Previously on "The Otherworlders": Sebastian takes Cameron and Jake up to his expansive, industrial-chic bedroom, leaving them both awestruck. But the awe is disrupted by the energetic entrance of Mateo, Sebastian's little brother, and the arrival of Astrid, Sebastian's younger half-sister, who takes a keen interest in Cameron and Greta, his other, even younger half-sister, who is fascinated by Jake.
Sebastian struggles to manage these familial interruptions and get back to prepping Cameron and Jake for their mission at the Vampyric Prince Julian's engagement party.
Also, now that Farid and Patrick are closer after having been on a mission together, news of activities about The Shifter Resistance and a threat to Stephen, Patrick's boyfriend, concerns them both.
*********
Sir Geoffrey sits at his desk, shuffling through a sheaf of papers he has to sign. He barely looks up as Sebastian slips into his office. With a curt nod of his head, he says. "Sit Down."
Sebastian takes a seat.
Sir Geoffrey finishes glancing through the last of his papers, then he places them aside. Leaning back in his chair, he laces his fingers together, and looks intently at his son.
Sebastian squirms underneath his father's gaze.
Then without preamble, Sir Geoffrey says, "Your mother and I are going to the party with you."
"Wait, what?!" Sebastian looks at his father, shocked.
Sir Geoffrey's eyebrows crease with irritation. "What do you mean, 'what,'?"
"I'm sorry, sir," Sebastian replies humbly. "I mean... well, I figured you'd be attending, but I didn't think we'd all be going together."
Sir Geoffrey's lips purse as he idly straightens various items on his desk, none of which need straightening. "Yes, well, we are. Your mother wants us to make an entrance... as a family."
Sebastian leans forward in his chair, his arms resting on his thighs. "But, Father, you do realize I'm not going there to socialize, right? I actually have a mission to accomplish."
Sir Geoffrey's eyes flick up to catch his son's gaze. "I'm well aware of that, Sebastian. "And we won't interfere with your... " He makes a vague gesture with his hand. "...assignment, or whatever. But you also have an obligation as a First Son of this family. And if your mother wants to make a grand entrance to this silly fête, then that is what we'll do. All of her relatives will be there, so this is very important to her."
Sebastian slumps back into his seat and sighs.
Uncomfortable with the awkwardness hanging between them, Sir Geoffrey begins to shuffle the papers on his desk again. After a beat and without looking up at his son, he asks, "And how is your training going?"
Sebastian, still pouting, replies, "It's going fine."
"And your compatriots? How are they performing?" Sir Geoffrey asks, suppressing just how keen he is in the answer.
Sebastian peers at his father acutely, remembering Farid's warning to him before he left about their father asking Farid to spy for him. "They're fine," he says slowly.
"These boys that you've brought with you," Sir Geoffrey inquires, tapping his desk as a distraction. "Tell me about them."
Sebastian angles his head and proceeds cautiously with his reply. He can play this game too if he has to.
"Well, one is a Mage, and the other is a Wolf Shifter. I suppose they're pretty good guys... all things considered."
"And what about their skills? What are they good at?" Sir Geoffrey persists.
"What do you mean their skills?"
"I mean..." Sir Geoffrey says, irritated by having to spell it out, "what special talents do they have, beyond the obvious aspects of being a Shifter and an Enchanted? What have you seen them do during your training?"
"Uhh... Father..." Sebastian bites back, his teeth clenched, the muscles in his neck straining. "I don't think we're allowed to talk about the details of our training or of our missions."
Sir Geoffrey's expression sours. "There's no need to be precious about this, Sebastian," he huffs out as he leans forward in his chair. "I'm your father. It's perfectly fine if you tell me."
Sebastian's eyes narrow. "I don't think that's true."
"Boy!" Sir Geoffrey snaps. "Why must you make everything so complicated?!"
Offended, Sebastian snaps back, "I'm not making it complicated! Those are the rules!" He inhales, then slowly blows out a breath. And then in a lower and much calmer voice, adds, "That's the code we're bound by, and it's one I intend to uphold." He leans back in his chair, then underneath his breath mutters, "I would think you'd be proud of that."
Sir Geoffrey scoffs, shakes his head, and taps his fingers together as the silence grows between them.
After a moment, Sebastian starts to rock quietly in his chair. He grips the seat so tightly his knuckles begin to whiten. He's debating... debating whether or not to ask his father the one question he's always wanted to ask him.
Then after a moment, he looks up, and blurts out, "Why do you hate me so much?"
Sir Geoffrey is shocked, but not entirely surprised by the question. "Pardon me?"
"I said," Sebastian reiterates. "Why do you hate me so much?"
"Sebastian, this is ridiculous," Sir Geoffrey scoffs. "What are you getting at?"
"Well, it seems that everything I do, everything I say, just makes you mad at me. It all seems to make you hate me more and more."
"I don't hate you, Sebastian. You just..." Sir Geoffrey leans forward and plants his forearms squarely on his desk. "...you just irritate me."
Sebastian's eyes grow wide—and almost imperceptibly—they begin to water as the sting of his father's confession pierces through him. But he perseveres. Quietly, his voice breaking, he asks, "But why?"
Sir Geoffrey responds wearily, "Why what?"
"But why do I irritate you?" Sebastian shakes his head slowly. "What do I do that sets you off?"
"I don't know, Sebastian." Sir Geoffrey leans back and looks up at the ceiling. "You just... do," he mutters. "What else do you want me to say?"
"But why? There must be a reason," Sebastian insists. "You don't treat any of your other children the way you treat me."
Sir Geoffrey sighs heavily. "Maybe it's because you're my First Son, and I expect more from you."
Sebastian shakes his head adamantly. "No, no... it's more than that and you know it. Everyone in the family knows it. And I want to know, once and for all, why?"
"Because..." Sir Geoffrey replies frustrated, then he pauses.
"Why?!" Sebastian insists.
"Because," Sir Geoffrey takes in a deep breath—it's finally time to come clean. "Because there's too much of your mother in you, and I don't like what I see!"
Shocked, Sebastian sits perfectly still, then after a beat, he lets his body sink back into the chair. Well, all right then. There it was. The ugly truth of it.
Sebastian looks down at his lap as he swallows the lump forming in his throat.
Sir Geoffrey, seeing the effect his admission has had on his son, softens. "Look... I don't know why, son, but for whatever reason, you seem to have inherited the very worst traits from both your mother and me. And that particular combination, to be frank, is unappealing. I'd always hoped you'd grow out of it, but as you got older, those traits—the arrogance, the selfishness, the pettiness—they only seemed to get worse."
Sebastian looks over at his father's bookshelf, unable to make eye contact, just trying to take it all in.
In a weird way, while appalling and hurtful, finally hearing the truth from his father's lips brings him an odd sense of relief. And everything begins to make sense to him: why the dynamic between him and his father had always been so spiteful and contentious.
Sebastian girds himself to ask the one other question he'd always wanted to ask. "And what about Farid?" he says. "Why is he your favorite?"
Sir Geoffrey, about to deny the presumption, catches his son's gaze, then changes his mind.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Looking down, he clasps his hands before him. "I have a particular fondness for your brother because, while you inherited the worst from your parents, Farid has managed to inherit all of his mother's best traits..." He heaves a deep sigh. "...and what little is good in me."
So that was it, Sebastian realizes. He embodies all that his father hated, both about himself and the woman he was forced to marry, and cherished all that Farid embodied, and everything his father truly loved.
For a moment, the truth lay like a gaping chasm between them, never to be crossed, no matter how hard Sebastian might try. And with that, a little part of him dies.
There will be no reconciliation, no deeper understanding, no moment of enlightenment here today, or perhaps ever, not as long as he reminds his father of the one woman he hates more than anyone else in the world.
And to know that he has been, and will always be, a disappointment to his father kills him... but it also frees him. Because now he knows that it's time to step away, step away from his bitterness and his resentment and become his own man.
Sebastian pushes his chair back and stands without ceremony. "Well, I believe we're done here. Do we leave within the hour?"
Sir Geoffrey merely nods, and Sebastian turns and heads for the door.
"Good, then." He tugs at the door handle, tempted to say the last words he ever plans to willingly say to his father again and then go, be done with this man for good.
But at the last minute, he changes his mind. "I'll make sure everyone's ready so we can leave whenever you desire," he says quietly instead.
But before his father can respond or say goodbye, Sebastian closes the door firmly behind him without a look back, knowing that, at the very least, he can also close the door on all that he's heard today, all that has happened in this study, in this house, in this life with his father and know with some sense of closure, that he can finally move on.
***
Patrick and Farid are sitting on the benches, waiting for their turn to spar during one of Master Achebe's combat training classes.
Suddenly, Patrick's phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his hoodie pocket, and reading the text, frowns.
The look on Patrick's face has Farid concerned. "What is it?" he asks.
"It's a text from Phyllis... um, Stephen's mom." Patrick's shakes his head as his frown deepens. "She's heard from him, and it sounds like things are heating up with The Resistance. She thinks they may be moving their headquarters which makes her think they may also be up to something... something big."
"What? Like an attack?" Farid probes.
"She doesn't know." Patrick shrugs.
Farid blows out a breath. "Do you think maybe you should tell the Masters about what's going on? About what you know?"
Patrick slides over, leans in, and lowers his voice, practically whispering. "What if they tell the authorities? What if there's like a sweep or something? I don't want Stephen getting caught up in that. He wouldn't do well in detention or even worse, jail!" Worry tints his voice. "He'd be easy pickings in there, Farid."
"I know," Farid responds sympathetically.
Patrick shakes his head as his stomach churns, just thinking about Stephen in lockup. If he couldn't handle being bullied in the Shifter camp, how long would he last in prison?
"Look," Patrick says anxiously. "I don't want to do anything until I can get him safely out of there. I need to understand more about this resistance group first. Do you think Headmaster Pierce has a file on them or something?"
"Well, he's got a direct line into the highest levels of the Council," Farid offers. "So I wouldn't be surprised. And did you see the look he exchanged with Master Achebe during our debriefing?"
"Yeah..." Patrick taps his thumb nervously on his leg as he thinks. "I need to get my hands on anything, any piece of information Pierce has got. If I do, then I can figure out how to help Stephen."
"Okay, so how do you want to go about getting this information?" Farid asks.
"We break into Pierce's office," Patrick suggests, as if the answer would be obvious to anyone.
Farid laughs, then suddenly stops when he sees the stoic look on Patrick's face. "Oh, you're serious!" he says. "I mean, dude, you're saying it like it's the easiest thing in the world to do."
Patrick shrugs. "Well, I wouldn't say it was the easiest. But I know for certain it's been done before."
"Okay..." Farid drawls cautiously, not sure where Patrick is going with this.
"Yep, I'm certain we can get into Headmaster Pierce's office again." Patrick nods confidently. Then he looks over at Farid. "All we need is someone's help."
"You got someone in mind?"
"For breaking into the Headmaster's office?" Patrick cracks a smile. "Yes, yes I do."
*********
A/N - I don't really have any commentary on this chapter other than asking what you think of the McFadden family dynamics. Any thoughts?
~ Paula ❤️