allthisshitisweird | Darkest Timeline AU Flashback Meme

Cade doesn't leave Beleth's side often, but he is periodically hand-picked for certain missions: missions that involve squirreling out people who were once in his social sphere and delivering them to the Venatori. Even if he doesn't care-- and might even prefer-- if he's killed for disobedience, there's still Beleth to consider, and she is always leveraged. Fail, defect, betray us, and the elf gets it.
Whether or not she actually would is up to debate, but the point is to make him think she would, and Cade isn't known for his resistance to bullshit.

His most recent mission involved going to Orzammar, clothed as a refugee, wrapped in a way that implies he has miserable wounds (and not the signs of red lyrium) to hide. This time, he went seeking Alistair. And he found him, and he told him where Beleth is, that she needs help.

Cade is a terrible liar, but technically those aren't lies. He does know where she is, and he does believe she needs help. But even so, he has a hard time looking at Alistair without knowing what lies in wait. He knows better than to even plead that the captives be left alive, or better yet, untortured; his opinion counts for virtually nothing, and speaking up just increases the chance of worse fates befalling them.

He's quiet and fidgety as they make their way down to the foothills of the Frostbacks, ultimately not far from a region Alistair likely knows well from his travels with the Warden: they stop at a small trading post just north of Lake Calenhad, and set up camp. Because 'quiet' and 'fidgety' are not descriptors that indicate unusual behavior on Cade's part, he's hiding in plain sight. And waiting.

He doesn't sleep, of course. And when the dawn finally breaks, and they're packing up their meager camp, that's when the modest contingent of Venatori march up to them, swords and bows drawn, and order Alistair to stand down.
Cade barely reacts at all; he certainly doesn't draw his sword, and in fact barely seems to acknowledge that anything is happening at all. He's gazing pointedly away from the goings-on, perhaps watching a bird somewhere in the middle distance, frowning desolately and trying to will Alistair not to look at him.

Edited 2017-02-03 05:42 (UTC)

Alistair isn't—well, sometimes he is stupid. But he isn't trusting. His moments of stupidity never result from failing to suspect that someone shifty is going to shiftily betray him. It wasn't the case when he was twenty, watching Morrigan and Zevran and Sten and Shale out of the corners of his eyes, yes all at once, one eye corner for every likely cause of death. And it's definitely not the case now.

In short: there was no way on the Maker's muddy earth that Alistair was going to walk out of Orzammar with a known traitor, alone, in an attempt to rescue— again alone—another known traitor.

So they're being followed, at some unseen distance, by a handful of people Alistair does trust. It's still stupid, of course, but the stupidity is in the desperation-born gamble. Maybe they can turn the tables, maybe they can trap the trappers, maybe whatever they can learn from following Cade will be worth it. Maybe. Alistair spends the night wide awake, too, waiting for an ambush that doesn't come, his sending crystal a silent open line to the scouts holed up on the trail behind them. In the early dawn he steps away to piss and murmurs for them to go ahead, scout the trail ahead, and try to get in a few minutes of sleep before they catch up to them. Maybe Cade plans to take him all the way to the coast.

—or not. Alistair is rolling up the canvas from the tent when the Venatori march into view. He stares at them—counting blades and bows—while he slowly bundles it and sets it down to pick up his sword and shield instead.

"Wow. I'm shocked," he says flatly. He is not shocked. But there's a brittle undercurrent to the sarcasm that suggests he's hurt anyway, which is another stupid thing. How dare this person who was clearly going to stab him in the back actually stab him in the back. Morrigan and Zevran and Sten and Shale never did.

While he's being stupidly hurt, though, he's doing slightly less stupid calculations: how many he can take down before they disarm him, how many that leaves alive, how many of his own people will die if they do come to his rescue when he's already bound and can't help them fight. The answer to that last question is one, probably. And that's one and one half too many, as far as he's concerned. However good he's gotten at the mathematics of war, he's never been great at estimating his own value.

"Are you shocked?" he's asking Cade in the meantime, with one quick sideways glance to confirm it before he returns to glaring at the Venatori. "No? I'm shocked again."

He keeps his sword ready. If they want him, they're going to have to come over here and disarm him like men, and probably endure a bit of kicking and elbowing after that. With his shield hand he yanks the sending crystal hanging around his neck so the chain breaks, then drops it onto the rocky ground.

"It's all right," he says—not to Cade, to whoever might still be listening on the other end of the crystals' connection—and crushes it under the heel of his boot.

Cade makes only the briefest eye contact when Alistair addresses him, but he doesn't react, just looks back away again. He's not fidgeting anymore; now he just looks like a husk, his anxiety having fled him along with the rest of everything else that makes him a person.
It's better this way. Dissociating is the only way Cade gets any peace now, and it has never been more necessary than in the moment his friend is being arrested because of him.

Right. That's great then. There's a weird, inane sense of deja vu, maybe from the first time Alistair tried to talk to Cade in the monastery and got only silence. In revenge Alistair does the worst thing he can think of, as far as Cade goes, which is ignoring him altogether. He doesn't give him another glance before the Venatori close in, he doesn't look to see if he's safe during the scuffling, he doesn't ask for help when he's finally pinned down with someone's knee in his spine. If he gets his way he'll never have to look at the pathetic two-faced little zealot again, and so on, and so forth.

***

He doesn't get his way.

Sometime later, sore and rattled and breathing through only one nostril because the other is clogged with blood—Venatori prison hint, the interrogators don't appreciate flirting in lieu of actual answers—he looks up from where he's sprawled out against the stone wall of his temporary cell and finds Cade there. With Beleth. He'd been prepared to continue his current tactic of infuriating everyone by acting thrilled (sarcastically) to be enjoying their hospitality, but the smirk drops straight off his face, slides briefly through shock, and settles into a glare.

"You look well," he says to her. It is the precise opposite of a compliment. And maybe it isn't true. Maybe she looks awful. But she doesn't look imprisoned, tortured, or dead, so he'll be keeping this snarl, thank you.

Beleth does look well. She looks like she's being fed decent meals regularly, her clothes are (relatively) new and clean, hair washed and brushed. She's not only not imprisoned, she's living a comfortable life. It is a stark difference from the perpetually stressed and underfed woman who'd worn this skin three years ago--not even counting the vallaslin missing from her face.

Though, if it's any comfort to Alistair, she's currently looking very genuinely distressed.

"Oh, Alistair." She puts a hand against a cell bar, peering down at him. "I can't believe this. This is--this is just awful. Did they--are you bleeding?" She fishes around in her pocket to pull out a handkerchief, and skinny elf arms that haven't wielded a weapon in years prove valuable for shimmying her hand between the bars to hand it to him.

She glances at Cade, and gestures towards the door. "Tell me if anyone's coming." Then back to Alistair. "Maker's breath. Just hang in there, alright? I'll--I'll try talking to someone. I'm sure I can arrange something." She's already thinking of who owes her favors, who would like her to owe favors, where she could get Alistair a place. He's a Grey Warden, which will be hard to get them to let go of, but surely something can be done. Someone bribed or blackmailed or otherwise convinced. It was Tevinter, laws only applied to the unfortunate idiots who couldn't get around them

Alistair glares at the handkerchief, glares at her, glares beyond her at Cade, and returns to glaring at the handkerchief. The handkerchief doesn't have a familiar face and hasn't chosen to belong to the enemy, so it's currently his favorite thing in the room. But he doesn't take it. He wipes the blood leaking from his nose with the back of his arm to make it perfectly clear that he does not intend to take it.

"Arrange something," he echoes quietly; not like a request, not yes, please do that. More like it's a foreign phrase he doesn't understand.

Cade makes the mistake of briefly meeting eyes with Alistair, and he responds by averting his again and focusing his attention on the door as instructed. He wants to speak to Alistair, to plead with him and beg him to just comply, just make it easier for himself, but... perhaps once Beleth is done, once he has a spare moment alone with his former friend.

There's a look of hurt in her eyes, as she withdraws the handkerchief, stuffing it back away. He's mad. Mad at her. Another person who's disappointed to see her not beaten and broken, to have her not beg for death. Another person who's disappointed she rescued herself. She's used to that by now, but to have Alistair, of all people, stare at her like that...It hurts anew.

But he's still Alistair.

"I mean, I can...try to get you out of here. I can probably get you into a...better cell block, right now. But if you give me some time, I'm sure I could get you a good assignment somewhere outside of the Gallows." She hesitates, eager to try to prove to Alistair that she isn't some evil villain, that she wants to help. She shifts on her feet, glancing at Cade worriedly. Not she regrets putting him on door duty, because she'd like to be able to reach behind her and grab his his hand, take some comfort from knowing someone believes in her.

"Please, Alistair." Her voice is soft, pleading. "I can help, if you let me."

"An assignment," Alistair repeats. He's into repeating things today. But this time he doesn't just leave the words there for her to explain. "Working for them. While they try to kill everyone I care about."

He settles back against the wall, legs bent up, and lets his forearms cross and dangle over the tops of his knees, blood-smeared over bruised--and he laughs, sort of. One of the single-syllable, breathy has that signals a pessimist unhappily proven right.

"He told me you needed help. I didn't really believe it, but what kind of person would I have been if I'd said so?"

She has the grace to look abashed at that, tensing and biting her lip. But this is important, this is vital. She can't let Alistair die, not like this. "Alistair, if you get out of here, if you let me help you, then you can help other people, too. Just like I'm trying to do for you. If someone else comes in here that you want to save, you'll be able to." She stares at him while she speaks, voice imploring. Surely, he wants to save his other friends. Or that...woman.

His next words, however, throw her off balance. She stares at him, baffled, and quietly whispers, "You came to help me...?" This...was her fault, too? Just like Cade--

Cade.

Cade had been gone for days. Then he comes back with news that Alistair's here. Alistair, who was baited with the possibility of helping Beleth.

Slowly, Beleth turns to look at her guard. Her friend. Surely--surely he wouldn't have used her, let her dangle unknowingly in front of someone that they had both cared so much about. And then trapped him in a cage.

"Cade."

Yeah, he gets that look a lot these days.
Cade looks back at her, and gives no excuses or explanations. He just nods once, dully, and then looks away again. The cat's out of the bag, not that it was tied very tightly to begin with.

If Alistair spent any time trying to imagine the looks on the faces of the people he has left to save—Sabine, Kaisa, little Gwenaëlle all grown up and murderous, any of them—if he walked down to their cells and offered them a place within the Imperium, he might genuinely laugh. But he doesn't spend time on that. He's too busy looking at Beleth that way himself, like she's asked him to personally lie down prostrate in front of the Archon and apologize for being bad and disobedient. And also like she's grown a second head. A second head with extra eyes. A second head with extra eyes that has whispered fuck you and everything you believe in.

So that's a no.

She turns on Cade, next, and that's fine with him. He leans his head back and closes his eyes. "Cade," he mimics childishly. He's tired, he's hurt, and he isn't in the mood to give anyone the benefit of the doubt right now. He doesn't care if she wasn't complicit in this teeny tiny thing. "Can you two take this somewhere else? I'm busy."

Edited 2017-02-08 01:35 (UTC)

Beleth turns from Alistair, to Cade, then Alistair again. She's seen other people pass through here, people that she once knew, people that wouldn't take the help she offered either, who stared at her with that hatred. She's learned to not let it bother her.

But Alistair makes it hurt again, fresh and jarring. And that Cade used her, lied to Alistair about her in order to bring him in--

She can feel her eyes watering, but she doesn't want to give Alistair the pleasure of seeing it, so she spins around, marching towards the door. She does bother to stop next to Cade, spending a moment staring at him with hurt, angry eyes that are still tearing up. And she does the worst thing she can think of to him.

"I'll get someone else to escort me home." Then she turns, leaving the dungeon in a huff. Wasn't that fun.

It doesn't seem possible, but Cade deflates a little further, watching Beleth go with a look that is both hurt and unsurprised. It's been a long, long time since he made anyone happy, it seems, and the most he can do these days is stay out of the way. Avoid making them angry. But apparently even that is beyond his capabilities!
He stands there awkwardly for several moments after Beleth goes, then looks back at Alistair with a similar expression: I know you hate me, but you're still all I have.

He comes forward a few steps to look into the cell, frowning. Is there even anything worth saying?
"I'm sorry," is all that comes out, in a barely audible mumble. "...just...." He pauses for a while, trying to think of something else to say. "...don't take the lyrium, if you can avoid it."

"No?" Alistair says without moving. The only thing about Beleth's exit that he regrets is that she left Cade behind. The first word is sharp enough to cut, but the more he goes on the more he just sounds resigned. (He's going to die—he refuses to do anything for them but die. He should have said good bye. He should have left something behind—) "I've always wanted to turn into a mindless rock monster, secret dream of mine. But I'll take your advice under consideration."

The answer gives Cade pause, and he holds his tongue for several moments while Alistair gets the snarky answer out of his system. It hurts to hear, but isn't unwarranted. Even in this awful, resentful way, he's missed talking to his friend, and will take what he can get.

"You won't be mindless," he says, his voice low and dismal, "...though... that could be nice." Like Tranquility. Most people wouldn't want it, but he isn't most people. "If..."
He trails off, realizing there's no universe in which Alistair would want to hear this, but proceeds anyway, "...if you're forced, don't... don't fight it. It'll be easier." His shoulders hunch. "Maybe they won't force you. You're not a Templar."

Eyes shut, Alistair half-considers, with the part of his brain that isn't busy with regrets, a few different answers. He could pull his first ever do you know who I am?—do you really think they're going to waste me on just another half-mad lyrium monster. That might be fun. He's nearly surly enough.

But not quite.

"I'm not interested in easy, Cade," he says, and grins with too many teeth. Kind of. Grin is generous. "If they try it, maybe you can come hold me down for them."

Edited 2017-02-14 05:36 (UTC)

If Cade were quicker on his feet, perhaps he'd have some kind of snappy comeback for this, a way to counteract the barbs shooting from Alistair with every sentence. But he isn't, and he doesn't, so he just stands there quietly, watching him.
"I'd rather be dead," he murmurs after a moment, so low that perhaps it wasn't even meant for Alistair to hear. His gaze is distant and desolate, his posture defeated.
Several seconds pass, and Cade realizes he's being weird, so he focuses on Alistair again. "She is in trouble," he says quietly, "...when you get out of here, take her with you." He turns to go toward the door, head down, not waiting for a response.

That would have been a nice conclusion for Cade to come to sometime before Alistair was in a cell, Alistair does not say, but he does give Cade a contemptuous silent look-over that makes it fairly clear he would rather Cade die, too. And not just to avoid further assisting in Alistair's demise. In general.

He's tired, and he can't let any panic or despair show until everyone leaves him alone, so he doesn't say it. And he doesn't say that he won't be getting out and certainly wouldn't be taking Beleth with him if he did, after what happened when the Dalish tried. And he doesn't ask any favors. He wants to, desperately, because he didn't explain before he left, he knew it was stupid and he knew she would tell him so, and he didn't say goodbye the way he should have if he wasn't coming back—

But he wants even more desperately to not owe Cade a damn thing, so he says, "Sure," tone somewhere vague between flippant agreement and sneering sarcasm, and lets him leave.

Darkest Timeline AU Flashback Meme

Very Recently

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject