In Sean's dream, he is in the parking lot of the California beach he and Daniel stopped at on their road trip two years ago. Sixteen-year-old Daniel sits on the trunk of Dad's car, hair damp, wearing the shorts he swam in. Sean draws the family of wolves on Daniel's chest, but instead of using a sharpie, Sean has a real tattoo gun.
When Sean finishes his drawing, he steps back, admires his work and smiles.
"You did a good job, Sean," Daniel says, looking over his fresh ink. "You always do a good job. I'm sorry I only cause you trouble and ruin your life."
"You don't ruin anything," Sean says. "You're my brother, enano."
"Then why don't you come get me?" a voice says behind Sean.
When Sean turns, suddenly he is in the motel where he told Daniel about their powers and the other life. And standing by the bed is a second Daniel, this one nine-years-old, wearing the blue flannel stained with fake blood from the day their dad died. "You left me in prison. I'm scared, Sean."
"I will save you. I promise."
Sean starts to go to him, but the teenaged Daniel, the tattooed Daniel, grabs Sean's shoulder. "You shouldn't, Sean.
"But it's my fault," Sean says. "I'm the reason everything got messed up. I changed the past, and you went to jail, and—"
Tattooed Daniel shakes his head. "I turned myself in. I gave you the sketchbook back in the first place." He glances at the nine-year-old version of himself. "You have to let him—you have to let me go."
"I can't do that," Sean says.
Tattooed Daniel walks behind the younger version, sets a hand on the boy's shoulder.
Nine-Year-Old Daniel sniffles. Tears pour down his face. "Please, Sean," the boy whimpers. "Please come save me."
"No, Sean, it's time to save yourself," Tattooed Daniel says. "I promise I am strong enough to handle this."
But then blood slides out of the older Daniel's left eye. The flow increases, and the eye liquefies and falls into Younger Daniel's hair. The Younger Daniel's eye also turns red, and, as he continues to cry, the eye flows away with his tears. Short, paper-thin red stains bleed through the boy's shirt, and the same cuts appear on the older Daniel's chest and arms.
Sean recognizes them as the scars he had himself in the other life.
Suddenly, metal bars shoot up from the floor, surround both Daniels in a cage as a metal roof clamps down on top of it. The tattoo on the older Daniel's chest also begins to bleed, and now its like his life is oozing out of him. The skin of both Daniels dries up, they crumple like paper, until they disappear into nothing.
Sean wakes up in his bed in Los Angeles, fully dressed, and drenched in sweat. In his hands, he clutches the sketchbook, and it's opened to the drawing he did in the motel outside of Away—the one of Daniel sitting on the bed, the Power Bear toy beside him, the image Sean used to prove he could travel through time. Paper clipped to the page is the photo that used to be above his desk, the one of him and Daniel shirtless-flexing in the mirror, the wolf tattoo sharpied onto Daniel's chest.
In the photo, they both look happy and free.
# # #
The months after Daniel's sentencing blur together.
Sean helps Toby move in to a tiny apartment in Los Angeles, and they fool around on an air mattress that deflates beneath them as they both laugh. They hang out a lot, but neither of them brings up "defining" their "relationship."
At work, Sean is bumped up to designing background characters and even gets to storyboard one of the episodes. Often, he goes out for drinks with his coworkers who expend effort into getting him to smile. Sometimes he forces a laugh so they don't feel bad.
The Superwolf comic keeps going, but the readers complain the storylines have grown "too dark" and hope there can be a happy ending to the current arc—but Sean is not sure how that is possible.
As for Dad, he and Sean talk once a week. Mostly, it is short, awkward text messages, but sometimes Sean calls or they videochat. They have uncomfortable start-and-stop conversations filled with the unspoken agreement to never discuss Daniel.
But every night—often while Sean is drunk or high, sometimes while Toby sleeps in his bed—Sean tries to fix his mistake. He cannot bring himself to go back to the other life, so instead, Sean searches his sketchbooks for a better choice. He has about twelve sketchbooks that chronicle his life since he was sixteen to about three months before Daniel's graduation. He went through these when he first arrived in this timeline and tried to piece together his new life.
Back then, he did not understand his relationship with his brother; now, he looks for a way to save Daniel.
Sean travels to 2018, to the skate park where he hangs out with Ellery, Lyla, and Adam days before graduation.
He visits 2022 and a beach bonfire where he sits next to Sarah with Olivia, Pete, and Toby as they listen to Diego exaggerate stories about a digital design professor.
He goes back to 2023, to his apartment, empty, on his first day in Los Angeles.
As he Billy Pilgrims through his life, he leaves himself messages. Notes in his phone, scribbles on sticky notes or his hand. He calls and texts his father and brother. Tries to warn himself and anyone around that Daniel's graduation party ends in disaster.
But every time he returns to the present, nothing has changed. The cop and Brett are still dead. Daniel is still in jail.
This is one action that cannot be undone . . . unless he goes back to that day that started it all. So every night, after he fails to save his brother, he stares at the picture of his bedroom the he drew on October 28, 2016, until his eyes ache like his heart, which is pained from letting everyone down.
# # #
Sean's Wednesday-night call from Daniel is sacred, a ritual that his coworkers and Toby know not to question.
However, the call is like being handed dirty water after crossing a desert. Daniel is Sean's favorite person, and not being able to text him randomly does feel like Sean's heart is separated from his body. But Daniel's voice—the façade of strength that Sean easily sees through—betrays that the light inside Daniel is dimming. And so Sean lives for the calls even as they leave a bitter, acrid taste in the back of his throat.
Daniel never should have sacrificed his freedom, especially not for Sean's mistakes. Sean cost his brother everything.
So each Wednesday before they hang up, there are dozens of things Sean almost says:
I'm sorry.
I didn't want this for you.
I promise I will fix this.
I don't—I don't know why I haven't fixed this already.
But instead, he only says Te quiero mucho, enano—and feels like a giant piece of shit.
# # #
Then, on the first Wednesday of July, Sean wakes up to his milk having spoiled and his cabinet barren of coffee. He chokes down dry cereal and walks out the door with a caffeine deficiency. A protest is happening downtown, so he is mashed against too-many other humans on the bus. Work begins with an hour-long meeting that could have been an email, and, great, now Sean is even further behind on some designs due last week. He spills coffee on his new shirt—a plaid button-down with pearl snaps—and he burns his chest. Worst of all, Jared announces he is leaving the show. So there goes Sean's cool boss, and, also, probably a clear sign their show is getting canned.
Granted, this is not a "bad day" compared to most of Sean Diaz's life. No trauma. No scars. A ruined shirt is not the same as losing an eye.
But it is an objectively shitty day.
However, after Sean gets home and verifies the red burn mark beside the wolf tattoo on his chest, he cracks open a beer and forces himself to smile.
Daniel will call any minute. And Sean cannot let his brother think that sacrificing his freedom is not appreciated.
Sean's most-of-the-way through his beer when the phone rings with a number from Washington. When he answers, an automated voice says, "An inmate is calling you from Washington State Penitentiary. Would you like to accept this call?"
Sean says he accepts, and he hears Daniel's voice on the other line.
"Hey! How are you doing, little brother?" Sean asks, grinning.
"I'm whatever," Daniel says quietly, and he muddles through small talk. Asks about Nickelodeon and Superwolf. Sean lies and says everything is good, everything is great until Daniel laughs. "You're full of shit, Sean."
"What?" Sean says.
"I know everything isn't sunshine and roses," Daniel says. "None of our conversations are honest. You always put up this wall of bullshit."
"That isn't—" Sean sighs and drops his empty beer bottle into the recycling bin; it clinks against the rest of the trash. "I don't want to bum you out."
"I'm in prison," Daniel says. "I don't think you could tell me anything that would 'bum' me out. But I get it. I don't always tell you everything either."
"I know." Sean's unbuttoned shirt rustles behind him like a cape as he grabs a second beer from the fridge. He pops open the cap and leans on his kitchen counter. "In that other life, I always kept prison-things from you. I know some dark shit goes on in there. But if you want to talk about it, like, I am the person who would understand."
Daniel is quiet for a while, and the raucous sounds of prison chatter and prison clangs fill the phone speaker. "You did four years before you changed the past, right? How did you get by?"
Sean sticks his finger in the mouth of his beer, spins it against his kitchen counter. The answer is that he didn't get by—he tried to kill himself. And he has never told Daniel that.
"Sean?"
"I, uh, kept my head down. Stayed out of trouble. Drew a lot. Just tried to get through."
"Did you have any—maybe not friends, but . . . did you have anyone watching your back?"
"My cellmate Troy was cool," Sean says. "I had some guys I ate meals with. Mostly, I kept to myself."
"I've met Troy. He is cool," Daniel says, and then he is silent for long enough that Sean downs enough beer his arms begin to tingle. "I want to talk to you about something, Sean, but you have to promise not to overreact."
"There has never been a good conversation that starts that way," Sean says.
Daniel sighs into the phone. "I just spent five days in solitary."
Sean coughs, and his nasal cavity burns as beer simultaneously shoots up his nose and out his mouth, splattering against his hand and dripping to the floor. "What the fuck? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"
"Hurt myself? No, I'm fine, I got put there because . . . it's not a big deal, but some asshole thought I looked small and wanted to fuck with me. He startled me, and I sort of blew him backwards in the yard. I don't think I hurt him, but the guards thought I started something. It was bullshit."
"Dude, you have to be careful," Sean says. "But I'm glad you're okay. Don't . . . don't let people fuck with you."
"I am careful," Daniel says. "But I got out this morning, and some guys approached me."
Sean wipes beer out of the trail of hair on his stomach. "Daniel, what kind of guys are we talking about?"
"You know, guys," Daniel says. "The kind of guys who could use some 'muscle'."
Sean presses the lip of his beer bottle against his head, paces his tiny apartment from the fridge to his bed, back again, then slams the bottle onto the counter. "Are you talking about joining a gang? A fucking prison gang?"
"When you say it like that, it sounds bad."
"It is bad."
"I'm talking about having some people to watch my back," Daniel says. "Having what passes for 'friends' in here."
"It is a fucking gang, enano!"
"Don't talk to me like I'm a little kid, Sean," Daniel says. "You know me. It's not like I'm going to hurt people. Just scare them a little."
"And how are you going to scare them without hurting them, dude?" Sean says. "This is a slippery slope. This is not who we are. You and me, we are better than this."
"Are we? You know how shitty it is in here—"
"I do, bro, and—"
"—and being 'good' makes sense if you are only serving fifteen years. But, Sean, this is the rest of my life. My fate literally does not change whether I am doing gang shit or not. What is wrong with me trying to make life a little better for myself? What am I supposed to do, be alone in here until I die?"
"Dude, you're not alone. You got dad. You got me."
"You are out there," Daniel says, and for an instant, he lets a crack creep into his voice. "And I am glad that you are out there. I imagine you living your life, becoming this bigshot animator. Maybe Superwolf finally becomes a show. Maybe you get married and have kids or adopt them or . . . whatever, you do something to make me 'Uncle Daniel.' I think about you being free, and that gets me through the day. But . . . I need to look out for myself in here too."
"Joining a gang is not a way to do that, mi hermanito."
"I knew I shouldn't have told you," Daniel sighs. "This is why we don't talk about real shit."
"This is exactly why we should talk about real shit."
"Whatever. I should go."
Sean begs him not to hang up. Says they can talk about something else. They still have a few precious minutes in their call, but Daniel says, no, he would really rather this conversation be over.
"Okay," Sean says, and he pauses. There are dozens of things he wants to say. Instead, he says, "Te quiero mucho, enano. Don't do anything stupid."
"Te quiero mucho también," Daniel says. Then he adds. "And you better not do anything stupid either."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"You know exactly what I am fucking talking about."
"I won't," Sean lies, as they hang up.
Sean downs the rest of his beer and grabs the cheap rum from his freezer. He presses the cold bottle to his lips, coughing as the liquid courage burns his throat. Head buzzing, he sits down at his desk, opens the sketchbook to the image of his 2016 bedroom and swears that this time he is really fucking going to do it.
And he stares.
And drinks.
And stares.
And drinks.
Until his eyes dry and the lines blur . . . but he cannot bring himself to go back in time.
"Fuck!" He hurls the sketchbook. It punctures his poster of luchadores Pentagón Jr. and Rey Fénix like a shuriken, and it sticks in the wall. Sean thinks, Holy shit—how hard did I throw that?
But then he remembers—no, last time Daniel visited, Daniel made that hole with his powers. The sketchbook is stuck in a hole that was already there, back from when Sean thought he could get away with everything.
Sean falls onto his bed, presses his face into a pillow, and screams screams screams until his lungs hurt. Everything is such bullshit. Why does the universe care so much that the Diaz brothers are in prison? Why does he have to be punished for wanting to give his brother a good life? For wanting to be close to his family? Why is the universe so fucking goddamn unfair that his life must be ruined by some asshole with a badge?
Then again, Sean thinks as he lifts his face from the now-damp pillow, maybe the only asshole ruining my life is me.
Sean's mind is thick with booze. He sits up, but he needs someone to talk to. His thumb stumbles through his contacts until he finds Max Caulfield and texts: Time travel is such bullshit why is life such bullshit Max?
Do you want to talk? Max texts back. I'm tired of messing with Photoshop and need a break.
After Sean says sure, his phone rings. He's drunk enough that he's confused about why Max Caulfield is facetiming him, but he answers, and she shows up on the screen. Her freckled cheeks are washed in orange light from a lamp on the desk her webcam sits on.
"Your hair," Sean says. "It's not blue."
Max pulls at a strand of light-brown hair that hangs over her ear. "I thought it was time to be something other than blue."
"Is that your natural hair color?" Sean says. "I like it. It's cool. Your hair is cool."
"So I didn't realize this was going to be a 'sexy' Facetime," Max laughs.
Sean blinks, and he looks down. His shirt is still unbuttoned, so his chest is exposed. "Shit. I spilled coffee on myself and my AC is shitty and I get hot when I'm drinking and I've been drinking, Max. I'm sorry you saw my nipples. I'm not that kind of slut."
"It's cool. I like your wolf tattoo."
"Gracias, chica. Es para mi familia." Sean grabs his bottle of rum from the desk, holds it up as a kind of salute. He sniffles. Rambles about his family and how he loves them, even Mom and Claire and Stephen, but especially Dad and Daniel, and how he has let them down—he's let them all down. Max listens, doesn't laugh or roll her eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dump all of my shit on you."
"Well, we kind of only talk to each other for shit-dumping sessions," Max says. "Also, literally everything you just said was in Spanish, and my español is not bueno."
"Shit. I didn't notice. Did I mention I'm kinda drunk?"
"You did, but it is also pretty obvious." Max chuckles. "I'm going to get some wine, so I can try to catch up to you. Be right back."
Max's computer chair gently rotates clockwise as she gets up, and the wall behind it is covered in photographs. Most of them look like Max's own photography, that style of everyday images shot with ache and melancholy. But there is one photo of two girls—awkward, baring the full assault of puberty—wearing pirate hats.
They smile like their hearts are sewn together. For some reason, it makes Sean happy and sad at the same time.
Max sits back down with a box of wine, which she lifts up and pours directly into her mouth.
"Whoa, rough day, wine mom?" Sean asks.
"Rough life," Max says. "You don't get to judge, rummy."
"Fair enough." Sean's head spins a little, but the rum he swallows doesn't burn his throat anymore.
"So . . . I saw what happened with your brother. I meant to text you. That sucks, man."
"You were right, Max. About everything. I didn't settle for my stupid C-minus life and then a storm came, and now my brother is paying for it. You're talking to the King of Assholes. Daniel being in jail is worse than me being in jail, but I can't—I can't change things back because I'm either a pussy or a piece of shit, maybe both."
"I don't think you are either of those things, Sean Diaz," Max says. "I think you're a pretty good dude who has had a lot of shit dumped on him."
"I think you're a pretty good dude too. Or a good lady. Person? Whatever, you're cool, Max, and I'm sorry you've had to deal with shit too." Sean stares up at the ceiling and lets out a breath that whistles over the lip of his liquor bottle. "Can you talk to me about Chloe? Like, how were you able to be so selfless?"
"Selfless?" Max says, her eyebrow rising.
"Like, how did you choose to save everyone but her? Fuck. That's shitty of me to ask. You don't have to answer. I'm sorry. I'm an asshole."
"You're not an asshole," Max says with a weak smile. "I don't think I was selfless. A giant vortex was barreling down on our town. It would have killed all of our friends and Chloe's mom. Chloe begged me to save the town. As much as it hurts to miss her, saving Chloe would have been cruel. To her. Sacrificing everything for one person? All of that death? She would have felt responsible for it, and I don't think our relationship could have survived under that weight."
Max's mic picks up her wine sloshing against its box as she takes a drink. "You know, I was back in Arcadia Bay last year," she says, "and I ran into Chloe's mom. She's back with David Madsen."
"Oh yeah?" Sean says. "I met him! Did I tell you this?"
"Ha, you did. You texted me about him a couple of years ago, and I told you he was a douchebag. He was a real dick to Chloe when we were kids. But I spent an hour talking to him and Joyce, and you were right—he's changed. I left Chloe's house, and I realized . . . I had move away from Arcadia Bay, but I was still living there. Like, I was still looking backwards, stuck in the past, like I was trying to change it." Max's fingers pull at a strand of her now-brown hair, sliding down it the way hands climb a rope. "I know we have these abilities, but you're not supposed to change the past. You're supposed to let the past change you. And the things that happen to us, those things might be good or they might be real fucking terrible, but we can't change them—but we can control how we change—or don't. Does that make sense? I feel like the wine is already hitting me."
Sean points a finger at his phone. "Ha! You're a lightweight!"
"Full disclosure, if I seem 'emo'—I got dumped last night."
"Shit, Max, I'm sorry," Sean says, leaning with his elbows on his knees. "You want me to beat them up? I'll kick their ass for you."
"We dated for almost a year," Max says, chewing on her lip. "And right now I am . . . sad. Like, really fucking sad. But also okay. And a little proud? I had a relationship with someone, and, like, wowzers, it was pretty good overall, and I made it work for a good while. I didn't think I could do that. I spent years thinking that after all the shit that happened in Arcadia Bay I was too broken and forever would be . . .but it turns out I'm not as broken as I thought I was."
"I hear what you're saying," Sean says, and he stares at his tattoo of the two boys followed by the wolves, on the arm that used to have a tattoo drawn by the girl who took his virginity, a girl who is (probably) dead. "I think I am broken, though. I got too many scars. Too many at once. And I think those are always going to be with me, even if I cover them up."
"Oh, scars don't go away," Max says. "However, scars both are signs you have been hurt . . . and signs that you have put yourself back together. I thought the bad things that happened to me had weakened me, but I forgot—I had to be strong to survive them in the first place. And, dude, what happened to you was a lot worse than what I went through."
"It's not a competition. It's not, like, the Masochism Olympics," Sean mutters.
"What I'm getting at is . . . I know you got hurt. I know it was painful. But, buddy, you survived all of it. Don't get so caught up in how much things hurt that you forget you are really, really strong. You're not a pussy. Or a piece of shit."
Sean rests his lips on the bottle of rum. It's warm from hugging it against his bare chest. "I'm not strong, though," Sean says. "I'm not strong enough to save my brother. When we were on the run, I used to tell him this story about 'The Wolf Brothers' to make him less scared. It was about us. I think in the back of my mind, I always knew the story wouldn't have a happy ending. But I wanted one, Max. I wanted one so bad that when I realized I had powers, I—I tried to rewrite it. But I made the ending worse. I think coming here, to this life, was a mistake. I'm not 'surviving' this pain. It's weakening me. And now I can't do the right thing, when the right thing has never been clearer."
"Well, let me ask you this, Sean, and I will not judge you, no matter the answer," Max says, resting her chin against her fists. "Do you have to change things back?"
Sean pulls his feet onto the bed, sits criss-cross-applesauce like a little kid as he squeezes his toes through his sock, which always grosses him out when Daniel does it. "Yeah, I do," he says. "Objectively, the other life is better for everyone. My grandparents and best friend don't talk to me here because they got hurt. A bunch of people who helped us in the other life are dead. And Daniel has life in prison. I'm only doing, like, fifteen years. When he called me tonight, my good-hearted brother was talking about joining a gang, so . . . yeah, I have to go back, Max. I don't get it, though. Why do we have these abilities if we can't make things better or help the people we care about? What is the point?"
"I don't think life has a point other than the meanings we create for it." Max stares off to the side, her fingers drumming against her box of wine. "My powers caused me pain. A lot of pain. And sometimes, I think about what happened, and I get so angry at the world. But . . . my friendship with Chloe had gotten pretty rocky before I found her dying on that bathroom floor. If that had been it, I would have had so many regrets. Feelings never shared. My powers let me have more time with her, let me say the things I hadn't said, and when I left her, we were in a better place." Max takes a swig from the box of wine. "Also, we stopped my photography teacher from murdering people."
Sean blinks. "I'm sorry, did you say your teacher was murdering people?"
"Yeah, it was a thing. Look up Mark Jefferson sometime," Max says. "But the thing is, when I think of my powers as 'changing the past' they make me angry. Because all changing the past did was hurt me. But I've started to think of my powers more as 'being given more time.' And when I do that, they don't seem pointless. I got more time with Chloe, and that's . . . more time with someone you love, that's pretty cool, y'know?"
Sean digs a knuckle into his eye and nods. When he arrived in this new life, he called his dad, heard Dad's voice for the first time in years, and breaking down outside his life-drawing class might have been the best day of Sean's life.
"So if you are dead set on going back," Max says, "then you should think about the things you can't do in that other life. Who is the person you can't talk to? Make a point to talk to them, hang out with them, say what you need to. Because that's what your gift is. It isn't changing the past because the past can't change, not really. Your gift is more time, a second chance—even if you still have to say goodbye. It might hurt, but you can choose to make all of this mean something."
"Thanks, Max," Sean says, drying his cheek on his shirt. "You're like a superhero, you know? You're awesome."
"You're awesome, too—honestly, you're probably more awesome," Max says. "Good luck, Sean Diaz. I hope 'The Wolf Brothers' have a better ending this time."
"I'm not sure how," Sean chuckles. "I'm still worried it might be a little worse."
# # #
After he says goodbye to Max, Sean flips through the sketchbook that came with him from the other life. And . . . there's a lot of shitty things in here. Dad dying, obviously. Being in a coma after losing an eye. Getting attacked at the gas station and in the desert. But there's also the kindness of Brody. And the generosity of Claire and Stephen. Chris. And Finn, Cassidy, Penny, and the others in California. There was Joey. And Mom. Danger might have always followed them, but there were lights in that darkness—always people good enough to help.
And, maybe best of all, Sean got to hang out with a pretty cool little dork named Daniel.
When he reaches the last page, the one with the motel near Away and the douchey shirtless selfie paperclipped at the top, Sean closes the book and calls his Dad.
"Sean?" Dad says. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just—" Sean glances at the clock on his laptop. "Shit, I didn't realize it was so late. I'm sorry, Pops. I can call tomorrow."
"Have you been drinking?"
"Yeah, but I'm not drunk," Sean says, but when he stands up, the room spins. "Okay, I'm still a little drunk."
Dad yawns. "Did you have something you wanted to talk with me about?"
"I did. You know how my birthday is next month? I know you know it's my birthday, but I mean—I want to come up. I want to spend the whole day with you, just you and me. Can we do that for my birthday?"
Dad is quiet for a moment, long enough Sean expects him to say no. But instead, he says, "Of course, mijo. I would love to spend my son's birthday with him."
"Awesome," Sean says. "That's awesome. You're awesome. And, Dad?"
"Yes, Sean?"
"Te quiero, you know? Mucho y siempre."
"I know, Sean," Dad says. "Te quiero mucho también. Siempre."
After they hang up, Sean clutches his phone to his chest. He has a little over a month before he changes everything back. Before his life ends once again.
But this time he knows it's coming. And this time he gets to say goodbye.
