"I take back what I said the first time we met. I never could have been more wrong."
"Oh, and what would that be?"
"Every thing about you - every thing you do, or say, or even when you scrunch your nose when you don't really like something - just ma...
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"NO, IT'S ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, " ART deadpans. "The fuck do you think, kid?" I grin happily, leaving Paul's side. I walk over to Art, falling into the seat beside him without saying much else.
"How are you doing?" I ask after a few moments of silence.
"Same ole, same ole," he answers blandly, taking his time to look over me. "You're looking good, kid."
"Yeah, no thanks to you," I retort sarcastically. Suddenly, I'm taken aback when I feel his hands wrap around me in a welcoming, albeit awkward, hug. "I've missed having you around the ranch."
"You sure you don't mean Koda?" I retort.
"Eh," he shrugs. "Koda was always a good company." At the sound of his name, my dog comes bounding over, trying to lather Art in kisses and affection. "But I sure did hate it when he did that." I let out a loud, joyous laugh at the comment. "Although, you sure were a good source of comedy in my day-to-day life."
"You just liked watching as I tried to run around and corral the horses without aid."
"Yeah," he admits. "Yeah, those were good times." I snort in appreciation. I hadn't realized how much I had missed Art's sarcastic, sometimes snarky remarks. But now, having him around the bonfire with a group of people that I considered to be a new family, I couldn't fathom the idea of him not being here. But that posed a big question.
"Hey Art?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"What are you doing back? You told me you were never gonna come back to the Reservation." Art lets out a heavy sigh.
"You're really going in deep, quickly aren't you?"
"Always have," I admit unabashedly with a shrug. When Art opens his mouth to reply, the two of us are interrupted by a searing hot hand on my shoulder. "And this is?" The two of us turn slowly, looking up to the shadow that stood in Paul's place.
"Lahote," I smirk simply, watching as he cowers slightly under Art's intense gaze. "This is Art."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Paul answers, sitting down closely beside me and holding his hand out. Art pauses momentarily, almost as if contemplating whether or not to shake Paul's hand. With a small huff, he concedes, wrapping his rather old hand in Paul's massive, youthful one.
"You must be the anchor," he notes, looking Paul up and down a few times as if sizing him up.
"Yeah, uh, that's me," Paul agrees, nodding his head and looking around awkwardly. When I finally have enough of Art's cool demeanor, I crack a smile and begin to laugh. Soon enough, Art joins in, his cheery voice ringing around the fire pit.
"It's nice to know you don't only fuck with me," I note after we have finally calmed down.
"Oh, don't think so highly of yourself, kid," Art brushes me off. "I just have the most fun fucking with you."
"Of course you do," I grunt in amusement, not missing how his eyes twinkle in the light of the fire.
"And of course you're anchored to the shifter whose anger management issues rival only yours." At this, this, Paul and I both blush, smirking at each other for a few short moments.
We could only keep up the conversation for so much longer, especially as soon as Billy began to talk about the tribe's legends. When it came time to talk about the legend of the imprint, Paul and I pass a few too many indiscrete glances between one another. It left Art giggling like a schoolchild and me shoving him just slightly too hard. "You're an ass," I muttered under my breath at one point, to which Art only replied with a not-so-subtle wink. I scoffed playfully, rolling my eyes.
"Hey, Lahote!" Jared shouts, his voice was hushed. Paul turns slightly to face Jared, his hand finding a home on my thigh. Silently, Jared makes a whipping motion before wolf-whistling as he jokingly checks me out. As I try to hold in my laughter with Art, I notice how Paul gets more rigid. There begins to be a slight tremor in his hand, which only makes me clasp it with my own. But the longer Jared laughs for, the worse the shaking gets. He only begins to quiet down when Paul's shoulders begin to shake as well.
"Oi, Lahote," I say, standing up and dragging him along with me. "Cool off."
"Don't get involved, Swan," he mutters out through ground teeth. I couldn't help scoffing.
"Don't get involved?" I retort. "You're joking, right?" I sass, shoving him away from the fire and towards the woods. With the small shove, something else awoke in Paul, and it took over the man that had drawn me in and kept me calm. His anger began to fuel my rage.
"Swan," he warns, his voice a low growl.
"What?" I cackle. "You gonna wolf out cause you're friends being a little shit? Makes you that much more of a bitch; literally," I tell him sardonically. The winds began to pick up around us, and I saw, in my periphery, the bonfire growing larger and larger.
"He was out of fucking line!" Paul roars, pointing at Jared while his eyes never leave mine.
"He was JOKING!" I retort immediately.
"It doesn't fucking matter!" Paul snaps. "You're mine, not his!"
"Yours?" I ask incredulously. "Yours? What am I? Some goddamn possession to you?"
"That's not what I meant, and you know it!" He retorts, any trace of regret covered by his fury.
"Sure, Lahote," I mutter. "Cause you never mean anything to come out in an offensive or ridiculously possessive way."
"Oh fuck off, Josephine," he scoffs.
"Gladly," I answer, turning on my heel and walking back towards the now-silent crowd. "Let me know when you get your shit figured out." I send Koda short whistle, watching emotionlessly as he scampers over to me quickly. It was like he knew something was wrong. Maybe he could smell the metallic air, or maybe the little guy just knew. I grasped Art's shoulder affectionately as a goodbye before waving to everyone else. As I made my way off the property, I could still feel the heat of Paul's gaze on the back of my head. His contempt radiated off of him in waves. As a final goodbye to Paul, I stuck my middle finger up into the air. Taking long strides, I made it into my car mere moments before the animal inside Paul overtook his body fully. "Fucking prick."
<><><><><>
Hiya!
So it's three days late, yeah...
And I know it's not really happy.
But I feel like we need angry Paul, cause we haven't seen him yet.
I thought it would be interesting to have their emotions really bounce off one another, as opposed to them just making one another happy.
AKA, when they're calm or content, it gets amplified. But when they're mad, they both get furious very quickly. And since they both have a habit of anger/overreacting/being assholes, I figured that that should get amplified too.
Cause anything that can save you can also be your ruin ;)
