Chapter Text
It is duty. She holds station above you and must be informed. Duty. Nothing more.
The messenger had left Cullen’s office with a missive for Aadhlei some time ago. Their newly appointed Inquisitor was set to leave Skyhold for Crestwood to meet Hawke’s Grey Warden contact within the week. He’d worked at her side for weeks since she had led them to Skyhold, more than enough time to spare for a simple conversation. But simplicity seemed increasingly elusive for him around her, and he had held back.
Cullen leaned heavily on his desk, a broad thing of gleaming reddish wood. Atop a stack of papers lay his old lyrium kit, open and horribly inviting. There was already one prepared bottle inside, a tiny gleam of calm, inviting blue. His head was pounding, a relentless pressure in his temples. And this...this would make it stop. How easy it would be, how simple. No effort required at all. And yet his hands, for all their trembling, did not shift. Impulse with no action.
He could do this.
A knock came. Cullen felt his stomach clench. “Come in.”
The door hinges creaked. Light footsteps, she always walked on the balls of her feet. “You wanted to see me, Commander?”
Duty , he thought again, fighting to swallow the lump that had formed in his too-dry throat. Oh yes, most assuredly.
“As leader of the Inquisition,” he began, words so well-rehearsed he felt as though he’d given her this speech a thousand times already. But now hearing them delivered they sounded hollow and unworthy and he collapsed into a sigh. “There’s something I must tell you.”
He straightened, folding his hands onto the pommel of his sword. Across the desk, Aadhlei regarded him with a bemused smile. “You’re looking especially serious today,” she said, a gentle jab meant to disarm, to soften.
“I know,” he said grimly.
The playfulness slipped slowly from her smile, a little knot forming in her brow. “Alright. You have my attention.”
“Thank you.” Cullen lent himself over the desk again to stare at the open kit. There was concern in her eyes now and it was quite simply too much. In his head he found his script again and began to recite. “Lyrium grants Templars our abilities, but it controls us as well. Those cut off suffer - some go mad, others die. We have secured a reliable source of lyrium for the Templars here. But I no longer take it.”
Silence. He couldn’t look up. He didn’t want to know what he would see in her face. Then, nearly a whisper: “What?”
“I stopped when I joined the Inquisition. It’s been months now.”
“Months! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I wanted to.”
“That’s, oh damn it. Cullen if this can kill you -”
“It hasn’t yet.”
She stood, quiet and still, eyes closed and head bent. “Will you at least tell me why?”
“After what happened in Kirkwall, I couldn’t…. I will not be bound to the Order - or that life - any longer.” Again he stood, pride overriding shame, and met her eyes sternly. “Whatever the suffering, I accept it. But I would not put the Inquisition at risk. I have asked Cassandra to watch me. If I become unable to fulfill my duties, if my ability to lead is compromised, I will be relieved from duty.”
Her eyes ticked over him, the assessing gaze of a healer, looking for anything amiss, anything she could fix. “Are you in pain?”
“I can endure it.”
For a moment Cullen was sure she was half a step from boxing his ears. But then it passed, leaving only that worry that creased her brow and left her chewing at her lip. “If I can help you in any way,” she began.
“You have more than enough on your plate right now without having to worry about me. We have physicians here. If it truly becomes more than I can bear, I will seek their assistance.” The urge to close the distance between them, to take her hands in his own, was sudden and nearly overwhelming, like the need to draw breath under too-deep water. For fear of drowning, he allowed himself a moment of softness instead. “I have to do this,” he said as gently as he dared. “If...if there is to be a future outside the Order, for anyone , I must try.”
“Fuck’s sake, you won’t make this easy, will you?” There was a shine in her eyes that hurt him to look at. She leveled an accusatory finger at him. “You’re a tit. I hope you know that. I’ve half a mind to put a boot to your arse for not telling me sooner. But…if it is that important to you, Cullen -”
“It is.”
“Then I respect your decision.”
A little of the pressure thudding in his temples abated, and he blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. The Inquisition’s army takes priority. Should anything happen, I would defer to Cassandra’s judgement.”
She nodded slowly, rubbing at her eyes. Silence stretched on long enough for worry to begin to creep into Cullen’s head. He opened his mouth to give some reassurance, or to apologize for not coming forward sooner, or most likely let the first thing on his foolish mind fall out in a horrid, jumbled mess. But before he could speak a sharp, bitterly cold gust of wind came whistling from the room above and swirling through his office. The loose papers on his desk scattered, and he bent to collect them, muttering curses.
“Have you left a window open?” Aadhlei asked, rubbing her arms.
Cullen stiffened, knee to the floor. “Um,” he stammered, “no? Not, not exactly. I uh...um.” He looked up just in time to see her begin to shimmy up the ladder. “Inquisitor! Wait!”
She was unfortunately quick, and with the head start she was up and gone before he had chance to even lay hand on the ladder.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he swore, and began to climb.
The sight that greeted him when he hauled himself up into the loft was one that never quite left him. It was nearly midday, and the sunlight that streamed through the ruined roof was a broad, brilliant gold, alive with dancing motes. Another gust of wind brought a fresh fall of silver-green leaves from the tree that grew haphazardly from what remained of the roof. She stood in the center of Cullen’s makeshift bedroom, caught full in the sunlight, a frankly impressive scowl on her face as she stared up at the distinct lack of a ceiling. For the first time, Cullen found himself thinking properly to himself, Maker help me, she’s beautiful.
Her eyes strayed at last to the bed, piled thickly with blankets and furs. “You’re sleeping up here?”
Beyond embarrassed, he stammered for what felt like years before finally managing to strangle out, “Yes.”
She wheeled on him. “No.”
“I-what?”
“No,” she repeated. Cullen glanced up at her and quickly away again. There was a familiar look of stubborn indignation on her face, eyes wide and cheeks painted a deep, hectic red. “I will not have you sleep in a room with no fire and no roof on top of a fucking mountain. The Inquisition cannot afford to have its Commander taken with consumption because he is too proud and too stubborn to ask the carpenters to patch a hole. You will find temporary quarters with all floors, ceilings, and walls accounted for until this can be fixed, is that understood?”
“Inquisitor, this is hardly-”
Cullen watched her boots stride purposefully into view as she squared up to him. “I will make it an order if I have to, Commander. Maker’s breath you cannot live like this, let alone recover.”
Cullen finally wrenched his eyes up, dreading to see the disappointment in her eyes, but still the only thing twisting her face was worry. His heart gave an unexpected lurch. It was awful, and wonderful.
He passed a hand over his face. “I, I cannot sleep anywhere else. Closed spaces. I can’t.” He waited, hiding still behind his gloved hand, trying to scrounge together some kind of answers for the questions that would bring. But the silence stretched on and the questions did not come.
Her teeth set to work on her lip, and she turned again to the hole. One of Leliana’s ravens lighted on a broken beam and let out a harsh, rusty caw, as if in greeting. “I could seal it, I think,” she said. “But I don’t expect you’d have any better chance sleeping next to that kind of magic.”
Cullen stared at her, part of him glad she had turned away again. The nightmares were only increasing as time went on, and the idea of waking up from the dreams he had to see a magical barrier over his head made him shudder. He had told her nothing of the nature of his dreams, but it seemed he didn’t have to. She knew, or could guess, and understood. That, somehow more than anything, staggered him. Consideration was not an unfamiliar concept to him, no matter what some of his colleagues might think. He simply wasn’t used to it being levied in his direction.
“No,” he agreed at last. “No I wouldn’t.”
She paced for a time, tugging impatiently at her braid. “I assume offering you my quarters would do no good.”
This time his heart did not so much lurch as freefall. “Andraste preserve me, I could not. The rumors alone-”
“Thought as much,” she muttered, and this time there was a ghost of a smile as she glanced back at him that did nothing to stop that freefall. “What about the war room, then? It’s spacious, the door is solid, and half the bloody thing’s windows. Could you sleep there for a time?”
It was his turn to fall to thought. He leaned heavily against the wall, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “I cannot sway you from this, can I?”
“Cullen,” she said, and the sound of his name on her lips left him dizzy. “I told you I respect what you’re doing, and I mean that. But if I can make this easier on you in any way, I intend to do it. Let me do this. Please.”
“You are making this easier,” he said softly, mouth dry. “Forgive me, I am unused to kindness.”
She gave him a small, sympathetic smile. “Around me, I’m afraid you’ll just have to cope.”
He was staring, Andraste help him he was staring but he could not look away. “I will arrange for a cot in the war room.”
Relief spread across Aadhlei’s face. “If you have any personal effects in here you don’t want jostled, you should take them down into your office. I’ll go have a word with our carpenters.”
She turned to leave, dropping to the floor and swinging her feet onto the ladder.
“Aadhlei?” he asked, half on impulse, and half just to once again have the delight of speaking her name.
She smiled at that, small and grateful, and it warmed him more than any fire could. “Yes?”
“I - thank you. For this and, well for everything.”
“Of course,” she said, and disappeared down the ladder.
Cullen sank to the edge of his bed, blinking against the sunlight, trying to slow the beating of his heart. From the broken beam above, the raven once again let out its shrill cry. Cullen pointed a finger at it.
“Not a word, you. There are some things Leliana doesn’t need to hear about.”