Wᴇʟʟ, I'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴜɴ ᴛᴏ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ғʀᴏᴍ ʜɪᴅɪɴ'

[righteously]

Who: Winchester & Co.
When: September
Where: Free Cities, Libertas, & the Horizon
What: Quests, training, or Roadhouse socializing.
Warnings: Suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, other psychological traumas.

Aɴᴅ I ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜᴇs I'ᴍ ᴡᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ
Aɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɢᴏᴇs ᴏɴ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ
Aɴᴅ I'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ sɪʟᴠᴇʀ ᴅᴏʟʟᴀʀ
Bᴜᴛ I'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍᴇ, ɴᴏ
Nᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴅɴɪɢʜᴛ ʀɪᴅᴇʀ

Comments

[righteously]

He watches her assess the thing when open interest, something soft scrawled into the knit of his brow. Awaiting judgment, like this is something that actually matters — because it does. He spent a good chunk of time looking through options, weighing, considering. Shooting down more than a thinks a few shop keeps were entirely thrilled about, but for something like this you don't settle.

"Wouldn't give it to you if it didn't," he answers seriously.

You bet your ass he tried it out. Put it through all the trials. Only a few of 'em did, and he picked the best out of those.

A beat.

"Oh, right. You're probably gonna need these-" he dips over to the side again, digs around for a short quiver of crossbow bolts. It's leather craft, full of thick bolts, and it has a thigh holster reminiscent of one you'd use for a gun. Meant to be strapped somewhere just beneath the hip for easy reach and reload. And because he has to help kill the vibe here: "Those're all you're getting, by the way. You're on your own for re-upping the ammo, so. You know. Don't miss."

[tobeclosetohim]

He goes digging for the only things he could be rummaging could be going for, but as he rummages, Jo stares at him anew. Again. Parsing through too many thoughts. Even this long later, she is still ready for that promise be jerked from her at the gates to being opened. Experience is a piss poor helpmate to hope, and the only flavor she has of it says standing tall even as everything else burns.

If her mother had ever, even once—

Plaintive wheedling to the contrary, but then this the next breath. This act that showed so much louder the expectation the first was never going to work even though it had to be tried a hundredth time. The time, the effort—the understanding—that had to go into that. It's bareness that Jo feels at a loss for how to close right back up. A disjointed ache for being seen.

"Here." Jo is handing back the crossbow even as she's taking the holster and listening to him add the warning. Whether he balks a confused note or not, Jo shifts in her saddle and slides down out of it entirely. One hand against the horse's shoulder to calm it, reorient it to her location, before she turns to work at her sword belt. The fitted one that came with her sword from Victor and Jayce after she called in her chip on the payout from working the mine.

"If I keep shooting like I did last time—" In the Hunting Grounds; at the wrong target. "—that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Plus, retrival's always an option. They are bigger than bullets."

Training: Interrupted

[waywardsister]

Hey!

[ The voice is sharp. This isn't a friendly, casual 'hey, how's it going' kind of 'hey'. It's not even a 'hey, I'm mad but being coldly civil' kind of 'hey'. No, this 'hey' snarls. This 'hey' is a feral dog, kicked one too many times, about to bite before it's finished barking.

Claire's been... absent. No one could blame her if she'd bothered letting anyone in on her very rich (read: grief-stricken) inner life for anyone to guess at the reasons why. As it's been, she's turned into a satellite. Sort of hovering around Dean and his people, but keeping her distance to them. To everyone, really. Burnt too often, she's trying not to get attached. The plan is rapidly showing its weak belly and getting slashed to ribbons, because clearly, clearly there's people she might give a shit about on a good day, and clearly, clearly those people are real damn shitty at keeping themselves in one piece.

So yeah. She rounds on Dean. Screw his training. ]

Hey, what the fuck do you think you're doing?

[righteously]

( He's there in the small yard behind Mag's, training dummy set up, sword in hand, and those big ass hulking fuck-off wings out on full display. All fifteen feet of them tucked up, bulky on his back. Sword in hand, it seems like he's doing his damn best to go through some practice motions with it, without over-balancing himself one way or another.

And then comes that voice, and there's a full two seconds of silence wherein Dean looks at her, then left, then right like the god damn John Travolta meme.

What does who think who's doing?

Him? Is he who?

He points to himself in confusion, then gestures around. Sarcastically, and with peak confusion: )

Macramé? What's it look like?

[waywardsister]

[ Hands on her hips, bright blue eyes glaring Dean down with righteous fury. It's funny, perhaps - if he had more context, perhaps he'd recognize just how similar she looks to Jimmy Novak like this, and therefore to Cas. How the shade of blue in her eyes isn't so different at all. But Dean's out of context, and Claire shifts to cross her arms. And then she thinks better again, stalks the remaining steps forwards and pokes her index finger into his chest, nostrils flaring. Like she can't quite decide what to do with her body to express whatever emotion is swirling in her eyes.

She has to block out the wings, because that's not a thing she's gotten into with him yet and frankly, they have to take a backseat. Not important right now.

Instead, accusatory: ]

It looks like you just recently got out of bedrest after you almost died.

[hextechhead]

I'm sorry, I know, it's almost over.

[ He sounds genuinely sorry too, he had to act fast and thoroughly to get the smoke out. He doesn't have the benefit of extra oxygen out here, so that was the only option. Jayce watches him carefully though, glad that Geralt and Ciri acted. He can't hold Dean and heal at the same time. ]

Keep breathing slowly in and out. Eventually the smoke will be gone.

[ Jayce touches his chest again but this time it will feel completely different from before. It's that gentle warmth that Dean was used to from before with his leg, healing the strain in the aftermath so he won't have lasting damage. Now that they're out of the woods he remembers to breathe himself, honestly, that was unnerving.

He drops his hand away from Dean's chest but puts a more reassuring one on his shoulder. Just to be supportive.]

You'll feel sore, but you'll be okay.

[ He shoots Ciri a relieved look over his shoulder, since she did the right thing running for him. ]

sʜɪɴᴇ ᴀ ʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴏɴ ᴍᴇ → ( ᴄɪʀɪ )

[righteously]

( Today hasn't exactly been what you might call hunky dory. It's not the almost dying part — that one's par for the course, that one's a friggin' Tuesday. It's the stuff that came after. The twisting pain in his lungs, the flair of dissatisfaction, the irritation, the outright anger that flared up. The argument with Geralt that ensued, and how much absolutely goddamn nothing it accomplished, culminating with him stalking off like some kind of pissed off cat headed toward the portal.

She's already there by the time he starts approaching it, shoulders tense, expression stoic, jaw set. She's gonna have to stop him if she wants something, otherwise he's gonna stroll his ass right on by without saying a damn word and take his stormy mood with him. )

[nadine_he_loves]

[Nadine honestly isn't sure how much good this will do, but...she'd said long ago that anything that could be used to protect against Flagg was worth learning. So this is worth learning. Besides...Dean is something of an expert when it comes to demons and dark forces. She trusts him on these things, and if he thinks she should learn, she will.

Dusting off her hands as she steps back, nodding.]

Yeah...I mean, as ready as I'll ever be, I guess.

[How does one prepare for this sort of thing? Steel themselves? She isn't even entirely sure what she'll be facing off against - 'demon' is a very broad term that covers many things.

At least this is all within the safety of the Horizon.]

ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴡʜᴏʟᴇ ʟᴏᴛᴛᴀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ → ( ᴛʜᴇ sᴇxᴀɢᴏɴ )

[righteously]

( Frankly, it's a little surprising they haven't gotten together like this before now, all things considered. The five of them haunt the same damn place half the time, it's weird they haven't all wound up sharing a table — or, more aptly, sharing drinks — in the ten-plus months Dean's been in Cadens.

At any rate, here they are at the tail end of dinner, food mostly finished, three or four rounds in, the occasional arm flung over the back of someone else's chair, spirits largely good despite the recent fuckery and Julie's fleeting desire to yeet Dean into orbit over the Nocwich disaster.

Light-hearted banter flies pretty equally across the whole dinner party, and our camera pans into the scene as the stupidest attendee kindly informs Geralt: )

You're the worst, you realize that? ( He continues on without waiting for an answer, directing his attention to aforementioned Worst Guy's best friend: ) He's the worst. Just. Absolute worst person. How do you live with this?

[cointosser]

[It truly is an event that should have happened months ago. Nothing beats the heat of so many bodies together, the ease of conversation that always flows when there's so many people to contribute to it. The last time he felt like this may have been that strange little Christmas party, but this one has blossomed out of nothing more than a natural occurrence, and so many in the same place. Too many people wanting company to drink with. The company he keeps in Cadens has grown, it seems, by the daily, and now... he can drink, drink with company, and keep the myriad of thoughts in the back of his mind away.

And drink he does. He does not hold back, dipping into the skill of swallowing it down he indulged in during the Nilfgaardian assaults, favoring mead for the night over wine.

Jaskier laughs, scraping his chair back so he can wiggle out to pour himself another drink. He stands, voice warm as the honey in his drinks.] Live with it? Don't know what I'd do without that cock sometimes. [He gives Geralt a kiss on the cheek to annoy him and another laugh, stumbling over to search out another bottle. Unfortunate that the Sandpiper has raised his head again, a man so used to touting his name around a bar that he can capture any sort of bottle that pleases him.] You know, I'd already assumed you'd seen it. Geralt's never been shy about the view.

[wiedzminka]

[ As soon as it was evident that Dean would be fine, Ciri had left. Hadn't announced where, hadn't trusted herself to say anything, knowing her words would twist around far too fast to expose the simmering, relentless anger that'd begun bubbling up inside her chest moments after Dean was breathing more or less normally again.

She doesn't expect to see him again so soon, still with her heart thundering in her ears and temper high. He stalks past where she's been waiting several minutes already for the portal, which is in the process of being recast after some sort of scheduled break. Shouldn't be long now.

But perhaps too long to stand around without letting her frustration get the better of her. ]

Look at you. Already spry as a fucking goat.

[righteously]

( About a second and a half after her scathing reprimand, the understanding hits his expression - and then morphs into something faintly annoyed. That whole clusterfuck... he's still less than happy about how that whole thing went down. Truth be told, he's training a little too hard here to get some of that out of his system. )

I'm fine. ( He says shortly, just a hair too dismissive to be a bark. ) Walking, talking, breathing. It's part of the job description.

( What he's actually finding a little significant about this conversation is how heated she is.

People don't get this emotional unless they got a real vested stake in somebody.

How well do they know each other later on exactly? )

[waywardsister]

Oh, cram the attitude.

[ Pot. Kettle. You know the drill.

Claire pushes some hair out of her face impatiently before crossing her arms. Shoulders curling inwards, her entire body language radiates tension.]

I don't care that you're up and at 'em. That's your business.

[ And she wouldn't let a near death experience or two keep her down and out either, so there's that. ]

But you don't get to wander off and almost die.

[ That's the part that rankles. He doesn't even remember that she can barely keep it together on a good day - that she doesn't know what she'd do if she lost him, the out-of-context Not-Yet-Dad, or Cas, the Absentee Pseudo-Dad.

Claire presses her lips together tightly, then shakes her head. ]

Take me with you next time. Wings stop looking cool when they're attached to a corpse, Bird Brain.

[righteously]

She hefts the crossbow at him and he fumbles to catch it, blinking in dumb confusion. For a second there he thinks she's shutting down the gift for reasons beyond his immediate comprehension, but his shoulders relax a little when she hops down off the horse and he pieces together the motivation.

Feels good, seeing her strap that on.

...not in a creepy way. Is that creepy?

He averts his eyes after a maybe too-long assessing beat, and settles his gaze on the gate.

"Yeah, well, let's hope whatever you're shooting at doesn't catch it this time," he says absently, maybe a little impatiently. "Hurry up, before Walking on Sunshine starts playing and this turns into an outfit montage."

[righteously]

( Of course he sounds sincere, that god damn earnest son of a bitch and his earnest eyes. Doesn't make it much of a consolation, but hey, he appreciates the effort. Or, you know, he will. Later on, in hindsight, when things are a little less.

He breathes slowly.

Inhale.
Exhale.

Feels his lungs slowly but surely clearing, the smoke fading into soft wisps like breath on a cold morning, until eventually things clear entirely. )

I'm good. I'm fine.

( He says to Ciri with a slow shake of his head, but it's meant for all of them. He shifts his way steadily back to upright again once the grip on him eases. Reaches out to give Jayce a slap on the arm in wordless gratitude, and spends the next minute or two just... catching his breath.

Eventually, he'll haul himself to his feet. Insist again that it's fine, that there's no need to fuss. He'll let the gang disperse — except for Geralt, who he grabs by the shoulder for a discussion off to the side. )

[righteously]

Good enough.

( He affirms brusquely, and pushes off of the bar to stride forward toward the circle. Two, three, four seconds pass while he concentrates — and then quite suddenly, it's there. A chair in the center of the devil's trap, and a person strapped to it. Hands bound to the chair arms, eyes black, staring up at Nadine with a sneer. It's a man, blonde, scruffy. Denim-clad. Maybe he reminds her of something — maybe the Horizon pulls it from her, or maybe it's sheer coincidence.

Generic, unnamed demon number three. A template amalgamation of every low-level demon Dean's ever dispatched — and he's dispatched a lot of them.

"Aw, cute. What is this? Hunting lessons for your slut? I'm quaking in my boots."

Dean ignores it. )

You got three main tools in your kit for dealing with demons. Holy water, salt, and the piece de resistance: exorcism.

( Let's start with the former.

He holds out a flask of holy water. The moment it comes in contact with the demon, it'll start to smoke, to burn, flesh will sizzle, and that thing'll start screaming — probably cursing her out toes to nose. )

[tobeclosetohim]

It slides on soundly enough. The boots Jo has don't even need taking off first. She gets it up to her thighs, holding it between both as she slides the top section through her belt. She can't tell if it is taking too long, and it makes her hazard a look up as she's sinching her belt. Just as Dean's suddenly looking away. At the gate. The unmoving, uninteresting, still unchanged gate.

Jo found the strange, still not-quite-checkable, smile added to with an unexpected flood of heat in her cheeks as she looked back down just as fast. She finished fastening the belt with slightly clumsier fingers as she tried to push that right back down. So much as any of it wanted to listen to her at all. Not when her blood was still racing too far ahead of her, and those gates, and the next five or ten or however many minutes. Already galloping even as she stood still.

Throwing a foot back up into the stirrup and shoved herself back up on her horse without some steps (which was still something she was figuring out how to master gracefully, but she powered through it like the best). Settling herself back in the saddle. Checking the set of the thigh holster and tugging it so all the bolts were arranged upward and only the flat strap was under her thigh.

"C'mon," Jo held out a hand for the crossbow, smile still a little too wide—all the way to lifting her cheeks and brightening up her copper eyes—even though her words were chiding at him. Like he was the thing that had held them up another five minutes, and not her, on the ground, off her horse. "We better go see if you have good taste."

[wiedzminka]

[ She looks to Jayce, watching his expression as if to check if Dean is really actually fine or full of it. When Jayce meets her eyes, she gives a small nod.

Then, Ciri unfolds herself from her place by Dean's knees to stand, looming briefly over him. ]

Don't waste Jayce's effort.

[ Presumably, by getting himself into more trouble right away.

Ciri turns away with a last look at Geralt, who may be the only one actually able to tell how quickly her concern has slipped toward anger. She leaves before it can slip further while Dean is still catching his breath. ]

[gynvael]

[ Certainly none of this is intentional, at least not on Geralt's part. This is simply where he drinks. Then Dean came along, and Jaskier, and now the five of them are here, mismatched stools and chairs pulled up. He's at least two pitchers into the evening. Been a long week.

He can't even remember what it is he said that spurred Dean on. Might've been nothing. Might've just been a look directed towards one of Dean's absurd remarks. Whatever it is, Jaskier takes it on himself to reply with. That. It's not the comment that makes him frown; they're hardly in polite company. (He doesn't keep polite company.) It's the kiss, which he waves Jaskier away with a long-suffering sigh, the kind that Jaskier's heard a thousand times before. ]

Please, [ he takes the bottle out of Jaskier's hands as soon as it comes near, ] do spare Nadine.

[ He's certain she's no desire to hear about his cock. (Unless she does. She's a hard one to read sometimes, and he's been wrong about her before.) It is telling, perhaps, that he doesn't glance at Dean for his reaction—that there might be a reaction hasn't even crossed his mind. ]

[righteously]

( Of all the things he expected Jaskier to come back with, almost exactly none of them involved anything to do with Geralt's cock. Like, there were negative cocks in this math equation. His eyebrows arch, and for one blessedly ignorant, innocent moment he thinks it's maybe just weird ass outdated medieval humor.

Then Jaskier sweeps by and smashes a kiss on the guy, who doesn't even blink.

But Dean does. Three times, in fact, like the perfect embodiment of the blinking guy meme itself.

I'd assumed you'd seen it.

Skrrt.
Stuck cogs.
Blue screen.
No compute. )

Wait- I'm sorry- what? Are you two- what- what?

( )

[princessvegas]

[ Where either Geralt or Nadine can be found, Julie usually can be found as well. With both of them to be at the same table, it is unsurprising that she's tucked between them, still picking at the last bits of her meal as she drinks more than anyone her size should rightfully be able to.

It probably will not assist Dean's processing in any way, shape or form that Julie also does not blink at Jaskier's statement, nor Geralt's reaction. In fact, she only puts her glass in front of Geralt for a refill, like this is all perfectly normal table conversation. ]

You say that like she's never heard it from 'im before. Pour. [ She glances over at Nadine before she hooks her chin on his shoulder. ] I told you, you were his first choice. He put the sell on her.

[ Dean barely garners more than a mildly disparaging second glance. Like he's being immature. ]

Don't be heteronormative, Winchester.

[righteously]

( Of course the portal's down. Of course they're on a friggin' coffee break when all he wants to do is get the hell out of here. Scrub the ash off his skin the way Jayce scrubbed it out of his lungs. Maybe punch something a few times, get this low-burning aggression out of his system that he can't seem to shake.

But no, he's stranded waiting at the god damn bus stop.

Awesome.

Things he's not expecting: a round 2, this time with the scarier of the platinum blondes. He turns, angles himself her direction enough to shoot her a look. Arched eyebrow, fatigued, skeptical. )

Did you just call me a goat?

( Seriously? )

[wiedzminka]

[ Not quite. But she can. And she absolutely will.

Ciri stalks closer, hands fisted at her sides, until he's either forced to turn around to face her or she can just stand aggressively near his shoulder glaring up at him until he does. ]

You're hard-headed and selfish enough.

[righteously]

( Annnnnd it's about now he realizes what's happening. Didn't piece it together right away at first comment, but he's been rounded on and stalked by enough women to know when he's headed face-first into a smackdown. He turns, but it's with the put-upon air of a man way too tired for whatever's going down.. )

Selfish? Really? ( That's what they're going with here? ) Selfish.

( He gestures in the vague thataway direction of where their house-fire party went down. )

Because I'm pretty sure I just punted your ass out of a demolition zone.

( The man's too obtuse to figure up all the ways in which that whole maneuver was selfish. )

[wiedzminka]

My ass would've been fine if you'd just said something instead. You could have trusted me.

Or at least fucking warned me.

[ She's aware there hadn't exactly been time for a full conversation, but a word. Called her name. Anything that would have given her a chance to be part of the decision. She feels far more blindsided than rescued. ]