With the Bull's face covering in the way, Dorian can't see the smile creeping across the Bull's face.
But he can certainly hear it.
He groans, covering his face with his hand.
"You inveterate lech. How your mind manages to dive so deeply and quickly into the gutter is a mystery I'll never understand. You do it so instinctively that I might almost mistake it as part of your spy training."
The Bull reaches out, trying to grab Dorian's hand to move it away before it can actually get where it's going. "You want to be careful about touching your face right now, big guy," he murmurs, like saying it quietly's going to make the words slip under what easy, casual mood they've managed to build for themselves here away from the rest of the Deep Roads and all its shit, instead of running head-on into it.
"So," he goes on in a more normal voice, wrapping a genuine protest about whether a staff made for a human can handle the full weight of a qunari in another thick layer of innuendo, the better to distract Dorian with, "that mean you don't want me to take your stiff pole and have my way with it till all the magic comes right out? Probably for the best. I'm kind of big, you know, maybe it couldn't handle me."
Dorian goes rigid when the Bull’s hand curls around his wrist, caught between freezing and yanking his hand away – mostly out of instinct and surprise. Then, when the Bull offers his explanation, Dorian shudders a little with revulsion, paling a little at the much needed reminder.
He tries to force some of the tension away, his fingers curling toward his palm, and he mumbles something along the lines of, "Quite right."
Ridiculous, that he should be so careless. He had spent the entire trip down into these Maker-forsaken tunnels thinking about Felix, thinking about the endless days and nights he spent with Alexius trying to save Felix’s life, and here he was, forgetting.
He takes another breath, and while he's nowhere near as relaxed as before, he manages to at least appear to be.
"No need to flatter yourself," Dorian finally replies, and he applauds himself for sounding as haughty as he usually does, even if his heart isn't exactly in it. He pauses, eyes narrowing and gaze sliding slightly past the Bull's shoulder. It's a split-second hesitation before he offers a little more smoothly, a little more quietly, "I'm sure it could handle you just fine.
"In any case," and his voice returns to normal – sharp but somehow lilting, "if this is your way of saying no, you need only come out and say so. You needn't attempt to fluster me into changing the topic, as you're so fond of doing. But I've made the offer, and as horribly received as it has been, I don't intend to rescind it."
The Bull sets one hand on the table, leaning away from Dorian onto it, and the other hand over his legs, in case any of Dorian's reaction when the Bull first grabbed him was down to not wanting to be touched - not by the Bull, anyway, at least right now, while the Bull's still in the middle of making all these jokes about fucking him.
Right now it's not the time, so Dorian might feel better if the Bull and his hands keep their distance - but not forever, still looks like, and Dorian's even getting comfortable enough letting the Bull know it, even if it seems like he doesn't want the Bull to act like he heard it. It could handle you just fine sounds like the impression the Bull got before they fell all this way, before this crap started, is still on Dorian's mind. Not the time to press him on it - that can come later, after Dorian asks for it - but good to hear. The Bull notes it and tucks the fact away, letting Dorian shift the focus.
"Look, you make an offer like that and you can't think I'm not going to make cracks about it." Which is true, even if the Bull would have kind of liked it if it had actually distracted Dorian from having asked the question. But since it didn't, if he wants to keep convincing Dorian to relax around him with the magic thing, he has to commit. So he sighs like he's hard done by and says, "If it really isn't sturdy enough to hold me up you can't tell the boss I broke it, alright? I warned you and everything."
"What, do you think I cast using a twig?" He sounds more amused than affronted, at least. "'Dorian, be a dear and immolate this Venatori encampment with your little toothpick of a wand, would you?'"
He huffs out a laugh, pushing himself to his feet with only a small amount of swaying. He frees his staff from the holster at his back with an almost instinctive flourish, the base of it landing on the floor beside his boot. The staff itself is made of metal, though light enough for Dorian to carry. The grip is slightly out of shape, and the impact of the fall has bent the top half slightly askew. The focus – two twisting dragon's heads, joined by the single crystal in each of its mouths – itself is still intact, if slightly crooked
"If you do happen to break it, somehow, we'll blame it on the fall. Or you can tell people that I snapped it in half over a darkpawn's head. That's believable enough, yes?"
"I'd believe it," the Bull says. He would. If Dorian's ready to risk darkspawn to save the Bull's butt then destroying his own weapon is probably going to seem like small potatoes in comparison. He's eyeing Dorian when he says it, though, part of his mind more focused on how to address that little hint of unsteadiness when Dorian stood up there in a way that might actually accomplish something. He says Dorian needs to lean on the staff too and that's going to sound like he's still trying to get out of touching the thing himself - not to mention the way that, if it sounds like Dorian has to choose between the two of them, Dorian's needs definitely aren't the ones that are going to come out ahead.
"It sturdy enough for us to share?" And then, because it has to be a little bit about the Bull if Dorian's even going to consider it: "'Cause my axe isn't going to do much good until I can actually move, so if your head actually does explode and you fall on your face we're both in for a bad time."
"I'm fine," he replies – mostly on instinct alone. He takes a moment to consider his words, then, "I have all these glorious stone walls to prop me up, should it come to it."
He crosses his arms, glancing up at the wisps drifting at the ceiling. The Bull has a legitimate concern, though; should Dorian fall, either literally or metaphorically, then the Bull would be in a terrible spot. Dorian's magic has been a boon to them both, has protected them this long; it's little wonder that the Bull might be concerned about having that particular buffer taken away.
Sobering, he draws his gaze to the Bull again. "I'll be fine. I promise I'll see you to safety, and then I'll collapse into a graceful heap. It will be wonderfully well-timed and dramatic."
The Bull snorts, giving Dorian a little grin. That's not the answer he wanted but it's the only one he's going to get; in spite of what Dorian might think, the Bull knows when not to push. He'll just have to keep an eye on Dorian and hope for the best.
"Then everyone's going to start thinking I carried you through all this crap. You've got to wait at least until everyone starts asking questions and I start explaining how heroic your ass looked silhouetted against those 'righteous flames purifying the land of darkspawn,' or whatever."
And then there's nothing else for it. He doesn't hesitate, or sigh - it was a good little break, and now it's done - he just hops onto his good leg and reaches out toward the staff, trying to brace himself and look casual at the same time while he waits for Dorian to hand it to him. Nothing's going to happen when he grabs it. It's not going to be weird. It's just a weapon, like anything else. It's Dorian's magic that makes it work. It's just like a walking stick, but fancier. It's going to be fine.
Focus on talking. That part's a little easier.
"You can lean on me," he says. "I'll lean on your staff, and when we find the boss again we can make it look like you're holding me up. Then you get to collapse. That dramatic enough, you think?"
Dorian breathes out another laugh. "A consummate storyteller, aren't you."
He hands the staff over, waiting for the Bull to get a decent enough grip on it – and even then, he waits for the Bull to find his balance. Dorian hovers a little unnecessarily – if the Bull fell right now, Dorian doubts he'd be able to do much – until the Bull is able to stand with the help of the staff.
"I appreciate a dramatic entrance more than anyone, I think," he replies, "but I'm afraid I'll have to pass. I'll be fine."
He lifts a hand, waving the wisps away with a quiet word of thanks. (He didn't used to do that – thank them. He does now, due in no small part to Cole and Solas' influence.) All but two of them fade out of existence, retreating across the Veil; the two remaining float down to Dorian and the Bull, hovering around them as they had before.
Creeping to the door, he presses an ear against the stone, listening intently. There's no movement that he can hear, and he opens it a crack to peek out. Still nothing but an empty, stone hallway, even as he opens it wider.
Which is what he expected. It's exactly the temperature it should be, sitting right next to Dorian's body like it does. Quiet, still, a little too thin to fit comfortably in his hand. Except for the decoration, there's nothing weird about it. A weapon like any other weapon. Just one he doesn't use.
Right. Right.
His head twitches when Dorian whispers to him, gaze startled away from his hand over to the door. He starts really slowly toward it, first trying to hop without putting any weight on the ankle at all and then putting a little, just enough to help him move a little more smoothly, more quietly. The staff is going to make some noise if he thumps it too suddenly on the stone; he's going to have to watch out for that.
Once he reaches the door he stops, considering the layout of the place that he's got in his head. He landed facing the one direction, went that way for a while, went left, almost died, went left some more, went in here- okay. Behind them is where the darkspawn came from. In front of them is the cliff edge, somewhere up ahead. Going left to backtrack risks running into darkspawn, too. Not necessarily a certainty, but a risk, which makes one direction the slightly less crappy choice.
He nods to the right and tentatively starts out, head moving around more than it normally would to compensate for the reduced vision of the mask. He'd give the stupid thing to Dorian if he could, if there wasn't too much risk of parts of it being contaminated already.
Don't worry about it. Just move. Keep a look out. Don't make too much noise.
One good thing about the mask, anyway - he doesn't have to waste too much concentration on keeping the pain off his face. If Dorian looks really close he might see something in the creasing around the Bull's eye, but Dorian's got more important things to watch out for.
(ooc: Wasn't sure if this gives you enough to do/talk about so feel free to skip to one of the other things we talked about happening? And/or they can go somewhere where they feel like sound isn't going to carry as well so they can talk, or whatever? We can talk out what should happen next if we need to.)
Dorian nods at the Bull's direction, leading the way to the right and into the ruins. As much as they should probably hurry, Dorian tries to match the Bull's pace, going slowly to accommodate the Bull's injuries and their attempts at stealth.
The wisps float around them, though closely enough that Dorian can reach out and curl a hand around them, if necessary. The hallways are dimly lit by their eerie, green glow. He keeps his attention split between their surroundings and the Bull – listening for sounds of movement and sounds of pain or struggle, respectively. In all likelihood, they'll need another break, sooner or later, Dorian is still examining every room they pass, evaluating them for their defensibility.
They walk for a while before Dorian glances back, intent on offering some offhand remark to cut a bit of the tension, but he sees the tightness at corner of the Bull's eye – the faint shadows of a grimace. Dorian hesitates, glancing around to find a serviceable resting point.
"We should stop," he says, in that way that makes it less of a suggestion and more of a command. "Just for a few moments."
There's a difference between knowing you're going to be the one holding things up and seeing it, feeling every second go by knowing how close they could be getting to being somewhere safe and feeling how close they actually are. What does it matter if he keeps the ankle in good enough shape that it can heal if they never actually make it out? If a good man dies down here still trying to carry the Bull's dead weight?
He's been trying to stop babying the thing. Needing to keep the thumping of the staff quiet is getting in his way a little, but he isn't as slow as he was. There's still nothing to funnel the pain into, though, nowhere to put it, so when he answers his his voice is as much a grunt as actual words. "I'm good to go. Need to find a way out of here. Not like there's anywhere safe enough to stop anyway."
Not that the Bull has wasted a lot of attention looking for one. Might help him out if there isn't one, though, if Dorian wants to fight him on this. The Bull wasted their time already, even though it had felt like an okay risk then, before he spent all this time forcing himself along inch by creeping little inch. It had felt like an acceptable risk while he'd been coming down from almost dying and thought maybe Dorian needed a mental reset about as much as he did.
Maybe that was the right call and maybe it wasn't, but if that was the one break he got to call then he's already called it. Easier to get through it if he keeps moving.
Practicality demands they keep going. Practicality demands that if they have a chance of surviving this, they need to find a means of escape as soon as possible – before the darkspawn find some alternate route, now that the beasts know they're here, before another quake collapses the ruins atop them.
Dorian has never been a particularly practical man, however, and while he knows the Bull is right, that doesn't meant that Dorian likes it.
He exhales sharply through his nose – a poor substitute for one of his more theatrical sighs – before he turns to continue on down the hallway. Still, he can't stop himself from demanding imperiously over his shoulder, "You will tell me when you need to stop."
"You'll know," he says, because Dorian will. Either he'll need to stop because Darkspawn are on them, or because his leg gives out. Pretty obvious either way.
No need to be irritated at Dorian, the Bull reminds himself. This is what he likes about the guy - the concern for the people around him, how deep it goes. It's the pain he's irritated with, after falling into the rhythm of stepping with the one foot, setting the staff carefully on the ground, put as much of his weight as he can on that side, breathe, do it all again. And then do it again. Keep on doing it. Fall into the mindset of it. Enough time doing that and it's starting to get to him.
With no talking to focus on, he falls into the mindset of it again. Until the smell of darkspawn starts getting stronger in his nose, strong enough to break the rhythm when he stops, torn for a second between shoving the staff back into Dorian's hands where it belongs or heading double time toward the nearest break in the wall which, if they get lucky, might just lead them somewhere safer.
He puts a hand on Dorian's shoulder, jerks his chin toward the path in front of them, and shakes his head. Then he tilts a horn toward that spot in the wall where some of it is cracked, leaning against the rubble of something fallen behind it at an angle that might just give the Bull enough room to crawl in.
He moves himself to the spot, leans against the wall so he can hold Dorian's staff out to him, and nods toward the little space. The Bull made the mistake of letting darkspawn get too close once, and doesn't know how recovered Dorian is yet from pulling him out of that. Better to be cautious now. If he's lucky whatever's on the other side won't be as shitty as it looks.
Dorian's sense of smell isn't quite as acute as the Bull's, which makes it a testament to how recognizable the stench of the taint is that Dorian manages to sense it, all the same. Still, he has no way of gauging how close or far it is, whether or not they should risk continuing in that direction – until the Bull stops their progress.
Close, then, Dorian assumes. Uncomfortably so, if the change of route is any indication.
On instinct, he presses his lips tightly together, nodding at the Bull's direction and waving for the other man to proceed. He follows close behind, and when the Bull indicates the small space, Dorian frowns with uncertainty. The crevice seems snug, even to Dorian, and he looks a little pointedly at the Bull as he takes back his staff.
It is, admittedly, better than facing whatever darkspawn horde might be lingering around a corner; Dorian could manage some of his earlier spells, true, but he had been lucky to have those corpses to work with early in the battle. There was no guarantee he would be so fortunate again. Reluctantly, Dorian flicks his fingers, sending his wisp ahead of him to light the way, before slinging his staff into its holster at his back.
He offers the Bull one more heavy look – something that says stay close – before easing his way into the small space.
That pointed look when the Bull showed Dorian their little detour was weird. Not weird that Dorian would give it, maybe, but it felt weird to get it. Maybe he's reading too much into it and Dorian's just not thrilled about going in there for his own sake, but no one's known enough about him to give him that kind of look at a time like this in a pretty long while.
It's alright. He'll keep it together a little better this time. There's someone in front of him to focus on as he lowers himself carefully to the ground, as he twists to fit his way through the gap and inside. Rubble and stone sitting crookedly against one another make the ceiling low for as far as Dorian's creepy spirit thing illuminates. Which isn't really that far, so hey, maybe they won't have to go too far before the space starts to open up. You never know.
Dorian being in front of him helps. He wishes he could say, even to himself, that it's just because being behind Dorian is such a nice view, but it just does him good. Reminds him he's not still stuck in the same place he fell off that cliff into, in that weird, indefinite stretch of time after Dorian left, dragging himself along in a space a lot like this and feeling his focus, his reality, starting to go a little loose.
There's someone else in here, and that helps him keep his sense of direction, his sense of time. That's one thing he learned in that weird, in-between period after Seheron: once those things start to come loose in your head, that's when you've really lost it.
It isn't that bad. There's some good reasons it isn't that bad and, after the worst of that smell has passed - the heavy footsteps getting closer and then right outside, the growls and grumbles and whatever passes for darkspawn talking to each other, the sound of heavy armour, one smacking something hard against the wall right next to their heads and the Bull's too deep, too regular breathing sounding louder in his ears than it might actually be, the pain a hot, welcome thing inside him, a distraction - after the worst of that has passed, after the smell has started to fade, then the Bull can share with Dorian what exactly isn't that bad about it, about being crowded inside here.
"Might be better staying in here 'till we hit a dead end," he mutters once it's safe to, in a voice that would have sounded normal back before anybody called him the Iron Bull. His voice could weigh heavy more often back then, come out curt and to the point. At least, when he was talking to the ones who called him Hissrad. The others needed someone friendlier.
His voice is some kind of normal, anyway. So that's fine.
"If we can pass that hallway out there and find some of the bigger rooms again we'll be better off. Fight out there would have been more close-quarters than your last one. Too close. Even if I could still fight between you and them."
It is, as he predicted, a small space – large enough for the Bull to pass through, admittedly, but not easily, and Dorian wants to ask how the other man is faring, whether or not it might be wiser to shuffle back the way they came to save the Bull some trouble.
The impulse is interruped by the sound of footsteps, by the distant snarling, hissing, growling of darkspawn, made alien and indistinct by the small, enclosed space. Dorian freezes, tossing up a hand and flexing his fingers, bringing the wisps in close to dampen the light. He doubts the cracks in the wall are large enough for the wisps' glow to seep through, but Dorian would rather be cautious than risk the darkspawn figuring out where they are and smashing down the wall to get to them.
He freezes as the noises come closer. He lifts up his free hand to clamp his palm over his nose and mouth – both to block out the stench and to trap in any sounds that might escape him – but he quickly remembers himself, remembers the Bull's earlier warning, and bites down on his lips instead. When the darkspawn finally wander off, Dorian lets out a near silent breath through his lips.
He glances back at the Bull, brow creasing at the heaviness in the other man's voice. There's logic in the plan, of course – the Bull has been nothing but infuriatingly reasonable during this entire predicament – but Dorian doesn't hasten to agree just yet.
Instead, he whispers, "Are you all right? This can hardly be comfortable for you."
"I'll be comfortable back at camp," the Bull says, then takes a moment to try and lighten his tone just a little, lessen the risk of sounding like he's snapping at Dorian. He isn't; Dorian's doing great. He's glad that Dorian's here asking him these questions, even if he could stand to talk about something other than how he's doing right now.
"Plenty of uncomfortable crap waiting for us out there too, so." The Iron Bull's usual ease is more slippery than it should be, his voice hitting it in a glancing blow and then ricocheting off somewhere a little too tense, trying a little too hard. He lets out a quiet, frustrated little huff. He can do better than that. "If you want to go out there and take it all on with no real backup, you let me know and I can get out of your way."
Dorian trails off, uncertain. They either suffer through the discomfort in here, or they suffer through the exposure out there, and neither option is what Dorian might consider palatable.
Especially not when the darkspawn are disconcertingly close, judging by the sounds from only moments ago. Stepping out of the relative safety of this crawlspace would in all likelihood lead them into a confrontation neither of them is ready for, and they'd either be torn apart of left sickened by the taint – all because Dorian was concerned about comfort.
(It makes him think of Alexius, pacing in their laboratory as they waited for some potion to brew. I left ahead of them to attend to business in Minrathous. If I hadn't been so selfish, if I hadn't been so single-minded, if I had only just been there—)
He shudders at the thought, and he lets out a slow breath of his own.
"You're right." Continuing today's trend, of course. His voice is quiet, a little shaky. "I don't like our chances out there."
He lifts his gloved hand, splaying his fingers and letting the wisps drift again – as much as they can and for as much as it helps within this confined space.
"You'll tell me if you need a break?" A question, this time, because Dorian's judgment thus far hasn't been quite on target.
"Sure," the Bull says, the dry humour in his voice wound tight like a short string stretched across a long bow, ready to snap the moment an arrow draws it back. "You'll be the first to know."
Because if it really comes to that, Dorian will be the first to find out, one way or the other. If it was a little easier to do, the Bull would be laughing right now. As if he hasn't needed a break since this whole thing started - wanted one, anyway. But if it makes Dorian feel that little bit better to think the Bull might put them both back into danger just for his own peace of mind, the Bull can let him pretend.
Because he isn't the only one shaken up here, is he? The Bull would have to be a lot more out of it than he is not to notice Dorian's shudder, the unsteady undertone that crept into Dorian's voice for a moment. Only happened once the Bull brought up the idea of Dorian fighting darkspawn though, the way that would inevitably end right now, with Dorian's only backup mostly just a dead weight carrying an axe. What the Bull needs to do, what Dorian probably needs him to do, is find Dorian some kind of distraction. But his mind isn't really his own right now; like it or not, it's only going to obey him so far.
"If we do go back out there keep me in front," is what his mind comes up with for him. "We'll stick close to walls, find a corner, try to let you keep your distance." If he can make that work. If he can stay upright long enough to be any kind of barrier between the darkspawn and Dorian at all.
He can, if it comes to that. He's going to make it work. It's the closest thing to comfort that he has, even if it isn't quite enough. "I would just give you this stupid mask," he mutters, frustrated, "if I knew it was clean."
Dorian can't help it – he breathes out a mirthless chuckle.
"That's hardly a plan," he says, though a small part of him admits that's it's suitably dramatic. The Bull, standing with only the assistance of some sturdy dwarven wall, acting as a barrier between the darkspawn and Dorian. Under normal circumstances, that would be their exact arrangement. In their current predicament, it would practically be a death sentence for the Bull.
Still, it's nice to know that even the Bull is inclined to a few poor ideas, and it helps Dorian to focus.
The offer gives him pause, however, and his expression softens.
"Even if it were clean, I wouldn't take it. I've seen what Blight-sickness does." He presses his lips together, thinks briefly of Felix, pale and weak in bed before Dorian and Alexius made their first breakthrough. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
He steels himself and forces himself to continue through the narrow space – and if it gives him an excuse to look forward, to keep himself turned away to hide the unease on his face, more's the better.
"I studied the taint for a while." He works to keep his voice casual, level. He's discussed this with the Inquisitor before, of course, but they had been at Skyhold – quite far away from the threat of sickness. "The effects of it on the living – on humans, at least. My mentor and I were searching for a means to cure it, though as you can likely tell, we weren't successful."
The Bull steels himself, too, and starts moving again. He focuses past the distress signals crowding into his thoughts. Sure it's too small but he still fits. And sure, if another earthquake hits while they're in here they're dead. But if they leave this little space it could get a whole lot worse so there's no point in worrying about any of it, no matter how close, how immediate the danger feels. He tries to focus on Dorian's voice instead.
It isn't as hard as it could be. Dorian's got a nice voice, even manages to make that my-shit-doesn't-stink accent sound good, and it's always easier to pay attention to people when what they're saying is important. Easier when it gives him something to think about, gives him some pieces to put together with other fragments of what Dorian's told him.
"That what the two of you fell out over?" he asks, instead of thinking about twisting to squeeze through a bend in the path, about the way doing it scrapes hard enough at the scabs over his shoulders to get a couple of them bleeding again. It's big enough for him. It's big enough, and that's fine. What needs paying attention to is Dorian, and fitting together a picture of his past. "Your research hit one too many walls? Or-" and there's an indirect, almost delicate way to ask this, even if he can't get that tight-wound thread out of his voice for long enough to get his tone to match. "-Were you working on a time limit? Stopped looking for that cure once it hit?"
Dorian is faring better than the Bull in this small space. Dorian is by no means a small man, but he's managing comparatively well; the walls don't grab at him quite as insistently as they do the Bull, and Dorian has space enough to maneuver with only a little difficulty.
"We hit a wall," Dorian says slowly. He presses his lips together, remembering how ragged they had both felt in those last few days, how thin their tempers had become. "Alexius and his family had been abroad, but Alexius returned home earlier to attend to business. His wife, son, and their retainer were attacked by darkspawn. His wife was killed, and Felix was sickened with the Blight.
"We were making remarkable progress until it we couldn't. We had bought Felix weeks, then months, maybe a year or two, but nothing more. Alexius and I had been working nonstop, and we were both exhausted. Our failures weighed heavy upon us, and even when it became clear that an outright cure for the Blight was beyond us, Alexius insisted we continue.
"In return, I was... unkind." An understatement, admittedly, but the heaviness in his voice will surely give him away, regardless. "We argued, and in the heat of the moment, I ultimately told Alexius that we needed to give up this fool's errand, that he needed to accept that Felix was going to die."
Dorian pauses when the light of the wisp illuminates the edge of a crack in the wall. He listens intently for any signs of movement, but when he hears nothing, he continues.
"Needless to say, Alexius did not take that well. We yelled a bit more, and I flounced away."
The Bull takes a moment longer than he wants to taking that in. It's not that there's anything wrong with what he heard, there's just a lot of extra, useless crap in his head to shove through before he can clear a space for it, and this isn't the kind of thing he wants his frustration to get in the way of so he has to beat that back, too. So he's slow right now, can't handle this the way he should be; that's just something that he has to deal with. Getting all frustrated about it doesn't have a place here.
Maybe this is the only way Dorian could tell him this though, here and now, when they're here in the dark together with darkspawn somewhere on the other side of one of those walls. The Bull's seen that before. People will tell you all sorts of intimate, sensitive, or just plain terrible info when they're hip deep in shit, in the dark, part of them thinking this is it, they're really going to die here. Something about that tends to make the guy standing shoulder to shoulder with you feel a lot more trustworthy than he did when things were calm and quiet, back when the two of you felt safe.
But then again, Dorian's already shown the Bull some trust, hasn't he? A little. By Dorian's standards. Maybe this isn't something Dorian's going to feel weird about having told the Bull, later. The Bull's going to have to think over that when thinking starts coming easier again.
"You said Alexius wouldn't have liked finding out his son was serving you breakfast," the Bull murmurs, because thinking out loud is going to help his thoughts flow a little easier. "I thought that was just because he was... I don't know, a high-class 'vint, had ideas about servants or something. Assumed that was what you meant."
Which isn't to say there wasn't a little bit of that going on. But if Dorian's friend was that sick that puts a different spin onto it. Easy to assume when you don't know, not see some hint of truth that's there.
The Bull's quiet again, for a much shorter moment. "You flounced out, though. 'Flounce' really the right word?"
Maybe that tension that won't leave the Bull's voice is a good thing. He might as well make it work for him, anyway. In this case it might help make it harder to read any hint of gentleness or judgement into the question, make it sound less like he's pushing Dorian to reframe his part in what went down and more like he's just asking for clarification. This is how he'd normally handle it, he thinks. Just asking questions.
Dorian lets out another chuckle, though it's warmer this time. "No, you weren't wrong in that assumption. Felix was of the opinion that I worked myself too hard and took it upon himself to act as my caretaker. Alexius was of the opinion that Felix had no business sneaking into the kitchens – partially because of Felix's station, but also because he didn't want Felix interrupting the well-oiled machine that was their kitchen staff.
"Felix's sickness put a stop to those late night kitchen raids, for good or for ill."
He pauses, testing slab of stone that slants overhead. It seems stable enough, unlikely to fall on them as they pass underneath, but Dorian still gestures to it on the off-chance the Bull hadn't already noticed it – which he almost certainly already has. The Bull is frighteningly observant, even at the worst of times. Still, it helps Dorian to feel a little useful.
"It was almost certainly a flouncing," Dorian replies, and while he still keeps his voice low, he manages to imbue it with false brightness. "I stomped off in a huff before Alexius could have the satisfaction of throwing me out of his estate, and we drifted apart. I was tired of chasing after this impossible goal and wanted to turn our attentions to something more attainable. In that moment, I was so certain that I could snap him out of his delusions – instead, I only drove him further into them."
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But he can certainly hear it.
He groans, covering his face with his hand.
"You inveterate lech. How your mind manages to dive so deeply and quickly into the gutter is a mystery I'll never understand. You do it so instinctively that I might almost mistake it as part of your spy training."
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"So," he goes on in a more normal voice, wrapping a genuine protest about whether a staff made for a human can handle the full weight of a qunari in another thick layer of innuendo, the better to distract Dorian with, "that mean you don't want me to take your stiff pole and have my way with it till all the magic comes right out? Probably for the best. I'm kind of big, you know, maybe it couldn't handle me."
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He tries to force some of the tension away, his fingers curling toward his palm, and he mumbles something along the lines of, "Quite right."
Ridiculous, that he should be so careless. He had spent the entire trip down into these Maker-forsaken tunnels thinking about Felix, thinking about the endless days and nights he spent with Alexius trying to save Felix’s life, and here he was, forgetting.
He takes another breath, and while he's nowhere near as relaxed as before, he manages to at least appear to be.
"No need to flatter yourself," Dorian finally replies, and he applauds himself for sounding as haughty as he usually does, even if his heart isn't exactly in it. He pauses, eyes narrowing and gaze sliding slightly past the Bull's shoulder. It's a split-second hesitation before he offers a little more smoothly, a little more quietly, "I'm sure it could handle you just fine.
"In any case," and his voice returns to normal – sharp but somehow lilting, "if this is your way of saying no, you need only come out and say so. You needn't attempt to fluster me into changing the topic, as you're so fond of doing. But I've made the offer, and as horribly received as it has been, I don't intend to rescind it."
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Right now it's not the time, so Dorian might feel better if the Bull and his hands keep their distance - but not forever, still looks like, and Dorian's even getting comfortable enough letting the Bull know it, even if it seems like he doesn't want the Bull to act like he heard it. It could handle you just fine sounds like the impression the Bull got before they fell all this way, before this crap started, is still on Dorian's mind. Not the time to press him on it - that can come later, after Dorian asks for it - but good to hear. The Bull notes it and tucks the fact away, letting Dorian shift the focus.
"Look, you make an offer like that and you can't think I'm not going to make cracks about it." Which is true, even if the Bull would have kind of liked it if it had actually distracted Dorian from having asked the question. But since it didn't, if he wants to keep convincing Dorian to relax around him with the magic thing, he has to commit. So he sighs like he's hard done by and says, "If it really isn't sturdy enough to hold me up you can't tell the boss I broke it, alright? I warned you and everything."
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He huffs out a laugh, pushing himself to his feet with only a small amount of swaying. He frees his staff from the holster at his back with an almost instinctive flourish, the base of it landing on the floor beside his boot. The staff itself is made of metal, though light enough for Dorian to carry. The grip is slightly out of shape, and the impact of the fall has bent the top half slightly askew. The focus – two twisting dragon's heads, joined by the single crystal in each of its mouths – itself is still intact, if slightly crooked
"If you do happen to break it, somehow, we'll blame it on the fall. Or you can tell people that I snapped it in half over a darkpawn's head. That's believable enough, yes?"
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"It sturdy enough for us to share?" And then, because it has to be a little bit about the Bull if Dorian's even going to consider it: "'Cause my axe isn't going to do much good until I can actually move, so if your head actually does explode and you fall on your face we're both in for a bad time."
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He crosses his arms, glancing up at the wisps drifting at the ceiling. The Bull has a legitimate concern, though; should Dorian fall, either literally or metaphorically, then the Bull would be in a terrible spot. Dorian's magic has been a boon to them both, has protected them this long; it's little wonder that the Bull might be concerned about having that particular buffer taken away.
Sobering, he draws his gaze to the Bull again. "I'll be fine. I promise I'll see you to safety, and then I'll collapse into a graceful heap. It will be wonderfully well-timed and dramatic."
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"Then everyone's going to start thinking I carried you through all this crap. You've got to wait at least until everyone starts asking questions and I start explaining how heroic your ass looked silhouetted against those 'righteous flames purifying the land of darkspawn,' or whatever."
And then there's nothing else for it. He doesn't hesitate, or sigh - it was a good little break, and now it's done - he just hops onto his good leg and reaches out toward the staff, trying to brace himself and look casual at the same time while he waits for Dorian to hand it to him. Nothing's going to happen when he grabs it. It's not going to be weird. It's just a weapon, like anything else. It's Dorian's magic that makes it work. It's just like a walking stick, but fancier. It's going to be fine.
Focus on talking. That part's a little easier.
"You can lean on me," he says. "I'll lean on your staff, and when we find the boss again we can make it look like you're holding me up. Then you get to collapse. That dramatic enough, you think?"
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He hands the staff over, waiting for the Bull to get a decent enough grip on it – and even then, he waits for the Bull to find his balance. Dorian hovers a little unnecessarily – if the Bull fell right now, Dorian doubts he'd be able to do much – until the Bull is able to stand with the help of the staff.
"I appreciate a dramatic entrance more than anyone, I think," he replies, "but I'm afraid I'll have to pass. I'll be fine."
He lifts a hand, waving the wisps away with a quiet word of thanks. (He didn't used to do that – thank them. He does now, due in no small part to Cole and Solas' influence.) All but two of them fade out of existence, retreating across the Veil; the two remaining float down to Dorian and the Bull, hovering around them as they had before.
Creeping to the door, he presses an ear against the stone, listening intently. There's no movement that he can hear, and he opens it a crack to peek out. Still nothing but an empty, stone hallway, even as he opens it wider.
"We're clear," he whispers.
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Which is what he expected. It's exactly the temperature it should be, sitting right next to Dorian's body like it does. Quiet, still, a little too thin to fit comfortably in his hand. Except for the decoration, there's nothing weird about it. A weapon like any other weapon. Just one he doesn't use.
Right. Right.
His head twitches when Dorian whispers to him, gaze startled away from his hand over to the door. He starts really slowly toward it, first trying to hop without putting any weight on the ankle at all and then putting a little, just enough to help him move a little more smoothly, more quietly. The staff is going to make some noise if he thumps it too suddenly on the stone; he's going to have to watch out for that.
Once he reaches the door he stops, considering the layout of the place that he's got in his head. He landed facing the one direction, went that way for a while, went left, almost died, went left some more, went in here- okay. Behind them is where the darkspawn came from. In front of them is the cliff edge, somewhere up ahead. Going left to backtrack risks running into darkspawn, too. Not necessarily a certainty, but a risk, which makes one direction the slightly less crappy choice.
He nods to the right and tentatively starts out, head moving around more than it normally would to compensate for the reduced vision of the mask. He'd give the stupid thing to Dorian if he could, if there wasn't too much risk of parts of it being contaminated already.
Don't worry about it. Just move. Keep a look out. Don't make too much noise.
One good thing about the mask, anyway - he doesn't have to waste too much concentration on keeping the pain off his face. If Dorian looks really close he might see something in the creasing around the Bull's eye, but Dorian's got more important things to watch out for.
(ooc: Wasn't sure if this gives you enough to do/talk about so feel free to skip to one of the other things we talked about happening? And/or they can go somewhere where they feel like sound isn't going to carry as well so they can talk, or whatever? We can talk out what should happen next if we need to.)
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The wisps float around them, though closely enough that Dorian can reach out and curl a hand around them, if necessary. The hallways are dimly lit by their eerie, green glow. He keeps his attention split between their surroundings and the Bull – listening for sounds of movement and sounds of pain or struggle, respectively. In all likelihood, they'll need another break, sooner or later, Dorian is still examining every room they pass, evaluating them for their defensibility.
They walk for a while before Dorian glances back, intent on offering some offhand remark to cut a bit of the tension, but he sees the tightness at corner of the Bull's eye – the faint shadows of a grimace. Dorian hesitates, glancing around to find a serviceable resting point.
"We should stop," he says, in that way that makes it less of a suggestion and more of a command. "Just for a few moments."
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He's been trying to stop babying the thing. Needing to keep the thumping of the staff quiet is getting in his way a little, but he isn't as slow as he was. There's still nothing to funnel the pain into, though, nowhere to put it, so when he answers his his voice is as much a grunt as actual words. "I'm good to go. Need to find a way out of here. Not like there's anywhere safe enough to stop anyway."
Not that the Bull has wasted a lot of attention looking for one. Might help him out if there isn't one, though, if Dorian wants to fight him on this. The Bull wasted their time already, even though it had felt like an okay risk then, before he spent all this time forcing himself along inch by creeping little inch. It had felt like an acceptable risk while he'd been coming down from almost dying and thought maybe Dorian needed a mental reset about as much as he did.
Maybe that was the right call and maybe it wasn't, but if that was the one break he got to call then he's already called it. Easier to get through it if he keeps moving.
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The argument is on the tip of his tongue, but—
Practicality demands they keep going. Practicality demands that if they have a chance of surviving this, they need to find a means of escape as soon as possible – before the darkspawn find some alternate route, now that the beasts know they're here, before another quake collapses the ruins atop them.
Dorian has never been a particularly practical man, however, and while he knows the Bull is right, that doesn't meant that Dorian likes it.
He exhales sharply through his nose – a poor substitute for one of his more theatrical sighs – before he turns to continue on down the hallway. Still, he can't stop himself from demanding imperiously over his shoulder, "You will tell me when you need to stop."
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"You'll know," he says, because Dorian will. Either he'll need to stop because Darkspawn are on them, or because his leg gives out. Pretty obvious either way.
No need to be irritated at Dorian, the Bull reminds himself. This is what he likes about the guy - the concern for the people around him, how deep it goes. It's the pain he's irritated with, after falling into the rhythm of stepping with the one foot, setting the staff carefully on the ground, put as much of his weight as he can on that side, breathe, do it all again. And then do it again. Keep on doing it. Fall into the mindset of it. Enough time doing that and it's starting to get to him.
With no talking to focus on, he falls into the mindset of it again. Until the smell of darkspawn starts getting stronger in his nose, strong enough to break the rhythm when he stops, torn for a second between shoving the staff back into Dorian's hands where it belongs or heading double time toward the nearest break in the wall which, if they get lucky, might just lead them somewhere safer.
He puts a hand on Dorian's shoulder, jerks his chin toward the path in front of them, and shakes his head. Then he tilts a horn toward that spot in the wall where some of it is cracked, leaning against the rubble of something fallen behind it at an angle that might just give the Bull enough room to crawl in.
He moves himself to the spot, leans against the wall so he can hold Dorian's staff out to him, and nods toward the little space. The Bull made the mistake of letting darkspawn get too close once, and doesn't know how recovered Dorian is yet from pulling him out of that. Better to be cautious now. If he's lucky whatever's on the other side won't be as shitty as it looks.
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Close, then, Dorian assumes. Uncomfortably so, if the change of route is any indication.
On instinct, he presses his lips tightly together, nodding at the Bull's direction and waving for the other man to proceed. He follows close behind, and when the Bull indicates the small space, Dorian frowns with uncertainty. The crevice seems snug, even to Dorian, and he looks a little pointedly at the Bull as he takes back his staff.
It is, admittedly, better than facing whatever darkspawn horde might be lingering around a corner; Dorian could manage some of his earlier spells, true, but he had been lucky to have those corpses to work with early in the battle. There was no guarantee he would be so fortunate again. Reluctantly, Dorian flicks his fingers, sending his wisp ahead of him to light the way, before slinging his staff into its holster at his back.
He offers the Bull one more heavy look – something that says stay close – before easing his way into the small space.
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It's alright. He'll keep it together a little better this time. There's someone in front of him to focus on as he lowers himself carefully to the ground, as he twists to fit his way through the gap and inside. Rubble and stone sitting crookedly against one another make the ceiling low for as far as Dorian's creepy spirit thing illuminates. Which isn't really that far, so hey, maybe they won't have to go too far before the space starts to open up. You never know.
Dorian being in front of him helps. He wishes he could say, even to himself, that it's just because being behind Dorian is such a nice view, but it just does him good. Reminds him he's not still stuck in the same place he fell off that cliff into, in that weird, indefinite stretch of time after Dorian left, dragging himself along in a space a lot like this and feeling his focus, his reality, starting to go a little loose.
There's someone else in here, and that helps him keep his sense of direction, his sense of time. That's one thing he learned in that weird, in-between period after Seheron: once those things start to come loose in your head, that's when you've really lost it.
It isn't that bad. There's some good reasons it isn't that bad and, after the worst of that smell has passed - the heavy footsteps getting closer and then right outside, the growls and grumbles and whatever passes for darkspawn talking to each other, the sound of heavy armour, one smacking something hard against the wall right next to their heads and the Bull's too deep, too regular breathing sounding louder in his ears than it might actually be, the pain a hot, welcome thing inside him, a distraction - after the worst of that has passed, after the smell has started to fade, then the Bull can share with Dorian what exactly isn't that bad about it, about being crowded inside here.
"Might be better staying in here 'till we hit a dead end," he mutters once it's safe to, in a voice that would have sounded normal back before anybody called him the Iron Bull. His voice could weigh heavy more often back then, come out curt and to the point. At least, when he was talking to the ones who called him Hissrad. The others needed someone friendlier.
His voice is some kind of normal, anyway. So that's fine.
"If we can pass that hallway out there and find some of the bigger rooms again we'll be better off. Fight out there would have been more close-quarters than your last one. Too close. Even if I could still fight between you and them."
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The impulse is interruped by the sound of footsteps, by the distant snarling, hissing, growling of darkspawn, made alien and indistinct by the small, enclosed space. Dorian freezes, tossing up a hand and flexing his fingers, bringing the wisps in close to dampen the light. He doubts the cracks in the wall are large enough for the wisps' glow to seep through, but Dorian would rather be cautious than risk the darkspawn figuring out where they are and smashing down the wall to get to them.
He freezes as the noises come closer. He lifts up his free hand to clamp his palm over his nose and mouth – both to block out the stench and to trap in any sounds that might escape him – but he quickly remembers himself, remembers the Bull's earlier warning, and bites down on his lips instead. When the darkspawn finally wander off, Dorian lets out a near silent breath through his lips.
He glances back at the Bull, brow creasing at the heaviness in the other man's voice. There's logic in the plan, of course – the Bull has been nothing but infuriatingly reasonable during this entire predicament – but Dorian doesn't hasten to agree just yet.
Instead, he whispers, "Are you all right? This can hardly be comfortable for you."
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"Plenty of uncomfortable crap waiting for us out there too, so." The Iron Bull's usual ease is more slippery than it should be, his voice hitting it in a glancing blow and then ricocheting off somewhere a little too tense, trying a little too hard. He lets out a quiet, frustrated little huff. He can do better than that. "If you want to go out there and take it all on with no real backup, you let me know and I can get out of your way."
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Dorian trails off, uncertain. They either suffer through the discomfort in here, or they suffer through the exposure out there, and neither option is what Dorian might consider palatable.
Especially not when the darkspawn are disconcertingly close, judging by the sounds from only moments ago. Stepping out of the relative safety of this crawlspace would in all likelihood lead them into a confrontation neither of them is ready for, and they'd either be torn apart of left sickened by the taint – all because Dorian was concerned about comfort.
(It makes him think of Alexius, pacing in their laboratory as they waited for some potion to brew. I left ahead of them to attend to business in Minrathous. If I hadn't been so selfish, if I hadn't been so single-minded, if I had only just been there—)
He shudders at the thought, and he lets out a slow breath of his own.
"You're right." Continuing today's trend, of course. His voice is quiet, a little shaky. "I don't like our chances out there."
He lifts his gloved hand, splaying his fingers and letting the wisps drift again – as much as they can and for as much as it helps within this confined space.
"You'll tell me if you need a break?" A question, this time, because Dorian's judgment thus far hasn't been quite on target.
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Because if it really comes to that, Dorian will be the first to find out, one way or the other. If it was a little easier to do, the Bull would be laughing right now. As if he hasn't needed a break since this whole thing started - wanted one, anyway. But if it makes Dorian feel that little bit better to think the Bull might put them both back into danger just for his own peace of mind, the Bull can let him pretend.
Because he isn't the only one shaken up here, is he? The Bull would have to be a lot more out of it than he is not to notice Dorian's shudder, the unsteady undertone that crept into Dorian's voice for a moment. Only happened once the Bull brought up the idea of Dorian fighting darkspawn though, the way that would inevitably end right now, with Dorian's only backup mostly just a dead weight carrying an axe. What the Bull needs to do, what Dorian probably needs him to do, is find Dorian some kind of distraction. But his mind isn't really his own right now; like it or not, it's only going to obey him so far.
"If we do go back out there keep me in front," is what his mind comes up with for him. "We'll stick close to walls, find a corner, try to let you keep your distance." If he can make that work. If he can stay upright long enough to be any kind of barrier between the darkspawn and Dorian at all.
He can, if it comes to that. He's going to make it work. It's the closest thing to comfort that he has, even if it isn't quite enough. "I would just give you this stupid mask," he mutters, frustrated, "if I knew it was clean."
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"That's hardly a plan," he says, though a small part of him admits that's it's suitably dramatic. The Bull, standing with only the assistance of some sturdy dwarven wall, acting as a barrier between the darkspawn and Dorian. Under normal circumstances, that would be their exact arrangement. In their current predicament, it would practically be a death sentence for the Bull.
Still, it's nice to know that even the Bull is inclined to a few poor ideas, and it helps Dorian to focus.
The offer gives him pause, however, and his expression softens.
"Even if it were clean, I wouldn't take it. I've seen what Blight-sickness does." He presses his lips together, thinks briefly of Felix, pale and weak in bed before Dorian and Alexius made their first breakthrough. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
He steels himself and forces himself to continue through the narrow space – and if it gives him an excuse to look forward, to keep himself turned away to hide the unease on his face, more's the better.
"I studied the taint for a while." He works to keep his voice casual, level. He's discussed this with the Inquisitor before, of course, but they had been at Skyhold – quite far away from the threat of sickness. "The effects of it on the living – on humans, at least. My mentor and I were searching for a means to cure it, though as you can likely tell, we weren't successful."
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It isn't as hard as it could be. Dorian's got a nice voice, even manages to make that my-shit-doesn't-stink accent sound good, and it's always easier to pay attention to people when what they're saying is important. Easier when it gives him something to think about, gives him some pieces to put together with other fragments of what Dorian's told him.
"That what the two of you fell out over?" he asks, instead of thinking about twisting to squeeze through a bend in the path, about the way doing it scrapes hard enough at the scabs over his shoulders to get a couple of them bleeding again. It's big enough for him. It's big enough, and that's fine. What needs paying attention to is Dorian, and fitting together a picture of his past. "Your research hit one too many walls? Or-" and there's an indirect, almost delicate way to ask this, even if he can't get that tight-wound thread out of his voice for long enough to get his tone to match. "-Were you working on a time limit? Stopped looking for that cure once it hit?"
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"We hit a wall," Dorian says slowly. He presses his lips together, remembering how ragged they had both felt in those last few days, how thin their tempers had become. "Alexius and his family had been abroad, but Alexius returned home earlier to attend to business. His wife, son, and their retainer were attacked by darkspawn. His wife was killed, and Felix was sickened with the Blight.
"We were making remarkable progress until it we couldn't. We had bought Felix weeks, then months, maybe a year or two, but nothing more. Alexius and I had been working nonstop, and we were both exhausted. Our failures weighed heavy upon us, and even when it became clear that an outright cure for the Blight was beyond us, Alexius insisted we continue.
"In return, I was... unkind." An understatement, admittedly, but the heaviness in his voice will surely give him away, regardless. "We argued, and in the heat of the moment, I ultimately told Alexius that we needed to give up this fool's errand, that he needed to accept that Felix was going to die."
Dorian pauses when the light of the wisp illuminates the edge of a crack in the wall. He listens intently for any signs of movement, but when he hears nothing, he continues.
"Needless to say, Alexius did not take that well. We yelled a bit more, and I flounced away."
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Maybe this is the only way Dorian could tell him this though, here and now, when they're here in the dark together with darkspawn somewhere on the other side of one of those walls. The Bull's seen that before. People will tell you all sorts of intimate, sensitive, or just plain terrible info when they're hip deep in shit, in the dark, part of them thinking this is it, they're really going to die here. Something about that tends to make the guy standing shoulder to shoulder with you feel a lot more trustworthy than he did when things were calm and quiet, back when the two of you felt safe.
But then again, Dorian's already shown the Bull some trust, hasn't he? A little. By Dorian's standards. Maybe this isn't something Dorian's going to feel weird about having told the Bull, later. The Bull's going to have to think over that when thinking starts coming easier again.
"You said Alexius wouldn't have liked finding out his son was serving you breakfast," the Bull murmurs, because thinking out loud is going to help his thoughts flow a little easier. "I thought that was just because he was... I don't know, a high-class 'vint, had ideas about servants or something. Assumed that was what you meant."
Which isn't to say there wasn't a little bit of that going on. But if Dorian's friend was that sick that puts a different spin onto it. Easy to assume when you don't know, not see some hint of truth that's there.
The Bull's quiet again, for a much shorter moment. "You flounced out, though. 'Flounce' really the right word?"
Maybe that tension that won't leave the Bull's voice is a good thing. He might as well make it work for him, anyway. In this case it might help make it harder to read any hint of gentleness or judgement into the question, make it sound less like he's pushing Dorian to reframe his part in what went down and more like he's just asking for clarification. This is how he'd normally handle it, he thinks. Just asking questions.
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"Felix's sickness put a stop to those late night kitchen raids, for good or for ill."
He pauses, testing slab of stone that slants overhead. It seems stable enough, unlikely to fall on them as they pass underneath, but Dorian still gestures to it on the off-chance the Bull hadn't already noticed it – which he almost certainly already has. The Bull is frighteningly observant, even at the worst of times. Still, it helps Dorian to feel a little useful.
"It was almost certainly a flouncing," Dorian replies, and while he still keeps his voice low, he manages to imbue it with false brightness. "I stomped off in a huff before Alexius could have the satisfaction of throwing me out of his estate, and we drifted apart. I was tired of chasing after this impossible goal and wanted to turn our attentions to something more attainable. In that moment, I was so certain that I could snap him out of his delusions – instead, I only drove him further into them."
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