When Tangled storyboarder Amber Vucinich drew fanart of Cass and Raps *almost* kissing and living happily ever after. From here: https://www.tumblr.com/mbrleigh/187715795488/living-happily-ever-after-after-all-im-so?source=share
Two strangers. One accident. And a moment that shouldn’t have meant anything—but did. This story is about restraint. About not being out. About the things you almost do—and the people you almost touch. Chapter 1 & 2 now up.
Disclaimer: I’m sharing my art as fan work, with no commercial use or agenda. All credits for Miraculous’ characters go to the original creators and trademark owners. Pose reference from a romcom lol.
This is what happens when I read the @ladynoirjuly prompts while thinking about practicing drawing kisses.
Happy Friday! What about Rose x Cullen and "Sleet pelting skin" maybe during that escape from Haven?
This is a very old ask, but thank you, Ro! I'm glad I'm finally getting around to using it (albeit for a different prompt event)
It was the perfect thing to jog a new scene for an old, stale part of my fic
For @thedasweekend
Pairing: Cullen x Trevelyan
Rating: Teen
WC: 1949
No CWs
I wake from a spotty slumber, my fire an amber whisper atop a bed of embers. Curiosity squirms inside me. I pull on my robe and unlatch the door to poke my head out. Cullen bounces back and forth on his feet in the cold, his shoulders drawn up tight against his ears which are tucked under his black fur hat. He glances at me looking as miserably frigid as I look tired.
His best men, indeed. My curiosity is rewarded.
I shut the door again and tug on my heaviest cloak, worm my feet into a pair of boots and join him. The cold staggers my breath.
“Go back to sleep,” he instructs me. I scoff.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I hiss. “Where are your guards? Besides, the Red Iron leader agreed.”
“I trust him as far as I can throw him. I find it hard to believe they’ll abandon the contract with only the seneschal’s word that they’ll get paid in Ostwick,” he says. “I’ll feel better when they’re out of the valley.” I breathe an exasperated sigh.
“Are you going to fight all twelve of them if they decide to come?” I ask. He scowls at me lightly. “You can come in, you know. For five minutes. So your ears don’t drop off.” Cullen stiffens at the invitation.
“I— that— would be improper.”
“But a sight better than frostbite,” I poke, suppressing my smile.
“Who’s going to reprimand you? The Chantry? Your superior officer?” Cullen’s cheeks darken beneath a chiding look.
“Thank you, I’ll stay here,” he says. I perch on the barrel again, drumming my fingers inside my mittens while the silence stretches, while blood abandons my nose and cheeks.
A skittering noise stirs, first in the evergreens behind my cabin and then right around us, the sky spitting pellets of ice. They tink against his armor and assault our cheeks. He turns slowly, half-amused, half-resigned, sleet sticking in the fur of his hat.
“I believe the Maker has spoken,” I remark, failing to restrain a triumphant smirk.
“Five minutes,” he says.
“A cup of tea,” I counter. His stern answering look is belied by the wry glint in his eye. I could swear he’s never been happier to lose.
“A cup of tea.”
He follows me, kicking snow off his boots on the door frame and shaking sleet from his cloak before stepping inside fully. I glance around the cramped cabin, suddenly all too aware of the laundry slung over chair backs and the crumpled smalls I’d left languishing on the floor. To his credit, he studies the rafters with grave interest.
“I— em— wasn’t expecting company,” I say, scooping it all up and for lack of a better place, dump it on the end of my bed. Cullen hangs his cloak and hat on the nail by my door, raking life into his flattened curls and then loiters awkwardly by the door blowing warmth back into his fingers.
“Shit, um…” I drag a chair close to the hearth for him only to notice the coals have dwindled to wispy embers. Fumbling my way through stoking a fresh fire in a hurry, I curse when the kindling refuses to catch, mortified by the Maker-forsaken look of it. The spoiled noble can’t start a bloody fire.
Cullen pulls the bellows from the wall and crouches beside me, handing me another bundle of sticks, his expression some combination of pity and amusement. I take the sticks, his cold fingers grazing mine and then set about mindlessly building up the fire, worrying too much about my cheeks and not enough about what I’m doing.
“Here,” he says, handing me the bellows and reaching in to adjust the mess I’d made.
“I don’t usually struggle with this,” I say. “I may be grossly incompetent at a great many thing but fire building is not one of them.”
“I’ll fill up the kettle,” he offers, retreating from the task to fill up the kettle with snow. As I stir up a proper fire, my insides whoosh about in the stupidest way, the bloody dog who’s caught the cart. What am I supposed to do with him now?
Cullen returns, shaking ice from his hair, puffing warm air through frigid lips. He hangs the kettle on its holder and swings it over the hearth and then scrubs his hands together in the fire’s radiance, standing too close. We wait in a restless silence for the roll of a boil, stealing looks that flicker away when we catch then other.
“Your toes will warm up faster if you kick your boots off,” I remind him. Reluctantly he bends to unbuckle them and then kicks them off, stretching his stocking feet close to the warmth.
“And here I thought I knew what a Fereldan winter felt like,” he says through a stiff, chattering jaw.
“Kirkwall made you soft,” I say, smiling to myself. Cullen huffs quietly to himself.
“Maker, you have no idea.”
“I thought my thin Marcher blood would be more of a problem,” I say, pulling two mugs from their hooks on the wall. “But I seem to have adapted.”
“Frankly, your ability to adapt astonishes me. I imagined you’d be more difficult than you are.” Glancing over my shoulder, his look is downright impish.
“Don’t tell me I haven’t been a bloody pest,” I counter. Cullen chuckles into his thawing hands.
“No more than Leliana or Josephine or Cassandra,” he says. My expression is pure skepticism as I return, handing him the mugs.
“I’ve never seen them treat you with my particular flavor of insolence,” I say. “I’ve been unfair to you on too many occasions.”
Whatever clouds his expression sweeps away. For a moment it warms me like the emergent spring sun in late Drakonis, clear and insistent. Captivating.
“I appreciate that,” he says. “And I still owe you an apology. For this morning. I was harsh and you don’t deserve that.” I cock my head slightly. Sometimes I might. Cullen continues, his brows knotting up. “It’s just that you’re so— wildly optimistic.”
I snuff into the floor. “Sounds like code for ‘perfectly stupid’.” He scolds me of course, his brow lowering, but the warmth lingers.
“You’re asking me to abandon years of training, years of experience—” he starts. “I’ve seen what idealistic approaches have wrought and it isn’t pretty.”
“I know you can do this,” I say, meeting his agitated gaze with a firm one.
“That confidence may get you killed.” The words clatter like a piece of armor to the floor, a morsel of offered vulnerability. Cullen runs a hand through his hair again sinking deeper into my chair. It feels right, watching him relaxing into my space and righter when his expression softens into that near-smile I’ve come to expect. And yet just this morning we’d been tearing at each other like children.
“I know that keeping me alive is a monumental task, but it can’t be all on you. I wish for your sake I was a little more talented than ‘coddled noblewoman with a bow’.”
“You’ve made greater progress than I expected,” he says. “I’m fairly confident you could put an arrow in my face at least.” I laugh.
“Maybe if you’re not paying attention. And if I’m very sneaky. Head to head though? Really, Cullen?” He almost chuckles behind his hand.
“You may be right,” he admits.
“I am,” I say, seizing the opportunity to be so. Still trapped in the lightness of his gaze, I reach behind me for the kettle handle and grab a fistful of searing iron. I cry out, jerking my hand from the arm so hard the kettle swings and sloshes boiling water all over the fire.
“Fuck.”
Cullen is on his feet, taking my arm by the elbow and wrist and then cradles my hand with gentle fingers, inspecting the burn in the anemic light of the doused embers. Between pulses of scorching pain, I curse my foolishness to the Void and back.
“I bloody knew I was about to do it and didn’t bloody stop myself,” I rant through gritted teeth.
“We’ve all been there— watching it play out as it happens.” He leans for a closer look while I sip air to manage the— Maker, he smells nice— is that chamomile? Hyssop? “Do you have a healing draught or any kind of salve?”
“My pack by the door,” I say, gesturing with a flick of my head. While he rummages, I attempt to prod some life back into the half-snuffed fire, breathing through the screaming pain. Cullen returns, maneuvering me into my chair, kneeling before me.
“Draught,” he says, insisting upon the vial with a commanding jerk and flicking the cork free. I drink it down.
“I suppose you’ve seen your share of injuries.”
“When an apprentice discovered fire in the worst of ways, it was often a mess,” he says somberly, unscrewing the wooden pot I have for abrasions.
“Oh.” I draw in a sharp breath through my teeth as he spreads a thumb full of salve over the angry streak across my palm.
“Sorry,” he says, lightening his strokes. The pain dissipates under a pronounced tingling sensation, leaving me to ponder the softness of his thumb against my palm. When I chance a look at him, he’s gazing at my mouth, the hazel of his eyes dark in shadow but curious, maybe even craving. His lips part, a faint sigh slipping between them.
“Classic Rose,” I murmur, staring down at our joined hands, inviting him to use my given name once more. He leans in— a movement so small and hesitating I can’t be sure it’s real but he’s closer and my stomach is cartwheeling and I could just close the gap. A bend, a tilt of my head. His lips are chapped but then so are mine.
Cullen blinks.
“Sorry. I, uh— just remembered a report I promised I'd write,” he says, looking away and releasing me, his cheeks stained with mortification.
“Oh. I drift off all the time myself,” I lie. The nonsensical rush from before degrades into a wash of nausea. The burn starts to complain again.
“Water’s ready,” he says, too softly. I steal a look at him. He’s still flushed but there’s something solicitous about his expression when he glances back— apologetic, admiring still. As he fills the teakettle, an ungainly silence ruins what was left of the moment. And then he yawns. “Excuse me.”
“Assign a detail,” I press. “Go get some sleep. The tea will only remind me of my own stupidity.”
I could eat up his scolding looks.
“If the Red Iron comes in the middle of the night and makes off with you—”
“You can send a raven to Ostwick with an ‘I told you so’,” I finish.
The door whines open, his curls stirring on draft. I snatch his hat from where he’d almost left and rush it to him, holding it up to him. Some mad part of me wants to pat it onto his head, but he takes it from me, lingering long enough that all the heat starts rushing out around us.
“Sorry,” he whispers, eyes practically radiant despite him. “Thank you.”
And then I’m left with the most absurd sensations— the tipsy stagger of my mind, the confounding knot in my chest, warmth flooding places it shouldn’t.
Maker, no. He may be a stunning creature but surely I have the sense to fixate on someone less… stuffy. And argumentative. And sullen.
In the sanctuary of my blankets I search for anything to supplant these sudden feverish thoughts of him.
