elfhame | PSL with justice_is_blond | Blood is Thicker than Taint

It's... very unusual for Nate to look surprised at him coming home, which means there's something that's consumed his thoughts. Anders doesn't have to look far to have a guess as to what that may be.

He closes the door behind him and unlaces his boots, kicking them off, giving Nate a few moments to gather himself if it's needed, before wrapping his arms around his partner's shoulders from behind.

"What's the letter?" There's no effort made to see it, in fact, he rests his forehead against the back of Nate's head so there isn't any sort of pressure there.

This is already better. Nathaniel rests back against Anders, bringing his free hand up to the ones crossed over his chest.

"Loghain brought it me. Here, not even at my office while I was cleaning it out. He says it's something my mother wrote to him shortly before she died. He says she did something for me I don't know about. I...don't know if I'm going to read it."

For a few moments he's quiet, letting the words settle in so he can mull them over, before he kisses the back of Nate's head and shifts forward to lean his temple against Nate's.

"You don't want to think anything good of her, because she hurt you and was cruel to you. She doesn't deserve being heard out... but maybe you deserve knowing. Maybe you deserve hearing that there was a kindness back then, because little you should have had so much more than what you got." He takes a breath, looking at the envelope. "Don't read it for her sake. Read it for yours, love."

Nathaniel's gaze falls. It takes him a moment to say.

"It's not about what she deserves. It's about...I'm still little me, Anders. I'm afraid to give her another opening. I'm afraid to hope for kindness and get hurt again. And that's..." a scoff "..she would absolutely have convinced her peers, people like Loghain, that what she was saying to me was kindness. It would be said in such a way where they wouldn't know better, and I would. I don't want to give her one last chance to hurt me from beyond the grave."

That's fair. Anders' arms tighten around Nate.

"Would you like me to read the note? I've dealt with my share of hidden barbs, and I know how she's hurt you." He'll protect his husband. "If you ignore it, I think you might always wonder what it was. I would."

It would be wrong, a dreadful unkindness to them both, if Nathaniel did not allow Anders to protect him. Nathaniel does his fair share of protecting Anders. It has taken time for him to learn to return it. Hesitantly, he gives over the letter, then rests his elbows on his knees, folding in on himself and waiting.

Anders takes the note and reads it... and reads it a second time because there's a lot to process.

"I..." He has to say something. The silence is more than likely oppressive to Nate and Anders can't let it continue. "It's not written to hurt you. There's something that may, something that was denied to you that maybe you should have had a long time ago." The letter gets held out. "I think you should read it, Nate."

Nathaniel looks up, naked relief on his face, and he takes the letter delicately, reaching out to cup Anders' cheek in gratitude before looking down at the letter.

Loghain--

Mother must have been friends with him. It is an abrupt, familiar sort of address. Familial, even.

Loghain--

Rendon found out about Nathaniel last night. I do not know how. He has not taken it well. We sent the boy to a relative of mine a few years ago for his squireship. Right now he is with the Vaels of Starkhaven. Rendon cannot touch him there.

What? What sort of hidden truth would move heaven and earth enough to make Mother protect him from Father? Father was always playing the good cop between them, if anything.

When he returns to Ferelden, you will need to get to him before Rendon does, or I cannot say what he will suffer. I ask this in the name of the friendship we once had.

I know I told you, years ago, not to involve yourself in Nathaniel's life. I thought it would keep a peace which never really existed. I have many failings as a mother, and Rendon is no father. Perhaps he should have been with you all along. Even if Rendon had killed me, it would have been a more merciful death than the one that has crept on me without me even realizing.

I am leaving Rendon and I hope never to see either of you again. Take care of our son.

Yours,
Eliane

Nathaniel had almost been ready to weep at the thought of his mother having some manner of kindness, of closure for him. Instead...

What in Andraste's name was that?

Nathaniel turns the letter over in his hand, examining the page, a scowl swiftly appearing on his face.

"This is a prank," he says suspiciously, knowing even as he says it that it's a very, very paltry claim to make.

"Loghain doesn't strike me as a prankster," he says gently. It's a huge revelation for Nate, and Anders doesn't know how it's going to settle on his husband. Anger and denial make sense for a first reaction, though.

"You'd know your mother's hand, I'd think. As would he. To set a prank up of this magnitude would take either a great deal of hatred toward you, which I don't think he bears, or a very mischievous nature that's also blind to the impact of jokes like this, and that's not him either." Loghain had held on to this for so long and only now, when they're all parting ways, brought it out. Anders can't say what that means, but he can say it's not out of a desire for comedic timing.

"It seems Loghain is your father, love." Which means the abusive asshole that had been Rendon was not, and means that Nate no longer has to compare himself to Rendon and worry about what they have in common. Now... At least Loghain doesn't bear the ill will toward Nate that Rendon seemed to have born.

A lot of things come out of Nathaniel's mouth now, almost none of which are voiced. Most of it is the beginning of consonants that turn into sighs, that turn into inhalations, that turn into the beginnings of other consonants. He can't put together words yet. After a moment, he casts the letter onto the table and surges out of the chair so he can pace the small room.

No is the only word that comes strongly to mind, as to how he is feeling, but he is not sure what no gets attached to. No, Loghain can't be his father? No, he doesn't want Loghain to be his father? No, to the entire situation of being on the edge of happily ever after with Anders only for this steaming pile to get dumped on him? No, he'd like to go back to being able to hate his mother without reservation while continuing the Maker's work that is getting over Rendon Howe in peace? No, no, no, no, no he would really like...something right now, he isn't sure what, his metabolism has been going mad ever since the Unjoining or whatever it will eventually be called--Separation? Retirement Party?

He turns to Anders, eyes ablaze. What comes out is all the words he tried to say before, in no particular order.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he shouts, face turning red. "What does he think I'm supposed to do with this? And-and should the, the anti-Joining, is that more of a separation or a retirement because I cannot...neither. Neither of them. There is no better option here, there is no option, Rendon Howe was my father and-and a letter, or-or ejaculating into my mother forty-four years ago, it, oh, suddenly all these years of family turmoil and suffering and abandonment have all gone away because it doesn't matter if my old father was going to kill me, because I have a fresh new one who wasn't going to kill me and now everything is so fucking happy!"

Nate's departure from his arms is more than a little bit of a surprise, but Anders quickly wipes that expression off his face and takes a breath, waiting to see what will come from this.

After the outburst he swallows. It's not his fault Nate is yelling, and it's not like Nate is yelling at him so much as he's yelling at the room. It's okay and he needs to internalize that for a moment before he can respond.

"You don't have to do anything with it," Anders says after a moment in a small voice. "You don't have to treat him differently, or think about him differently, or anything. He gave you the letter and walked away which means there's no obligation. It changes nothing about what you went through, only re-frames a little of it. And I... I thought everything was rather happy. There's, you've... We've time and freedom and each other."

He stands, slowly, holding out a hand to Nate. "We can take the life that somehow we have after everything, the... anti-joining, or curing, or whatever is chosen for its name."

That small voice makes Nathaniel hear how loud he just was, how careful Anders is being. He feels guilty, but knows Anders isn't afraid of him. Anders is just uncertain how to be there for him. Nate...Nate has no idea how he feels about this. He takes the offered hand and uses it to pull Anders into his arms. And for a time, he is just silent.

Then, for no reason, he starts crying. The last time he can remember crying was for Adria's death, and that was years ago and in seclusion, and it wasn't like this. Then, it had been quiet, quick, breathless, ashamed of an act of indulgent emotion his father would have scolded him for. Now, he shakes, he blinks, he swallows, he feels it welling up before it assaults those carefully-built walls of stoic indifference. Then he sobs voicelessly, breaths coming in loud sniffles, and he still doesn't know why he's crying or how he feels about this.

He leans into Nate, which changes into holding his husband close and tight when Nate starts to cry. Slowly Anders rubs Nate's back, simply letting the tears happen. The cause doesn't matter, understanding the tears doesn't matter, being here is what matters.

"I love you," he whispers when things seem to start to slow. "Mac Tir or Howe doesn't matter to me. ...Though Andraste's tits, will punning with Mac Tir be difficult."

The joke is there in hopes it will help, though there's a tiny grain of seriousness to it. He's going to have to get creative if Nate chooses to go public with this.

A sputtering laugh interrupts the crying, and Nathaniel catches a shining glimpse of how very simple this could be. The only non-cosmetic difference really is, in the end, who his mother was. And that, he realizes, is what the tears are for.

He begins to calm, pulls away to dry his face.

"She was found dead in the river," he says hoarsely. "We thought she killed herself. She didn't. She was leaving him. And he killed her."

He gives Nate a sad smile. His husband could have ended up in that river too, later, so easily, had Rendon not died when he did.

"He was an awful man." Anders watches Nate before going to the closet and pulling out a cloth to gently help dab at Nate's cheeks. Touching is how he best expresses love and concern, and what he finds the most comfort in. "I'm sorry he murdered her, and I'm sorry she wasn't a good mother to you. I'm sorry that you didn't know the one kindness she tried to give you until now, though I don't think it would have changed anything back then to know of it. You are an amazing man regardless of parentage or bloodline."

"Then what was it for?" He leans into the touch but does not press. Anders' hands are doing exactly what they ought. "That...shrieking hollowness that took up half my lifetime, what was the point, if all that pain was for nothing?"

Pain is not a word he really used to describe it, at least not until he learned what life is meant to be like, and he learned what it felt like not to hurt. He couldn't have called it pain when he thought it was normal.

"All his lessons, all that time spent on family honor and glory, my father, for all his...monstrosities, I always thought that learning to live with it was going to be the point of it, in the end. Embracing who I am, even when the truth is ugly. But he was never even my father. All those things I came to terms with about him, about myself, all of it was for nothing. I...I wasted the last fourteen years of my life looking for answers in the wrong place. And the things I thought were answers were nothing."

Again he's quiet for a few moments, working, measuring out his response.

"Sometimes pain is for nothing." What was the point of beating him in the Circle? They knew it would do nothing, because it hadn't done anything before. It had been about their own satisfaction.

"Sometimes there is nothing to learn from it; it's simply pain. Like Karl. Whatever you've come to terms with about yourself is still true, because this changes nothing about who you are, and who you've become in these last fourteen years, Nate. You've sought yourself. One piece of the puzzle not being the right one doesn't mean all of the others are wrong. This does not change you. I swear it. And the truth of who you are has never been ugly, my love."

He finishes drying Nate's face and reaches up to cup the man's cheek and hold it.

Nathaniel wraps his arms around Anders and holds him tight, needing to feel that heartbeat against his. And it's the first time in all of this that he hears the word yes in his head. His father--Rendon--is the past. Anders is the future. So is Delilah, who is still his sister, just his half-sister, even though their experiences together will never change. And maybe, at long last, Nathaniel can stop thinking things would have been easier in his youth if he had been more like his father.

"I used to insist my father was a great hero," he mutters against Anders' hair in an ironic tone. "I had no idea. The Maker must be doubled over laughing right now. He's been anticipating this punch line for decades."

"The Maker's an asshole," Anders mutters back against Nate's neck, but there's no annoyance there, simply words. Nothing here has really changed. Nate has the freedom to do what he will with the information, and he and Anders are still the same as they were an hour ago.

"And you're my hero." A beat. "My Mac Tiro? I'll work on it, if there's reason to do so."

A soft chuckle.

"There are Mac Tears on your shirt," Nathaniel suggests with a small smile. He breaks the hug and takes Anders' hands in his, threading their fingers together. "I love you so much. I'm...going to want you there, when I talk to him. I have to ask him some questions. About their relationship, about what this means, about everything. Being his...his bastard makes things unclear. The house we were going to have in the country technically belongs to the Howes."

He grins at the joke and squeezes Nate's hands.

"I'll be there for you, love. You've still a right to the house through your mother, I'd think." He's not absolutely sure. Since he has no family to speak of and no idea where in the Anderfels he'd really lived he's never bothered looking into anything as far as inheritance or family lands or the like.

"Whatever happens, we'll figure it out. And bastard only matters in that it means you're not in line for the throne, thank the Maker. I don't want to think about what Queen Anora might do to a potential challenger, and I don't want to think about how much of a weight I'd be on every matter if you were legitimate."

He shifts to his tippytoes to plant a kiss on Nate's nose. "You have me at your side, my Bear."

Nathaniel barely feels the kiss. He just started looking queasy.

"The queen," he says faintly. "I hadn't even...thought about that. Maker preserve me." He sits down hard on the edge of the bed. Now that his mind is racing to and fro about succession and legitimacy, he gives a groan and buries his face in his hands.

"I think I know why he waited until now."

Oops.

Needing to be aware of some aspects of politics and slowly getting better at it during his time in the Inquisition had not... helped this situation, apparently. Anders sits down next to Nate and puts an arm around him.

"Breathe, love. We are together, and we can take this on together. There is always the option of asking him to never tell another soul and living as if this letter never happened. We have every option open to us at this point and I will support you in whatever decision you make here. I am yours, Nate."

Nate looks stricken with sentiment, practically ready to weep again, at Anders' words. He leans in and takes him into his arms again, burying his face in his hair.

"Even if I'm Teyrn of Gwaren?" It's muffled by hair, but it's out there. In the air. Spoken.

Teryn. Maker. He'd wanted a quiet little retirement in a quiet little cottage in a quiet little village with a noisy child or two. The prospect of being a teryn's spouse is terrifying, but Anders takes a moment instead of reacting out of fear.

"Even then, my love, my husband. I will be by your side." He will make it work because he loves Nate and frankly that's all he needs at the end of the day - Nate's love. If this matters to his husband, then Anders will take it on.

Anders takes a breath and scoots back a little to face Nate. "What we should figure out, before we speak with Loghain, is what you'd like to see from it. I've no doubt he'll ask."

PSL with justice_is_blond | Blood is Thicker than Taint

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