silas

practicing for hell

[blessyrslfbleed]

Dreams Come True – Chapter 1

A Stay 2005 Henry Survives AU Fanfic

[ TW: Referenced suicide ] After surviving the car crash that should have killed him, Henry Letham wakes from a coma to find that the world has moved on without him. As reality and dream begin to blur together, Henry becomes obsessed with the people he met in the dream, specifically Sam Foster.

At first, Henry thought he was still dreaming. The ceiling was wrong. White. Flat. Motionless. Not burning. Not folding in on itself. Not full of signs. He stared at it for a long time before realizing he was staring. Something beeped beside him. The sound felt familiar. Everything felt familiar. Nothing made sense. A shape moved beside the bed. A woman. Athena? No. Not Athena. A nurse. The disappointment hit before he knew why.

"Henry?"

His throat hurt. He tried to answer. Nothing came out. The nurse was suddenly gone. Then there were more people. Voices. Questions. Lights. Words crashing into each other.

Can you hear me? Do you know your name? Can you squeeze my hand? Henry? Henry Letham?

Henry Letham. That was him. Wasn't it? Twenty years old. No. Twenty-one? Maybe. He couldn't remember. His head hurt. Every thought felt submerged underwater.

Someone said he'd been unconscious for three weeks. Three weeks. The number didn't mean anything. Three weeks since what? The answer arrived immediately. The bridge. The headlights. His parents. Blood. Fire. Death. The world tilted. Machines began beeping faster. Someone told him to calm down. He wanted to tell them he was already dead. Instead he threw up.

The next few days arrived out of order. Doctors appeared and disappeared. Nurses changed faces every few hours. People asked questions. The same questions. Over and over. What happened before the accident? Do you remember the collision? Do you know where you are? Sometimes Henry answered. Sometimes he lied. Sometimes he genuinely didn't know.

The dream stayed with him. Not pieces of it. All of it. Every conversation. Every street. Every face. Sam Foster. Lila. Athena. The city. The suicide. It existed inside his head with the same weight as reality. Sometimes more. A psychiatrist explained that vivid dreams could occur during prolonged unconsciousness. Henry stared at him. The man kept talking. Words like trauma. Brain injury. Survivor's guilt. Recovery. Henry stopped listening. His attention drifted to the man's white coat. A coffee stain near the pocket. A loose thread on the sleeve. The plastic name tag clipped to his chest. Foster. His chest tightened. For half a second he couldn't breathe. Then he blinked. The name was different. Not Foster. Something else. A completely ordinary name he immediately forgot. He wasn't sure if it ever said Foster at all.

His parents were dead. That part wasn't a dream. Every time someone explained it, Henry felt surprised. Not devastated. Just surprised. Like hearing the same fact repeatedly. The doctors told him. The nurses told him. A social worker told him. Later, a police officer explained it again in a careful voice, as if different wording might somehow make the truth easier to carry. They died at the scene. The impact was fatal. Your parents passed away instantly. Different sentences. Same ending. The surprise never left. It should have hurt more. He knew it should. He waited for the devastation that was supposed to follow. For the collapse. For the unbearable weight everyone seemed to expect. It never came. Not yet. Instead there was only distance. The words reached him from somewhere far away and stayed there, unable to cross whatever space existed between his mind and the rest of him. He wondered if something was wrong with him. He knew he should be crying. Should be screaming. Should be feeling something. Instead everything felt distant. Wrapped in cotton. The grief was somewhere else. Waiting. Patient. Growing heavier every day. Sooner or later, Henry knew that door would open. It was his fault, after all.

A man from the military visited him. Henry remembered almost nothing about the conversation afterward. Only fragments. Evaluation. Medical review board. Injury. Psychological concerns. Discharge. Honorable. Benefits. Paperwork.

The man spoke gently. Like Henry was fragile. Maybe he was.

Henry signed where they pointed. His signature looked wrong. The letters didn't belong together. When the man left, Henry stared at the discharge papers for nearly an hour. The word civilian felt foreign. Like it belonged to someone else.

The hospital wanted him somewhere supervised. Not inpatient. Not exactly outpatient. Somewhere in between. A crisis respite center. Temporary housing. Mental health support. Case management. Stabilization. The social worker explained everything. Henry remembered none of it.

The day he left the hospital felt unreal. One moment he was in bed. The next he was dressed. The next he was signing forms. The next he was sitting in a wheelchair. The next he was outside. The sunlight hit him like a physical object. Three weeks. Only three weeks. The world had continued without him. Cars moved. People walked. Birds screamed somewhere overhead. Everything seemed absurdly alive. Henry stared at a passing bus and felt certain he had already seen it before. Not earlier. Before. Somewhere. In another life. The certainty vanished as quickly as it came.

The respite center sat in a quiet neighborhood. Too quiet. The building wasn't large. Just another house pretending not to be a house. Someone greeted him at the door. They showed him his room. A bed. A desk. A dresser. A window. That was all. The staff member kept talking. House rules. Schedules. Medication. Resources. Henry nodded at appropriate intervals. The dream lingered behind every word. Like another conversation happening simultaneously. Like someone else was speaking beneath the surface. When the staff member finally left, silence filled the room. For the first time since waking up, he was alone.

Henry sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight. Real. The wall. Real. The window. Real. Outside, a streetlamp flickered as evening settled over the neighborhood. Henry watched it. For a moment, he felt absolutely certain it was trying to tell him something. A warning. A message. A sign. His pulse quickened. Then the light stabilized. Nothing happened. Just a streetlamp. Just a room. Just reality. Probably. The dream had felt real. The accident had been real. The hospital was real. Somewhere between those facts was a boundary he could no longer find. Outside, the streetlamp flickered once more. Henry watched it until morning.

The next week settled into a routine. Or at least everyone around him seemed determined to establish one. Medication. Meals. Group meetings. Check-ins. Paperwork. Appointments. Questions. Always questions. 

How are you feeling today? How would you describe your mood? Have you experienced confusion? Any unusual thoughts?

Henry became very good at lying.

"Fine."

"Tired."

"Better."

The answers made people happy. People preferred improvement.

His case manager encouraged him to find goals. Small goals. Achievable goals. Daily structure. Community reintegration. The words blurred together. Henry nodded like always. Then ignored most of it.

The only thing he wanted was answers. Not about the accident. About the dream. The dream interested him. The dream felt important. Because it refused to fade. Three weeks had passed since he'd woken up. Most dreams disappeared after breakfast. This one remained intact. Every detail. Every conversation. Every face. Especially Sam Foster. The name lived inside his head like a splinter. Sam Foster. Psychiatrist. Teacher. Guide. The man had spent the entire dream trying to save him. Or perhaps trying to save himself. Henry wasn't sure anymore. The details shifted when he examined them too closely. But the feeling remained. Sam had mattered. Which was absurd. Because Sam wasn't real.

Except Henry kept finding traces of him. Not Sam exactly. Just references. Articles. Books. Mentions. One afternoon he sat in the respite center's computer room and searched the name out of boredom. The result appeared immediately. Sam Foster. Psychiatrist. New York City. Henry stared at the screen. The room suddenly felt smaller. He clicked. Photograph. Biography. Credentials. Years of practice. The face was different than he remembered. But it was him. It was absolutely him.

Henry's stomach dropped. He minimized the page. His pulse refused to slow. Sam Foster existed. Not someone similar. Not someone who shared the name. The same face. The same city. The same man. Impossible. Yet there he was.

For three days Henry avoided looking him up again. Three days of pretending it didn't matter. Three days of failing. Eventually curiosity won. The information wasn't difficult to find. Professional profiles. University pages. Office addresses. Phone numbers. Academic publications. A real person living a real life.

The decision formed gradually. So gradually he didn't recognize it as a decision. At first he only wanted information. Then he wanted confirmation. Then he wanted to see him. After that, the outcome became inevitable.

The taxi ride felt like hours. His case manager thought he was attending a support group. Henry felt mildly guilty about the lie. Not guilty enough to tell the truth. The city unfolded outside the window. Buildings. Traffic. People. Pieces of somewhere familiar. The entire journey felt like retracing steps he had never actually taken.

The city looked wrong. Not different. Wrong. Like someone had rebuilt it from memory. The proportions felt slightly off. The pathways curved in unexpected directions. Entire buildings stood where they shouldn't. Henry couldn't explain why. Eventually he found the building. The name matched. The address matched. Everything matched.

Inside, a receptionist pointed him toward the psychiatry department. Henry thanked her. His voice sounded distant. Like someone else's. The hallway stretched ahead. Office doors lined both sides. Names mounted beside them. Faculty. Researchers. Doctors. He walked slowly. His pulse grew faster with every step. Then he saw it. SAM FOSTER, M.D. The brass plate gleamed beneath fluorescent lighting.

Henry stopped moving. For several seconds he simply stared. The hallway disappeared. The dream returned. The office. The conversations. The concern in Sam's voice. The certainty that none of it should exist. Yet the door remained. Solid. Real. Present. Henry suddenly couldn't remember why he'd come. What answer had he expected? Proof of what? That reality was wrong? That he was? The questions tangled together. Before he could think better of it, he lifted his hand. Three sharp knocks echoed through the hallway. 

Silence. 

Then, a muffled voice from inside called out:

"Come in."

The voice was exactly the same. His hand closed around the doorknob. Then he slowly pushed the door open.

[blessyrslfbleed]

Henry Letham Character Writeup

aka how I characterize Henry Letham for a fic I'm gonna write

Henry Letham is a deeply sensitive, deeply selfish young man trapped between the person he is and the person he desperately wants to believe he could become. He possesses genuine empathy, artistic talent, and emotional intelligence, but these qualities are undermined by an inability to confront himself honestly. At his core, Henry is defined by avoidance. He avoids responsibility, avoids vulnerability, avoids failure, and most importantly, avoids acknowledging the ways he hurts the people around him. Nearly every tragedy in his life stems from this pattern. One of Henry's defining traits is his tendency to become intensely fixated on people who show him kindness. He develops attachments quickly and deeply, often constructing idealized versions of people in his head that bear little resemblance to reality. A single act of compassion can convince him that someone understands him completely. He does not fall in love with people as they are so much as he falls in love with what they represent: safety, understanding, validation, or salvation. When reality begins to contradict his fantasy, Henry struggles to cope. He cannot reconcile the imperfect person in front of him with the perfect image he has created. Rather than adjusting his perception, he tends to choose one of two responses. He either ignores the problems entirely until they become impossible to overlook, or he distances himself emotionally until he no longer cares. To Henry, losing the fantasy often feels easier than accepting reality.

This dynamic is most evident in his relationship with Athena. Henry genuinely loves Athena, but his love is far from selfless. More than a romantic partner, Athena functions as an emotional caretaker. She comforts him, reassures him, motivates him, and provides the stability he cannot create for himself. Their relationship often resembles that of a parent and child more than equal partners. Henry depends on her to regulate his emotions and maintain his sense of self-worth. He values her not only because of who she is, but because of how she makes him feel. Throughout most of his life, recovery was something he discussed rather than pursued. He wanted to get better in theory, but improvement required confronting uncomfortable truths about himself. Athena was one of the first people who made him believe a better future might actually be attainable. For perhaps the first time, Henry could imagine a version of himself that was not defined by suffering. Yet even this relationship is filtered through his self-centered worldview. The possibility of losing Athena terrifies him not simply because he loves her, but because without her he would be forced to stand on his own. His attachment is rooted as much in dependence as affection.

Henry's selfishness is often hidden beneath his vulnerability. He sees himself as a victim more often than anything else. His pain is real, but it becomes the lens through which he interprets every conflict. Because he is so focused on his own suffering, he frequently overlooks the suffering of others. Relationships become centered around his needs, his struggles, and his emotions. He expects understanding from others while rarely offering the same level of accountability in return. This tendency becomes especially apparent during conflict. Henry is highly perceptive and notices the insecurities and weaknesses of those around him with uncomfortable accuracy. He understands people well enough to know exactly what hurts them. Most of the time he keeps this knowledge to himself, but when he feels threatened, rejected, or angry, he has little hesitation in using it against them. He knows where to strike and often convinces himself he is justified in doing so.

The worst part is that he rarely sees his actions as cruel. In Henry's mind, he is almost always reacting rather than initiating. If he lashes out, it is because someone hurt him first. If he manipulates someone, it is because he feels cornered. This mindset allows him to avoid confronting the harm he causes. His self-awareness is selective; he can recognize his depression and loneliness but struggles to acknowledge his own capacity for selfishness. Emotionally, Henry is remarkably immature. He often behaves less like an adult and more like a frightened child desperately trying to avoid consequences. When things do not go his way, he becomes defensive, resentful, or withdrawn. Responsibilities are postponed. Difficult conversations are avoided. Problems are ignored until they become crises. He dreams constantly about the future but rarely takes meaningful steps toward achieving it. He wants the rewards of growth without enduring the discomfort required to grow. Fantasy feels safer than effort because fantasy cannot fail. Henry spends more time imagining a better version of himself than becoming one.

This conflict is reflected in his military service and his unrealized artistic ambitions. Prior to the crash, Henry joined the military partly because of pressure from his father, who served himself, but primarily because it offered a practical path toward attending art school. The military was never his dream. It was simply the means through which he hoped to reach it. Yet he died before ever getting the chance. In his dream, he attends art school because it represents the life he wanted but never achieved–a future forever suspended by circumstance. His relationship with his father is similarly unresolved. There is a deep emotional distance between them, rooted in years of unmet expectations and unspoken resentment. His father encouraged military service as a path toward stability, while Henry longed for something more creative and personal. Though Henry followed the path laid out for him, he never fully reconciled his feelings about it.

Mental health treatment offers another example of Henry's self-destructive avoidance. He has struggled with depression for years, but he rarely engages honestly with attempts to help him. He cycles through therapists while carefully controlling what they see. Sessions become performances rather than opportunities for growth. He tells therapists what they want to hear, conceals his worst thoughts, and avoids discussing the aspects of himself he finds most shameful. Eventually, his final therapist admits that she cannot help him. Rather than understanding this as the consequence of his dishonesty, Henry interprets it as rejection. In his mind, she has seen who he truly is and became afraid. His brief experience with antidepressants reinforces these fears. While the medication reduces his suffering, it also dulls his emotions. To Henry, numbness feels like a loss of identity. He would rather feel miserable than disconnected from himself. Afterward, he refuses further medication, convincing himself that emotional pain is preferable to emotional emptiness.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Henry is that he often uses his suffering as a shield. His depression is real. His trauma is real. His struggles are real. Yet he frequently weaponizes these realities to avoid accountability. When confronted about his behavior, conversations quickly become focused on how badly he is hurting. The people around him are left comforting him for mistakes he made. Whether intentional or not, he shifts responsibility away from himself and onto those trying to help him. This pattern persists because the people around Henry genuinely care about him. Friends, family, therapists, and Athena repeatedly offer patience, forgiveness, and support. Ironically, this support often enables his stagnation. Someone is always there to catch him before he experiences the full consequences of his actions. As a result, Henry never fully grows up. A part of him genuinely wants to improve. Another part has become comfortable occupying the role of the wounded person everyone worries about. Recovery would require surrendering that identity and accepting responsibility for his life. It would require acknowledging that he is not merely a victim of circumstance but an active participant in many of his own problems. This contradiction defines him more than anything else. Henry is not a monster, nor is he an innocent victim. He is a flawed, emotionally stunted man who desperately wants to be loved while struggling to love others as fully as they deserve. He is selfish without realizing it, manipulative without fully intending to be, and intelligent enough to recognize his pain without understanding its impact on those around him

[blessyrslfbleed]

Henry Letham Angst Headcanons

Part 2 - TW: Suicide attempt

( 04 ) right before the crash henry was the closest he was to getting on the right track in life. i think that henry has always been adverse to truly getting better, but the time closest to before the crash he was actually getting to the point he could see himself bettering himself because of athena

( 05 ) in the dream lila was a mirror to henry, shes kind of like his inner thoughts personified. henry had attempted in the same way she did when he was younger

( 06 ) henrys relationship with his father was strained, shown through how in the dream he was distanced from him. henrys father was one of the pushing factors for henry to go into the military as he was in it himself, but what really got him to join was that it could pay for his art college tuition

( 07 ) henry was on antidepressants at one point but when he was on them he couldnt feel anything and didnt feel like himself, so he stopped and refused to take any medication after that

( 08 ) henry has been through multiple therapists, but he constantly lies to them and tells them what they want to hear so he never gets the help he really needs. his last therapist told him that she cant help him, which he took as she was scared of him

[blessyrslfbleed]

Henry Letham Angst Headcanons

TW: Self harm, suicidal ideation

( 01 ) henry gets fixated on people who are nice to him really easily, he kinda creates a version of them in his head that is perfect and gets obsessed with it. when the person he fixates on is a real person and doesnt fit this perfect mold that henry has thought up, and he cant handle that they might not be like he imagined and either 1. tries to ignore it and disregards all the problems until they are too big and it ends badly or 2. isolates himself until he no longer cares for the person

( 02 ) someone pointed out he had an e-4 rank military patch in one of the pictures with athena so this headcanon is based on that. henry went to the military to pay to go to college pre-crash, and he never got to go to art school because he was still in service when he died. in his dream he was in art school cuz it was what he wanted to do

( 03 ) henry has had suicidal thoughts but they were more passive as he is scared of death and pain. when he would self harm himself it would be enough to bleed but not leave scars. during the dream his ideation was active because he didnt want to seem like a coward