Haven Fic: Clarion Call Chapter 006 - The Girl Who Stole the Stars [Nathan, Duke, Garland]
Author: siricerasi
Fandom: Haven
Spoilers: Through s3
Chapter: 006/104
Chapter Word Count: 2069
Chapter Rating: R
Chapter Warnings: Past child abuse
Chapter Characters/Pairings: Nathan Wuornos, Duke Crocker, Garland Wuornos
Chapter Summary: “Nathan,” Duke says conversationally. “What the hell.”
Author's Notes: Sorry for the long delay, I'm in the middle of moving so RL is crazy. This chapter is set during 3.11 (Last Goodbyes), after the phone call where Audrey tells Nathan she has things to tell him and he says they should do it in person.
Song for this chapter is "The Girl Who Stole The Stars" by Yasunori Mitsuda.
Thanks again to my awesome beta cherrygurl1225!
Previous Chapter: 005: Horse & I
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(instrumental)
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An 8pm cup of coffee has become routine for Nathan. Another at 9, then 10, and he doesn’t stop until his vision starts to blur, hands shaking too hard to type or hold a pen. He naps on his couch, if he can get his mind to stop for a moment. Wakes when Laverne comes in at 7am, sharp, and drops a bag of Rosemary’s pastries and a cup of black coffee on his desk without a word. And it starts all over again.
So he’s a little surprised when he notices his hands are shaking and it’s only 12:34am. He’s trying to fill out paperwork, another request to the FBI for information on James Cogan or Tommy Bowen (they’d ignored his last two, but he won’t give up, he’ll never give up on this), but his signature’s all wrong and there are damp spots on the paper.
He wipes at his eyes, stares at his fingers and finds them wet. His breathing sounds odd, he notices absently, a strange rasping that’s far too rapid. The adrenaline that’s been a near-constant presence for the past few weeks is running harder, he realizes. He hadn’t even noticed, so used to the anxiety that refuses to abate. It’s one thing he’d be perfectly fine NOT feeling, and of course it’s the one thing he still can.
Nathan tries to stand but his legs won’t hold him, numb weights that promptly drop him on the floor. He can see himself shaking, the oddest sensation, can hear his teeth rattling. And the tightness in his chest, closing off his lungs, the half-forgotten symptoms of panic attacks he hasn’t had in 20 years.
For a moment he misses the Chief desperately - misses his father. In this one thing, Garland Wuornos had been the father Nathan had desperately needed. Even after his mother died, when Garland had effectively forgotten Nathan’s existence, he was somehow always there through every panic attack. And all the judgement, the talk of being strong and learning to deal, all of that would fall away. For those moments, Nathan had been just a scared little boy, and he’d somehow known that that was okay.
Now, though. He’s not a little boy anymore, and the hazy memories of a thousand past episodes do nothing to calm him.
Footsteps echo in the hall, and he should probably drag himself up off the floor but he’s too tired to care, too shaky to do anything but faceplant all over again.
“Uh, Nathan?” That’s Duke’s voice, an odd note of concern making it nearly unrecognizable.
“Get out,” Nathan growls. Or tries to. It comes out as an incomprehensible whine that hurts his ears. From the corner of his eye he sees Duke open and close his mouth a few times, probably debating how to make himself feel better about leaving, but to Nathan’s shock he steps through the doorway.
“I came by to… see if you…” Duke waves a hand distractedly, still staring at Nathan where he’s pressed into the corner as one might regard a rabid dog. Nathan finds himself laughing, although the gasping sounds that claw from his throat sound nowhere close to amused, and Duke takes a cautious step forward.
“Is there another crazy Trouble?” Duke asks. “Cause if there is I should probably…”
The lightness to his voice clears Nathan’s head enough that he manages to croak, “Go.” Duke opens and closes his mouth again, then states, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” And they’re sixteen all over again, Nathan’s mom dead and the Chief pretending he doesn’t exist and the panic is there, crushing his lungs. A tingling in his hands and legs that terrifies him, a phantom memory so real he can almost, almost feel it.
Duke’s beside him, a hand on his arm that Nathan shrugs off violently, probably hurting himself in the process but what the hell does it matter? “Dammit, Nate, stop fighting me,” Duke growls. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Don’t need your help,” Nathan gasps. Duke laughs, low in his throat.
“Right. Right, you’re Superman, I forgot. But you’re also not breathing, Nathan.”
Nathan drops his head wearily, hears the clunk of bone against bone as he hits his knees, hard. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach that has nothing to do with skin or nerve endings, only memories half-forgotten. Tacks in his back, an hour not breathing in the locker room. Hiding the bloody shirt, crying in frustration as he tries to clean the wounds in the mirror until the Chief finds him, speaks gently to him for the first time Nathan can remember.
I can’t feel it, he’d sobbed, seven years old and too old to cry (shut the fuck up, boy, be glad you can’t feel this). But no, that’s not right, there are bruises he doesn’t feel and his mother is cleaning the wounds and the Chief is only a vision, he was never there-
Nathan jerks forward and retches, misses the trashcan by a foot and nearly slams his head into the chair. Duke catches him, hands on Nathan’s shoulders as he breathes, “Shit, Nate.”
Duke holds his hand at his mother’s funeral, ten years old and far too old to cry. Fingers entwined between the chairs, hidden from view, because if Garland saw him with “that Crocker kid” he’d never hear the end of it.
No. Duke had never been there. Nathan had gone alone, fingers twisted in knots on his lap, nails digging painfully into his skin and he’d felt it, every bite. He’d enjoyed it.
He throws up again.
“Okay seriously, Nathan, what the hell.” Duke sounds as worried as Nathan’s ever heard, and that somehow snaps a little sanity through him. He wipes his mouth, slumps back against the wall and mutters, “’m fine.”
Duke opens and closes his mouth, expression warring between concerned and long-suffering. He studies Nathan for a moment, finally states, “Normally I’d just give up and leave you here at this point, but Audrey would never let me hear the end of it.” Audrey…
“Is she okay?” Nathan gets those words out well enough, although his voice is rough and raw and his breathing still ragged. Duke rolls his eyes, sighing.
“Yes, Nathan, she’s fine. Or as fine as can be expected. That’s not why I came.”
Nathan wants to snap. He wants to fling hatred and bile at the man until he leaves like he always does. But he is suddenly, overwhelmingly exhausted. Too exhausted to play these games with Duke anymore, the push and pull that tears at him more deeply than he can understand. The hatred that at times seems the most natural thing in the world, and at times so forced it’s all he can do to bite the words out.
“So why did you?” Duke’s already taken a breath, ready for the anger, but Nathan’s voice is hollow and empty and seems to drain the fire from him. Nathan doesn’t know why he asked; he doesn’t think he really wants to know.
Duke is quiet for a few moments, studying a spot on the wall. Nathan might actually suspect he was thinking, if it wasn’t Duke.
“Second grade.” Duke’s voice sounds like grinding stone. There’s a dull pressure inside Nathan’s skull - not pain, just a strange tension that builds slowly. “Dad came home early with more cuts and bruises than he’d ever had and an empty bottle of whiskey. Found us playing together and he…” Duke chuckles darkly, looking up at the ceiling. “I’d never seen him that mad. He started raving about curses, saying you were an abomination, that I could never be seen with you, that you were bad. He came at me and you-” Duke looks at Nathan, his eyes dark with an emotion Nathan can’t read. “-you jumped in front of me and took the hit.”
Nathan looks at him blankly, images flitting through his brain but never settling. Pain-notpain. Phantom sensation against his cheek, stinging and there and gone.
Duke is watching him almost expectantly, finally states, “You don’t remember.” Nathan doesn’t answer, because that’s not right, exactly. He remembers. He remembers the Chief, telling him to stay away from Duke. He remembers his mother’s face, soft and smiling (bruised), tacks in his back and a broken arm and the pressure in his head. Fragments and puzzle pieces that had always seemed to form a nice picture until now, until those pieces were torn apart and the image on each of them changed. Like a puzzle that fits together neatly with no coherent image, or picture that he knows in his gut is real but the pieces don’t match, won’t slide into place no matter how hard he pushes.
He wonders for a moment if this is how Audrey feels (hands grip his fingers -PAIN- blue eyes and black hair).
“Stop,” he tries to say, but the words won’t form.
“I’m remembering things, Nate,” Duke contines, oblivious. “Things that just… they just weren’t.” Nathan thinks he might throw up again, feels the pressure in his head shift unbearably.
“Stop,” he manages, raw and broken. Duke glares with renewed fire.
“Seriously? I’m trying to-”
“No, stop.” Nathan breathes shallowly, closing his eyes when the world starts to spin a little. He focuses on here, now, on the sound of Duke’s harsh breathing, the smell of whiskey on his breath and the oils on his desk and here.
The pressure fades, and Nathan opens his eyes. There’s a tightness on Duke’s face that looks far too close to terrified concern for Nathan’s peace of mind, leaves a bad taste in his mouth. The man had long ago lost that right.
“Nathan,” Duke says conversationally. “What the hell.”
Nathan has no answer. He listens to his ragged breathing, digs nails into unfeeling skin, closes his eyes to watch the lights dancing on the insides of his eyelids. His mouth tastes awful.
Duke manages to keep his silence, until Nathan finally grates, “Not a word to Audrey.” It’s almost a threat. Duke opens and closes his mouth, eventually nods. The last thing either of them wants is to give her more to worry about; that, at least, they can agree on.
“‘What’s one more?’” Nathan blinks. “That’s what you said to me, when I asked why you’d done it,” Duke clarifies. He’s staring at Nathan like the world has dropped out from under him, like Nathan is the one thing that’s still real. “Nathan, Garland Wuornos never touched you.”
There’s a flash, just a face, pretty blue eyes and straight black hair, the kindest smile that he’d ever seen. It isn’t. It can’t be. Nathan swallows, carefully focuses on the bathroom mirror, the Chief bandaging his wounds. “No.” It’s the most he’s willing to give, and for once in his life Duke backs off. Rocks onto his heels, looking around the office, looking anywhere but Nathan.
Nathan’s phone vibrating on the desk shatters the silence, too loud on Nathan’s already sensitive ears. Words ringing, echoing through his head - until we meet again. Words that had never been spoken.
The phone vibrates louder, impossibly louder, until finally Duke stands to grab it.
“Audrey,” he states calmly. Nathan makes a grab for the phone but Duke holds it back, a hand on Nathan’s chest. Pushes him down far too easily. “Give it a minute,” he tells Nathan, the closest to kindness they’ve ever been. The tightness in Nathan’s chest is back, an ache long forgotten, a ghost of a memory of a friendship long gone. Duke’s mouth tightens minutely as he finishes, “She doesn’t need you to worry about too.” The tightness vanishes.
“Go,” Nathan says wearily. Hollowly. Everything feels hollow, stripped of meaning, stripped of reality. He wonders if his memories are as fake as Audrey’s, wonders if any of his own past had been real.
Duke looks back at him from the doorway, face pale as Nathan’s ever seen him, eyes sad and as tired as Nathan feels. “I know this is hard on Audrey, and I know you want to protect her.” Duke licks his lips, smiles tightly as he looks away. “But it’s hard on us too.” It’s so quiet Nathan almost doesn’t hear, so hesitant it makes something pull in his chest. Again. It’s the closest to an olive branch as they’ll ever get, Nathan thinks. And then Duke is gone.
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Next Chapter: 007: Loneliest Girl in the World
nineteen days left, guys!