A flying memory overwhelmed him. They were young, much too similar in attributes both physically and otherwise. That day, Eamon had decided they’d run away, sneak out of the house while his father was on some Clan business trip and his brother was busy looking after Ava. Sean, lankier in body mass but already growing just a bit taller than him, wasn’t too convinced this would be a good idea. “Do you trust me?” Eamon had asked, his eyes on the brighter blues of his cousin, already halfway out of the window. “Sean.” He wanted to snap him out of doubts and worries. They’d get in trouble, maybe, only if they got caught. Eamon had tried to make the younger boy understand that, and yet Sean hesitated. “Do you trust me?” He had asked again, holding his hand out to help his cousin climb out of the window. Sean didn’t need to speak. He didn’t need to voice it. Eamon could read it in his eyes and, as his hand took his own, he tightened his grip around it and pulled him towards him.
“No matter what, I got your back. Always. Remember that.”
So many broken promises, Eamon thought. He had failed to keep him safe and Sean had failed to trust him, always. He knew the code. An entire life dedicated to it, he knew the code all too damn well. There was no way around it, not for them. When your family led, you didn’t have the luxury to bend the rules, not when all eyes were upon you, watching your every move, waiting for the moment you did something wrong so they could take it away. Just like Eamon knew now that he’d be shunned as a collector, Sean knew he should’ve ended his own life when he was bitten. He didn’t, just like Eamon hadn’t really left the clan or spoken the truth about what he had been doing lately when no one knew where he was. He didn’t trust him enough to think he’d be able to find a way to go around the rules for him—and it made him angry. Anger made him do things he had never done otherwise, not just in spite of the moment but all those losses, all that frustration that piled up through the years. What good were they for if they couldn’t keep their own safe? Maybe, just maybe, Sean would’ve been better off dead. Maybe, just maybe, he should’ve really put himself out of the misery and followed the code.
He could hear steps approaching, a shower being turned off. Anyone walked in and saw them, two grown men just staring at each other, still, tense, unblinking—not knowing if he wanted to jump on him and choke him to death or close the distance and pull him in an embrace. The former, he thought, would be more likely to happen and so he didn’t move forward. Instead, he was idly nodding, softly, swallowing quietly to release some pressure from his jaw. A gym? He would’ve joked, teased him endlessly about going from selling guns to building guns… He would’ve tried and reassure him how, despite his bulkier fit, he could still take him in a heartbeat though Eamon knew that was unlikely now. But he didn’t say a word. All he could remember was Ava’s tightening throat as she spoke his name, telling him how she had seen him; how much she missed him. She didn’t say that but he could hear it in her voice. He could feel it in the house. From Finn. From Harlow. All of that merely angered him more so. Horrible so. Because he missed him, too, but he couldn’t say it. Because he wouldn’t let himself admit it, a vulnerability, a weakness—but then again, that was just a shell he was staring at. The body of his cousin, the eyes, the features, even that faint scar on his skin… but before him stood a wolf, a dog, a prize.
“I didn’t come here to see you.” Eamon’s voice was dry, ragged. He had to clear his throat to speak further though these were not the words he wanted to say. It came all wrong, and yet he couldn’t stop.
Sean couldn’t figure out why Eamon was here. Had Ava or Finn told him? Had he done some searching into the Levy pack and found out he worked here now? What drove him after all these weeks to finally reach out, to do anything to make contact. All these questions ultimately failed to matter since Sean couldn’t bring himself to care about how his cousin had ended up in the locker room, standing there looking so unlike himself but still wholly him all the same. Eamon was finally there in front of him and everything Sean had wanted to say over the past few months disappeared from his mind, leaving him with only the emotions coursing through his veins and pulsing in his skull. He was hurt above all else, the feeling drowning out the fear, worry, and anger that was almost constantly bubbling under his skin.
He’d missed him. God, how he’d missed him. He missed going home to the O’Malley house and feeling the stress of the day seep out of him. He missed not worrying about what he was going to do the next day because he knew he’d always be doing it with them, his family, the people he cared about more than anything else in the world. He missed knowing he would always have a place, on Eamon’s left.
But here they were, feeling like strangers when they’d shared over twenty long years growing up. They’d shaped each other into the men they’d become, but it seemed like none of that mattered now, not with what had happened hanging over them like a thunderstorm ready to start. How could they lose it all in one instant?
Sean was trying to think up something to say, anything to fill the space between them. This wasn’t right. They’d always known what to do around one another, knowing what the other was thinking before words were even needed. But then Eamon spoke, and Sean felt his mouth go dry and an anvil seemed to weigh on his chest, squeezing the air out of him. He would have stepped back, the words feeling like a physical blow, had Sean’s muscles not seized since the moment they’d laid eyes on one another. None of this was right. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be between them.
He found it hard to swallow the lump in his throat, forcing his head into a short nod in response. Eamon didn’t care about him anymore, about everything they’ve done and built together. Sean had turned his back on all of that when he didn’t bite the bullet and follow the code. He didn’t have a right to ask why he was here, did he? What he was doing with his life now wasn’t something he was privy to anymore, not when he wasn’t part of it anymore.
Sean finally managed to clear his throat, though his mouth still felt dry. “You uh- looking for a membership?” he asked, forcing out something- anything to fill the space and to keep Eamon from leaving.
