Chapter Text
EPILOGUE
Falling back into old routines comes naturally to Cullen, after Dorian leaves Honnleath. It's not easy, however; it's fractious and anxious. What had once felt comforting, assuring, begins to feel stifling; the structure of a day or a week morphs into a series of holding patterns and Cullen is acutely aware of time as it passes him by. It's stagnation, and little else.
But Cullen keeps to them, because what else does he know, on his own?
He visits the tide pool nearly every morning, settling onto his usual log while charcoal grey still clings to the sky. For the first month, though, he misses most of the sunrises, with his attention pegged to the road that borders the shore, in some unfounded and misplaced hope that Dorian might come by.
During that same month, people in the village watch him. Some stare. They give him looks of pity, of curiosity, of disdain—but looks are all it amounts to, until the second month starts. Maybe they all gathered together and agreed on a pact to get whatever they could out of Cullen, to because they begin asking questions. They ask about Dorian, they ask about Cullen's relationship to him, and Cullen gives them no answers whatsoever. He has no interest in fueling their need to gossip. He sees Margaret around the village from time to time, and the two of them share a knowing smile, and that's as far as Cullen's public acknowledgement that Dorian, at one time, existed in Honnleath goes.
The book will come out, eventually—let them all sate their appetites on that when it does.
The third month passes like the second, indistinguishable in nearly every way except for the way the sun sets earlier and earlier, week by week.
And by the start of the fourth, Cullen needs more distance, less routine. It's a somewhat hasty decision that sees him packing up his boat in the evening, but it's not the first time he's left in a rush either.
It's dim inside the cabin but he knows the layout of it well enough now that he can move through it without much light. The sun is minutes from falling below the horizon, leaving the sky in a wash of red and orange in its wake. It will be dark outside before long, but Cullen will be out of the harbour and out on the open water by then, and it won't matter.
He glances through the portside window as he passes by, meaning to get a glimpse of the sky but ending up with an all-together different sight. He's frozen, staring out the window at Dorian standing on the dock, one hand scratching the back of his head as he looks around.
Cullen's stomach rocks from side to side, as if the boat were hit by a wave, and he moves out onto the deck. Dorian turns at the creaking of the wood and a smile beams across his entire face when their eyes meet.
"Dorian…" Cullen says, voice trapped under his breath.
"Hi." Dorian's smile softens but only somewhat. "Permission to come aboard?"
All Cullen can manage is to stare in disbelief a little longer, before nodding once. "Uh… yeah. Yeah, of course."
Dorian steps onto the deck of the boat and gives Cullen's arm a squeeze, while Cullen is torn over whether he ought to pull Dorian close and turn it into a hug.
"Heading out on the water?" Dorian asks, before slipping his duffle off his shoulder and carefully putting it down.
Cullen nods, watching Dorian and then darting his attention the horizon when he feels he's been watching too long. He tries not to think much about what the duffle means.
"You know what they say."
Dorian chuckles, then his smile falls as he looks at Cullen, as if waiting for something. "I do…?"
Cullen laughs too, because really, he should've known. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailor's warning."
"That's what they say, hmm? What's so terrible about a red sky at morning?" Dorian moves to the deck railing, leaning against it. "Either one sounds lovely to me."
Cullen hangs back, taking a few moments to look at Dorian against the sunset, to confirm that yes, he is indeed here again. "It's an old mariner's saying," Cullen says eventually, before moving to stand next to Dorian. "Red sky at morning means a storm's coming in, red sky at night means the coast is clear."
Dorian hums, the corner of his mouth turning up in to a wry smile. "There's my new fact learnt for the day, thanks for that."
"Surely you didn't need to come all the way back to Honnleath just for a useless tidbit of information."
Dorian laughs and nudges Cullen's arm with his own. "Oh, you caught me." He pulls away from the railing then, and goes over to his duffle. He opens it and roots around inside, before pulling out a dark, soft-looking bundle. "I actually came to return this," he says, holding it out to Cullen.
Cullen takes it and recognises it as the sweater he'd leant Dorian, months ago. Truthfully, he'd forgotten it all together, in the wake of everything else. "You could have kept it, Dorian, really."
"Perhaps, but it really is more your style than mine." He takes his place next to Cullen again, standing a little closer this time. "Plus, I needed something to wrap your copy of my book in."
Cullen feels the sharp corner of something through the thick knit at the same time as Dorian speaks, and he huffs, smiling slightly. "Congratulations, then. I was wondering when it might be releasing, but knew there'd be little chance of it ever finding its way to a shop here."
"Technically there are still a few weeks to go, but they've given me advance copies. And, well, the mail system is just so untrustworthy…" Dorian says with a wink, his voice ending in a low drawl.
"Your agent let you come here, with no mobile service, this soon before it releases?"
Dorian shrugs. "With the express promise that I'll be home in time to start all of the press and the book tour, yes. But I must say, dear Cullen, you're really ruining the charm of the gift with all of your questions." It's an attempt to chastise, but he can't quite keep the amusement out of his tone either, and it makes Cullen smile. "You ought to at least read the dedications. To be polite, I mean."
"Oh? Well I wouldn't want to commit any social faux pas, would I?" Cullen carefully pulls the book from its knit wrapping, and Dorian takes the sweater from him when it's free—and promptly slips it on.
The cover art is a stylised drawing of Shayle in her statue form, with low lighting and ominous s shadows to make her look as menacing as possible. THE STONE PRISONER, the title reads, in stark, orange font. Cullen opens the book, careful not to crack the spine, and turns to the dedication page.
'To all those who helped me write this, in ways large and small. And to you, CSR, most of all: "it is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again."'
Written by hand underneath the paragraph, is scrawled, 'Whether it be within some vast ocean or small tide pool, you're still swimming. ~Dorian'
Cullen rereads the dedication and the inscription again, and again once more. Both are so much more than he ever could have expected to be waiting for him to read.
"Dorian, I…"
"Oh, hush," Dorian says, his voice quiet. He sips his right arm under Cullen's left, and weaves their fingers together. "You don't need to say anything. Honestly, I wasn't sure about adding anything at all and Mae definitely wanted to kill me for changing the dedication so late, but I just needed to say something, because at the time I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity in person."
Cullen looks down at their hands clasped together, the metal of Dorian's various rings warming against his skin. "I'd like to say that I was doing fabulously on my own, but I wasn't. So I'm glad you're back, even if only for a little while."
Dorian leans in and presses a long kiss to Cullen's cheek, until Cullen turns his face to meet Dorian's lips.
"We'll make the most of it, hmm? And maybe I'll be able to convince you to come home with me to Denerim, when it's time for me to go."
The gut reaction that once screamed no at the thought of seeing Denerim again doesn't come, and Cullen is well aware of its absence. Somehow it feels much less daunting, when he thinks about tackling it with Dorian.