[open & closed] and when that day comes

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow & friends
WHAT: ye olde lyrium detox in its various stages
WHEN: vaguely Wintermarch
WHERE: the infirmary
NOTES: I'll be adding a few starters at a time since I want later developments to feel organic and make sense. please feel free to request something if you don't see it here!

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[favoriteanalyst]

Stephen does listen to him to a point, though they tend to butt heads about this topic in particular. Mobius still has to wonder how much is this Barrow talking and how much is it just the withdrawal, but--

He carefully rubs at his eyes, raises his hands in a little surrender, goes for the door. "Be right back."

Which means slipping out, being as unobtrusive as he can manage, and finding their friendly neighborhood healer with a vested interest in de-lyrium-ifying his Templars. He's not sure how well this is going to go over coming out of him, either, frankly.

Sidling up to Strange's side: "We might have a problem."

[thereneverwas]

From the infirmary comes a rhythmic thudding as Barrow begins to dully smack his forehead against the wall.

day five (for abby, clarisse, + eventually lazar)

[thereneverwas]

Pacing, punching things, cursing to himself, and generally having an exceptionally bad time, Barrow has been making a lot of noise behind the infirmary door. Periodically he'll lose his mind completely and start battering against the door itself, usually with a few choice words for Strange; now, in the early evening, he's put his shoulder to it with a newfound drive.

[laruetheday]

It's been a slow afternoon in the infirmary, aside from Barrow occasionally hulking out in his locked room.

Clarisse has already organized the stock of bandages and has mostly been hanging around near the back of the room in case something crazy happens and Barrow needs her. But so far, aside from his raging, nothing has gone on, and she is leaning against the wall next to the door, messing around with a pair of dice. Rolling them around in her hands, trying to get them to land on the same number, then balancing them on the tops of her spread fingers.

It's uncomfortable to listen to Barrow more than anything else. "Dude," she says after a particularly hard slam from the other side of the door, "you're fine, just calm down."

[portalling]

“It was your call. And I’m trusting the sober, clear-minded Obeisance Barrow of the days and weeks ago, not the afflicted and biased one speaking right now.”

Yes, he’s using the hated first name, deal with it.

But Strange does look up, mostly to watch the other man’s expression, try to assess his physical condition and state of mind (read: bad). The sweatiness, the fidgeting, the restlessness. His own expression remains stolid, impassive, even as he tries his hand at some motivational speaking: “You’re cut out for more than you know, you know.”

[portalling]

Yesterday had been bad, and it’s only getting worse; but they knew that going in. This is to be expected.

Doesn’t make it any easier to be ultimately responsible for the outcome, though. The Stephen that Mobius sees now is more uncertain and strained around the edges than yesterday and the day before and the day before. This particular process still isn’t his forté. This wasn’t the sort of medical work he once did. Surgery mostly meant solving the mechanical puzzle and then not having to see them again —

“Define ‘problem’,” he says, crisp. He could hear the occasional raised words during the templars’ conversation — fucking lyrium — and now the thudding, but he wants to hear the assessment in Mobius’ own words.

[thereneverwas]

The use of his first name is enough to crack Barrow's resolve, his restrained discomfort flashing into fury as his face hardens into a glare.

"Oh, fuck you," he snarls, and gives a quick jolt forward, only to rein himself back with a quick turn into another bout of pacing; there's enough of him in here still to know that attacking the healer would not end up well for anyone involved, but at the same time, he's quite certain he's never felt so angry or miserable in his life.

"What would you fucking know about it," he continues, clipped, as he bends himself down to grip the headboard of one of the infirmary's beds. His hands shake, rattling the whole frame with the effort to hold himself still. "With your-- little picture boxes and stupid--" he pauses to grit his teeth as an involuntary shudder ripples through him, "--stupid shoes." Somebody didn't like New York.

HULK SMASH

[thereneverwas]

'Fine' is, perhaps, an overstatement for a man whose gentle personality has all but vanished into solid rage over the last couple days, but Barrow is still well enough to give the door one final charge--

--and slam it open off its hinges, with Clarisse acting as doorstop. He stumbles out, a bit dazed, like he can't believe it finally worked.

[portalling]

Strange shoots a curious look downward to where his feet sit beneath his desk, mouth half-shaping the baffled words what’s wrong with my shoes?, but he averts that flippancy at the last moment. It’s not important. There’s enough of the professional in him that he veers right to the more pressing matter at hand, swerving past the insults.

“I know a bit about willpower, Barrow, and that’s what you’re going to have to display right now. You are on day three. It’s going to be shit. We both knew, from the get-go, that it was going to be shit. This is not new information.”

[thereneverwas]

"Fuck," comes Barrow's growled response, punctuated by a rattling of the bedframe as he shudders again, "fuck!"

It's not very articulate, but it at least communicates how he feels about being told to display willpower: this is what displaying willpower looks like, when every inch of him wants nothing more than to sling Strange around like a rag doll. He keeps himself turned away, grounded by his grip on the infirmary bed.

[armd]

D'you know what never goes away no matter how many years you've spent living in Thedas? Hating the sound of a body slamming mindlessly into a door.

Abby's on edge before fully registering what the sound is. She's bringing some extra supplies back to the infirmary and is still down the hallway when her adrenaline spikes, a shot of instinctive fear making everything around her seem sharper. Instantly she's walking faster.

The sound of the door exploding open makes her suck in a tight breath and drop her body down so she's approaching at a crouch, head craning around the door frame.

[laruetheday]

Hindsight's twenty-twenty, but Clarisse never expected Barrow to actually bust the door off its hinges. The guy is strong as hell, sure, but those doors are heavy. If she knew what was about to happen, she would have shifted several feet in either direction until she was completely out of the path of destruction.

But she doesn't know, so when the door comes flying off its frame with Barrow's entire weight behind it, she doesn't even get a second to think whoops or oh shit before it hits her. A corner of the wooden door clips her right on the side of the head, and she crumples to the floor like someone's flipped a switch off. Bam.

[armd]

Abby is holding still, holding her breath and half-pressed into the door frame, then pushes suddenly to her full height when she hears a body hit the ground. Realising it's Clarisse is an icy shock but she doesn't immediately rush for her, choosing to hold her ground against—

"Barrow?"

He's just standing there, confused, arms up. There's shit in the air from the door having blown off its hinges, dust and bits. Abby looks at Clarisse — unmoving — then at him, takes a step forward. Another, toward her, still watching Barrow, nervous now, blood pumping. One hand still clenched in a fist. "What the fuck?"

[thereneverwas]

For his part, Barrow has stopped in the brief puzzlement of also noticing the falling body, but it’s not enough to break through the daze. Though he glances at Abby, he barely seems to notice her as he skulks toward the supply closet, his full body tense and shaking like a bristling hound.

[armd]

"Hey." Oh, man. Something's not right here. She glances down at Clarisse at exactly the right moment, sees her chest rise and fall with a breath and is able to drag her attention from her entirely to Barrow, who is headed for the supply closet without a backwards look.

"Barrow. Hey, stop—"

She's gonna meet him there, cutting across the room in three, long strides.

[thereneverwas]

He doesn’t stop. His hand is on the latch, which is, sensibly, locked— but that doesn’t prevent him trying to force it, which he’s beginning to do with the same singlemindedness that got the first door open.

Abby may as well be a gnat for all the attention she’s paid in the moment.

[armd]

Abby grabs his forearm and wrenches to get him away from the lock — gnats can still be really annoying when they want to be. Fuck, he's really strong though, she probably needs a couple more gnats to come help her out—

"Barrow, c'mon. Snap out of it!"

[thereneverwas]

The ease with which Barrow swats Abby out of the way-- with a palm right to the face, no less-- only continues the gnat analogy. The door groans as he pulls at it, his arms and shoulders trembling with the strain.

[armd]

The heel of his hand cracks against the bridge of her nose hard in the process and heat pools between her eyes, almost unnoticed in the shock of being shoved so hard she nearly falls over, saved only by throwing one arm out and catching herself on the edge of a table.

Gathering her balance, swearing thickly, Abby stays right where she is. There's a bad taste in her mouth like pennies and she knows instinctively what that means. Unfair anger surges in her.

It's not Barrow's fault, he's out of his mind, but she still shouts, "If you don't fucking stop, I'll have to make you!"

[thereneverwas]

He looks at her, finally, but doesn't really seem to see her-- there's an animal desperation about him, a sort of 'if I don't do this faster than you can stop me I'm going to die' flavor of urgency.

When pulling doesn't do the trick, he starts to cast about for something he can use to smash the lock off the door.

[extortionate]

He's late.

Getting Lazar to agree to anything not clear-and-fucking-paid-for's a gamble in good mood. This ain't. He likes Barrow fine. And he likes Barrow better alive, and he likes him best of all when skimming his lyrium.

(Grand thing for templars: They lose count, and it's just them to blame.)

So he's not in a hurry to stand around, while Barrow scratches like a hurlock can smell you through the walls. By the time he steps in, Abby's shouting, someone's down. Blood. Before he's past the door he's moving.

Lifting a chair's like raising his hand. Easy. Swings it high — hey, look at me — before he breaks it over Barrow's back.

[armd]

She can feel blood in her nostrils and has to resist the urge to wipe and irritate what is already, surely, broken, groping around instead for her crystal without taking her eyes off Barrow. That look on his face kills her anger, replaces it with worried agitation. Back-up would be good — and then, bizarrely, manifests in the form of Lazar stepping in right as she thinks that, the look on his face more serious than she's seen it before.

"He's— holy shit."

The sound of the chair breaking is hard, instant.

Abby is still leaning against the table, slow to rejoin the fight but wondering if she is even needed — soon she pivots toward Clarisse, crouching beside her. Probably smart to try and get her out of the way.

[thereneverwas]

Nobody can take a hit like that and be fine afterwards; Barrow, who didn't see it coming at all, makes a sound like a wounded bronto as the chair takes him down. This might be enough to incapacitate a smaller, less lyrium-starved person, but in Barrow's case-- as with any other big game-- it really just serves to piss him off.
He's on the floor when he turns to launch himself into Lazar's legs in a full-bodied tackle.

[extortionate]

There's a splintered chairleg in his hand, and this is how it would go, out in the world: Stab down with that, full weight gone somewhere soft — throat's a small target, chancy when they roll, but you can always mark the gut. While he's scrunching like a bug for that, you kick in his head a few times. Stomp the face for good measure. That's how you end a fight. That's how you see that there won't be another.

It doesn't go that way.

Barrow bellows. Lazar hesitates. Out the corner of his lids, he can spy Abby dawdling. She can make her own choices. But:

"Who's down?"

His boot lifts to prod. Barrow lunges. Big guys, no one figures them fast. Lazar oughta know better, hits the floor on a smashed exhale, and now he’s kicking, heedless of where it might land. Anything to break a little space between his lungs and that wall of meat. The leg's in his hand, and then it's wedging for Barrow's mouth; jammed horse-on-bit to force him back.

[armd]

"Clarisse," an answering call lost under the sound of Barrow's blind bull-rush tackle, the wind getting knocked the fuck out of Lazar. She was about to drag Clarisse up off the ground but it now seems like a better idea to get involved in the new scuffle taking place on the ground.

She goes that way, dodging errant kicks and arms flailing, hesitating for exactly zero seconds before she jumps onto Barrow's back to try and get her arms around his neck, pry him off.