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Merin’s hand slammed down on the panel, sending the heavy metal hatch door crashing down.
The impact of the gate closing shook the tunnel’s walls and a cloud of dust engulfed the party. People coughed and squinted through the haze to find their loved ones. Somewhere a child cried.
“This way! Everybody keep moving! There are medics waiting for you ahead. You need to move forward!”
Alistair hustled the group of refugees through the tunnel leaving the fighters to catch their breath as the powdered dirt settled back to the ground. Once the civilians had been moved on he rounded back on his team.
“What the hell happened out there!?”
“Random patrol.” Isabela huffed as she leaned on the dirt walls for support.
Varric unslung his gun from his shoulder and let it fall to the floor. “They came down on us hard. They knew we were coming.”
“Maker’s breath!” He threw his hand over his forehead, fingers pinching away the pain of an impeding headache. “I’m glad you guys made it back alive. Any casualties?”
“Two. They were blasted before we even knew the Templars were on us.” Merin spoke, her back pressed firmly into the heavy-set titanium alloy hatch, anxiously waiting for a sign that they might have been followed. “Amongst those that are left there are two biotics: the little girl and her mum. The rest are the family that hid them.”
“Alright. We’ll take it from here, you guys rest up. I’ll de-brief you later about this.” He turned on his heel and strode down the hall, illuminated only by the emergency strip lighting that ran along the bare earth walls.
“Can’t wait!” Isabela quipped. She cradled her helmet under her right arm. “Cullen, you alright?”
The man had been quiet since they had reached the entrance to the underground network of tunnels the rebels inhabited. He kept his back to the rest of them as he circled his left shoulder forward and backwards.
“Yeah, I think I might have fried a few circuits is all.” He winced as he spoke the words.
Merin pushed off the door. “Let me see that.” She pulled him back by the right shoulder. “Holy crap, Cullen!”
The entire portion of his armour that shielded his upper left body had been melted, most certainly by a direct shot during their brief scuffle with the Templars. His skin-suit had been burnt away and the flesh beneath it was charred and blistered. His bionic arm had taken severe damage too. Merin could see part of the metal shoulder joint was jammed backwards at an awkward angle putting unnecessary tension on the wires that acted as the tendons.
“Andraste’s arse, Curly. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s fine.” He groaned.
“Don’t be an idiot!! Your arm is all but falling off! Come on, let’s get you inside.” Merin pulled his good arm around her shoulders and started leading him down the corridor before he could protest.
Any words of complaint on his behalf were swallowed as he struggled to not groan out in pain. Merin hurried him forward into the hall- if a crudely dug out underground cavern could be called that- where all the latest refugees gathered and recovered from their injuries before starting the long walk through the rest of the subterranean passageways to reach the promised safe haven of Skyhold. The ironically named underground facility accommodated and hid all runaway biotics and their sympathisers from the violent persecution of the Templars.
Merin led them down a small corridor to their right until they reached a makeshift stockroom where all the medical supplies were kept. Here the tunnels began to resemble the well-constructed silver halls of Skyhold. Metal panels lined the floors, and there was a sudden appearance of doors instead of gaping holes, which led to other rooms. These doors blocked off the areas that temporarily housed the volunteers from Skyhold that worked here on shifts to help defend the base and aid the refugees that were brought back.
“Over there. Sit.” She pointed to a metal table, which sat in the middle of the room. She kicked the door shut behind her and marched over to the shelves. As she started rooting around for an appropriate sort of burn treatment, she silently hoped it would be well marked. This was not her area of expertise.
Behind her, she heard the sound of metal on metal as Cullen began to shed the beat-up up layers of armour. When she finally locked onto a ‘dermatological regeneration treatment’ in a spray bottle, she grabbed it before turning back. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Cullen had lost all his armour and had also pulled down his skin-suit to his waist.
He sat on the table, half-naked, gingerly inspecting the damage with his good hand. She had never seen him so bare before, so to see how extensive his bionic work was came as a sudden shock. His entire right arm was replaced with electromechanical workings along with his left hand all the way up to his elbow. Bionic rivets lined both sides of his well-built torso, allowing the mechanical additions to his body to communicate with the rest of his system.
Every part of him, from the human to the bionic, had been made to be the perfect example of the human specimen. Supposedly a shining beacon for Thedas to glorify and aspire to. And here he was. Right in the middle of the rebel biotic movement, fighting to protect everything he had been trained to hate, with a hole in his shoulder put there by the very people he was supposed to call comrades.
Cullen looked up to see Merin’s eyes examining him. “Sorry, it was easier to get to the rest of the damage like this.”
“Of course.” Merin cleared her throat and prayed to every god she knew of, whether she believed in them or not, she wouldn’t blush. “Here, this should help with the… you know… soft bits.”
“You mean the flesh?” Cullen asked, a slight smile on his lips.
“Well, yeah. Whatever. Here.” She busied herself with cracking the seal and pulling the cap of the treatment. She offered up the canister.
“Would you mind? The angle’s a little off from here and I would rather not get it on the exposed wiring.” His eyes were solely on his wound when he spoke but Merin felt awkward nonetheless.
“Is that bad?”
“Well it’s synced up with my nervous system so any electric shocks get sent back too.” He looked up at her now and fixed her with golden eyes as he explained. “It’s all designed to be a two-way system. All for maximum integration, thus outstanding control.” He grimaced as he shifted his arm to demonstrate the movement. “If you ask me the technology’s all too advanced. I could do without this part.”
He laughed and Merin found herself forced to add her own chuckle.
She began to spray the treatment over the gruesome mess of skin, which started to fizz under the work of the chemicals. Cullen grit his teeth through the process, which she knew from experience of this treatment, was a feat in itself. This stuff stung like a bitch.
The closer to his shoulder she got the more tentative her movements were, now hyper aware of the dangers of spraying the liquid onto the exposed wiring. Even so, just as she was almost done, her hand ran a little too far to the right and she accidentally sprayed part of the mechanics. There was a small spark, which sent a jolt through Cullen’s body.
“Maker’s breath!”
Merin jerked back.
“Shit! Sorry… You know I’m not a medic right?”
“Ha! It’s fine. You’re doing well. Thank you.”
She looked at him dubiously before quickly finishing it off without any more incidents. As she watched the burnt skin shuck away and be instantly replaced by fresh pink layers of the membrane, she registered what he had said.
“‘Maker’s breath’?”
“Huh?” He looked up from his shoulder.
“I electrocute you and the worst thing you say is ‘Maker’s breath’?” Merin was grinning now.
He laughed. “Yes, well I’m not really used to swearing.”
“You must hate listening to me on the field then!”
“Not at all. I love hearing your voice.”
Merin suddenly looked up like a deer caught in headlights. “What?”
Cullen looked just as shocked, as if the words had not actually been intended to fall out of his mouth, but rather remain within his head instead. “I, huh, I mean. Uh. No, it doesn’t bother me… When other people swear, that is.”
“Oh… Ok.” Merin turned away and looked around the supply room. “I don’t know if there’s anything here that’ll help with the rest of your arm though…”
“This just needs a slight manual override, don’t worry.”
“Right.” She paused and turned back to him. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need your help jamming it back into place.” Cullen was attempting to manipulate his damaged arm but the awkward approach kept making him wince.
Merin hesitated. “Ah, ok. Uh… What do you need me to do?”
He reached out and took her hand making her flinch slightly. “Just press down here, hold here, and… Ugh!”
“Sorry! What was that?”
“No, no. Nothing. Just a little shock… Now just… pull towards you.”
One of her hands was braced on his bare chest and the other around the metal bicep of his left arm. His skin felt warm under her touch and despite his apparent obliviousness to their proximity, Merin could have sworn she saw him blush too. Maybe that was just the pain though.
“Ok… Like this?” She jerked her right hand back towards her bringing his arm forward with her. The sound of metal on metal was accompanied by a sickening crunch of bone as the arm slid back into its socket.
“Argh! Fuck! Ahhh… Ah… Ha. Yeah… Like that.”
Muffled whirring sounds came from his shoulder as the wires reset themselves and slid back into place, the strain on them now relieved. Cullen’s breathing, calmed but the through palm she had yet to remove from his body, she couldn’t feel any sign of his heartbeat slowing.
Eventually he looked up at her and gave her a small smile. His brow was drenched in sweat. He must have been in much more pain than he had let on.
“You swore.”
“I did.”
His golden eyes locked on hers and before she could pull her hand away he reached up and held her left hand firmly against his chest.
“Thank you.”
“You’re… um… welcome.”
A moment of heavy silence hung in the air before the metal door to the room swung open.
“Oh! Excuse me… Isabela had said that I should check up on you but it looks like you have all the aid you need, Cullen.”
Merin snatched her hand back, no doubt in her mind she was now red in the face. She marched for the door, looking to escape quickly and but stopped by the grinning medic’s side to whisper in his ear.
“Worst timing ever, Anders.”