Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "No," she shook her head and clung tighter to her arms. He noticed the welts rising off the skin where she'd been digging in deeper and deeper as a distraction. "Worse."

  Softly he cupped his hand against her cheek and she pressed into it much the same as their boy had. "Is it worse than when you twisted your ankle?"

  His beautiful wife struggled to speak, but the tears returned. All she could do was nod. Worse than her being laid up in bed for two weeks? The physical pain always made the darkness more pronounced, but this...

  A fear squeezed against his throat and Cullen's lips breathlessly moved. He had to ask it, had to know, but Maker did he not want to. "Lana..." He scooted closer to her and her fingers reached over as if to take their baby, but Cullen didn't let go, he was focused fully on her. "Is this as bad as when you," he swallowed and began again, "as when you took the Calling?"

  Her head tried to shake it away like a buzzing in her ear, but after a few rounds she gasped and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I'm so sorry. I don't..."

  "Shh," he guided his arm around her head and tugged it tight to his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

  "I do, I'm wrong. Terrible. It shouldn't be," tears dripped through her words, her fingers clinging tight to his collar while the other hand rolled across her son.

  "No, you're not," Cullen insisted in a whisper. He turned his head and bellowed out, "Mia! Come here."

  It didn't take long for his sister to appear, her face white as she spotted Lana's crumbling. "Take the baby," he instructed. She pursed her lips and folded her arms, until he groaned, "I have to sit with Lana, okay. I'll come and take him back from you after she's better."

  Mia stared over at the woman burying her soaking face into Cullen's shoulder. "Alright," the stern lecturer faded into gooey aunt as she scooped the baby into her arms. "I'll be waiting in that done up sitting room you have."

  He nodded his thanks and, as the door closed behind, turned to wrap both arms around his wife. After a few more cascades of sobs dripped down his chest, he asked softly, "Did you hurt yourself?"

  "No," she said. There was a chance she was lying from the pain but he couldn't see any evidence and it seemed as if the facade was peeled off. Lana was a pro at hiding her turns from the others in their refuge, but he begged her to always let him see everything.

  "Come here," Cullen scooped her into his arms and slowly pulled her down to lay together side by side upon the bed. It felt like ages since he'd had her in his arms like this. For her sake and the baby's he'd been dozing in open beds when necessary, letting the two of them get their sleep uninterrupted. Andraste, he was an ass.

  "I'm...I should be happy. That's what good mothers are. Happy. Why am I not? I want him. So bad it hurts. But..."

  He stared into her red rimmed eyes running over with more tears. It was a soul crushing sight, and all of his doing. He should have been there for her. Really looked at her and known. For the love of the Maker, he was her husband. It was his duty to keep her safe. "Lana, we can beat this back. It's not your fault you're not happy right now."

  "I want to be," she gasped. "Why can't I be happy?"

  Cullen pulled her to his chest hoping it would soothe her as he ran his hands back through her piles of hair. There were so many snarls and knots it was going to take hours to get them out with their pick. How much did he let rot away from his lagging care? Nestled deep to him, Lana's sobs slowed and her hands tugged tight to his back.

  He placed a kiss to the top of her head and promised, "You'll be happy again. I swear it to you."

  It was an hour or so of Lana sobbing and Cullen reassuring her before she fell into the rest she desperately needed. Mia glared at him for taking so long, but when he picked up his son she lightened a bit. "Lana's sleeping right now, but please stay with her. Watch her. Right now she can't be alone long."

  "Why?"

  "It's..." She wouldn't understand. Sometimes it was hard for Cullen to voice it even as he felt the same dark forces tug upon the strings in his head. They never plucked hard enough to drive him to end his life but the reverberations were there. "It's good for her to have a friend. And after her nap, I'll come in with the baby and we can all sit together."

  "You swear?" Mia glared.

  "On great gulf cavern," he said, thinking back to what was little more than a hole in the ground on their old farm the Rutherford children considered sacred.

  His sister took that oath seriously and dipped her head. "Very well. But if you break it...!"

  "I will be ripped apart by darkspawn and have my bones ground up to make their evil stews. I know, I know. Please, go sit with Lana," he shooed his sister out trying to appear certain in everything. When Mia vanished he collapsed to the chair.

  With his infant son perched in his lap, Cullen sucked in a breath of air that was made of broken glass. Every pang jabbed deeper inside of him as he felt the failure of what he was erupt off his skin. Come and read across his flesh the charges written in his own blood of the man who could not face his infant son, who nearly drove his wife to the darkness. Who in thinking he could have it all, nearly lost everything because he was too weak to open his heart.

  A soft cry erupted from the blankets, and Cullen rose out of his lean. He sponged off a handful of the tears sheeting across his vision in order to see his son properly. Eyes the same soulful shade as the ones who'd begged him to make her happy blinked up at him. They couldn't focus yet but they seemed to be trying to find him. Gently, Cullen curled his hand to the boy's cheek.

  "I'm here. Your father's here."

  * * *

  Flurries of never ending work, from one problem to the next, on occasion broke to the realization that an entire day had passed. Cullen was barely able to count the hours as he dashed from tending to Lana to taking over with the baby. There was sleep; the man sometimes starting out of a dream in terror that he'd passed out while holding his son in his arms. But glancing over, he'd find the boy curled up in his little drawer, his eyes shut tight in sleep. With this little life resting upon his hands Cullen felt the overbearing need to protect his son, but...

  While he soothed Lana's cheek and insisted there was nothing wrong with her, he couldn't stop turning the question back upon himself. Why was his heart cold? It wasn't as if he was incapable of love. It nearly destroyed him when he lost Lana, the pain unimaginable and the joy of her return brighter than anything he'd ever thought possible. How was it easy for him to love this other woman outside of him, a mage no less, but his own son eluded him?

  It didn't matter, Mia was correct. Love or no, the baby needed him and with some minor corrections and the occasional biting of her tongue Cullen began to assemble the skills necessary. While Lana nursed their son to satiety, he'd sit quietly beside her tugging back her hair or sometimes holding her book until the baby got positioned right. After that, when she needed a break to rest and rebuild strength, Cullen would rock the baby back to sleep as best he could. There were diaper changes, so many it became a blur.

  Once, when he reached the end of the clean basket, bleary eyed and twitching from the crying, he gave up on sanity and folded one of his own tunics around the baby's bottom. Mia naturally found it hilarious, his sister taking the load down to their launders which was something he should have thought of before. Perhaps exhaustion was finally breaking him too.

  Cullen only took a reprieve from his son in order to tend to the templars that responded to the old Knight-Captain and no other. It was strangely refreshing to ask someone to stop fidgeting or crying and have them comply. They'd been having issues with one woman, whom he remembered being strict and ice cold even before the lyrium rot took hold. Now she brooked no truck with anyone, making certain none could ever like her and reveling in it.

  That was what he left behind, a thousand tongue lashings clinging to his skin, as he walked exhausted back to the room. He barely opened the door when the ever increasingly powerful wail of his son walloped his weary ears.

  "Here!" The body
full of five pounds of human wrath dropped into his hands and Mia shrieked, "You take him."

  "What's the matter?" he asked, trying to rock his boy back and forth but the screams wouldn't stop. Great tears rose up from those amber eyes to streak down sienna cheeks.

  "I have no blighted idea. He's fed, he's changed. He's angry. He's been angry for nigh on an hour now and nothing's changed it."

  "Lana?" he asked, glancing around to see his wife was missing.

  "Is off in her potion's room," Mia assured him. "Had something to brew up or think upon. I don't know, she rattled off a lot of fancy words then dropped this banshee into my arms."

  Even with the screams shredding apart his eardrums, Cullen chuckled at the description of his wife. "What should I do?" he asked the only experienced one, but even hardened Mia looked frazzled after a week with the newborn.

  "Go, take him somewhere and wait for it to pass!" she cried back, her fingers rubbing tight to her temples. "This headache will never leave me," she grumbled and Cullen did as commanded.

  The night's crisp air struck him as he passed out into the open winter. Pressing his son tighter to his chest, he was rewarded from protecting him against the cold by wails reverberating up through his ribs. "And to think we worried you would be too frail," Cullen chuckled to himself, but it was a mirthless laugh. If this wore away his sister, what chance did he have? Swallowing down both the fear and rising annoyance that wasn't truly the baby's fault, he slipped into the guest room that accidentally became the baby's room.

  It was never meant to be. They'd had plans to keep him in theirs until such a time another opened up and he could have a proper nursery. But with Lana needing sleep to recuperate and the boy requiring healing, this quickly became the place for the child. Blankets, diapers, and little pajamas were left in piles upon what had been finely crafted tables meant to hold fruit baskets. The fire in the hearth never died down, every hand in the place always checking to chuck another log on, even if no one was using it. They all knew eventually someone would wind up in there with the squealing and unhappy baby.

  "Shh..." Cullen groaned, beginning to feel the same pinch Mia did. He twisted his boy around until the tiny chest pressed against his. With one hand cupping the back of his head, Cullen began to gently pat his butt while swaying back and forth. It was pretty much all he had and, of course, it wasn't working. The tears came faster, his son's tiny throat sounding rawer with every cry, but nothing could stop it.

  This too shall pass.

  Maker, how many times did he have to recite that while staring down the dead eyed sneer of an apostate? Grumble it to himself as he wiped off a mud ball and struggle to not drag the apprentice to the dungeon for a slight offense? Press it against his clasped palms as the demon's fingers crawled through his mind in the middle of the night?

  There was always tomorrow. He was someone who made certain of it with every breath, but... Maker, the darkness before the dawn was often impenetrable. They hadn't talked about his anger much, not in any recent years. Lana knew of it certainly, knew of how sharp it became when he was pressed. But he thought it'd cooled over the years; time, distance, and perhaps age allowing him to walk back from the tortured man of his past. How wrong he was.

  Every cry etched across his mind like a nail slicing his eyeball. He flinched, trying to wash it all away clean with a soft prayer but his son would sputter and then wail even louder.

  Sweet Andraste, make the baby stop!

  Suddenly, the cries halted, and -- in a spray of good fortune -- a cascade of spit-up splattered against his shoulder. His son urped a few more times, Cullen realizing he should have tried to catch it all before it dribbled down his chest, but what did it matter? His shirt was already stained.

  "For the love of..." he growled, all but snapping at anything in his way. The baby's wet, sticky vomit crawled further down his shoulder leaving a disgusting trail upon his skin. Abandoning any hope he had, Cullen placed his son down into the second drawer they'd made up for him and began to unbutton his shirt.

  He got down a few when the baby's cries renewed. "What?" he shouted. "This is your doing. I will pick you back up when I have...Fine!" Despite the insanity of it all, he scooped his son into one arm and with the other pried apart his shirt. It was even more maddening to try and wiggle the stained thing off his arms while switching the baby from one to the other.

  But, blessed Andraste, at least he stopped crying.

  Heaving his shirt into the basket along with the continual rash of filthy laundry, Cullen slipped his hands around his son's waist and pulled the baby up to his eyes. The bobbing head rested back upon his fingertips while he stared into his boy's face. When the toothless mouth opened, Cullen braced for more screaming, but a series of adorable chirps broke instead. With the agony of an unhappy dinner in his stomach past, he seemed fine.

  "Thank the Maker," he sighed, grateful that the break seemed to be holding. Cullen began to slide his son back down to a more comfortable position when suddenly those always vaguely uncertain eyes narrowed right down upon him. He blinked, certain he'd imagined it, but with a curious determination his son's eyes crossed as if they were focusing right upon the end of his father's nose.

  "Do you find that funny?" he asked, chuckling at the idea. "That's the Rutherford nose, you know." Tucking his son's face against his naked shoulder, Cullen let the warmth of his body pass to his boy. While the fleece pajamas covered in little fluffy griffins were doing wonderful at keeping the boy protected from winter, something in his father's body heat did a greater job of bringing on sleep. Those cheeks rounding with every day stretched wide as his little mouth opened for a great yawn.

  Cullen's fingers pressed against the back of his boy's head, careful to avoid denting the soft spot, as he felt the beginnings of what was likely to be curly hair. That was certain to be in his son's future. "I'm sorry to say but you're most likely going to be stuck with this nose. We all are. It's a family tradition, along with great stubbornness."

  Taking the prophetic words in stride, his son's pajama covered hand thudded against Cullen's shoulders. He wiggled his little feet in their footed pajamas as if trying to dance away the oncoming nap. "That's not going to work either," he said, swaying with the baby tight to him. "I used to pace back and forth on my feet to keep awake during rounds. They called it the Cullen hop, because the moment I stopped moving..."

  His son's feet slowed and like clockwork, the little cheek plowed into his skin, tiny snores echoing from the boy.

  He was adorable, as if anything created of Lana wouldn't be in spite of Cullen's numerous additions. Those great round eyes, when not rimmed in tears, would flash bright and all but have every girl in their abbey cooing. Asleep, his son drew even more attention. The few times when winter's wrath faded, Cullen would take him on a little walk around the yard curled up in his father's arms and every single person in the abbey stopped to comment. Even the old templars would smile at the baby passed out in a pile of blankets.

  "I'm sorry that you're trapped with so much of me in you," Cullen whispered, his lips drifting near the fine fuzz of his baby's head. "I'd hoped..." He thought with a girl that she'd be of Lana: smart, disciplined and bearing almost nothing like her father. But a child with his anger, his snarling certainty, his fear of letting any draw close, it was a cruel curse from the Maker.

  "Maybe you'll come out the better for it," he guessed in a strange hope. "Lana, she, I don't know how she is capable of it, but she can calm me down. When I'm walking the line that so easily tips into tyranny she's the only one with the cool breath of logic to take me back. Maybe you'll get that too, to balance out the fire."

  Glancing up from his baby, he stared out the window across the forest behind their abbey. Little moved through the stripped trees, every branch waiting in anticipation for snow. With one hand protecting his son, Cullen stepped near the glass to gaze up at the night's sky. "I can't imagine losing her. She's very special to me," a laugh broke from his maudlin tho
ught, "I suppose you're the only one to feel the same. To understand how important she is."

  He'd blamed the baby. There was no reason for it, his anger making as much sense as it did when he rendered every mage a potential malifecar. The child couldn't control how he entered the world or if he hurt anyone on the way out. And yet...

  Nuzzling his cheek against his baby, Cullen whispered, "Forgive me."

  The boy yawned, that Rutherford nose crinkling up as his bright amber eyes opened. They seemed to stare in rapture up at his father a moment before the baby found sucking on Cullen's shoulder far more entertaining. With his pinkie finger, Cullen excised his boy's tight fist up, gently circling around the warm ball of fleece.

  Would he be a mage? It was impossible to imagine any ice storms or fireballs erupting from something so tiny. So helpless and gentle. Cullen blinked away a sting in his eyes. He didn't care if his son was to be a mage. If it came to it, Lana would teach him, she would protect him the way she knew how and Cullen would... He'd teach him too, how to shield himself from those that would turn on a mage. People who were once like his father.

  "I tried," Cullen began, then shook his head. "I wanted to be more than I am. Too many wild stories of knights as a child filling my head with the foolish notion that I could...fix things. Help people. Save the world, I suppose."

  Unaware of the confession lifting off Cullen's chest, his son continued to drool upon him. He seemed to find gnawing upon his father relaxing, another small yawn breaking before the chewing recommenced. "I was wrong in so many matters for far too long. But..." Turning away from his boy he glanced out at the stars glistening in a winter sky. "If I hadn't joined the templars I'd never have met your mother. And for every wrong decision lurking in my past, that's the one bright one to blot so many out."

  "You see that star," he turned to the side and tried to pivot the boy to gaze out across the sleeping landscape. Above the horizon, just peeking where the treetops would rustle it in summer, was their star. "That's Fenrir. She taught me to find it, and no matter where I wound up in thedas I...I always could. We would sit under it often, kissing and, um..."