[OPEN] I have never known peace

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + you??
WHAT: Kit does what he can to help out the Inquisition during blue flu season, and reconnects with some friends (and lovers) along the way.
WHEN: Throughout February.
WHERE: Gallows + Kirkwall
NOTES:This will be Kit's last log before he goes out in a blaze of glory at the end of the month, so if you'd like one last thread with him, ping me @ ragweed on plurk or on discord and we can make it happen. Starters will be in the comments as I write them up. CW for death and violence in Kit's thread w/ the Medicine Seller.

I have never known hunger
Like these insects that feast on me

Comments

i

[onlyhymns]

Cade has been too nervous and timid to even leave the room he shares with Simon, even though the latter comes and goes with varying degrees of lucidity. Kit receives the usual response to someone knocking on the door with a loud greeting: loaded silence, the holding of fearful breath.

[ragweed]

A pause. ...huh.

"It's, uh. It's Kit," he adds helpfully.

[onlyhymns]

Another pause, and then, slowly, the door opens. Cade is on the other side of it, frowning anxiously. The name Kit is familiar, and he knows the man when he sees him, but too much else is jumbled for Cade to do anything but watch him warily.

[ragweed]

Kit doesn't lose the smile he offers his friend, but it grows a touch wistful, pained. Yeah, he'd been worried about... something... like this.

"Hey, salroka," he says gently, and holds up a topped bowl of stew. "I thought you might be hungry."

[onlyhymns]

Like a stray dog being offered scraps, Cade looks down at the bowl and then steps cautiously back, allowing Kit to enter but still without any overt signs of recognition. There's kindness happening, and something deep within himself tells him this person is trustworthy, but he just feels so awful that it's difficult to muster anything beyond a tired, shaking stare.
"Thank you," he says, trying for politeness, but despair has crept into his voice. "...what day is it?"

[ragweed]

Ancestors--this is harder than he ever expected it to be.

When Cade asks him the date, Kit tells him--whatever it happens to be--and then walks over to a table where ostensibly he's been taking his meals to set the stew down. He pops the lid off of it, and some fragrant steam wafts from it; it's the kind of homey cooking you'd expect from someone's kitchen, nothing fancy.

"Looks like you've been having a rough go of things," he says, then tilts his head some, studying his friend's face. "...it's all right, if things don't make much sense right now. It's all right."

[onlyhymns]

Cade meets Kit's eyes, but there's a distance there, an inability to focus or really recognize what he's looking at. He sits down at the table, anxious but docile, as easily as though he were a child being ushered to mealtime. He appreciates having instructions to follow, unspoken though they are.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks, in a near-whisper. He knows this room from somewhere, and associates with it a memory of waiting, panicking... where's Simon?
Kit's face and words are reassuring, and Cade meets his eyes and nods, wanting to believe him.

[ragweed]

Kit blinks at him. "Did you--" he starts to repeat, then grimaces, pained. "No. No, salroka, you haven't done anything wrong. You're all right, I promise."

He pauses, then motions to the food, and to the spoon. "Go on, eat something." He sure looks like he needs it.

[onlyhymns]

He doesn't need to be told twice. Cade nods sheepishly and starts to eat, his spirit for it healthy enough even if he doesn't look like he can derive enjoyment from this or anything else right now. He's following orders, and when all else fails, that's always something he'll find comforting.

[paladingus]

Simon had not, upon leaving the room, been quite all there, and he is less so now after having blood drawn for study, but he is at least just lucid enough to recognize Kit as he walks back in--though it does take a few long moments of unfocused staring.

"Oh," he says, his voice hoarse from lack of water. "Oh, it's...you're here to visit." The obvious shouldn't need stating, but it does; he needs to remind himself of reality, make it concrete and present. "It's good to see you."

[ragweed]

Ancestors, it's like trying to communicate with nugs. Depressed nugs.

"You, too," Kit greets Simon anyway and smiles, because he's glad to see him, even if it's deeply unsettling to see his two friends acting this way. Awkwardly, he brings up a hand to rub the back of his neck. "I dunno if you're hungry, but I brought something by anyway. Seems like the least I could do, all things considered."