#christine (2016) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arkytiorwrites · 2 years

Text

What If… Doctor Strange had Someone Who Loved Him When He Lost His Hands?

Stephen Strange (616) x OC

So, I wrote this at two in the morning in response to this post. And I have to say I’m pretty damn proud of it. I thought about making it x reader, but it makes more sense with an OC. And I readily admit that Stephen is pretty OOC, but I think we all know deep down, that man is sobbing 24/7 for affection.

The 30th,

Rory gets a call from her favorite doctor after he fails to show up for his award ceremony, and realizes something is very wrong.

How? How could I not have realized? How could I have been so blind? I should’ve known when he didn’t show, the wrecked rail along the road I knew he would have taken.

I had been called at four in the morning, head pounding from the champagne, his voice shaky and slurred, and it was then I knew.

I ran from our apartment, barely giving enough time to pull on the protective gear for my bike over my pj’s. God only knows how many rules of the road I’d broken in the agonizing, slow as dripping pine sap, forty-five minutes it took me to get to Metro General Hospital.

I ran to Reception, I don’t remember parking the bike and at that moment I didn’t care. The nurse looked a bit shocked, I imagined I was a bit of a mess, makeup smeared from last night, green and gold eyes glistening with terrified tears, short, red fox hair a wreck from pulling my helmet off.

“Where is he?” I pleaded, voice cracking horribly.

“Miss, calm down-“

“Just tell me where he is, goddamnit!” I screamed, the sickening terror crawling up along my throat accompanied by the taste of bile.

“Rory!” a familiar voice cried, cutting through the panic and anxiety clouding my mind.

Turning, I saw Christine hurrying down the hall towards me, blue scrubs a lovely contrast to her dark auburn hair.

“Christine,” I sobbed brokenly. “I. I came. I came as soon as I got the call. I… please. Is he-?”

“He’s going to be okay, Rory. It’s alright. I’ll take you to him,” the older woman promised, pulling my shaking, scrawny frame into a strong hug.

“I’ll take it from here, Jackie,” she informed the reception nurse before guiding me toward the room where Stephen was recovering.

I had met Stephen Strange in a Starbucks, of all the cliche places. He’d spotted me reading one of my childhood favorites, and clearly in a bad mood, started grumbling to himself about what the younger generation had come to. Overhearing him, I had neatly responded with a well thought out argument of my own about the comfort and delight rereading something my dad had read to me as a child brought me before going back to my book. Somehow, we managed to hit it off, and started dating six months later. Three years later, I had been planning to propose to him because clearly hell would freeze over before Stephen grew a pair.

I had it all planned out, he’d accept his award at the party, schmooze for a bit, then take him out to the balcony and ask. Hopefully, he’d say yes. Now. Now I had no idea if ever would be a good time.

Christine led me to a private room in the recovery ward, stopping before entering.

“Rory, you need to understand, his hands were badly damaged, EMS found him past the golden hour of nerve recovery, he. He’s in pretty bad shape. We did what we could. But…”

I got the message.

“Honestly, he could look like fucking Darth Vader, as long as he’s alive,” I stated before carefully opening the door.

All the warning in the world couldn’t have prepared me for what I saw next.

Stephen lay in the sterile, white room, face horribly bloody and bruised, but what made tears start to roll down my cheeks… were his hands.

Pins stuck out from every segment of his fingers, and suspended in the air. One look and even I knew. He’d never operate again.

“Oh, Jesus,” I quietly swore. “This’ll kill him.”

“Just,” Christine began, placing a hand on my shoulder in silent support. “Just be there for him. He won’t admit it, but he needs you.”

I nodded silently, and stumbled over to the single chair next to the bed to sit. Christine left to give us some privacy.

Something must have alerted him to the presence of someone in the room, because he shifted a bit and mumbled, “Christine?”

“Hey dumbass,” I called softly.

His lovely, ever shifting glasz eyes cracked open, and widened further at the sight of me.

“Rory? What. What are you doing here?”

“You called me, remember?” I explained gently.

“No, not really,” he confessed, closing his eyes.

“You were pretty out of it from what I could hear, you still are,” I laughed hoarsely. Curling in on myself in a vain attempt at substituting the safety Stephen’s arms always gave.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion even though he couldn’t see.

“That you have to see me like this.”

“Sweetheart, you could be black and blue and stuffed in a five hundred year old potato sack, and you’d still be the prettiest bitch in Brooklyn,” I snorted, fighting the urge to hold him. It was probably the last thing that would help.

He laughed a bit of that, then winced.

“Thanks, but making me laugh is not a good idea right now, darling,” he admitted.

“Understood,” I nodded, trying not to cry. “I’m sorry I didn’t figure out what happened.”

“You couldn’t have known, I was being stupid.”

“Were you looking at cases while driving? Stephen, goddamnit how many times have I told you-?”

“I know. I know. Clearly, I’ve paid for my mistakes,” he snapped.

“Not to be superstitious or anything, but texting while driving in 2016? Babe, you are in for some deep shit,” I snorted. (Oh, how little did I know how right I was)

We were silent for a while before Stephen finally said, “Rory, there. There was something I wanted to give you last night. It should be in my jacket pocket.”

I checked the cabinet where his personal effects should be, and found the jacket, blood stained and glass torn. Reaching into the right pocket, I pulled out a small, red velvet box.

I brought it over, and he haltingly asked me to open it. I did, and what was inside almost made me start crying again.

Inside, was a simple gold band inlayed with a row of small emeralds, just like my mother’s wedding band. Looking up, I met Stephen’s anxious gaze with wonder.

“Steph. Were. Were you going to…?”

“Yes,” he admitted, looking away. “When I accepted the award, I was going to ask you to come up onstage with me, and I was going to propose. But, I understand if you say no.”

I couldn’t help it, I began a laugh that quickly dissolved into crying.

“Oh. God, honey,” I sobbed. “We’re both so stupid.”

“What. What do you mean?” He asked warily, clearly unsure what to make of my tears.

Reaching into the pocket of my jacket, I pulled out my own velvet box, this one black. It had become a habit to carry it with me, just in case. He stared in shock as I opened it to reveal a black band with a pattern of sapphires and diamonds going around it.

“You-?”

“After you got the award, I was gonna take you to the balcony and ask. I wanted it to be somewhere private in case you said no,” I confessed, still crying a little.

He started to cry/laugh to, wincing as each movement made his ribs hurt.

“For people who are supposed to be intellectual geniuses, we’re so goddamn stupid,” Stephen admitted with the crooked little smile that I knew was just for me. He didn’t even give Christine that smile.

“Yeah we are,” I agreed with a matching grin.

“Do. Do you think you can wait until I can put it on you myself?” he queried shyly.

“Babe, I’d wait until the last bit of stardust was reduced to nothing for you, of course I will,” I informed him with a soft smile.

He smiled at me again, a full, honest one and it took everything in me to fight the urge to hold him and kiss him silly.

“Would you please lay down next to me, darling?” he requested.

“Always, lemme get out of these,” I agreed. Shimmying out of the jacket and pants, pulling off my boots, I finger combed my hair as I carefully considered the best way to curl up as close as I could to… my fiancé.

He blinked in surprise when he saw I was still in my sweatpants and his Pink Floyd t-shirt.

“I didn’t think getting changed was that important,” I shrugged as I carefully crawled up next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. I felt my whole body relax when I felt him tilt his chin to rest in the still messy mop of my hair.

“God I’m so glad you weren’t with me, darling,” he confessed after I had almost drifted off. “I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you.”

“Knowing you, you’d probably try to find a way to alter a fixed point in your past,” I mumbled sleepily. “Time travel 101, never try to alter your personal past, or the past in general, really. Especially fixed points. Big no no.”

We were quiet again for a bit, before Stephen piped up again.

“I wish I could hold you.”

“Gently. You’re holding me gently.”

“Gently? At a time like this?”

“Gently!” I squeaked as I finished the quote from the Princess Bride. “God, I love you, you absolute nerd.”

“Could you repeat that? I don’t think the whole hospital heard you. I have a reputation to maintain,” he teased.

“Please. Everyone knows you’re an absolute softie. You’re dating me, remember?” I fired back, our well rehearsed banter helping me to realize that Stephen was alive, and he was going to be okay.

“Yeah. That’s completely annihilated it, hasn’t it?”

“Yup. Now shush, you need to rest. Doctor’s girlfriend’s orders,” I scolded lightly as I nuzzled further into his shoulder.

“Wow, pulling that card, are we? And you mean fiancée, right?”

“Not till you put a ring on it. Now I’m serious, Stephen Strange. Sleep.”

“It’s Doctor Stephen Strange,” he grumbled mutinously.

“Quit quoting Pirates at me and sleep, or I’ll get Christine to give you enough sedagives to knock out three Frankensteins.”

“As long as you quit making Young Frankenstein references.”

“Deal.”

It didn’t take long for him to pass out now that he was no longer actively fighting the meds coursing through his system. I stayed awake, the emotional rollercoaster I’d been on since I woke up needing time to come to a stop.

Alone with my anxiety, I couldn’t help but think about all the ways that Stephen could have ended up in the morgue rather than beside me. He could have been slammed off a bridge and straight into the river. In a neighborhood filled with kids, what if it had been raining? Or God forbid, snowing. What if he’d been in the middle of nowhere? And he’d never been found? If anything had changed, if it had been on a different day, would he not had survived?

No. No. No, he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive. I repeated to myself firmly, pressing closer to the warm body beside me. Eyes glued to the heart monitor measuring each steady beat of the heart I could hear under my ear.

He’s alive.

31 notes · View notes