I disowned myself Derwent - no, David, he was David now, Derwent was dead - didn’t know what he was doing. He’d had a stash of galleons in his room that he kept for emergencies and that was paying for his first week at the hotel, but it wasn’t going to last forever. He had a bank account- of course he did, he was a financier, and he’d put in well over half a century of work (he didn’t really want to do the math to determine whether he was closer to a full century already) - but accessing it would require that he demonstrate that Derwent wasn’t dead.
Like his youngest son, he wasn’t disowned, just removed from the line of succession, so he was allowed use his name still, and it was his own personal money that he’d earned in a lifetime of wages, so he was fully entitled to it, but . . . he just didn’t want to be Derwent anymore.
He didn’t know why he’d chosen Boston. Jessica and Derry Four had left him. Three had been forcibly removed. They had not been close even before it all went wrong. He had dutifully loved his family as he was supposed to, but he’d had trouble connecting with the boys. He was not good with children. He did not know how to interact with the irrational, flighty, messy creatures. He had looked forward to the day he’d have grown children, who he could talk to as adults, and he supposed that day had come some time ago, but they hadn’t been around anymore by then.
As for Jessica, that relationship had strained past it’s breaking point a long time ago. The divorce papers she had sent him by certified courier were proof of that.
He did not expect any of them were keen to see him again, and he did not know how to find them even if they were.
He supposed he came to Boston because that was where Pierces went when they left the mountain in disgrace. He’d called himself David Price because it was the only name that wasn’t his that he could think of on the spot that’s he might stand a remote chance of responding to. That it had once been Three’s name when he was hiding from his family just made it all the more appropriate.
He had not planned any of it.
He had no plans at all. For a man who had lived by the same routine for almost three quarters of a century, it was entirely terrifying.
He did not know where to find his ex-wife or sons, but he knew where to find Thesius’ oldest. DISCUSS had a Boston office, and he knew she worked in it. He did not want to go to that particular place any more than he wanted to use his name at the local bank.
But he did know that one of the things DISCUSS did - one of the things he still resented them for - was help disowned or disillusioned purebloods adapt to life outside of Society.
David was nothing if not disillusioned. The man at the reception desk gave him a pitying and knowing look even as he provided directions.
“Hello, welcome to - Derwent?”
“David,” David told Amelia shortly. “I am David Price the Second.”
She stared at him. She was older than he was expecting. Logically, he knew she had broken half a century, but he’d still been expecting her to look like the twenty something he had last seen some thirty years ago. “What happened?” she finally managed.
“M- She,” he could not call her Mother, not anymore. Her eldest son was dead, “She named Marcus the new patriarch,” he shared. Amelia had the right to know. The Boston branch was disowned, but they were still blood. As the Matriarch, she needed to know. “I left.”
“Are you...?” she didn’t say the word. She didn’t have to.
“Not officially. I disowned myself.”
She nodded. It wasn’t really a done thing. But skipping the eldest heir in favor of his younger brother wasn’t a done thing either.
“Father?”
She wasn’t supposed to call Thesius that. She was dead, too, even if it was less voluntarily and she hadn’t changed her name. He frowned at her and waited.
She rolled her eyes and rephrased her question appropriately. “Thesius?”
“As best as I know, he has not disowned himself.” He had looked as stunned and betrayed as David had felt, but Thesius had not been the official heir for all of these years. The insult was less direct. “He was invited to move into the west wing of the manor, but he and Katrina do need to leave the Heir’s House.”
She raised a surprised eyebrow. “He was in the Heir’s House?”
“Myself, Marcus, Caitlin the Elder, and Duesius had moved into the Manor to make room for the younger families. Thesius was my Heir, so he got the Heir’s House.”
“And she named Marcus?”
“Thaddeus ... married a mixed blood. It was far enough back to be merely distasteful rather than scandalous, but it put them back.”
Amelia grimaced in obvious disapproval. Of him and M- Her, David thought, not of Thaddeus. “What are you doing here, Derwent?”
“David,” he corrected again. “I thought DISCUSS could tell me how to get name change forms and maybe provide an orientation pamphlet for surviving outside Society. That is what you do, isn’t it?”
She gave him a long hard look then sighed and nodded. “That is what we do. I just never expected we’d do that with you.” She opened and desk drawer and began rifling through the papers there. “Fair warning, most of the advice we offer is aimed at, well, women or um, younger people.”
David was well aware he was not a part of the demographics that normally found themselves cut off from society. He was pushing ninety. Hardly the age most people needed to start their life over.
“Just give me what you can and I’ll figure out what applies to me and what doesn’t.”