Asa rocked him slowly, one hand along his spine, the other cradling the back of his skull. The motion was small, repetitive, steady as a metronome. “Lois, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Gage talked to me for years,” Zane confessed. “What if I wake up tomorrow and it’s her voice in my head?”
He hated how absurd it sounded in the light of day, but rational thought had been shoved out the window. Fear smelled like his mother’s cloying cheap perfume and her constant disappointment; it tasted like ash on his tongue.
“Then we’ll bring the girls over and have them cleanse the house. It can’t be much different than an exorcism and they learned that in an afternoon off a YouTube video.” Asa tried forhumor and landed somewhere between ridiculous and tender. Zane laughed through a wet sniffle and said nothing more.
“Lois, I’m never going to let her hurt you again. If I have to fly to the Vatican, kidnap the new pope, tie him to a chair, and force him to send that evil bitch to the deepest circle of hell, I will. Hell, if I have to escort her there myself, I will. No hesitation.”
“That’s…so many felonies,” Zane managed, a short laugh before the next wave of crying.
Asa’s chuckle was Zane’s favorite security blanket. “I’d kill the pope for you, baby. Hell, I’d kill God for you.”
Zane gasped, then managed a breathy, “Easy, Satan. Let’s not tempt fate.”
“I am fate,” Asa growled in his ear in a ridiculous, cartoonish monster voice that made Zane snort despite himself.
“You’re a dork.”
Asa made a wistful sound. “Yet you married me anyway, Lois.”
“I did,” he agreed softly.
They sat like that for a while, Asa rocking Zane like he was one of the boys after a nightmare. “You believe me when I say I will always keep you safe, right?”
Zane paused, tasting the words. He let his forehead rest against Asa’s, their breaths mingling. “I believe you over anyone else,” he whispered. “I’m just…old things keep coming back.”
Asa cupped his face, thumbs brushing his wet cheeks. “I’ll always be here to ground you, Lois. To remind you that even if you do hear her voice, it's not real. But I do think you should talk to Dr. Jones about this. All of it. I feel like maybe this is too much for you.”
Zane wanted to deny it but how, when he was so clearly falling apart in front of him. “I’ll talk to Jeremiah, but right now I just need you to squeeze me. I just want to hide for a while.”
Asa’s lips brushed his temple. “I got you, baby.”
Zane squirmed until he could koala his arms and legs around Asa, melting into him. Asa tightened his grip until it was almost impossible to breathe. The noise that left Zane was much like he imagined a mouse would make while being strangled by a boa constrictor. It sounded helpless, ridiculous…perfect.
On any other night, Zane would have fallen asleep like this. Asa or Avi had carried him to bed on more than one occasion. There was just something so…safe about the warmth, smell, the crushing embrace. It made Zane’s whole limbic system just shut down.
Adam had once told Noah that he wanted to fuse their bodies together, that he sometimes imagined a world where they could crawl inside each other and make a home. That’s what Zane wanted. He wanted to wear Asa like armor. No, he did do that. Asa was his shield, his shelter, the turtle shell that protected the soft, squishy, vulnerable creature that was Zane.
It wasn’t that he thought Felix wouldn’t protect him. His kitten had sharp claws, in multiple colors, in many different carats. He would protect Zane with his life. But…it wasn’t the same.
When Felix entered a room, the world took notice. Not because he was threatening—intimidating, certainly—but because he radiated untouchability. Felix looked like someone who didn’t need to fear anything and the predators immediately looked for weaker prey. Zane was the weaker prey. It was like he’d been born that way. Victim-coded. Was that a thing?
Asa…however. He wasn’t a predator. He was the apex predator. One look from him could stop time itself in its tracks. Even with his mask of affability firmly locked in place, Asa exuded a confidence that was unnatural. His existence set the world’s teeth on edge. People knew something about him was wrong, even if they couldn’t name it. And that was what Zaneneeded right now. He needed Asa to be a brick wall, a barricade, the immovable force to his mother’s unstoppable object.
He hissed as Asa’s teeth sank into the scar tissue that never quite healed. He whined, hips shifting restlessly, fully aware they were both turned on. Something eased within him. Asa’s bite was a pressure release valve, pain, pleasure, and adrenaline twisted together until the world shrank to just the two of them.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice rough and splintered from crying.
“Amusing myself. That alright with you?”
“And if I said no?” Zane asked, already slowly rocking against him.
“I’d know you were lying,” Asa said. “But I’d still stop if you said the magic word.”
Zane lifted his head to meet Asa’s eyes. He wanted to speak, to tell him all the things clogging his throat, but the words refused to come. His chest hurt with all the things he couldn’t say.
“What am I gonna do with you, Lois?” Asa mused, his voice low and wrecked. “You have no idea what seeing you cry does to me. It gets me so hot.”
