For nine_ofswords

[the_hermit]

Summary: In which Merritt fails his will save Merritt makes a stupid decision... In which this thread ends badly.

--

Merritt goes still, something about him calming, and the smile that crosses his face is humorless. "That little 'stunt' was easy," he begins seriously, his tone becoming carefully measured.

"The Horsemen are my family, and leaving that man a drooling idiot was the very least I would do to protect them."

He's not close enough to actually, physically reach Ben, but he doesn't need to be. He swings, mentally, lashing out with a burst of magic designed to cripple.

Comments

[the_hermit]

"Thank you," Merritt returns simply, sincerely. The fact remains that he would still be trapped, still be dying a slow, lonely death if not for them.

[onebehind]

Dylan shakes his head.

"I know we've had our issues, lately," he starts, eyes dropping for a second, almost guiltily, before he returns his attention to him. "But you're still a part of this family. You're still a part of my family. That doesn't change just because I needed to be pissed off at someone, and I decided I was gonna go with the first people I saw when I woke up, like some retarded duck."

A meaningful look follows, as Dylan hopes Merritt noticed the use of past tense there. He really can't be pissed off at him, anymore. Not when he almost lost him, not when it was potentially his fault, his quiet upset at dinner the night before the straw to the camel. Not when all of it put the fear of God into him.

[the_hermit]

Merritt does catch that, more tension easing out of his posture. He gestures, and while he doesn't ask for help getting up, it's clear that what he wants.

His legs are still unsteady, but they hold him, and that's enough considering his ultimate plan in getting up is to pull Dylan into the hug Merritt wanted earlier.

[onebehind]

Without so much as a second thought, Dylan steps forward, holding a hand out to Merritt, helping him to his feet. While he pulls his hand out of Merritt's, once he's steady, however, he doesn't stray far. He wants to be there to support him, if his legs decide to betray him at the last second and, more than that, he can sense the hug coming and he wants to return it and fiercely. A sense of warmth, of near-staggering love comes with it, too, and while a piece of it comes from the other Horsemen, in this second, Dylan's passion far outshines their contribution.

"I'm sorry," he tells him, voice tight as he pulls back, one hand still resting lightly against the back of his neck so he can hold his gaze, again. He's sorry their attacker used him to hurt him. He's sorry he hurt him that much, out in the real world, that he believed he'd turn on him.

[the_hermit]

Merritt steps immediately into the hug. He does need a moment to hold himself up, to get his balance again, for the circulation to finish returning properly, but he would be clinging anyway, reaching out magically fully for one of the first times since the real Dylan showed up, catching that to loop the feeling between them, his own love for Dylan, for all of them, enough to take his breath away all over again.

"So am I," he returns just as tightly as he cups the back of Dylan's neck in turn, resting their foreheads together again. He's sorry he had to take Lionel away again, that he had to use Jack to do it. He's sorry he went for Ben, that he walked so willingly into this trap. "We're alright," he assures him after another moment.

[onebehind]

"Yeah," Dylan chokes out, that love overwhelming in the best possible way. He closes his eyes, briefly, not so he doesn't have to look at Merritt but in an attempt to banish the sudden stinging behind them. It doesn't quite work; his eyes are wet when he looks at him again. "Yeah, we are."

A beat, then impulsively, he tacks on, "Brother."

[the_hermit]

Merritt's eyes close against tears of his own - and then Dylan adds that on, and his breath catches hard enough that it makes a noise like something breaking loose, that might actually seem to come from somewhere in the hotel that currently makes up Merritt's mindscape. His attempts to keep the tears back fail entirely, and a few fall down his face as he breathes out an echo. "My brother."

[onebehind]

Dylan pulls him into another hug at that, this one no less solid than the first. When he steps back from this one, however, it's more than just his eyes that are wet, his handle on himself and his ability to get through this without crying, too, apparently just as shattered. He lets out a breath, trembling, and then slowly pulls his hand away from Merritt's neck so he can press the back of his hand into his eyes, wipe the tears away.

He drops his hand again a moment later, and clears his throat. "Anyway, uh." A beat, another small, choked sound as he tries to force the lump in his throat into submission, again, then, "You ready to try getting out of here?"

If worse comes to worst, he and the kids can carry Merritt down and out. If worse comes to worst, he can, period, and would try, would be able to, right now, even without them.

[the_hermit]

Merritt steps into this one as readily as he did the first, clinging back, one hand still at Dylan's neck. He doesn't pull away until Dylan does, and then he, too, wipes at his eyes and then runs his hand down his face as he nods a few more times than is probably actually necessary, as he pulls himself back together.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Let's get the fuck out of here."

[onebehind]

"Alright, c'mmon."

Twisting away from him, Dylan starts towards the door but slowly, ready to double back, catch Merritt, if need be. He's in a hurry to get out of here, but he won't let him fall, won't abandon him. That much is clear.

[the_hermit]

Merritt follows immediately, slowly at first but then gaining steadiness as he goes. By the time Dylan opens the door, he's walking fine, if still cradling his hand to his chest to avoid jarring it on anything.

[onebehind]

The trip back down the hallway is uneventful, the area as quiet as it was the first time Merritt came this way. Dylan stops when they reach the door at the top of the steps, however, and glances back at him, raking his tongue over his teeth.

"When we came up, we kind of just pushed through this." He gestures to the door. It was still jammed, when he came in, and he'd pulled on Henley's magic to ignore it. It's still jammed now, and while he could probably do the same again, take Merritt with him, he's not sure they should leave it like that. He's also not sure he should be the one to try and fix the lock, despite having Jack's skill set, at the moment, now, too. Either might not be good for Merritt in the long run and he's suffered more than enough mental trauma today to last a lifetime.

[the_hermit]

Merritt steps up beside him, jaw clenching as he considers the door. "I did the one downstairs. He did this one," he says darkly, but he reaches out to rest a hand on the knob, focusing for a moment as he reaches out, feeling out the damage Ben did here.

It takes him a moment to undo it - but after a moment, he hesitates - and then turns the handle. It opens, and he pulls the door slowly toward them, peeking through. There's still no one there, and he sighs before pulling it open the rest of the way, gesturing for Dylan to go ahead.

[onebehind]

Dylan doesn't bother repeating the idea that it might be better if he tried fixing it first, regardless, rather than him, them -- he figures he got that, even without him having to say it. Instead, he grunts in lieu of an answer, and steps out of the way, giving Merritt room to work. When he manages to get the door open, Dylan rocks back into place, taking point, and flashes Merritt an apologetic look, in spite of himself.

He knows he's tired. Just a little longer.

And so he starts down the stairs, shifting out of the way again as they reach the ground floor so he can repeat the process.

[the_hermit]

Merritt follows him down the stairs more slowly than he originally went up them. He is tired, but he can make it. He has to.

It takes him about the same amount of time to open the second door, if just because of that. He opens this one even more carefully, barely opening it before he looks through the gap. When there's no one there, he once again opens it all the way.

"Were those assholes still down here when you came in?" he asks, because he might be worrying for no reason, but he would really rather not have someone else trying to stab him after all this.

[onebehind]

"The place was empty," he answers, shaking his head. Not that he took any chances, when he came up, if the fact that he took the time to clear the room of Merritt's prison was any indication, nor does he plan to, now.

That in mind, he pulls his gun from his hip again, checking it over briefly if only out of force of habit born in the waking world, and nudges past Merritt. The lobby, however, is as empty as it was when he entered, now, the only sign of something being wrong the bars and grating still in place over the doors. Dylan only lowers the gun again after taking a moment to reach out, feel for anything beyond them, and coming up empty.

"General consensus is we're good."

[the_hermit]

Merritt sighs again, following Dylan out into the lobby proper. "Guess he didn't think anybody else was coming in."

He means to mean that as Ben thinking too much of himself, that the Horsemen wouldn't have managed to find a way in - and a beat later, he shakes off the literal echo of what he could have meant - that no one was even going to try.

"Sorry," he mutters, reaching up reflexively to adjust a hat he's not wearing, knowing Dylan's likely to have heard. "Didn't mean to go there."

[onebehind]

Dylan glances back at him, something not so much angry as intense in his eyes, and then turns to face him entirely. "Yeah, well. Guess he didn't know us as well as he thought." A beat. "We already covered this, but ... "

But while the sense that they will always come for him is very real, unmistakable as this is Merritt's mind, he forces himself to say it aloud, anyway. Or maybe someone else currently sharing headspace with him forces him to say it, considering it comes out in a tone not entirely his own, again.

"We'll always come for you."

[the_hermit]

Merritt takes another steadying breath and nods. "I know. And the same goes for the rest of you."

Just in case anyone else needs to hear it. He figures it can't hurt, anyway.

He pauses a beat and then clears his throat, looking to the bars and security grate over the door. "Anybody got the gate key?"

[onebehind]

"We know," Dylan echoes, his voice still more.

Clearing his own throat, he glances to the bars, too, and then turns looking back at the front desk. A nod in that direction follows. "Places like this usually have a keypad, somewhere, that controls this shit." There might actually be a real key for the doors, considering the metaphorical nature of dreams, but in reality, they'd be looking for something like the pad he mentioned.

[the_hermit]

"Most of their security measures weren't put there by a psycho, though," he returns as he heads for the desk - and then on past it and around the corner out of view as he tries to find out how to get behind the desk.

[onebehind]

"If you'd ever seen the blueprints for some of these places, you might rethink that statement," Dylan shoots back as he follows Merritt to the desk. He watches Merritt continue on, aware that he's looking for a door, and after an impatient moment once he's disappeared, decides they don't have time for this, takes a few steps back and vaults over the thing.

It's likely he'll have found the keypad before Merritt finds the door.

[the_hermit]

"Did you just..." Merritt begins, literally walking backwards into view again. "Of course you did, because you've got the kid in here," he complains, and it's probably a good sign. Even he recognizes it's the most like himself he's sounded since all this started.

He moves back to stand in front of the desk, leaning over, now. "See anything?"

[onebehind]

"We got bored," Dylan answers simply, shrugging. He takes a half-step back out of the way, letting Merritt get a look at what he found. "But yeah, here."

It's a standard numerical keypad, though hell if Dylan or the Horsemen beyond him know what the code might be. Worse comes to worst, between the four of them, they might have some ideas, but he figures Merritt can take a crack at it, first. It's his head, after all; maybe that counts for something, as far as the code goes.

[the_hermit]

Merritt peers over the top of the desk at it, thinking for a moment, focusing on it - and then smiling almost wistfully. "Try the date we met you in the park."

He sounds sure, too.