5SOS Book of Imagines

CTH // Black (6)

I felt something hit me so hard I fell over. It wasn't a bullet though, it was... somebody.

I heard my brother and Ashton shouting and grunting from meters away, the barely audible sound of blows of punches they were throwing at each other. They were there, which meant...

"Hey, are you okay?" the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the worry in Calum's brown eyes. "You aren't bleeding or hurt anywhere else, are you?"

I was rendered speechless at how concerned he looked, at how unbelievably soft and gentle his touch was when he examined my busted part below my eye.

"No," I was able to whisper.

"I'm sorry for pulling you in the mess of my life. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe. Stay here, okay? Let's get you out of these ropes," he hastily said, cutting the ropes with a knife on his hand.

"How were you able to get here so fast?"

"Your brother is fast too, he was able to distract and tackle Ashton while I was able to push you out of the way when he fired the gun at you. Thank Gods I wasn't a second late." He said, rubbing my wrists where there were reddish indentations from the ropes. He heaved me up and led me to the entrance.

"But Michael..."

"He can handle it, you know your brother, and I do, too. We both know Irwin's no match for him. Come on now." He wrapped his arms around my shoulder and we walked to his car, I see some of the people who were here when we came in all knocked out cold in the ground.

"You and Michael did all this?"

"They were lame warm-ups, barely took us a punch to knock each one out cold." I looked up at him and saw him wince when he tried to open his car door; I noticed that his shirt is still soaked in blood on the arm part.

"They weren't lame. They were able to injure you, stop acting all cool." I opened the door for him and rounded the other side to get in.

Once seated inside, there was an awkward silence.

"...I don't have first-aid stuff here, sorry..."

"It's okay." I said.

"...and, sorry again for getting you involved." I looked at him and see that he was staring on the steering wheel. I feel the uneasiness in his aura, like he wasn't used to apologizing like this—or to apologizing in general.

I stared at him, and for some reason, I find myself tearing the end of my shirt and reaching over to wrap it around his still bleeding arm. He flinched in surprise but let me. "In your world full of violence, pain, bruises and cuts, somebody should take care of you, right? I can be that person."

He said nothing; he just looked at me as I knotted the cloth firmly to stop his bleeding.

Few moments later we saw Michael walking out of the warehouse looking a bit worse than earlier but with a huge, triumphant smile on his face. As he approached the car, Calum started the engine. He looked over to me one last time and smiled a real smile, the one where his eyes crinkle at the edges—I could almost feel the happiness radiating out of him.

"Thank you for being that person then. Be warned though, because I'm gonna expect you to stay."

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