Chapter Text
Fifteen years after the events at the border
Their gap year had turned into three. And not one of them had regretted a single second of it. Though, over the last six months or so, their aimless world rambling had become less aimless. Routes had been made to plan whether they’d be able to access WiFi, charge their phones. Nails were bitten while emails were refreshed, waiting to hear back from agents and publishers, waiting for calls from job applications.
Their final decision to call their extended gap year to an end came when Daniel got an offer of representation from a literary agent, and Chris got a call inviting him to interview with an indie games developer based in California. Thank god for SoCal indie start-up attitudes — when they found out Chris was in Italy when he took their call, they told him there was no rush. They set the interview for just over two weeks later, giving them time to travel back to the states, for one last Californian hiking trip. Time to say goodbye to the road.
Running out of money, and restless for different kinds of adventures, Daniel and Chris knew they needed to head back for solid ground. They wanted to pursue careers, put to use the work they’d created while on the road, start a home of their own, maybe even a family. It didn’t matter what, just yet, only that, after three years on the road with Sean and Finn, they truly felt they could do anything from here on out.
Didn’t make parting ways any easier, though.
“Checks out, doesn’t it,” Daniel said as they sat up on high ground, watching someone else’s distant firework display from a spot where the trees were thin enough to see swathes of small-town California sprawling out before them. “That our last day on the road would be the fourth of July.”
Beside him, Sean gave a small laugh.
“Yeah, it does kind of check out, doesn’t it?”
Finn took a long drag on a joint.
“Life’s circular and shit,” he said through an exhale. He passed the joint to Sean, who shook his head and tried to pass it to Daniel, who shook his own head.
When Chris reached out over Daniel to take it, they all looked at him. It wasn’t that Chris was completely straight-edged, just that he so rarely took what was offered, that they’d sort of stopped offering.
“What?” He asked, taking a small drag on the joint. He shrugged, his voice becoming smaller. “I‘m nervous.”
His interview wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, but Chris had been growing increasingly anxious about it for days. Daniel lay his head on Chris’s shoulder, feeling his boyfriend relax even as he did. He entwined an arm in his.
“You’re gonna be great. I know you have trouble trusting yourself, but trust me. They’re going to love you.”
Chris didn’t say anything, but took another drag with one hand, the other tightening against Daniel’s arm. They watched the fireworks a little while longer in silence.
Daniel felt his stress. He believed in Chris, but he was anxious for him. He knew how perfect this job was for him. How devastated he’d be if he didn’t get it. It felt strange to be worrying about something as normal as a job interview after the past three years. He felt wild. An echo of how he’d felt the first time, slot into suburban life after so many months of being a wolf, free to roam. It was different, this time, though, because he’d chosen it. Both the departure, and the return. He’d tasted that freedom in its truest form, and now in his return back to the real world he’d still carry that within him.
The firework display they’d been watching had stopped, but another two, further away, had begun. Bursts of lights across the landscape below them reminded them that they weren’t the only four people in the world. Not any more. It was a nice reminder. A reminder that the world had remained, waiting for them to reclaim it.
Chris passed the almost finished joint back to Finn, who took one last drag and stamped it out, exhaling on a sigh.
“Come on, Blondie. Let’s leave the brothers to talk on their last night.” He heaved himself up, placing a kiss on Sean’s head as he did, then reaching out over Daniel to help Chris pull himself up to his feet. They disappeared into the tree-line behind them, back where they had made camp.
Daniel and Sean’s gazes were both fixed on the horizon, but each knew the other’s thoughts well enough, because they were the same thoughts.
Thoughts of gratitude for their time together. Sadness that it was coming to an end. Hope for their futures.
“Back to Puerto Lobos, right?” Daniel said then, as if they had already been having a conversation about what they would both be doing after tomorrow.
Sean nodded. “For now. Another few years, maybe. Until we get restless again. It’ll take a while, I think. It’s not like we’re stuck in one place. We’ll be travelling up to visit you all the time.”
It was Daniel’s turn to nod.
“If Chris gets this job, he’ll be tied down a little. But I won’t be. Not if my agent can get this deal she’s been talking about. I can write anywhere. Come visit you guys too.”
They were reassuring each other, as if either of them needed it. As if they didn’t already know that they could do this, had done it before, were stronger still, now.
“You know, before Brett’s testimony, they talked about the possibility of me getting fifteen years.” Sean said, quietly.
Daniel did the math in his head quietly for a moment.
“Oh,” he said, his voice low and breathy as he realised what Sean had meant. It was fifteen years, today. “I can’t imagine…” he began, but trailed off. He could imagine. He could imagine how their lives might have turned out if Sean was being released from prison today. Daniel having missed out on all those years with him. He just didn’t want to.
“Yeah. Me neither.” Sean said. “We did good though, right? I mean. We did really well with what we were given. Two lives that shouldn’t have been compatible, and we made it work.”
Daniel smiled, turning to look at his brother instead of the horizon, his memory forming the shape of the kid he used to be beneath the man he was now.
“Mostly you.” Daniel said, then. “It would have been so easy for you to just. Up and leave. Never come back. Be the kind of brother I see every couple of christmases and that’s it.”
But Sean was just shaking his head. “Nah, it wouldn’t have been easy. And it wasn’t just me. You could have gotten pissed about me leaving. Could have shut me out, but you didn’t.”
Daniel let out a snort that went some of the way to dispelling the solemn mood that had fallen on them since Chris and Finn left. “Dude. I did get pissed.”
Sean laughed too, “but you were always pissed, you were twelve.”
“True, true,” Daniel snickered as he ran a hand through his hair, exhaling any tension that still remained. “Fifteen years, huh? And look at us now,” he elbowed Sean, who let himself be pushed, swaying where he sat with a grin before he pushed back.
“Been a long-ass fifteen years that’s for sure.”
Daniel pictured them both at the border. Him, still a kid. Like, not even a teenage kid but a child. Even if he hadn’t felt like one for a while. And Sean, who had seemed so old to him at the time, so adult, practically a child himself still.
“Wonder where we’ll be in another fifteen,” Daniel said, his thoughts occupied with how big a difference fifteen years could make, the difference it had made to them.
“Oh, god,” Sean said, lying back on the ground to stare up at the stars, the fireworks done for now. “I’d be…” He squinted a little, thinking.
“Forty-six?” Daniel supplied helpfully as he lay on the ground beside him. He enjoyed the contortion of disgust on Sean’s face as he said it.
“Oh. Oh no. I do not like that.” Sean said, Daniel started to laugh, until Sean added, “so that’d make you forty.”
Daniel scrunched up his nose. “Gross.”
“I cannot imagine us in our forties. I mean hell, I can barely believe that I’m currently in my thirties.”
When he’d pushed past the initial revulsion of just how old forty was, Daniel kind of warmed to the idea. He smiled, considering for a second, before he spoke.
“I can,” he said finally. “You and Finn will still be married, that’s a given. And me and Chris too, by then, almost certainly.” He side-eyed Sean, to see if there was any surprise on his face, but his brother just nodded. “And kids, maybe?” Daniel added. He’d turned it into a question.
“God no, not for me and Finn. Besides, I’m a better brother to you than I ever was a guardian. So, stands to reason that I’d be a better tío to your kids than I would be dad to my own.”
“You’d be the best tío.” Daniel grinned. “Just… Maybe don’t let Finn teach my kids to throw knives. At least not until they’re in high school.”
Sean let out a loud, barking laugh. “Good luck fighting that fight. Didn’t go so well with you.”
Daniel chuckled, then paused. “I think… No, I definitely know I want kids. Someday soon. Me and Chris, with a house and a dog and some kids. I like that. They’d call me papí and Chris dad.”
Sean turned his head to look at Daniel. “That’s the most adorable shit you’ve ever said. And you said some pretty adorable shit when you were little.”
“I try, I try,” Daniel said with a small laugh, the two of them sinking into companionable silence again after a moment.
“I’m really lucky,” Daniel said after a while. “To have you as my brother.”
Sean looked at him then, and Daniel could tell that he’d understood everything that had gone unsaid there. Lucky to have him looking out for him, all those years ago. Lucky to have been loved and protected so fiercely. Lucky to have come out the other side with Sean still alive, still here, still in touch. Lucky to have him as a best friend, even now, when most people he knew loved their siblings but didn’t always like them. Lucky as all hell to have spent the last three years travelling the world with him.
They’d had their share of bad luck. Enough for a lifetime. It just made sense that the universe had balanced out for them.
“Me too, enano.” Sean said then, his smile soft, misty-eyed. “But it wasn’t luck. We’re the wolf brothers. We fought for each other.” He shot Daniel a grin, big and silly and endlessly joyful, and Daniel could think of no better way to respond than to cup his hands around his own mouth and howl into the night.
Sean howled with him.
A little way in the distance, hidden by the trees, Finn and Chris howled back.
Tomorrow they’d go their separate ways again, and it would hurt. It always did. It might even hurt more now, after so much time together. But they’d survive. They always did.
He remembered what he’d told Hannah at Sean and Finn’s wedding, about not leaving people behind, about finding the perfect life for you without asking the people you love to compromise theirs.
They both knew their lives wouldn’t be perfect all the time. But they also knew that they had fought hard for the lives they were building and for the people they loved, and it was easy to feel confident that their lives — at least — would be as close to perfect as they could be, as often as they could be.
*
“So how does the story of the wolf brothers end?”
“It doesn’t. Not right now, at least. Not here.”