Chapter Text
Visiting hour is over. Again. It’s always way too short, but it’s the only thing keeping him going. He’s glad Daniel finally gets to be a kid again. It’s nice listening to all the normal things Daniel has going on. He knows he did the right thing by giving himself up—he sees the proof every visiting day. Daniel is all that matters. Still, he can’t help being a bit jealous that Daniel gets his childhood back while he rots in prison for a crime he never even committed.
Deep breath… for Daniel. He is all that matters.
Fifteen years… shit, that’s like half his life. How is he supposed to stay strong for Daniel when he’s already falling apart?! By the time he gets out, Daniel will be all grown up. What if he needs him? All Sean can do is watch from behind bars. It will be okay. Daniel is a strong kid.
God, he misses him.
Daniel comes to nearly every visiting day, but it’s just not the same.
The only other people who come to visit are his mom and, surprisingly, Finn—who shows up every chance he gets. Having a relationship while one person is behind bars is hard, but it helps Sean keep going. Finn jokes that it’s “badass” to say he has a boyfriend in prison, but Sean can tell Finn says it more to convince himself. They both know this probably won’t last fifteen years.
And of course Claire and Stephen—they have to come with Daniel.
The only other time Sean speaks, other than during visiting hours, is in the mandatory therapy sessions. Even there, he tries not to. He can’t—not without giving away Daniel’s secret. Everything would be for nothing. No thank you. He doesn’t need therapy anyway.
He sits down on his bed, a faint smile on his lips as he reads the letters Finn sent him. The only things he’s drawn in months are for Finn. The only inspiration he can still find is from memory, slowly fading.
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“Sean? Are you listening?”
The seventeen-year-old snaps out of whatever daydream he was in.
“Sean?”
Right. Therapy.
He looks at the clock—disappointingly, still thirty minutes left.
“What? Ehmm… I—yes,” he finally answers.
His therapist does not look convinced, but she’s used to his behavior and chooses to continue.
“I know you’re not the biggest fan of me, but you do have to talk to somebody.”
No response.
She sighs. “Or… I heard you’re an artist. If you don’t want to talk, maybe instead you could draw. I think it would really help you. You could draw happy memories—the ones you don’t want to forget. I know it’s easier for you to stay in your hole and ignore the past altogether, but believe me: one day, when you’ve worked through all of this and want to think about the good old times, you might not be able to anymore. Memories fade. You could try to capture them forever. Try to find something to hold on to.”
And now here he is, with paper and pen. He never wants to forget the simple times; he doesn’t think he ever would. This is just in case.
So he starts drawing the picture of the memory in his head, clear as day. Nothing special—nothing he ever thought he’d miss the most. Just a simple weekend movie night with his dad and brother.
After he’s done, he inspects his work. The memory seems so far away now. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until big tears fall onto the paper, ruining parts of it. He quickly dries his eyes, not wanting to damage the drawing further, but he can’t stop staring at it.
He studies every detail, trying to get the memory clearly in front of him: the way Daniel and Dad were sitting on the couch, cuddled up together. He didn’t draw himself; it’s from his perspective, when he’d gotten up to grab more snacks.
Slowly… it begins to look real. Like it’s right in front of him. And in color.
“Sean? Are you coming?”
He looks around, moving his head in every direction.
Who said that?
Where is he?
“Sean?”
That’s Daniel.
There they are—Daniel and Dad on the couch.
Sean’s eyes fill with tears again. This has to be a dream or a hallucination. Either way, he doesn’t want to wake up.
BANG!
He drops the bowl of popcorn he didn’t even know he was holding.
“Dude! I wanted to eat that.”
He can’t help but smile at Daniel’s comment, his eyes still full of tears.
“Sean? What’s wrong?” His Dad sounds worried.
“Oh, uh… nothing! I’m fine. Really.”
He knows he didn’t convince anyone, but they drop it—only sending him worried glances once in a while. Sean gets to enjoy the dream. Reliving the peaceful memory, dreading the moment he wakes up. He even tries his best to say and do exactly what he did the first time, just in case a wrong move might shatter the dream.
Luckily, nothing does.
He even tries to stay awake in the dream so he won’t wake up back in his cell. He fails—but to his surprise, he’s still dreaming. Sean wakes up in his old bed, in his old room, with two eyes.
He must have completely lost it.
Can a dream be this long and vivid?
Is this some crazy delusion?
Only one thing is clear: this is not real.
Oh, but he wants it to be. Does it really matter? It’s nice here—who cares if it’s real?
He wants to stay in this dream, or whatever it is.
But what about Daniel? He can’t leave him. What if, in reality, Daniel has to see his big brother unresponsive in a straitjacket in some asylum? Maybe this is like one of those movies where everything is fake but so tempting, with the audience screaming for the character to wake up from their coma.
He can’t do that to Daniel.
No matter how much he wants this, Daniel comes first.
He tries everything. He can feel pain. He can stop breathing when he holds his nose. Every clock looks perfectly normal. This is not a dream.
Maybe he really is losing his mind.
How did it start?
He looked at his drawing… and then he was here.
Maybe…
He quickly gets up, searching for a pen and paper. He draws another memory—this time of him and Lyla sitting outside, smoking. He stares at it, concentrating.
It gains dimension.
Color.
It becomes real.
Whatever this is—dream, delusion, hallucination—he can control it.
Oh, how he wishes all of this were real.
Wait… who says it isn’t?
Everything he knows tells him this is impossible, that he doesn’t have the ability to travel through time and space. This is impossible. But so was telekinesis.
He has to test it—something his subconscious couldn’t possibly know.
But how would he know what he can’t know?
Proving anything only works if this is real, but if it’s not real, then his mind could just make up fake information and sell it to him as truth. He’d believe it because he made it up.
Maybe he could Google something?
No—that doesn’t make sense. His mind could just tell him the internet works, or show him fake results, or tell him there’s no answer—either because there isn’t one or because he believes there isn’t.
How can he find answers in his mind without already having the answers in his mind?
It’s like trying to lift yourself up by your own hair.
Ahhh. He hates impossible questions.
Well… maybe it is possible—there’s just no way of proving it. You can’t test if a tool is compromised with the tool that might be compromised.
He hates this.
Is anything ever real?
How would he know—how would anyone know?
Okay. Okay. This is too much philosophy. He just has to accept that he doesn’t know, and never will. But going back to prison with this power doesn’t make sense either—if it’s fake, then using fake powers would just bring him somewhere equally fake.
No thank you. He quite likes it here—with his family still together, still happy… alive.
“Sean? Are you okay?”
Oh—right. Lyla.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking about one of those impossible problems. Philosophy and shit, you know?”
She definitely looks weirded out.
“Okay… anyway, you coming to the party next week?” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Jenn will be there.”
He can’t believe that used to be his biggest problem.
“Sure, I’ll be there.”
Maybe this time, he will.