abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] let my bed be made

[ Coming back has left him with a thousand thoughts in his head and twice as many questions. It's also left him with shit that didn't get done while he was away: a half-finished shelf, Roach restless from being trapped by the storms, and their home bereft of a single vegetable free of rot.

Bread, he does not bother with. Jaskier has been...making efforts. (Many efforts.) He returns home with a crate of onions and leeks, a slab of venison, and a jug of milk. The kitchen is empty, the house unlit. Jaskier must be elsewhere. He does mean to talk to his friend. Of the four of them, Jaskier was the only one he failed to...break free. And it's clear Jaskier has struggled with their return more than he and Ciri and Yen.

He deposits the box on the table, then begins going through the baked loaves on the counter, stacking them into the bread box.

Guess they won't be going hungry for a while.

Footsteps sound just outside. Geralt glances over his shoulder. Easy to identify. The moonlight cuts through into the room when the door opens, catching the shine of his eyes. A recent development he's not yet noticed. ]

Edited 2024-05-20 05:58 (UTC)

[The moment Jaskier could take all of his time to himself -- the chocobo checked on, and Mog squeezed nearly to death, and a special delivery made to Quille for all she's done while they were away -- he fell into himself.

It's been some time since he did this. Since the last time he felt... is that what this is? Heartbreak? For someone that was never his, that may never be his? He doesn't even know if any part of it was real. Not the long years... the forests he grew. The wolves he ran with. The young boy he saved from Geralt's blade.

Jaskier returns home with a new, fresh bag of flour and the memory of Kol looking at him a little warily from how much he's purchased simply in the last few days. As much as he'd love to involve himself in the very arduous process of making it himself, he hasn't the fucking time.

It would mean he would be alone with his thoughts far too much.

Jaskier steps inside, taking his hat off with a sigh, only to spot two shining eyes staring right at him.

He screams, dropping the bag of flour.

He's lucky it doesn't explode. But it does pop open, pouring flour onto the floor, as Jaskier lights a lamp with his heart rattling inside its cage. (He would've run away, once, without looking back; why is he still here?)] Geralt? What the fuck was that?

[ Geralt is in the process of lighting the candle beside him when Jaskier gives a piercing shout. That he's startled does not show on his face, but his Igni flares a bit too strong and singes the edge of the bread box.

He pauses. Watches. Flour puffs up around them, dusting his boots white. Coram darts away, frightened by the commotion.

He sighs, crouching down to sweep up the mess. ] What are you on about?

[ He does not know what Jaskier possibly means. His friend is more than used to finding the (Wolf) Witcher in the dark. He occasionally gives Jaskier a start, but he never outright scares him by doing so. Not for years. (Centuries.) ]

Your eyes! Your fucking eyes are glowing! [He hates this. His hands shaking, his heart drumming. Purely physical reactions to being surprised -- scared, even -- that he has not felt in. So, so long. He wasn't afraid of most things, because most things he could simply escape.

Now he remembers things he once forgot. Like flames burning his fingertips. The crack in his fingers when they get too stiff. (He misses the touch of ever-present and ever-reliable metal in his joints.)

Jaskier takes a deep breath, curls his hand into a fist, gathers himself. It's already been several days of quiet; perhaps he has simply been a lute string being tightened and tightened until it finally snaps. With an exhale, he kneels down and begins scooping flour back into the bag with his hands.]

They didn't always do that. [He pauses.] Did they?

[He's afraid to admit that maybe he doesn't remember anymore. Because the number of times he found two glowing gold eyes in the woods on mere whim is a far closer memory.]

[ What? Geralt glances back up. Concern draws his brows together.

No. They didn't always do that. Except they did, in their shared dream, and what the hell do his eyes matter, anyhow? It isn't any stranger than the teeth or claws he's grown. His mutations changed him long ago. What's a few more? (He does hate it. His body altering itself against his wishes. But what the fuck will it do to fret about it?)

He doesn't give a fuck about his eyes. That's a secondary matter when Jaskier looks more frightened than Geralt's seen him in a long time. Not since—

Since Brokilon. He supposes. Is that it? Memories returning fresher? He can understand. He's been contending with his own flood, images of things he'd forgotten (let go of), old wounds reopening. It isn't the first time he's been through it, but...it still feels like shit. Still hurts.

He lays a hand on Jaskier's arm, gently stopping him from sweeping up the dusty flour. Jaskier's heart pounds between his ears. ] Are you okay?

[His breath is strangled, his throat tight. All he has to do is get this flour back in the fucking bag. Even shopping for it had given him too much time for his mind to settle. And he couldn't settle. He couldn't --

Do anything, really. The last thing on his mind was writing song. And now Geralt's here, and his eyes fucking glow. They didn't do that before. All the shared fires, darkness encroaching around them, a rabbit skewered and popping as it roasted. All those times on the Path.

The Path he remembers now.

Geralt's hand on his skin is akin to the startle of static. It undoes him. His eyes glass over, and he swallows his breath as they water. Jaskier shakes his head. What is he even upset about? What isn't he upset about? They were immortal. It isn't even the tease of immortality he misses. It's knowing they can be hurt, but they cannot be taken away.

When he awoke, the first thing that returned to him was Geralt's blood-filled wheezing in the forest of Brokilon. The way even the birds were silent, the world and Jaskier with it holding their breath as they waited for Geralt to take his last.

If he was the Wolf... that would never happen again.

They wouldn't have to lose each other. Not him, or Ciri, or Yennefer. Not even Istredd -- lovely Istredd with stars across his body and a library built just to impress him.

He stills, and breathes, but he's still shaking under Geralt's hand.]

I don't know.

[ Since their return, Geralt has largely kept to himself. He needed time for himself, and he suspects Jaskier needed it, too. He does not necessarily regret taking that time to sort out his thoughts, but he wishes there was more he could do.

It's hard to say whether he pulls Jaskier closer or Jaskier moves towards him. He only knows his friend collapses against his chest, and Geralt wraps a firm arm around him. They shared a lot of years on the Continent. Then they shared hundreds more. That's the thing about being a Witcher. He will outlive his people or they will outlive him. There is no other option...until there was.

The world does not work that way. It cannot grant them an eternity together, untouched by time, unmarred by loss. Not without a great cost. They have got each other now. He walked away from Brokilon. Ciri returned to him. Yennefer is with him, and Jaskier is by his side.

The last to fall.

Their foreheads touch. He rests his hand against Jaskier's cheek, silent. What is there to say? The words aren't important. ]

[He thought he needed time to himself, but it feels like it's only clawed at him worse as the days go on. He no longer even finds solace in wine, like he once did after surviving Rience. After living in heartbreak.

Now he lets the Witcher take his weight and allows himself to break apart, his flour dusted arms going around Geralt's bulk. So much can be said of his abilities in comfort, but there is nothing more firm, more grounded in reality, than Geralt's warm body, his muscles, how easily he can hold up a grown man falling to pieces.

And then he builds himself back up. Those memories, if one could call them that, were mere fantasy. The things a man like him might wish for, in his weakest moments. A life that is seemingly too perfect. Unaffected by time, or disease, or misfortune.

Skin to skin, He closes his eyes, inhaling. Jaskier isn't sure how much time has passed (time didn't mean anything then.)] I'm all right. Thank you. That was... woo. Embarrassing.

[ For all that his memories blur, his time with Jaskier are amongst the clearest. Splashing in the waters after some fish—his past absent, but his friend still by his side—endless hours under the stars, surrounded by his forest. The Maw. Riding to the coast. That night he stumbled to find Jaskier after spilling so much more blood than he meant, his head full of things he did and didn't remember.

Perhaps that's what makes this so fucking hard. They did claw for what they earned. Even there, in a fantasy. And it makes him think...what if?

Not that he believes it can all come to fruition. Of course not. The parts that were too good, he knows that isn't theirs to have. But pieces of it felt real. They felt solid enough for him to hold onto outside of the reality they existed in.

His fingers drag lightly through Jaskier's hair. For a long few seconds, he studies Jaskier, eyes unwavering. Sometimes, he envies the ease in which the bard expels his emotions. ]

Come to bed.

[ They can clean up the flour in the morning. Jaskier has hardly slept since their return. ]

[He's not sure "embarrassing" even comes close to encompassing what he feels. It is only Geralt holding him up, and his hands shake between them. His heart thumping in his chest.

It's an awful sickness to know he misses it. He misses it more than he misses his memories, or his past, or the Continent.]

What good will that do?

[It changes nothing. And he's still going to have this mess to clean up. Yet he barely has the strength to stand anymore, let alone thing of sweeping up a bunch of fucking flour. So he stands, with Geralt's help, and nods.] Fine. [In his bedroom, he whistles low to make sure Mog is inside, and not pressing his paws into the flour instead. And where is Coram...?] Are you going out again?

[ In the morning, the mess will have mysteriously vanished.

Coram appears underfoot, the way it often does when Geralt is home. He reaches down to pick the creature up without looking. It sits in the palm of his hand until he passes by the small wooden bed, nestled between two potted plants on a shelf and lined with old linens. Then he sets it down. ]

No. [ Like Jaskier, he's kept himself preoccupied. Just without the abundance of bread. He can't deny an uncharacteristic restlessness that's overcome him that's driven him to and from the wasteland beyond, into the hills between Libertas and Cadens.

But he hasn't any plans to ride tonight.

Without a word, he slides into bed with Jaskier. The gryphon climbs over him, paws dipping delicately between the pillows. ]

Edited 2024-06-01 08:31 (UTC)

[Once again he thinks it regrettable that wine and ale has done nothing for this sickness in him. And there is no forgetting that it is a sickness, for Jaskier never wanted for magic, or for immortality, or for power. He does not crave power still, not over man nor beast.

But over himself --

All he has wanted since he was a young man was company, and wine, and a fine time.

He has the decency to remove his shirt, to wipe flour off his hands and face with it before he drops it in a chair. He shall not drag in flour into his bed; that he is meticulous about keeping clean. He thinks again of the bag of flour by the door. What is Ciri going to think?

He falls into bed. Mog is there, too; unhurt, well taken care of by Quille (he looks even if as if he's gained a pound or two, the little beast.) The gryphon is careful, but he still manages to step squarely in the precise way that hurts Jaskier's leg. He can't fault him for it, scrubbing a hand through his fur, his feathers.

Feathers.

He's not thinking about it. The same way he did not think about it this morning, as he cleansed himself with a fresh soap bar and scalding hot water.]

We can't lay here in bed staring at each other all night. It's too bloody depressing. Even for you.

[ Feathers. Of course he's seen them. He has not said anything of them. Jaskier is hardly oblivious, and it's clear the bard has no desire to talk about...anything. And though he knows what he wants to say, he is waiting for the time to say it.

Which isn't now. Not yet.

He turns on his side, lifting up on one arm. His thumb traces along Jaskier's jaw. ] I don't plan to stare.

[ What do the feathers mean? A remnant of what they were? Or a promise that it could be theirs? (Does he even want it to be theirs? Does Jaskier? Should he want it?) He shakes away his scattered thoughts. He's glad to have his friend with him. Jaskier is not lost. He did not wake from a dream to find himself alone.

Leaning in, he kisses him. It's slow, but not chaste, and a surge of heat expands in his chest.

Will this solve fuck all? Not nearly. He wants it, though. ]

[Oh, no. He has less than no desire to talk about anything. And yet, what is he to do with these thoughts? With his muses going silent? (Have they abandoned him? Is he no longer the man he was?)

Even spending coin brings nothing to him more than annoyance in having to carry it. So it went to flour, and stove wood, and steel cutters for the pasta. A new pan. Soap that smelled stale by the time he came home.]

Oh? [He says, a response that's nearly automatic, robotic. (Ah. He remembers robots now.) But when Geralt's lips press to him, the fire catches; all it needed was the smallest spark and a breath of air. He slides his hands into Geralt's hair, pulling at the ribbon which ties it at the back. Fuck. This? This is easy. Thoughtless. And yes, he will absolutely use Geralt's body to lose himself in, but a bit of him thinks Geralt wants the same with his body, too.

He pulls the Witcher on top of him, coaxing Mog to go away with a flick of his hand. (Unfortunately for the gryphon, it's hardly the first time.)] Take it slow.

[The more time they burn, the better.]

[ That's it. That's what he looks for: desire smouldering within the cold embers. He wants the lazy afternoons they had in the spring, the hasty fucks in a desert cave. Rough nights where he can't sleep and comes into Jaskier's room without asking because he needn't ask. He has endless memories of them together. The clearest ones are of them now, in Cadens, and he can admit there has been a distance between them since his return that leaves him unmoored. They've been apart plenty, of course. It's not that. It's—Jaskier may not be lost, but Geralt can't help feeling a part of his friend has not wholly returned; that Jaskier is still living with one foot in that dream.

Perhaps he simply wants to remind Jaskier that he exists here, Wolf and Witcher both, in this life that remains steadily theirs.

The leather cord falls loose. He allows it, his hair still half-knotted at the back where the strands have tangled with dust and dirt. He straddles Jaskier's hips. His fingers trail up the flat planes of Jaskier's stomach, and he follows them with his lips. Sage and roses and the lingering hint of linseed oil fill his senses. It's faded more and more, he's noticed. The smell of linseed and ink and oak. Replaced by the sour notes of yeast and flour.

Still forever working with his hands, though.

He takes one of those hands now. Slow, he can oblige. He presses his thumb gently but firmly into the center of Jaskier's palm, massaging outward. The knuckles hover just below his lips, nearly brushing but not quite. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes still shine. ]

Any other requests?

Edited 2024-06-04 14:42 (UTC)

[If he were honest with himself, and with Geralt, he was clawing inside himself in an attempt to get back. And he knows. He knows it could not have been more than mere fantasy. That he should not wish himself anything less than reality. Yennefer is here, and Geralt, and Ciri. He's even heard from Istredd, though he so intimately recalls the rocking of their ship moving to the same motion as their bodies.

He almost laughs. Thinking of Istredd when Geralt's weight is pressing him down.

The exhale he releases from the pressure in his hand is almost too naked; he feels the point of it all the way down his legs, in the back of his tongue, the top of his head. If Geralt's idea is to ground him, it's a good way to start.

Here, there is no pain in his hands keeping him from what he wishes to do (for now).] Not that slow. [He says, a tease which draws a smile from him. No, actually; that is perfect. No pain when he plays (if he plays), but there is a solid ache in them from all the kneading, the whipping, the -- the more kneading. There was so much fucking kneading.] I didn't realize you took requests. Perhaps you've gotten too soft in your old age.

[This time, the glowing eyes no longer frighten him. They're not Geralt as he was, but Geralt as he is... an amalgamation of the Witcher and the Wolf, with the same growling voice and deceptively soft hands.] No requests. Use me how you wish to.

Fucking fickle. [ He smiles back, the barest curl to his lips before it fades. He kisses the tips of those fingers. He is being soft. Perhaps he is tired of dreaming of blood and cold stone.

Perhaps he just wants to indulge in something that is quiet and calm.

He releases Jaskier's hand after another few minutes, attention returning to the rest of that body available to him. In the years before their physical form fully took hold, Jaskier complained about his stiff fingers and swollen knuckles. And then, one spring, Geralt rode down the mountains to find him amongst the trees, a bird sitting in a golden palm.

He did not asked, and Jaskier did not explain. He simply knew.

It was always a given Jaskier would age. From the moment they met, through the years—he understood this, and yet. He never feels ready. There are some losses he can never be ready for, and this is one. Ciri is the other. And the truth is, a part of him was...what. Relieved? To learn that death finally caught up to him first? That for once in his fucking life, he did not have to watch someone he loved succumb to her icy grip? Where does it leave him now, between the path they witnessed and the one still unknown?

He shouldn't be thinking about this. He doesn't mean to, not while he has Jaskier beneath him—warm, wanting—and he conceals his wandering thoughts in the crook of Jaskier's neck. His eyes fall shut. He cradles that soft jawline he knows so damn well, stubble rough under the pad of his thumb. ]

Well, yes. [He doesn't manage to laugh, but the exhalation is close enough.] Haven't you met me?

[For far too long, and far too much ahead of them, it seems. If there is anything he can take from it, it is that. That the relationships he has now can survive the test of time. That he can. That he will not be brought low by mages, or a loss of inspiration, or war.

The things he has only recently come to fear so much.

It's hardly his best attempt at hiding. Jaskier turns his head, kissing the jaw that rubs against his skin, sending little ripples of pleasure across his skin. Usually the first thing Geralt does is grab his cock, but here he's being so nice about it. Which means --] You're overthinking. I hardly need to see your face anymore to know, Geralt. [He pulls on that long, unloosened hair to bring Geralt's face to his, for ample room to kiss.] If you don't move along, it may be me fucking you instead.

[ Fickle and impatient. Geralt lifts his head with a grunt. Can't he also want to take his time? But he obliges, a roll of his eyes (affectionate, though he would not admit as such), a curl of his fingers around that cock he finds with ease. Jaskier's body is more than familiar to him, always was. Now he knows it with the intimacy only eight hundred years can grant, and yet.

He doesn't.

Because there's a hand of flesh when it wasn't before, warm and pulsing with blood beneath his fingers. Soft feathers when he runs his hand through those thick brown locks. Geralt's thumb rolls over the hardening length between Jaskier's legs. They kiss. His hips roll, and he lets himself tumble into the sensations that prickle along his skin, burning through his veins. He doesn't pause, doesn't disrupt the steady rhythm; his fingers are slick with oil, the tart scent of oranges envelopes them, and when he finally sinks down on Jaskier's cock, it's with a sharp exhale. He wants to be fucked as much as he wants to do the fucking—and this gives him the best of both.

He pins one of Jaskier's hands against the pillows. Heat blooms low in his belly. Through the moonlight, he can see the faintest flicker of expressions across Jaskier's face. (As if the bard was ever subtle about his desires.)

It's exactly what he wants. Should've taken it sooner, he thinks. It suddenly feels absurd that he did not. That he waited. That he was out hunting, and Jaskier was kneading bread when they could have been doing this. ]

[It isn't that Jaskier wants to rush. Normally, he would expound upon -- possibly for longer than anyone could stand -- the merits of taking one's time. For what does he enjoy more than the slow appreciation of another's body?

But he doesn't want to think.

And, unfortunately, getting Jaskier's brain to stop is a constant task.

Even now, when he looks into Geralt's face, it's searching for all the ways he is different now then he was then. Are there more lines? More scars? Less scars -- did reforming after a death erase some of the old ones? His memories ebb in and out like the constant movement of waves; sometimes he swears he recalls every moment, and sometimes he remembers nothing more than the way grass felt between the pads of his paws.

All he needs is a hand. Literally. The touch of it is enough for a sharp inhale, Geralt coming close enough Jaskier can grab his face for a kiss. His fingers get tangled in his hair, but by the time he's untangled them (and given Mog a sharp no! where two glowing eyes peeked from the corner of the bed), the Witcher is already pinning him down.

This. Perfect. Who could think beyond this? There's a dull roaring in his head, but his thoughts can sink into the pleasure, because they have for years upon years of his life. He can watch -- oh. That's new.]

I can still see your eyes. [He laughs, bewildered, but completely turned on by it. That isn't unsettling. Geralt has always been a fucking weird one. But this somehow feels perfectly fitting for him. Eyes in the dark, peering through the trees.] Gods, they're pretty.

[He can't say he hates this change.]

[ Less scars, if Jaskier is looking; it's one of the few changes Geralt felt intimately upon awakening. He has many scars, but it's hard not to be aware of each one—they're different against his skin. Sometimes they itch or burn. There was a period of decades where immortality did not yet take him, where mortal-made wounds still left a deep mark on him.

Those are now vanished. Fewer claws and teeth have sunk into him here. He's not yet experienced the bite of a worm through his stomach.

Seems the only thing left are his eyes. They flash when the candlelight strikes just right, and Geralt makes a noise at the comment. His chest rises and falls; he curls his fingers against Jaskier's breastbone, nails digging into his palms. Jaskier's are pretty, too. Unchanged, but always captivating to him, ever-shifting hues of blue in the light.

He takes Jaskier's hand and guides it between his legs. He wants more. ]

[What hasn't changed is Geralt's penchant for silence -- or a lack of answer -- where there isn't need for any. Right now, he finds it particularly annoying as much as it's familiar. He can focus on the smaller sounds: Mog's claws on the floorboards, the creaking of the house in the wind. He counts Geralt's scars across his chest, reminding himself he recalls nearly every story of them (and for the ones he didn't pry out of the Witcher, he made ones up.)

There it is. Running without end.

Geralt either senses it, or he's impatient. Jaskier gives a huff of a laugh, but he hardly fights the insistence; his hand finds a cock that he knows extremely well. He didn't need 800 years for that. And with the heavy scent of orange and the slightly bitter side of the oil, his slick fingers wrap around it, stroking. The weight of the Witcher holds him down (carefully balanced), and the heat coiling in his belly --

Now that. Strong enough he can't ignore it, nor the sweat that dots his brows, or how he has to consciously bite back his sounds so as not to wake any other denizens of their home. Oh, how his lips will have marks after this.]

[ A sharp inhale tells of how much he needed those fingers around him. Pleasure snakes up his spine, sending pulsing waves through his limbs. He sets a steady, driving rhythm, careful (always careful) not to rest more of his weight on Jaskier than comfortable. A faint ache begins to sink into his thighs.

Why does it feel as if it's been too fucking long? He supposes it has, in a way. They were trapped in that crater for weeks, and none of their time together was physically real. His mind remembers, but his body does not.

It's remembering now.

His grip is tight around Jaskier's thigh as he rides him; he clutches the headboard with his other hand, watching Jaskier stroke him, every twist and glide from those fingers. The bead of sweat clinging to his forehead just under a lock of brown hair. Geralt bites back a sound—equally not wanting to alert the third occupant of the house. There's a curse, a catch in his chest, and then he spills over Jaskier's hands.

Fuck. ]

[It has. It has, to him, too, because those years are so fucking entrenched in his mind now that he feels all eight hundred of them bearing down on him. And they had been them, but they'd been different; even the way he approached fucking didn't feel the same. Something, sometimes, Jaskier did just to feel human.

He can see that now, when it isn't his body and his mind anymore.

Jaskier bites into his lip, (mostly) stifling the moan as Geralt bears down on him. The weight is -- good, it could be even better. With bruises and bites and all the pretty little things he couldn't bear on his skin for long then. Even now he looks watches the muscles move under the scar of his left arm and recalls he lost that, somewhere. As if it had never happened.

It's when Geralt squeezes around him as he licks a finger clean that he feels the wave hit him: the unbridled heat, the shuddering. His breath leaves him like a soul abandoning its cage, his nails scraping down Geralt's stomach.

It's messy, and he's overly hot, and it's good. Even if he hears Mog's bloody claws clicking against the floorboards. He's going to kill him if the gryphon jumps up here.

Jaskier doesn't even break the silence. He waits for Geralt to climb off, to get close, to kiss him.]

[ It takes him a moment to steady his breathing. A pause before he climbs off. He lets Jaskier draw him down, and he ignores the slickness between them as they kiss. His fingers curl at the bottom of Jaskier's jaw, knuckles brushing the light stubble there. The bard smells like him now. A Witcher's scent, wrapped around like a parting gift.

They do clean up. Eventually. He makes quick work of it, steps quietly through the corridor with a robe stolen off of Jaskier's chair. It clings snug around the shoulders, but it suffices. He listens for Ciri's presence—always a potential hazard. By the time they fall back in bed, his hair is no less tousled, but he's free of any mess.

He sinks into the pillows. For a time, he is quiet. Content and contemplative. His thumb brushes over a reddened mark on Jaskier's hip. The moment is calm, and he allows it to be for a good while, indulging Jaskier's whims, setting the gryphon on the ground when it hops onto the bed. He kisses him again, then once more.

They can't avoid the weight between them forever. He knows full well why Jaskier has been in such a mood. And he can't help feeling...not responsible, exactly. Just an awareness that he is the cause. He wishes he were not. He wishes Jaskier would not see a dead man every time he's in the room. He's not. Not here, not yet. ]

You don't have to look at me as though I'm already gone.

[ CLOSED ] let my bed be made

— ◈ jaskier.

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