Cold Feet
Notes: Dialogue Generator Challenge
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"What do you mean, he's escaped?"
Maxwell's voice rings loud and clear through the small room that serves as the keep's Chantry. A single room presided over by a repaired statue of Andraste and barely big enough to fit the absolute minimum number of people they'd been able to get away with for the ceremony.
"Escape is a rather harsh way of saying it," Varric cuts in after ramming an unapologetic elbow into Bull. About midthigh which isn't as high as he can reach but gets the qunari to grunt a little in pain. "Cold feet may be a better way of phrasing it, but you know how Sparkler is. He's always cold."
"Yes, thank you Varric," Weariness replaces the bone chilling dread that had filled him when Bull first spoke. Cullen lets out an explosive sigh and his heart stops racing for the first time all day. His neck cracks as he reaches up to palm it, the unaccustomed lightness of his newly commissioned ceremonial armor has been getting to him. He rubs hard at the muscles accustomed to more weight and watches the looks of astonishment and exasperation flow through the faces of his gathered friends. Their gathered friends. "Alright, give me a few minutes."
Cullen strides out of the room without waiting for an acknowledgement, because if he does they're all likely to volunteer to go after Dorian and that is not what either of them needs right now. To be honest, he's rather grateful that Dorian's run off.
They've spent five months -five damnable months- discussing the details of their wedding. It was to have been just one, but circumstances rarely favor the Inquisition and it's been put off seven times before today. That's five whole months for Cullen to think about, worry about, and generally second guess the whole affair. Dorian, by contrast, hadn't been phased in the least by it. He'd been his perfectly charming and mischievous self through the whole wait.
Which had been a glaring sign to Cullen that he was not fine with it in the least, and he's been waiting for the man to give under the pressure he's been doi9ng his best to hide.
Cullen doesn't look for Dorian. He simply goes straight for the very last place anyone would think to find the mage, and is not the least bit surprised to find him staring at a stabled horse with equal parts remorse and disgust. A fine eye for horses he may have, but the stable where they're quartered is not on Dorian's list of favorite places to be.
"Dorian," Cullen says his name carefully before approaching him slowly. From the side and giving the man room to flee if he wants. Rather like how he'd approach a spooked horse.
"Cullen!" Dorian's voice is high and cheerful, his smile dashing, but his eyes don't go any higher than the chain of rank stretched across Cullen's chest. "Fancy meeting you out here, Commander. It's a fine day for a bit of a ride don't you think?"
Cullen doesn't even bother acknowledging the evasion. It's a poor attempt and clearly only came out because Dorian has to say something after running away from his own wedding. He reaches out for Dorian's hand, curled over the stall wall, and lets the tips of his fingers lay on top of Dorian's littlest finger. Lightly and not pressuring at all. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to, Dorian."
Cullen wants to, Maker does he want to, but he won't have Dorian as his husband if the man is the littlest bit uncomfortable with it. For any reason at all.
"Damn you," Dorian's eyes slide shut and he growls lowly. He's tense but doesn't pull away at all. Just stands there cursing almost silently before his eyes open and he's furious. "Don't you dare leave this all on me! I will not be labeled as the reason this failed."
"I wasn't-" Cullen starts and then growls himself as his temper flares more than a bit. The stress has been getting to him as well, and he fully knows his temper is on a short fuse more often than not. He tries to reign it in though, because both of them being angry will achieve nothing. "I don't want to force you to do anything that you don't want to do Dorian. Clearly, you don't want to get married to me, and that is fine, Dorian. It truly is fine. We do not have to go through with this at all."
"Oh," Dorian's voice is slick with poison and malice in that special way all the highborn seem to know from birth. His eyes flash as he turns, and Cullen's bracing himself. For what, he doesn't know, but he just knows it's going to hurt and all his careful control is going to go flying out the window along with any chance of salvaging this situation easily. "Just like that then? How easily it is to take back a promise from the-"
Dorian stops abruptly enough to startle Cullen into backing away. One hand going for the sword that's not there, and eyes darting around for the person who silenced the mage. Only the expression on Dorian's face keeps him from going further.
He's swallowing down his words in a move that looks physically painful. One hand coming up -and there's a flash of the emerald and gold ring Cullen had spent far too much on- to press a fist against his lips. Dorian hunches over then, almost like he's sick. Cullen waits, and forces patience from somewhere deep inside himself as the seconds slip by.
"I am sorry," Dorian eventually says. He doesn't move out of his position and the words are slightly muffled. "That was- Hmph, everything today has been truly unworthy of you, Cullen."
And that is permission. Cullen takes a step forward and Dorian's body fits in his arms only a little off from normal due to the new armor. Cullen sighs and rests a cheek against the uncovered skin of his shoulder. "Leliana banned me from my office until the ceremony is over because I've been running the messengers ragged. If my men can forgive my short temper with my own stupidity I think I can find it in myself to forgive you for your own case of nerves."
Dorian laughs then, and the sound uncurls something hard in Cullen's gut the same way it uncurls the man from his hunched position. Clever fingers catch and pull until they're standing chest to chest. Arms loose but comfortably situated around each other.
"Nerves, that's a rather kind way of putting it. Have you actually been paying attention to Josephine all these times she's been trying to beat diplomacy into your thick head?" Dorian asks with a smirk, and the light in his eyes is right now. Teasing and laughing, a little relieved too.
"Don't tell her that or she will never let me go again," Cullen answers with a smile of his own and considers the benefits of waiting for Dorian to talk again. Considers and rejects because there's a group of very impatient people across the keep who aren't above hunting them down. "Should I send a runner with regrets to the Chantry?"
Dorian's breathing hitches, his arms go tight, and his face flows through too many emotions for Cullen to name before settling back on casually amused. "Absolutely not. Though I must say I'm a little disappointed. All the times I dreamed about being married off to some strapping southern barbarian involved a lot more force and me being dragged around."
"I won't have you as my husband unwillingly," Cullen repeats his thoughts and waits for that to sink into Dorian's head. Dorian's panic has very little to do with Cullen himself, and a lot to do with his family and upbringing. Cullen knows that, but he has to know Dorian understands that Cullen won't -can't- push him to do something he doesn't want to do. Dorian makes an indignant sound when Cullen bends quickly and sweeps him up into his arms. "Besides, dragging you around is bound to be tiresome after a while. Much easier for me to just carry you."
"Cullen. Stanton. Rutherford," Dorian manages to hit the inflection on each syllable like Cullen's mother with an uncanny accuracy. The arms that wrap around his neck are more threat than anything else, even as Dorian's lips quiver with a repressed grin. "You put me down right this instant!"
"Only if you really want me to," Cullen says as he steps over a pitchfork and pauses at the exit to the stable. Dorian says nothing and Cullen grins again as he steps out into the courtyard. Carrying, traditionally, happened after the wedding, but Cullen doesn't mind one bit. There's so very little else about them that is traditional it almost makes sense.
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