Jacob wakes up in a forest. He smells sweat and rain. He feels fear.  His head is pressed into the ground and when his eyes finally open, he's met with someone else's. He sees soft, green eyes that stare into his own for a moment before they move back to reveal a face. It's a woman with dark hair and pale skin. She smiles at him as if this is totally normal, but Jacob can't feel his arms or legs. 

"Finally caught you," she smiles like this was just some sort of game they were playing, "You're a fast little wolf." 

She sits for a moment eyeing him before flipping him over. Jacob would've been shocked under any other circumstances about how some five foot woman who couldn't weigh more than 120 pounds could even move him, but he could already tell something wasn't right about this entire situation as she settled in next to him. She turned and fiddled with a wooden bowl fixed with something that scraped against the surface like it was dry. He could hear liquid pouring and now whatever was in the bowl sloshed around.  

"I can see you looking at me like I'm crazy, but she needs you." She says it like it's a secret, leaning close to Jacob.

"A mere babe she is, in the womb of just a human. Honestly, a female wolf or some other supernatural being would be much more suitable. Though, you will do nicely." She says it while taking out a knife, and Jacob can feel himself fighting against whatever magic is pressing him into the ground, but his limbs aren't even twitching. Though, he can feel the searing pain of her cutting an incision low on his stomach. She holds the bowl close so that she can capture some before stirring the mixture.

Jacob can hear the nonsensical gibberish coming from her lips before his eyes start to get heavy. It sounds like some dead language. The chanting abruptly stops.

"After all, the father seems to care greatly for you. I can tell that from just this," The witch holds up what looks like a tooth, she smashes it with a rock until it's powder amongst the red goop. "Maybe even more than the mother if given the right set of circumstances." She holds a hand full of tangled, brown strands of hair in her hand. Jacob listens to his own blood drip to the leaves underneath him.  She begins to spread the paste over his stomach and he can feel the warmth permeating from the substance.

"He went this way!" It sounds like the voice of someone who is far away. The witch's lips aren't moving, but he does see her head jolt before he feels her hands underneath him once again, flipping him with less care this time as he lands with his head hitting something hard. He watches as she grabs for just the bowl and rushes out of his line of sight. He can feel something tear and then a pain that hits him like a truck, his teeth gritting against the sudden ache, almost biting through his tongue. Then, darkness surrounds him clouding his vision.

"Jacob!"

Jacob wakes up in a cold sweat, eyes flicking around the room searching for something. He's not even sure what but his heart is about fly out of his chest as he scrambles to find the switch of the lamp in the darkness. In his haste, he almost jumps out of his skin as a hand comes out of nowhere to grab his wrist. He's not in the position to fight back, his body twisted so that he's stretching his wound. His wolf wasn't of any help these days, any form of growl dying in his throat and twisting itself into a whine. 

A sharp "Jake" is the only thing that takes him out of his own head as the light of the lamp flicks on. It blinds him for a moment, but soon enough, he's looking into the concerned eyes of Edward. He was almost surprised that Bella wasn't camped out next to him on the floor or had somehow crawled into the bed next to him. He couldn't even have a nightmare alone. 

As disgruntled as he wants to be, he says nothing when Edward takes a seat on the edge next to him. 

"What was it about?" His voice is low like they're sharing a secret just between the two of them.

It takes him a moment to get over how ridiculous this all is, how ridiculous he feels to be in the center of it. He doesn't want to think about it. He's been spending so much time avoiding how Edward settles in wherever he is like he belongs there. He's not even surprised when, after a moment of silence, he's nudged lightly as an indication to scoot over and then they're fully in bed together.

"It was just a nightmare." He grunts out after a couple more minutes of just staring down at the duvet that was once pristine, but has a couple of bloodstains and maybe a little sweat smudged into it. 

"Okay," Edward says it slowly, and Jacob can feel his eyes roaming his face and then down to his hands which had become twisted in the sheets, "It's clearly shaken you up a bit, though."

They sit in silence for a few more moments before Edward speaks again.

 "If need be, we can pretend this is for the baby's sake. You can't be stressing yourself like this." Edward says it after finally looking away. Something about the previous statement really affects Jacob. He's not sure what he's feeling, but there are bits of rage mingled with despair that just bubbles up from the depths of his gut and subconscious into his throat and the forefront of his mind. Is this what's going on? They're dancing around each other like a couple of teenagers and he's hiding behind "it's for the baby's sake". Is that what he tells Bella when he's watching him sleep in the middle of the fucking night? When he keeps leaning into Jacob like they're bound together by some invisible tether?

This feeling manifests itself in unshed tears that cling to Jacob's lashes and he begs that they don't fall or this is going to be more embarrassing than it already is. He disguises clearing his throat with a cough and tries to discreetly swipe away the tears by pretending to look away in thought, but Edward must have some hidden sixth sense for knowing when Jacob's a mess so he's wrapping his arm around his waist anyway and tugging him closer into his side. 

"There was a witch," Jacob starts, knowing that it'll get Edward's attention and he won't have to explain the sudden onslaught of tears, "I don't know if it was what happened, but it make sense I guess." He swipes at his nose with a shirt sleeve that he hadn't been wearing when he'd passed out earlier. He's pretty sure it belongs to Edward.

"Witch?" 

"Yeah, she was in the woods, put a spell on me so I couldn't move. Put another spell on me that -," He hadn't actually ever said it out loud and he wanted to keep it that way for a while, "She was talking about Bella being unable to carry the baby to term or something. Had your tooth and some of Bella's hair...said I would do nicely." He skips a couple of the details, hoping his mind had just embellished a bit. 

"Okay, can you tell me what she looked like?" There was something, again, about the way that Edward looked at him that really put him on edge. He could fill his heart speeding up in his chest as he looked at him like he had all of the answers. 

"She had dark hair, pale skin, and green eyes. She was wearing some old style, worn dress." Jacob avoided his eyes and focused on the random patterns he was drawing into the sheets covering him, ignoring the fact that Edward still hadn't left his perch on the bed. Only the overly loud growl coming from his stomach took him out of his own head. 

This wasn't something he gets embarrassed by. Werewolves have large appetites, especially the males. He would usually scarf down about three meals in a single sitting. So, the blush that spreads across his cheeks and hits the tips of his ears is new for him. His eyes go wide, but he continues keeping them anywhere besides Edward's.

There was something different about this hunger.

"I can get you something from the kitchen." Edward says it casually, but Jacob can feel his cheeks grow hotter at the acknowledgement.

 Who was he becoming? Why does he care that Edward heard his stomach growl?

"Can't I do anything for myself?" Jacob grumbles, masking his embarrassment behind irritation for the third time tonight. "I can go and get it and you can trail behind me if it makes you feel better." Jacob negotiates and he can feel Edward thinking it over beside him before letting out a sigh. 

He gives almost an invisible nod and scoots off the side of the bed and looks over to Jacob expectantly. Jacob slowly scoots forward, trying to hide his grimaces of pain. When he finally gets to the edge, it's a relief. That relief is quickly drained from him as the air hits his bare thighs and he's left with the realization that Edward's only dressed half of him. 

"Ed!" He's scrambling for the covers, but he can already hear Edward chuckling behind him. 

"I've seen your butt, Jake. We can find you some pants, if you want, but the rest of the house isn't in the kitchen at three in the morning." He seems to be getting a kick out of this as he watches Jacob fail to cover his ass with the duvet.

"You've seen my-" Jacob almost seems startled, as if him limping half naked out of the bathtub wasn't a thing that happened hours prior. 

Edward grabs Jacob by the arm after about a minute of struggling and tripping over the duvet that was half draped onto the floor. 

"We are vampires, vampires don't eat roast and mashed potatoes at three in morning-" he pauses just in time to hear Jacob's stomach whine like he hadn't eaten in the past century, "We go hunting. The house is out on a hunting trip currently trying to get full after searching the forest for the witch. No one is going to see your bottom, Jay."

Jacob finally stops trying to hassle with the king-sized duvet and slowly allows it to drop to the floor in defeat. 

"They will be gone for two more days." Edward continues to reassure him as he tries to tug him out of the pile of sheets and blankets he's created at his feet. 

Jacob reluctantly trails him out of the room after another minute of coaxing. 

The kitchen is quite large and extra for people who don't even use it, but Jacob keeps this commentary to himself as he watches Edward heat up the aforementioned leftovers. 

"Why do you have cooked leftovers?" He finally manages to ask over the hum of the microwave. 

"Because you were supposed to have eaten them yesterday, but you insisted on potentially having an infection instead." With that, Edward turns to him and slowly makes his way over, eyes on the bandages that weren't hidden all that well by Jacob's shirt. He slowly lifts it to run his fingers over the wound gently and if Jacob didn't feel exposed before, he sure did now. 

"Does it hurt currently?" His voice is low. If he wasn't standing so close, Jacob would've missed it over the humming of the microwave and the loud beating of his own heart in his ears.  

"No, I-" He's cut off by the beeping of the microwave. That doesn't seem to distract Edward who waits patiently for an answer. "Hurts when I move a lot. I'm good right now."

Edward's hand moves over the bandage once again, but it doesn't stay there for long as it travels lower on his hip. His back arcs as an immediate reaction and he bites the hiss that almost escapes him. Edward's hand is unashamedly gripping at his bare ass when the microwave beeps again. 

He can hear a quiet "fuck" but he's not sure who it comes from. 

Edward whips around and removes the food from the microwave before turning back to Jacob. They say nothing as they make their way back to the room.

Jacob's about halfway through scarfing down half of his food when he feels a hand on his thigh. He glances towards Edward, ignoring the fact that he most likely looks like a squirrel hoarding nuts to see Edward staring down at his own hand.

"Tell me you feel it." His fingers run over Jacob's thigh gently, tracing made up patterns. Jacob chews on his food for a bit until he can swallow most of it before answering.

"Feel what?" Maybe if he pretended to be oblivious, they could just let this go. 

The thing in the kitchen wasn't a thing at all.

However, Edward had a different idea as he took the same hand to maneuver Jacob's chin so that he had no choice but to keep his eyes on him. There was no hiding. 

Edward pushes himself into a more comfortable position before smashing his lips onto Jacob's. The kiss tastes like he's starving for it, his eagerness like he'd been waiting. Jacob's plate almost flips over onto the sheets as Edward presses further into him. Jacob can hear his own surprise be muffled into a moan before he pushes Edward back with as much strength as he can muster without any help. Though, Edward moves back easily with little hesitation.

He's basically panting into Jacob's mouth and almost looks genuinely winded. 

Jacob wants to say something that draws the line in the sand, something that lets Edward know that they can't be running around acting like they're two love drunk teenagers. This thing couldn't keep happening, the touches and being way too close to one another. He had to let it be known.

"Shit." He hears himself pant out as Edward dips his head low to suck on the skin at the crook of Jacob's neck and shoulder.