@stephen.strange | via morningstar network, a couple of days after cassius' post

[rehandle]

[ It isn't real. That's a fact upon a fact: none of it is real, but this even less so.

Usually, knowledge matters. It had for a while here too. Taken him from staggering frantically down part-collapsed tunnels over obstacles whose names he didn't know, calls giving way to bellows, in search first of life and then just of obstacles whose names he did know— to sitting quietly, raking thick air into his lungs, body too beleaguered to be good for more than waiting for the day to end.

And eventually he'd slept. And the day did end. And when he woke and turned on his flashlight to gear himself up for greeting the millions who ought now to be staggering back down into the tunnels, fresh from their reset - he'd found them exactly where he'd left them.

This will not be ending soon. This will not be over until somebody makes it so. But his thoughts won't be gathered into shape. The wall at his back is still hot from the blast. The air is cloying. His skin sloughs under his touch.

The quiet is too heavy. He needs the reminder. ]



Talk to me
Please



[ ooc: for those in the sim, none of the things described in the above brackets will be visible to anyone but him, but Stephen will have been seen by some about half a day before this post searching haphazardly around the tunnels, calling both in general and then specifically for people, then staring very intently with varying expressions of grim hopelessness at patches of nothing, and eventually giving that up for sitting very quietly on the ground in a tunnel somewhere. He's non-responsive to attempts to interact with him throughout and wouldn't previously have been replying to any attempts to contact him via the network either.

Feel free to assume your character has spotted him or been aggressively bumped into by him or heard about him being Weird, or on the flipside to have no idea he's been acting like he's having a really bad trip. ]

Comments

[rehandle]

[ First instinct is to tell him to be careful— it's followed shortly after by the memory that by that logic, he doesn't need to be. Somewhere here amongst the millions of others, Damian's corpse has nothing left to be careful for.

Nothing's changed out there. The Damian who's looking for him is fine. ]

I'm sitting

private.

[batricide]

Good.

[ he should keep talking. make some smalltalk. keep him going until he gets there, out of his head before it gets worse. ]

I'm moving once we get out of here.

private.

[rehandle]

Wise.

[ New Amsterdam really hasn't been selling itself to them lately. ]

Where would you choose?

private.

[batricide]

Dunno. Anywhere else, just for a while.
I've burned the hell out of my apartment so I'm not getting that damage deposit back.

private

[rehandle]

Somewhere budget-friendly then.

[ Speaking of fire, he closes his eyes against the heat of the underground as he waits. Out there, Stephen's propped up against a wall somewhere, clammy and pale with crusted blood drying in his facial hair but looking otherwise alright. ]

private

[batricide]

Good thing my mother can't see me now. She'd be disappointed.

[ he's looking. he's hurrying quick as he can, looking for any sign of him at all. ]

I'm going to need to get a more lucrative job.

private

[rehandle]

Why, she a fan of the finer things?

[ He may technically have known her rather well once upon a time, but those memories are hazy and imprecise, anything he might have learned about her from conversation with Damian himself drifting dangerously out of reach. ]

I see. Casting aspersions on my rates.

private

[batricide]

She practically grew up as a princess. She always hated that I was 'slumming it' at my father's mansion.

[ he misses her. ]

Maybe just angling for a raise.

private forever before I forget again

[rehandle]

[ Ha. Oh. ]

So a box in a New Beijing guesthouse really isn't going to meet the mark.

Never took you for one to beat around the bush.

[batricide]

No way in hell. I'll go back to squatting in abandoned buildings before I waste that kind of money.
What, I thought you'd be proud at all this tact I'm showing.

[rehandle]

You can't pull the aren't you proud of me card in your twenties. You've aged out. You can apply for your raise like everybody else

[batricide]

Ouch, look at this tough love.

[ just keep joking, just keep light and easy. ]

[rehandle]

You're welcome.

[batricide]

Didn't ask for it, thanks.

[ he's probably getting kind of close now. at least, he hopes. ]

[rehandle]

You'll be grateful when you're older

[batricide]

I think I also aged out of 'you'll understand when you're older'.

[rehandle]

No, that one stays for as long as is convenient for me

[batricide]

At least you're honest.
I think I see you. Can you hear me?

[rehandle]

[ ... ah.

Stephen's head rolls somewhat limpy to the side, eyes tracking nothing but darkness. When he lifts his head away from the wall to grant himself a greater range of motion it seems to take great effort. ]

No.

[batricide]

[ shit.

okay. okay stephen. it's going to be okay. damian kneels down next to him, reaching out to touch his shoulder. ]

Feel that?

[rehandle]

[ Feel that?

Stephen flinches, just slightly. Not because he can or he can't feel it, but because Damian's so close. It's like turning to find someone right next to you, only in this case it's finding nobody there at all.

But his expression folds from an unfocused frown of general distress to one of concentration. He listens to his body, listens past the pain of newly opening wounds and slowly dying cells to more specific sensation. What can he feel? What can...

And then he does feel it. Pressure on his shoulder, immediately more solid for his having noticed it. Stephen's attention localises to the rough area of space he imagines Damian's face must take up. He's not all that close, but that's no surprise when he can't see anything but dust motes and the remnants of a tunnel collapse. ]

Hello.

[ More than the pressure, more than the pain, there's the sudden flood of relief.

Text in his head isn't a hand on his shoulder. There's knowing somebody's alive, and there's feeling it. ]

[batricide]

Hey.

[ the vacant look in his eyes is unnerving - it's not the first time he's even seen something like this. an uncomfortable reminder of scarecrow's fear gas, trapping someone in their own nightmares.

can strange even hear him? he gives his arm a firmer squeeze. ]

Can you hear me?

[rehandle]

[ No answer. He goes from feeling close to feeling far away. But that hand still on his shoulder. That added pressure.

Back to the implant, the network. Just to be sure. ]

Hello?

[batricide]

Sorry, I'm here.
You can't hear me or see me.
I'm gonna pick you up and take you back. Hold on.

[ He's going to take a magnet to that fucking harddrive. ]

[rehandle]

I can walk.

[ He's not so far gone that he can't do that, but he'll accept Damian's help to get him up. ]

If you can guide me somewhere quiet.

[ Not for him so much as for everybody else. He can only imagine how unnerving it'll be to come across him unexpectedly. ]