Like Teacher, Like Student /// A Doctor Strange Fanfiction

Chapter 12

With Wong's books and Stephen's intermittent lessons, Casey slowly began to pick up on a few useful spells. However, balancing school, half-hearted attempts at a social life, and learning ancient mystic arts was proving to be a little more difficult than she had expected. After a couple weeks, she was drowning under homework and magic lessons, feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

"What do you mean I can't post any pictures of the inside of the Sanctum?" Casey demanded, pointing her spoon defensively at Stephen. They were sitting in the kitchen, Stephen with a tablet and her with a spell book and her cell phone. Stephen was actually wearing jeans and a band t-shirt, which she had noticed he did more often than she had first realized. His weird wizard outfit stuck out so much in her mind...

They had both been quietly enjoying bowls of cereal for dinner until Casey had taken a picture of her bowl, intending to post her woefully inadequate meal to her Instagram story. Stephen had interrupted that by waving his hand and making her phone disappear for a moment.

"I know I mentioned this at some point," Stephen said.

"Nope, don't think so," Casey said, "Besides, I've already been posting stuff."

Before his look of outrage could turn into something more dire and yell-y, she raised her hands to slow him down. "Just in my room! My room looks normal, like a real person's room. Nothing magic-ish." Actually, her new room looked pretty bare. She wanted to decorate it but...that seemed to be too hard. Permanent. Every time she thought about it, she decided to do something else.

"Except your books," Stephen said, waving a hand at the book in front of her.

"Yeah, well I made sure they weren't in the picture," she said curtly, "So there."

"Casey, I can't stress enough how important it is to keep the true nature of this whole building a secret," Stephen said, pressing his fingertips together. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I know, you've told me seven million, two hundred thousand, and fifty one times," Casey said. There had been multiple lectures about the Sanctum when she first got there, and the main takeaway had been: tell NO ONE. Not really a hard thing to remember. "And if you put some kind of silence spell on me, I'll never forgive you."

"Maybe I should just take your phone away," Stephen said, frowning back at her. "If you can't use it responsibly."

Casey tilted her head to the side. "You're not serious."

"Incredibly so," he said. He shook his head. "I don't even actually have to take it. You're on my data plan now, so it's just a phone call."

"I'm not posting pictures of the Sanctum!" Casey said, "Not the magic parts, I told you!" She gripped the edge of the table, the taste of Lucky Charms going sour in her mouth. "The bowl isn't magical, it's not giving anything away."

Stephen shook his head. "No more pictures. I'm sure you can handle that simple rule."

Casey glowered at him and then stood up. "Fine," she hissed, slamming her phone down on the table. She snatched up her bowl of cereal and turned on her heel. "Whatever you say, sir."

"Casey—"

"I said fine!" Her spine rigid, she marched herself out of the kitchen and down the hall, not sure where she was planning to go but desperate to put space between them. Most of the Sanctum was still off-limits to her, so she headed to the second floor. There were enough nooks and crannies around the cases and rooms there that she could maybe manage to avoid Stephen for a while. Unless he knew some kind of locate person spell, which seemed like something he would have available to him. But most likely he didn't even care that she was upset and would just disappear into his books in his attic level study and forget about her.