abraxaslogs | [ CLOSED ] let my bed be made

[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.

[Jaskier lays for a moment before he rises to clean off, both of them working quietly with a nice, clean towel and a bit of his water magic to cool him off. He returns to the side of the bed, Geralt gone long enough to hear Jaskier whisper-yell "Mog, no! Your fucking claws hurt!" as the gryphon tries to jump on his lap.

It's almost like someone trained him to be a little bastard. (He stills gets a scratch under the chin after Jaskier lets him back onto the ground).

Once Geralt's back, Jaskier lays back down. It's quiet. Usually he'd start chattering away now -- about his day, or what Geralt's been up to -- but now he feels like words no longer come. (Another fear that's stalked him for weeks now. Pathetic, to be honest, when he's spoken so loudly against the idea of creative blocks. (Mog is bloody insatiable.)

Jaskier sits up abruptly when Geralt breaks the silence, with a laugh that may border manic.] What? I don't know what you're talking about. [Geralt doesn't even have to look at him.] All right, I do, but you don't have to just drop it on me like this. I'm -- [He lays his legs out, listening to the chirping of his bird at their door... soft and even, like little snores.] I thought I was all right with it. That what you told me wasn't bothering me at all, because we'd changed something. Destiny, maybe. And now it's... I wonder if we've changed enough.

[ A soft snort accompanies Jaskier's immediate reaction. Should he have led into it with more care? Possibly, but that isn't his way. How was he to have done so, anyhow?

He sighs at the ceiling. His hand lifts, then drops it down to his chest; he has one leg drawn up, the other tangled under the sheets. It's cooler in the night, but still warm now that summer is upon them. He's seen dozens of summers. Long before their vision struck, he's lived through more than most. More than too many of his brothers. ]

Destiny is not my executioner. [ Of that, he is certain. ] There's nothing to change. Death comes when she is least expected, and never when she is awaited.

[ Like Nero. Eskel. Always there, a whisper over his shoulder. How many times has he felt her breath only for her to glide on past? He was never afraid of her for himself. It's the people he loves whose doors she's knocked on. Old friends, brothers...who else, he's asked over the decades, will she come for next in his stead? He is not ready to go; he wants to watch Ciri grow and flourish, he wants to be with Yennefer and Jaskier, to give Ciri the family she deserves. After that, though—what then? A path without end? He found a certain calm in those years, but only because he knew his family was safe. With or without him.

He turns on his side. His fingers rest lightly on Jaskier's wrist. ] I don't intend to leave you any time soon. But lately, it seems you've already left us.

[ Perhaps that's the most difficult part of it all. A version of Death is in their home because Jaskier fears she may be at the door. He hates it. Watching Jaskier stumble through the days as if there isn't anything left. But there is. There is. He and Ciri are here, right now. And she misses her uncle as much as he misses his friend. ]

Edited 2024-06-22 08:40 (UTC)

[Honestly, with the two of them, it feels fitting that it should come out after a bit of a fuck. Mostly because for the first time in some time, Jaskier feels less wound up, and also his hip is sore in that nice, pleasant way that comes from getting used exactly how he likes. He has nothing more to think about but what he is currently thinking about, which Geralt has so helpfully decided to put into his mind in the first place.

He folds his arms on top of his bent knees, propping his chin on top of the scar wrapped around his left arm. He looks at it, the shiny scarred skin, the pits and valleys of it. Jaskier has only had one near-death experience (twice if you could the time he was shot in the ass), but he cannot argue with that. He certainly had not gone out into the desert with Ciri expecting to die.

So too does he think of the trees he's planted: one for Dean, one for the white-haired hunter. Two people Geralt lost that were dear to him... but he had moved on. Dean coming back had surely not helped. At first.

He sighs, a full exhalation, and slides back down to lay out across the blankets. As he ruffles a hand through his hair, he feels it again. Feathers. He pulls one out, watching it lay in his palm.]

Suppose I haven't really been much fun to be around. [He can admit that. And what is he, if not a delight? If not a musician? If he does not write of his experiences? Voldo Marx cannot claim to have ever been a god (because he's dead, but still.)

The light is dim, but his smile can still be seen in it. No longer does he need the flame-less lamp on every night, but he does enjoy turning it on, seeing the little wrinkles on Geralt's face. He's had the exact same ones since they met.] You're only saying this because you're tired of smelling bread all the time.

[ Fun is not the point, though he's aware Jaskier knows that. He just...though he's never said it out loud, Jaskier has always been full of life. It's a steady comfort Geralt has come to rely on, and fair or not, it bothers him when his friend falters for weeks at a time. He wants to see Jaskier content. Enjoying the life they've been granted—one that may be hard, but not impossible. They can still make something of it. Something important.

But mostly, at the end of it all, he simply wants his friend back. It isn't any more complicated than that.

Gently, he takes the feather. His thumb runs over the soft plumes. They have changed, too much and not at all. He does not know what it means, where it will lead them. He only knows that he plans to be here for it. As long as he can. He won't abandon his family. ]

You've three bags of flour to consume, so I imagine we'll be inundated with bread for a time yet.

[ He'll bring some to the orphanage. Or Sam. Perhaps Dean? Were he the sort of man to do so, he'd have proposed a gathering or a dinner. He is not, so the potential invitation will remain unextended. ]

[Red. He can see it now; red, the feather. Like he'd once been covered in them. Is that it? It can't be from Mog; Mog's black as pitch most of the time, though he gets an occasional brown feather.

It should scare him even more, shouldn't it? But somehow, seeing it... a physical sign that those things happened. In their own way. That they could happen. Like Geralt's shining eyes.]

You should be so lucky. [His bread is impeccable. And now he's a vast knowledge of herbs, they're even better than before.] This... you can see these on me, can't you? That came from me? Please tell me it's a bit sexy.

[ His expression softens. ] Yeah.

[ He can. They're difficult to spot in the dark, but during the day, the red stands out against Jaskier's brown locks. Not many, but...enough.

He does miss the beast. The form that Jaskier would take, riding perched on his horse or chasing fish in the lake. Watching after the mortals. It's strange to know that when he visits the fissure where the Maw once split the earth, it will be gone. Is the Maw beneath, he wonders? Waiting to emerge?

How much of their vision will become prophecy?

Questions for another time. He lays back down on his back, eyes closing. ]

I like them. [ It's the most sincere answer Jaskier will get out of Geralt about his appearance. ]

[Jaskier sighs as well, their breaths mingling. He slides his leg until his knee knocks against Geralt; the satisfying burn of skin to skin in the summer night. A small victory, he thinks. He feels better, and they didn't wake Ciri.

And the feathers aren't bad.

They aren't the worst.

They're a lovely colour, at least.]

Which means you love them. [His smile is genuine now, tugging a bit of Geralt's hair between his fingers. And then, he pauses. Takes a breath. His eyes glow, and he thinks --

No. It's impossible, isn't it? But gods. He can't help but think... it'd make it better. It would. But if it is impossible --]

If the feathers are still here, then... [He looks to Geralt's eyes.] I know it can't be possible, but -- what do you think? I'm kidding myself, aren't I?

[ Hm. Maybe.

Geralt does not answer at first. What makes a thing possible? When it happens. When you are travelling across realms that the world believed were lost. When a Witcher has found himself a father to a princess in a life not made for any child. When he realizes nothing he thought he understood about the Continent was right.

When he has befriended a human bard who has not left his side for well over two decades.

So much was not possible until it was. ]

I don't know. [ That is the truth. It may be possible. It may be absurd to consider. They will never know until they have reached that turn in the road. If they reach it. And then...it's happened. ]

Ask me in eight hundred years.

[ CLOSED ] let my bed be made

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject