A/N: TW: all the regulars, extreme brainwashing and abuse, mentions of actual bdsm (it's just Gabriel being disgusted by a kink. Also I will loose my shit if anyone says Gabriel is a little, because he's not, and I don't intend you to see him that way)

Saturday

Saturdays were good days for church bonding activities. If you're going to be stuck with these people forever, might as well get friendly with them. A bowling alley like this one is particularly welcoming to the local youth group, especially since most of the staff were once part of the local youth group, but then aged out when they turned eighteen.

Gabriel was alright at bowling. Some days he had 'butter fingers', though on those days his hands were burnt to crisps.

Today he was having back pain. He had to push through it. He paced around as he waited for his turn.

In this time Azira had ran off to the bathroom with a very familiar sinner. In enough time, Azira came back.

"I spoke with the sinner. He didn't do anything with me except try to make me leave this holy group. I refused."

"That's wonderful, Azira. You stood strong against a sinner," Gabriel said as he grabbed his ball. He made a strike. This was pushing through the pain. This was acting normal.

Next Azira was up. He tried and did everything he was shown, but rolled a gutter ball.

Sunday

Gabriel's father led service as normal. It seemed like a normal Sunday. Everything was normal.

The meeting after church was a normal meeting about the end.

It all seemed oddly normal. It was relaxing.

Azira repented after all that. On his knees he was in the chapel. The stained glass windows made beautiful colors against the pews.

"Please forgive me, for I am a sinner. I feel dirty after my moment with the sinner, Anthony. I cry out for forgiveness. I know what happened was wrong, and I ask that you keep me away from Anthony. I don't need to see him anymore. I don't think I'm strong enough if you want me to save him. If this is a test, I do not believe I am smart enough to pass it. I trust whatever you do though, it will be best. I need you to free me. Thank you. In your name I pray. Amen."

Azira opened his eyes and looked at the colors around him. Gabriel watched and listened from under the pews.

"I am free," Azira happily sighed, "So free."

"Free as a bird attached to a string," Gabriel whispered to himself.

What Gabriel did not know, is that he was just as deep into the brainwashing as Azira was. He didn't know what he was doing was wrong. The spying, the convincing, the loneliness. All of it. The poor boy was brainwashed into brainwashing.

Gabriel trusted his father. His father was all he had. He believed his father was always right. Whenever Gabriel did something wrong he trusted his father to do something right.

That's what father's are for, right?

Most of the time Gabriel was whipped and made to recite Bible verses until he was made correct again. Scars covered his back. It was something unspoken of.

But it was correct, right?

With every crack of the whip Gabriel was manipulated more.

When he was fourteen he was told the truth about the whole operation, and that it was only there to make money. He still wanted to believe though, which was fine with his father. His father used it to put more pressure on him. Over time everything fell apart in Gabriel's mind and he became the cog in the system that his father wanted him to be.

He forgot who he was.

Some times he wished he remembered who that was. He believed he must have been really young. When he looks all finds is who he is now. A faith, while he wasn't sure he believed, and a poor, sad boy who was broken and lived off lies about himself.

Nobody could see that boy though.

They all just knew happy Gabriel who gave the best sermons. They knew happy Gabriel who was the best at giving advice.

But they didn't know Gabriel. Gabriel didn't even truly know himself. He wasn't allowed that privilege of self discovery. That was something he had to live with.

It was too much weight on his shoulders. It seemed like he was just beginning to crumble.

That Night

"Your mother was lovely. I loved her so much. She was so wonderful. She was a sinner though. She wanted to take you and leave New Beginnings. I mean who would do that? She wouldn't accept the Lord into her heart- She was a fat assed sinner!"

Gabriel muttered, "It isn't very nice to call someone that."

"Well she was impure. She wanted to take you. Now she's dead!"

"That isn't good."

"Gabriel, I just want you to know I love you very much."

"I love you too, father."

Gabriel couldn't decide if what his father had just stated was a blank comment, or if his father really meant it. He meant what he said to his father.

Why wouldn't you love the man who freed you from demons, made you head of youth group, read you the Bible as a child and pushed you on the tire swing in the barn.

The tire swing still hung. Gabriel was perhaps too old for it, but at night when he was alone and not being manipulated to utter oblivion, he'd go outside and drift back and forth. The wood of the barn has indentions from where Gabriel has pushed against it with his feet.

It was his time to really be alone, which was rare.

Inside Gabriel was definitely still a child. Yes, he went to school, knew all the math and english he was supposed to, and did normal things for a boy of his age (some of which had to be kept very secret). But he was still stuck in his own world. It was one where he was truly still clingy to his father, which allowed for easy manipulation and abuse, kept childhood toys (he has been sleeping with a very special blanket his mother made ever since he was born and doesn't intend to stop any time soon), and he has a tendency to drink warm milk at night.

Gabriel's tried to let go of it all, but it just doesn't work.

He wish he could. He knew someday, when he was living in the outside world full time, someone would tease him for it, or perhaps worse, think he had a kink for it. The fact that people even find such a thing to be kinky disturbs Gabriel.

There were lots of things that disturb Gabriel. The outside world was toxic.

He also started to believe the inside world was toxic too.