24. We're falling apart and we're coming together again and again.

[voluntaryapnea]

[Open Action Spam]

[After leaving Scott's room, Stiles makes his way toward the stairs. He's relieved as hell that Scott is awake again, that he seems to be fine. Just as nearly everyone had told him. But now he has other people he needs to check on. Lydia, Dean, Kira, Liam, Allison, Isaac, Bucky, Steve, Jean. His people. They're growing in numbers, expanding a little bit at a time. For a guy who'd once thought himself virtually incapable of caring about anyone besides his dad, Scott, and Lydia, he's come a long way.

He heads for Dean's room first, mostly because they'd been in the midst of a battle with a horrifyingly large kaiju before getting pulled back to the Barge, and he wants to make sure his inmate is okay. He still feels a little disoriented by all of it. More so than most of these kinds of events tend to leave him.

He can be found heading toward any of their rooms, also at the cafeteria to grab something to eat, and then heading back to his own room on the seventh floor.]

[Private to Scott]

[He's slept a bit since he saw Scott earlier, but he still looks a little tired. He also looks a little nervous.]

I have a question.

[Spam for Lydia]

[Everything is already set up in the enclosure, ready to go. Now he just has to get her to go with him. He's chewing his thumbnail as he heads toward her room, and knocks lightly on the door. It's late but not super late. Not late enough that he's worried she'll be asleep. He stands and waits, heart beating quickly in his chest.]

Comments

[surfaceshine]

[It's in the time Stiles is frozen in place and surveying the damage that Dean finds his way to his feet - not steadily, not quickly, but he makes it there - and his eyes focus on his warden, but not with any weight behind them. He's seeing him. He's just not sure what he's seeing, because this is either real or it isn't, either he's fine or he's gone, either they're related and he's the most important thing in Dean's life or they're not and he's...]

Thank god. [Dean breathes the praise from somewhere deep in his chest, almost too sincere to be audible at all. Whatever else is or isn't true, he chooses selfishly to let himself believe this for just a moment: that his brother isn't gone from him, that he's right here, that he sees him and knows him and he's fine. The elder Winchester relaxes into that knee-breaking gratitude from a time so far in his past it's one of the things he finds most difficult to believe about himself, but he remembers it. Oh, he remembers getting one more chance, he remembers being able to keep his family safe, he remembers how it was the most important thing in the world to him.

Stiles stops in front of him and Dean hooks him by the back of the neck with his good hand, grip tight, and pulls him far enough forward that he can lean their foreheads together, and breathes out. It's selfish, and part of him knows it's insane, that it's not the right brother, that this isn't the right place, time, anything, but he pushes it away.

For a few more moments he can still believe it, and for a few more moments he can not be alone in the world.]

[voluntaryapnea]

[This is...not at all what he was expecting. He's not sure what to think, but he doesn't pull away when Dean hugs him tight. He has a horrible feeling that Dean hasn't realized what's going on. That Stiles isn't really his brother. That none of what happened had been real even if it felt real and still does.

He holds his breath, and lifts his hand to Dean's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze mostly because he doesn't know what else to do here. He's not used to being hugged by people who aren't Scott or Lydia or his dad, but this has echoes of hugging his dad when things have been bad, when one of them thought the other was in trouble (because one of them had probably been in trouble even if they didn't realize it), or if one of them had almost died.]

It's okay. We're okay, Dean.

[His voice is quiet, but firm. Reassuring.

They are not okay, but they are both alive, and he has a feeling that when Dean realizes that he's not going to be this relieved.]

[surfaceshine]

[He has and he hasn't realized any of that; it's occurred to him, of course, but this is the part no one seems to be able to wrap their heads around, or one of them anyway. This is not the first time Dean has been forced through an entire other life he was convinced was his until whatever was jerking the strings - Alistair, Zachariah, the Admiral - pulled him out of it and let him remember who he is. Who he isn't. What he lost and what he never had. Hell was about torture, yes, but it wasn't all physical.

The worst of it was never physical, though that was bad enough.

So yes, he knows that Stiles is not his brother; he knows that his brother is worse than dead and not here; he knows that he is still a failure of epic proportions. But he latches on anyway because he is weak, he was always weak, and he needs this - he needs his brother - more than he needs air, and he is the one thing Dean cannot have. He is the one person Dean wanted to save and the only person he can't. So he holds onto Stiles and he tries to press it into his memory like putty over newsprint because any moment now, any moment Stiles won't fit that puzzle piece anymore. Any moment now everything will shake back out where it's supposed to be, and Dean doesn't know if he can do that again. So he just hangs on, bruisingly tight, like if he can just do this one thing he won't have to be that person again, he won't have to be alone.

But everything shakes back out. The throbbing pain in his hand tethers him to this broken shamble of a person that he still is, always has been, must be - and he remembers with no small amount of guilt that his brother is Sam. His brother is a captive of Lucifer, his brother is probably burned out, his brother is unreachable, his brother is gone and it's his fault. His grip loosens. He steps back, and does not let his eyes focus because he has no idea what he'll do to whatever - whoever - they focus on.

He has to push his voice through his teeth because he has absolutely no idea what to do now.]

No. We're not.

[voluntaryapnea]

[Stiles doesn't try to pull away even though Dean is squeezing him kind of tightly. For as much as this place messes with people's minds sometimes, for him it pales in comparison to the kind of mental torture he's already survived. This place hasn't made him hurt anyone. He hasn't killed anyone. And he's counting that as a big plus.

He draws in a breath when Dean lets him go and steps away. His gaze drifts immediately to Dean's injured hand, bloodied and bruised. Dean isn't focused and that isn't hard to see. Hell, Stiles can practically feel it.

He nods slightly at his inmate's words, though, an acknowledgment more than anything. He's silent for a moment, trying to give the other man time to sort it all out in his head, the way Stiles has already done.]

Can I convince you to come to the Infirmary so someone can look at your hand?

[His voice is quiet. Concerned.]

[surfaceshine]

[Dean used to be strong enough to tell what was real from what was lies; his life was never going to be an easy one but he'd been okay with that once he grew up a little, once he'd realized what they were doing was important. He'd been the moral compass of Winchester and Sons, the glue, the heart; and he'd had to hold himself together to be able to hold them together, for a given value.

That was several lifetimes ago, though. He lost the trick of it, used it too many times, wore it down to nothing; it's never easy for him, settling back into the groove of what feels the most real to him at any given moment. He gets it sorted out enough to function in the end, but this time... this time he'd been sure he'd lost Stiles, too. This time the abrupt, heart-wrenching loneliness of being alone in the world has a deep, festering wound in him to resonate with, one he can't even begin to deal with. One he's been burying for so long that it's rotted out the core of him.

He doesn't look at Stiles; his eyes find the hand in question but stare at it, uncomprehending, for several long moments. He's not worried about that, not now. Eventually, but right now he's still struggling not to drown in himself.]

You should go. [He flexes his ruined hand, gaze sharpening as he hisses in pain, does it again anyway; the muscles in his shoulders wind slowly taut. There's something slightly unhinged in his voice, something normally hidden when he's calm, even though there's more weight to it when he repeats himself.]

You should go.

[voluntaryapnea]

[He closes his eyes for a second and exhales slowly. There's no mistaking the hint of warning in Dean's tone. He knows enough about the other man to know that he's lucky he's even getting that kind of warning. At the same time, leaving feels wrong when Dean's in this state. And it's not like he's trying for warden of the year or anything, but this isn't even about that. He's just worried about Dean, period.

But he rubs the back of his neck, purses his lips and nods when Dean reiterates that he should go. He's not stupid, and as self-destructive as he is sometimes, getting himself hurt or killed here isn't really a good plan for anyone that will be inevitably involved. He doesn't really think Dean will kill him, not really, but the man's full of anger and has a tendency of lashing out.

So he turns and heads for the door, turning the handle and slipping out of the room quietly. He doesn't go far, though. He leans against the wall outside Dean's room after he's pulled the door shut once more and he slides down slowly until he's sitting on the floor. He has a feeling he's going to be sitting here for awhile.]

[surfaceshine]

[Later, Dean will be surprised that Stiles actually went; not because he secretly didn't want him to - although part of him thrums with anxiety once his br- Stiles is out of his sight - but because he didn't have to argue. Dean doesn't know what he's going to do now. Part of him still doesn't want to hurt anyone and that's the part that gives voice, but part of him really, really does and that's why Stiles - why ANYone - can't be here right now.

It's both easier and harder once he's alone. There's no one to see, no one to watch and no one else to consider, so there's no pressure to keep the walls up. But that also means there's no pressure to keep the walls up. He looks around him and sees the mess of the room for the first time and there's an impulse to destroy it more, to splinter the benches, tear apart the bed frame, shred the curtains. It's not his hand that stops him. It's not being tired. It's that it won't solve anything and he knows that.

With the reinforced memories of someone who wasn't this, he knows that, he remembers when he was safe to be around, when he was someone that protected others, when he was good. When he was a hero. He misses that, too, almost as much as he misses Sam. He misses the part of himself he can never have back, the part he destroyed in Hell, the part he dragged through the mud trying to adapt afterwards. The apocalypse is no place for heroes, and he let himself become a survivor, and now he's here.

He does kick a bench, because it's there and it's already broken and it's in his way. He shoves a drawer out of the way of where he'd been sitting before, searches for any bottle of liquor he can find, but he broke them all. There weren't that many to begin with. He hadn't felt like he needed it.

Mostly what being alone does, with nothing but himself to fight against, nothing to console, nothing to stop the spin, is let him lose himself and try again, which he does, sinking back down where he'd been before Stiles came in, occasionally poking at his injured hand to bring himself back from an edge he's not willing to cross but not able to raise enough concern to do anything with it, not able to come up with a good enough reason why it matters. Sam is gone. Stiles was never his. He is still who he always was, and he is still the last one standing.

All he can do is wait until that knowledge is no longer overwhelming.]