A/N: This was a scene I wrote quickly early on for "A Myth of Marriage." It doesn't fit that story anymore, but I think it works on its own, so here you go!
They'd met for dinner, later than their usual hour. Normally she'd excuse herself to take care of some task or other. But that particular night, a new book had arrived for her from Val Royeaux, and she'd been looking forward to closing her door and reading in bed until she couldn't keep her eyes open.
With uncanny timing, Cullen asked, "What are your plans for the rest of the evening?"
"I have some letters to write," she said, which was technically true.
"So have I. Would you care to work on them together?"
When she looked at him blankly for a moment – what was wrong with her? – he said, "Two can use a lamp as well as one. I have to light a good many candles to see anything at all in my office. I'd welcome your company."
Which was how she found herself carrying her things over to his tower that night. While they had a desk to themselves each – Cullen had three now, actually, to cope with his endless paperwork – it was strangely intimate to be in his space, which seemed closer and cozier now that it was dark outside.
After she'd forced herself to write four letters, she glanced up quickly, guiltily, to see if Cullen was watching her. He was absorbed in his own work. She quietly slipped her book out of her satchel and started reading.
She hadn't really thought to read it here. She'd imagined getting in a solid hour or two of work, then excusing herself and retiring to her room. She'd only brought the book along because she hadn't wanted to leave it behind, somehow.
It was a good one.
Later, a candle sputtered and burned out, dimming the room. Shocked that so much time had passed, she glanced up to find Cullen looking straight at her, a smile on his face and a softer look in his eyes that made her almost drop the book.
Surely she was imagining it, with the candles burning a low deceptive light.
"What?" she said, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. "I'm… taking a break."
"I wasn't going to tell you to stop," Cullen said. "Sometimes you smile and sometimes you frown and sometimes you mutter things under your breath."
Residual embarrassment made her more defensive than she intended to be. "Has it been distracting you?"
"Only because it's so cute. You're delightful."
Her face grew warm. "I object. There is nothing delightful about me."
"Cassandra." His expression grew serious, concerned. "Surely you don't really believe that?"
She isn't sure what she would have done if there hadn't come a knock on the door right at that moment. Cullen got up to answer it, and she caught sight of one of Leliana's scouts – who was exceptionally pretty, even for one of Leliana's scouts (where did she find these women, with their girlish faces and minds like steel traps?). Cullen was leaning on the door, body language open and relaxed, saying something that made the other woman touch her hair and giggle and look shyly up into his eyes.
By the time Cullen turned back around, Cassandra had collected all her things, and all that was left to do was bid him goodnight. She hurried back to her room, taking a longer route just to avoid the scout, who was probably half in a swoon still, oblivious to the world.
She was furious at herself for taking so long to notice that Cullen – genuinely warm and generous and given to sincere compliments, when he wanted to be – had that effect on everyone around him. As for her own susceptibility – at least now she knew better.
But the next day, she reduced four training dummies to splinters, ran until sundown, then fled to her room and polished every inch of her armor before she'd suppressed enough of the noise in her head to hear herself think again. To isolate the feeling that coursed through her, punching holes through walls and throwing tantrums on the hard cold floor.
Wanting what she doesn't have, wanting what she can't have, wanting him so badly that she thinks she's lost her mind…
Later that was another incident they went over, trying to understand how they had so thoroughly misunderstood each other. Cullen brought it up. "I had no idea you felt anything towards me. That time you were reading. I paid you a compliment, and you fled."
She wasn't sure if her words could convey how much that moment had meant to her. She tried to explain anyway. He out of everyone here had seen her at her bluntest, grouchiest, and most aggressive. He'd just said she was cute. She was completely caught off guard by how much she liked it. She said, fumblingly, "I ran because – well, that agent of Leliana's – she was flirting with you."
"What agent?" Cullen asked.