"Nope," says Bull immediately, with a little huff of a laugh to himself like the offer amuses him. "I can do your back if you don't mind taking your shirt off." He shrugs, sitting back and idly rubbing his own hands, stretching out his fingers. "Or I can go find some more elfroot." The light's changed enough he can probably open the tent without burning Astarion to a crisp with a stray shaft of sunlight. It's an easy out.
Ugh. Elfroot. He makes a face, the bitter taste of it still on his tongue. The alternative, though— he sits up, frowning. "Can't you do it through the shirt?" Already demanding, because the massage didn't suck, actually, but he really doesn't want Bull to see his back and... what? Be repulsed? Feel sorry for him? All of the possibilities seem equally horrible.
He scratches at his cheek. "I know it's difficult to believe when I seem so without blemish, but I have some... unsightly scarring you'd rather not see." Even just admitting that feels embarrassing, although perhaps it shouldn't, considering Bull is hardly without scar himself. "The product of a terribly exciting life."
"You've seen my knee," Bull says; the starburst disfiguration of a bad, bad old wound when he'd been stripped off at the tailors. It's his second-worst injury. "Scars won't bother me. Actually, it's probably good for 'em to have some bloodflow." But he also understands, because he doesn't ever take his eyepatch off while other people are in the room. Some stuff is about more than how it looks.
It's different from Bull's knee. That's an exciting, adventurous story, and Astarion's is just proof of disgusting, repulsive helplessness. Physical proof of subjugation. He wants to throw up just thinking about it.
But he also is in a lot of pain; his back is already incredibly tense at all times, and the untalented horse-riding has just made it worse. He's visibly thoughtful for a few moments, worrying a lip with a fang. "Close your eyes."
Tough ask. It takes a beat, turning over if he wants to say fuck it and just promise Astarion a hot bath and a potion in his future. "Okay," Bull decides, and does close his eye, looking weirdly meditative even if his shoulders have gone tight. "But try not to fuck around, my startle response is not pretty."
Astarion looks at Bull for a moment, head tilted. Honestly, he'd never once considered that Bull—or anyone else, really, because he doesn't think much about other people at all—might have hang-ups. But trust goes both ways, or at least that's what people say. He wouldn't know, since he's never trusted anybody before.
Before right now, anyway. He's not sure he's a fan of the feeling, but— "Do I seem like the type to fuck around?" Don't answer that. He removes his shirt carefully, holding it to his chest afterward. He's not sure if he's supposed to be sitting up for this, or laying down, or...? Too prideful to ask, he just says, "All right."
Maybe he'll find this funny later; right now the moment feels too tense for that. Bull lifts a hand, reaches out to about where he thinks Astarion is, until he encounters — skin. A bicep. Skims the touch up to the point of his shoulder and that's enough for him to sketch it out in his mind's eye, Astarion's torso in space.
He shifts a little, even slower and more careful than he has been in the tent so far, and then, gruffly, "C'mere," as he touches his other hand with unerring precision to the dip in Astarion's waist. "Lean forward a little." Trying to guide without pushing, just a little shift and then he breathes, "Okay, good," and puts his hands on Astarion's back.
Here's the proof he hasn't been cheating: all his spy training in self-mastery can't prevent the light hiss through his teeth when he runs heavy hands either side the length of Astarion's spine to start warming the muscle there and feels all that texturing under his fingers. Stops well below the circle, at the top of his ass, and just thumbs there, testing the muscle for flinch. It's tight to a degree that's honestly sadder to him than the scars.
"You wanna talk about it?" he offers, wandering his fingers up to the bottom of Astarion's lats, which are just as bad.
Yes, so badly. Two hundred years and he's never once had someone who cared even a little bit about his thoughts and feelings. There's so much that's been kept bottled up inside of him that he feels like he could burst sometimes. On the other hand, there's never been someone who cared about his thoughts and feelings in two hundred years, so it's hard to feel like it'll go well if he says anything now. He might be met with indifference or scorn or, worst of all, pity.
"There's nothing to talk about," he says, gritting his teeth as Bull's thumbs press into muscles that haven't been relaxed in centuries. It feels much more vulnerable with Bull's fingers on his bare skin, and he glances behind himself to make sure that his good eye remains closed; it's a teeny, tiny bit of control that he can cling to as comfort. "You saw that place."
Explanation enough. The details are irrelevant.
Flippant: "Unfortunately, scarred and rugged isn't really the aesthetic I'm going for."
Bull's brow is furrowed in concentration, but the eye is closed. It's easier on direct skin to feel the layers of muscle and where they're pulled tight, the places there's old inflammation that springs hot at even gentle pressure.
"Can't tell you you're still pretty if you won't let me see it," he points out, reasonably. "Take a deep breath in for me. And brace yourself." He needs the ribcage expanded so he can get in and put pressure somewhere bruisingly painful again. Shorter presses this time, but more of them.
"Interesting," he says, a distraction, "That I know I am not gonna hear the end of how that horse ride fucked you up. But whatever scarred you up like that? Mm, nothing to talk about."
"I'm"—fuck, fuck, ow, ow; Astarion hisses, but doesn't scramble away despite the instinct to—"an interesting person." He's a bit annoyed at the assertion, even though it's true. Maybe because it's true. Who gave Bull the permission to know his personality? He breathes out. It's unnecessary, this facsimile of mortal physiological responses, but it helps sometimes.
"You said it," he says after a moment. "My boss is an asshole."
The mortifying ordeal of being even slightly known, huh? Bull exhales sharp through the nose. "Yeah," he agrees, vehement. He really wishes they got to kill that guy.
"I was a spy in the Tevinter Imperium for a while," he says as he keeps working at Astarion's back, which seems like a topic change to more tavern stories for all of six seconds. "Custom for nobles to keep a slave on a spike in the foyer, for guests to use blood magic to freshen up. My impression of that house was Szarr woulda done just fine in Tevinter."
"Yes," he says, darkly. "He would." Bull has no idea, in fact, just how much blood has been spilled in that place. "I suppose powerful people are the same no matter where you are."
You're either powerful or weak. The whipper or the whipped. It's just the way the world works.
Loath to let Bull think that he was in any way a slave out of personal weakness, he adds, "He had... abilities. You could say I was under his thrall." To put it simply, and in a way that incriminates him the least. "Obviously, I wouldn't have allowed such treatment otherwise."
"Wasn't assuming you had a choice." Whatever form that took. Bull doesn't actually shrug but there's something of it in his voice. "Guys like that can live in your head with or without magic crap."
He skims his hands back up the scars again, unflinching, like they're any other patch of skin. He is skipping heavy work with them, though, cautious, and jumping straight to the shoulder massage.
Ugh. The pain of having opened up to someone is worse than the pain of Bull's fingers digging into his sore muscles. He's again being so nice about it, which is a relief, but it also makes him feel... strange. Out of his depth. Shirt balled up in his lap, he picks at that loose thread again.
"You could share something humiliating now," he suggests. "It would be the polite thing to do."
Bull makes a kind of sound between his teeth that isn't a laugh and isn't a sigh — has a lot in common with the horses' whicker, really. "Khh. Yeah. I don't really..."
His hands pause, but he doesnt open his eyes. Then he starts up again. "So, imagine all your — life, or not all of it, but the controlled stuff, you're told it's because you're an elf. It's a part of being an elf, it's normal, for elves, and if you have a problem with — if any of it fucks with your head that's because you're not good at being an elf. And then you get away from it, and you're here, making your own choices, and you don't have to be an elf anymore but you've still got pointy ears and can see in the dark and whatever else."
He pauses again, just thumbing idly across the top of Astarion's spine, brushing the tips of some curls. "I'm not telling this right. People are gonna talk about 'qunari' like it's always the big grey guys with the horns, but anyone can be a qunari, if they follow the qun, and anyone can get kicked out. It's a set of rules for life the priesthood came up with to stop us losing our way, turning savage. Everyone has a place, a purpose. We, they, don't really do stuff like — shame, or love, or choices."
He's still not sure he's telling this right. His thumb brushes a scar, and it snaps him back into massaging again, though, if only because he can distract Astarion from all of that by finding the last few pressure points.
It's a little difficult to follow. Being an elf is as much a part of his identity as having white hair: it's aesthetic, more than anything else. He doesn't feel any sort of community with other elves, never found refuge in them; he's always been an island, irrevocably separated from everyone else in the world. Bull sounds serious, though, and so he tries his best to comprehend and understand, even as he shudders a little at the brush of his fingers against scar tissue.
"You're hardly a savage," he muses, more to himself than to Bull. Honestly, Bull is probably the nicest person he's ever met. It makes Astarion feel a little funny. Maybe he's allergic to kindness.
"I"—he grimaces as Bull's hands find a particularly tender spot—"can't blame you if you were fed up with all of those rules."
But he's not really at the humiliating part yet, or the bit that humiliates him like nothing else. All of this is just the shitty context, trying to talk around having to say his big heartwound out loud. "So not that long ago, just after Haven, we're doing this job for a Par Vollen alliance, me and the Inquisitor and my guys, and a big ship full of qunari. And the guy on the ground, he puts us in a position where the Chargers are getting overwhelmed, but if we blow the horn for them to retreat, the Vints take the beach and we lose the ship. And these Chargers are my guys, you know?. But — qun toh. The qun demands it. I let a lot of good people die in Seheron while following orders, and up on that hill I was — the Inquisitor had to make the choice for me. She blew the horn, saved the Chargers, got a dozen qunari killed and lost us the alliance." His voice is strained. "I couldn't do it. And now I'm Tal-Vashoth, same as all the other feral beserkers I've had to put down." With dark irony: "Pal Vollen sent a couple assassins just to really drive that point home. Thanks for the years of service, Hissrad, but now you're useless, die."
It's a lot to keep up with. He really, really is trying, actually listening to somebody when they talk for what's probably the first time in decades if not centuries, but there's a lot of moving parts. Not sure what Vints are—bad guys, clearly—or what Seheron is. Tal-Vashoth is some qunari word, he assumes, for a banished person. Hissrad? No clue.
He gets the gist, anyway. Bull got put in a shit situation and now he's being punished for it. It obviously weighs on him, and Astarion picks at that thread on his shirt again; there'll be a hole there soon if he isn't careful. He doesn't have any experience with things like showing empathy (or feeling empathy), and now he's not sure what to say.
"Well, they can go fuck themselves," he lands on. Probably not the right thing to say.
It's fine, it's the saying of it that he needs — works like the massage, long seconds of pain and then release. The only other person who even knows this is the Inquisitor herself, and she's kinda busy being all things to all people.
Astarion's response makes him laugh, shaky, fond. "Yeah," he agrees, more emphatic this time, a grin in his voice. Squeezes one of Astarion's shoulders "Listen, you're tight enough I could go for a long while yet, but I really gotta get out of this tent. Put your shirt back on, I'll go catch a nug."
He's not sure if he handled that interaction right. Maybe he should have probed more, or probed less, or been more sensitive. Astarion has never really cared about someone else's feelings before, at least not in ages, and the skills to be considerate of them have withered over time.
Bull seems all right, though, and that's all he has to go on. He slips his shirt back on with some reluctance, uncertain how to contend with the fact that he sort of wanted it to continue. It had been novel to be touched in a way that wasn't a prelude to sex. "Thank you," he says while Bull's eye is still closed. "That was..." A beat. "Fine."
Just fine! "Oof," says Bull. He likes this a lot fucking more than the fake flattery, though. "Room for improvement, then." He turns himself away from Astarion, opening his eye as he goes for the ties of the tent flaps, just to make sure he doesn't accidentally get an eyeful. "Guess you'll have to take pity and help me practice." He's determined to reduce Astarion's back to a warm jelly, and it has basically nothing to do with getting him on a horse.
Outside, he stands and stretches, looking around the field bathed in the last pinks of sunset, the sun well below the Frostback mountains to their west. Twilight's always a little early in this part of Ferelden. Pads across the grass to the horses, murmuring something softly to them, getting some carrots out of the packs.
Astarion remains in the tent, lying back down and replaying the past fifteen minutes in his head. The day has barely started, and it's already a big one. That's the longest he's ever voluntarily let someone touch him, and definitely the most he's ever opened up to another person. Bull didn't make him feel shameful or lesser than at all. It feels weird. Good weird.
When he finally emerges, he first peeks his head out to make sure he isn't about to burst into flames. The last few rays of sun make his face tingle a little bit, but he's pretty sure he'll be all right, so he steps out of the tent and makes his way to the horses, too. His horse seems to have warmed to him a bit over the ride, and unfortunately, he has to admit that he's warmed to her, too. Not that he really knows how to interact with her. "Hello," he says, and awkwardly pats her on the head.
Then, casually regarding Bull, as if he didn't just spend the last five minutes ruminating over him: "How much longer will we have to travel?"
Bull hands him the bushel of carrots so he can make himself useful. "Here, feed them these. Mind your fingers." No instruction, but it's not that different than the apple, both horses are pretty happy to feed themselves from Astarion's hands.
Anyway, his actual question, as Bull ransacks the satchel for the last bits of cheese. "If we push hard, we might make it before the dawn. Otherwise we should stop at the foot of the Frostbacks, I don't think we're exactly provisioned for camping up the mountain pass, in the snow."
Astarion hesitates a little with the carrots, evidently worried about having his fingers bitten off. The horses are gentle, though, used to being hand-fed, and Astarion suppresses the urge to smile as they take the carrots from him. Luckily, he has a reason to frown soon after. "Snow?" he asks with a scowl, tone making it clear that he's going to bitch about being cold the entire time.
"Snow, all year 'round," Bull confirms. That's probably why they're called the Frostbacks, huh. He's gonna go repeat his nug-catching technique from the evening before to try and get a couple of squealing awful pink creatures.
In brand new information there's apparently a pulley elevator through the mountains so the Inquisition isn't climbing Everest every time they go home? Who knew. Let's pretend that's what Bull said too.
Presumably feeding the horses is about the extent of Astarion's contribution to camp life; Bull lets him eat his grisly meal while he gets his armour back on and packs the tent up.
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He scratches at his cheek. "I know it's difficult to believe when I seem so without blemish, but I have some... unsightly scarring you'd rather not see." Even just admitting that feels embarrassing, although perhaps it shouldn't, considering Bull is hardly without scar himself. "The product of a terribly exciting life."
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But he also is in a lot of pain; his back is already incredibly tense at all times, and the untalented horse-riding has just made it worse. He's visibly thoughtful for a few moments, worrying a lip with a fang. "Close your eyes."
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Before right now, anyway. He's not sure he's a fan of the feeling, but— "Do I seem like the type to fuck around?" Don't answer that. He removes his shirt carefully, holding it to his chest afterward. He's not sure if he's supposed to be sitting up for this, or laying down, or...? Too prideful to ask, he just says, "All right."
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He shifts a little, even slower and more careful than he has been in the tent so far, and then, gruffly, "C'mere," as he touches his other hand with unerring precision to the dip in Astarion's waist. "Lean forward a little." Trying to guide without pushing, just a little shift and then he breathes, "Okay, good," and puts his hands on Astarion's back.
Here's the proof he hasn't been cheating: all his spy training in self-mastery can't prevent the light hiss through his teeth when he runs heavy hands either side the length of Astarion's spine to start warming the muscle there and feels all that texturing under his fingers. Stops well below the circle, at the top of his ass, and just thumbs there, testing the muscle for flinch. It's tight to a degree that's honestly sadder to him than the scars.
"You wanna talk about it?" he offers, wandering his fingers up to the bottom of Astarion's lats, which are just as bad.
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"There's nothing to talk about," he says, gritting his teeth as Bull's thumbs press into muscles that haven't been relaxed in centuries. It feels much more vulnerable with Bull's fingers on his bare skin, and he glances behind himself to make sure that his good eye remains closed; it's a teeny, tiny bit of control that he can cling to as comfort. "You saw that place."
Explanation enough. The details are irrelevant.
Flippant: "Unfortunately, scarred and rugged isn't really the aesthetic I'm going for."
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"Can't tell you you're still pretty if you won't let me see it," he points out, reasonably. "Take a deep breath in for me. And brace yourself." He needs the ribcage expanded so he can get in and put pressure somewhere bruisingly painful again. Shorter presses this time, but more of them.
"Interesting," he says, a distraction, "That I know I am not gonna hear the end of how that horse ride fucked you up. But whatever scarred you up like that? Mm, nothing to talk about."
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"You said it," he says after a moment. "My boss is an asshole."
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"I was a spy in the Tevinter Imperium for a while," he says as he keeps working at Astarion's back, which seems like a topic change to more tavern stories for all of six seconds. "Custom for nobles to keep a slave on a spike in the foyer, for guests to use blood magic to freshen up. My impression of that house was Szarr woulda done just fine in Tevinter."
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You're either powerful or weak. The whipper or the whipped. It's just the way the world works.
Loath to let Bull think that he was in any way a slave out of personal weakness, he adds, "He had... abilities. You could say I was under his thrall." To put it simply, and in a way that incriminates him the least. "Obviously, I wouldn't have allowed such treatment otherwise."
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He skims his hands back up the scars again, unflinching, like they're any other patch of skin. He is skipping heavy work with them, though, cautious, and jumping straight to the shoulder massage.
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"You could share something humiliating now," he suggests. "It would be the polite thing to do."
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His hands pause, but he doesnt open his eyes. Then he starts up again. "So, imagine all your — life, or not all of it, but the controlled stuff, you're told it's because you're an elf. It's a part of being an elf, it's normal, for elves, and if you have a problem with — if any of it fucks with your head that's because you're not good at being an elf. And then you get away from it, and you're here, making your own choices, and you don't have to be an elf anymore but you've still got pointy ears and can see in the dark and whatever else."
He pauses again, just thumbing idly across the top of Astarion's spine, brushing the tips of some curls. "I'm not telling this right. People are gonna talk about 'qunari' like it's always the big grey guys with the horns, but anyone can be a qunari, if they follow the qun, and anyone can get kicked out. It's a set of rules for life the priesthood came up with to stop us losing our way, turning savage. Everyone has a place, a purpose. We, they, don't really do stuff like — shame, or love, or choices."
He's still not sure he's telling this right. His thumb brushes a scar, and it snaps him back into massaging again, though, if only because he can distract Astarion from all of that by finding the last few pressure points.
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"You're hardly a savage," he muses, more to himself than to Bull. Honestly, Bull is probably the nicest person he's ever met. It makes Astarion feel a little funny. Maybe he's allergic to kindness.
"I"—he grimaces as Bull's hands find a particularly tender spot—"can't blame you if you were fed up with all of those rules."
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But he's not really at the humiliating part yet, or the bit that humiliates him like nothing else. All of this is just the shitty context, trying to talk around having to say his big heartwound out loud. "So not that long ago, just after Haven, we're doing this job for a Par Vollen alliance, me and the Inquisitor and my guys, and a big ship full of qunari. And the guy on the ground, he puts us in a position where the Chargers are getting overwhelmed, but if we blow the horn for them to retreat, the Vints take the beach and we lose the ship. And these Chargers are my guys, you know?. But — qun toh. The qun demands it. I let a lot of good people die in Seheron while following orders, and up on that hill I was — the Inquisitor had to make the choice for me. She blew the horn, saved the Chargers, got a dozen qunari killed and lost us the alliance." His voice is strained. "I couldn't do it. And now I'm Tal-Vashoth, same as all the other feral beserkers I've had to put down." With dark irony: "Pal Vollen sent a couple assassins just to really drive that point home. Thanks for the years of service, Hissrad, but now you're useless, die."
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He gets the gist, anyway. Bull got put in a shit situation and now he's being punished for it. It obviously weighs on him, and Astarion picks at that thread on his shirt again; there'll be a hole there soon if he isn't careful. He doesn't have any experience with things like showing empathy (or feeling empathy), and now he's not sure what to say.
"Well, they can go fuck themselves," he lands on. Probably not the right thing to say.
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Astarion's response makes him laugh, shaky, fond. "Yeah," he agrees, more emphatic this time, a grin in his voice. Squeezes one of Astarion's shoulders "Listen, you're tight enough I could go for a long while yet, but I really gotta get out of this tent. Put your shirt back on, I'll go catch a nug."
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Bull seems all right, though, and that's all he has to go on. He slips his shirt back on with some reluctance, uncertain how to contend with the fact that he sort of wanted it to continue. It had been novel to be touched in a way that wasn't a prelude to sex. "Thank you," he says while Bull's eye is still closed. "That was..." A beat. "Fine."
High praise coming from him, honestly.
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Outside, he stands and stretches, looking around the field bathed in the last pinks of sunset, the sun well below the Frostback mountains to their west. Twilight's always a little early in this part of Ferelden. Pads across the grass to the horses, murmuring something softly to them, getting some carrots out of the packs.
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When he finally emerges, he first peeks his head out to make sure he isn't about to burst into flames. The last few rays of sun make his face tingle a little bit, but he's pretty sure he'll be all right, so he steps out of the tent and makes his way to the horses, too. His horse seems to have warmed to him a bit over the ride, and unfortunately, he has to admit that he's warmed to her, too. Not that he really knows how to interact with her. "Hello," he says, and awkwardly pats her on the head.
Then, casually regarding Bull, as if he didn't just spend the last five minutes ruminating over him: "How much longer will we have to travel?"
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Anyway, his actual question, as Bull ransacks the satchel for the last bits of cheese. "If we push hard, we might make it before the dawn. Otherwise we should stop at the foot of the Frostbacks, I don't think we're exactly provisioned for camping up the mountain pass, in the snow."
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In brand new information there's apparently a pulley elevator through the mountains so the Inquisition isn't climbing Everest every time they go home? Who knew. Let's pretend that's what Bull said too.
Presumably feeding the horses is about the extent of Astarion's contribution to camp life; Bull lets him eat his grisly meal while he gets his armour back on and packs the tent up.
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