the wayward kind still love deep
summary: Smoke returns to the Delta after years of war and silence, he seeks the woman he never stopped loving, but the past, both sweet and bitter, won’t let them move on without a fight. (angst, longing)
pairing: smoke x black plus sized!reader, platonic!stack x reader
warnings: cursing, mentions of war, sexual tension and suggestive content.
author's note: I haven't written fanfics since my Team Mindless days, but I'm a Mississippi girl obsessed with Sinners and decided to give it a go...be easy on me. will definitely continue this. Also, a comma hates to see me coming, so ignore any improper punctuation and typos. This was one of those do it scared moments lol
Nothing prepared her for the light rapping against her window shutters before dawn that morning. She leaned bleary-eyed over the windowsill trying to make sense of the dark figure gazing up at her from the dewy ground below her window. The cicadas were still screeching their nightly song, and lightning bugs flitted here and there. Once her eyes acclimated to the inky darkness she knew instantly. Felt it in her bones. Felt it in the thump-thump-thump of her heart against her ribcage. It was Elijah…or “Smoke” now, she supposed. Some time around their thirteenth year, she watched the light leave Elijah’s eyes. She noticed the way the smooth brown surface of his face became a brick wall not even she could penetrate. Smiles were few and far between, laughter even more rare. That was Smoke. The Elijah she knew was foolhardy and goofy, the first to crack a joke or play a prank with his other half—the easygoing and charming Elias, or “Stack” now. Yes, the Moore boys were men now and with that came new identities and an air of mystique that alienated them.
“Smoke?” She called out cautiously. She knew it was him. Of course, she knew it was him. She’d bet her left pinky toe on it, but the question was more of a inquiry about what the hell he wanted with her at the ass-crack of dawn after seven years of silence.
“Yeah it’s me honey. Come fishin’ wid me,” he called back plainly. Like it was normal. Like it was broad daylight. Like it wasn’t THE ASS-CRACK of dawn.
“So I s’pose them German trenches an’ Chicago gangways finally rid ya of whatever lil sense ya did have Lijah, huh?”
“So I s’pose ya want me tuh make a scene in fronta God and evr’ybody, huh?” He retorted easily, and she had no doubt he would make good on his promise. She kissed her teeth and stepped away from her window.
He sighed audibly as he saw the light from her oil lamp wash her room in golden light. Smoke swore to himself if he ever came back to the Delta for her that he would come proper. Ask her family for her hand and do all the typical gentlemanly shit. And there would be time for that, but he and Stack had just rolled into town an hour ago under the cloak of darkness with stolen money, beer, wine, and enough stories to fill a library. He wasn’t feeling too gentlemanly. He wanted—no—needed to see her as soon as the tires on the truck crunched to a halt at the gravel fork in their shared road. He would make an honest woman out her if that’s what she wanted, but for tonight, all he wanted to do was sneak off into the night like they used to do before all of this. Before he was one half of the notorious SmokeStack twins, before he was drafted to fight for a country that spit in his face when his shiny boots reconnected with the soil that was made of him and held his mother and father. Smoke shoved his trembling hands into the rough tweed of his neatly tailored pants and felt around for a cig to calm his nerves. As he flicked the lighter, she emerged from the house looking more beautiful than any woman had a right to look before the first tinges of daylight threatened the horizon. His heart slammed in his chest. His girl, in the flesh. Not in a fleeting fever dream under the barrage of artillery, not in the hazy memory of a daydream before running a play. She stood before him, all woman, every luscious inch of her. His eyes raked over her possessively, committing this new iteration of her to memory for later…hopefully there would be no need for later. She was all legs and mouth last time he saw her, but in his absence she had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Filled out was too loose a description for the way she had transformed over these past seven years, and he felt the male parts of him stirring at the thought of what other parts of her had matured while he was away. He shook his head to banish the thought, hopefully there would be need for that later. She cocked her head to the side, curls spilling from beneath a bandana she tied around the front of her head, a mild flash of annoyance in her eyes.
“An’ how ya figure we gon’ fish with no poles or bait Elijah?” she rasped sleepily, looking around him for evidence of fishing materials and tutting when her suspicions were validated.
“Yo Pa still keeps some fixins in the shed, right?” he said back hopefully, watching as she turned on her heels and switched toward the back of the house muttering under her breath.
“Good God a’mighty,” he groaned just low enough for her to faintly make out.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that Lijah, ‘fore I knock da fire from ya mannish ass,” she spat over her shoulder before gesturing at him to help her open the rickety shed door.
After grabbing what they needed, they set off toward the creek on at the back of her family’s property. Their spot. An uncomfortable silence enveloped them as the meandered through the dark, the cacophony of the Mississippi countryside punctuating their steps as the full moon overhead washed everything in a dreamy milky haze.
“I must be dreaming,” she thought to herself, “Surely I fell off that mare yesterday, and I’m laid up in my mama’s bed hallucinatin’.”
“Where Stack?” She finally asked after several minutes of tense silence. She didn’t miss the quick smirk at the mention of his brother. Still partners in crime.
“Restin' back at the house. Surely he’ll wait and come pay ya a visit at a more respectable hour, unlike his uncouth pig of a brother,” he joked back easily, and she found herself smiling despite herself.
She had missed him—both of them. For their early childhoods they were inseparable. As time went on, and life got rough, she and the twins clung to each other. When Smoke was eventually drafted and Stack joined him in service voluntarily, it wounded her. She was unsure how she would continue without their company. Her days were filled with chores around the farm, learning roots at the feet of her mama, and missing the Moore boys somethin’ fierce. She’d send many a letter by Lil Sammie, hoping they made it all those miles away to them, but aside from a short postcard from Stack from Paris, she didn’t hear a peep.
“An’ why couldn’t ya wait, Smoke?” She asked stopping to square her shoulders in his direction. He removed his cap and rested it against his chest. Her breath caught at the serious gaze in his eyes, the moonlight fanning out over his lashes that seemed to stretch further than any cotton field she’d ever seen. His jaw jumped in the way it only did when he had something to say and didn’t know how to spit it out.
“Cause I missed ya honey, an’ I couldn’t go another minute without layin’ eyes on ya,” he replied frankly, not daring to break eye contact. So there it was. The perfect words…six years too late.
“It only took ya half a decade to say that, Elijah. What in the hell that s’posed tuh do fuh me now? I’m happy. Livin’ my life. Don’t come disturbin’ me now cause ya figured out whatever is out dere in dat big wide world of your’n ain’t shit,” she spat back through hot tears.
You could say many many things about the twins, but you can’t say they didn’t have audacity. Ever since they were boys, they bent the world around them to their will. They walked like God sewed gold into the seat of their britches, and they helped him hang the stars with their own hands. Damn her if she didn’t believe it herself for a while. That was before she met Titus. Now, she didn’t especially love Titus, but she liked him just fine. He was kind, thoughtful, and sensible. He wanted a simple life with her and maybe a few kids, maybe not. What more can she ask for? Not this, this being jerked around by Elijah. Yes she still loved him, never stopped and probably never will, but he wasn’t the marrying kind.
“I know, baby. I know. I got all ya letters from Sammie. I still have every single one. They kept me from losin’ my good sense over there in the war. Knew I had someone waiting on me tuh git back, knew I had somethin' tuh live for,” he cooed lowly, stepping forward to envelop her into an embrace.
She jumped back like he was a scalding hot pot. Just like that, the cage of his countenance returned, and he continued stomping toward the creek.
“Knew ya weren’t gon’ be my biggest fan darlin’ but damn. I expected a warmer reception than dis heah,” he spat bitterly, shaking his head adorned in immaculate waves.
“Well damn, Smoke. What did ya really expect? I wrote cha fuh years, waited on ya fuh years. Didya think time stops fuh Elijah Moore?”
He stopped in his tracks and spun around quickly.
“Nuh uh, never, but I thought it might fuh us,” he said simply before stopping down by the creek bank and unceremoniously dropping their poles and bait.
“At any rate princess, somethin’ made ya saddity ass come out tuh come fish wid me, so might as well enjoy the moment, huh?” He grumbled before lighting another cigarette.
“Fuck ya, Elijah Moore,” she said, jutting her chin forward, white hot shame blooming in her chest. He was right, he still had a hold on her and even though she wanted to hate him, wanted to tell him to take a long walk off a short ledge, she knew she would do anything to share this moment with him.
“If only I was that lucky, baby.”
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
