Chaos Walking Imagines

Stay Here With Me (part one) | Todd Hewitt

i'm requesting my own todd hewitt imagines now

** this takes place before the first chaos walking book and contains no spoilers **

if i were to write a davy prentiss jr x reader book, would y'all read it??? and if i did so, would we actually be picturing nick jonas as davy, or do you picture someone else entirely?

//

You sat down in the flood of light coming from the tiny window at the top of the hut. Pulling your pack of browning apples into your lap, you leaned back against the wall, munching lightly on the snack that had been left for you the day before.

Not too far in the distance, you heard some barking and Noise. You didn't grow concerned or even move, because you knew it was Todd and Manchee, the only two people in Prentisstown to know you existed.

When you had wandered on the town, you had run into him. He was picking apples by the marsh. He told you that he had never seen a girl before and said it probably wasn't a good idea for you to show yerself in the town, and so you didn't, and you took home in one of the old huts he said were from the Spackle, and he brought you food and things in small amounts, so it wouldn't look suspicious.

He swore up and down he wouldn't tell anybody about you, especially since you were a runaway from a settlement he didn't know existed, and he would take care of you best he could.

And so here he came, his dog running ahead, eager to see you, a knapsack full of stuff in his hand.

You stepped out of the hut and leaned down as Manchee barked and ran forward, stopping in front of you only to automatically flop down on his back. You scratched him on the belly.

"Hiya, boy," you said, "how are ya?"

He barked, just a normal bark, too absorbed in the feeling of getting his stomach scratched.

You looked up at Todd. He opened his bag. "Hi, Todd."

"I brought ya some mutton," he said, taking out a square of plastic. "And some cheese and bread. I grabbed a couple of apples from the marsh, too, but none of 'em were really edible yet."

"Thank you," you said, and you stopped scratching Manchee's belly and took the food from him. You put it all inside and they came inside with you, sitting around the hut. "It's gettin' too hot to live on here."

"It ain't too bad," Todd said, even tho his Noise was filled with discomfort and he was sweating and Manchee was panting.

"Yeah, it is," you replied. You pretended to wipe muck off your shoes. "Maybe I shouldn't have run off."

Todd snapped his head up to look at you. "You had to," he said, and you sighed, because he was sorta right.

Yer ma had died and yer pa wasn't capable of taking care of you without some extra help, and so you were placed in the custody of yer grandma, who treated you like nothing and stopped letting you see yer pa, because she said he wasn't fit for being a pa. And so he died (from sadness, you often thought, but really it was an outbreak) and you were left with her and yer young cousins, who you couldn't take care of, because you were barely old enough to take care of yerself.

And so you ran, and now you are here with a boy that is taking care of you for whatever reason.

You took a bite of your apple and then handed a slice to Manchee, who was sniffing the pack. He swallowed it without chewing.

"Manchee, you stupid ruddy dog," Todd griped, reaching over to swat at his rump, "stop eatin' her food!"

"It's okay," you said, and you gave Manchee another, just to show it was.

"No wonder he likes ya so much," Todd said. "Yer giving him all this food."

You shrugged. "I like dogs," you said. "I never had one." You scratched Manchee between the ears.

"You can have him," Todd said.

Manchee looked at him. "Todd?!" he barked.

You giggled, and Todd smiled.

As Todd ate an apple, you watched him. His Noise was warm and calm, filled with thoughts of Manchee and you and Ben and Cillain.

"I can't stay here," you said.

He blinked at you, swallowed, and wiped juice off his chin. "Sure you can," he said. "You gotta! You can't go back now. Yer folks-"

"Are dead," you reminded him, "and my grandma will send my uncle after me if I don't come home. He'll probably kill me."

I won't let him, his Noise said, but his lips just said, "Yer almost an adult, right? You can do what you want!"

"It doesn't work like that for us women," you said sadly. "We work for our men and then we get to be in charge when the last one is dead. 'Course, my uncle is a drunk and ain't capable of doin' much but drinkin', and my grandma is the only adult left besides him, so she gets to be in charge. And I ain't nothing to 'em but something to shove around."

Todd frowned. "So you can't go back," he said. He scooted forward and touched yer leg, shaking his head. "Please, ___, don't go back."

"I can't live in these huts forever," you said.

"You won't," he said, and his voice sounded like he was promising it. "I'll be a man in exactly sixty days. Then I can do whatever I want, and if I wanna bring a girl into my farmhouse and have her work on my farm, I can, and nobody in that ruddy town can do nothing about that."

But his Noise was filled with uncertainty, flashes of stories heard of women, flashes of disrespectful things Prentisstown men think and the fear that still did dwell in the back of his mind that the talking germ still killed women, even tho you assured him it didn't, because her uncle had it and yer dad and you are still living, but he pretended you didn't hear none of that and smiled, and you wanted to believe his mouth, not his Noise.

"Okay," you said, and Manchee barked happily.