A/N: I watched the preview for next week's episode of Leverage and I was excited to see Nate's dad is making an appearance! So this is inspired by that.
I hated my father. He was a bastard and a drunk. We were "Catholic" so Mom insisted that they needed lots of kids. That's how I ended up with three sisters and a brother. I was the second oldest. My brother was older but he was never as smart as me. He was convicted of shop lifting by the time he was eight. So I took over as the eldest because I was the most responsible. I took care of my three little sisters when my dad got into one of his moods. I always ended up taking the brunt of his anger. Sometimes it was just shouting but on rare occasions, he would hit me.
He was a bastard. He treated my mother terribly. And he hated my brother. And my brother tried to impress him at every opportunity. That's why I don't get along with my brother. Dad always preferred me over him and Dad made no effort to hide his favoritism. My father didn't care too much about my sisters. He just demanded that they look presentable and never talk back. They weren't expected to help him steal. He wanted them to stay home and cook and clean for him. And two of them were content to do that.
The sister that was closest to me in age, she was only a year younger, always wanted to show our father that she could do just as much as any boy. She played baseball with boys, played hockey with boys, and wore her hair short. She hated cleaning and burnt everything she tried to cook. She was a tomboy. And my father hated that. When I was older and had a job to help support the family, she was left there with my useless mother and my younger sisters. She became the punching bag when she was about fifteen or sixteen. It was my fault, really. I always tried to distract him, but I had a job and I couldn't be around all the time.
Some days he was a great father. I remember distinctly that he would take us to the beach for a day during the summer to give Mom a break from us. He loaded all five of us in his car and let us run wild on the beach. He did this up until the year he finally went to prison. I have lots of good memories at the beach. It was the one time it was guaranteed that he wouldn't be a bastard. He would buy us cold drinks and icecream and treats. He would chase us around, making my sisters shriek with delight when they were younger. He would take us to dinner at night and we would eat stuff Mom decreed was "junk" and snicker about it.
But, when the sun set, he would pack us into the car and take us home. We would all be dejected because we all knew that, once we got home, he would become a drunk again. And he would push us around.
I took a sip of the whiskey that sat on the table and I came to a horrifying conclusion. I was a bastard. And I was a drunk.
I had turned into my father.
A/N: Tada. I hope you liked it! Please review.