#Drabble Meme | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lambden · 1 year

Note

29 (I know this is ur witcher blog so I understand if legally you have to write a witcher drabble)

well. british one x superman/the lesser Hemsworth it is

G, 1592 words, no warnings except some canon anti-witcher sentiment

“Look at this,” rants Jaskier. Geralt doesn’t turn to look, sure their attention has been caught by the same thing. The notice board is rather scarce. Isla wants a farmhand to help with her unexpectedly rowdy herd of kids, without specifying if she means goat children or human ones. Preben, recently widowed, wants for a new wife— but not unless she’s blonde. The local guard wants everyone to pay the new levy without a fuss. Good luck with that one.

The only posting of any notice at all is a request to clear out some drowners by the river. Low risk, low reward. Geralt sucks his teeth at their circumstances, more bored than disappointed by the lack of opportunity, and his bard takes the sound as taciturn encouragement to continue complaining. “It’s unforgivable. Fucking bastardly idiots and their idiot propaganda! I— I’m going to take it down!”

Before Geralt reasons that they should probably take it down after killing the drowners, Jaskier lunges for the board. He doesn’t tear down the contract at all, instead going for a poster that Geralt hadn’t even noticed. He’s seen so many of these pinned up in the area that his eyes had honestly glanced over its details, but he is familiar with the general idea behind the idiot propaganda. In fact, he’s been dealing with similar bastardly idiots for decades before Jaskier was even born. He deadpans, “You gonna save it as a nice keepsake from your travels?”

“Save it for kindling, more like,” spits Jaskier, his eyes already blazing. He crumples up the poster in his hands, tossing it to the ground and then crushing it under his fancy but very solid heel.

Even though Geralt hadn’t seen the specifics, he supposes this is probably a nice gesture. If the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire were the ones who posted it, their local chapter would waste weeks trying to deduce who was behind this heinous, heretic act of vandalism. And if the reigning local government posted it as an anti-magic measure, the consequences could be even greater for the town. Considering the hypothetical repercussions makes him grimace, but… Jaskier has already intervened, catalysing this town’s fate. For someone who claims to act as a narrator to the world’s plots, he is alarmingly good at stepping in and changing them. Geralt supposes the same could be said about himself, although he does it to his own chagrin whereas some great force drives Jaskier’s actions.

He wants to ask the bard what he might call that force, and what would possess him to venture so far out of his way to incur the wrath of people in power. But the inciting incident is already crumpled up in the dirt, and Geralt has no desire to enter yet another cyclical and monotonous conversation about why the bard does the things he does. It’s not like things will change. He has seen dozens of kings rise and fall, and the minutiae of each one’s rule only comes with more and more catastrophically cruel fallout for their kingdoms. Jaskier might have ripped down one poster, but an even harsher and more explicit one will be nailed up in its stead.

Geralt swallows his twisted, uncomfortable thoughts. He glances around to check that no one saw. Then he tears the drowner notice down from the board, shoving it into his pocket.

The mid-day sun beats down on them with a violence that would surely burn the shoulders and scalp of any normal human. It’s too bright to properly make out the path ahead, and they’ll need to stop soon so that Roach can drink and rest. Even Geralt, the only Wolf to ever survive the worst Trials twice, is fighting off fatigue. Maybe he should have taken Jaskier up on his offer to play an extra show last night, so they could have stayed in Novigrad another day. Instead they’re riding along the bank of an unnamed river, languishing together. And while the proximity to water should come as a relief and lower their temperatures, instead the humidity is just making his armour torturous to wear.

Or, rather, Geralt is riding along the bank and languishing. Jaskier, as he has been for the last few hours, is strumming his instrument and singing a quiet but fervent melody to himself. If Geralt didn’t love him so much he thinks he could kill him right now.

“Stop,” he commands, and Jaskier heeds him immediately, fingers going still on his lutestrings. “No, I… keep playing, if you want. But Roach needs a break.”

“I know what that’s code for,” sings Jaskier, which infuriates Geralt even more because he doesn’t know what that was code for, and he’s the one who fucking said it. “While I’m touched at your concern for my well-being, I’m right in the middle of composing, darling! Give me twenty more minutes and I think I’ll have something polished to perform at Midinváerne.”

Geralt digs his heels into Roach’s sides anyway. She stops cantering with a patient huff, and he directs her down towards the riverbed.

The bard, despite his stupid request to continue onwards, trails after them down the bank. “I’m not that same boy who followed you out of Posada, you know,” he huffs impatiently, sounding amusingly similar to Roach. “My heels have blistered so many times they’re practically leathery now. And I can hold my piss like a champion.”

“That’s not why we stopped,” Geralt grunts, because ‘shut up’ would be too impolite. Unfortunately, he isn’t the same man who led the way out of Posada either. “How can you even compose without singing any words? It’s just humming.”

“Oh, I learned a long time ago to write my songs in my head,” laughs Jaskier, carefree. Guilt stings briefly and sharply at Geralt’s heart; he bats it away, turning to face the rushing creek beside them. “I can remember the entire thing, and I’ll take it down on paper once we make camp for the night. Got my invitation to eternal damnation. Get in line, pass the wine, we’re going straight to hell!”

Geralt’s pierced heart freezes, and it takes him a heavy, long moment as his blood runs cold through his veins without any added toxicity to get ahold of his suddenly churning emotions. He can just picture Jaskier’s pyre now, and all the bigots who would line up to applaud the demise of a loud-spoken free-spirit. “You can’t perform that.”

“What?” Jaskier stops strumming again, although this time the silence is paired with genuine hurt behind his open, vulnerable expression. “You don’t like it? That’s only the bridge, the rest is far more evocative. It’s a love song, really, and it’s about loving your community and your comrades. And it’s a call to arms—”

“No arms,” grunts Geralt, made ineloquent by his fear. “They’ll… What brought this on?”

“I will admit, I took inspiration from a source I thought I never would.” The bard drags his fingertip along a lutestring, clearly remembering something Geralt doesn’t from their travels. The fidgeting makes him look younger than he is, and it serves as an abrupt and unwelcome reminder of his immortality. Geralt scowls. “Oh, come now. You haven’t even heard the chorus!”

“Fine.” He stares Jaskier down, and while the bard has never looked intimidated by him, some form of tension does grow between them as they exchange a heavy look. The only sound in the world around them is Jaskier’s finger playing with the string of his instrument; even Roach is silent as she laps up running water. “What’s the chorus.”

“Umm…” The bard plays the same chord progression Geralt has heard over and over the last few hours, enough that it has phased into background ambience— only now, he accompanies it with the worst words Geralt could have imagined. “This hell is better with you… ?”

“They’re going to hang you,” Geralt blurts out before he can help it.

“They won’t—”

“They will,” insists Geralt, aware of the slightly pleading tone his voice has taken but unsure how to suppress it. Without quite meaning to, he stomps through the reeds over to Jaskier. Before he can think any better of it, he grabs the bard by the face and holds him tightly in place so as to impress his fear more clearly upon him. Maybe that’s what it is— maybe he’s fearful, actually afraid, for the first time in a long fucking time. “Jaskier. You can’t.”

“I have to,” says Jaskier, possessed by that horribly dangerous passion that Geralt has seen ignited across his young face a thousand times before. “It’s important.”

“You’re important,” Geralt blurts out.

The river rushes beside them; slowly, through his fear, Geralt realizes that he’s cupping Jaskier’s cheeks in his hands and standing rather close. Jaskier inhales sharply, his heart somehow beating even faster than the witcher’s. Neither of them pulls away.

“Alright,” Jaskier mumbles, blue eyes bright with emotion. “I’ll save it for just the two of us, then.”

“Walk a mile on these coals, busy cleansing my soul… getting ready for the night… damned for eternity, but you’re—”

“They’ll burn you alive.”

“There’s no one around,” Jaskier reminds him, gesturing at the wide, empty trail around him.

Geralt thinks on this, then thinks on it again.

“Damned for eternity, but you’re coming with me into the afterlife—” Jaskier’s lute plays a sour note as Geralt jumps down from Roach’s saddle, trapping the instrument between them as he kisses Jaskier like they’re both doomed. Which, of course, they are.

#geraskier fic #geraskier #my writing #drabble meme #man i hate songfic [writes 1.5k words of songfic that was supposed to be a QUICK drabble]#song meme #weedsinavacantlot #asks #bless you for sending me this ily

164 notes · View notes

coiled-dragon · 11 months

Note

Oooohhh for the Hurt Comfort Prompt: 7 and/or 12 for Dracfield.

Hehe this was fun. Admittedly I also just like writing Renfield high,,,

"Look at me."+"Can you talk?" CW: Drugs, Mentioned/implied torture

Renfield was floating. His body felt weightless, his skull a cavern of helium as the world around him seemed to be in slow motion. Part of him ached, somewhere in that distant cloud that made up his body, but he wasn’t worried. Nothing felt like it mattered. It was quite delightful, actually. He wondered how long he had been like this and how long he could stay like this, remembering other aches and stress and anxiety being so normal that they had become his comfort, but only knowing now this sort of peace. It was nice. He could die like this and it would be okay with him.

But something didn’t want him to die.

He could feel that, too. An intruder in the otherwise perfect sanctum of his mind. A shadow moved in front of him, the world blurred by those who moved outside of Renfield. Their movement left smears across his vision, like swaths of paint attached to an invisible brush. It made him smile, the world a canvas of blending colors and paintbrush strokes of people.

“Renfield!” One blurry shadow had taken over the rest of the colors, someone coming close but the details of their face impossible to make out. It was an angry shadow, a noise of frustration at his apparent lack of response. Renfield frowned at it.

He turned his head away from the shadow; the world behind it was so much more red, splatters and smears across beige. It was pretty, so he smiled.

“Look at me,” the shadow snapped, cold fingers capturing his cheek and pulling him back to stare at the darkness. The dark had red, too, and gold, and silver, all attached to the pale grey hand so close to his eyes.

Dracula sighed at the despondent Renfield, the man's eyes blown so wide the only color in them were slivers of sky blue making a halo around the black of his pupil. It seemed the church was getting more creative with its attempts at interrogation, picking up on the current fad of drugging and torturing for information. His fangs grit together in frustration at the fact Renfield had been caught by them at all.

He expected better from his servant.

But he wouldn’t exact punishment now, not when his familiar was too drugged to feel it. Besides, the sheet of blood that covered half his face and blossoms of red that bloomed across his white undershirt meant he would need to recover from all of this first.

No point in beating a dead horse. Or dead familiar.

“Can you talk?” Dracula snapped, dropping his chin and watching Renfield’s head bob down without the support.

“Ruining my painting,” he slurred, his own voice sounding like the visual of melting colors that dazzled him. The features of the shadow were growing sharper, clearer. “Master?”

The vampire sighed.

“Didn’t tell them anything,” Renfield said slowly, his brows coming together in a comical look of fear as though everything had finally dawned on him. It probably was. His gaze dropped, looking around the room in confusion. A shudder ran through him and he looked back up at Dracula. “Can we go home? I feel dizzy…”

“We can go home, Renfield,” Dracula said, anger dissipating as he pulled the man into his arms. He could be angry at him later.

#zosalot #drabble meme #prompt fill #my fic #renfield #dracfield #drugging cw #whump #a lil bit #drabble

56 notes · View notes

memeasaurus-promptus · 2 years

Text

Give me two characters and a word and I will write a <100 word drabble

#writing meme #writing memes #writing prompts #writing prompt #drabble meme #drabble memes #drabble prompt #drabble prompts #inbox meme #inbox memes #inbox prompt #inbox prompts

164 notes · View notes

townofcadence · 27 days

Note

FORGED, for Caelan please!

Glimpses of the Past (Headcanon meme) FORGED: a scene from my muse's past that they think made them stronger in the long run

Power was a word synonymous with his family.

He never knew a moment without it's presence looming over him. His parents lorded it over their vassals and the lower-born of his cousins. It was the unspoken advantage that garnered equal parts respect and fear of his father and mother, the king and queen. It was the whispered words of any who saw his father with a blade, his mother with her hammer and her silver tongue. A force to be reckoned with, it was an aspect of nobility in his court that was never questioned. If you reached a rank to hold council with his family, you had shed blood enough to paint your seat at the table crimson.

It was him, embodied. The black that bled from his eyes and left his hands and feet numb and spiking with pins and needles. The blood in his veins, tarnished and corrupted beyond salvage, and his sightless gaze, stolen by magic so potent it made him a font of destruction nothing compared to. Barely contained, exponential, unquenchable and excruciating power.

He bore his burden with pride, like a good soldier is meant to.

And that was all he was meant to be. A dagger and a spell and the arm of his monarchs, meant to sever those very limbs of any who opposed them. To cut them at the knees until they bowed. He was a weapon, nothing more.

A tool to be wielded, and discarded once the dust returned to the earth.

He remembered them saying he was lucky for the war. For blood to shed in their name with his unyielding, unfeeling strength. The gratitude they wanted him to proffer at their feet for the sentiment was cold and lifeless. Like him. There was nothing about him that wasn't what they had raised him to be, all sharp edges, and overlapping, impenetrable metals. Their sharpest spellblade, wrapped in silks to conceal what monstrous work it was capable of, hidden until it was time to raze their enemies to ash.

He was power to the point it beat through his veins, and he felt nothing.

Maybe the universe thought it the cruelest joke for all of their hubris, for him to tumble down into the darkest depths, with the greatest enemy at his side.

The first few moments made sense, even in a place like that. He was disoriented, blinded beyond what his usual limited sight already was, but he knew his duty. It was without hesitation that his Damascus blade plunged into the enemy prince, a violently precise wrench of steel to his throat that ended him with ferocious practicality.

He did not walk the caverns long, alone. Threads caught on him like gossamer and it was only when spiders' legs pinned his wings and spiders teeth found his own throat, that he realized the dangers they posed. Poison flooded his veins and burned like something real, and for a beat, he felt true fear. He died with it, the power locked in his body worth nothing but another resource for the thing that killed him to sup on.

And then he woke up.

It was still dark, but he knew the place by the way his shoulder ached like he'd fallen all over again. He recognized the identical groan, from the enemy prince. His knife came out again, ready for a repeat despite the confusion. He needed to do something familiar, something tied to his duty and his very existence. He didn't want to remember the paralyzing fear. The blood.

There was no wound, but the feelings of dying still sat like hot needles in his lungs.

The prince stopped him, begged him not to. He only hesitated when the Prince said he'd seen the spider. The fae that had pulled them down. The prince knew what it looked like, and he knew the two of them were nothing more than a meal to it. The prince remembered last time, what little he survived for, and knew that if they were both here, both remembering that, then he doubted either survived. They both could feel how this place brimmed with magic. And maybe, perhaps, it was more constructive, to collaborate.

He promised the enemy prince a knife in the back once this was over. The man grinned, and agreed. The whole exchange left him with another feeling to contend with; Bafflement.

And he continued to baffle. It seemed almost a game to him, the way he'd laugh at their hopeless situation. He was good only for his strength, and here it was nothing, moot. He almost felt more lost inside than he did in the labyrinth of stone tunnels, spun white from spiders' silk he could hardly see, that dampened any echo. What was his worth if he could not survive? He had tried, more than his fair share of times, to fell the spider. And when inevitably he failed from the advantage it had in its home, it learned; it discovered his strengths, and used them against him, or accounted for them, each time it cast whatever it did to reset him and the enemy prince.

If the thing that hunted them slaughtered them for food on repeat, and all his power wasn't enough to escape this place, then he was...lost. What was he, without his strength? All his life was devoted to this one purpose. What was he worth, now that his only purpose seemed to be to serve as a meal?

And here the enemy prince-- Kiran, still found reasons to smile. He was weak, a flirtatious little romeo bound to die with his impulsive antics. He was foolish, carefree, whimsical, and none of his charms or his playful nature saved him when the spider found him. Even if he could admit Kiran did have some skill with a sword, he was still dead.

A useless man, so hoplessly hopeful.

And yet, when compared to an equally useless man with nothing left to define him, wasn't that something?

The night Kiran touched his face, so many deaths later that no sense of time stuck with him, was something... .new. It was a gentle touch, a soft one. He felt that palm crease against his cheek and wipe at streaks of black. The compliments meant nothing, but the hand was warm against his porcelain skin. How could such a small thing shake him so?

He was offered the same action to Kiran, and refused. For a fortnite, he maintained that resistance, before yielding...asking, to do the same. Kiran had smiled, he felt it on his lips when he brushed them. His fingers tingled with it, along the curve of his jaw.

Very symmetrical, was the highest compliment he offered. Kiran seemed to enjoy it. Something about that felt like he was betraying all he knew. And yet it was warm.

The first time Kiran died without him after their truce was....difficult. Anywhere he managed to hide away from the spider was empty, forlorn and so so silent. Kiran, that annoying little man, could do nothing but talk and talk and talk. All he could think in his absence was how silent it was. The light Kiran glittered with gave him some semblance of sight, no matter how minuscule. Being without him was being plunged into nothingness. It was being home, in a way that made his heart shake and shrivel.

He didn't want home. He--- what did he want?

He knew. He knew. He knew and for all his power he didn't have the words to say it.

He fed himself to the spider to see his light again, because Kiran's presence was better than being alone. When Kiran discovered his choice, hearing the spider jeer of his 'giving up', he asked him why, and he still lacked any true answer. Kiran.... gave him something. Something strange and warm and different from anything his life had ever given him. Something that made the sacrifice worth the sorrow.

Kiran behaved as if he had sung sweet nothings in his name, and he's shoved him away at that, but the laughter stuck with him, as did the song of apology Kiran offered. What was it, he was feeling, more and more around this enemy prince that...was not such an enemy? He hated it and yearned for it and hated that he did. But still he couldn't help himself. Maybe it was Kiran's light.

Kiran figured it out, a thousand deaths later, before he did. Hope, he'd called it. A death worth dying for a chance for a better tomorrow. That maybe, the antics gave him something to hold on to, when a maze like this was liable to drain any life that set foot inside.

He didn't agree, said nothing. Kiran's ego hardly needed nursing. Kiran hung on his shoulders as he said it, and whispered it between them. It was warm, a body laying against his back, and he sat still as stone, frown carved to his features unbending. He did not nod, he did nothing, until Kiran slipped off to find food. But he sat there still, even after the light was dim and faded, unmoving.

The pieces were in place. He couldn't look away.

Kiran was....special. Kiran was light. And Kiran was his hope. He knew the word, but didn't know it---felt like this. A space he belonged to, that was not in his family's hand. He was--- powerless, to it. To the warmth. But he yearned for it when it left him. Yearned for that foolish man's joy. It sapped his strength, but it was worth more than he lost. And he.... didn't want to lose it.

How strange. To want something. But Kiran was soft, and he was warm, and it was almost a kinder world down here with him than any other he'd walked through.

He would say he cared for him, perhaps, if he was capable of that. But he was pragmatic. Kiran had value, beyond words, beyond skill.

He was still a weapon, still forged and sharp. But the hand that once cut Kiran down, would--- he would protect him. They would leave together, somehow, or he would deliver Kiran from this place with his final breath.

Caelan had sworn himself to that.

#Keyink Icon #caelan hedeon #kiran #ask meme answers #drabble meme #drabble #my original writing #my original stuff #didn't really go into a scene exactly but i like how it came out and i hope you do too <3 #caelan #long post #ryouscared

3 notes · View notes

medicinalcannibalism · 1 year

Text

Send me a song and I'll make a drabble based on it!

Bonus points if you include a character or ship

#ask meme #inbox meme #drabble meme #writing hoe tag

32 notes · View notes

eggsmemesandicons · 1 year

Text

Send “✉” and My Muse will Write a Letter Addressed to Your Muse

Bonus if you include what kind of letter.

#Inbox Stuff || Memes and Starters!#inbox meme #rp inbox meme #ask meme #relationship ask meme #rp drabble meme #drabble meme

20 notes · View notes

flo-nelja · 1 year

Text

Monsterfucking drabbles

I’m doing request drabbles on this bingo. Please prompt! Drabbles will be posted in December for an Avent calendar event. :D

I’m in The Magnus Archives of course, and also lots of myths and legends fandom, OFMD, Arcane, The Locked Tomb, Malevolent... Gravity Falls is still here, I’m getting into Animorphs, and of course anything from my xeno ship list is fair game, and if you know I love a ship and forgot to list it don’t hesitate.

Despite the name of the bingo, I’m also all here for monstercuddling or monster tentative romance.

#drabble meme #xeno

23 notes · View notes

madmanwonder · 1 year

Text

Send “Got Friendzone” for muses to get friendzone and their reaction to being said friendzone

Please specify muses

#ask meme #prompt meme #drabble meme #shipping meme #my meme

9 notes · View notes

onlyoccasionallyvisible · 1 year

Note

Milkshake: Lyle/whoever (Brainy or Condo)

Lyle’s mouth is full of ice cream when Querl kisses him.

It’s not exactly the worst timing the Coluan has ever had for his rare displays of physical affection. But it’s not really the best, either. Lyle wouldn’t protest normally, as he’d found himself surprisingly lenient for these odd choices of scheduling. However, it was not an exaggeration saying his mouth was quite literally full already.

“Mmph.” Lyle eloquently argues, even as one hand darts up to cup Brainy’s jawline. It’s instinct! He can’t exactly help it with how the other Legionnaire is holding onto his hipbones, pressing green thumbs into the dip there. He nearly drops his bowl, and although he doesn’t it still tips in threatening degrees on the counter with the carelessness of its deposit. Frantically, he braces his now free hand back, where Querl is shoving him, trying to keep himself upright against the force of the kiss.

The cold hits the roof of Lyle’s mouth, as the pressure of Querl on him eliminates the last space available, freeze digging at his temples the same time a contrasting searing tongue swipes across the surprised seam of his lips. Luckily, some of the treat melts before it goes up his nose, but the lingering threat is still there.

The prodding at his lips becomes more insistent, but there really is no room. Lyle grunts in protest, and somehow transforms between his throat and his muffled mouth into a whine. Querl’s teeth drag against his bottom lip. The bastard is smirking. Lyle can feel it. The pressure is sharp like ice and lingers even as the Coluan suddenly pulls away.

Lyle blinks up at his friend owlishly, sprawled back against the countertop. Jaw ajar and feeling more then a little ruffled. The only thing the static in his brain allows him to comprehend is how the outsides of his cheeks burns in sharp contrast to the chill on his tastebuds. It must show, it must all show, because Querl chuckles in a way that causes stomachs to drop into pelvises.

Or maybe that’s just Lyle.

“I’ll have whatever he’s having, it’s delicious.” Brainy calls casually to poor Tenzil, who was still gawking at them from the soda machine, absently overfilling a glass of root beer.

#Anonymous #brainiac 5 #lyle norg #brainy/lyle #LOSH #Legion of Superheroes #fanfic #drabble #drabble meme #meme #DRABBLE FIC FROM 8 YEARS AGO

18 notes · View notes

dyinglikeastar · 6 months

Note

Drabble prompt: raylan/boyd domestic OR colt/Jimmy video game

"Do you believe me?" Boyd asks in a small voice. "Because after what I saw in them woods, what my Daddy did to my men….Raylan, I've got no interest in seeing anymore killing done."

Raylan presses his lips together. "I don't see how worrying over it either way would help things any.”

Boyd reaches out to fix the knot in Raylan's tie, just to have something to do with his hands.

“I suppose I do believe that you want it to be true,” Raylan says, gently wrapping his fingers around Boyd’s wrist. “And that's not insignificant. Not to me."

ao3

#my fic #drabble meme #raylan/boyd #boyd x raylan #raylan givens #boyd crowder

14 notes · View notes

lambden · 1 year

Note

for the spotify wrapped meme: no 69 for Geraskier or any ship of your choice? listen i just had to go there

unfortunately (luckily??) for you, darling anon, my sixty-ninth song of the year is an anthem for returning to a relationship that has hurt you and falling back in love with them >:3

M, 2.6K words, infidelity (yenralt lol) and some mentions of alcoholism (jaskier lol)

Jaskier, despite his best efforts, is only human. The chattering of his teeth is not something easy to hide, especially not when his travelling companion and only company for months is laying only a few feet away. Jaskier could perhaps mistake his repose for sleep if not for the nearly constant hitching of his breath. The witcher inhales, long and deep, into lungs magically crafted to breathe better and slower than humans. Jaskier shivers, curling and uncurling his toes and rubbing his bony calves together for warmth. The witcher’s breath catches in his system, throat and lungs and chest and body still. Jaskier exhales, a small puff of white air against the clear, dark night. The witcher exhales, two seconds too late— deep, and false, and unless Jaskier is reading the signs wrong, definitely annoyed.

The cold would be easier to stand if he could just fall asleep; surely in the night his unconscious body would find some miraculous and impossible way to retain heat that his conscious self lacks the muscle memory for.

If he falls asleep, the witcher that he met will leave him. Jaskier grinds his chattering teeth together, and closes his eyes tightly, and buckles himself in for a long night of shivering.

Across the campsite, the witcher inhales. Before Jaskier catches his exhale, the edge of his thin blanket behind him rises up into the air, cruelly exposing his already cold back to the night air. Jaskier gasps, then gasps louder as a furnace presses against him. The witcher had moved towards him in stony silence, and he does not speak now either. His legs press into the back of Jaskier’s, thick knees finding the hollows and thick, warm thighs offering support for his frozen ones. His arm wraps around Jaskier’s chest, finding purchase on the breast pocket of his thin jacket and holding on as if he’s likely to blow away. His other arm winds under Jaskier’s neck like a heated pillow for him to rest his head on, and the blanket falls over them both.

“Thank you,” Jaskier shudders, the two syllables disintegrating into many in his cold mouth. He continues anyway. “Thank you, Geralt.”

The witcher makes a grunt like an animal. An animal would not have thought to share its warmth. Jaskier snuggles back into the witcher, and Geralt’s grip around him only tightens. He begins to thaw.

“We would save coin if we shared a bed,” says the witcher. His hair is dishevelled from the hunt, hanging loose and dirty around his pale face. He’ll need to bathe for at least half an hour to scrub off all the guts that thankfully only belong to monsters, and then he’ll probably dawdle for another hour in the bath because he enjoys it more than most things.

Jaskier has a twinge in his back that threatens to cause serious damage if not dealt with in the next day, and the last thing he wants is to spend the night bathing and then fucking his witcher. He never enjoys the baths afterwards as much as the ones before, even if it is nice when Geralt waves his fingers below the surface of the gauzy, soapy water to cast his magic fire spell. He just needs a good seven hours of uninterrupted rest.

Those eager, golden eyes fall on him. Jaskier inhales, and Geralt’s nostrils flutter too as if he’s breathing in deep to catch the scent of his bard. Which, really, he is. Jaskier gives in— he is, after all, only human. “You’re taking the bottom bunk, then.”

The witcher laughs, loud and unencumbered. He would never have laughed like that when they first met. Jaskier takes this kernel of information and shoves it deep, deep down inside his heart, like a dragon hoarding something very special to admire later. Then the witcher reaches down to fumble for his coinpurse, and in the process accidentally-except-actually-very-on-purpose fumbles around Jaskier’s trousers.

They never even make it to the inn. Jaskier, despite how his body aches the next day, swears it’s one of the best nights of his life.

The flaps on his tent flutter— not in the evening breeze rolling down from the peaks of Caingorn, but from someone trying to drunkenly find the ties holding them together. Jaskier stares across the tent, letting whoever it is struggle. He’s already halfway through a bottle of vintage Toussaint white, and the sourness is beginning to give way to sweetness with each new sip. He can’t even remember why he was angry enough to drink himself into a stupor.

With a triumphant exhale, the witcher unties the opening to Jaskier’s tent, and slides inside without asking. Oh, right. There’s his anger.

Jaskier doesn’t shy away from Geralt’s questing gaze— he’s drunk too, although he’s had a considerably less enjoyable night. He doesn’t try to summon any composure or lessen his glare, not even as the witcher ties the tent closed again without asking. Not even as the witcher comes to kneel at the end of his bedroll, his hands splayed comfortably out on his thick thighs and his shoulders sitting low and relaxed. Not even as the scent of lilac and gooseberries hits his system— a scent more sour than the dry wine.

Neither of them speak. Barbs rise unbidden to Jaskier’s tongue, but he swallows each and every one of them. Should you be doing this drunk— hypocritical. I thought the dragon hunt was important to you— stupid. Astonishing that an infertile mutant still has enough stamina to fuck two of his lovers in one night— cruel, and bigoted. The dwarves will hear us, you know— as if either of them give a shit.

Geralt’s mouth is warm as ever, leaving a trail of wet marks along the side of his throat. If Jaskier closes his eyes, he can visualize them— like angry, beautiful bruises. Except Geralt doesn’t nip hard enough to bruise, even as Jaskier wishes he would. If Jaskier had everything he wished for, they wouldn’t have chased an insane sorceress up the side of a mountain. They’d be somewhere else. Somewhere coastal, maybe. Somewhere he and his witcher could stand in the surf together, and bruise each other so intimately that the marks never faded.

The witcher reaches between his legs, his aim true as ever. As Jaskier’s head lolls to the side to make more room for the man kissing his neck, he is surprised to find himself blinking back tears. Of course, nothing gets past his witcher; the kisses move up his chin, past his jaw, and onto his cheek. Jaskier laughs, somewhat hysterically. Geralt doesn’t stop kissing him until his lips are pressed right against his wet eyelid. There, he mutters into the salty skin, “Okay?”

“Of course,” Jaskier’s breath hitches. Then Geralt does that thing he really likes with his hand, and his breath leaves him entirely. “Oh— yes, of course, yes! I’m alright.”

“Alright,” echoes the witcher quietly. He kisses Jaskier’s forehead. It feels more intimate than anything else they’ve done. Jaskier steels himself not to hate the man he’s fallen in love with, and not to fuck up a good thing just because his heart sings for a better one.

In Geralt’s arms, Jaskier glows brighter than a candle in the dark summer night. In his lover’s hands he is made immortal.

At Bleobheris, Jaskier heals in a way he thought impossible. Old wounds close up; blisters on his heel from walking behind a horse for more than twenty years, and soft spots on his heart from walking behind the horse’s rider for the same amount of time.

New wounds open, ones that hurt much more. He learns of the oppression that he took part in by travelling the Continent and singing anti-Elven slander to anyone who would listen. He learns of more oppression than he could possibly imagine, and he stops thinking of his own life so seriously. He does not choose a higher calling; during the raid, it chooses him. The alias claims him. This new group of wandering souls— the oldest wandering souls— need him, in a way he has never been needed his whole life. When the great oak is raided and his friends and lovers and family are massacred, Jaskier resolves himself not to give in to survivor’s guilt. He knows he was left alive for a matter of utmost importance.

He forms new connections, a new underground community, and in doing so connects with countless others who need him. It is exhausting to have found his purpose. The exhaustion fuels his art; he doesn’t sing Toss A Coin no matter how many coins people offer to toss. His new songs are thinly disguised fuck-yous to monarchs, rallying the Continent against those who would tear it apart from the inside, and hope for a better future. People hate it. People love it. He’s never made any music like this before, and he’s never spent less time selfishly waffling over his own music, either— his nights are spent sleeplessly ferrying refugees to secret meet-up points, and learning new codes and languages spoken only by those in the know. He doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself.

He celebrates each victory with a bottle, and then one triumphant bottle becomes a bottle and a shot, and soon he’s racked up a tab at most taverns that will still let him play. No matter how far he distances himself from his old life, the last sip around the ring at the bottom of every bottle tastes like death, destiny, and heroics. And, of course, heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak.

The song comes to him after one especially lonely night. Jaskier would love to say he had been planning this song full of empty threats and hollow lies for years, spitefully scrawling lines into his journals between other fantastic romantic affairs. But the affairs would be as false as the rest of the story. He doesn’t write the song, it arrives written; he merely pours it onto the page. What for do you yearn? Good, poetic rhymes. Or at least they would be if he could sing them without his voice cracking.

He knows the song will hurt the witcher, should it ever travel far enough to reach his ears. He knows, too, although it turns his stomach once he’s sober, that songs hold enough power to do serious damage. But even though he convinces himself he’s forgotten the specifics of his decades-long infatuation with the witcher, he cannot, and will never, forget how the witcher made him feel.

Despite knowing it’s wrong, Jaskier plays the song for an eager and wide-eyed audience. Heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak. They lap it up. He burns. His voice cracks— he’s only human.

Threadbare both at the seams of his sleeves and the cavities of his heart, Jaskier wonders when he stopped feeling the cold.

He should feel it here more than ever. None of the witchers have put any work into maintaining their drafty fucking fortress atop their frigid fucking mountain. That’s still a word that it’s hard to wrap his head around— not fortress, which he’d always known about, nor mountain, which he has more than enough experience with. Witchers. In the plural. A whole family of them, thicker than any family united by blood and hard-pressed to accept visitors.

Except they had accepted him, for some fucking reason. Bewilderingly, it was likely Yennefer’s doing. And also, he can hardly call them a ‘whole family’ after their school lost more than half its ranks to an insane power-hungry demon who possessed a little girl who looks just like a princess that Jaskier once played at court for.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t feel the cold; maybe his head is still spinning from the last few days. He had never expected to run into half these people again, and in fact has complicated relationships with more than a few of them, and those relationships have only grown more complicated since his arrival here. He supposes things will get easier soon as he descends the frigid fucking mountain and leaves the drafty fucking fortress far behind him. Maybe once he’s on proper flat ground he’ll be able to clear his head. He’ll have a drink without being worried a demon will kill everyone if he sleeps off a hangover, and he’ll light a fire without his burnt fingers shaking too badly to strike the match.

The real reason he has to leave is more selfish than any he could admit aloud. Even in this place he’s never been, there are too many memories— ones he swore to leave behind when he left his old life. He doesn’t want to see the spitting image of Pavetta bundled up in a wolf pelt, somehow also resembling her adoptive father. He has no desire to remember exactly how mad he used to get at Yennefer, and even less desire to rekindle their strange new friendship. He feels too raw and exposed and sober and vulnerable up here, as the memories dance on the edge of his consciousness.

No. Holes in his jacket or not, he’d better get going.

Hands actually on the lever to push open the courtyard gate, he moves to do so— and is blanketed from behind by a furnace. It takes Jaskier a moment to identify the witcher, and then another moment to identify the embrace as not exactly Geralt shoving him up against the gate, but. A hug. He’s… this is a hug. He’s being hugged, by Geralt.

“I need to go,” Jaskier mumbles, muffled, into the witcher’s broad shoulder. They’ve always been of a similar height; he isn’t sure why he remembered Geralt so much taller. He turns his head to speak more clearly, and he catches golden eyes already watching him intently. “Don’t,” warns Jaskier, even though the witcher hasn’t said a word.

“I need you to stay,” Geralt tells him, firmly but quietly. His tone leaves no room for an argument. Jaskier still reaches for that old familiar urge, for all the anger that brought him to write of burning his witcher. His witcher. He finds his pockets empty, and with no barbs to throw, he’s left speechless. A rare thing, for a bard. Rarer still, Geralt breaks the silence to speak again: “If you go, I’ll follow.”

“You’ll— well— you— you won’t just follow—”

“Yes. I will.”

“You have a child—”

“She can come.”

“I don’t— I mean, shouldn’t she stay? She just went through some severe trauma, and she’s supposed to be safe here—”

“She’s safe with me.”

“Right,” Jaskier huffs. Apparently he does have one barb left in him— he regrets it immediately. What happened to Ciri hadn’t been Geralt’s fault, much as what happened to the Wolves hadn’t really been Ciri’s. But he searches the witcher’s gaze for offence, and finds none. “Why would you need me to stay? Party’s over, isn’t it? Not that I was an integral part of the operation—”

As he’s done a hundred times before, Geralt kisses Jaskier quiet. It should, by rights, annoy him. But just like the previous hundred times, it delights him too much to play on his nerves. How could he be irritated as his heart sings?

Then Geralt breathes him in, deepening the kiss, and Jaskier realizes, oh. The witcher is kissing him, all these years later— after so much hurt between them both, and so many changes that neither one of them could call himself the same man, the witcher— his witcher is kissing him.

Jaskier kisses back. He’s only human.

#geraskier fic #geraskier #my writing #song meme #drabble meme #anonymous #asks #this was so much fun to write!! i love that song so much man

55 notes · View notes