driftfleet | Don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not

Entry tags:

Don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not

Who: Adalwolfe Hawke and you
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Yes (Three Twins med bay)
When: Now

[Video]

[Some may know and some may not, but even with the little communications crisis going on right now, Adalwolfe is not on the ship he's assigned to. Currently, he's been haunting the medical bay of the Three Twins instead, which is what's vaguely in the background of the video as it winks into broadcast.]

Hey everyone, Hawke here. The male one, obviously.

[He takes an awkward breath, looking a little dark and strained around the eyes, mostly from lack of sleep.]

I know there are other things going on, and these comas are perhaps old hat to some of you especially with how frequently they've been going around right now, but is it... is it normal to age so quickly in one of these mysterious comas?

[He rolls his chair out of the way of the device he has sitting on the counter, giving a side view of Anders laying prone in one of the hospital style cots, eyes closed and Ser Pounce-a-lot the orange tabby curled on his chest with no intention of moving. Anders has grown far more gaunt than when he was up and around last week, and has more than his carefully groomed five-o-clock shadow in stubble about the chin. The beard would be worse if Adalwolfe hadn't taken the time to carefully shave his fellow mage, but he's not about to announce that on the network.]

I hope it is. Otherwise I'm worried he'll waste away like this.

[Adalwolfe rolls back into view, blocking all but the swishing of Ser Pounce's tail.]

Also, to the First Breath crew, I'm sorry I'm not there to take care of the device. I'll be back--

[A glance back at Anders and Hawke shakes his head.]

I'll be back when I'm back. Until then, help yourselves to the bread and things I have stored in the galley from the last planet as an apology. There should be enough to last weeks. Just leave enough of the frozen meat to last Ser Drools until the next planet.

[With an uncharacteristically grim expression, Hawke pauses, then decides he's said his piece until someone answers, and shuts off the feed rather abruptly.]

[Action]

After shutting off the feed, Hawke leans back in his chair, flopping his forearm over his eyes for a moment as if that will somehow block out his worry. He's not sure what he's more anxious over - the thought that Anders won't wake up by himself and he'll have to try and desperately wake him in a panic before he turns to nothing but a husk, or the thought that Anders will wake up with memories of his future, memories of Kirkwall, and Adalwolfe won't be in them. It's a distinct possibility, either way. They both remember Riona, which bodes well, but so does Leliana and yet Leliana doesn't know him at all, which puts him back to square one on what to expect.

Ser Drools whines from under the console at Hawke's feet, responding to his master's turmoil. Or responding to his own turmoil at not being able to get close to Anders' bed for the cat keeping stalwart vigil on Blondie's chest.

Hawke lowers his arm and leans down to pet his dog instead, trying to stop moping and fretting for Ser Drools' sake as much as his own. He's just resolving to do that when the door opens and Adalwolfe's attention spins to that, hand poised over his puppy to see who's come in and for what.

"If you need medical attention, I'm afraid the doctor is out just now."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, I don't know about riddles. [ she's a literal kinda gal. ] But I have a great 250 piece jigsaw that could use an extra pair of hands.

Oh, a literal puzzle!

[He laughs.]

Sure, if you want to bring it over here. I don't think I should leave for any long amount of time.

[Which is just his feelings talking and certainly not that he could actually do anything should Anders' condition take a turn, nothing besides call a real doctor anyway, but he's having trouble being entirely rational about this.]

I get it. I'll bring snacks, too.

I'll set up a table. Oh, and if you can get your hands on those cheese crackers from the bar, that would be fantastic. I can't get enough of those things.

[Hawke discovered Cheeze-its. Or the Atroma equivalent. He is normally a man of very simple pleasures...]

Oh, and beer.

[See?]

I'll see you here soon. Thank you so much, Kate.

[With a grateful smile he reaches for the device and ends the call, then gets up to locate a card table big enough for a puzzle.]

[ she's good at this, at least. or she thinks she is -- being the smiling, level-headed distraction in a crisis. kate arrives with a case of beer under one arm, and a canvas tote hanging from the other. the pliable fabric hides boxes: puzzles, and crackers, and maybe some cookies too. maybe she doesn't know hawke all too well, but he's a coworker. coworkers are like team-mates.

and katie's always been a team player.

first, she sets the beer on the table. she tries not to look too intently at the unconscious third person in the medbay. ]

Hope you like -- well, whatever-the-futz this beer is made of. Space hops. Hi.

Hey.

[If she said that to Hawke he would not only be touched but agree readily. He's quick to adopt people as his friends and allies, or at least non-Chantry affiliated people for reasons of self-preservation, but he never expects them to return the sentiment. It's always a wonderful surprise when they do.

Luckily for Kate, when she arrives, the curtain is drawn as a partition to where Anders lays prone, only his boots visible around the corner. Adalwolfe didn't do it to hide him so much as a weak attempt to blot out any noise, but it serves the same purpose. The snacks are received with appreciation and the beer even moreso, Hawke putting the cap edge against the corner of the table and slamming his palm down on it. It pops off easily and he takes a long pull, followed by an equally long sigh.]

Whatever kind of hops they are, I'm glad they exist.

[He really needs this, if he looks even half as bad as he feels.]

Thank you for bringing all this. I hope I didn't take you away from anything.

[ she pops a bottle of her own -- following his suit, but somehow slamming it down at such a precise angle that the bottle's cap twists high in the air before landing precisely in place, crowning the top of a third as-yet-unopened beer. it's all trajectories and easy aiming. it's a small victory. katie smiles, takes a long drink, and then sits down. ]

Oh, you know. Just laundry. Boring old laundry. I'm not missing much, being here. Scout's honour.

[He watches her, impressed. Granted she didn't miss a shot when they were fighting that dinosaur either so he shouldn't be all that surprised, but it's still a useful skill. He takes another gulp out of his bottle then idly lifts both bottle caps with a bit of his magic, swaying them in the air over the table as if on invisible strings.

If she's gonna show off, so is he.]

Ugh, laundry. Almost easier just to get new clothes.

[He'd always hated that chore. Trucking clothes down to the with his mother basin when he was child. Even finding clean enough water for it in Lowtown was also a bother. He'd been so pleased when they'd gotten back the estate and had a service come and clean everything twice a week. When he'd fled Kirkwall, one of the many gripes he'd had (though mostly kept to himself) was having to do bloody laundry again when they were in less populated areas, and those times in rivers and lakes. Even if the laundry services on ship are as easy as dumping the clothes in a chute and retrieving the clean garments later, he just hates laundry so much that even that is a hassle.]

Wouldn't that be ridiculous, just getting new clothes every time your old ones got dirty. I could keep a clothier in business on socks alone.

[It's so much easier to think about anything else than your anxieties when there's someone actually there to distract you.]

We always had someone to do it for us.

[ -- kate's unapologetic about her upbringing. it's likely surfaced before, in casual throwaway comments at the bar. she comes from wealth, doesn't hide it, and doesn't gild herself in some obnoxious attempt to prove she's just like everyone else. kate's childhood had been lived firmly in the world of the 1%, but she believed that obscuring that fact simply made her into an asshole. instead, she focused her energies on doing things well. on excelling. on being independent in the wake of it. ]

But since I moved out? Back home? I've been going to this laundromat on the corner -- like, two blocks from my apartment. I think someone who does all their laundry at the same time as me has been stealing my stuff. I always come back with less than I brought.

[ a pause. kate tilts her head as she pulls a puzzle box out of the canvas bag. ] Came back. Past tense. Home's in the past tense, now.

We did when we reclaimed our family's nobility. Those were blessed days, being able to pay someone to do the washing for you.

[Hawke's not bothered by wealth. Some people are wealthy, some are not, and he's one of the very fortunate to have been able to come into it even if he had to leave it behind again. He misses his nice things, having earned them through that Deep Roads expedition and nearly dying for it. He and Varric had bonded over that, both having idiot brothers.

He's not sure what a laundromat is so he stays silent on that subject.]

Only temporarily, as I'm given to understand. People do get sent home. I have to wonder if we all stopped being interesting if they'd send the lot of us.

[He leans out of his chair a little to see the puzzle. Back in Thedas, such things existed, but they were rare. The time it took to craft one was time that could be spent on more useful woodcrafting. More common for his world were these small stone tile puzzles made by the dwarves where you either flip or slide bits to eventually form a coherent picture.]

That's a novel plan: be boring.

[ kate dumps the box's contents into heaps of little cardboard pieces on the table.

with a crooked smile and a wink: ] Not sure I know how to be boring.

Then we're doomed because I have no idea either.

[He chuckles at their plan, failed before it had ever begun, and reaches over to spread the pieces out a bit more visibly.]

What are these made from? It's like paper but stronger.

It is paper, but stronger. [ she starts sorting through the pieces -- as though she's looking for something in particular. ] It's called cardboard, and it bears many gifts. Puzzles. Pizzas. Prada purses wrapped up in tissue paper.

[ aha! she picks up a piece with two smooth edges. ] Let's start with the corners. And the edge pieces.

[Since his attention should be otherwise occupied, Adalwolfe lets the bottlecaps gently float to the corner of the table and rest there, letting go of the spell.]

I still want to try this pizza everyone's been talking about. It's like... bread with melted things on it, isn't it?

[He picks up a piece of the puzzle and examines the striations of cardboard at the edges before putting it down and starting to look for the corners as edges as Kate suggested.]

It must be popular on Earth if both you and Wrath are so enamored.

[ she watches the bottle caps float easily into place with a distracted smile -- hawke, and his magic, reminds her (at times) of billy kaplan. it's a distinction she won't make out loud, but it certainly colours and warms the way she interacts with him. ]

It's popular. [ her attention glides easily back to hawke himself. ] And definitely worth trying, but anything you find in the Fleet pales in comparison to a real New York slice.

I wonder why they do that, deprive us of real food and relegate everything to weird pastes. Maybe for it to keep at long stretches, but I thought that's why ice boxes were invented.

[He huffs a bit, but his complaint has no real force behind it and he starts plucking pieces with flat edges out of the pile and into a separate smaller pile.]

Maybe a sponsor will send some. If there's technology to pull people from different times and places, I don't see why it wouldn't work on food.

Fair point. [ she takes a long drink from her bottle. ] I don't know -- it'd be better than some of the other sponsor gifts I keep seeing. Not that I've had anything of my own, yet.

[ lopsided smile. ] I must not be popular enough with the audience.

Me either, apparently. I haven't gotten a thing. Though if it's all make-up and communicator cases, I'm not sure I care.

[It never seems to be anything useful. With a snort, he sets down a puzzle piece and reaches for the snacks. Mmm, cheese crackers.]

Unless it was five stone of these. They're completely addictive.

Careful what you wish for. [ she teases. ] They'll go straight to your thighs.

[He puts on a simpering falsetto and brings one hand dramatically to his chest.]

Maker forbid! How will I ever be seen at the Satinalia dance this year with thick thighs?

[ bahaha, you sound like her sister. bless you. ]

Satinalia, huh? Is that a big deal? Like the Met Gala?

No idea what a Met Gala is, but Satinalia is a holiday. There's big parties and everyone wears masks and eats as much as they want. They even name whoever would be silliest as king or queen for a day, like the village idiot or drunk. My uncle was named that in Kirkwall once. He wasn't very happy until everyone started shoving beer in his face.

[He looks amused but also somewhat disgusted as he finishes off his own beer.]

Sounds like a party. [ ... ] Or maybe that's just me. Somehow, I end up at a lot of parties where masks are almost compulsory.

[ almost. ]

I'm not usually a huge fan of masks, but when I was a boy we got to make our own and I always made the fiercest dragon I could muster. One year my mother even made me a cape shaped like wings.

[He grins fondly.]

Of course those things are so much more fun when you're an adult. I still did a dragon mask though.

Maybe it's a bit like Halloween. [ ... ] How's the candy situation during these balls?

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» action foreverrrr

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