Work Text:
The gun pushed against Sean’s forehead. The air conditioning in the church had cut out shortly after the fire started, and with an ache hammering in the back of his skull, the coolness of Nicholas’ pistol was refreshing.
He tried to meet his eyes, but Sean saw four instead of two, so he settled for glaring at the general blotchy beige of Nicholas’ face. With his breathing coming out in gnarled huffs, likely due to the blood clawing up his throat, Sean mused if they thought he was scared. Truthfully, all he felt was an overwhelming anger and a deep calm as flames ravaged the church and fanned against his skin.
One minute there was a nozzle seated between his brows and the next there was nothing but orange open space. He would’ve turned to see where Nicholas teleported to if only he had enough curiosity to care. Aside from the heat of the room and the fogginess of his vision, the only thing on his mind was Daniel.
“Sean!” As if on cue, a cry rang out and a tiny figure ran towards him. Sean collapsed to his knees, the room fading to smoke as he embraced Daniel's iron grip of a hug. Apologies and explanations raced out of his brother’s mouth. The throbbing in Sean's head thumped too loudly for him to catch the specifics within the rambling, but just the timbre of Daniel's voice was enough to make him smile.
“Sean, we need to get out of here. Now.” Karen urged beside them. Of course he’d hear her clearly in the midst of all the chaos — Karen was always a shard of glass in his chest that could never go ignored for too long. Daniel stepped away to prepare their leave and Sean sluggishly followed. A small blur of black rested at the base of his knee and by the rectangular shape he knew it was Nicholas’ gun. He picked it up for no other reason than because he was tired. In that instant that logic made sense to him, and in the next he couldn’t understand why.
As Daniel helped him to his feet, the weariness in his bones tugged like shackles. His shoes dragged against the carpet, the edges of his vision swimming with flames and crosses as his brother all but carried him. Then Daniel coughed, the smoke beginning to clog his lungs too, so Sean attempted to lessen his weight and grimaced when he couldn’t. He could do nothing but lean on his brother. But that was alright, Sean reasoned to himself, they’d be surrounded by fresh air and out of harm’s way in a second. Nicholas was gone and Lisbeth had vanished, like a magic trick or a miracle.
Suddenly the whine of a gnat filled his ears before Sean realized it was just Lisbeth, taunting them as she locked the church doors behind her. “—this fire. You will all burn in this Hell!” She commanded, giving one last sermon. Sean moved to roll his eyes but stopped, realizing the action would put just enough strain on his temple that he was more likely to pass out instead. Before he could truly do anything, Daniel’s weight disappeared from his side. Sean quickly adjusted himself. He couldn’t walk, but he’d sure enough try to stay standing for whatever was about to happen to Daniel.
“—your fault! Yours!” His brother hollered and Sean knew, before he even hauled his gaze towards her, that Daniel was using his power on Lisbeth. Although the anger Sean heard in his voice when he choked Cassidy was nothing but a speck compared to the hatred in it now, the images resembled each other all the same. Two people Daniel blamed for putting a rift between him and his family, the real difference was that Sean only cared about one.
“Sean…” Karen rasped before coughs overtook her. She didn’t need to finish, he understood. Sean kept his eyes on Lisbeth, hers having rolled to her brain as her body tried to convulse while being made forcibly stiff. Daniel kept her suspended in the air, so high she could've been hooked to strings on a stage.
Sean looked down to his brother. The wisps of his bowl cut flapped against his face and his shoulders trembled with exertion. The arm he threw up to maintain his power was slim and his other hand was bawled into a small fist against his side. It had been two months since they saw each other, but Daniel still hadn’t grown an inch.
“Wait, Daniel…” The words left Sean without much thought, another glob of blood coating his tongue and making him want to hurl.
“—to use me! And hurt you! She’s bad!” Daniel seethed, and it was this that made Sean realize what he was about to argue was nothing more than a recycled script.
Sean remembered the trimmigrants, Karen’s parents, Mushroom, Lyla, and heard those versions of himself scream over each other that harming Lisbeth was wrong, to put an end to the madness and walk away, that if he just kept pushing, Daniel would let her go. But Sean also saw the bare walls of the hospital room, the blue and red sirens pulling up to the Reynolds’ front door, the shine of Hank’s handcuffs around his wrists, and their dad’s bloodied corpse abandoned forever. He saw every memory and heard every voice, all but his father’s. Nonetheless, out of the pleas the only one that clung to his ears was Daniel’s. And here in this moment, with his stick-thin wrist aimed at a living nightmare, his brother’s screams were full of disgust and animosity, but more importantly, thick with tears.
Sean was on autopilot. In the split second it took, he didn’t feel strain as he lifted the gun to Lisbeth’s face nor irritation as his blurred vision caused him to hit her stomach instead. He didn’t recall the soreness in his limbs until both he and Lisbeth drifted to the ground. The bullet had left the gun like a sigh, the bang echoing in his mind minutes later.
Karen sputtered over his shoulder, but Sean only looked towards Daniel who only looked towards him. He couldn’t tell what surprised the other more: that Lisbeth was actually dead, or that Sean was the one to kill her. Daniel’s expression curled into something soft, not happy but simply muted. Sean wondered if he looked the same.
“It was her... or us.” He muttered to Karen as Daniel used his power to throw open the doors and scrape Lisbeth’s body out of the way. Karen twitched out of her stupor and helped Sean to his feet. As they limped out, Daniel ahead of them checking the corners, Sean found himself split in two; a part of him present, and the other part an audience member that was just returning from a smoke break and asking to be filled in. Lisbeth was dead. He shot her. He didn’t see any life drain from her eyes, but he heard the thud as she hit the floor. He had just been staring down the barrel of a gun, and the same bullet Nicholas meant for him was now wedged in Lisbeth’s torso. Life’s a bitch, Cassidy’s Texan drawl floated to remind him.
It was Lisbeth or them, but the words felt sloppy. His audience member threw popcorn made of stones, raging that Daniel would've let her go if he had only just asked. He couldn't tell if the pit settling in his stomach was from his injuries or something else. It was shaped like Lisbeth's exit wound, so regardless, he knew it wasn't going away anytime soon. It wasn’t her or us, Sean closed his eye, it was him or me. Lisbeth was never going to leave that church.
As they neared the front gate and cleaner air finally replaced smoke, coughing and the squeaking of leather shoes scuttled behind them. Nicholas clambered out of the building on his knees only to stare back into it, shrieking for Lisbeth to resurrect and levitate out or for God to put out the flames or maybe just complete gibberish, Sean didn’t know nor care. A fleeting voice in the back of his mind told him he should, but, at last, it drifted away like dust when he glanced down at Daniel. His little brother was uninjured, unlike when Merrill had shot him; he wasn’t distraught, unlike when they ran from Claire and Stephen’s house; and he wasn’t sick and frail, unlike when they left their cabin in the woods. He was by Sean’s side, healthy and unafraid.
They kept going, heading towards Karen’s car. The impending blackout was creeping over Sean’s vision and his body was still brittle from abuse, but a calm had blanketed his skin again. For the time being, they were safe and from now on, Sean would make sure they stayed that way no matter what he needed to do.
He was the older brother. It was his job.