“I can’t really admit this to a local, but if we could just have all of Tevinter’s enchantments and knowledge without, y’know, everything else—”
The corner of his mouth tugs into a smile as she lays her arm out for access. It’s the sort of thing they’ve bonded over: their willingness to do the work, to make the sacrifices, to test the magic even if it’s risky. There’s nothing better for learning how this cuff works than to simply try it on yourself.
But as Strange’s gaze drifts down to Ness’ hands, there’s a passing cloud over his expression, before he manages to smooth it out. The skin of her hands is broken, ripped and scabbed with impressions of her nails. First warning sign.
Still. He wordlessly reaches out and affixes the cuff, sealing it around her wrist.
And as he does so, there’s something else: the more carefully clinical physician’s mask sliding into place as he sizes her up, looking at her not as a mentor or a friend, but as a doctor. Ness is raccoon-eyed from lack of sleep, which could be normal enough, except that her eyes are even more reddened and bruised than one would expect; her hair dull, skin a little waxy. Her hands are clean beneath his, but desperately picked-over. He’s not a good judge, but she looks notably skinnier than a few months ago, cheekbones a little sharper.
Strange knows what lack of self-care looks like. (His own hair and beard gone unkempt and scraggly in the year after the accident, wild-eyed, clothes in tatters.) But he doesn’t say anything just yet —
He activates the rune instead. Her entire arm from shoulder to fingertips goes nearly completely numb, all sensation and pain fading into nothing, nerves magically dulled. (How does it work? God, how he wishes he knew. Again: shame about Tevinter.)
no subject
The corner of his mouth tugs into a smile as she lays her arm out for access. It’s the sort of thing they’ve bonded over: their willingness to do the work, to make the sacrifices, to test the magic even if it’s risky. There’s nothing better for learning how this cuff works than to simply try it on yourself.
But as Strange’s gaze drifts down to Ness’ hands, there’s a passing cloud over his expression, before he manages to smooth it out. The skin of her hands is broken, ripped and scabbed with impressions of her nails. First warning sign.
Still. He wordlessly reaches out and affixes the cuff, sealing it around her wrist.
And as he does so, there’s something else: the more carefully clinical physician’s mask sliding into place as he sizes her up, looking at her not as a mentor or a friend, but as a doctor. Ness is raccoon-eyed from lack of sleep, which could be normal enough, except that her eyes are even more reddened and bruised than one would expect; her hair dull, skin a little waxy. Her hands are clean beneath his, but desperately picked-over. He’s not a good judge, but she looks notably skinnier than a few months ago, cheekbones a little sharper.
Strange knows what lack of self-care looks like. (His own hair and beard gone unkempt and scraggly in the year after the accident, wild-eyed, clothes in tatters.) But he doesn’t say anything just yet —
He activates the rune instead. Her entire arm from shoulder to fingertips goes nearly completely numb, all sensation and pain fading into nothing, nerves magically dulled. (How does it work? God, how he wishes he knew. Again: shame about Tevinter.)