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( office hours & overflow )
❥ stephen strange has office hours. these are hours during which people can come by
❥ this is an informal, word-of-mouth service. stephen appreciates some manner of compensation but will neither mention nor require it
❥ oocly, this is a mechanism for random non-phone threads. you don’t actually have to have a magic question. you can just come by and annoy the shit out of him
❥ just like the ic inbox i reserve the right to cram random shit in here
backing up when we both want you to be falling forward--
but he does have a universe to protect, ostensibly, whenever fate deems fit for him to return to it, so he maintains a personal fitness regime that is largely private and well-calculated. it even occasionally leads him to the arena, where he sets aside the magic that whispers in perpetuity within and focuses more on remembering that there are rather all manner of creatures and beings back home who’d like to beat his ass and he should really look after his business. the liers program brings in all kinds, sword-sharp and too frequently doom-driven, people who spent fighting the years stephen had spent in school. and he’s always playing catchup; he’s not getting any younger. but the multiverse keeps getting more dangerous. he doesn’t know what his physical plateaus look like but he supposes there are worse things in the world than finding out in duplicity, in this interlude between misadventures.
he ends the night as everyone does, if later than most. he’s alone in the locker room, trying to wield the idle thaumaturgical magic that another iteration of himself had used to wrap gauze around his forearm a lifetime ago--but he’s still strung out from the fight, bruised like fruit; his focus is all wrong. he tears the gauze loose with his teeth instead and doesn’t look up as he holds the roll out and says, ]
Perfect timing. Hold this.
[ his magical awareness doesn’t reflexively extend to hakkyuu’s presence, which on a cosmic scale seems only fair when the man’s living is largely eked out in shadows. but sometimes he just knows when hakkyuu is in the same room, the same pub, the same insipid city gathering, those eyes a swipe of ice across the nape of his neck. a few years ago he would have thought it a function of familiarity. these days he can’t say for sure. ]
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Initially, he's almost outright angry about it, something unreasonable about not getting enough damn space and time to just think about what Stephen being back in Duplicity means (it doesn't mean anything) and how he's hardly had the space to consider the question because it feels like as the dust starts to settle this bastard is popping up again--on his device, in person, or on his device then in person. And then sex isn't really a place for doing much thinking.
In short, there's a lot going on in Hakkyuu's brain as it relates to Stephen Strange.
He almost has the irrational thought to storm right over there and demand to know what the hell Stephen is even doing there, though Hakkyuu does manage to reel that in before it can take hold. Which is just as well, because in that time he gets to see Stephen, entirely independently, get himself set up with some rounds.
For the first few sessions, Hakkyuu tries to force himself to just do his own thing again: it's a public use space and Stephen isn't there to see him.
But over time, in a manner that's frustratingly predictable, Hakkyuu's eyes wander. First, it's for the pure spectacle and distraction of it, because he just likes looking at Stephen. Then, somewhere along the lines, he just finds himself assessing. Watching Stephen's style, his footwork, his stance, his reaction and recovery times, how he responds and moves in general. It's a sort of mesmerising, though not like when Stephen is using magic. This is captivating in a way that has something scratching nervously at the back of Hakkyuu's skull like an animal wanting to go outside.
So when Stephen's final opponent leaves, Hakkyuu wills himself not to follow Stephen, forces his eyes down and lets his fingers drum against the wood of the bench he's been sat on to watch as he tries to settle and ignore that nagging feeling. It doesn't go away. He could wait it out. He's got ability to force patience to the surface, especially after laying down his warnings about the new Loki to Stephen which, no doubt, still smarts a bit.]
Shit--
[Yeah, there's no just ignoring this one, so finally he does shove himself off the bench to trail after Stephen into the locker room, where he still takes his time before the actual approach, watching Stephen work in the overall quiet and loses a minute or two to just that. It's a bit pathetic and when he catches himself, Hakkyuu closes his eyes with a long, deep, irritated breath, and walks over.
It's terrifying not only how easily Stephen just sort of folds into accepting Hakkyuu's presence, but how easily Hakkyuu meets it with only a mild eyeroll before providing an upturned palm.]
Don't you have magic for this?
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[ without waiting for an answer he continues, slowly drawing the gauze in impeccably neat lines over a scuff running up along the outside of his forearm, the blood daubed away clean: ] The former will make me more tired; I’d rather not be at the moment. The latter ... [ he shrugs. ] Can’t focus. [ and then, his eyes sliding up to hakkyuu’s face, deliberately not in a hurry: ] I did get hit in the head.
[ the delicately raised eyebrow does successfully draw attention to a self-applied butterfly bandage over his temple.
but more importantly there’s a thin touch of ... not frustration in the admission. wariness, maybe, stephen beginning the familiar task of setting careful demarcations around extant tensions. not everything is about loki, he wants to say already, as if he can head off that conversation--but that’s foolish, there’s no need. talking about loki is far from inevitable. and he’s not--sore, about their last conversation. he just--he doesn’t have anything new to bring to the table there. and that should be good news too, right? look at me, not doing anything stupid.
the act of bandaging himself is steady work, and he’s in no hurry. when he’s done, he takes the roll back from hakkyuu and vanishes it--
and then he touches an idle hand to hakkyuu’s hip, finds a belt loop. tugs him in, a bit, inviting but not pressing. ]
We’re not all old pros.
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Thaaaaat you did.
[What he means is yeah, i saw.
Fortunately, Hakkyuu doesn't find it too terribly difficult to settle into a quiet, steady pace and he's fairly content to let the time pass exactly as it needs to, listening to Stephen give his reasoning which may only be partly to do with Hakkyuu having asked his rhetorical question and more about just... talking. Which also suits Hakkyuu just fine because he likes listening to Stephen speak. Never telling him that though; Hakkyuu doesn't want to feed Stephen's ego monster.
When he feels the hold on the front of his pants catch, Hakkyuu lets his eyes trail down to where Stephen's fingers make contact, considers the possibilities for about a half second before just sort of allowing the weight of his body to carry with the mild tug, knees bumping lightly against Stephen's as he does at least refuse to actually move his feet yet.
Would he always just let himself get pulled into Stephen's physical orbit? It's hard to say. Sometimes, yes. Often, even. When he's got a lot of tricky and unresolved thoughts about the guy and at least the embers of irritation at himself in relation to that? Not necessarily.
But there is something in the air right now though, a brand of melancholia that's not that dramatic but difficult. For Hakkyuu's part, Loki isn't actually the topic of discussion. Not like he'll surely be with Vrenille, picking at how best to approach things with an ethical framework that does, as Hakkyuu said to Stephen, honour everyone involved--past, present and future--as effectively as possible. But it's still a fraught subject and contradictory on multiple levels. They can all say this is a different Loki and yet the fact remains there's a trace and knowing that's unfairly present. Best they can do is go in eyes wide open.]
And... yeah. I can see that. [About the topic at hand--that Stephen isn't a fighter, at least not like Hakkyuu is. Giving that sort of reply does make Hakkyuu wince internally though, not really wanting to beat Stephen when he's down from multiple angles as he heaves a resigned sigh and shifts his weight in order to nudge his knees between Stephen's, already settling in from the looks of things.] If you just wanted a good beating, you could've just called. Would've laid'ya out better than them, that's for sure.
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he doesn’t have to spread his knees much further to make room as he eases hakkyuu in the space between them. stephen is between changes of clothes and therefore dressed down, sweatpants and bare high-arched feet, the hard planes of his chest decorated lightly with the bruises and the beginnings of bruises; he’s slouched over a little in a way that puts him close to where he knows the vee of hakkyuu’s hips is, even though hakkyuu is significantly more clothed.
it’s a good picture and he knows it, even without the benefit of seeing it from the outside: hakkyuu, halfway in the circle of his arms, svelte sloping back, the dangerously insouciant tilt of his hips, how he never bends to meet stephen halfway. stephen keeps his hands resting flat on the sides of hakkyuu’s waist, fingers curling in his belt loops but pressing the issue of their proximity no further. ]
I don’t know if I should give you license to smack some sense into me. I’d be dead by the end of the week.
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[It's all very relaxed and effortless — two men with that version of easy confidence that flows between them to catch and spark in the sort of way that's hard to manufacture.
And it's even easier to stand there, admiring how Stephen even wears being roughed up well, a slow, absent-minded sway setting into his hips to bring him closer and further to Stephen's light grip by barely noticeable degrees as his gaze dips in and out from clear and focused on the image of Stephen half-dressed and disgustingly handsome despite the state he's in, and something that's further away and infernal--distracted assessing.]
Did it help? Y'feel better or worse?
[The abrupt question comes with a lift of his head to meet Stephen's eyes with equally sharp energy, everything very keenly trained on the sorcerer again in the present rather than where Hakkyuu's mind keeps wandering to. Which is still on the same subject, just slightly to the side, like skipping to another chapter of the same book.
It's also a nebulous enough question it could be in relation to everything and nothing; about someone specific or no one in particular.]
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part of stephen could lash out at the question, some perception of its audacity, an animal cornered too soon. it irritates him to know hakkyuu would take it, in his own way, even if he left the locker room shortly thereafter; how insulting, to be seen. to come out the other end as the problem party, the one who patently refuses to come clear-eyed to the table.
that furrow appears between his eyebrows, a visible indicator of the temptation to be cutting--and then it disappears, and his lip curls--the temptation passing. he bends his head instead, headbutting briefly along a flat clothed stretch of hakkyuu’s lower belly. it’s--not really a stephen strange gesture. it might actually mirror something hakkyuu’s done before. ]
Where that matter is concerned. It’s not something I can sweat out.
[ in the otherwise silent locker room, with the weight of confession behind it, stephen’s voice is definitive. as if he were descending, regal and robed, from the stairway of his sanctum, ready to prescribe unto someone a dire destiny; as if he isn’t half-naked and annoyed at the multiverse; as if the dire destiny he foresees isn’t his own. ]
I came to work. And so I have.
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He's not actually trying to jab at Stephen's wounds here, not about Loki certainly. To him, the point was made clearly enough already and Hakkyuu isn't going to put more pressure on the point or hound on it: Stephen (and Loki for that matter) are big boys who can deal with their own shit and Hakkyuu wasn't even warning Stephen away from getting to know this Loki. But that really is the point--it's getting to know again. Fresh. A Loki. Not the same Loki. And he deserves not only Stephen's attentiveness to that but from all of them.
Hakkyuu even has a similar tale--the Stephen who wasn't Stephen, but was absolutely Stephen. Except Hakkyuu's approach there had just been to entirely blank the existence of that Stephen; his deathwish isn't that strong.
But again, he's not Stephen's keeper and has no aspirations to be and the question is general enough: do you feel better? It could have been about anything. Stephen is opting to make it what he wants and needs it to be about.
The way the sorcerer's head sinks forward though is telling. Probably as much as the fact Hakkyuu steps in to meet him where he'd been unwilling to give an inch before because this is something Stephen is trusting him with and Hakkyuu would walk over glass to meet a gesture like that from someone he considers his inner circle. ... better not think about that too much.
One pale hand draws up after an arrested second, fingers sliding over the back of Stephen's neck.]
The matter's gonna be around for a while from the looks of things.
[His thumb sweeps slowly back and forth against the nape of Stephen's neck.]
But you don't gotta have all the answers right away anyway. Not in any direction. Especially not while you're... [The movement of his thumb slows, the slightly itchy feeling in the back of his head scratching again.] Y'know. Working.
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it’s just a touch, of course, and a funny thing to covet in a realm where touch is mandatory. for hakkyuu, certainly, it must carry the same weight as the fraternal grip on the shoulder, the brush-pass in a hallway, the hard and laughing shove. just like it had been with christine, there is no promise in the touch, of course; just comfort, temporary, and the absence of threat. in the yawning absence of other prospects it has to be enough. ]
Yeah. I figured as much.
[ stephen doesn’t ask how hakkyuu is, on the loki question. (the many loki questions.) hakkyuu is probably sorting out his third of the matter with vrenille, or by himself; hakkyuu will know the inquiry for the deflection it is, because stephen is a selfish dickhead unconcerned for the welfare of others, too assured that others have a handle on their affairs the way he presumes to have a handle on his own.
he tries not to feel pointlessly worse about it. it’ll come up when it comes up.
he sighs, once, at a last pass of hakkyuu’s thumb over the shower-pointed hair at the back of his neck. and then he eases back, lets hakkyuu’s hand drop, and leans back on one of his own. ]
... so. [ a wincing roll back of his shoulders, and then a rueful smirk back up at him. ] Should I open up a suggestion box for next time?
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It's why moments like this one are valuable, something he wants to handle with uncharacteristic care and when Stephen draws back again it already feels like something he was given too much exposure too. He'd probably do the same in Stephen's shoes.
The question brings Hakkyuu up with a short blink, his mind just ping-ponging around a few too many places at once to fully catch where they are in the conversation that's been skirting around the edges of Lokis.]
Next time?
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The fighting. I’ll be clocking hours more often than I used to. Might as well trend up.
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Why is it that Stephen Fucking Strange waltzes back into Duplicity and suddenly Hakkyuu feels like he has Problems. He hasn't had Problems for months. Over a year, even! Then this damn magic moron shows up and--u g h ! ]
Train with me.
[It feels as much of an inelegant blurt as it probably sounds, all the logic behind it and all the reasoning completely stripped back. It's not him begging though, there's no desperation, more like an exasperated kind of demand. It... isn't quite how he wanted that to come out, honestly, and it makes him sigh in a way that sounds close to an irritated growl-grumble.
Problems...]
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Oh, this is a “see me after class” moment. I only got my ass handed to me a couple of times, you know.
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[ ... yes. Wow. This is going super great! He loves this!
Leaning his head back, Hakkyuu sets an irritated glare at the ceiling because he can't really justify pointing it at Stephen. Especially not when he's amused. He has a nice laugh... Wow this sucks. Get it together, Hakkyuu, you're better than this.
He does, in fact, take a purposeful, steadying breath and makes another attempt to approach this--the feeling that's been gnawing at the back of his skull. For a moment, he lets his thoughts ricochet off one another, waiting for them to settle into place as his expression steadily becomes a bit more neutral. His hands also idly find their way to Stephen's forearms somehow.]
No... You're fine. You're good, even. All the fundamentals are there, you've got a solid foundations. Well-learnt, well-taught. That's obvious.
[There's totally a but here that he's chewing on.]
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Uh-huh.
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'Fine' and 'good' don't cut it.
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stephen is an exceptionally skilled sorcerer and a decent hand-to-hand combatant, but in that pit with mordo with his magic leashed he’d felt the effort of the fight with uncomfortable immediacy. his work doesn’t allow for complacency, but it’s still, at its core, magical work--except when it isn’t. and when it isn’t stephen still can’t afford to be inferior, not with the universe, the multiverse even, too often at stake.
his brows are drawn together again, this time in thought. his hands steady out on hakkyuu’s sides. and then, the only question that matters-- ]
When can we start?
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That's also why he's not rushing to be anyone's teacher or position himself as such.
But when it comes right down to it, Stephen's going to follow the crooked finger of destiny and Hakkyuu can see a version of how that might play out because he's experienced it, to a much lesser degree, for himself: too much devil's luck to realise the difference between a good streak of chance and solid skill that can ride luck to some place higher when its down to the wire.
Stephen is an immensely powerful magic user, the sort whose only limits are their imagination because the arcane sweeps through the blood as easily as oxygen. That's not the problem. The problem is the rest.]
Now.
[Not in the sense he's going to drag Stephen back out into the ring though--he needs to know what Hakkyuu sees when he watches him fight. His fingers lightly drum on Stephen's arms as he sorts his thoughts out a bit.]
You've got some decent footwork down, but only in as much as you don't really trip over your own feet most of the time. But you're a reactive and defensive fighter and only really go on the offensive when you're countering, which in a ring works just fine, but you're not out here looking to be a boxer or a regular chart-topper during the Arena's All Holes Filled nights or whatever.
So you don't just need to know how to move in ways that enhance and compliment what you do, you need to be reading the energy of who you're fighting and working out what you need to do so if you're in a defensive position you're not forced there and you're not scrambling toward any counter you can grab--they need to count for something.
[He lowers his eyes briefly, thinking before giving a short nod.]
I can think of about twelve different methods to take you out in under five seconds off the top of my head. And I hate to break it to you, but ten of those would work just fine even if you were using magic too. And that's not even me trying that hard.
[Then, he glances at Stephen without lifting his head. He doesn't look cocky here though and that's the worst part--this isn't fun, competitive dickwaving, this is just a fact.]
So we need to get you to a place where you're able to hold your own if I'm bringing everything I got at you, because I'm not even hot shit in the wider universes. Not by a long shot.
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but he’s always taken his work with grave seriousness. and while he was a near-perfect brain surgeon with a shining and flawless record, if there had ever been someone worthy to criticize him he would have listened, because it put his pride on the line.
now his work is broader in scope, and concerns the whole of the multiverse. this realm and countless others. what choice does he have but to listen? there’s no offense to be taken, either, and what he hears he seems to process with--
determination. a little open hunger, narrow-eyed. that feeling when he would crack open a neuroscience monograph and discover a corner of the field to which he didn’t have access before. that feeling of new magic, useful magic. that swelling awareness that he’s useful, yes, but he can be more so, in service of his perfectionism, which is in turn in service of something greater than just himself.
he keeps his hands on hakkyuu’s sides, oddly steady. the words commit themselves to his near-perfect memory. ]
I’ll see a healer tomorrow.
[ if the words are unexpected, he doesn’t register the fact. ]
I need you to show me.
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There's a lot of joking around. Lots of playful eyerolling and muttering about Stephen being a frustrating idiot, though in the places where everything really matters, where he needs to step up or needs to really hear something, he's never faltered. So his response here shouldn't be a surprise. And yet, somehow, the look in Stephen's eyes and the way he's already lifting toward the challenge with that voracious want to learn still sends a tremor of excitement up Hakkyuu's spine.
This isn't entirely altruistic after all--this is what Hakkyuu does. What he's learnt to do from the dirt upward when he had nothing left in life and barely air in his lungs. But people like Stephen--exceptional magic users across multiple different disciplines--are a group of people Hakkyuu has needed to learn how to contend with as someone whose arcane talents are very focused, streamlined, and limited. And he wants Stephen to see all of it.
What Hakkyuu has in mind for Stephen then is something of a long-term sacrifice, not just in terms of time and work to help Stephen improve, but it's giving him the keys to the vault in a way, helping him to fortify many places that are currently massive liabilities.
But there are lots of stages to take Stephen though, lots of levels to hit and then exceed. And there's a certain point, Hakkyuu knows, where it's not just about bringing Stephen up, it's about a far more level playing field of mutual challenge. That is what has Hakkyuu most excited: the prospect. Because Stephen's got everything to get there, all the potential, and all the will.
His hold on Stephen's arms tightens just a bit as a sharp, pleased smile forms on his face.]
Good thing you know I like 'em keen.
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but this is a constructive conversation. there will be outcomes, and he needs to make a guarantee. ]
Tomorrow. The day after, at the latest.
[ depending on what healer he finds.
still, the anticipation is a little much, and those wires are crossed, sparking. in a quick search for an outlet he shifts so he can take one of hakkyuu’s hands in his and--he presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist. it’s intended as gratitude, but it’s too hard and too passionate to be polite, like he has at least one brain cell that has died to make way for the ones that just want to fuck him--
and then he’s releasing him, and summoning his shirt. his eyes glint parenthetically up at hakkyuu as he pulls it on: dad casual. it’s a t-shirt. ]
Dinner?
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And, again, this isn't altruism on Hakkyuu's part; he doesn't care about plucking novices up to help them improve on any level and Stephen is well beyond that point in any case. There's more to it than just the sense of self-satisfaction that comes from helping someone grow, something about this is a kind of desperation, and another part is purely the sense that Hakkyuu thinks he'll enjoy it. Probably they both will, but it's his element, the place where he soars and works best in that hairline place where the stakes are their highest.
So maybe it's about helping Stephen improve, but there's also something selfish about knowing that Stephen Strange is, factually, a dangerous man with a devastating amount of power. What would it be like to fly in the face of that? Get so close the magic burns and taste the sweat. It would be, without a shadow of a doubt, hot.
But then, something cuts through all of the anticipation that feels like steel fresh from the flame, something like being dunked into a bucket of water that makes his whole brain hiss and steam--the way Stephen catches and presses his lips to the pulse of Hakkyuu's wrist, where the skin is soft and thin and sensitive no matter how hardened the rest of his body is.
For a moment, he has no idea what to do.
Then, it's gone, and Stephen is pulling on a shirt and Hakkyuu has to mentally punch himself in the head to pull himself together with the most subtle attempt to clear his throat and laugh it off possible.]
What, you askin' me out on a date now, Strange? 'cause that's not how most people react to someone tellin' them that they're about to start handing their ass to them on the regular you know.
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[ he toes on a pair of sandals and swings a small workout bag over his shoulder as he rises, willing the spikes of vibrant anticipation in his body down to manageable prickles. overall he’s a disconcertingly relaxed picture, downright suburban, bruised and tousled; he’s obviously headed home at the end of the night instead of weaseling his way into someone else’s bed. ]
Come on. An outdoor bar sounds pretty good.