Time flew when you were having fun. Or when you were stuck in a nightmare prison where time passed much faster than it did for the outside world. Which was the opposite of having fun.
Sean had no idea how much time had passed for everyone else. He genuinely didn’t, considering every single person who had come to visit him, including his parents on different occasions, told him different things. He’d finally managed to get one of the nicer guards to confess that they were deliberately telling him conflicting stories about how much time was passing in order to confuse and disorient him. He did know that it wasn’t all that long, though whether it was days or weeks he wasn’t sure.
As for Sean himself… one year. He had been in this house essentially by himself for one year since his parents had come that first time. He’d get visitors roughly once a week, sometimes twice. They would come in, sit and talk with him, and try to get him to see things from their point of view. Some were nicer than others, but he looked forward to all of their conversations. Which was the point of isolating him like this, he knew. Unfortunately, knowing something like that didn’t exactly make it less effective.
He did what he could during those times between visits to keep himself sane. He had found notebooks and pens and wrote in them. Sometimes he wrote random thoughts, a journal of sorts. Other times he wrote down jokes that he wished he could tell his friends. And stories. He wrote short stories. Sometimes they were funny, sometimes they were scary, other times they were romantic. It was just ways to occupy and exercise his mind.
And he cooked. He practiced cooking, going through all the recipe books in the kitchen. Sometimes he offered food to his guests, other times he didn’t bother. A lot of it ended up being thrown out. Anything he couldn’t finish within a day or so, he tossed. Because he could always make more, and making it was more the point than eating it was. Cooking kept him busy.
Beyond cooking and writing, he exercised. He worked out. He couldn’t exactly spar all that well with just himself, but he could do everything possible up to that point.
He also practiced with what magic he knew. He hadn’t yet been able to convince any of the guards who visited to let him see any spellbooks, not even if they went through and tore out all the potentially dangerous pages. But he was able to practice the magic he did know. And he’d been getting pretty good at it, considering he had to work with those same few spells over and over.
It was weird, thinking about the fact that he had now technically spent longer in this prison cell disguised as a suburban house than he’d actually spent at Crossroads itself. He’d been sitting here in this house being isolated for the crime of knowing Flick Chambers and Avalon Sinclaire for longer than he’d actually known them. How fucked up was that? Months had passed. Months, and he was just sitting here, alone like ninety percent of the time.
There were many times when he was angry. He’d punched more than one wall, had thrown entire cupboards full of glasses and plates, had screamed until he was hoarse. Sometimes he would be more angry at his jailers, other times he would be angry with Flick, or Gaia, or the entire Seosten Empire, or humanity itself, when he was feeling particularly lost. Being alone like this for so long, it wasn’t… it wasn’t good for him. He could feel himself slipping.
Vulcan. He wanted Vulcan. He wanted Roxa. He wanted Columbus. He wanted… his friends. He wanted more than this Gods damned house. He’d memorized every fucking detail of the place over and over again. He’d broken down walls, only to have them magically repaired the next time he woke up after sleeping (along with anything else he broke). Food was replaced, supplies came back, more blank notebooks were added for him to write in. He was sure they were reading everything he wrote, but he didn’t care. In fact, sometimes he entertained himself by writing what they might think was some juicy information or secrets, but it was all bullshit.
But yes, he got angry at everyone now and then. He would curse, scream, even cry. Being alone like this, it was… it was rough. It was hard. Venting helped… a little… sometimes.
At this particular moment, he was looking through the assortment of DVD’s that he had been left with. The guards changed them sometimes, adding different ones. It helped somewhat. Which was one of several things that made him think that not all of them were exactly completely on board with the idea of keeping him in here like this. A few of the guards visited more than they absolutely had to, and also brought more varied books and movies for him to pass the time.
That could’ve just been part of playing ‘good cops’ to the others ‘bad cops’, but he wasn’t sure they’d go to that extent. And he wasn’t going to question or push it, because the new entertainment and extra visits were basically the only thing keeping him as sane as he was.
Hey, kid, how you doing?
Well, he’d thought that he was staying sane. Apparently the jury was about to go back into deliberations on that one.
You’re not going insa–hang on. Look, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to take over for just a second so they don’t see you fall over or something and get suspicious.
With that, Sean found his hand reaching up to put a random DVD into the player. His body turned and moved to go sit down in the chair, kicking his legs up onto the end table. All of it seemed to be happening on autopilot. He had no say. His body was just doing whatever it wanted to. And as long as he’d been in here with no one to talk to and no better stimulation, it was only then, as the movie started up, that he realized what was happening to him.
Seosten!
He was fighting then, struggling to grab control of his body. Struggling to scream, to kick, to curse, to call any guard who might have been watching. There was a Seosten inside him. There was a Seosten inside of him!
No! No, no, stop it! Get out, get out of me! Get–get your fucking–
Hey, kid! Sean! Wait a minute, it’s okay. It’s all right! Listen, it’s me! It’s–
Then he knew. He knew the voice, and he remembered… You?
Yeah, me. Just hold on. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Just a second here. Let me… here we go.
And in that moment, for the first time in more than a year, Sean was standing somewhere other than the house. It was an empty white void, to be fair, but it was not the house.
He jolted a bit, eyes widening while he spun in a quick circle. “What the–”
A figure appeared in front of him, standing a few feet away with his hands up. Sean’s eyes jerked that way, mouth already blurting the name of his possessor.
“Apollo!”
“Yup.” Sure enough, it was old Uncle Satan himself, standing there in this blank white space, watching Sean carefully. His voice was soft. “You okay?”
“I–we’re–how did–” Tripping over his own words, Sean slowly walked forward. His hand, shaking a bit, rose and extended toward the man in front of him. Real. He was real. Apollo was there. Sure, the guy wasn’t exactly his first choice for someone he’d like to see and talk to. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. It wasn’t Roxa, or Columbus, or Mateo, or Uncle Sebastian, but it was someone. It was someone to talk to who wasn’t part of the hardcore Crossroads loyalist group.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It was a new person, a… a friend, sort of. And seeing him almost brought tears to Sean’s eyes. God, just seeing the guy here like this was nearly too much. Yet at the same time, not enough.
A look of sympathy crossed Apollo’s face, and he raised his own hand to meet Sean’s, squeezing it. Before the boy’s mind could run too wild, he explained, “We’re inside your mind. I just made a bit of a VR space for us to talk. Your body’s still there on the chair. As far as anyone watching is concerned, you’re zoning out watching a movie.”
“But how are you–” In mid-sentence, Sean stopped. His reeling mind found a little bit of purchase. “The vault. Last year–I mean a few days ago–I mean… whenever it was. When we went after the vault, you possessed me. That’s how we snuck you in past the security. You were possessing me.” He breathed the words, the shock of the realization (and of actually talking to someone from the old group after all this time) making him physically gasp.
“I was,” Apollo confirmed quietly. “And I still had my connection to you. Luckily.”
“How… how long has it been?” Sean asked, already afraid of what the answer would be.
There was a brief pause before Apollo answered. “About a week. But I’m pretty sure it’s been a good bit longer for you, huh?”
Swallowing hard, Sean nodded. Glancing away, he murmured. “A little over a year.” He saw the man’s mouth opening from the corner of his eye, and quickly looked back to interrupt. “Did it… take a few days to remember that you could do this?” He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but from the way the other man winced, knew he wasn’t entirely successful.
Instead of answering immediately, Apollo gestured with one hand. “Something tells me you’re probably not in the mood to sit down and talk,” he remarked, while grass appeared under their feet, trees appeared around them, and a stone path came into view. “So why don’t we take a walk? This is a place from one of my memories, a park in London that I like quite a bit.”
He was right, it was better than sitting. Sean barely hesitated before starting to walk with the man. He could see and hear birds in the trees, squirrels scampering along, and even caught the sound of a nearby brook quite literally babbling.
After a minute of walking in silence together, Apollo spoke quietly. “I didn’t forget that you were my most recent host. But they’ve had spells up on your cell that… wouldn’t exactly stop me from recalling to you, since that’s all but impossible, but would keep me out of your head. I’d just pop up outside of you. And that might have attracted attention, since I wouldn’t have any idea if there was anyone with you, or guards watching, or anything. Thanks, no doubt, to one of the Seosten working in Crossroads security. They’d know there might be Seosten on our side who could get to you that way. Anyway, I didn’t forget you. For the past few days I was working on a way of getting around that, a way of seeing through your eyes anyway, or contacting you.”
“Wait,” Sean realized after thinking about that for a second, “you were working on it? The way you said that makes it sound like that’s not what happened here.”
With a little smile, Apollo nodded. “Yeah, well, turns out I ended up getting a little bit of help from one Felicity Chambers. She showed up with… uhh, let’s just say she had basically had the codes to the spell that blocks you from being possessed. With those, I was able to make the counter-spell and get through. So here we are.”
“How did Flick get that?” Sean had to ask, despite feeling that he really shouldn’t have been surprised.
The answer from Apollo was a soft chuckle. “She said she couldn’t tell me yet. Just that she knew someone with access, and that she’d be able to tell me all of it in a couple weeks. She’s also the one who told me about the time dilation and what they were doing to you. Couldn’t tell me how she knew that either. Just asked me to trust her. Which… I do. Plus, I’m kind of good with people having secrets. Especially when they promise to tell me soon. Besides, it worked. I’m here.”
“You’re here,” Sean agreed. “But from the sound of it, you’re not going to be able to break me out.” There was a dullness to his voice that even he could hear. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Not yet,” Apollo confirmed. “I’m sorry, kid. Or not-so-kid, anymore. I may have been able to possess you, but they’ve got you locked down with so much security, there’s no way I could get you out before we had half the loyalist Crossroads army right on top of us. We’re working on that. Sariel, she’s got some spells for retrieving a possessed subject, but getting past the security they’ve still got up… we’re working, I promise.”
Trying not to cringe too much at the thought of being locked up in that place even longer, especially when Apollo was right here, Sean hesitated before speaking again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I am definitely glad to see you, but… then why are you here?”
“I can’t get you out just yet,” Apollo replied, “but I’m going to. We’re going to. We haven’t forgotten about you, Sean. No one has forgotten about you. Now that we know what they’re doing, and I can get in here, you’re not gonna be left alone like that again.” He paused, looking around the park they were slowly making their way through. “Listen, I can’t be here one hundred percent of the time. And I know that every minute I’m gone is going to be a lot longer for you. But I’m going to keep coming back as much as I can, you hear me? I’ve got this place’s number now, and I’m going to call it up as much as I can. You are not going to go more than a day or so without me visiting. I will pop into your head so often you’ll get sick of me. Sometimes it’ll only be for a few minutes, other times it’ll be a lot longer. I will come in here. I will keep you company. Those assholes out there, they’re not going to be the only ones talking to you anymore. I’m just… I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here in the first place.”
“It’s not your fault,” Sean murmured while trying to ignore his own feelings of abandonment that had been getting steadily stronger over the past year. “You know, so long as you’re actually working to get me out of here.” Though he tried to make it sound offhand, there was an emotional crack to his voice that he couldn’t stop. “I’d really rather not be an old man the next time I see any of the others.”
“You won’t be,” Apollo promised him. “I promise you, Sean, we are going to get you out. Whatever it takes, whatever we have to do, we will get you out of there. And in the meantime, I’m going to keep you busy.”
Sean blinked at that, looking away from the small bird he had been watching as it climbed along a branch. “Keep me busy?”
“Damn right,” the Seosten man confirmed with a nod. “You might not be able to gain new powers in that cell, but I can help you learn new magic right here in your head. Hell, I can help you train too. Fighting, magic, schooling, I’ll be here to help you with all of it. All while they think you’re just sitting there watching movies or sleeping. Okay? I’m here for you. You are not alone, Sean.”
A lump formed in the boy’s throat for a moment, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak. “I… thanks. Thank you. It was… this year, it’s been pretty rough.” He blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the stupid wetness that had appeared in his eyes. “I said things… I didn’t mean them. I was just–”
Apollo’s voice was soft, and understanding. “It’s okay. No one blames you. We’re sorry. They’re sorry too. They didn’t know until now that… that those psychos were doing this.” He took a step over, hesitating slightly before offering his hand to Sean. “Like I said, you’re not alone anymore.”
After a year of being left in that house without anyone more than a few guards to talk to about once a week, Sean watched the offered hand for a moment before slowly accepting it. He squeezed the man’s hand, breathing out hard as he did so. Even that little bit of contact felt… huge, in a way that he couldn’t hope to explain.
“So… so you’re gonna be teaching me while I’m in here, huh?”
Apollo smirked at that. “Teaching, entertaining, training, keeping you on your toes all sorts of ways.” His expression sobered a little then, as he pulled Sean from that simple handshake into an embrace. “I’ll be here as much as I can, I promise. However long it takes, I’ll keep you busy.” He released the boy, stepping back to wink at him. “You and I are going to get to know each other very well.”
Another lump appeared in Sean’s throat that he had to force down. “I… listen, are Uncle Sebastian and Roxa–”
“They’re okay,” the Seosten man assured him. “Pretty intent on getting you out. We all are. You’ve got plenty of friends and family out there on your side.”
Sean was quiet for a moment at that, before hesitantly asking, “What about… my brother, Ian? Mom and Dad said something about him doing something they didn’t like. And if they didn’t like it–I just… I don’t know where he is or what’s going on. Can you guys…”
“We’ll find him,” Apollo promised. “If he’s turned rebel, we’ll pull him in. Either way, we’ll make sure he’s safe.”
Once more, it took Sean a couple tries to find his voice. All of this, after the past year of nothing happening save for worse and worse visits from his jailers and parents, was a lot to deal with. “Thanks. I umm… I owe you.”
“Oh, kid,” Apollo breathed, shaking his head. “No. You don’t. I owe you.
“And I promise, I will deliver.”