faderift | Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

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Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

WHO: Zevran and You
WHAT: Zevran back at Skyhold, Recovering
WHEN: Mid to late guardian, covering a span of time
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: CW/TW FOR: Mentions of torture, withdrawal, suicidal ideation, swearing, self loathing, etc. Shit gets dark. This log is also for characters not on the rescue long. Locked thread below will be done on first come, first serve.

[ His Quarters ]

Good day

Sometimes it's good. He's tired from the trip, tired from the ordeal- but he'll see people. Play cards, answer questions- as many as he can stand. Nothing about the side of his face he has hidden under a bandage, nothing about what was done to him- but he'll describe Antiva. Mention how gallant and ridiculously awesome his rescuers were. Share coffee or brandy or whatever he has on hand- and make light. He tires easily early on in his recovery, but later? He might converse for an hour or so before needing a break. Alistair sees most people in and out as needed.

Bad day

Early on he spends more time alone, quiet and isolated, Alistair a silent, stoic wall between him and the world. Notes will be passed along as well wishes- but he'll only see the most demanding and even then? He'll be listless. Snappish. Frustrated that they forced their way and company upon him when he would rather be left in peace.

[ Stables ]

Good day

A target on the far wall and a dagger in his hands, he's attempting to learn to compensate for the eye- under a leather patch now that neatly hides both the eye and his new scars, and talking a small group of strange new students as they work on...carving toys. Or sketching one another. Or working on a lute- a difference from the lessons he'd been giving before. But they do as they're told and laze about while he works on the throwing, or while he walks them through a particular shading technique, curl of the knife, or chord. Even when they're dismissed he continues with the throwing, aim slowly circling about to something better.

Bad day

When his patience with himself is at it's limit, when he's climbing the walls for want to get away from Alistair's oppressive hovering, when he cannot bear to even teach, he hides in the rafters of the stable. More likely than not there is a bottle of wine or brandy or something stronger still hanging from his fingers, head tipped into the shadows as he drums his fingers against his chest. Until Alistair or Beleth hunt him down, he means to remain there, high above where most people don't think to look.

[ Clearing Outside of Skyhold ]

Later in his recovery, when the worst of it is settled, no matter his temperament he is out running drills with those same students, agility drills, knife drills, a highly acrobatic and complicated looking game of tag or one of the most terrifying rounds of hide and seek possible while he lounges under a tree, calling out corrections or instructions. A bottle of wine, a basket of bread and dried sausages. When his mood is poor and his patience low he runs with them, pushing himself to the point of surly exhaustion. When it is high he sits and drinks and sketches out various shapes of armor, tools- things they may need.

[ Battlements - Locked to Bruce, Sabine, Martel, Mia, and Nahariel ]

On the darkest nights he cannot sleep. Not for all the wine in skyhold, not for all the sleeping spells and draughts available. To close his eyes is to see the fade- to be back on that hook, back in that cell with the blood and whispering. The Shades. He's back with the choice- the knife in his hand and the order in his ear. Wakes to find Alistair, so quiet so trusting. It would take nothing. When the weight of this is too much he walks up, out, finds himself a perch, sitting on the edge of the battlements, peering down at the rocks below. All he has to do is lean. All he needs to do is let go. It would be so very easy to let go, to be done. Maker above, he wants to. Even when he has found it in himself to take a step back, to return to bed; another night might have him back on the battlements once again, considering the drop.

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They were going to be here all day at the rate things were going. It wasn't that Simon wanted to annoy Zevran, but convincing him gently wasn't working and Simon wasn't about to try and be forceful about it. He'd probably make an ass out of himself if he tried climbing up there after him anyway. So being a nuisance would have to do.

"Blame River," he said, tilting his head thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "She's doing well enough that she doesn't need me today, so all that worrying has to be spent on someone."

Whether that person wanted it or not...Zevran needed the care and attention, in Simon's opinion. He'd cinched that when he made the idle threat of hurting himself. The mage frowned and focused on Zevran again, his voice turning soft again.

"I heard rumors...they gave me plenty of worry for you to work with."

"So she flies alone today?" He'd attempted to avoid her, not because he didn't care for the company but she seemed. Strange. Inclined to pick apart threads that went unspoken but felt- and she felt them in turn. He did not wish to clip her wings with his wounding. She was doing well, there was no reason to take the skies from her just yet. That his mind slipped through poetic nonsense was proof enough that he was drunk. Not drunk enough just yet, but. Drunk.

Clearly he should work on that. The brandy in his bottle sloshed as he took another deep swig- the burn cutting through the thrumming ache in his bones.

"I am not your patient this day, Simon."

"Hopefully not flying," he murmured, lips twisting briefly as he imagined his little sister taking the next logical step from climbing to leaping from one perch to the next. Maker please let her never get that confident with her acrobatics...

Simon folded his arms over his chest and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles as he gently set the thought aside to focus on what was before him. Or rather, above him. Zevran wasn't his patient, and normally Simon wouldn't be quite this stubborn about looking after someone who clearly didn't want him to.

"Then what about a friend?" he asked quietly.

"What manner of friend?" Common had one word for many things. It was difficult to keep track and drunk as he was he couldn't discern the specific sort from their conversation or Simon's tone. Normally he could ferret it out and work with or around such things but today?

He had no mind for it.

What manner of...? Simon's expression twisted in confusion for a moment, but as he thought he supposed it was a fair question. Just because the common tongue didn't bother with variations beyond friend versus acquaintance didn't mean that there couldn't be more. The real trouble was it left Simon without an easy definition for what Zevran truly was to him...

"The kind of friend who would very much like to climb up there and shake you by the shoulders for even suggesting that you want to hurt yourself," Simon answered. Healers were supposed to be gentle with infinite patience...to admit that they cared to the point of frustration simply wasn't done with mere patients. It was dangerous to become too invested. A healer could lose their objectivity. With Zevran it was already too late.

"...but I won't, because I keep reminding myself very firmly that that sort of thing doesn't actually help," he added. "You've done a great deal to keep me sane, Zevran. I'd like to be able to do the same for you..."

"...It is my body to hurt if I wish it so, Simon." And there were moments when he did wish to do so, but he had not gotten to the point where he drew a blade across his skin- if only due to the fact he had no blades with which to make the cut. Alistair had hidden them all away.

Wise man.

Irritating- but wise. Zevran would likely thank him for it later. Now he merely felt disarmed and disoriented all the more than he would otherwise. Still- what concern was it of Simon's? He did not own Zevran's flesh anymore than the Crows. His skin, his bones, his ruined eye- they were his to do with as he pleased. And at the moment? He wished to drink and be left alone and, perhaps, feel a little less. "...I will come down. But the moment you start poking I am climbing back up."

"You know it's not that simple," Simon said, just shy of chiding and fully gentle. Clearly what happened to Zevran affected a lot more people than just him, but despair like that could be a hard thing to shake. It made people think and behave irrationally...and the mage wouldn't be surprised if Zevran started to attract demons wanting to feed off of that. Though he didn't think it was a problem yet. Simon had become adept at chasing off his own demons but for someone else?

He hoped it wouldn't come to that, and hearing Zevran finally agree to climb down gave him a tiny bit more.

"Yes, of course, no poking what so ever," he promised, going as far as to sit up and shift more to one side to make room.

"It has been my body for ten years-" He was very much older than that and not about to elaborate. "I fought too hard and lost too much for it to be anything but simple. It is mine. I do what I like."

Bitterness seeped into his voice even as he rolled off the beam- not climbing so much as dropping down. He'd expected the hay but not quite how much of it there was, stumbling a little on his knees when he landed. Well. No points for grace tonight. "Satisfied?"

Simon blinked and then the words fully sank in...and the mage looked immediately mortified at what he'd accidentally implied. It didn't help that now that Zevran had come down, letting him see the bandage covering his eye properly. His first instinct was, yes, to prod...the mage sat up, all but sitting on his hands instead to resist. If it was already bandaged the odds were that there was little the healer could do at this point, but the need to try and help still nagged at him.

"That wasn't...Zevran I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to say that you shouldn't..."

Why was it that the words made perfect sense in Simon's head, but when he went to say them they came out so very wrong? He shifted, tucking his feet underneath him and dragging his hair back in frustration--getting a bit of straw suck in there along the way.

"People care about you, about what happens to you, myself included...that's all I meant," he tried again. There, hopefully that would smooth things over. All Simon had to do was not ruin it with further poking and--

"Does it hurt?" he asked, unable to help the worry from coming out.

Edited 2016-02-28 23:27 (UTC)

"No one ever does." He settled back against the hay, slumped and drinking there for the time being. At least until Simon became unbearable- then he would climb back up and be done with this tentative...whatever it was. He did not need the pity nor the condescension, no matter how well meaning it might be. And Simon did mean well.

Zevran simply did not have the patience for it.

Most of what Simon said he ignored- it was more of that sentiment he did not have the time nor the emotion in him to spend worrying after or over. The question, now. That he could answer. Did, after a swig of brandy. "It aches."

Well, that...mostly seemed to have fixed things. Or at least pulled the conversation away from complete disaster. Simon let out a slow breath as Zevran settled and continued to drink...that was something else the mage was going to have to worry about, but he'd do a better job at doing it quietly. Though something else nagged at him now, something Zevran had said. Most likely not intentionally.

Ten years? So there had been a time, before the last Blight, when it wasn't?

But Zevran had said no poking, so Simon reluctantly decided not to ask. Instead he folded his hands in his lap, choosing to focus on the one thing he could hopefully mend rather than make worse.

"Would you like my help with that? I know a trick that can ease that kind of pain," he offered.

"If you must." He wasn't about to move. Or stop drinking. The hay might itch but it was better than the beam and he was more comfortable down here than he was up above. Slightly less likely to drop his bottle of brandy on accident.

Simon's jaw set briefly and he unfolded his hands, scooting himself closer on the hay to sit just to Zevran's side. He let the assassin watch, stretching his fingers out and shaking them before twisting into the Fade and pulling out the magic he needed. Just a tiny bit, a little frost, chilling the air around his hands to the point that it started to condense and then freeze on his fingers.

It didn't hurt him, it never did, but it was tricky to hold a spell like this for long without letting it grow in strength.

"Here, I don't have to touch but..." Hopefully Zevra would allow some almost-prodding. The mage held his chilled fingers close to the bandage, letting the frost build and soak on the cloth instead. It wouldn't freeze the thing solid, that wouldn't help at all, but in Simon's experience the cold had a pleasantly numbing effect on aching wounds.

While given leave to watch- Zevran did not have much a mind to do so. His eye was closed, his lips pressed thin at the ache pounding in his head from either too much stress, too much brandy, or too little sleep. Or it simply might have been the eye itself attempting to tell him what he already knew. Something was not right.

"...Fine." He tilted his face in the direction Simon needed, shivering at the gradual wash of cool. The world spun, for a moment he was back on the hook, back with the jeering laughter, the harsh sting of knives in his skin, demons promising retribution, promising peace- he twitched away and curled in on himself as he had been unable there- mostly empty bottle forgotten wherever it fell on the hay.

That wasn't the reaction Simon was hoping for. Normally there'd be a noise of appreciation, something inarticulate that Zevran probably would have made as lewd sounding as possible if things hadn't gone so wrong. Instead the elf cringed away from him and Simon was quick to pull away, shaking his hand and dispersing the magic with a few quiet pops as the air temperature snapped back to normal around it.

"Too much?" he asked. "I'm sorry, we can try something else... Maybe take the bandage off first?"

But Zevran still hadn't said anything, in fact he seemed too quiet. He reminded Simon of his sister at the start of a bad fit... The mage's voice softened, holding a hand up but stopping himself from touching.

"Zevran? Listen, it's just me, it's Simon...it's going to be all right," he promised.

The scratch of hay was less a grounding comfort to the present and more a reminder of the cuts, the endless, tiny scratches from which they would pull his blood. On the hook, he was on the hook and no one would come for him, this was another lie, another trick, and Maker only knew who they would have him put a blade to next-

Heart hammering in his chest he remained still, locked against the wave of uncertainty, of unreality until there was a voice he hadn't heard during the rescue.

Simon. Simon had never been put before him for a knife before- perhaps it was now his turn? "How can you know that?"

It wasn't right to see Zevran like this. Seeing anyone suffering tended to cause the healer's chest to tighten, but with the elf... Simon realized he didn't know the man all that well. Zevran was older than him, had been through a great deal more, but what Simon did know told him that it should have been enough. There was an extra bitter layer of injustice to what had happened to Zevran, the man had already suffered.

'Ten years', he'd said...

"You're in Skyhold, the people who hurt you, they're..." Simon didn't know the full story. He'd heard rumors, knew more or less the people who had gone to find the assassin and bring him back, and with that information it felt very safe to conclude: "...they're not coming back."

Dead. They were dead. Alistair and the others killed the mages, took him off the hook. Brought him out.

Brought him home.

Little by little he uncurled, quiet and mortified for such a sudden display of weakness. Clearly he was too sober if he could still feel such- his hand fumbled for the bottle and encountered Simon's hand instead. For a long moment he was still-

Then he curled his fingers about Simon's- and tugged.

He'd hesitated to touch before. It usually helped with River, but Zevran was quite clearly not his sister. What worked for her might have only made things worse for him. So when Zevran's hand fell on his own, he pointedly resisted making a move of his own, mirroring Zevran's own long pause. And then, it was okay.

Simon let out a slow breath, letting Zevran take his hand and pull it closer. It felt natural enough to follow the movement and close some of the distance between them, drawing his other arm around the elf's shoulders. He paused for another moment, wanting to be sure that this was still okay.

Not a word was said, not yet. It felt like they'd only get in the way. Giving Zevran a chance to breathe was better, to fully come back to the present. Hopefully a hug would be acceptable in place of spoken reassurance.

He turned enough to press his face into Simon's shoulder- as he would were this Alistair and not someone he did not know well. Someone he did not trust entirely- more than most strangers but less than he should like to be showing such vulnerability about. But he could not take the moment back, could not make Simon forget.

He could lose himself in the thud of Simon's heart in his chest. Focus on that to the exclusion of all else. Match his own in time, match his breathing. Let that settle him eve as he tangled their legs together.

It turned out the hug was, in fact, perfectly okay.

Simon drew in a deeper breath when Zevran turned towards him, allowing him, even as what started out as a hug shifted a bit closer to a cuddle. The mage wasn't prone to touch like this, but there were exceptions. River, for the first and most obvious. Patients, though touching them was never anywhere near this familiar. And now, apparently, Zevran, who was more than just a patient but not family either, but he needed this and that was enough of a reason to stop Simon feeling as if this was reaching beyond his usual boundaries.

His heartbeat would be steady, calming now that the immediate need for worry was past. The tangling legs was answered with a slight twitch of his lips and then a squeeze to Zevran's shoulder. Gentle, brief, and followed by Simon's thumb smoothing back and forth over a small patch of fabric stretched over Zevran's back. As the moment went on Simon wondered if this was what he should be doing, and what would people say if they saw them like this. They'd best not. Not for Simon's sense of modesty, but as much coaxing as it had taken just to get Zevran down from the rafters it was obvious the elf wouldn't want anyone to see him like this.

Simon could keep another secret.

"...better?" he asked, quiet and after a bit of time.

"Shh." He mumbled into Simon's chest, curling tighter, closer. Talking would ruin this small, quiet place he's found somewhere along Simon's collar, close to his heart, right near the throat. Where blood and breath flowed- a solid wash. A reminder of life.

Something to ground him against the hook, the cold, the many stinging cuts. Little by little the memory passes, little by little he drifts. Dozes. Tangled just like this he imagined he might find some measure of rest.

Zevran had just shushed him. All right. Simon supposed he couldn't blame him, the mage wasn't good enough with his words to make it worth the risk. So he rolled his lips between his teeth and fell quiet, looking up at the light filtering through the slats in the roof. He focused on his own breathing, listening to Zevran's in turn, and waited for the elf to come back on his own.

It took him a good few minutes before he realized Zevran had fallen asleep on top of him.

Simon lifted his head, grimacing slightly, ready to suggest they move somewhere with a bed if Zevran needed to sleep--but seeing the older man's face made him stop. It occurred to Simon quite suddenly that he'd seen looks like that before. Patients, after the pain was eased and they were finally able to find rest, had that sort of look...and Simon couldn't bring himself to disturb it. With a sigh the mage let his head drop again, resigning himself to at least an hour or so as Zevran's bed. He had thought that he wanted to help, that he'd stay as long as he thought his company was needed...

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Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

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