Dean's footsteps echo in the corridor. Geralt waits for the man to catch up, follows him into his room.

He sits on the bed. In a sense, he can feel what's coming. That is, perhaps, the strange irony. How both Lucifer and Dean have pulled him aside because he's the one person close to Dean who will not hesitate. But where Lucifer misread what he will and will not do, Dean understands him far better.

"I know," he says simply. He will. It's a promise, but it isn't. This goes beyond what he'll do for Dean. He'll do it because if it needs to be done, then it needs to be done.

He wants to protect Dean. He'd like nothing more than for all of this to resolve without a drop of blood shed. But there are others he needs to protect, as well. Perhaps that's what separates him from Sam or Castiel. He doesn't know, mostly doesn't think about it. Their relationship with Dean is complex, rooted in a history he will never fully grasp. Doesn't want to, either. His own are tangled as it is.

He pauses. "Lucifer's understanding of the curse comes from his centuries upon your world. We're realms away. We don't know what holds true here."