so many wars we fought, so many things we're not

[tobeclosetohim]

Who: Jo Harvelle & You
Where: Cadens, Libertas, Nocwich, Hunting, Horizon
When: November
What: Event-Follow-ups & Nov Things
Warnings: Drinking, swearing, war, death, destruction; will add as needed






But with what we have,
I promise you that,
We're marchin' on
We're marchin' on
We're marchin' on

~*~

Comments

ᴅᴇᴀɴ.

[tobeclosetohim]

→ ɪ'ᴍ ᴀ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴ' ᴋᴀᴍɪᴋᴀᴢᴇ ᴄʀᴀꜱʜɪɴ' ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's eyes open, and the feeling of not hurting anymore is incredibly disorienting. So much of her thought process had been caught up in not letting it get past the grit of her teeth, slow her stride, bow her posture, or keep her from acting at a moment's notice. Even still, as she pushes up, she reaches for her thigh, and it's whole: her thigh and her jeans.

And then a flicker she'd rather not, sends her hand to her stomach,
before she turns on the bed, drops her feet off, and makes her hands move
set on the edge of the bed by her thighs, takes the moment she hadn't in the maze.

Because it's all just. Because she's going to die, and she knows that, has known it, but she got to live it. More than once. How it'll happen. Bright colors and deep pain and what it feels like to bleed out and blur away, it's still stuck in the back of her throat. She lets herself hold it for a few more seconds. A sound of her gun. The ripping sensation. Helplessness sculpted out a biting refusal to be just that. Her mom. Dean.

No. No. Still not yet. Maybe when the day ends.
(Maybe not until it happens.)

Jo pushes herself to stand. Weight in her toes. Headed for the door without another pause, letting it shut behind her, and headed to the door only one down. Banging on it with slightly more force than standard steadiness.

[righteously]

If she needs any more evidence that whole nightmare did actually go down for all parties involved and wasn't just some phenomenally screwed up solo hallucination, she gets it when Dean's door swings open a few seconds after knocking. He's not hurt, he's bearing no scars or marks from their time in the maze — hell, he's even wearing his I'm about ten minutes from stripping this off and going to sleep but I'm still technically dressed clothes.

No, it's the stupid wings that are still puffed up at his shoulder blades, feathers all askew and ruffled, the bird equivalent of bedhead or something. No twigs, no leaves, no branches, but that's about the only difference between how they looked at Jaskier's treehouse and how they look now. He can't get 'em to go back in, or- go away, or whatever it is they do when they're not there.

That annoyance is plainly written in his features — not that he needs another reason for it, considering everything that just went down.

"Aren't you a little short to be a girl scout?" He says flatly, by way of greeting.

[tobeclosetohim]

It's a right sight, indeed. Dean opens the door, dressed for bed or whatever it is he wears while doing the whole meditation for the Horizon thing when someone else isn't in the room (cause it's not the whole clothed shebang she got on day whatever back in week one). But even without the mess of the adopted tree and super messed up hair and clothes she'd last seen, there's still a full-on catastrophe going on over his shoulders. Jo's body cants back, taking it in, surprise registering briefly before it's chased off by his words.

"Do not make me miss thin mints. The list is long enough already." And god, isn't it? It's not the same making anything she wants in the Horizon, and the other is a list, but that's neither here nor there when she's waving her hands to make him back up and pushing into the room even before he starts moving at all. "How did you manage to mess those up here, too?"

Beat. "And more importantly, when the hell did the Horizon get a Horror Show Maze?"

[righteously]

He pulls a face at thin mints, telegraphed judgment. Thin mints, really? Everyone knows Samoas are the superior cookie. Fortunately for them both, he's not in the mood to get into a heated debate over socially acceptable child labor multi-level marketing snack food. His quiet scoff will have to suffice.

Stupidity aside, he allows himself to be herded in without question, peeling away toward his bed to give her room to navigate around the small space.

"They were already out when I woke up, they won't go back in," he sighs grumpily, perching on the edge of the mattress, primary feathers dragging across the floor like a damn broom. Whatever, it doesn't matter, they're not important. They'll fall off eventually, they just like to be a huge useless pain in his ass at the most inconvenient times. "As for the VR version of Pan's Labyrinth nobody asked for... I don't know. It's gotta be a Singularity thing. It wouldn't be the first time."

[tobeclosetohim]

"No?" There's a deeper question in it.

People keep saying that a lot, but there's not a whole lot people have done to fill those gaps. It's not even anyone's fault she can exactly lay at the feet of. The first month maybe, but the last month and some weeks have been insane between Libertas and whatever was going on now. It's not hard to imagine there's been a lot more fuckery like it, but different before it got to these stages, too.

There's a consideration of him sitting there, and she almost asks, almost, but no one's been asking for the last long while through a whole damn lot, where it came to Dean just pulling here places, or collapsing over her, and it doesn't feel all that necessary to need those kinds of the words at the moment. Instead of a question, it's more of an order. "Don't move."

As Jo gets onto his bed behind him.

[righteously]

"No," he affirms, the last bits of smartass attitude bleeding out finally with a tired exhale. "It's flared up a couple times since I've been here."

There's something incredibly grim about that comment, it lingers in the lines of his brow, in the corners of his eyes. In the crow's feet wrinkles that are just starting to find a home, too solemn to be called laugh lines. Any further maudlin explanation goes out the window, thankfully, because she takes that opportunity to start crawling around on his bed like this is a freshmen dorm and the RA is out of town.

"Wait- what, why?"

It's a demand, but it's thrown out there while being perfectly complicit. He doesn't move, other than to twist his head far enough to try and get a look over his shoulder. Doesn't do him much good, because over his shoulder's just a crapload of feathers blocking the view.

"If you start plucking me like a chicken, Jolene, I swear to god..."

ᴄɪʀɪ.

[tobeclosetohim]

ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛɪꜰᴜʟ & ᴛʀᴀɢɪᴄ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀʟʟᴏᴜᴛ

[tobeclosetohim]

[ Jo's scampered off to Nocwich for the open weekend for a number of reasons. To put some distance between her and that fuckery of the last few weeks; to take a day break from her work in Libertas, shifting from freelance for anyone who needed hands to now doing it under Jayce and Viktor's contracts; and because Dean seems to have taken everyone's bad mood from the fuckery weeks and to be hoarding into his chest like gold, and she's been carefully keeping herself inches from snapping back at him hard so far. But that's wearing.

Nocwich is cool and calm. A little less bustling than the last time she was here. She's sure this is still more than when the borders and portals are closed, but it's less than when it was loudly teeming with as many Summoned as could make it, piling into it like a reverse ant hill creation. She's been here most of the day already. She spent some time in the morning in the gambling hall, and she'd walked the streets, double-checking what she could remember of this place from her first visit. (The answer isn't as much as she'd like, but it was a quick, crazy week then, too.)

Still, she's out ambling through shops when she decides she'd like some lunch and gets directions to the closest tavern. She's been enjoying a little bit of breathing away from people for a few hours, but she doesn't even feel a pang of regret when it slides away as she spots Ciri already at the bar. ]

Hey — [ Jo says, by her only way of announcement. ]
I was wondering when I'd see you again.

[wiedzminka]

[ It's a moment before Ciri looks up from her drink. She contemplates Jo for a few seconds longer, then sticks her foot out under the table to shove the opposite chair away from it. An invitation, if a rather unmannered one. ]

Haven't exactly been hiding.

You forget how to get around the city again?

[tobeclosetohim]

Nah. I've been busy out in Libertas a lot lately.

[ That's far more on her than Ciri, and she's glad that the world brought them together because it kept coming back to her thoughts and then getting lost in the focus of the work. There's no extra wrinkle in her expression for the pause, or the chair pushed out without a word. She mirrors that without thinking about it, her hand on the back of it, pulling it out and dropping herself down in it. ]

Just my luck that I took the weekend to jot back here while it was open and got to run into you, too.

[wiedzminka]

Seems our diplomatic efforts, as they were, paid off. Despite the way it all ended for us last time, in the eyes of its people, the opening of Oleuni Square was a success.

[ It's not entirely surprising, though Ciri expects they'll all be closely watched now -- by those from Nocwich, not wanting further trouble, and those from other places. Thorne is her concern, mostly. And the knowledge she should be more careful now being seen with Yennefer (and actively avoid Istredd, lest she lose her temper in public).

Which is all to say: maybe she shouldn't be here at all. But honestly, she rather likes the werewolf ale, and the smell of trees and green. ]

What will you drink?

[tobeclosetohim]

The ale or the beer is fine.

[ Jo wasn't comfortable with everything going on, especially the more she heard about what people went through before she got here: both in the Horizon and across the different factions and locations they'd been in. She didn't trust anything around her in this place—aside from certain people who'd earned it—but she was willing to use what was at her disposal to support her plans so long as it came without a cost. ]

This whole thing is a good distraction, except it's short-lived,
and the restructure in Libertas won't be.

ɢᴇʀᴀʟᴛ.

[tobeclosetohim]

[gynvael]

It is, shortly, after his conversation with Dean that Geralt makes a decision. She's the only one here who knows Dean better than he. And while some of this stems from concern for Dean, it extends further. Notably, Dean is around many of Geralt's people. Julie, Nadine.

Ciri.

He's not interested in waiting to see what might come of the man's unsteady temperament, apparently born of a curse, left to fester.

His lettering is tidy, in a hand that carries the distinct edges of his era. Unsigned—but it's probably clear who it's from.

We need to talk.
It's Dean.

[tobeclosetohim]

There's a really short list of the who, after she rocks back a little surprised. It's different looking, and she too aware, too certain that it isn't Cas. The only person she can think of who would send her something this to the point. Which. Leaves Geralt. It's weird. But, just as weirdly, it's probably the safest starter of topics and one she will return on. Her brows pinched, and she was not unaware of Dean's increasing irritation with everything breathing. Existing.

ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕣 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕖𝕝𝕤𝕖?

Were they keeping it to words? To the Horizon?
Did he want her to meet him somewhere?

(Is it strange, the whole concept isn't as repugnant as it once was?)

[gynvael]

Part of him isn't certain he'll receive an agreement to meet, or even an answer. But she does, and then he is contemplating—for the first time since they've met—where he wants to meet Jo. To talk.

The Silver Cog.
South end.

Geralt has, in his collection, a number of taverns that the other Summoned do not frequent. Places he goes when he wishes to be left alone, which is often. The Silver Cog is one of them. It's in a rougher, less pleasant part of town, but that makes it an ideal place to discuss matters uninterrupted, amongst a crowd too drunk to remember what they're even saying.

He'll be nursing a drink already when she arrives. There's a considering sort of look when he sees her, like he's aware neither of them quite expected to find themselves doing this. He isn't sure how he feels about it. Decides not to think too deeply on the matter. He doesn't...hate it, and perhaps that'll do for now.

As is his habit, Geralt doesn't bother with lead-up or meandering small talk. The moment she's seated, he delves into it. "I spoke to Dean some days ago. He's...not himself. You know him well. Thought if anyone noticed anything, too, it'd be you."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't answer, but she doesn't dither about collecting everything she has with her. Geralt's lucky in this instance: she isn't in Libertas already and isn't in the middle of sword practice; she'd been halfway through catching a meal. But food can wait compared to the topic, which tangles a weight around her neck and ribs as she situates her sword and grabs the small satchel of holding.

She doesn't need directions. She hadn't lied to Ciri three months back when she said she was mapping and memorizing the streets. She's never been in it, but she has the weathered, batter sign of the place in her mind, and where off that is, within having just read it. It's a bit of a walk, but she's direct and focused enough that shop owners she might usually talk to are briskly walked by without so much as a nod.

If there's some judgment for the look of the place, it's not about its location or clientele. It's more about the bones of the building. There isn't quite as much stepping in. Ragtag bunches of the kind found in the black were her whole life's bread and butter. Her copper gaze shifts over them all until it finds Geralt, but her expression doesn't turn any specific way when she heads for the open seat next to him, sliding into it without any fanfare or even a wave to the barkeep.

Jo's first reaction, even though she's come this far for good reason, is the want to snap her mouth shut, to not say anything; disparaging family not-to-family is a rule one doesn't break. Except. Whatever they are, Geralt's important enough Dean would have left over him; whatever they are, it's important enough that Geralt contacted her of all people, because he's worried about Dean. Whatever she is or isn't adjacent to either of those, she's not blind.

"Yeah." Jo nods stiffly, pushing past thorns for a middle somewhere between those. "He's--" Does it feel like a betrayal? Maybe. But, also, fuck her, but it's nice not to be one of only two people to notice in-house, and it being noticed outside the Bar and the Bunker, well, that's another point in the problem column. She settles for: "It's like he's looking for fights where there aren't any."

[gynvael]

So she's noticed, as well.

A few seconds of silence greets that. The thing is, he knows what's going on, inasmuch as Dean's outlined the situation. And while he is not here to spill Dean's secrets on his behalf, he frankly isn't sure Dean will tell him if things are getting worse. Not because he doesn't trust Dean, but because something tells him Dean may not be capable recognizing it in time to tell him.

So after a moment, he says, "He came looking for one with me. When I finally dug it out of him, he told me a curse followed him from home. That it's...affecting him." He pauses. Has Dean told her about this? If not, she knows now. "My concern is it may escalate beyond seeking fights."

His concern is also what the fuck to do about the curse, but that is a larger problem which requires time. Time, and answers that seem near-impossible to retrieve. He isn't opposed to asking for Jo's help—as strange as it is to admit, where Dean is concerned, were he to involve anyone else it'd only be her—but like Jo, he's unwilling to immediately lay down every card over what Dean has confessed. It feels...hasty. And he has little desire to go behind someone's back, friend or no. That's a layer of complication he doesn't need in his life.

ᴍɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ.

[tobeclosetohim]

ɴᴏ ᴅᴀᴡɴ, ɴᴏ ᴅᴀʏ, ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ɪɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴛᴡɪʟɪɢʜᴛ

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's got more than a few knives on her, but it's still a grating thing not to be able to bring her sword here. Or anything larger than a knife. She's pretty sure the number of knives currently on her is probably breaking that rule, too, but it's not like anyone's going to know without a dedicated patdown. Post a few hours in the Hunting Grounds, picking up a crossbow and giving it back; it needles a little deeper even. That not having of something more substantial.

Jo contracted off what she hunted to a butcher with contacts for a tanner and a few other people. She hadn't been listening. She did it for the money, which bothers her, in all of this. It's been a month since she got out the doors of Caden and over two since she first got to go hunting here. But this? Isn't hunting.

Or it is. But it's not the kind of hunting that's digging deeper into Jo's bones the longer she can't do it. The zombies had softened that for a handful of days, but this place isn't home, and she can't do the only job she wants to, needs to, be doing here. And four months is starting to grate harder and harder. At least when she was locked in her mother's bar, hunters were still coming in and out who were doing the job. No one is here.

It's in the back of her teeth. She hit the gambling hall yesterday. She hit the Hunting Grounds this morning. She's done more than she needs to keep up her part of everything. Getting more into her pocket to get herself back to the right setup (for a life that doesn't need that set up, even if she does).

Which leaves her at ends. It leaves her wandering aimlessly through the streets, which is how she finds herself among the newest shops with pieces brought in from all the locations to sell to other Summoned. She browses some book spines, even while thinking the Bunker has a billion she hasn't read yet. Then, she moves on to the potions. They're all sizes and colors, and Jo doesn't even know if she cares, but she ends up asking the guy next to her without much more than a first glance.

"What are you looking for?"

[familysucks]

She's lucky to have access to proper blades at all. Michael can only wish he had a knife comparable to his archangel blade on him. It's hard enough to get a hold of something that might pass for a weapon in Solvunn, let alone one that's meant for anything more than bleeding goats and chickens. It's on the very short list of items he'll acquire for his own needs if Nocwich offers one that suits his taste.

The ennui of life in Abraxas eats at Michael in a different way. It's the lack of purpose that gets to him. There's nothing he needs to be doing anymore: no divine commands, not even the human whims of a familiar presence to guide his decisions. He gets to make his own choices now, all by himself. A coveted freedom for some, to be sure, but not one Michael had ever asked for.

It's what lands him in Nocwich, perusing the shops with a short list of requests in hand. Doing favours for the locals earns him a bit of coin, but more important is that it keeps him busy.

It takes a moment for the recognition to set in when Jo addresses him. He knows that voice, though, and when he glances up he remembers the face, too. Dean Winchester had at one point been important enough that Michael knew everything there was to know about the man, including the names and faces of his entourage.

These days, Dean is just a nuisance presence Michael risks running into whenever he steps outside of Solvunn. Whether someone like Jo falls into the same category remains to be seen. She has little reason to recognize him in return, and accordingly no reason to give him the kind of attitude Dean would.

"A potion," he says, as if standing in front of shelves of them hasn't already told her that much. "What about you?"

He might be a shade miffed that he hasn't already found what he came here for. He has been looking between the rows of bottles and the paper between his hands for at least twenty minutes now. He's not sure how this shop organizes their wares, but given that the owner is a werewolf he's beginning to suspect it may be by scent. Not knowing the odor of the items he's searching for leaves him at a loss.

[tobeclosetohim]

"A distraction, mostly."

Jo taps a nail softly against one that looks like it's swirling by itself. Much like those running Nocwich—and vastly of the variety of monsters she's been told she's still not allowed to kill—it runs a sharp knife tip down the knobs of her spine. Things shouldn't mix themselves. Magic is still something she'd rather have nothing to do with, but she's here, the stall is here, and the guy is here.

"I don't know much about the potions here yet." That yet is tacked less for the guy and more as a pointed dig at herself, from herself. She knows about brews, potions, and spells from books and hunts at home, and not about here. Which is true about half a billion and more things. This one included. But magic, whatever they're doing here and calling it, she should understand more.

It's not like she can pretend she hasn't been touched by it.
Not now that she can do what she can with her sword now.

[familysucks]

There's no getting away from magic in Abraxas. It's what brought them here, it's what keeps them here, and it makes a habit of upending their lives from time to time—or so he's been told. Michael hasn't been around long enough to corroborate the account that the disruptions in the Horizon and day to day life occur in an almost cyclical pattern.

He should be more at ease in this environment than anyone human, wings and light bundled up in borrowed flesh that he is, but grace is different. The closest thing he has to a friend in Solvunn is a witch, and even she had admitted Abraxan magic operates by a peculiar and unreliable set of rules.

Michael hums an agreement. Apart from the few he's tried his hand at mixing, he doesn't know much about the potions here either, and the Solvunn elders have an irritating habit of answering queries with a vague you will know when it is time.

"And the locals are not always forthcoming." He picks up a bottle filled with a shimmering moss green liquid and turns it over. A remedy for morning sickness, the label reads. Not quite what he's after.

"A distraction from what, exactly?"

A decade in Adam's company—a thousand years or so in Hell time—had taught him that humans don't suffer from a lack of purpose as acutely as angels do. Some of them even relish it. Adam had also made him understand that humans are not a monolith, so it's not out of the question that Jo seeks the same kind of escape he does. Michael can admit, if only to himself, to some degree of curiosity about the kind of company Dean Winchester keeps.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo skims the shelf thinking he's not wrong. The locals here are middle of the road on what they give and what they don't. The Free Cities are not even into the considering magic game, which makes it all that much clearer how often it's really seen out where they are, too. It's not entirely verboten, but the reliance on it was seen as backward.

She knew of one or two smuggled books from Thorne to the Free Cities, but the fact they had to be smuggled, to begin with? Jo doesn't even have a deep interest in magic—aside from maybe the creations Viktor mentioned he was attempting—or in finding anything specific on the shelf in front of her. What did it have that she wanted?

No matter how weird the shape or pleasing the color,
there wasn't a single bottle on this shelf that would send her home.

"Everything, maybe."

Did she want to go home as fervently having lived through her death in glaring color? Did she want to walk straight into the jaws of that? Jo frowned at the shelf. Fear wasn't in the mixture of the thought. Was it the timetable? The idea of how little or how much could be done with the time before that day? Did any of it matter when none of what she was doing here, in this place, felt like it was what she should be?

Did she know exactly how bent that sounded?

Yeah. Probably.


"What kind of potion? Maybe I can help you winnow down some shelves."