Night-a CR/CW one-shot
WARNING: This is darker than most of my other stuff, though the same characters. The whole first bit up to the break is Jack's past and therefore reference to a lot of abuse. It's not that descriptive, more alluded to, but it's not happy reading. You may want to skip the first bit up to the break, or the whole thing-I understand. If you do read it, please let me know what you think.
But I'll tell you why I had to write this. I just can't get out of my head how poor poor Heath couldn't sleep and had to resort to pills. I wish I could go back in time and tell him not to, or better yet I wish he had had someone so maybe he didn't need to. And so this story looks at sleep and nightmares and how my Ennis saved my Jack. As I say, it's quite different from my normal stuff but I'm please I wrote it and it makes me feel better.
NIGHT
He guessed when he was little, really little, he must have had the standard nightmares all kids had; monsters under the bed, bad things happening to him, scary creatures.
He probably cried out in his sleep back then. Called for his mummy, maybe even his daddy. They probably didn't come though. Or if they did come it would only have been to shout at him about discipline and good behaviour and warn him not to be a baby. Children should be seen and not heard.
By the time he started school he remembered the nightmares were always the same. From then onwards they were always about his dad. He could never remember why he was hit that first time. He knew why he was hit the second time-for crying about the first time. How quickly he learnt the lesson to suffer in silence. Maybe it hadn't even hurt that much the first time. It had more been the shock, but if it didn't hurt that first time it did every time after that. From the moment he first went to bed with bruises on his arm where he had been held in a firm grasp and a stinging back where his dad had slapped him twice things changed. For Jack they changed because the days became more scary and nightmare-like than the nights. For his dad they changed because he had found a new way to channel the anger and rage and frustration the years serving as an army doctor in some bad places had stored up in him.
For a couple of years nighttime actually became his escape. Whatever state he went to bed in, he at least knew that he had hours ahead where nothing would happen and he would be left alone. At night there was no one there to see him. He could just go to sleep with no fear that he might do or say something that would result in "Wait till your Father hears what you said/did" or "You'll be punished for that my boy". During the days those were the words he dreaded, but at night when he went upstairs, and they stayed downstairs, he got away from that.
When he was 7 a few things changed. He'd built up some kind of immunity to his dad's slaps. Could make himself numb before the hits were even struck. As such he stopped flinching and no longer had to screw his eyes up to stop the tears coming. This did not go un-noticed by his father. One winter evening when Jack had barely felt the 5 slaps his dad had laid on him for whatever reason he'd found that day, something in his father snapped and he had reached for the poker that his mum had just been stoking the fire with. Jack was off school for a week. He didn't remember much of that week other than it hurt when he lay on his back. When he went back to school he was told he had some kind of illness that prevented him from doing games and sports. He got a headstart on homework whilst his classmates ran around. Punishments at home started being stored up for Friday after school. Thursday evenings the nightmares always returned. His dad and what his dad was going to do. Friday's at school he was always so tired yet never wanting the day to end. He was seen as a good student because he seemed to like being at school and seemed upset to be going home for the weekend. How could anyone not want to go home to a mother known in the community for her devout religion and good work for local charities, or to a father who was a decorated war veteran and a doctor to boot? Friday nights he could either remember pain. Or he could remember nothing except waking up sometime over the weekend.
The other thing that happened was that at night they started locking his door. The must have figured that if he could get up and go to the bathroom then he could get up and walk out of the front door. With the door locked, nighttime was no longer an escape, a time where he could go un-punished. Nighttime was just another time to get into trouble. On the third night after the door was locked for the first time he woke up sometime in the middle of the night needing the bathroom. "Please" he'd called through the door, but no one had answered. He never made it through to morning - sometime as the sky was beginning to lighten his bladder had given up being squeezed and pressed and willed shut and had emptied where he sat curled on his bed. It could not be hidden and as soon as the door was open he knew his mother smelt it. She disappeared, reappeared with his father, and the look on his dad's face was truely the stuff of nightmares. That was a wednesday. On the Thursday night he had a nightmare about it, woke up and found it had happened again. He didn't remember what happened that friday evening, or the following saturday. By the sunday he thought maybe he deserved the pain for what 7 year old wetted the bed?
What little sympathy he had ever gotten from his mother evaporated like the yellow stains never would. She started telling him what a bad child he was, found her own ways to punish him for his dirtiness. Those punishments didn't need to wait for friday. They didn't leave any marks. Or at least they didn't leave any marks that could be seen. And all the time the bedroom door stayed locked all night. They gave him a bucket but it was too late. If he did wake up in time he didn't always get to the bucket quickly enough, more often that not it didn't matter because the damage was done whilst he slept. The more he worried about it and tried not to do it, the worse it was. In someways, eventually, maybe he stopped trying. Something inside just gave up. At lest he deserved to be punished for bed wetting. Maybe not as badly as he was punished, but it made more sense than some of the other things he was punished for. Things he didn't understand or didn't remember doing. Sometimes it seemed his dad was doing it just for something to do. At least if his mum found a wet bed any morning then it felt like there was a reason he hurt so much friday night. Everything escalated. The bucket broke when he was ten after his dad hit him with it one too many times. It was never replaced. He was left to it. Sometimes he never had sheets on his bed, sometimes he was left with the dirty ones. When it was cold it was always worse. Summer was also bad when he drank more. Nothing he tried worked and he just had to accept he couldn't even rely on his own body to help him survive. Once he got sick and the mess was even worse. That was during the school holidays otherwise he'd have missed a lot of school with what happened after that. When he was round 10 or 11, he'd sometimes wake up to a different mess. It was something he didn't understand until years later. This mess rarely followed a nightmare-more usually it followed a dream that was a lot nicer than normal. It made no difference. He got a different punishment when they discovered that, although he was as equally helpless at preventing it. Different. Worse.
By the time he was 13 he hardly slept at all. He got used to less and less hours over the years. A few hours each night and he didn't need much more because he didn't really do anything-no sports, no shopping trips, riding a bike, playing in the park. All he did was sit in a room with his school books, the Bible, and a few books left over from when he was a little kid-fairytales. The time he didn't sleep was spent between fighting his body's urges, day dreaming of a better world and rescue by a knight in shining armour or plotting his escape.
It took a year but finally it seemed over. In the hospital he slept for the best part of 2 weeks whilst the investigation got underway. The drugs helped and later all he recalled was nights of nothing-no dreams but no nightmares either. The days were equally blurry but there was quite a lot of talking. Then he met Mr and Mrs Cullen and went home with them. The first night there he slept like a dead man. The next day there was more talking. Doctors, lawyers, police, social workers. That night the nightmares returned with a vengeance even though the door was open and lots of lights were on. He woke up terrified, confused and wet. And not just from sweat. He was huddled without a word from his bedroom to the spare room. They sat there with him, only said nice things and he went back to sleep. Woke again a few hours later: the same. They still smiled though there were whispered words exchanged now. They ushered him to the lounge and tucked him up on the sofa. Woke him a couple of hours later as the day was beginning. He expected to be handed back, too much trouble, but he wasn't. Even though the next night was the same. They just moved him round and did lots of laundry. And so it went. The days were filled up with good things and he tried his best, did his best. Answered all questions asked of him, did what he was told, helped out whenever asked to, relished his new freedom and realised this must be what happy was like. Everyone said he was doing well. Come bedtime he always headed up purposefully, confidentally, hopefully. Sometimes it worked. Mostly it didn't. It seemed his mind was unable to accept that he was free and that it was over. Instead his mind recreated events all too vividly. Tortured him with images he thought he'd escaped. He never had to resort to the sofa again, but more often than not he went to bed at night in 'his' bedroom, got up the next morning from the spare room. He was never told off or punished, was told to give it time. The doctors offered pills. It was tempting but Mr Cullen found a better solution. One day Jack got up at 5 am because he didn't feel quite brave enough to go back to sleep. Mr Cullen heard him and got up too. They went for a drive. Ended up at the Leisure Centre because Mrs Cullen wanted to know about some classes they were running. Surprised to find it fully open Jack had stared at the huge swimming pool with a few energetic early morning swimmers whilst Mr Cullen made some enquiries on behalf of his wife. Seeing something in Jack's face Mr Cullen had asked if he wanted to go for a swim. Jack replied he did not know how and that set Mr Cullen's mind. In a stroke of inspiration he purchased 2 pairs of swimming trunks then and there and a t-shirt for Jack as he already knew how self conscious Jack was about his back (and for good reason Mr Cullen understood having seen photos in the file that came with Jack). It turned out in the pool Jack was a natural.
The nightmares didn't stop but the did ease up. Early morning swimming lessons that weren't lessons for long meant Jack slept better. Friday nights they nearly always came back, but weekly was better than almost daily. And although the nightmares were always scary the having to move to the spare room got less and less too. He was almost back to normal. He didn't have to move beds for the other kind of mess in his pants. Learnt what that was all about. Learnt some other stuff about himself at the same time. Maybe not quite normal yet.
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Then there was Camp. And then there was Ennis. And after Ennis. There was no more bed wetting after Ennis, but there were still nightmares. Even Ennis couldn't stop the nightmares because no one is lucky enough to go through life without any nightmares are they? But after Ennis, nights became something else again. At Camp the nights (except the last one) had been his favourite part. He never remembered being so happy and relaxed at night. After Ennis, the nightmares became something else too for now it was not always him getting hurt. Of course there were 2 years when Ennis wasn't actually there, but to know he was somewhere gave Jack comfort when he awoke from a nightmare. Lying in bed, thinking of Ennis, of Camp, was how he filled the time when he was too afraid to go back to sleep. Ennis had said he could phone anytime, after they both got mobile phones, but Jack only resorted to this when the nightmares were really really bad and he needed to hear Ennis' voice. Then there were the months, that became years, when Ennis WAS there. And Ennis was the best cure for nightmares. He always woke with Jack and he always found a way to distract Jack, calm him down. Like the horses he was so good with, Ennis would find ways to soothe and gentle Jack. And it always seemed to be something different as he didn't want Jack associating nightmares with something particular. Jack never knew but Ennis had used the University Library to read about more than the veterinary medicine his course demanded. He'd read to try and understand and try and help. One might imagine two boys who loved each other like Jack and Ennis did would find it easy to find distraction in bed. But that was not how it went. When he awoke from a nightmare Ennis would gaze into Jack's eyes and see hurt and confusion and receding fear and Ennis knew that wasn't the solution and he had to find another way to bring his Little Otter back. Couldn't do anything to or with Jack in that state. He needed something simpler, calmer.
Change of whatever kind seemed to upset the balance in Jack's head, and so it was that in the first few weeks in Ennis's sister's house, in the bedroom they shared, there were quite a few nightmares. Ennis would wake as he felt Jack on or close to him tense and fidget, his breathing and heart beat pick up a pace. Then the eyes would fly open and a cold and clammy hand would grip Ennis.
"Ennis?" Jack nearly always woke gasping his name.
"I'm right here Jack" Ennis would say softly, waiting for Jack's wild eyes to settle on him.
"I'm right here" he'd repeat. Then, "It's ok Jack. It's ok. A bad dream. I've got you Little Otter". Then it was a matter of getting Jack's mind to find something else to occupy itself for Ennis didn't want it dwelling on the dream. Ennis never asked what the dreams were about. He didn't need to and he didn't want to. Jack would occasionally tell him if it had been a really bad one, but mostly it went unsaid.
First time him and Jack had sat up in bed and Ennis had hoisted the sheet so it was covering them both and arranged it like a tent with the two of them as the tent poles holding it up.
"Just like Camp, huh?" Ennis had said and Jack had smiled vaguely. "Right then" Ennis had said matter-of-factly and reached outside of the sheet grabbed a torch and a book. The first that came to hand which was a text book.
"Help me learn?" he'd asked to which Jack had nodded in a dazed way. Opening the book at random Ennis had switched on the torch and got Jack to quietly test him on large animal anatomy-Jack saying a region of the body and Ennis listing the bones and muscles found there. After an hour or so Jack took longer to respond to Ennis' answers, and Ennis eased the book out of Jack's hands, meeting little resistance. "Come on Little Otter" Ennis whispered, switching off the torch and stretching out. Jack eased himself back to the horizontal, snuggled up to Ennis and slept till morning.
A couple of nights later they'd only been asleep for a few hours when Ennis was woken by Jack's stirring. Moments later Jack flinched and then he opened his eyes slowly as if scared of what they might see. Ennis gentled him again, pulled the sheet into a tent and produced a piece if paper. "You know what I do. Used to do. When I'm bored at school?" he asked. Jack shook his head wide-eyed. "Name all the States. You know? You think it should be easy. Only 50 of them after all but seriously, when you try and list them all, it's harder than you think."
"Really?" Jack asked in a small voice.
"Uh-huh. Shall we give it a go?"
"Ok" Jack said with a bit more feeling. "Florida". Ennis smiled and wrote down Florida. Jack rushed to 42 States pretty quickly without much help. Then he slowed down and Ennis helped and they got up to 46. "Wow, never thought it would be so hard" Jack said later when they eventually hit 48. "OK let's think. I think we're missing one in the middle....." he added with a determination that made Ennis smile inwardly. Connecticut made it 49, finally, but try as they might they could not get the last one. "Arghhh" Jack said, then yawned. He sagged into Ennis. "Let's forget it" Ennis said into Jack's hair, gently rolling them back down onto the mattress. Jack woke later in the night, but only to whisper "Delaware" to Ennis and then snuggle back to sleep.
The next night there was another nightmare and this time Jack looked really freaked out when he woke up. "Why can't I sleep properly?" he asked Ennis. "I don't know baby, but it's ok" Ennis tried to reassure him.
"It's not because I'm unhappy or anything" Jack tried to explain.
"I know. It's ok. Just happens."
"I'm happy to be here. I really am. I just......"
"Hush now, it's ok. Come on"
With the sheet over them, Jack asked almost expectantly, "What now?".
"Well...." Ennis said. "I'm going to study but you. You're about to start a Marine Biology course. So how about we see how much you already know? Here's a blank piece of paper. Why don't you show me how many oceans and rivers and lakes you know?"
"Cool" Jack said and laying out on his tummy with the paper propped on a pillow, he busied himself with the task. Ennis tried to read a text book but found himself engrossed with Jack's drawings as he watched the continents take (accurate) shape. The Oceans were all labelled. Jack started drawing the Great Lakes, tongue sticking out, utterly concentrated. Ennis cursed himself as he woke up a bit later because he must have dozed off. Jack was asleep next to him though with the pencil still gripped in his hand, the map getting squashed under his chin. Ennis eased them both free, marvelled at the quality and detail of the map, and rolled Jack into his arms.
Two nights later Ennis' sister went out with her husband. "I don't think I'll be back till gone midnight. At the earliest." She'd told Ennis. Jack and Ennis had a lovely evening, went to bed early but did not go to sleep for several hours after. Ennis was a bit surprised when he woke up later as Jack jerked awake ontop of him, panting. "Need the bathroom" Jack said miserably, and slid out of bed.
When Jack was finished, he stood there, swaying slightly. Sometimes he felt nauseous with relief. Relief he had woken up in time and relief he was able to get out and get to a bathroom. When he didn't return for many minutes, Ennis knew something was up. Crept out of bed and found Jack sat on the toilet, tears silently rolling down his cheek.
"Hey now. Hey, what's this?" Ennis said gently, smoothing Jack's hair, plastered to his head with sweat, away from his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" Jack mouthed.
"Hey, it's ok. Jack. It's ok." Ennis said as he gently coaxed Jack back to their bedroom.
"Now then" Ennis said a few minutes later when they were sat together under the sheet.
"Oh Ennis" Jack said, "I don't know what wrong with me. It's not been this bad for a long time. I'm not unhappy. I'm really not. I'm so happy to be here, but you must think.....I keep waking you up.....it must seem like I'm sad or miserable. I'm not. Tonight was lovely. Really nice. But....but....."
"Oh My Little Otter. It's ok. It is. You've gone through so much, and now it's another big change for you. New place, new house, new bed. New climate. It's all so different. No wonder your brain is working overtime. It's ok. Don't you worry about me waking up. I'm a light sleeper, I wake up at anything. I wake up when you snore."
"I don't snore. Do I?"
That night they didn't really do anything under the sheet. Just talked. Talked about change and moving around and where they'd like to go, where they would go. Together. Only half an hour had passed when Jack said " I think I'm ok now" and they went back to sleep.
By the time Jack next had a nightmare Ennis had procured a pack of cards and in the early hours of the morning, by torchlight, he taught Jack to play Rummy. Poker, Blackjack, Old Maid and other games followed on other nights over the months as the nightmares were more spaced out by now. When Ennis ran out of card games he knew, they made their own games.
"You know 20 questions?" he'd asked under the sheet one time. Jack shook his head. "You gotta guess something, got 20 questions you can ask and the other person can only answer Yes or No. Let's do that but let's always make it an animal, and you don't get 20 guesses, you just try and do it in as few as you can. Ok?"
"Ok" Jack replied.
"Right, I got an animal. You guess" Ennis told Jack.
"Otter?"
"No. One"
"Horse?"
"No. Two. I'm not making it easy for you!"
"Ok. Is it a mammal?"
And so they whiled away a lot of time. Ennis always did better, thought of more obscure animals, made it harder for Jack. It was the only nighttime activity that ever strayed into daytime. Mostly what happened under the sheet at night wasn't talked about. Some never said agreement. But sometimes, if they were together, just the two of them, Ennis would start with "Bet you can't guess what animal I'm thinking of?" This also worked when they were separated after Jack graduated. When he was alone with just the animals in Crystal River, and he needed to hear Ennis' voice, he's phone up and say "I've got an animal in my mind, can you guess what it is?"
Back at Ennis' sister's house, Ennis impressed himself with his resourcefulness. He found himself lingering in the travel games sections of shops and when he had a spare bit of money, bought a game and stored it by his bed for when it might be needed. Under the sheet, or duvet in the colder months, Jack learned to play Chess and Chequers, played Cluedo and Monopoly (never finished). Later when they both got busier at College they got a jump start on assignments, reading or revision. One time Ennis borrowed a photo album form his sister and, under the sheet, showed Jack pictures of him and his family growing up. For some reason they never switched the bedroom light on, maybe it was too big an acknowledgement that something was up, and Ennis had to make sure he always had a good supply of batteries for his torch.
"What do you two do at night?" Ennis' sister asked one time, a question she never thought she'd be asking her little brother. But the door was often left open (Jack didn't like closed doors) and sometimes she'd walk past at night and see two silhouettes under a sheet, hear voices and it wasn't the sounds and sights she braced herself she mights see or hear. Ennis didn't answer, just smiled.
By the time Ennis joined Jack in their own house in Crystal River the nightmares were pretty rare. One every few months maybe. By then they didn't need to stay quiet or stay in bed. The first time it happened, Ennis reassured Jack and then looked at him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Jack Twist" he said, "Do you know, I don't know if you're ticklish?" And he proceeded to find out that you could tickle Jack and get a lovely laugh from him when you hit certain spots. Another time he made out like he was going to tickle Jack and instead found Jack's feet, studied them, and then returned to Jack's face and said with great seriousness-
"Uh Jack. Your feet......."
"What?" Jack asked, kind of worried and kind of confused as he tried to struggle out of the nightmare's lingering clutches.
"It's just.....you're...I don't know how to tell you this, but webs have grown. Between your toes. You're feet are turning into flippers!"
"Really?" Jack asked, concerned, not quite with it yet until he saw the look on Ennis' face. Then he burst into laughter as Ennis proceeded to give his neck a very close examination, with lips as well as fingers, "to check for gills".
Sometimes they'd go make a midnight feast and bring that back to bed and eat chocolate and crisps and have the dogs clean up after them. Other times they went and sat in their lounge and would fall asleep together on the sofa as a film or wildlife show played quietly on the TV. If there was a good storm outside they'd watch that, or they'd watch the cats playing together, or try and train Pecos and Yukon to do the tricks Brazos picked up so easily. Sometimes they told each other stories. Real stories, or stories they made up.
Night no longer held any fear for Jack. It was just another part of day, and he knew that with Ennis del Mar, it would always be so.
-
And Ennis? Ennis had nightmares too. Not very often. Mostly when he was without Jack. When circumstances had them in different States, or different ends of the same State he'd worry about Jack and the worries would carry over into bad dreams. After he went to Court to support Jack, saw that man, he knew what he looked like, the man that haunted his Little Otter's nights. Vowed he would not let that man get at Jack anymore. Would do all he could to help Jack forget. And that's what he would think about when he himself woke up from his own nightmares.
One time. One time in their Crystal River home, Jack lay awake watching Ennis sleep. He did this occasionaly if he woke up naturally and Ennis still slept. He loved to do it, to watch Ennis and remind himself how beautiful Ennis was and how lucky he, Jack, was. One time he lay watching Ennis, when Ennis' arm stiffened and his fist clenched. Ennis seemed to screw up his shut eyes and Jack watched in horror as Ennis' body tensed and he realised Ennis was having a nightmare. He didn't know what to do, it was always the other way round. He gently shook Ennis, and as Ennis woke up, he flung his arms round him, and hugged him tight.
"What the...?" Ennis muttered.
"It's ok Ennis." Jack reassured him, "it's just me. Love you. Love you Ennis."
"Jack?" Ennis asked confused.
"Come on" Jack urged, and, with Ennis putting up little resistance, Jack pulled him from the bed, out the door, into the garden and down to the river. "Come on" he said again as he jumped in, still wearing the t-shirt and shorts he slept in. Ennis did not know what to do other than follow, so he jumped in too, in his shorts. In the pale moonlight the two figures splashed about in the river, coming together to hug or push each other under, to kiss or to splash water in the other's face. They laughed with each other in the darkness. "Crazy" Ennis muttered.
"Didn't know what to do" Jack admitted. "I know swimming is my thing, but I didn't think we'd be able to go riding at this hour. This was nearer...easier."
"Oh Jack" Ennis chuckled to himself as he watched his other half frolick in the river, in his element, and somehow even more beautiful and special in the shadows cast by the pale moon and the reflections of the clear water.
"My Little Otter" he said as he pulled Jack too him for a long deep kiss. Clothes were shed. Love was made. And once again they banished each other's bad memories, repalacing them with their own new, good ones.
*By the way, the song I'm listening to now, Amy MacDonald is a beautiful song with the line "where you going to sleep tonight" somehow appropriate. This song will always remind me of that horrid January day. As I walked around in a daze after reading the tragic news this is the first song I remember penetrating through the sadness into my brain.
But I'll tell you why I had to write this. I just can't get out of my head how poor poor Heath couldn't sleep and had to resort to pills. I wish I could go back in time and tell him not to, or better yet I wish he had had someone so maybe he didn't need to. And so this story looks at sleep and nightmares and how my Ennis saved my Jack. As I say, it's quite different from my normal stuff but I'm please I wrote it and it makes me feel better.
NIGHT
He guessed when he was little, really little, he must have had the standard nightmares all kids had; monsters under the bed, bad things happening to him, scary creatures.
He probably cried out in his sleep back then. Called for his mummy, maybe even his daddy. They probably didn't come though. Or if they did come it would only have been to shout at him about discipline and good behaviour and warn him not to be a baby. Children should be seen and not heard.
By the time he started school he remembered the nightmares were always the same. From then onwards they were always about his dad. He could never remember why he was hit that first time. He knew why he was hit the second time-for crying about the first time. How quickly he learnt the lesson to suffer in silence. Maybe it hadn't even hurt that much the first time. It had more been the shock, but if it didn't hurt that first time it did every time after that. From the moment he first went to bed with bruises on his arm where he had been held in a firm grasp and a stinging back where his dad had slapped him twice things changed. For Jack they changed because the days became more scary and nightmare-like than the nights. For his dad they changed because he had found a new way to channel the anger and rage and frustration the years serving as an army doctor in some bad places had stored up in him.
For a couple of years nighttime actually became his escape. Whatever state he went to bed in, he at least knew that he had hours ahead where nothing would happen and he would be left alone. At night there was no one there to see him. He could just go to sleep with no fear that he might do or say something that would result in "Wait till your Father hears what you said/did" or "You'll be punished for that my boy". During the days those were the words he dreaded, but at night when he went upstairs, and they stayed downstairs, he got away from that.
When he was 7 a few things changed. He'd built up some kind of immunity to his dad's slaps. Could make himself numb before the hits were even struck. As such he stopped flinching and no longer had to screw his eyes up to stop the tears coming. This did not go un-noticed by his father. One winter evening when Jack had barely felt the 5 slaps his dad had laid on him for whatever reason he'd found that day, something in his father snapped and he had reached for the poker that his mum had just been stoking the fire with. Jack was off school for a week. He didn't remember much of that week other than it hurt when he lay on his back. When he went back to school he was told he had some kind of illness that prevented him from doing games and sports. He got a headstart on homework whilst his classmates ran around. Punishments at home started being stored up for Friday after school. Thursday evenings the nightmares always returned. His dad and what his dad was going to do. Friday's at school he was always so tired yet never wanting the day to end. He was seen as a good student because he seemed to like being at school and seemed upset to be going home for the weekend. How could anyone not want to go home to a mother known in the community for her devout religion and good work for local charities, or to a father who was a decorated war veteran and a doctor to boot? Friday nights he could either remember pain. Or he could remember nothing except waking up sometime over the weekend.
The other thing that happened was that at night they started locking his door. The must have figured that if he could get up and go to the bathroom then he could get up and walk out of the front door. With the door locked, nighttime was no longer an escape, a time where he could go un-punished. Nighttime was just another time to get into trouble. On the third night after the door was locked for the first time he woke up sometime in the middle of the night needing the bathroom. "Please" he'd called through the door, but no one had answered. He never made it through to morning - sometime as the sky was beginning to lighten his bladder had given up being squeezed and pressed and willed shut and had emptied where he sat curled on his bed. It could not be hidden and as soon as the door was open he knew his mother smelt it. She disappeared, reappeared with his father, and the look on his dad's face was truely the stuff of nightmares. That was a wednesday. On the Thursday night he had a nightmare about it, woke up and found it had happened again. He didn't remember what happened that friday evening, or the following saturday. By the sunday he thought maybe he deserved the pain for what 7 year old wetted the bed?
What little sympathy he had ever gotten from his mother evaporated like the yellow stains never would. She started telling him what a bad child he was, found her own ways to punish him for his dirtiness. Those punishments didn't need to wait for friday. They didn't leave any marks. Or at least they didn't leave any marks that could be seen. And all the time the bedroom door stayed locked all night. They gave him a bucket but it was too late. If he did wake up in time he didn't always get to the bucket quickly enough, more often that not it didn't matter because the damage was done whilst he slept. The more he worried about it and tried not to do it, the worse it was. In someways, eventually, maybe he stopped trying. Something inside just gave up. At lest he deserved to be punished for bed wetting. Maybe not as badly as he was punished, but it made more sense than some of the other things he was punished for. Things he didn't understand or didn't remember doing. Sometimes it seemed his dad was doing it just for something to do. At least if his mum found a wet bed any morning then it felt like there was a reason he hurt so much friday night. Everything escalated. The bucket broke when he was ten after his dad hit him with it one too many times. It was never replaced. He was left to it. Sometimes he never had sheets on his bed, sometimes he was left with the dirty ones. When it was cold it was always worse. Summer was also bad when he drank more. Nothing he tried worked and he just had to accept he couldn't even rely on his own body to help him survive. Once he got sick and the mess was even worse. That was during the school holidays otherwise he'd have missed a lot of school with what happened after that. When he was round 10 or 11, he'd sometimes wake up to a different mess. It was something he didn't understand until years later. This mess rarely followed a nightmare-more usually it followed a dream that was a lot nicer than normal. It made no difference. He got a different punishment when they discovered that, although he was as equally helpless at preventing it. Different. Worse.
By the time he was 13 he hardly slept at all. He got used to less and less hours over the years. A few hours each night and he didn't need much more because he didn't really do anything-no sports, no shopping trips, riding a bike, playing in the park. All he did was sit in a room with his school books, the Bible, and a few books left over from when he was a little kid-fairytales. The time he didn't sleep was spent between fighting his body's urges, day dreaming of a better world and rescue by a knight in shining armour or plotting his escape.
It took a year but finally it seemed over. In the hospital he slept for the best part of 2 weeks whilst the investigation got underway. The drugs helped and later all he recalled was nights of nothing-no dreams but no nightmares either. The days were equally blurry but there was quite a lot of talking. Then he met Mr and Mrs Cullen and went home with them. The first night there he slept like a dead man. The next day there was more talking. Doctors, lawyers, police, social workers. That night the nightmares returned with a vengeance even though the door was open and lots of lights were on. He woke up terrified, confused and wet. And not just from sweat. He was huddled without a word from his bedroom to the spare room. They sat there with him, only said nice things and he went back to sleep. Woke again a few hours later: the same. They still smiled though there were whispered words exchanged now. They ushered him to the lounge and tucked him up on the sofa. Woke him a couple of hours later as the day was beginning. He expected to be handed back, too much trouble, but he wasn't. Even though the next night was the same. They just moved him round and did lots of laundry. And so it went. The days were filled up with good things and he tried his best, did his best. Answered all questions asked of him, did what he was told, helped out whenever asked to, relished his new freedom and realised this must be what happy was like. Everyone said he was doing well. Come bedtime he always headed up purposefully, confidentally, hopefully. Sometimes it worked. Mostly it didn't. It seemed his mind was unable to accept that he was free and that it was over. Instead his mind recreated events all too vividly. Tortured him with images he thought he'd escaped. He never had to resort to the sofa again, but more often than not he went to bed at night in 'his' bedroom, got up the next morning from the spare room. He was never told off or punished, was told to give it time. The doctors offered pills. It was tempting but Mr Cullen found a better solution. One day Jack got up at 5 am because he didn't feel quite brave enough to go back to sleep. Mr Cullen heard him and got up too. They went for a drive. Ended up at the Leisure Centre because Mrs Cullen wanted to know about some classes they were running. Surprised to find it fully open Jack had stared at the huge swimming pool with a few energetic early morning swimmers whilst Mr Cullen made some enquiries on behalf of his wife. Seeing something in Jack's face Mr Cullen had asked if he wanted to go for a swim. Jack replied he did not know how and that set Mr Cullen's mind. In a stroke of inspiration he purchased 2 pairs of swimming trunks then and there and a t-shirt for Jack as he already knew how self conscious Jack was about his back (and for good reason Mr Cullen understood having seen photos in the file that came with Jack). It turned out in the pool Jack was a natural.
The nightmares didn't stop but the did ease up. Early morning swimming lessons that weren't lessons for long meant Jack slept better. Friday nights they nearly always came back, but weekly was better than almost daily. And although the nightmares were always scary the having to move to the spare room got less and less too. He was almost back to normal. He didn't have to move beds for the other kind of mess in his pants. Learnt what that was all about. Learnt some other stuff about himself at the same time. Maybe not quite normal yet.
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Then there was Camp. And then there was Ennis. And after Ennis. There was no more bed wetting after Ennis, but there were still nightmares. Even Ennis couldn't stop the nightmares because no one is lucky enough to go through life without any nightmares are they? But after Ennis, nights became something else again. At Camp the nights (except the last one) had been his favourite part. He never remembered being so happy and relaxed at night. After Ennis, the nightmares became something else too for now it was not always him getting hurt. Of course there were 2 years when Ennis wasn't actually there, but to know he was somewhere gave Jack comfort when he awoke from a nightmare. Lying in bed, thinking of Ennis, of Camp, was how he filled the time when he was too afraid to go back to sleep. Ennis had said he could phone anytime, after they both got mobile phones, but Jack only resorted to this when the nightmares were really really bad and he needed to hear Ennis' voice. Then there were the months, that became years, when Ennis WAS there. And Ennis was the best cure for nightmares. He always woke with Jack and he always found a way to distract Jack, calm him down. Like the horses he was so good with, Ennis would find ways to soothe and gentle Jack. And it always seemed to be something different as he didn't want Jack associating nightmares with something particular. Jack never knew but Ennis had used the University Library to read about more than the veterinary medicine his course demanded. He'd read to try and understand and try and help. One might imagine two boys who loved each other like Jack and Ennis did would find it easy to find distraction in bed. But that was not how it went. When he awoke from a nightmare Ennis would gaze into Jack's eyes and see hurt and confusion and receding fear and Ennis knew that wasn't the solution and he had to find another way to bring his Little Otter back. Couldn't do anything to or with Jack in that state. He needed something simpler, calmer.
Change of whatever kind seemed to upset the balance in Jack's head, and so it was that in the first few weeks in Ennis's sister's house, in the bedroom they shared, there were quite a few nightmares. Ennis would wake as he felt Jack on or close to him tense and fidget, his breathing and heart beat pick up a pace. Then the eyes would fly open and a cold and clammy hand would grip Ennis.
"Ennis?" Jack nearly always woke gasping his name.
"I'm right here Jack" Ennis would say softly, waiting for Jack's wild eyes to settle on him.
"I'm right here" he'd repeat. Then, "It's ok Jack. It's ok. A bad dream. I've got you Little Otter". Then it was a matter of getting Jack's mind to find something else to occupy itself for Ennis didn't want it dwelling on the dream. Ennis never asked what the dreams were about. He didn't need to and he didn't want to. Jack would occasionally tell him if it had been a really bad one, but mostly it went unsaid.
First time him and Jack had sat up in bed and Ennis had hoisted the sheet so it was covering them both and arranged it like a tent with the two of them as the tent poles holding it up.
"Just like Camp, huh?" Ennis had said and Jack had smiled vaguely. "Right then" Ennis had said matter-of-factly and reached outside of the sheet grabbed a torch and a book. The first that came to hand which was a text book.
"Help me learn?" he'd asked to which Jack had nodded in a dazed way. Opening the book at random Ennis had switched on the torch and got Jack to quietly test him on large animal anatomy-Jack saying a region of the body and Ennis listing the bones and muscles found there. After an hour or so Jack took longer to respond to Ennis' answers, and Ennis eased the book out of Jack's hands, meeting little resistance. "Come on Little Otter" Ennis whispered, switching off the torch and stretching out. Jack eased himself back to the horizontal, snuggled up to Ennis and slept till morning.
A couple of nights later they'd only been asleep for a few hours when Ennis was woken by Jack's stirring. Moments later Jack flinched and then he opened his eyes slowly as if scared of what they might see. Ennis gentled him again, pulled the sheet into a tent and produced a piece if paper. "You know what I do. Used to do. When I'm bored at school?" he asked. Jack shook his head wide-eyed. "Name all the States. You know? You think it should be easy. Only 50 of them after all but seriously, when you try and list them all, it's harder than you think."
"Really?" Jack asked in a small voice.
"Uh-huh. Shall we give it a go?"
"Ok" Jack said with a bit more feeling. "Florida". Ennis smiled and wrote down Florida. Jack rushed to 42 States pretty quickly without much help. Then he slowed down and Ennis helped and they got up to 46. "Wow, never thought it would be so hard" Jack said later when they eventually hit 48. "OK let's think. I think we're missing one in the middle....." he added with a determination that made Ennis smile inwardly. Connecticut made it 49, finally, but try as they might they could not get the last one. "Arghhh" Jack said, then yawned. He sagged into Ennis. "Let's forget it" Ennis said into Jack's hair, gently rolling them back down onto the mattress. Jack woke later in the night, but only to whisper "Delaware" to Ennis and then snuggle back to sleep.
The next night there was another nightmare and this time Jack looked really freaked out when he woke up. "Why can't I sleep properly?" he asked Ennis. "I don't know baby, but it's ok" Ennis tried to reassure him.
"It's not because I'm unhappy or anything" Jack tried to explain.
"I know. It's ok. Just happens."
"I'm happy to be here. I really am. I just......"
"Hush now, it's ok. Come on"
With the sheet over them, Jack asked almost expectantly, "What now?".
"Well...." Ennis said. "I'm going to study but you. You're about to start a Marine Biology course. So how about we see how much you already know? Here's a blank piece of paper. Why don't you show me how many oceans and rivers and lakes you know?"
"Cool" Jack said and laying out on his tummy with the paper propped on a pillow, he busied himself with the task. Ennis tried to read a text book but found himself engrossed with Jack's drawings as he watched the continents take (accurate) shape. The Oceans were all labelled. Jack started drawing the Great Lakes, tongue sticking out, utterly concentrated. Ennis cursed himself as he woke up a bit later because he must have dozed off. Jack was asleep next to him though with the pencil still gripped in his hand, the map getting squashed under his chin. Ennis eased them both free, marvelled at the quality and detail of the map, and rolled Jack into his arms.
Two nights later Ennis' sister went out with her husband. "I don't think I'll be back till gone midnight. At the earliest." She'd told Ennis. Jack and Ennis had a lovely evening, went to bed early but did not go to sleep for several hours after. Ennis was a bit surprised when he woke up later as Jack jerked awake ontop of him, panting. "Need the bathroom" Jack said miserably, and slid out of bed.
When Jack was finished, he stood there, swaying slightly. Sometimes he felt nauseous with relief. Relief he had woken up in time and relief he was able to get out and get to a bathroom. When he didn't return for many minutes, Ennis knew something was up. Crept out of bed and found Jack sat on the toilet, tears silently rolling down his cheek.
"Hey now. Hey, what's this?" Ennis said gently, smoothing Jack's hair, plastered to his head with sweat, away from his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" Jack mouthed.
"Hey, it's ok. Jack. It's ok." Ennis said as he gently coaxed Jack back to their bedroom.
"Now then" Ennis said a few minutes later when they were sat together under the sheet.
"Oh Ennis" Jack said, "I don't know what wrong with me. It's not been this bad for a long time. I'm not unhappy. I'm really not. I'm so happy to be here, but you must think.....I keep waking you up.....it must seem like I'm sad or miserable. I'm not. Tonight was lovely. Really nice. But....but....."
"Oh My Little Otter. It's ok. It is. You've gone through so much, and now it's another big change for you. New place, new house, new bed. New climate. It's all so different. No wonder your brain is working overtime. It's ok. Don't you worry about me waking up. I'm a light sleeper, I wake up at anything. I wake up when you snore."
"I don't snore. Do I?"
That night they didn't really do anything under the sheet. Just talked. Talked about change and moving around and where they'd like to go, where they would go. Together. Only half an hour had passed when Jack said " I think I'm ok now" and they went back to sleep.
By the time Jack next had a nightmare Ennis had procured a pack of cards and in the early hours of the morning, by torchlight, he taught Jack to play Rummy. Poker, Blackjack, Old Maid and other games followed on other nights over the months as the nightmares were more spaced out by now. When Ennis ran out of card games he knew, they made their own games.
"You know 20 questions?" he'd asked under the sheet one time. Jack shook his head. "You gotta guess something, got 20 questions you can ask and the other person can only answer Yes or No. Let's do that but let's always make it an animal, and you don't get 20 guesses, you just try and do it in as few as you can. Ok?"
"Ok" Jack replied.
"Right, I got an animal. You guess" Ennis told Jack.
"Otter?"
"No. One"
"Horse?"
"No. Two. I'm not making it easy for you!"
"Ok. Is it a mammal?"
And so they whiled away a lot of time. Ennis always did better, thought of more obscure animals, made it harder for Jack. It was the only nighttime activity that ever strayed into daytime. Mostly what happened under the sheet at night wasn't talked about. Some never said agreement. But sometimes, if they were together, just the two of them, Ennis would start with "Bet you can't guess what animal I'm thinking of?" This also worked when they were separated after Jack graduated. When he was alone with just the animals in Crystal River, and he needed to hear Ennis' voice, he's phone up and say "I've got an animal in my mind, can you guess what it is?"
Back at Ennis' sister's house, Ennis impressed himself with his resourcefulness. He found himself lingering in the travel games sections of shops and when he had a spare bit of money, bought a game and stored it by his bed for when it might be needed. Under the sheet, or duvet in the colder months, Jack learned to play Chess and Chequers, played Cluedo and Monopoly (never finished). Later when they both got busier at College they got a jump start on assignments, reading or revision. One time Ennis borrowed a photo album form his sister and, under the sheet, showed Jack pictures of him and his family growing up. For some reason they never switched the bedroom light on, maybe it was too big an acknowledgement that something was up, and Ennis had to make sure he always had a good supply of batteries for his torch.
"What do you two do at night?" Ennis' sister asked one time, a question she never thought she'd be asking her little brother. But the door was often left open (Jack didn't like closed doors) and sometimes she'd walk past at night and see two silhouettes under a sheet, hear voices and it wasn't the sounds and sights she braced herself she mights see or hear. Ennis didn't answer, just smiled.
By the time Ennis joined Jack in their own house in Crystal River the nightmares were pretty rare. One every few months maybe. By then they didn't need to stay quiet or stay in bed. The first time it happened, Ennis reassured Jack and then looked at him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Jack Twist" he said, "Do you know, I don't know if you're ticklish?" And he proceeded to find out that you could tickle Jack and get a lovely laugh from him when you hit certain spots. Another time he made out like he was going to tickle Jack and instead found Jack's feet, studied them, and then returned to Jack's face and said with great seriousness-
"Uh Jack. Your feet......."
"What?" Jack asked, kind of worried and kind of confused as he tried to struggle out of the nightmare's lingering clutches.
"It's just.....you're...I don't know how to tell you this, but webs have grown. Between your toes. You're feet are turning into flippers!"
"Really?" Jack asked, concerned, not quite with it yet until he saw the look on Ennis' face. Then he burst into laughter as Ennis proceeded to give his neck a very close examination, with lips as well as fingers, "to check for gills".
Sometimes they'd go make a midnight feast and bring that back to bed and eat chocolate and crisps and have the dogs clean up after them. Other times they went and sat in their lounge and would fall asleep together on the sofa as a film or wildlife show played quietly on the TV. If there was a good storm outside they'd watch that, or they'd watch the cats playing together, or try and train Pecos and Yukon to do the tricks Brazos picked up so easily. Sometimes they told each other stories. Real stories, or stories they made up.
Night no longer held any fear for Jack. It was just another part of day, and he knew that with Ennis del Mar, it would always be so.
-
And Ennis? Ennis had nightmares too. Not very often. Mostly when he was without Jack. When circumstances had them in different States, or different ends of the same State he'd worry about Jack and the worries would carry over into bad dreams. After he went to Court to support Jack, saw that man, he knew what he looked like, the man that haunted his Little Otter's nights. Vowed he would not let that man get at Jack anymore. Would do all he could to help Jack forget. And that's what he would think about when he himself woke up from his own nightmares.
One time. One time in their Crystal River home, Jack lay awake watching Ennis sleep. He did this occasionaly if he woke up naturally and Ennis still slept. He loved to do it, to watch Ennis and remind himself how beautiful Ennis was and how lucky he, Jack, was. One time he lay watching Ennis, when Ennis' arm stiffened and his fist clenched. Ennis seemed to screw up his shut eyes and Jack watched in horror as Ennis' body tensed and he realised Ennis was having a nightmare. He didn't know what to do, it was always the other way round. He gently shook Ennis, and as Ennis woke up, he flung his arms round him, and hugged him tight.
"What the...?" Ennis muttered.
"It's ok Ennis." Jack reassured him, "it's just me. Love you. Love you Ennis."
"Jack?" Ennis asked confused.
"Come on" Jack urged, and, with Ennis putting up little resistance, Jack pulled him from the bed, out the door, into the garden and down to the river. "Come on" he said again as he jumped in, still wearing the t-shirt and shorts he slept in. Ennis did not know what to do other than follow, so he jumped in too, in his shorts. In the pale moonlight the two figures splashed about in the river, coming together to hug or push each other under, to kiss or to splash water in the other's face. They laughed with each other in the darkness. "Crazy" Ennis muttered.
"Didn't know what to do" Jack admitted. "I know swimming is my thing, but I didn't think we'd be able to go riding at this hour. This was nearer...easier."
"Oh Jack" Ennis chuckled to himself as he watched his other half frolick in the river, in his element, and somehow even more beautiful and special in the shadows cast by the pale moon and the reflections of the clear water.
"My Little Otter" he said as he pulled Jack too him for a long deep kiss. Clothes were shed. Love was made. And once again they banished each other's bad memories, repalacing them with their own new, good ones.
*By the way, the song I'm listening to now, Amy MacDonald is a beautiful song with the line "where you going to sleep tonight" somehow appropriate. This song will always remind me of that horrid January day. As I walked around in a daze after reading the tragic news this is the first song I remember penetrating through the sadness into my brain.