Thomas Mini-Fic (Patreon)

Okay, this isn't the mini-fic I promised. This might actually get shared outside of Patreon so I'll write another one using your ideas befor

Okay, this isn't the mini-fic I promised. This might actually get shared outside of Patreon so I'll write another one using your ideas before the end of the week. This just came to me so I had to write it. It's intense and has some Thomas/Aiden as well as Thomas + fam including the babies. Okay, here goes. 

Thomas

Thomas twirled his pen, watching the younger man on the screen. Aiden. The son he’d almost had, but who’d rejected him outright. The man who’d refused to see Thomas as the man he pretended to be, but had realized almost immediately that his whole life was a fucking lie.

It was a close up shot, making Aiden’s handsome face an almost wall-sized presence in the conference room, leaving everything from the chest down a mystery, but that didn’t stop Thomas from…wondering.

Not wondering, remembering.

He reached for his whiskey glass and downed it in two long swallows. Day drinking was starting to become a thing for him. Things had been…strained since he’d sent paperwork dissolving the adoption. It wasn’t that Thomas didn’t understand why Aiden would want to end that perceived role between them. Father and son. They’d been many things to each other, but never that. Aiden had come to him wild and had only grown more so under Thomas’s clumsy attempt at fatherhood.

Fatherhood was hard enough when you had six psychopathic children who were—theoretically—incapable of showing their love. But Aiden had been so much more. Aiden was the antithesis of a psychopath. Aiden had a classification that many behavioral scientists refused to even acknowledge existed.

The dark empath.

Someone who experienced all the feelings, understood the ramifications of their actions, could see down into people’s true insecurities and then twist them for his own manipulative needs. Aiden knew what it was to hurt people and he enjoyed it just the same. If anything, he enjoyed it more so because he understood precisely how accurate he needed to be to shred someone’s soul. Thomas knew firsthand.

But unlike most dark empaths, Aiden had recognized that deviance within himself and isolated away from society. Away from his brothers. Away from Thomas. They’d spent so little time together over the years—zoom meetings, kill confirmations, the occasional late night phone call—yet no matter how far Aiden went, part of him was still tethered to Thomas, whether they liked it or not.

“Thomas?”

He jerked his head up. Meeting Aiden’s steely gaze was a gut punch. “Yes, sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night. What were you saying?”

Aiden looked like the one who hadn’t gotten much sleep. He was clean. His beard trimmed, even his shirt was clean, but there were circles under his eyes and a weariness that seemed beyond his usual level of exhaustion.

Avi had blamed it on his brother’s bizarre new hobby. No, not his brother. Christ, this was complicated. Almost as complicated as understanding Aiden’s latest obsession. Medieval torture devices. People were entitled to their hobbies, but the idea of Aiden, isolated in the woods, bringing back the world’s worst atrocities to continue Thomas’s work was just…heartbreaking.

“So I’m good to pull the trigger?” Aiden asked, his words stilted.

Thomas frowned, before his gaze fell to the photo on the folder before him. “Yes, of course. Just get with Calliope to make sure your alibi is air tight. Without the family surrounding you, you’re more vulnerable should you get caught.”

“I’m aware,” Aiden said, an edge of irritation creeping into his voice.

He took everything Thomas said as some kind of challenge, some kind of criticism. He was so relaxed and at ease with everybody else, but with Thomas there was a resentment and bitterness there that Aiden just refused to let go. He wanted to hate Thomas. Part of him wished he could do the same. But it just wasn’t possible.

“I simply want to keep you safe,” Thomas said, voice gravel, the ache in his chest growing.

Aiden’s expression remained grim. “I’m almost forty years old, Thomas. I can take care of myself. I’ve been taking care of myself since the day I was born. If you’re worried about me ratting out the family, I would like to think you know better than that.”

Of course, he did. Thomas sighed. “You know that’s not my concern.”

“Then what is your concern?” Aiden spit back. “Why the sudden influx in meetings? Why do you suddenly have an apartment in my town, cars, contacts, business meetings? You’ve never done business on the west coast yet now you’re here twice a week? Why are you suddenly here all the time?”

Thomas’s heart twisted. Because I miss you.

He didn’t say that. Could never fucking say that. Aiden wouldn’t believe him anyway. Not after last time. Christ. Thomas ran a hand over his face, then blew out a breath through his nose, wishing he’d just brought the bottle of whiskey to the table. “I have my reasons.”

“Are you spying on me? Keeping tabs on me? Why not just let your pet investigator do it?”

“It’s not like that…I have business…contacts…It’s just a coincidence,” Thomas lied. “It’s not-”

“Why can I never get far enough away from you?” Aiden spit, his fury obvious.

Memories came roaring back into Thomas’s head unbidden. Aiden’s mouth hot on his, his hands curling into Thomas’s shirt, shoving him back into his chair to crawl into his lap, whispering, ‘Why can’t I stay away from you?’

The images in his head took his breath away. There was so little difference between what Aiden had whispered into his mouth that night and what he’d just said, but the meanings were light years apart.

That was the last night Aiden had voluntarily come home. The night Thomas had slipped and given into the one thing he’d sworn he’d never fucking do. The night he’d proven how weak he really was. The night they’d… He pushed the thoughts from his head. Fuck. “Is that what you want?” he croaked. “For me to leave you alone?”

“Does it matter?” Aiden countered, not answering the question, as usual.

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose, half wishing he’d made sure at least a couple of his sons had been there for this conference call. It was always easier when there were witnesses, when there was a buffer to keep Thomas from saying the things he desperately wanted to say. “What you want has always mattered to me, Aiden.”

Aiden snorted. “I have years of anecdotal evidence that says that’s a fucking lie. But you’re a great liar, aren’t you? You’ve been lying to yourself for years.”

“You don’t know what—”

Aiden cut him off. “I knew what I wanted when I was sixteen-years-old. You’re fifty-five and you’re still running away, you fucking coward.”

“That’s not fair-”

Aiden’s face twisted. “Fuck fair. And fuck you, too.”

Thomas leaned back in his chair. “You’re breaking my heart.”

“Yeah, well you broke me first.”

With that, he was gone, leaving Thomas alone to stare at nothing.

As soon as the screen went black, Thomas picked up the heavy crystal tumbler, sending it hurtling towards the wall, the crescendo of glass shattering doing nothing to quell the fury bubbling within.

He hit the button on the speaker, only listening to it ring twice before Calliope chirped, “Yes, my fearless leader.”

“Can you please touch base with Aiden and make sure his alibi is airtight?” Calliope’s silence set his teeth on edge. “Hello?”

“You asked me to do that yesterday. What’s wrong?” Calliope asked, sounding like she knew full well what’s wrong.

“Nothing. Just do what I asked.”

“Thomas…” she said, her words drenched in sorrow. “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Thomas lied.

“You know this happens every time you see him one on one yet you just keep doing it. How long are you going to continue to punish yourself?”

Forever. It’s what I deserve. “I’m not punishing myself. I’m doing what needs to be done. Everything is finally coming together on all fronts and as long as Aiden continues to kill for this family, I will have to interact with him, whether either of us want to or not.”

“But you do want to,” Calliope insisted. “He does too. What is the deal with you and this whole Romeo and Romeo thing? What happened between you that you can’t even be in the same room together? I just don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Where are my children?”

Nails danced over keyboard keys as Calliope pulled up the information he sought. “Um, they’re all standing in your living room.”

“What? Why?” Thomas barked.

“It’s your living room, how the fuck should I know?” Calliope snapped back. “Go take your bad mood out on them.”

With that, she was gone. Thomas groaned. He was just winning friends everywhere today.

###

Calliope was right, as always. Well, sort of. His children and their partners were in his home, though they were not in the living room as Calliope suggested, but lounging around the East pool, Jericho at the grill.

He did a quick headcount. The only people missing were Lucas and Cricket, which meant they were likely in the nursery. Thomas’s stomach took flight at the knowledge his girls were under his roof once again.

August was the first person he encountered as he stepped onto the terrazzo tiles. “What are you all doing here?” he said, his tone surly. “Don’t you have jobs? It’s a week day.”

August arched an imperious brow, his blank expression morphing into one of amusement. “You know, you’re lucky you said that to me, one of your children without the feelings. If you’d said that to Noah or Zane they’d have burst into tears.”

August was right, but Thomas refused to give him the satisfaction. It wasn’t that he didn’t love all of them, even his newest additions, who treated him more as a father than his own children did. He had just made peace with the idea of spending his afternoon swimming in a whiskey bottle and they’d just blown that plan straight to hell.

“That doesn’t negate the question,” Thomas said, ignoring his son’s guilt trip.

It was Archer who spoke. “We’re here because Atticus mentioned that you had a conference call with Aiden scheduled.” Thomas’s irritation flared, but then his lips twitched when he realized Archer was dressed in jeans, biker boots and a black jacket despite the heat and the summer attire the others wore. He had glasses over his eyes as if fighting a hangover.

His son was dedicated to his role, he’d give him that.

Thomas tried to maintain some semblance of calm. “And?”

August gave him a patient look, like he was an adult and Thomas just a child. “And whenever you have a conference call with our dearly departed former brother, you start day drinking and breaking things. You also have a tendency to forget about hygiene for one or more days which isn’t pleasant for any of us.”

“One time. It happened one time,” Thomas muttered. “And it wasn’t because of your bro-Aiden. It was the stress of the press getting a hold of the story. That’s it.” He was met with a sea of disbelieving stares. “So you’re all here to babysit me?” Thomas said loud enough for the others to hear him. “Well, I don’t need it. You should all go home.”

Adam pulled himself from the pool, water pouring off his black and hot pink swim trunks as he trudged forward, putting his hands on his hips, expression mutinous. “What? No fucking way. Do you know how hard it was to deal with the dietary restrictions of the people in this family? Felix won’t eat gluten and Noah’s decided we’re vegan—don’t even get me started on that—and Lucas is allergic to onion all of a sudden. Noah dragged me to three—three!—separate markets where I had to interact with the unwashed masses to buy the food for this impromptu little barbeque so if you don’t want to eat all this food fine but I’m not leaving until I’m so full I could puke.”

“Unwashed masses?  Felix asked, horrified. “Where did you take him?”

“Whole foods,” Noah said with an eye roll. To Adam, he said, “You’re being melodramatic, again, baby.”

“You made me go grocery shopping,” Adam said again, stubbornly. “You know I hate doing…poor people things.”

“Eating is poor people things?” Zane asked Asa, his hand going to his chest like he was clutching invisible pearls. “I thought eating was just, like, a being alive thing?”

Asa snickered. “Adam doesn’t like doing anything that requires more effort than painting his nails. And he’s not even very good at that.”

Adam looked down at his chipped black nail polish, then glowered at Asa.

“Oh,” Zane said, sounding like he still didn’t get it.

“Ignore him, Lois. He’s just a brat,” Asa assured Zane, smirking at his youngest brother.

Adam gave him the finger. “I thought you liked brats.”

“I don’t think you’d like what I do to them,” Asa countered, eyes growing cold, his hand raising to clutch Zane to him.

“Them?” Zane asked, giving Asa a look.

“You, Lois. Just you,” Asa assured him. “He knows what I meant.”

Thomas sighed as Zane flushed to the tips of his ears, which only served to  highlight the mass of bruises and bite marks left by Asa, marks Thomas did his best to ignore. What his sons chose to do behind closed doors—provided it was consensual—was not his concern. But that didn’t negate that the exchange between the two was uncomfortable.

Adam and Asa continued to glare at each other until Thomas said, “Enough, you two.” But only because it was expected of him.

“He started it,” Avi said, coming to stand beside his brother.

“No comments from the peanut gallery,” Thomas muttered, leveling a look at Avi, hoping that would be enough to shut at least one of them up.

“Jericho and I brought steaks,” Atticus called with a wave from the lounge chair beside his husband. “Wyagu, of course. In case you don’t want to eat your dinner off of a bun made without flour or eggs.”

Zane’s eyes went wide. “Is eating off a bun poor people things too?” he whispered.

Asa frowned, looking at Avi. “I’m honestly not sure. Atticus and Adam have some weird fucking notions about the lines between rich and poor, despite who they ended up with.”

“Felix?” Zane asked, looking at the younger Navarro—well, Mulvaney—now. “Are buns for poor people too?”

Zane was smart and had proven useful in dozens of ways since joining the family, but while he clearly deferred to Asa when it came to…intimate moments, it was Felix he often looked to for reassurance. A most unexpected development.

Felix gave Zane a patient look and patted his curls. “No, baby. We’re not poor.” He turned his judgmental gaze on Thomas. “Their father just spoiled them so much it rotted their brains.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“I’m not spoiled,” Atticus said, looking to his husband for confirmation, frowning when Jericho grew laser focused on the grill before him.

Felix looked back and forth between Adam and Atticus. “Fine, Adam is spoiled, Atticus is… elitist.”

Atticus sniffed. “You say elitist like it's a bad thing.”

“You tell ‘em, Freckles,” Adam mocked.

“Hey, I’m on your side,” Atticus snapped.

“My bad,” Adam said, sheepishly. “Force of habit.”

“Spit in his burger,” Atticus muttered to Jericho.

Jericho gave Adam a hard look. “I would, but it wouldn’t slow him down. He’s fucking disgusting. He might not like the ‘unwashed masses’ but he’d eat a cheeseburger out of a dumpster if you let him.”

Adam shrugged, giving Atticus a grin. “It’s true.”

Lucas stepped onto the patio. “You okay, dad?” he asked, his voice full of all the empathy his adopted children lacked.

“Where are my grandchildren?” Thomas asked in response, ignoring Lucas’s heart eyes.

Lucas gave him a kind look and attempted to clap him on the shoulder. Thomas side-stepped the gesture. “No offense, but I don’t want you getting any…flashes from me at the moment. I feel like I might be…emoting too much.”

Lucas nodded, giving another look that made Thomas kind of want to punch him. “The girls are waiting for you in the nursery. Cricket’s in there too. It’s almost time for their nap. I told her you would likely want to take over until lunch is ready.”

He said nothing further, just headed to the third floor where the girls' rooms resided in the west wing. He threw open the doors to find Cricket sitting in the large chair, a girl tucked into each arm. “Do you want to give them their bottles?”

Cricket breastfed which meant she’d put their lunch in bottles knowing he would want to feed them himself. He gave a grateful nod. She swapped places with him, placing a girl in each arm, before giving them their bottles. When they were settled she gave him a kind smile then left, closing the doors behind her.

Cricket wasn’t officially one of his children, but, like the others, she had sort of wormed her way into his life. And, as the mother of his grandchildren, she had cemented herself a place in the Mulvaney household, though that was definitely not her intention.

Thomas looked down at his girls, all stress and worry melting away. They were getting so big, nine months old. Old enough to hold their own bottles, sit up, crawl, even take a few steps. They were far more verbal than most eight month olds, but at the moment they were just two squishy lumps of sleepy baby, eyes at half-mast as they snuggled deeper against him. They smelled of lavender and baby powder.

He’d never expected to have grandchildren. Had never expected to have anyone in his family who could love him or see him as a father figure. Yet there he was, surrounded by family he didn’t deserve and these two perfect souls. While the jury was still out as to whether the girls would share their father’s psychopathic traits, at this age, they were all about bonding with those closest to them, knowing it was vital to them staying alive.

Part of him wondered how different his relationship with the boys would have been had he had them from birth. Not that it would have been possible to know if they possessed the psychopathic traits that had been so important to him all those years ago. Would he have gone back and changed it? If he could have somehow had the omniscience to know that his boys were like this at birth, could he have changed the trajectory of their lives? Would he?

Christ, he was a mess. None of his thoughts made sense. Arabella reached up and tugged on his beard pulling her bottle from her mouth to say, “pup-pup.” Adelyn followed suit, the two of them chanting “Pup pup pup pup” sleepily.

That was as close as they got to calling him grandfather. August was Daddy and Lucas was Papa. They’d been agreement on those names since before Cricket gave birth. But Thomas had no idea how he’d ended up ‘Pop Pop’.

That wasn’t entirely true. He knew how it started, just not how it stuck.

It had started as a joke during game night, the kids taking turns giving their most ridiculous recommendations for grandparent monikers. Granddad, grandpa and grandfather had quickly given way to pee-pop, glampa, gramps, grampy, gampy and finally pop-pop. How or why pop-pop had stuck was beyond Thomas but when the girls looked at him and said ‘pup pup’, he knew they recognized him as someone who was safe and who loved them and honestly, he didn’t care how ridiculous people might find it. (Technically unedited) 

He put his feet up and let his eyes fall shut, letting the sway of the rocker lull the three of them to sleep. They were safe in his arms and it would only be a short while before it was time to eat. This was the only place Thomas felt truly at peace. Ara and Adelyn were his only comfort. When he looked at them he knew he’d done at least one thing right if they were in the world.

Aiden’s face flashed in his mind but he pushed it away. No matter how long he’d wished Aiden could have been his comfort, it just wasn’t meant to be. Thomas didn’t deserve Aiden, he didn’t deserve love or peace or any of the other things he’d stumbled into just in the last five years.

The others tried to appease him, tried to encourage him to take the leap—without explicitly stating what leap they referred to—and do what made him happy but they didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand because they didn’t know the truth. Thomas had spent a great deal of time and money to make sure of that. They didn’t know Thomas was a liar. A hypocrite. A murderer.

Not like his sons. The killing they’d done was righteous, justified, necessary, but the evil Thomas had committed… there was no looking past that. There was no getting past that. Thomas had killed people, innocent people, and by his own rules, should have been put down like all the other monsters roaming this planet.

But Aiden was right. Thomas was a coward. A coward and a killer and a man who lacked the courage of his own convictions. He deserved every ounce of misery being without Aiden caused him. It was right. It was just.

Aiden was Thomas’s happiness. And Thomas deserved nothing of the kind.