Sleepwalker Wolf

Blink Twice

When I wake, I'm naked again. I know I slept walked last night, I just hope I didn't cause any trouble for Travis. He's still asleep beside me, the blankets bunched around his hips, revealing he had put joggers on sometime during the night. Probably had to follow me around the house. As long as I didn't strip in front of his family.

I never remember what happens when I sleepwalk. The nights I do are usually just blank, empty blackness and then I wake up in random places, usually naked. Stripping seems to be asleep me's favorite pastime.

Travis shuffles around a little, throwing a leg over my hips and nestles his nose between my bare breasts. He usually does this when he's about to wake up. Just like I figure, his eyes blink open, focus on what's directly in front of his eyes. He smiles sleepy and buries his head in further.

"Good morning," I whisper and run my fingers through his messy curls.

He sighs, blowing hot air into my cleavage. Those sky blue eyes look up at me with affection and just a pinch of worry. Did I hurt myself last night? There's no pain so it can't be that.

"What'd I get up to last night?" I ask him, letting him rebury his nose. "I didn't give your family a striptease, did I?"

"Do you remember anything?"

I shake my head. "Nope, I never do."

Travis presses his fingers softly into my back and pulls away, the affection in his eyes being taken over with concern. It looks like he wants to tell me something, but can't figure out how.

"Sweetness, you shifted into your fur side in your sleep last night," he says, everything freezing at his words.

"Shifted? But I've never- how?" My brain is short circuiting, no information being processed, just complete confusion and a little fear. How could I have shifted in my sleep?

He places a hand on the back of my head and pushes my face into his neck. My breathing becomes less labored and now I just want to go back to sleep and pretend Travis never said anything.

"How did I never know? I've gone twenty-one years never noticing without any foster family seeing or telling me. How?"

"Well, you were probably in a pretty large group home for your first few years," Travis explains, large fingers massaging my scalp. "In a home like that, it's pretty easy for a lot of things to go unnoticed. After that, they probably thought they were dreaming or they were just asleep and didn't wake up. Unless the doors are open, you wouldn't have been able to get out of whatever room you were in."

   "So I've been shifting my entire life and never knew it? What do we do?"

   Travis looks at me with a grimace. "I don't know what we can do. Mom suggested last night that we look into who your birth parents are. They might know something."

   "I guess we could do that while we're out today," I say, pressing the tips of my fingers into the bare skin of his back. "I need to talk to Carry too so she doesn't worry."

   "She's going to freak out," Travis says. "People generally don't understand how quickly our relationships progress."

   "Oh yeah, she's going to freak out," I reply as I climb out of bed. "She'll think I'm crazy and that you're some kind of psychopath."

   Travis groans and throws his forearm over his eyes. "Can we just not tell her and let her figure it out?"

   I tisk and whip him with his shirt I picked up off the floor. "No, Carry's my best friend. I have to tell her something."