A.N.: Hey guys, sorry for my absence! I've been pretty busy lately, welp.
This is a little Egan/Jake something I wrote a while ago, but never thought about posting. Probably an one-shot. I went with the headcanon that Jake's mother would have been somehow abusive, which would explain his hatred towards humans.
Sometimes I wonder where it all went wrong.
Maybe it was wrong since the beginning, since the very moment he first set foot in that human village. Even now, his memories are still crystal clear: the nights he spent not knowing whether he'd be alive to see the dawn of a new day or not; the second in which a severed elvish head made him realize that staying there would lead nowhere but to his eventual death; the despair which made him finally escape, escape through forests, swamps, rivers and deserts, nights and days of running and running and looking back, not wishing to return, but only to be sure that nobody was after him, following in his footsteps with swords and arrows in hands. He remembered how exhausted he was when a wooden plaque with the words "Welcome to Gallevas" - words that he still didn't understand - greeted him, and how he thought that maybe, just maybe, he had finally found a place to stay. He didn't think about what could be waiting for him behind the walls of that town, because he knew that whatever he would find there would not be anything compared to what he had just escaped from.
But he was wrong.
He found something even worse.
He found her.
Or, she found him, sometime between the noon and the twilight, at the entrance of the town, laying on the dirty ground, nearly unconscious and as pale as a cadaver. She judged him dead, but when her curious fingers reached for his dark green hair, exposing his pointy ears, his eyes opened.
That was the beginning. Probably where it all started to go wrong, although he hadn't realized it at that time; because it was the beginning, and all beginnings are, generally, good. He could never have imagined that the delicate young human who provided him a shelter and food and nursed him back to health, who played with his pointy ears instead of being terrified by them, who made him feel like he was once again safe, would be the reason for all of his misery. A misery which had been, in fact, dragging for years and years until he finally managed to gather enough courage to bring it to an end.
He wasn't really the kind of man who would stand up against other people, but the kind who would suffer in silence, keeping his wounds to himself and expecting them to eventually heal by themselves; that was who he was, until something much more important came into his life.
That important thing was a pointy-eared little boy by the name of Jake.
He could still remember the night when reality crashed down on him: it was when he, for the millionth time, had to comfort his child, whispering promises that everything would get better, beneath the irritated, loud feminine voice coming from another room. Jake's small hands covered his own eyes, trying to hold back his tears, and all that his father could distinguish from his sobs were the words "when will it get better? When, when, when?"
"Soon," he had whispered in response.
"You always say that, but it never gets better! Stop lying to me! Why are you always lying to me?" Jake growled, before definitely bursting into tears, and blurting out: "I hate you!"
These words had a bigger impact on the older elf than he would have ever thought and left him speechless for several seconds, seconds which were filled with the sobs of his son and the yelling of his wife.
Finally, he spoke up again:
"Soon. I mean it. I promise it. I promise you."
"You're lying! Lying! Lying!"
"I promise you," he repeated, his eyes weary, and when the little boy threw himself at him for an almost desperate hug, he didn't deny it. Soon, soon it would get better. Soon he would raise his voice against his wife for the first and last time, soon he would leave that house for good. Soon both he and Jake would be far away from the woman who was the source of all their suffering, soon there would be no reason for his son to hate him at all. Soon they'd leave Gallevas and follow the road that would lead to the west elvish village, and for a few years they would have nothing but their well-deserved peace.
Or that's what he thought.
Alvarna was a good change: after living in the west for most of his life, it was refreshing for Egan to be able to go outside and see the sea whenever he felt like it. There was something very cozy about that little town, especially about the inn, despite the fact that it had been left untouched for several years now and was nearly falling apart; it took Egan good six days and the help of a few villagers to get the building to look any bit decent again. He even hung up a new banner, with a charming "INN" written in elvish-stylized letters, crafted from wood with his own hands. Truth be told, Egan had never ran any business in his entire life, but he had to lie that yes, he had, otherwise the inn would have been denied to him and he would have had absolutely nowhere to go - and he was "in some kind of hurry, you see." This way, in order to thank the villagers for their kindness, he decided that taking care of the inn the best way possible was the least he could do.
It was only their seventh day in Alvarna when Egan pondered, where did it all go wrong. He had already asked himself that question three times through his particularly long lifetime, on different occasions; this was now another one to be added to the list.
The inn's door slammed open then closed, interrupting his thoughts and making him lift his head from the table he was cleaning, his green eyes widening with the expectation of receiving a new client, and his expression relaxing once he realized it was no one but his own son.
Jake was no longer the small and fragile little boy from Gallevas; he was now almost as tall as his own father, and strong enough to handle any heavy sword given to him. His nearly white hair was cut short, proudly exposing his pointy ears, from which hanged two emerald earrings.
"Jake, I didn't expect to see you back here so..." Egan began, softly, but was interrupted by a loud growl and the sound of boots beating strongly against the wooden floor as Jake roamed around impatiently, opening cupboards and slamming them closed when not finding whatever he was looking for. Egan watched as the young half-elf browsed through all the cupboards before turning to face his father angrily.
"Where is it?" Jake asked, and when his father did nothing but quirk his eyebrows in confusion, he growled impatiently yet again. "You know what? Never mind. Forget it."
"Jake?" Egan called anxiously when the half-elf made to the leave the inn hurriedly, causing him to stop and turn, with great dislike. Well, it was still a relief not to be ignored for once.
"What?"
For a moment neither of them said a single word. The climate inside the inn was heavy and unbearable, and Egan caught himself thinking about how it turned out that way. Since when were they such strangers to each other? When did they stop being father and son?
"I'm out," Jake groaned after deducing that his father wouldn't say anything else but was once again interrupted.
"I just thought that maybe we could talk for a moment," muttered Egan, "We haven't talked in a while."
Indeed they hadn't. Jake seemed to be avoiding him as much as possible since their arrival - not like he hadn't avoided him before, but it had gotten worse in the last seven days.
The half-elf folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
"What do you want to talk about? I don't have the whole day."
Where to begin?
Leaving the counter, Egan pulled a chair from a corner, carefully folding his green raiment before sitting on it. He seemed oblivious to Jake's annoyance, who started to impatiently beat his foot against the floor, frustrated by the slowness of his father's movements.
"Jake," the elf began, once he was sitting. "Jake..."
"Spit it out."
Egan lifted his gaze to look at his son, hesitantly, sinking his slender fingers into the folds of his clothes. How do I begin? There was so much he wanted to say and so much he wanted to ask. He knew very well that the past few months hadn't been any easy for Jake as well.
"Oh, great," the boy mumbled, throwing an irritated glance at the window after the sound of rain reached his ears. "I should be at Tanya's by now. Instead I'm here, waiting for you to say absolutely nothing. Hope you are satisfied, dad."
"Jake," Egan called yet again, and waited momentarily for his son to look back at him, what didn't happen. Then, letting out a sigh, he continued: "are you enjoying Alvarna?"
Only then Jake turned his head to glare at Egan, his eyes widening before his eyebrows frowned. When he spoke up again, his voice was shaking of some kind of anger that he had been gathering for what seemed like a long, long time.
"If I'm enjoying Alvarna? What do you think?" He suddenly gestured irritatedly at his surroundings. "I hate Alvarna! I hate it! I loathe it! There are countless villages in this country, and out of all of them you had to pick Alvarna? I would rather live in the darkest forest of Norad, under the risk of being killed and devoured by goblins, than to spend the rest of my life surrounded by stupid, rude, filthy humans!" He stepped forward on Egan's direction, his eyes shining bright with fury, and hissed: "what the hell were you thinking?" And added, in a much louder tone of voice: "were you out of your damn mind?"
The anger with which Jake pronounced "stupid, rude, filthy humans" made the elf shudder and cringe on his chair. But he wasn't surprised. He wasn't surprised at all. Not after everything. He had done his best so it would never happen, but it did - he should have known that it was inevitable.
"Jake," he said, silencing as he noticed that the boy was spying the window with the corner of his eyes. The blurried silhouettes of two humans were entering the manor next to the inn, laughing delightfully, and after a few seconds Egan recognized in them the smooth blonde hair of Herman and his skinny, gap-toothed child, whose name the elf had forgotten, despite being told countless times not to. The sight of Herman taking his son into his arms to sit him on his shoulders as the kid laughed merrily crushed all of the few self-control Egan still had upon himself, and, when he turned his head to face Jake again, his voice was trembling with restrained tears. "So, Jake... where have you been sleeping at?"
It was Jake's turn to move his gaze away from the window, pausing it on Egan. The fury, which had been burning bright in his golden eyes for several minutes, seemed now to have momentarily faded away, opening the way to a shine of surprise. Yes, he did notice the heavy dark circles under his father's eyes, but, until now, he hadn't thought that he would really stay awake waiting for him during the nights he decided to go somewhere else, anywhere else other than the inn. Most of the time he stayed at Tanya's shop, where he could distract himself with swords and daggers throughout the night and let his mind wander away from anything related to his father and mother.
"Well, you know," he shrugged, quickly wiping such thoughts away from his mind. "I was working. At Tanya's."
"I see. You're getting along well with Tanya. I'm glad."
"She's nice. For a human."
"Is Tanya human? I wouldn't have known..."
"Yes, she is," Jake mumbled impatiently. "Or you think I wouldn't recognize one?"
"Oh, I see..."
"Good."
"Jake, why aren't you sleeping at home anymore?"
"Well, I can't. I can't go to the west every night only to sleep at home."
"Jake, please," Egan whimpered. "I can explain, if only you give me a chance to..."
"You want a chance to explain why you decided to ruin my life? Then go ahead. I'm giving you a chance."
"When... when I made this decision, I didn't..."
"Consider my wishes? Gave a damn about what I wanted, as long as you were satisfied, as you always do?"
"Jake!" Egan's eyes widened out of shock and despair. "Jake, I would have never..."
"You know, dad, you always have the best of intentions, don't you?"
"Jake, do I look any satisfied to you?"
"Yes," Jake growled, his eyes once again bright with fury. "Yes, you do."
"I do?" Egan suddenly stood up, and the shine in his eyes was similar to Jake's, as was the tone of his voice. "How can I ever be satisfied, if my only son is always constantly unhappy and shoving on my face that the reason for it is no other but myself?"
"What can I do? You are the reason. You are ruining my life, dad. One decision at a time," he said, lifting his gaze to stare into his father's eyes. "I hate you."
And there it was again.
The words Egan intended to say got stuck in his throat and refused to leave, no matter his efforts. He was left speechless one more time, his dark green eyes fixed on his son. Years had passed since the day he first heard such thing from Jake, yet the impact those words had upon him hadn't changed a bit.
"I'm out," Jake mumbled after realizing that his father wouldn't say a thing, heading to the door and opening it to find that the rain was still pouring outside. He hesitated, but figured that some water would be a decent price to pay to escape Egan's company.
This time, when the young half-elf left, slamming the door closed after him, Egan didn't do or say a thing to stop him. Instead, he stared blankly at the closed door, before collapsing onto the chair and burying his face in his hands.
He was going to explain, he really was, but the words had failed him and he couldn't say a thing. He couldn't say that she had found them, that he had seen her, and that she had seen him, she had seen both of them, and therefore they had to leave. They had to leave, otherwise she would ruin their lives again.
Or, even worse: she would take his son away from him. For once and all.
And Egan would never allow her to lay a single finger on his son again.
Not again.
Never again.
Not even if Jake would hate him for it.