faderift | [open & closed] and when that day comes

The nickname stops him too, but after he’s paused to process it, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He eats another cookie.

“That’s as good a one as any,” he obliges, evading the rest of the question, “I got to be a be a bear once. In a Rifter world.”

He looks off into the middle distance, reminiscing: “best days of my life, if I’m being honest.”

Yeah.

Strange has straightened in his seat beside the bed, but his expression remains just as flat. If he tries for sympathetic, he’s not really sure what his facial muscles will do, some spasmodic twitch, so he doesn’t even try.

You could try again another time, give it another shot, he wants to say, except he knows the grim math. Coming up with the initial nerve must have been hard enough. And Barrow’s fifty-four years old. Coming up on sixty, sooner or later. If it didn’t work now… Putting his body through all of that, all over again, might well kill him the second time.

It takes a long time for Barrow to speak again. When he does, it’s a single, rasping, “then—“ that escapes him before he trails off again.

Then this was all pointless, then this isn’t happening.

"Then fuck it,"

Lazar's been quiet until now. Easy to mistake it: Slouched with his eyes shut, arms crossed; looking for all the world like a great indolent dog. But he sleeps light. But he can listen plenty well (you didn't finish, yeah, hear that happens to geezers —)

Barrow rasps, and it's that crack that finally slings him upright.

"You're not dead."

Empathy's never been his strength. Lazar pushes out of the chair, and then the room. Barrow's awake, Barrow's alive; whatever they gotta say, they can say it alone now.

"Thanks." Ish. Looking like a badass is not something she's ever worried about but she knows it's important to Clarisse and it makes her smile a bit anyway... There's blood on her teeth. It's not the first time she's had a broken nose either, so even though she knows it sucks to have one she also knows it'll heal up fine.

She gestures to her own head and leaves the wad of bandage behind on one of the tables for a moment. Remind her to bin that later... "Can I...?"

Touch you. Lazar was the one who felt her head for breaks, one hand splayed across the back of her head like a web; Abby wants to double confirm what he already figured out.

It’s practically a relief, having the other man puncture the awkward strained silence like this. Not that Strange has much else to say, not like he knows how to clear the air after something like this, but —

He gestures after the doorway Lazar disappeared through.

“Eloquent as he is, he’s right. You’re not dead. You’re still alive. That’s the most important part.”

A beat, derailed from the missing answer as she has to process that.

“—Wait, like, literally turned into a bear?”

Oh, so she can't touch Abby but Abby can touch her, huh? Clarisse sees how it is.

Still, she would not say no to Abby running her fingers gently all along her skull, even with the headache from hell, so she tilts her head a bit, wincing at the movement, and says, "Sure." But then seeing how this might actually work in her favor, she adds, "If I can clean your face off after."

Fair is fair.

Abby looks surprised by the sudden trade proposal, but nods all the same. "Okay."

It'll probably go quicker if Clarisse helps — and she'll be more gentle to Abby than Abby will be to herself, too. Hmm. Before she can examine that thought more closely she strokes her hand through Clarisse's hair, half to feel for where she landed, half to comfort her. She's tense, wincing from pain.

She says, "Holy shit Clarisse," soft and concerned when her fingers find the lump near her ear. She skims her fingers gently near it. There's no blood matting in her hair or anything, she didn't break the skin. But it has to really fucking hurt.

Yeah... Abby figured she couldn't very well go in with Obi considering the way Barrow reacted to it the one time she let slip — funny, to think she could also have sat down and said 'Pru'.

"We work together. In the same division I mean — he's saved my ass a couple times."

You know, from various things. He also broke her nose recently and Abby's still wearing the evidence of that in the form of two (admittedly yellowing as they fade out) bruises underneath of her eyes.

Cedric's wary of the infirmary at the best of times: Hates the smell of a sickbed, the trap of a shut door. Lately, that's all there is. Freak accidents and fucking amputations, Abby walking about with a broken nose. Barrow's best try fallen flat.

Been too busy to visit, between covering guard shifts, and what bits of Ness' work he can manage to intercept. Between testing shelves and counting the years a man has left. Been too busy — that's his story and he's sticking to it. He'll catch them both when they're out, in the long days when visitors recede. When the hair on his own neck'll lie flat again.

When he can keep himself out of it.

"Ma'am," But new faces need minding. Can't spy an anchor, and she doesn't look the part of Riftwatch. Ordinarily, guests go to the Quartermaster. Ordinarily, the Quartermaster's not recovering from surgery. "Mind if I sit? Don't reckon we've been introduced."

Edited 2025-04-01 02:52 (UTC)

Before panic can set in over the fatigue and the gloom, there's Lazar, and with his presence follows a sort of trepidation instead. Something happened, perhaps-- the little hairs on the back of Barrow's neck stand on end, caution cutting through as he looks at his friend. He can remember the smell of Lazar up close, and doesn't want to interrogate why.

"I'd," he mumbles, dragging his mind back to the topic at hand and his gaze back to Strange, "like to be alone. Please." This seems a poor combination of people to have emotions around, if he must have them.

He nods, the smile broadening. "Hung out by a river, ate fish, sat in the sun all day. It's a tough one to beat."

Edited 2025-04-03 23:38 (UTC)

Prudence's smile is sad, but curious. How very military of all of it.

"What division is that?" Her gaze goes damningly to the bruises on Abby's face, but she waits to be told, rather to infer.

A silent nod and a gesture to the steps beside her, and Prudence is as welcoming as any, even if she doesn't smile readily. Brow still creased with worry, she offers a practiced spiel:

"My brother, Obeisance, is a member of Riftwatch. I've come to help while he recovers."

"The one where we all punch each other in the face over and over to test our strength," she deadpans, when Prudence's attention goes so obviously to her bruises.

"Also known as the forces division. First name was too long."

The capitulation is much nicer than Barrow pointing out best of us is a low bar — at least while they're joking around and Bastien doesn't really need to defend Byerly's honor and ethics and bleeding heart — so Bastien gives him a grin.

"Bragging rights? Money? Dares?"

Prudence's smile is reproachful but nonetheless amused; clearly that can't be the whole story, but at least there's a sense of humor involved, and that's a welcome respite from the worry that tugs at her heart.
When someone has as many children as she does, bruises stop meaning anything on their own.

"I see," she says, "and were you satisfied by your results?"

He breaks a roll between hand, cants an ear to the rehearsal.

Oughta have spied the resemblance: Broad and strong, the way Barrow's built — the way that Barrows must be. Afira looks a little like him, but you can't see it the same. Different frames on the picture.

"Good on you to come," She knows that. "Cedric. I work with him some."

Don't need the details just now. Don't need to go calling death when it's stood so close. A crow hops across the yard, another; too big for the cats to take, and eyeing the bread.

"Don't have brothers," Not the sort she means. He picks off a bit of crust, pitches it toward the yard in a blur of squabbling beaks. "But my cousin, we used to shut her in closets."

Only for a little while. The admission cants his eyes sidelong, across the crook of a smile. An invitation to happier times.

"Prudence," she says softly in return, watching the crow rather than making direct eye contact. There are an awful lot of cats around, but the bird is fearless.

Despite the somberness of the situation, she can't help but quirk a small smile in response to Cedric's reminiscence. Closets.
"He wouldn't dare," she murmurs in quiet humor, shaking her head at the ground. "He pushed me in the pond once, when we were little. I don't remember, but... he said it was around the time he decided to look after me, instead."

A brusque little snort follows, but still fond: "he got in less trouble that way."

Clarisse wishes she had broken the skin. Blood is at least a tangible result, like with Abby's broken nose. She could have come out of this with a cool scar breaking up the pattern of her hair, but instead she just has a stupid lump on her head and feels lame as fuck about it.

And it does hurt, which is even more annoying.

"It's okay, demigods have thick skulls," she says, sort of as a joke even though there must be some truth to it because, "There's this guy back home who I swear got knocked out with a brick more than one time on the same quest. At least that was the story I heard."

Once Abby seems satisfied that she's in one piece, Clarisse slides off the bed and, less woozy now, gathers up a cloth and some water so she can clean off Abby's face. She motions for Abby to take her spot on the edge of the bed.

"Sure."

Let's go with that. Probably shouldn't veer in ratting Barrow out to his own sister, not while he's mostly unconscious in a hospital bed right now. "This your first time at the Gallows?"

"A brick, Barrow..."

She doesn't keep touching the lump for any longer than she has to; once she's confirmed that it's there, and is huge, she retracts her hand. It's fine and Clarisse will be fine. Demigods have thick skulls and heal quick — she takes her spot with a sigh, clearing her throat with a grimace. Her mouth tastes real bad. It's going to be good to get the blood off her face, and swirl water around her teeth and tongue.

"What's the worst injury you've ever had? ... Not counting anything here." Death was the worst injury here. Hard to top that one.

"First time in Kirkwall," Prudence clarifies, her eyes wandering out over the courtyard for a moment before she looks back to Abby.
"First time out of Crestwood, actually."

She can't help but glance at the green glint in Abby's hand: this isn't the first one she's seen since arriving, obviously, but they're still not something one gets used to in a hurry.

The worst combination, really.

But: “Of course,” says the Head Healer, and he rises to his feet. Pushes the visitor’s chair back into the corner and feels his shoulders crack as he straightens up again.

It’s almost — no, definitely — a relief to have the conversation dismissed like this, to be given a reason to withdraw and not have to see Barrow’s facial expression anymore, to grant the other man his space and his privacy to react in whatever way he needs to.

Failure doesn’t sit well on Stephen Strange, and he retreats quietly, closing the door behind him.

[open & closed] and when that day comes

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