faderift | [open] can somebody please just tie me down

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[open] can somebody please just tie me down

WHO: Barrow + you
WHAT: Bedrest and recuperation from Awful Things
WHEN: August
WHERE: mostly the Gallows
NOTES: I'll make starters if people want 'em

I.
Bedrest is ideal for people who like to read, or sleep, or sit around pondering life's mysteries. Although Barrow likes sleep as much as the next person, and reading is fine, he has little use for life's mysteries and finds more often than not that he is simply staring at the ceiling and unfairly wishing ill on the medic who impressed on him the need for his joints to mend this way.
He is, perhaps, a little grumpier than usual, but also absolutely desperate for any form of stimulation, so visitors are welcome. Especially if they have treats.

II.
When he's up and about again, Barrow knows better than to go straight to the training pitch and start swinging his hammer around, so instead he defaults to the more leisurely activity of ferrying off to the nearest pub and parking himself there to absorb whatever jollity is occurring at the moment.
He probably drinks too much, especially now, with so much going through his mind; but it's hard to help it, when there's very little else to do and so much he doesn't want to think about. At least he's a pleasant and agreeable drunk, not all that different from when he's sober, but with the sort of absent-minded nihilism that has historically made him either a good lay or a recipient for one's woes. He's rather more open to the latter these days, though the former has its place, at least for the right person.

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A typical dad answer if there ever was one. Athessa hands it over along with the match and trades him for the kitten, just while there's an open flame.

"Damn youths?" Her voice is tinged with amusement, whether because of the utterance or because Lord Fluffy Tumington is so content from his cheek scritches that he's gone almost totally boneless. Almost, because his paws are enthusiastically kneading the air.

"No," Barrow whines when the kitten is bonelessly pulled away, but is willing to make the sacrifice for a pull off the joint.

"You know," he mutters, "with your mind-altering substances." His satisfied exhale yields a puff of smoke.

"Relaaax, I'll give him back," She assures, chuckling. "He's just not allowed to play with matches. Are you? No, you're not--"

Those last words are directed at the kitten, who simply blinks and yawns in response.

"Anyway, I gotta have something to take the edge off. And conveniently it's like...a cultural heritage thing."

"Seems reasonable," Barrow mutters, regarding kittens playing with matches, but he doesn't have to be happy about it.

"Cultural heritage?" he asks, taking another drag and passing it back. Perhaps it's indelicate to ask, considering Athessa's an elf, but surely she wouldn't have brought it up if she were uncomfortable discussing it.

Joint passed, Athessa returns Lord Fluffy Tumington to his Barrow-shaped throne and fills her lungs.

"Dalish use elfroot for lots of stuff. Smoking and medicine, mostly, but it's also used to make rope and cloth."

His eyebrows raise, his hand moving back to secure the kitten on his stomach.

"Dalish!" he exclaims pleasantly, "I didn't know you were Dalish." A pause.
"...sorry, is that..?" Foot in mouth??

She waves it off, easily. She's used to it by now.

"You're not the first and you won't be the last. I lost my clan before I was old enough to get the blood writing--" A finger draws a circle around her face. Blood writing = vallaslin = face tattoos. "--and I lived in Kirkwall longer than I was with them, so."

Settling back in her chair, she swings her leg where it hangs over the arm and blows a couple of wobbly smoke rings. They aren't perfectly defined, but they're a hell of a lot better than when she could only manage discs. She passes the joint back when she's done.

"I've never even set foot in an alienage."

"Ah." He still feels a little guilty for plowing into the topic like a bull at a ceramics stall, but at least Athessa isn't too visibly offended.

"Sometimes it's like that." What a useless thing to say.

"Heh, yeah. It is like that sometimes."

Sometimes she thinks she ought to come up with a better name for what she is. To city elves, she's an unwelcome gatekeeper to a culture they sacrificed for survival. To other Dalish, she's either an outsider to be distrusted, or a child to be pitied and condescended to.

"Just makes it that much easier to go undercover, I guess. Well," she scoffs and pokes at her cheek. "It was, before Alaric gave me this souvenir."

"Kind of him," Barrow muses with a sigh, looking her face over, "...well, now you've got a conversation piece for picking up all the ladies."

Athessa rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.

"Sure, not that I ever needed help before."

"So you didn't." He smiles at her fondly.

"Patched things up with Derrica, did you?"

"Not exactl--wait, what?"

"It's none of my business," he replies, with the cheerful air of a prying housewife, "just saw you talking on the way back, is all."

Talking. Right. If she's grateful that he only mentioned the talking and not the tender moments they'd both been too tired and hurt to second-guess, she doesn't show it. Her fingers dipping into cool gel-like plant matter to spread onto Derrica's skin, sleeping with barely a hair's breadth between them, a silent insistence that because they were together in those moments, they were safe.

Oh, goodness, look at how interesting the far wall is. "It's...complicated."

"The best things are." He smiles at her with warm amusement, scratching the kitten's ears and clearly not about to pry if she doesn't want to talk about it.

"Howsat?" She frowns. She knows she needs to talk about this; sort out her feelings, figure out what to say when she finally talks to the one person she should be talking to, but good grief is it uncomfortable. "We just wanted something simple. Easy. Fun."

"I don't know," he muses, "...sometimes you need to work for things. And you remember them all the better as a result, even when they don't work out."
Barrow certainly has his share of failed relationships, not that he'd really consider any of them a true failure.

"Those are the ones to watch out for." He waggles a finger at Athessa.

"I'm not really sure that applies to me n' Derrica."

The last thing Athessa needs is to drive the woman she loves away by being overbearing or ignoring Derrica's own feelings. She should probably ask what those are.

"But I appreciate the concern, I guess." Wherever the joint is, she reclaims it for another couple of lungfuls, then passes it back. She's too sober for this.

Barrow lets the subject go with a chuckle in favor of taking another drag, his eyes closing as he blows the smoke back out. Every night should be like this.

"Aren't you going to read to me about bees or something?"

"Yes, of course," she says, with an air of I absolutely did NOT forget about that book wedged by my leg. "I just wanna make sure I'm proper faded for it. Poetry hasn't yet grown on me."

Athessa flips through the pages of the book, skipping the foreword because who gives a shit, and clears her throat.

"Oh, fair damsel of the garden,
Arlessa of honeysuckle and rose,
I humbly beg your gracious pardon
For the offense that here arose.

Surely your work is far too vital
To be interrupted by one like me
I am in no way entitled
To earn the notice of a honeybee."

Oh. It's one of thesebooks.

Focusing now more on the kitten, Barrow listens, or at least tries to. It's not that he doesn't appreciate poetry, it's just...
...well it's just usually better when the reader isn't so slow, and when...
...the poetry is better.

Yeah this is tripe.

"I was a fool to pluck that flower
For my lady fair. On my honor I
Swear to bring you dozens more within the hour
If you give me leave to try.

Listen traveler, if you would walk the garden paths some spring:
Mind that you don't trespass, for the gardeners do sting."

Athessa scrunches up her nose and claps the book shut, looking like she just tasted something exceedingly gross. "Well that's awful. I think I'd rather talk about feelings than read any more. D'you have playing cards somewhere in here?"

Barrow replies by snoring gently.

Oh no, that's adorable. Athessa leans closer to peer at him past the similarly sleeping form of Lord Fluffy Tumington.

"Are you asleep?" She whispers.

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