Callum’s POV

Watching Jax come home mad wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He was never much of a people person but it came with the territory when you had to actively permanently alter people’s bodies. Apparently his last appointment of the day had been late but promised Jax they were coming still so he waited on them. Then after arriving late they hated the design Jax came up with and made him redo it for 20 minutes until they were finally pleased with it (which he claims he’s fine with but it was the way she spoke about the original design that he didn’t care for). Then after all of that they backed out the second the needle hit their skin saying it was going to hurt too bad and they weren’t ready for it. 

Needless to say he was pissy that he wasted his time when he could have been at home with all of us.

He knew the rules by now, we’ve had them in place for so long. Before he had a chance to blow up on any of us he had to go to the punching bag to blow off steam there first. If he still felt any after 20 minutes he was to stop and try a different form of exercise.

We had done this plenty of times since we left camp and it had always worked out well for us. What we didn’t consider was the way that Weylyn flinched the second Jax slammed the door.

He stared at Jax like he was a wild animal out for blood when he began stalking up the stairs to the punching bag that had been well used.

“Don’t worry,” I said in a voice that I meant to sound gentle but I don’t think it worked considering he flinched again at my words. “He’s just a bit upset. We have the punching bag upstairs. He just needs to punch out his day for a bit.” Weylyn had nodded but he still kept his eyes glued on the stairs.

The second Jax was done and began walking downstairs Weylyn tensed. His body went completely ridged and he was all but climbing into my lap to get as far away from my husband as possible. When Jax sat down on the far end of the couch Weylyn made a dash for the stairs and didn’t dare look back.

“Is he okay,” Jax asked as he nodded to where Weylyn was just sitting.

“He was a few seconds ago,” I said with a frown of my own.

“He seemed scared when you slammed the door,” Liam noticed, the way he noticed everything. “Has he always had a problem with loud noises?”

“Never. I swear he and Axel used to try to actively scare each other by being the loudest person possible at the most random time they could think of.”

“Abuse can make people scared of loud noises. Plus Jax was pretty mad at first. That could have been scary.” A harsh glare covered my face.

“I swear to god if Lily was doing something to them I will kill her.”

“I didn’t mean to scare him,” Jax said a frown of his own.

“We know you didn’t,” Ryder said as he leaned into our husband. “We just have to explain to them that this is normal and you would never do anything to harm them. I know it’s triggering to think they thought you would harm them but it’s the trauma. It’s your trauma and his but that will slowly change when we get them into therapy.”

“Axel isn’t going to like that,” I warned.

“We’ll ease him in to it,” Liam said. “We’ll have them meet Andrew slowly, just have him over for dinner every now and then and when they get comfortable with him we can start letting them hang out one on one with them.”

“I want to talk to them too,” Jax said with a frown. “I don’t want them to be scared of me. They need to know I’m not going to hurt them.”

“We can try but I don’t know how much it will help,” Liam said with a sigh. “They won’t trust easy if abuse is the reason behind this. You know that; it took you months to talk to Andrew and he was only adult in your life that wasn’t a piece of shit.” Jax frowned but nodded.

“I still want to try.”

“I’m off tomorrow,” Liam said. “I’ll hang out with them, try to get them used to me. Maybe that’s the way we do it. All of us spending time with them one on one until they are comfortable with all of us; then we bring Andrew in.”

It seemed like a good idea. Things had gone well today with getting used to Ryder. Weylyn was all in for Ryder. Ryder won him out the second he said he could pick out any book he wanted and then talked to him about it for hours on and off.

“Alright give me tips. How am I winning them over?”

“Food for Axel. That was the only reason he came out of the office today. Maybe try baking some things to help coax him out of his room. Also an actual lunch and not just sandwiches. Wey will probably just follow Axel’s lead. If you get him in your pocket you won’t have to worry about Wey but he does like reading. You could probably bond with him over reading too,” I said as I thought about the siblings I could barely claim to know at this point. “Thank all of you for trying so hard. I know it’s not easy to be thrust into this.”

“We just ask for patience,” Ryder said. “We’re all going to mess up. We just need to support each other when it happens and try to be better from there.”

We left it at that for the night. We had a game plan, we had an end goal of therapy, we were ready for the outburst. We could do it.

The next morning went the same way the last morning had.

Weylyn was found in Axel’s bed again. If there had been room for a futon I would get one just to give him the option of sleeping away from his brother but I doubt he would use it at that point.

“It’s time to get up,” I said as I knocked on the doorframe again. Axel was the one to shoot awake this time. I went to tap on Weylyn’s feet but Axel moved to get between us before I was even a few feet away from the bed.

“We’re up,” Axel said harshly as he glared up at me. Exhaustion coursed through his eyes and I was suddenly very glad he was staying home today.

“Okay, thank you for getting up. Breakfast in a few minutes yea?”

“Whatever. Fucking leave us alone. We’ll be down when we’re ready.” I forced myself to take a deep breath. I didn’t want to start out the morning with a fight so I decided to just let it go and left the room.

By the time they came downstairs the four of us had already sat down and began eating. Axel made a plate and stayed by Weylyn before taking everything to the couch.

“We don’t eat on the couch unless it’s pizza night,” I told them when they moved to sit down. Weylyn looked to his brother but Axel just glared.

“That’s a stupid rule. I want to eat here so I’m eating here.” Another deep breathe.

“We like to eat together so we can talk about our day or make a plan for the day ahead. We need to talk about what you two are doing today.”

“We can talk from here. We’re actively talking right now. We’re fine. And we’re going with you like yesterday. What’s there to talk about?”

“Liam is off today so you’ll be sticking with them today.” Axel’s eyes went wide as he stared at my husband.

“I’m not staying with him,” he spat with a glare. “We’re going with you.”

“I promise I’m not that bad,” Liam teased. “We’re going to have so much fun. We have an x-box you know. And movies. And we can just hang out all day.”

“I’m not staying with him,” Axel repeated.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Weylyn whispered but Axel shot him a look and he stopped speaking immediately. 

“You’re staying here,” I said again, trying to force the anger I felt not show in my voice. “There’s no need for you to come to the shop if we can keep you here. We don’t want to have to drag you both all over the place everyday. It’s not good for you and it’s not fair. We’re all going to try and start taking one day off a week so someone can always be here with you.”

“We don’t want that. We want to stay with you.”

“I understand that but you have to get used to my husbands. I’m not always going to be able to help you all the time. Some times you’ll need to be able to rely on them and you can’t do that if you don’t know them.”

“I don’t want to know them,” Axel said, his voice getting louder. “I hardly want to know you but you’re the only place we had to go so I’m here. I don’t care about them! I barely care about you!”

“If you don’t care about me then you should have no problem staying here,” I said as calmly as I could.

I got up without another word and gestured for Ryder to follow me to the car. 

I could hear Axel screaming as I closed the door behind me but I didn’t stop. 

“That seemed a bit harsh,” Ryder said when we got into the car.

“He needs to know he can’t act like that and still get what he wants. He used to try it when I first started taking care of him but stopped when he saw it didn’t work. He just needs to remember that.”

“You’ve matured,” Ryder said in a gentle tone. “You know this isn’t the way you should be doing it. It feels wrong to leave them distressed like this.”

“And what should I have done? We can’t have them only wanting to be around me; they have to get used to you guys. We can’t have them in the shop all day either, they need to able to have a space just their own to not have to worry about people being around them all the time that they can’t get in the shop.”

“It’s only the third day. You can’t expect them to be be perfect and ready for changes like this randomly. It takes time.”

I sighed. I knew this. I didn’t like having to leave them upset but Axel has always been able to piss me off more than anyone faster that anyone. Andrew always taught me that when I got upset it was best to leave before the wrong things could be said so that’s what I did. 

“I thought I was done with anger management,” I sighed as I rubbed my face with my hands, trying to wipe the sleep out of my eyes. “And now three days after they move I feel the need call Andrew for myself again. It’s bullshit.”

“I think calling Andrew would be a good idea. Maybe we should have family sessions once the twins get used to him a bit more.” I huffed a laugh. 

“Yea good luck getting Axel to agree to that.” Ryder frowned.

“We can do this. One fight isn’t going to change my mind. Our first fight was so much worse than that. This is hardly a disagreement. It’s okay.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Axel’s POV

I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched Callum get into his car with Ryder.

“That was dramatic,” Jax said but his voice seemed different and his face didn’t have that usual dark look to him.

“Not helping Bram,” Liam said with a sigh.

“It’s the truth Liam,” Bram shot back with a weird smile on his face. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Fuck off,” I spat as I forced myself farther into the couch.

“Noted.”

“You’re being mean,” Weylyn whispered in my ear. 

“Yet I don’t care. Callum needs to learn to chill.”

“Well you did actively try to get him to fight you,” Liam said as he stood up to clean up the table. “Why do you think you did that?”

“Stop therapizing them,” Bram groaned as he stood up and went to grab his keys. “If he keeps doing it just go to your room, he won’t follow you in there,” he advised before walking to the door. “Text me if you need me at all.”

“I will,” Liam said with a small nod.

“I was talking to them but okay, you too I guess.” Liam rolled his eyes.

“Get to work,” he scoffed. Bram only laughed before disappearing behind the door, leaving us with Liam.

“So we’ve had a rocky start today,” he started, “but I think we can still come back from this. What are we going to do? We can go get lunch later or we can go shopping, get some decor or books. We can also just hang around the house for the day.”

“Fuck off,” I said before pushing off the couch and heading to my room.

Weylyn followed me and we spent the whole day in there until it was time for dinner. Any time Callum spoke to me I ignored him. 

I wasn’t going to be hurt by him again. He left once before, he could do it again and I wasn’t going to let it hurt that much this time. Callum could go fuck himself. I wasn’t going to be the same wild eyed obedient kid I used to be. If he was going to get ready to leave again then I was going to make sure the time leading up to that was going to be hell for him. He was going to pay for leaving us with Lily and Rowan and he’s going to pay for leaving us with his husbands.