[open] you told them all I was crazy

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Cade, Simon, and anyone brave enough to visit them
WHAT: Blue Flu Boogaloo: Two Dudes Askew, Hijinks Ensue
WHEN: Phase II
WHERE: Simon's room, now with more Cade
NOTES: Ultra mega content warning for a variety of topics that might come up in flashbacks, most notably childhood sexual abuse, graphic violence, and possibly more which will be added as necessary.

I. Visit Both!

During the day, when they're both awake, the room is just a regular disaster zone. Simon's tools are laid out with no rhyme or reason, anything that could have at any point been tidy is in total disarray, and the room contains a frightening sense of lost control.
For more specifics, see their individual prompts:

II. Just Cade

Being easily worked up at the best of times, the lyrium problem has Cade nearly out of his mind and dissociating for what began as small spurts and has expanded to nearly all of his waking hours. It can be difficult to tell, being that it most often manifests as reclusiveness, with the thirty-something man sitting with his knees curled to his chest at the far end of his bed, his demeanor that of an eight-year-old with a monster in the closet. When it looks different, it's endless pacing, agitation, frantic muttering, the telltale signs of someone in danger of hurting himself.
Sometimes Simon or visitors can bring him out of it; sometimes he doesn't know who they are, or where he is. Dosing him with more lyrium results in pockets of lucidity, which rapidly turn despairing as he realizes he's losing it again, and they often aren't worth the trouble.

III. Just Simon

Anyone entering the room could be forgiven for not immediately realizing that Simon is there, when he is. It may be the first time in his entire life that he hasn't been the most immediately noticeable person in a given space. His bed is strewn with tools and books, the blankets pulled over his head to dampen whatever noise Cade makes, and beneath the covers, he shivers faintly.

He doesn't sleep, though, when he can help it--not here. Never here. He fights sleep now as hard as he's ever done, and if it means hauling himself out of bed inch by freezing, head-pounding, light-sensitive inch to go seek pharmaceutical help for it, he does as often as he can manage. His ability to manage grows increasingly less frequent by the day. He's promised himself to the researchers as a test subject, all but flinging himself at them in his desperation to find something that will help, magic or otherwise, but his memory of that commitment fades in and out and gradually dissolves altogether unless he's reminded of it.

He knows how this goes. It isn't the first time he's found himself in this lyrium-deprived boat with no memory of how he got there. The powerlessness is the point.

Comments

[paladingus]

At the moment, Colin is as unfamiliar to Simon as he is to Cade. He can't put a name to the face, can't understand why he's here (or why Cade's here, or quite who Cade is)--but there's enough latent association buried in the back of his brain to make him uncertain whether he should trust this stranger to inject him with anything.

A week ago, there'd have been no question of it, though of course, a week ago, he'd been perfectly capable of doing it himself. But that last encounter lingers, tinges everything dark and doubtful, leaves him skittish. He watches Colin warily through pain-narrowed eyes, his arms still buried under the blankets.

[keenly]

It would be easy, so damn easy to let these Templars suffer and die. All Colin would have to do is...nothing. He could sit in his shop and pretend nothing is going on outside. But now he has seen their suffering faces, their bodies wracked with the Chantry's corruption. Colin once preyed on this addiction, using it to make Templars protect him from other Templars. He'd made profits from it, is still making profits from it. And for the moment, he has a pang of regret. Lyrium has always meant leverage, safety, and power, turning the thing that robs Templars of their dignity into a shield. He has never felt bad about it until now.

Colin perches on the edge of Simon's bed, preparing the lyrium. When it's ready to inject, he looks at Simon, who is wary and so out of his head that he doesn't even seem to recognize him. Colin's brow furrows. Why should he feel guilty about this? Simon and Cade chose this life, trained for it, strived for it, for what? So there would be enough people to kill mages? And now he's helping them. And no matter how much he argues with himself in his own head, he's not going to stop. Colin might be manipulative, but he can't bring himself to be cruel.

"Simon," he says softly. "Do you want lyrium?" Start with that question so that Simon can feel he has some dignity and control over the situation, as wary as he is right now.

[onlyhymns]

As the lyrium touches his thoughts, Cade eases into a clarity so refreshing he almost wants to cry. There's Colin, whom he does in fact know, helping Simon, who looks terrible.
Cade sits up, rubbing his temple and smiling in shaky relief. He never wants to let go of this feeling. He doesn't even know what day it is.
"Thank you," he whispers, even if Colin is occupied otherwise.

[paladingus]

"Do you want lyrium?" The question is familiar enough even if not in quite so many words, though if his memory were sharper he could remember times when it's been asked verbatim as well. Always the opening of some parody of negotiation, always to remind him of his own helplessness in the face of this drowning blue need. The question was never a question, and the promised relief was always conditional.

Viljam, he thinks; Colin looks as dissimilar to the cruel Ansburg knight-captain as Simon does to Cade, but Simon's mind is only half-present right now, and this is the logic it supplies. Who else would be in a position to grant or deny him lyrium?

"What d'you want for it?" he murmurs hoarsely, still clinging to his last little scrap of defiance. "You haven't even brought paper for the confession..."

[keenly]

Colin knows better than to take anything said in the throes of delirium (de-lyrium? He'll tuck that one away for later) too seriously. He shakes out a rag and daubs Simon's forehead. Time for a new tactic.

"I want you to listen to me," he says. "Many ages ago, Bann Conobar took a wife, Flemeth of Highever. She was extraordinarily beautiful, but secretly, she had magic. She was happy to be married to him until a poet came to visit them. His name was Osen, and Flemeth came to love him. She fled with him into the Wilds, and there they hid until they learned Conobar was on his deathbed, and wanted to see his beautiful bride one last time.

"When they arrived, Conobar sprang his trap. He killed Osen and imprisoned Flemeth in the highest room in the tallest tower. Flemeth was heartbroken, but more than that, she was furious. She drew a summoning circle to bring a demon across the Veil to rain vengeance on her husband."

While he has the cloth and the story distracting Simon, he begins to peel back the blankets from the man's arms.

"But the demon took possession of her. It slaughtered everyone in the castle and fled back to the Wilds."

He glances down, moving swiftly but carefully to try to inject the lyrium into Simon's veins.

[onlyhymns]

Still coming back to himself, Cade sits on his bed and listens to the story, now watching Simon attentively and with a great deal of concern. He looks awful. Cade is sure he himself looks awful, but doesn't want to think about it, he's too tired.
He stays calm and quiet all the while that Colin speaks, visibly fine with what's happening despite often being the first to sound the alarm about anything untoward.

[paladingus]

Everything about this feels wrong, his nerves jangling an alarm to watch for traps. Cade's serenity and Colin's soothing tone should be serving their intended purpose, but when he can't anchor himself in time nor in space, when he still doesn't recognize Colin and he doesn't understand now why his fellow recruit from the Gallows looks ten years older than he did the other day--

"What's this got to do with anything?" he demands, unable now to hide that note of distress. "I didn't ask for a bedtime story, I asked who you--"

He hadn't actually asked that, but when the needle slips into his arm, it doesn't matter. The rush is enough to silence him, if not to bring him instantaneously back to reality, and when that does filter back, he looks shamefaced.

"--oh," he murmurs. "It's you, then. I--thank you."

[keenly]

"Don't thank me," Colin says pleasantly, already rising up to move to Cade, kneeling in front of the other man. "Thank Flemeth's basic misunderstanding of demon etiquette. It's very rude to summon a guest against their will and demand they avenge your lover without at least offering tea, or a body to possess."

He sits back on his heels, turning his attention on Cade. "How do you feel? Any pain? Nausea?"

[onlyhymns]

Cade shakes his head, still almost too relieved to speak. "I'm fine," he sighs, "what day is it?" He knows this has happened before, possibly multiple times, and having his brain all sorted out is the most wonderful feeling he can imagine.

[paladingus]

That is not actually a question Simon can answer either without a good amount of thought, and so he'll leave it to Colin. Quite a lot of things have been left to Colin today, it seems. Simon can't remember the last time in his life that he was weak and delirious enough to need someone else to dose him with lyrium--he doesn't think it's ever actually happened, even when he was barely coherent enough to remember his own name. His fellow templars had always left him to it when his punishment was over.

The etiquette around lyrium doesn't matter so much, but the technique--that's another matter. He flexes his arm, curls his frozen fingers into a fist and releases it as a little bit of warmth returns. The needle jab hadn't hurt so badly as it might have.

"How'd you know," he asks slowly, "where to inject it?"

[keenly]

Colin takes his time answering. The question is jarring, so he answers Cade first, and sorts through his variety of potions before returning to Simon.

"I've been coached for this," he says nonchalantly. "All of us taking care of you were taught how to administer lyrium. How are you feeling, Simon? Any pain or nausea?"

[onlyhymns]

Cade makes a face when told the date, visibly shaken by the discrepancy in when he thought it was. If... he thought it was. And then something else occurs to him, though this isn't the first time he's asked and almost certainly won't be the last.
"Nerva," he says quickly, as though trying to get it out before he can forget, "is Nerva all right?" He heard news that she'd died, but can't remember when or from whom, so it's likely he dreamed it.

[keenly]

Colin remembers an announcement made weeks ago about someone he never knew. The name was so unusual to him that he recalls it now, when it's spoken, attaching it to that recollection. Regardless of the truth, there can be no kindness in putting a sick man through the dreadful realization anew and anew, every time this happens. So he gives Cade a smile and lies as casually as he did just now to Simon.

"She's fine, Cade. Not in town right now, though. Please try to rest."