abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] head down, hands up

[ His eyes land on Dean before he looks over at the furniture, the lights. The music is—different, somewhat, than what he finds in that club down the Horizon road, but at least he's now familiar with hearing music coming out of nowhere in the first place. ]

Quaint. [ Which might apply to the tavern or it might apply to Dean's comment.

A vague tilt of the bottle functions as a thank you when the drink comes his way. He's found Amos cleaning his shotgun before, and Dean seems to be doing much the same. There's passing interest as he takes in all the pieces; that's where his attention lingers as he slides onto one of the old stools. No judgement. He's sat sharpening a sword that doesn't need sharpening more than a few times.

The atmosphere's familiar, true enough. Geralt makes himself at home without much effort—in part due to that, in part because he tends to occupy most places in the same manner: as though he belongs, in the sole fact that he knows he doesn't. When everywhere's liable to tell you to fuck off, you learn to make room for yourself. ]

This is where your people gather? Or just you?

( He picks up on his absent cleaning as they both settle in again, mainly because he likes having something to do with his hands. It's slower now, an afterthought rather than a directed focus.

He smiles gently down at the pieces at the question — just a hint of something bittersweet in an otherwise genuinely fond expression. )

Out there, back home? ( Since there's two ways to answer it, he'll go with both. ) Used to be, 'til someone burned it down.

( RIP Ash; he'd be more sad about it if dude wasn't living his best life in the afterlife. It was a long time ago, it doesn't particularly leave him feeling vulnerable when he mentions it anymore. )

Here? ( A little more strain in his smile. ) Cas is gone. Haven't seen Amos around in a while, think he might be gone, too. Party of one lately. Just me and the imaginary strippers.

[ He has in mind other hunters—if they find each other in this one place or if Dean just has his own family he meets here—but he's distracted by the answer. That it burned down, for one (walls don't last forever; perhaps he's not surprised). That Castiel is gone, for another. Sam told him about Steve only two weeks ago and Amos, he knows. Amos never appeared one day for their usual lessons and when he went to look for the man's ship, it was empty. Already starting to be swallowed up by its surroundings.

He pauses before he confirms, ] Amos, too.

[ Hardly the first time he's lost someone close. It's still shit. It also just is. The number of losses pile on and the world doesn't slow for any of it. And he could say he's sorry, but empty sentiments never feel enough. Something tells him Dean doesn't want to hear it, anyhow.

Instead, he leans forward on the counter. He knows how to push past what isn't meant to be dwelled upon. There's a weight to his gaze, but nothing that he says out loud. ] You'll have to find me sufficient for now.

( It just is; that's the way he's been handling it, too, for the most part. Can't say he's particularly broken up about Amos, but he did like that guy's company. It's a shame. Cas... Cas is getting compartmentalized into that "repress don't stress" part of his brain he's been perfecting over the years. More or less successful, in the sense that it'll just accumulate slowly over time to eventually come out in one massive outburst — but that's a problem for Future Dean.

That look earns Geralt a half-hearted appreciative smile in return, his lips pulling up on one side. )

Long as you can hold your whiskey and learn how to play a half-decent game of darts, I guess I'll make do.

( Kidding, obviously. Geralt's good company. Might not exactly be on Benny levels — months fighting back to back in Purgatory will do that — but it'd hit harder than Amos did if he spontaneously bounced.

Not kidding about those darts, though. It's so freaking hard to find competition anymore. )

[ Compartmentalizing is where they're both at. Geralt has not stopped to think about any particular loss individually. Feels like if he does, it'll cascade and he's got too much going on in the immediate presence for that. Too many people looking towards him.

Maybe there's more than one reason he's itched to get back on his horse. Easier to move on when you're actually moving.

The half-smile is matched in turn. In answer, he produces not a dart, but a slim throwing knife from his boot. He's come across darts in Cadens. They're foreign to him, the flimsy weight of one unsatisfying. They are, in other words, not as fun to throw, even if Geralt will never use the word fun to describe his enjoyment of an activity.

He understands the value of darts, where crowded taverns are concerned. But they're in the Horizon. They can throw as many knives as they please without nailing some poor bastard in the eye who stood up at the wrong time.

He raises an eyebrow. Well? ]

( Geralt and his horse, Dean and his car. The urge to migrate's the same. He's not used to sitting in one place for so long. Those days-long hunting trips help, but not enough. It ain't the same as driving halfway across the country.

Echoed on his end, one eyebrow arches up at the produced knife — amusement rather than challenge — and then his smile rounds out to a proper smirk. )

Oh, we're doing this? ( No need to not-ask twice; ya boi takes about five seconds to reassemble his stupid imaginary gun before he shifts himself kindly to his feet, ambling around the pool table toward the dart board. Rather, to where the dart board used to be, swapped out for something a little sturdier with barely a thought.

He flips his own knife around in his hand, then gives Geralt a nod. )

Alright. Impress me. Let's see what we're working with.

[ They're doing this. Like Dean, competition's near impossible for Geralt to find unless he's with another Witcher. Or Ciri. When was the last time he even missed a target? Magic horseshit trickery aside. Probably not since he was a boy or else a time he'd have been too drunk to remember. Happens, on rare occasions. Mostly when he was younger, by which he means fifty or sixty as opposed to his current hundred some-odd.

He did glimpse Dean's aim out in the desert. With the beast they found. (No, he will not refer to it by that name.) He can acknowledge it was more than decent, so consider him intrigued.

He rounds the table alongside Dean. Geralt, ever efficient, does not draw things out nor does he bother to optimally position himself—just tips his beer back before he lets the dagger fly with a casual flick. The blade lands neatly in the center of the wood board. He looks to Dean, waiting for what he has in answer.

Entirely possible, they may need something to make this more interesting than merely seeing who can aim. ]

Edited 2022-04-03 23:25 (UTC)

( Hurling a blade at Geralt Jr. wasn't too big of a feat — the target was huge. If he'd missed it, frankly he wouldn't deserve to be out there.

Good news for Mr. Nobody Can Keep Up over there, though; Geralt may outpace him in strength and stamina and sheer badassery and leather pants, but knife throwing doesn't take magic. They're on pretty even ground.

He flips the knife again, handle-out this time, the blade between his fingers.

One smooth flick later, and it thunks into the wood directly beside Geralt's. Just a few centimeters off from even.

It's followed by a look and a (maybe somewhat a little cocky) shrug.

Yep, they're gonna need to spice this up, or get a hell of a lot more drunk. The latter of which... still might not do it, considering how much practice he has drinking and hunting. )

Edited 2022-04-03 23:34 (UTC)

[ The faint squint of his eyes is both considering and about as close to impressed as Geralt ever expresses openly. Mm. Yeah. They'll need more. Something that doesn't go as far as what his kind get up to in Kaer Morhen. (The winters are long and they're durable folk who indulge in too much ale. Blood's been spilled. Rats have been involved. Vesemir has thrown them all outside into the blizzard before.)

He retrieves both daggers from the board. It shifts, then, into a square piece of wood, marked with a plain grid: filled dark and not, like a chessboard.

Throwing however you like is simple. He offers Dean his knife back with one extra blade and an added caveat: ] No spinning on black. Half spin on white. Every proper strike on both, the other drinks.

[ They can't play for misses; it'll never work. But this might do. Not as if he needs a reason to be drinking in the first place. ]

( He's gonna have to pass on the rat and the blizzard. Bloodshed and ale, though... that one's familiar. Probably off the table considering Geralt could likely arm-wrestle Dean straight through the freaking floorboards — he might go hand-to-hand with a few roided-up demons, but none of those annoying bastards actually know how to fight. Enhanced strength only gets you so far if you don't know how to use it. Geralt does.

Color him impressed with the ingenuity here. Damn, Gerry. )

Alright. ( Agreeably; that one's just challenging enough to get real interesting real fast. ) But we're doing it with something a little stronger than beer.

( Because... frankly, Geralt could nail it thirty times and he'd still not wind up feeling anything. Defeats the whole purpose of a drinking game.

Give him about two seconds here — when he comes back, it's with two short glasses and a bottle of Jack. Shots are a little too much, he thinks, but sipping on something stronger's a good middle-man. He plunks the haul down on a small table a step or three behind them, then gives his knife a few contemplative little flips like he's absently assessing the weight of it.

Mostly, he's just fishing around for a decent conversation topic. Question for a question on the side is like one of those unwritten rules when it comes to stuff like this. )

So how'd you meet Jaskier?

( He flings the knife. It doesn't spin and it lands on black, but hot damn he can already tell he's gonna screw this up soon. )

Edited 2022-04-04 01:12 (UTC)

[ He pulls up a stool to perch on while Dean fetches more liquor. He gives it a sniff when it comes to him—plenty strong—and there's an ease that settles in the air. He loves his people. He does. What he's built up in Cadens, they're important to him. The home he's worked to put together for them, flower stalls and bookshelves and a fucking pet gryphon in its own cozy bed. But all of that's new. A large piece of him lives here, maybe always will: in places that smell of old ale, musty wood, that look as if they've seen a few battles of their own. In half-arsed drinking games for the sake of it, because it's better than sinking into the shit that follows them.

He's left that behind—his brothers where he could simply be without needing to explain himself. Who know because they've been precisely where he has before. Whether he's aware of it or not—and if he is, he sure as fuck isn't dwelling on it deeply—some part of him has started to seek out those edges of familiarity in others.

The blade turns in his hand. ] He recognized me in a tavern, cornered me. Followed me after I told him to fuck off. We were captured by some elves together and then he wrote a song.

[ Long story short, in other words. The point of the knife buries itself in white, with a single half-spin.

Normally, he'd return the same about Castiel. Given the circumstances, he asks instead, ] That's your car outside?

( In that long-running list of things they've got in common, scrawl on a little something about missing a brother and looking out for what he can find of his in others. It was easier with Cas around, because they both know him. Because Cas can help fill in a fraction of the family gap, even if the rest of the hole is the size of Texas and vaguely shaped like Sasquatch.

But the dude's gone, and so here Dean is with The Lovers subtly stitched into his clothes somewhere with not a single damn one of his people to show for it.

He pauses before throwing his second knife to shoot Geralt a look at the tail end of his explanation. Freaking elves? Really? Jesus. The rest lines up so neatly with what he's seen of the pair of them, he can practically picture it.

He shakes his head, then flings his knife — a full spin. He usually throws for impact, not finesse. Put a little too much shine on it. Under his breath: )

Damn it.

( Can't stay salty for too long given the new topic. Way to pick one off the short list of them that instantly perk him up. )

Damn straight. ( Does he know Geralt has no concept of the quality of cars? Yes. However. That does not seem to keep him from being a little boastful about it. ) Get a good look, Gerald. That's the best one you're ever gonna see, I don't care who's domain you vacation in.

Edited (pf → of, fuck) 2022-04-04 04:36 (UTC)

[ There's a hint of a shrug—he doesn't know which part of his three-second tale provoked that look, so no clarification is offered.

One eyebrow quirks upward when Dean's knife buries itself—pinpoint accurate, but failing else-wise. Good to know his extensive experience finding some semblance of a challenge amongst unnaturally trained monster hunters has proven worthwhile.

He hasn't any concept of quality, no. But between the cars that sit across the street and the few he's glimpsed in other people's pictures, memories, moving television sets—he has got a concept of aesthetic and that, at least, is a feature he can grasp. Like breeds of horses, he supposes. The connection's there. He's beginning to make it. ]

You're the first to create one. Might still be the only. [ As far as he can remember, no one else made their car inside this plane. It makes sense. Travel here isn't necessary. For most, that's all it would be: a mode of transport. But in the same way Geralt has made Roach despite not ever needing to ride her, Dean obviously has an attachment to his car that goes beyond moving from one place to another.

He lets loose his second dagger: it counts, though the blade lands a bit off-center of the square. Trick throws for recreation is not a craft he dedicates his time to honing. But a win's a win. He reaches behind them to fill the glasses. ] Drink.

Yeah, yeah. Shut up.

( He mutters dismissively, reaching for his glass and begrudgingly taking his sip. He exhales after the swallow, plunks it down, and points the knife hilt at Geralt. )

Don't get cocky, kid, that was a warm-up.

( Four knives still embedded into the board, and he makes no move to take them down. See if they can't fill the damn thing up, really spice up the finale.

Pure stubbornness gets him going for white again — it's a half-flip, but a little precariously close to the line. Not touching it. Still counts. Good enough for him. )

Guess that means you've never ridden in one?

( Said with a little quirk to the eyebrow and a sideways glance. Rhetorical question, the answer's obvious, and he's quite pleased to announce: )

Wellp, looks like I get to be the one to pop your cherry, Gerry. That is... freakin' delightful.

[ A look is cast in Dean's direction, almost a little bemused. That's a new one. ] I'm over thrice your years, boy.

[ Has he mentioned that? Perhaps not. Witcher longevity isn't a secret; he doesn't keep track of who he happens to have told or not.

He takes a drink from his beer. He can see what Dean's doing by leaving the daggers in—consider him on board. It's an element he's not ever played with before. Infinite knives don't exist in reality. Here, they can.

He flings another at black, and it lands well enough, just above Dean's blade on white. Once the squares start to fill, though—that'll be something to see. ]

Sounds enchanting. [ Said flatly, as usual. Not that he isn't intrigued. To him, cars appear to be horseless carriages. Geralt as a general rule prefers not to be stuck inside a metal carriage, but there must be an appeal to it all if these cars have overtaken half the spheres out there. ] I'm expecting a magnificent fucking display.

( So preoccupied is he with the way more important part of this conversation, his brain glosses over that first bit for a moment. He registers the words, but they're back-burnered for processing. Put in a queue to wait their turn. )

Oh. Oh it will be. ( He says with grave certainty, the utmost seriousness, most important words he ever said or something. ) Soon as we're done here...

( The I'm gonna blow your mind conclusion remains unspoken but implied. No speed limits in the horizon, baby. Just the right level of curves in these manufactured backwoods roads. Wide open for gunning it. It's gonna be real.

...and then, finally, that first part registers, just as he's about to throw his dagger. He stops, double-takes. )

Wait, did you say thrice?

[ Geralt tips back more of his ale, at one point sips the whisky, too, because it might be a drinking game but he's also just here to drink and he may as well even the ground between them on top of that. He has a leg up on how much liquor he can hold. More Witcher things, as Dean might say.

He watches the board, waiting for the knife to land. Not until Dean looks over at him does Geralt look back. ]

We're long-lived. [ Not immortal, as the rumours say, nor ageless. He looks away again. ] One of our...improvements.

[ If it is an improvement. Might have been a side effect the mages hadn't foreseen and decided it wasn't important to adjust one way or another. He's never quite determined which was which for some aspects of how they turned out.

Sometimes it feels like a joke. It isn't as though they're built to make anything fulfilling out of their long years. Doesn't exactly stop them from an early death, either. ]

( There's a contemplative moment on his end where he turns the knife over in his hand a few times. He could make a few off-hand comments about it, but as he's gotten older he's also gotten a little more pessimistic about life in general. The first thought that comes to mind is more like that's gotta be goddamn exhausting. He can't really imagine it. Hell, he can't see himself living another five years half the time, but another - what - sixty? Seventy?

After a beat, he throws his knife — no spin, dead center black. Thank god. )

Yeah, well. I did a forty-year stint in hell, so let's call it twice-ish. Drink.

( Not exactly an abundance of silver linings about that whole thing, so when he can use it as bragging rights for something? Damn right he'll take it. )

[ Now it's Geralt's turn to blink, bottle midway to his lips. His eyes narrow. From the start, Dean's rather smelled human and never stated himself to be anything other. But as he's come to know the man, he suspects that while Dean may be human in the most technical sense, there must be more to him.

He exchanges his beer for the whisky and dutifully takes his share. ] That's a spell longer than purgatory.

[ An invitation to expand on the matter is in there somewhere, but Dean can take it or leave it as he will. His concept of other realms and the possibilities they hold has shifted since they first spoke; in some ways, it makes some of what Dean has mentioned less puzzling. Some. A quarter, perhaps.

Another dagger and he tops off Dean's glass for him to take his drink. Eight knives buried in wood and about half the squares empty or so. They'll have to start slipping in between each other soon. ]

( Human in the most technical sense is a hilariously not-inaccurate description that Dean would both dislike and have a hard time disagreeing with. You die as much as he has, you see the crap he has, you get as close to becoming a demon as he has, you become a god damn vampire like he has, definitions start getting real blurry. He'd like to cling desperately to the whole humanity concept, though — call it a little ingrained prejudice against pretty much any other species. Product of his upbringing. He's better about it now than he was. One of his best friends is an angel and the other is a vampire, what a time to be alive.

He hums out an affirmative noise, not quite a grunt, that somehow clearly reads you can say that again.

And now comes the weird assessment of how to answer the unspoken curiosity obviously floating around about it now without oversharing — not because he gives much of a crap about telling it, but because his life story is a goddamn mile long and more than most people would probably be interested in hearing.

( Unless you're from that stupid universe where his life is a TV show, but that's gotta be some freak one-off. )

He'll offer up a slice of commentary from the lighter end of the spectrum that might clarify a little. )

I was alive in Purgatory. Dead for hell. Time... moves differently down there. Four months on Earth, forty years in the pit. Guess it depends on your perspective, but if we're having a dick measuring contest here, I'm claiming my honorary seventy, grandpa.

( Still dry, still joking, it's just a more grim, less of the haha I'm an idiot brand of humor than he tosses out to any passing jackass. Welcome to the darker, next level gallows humor floating around in his brain. It's reserved for VIPs. Congratulations.

It lends itself to a little more serious concentration, too — meaning his next knife is a perfect half-turn dead goddamn center. Definitely won't last through the rest of the board, but when he's in the zone, he's in the zone. )

[ That's a sentiment they both share—a reluctance for details not because it matters (not always because it matters, at least), but because the story is fucking complicated.

He flips his dagger idly in one hand while Dean mulls it over, eventually gives an answer that only opens up more questions. If it were the time, Geralt might've prodded further into the how and why: flow of time, entering and exiting another realm, what the fuck death has got to do with it—but it isn't. He makes note for later, and then merely throws his knife after Dean does. Edges close to a line, but not a miss. ]

Years lived are years lived. [ An acknowledgement of what Dean's told him, of what it means, without getting much into it. ] One ceases to keep track after awhile, anyhow.

[ If he stops to count, then he can say his age down to the year. Ask him to answer right then and there, though, and at best, Geralt can estimate himself a little past a hundred or so. Some days he thinks the years mean fuck all; other days, it feels like at least he's still here, surviving, and maybe that's worth more than nothing.

Maybe it's a sudden change in the music, maybe he's distracted considering what exactly Dean's little revelation could mean for the Singularity, but the next throw finally trips—landing too close over the line between two blades. Hm. Unfortunate. ]

I'll take your word for it.

( He sounds a little surface-level amused, but the truth is he gets the principal. Life feels long sometimes. Fast and slow, heavy as hell, with one year rolling into the next and the next and the next with the only significant difference being how much worse it can get. He's stopped tracking the passage of it by birthdays and he's swapped to a system more along the lines of after dad died or after hell or after Sam lost his soul or, more recently, after Purgatory.

Geralt misses, and Dean — having approximately zero grace, apparently — celebrates with a hissed out yesss and a barely-restrained little fist pump. )

Had me worried you were gonna punk me out, man. Guess he's not infallible.

( Followed by an encouraged throw of the knife — which does a full flip before it lands.

His face falls flat again. )

Ah, crap.

( That's what happens when you feel joy and throw knives. It's not part of the rules, but he takes himself a nice punishment drink anyway. )

[ If Dean were to ever mention it, they could compare notes on how they divide up the eras of their lives. Before and after. Geralt can't even say it was born after too many decades on the earth. He's been doing it since the day he found himself at a frozen stone fortress buried in the rocks—and any moment that occurred before then almost doesn't feel a part of his life. Not truly. Memories of someone he once knew, perhaps.

He lets Dean's celebration draw him out of his thoughts. There's a quiet huff. ] I've had more chances to learn from my mistakes.

[ He is fucking good at what he does. He's also got the scars from all the moments that brought him to where he is. A combination of long years and his inherent durability.

His knife buries itself in between two others, with a faint metallic ring where it barely grazes the blade beside it. What's left of his beer is emptied before he moves onto the whisky: a sign that he's steadily giving up on what little semblance remained that this competition isn't just an excuse to drink.

Besides, he's still too sober after this many daggers stuck to the board. They'll run out of room if he only drinks according to the rules. ]

( Dean grunts out a sound - either thoughtful or just acknowledgement - at that Hashtag Deep answer. Stands for a little too long considering the board like they're playing actual chess. This crap's reached the part where it's harder; there's no easy place to throw that isn't rendered tiny and overcrowded. If they were just zinging 'em in any way they wanted, that would be one thing. Figuring out how to half-flip something so it finishes its turn and straightens up enough to fit in there? That's a whole damn ordeal.

Never generally one to let things stay quiet too long, Dean plucks a question from the lighter end of the spectrum on his Questions About Geralt list. )

How 'bout family?

( He asks, finally lining himself up to take his shot. )

Do Witchers have siblings?

( He throws his blade. It looks like a total money-shot, but the tip catches on the hilt of the knife above it, and it clatters to the floor.

His head falls forward, and he expresses his displeasure to the floor. )

[ Geralt's moved from the stool to leaning against the table. He looks a bit contemplative, up until Dean says family. Then there's a noncommittal hum—depends on how one defines family. ]

We make our own. [ He picks up the next dagger, though he doesn't throw it. Dean's bounces off to the floor and his lips quirk just a hint—less from the miss, more from Dean's reaction. ] Vesemir raised four mutated boys. Before we were old enough to leave for the Path, for most of the year, it was only us. The others would drift in come winter. One or two less each time.

[ They're all family; all brothers, but not in the way most would imagine. Vesemir was both a mentor and a guardian. If he really thinks about it, he supposes they effectively grew up in an orphanage. Just one designed to churn out Witchers and where only three of ten survive to see the next month.

He takes another drink. Throws and for the first time, fucks up the spin. It lands, though, taking up yet one more sliver of space on the board. ]

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