faderift | closed | take my lungs, take them and run.

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closed | take my lungs, take them and run.

WHO: Stephen Strange & Viktor
WHAT: A visit to a potential benefactor goes a little awry.
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Hightown, Kirkwall
NOTES: Chronic illness things.

After the exposition last year, and after Halamshiral, Riftwatch have gathered some cultural cachet. Enough that they have a few fans in the higher echelons of Kirkwall society, who’ll listen to them and chip into the latest rifter lunacy. So they’ve brought along some of their more portable inventions, offering a practical demonstration while visiting Marcher nobility, a certain eccentric Lord Abel in Hightown.

At least it’s a shorter trip, for Viktor: not out of town, just up those elevators to this other world (the Piltover to Lowtown’s Zaun—), a place of luncheons and champagne and white tablecloths. A ‘salon’, they call it, gathering interesting people in one room. Strange was more excited until he realised the variety, and that it is not, in fact, just Research: someone here is a particularly good violinist; another has a trained nug in a tutu who does tricks, or something. Humiliating to be presented alongside Princess the Nug, but if it’s a spectacle which means trade agreements which might mean rare materials, then hell. He’s game.

He’s been trying to coax Viktor out of his shell by letting him cover the practicalities and the inventions, while Strange schmoozes the nobles themselves. Sometimes this is their division: prying themselves out of the workroom, plastering on a smile, greasing palms, cranking up the charm. People listen to you and fund you if they like you. Stephen’s no Tony, neither of them are, but they’ll try.

But it’s been a long day. After lunch, their group has been offered a tour of this Hightown manor, and the day is wearing thin. Some of the other visitors are Antivans, boisterous and a little wine-happy, chattering about some large portrait adorning the hall while the rifters huddle by a sideboard. Strange is nibbling on one of the canapés and their hosts have temporarily stepped aside when there’s—

a wavering next to him, Viktor looking even paler than usual.

“Hey, you good?” Strange asks, shooting him a sidelong look. Maybe it was the shellfish.

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Viktor comes loose, staggers and goes down, and even lightheaded he knows how to fall, keeps his head off the tile, doesn't land on his wrists. It's still noisy, crutch clattering, leg brace too. Still punches a thin grunt from his chest. (Time to reset that counter to zero.)

He's light inside, tight and impatient, weightless and heavy. Stephen starts to pull before his sluggish limbs have processed the plan; he catches up a second after and contributes trembling effort. He feels smaller than he looks, his arm, the bones of his shoulder. His torso encased in stiff layers under the clothes. Wet wheezing. More coughing once he's up.

They leave a little of him behind, smeared underfoot.

Getting him to the chaise is a limping, dragging affair. On arrival he does not collapse there, but directs his body to sit, and the quiet strain of it thins his mouth, red in the seam. The moment his feet are free of weight and the helpful hands are off him is— not a great relief. But there is some.

Once Viktor is seated, the first thing Stephen does is— the crisp flick of a hand, a burst of telekinetic magical energy heavy in the air to whisk the door shut behind them, ensuring some further privacy. You don’t need fine and careful control to shove a door closed.

And then he stands there, sizing up what he can see of the wiltering other man, his gaze clinical and assessing.

He doesn’t know the actual diagnosis, but Viktor’s always been delicate, uses that leg brace and crutch, has needed Fred’s assistance occasionally, and has a certain anemic quality to him. But Stephen’s mouth is pursing, upon realising that…

“You never came to my office hours,” he says, only vaguely accusatory. “I asked for people with chronic conditions to come see me. I was updating everyone’s medical files, to record all the pertinent information necessary for care, but I don’t recall you ever stopping by.”

Viktor hasn't looked directly at the doctor since his— his outburst— began, and being accused (vaguely) of things he's done, or in this case neglected to do, does not inspire him to start.

"There should be some record of," of the thing he never specified, even on the few occasions he was treated. He was never privy to Dickerson's note-keeping habits and so can't attest to the quality of any such notes—nor even their existence. No, it's a pointless sentence, so he lets it trail off, wipes his face now that he's still enough to think about doing so.

From behind the doctor's handkerchief, "You needn't stay." A look at the cloth tells him his nose is dry this time. "It should pass soon."

That accusation sharpens into pointed annoyance. “I am quite literally obligated to stay,” Stephen says, almost hissing, to keep from getting louder and the others in the building hearing a raised voice. “Doctor. Head Healer. That’s my job. I swore an oath,” and there’s a building passion in his voice which doesn’t typically come out when he’s being breezy and flippant about even his most favourite esoteric, horrifying magic.

Maybe getting irritated at his patient slash colleague slash friend(??) isn’t exactly his best look but, well, it is one way to cope. He shakes out his sleeves and then sits down on the chaise beside Viktor, levelling out their heights so he isn’t looming over him like a particularly angry gothic bat any longer.

A flat request, data-based: “Tell me the symptoms.”

As passions go, it's admirable—and relatable, besides. Were their roles reversed, Viktor too would be brusque in his worry, and frustrated to have missed the signs leading up to this, even if his patient-colleague-friend(?) were likewise in the habit of downplaying that which is not readily observed. As if they don't have that in common ordinarily.

He doesn't shrink away from the admonishment, but he does deepen his slouch, and the look Stephen gets upon sitting is both oblique and shadowed by his brow.

"You've just seen them," he croaks, impatient to get the words out intelligibly before the next coughs come. (They do.)

Stephen impatiently waits them out; for a moment, he instinctively reaches for his handkerchief but then remembers that he’d already passed it over, it’s already bloodied.

What’s wrong with you is probably the wrong way to phrase this question, so he changes tack. Uses the time while Viktor is hacking to consider exactly how to approach this, and what part of it matters. They need to discuss long-term care and causes and treatment, but as for simply surviving the next few minutes, getting Viktor over this initial hump—

In the end: practicalities.

“What do you need,” he says, “right now, in this moment.”

To go home.

"Nothing," he says, while turning the handkerchief to a clean spot, fresh stains in the folds. Nothing, while he breathes in shallow meter, reluctant to fill his lungs lest it provoke them further. Nothing, because this has been imposed upon the both of them, because every wheeze evokes all he's lost and what he may yet lose. It's reflex—quick to rise, weak to reason—and in its wake he relents: "Just some water."

Probably wise, anyway; he's had one and a half of those fizzy flutes since they began walking the trays around.

Practicalities.

Quick on his feet again, Stephen starts roaming the parlour. The whole point was to not speak to any of the servants and draw attention, so he’s poking around for what’s already to hand. The room hasn’t been set up for guests, so there’s no fancy drinks out, but he eventually does find a side-table with a clear bottle, spare glasses. He uncorks it and takes an experimental sniff: water, just water.

He pours a glass, thinking about cancer and tuberculosis. They simply don’t have the expertise and the equipment to treat more complicated diseases. Asking Cosima about recreating penicillin was probably the extent of what they might be able to manage, someday.

He hauls his thoughts back in line, and hands the glass to Viktor. There should be some record, he’d said, but it’s not like a rifter knows when they’re going to vanish; there’s no chance to double-triple-check all your paperwork’s in order before you go.

“When you’re physically able to speak, now or later,” Stephen says, “we’ll need to discuss specifics. I didn’t come across any records on this in particular. Whatever arrangement you had with Dickerson— we should resume it.”

Furtive eyes follow the doctor's searching path; they've fallen away again by the time he turns.

No chance to check before, and no telling after if something was lost between arrangements, buried or burned as scrap, tied in a keepsake bundle somewhere. If it were critical, something he doesn't know, he'd have looked—but he doubts a page on the matter could disclose anything he hasn't contemplated in the dark. It doesn't matter now.

The glass prompts him to stir: slouch lessens, hand lifts. When Viktor looks up, there's a little red bloom trailing from one of his irises like a flare off the sun.

"Not possible," he says, roughly, softly, miserably, "unless you've taken your spellcraft in a new direction." It isn't meant as an outright rejection—he's secretive, not stupid (although of late, among those dismal contemplations, this has been a subject of some debate). "I've been meaning to find a replacement..."

But it's only been... how long, exactly, since Dickerson left?

He lifts the glass to his lips.

“—Ah.” The mildest of stinging censure, having those gaps in his spellcraft pointed out. He adds, then, “I never knew you for a procrastinator, Viktor. It’s been about nine months.”

Stephen Strange keeps track of time. It’s, like, his whole thing.

He sits down again, restless, flattening his fingers against his knees. Annoyed with himself and the limitations of magic, all over again, that he can’t simply learn healing no matter how much he might practice and study. The specialties aren’t quite as egalitarian the way they are back home.

“Magical healing, then. How regularly did you receive treatment? Did it successfully keep the symptoms at bay?” Gears turning, already planning, latching onto potential solutions like a dog with its teeth in a bone. “We’ll find a spirit healer, or someone with abilities comparable to Dickerson’s, to resume the course.”

Nine months gets Viktor's eyebrows up, mouth pressing thin as he swallows his little mouthful of water. Not his personal best run of self-neglect, but it's a contender.

"We met once a month, or so. And it did help... or seemed to," he allows. "Without precise diagnostics, it's difficult to say for certain." Gears turning, handkerchief crumpling as he gestures, led by the bent shape of his finger underneath. "As I understand it, healing magic... resists being made to target specific ailments. Had they continued, the lyrium trials may have uncovered new options, but after the first round amounted to little, it became apparent that I was alone in that hope."

A deep disappointment—and this is as much as he's said about it since then.

Edited 2024-04-22 00:10 (UTC)

His mouth forms a silent ah. He’d never really questioned why Viktor participated in the trials — they shared a certain daredevil approach to science and technomagic — but, no wonder. Stephen had no such personal investment in testing the lyrium; he’d simply participated for wanting to know what would happen. (Dangle a big red button in front of him and he can never help pressing it.)

“That seems like it makes sense, for the effects of healing magic. Unable to directly cure the underlying cause itself, but at least alleviating the symptoms. Like a boost to your immune system as a whole.”

A beat, another consideration, and: “Do you know what the cause is? Is there a name for the affliction? It reminds me of a lung disease from back home, but that one’s contagious— I assume you’d have mentioned if you were a potential plague vector.”

To Viktor it's felt more like sandbagging, shoring up a slowly eroding defence against the inexorable tide, but to voice that would cross more than one line (too close, too bleak) so he responds instead with shallow nodding. Like a boost—sure. A serviceable description. (He's feeling too poorly at the moment to find the plague vector comment even tangentially amusing, but it's going in his pocket for later.)

"Not contagious," is a fact, comfortably brief. With a mind to maintain his reserve, he goes on: "In Kirkwall, what they call Darktown, it bears some resemblance to my... to my place of origin." Home, he was going to say, but has found it too heavy a word to lift of late. "The deep mines, the runoff from above... the chokedamp. And this," indicating himself with a small, loose gesture, "we called it lung blight."

Lung blight, Viktor says, and there’s the aborted flutter of Stephen’s hand and a reach for what would have been a notepad and pen, if they were back in his office. But there’s nothing to hand, just his memory, and so he mentally files that one away.

Cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, lung cancer, poliomyelitis, multiple sclerosis. All the possible diseases he can think of flicker through his mind, even if there’s absolutely no guarantee that they have the same viruses and bacteria across their worlds, and it’s not his wheelhouse besides. It’s probably some Runeterra-specific affliction, but Stephen can’t help that itch, the urge to understand and to solve.

Straightforward: “Your limp. Is it related, or caused by something else?” He’d assumed it was part of— the whole thing, but perhaps Viktor had been hit by a carriage when he was younger.

"I've always had it."

The mines, the runoff. Pearlescent rainbow sheen on the water's surface.

It could be a relief, discussing this openly; but no, his poorly-kept secret hasn't shed an ounce, and their present situation makes its mass all the more intrusive. Humiliating surprise amid an already unwelcome circumstance doesn't greatly inspire one to describe the particulars of one's physical state in detail—then again, what would? What little his own partner knows, he had to learn from a doctor while Viktor was unconscious.

"Forgive me," he preempts, or interrupts if he must, "but surely there's a more suitable venue for this."

Consider: nowhere, and never.

(What does motivate him is the relief a healing mage might provide—it's what he should be clambering for, and neither is he inspired to examine why he hasn't been.)

Stephen shoots an instinctive glance towards the shut door; furtive, like they’re two truant children sneaking away from the field trip.

“Your collapse rather forced the choice of venue,” he points out, and maybe there’s still that mild barb of concern lodged in his voice: he’s sarcastic because he cares. But there are gears turning in the doctor’s head, and he’s trying to calculate next steps.

“A servant’s less likely to ask follow-up questions. I can go find one, let them pass on a message to the host, say that pressing Riftwatch business called us back over our fancy magic crystals. Send our apologies, maybe courier a gift basket later.”

Perhaps it’s not strictly necessary to go to such lengths to hide Viktor’s state, but considering how secretive Viktor’s been about it, Stephen assumes it’s best if the pair of them escaped discreetly. He’ll hire them a coach; having that Head Healer salary does come in handy, sometimes.

Discretion is indeed preferable, and relatively easy to achieve here—thank goodness they aren't in Orlais—

What begins as a considering pause erupts into further coughing, sputtering to start and soon wheezing thin, then a breath sucked in to fuel bone-rattling bursts of jagged air that leave him feeling scorched inside. Muzzled by the handkerchief, Viktor waves a gesture too vague to interpret before he recovers enough to communicate:

"Not later—now."

He's wiping his mouth, occupying his hand to keep it steady, oblivious to the ruptured vessel in his eye (it hasn't spread). "We can leave," a pause for this croak to pass, "leave the quill cutter. The lord of the house seemed to like it."

Viktor is fond of it, himself—it's one of the more elegant things he's created here, sleek and simple—but he can make another.

There’s only the slightest pause. Stephen swallows the question of are you sure, because Viktor doesn’t say things he’s not sure of. So he simply nods, waits patiently for the other man’s trembles to get back under control, and then reaches out a hand to help tug him back to his feet, offering his arm and shoulder for additional support if needed.

“Lord Abel gets to keep the quill cutter, check. Hopefully the nug princess is still distracting them in the other room,” he muses.

Then, with a crooked expression which isn’t quite a smile — that rattle in Viktor’s throat is a little too concerning to smile at — but it’s still humour of a sort, dry and dusty: “I used to have a flying sentient cloak that could carry people. Swept me away from trouble whenever I was unconscious. This’d be a lot easier with it, mind.”

The hand is accepted, albeit not in kind—under his arm, please, there'll be no hand-holding today—and with this help he lurches upright. Mildly, he waves off further assistance and instead props himself up on the crutch in a half-enfolded huddle, like he's willing his body to fuse with it. That humorous dust lands well enough; Viktor doesn't come anywhere close to smiling, himself, but he does let out a thin huff.

Whatever else his response may have included is cut by an eruption of mayhem in the room they left behind, starting with a noisy crash of plates and glassware and the pings and rattles of scattering cutlery. A running rhythm of grunts, and not unhappy ones, then comes flying down the corridor.

She's got the tablecloth—
Well, grab it!

Someone stumbles just outside the door, grumbling as he picks himself up—Blasted nug.—and rejoins the pursuit.

As it fades, Viktor deadpans,

"That answers that question."

Edited (belated fussing) 2024-06-14 01:39 (UTC)

The nug thing is going to be tremendously funny when Stephen thinks back on it later, but for now he’s so fixed on their discreet escape route. He stands by the door, head cocked and listening for the commotion, waiting for the pounding feet to finish rushing past their room. He waits, one beat, two, before opening the door and sticking his head into the corridor.

“The coast is clear,” he says.

And then it’s a coordinated effort: Viktor laboriously heading straight for the exit, leaning weight on his crutch, while Stephen does a quick detour to find the nearest servant. (Elven, and that’s something he’s still getting accustomed to about high society here.)

The primly-dressed elf makes noises about fetching their lord, I’m certain he’ll want to say goodbye personally, but Doctor Strange is quick to wave off the concern, wielding all the peremptory dismissiveness he can. They’re leaving behind the quill cutter. No, it’s rather pressing, they have to leave immediately, pass on all best regards to his lordship, thank you very much for your time, they’d be happy to return in future.

And then it’s quick striding down the hallways again, brisk steps descending a staircase, out to the front drive and to reunite with Viktor and summon the carriage to return to the Gallows.

Later on, the follow-up will temporarily slide off the docket, as other more immediate emergencies arise: demonic impersonators, the demons’ abductees, an attack on the Gallows and Kirkwall itself, Viktor’s concern for Lowtown and insistence on prioritising Lowtown, priorities, endlessly reshuffling priorities.

But the doctor will eventually wend his way back to this topic; he always does, in the end.

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closed | take my lungs, take them and run.

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covers timestamp with my hand

also climbs out of my fugue

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potential 🎀