Chapter Text
"I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips."
-Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit
Tuesdays are...unremarkable. They are as palatable as table wine; nothing special, nothing too unpleasant. The week has begun already, and the worst of it is over. His workweek starts on a Tuesday and ends on a Saturday. In like a lamb, out like a lion. But he likes Tuesdays. They let him return to work gently, like dipping his toe into the bath. It’s a little slow, tipping is less than stellar, but it gives him a chance to build momentum. As for the rest of the week: Thursdays are his favorite. They build into a profitable Friday. But the weekend? The weekend is right out. This is because Saturdays are, quite literally, the end of the world. Every. Single. Service.
Everyone else in the world is off duty, paycheck in hand, ready to demand service. They sell alcohol by the boatload and the kitchen staff live in the weeds like they’re giving out free handjobs.
On the outset, Haven is a quaint little bistro tucked neatly on the corner of a row of old buildings like the endcap to books on a shelf. With its attractive brick exterior, ivy crawling up the facade, and a dog-friendly policy, it garners a strong following of dedicated customers both old and young. There’s a pleasant outdoor seating area dotted with wrought-iron tables and chairs. Umbrellas provide shade from the summer heat, looking like they’ve been freshly plucked from a cocktail glass. Large windows let in natural light on a clean and sleek interior of gray and green, inspired by the latest in Orlesian trends, and the menu follows suit with fresh and modern small plate offerings. In the evenings, they open the windows to let in the cool breeze and hanging lanterns give the place a magical sort of whimsy.
From Friday at approximately four pm til after brunch on Sunday, Haven is a warzone. Customers have no idea, of course, because the waitstaff are like ducks on water, almost undetectable in how they scramble to keep everything running smoothly. And they are paid well for that talent, too. The highest performers are always, always scheduled to work weekends.
And Dorian Pavus is one of them.
He enjoys his job. There is no doubt about his commitment or his abilities, and he takes home a handsome sum in tips—where else could someone with a desiccating unfinished thesis on the impact of cultural invasion in the ancient Imperium make two hundred dollars in two hours?—but he’s running low on fuel, now. It’s late, and they’re less than an hour from closing, and he’s faced with an upturned plate of spaghetti and an extremely cranky, crying child at his last four-top, and it’s seriously testing his limits. The whole evening has been a bit of a wash, if he’s honest. College brats make for lousy gratuity, and there were lots of them in his section tonight, hardly leaving enough for him to tip out his bartender, and he’d almost been late to clock in, before that. Chef Ranier has been training up a new sous chef and his attention to detail is wonderful, really, but it’s taken forever to get his orders out. Which does not help with satisfied customers, and is nothing that he can readily control.
He’s three years into what he’d once grievously called a “summer gig” and it’s only on nights like these that he thinks about hopping the first flight out to Minrathous in the morning. He keeps just enough money around for that, but never quite gets the nerve.
At table twelve, he reaches over to wipe up a spill, and over the sound of their toddler screaming he assures the parents that it’s all right. At the last moment he notices the child squirming in its booster seat. It squeals and slams a fat little fist into mommy’s wine glass, rocketing merlot right down the front of Dorian’s shirt. Oh, but he bites his lip and pretends it’s not important, and says as much to the mortified couple, who must certainly know better. At least now he’s sure to get a good tip out of them. If he doesn’t… He can’t bear to think of it. He does what he can to clean up and wears a smile throughout the entire ordeal. In back of house, he grabs a wet floor sign and hands it to Lavellan.
“Table twelve,” he says, heading for his locker. And in passing, “I’ll split the tip with you,” when she begins to scoff.
There are stain removing wipes in the back of his locker for just this occasion. He ducks into the men’s room and she’s already on her way to do damage control. Make that tip even bigger, if she can. Handy with kids, that one. The stalls are all blessedly empty and he gets to work in front of the mirror. A lot of dabbing and water and paper towels later, most of the stain is out, reduced to a ghost of pale pink. Dawdling any longer will draw attention to his absence, and so with a resigned sigh, he puts his game face back on. From what he can see, the situation at table twelve has been remedied. Lavellan has a precious face much more suited to the handling of children. The parents are smiling and the wet floor sign is standing up by their table, the wine and the spaghetti and everything else as good as forgotten. The tot has his face embedded in a small bowl of frozen yogurt. Comp, of course.
He can’t wait to go home. Eat a makeshift dinner of leftover steamed veggies and buttered rice and all the white wine he wants, because tomorrow he can sleep in. It’ll be his day off. He’ll owe nothing to anyone. If he recalls correctly, there are back to back reruns of trashy 80s flicks slated to play all weekend. It's the simple pleasures in life that keep him going. He closes out two other checks for the last few diners in his section and stands idly at the POS for a moment, taking it all in, mentally preparing himself for closing.
“On your left.” He hears Sera snapping at him before he sees her, busily swerving around him with a full tray of dirty dishes. “Oi, quit gawking and get your section clear before Big Boss Lady sees,” she says, throwing him a dirty look.
“Speaking of redheaded terrors, where is she?”
The blonde shrugs and makes an “I don’t know, I don’t care” sound. She throws her head toward the small tables near the bar. “Givin’ some bloke a hard time for holding up a table. Date stood ‘im up, yeah? Must feel like a right loser.”
She careens through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Dorian raises a brow and looks over. Highlighted by the glow of lanterns sits a man who does indeed look a bit worse for wear. He’s wearing a decent looking sport coat but it’s not fitted well, too tight in the shoulders, and a nice shirt underneath. His hands are folded on the table in front of him, and his face is scrunched up in an expression that looks like Leliana might have asked him a confusing question about calculus. He looks more than a little embarrassed.
Considering the fact that he’s at least six feet tall and handsome and built like an athlete from between the pages of a skin mag Dorian had stashed under his bed as a teenager, he finds it all far too amusing. And a bit sad. He watches as Leliana politely nods and says a few more words. Of course, “politely” for Leliana often still has an undercurrent of something that edges on terrifying just beneath a polished surface. Dorian almost feels bad for the stood-up man. Almost. A little bit. Depending on how long he’s been there, she’s probably come around quite a few times to try and goad him into moving to the bar or ordering something other than a water.
Leliana seems to tighten her resolve, shaking her head when he responds back with some unknown entreaty. She’s a phenomenally good manager, good with delegation and does not bother overmuch with micromanaging her staff, but she’s cold. She’s got terrible tableside service. That’s what she hires people like him for, after all. It’s a touch of pride that suggests he go over there and show her how it’s done, what a stellar employee he is. Something to keep in the back of her mind when it comes time for merit increases or end of year bonuses.
Dorian returns to his last tables with their debit cards and bids them all a wonderful evening. It’s no accident that he heads in the direction of the bar afterwards, weaves through a big group putting on their coats to leave. A quick hand through his hair and a tug at the cuffs of his shirt, and he enters shark-infested waters.
Her Orlesian accent is pleasant but she stresses her words so that he will not mistake her good manners for empathy. “Sir, are you sure you wouldn’t like to order something?”
“I- I’m sorry, I’m sure they’ll be here soon, if I can just wait a few more minutes,” the man says, a hand tugging at his collar as he impressively manages to stare Leliana down.
His optimism is actually more cutting than bald-faced honesty. No one is buying it. He’s been cut loose. She’s irritated, and reasonably so, because he’s taken up a valuable two-top where an actual couple could have been sitting; real, paying customers. That’s money she’ll never be able to recoup, and it’s enough to make her return to this poor man’s table and needle him. He hasn’t given up, though, and stands his ground despite the obvious puppydog look on his face and the way his hands are white-knuckled and fidgety around the glass of water he’s no doubt been nursing for far too long.
“Leliana?” Dorian quietly sidles up to her, ignoring the exasperated, pleading look he gets from the man. He leans in and whispers behind his hand, “I’ll take care of this.”
She takes a steely breath and whispers back to him, “What are you doing?”
The man makes a big show of shifting around in his seat, looking over his shoulder at the entryway, as if his date is just on the other side. He looks at the man and hopes he’s half as malleable as he is pretty. While he’s occupied, they take a few steps aside and speak in hushed tones between one another.
“Just give me a few minutes with him.”
She gives him a tight smile. “If this is some kind of stunt, Dorian…”
“I assure you it’s not. If I can’t get him to order a drink, I’ll get him to the door. How’s that sound?”
Leliana clears her throat in that way she always does when she’s disapproving, but she leaves him to it. He sits down across from the man, who has an immediate flash of confusion in his eyes.
“Listen.” Dorian extends his arms out on the table and clasps his hands together. “For one reason or another, you’ve been stood up. It’s quite normal, I’ve seen it a thousand times. Fret not.”
“E-excuse me?”
“You have two options,” says Dorian, and he uses his fingers to gesture the number. “One, you can take your dignity and leave, which would be a pity. Two, you can get hammered and have a great time without her. I recommend the manhattan, it’s so full of booze you’d do well to stay away from open flame with it.”
He sees a flash of immediate remorse in the other man’s eyes. Leliana is behind the bar now, arms crossed, silently observing them.
“Now, why don’t you go have a seat at the bar? I’ll make sure they take good care of you.”
And, if the world is kind, he’ll stick around to closing and Dorian will get off the clock and they can go down the street to the bar and see what happens next. He smiles and reaches to rest his hand on the man’s forearm, near the wrist. He waits to see how he reacts to the touch, lets his hand linger, lets his gaze linger, but the handsome blond can’t meet his eyes, almost twitches away. He pulls back, interprets that as a sign he’s dealing with a solid heterosexual. Best behave himself then. Or at least pretend to.
“I just…” He sighs, shakes his head.
“It's her loss.”
And his.
“I should go.” He blurts it out and stands suddenly, erratically almost. Dorian desperately wonders if he’d said the last part out loud. “I’m sorry for the trouble.” He fishes out his wallet for good measure and drops a ten on the table.
Dorian looks at Leliana, and her brow is raised in question at the gesture. The abandoned man leaves without another word. Dorian sniffs and Leliana appears nearby to help bus the table.
“Well, that was painfully awkward.”
It stings a little to think that the man had been so put off by his gregariousness. Haven was settled right next door to the queerest neighborhood in town, but out of towners sometimes didn’t know, didn’t understand, were still living in a false yesteryear where homosexuals kept their proclivities better hidden. He shakes it off. No matter.
“You felt sorry for him.”
Dorian laughs. “Who wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t.”
“Hm. You know I was thinking of pretending to deliver a message that his date had called and expressed her deepest apologies for having to reschedule.”
“Why didn’t you?”
They stop at the hostess station to inform the girls that there’s an open table to assign. Dorian thinks on his answer.
“Too cruel. I was hoping he’d rather take me in exchange,” he says, and leans against the partition, crosses his ankles and smiles sweetly off into the distance.
“You don’t seem his type, I’m afraid.”
Dorian purses his lips into an extravagantly rehearsed pout. “Well, I could have been.”
She gives him a sidelong glance but, bless her, lets him off the hook.
The rest of his shift dwindles to a standstill. Servers jostle to be redeployed in order to squeeze out a few more tickets from what remains of the customers before they close up for the night. Dorian opts to go home early, and the unanimous decision is in his favor. Once he does a quick spot check of his section, he’s home free. He retreats to the back room to put away his apron and wash his hands one last time before heading out into the night. Double checking for his keys and wallet and slinging his jacket over his shoulder, he sends Lavellan a final wave.
He’s nearly three steps out the back door before he’s bombarded with an “excuse me” that spins his head to the side, making him jump. It’s the man from before, still loitering around.
“Sweet Maker, man, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” Dorian exclaims, clenching his chest with one hand. “Didn’t you ever learn to not startle unsuspecting people in darkened parking lots? That’s the type of foul play that gets you on the news.”
“I just wanted to apologize for what happened inside. I only realized afterwards what you were trying to do—which, thank you for that—and…” He deflates. “It’s been a long night.” He finishes his harried ramble, running out of steam, looking even more hopelessly lost than when he began.
“Things come up.” He shrugs. “If it’s not resolved with some worthy excuse in the next few days, just remember that anybody worth your time wouldn’t dare do such a thing. There are plenty of other opportunities out there.”
Dorian really has no idea what he’s saying. Typically his brand of relationship advice draws on his experience with reading smutty literature and watching rom-coms rather than real life. His own love life is at worst equally dismal, comprised mostly of ill-advised decisions that saw him ending up in seedy dive bar restrooms or groping around in the back seat with people he barely knew. His ratio of satisfying dates that ended with a good night kiss to ending up face-first in a potted plant were...well, they were weighing more in the favor of puking in a ficus. He’s hardly one to give advice to this poor soul.
“Well. Goodnight, then.”
“Wait,” the man says, snapping out of whatever reverie he might have drifted into. “I, uh—I bought tickets for this weekend,” he starts, reaching into his breast pocket. “For an art exhibition. I thought—well, I thought if things had gone well tonight, then maybe she’d have liked to go, so I rather foolishly bought them ahead, before they sold out.” He wags the tickets at Dorian. “Perhaps you’d get more use out of them than me.” He offers a sheepish smile.
Dorian runs through a list of all his acquaintances, any who might enjoy this even a little. Sera and Bull are certainly out of the picture, and he knows Lavellan is busy working. Vivienne would’ve been a possibility if she hadn’t been out of town for a conference. Felix is back in Tevinter. He considers Solas briefly, one of his original cohort in university and sometimes patron of Haven, as his offices are nearby. They’ve only actually talked a handful of times. He’s also seen him at the coffee shop they both enjoy frequenting, but he’s not sure either of them could manage a peaceful evening in sustained contact with one another. The topic of university is still a little too raw. Solas has a doctorate now, and Dorian...is in food service.
He blinks back into the moment and looks at the man, an idea forming.
“I’m afraid none of my available friends have the taste required for an art exhibition, so I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. Unless,” he feigns a moment of thought, if only for dramatic effect, “you’d like to go together?”
This second exploratory attempt goes a little smoother than the first. Dorian revels in watching the man’s expression transform before him. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles and Dorian notices a fetching scar tugging gently at his upper lip, pale enough to easily overlook. Down boy, Dorian thinks to himself.
“I’m no expert on art, but it did look interesting.”
“Excellent, I’ll meet you there. Short notice, but...” He never finishes the thought. His only actual plans had been to sit around in his socked feet and boxers and listen to music, do some chores, ignore the rest of the world. This way, he gets to be worldly instead, and spend an evening out with this stunning specimen. He’d worked with less before. Dorian beseeches the Maker to tarry in the favor of heteroflexibility and takes out his phone to ready a new contact. “Name?”
“Oh, I’m Cullen! Rutherford.” He spells it, as if Dorian can’t manage it on his own.
“Dorian Pavus, pleasure to meet you,” he says, the words rolling off his tongue automatically as he extends his free hand and keys in Cullen’s name with the other. Cullen pulls his hand out of his pocket quickly to shake it. He looks down at the ticket Dorian handed back to him. “Number?” Cullen rattles off his number and Dorian saves it, pockets his phone. “See you at seven, then? Anything comes up, I’ll let you know.”
“You’re certain?”
“Mmhmm.”
“I’m not sure how to thank you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Dorian says. “We’ve all been on the shitty end of a date gone awry. I should be thanking you for the free ticket.”
Cullen chuckles softly, shoving his hands back into his pockets, and with that, he’s gone into the night, leaving Dorian admittedly a little perplexed at what had just transpired, standing under a cone of fluorescent light from a streetlamp.
“Maker, what have I gotten myself into?” he mutters aloud. The moment really would’ve felt like something special...if he hadn’t just swatted a moth out of the air to accidentally crush it in his hand.
He scowls at the gooey mess it leaves behind before trudging to his car.