abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] though my feet my rest

[ Julie wouldn't call herself a packrat, exactly, but she does have some magpie-like tendencies, collecting little baubles and shiny knickknacks that make her happy. Souvenirs from the places she's gotten to visit in Abraxas, gifts that people have given her. She has a loose shark tooth that needs to be displayed properly. So Geralt can rest assured that the shelves will be full soon. ]

Okay. Here, go sit, I'll get it. [ She hands him back the turnscrew, then goes to the kitchen. The yellowed cream tile is cool against her bare feet -- she's considering replacing it with something a bit more decorative, but hasn't made up her mind yet.

When she follows him into the sitting room, it's with a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other, which she sets down on the table to pour. ]

Y'know, in my world, people had to build their furniture all the time. Like, it was just a thing you did. They'd sell the whole piece flat, then you'd take it home and follow the directions. But I never got to do that.

[ She didn't get the chance to be a real adult in her own world; there was no moving out and filling a cheap apartment with Ikea furniture. Julie had gone straight from her parents' home to New Vegas. And Sam had found most of the furniture for their flat secondhand, before Julie and Nadine got to Cadens. This is the first time she has ever had the opportunity to actually do these things for herself. ]

[ Geralt makes minor adjustments on the shelf first, then settles on the couch. He can hear her in the kitchen: her footsteps, the clink of glass, the opening cupboards.

He accepts the wine. Sell it flat? He supposes it's a little like what he did—bringing the pieces he sanded and carved to her home, but the idea that one can commonly purchase it that way without having worked on it first is...interesting. Poor folk will make do with what they can build with their own hands and tools. At best, they might find a neighbouring carpenter to trade. The nobility commission skilled craftsmen. There isn't anything in between like what she describes. ]

Any time you you feel like doing more, just ask.

[ He's handy by necessity. Should she ever uncover the desire to build a chair, or similar, he could likely show her.

A pause passes. Perhaps she can sense he's been building up to it from the moment he arrived at her door. He leans forward towards her. There's no easy way to broach the subject. ] I know you've had...things weighing on your mind. Since the demon. You can talk to me.

[ Well, technically Julie is from somewhere that it would be more common to buy secondhand or inherit your furniture from someone else, but that's not always an option when you need to furnish an entire place. Wal-Mart and Amazon and Wayfair were there to fill the gap.

She sits next to him on the sofa, her legs tucked to the side, clutching her glass. It's true, there's been a tangible sense that he wanted to speak to her, but the topic truly catches her off-guard. Enough so that she reacts before she can control her expression; her eyes go wide, as if he's caught her with her hand in a cookie jar, her smiling falling. Her heart leaps into her throat, and she feels like she can barely breathe.

The demon. He's mad. Mad that she's so stupid, that she's so weak, that she caused problems for him. Gave the demon ammo. He doesn't want her anymore.

(Other thoughts rattle the cages she keeps them in in her mind. The thoughts that are so heavy and dark that she cannot bear to acknowledge them, has to keep them locked away from herself, they begin to rouse and try to escape.) ]

No. [ It comes out automatically, denial that's almost comical coming from such obvious fear. ] I'm --

[ For a second, she seems lost for words. Fine? Okay? He already doesn't believe it. Shame and pain prickle at behind her eyes like needles, aggravating the part of her that's so averse to negative emotions. Her voice drops as she looks down at her wine. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.

[ Julie had assured him the demon did not physically harm her, but the intensity of her reaction worries him. Something about the encounter is painful to her, and he doesn't know if it's because of what the demon may have said to her, that the demon preyed on her in the first place—lying to her about what it was—or something deeper he cannot yet fully understand.

He waits while she gathers her thoughts, searching her face. His brows wrinkle. ]

Julie. [ He cups her cheek. ] You didn't. You have nothing to apologize for.

[ If anything, the responsibility lies on him. He should've been more careful. Quicker, perhaps. Noticed that something was wrong before it was too late. He knows Jaskier will tell him that isn't realistic—that he'd been abducted for a handful of weeks and spent a handful more recovering while the demon surfaced. That may be true. It still doesn't lessen the sense that he hadn't done enough. For her or for Ciri.

He hesitates. ]

Why do you think you hurt me?

[ She can't look at him, can't meet his eye. She's afraid that if she does, the dam she's been building will begin crack and she won't be able to stop it.

You weren't touched by him the way Lloyd and I were, I don't think he ever worked any magic on you. You don't have that darkness in you, Nadine had said, before they left Nott. For a while, Julie had believed her. Months later, Julie herself told Stephen Strange, when demons touch things, they leave stains.

Now she knows that she was right all along. She's poisoned, tainted. Broken. And too fucking dumb to see it except in hindsight.

Julie leans into Geralt's touch again, but she keeps her eyes cast down. Her eyes sting. Her chest hurts. It feels like she has an anvil on her shoulders. ]

He told me. He told me he was a demon. It just -- I'm so stupid. There's something wrong with me, Geralt. I heard him, I understood him, but it was like it didn't matter. Like somethin' else just took the wheel in my head. Somethin' I can't control. And if I wasn't so fucked up, then maybe... he wouldn't have been able to use me against you.

[ She takes a sharp, shuddering breath and closes her eyes tightly. ]

He showed me his eyes. They looked... they looked like yours.

[ He what? Geralt blinks. Somehow, it did not cross his mind Julie knew the truth from the start. He'd assumed, like with the others, the demon had pretended to be Dean.

For a moment, he isn't certain how he feels. That she wasn't lied to is...good isn't the word he's looking for, but it at least means she knew what choice she was making. Or did she? Her description of how she felt is concerning. Especially in the Horizon, where reality shifts with your mind. He knows the demon cannot control or influence. He'd faced it. It was capable of many things, but not that.

He thinks of their shared nightmare. The ooze that dripped and coated your every pore. Is that what seeped through her when the demon made itself known? A subconscious memory spilling through the cracks? One that even the demon must've been unaware of. ]

He used you because of what you mean to me. [ He takes a breath. In truth, he isn't sure what may have happened. Only that he doesn't want her going through it again. ] Whatever came over you, it is not your fault. I'm sorry he hurt you. I should've protected you better.

[ The demon had, for a short bit, pretended to be Dean. It hadn't corrected her when she initially addressed him as Dean, had tried to wave away the idea that he should be dead. But the demon had been able to sense it, that something was taking hold of her mind, and then had no reason to keep hiding -- she asked him point blank if he was still Dean, and the answer was I'm something more fun now, with those eyes.

He didn't suddenly morph into a Witcher, and Flagg's, a demon's, possession is the only other thing she's heard of with that effect. She knew what she was dealing with.

It just didn't feel wrong. The same way it stopped feeling wrong to see crucifixions and beheadings. Like being in a trance.

Geralt apologizes to her, and she doesn't quite know what to do with that. She has spent so many weeks feeling so terrible, so worthless; she would almost rather he be angry, so at least she could justify the pain she's in. ]

I don't... [ She sniffs and sighs. Her eyes roll to the ceiling, both searching for words and trying to keep the watery line along her bottom lashes from spilling over. ] I don't want to be a burden to you. I don't -- I don't want you to get tired of me. To decide I just make your life harder.

[ Swallowing hard, her shoulders shake a little. She clutches her wine glass. ] I don't want to be a bad person.

[ Some part of him, he can admit, had not anticipated her confession. He'd thought—he wasn't sure what was on her mind, precisely. Not this. Not that she's afraid he'll leave her over something she'd not even done.

Gently, he removes her wineglass before it can spill and takes her hand in his. ]

You aren't. [ He supposes, like Nadine, it's impossible for the question to lie dormant. He gets it. He does. It's one he's asked himself, too. Perhaps no straightforward answer exists. But they can't solely be defined by a past that haunts them nor a fear of what they could become. There has to be more. To him, she's more. ] And I will not abandon the people I love because it's difficult.

[ He didn't choose the easy road. He's here. With her, with Ciri. Dean. If others would call it a burden, then so be it. They've carried his as much as he's carried theirs, and he means to keep doing so. It feels especially important now after all they've been through together.

He doesn't care what cost to his life. How painful. He's paid it before. He'll do it again. ]

[ There was a time where Julie wasn't this insecure. A time when it didn't matter to her whether people stayed or went. But she cannot bear to be left alone again, abandoned again. It's happened too many times now, the trauma compounding on itself, topped off by the fact that God, the God she had been raised to believe in, struck her down specifically. That's one way to start believing that maybe she is the problem, isn't it?

No one has limitless patience. He has already had to save her so many times.

She looks at their hands, hers trembling. ]

But what if I'm too difficult? [ She feels too difficult. ] I don't want to be the weight you drop when it's too much. I don't think I know how to be without you anymore.

[ A quiet settles between them. It is hard, he knows, to stay with someone like him. Life refuses to let him settle, to allow him more than a few brief moments to breathe. There's always something he needs to do, something he can't help doing, whether because of Ciri or his inability to turn his back. But she's remained with him nonetheless. It means more to him than she realizes. ]

When you met me, I was alone. I thought remaining so would mean I'd have nothing more that could be taken from me. [ Rediscovering his family was new. A slow, unsteady process disrupted by his uncertainties. The absence of memories and lingering fears of what it might mean. ]

After Thorne, when I needed you, you were there. I know I wasn't...easy. And I started— [ Started accepting people in his life again. Julie isn't the sole person who helped him do so, but she's a vital part of it. ] I shouldn't like to lose you any more than you want to lose me.

[ He nearly has enough times as it is. The last thing he'd do is give her up willingly. Maybe whatever entity that serves as her god did forsake her. He can't answer that. But he won't do the same. ]

[ For a single, terrible second, there is quiet, and she closes her eyes against it. The part of her that has survived this long by being detached is howling in her head, furious that she dare not only have these emotions, but also voice them. Let him know her weakness, that she needs him. Geralt is the anthesis of every relationship she's ever had, and it is difficult to reconcile that with the way she understands how to navigate the world.

She's not expecting him to explain his feelings, if only because he so rarely does. As he speaks, she is able to meet his eye again, her own still shining and wet. She has learned to read volumes out of just a sentence, because that is how he communicates, but sometimes, things do need to be said out loud. Actually heard. Made real by virtue of being in the air, instead of held inside.

I shouldn't like to lose you any more than you want to lose me, he says, immediately after she has laid bare exactly how petrified of that she truly is. And no one has ever said anything like that to her before, never wanted her that much before. Maybe it's why she was so scared to begin with.

Geralt only says what he means. Really means. She does trust that, with all of her heart.

The sound that escapes her is an accident, somewhere between a choked gasp and a sob, and she wraps her arms around him tightly. Her face presses into the hollow of his neck, her cheeks hot and damp, eyes screwed shut. ]

[ A year or two ago, he might not have said it out loud. Not so starkly. He won't admit it, but he's aware he's different. That his time with Ciri has changed him for what Jaskier would say is the better.

He wouldn't disagree.

He folds Julie into his arms. Her heart thunders in his ears. He's allowed in so many since he arrived in this world. Friends, family. He's afraid of losing each of them, and yet a part of him knows the inevitability that awaits. That no matter how he struggles, how tightly he clutches, they will be taken from him as the others have.

But he refuses to simply let it happen. For as long as he can protect them, he will.

He says nothing further, just holds her. Only when she stirs does he release her a little. His fingers rest gently in her hair. ]

[ Minutes pass and she stays tucked against him, letting him envelope her. His warmth, his smell, the solidness of his frame. She has always found his presence comforting -- since basically their first meeting, he has radiated a sense of calm that keeps her grounded. It's not related to their actual relationship, though that has magnified the effect; he is just, as she has told him multiple times, very even-keeled. She finds that soothing, given her own much more erratic temperament. Right now, she sinks into that.

When she does finally lift her head, she remains just as close, barely a few inches from his face. Her face is still flushed pink from crying (as well as embarrassment from doing so). She puts one hand to his face. Her voice is almost a whisper. ]

I love you. [ It's something she has no difficulty saying to other people on a frequent basis. But this love makes her feel exposed in ways she never has before, and so she has mostly held it back. A defense mechanism that takes a toll. ] You make me better.

[ As much as he hadn't wanted to provoke any shitty memories, he's glad they spoke. Mostly, he wants to make sure Julie is okay. All of this, it feels as if it falls on his shoulders. Not even in the sense that he holds any particular blame for what happened—he knows it isn't as simple as that—but because this is his family.

For a few moments, he watches her. Like him, he thinks she's changed, as well. Maybe in ways neither of them is fully conscious of. More and more, he feels solid where he stands. The people he left behind no longer weigh as much on his mind.

They'll be fine without him. The ones who need him most, they're here now. And he would be lying if he said he didn't need them in turn.

He doesn't answer in words. Instead, he closes the distance between them, lips brushing hers. Their foreheads touch, and he lets his fingers curl around her wrist. She smells faintly sweet as always. The wine sits forgotten. ]

Edited 2023-08-13 18:10 (UTC)

[ It's a sword that cuts both ways. Geralt feels responsible for his family, but Julie feels responsible for hers, and that includes both him and Ciri. It all still feels like her fault -- if she had just been able to stop herself, if she had told Geralt immediately instead of getting twisted up in the shame and confusion, then maybe things would have gone differently. One less pawn for the demon, and possibly less incentive for it to snatch Ciri.

Geralt doesn't blame her. He doesn't want to be rid of her. That's all she can want from the situation. But she still wishes she could have done everything differently.

She kisses him softly, her thumb running over his cheek, then peeks up at him from under low lids. Her free hand is placed flat against his chest, over his heart. ]

[ Everyone, he thinks, wishes they'd done things differently in the events that led up to the confrontation. He knows Sam feels responsible for Ciri going missing under his nose. Castiel believes he should've seen the signs sooner.

Hindsight is hindsight. In the end, it's over. They aren't unscathed, but they are alive. That's enough.

His heart beats the same slow, steady pace it often does. He's a touch bronzed from all that time under the desert sun, and being home in the city means he's a bit more put-together than he is when travelling. His hair was brushed, at least, sometime within the past 24 hours.

When he draws back, his fingers linger around her wrist. ]

[ She doesn't take her arm from his grasp. Instead, she shifts until she curls up next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. Is there more of a conversation to be had? Maybe. But she is at about her limit for vulnerability for at least the next six months.

Twisting her wrist, she laces her fingers through his, squeezing his hand. Missing someone, actually missing them, is a fairly new development for her. Sure, she misses her parents, her friends and family, Lloyd. But their absence doesn't feel as heavy as Geralt's does, when he's gone for weeks. And so much heavier now, after the year they've had so far. ]

I missed you. [ She's already said it since he returned, but it still stands true. ] I'm glad you're back.

[ He leans back on the couch, content to sit with her. Afterwards, probably, he will spend the night with her. No one's expecting him to be anywhere, and Geralt hasn't any trouble making himself at home in the space of others once they've invited him. Maybe it comes with never having a home of his own outside of the winter months. ]

So did I. [ He looks forward to seeing her again. It's good to have people who bring him back. Deep down, he needs that. Even before, he'd had his brothers. They aren't here now, but he's got a differrent family to return to. ]

You could come with me someday. [ He's only teasing. He knows she isn't interested in toiling under the scorching sun for weeks while monsters lurk in every corner. ] I roast a fine lizard.

[ Both wineglasses ghost through the air, first his and then hers, carried in her phantom hand. Leaning into his side, she takes a drink and sighs. She still feels a bit raw, which is perhaps to be expected when discussing one's deepest fears, but she thinks she'll be fine. ]

Maybe somethin' short. A few days. [ Julie is actually not a stranger to camping -- where she's from, there's not a ton of other options for getting away. She can't say it's ever been her favorite activity, and she's never really done it in the desert, but a weekend? Why not. At the very least, she knows she can conjure enough for it to not be a miserable time. ] You'll really hafta tempt me on lizard, though.

[ She will bring sausages. ]

[ He hums, considering. The Badlands is no place to camp, but the hills to the east are prettier, more vibrant, and far less treacherous while still a good distance from the city. She'd like it, he thinks. Travelling has been ingrained in him from a young age. He's come to enjoy it. He can admit easier these days that sometimes, it's an experience he wants to share.

His arm slips around her shoulder. ]

I've won you over before. [ There's a faint tilt to his lips. He takes the wine. Sausages will be appreciated. He won't turn down any upgrades to the food.

When it's later, he brings both her and the wine to the bedroom; in the morning, he helps her put a few belongings onto the new shelf. He is thinking about another trip with her—Aquila was pleasant, a memory he reflects on fondly—and he means to do it soon. In autumn, perhaps, when it isn't so fucking hot, and while things remain quiet. ]

You might win me over on most things, but I didn't eat lizards in the apocalypse, so I don't plan to start now.

[ She beams into his shoulder. Honestly, if there was anyone she would taste a lizard for, it would be him. But it would be the world's tiniest taste.

Sausages and roasted marshmallows it is. ]

[ CLOSED ] though my feet my rest

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