faderift | Life in Camp Shady Fuckers

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Life in Camp Shady Fuckers

WHO: Everyone living in or visiting the Warden camp
WHAT: Just some low-key action-spammy stuff for a bunch of sketchy losers who got tossed into the camp for sketchy losers. And the people who come to hang out because sketchy losers are the coolest losers.
WHEN: Vaguely stretching around Cloudreach?? Nothing is set in stone, time is an illusion
WHERE: ~~Camp Shady Fuckers~~ The Warden camp
NOTES: Just throw whatever warnings necessary in the heads of your threads

Just throw opens or whatever up this is a low-key general mingly kinda thing for hanging out and shouting at each other. Feel free to interrupt other threads or whatever and idk man this is basically like a network post but in real life.

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[ Alistair nods, exhales; nothing is fine, on the grand scale, but on the smaller personal one that measures his likelihood of having an actual break instead of only standing alone in the snow for a few hours, he's all right. He smiles. ]

Don't be silly. We'd obviously change the colors for you.

Can you imagine the Wardens in red and gold?

[ It is a tense joke- he has not seen Alistair this bad in years and even then? There was an Archdemon he knew he must kill and knew with certainty would end the problem. Now? Things are not so certain. He shifts enough to prop himself up on an elbow, leveling Alistair with a look. ]

Do you need me to talk to help you sleep?

Eugh. Never mind.

[ That would be a no. And he smiles wider in response to the look and the question, if only to prove he can. ]

Is that your way of telling me to shut up? We're friends, Zev, you can just say it.

No, this is me asking if...there is something I can do to help.

[ He reaches up to drag his nails through Alistair's hair, brow furrowed. ]

I cannot hear this thing that haunts you, but I know it is there every hour of every day. You are not well rested, you are not- you are not yourself. I do not expect you to be but if I can do something to make this easier? I would do it.

I know you would.

[ He props up, too, but only long enough to flop in the other direction and semi-tackle Zevran back down and—not smother him, entirely, but maybe a little. It takes some shifting and squirming to get resettled, belly down with an arm around his waist. ]

Tell me more about your perfect woman or man so I know what to keep an eye out for.

Cucciolo.

[ Zevran does not squeak, but he does laugh. This is what he'd missed alone in his room. The casual closeness, the playful wrestling without intent. He goes as he's pinned and shifts until they're covered and tangled thoroughly, cheek still propped up on his hand. ]

Gorgeous, of course. I like my women to be soft and full figured, my men to be tall and broad and well muscled, they must have a sense of humor and an appreciation if not strict adherence to Antivan romantic ideals. Flowers, dinner, passion, dancing, the music- they must at least endure with good grace my appreciation for leather. They must not begrudge me this, what we share.

[ Alistair shuts his eyes and takes mental notes. Maybe they're to the tune of the song, but at least that will make it easier to remember. At the end he huffs a laugh, though. ] You might have to be willing to compromise on that. Just a little.

Why?

[ They are not fucking, why would they take issue with his relationship with Alistair? ]

Because— [ He doesn't yawn, but there is a drowsy quality to his pause. ] —we're not all paragons of trust and security like you, and I'm adorable.

You think they would be jealous? But we aren't- we don't do anything.

[ They sleep. That is all. ]

I know that, you know that.

[ Half the people here do not seem to know that, he doesn't feel the need to say aloud. They've brought that on themselves. Or Zevran has brought it on them, mostly, and can probably dispatch of the rumors quickly enough if it ever suits him to do so. Alistair turns his head to look at him, one-eyed, with the other pressed into the pillow still. ]

Zev, if you find someone—like that, chances are they'll want you to stay the night, be there if you can't sleep, all of that. All of this. That's half the point. If we're even still in the same country when you settle down, maybe I can borrow you when whoever-it-is is away.

Or you could share the bed, for sleeping, with us as well. You make for a marvelous pillow.

[ An impossible thing to ask but- for years that is what he'd had. Rinna and Taliesin tangled around him, curled close to watch his back and keep him safe as much as he did the same for them. In a world where he had more time to rest and less to worry- he still wishes for such a thing.

Even if before it ended terribly. ]

I will defer to your judgement on this.

Good. I'm very wise.

[ And experiencing very briefly a pang of preemptive jealousy himself, plus a thing that could be accurately described as left-behindedness (but could also be less ridiculously, if also less charitably, described as self-pity). Both are promptly quashed, mostly by the earnest desire to see Zevran married and covered in a pile of children before he dies, and a little by his general ability to shove those sorts of things out of his chest and into the pit of his stomach, where they only cause him to pick fights and scream for attention, as opposed to doing anything stupid like aching. ]

And pillowy. But I'm not going to let someone sleep on me just because you fancy them. It's an honor. It has to be earned.

On occasion.

[ He mumbles, snuggling closer still. As though being pressed as close as possible would make up for the nights apart, the years between letters and visits. He wrote when he could- it wasn't often safe to write. If he had been around more often, spoken more, helped more-

Perhaps they would have gotten sick of one another. Who knows? ]

Mmm. What if you like them as well?

Unlikely. [ He resettles to accommodate the snuggling, comfortable, and not silently sharing any of those potential regrets. They had things to do. ] I can only like five people at a time. I'm at my limit.

Give me that list, then, and I will choose from among them.

[ As though that would solve everything. ]

[ Alistair huffs, then lists off, ] You, Pel, Gavin, Beleth, [ and pauses because five is such a small number, he's made a mistake, even if no one is here to hear it he feels as if he'll be hurting someone's feelings. ] Ellana. [ There. All of the Asharas who have given him much attention. ]

Mmm. No, no, Maker no, and she is already spoken for. You will have to learn to like someone else, Cucciolo.

[ He has to like more than that but- it is important to him that whoever this mythical whomever it is at least can be friendly with Alistair. ]

We'll see.

[ He will. Or he'll try. He would even try—with some whining, particularly behind closed doors—with someone like Michel. But right now he doesn't have to, because everything is hypothetical, so he rests a hand on Zevran's head again and presses his face into the pillow. His mouth is only just free enough for him to be muffled but not incoherent when he keeps talking. ]

How are your nightmares?

That's all I ask.

[ That he even feels fit to ask at all is something, he might complain a great deal about Alistair's habits and quirks but none of it is meant to change the man. Much like Alistair never asks anything seriously of him. He takes a moment more to parse what Alistair's actually said before replying. ]

How are yours?

[ Alistair sighs—noisily, the way his mouth is squished sideways—and musses the hair under his head. Diversionary tactics. How roguey. ]

The same. [ But now he's being hypocritical, maybe. He pauses. ] They aren't really nightmares. I'm not afraid until I wake up. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing—it's like the song, the whispering, it's nice when I'm not trying to think about anything else. [ Thus the name. It would be easier to listen to it and go. But that's enough whining. Childishly: ] Now I've been serious, you have to be, too.

You might not be afraid but you are distressed- or at least seem as such. You've never seen yourself have them, Alistair.

[ Distressing is a good word for it- Zevran often finds himself concerned more than a little at whatever it is that causes Alistair such disquiet that he can't simply murder to make it go away. Kill all the darkspawn, murder a few archdemons, perhaps. He always knew this might come but-

He'd hoped to be dead first.

Back on him, the question, and he sighs against Alistair's chest. ]

Better. Doghren helps- She noses or licks me awake when I become distressed. Mia helps as well. She asks no questions, merely sets up a game of chess or asks me to tell her about Antiva. I do not wake thinking this is another trick anymore or that you are some demon trying to get me to submit.

I'm not sure I am myself having them, [ Alistair says with flippant and mumbly weirdness, the kind that could easily be a non sequitur and doesn't invite questions. Nothing he would be able to explain fully if pressed, except that they're part of the darkspawn, and they aren't his eyes looking, all the time, or his feelings or his hunger, but the longer it goes on the more normal it feels.

He's fine. He listens—Doghren, good, Mia, good. He's quiet for a moment, giving the last bit the space and weight it deserves, hand going limply heavy on Zevran's head.

Then he says, ] Welllllll, [ ridiculously. Ridiculous on every level. Not a demon, not here to make Zevran do anything, definitely not here to make anyone submit to anything. He doesn't even fully comprehend what the innuendo might exactly be implying. It just seems like the sort of thing that warrants innuendo. And he sobers up quickly enough, adding, ] Do you ever still wish we'd left you?

...that does not inspire confidence.

[ But he does not ask. He does not know if he would want to know- as there is nothing more that he can do for this aside from kill Corypheus and hope that is enough. Maker knows he does not often spare time or effort for hope but that needs to be enough.

He slips a hand up to pat Alistair's cheek, reassuring Alistair as much as himself. ]

Only on the worst nights but that has not happened for some time. It will fade eventually. When you and Jonas spared me in the road it took six months for me to stop wishing you to put a blade to me. These things take time.

[ Alistair exhales a long breath. He can't really understand; there have been times he's wished he'd died, but never for the sake of dying. Lives he would have traded his own for. Atrocities he would have been willing to die to prevent. His life as a chip in the bargaining stage of grief—which implies a certain value. He wouldn't throw it away. For all his self-esteem issues, he's never felt that expendable or that pained, and Zevran shouldn't—

He would push the subject, but he's teachable. He's learned. Even if it did take being whacked in the metaphorical nose with a metaphorical rolled-up newspaper so hard he non-metaphorically cried. ]

Let me know if I can do anything, [ he says, a little stilted from the effort it takes not to say anything else. ]

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