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[How many times have people outside what Yngvi chooses to call family which is to say Gunnar, the Boneflayers, Aura Hardie, have ever asked him a question like that. What do you do with this sort of gentleness when it wasn't taught to you?

Where did Kit learn it? It's what gets him looking up sharply, his face pinched in and the colour of curdled milk except where it's not, where instead it's red splotches of what might be shame, embarrassment, upset.]

I'm going to fuck up. [Best get that out of the way as if Yngvi doesn't do that three times before breakfast, as if that isn't a consequence of his nature, his existence.] I just-- I'm going to fuck up and I'm sorry when I do, I don't know how to do--

You left. How did you-- no I-- shit. Forget I asked, no, you're here I shouldn't be asking not after that. [Keep pushing when your grubby fingers already did enough and it'll be your own fault he's gone.]

[He deserves to know. He deserves to know for certain that if either of them ought to feel less than gangue, it should be Kit, not Yngvi.]

I killed someone.

[Soft enough to be a whisper, tight as a bowstring. Kit clenches and unclenches his jaw, holds Yngvi's gaze long enough to get the words out, to let out another breath, then looks away. He presses his mouth against his fingers, quiet.] A friend, [he clarifies quietly, because the shame of it won't let him raise his voice.] I killed my best friend. That's... that's why I'm out, now.

[Now the Stone will never have him.]

[If Kit meant to have Yngvi looking up, it worked. Same as a wild thing does when a careless boot comes down heavily on loose grit, dry leaves, a branch, his head snaps up sharp. He doesn't want to look at the goose with flat webbed feet slap-slap-slapping across the floor when it herds the stray nugs back to where it thinks they should be, just staring at Kit.

Instead he tries swallowing, chokes, starts coughing hard enough his eyes water but he gets through it.

Who hasn't and haven't we all he might've tried except it's Kit who y'know saved his backside when he was a child, who's been more of a friend to him since stepping back into his life than people Yngvi thought were friends, who willingly walked back into Orzammar with him where they--

His mind slams a door shut, and the door is very red. The door is always red. The door has never not been red.]

I'm sorry. [He means that, scoots forward to tap Kit to say 'hi, yes, I'm here' since he's not been very present for parts of this but he can make the effort.] There's a joke about eating your siblings I tell people, but, um, yeah. When I say that it's...it's that. It's killing them. [Which is just saying that he understands and that-- that it's complicated. That things happen. Bad things. To people. Especially--] You were Legion, and Casteless, and fighting Darkspawn and-- and you're a really good person, one of the best it's...bad things happen.

...bad things happen, [Yngvi says. Kit smiles down at the floor, but it's a painful-looking expression. Like making his lips turn that way goes against the grain suddenly.]

He's making it worse now, he's got to turn it back around. It's not about him really, is it? He only needs to look into Yngvi's eyes and see the ghosts forming there to know that much is true.] Shit, [he swears quietly,] I came in here to check on you, you know, see how you're handling things, and I'm making such a mess of it. I'm sorry, Yngvi. I think-- [He stops himself to swallow hard and rub at his eyebrows, grimacing. It's so difficult to speak, suddenly, like a great weight has knotted itself in his gut and is dragging him down.] I think I'm the bad thing that happens to folks. I think it's me, that makes it bad.

[For a long time Yngvi has to sit. It's not as if he's ever had some rose-tinted view of the world though if he could stop being surprised when he's hurt or let down or disappointed by people or things that are terrible even when some part of him expects it then that might be somewhere approaching nice. Or not nice but less like his legs are being swept out from under him while someone drives a mailed fist hard into his gut.

There were black moods that Asher had sometimes, usually if they had to stop by his family, days when he'd just wrap himself up then go sullen, snappish, hit the bottle or stare sightlessly ahead until something broke. Then the words came out of him. Words like that.

So it's not as if Yngvi is naive, you can't grow up in Kirkwall and still be naive. You can't grow up in the Carta and still be naive.

But there's Kit who saved him as a kid, Kit who makes time out of his life for him, Kit who doesn't expect Yngvi to be anything other than what Yngvi is in that particular moment. So it's tricky. To know what to say here. To do.]

You're not bad though. You're not. You try. And there's a lot who talk and talk and talk like they're doing all this good or they say 'well I've had it hard' but I mean lots of us have and we haven't done what some people have done in the past however long it's been y'know? Shit happens when you're trying to live, what's the difference between a mercenary and a soldier, you still kill people for coin to get by, just one of you is more honest about it. [This is a lot of talking for Yngvi in the place he's in now but the dam has broken, the words are tumbling out not quite easily but he doesn't screw up his face, seems relatively at peace with the way it's going so he let's it happen, feels the knot in his chest restrict just a little.] How d'you think you make it bad? You're here going to bad places to help when you don't need to and you're doing a shit job no one'll thank you for, and-- and you're here. Didn't let me or my brother die when lots of people would've just walked on by.

[It's a lot for anyone to say, and to say with such conviction and sincerity. Kit looks up from the floor to watch Yngvi speak, hearing him clearly even with only one functioning ear... and it's the last bit that really digs into his skin and pulls at him in a way nothing else has. No, he didn't walk away, did he? Not then, and rather miraculously considering his track record, he hasn't walked away now, either.

Is that just because Yngvi still needs him, still needs support that no one else is giving him, or because Kit himself is past his need to run? He rather doubts it's the latter--certainly Vandelin hadn't believed him capable of staying, or else he'd have--

No. Not now.

He reaches across the space between them and clasps Yngvi's shoulder kindly; when he smiles, it's a pained expression, but it's sincerely meant.] ..thank you, [is all he manages to say, a little hoarsely.] Thank you, salroka, for saying those things. I...

[Ancestors, he's a wreck, isn't he?]

I've always got your back, Yngvi. I promise.

F'fuck's sake. [Not an angry mutter but it comes out on an exhale as Yngvi attempts to do what he does sometimes. Haul himself up from wherever he's been.

Sometimes he can. Sometimes it's not so bad and he can go about things until he trips himself flat. Sometimes it's hanging there by the edge of his fingers. Sometimes just the hauling himself up is all he can do then there he is, lying there flat and wondering what he's meant to do then.

It's tiring to keep doing it but one day he'll-- well he thinks one day he'll probably manage to get past this crevasse, you always do in the end it's just a big one.] Come here. [Two words, not the usual c'mere. A proper sort of command thing of open arms and look how much of a tit I'll feel sitting here with a nug in my lap and my arms open because he doesn't know what to say to that, even in the Boneflayers things weren't always said it was just a nudge, an arm, someone filling up your waterskins when you couldn't or warming your blanket by the fire, shoving you into bed then lying there next to you.]

Ah, shit-- [said with a chuckle, warm and sheepish and embarrassed and tremendously relieved all at once. He leans in to hook his arm around Yngvi's shoulders and hug him, mindful of the nug in his lap of course. Two things could (or probably should) be readily apparent: Kit gives great hugs, while simultaneously seeming like closeness is something that doesn't belong to him. Like he's giving something away with it.

When he draws back, he's smiling crookedly, and squeezes Yngvi's shoulder again.] You want to come out for a pint? [he invites him at last--might be nice to drink, play some cards, talk a bit of nonsense shit for a while.]

[So really Kit should give more hugs and Yngvi should probably get back into doing this thing since he has someone where it wouldn't be as odd to be as physical with him (his lady is his lady, Thranduil is mostly robes with a suggestion of elf and a glowing hand, Wren is too tall and a Templar and could snap him like a wishbone had she the mind to) but yeah, wouldn't be as bad with Kit. Who for as friendly as he comes off--

Well Yngvi needs to turn this over again. Later. Possibly ask someone without naming a name what you call that because he doesn't know the words for it but it slots into his head.]

A pint. I'll pace myself. [More like he doesn't trust himself at this point to not go bad places but he's learning. Trying. Doing his best here.] Anywhere that isn't the Hanged Man or the Blooming Rose? Realise that's a whole world of difference there but y'know, somethin' to aim for.

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