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evelili · 1 year

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Okay I’ve been reading more of your magnum opus fic (one chapter. help they keep destroying me emotionally) and I have highlighted a solid THIRTY SEVEN lines from the fic so far so I thought I should write a like. halfway(?) through comment for you so they don’t get too long! I’m really enjoying your characterization of everyone and the pacing is fantastic. The focus on the trials of the main six is amazing and really allows you to build all of their characters individually then together. Like for applejacks chapter it was focused on her but then now with this flashback in pinkie pie’s chapter it gives a lot of context for her and rainbow’s relationship and how they’ve grown which I love!!

I’m pretty sure this textbook is older than me. A quick peek at the publication page under the cover confirmed her theory. It’s even older than Shining!

Okay this was the first line I ever highlighted and it’s just because I was so… idk i really love how you show this dynamic between twilight and her family and how they all rely on each other. I’m very curious about twilights nightmare prophecy dream and if we’ll ever see Shining Armor or Cadence again and maybe how they’ll react to the events of the story!

“Hope I didn’t bother you much.”

Shoot shoot shoot, say something, Sparkle! You’re being weird again! “No, you weren’t bothering me.” Yes! Good! “No one really talks to me, so I guess it was kind of nice.” No!

This scene was SUPER funny I really like how you’re able to write these quick, witty exchanges that feel like the characters from the show with a more mature feel to it

Twilight hated being pitied. Being such a pitiful person.

I really like this line here. You’ve mastered this style of like… having twilight think something then INSTANTLY switching what it means cause with the first sentence I’d imagine it was her disliking others and how they act when they pity her but the second sentence IMMEDIATELY recontextualizes it into her hating HERSELF. It’s brilliant

It felt like Sunset—strong and steady and warm.

I really love how you wrote Sunset and Twilight during the first act their friendship feels so easy and so difficult as well just because twilight doesn’t know how to deal with someone new that she hasn’t perfectly learned how to avoid from knowing them since grade school, like she doesn’t know her and it makes all of their interactions feel like they’re trying SO HARD to learn who the other is and it just feels like such a genuinely high school experience I love how you write this

The ice was back, though not as blatant as before. It hid between Celestia’s words, biting at her consonants and the breaths she took between.

This description took my breath away. You really have this way with words of describing characteristics and mannerisms in ways that manages to completely blindside me and it just makes reading your story so exhilarating. I never know what’s coming and I adore it for that!

I’m gonna cut this one off here cause it’s already fairly long and I am NOT sending a 5000 word ask on tumblr so I’ll probably send more later but holy shit I need to mention this. The way you end all the chapters of the story by focusing on how twilights outlook on science and magic and friendship is shifting slowly with every experience is amazing and it makes me feel so happy and excited everytime I get to the end of the chapter!!

Also you mentioned a 30k epilogue in my last ask and uh. oh my god. I’m very excited for that!! AND ANOTHER THING. Your art is absolutely STUNNING. I love reading a chapter and then looking at the art. The art for the applejack chapter is so amazing, the composition just blows me away and I love how you choose to do this black and white, almost sort of painting-esque look to all of them. AND I JUST SAW THE ONE FOR FLUTTERSHYS OH MY GOD. Twilights head coming out of its mouth… fluttershy with the stake… AND THE PINKIE PIE ONE? (Sorry I downloaded the fic so none of the images carried over so you’re getting my live “WHAT THE FUCKKKKK” reaction to all of these) THE BALLOONS??? COVERING TWILIGHT?? BECAUSE SHES ASHAMED AND HIDING HER PAIN BEHIND A SMILE? AND DOESNT WANT ANYONE TO FIND OUT?? AND PINKIE PIE WITH A SINGLE BALLOON WITHOUT A SMILE AND HER EYES HIDDEN AUGHHHHHH

Love this!!!

hi yes hello i think ive finally collected myself enough to figure out how to respond to this!! first of all: thank u so much again for ur indepth thoughts!!! like holy shit it rlly makes me so happy to get comments like this u will not believe ldksfjlksdfkff

focusing specifically on the ice line w celestia u highlighted, that's actually one of the ones im most proud of in the entire fic! it was rlly fun to work w some alliteration nd i think the flow/rhythm of it turned out rlly nice, and im glad that you liked it too :D

honestly, to me writing is pretty much the same as drawing, just instead of like colours and shit u gotta think of the shapes of letters and sounds of words and the rhythm of sentences blending together yknow? and if i had any advice to give, instead of "colour picking" like in art, i like to "word pick" or "concept pick" instead, basically take a phrase or idea from a previous sentence / para and reuse it in another context (like another part of the canvas almost). it's a bit of an abstract way to think but it works for my brain so maybe it can work for u too, or anyone else reading this xd

and im so glad u like the art!! i didn't realize that downloading the epub from fimfic removes the art, which i guess means anyone who read c12 + the epilogue in epub rather than on the site missed out on some key stuff dkfjsdlfjdkf not to mention all the chapter cards, oopsie. maybe ill update the authors note or smth if i remember too (she said, like a liar who definitely wont)

actually, i went with the bw style bc a) colour theory sucks but also b) it works well for printing physical copies lol. ik some other ponyfics have done physical runs, so maybe if i ever get time ill learn how to put all that together (and that way ppl definitely dont miss out on the art xd)

i guess to end it off, the point u made abt shining, it was rlly important to me to show his nd twilight's dynamic as smth supportive! im an older sibling (not by much tho), so i tried to write from the perspective of what an imaginary older brother might be like for me. since i imagine shining a lot older than twi (if she's ~17, i imagine he's mid-twenties), maybe he's a bit of an uncle-like figure / trusted adult too, rather than just an older brother. but im not rlly sure! have a doodle regardless, and i hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

#tte #lili talking #my art #mlp fanfic #also a bit of writing advice if u squint lol #twilight sparkle #scitwi #shining armor #mlp shining armor

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calekinnieplus · 10 months

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I play the seven-stringed guitar by the fountain in the municipal square. I use my knife and fork to slice the steak. In the cathedral, I describe the teachings of the Goddess to the believers. I reach out my right hand and leave the carriage with the help of a gentleman. I get the new dress I had been eyeing for so long, and I can’t wait to change into it. I stride forward with my four legs as I’m being chased by a child. I laugh loudly as I totter about and play with a dog…

Suddenly, we tremble. We look up into the sky and see illusory, thin lines drilling out from our bodies. They extend to an infinite height, extending beyond the grayish-white fog. They extend into an ancient palace and land in the hands of a tall figure shrouded in fog.

Oh my god, this chapter was amazing

The constant switch of POV, of different lives and emotions, but in the end... it's Klein. It's all Klein.

During this period of time, Klein’s state had always been very strange, as though he had completely transformed into thousands of lives. Every clone had their own will, thoughts, knowledge, and fate.

However, above this collective consciousness was a primary consciousness that held control. It constantly suffered all kinds of attacks, as though it could be assimilated by the sea of consciousness that had been formed autonomously at any moment. However, it eventually withstood the barrage of attacks, allowing Klein to maintain a certain level of clarity.

How mentally strong must you be to withstand the collective consciousness of around 5000 people?? Absolutely INSANE

His true body had been lying underground in Saint Arianna Cathedral. His consciousness would occasionally rise and enter Sefirah Castle, and occasionally sink into his body.

All the scenes that the marionette clones experienced constantly flashed in his mind like a dream formed from large amounts of fragments.

Holy fucking shit, I don't have the words to properly describe this chapter.

Like? No big battle, no big revelation, nothing That big, but for some reason, this chapter is so COOL!

The interesting format aside (First Person POV to properly showcase the lives, ayo), thanks to the juxtaposition of the fake lives of Klein’s marionettes and the Tarot Gathering where Klein’s primary consciousness resides, I was shook.

KLEIN IS HANDLING ALL THAT. Those incredibly diverse and complicated lives, all of them with layers and backstories. I mean, we already knew that's the ritual, but actually seeing it is insane.

I love this chapter. A lot.

#vertigone rambles #lotm #lord of the mysteries #binging lotm #lotm spoilers #lotm volume 7 #chapter 1335 #I #Utopia #lotm utopia

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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space Retrospective: Ice Station Santa (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police and welcome back! For those just tuning in for the better part of the year i've been taking a look at Sam and Max: Save the World courtsey of patron WeirdKev27, falling more in love with this franchise and these games each chapter. If you'd like to catch up, I've put links to each review into one masterpost

RIGHT HERE

So with season 2's production.. I don't have a lot. I tried but most articles I could find from the time are "Sam and Max Season 2 is happening and it's better than ever" and not much else.

It makes sense: Season 1 was Telltale Games big coming out party: while it wasn't the first game they made, that would be....

It was their big breakout success. So while season 1 was proving themselves by this point Telltale was a big name, Sam and Max were once again big names, and the episodic model had worked. So it's not a huge suprise that season 2's production was more: Let's do it all again but bigger and better!

So for season 2 the models are slightly more expressive, there's more mini games and the originals had widescreen support back when that was a feature. '

So what actually happens in this sequel? Well a lot so join me under the cut as our heroes take on a bloated hairy pagan god to save christmas, embark in a rigged trivia night, traumatize bosco for fun and profit, and run over some muppets. In other words it's another day at the office and i'm glad to be back.

We open season 2 with our heroes returning from a case, some time after season 1 which is said explictly to be last year, only to get a nasty suprise. A giant robot smashing up the place

It's not that souless abomination but the maimtron 5000. With our heroes assuming it's their goldfish plotting max's death, that old chestnut, we head outside for the first puzzle.. well okay we're SUPPOSED to head outside but I choose to instead dick around the office. The trophy closet continues to grow and i'm happy to see a jar of bliss join the stuff. It's not a big or flashy trophy granted, it's not a melted ted-e-bear heard or a whole human being. There's some nice new touches to the office too: the photos from hit the road and bad day on the moon are replaced with ones from season 1. IT's a nice little touch that helps vary up the office and allows it to feel refreshed while still recycling the set from last game.

The biggest and best addition though is some stuff swiped from Ted.E Bears charred ruins. I get the feeling they WANTED to include these last season but it simply wasn't fesable. At any rate you now have a mounted mafia anamatronic head over the desk and the wack a rat game is now free to play any time in your office. I did again, because I had fun and it's even more fun when you just touch the screen.

So we walk out onto main street.. and quickly get our first of many status quo shake ups for the season: Sybil's is thrown through the air and lands squarely between your business and boscos where the space for rent used to be. Or on top of it more likely. It's also teling just how used I got to Sam and Max's street that I know it like the back of my arm hair. Thankfully she's not inside but it was still unnerving to see such a key part of the first season tossed aside.

Thankfully the Maimtron himself... is pure comic gold. He's waxing lyrical incarnate, quoting countless pop songs. My faviorite bits from him are giving his number as "6875309" and "All the cops in the donut shops say way oh way oh". That one's more for Max's response "That's it no one quotes walk like an egyptian at me and lives!"

However bullets can't do anything against him. Thankfully he has a big wind up dealie on his back so you simply need to ask why do birds suddenly appear every time he is near. I mean the obvious answer as given by Lorne

Is just like me, they long to be, close to you, but since he's in metal box at the bottom of the sea since Max took office, it instead gives you an opening to turn the robot off. The sender turns out to be a hairy pagan god with powers untold. That right it's old saint nick and time for Christmas in late august.

One opening sequence later we're at the north pole and it's here we get some interesting structuring for this episode. For the first act of it you can't leave the north pole. Which was annoying at first as I wanted to see Season 2's settings and what's changed, but in hindsight works perfectly: it keeps you at the pole and thus keeps your options kept there. Likewise apart from a puzzle or two that requires you to go to the north pole, most of act 2 is on main street and the last one is a bit back and forth. It creates a nice gameplay loop without leaving you TOO overwhelmed.

But before we can get to the wonders of Santa's Workshop... we reunite with some old faces. Yes folks, the dreaded dark day of prophecy fortold in the scrolls has come. THE SODA POPPERS HAVE RETURNED

As you can imagine i'm not remotely happy their alive and survivied the great dakota wars with only a removal from office. Their mad about their christmas presents. Specs got.. something, Peepers got a night gown he just dosen' thave the hips for, and Whizzer got Tuberculosis. Same thing Sam got max. It's why they don't do secret santa any more. Those gags are funny, and at the very least Sam and Max are now as visably fed up with them as I am. They also aren't in this one too much and the developers make up for using them at all out of plot necsity by allowing you to throw snowballs full of bleach at them. Repeatedly.

It was one of the best days of my life. Also helping with the strain of these morons and specs returning is a little something from the past. See before I got into this chapter, Kev reminded me of what was INTENDED to be a running gag, but I simply never updated it. Persons of all ages I present the wall of misery

It was supposed to be a runnnig tally of characters I just.. flat out hated in fiction. Not just disliked, not just was mildly annoyed by in one version or another, the ones I CANNOT FUCKING STAND , the ones who truly bring out the rage in me. It ended up largely forgotten due to a combo of two things: my short term memory being shoddy.. and me simply not getting THAT angry that often when reviewing. I try to be fair to a work as much as possible, and prefer to focus on the positive. I"ll still be objective, i'll still come down on a works flaws, but at the end of the day the reason I got into this wasn't to let out my anger issues (which I do have and try hard to control), but to simply look at things I liked or things other people like as fair as possible. I WILL tear into something if it truly pisses me off, see my review of the boys comic, but I generally don't get my hackles up that high that often.

That being said.. as I looked at the wall I realized it had a place for that exact reason. If a character can not just annoy me (as a lot of this prototype do), but really make me hate them, really make it harder to watch an episode or read a scene if their around.. why SHOUDLN'T they get a badge of dishonor for it? Pissing me off is harder and harder these days, so why shouldn't someone get an award for it for somehow pulling that off? So I present to you

With thing one and thing two front and center. Thing three is absent because he's not a carnival of dicks crammed into one character model. If your curious whos who

First Row: Julie Powers (Scott Pilgrim (Comic)) Helen Lovejoy (The Simpsons) Billy Butcher (The Boys (Comic) ) Daisy Duck (Legend of the Three Cablleros Version, the rest are fine) Second Row: Mindy's Mom (Animaniacs Peepers (Guess) Whizzer (Oh come on) Roger Raincomprix (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir) Yivo (Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs) As for what the Soda Poppers have to do puzzle wise...

Yup my anguish, my bringing back and old bit, my pelting them with bleach and possibly elf urine, it all amounted to... well okay you DO get to pelt them all with bleach and possibly blind them for life. I"ll give the developers that. This appearance gets a pass.

So we finally get inside the Workshop to find this is the night santa went crazy, as Santa is holding anyone trying to come into his office at gun point and has been having the elves making more militarilzed toys. And tourture me elmer. Naturally Max loves that last one. He even screams like a real person.

I will say Santa holding everyone at gun point.. is more than a bit unsettling and is very "product of it's time" given the.. well everything that's happened since this chapter happened. While mass shootings happened back then, they weren't nearly as common. and... I need a moment.

Okay back. I didn't even notice it while playing it oddly enough, probably down to it being a product of it's time and my brain treating it that way. Or the situation being silly enough that the horrible crushing reality simply didn't hit me and thus the chapter holds up okay.

It helps the workshop has a genuinely... creepy atmosphere> The music, a more offputting carol of the bells, the lighting it's all more ominous than previous settings. It contributes to the episodes depressing vibe as when we get to town in a bit it's also a bit off. Thankfully this is sam and max so while I was a tad unsettled.. it really didn' tstay that way for long as you can stick your guns to the north pole, talk with the elves on how things hav edeteroriated and how the elves sang a song when they left "It wasn't very happy" and make an elf cry to progress.

Elf Tears make trees grow

So we need to make one of the elves cry. And given this is sam and max it's naturally one of the most darkly hilarious things as the elf WANTS to cry.. but even threatning to rip out his eyes or kill his dog dose'nt work.. I mean the former at least makes sense. You know I forget sometimes how much horrible stuff these games make you do till I sit down and play this month's chapter.. or how much comedy gold you get out of the suffering.

Now we have a pail of elf tears.. .which I didn't even know you could pick up. I assumed growing the tree was what you did to progress. This one's on me for both not using the button to show you everything you can react to.. and on not turning the hint system up. See last game I honestly forgot half the time Max gave you hints, not helped by the fact a majority were just max being max instead of offering any advice. So for this game they instead worked out a better hint system. I mean you can still talk to max for giggles, but instead if you turn it on and the game thinks your stuck, he'll shout out what you specifically need to do. I needed to crank it up to get him to do it, and evne cranked up it's nicely just if you've been idle or wandering around long enough.

Thankfully once Kev told me I could us ether elf tears, I grabbed them and used them on a coinvent little tree outside. This gets us into Santa's Office, but dosen't really fix the problem right away as he still outguns us. And given this is sam and max we're talking about that says a LOT. Thankfully we get our lead in to act 2: an exorcism diagram. It's actually quite simple they simply need a magentic pole, which they have and the four horseman of the apocalypse action figures.

So collecting all 4 is our next goal and we're finally back home. And each area has one of the four horseman.

The first one I encountered, and ironically the last one I grabbed, was Boscos. And boy oh boy was I not prepared. So.. since the end of Save the World Bosco's somehow sunk further down the conspiracy whole. Besides dawning his most hideous disguise yet, himself, he's torn the store apart, taking all the fun and helpful condiments from season one and replacing them with a presumibly useful in the future set of photography equipment. The lights are dim, the security's somehow MORE draconian and bosco himself seems on a shorter fuse. That dosen't mean we can't light it as there's two really fun bits. The first is since bosco is hiding from a group called "T-H-E-M", who i'm not doubting exists since he was at least SOMEWHAT on the money about most of his paranoid delusions, any time someone says them he gives out a high pitched shriek. Props to Oogie Banks for making it so damn hilarious. You can just.. say it over and over ot hear it till Bosco eventually uses the security system on you. Btads is back baby!

You can also ask if he has any, which of course he dosen't this isn't a store.. but the payoff is what makes the joke:

As for bosco's horseman it's in his package

And that joke was ALMOST as subtle as the jokes the game makes. Bosco won't open it because he thinks it has a bomb inside but won't NOT open it because it might have his broom. So once again we have to ruin bosco's life. Id' feel worse but given he's taken trillions of dollars from us simply because he could, let's scar him for life again!

This requires the present machine. You can send random junk to people. We only need to send two gifts for plot progression: a ticking stopwatch to bosco for obvious reasons and a footbath to stinky's diner for reasons i'll get into in a moment.

The watch makes Bosco think the present is a bomb, and while he's disposing of it you can steal from him again. And if he has any problem with it.. them.

Onto our next one at Pimp Le Car, another very 2000's joke but one that holds up as it's just plain funny a custom car place would decide "you know what we need to not get sued by xibit? FRENCH!"

And running Pimp Le Car are The C.O.P.S.

The COPS are like the anti-soda poppers to me: their instantly likeable, made their chapter better by existing and every time they show up gets a smile out of me. And lucky for me Telltale clearly felt the same as their upgraded to Bosco's old role of shopkeep, via their custom car buisness. Their also as funny as ever.

Naturally their task is the best. To get their figure (a free hood ornament) you have to run over as many torture me elmers as possible while they spit out things likes "I have rights" and "I'm an american citzen"

That's 1/4 horseman, but before we go we can also get Stickers

For the desoto. Turns out you can get 5.. I only got one assuming it was a once a chapter thing. It's pretty neat.

Moving on, we have Stinky's Diner, our second new location and our replacement for Sybils. And I have to admit while I miss both Sybils and Bosco's as it was this shakeup was necessary: while the gameplay loop of visiting the duo worked for a game, changing up who does their roll was necessary. Telltales smartly kept both characters, they simply changed up their gimmicks: Sybil's focused on her relationship with Abe LIncoln and Bosco has gone deep down the paranoia rabbit hole.

Stinky's isn't ENTIRELY new, having shown up in Hit the Road as a quick gag and Season 1 as a background feature. Our heroes were mentioned being fond of it's salty order who hoped to cull the weak with his questionable food.

Sadly for our heroes and about a wash for the rest of civlization, Stinky is gone, apparently having passed between games with his daughter taking his place. The boys are suspcious. The fact Stinky is a habitual liar who has rigged her trivia contest so no matter what you answer you loose so she can feel superior doesn't help.

Winning at trivia is a lot of fun and a clever puzzle: the pattern is simple enough: Sybil and Abe are on a date and while their relationship is going fine, the date itself is not great as both want to murder Girl stinky but neither wants to ruin the date for the other, and my boy the Army Bug whose dealing with some ptsd and the recent loss of his father. Poor guy. I'm glad he's here but he needs some bug therapy. Maybe Buster Blaster can branch out

YOU ARE NOT YOUR FATHER

YOU ARE GREAT

YOU CAN DO THIS

GIVE ME 5.50

Since the bug and Sybil always give the same answer, a and d respectively, you simply need to tell abe whose desperate for advice to choose b or c, choose whiche ver one he didn't and you win. Stinky begrudginly gives you your prize.

As for the footbath I mentioned you mail that to Girl Stinky, and she's thankful enough to let you take her old sock.

Note this is just me personally. If your into that, good for you. It's just not for me.

Anyways the sock will be useful later, and the less I have to talk about someone else's dirty sock the better.

So that leaves us with our final horseman to grab, and that takes us back to the start.. the giant robut. Thankfully kev told me when I was stuck to go back there. So Jimmy Two-Teeth and co have turned the robot into a boxing league. Thankfully you can aquire a boxing doll from the north pole and engage in the rat equilvent of punch out.

The boxing mini game is painful. It's main problem is simple: it's a punch out homage.. that isn't designed to work like punch out. So if you say spent a LOT of time playing punchout in college and have all your reflexes for a game tied to this where you assume you can dodge either way when your instead supposed to go the same direction your opponents punching, your gonna have a bad time. Spoiler: I had a bad time. Not helping is the final fight with Jimmy gives him a super punch that can knock you out in one hit. Why they didn't tune this up for the console versions better is beyond me.. and probably time and space.

Our heroes win.. which leads to Jimmy Two Teeth, sad his wife left him, to perch on a ledge and prepare to commit suicide. Honestly i'm suprised this episode didn't have you kick a puppy or 12 at this point. We can't help him yet though, but we CAN help santa. Using a record from his office, we play the summoning chant the friendly demon song!

youtube

Jared Emerson-Johnson continues his hot streak from last season and shame on me for not looking up who was writing and singing these things. Admitely the puzzle itself is frustrating if you don't get it but the solution.. is neat. The beast possesing santa left a bunch of clues around the workshop.. and it turns out it's our old friend Shambling Corproate Presence! I'm so delighted they brought it back.. granted it's just a pink monster.. thing, but it's still neat they brought it back.

Turns out though while this does draw it out Santa actually left out the instructions as a way of fighting from the inside.. and our heroes didn't look on the back. The only way to restrain the thing is the ghosts of christmas past, present and future. And thus we've come to our final act. You have to get the help of the spirits of christmas past , present and future to help. And in a nice and, as you'd expect for this episode, fucked up twist, it's all undoing shit our heroes did. Well for the most part, one is saving them but two are christmases our heroes genuinely ruined.

So first is past, and this is where we help our old friend Jimmy Two Teeth. Kinda. We go back to season 1 and while Christmas Past dosen't care about them kidnapping Leonard for keepsies, they do care about Jimmy's son needing money for his toureets or jimmy's wife about ot leave him. The only way to fix this.. is to kindap jimmy's wife, bring her to him, and then take his boxing glove so his past self can get the tourettes surgery money, fixing the problems we caused in his life with more problems in his life.

Then we have christmas present. Earlier when we got the figure from Stinky, Max pressed it. And since that one was pestlience it summoned the bug's awful family. We throw a snowball at him, it triggers his psd, and this gets the others to leave thinking he's his own dad.

So it's on to our final one which thankfully isn't comitting any crimes. Horay! We simply have to save ourselves from hell in the future. We do so by firing up the sleigh, which has been sitting outside waiting for some coal. And we just so happen to have a terrible persons' sock. We use it to coal up, go rescue ourselves and max hits on his past self suprising no one.

So now we can release the spirits of christmas. They try appealing to the corprate presence's better nature.. and once they get that off their quota beat it. Unfortuantely it goes back into santa.

Fortunately this final boss fight.. is pretty neat. See earlier in the workshop there's a bunch of stuff to play with but none of it comes into play, a tad annoyingly at that.

And while I still contend it was a bit much.. I can't fault telltale for the payoff, as you use all the stuff in santa's workshop to knock him out. The package that brought shambling corprate presence here turned out to be for satan so we send it back.

The problem is who will save christmas? Turns out it's the soda poppers who like me Max wishes were deead but for once turn out useful. WEll okay peepers and specs are, Whizzer's only fucntion is "unrinate on stuff" but frankly it's a funny enough gag he can live till the end of the season. JUST TILL THE END OF THE SEASON. Speaking of great gags our heroes drop off. And why not.. it's only mid november.

Ice Station Santa is a mixed bag for me. There are a lot of great gags shoved in here as usual, the puzzles are mostly fun, and while the first act can be frustrating the atmosphere can't be beat. It's mostly great stuff. The more I wrote about it though the more it became clear that the tone.. is a bit of an issue. Some jokes like making the elf cry or the muppet slaughter are so dark they work, while other bits just .. don't quite land. There's enough of the old sam and max goofiness to make the chapter not get to ounsettling but there's a more mean spirited tone in this one i'm really hoping isn't a trend for this game. Sam and Max works better when it's more over the top insanity and our heroes being over the top callous instead of just depressing. Still i'ts a solid start to the season Next Month..ish: Sam and Max take a vacation! Naturally they have to save the day to actually enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

#sam and max #sam and max beyond time and space #telltale games #skunkape games #sam #max #freelance police #sam and max freelance police #sam x max

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pinkandbeelz · 7 months

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Hiiiiiii, i’m new at this whole tumblr thing. But i love your fanfiction on AO3 “house arrest looking forward to more angst!!!!

Also do you have any fanfictions you love about Aizawa and Bakugo. I’m trying to find more and have found some good ones. But i want more 😅

Aaaa! Tysm, im having difficulty writing it at the moment, but I'll try and get it out soon!

I think i have probably read every Aizawa and Bakugo fic on Ao3, so heres some of my favourites :3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448372

This one is very interesting, and has a smol katsuki in it too :)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50498827/chapters/127576870

-THIS ONE IS SO GOOD READ IT IF U WANT SOME GOOD ANGST!!!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29502384/chapters/72480492

Okay i read this in like a week - 330k words but OH MY GOD ITS SO GOOD! Mainly focusing on the friendship between Shinsou and Bakugo but i totally recommend it because it made my heart sob. The creator also made a spin off :) totally worth the read, even if its just the first few chapters!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46136914/chapters/116147083

Unfinished but amazing! Like- so fucking good! I wont spoil anything but give it a read!

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3214491

A series of fairly short fics (2000-5000 words) focused around Bakugo being ableist towards himself. (The theory thing about how bakugo is going deaf due to his loud explosions) Aizawa tries to help him with it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23806792/chapters/57197083

A huge collection of AgeRe Bakugo short fics that i stumbled upon when i first got ao3, worth a read if your interested in that kinda stuff :)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050464

A series of unrelated fics where the writer has made Bakugo suffer lmao. Worth a read if you want some angsty one shots.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47403883/chapters/119451766

SO GOOD! SO MUCH ANGST AND DADZAWA I LOVE IT SM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! READ ITTT

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33288589/chapters/82658572

ANOTHER AMAZING READ! Focused on an AU where Bakugo has tourettes syndrome and Aizawa fighting for a diagnosis

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3097965

VERY long series of angst fics, very good worth reading a few chapters if unsure :)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36727000/chapters/91619149

Not really a Aizawa story but i really like this one and i think that others could also enjoy it if we have fairly the same tastes, i definitely recommend it!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34862050/chapters/86806999

Generally just wholesome fic, ft. Baku todo shinso mic + aizawa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33515566

Another wholesome fic! Pretty adorable and funny :)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47142697/chapters/118776361

This story was the main reason and inspiration that i used to write mine, so there is some similarities! But amazing read either way! :)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50780314

Pretty unique story, i really liked it but the ending was pretty disappointing :(

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39593946/chapters/100355997

THIS, THIS!!!! An AU where Bakugo is found living in the mountains (basically Inosuke but Bakugo) during the villain attack at the training camp in s2 or s3? Really good, and completed!

https://archiveofourown.org/series/2306111

Wholesome series that i really liked and probably going to reread at some point :) In which Aizawa and Yamada adopt Midoriya, Bakugo and Shinsou

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3285322

I also love this onee!!! Totally recommend if you enjoy a little bakugo! Hes so adorableeee!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47613292/chapters/120004774

GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD but unfinshed :(

~Thats about half of my favourite fics! Let me know if you would like more :)

I hope to release the next chapter of house arrest soon but i just cant write at the moment, I've writtien like the first 500 words and i know how i want it to go i just cant seem to write it out all at once, so ill try my best to get it put soon anyway :)

I apologies that this took so long to awnser! I literally only just saw it so sorry😭😭🙏

~Beelzebubss

#ao3 fanfic #ao3 recommendations #bakugou katsuki #my hero academia #mha #~☆Beelz anons

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ahsokasleftbicep · 2 years

Text

Name and Soul: Chapter 8

Oh my god, I actually wrote the next chapter! I'm on winter break so I'll have more time to write. Let's go!!

@mqgriett @darkangel4121 @thelambandthewolffe @maulscrosshair @trash-dino-5000 @lightning-wolffe @killtherandomness @shadowwing1324 @sydnubabu @lafy-taffy @photowizard17

Crosshair x F!reader

Word Count: 1732

Warnings: Spoilers for episode 8. Bald baby burnt boi gets more sad. Tech and Wrecker blowing shit up. Reader finally seeing Crosshair up close again. A couple fucks lol

“Remember to bring her alive, Commander. Private L/N has knowledge that we can exploit.” Rampart walks off with Lama Su.

“Yes sir.” Crosshair boards the shuttle. I’ll get to see her again. She hates you. Shut. Up. She couldn’t hate me…

~one year ago~

“You’re a dick.” You glare at Crosshair when he gets you to the ground in training.

“And you’re awful at hand-to-hand.” He smirks as he puts a new toothpick between his lips. He gives you a hand up. You grumble and start to walk off. Crosshair grabs your arm and pulls you back to him.

“You look like you hate me.” He’s still smirking, but deep down he worries.

Your eyes soften when you look up at him. You knew he could be cold and sarcastic, but he could be insecure about it. No matter how he tried to hide it, you always seemed to know when his tone was a little more than a joke.

“Cross,” you grabbed his hand, “I could never hate you. Never.”

He gives you a skeptical look and scoffs. “Really?”

“It’s true. Sure, I can be mad at you. If you broke my rifle, I’d be mad for a while. But I don’t imagine ever hating you.” You give him a little smile.

“Because you love me, don’t you?”

“Hey, you said it, not me.” You roll your eyes and shove his chest a little. “But yes.”

~return to present~

“How’d the test go, Omega?” You approached the two with Echo.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The girl crossed her arms and frowned.

You walked up to her and put your hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry. None of us passed our disarming tests the first time.”

“Yeah, it took me tons of tries to pass kid.” Echo chimes in. “Now c’mon, Hunter wants us back at the cruiser.

“Rex warned us about these guys, we need to leave before we have a bigger group to take on.” Echo crosses his arms.

“We need money, Echo. And we can make a lot of it with this ship.” Hunter looks at all of you.

“How are we supposed to do that? This ship is falling apart, there’s nothing of value here anymore.” You look at Hunter confused.

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Y/N.” Tech looks up from his tablet. “My scans show that the armory and artillery bay haven’t been offloaded fully.”

“The weapons would get our debt cleared with Cid.”

“We don’t smuggle arms, Hunter.” Echo frowns at him.

“We need Cid, we don’t have the Republic anymore. We need to take this. Tech get to the bridge, Y/N, go with him. The rest of us will go down and clear out the armory.” Hunter walks off with Echo, Wrecker, and Omega.

“You take care of the rouges; I will take care of the private. No one else goes near her besides me.” Crosshair stands and puts his helmet on. The necklace feels heavier when they come out of hyperspace, and he stares at Bracca.

Finally. We can put this stupid necklace and “love” business behind us. I can see Y/N again. Not for long, Tarkin has plans for her, I don’t care what they are. Well, I do. I won’t hurt her. I can’t. We can and we will, whether you like it or not.

Hunter sighs. “It’s Crosshair alright.”

“I’m blocking their scanners, we need to get to the ship as quick as possible. Let’s go.” Everyone starts making their way to the ship. You stay behind and stare out the window. You can see him standing there, he knows you’re all here.

“Y/N, we need to leave.” Omega grabs your hand.

The artillery deck is quiet and dark. You walk to the opening and look down. Yikes.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m going down there.” Wrecker shakes his head.

“There they are!” Trooper come out of the dark, aiming their weapons at you all.

“Tapping our comms, how predictable.” Crosshair steps out from the shadows.

Wrecker scoffs, “Nice to see you too, Crosshair.”

Crosshair turns his head to you. “Look at you, scavenging like rats. Pathetic. Especially for you, Private L/N.

Private? He hasn’t called me that since we first met. You lift your helmet and stare at him, confused.

He looks down slightly, gazing at your necklace. I’ll question her before I give her to Rampart.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Crosshair.” You raise your rifle at the other troopers.

Crosshair sighs, “I suggest you drop your weapo-“ He’s knocked into a wall.

The cannons go off and the deck starts collapsing. Hunter grabs you and you climb down with Omega and the others.

Crosshair stands up, rubbing his head. Damn it.

“Tech, why are we here?” You look at the ion chambers, it’s much bigger up close.

“It is our only way off the cruiser. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Wow! I’ve never been inside an ion engine before.” Omega twists her head around, trying to take it all in.

Wrecker looks at her, “It’d be weirder if you had.”

“Definitely weirder, Omega.” You say.

You reach the edge of the engine chamber. The sky is a deep purple and you can see the stars pretty well. Nice night. Tech starts to climb up but is almost hit by blaster fire.

“Try again, Hunter! I already told you; you’re surrounded!” Crosshair yells out. The engines start rumbling and Omega holds onto you.

“That’s not good, the engine’s coming online.” You look at Tech.

“Crosshair wouldn’t do that, would he?” Omega looks at all of you panicked. You pat her head with a small smile.

“How much time do we have, Tech?”

“Less than two minutes. We need to leave.”

“ What if we use explosives to break away from the ship. They are not powerful enough to disable the engine, so this is the best option.” You hold open your bag of charges, looking at Tech and Hunter.

“You mean fall? All the way down?” Omega looks terrified.

“Either that or be burnt to bits kid.” Echo shrugs and grabs a charge.

“Sir, engines are ready.”

Crosshair looks up at the cruiser “Engage.”

“Get down!” You give Omega to Hunter and the charges blow. The metal groans and starts falling from the ship. You all hold onto something, but when the piece hits the ground, it splits in half, separating everyone. You lose your grip and fall away from Hunter and Omega.

“No!” Crosshair is knocked back by the blast, losing his helmet. His skin behinds to burn and he puts his hands out, trying to prevent it. He hides behind some wreckage. “Turn the engines off!” The power dies and he passes out.

So much for getting her back. She’s probably long gone by now. I’ll find her… I’ve got to.

You open your eyes and groan. You get up and dust yourself off. You look around and don’t see anyone, but you hear a groan from above. You start climbing and reach the top. Poking your head above the rubble, you don’t see anything. You hear another groan and look to the side. It’s him. It’s Crosshair. There is no one else around, so you quietly climb up and approach him.

He is badly bruised and covered in soot. You touch his shoulder, no response. You gently lean him up against the rubble and gasp. He’s burned, very badly. The scar is mostly on the side of his head, some on his ear and his right eye. He groans and you back up slightly, still holding him up.

His eyes open a little. “Y/N? Why…” He stops for a moment, slipping in and out of consciousness. “Come with me…” You put your hands on his face.

“I’m sorry, Crosshair. I can’t.” He looks away from you for a second before looking back. He is about to speak before he passes out again. You hold his face, wiping some of the dust off his face. “I’ll come back for you Cross, I promise. I love you so much, just hang in there. I know you’re forgetting, but you’re still in there.” You kiss his forehead. You feel something on his neck and pull out the chain, connected to his ring.

Carefully you switch your rings, putting your ring on his chain. You reclip your necklace and look at him one more time. “I’ll come for you, Cross. Wait for me.” You give him another kiss and climb down.

You get to the hanger and hear the guys calling out for you. You run out and see them lifting Hunter to the ship, and Omega is nowhere to be found. No.

“What happened? Where’s Omega?” You run up to Tech, helping him carry Hunter into the ship.

“We don’t know.” Tech seats Hunter on a chair and the other two join the ship. You remove Hunter’s helmet, and he coughs.

“Hunter, where is she? Where is Omega!” You move his arms to get to his wound. Blastershot. You grab a bacta patch and start to try stopping the bleeding.

“He took Omega…” Hunter keeps going in and out. I need to stop the bleeding.

“Who? Crosshair?” Wrecker holds him up, trying to keep him talking.

“No. A bounty hunter. He took her.” Hunter gasps and coughs, trying to get some air. “We have to find her.

“We will Hunter. We will.” You stand back and go to Omega’s room.

Ow. It burns.

Crosshair wakes up to a trooper wrapping his wound.

Where is she? Y/N? No- no no no. She can’t be gone.

His wound pulses and he winces.

“I’ll come back for you Cross, I promise.”

He pushes away the trooper. “Get me on that shuttle.”

“I love you so much, just hang in there… you’re still in there.”

He boards the shuttle, immediately going to the gunner post. He holds his side in pain.

Wait for me.

He stops for a moment. He feels too hot, overwhelmed. He lost the target, he-. He notices his necklace isn’t as heavy and sees the ring is different. It’s smaller and silver, but it has the same engraving. O'r gai bal runi.

Wait for me.

“I can’t Y/N… I’m sorry.”

“Commander?”

“Go after their ship, we need to get Private L/N, no matter the cost.”

“Yes, sir.”

#name and soul #clone trooper crosshair #crosshair x reader #the bad batch #omega tbb #tbb spoilers #star wars #captain rex #HEHEHEH #WE'RE BACK BABY!!!!

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littlegodzilla · 2 years

Text

Here we go with another chapter!!

Hope you'll like it!

Enjoy!!

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Protect You.

Russell Welch x Reader.

Mini series.

Chapter 4: Touch.

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort. Abortion. Bad Language. Memories. Fluff.

Words: 5000.

Summary: You're in the hospital and Russell is always at your side.

Taglist: @phoenixblack89 @browneyes528 @lilythemadqueen @darylsgarden @thefemininemystiquee @green-eyedladywrites @hail-yourselves @ruinedbythehobbit @xxtinasxxblog @ravenwings73 @spenciepoo338 @b-tchymoon @minervadashwood @darylssluttt @let-love-bleeds-red @ravendixon @livingdeadblondequeen @bringinsexybackk69

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Chapter 4: Touch.

🛡💔🛡

The steady, soft beeping of the machines is the only thing you hear in the room. Russell is sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to your bed, his hands are clasped over his mouth, his brow furrowed, breathing so slowly it feels like he's not breathing at all, his knuckles are red and raw, but the dull ache in his body now doesn't give a shit. He's been sitting there for hours and you still haven't opened your eyes.

He got a good look at you once you were on the stretcher and they were taking you to the hospital; your face bloody, your eyes bruised, your lip split, your nose broken, your face totally destroyed, but your body was no better, your fingers twisted, broken from some blow, now your hand is in a cast, the swelling on your face is going down, all covered with small stitches, you suffered internal bleeding from the kicks Matt had been able to give you.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

"An abort?" Asked to the doctor when he went to tell them about your condition.

"Yes, the fetus wasn't very developed, she was possibly three weeks pregnant, but the strong aggression she had suffered caused it to detach and she lost it..."

"Son of a..." He holds himself in time and takes a deep breath. "Thank you doctor, I'll tell her when she wakes up..."

But he doesn't know how exactly to do that, it's going to be hard to process, he doesn't even know if you were aware of your condition. He remembers the dizziness and nausea you had been having those days before, you seemed pretty calm, so you must have been aware of your pregnancy. He closes his eyes tightly trying to think of something other than wanting to kill Matt, his brother shouldn't have intervened, you should have let him beat him to death right there and then.

"M-my baby..." He hears suddenly and lifts his head.

"Hey, hey..." Russell gets up from the chair approaching you.

"My baby... my baby..." You keep repeating.

Russell shivers and sits on the edge of the bed, with the care with which he always touches you, he reaches around your body to give you a gentle hug.

"I-I'm sorry, baby, but no...it didn't..." He is unable to finish the sentence, the lump in his throat preventing you. "I'm sorry..."

"Thank God..." You sigh with relief and smile.

Russell's heart breaks into a thousand pieces as he listens to you, as he watches the calm wash over you, a couple of tears roll down his cheeks, a smile forming on your mouth.

How much damage could he have done to you to make you want so badly to lose that baby?

Russell leaves the room as you fall asleep again, you are still weak, your consciousness comes and goes in long intervals of time and you fall asleep again. You haven't asked about your baby again either.

"Oh my God, Russell, I'm sorry." Monica says as he approaches her and his brother waiting outside in the living room. "I should have listened to you, I should have trusted your instincts, I didn't..."

"Stop, stop." He holds up his hands wanting to calm her down. "This is nobody's fault."

"What happened? What did they tell you?"

"She's going to need to stay in the hospital for a few days, at least this week..." He sighs. "She had an abort, possibly from the brutal beating..." Monica's horrified face gets his stomach churning, that was the reaction he expected from you.

"How is she? Have you told her?" Russell nods. "So?"

"She's... She's relieved..." He says in a whisper. "I-I don't know how long she'd been suffering, but that baby was clearly unwanted..."

"God..."

"We'll need your testimony, you know that, right?" Gabe doesn't want to sound insensitive but he has to put his brother on notice of what might happen. "You almost beat him to death, when he wakes up he might want to file a complaint against you."

"Let him do it, if I could I'd kill him right now."

Gabe and Monica don't say anything, they understand how he feels, possibly if he hadn't come to your aid when the police had arrived it would have been too late, but he shouldn't have charged him like that either, it could all turn against him, truncate the facts in such a way that it would look like Russell was to blame for everything.

"Do we know anything about her family?" he decides to change the subject, looking at his brother.

"They don't live in town, I've tried to get in touch with them, but nothing."

"I'll talk to her, maybe she has a number we can use." He licks his lips nervously. He needs a cigarette. "Monica, if I have to open a file or send a report on today..."

"I'll take care of that, for the moment you're her nearest family so... stay with her until she's at least conscious."

"Thank you." He nods and puts a hand to his pocket. "I need a smoke."

"Go, we'll let you know if they say anything new."

Russell leaves the hospital looking for a remote area to light his cigarette and take a long drag. He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands to mitigate the stinging caused by the accumulation of tears, he has tried to hold them back as best he can, but he feels weak. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and sits down on the floor, taking another puff on his cigarette. Have you been through this before? How many times? Thinking about it again gets Russell's goose bumps.

"Fuck..."

💔🛡💔

When you open your eyes again, Russell is back beside you. A strange relief grips your chest. You're not at home, nothing was a dream, it's real, you're in the hospital, Matt went crazy, you managed to alert the security camera company, your baby...

Your baby is gone....

Hurts, you feel something tearing inside you, but you are unable to cry about it. You weren't willing to let a child grow up in such an environment, that Matt could hurt it too, no. That's for the best.

Carefully you move on the gurney, you feel your whole body weigh a ton, the constant beeping of the machines gives you a headache, your hand hurts where your IV is attached, not to mention everything you feel all over your body, there are some parts of it that you don't even feel anything, a tingling, nothing else.

"Take it easy." You hear next to you, Russell helping you turn around.

"Thank you..." You smile, or at least try to, your face is so puffy you're not sure if you're gesturing at all. "Hi..."

"Hi." He replays smiling a little, tucking your hair behind your ear. "I know this is going to sound stupid, but... How are you feeling?"

"Well... hurt all over and..." You want to touch your face, but Russell stops your movements and you see your cast arm. "Wow... now I understand the tingling..."

"Yeah... he didn't leave any bones behind." His voice sounds full of anger and rage.

"I'm sorry..."

"No, you don't have to apologize to me, this is not your fault... but I want to know something... Is this the first time this has happened?"

"Yes... he has never gone to these extremes before, he hasn't..." You sigh, you're not going to say he's a good person, because you know you can't defend him anymore. "He just went crazy..."

"What happened? What triggered all this?"

"He found a positive pregnancy test and my birth control pills..." You say with some embarrassment. "He's always wanted a child, that's why the house is full of baby stuff, but I don't... it's not that I don't like them, I just didn't feel ready and he didn't..."

"I understand, uh, it's okay, okay? You shouldn't feel guilty about anything that happened. He should never have laid a hand on you, not like that."

"W-what happened to him, did the police take him away?" you ask with curiosity and fear, Russell averts his eyes, playing nervously with his hands, you frown, or at least try to. "What's going on?"

"He... he was transferred to another hospital..." He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. "I-I set off the police alarm for your house, I work for the security company Stay Out." He confesses and your eyes widen. "I activated the smoke to throw him off and ran to your house..."

"Did he inhale a lot smoke?" you want to try to understand.

"No, no... it's not noxious smoke, it just throws off the burglar or whatever, what happened to Matt... it was me..." He confesses finally looking down at his hands.

"My God, Russell."

You're incredulous, his knuckles are still red, with some blood due to the fact that they still have sensitive skin and at any movement or rubbing he gets a new wound again, but the ex-cop doesn't care. He doesn't say it out loud, but he thinks about it. If it was to defend you, he would do it again without hesitation.

"Don't worry about any of that, okay? You need to rest."

"But you could get in trouble, your job and..." You shut up as you realize something bigger.

Russell has said that he works for the security company for the cameras installed in your house, that he triggered the alert. Which means that not only that time he's been behind the lens, but the other times Matt called with the remote on purpose so you could be seen while you were having sex. He liked that, it turned him on to think and know there was someone on the other end. Embarrassment is plastered on your cheeks with deep red and you pull the covers over your face wanting to escape those blue eyes that are now looking at you tenderly. Russell smiles and carefully pulls the sheets down to look at you again, picks up your hair and pushes it aside.

"Yes, I was there the other time too, that's why I went looking for him with that shed excuse." He tells you what you were already afraid of and it certainly doesn't make you feel any better. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want to make you feel violent, or that you thought I was spying on you." He assures you and a nervous chuckle escapes you.

"I'm sorry, it must have been a sorry sight..."

Russell wouldn't use that word. But he won't tell you what he's really thinking either.

"I didn't look, when I saw it was a false alarm I went to call you guys." He lies and clears his throat.

"Oh well, thank you..." You feel a little disappointed.

You didn't expect to attract him physically, it's clear that Russell may have other taste in women, that Monica girl he's told you about more than once, for example, but you at least expected to have caught his attention. But neither.

Russell drags the chair he's sitting in over to your bed, carefully takes your hand and strokes the back of it slowly. You look at each other and he smiles a little, you mimic his gesture, not pulling your hand away, enjoying his touch. It's those little gestures you had almost forgotten about that make your heart calm and your soul at ease, you can feel Russell's huge hand brushing your skin with his fingers and there is no malice or cruelty in any of his actions. Of course you are afraid of what he might have done to Matt, of what consequences that might entail, you are sure that the police will want to know his version of events to compare testimonies. She thinks of herself as a witness, but she didn't see anything, at least not after the camera was activated, everything is blurred in most of your memory.

"Russell..." You both raise your heads as you hear a third voice.

In the doorway is a young, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy, you remember him, it's Gabe your neighbor's brother. He's wearing a police uniform and looks uncomfortable standing there. You certainly don't think you must look the best in the world right now.

"What's going on?" Russell asks, not letting go of your hand.

"My superior called, he wants to know if you're conscious." He says your name and you swallow. "We need to report and write up the facts, this is clearly a case of domestic violence and..."

"I know how it works." He nods and sighs. "But she just woke up, couldn't you wait at least a few days?"

"You know the sooner the better, so as not to lose information."

"It's okay, I don't mind." You say trying to sit up on the gurney, Russell helps you by carefully pulling under your armpits and incorporating the bed with the remote. "I have some gaps though..."

"It's okay, every detail is important, but don't overexert yourself." Gabe asks you and walks over to you. "Would you rather we stay alone?"

"N-no, it's fine, I trust Russell..." You whisper feeling your cheeks heat up and he holds your hand again.

"Alright, tell me a little bit, how long have you known the assailant, Matt Williams?" he asks you and sets a recorder down on the table next to you.

"Well...Matt and I have known each other since high school, we started dating when I was fourteen...he's...he was the love of my life..." You whisper lowering your gaze.

"You never severed the relationship or had any violent disagreements that might incite his behavior against you?"

"No, no, we... we were always together, we went to the same university, we shared a student apartment, even, Matt was always jealous, but never... like this."

"When did the assaults start? Both physical and verbal."

"Maybe a couple of years ago... he always joked that I was a bit naive and stupid, but no malice, but since he talked about wanting to have children he... changed..."

"He didn't want to have children with you?"

"No, on the contrary, he wanted to, but I didn't feel ready, I tried to make him understand and it was the first time he hit me..." You squeeze Russell's hand unconsciously and he strokes your skin with his thumb. "I-I didn't think anything of it b-because I thought I was being selfish, after all, we were married, having a child was the next step, but..." You swallow and sniffle through your nose feeling tears come back to your eyes.

"Maybe you should give it a minute, Gabe."

"No, no, I'm fine, we can keep going..."

"Okay..." But the two Welch brothers give each other a look you don't see.

🛡🛡

The silence in the waiting room is dense and tense, the doctors have entered your room to do some more tests, heal your wounds and check that your hand is making progress, fortunately it is your left hand, if there was any atrophy it would not prevent you too much in your daily life. What a relief. Russell can't stop thinking about everything you've told Gabe while he was asking you the questions, your ignorance about what Matt was doing with you, the manipulation he exercised over you since you were young, how he kept tabs on you your whole life. Russell is now aware of why there is no phone to contact your family, he took it upon himself to keep you away from them, he doesn't know how or under what circumstances, but it's yet another piece of evidence. His legs twitch nervously as he continues to bite his goatee hair, Monica has been gone for a couple of hours now, work goes on and he can't neglect his own post, he has spoken to his superiors to update them on the whole situation and they have granted Russell a few days off so he can deal with you.

"What did you tell them?" He asks Monica.

"That your girlfriend has been assaulted and is in the hospital."

"M-my girlfriend? Why my...?"

"If I'd told them that you'd broken into your neighbors' house with a punch you'd be out on the street, Russell. You're welcome." She smiled winking at her.

"Yeah, thanks." He whispered lowering his head like a puppy that had just been scolded.

Yet now he's nervous about that too, he has to think about what he'll do after you get out of the hospital, will you move house? Will he move out so he doesn't inconvenience you? You know he works at the company, maybe you don't feel comfortable anymore knowing that he can see you, not always, that's what you don't know, but maybe you'll remove the cameras or something. He huffs running his hands through his hair, pulling it back, his hands feel a little sore from the contact, but those little pricks of pain manage to clear his mind. Maybe he should go to your house, clean up all the mess that would be there by the time you get back, he could even pack you a suitcase of clothes, for when you get out of the hospital.

"Hey, man." Gabe arrives at his side, and stops thinking. "The doctors say she's overslept and visiting hours are over for now." He looks at him apologetically. "Why don't we go home and you can clear your head a little?" He offers him.

Russell nods, getting up from the plastic chair. He would have liked to say goodbye, tell you he'd be back as soon as they opened for visiting hours again, but the door is locked and without a permit he can't get through, plus he's not your family, so his chances are reduced to zero. Almost like an automaton he follows his brother to the parking lot where he has the police car.

"Let's go to my place." He asks when Gabe starts up. "I want to bring her some stuff later." He explains and his brother nods.

"I've done some research on her." Gabe tells him when they get home after stopping to get something to eat.

"Did you find out anything?"

"Looking for information under her maiden name, I found a landline number from another state..." he looks at him as they sit at the kitchen table. "Maybe it's from a friend, from her parents' house..." He shrugs grabbing his food from the bag.

"It's possible... He manipulated her all her life, since she was a child..." he sighs remembering your words. "He turned her into a person completely dependent on him..."

"She was young and he was her first love, it doesn't always work out that way..." They continue to eat even though none of them are too hungry. "Do you think he had that much power to take her away from her family?"

"I don't think he forced her to stop talking to them radically; they're a young couple, newly married, they've moved to another city, another state. They need to adjust, you know what I mean?"

"Yes, give them space and freedom to raise their own family, but a mother never stops worrying, at least as a general rule. She would have called or tried to find out where her daughter lived."

"Maybe it wasn't a constant thing and he knew how to hide his bumps if they had visitors..."

"Maybe..." Gabe agrees, though not quite convinced. "Do you want us to try calling?"

"I'll talk to her first, I want to know what her relationship was with her parents, I don't want to create more stress for her."

His brother accepts his decision, with everything you've been through, there's no need to put more weight on your shoulders, so he'll let his brother do things his way, for the time being. After that, Gabe records Russell's testimony, asks him what he saw, when he called the police and especially why he attacked Matt. Russell doesn't hesitate to talk about what happened, to write what he saw, what he felt, why he acted that way, of course he bites his tongue not to say that he would have preferred to kill him, he knows that won't say anything in his favor. When she asks him if he saw any signs of previous violence, Russell tells her about the surveillance cameras, what he liked to do with you, she knows that if it comes out in court it will be humiliating, but the judge will need to know how twisted your husband could be, she tells him about your physical weakness and your own mental exhaustion, you always called yourself clumsy and weak, something he would surely have burned into your mind to make you feel that way. He doesn't need to go into detail about the bruises and how extremely thin you are because Gabe has seen that and will be able to document it as soon as you are somewhat more recovered.

💔💔

You wake up alone this time, the nurse has come in with a cart and your tray of food, you don't have much of an appetite, your stomach feels tight and you still ache from all the blows you took. The woman helps you to be comfortable on the stretcher and leaves the tray on the table.

"Take it easy, okay?" she says with a gentle smile. "If you're not hungry, it's okay." She reassures you and leaves you a small package of cookies before leaving.

You smile gratefully at her attention, but you close your eyes sighing, look at the tray still closed, so that the food keeps warm, your stomach churns and you feel nauseous. You shake your head and lie back down. You are not hungry. For the moment you prefer to keep your stomach empty. It's not the first time you've gone several days without food. You can hold on.

The bandage on your arm is heavy and uncomfortable, it hardly allows you to move freely, you know you can't go very far, but at least you'd like to be able to get up from the stretcher and take a walk around your room. Lying on the stretcher is killing you.

Every time you close your eyes the fear comes back to haunt you. You remember the moment you walked into the house and saw Matt with the test and your pills in his hand, you remember how his face turned into a sadistic grimace and he went crazy. Everything happened very slowly and at the same time tremendously fast, every blow that cut your breath you lived it in slow motion, as if you were not there, when you tried to run away your feet seemed unable to move, however, as soon as the camera was activated, everything made another sense. Someone was going to come to help you, the police would be there in a matter of minutes, it would all be over, you just had to hold on.

And your savior was Russell, that person you yourself pushed away because you didn't want him to intrude, because you didn't want someone else to know your truth, forcing yourself to see it. Yet he never left. Not completely. He stayed by your side as a good neighbor, a friend, Matt's colleague, spending more time at your house, stealing hours from your husband who kept him from laying a finger on you, became a shield between you and your abuser.

Now you are afraid. You fear that Russell will suffer the consequences for standing up to your assailant on his own, potentially cutting his life short, a stain on his record. He had been a cop, he had fought against people's evil, he had paid for it to the point of almost losing his life, he told you so himself. He could be a hero in many people's eyes, but with this action....

You sigh curling up under the sheets, playing with your cast arm and the hand where you have the IVs connected so the wires don't get tangled. You're tired again, your body constantly demanding sleep and rest, but you're afraid to close your eyes again.

You don't know how long you've been asleep when you hear the door open, you open your eyes slowly to find Russell creeping into the room, or at least trying to. Seeing you awake, he smiles apologetically.

"Hi."

"Hi..." You respond feeling suddenly, better.

🛡💔🛡

Russell has finished eating and talking to his brother, after the little interview, he has picked up the food dishes and laid down on the couch, one arm under his head, one hand resting on his stomach, eyes fixed on the living room ceiling, his head running a mile a minute. He feels his mouth tastes like blood, he's been biting the inside of his cheeks all day and has finally managed to get a wound. That doesn't mean that his nervous tic will stop. On the contrary, he bites harder now.

He hears a ringing over the side table, his eyes shoot over there, his cell phone lights up and goes off again, a message has arrived. He frowns, he doesn't expect anyone to contact him, but he still stretches out his arm to pick up the device. It's a message from Monica, he sits up on the couch and opens the contents to discover a series of numbers and letters. He gets a knot in his stomach as he reads the end of the message.

"The code for her cameras. Sorry."

Welch would like to call her and tell her that she doesn't have to do that, that she doesn't have to feel guilty, but at the same time he feels grateful. He sits on the edge of the couch as he turns on the computer, copies the code on a piece of paper he has right there and puts the phone down.

There's nothing to see, that's obvious. When he enters the code in the client section, the image reveals your living room. There's no one there, as expected, but everything is a mess. There are objects lying on the floor, broken things, clothes, blood, even Russell thinks he sees your crushed birth control pills on the floor.

He can't leave your house like this until you get back, it would be a harsh reminder and maybe that would set you back mentally. He turns off the cameras, keeping the code as a secret, and leaves the house to go to yours.

Again he doesn't need keys to get in. The garden door that connects to the kitchen is still open, so he takes advantage and goes inside the house. He opens and raises the blinds letting the air and sunshine flood the room. In the kitchen he finds the pregnancy test and when he discovers where the trash is, he throws it in. He grabs several garbage bags, your broom and vacuum cleaner and set about picking it all up as best he can. The blood stains aren't going to go away from the carpet, but Russell is sure he can talk you into replacing it with a new one, or a nice hardwood floor. He can help you with that, if necessary.

It's not quite clear to him how long it's been since he's set out to pick up your house, but the sun is getting low, which means it will be dark soon and he can come visit you. He checks the time on his watch and throws away the last bag of garbage before leaving the bins in the main part of the house so that when the truck comes by it will all be taken away.

His next task in going up to your room, he knows where it is as he has looked after you there on a couple of occasions. You always tried to dissimulate, but sometimes your fainting spells played tricks on you. He feels anger returning to his veins at the thought of that poor baby. It hasn't even had a chance. He shakes his head to get those thoughts out of his head. He opens his backpack ready to stuff some of your clothes in it.

"No, no." He says closing the drawer where your underwear is again. Yes you're going to need it, but he's not going to touch it without your permission, but... he opens the drawer again and pulls out some nice mint green panties with lace, he feels a tug, but now not exactly on his stomach. "Fuck, Russell, focus." He reproaches himself and closes the drawer again.

He grabs a pair of pants, a skirt and several t-shirts he finds in your closet, also a jacket and a sweatshirt in case you prefer something looser for the comfort of your arm. When he regains control of his mind and body, he closes his backpack and leaves your house on his way back to the hospital.

When he arrives at your room he stands still in the doorway for a moment, watching you through the glass, asleep, fully wrapped in the sheets. He smiles and as carefully as he can, opens the door to enter, but when he looks back at you, you are already awake.

"Hi." He greets you.

"Hi..." You reply, smiling a little.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"That's okay... I don't sleep much either." You come clean.

"Why, are you in pain, do you want me to call a nurse?" he asks you worriedly and you shake your head.

"I'm a light sleeper, don't worry." You try to calm him down and sit on the gurney again.

"They brought you food." He says as he sees the tray on the table and takes off his backpack setting it aside. "Have you eaten anything?"

"No..."

"Why?"

"I wasn't hungry..."

"Hey..." Your name comes out of his mouth like a father scolding his little daughter. "You need to eat something." He tells you approaching the tray and removes the lid to reveal what's inside.

You both grimace at the same time. Russell has to admit that it doesn't look good at all, on one of the plates there is a lumpy green colored paste, on another there is an orange liquid with some little white balls on top.

"From what it says here, it's cream of vegetable and mango soup..." Again his face makes a strange grimace and you can't suppress a chuckle.

"My stomach can't seem to eat anything more solid."

"Go on, try it, it can't be that bad." He tries to convince you, grabs one of the bowls and a spoon. "At least one, then I promise I'll buy you dinner when we get out of here." He promises you.

You look at him in surprise, he doesn't seem to regret his own words, he is calm as he plays with the greenish mash before handing it to you. You pick up the bowl carefully and taste the first spoonful. No, it's not good, but you have to admit that it looks a lot nastier than it actually tastes. Russell doesn't look away, insisting with a waggle of his eyebrows that you keep eating. You sigh and agree, spooning yet another spoonful into your mouth.

"I can't take it anymore..." You gasp handing the completely empty bowl back to him, Russell smiles proudly and it makes you want to punch him. "I'm going to explode." You protest touching your belly.

The ex-cop drops the bowl on the tray and closes it leaving the forgotten mango soup in there. He picks up the packet of crackers and shows it to you, but you shake your head, your stomach won't take any more food. It's sad with how little you feel bloated, but your body has lost much of its capacity, appetite is going and well, as well as muscle toning. You look at your belly as it bulges slightly under your hospital gown. A sad smile forms on Russell's face, but he's relieved to know that at least today, you've had something to eat.

"I'll leave the cookies here in case you feel like them later, okay?" he says, setting them down on the table and picks up the tray of food leaving it on the cart outside in the hallway.

"Thanks, Russell." You smile again as he sits down next to you. "What did you bring in there?" you ask curiously when you see the backpack again.

"I brought you some clothes." He explains and you frown. "Yeah, I broke into your house...sorry." He scratches the back of his neck and clears his throat. "I cleaned up a bit..."

"Thanks, Russell, you shouldn't have bothered..."

"I couldn't leave it like that, I didn't want you, when you came home, to see all that..." He explains again and you smile nodding your head.

"What did you bring me?"

"Some jeans and some sweatshirt, depends on how your hand goes... I didn't bring you any... underwear..."

"Oh, sure... n-no worries."

You both remain silent, feeling your cheeks redden from the awkwardness of the situation. You glance sideways at each other and a chuckle escapes from both of you. You have to hold your ribs because you feel them hurt from laughing, but it feels good, relief enveloping you.

"You can go home, if you want, thanks for the clothes."

"I'll stay." He shrugs. "I'm staying with you until they let you out of here."

❤🛡💔

To be Continued...

Hope you liked it!!

Thanks for your support and love: @minervadashwood @green-eyedladywrites @livingdeadblondequeen @bringinsexybackk69 love to talk with you all, change ideas and make new ones. Love you! ❤

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thecheesywritingcabin · 1 year

Text

Keeping Pace

Today is a bit of a funny day, so I decided to do some editing. At the time, I was kind of surprised how far into the book I had gotten editing wise.

I am also horrified at how much extra work/chapters I keep adding.

When I edit, I have a few duties I try to do. These are as follows:

Check continuity

Catch weird spelling/grammar

Adjust pacing where need be

The third one is the problem child. You see, prior to this I would predominantly write drabbles that would be anywhere between 20-5000 words in length. As a result, the pacing of a novel-sized text is not something I've had to think about at any point in my writing.

Granted, I read a lot of books and have gone "oh boy this is SLOW" or "oh shit I guess this a race now", so I can identify pacing issues. Applying it to the novel though has been, at times, a nightmare.

During draft 1, I and the others would write disjointedly because it made getting the words down easier. We all wrote at different times and for different lengths, so it made sense.

Sometimes I would write drabbles like I normally did to explore the characters, and they would just end up in the book. When that happened, I would try to "stitch up" the bits I wrote to make sense in the story we had written so far. It's only in drafts 2 and 3 I've started to do things in order. As a result, there are some chapters with some wild pacing.

At least four times during editing Draft 3, I have split one massive, long chapter into 2 more easy to consume chapters. Conversely, I've found thin, sad chapters I've had to plump up with character moments and hints of back story. I'm not even the only member of the team doing this - @fioriisketches wound up doing the same "split the big chapter" approach when fixing up a late game chapter where Makoto has a run in with the culprit.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, every time I go to look at the chapter list to see how far along I am in the editing process, I notice that I am adding more chapters to edit, and thus can't just count how many chapters are left.

I am firmly in the end of Act 2/start of Act 3 turf, but oh my god, it is both funny and horrifying how much more writing we've ended up with in my attempts to make the pace quicker at times.

#writing #editing #editing problems #the cryptologists #case of the crawling shadow #pacing #why am i doing this to myself #this is what happens when a short story writer tries a novel I guess holy shit #things are going okay but omg too many words

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demigodsanswer · 4 years

Text

Once Upon a Pointe - Chapter 3

Story Summery:

“Annabeth, you’re with Percy,’ Chiron said. Annabeth. She looked like the figurine in a little girl’s music box had come to life to dance in City Ballet. Percy felt like every opportunity to dance with her was a privilege. Just don’t forget the choreography, Percy thought as he got into the right starting spot for the wedding pas de deux. Don’t forget the choreography, and don’t drop her.”

Percy, a soloist with the ballet company, and he is offered one chance to dance with Annabeth, one of their star principals. If he nails the choreography, he might just earn a chance to dance with her. And, if he’s really lucky, he might get a date out of it as well.

Chapter Title: Make it Blue

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning

When Percy stepped into his favorite coffee shop before rehearsal, he spotted a familiar shade of blonde hair ordering in front of him. Even with her hair down under a winter hat he was sure it was her (her black dance bag with AEC monogramed on the side also helped him identify her). He stepped up to the counter to stand next to her, as he handed the barista his card.

“Hers is on me,” he said, before adding his own coffee order on.

“Oh no –“ she tried to protest, her cheeks pink from the cold weather.

“I insist,” Percy said, nodding to the cashier to run his card.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Annabeth said as they grabbed their coffees to head towards the studio.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Besides, what kind of Prince Charming would I be if I didn’t buy you coffee?”

Annabeth laughed and sipped her drink. “I’ve never met a dancer so dedicated to method acting,”

To prove his point, Percy jogged up the stairs to the door of the studio and pulled it open for her before she could make it halfway up the stair. “After you, ma’am,” he said, going into a dramatic deep bow.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, curtseying just a little as the walked in.

~*~*~*~

Percy’s finger hovered over the ‘send’ button, trying to decide if sending Annabeth a YouTube video on why the Barbie Sawn Lake movie is the best movie of all time was a good idea. He didn’t even know if she had liked the Barbie movies as a kid.

If he had to guess, she was either the girl who had them all in a pristine Dream House, or the kid who cut their hair and drew on their faces. Either way, though, the video could work. And it wasn’t like he wanted to talk to her about Barbie, he just wanted to talk to her outside of the studio.

He had no idea where he stood with her. He was pretty sure they were becoming friends, or at least work friends. But their work required them to touch all the time, look lovingly into each other’s eyes, and kiss, which really blurred the lines between work-friend, just a friend, and friends who are flirting.

He had been following Beckendorf’s advice and not actively perusing anything with her. Buying her coffee had been a friendly one-time gesture and sending her a funny YouTube video was the kind of harmless thing that friends would do.

And they were friends, at least work friends. She smiled easily around him and laughed at his dumb jokes. She certainly did more than tolerate him. Annabeth didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who would fake being nice to someone she didn’t like; in fact, he had anecdotal proof that she wasn’t like that.

Still, they had never texted each other before, other than to confirm a rehearsal or check choreography.

His resolve crumbled, and he deleted the text.

~*~*~*~

Percy was sore all over. He’d stopped being about to feel his legs somewhere around hour six, but they were coming to the end of hour eight now.

It was a good kind of sore. A kind of sore he only felt after a good, intense day of dancing. It was still the kind of sore that made him want to go home and take an ice bath and fall asleep listening to anything other than classical music. But a good sore.

When the music ended, he and Annabeth parted, both breathing heavily.

“Great job you guys,” Chiron said. Annabeth smiled wide at Percy. “Go home and get some rest. We still have some work to do before we move to dress rehearsals,”

Dress rehearsals. They moved to the theater in a week, which meant the show went up in two weeks. Percy’s heart began to race as he realized how little time there was left to go.

Before Percy got the chance to tell Annabeth how great she had done that day, Piper ran up between the two of them, throwing one arm over either of their shoulders.

“You guys looked so good up there!” She said. “Have you gotten to try on your costumes yet? Because I tried mine on yesterday and it is gawdy, and borderline camp, and everything I’d want in a fairy,"

Annabeth snuck her way out from under Piper’s arm. “I tried on my act one costume yesterday. It’s the big pink tutu with roses on it. I look like a storybook ballerina,”

As opposed to all the other days, Percy thought, when you’re just a regular beautiful woman in a tutu.

~*~*~*~

Percy took the risk of looking creepy as hell and waited for Annabeth to change before heading home. It had gotten dark hours ago, and he didn’t want her to walk to the subway alone if she didn’t have to.

“Hey,” she said when she saw him waiting, “what’s up?”

“It’s, uh, pretty dark out, and I wanted to see if you’d like me to walk you to the subway?” His face felt hot.

Annabeth just smiled and nodded. “Sure. I take the 1 train,”

“No shit, so do I,” Percy said as they walked out the door and into the cold New York City street. That was kind of a dumb thing to say, he realized. The closest subway station only ran the 1 and the 2. It wasn’t completely surprising that she’d take that train. But maybe she found absolute idiocy charming. He could hope so, at least. “Uptown or downtown?”

“Way down,” Annabeth said. “West fourth. You?”

He shrugged and smiled, “Uptown, west one-hundred and fourth,” he said. “How’d you end up so far downtown?”

Annabeth shrugged. “I liked the area, and … well Luke really wanted to get out of midtown,” she smiled. “I hope Portland is far enough for him,” she said that softly, like she was pretending that Percy wasn’t supposed to hear her.

“So, you’re there alone now?” He hoped that didn’t sound creepy.

“Yup. It’s actually been pretty nice,” she paused before adding, “besides if I get lonely, I can just put on a podcast and pretend there are other people around,”

Percy began to smile as an idea formed in his head. “Well, if you want someone to hang out with or if you want a nice home cooked meal, you can come over to my place on Sunday. My mom and I are excellent chefs.” He bragged humbly, hoping she’d agree to the invite.

“You live with you mom?” Annabeth asked.

Percy blushed, “Yeah, but not in like a weird Greek tragedy way or a sad way,” he clarified. “My mom and stepdad way undercharge for rent, and they are saving the rent money I give them to help save for my little sister’s college, and since my mom is one hell of a cook, … it works out for everyone,” Percy said a little too quickly. “Plus, my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire world, so you need to come just for those.”

“I don’t think you want me eating too many cookies before we have to do all of these lifts,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Percy promised, “all the food my mom makes has no calories.”

Annabeth laughed as they made their way down the subway stairs. “Well, how could I pass up a good meal with no calories?” She turned to face him. “That would be great though. I can’t cook for shit. Well, I mean, I could cook if I wanted to, I’m not an idiot. I just hate doing it.”

Percy’s heart did little flips in his chest as they pushed through the turnstiles, about to go in opposite directions. Annabeth was coming over for dinner, and he felt like he was walking on air.

Percy was hoping for a slow goodbye where he promised to text her, and then wished her goodnight. But as soon as they were through the gate, the downtown 1 train pulled in.

“Shit!” Annabeth yelled, taking off towards the stairs. “See you tomorrow!” she yelled, already out of sight.

See you tomorrow, Percy though, smiling, as he made his way down the stairs to the uptown side.

~*~*~*~

“So for your date tonight –“ his mom started.

“It’s not a date,” Percy protested. “It’s just Annabeth.”

“She’s coming all the way from downtown to meet you.”

“Well, yeah.”

“She’s staying for dinner.”

“Yeah.”

“You two are dancing together.”

“Mom!”

She held up her hands in surrender, before she asked him to pass him some spices.

“Seriously, though,” he said, “it’s not a date. If I had asked her out, our first date wouldn’t be in our apartment with you, Paul, and Stella around.” He stood at the counter, his back to her as he chopped the vegetables. “Besides, I don’t think she wants to be dating.”

“Well, I’ll still try not to embarrass you just in case,” she said.

“You know, it’d be great if you tried not to embarrass me at all ever,” he said.

She walked over and ruffled his hair. “I gave birth to you; I can embarrass you when and how I want. That’s the arrangement.”

“To be clear,” Percy said, “I did not ask to be born.”

~*~*~*~

Annabeth arrived about half an hour before dinner was ready. Percy buzzed her into the building, and then opened the door to his apartment for her.

“Hi,” she said, looking a little frazzled from the cold. She handed him a bottle of wine in a paper bag. “I brought a bottle of wine,” she said quickly, “because I didn’t know what else to bring, but, I don’t know about you, I don’t drink this close to shows, so I’m sorry if this is totally useless.”

Percy smiled at her nervousness and let her inside. “It’s fine. My parents will enjoy it, or we can save it until after the run of the show.” That seemed to relax her a bit. She slipped off her jacket and hat, which Percy quickly took from her, hanging them on the hook near the door. She was wearing a simple cream-colored sweater and a pair of jeans with her long blonde hair down around her shoulders. It was a simple look, but Percy so rarely saw her in street clothes or with her hair down that he almost forgot why she was in his apartment at all.

“Let me introduce you,” he said, ushering her into the kitchen and living room.

After introductions, which were thankfully free of embarrassment for Percy, the two sat on the couch. Annabeth fiddled with her hands and started straight forward. Percy had seen her dance in front of a crowd of thousands, balanced on two toes, without a single sign of nerves or anxiety, but something about Percy’s small family had made her uneasy.

“Are you okay?” Percy asked.

Annabeth nodded a little too quickly. “I just haven’t met new people or had dinner at someone’s house in, like, a year. And other people’s parents tend not to like me.”

“Don’t worry, I think my mom will like you just fine.” Annabeth sighed and shook her head, not saying anything. “Hey,” Percy took her hands, steadying them, “there’s nothing to worry about,” he assured her. “My mom is probably going to ask you polite questions about where you trained before New York and how you like the company, and all of that. My sister will probably ask you ask the costumes and the hair and the shoes. And my stepdad will probably make a bad pun and pretend to know what any of us are talking about.”

Annabeth smiled and nodded as her shoulders relaxed. Percy pulled his hands away when he realized he was still holding hers, trying not to blush.

~*~*~*~

They shared small talk, talking about company drama and recalling old stories, until Sally called them into the kitchen for dinner.

“Thank you, again, for having me,” Annabeth said as they sat down.

“It’s my pleasure, dear,” Sally told her. “Please, enjoy,” she said, handing her a bowl of food to scoop from.

“So,” Sally started once they were all served, “Annabeth, where are you from?”

Annabeth cleared her throat. “Well, my whole family is from Boston, but I grew up in Virginia, until I moved to New York for the ballet school when I was fourteen. I’ve lived here ever since.”

“And they took you into the company very early, didn’t they?” Sally asked.

Annabeth nodded. “I was sixteen. It was grueling,” she said. “I’m glad that dancers are being taken in later that I was, because it was hard. I still don’t think I was prepared for it, and I have no idea how I got through it.”

“What’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you on stage?” Estelle asked. Sally frowned at her, but Annabeth laughed.

“I was dropped once.” Estelle’s eyes went wide, and Sally gasped. Percy laughed, remembering the story she was about to tell.

“When I was twenty,” Annabeth said, “I was Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and there is a scene at the end where Juliet has taken potion to make it look like she’s dead.” Annabeth explained to Estelle, who was looking at her with an extreme intensity. “And Romeo comes on stage, and he sees me laying on this tombstone, which was just this wooden slab on a platform three steps up. And Romeo has to pick up Juliet’s lifeless body and carry her down the stairs and do a pas de deux. But, of course, I’m dead, so I can’t help the guy. So, he’s just swinging me around like deadweight.” Percy and Paul laughed at this, but Sally kept on looking horrified. Percy wasn’t sure if his mom was still hung up on the fact that Annabeth had been dropped, or if she was uncomfortable with the choreography being described. Estelle, though, just looked fascinated with the story.

“One night, Charles Beckendorf, who’s one of the best partners in the business, is my Romeo, and climbs up the stairs, picks me up, and then, all the sudden, I am falling down the stairs.” Percy heard his mom whisper “oh my god,” as Annabeth continued. “And I have no idea what happened, because I’m dead, so my eyes are closed. Turns out, he had slipped at the top of the stairs, and we had both fallen down onto the stage. Thankfully, neither of us were hurt, but the orchestra was still going, so we had to keep dancing. But I’m still dead. So, he had to lift me, dead weight, off the stage and finish the dance.

“The worst part was that, at that point in the ballet, Romeo and Juliet don’t leave the stage until the show is over. So, for the next twenty minutes, we are both panicking thinking we’re going to get pulled from the ballet for the rest of the run or that we’re going to be fired.

“Curtain falls, ballet is over, we meet Chiron backstage who just nodded and said, ‘I liked it, leave it in.’” Percy laughed at Annabeth’s Chiron impression – a stiff nod, a frown, and a gruff voice offering compliments when you expected nothing but critique.

“Apparently,” Annabeth continued, “from the audience, it had looked planned, as if Romeo was so overcome with grief, he just couldn’t stay standing. Of course, one of the ballet mistresses heard about Chiron’s plan and told him it was too dangerous for me to be dropped down the stairs every night, so we never did end up doing it again.”

“Well,” Paul said, “hopefully Percy won’t drop you like that.”

“No,” Percy said, “this ballet is thankfully free of carrying her down stairs. Although,” he looked at Annabeth, “you are in a death-like sleep again.”

Annabeth smiled. “As long as I never have to be a snowflake again, I’ll take all of the only-mostly-dead roles.”

~*~*~*~

Annabeth opened up after that, charming Sally and Estelle with her dance stories and compliments about Percy’s skills as a partner (which Percy didn’t mind either.) She tried to help Sally clear the table, but Sally refused to let her help, insisting that she and Percy relax in the living room. After a few minutes, she brought in a tray of blue cookies for them.

Annabeth’s eyes went wide when she saw them; she picked a big one off the top and held it in front of her face. “Blue?” she asked.

“It’s an inside joke between my mom and me,” Percy said, picking up a cookie of his own.

Annabeth eyes went wide and she smiled, “Oh! That’s why everything you own is blue!” She said, like she had solved some grand mystery. “Your bag, your foam roller, your water bottle.” Percy smiled and nodded, confirming her conclusions. “And see, I just thought you were super into that ‘blue for boys, pink for girls’ thing.”

Percy laughed, breaking off a piece of his cookie. “No, I think that’s kind of bogus.”

Before Annabeth could respond, Sally poked her head in. “We’re going to be in our room, but it was so nice to meet you Annabeth. Please, feel free to stay as long as you’d like. And take some of the cookies home with you!”

Annabeth waved them goodnight. “Goodnight and thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime, honey,” Sally said, disappearing around the corner.

“See,” Percy said, “I told you they’d like you.”

Annabeth smiled. “Yeah, must just be my family that doesn’t like me, then.”

She said that nonchalantly like it was a joke, but it caught Percy off guard. “You’re not close with your family?” He asked her.

She shrugged. “No, not really.”

“That must have been hard,” Percy said.

She nodded. “I mean, I should be grateful for them,” she added. “They’ve supported me my entire career and paid for everything, you know? But mostly I think they were glad I found ballet. It kept me out of the house most of the time.” Annabeth laughed sadly as she nibbled on her cookie. “It was funny. There was this one time, right when I was about to turn seventeen and find out if I got my company contract, and I got a text from my step-mom that just said: ‘Your dad got a new job in San Francisco. We’re moving in a week.” She forced a laugh again, but when she saw that Percy didn’t find that funny, she let her guard down. “They’d all known for months, but none of them thought to tell me.” She finished in a voice much sadder than the one she had started with.

Percy rested a hand on her knee, which she took willingly. “I’m so sorry, that’s awful. Can I ask why they didn’t –”

She cut him off. “My mom left me and my dad in the middle of the night when I was a few weeks old, and we never heard from her again. I guess things were fine with just me and my dad for the first few years, but he got remarried when I was three. They started their ‘real’ family, and I was just wrench in the machine.” She shrugged. “But anyway,” she said, forcing herself to perk up, “it all worked out. I mean, I got this amazing dance career and an absolutely awful taste in men,” she joked, “and you didn’t invite me here just to talk about my problems. Tell me about you. We’ve been dancing together for years, and I feel like I barely know you.”

“Can I give you a hug?” Percy asked her.

She was taken aback. “What?”

“Can I give you a hug? You just seem kind of sad.”

Annabeth dropped her plucky attitude and nodded, opening her arms to him. He held her tightly, rubbing her back gently to let her know that he was there.

When she pulled away, there were some tears on her cheeks that she quickly blotted off with a napkin. “Jesus, look at me, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re fine,” Percy assured her. “And, seriously, if you ever need to talk, I’m here. I would really like to be your friend.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you, that really means a lot to me.”

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments, before Annabeth said: “But, really, tell me about yourself. How did you get started in ballet?”

“Kind of like you did, I guess. I needed something to do after school to get me out of the house and away from my stepdad,” he said. “Not Paul,” he added, “the guy my mom was married to before him.” He ran his hand through his hair and relaxed back on the couch. “I didn’t start dancing until I was ten,” he told her.

Her eyes went wide. “Really?”

He nodded. “I started at the Y, really basic classes because I needed something to do.” He didn’t tell her it was because he’d gotten kicked off the rec basketball team for punching a kid who’d made fun of Tyson, Percy friend and teammate, for having down syndrome. Percy’s reasons for decking the kid didn’t matter to his coach, though, who’d just hung his head, exhausted constantly by Percy’s troublemaking. “Just go home, Percy,” his coach had told him. “Just go home.” When he’d gotten kicked off the team, he had known he’d have to find something else to do after school as soon as he could. He couldn’t stand the idea of spending hours alone with Gabe before his mom got home from the candy shop.

“Why’d you pick dance?” She asked.

“I wanted to play basketball,” he said, “but the season had already started. The only thing I could still sign up for was ballet.” Percy smiled. “It was funny, the week I had my first class was the week before my mom got paid, so I didn’t have ballet shoes yet. I tried to do the barre in my socks, but the instructor saw, and she came back with these girls ballet slippers. They were extras they had. They were too big and for girls, but they were better than nothing. I ended up wearing them for four months. My mom had to sew the canvas where my big toe had popped through.” Annabeth smiled at the detail, but Percy figured she’d never had to wear second-hand shoes.

“Why’d you stick with it?” She asked.

Percy took a deep breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It was a control thing, I think,” he said. “I …” he hesitated, but he decided to be honest with her, the way she had been with him. “I was a troubled kid. I have ADHD and dyslexia, so my grades were bad. I got into fights, my stepdad …” he decided to leave those details out. “Well, he’s not around anymore and that’s for the best.” Annabeth nodded, looking at him even as he kept his gaze forward.

“I understand that,” she mused as he continued.

“But when I got to ballet … well, it was this quiet room with piano music, and no one was talking to each other. We all just plie’d in peace, and it was just so nice,” he smiled, “and I felt in control there. I realized that if I put a lot into ballet, I’d get a lot out of it. So, I started to practice every night, and after six months, my teacher told my mom that I had to be in a better program if I wanted to be a better dancer, because she really believed that I could go the distance.”

He paused, smiling at the memory, but his eyes felt a little misty. He took a sip of water to avoid crying in front of her. “It was the first time a teacher had really believed in me,” he said. “She helped me find a school and scholarship money, and … that was all she wrote. I started dancing pretty much every day until I got into the academy at fifteen.” He smiled and looked back at her.

She was listening to him intently and had leaned closer to him. When he sat up straight, she had to readjust so that their bodies didn’t collide. He smiled when he saw that she was still listening to him. “You know, the year I started at the school was the year you got into the company?”

She didn’t answer his question. Instead, she placed her hands on his, the same way he had for her earlier. “You must have worked really hard.” She said.

Percy nodded. “So many people in the school and the company had done all of these summer intensives and had been in youth companies and all of that. And there I was, this ragamuffin kid who got his start as a pre-teen at the YMCA,”

Annabeth smiled uncomfortably. “I was in a youth company,”

Percy forced himself to laugh and assure her that he didn’t hate people who had been in youth companies or had been dancing since they were very young. He knew it wasn’t her fault that she had gotten lucky, he just always hated that sense of what-if: what if he had more money growing up? What if he had gotten started earlier? How much further in his career could he be if he had half the opportunities Annabeth had?

“Besides, you haven’t had it easy either,” he said.

She nodded. “I actually spent the last few months back in Virginia at the youth company. I did some choreography, led some classes, and kept up with my own training. It was nice to get out of the city for a while.”

“I bet,” he said. He wanted to ask her what happened, but he figured she would have already told him, so he dodged it. “I’m lucky, my get-away is a lot closer than yours.”

“Oh yeah? Where do you escape to?”

“Montauk beach, out on Long Island.” He pointed vaguely towards the east.

“You know, I’ve lived in New York for twelve years, and I’ve never been to Long Island.”

Percy’s eyes went wide. “What do you do in the summer? Suffer here? Or do you jet off to Disney World or Hawaii?”

She bumped her shoulder into his. “Please, I don’t have that much money.” She said. “I go …” She paused, and the put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Oh my god, I don’t even want to tell you. I feel like you’ll stop being my friend forever.”

Percy smiled when she called him her friend. “Nothing you could say could change that. Come on, just tell me.”

She took a deep breath. “I go to Jersey,” she admitted.

Percy groaned and leaned back against the couch. “Oh my god!”

“It’s nice! They have nice beaches, good pizza –“

“Get out of my apartment!” Percy said while laughing and pointing at the door. Annabeth grabbed his hand and pulled it out of its pointing pose.

“It’s nice, I promise!”

“Please!” Percy said. “Long Island might not be the Bahamas, but it’s better than Jersey.”

“Have you ever been to New Jersey?” She asked.

“No,” he admitted, “but that’s by design.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” she said.

“Alright, tell you what,” Percy said. “This summer, I’ll take you to Long Island and you can take me to Jersey,” he couldn’t believe what he was saying, “and we’ll decide which was better.”

Annabeth held out her hand. Percy took it and they shook on it. “Deal.” She said.

~*~*~*~

They stayed up talking and enjoying a few too many cookies but not worrying about it, for two more hours. When Annabeth caught a flash of the time: 10:15p.m. She gasped.

“I had no idea how late it was getting,” she said, standing up. “I should head home and let you get some rest.”

“Do you want me to come with you on the subway?” Percy offered. “It’s getting late and you’ve got a long train ride.”

Annabeth shook her head. “No, thank you though, that’s sweet. I’ll just call an Uber,” she said, taking out her phone.

Percy nodded, picking up the tray of cookies. “Sounds good. I’m sending you home with at least half of these, though, or else my mom will kill me.”

Annabeth smiled. “If I don’t fit into my costume, I’m telling Silena that it’s your fault.”

Percy placed a few cookies in a zip-lock bag and handed it to her. “They have no calories remember,” he said.

She zipped up her coat and forced her hat onto her head. Before she could say goodbye, Percy slipped on his jacket and shoes. “Let me walk you out,” he said.

~*~*~*~

They stood on the curb waiting for her car as snow started to fall. Percy looked up at the sky and smiled, watching the flurries fall in the light of the streetlamps.

“Thank you, again, Percy, for such a great night,” she said.

“Anytime, seriously. My door is always open.” He was suddenly very aware of how close they were standing and how beautiful he thought she was. There were times where he thought his crush on her was maybe just the result of admiration for her dancing. He thought that, maybe if he got to know her, he wouldn’t like her as much outside of the studio. Tonight had disproven that theory.

Her Uber pulled up. “Annabeth?” the driver asked. Annabeth double checked the license plate number before confirming. She turned back to Percy to say a final goodbye.

That would have been the perfect moment to kiss her, as she stood under the snow, looking up at him, the yellow light of the streetlamp bouncing off her blonde hair. Sure, they had kissed before, but rehearsal kisses were different. They didn’t count. This would be an “I like you” kiss, a “let me take you out to dinner” kiss, it could be a wonderful, earth-shattering, life changing kiss.

But that kiss would ruin everything. Instead, he tried to memorize the way her eyes looked, and the way snow stuck to her eyelashes, and the way she waved goodbye to him from the window of her Uber.

#this chapter is 5000 words long oh my god #percy jackson #annabeth chase #percabeth #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #once upon a pointe

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january31st · 3 years

Text

Ablaze: Chapter 1

Cruella (2021) x reader

This request from a lovely anon! <3

When you said burn the world to the ground I grabbed it upside down and ran with it.

I’m still not sure how many chapters long this will be, but I’m happy with what I’ve got storywise, and so I hope you enjoy it as well!

A/N: I describe a lot of outfits in detail and it’s taking me back to the yee olde days of cringey fanfics, but I must indulge. It’s Cruella, the fits are essential guys don’t roast me yet.

And yes I had too much fun putting them together in my head to then not write them.

Also I got very carried away with 70’s slang, I'm sorry in advance. But also I’m not sorry because this is the first time in a long while that I came up with a story that I’m actually proud of so yes.

Warnings: None really? Someone being drunk on them sweet sweet Margaritas? Tequila power my comrades.

|| Masterlist || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Wattpad link ||

~2000 words

“Thank you so much for showing up on this lovely Saturday night and enjoying the music! And most importantly, thank you Artie for convincing me to get into this. I hope you have a lovely weekend everyone!” You said with your cheeks flushed and smiling brightly at your audience in the pub as they cheered you.

You swung your guitar off and put it down while gesturing at the bartender for a drink, and then made your way toward Artie’s table. With his arms crossed but returning your smile he said “And you didn’t want to join my band! Now everyone comes here to hear you sing”

“You know I was studying back then. I mean you can never guess how much people will care about your art.” You retorted as you took the drink from the barman, winking at him as a thank you.

“Girl! You sing like a God! You play that guitar so well it baffles me. Your makeup? Stunning. Every time. You have to understand that you are amazing in every way and people love to see you.” He said slurring his words a bit, the Margarita on his hand probably to blame for that.

“You’re just drunk! And you know what? I hate to admit it but if it weren’t for your Cruella friend none of this would’ve happened. I mean, because of that night like a year ago when you cats crashed the Baroness's spring collection with the concert? If you didn’t call me to cover you in here I would be still pouring over those books without actually enjoying myself.”

“Wow we’re really talking about her” He had his eyes wide open, almost cartoonishly. “What was it you called her after that time? A phony, double coloured bogart?” You took advantage of his surprise to discreetly take the drink away from him, you knew he’d thank you later for not letting him get too wasted.

“I went to drop you off at that shady warehouse and she gave me the hairy eyeball for no reason! I mean, looked me up and down and then told me to Audi 5000.”

“She asked if you were going to stay Y/N”

“But the way she said it! She's mean as hell.”

“She just has a big personality! So do I! And you know I hate boring people, because you are quite the show as well.”

“But I’m not judgy like her. Or tell me I’m not.”

“You’re not.” All of a sudden he looked very sober. “But this conversation reminded me. I kinda told her about your skills….”

“Yes?”

“She’s kinda rushing things for her next show… And needs a good makeup artist.”

“And now I actually have to go there or I’ll be the asshole?” You asked, eyebrows raised.

“Well I just threw it into the air! She designed this dress and I said your style would look good with it!” He answered defensively. “Then I guess she remembered you and really insisted that you doll up some of her models. I think she liked your look that day. I mean, I sure did. The purple dress with the cheetah coat? And your eyes with that purple shadow?”

“Oh so was that why she stared a hole into my forehead? When even? I’ve had a bunch of other pub guys hit me up for gigs, I’m booked like every other night.” You said.

“Well she didn’t really set a meeting or anything. The show isn’t until the 25th of next month anyway, we just have to show up sometime next week and you do your thing.”

“Okay then… I guess. Tuesday at 3 meet me at my place. I’m only doing this for you okay?”

“Thanks love! It’s not gonna be that bad, I promise.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Usually you threw your outfits together in two seconds, it came easily to you because you didn’t care enough about how other people would react to it. And as much as you wanted to tell yourself that you didn’t care for this meeting, you did.

With her being, well, her, you felt that what you wore would speak much louder than what you said, so you spent hours picking and choosing things from your wardrobe, bed lost in the clothes, shoes lost from their pair and jewelry messed up all over your table.

Why the hell do I care if she likes me or not? I don’t even need this job, it’s just because of Artie. Oh no, if I make a fool of myself then he’s probably gonna be the one dealing with the consequences.

To really make sure you made a statement you decided to clash two opposite styles: First a floral dress in light tones and matching statement earrings, and then a leather jacket, spiked heel boots, a choker and chains for necklaces.

Then it came time for your makeup, and that was easy with an outfit already together: eyeshadow matching the dress, graphic black eyeliner and black lipstick.

After a while you decided to stop staring at the mirror and instead paced your apartment thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. What if she made some awful comment? You weren’t sure you would be able to not snap back. And with all her success she always thinks she’s right for sure, the more you thought about all the nasty things she would say the more annoyed you got.

After you checked that all your makeup was ready to take with you, Artie rang the door.

“Oh my God! I’m living for this” he said while gesturing to your clothes.

“Let’s hope she does too” you grimaced and grabbed your makeup bags.

“She will, trust me I know her. She will shower you with compliments”

“So long as she doesn’t shower me with knives.” At that he rolled his eyes playfully.

“Oh and you can leave those behind, she’s ready to see you and has called some models, and also has the makeup you’ll use.”

“Okay, so let’s get to it.”

The bus ride there did help to calm you down for the most part, with Artie reassuring you she wasn’t gonna eat you alive and also gossiping about your soon to be coworkers - the ones who worked for years for the baroness were now in less control than him, and he just loved to see their fancy asses frothing at the mouth every time he walked into the room.

Arriving at the (now) House of DeVil you took all the chaos in awe: people carrying rolls of fabric around, tables littered with sketches and pins and all kinds of sewing tools thrown around, people shouting at each other in a franzie to get the next show to be perfect.

And then Artie took you into what you assumed to be her office. She was sitting at her table sketching away on a sketchpad before turning her attention to you. Just the way she had done the first time she saw you, she eyed you up and down and pursed her lips in thought.

“Alright. Artie, be a darling and call the models in.”

You took your coat off to put in the hanger and waited for her to comment on what you were wearing or your makeup. Except no comment came, good or bad. That probably doesn’t mean anything, she isn’t supposed to comment on your looks, just your work.

The nervousness washed away once again when you saw the models. It seemed as though every piece that they wore was more beautiful than the one before it, the extreme cuts and insane silhouettes outdoing each other, and every colour matching them perfectly.

Now with a smile on your face, you jumped straight into working and sailed from model to model, finishing each one quickly because of how inspired the pieces made you. As you approached the last one you became very aware of the lack of response from her. She was sitting down fidgeting with the top of her cane, eyes narrowed as she studied your work. When you were done, you stepped aside and looked to Artie.

She got up and inspected each one of them with the same look about her, and the same uncomfortable silence. To help you out a bit Artie complimented the looks and pointed out the things he loved about them, but that didn’t seem to persuade her to do the same.

“You may go, guys” she said gesturing toward the models, then grabbed a pen on her desk and asked you “What is your name again?” and then when you answered she wrote it down on the corner of the sketch she was doing when you got there.

“Thank you for coming Y/N. Artie, I’ll need you here tomorrow at 9.” She sat down again and went back to what she was doing, just as if you hadn’t been there at all. He nodded at her as you answered with “You’re welcome” and then you grabbed your coat and followed Artie outside.

Once the cold London air hit your neck, you zipped the jacket up.

“I don’t know what’s up with her, but that was the first time she acted like that since I’ve known her.” He admitted.

“Great! So she really must have hated it! So much she couldn’t even say how awful they were.”

“Awful? Did you even look at what you did? It was stunning. It was even better than I thought it was going to be!”

“Maybe that’s just you. She definitely hated it. But I mean she could have said so? You know what pisses me off more than just telling me I sucked? Not saying anything! I mean, I would rather she just insult me honestly”

“It is very odd that she didn’t say you were hired.” When he saw the look on your face he added “But I’m sure that tomorrow she’s going to say something!”

“Yeah, I don’t count on that. ”

There was no way in hell she liked them. That was the same silence that followed every time someone in the band would suggest a bad melody. Wednesday night Artie came to another one of your gigs and didn’t speak of Cruella until you brought it up. He said she never talked about the makeup for the show and offered one of his apologetic smiles, only confirming how you had wasted that day in vain (also the ones before, worrying like a child, anxious for the first day of school. What an idiot.) instead of rehearsing for the more important shows you had coming up.

A week had gone by and there was no word from her, as expected. What did come up was the opportunity you had been waiting for since you grabbed a guitar for the first time. A record label was interested in making an album!

With every new concert you brought to the table a different look, and a different genre. Some small local magazines published columns on you and compared you to Bowie- Artie running to you one day, a torn piece of paper in his hand and his eyes full of proud tears- the way you accommodated to every audience, and how you did it so genuinely.

You never did it for the success, let alone to be a copycat. You stepped on stage and sang exactly what you felt, the strings ringing with the sound of the language your soul spoke. And it came as a bonus that people liked it.

That night you were dressed in a Pin-up style, hands shaking from the emotional performance - an effect The Blues would always have on you- as you sipped your drink. Then a man dressed in a suit came up to you, and introduced himself as the owner of a record label you hadn’t heard much of yet. He explained how he came to know of you and gave you his card before leaving you again.

On the card was this contact information and an address, and then when you turned it to the other side, in a tiny scrawl you read Wednesday the 23rd, 9 AM.

And the next two weeks flew by with anticipation.

|| Masterlist || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Wattpad link ||

if you want to be added to a taglist for this series, feel free to reach out in whatever way you prefer :)

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flyinghome-againstthewind · 2 years

Note

6, 10, 12, 30

6. If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day?

Oh god. I feel like I tried to keep track of this the last time I had a super successful writing day and I already forgot lol. I think on a really good days I can do 2500-4000 words? And with my chapters typically averaging 5000-6000 words, that works for me!

10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most?

I really enjoy both dialogue and exposition. Sometimes writing plot is a drag just because I have to write it to advance the story 😂

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

[answered here]

30. Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future.

The reason I haven't started this is because I think it would indeed be long 😂 But at some point, I really want to do a mash up of Outlander and The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley, essentially just using the concept of time travel from the novel and applying it to Outlander. So the idea being that Claire can travel through time to one set time period but she can't control when and how often she travels, so she's falling in love with Jamie but the length of time that they get to spend with each other is always out of their hands before she's pulled back to her original time again. Idk I just think it would be neat!!

[for the fic writer asks]

#thanks jen!! 💕#asks

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mandoalorian · 4 years

Text

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x F!Reader] — Ten: Justice

Summary: When you find your calling to leave Themyscira, you venture out to the World of Man with intentions of helping and healing a very specific person’s relationship with his son. You’ve heard his voice before, but only in dreams. You’ve felt his pain and anguish and you’ve never been able to relate to anything more. But things don’t come easy for you, and they certainly don’t come easy for him either. [This series contains spoilers for WW84 and is my interpretation of what happens after the movie ends].

Warnings: so many tears, mention of child neglect and abuse, child custody battle, court. This is essentially the chapter we’ve all been waiting for. I’m so nervous to post this so please let me know what you think and, as always, reblogs are very much appreciated.

Word count: 5000>

Masterlist

Previous - Chapter Ten - Next

Just like the past few days, you had been rudely awoken by a phone call from Diana Prince. This time, you were back in Maxwell’s king sized bed in D.C., with Alistair sandwiched between you and Max.

“Di?” You asked, rubbing your tired eyes.

“Barbara is here. Now. You have to come over. I’m trying to get her to renounce her wish but she’s fighting back. Come in your Amazonian gear and don’t forget your lasso. Hurry!” she exclaimed before hanging up.

You yawned and put the phone back on the hook. You could stay in bed with Alistair and Maxwell forever but, if Diana needed your help, you had to provide. You followed her instructions and headed out without saying anything to Max. You shouldn’t be too long anyways, you decided. Everything would be okay.

***

When Maxwell eventually woke up and you weren’t by his side, he was confused. In fact, to say he was devastated would have been an understatement. Today was his big court date-- the battle where he’d fight for Alistair’s custody. He had faith you’d be there, just like you promised. Only, there was one small thought haunting him in the very back of his mind.

What if you had become too powerful for this world? What if you already had to go back to Themyscira? No. It would be fine-- Max reassured himself. Maxwell got all suited up and Raquel came to the door.

“Thank you for agreeing to watch Alistair.” Maxwell sighed, adjusting his cufflinks.

“It’s really no problem, Mr. Lord.” Raquel smiled graciously, taking Alistair’s hand.

“Daddy?” Alistair asked, his eyes glossy with unshed tears.

“Yeah buddy?”

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I really hope you win today.” Alistair confessed before turning around and leaving with Raquel.

***

“You… Diana!?” You shouted, running up to Barbara and untying her from the bed. Barbara’s eyes locked onto you as you helped release her. “Hey listen… I don’t know what’s going on but I’m your friend. I don’t want to hurt you.” you promised, locking your gaze onto her ocean blue eyes. The colour alone was enough to remind you of the beautiful oceans back on Themyscira.

A tear slipped down Barbara’s cheek and you quickly wiped it away, smoothing out her blonde wavy hair. “I feel so foolish,” she choked out, shaking her head. “Just for once I wanted to be the greatest. And all to prove a point.”

“It’s okay,” you shushed her, cautiously wrapping your arms around her and pulling her into a hug. You wanted to be careful not to smother her. Barbara had done terrible things, no different to Max, but you knew that it wasn’t really them. That they were both possessed by the power of the wish. “Did you speak to Diana?” you asked eventually, truly wondering where your sister was. She’d called you and yet she wasn’t here.

“I came after her… for-- for the dreamstone,” Barbara confessed as her tears soaked your tunic. “She told me it had been destroyed but that’s… that’s impossible.”

You exhaled. “No Barbara, it’s true. Max and I… we--” you tried to explain but Barbara cut you off.

“Babajide said only true love can--”

“I know.” you sighed, looking down at your feet.

“Oh.” Was the only sound Barbara could bear to omit. “You love him?”

You smiled weakly and nodded your head. “I’ve never really been in love before, I don’t think. But I have this feeling in my heart and no words can describe it. I’ve read about it in mythology… like the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and when I’m with Max I just feel… complete. I feel whole.”

“I know the feeling because I feel it too.” Barbara sniffed, pulling off you and crossing her arms over her chest. You could immediately tell that she was feeling vulnerable.

“You do?”

“With Diana.” Barbara confirmed.

“...You-- you’re in love with Diana?” You asked with a small gasp.

“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.” Barbara sighed into admittance.

“Then you will know that love is the most powerful thing in the world. Barbara… if you renounce your wish then--”

“I know.” Barbara whimpered, rubbing her tearful eyes.

“The wish might have given you all this power, but I promise you there is nothing more powerful than the love you have for Diana,” you reassured Barbara and took her hands. “And the love she has for you.”

“The-- what?” Barbara asked.

“I’m the goddess of family, Barbara, I have a pretty good judgement of knowing when somebody is in love. I see the way she looked at you in the tomb back in Athens. You could have something so beautiful together,” you smiled, giving Barbara’s hands a light squeeze. “Renounce your wish. For Diana.”

Barbara turned and looked out the window, her lips trembling before she looked back at you. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I renounce my wish.” she declared, and you felt a breeze-- and wind, almost, gush through your hair. The grip on her hand became electric and you pulled off her, noticing the way your body began to glow. Barbara’s eyes snapped open and her jaw slackened as she watched your feet leave the ground. You were floating, a glittering golden aura similar to the lasso of truth highlighting your entire body. It was blinding.

The walls of Diana’s apartment began to crumble around you and you eventually fell to the ground. Barbara gasped upon seeing you again. “You-- you’re outfit. You’re glowing…”

You looked down at yourself and your eyes widened in disbelief. Your typical Amazonian tunic had literally changed colours. What was once brown, was now gold, red and blue-- the traditional colours of a child of Zeus. “Like Diana,” Barbara mumbled. “It’s beautiful.”

You couldn’t help but smile as you admired the way your new armour looked. The Gods had blessed you with this transformation, and that must have meant you had done something right. You had gotten Barbara to renounce her wish, after all.

No, love was what had gotten Barbara to renounce her wish.

But the walls around you were still crumbling down and the ground beneath you was splitting. “Oh my-- Barbara. I have to go. I’ve already overstayed my welcome.” you said in a panic.

“What? I’m sure Diana doesn’t mind you being here.” Barbara replied, scratching the back of her neck in bewilderment.

“No. The World of Man… I’m too powerful I-- I have to return to Themyscira,” you said in a fluster. You remembered that Diana told you-- with the combination of both of your lassos, you could create a portal that would ensure you returned back home safely. “I have to go now.”

“What about Max?” Barbara asked, standing up and staring at you.

Shit, Max.

The court case.

You were already so late.

“Barbara, I have to go. Keep Diana informed. I-- I have to go see Max and tell him… tell him…”

“Tell him you love him.” Barbara confirmed.

Could you really do that when you were leaving so soon? You opened the window and unravelled your lasso of truth before signalling one final goodbye to Barbara. In a panic you flew out the window and glided through the air, overhead the bustling city beneath you. You had to get to court, at least before the verdict. You couldn’t let him down.

***

“Can both parties please rise?” Judge Edward Wilson requested.

Maxwell felt sick to his stomach. You weren’t here. You were supposed to be here; fixing all of this. You had promised. And you were nowhere in sight. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fingers into a fist. He heard the scraping of the chairs as Julianna and Theodore stood. He followed their actions just a few moments after. It was fine. He could do this without you. Maxwell had come from nothing and he had gotten this far in life completely alone, he could do it again. Maxwell took a deep breath and flattened his suit down before shooting the judge one of his charming, albeit fake, television smiles. The judge grinned, excited to be working on a case with the Max Lord.

“Your honor, I am Theodore Thomas, esteemed family lawyer and I will be representing Miss Julianna Grey on this child custody case.” Ted introduced himself, holding himself high and mighty.

“I’m Julianna Grey, your honor. I’m the biological mother of Alistair Lorenzano and I am here today to request full custody of my son.”

The judge nodded in understanding before turning to Maxwell. “O-oh,” Max shuffled uncomfortably upon realising it was his turn to speak. He looked at the jury of twelve that sat before him. Twelve randomly selected members of the public who were about to learn his true identity. The identity he had kept so well hidden for the last twenty years. “I’m Maxwell Lor-Lorenzano and I’m the biological father of Alistair Lorenzano,” he looked back at Julianna and Theodore who were glaring in his direction. “And I am here today to tell you that I love my son so much.” Maxwell exclaimed.

Judge Edward Wilson adjusted the brimless reading glasses that sat on the curve of his nose. “Mr Lorenzano, you do agree to the case proceedings that will be occurring today, yes?”

“Yes. I do.” Maxwell affirmed, placing both his palms flat on the oak wood table.

“And you do not have an attorney?” Judge Wilson quizzed further.

Maxwell sighed. You should be here. “No I do not. But if possible, may I request a publicly funded attorney?”

“Now now,” Judge Wilson reprimanded, pointing his finger. “I will be the judge of whether or not Mr Lorenzano’s lack of care is sufficient for the transferral of custody.”

The jury murmured amongst themselves, questioning whether or not Max Lord didn’t have a jury because he was broke. They raised their eyebrows, judging the businessman who stood before them. “Unfortunately, with this being a civil case, you are not entitled to a publicly funded attorney.” The Judge hummed, rearranging his stack of papers.

“With all due respect, your honor, we gave Mr Lorenzano ample time to find a representative for this case. This right here is an example of Mr Lorenzano’s lack of care for the minor child in question. If he wanted to even stand a chance at gaining custody of Alistair, he would’ve gotten a lawyer.” Theodore scoffed incredulously whilst Julianna tried her hardest to suppress her smirk. Maxwell knotted his eyebrows together as furiosity consumed him.

Thankfully, Judge Wilson knew better to just dismiss his comment. He turned to Maxwell. “Mr Lorenzano, you said you were ‘busy doing other things’, indicating that those other things are the reason you did not find an attorney to represent your side of the case. May I ask what those things were? Perhaps a work commitment? Or a family commitment?”

Maxwell was still glaring at Theodore for his out of pocket comment. “I care about Alistair, so much.” Maxwell told the court, but his dark eyes were trained only on his ex wife and her current boyfriend. “I would argue that a week in advance is not enough time to hire a lawyer and familiarise themselves with the facts of this case. I was busy doing other things.”

“Facts?” Theodore laughed. “Your honor, Mr Lorenzano knows nothing about ‘facts’. This man is deceitful. He has built his whole career on lies. Don’t you think young Alistair deserves two good role models to look up to? For example, a stay at home mother such as Julianna who can give him her full attention and care, and a family lawyer such as myself, who fights for justice in society?” Maxwell felt nauseated as he was being forced to hear the absolute bullshit Theodore was spouting out. He was painting himself as some kind of hero to a courtroom who knew no different. But that’s what Theodore Thomas did the best. And that was why he was the most successful lawyer in Washington D.C.

“Uh,” Maxwell squeezed his eyes shut. “Not exactly. It’s complicated, your honor. I was in Athens with a friend.” He hated the way the revelation left his lips. But it was the truth. And if he had learned one thing from Diana, it was that the truth is beautiful. But was truth going to win the case?

Judge Wilson blinked momentarily as silence filled the courtroom. A smile flexed upon Theodore’s lips. “You were in Athens with a friend?” Judge Wilson repeated, gritting his teeth.

“Yes, your honor.” Maxwell sighed in admittance.

“Mr Lorenzano,” Judge Wilson addressed Max before glancing towards the jury who were taking notes. “I hope you realise this does not sound good in your favour.”

Maxwell cursed in his mind. Of course it didn’t. He’d gone with you to Athens to help you find and destroy the dreamstone. But he couldn’t say that in court. Hell, he couldn’t say that to anyone. You trusted him with your secret and he wasn’t going to expose you like that. Then again, you had broken your promise. You hadn’t shown up in court. You lied to him. And Maxwell was hurting a lot. He felt betrayed. Nevertheless, he still loved you so much. No doubt the jury would even believe the fact a magical goddess came into Max’s life and encouraged him to accompany her to Athens to destroy a wish-granting stone possessed by the God of Lies. That would just be ridiculous.

Maxwell didn’t reply. “On that note,” Judge Wilson grimaced before turning back to face Julianna and Theodore. “I ask that the claimant address all their points as to why they believe Mr Lorenzano is an unfit father to Alistair Lorenzano.”

Julianna clapped her hands excitedly. Maxwell figured she must have spent her entire life preparing herself for this moment. Max knew that he’d likely have to sit through possibly hours of Julianna and her sleazeball of a boyfriend demonizing him and pushing him down. Nothing new. But when it came to illustrating the point whether or not Maxwell was an unfit father, he didn’t want to hear it. To Max, Alistair was an angel. He deserved the best and Maxwell had always wanted to be the best for his son. None of this would’ve happened if Max hadn’t been led down such a dark path in the first place. Yes, Maxwell often doubted his capability as a parent, but at least he was trying to change. Julianna didn’t even care about Alistair. She was a neglectful mother, always dumping Alistair upon Max without warning so she could spend time with Ted or go shopping with her friends. Maxwell loved his son more than anything else in the whole world.

“Mr Lorenzano, as I’m sure you all know, is what I’d once describe to be a ‘successful’ businessman. Now I personally think he’s just a businessman,” Theodore smirked and Maxwell rolled his eyes. “He’s a television personality who goes by Max Lord. He’s a liar. A con man. Not only has he lied about his identity to the whole world, but he’s tricked the weak minded into investing into his ponzi-scheme.”

“Hey!” A juror interrupted. “I invested in Black Gold Cooperative!”

“Well-I mean, obviously you’re not weak minded.” Theodore quickly backtracked.

“He did just call you weak minded.” Maxwell muttered with a shrug of his shoulders. The juror frowned and sat back down.

An hour passed and both Julianna and Theodore were still taking turns to drag Max down. He felt like giving up. You were his only hope, and you weren’t even there. “Mr Lorenzano,” Judge Wilson began. “Do you have any objections to the claimants allegations?”

“Yes, I object to it all!” Max exclaimed.

“I should rephrase,” Judge Wilson sighed. “Are they telling the truth about you?”

They were. They hadn’t lied. They’d compiled a list of all of Maxwell’s mistakes, errors, and flaws. They had him backed up into a corner he couldn’t get out of. On occasions, were they making a mountain out of a molehill? Of course. But were they honest? Yes. Maxwell had fucked up.

“They are.” Maxwell nodded, his knees becoming weak with anxiety.

“Okay,” The Judge replied, his tone dripping with disappointment and perhaps even sadness. “It’s now your turn to speak, Mr Lorenzano. Although I have no doubt the jury has already come to a decision.”

Maxwell turned to face the jury who were looking at him with identical stone cold expressions. Like he was some kind of villainous monster. A lying criminal. And it was all thanks to Theodore’s stupid little speech.

“Uhm,” Maxwell stood up and brushed down his suit again before walking over to the jury. “Theodore is right. I have done bad things and I have lied to many people. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying to get better. For my son. For Alistair. He gives my life hope and reason and purpose. I believe that he makes me a better person. I’m not sure if any of you have kids of your own but you know how hard the pressure can be. The truth is, I never considered myself a family man. I never wanted children but when Alistair came into my life… for the first time I felt like the universe was on my side,” Maxwell took the polaroid out of his pocket and slid it over for the jury to look at. “This was the day he was born. I had never felt so much love.” Maxwell smiled faintly at the memory.

“Quit it with your sob story.” Theodore moaned, rolling his eyes.

“Let Mr Lorenzano speak.” Judge Wilson snapped back. Max nodded his head with gratitude.

“I never used to believe in love before Alistair was born. And then recently, I got lost. Things didn’t make sense and my mind became clouded with just about all the wrong things. And then this girl came into my life and she reminded me of how it feels to love and be loved in return. So now I do. I believe in love. I believe that love conquers all. That love can end all wars and quash all hatred in the world. Please, I ask that you empathize with me. We’ve all made mistakes. If I could go back and fix it I would in a heartbeat. But I can’t and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Alistair.” Max croaked, letting a real, genuine tear slip down his cheek.

Silence filled the courtroom and deciding that Maxwell had nothing else to say, he sat back down in his seat. He knew he’d lost. You weren’t there to help him. He had no attorney. And like Diana had warned him; the consequences of his actions lay in his fate with Alistair. He was going to lose the little boy he loved so much. His only son.

Maxwell knew he was a lot of things but he was not an unfit father. He was prepared to give Alistair the world. An unfit father would be his own father. A man who spent his days drunk and abusing him and his mother. Both physical and mental torture. Max would never ever do that to Alistair. Ever. He tried so hard to be a positive, influential figure to Alistair because he never had one himself.

“I believe the jury has come to a conclusion,” Judge Wilson announced, taking a painful amount of time to open the envelope that had been handed to him. “The jury have decided that full custody of Alistair Lorenzano will be granted to Juli-”

“STOP!” You screamed, using your full force to push open the sturdy double doors that led into the courtroom.

The scene ahead was something straight out of a courtroom drama movie. Maxwell’s jaw dropped upon the sight of you and the jury gasped, muttering words of bewilderment amongst each other as you ran up to Max. And oh, you were a sight.

Maxwell didn’t know what happened, but there you were, dressed in red, blue and gold. He pinned it down to an Amazonian warrior’s outfit, for sure, because there was no way any Sears’ or Macy’s or Bloomingdales’ would sell anything like that. You were sparkling, your tiara fit perfectly on your head and your gladiator sandals tied in neat ribbons to your kneecaps. You looked like a real-life Goddess. In your element.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Maxwell gasped as you ran into his arms. You hugged him tight and he tried to hold back his cries. “Thought… you’d already gone back to Themyscira.”

The thought of you leaving Max without a proper goodbye was debilitating. He was the man who took you in, gave you a home and comfort, and showed you what real, true love was.

“I couldn’t leave without keeping my promise.” you sniffed, cupping his cheeks and offering him a small smile. You spent a moment just gazing into his chocolate brown eyes. In the past day, his eyes looked like they had aged ten years due to all the stress he was under -- but they were still the most beautiful things you had ever seen.

Gods, you loved him so much. And you wanted him to know how much you loved him. He deserved to know. But right now, you had to focus on keeping your promise. The reason you had come to the world of man in the first place was to reunite Alistair and Max, so that was exactly what you were going to do. You hadn’t constructed a plan, and you knew that would be your fatal error -- but it had to be now or never. All you could do was hope that, somehow, everything would fall into place. You cleared your throat and presented yourself in front of the judge, before introducing yourself. “I’m here to represent Maxwell Lorenzano in the custody battle for Alistair Lorenzano.”

The judge sighed, adjusting his white wig. “The case started two hours ago, ma’am. With all due respect, the jury has already reached a verdict. Unless you have any valid evidence as to why you believe Mr Lorenzano would make a worthy father, or Miss Grey an unworthy mother, there is nothing more I can do.”

You felt your heart stop in your chest and it was like everything around you was in slow motion. Goose pimples pricked your arms as you looked around the courtroom at all the different faces. You were standing in front of fifty or so people, easily and they were all staring at you. Of course you knew why… you weren’t exactly dressed like a ‘typical’ citizen of the world. But you just had to suck it up because you had made a promise to Maxwell, all those days ago. You had a duty to fulfil as the Goddess of home and hearth, and you knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but in that moment you knew exactly what you had to do.

“I have evidence.” you said with a shaky exhale.

Maxwell narrowed his eyes and leaned into you. “What?” he asked, just as confused as everyone else. Julianna and Theodore exchanged a nervous glance as the jury and audience continued to murmur amongst each other.

“Trust me.” you smiled a tearful smile and you felt your lips begin to quiver with anxiety. You closed your eyes and tried to regulate your breathing. It would be okay. It was going to be okay.

“Well, present your evidence.” Judge Wilson sighed and you nodded your head with affirmation.

Taking your lasso of truth, you began to unravel it, and showed the courtroom the way it glowed golden upon touching it. “What is that?” you heard one of the juror’s ask.

“This is the lasso of Hestia. It belonged to my mother and it’s powered by the truth. The truth and purity of the universe.” You explained, and the jury were in complete awe.

Julianna was the first one to burst into laughter. “You can’t be serious? A magical lasso? What? You got that from the costume and prop store on 2nd Street? Please. This is actually a serious case. Get outta here.” she snarled, her lips curling into a frown.

Maxwell went to snap back but you quickly stopped him before slowly padding towards Julianna and Theodore. And you smiled. “May I demonstrate?” you asked her, and Julianna gulped hesitantly. “If it’s just a prop from a costume store then… you have no reason to be afraid, do you?”

Julianna turned to Theodore who just shrugged his shoulders. “Okay. Fine.” Julianna sighed, holding out her wrists. You carefully tied them together with the lasso before trailing it across the courtroom.

“Ted, Max, Judge Wilson… feel free to hold on to the lasso,” you pulled it to where the jury was sitting and made sure that each member held a tight grip onto it. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.” you promised.

“What are you doing?” Maxwell gritted out. “I can’t let you do this. Exposing your powers in front of all these people… it’ll turn you into a mortal.”

You knew that. But it was a sacrifice you were willing to take. If this past week had taught you anything it was that love was the most beautiful thing in this universe. And that love truly does conquer all. You were able to tell Barbara that with your whole chest-- so just for once, maybe you should listen to yourself. You deserved your happy ending.

And you were never happy on Themyscira.

But here, with Maxwell and Alistair? You were happy.

You were finally happy and you wouldn’t let anything get in the way of that.

Taking a deep breath, you shrugged off his comment and turned around to speak to the courtroom.

“The lasso of Hestia compels you all to see the truth about Alistair Lorenzano.”

You watched intently as their eyes snapped shut and they saw the truth. They saw how neglectful Julianna and Theodore had been, and how loving Maxwell was. How Maxwell flew home from Greece just to be with his son whilst Julianna left him in the house alone. They saw the way Julianna verbally abused Alistair, and Maxwell winced as it paralleled his own childhood memories. They saw it all. They saw the truth.

But-- it was draining you. It was like you could slowly feel your powers slip out of you. You were losing your immortality, and your strength. You felt yourself become weaker by the second until eventually, it was over. They opened their eyes and looked at Maxwell in shock.

You took the lasso from each person and you whimpered slightly at how weighted it suddenly felt in your grip. Attaching it back to your tunic, you took Maxwell’s hand. “Did it work?” you asked weakly, hoping and praying that your sacrifice would change something.

Maxwell swallowed but before he could open his mouth, a juror spoke.

“The jury would like to change their verdict.” he announced, and the judge looked down at the envelope. He rubbed his teary eyes and sighed. The Judge had been… crying?

“Well, I hereby grant custody of Alistair Lorenzano to his father, Maxwell Lorenzano.” Judge Wilson declared before banging his gavel down on the desk.

Julianna screamed. Members of the audience cheered. You turned to Maxwell who’s cheeks were tearstained. “Oh my Gosh Max, we did it!” you cried, and Maxwell let himself fall limp in your arms as he sobbed uncontrollably.

“You-- you just-- I can’t believe--” He cried before pulling off you and flashing you the most precious grin. It was enough to make your heart swell with happiness. “I can’t believe you sacrificed your powers for me and Ali--”

“Well, believe it.” you said, leaning in and pressing a soft yet passionate kiss into his lips. Max’s hands fell down to your hips as he held onto you and relished your taste. He pulled away from you and instinctively smoothed out your hair.

“I love you so much,” Maxwell admitted finally, unable to keep his true feelings to himself any longer. “I’m so in love with you.”

And now, it was your turn to cry. It was the words you had longed to hear from the moment you came to the world of man. “I love you too Maxwell Lorenzano,” you confessed, running your fingers through his golden hair. Max choked back a sob as he gazed into your eyes. “Come on,” you encouraged, rubbing the small of his back. “You have a son to get home to.” you giggled and Maxwell’s eyes lit up.

“Does this mean you don’t have to return to Themyscira?” Maxwell asked hopefully and you felt your cheeks flush with heat as you shook your head.

“No, I don’t have to return to Themyscira. I’m a mortal now, just like you”

Somehow, you thought you’d be hurting more. You just gave up your powers-- your whole life. But this… this felt perfect. Like it was meant to be. You weren’t hurting, in fact, you had never been so elated in your life.

“Well, you’ll always be a goddess to me.” Max confessed, pressing another kiss into your lips. “Come on. Let’s go get Alistair.” he grinned, tugging on your hand as you excitedly ran out of the courtroom together.

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magicforjournals · 3 years

Text

The Green Dress (A Story About Loki)

Chapter 5 - Gravity

This is long overdue and I apologize! I hope you like it !! Taglist is still open :)

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Warning : Explicit (18+)

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You’re sitting on the couch, giggling, as you’re watching Loki fumble through your cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, looking for a bottle opener for the wine. He had insisted on ordering pizza for you, since the dinner you had prepared for the two of you was no longer edible, and you had agreed it was a great idea.

“Got it!” he says, waving the bottle opener proudly. A wave of desire washes over you again as you watch him walk over to you, his pants falling loosely on his hips, shirt unbuttoned, his perfect body just taunting you.

He plops down on the couch next to you, smiling tenderly, as you brush his hair out of his eyes, no longer combed back. You can’t help but smile, feeling complete with Loki by your side. The pure happiness you felt in his presence was so overwhelming to you, you’d never felt like this before. Without even knowing him that well, you feel like you belonged together, it was almost magnetic, two pieces of a puzzle fitting perfectly together. And as much as you loved this pull between you, it scared you. Terrified you to your very core. And for so many reasons. Loki was… well Loki. He had, in the past, caused so much pain and destruction, to your world, even to you. Granted, you were one of the lucky ones that had not lost family members or friends in the attacks, but you had lost the first home you ever bought. Even though you were never overly materialistic, that loss still stung. But Natasha was right, everyone needed a chance at redemption, and you were not against it. On the contrary, you were a teacher, it was deeply ingrained in you to bring people to see the best in them, to work hard to become a better version of themselves. But, you didn’t want to become a lifeline for him. You didn’t want anyone to depend on you that way. It was different with your students, but Loki was a grown man. In fact, he was a god, from an entirely different world and, you, you were just a simple mortal. How could you make a relationship work? How could you ever measure up to his existence? You just had so many questions, so much was just standing in the balance, too many uncertainties.

“Are you ok?” Loki asks, gently stroking your face and bringing you back to reality.

“Yes,” you smile back at him, pressing your head softly against his touch.

“Would you like some wine?” He offers, handing you a glass.

“Thank you very much.”Nodding slowly.

“Anything for you.” He adds with a wink, making you blush.

“I realize there’s not much we know about each other,” you start, grabbing a slice of pizza, bringing your bare legs under you. After you had finally decided to get out of bed, solely because of your rumbling stomach, you had thrown on the same oversized t-shirt from before and slid on a pair of lace panties.

“Not much indeed, what would you like to know?” Loki answered, his gaze locked on your thick thighs he desperately wanted around his face again.

“I.. uhm… everything?” You chance.

He laughs, your heart swelling at the sound. “We’ll be here for days, my darling,” he replies, stroking your cheek once more, igniting another fire through your stomach.

“I want to get to know you,” you whisper.

Grabbing his own glass of wine, he snuggles in next to you, adjusting his position to face you and resting a gentle hand against your arm. “Well I was raised on Asgard, as you know.” He pauses, hesitates before continuing in a soft voice. “But I was born on Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants.”

“Oh,” is all you can manage, shocked by the revelation. You had heard of the Frost Giants from Thor’s stories, but you never knew that Loki was one of them. If Thor had ever mentioned it, it certainly wasn’t when you were around. “What happened to your biological parents?” you ask, your voice barely audible.

“I know nothing of my birth mother, but my father is Laufey, King of the Frost Giants.” That made sense now that you thought about his last name; Laufeyson. The connection had never occurred to you before. Loki takes a deep breath, “Odin found me when he came to Jotunheim, waging war against the Frost Giants. I had been abandoned in a temple by Laufey, he had deemed me too small and weak to be a Frost Giant and had left me there to die. Odin brought me home and Frigga, my mother, raised me as her own, making sure my Frost Giant appearance remained hidden to others. She did it to ensure my safety. I was a child, and I didn’t understand why she would keep me away from a lot of people, or made sure I didn’t get in trouble, but also treated Thor differently. It was all to keep me safe... I miss her.” He whispers. You knew about the horrible fate Frigga had succumbed to. It had taken quite the toll on Thor, and you couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for Loki to lose his mother. He looks up at you, his beautiful green eyes filled with tears, pain and grief apparent in them. As a single tear falls down his cheek, you realize that this seemingly confident, strong man standing in front of you is still profoundly grieving the only being he truly loved and who truly loved him.

Putting your glass down, you reach over to grab his and set it on the coffee table. Slowly, you climb into his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into a deep embrace. His strong arms wrap around your waist as he pulls you even tighter to his chest, hiding his face in the crook of your neck as he sighs softly, whispering a low “thank you” against your skin. Pulling away, Loki cradles your face and gazes into your eyes before kissing you ever so softly. You whimper quietly in his mouth, drawing him closer and tightening your thighs around him. The kiss turns into one steamy and full of passion, every kiss he gives you surpasses the previous ones in intensity. It sends shivers down your spine as he runs his hands up your back and into your hair. You could stay here and kiss him forever. With a sigh, he pulls back gently, a quiet protest escaping your lips as he chuckles at your reaction. Blushing violently, you hide your face in his neck, muttering a sad “sorry”, which only makes him giggle harder.

“It’s okay darling, don’t apologize,” Loki whispers in your hair. “I just have to restrain myself, I could spend hours just tasting you.”

The sound of his deep voice as he whispers those words so close to your ear transforms you into a puddle in his lap and you hope he won’t be saying things like that again, or you’ll soak his pants.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” He asks, running his hand up and down your spine. “All I know is that you’re a teacher and you are friends with the Avengers. I want to know more about you.” He adds, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear as you turn your head up to meet his eyes.

“My life is pretty boring,” you chuckle. “Is there anything you want to know?”

Loki smiles at you and cradles your face. “I want to know everything.” You laugh before he adds, “why don’t we just start with your favorite food?”

“Uhmmm tough one…” you answer. “I really love sushi, it became my favorite when I moved to the city. But, my mother’s lasagna will probably always be my favorite.”

“You’ll have to make it for me then!” He says, all smiles.

“I would mess it up ! No, no way!”

“Well then, we’ll have to practice to make the perfect lasagna won’t we?” He says, playing with your hair. There’s that we again, you think.

“It’ll take years.” You chance, waiting to see what his answer will be.

“That’s okay.”

“What’s your favorite food?” You ask. “Is it some dish from Asgard?”

“No actually. It might shock you, but I love human food a lot more than Asgardian food.”

“There’s no way Loki!” You laugh. “How can our food be better than Asgardian food?”

“I don’t know,” he replies softly. “It just is. I absolutely love your food! And I do have a preference for pizza, if you couldn’t tell.” He adds, pointing to the box on the coffee table.

Laughter fills the room as you both sit up to grab a slice of pizza. You eat in silence for a little while, just basking in each other’s presence. Once you finish your slices, you lean back down against his chest, cuddling up in his lap.

“Can I ask you another question?” Loki whispers in your ear.

“Mmmhmm,” you nod softly.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 26,” you answer simply, shrugging your shoulders. “How old are you? I mean, do gods even age?”

“Yes”, Loki chuckles. “I do age, just extremely slower than humans... “ Pause. Hesitation? “I was born in 965 A.D.”

“WHAT?!” You shoot up in his lap as if someone had shocked you. “You were born in 965 A.D.?! But that would make you…” Your nose scrunches up as you’re trying to figure out how old Loki really was.

“1054 is the number you’re looking for,” he answers you. 1054 years old… that is… too many lifetimes.

“How… How does that translate in human years?” You whisper, still profoundly confused.

Loki sets you down gently on the couch next to him, and covers you up in the blanket you had discarded while climbing into his lap. “Well, it’s hard to really know how old I am in human years. Asgardians live for approximately 5000 years.” An audible wheeze escapes your lips as you take that in. Loki would outlive you. He would also forget you. “However,” he adds, wrapping his arms around you. “I’m not Asgardians, and I’m unsure on how fast the Frost Giants age. If I were to take a guess, based on my knowledge and research about my origins, I would say that I should be around 28 years old. But it’s really hard to tell, after all I’m younger than Thor by almost 500 years, and he would only be 25 years old.” You shake your head, trying to make sense of all the information that was just thrown at you. Thor was older, but acted - and was - only 25. Did that mean that technically, Loki was even more immature than his brother sometimes? He said he should be around 28, but was he really? Age was never really a big concern of yours. Obviously too young or too old wasn’t ok, but Loki was ancient.

“Does my age bother you?” Loki asks, and his worried tone snaps you back to reality.

“Oh!” you gasp yet again. “No… Not really. At least I don’t think so.” You answer honestly. “I thought you were older, but 1054 just took me by surprise... God, you’re really old Loki!” You say, laughing loudly.

“Yeah I know, my back’s been killing me lately too!” Loki says, following you in your laughter.

You keep laughing as you rest your head on his shoulder. What were you expecting? That he was the same age as you while he comes from a different planet and is a literal deity?

“If there is anything that bothers you about my origins, you would tell me, right darling?” Loki asks after your laughing spurt.

“Yes, of course.” You reply. There was so much you wanted to ask him about where he thought this - you two - was going, how he felt about you, but it was too early for that. You’d only kissed him a handful of times and had slept with him on an impulse. Not that you regretted it, no, never, but it was too early to think of you two as anything else than what you were in the present moment.

You shuffle around on the couch as Loki bends over to grab a slice of pizza and your wine glass, which he hands you. “Could I ask you a couple more questions about your life?” He asks politely.

You giggle as you nod your head.

“Tell me about your family,” he says.

You cuddle up next to him as you tell him about your younger sister and brother, how your parents are still as much in love as the day they met, how your entire family; aunts, uncles and grandparents, are all tightly knit. You tell him how your family is one of the most important parts of your life, how they have always supported you in any decisions you made. You start giggling as you tell him that your parents had even supported your decision of nursing a baby bird, that had fallen out of its nest, back to health when you were about 9 years old. Your mother had no idea how to properly feed a bird that young, or even what to feed it, but it didn’t stop her from doing research and helping you get that little baby back to its parents.

“You are so loving and compassionate,” Loki says, in a soft voice while staring at you with loving eyes. “I’m certain that you are an amazing teacher.”

“I truly hope so. I only want what’s best for my students.”

“I am positive that you are the best teacher out there. I’m curious, what made you decide to become a teacher?” He asks.

“I-I’m not sure... “ you answer. “I always knew that I wanted to help people. I could have become a nurse or a firefighter… but for some reason, teaching was always my calling. I used to help my siblings and the kids in the neighbourhood with their homework every week when I was younger. I guess I just always thought of myself as a teacher.” You add, shrugging.

Loki puts a gentle hand on your cheek, turning your face towards his and giving the softest and most passionate kiss yet. “You are truly amazing,” he whispers against your lips. A goofy smile spreads across your face as he praises you.

“What about you, always wanted to be a trickster,” you ask, winking at him.

“Oh, you think you’re funny! I should change you into a frog.”

“Oh my God no, please have mercy Loki, please!” You plead, moving away from him as quickly as you can.

“Too late!” He grabs you by the ankles and pulls you back towards him, trapping you in his arms. “Now you’re my prisoner, however, maybe I should keep you like this, I like you better as a human.” “What a compliment, O mighty Loki.” You tease him.

He starts laughing, as he pulls you in closer.

“You know, in the past, I would’ve given anything to hear people call me that... Not anymore.” He says, stroking your cheek. “You know... I regret my actions. I’ve come to the realization, in the last couple of years, that power was my way to feel retaliate. I thought that if I had power, I could be important, people would notice me like they noticed my brother. I was really angry with everyone, with the world, for what had happened to me as a child. I didn’t realize that my mother had tried to protect me, a baby that was brought to her quite unexpectedly. I was angry with Odin for treating me differently. I was angry with Laufey for abandoning me. I was angry with Thor for always seeming so perfect…” Loki pauses, taking a deep breath. “It wasn’t until after my mother’s death and I took my father’s throne,” he offers you a crooked, apologetic smile, “that I truly realized that power wasn’t what I thought it was, it wasn’t happiness. I had lost my mother, and I could never tell her how truly grateful I was that she had taken me in, loved me and raised me as her own. I have made my peace with my father and my brother, and I have been working relentlessly to make up for my past actions… But I know that trust, once broken, isn’t easily fixed.”

“You know,” you say, taking his face between your hands, forcing him to look into your eyes. “Everyone is deserving of a second chance.”

“But what happens if they mess up their second chance?” He whispers between your hands.

“Third time’s a charm,” you shrug. “I used to be angry at you Loki... for attacking the city, destroying homes… my home. B-”

“I destroyed your home?!” he interrupts you, sitting up quickly, pushing you to the edge of his lap. “How.. When.. I-I’m so sorry.” He adds, tears slowly filling up his eyes.

“It’s ok. I mean, I’m over it now… I think at the time it was harder because it was the first home I had ever purchased. But I had just moved in, barely any of my things were there. So I didn’t lose everything.” Loki looks at you in horror, you can see the pain in his eyes as you tell him how his attacks on the city affected you.

“I should leave,” he says, trying to lift you off of him, as you repeat over and over again that it’s ok. “You should not be here with me, I’ve hurt you. You should be angry with me. Why are you not angry with me?!”

“Loki,” you say, your tone firm, grabbing his face between your hands again. “It’s in the past. The house, it was just wood, something that can be rebuilt. I’m ok, my belongings are ok, I didn’t lose anything that was extremely important to me. A house is just a house.”

“No, it was your home.” He whispers, avoiding your eyes.

“You’re wrong,” you tell him softly, his eyes darting back up to meet yours. “My home is wherever and with whoever I choose it to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Loki says quickly before bringing your face to his and kissing you passionately. He keeps kissing you with more and more passion, whispering soft “sorrys” as his hands make his way up to your hair, fingers getting lost.

You moan softly as you bring yourself closer to him, slowly grinding your hips along his lap. He wraps one arm around your waist and pulls you in tight, deepening your kiss. You can feel him getting harder under you, pushing gently against you and making you so wet. In one quick movement, you’re on your back on the couch, Loki towering above you.

“I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you,” he says softly. “I know I can’t make it up to you, but I need you to know that I will try. I will beg for your forgiveness if that’s what it takes. You are important to me. I don’t know why, but I can’t stay away from you, I can’t stop thinking about you. I need to be close to you.” He adds before kissing you again, almost desperately this time, making you moan. You want him, you want all of him. You were mad, you were upset, but what’s past is past. And Loki seems genuinely sorry about his past, and you believe in second, even third chances. And right now, you just want his lips, his hands on you.

You wrap your arms around his neck as he kisses you, pulling him closer, needing his body against yours. Loki moves his lips to your neck, sliding his hands down the length of your body, grabbing your thigh tightly, a moan escaping your lips. You grind your hips up to meet him, rubbing against his erection. You want him inside of you, you want to feel him pulsing and throbbing as he makes love to you. Slowly, his hand that was groping your thigh moves to the inside of it, making its way to your panties. You feel him run a painfully slow finger along the lace of it, right over your needy clit and you gasp, begging him to just touch you. Pushing the fabric to the side, Loki starts drawing little circles around your clit as you pump your hips up, trying to get the friction you desperately need. He chuckles as he starts rubbing faster, and then he slides a long finger inside of your soaking folds, replacing his finger on your clit with his thumb. Catching your lips again, trapping your moans in your throat, he starts pumping his finger, getting faster and faster before he adds a second finger, driving you closer and closer to the edge.

“Fuck Loki, I’m gonna cum,” you moan out.

“Cum for me darling, cum around my fingers.” He groans at you.

His words alone push you over the edge and you whimper loudly as you cum all over his fingers, walls clenching down around him, your body shaking from your orgasm.

“Such a good girl,” Loki says, bringing his fingers to his mouth, tasting you.

With shaky legs, you stand up, stripping out of your shirt and soaked underwear. He looks at you with hungry eyes, devouring every inch of your body. He watches you as you kneel down between his legs, undoing his pants and sliding them off. His dick is bulging under his boxers and your mouth waters at the sight of it. Slowly, you reach for it, rubbing your hand along the length of it, Loki’s moan escaping his lips. He lifts his butt up for you to slide off his boxers, releasing his throbbing cock. Grabbing it in your hand, you stroke him slowly, licking the tiny bead of precum pearling at the tip, before licking the length of him, making him groan under your touch. Standing up, you straddle him on the couch, lining him up with your soaking cunt. Gripping your hips, Loki gently pulls you down on him, his thick cock filling you beautifully. You stay there for a second, savoring the feeling of each other, before you start to ride him slowly. Leaning his head back on the back of the couch, he moans as he grips your hips tighter, letting you ride him at your own pace. Leaning down to kiss his neck, you grind your hips on him, making him growl under you. You begin to ride him faster, harder, bouncing on his lap as his dick hits that spot inside of you that you didn’t know existed until tonight and you feel yourself getting closer as you ride him.

“F-Fuck, you’re so big Loki.” You moan, grinding your hips, looking for some kind of friction on your clit to get you off.

“Don’t talk like that, I- I won’t last.” He replies, his hand dipping in between the two of you, thumb starting to rub tight circles around your clit as if he understood your grinding.

“Oh fuck Loki!” You scream as his digit meets your tiny ball of nerves.

“I-I’m so close, don’t stop.”

Gripping your hips tighter with one hand and rubbing faster with the other, Loki brings you to your fourth orgasm of the night. You let out a choked out scream as you cum all over his dick, walls again clamping around him, and milking him as he cums with you. Slowly, you ride out your orgasms, holding each other close. Loki cups your face as your body starts shaking, and kisses you gently.

“You are amazing,” he whispers against your lips.

“I could say the same about you,” you whisper back. “However, I now need a shower.” You add giggling.

“I will take my leave then, give you some privacy.”

You flutter around him before any words leave your lips and he smiles at you, feeling you clench. “I don’t want you to leave.” You say.

“Alright darling, I won’t leave until you ask me to.” He answers, stroking your cheek and tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

Getting off of him and walking to your bathroom, you can’t help the smile that spreads across your face. Loki follows close behind and wraps his bare arms around your waist as you turn the shower on. Showering together, you keep teasing one another, lathering soap up excruciatingly slow, lingering touches, soft kisses. There’s a moment where he freaks out, turning almost hysteric, as he rubs soap between your legs, realizing that he came inside of you twice tonight. With a laugh, you reassure him that you’re on birth control and there’s very little possibility you’ll get pregnant. He let out the biggest sigh ever, telling you he should’ve been more careful regardless because he didn’t want to upset your life.

When you step out of the shower, you notice the clock for the first time that night and gasp at how late it is. Following your gaze, Loki apologizes for taking up so much of your time.

“Don’t you dare apologize, tonight was amazing.” You say, getting up on the tip of your toes to kiss him.

Wrapping his arms around you again, Loki kisses you back before whispering how the thought of leaving you tonight pains him.

“Stay,” you whisper back.

“Are you sure?” He asks.

“Yes.”

As you lay in your bed, Loki’s arms wrapped around you, you can’t help but feel at peace. You’ve never felt this happy before, never felt like you truly belonged somewhere. But in Loki’s arms, you feel complete and slowly, you drift off to sleep.

———

The sun coming through your window and warming up your face is what wakes you up the following morning. Loki’s arms are still around you and you can’t help but stare at his angelic face. His black hair all in disarray from sleeping with wet hair, his face relaxed with sleep, you could look at him forever. Glancing over his shoulder, you see that your alarm clock is showing 7:45am. You overslept! Classes start in an hour, and you need to be at school before 8:30.

“Loki,” you say, gently shaking him awake. “Loki, we need to get up. We overslept, I’m gonna be late for work.”

“Mmmm…?” He groans at first. “Oh! I’m so sorry!”

“Stop apologizing,” you laugh. “Just get your butt out of my bed.”

“Yes ma’am!” He says, shooting up and running to the living room to put his clothes on.

Rushing to your closet, you throw on your favorite dress with a pair of nylons and knee high boots before putting your hair in a bun and wiping the mascara from under your eyes. Thankfully, your makeup from the night prior wasn’t really smudged and was therefore acceptable for you to wear at work. Grabbing your glasses, you walk out to your living room to see Loki by the front door, with your bags in hand and a banana plucked from your kitchen counter along with your to-go coffee mug. You see the coffee machine is shutting off after use.

“Breakfast,” he says, waving the banana at you. “I’m driving you to school, so you can drink your coffee and eat.”

“Loki, you don’t have to.”

“I insist, you’re late because of me.” He argues. “Let’s go now!”

You giggle as you grab your coat and keys, locking your door and making your way to his car. The ride to school isn’t a long one and you chomp down your banana while he sings along to the music on the radio, making you smile.

As he pulls up in the parking lot, he tugs on your shirt, pulling you in for a soft kiss. Sighing against his lips, you wish you could stay with him all day. Loki gets out of the car and walks around to the passenger side to open your door.

Extending his hand to you, he helps you out of the car, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his chest. “Can I see you again tonight?” He asks, flashing you that smile that makes your inside twist.

“Not tired of me yet?” You giggle in his arms. “I would love to see you again tonight, but it’s test day today, which means I’ll have about 60 copies to grade tonight. My coffee machine will be working all night.” You add.

“How about I come to cook you an amazing dinner, which I promise won’t burn this time,” he winks at you. “I just want to make sure you eat a proper meal. I’ll leave afterwards if you don’t want me to stay, I promise.” He proposes.

“Uhmmmm….” You reply. “That does sound tempting. Pick me up at 4 then?”

“It’s a date darling.” Loki says, leaning forward to kiss your lips softly.

He grabs your bags out of the back seat and kisses you once more before letting you go. As you walk away, you feel an emptiness settle in the pit of your stomach. You can’t help but turn around to see Loki standing, driver side door open, watching you walk away from him. The way he’s looking at you, adoration in his eyes, makes you want to run back to him. This feeling between you, this attraction, this need to be with the other, it’s as if gravity itself was pulling you towards each other. Unexplainably, you knew, at that moment, that he was your world now, and you were his.

@kingtwhiddleston

#loki x reader #loki x you #Loki Laufeyson #loki fanfic #loki (marvel)#loki smut #marvel #marvel fanfic series #mcu #Avengers #tom hiddleston #reader insert #the green dress #green dress a story about loki

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