Work Text:
When the world almost fell apart due to wishes, your world had been saved by a single one.
A year had passed, you were living in New York trying to make your way in the world still trying to recover from the destruction everyone’s wish brought. You never imagined yourself in a big city, or maybe that was your ex-partner talking. Fall was your favorite season and New York had a perfect fall.
You are walking through a quiet park and documenting the change in season on film. It was so peaceful and calming, this time in nature by yourself. The bird sang in the trees above you and the squirrels scurried across the path with acorns stuffed in the cheeks.
Now and then you passed a couple or family enjoying the day. You envied them a bit. Starting life over in a city like New York by yourself was hard. You struggled, you still struggled. But then you noticed the bruises healing. When you looked in the mirror, black, sad eyes didn’t stare back. Now your eyes had a little spark you hadn’t seen in a long time.
You walked down the path and occasionally raised the camera to take a photo of the leaves catching the sunlight, or a couple huddled close together sharing a secret. The clicking of the shutter and the film moving from one canister to the other was something you loved to hear. The movement involved in the photo process slowed you down and made you think of every detail of the moment you wanted to capture.
The sounds of children surrounded you as you walked towards the playground. You smiled as you took it all in. One child was bouncing up and down wanting to show their parent how they can climb the monkey bars, another was waiting patiently to go down the slide, then you spot a father with his son. They are swinging side by side. Your heart melted watching the dad as he took in every word his son was saying.
Before you even knew what you were doing, you were raising your camera and snapping a photo of them.
You went home after you left the playground. One of your closets had been turned into a small darkroom and it had become your safe place. A place where you could disappear and watch the photos you had taken become real.
After a lot of hard work, a photo of the man and his son was in your hand. You recognized the man from somewhere but you couldn’t quite place him. You kept going back to that over the following week. The trees behind the swing set were bright oranges and reds that perfectly framed the father and son.
Almost a week later, you were walking through the park, this time you also had a book and a drink from the cafe across the street. You found a nice clearing where you laid out a picnic blanket. There weren’t many people nearby, giving you a quiet place to read.
“Can we sit over here?” A boy asked.
“Of course,” his father said. “We can sit wherever you want.”
You looked up and there was the father and son you had seen last week. Your brain painted the man’s curls blond and you finally remembered. Maxwell Lord. The wish-granting, oilman.
His eyes met yours. Max shifted a bit beside his son who was laying out a picnic blanket. He looked down, not quite sure what to say. Many people who looked at him the way you were looking at him now, would come up to him, pointing fingers and yelling words he wished his son never had to hear.
“Stay here, Alister,” Max said before walking over to you.
You stood up, holding your book to your chest. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“No,” Max said. “I should be the one to apologize for any pain I may have caused you with the wishes.”
You looked down, anxious to say what you wanted to say.
“I’ve wanted to thank you, actually.”
The look on Max’s face could only be described as pure shock.
“Why would you want to thank me?”
You bit your lip, your eyes going from something behind him to his eyes. His kind, brown eyes.
“Making that wish, it saved me,” you said, laughing a bit. “Everyone else’s wishes, they almost destroyed the world… but mine… my wish saved me.”
You could still feel the pain you felt that day. Your whole body was bruised as you were thrown into a wall. Tears streamed down your cheek, ruining the makeup that covered your black eye.
“Please,” you begged.
Your partner held you against the wall.
“Were you flirting with the bagger?”
“No,” you cried. “I was just being friendly.”
“Friendly, huh? Friendly is not winking and making kissy faces.”
“I wasn’t. I promise.”
The TV on the kitchen counter clicked to life.
“I watched you,” he yelled in your face, spit exploding from his mouth and raining down on you.
“I wasn’t. I love you.”
“Don’t lie to me. I was there. I watched you.”
You sobbed as the grip on your hair tightened.
“Anything you want,” a voice said through the TV. “Anything you can dream of, you can have it.”
You stared at the man on the screen. Studying his face.
“All you have to do is wish.”
“What a douchebag,” your husband said.
“I wish I had the courage to leave you, once and for all,” you said through tears. Maxwell Lord’s eyes seemed to look directly into your soul.
Your husband laughed. “And I wish to see that day. Oh wait, I won’t. You won’t leave me. You’re a fucking coward.”
Maxwell continued to stare at you as the wind blew around him. Something in you began to stir.
You pushed back, your husband stumbling from the force.
“I’m leaving,” you said. “Don’t try and stop me.”
And for some reason, some miraculous force made it so he didn’t. He just watched you as you went to the bedroom and grabbed the bag you had packed. It had been waiting so long, stuffed under your bed, for you to have the courage and strength to say enough is enough.
You opened the front door and looked back at your husband. He stood there, shell shocked. You ripped your wedding bands from your finger and looked down at them.
In the setting sun, they sparkled. It was something you liked about them. When he had put it on your finger, you thought your marriage would be like this ring. Beautiful and full of love. But then it wasn’t.
You turned your hand and the rings fell to the ground. You stepped out of the house as they hit the floor, rolling about before falling on their side.
It was over. It was finally over.
“That wish, it saved my life. Even after, when everyone reversed their wish, I still had the courage to keep driving. A week later, I still had the strength to file for divorce. I don’t know where I would be now if I didn’t make that wish. But I’m thankful for it.”
Maxwell didn’t know what to say to you.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could come up with.
You shrugged. “It’s in the past. Over and done. There’s nothing I can do but keep moving forward.”
“Daddy!” Alister called.
“It sounds like someone is ready for lunch,” you said, bending down and collecting your things.
“Wait,” Max said. “You renounced your wish, right?”
You smiled, “It’s hard to renounce a wish that was already real.”
Maxwell didn’t understand at first.
“I always had the courage.”
Alister ran up and hugged Max’s side.
“Daddy! Can we eat?”
Max patted his son’s head, his eyes still on you. Then he looked down and smiled.
“Of course, Alister.”
“I love you, daddy,” Alister said, turning his head to his father’s side.
“I love you, too.”
You smiled at the small exchange. You bent down and smiled at Alister.
“Hello,” you said.
“Hi,” Alister greeted you.
“I have something for you.”
Alister’s eyes lit up as he watched you pull out an envelope.
“I like to walk around the park in the evenings and take photos of people and things. I took this one last week.”
You pulled out the photo of Alister and Maxwell on the swings and gave it to the little boy. His face lit up.
“I’m going to keep it forever!”
You laughed. “You enjoy your picnic.”
Max was at a loss for words. He looked at the photo, recognizing his son’s face in the photo instantly. But his face was not one he often saw in the mirror. It did something to him, looking at himself from a stranger’s point of view. He saw the man he wanted to be. The man he tried so hard to become. He was that man last week, and maybe, just maybe, he was that man now.
Max looked up to thank you, but you were gone. As if you disappeared into thin air.
Months passed and Max couldn’t stop thinking about you. He looked for you everywhere. In every passing subway car, on every street corner, and coffee shop. It wasn’t until he was shopping for Christmas presents in a small book store did he find you.
You were in the children’s section trying to find the perfect book for your little niece. After looking around many different shops, you had finally spotted the perfect one. The only problem was that it was on the top shelf. You reached up, on the tips of your toes, and still, your fingers barely grazed it.
“Why is a book for babies,” you grumbled through gritted teeth, “on the highest shelf?”
You felt a firm, broad hand on the small of your back that made your whole body tingle. Max’s face appeared just inches from your own as he reached up and took the book you had been trying desperately to reach.
Max stepped back and held the book out to you.
“Thank you,” you said, blushing slightly.
“I should thank you,” he said.
“What for?”
“That photo you took of me and Alister. He keeps it on his bedside table and looks at it every night.”
You thought your heart might burst at that little story.
“Really?”
Max nodded. “He looks for you, at the park.”
“He does?”
“And at the coffee shop that you got your drink from.”
You grinned. “Does he now? He seems a little young to be drinking coffee.”
Max tugged at his lip, “No, but I do.”
Your heart skipped a beat.
“I mean, he did ask about you a few times in passing… but I… I’ve been hoping I would see you again.”
“And why have you been hoping to see me?”
Max looked away from you. “I’m not… I haven’t… I’m not very good with flirting,” he said, his eyes meeting you a couple of times but each time they quickly found something else to look at.
“You want to flirt with me?”
“Yes?”
You giggled, holding the little book tighter to your chest. Max’s ears turned bright red.
“You said you drink coffee?”
“What?” Max asked, a little lost.
“Would you like to get coffee? With me?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes.”
“I need to pay for this, but then I’m free for the rest of the day.”
“Alister is with his mom for the day.”
And that was how you ended up going on a date with Max Lord, or Max Lorenzano. The two of you spent hours bundled up in a small coffee shop talking about life and getting to know one another. It came as a surprise to Max that you wanted to meet up again and again.
A wish tried to destroy the world, yet the wish your heart made led you here. To Max.