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"Change of plans. Nothing personal, bas."
Disbelief had rooted Lavellan in place and prevented reaction even when the qunari, his lover bared his axe and began to charge towards him. Frozen in place like a halla caught in the sights of a predator he struggled to comprehend what was happening.
He was being betrayed.
A moment before Iron Bull's charge connected with him his companions reacted, even as Lavellan failed to. Just as Iron Bull’s axe crashed into his gut the smooth ripple of Dorian’s barrier settled around him, blocking the blow though the force still sent the elf crashing onto the hard stone floor. Cole disappeared into thin air as qunari spears whizzed past them, more qunari pouring into the area. Dorian's voice was panicked as he shouted at Lavellan to move.
He couldn’t. The Iron Bull advanced on him with a steady stride, massive axe ready as Lavellan scrabbled backwards across the stone, his mind still locked in a spiral. How could you? Why are you doing this? I thought you-- None of the words made it out of his frozen throat as he choked.
“Katoh.” He said instead, his voice cracked and damaged as the massive qunari closed the distance between them. The tortured word had no effect, not even a spark of feeling across the qunari’s face. Lavellan had never seen him so cold, so merciless.
Lavellan had never seen Hissrad, waiting underneath the Iron Bull’s skin.
“Katoh!” He yelled, louder this time as Iron Bull hauled back, raising the axe above his head. Dawnstone inlay shimmered in the dim lighting, catching Lavellan’s eye as he reeled in shock. The Iron Bull had laughed in glee when Lavellan had given him that axe, ‘It’s pretty!’ He had exclaimed before turning on Lavellan, scooping him up and crushing him close as he smothered the elf’s lips with his own. ‘Just like you, Kadan.’
Dorian screamed out to Lavellan as the axe came down, not even a moment of hesitation from Hissrad. Out of pure instinct Lavellan’s body dispersed into the fade, cloaking himself with the veil. His brain snapped out of shock as the axe slammed into the ground, the shockwave and power of the attack, the burst of fire from the runes on the massive weapon scorching and shattering the stone where Lavellan had sprawled less than a moment before.
Dorian was shouting, absolute seething anger in his voice as he slammed a spell into Hissrad’s chest, sending the qunari stumbling back.
If I get possessed, feint on my blind side, then go low. Cullen says I leave myself open.
Possessed. He’d been possessed by the Qun. As Lavellan travelled the fade to the massive qunari’s blind spot, he steeled himself. He was never mine all along, he'd only belonged to the Qun.
When he burst from the fade the rippling explosion tore through Hissrad’s defences, the shockwave knocking him off balance as Lavellan’s spirit sword flared to life. Behind him he heard the uproar of Cole dancing in and out of stealth, stabbing daggers into exposed throats and weak points, raising panic in their ranks as their fellows started to drop dead with red smiles cut into their necks.
The fire mine Lavellan drew beneath the qunari’s body sizzled as it charged, Hissrad knowing Lavellan’s fighting style inside and out. He’d remarked multiple times that Lavellan was impossible to hit, so covered in barriers and the fade. Perhaps the qunari knew that he was dead the moment his axe had struck stone instead of cleaving the elf in half. Perhaps he'd never expected to live at all.
When Dorian’s magic flared to life around its target, freezing Hissrad in place, chilling his skin into brittle ice before the mine finished charged, he didn’t look surprised. Didn’t look resigned or hurt or regretful. He was blank, like he was made of stone.
Lavellan cloaked himself in the fade and darted through it to Cole’s side. He heard the mine go off, heard Dorian’s choked off sob, the curses that followed, and knew. When he burst from the fade the first qunari he met was nothing but a spray of blood and burning flesh as Lavellan snarled. The mark on his hand tore through his arm as he charged it, he barely felt the pain.
When everything was dead, the room suddenly still with nothing left to attack -- Lavellan’s rage left him as quickly as it came. He staggered to the body of his lover, mangled and burned with his face slack in death, half seared from the force of Lavellan’s fire mine. The elf reached out with shaky hands as everything inside him shattered. The mark was a blinding green and his hand flickered with agony but he didn’t care.
“...proud of himself. ‘Kadan’...” Dorian’s voice was bitter, broken. He was breaking too, though hanging on to his anger.
“I didn’t feel any...there was no pain.” Cole whispered, and Lavellan finally broke, collapsing against the broken corpse. He should be crying, but there were no tears yet, just numb shock.
“We have to go.” Dorian finally choked out as Lavellan’s hand began to pulse and throb erratically, the light from it growing, threatening them all. “We have to keep moving.” Hands wrapped around his shoulders to pull him up and away from his lover’s body, and finally Lavellan screamed.
“No! Katoh!” He shouted, struggling against hands to grab the Iron Bull’s limp arm, clutching at his seared chest. “It’s not supposed to be like this! Katoh!” He screamed. The hands started to get more urgent, feeling big and heavy, trying to pull him away. “Katoh!”
The word kept falling out as he got more desperate. When the hands pulled hard enough to break his grip and pull him away from his dead lover he screamed and began to fight tooth and nail, yelling his safe word to the void, to the body of the betrayer who had destroyed him.
“Kadan!”
Hearing the qunari’s voice echoing through his head made everything worse, compounding the misery as he screamed. “Stop! Katoh!”
“Kadan!” It was more urgent this time, the hands wrenching him away, pulling him from the room. He struggled and fought but he felt so weak against them. He tried to grab onto them to pry them away, but something was wrong. The world was slipping around him, his armor disappearing, and he realized finally that one of his hands was finding no purchase.
“Kadan, wake up!”
The voice wasn’t echoing, wasn’t tearing through his head any longer. Instead it was close to his ear, warm breath across the slender shell. “You’re dreaming, Kadan. You gotta wake up!”
Lavellan’s eyes snapped open, adjusting to the dim light of a lantern Iron Bull had lit next to the bed. His body was covered in sweat and smelt like the fade, he noticed scorch marks all across the head of the bed, the blankets and pillows shredded. He panicked, swearing as he struggled against the huge arms pinning him tight, belatedly noticing the weight of a the dragon’s tooth pendant at his neck, a crystalline amulet hanging next to it.
“Kadan, are you alright?” Iron Bull asked, finally drawing Lavellan’s attention to him, the need to fight abandoned as he stopped his struggling. He stared at the empty space where his forearm had been, processing what was going on.
“It was a dream.” Lavellan whispered softly, the relief pouring into him so strong he began to tremble like a leaf.
Hissing out a curse Iron Bull pulled him close, engulfing him entirely with his huge body as he pulled the blanket over them, tucking Lavellan’s head under his chin. It was like that, completely wrapped up in a heavy heat that smelt so familiar, felt so safe, that Lavellan began to calm.
“A shitty dream.” Iron Bull whispered, Lavellan realizing now that the man was shaking a bit himself, focusing on holding Lavellan close to control it. “Smelt like the fade, you got real dark like you weren’t really here. Had to struggle to grab you, like I was pulling you out of something that didn’t want to let you go.”
“It was so real.” Lavellan whispered, his good arm wrapping tight around Iron Bull’s neck as he pressed his lips tightly to the man’s throat, breathing in his scent to ground himself in the warm familiarity of it. "I was so sure it was real..."
Iron Bull simply hugged him tighter, just on this side of crushing the slender body in his grip. He seemed to understand that what Lavellan needed was to be surrounded by him, to show him that he was there, he was real, and he wasn't going anywhere.
They were silent for long minutes, Iron Bull finally letting up his grip on Lavellan enough to pet his hair soothingly, the elf completely relaxed against him.
Finally Lavellan managed to speak, needing to talk about what he had seen in the dream, the thoughts in his head circling hopelessly and needing to be released.
"When you first joined the Inquisition..." Lavellan started, unsure of how to ask. "When you called me 'Boss', did you ever laugh to yourself that it sounded a lot like you were calling me 'bas'?"
Iron Bull's soothing hand in his hair stopped, the qunari pulling away from Lavellan enough that he could look at his face, total confusion and surprise at the question. "Uhhh...what?"
"You thought of it, didn't you?" There wasn't any heat to the accusation, but there was some amusement at how confused the qunari looked.
"I'm uh...going to guess this is about the 'disarmed' pun I made the other day, huh?"
Lavellan couldn't help but chuckle, pressing his forehead to the man's chest and letting out a happy sigh. "How did you think of me, when you were still Qunari? Did it change when you became Tal-Vashoth?"
Iron Bull frowned, finally leaning forward to wind thick fingertips through Lavellan's hair. "Your dream was about me, wasn't it?"
Lavellan let out a soft little sound as calloused fingers tugged his hair lightly. "Not really." He finally whispered, shaking his head minutely and enjoying the way it pulled his hair further. "It wasn't really you. You were...Qunari."
Iron Bull let out a curse, moving his hand from Lavellan's hair to under his chin, tilting his head back to put a soft kiss on his lips. "This wasn't like the time we played 'Aaravaad finds a little elf bas-saarebas', I take it."
Lavellan moaned a little at the memory of that particular game, smiling against Iron Bull's lips as he stole another kiss. "Afraid not. It seems your customs aren't near as sexual as you make them out to be in our games."
"Yea, well. Room to improve, I suppose." Iron Bull said wryly, making Lavellan laugh. While the elf was smiling and relaxed, the qunari touched the side of Lavellan's face with careful fingers. "I always liked you, Kadan. You are kind and gentle, you help people. Qunari or no, I have always respected that."
Lavellan sucked in a little breath, considering that. "You weren't ordered to seduce me?"
Iron Bull blinked for a moment before he released Lavellan and burst out laughing. He flopped onto his back, slapping his chest with a hand as he roared out laughter, unable to contain himself even the slightest. "Oh, Kadan." He managed to wheeze, wiping a tear from his eye before he broke into laughter again. "If the Ben-Hassrath wanted that, they wouldn't have sent me."
Lavellan blushed a little, realizing how silly the question seemed. "So you didn't..."
"Oh, fuck no. I would have been right shit at that, seeing as I never took you up on your offers until after I was Tal-Vashoth." Iron Bull continued to chuckle afterwards, holding his stomach as grinned. "I told you what I was, what my orders were. I laid everything out, nice and clear. I was to join the Inquisition and assist the efforts to stop Corypheus, gather intelligence and report it back. I did it all above board."
Lavellan considered this, rubbing his cheek as he pulled himself into sitting position, taking a little more effort with only a single hand to do so. "You were honest about being a spy, but...that makes people trust you more, right? I never thought for a minute that you weren't on my side."
Iron Bull frowned, leaning up on his elbow to look at Lavellan carefully. "Kadan, I was always on your side. Close the breach, stop Corypheus. That was always the plan."
"What if that changed? What if you had gotten different orders?" Lavellan's mouth felt dry and he saw the way Iron Bull was considering him carefully.
"What exactly happened in your dream?"
Lavellan froze up as he tried to explain it, his good hand fidgeting in the sheets anxiously. Calmly Iron Bull reached out and put an arm around his waist, pulled him closer so that he could find comfort sitting against Iron Bull.
"We were back in the Crossroads, fighting the Qunari." Lavellan whispered, aware of Iron Bull's single eye focused on him. "Somehow I knew you'd been in Par Vollen, that we had allied with the Qun. I was worried that it'd hurt you to be fighting your people. Then the Viddasala called to you, told you it was time, and you..."
"Vashedan." Iron Bull growled while he tightened his hold on Lavellan's middle, sitting up and letting Lavellan lean against his shoulder.
The elf had his eyes closed tight as he continued. "You didn't even hesitate, you didn't... You called me 'bas' like everything meant nothing. Cole said you didn't feel any pain or regret."
"Shit, that's not me, Kadan." Iron Bull whispered, pressing his lips to Lavellan's throat.
"But it could have been, right?" Lavellan whispered, hesitantly touching his fingers to the dragon's tooth hanging atop Iron Bull's chest, the same crystal amulet as Lavellan's underneath it. "If you...if you had gone to Par Vollen..."
"Not a chance, Kadan. It’d never happen." Iron Bull said, absolute certainty in his voice that somehow comforted Lavellan despite his doubts. "Not even the slightest chance." He pressed his lips roughly to Lavellan's neck then, suckling a bite in the soft skin there, clearly marking him.
"How can you be so sure?" Lavellan whimpered, goosebumps running down his skin at the feel of rough lips and a hot, wet tongue.
"Cuz you would have died before letting the Qunari take me back to Par Vollen. You never would have allied with them." There was warm amusement in his voice as he finally released the bright mark he'd created on Lavellan's throat, cupping the back of his neck firmly so that he could look down at the little elf in his grasp. "You hated the Qun."
"I...I never said that!" Lavellan argued, pulling a big smile from Iron Bull.
"Right, never said that because you liked me and didn't want to argue with me. Don't think I didn't notice the way you never interrupted Solas when he was tearing into me about the Qun."
"I..."
"If I had stayed with the Qun and a Viddasala had given me orders...yeah. I've had to do shit work for the Qun before, I've had to hunt down commanders and execute old friends. It's shitty, it got to me just like it got to everyone else who did my job. But what the Qun demands you do because that’s your purpose."
"It was suicide." Lavellan whispered.
"For a qunari it'd be one of the better ways to go." Iron Bull grunted, pushing Lavellan's hair back from his forehead. "Better your wierd-ass magic sword than to some fog warrior's knife you can't see coming, or the poison you finally didn't expect. You don't get to pick your death under the Qun."
Then with hands too gentle for a massive warrior, Iron Bull cupped Lavellan's face and pressed his lips to his brow, his nose, and finally his lips. "I still loved you.” Lavellan whispered against the kiss, and Iron Bull made a warm little noise in the back of his throat.
“I’d have given you everything that was mine to give. Helped you and loved you the best I could.” Iron Bull’s voice was thoughtful, the man considering what he was, comparing it to what he had been.
“But when she ordered you…”
“The Qun swallows up everything else.” He sighed as he wrapped both arms tight around Lavellan. “You were screaming ‘Katoh.’”
It was Lavellan’s turn to reassure Iron Bull this time, the elf’s mind at peace now. Not a chance, Kadan. “It was a dream. Judging by the amount of fade crawling over me when I woke up, it could have been a demon trying to mess with me.”
Iron Bull growled then, dull claws digging into Lavellan’s skin possessively. “Yeah, well it can fuck right off using my shape like that. Hope you killed him good.”
Lavellan wanted to protest but the gleam in Iron Bull’s eye made him laugh instead, only his lover would be satisfied that Lavellan had killed him in his dreams, under any circumstance. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt your Kadan.” Lavellan whispered, rewarded with a searing kiss as the qunari surged forward and pushed Lavellan back down into the bed, shredded pillows and burnt sheets be damned.
“Damn straight.” He grinned, letting his hands roam across the slender body beneath him. “Dorian would skin us both alive if anything happened to you while he was too far away to help.”
Lavellan smiled, letting out a shaky little moan when the qunari grabbed his ankles and opened his legs wide as he knelt between them, hauling the elf’s ass up into his lap. “D-don’t tell him about the d-dream, okay? He was in it t-too.”
Lavellan’s ability to speak started to abandon him when a thick thumb pressed against his hole, the pucker of muscle still slick and relaxed from a thorough fucking earlier that evening. “Was he? Bet he was pissed.” Iron Bull chuckled. “Did he reanimate me so he could kill me again? Don’t think killing me once would have been enough.”
It should have been a sensitive topic, it should have twisted something inside Lavellan to think about but the qunari’s words made him laugh. It wasn’t something that could ever happen. Iron Bull had practically laughed when the Viddasala had given the order and the qunari was right -- Lavellan would have convinced Leliana to order an Exalted March on Par Vollen before he’d let Iron Bull return to them.
“I don’t think the Qunari alliance would have lasted through that. I might have sent Sera as ambassador to tell them it was off.”
Iron Bull’s thumb slipped into Lavellan at the same time as the qunari burst into laughter, Lavellan’s chest tight with affection, his body singing with unrepressed need while he chuckled along with the qunari, overwhelmed with too many good feelings all at once.
Iron Bull lowered himself over Lavellan, leaning on his elbow as he found the elf’s prostate with his thumb, rubbing it mercilessly as he pressed kisses to Lavellan’s throat when the elf tipped his head back to make a desperate sort of noise. “Fuckin’ love you, Kadan.” He grunted then, any silly remark he was going to make about Sera’s negotiating techniques lost as he watched Lavellan surrender so sweetly to pleasure. “I won’t let anyone, especially the Qunari hurt you or Dorian. I’m sure it’s gonna get us into shit too, what with them ready to invade and all.” He wasn’t sure how many of his words were getting through to his lover, especially as he switched his thumb for a couple of fingers, the elf trembling as he clawed at sheets with his good hand, hips bucking as he tried to ride thick fingers deep. “Got it?” He asked with a grin when the elf’s entire body spasmed, his dick jerking against a smooth stomach, rosy little balls tightening as he drew ever closer to his orgasm.
“Yes, yes, yes.” Lavellan whined before poison green eyes snapped open and he reached his hand to one of Iron Bull’s horns, pulling his head down while he lifted flexible little legs to slide them up Iron Bull’s sides invitingly. “Love you too, need you.” Then his mind spluttered when Iron Bull pulled out his fingers, the elf letting out a miserable little sound, so desperate and needy for him that Iron Bull felt like his heart would burst from his chest. “Need your cock, ma vhenan.” Lavellan begged, “Gotta fuck me, please. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”
It was impossible to refuse a request like that.
The next morning when the crystals around their necks flared to life, Iron Bull was the one to lift himself from the pillows enough to trigger the connection, Lavellan’s eyes barely opening as the elf sagged deeper into his mangled pillow. The Qunari didn’t want to tell his lover he was getting soft -- years ago in Skyhold the elf could have fucked all night and been the first up in the morning, eager for more before skipping to work with extra bounce in his step.
Having a sleepy little elf waking up slowly under his hands and mouth wasn’t something Iron Bull was going to complain about, after all.
Dorian’s voice was chipper and smooth as they talked, Lavellan eventually waking up after enough teasing to growl at his lover for waking him up.
They talked about everything except the dream, the possibility of what could have been completely forgotten.
Not a chance.