My Warden (COMPLETED)

Damn

Damn it all!

He was barely aware of his surroundings, only caught the occasional gasp of a chantry Mother or Sister waving her brittle hands at the man radiating rage as he stomped past their doors in the early morning hours. In another mood, Cullen would have grimaced at startling them and slunk away. Now, all he did was glare with the full force of command and they gasped at his audacity before sliding back to their own rooms in the Cathedral.

Damn that man, the smug bastard who knew...he knew the whole damn time that if he merely played his cards right and bided his time he'd win. She'd return, of course she would, she had once before and...and the bastard didn't change at all. Cullen wrapped a hand against his forearm and dug in with the nails. He wasn't good enough. Sure, he rose to the ranks of Commander within the respected Inquisition but what did that compare to a King? And while he was perhaps an early crush, that man -- that Maker damned man -- was her first love. How could he compete with any of that? Alistair had a nation and Cullen had...had...

He lashed out, his fist smacking against the stone wall with such force clumps of dust rattled off the tapestries hanging above it. There should be pain, but his body was numb, his limbs ice and heart sludge in the snow. He thought he had her, finally. Nothing else between them, but...

Roaring from the depths of his throat came the thirst, always clawing on the edges, prepared to overtake him at a moment's notice. His skin itched as if the muscles and sinew below were trying to pop out and free him from the agony barely coating the surface. If he stopped for a moment, the ringing in his head and need in his veins awoke the slumbering dragon buried in his gut and anger overtook him. An anger he struggled to keep at bay. It was never this bad the first time he broke free, but maybe Kirkwall kept him distracted. He needed his duty to...

Andraste's grace, he was as bad as Alistair.

The pain of pinching radiated off his arm, and Cullen pulled his hand away to find pinpricks of blood welling up across the verdant stretch of his shirt. He'd managed to cut himself through the fabric and hadn't even noticed. Cursing at the mess, he unbuttoned the cuff and rolled the sleeve up before it stained permanently on her... She gave it to him, smiled with a soft question as he opened it. She begged him to tell her if it was all right as he tried it on and to make it the truth. It was perfect; no frills, no pointless buttons, soft to the touch but sturdy for constant use and as green as the fields of the Hinterlands in late spring.

You made her cry.

He smacked the back of his head against the wall, wishing he could drown back the anger percolating inside him. No matter how much he willed them back the visions and memories of the past months always returned. Alistair, dead certain that they'd find Lana, that they'd save her, while Cullen fumbled in the dark. How the king risked everything he had for this woman who wanted nothing to do with him. And yet, they were talking again, attempting another friendship because...because Alistair knew Lana better than Cullen could ever hope to. Cullen could almost convince himself that he was being too hard on himself, weighing his own waning convictions against an unfair advantage. But even as he held her body, her sleeping head pressed against his chest as her warm breath warmed trickled across his skin, he wondered to himself if he'd known the truth about the phylactery from the start would he have pursued her? When darkness crept through him, the thirst yanking every certainty from his brain, he felt in his heart the answer: no.

You swore you'd never hurt her.

She deserved better than that, better than someone who had no faith in her, in himself, in anything. Crumbling to his knees, Cullen realized he wasn't mad at Lana for wishing he had the conviction of Alistair, but at himself for not. Pinching his eyes tight, he saw a flash of their time trapped in the fade. Lana, not his but the king's version, swollen with child and so happy, all her hard edges buffed away by being surrounded in family. Maker, Cullen gasped as the idea stabbed against his heart. Could he ever make the real Lana as happy as that one?