Chapter Text
Cullen normally didn’t meddle in student affairs. He didn’t mind the occasional mental health day, so long as everyone was safe and accounted for. He had to keep a closer eye on the mages because they were his responsibility, and the thought of doing wrong by them bothered him. Whether that be purposeful or by inaction did not matter.
“What do you mean Dorian wasn’t here yesterday,” Cullen said.
“He didn’t come to class,” Leliana replied.
Leliana had no last name that anyone was aware of, and while she was a perfectly adequate language teacher, Cullen strongly suspected she worked for the government under deep cover. No one knew anything about her. No one.
“I have him for homeroom, he was there in the morning.”
“Hm,” Leliana said, and it sounded like judgment.
“I need to go check something,” Cullen said.
“Hm.” Leliana replied.
---
Cullen’s responsibilities were thus, he taught his classes, kept an eye on his students, kept a special eye on his student-mages, and he never, ever took his eyes off Dorian Pavus. Except he had and Dorian Pavus had apparently walked out of his first class on Tuesday and had not come back.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cullen said, wanting very sincerely to take his co-worker by the throat and throttle him.
“If a student wants to give away their education, I’m not going to stop them,” Solas said, his voice simultaneously lilting and caustic. “Mr Pavus can exert his free will as he likes.”
Solas was cleaning his chalkboard in preparation for the day, and he did not bother to pause in his action to so much as look at Cullen. Cullen would’ve considered it a dismissal, and in some ways it probably was, but Solas was like that all the time.
“Solas, he left halfway through your class and never came back, for all we know he’s missing, dead in a ditch somewhere, and the school is culpable, because nobody checked where he was,” Cullen said.
“Take a breath, Mr Rutherford,” Solas replied.
Cullen did, but only because he had to, and not because Solas had told him to.
“All students take time away from class,” Solas said. “He’s fine.”
When Dorian signed up to be a student, his social worker came with him. She’d been tall and broad, and intense. She’d told Cullen (the Circle liaison) and the Principal who Dorian was, what his personal circumstances were, and just what she’d do to them both if that information became public knowledge. Or if Dorian were hurt under their watch.
At first Cullen had checked he went to every class, made sure roll was taken so regularly that all the other teachers started getting annoyed about it. But Dorian had gone to every lesson, was a little mouthy but otherwise perfectly well-behaved, and Cullen had phased it out. He hadn’t seen a reason to worry about him so much when there were so many students who needed guidance more. He could see, retrospectively, how bloody stupid that had been.
Thing was, because Cullen was the only active teacher who knew the full extent of Dorian’s situation, so he was also the only one who realized just how much shit they were in. Although he suspected Solas would have very little sympathy for a Tevinter altus even if he did know. The man was not very forgiving of… He just wasn’t very forgiving.
“You don’t know that, he doesn’t…” Cullen couldn’t think of how to word it.
“He’s fine,” Solas said, pointing towards the classroom windows, which looked out over the gym and into the carpark.
Where Bull, Skyhold’s only Qunari student, was getting out of his car on the driver’s side and Dorian Pavus was exiting from the other.
“Fuck,” Cullen said.
“Language,” Solas replied archly.
---
Cullen didn’t pull them in immediately. It was so early that Bull’s car was the only one in the student carpark, which Cullen suspected was something they’d planned in advance. The school was still quiet, so Cullen took a moment to look at his sobriety chip and remind himself that a moment’s reprieve would not be worth the terrible, terrible consequences of falling off the wagon.
He walked to the main office and unhooked the microphone for the intercom. Cullen took a moment to pray to the Maker, and then he made the announcement.
“Could Dorian Pavus and Bull please come to Mr Rutherford’s office now, please. Dorian Pavus and Bull to Mr Rutherford’s office,” He said.
A Qunari and a ‘Vint walk into a bar. He was living a bad joke.
---
Bull had the most innocent smile that a boy his size could possibly have. He’d rounded his shoulders a little so he looked milder; just a goofy, fluffy kid growing into his own large frame. Dorian was sitting rather primly, in contrast. His shoulders back and his ankles crossed like a lady at a finishing school. His expression was politely interested, but also somewhat reserved.
Cullen would have been convinced, if he hadn’t met them before.
“What did you do?” Cullen asked firmly.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Mr Rutherford,” Bull said.
Butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth. Cullen stared him straight in the eye and the boy didn’t even flinch. He didn’t move at all except to blink. It was like staring into a friendly abyss.
No matter what anyone caught him at, getting into a fight, bringing a maul to school, performing cunnilingus in the library, frotting on the front lawn, none of it was ever enough to break his godless fucking poker face. All teenage boys broke eventually, except for him. No one had been able to understand it. Until they met his mother, wait no, his Tama. Everything made terrifying sense after that.
Cullen turned his gaze back on Dorian, who was blinking up at him through eyelashes made longer by mascara, his lids covered in gold eyeshadow. His hands were folded in his lap, adorned by golden bangles. His neck was bare, though.
“Dorian, I have it on good authority that you left school during first period yesterday and never came back. You have to know how seriously we take that, you could’ve been anywhere, we had no idea if you were safe.”
Dorian turned his head a little, eyes narrowing.
“If you thought I wasn’t safe, why didn’t anyone call me?” Dorian asked.
“That’s not what we’re discussing right now,” Cullen replied, cursing the tactical error. “I want to know where you were.”
“The school has my number,” Dorian said.
His voice was just slightly louder than it had been, and to Cullen’s horror the reticence he’d seen before started to morph into upset. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bull sit up a little straighter.
“I found out this morning,” Cullen said. “And after getting ready to call out an Amber alert, I saw you two arriving at school together. So, I want to know, what were you doing cutting yesterday?”
Cullen hadn’t had time to check, but he’d bet his left nut that Bull had skivved off too at exactly the same time, and driven them both off to somewhere vaguely secluded enough to have unprotected sex. Mr Rutherford did not stand for that Sort of Thing. He wasn’t going to relegate them to a life of STDs and social shame.
Dorian now had his arms folded and was refusing to look at him.
“I’m going to have to give you detention. And from now on, you sign out of school at the end of every day, this is not happening again,” Cullen said, looking between them. “I’m going to have to call your parents.”
He said it on reflex and immediately regretted it, because the twin stares he got in return were drier than the Hissing Wastes.
“Do you understand?” Cullen asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Dorian said, pulling himself out of his chair and sliding his bag over a shoulder. “May I go now?”
“I want you both here every lunch period, for a week,” Cullen said. “Now you may go.”
Cullen felt his stomach sink when he saw Dorian stalking out, body ever-so-slightly hunched. Normally he strode everywhere, head up, with perfect posture.
“Later, Bull,” Dorian said, leaving the door open behind him.
Bull for his part, was still sitting in his chair, mouth hanging open. Devoid of his cool for the first time that Cullen had ever seen. Bull turned from where he’d clearly been following Dorian’s exit, to look at Cullen, wide-eyed.
“Mr Rutherford,” Bull said, voice a little higher than usual. “You suck.”
Cullen was so shocked that Bull was able to dash out before Cullen could reprimand him.
---
He didn’t want to, but putting it off would’ve been irresponsible. He picked up the phone and called Mrs Adaar, Dorian’s social worker. Well, latest social worker. From their first conversation he gathered that Dorian had been through a few when he first got over the border.
“Dorian skipped school yesterday,” Cullen said, when the line picked up.
“Yes, this is Yenaan Adaar speaking, may I ask who’s calling?” She replied lightly.
“It’s Mr Rutherford from Skyhold, Dorian Pavus cut school on Tuesday, and spent the day doing Maker-knows-what with the son of the Qunari ambassador.”
“Qunari don’t have ‘sons’, they have charges,” She said.
Cullen angled the phone away and covered his mouthpiece. He screamed for a few seconds, sound muffled by his gritted teeth, before bringing the headset back.
“I heard that,” Yenaan said. “And why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“I didn’t know yesterday,” Cullen said.
The resulting silence was quite chilly.
“So, let me get this right, a vulnerable political refugee, though technically an emancipated minor, left school premises, with a Qunari national. While still being a mage from Tevinter. And no one noticed until the next day, am I correct thus far?”
“You are,” Cullen replied.
“Doesn’t sound like him,” Yenaan said, voice musing.
“Yeah, well…”
“Is he alright? Did anything happen at school, or back home, that he might be aware of?”
Cullen opened his mouth to answer and paused. He didn’t know, because he hadn’t asked. He’d seen him with the school’s lead exhibitionist and skipped straight to the accusations.
“I really do suck,” Cullen said quietly.
“… Far be it from me to challenge your self-assessment,” Yenaan replied.
---
Dorian arrived bright and early for his first detention. His eyes were a little red, but his makeup was still flawless. It always was, he kept it maintained like armour. Which Cullen really, really should have noticed. It was just easier to see the ones that were openly struggling, as opposed to Dorian’s usually bullet-proof façade.
Cullen waved him over to his desk, and gestured at a seat. Dorian took it, but slowly, even warily.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” Cullen said. “I should’ve spoken to you first before I assumed anything. Are you alright? That’s what matters most.”
Dorian looked down and away, as if looking into Cullen’s eyes would be too hard. He took a breath in and held it for a moment, before glancing back up.
“I’m sorry, Mr Rutherford, could you repeat the question?” Dorian asked.
“Are you alright?” Cullen said.
“Ah, yes,” Dorian said. “No.”
“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?” Cullen asked softly.
“Depends on how much you like polite falsehoods,” Dorian said, sounding a little more like himself. “They’re quite fashionable in Tevinter, but so are a lot of things that people here find questionable.”
Dorian was looking at him again, and Cullen wondered if he was partly referring to his magical field of choice, which he was no longer able to pursue at a highschool level.
“Let’s be honest,” Cullen said.
“Then no, I’m not,” Dorian said. “I think I made a terrible mistake coming here, and I would have been better off hating myself in my homeland than doing the same here and everyone agreeing with me.”
Dorian was… Very eloquent for an eighteen year old. Even with the braggadocio.
“Or at least I could’ve waited a few years,” Dorian said, biting his lip on whatever else he might have to say.
“People don’t hate you, Dorian,” Cullen said, leaning forward.
Dorian gave him another of his cutting looks. Cullen was beginning to suspect he practiced them in mirror at night. Boy had a point though.
“Alright, I know it’s not ideal, but there are people around you who would be perfectly willing to be a part of your life, if you let them.”
“Forgive me Sir if I express some reticence,” Dorian replied.
“Bet you ten gold,” Cullen said. “Either-way, you win.”
“Are you sure you want to step up to the high rollers’ table?”
“Fine, twenty, and they have to be in addition to Bull.”
Dorian actually held his hand out. Sometimes Cullen couldn’t tell how much of his manners were him being a smartarse, and how much were holdovers from his privileged upbringing. Cullen shook anyway.
“Wait, it’s ten past, why isn’t Bull here?” Cullen said.
“He had student council,” Dorian replied, “and he’s more worried about upsetting the President than he is you.”
Cullen sighed, not for the first time that day, and probably not for the last.