Yes, well, and that's the core of it, isn't it? Seth doesn't want to be helpless, he doesn't want to be dependent on others, even if that means becoming dependent on substance rather than the company he keeps.

"I know," Daniel echoes quietly, eyes dropping again. He's seen the interior of Seth's mind and the ripples of his remembered trauma, the hollow kind of despair of being kept in walls dull and gray for months on end. "And that'll never happen. You wouldn't let it, and neither would we."

Fierce reassurances can only take one so far in hypothetical circumstance. Daniel's tone softens as he goes on, "It just - this doesn't have to be your life. You can't spend it existing in a constant state of fear that they'll find you again. That's just not tenable and, and what's more is - it won't happen."