Chapter Text
One month.
In one month, Sean will be transferred to an adult prison. His “brief” 12 month stint in juvie is drawing quickly to a close, then his real sentence starts.
15 years. 15 fucking years for a crime he didn’t even commit. His lawyer told him it was a good thing . That his sentence was cut significantly, and he could’ve faced upwards of 30. The thought of that alone is enough to make his stomach turn.
If he could change it, he would. Never would have risen to Brett’s taunts, never would have run, never would have dragged Daniel across the country; just to spend his childhood with his older brother watching behind fucking bars.
Daniel visits every other weekend, despite the fact that it’s a pretty awful drive for Stephen and Claire. It’s clear that he’s sad, and that he feels guilty for all of it, but he does his best to put on a brave face. Claire and Stephen even got him a puppy for his eleventh birthday earlier this year. Sean didn’t get to spend it with him. He promised himself he’d spend his eleventh with him, after missing his tenth.
He’s going to be missing a lot more birthdays.
He loses track of the days pretty easily, they all kind of blend together. The schedule is the same no matter what day it is, though the schoolwork he’s been catching up on helps break up the drollness of it all. He’s been careful to not make any friends, not to get to know anyone. It’s gotten him a bit of a reputation of being an asshole- but he can’t really bring himself to care.
He’s leaving soon, and he’s sick to death of goodbyes. So he doesn’t want to make friends with them, with anyone anymore. It hurts too much knowing that things will always end too soon.
Daniel’s visits are the only thing preventing him from doing anything particularly stupid or reckless. It scares him- before this all happened he never would have even considered taking his own life. Now, it feels like there isn’t much to live for. Felony charges and 15 long years ahead of him.
He tried, so, so, hard. So hard to be good, so hard to do the right thing. He faced a system that fucked him over and said “I know you hurt me, but I’ll do the right thing. For Daniel.”
So many sacrifices, for nothing.
Was this destiny? Fate? Does karma not exist?
Or maybe he’s a much worse person than he thought. Maybe this is what he deserves. Penance for his mistakes. It doesn’t matter how many nights he went hungry- refusing to steal from people who already branded him a thief. Maybe he should have just let them be right. Stole the food, robbed Merrill, and sicked Daniel on the border agents.
But…no, no. He sees those choices in Daniel. Daniel, ever virtuous and kind, looking up to his every move. Daniel could have torn the world apart with his power if Sean let him, could have destroyed it all and built a home for themselves in the smoldering ruins. Sean’s glad he didn’t, he’s glad that when Daniel visits, he’s bright eyed and still full of love for such a cruel world. He’s glad that the stories he’s told about his powers involve saving buses full of people- not used for selfish desires and petty crimes.
He’s glad, he really is.
He just wants to be selfish, for once. He wants to get another chance at life.
Cassidy, Hannah, Penny. All out and free, finished with their community service and back to life on the road. Even Finn is almost out, his letters to Sean so soft and so apologetic still. Sean almost wishes he had agreed to the heist.
Wishes he had kissed Finn.
He wishes things were different.
—----------------------------------------------------------
It’s Saturday, the only day Sean bothers to keep track of. Visiting day.
Daniel nearly knocks him over when he shows up, his hug as excitable (and as aggressive) as ever.
“Sean! I missed you.” Daniel grins at him, but there’s something there, hidden in that sweet smile. A sadness. It hangs over every visit, the wolf brothers only able to see each other with the eldest wolf in chains.
He knows Daniel feels guilty, and Sean can’t stop him from feeling it.
Sometimes he resents him, and then he hates himself for feeling such a thing. Buries that resentment alongside his grief. It can’t hurt him if he doesn’t let himself feel it.
“It’s good to see you too, enano. I missed you too.”
Daniel’s grin widens a bit, excited about something. “I brought something for you!”
Sean tilts his head, and gestures for the younger to sit, Sean sitting across from him. Claire and Stephen are probably outside. They visit as well, but often they just let Sean and Daniel do their thing. It was just the two of them for so long- it’s such a horrible feeling that they can’t ever be alone anymore. It feels foreign, wrong. If Sean could go back and smack his younger self, he would. Tell him to appreciate the time he’s got with his little brother more.
“Whatcha got for me, kid?”
Daniel pulls it out with fanfare, his voice taking on a sing-songy tone, “ba ba ba!” He sets a ragged looking book on the table in front of them, and it takes just a second before Sean realizes it’s his sketchbook.
“Holy shit, enano, where did you get this?” Sean’s eye is wide with shock, grabbing the tattered journal.
“It was um, well, it was in mom’s car at the border. I guess it never got taken for evidence-” Daniel lowers his voice a little at that, given that there’s guards around. Not that they care, as long as nothing gets taken into the actual detention hall, they’re pretty apathetic. “And when mom went to get her car back from the impound lot, boom. It was tucked under the seat.”
“That’s awesome, Daniel!” He picks at the frayed edges of the book. “So mom’s out and about?” It still feels a little weird, calling her mom, but it’s a habit he’s glad is back. Daniel is happy about it too.
He nods, smiling. “Yeah, she’s back at Away. I um, I think I’m gonna see her for Christmas.”
“Right.” Sean says, trying desperately to ignore the jealousy that curls around his heart like talons. Sharp and painful. His throat feels tight, and Daniel- ever emotionally intelligent nowadays, notices- and quickly changes the subject to school.
They make idle chatter for a while, Daniel telling him about school, Chris, the dog. Sean listens intently, flipping through his sketchbook as he does so, not quite reading it. It hurts too much to relive, anyway.
He stops when he lands on one of his last drawings, Daniel chilled out, floating over a canyon surrounded by stones. “Dude,” he turns the sketchbook for Daniel to see, “this one was pretty good, huh?”
Daniel beams at him. “Yeah! I look super cool when you draw me.”
“You look cool all the time, Daniel.”
Daniel’s smile gets sadder at that, and Sean doesn’t know why. “You okay?”
“Yeah- yeah! I’m okay. You just, you can still tease me sometimes, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Daniel picks at his shirt sleeves. “I mean, you can still pick on me. I- I miss your jokes. You don’t joke with me anymore.”
Sean doesn’t really know what to say to that. He didn’t realize he had ever stopped. It’s not something he thought Daniel would miss. He wants their visits to be good. He doesn’t have the energy for joking.
“Right, sorry enano.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s okay.”
It’s not, though. It’s not okay. None of this is okay.
Sean can feel the tears start to burn, and he can not cry in front of Daniel right now, so instead he turns the sketchbook back towards him, staring at the contents, focusing on that to stop the waterworks from starting.
He stares a hole through the book, eye blurring.
Blurring a lot, actually.
His eye is throbbing at this point, but he can’t help but look away. The focus is all off, and he thinks it might be his depth perception or something, because the image won’t still.
“Sean…?”
“Hold on, enano-” he focuses hard on the drawing in front of him, watching as shaking lines start to steady, and sounds begin to echo in his ears- laughter, his laughter. Daniel's laughter. It’s as hazy as the image.
And then, something snaps into place.
“Sean...?”
Sean startles a bit, looking over to Daniel.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, Daniel, I was just-”
Daniel is sitting in front of him, cross legged on a sleeping bag. In the middle of the Desert.
Sun rising over the canyon.
The canyon, the one in his drawing. The drawing sitting in his lap.
Sean jumps up, stumbles back, looking around frantically.
What the fuck. What the fuck .
“What the fuck?!”
He’s in Arizona. He knows this spot- remembers this interaction, remembers this place and he certainly remembers everything that happened after.
Daniel jumps at that, getting up to chase after Sean. “Woah, Sean, are you okay? You look like- like, I dunno, freaked out!”
He is freaked out.
“I, um, dude, what day is it?”
Daniel pauses at this, taken aback by the question. “What day? Uh, Monday, I think? It’s hard to remember with no school and all.”
“No-- shit , what day of the year?”
“Sean, you’re freaking me out.”
“I am freaking out, Daniel.”
He falls to the ground, rests his back against the rock. What the fuck.
“...it’s July third. Dude, what is going on?”
July third.
One day before the incident at the border.
“Nothing, enano. I just, sorry. I had the freakiest Deja vu, that’s all.”
Daniel looks like he doesn’t believe him, and he expects Daniel to push it- honesty being super important to him and all, but apparently Sean looks messed up enough for him to not push. “Okay- okay. But you’ll tell me if something is really wrong, right?”
Sean nods, standing to gather the rest of their stuff, clinging to his sketchbook like it’s a lifeline.
They make their way back to Away, and Christ, this has definitely happened before. Their conversation is different- because Daniel is still freaked out about Sean’s freakout, and Sean is lost in thought, but the rest of it is exactly the same.
Sean takes the walk to think about the possibilities of this situation.
Okay, in most to least likely order:
- He’s dreaming. This is just some cruel dream and he’s gonna wake up in juvie soon and have a- honestly justified- meltdown.
- He’s not dreaming, but he is hallucinating this as some messed up sort of coping mechanism. Derealization or some shit like that, he doesn’t know.
- Everything that has happened since this point has been a dream, a really, really detailed and messed up dream. It actually is July third, and Sean has a second chance.
- The least likely, and most exciting. Sean traveled back here somehow. Time traveled. Sean can time travel.
As they make their way into Away, and as Sean is greeted by Joan in the same manner, and as Daniel continues to say the same damn things, number four is slowly becoming more likely.
But, that’s not possible. Time travel isn’t possible.
Neither is telekinesis, though.
Sean collapses into the lawn chair set outside Karen’s trailer, still reeling. Daniel is luckily distracted by Joan, giving Sean some time to think.
How did he do this, how did he get here? How is this even possible?
Is this a sign?
Still not sure if this is a dream or not, he grabs a nearby pen and jams it against his leg as hard as he possibly can.
Well. It hurt.
He doesn’t know if the whole ‘can’t feel pain in a dream’ thing is legit or not, given that most of his dreams are near incomprehensible nightmares (even before all this went down, Sean was prone to nightmares, so much so that Lyla would lightly tease him for being a ‘tortured’ artist.) If he remembers correctly, he never felt pain in any of those dreams.
They’ve never been this detailed before, either.
He pulls out his sketchbook, stares at the cover.
What if– what if he did go back?
He flips through the contents once again, landing on his drawing of his room.
If he really did go back…could he do it again?
Could he fix it?
So much has happened since then, good and bad. Meeting Brody. Finn, Cassidy, all of the wonderful friends he made in Humboldt. Reuniting with Stephen and Claire, reuniting with mom , him and Daniel becoming so close. Despite all of their trials and tribulations, Sean would be an idiot to say that there wasn’t good to come from it at times.
But for his father…?
He has to try.
He stares at the page in front of him, forcing himself to focus.
It’s happening again, that burning pain in his eye, the tremor of the lines on the page.
It scares him, but he continues. Stares as the lines go out of focus and refocus, as ambient sounds begin to filter in his ears, he can feel the heat surrounding him, then feels it fade.
There’s a snap, sudden, like the flash of a camera. Then, light.
“ ...turn upside, a choice you’d normally avoid– ”
His hands snap up to his eye, throbbing painfully, then quickly as it came, the pain is gone.
He moves his hand away from his eye, and stops, realizing that it’s…working. It’s there.
He can see, see with both eyes, and both eyes are taking in the sights of his room.His room, slightly messy, filled with warm light from an autumn afternoon sunset.
His room, his room , matching the drawing in his lap.
His room, on October 28th, 2016. 8 months before the incident at the border.