34. Volt #3
Volt drew in a shocked breath. His chest physically hurt, hearing those words. So much worse than the missing sensation from his arm or his internet port. “I’m sorry,” he tried again. “I wanted to be your safe place. Your D-Daddy.” His words glitched as he said them.
Would Wallace leave him for this? He could see, now, what a betrayal it was.
Wallace said nothing, just looked at him with stony silence.
“I’m sorry,” Volt whispered, wishing there were words enough to make it better.
He’d thought he was doing the right thing at the time.
Or… no, he’d been a coward.
He’d known it wasn’t right to keep Wallace out of things, and he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself how out of control things had gotten.
“I was scared,” Volt admitted, hoping again that his boyfriend wouldn’t walk out and leave him.
Wallace’s face softened. “I was scared, too, Daddy. I was terrified.”
Just hearing that name on his baby’s lips was a blessing, but he knew it wasn’t enough.
Volt had horrifying half-memories of the past few days, but most of it he barely remembered.
How bad must it have been for Wallace to sit by his bedside for all of those hours, not knowing what would happen next?
“I’m so, so sorry. Unimaginably sorry, baby boy.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, just that I wanted to be your Daddy and take care of you.
I wanted our time together to be an escape from all of your stress. ”
“But it wasn’t an escape from your stress,” Wallace told him, pressing their foreheads together. “Volt, how can I trust you if you can’t trust me? I just… I don’t understand.”
It was the second time that Wallace had asked, and Volt figured he deserved an answer.
“I’m trying to explain, pansy. I just… It’s been a pretty rough few years for me.
Magnolia’s sick. Angel’s worried all the time.
The business was failing. And, to be honest, people throwing rocks at our windows was scary, but not even the thing that worried me the most. I was scared that Magnolia would go into the hospital and never come back to us.
Or that we’d lose the business and none of us would have a home to come back to. I was just…”
“That’s a lot to worry about, Daddy,” Wallace whispered, stroking his forehead.
“Yeah, and you were this… you were this bright light in the darkness. When you were around, I could just forget all of my problems. When you asked me to help you with the things that were important in your life… I felt like I could really make a difference. I felt like I was a real Daddy. Like I was in control of something, for once in my life. I guess that was probably just wishful thinking, but I was greedy. I guess I wanted to live with you in a fairytale where I could just be your Daddy all the time and the outside world didn’t exist.”
“I didn’t realize that’s how the kink felt for you, too,” Wallace commented with remarkable maturity.
He’d grown so much since they’d met, and it made Volt proud, even if he wasn’t sure how this conversation was going to end.
“I’m glad I could be that for you… but this is something you should have told me about. ”
“Yeah,” Volt agreed. “I was… I was afraid of losing you. I was worried that if I… if I didn’t have a real job and couldn’t be your Daddy and take care of everything that… that you’d leave me.”
“Daddy!” Wallace wailed, shocked. “I wouldn’t…” His face grew fierce. “I wouldn’t leave you. I would never leave you for things that were outside of your control.”
Volt swallowed, though he knew that nothing was physically blocking from talking. It sounded like a promise… but would Wallace leave him for things that he could control? Like not telling him about the sabotage?
Or not knowing what he was doing with his life?
Wallace shifted off Volt’s lap and sat in the chair beside him.
Volt wasn’t sure what else there was to say, especially when Wallace had to be disappointed in him. “I’m sorry,” he said again. Was this the end of everything? He’d been working so hard to just be a good Daddy, but what if this lack of trust was their downfall instead?
Wallace shut his eyes, clearly thinking.
“Baby?” Volt asked, when he couldn’t handle the silence any longer.
Wallace held up one finger. “Give me a minute. Actually…” he sighed. “I think I’m going to take a shower. I need some time to think.”
Volt nodded his acceptance. He hated seeing that look on Wallace’s face, so blank and withdrawn.
But he wasn’t going to go against Wallace’s clear wishes, either. “I’ll be here,” he said, instead. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I love you, he wanted to say. I’ll do anything for you. I’ll fix it. I promise.
But what if that wasn’t enough? Wallace had said he’d never leave him, but that was a brash promise. And things had just changed.
Wallace slipped out the door… and suddenly there were 2,492 error logs blaring, and a weird twitch in Volt’s frozen arm. He’d been repressing them all, but now they crashed in like a tsunami.
He repressed a groan—feeling like he deserved all of it—and started wading through them.
At least it gave him something to distract himself.
Because if he’d been scared of the takeover mod, it was nothing on how he felt watching Wallace walk out the door.