Chapter Thirty-Five
Ash
Inever expected to be a fucking parent, and certainly not at eighteen, when I’d barely had any time with my chosen life partner, but here it is.
Ren needed someone to care that he even existed, and that was something I knew how to do, because I was raised by the right kind of parents.
Loving. Committed. Supportive. Open-minded.
Enabling. They were the parents everyone should fucking have.
We sat Ren down, and told him pretty much what Cal had recounted to me after the kid went for a shower after their run.
The key points were, he had a home, a family, and didn’t have to be anything he didn’t want to be.
We would learn this parenting thing on the fly, but it seemed pretty simple to me. Let him be him.
“For reals?”
I grinned. “I had a great example of parenting, and maybe having three parents made it easier for them to get it right, I don’t know, but you won’t get anything from us but support and, I guess, love.
I mean, it’d be weird to say we love you yet, right?
We like you. Like goes a long way. I’m betting it’s better than what you had before anyway.
So you have a room, you have food, you have anything you fucking need.
You wanna do things, you do them. You wanna go places, we’ll get you there.
When you decide what you want to be, career-wise, we’ll back you. Is there anything else, Cal?”
He groaned, jerking a thumb at me like he was about to say, ‘this guy, right?’
“He’s covered it, but Ren, you can’t just run wild, that’s not what he’s saying. All people have to learn, and grow, so at some point, we need to talk schools and stuff, but not right now.”
“Yeah, my family do great in schools,” I said with a dramatic eye-roll to really emphasise how much I didn’t mean it.
Blaze was in constant trouble, Em was expelled, I was expelled, Cole, aka Pyro, had been expelled.
Only Nix was still able to be in school, but was apparently now vehemently refusing without his twin there. Would Ren really fare any better?
“School sucks,” Ren grumbled, but maybe that’s because he just didn’t want to go. I could understand that. School could be constraining, forcing people into moulds that we didn’t fit into.
“Homeschooling is an option too. I know a teacher.”
Cal frowned at me. “Not one of us. Nobody needs that burden blocking their education.”
“Firstly, how rude, but secondly, I meant Ethan.”
Cal grimaced, darting a side glance at Ren before he spoke.
“What the… Maybe he’s not the best influence for Ren though.”
“He’s the guy who liked the blood, right?” At least he remembered him, but whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, I had no idea. Fucked up or not though, Ethan was a teacher, and he wouldn’t constrain Ren’s growth either.
“Yeah. It was his first time killing, and he kinda got caught up in it. He definitely didn’t react the way you did after the bitch you killed, Cal, but does that make him wrong?”
Cal’s face drained of colour, and his gaze turned to a glare, before he stood up and walked away from us, heading out of the room and probably upstairs. Shit. I didn’t mean to upset him or whatever. I was just making conversation. My god, so many fucking rules and boundaries in life.
“He killed someone?”
I leaned my elbows on my legs and debated what to say, but hell, the kid deserved honesty, right? We had to start as we declared we’d go on, after all.
“Yeah. The woman who did to him, and to me, what they tried to do to you. She deserved it, okay? That cunt deserved to die.”
Ren flinched at that word, but didn’t disagree with me.
“It bothers him that he did it though.”
It wasn’t a question, because it was fucking obvious he was asking rather than telling, right?
“Yeah. So I need to go make nice with him. Maybe suck him off or something, until he stops sulking. You gonna be okay down here?”
Was it right or fair to disappear on Ren so suddenly, especially for what might turn into borderline abusive fucking, but I’d hurt Cal and it was also an important lesson for Ren that we had to make up for the harm we do. Apparently.
Cal wasn’t in our room upstairs, no, he was leaning on the railing overhanging the stairs, like he was waiting for me to hunt him down. He watched me head up the steps toward him, that cranky look still on his face.
“That wasn’t necessary, Ash.”
I shrugged as I joined him, and leaned beside him, staring down at the empty hallway.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, she deserved what she got. She was a fucking parasite, and needed to die. You can’t tell me you regret killing her?”
His breath rushed out of him and he sagged against the railing.
“Of course I do! Not because I think she deserved better, but because that’s… that’s not who I am. I’m a good person. I… I was… I was good…” his voice grew quieter and quieter with every word, and I could see his belief in his good character diminishing with every breath.
Somehow I had to say the right thing here.
I had to reassure him, or show him love and understanding.
It would be so easy to fuck this up, and I really wanted to help him instead.
I wanted him to feel less like a monster for doing what had to be done.
At the time it’d been a punishment, but now I realised he was living the punishment, because his guilt was kicking his ass.
“Being good is overrated,” I said finally, and he leaned his head on the railing, so he could glare at me, tears creating a film over his beautiful expressive eyes.
“I mean, what I’m saying is that maybe being good isn’t just toeing the line, or doing the things everyone expects. We have the power to make our own decisions, Cal.”
He sighed, but didn’t speak. Guess it’s my turn still. I tightened my fingers on the railing, watching my skin whiten with the pressure. It hurt, but not in a bad way. More in a way that cleared my mind a little.
“Everyone expects church folk to be decent. To be good people. To never do awful things or hurt others. Trouble is, that’s all bullshit.
Sure, there are good ones, I guess. That’s not our experience though, is it?
What we’ve learned is that the bad ones are there.
They’re bastardising the words of their prophet, so that they can let them fuel their evil.
So they can hide behind those words, and deem them righteous.
They hate, and they hurt, and they make people feel small and pathetic, and worthless, if we’re not believers.
We never agreed to follow them and their version of religion, and yet, somehow we were dragged into it. ”
I released the railing, stretching my fingers, before I trailed one hand over Cal’s head, stroking my fingers through his hair.
“I’ll tell you what I believe in. I believe in us.
I believe in love. I believe in being who we deserve to be.
I believe in our family, in my parents, and the way they taught us that love has no boundaries.
That love exists, whether people realise it or not.
In the way they showed us that going for what we want is the righteous act.
I believe in being who we are on the inside. Not hiding it, or holding it back.”
Cal snorted, still letting me stroke his head and face, like a man pets his freaking dog.
“You’re a killer, your whole family seems to be. No hiding that.”
I grinned, smoothing my thumb over his damp cheek, and leaning down to kiss it.
“Why hide the amazing things we know we are? Yes, I think we’ve all killed someone, but they deserved it. If people are assholes, and deserve to die, why shouldn’t they? They say only the good die young, but that’s just to make them feel better about being cunts.”
Cal straightened up, catching my hand as he moved, pressing his lips against my palm.
“Okay, enough of that. I know you think you’re making sense, and speaking truths, but the words that come out of your mouth are borderline terrifying, Ash.
There’s a reason I feared you back then, still kinda do.
It’s not because I was hiding from what I am.
I was hiding from what I sensed in you. Darkness. ”
Cal
Ash shrugged like I didn’t just tell him I thought he was dark and wrong on the inside.
Wrong? No, I didn’t say that part at all.
It wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong. What right did I have to judge his insides, when I’d betrayed my own for so long?
He’d never fought who he was. He’d never hidden his wants and desires. He’d always just been Ash.
Maybe he was right about his parents. Maybe he was right about them having the right approach, and letting their children be who they are, no matter how twisted those desires might be.
“It wasn’t enough,” I said finally, realising there was something burning at me, that still needed to be done. Something that thoughts of his parents had made me realise.
He grinned at me. “We gonna kill your mummy and daddy, baby? I’m so up for that.” He grabbed my free hand and pressed it against his sweatpants, and hell, he wasn’t kidding.
“Why the hell does that thought make you horny? You know that’s not right, don’t you?”
Ash turned and pressed me against that railing over the stairs, that just above waist-height railing that we could easily topple over. Was the risk making it sexier? Was I losing my mind like the rest of his family?
His lips touched my cheek again, and then my lips, as he kissed me ferociously, his tongue owning my mouth while I just took it, and allowed it, and welcomed it.
“Everything makes me horny, baby…” he whispered in my ear, as he turned my face to the side, and licked my cheek.
“Creepy.”
“You’re in a room, and I want to fuck you. You’re on this planet, and I want to fuck you. There’s no not being horny while you exist. Don’t you get that? You’re my every breath, my every heartbeat. You’re everything I live for. You’re mine, Cal, but I’m just as much yours. Always.”