𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬. sam uley

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

In the morning, the white wolf disappears. There's a part of him that should care. The wolf attacked him, unprovoked, then stayed with Sam after seeing him as a human--like it had seen Sam and thought him to be familiar. He should care about that, about the fact that his wound, although healed, is still a bit sore where the white wolf bit it.

But he doesn't care, not really. His senses are dulled, and he is floating in a haze as he hunts in the early morning, rabbit in his teeth. Everything is muted again, the agony of her absence lessened yet guttural simultaneously.

He eats the rabbit, then hunts something bigger, more sustainable.

The deer is warm when the white wolf returns, and Sam, shifted and tired, noses it before curling up on the damp forest floor and resting.

Though the white wolf huffs, then growls in confusion, Sam closes his eyes. He thinks of deer in his mouth, a hunt for her and her only, and her laughter is a symphony of thorns in his head. The biggest reward for something so small, so tiny.

Silence accompanies him. The white wolf doesn't eat it. A moment later, it walks over to him, curling up on his back, head resting between his shoulder blades.

Sam breathes in deep.

For a moment, it smells like the beach--like home.

He misses it.

❧

Sam stays with the white wolf for weeks.

He's himself now. The pain of the wound had grounded Sam, kept him human. He can separate himself from his wolf, and it is because of this that he knows he needs to shift back. That he has to go back.

He runs with the white wolf as though they are being chased by something. They howl at night and eat during the day, but they never shift back. It's an unspoken agreement, a howl of not now, please, gone, he's gone, miss him. And he wonders, faintly, when he has started hearing thoughts, sporadic as they are, from the white wolf, but it's not a pressing matter. He hadn't realized he'd needed someone--some form of comfort--until the wolf bit into his shoulder then looked at him as though he was someone they knew.

But it is because of this that he knows he has to return to his pack. His family. Sam didn't even--

His mother. He didn't tell her. Didn't say a word to her. She knew what he was doing that day, but he never came home, too consumed in his grief--too lost in his wolf--to return to places he knew she'd be missing from. She must be out of her mind right now.

The white wolf bites on his ear, growling in warning. Sam had been distracted, thinking about running home. He doesn't even know how far from home he is.

Sam shoves the wolf away with a snort, unbothered. The white wolf is running on instinct, on smell and touch and comfort from familiarity. Though Sam had tried to send encouraging thoughts to get it to shift back to a human, there had been no results yet, only delicate thoughts of: Can't. Don't know how. I am only a wolf. Nothing else.

The grief is strong, but Sam doesn't know what else to do. He has to return home for his family even though there is lead in his body demanding he remain running so he doesn't have to return to the ruin that she left in her absence. It weighs on his bones as he looks behind him, towards where he came from. He sniffs the air.

Home is west. His pack is west. He has traveled where forests are thick, but temperatures are hot, summer thick with heat. His fur is heavy on his back, and he misses the rainy days Forks has to offer. He misses his pack, and he knows--he knows--she won't be there, but he has to try for the rest of them. For himself.

Sam whines, low in his throat. He looks, imploring, at the white wolf, nuzzling its snout. Come with me.

The wolf whines and there's a need in Sam to protect as he would Brady or Seth. Maybe it's because the shapeshifter doesn't have a pack to return to? Sam wonders about that, mulls it over in his thoughts. What had happened to the white wolf's pack? Where is its family? Is it running from something just as Sam is?

It says, I can't.

Sam despairs. His wolf despairs. There is a faint line in him, a thrum that connects the two of them, and he doesn't want to let it go--wants to run on instinct and keep the white wolf close to him.

Come with me, please. He nuzzles the white wolf again. I have to--I have to go back.

Can't go anywhere, it says, cries, and then backs up from Sam. I'll kill everyone like him. Just like him, and I can't-- I won't--

It's a plea, and it's guilt, and it is heavy in the air like humidity. There is something there, and he can't touch it right now, but he frets and worries and knows that she'd care so much. So fucking much that she would never leave without this wolf who has seen death. She'd make sure the wolf was safe and comfortable. It would leave with her, he thinks.

With her, the wolf would believe in life after death. In a beginning after an end.

But she is gone, and Sam understands the despair, feels it himself.

Still, he can't not try, so he pleads and begs, and his wolf howls, a broken cry that only the white wolf can replicate. It is the only thing he knows to do.

I promise, it will get better. He's lying to himself and the wolf, but the wolf perks up, intrigued. I'll be there. You won't be alone.

He sends images of the pack and the wolf whines, lonely and forlorn.

They're not him. Lost him.

The wolf doesn't give any more thought to it, and Sam doesn't push. He plots and plans and the ache in him does not lessen, but he thinks he'll go tomorrow. For now, he chases the white wolf through the forest and hopes it's enough to chase away the shadows in his eyes.