Chapter Text
Seth grew up in a small, working-class town, the youngest of three siblings in a household that was chaotic at best and abusive at worst. His father, a hard-drinking construction worker, had a temper that left emotional and physical scars on everyone in the family. His mother, while kind, was often overwhelmed and unable to shield her children from the storm. Seth learned early on to bottle up his emotions and fend for himself.
School was a struggle. Seth showed promise in his teenage years, particularly in sports, where his raw aggression found an outlet. But his anger and inability to trust others often got him into trouble. He dropped out of high school at 17 after a particularly violent altercation with a teacher who tried to intervene when Seth was bullying another student. His older siblings left town as soon as they could, leaving Seth to fend for himself in a toxic environment.
By 20, Seth was working dead-end jobs, often quitting or being fired due to his short temper and inability to get along with coworkers. Alcohol became his escape. At first, it was just a way to numb the pain of his past and silence the anger boiling inside him. But as the years went by, drinking became his constant companion, a way to fill the emptiness of his isolated life. He moved into a small, run-down apartment on the edge of town, avoiding meaningful connections and drowning his loneliness in whiskey.
The bar became Seth's second home. At first, he drank quietly, but his anger often surfaced after a few too many drinks. He would pick fights over small slights—someone looking at him the wrong way, a comment he didn’t like, or simply because he felt the need to prove something. Seth's temper often flares after a few too many drinks, leading to explosive confrontations at bars. Fighting became his outlet, a twisted way to release the rage he carried. Though he despises what he’s become, the cycle feels unbreakable. He isolates himself, avoiding relationships or friendships, convinced that he’s toxic to anyone who gets close.
Despite his self-destructive tendencies, Seth has moments of clarity where he reflects on the mess his life has become. Sometimes, he sits alone in his apartment, staring at old photographs of his family, wondering if things could have been different. But those moments are fleeting, quickly buried under another drink or another fight.
Seth flicked the lighter, the tiny flame illuminating the dim, peeling wallpaper of his one-bedroom apartment. The air was thick with the stench of cigarette smoke and the lingering mustiness of old wood. The place was a dump, but it was his dump—a step up from the hellhole he'd grown up in.
His father’s voice haunted him, the slurred shouts echoing in his head even as he tried to drown them out with cheap whiskey. The bottle on the coffee table was nearly empty, just like his resolve to make anything better of himself. His fists ached from last night's brawl, the memory as fuzzy as his reflection in the cracked mirror hanging by the kitchen sink.
The night before, Seth had found himself at O’Malley’s, the kind of bar where fights were a given and the drinks were poured like water. He’d picked a fight with a guy who had looked at him wrong—or maybe had looked at him too long. Either way, the guy had gotten a broken nose, and Seth had walked away with blood on his knuckles and a new dent in his pride.
Back in his apartment, Seth slumped onto the sagging couch. He stared at the half-empty bottle of whiskey, his hand twitching with the urge to pour it down his throat. The anger simmered beneath his skin, threatening to erupt at the slightest provocation. He hated the person he’d become. But more than that, he hated the person he’d been forced to be.
Growing up, religion had been a weapon in his father’s arsenal. Sunday mornings were a theater of hypocrisy. His father, reeking of booze, would drag the family to church, spouting scripture as if it absolved him of the beatings he delivered the night before. Seth had learned early on to keep his head down, to avoid his father’s wrath, and to never, ever speak his mind.
But there were parts of him he couldn’t ignore. Feelings he’d buried deep, ashamed of their existence. He remembered the first time he’d noticed the boy in his class, the way his stomach twisted in a way he didn’t understand. His father’s voice had boomed in his mind, calling him weak, disgusting. So Seth had buried that part of himself under layers of anger, denial, and shame.
The old Bible his mother had given him years ago sat on the shelf, collecting dust. He hated it, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. It wasn’t God he hated, really—it was the way the faith had been weaponized against him. The way it had been used to justify his father’s cruelty and his mother’s silence.
He picked up the Bible, flipping through its pages with rough hands. The words blurred together, meaningless in his drunken haze. He slammed it shut and threw it across the room, the sound echoing in the empty space.
“What the hell am I doing?” he muttered, burying his face in his hands.
Seth’s nights were long and sleepless, filled with memories he couldn’t escape. His older siblings had left home as soon as they could, but they hadn’t taken him with them. He couldn’t blame them; they’d had their own scars to heal. But the resentment still burned, a constant reminder of his isolation.
He thought about the bar fight, the anger that had boiled over when that guy had smiled at him—not in a mocking way, but in a way that felt...kind. It had scared him. It had made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. So he’d lashed out, fists flying before he could think.
As dawn broke, Seth sat on the floor, the bottle now empty at his side. He stared at the pale light filtering through the grimy window, a hollow ache in his chest. He didn’t want to be his father, but every day he felt himself slipping further down that path.
For the first time in years, he let himself cry. The tears came hot and fast, a release of everything he’d held in for so long—the anger, the fear, the shame. He cried for the boy he’d been and the man he didn’t want to become.
When the tears stopped, he looked at the Bible lying on the floor. He wanted to reach out, to flip through the pages but couldn't even bare to look at it. Seth stumbled up to his feet and into the cramped bathroom, the flickering fluorescent light casting his reflection in sharp, jagged lines. He gripped the edge of the sink, his knuckles white, his breath ragged. The mirror in front of him was streaked with grime, but it didn’t blur the image enough.
He stared into his own green eyes—bloodshot and hollow, as if he were a ghost haunting his own body. His once-vivid red hair, unkempt and dull now, seemed like a mockery of his childhood self. He could almost hear his father’s voice sneering, *You’ll never be anything but a worthless waste of space.*
“Shut up,” Seth growled under his breath, but the words didn’t silence the noise.
His reflection didn’t flinch. It just stared back, unyielding, as if daring him to face the truth. The truth that he was just like his father. The truth that no matter how far he ran, he couldn’t escape what he’d become—a drunken mess, filled with rage and bitterness.
Seth clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He felt the fury rise in his chest, burning hot and uncontrollable. Before he could stop himself, his fist flew forward, shattering the mirror into a web of broken shards.
The sound of glass breaking echoed in the small room, and he stood there, panting, staring at the fractured image of himself. His reflection was now splintered into dozens of tiny, distorted pieces—fragments of a man who didn’t know how to put himself back together.
Blood trickled down his knuckles, bright against his pale skin, but he barely noticed the pain. He pressed his forehead against the cracked remnants of the mirror, closing his eyes as his emotions clawed at him from the inside.
He thought about the fight at the bar, the way the man’s smile had disarmed him. It wasn’t the smile itself that had angered him—it was the warmth in it, the vulnerability it made him feel. Vulnerability was a luxury Seth had never been able to afford. His father had taught him that.
But deep down, he knew it wasn’t just about the fight or the man at the bar. It was about the years he’d spent denying who he was. The parts of himself he’d buried because the mere thought of them felt like betrayal—to his father, to the version of masculinity he’d been forced to uphold, and even to God.
He laughed bitterly, the sound harsh and empty. God. That was a joke. If God had cared, He wouldn’t have let Seth grow up in that house. He wouldn’t have let his mother cower in silence while his father’s fists did the talking.
But even as he tried to hate God, there was a part of him—a small, desperate part—that still clung to the idea of redemption.
Seth opened his eyes and looked down at the blood dripping into the sink. The pain in his hand was sharp and real, grounding him in the moment. He grabbed a towel and pressed it against his knuckles, his movements rough but purposeful.
He let out a shaky breath and leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold tile floor. His hand throbbed, his head pounded, and his soul felt like it was splintering apart. But for the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to feel everything—the pain, the anger, the shame.