“No, Honey. I already told you, you can’t go out.”

Axl spoke with a heavy sign as he looked up from his book, seeing the small pout on his not-so-little, little girls face - he laid his book face down onto the table, before he lightly patted the couch beside him; signaling for her to come sit with him so that they could talk. He didn’t want to be strict, but he was, he didn’t mean to be — of course not — but he didn’t know how else he was supposed to protect his baby girl from the world, and all of the awful things in it.

He had promised her mother, before her passing, that he’d do everything he could to keep her safe forever and ever and he still tried his hardest to keep that promise every single day to his late wife — it was hard without her here, raising a teenage girl without anyone to confide in was difficult, but he was making it work.

“You’re better off staying home, you know this already.”

Axl uttered to the sulking teenage girl who sat beside him on the leather couch - he wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he placed a loving kiss to the side of her head, just like he used to when she was a little girl.