A laugh – though it lacks all the warmth of his younger self.
“Looks can be deceiving, Dorian. I can still fight,”
He cannot. But pride is a wonderful thing, a fatal flaw of the Inquisitor which has kept him from reaching back to his lover, from stepping away from his position, from showing the world what had truly become of him. Pride is what keeps him standing up, as if to defy – or to push his luck. Dorian could take him down in a heartbeat, yet he stands with his arms crossed like he might still be in control of this reunion. As if he were the predator, not the prey.
“What an excellent use of the Shadow Dragons’ time. Let’s hope the venatori don’t use it as a chance to make their move,”
Ten years, and where did it get him? Lonely, sick and miserable, ambushed by his amatus in a Minrathous bar. The steel in the Inquisitor’s eyes melts into something liquid and less secure. It’s hard to face him like this, hard to look into the eyes of someone he’d wronged so horrifically and act as if he doesn’t care.
It aches. It aches to care so much, to still find the man as attractive as he’d been the last day they saw each other. What he wouldn’t give to touch his face, to run his hands through that longer hair, to whisper sweet nothings to the man in those quiet hours of the morning.
Talk of the crystal induces another laugh. Oh, the irony of it all. Under all the finery, it still hums with a certain magic – never to be taken off, but never to be answered. Every message had been received, had even been felt. In private, he cried in longing.
Why hadn’t Dorian moved on? Cathal had given him plenty of reasons.
He sighs, then turns further away from him with his arms still crossed. The gloved fingers of his right hand drum on the metal of the prosthetic arm, one small tell of his uncertainty.
“You deserve better,” he says slowly, coolly, through a veneer of deadly calm. “Which I can’t provide, so I gave you the space to move on. It’s not about anything you did. Now may I leave?”
