Chapter Text
George sends his son away in the last days of spring.
At dawn they go together to the steps of the estate. The sun is beginning to crest over the horizon, swathing the sky in soft oranges and pinks. Kimi fiddles with the sword at his belt, even though he has a long journey ahead of him before he’d ever have to use it. His profile looks young and sweet in the amber light.
“Take care of yourself,” George tells him. “Be safe.”
He reaches out and gives his pup’s cheek one more affectionate squeeze. His throat is all tight and scratchy. They both knew this day was coming ever since Kimi presented as an alpha. It was only a matter of time before he joined his father out to the west, fighting the king’s war. George just wished it wasn’t so soon. Wished Kimi presented later, wished he was an omega like George, so he could stay safe, and protected here, far from the fighting. So he could stay with George.
“Mama,” Kimi says, giving George one of his handsome, youthful smiles. “I will. You know I will.”
“Look after your father, too,” George adds, and Kimi breaks into a laugh. “And send him this.” George leant and pressed a kiss to Kimi’s cheek.
Kimi pressed his hand briefly to his cheek, then placed his hands on George’s arms. “You worry too much. Father will keep me from the fighting, we both know it.”
Good, George thinks, looking at his pup’s dazzling face and wondering when he got so big and grown. “Write to me,” George murmurs, suddenly choking up.
“I will,” he promises, and his dark eyes turn serious, and though his eyes are brown and Max’s are green-blue, he sees Kimi’s father, George’s husband, in him. The same intentness when he listens to something he knows is important.
George pulls him into one last hug, and Kimi squeezes him tight. If he is afraid, he’s doing very well at not showing it. “I love you.”
“Love you too, mama,” Kimi mumbles, taking one last huff of George’s comforting omega scent, nose in the gland at the crook of his neck. His arms tighten around George, then fall away.
The horses are ready, and Kimi’s men call for him. He has a long journey to the front. George wants to cling to him, never let him go, but Kimi has made his choice. He’s not a pup anymore, and George has to respect that.
“I will write. I will make father write,” he says. George thinks he will turn now, and leave him, before Kimi spins around and gives him one last hug before he dashes down the stairs towards his troupe.
The war has been raging for years. All those years, Max had been at the front, serving his king, putting his tactical mind to use. But that left George alone. At least he’d had his son. He has his attendants, too, of course, and his guards and serfs, but it’s not the same.
They’re not Max.
For a while, Kimi had helped soften the edge of his loneliness. But now Kimi is gone too. Just sixteen years old, called to the front by a letter from Max himself — although George suspects he was pressured into it. George's husband would never willingly put their son in danger.
He remembers the pair of them waving Max off at the start of the war. They’d both been young and foolish and still desperately in love. They’d had Kimi during their engagement, which had prompted them to get married quickly to hide any funny business about having sex before marriage — but Max and George just hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. Seven years later it hadn’t cooled in the slightest.
Kimi had clung to George’s pant-lag, sobbing and wailing at the top of his tiny lungs, and George had lifted Kimi up, held him on his hip even though he was a little too old for such cradles, and Kimi had waved miserably as Max rode with his retinue of soldiers out of the estate, the three hundred miles west to the fighting.
George had to be strong for Kimi. He missed his husband and his alpha fiercely, would rub the mating bite at his neck for comfort, would cry only in his private quarters, in the nest they used to share.
He’s hit with a sickening deja vu now, but this time he hasn’t got a pup to be strong for. This time he’s sending his pup away.
At the estate’s gates, Kimi turns and waves. A tiny thing. George lifts his hand. He’s far enough away that Kimi wouldn’t be able to see his tears, but George doesn’t cry. The ground feels like it's collapsing under his feet. The sun rises with splashes of colour, and the last resilient stars disappear.
Years pass. Their great stone house doesn't get any less empty or silent without his husband or son inside it. It feels like a mausoleum, echoey and draughty. George feels like he's drifting through life like a phantom.
He floats through his days, reading and rereading passages in the library, writing letters he won't send, pricking his fingers with his cross-stitch or wandering the gardens.
He knows there are rumours about him. Isolation sickness, attendants murmur to each other. When he can stand to have other members of the court over, they work to try and stimulate him into conversation, but eventually George always drifts away.
His eyes turn to the window, like if he tries hard enough, he can conjure a messenger on horseback catapulting down the estate's drive to deliver news of the war's victory — which George cares little about, but more importantly, precedes — the return of his alpha and his pup.
It is easier with some. Lando also has a husband at war. But Lando has two sons. His elder, Franco, an omega, and his younger, Arvid, still a puppy, yet to present and he’s not yet been shipped off to battle. At least Lando has them both.
Who does George have?
In the early months, the letters arrive with reasonable frequency. Max writes with a terse, practiced hand, concealing the brutal reality of the campaign behind administrative updates, yet every line vibrates with a husband’s deep, territorial ache. He scents scraps of fabric and sends messengers with spoils from the war, but the scent of Max is always stale by the time it arrives across the country, and George cares not for gifts. They are a poor replacement for his alpha.
Nestled inside those heavy parchment folds are lighter, hurried scrawls from Kimi — full of descriptions of the Western expanse, the crisp mountain air, and reassuring promises that his father keeps him safely tucked behind the command tents. He talks about how much he's learning, the people he's meeting.
George lives for those letters. He sleeps with them tucked beneath his pillow, drawing faint comfort from the residual scent of ink and dried leather. But as the war drags into another brutal winter, the supply lines fray, and the missives grow agonizingly sparse.
George sends them twice a week. Dearest Max, or, my beloved Kimi. He rambles about everything and nothing, and often lies. His loneliness, his difficulty socialising, his unwillingness to get out of bed — it all seems silly and shallow in comparison with the very real horrors that his family are experiencing.
George learns to read between the lines. When Max writes of the situation remaining stable, George knows it means they have not advanced. When he writes the men are in good spirits, George knows the winter has been harsh. When he stops writing about Kimi altogether, George's heart seizes with a fear so acute he cannot breathe for a full minute.
But then, a month later, a letter arrives in Kimi's own hand.
Mama—
I apologize for the silence. Father has kept me busy. I am learning to read maps and strategize. He says I have a gift for it. I think he just wants me close.
Do not worry for me. I am safe. I am always safe with Father. Write soon.
George does. The letter is like a balm, rendered even more dear in its scarcity. He writes every day, even when he has nothing new to say. He writes about the roses blooming in the garden, about the new foal born in the stables, about the cook who has taken to making honey cakes every week in hopes that Kimi will return to eat them.
Kimi used to mention how much he missed George, George's nest, George's smell and hugs and way of always hooking Kimi and getting him back up on his feet whenever his youthful recklessness caused either a physical or mental stumble. Eventually, though, he stopped bringing it up. It makes George ache. Like the war has stamped out George's presence in his puppy's life.
He does not write about the nights he wakes gasping, convinced he has heard Max's voice calling for him from somewhere far away. He does not write about the way he has started sleeping in Max's study, wrapped in his cloak, because the scent of his alpha, however stale, is the only thing that quiets his mind.
The war rages on.
Max writes. Kimi has been promoted. He now leads a legion. Max writes, as though he's right beside him, writing the page as George cries with fear — I love you. I love you with every breath I take, with every beat of my heart, with every moment I am away from you. I would give anything to be home, in our bed, with you in my arms.
And there’s always a second clause—
But I cannot come home yet. The war is not finished. And so I must ask you to be strong for me, for just a little longer.
The winter that year is brutal. Snow piles against the windows of the estate, trapping George inside for weeks at a time. He takes to spending long hours in the library, reading history books and war chronicles, trying to understand the conflict that has stolen his family from him.
It means none of his companions can visit him, trapped inside their own homes. George dismissed a lot of the household for yuletide, meaning he spends the winter equinox alone, wandering the estate barefoot, enjoying the prickling chill against his feet because the discomfort keeps him aware, doesn't let him sink into his own foggy head.
He tries not to think about the yuletides of old, back when Kimi was barely walking and Max was still around — presents and festive dinners and dancing. They’d wake up early and take little Kimi on a dawn-morning walk around the estate, Kimi’s soles leaving tiny imprints on the frosty grass.
By the time the spring thaw finally sloughs off the ice, the isolation has settled so deep into George’s marrow that the return of his servants feels intrusive. Their soft, pitying footfalls echo off the walls, trying to be silent but not quite managing. They look at him with wide, careful eyes, speaking in the hushed, fragile tones one uses around the dying or the mad. George is neither. (Maybe both.)
He stops correcting them when they call him my lord instead of his name. He stops looking them in the eye. To be seen by them is to acknowledge how hollow he has become, a phantom left behind while the living bled out in the dirt three hundred miles west.
The only person around is Lewis. Lewis, his head guard. Lewis, who was discharged from the war effort after shattering three bones in his knee, and now walks with a perpetual limp. Lewis, an alpha, who sometimes George scents and lets scent him back because he needs the smell of another person, another alpha, or he'll go crazy.
He knows it's inappropriate, frowned upon, for a mated omega to have an alpha not from their pack scenting them, but George can’t help it. The loneliness has teeth. It gnaws at him.
Lewis tries to get him up every day. Tries to get him to eat and sleep. He's taken on the role of security, but also his secondary role is babysitting George and making sure he doesn't crumble. It's difficult, but George appreciates the effort, even if it feels useless sometimes.
The letters, when they arrive now, feel born from a world he no longer inhabits. I love you, Max writes, with a hand that has engineered almost a decade of bloody warfare. The affection is suffocating.
George presses the paper to his face, smelling it, hunting desperately for a ghost of the alpha who used to press him into the mattress and anchor his soul, but there is nothing left to catch. It smells like sweat and horses and soot.
With Kimi, though, it is worse. The boy who used to bury his face in George’s neck to huff his comforting omega scent is gone. The scrawl that arrives now is clinical and devoid of warmth. Kimi no longer asks about the nest, or reminisces about his childhood. He speaks about his father a lot, and that makes George feel like he's a witness to a world he can never be part of.
Kimi doesn't need his hugs or scent to steady him anymore; he has a sword, a legion, he has his father's pride. He's outgrown him.
In the spring, George tries to climb out of the black hole he'd fallen into. He visits the local villages, makes effort to resume communications with his friends. Pours over learning new languages and horse-riding, even if the latter is frowned upon for omegas, but there's no one here to stop him so George does it anyway.
He tries to build a nest in the centre of Max’s quiet study, dragging down heavy velvet drapes, old cloaks, and discarded tunics. He piles them high, climbing into the centre and curling into a tight, desperate ball, waiting for the instinctual comfort that an omega’s nest is supposed to bring. The expectations in their shared quarters is too big, the bed too large for one person. It should be filled. But it's not.
But without the fresh, living scent of his mate and his pup, the nest is just a pile of cold, dusty laundry. It feels pathetic. He feels pathetic. An omega completely severed from his pack, instincts screaming in an empty, reverberating vacuum. His scent — once sweet and comforting, the thing Kimi sought when he was frightened — has turned sour, stale with the lingering stench of distress and long-standing neglect.
When Lando visits in late spring, he hopes out of his carriage, face tipped up towards the sun, and his younger son Arvid climbs out of the carriage after him, George watches them from the high window of the library. Lando laughs at something Arvid says, reaching down from his saddle to ruffle the puppy's dark hair. The affection is so casual, so vibrant and real, that it strikes George like a physical blow. A sudden, violent flare of envy and grief surges through his chest, so intense it leaves him dizzy.
He tells his attendant he is not feeling well. He's a coward, and he retreats to his bedroom, and waits for Lando to leave. He'd see pity in Lando's eyes and he'd hate it. He's a coward.
There are no letters in May. Or June. Or in the thick, oppressive heat of July.
And then—
A messenger comes in the night. In the middle of the summer storm, which floods the grounds and churns up the soil with pounding of silver ropes.
George goes to Lewis, because he doesn't know who else there is. He stands in the doorway, unable to speak, until Lewis wakes and notices him. "George? What is it?" George's mouth works. "What is it, George?"
Lewis opens his arms and George sits at the edge of the large bed. Lewis strokes his cheek and pushes a strand of hair out of his face. He's all wet from meeting the messenger on the steps of the house.
"The war is won," George manages finally. "They're coming back."
Lewis's deer-like eyes gleam in the darkness. "What will happen?" to you, or to me, or to them — George didn’t know which it was that Lewis was implying.
George doesn't reply. Lewis stares at him, head cocked to the side and his breath held. George can tell he's been waiting to ask this question. Summer rain lashes against the small window in Lewis's room, in the servant's quarters. George has offered him nicer chambers for years, but Lewis always turned him down.
George turns his face into Lewis’s calloused palm, drawing a shaky, ragged breath. He breathes in the familiar, grounding scent of the alpha beside him — a scent that has kept him tethered to reality for months, a scent that does not belong to his mate. But it's something. It's pack.
"I don't know," George whispers, the words catching in his throat. "They don't know me. I don't know them."
Lewis's face is filled with soft sorrow. "You survived, they survived." What else is there?
For three weeks, the estate is swept into a frenzy of nervous preparation. The servants, sensing the shift in the air, move with a renewed, frantic energy. Floors are scrubbed, grand banners are unfurled, and the kitchens fill with the rich, heavy aromas of roasting meats and honey cakes. It all comes alive again.
Yet to George, it all feels like a play being performed by actors he barely recognizes. He moves through the house like a stranger, watching the preparations from a distant shore.
Then, on an overcast Tuesday in early autumn, the trumpets sound from the boundary gates.
George stands at the top of the grand stone steps, right where he had stood years ago when Kimi was just a boy with a sword too big for his belt. The wind whips his fine silk tunic against his frame. He looks much different from when Max last saw him, thin and pale and tired. He runs another hand over his hair. Hopefully he is still appealing. Hopefully Max's tastes still sway towards him. Even though they have both changed so much.
Beside him, a half-pace back, Lewis stands in full uniform, his posture rigid, his dark eyes fixed on the treeline.
A company of riders breaks through the fog, and at the front of the litany, ride two alphas.
The first, George recognises instantly: broad-shouldered, draped in a heavy, mud-splattered mantle. Max. His green-blue eyes are fixed entirely on the steps, burning through the mist with an intensity that makes George’s scent spike with sudden, instinctive panic. But why is he panicking?
Beside him rides a young alpha who carries himself with the casual, terrifying grace of a veteran war captain. Kimi’s jaw has squared, his frame filled out with hard muscle beneath his plate armour. His brown eyes — once so bright and sweet in the morning sun — are calculated and sharp as they survey the grounds, and then drift to George as though magnetised.
The horses grind to a halt at the base of the stairs, kicking up gravel. George glances back at the house, wondering what they see. He's kept it in perfect condition. The ivy trailing the house's front is neatly contained, the windows polished, the line of serfs and attendants a regimented and orderly one on the steps behind George. He feels eyes on his nape.
Max disembarks his horse in one smooth motion, his cloak flowing liquidly around him, and then he marches up the steps. “George,” he greets, and takes George into his arms. It’s a comfort. A comfort that George has been waiting years for, has been wrapping his arms around himself in attempts to replicate his alpha’s safe hold, and has never managed to. Max’s scent has matured over the years, bittered slightly, but it’s still Max, and George has been waiting for long enough that he doesn’t have the energy to nit-pick.
But just as George is about to wrap his own arms around Max to return the gesture, Max draws back. He presses a chaste kiss to George’s cheek and then steps away.
George is left reeling. “Welcome back,” he manages softly, confused as to whether he’s done something wrong such that he’s undeserving of a proper embrace from his alpha and his husband.
Max’s gaze has already flicked past him, landing with heavy, possessive scrutiny on Lewis. The silence between the two alphas stretches tight and electric, a dangerous current passing over George’s head. Max does not move to touch his mate again; instead, his shoulders set into a broad, defensive line.
“My lord,” Lewis says smoothly, bowing his head just enough to pay respect while keeping his chin lifted, his stance unbothered by the warning rolling off Max in waves. “We are relieved by your return.”
Max doesn't offer a cordial reply. He simply grunts, a deep, rumbling vibration in his chest that sends a shiver down George’s spine, before turning back to the foot of the stairs where Kimi is dismounting.
If George hoped for a soft, tearful reunion with his son, the sight of the young captain stepping onto the stone path shatters that delusion. Kimi walks with a heavy, deliberate stride, the leather and steel of his armour creaking with every step. He looks taller, broader, his posture mirrored precisely after the man beside him.
Kimi ascends the steps; his dark eyes locked on George. For a fleeting second, as he stops a foot away, hesitating, George catches a glimpse of the child who used to bury his nose into the crook of his neck. But then Kimi’s gaze shifts, darting over George’s shoulder toward the line of attendants, surveying the estate, assessing, less like a home that he’s missed and more like an asset he’s suddenly acquired.
“Mama,” Kimi says. His voice has dropped an octave.
“Kimi,” George breathes, taking an instinctual step forward, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch his son’s cheek just as he had years ago.
Kimi doesn't pull away, but he doesn't lean into the touch, either. He stands rigid beneath his father's palm, his skin rough and weather-worn, scarred near the jawline by a blade — a mark he never mentioned in his brief, clinical letters.
“You look pale,” Kimi remarks, his tone sharp, direct, devoid of the gentle warmth George had cradled in his memory for so long. “And you smell different. Has the household been treating you well?”
“I am fine,” George whispers, pulling his hand back when he realizes his own touch is making Kimi tense. His other hand comes up to clasp the scent gland at his neck, embarrassed.
His pup thinks he smells bad. George burns with shame. It’s what Lewis has been calling isolation sickness, an omega’s body strained from a lack of pack, turning against itself when it realises there’s no alpha mate around, like the omega might’ve driven them away. That’s why Lewis offers to scent him. That stops now, George presumes, now that Max is back, things can finally right themselves.
The boy’s scent, once a soft, milky mix of young alpha and warm sun, is now sharp with the tang of unfamiliar pine. George fights not to wrinkle his nose. “I am only glad you are both alive. That you are home.”
I have looked after it, George’s inner omega cries. Look at how well I’ve done. He curls his hands into his fists and his nails cut into the flesh of his palms. He has to stand here and move through these awkward formalities like they’re strangers, when this is his alpha and his son, and all he wants to do is take them both and drag them into his nest and not let them leave for at least until next spring.
“Home,” Max repeats the word like a foreign concept, finally tearing his eyes away from Lewis to look down at George. Up close, the lines around Max’s eyes are deeply carved, his jaw dark with heavy stubble. He looks at George. “The house is quiet.”
“I sent most of the staff to rest until evening,” George says, his voice small against the expansive stone courtyard. “I thought... I thought you would want a quiet arrival, some peace.”
Max and Kimi exchange a swift, unspoken look, holding a silent conversation that George cannot infer, born from a bond that entirely excludes him.
“Very well,” says Max, before heading inside.
“Dinner is prepared,” George calls softly after him.
The silence that follows is suffocating. George stands frozen on the stone steps, watching his husband and son stride past him into the house as though he were merely part of the architecture.
Max pauses at the threshold, his broad hand resting on the doorframe, and George's heart leaps with pathetic hope; only, Max turns to survey the courtyard one last time, his gaze lingering on Lewis with an unreadable expression before he disappears inside.
Kimi follows without a backward glance.
George's hands tremble at his sides. He presses them flat against his thighs, willing the shaking to stop. Behind him, the servants shuffle nervously, their earlier excitement dimmed by the frosty reception. Someone clears their throat. Someone else whispers. He feels their judgement pressing in, and his ears warm.
"George," Lewis says quietly, appearing at his elbow. "Come inside. You'll catch a cold."
George doesn't move. As dusk draws in so does the fog, swallowing the treeline where his family emerged just moments ago. He'd imagined this moment so many times: thousands of nights spent constructing elaborate fantasies of reunion. Max sweeping him off his feet. Kimi laughing and hugging him until his ribs ached.
The three of them tangled together in the nest, finally whole.
"I don't think they want me inside," George hears himself say. His voice sounds scratchy and distant, like it belongs to someone else. It feels like he’s sunk to the bottom of himself, and is staring up through the ladders of his ribs.
Lewis's hand settles on his lower back, warm and steady. "That's not true,” he chides. “I am sure they’re just tired, they’ve had a long few weeks of travelling.”
George looks down, his vision blurring, tears pressing hotly behind his eyes. But they weren't too tired to look at each other with those shared, excluding glances. They weren't too tired to dismiss him like George is nothing but a child. He swallows the bitter taste rising in his throat and allows Lewis to guide him through the great oak doors.
He’s being silly. His family is here, returned to him, alive. Silly omega feelings getting in the way of feeling what he needs to feel — grateful.
Their private dining chamber has been transformed. Candles flicker in every sconce, casting dancing shadows across the tapestries George had ordered cleaned and rehung. The table groans under the weight of roasted pheasant, honeyed carrots, fresh bread still steaming from the ovens. The servants have outdone themselves.
Max stands before the massive hearth, his back to the room, one hand braced against the mantle as he stares into the flames. The firelight catches the blond threading through his hair, the deep grooves of exhaustion carved into his face. He hasn't removed his travelling cloak. Mud still clings to his boots, tracking dark prints across the freshly scrubbed stone floor.
Kimi has taken a seat at the table, not in the chair beside where George usually sits, but at the left of Max's position, across from George. He's already poured himself a goblet of wine, drinking deeply as his sharp eyes track the servants shuffling in and out to lay the table with more food and refill his cup.
He wants to ask them to take their armour off, but doesn’t.
George has never seen him drink before, and turns down his own goblet softly when it’s offered to him. "I can have baths drawn for you both,” he says, when the silence grows too much to bear. “Fresh clothes, anything you’d like.”
He bites down his next sentence, which was going to be about his nest. About whether they’d be willing to put up with his sour scent for a bit, just to have some time in his nest with him.
Max turns slowly from the hearth. He looks at George through the amber haze of the firelight, his posture heavy and unyielding. The silence in the room stretches thin, taut enough to snap, until Max finally speaks, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
“Later, George,” Max says, stepping away from the fire. His green-blue eyes fix squarely on George, tracking the slight, nervous movement of George’s hands. “We need to speak about the estate.”
George fights the urge to squirm in his chair. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I am sure you’ve heard of the bandits in the west, but there’s bound to be unrest sweeping east. We need to tighten up the estate’s defenses.”
“Father is right, mama,” Kimi says softly, though there is no real softness in his eyes. “Security was lax when we rode in. If we were the enemy—”
“But you’re not my enemy.” George interrupts him, suddenly fierce. He bristles at the idea that his home is a fortress that needs fortifying. “You’re not—” He looks down at his hands and gives up. “Come and eat please, Max,” he requests, and Max sighs heavily but obeys, walking to his spot at the head of the table and reaching for a plate.
George doesn’t touch the food.
“We have gifts,” says Max, but he means warprizes.
Max signals a servant, who steps forward bearing a heavy iron-bound chest and sets it upon the sideboard. Inside are fine things. Rich, dark furs from the northern marches, a handheld mirror from a conquered keep, pretty silver omegan jewellery and bolts of heavy silk dyed the deep blue of the king’s standard.
Max lays a hand over the silks, his calloused palm catching on the delicate threads. “I thought you might like these for the house. Or for new garments.”
They are warprizes, and Max clearly means for them to be tokens meant to replace a decade of absence, brought home to account for that lack. George doesn’t want them. He wants his husband, his husband from before the blood and war made him like this. All distant and cold.
“Thank you,” George whispers, his voice barely carrying over the crackle of the hearth. He can’t bring himself to reach out and touch, even though a tiny part of him marvels at the silks and furs. Who were these taken from? He thinks, which omega is missing their prized possessions? Were they given willingly, surrendered, or ripped from a nest?
Maybe he’d like them more if they were scented by Max, and offered as decoration for his nest.
But they’re not, and George doesn’t want them.
“They’re beautiful.”
Max squints at him. Maybe he’d suspected, rather foolishly, that the spoils of war would bring a pleasurable flush to George’s cheeks, a youthful delight at the shiny things, the presents. A return to his sweet, vibrant scent before it has soured and dulled over time.
He forces a smile but he knows it falls flat. “Thank you,” he says again. He wants to ask if Kimi has any spoils of war, if he was frightened as he lead battalions and saw men die, whether he remembers crawling into George’s bed during the night as a pup because he was scared of the thunder.
He doesn’t ask any of that, though. Instead: “did you sleep well on the journey?”
Kimi spears a potato with his fork. “Enough.” The conversation shrivels again.
Across the table, Max cuts into his pheasant. He eats methodically, mechanically, as though he’s not tasting the food that he shovels in, like it’s merely fuel for his body.
Those hands used to cup George's face, knead the knots from his shoulders after long days, curl possessively around his waist in the night, pulling him backwards until George was pressed against the solid warmth of his alpha's chest.
“Max,” George says quietly, and Max looks at him. His courage falters in his chest. What could he even say? I missed you. I love you. Please touch me. Tell me I am still your mate. All terrifying and humiliating to many degrees. He doesn’t say any of them. “Did you get my letters?”
Max takes a drink. “As many as came through.”
George looks down. “Yes,” he agrees softly, and suddenly can’t take any more of this. He throws his napkin onto the table and excuses himself softly, face turned away from his husband and son. It’s a cowardly retreat but George can’t bear their coldness anymore.
He’s halfway to the door— “George.”
He freezes, spins slightly around. He feels Max’s eyes, hears his disapproval. “You’ve hardly eaten.”
He fights the urge to wring his hands. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re too thin,” says Max.
George’s lips quirk, but the motion is hollow and mirthless. “So I’ve heard,” he says softly, and then retreats truly this time, feet whisper-soft. “I am tired. Max, the master suite is open if you’d like to join me. If not, you can have your private quarters prepared.” I am not preparing them for you, he thought.
He closes the door, shivering as he walks down the hall. The loneliness is back, the loneliness he’d foolishly hoped he had defeated with the safe return of his pup and husband. It’s a blessing, a miracle, even, that both had returned, both in one peace.
They’re here, but also not.
And it makes George feel worse, like he’s a piece of furniture from a world gone-by, a dog hunkering at the edge of a campfire, waiting to be welcomed into the warmth.