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

'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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

"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.

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.

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!"

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.

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!"

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.

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.

Edited 2025-02-18 19:33 (UTC)

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.

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.

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.

Edited 2025-02-18 22:20 (UTC)

"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.

Edited (extra hard return my behated) 2025-02-18 22:51 (UTC)

Wherever Barrow's mind is in all this, it's fair to say he's not overly concerned about harming either assailant-- and in fact, it's far more likely to assume he thinks he's being killed, which only results in a redoubling of effort to not be.

It's thanks to Abby's attention and his attempt to throw her that Barrow is only able to manage one hand at Lazar's throat; aside from that, it's not a sustainable position, straddling one while swatting at the other. He loses his balance, falling onto his side and nearly rolling onto Abby, who instead is treated to the leg of an infirmary bed against whatever part of her is closest to it.

His mouth bleeding from the sharp wood, Barrow spits a splinter and flounders to get up.

Fingers in his neck. Arms around Barrow. The world narrows, pressure punctuated about five iron points. Abby hauls. Barrow tilts, sends them both sprawling free.

Lazar barks a cough. Another. Hard, and strange-high, and none of that's good sign. But this isn't the first time someone's choked him. But some base, animal place whispers to roll himself over. Can't count on the time to stand, so it's still half on all-fours when he hauls forward, throws a clumsy bear-feint left –

(Look at me, look at me,)

Before hammering the other fist into kidney. Over, and over, pressing any chance to land.

"Stop it—"

Reasoning with Barrow is useless but Abby feels like she has to keep trying anyway. She squeezes her arms threateningly where they've landed around his neck — he bucks underneath of her like a horse, and then pitches over until she falls off, smacking her hip against the wood of the bed with a groan.

Oh, that's it. (How many members of Riftwatch does it take to tackle some guy coming off lyrium...?)

She grabs the back of Barrow's shirt and yanks him hard to keep him down.

He’s laid out, held by Abby long enough for Lazar’s fists to find purchase. Over and over.

Too occupied with the onslaught to pay any mind to Abby, Barrow curls, shudders, retches— it’s been long enough since he kept anything down that it yields nothing, but at least for the time being, he’s down for the count.

He pulls off. Staggers up the rest of the way, weight shifted to throw in again. If Barrow twitches too hard. If Abby can't hold him.

"The fuck was that about —"

Wheezed. The words crack, and he knows when he spits he'll see blood; same as he knows exactly the fuck that was about. Goddamn fool's errand is what. Lazar doesn't often inch his face far: Light, and easy, and a scowl at most. Only now he looks ready to put someone through a wall, and it needn't be the man retching below.

A glance over his shoulder at last lays name to head injury. Clarisse. Mark of esteem that he doesn't walk out then and there, but stoops to her side.

Alive, yeah. Unconscious, yeah. And between her, and Anderson, and the vanished ponce; that's half the Infirmary staff down. So,

"Get her out of here," Somewhere. Anywhere, like he should know, like any of this is his mess to clean. Lazar props a hand behind her skull, feeling for softness. For a familiar fracture. "I'll hold this down."

He wants a word with Barrow.

Edited 2025-02-19 05:03 (UTC)

A wet sniff. She gives another tug on Barrow's shirt as if to say and stay there before she hauls herself to her feet, grimacing as she puts weight on the leg with the hit hip. "Fuck." Feels like she got hit in the face by a brick wall.

Focus. Lazar is kneeling by Clarisse, one hand probing underneath of her skull. The silence on his end is probably good news and she crouches down in the meantime, making herself look at Clarisse's face, slack in unconsciousness but otherwise fine, still breathing. Nothing broken. Abby brushes some hair out of her face for her with gentle fingertips.

"Okay. I'll notify Marcus."

Maybe Gwen, too...

Barrow remains where he fell, curled half-fetal and shivering. He grits his teeth to keep them from chattering, only distantly aware of the pain that arises from the cuts in his mouth. Wherever his mind is, it's not here.

A grunt of assent.

He isn't a doctor. Not a healer, or a builder, or anyone fixes much. Breaking, taking: That's the business.

But there's been a lot of good intentions in this room. A lot of clever minds and best-laid plans. Near as he can tell, it hasn't helped a thing.

He props Clarisse up onto Abby. Unsteady and bloody, and she's figured out worse. He's busy.

"You're done, mate." He squats, plants a heavy palm to Barrow's shoulder. Side's good, harder to choke. "If you want to keep on this, got a minute to say."

Lazar isn't listening. The lock on the storeroom's easy, picked worse before he could read.

Edited 2025-02-20 01:16 (UTC)

Oh uh okay: the way he props her puts her arms dangling over Abby's shoulders in a loose hug, her head tipping to one side. Abby cranes her neck automatically in the other direction, she doesn't want to get any nose blood on her. Some has just run down over her upper lip, which is disgusting, face scrunching at the slippery hot feeling. Congeal, damnit.

She mops up quick with her arm then stands, pulling Clarisse up with her — like wearing a backpack on your front, if the backpack were a girl.

Squints.

"S'there another room with a door that locks?" For Barrow. The uhhh, the one with the door now missing is probably not gonna do it. And she doesn't want to lock the entire infirmary up behind her.

HULK SMASH

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