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The two months Dorian spent in Tevinter felt like far too long even before he spied Ash lurking in the shadows of a veranda behind Duke Cyril de Montfort — but despite the way his heart skipped as he locked eyes with his amatus, he couldn’t shake the feeling that dark, heavy clouds were crowding in where there should have only been sun.
Dorian had learned of his father’s death only a few hours ago, and suddenly what should have been a happy reunion was to be cut short: a brief, bittersweet holiday, no more.
“Two months away, and this is how you greet me?” Ash asked, and despite how caught up in his own premature grief Dorian still was, he could see the cracks in Ash’s smile, feel the stiffness in his posture as they kissed.
“I missed you,” Ash breathed, and Dorian’s heart clenched up.
He couldn’t tell him, not yet.
Not yet.
But then Varric spilled the news instead, and Dorian found himself on the receiving end of Ash’s rare temper. “You weren’t going to tell me this? Or discuss it with me first?”
“This wasn’t how I intended to tell you,” Dorian sighed. “Frankly, I’ve been dreading this conversation, but… here it is. My father is dead. Assassinated, I believe.” It all just spilled out after that. He couldn’t stop it, even though he could see how each word darkened the shadows in Ash’s eyes. He looked so… pained, his amatus. “I have to go back.”
“I know it was complicated, but… I’m sorry,” Ash said, using the careful tone he usually reserved for diplomatic meetings. Somehow, that was worse than the anger Ash had shown before.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Dorian said. He watched Ash press his hands together, trace his fingers across the mark they both knew lay hidden beneath his supple glove.
“None of this does,” Ash sighed. “So… is this it, then? For us?”
“Nonsense,” Dorian scoffed. “There will always be an us.”
Always.
As they fought their way through the Eluvians, though, Dorian… began to worry more. Especially when the magics in the shattered library did something that made Ash double over and yell in pain.
He’d never heard Ash make a noise like that before. Never.
But it happened again, while Dorian was eavesdropping on the talk Ash was having with his advisers… and the next thing Ash said chilled him to his very core.
“Shit! Damn it! We save Ferelden, and they’re angry! We save Orlais, and they’re angry! We close the breach twice… and now my own hand wants to kill me! Could one thing in this fucking world just… stay fixed?”
“Ash…”
“I… I thought it was fine. The mark’s been under control for years. All the demons I fought, all the rifts I closed…”
I don’t want to die.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Dorian found himself asking, as he followed Ash through the mirrors one last time. “I could have…”
“Vhenan,” Ash said, cutting him off. “I wouldn’t trade the years we’ve had for anything. I love you.”
“I knew you would break my heart, you bloody bastard.”
The way Ash fought now was so different from his usual grace. He wasn’t even trying to avoid taking hits as he threw himself ahead of the rest of their little group — acting as a shield, staying far enough away that the flare ups from the anchor wouldn’t hurt them, too.
Too late for that, Dorian thought, fumbling his next attack as Ash screamed again and green light sparked across the ruin.
Too late.
There were a few horrible moments after Ash went through the final mirror where the glass went dark and no one could follow him… and even when it did let them through, finding Ash bent and crumpled over in the center of a group of petrified Qunari was no less terrifying.
Is this it? Dorian thought, kneeling down beside him. But then he heard Ash inhale sharply and groan, and relief flooded through him.
“I’m… alive,” Ash said, through clenched teeth. “Solas… took my arm, but… everything still hurts.”
“Well, shit,” Varric said, which summed up what Dorian was thinking. There was hardly any blood, at least, but it was still uncanny to see the sealed-up wound that was left.
Then Ash tugged Dorian down to kiss him with a kind of desperate passion they usually shared only behind closed doors. “I’m alive,” he repeated, after, pressing their foreheads together. “We can figure out the rest, ma vhenan.”
Ar lath ma.
Part of the ‘later’ did involve one night in a wyvern-down bed, courtesy of Josephine’s connections. Even with the Inquisition disbanded, shadows of their influence remained.
But Dorian was just as content to wake up beside his amatus a few years later in a bed that somehow felt just as comfortable… and even more cozy, because it was part of Ash’s home: with plenty of soft blankets, intricately carved wood, and pretty murals sprawling across every wall.