#seth lives

for all that seth claimed he wanted to leave palmetto, he found leaving really hard. he may or may not have ended up drunk on wymack’s couch one time. he’s down the road in columbia as a trainee social worker; he feels so out of his depth, it’s harder than he thought to see these kids in the worst situations imaginable and parents who just refuse to fucking learn.

he’s started confronting the fact he grew up around a shit tonne of prejudice and that he’s been a dick to people who have stood beside him. he knows he’s made progress when allison - who’s become a bizarre sort of friend - reveals she’s dating renee, a trans woman, and he doesn’t feel the disgust he used to. he’s genuinely happy for her and happy she’s moved on from the unhealthy shit they had together. it probably hurt both of them more in the long run than any kind of enjoyment that had at the time would let them believe. again, he’s maturing.

he ends up with a lot of lgbt kids on his caseload and begins to really hate himself for being just like people who’ve hurt these kids. parents and siblings who acted like he did that have hurt them, made them runaway or even hurt themselves. his mentor, carmen, is a very brusque older black woman who tells him it’s in the past. he needs to leave it behind and recognise the fact he doesn’t do it now and actively hates it as progress. matt comes down every couple of weeks and they work out together. seth rants about all of this. he’s so fucking angry and matt’s just smiling. when the rant is over, matt just says he’s proud of seth. seth tells him to fuck off.

there’s one particular case that seth cant get his mind off of. he knows he should do what carmen says and just leave the cases at the desk but seth just cant. dante is twelve year old who is so fucking angry at the world because of how its treated him and everything he’s seen. every placement seth finds for dante lasts no longer than 3 weeks and time and time again they end up at the office, dante with his singular bag in tow and pissed off expression firmly on his face. one night, they cant place him at all and seth resigns himself to a night in the office with this now thirteen year old.

“god, you little asshole. maybe i’d be able to sleep if it wasnt for you,” seth sighs at one point, entirely exhausted. dante just genuinely laughs for the first time since seth has known him.

dante eventually just refuses to speak to anyone other than seth. the next morning, he’s refusing the singular placement the entire team have been able to find. seth’s like fuck it, and becomes his temporary foster parent. dante lives with seth for two weeks, and seth has no clue how to be a parent, but dante doesn’t care. he has a bed and a door that locks (andrew hands seth a lock that weekend in columbia - something thats become a tradition for all of the foxes from the canon year to attend. he just goes ‘for the kid. trust me.’ and seth does it without question. he and dante work together to screw it to the inside of his bedroom door), food and clothes. some dude that will play video games with him and call him a loser and buy his favourite foods and doesn’t expect him to be polite or ‘normal’. he promises seth he’ll try at his next home. it sort of breaks seth’s heart because he’s fairly certain the issue is the foster parents, not this damaged kid who reminds him of a fox in almost every way.

it lasts six months before dante runs away. he shows up at seth’s house with a black eye and a duffel bag, and a nonchalant attitude that is entirely fake. he begrudgingly tells seth the foster father found out he’s gay and ‘didn’t like it’. seth wants to kill him. dante is 13 and a grown man has raised his hand to him because what? he likes boys? fuck that. when dante is in bed that night, seth gets the closest to relapsing he’s been in years. he didn’t know dante was gay and it doesn’t fucking matter at all. he’s so fucking angry at the world and at his past self. there isn’t an ounce of disgust directed towards dante but seth is too fucking mad to see that for the progress it is. after a text to matt, he passed out on the sofa, exhausted from sheer anger. matt arrives then next morning to help them both out for a couple of days and seth realises he has a fucking family.

seth is still fuming the next morning and isn’t going to hide it. he makes it very clear it’s not directed at dante, though. dante is touched at how angry seth is about this. because it’s on his behalf, and in his defence. and the fact that seth allows him to see that anger, and that this isn’t okay. dante hasn’t had that before.

after that point, seth becomes dante’s long term foster parent. he sits dante down and offers to have him live with him until he ages out of the system. the ball is entirely in dante’s court. dante thinks seth is mad if he thinks theres anyway he’d pass up on that offer. seth is the best thing that’s ever happened to him and he tells him as much. it’s the first time in as long as seth can remember that he cries in front of someone else. dante is stunned and in awe of the sheer vulnerability of this scary looking asshole. dante is so fucking glad he doesn’t have to leave.

lilly devi is a bad ass family lawyer who’s been on the edge of seth’s social circle for years. a proud south asian trans woman with deep purple hair, a range of facial and body piercings and cochlear implants she takes off as soon as possible - shes about as unlikely a lawyer as seth is a social worker. shes close with renee and allison and comes to seth when a bunch of allegations about a foster parent appear on her desk. it turns out dante was just one in a line of kids abused by the same man. seth spends that night at the gym with matt, furiously working out until he can no longer think about how broken the system is.

lilly seems to keep her cool while dealing with the case. seth cant understand it - he’s still so fucking angry (something matt and dan seem to find weirdly endearing when they had dinner together?) - but he can appreciate her hard work. with minimal disruption to dante’s new, calm life, lilly navigates a successful motion to remove the bastards fostering licence and hands over the evidence she’s collected to the criminal courts. it’s out of their hands now but it’s been so swift and successful that seth is slightly in awe of this woman.

lilly swings by his office that night with a wicked grin. seth has privately thought shes stunning for a long time but hasn’t acknowledged it properly. it wouldn’t have been appropriate. besides, she knows about his shitty past attitudes.

but lilly surprised him.

“ren’s swinging by to see dante if you fancy a drink,” she says.

“to celebrate the case?” seth clarifies, a bit dumbfounded.

“as more, if you fancy. ball’s in your court,” she said, that grin still in place.

(for the record, dante has always thought lilly was a fucking badass and was thrilled when he found out they were dating)