the magician and the sorcerer — psl

[ourladytrees]

julia x stephen


timeline — visuals
ideas — notes

Comments

fire up my amber heart —

[ourladytrees]

i'm a bird free falling, wasn't born just to please ya (♫)

[ It's been a hard couple of months. Hell, it's been a hard couple of years. From her deep dive into hedge magic to the way she'd climbed out of the hole of addiction, from what happened with Reynard to learning to live without her Shade, Julia Wicker's life has been one non-stop bullshit ride on the struggle bus. And now, pretty much everyone in the magical world is feeling that struggle as well, that profound sense of loss of self since magic vanished from the world.

Only it's not quite the same for her. Somehow, she still has magic. Just a bit, a dim ember where there was once a brightly burning flame, but it's more than anyone else has.

I have magic. And what does it do? More or less jack shit. And I have someone whose entire life would change if he could just see it. I have to be able to do something with it.

Before that night at Bacchus's party, Julia had been determined to figure out what was up with her mysterious spark that could only produce seemingly random minor acts of magic, but now that she's seen the hope it can give even a single person? She'd Determined with a fucking capital D. Because maybe there isn't any hope for the magic they've always known. Maybe this is the world they have to live in now, for better or worse. But if there is a way to get back even a semblance of what they had before...

Well, she has to try. It's all she has left.

Which means it's time to pursue every possible avenue. She's already spent countless hours in the lab and even more in the libraries. Talking to an actual god had done nothing but stick her with a killer headache the next morning. So with little other choice left, she makes her way across the city to Bleecker Street, stepping out of the cab in front of the building that is equally imposing and impressive. Standing there on the doorstep, she nearly turns around and heads in the opposite direction, but the thought only lasts a moment before she shoves it right out of her head and rings the doorbell. ]

[portalling]

[ The building, as she walks up to it, is still humming faintly with ethereal energy, despite the fact that all her peers' magic has dried up like a faucet being turned off. The Sanctum Sanctorum stands out from all the other buildings on the block: it's a sprawling townhouse, almost a mansion, jostling elbow-to-elbow with apartment buildings and bodegas. It's a curious, near-gothic sight and yet none of the other passersby seem to notice it or stop and goggle, as if their gazes slide right off it.

It's a similar illusion as that cast on the Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy and other nexuses of magic throughout the world, wreathed in discretion and in the cracks between perception. There's still that familiar touch of magic in the air, the leylines thrumming beneath her feet.

Julia rings the doorbell, and the door swings open by itself — but as she steps into the entrance hall, she'll see that there's no one around. If she calls out, no one answers.

Several storeys up and on the other end of the building, an aggravated shout: "Wong, would you get the door?"

"The Sorcerer Supreme has far more serious topics to concern himself with, Strange."

"Wong, I'm on the toilet."

"Well, better hurry!"

More grumbling complaints. Soap, running water in the sink, Doctor Strange shaking off his hands, hurried footsteps out of the third-storey bathroom, then the quick decision that he's not going to go scurrying down all the staircases like some kid running to catch the pizza delivery. Why did the doors open? They were supposed to wait, and not swing open before a sorcerer was ready to receive a guest. He'd have to check the wards later.

Just as Julia reaches the middle of the foyer, there's a hissing spitting circle of orange light carved into the empty air, and a tall, dark-haired man comes hurrying through the portal. He's dressed in black-and-grey robes (he shoots a quick surreptitious glance down to make sure his fly is zipped up, oh thank god, it is), but he looks a little hurried, still buttoning the clasp of his red cloak. The cloak ripples in an invisible breeze. ]

Sorry, normally there's someone here, we've been a little short-staffed lately—

[ The unnamed man sounds quick, distracted, as he glances around. But there's no one. They're operating on a skeleton crew lately; most of the apprentices are at Kamar-Taj, assisting with repairs. ]

May I help you?

[ourladytrees]

[ The feeling of magic in and around the building is a balm to her soul, like a warm blanket being wrapped around her after weeks in the cold. She'd forgotten what it was like to feel magic humming through the air and vibrating in the very ground she walked on. It's only been a few months and yet it seems more like a lifetime.

The door opening by itself isn't strange considering all the time she's spent around magic (and especially considering what she'd experienced in Fillory), but the fact that it's doing it now when so much magic is gone from the world? It makes her steps steadier as she moves through the entrance hall, looking around for a sign of... well, anyone, really. ]

Hello?

[ She calls out hesitantly as she slowly makes her way into the building. There's no answer but she still has no doubt in her mind that she's come to the right place. Her group of friends and begrudging acquaintances might have been a bit consumed by their own traumatic drama over the last few years, but even they've kept up with the basic news out of NYC. Superheroes, aliens, sorcerers... Yet even with all of that, magic is still utterly magical.

Just as she's starting to wonder if she'll have to venture up that grand staircase to find someone, the portal appears out of nowhere, the circle of energy reminding her of the sparks she can still manage to make if she concentrates hard enough. The man doesn't seem to be concentrating at all, though — if anything, he seems a bit distracted, like he'd been in the middle of something only to be suddenly pulled away. His rushed state doesn't bother her in the slightest, though. She knows she's come to the right place now. It's one thing to have magic built into the very foundation of a place; it's something else entirely to be able to use spellwork like that. ]

I hope so. My name's Julia and I'm here because I'm having a little... magical problem.

[ She's cool and confident and cordial, her expression open as she isn't the least bit phased by that unexpected display. If some part of her is freaking the fuck out because of how close she suddenly is to finally getting answers, then she doesn't show it. She's been through too much to lose her cool this soon. ]

[portalling]

Magical problem? Well, you've come to the right place, although that doesn't narrow it down much. Is it gremlins in your closet, you unearthed a cursed artefact, a family member got transformed into a frog, maybe a spat of lycanthropy...

[ The man rattles off suggestion after offhanded suggestion — all the great many varieties of banal problems he gets to handle, now that Wong is devoted to more serious topics — until a corner of the cloak seems to poke him in the side, like a friend elbowing him to shut up. He, perhaps surprisingly, shuts up.

But then his blue eyes squint, taking another closer look at the young woman. He tilts his head. It's a little like looking at one of those Magic Eye pictures, but when he concentrates he can see the faint limning of magical ability around her, too, which might explain why the doors opened for her. They'd thought they were opening for a fellow Master Mistress of the Mystic Arts.

Hm. ]

Are you a witch?

— scene ideas.

[ourladytrees]

[portalling]

✓ hurt/comfort (stephen): injured & summons julia for help, showcases her portalling him successfully, brings him back & then has to patch him up the old-fashioned non-magical way

✓ hurt/comfort (julia): after leaving the sanctum for a while, going on a quest, remaking the keys, then comes back for solace

→ insomnia: julia insisting he get some actual goddamn sleep; dreamsharing thread where they keep each other company in a nightmarescape & catching sight of each others' fears

→ fancy dress party (possibly first visit to the bar with no doors?), getting drunk & hooking up, look we just love an opportunity to work with the armani suit

→ stephen being possessed by sinister strange trying to break out of his empty world and come to this one instead; big drama!!; julia having to exorcise him to get her stephen back; softe tender shit & lingering trauma & discussions re: dreamwalking

→ intimate bathing & clawfoot tub in the sanctum

[ourladytrees]

→ a casual visit to the Neitherlands and/or Fillory because he's not the only one who's visited other worlds

→ a snow day curled up in bed with cocoa and books while the novices shovel out the Sanctum

— visuals.

[ourladytrees]

by portalling

suture cuts, i'll dry your eyes —

[portalling]

place your hand upon my mouth, whisper: shh, do you trust me now? (♫)

[ They've settled into a routine.

There's morning coffee in the tiled kitchen; afternoon tea as she pores over books from the library, and Strange plucks a few selections from the shelves and tosses over his recommendations here and there. There's his one-on-one lessons with Julia around the Sanctum, alternating between attempting spells in the warm and cozy attic or the cold containment room in the basement; he prefers the attic for so many reasons, but sometimes it's nice to have the extra wards for protection. She's a fiendishly quick learner, just as he thought on that first day: she speeds through the basic exercises and then smashes into a metaphorical wall and gets furious with herself and with the spell for not working, and he has to keep biting the inside of his cheek because, oh, he knows that look in her eye. It was the same one which had haunted him for months in Kamar-Taj.

Julia is faster than him, for all the reasons he'd outlined before: she already knows the grammar, and now she's just cobbling together a new vocabulary. But it's a strain. He watches the magic sputter and spark between her hands, and he tries to diagnose the symptoms, and he curses her old gods once or twice.

And they work, and they study, and sometimes skittish apprentices breeze through with fresh sheets and bath towels to stack neatly on the end of her bed, and it starts to feel— domestic? Is that a word which fits the bill? He's not sure, but it is nice having some additional company around the Sanctum whenever Wong is away. It means Strange has someone to walk to the bodega with him, or down to Chelsea Piers or a stroll along the nearby High Line whenever he wants some fresh air and to see some green. She eventually succeeds in her first portal, and they celebrate by breaking out the good liquor. And then the work continues: trying to hold the door open longer and longer, preventing it from rubberbanding shut the moment her attention drifts. Her portals get better and better, slowly. It isn't the same magic she once knew, but it is a kind of magic.

There are days, too, when he's summoned away to deal with— well, there's no other word for it but sorcerer business. A thrift shop stumbling across a cursed artifact and needing to call for help, or NYPD cops finding a knife at a crime scene which swallows up people who touch it, or a wayward magic-user accidentally letting a spell go wild in Red Hook. He vanishes and he goes to tidy up people's problems, generally keeping his crooked finger on the magical pulse of New York City. Sometimes he comes back dripping with black ichor, spitting annoyed as he storms off to take a shower and the novices have to mop up the hardwood floor after him. Sometimes he comes back from an evening at the Bar With No Doors, smelling of cigar smoke and whiskey, a little cheerfully tipsy. He keeps his days busy with a smaller focus, even if he's no longer the Sorcerer Supreme.

This is one of those days.

The Sanctum has been quiet and peaceful, and Julia's been left to her own devices. It seems like it's going to unfold fairly uneventfully, until—

That subway token in her pocket suddenly seems to heat up and heat up, turning painfully red-hot, and a familiar voice ripples across the ether, sounding more ragged than usual: ]

Julia? I need—

[ A scratching blare like static across the line. ]

Are you there?

[ourladytrees]

[ That comfortable routine they settle into is perhaps the most surprising part of all of this for Julia. From the morning coffee to the afternoon tea, the hours reading every book she can get her hands on to the hours practicing spellwork under Stephen's supervision — it's nothing like it had been during her months with the hedges. There had been a sense of pressure there to learn enough to earn the next star, to be better and faster to earn access to more knowledge. And from what Q's told her, there's always pressure at Brakebills, with everyone worried about lectures and exams and making it to the next year without flunking out. But here in the Sanctum, the only pressure is what she puts on herself, that drive to learn so she can try to solve the problem of bringing back magic for the magicians.

It's hard to remind herself that she can only move so fast and not allowing herself to rest makes the magic dangerous, which she can't afford. Only a handful of people know what she's doing, yet she feels like the entire world is counting on her. No, multiple worlds are counting on her, and that's a hell of a weight on her shoulders. But... it doesn't feel that heavy when they settle into those moments where the universe condenses to just the two of them. Julia Wicker and Stephen Strange. Even when she's ready to scream in frustration, he's an anchor she can cling to, keeping her tethered so she doesn't spiral too badly into her obsessive search for knowledge.

The strangest times in the Sanctum are when he's not there. He has a life outside of working with her, she knows that; the work he does is important. Still, it's weird when he leaves, heading out into the city to take care of his Sorcerer Business while she buries her way into another stack of books. She'd never admit it because it's absolutely ridiculous... but she misses him when he's gone like that, and she looks forward to his every return.

It's during one of those times when she's missing the feeling of his presence, trying not to sneeze while opening a particularly dusty tome that was buried at the back of a shelf, that she's startled by that sudden heat in her pocket. It catches her off-guard and she nearly drops it as she pulls it from her pocket. And then— ]

Stephen? What is it, what do you need?

[ It's only through sheer willpower that she keeps panic from slipping into her voice. ]

[portalling]

Pop quiz time! Do you feel ready to open up a portal to upstate? That's a trick question, you're going to have to be.

[ He's trying to sound just as blasé and nonchalant as ever, but there's a tight string of strain in his voice. In the distance, faintly muted through the connection, she can hear— is that a roar? The crash of something moving through trees and bushes; the sorcerer sounds out-of-breath. ]

The woods by Storm King State Park. I've set a magical beacon on my location so you can hopefully pinpoint it better. I need— retrieval. I lost my sling ring.

[ 'Retrieval' is such a toothless word, but in that one request, it immediately paints a picture. It means help. It means get here and bring me to safety. God, he hates calling for help, especially from his student only half-trained, but... Wong's on the other side of the planet and has bigger problems besides, and Strange pissed off the head of the London Sanctum last week, so he'd rather not be indebted to the man.

So. It's time for a pop quiz, and to see if Julia can still succcessfully pry open that portal over a greater distance, and get them both through it and back again safely. ]

[ourladytrees]

[ Okay, that lack of pressure she'd felt before? Very much no longer the case. The stakes of her training are suddenly now skyhigh and Julia feels almost sick with it. She can hear the strain in his voice despite the tone he's trying to put on, and that roar — what the hell has he gotten himself into?

She's out of her chair and moving to the open part of the room before he's even told her where she's going. The sling ring is in her hand and she doesn't remember reaching for it, the weight on her fingers familiar and comforting even as her heart races with fear.

Storm King State Park — she's never been there before and has nothing to picture, no mental image to which she can project her portal. The only thing she can reach for is his beacon, which feels so much less reliable than her own memories, but what other choice do they have? It's this or he d—

No. She's not losing anyone else. A cold focus falls over her, drowning out everything else in her mind. This is nothing compared to what she's survived and she can do this. ]

Hang on, I'm coming.

[ Her magic twists upon itself as she wrestles it into submission, tugging on both strange and familiar threads to weave into the portal that sparks into being. Opening the portal is easy, but keeping it open is a strain, magical muscles stretching taut until it's stable enough for her to see through. Will she have to go after him?

(With her luck? Probably.) ]

bring me home again —

[ourladytrees]

and the weight of the world's getting harder to hold up (♫)

[ Magic is back. Those words echo through the universe as every being connected to it rejoices at finally feeling whole again — a celebration which is cut tragically short as the Wellspring is siphoned off for control by the Library. It's a bitter ending to a quest that had cost them so much — that will cost them even more in just a few hours.

She manages to get away once they return to Earth, no one paying much attention to the woman who can barely stand when there are a half-dozen much more problematic magicians to worry about. They're at the McAllistair's property in the city, and with the wards not yet restored to full strength, she slips out onto the street. Down the block, through an alley, another two streets over. She moves as fast as she can, stumbling with a hand braced against rough walls of stone and brick to keep from falling. Finally, she manages to hail a cab, the driver giving her a look of profound concern until she forcefully repeats her destination.

It feels like hours before the cab finally comes to a stop, every minute a new form of agony. Everything hurts. Her veins are on fire, her soul burning from having her divine magic so suddenly ripped out, and she feels... nothing of magic. No longer is she connected to the universe, but instead cut off and left bleeding out from the very core of her.

Paying with her credit card is dangerous — it'll give the McAllistairs a way to track her but she doesn't have enough cash to cover the fare and she's not sure how much longer she can keep going. It's already been too long, the clock counting down until—

She can't think about it yet. Her focus has to be on getting to safety. Getting home. Not to her apartment but to the only place she feels safe now, the only place she'll be safe in her present state. When Prometheus had given his power to create the keys, he'd done so knowing that he would become vulnerable; his enemies had taken advantage of that vulnerability and killed him. She can't risk the McAllistairs or the Library trying that with her once they realize she hasn't fogotten.

But she will forget if she doesn't get to Stephen. He's her only hope now.

The cabs let her out a few blocks from the Sanctum, the only precaution she can afford to take, and who knows what good it will be. Even in the middle of the night, there are people out on the street, and she isn't exactly inconspicous in the clothes and makeup she'd worn as a goddess. Maybe if they were in another part of the city, but in Greenwich at this hour...

The doors to the Sanctum Sanctorum open for her as she reaches its threshold, the token in her pocket warming with the magic that gains her entrance. She stumbles inside, making it halfway into the foyer before collapsing to her hands and knees on that beautiful floor. ]

Help me. [ She whispers to the Sanctum itself, begging it for the sanctuary and salvation she needs. ] Please.

[portalling]

[ Julia's hands hit the mosaic parquet floor, and the impact hums through the Sanctum like a ripple through water, a wave of sheer presence roiling up the stairwell and down the hallways and crashing against Stephen Strange's door. He's in the middle of combing through the shelves when it feels like the whole building shudders, the chandeliers and light fixtures trembling.

Because the building knows. It always knows. The Cloak of Levitation perks up in the corner like a hunting hound which just heard a distant whistle on a different frequency, except that Stephen can hear the bare edges of it too. Help me, whispered to the bricks and the wood and the leylines beneath them, and the Sanctum, in answer, tips the floor beneath Stephen's feet to yank him askew and get his attention.

It's a more dignified entrance than the first time he'd come rushing out from the washroom, but Stephen hurries through a portal even more quickly this time, hopping through it and landing on the foyer in front of her.

Because of course it's Julia. The Sanctum recognised her and let her in, and after so much time spent living together, he recognised her signature in turn.

Except that he hasn't seen her in months. Stephen had wondered how she was doing on her quest and if she was safe, particularly when he sensed the subway token vanish from this dimension (yes, he'd put a tracking spell on it, of course he had), but he trusted her to know what she was doing. If she were ever in absolute dire straits, he knew she still had that token in her pocket and could call for help if she needed.

Today, it seems she's finally playing that card.

He stoops to a knee beside the woman, a hand on her shoulder, his voice more frenetic than even he would've expected before the words slipped out. She isn't openly bleeding anywhere, she looks fine at first glance, but if magic has taught him anything, it's that the damage can be invisible— ]

Julia? What happened? Are you alright?

[ourladytrees]

[ She can't feel the power of the Sanctum even as it reverberates through the heart of the sanctuary; her soul aches to be cut off from it, to know that this beautiful beacon of good has been severed from her senses. That numbness is as painful as the burning in her soul, her nerves sparking like her injuries are physical when in fact she doesn't have even a bruise on her.

But then Stephen is there as if out of nowhere and the relief she feels is so sharp that she could cry. He's here and he'll save her, she knows he will. There's no one she trusts more at this moment. ]

I need help. [ Her words catch and crash into each other, each syllable like knives in her throat. ] A potion— My memories, they're trying to—

[ A frantic desperation enters her voice and she reaches out to him, her fingertips grasping at his shirt, her hand trembling as she tries to hold on. ]

[portalling]

[ Julia clutches at the folds of his shirt, and Stephen catches her hand. She's not making much sense, and so this time he doesn't stop to ask for permission before he closes his eyes for one long slow beat; and when he opens them again, he's peering at her through his metaphorical third eye.

And what he sees is—


—honestly bizarre, all radiant golden light but tarnished like a statuette gone to rust, a lamp dimmed; there's ragged trailing edges where she's been severed and her magic ripped out, the corners of her psyche frayed like it had been roughly hacked through, burned through, the stump of her magical senses cauterised. It smells of burned wood, burnt flesh, hot metal. And in her head...

It's a quick glance, so he can't see all the details of the spell, but there's something there, seething and practically chewing through her neurons. He's going to need a steady workspace to take a better look at it. The equivalent of wheeling Julia into an operating room to dig his fingers into her brain and get a closer look at what the fuck is happening in there.

In the meantime, though, he holds her hand like a steadying anchor. ]

There's something in your head. What can you tell me about it?

[ They've constantly been excavating different sides of each other, and now she's seeing yet another angle to Stephen: today it's the surgeon, crisp and businesslike and to-the-point, like a professional mask slamming down over his expression, because anything else would let his own panic and concern for her run away with him. It's an old muscle and an ancient instinct; it practically sounds like he's about to head to the sink and start scrubbing up. ]

let's meet in a respectable dive on the somewhat safe street and have a beer —

[portalling]

i'm not able to put my cards on the table, and if you only knew of the hand that i'm holding, you would be blushing (♫)

[ Successfully severing the magic battery powering the memory enchantment and restoring her friends' memories is worth a few celebratory drinks with a sorcerer, right?

Doctor Voodoo is tetchy about admitting newcomers to the Bar With No Doors, particularly magicians ("They're all assholes, Strange," "Well, yes, but she's not actually Brakebills-trained—"). Stephen argues back and forth with his colleague for a while, but in the end, he scores the invite for her: a matte-black business card with no visible address printed on it, but someone of magical ability will be able to touch it and sense the location of the bar. As long as you know where it is and have the abilities to portal or teleport or project yourself there, then you can go there. It's a laidback neutral zone with strict rules of non-engagement. It's where the local high-ranking magic-users congregate to discuss matters relevant to the dimension as a whole.

It's one of his favourite places.

And tonight, the seedy dive is getting gussied up and transforming itself for a black-tie affair. It's some kind of summer equinox party, a celebration, an opportunity for everyone to doll up and put on their very fanciest robes, or dresses, or clothing cut with literal starlight, and schmooze and mingle and drink. It's a nice occasion for Julia's first visit there.

Stephen's just about done getting dressed for the event, just attending to the finishing touches like tucking the magically-shrunk Cloak of Levitation into his chest pocket as a pocket square. Checking on the time, he wanders down the hallway, then he raps his knuckles against Julia's doorway before poking his head in. ]

Do you know how to tie a tie?

[ She's grown accustomed to his assorted looks — the various gradations of sorcerer's attire, and then his more casual weekend loungewear around the Sanctum — but tonight, it's formal and it's like a glimpse out of his past life. A well-tailored and well-cut Armani suit, sharp as a knife, crisp white dress-shirt, expensive shoes... and a black tie hanging loose around his neck. He'd already learned a while back that he doesn't have the fine-motor skills to tie it with his hands any longer. ]

I can do it with magic, but I'm trying to be at least a little more responsible about my flagrantly unnecessary spells.

[ourladytrees]

[ It's been a rough couple of weeks. Recovering from forging the seven keys had taken more time than Julia liked, her physical strength returning long before her magical strength, and even then she's only been able to do dimensional magic like Stephen's. After spending so much time and effort to restore the Wellspring, it's been like adding insult to injury to be right back where she started. But it turns out she really is still a goddess, or a psuedo-goddess, because she'd been able to short out Fogg's battery after tracking him and it down at Brakebills. It'd taken some tricky spellwork on both her and Stephen's part to get her onto the school's property without anyone recognizing her but she'd gotten there just in time to get the information from Fogg before he suffered the same fate as his students. She hasn't yet told Stephen the particulars of how she'd shorted the battery, though — she'll get into the whole apparently I can't die thing another time.

So she really is in the mood to celebrate, especially since with the proprietor's dislike of magicians, there's little chance of running into a McAllistair there. (And if an encounter does happen, the rules of the establishment should hopefully provide enough of a buffer.) Her friends are safe for the moment, tucked away in Marina-23's fancy apartment, and she's going to a party for the first time in what feels like years. She's taken the direction to dress up very seriously, going for a simple but elegant hairstyle so as not to take away from the dress she'd chosen. The gold accents sparkle subtly in the light as she turns to check her appearance, tucking in a stray bit of hair as the knock comes at the door behind her.

Turning, she can't help but give him a good once-over, because damn the suit looks good on him. Like it was made for him — and it probably was. The smile she sends his way is both a little nervous and extremely happy. ]

Lucky for you, I do know how to tie a tie. So you can save the flagrantly unnecessary spell use for another occasion.

[ The dress's skirt swishes as she walks across the room, strappy heels peeking out from under the layers that seem to move almost independently of each other. And when she reaches up to work on the tie, he'll get a good look at her black nails with speckled gold foil to match her expertly-applied metallic gold eyeliner. ]

I like the suit, by the way. It looks good on you.

[ Understatement of the century, perhaps? ]

[portalling]

You said that last time when I was wearing rumpled sweatpants, so I'm not sure how much weight I should put on this comment—

[ Stephen's mouth is on autopilot, but his eyes are entirely riveted on Julia as she turns around and clears the distance between them and he gets a better look at her outfit for the evening. Standing this close to him, she can see him swallow, Adam's apple bobbing as he stares at her dress, rendered speechless for a moment. All the black-and-gold which matches her nails and is reminiscent of the gold dust she'd left behind after her divinity; the sheer gauzy black tulle; her bared shoulders; the layers on layers like a tiered confection.

He's not really sure what he expected: a little black dress, maybe, like something for a regular cocktail party? But Julia went straight for the throat with the theme. He's aware he should probably give some toothless neutral compliment, something prim and polite and platonic, but what slips out instead is: ]

God, you look gorgeous.

— timeline.

[ourladytrees]

— their meeting.
— his rescue.
— her rescue.
— their relationship.
— his possession.

— notes.

[ourladytrees]

[ourladytrees]

coming soon.

in your arms, i'm safe and sound —

[ourladytrees]

all the hell we've been through had a purpose, together we are chaos and it's perfect(♫)

[ Somewhere along the way, Julia forgot she was capable of feeling happy. That soul-deep happiness that engraved itself upon your very being and influenced every part of your life was like suddenly seeing color after living in black and white for far too long. Stephen Strange is responsible for that happiness, though there's no way in hell she'll tell him that. This thing between them is still too new and too fragile to risk crossing a bridge that wide. But she basks in that happiness, savoring every second of even the most mundane interactions.

Reading together in the library. Getting breakfast at the bodega. Making tea for each other. The sex is incredible, of course, and they have plenty of it, but it's the little moments that etch themselves into her heart. Every joke Stephen makes is precious, even the horribly bad ones, and she finds ever more joy in teasing him and giving as good as she gets. And despite any worries they might have had, the dynamic between them doesn't become awkward or unbalanced — they still respect and treat each other as equals, that simply extends to the bedroom now. And his study. And the kitchen if they ever get the Sanctum to themselves. 

In the weeks since they first took this step in their as-yet-undefined relationship, she's spent more nights in Stephen's bed than her own, tumbling into too few hours of sleep after attempting to sate their insatiable hunger for each other. Waking to find him still in bed beside her always feels like a gift, peace settling into her bones as she feels his weight on the mattress beside her. He's not always there when she wakes up, but she's always grateful when he is. Stretching languidly in the soft sunlight filtering into the room, Julia turns onto her side and watches him from half-closed eyes. It's rare to see him like this; she wants to remember it as much as anything else. ]

[portalling]

[ It’s astonishingly easy, the way they slip into this routine: it’s both comfortable yet passionate, familiar and yet new, the way they explore each others’ bodies at night and take delight in each others’ minds during the day, enjoying each other, savouring this new twist to their relationship.

It’s been such a long time since Stephen woke up with someone else in his bed, and even longer since it was someone he wanted to be there, and not to kick her out at daybreak. Stephen’s been terrified of emotional intimacy for a long, long time — afraid of seeing and being seen, afraid of wanting, afraid of that sheer vulnerability of placing your heart in someone else’s hand — and so it’s a little easier to think of this as just a tryst. A physical benefit to their friendship, perhaps. They don’t define what they are. They don’t overthink it. He wakes Julia up by pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder, and he does not run away from whatever this is. She wakes Stephen up by playfully wriggling closer, a hand sliding below his abdomen, and she does not run away from whatever this is.

And it is so astonishingly, frighteningly comfortable.

Except that somewhere else, in another time and another p̶̞̮̔͑͒l̷̡͐̒ạ̴̻̗͘͝c̴̣͙̗̐e̷̯͑̌ —

in another ṕ̵̼̮͔͍̑̌͝l̸̨̘̱̓͜a̸͚̩̮̰͗̐c̶͔͐͑e̴͈̦͎͓̐͋̽̏̃, a distant and empty sea sloughs and sighs and whispers against impossible shores. It’s a dead New York inside a dead universe, with a crumbling Sanctum Sanctorum. In this world, Stephen Strange’s fingers are burned black from the Darkhold. He’s been living a lonely vigil with no one else to talk to because this world broke long ago, shattering into pieces. Doctor Stephen Strange has always been driven and obsessive. Here, the object of said obsession became: Christine, Christine in every permutation, every world and place he couldn’t have her, every hungry longing for her, every version of himself he murders because he cannot have her. With nothing else to fixate on, with the Darkhold sinking its claws into his slowly-rotting soul, Strange has simply become worse and worse. Things just got out of hand. Well. They’re about to get out of hand again. After his battle with himself, he’s left gasping and impaled on a fence, Christine watching on in horror before she and Stephen fucking Strange leave together to walk right out of this dead-end universe. But it takes a lot more than a wrought-iron fence to kill a Sorcerer Supreme. Slowly, agonishingly, Strange hauls himself off that sharp arch. Telekinesis pulls himself up and over, landing on the ground, blood spilling out from that ugly ragged wound, darkening his hands further. He patches himself up, magical flame searing the injury shut. He steals more magic to heal himself and the ground trembles; a fracture, more pieces of the universe sloughing off, and he’s aware that the whole thing might still come apart entirely. It’s dead and empty, but it could still collapse further; it’s like he’s living in a condemned building, except all of reality itself is condemned and collapsing. He crawls back into the Sanctum Sanctorum and it takes him a while to recover, slowly healing from his injuries. Time doesn’t exist here — no sun rises and sets — and so it’s hard to tell how long it takes, but eventually his quivering fingers trace that wound and finds that it’s just more scarred flesh. He doesn’t have the Darkhold any longer — his other self stole it — but he has a photographic memory. He reconstructs the runes. The sigils. He carves them into space once more, that livid scarlet energy searing its way through the air, carving its way through universes like layers of flesh. Did the other Stephen think that taking the book would be enough? Strange has been dreamwalking for years. He has walked in uncountable footsteps. He has memorised the spells. Of course he has memorised the spells. And now he has a dinstinctive energy signature to follow, one he knows as well as himself because it is indeed himself, signposts pointing the way home. So he parts those glassy barriers between universes, slips beneath the surface, and follows the psychic breadcrumbs of that arrogant and seethingly self-important do-gooder presence he had met, and battled, and now knew intimately; he could dreamwalk again and follow him back to the point of origin, and it was like crawling into familiar snakeskin —

and Strange opens his eyes to warm glowing sunlight (real light! real sunlight!) in his bedroom in the Sanctum Sanctorum (intact! not a haunted house!). He blinks, disoriented; flexes his scarred but unburnt fingertips, feels his consciousness settle into hands and feet and limbs like tarry ink settling into a glass vessel, filling it to the brim. He methodically bricks away the other Stephen, sealing up the cracks, piling layer upon layer over the man’s consciousness and burying him six feet deep in a hungry grave.

He has done this many, many times. It’s old hat by now.

What is new, however, is when he shifts in that bed and looks to the side, and realises that he is not alone. Those blue-green eyes blink again, critically surveying the brunette beside him with a sheer lack of recognition.

He could try to maintain the ruse, perhaps. But after a while, he’s never really bothered; Wong had once immediately exorcised him because he’d sensed the alien presence, and so it doesn’t seem worth the effort. So Strange doesn’t even try. There’s something wrong with his voice when he speaks: something slithery, something low and more gravelly than Julia’s accustomed to, as if his voice is suddenly cracked from disuse. ]

Oh. Hello. You’re not Christine.

[ourladytrees]

[ Of all the nightmares that plague Julia, the worst is losing someone else the way she lost Richard. Watching someone she cares about be filled up by another being, that person she holds dear still there but effectively erased, it's... Every time she wakes with a flinch and a quiet, terrified gasp, she vows to never let it happen again. No matter how much training it takes, how many years she'll have to devote to reading how many dusty books, she won't let anyone else suffer that fate.

When Stephen first wakes, she takes in the way he moves, the flexing fingers and blinking eyes as if he's trying to get his bearings, but she doesn't think anything of it. They've talked about how he'll sometimes astral project in his sleep; perhaps this is part of him readjusting to being back in his body.

But then he looks at her... and nightmare becomes reality.

There's nothing in his eyes of Stephen. No recognition, no affection, no soft amusement or playful mischief. He doesn't know her. And it's more than that, not just a simple case of having memories erased like what had happened with James. His voice is different, his way of speaking, as if he's an entirely different person.

But that name. Christine. Whoever or whatever is in him knows about Stephen's life, at least to an extent. That tells her... something. She doesn't know what yet.

Hiding her fear beneath uncomfortable agitation, Julia sits up, channeling the emotion she can't suppress into the guise of an affronted lover. ]

Well, that's an odd thing to say. [ There's hurt in the words, and she turns away as if upset over something trivial. She's the picture of a privileged rich girl as she slides to the edge of the bed and reaches for the sweater and jeans crumpled on the floor. Clothes will help her feel stronger, like donning armor before battle — and there's a sling ring in her pants pocket. ]

What the hell, Strange. [ She never calls him that. He's always Stephen with her. ]