A Welcome Intruder- Liviana Trevelyan x Cullen Rutherford
Based off a prompt for a scene someone left me in my comments on Ao3 and I thought it’d be cute. “I’m really hoping for a nightmare scene where she [Liviana] immediately runs to Cullen’s and insists that she was sleeping there and there was nothing he could do about it.”
Prompt fill also posted on Ao3 here.
The slam of his door below shattered the peaceful stillness of the night. Jolting out of bed, Cullen gasped as his heart thundered within his chest, his skin cold and clammy with sweat. There had been a nightmare, demons, and- He shook his head. It was all foggy now, which was probably for the best. He would rather not recall the events of his dreams while he was awake. “Who goes there?”
No one answered. Frowning as he heard his ladder creak, Cullen silently grasped the hilt of the dagger he always kept under his bed, every muscle in his body on alert and tense from the violent awakening. Holding himself at the ready, he waited and-
Sighed. “Cat,” he breathed as he saw the slight shadow of the Inquisitor pop up through the opening in his floor. “What are you doing here?”
Still ignoring him, Liviana said nothing, and instead just headed straight for his bed and climbed in.
“Um, Cat? Are you sleepwalking?”
“No,” she finally muttered, drawing his blanket up over her head.
“Ah. You do know this is my room then? And my bed?”
“Right.” Sighing, Cullen let his grip go lax and stowed the blade safely back where it belonged. “So you’re just what, sleeping here tonight? Cat? What’s wrong?”
“Nightmare,” was all she would admit to him. And he understood all too well. The desire to not be alone, to have some sort of contact with another being, to convince yourself that the demons were not real, that the nightmare was just that, a dream, and nothing more.
“Alright,” he murmured. Grabbing a spare blanket, Cullen spread it over the ground and sat down, only to be met with her furrowed brow glaring at him from above. “What now?”
“What are you doing down there?”
“Sleeping, obviously,” he echoed her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, as if he were the one at fault here. When she had barged into his room, woken him up, and claimed his bed. “Get up here.”
“Sleep with-” It felt different, somehow. The first time they had both been drunk, and unaware of the entirety of their actions. The second had been for survival. She needed his body heat to stay alive, and he had willingly given it. But this was… “You want me to sleep next to you?”
“Why? Does it bother you?” She frowned down at him. “Wait- Are you blushing?”
Damn her perceptive eyes and the bright light of the moons. “No,” he muttered as he climbed up next to her, carefully arranging his body so that he wasn’t touching her bare skin, and Maker’s breath, the threadbare shift she wore hardly covered anything. She couldn’t have known how she affected him so, and he’d be damned before he let her know, lest she think of him as one of those sort of men. “Did you walk across all of Skyhold dressed like that?”
“Had a cloak. Left it on your desk. Why are you blushing?” Dark eyes the color of an evening thunderstorm peered down at him, her elbows propped up upon the mattress so she could see him better. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“No! No. Not at all,” he assured her. “It’s just that, well, are you sure I can’t offer you a pair of breeches? Or one of my shirts? Or something?”
“Pants? Why… Oooh,” a grin slowly spread across her face and Cullen groaned. “When was the last time you were with a woman, Ser Stick?”
“That is hardly any of your business,” he grumbled. “I don’t ask you such things.”
“I haven’t slept with anyone since I was a merc, before I arrived at Kirkwall,” Liviana shrugged. “So- eight years? Give or take? Who was after that not-a-widow in Kirkwall, hmm?”
Scowling at her, Cullen sighed. “She was the last. I haven’t been with anyone since then.”
“Haven’t wanted to,” she replied, far too cheerily. “I’ve got perfectly good fingers of my own, why would I need a partner?”
The sound Cullen made sounded like a cat being drowned. “Cat.”
Giggling, Liviana just snuggled in against his side. “Don’t worry, Cullen. I don’t plan on taking advantage of you, and I know you wouldn’t attack me to sate your manly urges. And if certain parts of you poke me in the morning, I don’t care. In fact, I’d probably hardly notice at all.”
“It’s not that small- Oh, never mind. I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” she laughed at his petulant tone. “Goodnight, Cullen.”
“Goodni- Wait. I don’t recall saying you could stay here.”
“You didn’t,” she draped his arm around her shoulders and laid her hand upon his chest. “Night.”
