The corners of his eyes crinkle, somewhere between a smile and a little pained; so many years removed from shoveling manure on the farm, he had become clean and tidy and meticulous (and, yes, a little spoiled). But that fastidiousness took a hit in Thedas, and Seattle has been even worse: everyone has dirt under their fingernails, everyone’s hair is getting greasy and lank, their clothes are a horror, and he has to eat with his hands. So. He rolls with it.

Strange accepts the can and takes a seat on the frame of something which had once been an armchair, the cushions now gone, relocated to those sleeping nests in the back. “Thanks. Zombies really aren’t in my skillset.” Pop culture keeps creeping in, so he adds after a moment: “Do you even call them zombies? Or are they just ‘infected’?”

Even now, an incorrigible part of him feels that kick whenever they come across another one of those shambling, sobbing wrecks: he wishes he could crack open those skulls, peer through a compound microscope, see what the fuck is going on in that diseased brain tissue. But in their passing through abandoned houses, Strange has rifled through enough scattered notes and letters and disintegrating newspaper clippings to start to understand: there hadn’t been time. There wouldn’t have been time, before everything fell apart.