Chapter Text
Champagne popped! Everyone cheered! The happy couple embraced lovingly, swaying to the music in each other’s arms.
And he. He watched. He played: the violin's song beautiful to all, but sorrowful to him. Watched with a smile as his heart wept, watched as his heart drifted away in the arms of another—
Strange woke.
Blinking.
Taking in the dark. Breathing. Breathing.
Earlier he had been practicing in the mirror dimension, and normally the effects didn’t linger into sleep. But the dream…
It had felt so real. Had it only been a dream? Or had it been…a memory?
Something from another life?
Nothing about it was familiar, yet everything was. Why did it wrench his heart so?
He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. He craned to see the form asleep beside him.
He looked so peaceful, Ross. Hair like a halo from the soft moon. His heart lay against Strange, beating steadily like a loyal clock.
Strange pulled him close, breathing the soft scent of his hair.
Perhaps it really had been a glimpse of another life. A glimpse of something not meant to be. But right now, right here—he pressed a kiss to Ross’s head—he was holding all the happiness in the world to last him a thousand different lives.