I WAS SO THRILLED ABOUT THIS ASK THANK YOU MY FRIEND AHHHH <3
Here it is! I love writing about Maxwell, it's been a long time since anyone's shown specific interest in my Inquisitor and I will yap and yap and yap and yap and- anyway. Woe. Pavelyan be upon ye.
Maxwell woke with a start, clammy and drenched in sweat. His hair clung to his cheeks and forehead in long strands, loose around his neck and shoulders like threads of sticking spidersilk. His mouth was bone dry, his breaths still quick with the lingering emerald glow of a laughing nightmare— its hooked fingers still pulling from the soft gray matter of his brain.
His vision swam into focus as the fear receded, planks of moonlight stretching across the marble floor of the room and feathering up the walls. The shadow of a blooming poplar tree through the filigreed window of the magister's bed chambers, which was still pushed slightly open. The air was thick and humid, an unforgiving summer night thick with the smell of blooming things and buzzing insects.
The sheets were damp under the skin of his back. A bead of sweat traced its way to the hollow of his throat like a seeking serpent. Maxwell laid there for a moment, his heart hammering achingly against his ribs. His left shoulder pulsed, flexing phantom nerves that had been severed years ago, pulling spectral tendons to wiggle necrotic fingers.
Dorian sighed, long and soft beside him, before reaching out to touch the arch of his shoulder. "Go back to sleep, amatus," he mumbled into his silk pillowcase.
Maxwell closed his eyes, his right hand crossing his chest to tangle with the mage's fingers of its own accord. "I'm sorry to wake you," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"And what torments my lover so?" Dorian did not open his eyes from where he laid, brows furrowed in weary irritation. "Shall I smite it for you so that I can finally commit to my hard won beauty rest?"
Maxwell smiled wearily. "Just a bad dream. And this heat."
Dorian grumbled. "Southerners. Not comfortable unless you're arse deep in a snow bank."
The Herald of Andraste burbled a low laugh, releasing his lover's hand to drag it over his face and sit up, letting the sheets pool around his waist. Dorian grumbled again and reached blindly to grope for Maxwell's waist.
"No," the magister said, reproachful.
"No?"
"You're going to go on one of your long, brooding walks. And then I'll never sleep, waiting for you to return."
"And the great Magister Pavus can't sleep comfortably without a Southerner to warm his bed?" Maxwell's smile grew.
"Your well heeled attentions keep my reputation formidable," Dorian defended blearily, brows still tightly furrowed as he tapped about Maxwell's side until he could bend his elbow and press a palm half heartedly to his chest. "Lie down."
"I'm sorry, love, I'm boiling. You'll be sleeping in a pool of my secretions if you hold me down."
Dorian released a puff of irritated laughter. "As many 'been there, done that' jokes you've presented me the oppurtunity with— and as unpleasant as the imagery may be, I really am loathe to have my guest of honor wandering my halls like a lonely ghost." He peeled open his eyes and sat up with a soft groan, rubbing at his forehead. "What will the gossip become? The servants will think I turn you out to sleep in the cinders of the hearth after I've had my way with you."
Maxwell hummed, unconvinced, smiling as his shoulders unwound at the sight of his lover's touseled dark hair and unkempt moustache, moonlight banding his throat and jaw.
"My poor pet Free Marcher. 'And the summer plagues his delicate constitution', they'll say," Dorian continued, smothering a yawn behind his hand.
"Mhmm." Maxwell only gazed sidelong at the man who had so thoroughly captured his heart, no enchantment required, before reaching out to smoothe his good hand through his hair. It was starting to curl at Dorian's neck. Longer onyx strands, soft and gathering at the nape. Not at all like the shorn coiffe it had been when they'd met.
Every day, Max found himself more and more grateful to have been lost to an apocalyptic time. More and more glad he'd been cursed to carry a religion his mother would have strung up thousands of servants for, more and more glad it all turned out the way that it had. Not that every horror had been worth it, mind you, but every horror had been worth this.
Sweating like a pig in his lover's country, in a forbidden bed that was not quite so forbidden to the warrior who carried the dead mantle of Inquisitor.
Dorian glanced up blearily, scowling. "What is it?"
"You are so grumpy in the morning," Max purred around a smile, massaging gentle fingertips idly against the mage's neck.
Dorian lolled his head back with a long sigh, grey eyes falling closed again. "Morning is a long way off. And I am not looking forward to it."
"I could steal you away, love. You can tell the magisterium that you've been carried off by bandits. You can only be returned by exchange of a handsome sum."
Dorian cracked a smile at that, basking in the attentions on his woefully brittle tendons (sitting at his desk at all hours of the day was beginning to spawn migraines) and the entertaining idea. "Tempting. But I have a handsome sum."
"Yes, well. Then I suppose they'll have to do it all without you."
"Mmm, as long as you don't take me back to your freezing little fortress."
Max frowned. "What's wrong with Skyhold? You love it, don't you?"
"I have a delicate fondness for the place, most of which can be attributed to nostalgia."
Max sighed, shifting his hand to carress the back of his palm down Dorian's cheek, idly studying the angle of his dark brows and the jut of his temple, the curve of his nose. "I miss it."
"If you're not happy here, amatus-" Dorian began, suddenly serious.
"No!" Max blurted, flushing under his lover's suddenly alert and scrutinizing gaze. "No," he tried again, softer this time. "It's lovely. Your home is lovely. The jungles are incredible, the sunsets are…" He sighed, wistful. "The food! Is also incredible."
Dorian cracked a rueful smile, studying his lover's face. "I meant the house."
"Oh. Your house is…" Max hesitated, searching Dorian's gaze as if for a clue as to the right thing to say. "Lovely."
"Yes it is. It's also stifling and old and delightfully pretentious."
Maxwell chuckled, leaning forward to rest his brow against the mage's , shutting his eyes with a smile. "I like the peacock mosaics by the door."
"Mhmm."
"And the gardens. The roses are… I've never seen so many colors of roses. Not in one place."
"Yes, and?"
"…You have excellent taste in decorative throw pillows."
Now, Dorian laughed, and Max fought not to be immediately drunk on the sound. Dorian draped his arms around his lover's broad shoulders, leaning up to kiss him. It was short and chaste, and Max nearly dissolved as the mage looked up at him with adoration, gently brushing his hair away from his face.
Dorian frowned, tucking the curtain of silver back behind his lover's ear and pressing the back of his palm to his forehead. "You do feel slightly feverish. Should I ring for tea?"
Max let his eyes fall closed, sighing. "No, I feel fine."
Instantly, Dorian's hand felt much cooler, like marble against the warrior's sweat streaked brow. Mana whispered in soft curls of mist around the mage's wrist. "My poor darling," he sighed.
"I'm alright, my love, I promise," Max mumbled, dazed by the relief of icy fingertips across his febrile skin and the tension between his brows.
"You most certainly are not. Now I'm almost sorry for mocking your constitution."
Maxwell snorted. "It's probably just leftover from the… everything."
"Would you like to tell me about your dream?" Dorian asked gently, now intent on his task as he lifted his other hand to caress his lover's jawline, where it was clenched.
Max exhaled through his nose and reveled in the slow touches. "…Lost. In the Fade again. Vivienne was in it."
Dorian gasped, though his ministrations remained steady. "You're dreaming of that Enchantress and not of me?"'
Maxwell chuckled. "She needed my help. She was shouting for me. It's unlike her to sound so… afraid." The smile fell from his face. "I ran… I ran to find her, but it was so dark… I could hear things. Squelching, crawling, and my leg just… gave out on me. Right there on the sharp rocks. Vivienne stopped calling, eventually, and I got this hollow feeling that… that…" Maxwell swallowed and took a deep breath. "And a cup shattered. A cup, or a vase, somewhere to my left. There were children that ran to collect the pieces, said something about needing them to catch the spiders. It was very bizarre."
"You're stressed," Dorian soothed, sounding a little exasperated. His fingertips ghosted lightly down either side of Maxwell's neck and the warrior could have been putty. A breeze wafted in from the window, carrying with it the scent of mimosa and the chorus of cicadas. "I wish you'd let yourself stop being everyone's hero for a while."
"I could say the very same about you."
"This is supposed to be your refuge. Here, with me."
"You are my refuge, Dorian. No matter where we are."
Dorian scoffed, his hands lingering over Maxwell's clavicle, fingertips pressing into the crevice where his heart beat beneath. "You are romantic and foolish. You don't sleep, you don't eat—"
"I eat."
"You pick and your mind wanders and then you go walk."
"…You're worried."
"I am." Dorian looked into his face, sincere. "I don't like to worry about you. Not when I'm right here to look after you."
Maxwell's gaze softened. He reached out and cupped his lover's cheek. "I'm here. I don't mean to wander."
Dorian watched him for a moment, gaze darting from either eye before he spoke again. "It makes me afraid that you lost something more than the Anchor."
"Nothing but my pride, my love." Maxwell smiled ruefully. "And Solas. But nothing more."
"The affects of prolonged exposure to the Fade, much less a fragment of it— what they can have on the mind is frankly terrifying. Your experience is largely unprecedented and—"
"Dorian. I'm fine. I'm here." Maxwell stroked a thumb across the mage's cheekbone, voice firm and eyes soft. "I don't Fadewalk. I suffer only what's expected of a soldier with an amputated limb. I've just been distracted lately. I love you."
Dorian sniffed. "…Well that was never in question." But his eyes belied a flicker of anxiety.
Maxwell leaned in close. "I was just thinking how grateful I am to have been kicked around by the Fade."
"Oh?" Dorian sighed, searching his eyes.
"I met the most amazing mage during my time with the Inquisition."
"Oh." Dorian pouted, if only to hide his little smile.
"Yes. And he was handsome, and brave—"
"He saved your life on multiple occasions, I'd wager."
"Every day from the day I set foot in the Redcliffe Chantry." Max's lips curved in the softest of smiles, and Dorian only rolled his eyes before splaying his hand on his lover's chest to kiss him. Long and slow.
