1. Ronan and Thane #2
Thane puts his arm around Ronan and kisses his temple before returning his attention to Jake. “I need you and the team on the ground to lock the fuck in, you hear me? If you lose track of that baby psycho and he comes after my family, I will become your biggest problem. Understood?”
Jake adjusts in his seat. “Loud and clear. I’ll call y’all as soon as I know anything else.”
“Thanks, Jake,” Ronan says, ending the call.
Turning to Thane, he asks, “What are they gonna do with that…thing?”
“They can’t give him over to the state.”
“Wait. No. Does this mean the Guardians are gonna…what?” Ronan asks, panic constricting his chest. “Raise him?”
Thane rubs Ronan’s shoulder. “Either that, or they’ll have to put him down.”
Well…fuck.
Thane continues, “Ant and Erik have been wanting to adopt a kid. They’ve made it known they are open to raising a child with complex trauma.”
Thane rubs the back of his head. Complex trauma, though, isn’t even close to whatever the fuck they just witnessed.
“Babe, this isn’t family violence. It’s fucking sci-fi.” Ronan shakes his head. “And raising a kid with trauma isn’t the same as raising a baby psychopath.”
“We don’t really know if he’s a psychopath.”
Ronan gives his husband the mother of all get real looks.
“If he’s a clone of Silas Blake, then it’s a given,” Ronan says, his voice low and hard, a tone Thane rarely hears.
“You can see Silas Blake in those eyes. I watched the life fade from his father’s eyes, Thane.
I felt his blood on my hands. And now that same blood is running through that kid’s veins. ”
Thane wishes he could erase that horrible day from Ro’s memory. Scrub it from every synapse and molecule, freeing him, finally, from Silas Blake.
Unable to do that, he tries to soothe his fears. “Edison might be able to mentor the kid as he comes of age.”
Ro buries his face in his hands, his words muffled. The image of the blood pooling on the carpet of that nursery is seared into his brain. He can’t separate that horror from the child on the screen.
“Thane, I’m telling you right now. I don’t care if Ant and Erik end up being gold-medal parents and Edison is somehow able to neutralize whatever shitshow mentality that fucking evil spawn has.
” Ro looks up to ensure he has Thane’s full attention.
“That kid will never be a part of this family. And he sure as fuck is not going to hang around our kids.”
“Babe…”
“Over my dead body, T. Over. My. Dead. Body.”
“Baby, we don’t even know anything about this kid. Not really.”
“We already know that a five-year-old has been torturing animals. I feel bad for him, but he’s never gonna spend even a single moment with any of our kids. Not a single second, you hear me?”
Ronan is one of the sweetest humans on the planet. He has never once asked for special treatment for their kids, but this is different. This is primal. A fear in Ronan’s gut that he can’t—won’t—ignore.
The fear that the nightmare was never truly over. And now, it’s back.
“Promise me, Thane.”
Thane draws Ronan into his arms, feeling the fine tremor in his husband’s body. He knows this fear isn’t rational, but he can’t bring himself to disagree with Ronan’s assessment of the situation.
“Okay. I promise.”
ANT AND ERIK
“My name isn’t Jeremy!”
Ant and Erik share a look. When the Guardians approached them with Silas Blake’s kid, they said yes immediately. Hedy warned them to take a few days. Really think about it. They did and still came to the same conclusion.
There are times, like now, when they wonder if they should have taken a few extra days to consider what raising a child like this would cost them.
Their decision has already cost them two of their closest friends. Thane quietly shared that Ro has night terrors every time Silas, father or son, is brought up. It’s not cruelty. He simply cannot handle any association with the little boy.
Erik and Ant understand. Of course they do.
Young Silas, however, is more than just a walking trigger.
He’s genuinely dangerous. Not just creepy or off-putting or unsocialized.
Silas speaks violence like it’s his first language, and he turns on a dime.
Erik and Ant cannot guarantee the safety of their nieces and nephews.
That is a line in the sand they will never cross.
The team made sure Ant and Erik understood that they’re welcome at any activities that don’t involve the kids.
Given everyone’s wildly busy and divergent schedules, and how central the kids are to the Guardians families, they don’t hold out much hope of seeing their friends more than once or twice a year.
Thankfully, Ant’s entire family lives on the property next door, but even those relationships have become strained since one of them always has to stay with Sy.
Erik and Ant know they’ve made the right choice, isolating Silas. But it means they’re isolated too.
Tears form in Ant’s eyes. This latest battle is entirely his doing.
He thought if he could get the little boy to accept the new name, it would somehow sever the association with Silas Blake, at least in his friends’ minds.
Then, maybe one day, when the little boy could self-regulate, they’d be able to fully rejoin the Guardians family.
For the first several months, it seemed to be working. The little boy let them call him by this new name: Jeremy. But as he got stronger, as he began to regulate, as he began to talk about the few details he remembered, he wanted to be called by his real name.
It isn’t an unreasonable ask. But Ant knows that if the little boy insists on being called Silas, Ronan will never, ever be able to accept him as part of the family. If they can’t get him to a place of stability, they will lose the rest of their friends too.
Ant had been ripped from his own family by human traffickers, sold by his grandfather. He’d been forced to endure so many years being abused and sold, lonely. So fucking lonely.
He was rescued by Erik and Charlie, and as he got better, he joined the crew taking out the traffickers. He has hope that maybe he and Erik can direct their little boy to do the same.
A large presence at his back reminds him he is not alone. Long arms circle his shoulders, and Ant rests the back of his head against Erik’s firm chest.
“Edison’s out of town, but I called my aunt and uncle. They’ll be here shortly.”
Ant nods in surrender. “Did we fuck up? Should we have even tried with him? Is he too far gone?”
“We can’t know that right now. All we know is that what we’ve been trying isn’t working,” Erik says, kissing his husband’s head. “He seems to like Edison. He’s been trustworthy around our animals. I think that’s a start.”
Ant sniffs. Georg and Anja—known as Mama and Papa Bash to all their friends—pull into the drive. Relief fills Ant’s chest. Erik’s aunt and uncle have been the one bright spot in all this darkness.
The little boy goes to the front door, flinging it open. “They keep trying to call me Jeremy! Make them stop!”
“Oh my goodness. Such big emotions! This must be very important to you,” Mama Bash says. “Come here. Give me a hug.”
The little boy wrinkles his nose.
Papa Bash elbows his wife. “Nice try.” He holds up a familiar bag. “I brought the salt lakris. Maybe you and I share a bag, and you tell me what’s going on.”
Not many American kids enjoy the Norwegian delicacy of salty licorice, but the little boy loves it. The burning salt flavor seems to agree with him.
Ant, Erik, and Mama watch from the living room as Papa and their little boy—Silas—sit on the front porch, eating licorice. They don’t seem to be saying much to one another, but after some time, their little boy rests his head against Papa’s shoulder.
They whisper a few things back and forth, then Papa pats the little boy’s back. He leaves the bag of licorice with Silas and stands before entering the house. Ant takes Erik’s hand, anxious for what Georg has to say.
“I understand why you do not want to call him by his name,” he says in his gentle Norwegian accent.
“It creates problems with Thane and Ronan, and by extension, the others. They are good men. Their friendship is valuable. But when you adopted Silas, you adopted all of him. I know you’re trying to make him fit in, but that is not his journey.
I think we all see that spark of goodness inside this little boy.
But it is a tiny flame, easily put out if we do not acknowledge who he is. That includes his name.”
Erik and Ant look to each other, then close their eyes.
Georg is right. Choosing this path is the more difficult option.
It etches their many losses in stone. But Silas is worth this.
If they can help this boy, if they can let him know that he is loved, then that will have to be their measure of success.
Erik kisses Ant’s forehead, and Ant turns to Georg. “Thank you.”
Ant squeezes his husband’s hand. “This one’s on me. I’m the one who suggested the name change. Let me try to make it better.”
Ant joins Silas on the front porch. The little boy turns away, shoving another harsh candy into his mouth.
“It was wrong of me to try to change your name. I thought it might help you start over. I thought it might help us with our friends. But I should’ve known better.”
The little boy chews carefully, listening to every word.
Ant continues, “You get to keep your name. You get to own everything about you. And the only thing we ask, the only thing, is that you try. That you try so hard to learn how to manage the rage in your little body so that, as you grow, you can direct it in the right way.”
“You’re not gonna call me Jeremy anymore?”
“Silas, I will never call you that name ever again.”
“What does it mean to direct my rage?”
“It means you get to feel everything, but instead of using the hard feelings to hurt other people, you use them to protect them.”
Silas takes another bite of the salty candy, considering Ant’s words.
“Okay.”