Story

Samuel was born in the winter of 1960, on a very cold day. He was born to a rich Welsh family, in the serene countryside of Montgomeryshire.
Samuel was an only child, and so were both of his parents. Lily and Grant Ellis were strict, conservative parents, and forced very traditional values on their son. They believed firmly in physical punishment for misbehaviour, perhaps relying on this too much, at times. But Samuel was not a child who misbehaved very much at all. In fact, he was very, very quiet, always seen, but never heard.
Samuel hated school. He preferred to sit in the corner, studying silently, but he was bullied.
His parents criticised him for not standing up to the other boys, and his childhood was chock full of his parents impatiently telling him to get over it and 'man up'.
Despite all this, Samuel did well in school, and began pursuing a career in politics.

Samuel thought he was happy. He had few friends, but they were his, and it became commonplace for him to hang around with them, playing darts and snooker in their high-class estates. But Samuel was terrified of women. They were like a different species to him, and any romance he had was fleeting, and seemed pointless.

He was lucky in his work, and also surprisingly charismatic and popular despite the shyness he held behind closed doors.
Throughout his 20's, Samuel put everything into his job. He thought he was good at it: he thought he was a good leader, he thought he knew what the people wanted, and he thought he was a good person. In actuality... none of these things were actually true.

In 1992, Samuel met a woman called Katherine Ellis, at an upscale party. She seemed to find an appeal in his reserved, somehow humble nature, and, never the sort to betray what she wanted to do most, she sat and chatted to him all night. Samuel was terrified of Katherine.
But Samuel also thought Katherine was very beautiful. He had his reservations when he found out she was so much younger than him - after all, his parents had already branded her a ruthless goldigger, but soon, they were going on dates, and Samuel found himself falling helplessly in love with Katherine.
She felt the same.

Sadly, it was not only Samuels parents who disliked the realtionship. Katherine's, too, seemed to disapprove heavily - in fact, they mostly just seemed to despise Samuel. Samuel was used to people hating him, and was quick to brush off Katherine's parents, telling himself that they didn't matter. But Katherine was upset by their response, and upset at Samuel for giving up so quickly.

A year and a half later, Samuel was offered a lucrative job in the West Midlands of England. He took it, and he and Katherine moved into the town of Denman, in Staffordshire.
Living with Katherine, who got a new job as a primary school teacher, frightened Samuel. She was so eager to move their relationship forward, and eventually, she began hinting at marriage and children. The concept of children horrified Samuel. He hated kids. They reminded him of his unpleasant childhood, all of that bullying and the teasing he experienced. Back then, Samuel had no-one of his age to relate to, either. He grew up with the idea that all children were horrible, life-ruining, selfish brats, and he didn't want anything to do with them. Parenthood seemed like a curse. He felt trapped.
Katherine started pestering Samuel, reminding him that they wouldn't be young forever. 'Just one', she'd say. Katherine loved kids, and she wanted to be a mother more than anything.
Samuel, ever the doormat, especially when it came to Katherine, gave in, and Katherine fell pregnant.

In the summer of 1996, Addison Ellis was born. Samuel immediately despised them, and regretted everything. By some sort of biological blip, Samuel did not bond with the child at all. To him, it was not a person, but a noisy, pointless object, with no purpose other than to take Katherine's attention away from him. Samuel was miserable.

But, Samuel tolerated Addison, feigning excitement when they took their first steps, when they said their first words. He performed his role as a father, but not for one second, was it real. In 1998, Samuel and Katherine got married.

Samuel felt exhausted. He was tired of pretending, and he thought back to how he was raised by his own parents - nothing like the way Katherine treated Addison now. He couldn't keep up the pretence, and started to become cold and bitter towards Addison, interacting with them as little as possible and leaning on his knowledge of his own childhood for reference. After all, he turned out great. He just needed to project that onto his own child, and everything would be okay.
Samuel was completely delusional, and subconsciously, envious of the love Addison recieved. Why should Addison recieve love from their parents, when he recieved none?
He dived into his work. When he wasn't out, he was in the office. When he wasn't doing either, he was inviting his colleages over for fancy parties.

Katherine was frustrated at Samuels disinterest in family, and as much as they both loved each other, they began to drift apart. All Katherine wanted to talk about was Addison, and it made Samuel feel jealous, sick, and wrong. Samuel's suggestions that Katherine was 'coddling' Addison, making them too effeminate and weak, angered Katherine. She expressed that she was simply allowing their child to be themself. As Addison was assigned male at birth, and this was how their parents percieved them, their effeminate traits made Samuel very, very uncomfortable. It all felt wrong to Samuel, who was not a progressive thinker in the slightest.
Addison was a quiet kid - very quiet, in fact, almost mute, hardly saying a word to anyone who wasn't their mother - certainly not their dad.
Samuel, too, felt the same. He spoke to Addison rarely, not trusting them, and in fact, he somehow felt as though they were insidious in nature, like they were only there to completely sabotage his life.
Katherine tried everything she could to build a proper family - bonding activities, family days out. These were temporary fixes. On some days, Katherine felt like there had been a real progress in Samuel and Addisons relationship, but a few weeks later, things were back to how they were before.
Katherine began to get angry at Samuel. He wasn't communicating, nor was he showing any affection for either of his family members anymore. Their relationship seemed to be hanging in the balance.

But in 2006, everything changed for the family forever.
Early in the year, Katherine was diagnosed with an incurable disease. It was very advanced. It was very severe. Doctors doubted that she'd make it to next year. It was a very difficult year for everyone, and tragically, Katherine passed away that August.
The loss hit both Addison and their father like a ton of bricks, but the two's methods of coping were both very different.

Samuel was distraught. He could not get out of bed, and he became severely depressed. When Katherine was ill, he'd realised how much she'd meant to him. She was his everything, and now she was gone. Katherine was, Samuel realised, his only emotional support. He'd opened up to her like he'd never opened up to anyone. She was his reason for getting out of bed in the morning - his reason for living. How could he have ever taken her for granted?
Samuel's parents were not supportive. They did not console him, and in fact, criticised Samuel for taking Katherine's death so hard. They told him he was making a bad impression on Addison, and embarrassing himself. This, unsurprisingly, did not make Samuel feel any better. In fact, it made him feel a lot worse.
Samuel recieved little professional support afterwards, aside from a few visits to the doctor, who never knew about the suicidal thoughts that he had been having. He took up smoking, and quit his job - choosing to rely on his masses of savings while he waited for the year he could access his pension.
He felt that his life was a mess. Was it ever not? He had no-one.

Of course, Samuel had someone else to consider in all of this - Addison. Samuel did not feel like he knew Addison - who was 10, by this point. His entire world was gone, leaving nothing but a cold, numb void, and a nearly-mute little stranger who lived in his house.
Samuel climbed out of his depression enough to drag himself out of bed in the mornings, but he didn't know how to be a father to Addison - and in fact, didn't even try.
He still merely tolerated them, at best. Samuel even found himself starting to blame them, in fact. They were the reason that Katherine's priorities shifted away from him, they were the reason that he and Katherine had started to drift apart. Samuel even started telling himself that was it not for childbirth, Katherine may not have become ill... though there was absolutely zero rational backing for this.

Addison seemed to feel the same tolerance for him in turn - though their opinion of him gradually grew into more of a seething vitriol. Samuel knew this, and for the rest of Addison's childhood, they lived in the same house, yet never spoke. They ate separately, they stayed in separate rooms. The house was big enough to do this easily. Addison and Samuel did their own thing, both going out of their way to avoid the other.
Samuel quit smoking, quite spontaneously, and beat cravings through pure stubborn energy. Samuel absent-mindedly arranged stuff with Addison's school, and he confusedly stumbled through the whole process of then changing schools, after Addison was expelled when they were 13, following a fight.
Samuel went through the motions of life, doing things that he always had. Their cleaner stopped going, and the house became dusty and old-smelling, but Samuel always kept the lawn mowed, and the ironing done. He started reading their entire library of books, while he slipped only further into another depression - this time, a depression of complete and utter emptiness.

At the end of 2010, Addison told Samuel that they were not a boy. Samuel was confused by this. Frightened, even. Samuel did not like change, nor things that were different, nor things he didn't understand. He felt disgusted by it.
He was already scared of Addison and who they were turning out to be, feeling as though he had absolutely no control over the strange creature growing up under his nose. Addison followed this by telling him that they were not a girl, either. They didn't have a gender. Agender.
Samuel was, again, very confused, but content with the theory he formed, that Addison was still just severely messed up from their mother's death. He encouraged Addison to go back to counselling, as they did shortly after Katherines death, but Addison was very, very dismissive of this.
Samuel did not respect their pronouns, nor their identity.

Samuel was shocked to find out, one day, that Addison had friends - well, singular, at least for now. Martha Anderson started coming around after school, though after first introducing herself to Samuel, they saw one another very rarely. Truth be told, he tried to avoid her if at all possible.
Samuel saw more and more different faces, as the years went by. One day, one of these faces introduced himself as Addison's boyfriend, something that left Samuel speechless. Samuel was scared of Kai London. He ticked all the boxes for the type of person that left Samuel intimidated and unsettled. But Kai was nice to Samuel, well-spoken, and genuinely seemed to want to put across a good impression. It wasn't enough for Samuel, though.

Eventually, in 2018, Addison announced that they were leaving home, to move in with Kai. Samuel couldn't quite register this. Addison was 22. How had the years passed so quickly?
Addison was fully independant. The stranger in Samuels home moved out, and Samuel was free. He did not need to think about them ever again.

Samuel was not getting any better. He started to become paranoid and very lonely. He'd never have imagined that he'd start to find himself missing Addison. Just knowing that there was someone else in his house counted for something, and now the silence was deafening.

Samuel spent the next year doing a lot of thinking. About Katherine, about Addison.
He started to feel watched. The house was too quiet, and he heard whispers in the silence. He started to imagine Katherine watching him. He remembered a time that Katherine promised him to look after Addison after she'd gone. He reflected on how poorly he'd done that. He started to slowly, slowly, come to terms with just how much he failed, with how he let Katherine down so thoroughly.
Samuel was torn apart by his regrets. He began to form a respect for Addison, and a feeling for them that could even be considered affectionate.
Christmas eve of 2022, Samuel rang Addison. He wanted to talk to them. He wanted to apologise. Addison did not answer his first call, or his second. His third call was blocked.

For the next few years, Samuel continued attempting to contact Addison. He eventually found out from Kai that the two of them got married, in 2023.

2026, Addison decided to hear Samuel out. He apologised as sincerely as he could. He knew that the two of them would never be close, but he told them that he deeply, deeply regretted everything. Addison did not say much, but, with Kai encouraginging them, listened to what Samuel had to say.
Addison needed time to think about their conversation, but eventually, their relationship with Samuel was better than it had ever been.
This still wasn't saying much - Addison still wouldn't particularly say that they liked him, but their relationship became civil enough for the two of them to actually have an existing relationship, and things only improved over the years.
Far later in life, Addison and Kai have a child, Seth. Samuel was delighted to meet him. He is never close to Addison, or Kai, or Kai's family. But he knows his mistakes, and eventually, makes new connections elsewhere.