Chapter Text
Glam runs to his back to his black SUV. The rain around him is harsh, every droplet of rain stinging his shoulder and back as he tries to avoid it getting in his hair and face (which it inevitably does.) Everything is cold, Glam feels like he’s going to die out here. He’d rather die than see his fathers cruel face anyways.
After a while of undirected running, he finds his SUV, taking breaths of relief at the warmth of his car. He sits there for a while, taking it all in. The past few weeks have been so eventful he can barely grasp the extent of it all. He thought Ches could’ve gotten him out of this, but now he’s lost that too. His kids were too young to deal with this, and he couldn’t bare to get his wife to get involved in the ‘daddy-daughter drama’. Gustav would leave eventually, he couldn’t rot in Glam’s household, could he?
The drive home is long and tiring, he can barely see a few feet in front of him despite the windscreen wiper on fast speed. The darkness seems to consume his car. Could he even get himself out of this? How would he survive, let alone his kids? Gustav would most definitely find a way through Glam’s heavy insistence on protecting them.
Glam finally makes it to his residence, the red door warm and homely, like a light in the dark. As soon as he enters the home, that switch turns off.
“Sebastian.” The older man takes a wide stance near the door with his arms crossed and some sort of object gripped in his hand.
“Father?” Glam’s smile falters, he squints his eyes trying to gauge what move his father was going to take next.
“Look at you. I didn’t raise you to be this way!” Gustav’s arms swing across the room as he approaches Glam, his voice increasing in volume.
“I’m sorry, Father! It was urgent!” Glam takes a step back, cornering himself to the wall.
“You’re lucky I haven’t done anything to you yet.” He whispers, just loud enough for Glam to hear. “Get yourself cleaned up, you look like you came straight out of the gutter.” He mumbles, rubbing his forehead.
Glam nods, and treks up the stairs, barely being able to hold the weight of his own body. He has to use the railing to pull himself up so his knees don’t buckle under him.
“Sebastian!” Gustav exclaims.
Glam sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “Yes, Father?” The annoyance in his tone is evident.
“Look at the degree of dishevelment you’re creating!” He screams, throwing his hands around again.
“I’m sorry, Father.” He exhales, just to keep his dear father satisfied so he could change his sopping clothing. He continues his trek up the stairs, as Gustav follows behind him.
Glam strips himself of his clothing, and changes into a simple blueish-grey t-shirt and a pair of shorts that reach around knee length.
Gustav watches from the corner, disappointed in the attire Glam chose for himself. Glam avoids eye contact, confused by why Gustav has been pestering him more than what he’s familiar with. Observing with little to no violence wasn’t common for Gustav’s common antics.
Glam pauses “What are you trying to achieve?" He doesn’t even sound remotely mature, or happy in any way. Glam knew he was losing himself. Glam was logical, he had more answers than questions. He was happy. What is he now?
Gustav takes a step forward, observing his son. “Who have you become, Sebastian?” His voice is calm, precise but Glam can only smell the disgust in his voice, the immense scent of alcohol on his tongue. The same scent that stuck to his fathers clothes no matter how much he showered in cologne.
August 13th 2002,
Tomorrow, I will go meet Ches out in the alley at approximately 12am. Father still has no clue about my meetups per diem. Nothing will be unexpected unless Father decides to do his expectation in the midst of the night. The incidental of that is extremely unlikely by virtue the princess needs his beauty sleep.
Father is also yet to find the hiding place, every so often I tend to change the methods of hiding in the security levels. It’s been around five months since father got through the first levels, years since the second. The punishment given was harsh, a whipping much heavier than smack to the wrist for every wrong doing.
The shoebox city is progressing along nicely, around a third of the known city is completed, let alone the whole city itself. The hill with Ches made me truly realize how vast this town is. It always seemed so small from the perspective of the window in my room, despite the unsettling size of it. I’m sure one day, after being released from my fathers grasp, I will finally finish the city.
Sometimes I seem to ponder, how does my dearest Father seem to still keep his unremarkable status when the loathsome aroma of alcohol lingers through the air despite the amount of ‘Agresste’ he showered upon himself. How do people still look him in the eye given the way he lives. The unsettling grin he gives when forced to smile to uphold a satisfactory public image. The way he treats the people he’s supposed to treat with respect, the amount he could lose if paparazzi showed up at the incorrect time.
The memory floods him, as his eyes go blank. He wrote that diary entry over two decades ago, so why remember it now? For a moment, it seemed like he was thinking like Sebastian Shvagenbagen, and not Glam Metal. He’d changed, right? He feels his fathers hands repeatedly connect with his skin, as his vocal chords let out forced hums he could only describe as yelps. Glam wasn’t there, he was somewhere else. Somewhere far away, maybe two decades in the past.
“Sebastian?” Glam tilts his head.
“W-Who are you?” The younger blonde stood a few feet away from Glam, he was panicked, not as unblemished as Glam originally remembered.
“Glam, Glam Metal! Pleasure to meet you!” Glam sticks out his hand, trying to pretend it didn’t sting at the boy who was once him looking at Glam in fear.
“W-well, it’s not a pleasure to meet you!” Sebastian stutters, beginning to profusely sweat, his eyes darting around the white room he currently resided in. Their own mind.
“It’s alright, Sebastian. Gustav isn’t here right now.” Glam smiles, taking a step towards the smaller boy. Sebastian takes a small step back, before being frozen in place.
“Who are you?” Sebastian takes a stride forward, after hesitating for a bit. He was trying to seem dominant, while-as Glam wasn’t going to fall for his own tricks. Sebastian grabs Glam’s arm, he flinches but stays as calm as possible. Sebastian admires his bracelets, as his own slivered wrist seemed to be glowing in this room.
“Did your father whip you, too?” Sebastian looks up from Glam’s wrist, a tinge of hope in his eyes.
“Yes, our father did.” Glam smiles, looking at his younger self. He always victimised Sebastian in so many different ways for how he acted, thinking he’d hurt his children or become his father. Sebastian was a child, he never condoled nor accepted his fathers actions. He forgave his father early on, but did Glam ever learn to forgive himself.
With no warning, Glam hugs Sebastian, neither of them were very big fans of hugs but he doesn’t know what else to do. Sebastian momentarily jerks back, not having any understanding of what the current situation is. Soon enough he hugs Glam back, gripping onto his shoulders as if he’d fall if he didn’t hold on. Sebastian nuzzles his head into Glam’s chest.
“Are you my dad?” He breaks the silence, which makes Glam’s demeanor soften even further than it already was.
“I’m you” Glam smiles, finally accepting himself. Glam finally let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Are you even listening to me, Boy?” Gustav suddenly yells, snapping Glam back to reality.
“Yes, Father.” He exclaims, despite the deep pain circulating through his body but this time it was physical. He looks at the palm of his hand for a moment, before raising it up to his face, touching his cheek. He can only feel what could be either very thick sweat or blood. His smile seems to falter at that exact moment, and his mouth slightly agape from the sudden shock of blood. Glam's eyes widen, and travel from the blood on his hand to his fathers fuming face. The way he’s breathing through his mouth and his shoulders rise and fall in increasing speed. Glam can already tell it’s over, might as well make the best of it.
“You do this every week, Gustav.” He smirks, challenging his father with no fear. “You take it no further than simple threats, and whatever you’d like to call this.”
Gustav stops for a moment, surprised Glam would even try to challenge him in any way. He raises his hand once again and smacks him square across the face, making Glam almost fall over. He can feel his eyes begin to water, as his right cheek begins to burn. He can almost feel his face flush red in pain, but he holds his composure, not even seeming to flinch after.
“Is that all you can do?” He chuckles, having a small bit of a lisp from the fact his lip is swelling.
Gustav’s eyes narrow, watching the man in front of him smile challengingly as if he wanted Gustav to kill him in the spot. Gustav couldn’t get through to him like this, the pain didn’t matter to him anymore. So what did? His kids.
Gustav walks out of the room, leaving Glam more confused than he’d ever been in his life. Everything in life, especially from his father, was easily intelligible. His father was an open book in a foreign language, and Glam was the dictionary for it. The book could be easily translated, but only with the dictionary.
He sits there on the ground for a few moments, unsure on what to think. What could his father possibly be planning? Glam tries to gain composure, by pushing back the undeniable burning pain in circular pulsations starting in the middle of his cheek. He hasn’t noticed the pain until very recently, maybe challenging his father was a way of forgetting it. The pride that came with standing up to the man who pushed him down, ‘the being that killed him’.
Glam’s delirious, he can barely even stand without stumbling back, using the wall to prop himself up. The blood still trickles from his nose, into his mouth, and Glam does nothing to stop it as the perturbation consumes him.
He can barely take a step before he hears a gut-wrenching scream. He forgets about the blood, and the busts of pain and sprints to the kitchen, where the noises seem to get louder and louder.