[Later, Dean will not be able to honestly say he has any idea where he went or what he did for an indeterminable amount of time after he leaves cabin 4-18. He doesn't do anything dramatic, certainly, there are no new bruises or cuts that he can't explain, no one brings him any complaints about his behavior; he walks. Where, he does not know.
He first becomes aware of where he is when he can't get into the pub; he reaches for his item, but it's not there, and that simultaneously resonates so perfectly and is so impossible that he cannot comprehend it at all. By the time anyone arrives that would let him in, he's gone.
He next becomes aware of his surroundings standing at the forward rail, staring hard out into space. He hates the deck. He hates being reminded that they're sailing, floating, flying on nothing, that there is more nothing - nothing upon nothing - around them; he is terrified of the deck. Afraid on a visceral, uncontrollable level, but he has been working for months to quell what will not die. It seems, in the face of his only other visceral fear, much more manageable. He stares out over the railing, his hips bruising and cold where he leans against it, and if anyone tries to speak with him he does not respond and does not remember.
Dean Winchester is not a man that knows how to say goodbye. His very presence here is evidence of that, but he's only recently realized the problem inherent in that selfsame presence: everyone here is working tirelessly towards the goal of no longer being here. Everyone will go. Everyone must go. Everyone should go. Including the Marquis de Carabas, including Dean, including every person here Dean knows, every person here he loves. It makes no sense to be upset when it happens. When it's a good thing, a goal reached, an opportunity available. And he is happy.
He is also terrified. And angry. And fiercely proud. And silently desperate. And thinking of all the what ifs, the what nows, the hundred thousand ways his friends - the people he loves, the people he's given pieces of his heart to without any thought about taking them back - could die out of his sight. And trying to accept that there is nothing he can do about it that he has not already done.
He does nothing dramatic, though he very much wants to. That is the price of growing up. He stares at the space that used to intimidate him, and wishes profoundly that he could navigate it like some here do, that he could know with certainty that if any of those hundred thousand ways come for his people, he could be there to stop them. Wishes for the hundred thousandth time that there were even one way - one, single way - that he could be included in the lives that they keep with them. That they would stay. That he could go.
But wishing never got anyone anywhere, and he is not this person. The Marquis does not require Dean to be happy for him, which is fortunate because he's not sure he can be yet. There is only one way to know, and the thought that finally breaks Dean away from the rail and sends him back belowdecks is that the Marquis has graduated - it may already be too late. He may be gone, a thought that speeds his pulse and makes his path back to level four direct and swift.
But he is not gone. His door is still there, across from Dean's where it has been for a year and a half, and the hunter pauses to brush his fingers over the coarse, solid wood of it. Then he turns away decisively, more centered but no more certain about what he's going to do now.
It is hours later when the knob turns again and Dean lets himself into his cabin. It is the last place he saw the Marquis - he is, a little, surprised to find him there still. And then again, maybe not at all. He steps inside and closes the door again, quietly, and breathes out.]
Sorry. [For leaving. For reacting like an asshole. For being someone that someone like de Carabas would stand and wait for. For needing it. He smiles again, and this time it sticks - sad but warm, the pieces of himself he managed to pick back up, changed but still true.] I know you miss London Below. I'm glad you get to go back, now. I am.
[ Spam ]
He first becomes aware of where he is when he can't get into the pub; he reaches for his item, but it's not there, and that simultaneously resonates so perfectly and is so impossible that he cannot comprehend it at all. By the time anyone arrives that would let him in, he's gone.
He next becomes aware of his surroundings standing at the forward rail, staring hard out into space. He hates the deck. He hates being reminded that they're sailing, floating, flying on nothing, that there is more nothing - nothing upon nothing - around them; he is terrified of the deck. Afraid on a visceral, uncontrollable level, but he has been working for months to quell what will not die. It seems, in the face of his only other visceral fear, much more manageable. He stares out over the railing, his hips bruising and cold where he leans against it, and if anyone tries to speak with him he does not respond and does not remember.
Dean Winchester is not a man that knows how to say goodbye. His very presence here is evidence of that, but he's only recently realized the problem inherent in that selfsame presence: everyone here is working tirelessly towards the goal of no longer being here. Everyone will go. Everyone must go. Everyone should go. Including the Marquis de Carabas, including Dean, including every person here Dean knows, every person here he loves. It makes no sense to be upset when it happens. When it's a good thing, a goal reached, an opportunity available. And he is happy.
He is also terrified. And angry. And fiercely proud. And silently desperate. And thinking of all the what ifs, the what nows, the hundred thousand ways his friends - the people he loves, the people he's given pieces of his heart to without any thought about taking them back - could die out of his sight. And trying to accept that there is nothing he can do about it that he has not already done.
He does nothing dramatic, though he very much wants to. That is the price of growing up. He stares at the space that used to intimidate him, and wishes profoundly that he could navigate it like some here do, that he could know with certainty that if any of those hundred thousand ways come for his people, he could be there to stop them. Wishes for the hundred thousandth time that there were even one way - one, single way - that he could be included in the lives that they keep with them. That they would stay. That he could go.
But wishing never got anyone anywhere, and he is not this person. The Marquis does not require Dean to be happy for him, which is fortunate because he's not sure he can be yet. There is only one way to know, and the thought that finally breaks Dean away from the rail and sends him back belowdecks is that the Marquis has graduated - it may already be too late. He may be gone, a thought that speeds his pulse and makes his path back to level four direct and swift.
But he is not gone. His door is still there, across from Dean's where it has been for a year and a half, and the hunter pauses to brush his fingers over the coarse, solid wood of it. Then he turns away decisively, more centered but no more certain about what he's going to do now.
It is hours later when the knob turns again and Dean lets himself into his cabin. It is the last place he saw the Marquis - he is, a little, surprised to find him there still. And then again, maybe not at all. He steps inside and closes the door again, quietly, and breathes out.]
Sorry. [For leaving. For reacting like an asshole. For being someone that someone like de Carabas would stand and wait for. For needing it. He smiles again, and this time it sticks - sad but warm, the pieces of himself he managed to pick back up, changed but still true.] I know you miss London Below. I'm glad you get to go back, now. I am.