Prompt: "I don't want to love you, actually. I really don't."
Paul Lahote/Rachel Black
"I don't want to love you, actually. I really don't." Her words are soft, barely audible above the quiet hum of the television playing some late-night show, but Paul hears them regardless. Paul hears everything.
"Do you want me to leave?" he asks. He'd leave if she wanted him to. He'd do anything for her, anything at all, with just a snap of her fingers.
"No," she says, frowning. "I don't, and that's the problem. You shouldn't be here, in my bed, and I shouldn't want you to stay. It's wrong."
He reaches his hand out to envelope hers, entwining his broad fingers with her freezing digits. She's right, he thinks, and the truth hurts. He doesn't deserve her, he isn't enough to make her stay in La Push for more than a week, and the realisation that she'll be gone tomorrow is like a bucket of ice water washing away his satisfied mood. He rolls over to face her, placing one hot palm against her face.
"You don't have to love me. You can leave tomorrow and never talk to me again if that's what you want. Whatever you want," he murmurs, doing his best to hide the way his heart is being cleaved in two. Being without her is the real problem, but he's seventeen and broke and she's a fully-fledged woman, away at college, doing something better than being here with him. He wishes he could be different for her, that he could be more of a man and less of a beast, if only to win her heart for more than a weekend.
She's silent for a long while, eyes closed tight, and he starts to think she's drifted off to sleep before she finally speaks. "Paul...I want you to stay tonight. I don't want to love you, I don't want to stay here, but I do. Just stay for tonight, please."
He hums in agreement, wrapping his arms tighter around her as she curls up beside him, and at least for tonight, he can pretend that she's going to stay with him. Tomorrow will be a new day, a day where she packs up her things and waves goodbye at the SEA-TAC departure gates, but for tonight he can pretend that they're something more; he can pretend that the imprint was right. Most of all, he can pretend as if Jake isn't going to tear into him the second Rachel's gone, ripping and gnawing away at his skin like the bond's wearing away at him from inside his body. Being with Rachel is an exercise in pretending, and Paul'll be damned if he isn't the best damned actor on the Rez. It's what she deserves.