Okay but picture this. It’s only been a month since the events of The Webs In The Rafters, all the guys have varying degrees of trauma, Stan has been trying so hard to stay strong especially for Kyle’s sake, but he is STRUGGLING. This is a man who not only spent the last decade of his life bound to some sinister force none of them truly knew the extent to which they were involved with, but he was completely unable to stop the mental and physical abuse that the man he loves was suffering. Like, so much of his trauma is rooted in the fact that he couldn’t protect everyone the way he wanted to. So, Kyle’s sick and his body is just barely starting to recover from the poison and the injuries so he’s already having a harder time than most people would, but on TOP of that he’s so afraid of being poisoned again that he won’t take medicine or eat and Stan is just finally having to face his own turmoil about not being able to fix this. And he has a moment of just complete and utter breakdown, this is what I’m hurting my feelings thinking about. TWITR Stan, who’s been dutifully keeping vigil at the bedside, leaves a gentle kiss on a sleeping Kyle’s too warm forehead to take their dog out, and once he’s outside, he loses it. This tall, strong, classically handsome ranch foreman who wants nothing more than to protect his people, this gentle giant of a man is falling to his knees on the sleet covered sidewalk and bawling, so emotionally exhausted because he can’t make Kyle okay, and he’s ugly crying while the cold seeps into his jeans and brown carhart, and he’s wrapped Kyle in that same jacket so many times but it isn’t the shield he wishes it was and he can’t fix any of what’s happened for his partner. He can’t shield kyle from everything he’s been through, but he CAN hold his hand the whole way, and by god he’s going to do just that.
