Love being reminded of OCs I have that I haven't worked on in a while
Meet Naileom from The Lion Academy! He's a horrible person and the sole reason Isom is suicidal and is afraid of being touched.
A pretty boy prince who has been given everything he ever wanted and can't stand being told "no," Naileom is a bit of a party animal. He's also super abusive, especially to his personal slave Isom, although good luck getting anyone to believe it or care. When his antics finally get his all-too-lenient father to remove his status as crown prince, he throws a fit and runs off with Isom in tow, eventually ending up at the Lion Academy. While his outgoing, extroverted personality makes him a lot of friends there, a few people are able to see below the surface. One of them is Andronicus, who manages to convince him to sell Isom to him after he sees Naileom about to beat Isom. But Naileom isn't going to give up his treasured "popular" status without a fight.
Okay I've really been wanting to ramble about my OC Isom but I have a feeling he's gonna be kinda controversial given some of the stuff he struggles with.
Isom deals with same-sex attraction. For clarity, as a Christian I believe that marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman, and Isom's character arc reflects this.
TW: non-graphic discussions of SA, self-harm, and suicide under the cut
Isom was taken from his birthplace in the far north as an infant and brought to the country of Icytheocaea, where he was sold as a slave to the royal family. He was raised alongside the prince, Naileom, as his personal slave. They started out as close friends, but Naileom was extremely spoiled and became abusive, knowing that he could do anything or take anything from Isom and Isom was not allowed to protest. He manipulated Isom, sometimes being super kind and loving with him and then taking that care away and being cold and abusive. Isom became more and more willing to give of himself to Naileom in an attempt to regain his love. Because of that desperateness, and the close relationship they had early on, Naileom easily maneuvered Isom into a secret romantic/sexual relationship with him.
Isom did want the relationship at first, but quickly began to feel guilt over what they were doing, and the temporary pleasures of the relationship didn't fix Naileom's patterns of abuse, it just gave him more ways to hurt him. Isom felt more and more shame. And especially because they lived in a country that was culturally "christian" but without actually preaching the whole of the Gospel, Isom pretty much believed he was the worst kind of sinner but without any hope of forgiveness. Even though he couldn't leave, Isom tried to cut off that part of their relationship, but Naileom would coerce and force him, and Isom also battled with his own desires.
Isom became extremely depressed, to the point of both self-harming and being actively suicidal. A state he would stay in for years. A constant battle of trying to find any reason to keep himself going just a bit longer, of telling himself that he couldn't kill himself until such-and-such happened and then doing that over and over. A hideous cycle of Naileom abusing him in every form you can abuse someone, and then shrugging it off like it was nothing and acting like he still cared about him, and acting like any issues Isom had with him were Isom's own fault.
After a long time of this, Naileom and Isom end up at the Lion Academy. And things are just as bad there. Naileom manages to become popular among the other students there, and if anyone gets at all suspicious about how he treats Isom, he convinces them that Isom has "issues" and if he says anything negative about Naileom then he's either lying or delusional.
Until their second year, when Andronicus comes to the Academy.
At first, Isom thinks Andronicus is just another spoiled prince, especially because Naileom is able to charm and befriend him rather quickly just like everyone else. But Andronicus expresses care for Isom, elevating his dignity as a human being, even though he's a slave. When Andronicus sees how Naileom treats him, even though he doesn't know nearly the extent of the abuse, he trades the last gift he has from his dead father to buy Isom off of Naileom and rescue him. Redeem him.
Andronicus. The first person to ever care for him, and not in the messed-up on-again-off-again abusive way that Naileom did. Andronicus, who has a habit of accidently saying the absolute worst things at the absolute worst times, but sits with him through his roughest moments and continuously pulls him back from the edge, literally and metaphorically. Andronicus, who refuses to treat him like a slave, who treats him like a best friend, who treats him like a brother, even when Isom can't work up the self-respect to look him in the eye.
And for Andronicus, he's able to make a promise.
That he'll live one more day.
And he manages to keep that promise, over and over again, sometimes just barely, but every new day Andronicus is there to help and give him a reason to live another day.
But Isom is still afraid to let him knows the secret struggles he deals with, and about his past with Naileom. He's afraid more than anything to lose Andronicus's friendship, and surely Andronicus would despise him if he knew what a filthy, disgusting person he was. So he hides it.
But he can't hide it forever. And everything comes crashing down on him when a freak turn of events leads to him being lost in the forest alone with Andronicus and Naileom. His worst nightmare comes true when Naileom decides to reveal everything to Andronicus simply out of spite.
To Isom's surprise, Andronicus's reaction isn't disgust, or hatred. It's compassion and grace. It's an understanding that, while the things Isom feels and has done are still wrong, they don't define him. Isom, like everyone else, has sinned. But. Andronicus reminds him, there is a but.
"But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11)
And that reminder, that grace, is finally able to release Isom from years of shame he could never escape. He still has desires he struggles with, but that's not who he is. He's been bought. He's been redeemed.
Isom never magically gets better. He still has days where he struggles, where he feels like it would be easier just to let go and give up. But he doesn't live in that state anymore. He has hope now. That his past, that his sin doesn't define him.
