faderift | (closed) arm your fears like soldiers and slay them

WHO: Zevran & Alistair.
WHAT: Fight fight fight.
WHEN: 20ish Guardian.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Mentions of suicidial ideation, self-harm, alcohol abuse, torture, etc., all very likely. And there's like an 80% chance that Alistair is going to cry.

He's lying on the bed when Zevran walks in, but fully clothed, boots and all—because whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night and Zevran still isn't back he winds up out of bed, walking the battlements or the courtyard, not looking for him any more than he's looking for the Old Gods but certainly more open to the idea of coming upon him by accident than he would be to finding them, worrying, humming—

So Alistair lying on the bed with his boots still on and Doghren asleep on his ankles, rhythmically throwing a white runestone into the air above his head, catching it, throwing it again. It's in the air when the latch turns but in his hand by the time the door opens. He closes it in his fist and sits up.

"Hey," he says. He extracts his feet from Doghren's possession without looking away from Zevran, who looks—normal, for the new definition of that. "Where have you been?"

He's aiming for casual, for friendly interest. What have you been up to, that's normal friend stuff, as far as he knows, sans suicide watch. But it doesn't quite work.

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"Stop it," Alistair says, offhand, impatient; there are always those few seconds of uncomprehending numbness when an unexpected arrow embeds. The moment before the blood blossoms when you think, surely not. "This isn't about--"

Now the comprehension. His voice catches, his face changes, he shifts back in something that is only saved from being a wounded recoil by its subtlety, the desk behind him keeping him from going far. But he keeps his head enough to tick off points: Zevran has been through a lot, and Zevran is lashing out, and Zevran doesn't mean it. He's convinced enough to go on steadily, if more quietly than before.

"This isn't about me."

"Isn't it? I am recovering. It is not clean, it is not pretty, it is not quick. And because it is none of these things you hover, you pick, you pester, I have told you time and again to give me space, to quit asking, to leave me be. But nothing I do or say, no step forward that I take is enough for you. Even Jonas knew when to leave well enough alone." Often. More often than not, truly.

And there it is. The second most damning name, the second most grievous injury he could craft- and he has no intention of leaving it like this.

After all. Leaving Alistair to bleed out slowly over the next few days would be cruel. "This is not about me. It is about you wanting someone who died on that hook back. This is about you refusing to understand or even spare a thought as to why trying to tell me what is best for me might not be the wisest course of action. Even when he had all rights to do so, Cousland never assumed to know my mind or make my choices for me."

Later--sulking in the Emprise, or following Nathaniel across Orlais--it's died on that hook that will linger and keep him awake. Zevran is closer to his heart now than Cousland ever was. But Cousland is his perpetual open wound, an accessible strip of of exposed nerves: he hates him, he loves him, he misses him, he's going to shove him into a ravine if he ever sees him again, and he wishes he were here, now, to handle this as deftly as he handled everything else.

The runestone is still pressed between his palm and the desk.

"Jonas isn't here," he says. His voice is sticky, and his grip on his composure is slipping but still in place. "If you want me to leave, Zevran, that's all you have to say."

He scents blood on the wind, now. It is a cheap shot to make, a soft place near the spine that Alistair has never quite managed to get over. It is as raw and rancid as Zevran's own wounds concerning Taliesin. Concerning Rinna. But Alistair has never learned to go for the weakest point, to grind in salt and venom and acid while smiling sweetly to have the upper hand. He is tired. He wants the space he's been asking for. He wants Alistair to walk away and mean it and simply leaving it at Jonas; twisting the knife already in him will not be enough.

Voice thick and struggling to hold and on the edge of running, Zevran knows this. Sees it for the bent knee and exposed throat that it is-

The time has come to make that final cut.

"Clearly it is not, else you would have walked away days ago. No, Alistair, you do not walk away; you wait until everyone else leaves you for someone better. Maric did not wait for you to be born to do so, Eamon had a son and a wife, Teagan might have had the same one day, Duncan, well. Duncan chose his king and fulfilled his duty, did he not?" In death, sacrifice. "Even Jonas. Though can we really blame him when at least Loghain and Anora had the conviction to do something with their lives?"

Alistair doesn't have Zevran's instincts for going still when threatened, his curious anti-flinch, but he goes still anyway, somewhere around a son and a wife, caught mid-inhale, because the knot forming in his throat hurts too much to move. Zevran has been through a lot, Zevran is lashing out, Zevran died on that hook--

"All right."

It's mostly air, and it's most of the air he has left, leaving his chest emptied out and smaller. His eyes are pricking, and he knows a breath is going to stutter and catch, so he stands up and and crosses the room.

He doesn't own much but his armor, half hanging from and half scattered around a makeshift stand, and he doesn't bother with that. He can't wear it out anyway. Everything else fits in one bag, and he makes quick work of it, crouched on the floor to scoop and shove. His breathing is uneven but quiet. He only swipes his face with his shoulder once before he stands back up.

Doghren is still asleep, now stretched out on her back with all four paws in the air. Alistair still isn't keeping her forever, still doesn't like her, still doesn't want a dog--but he drops his bag back on the ground to sit on the edge of the bed and touch her belly, gently, like he's waking up a baby. "Hey," he says, to her.

There is, as ever, the vicious curl of pride in his stomach at a point well made, an argument won. Nevermind that he's turned his venom and blades on Alistair, his brother- nevermind that he will regret this later when the room is cold and empty and silent. Nevermind that he does not actually blame him for anything other than being overbearing in his concern. Crows fight to kill. And while he may no longer be a Crow- such things are not forgotten easily.

Alistair yields. Packs. And Zevran settles back in his chair as though he isn't bothered. He isn't. He won. This is what victory tastes like, bitter and tinged with copper from where he'd bitten through the side of his cheek.

For a visceral moment he recalls another person he loved on their knees, eyes wet, vicious words he'd spat- it passes. No one is dying here.

Then Alistair pauses for the dog and- that cannot be what forces him to stay. The dog. The pity case, he charity case. Biting and frustrated he snaps, as weary of the smelly beast as he is of Alistair. Was that cut not enough? Must he twist the blade. Lies, the rest, lies the first through grit teeth as he does reach up to tug at the bandage over his bad eye. "Take your other mistake with you."

Should Alistair wonder at the first, well. Zevran tugs the bandage free, blinking his scarred eye against air he should be able to see, but cannot. Vivid with blood and shiny from healing the scars curve up along his cheek, over his brow, his copper eye obscured by pale, milky white. "I tire of being reminded of your worst by it attempting to tug the bandage free."

Doghren wakes up with a four-legged stretch and a squeak, oblivious and incongruous to the scene she's emerging from the dog-Fade to find: Alistair sniffing loudly, only barely keeping his eyes from spilling over again, and Zevran--

His eye isn't shocking. Not really. Alistair imagined worse, the way he was hiding it, and imagined what he would say: I think it's sexy was the front runner, with an accompanying eyebrow thing. He opens his mouth to try to give that a shot, despite everything, but his bottom lip trembles and both eyes spill over with hot, heavy tears. He's thirty-one years old; he'll be horrified at himself later. Lip trembling, honestly. But right now there's no room for that. Even with both hands free, he doesn't wipe his face.

After a moment he says, "I'm sorry," instead, quiet enough he could be talking to himself. He scoops up Doghren with one arm and his bag with the other, stands up, shuffles things around so he can belatedly drag his shirt sleeve over his face--because he's leaving, he's going, he's walking out, and he doesn't want anyone to ask.

Zevran sits back to watch. The dog, the Warden, the spill of tears.

The guilt.

Experienced as he is with hardening his heart to such things keeping his face impassive takes little work. He won. That had been the point, earning a little space at whatever cost, caring little for the consequences. He is drowning in this room, let Alistair bear a cut or two.

He says nothing. Watches Alistair slink away and takes it as a boon. That he could breathe again, that he might sleep without fear of having his eye uncovered, without being disturbed by concern or the odd bear hug in the middle of then night. This is what he wanted.

Isn't it?

(closed) arm your fears like soldiers and slay them

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