thearena | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Dorian and Maxwell
What| Dorian is a touch Upset
Where| Just outside the DA Cast's Camp
When| After this
Warnings/Notes|

Dorian was, to put it mildly, upset.

Not the kind of upset that he could exactly put a finger on - not the kind that had a clear, rational, basis. But the kind of upset that twisted his insides into knots and made him want to retch, violently, or throw something at a wall, or cry with angry, wracking sobs. It was utterly ridiculous, of course. He had absolutely no reason to feel this way - should be elated, as Cullen so obviously was.

At the very least, he should be relieved.

But instead, it was just a depth of grief that he hadn't even realised he'd somehow been managing to avoid. Repress, elegantly and with poise, and ignore utterly the feeling that he had somehow lost everything, all over again. He found a large rock to perch on, just at the edge of the river, looking out at the smoke on the horizon. He had, ostensibly, gone for water, or whatever other pathetic excuse had managed to leave his mouth in time, but in reality he was just sitting there, trying to decide when that cavernous gulf between him and home had opened so deeply and so painfully after he had thought it closed.

After he'd forced it closed.

But then, he never had been all that good at running away, after all.

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Maxwell didn't know how he felt about it. He'd been told, had heard her name, of course, but there was quite a difference between hearing and seeing. Especially when he'd believed - had convinced himself - that it wasn't something he'd ever face himself.

Inquisitor Lady Trevelyan. And not just any, but Cullen's.

It changed everything: perhaps he wasn't a mistake, perhaps his life had really been meant for him, perhaps it was still out there.... And yet it changed nothing. He was still alone, here, unknown and forgotten as they two of them had look at each other. The relief clear on Cullen's face even in that small, silent glance of communication between them.

It was a petty thing, and he knew it. An envy that shamed him, especially when Dorian's name was mentioned, along with his reaction to the news.

He wasn't, after all, the only one out of place.

He likely should have sent someone else after the tracks in the snow - Josie or Cole might have been choices, were they still with them, perhaps Bull, but the man was preoccupied. So, terrible choice or not, he followed after. Head bowed as snow flaked down, footsteps pointedly loud.

He told himself he could leave if Dorian asked him too.

"Let me guess," Dorian said, not looking back. He could hear the footsteps, and though he didn't know exactly who they belonged to, he could narrow it down to a few people. Anyone trying to kill him wouldn't make themselves so obvious.

"Drew the short straw, did you?" He finally turned around, glancing back at Maxwell, before spreading an arm from where he was perched on his rock. "Look! I'm behaving perfectly well. I haven't set a tree on fire or anything."

"I may not be suited," he murmured as he drew closer, pausing beside the rock. A wry honesty he didn't expect Dorian to understand the depth of. (That things were, unsettled between them, they were both aware, but why....) "But I'm afraid you're stuck with me."

For at least the time being.

He tipped his head, following the gesture to the nearest trees.

"For lack of trying?"

"You may be surprised to learn it, but I'm actually quite adept as self-restraint," Dorian said, a little primly, but it was mostly teasing. He turned his head back to look out to the smoke.

"It was necessary, before, if I did not wish to lure a demon or five. And now - well, I almost miss the threat of demons around every corner, as stupid as that sounds."

He exhaled a heavy breath, white pluming around his nose, a miniature mirror of the grey tower in the distance.

"It doesn't to me," he replied. "It was straight-forward. We all knew what to do, and it all made sense -- even as terrible as it got."

"Well, I'm not sure everything made sense," Dorian said a little wryly, "But it made a good deal more sense than this."

He fell silent for a moment, frowning out toward the horizon. He was freezing, of course - his parka still back with Adella and Cullen - but he was too proud at the time to ask for it back, and too proud now to go back for it. He'd rather suffer the cold, which was saying something.

"Out of curiosity, do you know her?" He asked. "Adella. Hypothetically you're from the same family, if- different realms."

Edited 2015-02-08 03:05 (UTC)

He was considering it, how best to go about it, seeing how Dorian was shivering despite all efforts to seem like he wasn't, but he knew too well the man would only refuse if given the option.

Still just as stubborn, whatever the 'realm.'

"...She mentioned a brother with my name, but I have no sisters." And he didn't think they looked much alike, really, but it was dark, after a point it had been difficult to really look. "But the Trevelyan family anything if not large." His mouth twitched, settled again, as he reached for the little metal tab under his chin. "...Is she familiar to you? One assumes she'd be related to you as well, after all."

"It's hardly as if I know all my--" he stopped abruptly, turning around to look down at Maxwell with a slightly bewildered look.

"--Relatives. I had no idea that you knew that my family was related to yours," He said. "I kept meaning to mention it, but it kept slipping my mind. You must have a good head for genealogy."

He looked up at the sudden pause, uncertain what had caused it, only to have his heart sink as he realized.

Yes, of course. Dorian and his Inquisitor wouldn't have had that conversation, would they? His hadn't been a Trevelyan.

"...Not really, no." He looked away, busying himself with the zipper, yanking it down quickly. Treating the brisk night air like jumping into a pool. Do it quick, and get it over with. "It was yours. You told me."

And he tossed the coat over, deciding to simply not give Dorian the option.

He caught the parka before it hit him in the face, and for the briefest of seconds considered just throwing it back, but he was so dreadfully cold that eventually his pride was overcome, and he slipped the parka on and drew it close.

It was still warm.

"Ah. Of course, I would have." He fell into thought for a while there, before asking:

"Was I-- Am I the same as you remember?" It was an honest question, and his curiosity was obvious, if tinged with a very real sadness. Even if he couldn't meet Maxwell's eyes when he asked.

He shuddered once, blowing out a breath like a bull, but then he settled into it. It was colder than Skyhold - the sun there had been lovely at it's peak - but not unlike Haven.

And he was pleased, simply by Dorian's acceptance of it.

He would manage with that until he could return and dig out one of the extras he'd been sent.

Or at least he thought he could, until the next question caught him shorter of breath than the chill could ever hope to. Unprepared for it, it slipped in between his ribs with all the ease of a well honed blade.

He'd been trying so hard to avoid thinking about it. (Had been fixated on it.)

"Yes," came the answer after a long moment, gaze slipping toward Dorian's then away, fixing on the smoke the mage had found so fascinating before. "And no."

"Well, that was about as vague as I expected," Dorian said. It was meant to be teasing, but his tone couldn't quite manage to be light enough for it. He certainly wasn't going to press the man for more information about it.

He sighed, and shoved his hands in the parka's pockets.

"... I'd managed to make sense of it," he admitted after a moment, the hopelessness all too obvious in his voice. "Of all... this. Now..." But that was about as far as his ability to talk about his feelings went. So. On to a more general thought: "How many 'realms' are there, I wonder? Is there a version of me who went along with his father's wishes, do you think?"

It was a quiet question.

It wasn't quite relief he felt when the subject was dropped (he didn't know if he could lie; he hated lying, was terrible at it besides), it was too desperate for that, but he didn't have time to decipher it all before his head was snapping around.

Dorian still wasn't look at him, but the tone was heartrendingly familiar. He'd heard it before and had wanted then to do everything - anything - to spare Dorian from it ever again.

(Something that hadn't changed.)

"No," the word was simple, unhesitating; confident, if his movement wasn't. He shifted, as if to take a step closer, a hand jerking at his side - almost lifted and dropped just as quickly. "There may be differences between you, but not that. Not what makes you, you."

"I'd like to believe that," Dorian said, but he wasn't looking at Maxwell and his mind was firmly somewhere else. "Even if I can't. It's strange. I can tell, you know. That you know more about me than you should. Or rather - more about me than I generally allow. But of course you do. I imagine every Inquisitor does. It's all too easy to transplant the trust."

He didn't say it to get a reply, which is why he didn't wait for one while he continued.

"But that doesn't mean you can read my mind, Maxwell," He murmured quietly. "And you certainly couldn't, back when I was in Tevinter. I like to think I am single minded, but I was hardly without my doubts. I can... All to easily imagine it, being weak enough to cave in. Playing the martyr instead of the fugitive."

"Everyone has doubts, Dorian. They're part of life, part of being human. I--"

It was far too easy to go sliding down a slippery path. To forget all about what his original point had been: here and there, two men. Not one.

"Even I. But I know you. You can pretend it's not there all you like, but I've seen your passion. I've seen how brave you are. That... doesn't just go away."

"I wouldn't be too certain about that," He said bitterly. "They seem pretty well apt to beat it out of anyone, here. Years. Did you know we could be here years? And who knows which of us."

He kicked at an invisible pebble, and sighed.

"I'm sure I'm making excellent - what is the word? Ah, Television."

"Yes," he replied quietly. "One of Shepard's - Garrus, he mentioned how long he'd been here."

It was partly why he'd been so ready to accept Dorian's theory. Besides having seen time-magic in play himself, besides trusting in Dorian the way he did.... He couldn't imagine years. Even if his realm was out there -- who would wait that long?

Would he even want them too? They - he deserved his life.

"I imagine that's the point. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if--" He paused, a sudden thought occurring to him, flashing behind his eyes like a bolt of lightning. "If they knew what it would mean, her being here. Us meeting her this way."

"I'm sure they knew exactly what it would mean," Dorian said darkly. "'Oh, Dorian thinks he has any clue as to what's going on? Let's prove just how wrong he is and make him a terrible person in the process."

His hand managed to find a real pebble that time, and he threw it, hard, watching it skip twice across the water before sinking.

"You'll have to forgive me my mood. I promise I will be better behaved in the morning."

"More than that," he said with a small shake of his head, a deep wrinkle veeing between his eyebrows.

He might not have been as clever as Dorian, or as wise as Solas, but Maxwell was hardly a slouch, and the pieces were sliding together for him. (Though a might quicker perhaps, and he would have realized how he should have left it be.)

"To us personally. What it would mean to Cullen, to--"

He looked up at the splash, and his gaze traveled back to Dorian, taking in the man's expression as if seeing it for the first time. Another puzzle coming flush.

The way he couldn't quite look at him, the anger at the fire, the grief he'd tried to hide....

"...and you too, Dorian?"

The question lingered, for a moment, and then two. His chest twisting so painfully it tasted sour in his throat. His fingers found another pebble and gripped it, tight into his palm, until his knuckles turned white.

"I won't give them the satisfaction of my feelings on the subject," He finally said, his voice too tight, his throat threatening to close in on his words. He was just that fucking obvious, wasn't he?

He didn't have to.

He could have said anything really - my what an excellent throw, two skips - and Maxwell would have known. Simply from the silence.

Simply in the way his face tightened and twisted, anger to fight tears.

He wanted to apologize. Wanted to take it back. Wanted to pretend he hadn't heard it.

He'd guessed there was something, would have had to have been blind and deaf not too, but he hadn't known... Or perhaps he simply hadn't wanted to. And they'd known that as well.

Had known this, here, would happen.

His eyes closed, Adam's apple lurching hard in his throat as he struggled to swallow the knot that had suddenly formed there.

"I'll give them credit," he murmured finally, knowing he had to say something. Anything. "I wouldn't have thought there were any new forms of cruelty left to discover."

With an amazing speed, he whipped the other rock out from his palm, but this one didn't skip. Instead, it went straight into the water like a thunderclap, burying itself into the silt at the bottom.

"Don't tempt them," he said tightly, "I don't need to see how far that particular strain of imagination goes."

Had he been able to see outside himself, in that moment, perhaps he would have noticed Maxwell's discomfort, but he was so deep into his own self-pity that there was nothing outside it.

"I'd rather they went back to blowing us up, if it is all the same to them."

If he had ever doubted the wisdom in keeping his mouth shut about his own timeline, or realm, or whatever it truly was, he was absolutely certain in that moment. He'd already decided there was little to gain from it, and now he could see how much harm it would do.

And it wasn't worth it. Whatever small comfort in sharing, in not being alone....

No, he wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it.

"It's still early." He tried to force his voice to steady, his lungs to work as they were meant. "Still plenty of time yet for that."

"Ha!" A single, barking laugh, as he knew all too well that there was still plenty of time. Only three of them dead, after all. And no so many more to go.

And here he was, completely unable to think about anything other than things he'd already lost.

Things he simply couldn't let himself hope for, or it would break him. He needed a distraction, and badly, but there wasn't anything to hand. Wasn't anything to stop the torrent of grief and shame and self-pity and longing and mourning.

"Yes," He agreed eventually. "All the time in the world. Though I find it somewhat harder to be terrified of imminent death, now."

He didn't know what to say; wasn't sure he believed there was anything he could. Was there anything that could making the longing and grief and thick uncertainty any easier to swallow?

He couldn't even manage his own.

Dorian's confession, like the arrival of Adella, shouldn't have changed anything-- but somehow, it did. The ground wrenching again beneath his boots; his ribs so tight against his heart, it was a struggle just to breathe.

"Still..." He winced, head jerking to one side as he tried to shake it off, tried to bury down deep again. Cover it, like the healing wound cut in his shoulder. "Please try to avoid it... It would be - difficult to explain. Cassandra would likely take it as all the evidence she needed to prove my demonhood."

A joke, the least like which he had ever uttered. More desperation than humor.

Edited 2015-02-08 16:39 (UTC)

"Don't worry, I'm not going to go do something stupid," Dorian assured him, though it was several more seconds until he looked back to meet Maxwell's eye.

When he did, there was little of the rage and grief evident on his face.

Tevinter had its masks as thoroughly as Orlais did, after all.

"I'll be fine, Maxwell," He told him. "I am sorry for my behaviour, but I need a little time before I'm quite fit to go back and apologize."

"Take it," he said, head bobbing automatically. Awkwardly, like a puppet's on the end of a string - a parody. "I'll tell them you're alright."

The step back felt less like a retreat for Dorian's sake, than an escape for his own.

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