Scout Jim, realizing he just walked in on Cullen/Inquisitor: I’m having one of those emotions where I’m actively regretting every decision that’s led me to this moment in my life.
The main thing that troubles me about anti-Cullen posts is how many of them imply or even out-right say that he can’t be redeemed because he hasn’t suffered enough. People can feel however they feel about whatever, but personally, I find this logic disturbing. Cullen suffering would not undo the suffering of those he failed to protect as Knight-Captain. It would just be another person suffering.
In my opinion, redemption requires the following things:
Regretting one’s previous actions and desiring to change.
Attempting to fix (in whatever way possible, even if it’s not complete) whatever they broke during the period they regret.
Not repeating the behavior.
Cullen ticks all three boxes, and that’s good enough for me.
I’m not necessarily troubled by people who disagree with me on that point; opinions vary according to what exactly you think Cullen did wrong and the extent to which you find the Templar organization culpable for his actions. I’m only troubled by people who argue that Cullen’s redemption wasn’t “earned,” which almost always seems to translate to “It was restorative, and I wanted it to be punative.”
a writing commission for my lovely friend @bitchesofostwick <3 thank you for commissioning me isabella! it took a few days longer than i expected it would to write but i hope it was worth the wait :) <3
They were in the mountains. Anyone who had been with the Inquisition through both Haven and Skyhold knew all too well that snowstorms were to be expected when stationed in the Frostbacks. But ones of this caliber, where barely anyone left the castle, where lookouts couldn’t see more than three feet in front of them let alone keep an eye out for Corypheus, where scouts and soldiers arrived back to the barracks with beginning signs of a vicious frostbite… They worried Cullen. For many reasons, but one more than others.
It had been three days since Ellinor’s estimated arrival time at Skyhold passed without so much as a single trace of her when a letter - the letter - finally came. The paper was crunchy and crystalline from the blizzard, as was the bird that it was attached to who let out an angry caw at Cullen before flying away, and, to his disappointment, he could barely make out any words in the mess of smudged ink. It must’ve been her last bid to get word out, because, when he did manage to decipher the few scribbled sentences, it was nothing more than:
Cullen,
With scouts in the valley. Fine. Hands are cold. Everything’s cold.
Miss you.
Be back when weather calms.
Ellinor
With not much ease and even less grace, he cleared a section of his desk and flattened the letter against it with his leather glove, searching desperately for anything else. He came up with nothing, instead. Not that he expected any more, but finally knowing that she was so close and yet still so far away from him and all he got was a ‘be back soon’ didn’t make him feel any better. She was out there, freezing and frozen (if her letter was any indication), and he was cooped up in his torchlit tower, warm beneath his layers of armour and the coat he had added for good measure. Worst of all, he couldn’t go get her.
If he thought he’d be able to find her through the thick snow and the even thicker darkness, he would. But he’d probably get stranded, too, and he’d never hear the end of it from her if he somehow managed to survive.
Cullen sighed, stepping away from his desk and running a hand through his hair. All the reports that had been delivered to him by shivering soldiers were taken care of, sitting on a neat pile at the corner of his desk while the rest of it lay in disarray, and as he ascended the ladder to the loft of his quarters he realized that he did not want to read any of the books on the ground next to his bed he had dog-eared the pages of to pick up where he left off at a later date. He did not want to read. He did not want to work.
He wanted Ellinor.
When someone’s knuckles rapped swiftly and almost impatiently against his door, his heart leapt into his throat before sense sent it sinking back down again. Of course it wasn’t Ellinor, he thought, scolding himself for getting his own damned hopes up. She was somewhere in the valley, which was a considerable enough distance away from Skyhold on a fair, sunny day. Through a blizzard? He dreaded to think about it. She had gone on a trek like that one too many times.
Two too many times, actually.
Because when he did open his door, it was Ellinor standing there. She was more snow than skin, but it was her.
He blinked at her, surprised.
“E-Ellinor?”
She said nothing. She was shivering too much to do so, though she managed a rueful smile. Of course she did. He led her inside, a gloved hand on her waist and one on her shoulder, thankful for the added layer because even through the leather he could feel how chilled she was. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a slight bite to his voice, sitting her down in the chair behind his desk and marching to the window. The blizzard had not let up – it may have even grown stronger. “It’s ridiculous out there!”
He turned back to her to find her staring off into space, teeth chattering, body rigid as if she was not only covered in ice but made of it. She might as well have been. With a sigh, he approached her once more and sunk to his knees, reaching for her hand. “You’re ridiculous,” he muttered, taking her glove off and throwing it over his shoulder. “No amount of work is worth more than your life, Ellinor.”
“S-s-says you.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at the indignant tone of her voice. The small lift in his spirits didn’t last any longer than that, though.
Her fingers were red and cold, but there wasn’t a trace of the early stages of frostbite, so that was a small victory, at least. He shed his own gloves and took her hand in his, fervently rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her knuckles. “Why did you... Ellinor.” She rolled her eyes at his chiding tone. “You were safe in the valley, were you not?”
“And freezing!”
Cullen huffed. “And it’s so much better here?” he challenged.
Her eyes, rimmed with white crusted eyelashes, narrowed. “Yes, it is, as a matter of f-fact.”
He was clearly hitting a raw nerve. He raised an eyebrow at her and brought her hand close to his mouth, blowing on it for a moment before stopping so he could speak. “It’s not,” he tried to reason as he continued to smooth his thumbs over her skin. “It’s just as cold here, Ellinor. And you risked your well-being for it?”
He could feel himself growing angry, but he tried not to be. She was in enough pain as it was, and he did not want to contribute even more to it. He just didn’t understand what reason she could have for returning to Skyhold before the storm had blown over.
“It’s wasn’t j-just me!” she protested as he began attending to her other hand. “The scouts escorted me.”
“So you risked theirs, as well?”
“Cullen!”
“Alright, alright… That wasn’t good of me to say. I’m sorry.” He eased her boot from her foot and removed her sock. Her toes had not done as well as her fingers – they were dangerously frozen and pale. A frown creased his lips. “How do these feel?” he asked.
“Warm?”
That wasn’t a good sign.
“Well… you may have frostbite,” he began uneasily, unsure as to how she would take the news. “The early stages of it, though, I think, which means it’s nothing too serious… A trip to the healers should do you good.”
Which she’d have to go outside for. Cullen sighed.
Ellinor, on the other hand, watched silently as he stood up and gathered the articles of her clothing he had thrown away from them. After collecting them all, he set them down on the corner of his desk on top of her letter, which had a small puddle growing beneath it. He turned to her once more. “Why did you come back so soon?” he asked for the third time.
“I…” She shook her head, reaching up and attempting to pull her snow-coated hood down. He hurried to do it for her. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe that.”
With a roll of her eyes, Ellinor tilted her face to Cullen as he started to tentatively untie her hair from the braid she had trapped it in. “You’ll think it’s stupid,” she told him.
“I won’t,” he promised as best as he could.
“You will.”
“Maker’s breath, Ellinor, I won’t.”
She heaved a sigh. “I came back… for you.”
To be honest, that wasn’t what he had expected to hear. He expected it would be work or… anything else, really. He didn’t expect that the thing she had come back for was him. Or maybe he had expected it and just didn’t want it to be true. Cullen stood up straight. “I… what?” One of his hands drifted to the back of his neck. “I… Ellinor, that’s…”
“I was cold and lonely and… I missed you,” she mumbled almost shamefully, taking over and untying the rest of her own braid as she averted her gaze. “I couldn’t stand to be away from you for so long.”
“You risked your life to see me?”
Ellinor laughed. “Yes, which I’m regretting, since I’ve been here for five minutes and I’ve already gotten a lecture.”
But Cullen didn’t laugh. “I… why would you do that? For the love of the – Ellinor, you could have died!”
He was standing behind her, still as a statue, arms flat against his sides and fists balled. “I’m sorry, then, Commander,” she said, standing up from the chair as her lips curled into a sneer. “I’m sorry that I thought it was reasonable of me to do anything to see you because I care for you, and I thought you would do the same for me.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “Apparently not.”
She had begun to walk away. It took him a moment to follow her.
“That’s not… I would!” He grabbed her by the wrist and spun her around to face him, though she trained her gaze elsewhere. “I would. You must believe me. I just…” The next words came out on a bitter laugh. “I’m not worth it.”
“You are to me, you fool,” she replied with good-natured annoyance, raising her palms and flattening them against his cheeks. They were still cool to the touch but the action comforted him anyway, and he thought in embarrassment that, at the very least, maybe the hot blush creeping across his skin would help her thaw out even quicker. “I wouldn’t have come all the way back to Skyhold if I didn’t think so.”
“That’s a fair point.”
Neither of them said anything else. Cullen stared at Ellinor, for a moment not believing she was real and that she cared for him. He felt lucky, perhaps for the first time in years. He never had someone feel the same way about him as he did for them, and yet here she was despite all odds and despite everything they had been through together. He moved his hands to her waist and drew her closer, smiling as she bent her head back to look up at him.
The power of the blizzard could have increased tenfold or the world could have been ending all around them and he wouldn’t even have been noticed. He was just looking at Ellinor.
“This is the part where you’re supposed to kiss me, you know.”
“Oh.” He smirked at her. “Is it?”
“It is indeed.”
“Well then…” His eyes fluttered shut as he leaned forward. “I suppose… after all of the effort you’ve gone through just to see me...”
The sentence ended abruptly as their lips met.
It was tender and tentative, the kiss. He didn’t want to push her too far when she seemed exhausted and he couldn’t stand to get any closer without fear of getting snow all over his armor. Though, he realized, there was a solution for that. His hands wandered to the clasp of her cloak. He undid it quietly as he kissed her, trying to distract her and pretend he wasn’t doing it in the first place. After all, he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.
Unfortunately for Cullen, he wasn’t a very stealthy person.
Ellinor pulled away ever so slightly and cocked an eyebrow at him. That was a question in and of itself. He spluttered, shaking his head, searching for the words. He hadn’t meant… It wasn’t supposed to be…
“I just… You’re cold,” he muttered almost shamefully. “And wet. F-from the snow, I mean! And we should change you into – you should change into warmer clothes.”
Maker help him.
“And where do you suggest that I get said warmer clothes?”
“Ellinor…”
“One of your shirts, perhaps?”
The offer felt like a blow to the head and left him just as dizzy. “I… Yes?”
Ellinor simpered at him. “Let’s go upstairs, then?” she said sweetly.
“Yes,” he repeated, breathless.
Before they moved across the room to his ladder, she shed the rest of her outerwear while Cullen laid it out on the ground to let it dry. It felt about as intimate as kissing, because each layer she took off revealed another patch of skin affected by the blizzard and Cullen attended to each and every one until she was beginning to feel – and look -- like herself again. By the time she was left standing in her breeches and her travelling tunic, her cheeks were rosy and a sheen of sweat covered her forehead. Cullen, who had climbed out of most of his own armor as well, couldn’t deny he felt similarly despite the snowstorm blazing outside.
She grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers before leading him over to the ladder. A few droplets of melted snow dripped from her body onto the top of his head on their way up to his bedroom, but all it did was make him laugh and feel a little less self-conscious. And a little less worried, too, because when he laughed, she laughed, and it was a reminder that she was safe and there, with him, to boot.
That was all he had wanted for so long.
She sat on the edge of his bed and stripped out of the rest of her clothes while he rummaged through his chest for a clean tunic that she could wear. He was sure that almost anything he picked would be long on her, since she was so much shorter than he was, but he still wanted to give her something modest. “Alright, here’s a –“
He turned around and froze.
She was so beautiful. Her skin was still blotchy from the cold – his own was as well, he had noticed, not because he felt cold but because of the underlying chill present in the air anyway – and her hair was loose around her shoulders, her hands clasped in her lap. She looked so perfect and so pretty. A sly grin grew on her face at his taken aback expression. “Something the matter?”
“N-no!” He tossed her the shirt and it landed in a rather dejected pile at her feet. “Nope! Everything’s fine.”
He whirled around and waited until the rustling of her pulling the clothing over her head had stopped to face her once more. She was already under the covers of his bed and had drawn them up over her shoulders like a shawl, and he padded towards her with an affectionate expression. “You’re... beautiful,” he managed to utter when he reached the foot of the bed, his knees banging against the mattress as he hesitated to climb on.
“You are, too,” she said back. “But you look cold.”
“I am.”
“I can’t blame you, since…”
Cassandra assigned some of the soldiers to temporarily patch up all the holes in Cullen’s ceiling, which he felt bad about because one of them was injured in the process, but after three days of nonstop snow the fixes were falling short of being helpful. Ellinor’s finger waggled in their direction, and Cullen waved a hand at her. “That’s not the only reason,” he said. “In case you haven’t noticed, Inquisitor, it’s very cold. It has been lately.”
“Oh, is it? I hadn’t realized!”
He rolled his eyes but a stray smile teased his lips.
“Come join me, Cullen,” Ellinor said.
“I…” One of his hands cupped his shoulder, running up to the nape of his neck. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she answered. “More sure than I was when I decided walking through a blizzard for you would be well worth it.”
Well, he couldn’t really say anything good to protest that. His fingers were shaking as he inched across the quilt towards where she was bundled beneath it at the other end. It was a surprising end to the evening, he realized. Ellinor and seeing Ellinor was one thing. Being snuggled up next to her in his bed was another entirely. He settled in beside her nevertheless, drawing the covers over himself the same as she had, wriggling closer to her until their knees touched and pressing a shy kiss to her temple.
She swung her legs into his lap and leaned against his bicep. “I don’t regret coming here, you know.”
“You might after you see the healers. And once the advisers find out. I’m sure they’ll have a lot to say.”
His gaze flickered over to her in time to see her staring up at him with round, wide eyes. “Let’s not think about that right now,” she said, snuggling closer to him and grabbing his hand, lacing their fingers together. She planted a kiss on his shoulder, then moved past it to plant another on his collarbone, and despite feeling suddenly faint he couldn’t help but agree.
She stopped after a few more kisses, leaning back and closing her eyes. He tipped his head to rest against hers and smiled. It was not very long before sleep overcame them both, for the ordeal of the evening lasted much longer than either had realized and dawn would be coming soon, but when it did, they were wrapped up together beneath his blankets, warm and whole and not in the least bit alone – and Cullen, though content, wished only one other thing:
Title: All I Ask of You
Chapter: 19/19
Pairing: Cullen/Trevelyan
Rating: Mature
Summary: When Josephine suggested they throw an Orlesian masked ball, Cullen never once thought he might attend, much less find…and lose…and rediscover…the love of his life. Of course, with Dorian, Varric and Sera playing meddling Fairy Godmother, he probably should have seen it all coming.
OR: Cullen’s POV to As the World Falls Down.
This chapter: More smut and THE END.
READ IT HERE
READ FROM THE BEGINNING
For the awesome Aureliana!! Cover by the amazing @cute-ellyna!
These two stories were such a wild ride...even if this companion piece ended up taking way longer and being way harder than I anticipated. Keep your eyes peeled for more Cullen from me in the future!
Title: Cullen Me Maybe
Author: Lady Sassafras
Chapter: 1/?
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairing: Cullen/Female Trevelyan
Summary: Stuck in Skyhold, and shit’s gone crazy. // But we’re alone now, so kiss me maybe?
When Cullen and the Inquisitor were interrupted atop the battlements, it wasn’t the first time. Nor the second, nor even the third. It seems Cullen’s newest officer, Jim, has a bad habit of turning up in the wrong place at the absolute worst time.Will Cullen and Evelyn ever find a moment’s privacy? Or will their Spymaster have another disappearance to investigate? Will Jim manage to survive his first year with the Inquisition?
5+1 times Cullen and the Inquisitor almost kissed.
READ HERE!
Do you love good writing? Good characterization? Do you love Cullen? Then it’s fic rec time!
Check out CALLING ON SONG by Parsnip (or follow her @butwhatisit) and show her some love as she shares a really fantastic story with us. Meanwhile I’ll be over here all:
