Long author's note:

Almost five months later…. I have nothing to say against this. I should post somewhere on my profile that I will update sporadically, for I go through phases as to wanting to write, and not wanting so. But I'm sure you can probably tell, since its been over a year since this has been originally posted, and the fact that this only has six chapters….

But, believe it or not, I have no lost motivation for this story. Granted I have lost where this story was originally going, but I have thought of an, hopefully, better direction for this.

I hope I can finally get those line breaks down….. they never seem to work for me…..

(Edit Jan 12. I swear! I swear I will figure out line breaks! Eventually...)

Disclaimer: I only own the Mac I am writing this on.

It was eleven thirty and Aster was still up. He was lounging on the sofa, looking up more parenting articles when the storm started. It had been raining all day, but now it was thundering and lightning, the whole works. He didn't pay much mind to it, not even when the power gave a small flicker.

It was storming, pretty hard. Rain poured down, hitting the window of Jack's room just right to wake him up. Normally, he could sleep through rainstorms, but as he went to close his eyes again, his eyelids lit up for half an nano-second then an earthshaking BOOM could be heard and felt. Instantly, the four year old jackknifed into a sitting position.

He hated storms; they sounded angry and violent. The lightning scared him, bright flashes appearing out of nowhere and striking somewhere at random. You never knew where it was going to hit next; it could be the ground, your house, the tree next to your house that would fall onto your house, or it could strike you.

Another 'boom' resounded through the air, and Jack lay back down and curled into a little ball, covering his head with his blanket and letting out small whimpers. Part of him wanted to run off to Aster, but the one time he had tried that with his mother, she had practically thrown him off her bed and had yelled at him for waking her up. He didn't want Aster to be mad at him and yell at him as well.

So he just stayed where he was and cried to himself.

The small sound of crying reached his ears, the next second, Aster jumped off the couch and sprinted up the stairs. He came to a stop outside Jack's slightly ajar door and the crying was slightly louder.

The man gave a small knock before he opened the door the rest of the way. "Jack?" He took a step in and glanced toward the supposed-to-be-sleeping child, he saw how the four year old had curled around himself under his blankets. "Jack?" He tried again and made his way to the child's bed and sat on the edge.

A pair of eyes peeked out of the blanket's end and flicked between looking at the man and the window.

"What's wrong?" The Australian reached over to remove the blanket from Jack's face.

"I don't like storms." Came the simple answer.

"And why is that?"

"They're scary."

Aster gave a nod.

Rule one of parenting, Aster had read from one of the article, 'don't berate a child's fear of something. Don't say "there's nothing to be afraid of", it makes the child believe his feelings are invalid.'

"Yeah, they can be scary." He moved to sit next to Jack, leaning his back against the headboard. He pulled the bundle of blanket and child onto his lap. "I used to be afraid of them when I was younger."

"Really?" Jack asked as he attempted to get as close to Aster as he possibly could.

"Yeah. I used to hide under my bed until they passed. I remember one night, I actually fell asleep under my bed. Scared my mother when she didn't see me the next morning." Aster gave a soft chuckle. He had flashbacks of her freaking out and almost crying until he crawled out and asked her what was wrong.

Jack wasn't as tense as he was a few moments ago. "Did you get in trouble?"

A shake of Aster's head surprised Jack. He remembered one time, he had hid from his mother behind a curtain and popped out and scared her. She yelled at him for ten minutes. "Wow." Was all the child had to say on the matter.

Another boom of thunder put all that tenseness right back into Jack's little body.

Aster sent a glare to the window, trying to reprimand Mother Nature for sending out a storm now.

Lightning flashed and Jack whimpered into Aster's chest.

A hand carded through Jack's shaggy mop of brown hair. "Wanna sleep in my room tonight?"

A blue eye showed itself and looked up into green. "Really?" The word seemed to have so much emotion behind it, hesitant and bewilderment.

The adult nodded his head. "Come on Frostbite." He kept Jack in his arms as he stood up. "Do you want your blanket?"

Jack shook his little head, but kept a hold of the stuffed rabbit Aster hadn't known he had.

When he got Jack situated, Aster had to run back down stairs and turn everything off. When he got back into his room, he found Jack curled back up into the same ball of blanket as he did when he went into Jack's room.

"Ah, I see you are a blanket hog." Aster joked as he climbed into his bed and attempted to pull a corner of his blanket. He tickled Jack and managed to get a little more blanket as Jack giggled.

"Alright, you little ball of blanket, time to get some sleep."

Hours later when Aster was startled a wake by a loud clap of thunder, he looked down and saw Jack cuddled up against him.