faderift | [ CLOSED ] I'm in here, can anybody see me?

The wall was helping. It was nothing, and it also wasn't Redcliffe, which meant he was somewhere else. The floor was cold, and hard, and his back hurt. It burned, not in a way that felt bludgeoned.
He looked down at his own knees, pensive, then slowly raised his eyes to see Zevran's hand. He followed it back to the man's face, and it took him several moments to recognize who he was looking at.

"...I'm sorry," he said, still a bit disoriented, but aware enough to know something had gone awry. He gave a cursory glance over Zevran's body, his brow knitting with sudden worry. "...did I hurt you?"

"No." He kept is voice gentle, kept it light and kind as he leaned away enough to drag the waterskin close. This he offered to Cade, waiting for a more thorough sign of recognition. "You did not. You went quiet- somewhere else. Apparently somewhere unpleasant. I know you have asked me to not but- may I touch you? Just your hand."

That and that alone, something decidedly nonsexual, decidedly not aggressive to ground him.

Cade was unusually docile, but in this he became a bit more open. He carefully took the waterskin, drank from it, then rested it back down, giving a small and timid nod to Zevran's request.

"I didn't mean to," he said quietly, apologetically. This wasn't the usual self-loathing, in which he'd immediately start pummeling himself; he was just still trying to get past feeling like he was in trouble.

He took Cade's hand gently, squeezing his fingers to help bring him back. Something not of then- of wherever he'd been or of what the man that hurt him did. Something that belonged only to the here and now. "These things do not always go the way we think they will. We are still learning about one another and how you react to this. You have done nothing wrong."

The only thing he might consider is that Cade did not bid him to stop when it became different and wrong- but he'd caught it. Somehow bringing that up now would not go over well.

In truth, Cade hadn't seen it coming any more than Zevran had. He could have called out had it become too painful, but he had no control over when the fear would take him. That was what made him so dangerous-- it was why he was here in the first place.

He looked down at Zevran's hand squeezing his, and though it wasn't normally something he would want, it felt good for what it was. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned forward to rest his head against the wall, enjoying its cool solidity as he had the last time.

"I have," he replied, but in a tone that indicated he was returning to himself. The fear was draining back into guilt.
"I... in Redcliffe, um, the Hinterlands..." He tried to explain, but his thoughts were still scattered, fluttering away from him each time he tried to voice one. He turned his head back to press his forehead against the stone, closing his eyes. "...the Captain was killed by apostates. ...leaving me in command. I..." He took a deep, shuddering breath; he had tried to explain this to Alayre, but had been dismissed on account of what was happening all over the Hinterlands. "...the red lyrium, I think, um... or... they didn't..."
He took another breath and forced it out. "I k.. I killed them. All of them."

"The apostates?" Anyone else might judge. Zevran? Knew well he had no room to do so. Death was death. War was war- and what was this mess with mages and templars in the Hinterlands if not a war? A war no one on either side were at all prepared for, mages unprepared for the freedom outside, templars overwhelmed and stranded with the chaos in their order.

For a man as devoted as Cade- lashing out in such a way? Was not entirely beyond the realm of reason.

"What of the Red Lyrium?"

Cade nearly shook his head, but it wouldn't have been true: he had killed apostates as well. The difference was that those deaths didn't tear him up as much as the others. He had been sent with the purpose of killing them. He had killed them in Kirkwall when they had rampaged.
"..my men," he weakly replied, bracing himself for Zevran's reaction. The only other person who knew was Alayre, who had helped him finish them off.

"They had... they wouldn't listen. They... attacked villagers, looted their carts, I..." He pressed his forehead a little harder into the stone, wincing. "...I wouldn't let them, they didn't care. Seiler said it was necessary, to keep going. They listened to him instead." He had been more charismatic, larger, a born leader; there was no contest between him and the timid Lieutenant.
Cade squeezed his eyes closed, trying to block the mental image and mostly failing. They had turned on him, certainly, but had he been a competent officer to begin with, it all could have been prevented.

"So you, keeping with the vows taken to serve man and protect them, were trying to keep your fellows from being murderous bandits and bastards. They failed to listen to reason, followed a greedy man, you killed them." Zevran shrugged. "In your shoes I would have done the same. You did due diligence by attempting to control them. It is not your failing if their greed overruled their good sense. They became bandits and bastards; you handled them as such. Where in this does the sin become yours?"

A lack of proper leadership? Hardly. Zevran squeezed Cade's hand tighter- wanting to reach up and smooth his hair out of his face but- he'd said only the hand. So he shall keep to only the hand.

"How is this your failure?" He did everything that had been expected of him.

Cade hung his head, glancing at their hands but then diverting his gaze to the stone floor. "I was in charge of them," he weakly replied, "they were my responsibility. I..." He shook his head. "I was made Knight-Lieutenant when the acting one was demoted for drunkenness. It was a... superficial title, I was never... never supposed to inherit command." He had, more or less, been told just that.
"..I didn't do my job. And so many died as a result." He sniffed wetly, and as he lifted his other hand to press at his eyes, he realized he still didn't have a shirt on.

Oh yeah.

He looked again at Zevran, this time with a new awareness-- not that he hadn't been aware before that, but he had been so wrapped up in himself that he'd actually forgotten what they'd been doing, why they were here. His gaze fell to the flogger, then past it, as he found himself at a loss for words.

"And yet you were, and yet you attempted to do as was your right and your duty- to ensure they fell in line and weren't complete bags of shit. It is not your fault that they failed. Were you commander or someone else- they would have failed all the same. Greed sinks its hooks deep into men of all sorts. Their sin? Is not on your hands." He would not sit here and listen to such things.

He could not help but wonder how many have done just that- or did not care.

"Are you here once more?" He offered an apple as he had last time, not sliced as knives right now? Not the best idea.

Cade didn't disagree right away, instead just watching Zevran thoughtfully. He didn't necessarily agree either, but the reassurance had jogged something strange in his memory: something said to him by a boy whose face he couldn't recall.

You were able to let love in, once.

He took the apple with mild hesitation, but nodded the affirmative, and just held it in his hand for a moment as he looked at it, his eyes distant.

There was a place for it. There still is.

A question swelled in him, but he was almost too afraid to ask it. He opened his mouth, took a breath, closed it again, tried again, then pursed his lips and looked away for a moment. Then he forced the words out.
"If this weren't about preventing... another incident," he began, "would you still...?" He trailed off, the word 'care' unspoken. If the answer was no, he wouldn't be too thrown by it; that was just how things were.

"Still...?" Cade would have to use his words. Still flog? Still mind him? Still give half a damn? Without context he couldn't sort out exactly what it was Cade meant to ask. There were too many variables and he still was not quite able to pick out what mattered most to Cade in all this.

The structure, the contact, the understanding that came from someone that endured what he lived through? Someone that worked around it?

"Still what, Cade?" He cannot answer without knowing. Moreover? He would not. One wrong word in all this? And what little progress they've made? Will come tumbling down.

Cade nearly lost his nerve when Zevran pressed him. Maybe it was stupid, maybe he was wrong to guess. But nobody had ever listened to him before.
"...care," he timidly concluded, glancing at Zevran's face and then away again. Assuming he had ever cared.

Only all his years of training kept his face open and empathetic. Kind. Caring. It was a trick he'd learned as a child in the Crows, to project empathy. He...perhaps might be bothered to assist were Cade not a danger, if he knew what he'd endured. But one was tied deeply to the other. After a moment's consideration- not so immediate as to seem insincere, not so lengthy a pause to seem an outright lie, he murmured. "Yes."

Whether or not Zevran's answer was sincere, Cade needed to believe it, so he chose to. Otherwise, it would mean life was pointless again, he was unsalvageable. Disposable.
He didn't press. Instead he just nodded, looked away again, and bit carefully into the apple, since it was given to him and this was expected. He wasn't even sure what he had wanted to come from the exchange, because now he proceeded to sit there in awkward silence, his back smarting and his hand still under Zevran's, the absurdity of the situation slowly encroaching on him.

Then he remembered something. The thing that had started the fuss in the first place.

"...Seiler slammed me in the back with his shield," he said sheepishly, "...he had the others distract me." As if that knowledge suddenly made it his fault, Cade quickly added, "...I didn't know that would happen. Just now."

Idly, for there was no way for the gesture to be but idle, Zevran rubbed his thumb back and forth across Cade's knuckles. Something stable and soothing- as much for himself as it was for Cade. He did not enjoy knowing he'd put someone back into such a place. He hated it when he slipped himself from now to then, whenever or whatever then might have been.

At least he'd been attentive enough to stop before more damage was done.

"That would explain it. We shall avoid the flogger from now on, yes? You got more out of the cat." He stopped himself from saying 'enjoyed' as that had been a large point of contention in the past. Better not to dig into that particular argument. "They would take the lash to us often, in the Crows. Both for training and in the bedroom. It took months for me to stop associating it with them, to learn to like the sting. The first time surprised me as well, when I went somewhere that should have been good or at least useful to that memory."

Cade's hand tensed under the movement, but he was determined not to be a bigger mess. It was just a hand, he told himself, even if his entire awareness seemed to center on that one point of stimulation.

He blinked a few times and shook himself out of it. "Um," he replied, "yes. All right." Remembering the apple, he took another bite of it and chewed thoughtfully. He was going through an odd mix of emotions, between feeling slightly reassured and enduring the tension he could still feel in himself, coming down from the flashback, and quieting the animalistic terror it had woken in him. But he was here, on the ground, in a tower. With an apple. And a man stroking his hand.

"..should I, um..." he began, and motioned awkwardly toward the wall. He'd interrupted with his dramatics, but that didn't mean they were done. At least as far as he knew.

Little things. Baby steps. Little by little discussing what he'd endured- little by little becoming accustomed to touch that was nonsexual and nonthreatening. It seemed to be working.

"Do you wish to?" Punishment is punishment, penance is penance, but he's been pushed into something he did not want, something they did not agree on. But should Cade truly be up for another round? He would get the cat, see what happened.

It worked better, last time. For both of them.

Without confirmation or a request to release it- Zevran continues to hold Cade's hand, his grip loosening somewhat. More than enough for Cade to let go if he so wished.

Cade took stock of the current state of his back, and, with a twinge of actual hesitation creeping through his usual hateful masochism, he determined that he could deal with more. Nothing had been... resolved, after all-- he had messed it up before the ritual could be concluded. He was still on the hook.
When Zevran loosened his grip, Cade took it as a cue to withdraw his hand, which he then used to support himself as he got up off the floor. He took one more bite of the apple before he carefully set it on the table with the implements, brushed his hands off, and went back into position against the wall.
He was still chewing as he stared at it, waiting, but with more determination than nervousness. He had to do it, and he had to do it right, or he was just as cowardly and worthless as everyone thought. ...or at least he did.

"...You truly are remarkable, you know that?" That he was determined to continue on despite the jarring moment? Despite being shaken? Zevran allowed real pride to seep into his voice- some genuine appreciation for Cade. It seemed to do him some good to hear such things and Zevran? Was pleased to survive.

"We were on eighteen. Would you like to continue from there with the cat, or start fresh?" If he started fresh Zevran would wish to offer him some of an elfroot potion, give him a cleaner slate to mark up.

Zevran's tone took him by surprise, and he looked back at the elf to find that it wasn't a joke. This elicited a rare, small but sincere smile from Cade, and he faced forward again, committed to proving Zevran right.

"...um.. the first one," he decided. Despite his bravado, even he knew it was probably best to avoid the thing that had made him feel like he was dying.

"Then you owe me two strikes more, four sips of elfroot, and a meeting in the morning to check your back." That was all he was obligated to endure. Zevran levered himself to his feet and set the flogger aside, taking up instead the cat.

"If you wish this to stop?" Starting fresh without quite starting fresh.

Cade was almost disappointed by the number, but he decided instead to focus on doing everything else right. "I'll say stop," he dutifully responded, feeling a twinge of guilt for having not been able to earlier.
But he was going to do it right this time. No mistakes. He had to be remarkable.

"And if you want more, after the two? What do you say?" Because that will always be an option if he wished it. Zevran rolled out his shoulder, swinging his cat through the air with a confident hiss. Adjusting to the new weight, the new flick.

Cade actually couldn't recall having agreed on anything specific, but he did remember what he'd said the last time. "..more?" he guessed.

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