Chapter Text
There is a portrait in the manor in Baltimore.
Technically, there’s more than one of them, but Neil is thinking of this one in particular. It’s taller than him and twice as broad with a thick wooden pane that has a golden line running through it. Mounted above the polished stone fireplace in the great room where his father entertains the guests he deems important enough.
Neil thinks about it sometimes.
The background is opulent in its simplicity, leather browns and woody textures. Lifted straight off a lifestyle catalogue.
Nathan, in a hard-pressed black suit with a red tie, face serious, jaw set, a hand resting on his wife’s shoulder who sits in a chair in front of him.
Nathaniel is there too, more than a head shorter than his namesake, maybe thirteen, maybe fifteen years old. His face is blank in a way that makes him look older than he actually is but he's still got a soft jaw, and a baby-ish look about him.
He wonders whose decision it was to dress them similarly- Nathan and Nathaniel.
Was this when Nathan still thought he could whip his son into being worthy of carrying his unimaginative title, his legacy of carnage?
Or had he realized by now that it was a thankless task but he had to keep up appearances?
Again, Neil does not know.
When he's in that house, in front of that portrait, he finds that he doesn't know much anything at all.
Other than the fact that he wants to leave.
But in the picture he stands, the eager pupil, the prodigal son.
If Nathaniel looks at it too long, and he tries not to, the features of his father’s face and his own blend together– they have the same nose, the same piercing eyes, the same bone structure.
Neil has his mother's mouth though, in that it remains shut in his father’s presence.
In the picture, wordless as she is outside of it, his mother is the one who steals the show. She sits with her legs crossed at the ankle, hands in her lap. Black dress with full sleeves- she never did let any skin show. Her face is sharp but her cheeks are full. Her smile is polite but not artificial. Perfect hair and pearls around her neck. A blue broach, the color of her husband's eyes pinned to her dress.
She looks regal. Beautiful, even. Neil wonders if she really had that little light in her eyes at some point of time or if the painter had to add that bit.
If that woman is still in there somewhere, Neil has not met her.
There is a portrait in the manor in Baltimore.
Neil thinks about it sometimes.
And if, within this lifetime, he finds the opportunity to set that place aflame, he knows exactly where he would start.