Alaric stared at his glass for a long moment, swirling the liquid.
"You know, when I was a kid, I never got to bond much with my dad."
His voice was quieter now, more serious.
"He was a lot like me… Awkward. Never knew how to open up and spent more time teaching me how to kill things than how to talk to people."
He looked up at Damian.
"But hey, let's talk like friends tonight. Not father and son with all the baggage that comes with it. Just two guys drinking on a roof... Okay?"
Damian saw what his father was trying to do, creating space for honesty without the weight of expectations. Sometimes it was easier to talk when you pretended the relationship didn't matter as much as it did.
"Okay."
Alaric looked at him for a long moment, those silver eyes seeing more than Damian was comfortable with.
Then he sipped his drink and turned to look at the moon.
