Chapter2

#Chapter2

There wasn't. And Lou wasn't that keen on other children. He just fell in love with Jonathan's explanation of what a birthday party was — there'd be presents, cakes, and people who would tell him happy birthday. And while all that was true, I don't think Lou took into account that there was more to it than that.

/"Cuz no, daddy./"

My office was spacious, but beneath the onslaught of furniture and the dark rustic theme, it seemed smaller. My desk, a beast of a thing, was tucked into the furthest corner. To its right, a smaller, child-friendly desk with the flip up lid stood. Lou liked to be like me, and when I had to do paperwork or escape Johno's bitching, we'd both sit at our desks for hours.

Lumen's desk was mainly used for colouring and watching baby shark on infinite repeat on his tablet. I had to keep checking inside the lid because he liked to leave his leftover snacks there to rot, and he liked to collect worms and hide them there.

Yup. Wonderfuuuuul world of parenthood.

/"Cuz no doesn't make sense as an answer, Lou-king./"

/"Cuz,/" Lumen insisted with a shrug, as though it explained everything.

It didn't. Not even close, but if the last few months had taught me anything, it was that patience was not just a virtue — it had to be a way of life. It was that or a mental breakdown, and I simply lacked the time to pencil one of those in.

Pushing aside the messily scrawled report Clarke had handed me — his first official attempt at writing one up as my acting Beta — I slid back in my chair, bracing my hands on the desk. /"Still not feeling sociable, rat?/"

/"Not feeling sociable, rat?/"

Although dark and gloomy, the office had undergone a severe makeover in the past month. The outdated furniture was scrapped and replaced. It had been Jonathan's idea. My newly acclaimed mate had fallen ill beneath the misguided impression that the reason I kept it, along with the rest of the house the same as it had been when the previous Alpha had owned it, was to punish myself.

Yup, he'd gone all out Doctor Phill on me, topping it off by trying to humanise and rationalise the behaviour. When he made it sound so fucking reasonable, it was hard to protest.

I'd bite my tongue to pieces before I'd ever admit he was right . . . but me and Lou seemed to be in here a helluva lot since the 60 minute makeover moment.

/"I not wanna do wivouchu, daddy,/" Lumen said quietly. He pulled a face at his sandwich remains, threw it one last lick, before lifting the rug and stashing it beneath. He even patted it and whispered 'shhh' just for good measure.

Discipline was a loose concept. Not because Lumen didn't need it— his behaviour was on a decline and it was entirely our fault. We were not enforcing our boundaries. We were not drilling home our expectations in him, and Jonathan and I were both as bad as each other.

Sometimes I just didn't have the energy to fight with a self-entitled, arrogant little terrorist. Sometimes Jonathan just hated always having to be the bad guy.

But it couldn't go on. Lumen wasn't naughty, per say, but he did need guidance. Circumstance had always been a barrier. Between figuring out how he fit into our lives, and then going up against Hell itself to keep him in it, there had been no room for structure.

It'd only been a month since we'd returned from the cottage and all the drama that came with it, although it felt so much longer. Jonathan and I had spoken about the issue only yesterday. We both needed to be on the same page. We both needed to be consistent. We both needed to be firm but fair.

So even though it was his birthday, even though I just wanted to find a warm spot and curl up and try to finally sleep, I fixed him with a sharp look. /"There's a bin over here. If you're done with it, put it in there./"

The reluctance was instant, but after threatening to take away his crown, one of his most beloved presents of the day, he obliged.

/"You don't want to try by yourself?/" I asked, reverting back to our earlier conversation. /"Mommy and Ember will be down there./"

Time had proved to be a short term remedy when it came to healing. Weeks had passed since everything I thought I'd known about the world had been disproved; through forces beyond our comprehension, Lumen, Cryrus and I had been dragged through space and fucking time, and stranded in a world that neighbored our own, flooded with beasts and monsters of all heritage. It had been the kind of place that made the Peccatorum look like a child's soft play area.

I thought things were getting better; I thought we'd been getting better. We'd made progress. Lou was slowly learning to tolerate water again. He liked them shallow, and after sitting him next to the plug and showing him how yanking it out made the water disappear he would hold the chain the entire time, but it was a step forward.

His clinginess had depleted slightly. His anxiety would sky-rocket if I tried to leave the house without him. It would provoke a tantrum that even Jonathan couldn't console. And heaven forbid if I tried to move around the house without letting the muppet know where I was going.

When it came to the big issues, there were a lot of improvements.

But that was the thing with trauma. It wasn't the big things that were always the issue. Those were manageable. They were, with enough time and endurance, obstacles to overcome. But the small things? The slow-creeping nothings that started off as nothing but an odd quirk or a coil of fear that iced the pit of your stomach?

Yeah, those were the real bitch.

Lou's behaviour had drastically changed. Not enough to make him any less of a pain in the ass, but it had altered his personality slightly. He wasn't as loud or as confident as he used to be. He woke up screaming all through the night. He'd been doing so well with his potty training, but was now back in diapers at night because he couldn't stay dry.

We'd come so far, but we still had so far to go. I was new to parenthood. Lou turning up had been like a crash course. I was learning on the go. But as a father, the one thing I wanted for him was a better future than mine.