Chapter Text
It's after five by the time he goes back upstairs, and he sets all his worries aside as he crawls back into bed. Cullen rolls toward him, still half asleep, and murmurs, "Everything okay?"
"Just fine," Dorian says, leaning down to kiss him.
Cullen kisses him back sleepily, tongue sliding across his lips.
"Don't start something you're not prepared to finish." Dorian smiles down into the half-open eyes beneath him, because it turns out that a sleepy Cullen is also an incredibly sexy Cullen.
"Who says I'm not prepared to finish it?" He still doesn't look completely awake as he pulls Dorian on top of him, but his dick is getting hard. "Unless you want to get some sleep."
"I can sleep when I'm dead," Dorian says, and leans down for another kiss. He could just stay like this for hours, doing nothing but feeling Cullen's lips and tongue against his, listening to Cullen breathe too fast against his mouth. Then Cullen arches up into him, and there are a lot of other things Dorian wants to do, too.
"Fuck me," Cullen whispers, and Dorian is happy to oblige. He doesn't even have to move to reach the lube, still on the bedside table from before.
They stay face-to-face, Dorian sliding into him in slow, steady strokes that have Cullen moaning within seconds. His eyes may be sleepy, but they're locked on Dorian's face, and the heat in them is more than sex. Dorian drinks in the sight of him, body trembling as they rock together slowly, mouth moving on silent prayers. The original plan had been to suck him off, but Dorian takes his cock in one hand instead so he can watch the pleasure building until it explodes and Cullen's body squeezes around his cock. Not until Cullen's eyes open again does he increase his pace, needing only a few more strokes before his own orgasm knocks him breathless.
As he lowers himself carefully down to lie on top of Cullen, Dorian holds back the words he can feel on his lips. Barely post-orgasm isn't the time, not if he wants Cullen to hear something other than "I like to fuck you, and I think this will make you stay." Dorian would know. He's heard "I love you" often enough in these circumstances to understand what it really means.
Cullen is half asleep beneath him, and his steady breathing matches the chant in Dorian's head: Tell him, tell him, tell him. The words stick, though, and Dorian just lies there quietly until Cullen mumbles something about breakfast and showers.
"Still no sharing?" Dorian teases, because that's easier than listening to his new, unsought mantra.
Cullen declines with a snort, and Dorian leaves him in the bed to go take his own shower. When he finishes, Cullen is already in the bathroom ready to trade, and Dorian is struck by the realization that he gets to do this every morning from now on. Cullen will be here, with him, all the time.
The chant starts back up in his head, distracting him as he gets dressed and goes back downstairs to the kitchen. He gets the coffee maker started, but then he just stands there, staring blankly into space. Not until he hears Cullen's voice calling something, the words indistinct, does he snap out of his thoughts and look around for something to eat.
There's Cullen's voice again, still too far away for Dorian to make out the words. He opens the fridge and surveys the wasteland. He never did go shopping yesterday.
With his head still inside, he calls, "You want to eat cereal, or go out again? Because there's fuck all else to eat around here." His gaze falls on the plastic bag holding the leftover pizza, and he pulls it out, straightening with a triumphant grin. "Breakfast of champions!" he crows, then turns to find Cullen standing in the dining room, cell phone to his ear and a pained expression on his face.
There's a burst of chatter from the phone, and Dorian moves closer, trying to hear. Cullen points a warning finger at him, his expression promising an extended and painful demise when he gets off the phone, except that there's now also a glint of amusement under it. Dorian tries to look contrite, even as his brain starts to grind through fun ways to distract Cullen from murder.
Cullen winces and sighs. "Yes, Mama, that was a man's voice." Dorian still can't make out the words in the response, but the voice on the other end is clearly excited this time.
"Yes," Cullen says patiently. "Yes, he's feeding me breakfast." The look he gives Dorian says it'd better be something better than cereal or cold pizza, to make up for the bus he just pushed Cullen under. "Yes, it means exactly what you think it means."
There's something endearing about a forty-year-old man calling his mother "Mama," Dorian decides. Or at least, there is when Cullen's doing it. Which is the point where Dorian realizes he's well and truly fucked. That he doesn't give a shit only confirms it.
The excited voice on the other end goes on a lot longer this time. Cullen opens his mouth twice, only to close it without speaking, as if his mother asked him a question without giving him a chance to answer. Eventually, the voice winds down, ending with the rising inflection of another question.
Cullen takes a deep breath and rattles off, "Dorian Pavus, Seattle, old enough, and no. Jesus, Mama." A sharp reprimand Dorian doesn't need words to understand. Cullen winces again. "Sorry."
The accent that's been missing up until now is beginning to show through, Dorian notices.
Another question, and this one makes Cullen's face tight and grim. "I met him this summer. When I was...out of the country." Dorian, no longer amused, closes the last distance between them to slide his arms around Cullen's waist. Under his ear, Cullen's heart beats too fast, and the hand he threads through Dorian's hair grips a little too hard. "He was..." Cullen stops, starts over. "He helped me get home. We got to talking, after we got back, and we...hit it off."
There's silence on the other end of the line, then a short sentence in a commanding voice.
"No," Cullen says, and gets a sharp answer from his mother. Dorian still can't make out words, not with Cullen's heart pounding in his ear, but he recognizes the sound of a name, said as only a mother can say it. "Mama," Cullen says warningly, and then his shoulders slump at her response.
To Dorian's surprise, Cullen pushes him gently away and holds out the phone. "She wants to talk to you," he says, in a tone of voice usually reserved for discussions of terminal cancer.
More than a little intimidated, Dorian takes the phone and puts it gingerly to his ear. "Yes, ma'am?" A little extra politeness can't hurt.
"Dorian?" a woman says, her accent pure deep South.
"Yes, ma'am," he says again, then jerks the phone away from his ear as she begins to sob. His attempts to hand the phone back to Cullen are unsuccessful: the bastard puts both hands in the air and shakes his head vehemently. Dorian gives him a look and puts the phone back to his ear.
Get it together, Pavus, he tells himself. As close as Cullen is with his family, Cullen's mother could break their relationship if she puts her mind to it. He can usually charm just about anyone, but this whole situation has him rattled. He's not used to people bursting into tears at the sound of his voice.
"Ummm, sorry?" he tries.
"No, no," she says, and he realizes she's laughing while she's crying. "I'm the one who should be sayin' sorry. You brought my baby home..." Her voice cracks, and Dorian has to swallow an unexpected lump in his own throat.
"Not by myself," he says.
"Pshaw," she says, to Dorian's bemusement. He didn't think people actually said that. "By yourself or not, you helped him."
What the hell is he supposed to say to that? "I'm...glad I could."
She takes a deep, deep breath and lets it out slowly. Before Dorian can think of something to fill the increasingly-awkward silence, she says, "When they told me he was MIA again, you can't know what that felt like." Her voice is pitched low, like it's the only way she can keep it from shaking. "And the waiting is just..."
There's a pause, then another deep breath before she goes on. "Every time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, I wanted to be sick, and it was always some stupid salesman or a neighbor come to visit, and I wanted to be sick all over again, because I still didn't know. I never thought I'd have to go through that again, and it's so much worse the second time around, because I just knew I wasn't gonna be lucky enough to get him back twice. And when he called from Landstuhl, it was like...like..." Her voice is cracking again, and she swallows hard enough he can hear it over the phone.
"I know," Dorian says, appalled to realize he's got tears in his own eyes. Cullen is watching him, arms crossed over his chest and a faint smile on his face. "I know," Dorian says again. "A friend of mine was MIA for a couple months." The worst months of his life, bar none, wondering where Bull was and what was happening to him. Even the months after Bull was home, struggling to put himself back together, weren't as bad as the months of not knowing.
"Did he come home?" she asks.
"Yes, ma'am," Dorian says. "He was with me in..." He cuts himself off with a cough, frustrated by all the things he's not allowed to talk about, but she seems to understand.
"So my baby was in good hands," she says, then makes a clucking noise with her tongue. "I'm sorry, you must think me such a silly old woman, getting all overwrought."
"I...no, ma'am." If anything, he's in awe of her, that she's still standing after everything that's happened: her husband a POW for two years, and her son a POW himself and then MIA ten years later. Dorian tries to imagine if he'd had to wait two years to get Bull back, or waiting even a few weeks to get Cullen back, and he can't do it. He doesn't bother trying to imagine doing it two more times after that, because the idea leaves him sick.
"I think silly is the last word I'd choose," he says, then smiles, making sure she can hear it in his voice. "Actually, overwrought is probably the last word. Silly would be second-to-last."
She laughs, a little breathlessly, and he hears her blow her nose. "You'll take good care of my baby?" she asks, and her voice is steadier, now they're back on somewhat less treacherous ground.
"If he lets me," Dorian says. Cullen raises his eyebrows questioningly, but Dorian just smiles at him without explaining. Serves him right.
"He never was real good at that," she allows. "But he's a good man, and I don't just say it 'cause he's my son and I love him."
"Well, I agree with you," Dorian says, meeting Cullen's eyes deliberately, the Tell him tell him tell him chorus screaming in his head. "But I'm not exactly unbiased here, either, seeing as I love him, too."
Whatever Cullen's mother says, Dorian isn't listening. Instead, he's smiling as he watches half a dozen emotions cross Cullen's face.
Then Cullen takes the phone gently out of his hand and says into it, "Mama, we haven't had breakfast yet, so I really need to go." With his free hand, he tucks Dorian's head down under his chin, listening to whatever his mother is saying. After almost a minute, in which she doesn't seem to stop for breath, Cullen huffs out a sigh in response to something. "Yeah, okay, okay. I'll ask, but most people have plans by now, you know."
Dorian moves his head out of Cullen's grip to put his mouth by the phone, knowing what the question is without needing Cullen to repeat it. "I'd love to come to Christmas, Mrs. Rutherford." Suddenly, it doesn't seem like nearly as big a deal as it did yesterday at breakfast.
"You're going to regret that," Cullen warns, but he's smiling as Dorian takes a half step back to see his face. "It's not Christmas in our family if you can still see the tree under all the presents, and if you think she won't find a shit-load of stuff to give you, even on short notice, you're out of your mind."
"Cullen Stanton Rutherford!" It comes clearly over the phone, and Dorian laughs as Cullen apologizes yet again.
Another question, her voice back down where Dorian can't make it out, but he can guess based on Cullen's answer. "We'll play it by ear, but I guess sometime around the twentieth?" He frowns thoughtfully at Dorian, and says, "Might be better if the wine stayed on the shelf this year."
Oh god, Dorian thinks. That's a great start to his relationship with Cullen's family, especially when it isn't necessary. When he shakes his head vehemently at Cullen, the frown deepens, and Cullen puts the phone on mute.
"Please don't," Dorian says, before Cullen can speak. "Unless someone is going to shove it at me, it's fine. Really. I mean, we're not talking six bottles of wine per person, right?"
"Well, my Uncle Jimmy will bring a fifth of Johnny Walker Black, but otherwise, no, nobody's going to walk away drunk. And Jimmy won't want to share anyway."
"Then it's fine," Dorian says, trying to make Cullen believe him.
"You do know that if I tell her you're an Orthodox Jewish vegan, she'll buy all new plates and serve tofurky?"
Dorian can't control a laugh. "Well then for god's sake, don't tell her that, because I wouldn't inflict a tofurky on my worst enemy."
Cullen looks skeptical, and suddenly Dorian realizes why he's fixated on the wine. "It's not like it is for you, with food," Dorian says. "Not anymore." Which is absolutely true, and he almost stops there, but then forces himself to go on. "It would help if you didn't drink, though." The words come out more quietly than he meant them to, and he wonders for a second if he's just lost any hope of convincing Cullen that the Rutherford Christmas doesn't need to be alcohol free.
But Cullen just nods slowly, and unmutes the phone. "Okay, scratch that last one," he says. His tone is casual, but the look on his face when he touches Dorian's cheek is anything but.
We love the things we love for what they are.
Dorian kisses him as quietly as possible and heads back to the kitchen as Cullen wanders in the other direction, making distracted noises into the phone. When he's out of sight, Dorian covers his face with his hands for a second, drawing in deep breaths to get himself back under control. Between Cullen and his mother, Dorian's closer to crying than he's been in a long time, and even if it's for all the best reasons, he really doesn't want Cullen to walk into the kitchen and find him blubbering. Awkward, definitely.
It takes Cullen five minutes and another half dozen repeats of "Yes, Mama" said in progressively more amused tones, but he's finally off the phone, about the time Dorian realizes that he might have his emotions under control, but he still doesn't have a solid plan for how to bring the conversation back to the one he wanted to have. He doesn't have time to settle on anything before Cullen is standing in the doorway, looking at Dorian and rubbing the back of his neck.
Bull was wrong about one thing: practice isn't making it easier. Having said the words once, it's harder now, as if there's a weight of expectation on them that wasn't there before.
Dorian can think of a couple ways to pick up the conversation, and it's hard to know which one is right. Well, he's pretty sure suggesting they skip breakfast and go back to bed is a bad idea in the long run, no matter how satisfying it would be for the next hour. If he wants this to be about more than just sex, then he has to do something to make it that way. At the same time, he can't quite spit out the words he needs to say into the heavy silence that's descended on the kitchen.
"Coffee?" he asks instead.
"God, yes," Cullen breathes, and Dorian laughs, the tension broken. "And I guess I should apologize for throwing you to the wolves like that."
"Nothing to apologize for," Dorian says as he fills another mug. "I like her. Besides, she's just trying to take care of you, and I can hardly object to that."
"I can," Cullen says with a smile, taking the mug. He inhales with his eyes closed, a beatific expression on his face that makes Dorian think of several much more exciting things. Rather than focus on any of them, he knocks back the last of his own coffee and prods his brain unsuccessfully for a plan.
He lowers his mug to find Cullen watching him, and it just falls out of his mouth. "I love you." As soon as the words are out, he nearly brains himself with his mug trying to cover his face. "That was not how I meant to say that."
"How did you mean to say it?" Cullen asks, his voice serious.
Don't fuck this up, Dorian tells himself. He takes one deep breath for courage and sets his mug down before he does himself any permanent damage. Two steps and he can take Cullen's mug away from him and set it on the counter, quickly, before the shaking in his hands is too obvious. Cullen's cheeks are smooth under his palms, the skin freshly shaved.
"I love you." This time, the words are a little easier to say. "I meant it, earlier."
Cullen smiles at him. "Sometimes it's hard to tell with you, whether you're just saying something to get a rise out of someone."
"I know," Dorian says. "There's a lot I'll joke about, but not that. Never that." He kisses Cullen once, quickly, and says it again. "I love you."
"I love you, too," Cullen says, then his smile turns wicked. "Though I can't believe you told my mother first."
"At least I didn't make you Google it," Dorian fires back, and Cullen laughs, warm and low. "Next time you decide to recite poetry at me, say it loud enough for me to hear."
"Deal," he says, and draws Dorian closer.