"Yeah," Bull agrees, deliberately obtuse, "Monster hunting, bodyguard work..." He's joking, mainly to cover the fact that he's a little nervous. Gaze tracking Astarion's face; the lack of pretending to hate the idea is a bad sign, he thinks.
Astarion had been dreading the overture, but the uncertainty of not having one made is worse. He can't help it— the anxiety makes him say, "Go on, make a move already. That's why you stayed here, isn't it?" He cringes a little after, embarrassed at how insecure it sounds.
Bull considers that, still watching him. "You think because you get me hard you have to do something about it? You don't. I like you, but I can control myself — that's basically my whole thing." The shrug of a shoulder. He does make a move, but it's to reach out a hand to find one of Astarion's, brush one of his fingers lightly over Astarion's knuckles.
On one hand, he's infinitely relieved that he's not going to have to do something about it. On the other hand, Bull not following the predictable script he'd expected makes him feel nervous. "You like me," he repeats, a little dumbfounded, not really sure how to respond to that. It's evident on his face, the way his brow raises and then furrows.
Incredibly fucking skeptical: "—For my personality?"
"For your taste in literature," Bull deadpans. A beat as he realizes Astarion doesn't believe him. "C'mon. You're resilient, you're funny, you're brave — you don't hit on me every five minutes or treat me like some savage." Astarion escaping the fantasy racism allegations solely by coming from the wrong world.
"You helped me get home. I could keep going." Even if he's getting kind of embarrassed now; these are all, in his opinion, objectively factual statements about Astarion that anybody would make, but they also feel like they're getting closer to talking about feelings, which he's obviously never had in his life. Can't a guy just cuddle another guy without it being a whole shitting thing.
"Oh." Huh. He feels a little bad for instantly assuming that Bull just wanted to get laid, but in his defense, he's pretty sure no one has ever liked his personality before. "...Of course you like me. I'm eminently likable."
This is one of those moments where he could accuse Bull of being nice again, but he doesn't seem to like that, and Astarion is very, very reluctant to do anything that might scare him away from saying more complimentary things like this in the future. Unfortunately, he really likes hearing it. "I guess your personality is rather unobjectionable, too," he forces out, feeling more than 'kind of' embarrassed.
A moment, and then he pulls the covers all the way up. "Point that thing away from me, if you're going to be here."
That's way more like the reaction he expected, and he snorts. This is the world's least sexy conversation so it's not such a massive problem anymore, but he still rolls all the way onto his back so he can put his head down, very careful of the angle so he doesn't hit the headboard, or Astarion, with his horns. Lifts an arm to tuck under the pillow to get a better angle.
"Offer to cuddle remains open," he informs Astarion, settling in for an afternoon nap.
It feels incredibly strange to have somebody lying beside him in bed who he didn't just have sex with, but not necessarily bad, so Astarion allows Bull the privilege of not getting kicked out. In a few hours, he'll wake Bull and demand he show him around and help him find a wizard who might have some knowledge of a protective spell or artifact to take care of his pesky little sunlight problem. (Also, he might ask Bull where he can find some nugs. Like, a lot of them. This minuscule amount of blood isn't cutting it when a vampire is meant to drain entire people.) Until then, though, he does his best to make himself comfortable among his excessive amount of pillows.
"In your dreams," he huffs, closing his eyes, although he does allow the very sides of their arms to brush so that he can tell Bull is still there to be his quote-unquote heroic protector should something happen. This is exceedingly affectionate coming from Astarion, really.
It's always reassuringly easy to wake Bull; he can look like he's sleeping cartoonishly deep and yet, with a nudge or a cleared throat or even too long a gaze and his eye opens again like he was faking it the whole time.
The sky is still all pinks and purples so their tour starts inside Skyhold: the Throne Room (busy) and the War Room (busier), up and down the atrium, vague gestures to corridors that lead to the sleeping quarters, or stairs leading down to the wine cellars, the dungeons, the Undercroft. Bull is kind of enjoying revisiting the place and showing it off at the same time; it's been months, and there's been a lot of renovations, scaffolding removed and rubble cleared away.
Through the kitchen into the night, redolent with the sounds and smells of the army roasting their dinner around the cookfires outside their tents. Not to mention the sights and smells of the stables, where Astarion can be reunited with the horse he rode in on, and Bull makes big Will Smith Presenting My Wife arms at his usual Dracolisk mount as she tries to bite his fingers off with her awful lizardy teeth.
All the while, people stop Bull to talk to him — quick reunions, passing gossip, innuendo, whatever. He introduces "My friend, Astarion," each time, with various levels of threatening emphasis on friend depending on how racist against elves any given person is.
Astarion doesn't really pick up on the subtle 'don't-be-racist' threatening, because despite the fact that Bull has informed him of anti-elf sentiment several times, it's still difficult to grasp. High elves are used to being the ones who look down on others, not the other way around. So, regardless of who Bull is introducing to him, he holds out a limp-wristed hand like he half-expects them to kiss it rather than shake it and says, "Charmed."
When the sweet little dwarf scout he's just met scurries away down the hall, Astarion puts his hands on his hips and regards Bull with a contemplative look. "You're very popular, aren't you?" Understandable, really, given his easygoing personality, but it's kind of annoying. He was hoping Bull wouldn't have anything more important to focus on than helping him, but it's becoming quickly obvious that isn't the case.
"The more people who like me, the less that might try to kill me," Bull points out evenly. He is a little uncharitably surprised at how many of the Inquisitor's inner circle have affected genuine relief and pleasure to see him back safe, though. "But yeah, I know a lot of people." People are mostly easy, he finds. Except Astarion.
"They'd be very stupid to try to kill you," Astarion points out, not because of Bull's talent in combat but because of his natural advantages. Sucking up to other people so they won't hurt you is something for regular people, like Astarion. Bull is big (lengthwise and widthwise) and strong; he doesn't need to kowtow. It's something Astarion is incredibly jealous of, in fact.
Another thing he's jealous of is the fact that Bull doesn't feel the urge to kill and drain people, something which has been steadily growing with each new face introduced. He keeps hoping Bull will say something that would easily excuse their murder, but not yet. Astarion scratches his cheek.
"—I don't suppose there are any horses back in that stable that the Inquisition wouldn't miss."
"Planning to go for another ride?" Bull asks with a half-smile, leaning his shoulder against the wall as he looks down at Astarion.
"I've been thinking," he admits, "What we're gonna do about your diet. If the kitchen switches to ordering live pigs from Haven, we set up a tent where you can uh, bleed them, then the butcher can use the meat. Depends on how much you need, and how often."
Strangely, Astarion sort of likes being the recipient of that little half-smile. Immediately, he starts scheming about how he can receive it again.
"I don't know, exactly," he admits. "I mean—" He crosses his arms, debating on whether or not to share this. Maybe he should just lie and say that he'll turn into a fine dust if not fed the equivalent of a whole bear every day. "I can survive on quite little, but I'm certain I would be of more use to all of you if I were to be more nourished." So, the more pigs the better. "The hunger can be quite. Distracting."
"Okay. I can swing of more use for," a gesture, vague in the air, to imply Josephine's dominion over their accounts payable, "The requisitioning of pigs." He figures the soldiers probably spitroast a lot pork every night, maybe some goat, lamb — it's more about finding the space to pen live animals up here than the increase in cost. But surely they won't need that many. How much can one li'l elf really eat?
"Can always get you some cold weather gear and set you loose on the mountain — I'm kidding." Holding his hand up to forestall the obvious incoming indignation, grinning at his own shitty joke. "Kidding. What I mean is, we'll figure it out. Shame we can't just feed you the prisoners."
Oh, now that half-smile has been completely pushed out of his mind, because there's other, more important things he'd like to be the recipient of. "You keep prisoners here?" he asks, trying not to sound too excited. Like he's not salivating a little already. "Horrible, awful ones, I presume, who it would be doing the world a favor to, erm, remove—?"
Not that he really cares about the moral fiber of whoever he kills, but he'd prefer to stay on the Inquisition's good side at least until they've solved this sunlight issue.
Interesting. "So it doesn't just have to be animals." Way more than demon shit, that's, as best his Northern ass understands it, Darkspawny. Ghouls and revenants hungry for the living.
Gives Bull some weird cognitive dissonance to think about Astarion like that, so he puts aside that little revelation and shifts immediately to talking about the prisoners. "The boss stands in divine judgement of those who commit crimes against Thedas, and she picks execution way less often than I'd like. Rest of them usually end up in the cells. Been a while, so I don't know who exactly's in there now."
'Divine judgment' sounds pretty hinky to him, especially since the Inquisitor had just seemed like a regular elf. He'd thought that she was just an army commander of some kind, but apparently her role is a bit more... spiritual than previously thought. (Oh, gods, he really hopes he didn't just wander into a community of religious nutjobs.)
But he'll have to ask Bull about that later. For now, he has only one priority. Bull has yet again surpassed his expectations by seemingly not giving a shit about his eccentricities, but now that he knows that's a Bull-specific trait instead of everyone in Thedas just being really cool about a lot of stuff, he lowers his voice.
"Does that mean the prisoners aren't, ah—" As unbothered as Bull seems to be by this, he still doesn't want to sound too grisly. "On the menu?"
Bull's jaw shifts, quite a moment as he thinks over some ramifications, weighs up consequences. Hard to do anything properly secret in Skyhold, and Astarion is new, needs to keep his head down. But also the neatness of the solution really calls to him.
"We can go look," he decides, since it's been six months, he doesn't know who they're holding. Straightens up off the wall so they can head back to the dungeon entrance, opposite the Herald's Rest, where Maryden's singing spills out into the night. "Just look, tonight. Though if we're still holding Alexius... nobody's gonna shed a tear if he turns up dead." He'd thought about doing it himself, for those he lost on Seheron if nothing else, but unfortunately it's just not in him to ignore the Inuqisitor's decisions, however much he disagrees with them.
Glances over to Astarion, still calculating — thinking about the other Venatori, the ones not behind bars. "Do you have to kill them? Is that part of it?"
Astarion brightens at look, then darkens at just look. Bull has just done the equivalent of waving a juicy steak in front of a hungry dog's face. Still, being allowed to look is one step closer to being allowed to bite, so he follows behind Bull with an excited new spring in his step.
The question, though— "Ah." How to answer that? "I'm not— I don't exactly—" He clears his throat. "That is to say, this will be my... first time. With a person."
A thinking creature. The nugs had been a step up from rats, but he knows what he really longs for. Maybe it's a natural vampiric impulse to want blood from an intelligent creature, or maybe it's just a natural Astarion impulse to covet what he's been denied.
"I'm sure I could try." Not to kill his meal, he means. He waffles for a moment, trying to decide if he wants to share this next tidbit with Bull or not. He has been extraordinarily trustworthy through all of this. Not just nice, but good. So, although he's a bit anxious about sharing, Astarion says, "It's just that once I start, I'm not sure I'll be able"—or willing—"to stop."
Bull snorts at first time, but he's somewhat relieved that Astarion isn't actually an experienced man-eater, so to speak. Maybe they shouldn't go down that road at all, but he'd seemed so perked up by the idea. And it's probably becoming growingly clear: Bull isn't adverse to killing people — so long as they're the right people. Or more accurately, not someone he thinks of as "people" at all.
"Yeah? Don't sell yourself short," Bull says. "If it's just a matter of willpower, you'll be fine." They pass the edge of a campfire's circle of light, not sneaking but quiet so close to the soldiers, and then into the landing at the top of the stairs. Bull takes two steps down and pauses, looking back up at the silhouette of Astarion behind him. "I just figured, you know, if we can't nail down anything tonight I could uh. Volunteer."
"Oh," Astarion says lamely, because he certainly hadn't expected a donation. Maybe it's because Bull has no concept of 'evil bloodsucking creatures who just want to kill you'. Or maybe even if he did, he'd just be that selfless anyway. Because it is selfless—there's no benefit for Bull and seemingly a million drawbacks. Then again, that's sort of how Astarion feels like simply interacting with himself is like, and Bull hasn't stopped doing that yet. Again, very selfless.
"You would have quite a lot of blood to spare."
Of course, the idea of getting to sink his fangs into a real, live person makes him feel incredibly distracted, mouth watering. But he's not as sure of his willpower as Bull seems to be, and not only would accidentally killing him be an emotional clusterfuck, but Astarion's pretty sure the Inquisitor would pick execution for him.
"But it might..." Go really, really badly. "Hurt."
"Yeah, that's probably lowest on my list of concerns about it," Bull says. His relationship with pain is complicated and multi-faceted. It's at the basis of how he fights, how he moves through space, and deeply entwined with his sexuality. That last thing's a little higher on the list of concerns.
Like this, a couple stairs between them, eye contact should be easier, but his gaze is off past Astarion's shoulder and up the stairs as if he's making sure nobody's close enough to hear this. "I can handle pain. Under the right circumstances I'm into it. But it's intimate as shit, so." A shrug, gaze coming back to Astarion's face.
Um, he was not expecting the casual reveal that Bull is apparently a masochist. Interesting, he thinks, before shoving whatever curiosity that is way, way down.
Really, he's not sure what he's supposed to do with this information. Is blood-drinking intimate? He'd never considered it to be so, but he's also always imagined someone dying at the end. Just a bigger nug. He's never once imagined a scenario in which he sunk his fangs into somebody that would survive it, what it would feel like looking someone in the eye while knowing their blood is on his tongue. It's not exactly a turn-on, but it does conjure up a strange feeling he can't name.
"We'll cross that long, hard bridge when we get to it," he says flippantly, then hard-pivots. "Who's Alexios?" Alexius—Bull had mentioned him briefly, sounded more than a little resentful. "Perhaps he might be on the menu."
"Corypheus, the guy everyone's gearing up to go fight, has a whole cult of Tevinter supremacists." He's taking off down the stairs again. "Alexius is one of 'em."
They hit the bottom of the stairs and are intercepted by the antsy young guard on duty; Bull explains the Inquistor asked him to go question the prisoners about Corypheus one last time.
The cells are slim pickings after Orlais has remanded two prisoners: Ser Ruth in the closest, reading a book on her bed, her cell the only one with creature comforts as she's the only one willingly serving her sentence. Bull ignores her, turns to the cell opposite.
"Raleigh Samson," he says in a low voice to Astarion; the man currently twitching and sweating through lyrium withdrawal can barely focus his eyes enough to acknowledge him. "Corypheus' right hand man. Inquisitor must have decided he might have information." Or maybe Samson's survival is a favour to Cullen, Bull vaguely remembers they knew each other in Kirkwall. Those are the only reasons he can think not to just kill the pathetic bastard.
Further up, two empty cells away from the others, is Gereon Alexius, who rises to his feet at the sight of the Iron Bull and comes right up to the bars. He's been here months, angry and grieving his son, and even Dorian's visitations haven't stopped him from becoming a gaunt shell of himself. "Hissrad," he sneers. "Someone told me you were dead."
"Yeah, you'd love that," Bull says, leaning his shoulders back against the cell bars opposite and folding his arms.
"It's nothing personal," Alexius says with intent zeal. "You are simply the first symptom of an oncoming disease. If the Inquisitor understood the threat you ox-men pose to the South, she would have you rotting down here alongside me. The Inquisition would be marching North to join Tevinter in wiping your grey plague from our shores."
Bull gives Astarion a look like, get a load of this guy.
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Incredibly fucking skeptical: "—For my personality?"
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"You helped me get home. I could keep going." Even if he's getting kind of embarrassed now; these are all, in his opinion, objectively factual statements about Astarion that anybody would make, but they also feel like they're getting closer to talking about feelings, which he's obviously never had in his life. Can't a guy just cuddle another guy without it being a whole shitting thing.
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This is one of those moments where he could accuse Bull of being nice again, but he doesn't seem to like that, and Astarion is very, very reluctant to do anything that might scare him away from saying more complimentary things like this in the future. Unfortunately, he really likes hearing it. "I guess your personality is rather unobjectionable, too," he forces out, feeling more than 'kind of' embarrassed.
A moment, and then he pulls the covers all the way up. "Point that thing away from me, if you're going to be here."
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"Offer to cuddle remains open," he informs Astarion, settling in for an afternoon nap.
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"In your dreams," he huffs, closing his eyes, although he does allow the very sides of their arms to brush so that he can tell Bull is still there to be his quote-unquote heroic protector should something happen. This is exceedingly affectionate coming from Astarion, really.
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The sky is still all pinks and purples so their tour starts inside Skyhold: the Throne Room (busy) and the War Room (busier), up and down the atrium, vague gestures to corridors that lead to the sleeping quarters, or stairs leading down to the wine cellars, the dungeons, the Undercroft. Bull is kind of enjoying revisiting the place and showing it off at the same time; it's been months, and there's been a lot of renovations, scaffolding removed and rubble cleared away.
Through the kitchen into the night, redolent with the sounds and smells of the army roasting their dinner around the cookfires outside their tents. Not to mention the sights and smells of the stables, where Astarion can be reunited with the horse he rode in on, and Bull makes big Will Smith Presenting My Wife arms at his usual Dracolisk mount as she tries to bite his fingers off with her awful lizardy teeth.
All the while, people stop Bull to talk to him — quick reunions, passing gossip, innuendo, whatever. He introduces "My friend, Astarion," each time, with various levels of threatening emphasis on friend depending on how racist against elves any given person is.
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When the sweet little dwarf scout he's just met scurries away down the hall, Astarion puts his hands on his hips and regards Bull with a contemplative look. "You're very popular, aren't you?" Understandable, really, given his easygoing personality, but it's kind of annoying. He was hoping Bull wouldn't have anything more important to focus on than helping him, but it's becoming quickly obvious that isn't the case.
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Another thing he's jealous of is the fact that Bull doesn't feel the urge to kill and drain people, something which has been steadily growing with each new face introduced. He keeps hoping Bull will say something that would easily excuse their murder, but not yet. Astarion scratches his cheek.
"—I don't suppose there are any horses back in that stable that the Inquisition wouldn't miss."
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"I've been thinking," he admits, "What we're gonna do about your diet. If the kitchen switches to ordering live pigs from Haven, we set up a tent where you can uh, bleed them, then the butcher can use the meat. Depends on how much you need, and how often."
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"I don't know, exactly," he admits. "I mean—" He crosses his arms, debating on whether or not to share this. Maybe he should just lie and say that he'll turn into a fine dust if not fed the equivalent of a whole bear every day. "I can survive on quite little, but I'm certain I would be of more use to all of you if I were to be more nourished." So, the more pigs the better. "The hunger can be quite. Distracting."
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"Can always get you some cold weather gear and set you loose on the mountain — I'm kidding." Holding his hand up to forestall the obvious incoming indignation, grinning at his own shitty joke. "Kidding. What I mean is, we'll figure it out. Shame we can't just feed you the prisoners."
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Not that he really cares about the moral fiber of whoever he kills, but he'd prefer to stay on the Inquisition's good side at least until they've solved this sunlight issue.
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Gives Bull some weird cognitive dissonance to think about Astarion like that, so he puts aside that little revelation and shifts immediately to talking about the prisoners. "The boss stands in divine judgement of those who commit crimes against Thedas, and she picks execution way less often than I'd like. Rest of them usually end up in the cells. Been a while, so I don't know who exactly's in there now."
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But he'll have to ask Bull about that later. For now, he has only one priority. Bull has yet again surpassed his expectations by seemingly not giving a shit about his eccentricities, but now that he knows that's a Bull-specific trait instead of everyone in Thedas just being really cool about a lot of stuff, he lowers his voice.
"Does that mean the prisoners aren't, ah—" As unbothered as Bull seems to be by this, he still doesn't want to sound too grisly. "On the menu?"
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"We can go look," he decides, since it's been six months, he doesn't know who they're holding. Straightens up off the wall so they can head back to the dungeon entrance, opposite the Herald's Rest, where Maryden's singing spills out into the night. "Just look, tonight. Though if we're still holding Alexius... nobody's gonna shed a tear if he turns up dead." He'd thought about doing it himself, for those he lost on Seheron if nothing else, but unfortunately it's just not in him to ignore the Inuqisitor's decisions, however much he disagrees with them.
Glances over to Astarion, still calculating — thinking about the other Venatori, the ones not behind bars. "Do you have to kill them? Is that part of it?"
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The question, though— "Ah." How to answer that? "I'm not— I don't exactly—" He clears his throat. "That is to say, this will be my... first time. With a person."
A thinking creature. The nugs had been a step up from rats, but he knows what he really longs for. Maybe it's a natural vampiric impulse to want blood from an intelligent creature, or maybe it's just a natural Astarion impulse to covet what he's been denied.
"I'm sure I could try." Not to kill his meal, he means. He waffles for a moment, trying to decide if he wants to share this next tidbit with Bull or not. He has been extraordinarily trustworthy through all of this. Not just nice, but good. So, although he's a bit anxious about sharing, Astarion says, "It's just that once I start, I'm not sure I'll be able"—or willing—"to stop."
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"Yeah? Don't sell yourself short," Bull says. "If it's just a matter of willpower, you'll be fine." They pass the edge of a campfire's circle of light, not sneaking but quiet so close to the soldiers, and then into the landing at the top of the stairs. Bull takes two steps down and pauses, looking back up at the silhouette of Astarion behind him. "I just figured, you know, if we can't nail down anything tonight I could uh. Volunteer."
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"You would have quite a lot of blood to spare."
Of course, the idea of getting to sink his fangs into a real, live person makes him feel incredibly distracted, mouth watering. But he's not as sure of his willpower as Bull seems to be, and not only would accidentally killing him be an emotional clusterfuck, but Astarion's pretty sure the Inquisitor would pick execution for him.
"But it might..." Go really, really badly. "Hurt."
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Like this, a couple stairs between them, eye contact should be easier, but his gaze is off past Astarion's shoulder and up the stairs as if he's making sure nobody's close enough to hear this. "I can handle pain. Under the right circumstances I'm into it. But it's intimate as shit, so." A shrug, gaze coming back to Astarion's face.
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Really, he's not sure what he's supposed to do with this information. Is blood-drinking intimate? He'd never considered it to be so, but he's also always imagined someone dying at the end. Just a bigger nug. He's never once imagined a scenario in which he sunk his fangs into somebody that would survive it, what it would feel like looking someone in the eye while knowing their blood is on his tongue. It's not exactly a turn-on, but it does conjure up a strange feeling he can't name.
"We'll cross that long, hard bridge when we get to it," he says flippantly, then hard-pivots. "Who's Alexios?" Alexius—Bull had mentioned him briefly, sounded more than a little resentful. "Perhaps he might be on the menu."
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They hit the bottom of the stairs and are intercepted by the antsy young guard on duty; Bull explains the Inquistor asked him to go question the prisoners about Corypheus one last time.
The cells are slim pickings after Orlais has remanded two prisoners: Ser Ruth in the closest, reading a book on her bed, her cell the only one with creature comforts as she's the only one willingly serving her sentence. Bull ignores her, turns to the cell opposite.
"Raleigh Samson," he says in a low voice to Astarion; the man currently twitching and sweating through lyrium withdrawal can barely focus his eyes enough to acknowledge him. "Corypheus' right hand man. Inquisitor must have decided he might have information." Or maybe Samson's survival is a favour to Cullen, Bull vaguely remembers they knew each other in Kirkwall. Those are the only reasons he can think not to just kill the pathetic bastard.
Further up, two empty cells away from the others, is Gereon Alexius, who rises to his feet at the sight of the Iron Bull and comes right up to the bars. He's been here months, angry and grieving his son, and even Dorian's visitations haven't stopped him from becoming a gaunt shell of himself. "Hissrad," he sneers. "Someone told me you were dead."
"Yeah, you'd love that," Bull says, leaning his shoulders back against the cell bars opposite and folding his arms.
"It's nothing personal," Alexius says with intent zeal. "You are simply the first symptom of an oncoming disease. If the Inquisitor understood the threat you ox-men pose to the South, she would have you rotting down here alongside me. The Inquisition would be marching North to join Tevinter in wiping your grey plague from our shores."
Bull gives Astarion a look like, get a load of this guy.
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