Gabriel Trevelyan

"I would value your friendship. I'm afraid I cannot offer more. I trust you'll understand."

Those had been the words that had crushed his dreams. He couldn't even remember what he'd replied, but the heartache he'd felt was far too real. Cullen was trying to tell him there was no possibility of him ever reciprocating his affections. Trying to politely convey that there wasn't half a chance for the Herald to win his heart because he was, simply put, the wrong gender.

On the outside he had shrugged it off with a smile. Tried - as far as he knew, successfuly - to pass it off as mere flirting, nothing of consequence. On the inside he was torn to shreds. He'd had no defence against Cullen's easy charm and warm smile, hadn't been expecting to fall so hard and so fast for the Commander of the Inquisition's forces, and when he'd realised what had happened it had been far past too late.

Cullen's first response to his overtures had been promising, if embarassed enough, and Gabriel had hoped... He thought he might have a chance. For someone as suave as he was supposed to be he had resorted to following the Commander around like a lost puppy, trying to talk to him as often as he could, and Cullen had humoured him, for a while. Until that talk in the courtyard.

All there had been left to do, after Cullen's gentle but unmistakeable rebuff, had been to resign himself to feeling like that for a very long time. He had been a bit of a player at the Circle, and during the occasional visits home. He enjoyed sex and he was good at it. Love was a different matter. He'd only dared to love once - curiously enough, a Templar as well - but had never found the courage to act. It was probably why he'd been so determined to not let his chance with Cullen slip away, to not make the same mistake twice. He knew his own heart well enough to understand that, once he'd fallen in love, it would take years for the longing he felt for the former Templar to fade enough that he might entertain the hope of falling in love again.

In the meantime, he consoled himself with the knowledge that he had gained a true and steadfast friend. Cullen's words hadn't been hollow platitudes, designed to soothe the blow of rejection, they had been, quite simply, the truth. The Commander did value the Herald's friendship - no, it was more than that: Cullen valued Gabriel: no family names, no titles. Cullen was as loyal a friend as he could ever have asked for, and he had no right to resent what the other man could not offer.


Cullen Rutherford

The first time it happened he had been caught unprepared. He had been talking with the Herald - Gabriel - at the training grounds in Haven, and had gotten caught up in his own enthusiasm over what the Inquisition could accomplish where the Chantry had failed. He'd apologised once he'd realised how long his rant had become, but Gabriel's reply - and, more than that, his tone - suggested he'd be interested in a lot more than a lecture.

Cullen had immediately been reduced to a blubbering fool, a transparent excuse regarding too much work on his lips. It wasn't until later that night that it hit him that he'd left an open door for Gabriel to try again. "Another time, perhaps," he'd told the Herald. He shouldn't have.

Gabriel had been a bit infamous in the Circle, having cheerful trysts with both mages and Templars - enough so that the tales had reached him in Kirkwall, where Meredith had promptly declared the Ostwick circle to be a foul pit of perversion, if even the Templars were so easily corrupted by their charges - and his status as a noble whose family had not shunned him had given him both the protection and the allure to pull off that sort of behaviour, the fact that he was a mage for once only adding to his roguish charm. Cullen hadn't given him a second thought until actually meeting the man and realising first hand how magnetic his presence truly was. It had been relatively easy to ignore, however, until that day in Haven.

And then it had become all he could think of.

Gabriel seemed to have made a point of engaging him after that. He'd hang around at the war table after a meeting, materialise right in front of Cullen when he was exiting his tent, sit next to him at dinner, green eyes alight with whatever topic they were discussing, gesticulating enthusiastically, and it was impossible not to love him. The Chosen One, the Herald of Andraste, Lord Trevelyan. Just Gabriel.

Andraste preserve him, but his traitorous heart sped every time he caught a glimpse of tanned skin and green eyes. He hadn't shut down Gabriel's attempts because, in truth, he was utterly besotted with the man, and he didn't want to give up the fantasy just yet.

He had never... been with anyone, not physically at least. The demons in Ferelden had... done things to him, but once he'd been rescued his body showed no proof. It had all been in his mind. After that he hadn't wanted to be with anyone - not until Gabriel.

And, had Cullen allowed him to, he would have shown him pleasure the likes of which the former Templar had never known. To have the chance to spend a night in Gabriel's bed, to have his first true experience be with someone he held so dearly... Were he anything other than a mage and Cullen wouldn't have found it within him to resist. He was barely able to, but a mage... not after what he'd wanted for the Ferelden Circle; not after everything he'd seen done in Kirkwall without lifting a finger. He wasn't worthy of polishing Gabriel's boots, let alone of sharing his bed.

He had put it off long enough. Gabriel found him once more on the training grounds, asked him if there had been anyone special back in Kirkwall. If he knew what kind of a man Cullen had been, he wouldn't ask. And so, with a heavy heart, he spoke plainly so that there would be no misunderstandings.

"I would value your friendship. I'm afraid I cannot offer more. I trust you'll understand."

And, surprisingly, Gabriel did understand. He understood and ceased his flirting immediately, but he didn't stop talking to him outside the scope of the Inquisition. He took him at face value. He became his friend. Cullen had had precious few of those and, even though he knew he was being selfish, even though he knew he had no right, he couldn't bring himself to give up Gabriel's friendship. This one precious thing he'd keep for himself. At least just a little longer.