Her hand hovered in front of the door, a million memories flooding her as she stood there. There was a time she didn’t have it knock, a time when she had the keys and could just walk right in. This used to be her home, and a part of her still ached over losing it. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t the same girl, wasn’t even the same species she had been. It didn’t matter that she had Jack and Katina for parents now. August was always going to be her dad.
Swallowing hard, Layla knocked twice, lower lips already quivering as she waited, trying to keep herself from running. Coming home after so long was hard enough, but it pained her deeply to know that only one of her dads would ever get to have this moment. Chase should have gotten the same chance.
August frowned as he neared the door, the scent strange enough to make his nose wrinkle. It was rare for anyone to show up there, even more so for it to be someone less than human. Still, he opened the door slowly, not expecting to see a ghost from his past standing there.
“H-hi,” she mumbled, fingers tugging at a strand of her dark hair as she tried to meet his gaze without flinching.
His knees gave out and he didn’t bother to try standing. She looked so fucking much like his kitten, sounded like her, but the scent was too different, too much like the boy that had taken his baby from him and it was fucking with his head.
Hearing him whine broke something in the girl and she moved forward before hitting her knees hard, unable to keep from breaking down.
“I’m so sorry, daddy, I’m so, so sorry,” she wept, wanting to cling to him like she had her entire first life.
What resolve August had shattered at her words and he was scrambling forward, wrapping around the girl and hugging her as tightly as he could. He knew reincarnations happened, but he had never expected anyone to give him back his Aislynn.
He couldn’t bring himself to speak over the swell of emotions, but he could, at the very least, give her this.
“I won’t go away again, I promise. I promise,” she choked out, burying her face against his chest. She had needed this more than she realized.
Friendly reminder that August and Genesis have the worst taste when it comes to relationships.
After August had initially survived the attack that made him a leopard, he was stuck in kitty mode too long and his eyes never returned to human, not completely.
After Aislynn was killed, he damn near went feral with grief. This also left him shifted for too long, so his canine teeth (top and bottom) are slightly elongated and a little too sharp. It’s harder to notice than the eyes, but definitely still just out of place enough that a hunter could pick up on it if he’s not careful.
“The kids need you,” he said, after a long moment. It was true. Chase still struggle with being a parent; Hawk was picking up the slack, helping with Milay, but they needed parents. He hesitated before softly adding, “I do, too.”
The words had the shifter flinching. “Don’t…don’t say you need me, Chase. Not if…not if nothing ever changes between us,” he choked out, knowing full well that he couldn’t handle that on top of everything else.
His fingers curled around the collar, a stark reminder of just how bad he was handling things before he shook his head. “I don’t…I can’t risk hurting them…”
“It wasn’t our fault.” That was hard for him to admit, but it hadn’t been. He’d always thought that… well that if something came for the kids, it would be another hunter or an enemy Chase had made. “I don’t think she would have been safer anywhere else.”
The words didn’t help and the tears gave way to actual sobs, his body trembling as he tried to curl in on himself. He would willingly go back to Chase hating him if it meant he could have his kitten back. He wanted to talk, wanted to say anything even remotely useful, but he could barely even breathe anymore.
“Shut up,” he deadpanned, tone not as sharp as usual, but the words not gentle either. “I was a moron and I was wrong.” He didn’t regret it. God, it fucking hurt like hell, but she was their daughter and he loved her, just as much as August did. He felt awful that he’d failed her, hadn’t protected her. But he didn’t regret raising her.
He fell silent for a moment as he shook his head. “You said when I brought her home we couldn’t keep her safe. You were right,” he stressed, the sheer devastation clear in his tone. He loved their kids, but Aislynn had been so much like himself. She had been the one he had been the closest to, the one that clung to him when she was scared. “I should have listened.” His voice cracked around the last words before the tears spilled over again.
It mattered to him. It was complicated and messy and he was still learning to deal with it all, even after all this time. But, well. “It doesn’t bring her back. Doesn’t really fix anything at all.” God, he wanted a few more drinks and maybe to shoot something.
“Never said it would.” The words meant more to him than he could bring himself to admit right now. More than he had ever been able to admit, honestly. All he had wanted for the longest time was for Chase to say anything like that and he hated that it took their daughter dying for him to get even close to saying it.
His fingers touched the collar around his neck before he slumped down again, hating that everything had come to this.
“I’m sorry.” He knew it was his fault. Chase had argued hard against them keeping Ais when she was a baby but August had needed so badly to have something good in his life. He had needed something to love that could love him back. “Guess you were right after all.”
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaustion sunk deep into his bones. He was sitting on the ground, just far enough to be outside of August’s range of motion, and he’d had a couple of drinks at this point. He wanted more, really, but one of them had to take care of kids in the morning.
“I don’t think it matters.”
Five words and his heart felt like a knife in the heart. Everything in him just felt so fucking broken that he needed something, anything to cling to. A part of him wanted to point out that it would have mattered to her. But he had never been able to be that cruel.
“Maybe not to you,” was all he managed to mumble, his gaze dropping once more.
ofviolentdeath 