Work Text
For fifteen years, Michael Oliver Thomas was considered a respectable son of a respectable Earl. His family was well regarded due to the long line of sons and daughters, all considered respectable in their own rights. Not a single family member was ever considered anything but a perfect example of respectability. Until, after fifteen years of being a part of that respectability, Michael Oliver Thomas was the first of his family to be disowned.Michael always thought the history of his ancestors was quite boring, anyways.So, at the age of fifteen, Michael left his family home behind, carrying only a backpack of clothes, a minimal amount of cash, and a cell phone holding a single phone number. Using the small sum of cash, which he had previously earned through his own means, he was able to find a small flat with a job opportunity nearby, and within a month was adjusted to his new reality. It wasn’t until then, after Michael called the only phone number he had, in order to inform his sister – the only one in his family who hadn’t disowned him – that he was settled, did he let himself consider his new reality. A reality that consisted of a small dingy flat, a minimum wage job, and loneliness. But also, freedom. The freedom to be who he wanted to be, love who he wanted to love. The freedom to be a gay man who did not want to follow in his family’s footsteps.For the first time in the year since he realized he liked boys and not girls, Michael truly smiled. In his dingy flat, working his minimum wage job, Michael felt more happiness in the last month than he ever had while stifled and surrounded by luxury.It was then that Michael decided nothing – not his disownment and definitely not his sexuality – was ever going to stand in the way of him making the life he chose for himself. So, he did what he knew best and planned.He planned to finish school, join the army, and then start a career for himself in London. For the next four years, Michael did better in school than he ever had, passing the GCSE in a year and earning a bachelors in three, while simultaneously working two jobs to support himself. At nineteen, he joined army, easily adjusting to the strict schedule enforced. Three months in and Michael found he was his most calm behind the scope of a rifle. At six months, he was one of the best snipers in the British Army. Nearly a year after first joining, a man in a suit made him a job offer.With a small readjustment to his plans, he took the offer and, three months before turning twenty-one, Michael Oliver Thomas accepted the position of Percival.
