Work Text:
Cullen was taking a walk on the upper courtyard, watching some of the new recruits trained by Cassandra. Truth be told, he can't really focus on it because his head's been pounding a lot since earlier this morning. He also woke up on his desk in cold sweat, apparently passing out after pulling another all-nighter in his office. He only got out of his office because his hand was trembling a lot and he can't write anything at the moment, so might as well take a breather for a minute or so.
Evelyn's been on his tail lately since he told her about him not taking lyrium anymore. She made sure he slept on time and even dragged Rylen to take some of his work. But she's holed up in Emprise du Lion since the last three weeks now, and he's been doing bad on self-care.
Cullen roams about, looking absolutely miserable, until a booming voice called for him.
"Hey! Cullen! What's shakin' my dude?"
He sighed, not really up for Bull's shenanigans right now. Bull just walks up to him, probably to drag him to the tavern. It is Friday evening after all, their usual hang out time. Cassandra absolutely refused to show up again after last week's mishap, where Sera somehow got her drunk enough to trick her into challenging Maryden to a poetry reciting battle. She'll come around eventually, but Cullen also don't really want to show up because without Cassandra and Evelyn, there's not enough voice of reason in the group and he'll end up naked again probably.
But Bull stopped grinning when he saw Cullen's face. Cullen suspects it's because he looks like he just lost a pint of blood and then hiked up the mountain naked.
"Oh," Bull said. He probably already knows about him not taking lyrium anymore, even though he only told the other advisors, Cassandra and Evelyn.
"Well, I was just about to ask you to join us in the tavern. But come on, I can give you something to ease that up."
Cullen reluctantly follows him, Bull can't really come up with something that works like a miracle, but on the other hand, he's feeling really terrible and nothing can really make it worse at this point so might as well try.
Bull calls out to Stitches, one of his Chargers who is hanging out in the infirmary. He's been helping there a lot, but Bull knew that it's because he's sweet on a surgeon there. Said that the way she amputates leg is very sexy.
He approached the company healer and said, "Hey can you whip up one of those healing potions that you usually gave me? The commander needs one."
Stitches squints at him, then turned to look at Cullen, who was just standing awkwardly a few paces away from Bull, "Isn't it better to just take him to the infirmary and have a healer take care of him? Also, it's a poultice."
"Eh, he'll just fight the healers to get out of the bed and go back to his office to work again. Best to just give him the potion, and be done with it."
Stitches shrugs, he's not really interested in knowing why the commander needs a poultice. He needs a ladder to get to his bed after all, he just assumed that he slipped. The healer excuses himself and then slips back to the infirmary to mix the poultice.
Before long, he emerges again with a bag of poultice in his hand. Smelling absolutely gross and looks even grosser. Cullen's stomach turns a bit after seeing the thing, and that's saying a lot, considering the fact that he's an ex-Templar that used to hunt fleshy abominations and are used to see mages explode after a blood magic spell gone wrong that seems to be a normal thing back in Kirkwall.
Bull hands him the sloppy mess with a shit-eating grin, "Bottoms up, Commander."
Cullen grimaces, the stain and smell will take forever to get out of his gloves, "Why do I have to drink this? Isn't this a poultice?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, everyone always says it's a poultice. Just drink it, you'll see what I mean. Here, I'll help you."
With that, he grabs the poultice and motioned for Cullen to lift his chin and opens his mouth. Cullen just complies, not really sure why. After that Bull unceremoniously squeezed the bag of poultice, making a large amount of concentrated herb mixture gush out right into Cullen's open mouth. He immediately got into a coughing fit that sprays some the damned 'potion' out, unfortunately, he already swallowed most of it. He coughs some more, occasionally gagging since the taste is even worse than the smell or the looks. Fortunately, it's night time and no one's really sober enough to realize that the Commander of The Mighty Inquisition is currently coughing, gagging and is now shouting a string of SFW profanities because he's a good Chantry boy.
Well, Vivienne's watching from her balcony, sipping a wine. She raised an eyebrow when Cullen abruptly drops unconscious with a loud thud.
---
Evelyn sat by Cullen, who is sleeping on an infirmary bed right now. She just came back and she saw Bull dragging an unconscious commander as discreetly as a hulking qunari dragging a tall muscular human in an elaborate fur armor can be. No one really saw anything since another poetry battle started in the tavern and everyone's yelling "Sick burn!" every now and then.
Bull explained that he made him drink a poultice because it always works wonders when he's in pain. But apparently he forgot that Cullen's dose is probably gonna be much less than Bull's dose because of, obviously, Bull is much larger than he is.
Evelyn scolded him for a while, outside of the infirmary because the healer said that they were too loud. Bull just looks down like a kicked dog. She also scolds Stitches for letting Bull get his hand on his poultice when he knew that Bull drinks it all the time, and would, one might assume, make someone else drink it too when he said that someone else needs it.
A groan snaps Evelyn back from her thought to Cullen. The man stirs and blinks a few times, looking around with a confused face. He rubs his head for a moment before trying to sit up.
"Whoa, take it easy," she said, immediately bracing Cullen's back to help him sit up. After he sat up, he stares at Evelyn's face for a long while, which made her blush because his stare is so intense and he's never done this before. Usually he's the awkward one and Evelyn would be the one who teases him.
After a while, he made a confused face and said, "You're not Bjorn."
It's an evening of confusion, as it seems, since Evelyn have no idea who Bjorn is. Is it one of the soldier? Leliana's agent? And why is that the first thing Cullen says to her after she's gone for three weeks?
"Who is Bjorn, Cullen?"
Cullen didn't answer, he just looks at his armored arm with great fascination. The whole thing is very bizarre and Evelyn have this feeling that Cullen is way more than confused right now. She decided to test her theory.
"Do you remember where you are?"
Alarm crossed Cullen's face before he rambled, "Wait. Where am I? I was in Kinloch Hold, delivering some furs for Bjorn."
Evelyn frowned. Kinloch Hold? As far as she knew, Cullen never visited that place anymore. There's nothing to do there anyway since the tower is deserted. And according to the reports, he never left Skyhold during her time in Emprise du Lion.
"Cullen, you're at Skyhold. Why did you think you're at Lake Calenhad?"
"Where is this 'Skyhold'? Why am I here? Take me back to Kinloch Hold! Bjorn really needs the furs, his wife had a baby yesterday and we can't let him froze to death."
Evelyn grew even more bewildered, and Cullen looks like he's about to cry. So she just stands up and called Iron Bull, who is still lounging in front of the infirmary, to come and smuggle Cullen to her quarters. This looks like something that no ordinary healer can deal with and she doesn't really want some prick spinning this story into something it's not.
Bull strode in and picked Cullen up, which he didn't take very well. He struggled and keeps referring to Bull as a 'dragon-man'. Evelyn grabbed a blanket and threw it over Cullen's thrashing body so that no one can recognize him. He's still yelling but it's okay, no one's used to hearing Cullen yelling about how he will pray for Sigfrost to step on Evelyn and Bull.
They walked quickly through the main hall, the nobles glancing curiously at the thrashing lump of blanket that Bull is carrying. Evelyn just walked a few pace behind him, hiding her face with her hands and keeping her head down. So much for trying not to start rumors.
Evelyn spotted Solas on the main hall, just finishing up his dinner. She frantically motioned for him to follow them, and he obeyed with great suspicion. He eyes the thing that's currently carried by Bull warily. The lump is now yelling about how Bjorn will smear Bull's belonging with goat's blood.
When they finally reached Evelyn's room, Bull dropped Cullen on Evelyn's bed and yanked the blanket covering him. He’s calmed down, somewhat, and is now just openly sobbing.
“Please let me go, I mean you no harm. I just want to deliver furs to my friend, why are you doing this to me?” he sobs out.
Evelyn looks at Solas with a hopeful look. If anyone knows how to deal with this kind of thing is him. Solas looks at Cullen who is still sobbing thoughtfully. He starts prodding at Cullen to check him for any normal wound. To his surprise, Cullen is physically fine. There’s no concussion, or even any sort of bruise.
“Hm, curious,” he says as he turns to face Evelyn, “he seems to be in perfect health, but he’s clearly having a trouble sorting out his memory. He seems to believe that he is an Avvar warrior that lives in an era before the Tevinter forcefully takes control of Kinloch Hold.”
Evelyn pales a little, “That’s... a bad thing, right? Can you cure him?”
Cullen is now at a stage where he realizes that a lot of the things around him are very unfamiliar, considering how he believes that he’s a warrior from the time before Andraste exists. He picks up Evelyn’s mabari plush that is laying innocently on the bed and shouted, “I don’t know what this is!”
Solas gave him another appraising look before sending a gentle pulse of magic. Cullen immediately fell asleep, still holding the mabari plush. He looks serene, as if all the yelling and wanting to go to Bjorn never happened.
“It is as I thought. He’s not really awake. I sensed that he is connected to the Fade, precisely like a dreaming person. It is likely that right now he’s witnessing a memory of an Avvar warrior, and is merely acting on their personality,” he said after finishing his spell.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Bull immediately excuses himself, possibly to continue drinking in the tavern. Which is still very lively, by the way. Evelyn can hear Sera yelling something along the lines of 'Hey now you're an all star' all the way from her tower.
“Thank you so much, Solas. I don’t know what I will do if he stays like that forever. Possibly heartbroken since this ‘Bjorn’ is very likely already dead for a thousand years.”
Solas chuckled, “That will be an interesting scene. But this incident just gave me an insight on how humans connected to the Fade, so there is a positive takeaway here.”
Evelyn smiled back, and waved Solas goodbye when he curtly wished her a goodnight and excused himself. Now that it’s over, the room is quiet. She sat down on the empty side of the bed, she hasn’t even changed her clothes yet and she’s already running around the fort. No rest for the wicked, they said.
She quickly unbuckled her chestplate and boots, she considers changing her shirt but her body aches so much and she doesn't feel like getting up again now that she's sitting on her bed. She then gently laid down on the bed so that she won’t disturb Cullen. Fatigue quickly catches her and she let the drowsiness settles. She smiled at the experience she got today, never before was she greeted like that after her exhausting travels.
And after that she slept peacefully, like the fate of the world does not rest on her shoulders.