Work Text:
It had been a fun night, all things considered. His coin purse was a bit lighter, but he’d made it heavier the night before so all things being equal, he’d call it a wash. And tomorrow was a new day.
As Varric wandered through the balmy late night, hands clasped loosely behind his back, he took in the deep shadows around him, enjoying the peace of the empty grounds. He was feeling a little warm and tipsy (well, maybe a little more than tipsy) so he didn’t mind taking the scenic route back to his bed. Walking felt good and he wanted some time to think anyway.
He’d gotten some solid writing done at the tavern earlier, before he’d been cajoled into a late night game of Wicked Grace. As much as he enjoyed the peace and quiet of his quarters where he could focus, there was something comforting, inspiring even, about the warm boisterous noise of the Herald’s Rest. After a few ales, it just became background noise, a comfortable hum that reminded him how people were: what they looked like when they drank, what they sounded like when they laughed, what they smelled like after a hard day’s work. Sometimes it was distracting, but sometimes it fed his writing like fuel for a flame.
Watching the Inquisitor and the Commander awkwardly dance around each other was just an added bonus. Varric chuckled to himself at the memory and turned a corner. Neither Lavellan nor Cullen spent much time in the Rest, but he’d been lucky tonight. Lavellan had been flirting, badly, and Cullen had been blushing, stammering through their back and forth.
Ah, budding romance.
He’d wait to see where it went, but if it kept going how it was… ha, they’d be fun to write into his telling of this whole end-of-the-world mess. A book like that would need a good romance to help readers get through the ups and downs of it all. Not that Lavellan and Cullen were the only romance he could draw on, but Lavellan would be the protagonist, obviously, and it’d flow better if it was hers. Sure, the book could have some background romances, give it some depth, but they couldn’t overshadow the main characters. Josephine and Blackwall’s blushing, budding something might do, but he had an odd gut feeling that that relationship was doomed. Maybe Sera’s fling with Dagna? They were pretty cute, he had to admit.
He certainly couldn’t use Dorian & Bull’s whatever they had going on as the background romance. Maker, they’d steal the show. No, no, those two were getting their own book. He’d already drafted up an outline, even character studies. Sure, maybe he was embellishing a bit, but it was way too good not to: the ‘forbidden love’ angle always flew off the shelves. Whenever he finished it, he’d bet his last royal it’d be a shoo-in.
The thought made him smile. Writing campy romance wasn’t his favorite genre, but it certainly brought him the most coin. And he did love coin.
As Varric wandered down the cobbled ramparts, he realized he’d looped back around toward the training yard. As he descended slowly down the steps, muffled sounds heard from around the corner made him pause where he stood.
Oh, he knew that sound. The unmistakable sound of muffled sex: soft grunts and little whines, rustling clothes and breathy laughs, metal buckles clinking against a stone wall. Someone, well two someones, were getting it on right out in the open. Naughty naughty.
He should turn around and walk back toward his room. He really should. These were dark times and everyone deserved a little fun here and there, who was he to judge? They deserved their moment; it wasn’t for him to see.
He should walk away... Buuuut Varric had to admit he was a horribly nosy gossip and this was just too juicy to ignore. Smiling wickedly and not really feeling that bad about it at all, Varric chuckled under his breath and inched forward quietly.
The sounds became a little clearer as he tiptoed closer to the corner.
“Kaffas!”
The breathy curse was sudden and clear and oh shit.
No way.
Speak of the demons and they shall appear, they say. He couldn’t help himself, this he had to see. Hearing rumors (ahem, or starting them) of those two having a tryst and seeing it was true were two very different things. He rubbed his hands together and slid up to the corner, pressing his back to it and listening.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Heady grunts and the sounds of flesh against flesh, boots scraping against the dirt. “You’re so fucking beautiful like this.”
Varric paused, his leer drooping a bit. Well, that was… more romantic than he’d expected. A tryst between a Qunari and a Vint? He figured it’d be fiery passion, riddled with taunts and misplaced aggression. But-
“Moonlight on your skin-” The deep voice growled and cut off, the tone and the words utterly mismatched.
“Bull.” Came a breathy whine in response. “Amatus, please-“ then a gasp and the slap of a hand against stone.
Gathering his courage, Varric peeked around the corner.
There they were, both with their backs to him luckily (he let out a relieved breath), rutting against the stone wall in the nearest dark corner of the courtyard lit only by the pale light of the half full moon. The Iron Bull, a huge, muscled figure as always, was bent over the darker human beneath him, one hand splayed wide against the stone over Dorian’s head, the other gripping the man’s hip. From his angle, Varric could just see both of them, though they were mostly turned away. Dorian’s leathers were loosened and pushed down his thighs, his robe a pile of fabric on the floor and his undershirt rucked up, buckles undone, exposing the lean lines of his back and shoulder. His toned arm was braced against the wall from elbow to wrist, his head resting against it.
Bull crowded over him, mouth pressed against the juncture of his neck, sucking on the skin.
Varric, who had expected rough thrusting, was surprised to see instead the sensual undulation of the two bodies. Bull hadn’t undressed, his rear was still covered (thank the Maker, he must have exposed just enough to get the job done), but this didn’t look like a “quickie” the way Varric had seen and experienced them before. Every pull and push of Bull’s hips had intent.
“I’m- I’m- “ Dorian gasped desperately, scrabbling at the wall with his free arm until his palm found Bull’s, who quickly covered the smaller hand against the stone, lacing their fingers together.
“Got you, kadan. I’ve got you.” Bull mumbled, nuzzling the nape of the man’s neck, kissing beneath his jaw as he continued his slow, steady thrusting. Dorian’s body rocked up against the wall with each roll of Bull’s hips, his forehead pressed against his forearm, head shaking from side to side as if in agony. Varric watched as Dorian pulled his hand out of Bull’s and snaked it up to grasp above and behind him at Bull’s horns, gripping one tightly as he bit back moans, mostly unsuccessfully.
This- this wasn’t the rough fucking of two men scratching an itch. This- they were making love. Of all things, against a wall in the training yard in the middle of the night, the kinky bastards, but still… Varric had started writing a sweeping, forbidden romance based on their story, sure, but… he hadn't actually expected it to be true.
Kadan. Varric had heard enough qunlat in Kirkwall to know what that meant.
Dorian was pushing back on Bull now, making short breathy sounds that might have been commands that he couldn’t quite hear. Then the man was turning his head, eyes lidded and dark in the shadows, focused on Bull. The hand gripping the horn pulled him in for a kiss, which the Bull surged into eagerly. Hungrily they kissed as Bull’s hand on Dorian’s hip came up to wrap around the man’s chest, gripping his neck, caressing and holding him there.
Dorian’s face… it was… he’d never seen the man so unguarded. Always sarcasm and wit, a spitfire from mouth to hands, but this… his face was a picture of adoration, of ecstasy. The way he looked at Bull when they parted made Varric's chest ache. No one had looked at him like that in, well, a long time.
Bull growled, his hand shifting up to caress a thumb across Dorian’s cheek, his lips… He murmured something and thrust his hips and Dorian keened.
“I got you, fuck you’re perfect like this, come for me.” Bull bent deeper over the smaller body, the snap of his hips coming faster, harder, and Dorian panted with each push.
“Maker, Bull - ah, ah, Bull, d-don’t let go, don’t-“ he was rambling softly now as he rolled his head back against Bulls shoulder, Bull’s hand sliding down his jaw and throat to press wide and firm across his chest.
“Won't ever let you go, kadan.” He breathed out roughly against Dorian’s temple and-
“Fuck, Bull, fuck-! “ And then Dorian was jerking and shaking, trying to stifle the sounds of his climax against his forearm, still braced against the wall.
With a matching groan of pleasure Bull thrust a few more times before he tensed and bit down on Dorian’s shoulder to muffle his own sounds. They were still, muscles taut, for a long moment before Bull laved his tongue over the bite mark and mumbled soft words into Dorian’s skin, nuzzling his temple. Dorian let out a soft, satisfied little sigh, hands coming up to wrap around Bulls neck from behind as his back arched, luxuriating in the moment of afterglow… stretching himself out against his lover, holding him. He turned his face back to press his nose against Bull’s and they laughed softly into each other’s breath: delighted, scandalized, sated.
This was, this was intimate. Loving. Geez, Varric just thought he’d catch two idiots fucking in the courtyard so he could tease them about it later, then when he realized who it was, thought he’d sneak peek a steamy scene that could inspire for his book. All that talk of “conquering” after all. But this- he hadn’t realized how deep they’d fallen for each other. He didn’t think anyone knew; they kept things light and flippant in company. Oh everyone knew they were sleeping together, with the Iron Bull you couldn’t not know, the way he shouted it to the sky. But that was just boasting, teasing, an illusion… Armor to cover the soft underbelly of what this really was.
His head was bursting with new ideas for his book.
Chagrined at his intrusion - Maker, he was a letch, standing here this whole time, he just hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away! - Varric slipped quietly back around the corner and began easing away, silently tip-toeing back toward his room. The muted sounds of clothes being pulled back on, belts clinking, breathy chuckles dimmed as he hurried away.
He smirked to himself. He knew what they had was unique, and likely hard won, he wouldn't diminish that… but he’d definitely still find a way to tease them about this.
In the courtyard, where anyone could stumble across them. Like adolescents, really.
“So Dorian, you’re kadan now, huh?”
The mage spluttered, face indignant when his head whipped around to glare at Varric.
“Where in the world did you-!“
The dwarf laughed.