Family Ties // self para
Killgrove never fails to surprise anymore. Between the arrival of the hunters, meeting Cassie, and the hybrids, felt like a lifetime passed for Wilburn that it is any wonder he didn't age at least twenty years. And then becoming a werewolf sent his perception of time off-kilter and left him more screwed in the head than he was previously. He understood now after almost losing his family that making the deal was a stupid choice. A dumb call controlled by impulsive rampage and ulterior motives. Malcolm, for the time he was still alive and driving him crazy calling his name repeatedly, found his control. A leash he could command at will and yank if Cassie or anyone Wil knew misbehaved. The calls and threats died with Malcolm, however, leaving what's left of the Winslow pack scrambling if they weren't already dead.
A night of festivities and initiation turned to a long evening of unexpected surprises. Wilburn's first turn as a Were transformed the basic anatomy of his entire body, his joints contorted, the fangs and fur grew from every inch of the man's skin, and the animalistic instinct overtook some humanity. Though his memories of that night were foggy, what he remembered most was the freedom. Just him and the pack he didn't deserve a place in as a former hunter, running through Chamberlain territory. Suddenly, the chains of Wil's former life weighing him down lifted. No more Charlotte controlling what he did or who he loved, no evil Alpha threatening the lives of his children and their mother. A complete acceptance of what he was for the first time. A werewolf.
Wilburn heard rumors new arrivals who should not have existed in the present crossed the timeline barrier after the night of the full moon. Some children that haven't been born yet and, in his case, children who still wore diapers now completely grown. The Chastain witch suggested keeping the distance and refrain from seeking out his twins until the situation was investigated, but as much as he didn't care following orders, it's probably for the best. If Back to the Future taught him anything, time is messy and fragile when tampered with. Who knows what could happen if his and Cassie's kids engaged in one single conversation. One meeting. Would they disappear if they revealed too much information about the future or if he even laid eyes on them?
Wil pushed open the screen door and stepped out on the porch to a brisk afternoon sun, trudging over to the wooden swing hanging from the covered roof ceiling and sighed as he sat down, the bench swaying back and forth at the movement. This was a quiet space, an escape from the noise of the mansion, of the babies as much as he loved them, a time of contemplation to mull over his life in this town. There were days he came out here and took a breather before finding himself waking up from a nap at the peak of dusk. Not exactly mediation, if there is one thing he could not stand, it was the idea of anyone believing they can find their center by counting backwards from ten which screamed phony.
Wilburn kicked his legs out and stretched back comfortably before his gaze settled on his palms with curiosity. Calloused, scraped, the scar line from an injury sustained from a knife wound years prior still prominent on his right hand. Now, it's an odd feeling imagining both hands turning into paws, the surface padded in the same way a dog's were, even the sharp claws extending from his fingers leaving the man bewildered. The sight was strange, unbelievable, and the thought instantly distracted him from anything else.
"This always was your favorite place to think." Wil's head shot up just in time to watch a young redheaded girl climb the stairs and weave an arm around the column connected to the banister, her gaze taking in a different version of her father than she remembered. The slightly graying beard he maintained became a stark contrast from the almost unkempt one he sported, his blonde hair holding a longer length and still the same color as Griffin's. No one ever denied her father and brother were physical copies of the other, it's a fact everybody spoke to every day since the moment the twins came into this world together.
Wilburn conveyed confusion at first, gaze sweeping the girl's ginger hair and then meeting her expression. And in that moment, he knew exactly who she was. "Calliope." His daughter, his little girl, grown into a beautiful young woman sharing Cassie's same smile and kind eyes. He saw some of his physical attributes as well, the raised cheekbones, the shape of her nose, she radiated warmth and a joy only a father could experience. The fact her infant self slept in a crib upstairs in their nursery caught Wilburn off-guard for a split second as he absorbed every detail of the girl. A shining beacon light in the darkness of their lives. She was perfect.
"Hi, Dad." Calliope hesitantly took the final step on the porch, taking in as much of her father as she knew he was taking her in. Wil scooted over to one side of the bench as a silent extended invitation which the girl politely took, slowly approaching the swing with apprehension and lowering herself on the seat, the space between them not wide enough to erase the awkwardness. "I know how weird this must be for you. Trust me, the feeling's mutual." She broke the silence with hands in lap. If she couldn't cease fidgeting now, she won't ever find the strength sitting still uncomfortably. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions."
They both avoided eye contact which clearly didn't bother Wilburn. Processing the notion of the twins walking around Killgrove was one oddity, sitting down and speaking with one is another can of worms his mind found difficult to process. "Yeah, no, we moved past weird and landed in an acid trip rabbit hole with talking animals and psycho tea parties." Wilburn responded with sarcasm, a coping mechanism he projected to hide how unsettling this was. In the past, he believed what he could see and touch, vampires, witches, wolves, the standard species a hunter will come across at a point in their careers. A cataclysm magically yanking the veil separating the past and present was beyond anyone's imagination. "How did this happen?" His eyes touched her face briefly before he began looking around with expectancy, the shock fading as a thought occurred. "Wait, where's your brother?"
Calliope adjusted her position on the hard wood planks with discomfort, forcing down the melancholy at the way Wil actively searched for Griffin. The look of disappointment seemed permanent on her father's face in the future, that it was unnerving how an emotion she grew used to when Wilburn associated with her brother displayed something she thought he never felt: hope. Excitement meeting his son, instead of anger and resentment being let down when he walked through the door after another night failing to make his parents proud. "He's not here. I don't know if he's ready to come around quite yet, but it's better if we don't force it."
"Not sure I'm following. You trying to tell me he doesn't want to see his old man." His tone suggested joking, but the minute his eyes returned to the girl's expression, unreadable desolate ruin marring her features as it was, spoke volumes. "What's wrong?" Calliope gave her father a look and stopped speaking entirely, almost as if she feared his reaction to what she would say next. Like an untouched secret she silently begged him not to broach, but he'd dig anyway until he found the truth no matter how ugly. "What happened in the future that I don't know about, Calliope? It's clear you aren't enthusiastic sharing with the class, but you know I won't drop this without a fight."
"That's always been the problem. The stubbornness, the fighting pushback." She partly turned to face away from him, a hand reaching up to grip the medallion hanging from a leather cord around her neck as comfort. In her moments alone without Griffin at her side, nothing grounded her better than a small reminder of the family now lost to time. "Griff, no matter how he proves the contrary, spent his entire life compared to you. 'You're his spitting image, Griffin, control your temper better, Griffin. Why aren't you more like your father?' You don't understand how many times I've heard them say that and watch his face just fall into despair. Like he isn't his own person." Calli dropped her hands with a deep sigh and looked up in recollection, "You were the hardest on him of all."
"That's a lot of pressure to put on one kid." Wilburn mused, pressing his lips together in a frown. Back where he grew up, a town not worth the revisit, his neighbors and own extended family spoke the same phrases constantly comparing him to his father. On the outside, Michael Watt appeared calm and natural born leader material, but he spat orders and butt heads with his son like no one's business. He lost his temper often, especially when Wilburn stayed out with friends for too long in the evenings. It wasn't until after his family died did he understand why the overprotectiveness and anger were the only two personality traits worth remembering about his old man. "So, he did get the temper from me. I had a feeling one of you would." He'd hate to ask in what extremes. "How...bad did it get?"
Calliope pondered her answer carefully, speaking softly, "Do you really want to know?" Wilburn gave his confirmation with a slight nod of his head, leaving the girl no choice but filling in the blanks for a man who didn't possess the knowledge of two decades as a father. "Every conversation you two had, and I mean every conversation, ended with a fight. You were always around for lectures with Mom any time we landed in some kind of trouble, but there wasn't a moment where you didn't point the finger of blame on Griffin. Even if he did nothing wrong to deserve it." She paused her sentence for a moment, "His powers involve fire, the definition of destruction and carnage. No matter what he's done, no matter how hard he tried proving he isn't the monster seconds from torching it all, you waited for Griffin to fuck up. He...he spiraled." The words caught in Calli's throat as the painful memories wrapped around her heart and clenched tightly. "Depression. You weren't a witch so you didn't experience the way another witch does, but I felt all of it. Watching your twin brother waste away and implode on himself when you can do nothing consumed me, Dad. I couldn't fix what was broken with our family."
Wilburn grew silent and stock still as his daughter recounted their lives as a family, the dynamic, and the harshness instilled in his future self. What kind of father makes automatic assumptions about his son and turns himself the villain in the story who lacks the support when that is the last thing Griffin needed? Wil could identify the turmoil that merely begins at the pit of the stomach and slowly spreads, infecting all space in one's chest cavity until the whole of him is nothing but resentment and vexation. Griffin had been pleading for help, silently screaming as the same infection took hold of him, and the father he was given didn't bother looking up to do a damn thing. Being angry was an impenetrable front, survival. "I did that." Wil clutched the swing bench's edge on either side of his legs with his hands, squeezing the boards with internal frustration at himself. "I made him suffer. No wonder he doesn't want to come around, I've been ruining every scrap of anything good. How could I be that stupid? How'd I end up that fucking blinded and monstrous?" The sound of splintering wood underneath his palms dragged him from the self-chastising, forcing the wolf to release his grip and exhale. "Calli, honey, it wasn't...it wasn't your responsibility to fix anything. Putting the weight of the world on our shoulders doesn't mean the sky will fall if we stopped."
"I know. You weren't completely to blame either." Calliope watched her father process the dark truths surrounding his relationship with Griffin, the sadness never leaving her eyes as she all but shattered any optimism the present Wilburn grasped since the second his children entered a cruel life in this town. "Where I come from, the council took full jurisdiction over Killgrove. All supernatural followed strict rules you couldn't stray from unless you wanted to end up dead. Their eyes were always on the coven just waiting for Griff and I to screw up. And we tried, you know?" In the end, it wasn't enough to stop every bad thing from happening. "Right before our arrival, I kickstarted what was probably the excuse they needed taking us out. Griff played his part, as did I."
Overprotection, the first word to enter Wilburn's mind regarding how he became that man, forcing his children to behave themselves and lashing out when they made one little mistake that could garner the council's unwanted attention. Still, he saw this as an unworthy explanation for an unwillingness listening to what his twins needed. Advice, understanding, zero judgement, love. The future Wil wouldn't want Griffin and Calliope's safety if he hadn't loved them, that much he gathered. "The council..." So, this timeline rewrote a story of Killgrove's destruction where no one blinked an eye if a supe lost their heads from breaking the law. That could become his future should the council decide slamming a hand on the bomb button is their solution. "You aren't a Watt unless you're placing all blame on yourself." Wilburn sighed and leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees and turning his head to stare at his daughter. "Just rip it off like a band-aid, sweetheart."
Calli's hand raised and moved to tuck a strand of ginger hair behind her ear. There's a reason she waited between the full moon and now to approach either parent, seeing them both alive just smacked her across the face with the trauma tainted by the memories. "You should understand, my abilities sometimes cause excruciating migraines I can barely handle most days. Psychic visions. I just wanted answers for them." She shrugged truthfully. "I did a pretty significant spell by myself that Griffin and our version of Ravenna tried replicating. They were looking for Alec Merriman and found...the present day Malcolm." Calliope shook her head quickly, "Griffin beat the shit out of him and you pretty much ambushed him when he came home. And when I say ambush, you lost it, Dad. You were astoundingly blinded by the fact that he was just defending Mom." The fights were fresh wounds cut open and rubbed with salt mercilessly. Calliope reverted her gaze in the gut-wrenching shame overtaking herself like a tidal wave. "I lost it on you too trying to protect him. Destroyed Mom's study." She promised herself she wouldn't cry. She promised herself she would always follow her mother's example and hold her head high with a strength unsurmountable against all evils. Calliope made the valiant effort, but nothing prevented her lip from quivering. "I just kept telling you I was sorry. There aren't enough apologies in the world to erase what we did or the things we said."
"Oh, honey," Wilburn wasn't great at this part, the emotions, feeling like he never knew the right piece of advice to say that could provide any comforting amount. Cassie excelled at the practice as a coven leader and time would have further proven she'd done a substantial job as a mother. Calliope wore her guilty conscience on her sleeve, a trait harkening back to Wil's habit carrying the regrets not protecting his parents and sister many moons ago. Unload the burden and set yourself free for your poor pops, kiddo. The man reached out a hand with every intention taking hers, but a different instinct calling from within him sent Wilburn's arm wrapping around her shoulders and pulling the girl close. "If there's one thing I know about myself, he's more than capable of forgiveness. Both you and your brother, you were just kids surviving a town your dad didn't make easy on you. He's stubborn and hot-headed, but he loved you two beyond what this universe can handle." He rested his chin atop her head, "I'm sorry you didn't have the father you deserved, sweetpea."
Cal settled into the crook of his arm naturally, feeling the awkward air between the two part. She couldn't recall the last time she hugged her father or went to him when she needed a shoulder to cry on. If there ever was an issue at school or Calli wanted another listening ear to bounce off theories about what her latest vision could mean, she always sought after Griffin's company first or popped down a visit to her mother's library. Wilburn was last resort because she never knew how he would react to her problems whether it's half confusion and half trying his best to offer guidance. How peculiar this felt, though, resting safely in this Wilburn's arms when the one she grew up with was, well... "You and Mom died trying to protect us. The last conversation you had with me and Griffin were arguments. We can't ever make that right." There, the bombshell truth. Calli felt her father's arm tense at the revelation, but his grip never faltered.
"Oh." The word spilled from his lips with a barely audible whisper. He and Cassie, dead in the future? So, the council finally had enough and came seeking the execution of his entire family, that is what Wilburn assumed would cause their immediate demise. What other way would he perish than protecting the children he coveted above all else? It's a parent's sacrifice, placing the lives of their kin first before their own. Even if Hell arrived at the mansion right here and now, Wilburn would greet his death knowing Calliope will survive another day. A dramatic blaze of glory worthy of a hunter-turned-werewolf's last fighting breath leaving his body.
"But you said something to Griff I will never forget," Calliope lifted her head from her dad's shoulder and scanned his facial features that sent a pang for her twin. It's the moment she and Griffin hadn't discussed since setting foot in the present Killgrove, or more like, the subject they both avoided to focus on other pressing matter other than losing their parents. "You told him you loved him and that you had always loved him. Those were your last words, Dad."
Wil slipped his arm from the girl's shoulders as a hurtling pain struck at the very center of his soul, a sharp dagger piercing through at Calli's statement. "It's something I should've told him every goddamn day of his life, Calliope. If there was ever a single second where he doubted that, then I failed as your dad. I failed him." He took Cal's hands in his own, gripping them firmly as if reinforcing what he was about to say, "Listen to me, sweetheart, as much as I wish I could travel to your future and kick my alter self's ass, I can't change the father you grew up with. But I can work toward being the dad you and your brother deserved from the beginning. This whole thing, you know, it's fucked up and I'm still finding meaning behind why any of it even happened. I just know," He gave her hands a gentle squeeze, "We'll figure it out. Do you think you can give me that chance?"
Calliope lowered her eyes to their connected hands and considered what he asked. Through the explosive fighting and her brother's resentment, she witnessed the good in her father's heart in small moment that had been few and far between the more the years passed. He became bitter and restrictive, but she saw the Wilburn her mother must have fallen in love with underneath. Calli was capable of forgiveness and the merciful gift of a second chance, so, what if this was their only opportunity resetting what's been wrong with their family for decades? A new beginning. "I think we failed each other in one way or another." She looked up at him, sincerity and tears hovering below the water line of her lower eyelids. One escaped before she could place a stop to it. "Yes, I can. I'm not the one you need to convince, though." Her brother, her twin brother likely to stick to his guns and hard. "I'll speak with Griffin. If anyone could help him understand what this meant for us, it's me."
Wilburn nodded slowly, the hope bubbling within him that he thought long since grown dormant. Hope is fickle and dangerous when you possess too much of it, but if time and patience can help rebuild the shattered fragments of the damage his future him created by his own design, he would wait for it. Calliope promised a conversation with Griffin which left the possibility of a chat between father and son. Mend the mess, save his family, start again. "Thank you." He released their hands, lifting one to wipe away the tear streaking down the girl's cheek and mustering a sad smile that didn't feel complete. "I promise, Calliope, I will fix this. This isn't just on you and your brother anymore."
"I know. We're the fixers of the family." Calli rose to her feet and quickly used the sleeve of her shirt to dab at any remaining tears left in her eyes before turning around. "You and Griffin always keep your promises." No more crying, no more wallowing and self-pity for either of them. Cal did wonder if she should play referee for the talk Wil and Griff were likely to have, but she would relinquish the worry and control, placing her trust in her dad to make the right choices and learn from the older Wilburn's mistakes.
This right here...this is a promise she never held any doubt in her mind that her father will waste.