Chapter Text
Nathaniel’s father saw weakness in every gesture his son made—whether it was the way Nathaniel cried too easily or flinched at the sound of his raised voice, the deep emotions that made him hesitate instead of obeying, or the desperate sought out comfort when only silence was expected. As a child, when a simple tumble in the yard left him with a scraped knee and tears streaming down his face, his father yanked him up and barked, “Jesus Christ, stop sniveling! It’s a scratch. Act like a damn man,” shoving him inside and forbidding any further play until he “got himself together.” On another day, when Nathaniel found a baby bird fallen from its nest and spent hours trying to warm it with whispered promises of healing, his father sneered that he was wasting time with something doomed to die—words that echoed painfully as Nathaniel later buried the dead bird in secret.
His father's belief that a boy's strength was proven in his ability to take a punch was made brutally clear when, after a school fight in which Nathaniel refused to hit back out of compassion rather than fear, his father exploded with rage, spitting, “You just let him hit you? Pathetic,” and forcing him to beat a training bag until his knuckles split, drilling in the lesson that if you didn’t hit first, you lost.
Nathaniel always looked for approval, always wanted to know he was doing things right. When he was learning to shoot, he turned to his father after each attempt, searching for a nod, a word of encouragement—anything. Instead, his father scowled. “Stop looking at me like that. You don’t need me to hold your goddamn hand.”
The final blow came the night before he was sent away, when Nathaniel, still clinging to a fragile hope, wrapped his arms around his father's stiff frame in a tentative embrace, only to be met with a cold, unreturned hug and a sharp push accompanied by the muttered command, “Get that weak shit out of your system. It won’t help you where you’re going.” In that single, shattering moment, his father made his decision clear: Nathaniel was too weak to be his son, and military school was to be the crucible that would either fix him or break him entirely.
Nathaniel’s father was the embodiment of ruthless discipline—a man convinced that only the harshest measures could instill strength. He believed that by sending his son to military school, he was forging a hardened warrior out of a weakling. Though, it was nothing like the rigid discipline Nathaniel’s father had promised—it was an arena of relentless brutality. His father, believing that harshness would forge a stronger man, sent him off without a shred of compassion. Instead of emerging tough and resilient, Nathaniel was left hollow, scarred by a system that prized obedience over humanity and stripped away any chance at genuine connection.
After military school, Nathaniel didn’t come back fixed the way his father had hoped. He came back different—but not in the way that would have made his father proud.
The school had done exactly what it was designed to do: beat obedience into him, strip away hesitation, and replace it with cold discipline. But there was no strength in it. Nathaniel had learned to follow orders, to stay silent when punished, to stand at attention even when his body screamed for rest. But inside, he was emptier than before. If his father had ever wanted a son with fire in his eyes, he got the opposite—a hollowed-out boy who did what he was told but never felt anything anymore.
And his father hated it.
At first, there was a short-lived moment of satisfaction. Nathaniel didn’t cry anymore. He didn’t hesitate when given instructions. He answered with "Yes, sir," and "Understood," never meeting his father’s eyes. But that victory was brief because soon it became clear: Nathaniel hadn’t grown stronger. He had just shut down completely. There was no defiance left to fight. No stubbornness to crush. He was like a ghost—silent, obedient, and indifferent. And for a man like his father, who thrived on control, that was almost worse.
It didn’t take long for frustration to set in. The first time his father tried to provoke him—to test him, to push him into finally proving his worth—Nathaniel just stood there, emotionless. It didn’t matter if it was yelling, if it was shoving, if it was pushing him to fight back. Nathaniel took it all with dead eyes. And that infuriated his father.
So one night, after another failed attempt to get any sort of reaction out of him, his father made a decision.
"You don’t belong here."
It wasn’t even an argument. It was a fact. Nathaniel didn’t fight it, didn’t ask where he was supposed to go. He just packed a bag, walked out the door, and left. His father didn’t stop him.
Returning home a broken, disoriented soul, he found that the world he knew offered no real solace. His father’s stern absence and the cold, unyielding lessons of military life left him desperate for any hint of kindness.
Nathaniel drifted. He was 17, too young to have any real resources, too detached to care about where he ended up. He spent the next several months bouncing between places—shelters, odd jobs, sometimes just sleeping outside. He didn’t want anything. Didn’t look for anything. But that empty space inside him—that was what made him vulnerable.
Because when someone finally offered him a place to belong, he didn’t even think to question it.
It started when he met someone who noticed him. An older man, calm, kind-eyed, with a voice like warmth in a world that had given him nothing but cold. A stranger who saw the lost boy in him and told him he didn’t have to be alone.
"You look like you need a home."
And that was all it took.
The place he was brought to wasn’t a church, not exactly, but it had the same atmosphere. Quiet, structured, peaceful. A commune, they called it—a family built on faith, where no one was left behind. They lived off the land, secluded in a rural compound, and told him he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. They welcomed him with open arms, gave him food when he was hungry, a bed when he had nowhere else to sleep, a purpose. The way they spoke was soothing, the way they touched his shoulder, the way they told him they cared. They said they saw something in him—something broken, yes, but something that could be fixed, reshaped, made into something stronger. It was everything he had never been given before. And he believed them.
At first, life there seemed peaceful, almost idyllic. They shared everything—food, work, devotion. Days were structured but not yet suffocating, filled with communal meals, prayers, and physical labor. Nathaniel, conditioned by years of needing to prove himself, fell into it easily. He worked harder than anyone, eager to please, desperate to be accepted. The leader, a man everyone called Father Elias, took a special interest in him, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder and telling him, "You were meant to find us."
But slowly, almost imperceptibly, things began to shift. The benign veneer peeled away to reveal a meticulously crafted web of control. At first, it was subtle. Little rules. Small sacrifices. Then the warmth that had pulled him in tightened into something more suffocating. What began as gentle guidance soon morphed into rigid daily rituals: long hours of confessions, endless recitations of the group’s dogma, and subtle punishments for even the smallest hint of independent thought.
Rules became more rigid, expectations more punishing. The days stretched longer, the prayers more demanding, the punishments for disobedience harsher. Isolation from the outside world wasn’t just encouraged—it was required. They confiscated his old belongings, his clothes, anything that tied him to the life before. “Let go of your past,” they told him. “It was only hurting you.” Contact with outsiders was forbidden; even speaking too much about life before the commune earned a stern rebuke or, worse, a long night locked in the punishment shed, where the only sound was the distant murmur of prayers recited over and over.
Prayers turned punishments. Devotion turned submission. They taught him that pain was necessary, that suffering was holy, that love came at a price. And Nathaniel, with his broken history and desperate need to be wanted, accepted it all. Public shaming sessions and forced labor became commonplace, each act a calculated measure to break his will and ensure unwavering obedience. The very kindness that had drawn him in turned insidiously oppressive, as every soft word and caring gesture was interwoven with the threat of severe retribution for any sign of dissent.
Father Elias was everything Nathaniel’s father had never been—gentle when he needed him to be, firm when he expected more, but always watching, always testing. Nathaniel, desperate for approval, latched onto him, mistaking control for care. The more he submitted, the more affection he was granted. The moments of warmth—the hand on his back, the soft-spoken praise, the murmured assurances that he was special, chosen—became a lifeline, something he craved even as he sank deeper into dependence. But it was never unconditional. Every kindness had a cost. If he questioned a rule, he was met with disappointment. If he disobeyed, he was punished—not with anger, but with something worse. Silence. Distance. A cold detachment that made him feel like he was vanishing, like he was nothing.
When new recruits arrived, dazed and frightened, Nathaniel saw himself in them. He saw the way their resistance was worn down bit by bit, the way they learned to smile when they were supposed to, to say the right things, to accept the doctrine without hesitation. He started to recognize the same tactics that had been used on him—kindness given only when obedience was absolute, punishment disguised as guidance, love conditioned on submission. The realization should have broken the spell, but instead, it terrified him. If this wasn’t real, if their love wasn’t real, then what did he have left?
It took time for the fear to outweigh the need to belong. It wasn’t one moment, but many. The night a girl tried to leave, only to be dragged back and locked away for days. The whispered stories of people who had disappeared after defying Father Elias. The creeping realization that no one ever really left. And then, finally, the night he saw his own fate in the glassy, vacant eyes of those who had been there too long, who had been broken past the point of return.
Escape wasn’t a plan—it was desperation.
One long, suffocating night, as Nathaniel lay awake in his cramped, dim quarters, the cumulative weight of psychological torment and relentless manipulation became unbearable. He waited until the compound was sleeping, his heart hammering as he pried open a window and dropped into the frozen dirt outside. He didn’t take anything with him. He didn’t stop to think. He ran. He ran until his lungs burned, until the shouts behind him faded, until his legs gave out and he collapsed somewhere in the dark, the cold pressing in, his body aching, his mind a tangled mess of exhaustion and terror.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, barely conscious, half-buried in the overgrown grass of an empty barn. Long enough for his body to go numb. Long enough to think, If I die here, at least it’ll be on my own terms.
And then, through the haze, the slow creak of a barn door opening. Heavy boots on dirt. A figure looming over him, shotgun in hand. A gruff voice, edged with irritation but not yet cruelty.
“The hell are you supposed to be?”
Nathaniel barely registered the words. His body wanted to shut down, to slip into unconsciousness, but survival instincts—beaten into him by both his father and the cult—kept him tethered to the present. His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps as he tried to push himself up, but his limbs refused to cooperate.
The man—Richard Kellogg, though Nathaniel wouldn’t learn his name until later—crouched down, still holding the shotgun like he wasn’t quite convinced he wouldn’t have to use it. Up close, he looked even meaner, his face weathered and lined, his expression the kind that made people flinch before they even realized why. But he didn’t shoot. Didn’t drag Nathaniel up by the collar and throw him back into the cold. Instead, after a long, considering stare, he exhaled sharply and muttered, “Christ, you look half-dead.”
Nathaniel forced his lips to move, but no sound came out. He swallowed, tried again. “Please,” he rasped.
Richard studied him for another agonizing moment, then let out a sound that could have been a sigh or a low curse. Without another word, he grabbed Nathaniel by the arm—not roughly, but firmly enough that escape wasn’t an option—and hauled him to his feet. Nathaniel swayed, lightheaded, but Richard didn’t let him fall.
"Come on," he said gruffly, half-dragging Nathaniel toward the house. "Don’t make me regret this."
Nathaniel barely had the strength to process what was happening, let alone fight it. He should have been scared. The Richard Kelloggs of the world—the loners with guns and bad tempers—weren’t the kind of people you trusted. But fear felt like a distant thing, drowned out by exhaustion, hunger, and a strange, pathetic kind of relief.
Someone had found him. And they hadn’t left him to die.
That was enough. For now.
It had to be enough.