Note: NSFW. Also, scuffling between partners.
25th - 26th Kingsway
Killeen took hold of the hair at the nape of Cullen's neck and yanked his head back, forcing his mouth from hers. "Where in the Fade have you been?" she snapped.
She expected him to look apologetic, or at the worst, confused, as he realised he had forgotten to send word and left her to worry over which of Kirkwall's dangers he and the others had met with.
She didn't expect his eyes to narrow, his mouth to set in cold anger. His bruisingly hard embrace loosened and he grasped her wrist and pulled her hand from his hair, stepping back. "Your sister is safe and unharmed," he said crisply.
Killeen gaped at him. "What? Where?"
Cullen stripped off first one gauntlet, then the other, and flung them on the table. "With Aveline and several squads of the Guard, at Thompkinson's estate. You'll be able to see her tomorrow."
"That's where you've been?"
"Yes," Cullen snapped. "That's where I've been."
Behind him, Krem and the Iron Bull came through the door, the Charger's lieutenant limping badly. "Stitches!" the Bull bellowed. "Get your ass down here!"
"My ass is already here," Stitches said from the stairs, "and if you wake the baby with that bellowing Mistress Mia will tan your ass for you."
"Is anyone else hurt?" Killeen asked, looking past them to the door.
"No," Krem said. "They're seeing to the horses."
"It wasn't particularly challenging," Cullen said icily. "Not like, for example, Darktown."
"Not everyone is as clumsy as Krem," the Iron Bull said. He put one massive arm around his Lieutenant's waist and lifted the man bodily off his feet, carrying him to the nearest chair.
"You're welcome for saving your life, Chief," Krem said, wincing as Stitches felt his knee.
"I had it handled," the Bull rumbled.
"Yeah, looked like — ah!" Krem's head went back as a hiss of pain escaped his clenched teeth.
"But Jean's all right?" Killeen asked.
"Amazingly, seeing as she seems to have as little good sense as her sister," Cullen snapped.
It took Killeen a second to parse that and realise the insult. "And what by Andraste's tits is that supposed to mean?"
"When were you going to tell me?" Cullen demanded. "Were you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"Darktown!" Cullen roared in the voice that could make terrified recruits more frightened of disobeying his orders than of the enemy in front of them. He closed the distance between them, eyes blazing, and took her by the shoulders. "You! Alone!" he snarled, punctuating each word with a shake that rattled her teeth.
Well, shit.
Upstairs, Thomas began to wail.
And Killeen found herself suddenly as utterly furious as Cullen. "Now look what you've done," she snarled, breaking his grip on her with a sharp twist and pushing him away hard enough to make him stagger. She turned on her heel and strode for the stairs.
Fast footsteps behind her, hand on her arm, and Cullen hauled her around to face him again. "I'm not finished," he said icily.
Killeen dug her fingers beneath his thumb, grasped it and bent it back until his fingers loosened and flung his hand away from her. She matched his tone. "I am."
As she took the last of the stairs two at a time, Killeen heard the Bull's rumbling voice saying something about two copper, heard Krem say no bet — she slammed into the room where Thomas was crying, crossed to the bed and bent over him. "What is it?" she asked him impatiently.
The smell gave her the answer. She found clean clouts, stripped and wiped the infant and re-swaddled him, throwing the filthy used cloth into the bucket by the bed.
The baby still grizzled. Killeen washed her hands at the basin, sniffed her fingers to be sure they were clean, and picked Thomas up. Cradling him in the crook of one arm, she stuck a finger in his mouth as Mia had done.
He chewed on it with painful enthusiasm — but at least the complaining stopped.
"Is he all right?" Cullen asked.
Killeen turned. He was leaning against the door-frame, silhouetted by the torches in the hall. His face was in shadow: she couldn't read his expression. "Fine," she said. "Better than if I'd left him in Darktown, that's for fucking sure."
She couldn't read his expression, but she knew his body as she knew her own, and she saw his shoulders straighten, his whole body tighten with anger.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and strode away.
Killeen let Thomas chew her finger until he slipped back into sleep, then laid him back down and cat-footed it out the door, leaving it ajar so if he woke again, his cries would be heard. She hesitated in the hall a moment, considering whether or not to go downstairs and spend the rest of the night in one of the overstuffed chairs in the Champion's living room.
To the Void with that, she decided at last. Andraste's frilly knickers if I'm going to wake up with a cramp in my neck while Cullen sleeps comfortably in the Champion's bedroom.
Not after I spent an hour propping the bed back up.
Lifting her chin defiantly, she strode down the corridor and shoved the bedroom door open.
It was an anticlimax to discover the room empty. Cullen's armour stood on the stand, his cloak tossed on a chair. From the adjacent room, Killeen heard water running.
Deliberately, she turned her back and began to unfasten her mail coat. The water stopped, and she knew when Cullen came back into the bedroom, could feel his gaze on her back as clearly as if his hand rested flat between her shoulder-blades.
She ignored him and continued to get ready for bed. Armour once more hung on the second stand she'd dragged in from the armoury that evening, sword set ready by the door beside the shield she had not bothered to pick up when the pounding on the door had woken her, she hesitated a moment longer, taking extra care to adjust the hang of the sleeves of her coat, checking each buckle for wear … then there was no longer any plausible reason for her to delay, and she was forced to turn.
Cullen was still in the doorway to the water-closet, watching her. Killeen's gaze slid past him, and she strode to the bed as if he were not there.
So convincingly had she pretended to herself that she was alone that when he spoke, she was startled. "Were you going to tell me at all?"
"No," Killeen said honestly. "Not if I could help it."
"Why not?" Cullen asked. "Because you knew how bloody stupid you'd been?"
"Because I knew you'd be like this!" she snapped, turning to face him. "Maker's balls, Cullen, I had my work cut out to get you to let me even train again."
He took a step toward her, another. "If I'd known what you'd get up to I would never —"
"Get up to what?" Killeen asked. "Saving a child from a horrible death? Like that? You really thought I'd ever let a nest of maleficar slaughter a baby without raising a hand? You would have done the same!"
"Not alone!" Cullen said. Another step, until he was an arm's length from her, eyes hooded, face hard and cold as marble. "Maker's breath, Kill, are you so far out of your mind as to think you can take on a nest of blood mages in Darktown single-handed and walk away afterwards?"
It was on her lips to say yes, and I did, but …
The truth choked her, the clear, cold memory of knowing just how bad the odds were of her seeing sunrise again, sure that she was about to give up every chance of seeing Cullen's beautiful face again in trade for buying enough time for Aveline and the Guards to reach Thomas in time …
"No," she said quietly. "I thought — at the least, I'd slow them. Clear a path for Aveline."
"You went down there not expecting to come back," Cullen said, low and intense. "And what? I'd have no choice but to move on and find someone better suited to being a mother? Sweet Maker!" He took her by the shoulders. Instinctively, Killeen backed a step away, another when he followed her, fetched up against the wall. He leaned into her, pinning her, claimed her mouth in a fierce, bruising kiss, pulled away enough to snarl against her lips, "Stop it, Kill. Stop making decisions for me. Stop deciding what's best for me without paying any attention to what I say. Stop it."
The hard muscle of his body against hers, the anger in his eyes, his breath hot against her face — Killeen felt her pulse pick up, squirmed until she could get her hands against his chest and push him back. "That's not what I was doing! I couldn't leave him there —"
"You could have waited for Aveline," Cullen said, giving ground, gaze still steady and hard on her face.
Killeen tried and failed to meet it. "They could have killed him in the time it took her to rouse out the Guard!" she said, turning away. She took a step toward the door, meaning only to put distance between them, took another, and then suddenly thought this was a mistake, I should have slept downstairs, I will sleep downstairs, and fuck it all, I need a drink, and strode to the doorway.
Her hand was on the doorknob when Cullen reached past her, hand flat on the door, holding it shut. "Don't run," he said fiercely.
Killeen jerked on the doorknob futilely, refusing to turn and look at him. "I'll do what I like."
Cullen was so close she could feel the heat of his body through her shirt, could smell the familiar scent of sweat and metal polish, lamp-oil and the hair pomade he didn't think anyone knew he used. Her gut tightened with the nearness of him, fight-or-flight instincts sending adrenaline racing through her veins.
"Why is it that you only run from the fights that matter?" Cullen growled.
Fight won the debate. Killeen turned to face him, deliberately stepping closer. "I have never run from anything in my life!"
"Maybe you should learn," Cullen said, "before you get yourself killed."
"Andraste's tits, Cullen!" Killeen slid past him, seized her shield from its rest by the door and raised it between them. She rapped it hard with her knuckles. "This — this is who we are. We stand in between the vulnerable and those who'd harm them, and we take the blows that others can't, and one day one of those blows isn't going to be survivable and that's just how it is. Maker's balls, do you think either of us will make old bones?"
"Yes," Cullen said fiercely. "Yes, Kill."
"Then you're a bigger fool than you were born," Killeen said.
"How can you guard others when you don't guard yourself?" Cullen asked. With a speed that made her gasp, he seized her shield and yanked it from her grasp, flinging it aside to fall clanging to the floor. She took a step back but not fast enough: he had her by the shoulders, jerking her close to him, releasing her only long enough to take her face between his hands. "Promise me," he said, fingers hard on her jaw. "Promise me you'll guard yourself as if it's my life at stake."
"Cullen …"
"Promise me, or by Andraste, I'll tie you hand and foot and haul you back to Skyhold face down over my saddle-bow and give orders you're not to be allowed out of the gates again." His hands dropped to her shoulders and he gave her a hard shake. "Promise me, Kill. You swore you'd come back to me, that you'd always come back. Promise to guard yourself so that's true."
"I don't know how!" The words burst out without her willing them. "I can't fight careful, Cullen, I never have —"
"You've never taken such foolish risks before, either," Cullen said.
"Only on your orders," she snapped. "Or have you forgotten?"
The blow went home: she saw it in his eyes. "I ordered you to hold an objective on which the fate of Thedas depended."
"You'll spend my life as you chose but I can't choose to spend it as I wish?"
Cullen seized on the admission. "You knew. You knew, when you went down there, that it was likely to be your death." He paused, fingers digging in to her shoulders, forehead leaning against hers. "And it would have been, if not for the blind luck of Alistair seeing you and following." A long silence, both of them breathing hard with anger, and then he said, "You're stood down."
"You can't —"
"I can and I am. And I would whoever you were to me, Killeen. You're not fit for duty and you won't stand so much as a noonday watch until you are."
As if it belonged to someone else, Killeen saw her hand lift.
She backhanded Cullen across the mouth.
His head jerked back, blood blooming on his lip. He caught her next blow on his forearm, seized her wrist and tried to turn her. Killeen had taught him that one, though, and she went with the movement just far enough to drive one booted foot down on his instep and then swept his feet out from under him, breaking his grip as he went down.
Cullen seized her around the waist as he fell and bore her to the floor with him. On the ground, his greater weight was more of an advantage than her edge in speed and Killeen tried to squirm free of his grasp and get to her feet. She had managed to get to one knee when Cullen grappled with her again, dragging her back down and flipping her onto her face, pinning her down. He captured first one wrist, then the other, held her there.
"Let me go!" she snarled, trying to dislodge him.
"Are you going to hit me again?"
"Fuck, yes!"
"Then no," Cullen panted. "I don't think I will. Let's talk about this, reasonably."
"Where you reasonably tell me how wrong I am about everything?" Killeen snapped. His body pressed her into the floor, his breath hot on the back of her neck, hands hard on her wrists. She bucked and squirmed, but could get no leverage, the hardwood boards beneath her scraping her skin through her shirt, breasts pressed hard and painfully against the floor, splinters biting her cheek and neck.
"I think it's reasonable —" Cullen said, paused as she managed to get enough purchase to kick him in the shins. "I think it's reasonable that I don't want you to die. Can we agree on that?"
"Yes," Killeen said reluctantly.
"And given that, I think it's also reasonable that I'd like you to do your best not to die stupidly, for no good reason."
"Oh and you decide what good reasons are?" Killeen snapped. She arched her back, trying to get purchase to dislodge him, but his weight was immovable on her, his heavy, strong body covering hers, flexing and giving with her movements. "Andraste's tits!" She tried to lift him again, with her lower body this time, where she had a slight advantage of strength, pressed up with her hips, anger building and building in her belly — felt him move a little, tried again, and again, pushing into the floor to get leverage and then up against him, panting with effort —
His knee slipped between hers, weight hard on her rump, immovable, and when she pushed up against him the next time, frustratingly, she only drove against the hard muscles of his thigh. Cullen pressed her into the floor, leg spreading hers wider, as she bucked and struggled and writhed beneath him.
Abruptly, he flipped her over, pinning her again before she could wriggle free. "Admit it," he said, flushed and breathless from their struggle. "Admit you were wrong to go down there, admit —" Killeen worked her knee between his and Cullen raised himself away from her a little before she could knee him in the balls. "Killeen!" He turned to deny her an easy target, his thigh hard between her legs.
A throb of hot anger went through her like fire through dry straw.
She hooked her leg around his, trying for the leverage to throw him off her, arched her back and heaved, but failed to dislodge him. She tried again, again, again, panting, wrapped both her legs around his and arched upwards, breasts aching as she pressed against the hard muscles of his chest, the pulse of rage deep in her belly growing and burning with each failed attempt to dislodge him, trying harder, faster —
Realised that the tension in her gut was comprised as much of lustful need as of anger, that the waves of heat rolling through her body were pleasure rather than rage, that she was aching and tingling and throbbingly wet, and humping his leg like an over-excited dog —
Realised, too, that she could feel his cock hot and hard against her thigh, that his breath was coming faster than the effort to restrain her could explain, that the face above hers was flushed, his eyes dark and half-closed with desire — that he was moving in a rhythm that matched hers, panting in her ear, grinding urgently against her —
She gasped, arched against him and then again, finding the point of friction that — Maker, yes —
And then Cullen's mouth was on hers in a hard, greedy kiss, tasting of blood. Killeen ran her tongue over the trace of her blow, scraped it with her teeth and heard him hiss, her hips rolling up and against him without conscious thought as she rode his thigh faster, harder, yes, there, yes —
Cullen let go of her wrist and took hold of her hair, pulling her head back, forcing her to release his lip, lowered his mouth to her neck and kissed her beneath her jaw hard enough to send a pulse of pleasure and pain straight from that point of contact to between her legs.
He released her abruptly, seized her by the waist and raised her as he sat back on his knees, dragging her into his lap. Killeen gasped, rocking against him — then almost cried out at the sudden cessation of that utterly necessary pressure and friction as he lifted her away from him. His hands were on her belt, tugging, fumbling — she joined her efforts to his and the buckle came free. Cullen pushed her breeches down, slid a hand between her legs and —
She groaned, clutching at his shoulders as his fingers slid inside her, and drove her hips down, wanting, needing … his fingers curled, seeking the spot that, oh, Maker, seeking it and finding it and sending shocks running along her nerves, making her limbs jerk and twitch involuntarily and there, yes, there …
Not enough, not enough, not enough — she pulled up and away from him, tore at his belt in turn, cursed as the blasted thing refused to come loose — it gave, and oh, the velvety hardness of his cock, twitching in her grip, the sounds he made as she stroked him — she fit him to her, lowered herself just a little —
With a growl, Cullen thrust up, pulling her down at the same time, sheathing himself to the hilt with a single urgent buck of his hips and Killeen's back arched, deeper, deeper, more, yes — Cullen's hands were hard on her hips as he drove into her again and again with an urgency and force that sent deep pulses of heat through her whole body, his rasping breaths, a sound that might have been her name …
She took his face between her hands, bit his bloody lip again and when his mouth opened in a gasp of pain, drove her tongue into his mouth, licking deep, setting her rhythm to his pace as he thrust up into her, taking him as he took her, one hand tangled in his hair to hold his head back and still.
The approaching wave of her climax was coming closer, closer, and she leaned back again, watching him as it loomed over her like a tidal wave huge enough to blot out the sky, to blot out everything but Cullen's face, flushed and gleaming with sweat, eyes half-closed and mouth slack, Cullen's voice in wordless moans, Cullen's cock hard and hot within her …
The wave crashed over and around her and she was drowning, falling, flying, blind and deaf to everything but Cullen, only Cullen, always Cullen, Cullen, Cullen —
She wrapped her ams around his neck, fists clenched in his hair, face pressed to his, riding out the waves as he thrust into her harder, faster, fingers biting into her hips, breath hot against her cheek.
"Killeen!" he shouted hoarsely and came, shuddering, his final spasmodic thrusts sending her sharply over the edge again, taking the long, sweet fall with him until they both were still, locked in each other's arms, slick with each other's sweat, gasping for breath in unison.
He moved a hand to her hair, gripped it, forced her to look at him. "You're still stood down."
Killeen glared at him. "You're still wrong."
He kissed her, tongue delving deep into her mouth, insistent and demanding, wringing a moan from her, a pulse of response between her legs. She felt his breath of laughter and angrily retaliated, sucking his tongue deeper, stroking it with her own, as he would never allow her to take his cock, gaining a groan from him in return, his hands tightening on her, and oh Maker, she was still shivering with aftershocks but the tension within her was unrelieved, a hot knot in her gut —
She pulled away from him a little. "I'll fight when and where I want."
Cullen cupped her breast with one hand, fingers firm on her nipple, kneaded her rump with the other. "Not under my command."
She dragged his face back to hers again, kissed him hard. "This doesn't solve anything!"
"No," Cullen agreed, "but if we're going to argue, this is a lot nicer than trading punches. Only …" he paused, then went on plaintively, "could we move to the bed? This floor is hard on an old man's knees."
Killeen laughed, and felt the tension between them break with a relief as keen as any orgasm. She put her arms around him and hugged him hard, feeling his arms around her strong and warm and comforting. "All right. Just — be careful. I've chocked it up but I'm not sure how sturdy it is."
She began to pull away and get up but Cullen's embrace tightened and slowly, carefully, he rose to his feet, carrying her with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he bore her to the bed and lowered them both down. "Impressive, for an old man."
"Give me half an hour and we'll see how old I am," he said with a smile and kissed her again, gently this time, hands roaming over her body, finding all the places that made her skin tingle and heat. "Good?" he whispered, cupping her breast, thumb stroking her nipple to aching hardness.
Killeen arched into his touch. "Oh, yes," she said, then, "oh, yes!" as he lowered his head to her other breast, licking, sucking. She wrapped her arms around his head and held him there, breathless and so dizzy that she felt as if the bed was slowly tilting beneath her as she drifted in a haze of mingled satiation and fresh desire.
The bed is tilting, she realised, at the same moment as Cullen raised his head and said, "Kill, I don't think the —"
It was a slow collapse this time, one side of the bed sagging gradually to the floor, and they slid rather than tumbled off the edge of the mattress.
Lying on the floor, Killeen began to laugh, and Cullen lifted himself on one elbow and looked down at her, eyebrow raised. "What?"
"I think the Bull might have just won two coppers," she said. "If he could find anyone to take the bet."
