Tom Hardy Character Imagines

In The Still Of The Night- Forrest Bondurant x OFC

The air was still and the hour was late. Forrest treasured this time; the minutes before bed spent in quiet, lone contemplation. Tonight though, it seemed that his peace was to be disturbed if the quiet footsteps on the loose floorboard behind him were anything to go by.

"What'chu doing outta bed?" he grumbled, not bothering to turn around and instead simply wait.

"Daddy, how did you know I was there?" came a little giggle followed by the appearance of a small girl in her nightdress and her dark hair, which was earlier on braided neatly for sleep, somewhat of a mess, all frizzy and sticking up everywhere.

Forrest didn't reply; just waited as she climbed up onto his knee and wrapped her arms around his neck, smiling with gap teeth from where the two front ones at the top had recently fallen out and new ones were yet to grow in. She might have been his daughter but with her impish grin and her missing teeth, she looked just like Howard when they were children and it was peculiar to see.

"Why aint chu in bed?" Forrest asked again, his voice gruff but his eyes soft upon his daughter as she nuzzled against him.

"I got scared," she mumbled.

"Of what?"

"Ghosts," she whispered.

"Mmhmm," Forrest sighed, ready to berate Jack in the morning for all of the silly spooky tales he had told over dinner to his niece, who acted far older than her actual age of five. "Well you know ghosts aint real, don't chu?"

"They aint?" she lifted her head from where it lay against his shoulder and frowned, the expression making his lips twitch with a smile because now she looked just like her Mama who was sleeping upstairs with the baby.

"Course not," he murmured in a voice that brokered no argument.

"Then why's Uncle Jack tellin' me he seen 'em?" she asked.

"'Cause he's plain silly," he answered firmly. "And he's gon' be in trouble when I see him."

"Are you gon' whoop his butt, Daddy?" the glee in her voice made Forrest narrow his eyes at her playfully.

Giggling that sweet little sound that had no business making his heart clench the way it did when he heard it, she snuggled up closer to him, pressing her face against his chest and gripping at his cardigan with one small hand while the other went to her mouth so that she could suck her thumb. He knew he should take her hand away and remind her what her Mama always said about not wanting her to have crooked teeth but he didn't.

"If you's scared then how come you didn't go to your Mama?" Forrest asked. "How come you came all the way down here in the pitch dark instead of the bedroom right next door?"

"'Cause I wanted you, Daddy," she said, her voice sounding tired and her breathing growing steadier as he wrapped his arms around her. And before he knew it she was fast asleep.

Forrest stayed there for a while, the sound of her even breathing as peaceful as the chirp of the crickets or the howl hooting occasionally in the tree behind the Station.

"Why ain't chu in bed?" he asked when his peace was disturbed once again.

His smiling wife came into view; her long waves so dark against the pale blue of her thin dressing gown.

"I's waitin' for you," she murmured, her hand reaching out to ghost over her daughter's messy hair and then moving to cup Forrest's cheek gently. "Remember when she was a baby and the only way she would sleep was with one of your cardigans in the crib with her?"

"Mmhmm," Forrest nodded.

"Want me to carry her up to bed?"

"No I'll do it," he mumbled, standing to his feet with a groan, shifting his daughter in his arms as though she was a baby again.

He waited for his wife to lock the door and then he followed her up to bed, pretending that the soft sway of her rounded hips as she climbed the stairs didn't affect him; didn't make him pray that tonight was the night the baby might finally sleep through so he could touch his woman properly for the first time in weeks.

Placing his daughter in her bed, Forrest pulled up the pink coverlet and tucked her in like his own Mama used to do with him. She'd pack him in tight so he could barely move and he'd always feel safe.

Unbuttoning his cardigan, he pulled it off and placed it down on the pillow right next to her head, unable to hold back a smile when she reached for it in her sleep and held it to her like one of her teddy bears. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead in a good night kiss, and just as he made it to the door he heard her quiet words.

"I ain't scared no more, Daddy. G'night."