Ssss... [ the sound sustained as he runs the numbers ] ...even so far, by my count. Should've asked for the fine print.
[ Before he signed for the goods. It's fun, this kind of idle easy conversation about a life that's about as ridiculous as the fact he pulled a real rabbit from a real hat not two months ago. But the real subject comes creeping back in uninvited, impossible to ignore for long, and Stephen sighs as his bubble bursts. ]
He's a good man, Takeshi. And he's right to be angry with me. He just doesn't know the half of why yet.
I'm guessing there's a reason you didn't tell him during your conversation.
[Which may be a well-timed point, as he's just entered the brothel. Nods greetings to some of the workers in the lobby, heading into the back corridors towards his room.]
[ So is Stephen by the time Takeshi makes it to his room. Hand trailing over bottles and decanters without really seeing them, something to do so he doesn't have to meet Takeshi's eye the second he walks through the door, buying himself another couple of moments in one piece.
But he glances up anyway when he hears the door go. Damp eyes brim immediately. He holds it together for a second, another, face twitching through a series of small defeats - then scrunches his eyes closed with a shake of his head, tears spilling, breath rushing out to hiss back in as he tries to get himself back under control. ]
[It's worse than he'd expected, than Stephen had been projecting, and perhaps he should have seen that sooner. Still, instinct instructs without thought. Door closed behind him, the pack containing the few items he had picked up left on the table, Takeshi steps into Stephen just as the final piece of that crumpling resolve collapses. There to catch him in the fall, pull him in against him.
The breadth and strength of his body is bolster and shield, care absolute and unequivocal in the cup of his palm to the curve of Stephen's skull, the kiss he presses to his temple. The quiet he leaves empty of hollow platitudes, open for how or when Stephen chooses to fill it.]
[ He raises an arm between them as Takeshi envelops him, curls a fist to press ineffectually against his chest. It's a rebuff he can't commit to. Instead, a trembling whine of helpless protest as comfort goes pressed against his temple, needed and wanted and too much to take. He'd known this kindness was coming. He'd come here for it, hadn't he?
It burns. His free arm wraps around him, clutches at him, taking a fistful of the cloth at his back as Stephen chokes out a breathless sob and just fucking cries. ]
[That initial press of resistance is almost cursory, an acknowledgement of a barrier that Stephen had already made the choice to do away with. That they both had. Takeshi lets the ghost of it haunt between them for a moment, before he takes that curled fist and loosens it, pulls it up to his neck, gentle but firm prompt to hold onto him fully. Let him be steady while Stephen wasn't. Couldn't be.
There's alarm for that, of course. Confusion. Concern. Doubt, even, for his ability to handle this, to be what Stephen needed. That he'd never seen Stephen like this didn't mean that Stephen never was, but the thought occurs that he may never have let himself be. That it was being with Takeshi that allowed it. It's humbling. Terrifying. It only makes him hold Stephen a little tighter.
He guides them to the bed, when there's enough give in Stephen's frame to allow it. Keeps him held close, sat on the edge. Waiting for the worst to pass.]
[ Out of practice with falling apart, he lacks the experience to reassemble himself. It takes heaving breaths clawed into some kind of pattern, takes fingers still bunched into a shirt while, once together enough to be guided to sit, the hand no longer gripping on to his living life raft lifts to press at his eyes, massage at the sockets.
It takes a while, for all it's clear he's struggling to expedite the process. But finally, once he's sure he can get the word out in one uninterrupted breath: ]
[Takeshi's answer is a low sound in his throat, acknowledgement and dismissal all in one, another kiss against the crown of Stephen's head. Then he's shifting, extracting himself gently.]
Let me get you some water.
[Stephen could magic it up, but Takeshi doesn't want him to - the motions of the task give him a sense of structure on how to handle this, regardless of how false he knows that structure to be.
He doesn't rush, but it's only a minute before he returns and reclaims his spot next to Stephen. Glass in one hand, large embroidery-bordered handkerchief in the other.]
[ The kiss to his crown earns a shaky breath. When Takeshi gets up Stephen sits there in his absence like a boy, a little lost, trusting in somebody who knows better to come back with a remedy.
He huffs a damp and grateful laugh when Takeshi sits back down beside him with water and handkerchief and he finally recognises that feeling for what it was. Takes the water, and a sip, then accepts the handkerchief to dab away some of the evidence of his lost grip. He's embarrassed. It's a rare enough feeling that he doesn't mind it, exactly. Or perhaps it's just that he's too spent to care. ]
Thank you. [ He coaxes himself into casting a glance at Takeshi over another sip of water, hands full of all the evidence of his care. Wry, trying to take a little of the danger out of the moment now it's mostly over, projecting okay, I'm okay: ] Been sitting on that for a while.
[The same tone bounced back, dry, wry humour. But he reaches out, despite the consideration that more contact might disrupt Stephen putting himself back together. Perhaps for his own need. Cups Stephen's face, thumb running slow along his cheekbone. It's okay to not be okay.]
[ He really isn't sure when he earned this. Him. What he's done except for lean on him, hurt him, frustrate him. Need him. The gentleness knocks something loose, breath hitching in-in-in—
And streaming slowly out. He lets the handkerchief drop into his lap so he can lift a hand, wrap it soft around Takeshi's wrist, closing his eyes through a cycle of two deep breaths. When he opens them again, there's a little more resolve. ]
[There's the immediate, of course. The desire to know what it is that's caused Stephen to react like this, the detail of what he's been sitting on for a while and how it would crumple him in the wake of just one man's arrival. But more, wider, another aspect Takeshi has to acknowledge now: he wants to know everything about him.
Clear in his eyes and the hand that remains at his face, thumb repeating that stroke across his skin, though, is that it's only if Stephen wants to. Only if he can bear it.]
[ He can. The height of his fear freshly purged, an external well of strength bolstering his own, he can tell this story. A nod, the smallest lean into that tender hand, and Stephen's eyes go a little distant as he searches for the best point of entry. Blows out a breath that puffs at his cheeks as he quietly recognises all the truly ridiculous things he's going to have to say out loud.
The hand at Takeshi's wrist shifts to curl fingers between those cradling his face, drawing their loosely tangled hands down between them so he can concentrate, pretend to be a sorcerer again. Twisting where he sits, he tucks one leg fully up onto the bed so he can face his audience, glass of water resting on opposite thigh. Then he takes a deep breath, fixes Takeshi with a look that says here we go, and begins somewhere that might as well be the beginning. ]
In my world, along with the universe the Big Bang created six elemental crystals. We call them the Infinity Stones. Each one represents, and can control, one key aspect of existence: space, reality, power, soul, mind and time.
[ Brows raised, all eyes on Takeshi, ready to slow or reiterate if anything needs times to land. ]
Anyone who wields one of these stones has total control over the aspect they represent - if they can survive the attempt. It's beyond the reach of most mortals. Humans, certainly, without some pretty intense mitigation. Which is for the best, given the power these things hold. Anybody with all six has essentially made themselves a god.
They were scattered at the inception of the universe. All across the galaxies. The time stone ended up on Earth, watched over by the Masters of the Mystic Arts, who kept it in an amulet heavily enough enchanted to harness the stone and allow its bearer to activate its power without coming to harm. If they could master the spellwork. I don't think you'll be surprised to learn I was playing around with it before I even really knew what it was - un-ate and re-ate an apple without ever taking more than a bite, it was pretty cool.
[ A hitch of the mouth, some injected humor, some parts of the story that aren't - the rest of it. ]
They tried to yell at me about it, but they were also pretty impressed that a newly minted novice was capable of using it at all, so I got out of that one okay. Flash forward a year or so and I'm responsible for its protection.
—alright. Infinity stones, six, all-powerful, at least one on Earth, hanging around my neck more often than not, all best kept out of the wrong hands. With me so far?
[The corners of Takeshi's mouth press downwards, paired with an upward hitch of his eyebrows, resigned acceptance of the rules of a universe he's never had to experience. Reality was reality, even with magic, he wasn't going to doubt it.
That, and the idea of Stephen Strange playing around with something that seemed to be the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb in order to show off his aptitude was, indeed, entirely unsurprising.]
Sounds like a kid's story, but power's power.
[The consistences between every Void-Touched world he'd learnt anything of, that it didn't matter what gloss or glitter was painted over the surface, it always rendered down into the same things. It didn't sound like adding extra species onto the field changed that much, either.]
I'll go out on a limb and say Thanos the giant purple alien wanted all six.
cw: mentions of genocide, flippant descriptions of torture
[ Said with a brief hitch of a wicked little smile. It fades as he remembers this isn't actually a game. Remembers what Thanos wanted them for. ]
His whole thing was - math, in the end. He lost his world to too many people needing too few resources. The solution he offered them was genocide, and when they didn't take him up on it and the planet perished, he decided it was time to scale up. Test ran the idea across the stars with an army, picking off half a planet's population at random then leaving the rest to it. Except there's no need for that with the stones. All six and he could do the whole universe at once. Snap of his fingers.
[ He doesn't stop here for more than a meaningful beat. The gravity off it too much to come back from easily if he doesn't just let his momentum carry him through. ]
Two of his elite came for the time stone eventually. First I'd heard of any war and we were already close to the final battles. We took out one guy, but I'd warded the amulet to protect the stone and the other one had power of his own, so he took the whole package. Figured he could get me to give it up before he got where he was going. First trip into space and I'm being skewered with tools designed for microsurgery by a guy with no nose and a seriously receding hairline.
[ Spoken like he's complaining about the printer running out of ink again, or all the office highlighters going dry. Typical. ]
Hurt like hell. Pretty sure I'd have been screwed, but Stark and another guy had stowed away. —He has this suit, for context. Tony. Full body armor, fitted with a bunch of tricks. They call him Iron Man, he'd been flying around saving the world in it for years at this point. So him and the kid fire Dr. Needles into space and we narrowly avoid dying in a fiery crash right onto Titan.
[ He's aware now that lapsing into quiet might not be helpful anymore. Aware that they're deep enough into the story that there's little else to do than just to tell it. But they're coming up on where things get hard. So he stalls, reframes it as a water break, lifting his glass for a few slow sips. ]
[Stephen talks through it all as flippantly as someone might tell an anecdote about a social mishap at a party. High stakes rendered down into drama, trauma turned to dry humour. As if he hadn't just been crying for the weight of this, having it ripped open and dragged up into the present by Tony Stark's arrival.
Takeshi lets him. Doesn't strip the layers of it back, doesn't punch through it. He'd be a hypocrite if he did, self-aware to recognise that he'd tell his own history the same way. A little heavier, maybe. A little drier.
The pieces click together, though. Powers of perception or just understanding the shapes of things, of the guilt edging Stephen's frame, the outrage in Stark's accusation.]
You gave the stone up anyway.
[There isn't any judgement in the statement. No sense of rushing ahead, or pushing Stephen to hurry up. If anything, it's a hand offered to help Stephen past the hardest part, Takeshi's expression steady, patient. Listening.]
[ Eyes back on Takeshi as he makes his deduction. He lingers there, quietly grateful for his ability to join dots, quietly dreading the approach of the secret it brings him closer to sharing. But this next part is— if not fine, then at least his own. His to give, to stomach. His to dwell on and wonder if it was really his place to step up to the chess board of universal survival and say yes, I'll play. I'll choose the right path and set us on it, decide today the shape of tomorrow's universe, who lives and who dies. I'll do the math. ]
I used it first. Ran through every possible timeline from that moment to the end of the war, seeking out victory. I found one. One, out of over fourteen million futures, where we didn't lose more than we saved.
[ Didn't lose, careful choice. They certainly hadn't won. That might have been what he'd told Tony, easy shorthand, but it isn't what he meant. Takeshi knows as well as he does - better, maybe - that there is no real victory in war. ]
It was enough for me to make a decision. I gave Thanos the stone before he could kill Stark and not long later, back on Earth, he secured the final stone and wiped out half the universe in a second. Myself and trillions of other lifeforms reduced to dust on the wind.
[ An anti-climactic death after the millions of erased ones that had preceded it. Just another quiet ceasing to exist. There was fear, he remembers, sharp and acrid at the final loss of control, the surrendering of life and future into the hands of others. But aside from that? He was mostly just sorry.
He doesn't linger on it. What is there to linger on? Despite the bitterness inherent in that final florid description, the obvious hang-ups wrapped around his bothering to describe the nature and the number of the deaths, there's nothing more to say. It's too vast to comprehend, and it's over now. And if he hears a word of sympathy in this moment, he's not sure what he'll do. ]
—I need to ask you a favor.
[ Another one. A new addition to a growing stack. ]
[An impossible situation, an impossible choice, all on the shoulders of one man. The magic doesn't matter. Stephen's still human. Still alone in what he'd done, if Stark's alienation was any indicator. Even though it had worked out, Stephen alive and whole, not dust. Takeshi wonders what the true cost was, the explanation still to come, and suspects he knows what direction this favour might lean.
Still, he gives a tip of his head, slight. Stephen can ask.]
He can't know more than what I tell him. He knows we won [ won ], I had to give him that. But the war isn't over for him yet.
[ Silence. He's asking for his silence. It's not a small request, but it's one he needs to know whether Takeshi's willing to fulfill before he can go on. He can stop here, half the pain still buried under skin - but he can stop. He won't force secrets on him without his agreement. ]
[Secrets are dangerous things. The lengths people will go to, to protect them, to uncover them. The devastation they can inflict, when exposed. Like a cancer, the smallest thing can grow larger and larger, the longer it's left unchecked - and this, whatever it is Stephen has been carrying, is no small thing.
That they always come out, is, perhaps, the most dangerous part. Here, especially, with all the unpredictable forces at play. But Stephen doesn't need Takeshi to tell him that. He needs a favour. A promise. An oath Takeshi might as well have already made, forged in each moment of exchanged trust, the steady, deep beat of devotion that Takeshi can never avoid falling back into step with.
And the simple practical, of course, that it isn't his truth to tell.]
[ A nod— meek in a way he isn't, grateful in a way he doesn't know how else to express. But now he has to actually - do it. Tell it. He doesn't know where to start.
Well, no. He does. He knows where to start. ]
He's dead. You probably figured, but he's— yeah. Dead. In my time.
[ And that's part of it, but not all. Dead hangs like a half finished sentence, as though it isn't the very most final thing there is. But he needs a second to gear up to why it bothers him so much that a self-made soldier died in a war. So, stalling - ]
I don't think he has that long. It was about five years between the last two times I saw him. I'm pretty sure if you'd wiped all the battlefield muck away he'd have looked about the same that last time as he does now.
[Stephen stalls, but Takeshi sees it already. Pieces clicked together immediately. Didn't lose more than we saved. The singular timeline in fourteen million, the one Stephen had chosen to take. The guilt that would come from that choice.]
That's not on you.
[Simple, steady. Cutting past the talk of appearance, of how close that ending might be.]
[ A huff of ragged, horrid laughter. He needs to hear it. He knows it. He shouldn't have forced this man to say it. But he can't stop now. ]
He has a widow and a four year old daughter. It doesn't matter.
[ Whose fault, whose responsibility. Who played the trolley problem with the universe. It doesn't matter. There is a man here now who doesn't yet know that his child will grow up without him, and who will find out. One way or another, here or there.
He can't quite bring himself to look Takeshi in the eye. Can't quite forgive himself for seeking sympathy here, for something he both didn't do and will never be able to undo. Stephen's guilt weighs billions more lives than he has the capacity to understand, let alone acknowledge, so instead there's this one. This man, his family. The consequences of playing god. ]
[Demonstrably, from how much of a piece of it he'd given Stephen. Takeshi wonders if he'd allow this, the weight sitting on Stephen's shoulders, if he knew.]
I might not be a time wizard, but I know probability. You don't get one result from one action on a scale that big.
[Fourteen million futures. Stephen couldn't have chosen one with certainty. May have aimed for it, but had thrown a die all the same.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ Before he signed for the goods. It's fun, this kind of idle easy conversation about a life that's about as ridiculous as the fact he pulled a real rabbit from a real hat not two months ago. But the real subject comes creeping back in uninvited, impossible to ignore for long, and Stephen sighs as his bubble bursts. ]
He's a good man, Takeshi. And he's right to be angry with me. He just doesn't know the half of why yet.
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[Which may be a well-timed point, as he's just entered the brothel. Nods greetings to some of the workers in the lobby, heading into the back corridors towards his room.]
I'm home.
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But he glances up anyway when he hears the door go. Damp eyes brim immediately. He holds it together for a second, another, face twitching through a series of small defeats - then scrunches his eyes closed with a shake of his head, tears spilling, breath rushing out to hiss back in as he tries to get himself back under control. ]
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The breadth and strength of his body is bolster and shield, care absolute and unequivocal in the cup of his palm to the curve of Stephen's skull, the kiss he presses to his temple. The quiet he leaves empty of hollow platitudes, open for how or when Stephen chooses to fill it.]
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It burns. His free arm wraps around him, clutches at him, taking a fistful of the cloth at his back as Stephen chokes out a breathless sob and just fucking cries. ]
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There's alarm for that, of course. Confusion. Concern. Doubt, even, for his ability to handle this, to be what Stephen needed. That he'd never seen Stephen like this didn't mean that Stephen never was, but the thought occurs that he may never have let himself be. That it was being with Takeshi that allowed it. It's humbling. Terrifying. It only makes him hold Stephen a little tighter.
He guides them to the bed, when there's enough give in Stephen's frame to allow it. Keeps him held close, sat on the edge. Waiting for the worst to pass.]
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It takes a while, for all it's clear he's struggling to expedite the process. But finally, once he's sure he can get the word out in one uninterrupted breath: ]
Sorry.
[ This wasn't fair of him. ]
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Let me get you some water.
[Stephen could magic it up, but Takeshi doesn't want him to - the motions of the task give him a sense of structure on how to handle this, regardless of how false he knows that structure to be.
He doesn't rush, but it's only a minute before he returns and reclaims his spot next to Stephen. Glass in one hand, large embroidery-bordered handkerchief in the other.]
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He huffs a damp and grateful laugh when Takeshi sits back down beside him with water and handkerchief and he finally recognises that feeling for what it was. Takes the water, and a sip, then accepts the handkerchief to dab away some of the evidence of his lost grip. He's embarrassed. It's a rare enough feeling that he doesn't mind it, exactly. Or perhaps it's just that he's too spent to care. ]
Thank you. [ He coaxes himself into casting a glance at Takeshi over another sip of water, hands full of all the evidence of his care. Wry, trying to take a little of the danger out of the moment now it's mostly over, projecting okay, I'm okay: ] Been sitting on that for a while.
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[The same tone bounced back, dry, wry humour. But he reaches out, despite the consideration that more contact might disrupt Stephen putting himself back together. Perhaps for his own need. Cups Stephen's face, thumb running slow along his cheekbone. It's okay to not be okay.]
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And streaming slowly out. He lets the handkerchief drop into his lap so he can lift a hand, wrap it soft around Takeshi's wrist, closing his eyes through a cycle of two deep breaths. When he opens them again, there's a little more resolve. ]
I'll tell you. If you want to know.
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[There's the immediate, of course. The desire to know what it is that's caused Stephen to react like this, the detail of what he's been sitting on for a while and how it would crumple him in the wake of just one man's arrival. But more, wider, another aspect Takeshi has to acknowledge now: he wants to know everything about him.
Clear in his eyes and the hand that remains at his face, thumb repeating that stroke across his skin, though, is that it's only if Stephen wants to. Only if he can bear it.]
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The hand at Takeshi's wrist shifts to curl fingers between those cradling his face, drawing their loosely tangled hands down between them so he can concentrate, pretend to be a sorcerer again. Twisting where he sits, he tucks one leg fully up onto the bed so he can face his audience, glass of water resting on opposite thigh. Then he takes a deep breath, fixes Takeshi with a look that says here we go, and begins somewhere that might as well be the beginning. ]
In my world, along with the universe the Big Bang created six elemental crystals. We call them the Infinity Stones. Each one represents, and can control, one key aspect of existence: space, reality, power, soul, mind and time.
[ Brows raised, all eyes on Takeshi, ready to slow or reiterate if anything needs times to land. ]
Anyone who wields one of these stones has total control over the aspect they represent - if they can survive the attempt. It's beyond the reach of most mortals. Humans, certainly, without some pretty intense mitigation. Which is for the best, given the power these things hold. Anybody with all six has essentially made themselves a god.
They were scattered at the inception of the universe. All across the galaxies. The time stone ended up on Earth, watched over by the Masters of the Mystic Arts, who kept it in an amulet heavily enough enchanted to harness the stone and allow its bearer to activate its power without coming to harm. If they could master the spellwork. I don't think you'll be surprised to learn I was playing around with it before I even really knew what it was - un-ate and re-ate an apple without ever taking more than a bite, it was pretty cool.
[ A hitch of the mouth, some injected humor, some parts of the story that aren't - the rest of it. ]
They tried to yell at me about it, but they were also pretty impressed that a newly minted novice was capable of using it at all, so I got out of that one okay. Flash forward a year or so and I'm responsible for its protection.
—alright. Infinity stones, six, all-powerful, at least one on Earth, hanging around my neck more often than not, all best kept out of the wrong hands. With me so far?
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That, and the idea of Stephen Strange playing around with something that seemed to be the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb in order to show off his aptitude was, indeed, entirely unsurprising.]
Sounds like a kid's story, but power's power.
[The consistences between every Void-Touched world he'd learnt anything of, that it didn't matter what gloss or glitter was painted over the surface, it always rendered down into the same things. It didn't sound like adding extra species onto the field changed that much, either.]
I'll go out on a limb and say Thanos the giant purple alien wanted all six.
cw: mentions of genocide, flippant descriptions of torture
[ Said with a brief hitch of a wicked little smile. It fades as he remembers this isn't actually a game. Remembers what Thanos wanted them for. ]
His whole thing was - math, in the end. He lost his world to too many people needing too few resources. The solution he offered them was genocide, and when they didn't take him up on it and the planet perished, he decided it was time to scale up. Test ran the idea across the stars with an army, picking off half a planet's population at random then leaving the rest to it. Except there's no need for that with the stones. All six and he could do the whole universe at once. Snap of his fingers.
[ He doesn't stop here for more than a meaningful beat. The gravity off it too much to come back from easily if he doesn't just let his momentum carry him through. ]
Two of his elite came for the time stone eventually. First I'd heard of any war and we were already close to the final battles. We took out one guy, but I'd warded the amulet to protect the stone and the other one had power of his own, so he took the whole package. Figured he could get me to give it up before he got where he was going. First trip into space and I'm being skewered with tools designed for microsurgery by a guy with no nose and a seriously receding hairline.
[ Spoken like he's complaining about the printer running out of ink again, or all the office highlighters going dry. Typical. ]
Hurt like hell. Pretty sure I'd have been screwed, but Stark and another guy had stowed away. —He has this suit, for context. Tony. Full body armor, fitted with a bunch of tricks. They call him Iron Man, he'd been flying around saving the world in it for years at this point. So him and the kid fire Dr. Needles into space and we narrowly avoid dying in a fiery crash right onto Titan.
[ He's aware now that lapsing into quiet might not be helpful anymore. Aware that they're deep enough into the story that there's little else to do than just to tell it. But they're coming up on where things get hard. So he stalls, reframes it as a water break, lifting his glass for a few slow sips. ]
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Takeshi lets him. Doesn't strip the layers of it back, doesn't punch through it. He'd be a hypocrite if he did, self-aware to recognise that he'd tell his own history the same way. A little heavier, maybe. A little drier.
The pieces click together, though. Powers of perception or just understanding the shapes of things, of the guilt edging Stephen's frame, the outrage in Stark's accusation.]
You gave the stone up anyway.
[There isn't any judgement in the statement. No sense of rushing ahead, or pushing Stephen to hurry up. If anything, it's a hand offered to help Stephen past the hardest part, Takeshi's expression steady, patient. Listening.]
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I used it first. Ran through every possible timeline from that moment to the end of the war, seeking out victory. I found one. One, out of over fourteen million futures, where we didn't lose more than we saved.
[ Didn't lose, careful choice. They certainly hadn't won. That might have been what he'd told Tony, easy shorthand, but it isn't what he meant. Takeshi knows as well as he does - better, maybe - that there is no real victory in war. ]
It was enough for me to make a decision. I gave Thanos the stone before he could kill Stark and not long later, back on Earth, he secured the final stone and wiped out half the universe in a second. Myself and trillions of other lifeforms reduced to dust on the wind.
[ An anti-climactic death after the millions of erased ones that had preceded it. Just another quiet ceasing to exist. There was fear, he remembers, sharp and acrid at the final loss of control, the surrendering of life and future into the hands of others. But aside from that? He was mostly just sorry.
He doesn't linger on it. What is there to linger on? Despite the bitterness inherent in that final florid description, the obvious hang-ups wrapped around his bothering to describe the nature and the number of the deaths, there's nothing more to say. It's too vast to comprehend, and it's over now. And if he hears a word of sympathy in this moment, he's not sure what he'll do. ]
—I need to ask you a favor.
[ Another one. A new addition to a growing stack. ]
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Still, he gives a tip of his head, slight. Stephen can ask.]
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[ Silence. He's asking for his silence. It's not a small request, but it's one he needs to know whether Takeshi's willing to fulfill before he can go on. He can stop here, half the pain still buried under skin - but he can stop. He won't force secrets on him without his agreement. ]
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That they always come out, is, perhaps, the most dangerous part. Here, especially, with all the unpredictable forces at play. But Stephen doesn't need Takeshi to tell him that. He needs a favour. A promise. An oath Takeshi might as well have already made, forged in each moment of exchanged trust, the steady, deep beat of devotion that Takeshi can never avoid falling back into step with.
And the simple practical, of course, that it isn't his truth to tell.]
He won't hear it from me.
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Well, no. He does. He knows where to start. ]
He's dead. You probably figured, but he's— yeah. Dead. In my time.
[ And that's part of it, but not all. Dead hangs like a half finished sentence, as though it isn't the very most final thing there is. But he needs a second to gear up to why it bothers him so much that a self-made soldier died in a war. So, stalling - ]
I don't think he has that long. It was about five years between the last two times I saw him. I'm pretty sure if you'd wiped all the battlefield muck away he'd have looked about the same that last time as he does now.
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That's not on you.
[Simple, steady. Cutting past the talk of appearance, of how close that ending might be.]
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He has a widow and a four year old daughter. It doesn't matter.
[ Whose fault, whose responsibility. Who played the trolley problem with the universe. It doesn't matter. There is a man here now who doesn't yet know that his child will grow up without him, and who will find out. One way or another, here or there.
He can't quite bring himself to look Takeshi in the eye. Can't quite forgive himself for seeking sympathy here, for something he both didn't do and will never be able to undo. Stephen's guilt weighs billions more lives than he has the capacity to understand, let alone acknowledge, so instead there's this one. This man, his family. The consequences of playing god. ]
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[Demonstrably, from how much of a piece of it he'd given Stephen. Takeshi wonders if he'd allow this, the weight sitting on Stephen's shoulders, if he knew.]
I might not be a time wizard, but I know probability. You don't get one result from one action on a scale that big.
[Fourteen million futures. Stephen couldn't have chosen one with certainty. May have aimed for it, but had thrown a die all the same.]
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