Work Text:
You weren’t original.
You were forged in pain, in all the suffering that Joseph, John, and Jacob had dealt with. They were men that embodied their past, and their pasts were dark. There wasn’t an action that they did to you that wasn’t influenced by some part of their upbringing.
Joseph would prophesize for hours, filling your head with what you were meant to be. You just had to fulfil your potential. One day, when Joseph was leading those in Eden, you would be right by his side. You would help lead his followers down that same path he'd begun to build. It was your purpose. It was why he was so strict, why he would give you lists upon lists of rules to follow. Much more than the average follower. You just had to be perfect.
Jacob was similar, but his reasons weren’t nearly as godly. Jacob would run you through trial after trial, not being any more soft on you just because you were already on his side. If anything, he ran you harder than the others because he expected only the best from you. There weren’t mistakes allowed, not here. Not with you. You just had to be perfect.
John was different, in a way, but it was just as fucked up. John was less about your future, and way more about your past. Nothing you’d done would ever be good enough for John, he always found a way to chastise you. It seemed like you always had to have something to confess, always had to apologize for something. Anything. John would keep pushing at you, claiming it was to scrub your soul. One day, you would be past all that sin. You just had to be perfect.
All of them were doing the same things that they had grown up with. They were pulling from the only frame of reference they had for relationships... and because of it, you weren’t just one of them, you were all of them. You were John’s guilt, Jacob’s indulgence, and Joseph’s justification. The ways they affected you felt often like they were tearing each other apart inside of you, like every action you did couldn’t ever be what they wanted. Not perfect .
Killing was right when it was for survival, but that wasn’t always the correct path. What if it was the devil leading you astray?
Stealing was right when it was for the cause of the commune, but wasn’t that a sin? Shouldn’t you feel guilty for letting that greed inside of you tug at your hands- allow it to take something that didn’t belong to you?
Repenting for your sins was important to move past them, but what if the actions had been born out of surviving? What if there wasn’t another choice, and it was between you and them?
It was like a group of wolves had you, and they weren’t going to stop until they had enough chunks of your being to satisfy their hunger. They wouldn’t slow down until you had nothing left to give.
There wasn’t a cell in your body that wasn’t manipulated by their puppet strings. They controlled every minute of your day, every thought that went through your head was tinged with their influence.
You weren’t original. Joseph, John, and Jacob had turned you into a Seed.