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It was a quiet evening after the Chant, a more subdued service with the absence of the Inquisitor and Cassandra. They had ridden away on a mission into Orlais, a solid team of the inner circle among them, and a sizeable contingent of soldiers to man a newly established series of camps. Things were going swimmingly. A nice upturn of events for once. Skyhold had fallen into a comfortable lull. The infighting was at a minimum. And lest anyone become too complacent, there was always the rumor of the Champion of Kirkwall lurking about, like the monster under the bed, or some kind of dark spirit summoned by whispering its name into a mirror.
The Iron Bull had left out a glass of whiskey to see what would happen. Cole had rescued a tabby with three legs. Vivienne was ready with a categorical list of all of Marian Hawke's assorted evils, and why she would damage their organization, and so on, and so forth. And Varric had declined a place on the Inquisitor's team, insisting he was sick, outlining all manner of disgusting symptoms in pungent description, but Dorian had seen him chuckling naughtily to himself and carrying a keg off to his room.
Dorian was paging through an illustrated tome of lore when Cullen struggled up. Even by a most forgiving candlelight he looked a hot mess, his face weary, his eyes red. He met Dorian's questing gaze with a dust-covered look of ancient guilt.
Cullen held out the book cupped in his hands as though it were a dead pet. He had come to turn himself in. "I've marked up your book by accident," he said in a voice chipped and chunked to gravel.
"Oh no. Which one?"
"Demons of the Known Lands."
Dorian decided he would look affronted. "How could you?"
"I-- I thought it was my copy." Oh, this was good. Cullen looked so contrite, like an errant pupil come begging to his tutor. Too good, in fact. Dorian would relish this, thinking back to all those times this smug son of a bitch bested him at chess.
"You are a book criminal," Dorian said. "Shame."
Cullen lowered his eyes. What long lashes he had, and those eyes, somewhere between brown and gold, banded and beautiful. "I know. I don't know what I was thinking."
Dorian summoned forth the most patronizing tone he could muster. He thought of the time he blew up the laboratory in the Vyrantium Circle. "Cullen Rutherford, I am entirely disappointed." But oh what fun it had been, the thrill of being alive after such a deafening blast, the rush, the terror, the blue and purple smoke everywhere, and somehow, because of course, glitter.
Cullen swallowed, a tantalizing motion in the column of his throat. "I might have doodled in it also."
Hmm. Dorian stared at him a long time. "That word," he admitted, "I don't actually know what it means."
"You know, to, to draw something absent-mindedly."
"Oh. It sounded... dirty." Dorian couldn't help but smile now.
Now Cullen was on to him, and his brows pinched together with annoyance. "Everything sounds dirty to you, Dorian, I'm sure."
"It depends on my mood. Now, why would you own a copy of Demons of the Known Lands?"
"Kirkwall was... intense."
"Well, let's look at the damage. Oh, for shame. Is that a rabbit you drew?"
"I wasn't thinking."
"Well we shall have to discuss punishment. I must confer with Solas." He looked over the railing, but the elf was fast asleep in his chair. Adorable, almost. "Fortunately for you, it looks like he's dicking about in the Fade at the moment. You'll be let off lightly."
Cullen smiled wearily. "I won't do it again."
"You most certainly won't. The punishment is much more severe for the recidivist."
Although he still smiled, Cullen folded his arms in that way he did when Dorian tested the rules of their chess games. "I find it odd that you know the word recidivist but not doodle."
"My childhood language tutor was very exacting. There was no sense of fun to it."
"Your vocabulary remains impressive. Sometimes I forget you are from a different culture. I mean, I don't forget, but it's-- " He rubbed his face. A headache coming on, no doubt. "If I am thus reprimanded, I am returning to my office."
"And right to bed, I hope. You do keep a bed up in that loft, don't you? You seem exactly the type to sleep in your office."
"I have work to do."
"Boo. When was the last time you slept?"
"I took a nap yesterday after the meeting with the Rivaini lords. I'll be fine."
"That wasn't yesterday, Cullen. That was two days ago."
Cullen stared at him bleakly. "Not true."
"Absolutely true. I was drinking with the Rivaini lords, and I was hungover yesterday morning." Dorian grimaced. "It is seared into my memory, believe me."
"That drink from the gourds... "
"Amazing though, wasn't it?"
Cullen sighed.
"Off to bed with you. Let's go. You can play with Solas in the Fade."
"That's not how that works."
"Isn't it? I have the strangest dreams about him. I'm not entirely sure they aren't real. He denies it, though. A tricky one, that Solas."
.............
"I just-- don't want to miss anything." Cullen sighed as they walked the ramparts. A gorgeous night of blue shadows and gleaming white mountains. A bit of a cooler air than Dorian wanted, but he was getting used to it.
"Cullen," he said, "I can tell you with confidence that you are missing things all the time. You can't know everything and you can't be everywhere."
"That's what Blackwall told me. He said I should give more to my people."
"Well, there you have it."
"Ha! Easy as that, then, you would admit Blackwall has a point?"
"Well, he does, doesn't he? On that matter at least. On all other matters, especially that of hygiene, he remains entirely without direction."
"You take such offense at his facial hair, but I think that the beard suits him."
"Cullen, you're tired and delirious. You have no idea what you're saying."
The commander smiled softly at that. "I have to admit, I enjoy your banter with the others far more than I should." Of course he couldn't mean to, but he said it so sweetly that Dorian felt for him, and was led to broach a subject he really oughtn't.
"There's no shame in it. My wit is meant to be admired. Now. I'm going to say a thing that might upset you, but, so be it. I believe that you are worried you will miss something important to the cause, based on your history in Kirkwall, where it turns out that the other templars were enacting all manner of vile deeds without your knowledge. This, however, isn't Kirkwall."
Cullen tensed. Perhaps a mistake, but Dorian couldn't quit here.
"You need to take better care of yourself. You can't run the Inquisition if you're falling apart."
"You were talking to Varric," he said softly. Dorian expected the force of anger in his voice, to judge from the intense look upon his face. But it wasn't there. He hadn't the energy.
"I did talk to Varric, yes," Dorian said. "But only because I was worried about you."
"Why?"
"I was under the impression we were friends."
Cullen was chewing the inside of his lip by the look of it. Like he didn't know what to make of that. Had Dorian misread him? No. The man wouldn't waste his time with Dorian otherwise. There had to be something. "I. I'm not proud of Kirkwall," Cullen said at length, and his wounds bled into his voice. "I can't... I can't let that happen again. Nothing I can do will ever--"
"That's enough." Dorian held up a hand. "You're in no state to start berating yourself."
Cullen smoothed his hands through his hair.
Of course Dorian would listen to anything he had to say, under better circumstances, when the man wasn't run-down and ready to crawl into a hole to die. Anything he wanted to talk about, Dorian would hear him out. Say what you would of the Black Divine and the Chantry back home, but at least everyone knew it was corrupt. A tool of wicked men. A vehicle for power for the insatiably ambitious, the pathologically evil. But here in the South they still pretended at grace and charity, at some higher purpose, at some bullshit infallible nature. And so the innocents suffered. Worse, they were made into instruments of evil. Dorian wouldn't allow his infatuation to make him blind to the sins that Cullen oversaw, enacted personally, or held the power to prevent-- but he had been a victim too.
Carefully, Dorian said, "If we're to do this, then. You should know Varric also told me the typical dose of a Gallows templar. Not including you, whom I'm told was kept to an even stronger strain. To control you, no doubt. I'll have you know that I've only ever done that much for adept-level rituals, and, at certain parties, but it's played hell on me and I'm a mage. I can't imagine what sustained usage would do to a non-magical person."
"That's-- different, Dorian. It can't take the place of, of real atonement-- it's not an excuse."
"No, it's not an excuse... it's context." Dorian placed a hand on his shoulder, closer in toward his neck and not the pauldron, wanting him to feel a touch he meant as reassuring. "Varric understands you, yes? He respects you, even likes you?"
Cullen shrugged him off. "I-- I'm sorry." He looked at Dorian from the corners of his eyes, having wanted to be comforted, he could tell, but undoubtedly believing himself unworthy of it.
Dorian had nothing pithy to say. Nothing at the ready. "We are all trying to be better people. Let's try for that. But it can wait until tomorrow."
He followed Cullen into the office, where candles burnt lowly. Cullen stood behind his desk. "I've a few matters to attend to," he muttered.
"First of which, I hope, is deciding better arrangements." Dorian forced himself to sound cheerful. "Do you really climb up that ladder? Who does that?"
Cullen glowered at him. Ah, this would come more naturally now...
"How are you going to bring anyone up there, Cullen? Are you going to make some poor woman toil all the way up there? Or would you carry her?"
"Good night, Dorian."
Oh no, we're not stopping here. Dorian felt he might muster up a bit more fun. "Perhaps it is intended as defense? To keep your admirers at bay? Or the Champion of Kirkwall, if she's prowling about like the gossip informs me. She seems very evil but also lazy. I'm sure she'll go bother someone else if it looks like it might take some effort."
Cullen sighed a sigh the size of a horse cart. "I swear. If she is in this keep, I'm going to--"
Dorian clucked his tongue. "No no no, now's not the time to call forth your hatred, or unresolved something, though it piques my interest. You simply must have your rest."
"He knows exactly where she is." Cullen spoke with a dead cold voice like marble, and engraved upon it were the words, I told you so. "I always know it when he lies."
"A complete rascal. I agree with you fully."
"No.. you know what. I'm not going to even... I'm going to ignore her. I'll pay her absolutely no attention. She'll hate that."
"I recommend deliberately misremembering her first name."
"Oh, that's good," Cullen said, and he said it in a sleepy purr, and Dorian felt it pass through his entire body. Oooh. "I'll definitely do that. Thank you, that, that'll show her."
Dorian bowed with a flourish. "My pleasure. I hope you shall do me the courtesy of sending a runner to notify me if you tangle with the good Lady Hawke, of course. I won't want to miss it."
Cullen smiled at him. He half lifted a paper, paused, and set it down. "Dorian."
"Hmm?"
"I-- thank you. For." Oh, the eyelashes dipping again. "For being my friend. You always... make things better."
"Oh, stop."
"Superficially, even though they aren't actually any better, they just-- appear to--"
"Nono, really, stop." Dorian held up a hand.
"Good night."
"Good night, Cullen. May you dream of doodle rabbits, and, possibly, Solas. I know it seems strange... but go with it, trust me on this."