bringspeopletogether

After a time, Alistair disentangles himself, gently -- but only so he can scoot higher to rest his head on Cullen's shoulder.

He ought to sleep. (Try to sleep.) Despite the calm that's settled over him, though, he can't close his eyes for more than a minute or two.

Cullen doesn't say anything about that.

He just works his arm around Alistair, and settles his hand back on Alistair's head.

Alistair lets out a small sigh, turning into the touch like a plant seeking sunlight. He wraps his arm around Cullen. More...snugly than usual.

(He's clinging. Why deny it.)

If Alistair needs to say something, Cullen knows, he'll say it. Pushing isn't likely to help.

Besides, this right here is what Cullen actually wanted. He touches his lips to Alistair's forehead, and doesn't speak.

Alistair's smile returns, faintly.

He should say something. He just -- can't think of what. Words still feel a bit too distant to grasp properly, and the old worry, that he'll say the wrong thing and destroy the peace they've cultivated, keeps him from reaching too far to begin with.

He closes his eyes.

Eventually, as the noise outside their tent dips to a subaudible hum, he even dozes off.

So does Cullen, more soundly.

He'll make his proposal tomorrow, about the letters. When they can sneak a chance. For now, though, he can barely keep his eyes open.

At one point, Alistair stirs from Cullen's side long enough to drag a blanket over. Beyond that, he barely moves the whole night -- and barely sleeps, either, falling out of and into a doze like a boat bobbing on ocean waves.

As soon as dawn arrives, he drops a kiss on Cullen's shoulder before sneaking free of the blanket. Patrol's -- when is his patrol due to start? Soon, isn't it? Or maybe in a couple hours. No matter, he'll take a walk (or a jog) around camp to kill time if he's not due to start his rotation yet.

It's fine. It'll be fine.

Alistair's gone, when Cullen wakes. (The birds in the Basin are... very enthusiastic about noise.) He sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and reaches for his trousers.

A few minutes later he's back at his desk.

Patrol with the green recruits remains low-stakes; they stick to old paths rather than forging new ones, sweeping the territory under Inquisition protection to ensure nothing -- or nobody -- has tried to reclaim it. Today's intent is to extend their watch from early morning to midafternoon, with a short interlude to test how swiftly they can set up and break down a small temporary camp.

As the foul-mouthed Orlesian kid struggles his way through starting a fire (without magic, the captain insists; just because they've a mage in their group today doesn't mean they always will), Alistair takes a seat atop a nearby rock. He fishes out the leather scrap he found last night; turns it over in his hands, considering, before unstrapping a small knife from his belt.

One ear attuned to their surroundings, he begins to pare tiny bits off the scrap, trying to shape some kind of design at its center. A yard away, the mage strikes up a conversation with another recruit: an elf from Halamshiral, who could give Skinner a run for her money with the sheer number of knives she carries.

They're talking about how they came to join the Inquisition. Better than the alienage, says the elf, and unconsciously, Alistair's paring slows.

Mid-morning, Cullen and Harding take a walk to the lake. He has records; she doesn't write anything down unless she can't help it. He rather admires her amiable demeanor: it invites underestimation, which is one reason she's so effective in the field as one of Leliana's operatives.

Lieutenant Farrow is scheduled to come in tonight, Harding says, and he'll go out again tomorrow or the next day. That would be the best time for you to go visiting. We could send someone out with you, but that would mean taking them away from somewhere else.

No, I quite understand, Cullen says. He palms a flat rock. I don't wish to disturb your efforts. You've done a really remarkable job here, Lieutenant.

I -- thank you, Commander. Harding looks surprised, and a little embarrassed. That's... kind of you to say.

Cullen, of course, has no idea what that feeling is like at all. So he says, simply, It's the truth, and skips the rock across the surface of the lake. I realize that Sister Leliana and I frequently prefer... disparate approaches. It's no small task to bridge that, and you and Farrow have accomplished a great deal with very little.

I try my best, Commander, Harding says, and stoops to pick up a rock herself. When she throws it, Cullen loses count at seven skips.

Well, now you've ruined it, Cullen says. Harding laughs.

The mage frowns. I thought Halamshiral didn't have an alienage.

They say they don't. She spits. Might as well. Humans get the High Quarter and we get the rest. You can't even go up there if you're elf-blooded, let alone elven.

Alistair's head snaps up before he's aware of it.

Anyway, the woman goes on -- neither seem to have noticed his reaction, thank the Maker -- I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear I got sick of it. Val Royeaux's even worse. So here I am. How about you?

The mage shrugs, starts to relay the same story Alistair heard a thousand times in the Wardens, of hedge mages seeking protection, choosing any path they could find that wouldn't end with the Chantry caging them. Alistair draws breath, lets it out slowly, and returns to work.

What about you?

...Maybe they did notice his reaction. Alistair glances up, warily. Hm?

You're a Warden, right? How'd you end up here? I thought all the Wardens were...somewhere not here, the mage finishes lamely.

Carefully, Alistair sheathes his knife. For a long, silent moment, he regards the man -- a boy, really, not much older than their Orlesian friend still cursing at the fire to catch already, Maker damn you. The look goes on long enough that the mage starts fidgeting.

And Alistair tells him. About Warden-Commander Clarel; about his own research into Corypheus; about Hawke, and the battle at Adamant, and deciding upon his return that he couldn't serve Weisshaupt any longer. He keeps it succinct, and conveniently glosses over every single detail about his little two-month jaunt to the Fade, but it's still enough that the mage looks a little pale around the edges when he's done.

In a further stroke of convenience, that's when the captain calls the mage over for his own bit of fire-starting practice. (Also sans magic, just to expand his skill set.)

Not so much the funny one any longer as the scary one, thinks Alistair wearily, and unsheathes his knife again.

If he's really heading into the field in the next few days, he should make sure he's got all his kit together and in good shape right now. Oiling leather, polishing armor, memorizing maps. He meets with Kenric, too, to listen to entirely too much history (and, at least for a moment, to talk Starkhaven).

Something still unsettles him, about last night. He looks down at the pages of intelligence he's gone through, today, and reports from the field.

Then, with nothing else pressing, he sits down and begins to write.

Soon enough, everyone's had their turn at camp-building save Alistair. They move along.

A mile or two from camp, a weird humming noise begins right at the edge of Alistair's hearing. He stops dead, the elven woman almost walking straight into him. The captain glances over. Warden Alistair?

His mouth's dry. Nothing. I don't think -- A deep breath. The rations he ate earlier churn unpleasantly; he tries to focus on the feel of the coin tucked beneath his breastplate. I don't know.

He doesn't know if the Veil's about to tear, if it's his mind playing tricks again, if it's nothing at all or a very big problem about to split open beneath their feet, and for an instant, under the rising panic, he's blindingly furious at everything all over again. Alistair touches his fingertips to the spot over the coin. Keeps breathing.

We need to move. Quickly. Mark this spot in case it's -- it's something.

A few of the recruits exchange glances, and the captain's still looking at him a little too closely, but they do as Alistair asks: they move faster.

He sits just inside the edge of camp for a good thirty minutes until he's sure he won't run. Or punch anything, for that matter.

Then he heads for his and Cullen's tent.

His armor's still laid out, piece by piece; Cullen himself is at his desk, again, continuing to write.

(The letter's done. He can arrange to send it out with tonight's correspondence, if Alistair agrees. He should be all right with it.

Right?)

"Cullen?"

Alistair's still holding open the tent flap, like he's waiting for permission to come in; he musters up a smile that looks more uncertain than he intends.

He lifts his head and turns with a ready smile. It falters, a little: why is Alistair hesitating?

"Yes?" He gets to his feet.

That's enough to get him to move.

Alistair steps inside, letting the flap fall behind him. "Sorry." Quiet. "I didn't want to interrupt, if -- "

He stops there, starts to pick fitfully at the straps of his vambraces. Breathe, he reminds himself.

Cullen takes this in -- and takes two steps forward. "You're not interrupting." Gentle. "Are you finished for the day?"

Alistair nods, focused just a tad too intently on his armor, unable to look up.

He's breathing, but -- he's putting a little too much focus in that, too, and the rhythm's just quick enough to register as unnatural.

He hasn't been writing with his armor on: it's hard to write in gloves and vambraces.

"Alistair."

Soft. He doesn't reach out to touch him. Not yet.

"What happened?"

"Can you -- "

One vambrace thumps unceremoniously to the floor of the tent. Then the other. Alistair strips off his gloves.

He takes a moment to make sure his voice won't do anything embarrassing before he says, even quieter, "If you could just -- come here a moment?" and reaches for Cullen.

Cullen folds Alistair into his arms without delay.

"Right here," he murmurs.

Alistair wraps his arms around him in kind, a bit too tightly. He should have taken off his breast plate, he thinks; it's not as easy to breathe when he's got that on.

"I'm all right." Muffled: he's pressed his face to Cullen's neck. "I swear it, I just -- need a moment. I'm fine."

"All right."

If he was watchful before, now Cullen is worried. If this is too much for Alistair --

Well. He was already wondering how Alistair would treat the prospect of being separated for a few nights.

"Take your time."

Alistair nods, a little. Shuts his eyes.

He's fine. He knows where he is. (The Veil isn't about to tear; not here.) He didn't endanger anyone or make a fool of himself. If they don't find anything on the spot he marked, that's good. That means everyone will stay safe. And if they do find something --

There's a reason Alistair's been assigned to the beginner patrols, frustrating as it sometimes may be.

Gradually, his hold on Cullen eases; his breathing settles. With a sigh, Alistair pulls back.

(Not too far.)

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