#ive been in a creative rut so these prompts all really help me out tbh

[vultures-and-scavengers]

For that prompt list

❝  no,  i’m not okay.  nothing is okay.  it never is.  but that’s just how i function most days.  so i’ll be fine.  ❞

For any pairing you'd think fit!

I considered doing a platonic pairing, but I decided I was going to be predictable and basic instead, and go with the brainrot: Annette Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford. Thank you so much for the ask from this prompt list! I had fun mulling this one over! :D

~~~

He should be grateful Annette cares enough to fret over his health, but really, Cullen just wants to snarl at her.

No, tea will not help. Yes, he's tried potions. They take the edge off but do little else, and he's already taken one. No, he hasn't eaten, and yes, that's because he can't.

Maker, he has no idea how she even knew to appear.

Annette at least thought to bring a bowl of conjured ice, and the cold numbs some of the pain arcing through his skull. That, he's grateful for.

Still.

"What do you want me to say?" he hisses, gratefulness completely nonexistent within his tone. "That I'll be alright? That'll be fine? I won't be-- and there's nothing you or anyone else can do."

She's completely unruffled by his temper, likely reading it as the outlet of pain that it is. Or, and this is more likely, he admits to himself, she's unbothered because they've said far worse to each other.

Void, he'd called her a naive coward who cared only for the lives of her fellow highborn.

In comparison, his temper now is downright friendly.

The pain he's accepted. The inability to get to his desk and get work done? Not so much. They'd been victorious at adamant, but the destruction of Jader two weeks ago had cut their celebrations short.

Cullen should be working. He should be at the war council aiding in organizing relief efforts. He should be deploying soldiers to contain the wretched red lyrium infested undead streaming out of the ruined city.

Instead he's in bed, unable to get up, the inquisitor having abandoned her own efforts to sit beside him.

The migraine is easier than the guilt.

"Jader is more important," he manages, when Annette says nothing in response to his temper. She remains placid, and the only hints of emotion he can decipher are concern and worry. Annette only wears her silver half mask in Orlais, but she doesn't need it to be unreadable.

It's damned frustrating sometimes.

She removes her hand from the bowl of ice sitting in her lap and presses the backs of her freezing fingers to his temple. Maker, it feels good. He almost misses her quiet words when she finally speaks

"Josephine and I have reached out to contact who we can, and have audited our finances to secure what funding we can for relief. Leliana still lacks solid reporting on the extent of the damage, and so we have enlisted the aid of our wardens in additional scouting. There is little more we can do from here at present. Should we rush in, we risk poisoning our own people and undermining our ability to save who we can."

She's right. He knows she's right. It still feels wrong, to know the city is gone and yet lie here. He should be there. Or he feels he should be there. The red lyrium choking the air and strangling the water supplies make any incursions dangerous.

It was wonderful, truly, how red lyrium kept getting worse.

Cullen sighs.

She hasn't said it outright-- that's not her way-- but he hears it all the same. Annette has no plans to leave him be. The cold radiating from her fingers makes him more amenable to the idea. Slightly.

But something curdles in his gut at appearing so weakened before her. He's her commander. He should be stronger than this. Before Adamant, he might have said it was only his professional pride at stake.

He's not so sure now.

He shoves the feelings he refuses to name away.

She certainly won't return them, and they have larger issues to deal with. The loss of Jader, one of Celene's strongholds, had inspired Gaspard to march his troops into the Exalted Plains in an attempt to seize the Citadelle du Corbeau.

Because they'd needed the civil war to get even bloodier, of course.

It's tactically sound. Celene has to pivot to deal with refugees, and the loss of financial and martial backers, and if the Citadelle is seized, Gaspard can control trade up and down the river, further putting Orlais under his power.

It's a damning choice, though.

There are Orlesian refugees now fleeing to Ferelden, where the fighting in the hinterlands has already strained the throne and its resources. People needed aid and Gaspard saw only a chance at power.

Fucking nobles.

He shouldn't sympathize with the Freemen of the Dales, not openly, but damn it all if he doesn't understand them.

His headache intensifies. He turns his head slightly, pushing harder against her hand, greedily trying to reclaim the now-fading sensation. Annette shifts a little closer, the headboard creaking slightly where she leans against it, and she rolls an ice cube in her other hand.

Cullen knows, in a distantly factual sort of way, that she raised her younger siblings after the death of her own mother. It's a little less distant now, given the way she's currently fussing over his health. He can easily imagine her with a young child.

Perhaps too easily.

He returns to a safer subject, one less unsettling and easier to discuss.

"It's not always this bad-- the lyrium, I mean," he says. "I can live with it."

Her eyes narrow just a hair, almost imperceptible, but he's been learning how to read the subtleties that make up her expressions, and he catches it. She wants to push back and try to fix this, and he sees the moment she accepts she can't.

Annette's head drops slightly, her eyes skittering away from him to traverse the room around them. "If you require solitude, I can grant that," she says, and for the first time, she looks uncertain.

Well, she looks calm, actually.

But he can see her hesitation underneath the mask she presents. Cullen mirrors it, because five minutes prior, he'd wanted her to leave, but now he second-guesses. Especially if she takes the ice with her. He doesn't think she will, but he tells himself the loss of the ice isn't something he can risk.

"Stay."