[ sam doesn't necessarily expect the look that geralt turns back to him with, but he does expect something close. so when geralt turns back to look at him, sam is there - waiting for an answer, maybe, but also just there at all. and if he needs the time to figure out what he wants to say, if he needs to just change the subject entirely, sam will pick up with those threads too.
because it is, in the end, all about family. about the family they left at home, and - maybe - the family they're building here, too. if sam really wanted to think about it, it's probably what drew them to each other that first visit to the horizon in the first place. similar feelings, similar ideas, of home. of what it means to come back, to find your footing, to be where you don't have to be anything else. sam has that, in this house he's taken with him here. has that back home, with sarah and the boys. has that, and can only create that for others, because he knows what it takes to build.
geralt's keep is freezing, open to the elements and the years its survived. but sam could see it even there, something like gravity, like a sun in the lives of people like geralt, like his brothers. a pain in my arse geralt says, and sam lets himself laugh. because yeah- that sounds about right. sam's mind flitters through his fellow soldiers, riley and the others in his unit. to steve and nat and wanda and bucky, too. family carries that affection, easy and heavy all at once, and sam takes another drink of his beer to help mediate the physical feeling he has in association with that tone.
he mentions vessemir next, and sam remembers the conversation. how little sam had known about geralt, about witchers, when it had first been brought up and how he'd called the man a survivor. it seems to fit the image even more, now, even if sam feels something a little more painful as geralt mentions orphans. it's not surprising, he finds, but it's still another piece of information. another little bit of geralt slipping through the cracks. orphans, and yet with that is kaer morhen. his brothers. vesemir. his family, that he so obviously misses, and yet with it that same heaviness he's seen geralt carrying. he can put enough of the pieces together - the memory the mage pulled free, what geralt told him about the mutations, the mentions of home and how something as simple as family can lift some of that tension in geralt's shoulders.
somewhere, in the back of sam's head, are learned expressions. sometimes the people we love the most are also the ones who hurt us the worst and you're allowed to have forgiven the people who have hurt you but sam...chooses to stash them away. maybe for later, maybe for never, because he looks at geralt now and can tell that the other man isn't here for a lesson. not in the textbook sort of way. ]
I bet you miss 'em. [ a beat, and if geralt looks back over to him, sam's going to gesture with the beer bottle up and around the kitchen - where Christmas decorations sit, displayed or tucked or just out. it's hard to tell if the house was this decorated when geralt first showed up, but it is now. ] Christmas- or, you called it Yule? It's during the winter months, when you usually go home, right? [ sam's not assuming this is geralt's first winter away from his family, but he does assume the connection. ]
It sucks. [ a beat, and then he shrugs. ] I know how hard it is when the one thing you want is to go home, and you can't.
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because it is, in the end, all about family. about the family they left at home, and - maybe - the family they're building here, too. if sam really wanted to think about it, it's probably what drew them to each other that first visit to the horizon in the first place. similar feelings, similar ideas, of home. of what it means to come back, to find your footing, to be where you don't have to be anything else. sam has that, in this house he's taken with him here. has that back home, with sarah and the boys. has that, and can only create that for others, because he knows what it takes to build.
geralt's keep is freezing, open to the elements and the years its survived. but sam could see it even there, something like gravity, like a sun in the lives of people like geralt, like his brothers. a pain in my arse geralt says, and sam lets himself laugh. because yeah- that sounds about right. sam's mind flitters through his fellow soldiers, riley and the others in his unit. to steve and nat and wanda and bucky, too. family carries that affection, easy and heavy all at once, and sam takes another drink of his beer to help mediate the physical feeling he has in association with that tone.
he mentions vessemir next, and sam remembers the conversation. how little sam had known about geralt, about witchers, when it had first been brought up and how he'd called the man a survivor. it seems to fit the image even more, now, even if sam feels something a little more painful as geralt mentions orphans. it's not surprising, he finds, but it's still another piece of information. another little bit of geralt slipping through the cracks. orphans, and yet with that is kaer morhen. his brothers. vesemir. his family, that he so obviously misses, and yet with it that same heaviness he's seen geralt carrying. he can put enough of the pieces together - the memory the mage pulled free, what geralt told him about the mutations, the mentions of home and how something as simple as family can lift some of that tension in geralt's shoulders.
somewhere, in the back of sam's head, are learned expressions. sometimes the people we love the most are also the ones who hurt us the worst and you're allowed to have forgiven the people who have hurt you but sam...chooses to stash them away. maybe for later, maybe for never, because he looks at geralt now and can tell that the other man isn't here for a lesson. not in the textbook sort of way. ]
I bet you miss 'em. [ a beat, and if geralt looks back over to him, sam's going to gesture with the beer bottle up and around the kitchen - where Christmas decorations sit, displayed or tucked or just out. it's hard to tell if the house was this decorated when geralt first showed up, but it is now. ] Christmas- or, you called it Yule? It's during the winter months, when you usually go home, right? [ sam's not assuming this is geralt's first winter away from his family, but he does assume the connection. ]
It sucks. [ a beat, and then he shrugs. ] I know how hard it is when the one thing you want is to go home, and you can't.