( He trudges alongside Geralt, content to be a step behind, to let the other guy take the lead and set the pace as they walk. It's important, he thinks, that it doesn't feel like Dean's constantly trying to steer the ship. He's not in a hurry — he never has been, here. This whole amnesia thing... the recovery process... he's had endless patience for it, and maybe that sets him apart from a few of the other people who know and love Geralt. People who are eager to be remembered, people who feel hurt, or lost, or frustrated the longer they're around him without those memories flooding back.
Dean doesn't feel it. It doesn't feel personal, it doesn't pain him as much, and it leaves him better suited to be the one that's here. The one that's waiting, even if their whole history is a gaping blank space. It'll come when it comes. He's seen the progress. They have time. The more years pass without them aging and dying, the more time Dean understands them to have.
As far as he's concerned, his obligations and responsibilities haven't changed just because Geralt doesn't remember his half of the dynamic, and so his answer is only to scoff out a dismissive: )
Shut up, nerd.
( At first, at least. Snow crunches beneath their boots for a few more quiet steps, until he looks over at Geralt with an expression that's slightly more serious. )
Yeah, I do. But- not because I think you need me. Just so you know. I know you'd be fine out here figuring it out yourself.
[ Occasionally, Geralt feels like the one with the least patience about it is himself. It would be easier were his memories not so unpredictable. A few solutions, he's steered away from—the ones that promise decades worth of memories back at once. Right now, he may not recall his past, but he at least knows where he is, who he's with. (Most of the time.) He can't risk losing that, too.
In the end, time seems to be the best cure. Slow and steady. The wait is simply hard. For him and others.
He huffs softly. ] I'm not asking you to leave. [ Just so Dean knows, too. ] But it might take a few years.
[ Perhaps longer. He isn't certain. Some memories glide back quickly; others remain stubbornly out of reach. He doesn't know how any of this works. Nobody can tell him. He was not a natural being to begin with, and now he's become...something more. And it isn't as though he fell and hit his head. The spell that struck him was. Unique.
He may have avoided Haelva since. It isn't exactly her fault, but the situation is complicated. As it often is. ]
I did have a dream about the Balrog. [ So there's that. ]
( He knows that the outlook is years and not months. He knows what he's signed up for might be closer to a decade than not. It's just-- what's a decade in the face of everything? It wouldn't be too much to ask of him back in that first lifetime of theirs, when they were all staring down the barrel of a mortal gun. It's definitely not too much now, when it seems like sometimes Dean blinks and an entire century has passed.
He's here for the long haul either way. It's okay. It's where he belongs, where he knows he's supposed to be — for as long as Geralt isn't asking him to leave.
Any note of somberness is chased away immediately with a wide, canine-flashing smile. The pure pride beaming out of him is immeasurable. )
Hell yeah you did!
( This is the first he's hearing of it, don't mistake that enthusiasm for knowing. It's as startling as it is awesome, and he's so freaking stoked.
But he also cannot repress the urge to be a little shit, and so he ventures oh-so-sincerely: )
Did you remember I kicked that thing's ass bare-handed?
( Or do you remember that it's totally a fake ass movie thing? How much can he screw with Geralt right now? )
[ Good to know he still remembers how to lighten Dean's mood with nonsense.
Geralt squints. He does not, in fact, recall where this Balrog originated. He only remembers the monster itself, though the burnt-off edges of those images tell him he wasn't involved in the fight. But he did watch it. So...it must've been Dean who did the deed.
Barehanded seems a slight exaggeration, though. ]
I know you must've had a sword. [ He frowns. ] Or a staff.
[ Since when does Dean wield a staff? Maybe he shouldn't push too hard on the memory right now. ]
Was I there? [ This feels like a story Dean told him once. It would explain why some of the details that surfaced were so fucking absurd. ]
( He elects not to comment on sword or staff — first off, because it would ruin his credibility by doubling down, but secondly, because commiting to either one would make him Gandalf when it's obvious to literally anybody with eyes and a working brain he's Aragorn.
Which makes Geralt's role obvious.
He scoffs. )
Of course you were, you don't remember? You had this fru-fru bow and arrow thing going on. And a legging phase, I kept trying to tell you, Gerald, leggings aren't pants, but you weren't having it.
( If it weren't obvious by now he's screwing around, the way he smirks and sways to nudge Geralt's shoulder with his probably gives it away. )
[ Fru-fru bow gives it away, if nothing else—Geralt does not use a longbow, that much he is certain of—but the cheeky glance doesn't hurt. ]
Fuck off. [ This is what he gets for being the elder one. (Where have the rest of his brothers gone?) ] Are you sure I tolerated you for three hundred years?
[ That's a mystery he needs to solve when his memories return.
They trek up the snowy path towards the cabin. He's laid out the training yard as close to what feels right as he can. Each time he recalls a little more, he moves a bit here or there, building a familiar place he can look at. It's working, a bit. Pieces coming back. ]
[ steve hadn't been there when geralt's amnesia had kicked in, hadn't come around in the weeks, months, after. he'd thought about it, wondered if coming by and just seeing him could maybe spark some sort of...something. but dean had told him to wait, that there'd be time for that but it wasn't time yet. and steve understood it, in a way - what would he even do? so he waited. he checked in with dean, he asked (through dean) when would be a good time, and then months later he got the okay.
that's what's led him here - to the yards of kaer morhen, a place he's come to know very well over the decades and decades and decades. a place he would have very nearly called home, until it suddenly felt like it wasn't supposed to be.
( geralt doesn't recognize him, when he arrives. steve tells himself he isn't disappointed, that he expected as much, but he is. )
it gets a little easier after a day or two, and even the night before was good. steve has gotten a little more aware of not saying remember when and back when you did this and dean is good at keeping things moving, at keeping things light. at making conversations feel as normal as they used to feel. because these two- these men are the ones that steve's leaned on for these last few years. the ones he's looked up to, depended on. and these last few months shouldn't have felt as awkward and strange as they have, but they have, and now...
now steve feels like things might be getting back to normal - or at least, as normal as things can be in abraxas, and that's enough. that has to be enough.
he should have known something would go wrong, and that in the end, it would be his fault.
but sparring feels good, steve is keeping up with geralt more than he felt he has in a long time. part of him understands that it must be because of his memories, because of everything he's been going through, but steve keeps up, and none of that really sets in. instead, steve starts to feel maybe a little too good about it, maybe a little too reckless. he doesn't know when the shift happens, per say, but he does know something shifts - suddenly steve doesn't feel like this is a game, like he's being played with, and instead each one of geralt's strikes come a little harder, he can feel each clash of metal a little more down into his hands, his wrists, his forearms.
he doesn't back down - that's one thing he's picked up on, over the years. whether it's nero voice (still) somewhere in the back of his mind, or some training, some practice session, something. you back off, and you've already lost - and that won't help here, right? geralt doesn't need anyone pitying him, doesn't want people to be soft with him. right?
so steve pushes, and with each passing minute, he can tell geralt pushes back. that's good, right? better. he's not going easy on him, and maybe this is steve's chance (again, because he always is, in some way) to show that he doesn't need to be babied. that he can handle this. he's not a witcher, he's not geralt, or dean, but he's not a kid anymore either. he can handle this, he can handle a sword, he is light on his feet and he's been working on his footwork, and he can do it. he can do this.
until he can't.
geralt knocks him on his ass, and steve goes down hard. it hurts, but it's not a bad hit. steve's been hit harder, been hit harder in sparring lessons, but when he looks up - instinctively expecting geralt to be standing there, a vaguely amused expression on his face and a hand held out to help him up, he sees geralt back up. turn away. leave. and steve- steve feels something hard and heavy in his gut. something like embarrassment, something like shame, something that reminds him a bit too much of a time way too long ago, and he- well. he doesn't snap, exactly, but a kind of hot anger does shoot up from inside of him. ]
What the fuck? [ he's on his feet pretty immediately. steve's small enhancements of magic have become second nature to him, so it feels that much easier to get back on his feet, to stand up after a hit, to feel that rush of energy and strength, and he doesn't realize he's leaning into it. instead, all he's focused on is that feeling of all but being disregarded spiking something he hasn't felt in a long time. he doesn't remember the last time dean or geralt turned their back on him when they were sparring, not actually. ] You're gonna walk away? Seriously? [ before he realizes it, he's moving on geralt, only a step or two, just enough to try and reach for his shoulder - to force him to turn back around. ]
[ This, all of it, it's rooted in the void of his mind. He doesn't know Steve, fails to understand him in a way he should after three hundred years; he catches on too late the fact that Steve would feel sidelined. Dismissed. Because if he'd had those memories, he'd recall the times Steve confessed how he felt lacking, and Geralt has always (though he doesn't quite know it now) made sure Steve knew he was not.
But right now, he isn't thinking about Steve; he's not been able to think of much at all beyond the holes and gaps. Between Ciri's refusal to be near him and a sense that he cannot protect the people closest to him as he is, it's difficult not to be lost in his own shit.
So what he wants to do is leave. Remove himself from the fight before he does something he regrets. Steve's magic has grown, but so has Geralt's, and he's realized his grasp on his abilities is spotty at best. His Signs are never as controlled as they should be. His flashes of strength come and go. Whether Steve can take it or not isn't the point. He hates it—the sensation of things spiralling out of control. It's what he feels now as he stalks off through the snow, brushing by Dean without a word.
At least, until Steve catches up to him. The words don't register so much. Taunts are easy to ignore; that part is ingrained in him, shrugging off insults and challenges as he walks away. It's the hand grabbing his shoulder that sparks something cold and sharp. A flash of other hands on him, pulling roughly through thick snow and dark stone walls.
He spins around. His eyes are a hollow black; he doesn't really see Steve, just a target. One he knocks to the ground again—this time with a backhand that goes beyond mere warning. His sword begins to sing, the way it does when the blade is primed for more than light swordplay. ]
( That first hit that sends Steve to his back has Dean fully on his feet before his brain can really process it, and while his sword isn't held aloft at the ready, he realizes belatedly he is firmly gripping it on the off-chance. What stops him, what settles him — if only for a moment — is that Geralt self-regulates, removing himself from the equation before Dean has to actually step up and insert himself.
The hairs at the back of his neck stand up, but he wants to believe — wants to trust his friend, partner, brother, wants to be loyal enough to believe he'll reel himself in before it goes too far.
For one sterling second, he's almost relieved.
And then Steve steps up faster than Dean can walk him back, and Dean should've known him well enough to anticipate it, he should've known, but he didn't.
That backhand cracks with enough force that it rings across the training yard, rings in Dean's ears, and he stops holding himself back before the sound even finishes resonating. Before Geralt's sword can finish that song, before he can redirect his course back Steve's direction, Dean flares. An unrepentant, unapologetic blast of white light sends the Witcher flying into the nearest stone wall with enough force to crack bricks, and in an instant Dean is between them, absolutely livid.
He casts one swift, sweeping glance over to Steve, just long enough to see that he looks okay and awake and unbroken, and barks out a stern: )
You stay. Training's done.
( And before Steve can answer or protest if he has any mind to, Dean's already wheeling around to point the tip of his sword Geralt's direction. )
You backhand my kid like that again, we're gonna have problems, you understand me? Go inside. Now.
( Training's one thing. Sparring's one thing. That? That was different, and he may not be articulate enough to define how, but he knows it was. )
[ Dean wholly slips from his mind; it takes him a second, even after he's rolled with the impact onto his knees, to realize where they are and who he's with. That these mountains are a little different from the ones locked away in his head. That in the distance, he can see Thorne's jagged wall of ice—not the crystal lake that lurks in the faded depths of his memories.
A small gash opens the earth where his sword slowed his momentum before he could fly off the edge. The air crackles. For a moment, he almost turns on Dean. It's a flickering thought. An instinct that tries to tell him he has intruders in his home.
But this isn't home. He doesn't remember where that is.
The black bleeds from his eyes again. He should say something, he thinks, but he's caught between knowing these men with him and yet bearing little recognition of them. They're at once familiar and strangers. And perhaps in the past, he'd have stayed—but in the past, he would not have found himself here in the first place. All he knows is, if his blade had connected, Steve would be nursing more than a bloody lip.
The snow swirls in a thick curtain around him as pieces of the forest curl upwards at his feet. The makeshift yard crumbles—walls of broken stone erected onto the Hayle mountainside that harken to what Steve calls Kaer Morhen. He doesn't answer. He does not go inside. Instead, he mounts the horse never far from his side, forever waiting within the trees, and vanishes in a flurry of hooves. ]
[ for a very brief second, this whole situation plays out very, very differently. he catches geralt's arm, yes, and geralt turns back on him, yes, but then it just keeps up like it has. intense, but doable. a teaching moment. steve will get his ass kicked, sure, but that's nothing new for him. that's nothing new for any of this. there has never really been a moment where steve has been better than anyone he's sparred with - not geralt, not dean, not aloy, not nero. so he's ready, he's ready for it.
at least - he thinks he is.
geralt turns, and his eyes are black, and steve feels the fear wash over him like a tidal wave - wholly and completely. this is different, this isn't sparring, and that realization hits steve the moment the back of geralt's hand connects with his jaw. it sends him down again, crumpled back to the ground, and for half a breath he's stunned, shocked, caught off-guard, but it's only for that half a breath, because that's how long it takes for the energy to shoot back through him again.
when he pushes up, the change is immediate - body shifting faster than his mind can keep up. his eyes are more focused, teeth sharper, it's like he can feel the blood more crisply through his veins. he's ready to strike back, to push back, to be up and to go again, and it's that adrenaline that superseeds the suffocating fear that still claws at the inside of his chest.
but when he turns back, when he's ready to get up again, dean is already there and geralt is not. it doesn't take all that long for steve to put the pieces together - he thinks he remembers the white light, thinks he remembers the sound of a body hitting squarely against a wall. geralt is halfway across the yard, stone split in front of him where his sword slowed his push, and dean says you stay, training's done and steve feels the rush of adrenaline that had been pushing him forward drain as quickly as it had risen.
dean calls him my kid and tells geralt to go inside and steve feels a little hallow, a little in shock, as blood drips from where his teeth had split open his lip. it falls, splattering the snow at his side, and this feels....wrong. he feels like he did something wrong. his eyes are still on geralt when he watches the black fade, when he feels like he sees him looks back at the two of them and again, again steve is struck by the lack of recognition there. it hurts, seeing that lack, seeing geralt look at him like he doesn't know him, and then the witcher's turning to his mount and leaving.
guilt, embarrassment, shame, all swirl somewhere in the pit of steve's gut as reminds himself to breathe - as he feels the pain shoot through his jaw and teeth down into the muscles of his neck. he doesn't look at dean as he pushes himself off the snow, wipes the trail of blood from his mouth. ]
Sorry- [ he mumbles through the taste of blood on his teeth. he spits, red splatters the ground again, and he tries to ignore the way he can feel himself shaking, the echo of geralt's sword still in the back of his head. ] I shouldn'tve come.
( For one heady, resonating moment, Dean feels so very deeply like he has failed. He's failed both of them. It rings familiar — harkens back to old days, old insecurities, old fractures in his soul and his personality that he will never outgrow. They've been filled in with gold, those cracks, and made permanent in him like Kintsugi. He will forever watch the person he looks up to the most and the person he's trying to protect rift, and fall apart, and he will never, ever be able to mediate them so that he can have both peacefully and happily.
He cannot remember the finer details of this pain. He can't remember the man he once disappointed, he can only vaguely remember Sam's childhood years — but the familiarity fades as quickly as it rises, and he's left standing there in the aftermath with something far more important than his own issues to deal with.
Steve is behind him, and while Steve is not a child anymore... ask any parent, any of them, age twenty or age eighty — or older, in the case of those more supernaturally inclined — and they will tell you it doesn't matter how old your kid is, they're still your kid. Adult or not. Right now, Steve sounds and feels as young as Dean has ever seen him.
It takes effort to scale back the adrenaline and anger, takes concentration to school himself into something less than pissed — but he manages. Through decades of experience, he manages to stuff it back into a compartment in his mind, to take the edge out of his voice when he finally turns, shoulders slumped, to look Steve over again.
Those black eyes and fangs echo through his memory, and he'll ask about that in a minute, but he knows where Steve got them from. They're not alarming, just surprising. It can wait. )
No, it wasn't your fault. ( He crosses the distance between them, and settles a hand on Steve's bicep. The other tosses his sword absently to the ground, so he can raise Steve's chin to look at him properly. More sternly: ) Hey. Look at me. It wasn't your fault, you hear me?
Edited (lord. don't drink and tag. 500 typos I only noticed after the fact.) 2024-04-23 05:08 (UTC)
[ steve may not be a child, but he certainly feels like one. no matter the years that have passed and the experience he thought he's gathered, all it takes is one wrong thing he says. one wrong thing he does. and all it takes is one move by geralt, by anyone really, and he's already back on his ass again. he rolls his tongue across his teeth, tries to check where he's split his lip, if his sharpened teeth have dulled yet, and everything that had been swirling coalesces into shame. into that dark, hot, edged shame that steve wonders if he'll ever outrun. if he'll ever get rid of.
dean looks down at him and steve can't bring himself to look back, focuses instead on blinking, on pulling back the way his body had reacted at first. his instincts had him ready, had him prepared to jump back up on his feet, to keep pushing, to get knocked down again and to push up just as quickly. he can always get back up, he will always get back up, ready for the next swing. or he would be ready, if geralt wasn't already gone - disappearing off into the trees. if dean wasn't already turning back around to face him, to close the distance, and god. god. part of steve wishes he could just sink into the snow right here.
it wasn't your fault he says, and then dean is there and his hand goes to steve's bicep. part of steve hates how the touch, even now, feels both comforting and also makes him feel smaller, younger, worse. it's not until dean is raising steve's chin that he finally looks at the other, his brow furrowed and mouth turned down. ] Pretty sure I'm the one who grabbed him. [ a beat, where steve tries to hold onto the tension in his shoulders. tries to hold it all together by sheer force of will. but then the second passes, and then another, and his own shoulders drop - the fight that had been slinging to his eyes, his frame, dissipating with it. ]
I dunno, I guess I thought... [ he shakes his head. ] Doesn't matter.
( What an absolute goddamn nightmare these last few minutes have devolved into. The guilt churns, that sense of failing churns, and with one last glance over his shoulder in Geralt's parting direction, he lets go of that part entirely and focuses on stepping up to fix what he should've prevented in the first place. His priorities are sorted.
He curls a hand around Steve's shoulder and uses it to steer, guiding him firmly onward and away from the scene of the crime. Putting the disturbed snow and blood and fallen swords behind them, aiming for the warmth of the still-burning hearth fires inside. )
Look, what went down just now? That is not on you. I thought he could handle it, he thought he could handle it, but we were wrong. It's just a bad day. We don't always get to see 'em coming, but it's- nothing you did, alright? Just give him some time.
( It's followed by another gentle jostle and a firm pat on the back to really cement the point, before his hand finally falls away.
But... You know, something else merits addressing, before that can slip away and get swept under the rug: )
So, uh... the teeth thing? How long's that been happening? Did I miss that memo?
[ dean is blaming himself, steve feels it more than sees it - the situation, being the one who told steve it was okay to come, not stepping in early enough. who knows the exact reason, but he's taking it on too, and it makes steve feel small. smaller.
it's easy to go with dean's push, to walk where dean guides him back to the cabin, the fire in the hearth, the easy comfort it brings. part of steve feels bad that he's so thankful for it, that he wants to be comforted and so much of that involves the warmth found there, a place that isn't even his. that fact settles like a rock deep in his stomach, but he tries to push it down. further, somewhere else.
he knows that dean is trying- to clear the air, to change steve's thoughts, to divide the blame or settle it out or explain what it was that happened. steve keeps his eyes on the ground in front of him, the steps that lead them back inside, and tries not to grind his molars with each argument he wants to make. ]
Yeah, just a bad day. [ it's pretty obvious steve doesn't believe the words, but it's also his way of saying he doesn't really want to fight dean on it. not yet.
he doesn't expect the question that follows, though, and it catches him off-guard just enough that whatever dark hole he'd been slipping into falls away. ] Oh. Uh- sort of. It happened a few- [ decades? centuries? times where the singularity up and exploded and everyone faced the consequences? it's hard to know what to call them, so steve hasn't settled on anything quite yet.
he also isn't sure why he feels...almost embarrassed, about this. like he's upset dean by not telling him, like he's showing up with a bad grade on an exam. ( the memories of school, of high school, are distant - but the echoes remain, enough that steve's latched onto them, when he needs to. there's no telling how long they'll last, but for right now, steve can still call to them. ) ] It only comes out when I'm- [ he hates saying it, calling it what it is- when I'm losing or when I'm hurt. dean has seen steve fight enough to watch the way he tends to get back up when he shouldn't, how he can take a hit that should take him out, but he has just enough to push back up on his feet. the last man standing is a name that a lot of natives have started calling him, and steve can get why. hates it, feels guilty for it, but-
his abilities, his powers, always tend to be reactive. this is no different. ] They only come out I'm in a [ losing ] fight, or after I take a bad hit. [ which still happens, despite all his training. ] I haven't shown you yet 'cause I haven't gotten the hang of 'em, I can't like- call them out. [ a beat, a sigh, and finally steve glances back to dean - waiting for his reaction, good or bad. ]
( He can count on one hand, he thinks, the number of times in his life he's ever felt like a successful mentor. They're few and far between, those memories of having done something like this right. His mind goes to a field at night, lifetimes ago, with a lighter in his pocket and fireworks shooting up into the sky for only two sets of eyes.
Maybe one day he'll get a moment like that with Steve, and he'll feel sure of whatever the hell he's doing here. Until then, it's just the struggling uncertainty paired with the stubborn, defiant refusal to let it stop him from trying. As long as the kid keeps turning up, he's gotta be doing something right. He'll hold faith in that. It's gonna have to be enough. Besides, he doesn't see anybody better stepping up to the plate.
He could do worse, he knows — and this, this conversation? Is a prime example. His own father would've torn him to shreds over this. If he flashed those features at John Winchester... Christ, he doesn't even wanna think about it.
But even aside from the inhuman nature of it all (he's got six wings and an extra arm, Geralt's been spitting venom since right after they met, the time of xenophobia has long passed) if John Winchester found out Dean hid something like that from him? Regardless of the reason — insecurity, shame, fear — he wouldn't have been able to walk right for a week. Here, he has the opportunity to do better than what was done to him, and so rather than reacting immediately, he takes a second. Lets it sit. Lets himself wade through it, to figure out how he wants to react.
It starts with a slow, careful nod. )
Okay.
( Alright. He's... digesting, as he paces across the kitchen and settles in with his back against the countertops. )
Okay- well. We can- work on that.
( Which does not come out quite as confidently as maybe he'd like, but the spirit's there, anyway. Does he know how, exactly, they'll figure it out? No, but... you know what, they will. Somehow. )
[ which may be part of the reasons this has worked as well as it has with him and steve. because while dean worries about his success rate with mentorship, steve wouldn't know the difference. he can count on a single hand the number of adults he's ever looked up to, and that number cuts in half when he thinks about the ones who gave a shit about him back. there might have been more, once upon a time, back when steve cared to hold onto ideas and images of people he hasn't seen or even thought about in years, decades. but now?
now, steve feels a little bit like he's the one failing this. failing dean. he doesn't know why, but there's something he's missed. something he didn't do, or think about. is dean mad that he hadn't mentioned the abilities before now? is dean upset that steve kept it from him? but...why?
it tends to sneak up on him, the surprise that someone he isn't dating would give that much of a shit about what he does. what's happening to him. or- rather, give any shit at all about him. and while part of him knows that dean isn't pissed at him, exactly, he does think that he...missed something. forgot something. okay dean says, and it's slow. accompanied by a nod. steve comes to a stop right inside the kitchen and his bones remember things that he doesn't, a familiar sense of walking into a kitchen and knowing that you've disappointed your dad. ]
Did I do something wrong?
[ he asks, equally slow. eyes slanted up towards dean in preparation for... something. something? god, he's not a child and yet somehow he doesn't feel any older at all. ]
I just- I wanted to show you when I was good at it. When I could actually- [ he gestures. it's not like new magic, new abilities are anything new to them. but maybe this time it's different. maybe whatever happened- the teeth, the eyes, the senses, the...everything. maybe steve was wrong (it's not like that would be a first) and maybe he should have said something a long time ago.
he sighs a little, deflates, and shakes his head - his hair falling around his shoulders, now. ]
( Boy, does he ever feel bowled over by that one simple question. Did I do something wrong? It's a heartbreaking and familiar feeling, and now that he's on the other side of it, he doesn't understand how in the hell his own father managed to be so ruthless with his disappointment. He weaponized it like a damn gun, fired rounds of loaded judgment straight into Dean's chest damn near every opportunity he got.
Looking at Steve now, he can't imagine intentionally inflicting that same kind of pain on the kid. He can't imagine wounding on purpose, when Steve's so obviously just trying to do things right.
He swallows down his frustration — at himself, at his father, at Geralt, at this situation. Does his best to muscle it out of his posture and his voice when he speaks again. )
No, I know, I saw. It was... somethin'. Looks like it could come in handy. Just-
( Go easy. Find a mild way to put this. )
When something new like that crops up, do me a favor and keep me posted, huh? I just don't wanna have to learn about stuff like that on the fly, you know what I mean? I give a crap about you, and about the stuff you're going through, so I like to stay in the loop. That's all.
[ steve doesn't know what that's like- his father had been disappointed in him plenty, but weaponization, reflection, steve never had a chance to get used to that. instead, it was a casual glance, a comment made at the dinner table in front of their friends, an uninterested grunt in a conversation. it was a lot of that's nice and then some conversation-turned-argument with his mom about another work trip, another conference, and that had been that.
the question was one steve got used to, if only in some half-hearted attempt to get something out of his old man. anger, annoyance, even a raised voice would have been better than the dismissal he'd grown so used to.
it's part of why steve isn't exactly sure he breathes in the half-second dean takes to answer him, waiting for some kind of drop, some kind of weight to fall over him to remind him that he fucked up. but as dean talks, steve relaxes, if only marginally.
I give a crap about you which may not be the most emotionally sound or comforting sentence to most people, but it cuts through... a lot for steve. so much that he finds he can't keep watching dean, his eyes drifting to the countertop, to the glasses strewn around the room. ]
Yeah, no, definitely. I'm- [ but this requires better than steve's natural avoidance to these kinds of situations, so he forces his eyes back to dean. ] Sorry. I get it. I will. [ he smiles - even if it's hesitant. ]
( Good job, Steve — it's the right answer, and it earns immediate and visible approval in the form of a wide smile and an outstretched hand. He cuffs Steve gently on the back of his head, gives him a little jostle by the scruff at the nape of his neck. Light, playful, affectionate. )
Good.
( Because tactile messaging is easier than words, half the time. At least, it is for Dean, who punctuates it all with one last clap on the back to signal the end of the Talk. )
Let's get a drink, and you can show me what you can do with all that, huh?
( And they can focus on something other than Geralt for a little while. Change the subject, change the setting, change the scene. Make it feel less important, less precarious. He'll deal with all that himself, later.
The two of them recede deeper into the house, and things get... better.
This will be one of the memories he retains with crystal clarity, long after this universe has faded. )
[ dean beams, and cuffs Steve on the back of the head and a jostle by the nape of his neck, and Steve- god. it's actually kind of pathetic, how the second, maybe two, fills inside his chest. it feels like such a change from where they'd been just moments before, or even minutes, out on the snow with geralt, but there's no point in Steve trying to act like it isn't where he'd hoped to be.
where he always hopes to be, if he's being pathetically honest with himself.
he's an adult, is the thing. he's older than most adults in actual years thanks to the magic of abraxas and what it has meant since they're all living here. he shouldn't be this dependent- or, maybe dependent isn't the right word. maybe it's desperate, maybe it's hopeful, maybe it's...eh. doesn't matter.
dean says good, and Steve just huffs a laugh, has to physically hold back the way he wants to break out into a near-matching grin of his own. dean claps Steve on the back, mentions getting a drink and showing off, and Steve nods. follows him back into the house like this is the most normal, casual, regular conversation for them to have. like the day hadn't shaken Steve to his core, because dean has pretty effectively straightened it all back up again. ]
Yeah, yeah. But don't get your hopes up- still figuring this out, remember?
[ the rest of the evening follows. the rest of this time together follows.
and dean isn't the only one who will remember it. ]
[ After Ciri showed up at his door and failed to find recognition in his gaze, she had disappeared. Geralt had not pursued her. He tells himself he doesn't want to upset her further. The truth is, it's painful to have something so close to the surface of his mind and yet unreachable. He feels helpless—unmoored. A scattering of years and months that come and go. Pieces of a puzzle that he cannot fit into the right places.
Jaskier fills more of the picture than others. He isn't sure why that is. He remembers...singing, mostly. Familiar melodies that the sandpiper on his shoulder whistles. He's joined Jaskier in a remote area of the continent, the forest sprouting around him as it always does. A tree spreads its thick arms overhead. Geralt sits beneath its leaves, one knee drawn up and the other leg extended.
He has a book in his hand—a bestiary borrowed from Istredd's library—and a mug of ale to the side. A cooking pot sits atop a campfire. Chunks of rabbit and carrots bubble. Food is no longer a necessity, but the act is a routine he prefers to keep. He likes to hunt. He likes to have things to do: chopping firewood, brushing his horse, butchering meat.
At least he remembers how to do those things.
When he finally breaks the silence, it's to ask: ] Did she speak to you? Afterwards.
[Life, Jaskier can say, has always been a winding, unpredictable adventure -- one, it seems, that has no end the longer on it goes -- but he can say there is never a part of him that had prepared, or would have guessed, that the one person who had shared so much of it with him would, quite suddenly, forget it all.
That he would be alone with those memories. Of songs long past, and punches to his gut, of death and blood and fires and a single, single thing he always placed his trust in: hope.
Jaskier's naked feet walk through the grass that springs around them, fighting with Geralt's forest lichen to grow swathes of clover.
It's always been funny to him, this life springing so naturally around a Witcher. Now he does not even realize that instead of following the Path, the Path trails behind him.] No. You know Ciri. [he says with a shrug, hopping over to peer into Geralt's pot, the clovers turning over to dandelions as he lifts the pot's lid.
He inhales, deep, a little flutter in his eyes.] Or, er, not anymore, I suppose. No, she didn't. She's always stomped off once she's had her final word. I fear I'm sometimes only an afterthought. [He says it with an airy tone and a smile on his lips, spinning the pot lid around his fingers even as it tries to burn them.] She's just like you in all the ways that matter, even now.
[ Mm. Just like him. He can scarcely remember what he is like. What he's supposed to be, how he is. Was. Did he used to feel a constant simmering anger? Bitter frustration in the back of his throat? Or is that new?
It stings. Ciri. He doesn't remember her, but her absence—the knowledge that he drove her away—is a knife between his ribs. He need not be told she is important to him. He can feel it. His heart knows it. At least Jaskier has not turned away from him, and for that, he's grateful. He can tell it isn't easy for his...friend.
His travel companion of endless roads.
He closes the book. The forest is peaceful. He wishes he could absorb the same calm. ]
I have bits of it. With you. The woods. The dryads. [ Absently, he rubs over the scar etched into his thigh. ] I remember old taverns that stank of piss and cheap ale.
[ And Jaskier, on the stage. That much has stayed consistent. Perhaps that's why he feels less unsteady with Jaskier. There's a rhythm to everything they ever were. ]
[With a sigh, he replaces the pot lid, now that their little bit of forest has filled with the smell of stew. It is all very exhausting, if anyone asked (which no one has, funny enough), but he wouldn't really be anywhere else, either. Not when Geralt needs him.
Even if he doesn't know he does.
Jaskier turns to him with a flourish, then plops down right in front of him, bare toes to boots.] Don't I know it! This time you didn't greet me with a punch to the gut, which told me enough. [There's no flattery in being remembered in fragments; the only question is, why does Geralt have anything left of him, but none of Ciri? There is no question who is the one who is Geralt's core. That always has been, since that... shit. What was it? A party?] You remember such depressing parts. We'll have to work on the more fun things. Like... [He trails off. Wait, this is harder than he thought. "Geralt" and "fun".] Remember that one time you were picking flowers for an elixir, and I managed to push you into the river? It was only the one time, but I vowed to never forget it.
[And he's pretty sure Geralt let him do it... there was no disguising his footsteps. (Not back then, at least.) But now he rocks back and forth with a smile, and most of his movements are oh so quiet.] I would hate you to think your life has been nothing but moldy black spots. There have been so many sparks of light.
[ He frowns a little to himself. He does not recall the image, but he does recall something else. A feeling. A deep ache he cannot explain but knows full well he was the cause of in his friend. (Heartbreak.)
He shakes it off and snorts softly. ] I remember when you stole my fish.
[ Running off with it in his little beastly beak. He leans back against the tree. Despite the topic at hand, he's...okay. Better than he was. Perhaps he's getting used to it. The void in his memories, the flickers of recognition. Some are painful, but Jaskier is right. Not all of them cast long shadows. ]
It's not. [ He hesitates. ] It isn't now.
[ He likes being here. He feels the spark of light around Jaskier. While a part of him won't say it out loud, he will not deny it, either. Sometimes, he thinks, isn't that enough? Can't that be enough? He knows what upset Ciri most recently was his refusal to attend to a cure that felt too much like a path to madness. The last thing he wants is to lose his fucking mind entirely. This, it's all he has. ]
[Jaskier laughs, real mirth that wrinkles the skin around his eyes -- it'd stuck like that, when he'd stopped aging, and now the little details that had once so bothered him when Yennefer brought them up are touching, soft things that he sometimes checks to make sure they haven't disappeared on him.] I've stolen your fish lots! You'll have to narrow it down a bit.
[But any memory Geralt can recall is good, because even one recalled memory proves that he can remember. Whatever that magic did to the scrambled eggs that are now his brains, they can be carefully scooped back into their shells.
Shaken up a bit, but mostly the same.]
You should recall all the times you said my presence was a constant, buzzing annoyance in your ear, then! [He hops back up, stretching his legs, then plops right next to the giant wolf-man Geralt's become -- or perhaps always been. He's always felt larger than his body truly was, except the times when he was on death's door, and seemed infinitely small.] I am glad for it. Imagine if you couldn't stand me anymore? Who would you even be? [He pushes him with a shoulder.] As fun as all this reading under trees must be, you must plan on doing more than this today. Think of how many hours you've got left under the burning sun! [And obviously he's already hunted, but --] Maybe a spot of fishing? No hooks or lines or anything fancy. Just our hands and the flow of the water. And I shan't steal them after.
[ It's true. Dean, Yen, Sam—they have all assured him the same. Time is what he needs, and they've plenty of that these days. And yet, he can't ignore Ciri's pain. She's the reason he continues to try, reaching and reaching to see what he can find in the depths.
A small smile curves his lips. Jaskier hops and bounces like a bird. Geralt, meanwhile, wears his shroud like armour, the shape of the wolf draped around him. He supposes he could remove it, and often he has, but for now—he feels comfortable in the illusory skin. ]
Who says I can stand you? [ Mm. Well. He did, just now, a second ago. He glances up at the sun, over to the running stream. He does not need to fish. They've plenty to eat for supper. The land is a bounty for those such as them.
But. He could use something to do.
He rises, finally lowering the hood of his cloak. The ears and snout melt away, though the fur of the cloak remains, trailing behind him. From a distance, it resembles a giant wolf's tail. ]
A challenge then. [ His eyes glint. ] I'll catch. And you see how many you can steal.
[If there ever was a time he doubted such a thing, it no longer rings in his memory. They have been with each other the same way the sun and moon have -- chasing and meeting and inevitable. It all suits them, if you ask him. The meeting of winter and spring.
Though you'd be hard-pressed to think of winter associated with Geralt but for his white hair, surrounded by all this lush forest. Sometimes Jaskier thinks he got it from him. Stole a bit of his motif.
Jaskier hops up, a brightness surrounded him like the sun has crept its way through the tree boughs.] Perfect! There is absolutely no way you'll win. By the way -- if I do win, what do I get? It has to be very good, you know, to hold my attention.
[ A part of him recognizes he is fleeing, but he can't bring himself to give a shit. The thought of staying curdles his stomach; his hands don't feel like they belong to him. He grips the reins too tightly, and by the time he stops, there's blood on his palms where his nails have broken through skin.
For a while, he just sits. His head throbs. Why does it seem as if the memories are getting worse? There was a brief window where he welcomed them—when the flashes and flood slotted neatly into place, and he began to know who he was. Lately, they've cut deeper, a haphazard jumble of images. None of the faces in them are clear. He can't really see the men who spawned abruptly in his mind, but the fear they bring weighs heavy on his chest.
When he swallows, a bitter taste clogs his throat.
The sun sets. He makes a decision then, what he needs to do. But he wants to see Dean and Steve first. It's not his intention to abandon them.
His ride back up the mountain is steadier. He searches for Dean first through the biting frost. A sliver of moonlight shines through the evergreen needles. He doesn't interrupt—just lurks by one of the trees until Dean finishes what he might be doing. ]
( Geralt won't have to wait long — it becomes readily apparent soon enough that Dean isn't doing anything of import. After taking Steve in, after a long conversation and a longer drink and eventually letting the guy retire for the night for some privacy, Dean's posted up outside the front doors, perched comfortably on the frigid stone stairs in a comfortable slump. Beside him, a brazier of fire burns hot enough to chase away the wayward, drifting flakes of snow that escape the trees.
At his side are two mugs. One, he's been drinking from. The other is full.
His elbows anchor heavy on his knees, and in his hands, a curved carving knife works methodically over a small hunk of wood he's peeling small strips from. It takes shape slowly under his calloused fingers, and in the shadow-cast firelight, he looks far more like a man than most of their Summoned god-kin do anymore. He looks small. Centuries old, of course, but while some of them wear an eternal otherworldly youth, Dean looks like a man closer to his late forties in the lines at his eyes.
He's always looked a little tired. Some people get to see it more clearly than others, and he doesn't bother hiding it from Geralt. Doesn't straighten his posture, or even bother looking up from his carving once Geralt finally escapes the trees. He just pauses his work long enough to lift that full mug in a silent offering.
His countenance still seems a little stern, a little disapproving, but the gesture should help make it clear — I'm annoyed with you, but you're still welcome here. )
[ Geralt takes a seat. He reaches for the mug, but doesn't drink. There was not, he recognizes, any doubt that his return would be accepted. Where the certainty comes from, he can't explain. He simply knows. It's etched deeper than memory.
The silence blankets them, thick as the snow. He's often had little to say, but these days, he has even less. Every time he reaches for the words, it's as if they disintegrated with his past. Like he's not entirely sure how to string his thoughts together anymore. Part of him wants to believe he didn't used to be this way—but perhaps he isn't recalling that accurately, either.
Eventually, he puts the mug back down. The fire pops. ] Is he okay?
[ Feels important to start there, though he can guess what the answer will be from Dean. He just—he'd wanted to try, with Steve. He supposes they all did. Nobody's to blame, he realizes that. But he can't help thinking he never should've agreed to let Steve stay past the night. It's too soon. He remembers too much and not enough all at once. There are things that creep against the edges of his mind he isn't ready for. ]
Of course he is. ( The answer comes immediately. His hands resume their careful carving; little curls of wood fall away and litter the stairs at their feet, swallowed by snow. ) He's been through worse than you popping him a mean one in the jaw.
( Physically and emotionally. The latter was a harder hit than the former, yeah, but still. Nothing Steve won't recover from. Nothing Geralt needs to bear too much guilt over, though a little remorse about it ain't the worst thing.
It's hard. Dealing with stuff like this. Health stuff. Mental stuff. Recovery and rehabilitation, interpersonal dynamics, the strain it puts on family. It's hard, but he's confident in all of them. Confident enough in the strength of their bonds that something like this... it's just a rock in the road. Something to jostle them as they drive on over it. Geralt and Steve will recover. They're not like-
They're not like some families. Distant memories that desire to resurface, but the synapses are missing, and they fade away again before they can bear fruit.
After a pregnant silence, he finally gives into the urge to ask: )
[ A noncommittal noise acknowledges he heard. He'll speak to Steve after. He wanted to talk to Dean first—to gauge the situation before something else fucks them both up again.
That, and Steve is a far simpler topic than how he himself is feeling. He doesn't really know, in truth. What he does know is what he needs to do.
Approaching matters delicately is not his strong suit, and so after a minute, he simply says: ] I can't be here. [ Too many fucking bones in the ground that he can't see. He keeps tripping over them. ] I'm leaving tonight. For Sam's.
[ Sam seemed the most obvious choice. These northern snowy mountains aren't doing him any good. He'd thought the familiarity would help, and at the beginning, it had. But now it's beginning to haunt him in ways he can't explain. For the first time, he wants to go south. Away from all the things that are so tightly wound up in what he once was. Maybe the distance will help him untangle what happened here. ]
( Dean's answer is, for a long moment, silence. He carves. Wood shavings fall away. The ones that don't, he blows on until they scatter.
He might be centuries old, but some things about his personality are static. Some don't change, no matter how much time has passed. His knee-jerk instinct to take that personally is one of them, at his heart he's always the guy that gets left behind in hotel rooms. For jobs, for college, for whatever — people always leave you, Dean. Just because a toxic part of his brain tells him that's the truth doesn't make it the truth, though, and maybe real aging, real maturity, is learning to recognize the flaws in your own thinking. Learning to check those impulses, feel them, think about them, understand that they're not always right, and let them go.
Geralt's fighting his own battles. He's got his own reasons. If he feels like he needs to do that somewhere away from here, Dean can only trust him to know what's best for himself.
And so, after almost too many seconds have passed, he finally looks over. )
[ Geralt waits out the swelling silence. He does not grasp the intricacies of Dean the way he used to, but between the remnants of memories and the time they've spent together, he knows Dean carries his family close.
And that is what they are. He can feel it.
He can't promise when he'll return. So he doesn't try. For Geralt, with centuries more spread out ahead of them, it isn't a question of if he'll be back, only when.
Sooner than decades, he hopes. He'd like to know who he is by then. ]
You gave me back a lot of myself. [ He wants Dean to know that. They are miles from where they started, even if it doesn't always feel like enough. ] I won't forget. Again, [ he adds dryly, finally reaching for his mug to drink. ]
( Not if, but when — it took a long time for him to start thinking like that, but it's a testament to how much they've been through that he does. Learning to let people go was one of the lessons he struggled with the most. Learning that they might actually choose to come back was harder — but once that sank in, the rest became easier. Choosing people who also choose him. What a goddamn revelation.
The smile at his lips is sad, but it's a smile nevertheless. He turns his eyes back down to his rudimentary little caving, its shape angular and jagged but steadily more distinct. )
I know you won't. Hell, maybe one day you'll remember how that finally makes us even.
( Those are old memories, though. He wouldn't mind so much if they stayed buried.
Another few seconds of work, and then he holds his crappy little carving out for Geralt to take. It's a motorcycle. )
[ He'll miss what they had here. A brief period of calm. But they always knew it would be temporary. As much as he regrets what transpired, he can see it for the push he needed. He can't spend his days in the forest with just Dean, hoping time will grant him its favour.
He needs to find his way back to Ciri. ]
One day.
[ His eyebrow lifts. He turns his palm up and Dean places a lumpy carving in the middle of it. It's roughly hewn, but perfectly recognizable. For a moment, he thinks he can hear the clink of pungent liquor in glass jars, the creak of steel.
Geralt weighs the wooden bike in his hand. Then he slips it into a pocket and stands. ] Don't drink all the ale without me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amnesia years — ◈ dean.
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Dean doesn't feel it. It doesn't feel personal, it doesn't pain him as much, and it leaves him better suited to be the one that's here. The one that's waiting, even if their whole history is a gaping blank space. It'll come when it comes. He's seen the progress. They have time. The more years pass without them aging and dying, the more time Dean understands them to have.
As far as he's concerned, his obligations and responsibilities haven't changed just because Geralt doesn't remember his half of the dynamic, and so his answer is only to scoff out a dismissive: )
Shut up, nerd.
( At first, at least. Snow crunches beneath their boots for a few more quiet steps, until he looks over at Geralt with an expression that's slightly more serious. )
Yeah, I do. But- not because I think you need me. Just so you know. I know you'd be fine out here figuring it out yourself.
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In the end, time seems to be the best cure. Slow and steady. The wait is simply hard. For him and others.
He huffs softly. ] I'm not asking you to leave. [ Just so Dean knows, too. ] But it might take a few years.
[ Perhaps longer. He isn't certain. Some memories glide back quickly; others remain stubbornly out of reach. He doesn't know how any of this works. Nobody can tell him. He was not a natural being to begin with, and now he's become...something more. And it isn't as though he fell and hit his head. The spell that struck him was. Unique.
He may have avoided Haelva since. It isn't exactly her fault, but the situation is complicated. As it often is. ]
I did have a dream about the Balrog. [ So there's that. ]
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He's here for the long haul either way. It's okay. It's where he belongs, where he knows he's supposed to be — for as long as Geralt isn't asking him to leave.
Any note of somberness is chased away immediately with a wide, canine-flashing smile. The pure pride beaming out of him is immeasurable. )
Hell yeah you did!
( This is the first he's hearing of it, don't mistake that enthusiasm for knowing. It's as startling as it is awesome, and he's so freaking stoked.
But he also cannot repress the urge to be a little shit, and so he ventures oh-so-sincerely: )
Did you remember I kicked that thing's ass bare-handed?
( Or do you remember that it's totally a fake ass movie thing? How much can he screw with Geralt right now? )
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Geralt squints. He does not, in fact, recall where this Balrog originated. He only remembers the monster itself, though the burnt-off edges of those images tell him he wasn't involved in the fight. But he did watch it. So...it must've been Dean who did the deed.
Barehanded seems a slight exaggeration, though. ]
I know you must've had a sword. [ He frowns. ] Or a staff.
[ Since when does Dean wield a staff? Maybe he shouldn't push too hard on the memory right now. ]
Was I there? [ This feels like a story Dean told him once. It would explain why some of the details that surfaced were so fucking absurd. ]
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Which makes Geralt's role obvious.
He scoffs. )
Of course you were, you don't remember? You had this fru-fru bow and arrow thing going on. And a legging phase, I kept trying to tell you, Gerald, leggings aren't pants, but you weren't having it.
( If it weren't obvious by now he's screwing around, the way he smirks and sways to nudge Geralt's shoulder with his probably gives it away. )
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Fuck off. [ This is what he gets for being the elder one. (Where have the rest of his brothers gone?) ] Are you sure I tolerated you for three hundred years?
[ That's a mystery he needs to solve when his memories return.
They trek up the snowy path towards the cabin. He's laid out the training yard as close to what feels right as he can. Each time he recalls a little more, he moves a bit here or there, building a familiar place he can look at. It's working, a bit. Pieces coming back. ]
amnesia years — ◈ steve; dean.
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that's what's led him here - to the yards of kaer morhen, a place he's come to know very well over the decades and decades and decades. a place he would have very nearly called home, until it suddenly felt like it wasn't supposed to be.
( geralt doesn't recognize him, when he arrives. steve tells himself he isn't disappointed, that he expected as much, but he is. )
it gets a little easier after a day or two, and even the night before was good. steve has gotten a little more aware of not saying remember when and back when you did this and dean is good at keeping things moving, at keeping things light. at making conversations feel as normal as they used to feel. because these two- these men are the ones that steve's leaned on for these last few years. the ones he's looked up to, depended on. and these last few months shouldn't have felt as awkward and strange as they have, but they have, and now...
now steve feels like things might be getting back to normal - or at least, as normal as things can be in abraxas, and that's enough. that has to be enough.
he should have known something would go wrong, and that in the end, it would be his fault.
but sparring feels good, steve is keeping up with geralt more than he felt he has in a long time. part of him understands that it must be because of his memories, because of everything he's been going through, but steve keeps up, and none of that really sets in. instead, steve starts to feel maybe a little too good about it, maybe a little too reckless. he doesn't know when the shift happens, per say, but he does know something shifts - suddenly steve doesn't feel like this is a game, like he's being played with, and instead each one of geralt's strikes come a little harder, he can feel each clash of metal a little more down into his hands, his wrists, his forearms.
he doesn't back down - that's one thing he's picked up on, over the years. whether it's nero voice (still) somewhere in the back of his mind, or some training, some practice session, something. you back off, and you've already lost - and that won't help here, right? geralt doesn't need anyone pitying him, doesn't want people to be soft with him. right?
so steve pushes, and with each passing minute, he can tell geralt pushes back. that's good, right? better. he's not going easy on him, and maybe this is steve's chance (again, because he always is, in some way) to show that he doesn't need to be babied. that he can handle this. he's not a witcher, he's not geralt, or dean, but he's not a kid anymore either. he can handle this, he can handle a sword, he is light on his feet and he's been working on his footwork, and he can do it. he can do this.
until he can't.
geralt knocks him on his ass, and steve goes down hard. it hurts, but it's not a bad hit. steve's been hit harder, been hit harder in sparring lessons, but when he looks up - instinctively expecting geralt to be standing there, a vaguely amused expression on his face and a hand held out to help him up, he sees geralt back up. turn away. leave. and steve- steve feels something hard and heavy in his gut. something like embarrassment, something like shame, something that reminds him a bit too much of a time way too long ago, and he- well. he doesn't snap, exactly, but a kind of hot anger does shoot up from inside of him. ]
What the fuck? [ he's on his feet pretty immediately. steve's small enhancements of magic have become second nature to him, so it feels that much easier to get back on his feet, to stand up after a hit, to feel that rush of energy and strength, and he doesn't realize he's leaning into it. instead, all he's focused on is that feeling of all but being disregarded spiking something he hasn't felt in a long time. he doesn't remember the last time dean or geralt turned their back on him when they were sparring, not actually. ] You're gonna walk away? Seriously? [ before he realizes it, he's moving on geralt, only a step or two, just enough to try and reach for his shoulder - to force him to turn back around. ]
Actually hit me, Geralt. C'mon!
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But right now, he isn't thinking about Steve; he's not been able to think of much at all beyond the holes and gaps. Between Ciri's refusal to be near him and a sense that he cannot protect the people closest to him as he is, it's difficult not to be lost in his own shit.
So what he wants to do is leave. Remove himself from the fight before he does something he regrets. Steve's magic has grown, but so has Geralt's, and he's realized his grasp on his abilities is spotty at best. His Signs are never as controlled as they should be. His flashes of strength come and go. Whether Steve can take it or not isn't the point. He hates it—the sensation of things spiralling out of control. It's what he feels now as he stalks off through the snow, brushing by Dean without a word.
At least, until Steve catches up to him. The words don't register so much. Taunts are easy to ignore; that part is ingrained in him, shrugging off insults and challenges as he walks away. It's the hand grabbing his shoulder that sparks something cold and sharp. A flash of other hands on him, pulling roughly through thick snow and dark stone walls.
He spins around. His eyes are a hollow black; he doesn't really see Steve, just a target. One he knocks to the ground again—this time with a backhand that goes beyond mere warning. His sword begins to sing, the way it does when the blade is primed for more than light swordplay. ]
no subject
The hairs at the back of his neck stand up, but he wants to believe — wants to trust his friend, partner, brother, wants to be loyal enough to believe he'll reel himself in before it goes too far.
For one sterling second, he's almost relieved.
And then Steve steps up faster than Dean can walk him back, and Dean should've known him well enough to anticipate it, he should've known, but he didn't.
That backhand cracks with enough force that it rings across the training yard, rings in Dean's ears, and he stops holding himself back before the sound even finishes resonating. Before Geralt's sword can finish that song, before he can redirect his course back Steve's direction, Dean flares. An unrepentant, unapologetic blast of white light sends the Witcher flying into the nearest stone wall with enough force to crack bricks, and in an instant Dean is between them, absolutely livid.
He casts one swift, sweeping glance over to Steve, just long enough to see that he looks okay and awake and unbroken, and barks out a stern: )
You stay. Training's done.
( And before Steve can answer or protest if he has any mind to, Dean's already wheeling around to point the tip of his sword Geralt's direction. )
You backhand my kid like that again, we're gonna have problems, you understand me? Go inside. Now.
( Training's one thing. Sparring's one thing. That? That was different, and he may not be articulate enough to define how, but he knows it was. )
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A small gash opens the earth where his sword slowed his momentum before he could fly off the edge. The air crackles. For a moment, he almost turns on Dean. It's a flickering thought. An instinct that tries to tell him he has intruders in his home.
But this isn't home. He doesn't remember where that is.
The black bleeds from his eyes again. He should say something, he thinks, but he's caught between knowing these men with him and yet bearing little recognition of them. They're at once familiar and strangers. And perhaps in the past, he'd have stayed—but in the past, he would not have found himself here in the first place. All he knows is, if his blade had connected, Steve would be nursing more than a bloody lip.
The snow swirls in a thick curtain around him as pieces of the forest curl upwards at his feet. The makeshift yard crumbles—walls of broken stone erected onto the Hayle mountainside that harken to what Steve calls Kaer Morhen. He doesn't answer. He does not go inside. Instead, he mounts the horse never far from his side, forever waiting within the trees, and vanishes in a flurry of hooves. ]
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at least - he thinks he is.
geralt turns, and his eyes are black, and steve feels the fear wash over him like a tidal wave - wholly and completely. this is different, this isn't sparring, and that realization hits steve the moment the back of geralt's hand connects with his jaw. it sends him down again, crumpled back to the ground, and for half a breath he's stunned, shocked, caught off-guard, but it's only for that half a breath, because that's how long it takes for the energy to shoot back through him again.
when he pushes up, the change is immediate - body shifting faster than his mind can keep up. his eyes are more focused, teeth sharper, it's like he can feel the blood more crisply through his veins. he's ready to strike back, to push back, to be up and to go again, and it's that adrenaline that superseeds the suffocating fear that still claws at the inside of his chest.
but when he turns back, when he's ready to get up again, dean is already there and geralt is not. it doesn't take all that long for steve to put the pieces together - he thinks he remembers the white light, thinks he remembers the sound of a body hitting squarely against a wall. geralt is halfway across the yard, stone split in front of him where his sword slowed his push, and dean says you stay, training's done and steve feels the rush of adrenaline that had been pushing him forward drain as quickly as it had risen.
dean calls him my kid and tells geralt to go inside and steve feels a little hallow, a little in shock, as blood drips from where his teeth had split open his lip. it falls, splattering the snow at his side, and this feels....wrong. he feels like he did something wrong. his eyes are still on geralt when he watches the black fade, when he feels like he sees him looks back at the two of them and again, again steve is struck by the lack of recognition there. it hurts, seeing that lack, seeing geralt look at him like he doesn't know him, and then the witcher's turning to his mount and leaving.
guilt, embarrassment, shame, all swirl somewhere in the pit of steve's gut as reminds himself to breathe - as he feels the pain shoot through his jaw and teeth down into the muscles of his neck. he doesn't look at dean as he pushes himself off the snow, wipes the trail of blood from his mouth. ]
Sorry- [ he mumbles through the taste of blood on his teeth. he spits, red splatters the ground again, and he tries to ignore the way he can feel himself shaking, the echo of geralt's sword still in the back of his head. ] I shouldn'tve come.
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He cannot remember the finer details of this pain. He can't remember the man he once disappointed, he can only vaguely remember Sam's childhood years — but the familiarity fades as quickly as it rises, and he's left standing there in the aftermath with something far more important than his own issues to deal with.
Steve is behind him, and while Steve is not a child anymore... ask any parent, any of them, age twenty or age eighty — or older, in the case of those more supernaturally inclined — and they will tell you it doesn't matter how old your kid is, they're still your kid. Adult or not. Right now, Steve sounds and feels as young as Dean has ever seen him.
It takes effort to scale back the adrenaline and anger, takes concentration to school himself into something less than pissed — but he manages. Through decades of experience, he manages to stuff it back into a compartment in his mind, to take the edge out of his voice when he finally turns, shoulders slumped, to look Steve over again.
Those black eyes and fangs echo through his memory, and he'll ask about that in a minute, but he knows where Steve got them from. They're not alarming, just surprising. It can wait. )
No, it wasn't your fault. ( He crosses the distance between them, and settles a hand on Steve's bicep. The other tosses his sword absently to the ground, so he can raise Steve's chin to look at him properly. More sternly: ) Hey. Look at me. It wasn't your fault, you hear me?
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dean looks down at him and steve can't bring himself to look back, focuses instead on blinking, on pulling back the way his body had reacted at first. his instincts had him ready, had him prepared to jump back up on his feet, to keep pushing, to get knocked down again and to push up just as quickly. he can always get back up, he will always get back up, ready for the next swing. or he would be ready, if geralt wasn't already gone - disappearing off into the trees. if dean wasn't already turning back around to face him, to close the distance, and god. god. part of steve wishes he could just sink into the snow right here.
it wasn't your fault he says, and then dean is there and his hand goes to steve's bicep. part of steve hates how the touch, even now, feels both comforting and also makes him feel smaller, younger, worse. it's not until dean is raising steve's chin that he finally looks at the other, his brow furrowed and mouth turned down. ] Pretty sure I'm the one who grabbed him. [ a beat, where steve tries to hold onto the tension in his shoulders. tries to hold it all together by sheer force of will. but then the second passes, and then another, and his own shoulders drop - the fight that had been slinging to his eyes, his frame, dissipating with it. ]
I dunno, I guess I thought... [ he shakes his head. ] Doesn't matter.
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He curls a hand around Steve's shoulder and uses it to steer, guiding him firmly onward and away from the scene of the crime. Putting the disturbed snow and blood and fallen swords behind them, aiming for the warmth of the still-burning hearth fires inside. )
Look, what went down just now? That is not on you. I thought he could handle it, he thought he could handle it, but we were wrong. It's just a bad day. We don't always get to see 'em coming, but it's- nothing you did, alright? Just give him some time.
( It's followed by another gentle jostle and a firm pat on the back to really cement the point, before his hand finally falls away.
But...
You know, something else merits addressing, before that can slip away and get swept under the rug: )
So, uh... the teeth thing? How long's that been happening? Did I miss that memo?
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it's easy to go with dean's push, to walk where dean guides him back to the cabin, the fire in the hearth, the easy comfort it brings. part of steve feels bad that he's so thankful for it, that he wants to be comforted and so much of that involves the warmth found there, a place that isn't even his. that fact settles like a rock deep in his stomach, but he tries to push it down. further, somewhere else.
he knows that dean is trying- to clear the air, to change steve's thoughts, to divide the blame or settle it out or explain what it was that happened. steve keeps his eyes on the ground in front of him, the steps that lead them back inside, and tries not to grind his molars with each argument he wants to make. ]
Yeah, just a bad day. [ it's pretty obvious steve doesn't believe the words, but it's also his way of saying he doesn't really want to fight dean on it. not yet.
he doesn't expect the question that follows, though, and it catches him off-guard just enough that whatever dark hole he'd been slipping into falls away. ] Oh. Uh- sort of. It happened a few- [ decades? centuries? times where the singularity up and exploded and everyone faced the consequences? it's hard to know what to call them, so steve hasn't settled on anything quite yet.
he also isn't sure why he feels...almost embarrassed, about this. like he's upset dean by not telling him, like he's showing up with a bad grade on an exam. ( the memories of school, of high school, are distant - but the echoes remain, enough that steve's latched onto them, when he needs to. there's no telling how long they'll last, but for right now, steve can still call to them. ) ] It only comes out when I'm- [ he hates saying it, calling it what it is- when I'm losing or when I'm hurt. dean has seen steve fight enough to watch the way he tends to get back up when he shouldn't, how he can take a hit that should take him out, but he has just enough to push back up on his feet. the last man standing is a name that a lot of natives have started calling him, and steve can get why. hates it, feels guilty for it, but-
his abilities, his powers, always tend to be reactive. this is no different. ] They only come out I'm in a [ losing ] fight, or after I take a bad hit. [ which still happens, despite all his training. ] I haven't shown you yet 'cause I haven't gotten the hang of 'em, I can't like- call them out. [ a beat, a sigh, and finally steve glances back to dean - waiting for his reaction, good or bad. ]
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Maybe one day he'll get a moment like that with Steve, and he'll feel sure of whatever the hell he's doing here. Until then, it's just the struggling uncertainty paired with the stubborn, defiant refusal to let it stop him from trying. As long as the kid keeps turning up, he's gotta be doing something right. He'll hold faith in that. It's gonna have to be enough. Besides, he doesn't see anybody better stepping up to the plate.
He could do worse, he knows — and this, this conversation? Is a prime example. His own father would've torn him to shreds over this. If he flashed those features at John Winchester... Christ, he doesn't even wanna think about it.
But even aside from the inhuman nature of it all (he's got six wings and an extra arm, Geralt's been spitting venom since right after they met, the time of xenophobia has long passed) if John Winchester found out Dean hid something like that from him? Regardless of the reason — insecurity, shame, fear — he wouldn't have been able to walk right for a week. Here, he has the opportunity to do better than what was done to him, and so rather than reacting immediately, he takes a second. Lets it sit. Lets himself wade through it, to figure out how he wants to react.
It starts with a slow, careful nod. )
Okay.
( Alright. He's... digesting, as he paces across the kitchen and settles in with his back against the countertops. )
Okay- well. We can- work on that.
( Which does not come out quite as confidently as maybe he'd like, but the spirit's there, anyway. Does he know how, exactly, they'll figure it out? No, but... you know what, they will. Somehow. )
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now, steve feels a little bit like he's the one failing this. failing dean. he doesn't know why, but there's something he's missed. something he didn't do, or think about. is dean mad that he hadn't mentioned the abilities before now? is dean upset that steve kept it from him? but...why?
it tends to sneak up on him, the surprise that someone he isn't dating would give that much of a shit about what he does. what's happening to him. or- rather, give any shit at all about him. and while part of him knows that dean isn't pissed at him, exactly, he does think that he...missed something. forgot something. okay dean says, and it's slow. accompanied by a nod. steve comes to a stop right inside the kitchen and his bones remember things that he doesn't, a familiar sense of walking into a kitchen and knowing that you've disappointed your dad. ]
Did I do something wrong?
[ he asks, equally slow. eyes slanted up towards dean in preparation for... something. something? god, he's not a child and yet somehow he doesn't feel any older at all. ]
I just- I wanted to show you when I was good at it. When I could actually- [ he gestures. it's not like new magic, new abilities are anything new to them. but maybe this time it's different. maybe whatever happened- the teeth, the eyes, the senses, the...everything. maybe steve was wrong (it's not like that would be a first) and maybe he should have said something a long time ago.
he sighs a little, deflates, and shakes his head - his hair falling around his shoulders, now. ]
Well. You saw it.
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Looking at Steve now, he can't imagine intentionally inflicting that same kind of pain on the kid. He can't imagine wounding on purpose, when Steve's so obviously just trying to do things right.
He swallows down his frustration — at himself, at his father, at Geralt, at this situation. Does his best to muscle it out of his posture and his voice when he speaks again. )
No, I know, I saw. It was... somethin'. Looks like it could come in handy. Just-
( Go easy. Find a mild way to put this. )
When something new like that crops up, do me a favor and keep me posted, huh? I just don't wanna have to learn about stuff like that on the fly, you know what I mean? I give a crap about you, and about the stuff you're going through, so I like to stay in the loop. That's all.
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the question was one steve got used to, if only in some half-hearted attempt to get something out of his old man. anger, annoyance, even a raised voice would have been better than the dismissal he'd grown so used to.
it's part of why steve isn't exactly sure he breathes in the half-second dean takes to answer him, waiting for some kind of drop, some kind of weight to fall over him to remind him that he fucked up. but as dean talks, steve relaxes, if only marginally.
I give a crap about you which may not be the most emotionally sound or comforting sentence to most people, but it cuts through... a lot for steve. so much that he finds he can't keep watching dean, his eyes drifting to the countertop, to the glasses strewn around the room. ]
Yeah, no, definitely. I'm- [ but this requires better than steve's natural avoidance to these kinds of situations, so he forces his eyes back to dean. ] Sorry. I get it. I will. [ he smiles - even if it's hesitant. ]
Promise.
wrap it here, i think??
Good.
( Because tactile messaging is easier than words, half the time. At least, it is for Dean, who punctuates it all with one last clap on the back to signal the end of the Talk. )
Let's get a drink, and you can show me what you can do with all that, huh?
( And they can focus on something other than Geralt for a little while. Change the subject, change the setting, change the scene. Make it feel less important, less precarious. He'll deal with all that himself, later.
The two of them recede deeper into the house, and things get... better.
This will be one of the memories he retains with crystal clarity, long after this universe has faded. )
ties this off with a bow
where he always hopes to be, if he's being pathetically honest with himself.
he's an adult, is the thing. he's older than most adults in actual years thanks to the magic of abraxas and what it has meant since they're all living here. he shouldn't be this dependent- or, maybe dependent isn't the right word. maybe it's desperate, maybe it's hopeful, maybe it's...eh. doesn't matter.
dean says good, and Steve just huffs a laugh, has to physically hold back the way he wants to break out into a near-matching grin of his own. dean claps Steve on the back, mentions getting a drink and showing off, and Steve nods. follows him back into the house like this is the most normal, casual, regular conversation for them to have. like the day hadn't shaken Steve to his core, because dean has pretty effectively straightened it all back up again. ]
Yeah, yeah. But don't get your hopes up- still figuring this out, remember?
[ the rest of the evening follows. the rest of this time together follows.
and dean isn't the only one who will remember it. ]
amnesia years — ◈ alucard.
amnesia years — ◈ jaskier.
Jaskier fills more of the picture than others. He isn't sure why that is. He remembers...singing, mostly. Familiar melodies that the sandpiper on his shoulder whistles. He's joined Jaskier in a remote area of the continent, the forest sprouting around him as it always does. A tree spreads its thick arms overhead. Geralt sits beneath its leaves, one knee drawn up and the other leg extended.
He has a book in his hand—a bestiary borrowed from Istredd's library—and a mug of ale to the side. A cooking pot sits atop a campfire. Chunks of rabbit and carrots bubble. Food is no longer a necessity, but the act is a routine he prefers to keep. He likes to hunt. He likes to have things to do: chopping firewood, brushing his horse, butchering meat.
At least he remembers how to do those things.
When he finally breaks the silence, it's to ask: ] Did she speak to you? Afterwards.
[ After she left him, he means. ]
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That he would be alone with those memories. Of songs long past, and punches to his gut, of death and blood and fires and a single, single thing he always placed his trust in: hope.
Jaskier's naked feet walk through the grass that springs around them, fighting with Geralt's forest lichen to grow swathes of clover.
It's always been funny to him, this life springing so naturally around a Witcher. Now he does not even realize that instead of following the Path, the Path trails behind him.] No. You know Ciri. [he says with a shrug, hopping over to peer into Geralt's pot, the clovers turning over to dandelions as he lifts the pot's lid.
He inhales, deep, a little flutter in his eyes.] Or, er, not anymore, I suppose. No, she didn't. She's always stomped off once she's had her final word. I fear I'm sometimes only an afterthought. [He says it with an airy tone and a smile on his lips, spinning the pot lid around his fingers even as it tries to burn them.] She's just like you in all the ways that matter, even now.
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It stings. Ciri. He doesn't remember her, but her absence—the knowledge that he drove her away—is a knife between his ribs. He need not be told she is important to him. He can feel it. His heart knows it. At least Jaskier has not turned away from him, and for that, he's grateful. He can tell it isn't easy for his...friend.
His travel companion of endless roads.
He closes the book. The forest is peaceful. He wishes he could absorb the same calm. ]
I have bits of it. With you. The woods. The dryads. [ Absently, he rubs over the scar etched into his thigh. ] I remember old taverns that stank of piss and cheap ale.
[ And Jaskier, on the stage. That much has stayed consistent. Perhaps that's why he feels less unsteady with Jaskier. There's a rhythm to everything they ever were. ]
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Even if he doesn't know he does.
Jaskier turns to him with a flourish, then plops down right in front of him, bare toes to boots.] Don't I know it! This time you didn't greet me with a punch to the gut, which told me enough. [There's no flattery in being remembered in fragments; the only question is, why does Geralt have anything left of him, but none of Ciri? There is no question who is the one who is Geralt's core. That always has been, since that... shit. What was it? A party?] You remember such depressing parts. We'll have to work on the more fun things. Like... [He trails off. Wait, this is harder than he thought. "Geralt" and "fun".] Remember that one time you were picking flowers for an elixir, and I managed to push you into the river? It was only the one time, but I vowed to never forget it.
[And he's pretty sure Geralt let him do it... there was no disguising his footsteps. (Not back then, at least.) But now he rocks back and forth with a smile, and most of his movements are oh so quiet.] I would hate you to think your life has been nothing but moldy black spots. There have been so many sparks of light.
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He shakes it off and snorts softly. ] I remember when you stole my fish.
[ Running off with it in his little beastly beak. He leans back against the tree. Despite the topic at hand, he's...okay. Better than he was. Perhaps he's getting used to it. The void in his memories, the flickers of recognition. Some are painful, but Jaskier is right. Not all of them cast long shadows. ]
It's not. [ He hesitates. ] It isn't now.
[ He likes being here. He feels the spark of light around Jaskier. While a part of him won't say it out loud, he will not deny it, either. Sometimes, he thinks, isn't that enough? Can't that be enough? He knows what upset Ciri most recently was his refusal to attend to a cure that felt too much like a path to madness. The last thing he wants is to lose his fucking mind entirely. This, it's all he has. ]
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[But any memory Geralt can recall is good, because even one recalled memory proves that he can remember. Whatever that magic did to the scrambled eggs that are now his brains, they can be carefully scooped back into their shells.
Shaken up a bit, but mostly the same.]
You should recall all the times you said my presence was a constant, buzzing annoyance in your ear, then! [He hops back up, stretching his legs, then plops right next to the giant wolf-man Geralt's become -- or perhaps always been. He's always felt larger than his body truly was, except the times when he was on death's door, and seemed infinitely small.] I am glad for it. Imagine if you couldn't stand me anymore? Who would you even be? [He pushes him with a shoulder.] As fun as all this reading under trees must be, you must plan on doing more than this today. Think of how many hours you've got left under the burning sun! [And obviously he's already hunted, but --] Maybe a spot of fishing? No hooks or lines or anything fancy. Just our hands and the flow of the water. And I shan't steal them after.
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A small smile curves his lips. Jaskier hops and bounces like a bird. Geralt, meanwhile, wears his shroud like armour, the shape of the wolf draped around him. He supposes he could remove it, and often he has, but for now—he feels comfortable in the illusory skin. ]
Who says I can stand you? [ Mm. Well. He did, just now, a second ago. He glances up at the sun, over to the running stream. He does not need to fish. They've plenty to eat for supper. The land is a bounty for those such as them.
But. He could use something to do.
He rises, finally lowering the hood of his cloak. The ears and snout melt away, though the fur of the cloak remains, trailing behind him. From a distance, it resembles a giant wolf's tail. ]
A challenge then. [ His eyes glint. ] I'll catch. And you see how many you can steal.
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[If there ever was a time he doubted such a thing, it no longer rings in his memory. They have been with each other the same way the sun and moon have -- chasing and meeting and inevitable. It all suits them, if you ask him. The meeting of winter and spring.
Though you'd be hard-pressed to think of winter associated with Geralt but for his white hair, surrounded by all this lush forest. Sometimes Jaskier thinks he got it from him. Stole a bit of his motif.
Jaskier hops up, a brightness surrounded him like the sun has crept its way through the tree boughs.] Perfect! There is absolutely no way you'll win. By the way -- if I do win, what do I get? It has to be very good, you know, to hold my attention.
amnesia years — ◈ himeka.
amnesia years — ◈ dean; part 2.
For a while, he just sits. His head throbs. Why does it seem as if the memories are getting worse? There was a brief window where he welcomed them—when the flashes and flood slotted neatly into place, and he began to know who he was. Lately, they've cut deeper, a haphazard jumble of images. None of the faces in them are clear. He can't really see the men who spawned abruptly in his mind, but the fear they bring weighs heavy on his chest.
When he swallows, a bitter taste clogs his throat.
The sun sets. He makes a decision then, what he needs to do. But he wants to see Dean and Steve first. It's not his intention to abandon them.
His ride back up the mountain is steadier. He searches for Dean first through the biting frost. A sliver of moonlight shines through the evergreen needles. He doesn't interrupt—just lurks by one of the trees until Dean finishes what he might be doing. ]
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At his side are two mugs. One, he's been drinking from. The other is full.
His elbows anchor heavy on his knees, and in his hands, a curved carving knife works methodically over a small hunk of wood he's peeling small strips from. It takes shape slowly under his calloused fingers, and in the shadow-cast firelight, he looks far more like a man than most of their Summoned god-kin do anymore. He looks small. Centuries old, of course, but while some of them wear an eternal otherworldly youth, Dean looks like a man closer to his late forties in the lines at his eyes.
He's always looked a little tired. Some people get to see it more clearly than others, and he doesn't bother hiding it from Geralt. Doesn't straighten his posture, or even bother looking up from his carving once Geralt finally escapes the trees. He just pauses his work long enough to lift that full mug in a silent offering.
His countenance still seems a little stern, a little disapproving, but the gesture should help make it clear — I'm annoyed with you, but you're still welcome here. )
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The silence blankets them, thick as the snow. He's often had little to say, but these days, he has even less. Every time he reaches for the words, it's as if they disintegrated with his past. Like he's not entirely sure how to string his thoughts together anymore. Part of him wants to believe he didn't used to be this way—but perhaps he isn't recalling that accurately, either.
Eventually, he puts the mug back down. The fire pops. ] Is he okay?
[ Feels important to start there, though he can guess what the answer will be from Dean. He just—he'd wanted to try, with Steve. He supposes they all did. Nobody's to blame, he realizes that. But he can't help thinking he never should've agreed to let Steve stay past the night. It's too soon. He remembers too much and not enough all at once. There are things that creep against the edges of his mind he isn't ready for. ]
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( Physically and emotionally. The latter was a harder hit than the former, yeah, but still. Nothing Steve won't recover from. Nothing Geralt needs to bear too much guilt over, though a little remorse about it ain't the worst thing.
It's hard. Dealing with stuff like this. Health stuff. Mental stuff. Recovery and rehabilitation, interpersonal dynamics, the strain it puts on family. It's hard, but he's confident in all of them. Confident enough in the strength of their bonds that something like this... it's just a rock in the road. Something to jostle them as they drive on over it. Geralt and Steve will recover. They're not like-
They're not like some families. Distant memories that desire to resurface, but the synapses are missing, and they fade away again before they can bear fruit.
After a pregnant silence, he finally gives into the urge to ask: )
What about you?
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That, and Steve is a far simpler topic than how he himself is feeling. He doesn't really know, in truth. What he does know is what he needs to do.
Approaching matters delicately is not his strong suit, and so after a minute, he simply says: ] I can't be here. [ Too many fucking bones in the ground that he can't see. He keeps tripping over them. ] I'm leaving tonight. For Sam's.
[ Sam seemed the most obvious choice. These northern snowy mountains aren't doing him any good. He'd thought the familiarity would help, and at the beginning, it had. But now it's beginning to haunt him in ways he can't explain. For the first time, he wants to go south. Away from all the things that are so tightly wound up in what he once was. Maybe the distance will help him untangle what happened here. ]
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He might be centuries old, but some things about his personality are static. Some don't change, no matter how much time has passed. His knee-jerk instinct to take that personally is one of them, at his heart he's always the guy that gets left behind in hotel rooms. For jobs, for college, for whatever — people always leave you, Dean. Just because a toxic part of his brain tells him that's the truth doesn't make it the truth, though, and maybe real aging, real maturity, is learning to recognize the flaws in your own thinking. Learning to check those impulses, feel them, think about them, understand that they're not always right, and let them go.
Geralt's fighting his own battles. He's got his own reasons. If he feels like he needs to do that somewhere away from here, Dean can only trust him to know what's best for himself.
And so, after almost too many seconds have passed, he finally looks over. )
Okay. Whatever you think you need to do.
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And that is what they are. He can feel it.
He can't promise when he'll return. So he doesn't try. For Geralt, with centuries more spread out ahead of them, it isn't a question of if he'll be back, only when.
Sooner than decades, he hopes. He'd like to know who he is by then. ]
You gave me back a lot of myself. [ He wants Dean to know that. They are miles from where they started, even if it doesn't always feel like enough. ] I won't forget. Again, [ he adds dryly, finally reaching for his mug to drink. ]
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The smile at his lips is sad, but it's a smile nevertheless. He turns his eyes back down to his rudimentary little caving, its shape angular and jagged but steadily more distinct. )
I know you won't. Hell, maybe one day you'll remember how that finally makes us even.
( Those are old memories, though. He wouldn't mind so much if they stayed buried.
Another few seconds of work, and then he holds his crappy little carving out for Geralt to take. It's a motorcycle. )
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He needs to find his way back to Ciri. ]
One day.
[ His eyebrow lifts. He turns his palm up and Dean places a lumpy carving in the middle of it. It's roughly hewn, but perfectly recognizable. For a moment, he thinks he can hear the clink of pungent liquor in glass jars, the creak of steel.
Geralt weighs the wooden bike in his hand. Then he slips it into a pocket and stands. ] Don't drink all the ale without me.