You've never hurt me worse than I can handle. I'm a fighter, for fuck's sake, can't you take that serious? I've slammed you in the throat, headbutted you, bruised your ribs at least...
[If she sounds a little downtrodden, it's because she's feeling sorry for herself. She hates this sense of neediness. She hates needing anyone.]
[It still feels like begging.]
I'm no good woman. I like... you, Gabranth. Blimey, I thought we were on the same... You can never hit me worse than I been hit before.
[There's a growl from the other end of the line, abrupt and stubborn as the man himself:]
I do not wish to.
[And yet he does, clearly he so must, for it's only her he wounds. Only her he seems to want to see bleed when the fire of fury meets his veins. The only thought that's haunted him since.]
What must I say to make you understand that I would rather see you endure this world— to endure my own presence— than fall prey to its cruelty?
Perhaps he needed to know where the edges of his own cast shadow ended, and this world's began; he is unused to it, to being anything but a nightmare. Albeit one with purpose.
The line goes quiet for far too long before he adds, hushed:]
[Jone, meanwhile, has given up. She sits on her bed and stares at the crystal, waiting for it to disconnect, and then it doesn't. There is no small amount of willpower involved, in making her voice less haggard, desperate.]
Jone has wormed her way into a doublet and proper trousers by the time Gabranth arrives, though without belts and ties, they hang awkwardly off her, as though attempting to hide the muscular form beneath. Jone doesn't really care. Her overriding desire, though all of this, is Gabranth's comfort. She realizes, now, she made him feel wicked. Whether that was because she's a woman, or a different sort of fighter, she doesn't know. But it's passed, now, if they can keep their truth.
She's relieved when she greets him at the threshold, and welcomes him in with a hand to his metal side, as though he was any guest being ushered in. "You've been well?"
She fully expects him to complain. That would be a dream, after all the silence.
If that question is laid bait for what she needs, then she is gifted exactly that, for he snarls in his throat as he removes his helm with little ceremony, striding past her into meager space (and yet still it is far, far better than anything he's been accustomed to, aside from perhaps small sips of relief in Byerly and Benedict's much grander quarters).
"It is insufferable. There is no rest. No relief that isn't filled already with bile or the stench of the unwashed." And then he pauses, perhaps realizing she may not in fact know anything of his own quarters— or with whom its shared.
Maybe, maybe, if Gabranth can take some rest here, he can take it back at the Gallows. She doubts it, but refuses to give up on that stubborn dream.
She brings him her half-eaten dinner, nug steak and warm ale, and sets it to his side. It's only an offer if he takes it. Like feeding a kicked dog, he is.
"Then rest here, at least for a little while," she sits on her bed, appreciating the shape of him, there in her vision once again. "It'd set my heart at ease, knowing you were well."
She has no idea who his roommate might be, hasn't looked up the rosters. She's not really sure why she's here, except to prove she can be.
(To be fair, Zoya does share Jone's room, but she's ignoring that for the moment. The second bed is set neatly aside, ignored. Gabranth is the true one; she is always the liar.)
The steak he leaves as it is, the ale remains untouched, and with the way his shoulders stay drawn tight he does indeed paint the image of the stray hound he'd always made himself out to be— but her offer cuts that short as quickly as his ire, pale eyes glancing tentatively up towards her from over the rise of his own shoulder, half hidden in shadow.
For once, without baring teeth, he seems to be considering her gesture.
"...it cannot be for long."
If he does this. If he concedes, she need remember he cannot stay.
(Though it occurs to her, if he seemed amenable, she would indulge him... right about after she checked if he'd been blood magicked into absolute madness.)
She takes a gauntleted hand. "I worry about you too, you berk. That's just how it is."
He snorts when she counters, the contours of his nose crinkling like a beast unsettled. She teases him too often, and he’s memory enough of her prior jokes to think she’s doing anything else other than tugging on his own figurative tail.
But when her hand finds his, that brief, flickering squall quiets.
“If this is true, then you’ve no further argument.” His brow creases, he does not release her. “Your reason for concern in regards to my own well-being is no different than what I bear for you in turn.”
She must accept that truth, that to him, she’s worth safeguarding. That it reflects nothing of her skill, her merit. Only him.
"Calm down, I know you've standards." If she thought she'd have any chance in hell, she'd act differently, maybe. Jone instead remembers that girl child hiccuping selfish sorrow on a hillside in the planes. She hasn't explained that; she's too much a coward.
Instead, she holds his metal hand and imagines what his real one must feel like, hidden under all this metal. How warm? How cold? Callused, definitely. Would they match?
"You remember what we said? Until death. I still mean it. And if that means no more sparing, I'll bloody live."
“You are a fool if you think that I’ve any breed of— Jone, my life is my work.”
Oh, never mind.
Irritation still clinging to his tightened jaw, he leaves his hand within her own, though if he’d cared to, he could easily withdraw. They hardly speak the same language, for all their similarities: at times like this more than any other, he wonders if she grasps his words for what they truly are, or if she skews them like a mirror held askance in hand. Distorted by disbelief, by differing worlds, by her own perceived reflection.
So instead, he uses that segue to change the subject.
“I did not abandon you. Not even in distance. Surely you knew this.”
"Yeah, yeah, you're loveless as a stone." She shrugs. "Your loss. Love makes me fight better, not worse."
But it is what it is. Gabranth must choose his own stupid, stupid destiny.
The look she gives him is tired, strung out by all this arguing. "I been left behind more times than... Yeah, I did think you'd gotten tired of me, Gabranth. You wouldn't've been the first."
Her eyes drift down to his hand, awkward metal still held in hers. "Know better now."
You fool yourself his own mind urges It is a distraction, nothing more.
But...
He’s tired, too. He doesn’t wear it openly, only in the way his expression sinks down away from indigence when there’s still more to be said. Tireless, normally— drawn thin, now.
His thumb brushes over hers for a beat, entirely willful, and then he remembers himself (himself—), and it’s gone: withdrawing to begin the process of stripping away armor without attempts made to mask it. Just simple work in quiet spaces.
“Do not forget it. Until death, as we’ve said— and I shall not fade for some time yet.”
Nineteen years she says, as though it’s an eternity, and all he can think of is that it’s barely more than a heartbeat— and simultaneously how long it had taken for Landis to fall, and go as cold as stone within his heart. Time is strange, and terrible, and he feels for its strain on her regardless.
"Being here," she says, "meeting you, and Si, and even our Ben. I'd never go back."
She realizes just how earnest that is, and finds it awkward. Being true is his thing-- she doesn't honestly believe he's capable of lying to her, that he ever has-- but it's not hers. She hates how open, needy, childish that sounded. Her eyes flicker away, settling on his hands unbuckling his armor.
And this time he doesn’t ask her to. Not because he wants to keep her at bay, but because there’s no impetus for it: they hardly fight against the potential danger of a passing stranger (so far as Gabranth knows), no one will trouble them within quieted, isolated space.
In the end, when he’s pulled himself free of his own regalia— protector included this time— he simply climbs beneath the covers without ceremony.
Her answer doesn’t merit response, no matter how secretly embarrassed she is: he can understand it, after all. His own footfalls have drawn him closer to souls he’d never intended to linger near. There’s proof enough of it in this moment.
“Then I am glad of it.” He says, little more than a shadow of his usual form beneath an expanse of sheeting, voice gone low with breathy signs of sincerity.
There is the urge to lie down near him, to touch him however she can. She throttles that need, and settles for gently moving a strand of hair out of his eyes before retreating to sit on Zoya's bed.
"I know," she says, with something approaching humor. "I ain't good enough. We're all trying, this outfit. D'you want me to guard the door?"
He may just need to be alone, away from her cloying presence.
Scoffed out indignantly, without room or care for rebuttal, the space between his brow fitted with lines before he rolls over to face darker shadows, already feeling exhaustion settle heavily into his bones.
"But stay if you wish. I need little rest."
(Says the man that’ll soon sleep so deeply you might think he’s dead of deprivation.)
"No, I-" and that, absurdly, is when it hits her. This urge to touch and hold, she's felt it before. The need to protect isn't new either. It's just in a context where Gabranth can give her nothing, and isn't that fucking pathetic? But she knows the shape of it, love, like a brick in her chest, slowly collapsing her fucking heart.
She takes a deep breath, but it just doesn't feel like her lungs fill all the way. Not when he's in the room, stealing her air. Not when she'd happily give it all to him.
"Right," she says, that tired humor back in her voice, "blind me eyes for not seeing it. You're knackered, mate, take all the time you need. I'll fight off the nightmares."
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[If she sounds a little downtrodden, it's because she's feeling sorry for herself. She hates this sense of neediness. She hates needing anyone.]
[It still feels like begging.]
I'm no good woman. I like... you, Gabranth. Blimey, I thought we were on the same... You can never hit me worse than I been hit before.
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I do not wish to.
[And yet he does, clearly he so must, for it's only her he wounds. Only her he seems to want to see bleed when the fire of fury meets his veins. The only thought that's haunted him since.]
What must I say to make you understand that I would rather see you endure this world— to endure my own presence— than fall prey to its cruelty?
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[She sounds a bit tired; this hasn't gone at all like she hoped.]
I'll swear we never fight again. Any oath you like. I won't goad you like I did. That was me.
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Perhaps he needed to know where the edges of his own cast shadow ended, and this world's began; he is unused to it, to being anything but a nightmare. Albeit one with purpose.
The line goes quiet for far too long before he adds, hushed:]
I have missed your company in turn.
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Missed you like a fucking limb. Bastard.
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[Bastard. He does indeed deserve that, though it's as welcome as warm embers to hear in this moment.]
...this mission is unbearable.
[Is this his attempt at broaching familiar conversation the way they used to? It certainly does seem like it, if not clumsy in its make.]
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I've a room to meself.
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[He's made trips to cooler safe havens for less. And this— feels correct.]
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She's relieved when she greets him at the threshold, and welcomes him in with a hand to his metal side, as though he was any guest being ushered in. "You've been well?"
She fully expects him to complain. That would be a dream, after all the silence.
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"It is insufferable. There is no rest. No relief that isn't filled already with bile or the stench of the unwashed." And then he pauses, perhaps realizing she may not in fact know anything of his own quarters— or with whom its shared.
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She brings him her half-eaten dinner, nug steak and warm ale, and sets it to his side. It's only an offer if he takes it. Like feeding a kicked dog, he is.
"Then rest here, at least for a little while," she sits on her bed, appreciating the shape of him, there in her vision once again. "It'd set my heart at ease, knowing you were well."
She has no idea who his roommate might be, hasn't looked up the rosters. She's not really sure why she's here, except to prove she can be.
(To be fair, Zoya does share Jone's room, but she's ignoring that for the moment. The second bed is set neatly aside, ignored. Gabranth is the true one; she is always the liar.)
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For once, without baring teeth, he seems to be considering her gesture.
"...it cannot be for long."
If he does this. If he concedes, she need remember he cannot stay.
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(Though it occurs to her, if he seemed amenable, she would indulge him... right about after she checked if he'd been blood magicked into absolute madness.)
She takes a gauntleted hand. "I worry about you too, you berk. That's just how it is."
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He snorts when she counters, the contours of his nose crinkling like a beast unsettled. She teases him too often, and he’s memory enough of her prior jokes to think she’s doing anything else other than tugging on his own figurative tail.
But when her hand finds his, that brief, flickering squall quiets.
“If this is true, then you’ve no further argument.” His brow creases, he does not release her. “Your reason for concern in regards to my own well-being is no different than what I bear for you in turn.”
She must accept that truth, that to him, she’s worth safeguarding. That it reflects nothing of her skill, her merit. Only him.
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Instead, she holds his metal hand and imagines what his real one must feel like, hidden under all this metal. How warm? How cold? Callused, definitely. Would they match?
"You remember what we said? Until death. I still mean it. And if that means no more sparing, I'll bloody live."
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Oh, never mind.
Irritation still clinging to his tightened jaw, he leaves his hand within her own, though if he’d cared to, he could easily withdraw. They hardly speak the same language, for all their similarities: at times like this more than any other, he wonders if she grasps his words for what they truly are, or if she skews them like a mirror held askance in hand. Distorted by disbelief, by differing worlds, by her own perceived reflection.
So instead, he uses that segue to change the subject.
“I did not abandon you. Not even in distance. Surely you knew this.”
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But it is what it is. Gabranth must choose his own stupid, stupid destiny.
The look she gives him is tired, strung out by all this arguing. "I been left behind more times than... Yeah, I did think you'd gotten tired of me, Gabranth. You wouldn't've been the first."
Her eyes drift down to his hand, awkward metal still held in hers. "Know better now."
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But...
He’s tired, too. He doesn’t wear it openly, only in the way his expression sinks down away from indigence when there’s still more to be said. Tireless, normally— drawn thin, now.
His thumb brushes over hers for a beat, entirely willful, and then he remembers himself (himself—), and it’s gone: withdrawing to begin the process of stripping away armor without attempts made to mask it. Just simple work in quiet spaces.
“Do not forget it. Until death, as we’ve said— and I shall not fade for some time yet.”
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"Don't doubt you no more," she says, tone relaxed by fatigue. It's the world she doubts, not him.
"I was all work, you know," she says, "when I was in Orlais." She does some quick math- "Nineteen fucking years. Blimey."
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“What ended that hunger in you?”
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She realizes just how earnest that is, and finds it awkward. Being true is his thing-- she doesn't honestly believe he's capable of lying to her, that he ever has-- but it's not hers. She hates how open, needy, childish that sounded. Her eyes flicker away, settling on his hands unbuckling his armor.
She itches to help. She doesn't offer.
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In the end, when he’s pulled himself free of his own regalia— protector included this time— he simply climbs beneath the covers without ceremony.
Her answer doesn’t merit response, no matter how secretly embarrassed she is: he can understand it, after all. His own footfalls have drawn him closer to souls he’d never intended to linger near. There’s proof enough of it in this moment.
“Then I am glad of it.” He says, little more than a shadow of his usual form beneath an expanse of sheeting, voice gone low with breathy signs of sincerity.
“But you’ve further still to tread.”
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"I know," she says, with something approaching humor. "I ain't good enough. We're all trying, this outfit. D'you want me to guard the door?"
He may just need to be alone, away from her cloying presence.
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Scoffed out indignantly, without room or care for rebuttal, the space between his brow fitted with lines before he rolls over to face darker shadows, already feeling exhaustion settle heavily into his bones.
"But stay if you wish. I need little rest."
(Says the man that’ll soon sleep so deeply you might think he’s dead of deprivation.)
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She takes a deep breath, but it just doesn't feel like her lungs fill all the way. Not when he's in the room, stealing her air. Not when she'd happily give it all to him.
"Right," she says, that tired humor back in her voice, "blind me eyes for not seeing it. You're knackered, mate, take all the time you need. I'll fight off the nightmares."