Nathan Petrelli (selfpropelled) wrote in parabolical, @ 2009-08-14 02:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, nathan petrelli |
WHO: Dean Winchester, Nathan Petrelli
WHERE: Hyperion
WHEN: Saturday, August 5, 2006; evening [backdated]
WHAT: Dean finds out if the respectful way of going abut things is the successful way or not.
RATING: PGish
STATUS: log; COMPLETE!
Dean wasn't sure exactly why Nathan asked him to come to the Hyperion. There was, of course, the fact that Dean had asked permission to marry Claire with no answer, but Dean wasn't sure whether Nathan had asked him to come to give him the requested blessing, or to kill him before Dean could ask for Claire's hand in marriage. Honestly, either option sounded fairly feasible at the moment. With a nervous look around the lobby, Dean hoped for the best and went to Nathan's office. To his credit, he only hesitated a minute before knocking. Sighing at the expected knock, Nathan raised his head, and voice. "It's unlocked," he called, putting another folder on the stack near him before pausing to rub his jaw. He still didn't actually want to do this. To accept it was one thing, to essentially condone it was another, as it meant accepting the brief parental window he'd been granted by his daughters' arrivals here was closing for at least one of them. He was barely getting the hang of being a ''girl's father", now he'd have to learn how to let go of what had been so fragilely built. But Dean was what Claire wanted, even a blind and deaf man would know that, and Nathan wanted her to have love, a husband, a life, rather than hold herself back from humanity because she would outlive them. Dean opened the door and walked cautiously into the room. He was relieved to see there wasn't a shotgun sitting on the desk or anything like that. Although he knew the risk of that was likely almost comically low, after he had tried to auction off Claire's virginity, he wouldn't put anything past her father. Most parents didn't go for that sort of thing really well. "Thank you for asking me to come, Sir." Dean said softly, figuring the best course of action in this situation was to be as courteous as possible. He sat in the guest chair on one side of Nathan's desk and looked at Claire's biological father patiently. Was he supposed to press the issue and ask again for a blessing? Was he supposed to let Nathan bring it up? Had Nathan asked him here for something else entirely? Come on, come on...come ON already. he thought as his hands began to nervously tap on his knee. Watching Dean's nervous motions, Nathan could practically hear Heidi's reminders about what it had been like for him to do this same thing with her father. It wasn't that Nathan didn't understand how Dean's position felt, just that he felt compelled by fatherly protectiveness to do what was expected - not make this a breeze. "I called you over so we could talk, because there are certain things you just don't do over a message board," he said, tone pointed enough to make it clear that post of Dean's once upon a time would never really be forgotten. Dean cringed when Nathan brought up the message boards. He had both threatened to give Claire's virginity away there, and brought up the prospect of marrying her there for the first time. Neither was his most exceptional moment. "Yes sir. Sorry sir. I meant to ask for your blessing in another way, but..." But what? But you were being an ass...sir? But the way you were using farm terminology was confusing the hell out of me and I had to do something to shut you up...sir? For once, Dean wished he was dealing with a 'normal' father, not a superman who could fly and sue him and set all of the Hyperion on his ass in the same day. Sir, sir, sir. Dean was definitely overdoing it, as far as Nathan was concerned, which was turning the pretense of respect into something irritating. "But what, Winchester? Either you regularly half-ass things of importance, or this isn't as important as you're pretending it is. Which is it?" Nathan knew he was provoking Dean, talking like that, but it was still his parental duty to make this difficult and to be sure about the man his daughter might - and oh, how he held out hope it was a might, that Claire might decide she wasn't ready yet - marry. Dean would have to get used to it to be in this family, the argument with which Nathan continued to excuse himself, and that was that. Or maybe Nathan just really couldn't stop quiet fears from manifesting like this. Dean felt anger boiling up. Goddamn it, how was he supposed to argue with a lawyer. Most of the time he could toss out a few technical terms and bullshit his way through the conversation, but the fact of the matter was that Dean had barely made it through high school with the moving and the hunting and the flirting with girls, and he'd bet his last dollar that Nathan had likely graduated from grad school with honors. He felt like the other man was twisting everything he said to make him sound as bad as possible, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out the right thing to say, so instead he just said what felt natural. "I don't." he said quickly. "I mean, I make mistakes just like the next guy, but when it comes down to the important stuff, I'm there. It's just this..." he waved his hands to indicate the office, "Isn't what I'm really good at unless I'm on a job, and I don't want to lie and bullshit my way through this like I would a job. I love her, Mr. Petrelli. I love her a lot, and I'm gonna do right by her." That's why I'm here, talking to you. I'm TRYING to do the right thing, you jackass. Nathan wanted to find something wrong with what Dean said, pick at the idea that Dean spent some of his time conning people to get what he wanted or bring up some other piece of the past, but he couldn't do it because what Dean said was honest. He hadn't worked in the law field that many years without being able to judge his clients stories as truth or fiction. He could completely misjudge those close to him, but he usually had a good eye for truth or lies with cases. But that only answer one piece of the very complicated puzzle that would be his answer. Leaning back in the chair, Nathan steepled his fingers and looked at Dean over them. "Do you understand what you're getting into with her, Winchester? Not just her past, but what she is, what that will mean in twenty years, forty years? You're already in your thirties; she's never gonna look older than sixteen, seventeen. You're gonna grow older and die someday, she's not." His expression turned even more serious, if that were possible. "Can you handle being there through all of that, can you handle knowing that she'll have other lifetimes to live after you're gone?" Odd the ways by which a person judged fitness, especially given that, in this case, Nathan still couldn't say yes or no to the question of "can you handle this" regarding Peter, his daughters and his sister-in-law. "I don't know." Dean answered honestly. "I mean, I'm not really keen on the idea of her being with some other guy, but then again I wouldn't want her to go become a nun or something." He cringed. Maybe talking about Claire having sex with some other guy after he was gone wasn't the best way to have this talk with her Father. "It's hard." he admitted. "But Claire and I have been through a lot taking it one day at a time and we'll do this. Maybe Sarah can come up with something to help...I don't know. The only thing I do know is that the way I feel about her isn't going to change." It was venturing into chick flick territory quickly, but he doubted that the father of the girl he was hoping desperately to marry would mind. "I know how Claire is. I know her better than I've ever known anyone. I know that her body is never going to change but her mind....her mind is that of an adult. I'd never let anyone mistreat her because of the fact that she looks so young, or take advantage of it myself. I'd watch out for her, sir, I'd take care of her for the rest of my life. I know no matter who she settles down with, outliving nearly everyone she's close to will be hard for Claire, but I'll do my best to make sure that she has people there supporting her after..." Nathan mulled over all Dean said before speaking again, finding more than a few points of merit in what the elder Winchester son had to say. They weren't questions with easy or right answers, but they were important. He could hear the genuineness in what Dean said, and he approved of Dean's thoughts for the future. 'Future' wasn't really a word he would have associated with the Winchester brothers. He was still leaning back in the chair but a little tenser now as he moved forward in his questioning. "And what about if she's sent back? Or you're sent back?" Claire sent back to that living hell was the last thing Nathan wanted to consider, but he pressed on with the question anyhow. "Do you want to marry my daughter because of that possibility, or in spite of it?" There was a certain sort of security in dating Claire, that he didn't have to worry about someone hurting her and her staying dead, but the thought of her disappearing, or of him being sent back, was one that frightened him every day. "Everyone knows--" he coughed, clearing his throat before starting again. "Everyone knows that people get sent back at random, and most of the time they don't come back, or, if they do, they come back different. It doesn't do any good to argue with the people who run this place, but I'd try. Everyone said Dad was going on a wild goose chase after he went after the thing that killed my Mom, but it's just something you have to do when you lose someone like that. I'd do my damnedest to find her." He paused, thinking about the second part of Nathan's question. "I know it won't help matters to get married, because they've split up married people before, but it would make me, and I think her too, feel better to know that no matter where we got sent to, we've got that kind of a commitment." Though it hadn't been laid out to trip Dean up, Nathan's question had been for a very specific purpose, to find out if Dean was just marrying Claire for the novelty while they were here, with the thought of being a free man again someday if/when he was returned, or if he intended this commitment to Claire to be one to last beyond just this city. And Dean had managed to, either with good judgment or just the honest truth, give him the answer he'd been looking for - nearly. "Your reputation proceeds you, which I'm sure you're aware of, from the womanizing to the hard life. The hard life isn't gonna go away, not here, but I have to say, I still question the first." He rubbed his jaw with one hand, resting the other hand on his desk. "You've known Claire what, a year now? You've been dating how many months? Marriage doesn't stay in that first year bubble forever. If you thought it was hard to cope with life single, it's twice as hard to cope with it married, and I need to know that you're not gonna break my daughter's heart when she's your 'old woman' and not your brand new girlfriend." Dean knew he was no father's dream come true. He knew he had a reputation, both in womanizing, and from going to hell, and a hundred other things that would have made most parents urge their daughter to run the other way. He also knew that there was only one girl who could handle him. Claire wasn't afraid of his past, or his bullheaded present, or his stubborn future. She told him no when she felt like it, called him an ass when he needed to hear it, and let him know when he was wrong. She made him laugh and didn't say a word when he wanted to cry and on nights when his time in the pit came rushing back to him, she just held him. He had always went from woman to woman, always looking for something better or more exotic or more pleasureful than the last, but it didn't get much better than his Supergirl. He knew he could never make things even with them, but he was going to be good to her, that much he was certain of. "Just like I've said before, sir, you don't need to worry. I know what my record is, and how it looks, but since I've come to LA I've really turned things around. She's helped me with a lot of that. I'm still me, don't get me wrong, but since I got with Claire...I don't need to look around anymore. You just know when you're with the right person, when things work. Even when we're fighting and she's pissed with me, I still know I can't get anyone who's half as anything as she is." Again, in his own rough way, Dean was showing honesty to Nathan. He could never pick who his children fell in love with, but he found he was beginning to do more than merely tolerate Dean Winchester. Of course, one could be with the right person and then make a one-night mistake with the wrong person for the wrong reasons. But he wasn't going to lay his own faults on Dean, coloring his judgment. "You know I have my concerns about your family, I said as much when you first came to me over dating Claire." Well, family was more specifically 'Sam', but then Nathan had never tried to hide the fact that he thought Sam Winchester was a repeat problem waiting to happen, an opinion formed originally by things not of the boy's control, but bolstered by behavior over the last year and so. "Those concerns have only deepened recently. I'm the last man to say someone should be able to control their family, that loyalty to a brother is less than loyalty to another, but what if someday, his actions go further than they did this time, what if you have to make a choice between the family you're making and the family you were born to?" Of course, it couldn't go much further than the Apocalypse, but end of world scenarios weren't the only ones with the power to hurt an entire group of people. Nathan himself has once made the choice between brother and child, after all, and it had been a personally selfish, childish choice - even if it had been the only one he could see at the time. Sam...Sam Sam Sam. He was at times Dean's best male friend, and at other times the person most likely to drive him to insanity. Lately Sam had done a lot of things to test their bonds as brothers, and while there were days when he'd be tempted to write his baby brother off for good, he knew he couldn't. On the other hand, Dean was already a father, and he wanted to marry Claire, perhaps have more children with her, if she was willing. It was a valid question, if a difficult one. "I hope we've already been through the worst with Sam. He's my brother and I...he means a lot to me. I think he really has changed this time, but if he hasn't? Well I guess I'd have to decide that at the time. Ben's just a kid, and I have to keep him safe, and if Claire and I had kids, that would be the same. Claire and I would have to figure out what to do about Sam, what was safe and what wasn't. I know you don't want her getting hurt, and I know he's been dangerous, but even if we weren't dating, she'd still be in the middle of it. Claire's an amazing friend like that, and she's Sam's friend too." She'd still be in the middle of it. It was true and Nathan still hated it. Living in this city was dangerous enough, but it was a danger to her because of the ability she had, because of the side she fought on and because of the company she kept. None of those things were ones Nathan could change. But he could make sure that where he or Peter or another of the family weren't, she would still have someone there to protect her. As much as he didn't want to admit it, that person was clearly Dean, not just by his words, but by Claire's choices before now. He was quiet for a long time, saying nothing, moving very little, but finally he rose to his feet and moved around the desk. When he was near Dean, he stopped. "I'm not giving my permission, because it's not mine to give," he said, then, with one last force of will that required reason to override parental irrationality, he held out his hand, "but I'll give my blessing. His older daughter married - provided she said yes. He still had younger daughter who wasn't getting married anytime soon. That was still something to keep him sane, right? Dean almost messed the moment up by not responding quickly enough, and for a moment he just stared at the extended hand. Was this some sort of trick? A last test? Did Nathan really give him his blessing? Still, not one to think too hard on a gift like this one, Dean quickly stood and took Nathan's hand, shaking it firmly. He had really done it. He had Nathan's blessing to marry Claire. There were many things he needed to take care of before he could actually ask her, like getting a ring, coming up with a proposal, ect, but this was one huge step out of the way. "Thank you very much, sir. I won't disappoint you." |