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"Have you been to your quarters lately, by chance?" Dorian inquires as he turns from the balustrade to face the man he had just moments ago watched walk through Solas's rotunda. He turns unhurriedly, granting Maethr Trevelyan a chance to appreciate the sight of him bent over, and cultivates a sight no less attractive when he then leans against the nearest support beam with his arms folded.
A warm smile often achieves total conquest of Maethr's face by the time he arrives up here, ousting all manner of furrowed brow. On this occasion that smile turns into a smirk, no less warm, at the hint of mischief in Dorian's voice. "Not lately, no. Why? Has Sera finally decided I merit pranking?"
"Nothing like that," Dorian replies. "Not entirely like that, at any rate, and nothing to do with Sera. Just do have a look, when you have the time. There's...something there that might interest you."
Maethr raises one of his delicately arching eyebrows. Curious and more than willing to play along. "Hmm. Alright, I guess I'd better go see." He leaves the way he came, saying over his shoulder, "I'll be back soon in any case."
In his quarters, Maethr casts his sharp, pale amber eyes about, giving the room a quick scan for anything large or obvious and then giving everything a second glance as he wanders to his desk. He's checking for new papers, perhaps a missive, when he hears Dorian's footsteps on the stair. Slow, soft footsteps, pausing in the knowledge that he will have been heard. Maethr looks up, behind him, across at his unconsummated lover. Subtleties in Dorian's posture promise prurient proposition. Oh, he realizes. I really should have seen right through that play. 'Something in my quarters'? It's just the sort of thing I'd do.
"So!" Dorian begins, meandering forward. "It's all very nice, this flirting business. I am, however, not a nice man."
Maethr doesn't smirk now. He studies Dorian. There's a certain...formality, he'd call it, to Dorian's tone and words that concerns him. Dorian is usually on guard to some degree, sometimes quite opaque in his own way, and this is one of those times. It shouldn't be, Maethr thinks.
He understands why it is.
"So here is my proposal: we dispense with the chitchat and move on to something more primal." Dorian's distinctive voice coils around that last word, and Maethr can hardly believe it's not going straight to his loins. Briefly stroking his moustache as he studies Maethr in turn, Dorian notes, "It'll set tongues wagging, of course. Not that they aren't already wagging." The mage steps around behind Maethr and ends up at his left side, leaning in to purr close by his ear, "I suppose it really depends: how bad does the Inquisitor want to be?"
Maethr turns around, his hands gently alighting on Dorian's elbows. He looks directly into Dorian's eyes, finding there, all but concealed, an ember of fear. He has paid too much attention to everything he's learned about Dorian and observed of him to miss it. His own expression is earnest. "Dorian...I want you. But you're not my vice. Not now, not ever." He watches perplexity bloom subtle in the other man. Perplexity ready to coalesce into swiftly and brutally buried disappointment at the drop of a pin. "You're—..." Suddenly Maethr is nervous too. He has for some time harbored a suspicion that Dorian is quite invested in presuming himself...a poor excuse for a person. The bravado doesn't fool Maethr. What if Dorian scoffs off what he's about to say, unable to accept it at all? Maethr's mien simultaneously softens and intensifies, taking on an almost pleading aspect yet bearing no shortages of certitude and determination. "You're the best part of my life."
Dorian seems to reel from that for no longer than a handful of seconds, at most, before finding footing on familiar ground. "I had no idea your life was so dismal," he rejoins, putting on a thin smile and the guise of a jest. There's the slightest bitter note in his voice, the slightest tightness in the lines of his face.
That wasn't the severity of reaction Maethr feared. He can work with this. Relocating his hands to Dorian's waist, he counters with words that put his statement into perspective. "All things considered, my life is good. I have opportunity to do a lot of good in the world, and people who genuinely support those efforts, even if we don't all completely agree all the time. And I have the finest of friends." (He's not sure he counts Vivienne among either. He's managed to stay on her good side and he values her input, but he doubts she'd be as forgiving of his general approach to the rebel mages if they weren't in the middle of combating Corypheus and if he wasn't someone she could still potentially influence or benefit from.) "And on top of all that, you."
Dorian gives the archer an inscrutable look. "What is it that you want from me, exactly? A relationship?" He sounds disbelieving, but...not wholly. Maethr can hear him coming around to the possibility. He certainly remains ready to disbelieve, ready to back off and laugh it off.
"Is that so surprising? At this point?"
Eyes widening, Dorian looks away, slips away from Maethr's hands, taking a few small, contemplative steps back. He isn't backing off; in his expression and movements there is surprise and not offense, thought and not withdrawal. "You say that like it's a simple thing, easily imagined..." He sheds the last of his guard, or perhaps all but the last of it, and now he looks at Maethr almost plaintively, ducking his head and peering up at him with a frown everywhere on his face except his mouth. "Where I come from, anything between men...it's physical. It doesn't go beyond that. It's not that you don't care, you just...don't hope for more."
"I want this to be more," Maethr states, softly. His eyes implore Dorian to meet him halfway, to trust him. "What do you want?"
Dorian sighs. A quiet, hollow sigh that, even in its brevity, speaks things of vulnerability, pain, and long resignation that he wouldn't permit past his lips otherwise. "I like you. More than I should. More than might be wise. ...I want more, yes..." A dozen uncertainties vie behind his visage for a 'but'.
Maethr closes the distance between them, gently wrapping his arms around Dorian at lower back and shoulders. The angle of the latter allows him to hold the back of Dorian's head, an even gentler touch, and he rests their foreheads together, half-lidding his eyes. "Then you have more," he murmurs just above a whisper. His voice is full of sincerity and he feels a fullness in his chest as well. "You have my heart, Dorian."
Dorian's breath catches slightly, and with Maethr this close it doesn't go unheard. He shuts his eyes for a moment. "You're very sentimental," is all he can say. Hushed and only after he's had some seconds to process what was just said to him.
"Is that all you've got?" Maethr responds, as low and soft and affectionate as before. No reproach, merely a tinge of the humor they so often share. "You're practically speechless."
"It doesn't happen often." Dorian smiles, reopening his eyes partway. Venturing to meet Maethr's. "And this...never happens. How shall this work? I have no examples with which to compare."
"Remember that villa near Redcliffe?"
An amused twist forms at the corner of Dorian's mouth. "You don't propose to set me up in a villa and race the sunrise daily in an utterly unsuccessful attempt at discretion that people end up writing a song about."
One corner of Maethr's mouth rises with similar amusement. "No. We're our own example. But it bore repeating that outside of the Imperium, examples do exist. Openly, more or less, and some of them even celebrated."
"And...when you have to distance yourself from the 'magister' who—"
"That is not going to happen," Maethr says firmly. "Anyone who casts aspersions on my associating with you will be told why I'm fucking proud of you." He pulls back just enough to pin a more level gaze on Dorian's eyes.
Dorian's quick mind might be suggesting a variety of droll retorts even as he meets Maethr's gaze with stunned silence and a deeply moved expression. He swallows and then mutters, shaking his head in awe, "Festis bei umo canavarum..." Not daring to speak up lest his voice come out sounding choked.
Maethr leans back in, slowly, giving Dorian a chance to belay the intended kiss. It's not their first kiss by far, but the circumstances are different now. Dorian meets him halfway. The initial press of their lips is emphatic as a result. Then it's a tender exchange. Then it gradually grows more fervent, until Maethr breaks it breathlessly to make his comeback before it's no longer apropos: "I'm looking forward to finding out what else I can do to make you fall back on Tevene."
Dorian chuckles warmly. "So you do want to be bad?"
"We're going to be fantastic is what we're going to be."