Chapter 25: {24}

Nate was struggling with the buttons of his shirt, it really wasn’t the buttons fault, it was more Nate’s shaky hands. He had chosen a dark blue button down with long sleeves that were turned up at the wrist and dark skinny jeans, figuring that half serious, half casual would be a good mix.

He ran a hand through his dark hair as he stared at himself in the mirror. He looked prepared, he figured, as long as he could get these damn buttons to work. His hands gravitated back towards the buttons, the tiny things not complying.

‘Here, let me help you,’ Brody said, coming up from behind.

Nate turned around to face Brody, showing him the mess that he had made of his shirt. Nate dropped his hands from his shirt, leaving the space open for Brody to swoop in. His mate’s fingers were able to push the tiny buttons through the holes easily, only taking a few seconds on each button before he was straightening the collar on the shirt too. ‘You look great,’ Brody assured him. ‘Take a deep breath and just talk to him.’

Nate nodded, ‘I will.’ He then did a double take, Brody had been an emotional wreck all day, only eating a third of his dinner and fidgeting with his fingers whenever he was thinking to himself, and yet he was the one calming him down. Nate had been prepared to be the one to sit Brody down before he left to see his father and tell him it was all going to be fine, but it looked like that wouldn’t be necessary anymore. ‘How are you so calm?’ he asked his mate.

Brody shrugged, his hands dropping from the collar. ‘I saw your hands shaking before and I realised that this is going to be really hard for you, and I guess my mind decided that only one of us can go through an emotional breakdown at a time.’

Nate laughed, ‘We are a great couple.’

Brody’s face stayed serious, only a little smile at his lips, ‘The best.’

Nate shoved his sock covered feet in his canvas shoes and faced Brody with more vulnerability on his face than he would let anybody else see. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to say.’

Brody stepped forwards, ‘I don’t know either, but even if it’s worst case scenario, we will figure it out, together.’

‘He could make us go back to our packs alone, he could take away our titles and with the way your pack is right now-’ he stopped there. He wasn’t sure if he should continue that sentence. Brody hadn’t brought up his father’s illness since the day that he had revealed it to Nate, and he wasn’t sure if bringing it up himself was a good idea.

Brody didn’t seem fazed by what Nate had said, ‘We can worry about all that if it happens.’

Nate nodded, ‘You’re right.’

Nate smiled as Brody slowly wrapped his arm’s around his mate’s chest, resting his head over Nate’s racing heart. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ Brody assured him. Nate held onto Brody for a few seconds, allowing the close proximity to his mate release some of the worry that was flowing through his body.

He remembered a line from a song he had once heard, something about lovers slow dancing in a burning room and he held onto Brody tighter. He felt like they were living on borrowed time, that at any moment the carpet could be swept out from under them and the relationship that they had built would crumble and fall around them until there was nothing left. It was his worst fear, and he pressed a kiss to Brody’s forehead, his lips lingering against the skin in a silent promise that he would do whatever it took to keep them together. He was going to make sure that the fire would go out and that they could slow dance forever.

They slowly pulled apart, ‘Let’s do this,’ Nate said in newfound determination.

‘He knows you’re coming, right?’ Brody asked.

Nate nodded, ‘Yeah, I called his assistant yesterday and made sure that he could see me tonight after his meetings.’

He and Brody left Nate’s room, closing the door behind them as they stepped into the well-lit hallway. Nate felt confident as they took the elevator down to the lobby, his resolve fading a little when they stepped out of the main doors into the darkness, the main building looking like a castle in its own right, the way that it was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was tall and intimidating as they started walking towards it.

‘What are you going to say?’ Brody asked as they walked through the darkness. The moon light and small lamps lit their way, and Nate loved the way that he could just make out Brody’s exposed tattoo’s under the moonlight. ‘To your father, I mean.’

Nate hadn’t really thought that far ahead. ‘I’ll just tell him that I’ve found my mate, and see where it goes.’ He hoped that would be enough, he really did, but his mind was screaming at him that nothing in his life was as simple as that. You don’t get to win the war without fighting the battle.

They walked along the pathways side by side, the two of them touching hands casually with every step, but never linking them. Nate wondered if tomorrow when they left their rooms if they could walk hand-in-hand, if he could show the world that Brody was his. The Alpha side of Nate liked that thought very much.

Nate was seemingly too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice that Brody had gone quiet beside him, he looked over at his mate, but Brody just looked down at his feet, his steps slowing down.

‘Is he going to hate me once he finds out it’s me?’ Brody asked in a small voice.

Nate wondered where that had come from. He shook his head, nudging Brody gently to get him to lift his gaze. ‘Brody, my father hates everything,’ he joked.

The joke didn’t reach Brody, ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ he asked sourly.

Nate felt bad, he didn’t mean for his words to hurt Brody’s feelings. ‘I just mean that most days I don’t even think he likes me. Anyway, it’s not my father that you should worry about, it’s my mother.’

‘What about her?,’ Brody asked, and Nate could almost see his mate’s thoughts as they ran through his mind. He was undoubtedly imagining the possible horrors that his mother was made of.

‘Oh,’ Nate smirked teasingly. ‘My mother will probably feed you so much spaghetti and hot chocolate that your sides will explode and she will worry over you so much that it will feel like you have a second mother.’

Brody laughed, biting at his lip. ‘Really?’

‘Yep,’ Nate smiled. ‘From the stories that you told me about your mother, I bet that they would be the best of friends.’

Brody smiled widely at that. Nate could tell that Brody’s worry from before had disappeared and seeing that helped to somewhat dissolve the worry that had started pilling in the pit of his stomach since they started walking towards the building that currently housed his father.

The words of Nate’s mother had him thinking of her, of the woman who gave him his lightly tanned skin and dark coloured hair. She was the one who told him of the wonder of mates, who read him bedtime stories of their perfect meetings and love stories that lasted lifetimes, and yet she was the same woman who he saw crying over a photo of she and his father just before he had left for camp. Every time his father would leave for yet another business trip she would smile and hand him his bag at the door, kissing him chastely and saying goodbye with a smile on her lips that would fade the second that the door closed. She was brought up proper, and so she would hold it together, making small talk with her sons as she drove them to school and cooked the same dinners as she would every week, and yet she was different. Her spark was gone, and Nate watched over and over again as his father came home and it returned like he had never left, and she was fine, but he wasn’t. Nate wasn’t.

His mother was hurt every time she was without his father and Nate wondered what a life time like that would feel like, and it caused him an almost physical pain. He wasn’t going to let that be him and Brody, he wouldn’t live like that, he wasn’t that kind of man.

They reached the main doors of the building suddenly, Nate not realising how close they had gotten to it. They stopped, looking at each other.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Brody asked, but Nate knew that this was something that he had to do alone, as much as he really did hate to leave Brody all alone out in the dark.

‘Nah, I’ll be fine, but make sure you go back to the room, it’s dark out here,’ he told Brody.

Brody laughed, ‘Yes, Mom,’ he teased. ‘Whatever you say.’

Nate bit his lip, holding back a smile at Brody’s newfound sass.

‘I’ll meet you back at my room?’ Brody asked. ‘You can tell me how it went?’

‘Sounds perfect,’ Nate agreed.

Brody looked somewhat hesitant, but he started walking back towards the accommodation building when Nate turned towards the doors again. He pushed them open with both hands. It was strange seeing the inside of the building late at night. There was no commotion, people weren’t talking on cell phones or rushing to staff meetings, instead there was an unfamiliar silence to the space that made Nate feel almost uncomfortable.

He walked down the halls alone, finding the room which his father always conducted business out of when he was at the camp. Nate hoped that his father wouldn’t be in a bad mood from the flight, having just gotten into town a few hours ago. To be fair, he knew his father was in a bad mood about ninety percent of the time, so his hopes were pretty farfetched. His father's bad moods didn't mean screaming or complaining. They just meant his father was straight to the point and had no time for pointless conversation or activities.

He found the overly decorated hallway which he knew off by heart. He had seen the tacky art every time he had visited his father while he was at camp over the years. He found his way to the black door, knocking gently on it.

‘Come in,’ his father’s naturally harsh voice ordered.

Nate did what he was instructed and opened the door, walking into the room. It hadn’t changed since he had been here last, the large couch was still pushed up against the side wall with the television against the other. The window that usually offered light over his father and the desk only showed darkness, and the light now came from the ceiling, a low handing pendant light illuminating the room.

Nate met his father’s gaze, ‘Can I sit?’ he asked.

His father nodded, gesturing to the chair which faced his desk.

Nate could feel his palms sweating as he sat down, facing his father’s intimidating appearance face on. The man was dressed in his usual suit, despite the fact that it was well after usual business hours. He was looking at Nate with a hard pressed stare, and Nate wasn’t sure what to do now.

‘Your teacher’s tell me that you have been doing well in history classes this year,’ his father told him, obviously pleased with this.

Nate smiled hesitantly, ‘Yeah, my friend has been tutoring me,’ he replied honestly, leaving out the part where an hour tutoring with Brody was about twenty minutes of actual study and forty minutes of making out on top of history books, which is just about as comfortable as it sounds, but it sure as hell beat studying. It seemed that those few twenty minute sessions actually did help, as Nate wasn’t completely clueless when it had come to his exams this year.

‘Now, why was it that you wanted to see me tonight? I did tell my assistant that we could have breakfast tomorrow, but she said you insisted tonight.’

Nate took a few seconds to gather the courage before speaking, ‘I do have something important that I need to speak with you about.’

His father’s nodded, ‘Well, go on then, I won’t bite,’ he said in a rare joke, but Nate wasn’t sure if he believed him.

‘I, uh,’ Nate mumbled out. He was moments away from backing down and just leaving this situation to go back to Brody’s warm arms, but then it hit him that this was his chance, and that if he missed this then he was sure that he and Brody would be separated after the next three days, something that Nate honestly couldn’t live with. ‘I found my mate.’

His father’s usually stony expression made way for something that looked kind of like a smile. ‘You met your mate?’ he asked, bewildered.

‘Yeah, I did.’

His father did that strange almost smile thing, ‘This is the one and only time that I will let you off the hook for sneaking out of camp, and on a full moon. I never imagined a child of your mother’s and mine could be such a defiant teenager,’ he almost laughed.

Nate bit at his lip, ‘I didn’t sneak out of camp.’

His father looked at him, ‘How did you meet her then?’

Nate leant forwards in his chair, ‘I’m going to tell you something and you have to promise that you’ll believe me, even if it sounds crazy.’

‘Okay,’ he agreed hesitantly.

Nate straightened his posture, drawing as much courage into himself as he could muster. ‘I met my mate at camp because he is an Alpha too.’

His father’s stony expression didn’t change at the information, and dread started to fill Nate. He wished that he could read his father’s mind, his face never showing any insight to how he was feeling or what he was thinking.

‘Your mate, what is his name?’ he asked.

‘Brody Lewis,’ Nate replied quietly. His father wrote the name down in his note book, the silence during those few seconds weighing heavily on Nate’s chest. ‘I need your help, we don’t want to be separated when camp finishes and we don’t know what to do.’

‘This is not an issue for me, this is an issue with the council,’ he replied sternly.

‘The council?’ Nate asked.

‘Yes. We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon, the rest of the council members will be flying in for our monthly meeting for it. You can present your case, and we as a whole will decide both of your fates,’ he explained with his gruff tone.

Nate was getting what he wanted, this was his chance for them to have a future together, and yet it felt like he just got punched in the gut by a champion fighter. He looked at his father and realised that his father didn’t even care, his father treated it like some problem on paper that he and the council could solve in an afternoons work. This was his son, this was his son and his son’s mate. It was supposed to matter to him, he was supposed to have an opinion.

Nate wouldn’t have cared if he had slammed his fist against the table and accused Nate of tricking him, because at least that would be a reaction. That would be something. That would show that he cared about his son, even just a little bit.

‘You know,’ Nate hissed out. ‘Brody is everything to me. He is the reason that I wake up in the morning and just thinking of him makes me smile. He looks like a badass, but he cares, he cares so deeply about the people around him and he’s so passionate that people mistake it for insolence, but really it’s just him. He is an all or nothing type of guy, and that is why I am so glad that I was lucky enough to be his mate.’

His father looked at him strangely, ‘Why are you telling me all of this?’ he asked.

Nate huffed, ‘I am not some problem that you can solve in a ten minute council meeting session. This is my life, this is my future, and I need you to know what I could be losing tomorrow. I could be losing the most important thing that has ever happened to me, and what? You don’t care? You have more important things to worry about?’

His father’s face softened, and he looked more human than Nate had seen in a long time yet there was no one single emotion that Nate could pick out.  ‘I’m not good at this,’ he admitted. ‘You’re mother once told me that my mind worked more like a computer than a humans and that was why I had such a hard time connecting with people. Your mother, she is the complete opposite to me, and when we first met I wondered how on earth we were chosen for each other. She was the type of girl who nursed injured birds back to health,’ he smiled fondly. ‘and yet she was perfect for me, she balanced me out in every way, just as I’m sure that your mate does.’

Nate bit at his lip. He had never heard his father talk so much, and the rare sight made him smile just a little.

‘I’m not going to sugar coat this,’ he explained. ‘You could get separated, you could get both of your titles taken off of you just because the council is afraid of the unknown and because of tradition, but I’m going to promise you this; I am going to fight for you, for both of you.’

Nate wanted so badly to run straight around the desk, maybe over it if necessary, and wrap his father in a hug, but he knew that the action probably wouldn’t go down well so he just extended his hand. His father shook it, a small smile on his lips. A smile covered Nate’s  own face. His father was on his side, his father was going to fight for them.

‘What do you think the council will decide?’ he asked nervously as he withdrew his hand.

‘If you’re lucky, they might let you both run one pack, or they might allow you both to run separate packs, technically mateless.’

‘But-’

It seemed as if his father’s emotional abilities dropped back to those of a toddler again, his face hardening as it was before.  ‘You should go back to your room, it’s late,’ he instructed.

Nate nodded, standing from his chair. He knew that he had gotten more than he could have asked from his father tonight. He turned towards the door, taking a few steps.

His father called out to him, ‘The meeting is at four in the main hall. You and Brody should be there. Dress nicely.’

‘Okay,’ Nate nodded, leaving the office without looking back.

Nate wasn’t sure what to feel as he slowly made his way back to Brody’s room. He breathed in the cool night air as he walked along the path, anticipation of the council meeting looming over him. He arrived at Brody’s room and his mate opened the door after only a few moments.

‘How did it go?’ Brody asked as he let Nate into the room, closing the door behind him.

Nate walked over to the bed, ‘Sit,’ he asked Brody, patting the bed next to him.

Brody looked at his mate with a cautious expression, ‘Why do I need to sit?’ he asked guardedly, his arms crossed over his chest.

Nate realised that Brody had assumed the worst. He wanted to be able to tell Brody not to worry and flash him a smile, but he couldn’t. ‘Just sit.’

Brody crossed the distance between them slowly, drawing out the time it took for him to walk to the bed purposefully. ‘How did it go?’ he asked again as he sat down, this time the words were more stressed. Brody pressed his thigh against Nate’s reassuringly.

‘My father said that we have to go to the council meeting tomorrow and present our case, pretty much, and it will go from there,’ he explained.

Brody bit at his lip, seemingly unsure if this was good news or bad.

‘My father said he would fight for us, but he doesn’t know if that will be enough. He is only one of ten council members that will be there, and they have equal votes.’

Brody’s hand was suddenly interlinked with Nate’s and he squeezed it gently. ‘So we could still get separated. They could tell us that they don’t want us running packs and just replace us or something?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.

‘It’s a possibility,’ he agreed. ‘My father said that they could allow us to run one pack together or allow us to run our own packs, but mateless.’ The words felt like hot lava coming out of his mouth, an almost physical pain.

Brody suddenly moved away from Nate, scooting over to the other side of the bed and laying down, facing the opposite wall. Nate watched with pain in his heart, unsure of what to do.

He decided that he couldn’t just watch his mate in pain, and moved so that he was lying next to Brody, facing his back.

‘Brody?’ he called out quietly after a few minutes of silence.

Brody rolled around to face him with puffy eyes, ‘If they chose which pack we can run, if they even let us run a pack together, they will chose yours. What happens to my family? When there’s no one left to look after the pack, what happens to them?’ he asked with heartbroken tears running down his face and hitting the pillow.

Nate wiped away the tears, ‘I don’t know.’

Brody bit his lip, ‘I lose you, or I let down my pack. There’s no middle ground.’

Nate let Brody bury his face in his button down shirt, Nate holding him close, if only so that he didn’t have to see the fact that Nate, himself, had tears running down his face. Brody was right, there was no middle ground, people were going to get hurt no matter what happened at the meeting tomorrow.

They slept like that for the rest of the night, arms locked in each other’s and legs intertwined under the sheets to almost reassure themselves that the other was still there. Nate woke up countless times during the night, nightmares of tomorrow overcoming his mind, and yet he just pulled Brody somehow closer and breathed in his scent, holding on because he wasn’t sure how much longer they had.