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“No.”
“There’s not another option.”
“I don’t care. No. Find another way.”
“There’s not another way.”
Cullen shook his head and took few steps away from the table, arms folded across chest, “There’s always another way.”
“Can you think of one?”
They’d been arguing for hours now. He and Cassandra, he and Leliana, Cassandra and Leliana, and Josephine doing her best to keep the three of them from killing each other. It was about the group of apostates that kept terrorizing their perimeters…mostly with fire and the occasional mine. People had been hurt. People had been killed.
“We have to appease them if we’re going to live peacefully,” Josephine pointed out, “at this rate we’ll have a raid a week and we don’t have the numbers to withstand that.”
Cullen shook his head. She was right, of course. Josephine was always right when it came to that, but Cullen wanted to pretend that he and his men could flush them out and make the attacks stop. As it was they’d already skirmished with them three times and it was starting to wear thin. Even still, what they were considering wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be.
“I’m not sending anyone to them as a…as a…”
“An agent?” Leliana offered.
“Sacrifice!” Cullen exclaimed, “these are our people and you know it!”
“You’re the first one to suggest we go in with guns blazing, and now you want to split hairs on what’s a sacrifice and what’s not?”
“That’s hardly fair and you know it,” Cullen argued and pointed a finger at both Leliana and Cassandra, “I will not send one of my men in there like that, so you can forget it.”
“Then you can come up with a better way to solve this,” Cassandra snapped and pushed the table just hard enough that it scraped against the concrete floor toward Cullen, “since you know everything.”
–
“Keep staring and your face will freeze that way,” Dorian teased lightly as he brought over a mug of something steaming. Coffee. Coffee that was dark and bitter but still sweet with some of their sugar rations. Dorian always put half of his in with Cullen’s so they could take their coffee the way they liked it. Small gestures, really, and they were always ones Cullen appreciated.
He didn’t really make any sound to indicate he’d heard, though, and just tucked one leg up on the couch so he could wind his arms around it. His mind was working hard, whirling over options and probability and outcomes and-
“Dorian to Cullen,” Dorian prompted as he waved a hand in front of the blond’s face, “come in. Are you with me?”
Cullen startled a bit, tipped his face back to look up at Dorian who was wearing a rather concerned expression, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m… I’m with you,” he answered, and reached for the coffee, “thanks for the coffee.”
Gunmetal eyes studied Cullen for another moment before Dorian dropped himself on the couch and reached out a hand to rest on Cullen’s thigh, “want to talk about it?” he asked, “I heard a rumor there was shouting in the Chantry hall earlier.”
Fucking rumors. They got around faster than the flu or a cold when the weather turned. Actually, rumors were probably the only thing to spread faster than sickness. For Dorian to have heard about that already? Maker help them, how loud had they been yelling? Not that it mattered. Cullen was going to find a solution. Cassandra and Leliana were so free with their brand of justice, and it often left Cullen in the dust. All he’d ever wanted to do was the right thing and help people, after all, and not try to justify killing any more people than necessary.
“The apostates sent an ultimatum,” he answered after a long moment, then sipped from the coffee. It at least made his brain feel a bit more like it was awake. He needed that for the moment.”
Dorian cocked an eyebrow at that. The last few months had been punctuated with slap fights between them and Haven’s small militia, but for them to pull such a stunt now seemed…odd. “What did they say?” he asked and squeezed at Cullen’s leg.
He sighed, sipped his coffee again, and leaned back against the couch with it balanced against his chest. “They said they wanted people from us. A compromise. Or…Maker help us,” Cullen sighed and lifted one hand to run over his forehead and then to the back of his neck.
“Bad?”
Cullen nodded and took another few deep drinks from the coffee. It burnt his mouth, made tears sting at the corners of his eyes, but he swallowed it down before he set the cup on the table and moved so his head was in Dorian’s lap. The other man set immediately to pulling the rubber band from his hair to release his blond curls, and Dorian’s fingers scratched and rubbed at Cullen’s scalp. It helped the headache that had been brewing since the afternoon, like those fingers always did, and Cullen rolled over so his face was buried in Dorian’s stomach.
“Let’s go to bed, then,” Dorian offered. He always seemed to know when Cullen needed something, most of the time long before Cullen did, and right now he wanted to be somewhere comfortable where this decision didn’t matter.
The morning was a better time to make decisions anyway. Trying to figure things out in the dead of night was always an exercise in futility. It was the darkness, Cullen was convinced, and it made you pick terrible options. He wouldn’t do that. He’d rather empty his head and then attack it come the morning. Dorian, it seemed, knew that too.
–
The news had come down to him just after Cullen had finished checking over the defense posts . He’d been doing his sign off when he’d heard a few people talking in passing who’d come from the direction of the Chantry. At first he thought he’d heard wrong. Surely…surely that was just the rumors. There were always a hundred iterations of any news within the first hour. Always.
That didn’t stop him from stomping down to the Chantry Hall and demanding to know what was going on, however.
The answer he got? It wasn’t what he wanted. Maker damn it, this was hisdecision. Not anyone else’s!
Strong hands tangled in a red and black, tatty flannel shirt and Cullen picked Dorian up nearly by the collar to slam his back against the wall. The slightly smaller man’s hands were up, a sign of surrender as Cullen stared into his eyes, and he kicked just a little at him. He was saying something, telling Cullen to get off him, but he hardly heard any of it.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Cullen demanded.
“It’s the best option!”
“You going anywhere near this is not the best option!”
A hand grabbed at Cullen’s shoulder, Cassandra, and he bit back a snarl as she tried to pull him off Dorian, “He’s right, Cullen. You know he’s right.”
“Stay out of this!” Cullen snapped over his shoulder before he turned back to Dorian, “and you are not walking into a hostile situation. Do you understand me?”
“Let me down, you oaf!” Dorian complained as he landed a kick, though not one hard enough to do more than bruise, and pushed at Cullen’s chest.
Cullen set his jaw, hands still tangled in Dorian’s shirt, but he stepped away and let Dorian drop back down to his feet. Both hands scrubbed over his face, through his hair, and Cullen took a few deep breaths, “Someone explain this to me. Now.”
“I can figure out what they’re doing,” Dorian answered, tone matter-of-fact, and he smoothed at his mustache with one hand, “and I can rig the place before ducking out.”
“Which is a better option to trying to shoot his way out,” Cassandra pointed out.
“And if they figure out you’re not…you’re not there on actual goodwill?” Cullen asked, “Or, Maker forbid, they just kill you?”
“They want to know what defenses we have,” Dorian answered, “and we want to know theirs. They’re not going to kill me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know I’m the best one suited to trap the place,” Dorian pointed out, “anyone else would cock it up, and you know that.”
He was right. Maker take him, Dorian was right. The man was a genius when it came to weaponry like that, but that didn’t mean Cullen wanted to hand him over without another thought. He couldn’t. How could anyone expect him to just let his… his lover walk into something like that? Would he ever ask Cassandra to do the same? Leliana? Anyone?
If they were the most qualified.
And it killed him that he knew that. Calculated risks. Sacrifices. They were all expected to make them when it was necessary. Cullen wasn’t exempt, and neither was Dorian. Not that it made it any easier. Nothing would make this easier.
“You’re taking people with you,” Cullen told him through gritted teeth, “good people. People who’ll keep you safe. No arguments.”
At that, Dorian clicked his heels together and mock saluted, bowing a bit as he did so, “Yes, Commander!” he shouted in a rather mocking tone.
Maker help him.
–
“Your feet are freezing!”
“I’m warming them up, calm down,” Dorian chuckled and wound his arms around Cullen’s torso so he could bury his face in against the other man’s spine.
They were pressed together from chest to feet, tangled together and gloriously naked, with warm blankets piled on. Cullen rolled over so he could gather Dorian into his arms, and he buried his face in that coal black hair so he could breathe in his scent. It was only hours until he had to… until Dorian planned to leave. There was the thought to not let him go. He’d squared with the necessity of the situation, sure, but Cullen wanted nothing more than to hold Dorian close and make sure nothing happened to him.
Out there, what Dorian was planning on doing, Cullen couldn’t protect him. Not that Dorian needed it. The man was more capable than people, including himself, gave him credit for. That was half the reason Cullen liked having Dorian with him when he went out, actually. Yes, because he liked having that closeness and someone he could trust, but it didn’t hurt that Dorian was a good person to have as backup.
They were quiet for a while. The only sound was them breathing and the sputtering of the candles Dorian always lit before bed. Sure, they added ambiance to their lovemaking, but Cullen knew they also chased away some of the more painful demons that hid in the dark.
Maker, what if they made Dorian sleep in the dark?
Cullen held Dorian that much tighter and buried his face in against the other man’s neck, “You know you can still walk away from this,” he murmured, “no one would blame you.”
“Yes they would,” Dorian pointed out, though it was muffled against Cullen’s chest.
“It’s a suicide mission,” Cullen told him, “they’re not going to just take you in. You know they won’t.”
“Cullen-”
“They’ll kill you, Dorian!”
One hand lifted and Dorian cupped Cullen’s face so they were pressed forehead to forehead. Grey eyes stared into amber ones and Dorian stayed quiet until Cullen actually looked at him. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
“What?”
“Answer me: do you trust me?””
A breath. Then Cullen sighed, “with my life. You know that.”
“So trust me.”
So he did.
–
He’d trusted Dorian. He’d trusted him for a solid two months with no word. He’d trusted him with a keen eyes toward the apostate camp every time he did the perimeter rounds. He’d trusted him every time he went to bed and said a prayer to the Maker that, just this once, Dorian would come back safely.
Cullen had trusted him up to the point that an explosion rocked the valley. It was big enough that the shocks went through Haven. He’d bolted upright from bed, pulled on the first clothes that were to hand, and stumbled out of the house. His boys were already shouting instructions to the civilians and one of the alarms was going off to the east.
Toward the apostate camp.
He’d trusted Dorian up to that point, but he felt his heart drop to his feet and lower. He’d trusted him. He’d tried to.
Maker, he’d tried.
And he’d trusted him through the night while they settled everyone and sent a compliment to investigate. Cullen trusted Dorian through the commotion, through the stress, and through the waiting. He trusted him.
He trusted him up until one of his guys walked up the road, a man hanging on his shoulders, and Cullen saw him. He trusted him until he saw the blood.
Cullen trusted him until Dorian woke up in the clinic.
“You’re an idiot.”
Were he able, Dorian would have chuckled. He’d been asleep for almost three days, all of which Cullen had been present for. The man was sporting a broken arm and burns all down his left side, but he was alive. Very broken, and very stupid, but very alive. That was all Cullen could have asked for, considering the options, but he didn’t have to like it.
But he trusted him.