[ There's a lot to unpack here, and he absolutely will, but there's also a naked man who happens to be Jake the Dog sitting in his bed, only not bleeding because his emergency escape route also happened to be a doctor.
So the unpacking will have to wait for five minutes. ]
... How did you wind up there in the first place?
[ Is this bait? Maybe.
It certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist to put rare 'Cubit' and Team Torpedo together to get a kidnapped Jake. But it is curious how, if that is in fact the scenario, Stephen only received a message 3 minutes before everything went to hell. ]
[ The bait is snapped up with all the guilelessness of a dog being fed a cube of cheese with a pill stuck through the middle. Jake even has the gall to look a little chuffed with himself, even as blood continues to rundown his arm. ]
You're looking at one of the rarest and most powerful Cubits on the scene, baby. [ If he had a shirt to buff his nails on, this would've been the time. ] Team Torpedo were practically champing at the bit to get a look at me.
... But, uh. Honestly? Kinda wasn't expecting their security would be so tight.
You weren't expecting the region-wide criminal Cubit theft ring you infiltrated to have such good security.
[ Just. Repeating that back for him, so he can hear how it sounds before Stephen pulls the door closed on that baited trap. Which isn't happening quite yet, though the camouflage is starting to peel away from the bars... ]
[ Jake shrugs in response, either genuinely oblivious or willfully so. The gesture stings, but only for a moment. ]
You're gonna love this one, Doc. [ His grin remains wide, but he at least had the good grace to appear a little sheepish. ] No idea. They knocked me out with some sort of electric deal, by the time I woke up I was already processed and in a cage.
[ After a beat, Jake adds: ] I got caught on a Thursday, if that helps.
[ It's all fun and games cueing up a turning of the tables until it isn't anymore. Somehow, there had been enough surrealist dissonance created by a bleeding human man flopping out of the portal onto his carpet that it had carried him this far without really even flinching at the prospect of enthusiastic scientists with scalpels at the ready.
Jake's a stretchy dog. He's seen some of the frankly mind-bending things he can do, and that had somehow kept him one step removed in Stephen's mind from all danger precluding the bullet and gas situation that has them having this conversation in the first place.
But he wasn't. He was never one step removed from the danger. He'd been out of control from the beginning.
The posture of concern shifts as the realisation that Jake could very definitely already be dead or seriously wounded had anyone in that building decided to skip the observations and move direct to the experimentation while he was still out cold lands. The set of his brow shifts, an uptick of the inner corners that gives away, finally, genuine fear for a situation already escaped. ]
Did anyone else know you were there?
[ It's not about the trap anymore. The real trap has been and gone with Jake narrowly avoiding the closing of not bars but teeth - any trace of the game of one-upmanship dies a death, overtaken by a need to ensure this doesn't happen again. ]
Edited (Ah yes, the edit ocean tide) 2023-07-29 08:33 (UTC)
[ The sound of over-starched bedsheets under Jake's shifting weight is all that breaks the silence in those few potent seconds of realization. They were about as pleasant on the ear as they were against Jake's newly exposed skin, scratchy from frequent washings. As was to be expected in a guest house.
Jake feels the sheets between his fingers, trying to guess at what their thread count might've been when they were new. Jake resists the urge to pick at his bandage again. Jake takes a few breaths in and out. Jake does everything short of actually looking the guy in the eye. Not out of embarrassment, apology, or even fear of scolding... or at least, not totally.
It's something bigger and stranger, settling unhappily in the pit of his brand new human guts. Owing somebody, all while having no idea what to do next. ]
Finn. [ Jake answers reflexively, rubbing the back of his neck with his good arm. ] Chishiya helped us get the word back to 'em, but this was me and Finn's baby. Just wound up being a little bigger than we could handle.
[ Finn. He'd known that was going to be the answer before Jake opened his mouth, and it's fine to a point that this was theirs. But just theirs?
Quiet hangs for a beat, two. ]
He's a child.
[ He can't leave that to sit too long. Stephen's not a parent. Not even a sibling anymore. But he was an older brother once, long enough ago to not always remember her voice clearly but not so long that he's forgotten what it feels like. Never long enough to forget what it was to lose it, right there on his own watch.
Jake hasn't messed anything up here. Not for Finn anyway, Finn's fine as far as he knows. So it's not an accusation of poor looking out, exactly, and Stephen picks up his loose end just a second after he dropped it, voice caught somewhere complicated, deliberate with an underlying tremor of mostly-contained urgency it's difficult to pin down. ]
I don't doubt that the two of you have been through dangerous things together, things you've come right out the other side of. But it wasn't Finn you called to get you out of there. And if I hadn't got you out, it would be Finn who'd carry that with him for the rest of his life.
It can't be just the two of you anymore. Not here.
1/2; this started with a naked man falling through the ceiling, how did we get here, why am i crying
[ It's not very often that Jake finds himself at a loss for words, Finn's name whistling through his head like tinnitus. The contrasting desires to argue and to apologize knotted together in Jake's stomach, settling there like lead.
He knows I'm not gonna be around forever. [ There it was, the arguing. ] And you don't really know him. Finn is tough, alright? Tougher than he looks, he--[ And now the defensiveness. ] He would be okay.
[ And just like a piece of flash paper, all the heat comes to nothing in the end. Jake fizzles out as quickly as he'd ignited, bracing his good arm against his knee and allowing his face to fall heavily against his waking palm. It grinds against one of his eyes as a heavy, frustrated breath pushes itself out of him. Then another... A pattern emerges over a few seconds of careful listening. A breathing exercise.
After about fifteen seconds, the breaths are coming stronger and more even. It's now that Jake looks up, recognizing the expression on Stephen's face with such a forceful immediacy that it nearly knocks him back a second time. ]
Stephen, you... [ It's funny how a name can mean thirty things and also nothing. Jake rubs his face again, eyes squeezed shut tightly for a long moment. ] Shit, man.
at least your art of naked, bleeding Jake can now also be used as a meme for how I feel inside
[ Jake winds up, Stephen's watching it happen in real time, and all there is to do is wait him out. He waits through dumbstruck tension, through the crest of realisation, through descent into rebuttals that swerve the point entirely.
When he lands, he lands hard - and well. There's no need to intervene even now, Jake carrying himself through it with practice and intention and no less struggle in spite of that. But he's doing alright. So Stephen waits through that too.
And when Jake finally raises his head to meet his eye, he's not expecting to be seen. But is it surprising? He's not quite been on Jake's side of this, conversations with his parents when he was much, much younger about responsibility and care and love notwithstanding... but he has been the one left behind. ]
Mm. [ An acknowledgement. Just enough. He lets it hang there, stretch out, before shifting the conversation just an inch back to the right. Business, almost. The point, almost. ]
Whether or not he'd be okay [ and Stephen's face is answer enough to that question nobody's asking ] that doesn't make it right that either of you should endure preventable suffering for a lack of forethought.
If you make plans together, loop someone else in. Let them point out the gaps and fill them. Alright?
[ Before something happens that you can't take back. ]
thank you for using the word "art" to describe whatever that was, friend
[ How many self help books had Jake read about managing your emotions? His intentions behind those efforts changed and matured just as he did, even if the breathing exercises never did. Jake's motivations evolved from emulating his father's macho conceits to an enduring conviction that Finn should never see him sweat.
It was a barrier that existed between them since their parents died, one that was already falling into disrepair even before fate brought them here. Now that the brothers called Ximilia home, each passing week felt like another swing of a sledgehammer up against the rapidly crumbling partition. ]
Mm. [ Jake echoes, adding a little extra mustard on the glorified grunt. Not the most sophisticated stab of levity, but it was at least something in the oppressive silence of mutual grief.
A grief that Jake sensed was much more real for Stephen, somehow. Now wasn't the time to ask follow up questions to that effect. Monosyllabic humming would have to do. ]
Alright, alright. [ He nods, raising his good hand in a mix of acknowledgement and surrender. ] I just got one condition before I add ya to my brain speed dial.
[ A small, wry hitch at the corner of his mouth says the audibly italicised mm did its job.
Good for it to be this easy. 'Easy'. There's nothing easy about this topic, but as he's already steered them out into open waters it's a relief to be mutually out of depth.
So Stephen ducks his head, the fragile edge of that same fostered humour present in this too - fine, okay. He can make a concession for the sake of getting this particular deal wrapped. ]
Just, y'know. This goes both ways, man. [ There's a deathly seriousness in Jake's eyes that seem to come from nowhere, underscoring absurdity rather than any real firmness. ] I expect a text next time you're all 'bout to stick my hog in an outlet or whatever l-o-l'.
[ Maybe it's not quite as easy to spot the telltale teasing glint in Jake's eye when it isn't huge and protruding from a capsule, but those who knew what to look for wouldn't have any trouble.
If Stephen Strange wasn't among that group of intimates before, he certainly would be after this. Apologies in advance, doctor. ]
[ Glint or no glint, the essence of glint is clear the moment Jake finishes opening his mouth. The last of Stephen's more immediate tensions ebb with a meaningful squint, the twist of his mouth disguising a smirk as a frown.
Mock disapproval ebbs quickly enough, though not so far as to call his expression truly serious. They've spent long enough with masks off in the however many minutes since Jake regained consciousness, so it's with the same underscoring edge of play that he signs off on the pact. ]
Fine. Terms agreed.
[ He'll even do him the favour of not writing those specific condition into the fine print and buying himself an infinite loophole. There's one last order of business, though... ]
But you still owe me for the carpet.
[ Never mind the life save, who's going to cover his losses? You're on the hook for that one, dog, if not in Ankata then beyond. ]
Awwww! [ Jake is up out of bed, accompanying his live studio audience SFX with a grin as he rounds his way over to Stephen. A fresh, un-shot arm stretches out from the top of Jake’s shoulder to hook around the other man’s neck before dispensing an extremely proficient noogie. Thankfully for all involved, the blanket is staying up just fine. ] Like this is the first rental you’ve trashed, ya chucklehead.
[ The noogie reaches its end, but Jake keeps his arm looped around him for a few companionable moments longer. ]
But as long as I’m running a tab here, how about some breakfast?
[ Oh. What do you know, it's actually more unsettling when a human man does horrifying Jake business than when a small yellow dog does it. A conclusion which takes long enough to come to that the noogie is already happening - Stephen lets out a sound somewhere between huffed laugh and throaty hiss as he reflexively ducks to absolutely no avail - and then over, and still he stands there with sheeted Jake's third arm wrapped around his shoulders and his hair all mussed at the top and grimacesmirking in baffled disbelief for a solid handful of seconds before he can muster the wherewithal to really do anything about it.
And in the end, all he really does do about it is wave his hand noncommittally in the air to appear a pair of loose pyjama pants onto Jake's person and send the cloak scooting around in preparation to settle over his shoulders. You know, once one of them is no longer occupied with the outcropping of a spare arm.
That done, and thoroughly defeated by the slightest display of camaraderie, one more flick of his hand resolves the Hair Issue as he resigns himself to catering to Jake's breakfast whim. ]
Sure, fine, if you're prepared to navigate the interest rates.
[ He will be neither confirming nor denying the rental accusation, thank you so very much. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
So the unpacking will have to wait for five minutes. ]
... How did you wind up there in the first place?
[ Is this bait? Maybe.
It certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist to put rare 'Cubit' and Team Torpedo together to get a kidnapped Jake. But it is curious how, if that is in fact the scenario, Stephen only received a message 3 minutes before everything went to hell. ]
no subject
You're looking at one of the rarest and most powerful Cubits on the scene, baby. [ If he had a shirt to buff his nails on, this would've been the time. ] Team Torpedo were practically champing at the bit to get a look at me.
... But, uh. Honestly? Kinda wasn't expecting their security would be so tight.
no subject
[ Just. Repeating that back for him, so he can hear how it sounds before Stephen pulls the door closed on that baited trap. Which isn't happening quite yet, though the camouflage is starting to peel away from the bars... ]
And roughly how long ago did they get you, Jake?
no subject
You're gonna love this one, Doc. [ His grin remains wide, but he at least had the good grace to appear a little sheepish. ] No idea. They knocked me out with some sort of electric deal, by the time I woke up I was already processed and in a cage.
[ After a beat, Jake adds: ] I got caught on a Thursday, if that helps.
no subject
Jake's a stretchy dog. He's seen some of the frankly mind-bending things he can do, and that had somehow kept him one step removed in Stephen's mind from all danger precluding the bullet and gas situation that has them having this conversation in the first place.
But he wasn't. He was never one step removed from the danger. He'd been out of control from the beginning.
The posture of concern shifts as the realisation that Jake could very definitely already be dead or seriously wounded had anyone in that building decided to skip the observations and move direct to the experimentation while he was still out cold lands. The set of his brow shifts, an uptick of the inner corners that gives away, finally, genuine fear for a situation already escaped. ]
Did anyone else know you were there?
[ It's not about the trap anymore. The real trap has been and gone with Jake narrowly avoiding the closing of not bars but teeth - any trace of the game of one-upmanship dies a death, overtaken by a need to ensure this doesn't happen again. ]
stephen.... 😭
Jake feels the sheets between his fingers, trying to guess at what their thread count might've been when they were new. Jake resists the urge to pick at his bandage again. Jake takes a few breaths in and out. Jake does everything short of actually looking the guy in the eye. Not out of embarrassment, apology, or even fear of scolding... or at least, not totally.
It's something bigger and stranger, settling unhappily in the pit of his brand new human guts. Owing somebody, all while having no idea what to do next. ]
Finn. [ Jake answers reflexively, rubbing the back of his neck with his good arm. ] Chishiya helped us get the word back to 'em, but this was me and Finn's baby. Just wound up being a little bigger than we could handle.
[ Wouldn't be the first time. ]
cw: sibling loss......
[ Finn. He'd known that was going to be the answer before Jake opened his mouth, and it's fine to a point that this was theirs. But just theirs?
Quiet hangs for a beat, two. ]
He's a child.
[ He can't leave that to sit too long. Stephen's not a parent. Not even a sibling anymore. But he was an older brother once, long enough ago to not always remember her voice clearly but not so long that he's forgotten what it feels like. Never long enough to forget what it was to lose it, right there on his own watch.
Jake hasn't messed anything up here. Not for Finn anyway, Finn's fine as far as he knows. So it's not an accusation of poor looking out, exactly, and Stephen picks up his loose end just a second after he dropped it, voice caught somewhere complicated, deliberate with an underlying tremor of mostly-contained urgency it's difficult to pin down. ]
I don't doubt that the two of you have been through dangerous things together, things you've come right out the other side of. But it wasn't Finn you called to get you out of there. And if I hadn't got you out, it would be Finn who'd carry that with him for the rest of his life.
It can't be just the two of you anymore. Not here.
1/2; this started with a naked man falling through the ceiling, how did we get here, why am i crying
Talk about your root of all suffering. ]
2/3
[ Aaaand there was the lie. ]
3/3
After about fifteen seconds, the breaths are coming stronger and more even. It's now that Jake looks up, recognizing the expression on Stephen's face with such a forceful immediacy that it nearly knocks him back a second time. ]
Stephen, you... [ It's funny how a name can mean thirty things and also nothing. Jake rubs his face again, eyes squeezed shut tightly for a long moment. ] Shit, man.
at least your art of naked, bleeding Jake can now also be used as a meme for how I feel inside
When he lands, he lands hard - and well. There's no need to intervene even now, Jake carrying himself through it with practice and intention and no less struggle in spite of that. But he's doing alright. So Stephen waits through that too.
And when Jake finally raises his head to meet his eye, he's not expecting to be seen. But is it surprising? He's not quite been on Jake's side of this, conversations with his parents when he was much, much younger about responsibility and care and love notwithstanding... but he has been the one left behind. ]
Mm. [ An acknowledgement. Just enough. He lets it hang there, stretch out, before shifting the conversation just an inch back to the right. Business, almost. The point, almost. ]
Whether or not he'd be okay [ and Stephen's face is answer enough to that question nobody's asking ] that doesn't make it right that either of you should endure preventable suffering for a lack of forethought.
If you make plans together, loop someone else in. Let them point out the gaps and fill them. Alright?
[ Before something happens that you can't take back. ]
thank you for using the word "art" to describe whatever that was, friend
It was a barrier that existed between them since their parents died, one that was already falling into disrepair even before fate brought them here. Now that the brothers called Ximilia home, each passing week felt like another swing of a sledgehammer up against the rapidly crumbling partition. ]
Mm. [ Jake echoes, adding a little extra mustard on the glorified grunt. Not the most sophisticated stab of levity, but it was at least something in the oppressive silence of mutual grief.
A grief that Jake sensed was much more real for Stephen, somehow. Now wasn't the time to ask follow up questions to that effect. Monosyllabic humming would have to do. ]
Alright, alright. [ He nods, raising his good hand in a mix of acknowledgement and surrender. ] I just got one condition before I add ya to my brain speed dial.
no subject
Good for it to be this easy. 'Easy'. There's nothing easy about this topic, but as he's already steered them out into open waters it's a relief to be mutually out of depth.
So Stephen ducks his head, the fragile edge of that same fostered humour present in this too - fine, okay. He can make a concession for the sake of getting this particular deal wrapped. ]
Name it.
no subject
[ Maybe it's not quite as easy to spot the telltale teasing glint in Jake's eye when it isn't huge and protruding from a capsule, but those who knew what to look for wouldn't have any trouble.
If Stephen Strange wasn't among that group of intimates before, he certainly would be after this. Apologies in advance, doctor. ]
no subject
Mock disapproval ebbs quickly enough, though not so far as to call his expression truly serious. They've spent long enough with masks off in the however many minutes since Jake regained consciousness, so it's with the same underscoring edge of play that he signs off on the pact. ]
Fine. Terms agreed.
[ He'll even do him the favour of not writing those specific condition into the fine print and buying himself an infinite loophole. There's one last order of business, though... ]
But you still owe me for the carpet.
[ Never mind the life save, who's going to cover his losses? You're on the hook for that one, dog, if not in Ankata then beyond. ]
no subject
[ The noogie reaches its end, but Jake keeps his arm looped around him for a few companionable moments longer. ]
But as long as I’m running a tab here, how about some breakfast?
no subject
And in the end, all he really does do about it is wave his hand noncommittally in the air to appear a pair of loose pyjama pants onto Jake's person and send the cloak scooting around in preparation to settle over his shoulders. You know, once one of them is no longer occupied with the outcropping of a spare arm.
That done, and thoroughly defeated by the slightest display of camaraderie, one more flick of his hand resolves the Hair Issue as he resigns himself to catering to Jake's breakfast whim. ]
Sure, fine, if you're prepared to navigate the interest rates.
[ He will be neither confirming nor denying the rental accusation, thank you so very much. ]