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

[onlyhymns]

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.

Comments

[byblow]

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?"

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"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.

[byblow]

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."

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"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!

[byblow]

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."

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"...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?"

[byblow]

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?"

phooonetaaaag

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"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.

[byblow]

"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.

[ombranera]

"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?"

[byblow]

Oh, no, I can't work there, please send me somewhere else, seems like a perfectly reasonable response to Alistair, who also does as he's told--when he wants to. So it's not the same at all. Whatever.

"I lived with him until I was nineteen," he says.

That isn't an answer to the question Zevran actually asked. The answer to that question is twenty years or never, actually, probably. How much can twelve-year-olds know about anyone? But they slept in the same room for nine years, names stitched into their socks to prevent mix-ups, and until the Wardens there was no one he knew better than the boys in his barracks, not one of whom he managed to befriend.

"He stopped talking to me when I was twelve," he concedes, which is a bit of an exaggeration, to the extent excuse me or hand me that counts as talking, and for the span of a syllable his voice pitches oddly and he looks nearly miserable. Then he straightens his shoulders and sounds almost kingly--the sort of thing that had the poorer boys tripping him in training as often as the nobles--and concludes, "and I'm happy to let him continue if he doesn't come down here."

[ombranera]

"Don't you take that tone of voice with me." He is in no mood to put up with Alistair's airs, what few that he has to him. He's rarely in the mood to humor him when he is like this- at least when he is on the other side of it. Which is rare. This whole situation is somewhat unprecedented but he is grateful that it is happening with someone he can stand against and fear no true reprisal. That he doesn't need to juggle or weigh more masks than he already has on hand.

Alistair has seen his blood, his bone, his spite, his smile. His blackest, most bitter thoughts, his brightest moments. He can argue and not be afraid. For what is neither the first or last time, Zevran marvels at that.

"I'll speak to the laborers and see to it he is not sent to this camp in the future. Then he shall not be here to ignore you and bother you with ignoring you- and see this is how I know you are very much Fereldan. It is a cat's ploy, this and you are very much more a dog person."

[byblow]

Alistair isn't really used to having his way--not even from Zevran, who indulges him possibly more than anyone should, but from whom Alistair also rarely asks for anything that isn't very simple and harmless and free of scowls. So it takes him a moment. His face clouds further and he says, "I am not--" out of reflex.

Realizes he's about to say he isn't a dog person.

Stops and actually thinks about what he just heard.

His face doesn't un-cloud, when he realizes, too puffed up and angry to unwind quite that easily. "Good," he says. But the wind is rapidly leaving his sails; he adds, "Thank you," still sullen but now visibly looking as if he feels a bit ridiculous and unsure of himself, and then settles down slightly further, enough to conclude with a sulky, "Sorry."

[ombranera]

To the beginning of the denial, Alistair gets but a look. One that is high of brow, singular, and low of the other, one that is of narrowed eye and faintly flared nostrils, one that is of pursed lips and canted head, everything that spoke of looking down upon a man while still being forced to look up at him purely due to height differences. It is a look that speaks of dull scorn and extreme boredom, changing only in the degree of the single brow ratcheted up. It dials back with every degree, every puff of wind that wound out of Alistair's sails.

It is still a look when he apologizes. A gentler look, a softer look- but still. A look.

one that comes with its own voice. Dry and drawling. "You are forgiven. You still owe Cade an apology for provoking him."

[byblow]

Forgiven, and for a very brief moment there's a hint of a smile—one that would have, without interruption, stretched out and accompanied an attempt to be irresistibly adorable about his half-repentance until Zevran sounded more like he meant it. But it is interrupted, and Alistair's eyebrows knit back together as he turns his head to look for Cade.

"I'll write him a note," he says, which is not entirely born out of stubbornness and intentional difficulty. He doubts Cade wants to look him in the face right now anymore than Alistair wants to talk to him.

[ombranera]

"It had best be brief, sincere-" He says, as though he'd expected some manner of difficulty. As he pulls a page from the back of his journal and offers it and one of his charcoal sticks to Alistair. They have time. He can wait. "And legible."

He has seen Alistair's handwriting. It is nothing to sneeze at but he would not put it past the man to scrawl just to be that much more difficult.

[byblow]

Alistair scowls at him for a moment, unable to believe that Zevran doesn't trust him to do it on his own, and then takes the offered charcoal and journal. He cradles it on one arm to write with the other hand. His handwriting has been better; it's also been worse.

Sorry for bullying you, says the note when it is held back out to Zevran. I know it isn't your fault you're horrible. If you want to hit me just wait until Zevran isn't watching..

Just kidding.

Or, not kidding—it does say that—but beneath it on the page, low enough to be torn off separately, there's a less ridiculous (if equally sullen), Cade, Sorry. —Alistair

[ombranera]

For a long moment he stares, watching dutifully to ensure that Alistair actually writes the note. When he takes it back to read he...

Sighs. As though deeply and greatly pained. "You are thirty one years old Alistair. Why are you behaving like a child?"

Still. The one on the bottom is enough and that will have to suffice. "See, it did not kill you to be civil. This is what comes of domesticating me, I use my powers for good. You have only yourself to blame for this."

[byblow]

Alistair wavers on the precipice of saying that he feels like a child--like a twelve-year-old, discovering that even having no friends at all is apparently preferable to having him, facing down another seven years of starving for affection and accepting attention as a substitute and making sure that if no one was going to love him they had a damn good reason not to, so he didn't have to wonder--

"But you're so charming when you're disgruntled," he says instead, belatedly breaking into that previously-stifled smile.

[ombranera]

"I am a fearsome assassin." He gripes, folding the note neatly and tucking it away. "An assassin that WAS going to spend his evening with a large, warm, vigorous Tal Vashoth lover. But no. Tonight I am going to have to do damage control."

Seriously, Alistair, it is not always about you. Still. He sighs and reaches out to pat him on the arm, the chest, whatever his hand hit first. "You love me best when I am smiling and we both know it."

[byblow]

"That's true," Alistair says, smirk shrinking down to almost nothing. "If I'd known you were his bodyguard or whatever I'd have tried harder to work around your schedule."