- PROTECTION [BXB] -

- 19: "He'll Know Someday" -

• • •

"Papá! Mami!" A small, dark-skinned child was carefully making his way down a set wooden stairs, filled with excitement. The child looked about three, and he had freckles across the middle section of his face. In his hand, he had a plush toy, which looked like a dragon-like creature. "Look! Look! I can- I can make the Charizard fly!" The child bounded off the last step and ran to the living room area.

"Hold on, baby, I'm in the kitchen!" A woman called out to the child, who was still making way to the living room. However, as he ran through the area, his small feet tripped over something. Instead of the hard floor, the child had fell onto something that looked like a giant ball of fur. As he caught himself on this thing, he looked up to see the head of an animal looking at him. The animal seemed a little surprised but also worried about the child.

"Ah, Wesley, you need to watch where you're running!" The boy's mom called out to him as she was walking into the room. She got an immediate surprise as she saw her son was on the creature in the living room, a wolf.

"Mami, did we get a giant dog?" Wesley asked his mother, immediately fascinated with the animal staring at him. The wolf looked over at the woman, both of them exchanging a look.

"Uh- no, baby. He's from the.. Veternarian Clinic, I had to take him home to make sure he was okay." The woman clearly made up an excuse, but the naive nature for the mind of the child was easy to take advantage of in situations like this. "He's only gonna be here for tonight, then he's going back to the clinic tomorrow."

"Oooh!" Wesley set down the plushie he was holding to pet the wolf, still think it was a dog. No matter how hard he pet it, touched its nose, or pulled its ears, the wolf still remained calm and let him do what he wanted. "Can I get more toys for him! Where's Papá?" "Your father is working overnight again. You can go get toys to play with him but don't be too rough with him."

"Yay!" The child bounced off the wolf and ran back out the room, and his mother let out a sigh of relief.

"Dameon, why are you shifted if you know he's home?!" The wolf looked apologetic as the sound of bones cracking was heard. Where there was a wolf before, there was now a taller, Hispanic man. He looked embarrassed as he looked down at the woman. "You really put me in the spot there." "Sorry, Myah. I thought he was gonna be occupied more with his toy upstairs. We didn't have enough time to switch back, you know how quick he is."

Dameon wrapped his arms around the woman as he kissed her forehead. She laughed, giving him a kiss back. "Well, I feel sorry for you and Thiago. Seems like you're both gonna be acting as a dog for the rest of the night." "Eh, we'll be fine. More time to spend with our son while we can, nothing is ever too extreme compared to that."

• • •

Myah and Dameon were walking together through the park with Wesley, the smaller child was running around on the path. The two adults watched with happiness as their son ran around energetically. The taller male took the chance to kiss his wife on the head, and she rubbed the side of his face in return.

"I'm gonna miss him." Dameon heard Myah talk to him through their link channel, which they gained access to when they officially marked each other. "It's gonna be hard to let go of his personality, no matter if it's for just a month or years." "I know, babe, I wish I didn't have to get you two mixed up in this. I want to see him grow up so badly, and I want us both to be with him."

The man could see a tear falling from his wife, and he was quick to wipe it away. He was never one to cry himself, but seeing his own family in any sort of pain would have been worse than any other emotion. Saying that he would anything and everything for his family was an understatement, a very serious understatement based on what he's done in the past.