Chapter 7: Waiting
The unease from the night before clung to Julian like a second skin. He woke tangled in sheets, his fingers finding the diamond pendant immediately, as if checking it were still real. The morning light felt too bright, too exposing. Today was the call. The strange, supervised call with his mom.
Caspian sensed the tension in him the moment he walked into the kitchen. Julian was sitting motionless at the island, staring at a blank spot on the marble, still in his pajamas. His silence was a heavier, more anxious thing than his tears had been.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Caspian said, his voice a low rumble. He came up behind him, hands settling on his shoulders. He could feel the tight knots of worry. “It’s just a phone call, sweetheart. With a video screen.”
“But why does a lady have to watch?” Julian asked, his voice small. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Never.” Caspian’s thumbs pressed into the tense muscles. “It’s a rule for grown-ups who aren’t getting along. It’s not about you. It’s about them.” He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of Julian’s ear. “You have hours before you have to think about it. Let’s not waste the morning.”
He made pancakes. He talked about nothing—the way the clouds were stacking up, the pair of cardinals building a nest in the birch tree. Julian picked at his food, his responses monosyllabic. The clock on the oven was a silent, relentless metronome.
After clearing the plates, Caspian didn’t suggest a walk or a movie. He simply took Julian’s hand and led him wordlessly back to the bedroom. The shades were still half-drawn, the room cast in a muted, grey-gold light. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Julian to stand between his knees.
“Look at me.”
Julian’s gaze was turbulent, a sea of confused dread.
“We’re going to play our game,” Caspian said, his hands sliding up Julian’s thighs, under the soft cotton of his pajama bottoms. “The grown-up game. It always makes you feel better, doesn’t it? Makes everything else go quiet.”
A faint flush crept up Julian’s neck. He nodded, a quick, jerky motion. The worry was still there, but beneath it, a familiar current of anticipation stirred. Caspian knew its rhythm intimately.
“Good.” Caspian’s voice dropped to that private, velvet register. He guided Julian onto the bed, following him down, a solid weight of intent. He kissed him, not with the frantic heat of other times, but with a slow, melting thoroughness designed to dissolve thought. He mapped Julian’s mouth, his jaw, the frantic pulse in his throat, licking over the diamond’s chain.
“Just feel,” Caspian murmured against his skin, his hands working the pajamas down. “Don’t think. Just feel what I do to you.”
He used his mouth, just his mouth, as he always had. It was a claiming as much as a comfort. He took Julian apart with a devastating, practiced patience, feeling the anxious tension in his body transmute, coiling into a different, sharper kind of tension. Julian’s fingers scrabbled in his hair, not pushing away but holding on, breath coming in short, sharp gasps that lost their edge of panic and gained the pure, desperate cadence of pleasure.
Caspian didn’t stop until Julian shattered beneath him, a choked-off cry swallowed by the quiet room. He held him through the tremors, kissing his hipbone, the damp skin of his stomach, gentling him down from the peak.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing. Julian’s eyes were closed, lashes dark against his cheeks. The sharp edge of the day had been blissfully blunted.
Caspian gathered him close, tucking Julian’s head under his chin. He waited until the boy’s breathing evened out, then spoke, his lips moving against his hair.
“You know our game is special, don’t you, baby?”
Julian nodded, a drowsy nuzzle against his chest.
“It’s just for us. A secret grown-up game. You can tell people about the other things. Playing house. Making fairy cakes. Watching movies. But this game… this is only for you and me. You don’t talk about it with your mom. Or with the nice lady who supervises the call. Or with anyone. Ever.” He pulled back just enough to look into Julian’s hazy eyes. “Can you promise me that?”
“Why?” Julian whispered, confusion floating back to the surface.
“Because it’s private,” Caspian said, smoothing his hair. His tone was gentle, but it held a finality that brooked no argument. “Some things are just private. Like how you used to hide Mr. Buns when you were scared so no one would tease you. This is like that. We keep it safe. Between us.”
The analogy clicked. Julian’s brow cleared. A secret to keep safe. He nodded again, more firmly this time. “Okay. I promise.”
“Good boy.” Caspian kissed his forehead. “Now, let’s get you dressed. It’s almost time.”
The laptop was set up on the living room coffee table at exactly two fifty-five. Julian sat ramrod straight on the sofa, wearing a soft blue sweater Caspian had chosen. He looked young, clean, beautifully cared for. Caspian positioned himself in an armchair just outside the camera’s view, a silent sentinel.
At three o’clock, the screen chimed. The connection was a split-screen: one side showed a neutral-looking woman with a kind smile in a professional-looking home office. The other side filled with Eleanor’s face.
She was in a tasteful sitting room, not a hotel. Behind her was a familiar tapestry from her own house. She was back.
Julian’s breath hitched. “Mom? You’re… you’re home?”
“Hello, darling,” Eleanor said, her voice sugary, her eyes scanning him with a hunger that had nothing to do with affection. She looked thin, stretched. “Yes, I’m back. I missed you terribly.”
The social worker, Ms. Adebayo, spoke. “Hi, Julian. I’m Leah. I’m just here to facilitate today, okay? This is just a chance for you and your mom to catch up.”
The call proceeded with a stilted, awful politeness. Eleanor asked about his meals, his sleep. Julian answered in shy, short sentences, his fingers twisting in his lap. “Caspian makes good pancakes,” he offered.
“Does he?” Eleanor’s smile was brittle. “And what else do you do with Caspian all day, sweetheart?”
“We… watch films. He lets me pick sometimes. And we play house. I help cook.” He glanced sideways, seeking Caspian’s anchored presence in the chair.
“Playing house,” Eleanor repeated, the words dripping with unspoken meaning. She leaned closer to her screen. “And has Caspian… taught you anything else? Anything more… grown-up?”
Julian blinked. His brows drew together. He turned his head, looking directly at Caspian just out of frame, his expression utterly puzzled. He looked back at his mom. “Grown-up things?”
“Yes, darling. You know.” Eleanor’s voice took on a coaxing, sickly-sweet tone. “Has he shown you things? Or… touched you in ways that felt confusing? Or made you uncomfortable in any way? You can tell me.”
The silence in the room was absolute. Caspian didn’t move a muscle, his gaze fixed on Julian’s profile.
Julian’s nose scrunched up. He was genuinely trying to parse the question. Caspian’s touch was never confusing. It was the opposite of confusing. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Uncomfortable?” Julian echoed, his child’s mind turning the word over. Then a spark of understanding lit his face. It was the wrong understanding. The perfect, innocent misunderstanding. “Oh! You mean like… grown-up jobs? Like the boring paperwork he does? Or like…” He lowered his voice, as if sharing a secret with the screen. “Like the things on those late-night shows you used to watch? The ones with the bleeps over the bad words? He hasn’t taught me any bad words, Mom.”
Ms. Adebayo’s professionally neutral expression remained intact, but something in her eyes shifted, a flicker of reassessment. This wasn’t a boy hiding a dark secret. This was a profoundly sheltered young man misinterpreting a loaded question in the most mundane way possible.
Eleanor’s mask slipped for a terrifying second. A flash of pure, frustrated rage. She quickly reconstructed her smile, but it was tight, strained at the edges. “No, darling, not… not bad words. Never mind. It sounds like you’re… keeping busy.”
The call wound down quickly after that. Empty promises to talk again soon. Hollow ‘I love yous’. When the screens went black, Julian let out a long, shaky breath he seemed to have been holding for ten minutes. He looked over at Caspian, bewildered.
“She’s home,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “Why was she so… weird? Why was she asking about uncomfortable touching? You don’t touch me uncomfortable.”
Caspian rose and went to him, sinking onto the sofa and pulling him into his arms. Julian came willingly, burying his face in Caspian’s neck. “Grown-ups are complicated when they fight,” Caspian murmured, stroking his back. “She’s just worried. She doesn’t see how well I take care of you. But you did perfectly, sweetheart. You were perfect.”
He held Julian, feeling the residual tremor in his slender frame. Over the boy’s head, Caspian’s eyes met the dark lens of the laptop camera, now inactive. A silent, cold victory sang in his veins.
The probe had been deflected, not by lies, but by the very weapon Eleanor had crafted: Julian’s exquisite, untouched naivete. She had built the perfect, ignorant doll. And now, it was Caspian who held the strings, and the doll, in his arms, trusting and spent and utterly his.
And now, it was Caspian who held the strings, and the doll, in his arms, trusting and spent and utterly his. He breathed in the scent of Julian’s hair, a mix of his own expensive shampoo and the unique, sun-warmed sweetness that was just Julian. The silence after the call was a trophy. He’d won that round without saying a word.
Later, after a quiet dinner Julian barely touched, Caspian settled at the laptop in his study. The blue light etched harsh lines into his face. He reviewed security footage, drafted bland reports for his father’s company, anything to normalize the furious calculations running beneath. A soft chime broke his focus.
It was an email. The sender line made his spine straighten: Leah Adebayo, LCSW, Family Court.
His eyes scanned the text. Mr. Blackwood, per the court’s order, I will conduct an in-home interview with Julian tomorrow, arriving at 9 a.m. The goal is to observe his living environment, your dynamic throughout a portion of the day, and to assess his emotional and social development. Please ensure Julian is present. The professional language was a thin veil over the true intent: an inspection. They were coming to see his dollhouse.
He read the last paragraph twice. It is noted that while many Omegas are sheltered prior to bonding, Julian’s presentation is exceptionally juvenile for his chronological age. The court seeks to understand this better. A clinical way of saying what he already knew. Julian’s profound innocence, his weapon, was also the grounds for their invasion. They saw a problem. He saw perfection.
Caspian closed the laptop. The sound was final. He sat in the dark for a long time, listening to the quiet house, to the distant hum of the refrigerator, to the faint rustle of Julian turning in his bed down the hall. Every instinct told him to bar the door, to hide what was his. He couldn’t. He had to perform.
He found Julian in the living room, curled under a blanket with Mr. Buns, watching colorful shapes move silently across the television. He hadn’t turned the sound on. He often didn’t.
“Hey,” Caspian said, lowering himself onto the sofa beside him. He kept his voice easy, a gentle rumble. “Got an email from Ms. Adebayo. The nice lady from the video call today.”
Julian turned his head, his eyes wide and attentive. “She called?”
“She’s going to come visit us tomorrow. Here. In the morning.” Caspian watched his face carefully, ready to soothe any flicker of anxiety.
A slow smile spread across Julian’s face instead, soft and genuine. “A visitor? Here?”
“Yeah. She just wants to see how we’re doing. To talk to you a little, see the house.”
“To be friends?” Julian asked, his voice hopeful.
Caspian’s chest tightened. He reached out, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Julian’s ear. “Sort of like that. She’s a professional friend. She helps families.” He chose his next words with precision. “She might ask you questions. About what you like to do. About us. You can tell her anything, sweetheart. Just like you told your mom today.”
Julian nodded, absorbing this. The concept of a court-ordered evaluation was beyond his frame of reference. A visitor was a novelty, an event. He snuggled deeper into the blanket, a contented sigh escaping him. “I’ll show her my room. And the fairy cakes in the tin. Do you think she likes fairy cakes?”
“I’m sure she’d love one,” Caspian said, the lie smooth and warm. He pulled Julian, blanket and all, into his lap. He held him, feeling the delicate architecture of his ribs, the trusting weight of him. He pressed a kiss to his temple, lingering there. “My good boy.”
Later, in the deep quiet of night, Caspian stood in Julian’s doorway. The boy was a faint mound under the duvet, one hand curled near his face. The diamond pendant glinted in the sliver of hall light. The scene was a portrait of peaceful innocence. It had to stay that way.
Caspian’s mind was already assembling the next day. He would wear soft, casual clothes, not the intimidating suit. He would make a simple breakfast, involve Julian. He would guide the narrative with gentle touches and softer words, a performance of nurturing stability. He would let them see the child, because the man—the one who came apart under his mouth, who held secrets in his smooth skin—that was for him alone.
He turned and walked silently back to his own room, the plan settling into a cold, clear certainty in his gut. The inspection would be a masterpiece. They would see exactly what he wanted them to see: a fragile, sheltered Omega beginning to tentatively bloom under his devoted, brotherly care. And they would leave, their concerns politely noted but ultimately soothed, never knowing they had walked through a beautifully staged set where every prop, especially the star, was owned by the director.
He lay awake staring at the ceiling, rehearsing smiles in the dark.
He lay awake staring at the ceiling, rehearsing smiles in the dark. The first grey light of dawn had barely infiltrated the room when he heard it: a thump from down the hall, then another, followed by the frantic shuffling of fabric. Caspian rolled out of bed, the plush carpet silent under his feet. He stood in the doorway of Julian’s room and watched.
It was chaos. Every drawer was yanked open. The closet door gaped, hangers tangled and empty. A snowdrift of clothing—sweaters, jeans, soft cotton pants—covered the floor, the bed, the chair. Julian stood in the center of it all, breathing quickly, eyes bright and frantic. He held a navy hoodie in one hand and a cream-colored sweater in the other, looking between them as if they were indecipherable relics.
“She’s coming,” Julian said, not seeing Caspian yet. His voice was a breathless, high-pitched thread. “A visitor is coming and I don’t know what to wear.”
“Julian.” Caspian’s voice was a low anchor in the swirling room.
Julian jumped, spinning around. “I can’t find anything right! Nothing looks like a visitor!”
“It’s nine a.m. She’s coming to see us, not for a fashion show.” Caspian moved into the room, stepping over a pair of discarded jeans. He kept his tone amused, gentle, a performance of brotherly exasperation. Inside, his mind was recording this: agitated behavior, disordered thinking, clear anxiety. Not ideal. He needed to channel it, shape it. “Breathe, sweetheart. It’s just clothes.”
“But it’s not!” Julian insisted, throwing the two sweaters onto the growing pile. He dropped to his knees and began digging again, his movements jerky. “What if she thinks I’m… silly? Or messy? Mom always said first impressions are everything for an Omega.”
The mention of Eleanor’s grooming was a barb. Caspian knelt beside him, stilling his frantic hands with his own. “Look at me.” Julian’s gaze darted to his, pupils wide. “You are not on display. You are not being presented. You are just living in your home. Wear what feels like you.”
This seemed to short-circuit the panic. Julian’s breathing slowed. He blinked, then looked back at the chaotic wardrobe. “What feels like me?” he murmured. His eyes landed on a splash of color peeking from under the bed. He crawled over and pulled it out.
It was the lilac skirt, a soft, pleated thing he’d ordered online months ago after seeing it in a magazine. Eleanor had called it “decadent” and “inappropriate for daywear” and it had been buried, unworn, ever since. Julian held it up now, the delicate fabric flowing over his hands. A slow, secret smile touched his lips.
“This,” he said, with sudden, absolute certainty.
Caspian’s pulse gave a hard, dull thud. It was perfect. It was a rebellion so subtle only he would understand. It was also undeniably, devastatingly charming. “Okay,” he said, his voice slightly rough. He cleared his throat. “Pick a top.”
The matching cashmere sweater was found. The outfit came together on Julian’s slender frame with an artless grace—the sweater slipping off one shoulder, the skirt swishing just above mid-thigh. He stood before the full-length mirror, chewing his lip. Then his expression lit up with another idea.
He rummaged in a dresser drawer and emerged with a pair of white thigh-high stockings, the kind with a delicate lace trim at the top. He sat on the edge of the bed, tongue between his teeth in concentration, and rolled them up his legs. He stood again, turning to Caspian. “Now?”
Caspian couldn’t speak for a moment. The image hit him with a physical force—the innocent lavender, the pale skin framed by white lace, the total lack of awareness of how delectable he looked. It was a weapon and a vulnerability, all in one. “Now you look like Julian,” he managed, forcing a warm smile. “Happy and comfortable. She’ll see that.”
For the next forty-five minutes, Julian was a live wire. He vibrated on the sofa, then sprang up to straighten a cushion that was already straight. He arranged the fairy cake tin on the coffee table three separate times. He peered out the front window every two minutes.
“When you said bounce, I didn’t think you meant literally,” Caspian said from the kitchen island, sipping his coffee. He was wearing soft grey joggers and a simple black tee, the picture of relaxed domesticity.
“She said nine! It’s two minutes to!” Julian called back, perched on the arm of the sofa like a bird ready for flight.
The knock came, precise and professional. Julian was a blur of lilac. He shot across the marble foyer before Caspian could set his mug down, yanking the heavy door open with a gust of enthusiastic force.
“Hi! I’m—“
His greeting died. On the porch stood Ms. Adebayo, but she was not alone. A taller, stern-faced man in a crisp suit stood slightly behind her, holding a leather-bound notebook. The professional friend had brought backup.
Julian’s entire body locked. The brilliant, hyper energy evaporated, leaving a frozen statue. His hand fell from the door handle. He took one stumbling step back, his shoulders curling inward.
Caspian was there in an instant, a solid, warm presence at his back. He settled a hand on Julian’s shoulder, feeling the tremor beneath the cashmere. “Good morning,” he said to the visitors, his voice a calm, welcoming baritone. He gave Julian’s shoulder a slight, reassuring squeeze.
“Mr. Blackwood. Good morning. This is my colleague, David Renfrew,” Ms. Adebayo said, her smile polite. Her eyes, sharp and observant, were already taking in Julian’s recoil. “We appreciate you accommodating us.”
Julian had now shifted fully behind Caspian, peeking around his bicep. Adebayo focused her kind smile on him. “Hello again, Julian. Remember me from the video call? I’m Leah.”
A long, silent moment passed. Caspian could feel Julian’s quick, shallow breaths against his back.
“Are you…” Julian’s voice was a mouse’s whisper. He swallowed. “Are you here to be my friend?”
Ms. Adebayo’s professional composure softened at the edges. She crouched slightly, bringing herself closer to Julian’s eye level. “I’m here to be a friendly face, yes. To talk with you. If that’s okay?”
Julian studied her face, his own a canvas of wary hope. He looked up at Caspian, seeking confirmation. Caspian gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Julian’s grip on the back of Caspian’s shirt loosened. He took a small, shuffling step out from behind him.
“Okay,” Julian said. Then a thought seemed to strike him, and the earlier excitement flickered back to life. “I saved you a fairy cake. The one with the most sprinkles.”