[ OPEN / CLOSED ] i think i found a way to kill the sun

[gynvael]

Who: Geralt + Various
When: December
Where: Cadens, Horizon
What: Some catching up now that he's home
Warnings: Discussion of trauma; nsfw marked



(( placing starters in the comments below. find me at discontinued or at Noa#1979 to plot stuff! ))

Comments

[gynvael]

[ Sam's remark brings a curve to his lips. So she does. He makes a thoughtful sound. ]

She called it Christmas. Looks like Yule to me.

[ He imagines it's along the same lines. Winter solstice and all. Her concept of it is just significantly more colourful.

He's not aware Sam spoke to Julie, though he does know Julie spoke to Jaskier and Ciri both—and by proxy, he thinks Sam must have caught on a little to what happened one way or another. The man's always been too perceptive for his own good. Geralt can't say he exactly minds. Maybe some part of him is hoping Sam will piece it together on his own and Geralt can get away with never talking about it. It's difficult to explain, the feeling—like he wants Sam to know, but wants it to go unspoken at the same time. Makes no fucking sense, does it?

He says nothing about Sam dodging the question. He shrugs a shoulder instead. Jaskier's magic did a lot for his knee. ] Nearly healed. [ There's the smallest hesitation before he adds, ] I don't recall what happened to it.

[ He'd told Jaskier he'd strained it and that's likely true to a degree. He just can't remember when or how or if he struck it somehow. He knows exactly why there are holes in his memories, but it bothers him all the same. ]

[falcony]

Ah- [ sam makes a kind of 'so-so' movement with his hand. ] If it's anything like my home town, it's a bit of both. Christmas was kind of... [ sam pauses, unsure of how much he wants to get into this deep of a conversation on horizon beer and exhaustion, and ends up shaking his head. ] Doesn't matter, but I'm pretty sure they're similar.

[ there's a pause there from sam, with the bottle to his lips, where he thinks about that. about Christmas, about more holidays. about how much time it's been and how much more they probably have left to go. these moments tend to sneak up on him (more often around the holidays than any other time, sure) but it feels even more relevant now. with Christmas, with everything that just happened.

and that's what they're here for, isn't it? why else would geralt have reached out to him like this? sam shrugs, more to get himself out of his own thoughts than anything, and finishes the sip he'd been taking and nods at geralt's half-shrug. ]

Well, considering the shape you showed up in, I'm sure you had other things on your mind. They kind of did a number on you... [ which brings sam to another pause, though this one has his eyes on geralt, rather than to the middle distance of the kitchen. his eyes linger for a few moments too, in silence - waiting to see if geralt will offer anything that's on his mind, or if this is going to take a little more effort. either geralt does something that convinces sam one way or the other, or it's just a gut feeling, but sam speaks again soon after. ]

You wanna talk about it?

[gynvael]

[ He lets the conversation about celebrations flow past him, an absent nod at what Sam's saying. He came here to try to...what. Capture some semblance of peace, one of the few good memories he's ever held? He isn't sure. He only knows he felt like they could both use the time away from the blood that he can still smell in Sam's home, the empty rooms, and now that they're here he's—

If he'd only come away with his injuries, he'd have been fine. He's suffered worse. He's survived worse. But his mind has never been torn into so thoroughly. He doesn't—he hates what Yennefer did and he hates more the knowledge that if she'd not been there, he could've done nothing to stop them, nothing to protect himself. Nothing to protect Ciri. Even now, sometimes he wonders: are they still looking inside? It's overly paranoid—they aren't; he would feel it—but the whole incident has left him unsteady, unsure. (Afraid.)

He'll get over it, he knows that. He's always picked himself back up and he refuses to let this time be any fucking different. It's just. Been harder than usual to put his fears, his worries, his dark thoughts aside. What he'd been forced to remember, its teeth have sunk deep. He can't stop dreaming about it, he can't concentrate for shit. He twists the bottle in his hands, an uncharacteristic tic, and maybe that's what catches Sam's attention. What prompts the question.

He almost says no. The real irony is, if not for what occurred in the desert, he'd have done exactly that. But Sam helped him, anyway. Without hesitation, even after. Apologized to him. No one's done that before. There have been those who never gave a shit in the first place, what blood he has on his hands—but no one who looked at him and reconsidered and came back. ]

I don't know. [ He watches Sam. It's the truth. He does and he doesn't. ] Not a lot to say. I'm sure Jaskier filled you in.

[ That is not, he knows, why Sam is asking if he wants to talk about it. It is not for want of information—but it is easier, in this moment, to answer it as though it were. ]

[falcony]

[ so that is how it's going to be - sam can roll with it, any attempts as the lighter conversation simply passing them both by. he can appreciate geralt's forthright-ness, or what he just nearly assumes is forthright-ness, up until the point that that geralt actually answers and sam, himself, is left in a bit of a pause.

because the truth of it is - sam doesn't actually know what happened. what he's pieced together has involved thorne, has involved some serious torture practices, and then involved geralt getting out. he assumes someone from the inside had helped him, and assumes that it had been geralt who had gotten himself to nott. sam hasn't spoken to julie directly, and if he's being honest, he hasn't spoken to jaskier all that much either.

there's a difference between need to know and want to know - and for days, weeks even, sam's been working in the former. but he's also noticed geralt, through all of that. how his body has been healing, and yet he's still a bit distracted, uncertain, tense. sam hasn't pushed - he knows better than to do that with someone clearly trying (to varying degrees of success) to process a traumatic event - but his gut tells him it's more. that there's a lot more. he's just not entirely certain what all he's allowed to even ask. allowed, because of what happened in the desert. allowed, because of the ground they've covered since. sam is uncertain, in many ways, but just as he's done before he catches the wind and runs. jumps.

I don't know geralt says, and sam doesn't nod. doesn't really react. he watches geralt watch him and waits, patient and unassuming. the diversion to jaskier isn't surprising, and sam finds himself adjusting slightly where he leans against the counter. ]

The bigger picture, sure. But I haven't really let him tell me anything beyond that. [ sam waits for any kind of acknowledgment from geralt - confusion, maybe. or simply a look. why hasn't sam asked about it? why hasn't sam gone after every lead, every possible source of information? sam shrugs. ] I figured if you did want to talk, you knew how to find me. No point in getting the story second-hand if you didn't want me to know.

[gynvael]

[ Have not asked and haven't let are two different things. That it's the latter is what makes him give Sam that look, a slight furrow to his brows. He's assumed Sam would not go around hassling anyone for answers, but he'd not imagined Sam would go out of his way to avoid hearing them altogether. Because—what. He wanted to hear it from Geralt instead?

It's easy to shut himself off. He's been doing so his entire life. If he were on his own, if he'd had no one else here, that's what he'd have done. Long nights awake until enough time passes. Until he's back to sleeping like shit, but at least he can sleep at all. The pattern is old, familiar. It's also not what he needs right now, not what Ciri needs. If he can't keep his head on straight, how the fuck is he meant to protect her? Part of him thinks talking to Sam, talking to anyone, is a waste of time. What'll it do? He isn't searching for sympathy or even understanding. He doesn't know what he's looking for, in truth. But he does know saying nothing has done little to help settle his thoughts.

And other than Jaskier—who he isn't interested in burdening further—Sam is the one person who knows better than to offer him empty platitudes. Sam had once glimpsed the shadows inside his mind, in those tunnels long ago. It is, perhaps, in part that shared experience which has brought him here now.

Geralt sets the bottle aside. He needs a stronger drink. Where does he start? Does he start with telling Sam he'd been caught off guard, does he tell him he cannot close his eyes without seeing old horrors? Does he even mention Yennefer? How is he to explain what Sam can't possibly begin to grasp? He isn't certain he even wants to explain. It's not any of Sam's business, but he—

Long minutes pass where Geralt is silent, still. And then a breath, like he's annoyed at this being a problem at all, like Sam's not already noticed by now his restless nights, his tossing and turning: ] I can't fucking sleep.

[falcony]

[ it is unsteady ground, trying to open up a space for someone who is not used to talking, to talk. it's a balance between wanting to give them the time they need to find the words and the push, or jumping-off place, to start talking about it. it's even trickier, sam knows, when you're close to the person - because you want to jump in. you want to fill the space. you want to offer up words that might be it just so that they don't feel pressure to come up with them on their own.

but he doesn't want to speak for geralt. he doesn't want to put words in his mouth. whatever it was that happened was more than just the gruesome lashes down his back and a battered body - sam saw it in the distant looks he'd catch geralt making, the quiet, complicated silences that followed him. it's strange, to think he has now known geralt for long enough to know there is a difference in those silences, but at the same time, not that strange at all.

so sam waits - looking patient and comfortable where he's standing. he could stand here all day, if geralt wanted to wait that long. he hopes he doesn't.

it is some time before geralt speaks, his voice annoyed at the very concept. I can't fucking sleep. and sam nods - not because he's noticed it himself, not because he's well aware of geralt's restless, long nights. but more so because he gets it. ]

Nightmares? [ he asks first, with a kind of casual acceptance of the concept. ] Or can't turn your brain off?

[gynvael]

[ Rare, that he can't sit still. The distinct urge to fidget rises inside him and he quashes it down. Nightmares. Something like that. It's hard to explain. He's always had them. He can't remember a time when he did not, when he slept easy. It's to the point where he thinks little of it anymore. He falls asleep, sometimes he's jerked out of it, sometimes he wakes up with phantom pains, ghosts lingering. But it's been a long time since they've eaten at him so thoroughly. Where he can't put them aside and roll over and try to sleep some more. Where he is almost afraid of what he will continue to see. It feels too much like he's regressed. He's been here before. He's learned, painfully, over years and years, to move on. And he can't stand that it took a single fucking moment to undo all of that.

Sam's question hangs in the air and stays there. Geralt takes a moment, considers exactly what it is he means for Sam to know. What he is willing to place in the open that isn't a series of half-starts and broken confessions. He did come to Sam for a purpose. He does not want to throw a pile of his shit at Sam's feet and ask the man to pick up the pieces. That isn't—that's not what he wants. He's not here to fall apart.

(But fuck if he isn't close. He's so tired of holding himself together. He wants someone else to do it for him.)

He leans forward, elbows on his knees. When he finally speaks again, it's both blunt and detached, as though he's spent the past few minutes carefully deciding his words. ]

Her mage wanted inside my head. When he broke through, it— [ For all that he had tried not to, he falters, anyway. His shoulders tighten. It bothers him, that speaking of it is so damn hard. That it has dug so deep in him he can't even say it. ] A memory was pulled free. An old one. And I can't put it away again.

[ He is, he realizes, asking for help. The thought leaves him uneasy, uncertain, but there it is and it's too late to take it back now. ]

[falcony]

[ sam notices the distinct urge to fidget, but does little else beyond that - a glance of his eyes, a seeing, and then he's back to geralt. he can tell there is a kind of processing happening, and it's actually quite familiar to him - watching as someone decides what it is they want to say. watching as they choose what aspects of themselves they want to bear clean, and what they want to keep hidden. for those who don't usually open themselves up, it can be that much harder - working to push upstream in an unforgiving current of habit and protective barriers. especially when those barriers make it feel like you're going backwards, into territory you had wanted to leave behind.

( he's been here before, watched friends - colleagues - random people who saw him at the va and found he was the only person they could come to. he's been here when people have said two words and then left, when people have sat and screamed at him like he's the person at fault, and he's watched silent, quiet suffering all come crumbling apart.

sam never goes into these moments with expectations. never goes into these moments with plans. he just reminds himself to be patient, to be understanding, and to let the other person decide. )

so he doesn't react when geralt leans forward. listens, when he finally speaks. there is no pressure from sam's side for geralt to speak sooner or later and when he does, no pressure to wrap up or continue. but there is a request in it, isn't there? and I can't put it away again. sam nods, understanding - because he knows the feeling. knows how exhausting it can be, when those memories suddenly come back with a vengeance that can't be controlled. sam thinks for a few moments after, before he looks over to geralt. ]

Usually- and listen, I'm not. A doctor or anything. You can tell me to fuck off whenever you want, and I know you will. But usually- talking about it can help, because our brains will latch onto shit that they're trying to make sense of.

[ a beat, and then sam lets out another breath. ]

I'm guessing it was something traumatic. It's why you can't let go of it.

[gynvael]

[ Sometimes he wonders how the hell he found himself here. Considering speaking of this to someone who was never there, never a part of his life for even that long. He's barely even told Jaskier. Perhaps that's why, though. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Sam is familiar—a friend—but still doesn't know him or their world well enough to place into full context using the barest detail granted, the way Jaskier or Yennefer can.

His gaze shifts. ] I'm not confused about a damn thing, Sam.

[ The bite is unintended, but it slips through. He sighs. It isn't Sam's fault. Sam is, from what he's learned, a soldier. And he's likely used to it: friends, comrades, who have witnessed the carnage of battlefields and untold losses. But that isn't this. He is not struggling to make sense of a tragedy or some horrific scene that occurred that he needs to put to rest. It runs deeper. It's shaped everything he is, everything he's become. There is no letting go. What he wants is to move forward, without the memories lurking every time he closes his eyes as though they happened only yesterday. He wants to be able to say it was a long time ago and mean it again. (He does not want to admit that some of those memories are new, once forgotten, unburied at last and now he can't— )

Fuck it. He can say it, can't he? (Why should he be so fucking afraid of voicing what he's acknowledged happened decades ago?) ]

When people learn we were made, they imagine it takes hours. A night. [ He finally puts the bottle aside, unwilling to pretend he's here to drink. ] But mutations are slow. If you rush it, the body is more likely to give out. A dozen or so boys went into that room and after several bloody days, four crawled out. [ He hesitates, searching for the right words. ] I know what they did to me. I don't spend my days drowning it out or pretending it never happened. I've made my peace. But ever since Thorne, it's as though—

[ As though what? He doesn't pause long, some part of him realizing if he stops now he will not find it in him to finish. ] —as though I've not made any fucking peace at all. Like I'm still five summers old, and it's only been a week since.

[falcony]

[ the bite is unintended, and sam knows it the second it slips through. it's why he doesn't react, why he doesn't so much as blink, waiting for geralt to continue. because it'd be easy to tell him that there's a difference between trying to process and being confused, but he assumes that falls into finer details that won't actually help matters, so he lets it pass.

but geralt also isn't wrong. sam hasn't really ever dealt with anything like this before. not like geralt, not like whatever these trials were meant to be, nothing. so he tries not to assume, tries to keep being patient, because that's all he can really do. his brows lift a bit when geralt says people, then fall as his descriptions continue on. the numbers alone make his stomach turn, but the way that geralt says crawled is something else. he doesn't nod, but sam's eyes do turn to the space in front of him, rather than on geralt's face.

it's not his burden to carry, and geralt's not looking for sympathy. he came to this to talk, came here to share what it is he can't stop thinking about, and sam's not the type of person to think he is just going to magically make it all go away.

the frustration is what pulls sam's eyes back over to where geralt is sitting, brow furrowed just the slightest bit. ]

What did you do before? To make your peace. [ a beat, and then- ] And don't tell me you just suffered through enough sleepless nights that it didn't bother you anymore. I can't imagine that kind of shit just stops bothering. Not really.

[ it's a nicer way of saying did you really make peace? seeing as sams not trying to pick a fight. ]

[gynvael]

[ He isn't seeking sympathy, no. Nor even understanding. He can grasp this is not something most can understand and he would not care for them to try. So Sam's silence while he speaks is all that he's looking for. He's never told anyone before. Not like this. Hard to decide if he regrets it already or not.

A huff escapes him. His eyes cut away. Sam's not wrong. That's part of it. Sleepless nights that have never gone away. They do bother him, though. He can't deny that. But it's...the question does make him think. It's a new thing, to dig into himself and explain, and he almost doesn't want to. He does because Sam's giving him his time, is being patient with him. He recognizes that. ]

I went home. [ Not home as in his world. Home, as a far more intimate place. That's the answer, isn't it? He could go home before, where he's reminded he isn't alone, where the world outside can't penetrate. He was raised in those walls with those just like him, those who survived what he had. People who know him. They aren't here. He's got none of them here, no one to talk to the way he could with them. ] We grew up together. We don't all make it back every winter, but—

[ He gives a small shrug. What the fuck else is there to really say? He could tell them anything, and that's a rare feeling for him. And no matter how close to gets to anyone in this place, no matter how much he trusts them or Jaskier or those who are important to him, it can't ever be the same as his bond with the other Witchers. He misses them. He's missed them this entire time, but since Thorne, since the winter months have returned to Cadens, he's felt their absence more deeply than ever. ]

[falcony]

[ it always surprises him, no matter how often he had his talks at the va or how many people he walked through or how many soldiers he counseled - they’re all so different, yes, but also not all that different at all.

home, geralt says, and sam understands. not the experiences, not the trauma, not the shadows or memories or fears that chase geralt in his dreams. sam doesn’t understand the specific trauma itself, but he understands home. and more than that, he understands the urge to want to be around others. for geralt, going home meant being around other witchers, other people who did understand.

there’s not a whole lot to explain when they all went through it. not a whole lot of foundation that needs to be built. they get it, they get each other, and now that geralt doesn’t have that support system, yeah. of course he’d feel lost.

part of sam nearly snorts - if only because, while different, the experiences are the same. sam started working at the va to counsel soldiers because he did understand them. the people he used to talk to, the people he could help, they had the same experiences. they were family. and that’s exactly what geralt is describing. the urge to want to go home is universal, is exactly what sam himself does (did) when things got hard.

but he doesn’t. instead, sam shifts a little. watches geralt shrug, try redirect attention, and then turns his eyes back to his drink. ]

What are they like? [ if geralt looks at all confused, if he looks at sam at all really, sam will look back with that same unguarded, curious, patient look. ] Your brothers, I mean.

[gynvael]

[ It's not confusion or even a question in his eyes when they turn on Sam, but a sort of realization. Because Sam does not say your kind or your people. He says brothers, and Geralt recognizes that he needn't explain anything else, what he means about going home. That Sam understands without having to be told. Maybe Sam feels the same way. He's seen it, has he not? This house filled with pictures and bits and pieces, but empty of his nephews or his sister. It is not a fortress, like Geralt's, but that makes no difference. Home is home. They've both built it here for a reason, even knowing it can't ever be the real thing. ]

A pain in my arse. [ The note of affection is audible; he doesn't hide it. Whether he notices or not, his shoulders are less tense than before. ] Not as much as Vesemir's, though. [ He's only mentioned Vesemir once, and not by name, but he imagines Sam can put it together. He is not, exactly, certain why he's telling Sam this, but he finds it isn't a topic he's reluctant to get into, and so he keeps going. ] It was only ever him with a handful of orphans.

[ He knows what people often think. About how Witchers were raised. About how they were made and trained and moulded. He knows it is easy to assume he holds some deep resentment over what he'd been forced to become. Maybe he had, once. Somewhere in there, somewhere in years long past, he had. But it's a much more complicated thing, how he altogether feels about it. When he told Sam he can't imagine having taken any other path, he meant it. He hadn't asked to be what he is, but he also doesn't wish to be anything else. He doesn't wish to not have the ragtag family he wound up with.

Maybe that's why it bothers him, that the memories have returned with a vengeance to haunt him. It stirs up what he'd learned to put aside—both because he's well aware it will help no one, least of all him, to dwell over what can't be changed, and because he's...he truthfully can't ever consider wanting to be raised any other way. To be without the people who shaped him since he was a boy. ]

[falcony]

[ 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.

[gynvael]

[ He's thought it before, that home has never been a place to live. It's a place to return to. He feels like not everyone comprehends what that truly means, but he knows Sam does—Sam who's told him about leaving his sister behind and coming back to find that no matter how much time has passed or things have changed, the doors are open.

For awhile, he doesn't answer. In part, he's mulling over his thoughts; the other is, he thinks there's no answer he needs to give. They don't celebrate Yule—just a safe return—but Sam isn't far off the mark. He does miss them. He does go home, every winter. It is the one thing he has not missed in his long years. Not only because he wants to return, wants those months behind those walls where he can rest, but because he knows what it says when one of them fails to show. And he wonders if they will count him among the lost this year. If...

It takes some time before Geralt speaks up. When he does, he studies Sam for a long moment, like he's considering something important. Sam's visited that cozy cabin that never existed, he's come by the keep outside its gates. But he's never been inside and Geralt finds himself saying, abruptly, ] Come see it. You've never been in.

[ He isn't sure why he's extending the invitation now. Just seems the thing to do. Like—if Sam sees it, really sees it, it'll say what he wants to say without the need to put it to words. All the things he's sort of told him, anyway, in between what's spoken out loud.

Or perhaps it isn't anything so complicated. Perhaps it's only that, Sam has become someone he wants to share his home with. ]

[falcony]

[ that is exactly it though, isn’t it? home can be a family, can be a house, can be a sense of feeling whole end settled and where people look at you like the you of now, rather than the you you’re supposed to be, and sam does understand that. inherently. completely. how it can be somewhere that it means as much to leave as it means to come hole again.

for sam, it’s not as regular as geralt. he makes it home for the holidays that he can, for stretches of time when he feels like he’s unraveling, when his parents got sick and grandparents passed away - but he’s also left, just as frequently. years on the run, years where he hadn’t existed at all. years, where he’d been off fighting the world because if no one else was going to change it, he would.

honestly, sam doesn’t expect geralt to respond to it, which is why his attention turns back to his drink, or maybe the decorations up in the rafters, or maybe it’s just the photos they can always make out - either way, sam’s attention is elsewhere, so that when geralt does speak up with his offer, it catches sam a bit off-guard. not in a bad way, not in a negative way. just. in an unexpected way.

come see it and sam’s breath doesn’t catch, necessarily, but he does feel a slow smile tug at his mouth. ] Sure. [ because it’s true - he’s never actually been inside. just to a cabin that isn’t there and the walls around it, when he’d been out of his mind worried, and had to move, somehow. ]

Yeah, no, you’re right. I haven’t been inside- but I’d definitely like to see it.

[ he chooses not to focus, for now, on what that means. geralt, opening his home up to him. geralt, who came here to find him too. that doesn’t mean he won’t later, but for now sam just nods. ]

[gynvael]

[ The look that crosses Sam's face in return leaves Geralt contemplative. He's not certain what to make of it yet. It isn't bad; just leaves him thinking, maybe, about where they've found themselves after all the shit that's happened. He doesn't linger long, standing to lead the way out the door.

The path that winds down the Horizon is the same as ever: domains that rise and sprawl, each interconnected with no rhyme or reason like a mismatched puzzle. His own consists of a snowy mountain trail, much shortened and smoothed out for travellers. The gates and the yard, Sam must've seen before. All the bones buried under the snow. The wolf greets them at the entrance. It's friendlier than it's once been. Less wild, less prone to stalk in the shadows and avoid visitors, though it remains guarded nonetheless with strangers. Sam isn't a stranger, though, so he might get a bump of its wet nose.

Inside is where he really means to show Sam. Geralt pushes open the heavy doors that lead into the main hall. The fire pit and lit torches bring only some warmth to the cold. Much of the wind and snow seeps through the crumbling old walls. Even so, the sense of home permeates the fortress, with ale and food laid out, waiting for those who may not (will not) come. ]

This is Kaer Morhen. Few outsiders see it back home.

[ It isn't real here, so it matters not. He's only built in part, anyway, and its secrecy isn't relevant in this world. ]

[falcony]

[ geralt stands and sam is pushing off to follow, setting down his mug on any of the surfaces he can easily reach and making his way out the door with him. he grabs a jacket off the hook as they go, because even if it's not all that cold, it will be.

and he follows geralt down the path, through the grasses along the horizon and into the mountainous path. sam catches himself staring after the landscapes, like they were both somehow on some hike through the hills rather than heading in any sort of direction, and before he knew it the snow had started to fall. he has seen the gates, saw the yard from a distance, the pieces of bones sticking out through the white of the snow. the wolf greets them, a wolf sam has left letters with, has taken the time to leave treats and pet every once in a while. for today, he does get a bump of a wet nose, and sam stops for a moment just to rub at his ears and fur. he fits the place, fits geralt, just as the keep around him seems to do the same.

it's inside that sam's focus comes back, eyes immediately on the heavy doors, the large room, and the tree beyond. he sees silver hanging off its branches, and then snow breaking through the crumbling walls, but as if in spite of all of that, there is a warmth. a comforting peace to it all. without realizing he's doing it, sam's shoulders seem to relax. his eyes are still wandering, moving from windows to the arch of the ceiling to the tables and benches and ale and food. ]

You know. [ sam says, in that distracted sort of way that makes it sound like he's more interested in looking than talking, but doesn't want geralt to think he wasn't listening. ] I could see it. You- growing up here. [ he starts to wander inside, eyes still everywhere, like he's trying to take in the entire room all in one go. ]

Guessing the secrecy was intentional because of the whole 'witcher' thing?

[gynvael]

[ The wolf remains outside, guarding the entrance as the doors close behind them. It keeps only a minimal amount of the cold out.

Granting tours is not Geralt's way, so he simply parks himself on a table. He eases himself atop it with his feet planted on the bench below—lets Sam wander or look where he likes. Doesn't need much explanation, he thinks. The state of it, how it's built, the tree that sits in the middle with its dozens of silver medallions. It all says plenty.

He looks up at the snow drifting through a splintered tear in the roof. Yeah. He knows what Sam means. How clearly he's been shaped by these mountains, these woods, these broken stone walls—it shows. ]

I couldn't. [ He's quiet, but it isn't so much an admission as a simple acknowledgment of a history he's only hinted at until now. ] When they first brought me here.

[ They'd told him it was home, whether he liked it or not. He remembers thinking it never would be. Now he can't imagine calling any other place home. Bitter memories and warm ones alike, they make up what this keep has become to him. And the people who are normally in it. What few of them remain. ]

Mm. [ Witcher thing. Something like that. ] Didn't go well when a mob of humans found their way up the mountain.

[falcony]

[ sam's glad he grabbed the jacket, even if - horizon and all - he probably could have bundled up a little more at any given moment. still, even with the chill, the room still carries enough warmth with it that he's not too bothered as he lets his eyes wander, as geralt lets him look without much direction or guard.

( that probably says more than anything, too, but sam's learned to take it as they come - the moments geralt feels like opening up, the times geralt doesn't feel as though he needs to hide it. to brush it off. )

it's geralt's quiet I couldn't that has sam's attention turning back to the witcher, hands in the pockets of his jacket, waiting for anything else. when geralt makes it obvious there won't be any, sam kind of shakes his head, walking over to the table that geralt's settled on top of and settling in the space a little further down. ]

No, they didn't really give you the choice. [ it's all things he's put together, snippets of what geralt has told him and what he's seen for himself. the tension whenever sam would bring up his parents, the comments about how young they were when the trials started. it eats away at the lining of sam's stomach, but knowing how geralt feels about being pitied, sam does his best not to let it show.

instead, he keeps looking. keeps taking it in. the cracks in the walls, the broken ceiling beams, the holes letting in the snow. it's not exactly comforting, and yet somehow even still... ] That what the bones are about? [ a glance to his side, to geralt, with a small smirk before he keeps looking around. ] And here I just thought you liked being super goth. [ it's one of those moments that sam realizes too late that geralt probably has. no idea what he's talking about, so he moves on. ]

How long ago was that? The mob.

[gynvael]

[ His gaze lingers on Sam for a moment, as though he's trying to gauge what Sam is truly thinking, before he looks away again. They had not. But he does make the choice to return each winter, to find a family in what he was given, and perhaps that's enough. Perhaps that's all that matters in a world where so few choices are granted in the first place. It's how he's learned to see it, anyway; there's no point in dwelling on anything else, on the things that were taken from him. They're no longer his to have, even if he should want them.

He's learned not to want them, either. To be all right with not wanting and having what can't be changed.

The fall of Kaer Morhen is easier, somehow, to talk of than the Trials. Always has been. He isn't even certain why that is. ]

A century ago. [ Give or take. He understands Sam can likely piece together what that means, knowing how old Geralt is now, only just past a hundred. That he was a child when this place destroyed, and bodies piled up in the snow outside. Though he realizes, too, that it'd be easy to assume most of those skeletons belong to the humans that attacked. They do not. After a second, he finds himself adding, ] Not a lot of hands to help with our dead afterwards. We let nature take its course.

[ Now they're rooted there: in memory, as a warning, as simply a piece of history that can't be separated from the grounds. He no longer gives it much thought, as the years have gone on. It's only here, with people coming by and peering at the bones with a question in their eyes, that he's found himself thinking about it more often. ]

[falcony]

[ if geralt wanted to chat about that point at all, sam would have something to say about homes being wherever it is you need them to be, as long as you make the choice to return. as long as some part of you wants to return. as long as there is something to return back to.

still, sam is trying to find his place in all of this. to find what is safe to broach, what will shatter whatever bridge they find themselves crossing. sam is trying, sam wants to be here, to hear whatever it is that geralt actually wants to talk about, and if there's a path with less resistence, well. sam will take it. any information about geralt's home is new information at this point.

a century ago and sam shutters a bit over that. he knows geralt is old, over a century himself. but in knowing that, sam also somehow has forgotten. but he does do the math, does piece it together, and geralt can probably see the moment that the puzzle piece falls into place. ]

Christ. [ it sounds a bit like a curse, a bit like a sigh. sam rubs at the back of his neck, aware of just how separate their experiences are. how far apart their childhoods were. there is no sympathy to it, no pity, no weight. just an acknowledgement and then a pushing on. sam looks at geralt again, after that. just for a few more moments. and then his eyes are back on the windows, the breaks in the stone, and the bones beyond in the snow.

he wonders briefly is the reason geralt keeps the bones here is because it's easier to have something to show for the deaths. if it's easier to have a marker, a reminder, compared to what he'd said earlier - about how each winter he goes and each winter he wonders who won't make it back. the thought sits fairly heavy in his chest, flashes of funerals, of unmarked graves.

sam sits back up, like he's pulling his way out of those thoughts. ]

You said you come back here every winter, right? But you grew up here for a while. [ he's not changing the subject, necessarily, but he also doesn't wait for geralt to keep talking. ] What's this place like in the summer?

[gynvael]

[ He's quiet while Sam absorbs what's around him, what Geralt's said. His expression is not relaxed, but nor is he especially tense. All of that—he made his peace long ago, like he said. It shows in the bones that sit outside, that he's kept even though he could remove them with a thought: not because it's easier or because he wants the reminder, but because—despite the weight they will always hold—it's as much a part of his home as the snow in winter, the mountains that span the horizon. No different than how Sam has placed the willow tree that sits outside his house.

The question comes unexpected. Geralt considers it all the same. He sees Kaer Morhen rarely outside winter. Once they're set on the Path, they don't return during the warm months unless it's pressing. Unless something has happened. Only Vesemir stays behind more and more often past the winters, something which none of them talk about. Nostalgia, perhaps. A longing. ]

They call them the Blue Mountains. For how they look from afar. But when you're actually here after the frost, all you see is green. [ He taps a finger idly against the table's surface. ] This place around you is... [ Hm. Not an imitation. He still created it, after all. ] A likeness. You'd be lost in the real thing.

[ Home to him is more than just the keep that sits nestled in the rocks. It's everything around it, too. The sheer cliffs, the thick forests, the frozen lakes that shine the sun back into the sky. A land that will either give you everything you need or swallow you whole at the slightest misstep.

For a few minutes, he's caught up in his thoughts. After a time, he leans back on his hands. ] I did get lost running the trail once. A year into our training. Fell right through that door two days after. Vesemir took one look at me, and told me I was late.

[falcony]

[ he's made his peace. sam wonders about that phrase more often than he doesn't - what that means where it concerns trauma, his own and in others. if it can ever, really, be true to the words that are spoken. sam isn't convinced of it himself, but also doesn't necessarily think it's his place to say as much, doesn't necessarily know if what geralt says is true or just him trying to convince them both, so he just. sort of nods.

and a part of him assumed as much - about kaer morhen, about the summer months. it's a bit like returning to your childhood home after you graduate college (or, for sam, after he enlisted. after he came home from a tour). it's home, it will always be home, but outside of the specific time you're used to being there - holidays, weekends, brief stints in between - it still would feel. odd.

he looks back over to geralt, curious. ] What- like this place is bigger? Or do you have some kinda spell on it so not-Witchers can't get in? [ he quirks a smile, like it's a shared sort of joke between them. sam's used to being the "non" insert qualifier here. non-super soldier, no spy, non-super powered human, non-witcher. it's a familiar place, and therefore sam holds no real issue with it. his attention turns to the cups on the table, then, around to the various items that geralt's created in the space, and lets geralt simply be in his thoughts.

there's no rush. never has been. and sam's content to simply look around until geralt continues, and when he does sam doesn't bother hiding the way he snorts a laugh at that. ] Yeah? [ and then he laughs again, shaking his head a little. ] You know, the more I hear about Vesemir the more he sounds like a guy I would have liked to know. [ it is said casually, said easily, because while sam is very aware he doesn't know the start of who vesemir is, but the way that geralt describes him has a fond quality about it. familiar. it feels warm and familial and sam is always drawn to that. just like now. ]

And what about your brothers? I can imagine they got up to some shit.

[gynvael]

[ He makes a noise, as though the idea of a spell warding the crumbling structure is something that's not ever occurred to him. No. There are no spells of that kind. They're Witchers, not mages. Magic is entrenched inside them in a different way. ]

Nothing like that. The trail protects itself. If you know your way, you know your way. If you don't. [ He shrugs. Then you don't. He learned to navigate it since he was a child. If he were to be asked, he truthfully can't recall the last time he was ever lost anywhere. It is, more than his ability to wield a blade, what he leans on the most. Finding his way no matter where he is. Weapons can be stolen or broken, horses can falter, but his knowledge of the forests and the land can't ever be taken from him.

He looks a bit contemplative, as Sam says that. I'd have liked to know. They have a long history. It's a complicated one, but few people deeply rooted in his life are not so in some form. All he knows is that Vesemir did what he could, with the best of intentions, and he thinks in a world as shit as theirs, that's as much as you can ever hope for. It's difficult to know if that's something Sam can understand, on an intimate level. Their lives are...different. To say the least. He leaves the matter untouched. ]

Like lure a hatchling wyvern as a pet? Nearly lost a finger. [ There's a sense that Geralt was as involved in that incident as the rest of them. ] After the keep fell, we were let out to roam for once. [ Hard to contain four boys running loose after all that time trapped in a cellar. ] I imagine he considered locking us back up several times.