“I love you.”

He stops, hands lingering over the pale flesh they had been tracing. He feels the Commander—hard and aching in his trousers, hips trapped beneath the still fully clothed mage straddling him—but it’s those words, whispered softly in a moment of reckless impulse, that makes Dorian abandon his task of disrobing his current bed mate.

With no space between them, there’s only one place for those words to go: they press to his lips as the mage breathes heavily, a confession spoken without abandon, as earnest in its delivery as every other awe-laced remark the Ferelden has ever made in the midst of their intimacy. Maker, you’re amazing or You’re unlike any other man I’ve met are words that Dorian could preen to, relish in his self-proclaimed prowess beneath the sheets.

But this?

He doesn’t quite know what to do with…this.

He looks down into Cullen’s eyes, heart hammering so loudly it’s deafening, the roiling thunder of an oncoming storm. He sees sincerity where he expects deception, words he’s heard before in his more vulnerable youth, a tool as a means to lure him into a false sense of security, make him believe he’s worth more than the occasional tumble in bed, to keep him coming, keep him devoted to a game he’s become more reluctant to play because he always loses.

And when he loses, it’s always more than another handsome face to bed. What little hope he had for being worth another man’s heart died months before he began this illicit affair with the Inquisition Commander. Trevalyan saw to that, discarding the mage quite carelessly after having his fill of him.

Dorian’s been broken more times than he can count. And he’s not about to let someone else do that to him again.

“You must forgive my horrible carelessness,” the mage says, forcing a laugh and pointedly ignoring what was just said. He dislodges himself from the Commander, nearly crashing into the desk behind him, leaving Cullen seated and looking somewhat confused and hurt. “I’m in the middle of some research and as much as I like a good distraction, I really should get back to it.”

A distraction.

That’s all Cullen is.

Distractions don’t fall in love with the disgraced sons of magisters.

Before he lets the Commander say anything, Dorian’s already out the main entrance, feet carrying him swiftly to the battlements. He may have heard his name called but it’s easy to convince himself it’s just the wind, that the disappointment he had seen in the ex-templar’s eyes had been from walking out before either could get off, and not from the silent rejection of Cullen’s affections.

Dorian knows there’s only one way this could end. And so help him, if it means ignoring the way his heart flutters every time the Commander so much as looks at him, then the mage will do just that.

He has a very selfish and keen interest in protecting that which has already been shattered beyond repair.

Ignoring Cullen is easy.

Ignoring his own guilt, a betrayal of those desires he’s forced to bury…well, that’s another beast entirely.

Each morning he wakes up ridiculously late, spends an equally ridiculous amount of time meticulously preparing himself to face another day in Skyhold, and then takes the most roundabout way from his private quarters to the library, all in avoidance of certain parties.

He hardly gets dragged out of Skyhold these days, the tension between him and Trevelyan enough to leave their companions walking on eggshells when the two of them so much as greet each other. And with the way the Iron Bull loves to flirt at the most inappropriate of times or pry into the mage’s psyche (often, some combination of both), Dorian has to ignore the lure of alcohol and drown soberly into his own state of misery he’s put himself in.

With his most recent bed mate lost, that leaves only one distraction: books.

“Another blasted account on Tevinter history by that damned Brother Genitivi…oh, how lovely, a collection of Divine Joyous the Second’s sermons on the Tevinter clergy,” Dorian mumbles, picking though the titles and tossing each of the offending books somewhere behind him. He normally isn’t so abusive, even with “knowledge” that lacks any objectivity and subjugates readers to a biased and skewed perspective on Thedosian history, but this isn’t what he had in mind when he asked for books on Tevinter.

“Ow.”

Dorian freezes, finger brushing the leather spine of another book he’s preparing to toss off the shelf.

He smells it then: elderflower and oakmoss, hears the footfall of heavy boots that stop just behind him. It’s enough to make his pulse begin to race, heat that percolates low in his abdomen whenever he’s heard that voice moan and gasp, groan his name each time he’s made the man come undone by his own tongue and hand. It makes him want to turn around and sink into the Ferelden’s arms, their audience be damned, because this is the one luxury he’s allowed himself, even when the whispers gossip of how that fucking Tevinter has corrupted ‘noble’ men like the Inquisitor and Dorian knows better than to let such poison tarnish the hard-earned respect of someone like Cullen Rutherford.

Cullen, who he has made believe harbors unrequited affection in the week since he began his vigil of ignoring the Commander.

Dorian feels it then: the panic, the urge to flee, because he may say he wishes to become a better man but he knows deep down that he’s a coward and if there’s one thing he can’t do, it’s feelings.

But he can’t move. He’s trapped in this purgatory of everything left unsaid and knows that if he turns to face the Ferelden, his resolve will crumble and he will give in once again, diligently remaining at Cullen’s side until the Commander also inevitably becomes bored of him.

Dorian knows there’s nothing about himself worth loving. So why entertain such delusions?

“If my presence here offends you so much, I suggest a weapon more terrifying than Divine Joyous the Second’s sermons,” the Commander says lightly, reaching around Dorian to place the book back on the shelf. His hand hovers close to where the mage’s rests on the book beside it, his breath tickling the back of Dorian’s neck. “It’s said Beatrix the First was a shrewd woman and could put the fear of the Maker in you. Had you tossed that at me,” and he indicates to a book not far from Dorian’s hand, on the Divine’s writings, “I’d have run out of here in fear of my life.”

It’s a poor attempt at a joke, bringing levity to a tension so thick, the mage nearly chokes on it when he shakily inhales. And he regrets it immediately: this close, he not only feels Cullen’s warmth behind him but gets a good whiff of the man and it only stirs that ache for him.

“Divine Pladius,” Dorian says, ignoring the desire to bring their hands together, feeling lost and helpless as his tone remains cool, the storm in his chest one that silently rages, “Not that I would expect to find such writings on that heretic here in the south but the man wielded Andrastian guilt more devoutly than a qunari warrior their sword. He was said to have brought the Archon to his knees in devotion, though I prefer the more colorful interpretations of such commentary.”

He’s not sure if he expects Cullen to carry the conversation in the tone he has set. It would be easy if the ex-templar would just comply but Dorian isn’t all that surprised when he doesn’t. He should know better than to be given the easy way out.

“Dorian…”

His name is a collection of syllables uttered nearly against his skin. It’s that same problem once more: with no place to go, they remain trapped in his flesh, a claim he hadn’t asked for when he began bedding the man purely out of convenience and to mend the damage wrought by their most honorable Inquisitor.

Leave, he knows he should say but the demand is lost somewhere between his fragile resolve and thirst for something more than just convenience.

“Is there something you need help with, Commander?” is what he settles on, says with an indifference that cuts him as much as it cuts the Ferelden.

Cullen is quiet. There’s the hesitation, the one Dorian knows so well because whenever he feels it, he listens to it, stops himself from doing or saying something that would make him vulnerable.

But the Commander doesn’t have that same kind of filter, not when he has shown himself to be the kind of man who whispers of love when they should have been fucking.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I thought that much was obvious,” Dorian answers, tracing his fingers over the spines of the books on the shelf, pretending to take interest in the titles.

His heart thuds dully in his chest, a dirge to everything he is afraid to want.

“If this is because you don’t feel the same—”

“Fasta vass,you think it’s that simple.”

“Then what is this about, Dorian?”

And he makes that mistake he promises himself he won’t.

He turns around.

It’s easier to break something off when one doesn’t have to face the man whose bed they’ve shared, whose body they’ve been pressed against, been inside, felt shudder and tremble beneath their hands, mapping every gasp like a landmark to a hidden trove of secrets, unveiled for their ears alone.

How Trevelyan had been able to look Dorian in the eyes and tell him he is nothing but a distraction is a cruelty the mage can’t bring himself to do to Cullen.

Because Cullen isn’t a distraction.

And seeing him now, face grim, golden eyes filled with that same sadness Trevelyan had once put in Dorian’s, made the mage realize that by denying himself everything he wants, he has become just like the men who have hurt him.

“I’m a fool,” he says, reaching with his trembling hand to cradle Cullen’s cheek.

It’s his way of apologizing because Dorian may have a lot to say but he always has a way of saying everything without saying anything at all.

So instead, he shows him, closing what little distance remains because the space between them has always been the barriers he has put up. But slowly, through the patience and affection Cullen has shown him, those walls have chipped away, leaving Dorian vulnerable, exposed. Yet everything about the way the Commander kisses him back, pulls the mage into his arms, presses him tightly and protectively against his armored chest, lets Dorian know that he is safe, that he no longer needs to hide behind the facade of careless indifference.

When Cullen breaks off the kiss, his scarred lip curling into a smile as it ghosts against Dorian’s own, he whispers once more those words that have been the mage’s undoing.

“I love you.”

And they sound so earnest and hope-filled, that Dorian has no choice but to believe them.

“Will that be a problem?”

He senses once more the hesitation in Cullen’s voice. The Commander is giving him one last chance to bail, to run, to satisfy the mage’s flight instinct that often bubbled into anxious panic at the fear of being misled and used once more.

But Dorian ignores it, looks into Cullen’s warm eyes, and though he is brave enough to stay, he still isn’t quite brave enough to voice how he truly feels with the same conviction.

So instead, he answers, “No, I don’t believe it will be, amatus.”