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

Entry tags:

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

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

(( placing starters in the comments below. find me at

discontinued or at Noa#1979 to plot stuff! ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ his hand curls around her wrist, and yennefer does not tense under the feeling of his fingers along her scars. she knows he has seen them, knows - in some way - he must understand. whether it was the girl he met in his room or any of the times before that, when it had been real and it had been them and it had ended too early, too abrupt. he knows these scars of hers, but has not pressed beyond that, and yennefer doesn’t quite have the words for how important that is.

he lets her hand wander, lets her relearn the feel of him under her touch, while his lips travel down the length of her neck. she wants to melt under the feeling of him, wants to meld into the shape he wants to find, adjusting to help as he goes about undoing the laces of the back of her dress. yennefer knows she could simply wish the dress away, knows that in the horizon these things are possible, but something about how easy it is for him to work at the laces of her, how quickly he goes about unraveling, undressing, bearing down.

( it too terrifying a thought - how safe she feels with him. safe both in the outside intrusion sort of way, but also safe to be her. without pretense, without walls. safe, to simply be with him, even as they lay thousands of miles apart. )

geralt lifts her, at some point. encourages her to lay back, so that he might lean over her, and yennefer goes. finds that tonight she would do just about anything, if he asked it if her. for him, for this, for this feeling of warmth seeping through her to last just a bit longer. he lays her back and she goes, he leans over her and draws a calloused thumb across her lip, and she parts her lips for him. he leans down and presses his forehead to her own, and yennefer stares up at him, taking the chance to see him. to watch him drink her in, watch him breathe.

yennefer let’s that be enough, for a few silent moments. let’s them be enough, until she feels the sudden urge to speak. her hand lifts to cup his cheek, her thumb rubbing across the like of his cheek bone, her eyes - for these next few moments - suddenly very intent. ]

I missed you. [ she says at first - because it is the truth, because until this moment it has remained so. but she also realizes that without context, it could fall flat, and with a sort of soft desperation she keeps speaking. ] That last night in Sodden, before the Nilgaardian army attacked; I thought of you. Missed you. I… [ i thought i’d never see you again. but she can’t bring voice to the words, somehow. doesn’t know if that’s actually the point she’s trying to get him to understand. whether he looks back to her or not, yennefer’s eyes search his face - for some answer, for some goal she’s been after for so long. if he’s watching, he’ll see the flicker of fear in her eyes - the barest flash of something, a hint, a brush. she swallows, her thumb idly running back and forth across his cheek - needing the touch, needing him to ground her.

finally, yennefer closes her eyes, her voice soft. quiet. like she’s not quite sure she wants it verbalized at all. ] I thought I was going to die, that day. I was prepared for it. [ she swallows, glad for the press of his forehead against her own. glad for that one place of grounding. ] And I- I honestly thought I did, when I first arrived here. That Sodden had been my end. That the last time I saw you had been the mountainside…

[ that it was over. ]

Edited 2021-12-25 09:21 (UTC)

[ Bent over, their lips meet again. His eyes close and for once, the splashes of red and rusted chains are less vivid. Her scent fills the air instead, fills his head, and he sinks into it. Into what is familiar and warm. He ignores the sting on his back to curve over her as her hand rests on his cheek.

Missed you. He nearly says he did, too. Missed her. She keeps talking, though, and he lets her. His brows draw together. Sodden. She had never really told him about Sodden. They'd only spoken of it briefly—her wrapped up in her anger, him wrapped up in his worry and fear for Cirilla. For all of them. He'd been so fucking thrown by Yennefer's appearance. Especially after the Horizon, after that first time. That life he still thinks about. It will always stay with him, he knows, even with the understanding that none of it was real. But he lived it and the realization that Ciri was not...that had been real. How he felt upon returning to the world.

He stares down at her. He'd never thought, not once, that she'd...somehow, in his mind, he wanted to believe she was fine. She'd appeared here, after all. Injured, but not fatally so. Still herself. Whole.

He does not want to dwell on what-ifs or tragedies that didn't come to pass. She's alive, just as he is. He'd survived what he was not meant to. Several things he was not meant to, from the bite that's now scarred his leg to the throne room. They are still both together. Drawn into the same fate. Forces at work, apparently. Perhaps it's true. ]

It wasn't. [ His reply comes simply. He eases down beside her on his side. Pushes back her hair, tucking it behind her ear. He catches that flicker of fear. It's the same one he saw flash down at him when he'd been bleeding on the floor. ] I'm right here. So are you.

Edited 2021-12-27 08:14 (UTC)

[ she knows he is in pain - it is written through her, whether by memory or observation alone. she had watched each strike the queen had made against him, and each stretch grigory had made. some part of her has it written in her very body, the pain he must be in, the worry he may or may not have found a healer. yennefer wants to run her fingers over it, to stitch him up with a simple brush of fingertips (not to remind him of her use, not to use her power so that he remembers she's worth more around than thrown away). but she doesn't. she won't. she knows him too well, knows he wouldn't want her to.

despite it all, geralt does ease down next to her. does look at her with those same golden eyes, that same creased brow. she nearly breaks under it, under the weight of what both goes unsaid, and is spoken, between them. everything is difficult, everything is weighty, between their first fight when she'd appeared bloodied and uncertain, to the horizon, to this even now.

he offers her truthful reassurances. that they are here, that they are together. and yennefer flashes a kind of smile up towards him - honest, even in its hesitancy. small, in a way only geralt has really seen. she leans forward to press another kiss to his lips, gentle but wanting, soft and unhurried, before he lays back to face him. ]

I know. [ she won't say anything about how they're still half a continent away from each other, how they might feel like they can touch, they can kiss, they can hold - but the reality is far different. she had used the last chance she had to touch him on a desperate hope to keep them safe, to keep ciri safe, and she does not regret it. won't let herself.

instead, yennefer scoots just a bit closer. sets her hands on his chest, and then runs them down the fabric of what he wears. her eyes flash between his lips to his eyes, curious and thoughtful. being with him always excites her, always makes her feel young, no matter the years that weight on them both. ] Ciri told me that I teach her about her magic, later on. That our paths haven't diverged yet. That even we cannot rid ourselves of each other.

[ maybe it's not the sexiest topic to bring up while they're facing each other in her bed, but yennefer can't quite shake herself of that feeling. of a future, of them. of geralt, and her, and something she can look forward to. she has plans for her hands to drive further downward, to start on his trousers, to start getting closer, but her hands come across a familiar object. something she knows well, something she's seen above her many other nights - but different, this time. her fingers wrap around his pendant, drawing out the second on behind it - breaking what had nearly been another long, languid kiss to take a look at what she procures, and stilling once she sees it. ]

This. [ her eyes are on her pendant, on her trinket another version of her had left for him. for someone special. settled comfortably, almost perfectly, behind the copy of his witcher pendant - the one she'd had asked ronan for. the one she'd gone out of her way to make sure he received. yennefer's yes go from the the two, between her fingers back to his face. his expression. ] Is this...?

[ It isn't accurate to say he's never seen her so vulnerable. He has. Even when she doesn't realize, even when she thinks she's hiding it well—he's seen it. Heard it in the beat of her heart. But this feels different, too. It feels...hopeful. It almost makes him afraid to lean into it, into her and all the things he's wanted. He nearly doesn't. A part of him instinctively wants to draw away—but she's always been so good at getting him to yield and he does. He trails his fingers through her hair and lets her explore his chest, lets her drink him in. He does the same. ]

Mm. [ He knows. That's not left his mind since he realized. Her, Jaskier, him. Ciri knows all of them, is close with them. Which means, for all that he'd turned away from each of them and they from him, their paths crossed. He'd just not wanted to let it mean anything. Because it might not. Because it might simply mean Ciri learned from Yen in a distant place, sent to her across the Continent. It does not have to mean they're—

(He wants it to mean that. And it's so fucking hard to ignore it when he can tell how much Yennefer wants it to mean that, too. That they find their way to each other. ) ]

I suppose no matter what, you'd have been the only mage I could trust with her. [ That's true enough. What might've been between them, where Ciri and her magic was concerned, who else would he have turned to but Yen? Someone with a similar amount of chaos that needed control?

No. They can't be rid of each other. Not fully. And as her hand curls around his medallion, finding the pendant on the chain, he finds he can't stop thinking about the look on Ciri's face as she asked, What is Yennefer doing? He saves the question for another time. The things he still wants to ask her about, talk to her about. Right now, he wants to turn his attention to Yennefer grasping the token, as though she can't quite be certain he's really wearing it. ]

Did you hope I'd find it? [ The question is quiet, honest. He wants to know. ]

[ it's always been a fragile thing - this time they have together, the things that are said between them. yennefer, who had grown thorns and barbs and mountains between her and anyone who could hurt her, who finds herself slipping back. geralt, who she knows prefers the quiet, unspoken silences of him and roach, who she has seen come unraveled, who talks and talks and talks, just for her to listen. they are parts of him she holds close, and parts of her she only shows to him, and that - that realization - is as terrifying as it is small.

a flicker of something that could be more. a suggestion, of something they could have, if they took it. if the rest of their lives didn't get in the way. ( a dream she barely even lets herself conceptualize, even in the darkest of nights. )

he hums, an acceptance, and she can feel it reverberate off of him. can feel it vibrating through her by their proximity alone. when he speaks, his voice is the same low gravel tones she's come to hear in her own head, a cadence she knows well, almost in spite of their crossing in and out of each other's lives. a part of her still lingers on the darker parts - the wish, the lies, the way he'd left, the way she'd acted in return - but this tent, his body, the realization of how much it is not just her who yearns for that thin, unlikely promise of their paths crossing, once more - she doesn't want to linger on those darker times. doesn't want to pull away from him. doesn't want this, whatever this is going to end up being, to end.

his truth flashes a bigger smile from her, something she can feel even in her cheeks. ] That almost sounds like a compliment, Geralt. I just nearly felt myself blush. [ it's a joke, light and playful as she shifts closer to him. as her hands start to travel, as her mind wanders too. to him, to them, to what he means when he says the only mage. it all gets derailed when she finds the token, when her fingers brush over imagined metal, stones, words.

her eyes are still on it, when his question is asked, and she can hear the honesty in his words. can feel it, as he watches her. ] I- [ did she? had she been hoping he found it, after that night? after the things she'd said? the person she'd been around him? the person he'd seen? her fingers run over the carvings, feel the distant warmth of him from where it sat between his chest and the wolf medallion. what she feels, now, isn't as simple as that, though. what she feels is the knowledge that he had either been wearing it when this meeting had first begun, unaware of where they would be by the end of it, or he'd produced it after the fact. had thought about it, had created it, had known the details well enough to have it hidden, but with him. it's not as simple as if she'd hoped, but rather something deeper, something a bit more all-consuming. something strong enough to take her off her feet, even as she lays on her side.

her eyes lift to his, trying to find the words. because it would be easy to say you must have, since you received my note, easy to push it off to pretend like she knew he would, like she knew him well enough even when she hadn't remembered him at all. but it wouldn't have been the whole truth, and something about not sharing the whole truth in this moment feels wrong. ]

Yes. [ she says, finally, setting the two medallions back down to where they hang from his neck. yes, she says, as she shifts to move a bit further up, to be eye to eye with him, to press closer to him as her hands moved to each side of his face, cupping his jaw, setting her forehead against his own so that he is looking at her - and her him - when she smiles. when she speaks up again. ] I'm glad you did. [ the words threaten to overtake her, the need for him to know. and you are important to me. how, in spite of all that they have said, all that they have done, in direct opposition to her callous, even words in that throne room or the anger he's seen in her too, directed back.

what's reflected in her eyes now is different - something warmer, yes, but also just. something else. ]

It's yours, after all.

[ and then she kisses him. again. as if the words both said, and unsaid, could be better communicated by lips alone. ]

[ Her widening smile draws one out of him in return. He is teasing when he says, ] You? Blush? Are you even capable?

[ She is. He's seen it, in rare moments, and though he knows it isn't true, sometimes he likes to think he's the only one who ever has. He likes to think that there are parts of her only he's been granted a glimpse of.

He's patient while she searches for her answer. That she takes her time at all tells him everything, tells him she wants to be sincere, that she's not pretending there isn't more here than there really is. His hand covers hers as it curls around his medallion, the pendant. He'd accept any reply from her, in truth. It's only the honesty that he's searching for—and it's what he receives when she says yes. Is this the first time since the mountain? That she's been so openly raw with him? It must be, and it gently pulls loose something inside him that he's been holding back, too. ]

I'm glad, too. [ He doesn't regret meeting her as she was without her memories, he doesn't want it to not have happened. Not anymore. It had hurt both of them, still does, but he thinks—he thinks it showed them something, too. Something important. Didn't it? (They've always come together for a reason.)

He pushes up on one hand, leans over her to meet the kiss. His eyes close. He breathes in her scent, sinks into the taste of her. Yours. It feels that way. The sentiment of it, that sense of belonging. He wants to make that space for her, he wants to believe she has made that space for him, and so he does: tentative, but more solid than it's been in a long time. ]

[ he teases her, and it widens her smile that much more. the ease of it, the way his lips part, the way she catches a glimpse of the sharp edge of his teeth. it pulls her towards him, arching her body closer. again, that feeling surges through her. light, young, warm, safe- in so many ways she hasn't felt in a long time. ] I'm not certain. Why don't you do something to find out?

[ if anyone would know, it would be him, the glimpses of her he's seen that no one else has. istredd would have been the closest other who would have any idea of what she could be, who she is, but even then istredd was only ever there for another version of her. the version that did not know her power, did not know her strength, and when she had gone back to him the way she was now, he had turned her away.

that is probably, probably, the reason it takes yennefer so long to come to her answer. probably why she needs the moment to see the pendant, to know of its direct connection with another her, a softer her, a her that did not exist any more (and might never had in the first place), and for geralt to be with her now. wanting that. wanting her, sharp edges and feral reactions and everything else. him, wearing that now, feels a bit like an acceptance. of all of her, or maybe just more than she's felt like she's ever shown one person. more than she's ever given one person to know.

i'm glad, too he says, and yennefer thinks she feels it. the making of space, the opening up, for him to have. the sliding in, of the space he makes for her. this is what she's been wanting. this is what she's been missing. this.

( there is a hope in her that she won't give credence to, a hope she doesn't want to voice. that maybe it's been him, this whole time, that could fill that hole. maybe it was never having a baby at all. maybe... )

geralt sits up on one hand and leans over to kiss her, and yennefer feels him inhale, slowly. she smiles into the kiss when she notices it, knowing that he's breathing her in, the scent of her that he knows, that he carries with him, even in his horizon domain. she pulls him down over her just to feel the weight of him, to feel him, in whatever way this space allows them. her hands travel from his face to his neck, then down across his shoulders, just wanting to touch. ]

[ Hmm. He could do that. He could, but despite the playful edge to his smile, his touches are soft, exploring—relearning, almost. He leans down over her, places some of his weight on her how he knows she likes it. His lips press to her neck, her jaw.

He hasn't forgotten. How she curves under him, the tilt of her head, the dark shadows cast by her lashes—he remembers every detail. Seeing it again only reminds him of how much she's impossible for him to ever forget.

When her hands travel across his shoulders, he reaches up to tug his shirt over his head. He knows what is under there, what she will see: the faded bruises up his ribs, the bandages on his back, the shallower lash marks that have already scarred. It is not something he pauses over; what happened has happened, and how she feels about it, how they both do—it's a part of him now. Etched far deeper than what's found on the surface of his skin. He's little interest in hiding it, in sparing either of them by pretending he emerged unscathed. Because he didn't but—

They can move on. He can move on. (Has he ever had any choice otherwise?) And whether she reaches for his fresh scars or looks at him or away, he is quiet, fingers trailing up her arm. He lets her take him in as she will, lets her have as much or as little time as she needs. It's worse sometimes, isn't it? To be the one on the other end, watching, helpless, and he gets that. He understands that feeling more intimately than anyone. ]

[ she lets him touch her - though, if she were being honest, it's much more than that. yennefer wants him to touch her, hands and mouth wandering and exploring, treading over ground they may know well, but with a kind of care and focus that makes her head feel light. his attention on her, she supposes, might feel suffocating for some. the intensity of him, even with his softness, even with his care, and yet yennefer feels herself drinking in every breath of him.

it is easy, to fall into habits. into arches and touches she knows he likes, she knows she likes in return. when her hands travel across his shoulders, it is with an unspoken plea - one he hears, one he acts on, pulling the fabric over his head and discarding it off the side of the bed. it also opens up him for her to see - really, truly, see. the faded bruises, the newer scars, what (if she chose to turn him over and look for herself) are most likely some open wounds against his back. bandages that cover him even now. her breath does not catch, necessarily, but her focus is drawn immediately down to the coloration across his ribs. the scrapes that have healed, or nearly healed, and the parts of him that haven't.

it is not with hesitation, necessarily, but with a gentle, careful sort of focus that her hands travel down his chest to them. a light brush of her fingertips down his ribs. when she closes her eyes she sees more of him than he ever meant for her to see, sees more of him than she ever wanted to see herself, but this - as he bares the scars left behind, that he's carried with him to this very room - that yennefer feels like she can see it. not the wounds, not the unspoken details, not the dark secrets they both now carry; instead, she sees geralt, shouldering on. geralt, offering an olive branch to keep moving forward. geralt, patient, willing, waiting for her to make the next move.

yennefer lets out a breath she does not quite remember holding in a slow, precise exhale. a bit like she is focusing, a bit like she is pulling chaos to her, even when she knows she doesn't need to here. when she looks up to catch his eyes, it is at the exact moment that she sets her hands over the bruises on his ribs, pressing palms to purple, just as if she were to heal him were they together. she supposes whether or not it works is up to him, supposes that it is his decision if the magic she attempts to use on him actually will heal the images he's created, but the intent is there. and if it all works, the bruises will fade under her hands, the pain alongside it.

and - judging by his reaction - yennefer will lean forward to press a kiss to his neck, and then another further up towards his jaw, as her hands move slowly around his ribs to the parts of his back she can reach, that same healing magic he's felt from her before spreading across his skin. healing wounds, closing skin, stitching him back together - all the while her tongue and teeth map the muscles of his neck, her bite scraping across the stubble of his jaw, her legs pulling out from under him to wrap around his waist. ]

[ It's difficult to explain, what and why he does and does not carry with him into the Horizon. A combination of practicality, of not wanting to ignore his wounds, of simply suspecting that they will creep back as time goes on within this place no matter what he does—his focus is still not entirely here, too much of his subconscious leaking through.

He has not told Yen of the basement which formed underneath Kaer Morhen. (Should he?)

There's a blink as her fingers trail down his chest. He swallows as he watches her, waiting. His expression is guarded, but not wary. Just. Uncertain, perhaps, of what he's looking for, what he expects from her. Maybe nothing. Maybe he will know when he sees it—and then he does. The warmth of her magic, the murmur of familiar words in Elder as she heals him. He allows it. His hand curls around her wrist, following her hand where it will go.

It's not that he wants to forget or that he wants to ignore that the pain exists—and she will find that as she closes the open wounds on his back, they don't disappear but instead form the same thick scars that will occur when he finally heals out in the world. He allows it because she needs it. They both need it, this gesture of healing and comfort. Because that's all it is in the end. A gesture. But he knows better than anyone the power a gesture can have, how much it can mean. She's offering herself, reaching out, and he's letting her in that much more. It's all by inches, but for him, for them, those inches may as well be miles.

He tips his head for her, pushes her dress up so he can grip her thigh. He helps her wrap around him, pulls her close. His forehead brushes hers. Every part of her is intimately familiar to him. His lips find that spot on her body he knows will make her breath hitch and a quiet wanting noise of his own slips. ]

Edited 2022-01-02 02:43 (UTC)

[ she doesn’t want him to forget about his wounds, or what waits for him when they wake up - or, perhaps maybe she does. perhaps more than anything, she wants him to be able to forget what happened, and in doing so maybe she could as well. but yennefer knows he won’t, just like she won’t. knows that forgetting that sort of trauma never happens, never leaves the lines of your body. not really, not fully.

it is a gesture. a branch. an inch because that is all they can give each other. an inch, that really does mean miles. a kind of hope that he understands that she wants to be able to do for him. he lets her magic warm through him, words she knows like they’re written into her very fingertips. her hands reach out across him, her magic settling into his skin, and he lets it. lets her.

there have always been miles between them, physically or otherwise. and yennefer has lived long enough to know that they haven’t crossed them now, now in this exchange alone, but with his weight over her now and her hands at his back - maybe those miles aren’t nearly as far.

he tilts up for her and she takes it. takes the skin he offers and arches with his hands. their foreheads brush, and yennefer feels her eyes open up again, just to have the view of him. of his face, this close, the way he looks when he breathes. his mouth finds the spot, and her body reacts. her breath hitches, just as he knew it would. just as she knew he would.

the sound of wanting that escapes him sends all sorts of shivers through her, her nails digging into the newly healed (and still scarred) skin of his back. ]

Geralt- [ it’s a request, but it’s also not - something wanting and strained in it. impatient. ]

[ Her impatience rolls through him—that hunger he's come to know so well. In bed, out of it. She wants what she wants and he's never been under the illusion that they do not consume her, these multitude of desires she holds, but sometimes he thinks—maybe he can slide into the places where pieces of her are missing, where the world has taken its pound of flesh and left only a hollowed space in return and left her chasing what she can't have. That maybe she has found something important in what she does have here, between them, something not so fiery, so all-consuming.

He can look at the medallion she held, long before he landed in Thorne, and he understands: she doesn't want to forget him, either.

He hears the catch in her breath, the strain in her voice. His hand slips directly between her legs, glides up, until his fingers find a heat, a slickness. He lets her watch him, lets her see the flutter of heavy eyelids and how his gaze follows the curve of her lips, the length of her neck. When he kisses her there, his mouth finds her pulse. He hears it, and now he can feel it, too, thrumming underneath. Every press of her nails makes his breath stutter—and it's especially so when they bite into the fresh scar there.

His own hunger stirs: unfurling, rising steady like the tide to meet hers. For a moment, he feels. (Whole.) Like he has something, someone, to hold onto, someone here in this world he needn't explain in words exactly what he went through. Exactly how it tore into him, because she knows now, felt it intimately when she reached inside him. It's hard to explain, that ever-present conflict. How much he both doesn't want her to have found this part of him and yet, now that she has, it's grown to bind them, too. And he still can't fucking tell if he wants to push her away for it or cling to her, but right now, he chooses the latter, his grip tightening around her, pressing down. ]

[ it is a terrifying thing for yennefer to admit to, that feeling she’s all but run from since their fight on the mountainside. because he’s not far from the truth - he does have a place in her, a part of her that is only really complete when he is here. for a brief moment, she had considered if that would be enough. if she could be enough, with that part of her patched clean. it says something about how much she’d started to believe it, when the truth about the wish had been shared. when she’d understood where the pieces came from, that they hadn’t been perfect fits from the start. magic had made his square shape feel as though it fit in the round void she’s been so desperate to fill, expanding into spaces where it didn’t, making her think…

well. that didn’t matter anymore, did it? or perhaps not that it didn’t matter, but that yennefer made the choice that the parts of her he could fill would have to be all she was able to have.

( there will always be a part of her searching for that extra thing, driven by the chance that maybe, maybe there is a way for her to be entirely full.

it’s just that here - with geralt, with ciri, with a purpose and a chance and pieces that might not fit perfectly yet, but maybe they could, maybe there is a chance - yennefer feels like hoping isn’t too dangerous an act. )

geralt pulls away from her just enough for her to watch as he slips his fingers into her. a separation that gives her all the view she needs of him, as her breath hitches again, as his eyelids flutter. the effect she has on him is intoxicating, watching the hunger grow in his eyes, watching his attention turn from her face to her neck, before he buries his face into her, finds her pulse with his teeth, his tongue. she leans into it a bit more than she might have with anyone else, letting herself feel everything; his fingers (as she opens her legs even wider for him), his mouth (as she bares her throat, her neck, wanting him to take more), his breath (stuttering with each press of her fingernails, which makes her do it again, and then again), and of course the strength and size of him, pressing her down into the mattress.

because it is this moment now, just like every time before, that yennefer has felt the closest to whole that she’s probably ever felt. magic, her magic, all around them. geralt, present and hungry and whole. and her thoughts, brought down to only this moment. only them. only this. one of her hands moves up his back to tangle in his hair, holding him against her as if there was something that could take him away, her face turned up against his own. her voice, heavy and hungry and low, as she arches back up against his pressing - feeling herself open up for him, relax for him, his fingers slick and hot between her legs - and let’s free a breathy moan. ]

[ The more she leans into him, the more he wants. The more he takes. And he gets it, sometimes, how easily it is to want and take and have, especially when the world is willing to give up so fucking little. It's a beast he's tamed and learned to shape into something less sharp, but right here with her, it's safe to let those desires run free, just a bit.

He lets her wrap her arms around him; they press together, skin and linen and silk all brushing and rubbing against him. His breath falls hot, heavy, from his lips. He slides deeper into her, until he draws that shuddering noise out of her, or a moan. He does want more, though; it isn't long before he rolls onto his back and flips her on top instead—an inhumanly quick motion that makes the bed frame creak. Because he can do that now—roll onto his back—and because she isn't the only one who likes to see if they can surprise the other.

He stares up at her for a second, taking her in from this angle that's both new and long familiar. Her dark hair curls around her ears. He reaches up—carefully undoes the ties and braids that hold some of it together until it all comes tumbling loose. His fingers run through the thick waves of it, before he cups her face and leans up to kiss her.

He missed her. He did. Not just in their time apart in this world, but when she left him on that mountain. Lately, he's thought more and more about the truth of what they've been told time and again. Destiny. Drawn together. (For what? Is it for this? Them pulled together into a strange world?) And he wonders if this is the beginning of something more for them, or if he simply wants to believe what isn't there. He doesn't know. Even now, nothing feels certain, but the ground is steadier than it's been in a long time. Like maybe if they both meet one another at exactly the right point, they can keep each other from slipping. ]

Edited 2022-01-04 05:18 (UTC)

[ if geralt has learned to tame this beast, yennefer has learned to control it - her hunger, her want, her truth that she deserves the world because the world has already taken so much from her. she worked for everything she has, she suffered for everything she gained, and she will keep her hold on it no matter how it fights back. it's also why she's so quick to hunger around him, too. the excitement he'd brought her by showing up in that house in rinde. the way she's circled him for all that time after. ( she knows the wish is at play, the magic, pulling them together and holding this feeling in her gut, but right here, after everything, it just doesn't matter to her. )

he presses into her with ease, with hot and heavy breaths, and yennefer arches with it. pushes back as best she can and pulls him close. the wanting of more is mutual, as evident by the way her nails dig into his skin. that is when he flips them, and yennefer - despite herself - lets out a surprised intake of breath. with their positions flipped and her sitting up on stop of him, she feels him slip further into her, deeper, and gods, gods she feels it - her hands moving to his chest as she arches back a bit to just feel the new position, to feel him. it's not new to either of them, her seated atop him and his eyes on her, but it feels different, here. feels just new enough. after another moment, once she's had the chance to catch her breath and settle, she tilts her eyes down to see him looking back at her - really looking - and it sends a completely different sort of shiver through her.

her smile is gentle, when it curls at the corner of her mouth. warm. she feels the strands of her hair falling errantly at her ears and neck, and like he'd known her focus had gone there, geralt leans up to brush them away, unspooling her hair from its braids and clips just as he's unspooled the tension from her. his hands on her face are large, warm, and she kisses him back with the same thoughts he does not give voice to. i missed you, too she doesn't say, and instead reaches with one hand to grasp at his wrist, to hold his hand to her face as she slowly starts to move again, her hips falling into a familiar enough pattern.

when she'd arrived to this place, down in the dungeons of thorne, she'd turned on geralt with flames in her eyes. i should have known she'd said. should have known that it would have been only a matter of time, before the two of them wound their fates together once again. the difference now, though, is that yennefer feels like what there is for her, for them, in this place...it might be worth finding footing in. this is something she can sink her teeth into, something she can trust the strength of, if only for right now, and maybe longer. maybe even longer still. ]

[ Her sharp inhale brings a curl to his lips. Her weight settles atop him: familiar, missed. Warm. His breath catches as she shifts her hips and he rises to meet her. They fall into a steady rhythm, one he knows so well with her after all these years. He keeps his hand where she holds it, runs his thumb gently back and forth. His other hand rests at the small of her back—presses his fingers a little into her spine where he can feel it arch and bend with her movements. The candles flicker; a heat curls inside him.

When they part, he presses his thumb to her lips. They're wet, a hint swollen. He can see the flush on her cheeks, the shine of her eyes. Eventually, his hand travels from her jaw to her collarbone, over her bare shoulder. He cups the curve of her breast, but it is the mark on her stomach where his gaze really lingers. Sodden. That's new. For as long as he's known her, the only mark she's ever born were the ones on her wrists. This is, he realizes, the first time he's seen the scars of that battle. (What the fuck really happened there? What had she done?)

Perhaps it's the first she's seen some of his, not just the ones on his back but the teeth sunk into his leg, too. They've been here before—here, in this tent, in this bed. Wrapped around each other. But it feels different. It does not feel like they've gone back, like they're living out a past they once had and can no longer. That's not what he'd have wanted, but this. This, he does, where he can see her reaching for him, knowing the walls built between them since the mountain—the scars they've earned since, visible and not—and wanting him, anyway. ]

[ that is the feeling she's never able to rid herself of. even when the heat of him fades, even without the press of his body, she can never lose the shudder that goes through her when his fingers press back into her spine. can never truly find herself forgetting the amount of her he can cover, with just one hand. she feels it too, when his hand on her cheek moves to her neck, her collar bone, her breast. she likes the feeling of him enveloping her, all around her, overwhelming and present and impossible to fade (because it is only, really, in these moments that she's ever felt like she could believe it. that he, or she, would stay. that this might not be something fleeting, something that would fade.

as his fingers brush over the scar from sodden, the wound she hadn't truly been able to attend to, due to the dungeons, yennefer's breath stutters again. nerve endings she'd thought healed over, now alight under his fingertips.

with her mouth free, she lets out another noise - his name, yes, but with a bit more under those words. she quickens the pace of her hips, of the rhythm she works herself over him, and her hands reach for him, palms running across his shoulders, his back. because she has noticed the new scars, has noticed the details of him that have changed over time, and they help ground her. help give foundation to the wanting that burns away at her gut. because they are different, older, survived through what they did - and yes, she does still reach for him. does still want him. ]

Geralt...

[ she says again, one hand curling around the back of his neck, nails digging into the skin under his hair. with that new angle, with the added grip on him, she pulls him in for another kiss - a little more desperate, given the way she is starting to move. a little more teeth, too, biting into his lower lip. and it feels a bit like she's letting down another wall, like she's letting loose another floodgate, like she needs to be closer to him here - too. ]

[ A curse tumbles out of him as she grinds down on top of him. He hears too much wrapped up in the sound of his name; a longing, a need. It stirs an ache in his chest he can't explain. He kisses her hard—feels his breath stolen from him as he steals some of hers in turn. Her lips are soft, as are her fingers. So much of her is soft: her hair, her scent, her smooth skin beneath his own coarse hands. (Her heart, despite it all; he knows it can be soft, fragile, behind its hardened walls because although he's rare to ever admit it, his own is the same.)

He pulls her closer, tighter. She's fucking hot around him, a heat that scorches through his veins. Makes his fingers dig into her. Their foreheads touch. His thighs press against her and he can feel her tracing his scars, the path of them where they bite into his skin. He cants upwards, shifts the angle that he knows she's seeking from how she moves.

Eventually, his face buries in the crook of her neck. Her hair falls around him, and he tangles his fingers up in it. He's breathing heavier, a hitch when her name comes out of him: low, deep in his chest, a simple Yen that says more than anything else. His body tightens—all of him, down to his toes, and then it releases. He groans, a flush running through him as he starts to steady his breath. ]

[ the moment she feels herself pull the curse from him, she knows he's close. knows, just as he can hear all of that in the single noise she makes when she says his name, what he's saying when he reaches across her with calloused, rough hands. he kisses her just as hard, just as unforgiving, just as unrelenting, and it's exactly what yennefer needs. more than that, it's what she wants - from this, from him, from whatever form them is going to take - but no matter how well she might know it, she can't get enough.

his hold on her tightens, and her's on him does in return - her fingers and nails pressing into his skin. she traces the scars as best she can, wanting her hands across every inch of him she might not already know, and when their foreheads touch she opens her eyes to him. makes a conscious effort for him to see her looking at him, if he finds himself looking back at her. or- at least, that is the plan of it. that is her intention. up until he cants his hips just so, and that feeling shoots through her. electric and sharp and overwhelming, that threatens to push her over. her breathing hitches and races with it, noises she doesn't even have the awareness to know she's making, pleasure and him the only things she can hold onto.

yennefer isn't really aware of how he he curves into her so much as she just adjusts for him, his face in the crook of her neck and her body arched up to fill the space. his fingers tugging at her, most likely in her hair, his breaths hot and heavy and all over her. she holds onto him with all the ferocity she can manage, losing herself in the feeling of him, in the feeling of him losing himself. and without really planning it, without realizing so much of what she's doing, her arm crooked over his head - the one he's got his face buried into her shoulder. she pulls him closer to her, tucking her cheek and nose to his temple as she feels the tension cresting, can feel him building and building. ]

Yes- [ she whispers against his hair, their breathing and their bodies and the smell of both of them the only thing she can really sense. ] Yes, Geralt- [ and then the tension breaks, his groan matching her own as she feels it, feels him inside her.

she doesn't quite let go of him, even as their breathing starts to slow. doesn't quite peel away from where he's wrapped up in her, even if her own grip on him starts to loosen. she feels the steadying of the air between them, but even so, yennefer feels an almost stubborn need to hold onto it - nosing still at geralt's temple. ]

[ Somewhere in it midst of it all, they've become tangled up in each other. Her fingers grasp his shoulders and his arms are around her in turn. He takes his time while they settle, while his veins hum with a pleasant buzz. Warmth floods his limbs. He doesn't quite want to let go of her, either. He wants to stay here in this moment where everything feels less heavy and he isn't—the only thing he's drowning in is her.

He's all right with that, he thinks. Drowning in her.

When they finally part, a little, he stays close. Touching. Because she will leave. They both need to leave in time (he has not forgotten the way she simply vanished in his room and did not return for weeks), but for now. For now, he can stay and he wants her to stay, too.

Slowly, he leans in to kiss her, something gentler than their hunger earlier. ] I missed you.

[ He says it, finally, out loud. Says what he's been telling her this entire time they've been together, in each kiss and brush of his hands. Not just her presence, but her. What they had. What was there before all the regrets and hurt. Before she shielded her heart so tightly from him. (Before he had, too, from her.)

Even now, even with her curled against him and her scent in the air, he isn't sure they can really have it all again. He isn't expecting things to be the same; he knows they can't. That's not how it works. But he lets himself hope, perhaps, that they can find a new path to walk. One that's not so divided. ]

[ she finds that even as they linger, the urge to pull away from him never quite appears. she's always been used to that - to rolling over to the other side of the bed, to the comfortable matching of their breaths as they've laid side by side. that's always been fine, she's always needed a little of that space to get her bearings again and to separate herself from the way her entire body sings with him, but right now? right now she can't quite convince herself it would be worth it.

yennefer knows they will need to part. knows that this time with him is limited, and that she'll be expected back. it would be the way of fate that the one time she actively wants to stay is one where remaining, really and truly remaining, is impossible.

they do finally part - but neither of them are ready to go far, and almost immediately after he is leaning in to kiss her again. she kisses him back, her lips swollen and tasting of him, as her arms untangle from around him. as her hands return to his chest - gentle presses of skin on skin, where she can feel the distant, slow beat of his heart. i missed you he says, his voice that same low growl, but somehow so different. so new. it sends something of a shudder through her as she breaks away from the kiss to look at him. to find his eyes and see - these are words they've been passing between them, one of the many that goes unsaid. she's felt it in the way he's grabbed for her, the way his arms wrap around her and hold her tight. the way everything she sees, she hears, she smells - is him. him and her.

once more, he can catch a glimpse of a smile, softer around the edges. smaller. something private and uncertain and his as she leans forward to press her forehead against his. to take a deep, slow breath. ]

I've missed you too. [ she nearly whispers - hoping that he knows, just as she's known through him, how much she's been saying it too. how much those words have been pushing at her. because while she knows as well as he does that they can never go back to where they once were, she is finding that this new version, this unexplored path, might not be nearly as bad as she had once believed.

yennefer finds herself curling into him, then. finding exactly where it is she can fit where she is as wrapped up in him as possible. and then she lets out a breath - a sigh, even - just as soft, just as content, just as gentle.

she knows she can't stay, but perhaps they can have a bit longer. just a bit. ]

[ Before now, he'd have said she needn't say it. That actions mean more than words. Then he hears it, I miss you, too, and he realizes perhaps he needed it said out loud more than he thought. He'd stepped into this plane feeling too fucking fragile and that's not changed, but. Maybe he can be, with her, just for awhile. Maybe that's what he needs, too.

There's nothing else he wants to say, so he simply doesn't. He lays with her, listens to her heart, her breaths. She is tucked around him, and he slides his fingers into the spaces between hers. Slim, soft, next to his own. He drinks in the calm as much as he can—because he understands, they both understand, that their conversation is far from over. That this is not a conclusion. It's a start. A step.

There are still other things he needs to hear. He can't avoid it, even if he wants to.

Eventually, he turns to face her. His hand trails over her arm. ]

I know it was not your intention to endanger her. [ Ciri, he means. His capture nearly led to her discovery. And he can't afford to let that happen again. ] But whatever play you are making with the queen, if it places Ciri at risk, it can't continue. I need to know you understand that.

[ He is not accusing, but where Ciri is concerned—for him, there is no such thing as a worthwhile risk. She's too important for that. She has come to mean too much to him for that. (She still looks towards him for so many things, even with all the years and absence between them. He can't forget the pained, almost hurt, way Ciri asked what Yennefer was doing in Thorne. As though she were expecting the worst. And he knows that Ciri does not trust easily—even less easily than Geralt somehow—but even so. The reaction had been...it's left its mark.)

They've both paid a heavy price, he and Yen. He can't change that. Nothing will fix that. So he just needs to know that it will be worth the weight they carry forward from here on. ]

Edited 2022-01-13 04:03 (UTC)

[ she realizes, for a second time that night, how much she means the words. how much she's been meaning to say them, whether or not she'd have the chance. everything in this place since she'd arrived here has felt so far from possible that she hasn't really allowed herself the chance to consider why, but the chance to actually say those words to him. to whisper them in the safety of this imaginary tent, on this bed, against him? whether or not it was possible, yennefer was not going to let the chance pass her by.

they sit like that for some time, and she is glad for it. glad for the quiet, glad for the still, glad for the simple, consistent, heavy weight of him near to her. for a few moments she just closes her eyes and listen to his own heart, to the sound of his breaths, to the stillness of the room.

it will not last. it never lasts. but this- this she wants to. and so, like most things in her life, she tries to take it. and she succeeds, if only for a few extra minutes. until they settle side by side on the bed. until he is turning to face her, until he speaks, and she feels that easy calm start to grow taut.

yennefer sits up, then, though it isn't much. having been on her stomach, she merely pulls her arms to her, sitting up on her elbows so it feels less like...like what? like she isn't taking this seriously? like this is some grave matter to discuss? ]

Whether or not you believe me, I am doing this for her. [ she looks down at her hands on the sheets, and not to where she knows geralt is turned to her. where he faces her and watches, his expression neutral. his tone even. his hand still drifts across her arm and the gooseflesh it leaves in its wake nearly had her shuddering. though it also, in many ways, grounds her to this. he does not accost her, but his tone is firm, and yennefer knows. it should surprise her, in a way - how quickly he has shifted, how easily his place of protecting ciri has fit him. the image of geralt she'd had in her mind for so long had been of him running away, avoiding children because what? what was it he'd said? that their lives weren't made for a child? and yet here they sat, here they spoke, here they directed their lives for the single purpose of one. (though ciri is hardly a child at all)

yennefer sighs, as if to tell geralt to wait. that she's not quite done. to not interrupt just yet. ] You've heard of what happened to the other prisoner by now? Relena? [ yennefer hasn't turned to him yet, her eyes still down to her palms, her fingers, her nails, where her forearms lay against the sheets. ] That had been the Queen- separate from Ambrose and separate from her King. It was not a larger play by Thorne, but her; an experiment done by her word, and her mage, Grigory. [ there is a tension that shudders over her at the mention of him - if only because, for a moment, it brings them both back to that throne room. to geralt being split open. she pushes through. ] And she has taken a personal interest in us Summoned, and the abilities we posses. And she is one of the few people in Thorne with the resources and power to do something to satiate that curiosity. Which will lead her enemies. She comes from a military background, so of course what better way to find subjects of her experiments than members of the same states her country has tensions with already?

[ like the free cities.

and yes, there is more to what she is saying and she's sure geralt understands that - the way that politics work, the way these royals shift and change. it's a game, sure, but it's much more than that. advantages and disadvantages, some things gained and some things lost. she could start listing off the various reasons why situating herself within the queen's interest would work, what it would provide them all, what it could open up. she could go into how much the queen reminds her of the stories she'd heard of calanthe, she could speak of how ambrose is nothing if the queen ever chose to make it so.

but that's not what geralt is asking, so yennefer doesn't bother. ]

But if she has a Summoned at her fingertips who can refocus her attention elsewhere, or- [ this is not her, she realizes. this thought process, this sort of strategy. part of her wonders if geralt will even believe her. but it is the truth, the thoughts that have been swirling around in her head since she first reached out for the audience. what keeps her up at night, going over the steps in her head. ] -who is willing to satiate that curiosity for her, she'd have no reason to go searching for that power elsewhere.

[ and then she is done, falling quiet for a single moment before she does finally turn her eyes to him. and despite whatever her worries might be, whatever concerns she might have of if he believes her or not, the look he'll get from her is one of a yennefer who has made up her mind. ]

[ Whether or not you believe me. It's not his intention to doubt her. It isn't. He wants nothing more than to trust her, to believe her, and he does. He just. Something lingers. Maybe it's simply too soon, this conversation. Maybe that's all it is. He's come here, to her, seen her for the first time since—all of that. And she might have healed his physical wounds, he can use the Horizon to heal them and ignore them but what has seeped and ripped into his mind remains. The rawness has not left him. It's just that he can...start to think about it now. Let himself feel it.

He lets her talk. His attention is fixed on her, taking in her words. They are not reassuring. He knows. He knows that the queen is acting of her own accord, he knows Relena was done in secret. He knows the queen is keeping her ploys quiet to avoid scrutiny from her people. He knows but it isn't the point. Because he wants the queen's attention on Yennefer no more than he wants it on Ciri. He did not agree for Yen to stay in Thorne so she can throw herself to the wolves instead. That is not—

His eyes close briefly before they open again. He does not want to part from her with a wall between them. Ciri trusts her. With her magic, her deepest secret. And more than that, he needs her. Yennefer. (He needs to believe she's among of the few he can turn to. He had turned to her. Back there, bleeding out on the ground. He knows she'd done what she had to. He wouldn't have wanted anything less.)

Her heart is steady. He can hear it. ]

I believe you. [ He sighs. Everything feels so fucked. Despite her gesture of healing earlier, some of the ache returns to him. ] Just be careful. You're important to me, too.

Edited 2022-01-15 04:17 (UTC)

[ yennefer has not needed other's belief in her to push her way forward before. it's why she frames it the way she does - whether you believe me or not. because it hadn't mattered if she was believed. hadn't mattered if she was called insane, or impossible, or any combination of the two. she had done everything she had wanted, everything she had thought she could do, and there was very little that stood in her way.

geralt's belief in her, though. for some reason that matters. for some reason, it's worth building back up the foundation of those walls, collecting the materials just in case. she says whether or not, but still some part of her holds her breath, just to make sure. just in case. just...

i believe you. and yennefer lets out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. i believe you and any tension she'd been drawing in on herself is released. she turns, as if some part of her doesn't believe he's said it, to see geralt still there. on his side, facing her, wrapped up in her sheets. just be careful he adds. you're important to me too. yennefer feels herself pause at that, at the easy way the words filter through the air. at the way he just...says them. she knows her pendant is still there, knows that it is tucked behind his own. knows he's still wearing it even now. that this isn't the first time he's said it. and yet even still - that part of her she gave to him, that secret she'd offered up, turned back to face her...

yennefer moves, then. finders herself sliding across the bed. to turn towards him, to fit herself up against his chest and to tangle her ankles up with his and to press her forehead to the same place where his heart is. where she can hear the slow, slow, slow beating of his heart. she closes her eyes, once she's close enough. once she feels like she can feel him all around her. ]

I know. [ she says gently, quietly, barely a whisper. she knows he can hear it, so she doesn't bother speaking up. ] And I will. [ there is a moment, barely even a second, that passes. and the she is pressing a kiss to his chest - unspoken, but hopefully he hears it. thank you. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject