POV - Elias
I knew this was gonna happen. Everything was fine until he came back. Why couldn't he just leave things alone? Now I'm grounded, he took my dog and now Papa's running around with everyone but me.
'Have you reached out to Kyas to find out what they're doing to them? Maybe Chaos is grounded too.' Ethos offered.
'No, cause they haven't reached out to me.' I said.
'So... neither one of you are talking because you're both waiting for the other one to reach out first...' Ethos said.
'Looks that way.' I shot back.
'Uh...huh.' Ethos said sounding all judgemental.
There's a knock on my door, and I know it's Papa.
"I'm coming in that room, Elias. Up to you if it's as your Papa or your Alpha. You have one minute." He said.
I sighed. Fine. I went over and opened it.
"Am I ungrounded yet?" I asked.
"Well, the Counsel made a decision, so we can discuss that and go from there." He said.
"Ok." I said and stepped back.
"Elias, do you understand why you're being punished?" He asked.
"Yes, because everyone is saying I was selfish for making Kyas promise not to tell. I already said I know it was, and I apologized a bunch of times, to him and everyone else." I said.
"Do You think it was selfish?" Papa asked.
I debated on how to answer that. Screw it.
"Actually, Papa, no, I don't. I think it was fair. He wasn't missing a father, I was. I had one that didn't want ME, you only wanted HIM. He owed me payback." I said.
"Elias, that was never his fault. It was mine." He said.
"It was BECAUSE of him. You couldn't look at me BECAUSE of him. You couldn't play with me BECAUSE he would never play and it was all your fault. You couldn't even eat at the same table BECAUSE I look like him! I HATED him because he took you away from me! Right before he showed back up, you were finally being MY Papa. Talking to ME instead of wishing I was HIM. He would've taken all that back! He can't have it! He can't have anything!" There, I said it.
He sat down in a chair in the corner and looked at me.
"Elias, I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't feel that way," he said, "I did all those things, and those Were my reasons. I broke our relationship, and there's no amount of apologies I can give you to make any of that ok, or give any of us that time back, but Elias I'M the one who did that to us. Yes, it was because I couldn't get over the guilt of losing him, but that was ME, it was never him. He did none of that, Elias he wasn't even here." Papa said.
"It figures you'd take his side." I said.
"Sides require two opposing sets of facts. What part of what I said isn't true?" He asked.
I couldn't answer that and he knew it.
"That's why you were selfish, Elias, because in that moment, when you were trying to decide what the right thing to do was, you only thought about yourself. You decided that he would pay the price for what I did, and he made it easy because he didn't fight you on it." He said.
" He was going to ruin Everything, Papa! I finally had a real father, for the first time ever, and then he came back and I knew you would pick him over me. It wasn't Fair!" I shouted.
"No, it wasn't fair!" He shouted back. "Neither was you deciding to make him pay for what HE never did. Elias, I know that you knew he didn't do any of what you decided to blame him for, but you never considered what you were doing to Him at all!"
"Elias, you were the only person in this whole pack that KNEW Kyas was real, that knew he was an actual person, Hell Elias, through your bond you can FEEL him and that never mattered to you."
"You never once thought about what you were taking from him. You took his opportunity to have a father, while you got yours back." He finished.
"He already didn't have a father, he wasn't missing one, but he took mine!" I yelled.
"No, he didn't, Elias, I DID!" Papa shouted.
"BREAK!" Alpha said, and we both went to opposite corners of the room to calm down.
After a few minutes, he spoke from his corner, quietly.
"Did you ever wonder WHY we were able to reconnect? Somewhere deep down, I think I knew he wasn't a ghost, he was too real in my arms, his body too warm when I touched him. Elias, he wasn't GONE anymore. The guilt I felt for losing him finally let go and I could breathe again." He said.
"It never mattered to me why it happened, I was just glad it did." I said.
"Elias, if you were so afraid he'd take me from you, why did you still agree to let him come to me? Why not keep him totally away from me?" He asked.
"Kyas asked about the nightmares." I said. "He said he saw a clear difference in you after you saw him, and it rippled through the pack. I knew it was true, because I felt it too. He knew he helped you, and we were both afraid that if you didn't see him, that would go away." I answered.
Papa pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I'm trying to get you to understand something." He said. "Let me ask you this - you say that Kyas took me from you, took your father. How do you know?"
"What?" I asked, confused.
"Elias, I am the only father you've ever known. Distant, cut off, torn up with guilt. How do you know I wasn't exactly what a father should be?" He asked me.
"Because I saw other pups with their fathers. Saw them hug their pups, and play games with their pups - loving them. I wanted that from mine." I said.
"You felt that was missing with us?" He asked. "You wanted that, even though you never had it?"
"Yes." I said
"Then how do you know Kyas didn't want that too? He had never even had the bad one you did." He said.
I sucked in a breath. I struggled to justify the assumption.
"Well," I said, "he had been told his parents were dead - he knew there wasn't one out there for him."
"Uh-uh, you only met him AFTER he found out you were brothers. After he found out there WAS one for him. Yours. How do you KNOW he didn't want that? Didn't want the same thing you wanted from me. Did you ask him?" He countered.
"I... guess I just didn't think of it that way." I admitted.
Papa snapped his fingers in the air. "And THAT'S the point, Elias. You should have. Even if you put nothing else to that, just that one point alone, you only took your own point of view into account. As a future alpha, you can't make such narrow minded decisions. YOU have to look at things from different angles, more than only your own. You have to CARE about the other people in your pack, you'll be responsible for them one day. Not just Kyas, ALL of them."
He moved back to his chair, removing the command and motioning me forward.
"For this reason, the Counsel has sentenced you both to six months of pack service, to teach you the value of the community in the pack. You will be working with the housekeeping staff in the mornings before school, and the kitchen staff in the afternoons. The counsel also feels that its time to start teaching you about the responsibilities you'll have as alpha, so I'll be teaching you how to do the grocery requisition for the packhouse." He told me.
"What about Kyas?" I asked.
"He's going to face the pack and deal with the outrage he caused making a fool of me. The pack has the permission to run him and Chaos ragged doing anything he's capable of. He's also getting his own special brand of discipline from me." Papa said.
"Oh." I said. So he's getting special punishment, special time. I knew it.
Papa got up to go. "Your sentence starts on Monday, and you will remain grounded until then. I've got some paperwork to get done, so I'll check in with you later. " He said, and left.
I have to do housekeeping and work in the kitchen? Over one little promise? This isn't fair! This is ALL KYAS' FAULT!