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

[some point whenever spam]

[betamax]

[It was definitely one of the weirder things Liam had ever had to deal with, and considering how much wider his definition's gotten it's something of an accomplishment. Giant robots and giant monsters and weird mind-melds and really it wasn't anything close to the kind of thing he ever thought he'd have to deal with.

After, he's left stranded in his own room, the memories of things that don't make sense to have ever happened jammed in his head, and it's always been his habit to try to process on his own first. Only bring it to other people once he's gotten everything straight in his own head, when he's left with a handful of pieces he can't make fit.

Until then, he's enmeshed in the world of video games, something that steals most of his attention to let the rest wander. When the knock on his door comes he ignores it at first; he's in the middle of a level, if he abandons it now he'll lose the rhythm, and he's almost there, but a knock in the right place at the wrong time ruins his concentration and a moment or so later it's all over. He grumbles and glowers and drops the controller to get the door instead, only to find Stiles on the other end of it. It curbs whatever more irritated sentiment he might have adopted if it were someone else.]

Hey. So you're...not dead. That's good.

[Considering how things went for a lot of people? It really is.]

[lydiascreams]

[Since she heard Scott was awake again, she started feeling a little lighter. After chatting with him, and making sure Stiles was okay, she decided to give them some time to catch up. She checked in with some other people and the art room. But she hasn't really spent time with her boyfriend yet, so she's planning on heading to his room later and spending the night there with him -- as long as he's not staying over at Scott's.

She's not expecting anyone, though, so the knock on the door startles her a little. Instead of inviting them in, she shushes Prada when he starts to bark and heads there to open the door herself.

The second she sees him, she relaxes and smiles brightly, letting Prada out to say hello.]

Hey, I thought you might be resting. I was gonna go see you in a little bit.

[Private]

[semifreakingnormal]

What's up?

[It's the nerves that catch his eye. He can't sort out the reason.]

[surfaceshine]

[One moment, he and Stiles are working as one unit, exactly as they should be, a threat in front of them and the means to put it down between them, a world to save and a way to do it, and their lungs and hearts and minds are all working in tandem.

The next, Dean is alone in his own head again, and the part of him that knows how to operate a jaeger knows what that means. There's no one in his room to hear the desperate, panicked shout -] Stiles! [- torn from him like something painful, a hook sunk deep, the last shred of self, something deep and vital snapping like a lifeline. It collides headlong with Dean coming back to himself, a life lead by Dean Winchester instead of Dean Stilinski, and maybe it would be easier if there weren't a parallel moment to thrum in tandem with this newest loss.

It could only be easier. Dean didn't survive losing one brother, and for several moments he is dead certain he will not survive it this time either. When he finally feels like he can breathe again, the irrational, consuming anger boils up under everything else to fill the vacuum and he does not cry anymore, not Dean Winchester, not the Righteous Man, he does not mourn losses, he turns them back on others.

He up ends his bed completely, then two of the benches for the table; he'd have thrown the table over too except when it's heavier than he can easily move he slams his fist into it instead, and in the clean surge of pain through his already damaged hand there is a moment of clarity like oxygen to a drowning man and he knows who he is, when he is, that he is, so he does it again. And again. And again.

He's worn himself out by the time Stiles shows up at his door, had switched at some point to taking one of his makeshift metal bars to everything he can reach, including the window if the crack in the thankfully otherwise unbroken glass is any indication. He hadn't really been thinking about what happens if he bashes a hole in the side of a prison ship in space, only about needing something more satisfying, something breaking, something else shattering apart because it's that or lose his mind, it's that and lose his mind, he's already so far gone he doesn't even remember what it was like to have a mind, until finally he just drops down in the lee of the upset bed and tents his knees to brace his bloody hand against. It's comforting, to know that he's real, that he has a body he can break at will; he doesn't think about that too much. He closes his eyes and waits for the rest of the memories to settle, to know for sure what he lost and when, how, his breath rattling in his chest and his mind at once too full and too empty and he doesn't know which one is right, doesn't know which one happened, doesn't know if his brother is Sam or Stiles, if he's a hunter or a pilot, if he's damned or just a joke waiting to be made in a memorial.]

[imfollowinghim]

[Bucky's fine, really. There have been worse breaches, or floods, or whatever else, and so he goes about his routine more or less the same way as always - boot camp, eating way too much in the mess hall, snacking on horrible ration chocolate bars (partially because he likes them, partially because they're so high in calories that it helps his system feel less like he's starving to death if he doesn't snack in between meals) - so it's probably not a shock that Stiles runs into him in the mess hall, not his room, or Steve's.]

You make it out alright? [The fact that he's on his feet and not in the infirmary does reassure Bucky that you didn't get yourself eaten, so.

Also you're being offered a glass of orange juice.]

[punched_hitler]

[That had been some breach, to say the least. Then again, maybe it was par for the course - but there were a number of things about it that hit far too close to home for Steve's comfort, and once they'd gotten back (or... well, had they ever really left? Who knew), Steve had started to wonder if the Admiral was mocking him. Or if it the Admiral even knew he was mocking him.

Because there was just no way that Bucky showing up, after "all that time" and missing his left arm, could have been anything but a sick mockery, and it left Steve feeling a little sick, too. And that was before he even got to thinking about how strange it had been, to be inside someone else's head, more or less, and to let them inside yours.

That, at least, made him glad it had been a breach, and not a flood.

He's been puttering around the Barge a bit; spending some time with Bucky, a little with T'Pol (if she'll let him), and otherwise just trying to work through the strange events that had happened by keeping himself busy, at the gym or in the art room. He's on his way back to his cabin from the latter when he spots Stiles, which isn't completely unusual, given they're just a few cabins apart. He smiles - it's a little more preoccupied than usual, but genuine.]

Hey, how's it going?

[fireincarnate]

[The door opens itself, after a few knocks, and Jean grins up at him from where she lounges on her sofa, scribbling into a notebook. She's had enough time to orient herself, to remember who she truly is and where she belongs. She wants to record who she isn't, now, before she forgets.]

Hey.