photophobic | [IC CONTACT]

Do you really think I expected any of them to understand. Or that their recognition would mean anything to me, if praise was what I wanted? No. It's meaningless. They're blind. They will always be blind. Pathetic and limited.

And I will remember it, the next time I hold their lives in my hands.

Tell me how your really feel.

[There are clearly a lot of feelings here, but that had been clear to Stephen from the start.

He’s also not going to indulge the hissing threats about next time. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Kylo will remember, just that there’s nothing to add to trying to dispute it or convince him otherwise with words right now.]

Then they did exactly what you were expecting. Are you disappointed in them all the same? It’s a little unfair to give someone you know is blind a book and be irritated that they can’t read it.

[His footsteps resume, steady and even, but sort of echoing.]

Do you regret not doing it now?

I didn't expect better from them, and I am not surprised. Or disappointed. But they are still a disappointment. Consistently falling short of a standard doesn't make the standard irrelevant. Does it.

As for regret. I did exactly what I promised Ronan I would from the beginning and gave them every chance to make their destruction unnecessary.

Depends on what the standard is. Or whose standard it is. You're not expecting better of them, but they're still a disappointment when compared to a standard. What's the standard to you?

And you did keep your promise. Do you think he's better for it in the current scheme of things?

It's their standard. Their metric. [And, co-incidentally, the one he was measured against long before he became Kylo Ren. The one they used to condemn him when they found him wanting. Which Kylo isn't about to explain, if he's even consciously aware of the reason this bitterness bleeds into his voice.] Their hypocrisy.

[He sucks in a breath, apparently... failing to steady himself.]

What does it matter to you? My promise. What I did or didn't do. How I feel about it.

Hm... [The source of the sour tones isn't something Stephen has access or awareness of. He has seen a lot of this world's unwitting inhabitants in a very short period of time, but there's a story there. It's not one Stephen is going to pry it from him. There is a lot to unpack there.]

Because it's significant. Or it should be.

[Well, that earns Stephen a particularly derisive twist of Kylo's mouth, thankfully unseen. It is, however, after the kind of pause clearly designed to give the speaker a chance to hear for themselves just how ridiculous whatever they just said sounds, entirely audible.]

Is it.

[Significant? Significant how. No-one truly cares what anyone else did. It doesn't matter why they did it. They only look at the result. The consequence.

And more specifically, whatever those consequences were for them.]

Significant. To you. How I feel about what I did.

[The silence and its needle-like effect doesn't trouble Stephen terribly and he certainly doesn't feel it settle into any soft tissue of his. Not because he doesn't hear it, not because it doesn't matter, but because to act like nervous hissed embers are spires of hellfire is just not something Stephen has space for. Maybe never had space for.

He knows what he's seen though, not just in the possible outcomes that could have swept over the universe, but in the two boys he watched in the chapel. Two terrified and terrifying young men all coiled together trying to protect one another from external pain. But Stephen also knows better than to ever speak what he's seen.

But this is the reaction he's earned from brushing against the very idea of there being something more than just what has been handed to them. Maybe both Kylo Ren and Ronan Lynch have always held their hands out to others when they were told to, hand their palms filled with nails, and then told to squeeze their fingers closed into fists. For a greater purpose.

If that is so, Stephen can't blame Kylo for hissing when being asked for his hand.]

I didn't say it was for me.

[Now, Kylo's just confused.]

Then why do you want to know.

You don't think how you feel about the part you both played in keeping the interconnected universes together is worth giving some real time to?

[Stephen's footsteps pause again in the background of the feed.]

Personally? I think that's valuable. I'm not the one who needs to know, not here and now, and maybe not ever. But if you ever wanted it--someone to hear it, to hear you--then I'd like to make the offer to listen sometime. Sincerely.

[The pause that follows is far less sharp and accusatory— space for Kylo to burn through everything he's learned about Stephen Strange in an attempt to make sense of the offer, rather than anything designed for Stephen's use.

What possible use could the magician have for Kylo's feelings?]

I don't think you'd find my secrets all that entertaining.

It’s not about being entertained.

Or educational.

Now that it could be, actually. Which in this case is more important, if you ask me.

And what might you be trying to learn.

Andddd we're back to how it's not for me.

[Rapidly losing patience with what he can only assume is a game, Kylo winds tighter and tighter into defensive irritation. Particularly as Stephen's prodding at a very old and yet very fresh wound...]

I'm not looking for any more teachers.

Please. I'm not offering to teach you.

What I'm offering is an ear, an impartial one at that.

There's no agenda, no bar for you to hit or clear, nothing to prove. Just an open offer to listen if you want it. And if you don't right now? That's just fine too, because I think you have some things you need to say. At some point.

How do you feel about it. The outcome. What you did or didn't do. Or am I the only one expected to give up my secrets?

Not necessarily.

You don't... get this a lot, do you? Get asked how you're doing or how you're feeling just because someone is concerned about you for you. I'm not asking you to answer that, secrets for free and all. I get it.

[There's a pause, then a slight metallic creaking and the sound of wind in the feed, probably a window being opened. In the pause in Stephen speaking, it almost sounds like there's an ocean nearby.]

Honestly, it's hard to process what I feel about the outcome as it is. Seeing so many, the mind sort of breaks down to make holding the information possible. I mean, I have reactions to seeing them, mostly panic and a sense of urgency. But even though I know conceptually this was one of the better outcomes, there was a handful of ways it could have gone that wouldn't have resulted in total annihilation. We had options, that isn't always the case.

But because there were options, I can't really measure any sense of relief against another, or definitively say I'd have a preference for this outcome over another. And every result had sacrifices. There always is, it's just a question of what they were.

By the time this series of events was playing out, I already knew what I would be doing, what I was going to give up. And I knew what a lot of other people gave up too--different choices had different results. Put simply, it sure doesn't feel great, but it doesn't feel as bad as it could.

And we're still here to feel, aren't we? So for that alone, I'm grateful, just not content or jubilant. It's complicated and contradictory, like so many things are.

[But you have no reason to be concerned for me rather than about me, he doesn't snap back irritably in the space he allows Stephen to fill with... he isn't sure. It isn't outright deflection? But it is all information he feels fairly certain is just... obvious. There's very little vulnerability opened up for him to jab at in all this.

But...]

It's important to you. Isn't it. Maintaining this... detachment of yours. This distance.

Not a singular sense. What, you think I can't multitask?

[Now That's What I Call Deflection Vol. 201]

[Hello.]

No. I think you need to.

To maintain the detachment you think is important to me?

[Does Kylo sound just a little more... satisfied? Confident?]

Well. I am just a mindreader. Which is like being an observer, isn't it? But more focused. More... intimate. Personal.

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