faderift | [closed] who's gonna throw the very first stone

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[closed] who's gonna throw the very first stone

WHO: Alistair, Cade, Zevran
WHAT: the great pissbaby debate
WHEN: post-mommy, pre-baby
WHERE: Camp Shady Fucker
NOTES: Shit Might Get Dark. Also, anyone in CSF is free to have witnessed this, but keep commentary to a separate thread I s'pose!

There's a lot of work to do around the Warden camp, what with the building of actual housing, and Cade is among the laborers who have been sent down to do the bulk of it.
He's never actually been down here before, and can't help noticing how pitiful it is in comparison to the rest of Skyhold. But perhaps that's why they're here.

As usual, having no actual trade skills in building things, Cade has been relegated to running errands and bringing more supplies. At present, he is encumbered on both hands by two buckets of pitch, which he shuffles toward the worksite.

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Cade is less lucid when he looks back at Zevran, even though he does so immediately. His eyes are distant and he's clearly verging on the point of no return, stressed beyond his capacity to cope.
In fact, his nerves and patience are so frayed that Alistair's final comment strikes him in exactly the wrong way, and he hauls back to deck him in the jaw.

"I am willing to bet you were as well-" He sees the patience snapping before the blow is thrown, and thus is able to reach out and catch Cade's jaw before violence ensues. "Cade. Deep breaths."

Alistair's potential wit (I've been unlikable since I was born, thank you—"wit") is sacrificed to instinct, movement caught in time for him to take a step back. Which turns out to be unnecessary. What a waste of a line.

"Riiight," he drawls. Vengeance for the lost line. "Clearly it's a great idea for you to be down here."

Cade's first inclination is to wrench himself away from Zevran's grip, but as he is presumably not able to do this, he's forced to accept the arrangement and grudgingly does as the man says. He heaves in a deep breath, though it becomes more shaky at Alistair's continued commentary, his previously squeezed-shut eyes opening to cast him a look of absolute loathing.

"And clearly you do not know when to quit." Zevran snaps- actually snaps, at Alistair. His own eyes narrow somewhat, hand tight and tense on Cade's wrist, attempting to prevent more violence. How much ground has he lost now? Maker only knows. "Cade, stand down."

—so much for avoiding blows. Zevran's snapping is only a stinger of a hit, though, enough to earn a wounded glance but not anything embarrassing like a full-on crumple, and it opens up space for the fact that Zevran is intervening

and talking to Cade like he knows him

and Cade is listening like he knows Zevran—

"You know me," Alistair says, arms crossing and weight shifting back onto one foot, talking to Zevran but looking with sullen, unfocused evenness at Cade. He sounds more subdued, at least. Still distracted trying to puzzle out what's going on. "I don't walk away."

Not too distracted to quote Zevran's words from three months ago back at him. He has a good memory for injuries. He's over it—their fight, with all its subsequent apologies—but obviously not over everything. Cade is only a footnote on the list of people who've given up on him, maybe, but he's on it.

Cade is still coming down from the rage, and as such is consistently tense, shooting erratic, furious glances Alistair's way and periodically jerking his wrist as though surely it will come free this time. He's unaware of the significance of the exchange, knowing only that the two are friends and that Zevran is currently standing between them.
And... not... immediately hauling him off to the dungeons, which becomes an unexpected development as soon as Cade's mind clears enough to realize it. ...is Zevran on his side?
It couldn't be. That's never happened.

No one twitch will have Zevran releasing him- he means to hold fast until he is certain that Cade will not react violently to what is being said. And until Alistair has calmed himself, Zevran cannot be certain what is said won't prompt a violent reaction. How much this will help, well. Who can say? But he is obligated to both of them and will not let either of them come to harm.

Even from one another.

"No you do not- it is a part of your charm." And not half as grating as he'd made it sound in the past. It will not make up for throwing it in Alistair's face all those weeks ago; but it may be a branch. A plank on the bridge rebuilt.

"Cade. Be easy." Or as easy as he is capable of being. "Now...will one of you tell me what in the Maker's name happened here?"

"He shouldn't be down here. Beleth and Anders—"

And Alistair. He doesn't want to see Cade right now. With half an hour and some distance he might be able to sort out that all of the hurt he tried nobly to bottle for Fiona has to go somewhere, but right now he's just mad--less, though, with Zevran's offered plank and Cade twitching a bit like a caught fish, which isn't funny now but could be eventually.

"He can't hurt me," Alistair concludes, despite that HE ALREADY HAS, because this is, obviously, about Alistair being selfless and stepping in front of the blow. That he provoked. Just in case.

Selflessly.

Although still tense in Zevran's grip, Cade isn't actively trying to get away anymore. He's just... twitchy, clearly still on a hair trigger but, for the moment, successfully talked down from violence.
"He won't bloody stop," Cade interjects, in more of a yelp than a spoken phrase, his voice cracking oddly with the effort it's taking to not lose his composure entirely. He stares at Alistair all the while, quivering with fury, the betrayal of it all. "Following me, getting in my face, he's trying for this, he WANTS--" Rather than admit outright how easily he's played, Cade instead concludes by brokenly stammering, "I'm here with the builders!! I go where I'm told!" This is simultaneously a lament and a defense-- he's always gone where he's told, it's what made him a good soldier before everything fell apart.

"Are not bothering the builders- nor do then require your defense. But if you wish to make assumptions on their behalf, by all means, continue to be an ass." Like whapping a dog on the nose with rolled up paper, that. "Cade is attempting to work, minding his own business, and is not so mindless a thing that he would fly into a rage around one or the other."

Well...he knows for certain he would not do that around Beleth. Anders is another matter, but Anders can protect himself.

"And should he act out, he knows the punishment." Which there will be for the swing, provoked or not. "And it shall be handled. Unless you would like to share that punishment- leave him be."

Alistair considers Cade's escalating tone with a raised eyebrow, and then considers Zevran's lecture with said eyebrow only slightly lowered. There's a lot going on. He's aware that at least some of it is going on somewhere up above his head.

So he could try arguing about who needs his defense and whether or not Cade is a mindless rage monster, or:

"What in Andraste's name are you on about?"

And:

"Since when do you two know one another?"

Although being defended, strange as it is, occupies most of his consciousness, Cade has the good sense to calm himself further when Zevran continues. This doesn't prevent him from continuing to glare daggers at Alistair, his awareness of the situation gradually sharpening. He has... definitely messed up, and that brings with it the usual paralyzing anxiety-- but it's mitigated by the fact that he didn't start it. He remembers it this time, with infuriating clarity.
"You did this on purpose," he mutters, feeling a brand new stab of betrayal.

"I have no doubt he provoked you, he has a habit of picking fights for less than wise reasons." This doesn't sound half as bad as it probably should the way Zevran says it. It is more offhand and casual like 'oh the dog gnaws on boots from time to time, what can you do?'

But pointed at Cade? Not entirely acceptable. "What I do not know is why."

Which would be where Alistair answers.

"Since I sought him out after you told me of Beleth and we discussed how things ought to be handled. We have a system." It works, Alistair. Quit fucking it up.

You did this on purpose, Cade says, and Alistair twitches his eyebrows up, eyes brightening and going independently smirky even though the rest of his expression barely budges from its sulk. It's the sort of attitude that was probably--maybe, depending on one's perspective--more charming when aimed at fussy Chantry sisters or overly strict Templar trainers, back when he was picking those fights for less than wise reasons, like just to make people laugh.

It fades, though. Quickly. Maybe because there's no laughter. Maybe because his friend and his--whatever, childhood acquaintance--having a System that apparently unites them against him is pretty much the opposite of soothing for the burns that he. has not explained.

Anyway, it fades. He knits his eyebrows together, then visibly decides that he doesn't want to ask. "Right. Super," he says. "Sorry for interfering with your system."

Somehow, perhaps not too surprisingly, Alistair's expression makes it worse. There was a time in which Cade would have been the one to laugh at the subtle glance, the inside joke, always on some level afraid he'd be the subject of it.
And now he is. For no reason that he can glean, at least other than the one he's been tirelessly trying to set right, he's become the butt of Alistair's jokes on top of everyone else's.
"Bastard," he breathes, and looks aside, more stung than spiteful. Whatever connection they used to have, it's well and truly gone now. Maybe it was never actually there at all.

"Am I going to have to ask you to apologize to one another? Is this what my life has become? I am the Ombra Nera, the most fearsome assassin in Antiva- and I am mediating an argument between two squabbling chantry boys as though they were still wearing short pants." Maker's breath, why is this his day. Why?

"Cade, apologize to Alistair for trying to punch him. Alistair, apologize to Cade for provoking him into trying to punch you. Both of you apologize to me for making me realize that this is my life now." Him. A responsible, reasonable adult. HIM. Zevran!

If there were any small chance that Alistair would notice that Zevran is having a miniature midlife crisis, it's lost at bastard, which is only funny when it comes from people who he hasn't grouped with all the other noble Templars who liked to make sure he knew his place. What little progress his face had made toward penitence unravels, and to Zevran he says, "No."

Cade does bring out the Chantry boy in him, and he was specifically a Chantry boy who the Knight-Commander decided had a mouth, attitude problem, and willful streak that do nothing but cause trouble for whoever wound up having to deal with him.

Ta da.

"You should have let him hit me."

It's all become too much. Cade has gone from explosive anger to a simmering, aching hurt, and the fight has gone out of him. Of course he's expected to apologize for defending himself-- he's the Skyhold pariah, he's not allowed to have anything resembling dignity or self-respect.

He holds his silence, but his expression has softened into one of weary defeat. His contempt for Alistair still shows each time he looks the man's way, but he's giving up on the argument and, little does Alistair know, on him. Right now, for the first time.

"...Go back to work." He releases Cade's wrist- and were they any other way? He'd get a pat on the shoulder, a gentle nudge. But they aren't and Cade still has his reservations about contact; a faint look is all he can offer. "We will talk later."

Alistair, now. Alistair is being an unreasonable little shit. Normally it's charming. Normally Zevran is in a position to sit back and gleefully wind him up all the more to watch other people face the business end of Alistair's contrary nature. It is not half so funny when he is the one handling the fallout. Perhaps he owes Jonas an apology or two.

He knows he owes Leliana one.

"I will hit you myself if you keep on with this." And he'll make it count. "Why are you provoking him?"

Maybe Cade walks away when told; maybe he doesn't. Either way, Alistair says, "Why am I provoking a Templar who nearly killed Beleth," he says, carefully, as if to make sure he understands the question, "and—"

—is just like the rest of them, as far as Alistair is aware. Templars. Chantry zealots. Nobles who think a backhand is fair punishment for back talk. Worse, maybe, because there was a time when it seemed like he'd be different, and then he wasn't. At all.

And Alistair did try. It wasn't the best try, maybe, at the soirée, equal parts concern and mocking, but it wasn't all mocking. It was the least amount of mocking he could manage under the circumstances. And Cade walked away, as he does.

"You have met me, right?" he says instead of any of that, and instead of that's the stupidest question I've ever heard. "Why are you sticking up for him?"

Cade doesn't need to be told twice (not that he ever does). He glances back at Zevran as he goes back to the buckets, picks them up, and casts a final glower Alistair's way before getting back to what he was doing.

Arsehole.

"Yes, Alistair, why are you provoking an unarmed man with a history of sudden violent outbursts? As much as you act like it, you are no idiot." He had to know poking would result in yet another outburst and likely a fight.

Why he wanted that? Zevran doesn't know. Normally he's better at picking out the threads than this but he has been preoccupied.

"You have met Beleth, yes? Have spoken to her about how she wishes all of this would simply be over and done with? I do not know what world it is you live in wherein grinding that detail in his face counts as leaving it over and done with." A beat. "You'll stand beside an abomination that destroyed a chantry but one awwkard man with an incident is worth your perpetual scorn."

Zevran, likewise, sticks up for Anders but these are very different things.

"That's completely different."

He doesn't explain how. Alistair has a complex system of morality, you see. One far too complex to articulate while he's angry. Something like: add up all the deaths a person directly caused and a quarter of the deaths they indirectly caused, divide by half if the person was below their target on the social ladder or less heavily armed or trying to protect other people, multiply by two for nobility and by three for Chantry sanction, then take that final number and probably just throw it in the garbage because what actually matters at the end of any ethics debate is whether or not Alistair likes them and whether or not they've hurt anyone he cares about.

"It's not any of your business," he decides with a glare. There aren't many things that aren't Zevran's business, historically, but Alistair is choosing this for the honor. Or trying to, anyway. "I don't care what you've worked out with him. I've known him longer. If he doesn't want to deal with me, he can avoid me. He's actually very good at it. Practically a prodigy. But if he needs a refresher now he can start by not coming to where I live."

His voice raises at the end—not an angry shout, only a display of flippant irritation, words called after Cade even though he's likely out of earshot.

"He goes where he is ordered to go. He was ordered here to work as a laborer and is not exactly in a position to go 'oh, no, I can't work there, please send me somewhere else.' He does as he is told. To a fault, Alistair, he does as he is told." How much can he hint at without crossing that line drawn between himself and Cade in their trust. how oblique must he be? "He was trying to work and not bother you. He was trying to do as ordered."

And failed because Alistair continued to poke.

"How long has it been since you knew him well?"

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