Chapter Four

"Release my arm or I'll break yours." He never wanted to hurt Nate but right now he needed to get away and his boyfriend was preventing him from doing that.

"No" Great now not only was Nate preventing him from leaving but he was causing him to become even angrier. Dragging his leg around the back of Nates he quickly yanked at the back of the knee throwing Nate off balance and effectively knocking him to the ground, but what he wasn't expecting as he turned back around to leave the hotel room was the vice grip both his legs were put in, almost like a hug, pulling him back hard causing him to lose his footing and land right on his stomach.

"Damn you Nate!" Eliot breathed harshly. He really should have known better than to turn his back even if it was just Nate.

"No, Damn you Eliot! I can understand if you're mad but there's got to be boundaries, you have to show me some respect too." Nate huffed slowly sitting up, he had not been expecting Eliot to drop him like that and it had hurted too.

"Don't you even start preaching about respect to me, you're the last person in the world who has that right." Eliot growled standing back up, all he wanted to do was go blow off some steam but Nate was really starting to tick him off.

"Thats true," He agreed not wanting to stir up that mess at the moment. "but how do you expect me to know what to do or say or better yet not to if I don't know why you're mad to begin with."

"It's none of your business!"

"What's wrong?" Nate moved closer, he was used to a hot headed Eliot but behind all that was something else that was worrying him.

"Nothing! I'm perfect, everythings perfect, my parents are just fuckin' perfect! Everyones doin' good and things are just awesome!" Eliot shot sarcastically, going to sit down. If Nate insisted on him staying then he would have to deal with the consequences.

"What happened at Sarahs?" Nate asked, gripping the hand that was squeezing the arm chair. The second Eliot mentioned his parents he had an idea but right now he needed to focus on getting Eliot to release his grip on the chair or he was quite likely to break a finger if not worse.

"Are you ready to go back to Boston?" Eliot pulled away, he would usually say he was very self controled, he took pride in that fact but apparently when it came to Nate or his family that control went out the window.

"No, I came here to talk to you about our vacation, and you came here to spend Easter with your family so I don't think you are either." Nate said respecting Eliots space but staying close.

"Change of plans." Eliot breathed starting to feel his anger disipate though it was turning into a sort of loneliness.

"Lets go out then." Nate suggested seeing the change immediately. He wanted answers but he knew Eliot wasn't going to give any and there was no use in making things worse.

"Where to?" He sighed. He didn't want to go anywhere but atleast it looked like Nate would leave things alone for now.

"Take me back to your little hideaway."

"It's not a hideaway." Eliot grumbled trying to focus on their bickering and not the memories that were resurfacing.

"I don't care what you call it, lets go." Nate stood pulling on Eliot as he tried to make him do the same.

"That's over two and a half hours away."

"Your point."

"It'll be dark by the time we get there." Eliot protested lamely knowing that was a poor excuse.

"Good, now come on lets go." Nate had an idea on how to get Eliot to open up but they needed some place that would give alot more privacy.

"Why?"

"Will you just humor me."

"Lets go." Eliot got up not paying any mind to Nate as he left his room knowing he would follow, maybe the drive would help to clear his head and get his emotions in check.

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About forty minutes of driving in a semi awkward silence and Nate decided it was time to put his plan into action, he just hoped it didn't blow up in his face. "You know when I was younger I'd actually look up to my dad, I thought he was pretty cool."

"What are you doing?" Nate never talked about his dad and Eliot had a feeling this was some kind of trap or trick.

"Sharing, now shut up and listen. It wasn't until I got older that I realized how much of a loser he really was, that's how I eventually ended up in monastery school." The laugh was near sardonic. "I wanted as far away from him and all his crap as I could get, what better way to do that than become a priest. As you know that didn't exactly work out but it didn't matter, I got into insurance and I started going after all the scum that were just like my father. I made the big mistake of grouping people as if it could actually be that easy, and I paid for it." He needed a minute after that last part to get rid of the memories of how much he really did lose, especially the ones of his son.

"Good, bad, right, wrong. It's never that simple, I was so busy trying to get away from the lifestyle my father had that I pulled myself right into it without noticing." He admitted. "After Sam, well after he... I thought back on what I had done and what could have possibly been done differently and I honestly don't know if I could have changed anything but I know there isn't a day where that question isn't plagueing me. The point is I allowed myself to become blinded by my hate and anger and well you've seen how that ended first hand." Nate finished uneasily, sure he had chose to bring it all up but it still left him fidgety. He hadn't shared much but it had been more than ever before and with Eliots silence he had begun to feel exposed and a bit vulnerable.

"We'll be there in an hour." Eliot said entertwining their fingers. It might have seemed like his plan backfired but Nate knew differently, even if it was unintentional Eliot was giving him reassurance and support by the hold he had his hand in and he knew that eventually he'd get what he wanted.

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Slowly pulling off the road and down the trail that would lead him to his destination Eliot pondered what he would tell Nate. He had spent the last hour thinking about everything Nate had told him and he knew he needed to say something of his own. He could just stay quiet but he had a feeling that would cause damage to the relationship he and Nate had just begun to rebuild and that wasn't a risk he was willing to take. "Do you still love him?" He finally asked turning off his truck and turning to face Nate.

"My dad?" Nate questioned having been caught off guard, this wasn't how he expected this conversation to start.

"Yeah"

"He's my dad." Nate shrugged.

"That's not an answer." Eliot admonished sternly, if Nate expected him to be open than he should know he'd have to do the same.

"He's a stubborn old man that I can't be in the same room with for more than five minutes without fighting and we never do anything more than bump heads but yeah," Nate slowly breathed. "I love the guy."

Nodding his head absently Eliot got out of his truck and started walking slowly in the direction they had been driving. "Where are you going?" Nate yelled from his opened door. When he got no answer he slammed the door as he hurried to catch up.

"Sarah invited our parents over for tomorrow." Eliot finally let out after they had been walking for a few minutes.

"And that's a bad thing?" Nate wondered as he tried his best to be supportive.

"Yes, well I don't know, maybe." The frustration was building again. "I just don't see how she can forgive them so easily."

"El, I don't want to seem rude but it sounds like you got alot of build up to go through and I don't know any of it so why don't you start at the beginning." Nate suggested, hopefully it wouldn't cause Eliot to change his mind and withdraw.

"Remember the accident I told you about?" Eliot knew full well Nate knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Yeah the bike accident that nearly gave your mother a heart attack, I remember."

"What I didn't tell you was the only reason she was worried like that was because she thought I had hurt my face." Eliots smile was a wry one. " A scar like that would have ruined her Christmas card." Things stayed quiet for awhile as Nate pondered what he should say if anything and Eliot just continued his walk with no real destination in mind. "They're fairly decent people overall, they just never should have had kids."

"Then why did they?" Nate was glad to have something relatively safe to ask.

"Strive for perfection." Eliot let out darkly as if it was some sort of mantra. "My father has certain standards he lives by and expects everyone else to too. My mother is materialistic and just well vain, she always has to make sure that she and the house are prim and presentable. He had the perfect job, perfect wife, and perfect home, all he was missing to become the picture of perfection was the children."

"Is living in a perfect world so bad?" Nate asked before realizing that was not something he should have said.

"Perfection is a lie." Eliot spat. "My parents are," He shrugged not really sure which words would describe them accurately. "Things weren't to bad until after Sarah was born. Ma thought of Sarah as her own personal doll to play with until she started dirtying the dresses and pulling out the bows. Then dad would come home and yell about the house being a mess and mom would scream how he didn't understand how hard it was to take care of us and the chores because he was never at home, and I would just hide in the nursery with the baby and remind myself the best I could that it wasn't my fault they were fighting yet again no matter what they said to suggest different." He remembered being more than told by his father quite a few times when his parents got to fighting.

"You took care of Sarah like a big brother should." Nate reassured pulling him closer.

"I tried. I was still little myself but I did my best to keep her entertained and happy so she wouldn't cry and get momma in a bad mood. That plan didn't work out to well though cuz I started school that same year, the fights continued and I did my best to keep Sarah from getting upset. I used to tell her a bunch of stories about her being a princess and me a knight in training, and that when I got to be old enough to pass all the tests I'd rescue us both from there and we'd never have to look back." Eliot smirked remembering how naive and innocent he actually was once.

"You're a knight now."

"To bad Sarah had to save herself." He appreciated the squeeze to his shoulder but it didn't change the fact that he had left her behind after spending years promising not to. "After Aaron came my mother figured out a system to fix things with my father, she'd put Aaron and Sarah out back in a playpen while she did all the cleaning . When she finished all that she'd sit out there with them until I got home from school, then I'd do my homework while I watched them and she started dinner. After that everyone got cleaned and dressed and by the time my dad was home from work he'd have have his perfect house and family to sit down to dinner with." Eliot huffed hating that he actually lived through that nonsense.

"She left her children outside so the house stayed pristine to please your father?" A home was supposed to be a place where your family could dwell happily and feel secure, Nate found himself in disbelief that Eliot wasn't given that. That may not have been the beating you expected upon hearing the word but it sure sounded like child abuse.

"Not always, she had a few different ways to keep us from causing a ruckus, we were never allowed access to the whole house though just a room or two, usually mine. We've never been more than trophies to them to take out or put away as they found necessary, though most summers were spent with our grandparents which was a nice change." Those summers probably held some of his fondest memories, that ranch was where he road his first horse and his grandfather had let him at barely twelve drive for the first time. "I was about ten when I just started taking them places, Aaron was only three and my mom didn't even care where we went or how long we were gone as long as I had them back and cleaned up before dad got home." Eliot stopped abruptly suddenly sitting. Nate too sat deciding it was a good time to break from their walk and the life story, it had been more then he imagined receiving and he was going to take some time to process it all.

E/N: I hope this came out well cuz it was giving me trouble and it started getting to long so I had to split it. Hope you enjoyed this and the next part should be up soon!