Tag: pettythieveswithpotential

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

“You think I do? You’ve always been better at this than me. At parenting. The only thing I could do was protect them and I couldn’t even manage that.” God, what was the point of having him around? August would have been better off as a single parent. “I can’t… figure any of this out without you. Milay’s a shifter. I can’t… I don’t know how to raise her, August. Even with all the practice. We need you.”

“You taught them how to stand up for themselves. I can barely manage to do that for myself,” he pointed out with a shrug. They both knew it was true, August was too soft. Chase was the only person he seemed to know how to stand up to and even that didn’t happen as much as it should in some cases. August wanted so badly to touch him but he was at the end of his chains and, honestly, he had given up trying to touch Chase when Ais and Hawk had been young. It still hurt too much to try. “I’m sorry…”

@pettythieveswithpotential

Marriage wasn’t something August had ever thought he would get roped into, but he didn’t seem to have a whole hell of a lot of choice in the matter. Still, he supposed it could be worse. Anything had to be better than where he grew up, right? A smile touched his lips as he watched people pass, trying to figure out if he could peg who he was supposed to be waiting for. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it had to be the sullen looking guy that was scanning the crowd.

“You Chase?”

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

It was all the same as far as Casey was concerned, but how would she know any different? “At this point, I think my dad’s the only one who wants to deal with my mom and fuck if anyone knows why.” Maybe Casey didn’t have the grasp on emotions required to understand her parents, but she didn’t think anyone really did.

“Thank Khaos for that one. Could you imagine how easily your mother would destroy anyone else? Your dad’s the right kind of disaster for her and I don’t want to see what would happen if he ended up dying again. Think your ma would torch the Underworld.” Which was probably why Hades didn’t want her there in the first place.

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

Wil and Clyde were both too stubborn for their own good, but he knew pointing that out wouldn’t help, so he stayed quiet on that front. “Aren’t you tired of lecturing me yet?”

“That depends, are you tired of being an idiot yet?” It was an old discussion, one that always ended in the same place, but she loved the familiarity of it. After all, he was her favorite, the one she was most willing to kill for.

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

“Wouldn’t surprise me. She seems pretty soft, but maybe just enough trouble.” She didn’t think any of her siblings could actually avoid trouble, even if they tried, or even wanted to try. “I’m not sure either. It’s not like communication is something my family is known for.” But she also wasn’t sure she wanted updates from any of her siblings aside from Ozzy. “Okay, but if I brought him more stuff from the bakery, would my bribe counteract yours?” she pointed out. “You’re probably not wrong, but you try convincing her to go.”

“They’d have the most cheerful babies.” Which was, honestly, a little on the terrifying side. He tended to stick more towards people in the middle, he liked the grey areas of emotional range, the shallow end, he supposed. “Well, yeah, aren’t most of your siblings psychotic?” His eyes rolled at that. “I live closer to it and Conner knows me well enough that I might be able to get a discount. Face it, I’ve won that battle.”

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

That wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping for, although he wasn’t sure what he had wanted Jeff to say. Still, it bothered him that Aislynn– Layla, he corrected– had had to mourn so many family members. “Maybe it would be easier for her if she didn’t remember any of us.” He’d learned to live without her. It would be hard to know she was still around but that she didn’t know him, but maybe that would have been better.

“Please let me be there when you’re stupid enough to say that to her.” Mostly because he loved having any excuse to throw a punch. Truth be told, he knew his mother wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. She had loved her first family so deeply. “It’s easier on her to know you’re all still alive, that she hasn’t actually lost you.”

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

“You were grieving.” They still were, both of them. But… he didn’t remember much about his Uncle Nate from before Aunt Kathy died, but he knew Viv did. He knew his cousin remembered her dad before and after losing her mom. This wasn’t the same as losing a spouse, but he still didn’t want Hawk to think of them like that and he definitely didn’t want Milay to only know them like this. “But we can’t… We have to try… It’s never going to be okay but the kids still need us.”

August sighed heavily, curling in on himself once more. Even shifted, he couldn’t seem to feel anything but a deep, unsettling coldness that clung to every inch of his being. His teeth still felt weird in his mouth after finally being able to shift out of leopard form, the canines too sharp. It was just another reminder of what was lost. 

“I don’t…I don’t know how.”

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

“Fine, but they need you. I can’t… do this alone.” He was barely holding himself together and it was only the fact that there were two other lives depending on him and August that had kept him from completely losing it. “You won’t hurt them. You wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

He let out a pained whine, millions of fights between the two of them still utterly clear in his memories. Chase had told him for years that the key word was always yet. 

“I’ve also never needed to be kept in chains before either.”

@pettythieveswithpotential Feel free to yell at me because I know, I know, I’m RUDE.

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. 

pettythieveswithpotential‌:

“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…”