[open] I'll return one day

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow + you
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: post lyrium detox
WHERE: mostly the Gallows and surrounding areas
NOTES: open starters are in the post body and bespoke ones are in the comments, hmu if you want one, etc

out & about, OTA

One could be forgiven for thinking nothing has changed. Not long after his time in the infirmary ended, Barrow had made his return to the training yard in the mornings: he busies himself there, offering training and maintaining the weapons and being something adjacent to his usual self. The distance is, however, noticeable at times, when his banter is a bit delayed. Or maybe his smile doesn't meet his eyes, or he stares out at the horizon for a little too long in the middle of a drill.

Nearly every evening now he's in the Loose Noose, nursing an ale for hours as though he's periodically forgotten about it. When once he might have played solitaire, lately he just sits and stares at nothing. Sometimes he smokes, letting the cigarette burn all the way down to his lips before he thinks to ash it.

infirmary, OTA

There's work to be done in the wake of his time in the infirmary, and Barrow finally dredges up the courage to address it. He arrives one day with his toolbox and, without offering much conversation, proceeds to go about mending... everything. He starts with the worst of it: the door to the private room, the bed that took the brunt of his and Lazar's altercation, then makes his way down to smaller details, things he may have left unfinished in his initial restless busyness when he'd first gone off the lyrium.

If spoken to, he speaks, and is even friendly, but his overall bearing is awkward. Uncomfortable. Apologetic, if one squints. Maybe he shouldn't be here, but he wants to make it right.

Comments

for Sennara

[thereneverwas]

Whether it was on Byerly's advice or just a particularly bad day, Barrow resolved at some point hours ago to get falling down drunk. Circumspect enough to find a pub where he wasn't likely to run into any peers, and being large enough that most people have the good instinct not to bother him when he looks like this, he has only partially managed to fall down-- in this case, with his head buried in his arms on the table where he sits alone.
Why does this ever seem like a good idea? It's never a good idea. But here he is, all his limbs like lead, and he may as well enjoy how his mind has quieted for the time being.

[boeric]

The Qunari left Kirkwall. Everyone knows it.

Everyone knows, too, that they didn't really go. The war party sailed off, and others stayed, quiet for the fear of their neighbors. There are still Qunari here, and tal-vashoth too, and the distinction rarely so clear as Par Vollen would like.

So when the grey man taps her shoulder, she follows. He's taller than Barrow, but half as broad; works the door on nights he isn't studying Qunlat.

"Thank you," This bar is far from Riftwatch, and that's more reason to know their faces. "Go now."

He does. She considers Barrow across the little table: Looks like shit lately, when he looks like anything at all. She knows the place that his eyes go, Ashaad dwelt there often in those final days.

Barrow's back heaves. Still alive, still here. Sennara lifts a tankard to sniff — nose wrinkling — and pours the dregs over his head.

[thereneverwas]

It registers as an unpleasant dampness before Barrow realizes what's happening, and he raises his head in a sluggish heft to squint at the source of this foul precipitation. Even in his state, he knows the woman, remembers how she rappelled off the battlements like it was nothing. One doesn't just forget the only other person over forty in the entire organization.

"Oh," he grunts, in greeting. Hello. What can I do for you.

[boeric]

She's braced for him to rise, and maybe to rise swinging — written in the tension of an elbow, the way she keeps the chair between them. He doesn't rise. He doesn't swing. Hardly manages a word, and the swell of disgust,

Isn't his to own. Mug clanks down, and so does she.

"Enough of this," This isn't the kind of place that gives out napkins, so there's no rag to toss or wipe his eyes. It's just them, and the soggy table, and a crowd ready to pretend blindness. "This ends tonight."

[thereneverwas]

In the absence of a rag, he tugs down one of his rolled-up sleeves, draws it across his eyes-- it doesn't do much, but he's not in a very proactive mood.

"What," he says dully, "you gonna kill me?" Is that hope? It couldn't be: more like the ever-present desire for the easy way out, whatever will stop the cycle of misery and, maybe, finally quiet his mind.

He died in Granitefell, didn't he? It didn't take. Wouldn't that have been better than what's in store?

training yard

[laruetheday]

The early morning is the perfect time to train, and Clarisse is there almost every day. Seeing Barrow return to his normal routine is good, but she doesn't comment on it. Clarisse hasn't brought up anything that happened in the infirmary at all, in fact. She'd like to keep it that way if possible. As far as she's concerned, it's water under the bridge.

She's there this morning training with her spear, and gives him a nod of acknowledgement when she sees him organizing the weapons.

"Do me a favor?"

[thereneverwas]

"Ey? What's that?"

Even if he doesn't smile, it's a somewhat tender look Barrow reserves for Clarisse as he looks at her over his shoulder, pausing in his work for the moment.

[laruetheday]

"Could you move this target back over there?"

Clarisse is gesturing to one of the roughly human-looking dummies that are scattered around, indicating that she wants it back on the other side of the yard. Could she just move it herself? Yeah, obviously. But she feels like maybe Barrow wants to get back to Just Being Normal, and what's more normal than being asked to do stupid manual labor around the Gallows?

[thereneverwas]

Seeming to have the same thought process, Barrow looks from the target to Clarisse and back-- didn't the Maker give you two working legs-- but eventually he snorts, finally smirking a bit.

"Yeah, sure." Shuffling toward the target, he hefts it with a grunt and begins to carry it as directed.
"How're you holding up?"

[laruetheday]

"Holding up?"

Clarisse gives him a funny look. Like he's not talking about her head, right? That was ages ago. (That was... days ago. Same difference.)

"I'm good. How, uh... are you holding up?"

Look, her plan had been not to ask him about how he's doing, to be casual and not-weird, but what else is she supposed to say to that?

loose noose.

[cozen]

Bastien arrives a good hour after he spotted Barrow disappearing into the tavern — he had some things to finish up — and unsurprised to find him there still. Bastien has never been much of a drinker; all but entirely giving it up for Byerly was no hardship. But he drops a coin into the collection and pours himself a tankard anyway, for sociability's sake, before he crosses to Barrow's corner.

"Barrow," in greeting.

He takes a seat, not at Barrow's table, but on top of the table adjacent to it, feet on the chair and mug on his knees. He's less animated than he often is. His attention is steadier. He is doing little to disguise the fact that he's here to be serious,

eventually.

"I witnessed a murder today," he offers first, because they don't have to leap directly into it.

[thereneverwas]

"Bastien," he dully replies, but glances over at the man long enough to offer a single, tired quirk of his mouth in greeting. It's not a smile, but it briefly tried to be.

"Yeah? Lots of blood?"

[cozen]

"Oh, buckets," Bastien says. "They got him right in the neck where it squirts everywhere, you know? Somehow in the flailing he'd managed to draw a heart on the wall with it. Or maybe it was on purpose. Maybe they were in love."

[thereneverwas]

This actually elicits a faint chuckle, and Barrow shakes his head. "Very Antivan," he remarks.

[cozen]

"You would think, but the guards say the man was an Ander, of all things. Have you ever met a romantic Ander? —do not say Lazar."

He'll stop soon. Probably. If he doesn't, it's Barrow's fault for rewarding bad behavior with a chuckle.

training yard

[brennvin]

It’s not like they’ve really spoken in detail about what he was in the infirmary for — to the contrary, he had been adamant about keeping friends away — but you don’t have to be a genius to realise that something feels off, afterward.

Barrow’s back but he’s not really back. He seems distant and distracted, not really here. He barely even notices when Astrid’s next to him in the yard until she elbows him in the side, sharp.

“You wanna help me practice something cool?” she asks, readjusting the enchanted gauntlet on her left wrist.

[thereneverwas]

A grunt of surprise is followed by a disapproving glance, which quickly softens when Barrow realizes who it was that elbowed him. He smirks lightly.

"Do I," he agrees, pleasant in his lazy manner, warming to the distraction.

[brennvin]

“You do,” she concludes with a quick nod, and presses a pair of small blades into his hands, asking: “You any good with throwing knives?”

[thereneverwas]

"Absolute rubbish," Barrow informs her, and holds up one hand to demonstrate how difficult it is for him to bend his fingers. "But you go on ahead. What do you need?"

[brennvin]

Astrid considers the limitation, the stiffness in his fingers, but then seems to decide it’ll be good enough anyway.

“Hmm. It’s alright, you won’t need to actually hit the targets or anything. Mostly it’s just having the movement, ‘cos I want to focus on the catching.”

The catching?

She’s passed him the two blades (runes stamped on their hilts) and then moved sideways across the sparring ground until they’re facing the same direction, looking at the row of targets. She twists the enchanted gauntlet on her wrist, and then holds it up for Barrow to see: “This makes ’em fly back into the gauntlet so they can be thrown again. I’ve practiced a bit but it’s hard to do both throwing and catching when I’m, like, afraid it’s gonna fucking fly back in my face, so I was thinking, if I get someone else to do the throwing then I can prioritise and make sure I’ve got the other part down pat first.”

infirmary

[armd]

"Need a hand?"

She understands why he's here, and that he probably wants to do all the chores himself and self flagellate the entire time but facts are facts: many hands make light work. Plus he owes Abby, in a way. To try and put a stop to any protests before they start she adds, "C'mon. Sooner it's done sooner you're out of Strange's hair."

[thereneverwas]

How dare she intervene in a man's divine right to self-flagellate,

"--sure." Sighed out after a deep breath, he relents without ever really arguing, but doesn't look happy about it all the same. If nothing else, Abby makes a good point about Strange, whom he hasn't run into yet and hopes not to.

"Hold this," he requests, directing her to the new door jamb he's about to attach.

[armd]

Look, even as somebody who is currently on Strange's good side (probably) there are times that Abby doesn't want to be in his hair for any longer than she has to be either. So they can commiserate on this. She plants her feet and takes the jamb without a word, lifting it with a grunt.

Easy.

"How much more do you have to do?"

[thereneverwas]

With Abby's help, Barrow is able to align and then easily affix the jamb using nails and mallet. It only takes a moment, and once they're finished, he grasps it and unsuccessfully tries to wiggle it, which signals a job well enough done.

"Dunno," he admits, finally looking at Abby, his eyes automatically checking over the bridge of her nose, "as much as there is." This place will be flawless by the time he's done with it.

[armd]

"You only broke the door."

And that wall. And knocked that bed over but that's it, seriously, he shouldn't feel like he has to be in here for hours and hours and hours scrubbing away at damage he had no hand in. "You don't have to fix everything just for us to forgive you, you know."