Happy Friday Ocean! I'd love to see something with Thom Rainier/Gordon Blackwall and the prompt "holding the other’s chin up" from the touches ask game!
OKAY! Two and a half years later, after not writing for DA in, like, the same amount of time, and not doing DWC for a million years, here's, uh, something! Sorry for the necro-post on your prompt, I guess?
The rain beats down on Thom, soaking his gambeson, threatening his footing in the dirt rapidly turning to mud beneath him. Gordon sips his whisky from the porch as he watches Thom in the makeshift training yard. He'd set up a dummy for him, gave him what was basically a stick for a training sword, and told him to "work it out"--ll his rage, all his despair, all the piss and vinegar that filled him. He could leave it in the dirt-strewn yard in this little piece of life in the Storm Coast, and Gordon would welcome him back inside after he got whatever it was out of his system. He's been out here for the greater part of two hours.
Gordon knows the man's sins, of course. They weren't easy to live with, they couldn't be, but he is confident in his choice of offering him a home within the Wardens. His past won't matter once he survives the Joining, and Gordon is certain he will. Thom is strong in body and mind, and has a determination that could change the world, if he bends his will to doing so. Most of all, he has a remorseful streak a mile wide, since Gordon had lifted him from the bottom of a bottle in that no-name Orlesian village tavern. He will make a fine Warden.
Thom breaks the arm of the dummy, shattering it and the stick with the force of his blow. Listless, he sinks to the muddy ground, staring blankly ahead at the mess, and sits like that for a while, just soaking in the rain. Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance. Gordon finishes his whisky, sets the glass down on the rail of the porch, and strides out into the rain.
"How are you, Thom?" he asks, coming to his side. He surveys the damage. The training dummy is reparable if he wants to cart it to Highever, and that's not a huge expense in anything other than time. He needs to go into town soon, anyway.
Thom doesn't answer. Gordon moves in front of him and waits, but he doesn't look up, so he reaches down and gently grasps his chin to seek his gaze. "Thom?" he prompts.
He only leans forward and wraps his arms around Gordon's hips, pressing his cold cheek into his belly. Gordon pets his dark, rain-matted hair as Thom begins to shake and cry. "There, there," he says, his words quiet over the sound of Thom's sobs. "Get it out. That's a good lad. You're okay. Let it out."
Thom howls into the thick fabric of Gordon's shirt. Gordon closes his eyes against the rain that streams down his face. He doesn't know the particular demon that is riding Thom's shoulders today but he knows there's a great many which could be doing it, and grief knows no logic. There is no use trying to guess at the source of Thom's sorrow before he's ready to speak of it. He can only hold him, as he has for a handful of nights now, and offer the solace and safety of his embrace.
It feels like forever before the howling stops and Thom quiets down. He's clutching Gordon's shirt like a lifeline, and maybe it is, something solid in the face of the tempestuous sea of his emotions. Gordon slowly comes down to one knee in the mud to look Thom in the eyes.
"Why don't we go inside and get warm?" he says. Gordon gathers Thom in his arms, cradling him with his chin resting on Thom's crown. "We'll catch our deaths out here in the storm."
"Okay," Thom mutters, his voice rough as gravel.
Together, they rise and leave the broken mess in the training yard. Gordon picks up his cup from the porch as they pass into the house, and helps Thom out of his soaked clothes. He wraps him in a blanket and sets him in one of the chairs by the hearth before adding more logs to the fire, and then brings the bottle of whisky back from the kitchen with another cup for Thom.
"Here," he says, offering him a long pour. "Warm you up on the inside and out." Thom accepts it with a grunt and tosses it back with a grimace, and Gordon refills his offered cup. "Do you feel better?"
Thom gazes at the fire and nurses his drink. "No," he replies slowly, "but maybe that's the point."
Gordon frowns. "I find that suffering isn't often the point of living," he offers after a moment of thought.
Thom doesn't turn back to him. "But of penance."
"Perhaps." Gordon takes a drink. "Is to suffer the best way to pay our debts?"
Thom glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "It's the only way I know, right now."
Something in Gordon aches at that answer, though it's an answer he's heard so many times. He just nods in acceptance and watches the fire. If Thom wishes to talk about it, he will, but Gordon knows better now than to press too hard.
Eventually Thom throws back the rest of his drink. He gets up and crowds into Gordon's space, naked as the day he was born, and speaks wordlessly of other things, and Gordon follows the conversation gladly.
