ᴀʟʟ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ's ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ (open.)

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Cadens, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: A catch-all of open & closed starters.
Warnings: A little grief, a little alcoholism, probably canon-typical violence and suicidal ideation. Mentions of fruit turbo-hell.

I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ sᴀʟᴠᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Nᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
I ɢᴏᴛ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀs sᴜᴄʜ I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴀsɪʟʏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ
Aʟʟ I ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴅᴏ ɪs ʙᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ
ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Comments

[righteously]

The touch to his elbow is soft and familiar, and it strums a strange, deep ache in Dean's chest that he can't properly define. It's strange, to miss something that isn't real, that never was. Strange to feel hollow over a loss that doesn't exist. Through the blur of fading memories, he knows he had something.

They had something. Him, and this man in his living room. This man that he gently leads to the couch, settling in on the opposite end — but at an angle, his body turned to face Blake, an elbow on the couch back and one knee bent onto the center cushion.

This gesture means a lot. The question, the understanding behind it. He doesn't have very many people in his life that know him this well. He can count on probably one hand the number of people alive who have this kind of insight into who he is, and the baggage he carries, and how not okay he always is.

It can't be called abrupt, he's known Blake for a long time now, it's just... it feels like they've jumped up several levels faster than Dean could blink, and now he's trying to catch his breath and hustle along to match pace.

There's silence for a few moments, and he spends it passing calloused fingers back and forth across his lips, an absent gesture from that arm settled on the couch back. Debating, weighing.

He thinks... yeah, he thinks it feels right to just let this happen. To let the honesty and realness surface, when he might otherwise muscle them down and throw a blanket over this whole mess to hide it. Who they were-- or, who they could be, deserves at least that much from him now.

"I'm not. I'm not okay. I will be, because I have to be, but- right now... a lot of things are hitting me all at once, and it's a lot to swallow. Jo's- Jo is gone. I got some memories from back home that are... too big. And then there's the whole god thing right on top of it, like an eight-hundred-year weight on my chest that I don't know how to even start unpacking, so... no. Not okay." He at least sounds composed enough through the confession, which is something. He's got a grip on it all, but that's the truth, hand-delivered only to Blake.

[oversight]

Hard to imagine how much it takes for Dean to lean into this sort of vulnerability and honesty. The raw edges of Dean's being are further frayed, their taunting wave a reminder to Blake that not all that long ago (or maybe so, so very long ago), he wasn't all that well put together himself. In fact, it's Dean that had helped piece him back together, puzzling back into reality most of a man. Enough to make things — all manner of things — worth weathering.

Dean had done it for him. It's about time he tried to return the favor.

As Blake watches this go down, he fidgets. The descent back to reality — or, at least, what he thinks must be reality (for as unreal as it sounds) — hasn't been easy. Wondering what all to keep for himself, wondering who's doing the same... Truth be told, he'd been almost relieved to miss Dean the first night if only for the opportunity to turn it all over in his head again. Nothing had changed, of course (because he still felt— no, feels devoted), but having that time to walk through at least a scenario or two had at least helped get him to this point. He knows Dean hasn't offered himself the same mercy and wonders even more how he hasn't made the guy feel cornered after all that.

"That's a lot," Blake says in lieu of an apology. He doesn't expect Dean will take one anyway; it's not his fault and Blake's sympathy at this juncture's worth about as much as real estate in the badlands. Instead, he offers out his hand, palm up and finger's twitching.

He presses his lips together, and regardless of whether Dean makes that physical connection, Blake is closing his eyes and trusting the process.

"When things got too big for me, I'd go somewhere small." Usually a closet. (And look where that got him.) But it's a means to an end, if nothing else, and in this case he doesn't mind offering the option. "So if you need a place that's a little... less, my door's always open."

[righteously]

Blake offers his hand out, and Dean looks at it for a long moment. Lingering in the air between them, a bigger gesture than he probably realizes for a man as tangible as Dean is. Creature comforts, something simple and hands-on, are exactly the language he speaks. He's not sure he deserves it — but he takes it anyway, slowly reaching his own hand out to settle over Blake's, palm to palm.

This isn't who they were before the three-week hallucination. He's not sure it's healthy or sane to pretend like it was real, or wasn't real. You can't just speedrun a relationship like that, especially based on false pretense, based on a narrative he doesn't personally believe he could ever support in reality. Him, a god? Absolutely not. The path Sam went down, the path Cas went down, like he'd let either of them happen? So much of that place was false, it seems strange to take relationships like theirs as truth.

But it was something.

And he likes Blake. He does. Genuinely, as a person. He doesn't want to pretend they're something they're not, but he doesn't want to shoot it stone-dead, either. He does feel like he owes the guy honesty.

And so, after a beat, he exhales.

"I need to tell you something. The truth, about... the way things were. The way I was, right after you got here." His eyes fall to somewhere roughly around the coffee table. He chews the inside of his cheek. "You were right about me, back then. You were right to be suspicious. There's some stuff you should probably know, before you go... inviting me into your place like that."

[oversight]

The connection sizzles with memories, familiar but distant, like a hazy vision lingering on the periphery. Blake tries not to chase it, worried that it will vanish entirely if he hurtles at it like a man desperate for a truth (maybe not even the truth). He feels out of sorts, untethered from any reality, which is an uncomfortable feeling, especially compared to his tactile hold on this genuine and alive person.

His eyes ping around, flicking naturally between Dean's eyes and eyebrows, over crow's feet and smile lines that twist for this forlorn explanation. The urge to relieve him of that twitches Blake's nerves throughout and he has to fight not to utterly dismiss anything Dean might say as inconsequential after everything they've shared. His heart says it shouldn't matter, but it does matter. His mind screams it can't matter, but that's cowardice reeling against the chance that this might end the moment Dean confesses something too far over some line.

"I know," he says after a too-long pause where he fights himself for an appropriate purchase. Overstepping has its place, but relieving Dean of that concern without hearing him out could do more harm than good. "Least I can do is hear you out," Blake adds, his grip tightening gently. "When you're ready." And not a second before. If that's now, then so be it, but Dean gets the choice regardless; they're barely seconds from that life by comparison and that takes some real fucking thought.

Buckling to impulse, he pulls Dean into a hug, tightly wrapping an arm around him and closing his eyes. "But if you need me, I've got you." Before or after, now or later.

[righteously]

He doesn't deserve this — that's his first thought as Blake winds his arms around Dean in an embrace. For a guilty moment, all he can do is just sit there, receiving absolution and acceptance that he hasn't earned, hating himself for finding comfort in it because a good man wouldn't. And then the toxic patterns of his brain give way just a little, a product of the meager amount of growth he's allowed himself in his nearly two years of developing personal relationships in this place.

And slowly, he winds his arms around Blake back, reciprocating — but still hesitant. It hasn't been that much growth.

With his hands gently on Blake's biceps, with his mouth somewhere against the fabric of Blake's shoulder, he murmurs, "I was gonna kill you. That day in Aquila."

Rip the bandage off. Just say it. The most honest way to do it is like that, and then let the explanation follow.

"I was cursed. It was a- a mark, that followed me from back home, I was corrupted. I wasn't me. I was somethin' else, and I would have killed every single person I could have gotten away with, if Geralt and Ciri hadn't cured me. That day, it was gonna be you."

[oversight]

Blake doesn't move, his form like a simple but secure scaffold for Dean's outpouring of regrets. It's another familiar sensation, like a curdled stomach, that spawns upon understanding the magnitude of the confession.

"That day? I might've let you," he admits, his voice laden with guilt. "I wasn't— me, either." What had returned from that pit was a husk of a man. And the person who had formed a life with Dean wasn't him, either. To that thought, has Blake ever been his true self? What came out of that portal, naked and confused, could be a slug with a magical personality implant designed to think it's John Blake.

(Is it worth even wondering? 800 years says, This is just another bump in a very long road. And it's not bad advice, really.)

"But we're both here. Still here," he points out, pulling back to look Dean in the eyes. A ferocity of will lives behind his tired gaze and the gentlest of twitches solidifies into a sliver of a smile. He rests a hand against Dean's head, fingers gathered at his nape and thumb briefly scrubbing at his hair. "That means a lot. It's not nothin', okay? I'm here 'cause I wanna be, and I— I can't not be a—" He huffs. "—a shelter from the storm."

And that's maybe the end of that. Proof positive that Blake sees this — whatever they want to categorize it as, be it a relationship, or a matter of convenience and desperation wrapped in a shell of friendship — as worth the risks posed by their chaotic environment.

[righteously]

But we're both here. Still here.

It feels hollow, a little. He appreciates the sentiment, he understands it, he knows Blake is right — but at the same time, he also remembers the vivid pain of being thrust backward onto that rebar spike. He remembers the life leaving his body. He remembers the edges of his vision going dark. He remembers dying. He shouldn't be here.

He's not sure if he wants to still be here. But that's too big a sentiment to bring up here and now, in front of Blake. He swallows it, and lets it disappear back into his own bloodstream instead.

At least one of them has a ferocity of will; it can't be Dean right now. All he can offer is a tight, sad smile made up mostly of quiet gratitude.

"You're crazy, you know that?" He muses, a little hoarse — but it sounds fond. If you listen closely.