( ᴏᴘᴇɴ/ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ ) Wᴏɴᴅᴇʀᴏᴜs ᴀᴘᴘᴀʀɪᴛɪᴏɴ ᴘʀᴏᴠɪᴅᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄɪᴀɴ

[righteously]

WHO: Dean & Others
WHAT: catch-all for Things
WHEN: December
WHERE: cadens and horizon
WARNINGS: the typical warnings that come with a Winchester — violence, adult language, alcohol abuse, other such nonsense

Dᴏᴏ, ᴅᴏᴏ, ᴅᴏᴏ, ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴ' ᴏᴜᴛ ᴍʏ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴅᴏᴏʀ

Comments

[righteously]

Gratitude? Are you- ( WHAT IS THIS HORSESHIT ) I don't get gratitude, I get arrest warrants.

( Begging your pardon Mr. Frodo, he's just gonna throw a tiny little tantrum here and vent to an unwilling audience. But, to be fair, generally all of Dean's audiences are unwilling when he goes off on a rage tangent. )

You mean to tell me- ( A pause, not for clarity but for dramatic emphasis. ) That you're out there getting paid, meanwhile I'm getting my ass kicked up and down three dimensions, hustling pool for milk money, and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt? Do you know how many times I've had to fake my own death because some jackass townie doesn't- I'm-

( Maximum capacity. Internal explosion. )

You know what- never mind. I can't.

( When he finally flops down across from Geralt, it's almost defiantly. Defiant at the injustices of the universe and- )

Screw your world. ( No, you know what- ) Screw my world. I'm done. I'm retired.

( He's not. )

[gynvael]

[ Uh-huh.

This is far from the first time someone has ranted at him unprompted—thank you, Jaskier—and Geralt lets it go unheeded and uninterrupted. He is, in fact, listening; he's always listening, but his attention appears to be elsewhere up until Dean collapses in a huff before him. There's a lot he could say in response, more than a handful of assumptions he could correct. He does not because none of it matters for what they're doing and Geralt has no desire to go down the long list of why being a Witcher is not an enviable position.

His only reply is an especially deadpan, ] Your resignation will be a great loss.

[ Look, he's certainly made the decision to take a job without pay, for one reason or another, and he's regretted it more than once but a choice is a choice. He has little sympathy for Dean acting like he was forced into indentured servitude killing monsters. If Dean never thought to demand a few coins in exchange, that's not his problem. The man isn't even a Witcher or anything close, so he obviously took up the profession of his own free will as an unremarkable human. Maybe he should've become a stable boy if he's so put off about this.

Regardless— ] We're starting. I haven't got all day. You'll need physical contact to make the entry. Once you're inside, you're on your own.

[righteously]

( Your resignation will be a great loss.

Have, just... the flattest bitchest bitchface in the history of bitchfaces.

Shut up, Geralt, who even asked you. Except him, just now, but nobody should ever listen to him. )

Good lookin' out. Really feeling the sympathy rolling out of your chiseled jaw.

( Which is to say, he wasn't actually looking for any. He's just a salty asshole with a burning need to inform everyone around him why he's salty and an asshole. Call it a hobby.

He sticks a hand out. Gives his fingers a little wiggle. )

Whatever. Come on, grumpy bear. Kumbaya me already, and don't get fresh before the wedding.

[gynvael]

[ Have even more sympathy out of him, which is precisely none. Though there's an undeniable interest that lies beneath: if not money or misguided glory, then why do it? Is it vengeance? Is he protecting someone? (The angel?) Geralt wants to say he doesn't sense any drive for revenge on Dean, but they also don't know each other well enough for him to draw conclusions.

He leaves it for now. Takes Dean's hand instead with a sigh. ] Concentrate. You'll sense a pull, a sort of tether. Grasp it and follow it. I'll await you inside.

[ His eyes fall shut. It takes longer as of late for him to shut the thoughts out, to clear his head, but soon enough, he finds that connection that's opened to it Singularity. He arrives the same place he does every time, in front of the fortress that rises above the snowy peaks he's built.

There, he waits. He can give it time; he's aware not everyone find their focus as quickly as he can. He'll...come back out if Dean doesn't appear within ten, fifteen minutes. Or the man can simply shake him awake in the real world. ]

[righteously]

( In Dean's defense, he tries. It isn't some sugar-filled toddler-esque attention deficit that screws him up, although that wasn't exactly outside of the realm of possibility.

It's something else.

He hasn't been alone with his own thoughts in a long time — by design. It's only been a few days since he got out of Purgatory, and he's been violently repressing every intrusive flashback that's popped into his head since. Meditation... it was never destined to be an easy feat for him. Maybe three minutes pass before snapshots start to filter in. He dismisses them aggressively, one after another, brow furrowed deeply and a slow scowl spreading across his face.

One particularly brutal encounter is enough to have him jerking himself up to his feet and pacing away from Geralt, heart rate and adrenaline going nuts. )

This isn't working. ( He declares, practically a bark. ) There's gotta be another way.

[gynvael]

[ The moment Dean lets go abruptly and stands, it's more than enough to shake Geralt out of the Horizon. The world dissipates, going blank. He cracks open an eye, then the other, and looks up at the hunter.

He takes in the running pulse, the look on Dean's face.

Yeah. Been there. It's only over the past week or so that he's managed to slip into the Horizon for longer than a minute or two since he was. Taken. He won't ask about it, but his expression says he's reading something here about the situation. ]

There isn't. [ His reply is frank but not unkind. There's exactly one way to enter the Horizon, and either you learn to do it somehow or you can't. ] When you can't sleep. What do you do?

[ Doesn't matter how shit your sleep is or how little of it you get; almost everyone has something they do when they can't get any, at some point. ]

[righteously]

( Pacing away a few steps has the neat little side-perk that he can drag his hand across his mouth mostly privately — at the very least, he gets to keep his expression to himself long enough to lock it down. It's a quick enough wrestling match that he manages to turn back around to answer the question.

It's blunt, a little grumpy, and just a hair sarcastic. You'd think the man invented the concept of sassy deadpan himself one Tuesday night in the shower. )

Drink, shoot something, and get laid. Preferably in that order.

( Only mostly true. The getting laid thing has fallen by the wayside for a couple years now.

What he doesn't need to overshare: he just doesn't. He keeps going until he physically can't anymore. During the bad times, he's been known to ride by on four hours of sleep for a couple days straight with the help of caffeine and the occasional friendly upper. During the good times, he can usually zen himself sleepy by working on his car, cleaning guns, cleaning anything really, packing salt rounds, whatever manual labor he can do to distract himself for a few hours.

Good thing he totally has his car, guns, and ammo to work with right now. )

[gynvael]

[ Fair. There's a stretch of silence where Geralt gives no response other than a sigh, though he isn't ignoring Dean, either. He's only thinking. He can gather when he can no longer be of help; this is a little more than he'd anticipated when he'd first agreed, and he simply hasn't got that much time or that much of himself to give right now. He's not one to waste efforts on what he already knows will leave them both irritated at best and exhausted at worst.

He also doesn't want to leave Dean hanging; he'd said he'd help get him in and he intends to make good on that offer.

There is another who will make that time, though. He unfolds himself from the ground without a word. On a scrap of parchment, he inks the name of an inn in walking distance from where they are and hands it over. ]

Find Sam Wilson. Tell him I sent you. He'll help.

[ Is he foisting Dean and his troubles on Sam? A bit. (More than a bit.) But it isn't truthfully a comment on Dean. Perhaps if Dean had caught him a month or so back, Geralt would have been able to do more, been willing to try more. At the moment, he's just—not in that place. Dean will be in better hands with someone who's got more of their shit together. ]

[righteously]

I know that guy.

( Mostly uttered out loud because it's surprising — look at that, making friends already, way to go, Winchester.

A beat later the realization hits. He funnels annoyance into something that sounds an awful lot like sarcastic betrayal. )

Wait a second, did you just yoga divorce me? Damn, Gerald, here I thought we had something special.

( Realistically, that annoyance is almost entirely self-directed. The fact that he can't do this means there's something wrong with him. Not a new feeling, still a sucky one. Not that he's gonna let himself think about it — a strategy that's clearly working out for him so far. )

[gynvael]

[ He does? Of course he does. Who doesn't Sam fucking know? Even simpler, then. They're already friends. Unless Dean happens to find Sam intolerable, but it doesn't sound that way and the chances of that are slim. He can count on one hand the number of people who do not get along easily with Sam. Ironically one of them being Ciri.

Dean's irritation seems to roll off Geralt as easily as water over oil. His expression is not openly sympathetic, nor anything close to the sort—but there's something contemplative in it, even as he matches the sarcasm with his own dryness. ] I don't doubt you'll find his hand just as pleasant to hold. He'll get you where you need.

[ Sam is good, in other words. Reliable. However much his word is worth; they barely know each other, but Dean's followed him here and sought his help, so Geralt presumes there's a certain level of understanding between them. It's not trust, exactly, but perhaps along the lines wherein neither of them believe the other is liable to stab them in the back at this stage in time. ]

[righteously]

( Later on down the line he'll admit to appreciating how friggin' unflappable Geralt is. It takes a rare breed to fire back at Dean's attitude with that level of deadpan, let alone tolerate it in the first place. Impressive feat of patience, and pretty much exactly what it takes to make it through that initial answer all negative emotions with sarcasm layer.

Right now, though... not quite as much admiration going on.

He makes an effort to check himself, though it doesn't completely disguise the storm clouds hanging overhead. It's the thought that counts or something, right? )

Great. Well. Good hustle, thanks for giving it a shot, anyway.

( Guess he's gotta roll out to see a man about a brain-horse. No reason to start questioning Geralt's advice all of a sudden. He makes for the door without much preamble, just to stop a pace or two away from it and shoot another look back. )

Remind me about that devil's trap. I'm serious. I don't know if a demon where I'm from can hijack a- whatever you are, but I'm not all that interested in finding out.

[gynvael]

[ Geralt has found his perch on the edge of the table now that they've given up on the Horizon trip. His gaze is unwavering, but not scrutinizing. If he's got questions—and he does—he knows when not to ask them. There's time yet for answers, anyway, if Dean is about to drift in and out of his path from now on. Which he suspects will happen. By sending Dean to Sam, Geralt is aware he's effectively assured they will see each other again in some capacity.

He cants his head, neither rejecting nor accepting the concept of a devil's trap. If Dean is insistent, he can't see the harm. Either it'll do nothing or it'll do something. So long as it doesn't get in his way.

It's only as Dean is halfway out the door that Geralt gives a reply of a kind—not towards anything Dean's explicitly said or asked, but to a question lurking in his words. ] A Witcher.

[ There's a finality to it, like he neither expects nor is willing to answer any follow up to that statement. Dean can take it as it is on the way to Sam's. ]