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Doc was not foolish enough to think his father was a good father to him. He'd seen enough of others his age with their own fathers. He understood that his was different than most. Worst than most. But he'd somehow never understood in his mind that it was that bad.
Well, no. He knew his father was more than capable of killing him if Doc pissed him off just a bit more than usual. Though it seemed normal for teenagers to be afraid of getting in trouble with their fathers. That wasn't something that made him special. And the fact that his father would drag him to somewhere private to "properly discipline" him? Discipline was a private family matter.
Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he was slowly realizing that this was all worse than he realized. There were moments, in his wondering days. Those days he spent wondering, trying to find his new path in life. Sometimes, at stops, he'd be in the presence of children with their parents. Children who'd spent long hours in catterbusses or the like. They were tired of sitting still.
Sometimes seeing younger children reminded him of Hickory. Sometimes, on a very rare occasion, he'd think back to a moment. Around the first few times his father took him out on hunts. He'd been so happy to finally be going out with his father. He'd been so excited to spend more time with his father. He didn't even know the kind of man his father truly was.
A child accidentally knocked over a display of postcards. He accidentally bumped it while trying to run around an aisle. It fell with a crash that made Doc jump. "Stephan!"
Doc froze. His heart pounded, and he was so sure that poor child is about to get screamed at. That poor child was going to get dragged out of the store. That poor child was going to get beaten.
"Are you alright? Did you get hurt?" The father was gentle. He got down to the child's level. Vater would never had gotten down to his level. He always towered over him.
The young boy shook his head. Doc as a child couldn't even do that.
"Alright. I told you not to run around the store like that, didn't I?" Vater wouldn't have been so kind with those words.
The boy sheepishly nodded his head. "Sorry." Doc would have barely been able to speak. He'd be terrified and shaking and wondering what he could do to get his father to show him mercy.
"Let's help clean this up, alright?"
And so the father and son began to pick up the postcards once again. Doc stared for only a moment. If he let himself stare for too long, he would look like some sort of creep. He'd never have that with his own father. In fact, he was currently struggling to wrap his head around the idea that what he saw was even real. No one else in the store seemed shocked to see the father act like that. And Doc knew they all turned and looked when that display crashed over.
The only sort of fathers he'd ever known were firm, stoic, strict even. The outwardly kind, playful, gentle father was dismissed by Vater as being weak. Ineffective. Stupid even. They raise wild, bratty children, who grow into spoiled, entitled adults who burden society. Or something like that. But there that child was, helping clean up his own mess. With a father who was kind and gentle with him. No yelling. No yanking. No violence.
That was probably when he first had that moment of realization: not all fathers had to be like that.
Although, maybe Doc didn't fully understand. Maybe it was too hard to be kind like that. Maybe raising a child that didn't follow the path they were meant or expected to was too frustrating for Vater to hold back. Thoughts like that were why he spent so long convinced he'd end up a bad father. Either he'd be too soft, being the kind of troll who liked to make kids smile. Or he'd end up breaking, and he'd turn out just like his own father.
Doc didn't want to turn out like his father. At some point, after Vater stopped going on hunts, maybe around the time Hickory was born, he'd decided he'd stubbornly be the first to raise excellent children without ever turning to violence or cruelty. But now, seeing fathers who softly and kindly got their child to clean up their own messes, Doc thought that maybe he wouldn't be the first to do it.
The real, full-on, Moment of Clarity didn't come until some years after those days of searching for purpose.
When Doc met Angie, he obviously knew she already had a child. They introduced themselves to each other because Doc was trying to make her child laugh. He knew if he was going to pursue a relationship with her, he'd end up playing a part in that child's life. That was one of the two major things about a potential relationship she made clear pretty much from the beginning.
"I don't expect you to just jump in and be a dad right away. In fact, don't do that. I don't want a guy I just started dating to push his way into parenting my kid. Just— if we end up really serious, you're going to end up involved in my baby's life. You decide if you want 'em to call you 'dad' or the like."
And Doc had been nervous about the idea at first. He wasn't sure about how good he'd be as a sort of father figure. He just tried to do his best. Make the child laugh, comfort them when they cried, play with them, read to them. He was just doing his best. He wasn't sure if he could be called a father in any sense yet. Frustration didn't really hit yet. Mutti used to say that every parent got frustrated with the children a few times at least.
It was one evening, shortly before he and Angie got engaged (not that he knew that was coming yet). He'd been living on the Moonshine Family's property for a while now, partly with the rest of the mailtrolls they sometimes allowed to use one of the bunkhouses. But at this point in their relationship, Doc was practically living in the main house. Currently he was sitting on the couch, cuddling up with Angie. The child hurried on up and climbed up on the couch to join them.
"Hey, can I call you Pa now?"
Doc blinked, emotion swelling inside him. "M-me?"
"Mhm. Can I?"
He felt— he felt— well, it was something positive, he knew that. Happy. Proud. "Of course! If you feel comfortable with it."
"Okay! I'm gonna nap now, Pa." And they laid themself flat on top of him. Doc hesitantly put a hand over them. He looked down at this sweet, precious, beautiful child. And— How could anyone look down at a child like this, and ever think of doing the things his father did to him.
Angie tapped lightly on his head with her finger. "Are you okay?" she whispered to him. "You look like you're about to cry, babes."
"I just realized I had a bad childhood." He tried to keep his voice quiet, too.
"Well, yeah. I could have guessed."
"My father was terrible. I just—" Doc was starting to choke up. He nestled himself back up against Angie. "[I love you.]
"Mhm." She kissed him on the temple. "Right back at you, my love." She only barely had a sense of what those words had meant. "Hey, were you considering teaching the squirt Yodeler?"
"Maybe." It'd be nice to converse with someone in his mother tongue again.