“Everyone’s accounted for.” Bull folds the note distractedly, half-crumpling the scrap of parchment as he does so and places it on Cullen’s desk. “They’re inbound, three days out.”
“That’s good news,” Cullen offers quietly. He means it, but he’s down to the dregs, and there’s no spare thread of energy for enthusiasm. The Chargers have been running interference for the convoys returning from the Arbor Wilds, and bands of Red Templars are still on the road. But he’s been writing reports for the reserve units since daybreak, and the Inquisitor has brought notes on Samson’s questioning, and he can’t recall his last meal except that it was handed to him over a cookfire tended by a chevalier and one of those unsettling elf scouts. It’s been a challenging week, to say the least. And Bull…
Bull has been struggling.
Cullen knew when he reached Skyhold, after that single horrific night of crawling dread before the raven had arrived, and the hell-bent five days’ ride that followed. Bull had been waiting for him on the bridge, crushing Cullen to breathlessness in his arms right there in the crowded gatehouse, as though -he’d- been the one briefly presumed dead.
Bull had been rough with him that night, almost…distracted, single-minded in his need to touch and grasp as if he’d have crawled inside Cullen if he could.
“I’ll want the Chargers garrisoned here until further notice,” Cullen continues, mildly. “Wherever the Elder One makes his stand, we’ll need level-headed men defending this place.”
“Yeah.” Bull is at the bookcase, pushing the spines of each volume until they’re flush with the wall, one by one. His hand drops, and his fingertips catch the edge of the shelf with a soft, heavy sound. “Hey, kadan…” He pauses, swallows audibly. “You remember, in Emprise…” Cullen hlances up, but Bull shakes his head in punctuation. “Nah. It’s stupid.” His fingernails bite into the bookshelf. “I’m stupid. Forget it.”
Cullen remembers many things about that trip, most of them unpleasant. He forces a smile, picking up his penknife to sharpen a quill. “If you’re fishing for compliments about three dragons in one week, you’re going about it all—“
“I beg your pardon? Cullen blinks, too surprised to be annoyed, raising his eyebrows as the knife and quill hover.
“Now’s the time for you to grow a sense of humor. Shitting forbid I’m the one for a change wh…” Bull rounds on him with a hot glare, then stutters into silence. His expression wavers after a moment, brow pulling into something softer, sadder, and he looks away with a frustrated sound. “Damn it.”
Cullen pushes back from his desk, chest feeling hollow. “Bull…”
“I’m sorry…” Bull digs the heels of his hands into his temples, gripping the base of his horns as he swivels away. “I…you know I haven’t slept.”
“I keep…thinking about that fucking mirror. And the witch wants us to go through ANOTHER one tomorrow—“
“You don’t have to, Bull. Let one of the others—“
“You think I’m letting the Boss out of my sight for one hot second?”
Cullen catches up with him at the ladder. “No. No, of course not…” The qunari’s skin is never as cold as it looks, but Cullen can’t help himself from placing a palm on his hunched shoulder and rubbing softly. “I understand.”
“Fucking demons, with agendas! And now fucking elf magic mirrors and fuck knows what else out there. If Corypheus was pissed before he’s shitting goddamn fire now, and my boys are on the road, and….” He swallows audibly, shuddering under Cullen’s hand.
“Bull, here,” Cullen mumurs, turning him from the ladder and reaching for his hands. “It’s going to be all right. We’ve all been through too much in a short time, and—you’re tired, Bull. All of this will seem less after you’ve rested.”
Bull sighed, and Cullen is jarred by the waver in it. “Every time I close my eyes I see a mirror, a rift, and then the Fade, what it was -like- and…I don’t know what that means…” He bows his head, pulling his hands free of Cullen’s only to hold them awkwardly in front of him. “Is this it? Am I finally losing it?”
Cullen can feel his face drain and his heart thuds hard against his breastbone. “Oh…Bull…” He reaches for Bull’s face, feeling the tightness of his jaw inder his fingertips. “No, love. No.” Cullen aches urgently to kiss him, to hold him, to banish the twisted wreck of memory plaguing his lover. “I told you, I will -always- keep you here.”
Bull turns. Just a little, and slides his lips against Cullen’s palm. “Will you do it now?”
They’ve only done this a few times. The last, after the demon Imshael had left Bull second-guessing every face he recognized.
Bull has old ropes. The first he’d ever shown Cullen. Red dye faded, and overstretched. It’s all right for this. In Bull’s dark room — their room — Cullen carefully constructs the tie Bull showed him long ago, back when they were beginning. The simple, elementary two-column tie is loose enough that it could be slipped with moderate effort. But that’s all right, too.
For every time Bull has sunk to his knees on the piled blankets at the foot of the bed, bound arms settled atound Cullen’s waist, Cullen can think of ten times he’s been the one willing himself to Bull’s ropes. The soft, almost pained sound Bull makes as Cullen slides his eyepatch away reminds him this is not the same. As if Cullen needs the reminder.
There’s always an instant whenever he cradles Bull’s head that he feels like he’s gentling some great beast, a massive and terrifying creature. But then it’s only Bull, his good eye pressed shut into in the crook of Cullen’s arm. The ropes hook at his hip as Bull tests them, the movement pressing him further between Cullen’s knees.
“There now….” Cullen curves a hand around the side of Bull’s neck, thumb stroking across this thundering pulse, and Bull murmurs something that might be Qunlat, but it’s too muffled to make out. “Hush, love. Its time to be still.”
And Bull is. Cullen can feel the man’s bulk begin to lean more heavily as Cullen strokes his shoulder, his neck, softly trails fingers across his cheekbone as he whispers soft, silly things. Endearments unbefitting of a general or a giant. He rubs the path of the eyepatch strap under his ear, the callused points on his brow where the boiled leather has rubbed the scars. And when Bull’s shoulders stiffen and he burrows closer, Cullen begins to scratch the base of his horns and hum the first Chantry hymn that comes to mind because he knows no Tamassran ever did that.
An ache begins to glow between his shoulders after a while perched on the edge of the bed. He is exhausted himself, and there is still so much to do. But Bull’s breathing is a slow, even heat blooming through the fabric of his shirt where his face rests. Every few minutes his arms flex, the faintest strain like high branches, then his hands curl softly and he is quiet again. And so Cullen continues to hold Bull there, however long it takes to bring him back to himself. To bring Bull back to him.
