#clearwater!reader

SUMMARY: The Pack always knew imprints were a sacred thing. But when you're hurt, the imprint bond blurs the line between life and death. It makes for some interesting conversations with ghosts from the past. || multi chapter-fic PAIRINGS: Paul Lahote x fem!Reader TAGS/WARNINGS: Clearwater!Reader; human!Reader; domestic fluff; hurt

2.6k words || Chapter One {You are Here} || Chapter Two || Chapter Three (New!🐺)

Your siblings could tear into flesh, could break his bones if they so wished (and Leah had wished, had almost done it too before Sam intervened)–and yet, Paul considered you the most dangerous Clearwater out of all of Harry and Sue's children.

And it wasn't because you could flit between girl and wolf or because your teeth could rip into jugulars, but because you were you.

[Name] Clearwater: daughter to Harry and Sue, born a year after Leah and two years before Seth.

Before that night, your parents never intended for you to be keyed into the tribe's secret. It was only ever meant to be Seth, who they all anticipated would phase eventually.

But then Leah exploded into a four-legged beast with fanged teeth and matted fur, had shredded the Couch you'd been sitting on–and gods, if you hadn't moved when you did her claws would've gone deeper in your shoulder than it had–before Seth shifted, too.

The night had been a mess, to sum it up simply.

The pack link was overwhelmed by a maelstrom of grief-anger-hurt-blame that Sam ordered those who could get caught up in it all to phase out.

To give your siblings some semblance of calm, however futile, and to make sure you and Sue had help dealing with the aftermath.

The last thing the Pack needed was for someone to visit in the morning to find half the house's occupants missing, one partially mauled and the place looking as though it had been burglarised.

So Paul had phased out along with Jake. Jake, who came with his Dad's strength and his Mom's warmth that it brought Sue out of her shocked stupor and Paul, who didn't know what else to do other than turn your way.

Across the room, you were using the meat of your thighs to push the shredded couch towards the door. Single-handedly steering the couch outside whilst being mindful of your left arm which was bandaged over your chest, smelling of chemicals and iron.

He had expected tears. Had expected to scent the air for undertones of shock, fear or distrust as you grappled with the reality of seeing your sister and brother turning into something dangerous.

Of having two strange boys who could do the same clambering into your humble four-bedroom abode to see if you or your Mom needed help, but there was none of that.

Instead, you continued moving, holding yourself up by sheer force of will that Paul’s wolf stirred beneth his skin. Curious. Intrigued.

You hadn’t acknowledged him nor Jake when they had come in, but Paul moved toward you anyway. Body on autopilot as he followed an invisible path his wolf already seemed to be on.

"Here, I can help you with that," he said, bending down to lift one end of the couch.

On the other end of the long couch, you’d glanced at him for only a moment. A single moment to thank him politely, face solemn and eyes deep and soulful, that Paul struggled not to collapse to his knees then and there.

Because in that split moment, when your eyes met his for the very first time since he shifted, Paul’s universe ended and then began again with you at the centre of it all.

[Name] Clearwater: his imprint—his very human imprint—more dangerous than wolves and bloodsuckers combined after only a single glance.

After your siblings, your arm, your Dad—Paul thought you would stay far away from the Pack, maybe even La Push altogether.

Maybe you would find a job in Forks or somewhere else and hightail it out of there. Or maybe you would apply for a scholarship to some college on the other side of the country.

Instead you had done the least expected thing.

Despite what Paul thought, what he feared, you stayed; and then, you started coming around.

First to Sam and Emily’s where you spoke to his Alpha for an hour the first time you came, and then to Emily during all the visits after.

Sam was good at shielding his thoughts most days, but the gratitude and brotherly love he felt for you echoed in the bond for days after the first visit.

Every now and then you’d head over to drop off some spare clothes for Seth, laughing at one of Jared’s dry jokes before engaging in some light conversation.

About the Pack, about your siblings and how they were adjusting.

Their lives, Paul's life, before and after.

When Jake sheepishly admitted to falling behind in school, you’d settled on the dining room table, ushering him and Embry to do the same, too, as you carved out some time to come over and help them.

You even hung around on days Leah ran patrol, staying through dinner to act as a buffer between her, Sam and Emily when the tension grew too thick for the rest of them to breathe through the evening.

Paul had done a good job existing on the sidelines during it all, respecting Leah’s don’t you fucking force her into loving you by telling her, you sick bastard and Seth’s kinder plea to let you get used to the pack and him first without the weight of an imprint just yet.

But then one day you met his gaze, saw the poorly concealed reverence, devotion and warmth and instantly put the pieces together.

And because Paul knew better than to assume what you would do after all the times he had thought wrong, he did nothing.

He didn't think, didn't panic, didn't fear. Even when you asked if he imprinted, voice soft and eyes searching, and he told you the truth, Paul did nothing but be as he always was when it came to you.

Open, honest, and trusting that you wouldn’t hurt him if you felt even a fraction of what he felt.

And his ancestors must have seen fit to reward him for it because after he was done explaining, you stayed.

You stayed; and then, you gave him a chance.

The red-haired leech was still on the loose, and the pack's energy waned the longer she danced around them. Not that they weren’t trying.

She was simply too fast, too slippery, constantly evading them as they hunted her to no end. And since they hadn’t caught her, Sam figured it was best to amp up patrol to four per shift.

Even if meant older wolves like himself, Paul, Leah and Jared had to double the hours of their still-in-school members to compensate.

Paul understood, of course, but considering Leah couldn’t handle dealing with Sam it was Paul who was stuck being berated and vilified by her any time she so much caught an echo of you in his thoughts.

And Paul thought about you. Constantly.

The only reprieve he had was in moments like this, when their shift was over and Leah ran home along with Jared and Jake all the while you drove over to deliver Seth’s clothes for the following morning.

But Paul was exhausted tonight, so much so that he could barely keep his eyes open as you cuddled on Sam and Emily’s couch.

“Stay,” he murmurs lowly, being mindful of Emily sleeping in the other room. Sluggishly, he tightens his arms around your slender waist, a half-hearted attempt to get you to sink into him further, not that you would.

You may have been on good terms with Sam and Emily, but Leah was still your sister.

And even if you wanted to fall asleep encased in your boyfriend’s heavily corded arms, you wouldn’t.

“You know I can’t, baby,” you laugh, quietly, stroking a thumb over the apple of his cheek.

Your boyfriend chuffs at your words, blearily opening his eyes, before shifting forward so that that you can cradle his jaw.

A tide of emotion rises beneath your breast because even with everything happening, you’re so grateful for these stolen moments that you lean in, all petal lips and strawberry-flavoured gloss and Paul almost groans when your lips meet in a soft, unhurried kiss.

If it were up to him, there would be no red-haired leech and golden-eyed freaks. Just you and him and the taste of strawberries forever.

"I also think you should just crash here tonight," you tell him when you come up for air, slowly beginning to untangle yourself from his embrace.

For a moment, the muscles in Paul’s arm grow tense, and you know your boyfriend enough to know he’s about to protest. Or worse, get up to follow you.

Because if you can’t stay, then he’s going to force himself to escort you home anyway, even when he’s dead on his feet.

Gently, your hand drifts to the centre of his chest to keep him down.

“Em should have someone close by, and I’m going home to Leah anyway,” you remind him, lips curling at his small pout.

"And you can't even open your eyes properly, so I'll be back in the morning. Okay?"

Ordinarily, your shapeshifter boyfriend would move your hand away, before insisting he at least keep you company on your car ride home.

But as always, you’re right.

Paul’s tired. The kind of tired that should be impossible for someone like him, but it’s true.

So when you lean forward to press another kiss to his jaw, murmur quietly one more time for him to stay, that you’ll be okay, Paul relents.

The scent of you in the air, on his lips, is dizzying enough as it is. How can he possibly protest when all of it makes Paul want to–

"–M'okay," he slurs, eyes fluttering once, then twice, before shutting completely.

When he comes to, Paul remembers the scent of strawberries, your honeyed laughter and the lingering warmth of your touch.

It's enough to make him smile, before he blinks. In shock, then in confusion, turning around to take in his new surroundings.

Weird, he thinks.

Usually, when he dreams, he dreams of you.

On the beach, laughing as you kick up saltwater, before Paul runs after you and down the shore. Under the stars, a heated mess of tangled-up limbs, Paul in you and the feeling of you everywhere.

Sometimes, he even dreams of the two of you, together and years older, a little boy with his face and your smile held in your arms while a younger girl made in your image clutches to his pants.

But this time, though, there's none of that.

This time, he's in the middle of the forest, legs planted as if he were a tree himself.

All around him, there is a cloud of mist. Thick and encompassing, strange if not for the unnatural emptiness of the forest.

There are no cicadas clicking. No birds chirping. The forest, forever filled with even the quietest of whispers and groans, is dead silent.

That is, until Paul hears it.

Somewhere in the distance, a single voice hums something old, something ancient, the voice swelling into a song that shakes Paul to his core because he’s not alone.

He’s not alone.

The realisation is enough to spur him forward, Paul managing to take a step forward and then another, walking slowly through winding trees and thick mist before he ends up in a wide clearing where a bonfire has been lit.

Before the bonfire, still singing, sits a lone woman dressed in a traditional buckskin dress with a gentle face and two long braids.

She makes no move to indicate that she’s heard him. But the fire illuminates her face with an otherworldly glow, accentuates the way her throat flexes as she sings, the words sounding clearer now that he’s right in front of her.

It’s an old song, he remembers, one that has endured time and colonisation and everything in between.

He contemplates interrupting her, at first, uneasy by the strangeness of this situation. But then he inches closer, his wolf urging him to sit on the empty log across from her.

And so the woman sings, and Paul waits and he listens, because something in him, something instinctual, pulls at him.

Tells him that somehow this is real, that this is important.

And because the last time he felt this way was in the moments before he looked at you, Paul waits for the song to finish.

“The youngest of my sons made this song,” says the woman says after she stops singing, still watching the fire burn.

“The song opens up a door between your world and here, which my son used to communicate with us.

My older sons would listen to him with me here when he sang. They would even sing with him before he joined us, and they all left this place together."

The flames burn a little brighter, and the woman falters. Tilts her head, as if listening for something only she can hear.

And when she hears it, whatever it is, Paul catches her expression flicker in the firelight (grim, resigned) before she resumes, this time a little more hurried than before.

"But I didn't follow. I couldn't," the woman says, finally lifting her head to meet Paul's gaze from across the fire.

"Not without Taha-Aki."

And oh, Paul thinks, struck dumb.

Because painted in shadows made by the flames, the third wife–a woman he's only ever known through stories and legends–stares at him solemnly, the echo of infinity seared into her gaze.

“My husband’s spirit still roams your world," she says, ignoring Paul's clear shock.

“He guides all spirit warriors here when their time comes, and their imprints, too. This is where they rest for a while before they move on. But never does my husband come with them, though. Too ashamed, I think."

"Ashamed?” Paul asks, speaking for the first time before he stops himself.

The woman before him and Taha Aki were more than wife and husband.

They were imprinted, tethered together by the same forces that brought Paul to you. The same forces that wouldn't have put her in his dream unless there was something wrong with the imprint.

And there could only be something wrong with the imprint if something was wrong with...

"Why am I here?" he asks slowly, dread wrapping itself around his heart–painful and suffocating–as the third wife's face turns sad. Pitying.

…No.

"Why am I here?" he repeats, this time louder and more panicked as he surges to his feet.

Through the fire, the third wife stares at his face, her expression a little more troubled, a little more human, before the truth splits the air and his chest open.

"–Because my husband will soon guide your imprint here, and if you want to save her,"

NoNoNONONO

"–than you must to stop him before he succeeds."

A loud crash sounds in the distance, so loud that Paul slams his hands against his ears and grits his teeth, trying to convince himself that this isn't real.

That it's not the sound of your car folding in on itself that he hears in the distance, glass shattering into thousands of pieces.

It can't be, he thinks, agonised; and yet, it is.

Because the truth is that you're out there, somewhere in the wreckage of it all.

Paul knows it.

Feels it.

"How do I do it?!" he cries, turning to the ancient woman with wild, frenzied eyes when his ears won’t stop ringing.

(You’re screaming).

"How do I stop him?!"

(You’re crying).

The third wife at least has the decency to look regretful, before turning to look over her shoulder and into the long and dark forest.

“Have you not been listening?” she answers, cryptically.

And before Paul can snarl, beg, whatever he needs to do to get more than that (because what kind of bullshit answer is that), a howl echoes in the distance.

On autopilot, his body begins to shake, tremor, the air beginning to shift all around them before–

"Trust me Paul Lahote, you’ll know what to do," the third wife says, still looking into the unknown.

“–But you need to wake up. Now."

When I tell you the brainrot would not leave me alone for this one. But anyway, please feel free to comment, tag & repost. 🐺

©️ @intothemultifandom 2025

<< Previous Chapter || 2.1k Words Chapter One || Chapter Two {You are Here} || Chapter Three Quick A/N: Thank-you so much for your comments and support! I’m blessed, humbled, and hope you enjoy. 🐺 Chapter Summary: For all the bravery and strength you had, it turned out you could not measure up to the sheer power and force of a Cold One in the end.

Growing up, your Dad used to love telling stories.

Between bonfires and late nights at the rec center, everything you learned about the history of your people you learned sitting at the heels of his feet.

When you and Leah were five and six and refused to share your toys, you remember how he sat the two of you down and spun a tale of the wicked basket woman who feasted on the flesh of disobedient children.

You cried, and although she’ll deny it, Leah did too.

The summer Seth caught his first ever salmon on the Quillayute, you remember the story about the great thunderbird who could carry a whale in its claws and whose beating wings could make thunder that he shared off-handedly, seperating its head and bones to throw back into the river.

Harry Clearwater didn’t just love telling stories.

He was good at telling them, too.

Of all the memories you had of him and the stories he told, though, the memory that stood out to you most was of the time your Mom took Leah and Seth up to Neah Bay and it was just the two of you at home.

Without Leah there to tease you about being scared of his stories, namely the one about the Cold Ones, you remembered asking how he knew so many.

How he could remember and recount them all, even the scary ones.

“Stories are how we record our history,” he began thoughtfully, settling at your bedside.

“The tales we have about Dask'iya and the Cold Ones may be dark, but they’re a part of our history so it’s important we remember them—which, you know, your Mom still goes on about me traumatising you and Leah with Dask'iya when you were munchkins,” his mouth began to curl, though it stopped before a smile could fully form.

Despite it, you remained transfixed, sitting up across him and tucked into your fading Lion King-themed comforter.

“I know it scares you sometimes when I tell that story because it’s not a pretty story, no, not a pretty story at all…but our history has never been pretty,” he trailed off, growing hesitant, then contemplative as the quiet settled.

For a long moment, silence pulsed between you.

Tender.

Meaningful.

And then your Dad looked at you, really looked at you, and whatever he saw must’ve settled something in him because he had straightened his shoulders then, just slightly, and continued.

“But if the story of the Cold Ones tells us anything, it’s that whenever there is danger, our people become what Q’waeti’i made us to be—brave. Strong.”

“Whenever you get scared, you remember that we come from wolves and us Clearwaters, well, we have the blood of the last spirit warriors of our tribe so even if the Cold Ones come back, we’ll be fine. We were made brave, sweetheart. Strong in every manner, okay?”

Sadly, you didn’t think about that night for a long time.

Had forgotten what your Dad had said, really, and the silver, gray and sand coloured wolves you dreamt of that evening.

Life went on. You grew a a little taller, a little older, and your memory of that night grew cloudier by the day.

But then he died, Leah and Seth phased for the first time, and what got you through the upheaval of it all wasn’t your own resolve, but rather, the sudden memory of that weekend.

To have Leah phase for the first time, sharp claws tearing ribbons from your arm, and then Seth exploding into a panicked blur of fangs and fur, had come as a shock.

Beyond the pain, you had been terrified.

Until the memory came to you, unbidden, and you forced yourself to breathe through the burning in your arm as your Mom packed your wound, all wet eyes and stuttered apologies as she explained what you had numbly pieced together.

Truth be told, the memory of that weekend got you through more than just that night because not only did you find out spirit warriors were real, but the Cold Ones were, too.

The day you looked at Paul (Paul who looked strangely different as he peered down at you in stupefied wonder, but otherwise the same) and you realized with a sharp breath that you were connected, that he had imprinted on you—suddenly you were eleven years old again, bundled up in an old Lion King blanket you hadn’t seen in years, Dad rumbling:

We were made brave, sweetheart. Strong in every manner, okay?

Leah and Seth may have been the ones to phase, but opening yourself up to Paul and the connection between you proved that you could be brave and strong, too, because despite the worry and despite the doubt, you stayed.

Of course, for all the bravery and strength you had, it turned out you could not measure up to the sheer power and force of a Cold One in the end, no matter how much you wished otherwise.

Because one moment you were singing softly as you drove, replaying the memory of Paul's mouth slotting against your own when you turned the bend and saw her.

Fire-kissed hair.

Eyes the color of blood.

Standing in the middle of the long and winding road the red-haired leech the Pack had been chasing smiled, a cold and bloody thing as ice filled your veins.

Frozen, you couldn’t tear your eyes away, couldn’t turn your wheel fast enough before something—

—slammed—

—right into the back end of the car.

Faster than it’d take to shoot a gun.

And then the world tilted, glass shattered, and louder than the the sickening crunch of metal was the raw, guttural scream you let out as you choked out a single name.

"—Paul!"

Agony lashes at his body.

The pain red-hot and burning him alive from beneath his skin.

The flames lick down his spine, his arms and legs beginning to seize and spasm.

And despite desperately fighting the change, staving it off long enough so he can get outside and away from his pack-sister, it's too late.

The couch he's laying on splinters, breaks, and Emily startles awake in the back room with a gasp, heart pounding in distress when everything explodes into sound though it is nothing compared to what Paul feels as he rises into his wolf form and howls, driven by instinct.

The dream of the Third Wife is still there, still fresh, and the burn he felt earlier returns with a vengeance as he breaks through the back door and tears into the trees behind the house.

The guys phased are already alarmed when he changes, confused when he latches onto your scent in a desperate fervor and pushes himself in your direction.

Paul, what the hell is going on? Sam snarls, scrambling to make sense of everything.

The four of them—him, Seth, Embry and Quil—had just caught Victoria's scent when Embry scented another, forcing them to split to expand their range of cover, Sam just about to summon the others before Paul phased in and howled.

When the rest phase in, they join with the same confusion, the same growing dread when they can only catch slivers of his thoughts.

Everything Paul thinks is too fast, too frenzied, but like a tap that hasn't been shut off properly, it comes through slowly.

Drip.

(You are the love of Paul’s life—his entire soul and heart.)

Drip.

(You are the reason his heart stays beating. The reason oxygen fills his lungs and the reason blood surges strongly through his veins.)

And then the the leak becomes water, and the whole dream bursts from the spout of Paul's conscious as the pack-mind is flooded with—

(A loud crash sounds in the distance, so loud that Paul slams his hands against his ears and grits his teeth.)

(“Why am I here?” he repeats, this time louder and more panicked as he surges to his feet.

Through the fire, the third wife stares at his face, her expression a little more troubled, a little more human, before the truth splits the air and his chest open.

“Because my husband will soon guide your imprint here, and if you want to save her, than you must to stop him before he succeeds—")

—Holy shit, Jared thinks, horrified.

Seth whines, staggers mid-run and crashes into a tree while black edges into Leah's vision.

The rest of the pack, on the other hand, reel with what they've just seen. What they've just felt because the memory of the Third Wife alone is enough to ring with an otherness their wolves know is true.

Seth, Leah, snap out of it! Sam barks, wrestling the swell of emotions that churns between them as Paul pushes himself forward, your scent growing stronger the closer he gets though it is accompanied by the faint scent of leech.

Bastards! Leah thunders, wild and crazed when it's clear what has happened, closing in on you from the opposite direction.

I'll kill them!

Her thoughts flicker between Harry and then you, and the desperation Paul feels is amplified when she and Seth remember that they already lost their Dad, that they cannot lose you, too.

Not like this.

Vaguely, he catches Sam ordering Quil to shift back to get your Mom, Emily and the Elders.

Get an ambulance and Chief Swan too, Jake booms, panting as he and Jared tear through the West and East respectively.

Everyone falls into position, and if he were more coherent he would have focused on keeping Seth and Leah upright, keeping them grounded, but he isn't. So he doesn't.

Instead your boyfriend continues to run, forcing one paw in front of the other at a time with nothing but your name on his tongue and the memory of you—I’ll be back in the morning. Okay?—holding the last threads of his sanity together.

When you come to, everything hurts.

There's a sharp pain from your left thigh that sparks nausea at the base of your throat, and there's something soft and wet behind your neck as you struggle to open your eyes, though you manage, just barely.

You're half-ejected from the vehicle, your flimsy excuse of a belt having snapped from the socket, sprawled in a broken mess as something slick and warm seeps against your ribs.

"...'rgh," you swallow, wincing when your vision grows too sharp before blurring again at the edges.

It feels like the world has just spun on its axis, like gravity has decided to play a cruel trick on you because you can’t tell the difference between up and down anymore.

You only know that you can see the sky as you lay there bleeding, and that no matter how much you wished it so, your body wouldn't stop hurting.

Above you, the moon echoes your sentiment.

Swollen, bruised, and bleeding pale moonlight—it is the only thing you can focus on before sound returns to you, and you catch a rustle nearby.

Panic licks at your heels, sharp and biting, and you moan again. This time more frightened, still in pain, as whatever caused the rustle finally moves into your line of sight.

From the darkness of the trees, a lone wolf emerged, stepping from the thick line of shadows with fur the color of obsidian, nothing like the coats of any Pack member you'd seen.

It's not anyone you know, that much you can think in a daze, but it's not an ordinary wolf either because there is something old in its eyes, a human weariness that doesn’t seem to fit under its skin.

Shifting, you try to open your mouth, try to form words so you can beg for it to stop. Explain that you wanted stillness, and that the more it moved, the more your vision darkened.

But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't find the words and the edges of your vision continued closing in.

The pressure in your ears and behind your eyes grew tighter, more unbearable, until all you could see was the Wolf's muzzle leaning directly over your face and you blinked, stupified.

Before you could choke out anything—a moan, cry, gasp—the Wolf huffed down at you, its breath warming your chilled face (when had you grown so cold?) as suddenly, almost as if by magic, the pressure began to ease.

To your growing wonderment, warmth spread from where the Wolf had breathed onto you, feeling returning your face and then your fingertips, before gradually reaching the rest of your body.

Quietly, the Wolf retreated as you wiggled your fingers, returning to its spot right in front of you as you reached out blindly, digging your fingers into the dirt before slowly rotating your body.

The pain, which had been paralyzing, had faded into a numbness that you could work with, the realisation enough to propel you into action.

To get out, to find safety, your siblings and Paul.

Inch by inch, you slowly dragged yourself out of the wreckage of your car and towards the Wolf, the beast standing guard as a looming sentinel before you finally, finally, were out.

Your fingers, still tremoring, knotted itself in its fur, and groaning, you pushed yourself onto your knees first, and then, much more shakily, onto your feet, arms winding around the thick of its neck as it waited for a breath, before slowly, very slowly, it began to move.

Grateful that you had been found, that this beast was familiar in the way all spirit warriors were familiar and could protect you from the red-haired leech, you kept your face pressed against its pelt, trusting your silent companion to guide you away.

And as you walked together, not once did it occur to you to look over your shoulder.

If you had, you would have realized that things weren't quite what they seemed.

Would have realized that although the Wolf was familiar, it was still something other, something your Dad would have had a story for.

Because still laying in the wreckage of your turned over car—eyes closed and face pale—was you.

Notes:

With the exception of Stephanie Meyer's characterization of the Cold Ones, the legends referenced in this chapter are in fact from Quileute folklore. Please see here to read more on Quileute folklore.

Despite critical acclaim, the Quileute people that inspired the Pack have not received any financial compensation from the franchise. As such, I find it prudent to share that there are ongoing efforts to relocate the Quileute people from a Tsunami zone which requires money and that within our capacity, what we can do to show support is educate ourselves on the situation and, if we can, donate to the tribe's efforts. You can read more and donate here: Quileute Move to Higher Ground Project.

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