faderift | OPEN

WHO: Dick
WHAT: Dick.
WHEN: Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows/Kirkwall
NOTES: Brackets or prose ok, wildcard ok. Other starters maybe later who knows what could happen.

The Gallows

A sharp intake of breath, pupils blown out in freefall panic that quickly pins into blearier confusion, Richard Dickerson jolts awake where he’s sat. Sometimes he reaches for his hip, sometimes he flinches blind to jostle an empty glass, or knocks the book at his knee to the floor.

In the library, in the chantry, in the baths, in any seldom-used nook or cranny between the towers after hours, he might be found dozing and nudged or shaken or spooked by instinct at the proximity of another living creature’s presence.

Lowtown

In a Lowtown tavern, he’s being hefted off a table by the shoulder, levered to his feet to have his satchel shoved into his arms.

A gossamer thread of drool keeps him tied to the surface for a moment after he’s upright. There might be blood spindling through it if his nap was unscheduled at the end of a sucker punch at some smart remark. Or maybe it’s clear -- maybe it’s just past closing time and he doesn’t have to go home, but he can’t stay here.

Regardless, he cuts a distinct figure at a distance -- long legs and beak and beard and the shaggy ruff of his cloak, which will serve him well in the snow outside.

Kirkwall/The Gallows

On business in the streets of Kirkwall, or in the hallways between spaces within the Gallows, his reluctance to engage in anything but the most cursory of conversation is clear: he keeps odd hours and waits behind blind corners for approaching footsteps to carry on past.

This is especially true of ferry trips and mealtimes, when he must watch from afar to see that the boat is likely to stay empty, or snake in and skim off the scraps left over -- cold eggs, lukewarm dregs of stew. He’s not picky, so long as he doesn’t have to make small talk.

He’s always been this way, but now more than ever, there’s a clockwork regularity to his comings and goings that makes him easier to find than he’d like for anyone who’s looking.

Wildcard

Choose your own adventure -- check in w/me about meetings arranged or requested IC, as he is likely to be rude or otherwise strange about them for the foreseeable future.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There is no next one," Barrow informs him, already beginning to haul him towards the inn, "not until dawn. Dickerson."

Admitting his mistake is something-- who can keep track, after all?

Elbowing through the front door of the inn, Barrow is already digging in his coin pouch as the innkeeper begins to fish around in a drawer for a key. He's not an unfamiliar face here, which is good for both of them.

With a grateful nod, Barrow sets down a few coins and receives the key in exchange, taps it to his forehead with a grim smile, and proceeds toward the stairs.

"Bed or floor," he asks Richard, as they clumsily ascend, "don't get any funny ideas."

Dick shows his teeth, scoffing breathy through the slow-sinking realization that he is spending the night here, somewhere, with this man, Barrow, who is still hobbling him along. For some reason.

“Maybe if you’d’ve walked faster,” he says helpfully, halfway up, and: “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He’s never had a funny idea in his life.

It’d be very easy to sling him down the stairs.

"Maybe if you hadn't had to heave your guts out," Barrow retorts, and, finding it too difficult to ascend abreast of the other man, he simply slings him up and over his shoulder, using his other hand against the wall for balance.

Taking a moment to process Richard's reply, and deciding that he is full of shit, Barrow decides: "floor it is."

One moment Richard is leering sidelong at Barrow with his hand planted against the opposite wall, the next reality has flipped and reversed into him staring down the back half of the stairs receding away from him. Rather than ragdoll, he snags on like a thrown cat in silent terror, fingertips clawed in and bony knees dug for purchase, one boot toe seeking a foothold at Barrow’s belt.

Tension locks down his sides. He is long and his cloak is voluminous, difficult to take by the scruff, smug indifference sublimated into white-eyed alarm.

He says something as he struggles. It sounds like, “Ffffffhhh--”

"Ow," Barrow dully intones, but doesn't do anything to prevent the scramble or comfort Richard in his distress. Instead, he conveys him the rest of the way up the stairs and into the shabby room that's theirs for the night, where he bends forward to set him on his feet and releases him.

Going to the small bed, he tugs off the blanket and tosses it unceremoniously toward where the slighter man stands, for him to do with as he will. Then, Barrow sinks down onto the straw mattress with a weary groan.

Dick’s struggle subsides into a static death grip once he’s certain he’s not being hefted for a toss down the stairs. He is deposited on his feet in their soon-to-be-shared room without incident, past a dizzy bump of his shoulder into the wall where he’s been set.

Substantially more rucked than he was mere moments ago, he weaves in place a moment before sinking to sit.

Halfway through, he loses balance and thumps more loudly against the same wall, whunk. He folds the rest of the way to the floor like a kneecapped heron, all bone and embellishment crumpling into a blanket-tangled heap.

What a mess.

Lighting a cigarette, Barrow settles in to watch Dick for a moment or two; ultimately unsatisfied by the sight of him, he gets to his feet to plod over, pick up the edges of the blanket, and throw them over the skinny man with rather more satisfactory coverage.

"You have to piss or puke, you do it outside the room, yeah?" he gruffly asks, smoke curling from his mouth as he removes the cigarette to exhale.

Satisfactory coverage is difficult to achieve, but the added drape of the cloak helps, once he’s rolled away to give Barrow his back and coiled himself deeper inside of it. He ought to be warm, at least, if not especially comfortable.

His voice is quieter when he speaks again, murmured into his own shoulder.

“Please don’t speak to me.”

Apparently happy to acquiesce, Barrow simply grunts in response and returns to the bed, flopping onto it with the creaking of old timber and a puff of dust from the mattress.

It's a little chilly without the blanket, but there's a fireplace at least, and he's got his cloak. He pulls it over himself, ashes his cigarette into a metal cup on the nightstand, and before too long his breathing has grown heavy and peaceful.

He snores, just a little bit. Nothing that would make Lazar smother a person in his sleep, which would have happened by now if it were worse.

OPEN

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject