What the #?*!

The open door was enough to send a sharp spike of panic into Ashe as soon as fire blue eyes set upon it.    When Kalt finally looked at her... Ashe's blood turned to ice.    She knew the look there. Her heart stumbled into a gallop, but she made her breathing stay steady, made herself hold that stare full of a cold, empty, furious hunger. She knew it well. His tone was expected with the way he looked, but the tremble to his voice shook her down to her very bones. He.. saw someone...? "Who-" But before she could even get the question out, he roughly tore himself away from her. She let him go without protest, but her body turned to follow him as he moved beyond her, her eyes still holding his, and..    'Alistair.'    She swore her heart stopped in her chest, hearing his name from Kalt's mouth. She was entirely frozen with wide eyes locked on Kalt as he dug into his cabinets, pulling out a bottle of liquor. Alistair. A wound she had been carefully ignoring cracked open in her chest, and she didn't understand why the assassin before her was suddenly so distressed about her ex-husband. He had never shown a hint of it before, never let on how harshly it ate at him. It couldn't have just been... seeing him that set him off, couldn't.    She watched him drink like he depended on it, and she finally shook her head, realizing that she had lost that steady breathing. All she could suddenly see in her head were dark eyes... so full of cold distance where there'd once been warmth. "What do you mean acces-" But she broke off with a faint flinch she couldn't help at the loud bang of the bottle against the countertop, her heart skipping. She flicked her eyes to the bottle and then back up to Kalt, and... all the blood drained from her face.    "Why the fuck is your ex-husband wearing a mask?"    "He... w.." She couldn't find her breath for a moment as the entire world suddenly felt very distant. Her eyes were wide looking up at Kalt, not quite grasping what he said. Alistair was wearing a mask. He had before, at the masquerade in Northaven.. it had to be like that, that's all it was. Just... just a mask. Her mouth was dry. "He.. what?"    She was overreacting. Had to be, she always was, it was what collapsed their marriage - her inability to just be. Her refusal to settle into trust. Ashe cast her eyes away, down to the floor, eyes darting from his shoes to the alcohol-splattered wall, to his heaving chest, to the window. Run. She wouldn't, but her leg feathered and betrayed the desire. Run, and run, and run. Her hands were shaking, and she wasn't sure if it was the energy that rippled from Kalt like heat waves or what he had said. It was nothing, nothing. Had to be. It was Alistair, not some faceless demon with smooth and seeking gloves or a cruel voice or a constant and hovering threat to their lives. That wasn't him, it wasn't.    She finally flickered her eyes back at Kalt, her brows pulled together. He almost never got like this, never.. "What the fuck do you mean, wearing a mask?" she asked, failing to control the tremor in her tone. ashe When all the days go by in the firelight We'll never fade out in the night