Snare AU request because we need to celebrate your love being alive! It's only natural people feel inclined to help people they consider in need so when there's a towerblock of a man missing an arm and beaten up, assuming there's stew left over that's not spilt down reader, I think a sweet thought is that there'd be some compassion leading to having to demand to help him and uncomfortably intimate spoon feeding!
After having gotten over the initial shock of seeing him awake, you quickly usher the stranger back over to your old sofa. He doesn't fight you on it other than a simple raise of his brow, but you're sure that if that mountain of a man didn't want to move - he wouldn't. You pull back once he's seated, nose wrinkling when your hands return covered in chalky debris. He was filthy.
"Stay there." You wiggle a finger at him and grumble sternly, rushing off into your closet to find some fresh towels and an old baggy t-shirt that you used to sleep in.
When you return, he's once again standing up. This time busying himself by looking at the trinkets on your mantlepiece. You drop the towels onto your sofa and cross your arms.
"You shouldn't be standing." You huff, but your voice softens to a gentle whisper just as quickly. "You were in a really bad way when I found you."
His lip quirks, a handsome smile on his face that puzzles you immensely. You wonder if it was a good idea to let this man into your home.
"Forgive me." He speaks, eyes dragging up your body until they meet your eyes. His voice an accented, low timbre that makes your spine straighten in surprise. "This is your home, and I am a guest."
Your couch cushions sink in on themselves and the wooden frame of the sofa creaks like a haunted house when he finally sits back down, but you're satisfied enough to uncross your arms and relax a small bit around him.
"There's...some fresh towels here for you. You can take a shower when you're ready." You pause, eyes lighting up when you thumb the drying stain of stew on your sweater. "But not before you eat. You must be starving."
Akande doesn't get a chance to speak before you're scurrying back off into your kitchenette. He watches in quiet amusement as you flip through your cupboards to find a clean dish, you mustn't have guests around much. Then again, he managed to crawl to your home after falling a great distance, so you must like the privacy.
It was a great effort to save him. An even greater effort to provide, whether you knew who he was or not. Would you have still opened your home should you have known who he was, what he'd done?
A lot of people would have left him in the dirt. Let the dust settle over him and get on with their pitiful little lives. But then there's you, returning to his side with a hastily filled bowl of stew.
You, who watches him struggle to eat with one arm. You who catches the bowl just as it fell from its precariously balanced spot on his knee. You who takes the bowl from Akande gently, offering the filled spoon to his mouth with not a hint of pity in your eyes.
He purses his lips, a bitter sense of weakness welling up in his chest. A man once on top, now on rock bottom. He glances to you, your eyes tired and waiting and the smell of homemade food making his stomach lurch. Akande hadn't needed help in such a long, long time. But god, did your cooking smell like heaven.
You bump your knee impatiently against his, dwarfed in comparison to his own, and he wonders if you knew that he could crush your head in one hand. But the gesture is kind, reassuring. A small smile on your face that read deceptively innocent as you raise the spoon again, silently asking him to eat. For you.
And then finally, for once in his life, Akande Ogundimu decides to obey someone else.
