It was blunt, but it got the point across. He could hear the reactions from other's, his own more subdued than he could've been given the easy airing of laundry he'd… already aired a few times himself today. Instead, it's a slow breath. Setting the medallion where was necessary, before retreating to the podium marked for Aphrodite. Settling his gaze on the waters of the basin, and letting everything else fade out. Background noise as he once again chipped a piece of marble off of himself.
There were so many facets of love that he'd never experienced. A life spent keeping people at arms length, of focusing on career and pushing everything else to way side, some memory of an attempt at a love could suffice. But he knew he had to go deeper. He'd let himself find strength in the memories of those here, of his mother, so let him offer up the worst of it. Feed that desire for love he was slowly learning to accept could be found somewhere other than his father.
Because deep down, right in his core, there would always be an empty space where it should be. Where he should've heard so many things to fill it. I'm proud of you, you've done such a good job, look at how far you've come, look at what you've accomplished. So many words that any loving parent would've given him, but instead?
The memory that surfaces is of Gustave, barely a decade old, staring through the glass in to the nursery at the hospital. A room filled with so many new lives, but Gustave? His eyes were fixated on one bundle in particular, told to wait outside while his father was in there. He'd been excited. All throughout the pregnancy, he'd been thinking of how he could be the best big brother. Tried his best to help Charlotte wherever he could. Babbled endlessly about it, despite neither of them particularly encouraging him. His father pushed him to keep studying, to focus. His hands were covered in band aids as they rested against the cold surface, and even from here he could see it. Something in the mans eyes as he bundled fabric and baby in to his arms. Something that had never once been sent in Gustave's direction.
Love. Given freely. Given openly. Given readily. Just for existing. Not earned through blood sweat and tears.
He didn't need to hear to know what words his father's lips formed, looking down at Nicholas. You're perfect.
It was that moment, that second, that Gustave got in his head that he needed to be that. Perfect. Faultless. Flawless. He could never make a mistake, he could never do something wrong, because then maybe he'd hear it. Maybe then he'd be looked at with love, with care, with… Just seen. But he never would be. Not by his father, his step mother. Not by his brother, taught to treat him with just as much disdain as their parents. Maybe there was hope there, for something, but… It was a bridge he certainly hadn't managed to start building in the memory he fed to the ritual.
The memory of his father's love. Just not for him. Something he'd have willingly offered Lethe, to wash himself clean of that, but he knew he needed that emptiness within himself still. To better understand the moment it was filled with other peoples words and encouragement. He'd replace that memory with the hope he'd been pulling on this entire quest, and hope that fed in to this ritual. Give Patroclus something to hold on to, alongside everything else that was being offered.
