For all that it’s intimate, the touch is also professional, like subjecting oneself to an annual physical. And then instead of answering, Mobius asks a question of his own. Looking up from their meal, Strange meets his eye. Lips pursed into a thin line which then twitches into an attempt at a rueful smile. People here have already asked as it came up — Clarisse, most bluntly — but he’s still not accustomed to talking about it.

But. Pot, kettle, et cetera—

So Strange holds one of his hands aloft between them. Almost like an echo of when he showcased some magic, except this time it’s those scarred fingers on display. The scarring is regular, straight lines. He knows, though he cannot feel them any longer, that there are pins and rods bracing the bones together. The fingers are crooked, and when he tries to hold them still, they tremble.

“A car accident,” he says, his voice carefully neutral. Which is as much detail as he’d given out before, but he supposes Mobius deserves a little more, since he’d pored over the other man’s own hand with impunity. “Which is like a very, very fast carriage. It went off a cliff-side and flipped.” A beat, then amending: “I drove it off a cliff-side, actually, it was my own damned fault. No gods or spirits or bargains or heroic sacrifices, and for no reason besides being careless.”

There’s an anger bubbling beneath that voice, all directed inward.

“The nerves are damaged. I can still feel, but the sensation’s dulled and I lack fine motor control. There’s neuropathic pain, sometimes. So our situations are… similar, but obviously different.”

Crisp, clean, diagnosis.