A/N: Aeons ago I had an idea for a fic that followed the bare bones idea of this one. I wrote it - or tried to - as a teenager, but my skill level just did not match up to what it required to write this. But the idea has followed me ever since, and I deleted it from Mibba less than a year after I started writing it (anybody else remember Mibba? What a time that was), and I've never been happy about it having been wasted, so I started wracking my brain for what fandom I could update the idea with and make it work, and a Dragon Age modern AU jumped out at me and it all just felt right. So here we go!
I'm also completely reworking the history of the Free Marches, but y'know, fanfic, AU, I can do what I want.
This is *also* partially inspired by a prompt I saw aeons ago, I think on the Dragon Age kink meme boards, along the lines of "what if Josephine and Leliana noticed that the F!Inquisitor had a crush on Cullen early on, and ordered him to get closer to her through that in the beginning because they still didn't completely trust her", with the idea being that, of course, somewhere along the way Cullen actually falls in love and much drama and angst follows. It's a tired old trope for a reason, I'm reworking it to fit a modern AU, I'm excited to get into it.
Cullen adjusted the cuffs of his shirt as he walked into Inquisition's headquarters. He was uncomfortable - partially because of the suit, but not only because of the suit. The reason he was in the suit at all was a top contender, too. Leliana and Josephine had asked to see him for a meeting. They had meetings all the time, yes, but those meetings were check-ins amidst all of the rest of their business, wedged into a spare moment whenever everybody was free so that they might confirm all was well, everything was on-track, and then they parted and continued with business as usual. To those meetings, he could just wear his usual military garb.
Sadly, this one was different. This one had been scheduled two weeks in advance, in the official meeting room. To this meeting, he had to wear a suit. And worse, a tie. All he could think about ever since he'd put it on was how easily it might be used to strangle him. Combat did strange things to a man.
He reached the meeting room ten minutes early, and his heart sank when he found Leliana, Josephine, and Cassandra all already there, engaged in a heated discussion on the other side of the sound-proofed glass walls. Cullen stilled at the sight of the Seeker. If she was here, something was sorely amiss. His suspicions were confirmed when they all fell silent upon spotting him. Josephine was the first to react, forcing a smile and waving him in, while Leliana's face betrayed nothing and Cassandra continued to scowl.
Sliding into the room, he shut the door behind him and approached the sleek white table, hands coming to clasp together behind his back out of habit.
"Am I here to be reprimanded?" he asked bluntly.
"No," Josephine answered, a nervous smile on her face "Nothing of the sort."
She was dressed to the nines, her hair schooled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, but she always was. Leliana, who usually dressed for a careful combination of practicality and sophistication, had followed her lead by donning a black and white business dress, although unlike her colleague she did not wear high heels. Leliana never wore shoes she couldn't run in. Cassandra was the least formal of the three, decked out in a plain grey t-shirt and jeans - but the jeans were a particularly polished pair, and she wore a black blazer over the t-shirt. This meeting, whatever it pertained to, was very much official.
"Reprimands are necessitated by blunders. You are not a man who blunders, Commander," Leliana said.
Andraste's tears. If she was appealing to his ego like this, it meant something worse than a reprimand - it meant that they were about to ask something of him that he definitely would not want to do. Never one for hedging nervously around a subject, Cassandra slapped a file down to the table-top, open at the first page.
"Do you know who this is?" she pointed to the photograph at the top of the pile.
A young woman stared up at them, the very definition of a classic beauty - sharp cheekbones, a pointed chin, a nose that was upturned just enough to be cute but not piggish, and long waves of glossy brown hair that framed it all and emphasised the bright green eyes that stared out from underneath thick dark lashes. She was a beauty - it was a known fact - but anybody could be beautiful if they had the sort of money and resources that she had.
"Princess Eve," he said as though it were obvious.
And it was. Every person living knew who the woman in the picture was. Perhaps a few ghosts, too.
"Her Royal Highness, the Princess Evelyn Victoria Easton Trevelyan of the Marches," Josephine corrected.
Princess Eve. Princess E.V.E. He supposed the King and Queen of the Marches thought themselves terribly clever for that.
"Is that not what I said?"
Josephine's laugh was high-pitched and nervous, the ruffles at the collar of her purple business shirt rustling in response to it "Really, Commander, you'll need to get more of a mind for these things."
"Why? Are we assigning guards to her?" it was the only explanation as to why he'd need to brush up on any sort of knowledge insofar as this woman was concerned "Are the Marches' fights really something that Inquisition belongs in? Are we to join King Alistair's squabbles over trade routes next?"
"Marcher politics, no. But we have reason to believe that the Dreadwolf has a stake in the chaos unfolding there, and in her specifically, and that is something that calls our attention," Cassandra said.
He knew then that it was serious, for Cassandra often had even less patience for politicking than Cullen.
"What interest would he have in the Princess?"
"The Marches' monarchy hangs by a thread. Ten, twenty years ago, everybody would have said for certain that by now it would be gone. Abolished. But not anymore - and that is thanks almost entirely to the popularity of Princess Evelyn," Josephine explained.
"So much so that there are rumours her parents intend to surpass her older brother entirely in the line of succession and hand off the crown to Evelyn instead," Leliana added, a hint of intrigue in her tone as though she were gossiping over lunch "There are rumours that the papers are already being drafted in preparation."
"Can they do that? They're a constitutional monarchy, they keep their place by avoiding controversy, and they avoid controversy by doing everything by the book," Cullen asked.
"There'd be more controversy if Adrian accedes to the throne and not Evelyn," Leliana said "Knowing when to throw the book out of the window is the most important part of abiding by it."
"The Dreadwolf wants two things, insofar as we can tell," Josephine said "Chaos, and power. And he wants the first, because it clears a path for him to attain the second. Without the monarchy, if the Marches became the Free Marches, it would devolve into squabbling between the cities, and he would be free to manoeuvre his way through that however he sees fit."
"Why not just manipulate the royals, too? Or do all of that now, with things as is? As you've said, she'd be a constitutional monarch, she's no power either way."
"She has no official power," Josephine corrected "No legal power. But Princess Evelyn is a mouthpiece for the government, and we know enough of her character by now to know that she won't be the mouthpiece to blatant lies. It's why the people love her so, and the government realise that if they get rid of her, the people will riot."
"Maker's breath. I suppose the Dreadwolf has no such qualms?"
"Indeed. He could get rid of her through less…official routes," what a delicate way to describe assassination "If the Marchers riot, he'll still get his chaos, and he'll find a way to take advantage either way. As things stand, she's the only person in the Marches with any semblance of sway whom he cannot manipulate, and therefore the only person in the Marches standing between the Dreadwolf and control of eastern Thedas. If we want stability, we have a stake in her future."
Cullen sighed "How many men will she need?"
"One."
His brow furrowed.
"One? You cannot seriously bring me here, go on and on about the importance of this, to say we're only going to send her one soldier. That would be of no use at all."
"We don't wish to send a soldier, we wish to send you," Cassandra interjected, having been mostly silent thus far.
Cullen balked "Me? I'm not a bodyguard! That's an entirely different subset of training, one which I do not have."
"Princess Evelyn disdains bodyguards," Josephine said "It would be of no advantage to Inquisition if we were to send you as one. She'd see to it that you were around her as sparingly as possible, and with no real depth that would allow us any insight or control with the situation in the Marches."
"What, then? A hair stylist?"
"A suitor," Leliana was the one who tore off the band-aid.
Cullen stared. And then he laughed - a hoarse, ragged laugh, that bubbled forth mainly because he dearly hoped that they would join in. They didn't. For the most part, the only response they offered at all was to shift uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing their arms, moving their weight from one foot to the other, so on. But Leliana reached into the drawer below the table, brought forth another file, and slapped it down onto the table. When it appeared nobody else would, Cullen reached forward and opened it to the first page, hoping it would read something along the lines of "ha-ha, only joking". He was not so lucky.
"Yes, I recognise him, too," he said after a glance at the photograph tucked inside.
It showed a golden haired man in an immaculate suit, looking incredibly bored in the midst of some conference.
"King Alistair Theirin," Leliana supplied needlessly "The only man she's ever courted, to anybody's knowledge, before the scandal and political implications forced them apart."
"Isn't he a bit old for her?" Cullen asked.
"He's only one year older than you. Six years older than her."
"What's your point? Am I to be a suitor for him, too?"
"Don't tell me you don't see the resemblance, Commander," Leliana replied.
"We're both blond," he said flatly "Bleach Blackwall's hair and send him."
"You both have roots in the Chantry, you've both been through rigorous military training, you're both dedicated to causes you deem worthy, you're both loyal, and - try as you do to hide it - you both have a sense of humour," their spymaster rattled off in response "Admittedly, you rein yours in far more than King Alistair ever bothers to, but perhaps that will work in your favour. There's nothing more tiring than somebody who doesn't know when to stop joking."
"And what is it you suggest I do? Swan up to her in the street and ask her on a date? Even if this whole thing wasn't slimy and…and utterly terrible, it's not feasible."
Please, Andraste, let it be unfeasible.
"We've already thought of that," Josephine cut in now.
"Of course you have," he griped.
How long had they been piecing this farce of a plan together? Smiling and chatting to him through meetings like nothing was amiss, and lining up what random woman they wished for him to bed the moment the door closed behind him? Cullen wasn't sure who had more of a right to feel violated here, the princess or himself.
"Princess Evelyn is famously philanthropic. If you approach her via the avenue of your official business, seeking her endorsement and the use of your platform to raise awareness, it'll be a sure-fire in. With my family's contacts, I can see to it that your mission - your charity's mission - would be brought to her attention."
Cullen gaped at the diplomat. What else was he supposed to do? All three of his most trusted colleagues had simultaneously lost their minds.
"You want me to use the charitable organisation that I built from the ground up, to support a cause at the centre of my heart…" it wasn't easy for him to use such language, but he knew that if he didn't then they wouldn't see just how serious he was "...in order to lie and manipulate my way into the bed of a princess?"
Josephine had the good grace to look chided, her gaze cast downward as she fiddled nervously with the clipboard in her hand. Leliana did not, returning his eye contact evenly when he turned his attention to her.
"With the backing of Princess Evelyn, your revenue would quadruple - at a minimum - not to mention you would find yourself with access to contacts and resources you currently couldn't even imagine, much less meet in your current standing."
The stare he fixed the redhead with turned into a glare the longer she evenly held his gaze without shame.
"This is a new low," he said darkly "You would bribe me with this? So that I'll seduce her?"
"We aren't ordering you to bed her, Commander," Josephine tittered nervously "We could not order you to do such a thing. Get close to her, yes. Anything beyond that is down to your own judgement, and your own willingness."
A cop out if ever he'd heard one. It was more common than not in courtships that there would inevitably reach a point where things would either go further, or they would fizzle out. If he agreed to this, and if he succeeded - a tenuous possibility at best, given he was hardly a sodding lothario - and if it went on for any significant length of time, there would come a point where he would be faced with a choice. Either he could either bed her, or fail his duty.
Leliana didn't bother to get into the finer points of that, turning instead to his original accusation "I'm not bribing you with anything, Cullen, I'm pointing out the advantages of your undertaking this task. In addition to preventing the Dreadwolf from plunging Thedas into chaos and ruling the ruins. Of course."
"No, you have no room to pretend you're the one clinging to the moral high ground here," Cullen snapped "I will give anything for this cause - for Inquisition. If anybody here has any doubts about that, I'd like very much to hear them justify it, but this? Violation of my own…of my person aside, how can you justify doing this to her?"
He jabbed a photo of the young woman smiling serenely up at them from the photograph that still lay on the table. While Cullen had never had much time for royalty, nor the bowing and scraping that followed them, but this? This would stretch the realms of distasteful even if their planned target was by all accounts a disgrace of a human being, but they'd just sat him down, touted the good aspects of this woman's character, and then asked that he mislead her in an entirely unforgivable way.
Josephine, at least, appeared chided "Our first port of call was trying to infiltrate via the route of assistant, but any position in the court is mired in nepotism, with dozens of back-ups, carefully selected and cultivated years - no, decades in advance. It wasn't possible. This, unpleasant as it is, is what we are left with. You fit the bill in age and looks, and your official business is all above board. The Trevelyans have strong ties with the chantry, this will be something she's interested in. It all just…works."
"None of us like this, Commander," Cassandra said "But my family has had dealings with the princess in the past. If she knew the extent of this - if she knew the threat we all face…she would want you to do this."
"Very easy for you to say, all things considered," he countered.
Maker's breath, he was breaking out in a sweat. Utterly uncaring for his appearance, he loosened his tie with one hand and undid the top button of his shirt with the other.
"It is not easy for me to say," Cassandra argued sharply "Not in the slightest. This is a slimy, invasive, terrible thing for all involved, and if we go ahead with it we must pray for the Maker's forgiveness for it every day. But the alternative is the only thing more terrible. If the Dreadwolf gets what he wishes, and this serves as a stepping stone for him to get whatever it is he wants, we'll wish we'd done this when we could."
When she proved to be the only one he had not yet snapped back at, she pressed on.
"I do not doubt that Leliana would do it herself…" nor did Cullen, for that matter "...but the princess has no interest in women-"
"Nor would such a relationship be permitted if she did," Leliana said drily "It would rather interfere with the lineage."
"-and, vague resemblance between yourself and King Alistair aside, you are the only man we trust enough to ask this of. We don't enjoy asking it, but we've no choice."
"She mightn't even take any interest," he pointed out - dearly hoping that she would not take any interest "This is far beyond my realm of expertise, I cannot promise results the same way I can promise that I can promise a set number of good fighters."
"She might not," Josephine agreed "And we won't hold it against you if she doesn't. All we ask is that you give it your best effort so that we can at least check it off the list as another potential solution that we have tried."
A few moments of silence passed then, and Cullen realised that he was the one who was supposed to be filling it - with more arguments, with reasons why he could not do it, with refusals. No more came to mind, though. Leliana seemed to realise at the same time that he did that he was all out of arguments.
"Shall we have Josephine's contacts reach out to her people on behalf of your organisation?"
Turning on his heel, Cullen walked out of the room. She'd take that as a yes, and he had no desire to stand here and hash out the details. All he could do now was pray that Princess Evelyn would hate him.