Ahem...So I just watched the two D/oc/t/or St/ra/n/ge movies today, and I LOVED THEM SO MUCH AND HOLY SHIT THE KINKY IDEAS—
Of course I am getting ideas from the Cl/o/ak BUT ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE ENDING SCENE??? HE LOOKS SO SNZY IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY, LOOK!! I am SO tempted to write an alternate ending to the movie where he has a photic snz fit, JUST LOOK AT THIS, IT'S SOOO MUCH LIKE HE IS A FIGHTING A SNZ, IT'S JUST—AAAAA!!!
Stephen has little to no patience when it comes to being ill, and will often astral project for long periods of time during an illness to escape the unpleasant distractions of his ailing body while he carries out his duties as Sorcerer Supreme. Problem is that astral projection puts one’s body in a coma-like state, slowing down all bodily processes - including the immune system. In other words, you can’t just astral project through most of the day and expect your cold to be gone once you return to your physical form. In fact, when you do, you’ll probably feel much worse than before, and also your body will have to make up for all the long hours it’s been unable to cough and sneeze, sooo… yeah. That happens. A Lot. When he’s ill. Until Wong finally has enough and straight up forces him to take a proper sick day.
So Doctor Strange sickfic happened, and I’m blaming @bigbadsnez for rekindling an idea that had been floating around in the dark parts of my brain even before I saw this film.
The holding-a-tissue-for-someone-else trope is not something I ever thought I’d write, but it... works with this scenario, I think. Because hands. .__.
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And then, conforming to Murphy's Law, he gets sick. Miserably sick. Upper and lower respiratory tract infection, fever, the works. The coughing makes him wince and grit his teeth against the pain as the phlegmy convulsions wrack through his broken body, and yet it's clear to Christine that even with this added discomfort on top of aching bone fractures and severed nerves, his wounded pride is still what’s hurting him the most.
As further salt in the wound, another pressing problem soon presents itself in the form of a relentlessly runny nose. With his shattered hands still in plaster casts he's obviously unable to hold a tissue, let alone maneuver it to blow his nose or to catch his increasingly frequent sneezes.
Initially he adamantly refuses to let her help him. She's not surprised in the least, and to some degree she can understand it, but that doesn't mean she's going to let him drown in his own fluids rather than swallow the temporary humiliation of having her or one of the nurses wipe his nose for him.
It's a battle of wills, but she has the high ground. Though her advantage offers her no satisfaction whatsoever.
“So now you want to take away what little dignity I have left, is that it?” The broken growl of his voice is barely intelligible at this point, and his acidic glare from across the hospital bed is undercut by the bloodshot swelling of his eyes and their sheen of fever glaze.
A sickly concoction of pity and anger rises in her throat but she forces it back down, down. Runs her right thumb over the nails on her left hand, over the chipping, dark blue polish before responding:
“You think this is dignified, do you? Can you even hear yourself? You sound like a clogged drainpipe.”
He sniffles for what is probably the tenth time in the last minute, unwillingly illustrating her point.
“Stephen, come on...”, gently, even as her patience is wearing thinner by the second.
“I'mb doh't – hh...!”
And there it is. It was only a matter of time. His eyebrows rising in a ticklish slant, his eyes slamming closed, his beleaguered nostrils flaring wide for an agonizingly outdrawn, three-part inhale - “hehh'heh'hh-!” - and judging by the rather... productive sound of his sniffles earlier, she thinks it safe to assume that things are about to get ugly.
To hell with it. To hell with his pride. She's taking matters into her own hands. In one decisive motion she gets up, pulls a handful of Kleenex from the box on his bed stand and cups them over the lower half of his face, meeting his forward-downward lurch with a soft, steady pressure.
“ehh--NZHGHhihh!”
She can feel the layers of Kleenex between his nose and her palm bellying out with the blast of his hot breath; only a second later he's sighing and hitching his way toward a follow-up. She gently pinches her fingers around the quivering outline of his nostrils and waits, encouragingly meeting his gaze when his eyes open just a fraction before fluttering shut once more.
I'mb... heh'uhh... agai'd-hh...!“
“It's okay. I've got you.”
“-heh'HNGZSSHh!”
“Bless you.”
“...'nNGXSH!”
“...and bless you.”
Finally, the tension drains from his body and he falls back against the pillows with a raspy groan and the wettest of sniffles, the sound of the latter convincing Christine that she made the right call when she decided to go rogue with the Kleenex.
“Don't... don't remove your hand,” he says, defeated, and she can't tell if the flush rising in his cheeks is from fever or chagrin.
“Alright. Blow, then” she instructs, and he seems to deflate like a punctured tire. “Go on. I promise you, the alternative is much more... undignified.”
He must have come to the same conclusion himself because he finally does as he's told, soaking through another two handfuls of tissues before his sinuses sound tolerably cleared out.
Folding the last wad of Kleenex in half, Christine carefully wipes around the rims of his now reddened nostrils, making sure he's presentable before reaching over and lobbing the spent tissue ball into the nearest bin.
Turning back to her bedridden ex, she risks a smile:
“Look at the bright side. At least Nic wasn't here to witness that.”
At the mention of Dr West, Stephen's expression hardens, he draws a breath as if to speak but she's having none of it.
“Did I say Nic? Sorry, my bad, I meant: He Who Must Not Be Named. Seriously, Stephen, can we not do this now? You can blame Nic for everything later, if that's what you need, but for now... just focus on getting better? On beating this cold, for starters? Please?”
His pale gray eyes in the sterile hospital light, unmoving, turned inward, and she knows she's not getting through.
Small steps, she reminds herself.
“My shift starts in twenty minutes. Do you need anything else before I leave?”
“No.” And then, a glimmer of something; the man actually has the sense to look a little guilty.
“Thank you”, a barely audible mutter, but she'll take it.
ok but now that I know that the Cloak of Levitation will be sentient in the film (as it should be!), I can’t help but imagine it wiggling free of its display case and floating over to wrap itself around Stephen’s shoulders to keep him warm after he’s fallen asleep across a spell book while trying to study through the night despite being under the weather. like he’d be snoring softly from congestion and shivering with the first degrees of fever, and the Cloak would just hug him all snugly and wipe the beads of perspiration from his forehead with the hem of its collar
then of course I have to picture Stephen waking up with a sharp prickle in his nose and in his sleep-groggy state just grabbing the closest piece of cloth available to him to sneeze into. and the Cloak is so offended and Stephen’s like, “oh, god, I’m so sorry! I’ll take you to the dry cleaner straight away D:”
(yes I have feels about a sorcerer and his sentient magic cloak and yes you can absolutely have a problem with that)