Running With Wolves

Erik had given Sage pain medication through an IV drip that left her dozing in and out of sleep. Lukas sat loyally beside her, doing nothing and saying nothing, just waiting attentively for her moments of awareness.

Lukas thought back to the conversation he’d had with his Uncle, the good doctor. He had not meant to affect Erik the way he had, he had not purposely meant to imply the things he had. The words had slipped out, the implication had slid off his tongue before he could stop himself.

Lukas had remembered the time someone had compared Knoll to the likeness of Erik. Lukas would never lash out at Knoll and for even more reasons he should never have lashed out at Erik.

“Luke,” his mind tore away from his thoughts to see those beautiful cerulean orbs he loved so much staring back at him.

“Hey,” He murmured softly. When she’d slept he’d wrapped her hand in his, keeping her cold hand warm within his large ones. He had hesitated when she’d awoke, his first instinct was to pull away.

In so many ways it had seemed like Sage was coming back to him but was she? It had been circumstantial that she had needed him lately. She had not sought him once since her return.

Her eyes drifted around the room, piecing things together. Her eyes looked so vacant, so lost as though everything had suddenly became way too much, much too fast; she looked as helpless as a child.

He wanted to say something to comfort her, anything to break the silence that was like a suffocating blanket. In a perfect world Lukas thought he’d know exactly what to say but he didn’t.
He was at a loss of words.

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The room was too bright; the smell of antiseptic was too strong.
The hospital.
I was in the hospital.
I was too heavily medicated to properly understand all that this entailed—I didn’t have it in me to care at the moment.

Lukas’s hand was covering my own, the pad of his thumb brushing back and forth against the back of my hand softly. It felt nice and my mind drifted toward the sensation and I welcomed it.

My head lolled to the side to look toward Lukas. He looked worse than I felt, though I suspect that has something to do with the medical cocktail running through my veins.

“Pretty boy,” My hand pulled out from under his to touch his face softly. My mind was so foggy, I couldn’t clearly find my alertness. This was a heaviness on his shoulders that had not been there several days before..

“They gave you the good stuff huh?” in spite of everything the corners of his mouth twitched up.

I just nodded dumbly in response, “yup.”

I was trying so hard to fight through my haze. There was something hedging on the edges of my mind. It was important but I couldn’t remember what it was; like words lost on the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t think of anything outside of this room, I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the way Lukas was looking at me. He looked so haunted and it made my heart hurt. “Lukas,” I whispered, my throat still severely sore. My hand traced over the contour of his cheek, down and over the softness of his lips. “What is wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” He chocked then looked away as pain flickered through his eyes and he laughed dryly. His gaze fixed back on me, his grey orbs bore into me. “I almost lost you Sage. I almost lost you, you know that? This whole day has felt like you were this close to not existing and I was going to have to go on living in a world you did not exist in. I don’t know how to do that,” He shook his head, his eyes glassy. “It’s one thing for you to just be gone and living in New York but it is another thing entirely for you to be gone and be gone.”

A lump formed in my throat and refused to budge. I’d known I’d hurt Luke when I’d left, I would have been stupid for thinking otherwise but it wasn’t until now, until knowing that all the sadness and all the hauntedness in his eyes were because of me that I truly knew. I’d caused all the sadness that stayed fixed in his eyes and traveled deep into the sinew of his muscles. My memory had been haunting him ever since I’d left—Hell, I was still haunting him.

“Luke,” I chocked, tears welling in my eyes.

“You’re not allowed to do that again you understand me? I can’t live in a world you don’t exist in alright?” He said, his voice hard with carefully controlled emotion. “Maybe that sounds melodramatic to most but it’s the fucking truth. It is a part of that whole Soulmate Principle they leave out when they try to force feed you how great it is and how much of a blessing this whole fucking thing is. But it’s not is it Sage? Because we read about the Principle; we read about how when a lover is lost the other never recovers from it, how most kill themselves from it. So don’t okay—Don’t ever come that close to dying again because I can’t live in a world that you’re not in.” He looked away from me then, his eyes fixing on the window of the opposite wall.

I could feel the tears slipping in hot little rivers down my cheeks, I could feel the ping in my heart that wouldn’t go away.
Silence fell between us, neither knowing what to do or say and it felt suffocating on a degree I had never known.

“I can’t live in a world you’re not in either you know.” I whispered it so quietly I didn’t know if he’d heard me. I knew he knew this because what he said was true, it was a Soulmate thing but it was something I felt needed to be said anyway. Did he know that even though I left I still felt the same? That the way I felt could never falter? I hated the idea that he might question it—question me.

His eyes slowly met mine again; there was guardedness in them that I’d never seen in his eyes before; I’d never been on the other side of his walls before.

“I can’t. So don’t you die either alright?”

His face was expressionless at first but then he nodded. “Yeah alright. I won’t die if you won’t die, deal?” But something still wasn’t right. It felt like an invisible 2x4 had wedged itself between Lukas and I. He appeared so close but he seemed so far away from me. I didn’t want him far away I wanted him next to me, I wanted to curl up in his arms where the bad men couldn’t get me. I wanted Lukas beside me, my best friend, my one love, my due north.

“Luke I-“

“Just rest Sage, alright?” He sighed tiredly moving to rise to his feet. “Just rest.”

“No,” I snapped. Who was he to tell me what to do? Who was he to try to push me away when I was trying to talk to him. I wouldn’t let him shut me down. Not when I was trying to talk to him about something like this.

Surprise momentarily flickered in his eyes. “No?” He echoed doubtfully.

“No.” I stated frowning. “I’m trying to talk to you.” I forced myself into a sitting position and my body didn’t let the action go without its own protest.

“Don’t sit up,” But there was no command in his voice just a weak plea. “I don’t want to go around the ringer with you now alright? I’m tired, you’re tired, can we both not just rest for now?”

“Go through the—What are you talking about?” What did he think I was going to say? “I’m trying to tell you I need you alright? So I’m sorry but you’re going to have to sit there and listen okay.”

Something flickered behind his eyes but I ignored it.

“I thought of you every day I was in New York. Most days I wanted to come back so bad and just pray that you didn’t hate me but I was so scared that you did hate me that eventually I couldn’t even face you.
I’d lost so many people you know? Seneca died, my mother left, my aunt and my cousin left and I just got so afraid that you’d go to. I was so afraid that in one form or another you wouldn’t be in my life and the idea tortured me. It killed me. I hated myself because I knew that even if I lost every member of my family I could survive it. I could, not because I was strong but because I’d have you. Because I could survive anything as long as you were there. It terrified me though—if death could take my sister and so many others who were so young, why would it favor me and save you for me?”

Lukas said nothing as he absorbed my words and I wasn’t sure if his silence was good or bad.

“I left yes, because Seneca had died and the town had split and I didn’t know how to live five miles away from you and yet be forbidden to see you. Yes, I left because the Soulmate Principle scared me out of my skin. But what sent me over the edge was the fact not that we were Soulmates but that because you were my Soulmate you were everything; you were my entire world and I knew there would never be another. If something happened to you that would be it for me and it terrified me. It terrified me that I could survive anything yet you, who I lived for could be the death of me, I didn’t understand how to deal with that.
I’m so fucking backwards sometimes. Most people would just call that love and live happily ever after but it terrified me. It terrified me because who was I to be spared when so many hadn’t been? People who should have lived happily ever after didn’t; My father, Erik, Jasmine, Rune and so many others had lost so many people they loved. Why should I have been spared? Why should I have been so lucky?”

“So you left. You were afraid I was going to die so you left as opposed to, I don’t know, talking to me.”

His words stung and they stung more than anyone else’s ever could. Lukas’s words never hurt me and yet somehow we had found ourselves stuck in a principle based on true love yet we were at opposing ends.

“I’m trying to tell you that I love you alright? You don’t have to be such a prick about it. I’m sorry I have fucking intimacy issues now alright? But if I’m sitting here in a hospital hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor, pouring my heart out and you’re sitting there only taking away, from said heart pouring, is that I left because I was afraid you’d die then I’m pretty sure that makes you the ass in this scenario.”

He grumbled to himself and shook his head in annoyance.
neither of us spoke. I don’t think either of us knew what to say to each other now. I’d been so afraid of loosing Luke, I had a list of all the people in my head who had died and yet I hadn’t realized that here, in the room with the only man I’d ever love, that I was alone; I had a list of people lost but I never added us to the list. We’d been lost in the war, so far from who we used to be, so far from the love we once reveled in.
How did we get here? We were so far from who we used to be.

“We’ve changed Luke.” I whispered quietly. He wasn’t looking at me and I’d fixed my eyes on a piece of the heater blanket covering me. “We are so very far from who we were.” I could see his eyes on me in my peripheral vision but I didn’t look at him. “How did we get here? Fighting against each other, refusing to find our way back to each other when we’re both right here? The war took a lot but I think in a way it took us too. It wedged our entire town between us, it put death, alpha decrees, our own doubts and fears between us.”

Still Lukas didn’t speak and I hadn’t really expected an answer.

“I think we’re both a little messed up.” I continued quietly. “We love each other but we do not know how to be with each other anymore. We’d still take a bullet for one another yet we wont find ourselves in each others arms. That’s tragic.”

“You’re the one that pushed me away Sage not the other way around.”

“Yeah I know,” I murmured regretfully, there was more hurt in my voice than my body right now, I’d have to thank the good doctor for that later. All I wanted was to feel Lukas next to me, warm and safe and sure, but all I could feel was the cold emptiness that divided us. “But I’m not now…doesn’t that account for something?”

“Sure,” He shrugged.

“Sure?” I questioned in frustration and annoyance. “Sure?!”

“How do I know this isn’t just the medication talking? How do I know you wont get better, you wont refocus your thoughts and leave me again to go crusading for your sister and out for blood for those who dare harm those you care about.”

“I care about you!” I yelled in frustration. “I love you, god dammit! I need you okay, I fucking need you more than I need fucking anyone or anything. I wont leave you again, I’ll never leave you again. I’ll always stay.”

“You’ve promised me that before.” He claimed roughly, pain like razor blades in his voice.

“Do you know what I thought of when I was getting attacked?” Hot tears streamed down my face and it was now that Lukas looked at me. “I thought of you!” He looked away like I’d slapped him. “I stopped fighting them because all I could think was ‘God please don’t let them kill me. Don’t let them kill me I can’t leave Lukas alone. I have to make things right with him, tell him I was being a selfish stupid bitch, tell him I love.’ So I stopped fighting! They could have had my body for all I cared then as long as they didn’t kill me. It seems so stupid, so cliché, so simple and small but it was true—I didn’t want them to kill me with you having thoughts that I didn’t want you. Suddenly me leaving, me pushing you away, became the biggest regret of my whole life. How could I have possibly have done that?! To you! I always wanted you Lukas, I always will want you!”

He wasn’t looking at me but his jaw was locked and his eyes were shinning.

“Luke please talk to me.” I begged crying.

But he said nothing, for several moments he didn’t even move but then he rose to his feet without looking at me. He looked at the wall behind me before he leaned forward and kissed my head quickly and left the room.

The sad thing is that when he left I didn’t feel any less alone then I did when he was right here with me.

How did we get here?

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The door closed behind him and Lukas rested heavily against it. What was wrong with him? How could he be so close to her yet feel like she was still in New York, they were no closer really. Stray tears slid from his eyes and he brushed them away angrily. He wanted to believe every word she said and he did mostly but what if it really had been the meds talking? What if she got back on her feet and he was left feeling like nothing more than a stray puppy following her around. Lukas was a lot of things and Soulmate Principle or not he was no stray pup. He’d protect her better than anyone could but Lukas just didn’t know if they’d ever get back to where they had been.

Sage had been right though, they had changed. They were two completely different people from a completely different world and they were still trying to make those people fit together in the chaos of death, betrayal, heartache, alphas, and lawlessness.

And Luke was left to wonder how it had happened—how had they gotten like this?