Chapter Text
Dorian makes noise. Cullen is used to this.
Dorian is eloquent and well equipped to talk circles around anyone on most every subject matter and his chatter never pauses for long. He mumbles to himself, argues with inanimate objects, has whole conversations with mimicked voices whether anyone is listening or not.
From the moment Dorian nearly stormed the front gate at Haven, Cullen has become accustomed to his endless noise. A shrill, indignant declaration, a low, bitter complaint, a liltling, coy tease and muffled laughter. Even the sultry flirting that still turns Cullen's ears pink he is used to.
It is the silence that alarms him.
Dorian doesn't even play chess silently, so when the Inquisitor returns and Cullen doesn't hear of it from Dorian's bemoaning the cold and the walking, he is concerned.
Their courting aside, Cullen would count Dorian as a friend... but the man is difficult to get close to. He treats people warily, a smoke screen of ease and calm that belies the distance he is holding everyone at. Cullen is well aware the flirting and teasing he gets is used because Dorian has found it a tactic to fluster him and chase him off. Dorian accepted his courting, trite and traditional as he appeared to find it, but Cullen was under no illusions Dorian's walls weren't still very much up. At moments like these, however, it is difficult to know if his presence and comfort would be welcome. Dorian is so determinedly solitary while carrying the illusion of easy friendships that Cullen wants to go to him but knows Dorian would be angry for it. He sees as much when a frustrated inquisitor leaves the library with a frown on her soft face. Dorian's words can be cutting, Cullen knows.
Solas seems to be enjoying the quiet when Cullen passes by his room, taking advantage of the fact that books are unlikely to come flying over the balcony this day as he paints.
Cullen's really come to hate the quiet, at least the pensive and weighted quiet like this.
"Dorian?" The man lacks a door for his claimed alcove so Cullen instead calls his name softly. It does not escape his notice that everyone in the library is giving Dorian's alcove a wide berth and they do not linger.
"Something you need, Commander?" Comes the clipped response and Dorian doesn't turn from the window he is no doubt scowling at.
"Cullen." Cullen corrects. He hasn't needed to correct that for a while, but he doesn't linger on it. "I had hoped to talk, or a game if you have the time?" He hopes by giving Dorian the offer of an ear if he needs it or a distraction if he'd prefer would be at least a gesture that Cullen is here if Dorian needs him.
"I haven't the mind for a game, Commander, and I really don't want to talk." Dorian bites out.
"Very well. I shall leave you to your thoughts." Cullen inclines his head, but Dorian can't see it. "Its 'Cullen'." He adds as he turns to leave.
"Cullen, Commander, what does it matter?!" Dorian snapped, still not facing him.
Cullen frowned. "We are courting. It matters. If you have changed your mind..." He trails off uncertainly and Dorian half turns his head then to scoff.
"Courting. How fereldan." He sneers. "All your backwards ways and rough-living but you're so damn calm about two men being together- like it's fine, like it isn't unseemly at all!" Dorian sounds unlike himself and Cullen is stunned. "Go away, Commander, just leave me be!"
Cullen stiffens, an odd sort of coldness sitting in his gut as he wonders if this is Dorian rejecting him. "I see." He manages to say softly. "My apologies."
Cullen inclines his head and still Dorian doesn't see. He leaves and Dorian does not stop him, each step heavier than the last as he passes ignored through Solas' room to the walkway back to his office.
When the door closes behind him and he is alone, he lets his breath shudder out like it wants to. His hands tremble and he clenches them tight. He knew there was always a chance this would happen, much as he might have liked to hope it wouldn't. He had thought he would have done something wrong to earn it, not that Dorian would be in a bad mood and simply... dismiss him. No, maybe... maybe Dorian was just angry. Perhaps it was just... but he said two men together was unseemly.
It hurts; wounded pride, spurned feelings... the cold tone of a friend. Cullen rubs a hand over his face and tells himself to grow up. Courting isn't a relationship and there's work to be done.
After the fifth time reading the same paragraph and making no sense of it, the sting of hurt not lessening, Cullen gives up. He crawls into his bed and he tells himself and his guilt that its okay he takes just one night for himself. That sleep doesn't come for a long while and he simply hides under the blankets is still allowed, he needs to... just hide for a while.
However, the Inquisition would not allow for that. He tries desperately to ignore the knocking and the timid calls for him from below. He tries harder to still the rash anger on his tongue as he shouts back. It isn't these poor runners' fault that-... Cullen looks at the already piling reports and tells himself his pity party is over. There's work to do.
The hour or so he had managed to hide away hasn't sharpened his concerntration however, the words difficult to parse when he's so... he doesn't know what he is. Won't let himself examine it long enough to even guess.
But the work is an easier escape than trying to sleep, scrawling orders and instructions for his men, signing reports and forwarding the useful things to Lavellan, Leliana and Josephine. He works until the candle on his desk is sputtering low and the light flickers, until he can barely tell when he needs to dip his quill for all he cares the ink is dry. He works until he's hunched over his desk and the moment he passes out he barely moves at all, head touching the desk with a soft thud and candle spitting out with a huff.
He does not think of Dorian, does not think of his curt dismissal or the mocking tone. Cullen instead dreams of nothing, the restless bite of half-awake, half-asleep that does not grant true rest.
He stirs when he hears a thud and soft cursing in tevene, brow furrowing and protesting the waking world; his back aches, his face hurts, he's pretty sure he's drooling on a very important report and more importantly while he's unconscious he isn't thinking about-
"Dorian?" He says softly as he sits up, rubbing at his face and blinking blearily at the tangle of blankets and furious limbs at the foot of his ladder.
A head pokes out of the blankets and Dorian frowns at him. "You were supposed to be asleep."
Cullen ignores that. "What are you doing?"
"Really I thought it would be obvious, I just so loved the draught down here so I decided to sleep right here." Dorian bites out with his usual sarcasm, but there's a slur to his words and Cullen knows without asking that the man is drunk. The mage manages to untangle himself from the blanket and stands, looking at the blanket in distaste. Its from Cullen's bed, he notes. "Well if you're awake, I suppose this won't be needed."
"You..." Cullen is rubbing his tired eyes in an effort to force concentration into his mind. "... got me a blanket?" These past few weeks of shyly exchanged gifts and flirting, it's been... nice. But Dorian was so hatefully angry about it this afternoon that Cullen can't be sure what to do now.
Dorian draws up taller and Cullen wonders if he knows how open he is when he's had too much to drink. All of his tells are obvious and his masks are muted. It's like seeing what Dorian might be like if Cullen and he were closer and Dorian trusted him more. "Yes, well, if you do insist in sleeping at your desk- nicely done by the way, perfect addition to the noble image you have going on- then I try and do a noble gesture of my own and fall down half of your Maker-forsaken ladder!"
Cullen sifts through the rant slowly, tired brain sorting out the useful parts, dismissing the questions he knew Dorian would use to talk circles around him, and finally settling on the relevant question of, "Why did you come to my office? Drunk, I might add."
Dorian scowls at him again, Cullen wondering idly if thats the only look he is to be greeted with from now on, and fusses with the blankets he's holding like a wall between them. "I can go wherever I like, Commander. I'm free like that."
Cullen's heart can only take so much and he forces his tired bones to stand, hands pressed to the table and irritation mixing with his fatigue into an exasperated sigh. "That you can. If that will be all, however, I have work to-"
"I wanted to see you." It comes out in a slurred mumble, Dorian's eyes surprisingly open and vulnerable as he looks so earnestly at Cullen.
"You saw me already today." Cullen reminds him, crossing his arms and keeping his tone tight lest the hurt seep in. "You made your feelings clear. You don't need to clarify."
"No!" Dorian blurts, hands fisting the blankets in his arms nervously. "No, I didn't! I didn't." He shakes his head and Cullen sighs.
"Dorian... look. You've had a bit too much to drink. Perhaps you should just go to bed." He says softly, stepping around the desk to urge Dorian to the door. Cullen's never had much in the way of pride, not in this sense. He still cares greatly for Dorian and seeing him drunk and confused isn't helping his need to comfort Dorian.
"No! Cullen! Listen to me!" Dorian drops the blankets he's holding and tries to rush towards Cullen. He only succeeds in tripping over the blankets he had dropped and landing in Cullen's arms as the blonde tried to catch him. "Maker, no, I didn't mean what I said! It was unworthy of me- my father, he-! Cullen, the entire of Skyhold knows bits of what happened at Redcliffe but you don't do you?! You didn't even ask the Inquisitor!" There's no tease, no witty flirt for how chivalrously Cullen caught him. That if anything makes Cullen see how distressed Dorian is.
Cullen tries to lift Dorian up but the man seems to have given up on vertical altogether, dragging Cullen to the floor so he can pin Cullen, back to his desk, with Dorian clambering into his lap and forcing their gazes to lock.
"Dorian, this isnt... we shouldn't... talk about this. Not while you're drunk." Cullen flushed hard as the mage practically squirmed in his lap to get comfortable, all the while insisting eye contact so Cullen would know he spoke the truth.
"I needed to get drunk after the day I've had." Dorian's breath tickled Cullen's face, the bitter tang of sour wine and heat- Cullen could almost taste it and it wasn't helping his stammering or blushing. "Cullen, please... I was angry and hurt, he made me hate myself all ove again! I felt wrong! I didn't think I could do this- I want to, so badly!" He was almost whining as he petulantly added, "They were his words, not mine. I shouldn't have ever..."
Dorian's voice broke and Cullen shushed him, hands coming up to hold the mage- one around his back, another cupping his cheek as Dorian sniffled miserably. "Shush, Dorian, it's okay." It isn't. Cullen knows they need to talk, but not like this. Not drunk and tired and miserable. "I promise it's okay." Dorian's broken the dam now, tears trickling down his face and there's so much hurt there that Cullen knows he isn't meant to see. "Come on..."
Dorian shuffles as directed and it's little effort to arrange the blankets under the desk. Cullen winds up with Dorian's back to his chest, curled under the desk, tangled in a makeshift nest of blankets and Cullen's cloak.
Cullen hadn't intended to stay with Dorian but the man clung to him viciously tight and Cullen, while doubting it was for the best, obliged. He thought it was selfish, the way he caved to Dorian's urging. The man was drunk, likely to wake embarrassed, make excuses and leave Cullen aching with an even deeper hurt. Alcohol loosened tongues but it confused things as well, Cullen forced himself not to read into Dorian's regret which could easily be read as simply regret for how they had parted. He's still no better informed if Dorian wants to call off their courting altogether or if he's just lashing out in hurt.
Their breaths were slow and even, the only sound bar the wind rattling the doors and Cullen thought Dorian asleep but for the hand that pressed to his chest suddenly.
"Cullen, I-" Dorian shifts around to face Cullen.
"Hush." Cullen soothes. "In the morning. Alright?"
Dorian huffed against Cullen's neck, only their tunics between them now. "Alright." He agrees, the tang of wine still colouring his breath and Cullen tightens his hold. He wants to delay what might be a bitter goodbye tomorrow, would rather have this for one night- a memory of a half forgotten drunken nap that he'll torment himself with later.
He's always been a bit of a masochist.