Post by westernsunset on Jun 10, 2019 12:38:05 GMT 10
Title: Family Name
Rating: PG-13, cw for homophobia and parental abuse, but only referenced.
Notes: ok so I checked my ao3 and it's been literally a year since I added to my Big Gay Raoul Fic, so this is the latest installment.
--
“A lot of things will come and go in your life Raoul. But you’ll always have the Goldenlake name. For good or for ill. It depends on how you represent our family, what you do to honor or denigrate our name. Your actions affect all of us, each of us who shares your name.”
It was one of his clearest memories of his father. This speech, or a variation on it. Always extolling him to put his family first, to think of how his actions would impact his family, how he would elevate or lower the fief.
He heard that speech as a young child, when an older boy pushed him out of a tree and Raoul had cried. His father had heard about Raoul’s fall later that night and called him into his study.
“Always ask permission first,” he said, when Raoul went to sit down.
“May I sit, sir?” Raoul said, the way he’d been made to practice.
“Of course.” His father had a habit of looking over his account books during conversations like these. Raoul never figured out if it was out of discomfort on his father’s part, or in a misguided attempt to put the other person at ease. “I heard there was a fight today.”
“Kelvir pushed me!”
“So I heard. And what did you do?”
“I fell?” Even at a young age, Raoul got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He was worried about what would come next.
“And?”
He bit his lip. “And I cried.”
“And did you feel better after crying?” his father asked, now looking squarely at Raoul.
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
Raoul actually didn’t know. It wasn’t that he’d felt worse after crying. He didn’t feel anything. It just felt like a reaction. Like wincing when you put your hand on a hot pan. It didn’t make you feel better or worse to do it. It just happened. Crying was what happened when you fell out of a tree.
“It didn’t make you feel any better,” his father had clearly tired of silence, “because crying isn’t how we deal with our problems. When you cry, you show people you’re weak. You tell them they can walk all over you, that you won’t fight back. Is that how you want people to see you?”
“No, sir.”
“And is that how you want people to see us? Because remember, Raoul, whatever you do, however you behave, that’s what people see when they look at me. Do you think I’m weak?”
Raoul looked up at his father. Even sitting, he was large, big hands, broad shoulders, thick eyebrows. The picture of strength.
“No, sir.”
“So what will you do in the future?”
“I won’t cry.”
“And what else?”
“Fight back?” Raoul guessed.
His father nodded. “You are dismissed.”
—
The talks were easier when Raoul knew what he was being chastised for. Everything went faster if he stuck to the script.
“You may enter.”
“Good evening, father. May I sit?”
“Please.”
Several moments of silence. Then, “Duke Gareth wrote.”
Raoul understood there was no need to respond. Not unless he was asked a direct question.
“You’re not doing well in your studies. Why not?”
“It was a challenging term, sir.” It was never good to give an excuse. Nothing specific. It would just anger his father more. But it didn’t matter what he said, the response was always the same.
“Raoul, this behavior reflects on us. It makes it appear that we didn’t teach you. That we neglected our duty to our firstborn son. And we both know that isn’t the case.”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have a plan for the next term?”
“Yes, sir. Gary has promised to help me.”
“You’re dismissed.”
—
His father had very little tolerance for displays of emotion, particularly grief. If tears were a sign of weakness, Raoul had to imagine the bone deep ache he felt after Francis’s death was much worse.
“I heard about your friend. The one who died.”
Raoul’s heart still hurt to think about losing Francis. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust his voice not to waver, and he didn’t think he could handle a lecture about weakness right now. He felt weak. He felt wrung out, losing one of the only people he felt really knew him.
“I’m sorry. May the Black God give him peace.”
He pinched his leg, hard, to keep himself from crying, until the sharp pain of his nails drained the sadness from his voice. “Thank you, sir.”
When he looked up, his father’s eyes were on him, and Raoul realized he rarely looked directly at his father in these talks. It made him nervous, and he looked back down quickly, waiting to be allowed to leave.
“Dismissed.”
—
Even then though, Raoul knew what to say. As little as possible. Keep emotion out of your voice. Agree. Don’t cry. There were times when the script wasn’t as clear.
“You’re becoming a man now,” his father said, halfway through Raoul’s training as a squire.
What had he done this time? Something unmanly? Uncouth? Childish?
“You—you have to be careful.”
Raoul hadn’t really ever heard his father’s voice waver like that. He snuck a glance and could have sworn his father seemed nervous.
“If you are ever, ah—with a girl you have to make sure she has…that she isn’t, that you’re…”
He felt heat rush to his cheeks. Did his father really think he made it to sixteen without knowing the way of relations between men and women (even without any interest in participating in them himself)?
“I know, sir.” For once, Raoul could tell his father was thankful he’d interrupted.
“You’re dismissed, then.”
—
There really was no need for his father to worry. As Raoul became more comfortable with himself, found friends who knew everything about him, people he could love, or at least share a bed with, he became less nervous that people would find out his secret. He felt less of a need to go through the motions of courting women. He skipped more social events, and when he went, he would go without a companion. He didn’t love that he had to hide so much of his life, but the arrangement wasn’t awful, and he wouldn’t have changed it.
Except his father called him into the study one Midwinter.
“It sounds like you’re doing well with the King’s Own,” his father said, motioning for Raoul to sit.
“I am,” Raoul said. He was uneasy. His father never called him in just for compliments.
“Made it into quite the force. You should be proud.”
“Thank you.”
“No, I should thank you. You’ve elevated our family name and our standing in the eyes of the King.” Here, his father paused. “I’d hate to see that good work go to waste.”
At last, the reason he was here.
“What’s to happen if you die without an heir?” his father asked.
Raoul opened his mouth and closed it again. He had no brothers, his younger sisters were already married. His knowledge about estates only extended to knowing he would take over Goldenlake when his father died. He had given no thought to what would happen to the land when he died, given as he was very confident he’d never have children. Biologically at least.
“I don’t know sir,” Raoul said.
“I hope we’ll never have to know,” his father said. “You’ll be married someday.” It wasn’t phrased like a request or an expectation. It was a demand.
You’re an adult, Raoul thought to himself. You don’t need his approval, or his support. You have purses from the King, you can make it on your own.
“I can’t marry while I’m in the Own,” was all Raoul said.
“Don’t insult me Raoul, I know that rule doesn’t apply to the Commander.”
“I don’t really have prospects,” Raoul tried.
“You could have prospects but you don’t want prospects. And don’t think I don’t know why.”
Raoul couldn’t stop himself from breathing in sharply. So his father did know. Of course he did. He’d probably always known. He remembered the distrust in he saw in his father’s eyes every time he’d come home, feed him one of the lies about not courting, being too busy, an invented girl whose heart he’d just broken. The disdain when his father would bring up “those people” and their “unnatural relations,” how he’d steal a glance at Raoul, checking his son’s reaction. The pressure, in every interaction, to be the right kind of man, the kind of man his father would be proud of.
“Enlighten me then,” Raoul knew it would be better not to push, better not to stray from the script he had practiced for years. But the rage was sparking in his chest. He could feel his father’s stony disappointment as he had so many other times. He knew now that if a child fell out of a tree, it was alright for them to cry. That was what children did. He didn’t have to bow to the will of his father. His father wasn’t always right. “Why don’t I want prospects?”
“You know the reason, why should I—“
“Say it.”
“Because you’re a deviant!” his father exploded. Raoul stiffened. He knew it was coming, but he hadn’t known how much it would hurt for his father to call him something widely seen as an insult. Something he’d seen painted on some of the bars he frequented. He willed himself not to visibly react and almost succeeded.
“I’m not the only one who knows,” his father said. “And I’m getting tired of denying the rumors and covering up whatever’s wrong with you.”
If anyone else talked to him like this, Raoul would have already thrown them into a wall. He rarely lost his temper, but when he did, he didn’t react with words or insults. It was brute force, unchecked and released by his anger. It wasn’t that he wasn’t angry now, he was. But he couldn’t react like that in front of his father. Even with his size, even if he knew he would win in a contest of strength, a lifetime of these talks kept him in his seat.
“Then don’t deny the rumors.” Raoul didn’t know how he was forming the words, it was like his mouth was separate from his brain. Everything in his body was telling him to stop, to go back to saying “yes, sir” and “no, sir” but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “As you said, I’m doing great work for the Own and the kingdom. Why should it matter what people say about me?”
“They’re not just saying it about you! They’re saying it about all of us! It’s reflecting poorly—”
“On our family, our name, I know. I would have think that all I’ve done would outweigh one or two rumors about me. Most people with sense don’t even believe them.”
“The people you know don’t believe them. But when I was speaking to the Lord at Tirragen—”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about what Tirragen thinks of us, given that less than a generation ago, their fief facilitated high treason, but—”
“Just tell me it’s not true!” his father shouted.
Raoul heard the ragged edge of desperation in his father’s voice, and for the first time in years, really looked into his father’s eyes. He noticed how his eyebrows were starting to gray, how he didn’t look as powerful as he once did. How he looked, more than disappointed or angry, how he looked afraid, begging his only son to tell him that all the horrible rumors he’d heard were just that.
He was ready to lie. He really was. But instead he said, “I can’t.”
The pause stretched into nothingness. Raoul could hear his heart beat, see every movement in his father’s face as the two sat in total silence.
“Plenty of those people marry. Most do, in fact,” his father finally said.
Raoul shook his head. “That’s unkind.”
“It’s what people do. It’s what you will do. It’s what you’ll do to protect this family. Anything else would be selfish. And I didn’t raise you to be selfish.”
“I won’t. I won’t put someone through that. And what would you do, tie me to a horse and force a marriage?”
“You’re deflecting from the inevitable. We all make sacrifices, Raoul. This is yours.”
He had nothing else to say. He felt like a cloth that had been wrung out. There had been so much he wanted to say, so many things he felt like he could have presented, to change his father’s mind. But all the will from earlier was gone, and Raoul was the same person he always was when he sat in this chair. His father’s son. And nothing more.
“Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are dismissed.”
Rating: PG-13, cw for homophobia and parental abuse, but only referenced.
Notes: ok so I checked my ao3 and it's been literally a year since I added to my Big Gay Raoul Fic, so this is the latest installment.
--
“A lot of things will come and go in your life Raoul. But you’ll always have the Goldenlake name. For good or for ill. It depends on how you represent our family, what you do to honor or denigrate our name. Your actions affect all of us, each of us who shares your name.”
It was one of his clearest memories of his father. This speech, or a variation on it. Always extolling him to put his family first, to think of how his actions would impact his family, how he would elevate or lower the fief.
He heard that speech as a young child, when an older boy pushed him out of a tree and Raoul had cried. His father had heard about Raoul’s fall later that night and called him into his study.
“Always ask permission first,” he said, when Raoul went to sit down.
“May I sit, sir?” Raoul said, the way he’d been made to practice.
“Of course.” His father had a habit of looking over his account books during conversations like these. Raoul never figured out if it was out of discomfort on his father’s part, or in a misguided attempt to put the other person at ease. “I heard there was a fight today.”
“Kelvir pushed me!”
“So I heard. And what did you do?”
“I fell?” Even at a young age, Raoul got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He was worried about what would come next.
“And?”
He bit his lip. “And I cried.”
“And did you feel better after crying?” his father asked, now looking squarely at Raoul.
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
Raoul actually didn’t know. It wasn’t that he’d felt worse after crying. He didn’t feel anything. It just felt like a reaction. Like wincing when you put your hand on a hot pan. It didn’t make you feel better or worse to do it. It just happened. Crying was what happened when you fell out of a tree.
“It didn’t make you feel any better,” his father had clearly tired of silence, “because crying isn’t how we deal with our problems. When you cry, you show people you’re weak. You tell them they can walk all over you, that you won’t fight back. Is that how you want people to see you?”
“No, sir.”
“And is that how you want people to see us? Because remember, Raoul, whatever you do, however you behave, that’s what people see when they look at me. Do you think I’m weak?”
Raoul looked up at his father. Even sitting, he was large, big hands, broad shoulders, thick eyebrows. The picture of strength.
“No, sir.”
“So what will you do in the future?”
“I won’t cry.”
“And what else?”
“Fight back?” Raoul guessed.
His father nodded. “You are dismissed.”
—
The talks were easier when Raoul knew what he was being chastised for. Everything went faster if he stuck to the script.
“You may enter.”
“Good evening, father. May I sit?”
“Please.”
Several moments of silence. Then, “Duke Gareth wrote.”
Raoul understood there was no need to respond. Not unless he was asked a direct question.
“You’re not doing well in your studies. Why not?”
“It was a challenging term, sir.” It was never good to give an excuse. Nothing specific. It would just anger his father more. But it didn’t matter what he said, the response was always the same.
“Raoul, this behavior reflects on us. It makes it appear that we didn’t teach you. That we neglected our duty to our firstborn son. And we both know that isn’t the case.”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have a plan for the next term?”
“Yes, sir. Gary has promised to help me.”
“You’re dismissed.”
—
His father had very little tolerance for displays of emotion, particularly grief. If tears were a sign of weakness, Raoul had to imagine the bone deep ache he felt after Francis’s death was much worse.
“I heard about your friend. The one who died.”
Raoul’s heart still hurt to think about losing Francis. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust his voice not to waver, and he didn’t think he could handle a lecture about weakness right now. He felt weak. He felt wrung out, losing one of the only people he felt really knew him.
“I’m sorry. May the Black God give him peace.”
He pinched his leg, hard, to keep himself from crying, until the sharp pain of his nails drained the sadness from his voice. “Thank you, sir.”
When he looked up, his father’s eyes were on him, and Raoul realized he rarely looked directly at his father in these talks. It made him nervous, and he looked back down quickly, waiting to be allowed to leave.
“Dismissed.”
—
Even then though, Raoul knew what to say. As little as possible. Keep emotion out of your voice. Agree. Don’t cry. There were times when the script wasn’t as clear.
“You’re becoming a man now,” his father said, halfway through Raoul’s training as a squire.
What had he done this time? Something unmanly? Uncouth? Childish?
“You—you have to be careful.”
Raoul hadn’t really ever heard his father’s voice waver like that. He snuck a glance and could have sworn his father seemed nervous.
“If you are ever, ah—with a girl you have to make sure she has…that she isn’t, that you’re…”
He felt heat rush to his cheeks. Did his father really think he made it to sixteen without knowing the way of relations between men and women (even without any interest in participating in them himself)?
“I know, sir.” For once, Raoul could tell his father was thankful he’d interrupted.
“You’re dismissed, then.”
—
There really was no need for his father to worry. As Raoul became more comfortable with himself, found friends who knew everything about him, people he could love, or at least share a bed with, he became less nervous that people would find out his secret. He felt less of a need to go through the motions of courting women. He skipped more social events, and when he went, he would go without a companion. He didn’t love that he had to hide so much of his life, but the arrangement wasn’t awful, and he wouldn’t have changed it.
Except his father called him into the study one Midwinter.
“It sounds like you’re doing well with the King’s Own,” his father said, motioning for Raoul to sit.
“I am,” Raoul said. He was uneasy. His father never called him in just for compliments.
“Made it into quite the force. You should be proud.”
“Thank you.”
“No, I should thank you. You’ve elevated our family name and our standing in the eyes of the King.” Here, his father paused. “I’d hate to see that good work go to waste.”
At last, the reason he was here.
“What’s to happen if you die without an heir?” his father asked.
Raoul opened his mouth and closed it again. He had no brothers, his younger sisters were already married. His knowledge about estates only extended to knowing he would take over Goldenlake when his father died. He had given no thought to what would happen to the land when he died, given as he was very confident he’d never have children. Biologically at least.
“I don’t know sir,” Raoul said.
“I hope we’ll never have to know,” his father said. “You’ll be married someday.” It wasn’t phrased like a request or an expectation. It was a demand.
You’re an adult, Raoul thought to himself. You don’t need his approval, or his support. You have purses from the King, you can make it on your own.
“I can’t marry while I’m in the Own,” was all Raoul said.
“Don’t insult me Raoul, I know that rule doesn’t apply to the Commander.”
“I don’t really have prospects,” Raoul tried.
“You could have prospects but you don’t want prospects. And don’t think I don’t know why.”
Raoul couldn’t stop himself from breathing in sharply. So his father did know. Of course he did. He’d probably always known. He remembered the distrust in he saw in his father’s eyes every time he’d come home, feed him one of the lies about not courting, being too busy, an invented girl whose heart he’d just broken. The disdain when his father would bring up “those people” and their “unnatural relations,” how he’d steal a glance at Raoul, checking his son’s reaction. The pressure, in every interaction, to be the right kind of man, the kind of man his father would be proud of.
“Enlighten me then,” Raoul knew it would be better not to push, better not to stray from the script he had practiced for years. But the rage was sparking in his chest. He could feel his father’s stony disappointment as he had so many other times. He knew now that if a child fell out of a tree, it was alright for them to cry. That was what children did. He didn’t have to bow to the will of his father. His father wasn’t always right. “Why don’t I want prospects?”
“You know the reason, why should I—“
“Say it.”
“Because you’re a deviant!” his father exploded. Raoul stiffened. He knew it was coming, but he hadn’t known how much it would hurt for his father to call him something widely seen as an insult. Something he’d seen painted on some of the bars he frequented. He willed himself not to visibly react and almost succeeded.
“I’m not the only one who knows,” his father said. “And I’m getting tired of denying the rumors and covering up whatever’s wrong with you.”
If anyone else talked to him like this, Raoul would have already thrown them into a wall. He rarely lost his temper, but when he did, he didn’t react with words or insults. It was brute force, unchecked and released by his anger. It wasn’t that he wasn’t angry now, he was. But he couldn’t react like that in front of his father. Even with his size, even if he knew he would win in a contest of strength, a lifetime of these talks kept him in his seat.
“Then don’t deny the rumors.” Raoul didn’t know how he was forming the words, it was like his mouth was separate from his brain. Everything in his body was telling him to stop, to go back to saying “yes, sir” and “no, sir” but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “As you said, I’m doing great work for the Own and the kingdom. Why should it matter what people say about me?”
“They’re not just saying it about you! They’re saying it about all of us! It’s reflecting poorly—”
“On our family, our name, I know. I would have think that all I’ve done would outweigh one or two rumors about me. Most people with sense don’t even believe them.”
“The people you know don’t believe them. But when I was speaking to the Lord at Tirragen—”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about what Tirragen thinks of us, given that less than a generation ago, their fief facilitated high treason, but—”
“Just tell me it’s not true!” his father shouted.
Raoul heard the ragged edge of desperation in his father’s voice, and for the first time in years, really looked into his father’s eyes. He noticed how his eyebrows were starting to gray, how he didn’t look as powerful as he once did. How he looked, more than disappointed or angry, how he looked afraid, begging his only son to tell him that all the horrible rumors he’d heard were just that.
He was ready to lie. He really was. But instead he said, “I can’t.”
The pause stretched into nothingness. Raoul could hear his heart beat, see every movement in his father’s face as the two sat in total silence.
“Plenty of those people marry. Most do, in fact,” his father finally said.
Raoul shook his head. “That’s unkind.”
“It’s what people do. It’s what you will do. It’s what you’ll do to protect this family. Anything else would be selfish. And I didn’t raise you to be selfish.”
“I won’t. I won’t put someone through that. And what would you do, tie me to a horse and force a marriage?”
“You’re deflecting from the inevitable. We all make sacrifices, Raoul. This is yours.”
He had nothing else to say. He felt like a cloth that had been wrung out. There had been so much he wanted to say, so many things he felt like he could have presented, to change his father’s mind. But all the will from earlier was gone, and Raoul was the same person he always was when he sat in this chair. His father’s son. And nothing more.
“Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are dismissed.”