A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

Unbelievable

25 Harvestmere, 9:41

Cullen leaned on the wall of the battlement, looking up into the night sky. It was cold up here, but he was Fereldan—cold didn't bother him much. And tonight, nothing could bother him at all. He could almost feel the warmth of Antonia's body on the wall, the same one she had been leaning against earlier today.

If he closed his eyes, he could still taste her kiss, still feel her small calloused hand on his face, still smell the scent of the soap she used, a mix of rosemary and embrium the gardener made especially for her. Just for a moment, he let himself relive it, feeling the warmth rising within him all over again.

He hadn't expected her to come into his office today—usually the day before she left for an expedition, she was constantly in motion making plans. The most he saw of her on those days was if she needed a map or other guidance on her destination, and in the daily War Room meeting. He had been completely unprepared for her to appear, much less for her to ask to speak to him alone.

Which was what had led him to make the nearly disastrous choice of the battlement as a place to be alone. In retrospect, he should have just kicked everyone out of his office, but it had never occurred to him; with her in front of him, watching him with those bright brown eyes, he'd been lucky he hadn't suggested the main hall.

Not that it had ended badly at all. After the interrupted kiss, what had followed had been ... wonderful. Amazing. Unbelievable. Antonia had fit as perfectly into his arms as he had imagined she might. And she kissed like—a desire demon, whispered an old, old voice in his head. Cullen closed his eyes again, fighting against the automatic constriction of his muscles. He hated that voice, the one that couldn't let Ferelden's Circle go, the one that always made him doubt himself and everyone around him.

Holding his breath and letting it out again, he looked up at the stars, tracing the edges of the constellations, holding on to their sameness. They were his anchor on the long nights when the need for the lyrium kept him awake, pacing these same battlements over and over again, checking in with his men on watch.

Inevitably, his thoughts turned back to her, and to those kisses. It had been a long time since he'd been with anyone—the last time had been with an energetic and lonely Lowtown widow who owned a tailoring shop, several weeks before the destruction of Kirkwall's Chantry and the ensuing chaos. In the weeks after the Chantry exploded, there had been no time and certainly no inclination, and when he joined the Inquisition as its commander, he had made the decision to put all that aside as long as was necessary in favor of the work before him. Not just because of the work, but because Haven was very small. There would have been no opportunity without opening himself up to vulnerabilities that were not in keeping with his position.

Additionally, Cullen was concerned about the effect having given up the lyrium would have. Even with lyrium, it had been difficult for him to allow himself to be touched without thinking of the demons in the tower; he generally preferred to give pleasure rather than receive it because of that, and without lyrium he imagined the effort of keeping his focus on the present in an intimate situation would be much more difficult than he was used to.

And he certainly had not been looking for ... emotion. Once upon a time, back in the Circle, before—everything happened, he had been young, idealistic, wishing for that connection. He had even imagined himself in love once, but that had ended badly. Afterward ... he hadn't particularly wanted to open himself up to that kind of vulnerability again, and hadn't been sure he could trust it if he did. He still wasn't sure how much he could trust, as much as he wanted to.

Then, just as he had been settling in to a routine in Haven, one defined by work ... Antonia fell out of the sky. At first, his concern had been for her comfort—she had been so frightened and unsure of herself to begin with, he had wanted to make her feel better. But he had enjoyed their conversations more than he had initially thought he might, and he had come to admire her courage in the face of a situation in which a lesser woman would have given up.