fadewalk | RP: Daylen Amell

A clean shirt, probably too large. A pair of pants and a belt to hold them up. Clean socks - Maker, he knew how much he'd missed those while slogging through the Deep Roads with Cousland. Boot polish, and wood polish for the man's staff , and soap. Alistair inhaled the green, foresty scent and smiled to himself. His best memory of Orzimmar was sinking into the huge, sunken tub in the bathhouse attached to the Tapster's Tavern, finally able to relax after the long trek back from Caridin's Cross. He hoped that Daylen would appreciate the find.

A handful of basic lyrium potions, and another of elfroot potions went into a small pouch, and was set atop the pile. Alistair surveyed the supplies with a careful eye, and then nodded. Should try not to overwhelm the man, he thought and then winced. Too late. "I do that just by existing, apparently."

The supplies went into a basket, and Alistair set off to find Daylen, a look of determination on his face.

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The way Alistair's eyes had lingered, the way he'd blushed and bolted... it made Daylen feel unsteady and ill. He was being so kind, so generous and helpful even though Daylen was a unsightly, unbalanced stranger and then he'd gone and made him uncomfortable by taking his bloody (literally) shirt off.

Now he was hauling his water.

Daylen dropped onto a chair with a hunk of bread to gnaw on, forcing himself to go slow. He hadn't eaten much except for deepstalkers and deep mushrooms in... weeks. He wasn't sure how bread, let alone cheese was going to sit. While he waited he started thumbing through the journal he'd found in his things, skin growing pale and waxy as he read, trying to make sense of everything that was in there.

Some of the names he knew. Some he didn't. Leliana, Anders, Cullen fucking Rutherford. Sigrun and Dagna and... he felt his stomach lurch and had to set the bread aside and focus on his breathing to keep from puking again.

Three of them. Three Alistair Theirins. And the one he had been imposing on? As near as he could tell that was Eamon's fondest wish, the King of Ferelden.

He threw the journal to the floor with a silent snarl and leaned over, elbows resting on his knees, bruises and cuts, scrapes and scratches on his back pulling and complaining as he arched, trying to force himself not to break down completely. Which was where he sat when Alistair returned with the first set of full buckets.

The buckets were large, and Alistair had insisted that he not neglect his strength training after he'd taken the throne. He made a guess that two, maybe three trips with both buckets full would fill the hip bath. The mechanical motion of filling the buckets and settling them across his shoulders on the yoke gave him a moment to think.

Daylen made Alistair's heart ache. He reminded him of Cousland, shocked and devastated when he'd realized that Morrigan had made good on her promise (threat?) to disappear after the battle with the Archdemon. The man had been inconsolably angry, and had almost worked himself into a stupor, had driven himself into an awful state of self-denial and pain. It had taken Alistair, Zevran, and Wynne to convince Aedan that the world hadn't ended, and that he needed to take care of himself...for the sake of his friends, at the very least.

Alistair wished there was something more he could do to help Daylen. He had a suspicion that his very presence was part of the problem - he imagined it was rather like being confronted with a a demon, not quite right but oh so tempting all the same.

But...he liked the man, all the same. From what he'd seen, under all that grime, frustration, and grief, Daylen was a good man. A sharp sense of humor, and an inner strength he envied. Alistair's mind dipped into a moment of self-pity - he wasn't sure he'd have been able to withstand the sort of psychic beating Daylen had withstood. "Not that there is anyone from back home who could star in such a role for me." He huffed, and then resolved to put that ember of anger away for later examination.

He stepped sideways through the door, his back towards most of the room as he tried to be careful not to knock the yoke or drop the buckets, and happily said, "It shouldn't take more than two trips - you'll be able to cleaned up in no time!"

Daylen looked up slowly at Alistair's broad back as he entered with the buckets. He felt suddenly, unaccountably angry. At himself, at Eamon, at Alistair? He didn't know. He just felt so fucking furious.

Of all the worlds that apparently touched the Fade, out of all the possibilities why had it been his that saw Alistair dying on top of Fort Drakon?

He shook his head, scrubbing at his face and forced himself to stand, to step closer to Alistair, and the relief that each inch gave him made it so hard to resent him for not being him.

"So, does the King of Ferelden draw baths for every Hero of Ferelden who wanders by?" he asked with a soft drawl, managing to sound prickly anyway. He reached to help steady the yoke so that they could be unloaded. He was still bare from the waist up, and barefoot on the carpet.

Alistair flinched at Daylen's saying his title, the buckets sloshing just a little. He steadied himself, and tried to look over his shoulder at Daylen. His face was serious, a little grim even, as he asked, "How did you..."

His eyes caught on the journal, splayed open on the floor, and he frowned. "Oh." He quickly shifted his grip on the yoke and lowered the buckets to the floor, feeling Daylen's hands help with the heavy weight. When the buckets were safely on the floor, Alistair turned to unhook the yoke, putting him face to naked chest with Daylen.

There was another moment where he began to blush slightly, before he hurriedly moved to empty the buckets into the bath. Alistair's voice was quiet when he finally responded, "If the King of Fereldan ever forgets that he once drew his own baths like every other normal person, I will be incredibly upset with myself."

The way Alistair's demeanor changed, the flinch, his quieter tone, made Daylen feel wretched.

"Hey." He tried to catch Alistair's eyes when he straightened from pouring the buckets into the bath. He wanted to say something that wouldn't be intrusive, because as much as he felt like he could see the whole of Alistair's life if he'd been pushed onto the throne alone, he didn't know him. "I'm sorry. I just... this is so hard. And I'm a bitter asshole who feels about twice as old as I am. And you should probably ignore me."

He reached up a hand, raked his hand through his hair and gave it a tug, and then turned away shoulders slumping.

"You're not old." Alistair blurted out. "And...you have every right to be bitter. I...I can't imagine how you must be feeling." Alistair smiled, lopsidedly. "The only thing I have to complain about is being guilted into ruling a country after I'd explicitly said I didn't want to. At least I wasn't..." He wanted to say alone, but that seemed cruel and to be honest, wasn't really true, either.

Alistair gathered up the buckets and the yoke, and moved towards the door. He hesitated in the doorway, and said, just a above a whisper, "I hope I'm not making the situation worse."

Then he ducked out the door.

Daylen started the water heating, found the soap, rummaged through his gear until he found the knife he was looking for and a whetstone. It would do for scraping the scraggly gunk off his face. He needed something to occupy his hands, make him focus.

Alistair deflecting, making it okay that someone had forced him onto the throne against his wishes, whether that was Eamon or this Cousland he'd mentioned...

It made him want to hit something.

He scooped up a basin of the now steaming water in the bath and settled in front of the silver mirror on the vanity to sharpen the knife. Slow, methodical strokes, the careful metallic rasp set a measure to his thoughts. He was no longer in the Deep Roads. The music of the Calling had faded away. He was comparatively safe, had food, supplies, and was about to have a bath.

Drawn by hand by the double of a man who had once mapped every inch of his skin with swordsman's hands in a deep copper tub in a mansion in Denerim. Daylen's hand was shaking as he brought set the knife down and started to wet and lather his beard.

He should just explain and then maybe Alistair would run the other direction and for however long Daylen was still breathing he could feel relief and like the biggest idiot in the world that he'd driven him away.

Alistair felt guilty for running away from the conflict. It had been nice to forget that he was someone more than just plain Alistair while he was here - a vacation, just as his Warden double had suggested. Even with all the sorrow and frustration and stress surrounding Daylan... Alistair sighed, and scratched at his hair, messing up the soft curls.

He drew another pair of buckets and settled the yoke on his shoulders again. He really did hope that he wasn't making the situation worse for Daylen - the man deserved some peace, not Alistair's hopeless, helpful-puppy-floundering.

He tried to move quietly through the door to the room with the second set of buckets, but managed to knock the door...and spill one of the buckets over most of his back. The water was icy cold, pulled from the depths of the mountain beneath the castle (supposed to be beneath the castle, at least), and Alistair couldn't prevent a surprised yelp from escaping his mouth.

Daylen had managed to get the worst of the scruff from his cheeks and mouth, but the knife was having a hard time over the more sensitive skin of his neck. He had rinsed his face and was whetting the blade again when Alistair's yelp startled him up off the stool.

He turned toward the door and seeing the poleaxed expression on Alistair's face, complete with the wet shirt that was now clinging to his back, he chuffed a sudden laugh. It was rusty, and swallowed as soon as it sounded, the smile fading into a small, lopsided smirk. "You are the most graceful."

Without the terrible patchy beard, his jaw is sharp and strong, mouth with a sweet turn to the corners that seems at odds with the way it tends toward frowning. He crossed toward Alistair, reaching to help with the buckets, trying to help him untangle without getting any more water down his back.

Alistair chuckled back, and he leaned gratefully into Daylen's hands as they worked to untangle the yoke and buckets from the door. "Me? I'm as graceful as a one-winged butterfly. You couldn't tell?" One the buckets were free, Alistair straightened up and grimaces as his cold, wet shirt clung to his back and ripped down the back of his pants.

He grabbed the pair of buckets and dumped their contents into the bath. The water was soon steaming, the fire rune embedded in the side of the copper bath humming brightly in Alistair's head as it worked. "Well, that looks cozy."

Alisatir looked up at Daylen and smiled softly. The mage looked better already, even with just a simple shave - more comfortable, less desperately angry. Alistair realized, after a moment, that it probably looked like he was staring, and he cleared his throat. "I'll just...let you get cleaned up." H paused, and then continued, a concerned tinge to his voice. "Would you like me to hang around nearby in case..." He forced a bit of levity into his voice, trying to make it less serious sounding. "In case you find another bench and you sudden have the urge to crawl under it?"

Daylen shook his head in a slow sweep, trying to find the right words. Part of him, the stupid, selfish, desperate part, wanted Alistair to stay. But because it was stupid and selfish and desperate...

He shook his head with a little more intention behind it. "No, I'll be... well, I promise to sleep on top of the bed, how's that?" He gestured toward the supplies. "And you brought me everything I needed." There was a slight catch in his voice there, but he hurried on.

"Here, turn around." He grabbed the back of Alistair's shirt, giving it a sharp shake and the tiniest burst of fire magic and the cloth was dry and warm as it settled back against his skin. "Better?"

That had worked better than he'd expected. Shirt and pants both? He rubbed his hands against his pants.

Alistair tried to keep the disappointment off his face as Daylen declined his offer. But he turned willingly, almost automatically following the request - something in the tone of Daylen's voice was easy to follow.

The burst of magic so close to his skin made him shiver and that deep humming vibration go off in his head again. Combined with the sudden warmth along his back and legs, it was so pleasant feeling, that Alastair let let out a quiet, pleased sigh.

"Would you--" Daylen cleared his throat. No, not going to ask him to come back later, to eat dinner, to drink with you. To tell you about his Cousland and his life. His life was his.

"Thanks again. I expect I'll see you around?" He was trembling with the effort of not reaching for him, wrapping his arms around his waist and burying his face into his back. "There isn't really any place either of can go, I guess."

He coughed, trying to clear the dumb little quaver in his voice.

Alastair had not been the most perceptive man in his youth, but a decade of courtly intrigue and twisting words to hide his own feelings from the world can cure him of some of that. He turned and stepped forward, and reached out to very gently grasped Daylen's chin, lifting the mage's face to look him in the eye.

"You're welcome to singe my eyebrow off if I'm wrong, but I don't think you really want to be alone right now." Alastair voice was steady, soft - the kind of voice you use to speak with a spooked horse or hound, to let them know you're here to help, that you mean them no harm. Alastair smiled, slightly sad. "I can't imagine I would be very happy with myself, leaving you so upset."

Daylen's eyes closed as soon as Alistair's hand touched his face, and his chin lifted like he was tipping it toward the sun. He could almost feel the warmth.

He opened them again when Alistair spoke, studying his expression, trying to find something that hinted he knew what the offer meant, what his presence meant. He nodded finally, swallowing hard and then looked toward the tub. "Well if you stay you're going to have to listen to be bathe. And talk. I think I owe you an explanation."

Daylen's lean into his hand had felt...nice. Alistair let his hand drop back to his side as Daylen opened his eyes and began to speak.

"Don't let me keep you from your bath." Alistair nodded, his expression still calm and serious. "Would you prefer I stand outside and listen, or..." His eyes flicked to the chair Daylen had been sitting in earlier, when he'd been bringing in the water.

"Whatever you're more comfortable with." He meant that, turning to the tub to check the temperature. Just because the rune worked, didn't mean there wouldn't be anything hinky from being in the Fade and he didn't fancy being boiled alive because it was suddenly stronger, the way his own magic seemed to be.

Of course, there was another reason his own magic might be stronger, but he refused to consider that right now.

He glanced over his shoulder to see if Alistair was settled before he started shucking out of his pants.

Alistair debated with himself for a moment, before throwing caution to the win. He settled into the chair that Daylen had been sitting in earlier, and turned it so that he wouldn't be staring directly at Daylen as the man got undress and into the tub. Otherwise, he waited, quiet and still - trying to exude an aura of comfort and safety.

He cleared his throat as he heard Daylen being to undress. "Why exactly do you owe me an explanation? "

The water caused Daylen to hiss as it settled over his wounds, the heat stinging into the various scrapes, cuts, and burns. He settled into the water as fully as he could before he answered. "You said your friend, Cousland... wasn't interested in you. I assume you meant romantically." Daylen bent his head forward and started pouring water through his matted hair.

"And you've probably figured out that wans't true for me. About the... Alistair that I knew?"

Alistair admirably resisted the urge to look over in concern at Daylen's hiss. He kept his eyes firmly on the stonework of the opposite wall, trying to respect Daylen's privacy.

"Wasn't interested is rather an understatement. He was utterly besotted with Morrigan. But yes, I had rather gotten that impression."

"Morrigan?!" Daylen sounded affronted. Aghast. He snorted, reaching for the soap and giving another small grunt of pain as he snagged it. After a moment of lathering soap into his hair and then rinsing it clean he continued.

"Well, my not being interested in Morrigan would be a similar understatement. I was just gone stupid over A-- him." It was hard to say his name talking to this other man. "It's complicated by some magic stuff that you might not be interested in, but I'll say in all the world, there was only him. For me? Only him." His voice dropped to a low, choked rasp and he fell silent again. The only sound was the splash of water and the rough scrub of the bristle brush over his skin.

Alistair listened to the splashing of water and the sound of Daylen's voice with quiet focus. He nodded silently at Daylen's statement about Morrigan, and then started slightly at the rough anguish in Daylen's voice. He turned his head to look at the mage, and his expression filled with sorrow at the sight.

"Only myse...only him." Alistair quickly corrected hismelf. "Like...soulmates, yes? Fate and the Maker linking two people together in perfect harmony." Alistair sighed, and turned his eyes back to the wall.

"So seeing me is rather like rubbing salt in an open wound, I expect."

"Yes, like that. It's complicated, but yes, soulmates. I'm not sure I'd credit the Maker, since he seems to be a real shit sometimes." Daylen shifted around, careful not to slosh the water on the floor and scrubbed his knees and shins and feet.

"Seeing you was like... There aren't words. Like being offered life again." He knocked the back of the brush against his forehead for saying it so baldly. "I'd gone to my Calling, I was about to die, the bridge was crumbling under my feet and there were dozens of darkspawn and I was going to fall and I was finally going to die and be with him and instead I didn't die and I found myself with you."

"'And here He decree'd, opposition in all things.'" The verse from the Chant had been a favorite of Leliana's - a reminder that the Maker did not solve all problems for his children, she'd said. Alistair had found it a comforting confirmation that the Maker was, indeed, a real shit.

"I've been told the Calling is a noble end to a Warden's life of service. But...then I've also been informed that the most recent round of Callings was actually caused by some blasted darkspawn magister messing around in our heads. So it honestly sounds more like shit to me." Alistair's face was dark, and tinged with anger at the thought of Corephyus and the Warden debacle.

"No one here is quite sure how people are pulled from their times and places to this corner of the Fade. I certainly feel that this place is a grand improvement on being stuck with endless diplomats..." Alistair paused and snuck a look at Daylen's face. the implication that Daylen might not feel the same was left unsaid.

Daylen looked deeply confused, or conflicted. He was staring at the scrub brush held in a slack hand, brow furrowed and mouth in a tight, thin line.

He jerked his head up at Alistair's complaint and frowned at him. "You're wasted on all those stuffed doublets and arse-lickers." He gave Alistair a worried smile. "You must have been stuck in quite the rut if this is a holiday for you."

(OOC: I am falling asleep, so I need to head to bed. We can pick this back up tomorrow. I'm on the same schedule, so it'll be iffy during the day, but I'll be around afternoon/evening. :) )