!Disclaimer! *I* in no way own Bioware's world or the characters in it. Imitation is the sweetest form of flattery, so please don't sue me Bioware! This was an intended one shot to break through some writer's block… I could see it continuing with enough prodding, so let me know what you think.
!Spoiler alert! Slight romance/game exposition spoilers involved – you have been warned!
Cullen brought up his hand to his jaw and realized that it was actually sore – he had been clenching it for the last hour or soon he had been brooding darkly at his desk.
He looked out the window across the room and noticed that dusk had started to fall. The crisp awareness of the smells of the evening drifted effortlessly into his office and he leaned back in his seat to iron out the cramps in the base of his neck with tremoring hands and dispel the dark cloud floating around his head.
He refused to look down at the item on his desk which had brought the nebulous mood over him, and snapped the lyrium case closed so hard he was certain he splintered it. Without looking at it, without acknowledging it, he slipped it into a side drawer on his desk and abolished it from his thoughts.
Unfortunately it was never out of his thoughts for very long.
He wanted to thank the Maker for this small victory and only found the taste of bitterly ironic words in his mouth, as was his habit when he was in this mood, so instead he wiped at the sweat from his brow and gritted his teeth against the waves of pain he knew were coming. The pain from the withdrawal that would only crescendo higher and higher until he begged for the Maker to just let him die. His dignity and pride was overrated, damned Chantry… it would be much easier that way. He tried to convince himself that he had remembered to lock his door, so no one could stumble in and find him in such a state of… weakness. Especially not her, Maker, he would lose it if she found him like this.
When he was like this, food had no taste, and wine and ale only made the aches worse – and more decidedly nauseating. He knew the time was nearing; he needed to have the dreaded conversation with Cassandra, and remind her of the agreement they had made months ago if the lyrium withdrawal started to interfere with his judgment. He would be forced to leave in quiet shame, and started wondering where his next steps would take him when he left. He wondered if his sister had yet received his letter.
Cullen sighed against it all. He found only one thing – one person – helped him through the pains of the addiction. And she was far off somewhere, the Hinterlands or otherwise, while he was in his office blithering, swearing, and sweating like a punished petulant child. He didn't know what was worse, the withdrawals from the lyrium or the withdrawals from her.
He laughed outloud at the irony of the whole thing.
How the Maker could put someone like her in his path, the very "Herald of Andraste" not only as the Inquisitior, but a mage… from the noble house of Trevelyan, too! Cullen snorted derisively at himself and the situation he found himself in this time.
Sweet Andraste, the Maker is some kind of comedian.
With a desk clear of lyrium, he found the other source of material that brought him in brooding, a note from Leliana's spies about the potential whereabouts of Samson and his dealings with the Elder One. Samson, yet another templar who fell from grace, and Cullen wondered to himself who was the one who had actually fallen farthest…
His chest burned in anger, he balled up the note in his fist and tossed it across the room, feeling slightly more in control without the fatal reminders on his lap. With a clear desk, he laid his head down upon it, smelling the sweet mahogany and the oil the servants used to tend it, and he found comfort in the earthy scents.
Despite the chill in the air, he felt himself sweating as if he were spending an evening in the Hissing Wastes. He stretched his ears, hearing a bustle outside as the keep's doors were opened and closed, and wondered if the Herald had yet returned. He had hoped inwardly to watch her entrance from the battlements, admire her from afar as was his fashion lately, hope she would visit him to give him a report about anything really, but he did not even had the strength to stand at the moment… He gritted his teeth against another wave of pain, white and hot and blurring his vision.
He focused on the smells of the desk, of both the tangible and the intangible, and allowed his mind to be distracted selfishly, and thought about her and their nervous conversation a few days earlier…
"Our escape from Haven, it was close," she paused and shifted her weight awkwardly between her feet. "I'm relieved that you – that so many – made it out."
His heart somersaulted in his chest. He looked at her, planning his next words carefully, "As am I…" He cast his gaze downward feeling silly for saying it, and a pregnant paused filled the space between them as chirping birds sang love songs behind them. Was it that she felt as he did? By the Maker, was that even possible?
She, too, had dropped her gaze. When their eyes met again, she softly smiled and turned to take her leave.
"You stayed behind," he declared with an odd sense of confidence at her backside. "You could have…" the dreaded word failed on his lips. That thought was too much to bear. She spun back to regard him.
"I will not allow the events at Haven to happen again. You have my word," he declared, declaring to himself he would keep her safe.
She nodded her head and made to leave again, clearly embarrassed, yet something stopped her.
Cullen's heart braced for the next thing she might say, as emerald green eyes searched for answers on his face and found none.
"Did you…" she was planning and talking now, a bad habit, "leave anyone behind in Kirkwall?"
He blinked.
"No," he answered simply, having not prepared an official response to this question since he never expected it from her. "I fear I made few friends there – and my family's in Ferelden," he explained, looking to fill the silence and offering more explanation than she has requested.
"No one… special caught your interest?" She was, if nothing else, determined to get a straight answer from him.
He tipped his head to the side as his voice dropped an octave, "Not in Kirkwall."
They smirked at each other. Cullen noticed guards gesturing over her shoulder and heading over towards them with reports and supplies in their hands.
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the guards advancing, "That's all for now."
He blinked again, dispelling the moment around them, seeking to bring back some professionalism, "I'm sure you have other matters to attend."
She nodded and took her leave of him, and Cullen couldn't help but feel the tips of his ears reddening as his guards came up to him with an onslaught of questions that he couldn't hear.
He thought of her feathery auburn hair and how he wanted to touch it, or her pinkish lips and how he wanted to taste them. He could swear if he tried hard enough he could smell her flowery soap. As he thought about her, the pain from the lyrium withdrawal became less noticeable and eventually he drifted off to sleep at the desk as the feathers from his cloak rubbed at the stubble at his chin.
He was sleeping so deeply he never noticed her light knock on the door. She paused outside and shifted about, casting a glance at the guard at the battlement behind her who seemed uninterested in her being at the Commander's door. Her stomach fluttered with anticipation of seeing him after a few days apart.
Evelyn strained to listen within, to hear if Cullen invited her in, but he never did. She tugged at the door and found it oddly locked and figured he had retired for the evening.
She turned and left, finding herself feeling rather disappointed.