faderift | [Closed] A perfect storm

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[Closed] A perfect storm

WHO: Anders, established-CR people; poke me on plurk or in Discord for a top level if you'd like!
WHAT: A pair of triggers collide and fuck up Anders
WHEN: Early Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Panic attacks, possible talk of trauma in the past, related issues, dark thoughts

He'd run from being locked up seven times, knowing that the seventh was a death sentence, and been willing to go in alone to what seemed likely to be a lethal trap (and was) to try to destroy his phylactery. With both of them, life like that wasn't worth it.

Now both are back. He's held again, in a Circle, his phylactery is being messed with, and on top of that he can't heal in Darktown so he can do even less than he could in Kirkwall seven years ago.

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He'd thought he couldn't be more stressed, and then he'd gone on the crystals and opened his dumb mouth. Now he's dealing with fear of being called a blood mage on top of everything else and despite his saying he'd be int he infirmary for the forseeable future Anders has to take another break, has to find a place to get back to breathing again.

He returns to the room just off the infirmary, the room he pokes at the Blight in and rests his head between his knees, counting slowly so he can't think about anything except numbers.

Julius isn't actively looking for Anders at all, for all that the crystal message had been concerning for a variety of reasons. What he's actually looking for is towels or other cloth, since it occurs to him it might make sense to minimize the sharp corners in his room as long as he remains prone to sudden disorientation or Maker knows what else...

... but that flies out of his head completely as he catches sight of the man in the corner.

"Anders?" He's not sure exactly what's going on, so he approaches cautiously, but the concern is real. What's wrong is not a helpful question; too broad and perhaps too self-evident in some sense. Instead, he asks, "Can you hear me?" Because there's a nonzero chance he could be in a state caused by... whatever it is that's affecting them, and that's the first possibility worth ruling out.

His looks up with a jerk at the sound of his name, giving Julius an ashamed look.

"I can hear you," Anders says quietly. He's pale and looks tired, leaning back against the wall now that he's sitting upright again. "If you're coming in, can you close the door? I can't..."

Now he looks away, closing his eyes. There's no way he can just get up and act normal, his whole body feels shaky and he still feels sick to his stomach. "I need to be away right now," he finally continues.

Julius hesitates, but then closes the door behind him. He doesn't try to get Anders up right away, or even approach too close. But he does come to a nearby table and leans against it. He's relieved, despite himself, that whatever's wrong isn't seemingly an instance of the magic afflicting them all, but that doesn't mean he's insensitive to the fact that whatever's wrong isn't minor.

Finally, after a long pause, he says quietly, "Is there anything I can get you?"

"I wish," he says equally quietly. It would be nice to drink himself into a stuper, but he has too many friends counting on him.

For a few moments he's quiet, but it feels like an oppressive silence. His thoughts and fears are too loud for it to be comforting. His voice is shaky and hoarse, cracking in some places.

"I went so far, I went too far, hoping no mage would be locked up here ever again. I ran so many times, accepted conscription, hoping I would never be caged again. And it was for nothing. One ill-informed order by someone who didn't care to be informed, didn't seek out the thoughts of someone in the middle of the disease, and here we are. Here I am." He shakes his head, opening his eyes to look up at Julius.

"The hilarious thing that isn't funny at all is that I could break quarantine. I know the secrets of this place; I spent seven years rescuing the most vulnerable magesfrom here, and the channel is no comparison to Lake Calenhad. But I won't. I'm staying caged, because I can't abandon the ill and I can't let down my husband."

Julius nods, taking all of that in. "Look, I know it may not help with how it feels," he says, quietly, "but a quarantine isn't a prison sentence. We're going to sort this out. It won't last forever."

(Or they won't figure it out, and the Rifters and the templars won't survive... which still means the quarantine won't last forever, but is the opposite of comforting, so Julius leaves it unspoken.)

"Have you been up on the ramparts much? I don't know if it would help you, but the fresh air's done me some good, even if it is unreasonably cold." He's not entirely sure what he can do for Anders, if anything, but he feels like he should try. No matter what's going on between them -- and he's deeply unsure either of them exactly knows -- he doesn't want him in this state.

He doesn't have the words to explain that the quarantine might as well be one, declared after it's clear who is getting ill and who is not. They didn't listen, and that's always been what Kirkwall is about. No one listens to him even when he's saying things that should be important.

He takes a shaky breath before shaking his head.

"I haven't. I've been, been trying to not be... seen." Like this. Weak. Scared. Worn down."I can function most of the time, but there are moments like this. I've never been good at being shut in." But he'd never been this bad about it until the year in solitary. Those scars run deep, and Justice hadn't helped there. "I flew on a griffon a little. Yesterday. But maybe..."

Maybe going up there would help. Maybe spending some time with someone, trying to figure out where they stand and what they are would be a distraction. He's willing to try it.

"Would you go with me?"

"Of course."

It isn't of course, necessarily... but they've known each other a long time. For all Julius knows he has a bit of a reputation for being self-contained, he doesn't turn his back on someone easily, and getting Anders some fresh air is really the least he feels he can do. After all, he can't help thinking, it's not like his research is currently doing anyone much good.

"The weather also means there probably won't be much of anyone up there except sentries, and they're spaced out. No one is likely to see."

Of course. Those two words solidify something for Anders that he's been a bit lost on, and he carefully pushes himself to his feet. Of course - this is a friendship he wants to work to recover, it's absolutely more than worth it, and he's been stupid for letting uncertainty linger. Not like he knows how to articulate that with his chest feeling so tight, but the mental realization helps.

"They're probably watching for, for people swimming. Or something." Eloquence has abandoned him, if ever it hung out with him to begin with. Anders takes a step slowly, follows it with another, and tries to tell himself that even if people see him like this it's all right.

"I actually have no idea what they're doing or not doing. It... You're here, though. That means, that means something to me, Julius. A lot to me, even."

"I'm not optimistic that we have the spare manpower to monitor the bay that closely, though this is not in any way a suggestion that you swim for it." He matches his pace to Anders', not rushing him but also keeping their forward momentum going.

Julius is quiet for a few moments, deciding what, if anything, he wants to add. Finally, he says, "I know why most of the mages here don't trust me. Why you may not, entirely. But in my own way, I care about the other mages here as much as anyone. Our future, yes, but our present too. If I didn't, I wouldn't have come back."

He tries to find words to turn the swimming comment into a joke in the silence and fails. Humor takes mental capacity he simply doesn't have, so it's a relief when Julius breaks the silence again.

"I know you care," he says after another stretch of silence. "I've always known you cared, Julius. It's why we are, were, it's why..." Past tense? Present? Anders doesn't know what fits the best. What he knows is what he'd decided a few minutes ago as what he wants, though, and what he'd like to offer out back to Julius. "Why we started a friendship, and why we got along despite our differing views. You care. And I care. And I've danced around it for so long because I made a mess of everything, but if you'd have me for a friend still..."

The sentence as it is twists his stomach around; he doesn't have the willpower to finish it.

"Of course," Julius says again, quietly but without hesitation. "Look, you know I don't agree with everything you've done, and I'm certain some of my actions have seemed... we'll say 'worth criticizing' for lack of being more specific. And I know you didn't think of Kinloch Hold as anything like a home for long, if ever. But I did, once, which had much more to do with the people there than the tower itself. We've both lost a lot of people, you and I. Too many."

He pauses, then, not out of uncertainty but at the sheer massiveness of that particular understatement. Between Uldred, the Blight, the rebellion and the war... how many of the mages the two of them had grown up with even still drew breath?

"If we're all to survive Corypheus... if we're to rebuild a better world after. We won't do it by refusing to meet each other halfway. I'm willing to do that if you are."

They've lost so many, and Anders is tired of losing people. He shakes his head at the pause, a few names standing out among the so many others before Julius starts speaking again.

"I'm willing to do that," he answers. He believes Julius will genuinely work at that, too. There are few Loyalists he can have that faith in.

"We... Briefly, in Nevarra, we talked about putting something together to remember those we've lost. Let's. Let's make a book, if we can find mages who are interested, a book of stories of those mages lost from the different Circles. They'll be remembered by more than just us, and it could make us people in the eyes of so many who've never met a mage."

The thought is a welcome distraction from everything else, giving him the energy the quarantine has been draining away.

"I can put a call on the network asking for the stories, happy and sad, we can speak with a printer... It could help with unity, too. With bringing mages together despite our differing points of view about the future's shape."

"I think that's an excellent idea," Julius says, warm. "So much of the writing about the Circles has been academia produced by mages or focused on conflicts. But the people who lived in them deserved to be remembered the way they would if they had families to think of them. Landon always had a joke ready when you needed cheering up, or Bridget had a lovely singing voice and was an excellent teacher. That sort of thing."

He's thought before, and thinks now, that he's not even really sure who has and hasn't died among those he didn't see fall with his own eyes. He's sure at least a few people had needlessly mourned him, during his disappearance. No matter what they built next, or what they hoped to build, much had been lost and perhaps acknowledging it would help.

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[Closed] A perfect storm

Julius

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