His arm is hard as stone under Zevran's hand, too tense to sleep, too tired to argue, too confused as to what is and is not real to try to make the shade leave again. Perhaps this is a longer dream and the end will hurt more for it. But there had been moments in them where he could rest. Where he could soak in echos of those he cared for to shore him up for the next round.

Little by little a hand snakes out from the blankets and stretches up to clasp Alistair's wrist.

It trembles.

All of him trembles, lately. All of him feels horribly cold even as his skin sings with a feverish heat. But he holds fast. "Why. You knew what they would do. What you would find."

He'd told Alistair, once. Over an argument that had been less about him being an assassin and more about Alistair trying to grant him his freedom through the goodness of his heart or something like that. Zevran cannot recall the details. But he can recall the way the warden's face paled as he went through ever cut, every trick, every drop of blood they'd wring from him long before the end.

Alistair might've had to vomit halfway through. He can't remember. But he remembers telling him.