@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

[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. ]

[batricide]

Don't act so tough.

[ but he'll allow it. because if thats what dad wants thats what he gets. ]

I've got a spot. Hold on.

[rehandle]

[ A good son.

He'll allow himself to be quietly guided, taking comfort in the strange sensation of leaning on invisible strength. Fairly early on his expression goes tense with something other than his physical stress and he pulls away a little to take over the steering, guiding them around an obstacle that Damian can't see.

But real or not, he's not about to walk over a body. ]

[batricide]

[ it's not real. but saying so probably won't make it seem any less real. he just corrects stephen every now and again as he guides him towards safety ]

He did a number on you, huh.

cw: blood

[rehandle]

[ Which is, it seems, the perfect cue for Stephen's dying body to finally protest against motion. He manages a few taps at solid, empty air as a signal before peeling himself away, twisting just in time that when his torso convulses and blood spills from his mouth it splashes only himself and the ground and (he hopes) not Damian.

This is one of the few symptoms that translates across their divide. His blood stains the floor of both tunnels.

He stays where he is a moment to recover, but even that evidence of his falling apart isn't quite enough to kill off the small spark of himself that having company has brought back. ]

You could say that.

[ It's a bad joke but if Damian can see him and touch him he can only assume he can also hear him. His voice may be rough with lack of use and recent emissions, but there's a touch of play in there too.

More than anything, it's said in the hopes that Damian won't stress. If Stephen isn't, why should he? ]

[batricide]

[ not stress? not stress? stephen spits blood and damian goes cold. he's not knew to this - not any part of it, he saw what radiation poisoning does to people. he watched a lot of them die from it.

but he won't let himself think about how easily this story could end that way. death isn't real here - even if the psychological damage lingers, at least he can get back up. ]

Is this what happens when I'm not around? You just decide its time you start pissing the wrong people off?

[ like father like son, he guesses. then catches himself, shoving the thought aside. ]