Orders in hand, Cassandra climbed the stairs of the stronghold to the lead tacticianstactictians office. She leafed through them on the way, mostly her scribe's scrawled writing overlaid with the precise script of her fellow advisors.
"Commander Cullen, orders have been written." Cassandra called as she strode into Cullen's office.
The sight she found was not exactly unexpected, but worrying nonetheless. Cullen sat slumped at his desk with hands covering his eyes and fingers so rigid she could see marks in his forehead where he had clawed his face. His eyes showed his severe lack of sleep with blue circles framing bloodshot whites.
"Ugh, Give them here." Regardless of what he said, his tone made it clear work was the last thing he wanted right now.
Cassandra sighed, under normal circumstances she would never indulge an addict but Cullen, well, Cullen complicated things. She placed the reports on the desk and took to pacing the length of the office.
"How many days now?" Asked Cassandra.
"Four," Cullen said, his voice sapped of all feeling or energy.
"And how much longer is..." The Seeker trailed off, unable to find the right words.
"I don't know Cassandra! And can you stop with the damn pacing!" Snapped Cullen.
Cassandra froze, she knew his temper was just another effect of the Lyrium withdrawal but that did nothing to cushion the shock of being snapped at by someone she called a friend.
Before she had made it two paces towards his desk, Cullen apologized.
Now standing behind him, Cassandra placed an uncertain hand on his shoulder.
"You should sleep, I'll handle the troops for a while." she told the Templar.
"Yeah, because I hadn't already thought of that." Cullen sounded like a man biting back venom.
Cassandra stood there in awkward silence for a time, she knew exactly what she wanted to say but couldn't be sure how it would be perceived.
"If it's that bad, I could stay with you." Offered Cassandra, her tone blunt and to the point as always, if a little tentative.
Cullen's surprise was apparent in his face and Cassandra couldn't help but think of every incorrect interpretation of that sentence.
"I just thought, you know having someone in the room already armed. . .I thought it might put your mind at ease."
Cullen used his desk to push himself to standing in a half-hearted attempt to convince his colleague and friend that she could leave him.
"Seeker..." Cullen began tentatively. But he couldn't, turning to look her in the eye, he couldn't dismiss her.
"I will try and sleep," he promised.
The two climbed the ladder to Cullen's sleeping quarters. A more arduous task than usual, thanks to Cullen's shaking arms and pounding migraine.
Once upstairs, Cassandra made herself comfortable sitting on the floor. Cullen wearily shrugged off his shoulder plating then grappled with his breastplate. The thick leather straps stubbornly refused to move.
"Here, let me do it." offered Cassandra, getting up off the floor.
The Seeker tugged the straps out of their vice, unlacing them and helping to lift the heavy plate off of him.
Once out of armor, Cullen let himself fall onto his bed. A move he immediately regretted as white flooded his eyes and pain wracked his skull. Once again he pressed his hands into his face as hard as he could.
Cassandra, quickly realizing she had not thought out her well-meaning offer. She sat back on the floor leaning her sword against her shoulder and pulled out her book. She tried to focus on the words while Cullen attempted to find even a sliver of comfort, perhaps enough to find sleep.
Eventually the bleary words on the page became sentences that interested her and the pain in his head became monotonous enough to fall asleep. This was nice while it lasted.
But unavoidably, visions of archdemons and Hurlock swarms filled Cullen's mind. He tossed and turned and tried to shake himself free of their grasp. The swarms continued undeterred and huge blue crystals grew inside him, ripping his veins, shoving their way through his skin.
He awoke in agony, shaking and his veins felt like they were full of fire and glass.
Then he remembered, He looked to the Seeker, whose hand on his leg was some small comfort.
"Cassandra, you, we have bigger problems than me right now." Cullen said in the most put together voice he could muster.
"What are you saying Cullen." Irate suspicion seeped into every word Cassandra spoke
"Just get me some Lyrium, we can take down Corypheus and we can do...all this after." Cullen begged
"You need to be stronger than this, we have an army depending on us."
"Then let them depend on you, I'm done."
"Done! You don't get to be done, not if I don't, not if Leliana and the Inquisitor don't. You will fight this!" Cassandra demand.
Cullen slumped back into bed, letting Cassandra's words sink in. Cassandra pretended to read so her face didn't betray her quiet worries.
The second time Cullen awoke he didn't say much.
"Cassandra, I don't have the nerves for this." Cullen admitted with shaking hands and choked words.
"I do, enough for both of us." Cassandra said with such certainty that a part of Cullen had to believe her.