Fighting Family

6

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.