Chapter Text
When the wyvern had gotten a claw on his arm, Bull had known it was just a scratch. He told the boss so after the fight. Varric had taken a couple of nasty hits, and the boss was worn out on healing. Bull told her to save her mana, that the wound would keep until they got back to camp.
And it did. The camp healer had fussed and clucked, then smeared something on it that didn’t sting at all. That’s when Bull knew he was in trouble. Stitches’s shit always burned like dragon piss, but then you were done. He told you to suck it up, maybe slapped on a bandage if it was still bleeding. By the time the Inquisition healer was done, Bull’s arm had been swaddled like a baby, and she’d forced him into a makeshift sling cut from tent canvas. He’d sighed, thanked her as politely as he could, and then headed back to the tent he shared with Dorian.
Which is how he wound up kneeling on his bedroll, jar of horn balm between his knees as he tried to work the cap open with just one hand. When the jar slipped away (again) and rolled away beneath his pack (again), he just sat and stared at it, sorely tempted to crack the damn thing open with his war hammer. But then he’d be out of balm, and the rest of his supply was back at Skyhold. So he sighed again and began an awkward crawl on one arm to retrieve it.
“Lose something?” Dorian sashayed past him, already loosening the buckles of his robes on his way to his own bedroll.
Bull held up the jar as he grabbed it, then sat back to contemplate his next plan of attack. From the corner of his eye, he saw Dorian look from the jar to Bull and back again.
“Do you need help?” he offered.
With a wry twist of his lips, Bull held out the jar. Dorian smiled as he unscrewed the top of the jar with a flourish.
“Show-off,” Bull chided. He reached for the open jar, but Dorian held it out of reach.
“I’m not the one who allowed a wyvern to use my arm as a chew toy,” the mage retorted. Jar in hand, he sidled over, then gestured with free hand toward Bull’s bedroll. “This will be easier if you lie down.”
Bull’s brow furrowed. “What will?”
Dorian rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to watch you contort yourself in a pathetic attempt to apply this one-handed. Nor am I going to strain my shoulder reaching up the entire time. Your horns are, as you seem so keen to point out, quite impressive, and I’ve seen how long this takes you.”
Inside his chest, Bull could feel his heart rate picking up, and nervous tension bubbled in his gut. No one else had applied his horn balm since his tama. He’d known a few among the antaam who helped each other, but it was a quiet thing, private, a gesture of connection between two pieces of the whole Qun, small enough to be permitted, just barely squeaking in under that narrow boundary of personal allowances. It was not an action for a ben-hassrath.
“Bull? Are you all right?”
Dorian watched him with serious eyes, a slight twist of concern pulling his eyebrows down. That was the look that got to Bull every time, whether it was directed at him or the boss or any of the rest of their group. The Tevinter was all prickly temper and complaints while out in the field, all boisterous charm back at the Herald’s Rest, but when someone stumbled, when someone needed a hand back up, Dorian’s hand was always the first offered.
And Bull actually did need the help. So he nodded, scooted down on the bedroll, lay back with his head near Dorian’s knees, and took a deep breath.
He couldn’t help but tense when Dorian’s fingers gave their first slick stroke, but it wasn’t like he’d never had the mage’s hands on his horns before, usually while Bull was balls deep in his ass. But this was different. This wasn’t a quick fuck, and Dorian wasn’t going to disappear as soon as the sweat dried. The mage was taking his time, working the balm into each crack and groove. When Bull looked up, he could see the little lines that formed at the corners of Dorian’s eyes when he concentrated. A lock of hair fell into his eyes, but he didn’t take his hands off to fix it. His perfect white teeth held on to a bit of his lower lip.
Bull really wanted to kiss that lip.
When he felt Bull’s gaze, Dorian frowned down at him. “Am I doing it wrong?” he asked, his hands pausing in their rhythm.
“No,” Bull replied. “No, it feels good.”
Dorian smiled, and the rest of Bull’s tension eased as his hands began to move again. They fought well together, flirted well together, fucked well together. This was just one more way they fit, one more way they could give each other what they needed. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d bent the Qun a bit, but it felt a hell of a lot better than some of the others.
“Hey,” he said, his eye drifting closed. “I’ve got some Antivan massage oil back at Skyhold. I may have to return the favor.”
Dorian’s laugh filled their tent. “I will absolutely take you up on that.”