#makerguideme

She slams her bare foot on the cold stone to remind herself of where she is. There is no blood, only the chill slowly creeping through her toes from lingering too long on semi-frozen stone. Slowly, she lifts a hand, knocking loud enough to wake him if he’s asleep. She waits a moment, counts to ten in her mind, and grasps the handle to let herself in. The wood is warmer. Inside is warmer and she’s not so afraid of her feet freezing off. 

Her weight shifts from one foot to the other while she waits, taking slow steadying breaths and reminding herself that she’s safe. After a couple more moments, she can’t bare to wait in his study any longer. She climbs the stairs as quietly as she can, the wood creaking under her feet, and does her best to sneak across the room. It’s difficult to see in the darkness, but she doesn’t feel the need for light. Feeling around the edges of the bed, Elena determines that Cullen isn’t sleeping on this side. Slowly, she climbs under the blankets, scooting forward until she’s found his back and resting her forehead against it. “Are you awake?”

      “ You’ve --- You’ve been looking for me? “

      There’s genuine surprise in his voice at the realization, and for a few         seconds he’s stuck between the motion of pulling the book in his         hands to his chest and setting it down.  It catches him in a loop for         a bit, and after nearly putting the book down twice he winds up         hugging it in to his chest instead.

@makerguideme // random interactions // always accepting

         ❝oh?❞ she couldn’t even PRETEND that she wasn’t amused. rosalie was grinning from ear to ear. cullen playing the overprotective and jealous OLDER BROTHER was just the kind of attention she was addicted to. but it wasn’t just THAT: the fact he thought he had a say in that kind of thing. it would be infuriating if it wasn’t flattering.

   ❛ — the other recruits started it, ❜ carver says, eventually, in his own defense. if there’s ever been any doubt about it, the man is a younger brother, through and through.

    “I’ve read your most recent report, Cullen.”

Meredith’s voice resonates against the old stone. Her office - a space cultivated to personal interests and comforts over the better part of fifteen years - is a second home beyond her personal quarters. Holding an audience, however, is seldom, save for private meetings, or holding an audience with a loyal Captain. 

        it had taken long enough but she had finally gotten out of the bed she’d sunk into at skyhold. three days of moping was more than enough, thira had determined, and so she found herself at the tavern at a late hour, trying again and again to uselessly move her missing hand. it was frustrating to suddenly be aware that she was crippled. that she had lost something - something more than her arm. something more than the anchor. something more than -- 

          ❝ venhedis, ❞ she whispered, one of the words she’d acquired from dorian and she twitched before suddenly slamming her fist, her only remaining fist, into the table’s surface.  ❝ shit! ❞ the curse came out louder, sharper, but still soft in consideration of those that were likely asleep by now. she needed a drink. a really strong drink. something, anything, to make her find some way to cope with what had happened. maybe if she went and asked nicely, bull would let her whack him a few times. but still, she didn’t get up and move, didn’t do anything beyond setting her elbow on the table’s surface and lower her face into her hand.

The fact that she is able to sleep soundly while he suffers through the night is something that hangs heavy on her conscious and wears at her every day. Her nightmares are muted and dull so long as she can reach out and find him beside her, but his are not something her presence can remedy. She had thought, perhaps, that her being there would bring him some amount of solace. If she’s there, at least there’s someone to cling to who wouldn’t judge. If she’s there, at least there’s some semblance of support. But the last time something like THIS had happened and she’d reached out for him, it had only served to make matters worse. So in those quiet moments when he wakes her, hot and damp and terrified and shaking, all that she can do is lay helplessly by his side. 

It isn’t the thrashing that wakes her. It isn’t the shaking or the tossing or the turning. It’s the first sob that leaves him that pulls her from the clutches of sleep, but she knows what’s happening almost immediately. She can feel, even with a decent amount of distance between them, that he’s BURNING with fever and the thought frightens her enough to fight off any grogginess that may have usually come with being woken up in the middle of the night. Retired Templars have DIED from the withdrawals - burned through what they were given to stave off the thirst and DIED of the consequences. That CANNOT happen here. She won’t let it. 

But- 

Please, kill me.

Even with her mind muddled from sleep and exhaustion and even though it’s difficult to focus on him through the darkness, the words reach her ears and they BREAK HER HEART. She can feel it come hammering to a halt in her chest, her breath catching as though she’s forgotten how to breathe. She has heard him BEG like this once before. On his knees, tears in his eyes, blood on his hands. Memories of that moment bring up other, even more unpleasant memories - ones that cause her to sweat and shake and- 

Not now. A quite sort of determination stirs in her chest and forces back the panic and the darkness in a way she never would have been able to if she had been alone. Had it been anyone else, she might’ve been lost to the waves of terror as they came and went and they would both be shaking, sobbing WRECKS. But this isn’t someone else. It’s CULLEN and she needs to be strong for him and knowing as much seems to be enough. She shifts, rolling slowly to face him and breathing out a shaky breath of air. 

Some mix of the sight of him and the sound of him begging for the end causes the color to drain from her face, but she needs to be STRONG. “Cullen, look at me.” Her voice is low and quiet and still heavy with sleep and a hand reaches out to tap the bed next to him, not so close that it would most CERTAINLY cause an adverse reaction, but close enough to get his attention. She wants to touch him. She wants to pull him into her arms, to guide his head towards her chest and run her hands through his hair and down his back and conjure ice at her fingertips in an attempt to cool him off, but any one of those things could do more harm than good.