Dragon Age One Shots

Autumn in Dragon Age -- Dorian

Swish-swish-swish. The soul affirming aroma of leaves crisping in the autumn sun filled my nose as I bent down to collect an armful. Reds, browns, yellows, and oranges all crinkled in my hands. The pile threatened to tumble, but I shifted, quickly regaining control as I turned to add it to the mass of yard waste.

In doing so, I caught the laborious turn of a page. The book's owner reclined upon a cedar lawn chair that'd have to be put up soon for winter. He'd taken his time to pour a rather convoluted concoction and would stir the straw clockwise when not flipping the pages of his book. Not once did he glance up towards me, nor offer his assistance.

I tugged a leather work glove off with my teeth and used the free hand to wipe the well-earned sweat from my brow. Still nothing. A groan fumbled from my lips, and with exaggerated effort I reached behind to cup the small of my back in a labored stretch. He didn't even shift from the noise.

"Are you going to do nothing but sit there all day, Dorian?" thundered from my lips as I glared at the man stretched out as if I were a hired gardener.

"I believe there were plans to shower later, which," he sniffed the air as if he could smell me clear across our yard, "I suggest you look into."

"Ha!" The laugh escaped because it was better than whacking him over the head with the rake. "Is there nothing you fear more than dirt and sweat?"

"I'd put bears higher on that list," those sonorous, velvety, sex-turned-into-a-voice words tried to burrow under my skin and tickle the funny bone. But I'd been scrounging in the piles of tumbled leaves and dead branches for hours while he sat there sipping on his cocktail without a care in the world.

Hurling both gloves to the ground and leaning the rake against a trunk, I turned to the man who was fishing around for the straw with his tongue. "You live here, you know."

"Truly? Here I thought I simply allowed my belongings to enjoy an extended vacation in your drawers."

"Would it kill you to help me with the leaves?" I exasperated, wincing as my voice crept higher into whine territory.

Dorian finally let the book slip down, his cultivated eyebrow rising as he took in my pathetic form. Tousling his waxed mustache a moment, he mused, "Yes, I believe it would. I'm deathly allergic to yard work of all variety. Besides, I already help plenty around here."

"Oh?"

"Who does that dreaded cooking you can't stand? Or the laundry?"

I scoffed, rising higher on my toes, "Only because you insist I'll ruin your shirts."

"They are silk, hand embroidered. You cannot simply hurl such a treasure in with your pile of stained denim, hit random buttons, and not expect a disaster." He was in full on fussy mode, or pretending to be so I'd back off. It was only one bloody shirt and I paid him back. Eventually. God did he have expensive taste in clothes, food, wine. Damn near everything but men.

"So? That's two things," I huffed. My arms extended to the expansive backyard in the midst of a powerful shedding after the winds whipped through. "This is as much your problem as it is mine."

"How so?" Dorian sighed, worrying his shoulders into the chair I'd stained before the summer set in. "When I agreed to this arrangement I don't remember asking for the trees."

"What?"

"Get rid of them for all I care. Bulldoze the mess down, then you won't have to whinge about scraping their dead leaves off the grass. Regardless, it is not my problem." He lifted the book higher, clearly hoping to end the conversation.

I eyed up the first of twenty bags I'd already collected for the compost heap. All my sweat, my blisters, my pain were poured into those paper bags. And there was Dorian, as fresh as a summer daisy. Free to enjoy the clean air, the cool breeze, the yellowing grass under his toes, and the shade of those trees he claimed to have nothing to do with.

My hands snatched up the entire bag stuffed to bursting with red and yellow maple leaves. I made it another step closer before I asked myself if this was wise. Dorian didn't even turn his head at the sound of my approach, his eyes burrowing into the dry text. How relaxed and rested he looked, reclining back on this beautiful autumn day.

With a fast spin, I upended the entire bag onto his gelled head. Leaves tumbled through the air like a paper shredder gone berserk, Dorian blanketing from my view. I could only catch the sight of a snarling lip, or a wild eye as he realized the tumble of fall wasn't about to give up anytime soon.

"What in the..." he cursed, the book flying from his fingers as he spun on the chair to come eye to eye with me.

His cheeks flushed in shock, his lips pursed in clear annoyance bordering on anger. And his eyes, those endless pools I'd be forever shocked to find sharing a bathroom mirror with, deepened at my audacity. I read the "How dare you?!" written across his face.

Before he could form the first 'h' of his admonishment, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to my lips. Dorian's pout softened but didn't melt entirely. The force in his kiss drove me wilder, my blistered fingers wafting through his soft hair as I lapped my tongue into his mouth.

The taste of rum pinged first, but as I fell further into the man, the spice, the refinement, the pounding heart secreted away from nearly all flared across my lips. Even exhausted with his antics I couldn't help but love him. Though, he did deserve the leaf shower.

Dorian broke from my kiss in order to nuzzle his always clean-shaven face against my nest of stubble. For all his nose-turning at dirty hands and sweaty brows he certainly enjoyed the feel of a hairy man both scratching up his cheeks and rutting around in his bed.

I trembled as he drew his questing fingers under my jeans.

"You are aware of what this means?" Dorian whispered, his fingernails scraping down the back of my shirt. Legs twisted together, palms sliding downward, mouths sucking upon tender flesh. My lips parted, ready to beg for any of the options dancing through my imagination.

Dorian got a handful of my ass and all my attention. His eyes blazed beside mine, hot breath tickling through my scruff as I waited for his suggestion. Suddenly, red and yellow splattered into my face. The mass fell quickly, leaving me to blink in confusion as Dorian danced back.

He fished both arms deep into a second bag of leaves, loading up his ammo as he shouted, "War!"