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Sean doesn’t want to do the heist.
It’s an overwhelmingly universal truth, a moral certainty of his. There is no world in which he actively wants to do that. For every petty crime he has committed, he can’t imagine something on this scale. Sean doesn’t want to do the heist, not just because it’s wrong, but because it’s dangerous. And if Sean cares, he really cares, wouldn’t he choose to avoid danger all together? This is the wrong thing to do. Someone could get hurt. Sean thinks about how fickle and fragile the future is, how, at any moment, Puerto Lobos could run through his fingers like sand, sliding away into this incomprehensible void. Finn had talked about the heist as if it were cementing their fate how they want it, as if it wouldn’t be so, so easy to fuck up. That want for a home isn’t worth it, he doesn’t think.
And, however clichéd and overdone it is, home can be people too. A roof over his head might be nice, but Sean would choose the people he cares about over money. Right? Even if that money can buy them into somewhere far, far safer?
“Cass,” he starts, the cold water of the lake lapping over his shoulders again and again, a slow and steady ripple against the wind, “do you think stealing is wrong?”
Cassidy hesitates, and Sean watches as her eyes narrow and her brow pinches together. All of these little details, whorls in her skin and the shrinking of her pupils, are things he wants to scrawl down and immortalise in his sketchbook. So he can remember her face, like he can remember her etching that wolf into his forearm forever and ever.
“No,” she says, “not if you need to.”
But her face hasn’t relaxed. Those cogs are still turning, and her thought process is persistent. “You told Finn to go along with his fucking plan, didn’t you?”
Before Sean can even say anything, there is a surge of water, as Cassidy starts wading towards the sandy banks where their discarded clothes lie. He pushes after her, spluttering random excuses, blame shifting, refusing to believe he could possibly be at fault for this, but the water heaves back, and reminds him of what he said. And it scares him. The freezing cascade against his hollow chest is insisting that this is all one big lie. That Finn is some equivocating thief, someone who doesn’t even really care about him. That Finn is a bad person.
He feels like he is drowning, but he is just standing on the lake shore, naked, and dripping wet. Cassidy tosses a shirt at him wordlessly, which he only just manages to catch. They get dressed. Sean doesn’t want to think what might have happened already. Everything made so much sense before. There was a moral grey he had wandered into, and he was comfortable there. Agreeing to the heist, agreeing to something so catastrophically stupid. Now, there is just messy fear, and the many, many things that could’ve already gone wrong.
Cassidy is storming up to the edge of the forest, heading deeper inside. Heading towards the camp. Sean can only trail along behind her, like some helpless and shameful lost pup. It’s been so long since he felt like this. Like he has no idea where he is going and what he is doing. Some small and meek and mangy dog that can barely care for itself, let alone anyone else. He won’t forgive himself if that part of him has let Daniel get hurt.
They stumble up into the camp. Well, Sean stumbles. Cassidy marches, like she knows everything will work out in their favour, like she can stop Finn from being a total idiot. And it sounds stupid, but Sean is genuinely terrified no one can talk him down from this particular tower, one he has built up with rage and confidence, self-assuredness, a vendetta against Big Joe, against Merrill, a power beyond human comprehension; and a kiss.
Sean still can’t believe he kissed Finn. Like. In all of the alternate realities Sean is determined exist, did he even meet Finn? How many Seans have chosen to kiss Finn? How many Seans regret kissing Finn?
“You are such a fucking idiot, you know?” Cassidy cuts through all of that massively. There is something so enrapturing about her, her purposeful presence and carefully chosen words. It’s hard for Sean to ever find himself wrapped up in his own thoughts around her, and right now, despite the flood of worry and fear enveloping his mind, all he can focus on is her. She is standing face to face with Finn, scolding him. Being the better person.
It’s so easy to just hang back. Cassidy is good at this, this assertive nature. Getting people to do what you want. Sean can just about convince Daniel to listen to him, if he’s in a good mood. How the fuck did he ever end up in this situation? How did Sean go from having everything— a dad, a home, a stable and normal life and his best friend in the entire world— to this. This monumental task of raising his nine year old brother and keeping them both alive. Sean knows that doing the heist will be easy, easy like it is to watch Cassidy be the person he never could be, but it is so much more risky. Sean has forfeited the right to an easy life the moment he was forced out of his everything.
“You just think you can waltz into Merrill’s place, break his safe open, with a nine year old kid, and get out unharmed? Without fucking us all over?” Cassidy laughs, but there is nothing funny about the situation, “I knew you were dumb, and selfish, but Jesus.”
It sounds like she’s done. She even takes a step backwards, exhales heavily, like she just ran a marathon and came first place. The sound of music is faint, booming out from the centre of camp. This small group of three friends, three friends who are tearing one another apart, simply etch the outskirts of the clearing where everyone else gathers, blissfully unaware of what might go down tonight.
From the look on Finn’s face, Sean suddenly realises he can be talked down from this. This particular tower, one he has built up with rage and confidence, self-assuredness, a vendetta against Big Joe, against Merrill, a power beyond human comprehension; and a kiss.
Finn can be talked down from a kiss. And it is easy.
•
“Daniel,” Sean is shaking his brother awake at six in the morning, “c’mon enano, we have to go soon.”
The tent is boiling, and when Sean grazes the thin walls with his bare arm, it almost burns. The sun has already risen, and is unforgiving today. That’s gonna be great to walk in.
He can’t believe they’re actually leaving. Empty handed, with barely anything to their name. Little means to reach Porto Lobos. No friends to help them along the way. Sean thinks that this will be the most painful goodbye so far. Apart from Lyla. Apart from Dad. Nothing can ever hurt quite as much as that, having home ripped away from you. This place had sort of become a new home, though. Amidst all of the shitty labours of working on an illegal pot farm, there were people that made this place so much more than a job, a shelter. For a good month, Sean almost happy.
And now it’s all going down the drain. That black abyss is swallowing up all the good in their lives once more, and Sean will have to revert to worrying if he and Daniel will survive the next night. Who the fuck can they reach out to now, anyway? Their last saving grace is diminishing as they speak. Cassidy was just there at the Christmas market, a beacon of contemporary and glowing light, this newfound hope. An idealistic dream that maybe, just maybe, Sean and Daniel could follow too. Now there is no Dad, no Brody, no Claire, no Chris and certainly no camp.
They’re leaving.
“So, what’re you guys gonna do, then?” They’re eating breakfast together, for the last time, when Hannah poses the question. Sean doesn’t know what to say, so he just shrugs, hoping she’ll take that as a positive shrug, and not the soul crushing one it really is. He doesn’t want to scare Daniel by just running his mouth about how terrified he is.
Cassidy pipes up with a half-hearted, “I’m sure you guys will be fine.”
There is an overwhelming sense of doom. Everyone, Hannah, Penny, Jacob, Cassidy, is looking at the brothers like they’ve just died. Like they’re some fucking taboo conversation you can’t quite breach because it’s too controversial.
“We’re gonna go to Puerto Lobos.” Daniel says, and he sounds sure of himself. Sean is envious of his innocence.
“You got enough cash?” Penny asks, and Sean knows the answer. No. They don’t. They’ve only been here a month and pay isn’t great. Of course they don’t have enough to get to Mexico and survive at the same time.
Daniel starts talking rubbish, spouting childish nonsense about how they’re gonna stay in a motel every night and eat Chock-O Crisp bars as much as they want, and, that once they’ve reached Puerto Lobos, they’ll live in a beach house and drink out of coconuts with their family. Their big, happy, fucked up, dysfunctional family. Everyone nods and listens along, and no one dares to bring him down to reality, because he is a kid. Daniel is nine years old, and Sean is aware of how impressionable he is, like wet cement. It’s like he’s been stamped with this concept of happiness, of settling down and having a family and drinking out of goddamn coconuts.
Sean’s great plan of bringing a mug of coffee to Finn’s tent so they can have A Chat is kinda ruined when he realises you can’t really knock on a tent. So, instead of this lovely, cinematic entrance he had planned out in his head, Sean has to awkwardly ask, “Can I come in?” He isn’t even sure if Finn is awake until the zipper of the entrance is being pulled down, and the fabric falls away to reveal the inside of the tent.
Finn looks like shit. The bruising around where he got punched is a lot worse this morning— darker than any bruise Sean has ever seen in person— and he looks like he could sleep for a good millennium.
“Here,” Sean opts to sit next to him, instead of opposite, because making eye contact is fucking hard, and hands Finn the coffee. It’s black, and according to Daniel, as he made it, ‘smells dirty’. But, to be fair, the only word Daniel has ever used to describe coffee is dirty, in every single sense.
Finn doesn’t say anything for a second. Like, for once, he is thinking. Considering his actions. Then, he says, “So you’re leaving?”
“Yeah.” There is a horrible lump forming in Sean’s throat.
“Well. I hope you guys get to Puerto Lobos okay. Then all of this bullshit can be over,” he laughs softly, “and you won’t have to see me ever again. You’ll just be... I dunno. Drinking out of coconuts. Whatever.”
Last night Finn told Sean he wanted to come with them. And this morning, Daniel recited his dream, beach house and coconuts and a big, happy, fucked up, dysfunctional family like it was his own. Sean has discovered another overwhelmingly universal truth.
“Why don’t you come with us?” He asks. It isn’t assertive. Sean isn’t assertive.
Finn shakes his head. “I’m...” he wrinkles his nose, “a bad influence. On Daniel. He’d probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for Cass. Because of my stupid fucking plan. Ha.”
“Finn. I don’t want to just leave you.”
In every world, Sean actively wants this.
“Yeah, well. Too bad, I guess. I’d just fuck everything up for you guys.”
There is no alternate reality in which Sean regrets anything.
“No you wouldn’t.”
You can’t change the past, so you’ve just gotta focus on what’s next.
Finn sighs melodramatically, before taking a long drink from his coffee. “Why would you want me? Bug Cass about it instead. She likes, you know, travelling. And she’s smart.”
“Why do you think I want you?” Sean almost laughs. Surely it’s obvious? “Didn’t I tell you last night that I wasn’t afraid of anything?”
“Hmm,” Finn pauses, “I mostly thought we were going to pretend that never happened.”
This scares Sean. The thought that Finn has been talked so far down from his particular tower that he is now six feet under the ground. That he doesn’t want to remember the single most unbelievable, unfathomable thing that’s ever happened to Sean; a kiss.
But, Sean said himself he’s afraid of nothing. So, he just leans forward, and kisses Finn. Which is easy. An ease he deserves, an ease that is guiltless and without consequence, punishment.
Finn kisses back, and it feels like someone has rewound time, returned them to that first time last night outside camp. It is eternal and finite, both some never ending normality and a short lived anomaly. Sean wants to hold onto this forever, and at the same time, he wants to savour it, bottle it up and only experience it in moments of extreme, dizzying happiness.
That second, overwhelmingly universal truth is very, very simple for what it is; Sean loves Finn. So he tells him, because fuck it, he is afraid of nothing. Nothing and no one.
“I’m sorry,” Finn rests his head in the crook of Sean’s neck, “I just... I thought you hated me now.”
“Fuck off,” he laughs, “you’re, like, one of my best friends.”
Finn immediately scoffs and sits up. “Oh, your best friend, huh? Pretty bold of you to assume I like you at all.”
This makes Sean grin. He’s being stupid. A stupid and endearing dork. “How much do you like me, then?” He asks, and Finn holds up his hand, his forefinger and thumb almost pressed together.
“Like that much.”
“Mhm.” Sean pushes his hand out of the way to lean against Finn. “Sure.”
“Sorry if you can’t handle the blatant truth, sweetie.”
“So,” Sean says, “you’ll come to Puerto Lobos with us?”
As he says it, he realises the answer is quite obvious. He just wants to hear it, though. The bold, resolute promise of commitment. Proof, that Finn can’t be talked down from a kiss with a simple scolding.
“Totally,” Finn smiles, kissing him again, “to the end, and shit.”