[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[DGFone]

The next time Delano woke up again, most of the day had already gone. He opened his eyes to see that the sun had moved quite far among the sky, and that it won't be too long until it would start setting.

But feeling Lina resting against him felt very nice. The memory of her shouting at him was still to close of a memory for his liking, so feeling her so calm in his presence was a nice change over waking up from a nightmare, only to immediately experience one in the waking world because he had accidently hurt their son. Just thinking about it still hurt a lot, and Delano hugged himself closer to Lina, burying his muzzle into her fur as he allowed himself to release his emotions out.

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina, having not been nearly as tired as her mate had, wasn't even fully asleep after resting for such a long time. So when Delano suddenly hugged her and started getting emotional, she obviousy noticed and was roused from her sleepy state. "Delano?" It obviously surprised her greatly to see that such a big part of the day had already passed, but that wasn't the important thing at the moment. "What's wrong?" She could hear the laughter of Akili and Nyoka coming all the way from Laini and Dakari's den, which led to her coming to the not too complicated conclusion as to what this was all about.

[DGFone]

Delano didn't expect Lina to be awake, but awake she was. "I'm... I'll be fine," he tried to say, very much doubting that he sounded even remotely convincing. He really did feel terrible about what had happened during the night, and while it sounded like Akili had already forgotten about the even, even if only for now, Delano was having a very hard time forgetting about it.

The knowledge that his own son had been afraid of him really scared him. Combined with when Lina screamed at him that he could have possibly killed Akili, Delano was not feeling well, even after this extra rest, to say the least. "Will he... will he trust me again?" Delano asked eventually, his voice shaking, "he... when he was afraid of me... I hated it! It was like... like I was some kind of monster!" Overcome with emotion, Delano buried his head into Lina's fur again, his entire body shaking.

[TheWhistlerify]

Noticing just how upset her mate was, Lina wanted nothing more than to get him to calm down. But she knew there was no way to make his worst fear vanish. There was no telling what would happen between him and Akili from now on. As much as she wanted to believe that, even if he would be nervous of his father for a while, their son would let the incident go entirely once he became old enough to understand what had truly happened, there was simply no way to know for sure."You're not a monster..." she said softly, giving him a gentle nuzzle. There wasn't much more she thought she could say.

[DGFone]

Delano was so distraught that he didn't even notice what Lina told him, still busy crying into her fur. "I didn't mean for it to happen..." he begged quietly, his voice muffled by Lina's fur, "I- I let go as soon as I realized what was happening!"

Hugging Lina tighter, Delano was almost too afraid to let go because he felt like he was drowning in his anguish. "But... but he still looked at me like... like I wanted to murder him! He was scared... to approach me!"

[TheWhistlerify]

Sighing, Lina placed her paws around Delano and held him close, resting her head on top of his. She knew she couldn't blame him for being so distressed about something like this and that she would have been reacting the same way if her own cub was scared of her. "I know you didn't mean it..." she said quietly, nuzzling his mane. "But Akili's still very young, you can't expect something like this not to leave an impression on him." She let out another sigh. "Just give him some time..."

[DGFone]

"How- how much time?" Delano sobbed, "you saw how he looked at me! You saw him!" He fell silent, still hugging onto Lina as though his life depended on it. "I was... I was always afraid that something like this might happen," he muttered, "these nightmares... they never fully went away, but I simply thought that... that I would be able to deal with them..."

He let out a long groan and lay back down on the ground, but still with his paws wrapped around Lina. "But what am I supposed to do when I'm not in control of myself? I don't... I don't even know if Akili actually believes that what I did was on accident. At least for a little... he thinks that I meant to just him." Just saying these words made him feel sick to his stomach, and Delano stopped talking again before he made himself feel even worse than he currently was, not that he thought that such a thing was possible.

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina so badly wished that she also knew how long it would take for their son to put this accident behind him. But there was no telling just how long such a thing could take, if at all... What if Delano's action left him traumatized? What would happen if he never grew out of it? "Look, you should have no problem controlling yourself when you're awake..." It was only the time when her mate slept that could be problematic. Maybe she'd just have Akili always sleep next to her instead of next to his father from now on...

She was about to say something else, but that was when the sound of quiet pawsteps on the grass caught her attention. She looked to the side and saw Akili looking at the two of them. The cub must have taken a break from playing with Nyoka. How long has he been standing there? How much of his father's words had he heard? It seemed like he was rather upset because... Was he staring at Delano? "D-Dad?" he asked hesitantly. "Why are you crying again?"

[DGFone]

"But what will happen at night?" Delano complained, "I don't know when I will next have a nightmare..." He frowned when Lina looked away, only to have fear strike him when he realized that it was because Akili showed up.

Quickly rubbing a paw over his eyes to wipe away his tears, Delano was too late anyways. Looking at his son, his stomach tightened into knots when he saw that the cub looked very upset. "I-" he stammered, trying to sound reassuring, "I'll be fine. Don't worry about it." He tried to smile, but knew that he was failing horribly.

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina said nothing, not knowing what to even think of what was happening. Not only had their son heard things he wasn't supposed to hear and was too young to understand, but now he was also seeing his father in such emotional distress and, being a cub, he obviously couldn't understand what was going on and wanted an explanation. She was more than aware of how miserably her mate was failing at pretending that he was alright, and Akili didn't look too clueless either.

Akili, meanwhile, looked anything but reasaurred by Delano's attempts. If anything, the way his father wasn't succeeding in hiding his distress made him even more uneasy. Seeing the adult lion look so... vulnerable was scary for someone his age. Hesitating, the cub walked over to his parents. His mother looked quite upset as well - which only increased his own discomfort. He simply stood there and looked at the two of them, tilting his head to the side as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

Spoiler: show

01:00 - 05:00