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[helpdesk_hero]

This is David Alleyne, I'm not available at the moment.
Please leave your name, contact information, and what this is regarding after the beep.

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[portolan]

That was the thing. The last good things he remembered were...before his mother left. He was an actual child. And they were memories of the man being proud of him. No, of what he could be.

Still, David's words release an actual proper sob.

"I thought -- when I found out he was being controlled, I thought I had a reason. I thought he'd changed. But he -- he was always that."

He hasn't ever talked to anyone about this except Fran, and one or two friends way back in school. Why is it coming up right now? He doesn't want to talk about this. Doesn't want to think about it. But he's the one who brought it up.

It was so much easier when he just...ran away. And Cid had seen that on him. The way he always saw straight through Balthier to Ffamran. So why was it Balthier could never see through him?

"I'm sorry. I don't know why this is hitting me today. I didn't mean to--" And he's clutching David so tightly, face fully pressed into him now.

[helpdesk_hero]

"It's okay," he says, voice soft and trying to keep it as soothing as possible. He deserves to know that. "It's okay to grieve and cry. And it's happening now because something in what you saw made you think of him. Grief is... it's like a box with a button in it, and an inflatable ball. Some days there's a lot of air int he ball, and it's so big it hits that button so much easier. Today you've got a really big ball in your box."

[portolan]

He lets David soothe him, because what else can he do? He just wants to put this all back in that box and not think about it.

But there's something good, too, in letting some of it out. Like the pressure that he's compressed tighter and tighter is getting let off a little.

"Thank you," he manages. His face -- and David's shirt -- are wet with tears, but they're still quiet. He hasn't hit uncontrollable. Doesn't want to.

[helpdesk_hero]

"I'm here for you," David said. "Always. You know that, right? I'm going to be here for you."

And that's really all he can do. Be there for the man he loves.

[portolan]

That was the problem, though. The people who promised they'd be there...were until they weren't.

He doesn't want to believe that of David. Hells, a huge part of him doesn't believe David's capable of abandoning someone he cares about. But the rest of him is terrified, and he just holds fast, trying to calm his breathing. This is all in the past anyway. Nothing's changed, not in a decade. What does it matter?

"I'm glad you're here tonight," is what he manages to say. And he does mean that.

[helpdesk_hero]

It was the problem. And David had lost people too, people who promised. And it hurt. Hurt so much.

"Let me make you some tea," he says, his voice soft. "You need more than just me, you need fluids. And then I want you to tell me good memories of him."

[portolan]

Balthier has just about gotten his breathing under control again when David makes the suggestion to share good memories. Something in him recoils, and he pushes away from David. "No," he snaps. He's aware how angry it is even as he says it, heels of his hands coming to his eyes.

"That's what this is all -- there are no good memories."

It's always been this way. Trying to explain something is wrong and being met with the answer that he's tired, he's emotional, he's focusing on the bad. That something must be controlling his father. That there's some rational answer.

The answer is -- has always been -- that his father never loved him. And it's so much easier to believe that's because of some god or curse but.

But he's been thinking about it these past months, in quiet snatches. And he can't find the evidence that it was ever different.

Has feared that since he was 16. Since he ran away and...nothing. Just mild irritation that his plans were disrupted.

[helpdesk_hero]

That was more than he's expected. A lot more. A lot different. David... just backs away a step and looks at him, clearly confused and hurt.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice an ashamed whisper.

[portolan]

David's pulling away which is the last thing Balthier actually wants, but he understands why. He pinches his nose with his fingers, trying to figure out what to say.

"It's not you. Please -- I'm sorry. This is why I don't talk about things. I just make them worse."

[helpdesk_hero]

"It's hard not to think it's me when I said the thing that upset you," David points out. "It's about your father too, but I made it worse. For that I apologize."

But he doesn't move forward yet. It doesn't feel right to assume being rewelcomed into Balthier's space.

[portolan]

“I know,” he sighs into his hand. “You already apologized. And how could you have known? I hadn’t told you. I’m not upset with you. At all. I’m just upset.”

He’s partially frustrated that somehow he’s the one comforting now. But that’s always the way it goes. And at least it puts him in a more neutral space, where he can get some handle on his thoughts.

His voice gets weirdly even. He makes eye contact but there’s no emotion. “My father was difficult. He will tell you I was and maybe he’d be right. He was proud of me when I did something praiseworthy but only if there was an audience. At home I was never enough, but I tried. For years. Long before I left. And after I did I thought he’d at least be angry. Tell me I’d wasted my talents or disgraced the family. It took him almost two years to even address me and only because I was back in his dungeon.

“Every time I tried to talk about it growing up or even with the pirates — people always said the same thing. He was my father. There had to be good memories. Some reason he didn’t—“ his voice catches here. “Love me.

“So I stopped talking about it. And then I let myself believe it was Venat. But there’s nothing. I have dug through those memories a thousand times. He never wanted me except as a pawn.

“I felt more loss at a supervisor i’d known two months than I did killing my own father. What does that say about me?”

[helpdesk_hero]

Not for the first time David notes how Balthier regains that defensive distance once he's shaken himself from an emotional moment. Perhaps he's a hypocrite for worrying that it's not good for the other man, but how could he explain that?

But he gets it now. He gets it and fuck this. He steps forward to offer hte man his embrace again, but loose so that Balthier can escape.

"With all of that? It says nothing about you. And everything about how he wasn't worthy of being your father."

[portolan]

He slumps into that hold, weakly putting his arms back around the other man even as he wants to be held so tightly he can't think. This is still better than standing there alone, recounting his misery and overreaction to a thing that was a simple face.

"Then why can't I let it go? Why do I still end up digging for a way I could have fixed it?"

And that, really is the worst of it. That he's unloved and he keeps expecting to find something he's missed, some secret answer that will make it all make sense. That he can't let this go and move on. He feels like such a child. And he hates that he's shown David this. He hates that he snapped at the other man, hates that he wants to just be held and told over and over that it's alright.

This is the version of himself that he hates the most.

[helpdesk_hero]

Normally it's not his choice to be all psychoanalyzing of people he loves but...

"Because you don't understand it. You don't understand why he didn't love you. Your mother did. That much I'm certain of. And you've known a lot of people whose parents did love them at some point. A child doesn't understand why their parent doesn't love them. And somewhere in your heart that child is still hurt, still looking for some reason for it. The question remains 'what was wrong with me that meant he didn't love me'? It got worse because when you learned of this Venat you thought maybe it was something else, something external that did it. But in the end he was just the one who was wrong. It was that your father didn't love you and it was his fault and you never had the power to change it."

He leans in to kiss the other man's hair, just for a moment. Just to offer him that comfort. But the returned hug does give him the confidence to embrace Balthier with all of his might.

"That he didn't love you is his fault, and you can never ask him why. But the answer is likely that he was a narcissist. That he only ever saw you as a way of improving himself. And a child is meant to be loved, so it makes it harder for them to see. Even adults have problems coming to terms with those things, Balthier."

[portolan]

Balthier finally breaks, which for him still means quiet sobbing and a body that only trembles with the force of his breaking. But for him, it's more than he's shown anyone else in years. He clings to David, face buried in the other man's neck. That kiss on the head undoes him. And really, the clinical words are easier to hear, easier to force himself to say that's a model of how the world works, so maybe I can see myself in it.

That and that it resonates. Every fucking piece of it.

[helpdesk_hero]

David feared it would. He hated that it did. This man, so beautiful and so strong and yet so very fragile underneath it all. He moves, slowly and carefully, lowering them to sit on the floor so he can hold Balthier that much closer, that much more fully.

"You deserved to be loved, Balthier. And he cheated you of that. He stole the time you put into loving him and wanting to be loved. And he felt no shame for it. And right now? Now you're getting to heal. Maybe in time you'll believe you deserved better than him. But I'll keep telling you it until you believe."

[portolan]

Like fine lace, really. That was what Fran always told him. Elegant. Strong. So fragile.

He's already surrendered any sense of dignity, and some part of him is sure David will treat him differently after this, so why not just lean into it? Not that he's sure he can stop himself. He follows David's lead to the floor, curling into the man's hold. For someone who is so tall, he is so small and helpless right now.

"Healing feels an awful lot like being bludgeoned," he says. He's trying vaguely for humor and misses by a hundred miles. Maybe because he doesn't believe it. Is terrified, even, that he's always going to be stuck sliding back into this black hole of sorrow and fear. And who wants to stay with a person like that?

"I'm sorry, David. I'd had no intention of putting this on you. I'll calm down in a few minutes."

He doesn't get it, how to take support, how to just have emotions. They weren't allowed for so long.

[helpdesk_hero]

"Yeah, it does," David answered, his voice soft and sad. "Sometimes healing comes with pain. It's not a straight climb up. Grief and emotion pain? They have ups and downs in their healing process. It's a ride and that sucks. But you've got me to help."

Still, he shakes his head. Balthier has to understand this is okay.

"No you won't calm down in a few minutes. This is a deep pain you've carried with you. Maybe you'll try and hide it from me again in a few minutes, but you don't have to. You're not 'putting this on me', no more than I was 'putting it on you' when I told you about what happened up to my first death and Noriko dumping me. What you're doing is sharing part of the load so I can help you carry it. Help you heal. And that means you dont' have to be better in a few minutes. Let me shelter you."

[portolan]

The fact that this is the mirror of David sharing with him is the only thing that keeps him from protesting. He honestly feels out of arguments as to why none of that applies to him, why he doesn't get to have emotions, why it always ends in more pain. Which is so good for him. His heart aches at what David is offering, but it may as well be on the other side of a glass pane.

"I don't know how," he admits, but he's settled firmly in David's lap, still clinging to him.

[helpdesk_hero]

"You stay here. Let your heart hurt the way it hurts. Stay here tonight and I will take care of you. Whatever you want, whatever you need. I'll be here. Just... Just let me be here."

Because it feels like Balthier doesn't want to let him do this.

[portolan]

That's exactly what he wants. The kind of support he's only dreamed of. And he feels like an utter fool because he has no idea how to accept it or begin to say what it means to him. The only thing he knows to do with big emotions is freeze.

"Yes," he says. "I -- please keep me near you. I'm sorry I -- sometimes I come off as though I want to be left alone. I don't. Especially not from you."

[helpdesk_hero]

"Pushing people away is a defense," David answered.

Which was true of David too.

"It's what ended me and Nori. It's what makes things hard back home."

Hard with Tommy. One day he'll have to mention Tommy.

[portolan]

"David, I'm trying," he pleads. He doesn't know what else to do, and coming here, sharing, pushing through when he wanted to shut down -- that's all already been a lot for him.

Because he doesn't hear any empathy in it, just criticism. That's the way he's been trained.

[helpdesk_hero]

Yes, but he needed to know. To understand that David needed more than this.

"I know you are, and I'm so proud that you'd open up like this to me," he says, his fingers curling up to stroke Balthier's hair.

[portolan]

He didn't know how to be more than this. Didn't know how to be enough to be loved. He was always too much or too little and he never understood why.

David's words are soothing, at least, and that touch in his hair is good.

"Thank you," he says again. He means it. Almost doesn't believe this is happening. Is terrified what the fall out of it is going to be. But he's trying so hard to believe David and to just be here with him. That has to count for something, doesn't it? The trying?

That's all he has to give.