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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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. ]

[ There's a moment when he feels as though Alistair will start up with the everything from before. The hovering, the insistence that he is wrong to feel how he does simply because Alistair cares so much, why doesn't he? Every kind word a dagger in a half healed wound and...none of it comes.

Alistair chokes it down and it's difficult- Zevran can hear that it is difficult, just as he can appreciate that they do not have the argument again. He curls, hand slipping up to pat Alistair's cheek in approval. ]

Tell me I'm pretty and that I am your favorite. That is all I need to hear.

[ Zevran pats his cheek; Alistair doesn't have a tail to wag, but there's one wagging in his soul, probably, and at the next bit he's able to set aside at least half of his chest-aching sympathy (which is not the same as empathy) and play along with a slowly growing grin. ] The most beautiful man in Thedas and the only one I'll ever love, [ he agrees, sing-song like a recitation. ] Don't tell Dorian.

Good. I won't have to duel him for your hand after all.

[ He still would, somehow. Find a way to do it, a way to win or lose that hurts no feelings, that leaves everyone aching with laughter rather than jealousy after the fact. For now he has this and it is, truly, enough to keep the whispers at bay. ]

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