There is a small part of him that recordscratches and pauses when Cosima asks about it, because: oh shit, Wanda. She just showed up, is he going to have this conversation now, he was finally ready to talk about his romantic drama but the finer nuances of this particular adventure are best buried deep deep underground —
So there’s a brief fleeting trepidation that flickers across Stephen’s face; unusual, for a man who’s usually such a motormouth and ready to talk about any sort of bizarre, distressing adventure that might make a Thedosian child faint.
After a moment, he manages to fit some words together, and says, “That one’s… complicated. I’ll have to tell you the full details another day, I think, I’m too goddamn blitzed right now. But yeah. It’s also why I wasn’t particularly fazed when I first showed up in Thedas: I’d done the world-hopping thing before, after all, and met other versions of myself. Seen a world which was really big on sustainable greenery and pizza balls. Saw a dying world split into pieces. Another where everyone was just kind of blobs of paint. The multiverse is, genuinely, astounding.”
She takes the evasion gracefully; either they'll talk about it later, or she'll grant him the out. "It's so wild. I mean, physics isn't my area, but I knew about the possibility of the many-worlds theory. But it took me a week or two to feel fairly sure I wasn't hallucinating when I first came to Thedas. It's unreal to imagine coming through a rift when you already knew your world was just one among many."
Cosima smiles, and adds, "I don't know if this is at all consistent with your experience but like ... it was kind of weirder seeing a New York with superheroes or a Seattle overrun with zombies than getting used to Thedas. I mean, they were Fade projections, but they felt real enough for it to be unsettling. Does that make sense? I mean, don't get me wrong, it was plenty weird. But starting from whole cloth in a lot of ways was like, okay, I'm here now, let's learn the new rules. I didn't have to, like, imagine if there was a version of me in the world already who died from fungus zombies or if that world never had a me at all. And here you've straight-up met alternative yous."
“I could see that,” Stephen muses. “Like a whole uncanny valley thing. When the situation’s more vastly different from what we know, at least we can meet Thedas on its own terms instead of scrutinising where it does and doesn’t differ from our own history. But also I will point out that technically you’ve met wayyy more alternative yous than I have.”
Which begs the next question: “Do you have a favourite? Out of them. Your sisters. Your sister-yous.”
Her laugh is big, genuine as it is surprised. "Oh my god, OK, first of all, do you consider identical twins alternates of each other? Because clones are way more like twins than we are anything about alternate universe. And second of all you can't just ask people who their favorite sibling is, that's the most only-child-ass question I've ever heard."
She doesn't give him a little shove, though it seems for a moment like she might. She has also not denied having a favorite.
"I guess... I've met a bunch of them, but there are three who are really, like, part of my life on an ongoing basis. Well. I'll say four. One of them died, but I'd still count her. And like, with the asterisk that I say my life but it's you know, the Cosima back in Toronto. Since none of them are here right now. But you know what I'm trying to say." Possibly.
There’s a tug at the corner of Stephen’s mouth, a grim bleak little smile that he can’t quite fix into place.
“I wasn’t always,” he says. “An only child, I mean.”
This is what happens when you’re habitually, incorrigibly, pathologically secretive about your personal life, Stephen, people make assumptions —
But he’s still mellow enough that there’s no bite to it, and that well of grief feels shallower today and easier to face. He seems to waffle on whether to say anything or simply hurry the conversation along and stuff it all down to face it another day, but since Cosima just mentioned it herself too, it feels like there’s no better time:
“Dead sister club. But yeah, I suppose there’s— maybe notsomuch favourites, but the ones you’re closest to. She died when we were kids, but I still count her, too.”
"Oh shit." She's aware of having stepped in it, even if it wasn't quite her fault. She's not going to press, but she does say: "...Beth. Beth was my sister who died." A little offering of sorts; she hasn't talked about Beth to many people in Thedas, and it feels as if he's earned the right to that much. "They do till count."
Stephen’s gone two years without mentioning this to anyone outside of Gwenaëlle; but after having done it the once, it seems it’s a little easier to crack the door open the next time, to shake off all that rust and dust and touch on the wound you’ve been avoiding for decades straight.
“Donna,” he says, after his own pause. His own offering.
It’s just a small skip in the record, but they do manage to recover after that; the conversation finds its flow again and continues its chaotic sauntering path, the night wearing on until the elfroot runs out, the conversation a little less heavier for having shared it.
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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no subject
So there’s a brief fleeting trepidation that flickers across Stephen’s face; unusual, for a man who’s usually such a motormouth and ready to talk about any sort of bizarre, distressing adventure that might make a Thedosian child faint.
After a moment, he manages to fit some words together, and says, “That one’s… complicated. I’ll have to tell you the full details another day, I think, I’m too goddamn blitzed right now. But yeah. It’s also why I wasn’t particularly fazed when I first showed up in Thedas: I’d done the world-hopping thing before, after all, and met other versions of myself. Seen a world which was really big on sustainable greenery and pizza balls. Saw a dying world split into pieces. Another where everyone was just kind of blobs of paint. The multiverse is, genuinely, astounding.”
no subject
Cosima smiles, and adds, "I don't know if this is at all consistent with your experience but like ... it was kind of weirder seeing a New York with superheroes or a Seattle overrun with zombies than getting used to Thedas. I mean, they were Fade projections, but they felt real enough for it to be unsettling. Does that make sense? I mean, don't get me wrong, it was plenty weird. But starting from whole cloth in a lot of ways was like, okay, I'm here now, let's learn the new rules. I didn't have to, like, imagine if there was a version of me in the world already who died from fungus zombies or if that world never had a me at all. And here you've straight-up met alternative yous."
no subject
Which begs the next question: “Do you have a favourite? Out of them. Your sisters. Your sister-yous.”
This really is remarkably good elfroot.
no subject
She doesn't give him a little shove, though it seems for a moment like she might. She has also not denied having a favorite.
"I guess... I've met a bunch of them, but there are three who are really, like, part of my life on an ongoing basis. Well. I'll say four. One of them died, but I'd still count her. And like, with the asterisk that I say my life but it's you know, the Cosima back in Toronto. Since none of them are here right now. But you know what I'm trying to say." Possibly.
no subject
“I wasn’t always,” he says. “An only child, I mean.”
This is what happens when you’re habitually, incorrigibly, pathologically secretive about your personal life, Stephen, people make assumptions —
But he’s still mellow enough that there’s no bite to it, and that well of grief feels shallower today and easier to face. He seems to waffle on whether to say anything or simply hurry the conversation along and stuff it all down to face it another day, but since Cosima just mentioned it herself too, it feels like there’s no better time:
“Dead sister club. But yeah, I suppose there’s— maybe notsomuch favourites, but the ones you’re closest to. She died when we were kids, but I still count her, too.”
Even as he never speaks of her.
no subject
🎀
“Donna,” he says, after his own pause. His own offering.
It’s just a small skip in the record, but they do manage to recover after that; the conversation finds its flow again and continues its chaotic sauntering path, the night wearing on until the elfroot runs out, the conversation a little less heavier for having shared it.