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Here’s the thing: healing isn't linear.
These are words repeated over and over again by those who you wouldn't think ever even had to heal. They're the kind of words that will lose their meaning the more they're said, and have you start wondering if, to some people, they ever even had any sort of meaning to begin with.
You can never really tell where it starts or where it finishes, or how it happened or if it ever did happen, the same way the flawed five stages of grief could never explain the true act of mourning and the same way your every emotion defies anything your logic could ever tell you.
Sometimes, Stephen finds, some things are just unexplainable like that.
Sometimes, Stephen doesn't think he's capable of healing. Sometimes, especially on nights where every bit of his sanity starts to fall apart and each choking breath would sting as it enters his damned lungs, he thinks he's too far gone to be capable of it at all.
Sometimes he would sit silently and stare into nothing, thinking about the way nobody would understand that at some point in his life, he wasn't the man he used to be anymore. The Stephen Strange he and everyone knew – or at least thought they knew – is just a shattered visage, a part of his ever-fading, never-reachable, locked-away past. Sometimes he could feel it, the thing that consumed him, that took away who he was, and the way it would take up every space in his ribcage and burn his insides like acid; the way it would rip apart the space in his chest where his heart used to be. Sometimes he would think about it, and the way that it makes him nothing but an empty shell of a man. Every day that thing would grow inside of him and one day, it might ruin him; as if he isn't already far too broken to begin with.
But it's here, on the roof of a sentient building he's grown to call his home where various pots are neatly arranged in small shelves, with his trembling fingers digging into rich soil and dirt sticking underneath his fingernails, that he starts to find proof that maybe, he had the capability after all. That maybe, there’s some hope in the black hole that replaced that lost part of himself he knew he couldn’t get back.
It's here that he understands why humans would pick up a trowel and spend so much time getting on their hands and knees to dirty themselves with grime.
There's something about the green of the Earth and the smell of her moist dirt in the early mornings, damp from the moon's tears, that soothes a part of him that he couldn't quite identify. There's something comforting about the mindless action of digging and placing and burying and watering. There's something comforting about knowing that his damaged fingers could sprout life even if it all depended on time.
But that's the thing, isn't it? Everything is just a matter of time.
Sometimes he wishes healing is linear, the way he wishes time doesn't march on an ascending line.
But things are the way they are, and as much as Stephen knows he could change them, he can’t. Playing the role of God – as selfish as that may sound, some part of him still believed it wasn’t – is something he knew he could do and something he had not regretted doing despite the guilt that brought with it, but using such powers come with consequences, and he’s learnt that the hard way.
He remembers the same damp smell of moss and the same smudges of dirt on the knees of his trousers back then, years and years ago, the first time he was taught about gardening and farming and sprouting life from seeds.
He had still been a small boy in Nebraska, back then. He had been young, and he had never understood patience the way he does now. He didn't understand that what he planted was something that, if anything, was considered a miracle, and that miracles took time, and that miracles don't last forever. He didn't understand that life and decay is just a matter of time, and that everything including himself would eventually be nothing but rotting flesh and cracked bones, becoming one with the earth and consumed by the maggots and mushrooms.
Because that's the thing: everything is just a matter of time.
The experience had meant nothing to him then, and had taught him nothing much of anything at all, but it means something to him now.
(It only took a couple years for him to understand the significance of time. Stephen knows he’s a fast learner, and though it’s a gift in most cases, in others it’s a curse.)
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Stephen doesn’t think he quite likes the rain. Rain is wet and rain is gloomy, and rain reminded him too much of the things that happened. Rain brought melancholy and sometimes, Stephen would sit and stare as the droplets showered upon the large Sanctum window overlooking the city and sometimes, he would be reminded of everything all over again. It wouldn’t matter how many times he tries to bury those memories deeper into his chest, rain would only serve to resurface them the way things float on water.
Sometimes rainy days would come and Stephen would take it all in, and sometimes he feels that black hole that’s overtaken him grow ever so slowly bigger in his being. It’s like the rain floods his chest with things he never wanted to feel voluntarily, and he feels as though his ribcage is too small to contain it all. He feels as though his heart couldn’t take it and even if he tried, it would burst. He would break apart all over again and in that moment, he’s back to square one. In that moment, every single effort he’s made and every single hope he’s ever had the bravery of having would be stomped to the muddy, moist ground and turned into nothing. It would break him apart again and turn him into pieces beyond repair.
During rainy days, all he could think of was the shaking of his hands and the pain in them. All he could think of was things he had not done that he could have done that he should have done. All he could think of was the scars and scars that littered his body and that they meant nothing, they were nothing at all, because he’s failed and it’s all his fault and everything he has ever done was futile and pointless and stupid.
The guilt would slam him down like a tidal wave and make him curse whatever being decided he was worth creating, worth existing, that decided he had any sort of role in this damned universe and that made him have some semblance of worth.
(He knows he has to fill his part. Call it destiny, or fate, or maybe a curse. A dead end. A self-fulfilled prophecy. He knows more than anything that he has to fulfil his role, but sometimes he wishes he doesn’t. And in those times, he starts to wonder if everything he’s ever done had any worth to it at all. If anything had any worth to it at all.)
Some part of him screams that it’s all pointless. Some part of him scolds him and cries at him and tells him that nothing means anything. Some days that voice is quieter, but in rainy days it’s almost as if every beat of raindrops on the window would fuel it, would tell it to scream louder, would force it to break him over and over and over again until all he could do is clutch his chest and focus on the way his heart beats, focus on the way each intake of breath flows in and out of his nose, focus on the way his feet are planted solidly on the ground and that he’s here, he’s alive, that he exists despite everything. He loathes that fact but he has to believe it in full certainty, because if he doesn’t he’s spiralling down again. If he doesn’t he’s going to fall, fall, fall and nothing will pull him back up.
Rainy days would overwhelm him, so Stephen doesn’t think he quite likes the rain at all.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Once upon a long time ago, Stephen was a man that never really understood art. Art was pointless and art held no meaning. It was only something meant to be looked at and admired, and it had no other contribution than to make you go ‘ah, this person has spent so much time learning how to make patches of colour become something visually impressive’. Art was something that would make men like him scoff, to think that it was such a shame that funds would be used for something as meaningless as an art gallery when it could’ve been used to help hospitals save more lives by having better medical equipment and machinery.
But as with many things, he had been wrong, and he had not looked at the bigger picture.
“Art is about self-expression,” a sorcerer particularly passionate in the arts had told him in Kamar Taj, and in the past Stephen would have huffed at that, but present Stephen wanted nothing more than to get his eyes opened. “The thing about humans is that we always want to say something. To tell something. To express things. Some do it through stories, others do it through songs or prose. Some do it through colours. All of that is art in one shape or form. Art is a medium for self-expression, and sometimes art is what helps you process your feelings and emotions.”
He must admit that the words had intrigued him, so he was grateful when they had decided to lend him some brushes, canvases, and various kinds of paint.
He is willing to give art a try.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Stephen likes to think he’s getting better and better at managing the shakiness of his hands. He might be tricking himself into thinking that way, but denial is a far better form of coping mechanism than some are. But some days remind him that they’re still broken and will forever continue to be.
Today in particular, as he shakily struggles to drag a line across the canvas with his brush, any sort of confidence he’s had that he’s getting any better starts crumbling down.
He had meant for it to be the rain. He remembers the sight of rain outside the Sanctum window very vividly. It was gloomy and dark and a sight that was admittedly far too depressing. He isn’t quite sure why he’s decided to paint the rain, of all things, especially knowing how much he loathes it, but he’s made up his mind now and there really isn’t going back.
First stroke and he thinks he’s doing fine. Second, he thinks he’s doing terribly already. By the time a quarter of the canvas is filled with dark blue, black, ivory and grey, he starts to get frustrated.
This isn’t what he pictured. None of his strokes are right and none of his colours are the correct shade. Everything feels wrong and everything feels flawed and everything feels pointless because nothing feels right.
He finds himself throwing his brush across the room, and apparently that was all it took for him to spiral down. He doesn’t quite register what he’s doing until it’s too late. He yells and growls in frustration, throwing brush after brush and paint after paint in every which direction because all he could think of was how he was horrible at this and that he’d never be able to express himself the way the sorcerer had said he could do through art.
He stares at the piece he decided to paint with panting breaths from the exertion of whatever had prompted him to do what he did, and scolds himself for thinking even for one second that it was all worth doing. The next moment it lays on the floor a ripped, tattered, horrible mess. He doesn’t think it looks any better or any worse than before.
Maybe he just isn’t made for art. Maybe not all humans had something to express, or to tell, or to say. Maybe some humans just wanted to keep it all to themselves. Because that’s the best way he could contain all of it; bury it deep, lock it away, hide the key, forget forget forget.
Or maybe painting such a thing was far too pretentious for having just picked up a brush properly for the first time.
Nevertheless, he wills himself not to think about it.
(Avoidance, he finds, is another unhealthy coping mechanism he does. It isn’t any better than denial, but there are worse coping mechanisms he could’ve chosen anyway.)
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Morning brought with it some clarity. Whatever had happened the day before – it felt like a blur more than anything, and for a second he thinks it might’ve just been another bad dream – had left the room a colourful mess, drying paint on surfaces that he’s sure would take ages to clean up, scattered brushes and whatever remained of the art piece he’s destroyed laying on the floor as if taunting him.
(It’s an all too familiar sight, and the words ‘Goodbye, Stephen’ rings through his head far too loudly for his own comfort that it makes him suppress a flinch.)
Stephen stares. And he stares. And he stares some more. He stares until the sight before him is carved into his eyesight, until he could remember every detail of every spot covered in paint and could remember every brush in every position in every corner. He stares until his eyes squeeze shut as if in pain and scolds himself because why?
Why had he done all this? Why had he broken everything he desperately and carefully tried to make? Why, why, why?
(He knows why. He knows that rage takes over him far too quickly and he knows it spreads like wildfire and burns him down until he’s nothing but ashes. Stephen knows anger drives men into madness and he knows anger is fueled by guilt and that guilt is something that stuck to his being like barnacles on a ship. But despite everything, Stephen wouldn’t let that fire consume him. He’s too stubborn for it. It’s ironic, really, how even his stubbornness is fueled by anger. They say you shouldn't fight fire with fire, but it’s the only way he could defeat the flames.)
So he starts over. He picks up a new brush, squeezes more paint into his palette, and comes up with a new idea. This time, he tries to paint the sunrise. Because morning is what brings him clarity, and morning is where new beginnings start, and morning is where hope that had begun to dwindle away starts to slowly piece back together.
He needs a blank canvas. A clean slate, a new start. He knows he’s back to square one again, and the thought washes over him in a way that makes him breath out a shaky exhale, but he’s willing to try and that’s all that matters to him now.
(Healing isn’t linear, he reminds himself, over and over like a crazed man, over and over until the words are carved on his tongue, over and over until it’s a part of him, over and over until his mouth is shaped into the words, over and over as he moves his brush shakily across the white canvas, focusing on the boldness and contrast of the colours, hoping with whatever sliver of hope he has left in him that he would eventually believe it. Healing isn’t linear, healing isn’t linear, healing isn’t linear.)
The painting comes out messy and almost abstract, with splashes of orange and red and yellow that wouldn’t make much sense to another’s eyes; but it does to his own and that’s all that matters. Because art is about self-expression, and as much as he wants his art to be admirable, he needs it to be completely and utterly him. And if it means messy lines that bend in all the wrong ways and splashes of colours that barely make up any sort of semblance of a picture, then so be it.
No one has ever helped him get back up on his feet. No one has ever told him that healing is a long-winded process with no clear path and a vague destination. No one has ever told him he’s allowed to just be human and make mistakes, to tell him he could brush his knees, get up, and try again. Nothing has ever given him a chance or a moment to breathe and build himself back up before destroying him back into bits and making him believe he’s irreparable. Making him believe that staying broken is better than having to fix yourself because it’s too much pain and it’s too much effort and it’s so many things he doesn’t think he has any sort of capability for.
But Stephen tries anyway, because Stephen is a stubborn man and Stephen always has to get back up on his own. Even if he doesn’t truly believe he could.
(Some people call him a hero. They call his actions selfless. But Stephen isn’t a hero. He isn't a persistent Achilles or a selfless Theseus or a heroic Hercules. He is a stubborn Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, who thought his wings would let him soar higher and higher, desperately reaching the unreachable. Stephen isn’t a hero, and he doesn’t think he could ever be.)
At the end of the day, Stephen is just a man with the burden of the world on his weak shoulders. He is a man trapped in a crumbling bridge where the only way to go is forward and to never look back.
But Stephen is a stubborn man, and even if he forgets sometimes that he’s only human, he wills himself to keep moving. Because if doing so is all he’s worth, and that doing so is the only thing he could ever do, then so be it.
Because life is about choices, and Stephen’s never had many options, but he has to choose. And choosing to do nothing is never better than choosing to do the only thing he could do.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
People come and people go. Stephen knows this, perhaps more than the average person does. One moment someone could mean everything to you, and the next they mean nothing. One moment you could be everything to somebody else, and the next you’re nothing.
Stephen also knows this works the same way to the man in the mirror.
One moment you think you’re sure of who you are. One moment you think you’ve finally found who you want to become.
And the next moment you’re lost again, and your eyes are a different, dimmer shade than you remembered them to be in your reflection, and you don’t know who you are anymore or what you’ve become.
Sometimes he would find himself thinking that, if things were different, if he had done things differently, then maybe he wouldn’t understand all that as much as he does.
(It’s simple. He was there, and then he wasn’t. They were there, too, and then they weren’t. And there really isn’t any more to the story than that.)
But Stephen also knows that there isn’t any point in dwelling in the past.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Stephen remembers his Steinway piano the way he remembers a lot of things, and he wants to forget it the way he wishes he could forget a lot of things. (And maybe that was a lie, and maybe he did want to remember his piano, but he couldn’t tell because denial is something he’s done so often now that he can’t differentiate what’s true and what’s not anymore.)
Muscle memory, despite his damaged hands, remains in his fingers as if embedded to his skin. He remembers the notes and the keys and which to press and in which order, remembers the tune it would make and could hum it under his breath with ease.
But music is something he enjoyed in the past, and something he hasn’t been brave enough to enjoy now. But music is art and art is self-expression, and maybe that’s exactly what he needs. Maybe that’s the right next step.
In all honesty, despite it all, Stephen misses his Steinway piano. He misses the way his hands could play it easily and he misses how his fingers could create music from mere sounds, and he hates that he’s taken it for granted before everything gets ripped away from him entirely.
One mistake, Stephen discovers, is all it took to break a man. One mistake is all it took to take away everything he had worked hard for and tell him he doesn’t truly deserve it.
So when he discovers a certain Master decided to take up teaching piano lessons to some students, he couldn’t help but watch and listen, something tight twisting in his chest and something hard blocking his throat.
(Kamar Taj isn’t only a place to learn the Mystic Arts. It’s a place for the broken, hopeless and defeated – for people like him – to find a way to heal and build themselves back up. And if that meant taking up piano lessons during times where you aren’t busy sparring, training, or learning, then why not? Being a sorcerer is a job and a choice; an obligation and a weighted responsibility, sure, but they aren’t sadists and the mantle doesn’t enslave you the way one would think. Some just take bigger roles than others, and some moments and decisions just require so much more than most. Stephen knows this more than anyone, but even he knows he’s still a separate person from the title of the Master of the Sanctum Sanctorum or the Keeper of the Stone. Despite everything, Stephen Strange is still Stephen Strange, even if he insists his title as a doctor and himself are one and the same.)
It’s only a matter of time before said sorcerer would notice him lingering in lessons, standing idly to the side and just at the corner of everyone’s eyes. So when the man approaches him after a particular lesson one day, Stephen isn't exactly surprised.
“Master Strange,” he says in greeting as he slowly approaches him, and there is no rush in his steps. Students are already beginning to leave around him, chatter slowly dissolving as the lesson finally wraps up for the day. Stephen nods in return. “I’ve noticed you’ve been watching our piano lessons,” he continues, tone not the slightest bit accusatory. It could almost be described as inviting. “Are you perhaps interested in joining a lesson?”
Stephen would laugh if he could, but he doesn’t, out of respect.
“I… wouldn’t say so,” he answers, and finds himself elaborating before he could stop himself. “I used to play the piano. It’s just been a while since I’ve last seen one, nevermind play one, so it was a surprise to see… this.”
The man hums in understanding, and something about the way he does so makes Stephen feel secure – like the piece of information he’s just given out isn’t going to be used against him in any way, the way it’s happened several times to him in the past.
“Perhaps you should start playing again, Master Strange. You seem to be interested, after all.”
Despite the words, Stephen doesn’t feel like it was said as a means to pressure him into doing something he didn’t want to do. It felt more like an offer – a choice he can either ignore or take up on. Or maybe it’s more like an encouragement, a little soft nudge or a gentle tug that he could easily brush off and refuse if he wanted to and without consequences.
“Oh, me? I haven’t played in years,” he huffs out a quiet laugh, “I’m not sure I’ve still got it. Especially not with–” he pauses, hesitating, before he lifts his trembling hands up slightly, just enough for the sorcerer to notice it, knowing the vulnerability and willingness to reveal them isn’t going to bring any danger to him in this particular situation (odd, how Kamar Taj has changed him over the years), “–these.”
The fellow sorcerer only gives him a gentle smile at that, one he would’ve assumed is out of pity in the past, but Stephen knows it’s out of understanding. People in Kamar Taj are people like him – they know and understand things the way most don’t. The way he does.
“Sure you could,” he encourages softly, his tone leaving space for Stephen to turn back if he wishes so, and Stephen finds he doesn’t want to. “You could give it a try if you wish,” he gestures towards the piano.
Stephen considers it for a moment. The sorcerer only waits, and it’s not like he’s under any pressure, and the man is patient and understanding with him the way Stephen doesn’t think he truly deserves, but appreciates no less.
“Alright,” he gives in, perhaps a little too easily, but the other man’s eyes hold no judgement.
They walk up to the piano and it takes only a moment for him to settle down onto the seat, and it feels slightly different and it feels slightly foreign but he continues anyway. There isn’t turning back. Even if he knows he could, in fact, turn back now and that nobody would speak of it. He still had some semblance of pride, after all, and he likes to believe he’s a man that commits to and follows through his every decision.
The moment he places a finger on a key, as well as the next, it’s a mess, and the disordered sounds ring through his ears and turn the tips of them red in embarrassment. A wince escapes his lips. But no judgement came, so he continued.
It was still a mess, and it’s like his fingers aren’t following what his brain tells them to do. It comes out messy and unpleasant and absolutely horrifying. He finds himself getting frustrated the further he continues, fingers slamming onto the keys as if it would help the situation. It did nothing but cause pain to spark up his damaged nerves, and for the sounds to be more ear-piercingly loud, and for a moment he forgets he has company.
“Try playing slower,” he advises Stephen, almost placatingly, and then demonstrating; playing the keys he had played but much gentler, less harsh, in a way that made it look and sound sincere. “Like that.”
Stephen watches. He breathes in, trying to keep himself in check, and it’s involuntarily and embarrassingly shaky, but he follows. He tries again, slower this time, cursing under his breath occasionally at wrong notes and starting over when he feels like he’s made too many mistakes in one go. It takes a while, far too long for his pride as shame begins to trickle slowly into his face and turn it red in both frustration and mortification, but the man is patient and the man is non-judgemental and he lets Stephen take as much time as he wants.
And when they’re done, Stephen finds himself relieved and admittedly satisfied with himself despite the flaws and mistakes, and has never been more ready to accept a new friend.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
Healing isn’t linear. Healing is a long-winded process with no clear path and a vague destination. You can never really tell where it starts or where it finishes, or how it happened or if it ever did happen, the same way he never really knew how everything turned out the way they are and the same way he never understood how parts of him faded as time went by.
Stephen knows this better than most do, and Stephen wishes he doesn’t. He wishes healing is linear, the way he wishes most things aren’t the way they are.
Stephen also knows he’s human, and that no one is immune to mistakes and that everyone is allowed to start over.
He knows that time marches on an ascending line, and that everything comes to an end eventually. He knows some things are irreversible, and some things need to be kept in the past, because the past isn’t worth dwelling in.
He knows he’ll never be the same, not after everything, and he knows this is irreversible, but Stephen also knows he’s allowed to start over.
Despite how hard it is to convince himself that all of this is true, he tries. And that’s all that matters.