killedwithlove | For insurgoaltus

For insurgoaltus

The next day, Cole had woken Dorian up to let him know he was heading out with the Inquisitor. She wanted to go to Emprise du Lion for a few days, which meant being kind to Dorian and leaving him behind and taking Cole instead, since he never minded the cold.

Cole, Solas and Blackwall set out into Emprise du Lion with Cadash.

They were gone for eight days. Not unusual with travel times, but they came back in poor shape. Blackwall's shield was near split in half, Solas was using his staff to aid his walking and Cole was being carried in the cart rather than walking alongside the pony and talking to her.

Cadash was bloodied and bruised and looking the best of then. Which wasn't saying much, but they'd done their jobs and kept her safe. At some cost apparently.

The scouts were saying words like 'ambush' and 'slave caravans, growing the lyrium in them even before the cart drew in through the gates and people started to clamber off.

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"I'm not handsome," Cole said softly. He knew he wasn't handsome. Or pretty. But he didn't mind that he wasn't those things. "We can do it again? I don't know if I can do it again right now. I feel like I just finished fighting a dragon, but really, really good as well."

The light tug felt nice and Cole hummed softly, leaning up slightly into it.

"No, I am the handsome one in this relationship." He shifted his hand a little, so he could sweep the hair away from Cole's features. "But you have many appealing features ... your eyes, your mouth - with and without smiling, although I prefer the former. You have a very attractive body, and your hands are brilliant, all the way around. Mostly importantly though ... you are a good person, Cole."

His mouth crooked, "We can do it again. After we rest from slaying the Dragon of Sexual Appetites."

He tugged again, letting his own eyes close. "I enjoy being kissed by someone who actually likes me. It's novel."

Cole's hair was perpetually in his eyes, but he liked that when it made Dorian run his fingers through it to sweep it aside and look at him. "And you're beautiful. Inside and outside." The outside had taken more trouble to notice. The inside was just apparent to him.

"I like you a lot. And I like kissing you. A lot. Why is it novel?"

Dorian cracked a smile at that, not that he wasn't already smiling like a total fool. "Trust you to see the inside well before the outside... but I am glad both are appreciated."

"Well, simply because most like to take their pleasure and run..." He tipped his head, so he could steal another kiss. "You seem content to stay and burrow."

The good thing was that Cole wasn't watching Dorian's face and was instead watching some middle distance as he rolled the taste of Dorian on his tongue. "I'm learning to see outsides as well." It had taken time to realise they were important and not the same as the inside.

"I don't want to leave you." He tipped his head up as he was kissed, a soft sigh of contentment escaping his lips as Dorian did so.

Very good that he was not, for Dorian knew he looked as dewy as some young waif with his first lover. He stroked Cole's hair again, speaking quietly, "Just remember ... the insides are always more important. Although maintaining the outside should always be a priority."

He kissed that upturned lips again, "Then you don't have to.."

"I don't need to remember. I already know it." Kindness, integrity, empathy, they would always mean more to him than being pretty or strongly muscled.

"Cadash would get upset if I left. I said I'd stay here." He took another kiss and pressed himself against Dorian. "I want to stay here with you."

"Then you are wiser than most." He murmured, before pressing his lips again to Cole's, letting their lips linger together for a moment.

"I am certainly not kicking you out of bed, Nug." He curved his fingers up the base of the other man's spine, drawing out little circles. "You may stay as long as you wish."

Cole shivered at the light touch of fingers over his spine. "Feels nice," he murmured into Dorian's skin. "You're always so gentle to me. With me. I don't know which of those is right."

"They are both right. You've known so much suffering, Cole. Yours, or someone else's. I feel as if ... well. You need someone to show you what kindness feels like. Affection with no chance of fear." He sighed quietly, "Someone ought to be showing you loving compassion - I'm rather good at it."

"If you get close to people, you'll lose them."

It wasn't him reading Dorian. It was his own experience. He lost people when he talked to them, let them know him. One way or another.

"You're good at loving people. You just don't pick very good people to love sometimes." He arched to look up at Dorian. "You made better choices here."

Dorian's fingers pause, before he states quietly. "You will not lose me."

He kept stroking his way up and down the line of Cole's spine, as he looked back down at the other man. "Well I am glad you realize you are a much better choice."

"You don't hate what I am. And you don't want to make me go back to the Fade." Both those things were rare. Together, they felt nigh on unique.

Cole was very clearly enjoying the soft stroking, sinking further and further.

"Not me. The Iron Bull. Cremisius. You were flirting with better choices of people. People who would treat you like a person with feelings."

"No, I do not want you to go back to the Fade." Honestly they could stay here forever, as long as Cole's leg knitted up, and Dorian would be quite fine with it.

A flicker of amusement as Cole slipped down to his chest again, all but curling up and around him. Just like a cat.

His fingers slowed for a moment, before they poked. "You are a person with feelings. You feel everything. You just don't understand all of them."

"I don't want to go back either. Rhys did, once he stopped being angry. And Solas does, sometimes. He liked me being less human than I am now. I'm learning to feel things for me now."

He went back to stroking and kneading, eyes closed and breathing slow and steady.

"Why are you poking me?"

"Well, that's because they don't want you to lose who you are. I don't think either of them really understands that -- when you are made of Compassion, then you are always going to be compassionate. You can just be other things, too." Something of a hypocrite, Solas. Defining Cole by his spiritual state and not by who he was.

One corner of his mouth twisted up.

"Because you are saying that Iron Bull and Krem are better than you for me. I believe as your lover I can say who is better for me, eh?"

"I don't want to stop being Compassion. But I want to be Cole as well. Cole... he wanted so much from life. He thought if he had no magic, maybe life would've been better. So I don't have magic."

It wasn't a choice he had made at the time, but one he could understand now he was more mortal.

"I'm not! I was saying that they were better choices than you used to make. You didn't start this between us. I did." He looked a little smug and pleased. "I started this. And you let me start it."

"No one is saying that you cannot be both... and you should be. You can be Compassion, and you can be Cole, and the only thing you shall lose is your anonymity." He thinks about it, before whispering quietly, "I believe Cole was right ... about not having magic for him, and for you."

He tipped his head, amusement flaring, before his grey eyes glinted, "That you did, and yes I did, and what a fun ride it has been."

"I like being both." He liked being Compassion, now he remembered. But he wouldn't give up being Cole and all the new, human things he was learning.

"But Dorian," Cole said, sounding quite serious and innocent at once. "Neither of us has done any riding yet."

"Good." Which was the point that Dorian went back to stroking his bare spine - until Cole managed to make him choke. It was a choke that turned into a low laugh.

"Well you may ride me whenever you like -- although I believe I would prefer to ride you."

Cole smiled, distinctly smiled into Dorian's chest. He most certainly knew what he was saying some of the time.

"Do you want to do that with me? Not now. But sometime when my leg is better and I don't have to rest it?" He didn't presume he did. Many men and women were intimate without ever doing what he knew they were talking about.

He could feel you smiling into his chest, you little sneaky Nug. He pinched that rather brilliant rear end, before whispering in his ear.

"Yes, I most certainly do. When you are better, perhaps I shall show you how much I want to."

Cole gave a sharp, short shriek of surprise at the pinch, burying his face back into Dorian's chest after.

"I already know how much you want to..." He shifted slightly, cheeks starting to flush with pink again. "Feeling full and fulfilled, flushed and fluid and fluttering..." He shivered.

He smirked at that, before he felt his own heart jump up a notch at that. He smoothed back Cole's hair, his voice quiet and with just the right amount of purr. He, after all, knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Would you like me to do that to you?"

"I want to do that to you. Make you feel that way. One day." He wasn't in a rush. And he'd need his strength and both legs.

"And if you are okay with you doing that to me... we can do that too. I want to try everything with you."

For insurgoaltus

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