[ CLOSED ] eyes black, big paws

[gynvael]

Who: Geralt + Various
When: March
Where: Cadens, Horizon
What: Catch-all
Warnings: Standard Witcher canon; nsfw marked.


and it's poison in his blood;
we took you right from your mother's womb;

discontinued | quantifies | starters below.

Comments

[outwear]

"This isn't what I was expecting," Sam says, cutting the silence between them. Nature calls from all around, plants and animals bringing life that's familiar, but not-quite-real, like everything else: The air, the earth, the white-haired man inspecting his own grounds, even Sam as an invader in this place (but, through the grace of his brother and Geralt's patience, welcome despite this).

He often wanders, but this is the first chance he's taken towards this connection beyond the convenient or expected. By the look of his boots — the mud and the scuffs — he's taken the long way to get here. The sun's warmed the high points of his face and the wind's swept his hair, but the freedom of mind has eluded him regardless, like a wraith.

(Has he ever lived a life settled? The discomfort of being unsettled is like a warm throw, a soft quilt made of disappointment that doesn't even belong to Sam. The stitching is still tight, no threat of unraveling for him anytime soon. It's only lately he's really bothered to try...)

Crouching as well, he looks over the area Geralt is inspecting. A means to an end, mostly.

"A big melt recently?" Obvious, but he can see the signs and hopes to acknowledge quietly the changes happening around them. It's part of the reason he's here, anyway.

[gynvael]

Kaer Morhen carries a foreboding air that suggests all who set foot on its grounds is an outsider. Even Jaskier seldom visits, and Yennefer has entered once, maybe twice. The nature of the fortress' isolated walls and insular occupants. Sticky brown puddles and crackling lightning don't make it any more welcoming.

After a moment, Geralt rises. He sets the wilted rose aside. It'll reappear where it will later, he expects. These things usually do.

"Seems so," he replies simply. His gaze roams over Sam for a moment. Dean had mentioned his brother returning; Geralt is genuinely glad for his friend, but he and Sam have never been on the steadiest footing. It isn't uneasiness, exactly. A lack of familiarity more than anything—and maybe a sense of indifference on Geralt's part that makes it clear the camaraderie he shares with Sam's brother is an exception, not the rule.

Which means he doesn't bother with questions of how Sam is doing in Solvunn or if Sam has found his own Horizon similarly upturned.

"You came to speak to me?" Or had Sam wandered through those broken gates without realizing who the space belonged to?

[outwear]

Had he come to speak with Geralt? Sam doesn't particularly feel as if that had been his intetion when he'd set out, but as with so many other things, he's found himself in pursuit of a purpose without even realizing. Now that he's here, Sam can say for certain that it was curiosity about Geralt that's landed him here.

"Yeah, why not," he reasons, his face turned into the blowing wind. It lacks the necessary nonchalance to signify the same sort of connection he might share with Dean, but Sam is trying. When it comes to Geralt, much like Benny, the difficulty comes in knowing (one way or another) what's best for his brother. As it stands, the Witcher's influence has certainly provided more positive influence than Sam's, especially as of late.

Of course, no conversation can start that way, so Sam lets his curiosity lead him. "This is where you're from? It's nice." The deep breath he takes in reminds him of home, but only in the most minor ways, like a whiff of something familiar. "Has my brother claimed a room yet? He—" Sam laughs, shaking his head. "He goes all-in for the family gig."

[gynvael]

Nice has Geralt tilting his head. Not the word he'd use—especially as it is now—but he lets the comment pass without remark. Roach snorts from inside her stall, unhappy with the weather.

"It's where I was raised." A minor distinction, but significant. He isn't from anywhere. One could argue that if Kaer Morhen is home, then that's his place of origin. For him, it isn't so simple.

There's the smallest pause when Sam brings up family. Geralt looks thoughtful. For a moment, it seems he might even answer. He doesn't. Instead, he motions for Sam to follow him inside. It's fucking wet out here, and he isn't keen on the constant lightning.

The truth is, Dean only visits on rare occasions. Geralt often goes to the bunker instead. And though he has offered Dean a place in the temple beneath, Kaer Morhen is something else, carved so deeply by the past that it does not have a place for anyone else. Not like that. Ciri remains the sole exception in hundreds of years.

The heavy doors swing shut. The braziers are lit with blazing fires. Geralt shrugs off his cloak, draping it over the side of a long table, littered with scorch marks and haphazard gouges.

Gentle curiosity might be the way to proceed for most, but Geralt is not most. He swings his leg over a rough-hewn bench.

"What did you want to discuss?"

[outwear]

As they spend time together — mere and minute increments, in reality — the more Sam comes to realize Geralt's silence is as meaningful as his answers. Sometimes more so. He doesn't bother with discussing Dean's presence (or lack thereof), but instead ushers them into a sense of comfort instead. Out of the rain, at least. The great room they've entered echos like holy places where Sam has done his job in the past: dark, tall, secluded, outerworldly.

"Discuss?" The hunter's eyebrows knit and he purses his lips into a word but disregards it. "I'm not sure I left thinking about that, but since we're here..."

Following Geralt's example, Sam takes a seat across from him. There are glasses and jugs around and a guess would suggest mead or some other alocoholic equivalent, but until Geralt makes an offer, Sam's not apt to reach. Instead, he crouches, too-tall in all ways and used to accomodating for it. It makes him look feeble, probably.

"I was wrong about you. To- to worry about you, I mean," he corrects. "And it shouldn't be hard to admit, but I'm glad Dean's got more people who give a crap."

[gynvael]

Geralt watches Sam fold himself onto a bench in a way that he is not used to seeing here. His brothers have always been apt to take up too much space without care, wedging themselves into places they've been told they don't belong in. Geralt is prone to the same, one arm slung over the length of the table as he leans back.

He remembers the first time Sam approached him with a similar sentiment. It's not you, it's my brother. And he'd thought to himself, would Sam feel the same were Dean's new friend not a man with yellow eyes and an air of something distinctly inhuman?

Maybe. Maybe not. (Unlikely.) But it also matters little now.

"He's your brother," he replies at last. "I know what that's like." He gives a slight shrug, acknowledging: "I didn't trust him at first myself."

He does now, but the truth is, much of that was Dean's doing. If Dean had not come to him on several occasions—for help, for company—Geralt would likely have done what he always did. Stayed wary. Maintained his distance. Kept to himself. Dean was one of the first people he grew close to who didn't hail from the Continent. More than that, he knows Dean was wary of him, too. Of what the Witcher was. But he extended a hand regardless, and Geralt found himself meeting it. It means something to him.