I’m a veteran of things I don’t want to be

[inquisitor_lavellan]

When: Pre-RP game, back on Alley's world.
Warnings: Torture... for medical purposes.
Who: Cole, Alleyana, (NPC) The Iron Bull, (NPC) Varric Tethras

The Iron Bull was the only one available who both wouldn't flinch, and had the brute strength to make a clean break with the ball-pin hammer in his hand. He held Alleyana's wrist down against the table with one huge hand and whenever the healers told him to, he'd strike where they told him and snap a bone.

In between, the bone would be straightened, sorted out, and Varric would hold a vial of elfroot potion to Alley's lips for her to drink. Not for the bone; the healers had to tend that, but for the flesh that had been crushed between skin and bone.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, unbidden, and she buried her face in Varric's shoulder in between rounds of potion, trying to hide the reaction and muffle any sounds that tore their way free.

For his own part, Varric had grown progressively paler, and his hand shook when he lifted the latest vial of elfroot. "Are you sure we need to do the whole hand in one day?" he asked, queasy.

Comments

[hugs_for_nugs]

As was typical for his entrances, Cole was suddenly there. Watching, observing, soaking in the thoughts and feelings in the room. There was so much, it cluttered his mind. The Iron Bull tried to think of little, least of all the pain he caused a friend with the too-small hammer in his hand.

The Inquisitor was bright, always bright, but now sharp. Bright, blinding, breaking, bleeding and then there was another crack that drew Cole out from his dark corner. A healer, a delicate human mage with a pinched face, jumped as he revealed himself.

"Why must he do that? It's unnatural. Demons lurk on the edges, waiting, watching, wanting my fear." The healer went pale and Cole snapped his attention to Varric, barely aware that he'd spoken aloud.

"This all troubles you too much," he muttered in Varric's direction. "You've seen this pain too many times. It doesn't get any easier, too much too much."

[inquisitor_lavellan]

Alleyana took a few shuddering breaths and then used her stump of a left arm to nudge Varric away. "It's alright, I'll be fine."

She'd been tortured before, especially her hands. Skin peeled away, nails driven through them... at least this pain had a purpose. If she was only going to have one hand, it needed to be as functional as they could get it to be. She needed to be functional.

"Kid, you take over," Varric didn't like retreating, but he couldn't argue with Cole's read on him.

[hugs_for_nugs]

No one could see, with the hat in the way, but his eyes narrowed as fleeting memories of the torture burned somewhere in her mind. The pain of the present was sharper than the pain of the past right now, and it was terribly sharp. He felt a ghost of that pain across his skin. His hand twinged at the thought.

Cole sat down where Varric had been, his posture stiff and awkward, like he'd never sat in a chair before. His hands twisted, turned, and twitched in his lap. One of the elfroot potions lay against his leg where he could grab it without nudging a healer. No one had seen him grab it.

He didn't reach for her or try to touch, but he bent low, close so that his words would be hard to hear for any but her.

"I am here, if it helps."

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"It does," Alley managed before there was another crack! and she held her breath so she wouldn't scream. Her vision was starting to tunnel, a bit, and the tears hadn't stopped. She hated that part most of all; the tears. Hated them being seen, although they were as natural at this level of pain as a heartbeat -- and she knew that, too, from experience.

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole dutifully offered the vial of elfroot, as he'd seen Varric do. It wouldn't do much for the pain, not while surgeons and mages fitted bones into place. He could feel their tension, their worries over doing this all perfectly. This wasn't any old soldier's hand, this was the Inquisitor's hand they looked down with faces stoic from long years of practice.

"The healing goes well. Bones fit neatly into place. Not perfect, it's not perfect but it will work." If the healers heard him, they ignored him. They were focused, fixated on the task. It was their thoughts he repeated to her.

"It is good you trust enough of us to heal and help, to let others see your tears."

He spoke to give her something to focus on that wasn't the pain.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

Alleyana drank the vial, relying on Cole to tip it for her. She didn't have a hand, currently, to do it with. "I don't want anyone seeing shit," even her voice was shaky, if not as rough as it used to be. Years of drinking elfroot -- and her foul tea -- had soothed the damage there.

Bull had offered to get her plastered before doing this, of course. She'd turned him down; she needed her wits about her just to not struggle and fight.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"I know," Cole said softly as he took the vial back. "You wish us to not witness such weakness, I know."

His voice dropped, suddenly serious instead of airy. "It takes trust to take, to touch your hand without soft leather between you and them. A trust those who aid you now do not have."

"I'm sorry," he said, voice now soft again. The healers hadn't heard. Good, he did not want them too. He could not distract them now.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"Yeah," Alley hissed in a sharp breath through her teeth as bone was grated against bone, being set carefully into place. "Am I easier to read, now? Without the--" crack! It took all her considerable will to not try to jerk her hand out of Bull's grasp. Not that it would have worked, anyway. "...Anchor..."

Her vision was definitely tunneling. The Inquisitor reached out with her stump of an arm, curling the scant few inches of elbow she had left around Cole's nearest arm.

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole was unused to touching others, even light touches. He kept his distance unless there was a need to stab someone in the kidney. So the hand he put on her upper arm was awkward and stiff like the rest of him. Still, this might help, even if only a little.

"Yes. You are still bright but not as much anymore. I have to look carefully, closely, to see much, but there is more there to see." He did now to have reason to speak.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"I don't mind you knowing me," Alleyana said, while there was a moment where the healers worked to mend bones already set. "I like being understood by someone I trust."

She was too flat, too sharp, too dangerous, too quiet, too observant... she unsettled so many people. Understanding was a rare thing for the Inquisitor, outside of the inner circle. And even then, sometimes...

Sometimes.

As for his awkward touch, Alley had long ago noticed he touched people about as often as she did. Was it for his own sake, or theirs? She was about to ask when a finger snapped under the small hammer and she pitched forward to muffle the scream it ripped loose into Cole's shoulder.

[hugs_for_nugs]

Increasingly frantic suggestions of how to ease her pain through this ordeal rose and were discarded before he said them. Each would be ineffective or unwanted. She wouldn't accept unconsciousness or something more than the elfroot potion. The Iron Bull wished she had accepted the drinks. He was steady and calm, but he wished she had accepted the drinks.

"Drink when you can," Cole said, his distress at her pain clear in his voice. He wasn't about to leave however, she needed him. He could stand this, better than Varric could. He would be there to help her with the pain, even if only a small amount.

He held the elfroot potion up to her, ready for when she could move her head again and drink.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

Alley didn't even mean to, but her stumpy left arm came down against Cole's side, the elbow tucking behind the spirit in as close to a cling as she could manage. Cole was solid; was there. It helped.

She sucked in a breath and then lifted her tear-smeared face to drink from the vial, expression twisted with something mixed between agony and battle-rage. Pain made her want to lash out, which was why she couldn't take those drinks Bull had offered.

"Sorry," she set her head back down against Cole's shoulder once the vial was empty, "I know you're not a toucher. Shit, fingers are the worst."

And they'd been shattered so many times she couldn't even grip a quill.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"It's fine. It helps you. I am here." Cole was still stiff, he didn't know how not to be. Whatever he felt about the half embrace, it didn't matter, it helped her. His awkwardness wasn't the concern.

"They've been hurt too much before. Broken, beaten, the smell of blood and it's hard to think through the pain. They didn't want you to leave, so they took your hands." Cole fell silent a moment, her sour memory playing itself in fragments through his mind. He already knew this one but it was hard to avoid now, while again her hands were smashed and reformed.

"I hope... You will be happy when they are healed. Helpful, holding without tremors. I hope."

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"I hope so too," Alley shuddered; the pain had spread through-out her whole body many breaks ago, but fingers really were the worst. "I have to stop him."

How having her hand as close to normal as possible was going to help with that, even she wasn't sure. But she knew she couldn't afford to do things with a single, half-functioning hand. It was a weakness she should have corrected years ago, on both of them, but she'd been a coward.

She couldn't afford to be one anymore. Solas had to be stopped... and saved.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"We will stop him, help him, he needs the help. You need the help." Cole's voice was high and crackling with his concern. He cared so sharply for her and for their friend that threw himself head on into his own destruction. And the destruction of so much more.

"I will help, always," he went on, voice barely audible.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"I know you will," Alley said against Cole's shoulder. "Thank you--"

She was cut off by another crack of a finger, and she muffled another scream into the quilted padding over his shoulder.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"I'm here, I'm here," Cole muttered, wishing he could do more. Wishing this could go faster but no that wouldn't work either. His stomach squirmed, her screams muffled but still so sharp.

"You need rest, lots of rest, after this. They worry you won't." The human mage looked over at him briefly and sighed. Cole was, as always, spot on about their concerns.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"No rest for the wicked," Alleyana quoted, muffled, nearly delirious from the pain.

She didn't like to rest, after she'd lost her arm. Sometimes she saw Solas, and didn't want to wake up. And that just made her not want to sleep, because she had to save him.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"It's- it's a struggle to sleep but you must." When it came to this and who haunted her dreams, Cole's answers never seemed right. They didn't fit, they didn't heal. He wanted them to help but there was always another hurt waiting to take over whenever he helped ease one.

"I will find a way to help," he said in a sad whisper. She could barely think now, what he said could help little.

[inquisitor_lavellan]

"Okay," it was all Alley could think to say, before another bone was broken. This time, her narrowing vision closed in on her, and she fell into the darkness.

[hugs_for_nugs]

And slumped against Cole, who was not the steadiest of supports. The healers weren't surprised, they expected this eventually. Impressed, they were impressed she went that long. It would easier, now, while she was unconscious, to finish this.

Cole would stay and hold her in place. He could help like this.