tip of his tongue grazes the edge of a chapped lower lip, it comes away with the faintest trace of lavender and mint.

Rowan.

Sneaky bastard.

“You nearly scared me,” Dorian says, breathless, as his heart begins to calm, “half to death.”

Rowan only rolls his eyes, a fond little flicker beneath his thick lashes. “Such dramatics.”

“I’m serious! What if you had been one of those evil Magisters, come all the way down from the north to drag me back kicking and screaming by my ear, hm? Would anyone have even noticed?” Dorian leans in closer, bracing a hand on the stone wall beside Rowan’s head.

“Believe me, we all would have noticed,” Rowan deadpans.

“You kid, but you would miss me, admit it.”

Their gazes lock, and it must be the slight upturn at the corner of Dorian’s mouth that gets Rowan’s composure to break. His eyes have adjusted to the dim light enough by now that he can see the smile that unfolds across the elf’s face, the broken beams of sunlight from up above glittering against his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Rowan says, hardly sounding like he means it. He moves his hand from the back of Dorian’s head down along the side of his face, until a leather-clad thumb brushes over his bottom lip. “I couldn’t help myself. You were just looking… extraordinarily pretty.”

“As opposed to ordinarily pretty?” Dorian arches a brow, and Rowan turns his head to roll his eyes again. “No, please do go on. I’m desperate to know the distinction.”

Rowan looks back at him, narrows those keen eyes of his, and tugs him in close enough that they’re trading breaths.

“Don’t push your luck,” he murmurs.

As heat begins to simmer in Dorian’s belly, he figures it’s probably a good idea to heed that advice. He tilts his head a bit and waits a moment, and then is swiftly rewarded for his obedience as Rowan draws him in for another kiss. This one is hungrier than the last; not desperate, exactly, not even needy, but rather laced with the palpable and near-insatiable want in which Dorian knows Rowan so rarely allows himself to indulge. It rapidly devolves into a messy slide of lips, teeth, and tongue, and as Dorian grips Rowan’s waist and presses him into the wall, he thinks that even if the whole fortress were to crumble around them, he would hardly notice.

Eventually, he abandons Rowan’s mouth and begins a treacherous trail down along his jawline, his heart pounding alongside the labored breaths in his ear. He follows the line of Rowan’s throat until his lips hit fabric, and after lifting a hand to pull it aside, draws the supple skin there between his teeth. Low enough that the mark left behind can be hidden by that ever-present scarf of his, and firm enough that it won’t have faded when Dorian inevitably goes hunting for it later.

His efforts earn him a hitch of breath in Rowan’s throat, and the tightening of a hand in his hair. Lovely.

Dorian gives one last tug at the skin before he drags his swollen lips back up the length of Rowan’s neck. Then, he’s finally about to gratify the growing ache between his legs with a roll of the hips, until—

“Inquisitor?”

Dorian doesn’t let the echo of the Commander’s voice stop him. Rowan, on the other hand, shoves one palm between them to push Dorian back, and claps the other over his mouth. They stay like that for several moments, a tangle of limbs and bated breaths, until the heavy-booted footsteps begin to fade. Rowan remains vigilant as always, only dropping his hand once he’s certain that the silence belongs entirely to them.

“Really?” Dorian chastises, once he can speak again. “What did you muzzle me for?”

“Your voice carries.”

“Well, I wasn’t doing much talking, as I recall.”

“A cautionary measure.”

Rowan shrugs a shoulder, and Dorian shrugs it off. Alright. That’s fair.

He leans closer again to pick up where they’d left off, until he notices that Rowan’s eyes continuously flicker towards the haphazard opening in the wall as if he’s anticipating somebody’s return. As the realization dawns on him, Dorian can’t help the amused smile that crosses his face. “You’re hiding from him in here, aren’t you?”

“No! I—” Rowan sputters for a second, then presses his lips together. Dorian’s cocked eyebrow must have been enough for him to give up on saving face. “He found my tree in the gardens. And the spot in the rookery. And the nook in the wine cellar.”

Dorian chuckles, bending his neck to lean his forehead against Rowan’s. He supposes he can’t really blame the young man. Any number of curious eyes or requests or invitations follow him wherever he goes, whether inside the walls of Skyhold or miles away. Even his own quarters are too predictable a hiding place, and barely private in the daytime hours anyhow. Dorian must admit that his heart aches for him every time he sees the Inquisitor surrounded by a throng of nobles competing for his attention, stiff and wearing that manufactured smile that never comes close to reaching his eyes. Any tiny shred of privacy he gets is a luxury, and Dorian can only feel blessed—chosen, even, and what an incredible feat that is—that Rowan elects to spend any of it in his company.

“Yes, well…” Dorian reaches for Rowan’s left hand, lifting it up from his side and pressing his own against it, palm to palm. “Forgive me for saying as much, but you have become rather difficult to miss, my dear.” His eyes flicker to the sickly green light that leaks through the seams of Rowan’s glove, then spills over Dorian’s knuckles as he laces their fingers.

(It’s been shining brighter lately. Getting worse. Dorian tries not to think about it.)

Rowan folds his fingers over Dorian’s hand and gives it a squeeze, undoubtedly to extinguish the reminder. “Mhm. And yet you still thought I was some evil magister come to snatch you away into the shadows?”

“Well, unlike yourself, I do try to not make a habit of loitering around parts of the castle that look as though they could collapse at any moment. What an unpleasant way to go, not to mention terribly undignified.”

“Worked out for you this time, didn’t it?” Rowan offers him another one of those little smiles, the rare kind that Dorian knows is reserved only for them. He supposes it had worked out, yes. So much had. More than he could have ever let himself dare to imagine. Dorian leans in again to greedily affirm the notion with another press of the lips, unashamed to let it linger.

When they separate, Rowan leaves his eyes shut for a moment before he exhales a sigh. “I should go.”

Dorian feels entirely disinclined to let him. “I suppose,” he concedes with a playfully weary sigh of his own, “Thedas still needs saving yet.”

Rowan leaves him with one last wry quirk of the lips before he slyly slips from Dorian’s arms and slinks out of the ruined archway. Dorian watches him go, watches as he turns his face towards the sun and looks out over the mountains, relishing in those last few moments of peace before he disappears back into his duty once again.

Dorian smiles. Then, as he goes to push a hand through his hair and finds it rather tousled from its usual shape, laughs.