Linked | Ironstrange

Pain

Pain.

Excruciating unforgiving pain.

It felt like someone was ripping out his spine, sucking it out of his body through an inch by inch hole in the base of his neck, where the cranium meets the cervical vertebrae.

There was a medical explanation for what he was suffering and being the neurosurgeon he was, he knew all too well why he suddenly felt the need to scream at the top of his lungs and bang his head against the nearest wall until he was rendered unconscious on the pristine floor of his operating room. But the common choice of words to explain this condition to a patient was simple, or better, had to be simplified because the brain task of any patient going through this kind of pain was momentarily disabled and they could only attend to short understandable words. In fewer words and common terms, his soulmate, wherever they found themselves in the world was dying.

Stephen Strange took a step back from the operating table, hands shaking, gripping his scalpel with such strength,  that if the instrument was not made of hardened tempered steel he was sure it would have bent with the pressure he was applying onto it.

Everyone in the room fell silent, looking at him like he was trying to murder the woman on the table by his negligent choice of walking away from the table in the middle of the surgery. Every single one of them ignoring the reality of his state since he kept his lips pressed in a thin line, preventing himself from releasing the scream that desperately tried to crawl up from the bottom of his throat.

"Are you alright Strange?" His assistant surgeon asked with a concerned expression but remaining close to the patient in case he had to jump in at the sight of any complication.

"Please t-take on doctor West," he sputtered with strangled words, making his way to the operating room exit and bursting out of the door.

With the scalpel still in hand, he stumbled through the hospital's hallways, making a straight line to the animal lounge, or at least as straight as he could manage, because he felt like his spine was being torn apart into pieces and his limbs started to feel numb and heavy, making it difficult to walk without stumbling on walls, corners, steps or his own feet with no distinction.

There are three things you are born with in this world, and those are probably the only three things you are guaranteed to have in life, a name, a purpose, and a spirit animal. Most People Would count soulmates to be an addition to this guaranteed perks of being born, but with the high rate of people not being able to find their soulmates in their lifetime and the numerous suicides of people who experienced their deaths without ever meeting them, Stephen couldn't call that a perk, just a liability of being alive.

Spirit animals take the worse out of a soulmate demise, because their spiritual connection to your soulmate's respective spirit animal is strong and when they feel their spirit counterparts dying, they suffer all along as if they were dying themselves, what humans feel is the result of their suffering, not their soulmate's death per se, but the spirit link between them breaking.

He tripped over himself when he finally reached the animal lounge and the attendant rapidly came to assist him.

"Doctor Strange, he won't stop screaming," the girl in front of him was around eighteen years old and her normally bright hopeful expression now was replaced with a panic one, the girl ran to his side and offered him a trembling hand for him to grab and get up, but the gesture though appreciated, was of no help for him because he couldn't find the strength to reach out and accept it," what can I do to help you?" she asked, panic now taking over her voice as well.

Stephen looked up from the place he had landed on the floor, a hundred animals had their eyes fixed on him, but the only sound that flooded the room were the cries of pain of his spirit animal and his own desperate panting, trying to regain the strength he needed to get up from the reduced quantity of oxygen he managed to breathe in.

"I—," he huffed trying to catch his distressed breath, "n—need to hold him," he managed to let out then, making a last desperate attempt to get up, but when he tried to take the animal carer's extended hand, a wave of pain darted down his spine and threw him back on his knees.

"I'll bring him," the girl said jumping into action and in seconds she came back carrying his otter back with her.

Levy was not always an otter, on occasions when he felt like attending his surgeries he would turn into a blue butterfly and watch him work from a corner of the room and then when it was winter he liked to turn into a big ghostly wolf with fluffy blue fur that kept him warm laying at the feet of his bed. But the rest of the time he remained an otter because like his, Levy's element was the water and there was nothing he enjoyed most than swimming in his ghostly spirit water all day. Right now,  however, Levy didn't fully resemble an otter, he was a weird mix between his otter and his wolf form. At least that is what Stephen could discern through his teary blurred vision, his fluffy tail and a pair of ears popped out of his tiny body, like he was stuck between transformations, he was also turning a violet-ish color and this concerned Stephen even more than the incessant pain cries.

Normally when a spirit animal changes form it's a smooth shift that if not paying attention a human can easily miss in a simple eye blink, therefore, he knew something was definitely wrong with Levi.

He extended his hand to caress Levi's head and right then was that he noticed it, his head was splitting in two and so was his tiny body and suddenly a little red fox sprung from Levi's side, like he was being cloned into another version of himself and the pain stopped altogether.

The fox approached Levi and rubbed his nose against Levi's cheek and he leaned into the caress, Stephen looked at them curiously, normally Levi preferred human company over any other spirit animal, the bond was clear between them and Stephen had to jump to conclusions watching their behavior, his soulmate was dying, yes, that hadn't changed, but they had to be really close since their spirit counterpart had been able to cross through the shattering link they shared with Levi.

"Show me the way," Stephen talked directly to the fox and the animal jumped more than happy to comply and started running towards the door followed by Levi, they waited there for him to follow.

"Doctor Strange?" The girl he forgot was in front of him asked concerned, but he just smiled at her and got up to follow the animals to the hallway.

"You did great—, ern, thank you," it took him less than a second to realize he didn't know the girl's name, this girl had taken care of Levi for longer than a year and he had never once before wondered what was her name, he felt like an absolute jerk, but he didn't have time for apologies right now.

He had to do whatever was in his power  to save his soulmate, if not for his own sake for Levi's.

AN/: Okay guys this idea has been in my drafts for quite a long time and now I finally found the perfect ship for it, honestly can't believe it took me so long to realize this. So what do you think? Sounds promising? Should I carry on?