[ 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

[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.

[falcony]

[ unfortunately, geralt, you're talking to a regular ole dude with no magic who hasn't ever had magic. therefore, mages and witchers are all sort of a part of an amorphous blob of 'magic is involved and i'm not sure i'm ever going to understand it'. he's pretty sure that there is an extreme different that if he really needed to, he could tell the difference. but right now? ]

Oh so the trail has a magical defenses. Got it. [ it's said with a sort of look, like come on now geralt. really. but then the conversation keeps moving, and sam feels a sort of warm smile creep across his face. the mention of brothers, of family, of a father figure doing his best. he can picture it, with or without all the swords and this huge castle and mentions of wyverns, and it's not a bad. it's all, in its own way, familiar.

sam lifts a brow, grin escaping. ] Locking you back up? Where would he even be able to keep you? Cause I'm pretty sure I was locked out a time or do for the shit I tried to pull. [ mama wilson got tired of sam's crazy teenage years plenty. but it was never anything to worry about. ] But wait- wyverns. Those are what- tiny dragons? You tried to keep a tiny dragon as a pet?

[gynvael]

[ Sam gets a look back. It almost makes him want to find a way to bring Sam there, show him what he really means. Not to prove anything, but more to just. Let him see it for himself, what's near impossible to describe in words.

Geralt raises an eyebrow in return. What does he mean, where? There's a blink before he says, almost too casually, ] They brought dozens of unwilling boys to Kaer Morhen, Sam.

[ Like always, Geralt moves past it without lingering. He makes a noise, as if this isn't near the first time he's had to explain the difference between a dragon and a wyvern. ] Wyverns are wyverns. They don't breathe fire. Twice as common. Half as dangerous. [ Still capable of chewing through a grown man, though. The smallest glimmer of amusement flickers over his expression. ] Don't tell Ciri. She'll never let me forget it.

[ They've moved far from what Geralt originally came to Sam to talk about, but he realizes, too, that maybe they haven't moved all that far. That maybe he hadn't needed to talk about anything in particular. Maybe he'd simply needed to talk about something, something that did not involve Thorne or Yennefer or how fucked in the head he still feels. He isn't sure. He isn't sure, either, if Sam understood this from the moment Geralt showed up in his house, or if he'd merely gone along without question or expectation of what Geralt was looking for. Both, perhaps. ]

[falcony]

[ the look sam gets in return has him laughing - barking out something of an easy sound. and he knows it's all a bit ridiculous and knows it's all a bit silly but sam does still need moments here and there where he recognizes just how insane all of this really is. geralt raises an eyebrow and makes a comment like it's obvious and even when they're talking about children and experiments and unwilling boys, sam just sort of. snorts. and shoves at geralt's arm - friendly, easy, pushing him over like they were joking around about something as simple as a football game. ]

I don't know, man. This is my first time here. I'm still waiting for the full tour. [ and, just like geralt does, sam move without lingering. the laughter lingers, though, because now he's thinking about geralt as a kid and trying to keep some tiny dragon as a pet, and for whatever reason it's that image that has sam's hand on his own chest, laughter easy in the air. ]

Oh no, I think she needs to know this. How big was it? Are we talking like- dog-sized? Or something tiny and scary? Actually- don't tell me. I'm picturing tiny and scary and I like that image way too much.

[ and sure, maybe they've moved from what the original conversation had meant to be. but as all conversations for sam tend to go, he's not upset about it. not worried about it. there is something lighter and more geralt-like in the slant of the other mn's shoulders that sam had noticed when they first arrived here, something that almost looks like relaxing. almost looks like calming down. and sam - sam fits where he thinks he's needed. whether that's a tense, complicated conversation that neither of them can solve, or it's just. talking about stupid things they did as kids.

there is more that they should talk about, but sam wilson has always been the type to recognize that sometimes the lighter things are just as important of topics. ]

Please tell me you named it. Please.

[gynvael]

[ Sam glides past the remark with such ease, Geralt almost doesn't notice, either. That he may have said something that to another would be worth pausing over. Later, he might look back and consider what it means. How Sam often takes what he says in stride, even if it's—fucked. He supposes. If he thinks about it, he knows that to be true, that it isn't right he spent a portion of his boyhood locked in a cellar because otherwise they'd have tried to run. (He still tried.) But it's also so ingrained in his history, in all of theirs, that it just is, and maybe Sam's ability to not trip over every small bit of it is what makes it easier to talk to him.

Either way, the noise Geralt gives in return is both exasperated and amused. Like he knows Sam's giving him shit, but he's putting up with it, anyway. ]

Later. [ Possibly. He can see it, that he might actually show Sam some more. Take him through the grounds. But not now. There's a place beneath the keep that he isn't sure what to do with, that he isn't ready to face and fix and clean up. And there's a lot he's told Sam already, but this—this, he doesn't want to get into.

He'd rather talk about the idiotic shit he got into as a boy. After, even. When he was grown but still much too young. When he'd thought he had already lost all he could and didn't realize there was yet more he could lose. ]

Hatchlings are no bigger than a chicken. [ He holds out his hands to indicate the size of the wyvern they'd tried to claim. ] Buy me a drink some time. You might convince me to tell you what I name it.

[falcony]

[ and that. that noise. that is something that sam has found he chases after. that he looks for in the conversations. the amusement as well as the exasperation. the proof that whatever this is - sam laughing, geralt giving away stories, the way the two of them continue to circle around each other, this bond - is something from equal sides. because yes, geralt does say some fucked up shit. and sam knows that it's fucked up enough that he should be more hung up on it. but he's also learned, over the course of these months, that nothing gets done if he does. that it's not what geralt wants, whether or not he needs it.

sam's not his therapist. sam doesn't want to be. but he does want to be the sort of friend that geralt shows off his home and tells dumb stories to and one where they can sit in this home and laugh. ]

I'll hold you to that. Even if you already owe me drinks. I might as well start making the shit myself with how many empty bottles I have at the apartment.

[ it's a casual statement, comfortable and joking, despite the nature behind it. despite the fact the only reason sam's even going through that much alcohol had been what they'd all gone through. jaskier, first - then geralt. then ciri finding out about alina. sam was not a huge drinker, not unless the social situation called for it, but lately...well. let's just say the bottles of liquor had been drank. and used. and drank again.

sam pauses for a moment, thinking about that. about how geralt had found a spot for himself in that room, even after he'd healed. how easily the two of them had fallen into step together. how nice the last few weeks (weeks? months? god, sam's gotta get better at keeping up with time) had felt. now sam just holds onto the smile, shakes his head a little. ]

And how big do they get? If you'd actually kept it.

[gynvael]

[ The remark draws a snort out of him: dry, acknowledging what they've been through without lingering. He isn't drinking the way he had anymore—he can't drown what happened, and it isn't as though it helps him sleep any easier—but Sam's got his demons, his own grief. They haven't spoken about it much, but. They both know, he supposes. What it feels like to lose people and be helpless to stop it.

They aren't entirely alone, though. It's worth something. To know he's got someone he can rely on. Even if all he's looking for is to take his mind off things for a time. ]

Big. If you're that keen on them, I'll bring one to your house next time.

[ He's teasing, even as his expression suggests he's contemplating the image of it. Sam, faced with a wyvern looming on his doorstep.

Either way, he says next time, and his feet are already lifting off the bench beneath. He's careful as he eases himself up. He didn't come intending to bring Sam to Kaer Morhen. Can't say he minds that it turned out this way, though. ]

[falcony]

[ that is the thing sam's generally fallen back on, when it comes to grief. when it comes to support, connection, and understanding. to make it obvious and known that you're there to talk, but not needing to. the snort from geralt is reminder of that, in many ways. that they can be here, that they can be present, and that whatever this is, it is still a two-way street too.

sam hasn't talked about his demons. hasn't brought up his grief. there are complications on complications back home that sam could get into, if he wasn't, but he hasn't. doesn't. maybe there will be a time later. maybe not. becoming captain america doesn't exactly seem comparative, to everything happening around them here.

sam laughs. it's light, and easy, but it does not ignore the rest of it. does not turn away from the piece of geralt he's opened up for him here. ]

Yeah, I'm gonna pass. Pretty sure Magpie would have a heart attack.

[ and then he's standing, too. whether they'd intended to be here or not, sam is glad for it. appreciative. in more ways than he probably realizes. he takes another look around the large room, just because he can, before sliding his hands into his pockets. turning back to geralt. smiling. where to next? ]