veilward | THIS THE EMMROOK VARIETY HOUR NOW

He follows Rook down, wishing the man would be able to settle but also understanding that being stuck in a place wouldn't make someone inclined to do so. Especially when stuck alone. Emmrich had fought a long, difficult battle against despair, so it's little surprise Rook too is struggling.

Despite how much he wants to sink onto the bed, Emmrich leans against the wall. He might fall asleep if he was to sit there alone and Rook needs company. Rook needs an ear, at the least, and that, thankfully, is something he can give.

"We are all of us changed by the events we go through." The nature of regret is not something he's prepared to delve into, but he'll do his best. "Problems arise when we dwell on and in those regrets instead of moving forward. I suppose they are a cage. What's important is working through them, facing them. Will you let me help you?"

It would be so nice to dig his fingers into the tension he could see in Rook's back and ease it away, but he didn't think that wanted right now.

"When those mistakes just feel repeated, repeated, and repeated, any lesson about loss or how we change from it just...gets lost in the background," Rook said with his head hung low and his weight leaning hard on the side of the dresser.

Despair only scratched the surface of his immeasurable disappointment in himself and where his choices had led him. A wry, hollow laugh was squeezed out of him when he thought back to the time he had just thought this entire thing was a simple one-off job to keep him out from under the ire of the Warden's upper echelon. A favor to Varric was how this was going to start and end, it seemed.

"Sure, I—" Rook looked back over his shoulder at Emmrich and couldn't muster anything else to say when he was coming apart at the seams, "Just...sure, yes."

The laugh is terrifying. It suggests that Rook is barely holding on and Emmrich worries. He pushes off the wall and comes over, choosing to try physical contact again. Emmrich starts at his love's shoulders, pushing his thumbs into the worst of the many, many knots he could instantly feel.

"I can't think of mistakes you've been repeating. What is it that weighs heaviest?"

If they lose Rook now, if he loses Rook now... No. He can't think like that.

"That I just can't seem to stop losing people," Rook admits at the end of an exhale that rattles in his chest and comes out brittle.

This wasn't just about Harding and Bellara, but every decision leading up to the cost of his leadership coming to roost. Rook turns around and finds himself in Emmrich's arms. As sweet a gesture as it was for him to try and work the tension out of his aching shoulders, that wasn't what he wanted—needed.

Rook presses his brow to Emmrich's shoulder and just holds him, not tight but with a loose winding of his arms around the taller man's waist. Rook is still, then, save for the sound of his breathing with a conscious in-and-out rhythm in an effort to self-soothe.

Emmrich holds Rook back, arms around his love's shoulders.

"We're fighting gods, love." His voice is hushed. "And it's not that you're repeating mistakes. We're learning, and adapting, and doing better. And it's little consolation with with Harding, I know. There's still a chance of finding Bellara, as well, or so Davrin believes."

Both Rook and Davrin are Grey Wardens, but Davrin's the one that's been able to search for signs and who isn't currently falling apart.

"We have killed two gods. Two gods. And the two remaining are likely to fight each other, and thus be incredibly weakened." It is unfortunate, incredibly unfortunate, that it seems like Solas will be their foe as well. "You are accomplishing more than could have been imagined when they broke free."

Rook stiffened at the mention of Bellara. He allowed himself the faint hope that they would indeed rescue her, but the gravity of the situation weighed heavily on him. The likelihood that she had been exposed to the Blight went unspoken, but it would be best to discuss it with Davrin when he had the chance. He didn't want to tell Emmrich, the girl he had been mentoring, that her only salvation would be in the Joining if it came to that.

"You're right," Rook agreed as he went slack in Emmrich's arms. "You always are."

They held each other a moment longer before Rook moved back just enough to take the other man in. Emmrich's face was drawn and he didn't look like he shaved in a day or so. Between the dark circles under his eyes and the slight rumple in his clothes, he doubted the man had even slept recently.

"Emmrich, how are you? Really, we're all fretting over me, but you hadn't even told me how you're holding up."

"I'm fine," Emmrich lied. It had been more than a few days since he last shaved, and the last time he'd slept had been an accidental hour-long nap on the stone floor of the laboratory yesterday, or maybe the day before that. It was a blur. Johanna had even taken pity on him and not been the reason he'd woken up, even if she'd mocked him for getting so attached when he had roused.

"I'm just glad you're back." If he'd been held a little longer he might have fallen asleep there. The fear that this is a trick and he hasn't actually rescued Rook is abating, leaving room for bone-deep tiredness to make itself known.

He blinked, a slow, exhausted motion, and wondered if he would actually be able to make the few steps to the bed on his own or if he'd collapse. It was probably best not to try, really. He could use Rook as an anchor to keep him from falling over as long as possible.

"Your voice goes down a pitch when you lie," Rook pointed out with a sort of gentleness that wasn't accusatory but merely stating a fact and laced with concern.

Emmrich was not going to be winning any games of Wicked Grace anytime soon; he was far too honest a soul whose heart was proudly worn on his sleeve. "And I love that about you when you aren't trying to convince me you're fine."

Taking a step back, Rook kept his hands on Emmrich's arms as though in anticipation of the exhaustion coming off the older man in a wave to knock him over. Eventually, fingers wind through Emmrich's, and Rook takes another step back, followed by another. He could navigate this room blind and was slowly trying to lead Emmrich to the edge of the bed they had shared on so many nights.

"And I'm not going anywhere — not until we're ready."

He simply doesn't have the energy to argue, or even start to form a counterpoint. His reserves are gone. Not even as a student had he gotten to this point, and when Rook's support lessens Emmrich sways. Apparently all adrenaline has abandoned him.

Taking the first step to follow Rook is surprisingly challenging, but thankfully the second and additional steps are automatic.

"I need you to not go anywhere," he admits. They reach the edge of the bed and Emmrich surrenders, sitting down gracelessly. Things were getting fuzzy now but at least he knew Rook was here.

Rook can see whatever last dregs of stubborn energy had been keeping Emmrich on his feet start to bleed out of him. He doesn't want to coddle the man, but neither does he want him dropping on the floor. From the way Emmrich stretched himself so thin and was so frayed at the edges it was a miracle he held himself together so long. Knowing it had all been over him made Rook's heart sink and swell at the same time.

Already out of his armor and most of his clothes, Rook could have slept for a week then and there. Only instead, he bent down and started to undo the laces of Emmrich's boots with a quick proficiency that wouldn't brook an argument if Emmrich protested. Boots tossed to some corner of the darkening room, Rook rose and settled beside Emmrich, the mattress dipping under the added weight. Reaching out, Rook cupped Emmrich's face, feeling the roughness of untended stubble and dry, dehydrated skin as he ran a thumb over a high cheekbone.

"There's nowhere I'd rather be," Rook said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

He exhaled heavily, touched, when Rook took care of shoes he knew he didn't have the ability to deal with himself. His love, his caring, precious love, was back and only now can Emmrich admit to himself that his greatest fear wasn't that the war against the gods was lost, but that Rook had been lost for good.

He didn't know what he would have done if he'd failed.

Even at his strongest Emmrich couldn't resist leaning into Rook and so he still doesn't. The warm hands on his face make him start to feel grounded again, but the look in Rook's eyes spark enough fear that the daze is pushed back a little.

"What's wrong? What else?" Is there something else urgent that has slipped his attention? He lead classrooms and lectures, not teams.

When Emmrich leaned against him, Rook noted that the other man felt thinner. This close to him, Emmrich seemed fragile, brittle like a sheet of ice that could splinter apart in his hand. Again, this was another reminder that what had seemed mere hours to Rook inside the Fade had been weeks for everyone else.

"I'll be alright, Emmrich," Rook assured him as he moved up the bed and guided Emmrich to lay beside him with Rook. Pulling him close until half his own weight as ontop of Emmrich with a gentle pressure he knew the other liked. "Just...taking it all in, I suppose."

Emmrich moves with uncharacteristic clumsiness up to the pillow as he tries to fight the physical needs of his body. There's not just something wrong, there's something wrong with Rook and he wants to be supportive.

"Talk to me," he murmurs. Rook's weight settles partly on him then, though, which is Emmrich's greatest comfort. Emmrich loses the battle. His eyes close despite himself and he falls asleep before even managing to wrap his arms around Rook like usual.

His sleep is far deeper than usual to the point that even if Rook comes and goes in the next few hours, he doesn't notice. Several hours pass, in fact, until finally Emmrich starts to stir.

To see Emmrich in such a state where all sense of refinement he associated with the man troubled Rook immensely. He had suspected things would have been fraught in the weeks the team had worked to get him out of the Fade, but Emmrich had clearly worked himself to the bone in his absence. Knowing that touched him, but it also twisted his insides into painfully tight knots to know he had that kind of sway on another person.

— Love was a tremendous thing but perilously frightening, and Rook was beginning to understand that now. Just as he knew to the marrow that if their circumstances were reversed, he would have done the same.

Rook didn't feel his time in the Fade until his head hit the pillow and even that rest had been shallow and fitfully short. He wakes several times from restless dreams of grey voids and mocking voices. Each time, he would get up and walk around the room until his mind settled a bit, only for the dreams to repeat, and he would be up again, drenched in a cold sweat with every joint in his body tense and rigid.

By the time Emmrich had started to rouse himself awake, Rook had been up stretching his legs for the last hour or so. Before Emmrich was fully awake, Rook drifted back to the bed. He rolled on the featherdown beside Emmrich, laid behind him, and pulled him into his arms.

"Manfred brought your shaving kit," Rook murmured after kissing Emmrich on the nape of his neck behind his ear. "There's breakfast on the nightstand and fresh clothes on the chair. You've lost weight."

He had, for once, not dreamed. It was extremely disquieting to realize that upon waking, but all of his unease faded away when he registered Rook's arms around him. He was held again. Rook was back and holding him and Emmrich melted into his beloved.

And then Rook kissed him and reminded him how very much he was treasured. Emmrich made a quiet, happy noise. All of that sounded good (except the weight thing) but he truly didn't want to leave Rook's arms.

"Surely not. There wasn't anything to lose." It wasn't pride talking. He simply knew what was healthy and not for an adult human male, and knew he'd been on the lower edge of that already. Plus the others certainly would have fussed if he was losing weight... except it was possible they had and he hadn't noticed. There was a lot of haze over his memories of the past couple of weeks, and he could feel that he was still deeply in sleep debt.

But he couldn't just lay here. Emmrich sighed. "How do you feel about eating in bed?" It was one thing he tried to never do save when very ill; crumbs in bed were a awful concept and an even worse reality. But he still felt so drained, and there was something in the back of his mind saying he needed to try to remember what was happening just before he fell asleep. Getting up and bustling about wouldn't help with that.

"Emmrich..." Rook started with his tone on the verge of someone ready to deliver a chastisement, but instead, he held the man a little tighter and spoke softer, hand gently running up and down Emmrich's narrow waist. "You've lost some muscle definition, I can tell."

Nuzzled close with Emmrich's back to his chest, Rook nosed at the short, fine hairs on the back of the older man's neck. His hair had gotten a little longer, too, Rook noted; he hadn't even pressed it back in his usual style. His skin was cool but carried the cloying smell of sweat from being in bed too long. Staying in bed might not be the best idea, but Rook had no intent on arguing.

"It's porridge and berries; I don't think it should be an issue," Rook said as he made no effort to loosen his grasp on Emmrich as if he was afraid he would vanish into the ether. "Tea, too. You like that Antivan blend, don't you?"

He braced for a deserved scolding that he has no real defense against and it didn't come. Instead Rook held him and touched him further, offering comfort that Emmrich sorely needed. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed it until just now, now that he's on the verge of shaking with the deep knowledge of how much he could have lost to Solas.

"I do like it," was all he said, not budging either. There was a battle ahead of him but Emmrich couldn't face anything just yet. He'd already come too close to being without Rook, and a full assault on Elgar'nan and Solas promised even greater losses. Manfred had died and come back, but that was no possibility with Rook.

Emmrich was scared.

A dim memory from earlier today surfaced and he clung to it as if it could keep them safely here, locked away from the world.

"You were concerned about something before I drifted off. What is it?" That was a far better topic than how he'd neglected taking care of himself. Probably. Maybe. Unless it stressed Rook out and they had to get up.

"I have a lot to be concerned about," Rook answered in a clear deflection, but there was no bite to his words. They were both drained and running on fumes. "Like I said earlier — just taking it all in."

Propped up on an elbow, Rook moved to tuck a lock of hair that had been mussed out of place behind Emmrich's ear. Soft and greying with just a hint of the darker shade it once was at the temples. Sometimes, Rook wondered if he would ever live long enough to turn grey or if he would prematurely when the Blight coursing through his veins finally caught up to him.

"I'd like to see Nevarra when this is all over," Rook said unbidden like an outward thought. "The parts above ground, I mean."

He didn't know if he should push. The last time they'd talked at the Lighthouse he'd caused an argument and then worried that he'd lost Rook without the opportunity to fix things, without the opportunity to make sure Rook knew how much he meant to Emmrich.

"I want to show you my homeland." Imagine, getting through all of this and being free to show Rook around. The thought is so beautiful it's almost painful. He could take Rook to the places he'd haunted as a child and as a student, the old watering holes, the markets, the site where once his father's butcher shop stood.

He twisted a little, enough so he could look up at Rook. Emmrich reached up to touch his love's face, the lightest brush of fingers against cheek.

"If there's anything left on your mind, anything you'd like to say, please share, Rook. We're in this together." He is devoted, heart and soul, to this man. He wants to share in Rook's fears and his joys. And he wants to never leave Rook's arms.

There was something heartening in the way Emmirch lit up after weeks of burning the candle at both ends, working at the thankless task of bringing Rook back from the brink. A bit of the man he fell in love with was stirring beyond all the exhaustion and uncertainty that had plagued them since Tearstone. It was only a spark of hope, but it was there, and it was a balm to Rook to know it hadn't been snuffed out.

— He just wished that this small moment of peace could have lasted a while longer before reality settled back over them like a shroud.

Rook frowned as his hand covered Emmrich's, holding it as he sat up. That distancing silent front he hid behind whenever his inner turmoil was up for discussion went up like a shield. Only briefly, but Rook needed to retreat into his own head if just to screw it back on straight. This is what he had been dreading because the moment he said it, the truth he'd been ignoring would be undeniable then.

"Solas..." Rook began, winding his fingers through Emmrich's as a tether. "Did more than trap me in the Fade. Since we discovered the Lighthouse, in fact. He...he did something to my mind and I believe it may have been blood magic."

He didn't quite have the willpower to sit up yet, as warm and heavy as he was, but he did roll over the rest of his way to his back so he could watch Rook's face as his love spoke.

"We theorized there was such a connection, with how he was able to speak with you. He said something along those lines, if I recall what I was told when I joined up correctly. Is there more to it?"

There must be, with Rook withdrawing like that. There's something big that's weighing on Rook's mind, and it's related to blood magic which worries Emmrich. At least they have Neve, who is familiar with fighting it. He has nearly no experience.

"Yes," Rook admitted, though the words came slowly as he grappled with their weight and his caution around them.

Once, having the opportunity to speak with Solas had been a strange sort of comfort. To have one god at his back when facing down two made the impossible feel likely. It had even assuaged some of the guilt he carried for their escape being the result of his own inaction at the ritual site. That was before the rug had been ripped out from under his feet the moment he tore that dagger from Ghilan'nain's chest.

"He convinced me Varric was alive all these months," Rook worried his lower lip as he spoke and stared into some middle distance or darkened corner of the room. "All this time when I would go into the infirmary and talk to my own hallucinations — Neve and Harding must have thought I was grieving, but it was real to me. Instead I was just seeking advice from dust and shadows while you all must have believed I was losing my mind."

He stares for several moments, far too long, processing that. All this time he'd thought Rook didn't talk about his mentor because it hurt too much, all the time he'd thought Rook simply went in there to speak to the cot like many did graves, and Rook hadn't known. What else could Solas have done? What else could Solas still do?

And did that mean Solas already knew Rook was free?

There were too many dangers. He needed to get Rook to the Necropolis. There were tools there, enchantments and spells, meant to detect and disrupt control, but he couldn't tell Rook as much beforehand. Not if Solas could still interfere. Which meant Emmrich needed to not suggest it right away despite how badly he wanted his love free now. ...it also wasn't like either of them were in any shape to go to the Necropolis right at this moment. Emmrich wasn't sure he could make it halfway through the Crossroads without passing out.

"I didn't think you were losing your mind," he said, voice gentle. Emmrich squeezed Rook's hand. "I see people go to graves to talk to people they've lost all the time, and thought that the Infirmary was serving that purpose for you. Grief is a complicated, tangled thing, and I don't think anyone was shaken in their faith in you when you would go in there. I... I did wonder why you never spoke of your mentor, though."

There. Encouraging, entirely meant, and it meant he could come at the urgent thing sideways.

"When we've eaten, rested a little more, and cleaned up, I think we should go to the Necropolis again. It can give you a little space away from here, and you can see that I mean it, that people go there to mourn." He hated hiding something from Rook, but this was a need. A horrifyingly important need, both for their chances to win, and for him to know that Rook had for certain wanted him and hadn't been unwillingly manipulated into being the greatest distraction Emmrich had ever encountered.

The silence that followed was deafening. Rook could tell the gears in Emmrich's mind were working overtime, and at first, Rook assumed the worst. Either Emmrich really did think Rook was cracked in the head or that this cast doubt on his leadership. Blood magic would make him a liability, one they couldn't afford this close to a confrontation with Elgar'nan.

— He didn't know which was worse: Being seen as crazy or a failure.

Rook braced himself for whatever outcome, save for the one that actually happened. He flinched when Emmrich squeezed his hand only to visibly start to let his guard down when the man laid at least one fear to rest. So to speak.

"I don't blame you for assuming I was hiding away with this," Rook managed a reticent grin because he could admit to his shortcomings. "You've always had to drag the truth out of me when I get inside my head."

Emmrich had been only ever patient with Rook when he brushed aside concerns over his well-being or when any conversation veered too far into the territory of his past. Of course, the man was going to assume Rook was merely being evasive and obstinate again. The shame he felt that he didn't have time to settle before Emmrich suggested they leave for the Necropolis soon.

"What?" Rook blinked, giving Emmrich a perplexed look. "Why would we risk going back to the Necropolis? I appreciate the gesture, really Emmrich I do, but this is hardly the time."

Maker, he wished he could lie well. Emmrich couldn't risk alerting Solas to the possibility of losing control if Solas still had it. The only thing to do was tell the truth but not the whole truth, and apologize with his whole heart later.

"After Weisshaupt, we as a team took care of unfinished business to get our heads on straight, but you didn't. You didn't seem to think you had something to settle. Now we know differently. We cannot risk going forward, you cannot risk going forward, with that hanging over your head. Not when we'll be facing Solas along with Elgar'nan."

Somehow he summoned up the strength to sit up, though oh, did his whole body hate him for it. Rook might say he'd lost weight, but Emmrich felt incredibly heavy.

"Please come with me, Rook. I believe it's important."

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