less like a man

Luke Caldwell. 28. Deputy. Grey Wolf. [ind ouat rp blog]

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

Her sly smile crept back in its seemingly rightful place as she slid into a seat with the widest view of the joint. Always cautious, always prepared. “Love, I have to, it’s just how my job is. I don’t work in the light, I work in the shadows- kind of like the very thing that’s wreaking havoc on your cozy little home.”

Taking a careful sip she leaned back, bright blue eyes pinned on him. “You ever wonder what goes bump in the night? Working in the shadows, can’t see it, can’t here it, can’t even feel it working against you until it’s near to late? You think you know, but you don’t. You’re in so far deep in it and you don’t even know it.”

“Your saying words that don’t make any sense there,” he commented, biting back the urge to walk away from her and her theatrics. There were plenty of them that came through his town, stirring up trouble before they ran right back out again, but instead, he wanted to know what was going on in her head as he took a stop across from her. “And if this is all you’re going to tell me, then you might as well tell me that I’m only wastin’ my time thinking you have something to do with any of this. People are dying and you’re talking about things that go bump in the night?”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

His anger was warranted, it wasn’t the first time she had made the decision to work step in step with some officer but she didn’t make it a habit either. When enemy slipped from his lips she turned her head, a sharp pointed look etched into her soft, normally collected features. “I’m not your enemy sweetheart and you want to know what the fuck is brewing right under nose? Follow me and keep yer voice down.” Grabbing her drinking she made her way to the darkest corner in the small dive bar she could find, anywhere away from prying ears.

Luke bit down on his tongue when she spit her words back at him, taking the drink he’d paid for with her as she moved to the other end of the room. He paid quickly before grabbing the second drink for himself and following her silently, watching the rest of the bar out of the corner of his eye before he loomed over the redhead that’d gotten under his skin almost immediately. “Do you always work like this? All cloak an’ dagger an’ expensive whiskey?”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

Glancing out of the corner of her eyes as he closed the distance, she pretended not to acknowledge the action as she stared into her nearly empty whiskey. “I know more than you’d ever think imaginable, the less you know the better but your sheriff have explicit orders that I don’t leave town and I’m in need of an accomplice. You want to help your people, then make a call. Are you in cowboy, or are you out?”

“That’s bull shit,” he nearly growled before he turned his attention back towards the bartender and ordered another drink for her while he stared at the half full glass in his hand. This was not how he worked but he’d seen what he couldn’t explain and had too many deaths already on his hands to stand aside and let some stranger waltz in with all the answers. “I want to know what is going on here.” His drink gone in one swift motion before he dropped the empty glass back down onto the bar. “And if that means working with the enemy, so be it.”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

“Believe it or not I’m not here to woo you under some table, I’m here for the greater good or what have you. If even your dimwitted colleagues know that something in your town is amiss then I can only imagine that you, yourself can put two and two together. Your people aren’t safe and I’m here to change that.” Her smile carried with it a remanence of deviousness, but it was muted by her piercing look and quiet tone.

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“And that,” he pointed out with a decisive move to close the space between them until he was up against the bar beside her, Luke changed his mind once again. No longer was it going to be a quiet night in the corner, mulling over what he couldn’t put together, and it all culminated with her. “That attitude right there is exactly why I know that you know more than you’re tellin’ and I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in my town with my people.”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

“Come now, what’s the worse that’s going ta happen? Whole town starts talking about how you’ve lost your wits and got smashed with a, whats that word again? Oh- criminal. You may get reprimanded but that’s the price for talkin’ business now isn’t it?”

“How much business are you lookin’ to talk with me over tryin’ to get me under the table by the end of the night? Don’t think that I don’t see right through you. Even if the rest of the force doesn’t think that there’s something up here, I know.”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

fatesbechanged:

“Were you just going to stand there starinin’, or are you planning on buyin’ a girl a drink?”

“That’s probably not the best idea considerin’ the circumstances. I also hadn’t realized they’d let you out already, that’s all.”

[fatesbechanged]

The roughness of his palm against her flesh stilled her, calmed the fire that raged just ever so slightly. “I can’t believe I’m goin’ to say this but…” His lips silenced her, brought her words to a halt though they lingered on the tip of her tongue as she brought her arms over his shoulders. “We can’t win them all.” Eyes cast upwards, she was determined to catch his own gaze with hers; he couldn’t let it go and as much as she couldn’t either it could mean the death of him. “And you can’t always protect me, it’s impossible, I’ll always be trouble.” It wasn’t a laughing matter, and she couldn’t even though she wanted to for any attempt to lighten the heaviness on their shoulders was needed.

[morelikeawolf-blog]

Luke wasn't at all prepared for what she was going to do or say next, never knowing exactly what she ever did when it came to them. They'd fight and bicker like an old married couple or spend ten years without so much as a word in edgewise towards each other. But now, he felt the warmth and comfort of her arms slipping around his neck and pulling him in close. It was an intimate moment that wasn't uncommon for the kids they'd been once but after everything they'd been through and the condition she know stood in      Luke hesitated before he look up and saw her eyes for the first time that night. They took his breath away, just like everything else about her. "But I'm always going to try." That much he could promise.

[fatesbechanged]

He couldn’t look at her, or he wouldn’t so she’d have to force him as she followed in his steps and broke and boundaries he may have been trying to put forth. “Look at me.” Her voice rough and forceful as she grabbed the collar of his uniform, fists relentless as she held strong, stronger than she felt in the days prior. “Yer not gonna lose me, you hear me? Yer not, not as long as we stay together.” There wasn’t a force on earth that would stop her, not after everything that had happened to them, not after the years spent apart and the time they’d spent trying to put it all back together again. “The only way I’m goin’ out of this world is old and in me sleep or a fucking blaze of glory with you by my side.” She gave him a sharp tug, her words as aggressive as her actions, she needed him to see, needed him to understand. 

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"Neither of those are going to happen today but you can't stand there and act like you know everything I'm feeling just by      " Compared to her anger that blazed through the both of them, Luke was far quieter, while some believed it to be softness around the edges, it wasn't that at all. Even the strongest blade needed a rock to sharpen it. That's how he fit against her as he reached up to run the pad of his fingers along the edges of her face, the bruises that sent shivers of pain and fury through him at not being able to protect her. "looking at you." He dropped his lips to press against her forehead, gentle as not to exacerbate anything she might have been feeling. "I failed to protect you. I failed to help you protect yourself."

[fatesbechanged]

"No what?" She nearly taunted, almost a threat as her voice rose only to crack under the pressure that had been suffocating them for the past few days. He wasn’t the only one that wanted retribution, wanted to see them burn for what had happened but she could only see the worse. She could only see death/ "If you go, I go." She crossed from the door to right before him, fire and eagerness in her eyes that seemed to snuff out her fear if only for a moment. "You can’t just take on the world without me, understand love? You can’t just waltz out that door and expect me not to follow cause it ain’t gonna happen. It’s always been you an I, even when it wasn’t, it still was. You go and so do I, if you stay, do I. Get that through yer thick fuckin’ skull Luke. I’m done playin’ chance with fate, it’s in our hands now. Not theirs." She’d fight him every step of the way, and she knew he’d let her as much as he’d cave. he couldn’t fight her forever.

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"No, you're not going with me." He nearly growled the words, matching the challenge in her voice that rose to meet his own body that refused to back down despite knowing that's exactly what he would do. For as long as he could remember, it'd always been the two of them until it wasn't. Now they were in some kind of middle ground where one wrong move could send them down a path he didn't wish to visit again, not without her. "I- I wouldn't know what to do if I lost you again," the honesty hidden only by the fact that he still didn't meet her eyes before taking a step back. After seeing her in that way, the black and blue bruises that covered her skin, it cost him more than the bullet wound that scarred up his shoulder.  

[fatesbechanged]

She knew that when he looked at her, he saw failure, not once but twice as the blackened flesh around her hadn’t healed quite yet, nor the split in her and the splatter of bruising along her arms. As much as she couldn’t shake it from her memory, that night in the garage she knew he couldn’t either, that he wouldn’t so long as Nikolai Kharkov and Ellis Castor still breathed. He wouldn’t forgive and he wouldn’t forget, as much as it was in her nature it was in his as well. “If you go who knows what the hell will happen to ya, you go and you won’t come back and if ya do it’ll be in a body bag and I’m not gonna let that happen. Cuff me to the bed if ya have to, but I’m not letting you leave this house without back up.”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"I won't let that happen." He wouldn't. Even though he knew that he couldn't control his fate, let alone what would happen to him the moment he went through that doorway but if she thought that he could stand by and let what happened to her be unaccounted for - it was as if she were asking him to stop breathing. But there she stood, asking something more that. Luke dropped his head, taking another deep breath that reverberated throughout him and let the exhaustion he'd been fighting be felt as well as seen by the lines on his face and the lack of sleep he'd been getting in the past few days. "Mia, no.."

[fatesbechanged]

"I don’t care if it’s ‘fine’ er whatever, yer not goin’ and that’s final." A part of her knew she couldn’t truly stop him but she didn’t want him going, Humbert or Swan could do it, it didn’t have to be him and she wouldn’t admit it, not aloud and not to him, but a part of her was scared for what waited for him out there.

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"It's not fine. Nothing about this is fine." His voice shook with anger, directed more towards himself than her as he ran a hand through his hair before meeting her hard glare once again. "Every time I look at you I see what I wasn't able to prevent because I was healing up and resting my arm. It's working well enough to do what I need to do. Mia, please don't ask me to stay. You know      " He would stay. He'd hate her for it but he'd listen, unable to help himself when it came to her wishes but he needed to do this as the anger continued to boil through his body.

[fatesbechanged]

"I’m tellin’ ya, you shouldn’t go. Not alone." Mia huffed, arms folded across her chest and a look that screamed ‘cross me if you dare’ as she refused to move out from in front of the door. "You’ve barely healed up and now yer goin’ out there to act like dome big damn hero, more like a fuckin’ idiot if ya ask me." 

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"Mia," he breathed into the sigh at seeing the fiery redhead standing between him and his job. She wasn't wrong but that didn't change the fact that he had to go. "I can't stand here and do nothing. I can't leave other people out there up against something they're not prepared for while I heal up. My arm is fine."

[fatesbechanged]

"Almost....got it...."

[fatesbechanged]

Looking down at watch that was too large for her own wrist, she noted when the second hand passed zero and then nodded at him. Her challenging smile growing even larger, “That’s already 5 seconds, tick-tock.”

[morelikeawolf-blog]

He shook his head, not liking the fact that he couldn't stop himself from stepping further away from her but unable to let her win, not again. "Don't say I didn't tell you so when they're gnawing on your pretty face," he told her, taking a few more steps back.

[fatesbechanged]

"Almost....got it...."

[fatesbechanged]

"Alright." Hopping down the the last brach, Mia landed right behind him with a half smile on her lips and dirt on her cheeks. "I’ll wait right ‘ere princess,  tell me when to start counting."

[morelikeawolf-blog]

Luke held his breath when she jumped down to the ground beside him, settling for a half grunt before he let a small smile escape at her. "Alright," he echoed. "Start now and I'll see you when I see you next. But don't come chasing after me when the walkers start breathing down your neck."

[fatesbechanged]

"Almost....got it...."

[fatesbechanged]

"You wouldn’t, not a chance in hell. You’d march yer merry way for about a foot before yer guilt would take over and then you’d march right back ‘ere. In fact I’d bet my dinner on it-"

"And see, done, so you can quit yer bitchin’."

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"Try me and see."

"I'll quit when we're back at the camp."

[fatesbechanged]

"Almost....got it...."

[fatesbechanged]

"All it’s gonna do is put you in an early grave if you keep it up, we’re young, we got plenty o’ luck on our side. That and I’ve saved yer ass plenty of times, or lest you forget?"

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"An ass that would have been safe if it weren't for you puttin' it on the line in the first place. So don't think I'm going to stand around here and keep puttin' it out there for you. I won't. One day      one day, Miles, I'm going to leave you out here on your own and see how long you last without me making you come back before we both end up dead."

[fatesbechanged]

"Almost....got it...."

[fatesbechanged]

"Oh come on Luke, you can’t seriously tell me you don’t mind gettin’ out o that stuffy camp. You’re such a worry wort, you know that?"

[morelikeawolf-blog]

"I didn't say that, now did I? And my worrying has done us a lot of good seein' as we're both still breathing. Even if you like to make sure that I have to work twice as hard at dong just that. Can't you move at least a bit faster, for me?"