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There was a great deal of Logan’s life that he couldn’t remember, but he had never forgotten a single moment of his deaths.
For Logan, death was not something to fear coming. It was not some terrible thing looming in the future to destroy him. Instead it was a return home. It was the feeling of coming home after a long time far away. Logan remembered every moment of every death and the time he spent in the meadow that was his afterlife. A meadow that was full of tall golden grass and delicate flowers swaying in a soft warm breeze. It was the brilliance of a sunrise as it painted the sky anew with more colors than he could name. And that meadow was the only place he could visit his angel.
His angel was beautiful. Tall and thin with dark hair streaked with white, clad in deep blue robes, and bearing four great wings of the most brilliant crimson Logan had ever seen.
His angel was his oldest memory. The very first time he had died, some unknowable time long ago. That memory of waking for the first time in the meadow and blinking up at the sky in wonder. Of that view being blocked by a gorgeous man with eyes that shifted through every color of the ocean. Seeing the man's wings and understanding that he was an angel. Of seeing an angel and knowing that he was dead. It was both a cherished memory and a long held regret.
For that very first meeting was a mix of a deep baritone comforting him as he wept and of flashes of harsh anger that had him ripping handfuls of feathers from wings that did not fight back. Of strong arms holding him close as the anger drained, soft words murmured into his hair until he had woken again. Alive.
The second time he died. Logan thought to ask questions.
“Why am I here? Where is here? Is this all there is? Is…?”
His questions were endless. And with every one Logan became the most knowledgeable person on earth. When it came to death at least. But he never thought to ask why the angel was there. And nearly forgot to ask the most important question of all.
“Who are you?”
The answer coming as he began to fade from the meadow, struggling not to return to life until he heard it.
“Stephen.”
For every death Stephen was there. Logan eventually lost count of his visits, but Stephen never did. With every death Logan found himself wanting to return to the meadow. It was only the Angel’s tears at the sight of him returning that made him fight to stay alive. Eventually, it seemed to Logan that their roles had been reversed, for now it was he that comforted his Angel with every visit. Cradling the thin form in his arms as they wept.
“Please, Logan. Stop dying, you should live! You shouldn’t have to feel such pain again and again. You don’t deserve it.” Long fingers, covered in pale gloves and shaking with emotion cradled Logan’s skull as oceanic eyes drowned in tears for him. “Please. Be alive for me.”
“I will.”
It was late September years later that Logan finally died again. A simple traffic accident claiming his life. For a short while at least. It soon cemented itself as his worst death. For his angel was not there. There was the meadow. No longer peaceful, but full of dark rock and bright feathers scattered across it. Crimson red feathers stirred up by a cold wind drawing shivers from his soul as he called out.
“Stephen?”
His angel was gone.
As for Logan’s angel, life was going on as usual. Stephen Strange was born in a small town in Nebraska and grew up with no knowledge of the afterlife at all. So it was with this lack of knowing that life did not seem kind.
When his little sister drowned before he could save her; he didn’t remember that she could choose to be reborn. And had lived again as a long lived woman of Celtic magic that would see her brother again.
He didn’t know that some lives were destined to end early when he fought to save everyone on his operating table. Instead he sought to stay away from death entirely and helped only those that he knew could live.
And when his heart stopped, for just a moment as his car sank into the water. He didn’t remember lying in a bright meadow of golden grass before he was sent back. Didn’t remember the heavy weight of new wings upon his shoulders. Didn’t remember that life wasn’t linear at all when it came to life and death.
But he would remember.
As fate tugged upon the path of his life steering him on his path to death and memory.
For as he stood before the cosmic conqueror and proclaimed his intent to bargain; he would remember. With that first death he went to the meadow and watched as pure white wings turned to the deep crimson of his soul’s new companion. And with that first death he turned to watch a young man appear before him. With that first death he found himself comforting another, heedless to the pain in new wings as his soul ached at the thought of another dying as he was.
With every death he went to the meadow and gave away a little bit of his soul. With every death he watched a young man grow older, grow wiser, grow to crave death. It was that craving that drove Stephen to endure, his soul and body weeping for the poor man for whom death was his only joy.
With every death, he fell in love with the man and understood his place.
And with his final death, Stephen gave away his heart.
Returning to reality after so much death had Stephen falling to his knees from the weight of experience. But from that experience came knowledge and conviction. Conviction which had him rising on trembling feet to open a portal to a place he had never been. That had him knocking on a door and asking for Logan. That had him sitting calmly at a window to wait for Logan to return.
And when Logan arrived, clothes torn and bloodied from death, just as Stephen’s, he stood to meet him. Burst from the door of the mansion to run on shaking legs to the man. To Logan who had frozen in shock at the sight of his angel in life before him.
Their souls wept together in that moment.
Not in pain but in the joy of no longer being alone, of no longer being separated by death.
Together, now in life, they had each other.