thearena | i woke up and he was screaming; open-ish

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i woke up and he was screaming; open-ish

Who| Cullen and cave-mates/others who might be loitering around the caves!
What| Cullen sucks at sleeping. He wanders around a lot instead.
Where| In and around the caves.
When| Early week 2, during and just after the snowfall.
Warnings/Notes| Descriptions of torture, both physical and mental, and some body horror imagery.

(A)

His quarters at Skyhold had been ideally suited for his situation. Not only did they have easy access to both the main keep and the training yard, with arrow slits overlooking the main gate, but the tower was far enough away from the other sleeping quarters for Cullen to have the privacy he so needed - not just for his own peace of mind, but to keep from disturbing anyone else, with his restless nights - and the nightmares.

There's no escaping the dreams, not since he stopped taking lyrium. He sleeps, and they come. Nearly every night, he's back in Kinloch Hold, in the cage they made for him, and the demons return - not true demons, he doesn't think, just shadows of the ones that Uldred summoned, the ones that tormented him for days. Causing him pain in order to make him beg for it to stop. Showing him images of things he wanted but couldn't have, trying to convince him it could all be his if he gave into them. Other images, more horrible, showing him what would happen to those he cared about if he didn't.

And more recently, the dreams are sometimes tinged with red - red lyrium, eating away at him, destroying him from the inside and making him a monster, while the demons watch, offer to take it all away if he'll have them...

If he cries out in his sleep, thrashes and moans, well, that's pretty normal, until he wakes himself, his skin clammy and damp with sweat as he gets up.

(B)

Instead of bothering with sleep, he often scouts near the caves - just to make sure there aren't any approaching threats, inadvertent or no. He collects fresh water from the river, and keeps his knife on him at all times as he trudges through the snow. The dark circles under his eyes indicate his sleepless state - it's not really any better with Adella here, as he now has her to worry about as well. And she without her magic, to boot.

If someone had told him even a few years ago that he would be outraged and upset about a mage being separated from their magic with no ill effects, he would've found it preposterous. And yet, here he is. Not just outraged, but worried, because said mage is his leader - and his lover. He's come a very long way in ten years. Now if only the blasted nightmares would stop.

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Waking to find Cullen missing from the cave isn't something wholly unusual. Adella knows even at her urging he'll only get so much sleep. She ventures out in search of him after getting up. Now that she has a knife sent to her by one of the mentors of her district she's feeling a little less useless, keeping it strapped to a long branch in lieu of a proper mage staff.

It isn't perfect, but it's better than wandering out in potentially dangerous territory unarmed. So long as they don't attack her with arrows, she might actually have a fair chance. It does worry her, not being able to fight at range like she's most comfortable doing.

She's starting to regret not borrowing someone's parka when she sees Cullen by the river and she moves through the snow towards him, a slight smile on her face.

"Decided to go for a walk?"

He glances up at her at the sound of her voice. It's - good, to hear it again. He would never claim to have wanted her here in the first place - this isn't the sort of place one wishes loved ones end up in - but he has to admit to himself that her very presence here, despite the awkwardness it's engendered, has helped his own mental state immeasurably.

He doesn't have to wonder anymore if she's real. If all the things that happened between them were just figments of his fevered, lyrium-addled brain. Or worse.

"Ah, yes," he says, shooting her a slight frown at her underdressed state. It's bloody cold out here. "We'll need more water soon, I thought I'd help out with that."

She ignores the frown, her smile only widening as she closes the distance. She's nothing if not stubborn.

"We could always melt the snow closer to camp, you know," she points out, planting her staff in the snow and leaning on it as she draws to a stop. "It really is a lovely time for a walk. That's why I thought I'd come out here and join you." And not at all because she's worried.

Cullen shakes his head a little. "If this were a real forest, I'd agree with you. But it's not. It was designed - to kill. I've tested this water and know it's drinkable. I'm not ready to risk the snow."

He stands up to get a good look at her, concern creasing his brow. "I didn't wake you, did I?" Because he's pretty sure he's been making noise in his sleep.

"No, I can't even hear you from the respectable distance of across the cave," Not exactly true, but she'd actually woken up because she'd slept longer than she has been. She's always been a fairly light sleeper, so more often than not even someone simply snoring will wake her.

"I woke up and noticed you were gone, so I came out to make sure you were alright."

His lips twitch a little at that. Well, it's awkward, and he's not about to rub their... relationship in the faces of everyone else.

Much as he might want to have a proper reunion, there's simply no privacy in this place.

"I'm fine," he says, and means it, despite everything. In some ways, he's better than he has been since he first arrived.

She doesn't mind the distance or the sleeping arrangements, really. From what she's been learning about the Arena and the people who were supposedly watching them, anything resembling a private moment would likely need to wait.

"Are you sure?" she asks, her lips pressed together as she looks him over. "I think all things considered here, it'd be okay if you aren't."

"It's -"

He rubs a hand over his face. "I didn't want you to be brought here. I'm sorry that you were. But -"

His mouth twists a little as he tries to pull an explanation out - tries to find the right words. He can tell her anything. That's another good thing about her presence here. He can tell her things he can't tell even Cassandra. He may not want to burden her with them, but he can, if he needs to. He trusts no one more than he trusts her.

"Without you, and with the others remembering - different things, it - I wasn't sure what was real."

She'll know the full implications of that, he thinks. In a way no one else does, because no one else knows what was done to him all those years ago.

"Oh, Cullen." She does know what that means and that's echoed on her face. The idea that he's been second-guessing what was real, clearly her, because of this place. If she wasn't sure she wanted to rip the people who invented such a perverse game before she's certainly sure now. Letting out a breath she steps closer, leaving her staff in the snow so she can wrap her arms around him and pull him close.

"I'm sorry you were put through that," again.

It still might not be real. Of course, his entire life after Kinloch might not be real, but at some point he has to accept that it is or go mad.

Besides, her arms around him certainly feel real, and he returns the embrace fiercely.

"Maker, I've missed you," he mutters into her neck.

Cullen wasn't the only one among them who had trouble with sleep, neither in finding it, nor in seeing a night of it through. Maxwell's mind refused to quiet, thoughts turning over and over, as he listened to the sounds of the arena, to the soft sounds of his fellows around him. And even when he could wrest it into silence, what waited for him beyond.... He preferred the arena itself, honestly.

He found some relief in taking watch duty. In at least being able to put his restlessness to some use.

Makeshift bow in hand, he patrolled near their camp, an arrow ready against the string as he trudged through the ever deepening snow - as quiet about it as man his size could.

It makes her heart ache, that he was alone with this for so long. She knows that she has no control over the situation. It doesn't stop her from being frustrated, though. She lets out a huff of air, leaning her head against his.

"You don't need to miss me anymore, I'm here." Maybe not an ideal situation, but if it helps him, she's glad to be here. At least for that reason.

Some part of him hates it - hates that he's come to rely on her so much to anchor him - simply because he sees it as burdening her, and she has enough burdens without him adding to them.

And yet, he can't deny how she makes him feel - not simply that she loves him, but that being with her, he can accomplish anything. He feels as strong and good and whole as she seems to think he is, when she's near.

"And you?" he asks, his hands sliding up and down her back, soothingly. "Are you alright?"

A sudden sound startled him a little, and Cullen shot up, ready for a fight - until he recognized Maxwell. 'Maxwell' he had quickly become, because while he tried to think of him as 'Inquisitor', it just didn't seem to fit right on his tongue. And now, with Adella here, well. It was probably never to be.

"Quiet tonight?" he asked.

"Nothing but the snow, as far as I've seen," Maxwell replied, pressing on through the hard crust until he could pause beside Cullen, happy to a moment to catch his breath. "Though with as deep as it's getting, whether that's of any comfort is debatable."

Reaching up, he brushed white from the top of his head, hair slicking down where melt had dampened it.

"Did I wake you?"

He'd meant to apologize to Cullen, as well, but the man had already been asleep when he returned. So he'd sighed and settled in himself, but was having difficulty sleeping. Not for any nightmares, but more for endless possibilities. Trying to work out exactly what the universe would have to look like in order to have what was happening happen to them. But where usually he would be able to lose himself in books for a day or two while he processed, here there was nothing but the low crackling embers of the fire, and Cullen's slow breathing.

Or at least, it was slow breathing. The man suddenly starting to thrash, moaning. Not new, of course, the last few days he'd barely seen the man sleep, but when he did...

"Commander--" He started, only to notice the man was already waking up.

"No," she replies honestly, staring out over the river. One hand shifts around him so she can slide it over the back of his neck, her grip on him no less tight. She's usually very good at making light of things, avoiding being serious when she knows it'll help cut tension. He's still the only person she ever admitted to how terrified she was of being the Inquisitor.

"Several of my closest friends don't know me, barely seem to trust me, and there's another Inquisitor with my brother's name but a stranger's face. Not to mention, these people, who made this thing, expect us to kill each other." She's been thinking about that particular detail often. She can fight to survive, but she can't fight the people she loves. They're the reason she survives.

The question almost startled him - enough to get a faint sort of laugh out of him, anyway. "Ah, no, not at all," he said, clutching the parka around himself closer. "I can assure you, I was already awake when you left."

Sometimes Sandy can't sleep in the arena.

It's not surprising given how prone to nightmares many of the tributes can be. She's taken to drugging herself to sleep back in the Capitol so the transition to having to sleep on her own is not always easy. As such it's dark out and she's creeping around the caves trying to find shelter from the cold.

Phil's tent and extra body heat was appreciated in the first week but Sandy's always had a hard time sticking close to people for long in the arena without wandering off to find supplies. Pruna and Shepard were the only two people she could count on to stick around for long anyway and both of them had died in the first day.

And so we find the scruffy young girl skulking around the caves when she hears a moaning from inside one. Against her better judgement she slips inside to see if the sound is from someone who needs help.

Not that she's decided if she'll help or not. It could be just as likely it's someone dying who has supplies she can steal.

It took him a moment to regain his bearings - it always did, frankly. He had to breathe in, look around him, place himself in the present and drag his mind from the cage in which it was trapped during his nightmares.

Right. The cave. The arena. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced around, spotting Dorian nearby.

"Sorry if I bothered you," he muttered, preparing to stand and stretch.

Frankly, he can't imagine how difficult it must be for her - for Maxwell, too, of course. He knows how awkward it can be, speaking with Maxwell - knowing he is the Inquisitor, at least in some version of reality, but also utterly lacking the history and experiences with him that he and Adella have.

To have it reversed, to have the people he's come to know all unable to recognize him, well. He holds her a little closer.

"You have me," he promises. He could never not recognize her. She could never be a stranger to him again.

"And we're not going to kill each other," he adds quietly. "They can put us in here, but they can't make us do that." They still have free will, for what it's worth.

He'd doubted it, but he was trying to be polite. As with Cassandra, as with Dorian, Maxwell was aware that the things he knew about Cullen -- would likely make the man uncomfortable. Especially now.

So he thought it might be better to frame his concern idly.

"It is my watch, isn't it?" he asked. "I'm sure I can manage for an hour or two, Cullen."

He was sitting up, back against the cave wall, some loose leaves in his hands, marked with charcoal. Trying to figure out how many days had passed and how many supplies they'd used, since he'd had nothing to do in the meantime, and sleep wouldn't come.

"You didn't," he assured him. He paused, as if about to ask, but it was hardly as if he'd never had nightmares himself, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know. So instead, like always, instead of talking about feelings, let's talk about curtains.

"I've been trying to tally up our stores. They aren't as bad as you'd think they are. Apparently we have friends, back in the capitol."

As he wakes, he has to reorient himself - it always takes him a while after one of the bad nightmares. If he were in Skyhold, with Adella in his arms, it would've been easier - but this place is still quite alien and hostile, not a place he's comfortable with, and so he's still tense as he glances around -

And spots a figure in the cave, too small to be one of his companions. How anyone or anything got past whoever is on watch, he can't imagine, but his knife is out in an instant.

"Lay a hand on anyone or anything, and you will die," he warns, his voice low, his breath still a little shallow. To be jostled from a nightmare into a situation with an intruder in their camp has left him tense and poised for violence.

"I've no interest in relieving you, or in questioning your ability," Cullen says. "I just needed some air."

Cold air, but air nonetheless. It's sharp in his lungs and reminds him that he's alive, even if it's not quite the fresh mountain air of Skyhold. It could be worse. Things could always be worse.

He's experienced them.

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i woke up and he was screaming; open-ish

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B as well because fight me (please don't, sob)

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a because what a good

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A: Hope you don't mind her

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