Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

                The sun hasn’t quite risen, and the birds are still silent. Branson scuffs his feet on the ground and looks everywhere but at his older brother. He huffs a sigh, finally, puffing steam in the cool air, and digs his hands into his pockets. He is embarrassed, and Cullen is embarrassed for him, knowing he is sad and afraid to show it. And then Branson pulls his hands from his pockets again and presses something into Cullen’s palm—his hands shaking—and says, keep it for luck, okay?

                They both pretend not to hear the break in his voice. Their sisters are just out of earshot, too far to tease. Cullen opens his hands to see his brother’s gift; a coin with the face of their Maker’s wife.

                He laughs. Branson looks hurt, and Cullen immediately spills apologies. It’s just—he says, trying to be kind—our faith should see us through. No luck needed. Branson steps away before he can hand it back. Their sisters are approaching; the carriageman calls for Cullen to hurry up; and while Cullen stands there distraught Branson says no one has to know and turns for home.

                Cullen pockets the coin, and boards the carriage. He arrives for templar training with the coin pulling like lead in his pocket. At first, he thinks of pitching it into the lake when no one’s watching. Somehow he never does, just keeps it under his pillow instead, and sometimes he holds it when he prays. He tells himself his faith is enough, but he still slides the coin into his pocket on rough days, and hears his brother’s voice in his head. For luck.

                There is an apprentice with an easy smile and knowing eyes. He likes her more than he should. She pretends she isn’t afraid of the templars, and sometimes in the hallways she calls out to him and makes jokes. He catches her looking at him often during chantry services, and sometimes she smiles at him, and other times she looks away, embarrassed. Every time, he closes his eyes and tries to focus on the chant.

                He passes her in the hall late one evening and she calls his name, and he turns before he realizes it was her. She is smiling, her cheeks red from the honeyed wine at dinner, and she comes so close and presses both her hands to his chest and pushes him into an alcove. When she kisses him, she is sweet and soft against his lips and he feels her smile. She stops before he can think to kiss her back. The creak of an opening door down the hallway sends her scurrying away from him and into the darkened corridors, and he is alone with the taste of honeyed wine on his lips.

                He makes it back to his quarters without anyone catching him, and ridden with guilt, he tries to pray. The coin is missing from under his pillow. He strips the bed, feels every groove in the old floorboards, and is certain he’s been caught before he finds it resting in his pocket. For luck.

                He asks the Maker for forgiveness, in the silence of the tower.

                The next day is her harrowing. Cullen is called to watch, alongside his knight captain. She is scared and doesn’t make eye contact with any of the templars on the long walk to the harrowing chambers.

                She doesn’t pass her harrowing, and Cullen watches his knight captain run her through with a greatsword as the demons start to overtake her. Blood froths between her lips, and Cullen remembers the taste of honeyed wine and shivers. The knight captain sees his wide eyes and places a heavy hand on his shoulder. They’re just mages, he says, to comfort, and then he heads to the door. When Cullen does not immediately follow, the knight captain grows impatient, and calls come along, leave it for the servants to clean up.

                Cullen follows. At midnight services in the chantry, he prays for her.

                The templars are woken in the night and called to action. All of them. Cullen and his companions pull on their armor in silence and rub the sleep from their eyes. Together, they march to the enchanter’s chambers. Amongst the rest of his order, Cullen feels brave. He leaves the coin under his pillow.

                They climb the stairs toward distant screams. On the third floor, a young mage comes running. Cullen remembers her from mass; she is just older than him and sings the hymns sweeter than anyone. Now she is running, and her voice is an angry scream, and the air shivers and fractures and something in her changes. Her body warps, spewing molten flames, and she erupts into something demonic. Her screams drop octaves until they rattle the windowpanes.

                The mage--the abomination--is close now, close enough to strike, and in his head Cullen can only remember the gentle hymns the mage had sung, and he hesitates. In that instant, the abomination reaches and knocks three templars across the room. The templars hit the wall hard enough to crumble the old bricks, and they do not get up again.

                The Grey Wardens find Cullen, hours later, with his head in his hands and blood dripping from his gauntlets. He is sobbing and raving and pleading for help, but he is not praying.

Chapter Text

                The supply chains reach Kirkwall first, the other templars tell him. That’s why they get more lyrium than the order in Ferelden. He doesn’t question it when he helps them bring in more crates of the stuff than he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t question it when they give him a triple dose his first day there. He doesn’t question.

                He oversees more harrowings than he can count. Many of the mages die. When he kills them, he hears his old knight captain’s voice, warm and comforting, they’re just mages. He still keeps the coin under his pillow, out of habit more than anything, but he doesn’t take it out to pray. He doesn’t pray much, anymore.

                In the chantry, he feels numb. The sisters preach about the flames of Andraste, and all he thinks about is the burning abominations in the tower. He goes through the motions, staring blankly at the stained glass of the high windows. He recites the prayers that once brought him comfort while he daydreams about lunch and polished armor and his next lyrium dose. Inside, he feels nothing, not even emptiness.

                The other knight captains drag him to The Blooming Rose and send him off with a woman on their gold. Her voice is rough and she speaks lewdly, and he pretends it makes him feel something. She kisses him haphazardly, and her mouth tastes of strong whisky. He tries to taste her body, but she tells him it will cost extra. He spends himself inside her and rolls aside, sprawled on the tangled sheets.

                She leaves while he is still panting. At the door, she looks him up and down and thanks him, calling him my dirty chantry boy. Dirty is what he feels.

                He goes again, alone this time, and chooses a different woman. He pays her extra not to talk. She is quiet beneath him, and he can close his eyes and search for some kind of feeling. He never finds it, but then he returns to his quarters and shoots up with a double dose of lyrium, and the ice in his veins stings. He tells himself it is what he deserves.

                Somehow, his knight commander is never disappointed in him, and he respects her for that. It surprises him when her decisions start to turn contentious and some of the templars start to question her. He doubts them, and insists that they can trust Meredith, and works his best to assuage their fears right up until Meredith erupts in red lyrium and tries to bring down the entire circle.

                It is the Champion of Kirkwall who finally strikes her down, and when Hawke turns to the remaining templars to see who would still stay loyal to Meredith’s cause, all Cullen can do is fall to his knees.

                The Gallows are quiet, after. With so many templars dead, there is now twice as much lyrium around unused. Some of the recruits fight over it, hoarding it for themselves. Cullen finds himself taking less and less, with the image of his knight commander consumed by red crystals fresh in his mind.

                He readies himself for mass the first day after, only to remember that the chantry is gone when he is halfway out the door. He is at a loss, and returns to his quarters. There, on the floor, he prays for the first time since Ferelden. Maker give me guidance, he asks, and then he goes to help the chantry sisters rebuild. They task him with crafting new pews, and though he has never been a carpenter, he picks it up quickly enough. The first one comes out only a little lopsided. The sisters thank him, and tell him it is beautiful anyway, and he is embarrassed to find himself blushing.

                He walks home in the dark. The air is crisp and clear and bears no hint of yesterday’s disaster. His hands are sore and blistered from the day’s work, and he makes halfhearted guesses in his head as to how many wood splinters he will need to pull out of his fingers before bed. Eight, he decides, is a safe bet.

                He falls into bed as soon as he is through the door. He drifts into sleep without removing the splinters, without saying his evening prayers, and without even kicking off his boots.

                The night’s lyrium dose sits on his nightstand, untouched.

                Templar duties call in the morning, and he spends the better part of the day training recent recruits. After practice, he spends the rest of the day in the chantry with the sisters. He builds another pew, and this one turns out evenly balanced. He starts on the third and daydreams about what his life would be if he had been a carpenter instead of a templar.

                He rebuilds twelve pews before he receives an invitation from Cassandra to leave the templars and join the budding inquisition in Haven. He takes the coin from under his pillow and prays, for luck, and then he departs for Ferelden.

Chapter Text

                He thinks little of their prisoner, at first. The Dalish elf comes stumbling out of the conclave, swearing up and down that she had nothing to do with it, and he never has the time to figure out if he believes her or not. Cassandra sets him to training recruits, and his hands are full with farmboys who don’t know which end of a sword to hold. He is busy, and the distraction is a comfort.

                The recruits are quick to start calling the prisoner the Herald of Andraste. He is afraid, at first, imagining what Andraste would have to say about him. But the prisoner—the herald—is kind to him, and speaks easily with him while he watches over his soldiers. She is prone to probing questions, but she isn’t judgmental. He can’t imagine Andraste—or any herald she could send—would be kind to him after all he’s done. Instead of The Herald, he just calls her Lavellan.

                Red templars spill over the mountainside and he watches and thinks that he should have known this was coming. He is given a chance to save the villagers at Haven and he takes it, thinking only in numbers, how many lives he can save. Lavellan promises to stay behind, and he knows he can save more lives than they will lose, and that is enough. He leads them into the tunnels without looking back.

                They find her in the snow later that night, staggering her way from Haven. She is cold and barely conscious, and he carries her back to camp. Her head bobs softly against his chest, and he whispers Maker, please, without even knowing what he is praying for.

                She recovers day by day as they work their way to Skyhold. Upon arrival, Josephine and Leliana elect to name her leader. He thinks of Meredith, cold and calculating, and he thinks of Lavellan, who frets over every minor decision. He agrees, and they name Lavellan the inquisitor.

                The months fly by, with a constant flow of new recruits in his care, an army to command, and the inquisitor travelling for weeks at a time. He is always pleased when she returns, and they meet for ales in the tavern and she asks him for stories from his templar days. He tells her stories from when he first started training in the tower in Ferelden. Once, she asks for stories from Kirkwall, and he bluntly says he has none. He returns to his ale, finishes the last of it in one draught, and barks a quick goodbye.

                She leaves for the Storm Coast the next day, and is gone for two weeks. He spends every day of those two weeks regretting his harsh comments. He takes his coin from its spot under the pillow and prays, for forgiveness, though he is unsure who he hopes will forgive.

                He is busy on the training grounds when she returns, and he doesn’t see her enter the hold. It is only later when he is passing through the gardens that he hears her calling to him. He stops, and eventually finds her hunched on the ground, her hands caked in dirt up to the wrist. She beams at him, even though she looks exhausted from her travels, and holds up a weak little plant. Isn’t it beautiful, she breathes, and he smiles back at her even though it’s the ugliest plant he’s ever seen. She tells him it’s a rare herb from the Storm Coast that she wants to culture here at Skyhold, and asks for help planting it.

                He has places to be, but she looks so happy, he can’t help but say yes. He helps her plant the ugly little root, digging in the soft earth with his hands. When it is done, she pulls out a pouch and opens it to show him a dozen more, and he helps her dig tiny holes for every single one.

                They arrive together at the War Table with their hands and forearms caked in dirt, and Josephine scolds them like children. It takes him the better part of an hour that night to scrub the soil from under his fingernails, and he falls asleep thinking of Lavellan smiling over her tiny row of ugly plants. He meets her in the garden every other day after, and they prune the weak plants and water the soil. He smiles more on those days than he can ever remember smiling in his life.

                It is late afternoon when she comes to his office, weeks later, and asks to talk, and he worries for a moment that he has missed a day in the garden. She leads him to the battlements and confesses to thinking of him all the time, and he aches listening to her. He cannot ever remember wanting anything so much. But she doesn’t know about so much of him, and he tells himself she doesn’t deserve that.

                And then he finds himself kissing her anyway.

                They break apart and he apologizes, and she frowns and asks if he regrets it. There are many things in his life he regrets, but Cullen has to admit that kissing her is not one of them. This time she presses herself to him, and kisses him gently. It is a long time before they leave the battlements.

                They meet in the garden the next day. The first of her little plants has flowered.

                He tells her about the lyrium. She frets over him, the way she frets over everything. Only when he promises that he is not yet in pain does she relent. She thinks quietly for a moment, and asks him if he’s sure he wants to stop it, and he says Maker, yes without even thinking. And then she agrees with him, and more than that she offers to help him recover. He doesn’t know how to thank her, so he just pulls her close and holds her.

                He wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, and his head is pounding worse than it ever has before. Though it is cold outside, he drags himself barefoot and half-dressed across the Skyhold grounds to the kitchens, in search of a cold drink, some wine, anything to stop the pain.

                He finds her in her nightdress, standing in the kitchen and slicing a wedge of cheese into tiny cubes. She looks embarrassed at first, tries to hide her face, her body, the cheese – and then she notices the sweat on his pale face and asks, worried, are you all right? He doesn’t have the energy to pretend to be anything close to fine, just staggers toward a chair and croaks out a weak no.

                She is pressing a cool mug of something into his hand before he realizes it. Her tiny hand presses his damp hair back from his forehead, and she leans close and whispers drink that first. It is so bitter he doesn’t want to know what comes second. His stomach turns and he retches, and she takes the drink away from him muttering apologies, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it always helps me when I’m sick but maybe humans are different—he tries to tell her it’s all right, it’s okay, but the words don’t come—I never was the best healer in my clan, I’m sorry, what even hurts? There is a pause in her chatter and he finds the words to say my head, and she nods and strokes his hair again. I have something in my quarters, she says, and before he is aware of it she drags him to his feet and is pulling him across the hall.

                She leads him into her bedroom and pushes him gently onto the bed, and he probably would have felt something sinful if any thinking part of him wasn’t in pain right now. He hears her rifling through drawers. A moment later the mattress dips near his head as she clambers up next to him, and her hands are at his temples. She massages a cool cream into his skin, and it feels so good he actually whimpers out loud—Maker preserve me, he thinks, I’m an idiot—but she just keeps up her gentle strokes. A moment later she is humming, and then his mind clears enough to hear the words she’s singing. It is something in elven, and he doesn’t even try to understand it, just falls asleep right there in her bed.

                He wakes to find himself sprawled across the entire mattress, and Lavellan across the room on the divan, wrapped in a blanket. Embarrassed, he leaves before she wakes. That night, she knocks on his office door and he starts to apologize for putting her out of her own bed, but before he can say sorry she kisses him sweetly and asks if he’s feeling better. All he can say is yes. She hands him a pouch, and tells him to mash the leaves and rub them into his temples for headaches. She is out the door before he can say anything else.

                He has the servants send fresh cheese to her quarters that night, sliced into cubes, with a note apologizing for disturbing her midnight snack.

Chapter Text

                He has been in his own head so long that he has forgotten what it is to worry for someone else.

                They are planning the Siege of Adamant and there is no best course of action. There is only one course of action, and he trains his soldiers until their fingers blister and their armor drips sweat. We will not let the inquisitor fall, he tells them, and they shout back with tired cheers. The soldiers are finally getting better, starting to learn some sort of strategy, but still he worries.

                He prays every night, lucky coin in hand, for luck. And then he pockets it and takes her aside on a scouting trip and hands it to her, reverently, for luck. He tells her of his brother, and he tells her he has carried this token with him since templar training, and he tells her he hopes—prays—it will bring her luck.

                She takes it from him, tucking it in her armor with a smile. Then she presses herself close to him, and he wraps his arms around her with a contented sigh, and both dwell silently on their own worries.

                He doesn’t see the bridge crumble at Adamant, but he hears it, and feels the old stones rumble under his feet. The dragon had flown that way just a moment ago and he hopes desperately that maybe Lavellan has not yet reached it. And then a lieutenant runs down from the parapets, screaming, the inquisitor—the inquisitor has fallen—and all he can think is how far. He rushes to the edge of the battlements and looks down, down, down, to the sad crumble of bricks so far below.

                The ache in his chest is immediate and consuming. His lungs feel strangled, his hands ache with the cold grip of fear. Around him soldiers are screaming and the demons still will not stop coming. He thinks back to every mage at the end of his blade and every order of Meredith’s he ever carried out unquestioningly, and his heart sinks with the realization that this is what he deserves.

                He will not ever remember how the next hour passes, though his soldiers later talk about how many demons he brings down. Like a man possessed, they will whisper, like nothing could stop him.

               The hordes thin, and then a voice shouts the inquisitor, and Cullen raises his eyes and she is there, whole, spilling out of a rift in the courtyard with her companions. The relief in his veins is heavy and he imagines he could fall to his knees, but somehow his legs find the strength and he runs to her. She tells the assembled crowd that the Champion of Kirkwall is dead, and then she turns to him and asks if they can leave. Her voice is a whisper.

                They set up camp outside Adamant, and she sits as close to him as she can beside the fire, clutching his fingers in her own. Solas presses her for details of the fade, and she tries to answer him at first, but it is difficult. He does not relent and she finally says that she doesn’t want to talk about it, she is tired, and her companions agree. Solas leaves then, and one by one her companions also trickle away to bed, until only Lavellan and Cullen remain by the fire. He urges her to rest, and stands to leave, but she clutches his fingers tighter. Her eyes grow wide and she asks, softly, embarrassed, can I stay with you?

                He walks her to his tent, and she curls against him on the bedroll. It is only then that he notices she is shaking. He wraps an arm around her and pulls her close. How did you handle it, she asks eventually, her voice wet with tears, losing your friends to demons at Kinloch?

                He strokes her hair, presses a kiss to her forehead. Thinks of lyrium highs and the Blooming Rose. I don’t know, Lavellan, he says. I’m sorry.

                In the morning, she is curled tight against him, her hand on his chest. Her cheeks are red and puffy from crying, but now she looks almost calm. He wakes long before her, but he doesn’t move, just closes his eyes and listens to her steady breathing.

                She comes to him every night on the road home, and he soothes her until she can fall asleep.

                He finds himself thinking of a life and a future and things he could never imagine having. He confesses this to her in his office, and she agrees. She presses herself to his desk and somehow a moment later he is against her, kissing her furiously and lifting her onto the desk below him. There is something burning in him, desire mixed with some deep happiness he has never felt before, and he can’t kiss her fast enough. She reaches for the buttons on his tunic and he goes weak in the knees, Maker, this is happening.

                It is when she undresses that he sees the coin, hanging from her neck, resting securely in the space between her breasts. For luck, she reminds him, and then she reaches down and takes him in her hand and he has never felt luckier.

                In the morning, she tells him she loves him, and then leaves him naked and humming happily on the tangled sheets of his own bed.

                The warmth of her in his bed does not scare the nightmares away. He wakes in a panic, screaming between the sobs, and his skin is crawling with imagined demon fire. The sweat on his back is icy cold but his tears are hot and it is enough to make him sick. Names of fallen comrades spill from his lips and then it is wordless and fearful and he is sobbing.

                Her rough little hands find him, in the dark. He is sitting up and she leans close, her fingers tracing lazy circles on his back, up to his neck, down to his hip. The sobs quiet. She rests her chin on his shoulder, her mouth close to his ear, and whispers something in elven, over and over.

                It soothes him, eventually. The tears stop and he falls silent and leans his full weight into her, weak and exhausted. She pulls him lightly back onto the mattress and holds him. He feels soft in her arms, and after everything, after everything, it is all he wants.

                He wakes, his head on her chest, her bright eyes watching him. He is ready to be embarrassed and apologetic, but she kisses his nose and scrapes her knuckles through the scruff of his morning stubble. And then she smiles and says, the sun is up, ma vhenan.

                They meet in the garden, later, taking cuttings from her plants to grow new sprouts. He asks her what she was whispering after the nightmare, and she blushes and mumbles, a prayer.

Chapter Text

                Skyhold is empty, though the echoes of his footsteps make him sound like an army.

                Josephine grows short tempered in no time at all and tells him to stop pacing. He sits down for all of three seconds before he is back on his feet. Leliana tries to soothe him with stiff drinks, but they all turn to ash in his mouth. Josephine drinks them, instead.

                Lavellan and her companions left for the ruin at Haven, for Corypheus, days ago. She should have reached him yesterday. He waits in the war room, staring at their maps and plans and figures and all he can do is wait. It is torture.

                He almost prays, once, and then he remembers everything the Maker has ever denied him. He knows he does not deserve her and he is afraid to ask. So he paces, and he thinks of the lucky coin, hanging against her breastbone underneath her armor, and he thinks of luck.

                The raven comes at sunset. He is first to grab the scroll, but his hands are shaking and he can’t bear to open it, and hands it to a frightened Josephine, who passes it to a stoic Leliana. She unrolls, and she reads, and Cullen feels a lifetime pass, and then, oh Maker, she smiles.

                They’re alive, she tells him, and he starts laughing with relief before she can even announce Corypheus is dead. He laughs and laughs and laughs, and Leliana says thank the Maker, tears of relief on her indomitable face. And Cullen looks at her, and says yes, thank the Maker.

                He sleeps beside her every night after. When the demons of Kinloch Hold return to his nightmares, she is beside him, with soothing hands and soft voice. And when she wakes from visions of Corypheus and the fade, he pulls her close, and whispers gentle words until she calms. After, he holds her hand at the breakfast table, and gives her his extra blackcurrant jam.

                The inquisition soldiers tease him and call him soft. He scolds them and assigns them extra drills, and then in the evening over his ale he thinks, I am ready to be soft.

                He finds a dog, in Halamshiral, and it likes him. It is nice to feel trusted by another living thing. She tells him to keep the dog, though she suggests all kinds of ridiculous names for the brutish warhound, and he’s never been good at saying no to her. Somehow, the dog ends up being called Cabbage.

                They are married in Halamshiral, with Dalish and Andrastian vows. He imagines the chantry sisters of his youth calling him heretic, but he has abandoned orthodoxy long ago. He makes a promise to his Maker, and at the same time he prays, don’t take her away from me.

                Her arm is killing her. He knows it, though she tries her best to hide it. She is in and out of eluvians and he knows it is getting worse, that something in the crossroads is escalating too, with the Qunari. He asks her one night, worried, if she thinks the mark will kill her. She is silent for a long while, and then she says I don’t know, Cullen, in a soft whisper; I’m sorry. All he can do is hold her, but she doesn’t cry, not until the mark wakes her in the night with its bright flares and shooting pain.

                He waits by the eluvian the next day, with Josephine and Leliana. Josephine thanks him for not pacing this time, but no one laughs, and they wait in silence.

                The silence is torn when Blackwall comes falling out of the eluvian, half-carrying, half-dragging Lavellan. She is screaming, and Maker, he’s never heard her scream like that, and then Cassandra and Dorian are spilling out after them shouting about Solas and the anchor and all he sees is Lavellan, on the cobblestones. There is so much blood.

                He looks for the mark, and sees her arm is gone.

                Someone is shouting for healers and people are running and Dorian is kneeling and summoning some kind of healing magic and saying I’m doing my best, Lavellan, please stay still, with fear in his voice. Cullen drops to his knees beside her, the floor slick with blood, and he pulls her head into his lap.

                His lips are moving and he is saying O Maker, O God, please—it isn’t a prayer, it’s a heartbeat on his lips, rhythmic and desperate and fast—Maker, Maker, please—

                She faints, the last of her tortured screams echoing against the stone. Words fail him and he is sobbing, and then the healers arrive, a half dozen of them.

                It takes her two days, but she wakes up. Her voice is still ragged from screaming when she looks at him with haunted eyes and whispers, the Creators are a lie.

                They move to southern Ferelden, where the land is just beginning to recover from the blight. Villages have sprung up in new locations and happy sprouts push through the blood-enriched soil. They find a cottage, and it is small and a little rundown, but it is a home. There is a garden out back. Cullen promises her that she can plant the ugliest plants in the whole world there if she wants, and she laughs for the first time since Halamshiral.

                When he wakes from the nightmares, she doesn’t whisper prayers anymore, just sings gentle elven songs until he can breathe again. And when she wakes screaming and clutching at the ghost of her arm, he takes her into the kitchen and makes her a snack. While she picks at it, he sings profane tavern songs he is ashamed to have learned from Varric, and he tells her she cannot go back to bed until he hears her laugh again. Eventually, she does.

                There is no great epiphany, no return to faith. He tries to pray from time to time, but finds he doesn’t have much to ask for. In the springtime, she plants seeds in the garden and coaxes them to sprout. He builds trellises, and though they come out a little crooked, the vines don’t mind. On sunny days he joins her in the garden. Together, they work to coax new life from the once-blighted earth.