Chapter Text
Sunday 15th of October 1989; Kips Bay, Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.A.
“You could have killed him!” Joey signed angrily in ASL as soon as Deathstroke turned to face him, crouched on the roof of an old skyscraper opposite Bellevue Hospital.
“Could’ve.” Deathstroke agreed. “Wanted to. Didn’t.”
“Why?”
Deathstroke pulled his mask off, and Slade set it down on the roof ledge. The metal alloy scraped against the stone. The blind eye underneath faced him, a black patch covering the empty, scarred socket. His dam, the omega who had birthed him, and the man whom Joey called Dad, looked older than he remembered as he stood to his full height in the city’s cold silhouette. Disappointed anger was a familiar look.
Slade sighed, running his gloved fingers through the choppy, uneven waves of his pure white hair. Undisguised disgust was thick in his voice. “You… care ‘bout him.”
Joey glared and kept glaring as he signed. “He is my boyfriend, Dad, of course I care about him! You broke into my apartment, and you attacked him, and you put him in the I-C-U! Dave did not do anything!”
“He’s older than me, Joey!”
“So now age gaps in relationships are bad?” Joey forced all the sarcastic fury that he could into every gesture. “You are a cradle robber with the new alpha you are dating.”
Slade snarled, and his teeth glinted. “This ain’t that!”
Joey flinched on instinct. Although he was an alpha, Slade’s omega fangs were longer and sharper, and he was much, much fiercer. Worse still was that harsh Appalachian accent, usually subdued, creeping up from behind his dam’s bared teeth like it always did when Slade got angry. If only he remembered that he had promised to meet Slade today. If only he answered the phone at the first ring. Then David would be safe. Then Joey wouldn’t be choking on his childhood fear and childhood rage.
“Then what is it supposed to be? Because I do not see the difference!” Joey snarled back. (Well, signed back with his lip curled.)
David was nice. David was good. He didn’t prefer his siblings over Joey. He didn’t constantly fight with Adeline, Joey’s sire. He didn’t treat Joey like an unwanted child. He had always been there for Joey, supporting him when Slade couldn’t be bothered to try.
“He’s a fuckin’ creep, that’s the goddamn difference!” Slade snapped.
Joey bared his teeth. “Dad!”
The wheezy, breathless shout forced through his scarred vocal cords and a decade’s worth of speech therapy made Slade pause. It always did. The guilt, he supposed.
“You should not have come. I do not want you here. This is why Dave never wanted you to know about us. You ruin everything!” Joey rubbed furiously at his burning eyes before he continued to sign with trembling hands. Real alphas didn’t cry, right? “You do not care about me! You have never cared!”
He could still feel Slade’s rage and Slade’s disgust. For those few minutes where they were connected, every emotion that his dam felt flooded into Joey. All the hatred. All the disdain. Some of it was for David. Joey didn’t want to know how much was for him.
“Don’t you say that!” Slade growled, low and dangerous, with his gloved fists clenched. “Don’t you dare say that!”
“What am I meant to say, Dad? You have never been around.”
“I—”
Old, familiar hurt welled up in Joey’s chest, sitting beside resentment and fear and anger. Where was this care when Jackal held a knife to his throat? When he woke up in a hospital bed, mute and terrified? He wasn’t even seven years old yet. Where was this anger when Trigon could have killed him? When the alien shapeshifter plague that Slade smuggled in almost succeeded? When the Brotherhood of Evil captured him in Zandia? “You left us all for five years. You do not have the right to come back two years later and tell me who I am allowed to date! Even Mom does not do that.”
Slade only crossed his arms as he loomed over him. He could make Joey feel small no matter how old he was. “An’ does your sire know ‘bout David?”
… Adeline did not.
Like he already knew the answer, Slade kept pushing. Deathstroke never gave an inch. His dam never would. “You not tellin’ me—that’s fine. I get it, I do. But if you ain’t tellin’ Addie ‘bout David, it’s ‘cause you damn well know she’d do the same fuckin’ thing.”
“At least she stayed!”
Slade flinched.
His dam flinched, and Joey’s world fell out of orbit. Deathstroke didn’t flinch. It wasn’t something that could happen. Deathstroke did not flinch. Adeline once kicked him in the face, and Slade hadn’t made a sound. Joey could still hear that awful CRACK of cartilage and bone because he was twelve, and Grant had just died, and his parents were fighting again, and—
“I left. I was gone. I know, Joey! I know! I left you an’ Rosie behind for too damn long. But I’m here now. I’m here, an’ I’m tryin’ t’ keep y’all safe! An’ David, I don’t—he ain’t right.” Slade was pacing now. Long, angry strides back and forth across the roof ledge like a feral animal trapped in a cage.
It was Joey’s turn to flinch again. Not right. He was pretty sure that he hadn’t been right in Slade’s eye(s) since he was born.
Alphas were supposed to be strong, tough, and confident. Everyone respected Adeline. Everyone feared Slade. His parents could overthrow entire governments if they ever felt like it. And Joey—Joey liked painting, dancing, and playing his guitar.
Grant was always better. Grant was a real alpha. A real man. A real son. (Grant was a bully and a misogynist. He was loud, and mean, and cruel. If Slade heard half of what Grant said about omegas to his friends, maybe then he wouldn’t be the golden child anymore. Or maybe he still would be because Grant never could do anything wrong. Joey loved his brother. He wasn’t a good person, and now he was dead.)
“I didn’t—” Slade sighed again. “I shouldn’t’ve yelled. But I won’t have no alpha like him ‘round you, nor Rose an’ Tara.”
Lightheadedness choked Joey from the churning in his gut.
An alpha like him. Slade meant David. What if he meant Joey too? He had to have known David was gay. They had served together in joint U.S.-Canadian taskforces for years, and they stayed almost amicable after they both left their respective militaries. Then David had done something that Slade didn’t like. How much more rejection was he meant to endure?
“It is alright,” Joey signed, and he didn’t meet Slade’s cold eye. Lies were easier. Safer. The instinct to cower back made him ill. Nothing between them had ever been alright.
Slade shook his head. “It ain’t. I was wrong. I—… Billy’s been givin’ me shit for years for not communicatin’ proper-like with y’all, an’ I know this is one of them times. So, I’ll, uh—I’ll try, t’ do better?”
Joey knew that Slade was trying to do better, as an omega dam, as a father and a mother. He was gentle and kind to Rose and Tara. (When he wasn’t leaving them behind.) They weren’t forced to hear the slamming doors and shouting matches. They never sat in the silence of an angry, bitter house. They weren’t ignored in favor of a cruel older brother. Joey loved his little sisters more than he could ever love himself, but he wasn’t quite twenty and his bones didn’t fit him yet. He missed the rare, good times that their family had before Jackal.
The shift of armored boots snapped him back to the present. Back to the cold concrete under his boots. Back to the endless noise of New York City, and the fact that Deathstroke had just put his boyfriend in the ICU.
Slade was standing a few feet away from Joey like he wasn’t sure how close he could be. He looked nervous. It didn’t match his face.
Deathstroke did not get nervous. Joey knew firsthand how proud his dam was, how Slade always acted like he was going to win. (He didn’t, and his second son had the scar to prove it.) But Joey also saw the tightness around Slade’s good eye, the stiff line of his lips, and the way that his armor shifted over his tense muscles.
His dam was as genuinely upset as he had made Joey. Wasn’t that a first?
“Okay,” Joey signed hesitantly.
Slade didn’t reply. His lips moved like he wanted to speak and couldn’t find the words. Instead, he took a few tentative steps closer to Joey and sat down on the roof ground with his back to the ledge, peeling off the scent-blocking patches that he always wore over the glands on his neck. (A weird attempt at an olive branch, Joey supposed. He couldn’t remember the last time that Slade went without those scent blockers around him.) He sat down beside his dam. Metahuman heat warmed the October chill. Slade did not reach for him. Joey wondered if his dam thought that he was a coward for surrendering like this.
“I—”
“I—”
They both stopped.
Slade grimaced and waved his hand. “Go on now.”
“I do not understand. I—you hurt him so badly. Dave did not do anything. I love him.” Joey fought the fear heavy in his throat and the anger that shook in his hands.
“You’re nineteen, pup. You don’t love him. You just think you do.”
Joey bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood. His parents met in the Army when Adeline was twenty-four and Slade was nineteen. They were in love, once. Adeline would tell him so. They were happier before he was born. (His parents never said as much, but Grant had liked to remind him of how it was all his fault.) “You loved Mom when you were nineteen.”
“That—” Slade winced. “That was different. Addie ain’t a creep. I wanted her, an’ I wanted t’ be with her.”
“I want to be with Dave! I am the one who pursued him.”
His dam pressed his lips together, but it did nothing to hide the hint of a subdued growl. “Sure. I get that, I do. But David should’ve never wanted you back. We were friends afore you were even born. He was at your damn baby shower, for God’s sake! He’s practically your uncle! I know you didn’t see him for some time after… our divorce, but he should’ve never looked at you like that.”
Something in Joey’s stomach felt cold. He knew that. He always did. He still could not subdue the feeling. If that were from Slade’s harsh frown or his words, Joey couldn’t say. But he had known who David was. Slade’s anger couldn’t change that.
“Why do you even care? I asked N-W. Your new partner R-H is half your age.” It was a low blow. Unfair in the way that Joey hated to be. He remembered the years spent in their old home listening to his parents do that to each other. Slade would do the same to him, cruel in his careless disregard, and Grant was seldom kind.
Slade gritted his teeth. “We didn’t meet ‘til he was twenty-two an’ a damn crime lord! Hood’s no innocent. You ain’t grown, pup. You’re the same age Grant was when—”
“I am not Grant!” His own ferocity startled him. Familiar anger bubbled up in his throat and burned under his skin. All his life, Slade had compared him to the perfect golden child and found him lacking. He never tried to know his own second son. Never cared. Never wanted him. Joey hated this bitter feeling. (He could say that it was Slade’s, or Adeline’s. He could deny the stains in his bloodline. But this vile, useless rage was all his own.) “I am not a child anymore. You do not know who I am!”
“I lost him. I’m not losin’ you.”
Grief never ended. Joey knew that too well.
He lifted his hands. “You only care about me now that he is gone. It has been almost seven years. You abandoned Rose and I at his funeral. Do you not think it is a little late now?”
“If that’s true, ain’t it too late for everythin’?” Slade did not look at him.
“You keep promising to try. You cannot say that and break into my apartment and beat up my boyfriend. Explain, please. Apologize. You hurt him!” Joey could still feel David’s unconscious body in his arms. He tried not to think about it.
David was safe in the ICU now, and he would make a full recovery. It was the only reason that he returned to see Slade again.
Rare hesitation. Then Slade spoke. “I can’t apologize for attackin’ him ‘cause I’ll never feel no remorse. But I am… sorry for scarin’ you. I… You were late an’ not answerin’ the phone. I figured the worst. When H.I.V.E. took Grant—”
“Grant joined H-I-V-E because he was angry.” Joey managed a faint, soundless snarl that scratched at his throat, interrupting Slade again with an angry wave of his hand. It never was about him, was it? “He was your favorite, I know! You made that clear my entire life. I loved him. He was my brother. But he was not good. He made his own choices. Grant is gone. I am here, Dad, and you still do not see me.”
“I know who he was!” Slade snapped. “I know what he said an’ did! But he was my pup, an’ I failed him. I lost him. I won’t lose you again.”
“So tell me why! Why hurt Dave? Why care now?” Tears escaped his burning eyes. Alphas don’t cry. He itched to walk, to run, to get away from this fucking conversation because Slade had never listened to him. They were going in circles. Joey could only spiral.
“I’ve always cared about you, pup. I’m so fuckin’ sorry I made you think I didn’t.”
Shock was his first instinct. The kind that made him freeze like a startled deer. His dam had apologized before. For leaving him. For scaring him. Joey knew that he was trying to do and be better—to Rose and Tara, and even to him. More sincere remorse filled Slade’s deep voice than Joey ever remembered hearing before. The omega who sat next to him on the roof was not the same one who abandoned and rejected him. He didn’t know how to respond.
“My sire was a rotten bastard an’ he never gave a damn ‘bout our pack. I was fourteen when he had a few gamblin’ debts t’ pay with some big city gangsters. I ended up in the hands of some cruel alphas.”
The words didn’t quite sink in at first. Then horror crept up Joey’s spine in a cold chill. Slade would never say the word, never aloud, never to him, but he knew it:
Rape. His dam had been raped as a child. His grandfather had sold him to his rapists.
Joey didn’t want to know. It would hurt too much. It already hurt too much.
“When I saw him in your bed, I…” Slade wasn’t looking at Joey now. He wasn’t looking at Bellevue. “It’s killin’ me t’ know somebody’s taken advantage of you the same way. We used t’ be friends, David an’ I. Grant thought he was a fun uncle. I trusted him with you.”
He understood Slade’s attack for the first time, just a little bit. Violence was his dam’s first language, and he thought that David was raping him. Joey pressed his palms to his wet eyes, unwilling to acknowledge the tears that blurred his vision. Alphas don’t cry. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t shout. His whole body was shaking, and he couldn’t sign, and—
Slade pulled him in for an awkward half-hug. Familiar hands ran through his curly hair like Joey had seen him do for Grant, then Rose and Tara. His dam never comforted him like this. Slade didn’t stick around after Jackal kidnapped him and slit his throat. He never even visited him in the hospital. Slade was trying now, wasn’t he? At least he promised that much. Metahuman warmth soaked into Joey’s chilled skin past his Ikon suit. Comforting pheromones enveloped him in his dam’s familiar scent. Molasses. Woodsmoke. It had been weeks since they last scented each other like pack. It felt nice.
Joey knew who his dam was. He knew that the hands comforting him now had shot and stabbed and tortured people. He tried to kill David! But those same hands held him at the moment of his birth, and Joey could not stand the thought of him leaving again. Slade Wilson was not a good person. He was still trying to be a better parent.
He leaned into his embrace, welcoming it when Slade soothed him with a rare low purr. He wanted to be selfish for once. Just this once.
“Christ, pup. I didn’t mean t’ make you feel worser. I’m tryin’ t’ explain why I’m angry.”
A flinch again, out of instinct. His dam’s anger was never kind.
Slade only swore under his breath. His goatee scratched when he kissed Joey’s head, purring low in his chest as a clumsy, silent apology. “Not at you, pup, I ain’t never been angry with you. Nothin’s your fault.”
“Why” —Joey’s hands shook— “tell me this?”
“Figured you’d want the whole story. It’s probably a bad idea, ain’t it? Billy’ll tell me so, I bet, but…” Slade cleared his throat. He shifted awkwardly beside Joey as if he couldn’t stand the thought of sticking around a second longer. He still let Joey cling to him. “I… Should I stop? I don’t want—I’m not sayin’ this t’ make you feel bad. I don’t never want you feelin’ bad or guilty or nothin’. I just want you safe.”
Joey did not reply, smearing snot and tears onto the Deathstroke armor as he cried in his dam’s arms like the child who he no longer was. It was far from the worst thing that Slade’s suit had ever seen.
“You left us.” Joey’s hands did not tremble as he signed. “You left me.”
“I did.”
“Even before Grant died, you left. You are always leaving. You left after I lost my voice, and you didn’t come back for over a year. Then you left us to have Rose, and you left her too. Grant died, and you left us! I did not have anyone but Mom and Dave.”
Slade opened his mouth, as if to argue, before he let out the breath that he was holding in with another sigh. “I know.”
“Dave was there for me. He helped me with school and my physical therapy. He cared about me.” Joey remembered developing a crush on David in his senior year at high school, when his parents’ old friend visited Adeline after a long time away. They hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade. He was as kind and gentle as Joey remembered him being when he was much younger and recovering from Jackal’s attack (when Slade abandoned him). After David gave him an Ikon suit at his graduation party, Joey asked him to coffee, then to an art museum, then—
“I didn’t know. I’d’ve tore out his throat if I knew.”
Joey didn’t flinch again, but it was a near thing. If he didn’t intervene, he was sure that Slade would have beaten David to death. The dried blood on his discarded gloves was proof enough of that. “I do not want you to hurt people for me. I never want that. Dave did not hurt me. He never—no one has ever done that to me.”
Slade didn’t relax, kissing Joey’s head again. “Just promise me he never touched you.”
“I promise, Dad.”
He hadn’t done anything sexual before until recently: fumbling kisses and handjobs as David let Joey take charge, safe in the privacy of his apartment. It was fun, clumsy and awkward, and nothing less than enthusiastic. (Then he missed those calls.) Joey would never, ever consider saying a word of that to Slade, even if his dam were not still tense beside him. A part of Joey wondered how much of his clear rage and disgust was because David was a gay alpha. Slade had called Joey a sissy boy many times before. It meant that he was weak. There was nothing that Deathstroke hated more than weakness.
“You are not upset because we are two alphas?” Joey dared to ask after a long pause.
Slade blinked. “What?”
The reply threw him off balance just as much as it seemed like the concept of bisexuality had thrown Slade. Joey lifted his hands again. It took a minute for his hands to cooperate and sign the words that made Joey so anxious. “Dave is an alpha, like me.”
“We shared tents in our Army days. I know what he has down there.”
Joey made a face at him.
“It was war, pup. There weren’t much thought given t’ personal space out in the field.” Slade snorted.
“Gross.”
The low huff of laughter made Joey want to flinch again. It brought him back to the nights when he was still small enough to be carried up the stairs to his bedroom, half-awake and cradled safely in strong arms. He would feel the rumble rise from Slade’s chest as he laughed quietly at whatever Adeline said, and he would know that everything was okay for just one night. His sire wasn’t angry. His dam wasn’t gone on some trip, abandoning their home.
Slade studied Joey then; his head tilted slightly to the left like he did when he was aiming a sniper rifle. “What would I be pissed ‘bout David bein’ an alpha for?”
Joey searched his dam’s face, following every hard line carved by war, time, and trauma, and saw that Slade’s expression—so rarely emotive—was one of genuine confusion. It would be funny if Joey’s heart weren’t racing in his chest.
“Because it would mean I am gay,” he signed.
“Are you?”
The simple question felt like a punch to the gut. Joey swallowed hard, and he forced himself to meet Slade’s eye. “I think I am bisexual.”
“Okay.”
“O-K? That is it?”
Slade shrugged. “What else is it supposed t’ be, pup? I’ve slept with plenty of other omegas in my time. Just ‘cause I prefer alphas, doesn’t mean I don’t understand you likin’ the same sex. My issue ain’t with his bein’ an alpha. Why d’you think I’d care so much ‘bout you bein’ gay?”
It felt like a massive weight had been lifted off Joey’s chest, all to be replaced with a big ball of confusion and frustration. A lifetime of resentment and hurt and anger tainted the feelings. Where was this easy support when he was five years old and crying from a school bully?
“Bisexual,” Joey corrected. He fumbled through his signs with fresh tears in his eyes. “You and Mom both told Grant and I to toughen up because we were alphas. You never stopped Grant from bullying me. You made it clear you did not want me. You hated that I was ‘weak’. Why would I trust that you would be any different from what everyone said about people like me? I mean, Dad, you have spent your whole life pretending to be an alpha yourself.”
Slade didn’t answer him for a long time. He tapped his fingers restlessly on Joey’s shoulder as he thought.
“I was wrong, doin’ an’ sayin’ that t’ y’all. I thought it’d make you stronger. Protect you from the shit I grew up with.” Slade rested a hand on Joey’s platinum curls and pulled him closer. “I wanted y’all tough so the world couldn’t break you. But that doesn’t matter ‘cause I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
“O-K.” An apology couldn’t erase the years of hurt, but it felt… better.
Slade just kissed the top of his head again.
After another awkward pause, his dam spoke again. “I ain’t ashamed of bein’ an omega. But when I got knocked up with Grant, then you, I couldn’t be a mother an’ a soldier. They don’t let omegas into combat, so they changed my records an’ treated me as an alpha. I covered my scent ‘cause they ordered me to. I was too damn good a soldier t’ keep on base. Addie wanted t’ be y’all’s momma anyway, so she took the title instead. I didn’t much care. When I had Rosie after the divorce, her sire wanted t’ be a daddy an’ I had no reason t’ not be a momma. Tara calls me that ‘cause of her. It’s not a matter of weakness. I didn’t mean t’ make you think that.”
It was the first time that Joey had ever heard that. It did make sense, in Slade’s own way.
“You do not need to keep pretending. Everyone knows that The Flash—the second one—was an omega,” Joey signed, “so is Lady Shiva.”
“That’s their business, pup.” His dam only shrugged.
Joey rolled his eyes.
Then Slade took a breath in, and it felt like the city held its breath too. “I can’t apologize for beatin’ David senseless ‘cause I won’t never feel remorse, but for all the hurt I’ve caused you, I am sorry. I’m sorry for not being the parent you deserve. I want—I’m tryin’ t’ be better, for you, an’ for our pack.”
“… Thank you.”
“You’ve heard my piece, but you’re old enough now that you don’t ought to listen to me. I don’t want t’ lose you, not again.” Slade hesitated, and he uncharacteristically stumbled through his words. Tension was still coiled in his strong, lean body as his dam held Joey close to his side. “If you want David, I ain’t never goin’ t’ like it, but I support you. Only you, okay, pup? An’ I’ll finish the job if he so much as—”
“What about R-H? He is not much older than me.”
A grimace. “I know that damn well. I’d say the man’s an adult, an’ he’s been runnin’ ‘round Gotham as a crime lord for a while now. We both know I’ve got near-thirty years on him, but it doesn’t bother him none. We didn’t meet ‘til this August. It ain’t you an’ his ages that bothers me, pup, it’s David knowin’ you afore you were even born.”
Joey opened his mouth, as if he could voice a reply, and he could not find any good words to sign with.
“An’ I know—I know Addie an’ I weren’t good. We were better for the first few years, but we got worse after my experiment. I didn’t try t’ be good to her either. Hell, I’m sure you remember what we were like.”
He did.
He remembered every screamed word thrown between them, and how it shook the house. He could still see every time that his sire had hit his dam, still picture the red marks that her hands made on a pale cheek. And he remembered the taillights through the curtains every time that Slade left for some bullshit trip, because he would rather be a mercenary in a firefight halfway across the world than at home with Adeline, even if that meant leaving his sons behind. The divorce was probably the best thing that ever happened to his parents, even if it had cost Slade an eye and Joey his slashed vocal cords.
“I’m sorry, pup,” Slade offered again, simply.
Joey knew that.
“Why do you love me?” Joey asked then, ignoring how harsh a question it was to ask. Slade loved him. He had always known that much too. His dam just loved other things more. “You did not like me as a pup. You did not even want me.”
“You don’t get a choice in who you love. You can choose t’ stay with ‘em an’ be lovin’, but you can’t choose to love ‘em.” Slade hesitated again, clenching his jaw. “Is that—are you understandin’ me? I love you ‘cause you’re my son. I’ve always loved you, an’ I always will. Even if that weren’t true, I’d love you anyway for the alpha you’re becomin’. You’re a hero, pup, an’ a damn good person. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
Joey could only nod. Emotion caught in his throat. Pride. His dam had never supported him like this. Slade hated the Titans. He asked then, with uncertain hands, “would you have chosen to love Mom?”
“Yeah. I still love her now, even. I could’ve loved her better, I know, but I couldn’t’ve loved her more. I love Kao the same.”
“And R-H?”
“I love him too.”
“Would you choose to?”
Slade did not answer quickly. “No. I wouldn’t. He’s a damn good alpha an’ he deserves better than I can give him. But it’d be… easier if I didn’t care ‘bout him.”
He stayed silent. Dick had been light on the details when they talked about the Red Hood of Gotham a few weeks ago. He was a crime lord, and apparently a very violent one, who was engaged in a gang war with a different Gotham crime lord. Dick wouldn’t say as much, but Joey suspected that they also knew each other personally. Despite (or maybe because of) the violence recorded on his file, Slade loved him. His dam said that Red Hood was kind to him. He was glad. Their pack had endured enough pain.
“Does Addie know?” Hesitation was an odd note in his dam’s voice.
“About me and Dave? No.” New nervousness caught in his scarred throat. “She knows I am bisexual.”
“I’m sorry for makin’ you feel so damn unloved that you couldn’t trust me t’ accept you.”
Joey did not immediately respond, studying the roof ground below their boots. It felt nice to be apologized to. He wished it happened fifteen years ago. “Why were you so harsh to me when I was growing up?”
“I…” Slade grimaced. “It was easier. You’re Addie’s pup more than you ever were mine. I had Grant, an’ I didn’t know what t’ do with you. You’re more like her, anyway.”
“I am nothing like her, Dad. The only thing we have ever had in common is liking music and art. You wanted me to be like Grant, and I never was.” He loved his sire, and he knew how hard Adeline had worked to fill in the cracks that Slade left. Sometimes, when Joey was selfish, all he wanted was both of his parents. “I thought there was something wrong about me. That I was unlovable.”
Slade only shook his head. “Christ. No, pup. None of it was ever your fault. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”
“I know.”
It didn’t change anything.
Joey wondered then if pain just ran in his family’s bloodline. Adeline’s parents were cold and distant. His sire clung onto her loved ones until things bled under her nails. Slade’s father… His dam thought abandonment was the same thing as freedom. Grant had been angry and scared and desperate to prove something. Joey liked the feel of guitar strings on his fingertips and the warmth of his friends and pack around him. The bitterness, anger, and fear still in his chest was as much a part of him as anything else.
“Whatever you do, know that I support you. I’m your dam. Mother, father, it doesn’t matter none t’ me. You’ll always be my pup, my son, an’ I’ll always love you.” Slade pulled Joey into a real hug for the first time in weeks.
Then, his dam began to purr.
Joey felt the rumble rise from Slade’s chest and he thought that, despite all the hurt between them, they could try to heal again.