#'Sunday in the Park with Stephen' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sobeautifullyobsessed · 1 year

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This is just a little piece written as a sort of follow up to The Light of Hidden Flowers by @darsynia ~ a oneshot she wrote as a gift to cheer me up during a recent, very rough spell. It features Darsy's non-magical Stephen Strange Variant and a Variant of my OFC, Hope Collins (from my 'Friday in the Park with Stephen' & 14,000,604), who is very down on her luck.

Mayhap no one will read this except Darsy and me, but I'm happy to be able to post anything at all, caught in the grip as I am, of a nearly year long writer's block. But if you do, I hope you'll enjoy it dear Reader...and perhaps check out Darcy's one shot (as well as he other amazing works!)...and maybe even give me some much needed encouragement by reblogging this.

genre: Soulmate AU, Stephen Strange AU (where he's still a surgeon), Stephen Strange x OFC

general audience

angst, tw: homelessness

word count: 1.6k

Hope sleeps.

Hours upon hours of untroubled, restorative sleep. Such a pale waif, she was--but for the dark circles rimming her eyes--looking so small beneath the downy counterpane, with her head sunk snuggly into a pillow so long out of use that Stephen can’t recall the last time someone slept there. She barely moves throughout her slumber; he sneaks a cautious peek on her several times as night transitions to dawn, transitions to day, surprised that in between, his own sleep is the most restful he’s had in months. Perhaps that’s his mind’s way of compartmentalizing the surreal experience of being confronted by an impossible other self. He hears the toilet flush twice during that span, but she moves on silent, stockinged feet right back to the cozy coccoon of his guestroom bed. Besides which, he wouldn’t dream of disturbing his guest--the doctor in him knowing this was the first, best medicine he could offer her. And the man he was feeling that the other Doctor Strange had charged him with a sacred duty, no matter how improbable that had to be.

“I’m, uh...Stephen, by the way,” he had offered quietly, once the golden ring behind them had fizzled closed.

She nodded, already half-asleep still on her feet, blinking her woebegone eyes. It had been too dark to tell their color, but he guessed that with her pale skin and the thick, light auburn, braid hanging down from her knit cap, that they were some shade of blue. “Hope,” she replied in a voice husked with exhaustion, “Thank you for your...” Her brow had furrowed a moment as she searched for the right word, and in a single heartbeat, Stephen felt a sudden fondness take root in his chest at the quietly endearing picture she made. “...hospitality.”

He had opened his mouth, meaning to speak the proper platitude for the moment--my pleasure--but realized there should be more than just a polite nicety to this first interaction between them. “I’m happy to help.” And he found that he truly was, broken sleep and brief adventure in freezing temperatures notwithstanding. “Please, make yourself as comfortable as you can,” he urged her gently. Hope had bit her lip and bowed her head as aknowledgement, and it had felt to Stephen as though she only refrained from answering so to keep herself from breaking into tears. That silent nobility summoned a sympathetic ache on her behalf, to join the sudden fondness in his chest.

“Here, let me take this,” he had told her, prompting her to surrender the blanket wrapped about her. When she unbuttoned her hooded, wool coat (she would tell him later it was secondhand, from a local church’s St.Vincent DePaul Society), he was quick to circle behind her to help her shrug it off. This close, he could feel her shiver, and he had to fight the impulse to wrap her up in a comforting embrace. It would do nothing to allay her skittishness and would probably send her bolting away from him instead, as quickly as she was able. Stephen backed away and laid her things on the bottom of the bed.

Hope turned to him and he was swift to fill in the gap. “I can fix you something to eat if you're hungry, or at least something hot to drink to help you warm up...”

She braved meeting his eyes, clearing her throat before she spoke. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d love some orange juice. I, um...I can’t remember the last time I had some.”

“Sure,” he nodded, “Right away. And how about a little snack or something?”

She gave him a brave little smile, “Nah. The juice will be enough for now. If you have some.”

“Alright,” Stephen answered with his own small smile, then moved past her to open the bathroom door to flick on the light, leaving the door ajar enough to spill a wedge of warm light across the floor. “You can wash up, if you wish. There’s plenty of towels, and a whirlpool tub. Bathroom connects on the other side with the master bedroom.”

“Thanks. Um...if it’s alright, I’d like to lay down right now. You can’t imagine how the body craves laying down when you haven’t had the chance in...well, in days and days...” Though her voice cracked on the last few words, Hope held his gaze without flinching. "I'm just so incredibly...weary. And that bed looks really inviting..."

“I’m sure it does,” he replied softly. “Please...make yourself at home, Hope. And I’ll go grab that juice for you.” Stephen paused a moment, until she acknowledged him with a bob of her head, before he departed on his errand.

Before the juice, though, he had stopped to get something comfortable for her to change into, from his dresser. Neither he nor his other self, had even thought to grab some of Hope’s personal belongings before ending up in his apartment. Stephen supposed they’d need to retrieve some items at some point the next day. That other him had advised a week’s stay--not only for Hope’s sake, but for his own. Plus, they’d eventually need to move her car to his second space in the building’s parking garage.

He returned to find Hope had propped a couple of pillows against the headboard, having slipped beneath the covers. She had taken the care of folding what looked to be a couple layers of clothing, and left them (along with her coat, blanket, and knit cap) in a neat pile on the chaise at the foot of the bed. She wore a simple, white camisole, trimmed in a thin band of lace across the swell of her breasts. It would have been rude to let his eyes linger, but by the light from the bathroom, Stephen had enough time to notice the light freckling along and beneath her collarbone echoed the pretty spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. How...fetching, he had thought, wondering that such a rarely used word had popped into his mind.

Setting the orange juice on the bedside table, Stephen added a chocolate chip muffin that he’d hastily swathed in plastic wrap, a fresh washed apple, and a banana. “Just in case you wake up feeling peckish,” he told her, then placed the small bundle of clothes he’d grabbed from his room, next to her own on the chaise. “It’s just a tee shirt and some flannel pajama bottoms--they cinch at the waist, so they shouldn’t fall off--but they’ll be a little long for you. Oh, and an old hoodie of mine.” It was, in fact, his well worn, favorite Columbia hoodie; he hadn’t hesitated in including it, for it somehow made his proffer of help more personal. More sincere.

Hope’s tired eyes were warm with gratitude while she did her best to stifle a yawn. “If there’s anything more you need, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m a pretty light sleeper," he told her, "and I’ll just be on the other side of the bathroom door...” Stephen shrugged as he trailed off, hoping he had done enough to put the woman at ease.

“Thank you for your kindness, Stephen. You’ve already done far more than most people might’ve. Easpecially given the...extraordinary...circumstances...”

He chuckled, despite the gravity of the moment. “Extraordinary beyond belief...”

“I know, right,” she almost giggled, so that he wondered how long it had been since Hope had enjoyed the opportunity to laugh. “I keep pinching myself to test if this is all real.”

“Yeah, me too,” he admitted, “And if not, it’s the trippiest dream I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, me too,” she repeated, then gave a little shiver.

“Hey, you okay?” Concerned, Stephen dared to perch on the edge of the bed beside her, slipping back into physician mode, but stopping short of the urge to lay his hand against her forehead, as she might find that act as being too familiar. “Are you having chills? Do you feel feverish?”

Shaking her head, Hope tugged the blanket a bit higher, “No...no, I’m fine. Just really tired and...and truthfully?” The corners of her mouth framed a wee smile, “Most of me still thinks I’m dreaming...or hallucinating...” Her eyes seemed to plead with Stephen to give her some assurance she was wrong. “But right now, I have no will except to let whatever this is, just sweep me along.”

And that was enough for him. Stephen did touch her, as much for himself as to answer her concern. Just his hand against her cheek, his voice gone low, and as soft as her flesh. “Hope...do you remember a dream, ever in your life, with warmth this real?”

"Never. Not ever." Hope closed her eyes, exhaling the quietest little sigh of relief as she parted her lips and nestled her cheek against his palm. They seemed to freeze in place that way, while a thousand thoughts swirled through Stephen’s mind, not the least of which was wondering how such a sweet soul--for already, she felt as such to him--could have come to such desperate straits.

By the time he lowered his hand, Hope’s breathing had slowed to that of a sleeper’s, but he waited a minute more before rising from the bed, so as not to jostle her awake. Tomorrow would do for pondering the slew of questions they must have in common regarding the unbelievable visitation from a stranger-not-stranger, whose force of will had somehow bound their fates together, for at least a little while.

If you read the whole piece through, thank you most kindly!💙 If you reblog, you'll truly make my day!!🥰

Hope is homeless in this fiction, as I have been since July 2022--a condition I had never imagined for her or for myself. I've been blessed to get through this long, difficult, and very enlightening journey with much help from friends here on tumblr. And I am ever hopeful to finally find a permanent home, especially lately, as I've been having to sleep in my car more and more often--which has been detrimental to my health. Perhaps by the time I can write a happy ending for this version of Hope & Stephen, I may find a better ending of my own!

my ko-fi

#my writing #doctor strange fan fiction #stephen strange fanfiction #stephen strange fan fiction #doctor strange fanfiction #tw: homelessness #stephen strange x ofc #stephen strange x hope collins #Stephen Strange #Strangebatch #My Eternal Muse #'Sunday in the Park with Stephen'#14000604

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