bringspeopletogether | [sandbox] out of the abyss

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sandbox

[sandbox] out of the abyss

It starts as a shimmer out by the lake. Look at the water from the right angle, and the light glinting off it looks a bit...green. Sickly.

(Familiar, if you're from a certain time and place in Thedas.)

Look up some minutes later, and you can pinpoint the source: a thin, glowing ribbon uncoiling in the sky. It emerges slowly, but the more light it casts, the more momentum it gains, until it explodes outward with an enormous crack like lightning splintering the ground.

A much quieter thump follows as something hits the dirt.

Someone.

The glow vanishes; the person doesn't move for a long beat. (Get up, he's telling himself, get up -- ) He manages to drag his hands level with his shoulders, press down to bear himself upward an inch, look up at where he's landed.

Get. Up.

Another shove, and Alistair lurches to his feet, sword hauled from its scabbard and shield at the ready. His breath rattles, harsh against his throat, as he stares wild-eyed around the grounds.

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A small crease forms between Alistair's eyebrows, a precursor to a frown. It lingers even after Cullen's dismissal.

"All right." No louder than before. "Good. That -- it's a start."

A beat, and another tiny twitch of a smile. "Least it makes it easier to hear myself think."

"Yes," he agrees, straight-faced. "It must be very pleasant to hear that fly buzzing around in all that empty space."

Alistair rolls his eyes; the smile stays put. "I'll have you know whatever's buzzing around is at least as big as a good-sized beetle."

"Oh? And how big is a good-sized beetle, exactly?"

"Aboooout..."

Alistair squints, considering, then makes a circle with thumb and forefinger and holds it up.

"Give or take a bit."

Cullen wrinkles his nose.

"I'm sure it was a very pleasant experience squeezing it in your ear."

Alistair considers this. Then, mock-prim, he says, "I'd rather not speak of it," and drinks more water.

The jar's nearly empty, and thirst doesn't seem as imminent a need as before. Reaching for the cap, Alistair screws it back into place before regarding Cullen for a beat.

More serious: "I can take watch if you need. Or go get a poultice."

Cullen blinks, looking at him. "What for? -- do you need one?"

"No, I'm fine, I meant -- "

(All right, he still aches abominably in more than one spot, but more sleep seems a better solution than a poultice there.)

Awkwardly, Alistair gestures to his own jaw. "If -- never mind."

Comprehension!

"While I wouldn't wish to cast any aspersions on your hand-to-hand skills," he says cheerfully, "I've had worse."

(Reminder that Cullen got that scar on his face in a bar fight and refused to let Ysalwen do anything poultice-related until it was too late to prevent said scarring. (◡‿◡✿))

A snort. Deadpan, "I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted."

Spoiler: it's the former. Definitely the former.

He sets the jar aside and makes himself more comfortable against the headboard. A couple hours of rest hasn't fixed everything, but it's gotten Alistair over the biggest hill: he isn't going to fall asleep unless he wants to sleep, now.

Which probably means never again. Which isn't really up Cullen's alley.

A sidelong look.

"You could be concerned for the welfare of my face."

"I thought I made that clear when I offered to get a poultice." Eyebrows raised, arms folded. "Would you rather I weep and compose bard's songs about whatever slight bruising you might get?"

"Yes," Cullen says, thoughtful. "You could leave out the weeping. And make an effort to stay in tune. But yes, I'd rather like to see that."

It's like cards. Assume everybody's bluffing.

"No, no, the weeping and off-key singing are mandatory." Solemn. "How else will the whole of Thedas truly understand the sorrow of a barely-visible red spot on your jaw?"

"Does that mean you won't fuss about it any more?" he shoots back.

Dammit. While Alistair does not actually say ugh, he manages to convey it quite clearly in his expression.

"Yes, fine," he grouses, "next time I wake up and attack you because I think you're not one, but an entire horde of demons attempting to rip me apart, I'll be sure not to feel bad about it."

"Well, you shouldn't," Cullen says, a little short. "It's not your fault. And it's not as though I don't know what to expect."

The thing is --

He knows Cullen's right. About both those things. And the latter helps, certainly, because he'd rather be around someone who's been down this same road, but the former --

If it's not his fault, that means however he reacts to this is just...something that happens. Enormous. Uncontrollable. If he could control it, it would be his fault, and if he could control it, that would also mean he'd have a chance of making it stop.

Alistair draws his legs up, settles his arms across his knees, and doesn't look at Cullen.

Cullen might have a thing or two to say about the fallacious thinking: if Alistair could control it, it still wouldn't be his fault, as Cullen knows the risks of interrupting someone in a nightmare to bring them back to awareness and elected to assume them. And even if it's uncontrollable... there are things to do that can help.

Quieter:

"It's only been a few hours, Alistair."

"I know."

Just as soft, and more than a little flat.

"A few hours done, another decade to go, right?"

Cullen stiffens before he can catch himself; sitting right next to Alistair, it'd be hard not to notice.

A breath in, and out, slow, measured.

"Do you know," he says, "how many times I wished I'd died up there. Or how many times I cursed you lot for pulling me out of there at all. I don't feel that way now."

Steelier: "But if you feel it necessary to think about this as my revenge for saving my life, I can't stop you."

"That's not what -- "

Alistair uncoils like a spring, grabs the jar, and stalks to the table to slam it down alongside the food.

"Stop doing that." Low; his voice doesn't tremble, but it takes a palpable effort. "You're putting thoughts in my head I didn't think. Stop it."

Cullen softens a little bit -- he's been there, hasn't he? -- but only a little bit.

"This shouldn't have happened to you. It did. Something similar happened to me -- a decade ago, yes. If you want my help, it's yours, whatever form that takes. I know. I know, Alistair.

"But you will not denigrate all the work I did, on my own, these last ten years. I won't have it. You don't get to be an ass. Not about this."

He braces a hand on the table; scrubs at his forehead fitfully with the other. Hangs his head.

"That wasn't what I meant," he says. Nothing he's thinking, or doing, seems to be what he means to do. It makes that panic flutter at the back of his throat again; Alistair breathes, swallows it down. "I wouldn't do that to you. I -- "

It's so hard just to think.

"It's not denigration. You're the only other person I know who went through something like this, so I expect a decade's normal. Better than normal, probably. I didn't mean it as a slight. More like...I have ten years of this to look forward to." A twist of brittle sarcasm breaks his last word: "Goody."

He looks over his shoulder, meeting Cullen's eyes. "I'm sorry."

(How many times will he be saying that over the next decade, when he slips up, when he can't think, when someone who's not Cullen makes the mistake of waking him and gets a broken nose for their trouble?)

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