Stuck on the Puzzle - Dragon Age Inquisition - Bull/Cullen

A Level of Challenge 4

'I like it,' Bull said, his voice lower than before. 'Seeing you hold up to that kind of pain, keeping your hands flat in longer stretches. Putting all that fight into something focused. It sure is something.'

Is it? Cullen thought. His lips thinned. Was it just what Bull thought he wanted to hear? If it was, he'd done a good job. Already, something felt like it was unwinding in Cullen's chest.

'My hands were fine,' Cullen said, his voice strained. 'Last time, they were-'

'That's shit and I want to say you know it's shit too. But I'm not sure you do. So, I'm here to tell you – it's shit.'

'I think I get the picture,' Cullen said, feeling weary. The pain was thrumming through him. He realised there was an odd sleepiness in the back of his mind, as though the very edge of that calming sea was there waiting for him. Maybe Bull had been right. Maybe he was closer to it than he thought.

'I want to try again,' Cullen said. 'Like this.'

Cullen wanted to ask what happened if it didn't work, if trying again failed – then realised how greedy it was. One session of finding that empty guilt-free space with Bull, and now he was acting like he was entitled to it? It wasn't like he often felt anywhere near so calm with Searidge. No. He wanted the flogging so he'd have the physical pain in the days to come. And it was obvious that even if this didn't give him the thick black bruises he wanted, it would still give him a tool to use against the inexorable march of days facing him.

When Bull stood behind him again – the hand still on his neck and gentle for a long time, like Cullen was someone to be careful with – Cullen shifted his posture so that it was correct. After years of being shown how to stand, how to turn his feet out or in, how to hold weapons or shields or axes or whatever they wanted him to use – Bull only needed to show him how to sit once before Cullen knew exactly how to fall back into place.

He heard Bull shifting his own stance, and Cullen closed his eyes and thought not of that sea he yearned for, but of something different.

His feet were made of stone. Encased in the stuff.

His hands too. They were soldered to the table. It wasn't that he shouldn't move them, it was that he couldn't move them. So that even if he wanted to walk down the stairs to trick someone out of their lyrium kit, he couldn't. He was fixed in place. It wasn't about slowing down his breathing. It wasn't about concentrating on not moving. He just couldn't. He was stone.

The flogger fell and Cullen made a sound, because normally he'd tense or curl his fingers or toes, but as he bent his mind towards what he was imagining, he didn't have the faculties left to remind himself not to make noises.

Again and again the flogger fell, spaces between the rhythm that felt too long, but even then – even with the pain so sharp he was gasping through it – he didn't move. It was as though something had clicked into place in his mind. He wasn't doing this to reach for that sea. It would be nice to have that guilt-free space, very nice, but he wasn't sure he deserved it, and it wasn't why he'd asked for this in the first place. In which case, he didn't need to be frustrated with Bull or himself for not finding it. It wasn't really about him at all. He was just there, Bull could have been practicing on an inanimate object, because he could not move.

The flogger kept falling. Cullen's eyes were shut and his chest heaving because the pain was sharp and stinging and tight, his back felt swollen, but he didn't move. His hands felt heavy.

The strokes began to speed up, and Cullen heard himself cry out, felt self-censure begin to move through him and then that fell away as well. The stinging was awful, his eyes burned behind the blindfold, but it wasn't like Bull could see, and the fabric wicked away any tears he shed, so the worry he had about that disappeared. It was as though every stroke of the flogger stripped away a layer of concern.