#sad macsummers hours

[verdemoun]

i have to say that i have an irish dad who was born and raised in antrim so sean saying “aye wise up maeve” in completely unfair and inappropriate situations must be canon because theres not an irish father alive who doesnt do that and if i had to go through it she does too

i wish i had authentic irish experiences to base my headcanons on my family haven't been irish for 10 generations (australia yeah boi)

the first time he said it was when maeve was 9 months old and tried to sit up by herself only to faceplant the way babies do

sean had absolutely no memories of darragh ever saying it to him until the words fell out of his mouth. it was instinct, and he wracked his brain and suddenly remembered all the times he did something stupid or better yet times where something completely out of his control happened - like the time he burned his mouth on porridge - and darragh laughed and told him to 'aye wise up'.

he proceeded to say it constantly. maeve trips? aye wise up. maeve breaks her phone screen? wise up. maeve is complaining about a teacher at school? wise up (but he also goes into school and screams bloody murder because how dare someone annoy his precious daughter) bad hair day? aye wise up

but maeve genetically has the snark of both the macguire and jones' clan, as well as being the daughter of the genius lenny summers. you bet your ass the first time sean made an ass out of himself, maeve hit him with wise up and it was like taking a bullet again.

runs out of gas? maeve in a toddler seat telling him to ayeeee, wise up. forgets to do his laundry? wise up. brings home the one type of pizza everyone but he hates? wise up. sometimes, just to throw him off, when she does something she knows will make him say 'aye, wise up', she says it first. it causes him to malfunction

lenny didn't realise how much it was part of his life until a student asked about his weekend in an obvious attempt to distract him and he rolled his eyes and told them to 'aye, wise up' - the student still won because he had to explain how his husband and daughter say it constantly, because his husband is irish and it's just a thing

[verdemoun]

sad macsummers hours where one of them gets sick and has to stay in hospital but will like recover becuz im watching my neighbour totoro where the mum is in hospital and idk it made me sad

I've been toying with the idea of the gang having some lingering complications from how they died so this is perfect.

Lenny suffers a spontaneous pneumothorax that is further complicated by post-surgical infection. Not only is Lenny being in hospital an ordeal on Sean in itself, but due to chest tubes, oxygen and other supportive medication Lenny can't talk to him.

This is a problem because 1. Sean is a nervous yapper and is slowly going insane not being able to have Lenny respond 2. Sean just doesn't understand the doctors. The staff are obviously geniuses and Lenny is getting the best care but they cannot explain what they are doing in a way Sean understands and Lenny can't talk to translate for him.

Sean feels as helpless as he would be in a different country to Lenny. He doesn't know what's happening, he doesn't know how to help, all he knows is that Lenny was meant to be going home after 6 days, and they were both smiling and laughing, and then Lenny was sick and struggling to breathe again and throwing up and feverish and sicker than he was when he first went in.

He does not leave Lenny's bedside, and the first thing Lenny says when he has the tubes removed for a second time and can talk again is 'I love you but you need a shower'.

Sean also holds Lenny's hand so tightly he almost breaks it.

Lenny tries his hardest to pretend everything is okay for Sean's sake because Sean is ruined seeing Lenny get sick, being afraid he's going to lose him because for Sean it's the first time he's gone through the grief of seeing Lenny so close to death, but eventually Lenny has to break too.

Sean, after weeks of feeling helpless, at least knows how to comfort his husband while Lenny goes through the terror of it sinking in that life is as fragile as it was in canon era.

--

Plus some canon era for a different flavor

Sean isn't okay when he is brought back to Horseshoe Overlook. Lenny helps him off Boaz and immediately knows it's not going to be bouncing back to normal Sean, despite the grin Sean has. He's running on the relief of being rescued and the adrenaline of being held upside down helpless during a shootout.

His arms are too thin. His skin is unnaturally warm to the touch. It takes every puppy-eyed boyfriend stare just to get Sean to sit down long enough to process the number of injuries. To notice the missing tooth and immediately force himself to stop staring at it. The healing black eye.

Second the adrenaline wears off, the pain sets in. The fever climbs. As much as horseback would be faster Lenny insists on the mercy of taking the wagon, with Sean laying in the back instead of trying to sit upright.

None of them are potentially fatal injuries. Sean is going to be okay, Lenny knows that. Sean knows that. But it's more than the gang can handle right now. Lenny is relieved to know Sean will be in the safety of a doctor's office.

Except Sean loathes doctors. And it doesn't help that the doctor in Valentine just seems like a shifty, nervous, feller. The number one thing Sean needs is rest and sleep, and Lenny knows Sean struggles enough sleeping without being in the creepy attic clinic of a doctor's office.

When he's asleep, Lenny lets it sink in how terrible Sean looks. If it wasn't for how thin he is, and how obvious the rise and fall of his chest is in his sleep, Sean would look like a corpse. He doesn't want waking up alone to be the final stress Sean can't cope with.

So begins weeks of battling Sean on Sean's behalf. Sean wants to be fine, he wants to be back with the gang and he does not want to be laying in bed all day being told to stay still so he can recover when the process seems heinously slow regardless.

That doesn't mean Sean has much fight. He puts so much energy into pretending to be fine, and arguing he's ready to go home to the gang and back to robbing, he sleeps 18 hours a day. Or sometimes he wakes up and admits his entire body hurts, and he's too nauseous to eat, and just looks out the dirty little window miserable.

Lenny stays as often as he can. Constantly, after catching Sean having snuck out and staggered to the bar before passing out on a stool. They play cards on goods days, Lenny reads to him on bad. The gang move on to Clemen's Point, but Lenny stays behind. Sean isn't ready.

Sean regains his strength on cute little dates walking around Valentine, getting excited over candy bars at the grocery store and beef stew at the saloon that they both think is better than Pearson's cooking. Sean's burned feet result in a bone infection, with the pain in his ankle lasting months. He uses a cane on bad days, and then realizes he quite likes using it as a weapon even on his good days.

By the time Sean is well enough to head back to camp, he actually dreads the lifestyle. He's gotten used to a physical bed, and the sheer concept of privacy. He likes having Lenny to himself too much - fake coughs and jokes he has an infection and needs to stay a few more nights. They both miss the gang too much to leave, but the thought crosses their minds.

Then - they get to Clemen's Point and there's no one there. No note. Just a quickly dug grave with no name. They realize they're on their own. They're alone, except for each other, no way to find the gang on their own. They're free. They're nobodies enough to slip through Tall Trees. They go back out West. They live happily ever after.

[verdemoun]

What happens if the gang was found a document show about the reform school sean went to? Since sean never goes into detail what happen to him, what would their reaction/responses be?

Like, say there trying to find something to watch and they find this documentary about reforms schools, “oh, didn’t sean mention he went to one? Maybe we should watch it” and then they see a photo of one of the classes and then boom!! It’s a picture of sean

(Sorry this is weird or makes so sense)

People also forget Bill canonically went to reform school too.

Sean's started to drop some reform school lore, see here and here.

Lenny would get curious because despite it having been 12 years since Sean timewarped, and therefore decades since reform school, the subject still comes up the second Bill and Sean decide to go for a drink together not long after Bill timewarps.

Bill and Sean had always been able to talk in a way the gang hadn't understood, but the pair hadn't actually made the connection they both went to reform school until after timewarping and were very quick to discuss war stories and the horrors they endured in hushed whispers and dark humored laughter.

Lenny, politely eavesdropping as a concerned partner (it's always a concern when Sean starts drinking hard, considering how long it's been since he cut back to drinking socially) finally catches the name of the reform school Sean went to.

Lenny starts obsessing. Even in 1899, they knew what reform school usually meant. He'd watched documentaries, most about schools in the 20th century. He'd privately had nightmares about what Sean might have gone through. He thinks he has an idea. But now he has a name.

Not a lot of documentaries exist from that time period. But documents? Specifically state reports and judicial inquiries into abuse in those institutions that a college professor would have significantly easier access to?

Lenny is reading a 900-page report about Sean's reform school - the abuse, the horror endured by children at the hands of staff and other children during the years Sean must've been there. And then there's a photo: Reformee 1-8-4-8. Ironic: that's Sean's pin number. There's a lot of photos, none of a face.

There's something sickly nostalgic about old photos. Because to the gang, they're not really old. Images in sepia, blurred by motion - that's how photos looked to them. It's looking at a photo the way they're meant to be looked at for the gang, the way they grew up with and knew photographs.

Except Lenny can recognise those freckles. Not really freckles: moles. Those distinct spots that look almost black in grainy 1890s photographs. And fresh, bloody whip marks that he recognizes as faint scars running along Sean's lower back.

Lenny spent days reading the testimony of reformee 1-8-4-8. He read about being locked in the chapel cells - not cellar, cells, no different to prison cells, for days or weeks with only bread and water. Straitjackets with gags that left boys almost immobilized but if they found the strength to stand they would be punished with another day of the jacket. Sweatboxes, ironically named, where they were locked in boxes as small as coffins and hosed with cold water until they agreed to submit or froze to death. Boys in the shoe shop made to tan the leather straps that would later be used to beat them. The things that happened in the night.

He reads the testimony of an anonymous victim of this reform school, and then he sees his husband: happy, safe, laughing as he gives his daughter a piggy back ride around the room and whines to Karen that he's hungry only to be met with the typical onslaught of 'I have to get Maeve ready for school pick her up from school entertain her after school and all you do is deliver pizzas. If you're so hungry you should've got something from work!!'.

That night, Sean crawls into bed and kisses him with the same 'maybe?' grin he always has. And Lenny rubs the small of his back under his shirt, not to much feeling the scars but the way the muscle of Sean's back rises between each ridge.

And he tells him he's there, if he ever wanted to talk - about anything. About reform school, about the Ike Skelding gang, about 1899, Lenny will always listen.

Sean pauses for all of a second. A long second, but a second, before he laughs and says why would he want to when the now, the present, was all he wanted?

Lenny laughed, wrapped his arms around his husband, and watched the heavy rise and fall of Sean's chest as he fell asleep. Lenny did not. He laid awake, wondering if timewarp was a second chance for some more than others.

[verdemoun]

How did Sean feel when he saw Lenny again? Because yay he’s seeing his boyfriend again!! But that means his boyfriend has died…

Sean knows Lenny was shot. He knows Lenny was shot and killed by Pinkertons trying to escape a failed bank robbery. He doesn't know that it wasn't instant, like his death. He doesn't know that Lenny was laying there bleeding out as the gang ran past him, with only Arthur staying with him. Others stopped, others hesitated and looked at him sadly for a second, but only Arthur stayed as he struggled to breathe and gasp through the unbearable pain of knowing he was dying.

And the whole time, Lenny was thinking about Sean. He saw Sean's body, eyes still frozen wide like he would suddenly blink and laugh off the fact a window had been blown into his skull. Lenny was dying thinking of seeing Sean through watery eyes as he tried to help dig that hole in the dirt. How much Sean still looked like himself as Lenny wiped the blood off his face and tried to fix his hair over the reminder that whatever it was that made him Sean had been taken by the bullet still rattling around in his cold skull.

Lenny appears and immediately sits up in panic, to a familiar overwhelmingly warm voice that trembles with some sort of awful combination of joy and anguish. Sean so excited, so distraught, angry at the Pinkertons because Lenny is so young and loathing himself for some part of his brain saying he's not alone anymore because Lenny's back, which means Lenny's dead. But so relieved to see Lenny and he's okay. There's no injury, no wound, Lenny looks just like how he remembers him. He doesn't grab him straight away. Timewarping is a really, really weird experience. He's just close, arms outstretched in case Lenny wobbles, trying to tell him he's okay, he's safe, he missed him so much, nothing to worry about Summers you're alright.

Defaults to calling him Summers, because it's been two months. Maybe things aren't going to go back to how they were, right away. And that hurts but Lenny just went through dying and he is so sorry that Lenny went through that.

Lenny stares at Sean, staring at his face, staring at the side of his temple where there isn't even a mark. The freckles the Greys might as well have used as targets are back, unchanged. And while Sean is still trying to mentally brace himself for maybe Lenny is going to need space and time Lenny throws himself at Sean, pulls him into a hug in tears. Apologizing, ugly messy fat tears as he apologizes for not being able to safe Sean, not being able to protect him or do something to stop his death. And Sean's so thrown he just laughs and holds Lenny tight because suddenly he realizes he's been so worried about how Lenny would react to his own death, how excited he was to see Lenny, that it didn't cross his mind Lenny might be excited to see him again, or his clever beautiful genius boyfriend might have been stupid enough to find a way to blame himself for Sean dying.

Because Lenny had to mourn Sean. Sean only had to wait for Lenny.

[verdemoun]

hihi moss i hope ur doing okay!!

i just needed to share with you that i am planning a fic in which i create a disease JUST for sean and i can happily promise you he will suffer deeply from what I have created! i really really wanna tell u abt what i will be inflicting on him IF you are cool and gucci with that...

your my fav blog no matter what, it's simply ur aura...from chloe but you already knew that teehee

hihi!! yes i am still alive admittedly i have been playing rdr1, crying so hard i curl up on the floor because of the paralles, and then playing rdr2 as autistically as possible to erase the pain. it's been great!

my dms are always open yes please give me the spoilers i love plotting and schemes.

while i have your attention do you want some angst? tapping a dog bowl whistling come 'ere get your angst

so on my latest playthrough i have spent so long in camp triggering companion requests that dialogue is glitching. apparently it's a known glitch but lenny said his 'it's a shame about sean, he was just starting to get good at reading' as sean was less than 6 ft away walking past the table lenny was at.

got me thinking about maybe sean's miraculous recovery wasn't so miraculous. imagine karen, lenny and arthur, as the only ones who really notice how much sean changed after he got back. maybe it was ptsd, maybe a blow to the head sean didn't mention, but he's just.. different. louder, more irritating and irritable, like the moments where he let himself relax and be that little bit vulnerable are gone - the only times he says more than a few words when he isn't drunk (and he is very obviously and quickly spiralling into addiction, when he only drank when the gang were having parties and celebrations before blackwater).

maybe lenny had been teaching him to read since before blackwater, and sean had actually been interested and getting into it, only for after the ike skelding boys he couldn't even look at a book anymore without holding his head and getting angry because reading as a skill was gone and he was back to being dumb illiterate sean macguire. trying to prove himself to the gang again by insisting on going out on jobs and find his place within the gang, forgetting how long he's been with them and most (not dutch) would understand and not judge if he did need more time to recover. lenny and arthur quietly talking, asking themselves aloud if their sean was gone and the one that came back was a stranger in sean's body.

[verdemoun]

have you seen the “IM BREAKING THE WINDOW” scene from modern family? because that is absolutely sean lenny and maeve from ur timewarp😭

lenny's actually the one screaming while sean 'has been through it all' macguire is the one staying calm enough to explain to the person on the phone that lenny's screaming is actually a man. maeve is 4 and definitely old enough to know how to unlock a car door but is too busy laughing at her parents. lenny is terrified of being a bad parent meanwhile sean is the 'she's alive she's fed she was dressed and has chosen to undress herself we're doing everything we can'.

[verdemoun]

VERDEMOUN!!! GIVE ME MORE MACSUMMERS ANGST, AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!

(Love your headcanons and your AU ❤❤❤)

come off anon coward so i can claim your soul jk always here to provide macsummers have some general dot points instead of a fleshed out scene so hopefully you find something that tickles the flavor of angst you crave

due to being in a situationship in 1899 with all those ideas of masculinity, when they argued it would usually escalate to fistfights and brawls. it was something they both had to unlearn in modern era esp after learning like oh this would be considered domestic violence?? this is super unhealthy of us to do?? with very little support because the few dv services they tried talking to were very gendered and did not know how to cater to lgbtqia intersectionality and the fact neither one considered themselves a 'victim' and were pretty equally guilty of being the one to escalate

despite knowing sean is secretly pretty self conscious about his general intelligence lenny did snap once while particularly stressed about an essay in a 'well unless you understand the use of pharmacology in mitigating the effects of zero g-force on human physiology no i don't see how you can help me sean'. very much felt bad about how quiet sean went, esp when sean still did try to help by filling up his water bottle and bringing him snacks

y'all love daddy issues but let's unpack some mommy issues? lenny deciding one day to use his understanding of archives to find out what happened to his mom. finding out she lost the family house and did unpaid textiles work in an almshouse with her title being spinster on her death certificate? being called a horrible parent and jeered at for being the mother of the outlaw lenny summers who deserved what he got? lenny is the poster child of revenge. he in teenage stupidity chose to leave his illiterate mother in favor of killing his father's murders and live as an outlaw in the 1890s version of running away with the circus. he was distraught and absolutely broke down. sean absolutely held him and let him sob and wail as much as he needed to

sean never saying it but being really bitterly jealous and agreeing with lenny's hindsight he was an idiot. he has no memories or stories of his mammy because darragh never discussed her but he is certain he would've stayed with any parent he had left rather than experience reform school. even sean knew it was a fool's game trying to go after the people who murdered his da and not what he would've wanted. struggles to understand how someone as smart as lenny could make such a stupid decision

sean trying to quit drinking cold turkey and lenny only thinking he was prepared to see someone go through alcohol withdrawal. sean sweating, pasty, having thrown up what little water he managed to drink and experiencing tremors and lenny begging him to let him take him to hospital. sean ending up having to be the one comforting lenny and lenny feeling guilty for need it , for asking him to stop drinking and not actually knowing what to do because internet did not prepare him for how distressing it would be seeing sean like that. it did not end up being a successful attempt to quit.

[verdemoun]

projecting because i'm putting off essay writing but sean would do great in modern times until he didn't. tw for existential cosmic horror

lenny and sean go on a queerplatonic date to a planetarium because lenny is determined to prove that learning can be fun and sean is actually pretty keen on the idea of laying on a couch watching the night sky on a giant dome screen because that sounds awesome

lenny is completely enthralled, beaming ear to ear as a black!! lecturer!! is explaining in how mathmatics is used in physical cosmology to explain the expansion of the universe, using infinite as a measurement when space is something real and seemingly quantifiable

sean's vibing. thinks it's really cool they've got footage of the earth rotating and you can see the city lights come on and hey look there's ireland!! except then it zooms out. there's the other planets and the sun, that's fun. we look like specks! and then the sun is a speck, in a cloud of specks. that is one of an infinite number of speck-clouds.

where was earth again

haha, we really are small!

hey where's God

afterwards lenny is visibly excited, babbling about how incredible it is that human knowledge has come so far in 100 years, how much is still unknown, the infinite possible things that could be discovered or learned about in another 100 years

and it hits sean that lenny believes all that stuff so it must be true, because lenny's always right

tries to laugh it off 'haha yeah guess we're pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of it' as he pulls a flask out of his pocket

lenny knows sean drinking is a bad sign and gently tells him not to, tries to offer some philosophical explanation about mankind only inventing understandable knowledge out of fear

sean finally snapping. because he’s not lenny, he’s not dutch or hosea. He doesn’t like having big theoretical ideas in his head, reading hurts and sometimes when life’s too much he just needs a drink. there’s nothing wrong with needing a damned drink every now and then (there’s definitely something wrong with sean’s alcohol use but now isn’t the time to bring that up)

he misses karen. karen understood all he was ever going to be was idiot sean mcguire. they drank together, and they understood that it wasn’t just about being fools when they were drunk. drinking made it easier to be who they were meant to be, their roles in the gang: a loud-mouthed clown and a beautiful woman

lenny sitting down beside him and just putting his arm around him, letting sean drink as he starts crying because he misses his beautiful woman so much

[verdemoun]

please can we have a non-canon to the timewarp post about maeves death pleaseee😭

special thanks to australian television drama love my way which traumatized me as a young lad

completely normal average typical day. taking maeve to the park because sugar might as well be cocaine to her, lenny telling her to stay where they can see her because he's that parent while she's already sprinting down the footpath like a wild animal

lenny and sean getting a chance to gossip. circa 2013 so there's loads to gossip about. davey's out of jail again, wonder how long that's gonna last. for all the shit he talks about abigail's cooking, john marston in the kitchen both looks wrong and never produces edible food. isaac's course should be wrapping up soon! but bullshit that kid is graduating

when they come around the corner to maeve on the ground, sean laughs. it's not the first time maeve macsummers has tripped over her own feet, shouts to her to hop up and dust it off

lenny's already frowning when she doesn't immediately, because maeve can and has run on a twisted ankle before. having the same thought, sean awkwardly jogs a few strides and kneels beside her, her she's fine, then asking her if she's alright, nudging her gently

looks up at lenny with an expression of mulled terror that will haunt him the rest of his days as lenny finally gets there and kneels, realizing how pale his little irish warrior princess has gone. did she hit her head? is she bleeding? is she breathing?

huh?

is she breathing?

is she - jesus christ i don't fucking know

soon enough panicked shouting attracts the attention of onlookers, someone thinks to call an ambulance as sean sits petrified as stone and watches lenny start cpr

lenny in tears himself having to hold sean back from fighting the paramedics as they take over, and someone says her heart's stopped

one by one the gang hear, via call, or text, and trickle into a private hospital room with only the news maeve's been taken to hospital, she's not breathing

the absolutely guttural wailing echoing down the hall, that only pauses when sean has to take an ugly shuddered gasp of air, tells them before they see this tiny girl laying perfectly, unnaturally still on a hospital bed.

everything they've gone through, it's just... not fair. the youngest, the brightest, hair like fire and the energy like a spark to gunpowder, the first to be buried. no one else could have taken the bullet, or saved her. none of them should feel guilt, but they all do, all wish they could trade places as their lives fall apart.

some genetic condition none of them had a chance of understanding. a massive heart attack. 6 years old, and a massive heart attack

karen drinks, and sleeps, and wakes up to drink until she passes out again, for months. jenny runs away, vanishes like she isn't willing to wait to see if the grief of losing maeve destroys what good she had in her life.

sean and lenny sit on the roof together, where they used to find maeve sitting on nights she climbed out her bedroom window to stare at the sky because she had no fear of anything, and wonder what would happen if they threw themselves off.

sean believes in heaven. he thinks he'll see her again. lenny doesn't believe in anything, thinks oblivion would just be an end to the pain. both just sit, and do nothing.

[verdemoun]

remember when sean hypothetically died? that was so funny what was his funeral like

happy one month since you asked turns out the secret to writing angst is alcohol

it was a mess. a goddamned mess.

the gang had never been through a modern era funeral before. what do you mean you can't just bury somebody? what do you mean you need a funeral director and can't just take your loved ones body back yourself?

getting a cemetery plot. mourning sean all over again because his body isn't going to be right there. the nearest cemetery is on the other side of town. realising he has to buy not only a plot for sean but one for himself if he wants to be reunited with sean in death, confronting his own mortality while still mourning

the gang, to their credit, always held nice funerals. at sean's first funeral, swanson sobered up enough to deliver last rites the proper, catholic way. charles helped bill dig the hole when the guilt became too much. those who cared about sean, really cared, took turns placing rocks on the mound.

his modern era funeral isn't decorated. it isn't an honor to his memory. they didn't realise how bare the room would look without flowers. it feels like a hallway of benches and sean covered in make-up in a pine box.

a stranger reads the lord's prayer. maeve is screaming because she doesn't understand death and thinks sean will get up, which sets off everyone who was barely holding it together.

sean is buried in a cemetery - it's just a field of dead strangers. stuck in the dirt miles from home until they're able to join him. and maeve is still screaming the entire burial.

the funeral was as traumatic as finding out sean was dead. lenny ransacked the house when he got home, and found every single secret stash of alcohol sean had. there wasn't a drop left, but there was vomit in almost every room the house

hosea and bessie sat down and wrote out their own funeral arrangements that very night, because they were not putting the gang through that again

[verdemoun]

for your timewarp au might i be so evil to suggest sean has another sudden death in like his 50s or 40s….like hit by a car or something….might i be so bold….or maybe you could just do how they WOULD react to that IF it did happen in your au which it DID NOT🥺

honestly super proud of myself for timewarp becoming 'that one dude with the macsummers content' and i'm here for it also WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL DON'T YOU JUST WANT THE BOYS TO BE HAPPY?? not timewarp canon because NO but a timewarp what if

sean is found dead in almost the exact same position as he fell in rhodes, having been shot and killed in a mugging gone wrong at 39 years old

when two uniformed officers asked if they could step inside, lenny rolled his eyes and immediately asked what sean had done. when they very delicately explained sean had been found dead, lenny laughed.

he went so far into denial it was uncomfortable. that it wasn't possible, he'd seen sean that morning. that this is the exact sort of shit his husband would pull as a prank (sean had never, ever pulled any stunt or prank like this).

tried to call him. tried to call and tell him to cut the crap and come home. no answer. called again. it had long passed being funny. no answer. called again. knew his phone wasn't flat, because the calls were ringing out before that familiar 'hi, it's sean macguire here FUCK I MESSED UP LENNY HOW DO I RESET-'. begged him to pick up. he was starting to get worried. called again. admitted he was scared. that he needed sean to actually pick up his goddamned phone for once.

looks back at the officers and screams for them to get out of his house. keeps calling. keeps desperately calling. hears about a body being found on the news. keeps calling. phone rings. sprints to get it. it's not sean. it's hosea. only needs to hear that old man's soft, defeated sigh and realizes sean wasn't coming home.

still tries to cling onto denial. sean was always losing his wallet. maybe it was a different tall ginger who happened to have sean's wallet. maybe sean was just running late and he'd walk in any second and clear this whole fucking disaster up.

then karen walks in, eyes already red and dry from rubbing away hours of tears. walks straight past him, to the kitchen, grabs down two bottles of whatever hard liquor she gets her hands on, and holds a bottle towards lenny. because they've done this before.

maeve is already asleep. they have until morning to figure out how to explain to daddy's girl that da isn't coming home. until then, they drink.

lenny only needs to be drunk enough to ask once 'what if sean timewarped again' for the whole gang to come together as lenny's official suicide watch. he is not allowed to be alone, at all, for months after sean's death no matter how much he insists he knows he has to be there for maeve and karen

whatever made lenny lenny died with sean. that spark, that youthfulness even in age and general passion and wonder for life is gone. he disintegrates into a workaholic who keeps himself so emotionally guarded in an attempt to never hurt again he becomes apathetic, and jarred, and bitter, and the spitting image of his own father

[verdemoun]

bro hypothetical ask aus are so funny can i ask for a hypothetical divorce au where lenny divorces sean😭😭😭😭

this is fucking hilarious if lenny divorced sean he would get everything even the damned bike sean would be walking out of court with the clothes on his back and a single cardboard box. maeve would choose to move in with lenny because he had the money and be a spoiled little brat. sean would regularly get drunk and either stand on the lawn with a boombox trying to win lenny back or throw rocks and dog shit at his house while screaming fuck you leonard and lenny would just roll his eyes and call the cops.

lenny would get with jenny despite jenny having a lot of the same issues that he argued lead to his divorce (alcoholic, started fights, minimum wage job in conflict with exorbitant spending habits) and jenny who is also a red head in timewarp (lenny has a type okay) would have no issue passing off maeve as her biological daughter, which maeve doesn't correct.

sean would have to move in with karen in a fwb situation in a perfect return to their canon 'we fuck and live together but are incompatable people' meanwhile crying how much he hated/missed lenny and probably drink himself to death within the decade.