Dragon Age 2
Samson/Cullen
Raleigh Samson is a disgraced ex-templar; Cullen is the favoured Knight-Captain. The once-close bunkmates now exist on opposite sides of a line, but some bonds still connect them, whether Cullen wants them to or not. History, shared addiction; Cullen runs into his old friend whilst patrolling Lowtown and is forced to face what Samson has become...And what he could become, too.
So this was already on my AO3, but I’ve never posted it to Tumblr, so I’m submitting it for @chaos-company’s Angstpril 2022, Day 25, prompt ‘Begging’. It was too fitting not to.
No naughty bits, but a bit of potty mouth because...It’s Samson, I can’t stop him XD And references to drug use i.e lyrium, naturally.
"The Chantry lyrium? You never realized it was taking more than just the fear, slowly, painlessly, until one day you woke up and you couldn’t do without the stuff." - Raleigh Samson
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The inhabitants of Lowtown moved quickly out of the templar unit's path. From beggars to traders, those in the crowd eyed the heavily-armoured soldiers with suspicion, seemingly taking little comfort from the proof they provided of the Chantry's active presence. Knight-Captain Cullen couldn't understand it: the sympathies of this city had turned against the very force that sought to protect it from the rot within its walls, instead choosing to favour the creatures who could turn on it at a moment's notice. Mage claims at being powerless were well-practiced and well-performed, but no person with the ability to wield death and corruption on such a scale could ever truly be as helpless as they claimed. He had learnt that first-hand. He prayed the people who withdrew from them now would not need to meet similar fates before they too saw wisdom.
That was why the Order did what it did: so no soul need face such atrocities. It was an unachievable aim, but one to strive for. What had this world come to, where that was seen as an ignoble cause?
As he led the troop, surveying the civilians they passed with a familiar mournfulness, Cullen’s eyes fell upon one man who wasn’t turning away. The watcher’s gaze pierced the captain, his eyes brown, blood-shot and familiar. He was little more than a shell, these days - not the affable and rakish character Cullen had known, and was the one man the Knight-Captain wished would look away. But he didn’t. He never did.
Samson. Once Cullen's barracks roommate, not too long ago - though it could be an age, for how much they had changed since the Knight-Commander had dismissed the poor, foolish man. He’d been a decent templar, bar his softened sentiments for mages: it was a folly that Cullen had attempted to cure him of, to no avail, and Samson - or Ser Raleigh, and he’d been then - had helped Cullen in return…
That help had stuck. Maker, had it.
Cullen turned away, pretending not to feel the man’s eyes on him, determinedly focusing on the troop’s path. If his plan was to ignore him, however, Samson didn’t allow him that option for long.
“Hey, dust-fuckers! Yeah, you!" The rough, familiar voice jeered at the templars as they passed, many pretending as awkwardly as their captain not to see their old comrade."You know me - I know the lot of ya. Kill any mages lately?! Hey - got a bit of blue for an old mate, eh?”
Cullen’s temper snapped like a taut band, and yet in the very next second, he lost a battle to his conscience. Turning to the troop’s Knight-Corporal, he commanded him to continue on course and stepped sharply out of the ranks.
“Heyyy! Rutherford, sunshine!” Samson whistled as Cullen stalked over, all coarse-voiced, mocking bravado at first, but he quickly fell quiet as his old friend drew closer. For all that Raleigh liked to taunt the templars, and his lofty ex-bunkmate in particular, he knew which way his bread was buttered. ‘Ser Cullen’ would need to keep face, and Samson could do far more damage with a quiet word than a bellowed one.
The anger he’d expected in Cullen’s eyes wasn’t quite there, however. It was something else. Jaw set and with a snort of frustration, the Ferelden reached into a pouch and pulled out a small vial, its blue glow hidden as he clutched it in his gauntlet. He stood close to the destitute, his back to his troop; as far as they were concerned, he was having a stern word with this heckler, nothing more. No one need know.
It was a cruel justice, the way the Chantry refused lyrium to those shamed and dropped from the Order. The heavy price hung over the templars’ heads and effectively kept them in line, and Cullen respected the decision for that - as they knew with the mages, heavy measures were needed in order to keep discipline in this war that they could not afford to lose.
And yet.
The pair of them had shared a closeness, for a time - one that was not helpful to recall now.
Looking into his old friend’s eyes, Cullen saw a pain that he knew and feared all too well; there it was, the blue beast taking hold with tooth and claw in a fate that could just as easily become his own, should he too stumble from grace. Perhaps if he still towed the sanctioned line with his own lyrium dosage, he could remain righteously blind to it, but as it was…His concealed vials, his hidden scars, the ‘gifts’ he regularly took delivery of from the templars he’d once caught meeting smugglers below the Gallows…It was all burning a hole in his pocket, and his thoughts.
“Here.” He palmed the vial roughly into Samson’s hand. It would be good for a hit or two - the man needed it. "Take this, and quieten down."
For a moment, Samson looked disbelieving, then, briefly, he even allowed himself to look relieved. Touched. Don’t , Cullen chided and pleaded in his thoughts, bracing against that look. It regarded him as though they were, momentarily, brethren - not as they were, but, even so. Samson’s hand closed around the vial, holding it as one would their last chance at air. And yet, the beast at his door left little room for sentiment: a moment later, the sharpened, hungry look returned, eying Cullen with the coldness of a Have Not staring down someone who shone and stunk of Having
“That all?”, his gruff voice challenged, giving his old partner in contraband a shitty slither of an entreating look. “ ‘Knight-Captain’ ?” The words were deliberate, dripping knowingly in irony at Cullen’s grand, pure title, whilst needling him with the fact that surely, he had status and resources plenty to help out an old mate.
Suddenly, Cullen moved: he stepped in sharply, briefly of a mind to punch the man in his smirking, self-satisfied face. For old time's sake, he never could. Instead, he simply leant close, his voice fallen in depth with a clipped growl: “ I need it too! ” His eyes bore into Samson’s accusingly, loathing him for sharing his pain, for representing his own shame.
The men held each other’s gaze, neither wishing to fold first, Samson’s smirk all the shittier and more damning. It seemed to say, “ You’re not better than me. ” But Cullen, for all that it rankled and slid under his skin, knew it wasn’t true. Samson helped apostates. He was a danger, a fool, a disgrace to all the Order stood for. His need for lyrium may have overtaken itself even before he left the Order, but it consumed him now as a just punishment for his unrepentant crimes. Cullen…he took extra lyrium so that he could function. So that he could serve. His reasons stood for everything that Samson’s were against - they could not be less like each other.
And yet, this man’s shadow seemed to reflect and magnify Cullen's own: they were keeping afloat in the same drowning sea. Looking into those smirking, blood-shot eyes, Cullen felt as though he was being challenged by some Blighted mirror, looking upon a nightmarish end to his already nightmarish vigil.
Eventually, Samson relented, breaking eye contact first, though his tone was no less laboured with sarcasm as he spoke: “My thanks, Messere .”
Cullen said nothing. He did not wish to give Samson such easy satisfaction, yet his silence seemed to entertain the man even so. They stepped away from each other, their grasp and gaze parting. Just as he often turned from his philter kit or his bunk and pretended that the addiction or dreams had not occurred, Cullen turned from Samson, the walls back up, their worlds separating neatly once more. No history of friendship, no kinship in secrecy: Samson was on one side of Kirkwall’s line, and Cullen the other. In a city such as this, that line was a chasm, and Samson was rightly at the bottom of it, whereas Cullen must continue to stand on guard of those at the top, ignoring how unstable the rocks felt beneath his own feet…
Once he’d put a few paces between them, though, he hesitated. Maker. Turning back and furious at himself for it, stumbling over his words slightly, he murmured in honest concern: "Do you have food for the night? Shelter?"
Samson’s eyes narrowed, hardened and unwavering. "Piss off, Rutherford."
Very well. Cullen set his jaw and attempted to ignore any stab that had dealt him. In an about-face, he turned his back to his former confidant once more. Marching to rejoin the templar unit, he returned to duty, to the life Samson should also be living if he had been only less soft, less lenient: traits that Cullen knew, all too well, he had once fostered himself. Perhaps he still did.
