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abraxaslogs2022-02-09 11:05 am
sorser) wrote in abraxaslogs2022-02-09 11:05 am
( catch-all ) sailin' away on the crest of a wave
WHO: Stephen and various
WHAT: A catch-all for misc. things!
WHERE: In and around Castle Thorne, maybe the Horizon
WHEN: Throughout the month
WARNINGS: Will add as they come up!
(( closed starters and assorted things below! feel free to PM me if you wanted something specific with Stephen, or if you wanted to plot! ))
WHAT: A catch-all for misc. things!
WHERE: In and around Castle Thorne, maybe the Horizon
WHEN: Throughout the month
WARNINGS: Will add as they come up!
sorry tired wizard dad
knowing that stephen strange was here too was — well, it was a lot of things. it was exciting, and terrifying, and good (because he was the magic expert!) and bad (because what did that mean for their world?). it raised more questions than answers of time and space and maybe even multiverse and peter had fully prepared himself to take his time in seeking the sorcerer out. plan it out, you know? think of what he can say, what to tell him in any given scenario. except parker has the predictably consistent tendency to leap first and plan later and it wasn't going to change now, not with this restlessness culminating in two sleepless nights before he finally relents and dives in.
his first thought, rather plainly, is that it's really cool, stephen's horizon. distinctly him, and peter wouldn't even need his peter-tingles to know he found the right place but they still manage to act as confirmation — familiar, they ring, maybe even safe, when he finds himself at the sanctum's front door.
peter waits a very impressive 3 minutes of standing still and waiting politely in the grand vestibule with the heavy wood stair before he ventures a try, curiosity and nerves begging for an outlet. thinks of the mirror dimension and the swirl of geometry — elegant and chaotic and clear in his mind — and when the first stair twists and turns it's already too late for doctor strange's pristine domain.
he's tucked into a created nook, staring at a reflected-refracted-sunburst duplication of the central oculus when a very familiar inflection makes him jump. senses can't pick up an effortlessly teleporting wizard quite yet, it seems.
peter scrambles up onto a bookshelf - except he's on the ceiling? floor? he's staring at the good doctor upside down until a quick twist of a jump lands him close by. ] Oh — Stephen — [ — is it still weird? does he ...know him? anxieties and uncertainty and elation all brought forth once again, crawling up his spine and making his hair stand on end. but for now, he looks around them and has enough wherewithal to look mildly sheepish. ] Hi, [ :') ] You know, this is actually surprisingly intuitive?
[ please don't ask him how to put it back he actually isn't sure how, oh god — ]
IS HE REALLY
He canāt tell which wayās up any more, and itād be far more disorienting if he wasnāt used to the fragmented nature of the Mirror Dimension.]
Intuitive. Is that what weāre calling it?
[Another bookshelf floats in, losing all its tomes as they hover away and form a perfect shape of squares, sailing by. Stephen reaches out a hand and wills them back into place, but itās like taking a watering can to an inferno ā he can only get so far.]
Whatās surprising is that youāve managed to completely pull everything apart to mirror theā the Mirror Dimension in the first place. How do you even know what youāre doing?
[The ground lurches. Stephen steps back to keep his balance planted on āfirmā ground as their flooring turns at a ninety-degree angle.]
eh, ok maybe just like a lil bit
[ said by someone who can evidently see he may have gotten a tiny bit carried away and now that the reason why he came here at all was standing in front of him — wearing an expression that was starkly familiar and very much incredulous — peter's apprehension was starting to spike, wide eyed and not unlike a deer caught in the headlights.
this was a bad idea. this was actually a really bad idea if stephen strange didn't remember him. except there was several indications that he might, in fact, know exactly who he is.
which, again, good and bad because time didn't work the same way here but that didn't mean that the multiverse didn't hold its reaches and oh no his house, he made a huge mess of his mind house — ]
I'm sorry — [ hurriedly, filling in the spaces of short silence, sidestepping another rolling bookshelf and trying to steady it. Except the floor is already rotating and they seem, for the moment, to be stuck where they are. ] — you put me in the Mirror Dimension before — [ put, an oversimplification of events as his mind visibly scrambles to pull himself together. ] — and I was waiting, for you, so I wanted to see if the math could translate in here and it could but —
— I just wanted to stop by and talk to you, actually. I can - um - I can put this back? [ books lurch, a bit quick and a bit panicked, before they twirl into vector equilibrium. ]
no subject
First thingās first:]
Do what you can to undo the mess, and Iāll help.
[He shouldnāt help; he should be more exasperated than he is and let Peter fix his own mess, but Stephen isnāt that strict or unyielding, no matter what first impressions dictate. He reaches out to stop another trail of bookshelves and ancient artifacts from traipsing mid-air like this were some inane recreation of The Sorcererās Apprentice, and slowly, things return to where they belong. Sections slot themselves back into place. The puzzle undoes itself and tries to shape itself into a foyer again.
Results areā¦ mixed, and the end result might mean thereās still a staircase out of place, or a window on the ceiling, or an upside down skylight upstairs, but he can tend to that later. While he works, everything moving about him, he prods at what Peterās said. A part that doesnāt make much sense.]
When did I ever put you in the Mirror Dimension? Thatās a realm for confinement, not sightseeing.
[Is this going to be another timeline issue? Possibly. It certainly wouldnāt buck the trend.]
no subject
still, when they finally stand in a much more tame version of the grand foyer than what its owner arrived into, things feel close enough but not quite right and peter offers stephen what he hopes to be an apologetic half-shrug, a muttered thanks. are skylights supposed to face that direction?
but now, now there's no books to dodge (only questions) and peter's pulse is back in his ears as the first one sharply puts things into perspective, wide eyed apprehension. he sought this out, he tries to remind himself. because, for all the nerves and anxieties and desire to avoid this for as long as possible, it was the right thing to do. and sometimes, the right things to do weren't the easy ones. a fact of intimate familiarity. ] Well there was one time — [ something about multiverse-breaking spells comes to mind, and trains and grand canyons. he rushes to brush past that, an emphatic shake of his head. ] — never mind. What was the last thing going on before you came here? I think — I think you might be before me. [ this is why he came here, right? to check that? to be on the same page? he isn't sure now, if he's here because
to make sure? still, while stephen might not have called him by his name he distinctly knows him, and it shouldn't cause such conflict in peter but it does. hell of a thing, isn't it? to be remembered?
it kind of hurts though, that it's the past, an assumption made. ] So - so we can all be on the same page, you know?
no subject
Still, Stephen crosses his arms. Heās observant enough; is that a thinly-veiled, quiet anxiety he senses?]
Why? Because there was one time I thought it was prudent to throw you into the Mirror Dimension, and I donāt remember it?
[Obviously. But a reason to maybe, just maybe, feel a smidgen of growing concern? Probably.]
I was in the Sanctum the last I recall. Checking up onā [Seals. He shakes his head, waves the idea away with a hand.] Doesnāt matter, because that wouldn't mean anything to you. If weāre talking headlining events, then how about this: I remember you being a hot topic on the news not that long ago.
[Itās hardly accusatory, even if it isnāt the gentlest frame of reference. But itās what he can offer, relative to what means something to Peter.]
(spongebob voice) a few moments later
But? [ okay, that's fair. ] But —
— okay, [ he waves his hands out, a habit of conversation finally fumbling out in more animated manner, ] — so the spill-over happened, and that meant that everyone who knew Spiderman was actually coming into our universe. [ he isn't sure if he's checking stephen's expression to see if he's getting the surface level explanation right enough to make sense, or if he's checking in on how disappointed he might be. ] So it brought some - people - over. That also brought other spidermen over! Which - that was kind of cool, because I wasnāt alone and ā
[ he shakes his head, a near wince. focus, peter. ] And that doesnāt matter. [ it does, just not now. just not to this. deep breath, instead, lungs filled to the point of straining. ] Okay so ā well to fix it, in the end, you had to redo the spell. The right way. I asked you to, and it worked, and it sealed the ā um ā multiverse problems. [ it almost feels laughably oversimplified, to say it in this terms. so simple - a spell recast, without all the pieces recounted in between. so simple, as if he didn't lose everything, in the end. ] So...so everyone forgot Peter Parker.
[ the recollection deflates, having run its natural course and settling in on loud disquiet, punctuated by his silence and a shrug. there's a carpet nearby that suddenly looks a little too interesting. ] Itās better than the alternative.
[ it feels difficult to look back up at dr strange, but peter does anyway. tries again for some half-assed attempt at brushing over the scars that are left unsaid. ] Thereās a bunch of other stuff that happened in between all of that too, obviously ā [ obviously because nothing is simple. ] — but I donāt know if that matters a lot in this...in telling you the main stuff.
[ hands are shoved awkwardly back into his pockets, rocking on his heel in that continuous outpoured inability to keep still. ] So I guess when you recognized me - well, thatās how I knew you came before me. Because you wouldnāt have known who I was if you came in after me.
[ a beat, before adding dejectedly: ] And the Mirror Dimension thing, too.
no subject
(The bill always comes due, a man once considered a friend told him. The words crawl along the edges of his mind like an ever-present shadow.)
Why? Why would he have made that executive decision, knowing the risk? The question lances through him like a shard of ice, self-deprecating, but itās transient. It dries up, dies, and fades away, because looking at the young man before him, he knows the answer.
Peter Parker, Spider-Man. A young kid having taken up the mantle of superhero, taking down street level crime and aliens from the far reaches of the universe seeking to destroy half of all life alike. Burdened with so much, guaranteed to lose more. Trying to balance two lives, when itās impossible to straddle the line ā Stephen cannot imagine trying to do the same.
Even without having made the decision yet, he knows. He knows that he took the risk because Peter deserved it, and that life needed to cut him a break, because they would come so very few and far in-between.]
Peter.
[He starts, lowly. Imagining the weight of having everyone who remembered you now lost, their connection severed through non-recollection. How that must feel to a young man who just admitted to a semblance of loneliness.
Stephen realizes, maybe a little too belatedly, that despite all thatās been said, he didnāt do him a favor.]
Iām sorry.
[Frowning, he sincerely, truly, means it.]
late w sbux !!
peter, stephen says, and his name sounds heavy in the air and his shoulders tense.
but what stephen says instead surprises him, a little. maybe it was also because he hadn't really told anyone else about the burden of un-remembrance, tip-toed away from emotions to something that could resemble pragmatism (if you squint). It made sense to tell stephen. it was almost a relief to tell him, now that the words had finally left him.
but still, he seems mildly flustered. ] Hey, that's — um - [ he shrugs. no biggie, haha, right. ] — that's okay. I mean. It was the right thing to do.
[ but, before long, one more thing seems to force itself to the surface, eyes on the upside-down skylight, until he can't hold the words in any longer. ] I — I wanted to say this afterwards, though, and I don't know if I'll have the same chance in the future, so — so I'm sorry. And thank you.