happy to be in your shadow // tim wright x reader

Cigarettes

note:

to the tim lovers: I love you!!!

enjoy :)

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The sky was like a pool of milk that day. The yolky grays and whites of the clouds poured down from above, spread over the surrounding pine trees and dripped to the edges of the barren flat landscape that was Tuscaloosa. The weeds that sprouted from the unused crop fields danced in the just-after-sunset breeze. The approaching night time promised rain, and the weeds reached their scrawny limbs upwards desperately, longing for the midsummer rains that the summers here always offered. The sun had gone down now and the rays that did attempt to venture out from below the horizon were suffocated by the dirty snow of clouds, whisked away like eggs in cake batter.

Below the swirling clouds, the asphalt of the convenience store parking lot looked like charcoal, the darkness accentuated by the lack of cars. Nobody had walked into the store in less than an hour, and I was starting to grow bored. I was usually nervous about customers, but without them boredness racked me and the quietness of the store grew more heavy. The hum of freezers packed with ice bags had dissolved into a sickly overwhelming buzz without the timid- or sometimes bold - sound of footsteps clacking on tile to diffuse it. Usually customers would just stop in for a bag of chips, some smokes, something along those lines. I would ring them up as per usual, and my favorite part- I would have a chance to study them... What was their demeanor? How were they dressed? Did they look at you a certain way? All things that I loved to analyze, and over-analyze, as I saw new faces, and returning faces enter the shop. I shuffled my feet in place, hoping to shatter the silence, and hunched myself over the sleek check-out counter. I gazed into the glass display part of the counter, at the scratch-off lottery tickets that lay on their backs, splayed out, exactly as I wished to be at home right now.

I yawned, turning my attention outside once again. The sun had now completely submitted to the night. The gray-ish white clouds had been charred by the sun's final desperate attack on the night and turned to a black as sooty as the parking lot asphalt. The night yawned its endless black across the sky, swallowing the trees and the few other establishments in the area. It bled into the trees and into the parking lot. Stuffing everything in its heavy, swollen, black maw.

I had the night shift.

The streetlights in the parking lot hadn't kicked on yet, and I anxiously awaited the comfort that came with light. With sight, with recognition and comprehension. I was pulled from my thoughts by the automated chime of welcome that came from the store's front doors. A man lumbered in, hand clutching the metal handle on the door. He gripped the metal with purpose, like its support provided him with more than just physical stability. His arms were covered in arm hairs, intricate strokes similar to that of sharp lead pencil and for the bigger ones, a black calligraphy pen. He wore a wrinkled plaid shirt and a pair of beaten-down blue jeans. His bushy eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he pulled himself inside of the store. Closing the door behind him, he coughed, a deep phlegmy cough. His black hair was cut short and brushed over neatly to his right and he had sweeping sideburns that arced down both sides of his face, framing his softened features. He had wide, kind eyes and a big nose that accented the softness of his jawline. I had seen this man before, he frequently came in to buy cigarettes. As if my inner thoughts had pulled the fishing line attached to him taut, he jerked his head in the direction of the front counter where I was standing and sauntered over. He fumbled his hands through his pockets when he got there, and yanked out a crumpled 5 and a 1. He slapped the cash not-so-delicately on the counter and peered behind me at the shelves of different kinds of cigarettes. I knew what brand he was going to pick before he even mustered a word.

"Uhhhm, I'll have that one." He pointed over my shoulder.

Turning around to look at where he had pointed, I knew I had been right. I retrieved the cigarettes from their place on the display and set them in front of him on the counter. I filed his crumpled cash away into the register, punching in all of the numbers and executables necessary for the transaction. He palmed his pack of cigarettes and looked up at me as I recited his total. Now that he was closer, I could see that he had these big brown eyes, like muddied puddles after a sunlit shower, like the chocolate cake on your 10th birthday. Exhaustion and grief dug at the corners of their sockets and etched themselves into the lines on his face. Despite the pain that had made its home in his complexion, his eyes were still kind, hopeful. Not untouched by pain, but had simply grown over it. They swirled with uncertainty, an ever-changing whirlpool of possibility. They were a tribute to the revelry in the small things, in the mundane, in things as simple yet as ritualistic and ever so important as your morning cup of coffee.

He mumbled an earnest, "Thank you," and walked off and out the store door, the automated ding-a-ling sounding once again upon his exit. This was why I loved customers, they filled me with a feeling... A feeling that now, felt like... nausea? My head spun, and I grasped at the counter in front of me for stability. I began to cough. Had a cold come on this quickly? It couldn't be, colds didn't just pop out of nowhere. I gasped, trying to catch my breath in between hefty coughs. My head bowed over the counter, fingers gripping the edge as I waited for the feeling to pass. The buzzing from the store freezers grew louder, my head pounded harder, and my heart beat like a rabbit in my chest. The itching noises around me and the throbbing pains in my head sharpened into a needle-like point, and once it had pierced my tender psyche, it suddenly evaporated. Like a dream where when you wake, you can remember the feeling, but not the dream itself.

I blinked twice, covered in a cold sweat, silence as cold and as sharp as a knife. I shook, the night suddenly feeling much more expansive and much more terrifying than ever before. I felt as if I was not alone, beyond the store's big translucent windows. Even standing there in the light, the darkness had its crooked fingers wired around me, I was not safe.

I knew that something was watching.

...

The night pressed down on me, suffocating me, and I knew at that moment that I would never be alone again.

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note:

(thanks for reading!)

(I didn't edit this that well and am not going to in the future so please forgive any misspellings or grammatical errors :) )

(expect more chapters, hopefully!)