ᴀʟʟ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ's ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ (open.)

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Cadens, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: A catch-all of open & closed starters.
Warnings: A little grief, a little alcoholism, probably canon-typical violence and suicidal ideation. Mentions of fruit turbo-hell.

I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ sᴀʟᴠᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Nᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
I ɢᴏᴛ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀs sᴜᴄʜ I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴀsɪʟʏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ
Aʟʟ I ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴅᴏ ɪs ʙᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ
ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Comments

u didn't see that.

[gynvael]

[ What? Geralt blinks. Somehow, the news takes him aback. Wasn't it only last week where she occupied every corner of the continent along with the rest of them, a fixture of centuries? But he knows that isn't the truth. Did she simply never return from that vision? Or had she vanished afterwards? ]

I'm sorry.

[ They were something. It's complicated when they were already a myriad of taut connections made stranger by the reality they abruptly shared. The bond it grew into that he didn't see coming, one only he now holds in his head. Will never be able to speak to her about.

The timing can't have helped. Whatever Dean had with Jo, eight hundred years of her safe and sound, then this...that's shit to wake up to.

He gives Dean an out, opting not to pry into his state of mind. ] How is Castiel faring?

i see all things 👁👄👁

[righteously]

( To I'm sorry he says nothing, only returns a single nod of acknowledgment. Yeah, he is too. He appreciates the sentiment, but the words sit hollow behind his breast. It's not Geralt's fault.

Unfortunately, that out isn't as out as he thinks it is. That's not his fault either, it's just... complicated. He scrubs a hand over his face; weighs how much to spill in this answer. )

I don't know. ( Which is kind of an admission in and of itself. ) Better than me, I think, but uh... I don't know. We haven't really... talked about it.

( They haven't talked about anything, because conversation is going to be a minefield and neither of them have been ready to trigger those explosions just yet. They'll get around to it, but there's a lot to navigate.

Building a pool table is easier. )

[gynvael]

[ That is an admission. So is Better than me.

Geralt studies Dean. Not for the first time, he sees the spectre of feathered wings spanning the room. They come in bits and pieces, his memories, like images from a fading dream, but some things are clearer than others. Dean has been a friend for a time. They were closer than he allows most others to be. Now, there's something more. And one might argue it resulted from a mere illusion, but—

What difference does it make? When he sees no reason to doubt the depths that eventually grew?

He returns to sawing. ] Do you want to?

[ With Castiel or with him—Dean can answer it how he wants. It's an offer more than anything, for what might be weighing on his friend's mind.

Besides, like building this damn table, it's easier for Geralt to turn his focus outward. ]

[righteously]

Not really.

( Is the answer that comes at first, a little flat, deadpan. It's not quite a joke, but... it's the closest he can get to making one. Deflection with humor is a coping mechanism.

It doesn't last long. His sawing starts, then stops again a couple of second later. He stares down at his hands, at the tool, at the wood. )

We got some memories from back home, on top of... all that. ( Memories stacked on memories, but these have been solid. They haven't blurred. They feel fresh, and recent. )

We're both dead. He went... maybe a couple of months before I did. Permanent, this time. For real, end of the line, forever dead.

( Jo got sent home to die. If he gets bounced out of here, he'd be following her to the grave. He's not sure how he feels about it. It's all too... big, too fresh, it feels like too large an obstacle for him to tackle on his own. )

[gynvael]

[ His saw steadily slows with Dean's explanation until it eventually stops. Geralt rests his hands on the wooden plank, lifting his head to observe Dean askance. When Dean had said he was done—in that moment, he felt the uncertainty, the loss, but afterwards...seeing his friend alive and well, he wanted to believe it meant nothing more than one of many memories of a near-death experience. The kind Dean returned from again and again in a way no mortal should, long before immortality was technically his to have.

Men and the divine both have their limits, it seems.

He lowers the saw and abandons any pretence of working. He captures the bottle of liquor instead. ]

That was your memory. [ The one that showed him to truth. Geralt gives a soft, wry scoff before falling silent. His hand is still around the bottle as he watches the sawdust around his feet. ] The first lesson we were taught was death. I expect it. I wait for it. And then suddenly, in that reality, she stayed her hand. Not only for me, but for all of us.

[ He studies the lip of the bottle without drinking. ] I awoke half-expecting to find you gone.

[ A confession of his own, the closest he will come to saying that he was truly afraid of losing Dean. They don't speak of it often; it's a reality they accept, a fact of the life they lead. Why waste time buried under its shadow? But he's out of practice. He has forgotten what it was to be ready. ]

[righteously]

( The sawing stops. Dean turns his eyes toward Geralt, studying his face in the wake of that comment. Reading through it, searching for the deeper meaning. Hard to say whether he sees it clearly or not, but he thinks he does.

The nature of what they are, what they do, how they were raised, makes them braced to accept loss. It makes them lie to themselves, to pretend like they're better equipped to deal with it than normal people. Like closing the doors to what they feel isn't just a different kind of self-comfort.

What he sees here makes him feel a touch of guilt — just a prickle of it. He lowers his gaze back down to the table again for the confession that escapes: )

Honestly? I think a part of me expected that, too.

( Expected, hoped maybe. )

[gynvael]

[ His gaze lingers on Dean. It's difficult to know how accurate his memories are of their conversation, but he knows Dean, has known him well even before their lives intertwined for decades. And he thinks he isn't wrong to hear something that is closer to relief than concern when the topic of his death rears its head.

He doesn't raise the matter. Perhaps he will another time, but—maybe Dean can read the flicker on his face, anyhow. They're all tired. Ciri grants a vibrancy to the thought of walking this earth another eight hundred years. He wants to see her live out her years. Without her, though, he isn't sure where he'd be. Existing, he imagines. Surviving as he once did before he found his family—like an old wolf clinging to life out of pure instinct.

He lifts the bottle to his lips. There's something else on his mind, something this conversation has brought forward. He's spoken to no one about it except Jaskier and Yennefer. Now, he finds himself saying, ] Ciri tells me I meet my end in her time. She hoped to find me within the Wild Hunt, but...

[ He hasn't told her he doubts there is much of him to find. He was already beyond Yennefer's magic when they took him. It doesn't matter. Their paths led them here. He has no intention of straying backwards.

Either way: ] Seems you and I can't be rid of each other so easily.

[righteously]

( Ciri tells me I meet my end; his attention snaps back up to Geralt again, an unhappy furrow in his brow. He's the purest hypocrite in the world, to think his own death is alright but Geralt's isn't. He knows that. It's just-

Eight hundred years is a long damn time. Even without that, two is practically a decade for the kind of lives they lead. If there's one thing Dean's never been good with, it's letting go. )

So, we're here, then. This place, this world... this is it. For as long as it lasts.

( This is home. There's no going back, this is forever for them both — a concept that might be slightly more literal than either of them are comfortable with, but that's a bridge they'll have to cross way, way later.

This place is his future. The people in it are his future. It's that last part that scares him more than anything, and Jo's absence is a glaring, gaping hole. That's what prompts him to reach out, settling a firm hand on Geralt's forearm. There's a thick, hoarse cut to his voice, but it's still undeniably an order: )

Hey- don't you leave me here. Don't make me wake up to you being gone one day, you understand me?

( Yeah; hypocrisy. He doesn't care. It's not a promise Geralt has any ability to keep, not something he has any control over. He doesn't care about that, either. It has always been this: his people can live without Dean Winchester, but Dean Winchester can't live without his people. Considering he's barely even sure he wants to live at all just yet, it'd be a little too much for him to swallow right now. )

[gynvael]

[ Yeah. They're here. Or, if they must, they may go elsewhere—another world that tears open should this one prove unsustainable. Geralt isn't sure. Ciri is capable of much. He would never ask her to put herself in harm's way—nor would he ask her to sit idly by should they need her. As if she would even agree. He knows her better than that.

His hope is things will not go that far.

Dean's grasp catches him a little off guard. Geralt holds his gaze. Perhaps it is contradictory, but the desire to protect will always birth hypocrisy; he can't hold it against Dean when he's done the same. There are things he would give for his family he knows will pain them—has pained them—that he would not accept from them in return. It's simply how it is.

He doesn't say that Dean once made him awaken to learn he was gone. Take by some monster in the sea, then spat back up wrong. And though he seldom makes promises he can't keep, that isn't what this is about.

He gives Dean's shoulder a brief squeeze. ] I won't.

[righteously]

( An instinct rises in him like an echo — something old, something new. Something that cropped up in that alternate timeline, but not... not so late that it feels entirely fake. His memories, blurry and inconsistent as they are, hold the impression that they started something well before godhood ever took root in either of them.

Back when they were still people. Back when they were still themselves.

And it stuck around long enough to become familiar, to become a habit. In another life, this would be the kind of moment where he'd close the distance between them because he was comfortable enough to do it, because he'd done it a hundred times before. It would be chaste, but it would telegraph something he's always been terrible at putting into words.

This isn't that life, it's not who they were in what he considers reality. There's the matter of what he deserves, and what he manages to ruin when he puts his hands on it.

So, after a few too many seconds locked in place, his hand falls away from Geralt, and his eyes drop back down to the table before them. Lamely, his throat thick, he simply says: )

Good.

( And he wraps his hand around the bottle instead. )

[gynvael]

[ He can only presume what Dean is thinking, but he feels as if he might know. They did share something. He shared it with a few of people, ones he does not in their present day, but Dean is different because Dean is the only one wherein it crossed his mind before the Singularity's vision took them. Here and there, a half-formed notion in the firelight—how it once was when he travelled with Jaskier. Long nights under the stars make for wandering thoughts when your only companions are one another and some horses. Sometimes it comes to fruition years later, sometimes not at all. He has no true aspirations attached, of course. Just musings that come and go.

Now he has memories that are significantly more than musings.

This is not that life, no. It isn't not that life, either, but he doesn't need it to be anything one way or another. For him, it is enough that he has his friend. It's always been enough. The rest, he is content to leave to time, however much of it they end up having together. He supposes they'll have to see what the world's miserly hands are willing to grant them.

He lets Dean take the alcohol, releases his hold, and returns his attention to the table they're building. ] You know I can't leave before I claim at least one win against you.

[ So maybe, he will simply never claim one. ]

[righteously]

( His lips twitch up as best they can, a forced smile he shoots Geralt's direction. He appreciates it. The sentiment behind it, the lightness of it, the attempt at good humor to peel him back from his internal downward spiral.

Veering him away from a mental catastrophe, and back on a path to the present moment.

The weight feels too heavy on his chest, hard to breathe through, so he shifts the spotlight away from himself for just a minute to recover. )

So how'd you kick it? Did she mention? You go down fighting a Balrog after all?

[gynvael]

[ Now that's a question. Geralt huffs, brushing away sawdust. ]

A rabble in the streets. A mob of humans that didn't appreciate the rest of us who were not.

[ Same old song. He didn't ask Ciri for the particulars; telling him was difficult enough, and he saw no reason to make her recount every detail. The hands of some human tells him plenty. And what would have been the alternative? Alone in a bog to a water hag? He was never destined to leave this life in glory. He isn't sure he'd have wanted to.

At least Ciri knew what happened to him. He didn't simply...fail to return home one day. ]

You? Any better than speared by a peasant's son?

[righteously]

( A rabble in the streets; a mob of literal peasants. This is not at all an appropriate response, but despite the heaviness of the conversation so far and the grim subject matter, Dean's face breaks out into a dumb grin.

Man, is he glad Geralt's death wasn't cool. If this man died single-handedly beating freakin Smaug or some shit and saving the kingdom and Dean had to stand here telling his own stupid death story, he'd die a second time on the spot.

As it stands: )

A rabble in a barn. Some low-level who-cares vampire shoved me onto a freakin' nail. I got rebarred in the back. I went out like a human coat rack.

( So, no. Definitely not better than a peasant's son. Two peas in a stupid, stupid pod Gerald. )

[gynvael]

[ His eyebrow lifts, less offended, more curious what that reaction is about.

Mm. So that's what it's about. Funny. What decides an eternal rest for a man like Dean? When the forces around him grow tired of intervening? What made this death different from the others?

Nothing, possibly. Maybe it's a case of time catching up to all of them. He'd been done, as well. By the time they were at that market square, it was over. And he wonders if Destiny decided his path simply ran out of road. That he had given all there was to give to his daughter.

But she had looked for him, anyway, and found him here. So perhaps none of it means fuck all.

He looks thoughtful for a moment before shrugging it off. ]

I met a knight once who died taking a shit in the woods.

[ Always some unfortunate bastard who had it worse, at least. ]

[righteously]

( He shouldn't say it. He knows he shouldn't say it. It's inappropriate. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong tone. They're doing some very serious bonding over here. A man is dead. Technically, three men are dead.

The very, very pregnant pause displays just the pure lengths of the struggle goes through, mouth twitching between a smirk and then muscled back down to serious, only to twitch again.

And then he loses the battle, and blurts out: )

Sounds like a shitty night.

( )