SIX PART TWO
"You're sure you're okay with this?" Eden had already asked the question. If she'd asked it once she'd asked it ten times, actually. She saw him tense just a little and after she murmured a quiet apology, she went silent on him. Focusing on assembling one side of the tent frame and she swore under her breath when she managed to catch her finger between two pieces of aluminum pipe and it pinched painfully.
Paul stopped what he was doing and glanced at her. He motioned for her to come over to him so he could look at her finger and he teased with a smirk, "Ya know you're kinda fuckin clumsy."
"Definitely heard that more than a few times. I prefer to think of it as skill because it takes some serious skill to choke on air, fall up a flight of stairs or trip over nothing." Eden shook out her finger and hoped that the sharp throb would go away soon. "I forgot how much it burns when you catch your finger between something, shit."
"Let me see it." Paul was doing it again, taking that firm tone with her. Eden gulped and squirmed around a little under his demanding gaze and she shook her head, insisted "It's fine. I'm fine. We need to finish setting this up because you need sleep. For tomorrow."
Eden spoke in a rush and her words tumbled out over each other. And as soon as she'd said it, she was silent again. Trying her best to go above and beyond not to further annoy the temperamental shifter sitting across from her any more than she probably already had just by simply being underfoot.
Paul pulled himself off the ground where he'd been sitting and wandered over. He flopped down next to her and before she could squirm away or move, he'd grabbed hold of her hand and he was looking at the reddened fingertip. He glanced up at her and gave her a taunting smirk. "You're gonna live. It'll probably stop burning and throbbing in a second or two, but hold this to it." Paul told her as he grabbed for his cold bottled water.
"I, yeah. I knew that, but thanks." Eden took the bottle and held it against the tip of her finger. The conversation died down again and she went back to assembling the last small section of aluminum tent poles.
Paul told himself to stop doing it and he tried more than one time to actually make himself focus more on re-assembling their tent in it's new spot than watching her, but he failed miserably. It only made him more irritable with himself.
Without looking up he told Eden calmly, "If I weren't okay with moving the tent I wouldn't have suggested it to begin with. Between the weird tension between your sister, her leech and Jacob and the whole situation an hour ago, kinda just wanna get away from all of 'em, ya know?"
"You noticed it too, huh?"
Paul chuckled. "Kind of hard not to. Then there's the fact that Jacob's so damn bitter about the way everything is going that all of us are subjected to his internal monologue any given moment.. Yeah, it gets real old."
"So you guys can like… You can hear each other's thoughts?" Eden asked as she tilted her head slightly and gazed at Paul while he wasn't looking or paying attention and she felt she could safely get by with doing so.
"That is literally the worst part about what I am. One of 'em, anyway."
Eden leaned in a little. Tucking her knees to her chin as she gazed at him intently. She asked a second or two later, "What's the other?"
Paul hesitated.
" I used to think it was the whole imprinting thing." he finally answered, shrugging. Tensing visibly enough he knew he couldn't possibly hide it if he tried. He hoped against hope she wouldn't ask anything else about it, but he also wasn't about to hold his breath either.
"Okay, I think I remember the legends about it. That's where the wolf chooses it's person or whatever, yeah? I'm sorry, I was just curious." Eden babbled, going quiet as soon as she'd asked the second question. Just the way he kept getting tense should've been a clear enough indication for her that she needed to back off but no, apparently she just wasn't going to be happy until the guy wasn't simply annoyed by her mere presence anymore and he actually came away hating her too.
She wanted to kick herself for prying. It wasn't her business.
"Yeah, basically." Paul finally answered. "Why do you always do that, huh? You're always apologizing." he gazed at her in concern. Eden shrugged. Dragging a stick through some dirt near her feet as she did her best at staring a hole through the ground around her.
"I don't know?" Eden finally answered. Tension filling her body. She should've just stuck to being invisible and quiet. Or better yet, she should've just stayed home altogether.
The thought came and she sighed and shook her head. Going back to using the stick in her hand to doodle in the dirt by her feet.
"I get it, though. I don't know if I'd like having the freedom to choose taken away from me either." the words were followed by a short laugh as she added under her breath, "though it's honest to god the only way I'd ever actually be chosen, I think.." before tacking on so that he could hear her, "Yeah, I get it. I'd hate that part too because I'd always wonder if it was forced or real... But hey, at least if or when it happens, you don't have to worry about being lonely. My takeaway from the legends, at least as I heard them when Bella and I were smaller, was that whoever the wolf decides on is basically like a companion? And friends.. Those aren't so bad."
Paul eyed her, a brow raised. Trying to wrap his head around what she'd muttered under her breath thinking he couldn't hear or forgetting that thanks to him being a shapeshifter, he happened to have pretty damn good hearing. He chose not to say anything to reveal that he'd heard her, but it did kind of dwell in his mind after she said it. It made him wonder why she'd even think it in the first place. If she had half a clue, the temperamental shifter found himself thinking, she'd run for the hills. She already acts like she's scared to even breathe around me, that is when she's not purposely trying to do exactly the opposite of what I tell her.
"Yeah, friends isn't so bad." Paul muttered after a few seconds. "But there's a lot more to it than that. Pretty sure Jacob's dad didn't tell you and Bella everything when he told the story."
"Okay, then what else is there?" Eden leaned back, crossing one leg over the other as she gazed at him intently. For whatever reason, the question seemed to make him squirm around a little. If he were the kind of guy to be bothered to get nervous, she'd almost say he seemed as if he were nervous when she asked.
But he wasn't the kind of guy who got nervous. Eden actually kind of secretly envied the way it seemed as if nothing ever bothered him unless he was pissed off. She tried to do the same but more often than not, she wasn't the best at it.
Or she felt as if she wasn't, most of the time.
"Do you really wanna know?" Paul chuckled quietly as he asked the question. Smirking at her as his stomach churned and he felt like his throat might close up at any second. He found himself wishing he'd just shut down the damn conversation before it ever got this far. He wasn't fit to explain everything, the thought came solemnly, you're honestly not fit to be bonded to her, she's nearly gotten attacked twice now because you're an idiot.
"I think? I.. I don't know." Eden questioned, going quiet again. Staring at the blades of grass bordering the dirt she sat on. She shivered and hugged the plaid shirt Paul had pretty much thrust at her earlier in the night tighter to her body for warmth.
"You asked for it." Paul said it before he could stop himself. As long as he didn't reveal the fact that she was his imprint, he figured, it was okay to at least tell her this much. Get her used to the idea as opposed to dumping it all out at one time.
She'd already had a lot dumped on her already and just the reminder had Paul glaring in the direction of the tent her sister was sharing with that fucking leech she called a lover and her little boy toy Jacob Black.
Paul tore his gaze off of the tent and shifted it back to Eden. Taking a deep breath. "It's friends, yeah, but also, it's just being whatever your imprint needs most at any given time." he dragged his hand over his head and took another deep breath as he continued, "Things get a lot more.. Ya know… serious."
Eden couldn't manage to pull her eyes out of the depths of his. She nodded, uncrossing and recrossing her legs as she muttered hastily, "Yeah. I mean, I get that. Emily and Sam are… Aren't they? And they're engaged or whatever, so that uh.. Yeah, that makes sense." she could feel her cheeks catch fire as she said it. Or fumbled around at saying it.
The same as Paul had.
"You said you used to think it was the imprinting thing. Did that change?" Eden asked, barely able to make herself look at him as she asked. Overwhelmed by this surge of stupid jealousy over the fact that he might well have an imprint. Then the guilt after when the thought surfaced And no thanks to my sister's bullshit and the fact that somehow I'm apparently leech bait when I don't wanna be, he can't be with her right now. Christ. No wonder the guy's annoyed by just my presence. - guilt that she quickly attempted to bury because she knew in her gut she had to be right about it, because everything about the way Paul acted around her screamed total annoyance.
"I don't know." Paul couldn't think of an answer at first, so he finally settled for that one. Because on the one hand, it was changing more and more the longer he got to have any form of contact with her. Then those old doubts all came rushing back and he'd feel like maybe it was just best he never told her.
If she never knew, he couldn't ever really lose her. Because you can't lose something that was never yours to lose to begin with.
It made more sense immediately after he imprinted her than it did to him now. And the constant internal conflict was driving him right up the damn wall.
"Oh. I just thought maybe you'd imprinted or whatever and it had."
Paul swallowed hard. It took literally everything in him not to answer her and tell her that he had. The harder he fought to keep it silent and buried, the harder the wolf within fought for him to tell her and reveal himself. And then, something about her tone hit him. Wait.. she sounded kind of upset.. Does that mean she doesn't like the thought I might have?.. Shit. Nope, no and no. I am not going to go down this road. I'm fighting this.
The opposite thought surfaced and he wanted to bang his head against a nearby tree trunk when it did, But I know deep down that Sam's right. There's really not much more fighting I can do. It's driving me fucking insane. And there's so many little things she's said tonight that I'm literally dying to correct..
Eden pulled herself off the ground. "C'mon. We might as well get a little sleep." she muttered quietly as she nodded towards the tent and bent, grabbing her red and black plaid sleeping bag, wrapping it around her like a plaid cocoon. She wandered into the tent and got herself situated in the sleeping bag.
She heard Paul when he wandered in, but she pretended to be asleep. With everything going on in her head, it was just so much easier that way.
She burrowed down into the bag, and wiggled around.
Despite knowing what he was thinking about doing was probably a stupid idea, Paul moved himself a little closer to her and put at least half of his thick blanket over her because he saw her sort of hugging herself against the cold. Then he awkwardly slipped an arm over her and tried to attempt sleeping.
When she turned over facing him, she snuggled closer. Paul's entire body tensed and his eyes popped open. He let out a quietly grumbled "Fuck" that sounded more like a growl than him actually speaking as soon as he realized that she was out like a light. Snoring quietly.
And try as he might, he couldn't actually get himself back to sleep. He kept lying there and thinking back over every new little tidbit she'd revealed today, from the obvious to the things he sensed that she kept hidden from pretty much everybody.
Defense mechanisms, same as his own.
And he couldn't help but wonder while lying there so close to her, just how much he really wanted to fight the imprint bond.
He needed her.
She needed… Someone.
,, but you? The loud one, the mean one, the one with a hair-trigger temper? Slow your roll. She probably doesn't even want you, hell, she acts like she's terrified of you most of the time. Or annoyed by you." the rebuttal came like usual, but this time, he found it a lot easier to shake than it should have been.
Paul Lahote was on thin ice. Ice that was cracking more and more with each second spent around her.
[ post script ] EEEE! Oh my gosh oh my gosh, thank you so much! I can't wait to read the next part of The Life of Rosalie Hale, MysteryFan1997! I'm loving it, okay? I'm really, really, really, really emphatically loving it. Thank you so much QueenOfGoodbyes, I'm so glad you liked the parallels instead of opposites approach! Thank you! And to the guests who keep telling me they love each new part and they love that it's a slow burn, I love you guys so freaking much I s2g. All the comments have me like over here glowing with happy and I want to share it with all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This is like a continuation (an hour or so after the previous chapter ended) and I think there are probably at least two more parts left to this particular segment in the story and then we'll finally be all past the newborn army drama and the story will shift back to more of Eden and Paul only and not so much everyone else as much. I'm so excited for this to take shape because I'm going to be real here I've basically just been going off of a half planned outline I made after I posted the first chapters.
Hope you all enjoy this!