A Devious Humanity

Paternal Instincts

It was warm stormy day as the summer fought against the impending cold fall with a brutal and penetrating heat. A thunderous rain bombarded the roof and windows of the relatively empty house restlessly, while keeping everyone else in the city cooped-up inside. Connor was spending his rare day off hiding out in his bedroom laying on his back over his bed while tossing Sumo's old green fetch ball into the air above himself and catching it over and over again. Ruby was laying over his ankles watching the ball with a faint interest as she waited for Connor to make a move to either toss it across the room for her to fetch or just drop it and let her chew all over it.

Listening to the sound of the storm and nothing else, the house was now almost painfully quiet without Sumo and now without Lucas to talk with, Connor was in an emotional funk. As the rain continued to pelt the windows the power began to flicker until the storm knocked it out entirely leaving the house under a layer of unwanted darkness.

As the house let out a protesting groan courtesy of the blackout Connor caught the green ball and held it in his hand.

"Damn."

Sitting upright on the bed Connor looked down at Ruby and put his free hand on her head to rub her ears.

"There's no way you're going for a walk today. Sorry, girl."

Ruby wagged her tail a little as she licked the side of Connor's hand as he kept petting her ears.

Connor sighed as he looked at the bookshelf across from his bed and decided to grab something to read and keep his mind busy, giving the ball a carefree toss over his shoulder and back onto the bed behind him as he walked. As he glanced over the books on the shelf, he caught sight of a glowing light coming near his opened bedroom door as Hank walked toward his room with a burning candle in his hand.

"Damn tree fell and pulled down some powerlines on the other side of the neighborhood." Hank stated as he put the candle down on Connor's nightstand beside the bed. "Don't know how long until the power back on."

"That's fine." Connor responded with thick indifference. "I'll just read until the power comes back."

"Are you okay?" Hank didn't like the way Connor sounded so dreary and defeated. Reaching his hand over to Connor's forehead he pressed his palm down and studied the younger man's face curiously. "You're not sick, are you?"

"No, I'm not sick." Pushing Hank's hand away Connor picked up his chosen book and walked back over to the bed where Ruby was chewing on the green ball with her tail wagging. "I'm fine."

"Well, you sound sick."

"I'm fine."

"Nope." Crossing his arms over his chest Hank saw the distant glaze in Connor's soulful brown eyes through his glasses. "Something's bothering you."

"Can't imagine what..."

"All right, all right. I get it." Leaning back against the door frame Hank rubbed his hand over his bearded chin inquisitively. "You've been through a lot, but you don't want to talk about it. I'm not going to push you, but if you do want to talk, I'm going to be downstairs monitoring the weather on my phone."

As Hank walked away Connor just nodded a little as he began to read only to have his thoughts distracted by the fully opened bedroom door allowing him to see clearly into Lucas's now vacated bedroom across the hall from his own. Knowing that Lucas was moving forward in his life gave Connor a sense of confidence as he knew that he and Hank had been able to give the deviant enough compassion and support to go live in his own house, but seeing the bedroom vacant just reminded him that his little brother wasn't there anymore and they would have to make the time to see one another now.