This is my first fic in a awfully long time (years I think...eep!), I feel terribly rusty. I wrote this quite a while ago, added on to it more recently, decided that I hated my addition and deleted all five pages of it and ended up with this again. I'm desperately trying to get some of the ideas that are fluttering around in my head out, I'm running out of space to keep them in there.
Tell me what you think!
Nightmares
For the fourth night in a row Billy Black sat waiting in the dim living room of his home, waiting for his only son to come home from running patrols with the rest of the pack. For the fourth night in a row Jacob Black returned later than usual, looking more tired than the night prior, and carrying a weight on his shoulders that only seemed to be getting heavier.
Billy flinched only slightly as his son slammed the front door behind him, nodding unnecessarily to his son's raised hand, a gesture more of acknowledgement than greeting. No eye contact was made as Jacob continued down the hall towards his bedroom; only when his son was out of sight did Billy turn back towards the dying fire in the hearth, the flickering glow revealing the deep lines creasing his brow, lines of worry for his son. The older man waited for the reverberating sound of Jacob's bedroom door being slammed shut before he himself prepared for bed.
Barely an hour later Billy was roused from a light slumber by an audible crash coming from his son's room, followed by a string of indecipherable profanity that tapered into a growl as Jacob's heavy footsteps carried him down the hall, past his father's room. As the front door was slammed shut for the second time that night, Billy got out of bed determined to get through to his son, to find out what was dragging Jacob into such a downward spiral.
Billy opened the front door to find his son sitting on the front steps, staring up at the waning moon, his hands clenched together in from of him.
"Jake?"
"It's nothing dad, couldn't sleep," the young man, replied, his harsh tone cutting through the quiet night, "Just go back to bed."
"Jacob." It was no longer a question; it was a demand for answers, for the truth.
"Nightmares," Jacob replied through gritted teeth, getting up to go back in the house without even meeting his father's gaze, "Nightmares about her," he continued, almost in a whisper.
Jacob paused for a moment; his hand just above the doorknob, Billy gave no reply to his son's admission. The older man listened as his son retreated back in to the house, this time the door shutting with a soft click; he was helpless, unable to understand the depth of Jacob's pain. His dark eyes turned up to the night sky. Billy took up the vigil that his son has just abandoned, finding momentary peace in the depths of the starry blanket hovering above the world.
Jacob didn't truly sleep. Each time he closed his eyes the nightmares he was running from would drag him back down. He didn't want to see what was coming; he didn't want to know the future. He wanted to go back to innocence, when there was just school, and cars, and simple things. There were changes coming, changes that would tear him apart until he couldn't breathe.
Wouldn't breathe.
I'm having a thought about expanding this into a series of snapshots highlighting the nightmares/fears of each member in the Pack. It's going to take some thought, we'll see where it goes.