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“When you truly love someone, you don't hurt or cause them pain; that’s how I painfully realised you didn't love me.” - Michael Hayssu
In the warmth of his room, and the warmth of the afterglow of sex, Trevelyan's hand slides up Dorian's back, his neck, teases the short shaved hairs at the base of his skull. No higher, as he knows Dorian doesn't like his hair being mussed even in the throws of passion or the slow cool down afterwards. But Maxwell loves him fiercely, and Dorian maybe loves him back, and they are each other's everything. He slides his fingers upwards, cards them through Dorian's hair.
Immediately, Dorian breaks the kiss with a small, annoyed sound.
“Max,” he chides, voice soft, and Trevelyan withdraws his hand.
“You can put it back in place when we're done, surely?”
“Max,” Dorian says, some play at patience as he rolls off him, “I give you such unfettered access to the rest of my body, you could at least leave my hair be.”
Max laughs, turning onto his side to watch as Dorian stretches and crosses naked to the vanity to wipe away the traces of their encounter with a wet cloth. As much as he wants to bury his hands in Dorian's hair, it's not a huge sacrifice to cradle his head instead when Dorian sucks his cock, to resist it when they kiss.
Dorian primps in the mirror, making his hair immaculate again; nobody would know they'd just fucked.
*
The library is quiet, even the tranquil gone. He is quiet too, a rogue's silent steps as he makes his way to Dorian's claimed alcove. In the quiet and the shadows, he can get so close without being spotted.
It helps that Dorian is distracted; sat low in his armchair, eyes closed as he strokes his cock leisurely with one hand, the other under his undone robes, fingers probably at a nipple.
“Oh,” he sighs, thumbing the wet head of his cock, “amatus.”
Trevelyan doesn't know much Tevene, but he knows enough that the word seems weighted, meaningful. Feels like Dorian has almost said it in the night, when he thinks Max is asleep beside him.
He takes a deliberately loud step, and Dorian looks up, stilling.
“Do you want me to watch, or help?” Max asks. The fear of being caught that colours Dorian's cheeks even more than his exertion stays for a few seconds as Dorian looks at him, and then he relaxes.
“I could never turn down an offer of assistance.”
Max grins, and goes to his knees between Dorian's, takes his dripping cock into his mouth, and thinks perhaps he can earn amatus soon enough.
*
“Maybe you'd like to stay,” Max says on another night, the sheets kicked off the bed, both of them naked. A quick fumble, hands to get them both off. Trevelyan wanted something quick, and Dorian doesn't mind. Dorian is good like that, an easy to please lover who makes no demands on him. Trevelyan rather misses seeing more of him, though; he has become so important to keeping his head above water as he deals with the crap that comes with being the Inquisitor.
“Stay?”
“I know you have a room, but it's rather small. If you were to bring your things here, you could stay. There's plenty of room here.”
“You mean, co-habitation?” Dorian says, as if the concept is absolutely beyond him.
“Sounds weird when you say it like that!” he laughs, and rises to an elbow to look at Dorian. He's studying the ceiling, with a crease between his eyebrows. “This could be our room.”
Dorian doesn't look at him for a long moment. The silence is an answer, Maxwell thinks.
“I do enjoy being here, Max, but I would like to keep my room.”
“Alright,” he says. “I just feel like I've haven't seen as much of you recently.”
“I am sorry if I haven't made more time for you,” Dorian says, turning to him then, reaching for him. “You are so good to me, I do appreciate it. I'll make it up to you, how does that sound?”
That grin; Maxwell's chest swells with delight at that grin.
“What did you have in mind?”
*
Solas is lean and wiry, Blackwall is stocky hirsute, Varric is compact and hairy-chested, and the Bull is massive in every way.
Maxwell can hardly hold it against Dorian for looking, since he looks too. It's naturally, when they're bathing in the cool, calmness of the Oasis, or in Skyhold's bathhouse, to look.
But Trevelyan can't help the discomfort that sits in him when Dorian's gaze lingers on Varric's bared arms, or Blackwall's bared chest in the morning at camp, or the muscles of the Bull's back as he hefts his axe up.
He hates himself when he realises it's jealousy. He has no reason to be jealous; Dorian wants him, comes to his bed, kisses him, even if Dorian seems to be spending so much more time in the library these days, especially after Maxwell's failed proposal to have them de facto live together.
Since their first time, he's tried to be everything Dorian said was denied to him in Tevinter. He's wanted to be that, and understood that Dorian might not know how to accept that here, he could have something that went beyond physical. What more could he do?
He brings his pile of requisition paperwork into his tent when his watch is over. Dorian is reading a book by lamplight, smiling at him when he enters.
“All well?”
“Just looking at requisitions. There's a note here,” he chuckles as he reads it again, “that says 'took liberty of requisitioning The Iron Bull his own tent, can't keep using resources to fix holes from horns when he shares'.”
Dorian huffs a laugh, watching as Maxwell undresses one-handed, still looking at his reports. Mostly.
“That's only happened twice, surely?”
“Three times,” Max says. “We only had three tents at the forward camp in the Mire. Scouts in one, gave Vivienne another, me, Bull and Blackwall in the last. Bull ripped the thing to pieces when undead showed up in the night, us all scrambling about.”
“Ah.” Dorian's lip curls, and he's probably thinking about the dank and cold of the Mire.
Maxwell sets his papers aside, and pulls his bedroll up alongside Dorian's.
“How would you like to scramble about?”
Dorian laughs, and leans in to kiss him.
“I do have some ideas I've wanted to talk to you about.”
“Ideas, huh?” Max hums with thought. “Maybe they should wait until we're back at Skyhold. Here, I haven't had your mouth in a while.”
He goes to unlace his britches, but Dorian stills his hand.
“Then not tonight. I feel like undead myself, with how tired I am.”
“Fair enough.”
They're more than sex, so no sex isn't a big deal. He'd like to, but Dorian lying against him as they drift off to sleep is enough; the warmth of him, the sound of him breathing. And it's not strange for Dorian to slip out of their embrace at some small hour; nature calls sometimes. Strange though, to wake with the day the next morning and find Dorian hasn't returned.
“You alright, Dorian?” he asks, finding him at the campfire with Varric. “You got up early.”
“Found I was too awake after pissing,” he says. “Stood on watch with my book a while. The nights here are so warm!”
There's no reason not to believe him. There's no reason to feel bad that his presence wasn't enough to sooth Dorian's restless mind, but he does.
*
“I missed our dinner,” Dorian says, puts his head in his hands. Maxwell leans against the bookcase, watching him. “I'm so sorry, Max. Last night I...I have no excuse, I wasn't even here. Sera invited me for drinks, and I forgot about our arrangement. You must think me terrible.”
“Not really,” Maxwell shrugs. “Apparently forgetful, but you’re a good man, from what I've seen.”
“Believe me,” Dorian says, “there is plenty you haven't seen.”
He's felt it for months, and been so careful not to say it. Held back in the rush of relief that they came out of the Fade alive. Held back when they danced together at the Winter Palace. Held back every time Dorian smiles at him, touches him, kisses him.
But he allowed himself a little selfishness.
“Whatever sort of man you are, I love you.”
Dorian gapes at him for a moment, before he gathers himself.
“Well, who could blame you? I'm delightful.”
Max laughs. If Dorian's not ready to say it back, he can wait.
“You are.”
“I am sorry, Max.”
“It's fine,” Trevelyan waves his hand. “Know a few ways you could show me how sorry you are, though.”
Dorian looks at him for a few seconds longer than feels comfortable, before he rolls his eyes, smiles easily.
“I imagine you do.”
*
It's been so long – they've both been so busy with Inquisition business, with barely a moment to themselves. Even less time to take time with hands and mouths, working each other into a frenzy. But now, finally, as the afternoon becomes the evening, they're here.
Dorian's body gives way to Maxwell's cock, Dorian's eyes falling closed as Trevelyan pushes inside. Sweat shimmers over the expanse of his back, and he fists his hands in the pillows as Max thrusts into him, the slow roll of his hips building.
“Yes, harder.”
He obliges, thrusts his cock in harder, grabs at Dorian's hips for leverage, grunts as he pounds him over and over, watching the muscles of Dorian's back as sweat gathers along the shapes there.
“Harder!” Dorian gasps, thrusting back feverishly. “Kaffas, talk to me.”
Trevelyan's hips falter, unsure. He's not one for talking when they fuck, everything seems to work wordlessly, beyond the basics; turn over, open up, I'm there.
“Er—” he starts.
“Tell me I'm good,” Dorian actually whines, near desperate for something Maxwell doesn't understand.
They should stop and talk, this is veering somewhere weird, but Dorian feels so good around him, his body so tight and hot, and before he can even work out how to do as Dorian wants, he's almost there.
“I'm close.”
He pulls out without prompting, knows how this goes by now, and fists his cock until he spends over Dorian's backside. He takes a calming breath, but before he can reach for Dorian, he's already turning, takes his own cock in hand. Trevelyan watches as Dorian screws up his face with concentration and brings himself off, spilling over his stomach.
He wonders, for one traitorous moment, whether Dorian was even thinking of him.
“Max,” Dorian says, when he opens his eyes. He reaches for Maxwell, and brings him into an embrace, kisses him sweetly, and Trevelyan feels even worse.
“I love you,” Max says. Dorian hums and kisses him.
*
Dorian misses another dinner date, and any annoyance Max had about it quickly becomes worry when he doesn't find Dorian in the library lost or passed out over a book. He's not in the private vault library either, or the mage's tower, or the tavern.
It's probably nothing. Probably just caught up doing something, speaking with someone, somewhere Trevelyan hasn't thought to look. He heads towards Dorian's room, wondering if perhaps he's fallen ill – or worse. Once he thinks it, his brain comes up with the worst visuals to accompany it; Dorian bedridden and dying, too proud to call for help. Dorian poisoned by an assassin, collapsed on his floor. Dorian hours dead, killed in his sleep.
Trevelyan goes for the handle first out of instinct, finds the door unlocked, and steps across the threshold before he can register what awaits him on the other side.
Dorian is naked in his bed with an equally naked Iron Bull. Worse than that: they're kissing so very gently, the Bull's huge hand in Dorian's hair, unchallenged, perhaps wanted.
The Bull notices him first, drawing away from their kiss.
“Ah, crap.”
Dorian, a few seconds later.
“Venhedis!”
He scrambles for the sheets to cover his nudity, as if Maxwell hasn't seen it all before.
“Max—”
He doesn't stay to hear what Dorian might say.
*
He doesn't care to hear what Dorian says for several days. Avoids him, ignores him. The Bull, at least, has the good sense to actively avoid him in turn. But he has to see Dorian every day, acting as if nothing has happened.
Trevelyan can't stop thinking about the Bull's hand in Dorian's hair.
He finds him in the evening in the library, and remembers the last time they were here alone; how different that seems, now knowing what he does. Dorian sets down his book.
“How many times did you lay with me, and think about him?”
“Max—”
“Did you?”
Dorian sighs. Nods.
“Quite often.”
“Does he come inside you?” Trevelyan asks. Dorian stares at him. “You never let me. Like I might make you dirty. You let him, right? You let him have the other parts of you, everything you couldn't bear to give to me.”
“Don't do this, Max.”
“He's amatus, isn't he? Not me. I thought—Maker. It's him. You love him. Tell me you love him, don't you?”
“Would it make you feel better?” Dorian snaps. “That I was unfaithful to you with a man I loved, rather than a man who can merely fuck me for longer than five minutes before he finishes, or cares to ask me what I want?”
“But you never said anything.”
“It's not actually that easy to tell a man you care about that he is offering a substandard performance. Especially one that doesn't want to hear any suggestions on that front.”
He wishes Dorian had punched him instead. Or set him on fire.
“I thought you were happy.”
“I was, for the most part.”
“But I couldn't fuck you right, so you fucked someone else?”
“It's not nearly as simple as that makes it sound,” Dorian says, the words bitter, “but I suppose that's part of it.”
Maxwell has cried already, cried until there was nothing for his body to give, now he just feels numb.
“Then I can fix it,” Maxwell says. “I can learn to do better. You can tell me what you like, what you want, and I can learn to do that.”
“Maybe you could,” Dorian says. He hates how gentle Dorian's voice has gone, how sad and calm and practices this seems. “But it wouldn't matter. You were right; I'm in love with him.”
Those words are an end, and he knows not even the anchor on his hand can change it.
*
It would be so easy to make them both suffer.
He could send the Chargers out on a suicide mission. He could send Dorian back to Tevinter. He could probably find a way to have them both bent before the throne where he sits in judgement.
Every time he entertains such thoughts, Trevelyan hates himself a little more. He doesn't have it in him to be cruel.
They're his friends, besides. The Bull was his friend quickly, loyal and funny and good right down to his bones. Dorian after a little more unease, a little more wariness, but a true friend before anything more happened between them.
They've also hurt him more than anyone else in his entire life.
He decides then, as Cullen puts a sympathetic hand on his shoulder as they stand at the war table – word travels fast, and apparently he was the absolute last to know about them – that he is not cruel, and retaliation won't fix anything.
Doesn't mean he has to be happy for them, either.
*
“I'm going with the Chargers when they leave,” Dorian tells him, a month after Corypheus is dead, and a few after the wounds have had a chance to scab and heal. “I thought you ought to know.”
“You're going with Bull, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Maxwell nods.
“If we were still together, would you have stayed with me? Here?”
Dorian smiles kindly at him. “No.”
“But you'll stay with Bull?”
“For a little time. I still intend to go back to Tevinter.”
“And what then? All this,” he says, gesturing at nothing and meaning everything that has passed, “for nothing?”
“Not nothing, Maxwell,” Dorian says, sound so sure of it.
“I hope it was worth it.”
It's not well wishing, but it's all he has in him to give. He doubts that Dorian is expecting more, but it's honest, at least. If Dorian has done this and he and Bull amount to nothing, then what was the point if his pain, of his broken heart?
“I suppose we'll see.”
“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay