bringspeopletogether | [sandbox] out of the abyss

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[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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"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?)

Cullen's mouth tightens.

Tartly:

"Less than ten, really. As long as you don't spend a good seven of those years working for a madwoman. It tends to set you back. Not to mention it gets innocent people killed."

Alistair winces, looking back down at the table. Subdued, "Yes, I'd imagine so."

"I don't want you making the same mistakes I did."

Cullen's speaking to the window.

"That's all."

In silence, Alistair picks his way back over to the bed. He settles into his previous spot next to Cullen.

After a long moment, and with forced lightness: "You know, if you'd like to punch me as well, I'll give you a free shot."

"And yet you won't allow for the possibility that punching me was your free shot?"

The lightness fades. A muscle cords along Alistair's jaw; he looks away.

"I did," he says. "I invited in the possibility, gave it a nice looking-over, and then sent it on its way with a no-thank-you. Why is that so awful?"

"Because you're trying to get sympathy out of me for the wrong thing," he snaps. "This isn't your fault. It wasn't your choice. I'm doing what I know how to do. I'm sorry you're having nightmares. I'm sorry you don't have control over how you react. I'm not sorry for telling you it's absurd to feel so guilty over something you can't control when it wasn't even that bad! What do you want me to do, Alistair?"

If he grinds his teeth any harder, Alistair fears one of them might snap off.

"I'm not trying to get anything from you! Maker's breath, Cullen -- " He fists both hands in the blanket. "When someone hits you without meaning it and they try to apologize, how does assuming they wanted to do it all along help anything?"

All it does is put more thoughts in his head that he didn't think.

"You're the one who responds to everything with jokes! You didn't like it when I tried to be nice!"

"That's because you're never nice when I tease you about your family! And then you were, and I thought it was -- "

Even Alistair can recognize the absurdity of what's coming out of his mouth. Cassandra may have cornered the market on disgusted noises, but he makes a solid go at one anyway; it comes out as frustration more than anything.

"You don't have to make jokes. You don't have to be nice. Just -- be normal, for Andraste's sake. Act like you always do around me."

Cullen rubs at his forehead, wearily.

"I'm going to regret asking," he mutters. "How's that, then?"

Alistair heaves a sigh. His fingers loosen on the blanket.

"You're like -- Maker, I don't know. A slightly obnoxious older sibling who means well. Not obnoxious enough to punch," he adds, pointedly. "If you want to make a joke, make a joke, if you want to be kind, or happy, just be kind or happy, don't do it because you think it's what I want. Ask what I want. Ask what I'm thinking, I -- you keep acting like you know what I'm thinking. You said you were you, and I don't -- "

He's losing the thread. What he's saying is already no help at all; best if he shuts up before this turns into even more mad rambling.

Cullen takes another breath and lets it out slowly. It's a useful tactic.

He turns to the nightstand and picks up his book. A few taps, and he turns it sideways, propping it between them.

The film: Steel Magnolias.

He leans against Alistair, heavy, slumping, as though to convince himself that the other man's there.

Oh. Well, that's --

All right.

If he can't make his thoughts and his voice work in tandem, something where neither of them have to talk seems ideal. Alistair presses his shoulder against Cullen's in kind; if, after a couple minutes, his head lists to lean against Cullen's, too, it's probably just the exhaustion. Probably.

Eventually, he picks up the blanket to drape half of it over himself. Silently, he offers the other half to Cullen.

Cullen takes it, tossing it halfheartedly over his legs, and settles back down. It's a weary movement.

He probably hasn't seen this movie enough times to have it memorized -- but he has seen it enough times for it to be a comfort.

At some point, he figures, Alistair is probably going to ask what in Andraste's name they're watching. Whatever. Possibly even better: Alistair will fall asleep again before the armadillo cake shows up.

"I don't think I've seen this one," ventures Alistair, tentatively.

It seems a safe enough thing to say. (And Alistair, at his core, remains Alistair: incapable of shutting up for too long.)

"I like it well enough."

Pause.

"The daughter dies. So you're warned."

"Oh." Slightly stricken -- but more from concern than surprise. Even this early into the movie, it's become very clear, very quickly that the daughter is not well. "I -- thank you. I appreciate it."

Whenever she's on screen then, he finds himself studying her more closely, as if trying to commit her to memory above all else.

It's familiar, the humor gentle and good, and slowly -- very slowly -- Cullen can feel himself growing less tense.

(Cullen isn't Alistair -- more inclined to be quiet, to be still. If it sends Alistair to sleep, so much the better.)

He resists as long as he can. The movie gives him something to focus on, which helps keep him awake, but he can't converse with a movie. And leaning against each other like this, he can tell Cullen's starting to relax. Talking to him -- interrupting the movie, saying something that gets tangled up and awful by the time it reaches his mouth, making this whole Maker-damned situation worse than it is -- will smash the fragile peace that's forming.

Alistair's not inclined toward prayer. But were he from a different time and place, something about atheists and foxholes might come to mind.

No more dreams, he says, silently. Please. Keep them clear of me.

You know I don't ask much. Let me ask for this.

When his eyes drift shut for the third or fourth time, he stops fighting it.

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howtoactfereldan - 2016-07-06 02:59 (UTC) - Expand

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