Chapter Text
Cullen slept steadily, if not quite soundly, the rest of the night. Each time he stirred or muttered something in his sleep Aadhlei came awake with a guilty start, afraid to find his fever roaring back to life or to find his heartbeat fallen suddenly still while she slept. Her fears proved unfounded each time, and she lay there watching him sleep in the dying candlelight, trying to calm her own foolish panic enough to drift off again.
He still spoke in his sleep, vague mutterings that followed the strange courses of his dreams. Once he muttered her name, a soft, strangled sound of distress caught in his throat. “Right here,” she whispered, pressing in a little closer. His tension broke with a soft sigh of relief, hands sliding up her back to grip her shoulders and pull her in until her head lay against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, his breathing - a sound like distant waves and a deep, steady drum. It soothed her, lulling almost at once back to sleep.
Aadhlei woke when the first morning bell rang out, more than a little dazed, and found her arms empty. Faint light filtered in from the window above and she could see Cullen in the corner in front of the washbasin by candlelight, finishing the last of his shave with a wooden-handled straight razor. He was still stripped to the waist but he had pulled on clean trousers, his hair a damp mess of mussed curls. A thin line of gold glinted around his wrist and Aadhlei could just make out the shape of a tiny golden leaf against his skin.
“Morning,” he said, laying aside the razor and toweling off his face. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Hm. The bell, not you,” she muttered, rubbing at her eyes.
He crossed to her quickly, kissing her before she could even push herself up off the bed.
“How do you feel?” she asked, running her hand across his face. A smell of faint soap and liniment hung on him. But she saw with no shortage of relief that the dark crescents beneath his eyes were fading, and there was color again in his cheeks. A little worn still, perhaps, but no longer dire.
“Better, thanks to you.”
Aadhlei waved that away, a practiced deflection as she pushed herself up. “You did the hard part, Cullen,” she said, a rough truth masquerading as modesty. “All I did was make tea.”
Cullen shifted with her, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You stayed,” he said, a little wonder in his voice again. “That’s more than I would’ve ever hoped for. I’ve never told anyone what happened at the Ferelden Circle. I was afraid to let you see that. Any of it. I didn’t...I did not expect you to stay once you knew that side of me. No matter how much distance I’ve tried to put between my past and myself. I did not dare hope that you cared for me enough to stand it.”
“You underestimate how stubborn I am in my affection, Cullen Rutherford,” she said. “And you are a far better person than you give yourself credit for.”
A slight, rueful shake of his head. “I know who I am.”
She caught his hand, squeezing. “So do I. And I am quite fond of who you are. Nothing you’ve said or done has changed that.”
“That is more a relief than I can tell you.” He took a deep, steadying breath, and met her eyes. “I cannot change the past. But it led me here. To the Inquisition. To you. I can make that mean something. I will. ”
And suddenly he was all warmth; his expression, the color of his hair, the tone of his skin, the shaded amber of his eyes. All of that trained solely on her was so much she nearly felt faint with it. His hands, broad and calloused and hard, came up to trace the sides of her face with astonishing gentleness. The second before his mouth opened she remembered the promise he had made the night before, and her heart gave a sudden tripping stumble.
“I love you.”
There it was. He spoke with marvelous ease, no catch of fear or nervous confession. He knew she knew it already. He only wanted to say it. The words themselves were somehow soft. Sweetness without sting; a rose without thorn.
Tears sprang to her eyes immediately, spilling down her cheeks and over his thumbs. She drew in a breath, a touch too sharp and tremulous, and she saw the smile on Cullen’s face begin to falter.
“Don’t you apologize, and don’t take it back. Don’t you dare,” she hissed, clutching at him fiercely.
“Never,” he sighed, gathering her up. She felt his hands on her back, thumbs rubbing circles along her spine. “I love you,” he said again, a rumble in her ear that made her breath hitch.
Slowly, Aadhlei kissed her way up the side of Cullen’s neck, over the smoothness of his jaw to his mouth. “I love you, too,” she said, the words catching awkwardly in her throat.
A smile broke across his face, bright enough to hurt, and the thought raced across her mind, Sunlight, Maker he’s like sunlight.
Everything seemed to settle then. A gentle shift, some part of her that had always seemed misaligned finally finding a place where it fit. And now finally allowing herself to see it, to feel it without the constant fog of doubt clouding her head, she realized how neatly they did fit together, how comfortably. Something in her chest seemed to be expanding, as if finally allowing the words to be spoken had let them take root, and in so doing a garden had set to blooming in her ribs. Joy , she realized. Another word she could put a feeling to at last. Love and joy, Creators, that was a wonder.
She was laughing dizzily into his mouth and he was still kissing her. Was it this way for him as well? Her hands swept his face and came away damp with tears, and she thought it must be so after all.
“Maker, you are…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Why wouldn’t you let me say it before?”
Aadhlei felt the smile on her face falter and fall, felt Cullen’s hands tracing the lines of hurt that took its place. “Not important,” she said, dragging the smile back with a shake of her head.
Cullen’s eyes searched her face, suddenly gravely serious. “No. Don’t do that. It is important. I’ll not have you shoulder my burdens and not let me help you carry yours as well.” He kissed her again, gentle and warm like a promise. “Talk to me. Whatever it is, I will listen. I would have all of you, as well,” he whispered, giving her own words back to her.
And there were the tears again, a hot pressure behind her eyes as her nose filled with the ghost of rosemary. She trailed her fingers down his hand to his wrist where her necklace sat and wrapped her fingers around it.
“Last night was not my first vigil at a sickbed,” she said. The words came slowly, dug up like old bones unearthed from the place she’d buried them. “The last one was my foster-mother. And she did not survive.”
“Maker. I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”
She smiled thinly, shrugging. “Not the sort of thing that comes up in polite conversation. And it is...hard to speak of. She was old, and she was ill. And I was stubborn and foolish, much as I am now, so I tried to heal her.” Aadhlei shook her head. “I had gone with her more than once to help ease a passing. I knew what it looked like when a body was too old and worn to hope for recovery. When all that’s left is to give what comfort can be afforded. I suppose that’s what scared me the most. I knew she was dying, and I knew I could do nothing to stop it. So of course I did anyway.”
A laugh escaped her, dry and mirthless, and she sagged a little, pulling away. Cullen’s hands trailed across her back and down her arms to her hands, folding them up in his own. She squeezed them gratefully.
“I cannot explain to you what it’s like. To cast until you are drained. Past a point of weakness and exhaustion and to keep pulling it through you, pouring it out. The harder you pull, the more you feel it. It’s like your armor wears through and suddenly you have raw magic tearing across your nerves. Trying to close the Breach the first time was like that. Maker, it hurts. All the way down to your bones. But I did it. I wrung myself dry trying to fix her, and I collapsed. When I woke, she was...she had already...I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
She was crying properly now, face twisting as she finally came to the point that had speared her so soundly. All at once her heart felt treacherously heavy and unmoored, as if it might simply tumble overburdened from her chest. “I couldn’t say it, Cullen. Last night, void take me, I couldn’t . I was too scared for you. If I told you and then you never woke up-”
If he spoke then, Aadhlei heard nothing. She only felt his hands pull her close, clutching her to him, and the press of his lips against hers. “I’m here,” he said, brushing away more tears. “I’m well.”
“Thank Maker and Creators both for it,” she said. “Stay that way. That’s an order.”
Cullen laughed a little, rough and wavering. “As you say.”
He shifted forward and past her, groping one-handed at a drawer on his bedside table. He muttered quietly in frustration, searching blindly, then gave a small exclamatory sigh against her shoulder.
“I had intended to take you somewhere for this, but events seem to be sprinting at us a good deal faster than I expected. There is a lake not far from Honnleath, where I grew up. As a child, whenever my siblings became a bit too much to bear I would go there for a bit of peace. The last time I went there was the day before I left for Templar training. My brother, Branson, he found me there. He gave me this.”
Cullen opened his hand. In the center of his palm lay a silver coin stamped with the solemn face of Andraste. “It just happened to be in his pocket, but he told me it was for luck. I’ve carried it with me since. Templars are not supposed to hold to such things. Our faith should see us through.” The word ‘faith’ was sharp on his tongue, a word tested until it had splintered.
“I would not have pegged you for a rule breaker so young,” Aadhlei said, a smile slowly returning to her face.
“Until recently I was quite good at following rules. Most of the time, anyway. This was the only thing I took from Ferelden that the Templars didn’t give me.” He folded it into her hand. “Humor me a little. There is so much I have survived that I should not have. I would not have called that good luck until now. We do not know what you will face before the end, and with Adamant….” He sighed sharply. “A little luck can’t hurt. Besides, I cannot take something from you without giving something back,” he added, gesturing to where her necklace lay against this wrist.
Aadhlei turned the coin between her fingers. “You’re more a romantic than you think, Cullen Rutherford,” she said, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’ll keep it safe.”
Cullen’s expression shifted, a thought occurring to him suddenly, and he sighed. “There will be talk. You were here all night. You told the guards... Maker.”
“Does that bother you?”
“If you had asked me yesterday morning...last night changed many things,” he added softly. Cullen fell silent a moment, considering, then slowly shook his head. “No, not anymore. I would still rather my- our private life stay private, but there is little I can do about that in a place such as this.”
He looked up at her sharply. “Does it bother
you?
There has been talk about us for some time, but this will be...I did not intend to...I don’t think I was thinking very clearly when I asked you to stay.” He colored brilliantly, stammering. “Not that I regret it! I’m glad that you did, I only-”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Cullen I meant to stay regardless. I told you that.”
“There will be assumptions. My thoughts about you might not always have been honorable, but my intentions …”
Aadhlei raised a curious eyebrow.
The flush across his cheeks deepened and he dropped his head to her shoulder. “I...sweet Maker.”
She laughed and kissed the top of his head. “You’ll have to tell me about those dishonorable thoughts sometime.”
“Andraste preserve me,” he whispered, “you are still in my bed.”
“So I am. Would you have me leave?”
Gooseflesh rippled up her arms as he nuzzled into the curve of her neck. He kissed her there, a brief press of his lips, and her eyes fluttered shut against it, the sensation far more overwhelming than it had any right to be. “No,” he murmured. “But I don’t know...if…if you-”
Outside the bell rang out again and Cullen all but jumped out of his skin.
“Maker, I’m going to be late. Inspections. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I have to,” he stammered, pulling away with great reluctance and scrabbling to pull on his gear.
“I need to clean up,” Aadhlei said as he shrugged on his mantle, gesturing at the table still laden with her unpacked kit. “Go on, I’ll find you later.”
“You’d better,” he said, stooping for a hurried kiss.
“I love you, ” she said as they parted.
He slowed, that warm, flustered smile on his face again. “I love you, too,” he said, and kissed her again. It was enough to make her toes curl, and Aadhlei tapped her fingers insistently on his breastplate.
“Mmm, greedy!” she chided, a little too breathlessly. Maker, if they didn’t stop they were never going to leave the damned room. “Go!”
He smirked at her, actually smirked, the first time she’d seen that look outside of the practice yard or a chess game, and it sent a pleasant shiver through her. As he made off down the stairs his face settled into a smile, a proper one, and Aadhlei felt her heart lighten a little more.
The guards marked her as she left Cullen’s office. The slightest double-take before clapping their fists to their breastplates in salute. As she walked away she heard one of them whisper to the other, “I told you. You owe me five royals.”
Muttering a handful of prayers, she hurried her step, holding her head as high as she dared. Sweet Maker, the war council was going to be a living nightmare.