Episode: 5.19

--- Aiden ---

It was nearly three hours later when he finally managed to stumble his way back through the Devil’s Kiss’s front door.

He stopped in front of the half-demolished bar, taking note of the fact that Amelia had left out what few bottles hadn’t been shattered when the cult shot the place up earlier.

Without hesitation, he grabbed one of the bottles and downed a few shots in a single go. Just enough to wear down the edge of what he’d spent the last few hours doing, something he’d promised his old man he wouldn’t do if he could help it.

(Hate making promises… Never can keep the damn things…)

He stumbled his way up the stairs to the second floor, and took three steps towards his door, before remembering it was no longer his door.

(Right… we moved Ember in…)

He stared at hi-Ember’s door for a moment, before turning and making his way to Pet and Amelia’s room instead. Once inside he found Amelia fiddling with some bit of mad tech, in preparation for replacing Pet’s processor the next time he got Ember out of the bar.

“You were gone for a while…” Amelia commented, barely looking up from her work.

He glanced at the bed and noticed Pet under the covers, faced away from him, and likely still awake. “…Yeah… Yeah, I was…” He admitted running a hand down his face, and hoping they’d leave it at that. He wouldn’t lie to them, not Amelia and never Pet, but that didn’t mean he wanted to tell them the whole truth either. (Not after what I just did…)

Amelia’s hands stopped fiddling with the machine in her lap, and after a moment she looked up and watched him, before nodding. “Yeah, you were…”

He looked around the room a bit, his eyes taking in the private part of their home that Amelia and Pet had made with each other.

“I’m sorry…” That was the honest truth.

Amelia watched him once more before sighing as she stood up. “Don’t be… you did what you had to do… even if I wished you’d done something else instead.”

“So, do I…” He confessed with a bitter smile.

Amelia turned away from him as she placed the processor in a box, before tucking it under the futon. “You know it’s not going to stop with just one…”

He took note of the fact that Pet pulled her covers closer at that comment.

“If you…” He stopped himself from finishing that sentence, knowing full well that after the last eight years together Amelia would slap him if he even suggested she abandon him, (and that’s not including the fact that Pet would stab me herself…)

“If I what?” Amelia asked turning on him with two glaring emerald eyes.

He couldn’t help but smile at her glare, especially once he caught the faint glow of blue coming from the corner of Pet’s eye on the bed behind her.

“If you want me to go after anyone specific just let me know.” It wasn’t something he should be joking about, but he felt she’d appreciate that more than what he was going to say, and that it’d be easier to live with himself in the morning too.

Amelia watched him for a moment before shaking her head as some unseen weight left her shoulders. “Don’t joke about that.”

“No promises.” He shrugged, watching as Pet shifted back to more comfortable position. (It’s a laugh or cry kind of situation…)

Amelia shook her head with a faint smile. “You’re lucky we love you.”

(I know…)

“Ember, wake up while I was gone?” He asked, taking his own seat on the futon next to Amelia and Pet’s bed. “I was a bit worried about her managing to sleep after everything that happened today.”

“I…” Amelia gnawed on her lip, refusing to meet his eye. “I may’ve… slipped her… a mild anesthetic… to help her sleep…”

(That’s just…)

On the one hand he knew that was a bad precedent for them to set, especially on top of the one he’d already set for himself, but on the other he also knew from personal experience that the kid wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise.

(Fuck…)

He couldn’t help but sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, before forcing himself to lay down. “Just… just so long as we don’t make it a habit…”

“I know… was kind of hoping our first day as parents would be easier than this.” Amelia laughed with false cheer.

“We’re not her parents.”

Amelia was quiet for a moment, before he heard her lay down on her bed and face him. “So, you talked to Ember about Anna, didn’t you?”

“I told her Anna saved me and paid a price for it.” He admitted, weighing the liquor bottle in his hand and counting its contents.

“You didn’t tell her what that price was did you.” It wasn’t a question, everyone who knew about that mess had agreed to take that secret to the grave if they had to.

“You know…” Amelia reached out and began running a hand through his hair. “She’d probably understand if you talked it out with her… she seems like a smart girl…”

“Yeah…” He couldn’t help the bark of dry laughter that brought out of him, before he downed the last half of the bottle in an attempt to make himself black-out drunk. “I’m sure she’ll understand that I’m the reason she had to grow up without a father.”