howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

Alistair nods.

"I know it isn't easy for you." Still quiet. "And I appreciate it, very much."

That -- might have been a sniffle.

"If things had been different -- and, and they were still here... I'd want to show you everything. So you know you belong."

And just when Alistair's eyes had stopped stinging.

He shuts them, quickly, as his hand curls in the back of Cullen's shirt.

Cullen's still got Alistair's in his fist, so. They have that in common.

He takes in and releases a shaky breath.

"I'm still glad to see this much."

A bare whisper. Any louder, and he's not sure the words will get out through the tightness in his throat.

"Just to -- know a little of what it was like for you. Before we met."

"Admit it, though," Cullen manages. "You'd have been hunting me down along with Branson. Noise and all."

Silence, for a beat.

Then, sheepishly: "Much as I'd like to deny it..."

Cullen squeezes Alistair, with something that sounds much more like a laugh than anything else.

"Why... do you want to know?" Tentative. "What it was like."

Alistair hitches up one shoulder, just enough to convey a shrug without disturbing Cullen. "Part of that business where I want you to be happy, I suspect," he says. "I like knowing you had something pleasant, like this."

A beat goes by; the tail end of it shifts toward awkwardness.

"And -- I guess I'm curious what it's like to..."

In Alistair's mind, about six different ways to end that sentence crash into one another, ending in a self-pitying mishmash he's too embarrassed to say aloud. So he doesn't.

Cullen can fill it in, anyhow.

"Loud, for the most part."

(Finally, he's relaxed.)

"Full. Too many people in too small a space. There was some -- because there were four of us, and we were close in age, people in the village had a tendency to treat us like a unit. Like we weren't... different. Just those Rutherfords, farming outside town. And I was the stuffy one, obviously. Spending so much time around the Chantry didn't help. I wanted -- more responsibility, always. Made me an outlier among the rest of the children in the village."

He tapped Alistair's chest. "But I never snitched. And once I beat up a boy who made fun of Mia. If anyone had anything to say after that, they kept it to themselves."

"Good man," says Alistair, appreciatively. "Or, er -- good lad, I suppose."

He's smiling again, wistful now.

"It doesn't sound too terrible."

"It wasn't," he says softly. "Most of it feels as though it happened to someone else. I suppose it did. No one's left here. No graves to visit."

Alistair breathes out; tightens his hold on Cullen, briefly.

He will always think Cullen's lucky to have a family who loves him. To get a childhood where he was at peace, secure in the knowledge he was wanted. Sometimes Alistair wonders, though, whether growing up at Redcliffe might have had some advantages.

You can't lose what you never had, after all.

"It's just as well." Is Alistair upset? "If they'd known more, any of them, when I asked to join... I wouldn't want them to know the truth of it. I can spare them that much."

Alistair -- noticing the use of present tense -- doesn't say anything right away.

(He won't argue. And it's not like Cullen's wrong, really; he's trying to protect the family he has left, just like he tries to protect everyone else.

It's just. They're his family.)

"I'm sorry," he whispers at last.

"It's all right," he says, a little surprised. "Truly. They either -- can't know, or are safer not knowing."

Alistair breathes out.

(He won't argue.)

"I'd rather not talk about this now." Very quiet. "But -- later, maybe? If you're amenable?"

"I -- yes."

His surprise isn't going anywhere.

"Of course."

"All right."

That gives them -- well, this. Time to be lazy in the sun, at least.

He presses another soft kiss to Cullen's forehead.

It's about Fiona, like as not. Cullen shoves down an uneasy feeling, and concentrates on breathing slowly.

It doesn't take him very long at all to drift off.

On occasion, like now, Alistair thinks of the unsent letter Cullen wrote months ago. The one where he called himself monster; where he commanded his sister to put him from her mind.

There has to be some way to impress upon Cullen that -- that what? That he should let his siblings decide those things for themselves? That there can be a middle ground in communication, somewhere between laying every fault bare and a terse one-sentence note?

That Alistair would've given his left arm to get letters like that from Cailan, or Maric, or Fiona?

(It keeps coming back to that, doesn't it. The pure, selfish wish that he could have what Cullen has. And that's no foundation to build an argument on.

Maybe he should just keep his mouth shut for once.)

Alistair closes his eyes, trying to follow Cullen into a doze, but finds himself stirring awake before long. They're out in the open, and the lake -- it looks safe, but he doesn't know. Not like Cullen might.

Better just to keep watch. No reason he can't stay awake while he's lounging in the sun.

It's less than an hour before Cullen stretches -- not unlike a cat -- and rests his chin on Alistair's shoulder.

"Fish?" he asks, quietly.

Alistair stirs from his thoughts. Smiling, he tips his head enough to regard Cullen from the corner of his eye.

"Fish," he agrees, just as soft. "Let's hope they haven't ruined their appetites before we get to them."

"I don't think fish work like that," Cullen says, and eases himself up.

The fire's nearly burned down enough; Cullen feeds it just a little more before sitting on the dock again. Four fat trout fall prey to Alistair's hard work with the bait; Cullen digs a little salt out of his pack, and picks some woodsorrel for the sharp, sour taste.

He does rather look abominably smug as he pokes at the gutted fish with his knife; they're cooking directly on the coals, skin and all.

He has every reason to be: the fish smell wonderful, especially when you're running on a meager breakfast and a single piece of jerky. Alistair's mouth waters as he inhales the scent.

When he can't bear to wait any longer, he rummages up some more jerky from his pack, nabs a strip, and offers another piece to Cullen, eyebrows lifted inquiringly.