abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] head down, hands up

[ 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. ]

( Something wry and knowing tugs at his lips, pulling one corner up into a smile. We make our own — yeah, that sounds about right. The more he gets to know Geralt, the more it cements the fact that a hunter's a hunter, no matter if you were Captain America'd by mages or brought up the good old-fashioned way. Universes be damned.

One or two less each time sounds familiar, too. That's the life.

He doesn't comment on that, nor on the (extremely satisfying) fuck-up of form. Instead: )

Who's Vesemir?

( Context clues say Papa Witcher, but a little confirmation couldn't hurt. )

[ Geralt folds his arms while he waits for Dean to take his turn; mulls over how he wants to answer.

Complicated is what he wants to say. The one survivor after the massacre. He's only mentioned the mob once in passing and there isn't much else to add beyond humans wiped most of us out. Now there's Vesemir, stragglers left behind. And out of the four, two of them remain.

Maybe one now. If he's here, in this world, then does he count as one of the remaining? ]

Oldest known Witcher. Taught us everything after the others fell. Actually fed us. [ A dark edge of humour to the remark. He tops off his glass; tops off Dean's, as well. ] He's around.

[ For clarification. Since Jaskier assumed Vesemir was dead once when Geralt mentioned him. Not an unfair assumption, given the lives of Witchers. ]

( Taught us everything, actually fed us.

He offers Geralt an appreciative sup nod as he tops off the drink. Takes a second to sip at it before he makes his throw, just because. After a certain point, drinking games stop being about the rules and start being a thing you do while drinking. Such is the way of drunk-life. )

I had one of those. ( He muses after a swallow, gently thunking the glass back down again. A Vesemir — by any other name. Not hard to clock the fondness. ) Crotchety old son of a bitch practically knew everything about everything. Bobby. That's his place across the street.

( Finally, all his procrastinating done, he throws his knife. It doesn't hit the board so much as sort of wedge itself between a cluster of them — no spin, but also no thunk. Did the damn thing even make it to the wood?

A contemplative beat, and then he points defiantly at Geralt before he can say anything. )

That counts.

[ Had. The look on Geralt's face suggests he hasn't missed that particular note, but he isn't asking after it, either. He can guess what happened.

He can see it. The rundown bar here, the yard full of scraps and metal across the road. Reminds him of the scattered bones outside the keep, the crumbling walls within. They're not the prettiest of views, but home is home. ]

Mm. [ Funny. That's what they say about him now. Old bastard who spends his time keeping idiots from burning shit down. Knows too fucking much about everything. Vesemir raised all of them, shaped every one of them, but in more than one sense, Geralt might've turned out most like him. ] And how often did you make him tan your hide?

[ A faint squint to his eyes as he studies where in the hell Dean's knife even landed. He was taking a sip when it flew and enough liquor has entered him that he can't recall what the board looked like a second ago.

He waits a few more seconds, a minute. When the dagger does not drop: ] Fuck it.

[ He'll give it a pass. Mostly because he suspects it'll be his turn to argue the finer point of what counts in the near future. The next one does strike neatly into black—though he's lost track of whether that's his second for Dean to drink or the first of next round. Hard to tell when the board resembles a porcupine. He makes a gesture for Dean to drink, anyhow. ]

( How often did you make him tan your hide? He snorts, and lets that be an answer in and of itself. The truth is tanning his hide was always more his father's thing. Bobby had a different method of dressing him down; that goddamn I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, except it was Bobby, so it was no actually I am pissed. It cut to the quick every time. Probably more effective than John Winchester's methods ever were.

He genuinely can't friggin' remember if Geralt got two in a row, if he screwed one up or if he's been nailing it even among that crowded board. He doesn't bother questioning it, he just drinks. As a wise man once said: fuck it. )

Nah, believe it or not, I did what I was told growing up. Followed orders. ( A accompanied by a little sway-shrug. How many spots are even left on this damn board anyhow? Two? Maybe? ) It was my little brother... man, that kid... Wrangling him was like herding cats into a paper bag.

( He throws a knife — it hits the hilt of another, clatters to the floor again, and he holds his hands up in surrender. )

Alright, I think you got me.

( He'll concede. From his vague, buzzed recollection he screwed the pooch more than Geralt did. There's no way he's sneaking in anymore. )

[ Yeah. That answers enough. So does I followed orders. That's the other end of it not many understand. When it's family, but there's an environment there, an expectation that you do as you're told. He's experienced both sides of it—that unyielding period before and after the Trials under an even older, more cantankerous Witcher, and the years afterwards under Vesemir. Still a hard bastard, but. One who gave a shit about more than if his boys could stand and lift a sword.

He half-perches on the table as Dean admits defeat. The curl of his lips is satisfied, not from the concession but from the entire event; it was something of a worthwhile competition, which he's not had a while. Winter at Kaer Morhen was...different, his most recent return. Between Ciri, Eskel, and here in this world—

He knows what he took on. He doesn't regret it. But he does miss it, a simpler time unwinding. ]

I know that feeling. [ Herding cats indeed. He exchanges the dagger in his hand for his glass. Only then does the blade Dean wedged in there a round or two ago finally drop, burying point down in the floors. Hm. Timely. ] Let me guess—fond of mouthing off and making it worse?

( The long, beleaguered exhale Dean sighs out in answer is clearer than a neon sign. He settles himself back atop his stool, drink in hand — no game necessary to have him sipping at it. )

Buddy, you don't even know the half of it. ( It's a lament, but honestly, it's more fond than anything. Damn, he misses his brother. Misses how simple things were back then too, though maybe not so much having to play mediator. ) Damn near every other thing was up for debate, if you asked him. You could stick him in a round room and he'd still somehow find a corner to argue with.

( In hindsight he may have been right about some of it, but catch him ever admitting that to Sam's face. )

You the oldest?

( Do you know his struggle? Join him in the early grave he'll be headed to from all those stress tumors of his youth. )

[ That's a sigh he's given before. He shifts atop the table entirely, hooks a foot around a chair and plants it on the scratched wooden seat. ]

Not by age. [ Functionally? He'd say as much. No one else was out there, dragging his brothers into getting things done around the keep. ] I'd hardly pledge myself as obedient. But I learned to pick my battles.

[ He gives a half-shrug. He's as stubborn as they come; he won't pretend he isn't. It's just been tempered with age, with a desire not to turn everything into a fight merely because it can be. He's never found a time when it helped. Not when they only have each other, when they're the few remaining. ]

Bitterness is the quickest monster to seed for those like us. [ It's a life none of them asked for, and it's one that can only ever lead to more losses. He knows how it is, to be surrounded by the people you love at the same time they remind you of all the things you never asked to become. (They may or may not be reaching that stage of inebriation that occasionally gives rise to sentiments Jaskier would call fucking maudlin.) ] For some, it never stops growing.

( His expression slips into something solemn as he listens, eyes settling down on the bar — but not actually looking at it. Reflecting, replaying, running through the mental list of every bitter hunter he ever met.

It's a common theme, but it's not as common as it seems to be with Witchers. He remembers Geralt briefly mentioning humans devastating his people — bitterness would practically be a given, he figures. )

I get that. God knows I've been there. Being bitter might be better than the alternative. Where I'm from, ninety-nine percent of the time people aren't raised into it. They start hunting after they lose somebody. That seed is mostly just... hate.

( You hate whatever brought you into the life, you hate that it took away someone you loved. Hate compels you to hunt it, but after you kill it, it doesn't actually fix anything. You still hate, so you carry that hatred on to the next hunt, and the next, and eventually you get a little blind to shades of grey. You ride that hate until it gets you dead.

He pulls his eyes up from the bar top again and levels them on Geralt, studying his expression. )

And what about you? Are you bitter?

[ Yeah. There's that, too. A bitterness that blooms into hate or fear or both. The humans did destroy most of his kind. But his own were not exactly innocent before or afterwards. It isn't that he thinks they deserve to be hated in turn—only a recognition that it all runs in a sort of cycle. He's thought, often, that humans told themselves Witchers felt nothing because they were afraid of what they would feel if they could.

His gaze flicks up, somehow a little surprised by the question. He studies Dean in return and wonders if that's what he saw in someone close to him. His father, wasn't it? That lost their mother to a demon? ]

I was. [ His answer comes without pause. It's something he accepted about himself a long time ago. ] I moved on.

[ Mostly. If he digs deep, it's still there. He's not certain it ever entirely goes away. ]

Besides, could be worse. Could've been assigned to a life sorting grain in some backwater hamlet.

[ There are few upsides to what they do, but it isn't entirely void of them. Most live and die where they're born. They don't get to hop on a horse and go see the mountains any time they want. ]

( His only answer initially is a thoughtful but unsurprised hum. He figured that might be the case — it's the same for him about that hate thing. He's had his moments of it, could have descended down that dark road, but managed to course-correct. He doesn't hunt out of hate, he doesn't kill monsters indiscriminately. His father, on the other hand...

Let's just say he wouldn't be too thrilled to learn about Cas or Benny. Or Geralt, for that matter.

Could've been assigned to a life sorting grain in some backwater hamlet.

That one earns a soft snort of a laugh. Funny how similar things are across universes — his consolation thought is could've been shoveling shit in the boonies. Not too far off.

Anyway, Jaskier would be right. They are getting a little sad sap here, so he pushes himself off his stool and claps a hand on Geralt's shoulder. )

Come on. Time to introduce you to Baby. Let's do this.

( The beauty of the Horizon: being able to immediately sober himself up a little before he gets behind the wheel. The second beauty: never losing his keys. They're in his hand by the time he reaches the driver's side door. )

Edited 2022-04-14 17:56 (UTC)

[ Geralt does not think twice about taking the half-empty bottle of whisky with him as he follows Dean out the door. It is not because he's a passenger; it's that the concept of going into a car less than sober is not one which Geralt holds any awareness of. He's mounted his horse drunk before, and he was hardly the first. Not like much happens as a Witcher except you take a bruise in a fall.

It also takes a hell of a lot more alcohol to bring him to a state where his reflexes are no longer fully functioning. As it is, he's loose and more prone to talking, but entirely steady.

The car sits sleek and shiny in the late afternoon sun. It's always caught his attention, the material. He remembers thinking as such, too, when he saw Amos' spaceship: the amount of metal and steel. To him, these remain expensive materials to mine and forge. Enough that it's startling to see it used in such large quantities.

He peers through the window. His remark is drier than the Cadens' desert. ] Does she speak?

( Riding around less than sober is a thing they have in common — unfortunately way less kosher when it's a car, and way more illegal. His track record is far from pristine, and that habit (however infrequent) is definitely on the less great end of the spectrum. The good news is, they're in the Horizon. He could detonate a friggin' grenade on the dashboard and they'd still be fine. )

Sure she does.

( Said in a sort-of grunt as he leans over to pointedly open up the passenger's side door. Get in, nerd. Not that he doesn't think Geralt could figure out a damn door handle, he's just impatient. )

You just gotta listen real close. Shh.

( He holds up one hand — hold, listen, you hear that?

And then the other cranks the ignition, and the engine rumbles to life. He beams proudly and announces: )

She purrs like a friggin' panther.

( Or... like a pack of panthers. Maybe one giant panther. )

[ The door swings open. A split second pause, and then Geralt gets inside. His default is wariness, where strange metal contraptions that purportedly go fast are concerned. He did ride a modern lift once, though, so he's slowly adjusting.

The seats are plush. He hasn't any idea what the fuck the amount of mirrors are for. Is it a vanity thing?

He stares a little dead-eyed at Dean, one eyebrow raised. If he were anyone else the sudden rumble would visibly surprise him. Since he's who he is, Dean receives slightly higher raised eyebrows. That's. Hm.

He needs another drink for this. He takes one. He's agreed to something he can't tell if he'll regret or enjoy far more than he'll ever admit. Possibly both.

(He's too fucking old for what's in store, he just knows it. He has well-honed instincts for these things.) ]

This is the sound of a chernabog before it tears your insides.

[ All he knows is if his horse made this noise, he would not ride her. He's here, though. He's committed. So. There's a vague gesture for Dean to take them on the road already. ]

( Should it feel as satisfying as it does when Geralt takes a drink over the sound of his engine? Probably not, and yet... )

No idea what that is.

( He announces cheerfully, reaching out to turn on the stereo. It's an integral part of the experience. )

Buckle up, Buttercup.

( It's a warning, not an actual recommendation. Not only would Geralt probably not know what a seatbelt is, the idea that he'd need one is laughable.

He puts the car in drive. Things start out easy enough, with him gently reversing away from the bar — using the rearview mirror, which might help answer that question. As soon as the angle's good enough, though...

He gasses it. Gravel sprays outward as he swoops them around and onto the road. They hit about 35 and he lets them cruise at it for a few seconds in case Geralt needs to adjust — and then it's 45, 55, 65 down sprawling rural highways. Trees blur, wheels turn, Dean keeps his eyes on the road mostly, save for the occasional glance Geralt's direction to catch the look on his face. )

[ Of course he hasn't.

And no, Geralt doesn't. Know, that is, what a seatbelt is or what he's even meant to buckle. He can hear the wheels spin; they do not creak and roll unsteadily as a wagon might, and in that sense, it is more pleasant. In the other sense, it is. Fast. Geralt has gone fast but even the quickest horse can hardly come near.

There's a look Dean will find on Geralt's face. It's the look of a man who is experiencing something beyond his ability to determine how he feels. Give him a few minutes. It reminds him, a little, of when he was still young, still close enough to boys all of them, and they would find an icy slope atop a peak in the Blue Mountains and slide right down. (Someone absolutely cracked their skull once.) Except this is endless, a path that does not stop or slow.

Thrilling is not quite a word Geralt ever uses for himself. But it's clear he isn't not enjoying this, even if the first remark out of his mouth is, ] You humans die far too easily to be in these.

( That earns a full-blown laugh out of him; unfiltered, head thrown back, teeth on display and all. Hard not to — this is his element, his happy place. Behind the wheel of his car, hauling ass down the road with a friend in the passenger's seat and nobody immediately in danger. It feels good. )

Well, you're not wrong about that, brother.

( No argument here. Too many car crashes in the good old US of A to pretend otherwise. He does ease off of the gas, lets them slow down to cruising speed now that he's achieved what he set out to accomplish. Showed off the potential for hauling ass, now it's time to settle into the potential peace.

He can't resist throwing out a petulant remark under his breath, though: )

Never seen a friggin' horse do that, have you? That's a solid neigh.

( Get it

Like

Nay, because

horse )

[ It's difficult to tell if the road exists or if they're riding along an illusion of one in the Horizon. Might not make a difference in the end. Maybe it's Dean's obvious enjoyment, maybe it's the genuine novelty—all the same, Geralt seems to settle into it, initial apprehension aside.

That play on words absolutely gets a squint from him, though. No comment. ]

Surprised you even learned to ride.

[ The trees wind by as he looks out the window. It's a steadier, smoother motion than the gait of a horse. More than a handful he's met have told him horses are rare in their world, if present at all, that only arriving here did they start to learn. For Geralt, it's difficult to imagine. He can't remember ever not growing up with a horse. ]

Yeah, well.

( He offers up an absent, throw-away shrug. )

You spend enough time in Texas, it's kind of a requirement. Plus, chicks dig it.

( Not that he spent more than a few months in Texas at a time. The more truthful answer here is that he thinks cowboys are fucking awesome. Chicks dig cowboys, but not as much as Dean digs cowboys.

And so it goes for a little while longer, sweeping down rural roads and around the occasional curve — sometimes smooth, sometimes a little too fast, but either way he steers them gently back to the bar eventually.

Congrats, Geralt. You passed the Baby test. Truly an important milestone to overcome. )

[ CLOSED ] head down, hands up

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