Chapter Text
This is really long and rambley with more caps/image descriptions so I’m putting this under read more. The point of it is that Nathan is really fucking demisexual.
First some basics for those who don’t know Nathan/Haven. Haven is a show about a town in Stephen King’s Maine where certain people are cursed with suck/Troubled every quarter century or so after they’ve been triggered by emotional and/or physical trauma. Nathan is one of those people, his Trouble being that he cannot feel anything physically. He has a magical disability with a proper if extreme medical diagnosis, idiopathic neuropathy. He was first Troubled from age 7 until about 9 (1983-1985, although the Haven timeline makes this questionable) and when the show starts in 2010 (or is it 2009? again, Haven timeline is confusing) he has been Troubled again for 2-3 years. His Trouble and couple of other stuff has left him to be a pretty messed up person and all that stuff affects my headcanon of him as a demisexual character. Now to all the moments. This is rambly and not well organized but hopefully semi-clear.
2x2 Fear and Loathing
Duke Crocker: So, what’s it like being back to normal?
Nathan Wuornos: Haven’t really had time to process.
Duke Crocker: You mean.. *suggestive tone and smirk*
Nathan Wuornos: No, I mean process.
Duke Crocker: Well, I’ll tell you what. You find this tattooed guy for me and I’ll introduce you to some very lovely ladies who’ll be more than happy to help you process.
Nathan Wuornos: I, gotta get back to work.
Duke Crocker: If you’re worried about the cost, it’s my treat.
Nathan Wuornos: Very nice of you, thank you, but no.
Again, context for this is that Nathan has very recently realized that because the protagonist Audrey Parker is really special, he can feel her touch (1x8). However, neither of them are very touchy feely people so basically for the past few years he’s only felt a kiss on the cheek, a high five and some hand action. However, in this episode, he has temporarily lost his Trouble. He can physically feel again, and his semi-friend Duke Crocker is asking how that feels, to be normal again. When Nathan says he hasn’t really processed it (since it had only been a couple of hours), Duke very suggestfully implies that ‘process’ might mean ‘sex’. Nathan is confused and something about Duke’s thought process. Duke, however, continues with the suggestion of getting Nathan in contact with some sex workers to help Nathan process is comeback to normalcy. Nathan kindly declines.
I love this moment. Not to say that “dude doesn’t immediately think about sex=ace spectrum” or anything, his reaction could be read among those lines. It has already been established that since his Trouble came back, Nathan hasn’t really made any efforts to figure out how to function with it sexually (1x8). That’s some odd phrasing, but really, sex never really seems to be much of a priority for Nathan and he only really considers the issues when he’s actually interested in someone like Jess Minion in 1x6-1x8, which is a relationship where Nathan is constantly quite uncomfortable and which is helped along a lot by Jess pursuing him and Audrey’s encouragement. He seems mostly to be fine without worrying about sex for the most part. Information about his complete backstory is rather lacking but we do know that he made no efforts to be with anyone since his Trouble came back and there are no mention of serious relationships after high school.
2x12 Sins of the Fathers
Garland Wuornos: Are you in love?
Nathan Wuornos: I don’t know what it is.
I was really struck by the phrasing of this moment. Like, I know he’s speaking with his (dead)father and they didn’t have the most emotionally open relationship but Nathan, honey, you are very clearly in love with her. The fact that he seems unsure kinda makes me lean on ‘he’s never actually been in love before, so he’s not sure that what this is [yeah it is]’.
5x26 Forever
Nathan Wuornos: I never felt anything until I met you[Audrey].
That is so Single-Target Sexuality trope (which is kinda the fictional equivalent of demisexuality http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleTargetSexuality ) of you Nathan. When you add the other Emily Rose-shaped characters and Nathan’s relationships with them, I think this headcanon becomes pretty damn close to canon. Like, he does have other relationships, his relationship with Duke is up to interpretation, Jess Minion and Hannah Driscoll both where implied to be the pursuiers in those relationships and with Jordan McKee, the way their Troubles interacted were likely to create the required emotional bond for attraction to develop. But, for good and ill, Nathan loves her to so much in a way that reads to me as deminess.
1x3 Harmony
Duke Crocker: Does she know you’re not a real boy?
—
Nathan Wuornos: Maybe you’ll fix me someday.
My poor messed up, broken, boy. One of the reasons the Nathan-Duke dynamic is complicated is moments such as this. Duke gives him shit for his Trouble and how it affects him, here with a rather sexually charged comment on Nathan’s lack of ability to perform, for a lack of better phrasing. The idea of not being ‘real’ is one that Nathan continues to deal with, because his missing one of his crucial senses that most people take for granted which affects his view of the world a lot. The fact that at the end of the episode he admits to Audrey his brokenness and of being ‘fixed’ is pretty damn telling of his self-image. If we go with him being ace-spectrum in addition to his Trouble, that idea of being broken is a rather common feeling, feeling ineffectively both physically and emotionally would be consistent with the rest of Nathan’s characterization.
Nathan Wuornos: At least it wouldn’t remind me of my own problems.
Audrey Parker: How does any of this remind you that you have no game with chicks?
Nathan Wuornos: [off screen) Thanks.
He cannot handle flirting. At all. He has no flirting skills, it makes him uncomfortable. He can’t deal with PDA either really. Until 5x15 anyway.
1x2 Butterfly
Nathan Wuornos: [Instead of taking Hannah Driscoll to the prom, he took her to see a meteor shower] Meteor showers are better naked.
Audrey Parker: Nathan Wuornos! Just another teenage boy, trying to get a girl’s clothes off.
Nathan Wuornos: The meteor shower was my idea, the rest was hers.
Even teenage!Nathan, the nerdy geek that he is, was more interested in meteor shower than getting naked, although he did enjoy the nakedness.
*Nathan doesn’t do sexuality right moments:
5x3 Spotlight
Mara: If sex makes a relationship, then everything you say you feel for Audrey would be a lie.
I get that this is about to Nathan sleeping with Sarah before Audrey (not dealing with that, YMMV iffiness), I guess, but that whole rhetoric is very acephobic. This whole idea that romantic relationship requires sex to be valid invalidates romantic relationship with aces, especially sex-repulsed ones, and when you add all the moments with Nathan that basically amount to ‘Nathan doesn’t do sexuality right’, it is striking to get this type of blatantly acephobic line thrown at him. In context it does not necessarily work like that, since Nathan and Audrey do have a physical, sexual relationship (Mara just had a memory flash that shows that), but with the other moments from Mara (and possessed Duke) shown next here, can be relatable to people who get shit for (lack of) sexuality.
Mara: And we could be having fun, except for you’re wearing a chastity belt.
Mara: Prude.
5x23 Blind Spot
Crocker [talking to offscreen Audrey Parker]: That… is just you. Stubborn and manipulative and frigid. No wonder you picked him [Nathan].
Being called a prude and being the man of choice for a frigid woman, not to mention wearing a chastity belt (which I’m not aware if was ever meant for men so gender stuff too) are all stuff that ace-spectrum people are subjected to.
*Nathan being judgey
I have certain apprehensive feelings about these two moments and this point in general, because there are people who think that demisexuality is nothing more than people being (picky) prudes who judge other people’s love lives. So to talk about a few moments of Nathan being somewhat judgy about another person’s love life is iffy, demi rep wise. But one of the flaws Nathan has is that he *is* judgy, he’s especially judgy when it comes to Duke, who both of these moments concern.
1x5 Ball and Chain
Nathan Wuornos: You went home with her just like that?
Duke Crocker: No, Nathan, first I passed her a note in study hall.
In the first one, Nathan is trying to get some information about a suspect but Duke barely knows her name even though he slept with her. Nathan is judgy about this choice, but he’s also maybe a bit confused, that this is a thing a person might do. Just go home with a person you just met? When you’re ace-spectrum, that stuff can strike you as just odd and confusing. The actually situation is actually dubcon and somewhat victim blamey so it’s not a pretty scene but not getting just hooking up with some random person can be a relatable thing for demis.
5x6 The Old Switcheroo Part 2
Duke in Nathan’s body: I was single.
Nathan in Duke’s body: You’re always single.
Duke!Nathan: Oh, I’m sorry we can’t all find true love like you, Nathan.
In the second scene, Nathan and Duke have switched bodies, and it order to convince someone that he is Duke in Nathan’s body and not Nathan, Duke talks about a sexual role playing thing he does with the officer, Rebecca Rafferty, in question. That is enough to convince Rebecca. They give Nathan a couple of judgey reaction shots and when Duke feels the need to defend his hooking up habits by saying he was single at the time and Nathan counters with “You’re always single” which is not always true but still. Duke is again defensive and counters that not everyone can ‘find true love’ like Nathan which says 2 things to be. More evidence that Nathan never really lived the so called single lifestyle because a mutually consensual acquaintances with benefits thing makes him judgey and likely did not really do any random hook ups and secondly, more evidence for a Single-Target Sexuality with Duke’s point of Nathan only going for true love.
Conclusion:
Thank you for anyone who made it through this long weird mess of a post. I am pretty new to Haven but Nathan very quickly made his way to my fave dudes list. I am personally a demisexual, so when I saw a few posts in fandom who endorsed this view of him I was ecstatic. [http://yokyopeli.tumblr.com/tagged/demisexual-nathan-wuornos] I hope I made some good points and that others will accept this headcanon too. ETA: I actually made a new side blog under demisexualnathanvuornos , that's how much I love this.