Chapter Text
As soon as he stepped into Strange’s bedroom via a portal, Wong felt a chill in the air. As he suspected, Stephen wasn’t in bed. In fact, the bed hadn’t been slept in. The curtains were blowing because the windows were open hence the chill. He sighed and closed the windows.
This didn’t bode well. Where could Stephen be?
Wong hadn’t been around for the last few days because of his duty. As soon as he stepped into Kamar-Taj, a teary-eyed America told him that Stephen hadn’t responded to her texts. He also didn’t answer her calls. The last time they communicated was three days ago.
He heard a movement behind him and immediately went into his defensive stance. He turned around and saw red. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was only the Cloak, he lowered his glowing shields. The Cloak motioned him to follow her.
She led him to the library on the ground floor. Piles of books were scattered around the room. He heard some rustle behind the piles.
He walked around the highest pile in the middle of the room and saw his friend sitting cross legged, reading a book floating right in front of him. He noticed that some of the books scattered on the floor were facing down which was really bad for the spines of the book. The librarian in him winced. It was like a hurricane had swept through the library.
He cleared his throat loudly to make his presence known.
Stephen jumped at the sound and the floating book fell with a resounding thud. The Cloak flew quickly to join the frantic sorcerer.
“Stephen, are you OK?”
His friend looked up from his book. His usual tidy hair looked disheveled, his goatee had not been trimmed, his eyes were red rimmed with eyebags around them. “Wong. Is there anything wrong? Is America OK? I was too busy searching and I forgot about time. Is she sick? I’m such a terrible fa-, friend.”
“She is OK but she is worried about you. Shall we go to the pantry for tea? “
He didn’t respond. However when Wong walked toward the exit, he heard that his friend followed. That meant Stephen hadn’t completely lost it yet.
Knowing his friend, Wong was sure his friend hadn’t consumed anything for three days. He rummaged through the fridge, found a frozen vegetarian lasagna and heated it in an oven. He boiled some water and put chamomile tea bags in both of their cups. He also fired a quick text to America. “He is OK. Just need to have some rest. I’m on it. You just go to eat your dinner and rest.”
He got a reply immediately. “OK. Please take care of him. How could he be so bad at taking care of himself?”
He texted a reply. “It’s also a mystery to me how he’s survived this far. Poor dumb luck is my guess plus the Cloak. I really need to get back to him before he’s aware that we’re talking about him.” He looked up and saw that Stephen was still engrossed in his book. He shook his head. Something never changed.
The Cloak hovered nearby with a tray. Wong had a strong feeling that the Cloak knew how to read and had been prying. The Cloak quickly looked away. Now he suspected that she might be able to read minds as well. At least, she was on their side. Stephen was really lucky to have her.
He nodded toward the Cloak who immediately understood and snatched the book away from Stephen.
“Hey, I was reading that. I was about to find out a sp-…” He stopped as he realized he wasn’t alone.
“When was the last time you had any meal?”
“What day is today?”
“Friday.”
“Oh.”
“Oh. That’s it?! You’re a grown adult who has responsibilities. You should have taken care of yourself and not let your friends worry about you.”
“I..I thought I could find the solution. I thought only a few hours had passed.” He combed through his hair aimlessly with slightly shaking hands. “I didn’t mean to make you or her worry. Sorry.”
Wong couldn’t bear it when he looked at his friends like that. He felt like he just kicked a puppy. Granted Stephen was very old or more like middle-aged which shouldn’t qualify him as a puppy at all, but he had those damn puppy dog eyes.
“Just eat and tell me what you want to look for later.”
“I don't feel like eating.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t feel like doing daily exercises but I still do it anyway to take care of myself. I don’t feel like training new students but I still do it as it’s my responsibility. It’s even more important for us to take good care of ourselves so we won’t make our loved ones worried about us and we don’t want to be a burden. Do you want her to get worried sick about you?”
Stephen’s jaw dropped. “That’s a lot of words coming from you so it’s really serious. Fine, I get it. I need to take care of myself. Speaking of worrying others, I forgot about my phone. I’ll be back.”
He opened a portal to his bedroom and one minute later, he returned with his phone. “Oh no, I’ve got 186 messages and 79 miscalls from her. I’ll send a quick reply.” He used voice typing to reply because texting required hand dexterity which he currently didn’t possess. He said, “I’m sorry to miss all your calls and texts, I was too engrossed in my study. I should’ve put my phone nearby. I’ll try to remember that next time. I’ll make it up to you. Ice cream or cakes? Silly me, of course you’ll prefer pizza. Now go to sleep.”
Wong smiled. Who knew that Stephen was such a softie. He pushed the plate toward his friend. “Now eat.”
Initially Stephen just toyed with lasagna. But when he looked up and saw Wong leaning on his chair and staring at him, he realized Wong meant business so he quickly finished his food.
When he was about to say something, Wong pushed a cup of tea in his direction. “Drink this first.”
Stephen sniffed the cup. “What’s in this tea?” He narrowed his eyes.
Wong couldn’t blame him after his last experience with tea not made by himself. “Just chamomile with honey. Don’t worry. I won’t drug you. If I want you to sleep, I’ll ask you directly. Do you dare to defy the order of the Sorcerer Supreme?” Wong thinned his lips and stared at him.
Stephen sipped at the tea. “Good point. Of course, I’ll listen to you. Within reason.” He said the last part sotto voce but Wong had a really good hearing.
He chose not to argue about this. There was something more important at hand. “Now do you care to share with me what worries you lately?”
Stephen blew the strand of hair that fell into his right eye. He took a few deep breaths. “Yesterday…No, three days ago, I found out that someone had been tampering with magic in this city. I investigated and found out that some magic users had kidnapped some kids, molested them, and also used their souls to summon a demon, which was the reason I noticed the disturbance in the first place. I’ve handled the demon, restored the kids’ souls, sealed their traumatic memories, healed them, and returned them to their parents. And then…” Stephen choked up after this.
The hair at the back of Wong’s neck stood up. “What happened to those people?”
“There was an urge asking me to burn them to crisp, they deserved it. Like what she did to our colleagues in Kamar-Taj…I..I…”
“Did you do that?” Wong’s blood ran cold as he was scared of the answer.