[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]

The housing is for the Kestrels—nominally, at least, if anyone asks, because they aren't being punished and they aren't probably going to be leaving the Inquisition's company any week now to look after their own, etc.—and whatever other shady assholes may need somewhere to stay that's neither Skyhold nor the middle of a field of refugees. But they're helping, obviously. For lack of anything better to do. Hauling things keep Alistair's mind off things.

Seeing Cade puts his mind back on a few of them. Speaking of people who gave him up—

"You shouldn't be down here," he says, casually, falling into step next to him. Beleth lives here. Anders lives here. The last time Alistair and Cade spoke Cade walked away insulted. Alistair is in the mood to see if he can make it happen again. "Or are we another punishment?"

[onlyhymns]

As soon as he sees Alistair notice him, Cade averts his eyes, and as the man approaches he picks up his pace a little in hopes of avoiding him. Alas, it doesn't work, and now the Warden is here. Great.

"Go away, Alistair," Cade mumbles, glancing irritably at him out of the corner of his eye.

[byblow]

"I live here, Cade," Alistair shoots back, less mumbly but otherwise a mimicry of cadence. (Ha. Cadence.) "With a bunch of elves and apostates."

[onlyhymns]

"Then leave me alone," Cade rephrases, turning his head fully to properly glare at Alistair. "...I'm not going to hurt anyone." This is said in more of a mumble, as he turns his irritated gaze back forward.

[byblow]

"Oh, thank you. I know that's a terrible lot to ask these days, but we're always so grateful when visitors don't attack anyone."

If he had an off switch—or an off switch that was easy to find, in any case, or any idea that what changed Cade into someone who might beat an unarmed elf and then get fussy over being called an asshole for it might have be more complex than the same dogma-buying lyrium-swallowing holy-mission-above-reproach dickery that infected so many others—this is when he would hear himself being a jerk and flip it, maybe. But he doesn't. He kicks a bit of ice ahead of him, almost cheerful.

"It might even be worth a thank-you gift. A note, at least. I'll get everyone together to sign it."

[onlyhymns]

"Stop it,"" Cade persists, more urgently now, his fists tightening around the handles of the buckets he's carrying. He can feel that he's beginning to slip, about to make a scene, and the fear of it only ramps him up further. In a last-ditch effort to delay the inevitable, he picks up his pace again.

[byblow]

"Why, are you going to hit me?" Conversational, still, Alistair trailing a little behind him but keeping up well enough to talk, and he does actually hope that Cade isn't going to do that. That isn't the kind of fight he's spoiling for. "I don't recommend it. I'm bigger than you."

Unlike, you know, Beleth. Who moved out here into the cold to feel safer, Alistair thinks, and not only because she wanted some space. But this is only half about her.

"But this whole walking away because you don't want to deal with me thing would be a lot more effective if you'd done it less often. Now it's predictable. And funny."

It's not funny.

[onlyhymns]

It's true, nearly every part of Cade's brain is screaming that he has to debilitate Alistair if he wants to get away. He's taken down bigger people, but then he had a sword. His restraint and soundness of mind dwindles seemingly every time the other man opens his mouth, and by the time he's on the word 'funny', Cade has dropped the buckets and whirled around to give Alistair a shove against his chest. Ostensibly it's just to create distance, but he doesn't stop there.
"You're awfully high and mighty for someone who threw a temper tantrum and abandoned his order to go be a drunken slob," he hisses, the words escaping him before he can stop them.

[byblow]

The shove takes him by surprise. Not enough of it to shake the glare on his face, but enough that he has to take a step back for balance. And then he immediately steps forward again, stubborn, hands hanging balled at his sides because Cade is smaller, and retreating, and Alistair isn't violent, really. He doesn't hit first.

You don't know anything about it, he would grate out, but then they might talk about it more, and he would rather not. He likes his upper hand. He doesn't want to lose it quibbling over equivalences.

"Yet somehow," he says instead, giving Cade as little space as possible without crossing into the realm of sexual tension, none of that here—"I could still be trusted with a sword."

[onlyhymns]

Being usually of the quiet, elusive persuasion, Cade is not exactly well-suited to verbal confrontations. He prefers retreat to comebacks, and is generally the first to back down in favor of not calling too much attention to himself. But this time it's different: Alistair isn't some punk recruit impressing his friends or even a fellow knight mocking him to the others as he passes. Alistair plagues him. He follows him, and he never stops.
He retreats slightly when Alistair advances, then shoves at him again, the animal part of his brain lashing out at the intrusion on his personal space.
"FUCK OFF," he barks, his voice raised above a murmur for likely the first time in years, and as hoarse and unhinged as one might expect.

[byblow]

"I live here," Alistair repeats into his face, which is petty but also—he thinks—not entirely petty. He lives here. So do people he'd like to protect from discomfort as well as actual violence. And after what he did Cade doesn't get to come to where they live and be too precious to endure some moderate verbal harassment.

[onlyhymns]

Cade takes another single step back, then stands his ground with an odd shudder-- don't attack, don't attack-- and forces his gaze up to meet Alistair's. He's not too much shorter, but enough so that it's fairly clear who would win if they really got down to it.

"What then," he says through his teeth, "I spoke to th-- Beleth. At the ball. She came up to me." His voice has a slight quaver in it as he tries to harness it into keeping a level tone. "I apologized, she forgave me, I DON'T know what more you WANT from me." It's not like Alistair and Beleth aren't close, it's not like he wasn't there in the room; could he have been that oblivious? ...and if not, why this?

The peanut gallery

[unbrokenoath]

Kaisa takes a long sip of the brownish water someone was trying to claim was coffee, calmly observing what appeared to be Alistair bullying that quiet, jittery fellow that had been sent to help them out. She didn't know Alistair had it in him.

"A silver on Alistair. Two that he feels bad afterwards."

[ombranera]

"Alistair. Cade." Zevran had been content to watch them speak, but if Cade was becoming so damn agitated and Alistair was doing the agitating- muttering under his breath in Antivan he stalks over, looking fit to shake them both by the scruff. How is it that he, an elf, is glaring up at two humans that could lift him with one arm, and having to exude the air of authority?

How is this his life?

"You are acting like children."

[byblow]

The sound of his name is enough to break his scowly focus, mostly because it's his name in Zevran's voice. Anyone else might not have had so much success. His attention snaps sideways, and he has the presence of mind to look very briefly caught.

Then he glares again. Mutters.

"No, he was much more likable as a child."

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"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."

[byblow]

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."

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

"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."

[byblow]

—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.

[onlyhymns]

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.

[ombranera]

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?"

[byblow]

"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.

[onlyhymns]

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.