open + closed | mistakes have been made

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow + you
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: the general Firstfall/Haring vicinity
WHERE: around the Gallows
NOTES: lots of Templar-relevant navelgazing. starters in comments, holler if you'd like one

Comments

[extortionate]

"Yeah, mate." He scratches beard. "Don't want you dead."

[thereneverwas]

With a sigh that's almost a groan, Barrow sinks into the water and remains beneath for several seconds-- the bubbles that rise suggest he is still sighing while submerged, but, unlike the unfortunate NPC in the subtext, he rises again to shake the water out of his hair.

"No," he grumbles, "where the fuck would I even go." He presses a finger against his ear to loose some of the water from it,
"besides, I like it. Most purpose I ever felt, truth be told. I give a toss, I want it to work out, that means something."

[extortionate]

"I know people," And most aren't happy to know him, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't take another pair of hands. This kind of work, you can't be too picky. "Grow out the beard, no one'd think twice."

Hair's too dark to dye, but could shave it in a pinch. The rest of what he's saying is,

Well. There's a few languages even Lazar doesn't speak.

"Fuck's it mean if they haul you in?"

[thereneverwas]

Barrow shakes his head, and shakes it again-- he's not going to run, he's not going to grow out his beard--

"I think we both know what it means," he says quietly, darkly, staring at the surface of the water. He lifts his to push his hair back, leaves his fingers tangled in it,

"Already died once. Maybe I won't remember it the second time."

[extortionate]

No, he almost shoots back. You said this means something, so what's that something mean —

He doesn't. Squints, instead, and sure; he's read the reports on Granitefell. Weird magic, what else is it ever.

"Don't be an idiot."

Lazar's strangled enough people to know it hurts.

[thereneverwas]

The words hit home, more tenderly perhaps than planned-- Barrow glances at Lazar, sees his face, looks down again.

"You think someone wants to catch me out is gonna be thrown by a beard?" he mutters, "I'm fucking old, Lazar. I'm slow. I was shit at hiding even when I tried, it would be insulting to everyone involved if I thought I could get away with it now. And I just,"

he sinks down again, just enough to rest the back of his head on the pool's edge, "I don't want to. I'd... maybe I'm daft for it, but I like to think I've done something here. Don't want to be remembered as a stain on the company, some yellow-bellied son of a bitch who arrived when it was convenient and left when he got scared. Not again."

[extortionate]

"Shit, wouldn't make you any different from the rest."

This is not self-examination. He scoops some water in his mits, lets it fall,

"Well, if anyone shows, I never met a Barrow wasn't on wheels."

Lets it fall — specifically — over Barrow's head.

[thereneverwas]

Scrunching up his face as the water falls over it, Barrow finally opens one eye to regard Lazar.

"Thanks," he mumbles.

[extortionate]

"Any time. You get offed, next best body double's Jayce," He and Astrid gamed it out. "And between you and me, he's scrawny."

[thereneverwas]

For the first time since they started talking, that gets a laugh out of Barrow. Jayce.

"Could be mine but not yours," he decides, "...maybe twenty years ago." He'll need a prosthetic nose.

[extortionate]

"Try fifty." How old are any of them, anyway? "Works alright under a sheet. Out a window. Up close, I'm just too handsome. Gives it right away."

[thereneverwas]

"Yeah, that's your problem."