closedish.

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Kostos, Jehan, or Théo + Other People
WHAT: Catchall
WHEN: Guardian 9:44
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Closed in that there are no open prompts but feel free to spring something on me or hmu if you want a thing.

Comments

squad.

[byblow]

When the quarantine is announced, Alistair decides to leave.

It’s not the most rational choice he’s ever made. But he’s had a hard month, and he’s had a hard week, and at the moment he makes the decision he’s just downed a dose of lyrium to stave off withdrawal, leaving him both unnaturally emboldened and fresh from the memory of his awful Maker-damned headache and shaking hands.

So it’s nothing against Beleth. Honestly, it’s a good idea, for everyone who is not him. But he is leaving, escaping from the infirmary bed he’d been otherwise happy to occupy (if ‘escape’ can extend to mean ‘walking out with no interference because no one cares and even if they did no one in Thedas is the boss of him anymore’) and heading toward his room to get—something. A sword. He should probably have a sword.

That’s the thought that gives him pause and stops him. That and three weeks of weird illness leaving him so tired that the stairs make him sort of dizzy. He doesn’t change his mind, but he does sit down on the steps. He’s leaving. He just needs a minute.

[doneisdone]

He has a few minutes before his sightlines are suddenly disrupted by two very long legs leading to an even longer person looming over him, scrutinizing him and looking rather devoid of patience.
"You should be in bed," Teren observes, gathering as much from the obvious state of him in addition to what's going on in the rest of the Gallows. Nobody needs a rogue Alistair running around.

[pinprick]

Sweet Maker, how did he get away? Who was supposed to be watching him? Nathaniel catches up at a jog, reaching out to pull the man back up and away from the death trap that is the staircase.

"Come on," he says in a tone that is all business. "Let's get you to bed. Teren, take his other arm?" It's a request, not an order, which is improvement on his part.

[byblow]

“No one take—”

And here he becomes a dead weight, a lesson learned in childhood, refusing to provide any assistance in moving him from where he’s sitting down. In his defense, he’s essentially being confronted by the mother and put-upon no-fun eldest brother of the Grey Wardens, at least one of whom wants to wrangle him like a child. Some reversion to childish tactics is only natural.

“—any part of me, thank you. I am taking myself. I have to go.”

[arlathvhen]

Beleth is trying to go down those stairs, thank you very much. And now they're occupied by three Wardens having what appears to be a strange wrestling match. Maybe it's a Warden ritual. Normally, she would shrug it off and either just jump over them, maybe using one's head as a springboard, or find a different route. But she happens to like one of those Wardens, and it's the one that looks like he's losing.

He is, unfortunately, sandwiched between two Wardens that Beleth finds relatively terrifying. But he's her friend, and Beleth is past the point where she cares if either of them manage to shank her. At this point, she may thank them. And after all, Alistair survived her mother for her. She ought to be willing to deal with this.

"Alistair, are you...okay...?" Nailed it. She squints down at them, gingerly taking another step towards them.

[doneisdone]

Teren isn't going to shank anyone, and she also isn't strong enough to lift a grown-ass man who's decided to be a sandbag, but she does have quite a lot of warning to inject into the single word "Alistair," which she manages to make sound like it is being spoken by a Fereldan Frostback.
She shoots a look at Beleth which says Don't Encourage Him.

[pinprick]

"OOP!" Alistair suddenly goes boneless the way Thomas used to when he was a kid and being difficult. Nate still holds him up where he can and uses the same tactic that always worked with Thomas in the past. First, he mutters:

"I can't believe I'm still doing this at forty-two."

Then he reaches down and tickles Alistair's ribs under his arm.

[byblow]

Alistair has responses for Beleth and for Teren—I'm fine and Teren respectively—but those are both lost and possibly forgotten forever when Nathaniel tickles him like he's nine. He was probably nine the last time anyone legitimately tried that.

If anything he goes more limp, other than squirming to trying to get away from it.

"Andraste's sword, Howe," he says. "Get off. I'm leaving."

[arlathvhen]

What the fuck.

"Senior Warden Nathaniel Howe," She draws it out, hoping that both the reminder of his status, and the fact that a near stranger is staring incredulously at him will remove his hands from Alistair. "I don't think that is behavior becoming of a Warden."

Then to Alistair, because unbecoming behavior is allowed when she likes you, "Where are you leaving, exactly? The infirmary?"

[byblow]

"The Gallows."

He's aware that he must look ridiculous. But he doesn't feel ridiculous. He feels like he's made of hollowed-out metal and like he's being very reasonable, for a hollow metal man who is probably going to die.

"I'm not dying here," he adds, because maybe if everyone else understands how reasonable this is they'll leave him alone. "I'm not dying of this. I'm a Warden."

Not one of them. He got out. And if he's going to die, he plans to do it in the Deep Roads.

[pinprick]

Beleth can disapprove all she wants. Nate will use whatever tool is at his disposal. This one just didn't work. He casts an unfazed look at Beleth before ignoring her completely.

"You're not dying," he says plainly to Alistair. "You're coming back with us and getting some rest. Or if you're tired of resting, I'll give you work to do. Whatever you need to get through this. But you have to stay."

[byblow]

Alistair is not quite childish enough to tell Nathaniel that he doesn't get to tell Alistair what he has to do, whether he can work, or whether he is or is not dying, but the glare he aims up at him conveys the general sentiment. He has half an hour before his hands start shaking, maybe two before he has to take more lyrium, and he would really like to not be here anymore.

[doneisdone]

Although really Teren has no authority over any of them, she's more than happy to tell people what to do. Especially when it involves shoving something, usually their own head, up their ass.
Having stood there for a moment with her arms folded and her expression sour, she steps authoritatively forward and crouches in front of Alistair, then leans forward to whisper something in his ear.