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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
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and guilt, the type he usually takes pains to avoid thinking about, and the enormity of it all--you text while driving one time and then, years later, weigh in the hand the life of a man--
he lets out an anguished breath that cuts out short, before it can become a sob. and then he drags his hands away by force, swiping over his, yes, wet eyes. he looks away rather than ahead. his pulse beats hard in the side of his neck. ]
I, um. I can’t.
[ can’t what? look hakkyuu in the eyes right now, think about any of this. he tries not to think about any of this, except in exact terms. he did what he had to do and people were restored to their homes, their loved ones, their space among the stars. never mind the interim losses, the stains grief leaves behind, the martyrs he personally made. surely it’s enough to have made the right call. the only call. stephen strange, always holding the knife. ]
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And Stephen cares. For all his displays of being aloof and dismissive and callous, he cares. Which makes him susceptible to exactly this.
Hakkyuu's also not exempt from guilt and he can feel its spindly sharp legs creeping up the back of his neck as he looks into Stephen's anguished face: you did this, you pushed and poked, and now look what you fucking did.
What Hakkyuu does have though is another internal voice, one that's much louder right now that tells the first to fuck off, that this isn't about him, it's about fourteen billion forms of pain all driven down into a pinhead of one man who Stephen, by necessity, couldn't save.
The specificity of what Stephen can't do is also, in its way, inconsequential, not in the sense that it doesn't matter, just that Hakkyuu doesn't need to know the specific shape of it.
Instead, he strokes his thumbs slowly, rhythmically against Stephen's neck, feeling the harsh beats of proof of life beneath the touch.]
Don't do this to yourself, Stephen. Don't take the choices others made and turn every little strand into a noose to hang yourself with. You seeing all the shit you did? That's not you orchestrating even a single one of those outcomes. You're not responsible for them.
[He pauses the rhythm of the touch, head tilting slightly to try and find Stephen's eyeline even if he can't find Hakkyuu's himself.]
You hear me?
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he shuts his eyes again, brows drawing together, as his hands find their way onto hakkyuu’s forearms, long fingers folding over pale skin. he doesn’t push him away, just hangs onto him loosely, his head bending somewhat towards him, towards the contact, more reminders of life. ]
... I don’t think that’s true.
[ his voice lower, and more raw, because--that’s it. a single and anchoring truth. he cut something vital out of the world. they put a memorial up in manhattan. ]
It’s fine. [ it is. he needs to leash it again, whatever remains of his despair, the grave and depthless chasm of his responsibility. ] It’s alright.
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[A touch is a good start. He'll take a touch.
What's more difficult is the place he can see Stephen's brain going and it's compartmentlised denial rather than anything that helps to carry that load. And now there are two ghosts of Stephen's heart walking around the city.
It's not just that Stephen needs to hold the knife, he has to fall on it too.]
How did you kill him?
[It's such an abrupt question that it even makes Hakkyuu's muscles clench, but he can't think of any other way to get to a very particular point that's rattling around louder and louder in Hakkyuu's head.]
You think it's not true, so tell me how you killed him. Did you shoot him? Stab him? Did you use magic to obliterate him?
[He doesn't actually want Stephen to think too much about that and moves his hands to cover the sorcerer's already resting on him.]
If the answer isn't anything other than a definitive 'yes,' then it's a no. [And he gives a light squeeze and a soft, humourless huff of a laugh.] Take it from someone who can answer 'yes' to all of those questions and so many more so many times over... you're no killer, Stephen. You're not even close.
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he wants to say he understands the distinction. hakkyuu, he knows, is someone who watches the life leave people’s eyes with the cool remove of a consummate killer; he’s had blood on his hands, even revels in it on occasion. this isn’t the same as stephen with his gift of prophecy, his third eye and inordinate power, his setting up elaborate houses of cards so they can fall with surreal force on one person only.
but there are gradations to these things too. this is something stephen believes, even to his own detriment. he didn’t put the glove on tony’s hand, except for where he did. it only matters up to a point that he did it to end a war. ]
Hakkyuu.
[ it’s the only thing he can manage, the low plea to leave it be. it’s not a question he can adjudicate fully right now; he wonders if he ever will. his hands slide up further to cover hakkyuu’s. he folds their fingers together. ]
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This will come up again, zombie-like and putrid, clawing at Stephen's humanity and demanding more and more and more of it. Hakkyuu, now he knows this about Stephen's time on earth, can picture this trajectory so clearly.
So he needs to be something else in the long term, not a stick to beat Stephen's already battered and torn self, but something that helps his feet find the ground again when everything is crumbling around. It's not really a decision Hakkyuu makes, not really a matter or weighing the possibilities or the implications, it's just something he already knows he's willing to do. In reality, there are very few limits to what he'd do for Stephen though and if he ever let his mind wander, it would just reveal that has been true probably since the day they met.
But for now, he lets his shoulders sag, all the will to fight the sorcerer's own demons draining out of him as he leans up to shove his forehead right up against Stephen's, firm and solid along with a short huffed sigh.]
Yeah, yeah...
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... so I need you to be nice to the drones.
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With a couple of slow forward nudges of his head, Hakkyuu closes his eyes and makes a faint noise in his throat which is just as easily agreeing as it is disagreeing. Stephen has asked, so he'll try, but he doesn't want to make promises he can't keep, or lie when he knows he may not mean it.]
Nice isn't so much my thing.
[But Stephen has asked so he rolls his eyes and makes a mild grumbling sound.]
I'll do my best if it shows up here.
[Outside is fair game.]
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[ it’s as good as thanks--for more than avoiding arbitrary cruelty to high-end technology, obviously. he doesn’t need to say it.
he turns his head to press a brief kiss to the heel of hakkyuu’s palm, this too unnecessary gratitude; then he lets go of his hands to cup his face last, in passing. ]
Cold hot dog’s calling.
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For a moment, he sucks his lips in and holds his breath like he's not sure what to say, and then finally lands on--]
Huh... So is that what we're calling it now?
[Hakkyuu: attempting to destroy the mood, 24/7.]
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[ stephen waggles his eyebrows, unsmiling, the last of the glass dissipating from his own expression; then he lets his hands drop from hakkyuu’s face before he maneuvers around him to jam what can be reheated in the microwave. he picks his smoothie back up too. ]