abraxaslogs | Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʙᴇ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛᴀᴄʜᴇ ᴛᴏɴɪɢʜᴛ

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Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʙᴇ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛᴀᴄʜᴇ ᴛᴏɴɪɢʜᴛ

Who: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jo Harvelle, Castiel, Ciri, Geralt, Jaskier, Sam Wilson, probably others that I'm forgetting
When: Last week and a half of May
Where: Cadens, the bad lands, and the Winchester-Harvelle house
What: Demon Dean triggers his master plan to snatch Ciri and take her to the singularity to portal him off-world. The gang catches up and things get violent before Dean is eventually subdued and cured.
Warnings: Demons trying to be as demonic as possible, with all the gross violence and mean language that entails. Also, needles.

𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒
𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ
𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒
𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛' 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑜
𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦
𝐼𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒
𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
𝐴 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
𝐴 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤
𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( feel free to use this for any related open starters or closed threads )

[ no one's terribly comfortable with this set up. the witcher doesn't seem like the confessing sins type, and the last couple times cas was in a church, it was to question a woman's face, or to murder the priest. he tried to tell the others being an angel doesn't make him a holy man, but apparently he remains the best qualified. so here they are, off to the side of the group, sat behind some boulders for some measure of privacy.

it isn't lost on him how the two of them were ready to rip each others heads off, but an understanding has been reached, and as long as everyone's on board to help dean rather than execute him, the angel's happy. cas shifts awkwardly, and attempts to explain how this works. ]

This is new territory, and I'm unsure how well it translates to whatever dogma may have been observed in your world, but, um.

[ looking at geralt, castiel's 99% sure religious practice has not been at the top of his priority list, nor is it dean's or sam's or any hunter castiel's met. they're all too deeply aware of how God's screwed them. but, demon and angel tablets are God spells, so here we are, doing the god thing. ]

There are ten commandments a man in a desert put together, but those were... Creative license was taken. [ cas waves a hand, dismissing it. moses had a lot going on and a bunch of unruly refugees to organize, who could blame him. ] The important sins are what you might expect - murder, theft, dishonesty, general crimes against humanity. It starts with "forgive me, father, for I have sinned", you speak your sins, I say "you are forgiven" and assign a selection of prayers or minor acts of penance.

Will that... work for you?

Edited 2023-05-30 23:06 (UTC)

[ The irony is, out of the hunters gathered here, Geralt can probably be considered the most aligned with some semblance of religion. He spent a portion of his childhood at a temple, studying under a priestess. Questions of faith aren't for him—he doesn't care who believes in what; he just prefers not to bother with the intangible—but there are important lessons from the experience he has kept with him.

This, however, is. Something else. The sort of performative horseshit he would not give the time of day to under usual circumstances. They are not under usual circumstances. And though his agreement to do this was reluctant, to say the least, he knows it is what Ciri wants. More than that, it isn't as though things can go much more wrong. If it doesn't work, he returns to his first plan: removing the threat, permanently.

(He wants nothing more than his friend back. But he knows better than to get tangled up in distant hopes.)

Geralt sighs. He's tired. He's bleeding. ] My father disappeared when I was a boy, and I'm certain he committed more crimes than I have.

[ Why is he asking a dead man for forgiveness. Additionally: ]

Do you require a detailed list?

[ Ideally not. They'll be here for hours. ]

[ cas squints, not sure what geralt's parents have to do with this, but- oh, right, forgive me father. ]

No, that's not— [ you know what, the explanation really isn't worth it, nor is going over all issues with the human set up for clergy. best to just skip it. ] I'm not a priest anyway, that part doesn't really matter.

[ geralt, cas imagines, has about as long a list as dean and sam would. long, considering his age. surely sam couldn't have recalled every moment in his life that might've been considered a sin. it's likely this is probably more about intention and reflection, and they certainly do not have all day and next week. the thread of anxiety at leaving dean unguarded (from himself or others not entirely on board with the current plan) is pulling taut.

he and geralt have shared a decent amount of personal things in the past, but every second of moral greyness is a little much. let's get this moving. ]

If you just want to hit the major points, that should suffice.

[ How much of this is ritualistic and how much of the precise steps truly matters? As with most things ceremonial and magic, it can lean either way. Castiel doesn't appear concerned about the specifics, at least, so Geralt goes with that.

He's still not happy with the angel risking Ciri for the sake of his friend. But they've other problems to contend with right now.

Luckily, Geralt hasn't many qualms laying his supposed sins bare. His reputation in Blaviken has shadowed him for decades; he does not much give a fuck about hiding the choices he's made where monsters and men are concerned.

Geralt shifts his weight, rolls his memories back a century, and—after a long pause—offers the highlights in the flattest tone imaginable:

Killing, of an unspecified sum (a lot)

The dozen or so times he engaged in bread theft in the Kaer Morhen pantry with his brothers

Aiding another man in cucking, by association (a bard, who will remain unnamed)

Being a shit friend that one time, or multiple times depending on who you ask (a bard, who will remain unnamed)

Attempts at killing

General fuckery to cover other deeds Castiel's doctrine finds objectionable (likely the inordinate amount of premarital sex with various genders and species, which frankly does not occur to Geralt as an act that merits confessing)

That'll do, probably. He indicates with his hand for the angel to do his part and. Absolve him or...something. ]

[Jaskier hasn't really been paying much attention because this is all a sort of nebulous, stupid magic that he doesn't have much will in him to try to understand. It's not as if sins are necessarily a foreign concept to those from the Continent, it's only that... well, what's a man in a desert got to do with it? There's plenty of men in the bloody desert.

Though Jaskier does have an inkling this might be involved with the Santa Claus man. How many men could they have that you confess sins to, anyway?

Jaskier sits back and only perks up when Geralt begins to confess. For the most part he's -- all right, he's not exactly neutral as he listens, but he's remaining quiet, except for a "yes, multiple times" and "absolutely" and "well, you forgot about the one -- oh, no, there it is."

He's helping.]

I would also include the multiple times you've cursed at me for attempting to ride Roach when I was suffering from foot sores, or when you stopped me from killing Valdo Marx, or -- you know, specifically when you left me on the mountain when I was wearing the wrong shoes -- that is separate entirely from the other times you were a shit friend, thank you.

[A few more mentions of murder...]

This goes without mentioning the times in which you insulted my singing, or insinuated my lack of intelligence, or told me to fuck off (an indeterminable amount, to be sure).

I think that's most of it. Eh, at least fifty percent. Surely that's enough for Sir Claus. Good job, Geralt.

[ castiel nods along as geralt touches on each topic. It's pretty standard, about what cas was expecting, though the cuckolding has the angel tilting his head. the review of his sex life is plenty more than was needed, and cas makes a mental note to seek out geralt for any future intercourse related questions. but, after meeting chuck, cas gets the impression he's not as concerned about the premarital sex. before he's able to tell geralt, jaskier appears, with his own inventory of confessions.

he's about to interject to say the confession doesn't really count if someone else does it for you, but jaskier seems like he's on a roll. apparently he needed to vent some things. alright, well, pop off. as the list goes on, and on, and on, castiel's squinted gaze and arched brow gradually shift back to geralt. he has many questions, not the least of all being who is sir claus? but this routine isn't meant to be a discussion, really. ]

Three Hail Mary's, and... apologize to Jaskier.

[ you've been a bad friend, geralt, you can't just leave your buddy on a mountain, it's rude. cas hands the witcher a scrap of paper with the prayer written on it, muttering "just read it silently three times". right, well. confession sorted. time to wrap it up. ]

You are forgiven.

[ cas recites, and just for good measure, reaches out to give geralt a healing tap to the forehead, in case it helps with whatever impurity purging is supposed to be happening right now. his post-elixir hangover and nausea are now gone, his battle wounds are mended, his skin is clear. ]

Um. Go with God?

[ A look that can only be described as patient exasperation takes over Geralt's expression with each interjection. A man who has endured this many times before and understands he will do so many times more. ]

Jaskier—

[ Too fucking late. Jaskier has the momentum of a spiteful boulder pushed off the very mountain he was left upon. Which, he apologized to Jaskier already so it just. Leaves him to read the prayer. Thankfully, in silence. How Geralt prefers to do everything.

He squints at the angel as the healing sweeps through him. What—? ]

You should ask before you do that.

[ Some people do not enjoy magic being performed on them without warning. Call it age-old trauma, even if he appreciates not bleeding from multiple stab wounds. Unfortunately, what spell graced him with the effects of the elixir is not so easily shaken off, but he feels less like shit and probably will not vomit a second time. He'll take it.

He sighs again. Mm. Right. Time to offer up his sinless blood. Geralt does not go with God, but he does go with Jaskier, who he supposes would claim is the next best thing (or better, no doubt.)

He needs a fucking drink. ]

Geralt rarely keeps watch in the room. He does not wish to waste time listening to the demon's pointless barbs and he can hear perfectly fine from outside the door, should anything happen. Besides, the others are standing vigil. He imagines not even Castiel will be foolish enough to let Dean loose. Not while the cure is underway.

So outside the room is where Jo will find him. He's seated on the ground, purloined bottle of whisky uncorked. Half of it is empty, though Geralt doesn't demonstrate any sign of being less than sober. His eyes are clear, returned to their usual gold. Mostly, he's using the liquor to ease the pounding headache that's plagued him since the toxicity flushed from his system. An effect he has questions about, but which he's decided to confront later.

There's still blood on his hands, staining his white hair. Sand cakes his boots. His wounds are healed, but he doesn't look any less like shit. Outside, the half-moon is bright in the night sky.

When Jo comes near, he glances up—a form of acknowledgement if not quite a greeting. Last he saw, she was flat in the dirt. He missed what the fuck happened there—thanks to an angel wrestling him—but he expects it must have been the demon's doing.

It's one of the very, very few times Jo actually isn't in the room. A wearying, wearing thing that she refuses any alternate option or encouragement for. She isn't going to be anywhere else until they know if it works or. She doesn't care what the thing riding Dean's body says to or about her, and she won't let Cas consider cottoning her senses.

Jo understands why he does it.

She has to hope he understands why she never could.

As much as Jo hates it, eventually, nature has to have its due. Hours past being ignored and ignored and ignored some more. But it refuses to be as silent about being ignored as the dirt and ripped-up clothes (that should actually hint at wounds that should be under them, but she's unmarked, everywhere; the now-broken necklace still tucked under her shirt). She makes it fast. Her heart is a tempo that skitters just a little faster with each new set of seconds gone.

Still there's a pause on her quick walk back, when Geralt—still in the place he was when she slid out less than two minutes ago—looks up at her coming back and does. Pause. Hit her like a pile of bricks. A sharp stab somewhere in her chest. That air that edges that look up that is too familiar, has a million other faces, and she's so god damned tired, and she's got bigger problems, and she still does it. Pauses. Tilts her head and then nods toward the bottle.

"You sharing?"

You know, as an option before she points out it's already hers.

Edited 2023-06-06 04:25 (UTC)

There's a touch of—not wariness, but a beat where he's gauging where they stand. Geralt does not care to defend his choices—doesn't feel he needs to—and he's here because there's a chance. That he could do what he'd failed to with Eskel. That perhaps there could be one less friend he'll lose.

Whether that's the right decision or not, only time will tell.

But she speaks, and Geralt tilts his head. Assessing, in the brief silence. It isn't friendly (they've not yet neared that stage), but it is less tension than he might've anticipated.

Another second. He holds out the bottle, wordless. That's what they're doing here, it seems. Sharing. Liquor, the late hour, proximity to the demon. Vague hopes it might actually work.

"You look..." Mm. Better may not be the term. "Healed."

Edited 2023-06-06 04:46 (UTC)

"Looks that way." Not an answer, not a disagreement.
She could have pointed out they have Cas.
Who was healing people everywhere.

But she doesn't make the easy lie.

It doesn't help to deny that when she slammed into the rock, everything that was everything being a radiant blinding blue light. She can't take it off. She can't touch it. Not yet. Not now. All she does is lean against the wall to his side, raise the bottle, and take a deep gulp. Longer than would be peaceably polite across the bar. Nothing is peaceably polite tonight.

It makes her lower the bottle and stare at the door when she says it.
"Tell me if he starts doing anything too bad. I'm not leaving Cas to him."

Cas with his heart on his shoulder. Cas, with his heart, cut open and unmasked by Dean, every inch of him in love and somehow unaware, and now every iota too radically aware. ~~Cas with his hands tangled up in her hair and the taste of despair, desperation, death, and something else on her tongue.~~ Cas dying on that bed, not having woken up for days as of this very morning. Questions that needed asking, and still didn't matter as much as the one these hours would need to answer first.

He's alive. She's alive.

They need a third tally in that box still.

Edited 2023-06-06 05:23 (UTC)

Had the magic remained in that amulet, he might've sensed it. As it is, the necklace registers none past a piece of jewellery. Perhaps later, he'll realize the truth of what happened to her.

His gaze flicks to her for a moment. Then he returns to looking at nothing in particular. A noncommittal noise comes in answer. Dean talks. That's all he does. He's gathered it bothers Castiel more—that Castiel is quicker to undo with words. It's not a judgment. Merely a reality.

Not all of them spent their decades putting up with that shit from the world.

"Nothing yet. I'm listening."

For reasons other than preserving the pieces of Castiel's broken heart. Geralt is not one to hold grudges, but that isn't the same as being quick to forgive. He understands, he does. Between Yennefer and Eskel, he more than understands. But that's the thing, isn't it? You still make your choices. Castiel made his and endangered Ciri in the process. He will not forget.

Maybe Jo can sense that in the air, maybe not. Geralt doesn't conceal it one way or the other as he takes his turn with the whisky.

Do you think it will work? She wants to ask, and she won't.

There's a weary part of her, studying the door, that knows a week ago—or is it months now? She can't tell anymore—the question would have brusquely been, Do you want this to work? But the unchecked and unquenchable fortitude of morality, maybe even hunter legacy, is too dinged, and she's too weary. Once almost dead. Once dead-not-dead. She doesn't have room for it. Just standing and breathing (choking on the desperation hope) is taking up all of it now.

She knows already that he knows just as little as the rest of them whether the switch this his blood, and Ciri's, can stand in for something already so rare and hyperspecific. She knows that, regardless of what happened in the Bad Lands, he's here, he's still given his blood, still staying to give those shots, and still sitting outside this door.

He's caught in the same traction as all of them.
Feet dangling over the precipice of whether he lives.
Dean Winchester. Who matters to all of them beyond words.

In a way that actions show too clearly in this house—and maybe it's time to stop pretending they don't show just as clearly, just as unwaveringly, outside of those in this house, too. In a way almost no one else is allowed to. Despite whatever is allowed or judged.

Jo took another drink and held it out and down toward him.

What she chooses is something else. A sigh through her nose. "I hate waiting."

Had she asked, Geralt's honest answer would be that he hasn't any fucking clue. Hard to say if it's the question mark hanging in the air that sits heaviest. Some part of him just wants to know what they're facing. If he will need to take another step to keep Ciri safe or if he can finally be allowed to breathe. For him, there is no other plan, no alternate haphazard solutions cobbled together out of desperation and fear and an inability to comprehend when it's time to move the fuck on. That you cannot hold onto shadows. Not without too heavy a cost. Either this will work or it's over.

But she doesn't ask. So he doesn't say it. He imagines they all realize regardless. He is not someone who makes it a secret where he stands.

His fingers curl around the bottle. He doesn't drink from it yet, instead glancing briefly over his shoulder when a thump sounds. Quiet follows afterwards. He relaxes.

"At least there's something to wait for," Geralt replies. It isn't nothing. More than they had a few hours ago. And Dean smells different when he last stepped near. Subtle, but noticeable. It isn't enough for him to bring it up; he wants to be sure before he says anything.

Instead, there's another point on his mind. He could ask Castiel directly, probably will if Jo hasn't got an answer, but Jo's the one across from him right now.

"Why has Castiel never said a word about this cure until now?"

There must be a good reason. The angel was invested in saving Dean as much as all of them, if not more. Was it because he knew the demon needed to fully corrupt its host first? Or something else?

It feels like there's a piece he's missing—entirely possible, considering his...slight detour into captivity for a few weeks.

Jo's brow crinkles a little but doesn't say her only thought. That having something worth waiting for doesn't always make it worth it. Sometimes it scours you from the inside out. She hates waiting, and she's proven to be interminably good at it, which only makes her hate it more. Like something was scouring her skin slowly, minute by minute, hour by hour, insult by insult, shot by shot.

The second question makes her face shift, tightening a little, and relaxing, gaze darting to that door and the wall around it, like she could see through it somehow. Check on him. Know whether she needed to be in there as ballast to this unbroken storm.

"It's crazy," she says lightly, but her voice is so worn that disbelief doesn't touch it much. "This morning, he was dying." Her voice creeps softer. "He hadn't woken up for days, and I wasn't sure if he ever would." Not even when she crept into his room and prayed by his bed. Not when she left the note on his bed table this morning, saying they needed him. She did. "But then, there he was, in the desert. Blinding light and no part of him broken anymore."

Is there a whisper-sharp-edge to those words? Maybe.

Jo doesn't want to poke the strange edge of sadness. Envy. Abandonment.
Her feelings could wait for another day. Or week. Or year. Or never was good.

"He said he got all these memories of living through a long time back home, and he woke up better, aware of what had been done there and the very slim chance we might find a way to make it work here."

𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠

confessions

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drive-by

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jo.

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jaskier.

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sam winchester.