Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I own none of this universe, guys. It all belongs to Stephanie Meyer. This writing is just for fun :) Enjoy!
Chapter One: Mundane
When the man called, the wolf answered and sprung to the surface.
The man never wondered about the wolf. He never even asked for the wolf’s name.
He never asked how the wolf was feeling.
Sometimes the wolf spoke… but the man didn’t listen.
So the wolf wept. Alone.
This current pack was bigger than the ones before. More bodies, more noise and more rules. Less patrol time meant fewer shared thoughts, and fewer moments to feel the pulse of the pack running as one. Each wolf was growing quieter, dormant, more easily swayed by the man’s distractions. Each man was becoming more human, remembering the smallness of ordinary life.
There was peace now in La Push — a thin, uncertain peace.
The business with the Volturi had occurred over a year ago, now. The Cullens had left as a favour in an attempt to stop the phasing of any new Quileute youths. The air smelled cleaner, the forest felt lighter. Yet for the wolves, calmness only left room for remembering how little things had changed.
They had fought for a future they didn’t understand and found themselves right where they began: standing in the same damp earth, breathing the same salt air, waiting for something unnamed.
Sam had opened a small garage on the edge of the reservation with a grant from the tribal council — a place for oil changes, and minor repairs. Nothing too serious, as no one was truly qualified yet. He’d hired Embry, Paul, Quil, and Jacob, who rotated shifts around their patrol schedules and last semester of high school.
Sam himself was studying at the vocational college in Forks, determined to earn the paper proof that he could build into something permanent — something that wouldn’t vanish like mist when the wolf inside stirred.
Emily, his wife, often came by the garage in the late afternoons, carrying food wrapped in towels to keep it warm. She’d smile softly when she entered, her presence easing the air that always seemed too heavy between the boys.
Sometimes she would watch Sam from across the room — the way his shoulders hunched over an engine, the way his eyes seemed somewhere else. As if he’d missed a train but he couldn’t remember where he was trying to go.
Jacob, Quil, and Embry were still trying to figure out what came next after graduation. Some days, Jacob would stand in the garage doorway, grease on his hands, and stare down the road like he expected to see a silver Volvo in the distance. He never said her name, but everyone knew what haunted him.
Jared had graduated already. Paul hadn’t — missing a few credits he’d probably never chase down. Jared worked at his dad’s grocery store, hoping to take over one day; Paul was at Sam’s garage, usually with a wrench in one hand and a temper in the other. Kim was studying at the local community college, and sometimes stopped by the shop after classes, her presence soft and steady like an anchor none of them realized they needed.
Leah had stopped joining patrols unless Sam insisted. She said she was “done babysitting,” but her voice carried something sharper underneath — a bitterness born from being bound to a curse she never asked for.
Days passed that way: work, school, the forest. Patrols reduced to formality. The telepathic connection between them — once a chorus of thoughts — now flickered like a dying signal. They didn’t know it yet, but each wolf was fading, their instincts dimming under the weight of humanity.
And somewhere, deep inside each of them, the wolf stirred restlessly, pressing against the walls of the man’s silence.
Each man thought he was taming his wolf.
None of them realized the wolf was waiting — quietly, patiently — for its chance to break free.