[There hadn't really been anything obvious leading up to this; there was no real way for anyone that wasn't inside his head - or who hadn't taken seriously the things he'd said when he arrived here a year ago, spoken at the time in vicious, half-deranged certainty - to know what he had planned. He hadn't told anyone. Not even Clementine, who he trusts more than anyone else on this ship. He hadn't told anyone.
But he had withdrawn from what little of the Barge society he had engaged, filling his time with activity from an external point of view, reading, repairing his room, constantly moving from place to place, bothering no one and asking no questions.
Hunting.
But that's over now. He'd been on the wrong scent the whole time, and he knows that now, knows it with a cold certainty like he would the weight of a knife in his hand; he is a vicious, brutal, desperate man, barely a man anymore but still close enough to count, but he'd thought he was managing that as best as anyone could expect him to. He'd thought the sharpest, most jagged edges of him were, generally, aimed in the right direction.
He tortured a human girl. He failed to find the Admiral. He failed to break this place apart. He failed.
These are all things he knows when he comes groggily out of the stupor from Kara's laser, and they do not encourage him to come any further into consciousness than that, so he doesn't. The physical pain is negligible. The knowledge that for how much he deserves to burn, how much he deserves to never forget a single moment of the ways he's been too weak and too slow and too stupid to make the differences he's supposed to make, he still wants nothing more than to end is what keeps him from bothering. Someone is moving him, wiping at his skin, poking at his arm, setting his nose; someone who stays nearby but Dean doesn't care. When the hands go away, he stays where they put him, and he does not bother opening his eyes, or speaking, or answering. He does not bother.
And he does not bother when he hears a new voice - or maybe he doesn't hear it at all. It does not matter. They'll hurt him or they'll try to save him and everything in between and there's nothing he can do for any of it except wait for it to happen.]
[ Spam ]
But he had withdrawn from what little of the Barge society he had engaged, filling his time with activity from an external point of view, reading, repairing his room, constantly moving from place to place, bothering no one and asking no questions.
Hunting.
But that's over now. He'd been on the wrong scent the whole time, and he knows that now, knows it with a cold certainty like he would the weight of a knife in his hand; he is a vicious, brutal, desperate man, barely a man anymore but still close enough to count, but he'd thought he was managing that as best as anyone could expect him to. He'd thought the sharpest, most jagged edges of him were, generally, aimed in the right direction.
He tortured a human girl. He failed to find the Admiral. He failed to break this place apart. He failed.
These are all things he knows when he comes groggily out of the stupor from Kara's laser, and they do not encourage him to come any further into consciousness than that, so he doesn't. The physical pain is negligible. The knowledge that for how much he deserves to burn, how much he deserves to never forget a single moment of the ways he's been too weak and too slow and too stupid to make the differences he's supposed to make, he still wants nothing more than to end is what keeps him from bothering. Someone is moving him, wiping at his skin, poking at his arm, setting his nose; someone who stays nearby but Dean doesn't care. When the hands go away, he stays where they put him, and he does not bother opening his eyes, or speaking, or answering. He does not bother.
And he does not bother when he hears a new voice - or maybe he doesn't hear it at all. It does not matter. They'll hurt him or they'll try to save him and everything in between and there's nothing he can do for any of it except wait for it to happen.]