Page 65 of Sanctuary After Dark

A group of us were heading downtown to go to a No Kings protest. It was going to be the biggest one that we had gone to with our boy, and I was excited about it. The weather was calling for snow, though, so I made a mental note to make sure he had his gloves, scarf, and hat when we left. I had already thrown a couple of extra hand warmers into the pocket of my coat for him.

Once the others found out that we were going down, it had become a group effort, and the subs came up with the idea to make these drawstring bags with the club's name and information on them to pass out to the other protestors. With the rise of law enforcement attacking peaceful protestors and claiming they were violent, we wanted others to have things that could help, like the eye wash for tear gas and first aid kits.

The state of the world right now was sickening to me. It baffled my mind that people could be so ignorant about things and be so hateful. Not to mention, completely uneducated and refusing to even learn.

Lincoln and I had gone to as many protests as we could to make our voices heard, and once Elias had been comfortable, he had gone with us as well. He was just as passionate about fighting against fascism as we were, and he was right there next to us every time.

Looking up when Lincoln came back into the kitchen, he walked over to steal a chaste kiss from me and then leaned down to kiss Elias's head.

"Everything looks good, squirt. Where's your sign at? I saw you working on it last night, and I don't want you to forget it."

"Oh! It's upstairs in our room! Thank you, Daddy!"

I laughed as Elias shot up from his seat to race upstairs. He had come out of his shell so much more over the past few months. He wasn't wearing baggy clothes much anymore; he made so many friends, was such a goofball, and had even gotten a part-time job at a local indie bookstore. We were so proud of him.

We still did exposure sessions with him and Alec, and he still had his appointments with Alec weekly, but he was making huge strides in his healing and had learned a lot about himself.

Like how he learned that he loved impact play.

After learning that it could help survivors of physical abuse, he approached us and asked if we could try it. After a lengthy negotiation about it and putting down firm boundaries, we planned a night in the impact play room. Elias soared. He had fallen so deep into subspace that he was nonverbal for a while. Lincoln hadn't even gone that hard on him, but after he came to and we talked about what he had liked and what he hadn't, they were planning more impact play sessions to test his boundaries more.

We were so proud of him for the monumental steps he was taking.

"Where's your Master at, Raven?"

I looked up when Lincoln asked. We were still waiting for a few others to show up at the house, and then we could all carpool downtown.

"He texted me a little while ago that he had to stop at the shop and do a touch-up on a client. But he didn't think it would take too long to do. They're just out of state, and this is the only time they can come in. He's stopping at the mac machine on the way after he's done to pull out cash because he doesn't want to bring his wallet down with us. He said that he'll just meet us down there."

"Good idea. Linc stopped yesterday for us to pull cash out because we're leaving our wallets here too. I hope it doesn't take too long and he'll be able to find a parking spot down there. There's supposed to be a huge turnout today."

I finished putting the cookies into bags and took them over to the couple of subs that were filling the drawstring bags for us.

Elias came running into the room again and slid across the floor on his socks, giggling as he held his sign to his chest. Lincoln steadied him so that he wouldn't fall over.

"Easy, baby. Don't hurt yourself."

"Sorry, Tatuś! I was just excited to show you my sign I made! Look how funny!"

He turned it around to show us, and it had a hand-drawn giant Mr. Yuk sticker on it, but he had made it look like he had Trump's hairstyle, and in big letters it said 'Mr. Trump is Poison! Stay Away!'

He held it out proudly with a huge smile on his face, and we couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it and how perfect it was.

"That's amazing, little one. You did a fantastic job on it."

I pulled him close and kissed his temple as he set his sign down on the counter.

"Thanks! Master Gar helped me draw it since I'm not very good at drawing. But I colored it and added the glitter."

"Of course you added the glitter to it because why not add more glitter to the interior of my car."

Lincoln sighed and ran his hand over his face, but he couldn't hide his smile. We loved our boy so much, and we would deal with all the glitter in the world if it meant that he was happy.

"Alright folks! We're leaving in fifteen minutes! That means get everything packed into the cars with your butts in the seats by then. Also make sure you're dressed properly; it's going to be cold, and I already saw some snow coming down."

Alec stood in the doorway with his coat on and a beanie on his head while he addressed the room. He made sure to have the subs put some of his business cards into the bags as well for therapy. If he couldn't take them on himself, he would make sure that they found the proper resources.

Lincoln ushered Elias out of the kitchen and up to our room to get him properly bundled up. With the snow coming, we didn't want him to get too cold. March was always hit or miss with rain or snow, and it looked like we were getting the latter today. I would rather it snowed than rain though, so we didn't get soaked through.