killedwithlove | for insurgoaltus

Cole didn't reply and instead snuggled into the bed again, vanishing into the bed clothes.

He did get restless during the hour or so that Dorian was gone, but he listened to people, hesitating outside the door and leaving, and out in the courtyard, living their lives.

But he kept his word and didn't get out of bed.

Dorian returned with a tray filled with food and wine, along with a few books to entertain them both. He slipped inside, quietly, just to make sure that he didn't wake Cole if he was sleeping again.

Cole was sitting up a bit more, propped into the pillows and a cushion under his leg to keep it relaxed and bent and the stress off of it.

He was already watching the door when Dorian came in. "No one came by. They were worried to have it confirmed that we had sex."

Dorian smiled to see Cole sitting up, but that smile faded a little around the edges at Cole's comment. "Ah. I had wondered ... well."

He closed the door firmly behind him, glowering at it for a moment. "If it offends them, then I suppose there is nothing for it. So much for false friends." He sniffed, as he carried the tray to the table near the bed, before he leaned over to make sure that Cole's pillows weren't smashed up and he was comfortable.

Cole sat up a bit more, canting his head. "Not our friends. Varric isn't up. Sera thinks we're both gross."

Servants, visitors, people who had passed by up here. "No, not offended. Uncertain. Confused. Protective, of both of us. Is the demon trying to get to him? Can it consent to that?" He reached out to Dorian. "Our friends just want us happy and healing."

"Ah." But there was a world of relief in that simple phrase, as Dorian pulled his small table up to the bed, and put his chair next to Cole. He wrapped his fingers around Cole's, sighing softly.

"Well, that will be an interesting conversation to have, once someone is willing to have it with us."

"You don't need to look for attacks from everywhere. I'd know if attacks were coming. I promise." He tugged Dorian close enough to kiss him softly.

"They want to let me heal. They saw me being carried."

Dorian shifted the table again, because Cole was going to fall out of bed if he kept reaching out to hug and kiss Dorian in his chair, and gently nudged the young man over so he could sit on the edge of the bed with him.

"Well, then they are smarter than I gave them credit for, and I ... will stop looking for attacks that haven't come yet. Especially since I have such an adorable warning system." He nuzzled a kiss against Cole's cheek, before he made himself a plate. "Now, would you like anything? Your bathwater should be up here soon."

Cole shifted over obediently and then stretched out to put his head in Dorian's lap, resting on his thigh.

"No. I don't like eating. It feels weird in my mouth." He thought for a little while, drawing a pattern on Dorian's knee. "Do you think I'll find it the same sort of awkward when I use my mouth on you?"

Dorian carefully ate a grape, unpeeled of course, before he nodded his head. Well, he could attest to that. Eating was rather strange - and then Cole's words caught up with Dorian's chain of thought and he choked. Hit himself in the chest and wheezed out, "I'm sorry - when you what?"

"Use my mouth on you." Cole repeated the phrase obediently and blinked up at Dorian with an innocent face.

It was entirely possible he was trolling Dorian.

"When you ... and you want to know ... Great Maker." Dorian put his hand over his face for a moment, before glowering helplessly at Cole. "One, I certainly hope you would not be biting and chewing on me, and two, it all depends on what you ... ah, swallow ... are you twisting me around, Cole?"

Cole finally smiled. "A little. I know sex. I know about having sex like that. I want to. Eventually. I know what to do."

He didn't go into it more than that. He'd seen things. Cole had done things.

Dorian muttered a few choice words in Tevene, before he tweaked Cole's nose just so. "What I want to do is give you a good fireball to your hind-quarters, you brat."

He followed that up with stroking his fingers through Cole's hair, adding, "What I will do is say this, whenever you are ready, you let me know, and we will try it. Yes?"

Cole wrinkled his nose at the tweak, but he didn't stop smiling. "Or a zap of lightning. But you won't."

He butted up into the brush through his hair. "Yes. When we're both ready. You should eat your breakfast."

"No I won't, but I will think it very hard." Dorian promised, as he brought his bread over to him, along with his coffee, to sip and chew. He also kept stroking Cole's hair, giving into the urge to massage his scalp why he did so.

"Yes Mother."

Cole hummed, agreed absently and relaxed more into the petting and touching and head massaging.

"I'm not your mother. You like me."

Dorian finished his bread, and nursed his coffee, as he smirked slightly.

"That is very true. I like you a great deal more than I hate my mother."

"Lavender perfume and too rich wine soaking into her robes, gold jangling from her ears and dimming the shrill screech of her voice." He nuzzled Dorian's leg. "The Iron Bull had no parents. Neither did I. Cassandra's were executed for treason against the throne."

Dorian made a face at that memory, before he looked down at Cole, a stab of sympathy coming over his face at the thought of it. "Well ... I suppose it is a good thing we are all part of the Inquisitor's family then, hmm?"

He stroked the side of Cole's face. "We cannot chose where we are born, but we can chose who we end up with, at the end. I chose Cadash - I chose this ... bizarre menagerie of friends, and ... I choose you, Cole."

There, he said it.

"Varric avoids his family too. Except his brother. He's dead. The red lyrium got him years ago."

He closed his eyes at the petting. It was abundantly clear, Cole enjoyed being touched and petted, even though he'd never really been much of one for physical contact before. Before he'd decided he liked hugs and crawling into Dorian's lap to cuddle.

"I know." He looked up and smiled. "It's nice."

"We are a sad bunch of orphans, aren't we?" Dorian murmured, mostly to himself, before he melted at that smile. He stole Cole's hand, so he could press a kiss into his palm, and then released it to go back to stroking that pale, fine mess of hair.

"I am glad you think so."

"I'm not an orphan. Spirits don't have parents. Cole was an orphan." Blackwall wasn't, or maybe he was, Cole couldn't tell, too many other things blocked his sight.

He stroked Dorian's knee again. "Very nice."

"Not in the true sense of the world - but you very much are alone in the world. Well, except for us and those here at Skyhold." They were truly a family forged by fire, blood, and sacrifice. Perhaps that was how family truly should be.

He hummed again, smiling back. "Good. It's meant to be very nice."

Cole lay there, thinking about that. He had been alone, very alone, for a very long time. Maybe he'd been like that in the Fade, too much will for most Compassion spirits.

"I... don't really want to be alone again. I like being with people. And you especially."

for insurgoaltus

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