Clyde Logan Imagines

Staying Right Here

Warnings:  None

Also posted on my tumblr (@ cauliflowercounty)

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Hearing the door shut behind the last customer allows Clyde to smile silently to himself. Not that he hates his job or anything. He loves working at the bar and seeing his regulars, finding out what they've been up to and what new stories they're ready to share with him, but he's always ready to go home after a long shift and pull the covers over you and him and hold you close.

He grabs the last few glasses from the night and dries them off with a towel. You're across the room, putting away the cue sticks and tidying up the rest of the pool tables because the last customers who used them were too drunk and too busy singing some old drinking song to put them back where they came from.

Clyde looks at you as you diligently put back all the pool materials and begin to put up the chairs for closing, thinking about how glad he is you're here to keep him company and pitch in at the bar. When you first got together, he thought you wouldn't want anything to do with Duck Tape, but within a few weeks, you had quit your job in retail and started working at the bar full time. He smiles as he reminisces, but as soon as the smile comes, it starts to fade away slowly. Out of the corner of your eye, you pause and notice Clyde's stopped moving.

"Anything wrong?" you ask him with a gentle smile, and he shakes his head.

"Nothin' at all, darlin'," he replies softly, his voice a bit distant. You shake your head with a small smile. Oh, Clyde.

"You're looking at me like that again, Clyde. I know something's going on in that head of yours," you reply, crossing your arms, stopping your efforts to close up.

Clyde takes a breath and puts down the rag as you start to walk over to him. As soon as you're close enough, you take both of his hands, even his prosthetic one, and hold them tight in your own, resting your head on his chest. Clyde relaxes at your touch and instinctually bends down a little to nuzzle your forehead with his. You wrap your arms around the back of his neck and go on your tiptoes to press a kiss on his cheek with a soft whisper of "I love you."

"You know me too well, y/n," Clyde says with a small chuckle, his smile gradually returning as his hand makes its way down to your waist. "I was just thinkin' about us... How we got here... What we been through."

"It's been a wild ride, Clyde," you sigh. Memories of sitting on the couch in his small trailer with nothing on but his Bob Seger shirt with a cup of coffee, the smell of burnt bacon with the smell of it sizzling in a pan, and the sun delicately shining through the old curtains with Clyde's arms around your waist swirl in your head delightfully. You remember the day you heard about Jimmy's latest and greatest cauliflower plan a while back, the day Clyde went to jail, but more fondly the day when he came back. You had hugged him and kissed him like there wasn't gonna be another chance to do so after he walked past that old chain link fence at the Monroe Correctional Facility. Even with the occasional downs, you loved your life with Clyde wholeheartedly. "And?" you add on. "Why are you sad? I've loved every moment."

"I...," Clyde mumbles with a slight waiver of hesitation in his voice. "Was considerin' the thought... It might have been a better use of your time I hadn't put you through all that."

"Clyde-" you interject, but he keeps going, getting lost in his own insecurities, poor thing.

"In the start, I was a long shot to begin with... especially because of my arm..."

"Your arm has nothing to do with this, Clyde."

".... A pretty girl like you should have someone who isn't a cripple. Someone who isn't half robotic and doesn't have to have help with his tie every time you wanna go somewhere fancy."

"Don't call yourself that, Clyde! And I love doing your ties..."

"... and then I went to jail for drivin' a car through a convenience store because my brother told me so..."

"I don't love you any less because of what Jimmy of all people tells you to do. And people shouldn't be judged for a few little wrongdoings...." you say, true to reassure him. You know if he keeps going, he'll begin to cry, making you cry as well, and go into a rut of sadness you know is hard for both him and you to escape.

"... I left you alone for over a month- I was in prison for 90 days, y/n! -when I was supposed to be carin' for you like a good boyfriend would have, not followin' my brother's orders and gettin' myself into trouble with the authorities. You had to run the bar when I was gone and deal with that FBI agent, Sarah Grayson. Now you're here workin' long hours again with me at a run-down bar off the highway. You live in a tiny li'l trailer when you really deserve the world. You shouldn't have to work like this. You should be comfortable and taken care of."

You shake your head with a laugh and kiss him on the lips to shut him up. "I don't want the world, Clyde. What if I told you I loved working with you and that I don't need the world to be happy? I don't care that your trailer is small. I don't care about working at a bar late into the night. I don't want the world, Clyde. I want you."

"Please don't say that if you don't mean it, darlin', my heart can't take it," he breathes. You smile and kiss him full on the lips, feeling how his tense body full of worry and years of doubt that you'll suddenly reject him even after all this time melts away into your arms.

"I mean it, Clyde. I'm never leaving Boone County or Duck Tape unless it's with you," you assure him, running your hands through his long, black hair. "I. Want. You," you smile, pressing a kiss to a different one of his freckles with each word.

"I ain't never gonna be able to live without you, y/n," he laughs, cupping your cheek tenderly within his massive hand. God, you loved how big they were compared to yours.

"That's good, Clyde Logan, because I'm never leaving you," you reply, grabbing your coat and his hand in the other and you're happy now, knowing that Clyde is reassured. "Let's go home," you tell him, pulling him out the door after listening to the neon lights buzz off and locking the door.

As you both ride home in the car hearing you sing with the music on the radio with the West Virginia summer air blowing through your hair, Clyde takes a glance over to you and watches you smile. You both make eye contact for a moment, and at that moment, Clyde finally understands for the first time in his life why you've stuck around all these years.