killedwithlove | For insurgoaltus

Dorian, for his part, had gone back to a lot of his old haunts while Cole was away. Staying up all night researching, drinking a little too much at the tavern. However, he did limit his gambling and he definitely limited his flirtations. He spent more time playing chess with Cullen, as they leaned over and whispered over the board strategies against mages and Red templars alike.

It was during one of these games when they heard the horns sound, along with a scout rushing ahead to let them know that the Inquisitor was back - she was hurt but not badly, but the others ... Dorian was rushing from the table so fast one might wonder if he used blood magic to transport. He was at the Gates, staring at the three of them walking, sputtering out, "What in the name of Andraste's Knickers! What did you do, go playing with a dragon? Where's Cole?"

"In the caravan. He tried to take on a red templar, monstrous, huge thing. By himself." Cadash gestured with her head. "He's going to be okay."

Cole himself popped up over the back of the cart. There was a bandage on his head and old stains on his face from a head wound that had bled prolifically. "We found a dragon, but it was snoring, so we walked around it."

"He could've lost the leg. It'll heal fine, but-" Cadash threw up her hands. "You try and talk sense into him."

"That is a lot more challenging than you'd think, Inquisitor ... ye gods, look at your face." Dorian sighed, before giving her a gentle pulse of healing energy.

Solas arched an eyebrow, but allowed Dorian to do the same as he walked by, and Blackwall's gruff, 'Don't need it' got met by a flat look before he rolled his eyes and let Dorian chant a healing spell. Finally, finally Dorian got at the cart while he glowered helplessly at Cole.

"What were you thinking, taking on a behemoth, all on your own! You could have been killed, you daft idiot!" Was how he greeted him, as he went to take Cole's hand, and using some magic to heal up the worst of it.

Cole reached out his hand to Dorian and pale light chased along it. Healing spells were fueled by the Fade, but more than that, they were powered by spirits. Spirits of Compassion.

The spell was more powerful for Cole's presence and assistance.

"He was coming up behind the group. So I came up behind him, red, boiling, the snow cools, chills, chases the heat back, can think to check my feet have armour, a gap, just big enough for Silkdart to slide into, kissing flesh and bone."

"He came up behind it, stabbed it in the kidneys and then seemed surprised that it backhanded him into a quarry wall and followed up with a spray of lyrium spikes," Cadash elaborated.

Cole looked at his leg. His armour was rent straight through the thigh plate, bandaging underneath holding his thigh together. "It hurt. But not as much as Silkdart."

Dorian wrapped his fingers through Cole's, his jaw tight as he looked over at Cadash, then back to Cole. He closed his eyes in silent frustration and made himself count to ten in Tevene. Slowly.

"Cole - when you are facing something that is roughly - oh - three times your size ... I do want you to remember that Silkdart might just look like a toothpick to them." He added, dryly, as he moved his hand over his leg, "Also that something your size will, in fact, throw you like a bloody ragdoll."

He looked over to the Inquisitor. "It's my unstudied opinion you'll all need about three or four days of bedrest -- of course that will be up to Mother Cluck-cluck to decide. But ... " And here he lowered his voice, "We both know she won't look after Cole. Solas might but he's too badly wounded himself."

Cole helped by counting as well. Murmured under his breath.

"It was a good strike. Two of those would've ended his suffering." Except for the whole being thrown across the quarry getting in the way of a second strike in the other kidney.

Cadash sighed slightly. "She'd try, but he'd make good his escape. I don't know if Cole even has a bed."

"I don't," he added cheerfully. "But Dorian let me sleep in his."

Cadash raised one tattooed eyebrow and said nothing about that. "In that case, Dorian can look after you at least until Solas is well enough to do it. Since he seems to be volunteering."

"A bolt of lightening would have done that." Dorian said dryly, before he rolled his eyes. "I keep telling Solas, flashy or no, it gets the damned job done."

Cole's comment momentarily made Dorian's ears turn red, but he quickly changed the subject, "Cole has ... nightmares, bad ones. He trusts me to take care of him." He squeezed Cole's hand, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Which he had best do now, by agreeing to stay bloody well put."

"How can I help people if I'm stuck in one room?!" He was starting to pout. Possibly work himself into a sulk of not being allowed to run himself ragged and into further injury to help others.

"I didn't even know Cole slept," Cadash murmured. "Try and get him to rest. I'll consider it a minor miracle if you manage to get him clean as well."

"We packed my head with snow!"

"Miracle," Cadash muttered, stomping off in the direction of her rooms.

"Well let me ask you a better question, Cole, how are you going to help people if you are lying flat on your arse from blood loss and stubborn weariness?" Dorian stated flatly, before he nodded at Cadash. "I will - and you rest as well, Inquisitor."

He turned back to Cole, wincing faintly at that, before he leaned in to whisper firmly, "You are going to go to my rooms, you are going to have a hot bath and then you are going to rest or so help me, Cole, I will think enough thoughts to make you drown in guilt." He straightened, and sighed, "... perhaps we can have some of your prostitute friends over, so you can feel out their problems, all right?"

Cole watched Dorian, eyes wide and taking everything in and then he nodded slightly. "All right. I'll come and rest." He could behave and follow instructions, even if he didn't always seem like he could.

"Solas told me I shouldn't walk on my leg. But I don't think I have enough balance to walk on my hands for that long. I could do it for a while."

"Excellent, then we shouldn't have any issues." Dorian leaned up, before arching an eyebrow at that statement as the cart pulled up to the front of the hold, and he nodded to the soldiers. "Take him to my quarters - and let Molly ...serving girl on my floor, that we'll need a tub and water right away - don't worry about making it hot, I'll handle that.

"Yes Ma - Ser Dorian." The soldier saluted, as they moved to get Cole's cot. Dorian saw Varric's face popping up over the top of the balcony, his brown eyes widening with concern. He waved him down.

Then he turned his attention back to Cole as they started to move up the stairs. "I did mention blood loss, did I not? Because that would happen if you walked on your hands and feet."

Cole wriggled, uncomfortable wriggle, not happy one, and fussed as the soldiers lifted the stretcher from the cart, mumbling to himself about something. Maybe an ill fitting shoe, or a broken toe.

"It isn't bleeding anymore, the potion made the skin close up and the muscle knit itself together. Sort of."

It would hold if not aggravated, which was probably the point of not letting him walk on it.

"You'll be there soon, Dorian?"

"I know our potions, Cole. It will make it hold, make it heal, but it won't work if you push yourself too hard. Trust me on that." Oh, the Fallow Mires and all the undead. Ugh.

He squeezed Cole's hand again, nodding. "I promise. I am just going to let Varric know where to come and visit you, as soon as we have you cleaned up and tucked in. He'll tell the others and we'll probably have a party in my room come the evening. So everyone will come to you to get help, won't that be nice?"

He sighed, "And I'll have to hid my good brandy."

No one liked the Fallow Mires. Even Cole didn't like the Fallow Mires.

Cole didn't like being out of action anymore than any other of the other two sneak specialists. They were used to being agile and mobile and for Cole, who had once been able to essentially will himself back together, it was exceptionally difficult to get used to the idea of sleep.

"Cadash told me to sleep. But I don't want to sleep where I might enter the Fade alone." He let go of Dorian's hand as he was hefted up and out of gripping range. "I don't need everyone. But that would be...

"... nice?"

And then he was out of conversation range and tilting his head to talk to the front soldier.

Dorian shook his head a little, "You don't to sleep, Cole, and we don't need to have everyone there just ... " He sighed as he was carried away to Dorian's rooms. "Don't do anything daft, please?"

He made his way up the stairs, where he found Varric moving towards him quickly, concern filling those honey colored brown eyes, "Sparkler, what happened!?"

So Dorian repeated the story, with a lot of hand waving and eyerolling and a little bit of, "No sense whatsoever of survival!"

He finished with a sigh of, "... and now, he'll be staying in my rooms, which I should make sure he hasn't filled with nugs and crying prostitutes."

Varric, for his credit, just laughed for about a minute, before promising to come and visit the kid as soon as he found some grapes or something for the visit. That or an injured cat, for Cole to fix.

Disgruntled, but amused, Dorian made his way back to his quarters.

Cole had fussed.

He had also managed to locate the problem with the boot and reset the dislocated toe. And told the other soldier to just ask her out, she was waiting for him to do it, but she was scared he wasn't really that interested in her.

And, in deference to Dorian not wanting dirt in his bed, Cole convinced them to set him up on the thick pelt on the floor, a cushion under his injured leg and lying on his back in front of the fire, relaxed and quiet.

Which was how he was when Dorian got there. Relaxed, still dressed in his armour and scabbards, but quiet on the pelt and not pushing himself. The only stressful movement he been splitting the stitching holding the armour plates in and sliding out the busted metal, turning it in his hands.

Dorian came up to the room with a bag filled with healing supplies, noting with satisfaction they had brought the heavy tub filled with water. He turned a fire shell around it, starting to warm the water, as he tossed in elfroot and blood lotus, along with a soap made of dawnstone slipped in, making it ... well. Rather pink and frothy.

He snorted at it faintly, before he moved over to Cole him, concern flashing through his grey eyes. "You really do like testing my public emotional register, don't you? Keep this up and people will think I actually give a damn."

He eyed the clothing. "Right, well, we're going to have to get you out of these filthy things and into the bath. You can wear some things of mine while you recuperate."

"Elfroot for healing, blood lotus for recuperation, you can make a poison out of blood lotus, grind up the stalk and thicken the sap, coat the blade and it will stick to the wound and weep until they die." Tears of the Dead, one of the only useful things they found in Fallow Mire.

He reached a hand up to Dorian. "You think if you were there, I wouldn't have been hurt. I would have been. We fight. Sometimes, we get hurt. I'll heal. That's what people do, right? Not just... put themselves back together."

It's his first serious injury since that fateful trip with Solas, Varric and Cadash.

"If I'm wearing your clothes, what will you wear?"

"Good god, I hate the Fallow Mire, but yes. I am not making a poison out of the damned blood lotus." Dorian answered tartly, before he took Cole's hand, wrapping his fingers around the other man's.

"...You're right, about all of it." He looked at him, his lips twisting a little. "However this is not going to stop me from worrying about you, Cole."

He sighed softly as he looked over the outfit. "All right, how are we getting you out of this?"

Cole held onto his hand, not trying to pull himself upright yet. "Everyone hates the Fallow Mire. Because it's an awful place."

Which is surprisingly simple and clear cut from Cole. But Fallow Mire doesn't have space for anything else. Death and awful.

"Out of my clothes? The usual way? I take them off?" He started fumbling over buckles, layers of armour and clothing that needed to be peeled away.

Dorian squeezed his hand, one corner of his mouth lifting up at the corners. "It truly is. I cannot think of a single thing to recommend it. Not even the scenery."

His lips pressed together thoughtfully, as he looked at the outfit. "Right, well, I shall work on your top half, and you work on your bottom half. Seems ... appropriate enough." He rolled his eyes, "And if your arm is hurt, you should let me do that."

He worked on the buckles, easing them off carefully. He wasn't worried about seeing Cole naked, Maker knew he had the self control of a damned Brother, but he was worried about hurting him while stripping him.

Edited 2015-04-15 00:18 (UTC)

"I can't work on the bottom half while my arms are busy." Busy, in this case, was clearly referring to the fact that he was being stripped by Dorian.

He looked at his arm. "Is it hurt?" He looked to Dorian and relaxed again, letting the mage get buckles undone and ease the armour off of him. It was heavy armour, for a rogue, but Cadash had picked up Cole's tendency to take on things bigger than he was and tried to protect him suitably.

He was also wearing his undershirt backwards.

"I think it's just my leg which is hurt now. The potion made my head stop bleeding, then Solas used some magic."

"... Fair enough, you shall work on the bottom when I am finished with the top." Because all logic aside, Dorian was not stripping off Cole's pants, thank you very much. Well, not that he didn't want to ... but when you courted someone you didn't tear off their clothes.

You did, however, note that you were going to show him how to put them on. "...Well, I am glad Solas was able to do something useful if he wasn't tossing a barrier over you." He tugged the undershirt loose, gently putting his hands on Cole's shoulders. "I am ... very happy that you weren't hurt worse."

He made a face, "Although these bruises do tell a sad tale... now, off with your socks and pants and under things. You're getting a wash."

Cole was quiet, letting Dorian undress him and moving enough to help with that end.

"The barrier shattered." So yes, he had been protected, but it was no real protection against the blow that he thrown him into the wall. It probably saved him broken bones from the impact.

"I don't have socks." Just armour, shoes that probably shouldn't be called shoes for how thin they were and smallclothes. But he did start pulling off belts and shimmying out of clothing. He did at least keep the pressure off of his leg.

Dorian closed his eyes, because if Cole had hit hard enough for a magical barrier to shatter ... he should have been dead. Or at least with worse injuries. He quietly cursed under his breath, before he lifted Cole under the arms, strong enough for a mage -- or for just anyone really.

Still, swinging a staff around in the Tevinter fashion did take training. It wasn't all libraries. He made sure to hold Cole by the waist, so he could lean against him as he got out of his small clothes and the like.

"...I do not like being scared about what happens to you." He finally managed.

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