xp_logs | Nathan and Kurt, Thursday night

Well after the 'festivities' in the wine cellar, Kurt comes across Nathan sorting through some more of his inheritance.

Kurt had always been a light sleeper - it was possible the noises coming from the next room wouldn't have woken someone else, but the muttering and sound of drawers opening and closing was enough for him. He lay listening for a few minutes, then, decisively, got up and went in search of the source. "Nathan?"

The noises fell silent, but by then Kurt was already at the door of the bedroom - the house's master bedroom, and definitely not the one where Nathan had crashed earlier. Nathan looked up at him from where he was sitting on the floor, an array of objects from the dresser drawers scattered around him. There was no trace in his eyes or expression of the irritability and sardonic humor that had dominated his drunken conversation all evening. The look Kurt got was unguarded, and more lost than anything else.

Kurt looked back at him, then padded into the room and sat next to his friend silently.

"This whole house is full of them," Nathan said after a moment, his voice low. "I hate it."

"Full of what?" Kurt asked quietly, having a few possible guesses at the answer.

"Them. Saul and Esther. He hid it from me, you know, when I was down here. Told me he wasn't much for keepsakes, but they're all over, really," Nathan said, gesturing carelessly around at the room. "Just... I wasn't looking closely enough, I guess."

"You had no reason to disbelieve him, then. And no way to look any deeper than he would allow you."

Nathan reached out and opened the carved wooden box in front of him. He stared down into it for a moment, then reached in, pulling out a woman's gold ring. Clearly a wedding ring. He glared at it as if willing it to melt down to its component parts, then set it aside.

Kurt's eyes followed his hand until the ring was set down, then he looked back at Nathan. "What are you going to do with them?"

"Like what? Keep mementos?" He pulled out a small black case and opened it, frowning a bit at the contents before he snapped it shut and set it aside, too. "To remember them by?" The irony was back in his voice.

"That is your decision to make. Keep them, sell them, throw them away..." The scars had been the only thing remotely like mementos he'd ever kept, personally.

"I might take some of the papers," was the grudging concession as Nathan sorted through more of the jewelry box's contents. "The pictures. Maybe."

"The ones you have not burned", Kurt reminded him with a crooked smile. "Better to bring them with you at first, in any case. Whatever you do with them later."

"I was mostly just burning Gideon's letters, you know." Another jewelry case, this one long and velvet-covered, was removed from the box. Nathan snapped it open - and stared at the silver charm bracelet inside. The charms were very distinctly Askani glyphs.

"I think this is probably my mother's jewelry," he said, his voice a little unsteady as he set the case aside.

"It seems likely", Kurt agreed quietly. "I cannot see who else such a thing would have belonged to, here."

"He loved her, I think." Maybe he would take a couple of things. Maybe. The bracelet, at least. He didn't think Saul would have given her that. That must have been something she'd had designed. Something... no, he wasn't going any further with that train of thought.

"He kept her possessions all these years... I think he probably did." He was watching Nathan sidelong, not really much less worried than when he and Pietro had arrived.

"My father, the enigma wrapped up in a mystery wrapped in a whole lot of sociopathic scariness." Nathan picked up another long case and opened it.

It was a necklace. A dolphin, curled around a diamond.

"Like anybody else, at least in the first two parts." Kurt glanced over to see the contents of the case, alerted by Nathan's sudden stillness.

Nathan started to shake his head, but snapped the case shut. His hands a little unsteady, he put everything back into the jewelry box except the dolphin necklace and the bracelet.

"I'll keep these," he said, his grip tightening on the case. "For Rachel."

"They will make a fine gift to her", Kurt said quietly. "When she is old enough."

Nathan gave a shaky sigh. He was still well and truly drunk, he knew, or maybe he'd come past drunk and out the other side. "I'm tired," he said. "I'm tired, and this house is full of memories I should have had. It's not fair."

"No, it is not", Kurt answered sympathetically, leaning his head back against the wall. "But, perhaps, it will make it a little easier to leave this house behind that the memories are not yours."

"We can hope." Nathan closed his eyes. "I want it to be morning," he muttered. "I don't want to be here anymore."

"Then go to sleep", Kurt advised him. "With how much we have drunk, it should not be so difficult."

Nathan hauled himself to his feet, swaying only a little. "I can so still hold my liquor," he muttered. "Not like you. You sing."

"And what, exactly, do you think you were doing when we first arrived?"

Nathan blinked at Kurt. "Oh, right. Forgot that." He proceeded to turn around and walk into the doorframe, bumping his injured shoulder. "Ow."

"Try not to do yourself any further damage between here and the bedroom", Kurt said dryly, pushing himself to his feet to follow Nathan out of the room. "I would rather you arrived back at the mansion in one piece."

"Yes, we wouldn't have to answer to Ororo, now, would we?"