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faderift2024-10-07 01:32 pm
altusimperius) wrote in faderift2024-10-07 01:32 pm
[open + closed]
WHO: Benedict, Barrow, Teren, Fifi, whoever
WHAT: general catch all
WHEN: gestures vaguely
WHERE: gestures vaguely again
NOTES: hmu if you want something bespoke or honestly just throw something at me, I trust you
WHAT: general catch all
WHEN: gestures vaguely
WHERE: gestures vaguely again
NOTES: hmu if you want something bespoke or honestly just throw something at me, I trust you
*~* starters in comments *~*
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He returns with washcloth, soap, bowl of water, clean gauze. This small hurt is so simple compared to the last time Benedict was in this room under his attention, but in a way, perhaps that’s a comfort. Another day, and another day without a horrific injury to tend to or a friend’s dead body on his table.
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"I was just wondering what for." hopefully not medical malpractice
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It was probably too much to hope that Benedict would have forgotten about that stray mention, as much as Stephen wanted to just skim right past it and pretend it never happened. But Stephen probably owes Benedict this much; he knows so much about the other man, all his worst wounds, and so he ought to repay the favour.
He hesitates, though. Telling Gwenaëlle had been one thing, and he still remembers her reaction to some of these details: I don’t think you should say that to anyone else.
“You did the right thing applying a cold compress,” he says instead, buying himself some time before he redirects Benedict to sit down and he pulls up a chair opposite him, starting to clean the burn. He rearranges his thoughts, putting them into order.
“All of this is going to sound very weird, probably, so stop me anytime it gets baffling. But I was traveling between universes and came across one where my alternate self— had delved too deep with the wrong powerful magical artifact, one with a corruptive influence. He pushed the limits and cast forbidden magic.”
There’s a rueful smile on the sorcerer’s face; he knows how it sounds. He also knows how similar he is to the other Stephen.
“It inadvertently destroyed an entire universe. His own team executed him for it. They took me captive as they were discussing what to do with me, trying to decide if I was as big of a threat to their world as their erstwhile companion had been.”
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He's able to focus, at least, on what the healer is saying, and finds it makes the whole thing a bit easier; he opens one eye periodically, to glance at Strange and nod, indicating that he's paying attention.
"How-- did you convince them?" he asks.
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There’s other details baked into this story, mired context he can’t share — that the attack was Wanda, that unnervingly friendly redheaded rifter Benedict welcomed the other day — but so he keeps a tight leash on the topic and steers it in this direction instead. The angle more immediately, viscerally relevant to Benedict himself.
“My last guard wasn’t into it. I had to subdue him, and I ran to fight another day. Took another shot at doing good. Xavier probably could’ve subdued me with a flick of his finger, so the fact that he decided I was worth some leeway— well. It mattered.”
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"How long ago was that?" he asks, "I mean-- long enough that you were able to make amends, before you...?" Came here, and, presumably, vanished from their lives.
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But he shakes his head, still thoughtful. “Depends on your definition of ‘make amends’. I didn’t blow up a second universe, so at least there’s that. I tried to do better. And then I met yet another Stephen Strange who was even worse, so that was sort of—”
He doesn’t often talk about this, so it’s a careful thing, mincing through the right words. “A wakeup call, I suppose. A reminder to myself that I could always be so much worse, and therefore it’s my duty to choose better and be better than my own worst self. Who I’ve literally met. And he’s a real asshole.”
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"Maybe he wasn't actually you," he supplies with uneasy humor, "but I suppose you would've known. If he'd. Stolen your face and left you for dead." It happens ok
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“It’s kind of you, but no. He knew things I’d never told another soul. Which you could say was a demon plumbing my memories for its own purposes,” he adds, musing, because the doctor doesn’t abandon any paranoid theory out-of-hand, “but no. I could recognise the shape of him. That was a maladjusted bundle of ugly neuroses that was all me.”
He cinches off the bandage, tucks in the edges. Isaac could have fixed this entire burn in a blink, probably, but it was a small injury; he considered it best not to use magic as a permanent crutch. Sometimes you just had to do things the old-fashioned way.
“Do you have any identity verification set up with some trusted contacts now, by the way? I don’t need to know it but I need to know that you have it.”
Please avoid a repeat, bud.
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"How do you defeat yourself," he wonders aloud, "if he thinks the same way as you?" Strange's question yields a one-shoulder shrug, apologetic: "Byerly knew."
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But there’s no escaping Benedict’s benign curiosity, so he does eventually circle back.
“Anyway. In my case: you fight him with magic and blast him through a window and impale him on a wrought-iron fence.” It’s as callously simple as he can make it sound, ripping off the metaphorical band-aid rather than meandering around it any longer. “Just because you know how you think doesn’t necessarily mean you know how you move in a fight. Like… I don’t know, having learned a dance but you only know the steps leading. Do you already know what all your combat tics look like from the other side, in someone else’s eyes? Not necessarily.”
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"I think," he says haltingly, "you could probably go for the hair." The one thing he recalls of his Other Self, from the Other Timeline, is that he hadn't figured out to pluck the grey hairs yet.
Rookie.
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“Like, pulling out the hair? Yours or mine?”
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"Mine," he says, with an incredulous scoff: like there's anything to fuck up with yours, come on,
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“You could answer a little more slowly for the sake of my pride, my god—”
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"You have to play in the game if you want to win it," he says cattily, with humor in his eyes, "--but the grey streaks are nice. Distinguished."
all the threads about conditioner
But it is nice, being called distinguished. He lets himself marinate in the feeling.
Stephen doesn’t often get much opportunity to indulge his more vain, peacockish traits these days; not in a medieval world where their work always beckons, lacking in hot running showers and modern indulgences. But he gives the younger mage an assessing look now, because Benedict really does seem to take good care of his looks. “What is your haircare regimen?” he asks, suddenly curious. “Gwenaëlle’s most high-end products are all about caring for curls, it’s not exactly suited for mine.”
A small slip-up, a lowering of the personal walls. It’s fairly obvious around Riftwatch that he’s been living down at the houseboat for months, although he rarely mentions it aloud like this.
no subject
He seems utterly unbothered by the reveal-- it's not like everyone doesn't know who's fucking whom at any given moment within such a small organization. If nothing else, he's pleased Stephen recognizes the error in his grooming methods.
"Do you want to go shopping? I know a place in Hightown, their serums will give results you can usually only achieve using blood magic." ask him how he knows, no don't
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And then he adds, pithily, with a passable echo of that cattiness: “And I can trade you recommendations for beard oil if, y’know, you ever manage to grow proper facial hair someday.”
This is friendship, probably —
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"Great, we'll--" He interrupts himself with a scoff. "If I ever stop waxing it, I'll let you know." nice try.
🎀