“You know,” loosely, “unexpectedly, it might still be me.”
Trillions dead in the snap of a finger, a calculated risk— universes crashing into each other, one consuming the other—
But it’s different, when it’s all collateral damage and unseen butterfly effects happening at a distance; not a neck snapped between your own two brute hands, not a knife twisted in a spine, hot arterial blood in your face. Doctor Strange the surgeon had a perfect track record. The Sorcerer Supreme tried very, very hard to limit said collateral damage. He tried not to kill. Ducked and weaved and sidestepped to save every life possible. Do no harm.
He exhales. Tries to shake off all that lingering anger and frustration and disappointment; looks down at Barrow’s shallow-breathing body. The man’s huge but he looks so small in that bed, somehow.
(Stephen wishes, sometimes, oddly, that Isaac were here.)
“Fine,” the man says, curt, after a moment. He snaps the watch shut and pockets it again. “It doesn’t look like his system’s going to survive the withdrawal symptoms, so I’m calling it. Barrow isn’t dying today. We’re ending the experiment.”
Experiment; as if calling it that makes the failure any easier to bear.
no subject
Trillions dead in the snap of a finger, a calculated risk— universes crashing into each other, one consuming the other—
But it’s different, when it’s all collateral damage and unseen butterfly effects happening at a distance; not a neck snapped between your own two brute hands, not a knife twisted in a spine, hot arterial blood in your face. Doctor Strange the surgeon had a perfect track record. The Sorcerer Supreme tried very, very hard to limit said collateral damage. He tried not to kill. Ducked and weaved and sidestepped to save every life possible. Do no harm.
He exhales. Tries to shake off all that lingering anger and frustration and disappointment; looks down at Barrow’s shallow-breathing body. The man’s huge but he looks so small in that bed, somehow.
(Stephen wishes, sometimes, oddly, that Isaac were here.)
“Fine,” the man says, curt, after a moment. He snaps the watch shut and pockets it again. “It doesn’t look like his system’s going to survive the withdrawal symptoms, so I’m calling it. Barrow isn’t dying today. We’re ending the experiment.”
Experiment; as if calling it that makes the failure any easier to bear.