Work Text:
Downstairs Bull lifts Cullen from his wheelchair and places him gently on his bed. Cullen's body is tight like a bow and Bull sits next to him on the bed, stroking his arms from shoulders to the tips of his fingers. Then Bull takes his hand and starts at Cullen's fingers, massaging the joints until they stop twitching.
"There you go," Bull murmurs soothingly.
"Fuck," Cullen breathes, "I haven't wanted lyrium this badly for months."
"Mmm," Bull says. "May I?"
He tugs at the templar's t-shirt, and when Cullen nods Bull pulls it gently over his shoulders and off.
"I haven't been that close to a mage practicing magic in... I don't even know," Cullen mutters. "And now there's a fucking mage living next to me. I wonder if he has any..." he swallows and lifts his hips, letting Bull pull off his jeans.
"Don't go there," Bull says in a low voice, rolling Cullen on to his side, facing away from him. "You've beaten the craving before, you can do it again."
Mentally he makes a note to talk to Dorian about any potential lyrium the mage might have in his apartment. Bull presses his thumbs firmly on each side of Cullen's spine, starting to work out the knots in his muscles and Cullen sighs.
"Fuck," he says again but he's relaxing into Bull's touch.
Bull works on Cullen's back until the muscles start to soften before moving to his bad leg, moving the joint first.
"Have you thought about the hip surgery?" he asks. "Could make it better."
"Could make it worse," Cullen says sullenly. "No thank you."
Bull lays down on the bed next to Cullen, the templar against his chest. He wraps an arm around him and pulls Cullen's knee against his stomach, pulling the hip joint to it's extreme and Cullen tenses again, groaning. Bull doesn't let go, pinning Cullen between himself and the knee, holding him steady.
"Breathe through it," he murmurs.
Cullen groans again but forces a breath out between his teeth. Next breath is deeper, and slowly his body relaxes again. Bull moves the knee again, and only when he's satisfied that Cullen is no longer in discomfort does he move onto massaging the muscles on his thigh.
There are so many things he could say. "You should do your stretches." "You should walk more." "You should get out more." But he says none of them, because he knows Cullen gets that from his social worker, and even more than that he knows it's only that simple from somebody's point of view who hasn't gone through the kind of injury and trauma like Cullen has. So he leaves it alone and helps the only way he can, knowing that if he can relax the templar's body his mind will quieten too.
As Bull works his fingers on Cullen's thigh, slowly the man's breathing changes and he doesn't resist the touch anymore, his face relaxes and his eyes rest closed instead of squeezed shut. Bull threads his fingers through the curly hair, rubs the scalp gently.
"Sleepy?" he murmurs. "You're welcome to stay."
"Mhm," Cullen murmurs back, already half asleep.
Bull sits up only to strip off his own shirt, then he crawls back to bed, pulling covers over them. He tucks Cullen under his arm and nests their bodies together, and he too, falls asleep within minutes.