#poor cullen

[thechildofmythal]

It's spring, it's nice outside, flowers are blooming. You know what I'm going to do? That's right, I'm going to listen to Radiohead and write about Cullen between Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition. The man is brooooken. Let's get into it.

[animezinglife]

Morrigan: [giving Cullen flack about being concerned that Corypheus could use the Eluvian to access Skyhold] Also Morrigan: [narrowly avoided this exact scenario by approximately half a second all of one day ago]

[shivunin]

20 for elowen, 19 for maria, 23 for arianwen! (and if this is too many just pick whichever ones you want)

Thank you for the prompts!! Not too many at all, I greatly appreciate them :) I will tag you when I post the others! 20. Clumsy attempts at flirting (Elowen/Cullen) (786 words)

A Storm's Aftermath

Elowen stood before the door to Cullen’s office, her hands curled into loose fists. 

Last night in the training ring—it played on a loop in her head. The sudden storm, the way he’d shielded her from the rain with his cloak, the…the kiss they’d almost exchanged. How did one move forward after that? Three days ago she’d been all but certain he had no feelings for her at all, save those of coworkers and friends. 

Now, she couldn’t stop thinking about the way the scar over his lip stretched when he smiled at her. 

No, no; she was going to be normal when she walked into this office. Surely there was something they could discuss. Something—something important and businesslike. Inquisitorial, even.

Lavellan shook her hands out and pushed the door open, wincing as it made its usual painful squeal. Surely they could assign someone to oil those; it must be miserable to sleep and work through that sound constantly. 

Cullen was bent over something on his desk, and he didn’t look up as she walked in. Lavellan debated walking away, but thought better of it. They would have to see each other later for sword practice regardless; it would be best to get this conversation out of the way first. 

“Hi!” she said, far too cheerfully. 

Cullen straightened abruptly, staring hard at the quill in his hand for a moment before tossing it down on the desk.

“Inquisitor!” he said, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword, “You’re—hello. Are—I—” 

He cleared his throat and frowned for a moment before trying again. Elowen waited, crossing her arms and then propping them on her hips. Could he tell she was trying not to look at his lips? Last night they’d almost—was he also thinking about—

“I…wasn’t expecting you until later,” the Commander said, shifting from foot to foot, “Is there something….anything wrong?”

Lavellan moved closer, stopping on the other side of the desk and setting her fingertips against the top. 

“No,” she said, losing the battle to not look at his lips, “I—how are you?”

“I am…well,” he said, “Are you…well?” 

“Yes,” Elowen said. 

They stood in silence for a moment. 

“You seem—that is—” 

Creators, what could she say? Why was this suddenly so difficult? 

Grasping for anything, Elowen soldiered on:

“You look good in red,” she said, and watched the color in question climb his cheeks. 

“I—thank you,” he cleared his throat and ran a hand along the back of his neck, “...thank you. I…wear it often.” 

“I’d noticed.” 

They stared at each other for another moment. Cullen lifted a stack of paper without looking at it and set it down on the still-inked quill. Elowen decided not to tell him he might have just ruined the bottom sheet. He seemed—jumpy. 

“You’re—”

“Do you—”

They both stopped, Cullen chuckling uncomfortably and Elowen releasing a panicked wheeze that might, to someone panicking, have sounded like a laugh. 

Sylaise’enaste, she had to get out of here before she did something dire. Like drag him across the desk to find out if his mouth tasted as good as it looked. Do not say that out loud, she willed herself. 

“I will see you later,” she said. 

“Thank you,” Cullen said with relief. His eyes widened and he shook his head. 

“No! I mean—not thank you. Yes, I’ll—I will see you there.”

“Yes, see you later,” she said, belatedly remembering that she’d already said that. 

Cullen opened his mouth and closed it again. 

Why did his mouth have to look so kissable? 

Why hadn’t she kissed him last night, when there’d been no one else around and they’d been covered in his mantle? It had been—it had been romantic, even, so close to each other like that.

“Right,” she said, sharply enough that his head jerked back, “Later.”

“...yes,” he said, but Elowen was already jogging for the door before she could think about why he sounded so faint. 

The door shut behind her with a squeal and a bang. Elowen leaned back against it, arms spread slightly, and peered up at the puffy white clouds in the sky. 

“I am doomed,” she told them, with all the gravitas of one who’d been condemned to death. 

In the office behind her, Cullen hunched over the desk, his forehead inches from the wooden surface. 

“I wear it often,” he groaned in an undertone, “Maker preserve me; this is beyond bearing.” 

It might be said, to his credit, that at least his reports were not permanently damaged by his inattention—though more than one had been stained with ink in a manner that might have resembled a stylized heart. 

Not that he was looking for something like that. 

That would be silly.

[mothmy]

She’s a Halla (back) girl

LIVE Noodle reaction

[kauriart]

Tiny Badass Ladies

And Cullen. Realizing every woman in Skyhold is a.) very important and b.) scary as fuck.

[fairfaxleasee]

So @rangeredacted (the mind behind my Evergiven fic) requested something with killer garden gnomes for @dadrunkwriting so... Here it is. (Or here is Part 1 at least, I don't think I have the energy to do the whole thing tonight...)

"Inquisitor what are you doing?" The answer should be fairly obvious to Cullen - Ayala Trevelyan was kneeling in Skyhold's garden digging a hole. But Cullen knew enough about Ayala (and the woman's hatred of getting dirt, plants, or bugs anywhere near her hands or clothes) to know that if she was digging a hole in the garden, then answer was anything but obvious.

Ayala ignored him entirely and stuck something in the hole.

"Inquisitor..."

Cullen had no idea what she had stuck in the hole, other than he both didn't want to know and that it should greatly concern him. Ayala had an annoying habit of picking up every piece of useless junk on Thedas that caught her attention for any reason and Cassandra and Solas had decided it was Cullen's job to sort through it all just in case some of it was dangerous (some of it was inevitably dangerous, but given the amount of stuff the woman dragged back to Skyhold, it would be far more suspicious if it wasn't occasionally dangerous.)

"I asked you a question, Inquisitor..." Cullen hoped the 'angry Templar' tone would get her attention. He doubted it would, she was one of the few Circle mages he'd met that didn't inherently mistrust Templars, but if the tone didn't work he'd have to try and touch her and he wasn't in the mood to be flung halfway across the courtyard by a barrier spell she'd send up whenever someone tried to touch her and she wasn't expecting it (although if she spent more time in this world and less in her own, she might be surprised about it less often).

Ayala hummed to herself and adjusted whatever it was that she stuck in the hole that Cullen was becoming more and more convinced he never wanted to look closely enough at to properly identify. She made one last adjustment and turned to face Cullen (who had made sure to have his arms crossed and a disapproving glare on his face in preparation for it).

"Inquisitor, you know you're supposed to bring anything you find to me before you do anything else with it, right?"

Ayala's eyes darted up and to the right, "Uh... I don't know what you're talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." He stepped around her, finally resigned to seeing just what she'd gotten herself into this time.

"But look! He's all happy there! You wouldn't want to make him mad by taking him out of his new home!"

Cullen clawed his fingers in rage at the interloper sitting in the garden. The blighted gnome was, by far, the ugliest thing Cullen could recall seeing (and that was saying something given the things Cullen had seen). Its sculptor had (for some Maker-forsaken reason) carved its wrinkled face into a snarl and given the thing almost avian talons that were reaching up towards whoever was looking at it. And the ridiculously oversized hat that obscured its eyes was just a mockery of everything.

He reached out and snatched the thing out of the ground, provoking a disbelieving interjection from Ayala. "Hey! Put him back! He liked it there!"

"NO! Inquisitor, you know the rule - anything you find on your travels has to come directly to me for inspection! Now, I'm going to put this blighted thing in the ever-growing pile of things you've picked up. Once I manage to examine it, assuming it's not possessed by something, you can have it back and then you can stick it in the garden if that's what you want to do!"

"But he wants to live in the garden now!"

"It is a statue!"

Cullen turned and stalked off, but not quickly enough to avoid Ayala's grumbled retort, "Don't see why you're so grumpy about everything all the time..."

He (barely) resisted the urge to turn around and hit her over the head with the stupid hunk of rock and stomped the rest of the way back to his office.

He set the thing down on his desk and buried his head in his hands, hoping the thing would decide to be gone when he opened them (this could all be a bad dream, couldn't it?). Unfortunately, when he was interrupted a few minutes later by Jim, not only was the scout lurking around in his office for what he was positive was an inherently illegitimate reason, the blighted garden gnome was still there and appeared to be sticking its tongue out at him (he wished he could recall whether the thing always had its tongue out like that).

"What's this?" Jim lifted up the statue and turned it over in his hands.

"Nothing!" Cullen snatched it back. Jim winced as he did so, but Cullen didn't care. "Something the Inquisitor picked up and was trying to sneak into the garden." He slammed the thing down on his desk.

"Oh, so you know the Inquisitor was doing something in the garden then?"

Cullen widened his eyes and pressed his lips hard enough for it to hurt him at the man. Fortunately it worked as Jim ran from the office faster than Cullen had ever seen him move before. He turned down to his desk so he could take out his anger at the damn gnome only to find it gone.

That's... odd. I could have sworn I just put it down here.

He started looking around the desk for the thing.

Maybe I just slammed it down hard enough to crush the blighted thing. No, I'm not that lucky...

He snapped his head up when he heard the door open, "What now, Jim? Some other problem I've already solved?"

"I highly doubt that, Commander. I can think of few problems you've actually solved."

Cullen narrowed his eyes at the one interruption he liked less than the scouts. "...Solas."

"Well, I see your eyesight is working. However, I came in to test your memory. Ayala came to tell me that you confiscated her gnome."

"I don't care how upset your girlfriend was about it! She knows she's supposed to bring things like that to me first! And why'd you let her bring the blighted thing back with her anyway?"

Solas shook his head slightly in a gesture Cullen recognized to mean the apostate had no intention of listening to a word he was saying.

Where is that damn gnome now that it could have a use. I might not be able to hit the Inquisitor with it, but I could absolutely throw it at him...

"Finished, Commander?"

Cullen glared in response.

"Good. While I care little, for the record, I did not 'let' Ayala bring anything back here. She was with Sera, Blackwall, and the Enchanter at the time, and my understanding is they were too busy antagonizing each other to notice that Ayala had gone off into a secret passage on her own. However how the gnome got to Skyhold is unimportant. Where the artefact is now is."

"I don't know. I must have tossed it in one of the piles of junk," Cullen threw his arm around his office to indicate all the random items Ayala had dragged back to Skyhold, while Solas had been 'supervising' her, "Your girlfriend whose name you're afraid to say to her face dragged back here."

Cullen thought one of Solas' eyebrows may have twitched at that.

Good. At least he's getting just as annoyed about this as I am!

"Let us keep any interaction between us to a minimum, Commander. Where is the gnome now."

"I don't know, I can't find it, but I also can't be expected to keep track-"

Solas sighed, looked at the ceiling (or at least as much of the ceiling that existed in Cullen's office), and cut him off, "Very well, Commander. However, as you cannot locate it, can you tell me this - had Ayala put the gnome in the garden before you confiscated it?"

"I -" Cullen thought back for a second. "Yes."

Solas pursed his lips. "Unfortunate. And these blood drops by your desk, they were not caused by the gnome by any chance, were they?"

"I - what?" Cullen leaned over to where Solas was pointing. There wasn't a lot of blood, but it was fresh, and Cullen didn't think it had been there before Jim started playing with the stupid gnome.

Cullen didn't answer Solas, but the man saw through his silence. "That is even more unfortunate, Commander."

"Why? Just what do you know about this Solas?"

"Well, I know nothing, I never saw the statue myself if you recall, however in my travels in the Fade I have heard rumors of-"

"GARRG BAR-RARGH!!" A gutteral cry interrupted whatever Solas was going to say.

They both snapped their gazes to Cullen's desk in time to see the gnome reach into the inkwell and smear paint on is face in a pattern that was reminiscent of Bull's vitaar.

"BA-RAR-RAR!!!" the gnome called as it picked up one of Cullen's quills and stabbed at his hand.

Fortunately, his armor was more than a match for his quill and the makeshift weapon snapped in half. The gnome seemed to be far less pleased than Cullen at the development and reacted by trying to bite his finger. He snatched gnome and threw it at the nearest wall (the fact that Solas' head was in a direct path to the nearest wall was just a random fringe benefit of the action). Unfortunately, Solas ducked out of the way and the gnome was launched outside Cullen's office without taking any of the apostate with it.

"GAR-Rah-argggh!!!!" it called as it landed and turned to scurry away.

"Let me guess - the statue is cursed and will come to life if its removed from its garden and exposed to blood?"

"Not exactly, Commander. The statue is cursed, however it does not need blood to come to life. That happens if it is forcibly removed from a garden in which it has been placed if the proper precautions are not taken. The blood allows it to increase its numbers. The more blood it finds, the more of these we will have to deal with. And the more bleeding injuries they could cause. I'm sure you can understand the vicious circle that represents."

"If we survive this, Solas - your girlfriend is in quite a LOT of trouble."

"Technically, Commander, she didn't cause any of this. You were, after all, the one who removed the gnome from the garden."

"Have I mentioned lately how much I don't like you?"

[charlatron]

Cullen x Trevelyan

PTSD Warning

I was inspired by @jellysharkbat 's recent ask, answered [here], to write a little drabble about the first time Olivia faced Cullen's PTSD head on (cause I really didn't cover this enough in Helter Skelter).

[Word Count: 848]

“What the fuck was all that about?” Olivia managed to slip into his office before he slammed the door shut, having literally chased him all the way from the training grounds after he’d snapped at and scared the shit out of some new recruits.

Cullen kept his back to her, the knuckles of one clenched fist resting on the cluttered surface of his desk. “You were right,” his voice sounded parched as though he hadn’t had a drink in days, “us being together is a bad idea and I shouldn’t have pushed for it.”

That didn’t sound like Cullen at all. 

She stared at his back, one hand resting on her cocked hip. “You mean to tell me that after spending the last few months persistently trying to engage me in a relationship, you’ve now decided - quite literally days after I agreed - that you’re no longer interested?”

“It’s for the best.” Cullen groaned as he took a shaky step towards his window. “You deserve better - the things I’ve done...”

Typically she’d excuse herself whenever he was triggering like this, convincing herself it was necessary to give him space... but she knew that was a lie. She just didn’t feel qualified to deal with such a significant personal issue, nor did she want to admit she cared enough to be concerned about him in the first place - unfeeling, self-centred whore that she was. 

Not any more she decided, closing the distance between them and touching a tender hand to his shoulder. “Cullen, we’ve already talked about -”

“Don’t touch me!” He snarled, recoiling angrily from the contact. “You didn’t see the consequences of my decisions - the horrors that came to pass because of my inaction!”

“Nor do I need to.” She firmly declared. “We have all done things we regret - mistakes we wish we could change - but obsessing over such thoughts helps literally no one. I’m not saying you need to forgive yourself, but perhaps instead of uselessly wishing you’d have done things differently, you could actually acknowledge how far you’ve come.”

Olivia took a few calming breaths, afraid she was beginning to sound like a clucking mother hen; though the helpless look of woe on his face suggested her words were falling on deaf ears. “Look at what this is doing to you; how heavily your regrets weigh on your conscience. You are no longer that frightened, misguided templar.”

She’d heard the rumours of his past long before he’d corroborated them himself - through snippets of pillow talk, mostly. He never downplayed any of it, taking full responsibility - too much, perhaps - for his actions and lack thereof. She continued to hold her tongue, watching him intently until the deep crease in his brow began to soften. 

“I know you, Cullen,” she spoke softly, taking a tentative step closer, “I know that you are a good man with a kind heart. And I know that it’s easier said than done but please, promise me you won’t give up on yourself. Thedas needs you, the Inquisition needs you… I need you.” 

She cautiously reached out to him, touching just the back of his knuckle with the pad of her thumb. When he didn’t flinch or pull away, she slowly laced their fingers together and brought the back of his hand to her lips. “I believe in you, as does everyone else under your command.”

Cullen took a deep breath, the closeness of his slow exhale making her hair flutter. “You understand this will always be a part of who I am, and that I won’t always be so amenable to reason - not even from you?”

“I’m aware.” She smiled sadly, unlacing their fingers to press his palm to her chest; hoping the steady beat of her heart would add sincerity to her words. “It changes nothing.”

He pulled her closer with a hand on the nape of her neck, touching his forehead to hers. “I do not deserve you.”

“No, you don’t,” she readily agreed, “you deserve someone far less complicated with a much warmer heart.”

Cullen huffed. “Your heart is far warmer than you would have people believe.”

“You think you have me all figured out, don’t you.” She wound her arms around his neck, tilting her head to scrutinize the look of smug certainty on his face.

“I know you, Trevelyan,” he confidently proclaimed, parroting back her earlier words.

Cullen’s arms enveloped her as she pressed her cheek to his chest, both of them taking a long moment to bask in the others comforting presence.

“I should get back to work,” he eventually spoke, pressing an affectionate kiss to the top of her head.

“Okay,” she reluctantly agreed, “fuck you later - pardon me!” she dramatically gasped, pressing a theatrical hand to her chest, “obviously I meant see you later.”

“Oh, obviously,” Cullen sarcastically agreed, rewarding her with a rather dreamy asymmetrical smirk.

She lifted herself on to her tiptoes, swaying clumsily as she engaged him in a slow indulgent kiss. But she knew he’d never let her fall, and she unexpectedly found herself hoping he thought the same of her.

[another-rogue-trevelyan]

Sometimes I think about Cullen trying to question the ladies in the Blooming Rose and giggle