[excerpt from an upcoming Stephen Strange x Hope Collins fic]
🎄Wrapped Up In Christmas Memories🎄
(Indulge me, if you will? Not sure if I'll be able to complete this story by Christmas, let alone the New Year ~ but the need to write this part is strong upon me, while my loves for Stephen and for Story compell me...)
genre: angst, catharsis, healing...and above all, love ❤️
characters: Stephen Strange, Hope Collins (OFC); established relationship
word count: 1.2k-ish
...Beverly Strange had been a music teacher before she ever became a farmer's wife. And for most of her life--despite how stony her husband grew over the years, grimly implacable in the face of what he found to be frivolous--she had done her best to fill their household with music. It was no fluke that Stephen developed such a great love for music that his prodigious intellect maintained a mental catalog of music trivia encompassing multiple genres.
Beverly had given private piano lessons as much for fulfillment as for the extra money the family had needed in lean years on the farm. Until the birth of Stephen's younger brother Victor, she had volunteered as Choir Director at the community's small Lutheran church. Stephen could remember spending many an afternoon in the weeks leading up to Christmas and Easter in the choir loft, coloring quietly and humming along while Beverly conducted practice. Once her youngest child, Donna, had been old enough to sit in a church pew under Stephen's supervision (for their father rarely attended weekly services) Beverly had resumed a place in the choir and was often featured as a soloist during the holidays. Stephen had been damn proud watching his mother sing her favorite carol, 'Oh, Holy Night'; how straight she had stood, free of his father's angry shadow, and of how flawlessly (to him, anyway) her notes had risen--in his child's mind he had been sure they had reached Heaven itself.
Most of all, though, he had always been proud to see when some parishioner or another was moved to tears by the purity of her rendition. Decades later, he could easily recall that feeling if he allowed himself to remember, could hear her in his mind--but the pain of Donna's death and the toll it wreaked upon his mother usually precluded him from indulging in such sentimental recall. Beverly's music had fallen mute the day his sister had drowned; she had never sung in church again, nor had Stephen ever heard her sing in their own home in the too short years that followed before her grief prematurely aged her into an early grave.
Stephen himself had adopted a stoic mien in the wake of losing Donna, internalizing the blame he felt for failing to save her, and by extension, their mother. Nearly two decades later, it still hurt too damn much to remember the first--and very rare--people who had loved him unconditionally, as both had been lost to him well before their time. And as his most vibrant memories of them included Christmastimes, he had turned his back on all but the most superficial of holiday celebrations.
He kept his painful thoughts and memories buried deep and had only confessed them to Christine (whom he realized in retrospect was the third soul to have loved him unconditionally) one sloppy, drunken night two months after his accident. She had given him what solace she could, gently urging him to not be so hard on himself, reminding him that both Donna and Beverly would wish for him to seek some healing, and staying with him until he drifted into a dreamless sleep. When she returned to check on him the next day, he had closed himself off again, rejecting her concern as unnecessary. Brushing off the incident as impertinent to his current life and goals.
But now...oh now! A wee bit at a time, Hope--who loved him as unconditionally as his past dear ones--had been chipping away at that wall. Reintroducing Christmas into his life by osmosis, without a hint of pressure for him to embrace the season. As she'd promised four weeks ago, she'd gone about her Christmasing without the sort of fuss that might bother him. With each little Yuletide advance she had made in the Sanctum, he had found himself relaxing and accepting, smiling in concession, happy to play witness to her happiness in the season.
Christmas was still a week away, and Stephen had begun contemplating what sort of gift he might manage for his own Who-girl. He hoped to find a gift that spoke his heart clearly, but each idea that came to him fell flat soon after he thought it up.
Settled comfortably in his study this evening, he was delving into a freshly discovered manuscript that appeared to have been penned by The Ancient One when she had been apprenticed to Merlin, during his tenure as the Londinium Sanctum Master. Though it should have been a fascinating read, Stephen found himself distracted by the question of what to give Hope--and by the carols she was playing in the living room portion of his quarters. Celtic Woman, he told himself with no effort to recall the facts; released October 2006, peak chart position number one on Billboard for US Worldwide Albums. The trilling of the all female group was pleasant enough, but not at all conducive to the study he was attempting.
Meaning to simply ask Hope to lower the volume so he could concentrate, Stephen removed his reading glasses, leaving them to rest atop the open manuscript and then headed the short way to the main room of his suite. The fragrances of cranberry and evergreen greeted him as he drew near, for she'd made a substantial investment in candles for the season, and they were clearly alight as she wrapped presents. Hope was deep in her element and happy to be so.
The music paused between tracks, and when it resumed, it stopped Stephen in his. The opening strains of 'O, Holy Night' filled the air, and in a heartbeat they landed upon him, sending him back to his youth, well before he had known loss and heartbreak. To those crisp, cold Nebraska evenings when his heart had swelled with love and pride to see his mother sing. Unprepared as he was for those powerful images and sounds to fill his senses, Stephen backed away, his eyes prickling with tears of mixed grief and recollection. Tears he'd put off for far too long in his quest to avoid the pain. And yet he knew that just several feet around the corner was the very soul who had given him the exact comfort, love, and strength he'd needed to complete the dreadful journey he had undertaken to save this Universe from Thanos--and that she'd be only too glad to learn this part of his past and help him find healing.
By some remarkable coincidence, or as if she'd heard his thoughts, Hope's answer came unbidden, her voice blending in as though it had been meant to be a message for his ears alone.
'Sweet hymns of joy, in grateful chorus raise we..., ' she sang as his heart seemed to crack open in bittersweet relief. 'Fall on your knees, O hear the angels voices...' Stephen wrapped his arms across his chest while he wept to remember the love and warmth that had been his in the little church and in every moment spent in his mother's company. How had he made himself ignore such a miraculous gift? Surely the joy of it far outweighed the sorrow. How foolish to have gone so long without allowing himself such comfort.
The carol now drew swiftly to it's close, and still his Hope sang sweetly, following the notes faithfully, unaware that she had reawakened a dormant part of his heart. 'O night,' she crooned, in happy harmony with those recorded singers, 'O night divine!' He swiped his tears away with both his palms, deciding he must tell her this part of his story. His reasons for divorcing Christmas from his life. And that he understood at last that every day of this beautiful season, she'd been patiently showing him that love was stronger than even grief...
[to be completed - once I finish the beginning as well!]
Stephen: I found a nursing home off the coast of Maine run by the same French company that oversaw Napoleon’s exile. Mother will be treated humanely, but there will be no escape.
Stephen: my mom taught me from a young age that if you even commit a single sin then you’re going to hell…
Stephen: so from that point on, I’ve decided, since I’m already doomed, why not commit like 10,000,000 sins and go down to hell as a legendary pog champ???
Tony:
Peter:
Peter: wHO TAUGHT MR DR STRANGE TO SAY POG CHAMP???
