Work Text:
The siege at Adamant Fortress had left everyone in the Inquisition drained - most of all its Commander. The demons, blood magic, and heavy casualties were dragging Cullen’s thoughts to dark places filled with terror, abominations, and torture. Worst of all was the knowledge that he had almost lost her again. He had sworn to her and to himself that he would never allow the events of Haven to reoccur. But the dragon once again caught them off guard and she was being buried in another avalanche - not of snow but crumbling walls. And yet, by the Maker’s grace, she had survived by opening a rift and physically walking through the Fade.
Cullen knew Evelyn was shaken by her experiences in the Fade. Usually, she would give detailed reports to her advisors of each mission. Of her time at Adamant, she wrote only two sentences, “I refuse to relive this mission by writing it down. Warden Stroud and many other good people were lost in accomplishing our objective.”
Organizing the troops for the march home, writing condolence letters to the families of the fallen, checking on supply lines, and securing the Western Approach kept Cullen from seeking out Evelyn though she was never far from his mind. After a few days, he saw her off by herself staring at her staff and decided to check on her.
“How are you doing after the events of the past days, Inquisitor?” he asked with sincere concern. She looked up with him in annoyance and changed the subject. “I think I need a new staff. The blade on this one cracked when I stabbed a pride demon. I need something with more power - maybe an electrical enchantment with a corruption rune.” she mused. “And I just got the grip broken in the way I like it.” She twirled the staff as if to demonstrate.
Deflection and redirection - Evelyn’s answer to showing any emotional weakness. For someone that would go out of her way to help others, she placed impenetrable walls up for anyone who would dare to do the same for her. It infuriated him because he knew the coping strategy all too well. He hadn’t even bothered to let his family know when he had been transferred to Kirkwall. Contacting them would have just caused a flurry of concern that he just didn’t need.
Just keep working, keep going through the motions... one day it will get better or at least numb. Except ten years later, he was realizing that it didn’t get better and that no matter how hard you pushed the feelings away they kept returning. That was something Evelyn would have to discover for herself. So he decided to allow the deflection and reached out his hand to take her staff. For all his years as a templar, he had never really handled one. It was heavier than he imagined but as well balanced as his sword. The grip was too small for his hands but he surmised that it was perfect for hers - especially with the softened leather.
Staff in hand Cullen couldn’t resist the urge to play mage like he had as a little boy in Honnleath. Twirling the staff he made “phew, phew, phew” sounds and then slammed the end of the staff down on the ground with a “thwump” as if he were casting spells. He tried to resume twirling the staff but misjudged its momentum and hit himself in the head. Evelyn collapsed into a fit of laughter.
Gasping for air and clutching her sides, Evelyn finally emerged from her nearly convulsive fit of giggles. “You would make a piss poor mage, Cullen. But you might have a future as a jester.” Evelyn’s eyes softened as she held out her hand for her staff, and he passed it to her his hand glancing her own. “Thank you really, Cullen. I needed that laugh more than you can imagine.”
“Anything for you, Inquisitor.” was Cullen’s instinctive response.
***************************************************
While Cullen led the army back to Skyhold, Evelyn took her party to the Emerald Graves to chase caravans that might be supplying Corypheus’ templars with red lyrium. Evelyn knew that the fate of those who had stayed with the order weighed on Cullen’s mind. It nagged at her conscience as well when she allowed herself to think about it - how many templars had been forced to become mutated shells because of her decision to help Redcliffe’s mages rather than them?
Shaking those thoughts off, Evelyn turned her focus on the lyrium smugglers and groups of rogue soldiers that called themselves Freemen of the Dales. Within a few weeks, her team had cleared out the Emerald Graves and secured another agent - a man who called himself Fairbanks. She looked forward to returning to Skyhold for a warm, fluffy bed, a steaming hot bath, and a chance to see Cullen.
The journey home was uneventful, and Evelyn was overjoyed when she saw the housekeeper had already seen that a bath was ready for her. She soaked in the water until her fingers and toes were wrinkled. After months of living in tents and bathing in streams, the warm water felt obscenely luxurious. She slipped beneath the surface of the water and drank in the silence.
After drying and rebraiding her hair, Evelyn slid into the soft leathers she wore around the keep. She let out a long sigh. It was good to be back. Now that she was presentable and no longer smelled like a druffalo, Evelyn gathered the papers she had taken from smuggler’s corpses and made her way to Cullen’s office. He would be eager to follow up on the information she had gained. And she hoped that he would be similarly glad to see her as well.
He wasn’t in his office, and an aide told her that Cullen was meeting with Cassandra in the armory. Cassandra had just returned with Evelyn - what was so important that he had to see her immediately?. A jealous thought that Cassandra and Cullen secretly might be a couple began to swirl in Evelyn’s mind. Maybe that is why Cass had invited him to join the Inquisition. Evelyn dismissed the idea quickly but was surprised at how much even the thought of Cullen being with someone else upset her.
Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the armory, she saw Cullen and Cassandra engaged in a heated argument. Cullen brushed by Evelyn with a terse apology and left. Cassandra looked even more disgusted than normal as she crossed her arms and commented, “And people say I’m stubborn. This is ridiculous.”
Cassandra explained that Cullen had asked to be relieved of command. He felt that the effects of his lyrium withdrawal were compromising the Inquisition. Cassandra disagreed and felt finding a replacement was unnecessary. Never one to skirt an issue, Cassandra stated in her thick Nevarran accent, “Besides, it would destroy him. He’s come so far.”
Evelyn wondered aloud why Cullen hadn’t come to her with his concerns. Cassandra reminded her that Cullen and she had reached an agreement that she would monitor his condition long before Evelyn had joined the Inquisition. Although he had sought her guidance, Cassandra thought that if anyone could change his mind about resigning that it would be the Inquisitor. “He can do this. I knew that when we met in Kirkwall. Talk to him...” Cassandra urged.
Evelyn didn’t move on Cassandra’s suggestion right away. She stared into the fireplace trying to collect her thoughts and emotions. The idea of him leaving was nearly unbearable. It would hamstring their army. While soldiers might have joined the Inquisition because of their cause, they fought as hard as they did because of the loyalty Cullen inspired. And if she was being honest, it would cripple her as well. She might find another general that could rival his discipline, knowledge and charisma, but she had come to rely on him for more than his role as advisor. His crooked smiles, fumbling flirtations, and steady support got her through the days when she wished she had died with all the others at the Conclave.
She concluded that Cullen deserved more than being bound to duty - or her. Evelyn resolved to speak with him about what he wanted and to respect whatever choice he made. Her chest was tight at the thought that might mean never seeing him again, but she would not coerce him into staying if he wanted to go. The mark forced her into service, but she would not deny his freedom if he desired it. She cared too much for him to keep him chained.
*************************************************
The pain was nearly unbearable. Cullen felt as if every articulation of his joints was burning. His muscles cramped making ropey knots. And his head was throbbing relentlessly. Glancing in a mirror - he saw his face was sweaty, gaunt. He looked every bit as strung out as he felt.
While the physical withdrawal symptoms were awful, they weren’t what drove him to speak with Cassandra that day. It was the memories that flooded his mind. Once they had largely been confined to nightmares but now they filled his waking hours. It was a never ending stream of horror - blood mages controlling the thoughts of his templar brothers and directing them to turn their blades on each other, Uldred laughing cruelly as Cullen recited the Chant struggling to resist the desire demons that used his carnal needs against him, and Meredith claiming the Maker’s blessing as she turned on her own men and the Champion.
The worst memory, though, was of a tiny, toe-headed boy crouching inside a closet at the Gallows. Cullen would have allowed the boy to surrender even though the Circle was being annulled. His rank gave him the authority to make such calls, and the child who had just recently came into his magic was hardly a threat. As Cullen reached out trying to reassure the child that he would not be harmed, the boy convulsed in fear. The youngster’s blue eyes rolled back in his head and his body shuddered as he transformed into an abomination. Cullen failed to get his shield up in time as claws raked at his face. Quick action by other templar’s saved Cullen’s life, but it was the terror Cullen had seen in the boy’s eyes that haunted him. Had Cullen become such a monster that a child would automatically assume the Knight-Captain would run him through just for being a mage? Cullen knew at that moment that he could not stay with the Order.
He had stayed, though. He had a duty to his brothers in arms, to the city, and to the people that had died as a result of Anders’ and Meredith’s insanity. When Cassandra came a few years later with an offer of joining a group that sought to end the mage-templar conflict, he eagerly joined on the condition that he be allowed to stop taking lyrium. He could never be the person he had been before becoming a templar - the idealistic boy that only wanted to help and protect. He had done too much, seen too much to ever be that person again. He hoped that he might somehow atone and regain control by severing the Chantry’s liquid leash.
It had been months since his last draught of lyrium, and he craved it more today than he had in all that time. Lyrium eased the nightmares, blurred the memories, and replaced pain with power. Sickened by his addiction, Cullen threw the box that carried the supplies needed to prepare a dose of lyrium across the room just as Evelyn entered. It crashed into a doorframe inches from where she stood.
Cullen had not even noticed the door opening. His legs buckled beneath him as he apologized to Evelyn. He was ashamed by his lack of control. He hated that she was seeing him in this state but told himself that at least she could now see him for what he was - an addict, a failure. Some part of him wanted her to chastise him. He deserved her scorn. Instead, she looked at him with eyes that were too kind, too accepting. Couldn’t she see what an utter mess he was?
Instead of launching into an invective, Evelyn asked about his needs, his desires, his hopes. And the stories he had never shared, the ones he had tried to push away with slavish dedication to work and duty poured out of him. He had never spoken to anyone about what had happened at Fereldan’s Circle. But he told her in detail of the slaughter, the torture, the guilt. She didn’t flinch choosing to stand silent with her brown eyes glistening with tears. He explained how he had transferred to Kirkwall thinking he could still serve. People like Hawke and Thrask had tried to make him aware of corruption in the Order, but he chose willful ignorance because some part of him wanted mages to suffer. When Meredith sought to annul Kirkwall’s Circle, he fought at her side until the extent of her madness revealed itself. Yes, he had stood against her at the very end, but how many people died because of the choices he made that day. Couldn’t she see how he could no longer be bound to that life?
Evelyn’s acceptance of his choice to stop taking lyrium frustrated him. He told her that she should be questioning him and his decisions - not supporting them. How could she accept him giving less to the Inquisition than he had the Chantry? Slamming his fist against the bookshelf, he berated himself repeating “I should be taking it. I should be taking it.”
And then she stepped closer to him and said softly that it didn’t have to be about the Inquisition and asked what he wanted. He told her that he wanted to stay off lyrium but didn’t know if he could endure the thoughts and cravings withdrawal brought. Her hand went up to his heart as her eyes locked on him with fierce determination. “You can.” was all she said. And in spite of the pain that wracked his body and the dark thoughts pressing on his mind, Cullen believed her.