"Zevran, it's okay, I'm okay, she's okay, calm down-"
His Warden's face had been covered in blood before, sometimes even his own, but it have never worried like it did now. He felt his chest heaving, every nerve lit on fire. Their idyllic little life showed obvious signs of the interruption they'd faced- the sheets on their bed were ripped and thrown aside, the crib knocked over. The little portrait of the three of them was knocked over on the bedside table. Maiti was holding their child in his arms, ignoring the gash that wept blood from his eyebrow to his chin.
"I failed you," said Zevran, blades held so tightly that his fingers were white and cramped. The body at their feet seemed to mock him. "They shouldn't have made it so far. They should have- I should have-"
The possibility of losing Maiti, the big silly Warden who'd gone through so much with him, the man who'd carried the weight of his sins on his shoulders with a smile, the (dare he say it) the love of his life, made his throat constrict. The thought of losing their child made him feel even worse- there was no description in the world that could describe the horror of it.
He watched, numb, as Maiti calmed their child, the little girl they'd gone through so much to get. He rocked her and pressed a kiss to her forehead, wiping some of his blood off her as he pulled her crib back up and laid her in it.
"Your face," Zevran murmured, finally speaking as his hand rose to touch the wound, daggers clattering to the ground. Maiti winced, either at the sound or at what it meant for Zevran to let that happen. "I'm sorry."
"You always said scars were dashing," said Maiti, grinning.
"But you shouldn't get them this way," said Zevran.
Maiti's grin slipped, his expression giving way to worry. "Zev, it's okay. We're okay."
If Zevran's childhood had been normal, if he had grown up around a cacophony of family and chatter and bickering instead of a whirlwind of blood and fighting, he might had sobbed. Instead Maiti knew to hold him close and he buried his face in Maiti's strong chest, the embroidery that Maiti had sewn onto his tunic scratching his nose and cheek. Big arms held him and whispered things like, "I've got you, I'll protect you, I'll protect her, you can let go, just for a little while, you can let go." In those arms, Zevran forgot what he'd learned as a child. In those arms, he cried.
In those arms, he believed his Warden.