#halise

“I do listen to Mumford & Sons,” he spat back, his eyes refusing to release him from the torment of his own reflection. The impish elf’s signature scoff and chortle were all the reply he needed to know what she thought of that.

“If you’re not coming out, I’m gonna come in there and drag you out,” Halise warned. “We’re going to be late if we have to wait much longer for you to come to terms with your douchier side.”

A heavy sigh pushed its way out of Cullen’s chest as he squared his shoulders. If he was going out there like that, he would damn sure own it. He turned and opened the bathroom door. Sera narrowly avoided tumbling through when it swung inward, but she caught herself before hitting the floor. Pity, that. Another raucous chortle rose up from her when she looked him up and down as he passed her by, but his eyes were locked on Halise.

He was almost instantly transported back to the day they first met. She wore the very same blue beanie over her loose red curls, accented by similar glasses to the ones he wore. They reminded him of the oversized sunglasses that had blocked his view of her stunning eyes. A loose sky blue shirt with a picture of Audrey Hepburn from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” billowed around her, the wide, scooped neck giving him the slightest peak at her pale cleavage. Skinny jeans and black and white Converse rounded out her trousseau. No bare feet. He actually felt a strange kind of longing to see her duo-chromatic toes. They’d been a constant presence in their tumultuous history. But they were caged away from his view behind cloth, rubber, and shoelaces. In an odd way, it made him feel as though her personality had been hidden away from view alongside them.

That was, until he looked back up to see her lips pressed together and nostrils flared, her shoulders rising and falling heavily as she tried desperately to suppress the grin working away at the corners of her mouth. There she was. Her bright eyes passed over him, a nod of approval bobbing her head as she chewed on the inside of her lip. “I hate to say you look good because I know you’ll never wear this stuff again and I quite frankly hope you don’t, but you look very good,” she purred.

Her tone and the look in her eye shot heat through his body like a lightning bolt. Despite feeling foolish in his state of dress, had Sera not been there and had they not had a meeting to go to, he might have taken her right there. He would have swept her off of her feet, ripped those jeans off, and rutted her into the Maker forsaken wall. Another heavy sigh rattled out of him. This was not the time to be thinking about such things. They did have a meeting to go to, and Sera was there. His hand crept up the back of his neck, feeling a flush rise up his cheeks at the inappropriateness of his thoughts. “T-Thank you, I suppose,” he replied.

Halise arched an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curling under it as though they were both being pulled up by the same string. Cullen smiled back a bit self-consciously, causing her to cock her head at him. The moment between them was shattered by Sera’s brash voice. “Yeah, yeah, everyone looks good, now can we please go?” She passed by him, very intentionally bumping into him with her yellow plaid covered shoulder before casting a wide smile back at him and sticking her tongue out. He chuckled, following her and Halise, and unabashedly watching his girlfriend’s backside as they left the building.

He drove them to the Three Trout Bar, watching his rearview mirror to an almost obsessive degree. They would not be ambushed or attacked again. He knew Sera was still armed, but he’d also stowed a 9 mm handgun in his glove compartment that he planned to slip into his waistband before they went inside. He had a concealed carry permit—easier to get after being a Templar—but he’d never felt he needed it until then. For years he’d really just worried that he might use the gun in a fit of anxiety or one of his withdrawal-induced hallucinations. But in that moment, there were very real dangers that they may have been walking right into.

Halise braided her hair over her shoulder on the ride to the bar. She said it would make her less recognizable, but Cullen thought the outfit and fake glasses would have done that well enough. Still, the long braid cascading down her arm did have a certain charm about it, though she was right, it was very unlike her. She was wild and unbound. Even when her hair was gathered into a ponytail, her curls flowed about freely, their riotous brilliance undeterred by the single tiny binding. The string of knots forming the braid locked all that away from the world. Another piece of her obscured.

When they arrived at the Three Trout, Cullen sought out a parking spot in full view of the entire interior. He rounded the block several times before a woman moved her gargantuan minivan out of the parking space directly in front of the bar. Once parked, he leaned over Halise a bit, opening the glove compartment and stuffing the black handgun into his waistband behind his back. She cast him a worried glance while Sera barked something about being glad she wasn’t going to be the only one armed. He did his best to reassure her with his eyes and a soft touch on her forearm, though it clearly did little to accomplish his goal. They exited the vehicle in near silence, entering the bar as warily as they could without attracting attention.

From the moment they walked in, all he wanted to do was walk right back out. The obvious sense of pseudo-individualism and entitlement was overwhelming. It made itself plain in the aggressively mismatched bar stools, the haphazardly repurposed Maker-knew-what the owner intended to pass off as tables and chairs, and the sloppily written chalkboard drink menu behind the bar. As a group, he, Halise, and Sera made their way to the bar—dirty, unfinished wood, of course—with Sera elbowing some oaf with a man bun out of their way just enough to order from the selection of pompously named drinks. Who’s impractical mind thought of the names for them, anyway? “Get Hissing Wasted,” “Blades of Hess-Ale-Rian,” “The Ferelden Frostback.” Insipid and feckless.

“These drink names are fucking stupid,” Halise whispered as she turned away from the bar to face him. Mind reader.

Cullen smiled down at her, gratified to be on the receiving end of the little turn of her lips. Her eyes left his, scanning the room behind him while he watched his SUV out window. Every time someone walked by, which was all too frequently in this neighborhood filled with phony environmentalists who refused to drive, he held his breath. His body was ready to spring into action at any moment, taking down anyone who meant to do them harm by whatever means necessary.

“Do you think that’s him?” Halise murmured to Sera, who pivoted then to look at whoever the redhead was referring to.

“Fantastic fucking mustache, that!” the blonde elf quietly exclaimed. “He’s lookin’ at you. And at me. And at Cullen. And at the door. Bet you’re right. I’ll go see.”

Cullen turned—his hand in his back pocket, close to the gun—to watch Sera approach a sturdy looking gentleman in his mid-thirties with what was indeed a rather impressive horseshoe mustache. She leaned over with her hand on the waistband of her jeans, speaking quietly to the man before flicking a finger at Halise and Cullen to join them.

Trepidation welled up in his gut with every step toward the mustachioed man. Mercifully, the seat that faced the door was left unoccupied, allowing Cullen to slip in and watch his car whilst maintaining his ability to see their mysterious informant. Halise sat beside him, across from the man, with Sera on her other side.

“Ms. Lavellan, I presume?” the man asked. His accent sounded somewhat Orlesian but had a slight unidentifiable tinge to it.

Halise nodded. “Stroud?”

He nodded in return. “So this must be Mr. Rutherford and Sera…I’m sorry I couldn’t find your last name anyw—”

“Just Sera,” she clipped. Her blue eyes bored into the man next to her.

“Alright,” he said, his tone placating and passive. “I must apologize for the rather…clandestine nature of this meeting, and for my vagueness on our call, Ms. Lavellan. I’m afraid I’ve been targeted in an internal investigation by the FBI Wardens. An investigation which could only have sprung from false accusations made by one Warden in particular.”

Cullen’s eyes shot to his still undisturbed SUV, then to Halise, then back to Stroud. “If you’re under investigation,” she began, “why should we trust whatever it is you have to tell us?”

“I understand your hesitation, but this one Warden to whom I am referring…Well, to put it plainly, I believe he has ties to the Magisterium, and that he targeted me when he found out I was looking into him.” Stroud sighed through his nose, sparing a glance toward Cullen, who just leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. Was the man name dropping the notorious Tevinter cartel to cast off suspicion, or was he telling the truth?

He watched Halise’s methodical gaze slice right through Stroud, feeling a little overly satisfied at the way it so clearly unnerved him. “Okay, say I believe you, and there’s a Magister plant in the Wardens who’s trying to frame you for Mythal-knows-what, what does that have to do with the Corypheus case?” Her fingers laced together under her chin, her intelligent eyes never leaving the Warden.

Cullen was proud of her. He felt it so powerfully in that moment, it was undeniable. He knew she was exhausted, that fear likely sat very close to the forefront of her mind, but there she was, staring down a man she knew would be armed and suspected might harm her. Her face was the picture of perceptive serenity, body language unafraid and imposing. She was unstoppable.

“This Warden is pretending to run Archdemon as a confidential informant.”

It was as if all the air vanished from the bar in that instant. Every sound was silence, every breath a struggle in a vacuum. “There is a Warden…” Halise paused in her disbelief, “who knows who Archdemon is. And he’s pretending to run him as a CI?” Stroud nodded somberly. “And he didn’t bother to stop his C-fucking-I from blowing me to the Void?!” She leaned halfway across the table, and might have sprung the whole length if Sera’s arm hadn’t shot out to stop her momentum.

“You can see, Ms. Lavellan, why I had to speak to you about this in person, and why it couldn’t be at your office.” It wasn’t a question.

Cullen heard the long, shaky breath shudder out of Halise, and saw the thick swallow roll down her throat. He knew firsthand that composure and rational thought could be difficult things to regain when shocked and incensed. But he watched her expression shift, watched her lips come together once more, watched her eyes regain their focused determination.

“Is it safe to assume you have proof of all these accusations?” Stroud nodded again. “Then why haven’t you given it to your boss?”

“The Warden in charge of our office, Assistant Director Clarel, insists she’s following protocol in the investigation against me by not accepting any ‘retaliatory’ accusations or evidence. But I suspect the Magister, Warden Livius Erimond, has something over on her. I’ve checked our policy manual, and there’s nothing in it about retaliatory evidence. I’ve also tried to go over her head, but I either hear nothing for weeks or get a voicemail left on my machine after hours about following the chain of command. I’m getting nowhere.”

“And what about taking your evidence to the Ferelden Attorney General’s Office?” Cullen finally chimed in. There had to be some reason he was seeking out their help.

“Honestly,” Stroud started as he placed a large folder on the table, “I thought, given what happened, you might want to talk to Erimond first. See if he’s willing to give up Archdemon for your case against Corypheus once he sees this mountain of evidence. Maybe he’ll drop his allegations and I can get back to work in the field.” His hand sat atop the file, and he slid it back toward himself by the smallest margin, nearly making the three of them jump to grab it. “If you prefer, however, I can take it to the AG’s Office. But if I do that, I can’t guarantee Archdemon’s identity won’t remain sealed as a CI, or that you’ll have any access to him once the AGs get their hands on him.”

“Trap,” Sera almost shouted, drawing stern glares from Halise and Cullen. “Something stinks. This sounds like a trap. How do we know you’re not playing us, and we meet this Eri-mouth or whatever, and he kills us? Up close and personal-like.”

Everyone turned to Stroud once more. “You should come to our headquarters at Adamant when he’s there—”

“Stupid name for a headquarters,” Sera interrupted.

“Confront him in his office while there are a hundred other Wardens around, myself included,” he concluded, unperturbed.

Halise turned to Cullen, and they shared another communicative look. Her viridescent eyes asked if he thought it was a good idea. Without a word, he told her the he worried it might be dangerous, but she should go with her gut. A tiny tilt of her head said there would be other Wardens there, and they might not get another opportunity to discover Archdemon’s identity. A slow blink and nod was Cullen’s answer.

Halise’s nimble fingers lifted the file from the table and found space for it in her too-large gray leather tote bag. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll come by next week, after we’ve dealt with the Mayor’s diplomatic event this weekend.” Maker’s breath. Cullen had almost forgotten about that. “I’ll call you to arrange a time.”

Without another word or gesture exchanged, Cullen, Halise, and Sera stood and left the table. Cullen experimentally pressed the button on his key to unlock his car, doing his best not to flinch when the headlights gave their chipper blink. Nothing happened. Nothing and no one exploded. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. They were safe. At least for the rest of the day.

*****

Halise sat alone on her sectional the night of the meeting, her exhausted eyes wandering over the contents of the file Stroud had given her—photocopies, phone records, and photographs. She’d practically begged Cullen to come home with her, but he rebuffed her. He had other urgent business to deal with before he went home. What urgent business could someone possibly have at almost eight o’clock on a weeknight? Sera, Dorian, and Iron Bull were likewise occupied, as was everyone else in her office, it seemed. Were they all out having fun without her?

No. The odds were just that everyone was genuinely busy. They all had lives to lead outside the office, after all.

It was probably for the best, though. She only managed to focus on the evidence for about half an hour before sleep weighed her eyelids down to an untenable degree. As she ambled off to bed, she prayed to the Creators and whoever else might be listening not to have a nightmare like the one she’d had the night before.

But no one was listening.

Screams rang out through the empty cell blocks of Denerim Central Jail. Halise ran barefoot through every floor, searching every locked cell and alcove for the source of the blood curdling screaming. The echoing emptiness of the cells bounced the screams into her ears a thousand times over, each one dissipating just in time for the next to begin, making it that much harder to follow them to their point of origin.

Finally, amidst the wails and roars, she managed to find a single unlocked door. She flung it open with a rusty squeak and darted inside only to find herself in an observation room. A single stool, a light switch, and a nearly wall-sized piece of thick glass were the room’s only occupants, their eerie silence almost as deafening as the bawls and bellows emanating from the other side of the glass. Halise’s eyes followed her ears, turning to see what she already knew would be there.

A thick pool of blood, both coagulated and fresh, spread across the floor of the interrogation room. Strong, bare feet and the metallic legs of a chair bore a stark contrast to the smooth, almost placid blood. Halise’s eyes traced up bare legs, noting the soft blonde hair that wisped over their surfaces. Next, she saw the man’s torso and arms, smattered in a myriad of scars, both healed and open, some gushing blood to feed the ever expanding pool below. His face—Cullen’s face—was bruised and broken. The scar she’d always seen as such an attractive feature sat open again, jagged and bloody, exposing his wounded gums and teeth below. His autumnal eyes were blackened, nearly swollen shut by the severity of his injuries. Blood matted down his golden blonde curls, leaving a grotesque texture she could almost smell and feel through the thick glass.

Around Cullen’s writhing, screaming, tortured body strode his captors. His torturers. His tormentors. Corypheus and Archdemon, their bodies hideously deformed and larger than life, swirled around Cullen. Haunting crystalline formations jutted out of their bodies at ghastly angles, rending their sallow flesh in tattered pieces. Corypheus’s body looked as if it had been stretched skyward, his midsection terrifyingly slim and bony. Archdemon’s sharpened smile gleamed beneath skin that had gone almost scaly, his frayed, ratty hoodie stretched and hanging from his arms like wings.

With claws and instruments they cut and tore at Cullen’s body, wresting horrifying, nauseating cries from him with every touch. Tears poured from Halise’s eyes, blurring her vision of the atrocities being committed against the man she’d loved for most of her adult life. Instinctively, she flicked the light switch upward, lighting up the space in a way she knew would let those in the interrogation room see her. All eyes watched her, wry smiles twisting the faces of those evil men. Their grins grew when Halise slammed the side of her fist into the glass and screamed. They continued their victimization and tyranny even as she lifted the steel stool and smashed it into the window. It bounced off, leaving nary a scratch in its wake. She kicked at the clear surface until she felt the bones in her feet break and splinter, though there was no pain for her. No pain for her, but pain immeasurable for the man she loved.

Halise ran with a limping gait to the door of the observation room only to find that it, too, had been locked. She was trapped. Forced to watch as pure evil and malice stole the joy she’d only found again so recently. In a final act of what may have been malevolence or mercy, Corypheus hauled Cullen’s chin up, exposing his neck, and slit his throat from ear to ear, splashing hot blood across the glass. The ichor obscured his death from her view, but she could hear his choked gurgling and final rattled breath even through her own deafening screams.

Her eyes flew open with a sharp gasp. The inky darkness of her bedroom and the thick, sweat-dampened blankets on her bed enveloped her. Tears streaked down her cheeks while choked sobs pulsed through her chest. Suffocating, she kicked the blankets away from her body, exposing her sweat-slicked skin to the cool, climate-controlled air. She rolled onto her side, curling into herself as guilt-grated whimpers eked out of her dry lips.

She thought about calling Cullen—confirming to her mind that he was alive and well halfway across town—but she couldn’t do that to him two nights in a row. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her shins, huddled her chin against her knees, and wallowed in the misery of her visions until dawn brightened the sky on the other side of her curtains.

Her morning routine was an exercise in weary determination. She would get through the day, no matter how sleep-deprived or shaken she was. She would get through her Fen-damned day.

The obviousness of her exhaustion was made plain once more on her arrival at the office. Everyone she passed remarked about how “tired” or “awful” she looked, which by no means helped her self-esteem. Still, they were right. She felt awful, and had very little doubt that she looked it.

Cullen wore his worry in the furrow of his brow, the downcast corners of his lips, and the consternation of his tone. “Maker’s breath, Halise, are you alright?” he asked, letting his hand rest on her shoulder.

“I’m…Um…I’m just tired. I’m fine,” she muttered, walking past him to get to her desk. His gentle touch slipped from her shoulder down her arm, and she caught his fingers with hers for a moment before letting go.

He followed after her, his three or four footsteps audibly hesitant. When Halise took a seat at her desk and tapped her voicemail button, her messages played over the speakerphone as she scrubbed her hands down her face. Thank Mythal I don’t have court today, she thought. A couple of people on her witness list left her messages agreeing to testify against Corypheus. Apparently, standing up to the dick-biscuit after he tried to blow her up had garnered her some street cred.

Cullen hadn’t moved. He looked down at her, helpless apprehensiveness obvious in his eyes. Halise sighed, feeling worse as she returned his gaze. “I had the stupid nightmare again,” she finally murmured in answer to the question he hadn’t needed to ask. Her tone betrayed the shame she felt in her admission. He’d been dealing with nightmares for so long, and she couldn’t even manage for two nights. What a weak person she was.

He rounded her desk, kneeling beside her and pulling her into his arms so quickly her vision blurred. “Why didn’t you call me?” his muffled voice said into her neck.

“I didn’t want to bother you with it two nights in a row,” she answered, the sting of imminent tears making her feel even weaker. She hated crying at work.

“You could never bother me, my love.” His arms tightened, his powerful fingers holding fast onto her biceps. “I want you to call me when you have a nightmare. I want you to lean on me. I’m here to support you, both as your second chair and as your boyfriend. You have to trust that I mean that in every way.”

Halise let her hand come to rest on the back of his neck. “I do,” she replied softly, a few small tears slipping free of her resolve. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. But will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will. I’m sorry I didn’t last night,” he said, pulling back just enough to see her face. He swiped a thumb across her cheek to wipe away the moisture there while he continued. “I had to buy a tux for the Mayor’s event. It’s been quite some time since I last wore one.”

A tired grin swept up her lips and squinted her eyes. “Why didn’t you have me come with you? I’m sure I could have helped.”

“I—uh—asked Dorian and some of the other men from the office to join me,” he answered, looking a bit sheepish. “I wanted it to be a surprise. Plus, as it turns out, almost everyone needed something to wear. We saw Sera with Leliana, Cassandra, and Josephine while we were at the mall.”

A single grunt of a laugh pushed its way out of Halise’s nose. “So you guys really were all having fun without me.”

Cullen scoffed, “Hardly. I hate shopping, especially for clothes. Dorian and Solas, much to my surprise, seemed to have the greatest fondness for the exercise. Bull, Varric, Cole, and I sort of sat back and let them do the choosing. I went with one of Dorian’s choices.”

“I am very curious to see what he picked out for you. Though I’m sure it’s ‘of the highest quality’ and ‘painfully handsome,’” she smirked, mimicking Dorian’s voice and cadence.

“It’s as if you were there,” Cullen chuckled. He brushed a light kiss over her lips, but when her eyes closed, they chose to remain that way even after he moved away. “Are you sure you don’t need to go home? I know Cassandra would understand if you did.”

Before she could answer, a whisper of a knock tapped at their office door. Through sheer force of will, Halise managed to open her eyes enough to see Cole and Solas standing in their doorway. Cole’s face was almost expressionless, though his eyes looked just a bit concerned. Solas, on the other hand, let his brows knit together and a little frown curve his lips. Cole had a pillow in his hand. Where had he gotten that?

“I brought you this,” the ethereal young man said, holding up the very comfortable looking pillow. “We keep it for children to hold. It helps them feel better when they talk. But you should use it to take a nap. You’re very tired, and it will help you feel better.” He was disarmingly sweet and hopeful for someone who had to deal with those who, in Halise’s opinion, were the worst of the worst—the dregs of society. He was also a little blunt.

“I’d like to offer you my office for a couple of hours,” Solas added. “I can work at your desk, and you can sleep in the quiet seclusion for a time, if that is agreeable to you.” Always so proper. Somehow even more so than Cullen, if such a thing was possible.

Halise smiled wanly but warmly at the men in the doorway. Cullen gave her one little nod of approval, and another as a gesture for her to go. Reluctantly, she stood, crossed the room, and accepted the pillow from Cole. He smiled at her, a sight she so rarely saw from him. She murmured a quiet thank you to Solas and reminded all three of the men that they should come get her if anyone needed her. She had every intention of being back in an hour and a half. One good REM cycle was all she needed.

When she awoke three hours later, however, she cursed herself quietly. She felt better, to be sure, but knowing she’d missed hours of work dropped a pang of guilt onto her like a cinderblock. She stood from Solas’s too-comfortable chair—no wonder he was in his office all day—and wobbled back toward her office.

She stopped just outside her door when she heard Solas’s voice. “—that you and Ms. Lavellan have grown very close. I can see you care for her a great deal.” What an odd time for him to bring that up. Have they been sitting in total silence for the past three hours? she wondered.

The sound of Cullen clearing his throat almost made Halise laugh. She could practically see his hand at the back of his neck. “I do,” he finally replied.

“That is good to hear. Though, an admonishment, if I may—take care that your relationship does not affect the work either of you do. You are both true assets to Skyhold, and I would hate to see that negatively impacted should anything go awry.” He sounded so sincere, but there was a definite tinge of warning in his tone.

Halise didn’t know how to feel about him saying that. Part of her was flattered that he felt so strongly about their work, while another part was irritated that he would insert himself into their affairs in such a way.  Cullen’s voice interrupted her thoughts before they could spiral any further. “Rest assured, Solas, nothing will go awry.” He sounded so certain, and that certainty grounded her as she stepped through the door into their office.

“Solas,” she grinned sincerely, “thank you so much for letting me use your office. I had an awesome nap, and I think I’m ready to get back at it. I really, really appreciate it.”

The elf smiled smoothly back at her, closing his laptop and rising from her desk. “I am very glad to hear it,” he said, darting his eyes to Cullen for just a split second. He took the pillow from her hand as he passed her, leaving their office as quietly as he’d come in.

Halise turned on her heel to face Cullen, putting her hands on his desk and leaning forward to kiss him. When their lips parted, he smirked at her, quirking up his scar—the scar that made him more attractive not because of its alluring appearance, but because of how strong he must have been to endure the pain of receiving it. “What was that for?”

“I just agree with you,” she said. “‘Nothing will go awry.’”

Mild embarrassment flushed his cheeks as she watched him. Silently, she prayed to the same entities that hadn’t listened in the night. She prayed that they would listen, and she prayed that she and Cullen were right.

Please let us be right.