#thinking of how good of a teacher seb would be... primary school teacher seb with a gaggle of kids teaching basic division

[youjustwaitsunshine]

seb looks like my high school maths teacher…

is your high school maths teacher nice? a good teacher? is he accepting of people who are completely unable to do math? and if he is, is he single? asking for a friend

[nooneelsecomesclose17]

While shepherd's watched

Day 12

Another Ana'verse, but it'll totally stand alone :)

(AO3 link)

"Daddy, Daddy!" Robert looked up from the books as Seb burst into the cafe, followed by Aaron, both of them wearing identical smiles

"Hello! I wasn't expecting you!"

"Seb has something to tell you, haven't you mate."

"I'm going to be a shepherd! Miss Howard said it was a really ‘portant role and I had to practise lots and lots. Will you help me with my lines Daddy?"

"Of course I will mate! You'll be the best shepherd Connelton Primary has ever seen. Do you have a script?" Seb nods as he climbs on his Dad's lap for a cuddle.

"I've got it. He wants to borrow some of your many highlighters so we can mark his lines and that."

"And Papa said that everyone would want tickets There's Ganma, Granny Faith, Uncle Cain and Aunty Moira. Nanny Diane and Uncle Eric...who else Daddy?"

“Oh I don’t know mate. Tell you what, while Papa goes and does all that work he didn’t do this morning because he insisted I needed his help, you can sit here with me and we can make some invites on the computer, then we can take them to people on the way home. That way you can tell your teacher how many tickets you need." Aaron glared at him for reminding near he had work to do and he smirked. “What time are we picking up Ana?”

“I told Diane about five.”

“Perfect. Maybe after we'll have tea in the pub to celebrate."

"Yay!"

* * *

"We should follow that star. It's so bright, it must mean something very important." Seb stood proudly in front of the TV as he practised his lines.

"Not quite mate, its just 'something important! not very important."

"I think that's better because the star was very important Daddy, it snowed them how to find Jesus.” Robert wanted to praise him for his thinking but also he was slightly scared of Seb’s teacher and from the smirk on Aaron’s face he knew exactly what he was thinking.

"I know but I think we should stick to the script eh? Maybe ask your teacher tomorrow eh?” Seb nodded and went back to his place in front of the TV.

“And you’ll get my costume won’t you? It’s got to be ready the week before.” Robert stopped reading the script in front of him. It was the first he’d heard of any costume.

“Don’t the school provide that?” He asks Aaron.

“No, Miss Howard said our parents had to make them.”

“Right, well…I’m sure we can do that. It can’t be that hard.”

“You should be an expert, I’ve seen all the episodes of the sewing bee you’ve got stored on the telly box.” Aaron quips as he takes Ana upstairs to bed.

“Ignore Papa, Seb, he’s just being silly. Let’s go through your lines once more before bed.”

_____

“What’s wrong with a tea towel and a bit of string?” Robert complained as he poked the needle in his finger for the hundredth time. “It was perfectly good when I was at school.”

“Don’t worry old man, when you’ve done that I’ll fetch your pipe and slippers.” Aaron joked from where he was helping Seb with his homework.

“I distinctly remember doing battle making you wings when you were an angel, so keep sewing.” Sarah told him from where she was working on Seb’s tunic. “We’re nearly finished and you young man are going to be the best shepherd there ever was.”

Seb runs over to her, peering at the costume. “Charlie said his Mummy and Daddy bought his costume.”

“Well Charlie’s Mummy and Daddy probably have more money than sense.” Robert grumbles. “It’s more fun this way mate. Your costume will be unique.”

“What’s unick?”

“It means one of a kind. There won’t be another shepherd out there looking like you.”

“And it’ll be the best one?”

“Of course. Do you think me and Ganma would send you out in anything else? Now, go watch your cartoons with Papa and we’ll be finished before bed and you can try it on.”

______

The day of the performance had arrived and Aaron wasn’t sure who was more nervous, Seb or Robert. The two of them had been rehearsing the lines all the night before and over breakfast. Seb was word perfect and had been for days but still they kept going.

When he’d taken Seb to school that morning he’d chattered non-stop about the play, making sure that everyone they’d invited was coming along and that he would record it on his phone. Now he just had a nervous Robert to deal with.

“He’ll be fine.”

“But what if he forgets his lines, gets stage fright or something.” Aaron adjusted Sara in his arms as they crossed the playground. He hoped she slept through the whole thing and didn’t scream the school down like Ana had a couple of years before at the school carol concert.

“He won’t…and if he does, then the teachers are there. He’ll be great. We’re all here to cheer him on, I think we’ve taken up half the audience with all the tickets we’ve bought.”In the end all of the family had wanted tickets and Robert had to sweet talk Seb’s teacher into allowing them more than the allocation. She was very happy to oblige when he offered to supply the mince pies for afterwards. “I still can’t believe you got those tickets through bribery.”

“It wasn’t bribery…I just offered an incentive.”

“Course you did. God it looks like Santa threw up in here.” The school corridors are festooned in paper chains and glittery pictures, a big tree in the corner.

“It’s…different.” Robert blinked as Seb’s teacher appeared in front of them.

“Mr and Mr Sugden-Dingle, I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve got a little bit of a problem.”

“Is Seb alright?”

“Oh, of course, it’s just he’s crying and insisting he can’t be a shepherd.” Aaron frowns because Seb had been so excited that morning, so much so he could barely eat his breakfast.

“Did something happen?”

“I don’t think so. It’s all just a bit overwhelming for him. He’s in the classroom…he wants both of you, nothing I say is doing any good.” They follow them to Seb’s classroom and Aaron’s heart breaks when they see him, sitting on his chair another teacher beside him, and he’s crying his eyes out. Robert rushes over to him, Aaron on his heels.

“Hey mate. What’s all this?”

“I’m scared Daddy.”

“You don’t have anything to be scared of.” Robert sits on the chair beside him and any other time Aaron would laugh at him sitting on such a tiny chair. Seb climbs onto his lap, face covered by his costume.

“What if…I forget…or people laugh…or…or…” He sobbed. Aaron looked on helplessly, he didn’t know what to say, he could only hope Robert could calm him down.

“You won’t forget. You know all the words, you’re going to be absolutely perfect. But you know, if you do forget then it doesn’t matter. No one is going to mind. I’ll let you into a secret…when I was in the nativity I nearly fell off the stage!” Seb looks up at him wide eyed, his sobs slowing to hiccups. “You don’t have to worry ok, me and Papa are going to be right there cheering you on no matter what. Then I know for a fact that Ganma has a very special tea planned when we go home.”

“Chips?”

“Maybe. Or even better, her special spaghetti!” Aaron tells him, making a face so he laughs. “You feel better now bug?”

Seb nods and Robert hugs him tight once more. “Right then, you need to wash your face and me and Papa are going to take our seats. You’re going to do great, and we’re both very proud of you.”

When he’s gone they chat to his teacher a while before finding their seats. Robert still looks concerned and Aaron squeezes his hand. They’re surrounded by family and whatever happens Seb’s going to know how loved he is.

______

Robert’s whistling is piercing Aaron’s ears but he doesn’t care. Seb had been perfect in the play, with only one dodgy moment when he tripped over his costume a little and nearly flattened baby Jesus but other than that it had gone without a hitch.

“Did you see? He was brilliant wasn’t he?”

“Of course he was. He’s our kid.” Robert’s smug grin is back in full force and Aaron rolls his eyes when he’d literally been a bag of nerves not an hour earlier. “You did get it all on video didn’t you?”

“Yes. So did Moira, don’t panic. You can still embarrass him when he’s eighteen with it.” Robert’s sarcastic reply is lost as Seb charges at them, dressed once more in his school uniform.

“I did it Daddy, I did it!”

“You were fantastic mate.” Robert lifts him up into his arms. “You were the best.”

“Really? Did you see Ganma? I nearly fell over but I didn’t did I?”

“You were very clever peanut. So…chips or spaghetti for your celebration tea?”

“Both!”

“You can’t have both you gannet.”

“Spaghetti! Cos Daddy can’t make it as good as you can.” Seb squeals as Robert tickles him.

Once the rest of the family have congratulated him and he’s basking in their praise he’s off into the playground with Isaac and Dotty leaving the adults to enjoy the mince pies on offer.

“You know I’m sure this hall hasn’t changed since I was here.” Robert comments as they stand there.

“So this was the scene of your triumph as an angel was it?”

“I was quite good if I do say so myself.”

“As I remember it you forgot your one and only line.” Sarah tells him, winking at Aaron. “But you were perfect anyway sweetheart. Come on, let’s go and fetch the star of the show. I’ve got a spaghetti bolognese to make.”

[softlass27]

Flufftober Day 29 – thunderstorm dedicated to @robertssvgden​, because she loves the idea of robron + seb and eve as a family unit, and she deserves nice things x

AO3 link here

As they stood shivering in the schoolyard, Robert glanced above them.

“The heavens are gonna open any second now.”

Aaron tilted his head up to see dark clouds rapidly filling the sky, the wind picking up with every passing minute. They’d been getting weather warnings all day, broadcasters promising that tonight was guaranteed to bring a seriously wild storm their way.

Paddy was stuck on an overnight callout with some heavily-pregnant cows, and Aaron’s mum had called him about an hour ago to say that she didn't feel safe driving on the motorway in this weather, so she was stuck in… some hotel, she was pretty vague on the details. She’d told him she was away to meet with potential new suppliers, but between her terrible lying and the sound of an unexpected male voice in the background, Aaron suspected wherever his mother had gone had nothing to do with work.

Either way, Eve had no one to pick her up or look after her, so his mum had begged him to take her for the night – possibly the weekend. Like she needed to ask.

So now they were stood in their usual spot with the other parents at Hotten Primary, waiting to collect two kids instead of one.

Just as the first few droplets of rain began to hit their cheeks, Eve came out of the doors, her eyes quickly scanning the yard until she spotted them and ran over, schoolbag swinging in the air. When she was just a few feet away from them, a violent gust of wind blew behind her, pushing her tiny body along the last few steps until she crashed into Aaron’s legs with a small oof.

“Windy,” she said, blinking up at them.

“Yeah, squirt.” Aaron took the bag from her before it blew right out of her hand.

“Is Mummy not coming?”

“Her and your Dad are both stuck because of the storm. They can’t come back just yet so you’re gonna stay with us tonight, okay?”

“'Kay,” she nodded, pushing her increasingly wild hair out of her eyes.

“Just need to wait for Seb, then we can get home and out of this crazy weather.”

As the three of them stood waiting for the Year 3's to come out, another, even stronger, gust of wind nearly sent Eve flying to one side; Robert snagging her by the hood of her coat was the only thing that stopped her from tumbling to the ground.

“Right.” He grabbed her securely by the waist and picked her up. “Think I’d better hold onto you before you actually blow away, missy.”

“Wish Seb’d hurry up,” she mumbled, pulling her hood up and tucking her face into Robert’s neck, out of the stinging rain.

“Don’t we all?”

As much as Aaron adored his son, he was a notorious dawdler, always chatting to his teacher or messing around with his mates on his way outside. He’d take the rest of the afternoon to reach the school gates if he could.

Eventually, Seb made his way to the yard, surrounded by his usual gaggle of classmates. Any inclination he’d had to keep chatting to them was swiftly curbed by Aaron’s firm get over here now gesture. He jogged over sheepishly, cramming a beanie on top of his head.

“You get lost or summat?” Aaron rolled his eyes fondly, taking his PE kit from him.

“I went to check if my art project was dry and – ”

“Yep, lovely, you can tell us all about it on the way home,” Robert grumbled, wrapping his free hand around Seb’s shoulder and ushering him towards the car. “We need to get inside before this storm kicks off properly.”

They all clambered in and set off, Robert navigating the usual school run traffic with practiced ease.

“Dad?” Seb asked after a few minutes of driving.

“Hm?”

“Miss Brooks told us this is gonna be the biggest storm Yorkshire’s had in more than 20 years,” he said, wide-eyed. “The biggest since 2003. Was that one really massive?”

“It was, I remember it,” Robert nodded, flicking the windscreen wipers to faster setting. “New Year’s Eve. It put a massive hole in the pub roof n’all.”

“My pub?” Eve chimed in, eyes turning even bigger than Seb’s.

“Yep, it caved right in. I didn’t see it happen though; I was living on the farm, and I had to help my dad get all the animals inside so they’d be safe.”

“Woah.” Seb sounded so impressed, Robert didn’t have the heart to mention that someone had unfortunately died as a result of said hole in the roof.

“2003. That's so long ago,” Eve mused, fingertips following the paths of rainwater sliding down the window. “Years and years and – ”

“Yes, okay,” Robert said loudly. “I feel ancient now, thanks for that.”

Eve and Seb just laughed, like the demon spawn they both were.

“Do you remember the storm too, Dad?” Seb asked, a hand over his mouth failing to suppress the grin on his face.

“Nah, I wasn’t living in the village then,” Aaron smirked. “Was a bit before my time, I’m a lot younger than Old Man Sugden over here.”

“How old are you, Rob?”

“50,” Seb said with a snort.

“100!”

“150!"

“Kids, come on, he’s not a day over 72,” Aaron drawled, only to yelp when Robert briefly took a hand off the steering wheel to swipe at him, which only made the backseat passengers cackle even harder.

The laughter was suddenly cut short, however, when a wayward tree branch hit the bonnet with a loud bang, before bouncing off onto the road.

“Jesus!” Robert jerked the car in surprise, before quickly regaining control and continuing down the road in silence, hands gripping the wheel tightly.

Aaron glanced back to see both Seb and Eve’s smiles had been replaced with slightly nervous looks, Eve biting her bottom lip anxiously.

“It’s okay.” He quickly reached a hand back to pat her knee reassuringly. “It was just a tiny branch, practically a twig, nothing to worry about. We’ll be home soon.”

By the time they arrived in the village, the rain was lashing down, pelting the roof of the car so loudly they struggled to hear themselves talk. There was hardly anyone outside, and the few that were looked like they were quickly retreating indoors. They passed Leyla leaving her office with her head down, tottering unsteadily on her stiletto heels, and David and Jacob quickly pulling potted plants and buckets of umbrellas back into the safety of the shop.

As they pulled onto the drive, the ominous first sounds of thunder could be heard rumbling overhead.

“Okay, inside, go go go!”

The four of them scrambled out of the car and dashed towards the house, Robert fumbling with the keys to unlock the door.

“In your own time,” Aaron grouched, hunching over to shield the kids from the worst of it as best he could.

“Hang on, I can’t feel my bloody fingers.”

Eventually, he managed to get the key in the lock and they burst into the warmth of the house, already drenched in the brief minute it had taken to get inside.

“C-cold,” Seb shivered, peeling off his sodden hat and jacket and dropping them on the rug.

“So cold you forgot how to use a coat peg?” Robert said exasperatedly, picking it up. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and have a couple of nice, hot showers while I get tea started? Eve, you can use our mine and Aaron's bathroom, if you want? Aaron’ll help you turn the taps on.”

“Can I use your fancy shower gel?”

Robert sighed and ruffled her damp hair. “If you must.”

Eve grinned and began to follow Seb up the stairs, only to freeze at a flash of lightning.

“The storm won’t put a hole in this roof, will it?”

“You think Robert would let that happen?” Aaron smiled at her. “Nah, we built our place to be extra strong,” 

“Storm-proof, even,” Robert added from the kitchen.

“See? We’re safe as houses in here, I promise. Go on upstairs, I’ll be there in a minute, yeah?”

Seemingly satisfied, Eve nodded and carried on up the stairs. They heard the sound of her feet running along the landing, presumably to what was unofficially dubbed as “her room”, since she spent so much time in it, before the door gently clicked shut.

“What’s for tea?” Aaron sighed, padding over to the kitchen and hooking his chin over Robert’s shoulder.

Robert hummed and leaned back against his chest while he chopped some veg. “Shepherd’s pie, should warm the kids up.”

“So domestic, you,” Aaron grinned, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. “I just hope the power doesn’t go out tonight.”

“Me too, otherwise we’ll have to keep them entertained the old-fashioned way.”

“What’s the old-fashioned way?”

“Er… how good are you at shadow puppets?”

A minute later, Seb came downstairs to find his dad frantically plugging every laptop and tablet into its charger.

[amorremanet]

Something about Oz, my OC: abusive father, "we gotta keep the appearances up" mother. After his dad's death he can't bring himself to spend too much time with his mom, he hasn't forgiven her for letting the abuse keep going.

send me a fact about your ocs, i reply with a fact about mine!

Oh man, he’s the opposite of my Pete, in that regard. In the aftermath of his abusive father dying, Pete’s gotten closer to his Mama (and he was already pretty close to her), and turned most of his blame toward Jimmy, his big brother.

Some of it’s in the realm of, “it might not be fair, but it’s understandable,” like being mad at Jimmy because he was the one who got more praise when their Dad, James, pit the kids against each other for myriad reasons (like, it’s not Jimmy’s fault that their Dad did that to them and he didn’t “get it easier,” but it’s still understandable that Pete feels resentment over it, and it’s easier to direct that at Jimmy than at their Dad, not least since Jimmy’s still alive and can actually react to it. Also, it’s really not Jimmy’s fault that he takes more after James than Leilani, physically, but it’s kinda understandable that Pete doesn’t always handle it well when he looks at his brother and sees a reflection of their Dad).

Some of it’s in the realm of, “Pete is mad at Jimmy for something else, and dragging it into the mess of feelings about their experiences with their late father, because it gives him justification for being mad at Jimmy” (like how he’s perpetually peeved at Jimmy for his tacit homophobia, which he just keeps spewing, no matter how many times he gets called out on it, or like how he can’t, “voice concern” for Pete without it sounding a lot like, “Are you sure you’re gay? Because I think that this might all go away if you just weren’t gay anymore” — and it’s fair for Pete to be mad at Jimmy over it, but it’s not really related to their issues that were more directly caused by their Dad).

And some of it’s in the realm of, “Okay, Pete is reaching by a lot and he’s projecting his internalized victim-blaming and internalized abuser logic onto Jimmy because he’s an emotional wreck at the moment and he has no idea what else to do with it. On some level, he realizes this, but he’s also most likely a few minutes off from having an emotional meltdown” (like, if he ever slips into anything that sounds like, “It was Jimmy’s fault that Dad did [x thing] to me and Cora”? He’s a mess, he’s probably alone with Sebastian +/- Seb’s dogs, and there’s a really good chance that Pete is going to be crying into his best friend’s chest in the next five minutes)

Granted, there’s a pretty big difference in the situations, because of the differences between Pete’s Mama and what Oz’s Mom sounds like. Pete’s Mama, Leilani, was less about keeping up appearances (and when she did care about that, it was less of a, “but what would the neighbors think” thing and more about trying to put up a strong front to her kids and her side of the family), and she was pretty limited in her ability to actually get out of the situation (if not for the kids, she might have had the resources to leave, but she also wouldn’t have forgiven herself if she’d pulled a “Doll’s House” and walked out like Ibsen’s Nora, leaving her kids with James).

Then, there’s the issue of how messy the situation was, because James’s primary methods of abuse weren’t physical (and when they did cross into the physical realm, it usually wasn’t like breaking big brother Jimmy’s arm or slapping Leilani and middle sister Cora around, but in ways that put fear into his wife and children, and that he could use to manipulate them). One of his most frequently used tactics was gaslighting about his emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually abusive behaviors, and there were plenty of things he did that Pete didn’t get weren’t part of How Every Family Is until he’d seen enough of Seb’s parents to decide that they weren’t just acting kind and supportive when their kids had friends over; they were actually like that.

Three other big factors came together to make it all worse, in Pete’s mind:

1. the moments with James that weren’t completely horrible, most of which he didn’t really turn into, “the abuser is now going to do a nice thing by way of fauxpologizing, gaslighting, victim blaming, and so on” because he didn’t mean for most of them to happen. He usually didn’t have fauxpology moments, because he very rarely recognized that he was in the wrong and needed to apologize or at least put on a façade of apologizing, so when he had okay moments, Pete trusts that they were mostly genuine, and they muddy the emotional water for Pete by a lot, because he’s pretty sure his life would be easier if he could just unilaterally hate his Dad.

Some of these moments were little things, like being proud of a project that Cora put together for science class, or being down on Pete’s fondness for the theatre and criticizing his desire to be an actor, but showing up to his opening night as Cinderella’s Prince Charming Into the Woods and being the first person to make it into a standing ovation (probably without realizing that Pete could see him).

Some of them, Pete doesn’t even really remember consciously, most of the time, until something trips a wire in his head and reminds him of one time when James, who didn’t know at the time that his youngest is gay, told his kids not to listen to their Grandparents when they went on about how LGBTQ people are all terrible, evil sinners and going to Hell, because their uncle, his little brother, is gay. Their cousins’ Dad is gay, too, and so are their Mother and her wife, so unless they think that Uncles Nicholas and Jacob, and Aunts Rachael and Melissa, are all going to Hell, then they should just know that their Grandmother and Grandfather are full of shit about gay people.

Some of them were bigger things, like getting into it with some of his kids’ teachers because he felt they were being treated unfairly (like when one of Jimmy’s essays for a history class in high school got marked down because he used sources other than the textbook and Sister Mary Margaret’s course pack, or when Pete got in trouble because his English teacher didn’t believe that a fourteen-year-old could’ve read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart over summer break, much less understood it enough to write an essay about it), or getting into it with his parents for picking at Leilani being Filipina and the kids for being biracial.

Some of them were sort of in the middle things that didn’t mean a lot at the time, but have since developed more and/or deeper significance, like one time when James was sober (which was pretty odd for him, at that point), and was a dick about conveying the sentiment, “You’re my son and I love you, I accept that you’re gay but really hate your current boyfriend because he doesn’t treat you right, and FYI, maybe you’ve got your Mama and your sister convinced that you’re doing fine, but if you have to get fucked up on tequila and stimulants just to get through bringing him to dinner with the family and having a not-that-subtle quickie in the men’s room — one that you didn’t seem particularly enthused about even with your current level of intoxication — then that’s a problem, Peter-Paolo,” but was still genuinely trying to help

But whatever form they took, the long-term end result was always massive emotional conflict, because these moments made him feel pretty sure that James did love his family, that it wasn’t all an exercise in him satiating his own ego and sense of entitlement by trying to control Leilani and their kids, and that it wasn’t all terrible — which is all a mess to deal with, because it keeps Pete from unilaterally hating James, and it’s so hard to fully parse out which parts affected him in which ways, making it harder to address all of them.

Then there’s how these moments helped further normalize all of James’s other behaviors, and just…… “Emotionally messy” is an understatement;

2. the fact that James was, himself, a victim/survivor — maybe not a textbook example of a victim/survivor who went on to be an abuser in his own right, but he was pretty close to it. James never even got to understand that what his parents had put him through was abusive, before he died, because they rarely crossed into physical abuse (they were wealthy white Catholics on the Upper East Side in NYC, who eventually moved to Baltimore instead; any physical abuse of their kids would’ve required explanations to the neighbors) and he always thought the way that Virginia and Francis were with their kids was “just good parenting.”Not that any of this is an excuse for how James treated his children (I mean, his younger brother Nicholas went through the same shit and he didn’t abuse his kids) but it’s a point where Pete empathizes with his Dad, despite everything that James ever did to him, Leilani, Cora, and even Jimmy. Like, on some levels, James believed that he was justified in his abuse because it was, “done out of love,” and he was, “helping prepare his kids for the world” whenever he abused them, and, “doing the right thing for his kids, even if it’s kinda hard for them to hear right now”…… and a lot of that came out of how he was treated by his parents while growing up, and as an adult, and how he dealt with that—and Pete doesn’t want to feel for his Dad, or understand that he was, on some level, trying to do what he felt was the right thing and that his way of handling everything was, in large part, learned from his parents and how they treated him;

and 3. the Grandma Virginia factor, because Grandpa Francis wasn’t involved in Pete’s life that deeply (he more often went after Jimmy and Hank, Nicholas’s oldest son, though Pete doesn’t really know about any of that) — but oh man, Grandma Virginia mostly went after Pete and Emerson, Nicholas’s middle child.She was bad enough in her own right, for several reasons, and worse because having been one of her “favorite” grandkids makes Pete empathize with James that much more when he’d really rather not, and she just compounds everything in ways that Pete hasn’t even halfway parsed out since she died a few years back, because they’re tangled and messy, and for all he has literally danced on her grave before (it quickly devolved into having an emotional meltdown on her grave, but still), he did love her.Sometimes, he’s pretty sure he hates her for making him love her more than he hates her for all of the shit she put him and Emerson through (and if pressed to explain it, he’d guess that he hates what she did to them, and he’d hate her for that if Virginia hadn’t made both of them love her, but making them love her was even worse than that because of how it clouded their ability to see that what she was doing to them was wrong and limited their ability to fight back).Sometimes, he feels like he hates her most for what she did to James, and that usually leaves Pete feeling really confused, since he can’t tell if it’s coming more out of, “If she hadn’t abused my Dad, maybe he wouldn’t have abused us” or wishing that James hadn’t been abused because of what a mess it made of him and wishing that James hadn’t been such a mess because, despite anything that Pete ever says to the contrary, he loved his Dad and still does, and he wishes that he didn’t because he feels like hating James would make all of this easier, but…Sometimes, he feels like he hates her more for the things that didn’t seem like a lot at the time, but became bigger deals down the line — like how she tried to pit Pete against Leilani’s side of the family and pull him away from her as much as Virginia could get away with, given that Pete has always been a Mama’s Boyor like how she tried to say that Emerson didn’t need treatment or professional help for his abuse of prescription stimulants when it had nearly killed him more than once, which she said was because she, “believed that he could take care of it himself,” but really, it was because she knew that his parents and siblings wanted to push him into an LGBTQ-exclusive inpatient rehab and get him away from the pro-reparative therapy psychiatrist he was seeing, and she hadn’t succeeded in making Nicholas, “turn away from sin and homosexual deviancy,” but she shad hope that she could get Emerson and Pete to do so

And…… I lost track of that by a lot, but. Yeah, uh.

So, as seen here, the Ardens are kind of a huge mess in a lot of ways, with regard to abuse and familial dysfunction, but Pete’s trying to do his best with the aftermath of it. He’s kinda wound up treating Emerson as a mix of, “replacement older brother, because he’s younger than Jimmy but still older than Pete, and Pete and Jimmy have both contributed to the often shambolic state of their relationship, and it’s easier to talk to Emerson than Jimmy” and, “good friend, who’s okay with good-naturedly picking on each other (though Emerson isn’t sure if Pete is doing that when he says he’s pretty sure Emerson made up his current boyfriend, or if Pete really doesn’t believe that Asa exists)”

And, like. Even if things weren’t a complete mess with Jimmy, Pete would, at this point, feel like his Princess (Sebastian) is basically his brother…… but things being a mess with Jimmy made Pete decide that Seb is pretty much his brother sooner than he might’ve done otherwise, because Seb gets on Pete’s level better, he apologizes when he fucks up by Pete rather than turning it into some tu quoque, “Well, Pete, you’ve fucked up by me before, so I’m not obligated to apologize to you” bullshit, he and Pete have followed each other into multiple bad idea misadventures because they couldn’t talk each other out of it and went, “Okay, well, you’re not going alone” while Jimmy has always been more hands-off……

And I’m not sure how to wrap this up, so…… This is an abrupt ending, I’m sorry that this got so out of hand, I just have a lot of feelings about characters who’ve survived shitty abusive situations, and I’m done now