[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]

"He wouldn't have hurt me." Not really. He can take a punch. "And he doesn't respect me, and if something's so wrong with him he shouldn't be down here. Someone smaller than me might provoke him." But they've already addressed that. Alistair claws a frustrated hand through his hair. "Maker, Zev. I don't want to fight with you."

He wants to fight with Cade. So much for that.

[ombranera]

"Alistair this is not about you. It isn't even about me." He has to pause for a moment, again, aware that somehow this bullshit has become his life. Taking responsibility for someone just as broken as he was- if not more so for the lack of discipline and charm, and a dull thought twinges that he truly ought to say 'fuck it', make it no longer his problem, and walk away from the mess entirely. There is nothing forcing him to do this thing for Cade.

He does not even truly like Cade.

"Perhaps I should just kill him." That's be the simplest solution. "Everyone would be happiest then, yes? Problem solved."

[byblow]

"Maybe you—"

Should. He was going to say should. He remembers himself in time and stops, face creasing further into its glare, mildly betrayed—as if perhaps Zevran did that on purpose, to make Alistair realize he was going too far.

That can be the story, regardless, if they want it to be.

"I tried to talk to him before," he says instead. Calming down. Sinking into something more reasonable to make up for that almost-should. "I was nice to him—" Relatively, for him, under the circumstances. "—and he just walked away."

[ombranera]

That would be all it would take, truly. Alistair giving him the go ahead. Cade wouldn't see him coming- something quick and easy, slipping away in his sleep. How sad. The room was small enough but no one guarded it- getting in and out would be quickly done-

For a long moment he seriously considered the particulars of such an arrangement. Killing for free isn't something he does normally but this is one of the rare exceptions.

And then Alistair remembers his morals and Zevran sighs, put upon. Another month or so of this and he might go mad. "Nice to him in the way you were nice to me when we first met? Alistair- that is not nice even when it is to people that understand people. I understood a certain subset of people and have learned better. Cade? Is shit at people. And paranoid- this is coming from me. I locked the doors to the room where I cornered him-"

He says this as though it is a matter of fact, he hunted, he cornered, they spoke. He scrubs a hand through his hair and steps in that much closer, voice pitched low. "And he assumed I was going to beat him or kill him. And he intended to simply allow me to do so. In short- he is fucked up. Very much so. He's not going to react the way you expect- he's not going to react the way I expect most of the time. Combine that with his tenancy to be violent and it is deeply worrying. So him walking away is likely the best thing that could have happened."