Phantoms

Untitled Part 1

  Again...

  This is the third night in a row you've been unable to sleep, the noises in your kitchen keeping you wide awake and trembling in your bed. They're not real, you know they aren't, but you can't seem to get up, walk down the stairs, turn the corner and prove to yourself that the Cerberus is not in your kitchen.

  It's not real.

  Apparently, your nervous system hasn't gotten the memo. Three nights in a row now you've been unable to sleep properly. Three nights in a row you've laid here shaking and crying, gasping for air, trying to dispel those unforgettable noises and nightmarish images from your head.

  Sometimes it helps to imagine Derek being here talking to you or laying next to you, letting you curl up on his side. Or remembering when he found you in your car on the side of the road, bleeding and scared, and took you to his loft, patched you up and let you pass out in his bed. And sometimes it makes you cry harder, reopening the aching hole in your chest, because Derek's not here. You're alone and the Cerberus is tearing up your kitchen.

  When the pack had offered to help you clean up and repair your place a few weeks back—to which you'd politely declined, that's what insurance is for after all—Derek had stayed the night a few times, told you he was always here for you, always available when you needed him.

  That was great and all but you didn't want to need him. What you wanted was to be able to function like a normal person—sleep like a normal person—without him. Derek is his own person and has his own problems and you didn't want to be one of them.

  You hated it. Hated being afraid in your own house. You do need him to function like a normal person and you hate it.. but you don't have a choice. You just need to hear his voice. It irritates you that that's the only way to drown the damn thing out, the only sound louder than the Cerberus.

  You have to spend a few minutes breathing slowly, because you have to be able to see in order to reach for and operate a phone, and when you get like this, your vision spins and heaves and you can't think, can't breath... can't function.

  It's sitting on your nightstand by your bed, within arms reach. The Cerberus howls downstairs and you jump, hand snaking out from under the covers and snatching your phone off the nightstand, hugging it to your chest briefly.

  It's 3am. You groan, hating yourself and your stupid anxiety. Normal people were asleep at 3am. You fumble with the lock and scroll through your contacts, tapping on his name. You let the phone slip from your hand and it plops onto the mattress, lighting up the little cave you'd made with the covers. It rings only twice.

  "I'm on my way." It was quiet and soft but certainly didn't sound like you'd just woke him up. You can faintly hear the rumble of Camille over the line and you wonder where the hell he could be going at 3am.

  "What are you doing awake?"

  "Couldn't sleep. I got tired of lying in bed wide the fuck awake so I figured I'd come break into your house."

  You laugh. Yes. This is what you needed.