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write-ur-wrongs · 3 years

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The Death of Me

Pairing: Geralt x reader

Word count: almost 4K - big whoops!

A/N: This was totally meant to be a drabble / blurb, but the story got away from me! A huge thanks to the sweet anon who submitted this prompt - I was beyond inspired and chuckled warmly throughout the entire writing process. This baby isn’t proofread so thread lightly!! I sincerely hope y’all enjoy this one :’)

Prompt: Heya! I saw your post about wanting to practice writing short stories so I have a small prompt for Geralt! What about: the reader and Geralt have always had a difficult relationship, always running into each other at the most inconvenient moments and hence disliking each other. However, while Geralt is passing through a village the reader comes barging into his room bloody and near death, only getting a chance to say “I didn’t know where else to go” before collapsing. I would be honoured if the idea inspired you :3

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You’d never considered yourself unlucky but lately life had a funny way of throwing you for a loop, or rather, throwing you to the wolves. One wolf, actually. A damn, irritating, and arrogant white wolf.

At first, it was all business. You’d arrive in a village itching for a contract, only to find that a “legendary witcher” had already come through and taken care of every monster within a two-days ride. Furious, hungry, and broke, you set out determined to get as far as you could and as quickly as possible. Your determination got you far enough that you’d managed a full three months of contract work, but not far enough it seemed.

You’d been on your way to collect payment from your latest contractor when you’d heard the buzz on the street; a witcher had come through asking about work, and had been told to wait and see as someone else (a woman! A human woman!) had already committed to the case. Apparently, he was either incensed or bemused at the idea – the brute was very hard to read, so say the town gossips – but it didn’t matter to you. You beat him to it and now you get to eat. When you finally met with the contractor to collect your coin, you couldn’t help but swell with pride as they thanked you, eyes wide, for taking care of a monster no human ought to be able to handle. You could have sworn your pride had given you wings as you floated out of the inn.

That is, until you heard them mumble under their breath, “Thank Gods that lass was able to handle it! Had it been the witcher, I would have had to pay triple!”

“Thank heavens for cheap labour!” whispered their partner, raising their glass to cheers their big victory.

Suddenly whatever weightlessness you felt transferred onto your coin purse. Biting hard on your cheek you pushed up your chin, determined to remain dignified. But then you saw him.

Impossibly broad chested, rippling muscles evident beneath his leather armour, with golden eyes that reflected back to you with a cruel playful nature that made bile rise in the back of your throat. He held your gaze and raised his own tankard to you as you walked past him. His deep voice rumbled through you as you pushed the door open.

“Cheers to cheap labour,” you heard him say, and swore you could hear the smirk on his full lips.

Groaning furiously, you pushed the door so hard it swung back and slammed shut behind you with such force a flock of birds took off somewhere in town. Undeterred, you stomped off towards your horse and set off at a gallop.

I’m going to make sure I never cross his fucking path ever again, you thought searingly.

You were wrong it turned out, but how were you supposed to know that?

You’d gone years without actually seeing him again, but that didn’t mean you were free of him. You’d alternated winning and losing contracts to each other, and the pressure of beating him to the next one stressed you so fiercely you developed ulcers. That alone would have been enough to push you to murder had you not heard from another witcher that their brother, the great white wolf, was losing sleep trying to keep up with you. Knowledge of this fact spurred you on; after all, if you couldn’t beat him, it’s best to be even, no?

The next time fate brought you two together, though, you could not have been farther from on top. What made matters worse, is that you weren’t even in battle when your paths crossed. Your literal paths just simply… crossed.

You’d been riding east for many days and just as many nights. You were tired, sore, and somehow still soaked to the bone despite the fact that the rain had stopped at least a day ago. You were so tired, your muscles seemed heavy in your limbs, and you had to keep blinking hard to bring the spinning world around you back to its axis. As you rode through an intersection on the trail, the sun peaked out from behind the thick curtain of clouds just long enough to pull you fully into sleep, and right off your still-moving-horse’s saddle.

You honestly didn’t remember falling asleep, or off the saddle. You also had no memory of the moment another traveler, who was riding towards the intersection on the other trail, leapt off his mare just as you started your descent and caught you before you could split your skull open on one of the many rocks sprinkled throughout the street. You had no memory of the way he’d pulled you off the path, leading both horses behind him as he’d carried you over his shoulder. Zero recollection of him laying you down on a bed grass, tying your horse to a nearby tree, lighting you a campfire, or filling your pack with some bread and meat.

What you did remember, was the arrogant look on his face when you finally woke up. The condescending tone he took as he reminded you that you were ‘only human’ and had to take care of yourself accordingly was also seared into the annals of your memory.

You hated that he’d saved you almost as much as you hated the fact that you’d been asleep around him. Completely vulnerable for God knows how long and he’d been there to witness it all. Whenever the memory of the look on his face or the way he’d crossed his arms and tilted his stupid head as he condescended your humanity came to you, you couldn’t help but cringe even months after the fact.

***

Your saving grace came a full six months after your damned damsel in distress moment on the trail.

Well fed, well worked, and well travelled, you were taking your time enjoying the market in your town of the week. The work you did wasn’t glamourous, but it did allow you the means to afford a few luxuries every now and then. This time, it just so happened that your coin could buy you the sweetest gift of all: revenge.

The market was busy as ever, you could barely hear yourself think over the cacophony of voices and animal bleats bouncing around the square. Had it been anyone else, the conversation would have been lost among the noise around you, but when that voice came rumbling through the mess of shrieks and shouts, you couldn’t help but seek out the source. You didn’t know why you cared or why you were so surprised to find that the voice’s owner was none other than the White Wolf himself.

“You good?” you asked, making sure to tilt your head, hands on your hips, the same way he’d done the last time you’d met.

“Fine.” He practically barked, not even turning his head fully to address you directly.

The merchant, none-too-concerned with your arrival on the scene, continued as if uninterrupted. “I’m sorry Mr. Witcher, sir, but I can’t go any lower. This is the best I can offer.”

“I can’t pay that much,” he grumbled, hands closed into tight fists.

“I’m sorry-”

“Is this enough?” you interjected, knowingly offering forward far too many ducats.

“Y-yes!” breathed the merchant, looking quizzically at Geralt before picking three coins from your open palm, “thank you, madam...”

“Y/N,” you introduced yourself with a warm smile and a nod.

“Y/N!” Geralt hissed, at the same time, reaching out to push away your hand a fraction too late; the vendor was paid, and you’d won this round.

“What is it, Witcher?” you teased, as the vendor took his sword back for repairs, “been on vacation? Why so skint?”

“Been low on work lately,” he replied coolly, cat-like eyes boring into yours, “not as many contracts as there use to be.”

“Well, I’ll be,” you said, cocking your head to the side and pursing your lips in mock contemplation, “I can’t imagine why that’d be the case! Seems I keep running into monsters to kill.”

“Mmhm.” He hummed, narrowing his eyes at you.

Refusing to let him have the last word, you quickly turned on your heels and high-tailed it out of the market, shouting over your shoulder to the blacksmith to give any change back to Geralt before disappearing back into the crowd.

***

Being even should have brought peace between the two of you but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Your last interaction only fanned the flames of your rivalry. As the months turned to years without coming upon each other again, you still found yourself filled with unreasonable anger whenever you saw a mop of white hair cross you on your travels.

And not that you’d know it, but it turned out that Geralt wasn’t faring any better; finding himself frustrated and acting recklessly whenever he’d come upon anything that reminded him of you.

You were both completely obsessed with one another. Thoughts of the other constantly on the mind. Whether in waking or in dreams, you were both equally afflicted by an intense need to outperform, out run, and also, inexplicably, to impress the other.

It was that need to impress each other that led you to accept a contract you should have never even considered taking. You honestly wouldn’t have even considered it had the circumstances been any different but you’d been hearing about this monster for weeks on your travels. Tales of the mighty griffin tearing people to shreds had been circulating far and wide on this side of the Yaruga, and honestly, with every retelling you’d expected to hear that a witcher had handled it, but that never happened. You’d somehow managed to arrive at the village at the source of these stories before him and had an opportunity to literally rob him of this victory.

Granted, you were the only one who’d been attributing him with this win, but that didn’t matter, not to you. The only thing you cared about when accepting this particular contract was the knowledge that by taking it, you were preventing him from having it, and that was more than enough.

The shock on the villagers faces when they saw you accept the contract only added to your already inflated confidence. The sheer size of the griffin’s wingspan humbled you a little, though, and whatever grand illusions of an easy victory you’d carried into the forest were squashed along with a couple rib bones only moments after engaging the beast. In short, you were fucked.

Some might say that coming out of it alive was enough of a win. Those people would be morons, you thought as you stumbled clumsily back towards the lights of the village, clutching your split abdomen with both hands and blinking back blood dripping from your forehead. Every step you took came with the stabbing pain of additional tearing around your wound. You could barely think, your ears were blocked and caked with dried blood and dirt, your tears stung as they fell across the gashes on your cheeks, and every breath in felt like it could be your last. You’d never admit this out loud, but a part of you wished the creature had finished the job.

Perhaps the only saving grace here was that in your condition, you couldn’t hear the villagers as they pointed and gossiped. You didn’t hear the “told you so’s” or the lewd shouts coming from the drunk men as you stumbled into the tavern. You could barely hear the disappointment in the inn owner’s voice as they reprimanded you for accepting a contract, they knew you couldn’t complete. Rolling your eyes, you pushed your way towards the stairs as quickly as possible – which, as it turned out, was not so quick, praying that someone would call you a healer.

“… and to think a witcher arrived only hours after she went off to kill herself! Tsk-tsk!”

You stopped dead in your tracks, drops of blood falling across your brow as you interrupted the momentum you’d been building. “W-what?” you croaked, turning towards them as much as possible to make sure you’d hear them correctly.

“Yeah! And not just any witcher, lass, the Butcher of Blaviken no less! Checked in with us just as you head out. Had you waited half a day you could have saved yourself a world of – ‘ey! Now where’s she off to?”

As you registered this news, something inside you snapped. Before you knew what was happening, you’d made your way upstairs and started pushing your full weight onto every door you passed. The great White Wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken, was certainly arrogant enough to leave his door unlocked. You might have been wrong about the griffin, but you’d be damned if you were wrong about this.

Fortunate or not, you weren’t wrong about this. As you pushed your shoulder against the last door with whatever strength you had left, the door swung open with very little resistance. The heavy wooden door slammed loudly against the wall at the exact moment that your limp body crashed onto the floor.

“WHAT the fuck!” Geralt howled, leaping off the bed and onto his feet. His wild eyes assessed the situation in an instant, and he bound to you in barely two strides. “What the fuck did you do? What happened?” he asked as he flipped you over, so gently you were sure you’d already passed out and were now dreaming. Or maybe the blood loss was finally catching up to you and you were full-on hallucinating.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” you breathed, barely above a whisper, before losing consciousness in his arms.

Regaining consciousness was a slow, painful process. You’d come in and out of it a handful of times throughout the night, and flashes of what you’d seen before you lost it were coming to you in an almost dreamlike haze; terrifying images of the furious griffin, its blood-soaked talon shining in the setting sun as it reared back to strike you again, and warmer visions of Geralt, shirtless, running towards you with – could it be? – genuine concern in his eyes.

Now as the rising sun cast its glow across the room, you squinted painfully against the light. Your head felt as though it was full of cotton; heavy, and scratchy, and unnatural on top of your shoulders. Hesitantly, you ran your tongue over your teeth and were equal parts relieved to find them all there and disgusted at the acrid, mineral taste the blood left behind. Blinking slowly, you tried to bring up your hand to rub at your eyes, but stopped short as you felt the large bandage draped across your forehead.

Slowly, you started to register the other bandages, on your arms, your cheek, across your abdomen. Your eyes grew wide as you finally registered the man facing away from you in the far corner of the room. Geralt’s broad strong back was hunched away from you as he rifled through herbs and small glass vials looking for something. Inexplicably, you found yourself disappointed to see he’d put his thick black tunic back on. Horrified by that realization, you literally gagged, startling Geralt and pulling his attention squarely onto you.

His big dumb beautiful face was all hard lines as he looked you over, stern eyes flashing to meet yours before dropping back down to the vial in his hands. You couldn’t help be notice the way the muscles in in jaw rippled and tensed as he sighed. He was oozing disappointment and anger, and that infuriated you.

“Am I dead?” you ask, squinting at him a little theatrically as you squirmed and winced in your bed.

“No.” he practically growled, his body tense as he made his way towards you slowly.

“Oh,” you breathed, bringing your eyes up to his before adding, “this isn’t hell?”

To your immense satisfaction, his stern eyes widened into shock, but then something unrecognizable flashed across his features – wait, was he hurt?

“Why, because I’m here?” he shouted, as if in confirmation of your hunch, and slammed the damp cloth he’d been holding back into the basin.

“No, jackass,” you retorted, pleased that despite the position you were in, you still had some semblance of an upper-hand, “because a griffin fucking fileted me like a fish and some poor drunk is probably downstairs slipping in a pool of my blood right now.”

You’d kind of hoped that he’d laugh, or at least have a comeback geared up for you, but Geralt just stood there staring at you, his mouth in a tight line, nostrils flaring.

Uncomfortable by the intensity of his stare and the silence accompanying it, you decide to continue to poke the bear.

“Come on, what’s with the face, Geralt? Pissed I’m still alive? You know you could have just closed the door over my body, let nature finish the bloody job.”

“Fuck, no! Y/n!” he screamed, startling you out of the attitude you’d put on, “I’m pissed because you’re an impossibly difficult woman hellbent on killing herself! I’m pissed because you don’t seem to fucking care about what happens to you! You can’t keep doing this Y/N! Because one of these days you’re going to get hurt and you’ll be too far away from me and I won’t be able to fucking save you, again! I am pissed because I am losing my mind spending every god-awful day wondering if you’ve gone and gotten yourself killed! Fucking hell, woman! If you didn’t find me – I-if I wasn’t here, with these herbs – Damnit Y/N!”

You just sat there, mouth opening and closing like a fish. You couldn’t believe it. You didn’t know what to say. This man, your nemesis, was in front of you pacing back and forth, breathing heavily, looking like a maniac. His nostrils were flaring more than the monster that almost killed you just yesterday. Part of you wanted to correct him and demand he never address you as ‘woman’ again, but his wild earnest eyes kept you quiet. My god… was he crying?

Before you could say anything, Geralt sighed gruffly, ran his large hand over his face and stormed out, mumbling something about needing to get you more water.

Left alone with your thoughts, you couldn’t stop yourself from spiralling. You’d expected him to be angry – hell, you wanted him to be angry! You’d humiliated yourself twice over, enraging him would ease the blow – but this was… different. He seemed genuinely concerned about you. And what was with his whole speech? He spent every day thinking about you? Worrying about you? There’s no way.

Sure, you thought about him daily, but that was out of spite! You hated the man! Why else would your heart race whenever you thought you spotted him in a crowd? Why else would you actively seek out the most dangerous contracts? What, like you were hoping these contracts would draw him out, and therefore, closer to you? As if!

Your ridiculous inner monologue was interrupted by Geralt’s return. The horrible brute knocked gently on the door before stepping inside, and your heart had the audacity to skip a beat.

Oh, you thought, fuck.

“I need to change the dressing on your wounds,” he grumbled, not meeting your eyes. You nodded wordlessly as he settled onto the chair next to you. You watched him work in silence, praying he would attribute your insane heartrate and flushed skin to a pain response from his work.

“Geralt?” you tried, chewing nervously on your cheek, as was just finished up with the last of your dressing.

“Hm?” he hummed, keeping his eyes cast down as he fussed with the bandage on the gash across your abdomen.

“Thank you… for saving me.”

He finally brought his gaze up to meet yours, but said nothing in return. He merely grunted in acknowledgment. You didn’t know why, but his silence in combination with his inscrutable gaze encouraged you to keep talking.

“I honestly only took this contract because I didn’t want you to have it,” you admitted bashfully.

“What the fuck? No one was taking it because they weren’t paying nearly enough! Hell, and you’re just a human,” he fumed, throwing up air-quotes as he said it, “so what – they offered you a third of nothing?”

Laughing lightly, you shoved him with your elbow, “they offered me three whole ducats!”

“Oh, wow,” he laughed, low and rumbling, “so a big pay day for you, eh?”

“Shut up,” you gasped as pain rippled through you with each peal of laughter, “knowing I could screw you over was payment enough!”

“Well congratulations are in order, you did manage to screw someone over,” he chided.

“Me,” you stated dryly, gesturing widely at your busted up body.

“You,” he echoed with a sigh that seemed to deflate him.

He suddenly looked so small, sitting there next to you. You watched him as clenched and unclenched his jaw, rubbing his large hands up and down his thighs – was he anxious? You mind raced as you felt his eyes travel slowly up your body. You held your breath as he worked up the nerve to finally bring his eyes up to yours.

The moment his eyes landed on yours, something shifted. Whatever had been lodged uncomfortably between the two of you all these years had finally clicked into place. This change, albeit small, was palpable. His eyes dropped to your lips and lingered there. He was looking at you like he’d never seen you before. Like he was afraid he might never see you again.

Without speaking, Geralt inched himself closer to you and reached a tender hand to tuck your hair behind your ears before cradling your face.

“You’re not allowed to die, do you hear me?” he whispered, gently stroking your cheek with his thumb.

You gave him a quick nod and brought your hand up to his, nuzzling into the warmth of his palm before giving his hand a quick kiss.

“I need to hear you say it,” he begged, bringing himself even closer to you.

“I do,” you breathed, trying to sit up to bring your face closer to his. “I’m not going to die, not on your watch, but I’m also not quitting.”

“Y/N –”

“No! If I quit, you’d get lazy. Who’d push you? What would be your driving force?”

“Wow,” he scoffed, looking at you incredulously but fondly, “you’re so fucking arrogant.”

“And yet…” you said, quirking a brow flirtatiously as you pulled him closer by the collar.

“… and yet?” he murmured, letting himself be pulled closer to you. His eyes half-closed and his lips slightly parted.

“You love me.”

“I love you.”

And then he kissed you. His mouth claimed yours urgently but his hands were ever gentle, ghosting over your bandages and caressing your skin with a feather-light tenderness that would have brought you to your knees had you not already been bedridden. Any hesitation or doubt melted away under the heat of his touch as all those years of tension sprung apart catastrophically. The knot you had carried in your stomach unfurled into flittering fireflies, their heat traveling up your stomach to your chest as his hands worked their way into your hair.

You didn’t know when they’d fallen, but you let out a shaky laugh as Geralt kissed away the tears on your cheeks, his thumb swiping at the tears his soft lips failed to catch. Breathing heavily, he rested his forehead against yours; his hands cupping your face as yours captured his.

Gods – this man was going to be the death of you.

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beanarie · 2 years

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currently obsessed with this prompt

by @literally-who-let-me

"geralt was cursed and couldn’t hear anyone/thing aside from jaskier"

bc omg

the brotherhood cursing geralt as phase one of their plan to take down ciri. like nivallen's curse, there's a loophole, but they don't see it being a problem. geralt has only his child surprise with elder blood, a part-elf mage who was tied to him by a djinn, and the other witchers, all of whom are bound together by the trials (aka magic). there is no one he loves, who loves him, without reason.

and jaskier's gone! they separated as soon as spring came to kaer morhen, so all anyone knows is that geralt can't hear. well, yen knows it's magic. she determines it's a curse of some sort, but not which one or how to fix it. in the meantime, she remembers that poor mute elf, who found another way to speak, and they all learn elf sign. idk if i'm actually writing this, but here's a scene.

"I don't like this," Yen signs. "Too much traffic. Too many people."

"Just for one night," Geralt says, unsure his voice even carries over the bustle of the city until Ciri nods with a slight, mildly optimistic smile. He busies himself adjusting the strap that started to slip off her shoulder and that's how he notices her reaction to something just to the left of them.

"Greetings, weary travelers. Well, I wasn't expecting to see you here, Geralt, Witch, Cirilla! Tavern later, all right? First round on me."

Geralt blinks after the departing Jaskier, stunned. He heard him before he saw him. He heard him.

After keeping her eyes on him for a long moment, Yennefer worries at one earlobe with two fingers then points at Jaskier's back, eyebrow raised in question. Geralt nods once shortly and Ciri goes stiff at his side. Yen gestures at Jaskier again, this time with some exasperation. "Move."

Jaskier hasn't gotten far. He stands close to a short woman with very bouncy hair and vibrantly colored clothes that do not match. They are practically on top of each other bickering over sheet music. He knows this because Jaskier is naming different notes and raving about how they do not fit. Whatever it is she's saying in response, he's only getting more forceful with his opinions.

"Jaskier?" Geralt says, feeling like a child waiting for the attention of a quickly-riled guardian. It's the same sort of powerless, anxious anticipation.

"Hm? Oh, sorry." Jaskier lays a light hand on Geralt's arm, and for that ten seconds before he lets go, the world itself comes rushing back. The wind, the birds, the wood planks under his feet. Fuck, he forgot how layered it all is. "I am thrilled to see you. I'm just right in the middle of-"

"Julian," Geralt enunciates at great length, which earns him a bewildered stare. "I-'' And suddenly he can hear his own voice. None of this makes any sense. "I'd appreciate a moment of your time." He doesn't dare look away. "At your earliest convenience."

Jaskier squints at him. "Suppose this can wait. Fancy a turn about my cramped rooms? Yen can't come. Not enough room for her ego and mine as well."

Just as he says that, someone pulls at his sleeve. Yen's signal. *I'm here.* Before Jaskier's attention diverts entirely, Geralt wants to say something else, but the words don't come. Fingers brush against the back of his hand. Ciri's signal.

"Yes, exactly. I *do* wish." Jaskier is now focused on Yen and they're engaging in their love/hate dance, with more affection than acrimony these days. "But when it happens, you will never, ever know about it."

Geralt turns to Yen and watches her shoulders shake with silent laughter. "I have missed you, peacock." She signed as well, for Geralt.

"What's that," Jaskier says. Even accounting for it being the only sound he can hear, his voice seems loud. Attention-grabbing. "That thing you are doing?" Jaskier turns and looks behind him. "Are you signaling someone? An archer? Assassinating me won't end your torment. I'll only haunt you."

She smacks his shoulder. "Shut up and take us inside."

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #geraskier #my writing #things by beanarie

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purplesauris · 4 years

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A World In Monochrome

My brain is firing on like, almost all cylinders to pump out all of the sweet sweet ideas I obsess over. This one stemmed from playing the game and realizing that Cat causes total loss of color from Geralt’s sight until the potion wears off

Enjoy it on AO3 here!

Geralt hated fiends. Well, he can’t say that with any honesty- for as brutal and base as they appeared, there was an elegance to them. They left people alone for the most part, content to wander their forests, caves or swamps, and only attacked if necessary. They were huge yet moved with incredible speed, and if necessary, their third eye opened, stunning and allowing them a chance to escape. To be compared to a fiend among friends was almost a compliment.

What he hated most about them was how often they took him into caves; the dank, musty smell of old corpses and fiend dung clung to him for days after he’d finished the hunt, and he couldn’t carry a torch with him to light the cave. Not that he hadn’t tried when he was young and just set out on the Path. After too many times plunging into darkness without anything to light, Geralt prepared himself more carefully. Relict oil for his blade, Thunderbolt and Swallow on his belt, and Cat, choked down at the last minute to give himself all the time he needed.

He hasn’t fought anything cave dwelling in a while, and isn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary when he takes his latest contract. Jaskier had wanted to bargain for a higher price, since this was Skellige and the fare back to Velen was expensive, but Geralt couldn’t. Mutation’s took all Witcher’s feelings people claimed, but his heart had gone out to Ohden, worried over his son, and he gave Jaskier a glance to keep him quiet. Jaskier hadn’t pushed, just hummed thoughtfully and thanked the man for his account of where to start.

That was another thing that Geralt hadn’t expected. When Geralt told Jaskier he was headed to Skellige for the summer he fully expected Jaskier to disappear wherever he goes for the winter. Instead, he was met by Jaskier waiting on the docks, bag slung over his shoulder and lute clutched against his front. He’d only complained of seasickness in the first two days, and spent the rest of their trek across the sea singing bawdy sea shanties and learning new ones from the crew to delight whatever crowd he could find in Skellige. Geralt had spent his time making potions and sharpening his blade, sat atop a barrel to keep a sharp eye on the bard under his care. He tried to look casual, but half the crew gave him a wide berth and the others stared in open hostility. The only thing keeping them somewhat friendly was Jaskier and that magnetic charisma he seemed to exude.

“Stay here.” Jaskier perked up at the sound of Geralt’s voice, then rolled his eyes.

“Geralt, how am I supposed to tell of your exploits if I never get to go?”

“How are you going to if you follow me and die?” Geralt’s throat tightens at the thought, and his voice sounds particularly grating when he talks through it. “You’re staying here.”

“At least let me see you track. I’ve never seen that even!”

“No.” Jaskier gave him a look, blue eyes glancing up just so through his lashes, and Geralt’s heart gives a wild leap at that. He sighs wearily, rolling out his shoulders. “Fine.”

“Yes!”

“But-” Geralt silences him, eyes narrowing a bit. He hears Jaskier breathe in sharply, but finds him staring with that same eager intensity. “If I let you come, you have to promise you’ll run if I tell you.”

Jaskier grins, eyes sparkling, and bows low at the waist. “As you command, White Wolf.”

Geralt finds someone to care for Roach while they’re away, and only has to narrow his eyes to ensure she’ll be taken care of and their stuff won’t be plundered. Skelligers are hardy, but even they know not to mess with a witcher, let alone Geralt. Geralt heads southeast, toward where Ohden had gestured to, and it isn’t long until he finds footprints. They’re from a male, that much he can tell, and that puts him on the right track.

They hike in relative silence for a while, Geralt occasionally pointing out a footprint that Jaskier would be able to see and explaining when Jaskier seems lost on how Geralt is leading them. The dirt road becomes pebbly a couple of miles later, and it’s then that Geralt spots the crumbling castle ahead of them and smells blood.

“Quiet.” Geralt hisses, Jaskier trying his best to stay as quiet as he can. Geralt’s silver sword slides free from his sheathe with nary a whisper, and he rolls his wrist, careful not to hit the bard behind him. He can hear breathing, heavy and bovine, and he creeps forward, Jaskier at his back. Geralt slips through a gap in a broken wall, nostrils flaring as the scent of decay and musk hits him. He holds out a hand, telling Jaskier to stop, and moves a bit further into the clearing of what used to be a courtyard. The ground near the south wall is saturated in blood, and flies buzz around it, grating to his ears.

He straightens up a bit, casting a glance around; whatever caused the gore doesn’t seem to be here, and this is the best lead he’s gotten so far. Gravel crunches behind him and he whips around, Jaskier freezing as the sight of Geralt, pupils mere slits and nostrils flared. “Nothing then?”

“I told you to wait.”

“Right, except I couldn’t see anything and I-” Jaskier’s eyes are pinned on the background behind him, and the hairs on the back of Geralt’s neck raise. His medallion hums angrily against his chest, and the sharp, eye watering scent of a fiend hits him hard.

“GO!” Is all he can say before throwing up Quen, grunting as the barrier around him crystallizes and shatters, having effectively warded off the fiend’s first charge. He won’t have time for a second, and all he can hope is that Jaskier heeded his command as he dives out of the way of a second charge. It’s a narrow window at best, and Geralt rolls to his knees, throwing a plume of fire in front of him. He almost chokes on the scent of burnt fur, the fiend roaring and hopping back a couple of steps. Geralt downs a dose of thunderbolt while he has a chance, throwing the glass away. He can come back and hope it isn’t broken later.

He falls into the fighting as easily as breathing, spinning on his toes and grunting at the twinge that goes through his knee and up his thigh. So it’s going to be like that. He can ignore it for now, and a dose of Blizzard has his blood singing and muscles working double time as he whirls and dodges the blows that the fiend throws. The fiend seems slow as Geralt hacks at the black and white patterned hide, tiring with the effort of trying to hit a target that won’t stop moving. This fiend is old, Geralt can tell just by the scarred hide and brutal efficiency in which he goes after his target.

Geralt can tell that the fiend is almost done for, blood oozing out of multiple cuts that regenerate before his eyes. He finds his opening when a well placed shot of Igni has the monster stumbling back, Geralt lunging to drive his sword through the beast’s skull. A flash of red catches Geralt’s attention, and he watches with a helpless kind of fury as the fiends third eye flares open, stopping his blow in its tracks. The fiend swings a meaty paw and sends him flying back into the wall of the abandoned keep, Geralt wheezing as the air is knocked out of him. His scabbards dig roughly into his back, sure to leave bruises later, but they might have just saved his spine.

In the time it takes Geralt to stumble to his feet, gasping for air, the fiend has fled the field, out of the ruins. He’s off like a shot, following the scent of blood and decay and singed fur through the rest of the ruins and down the bank of the river. It’s there he finds a cave, reeking of gore and pitch black.

“Fuck.” Of course he’s going to have to use Cat. He downs the potion as quickly as he can, not wanting to give the fiend more time to recover than is necessary. He skids down the rocky entrance as color leeches from his sight, every inch of the cave lit up in a murky haze. The fiend is crouched in the corner, tearing away at the entrails of some poor soul. This time the fiend won’t surprise him, and Geralt leaps onto the offensive, slashing a gaping wound through the beast’s left flank. It should slow the beast down enough, and Geralt is already leaping away when the beast roars and swings wildly behind itself.

Geralt dispatches it with another quick blow to the throat, silver blade digging in so deep that he lodges against bone for a moment. Geralt isn’t a fan of denting his blades, but the fiend has fought long enough, and Geralt just wants a quick end to the fight. He pants as the fiend twitches, crashing to the ground and eyes rolling sightlessly. One last blow ends the fiends suffering and severs the rest of the head- he’ll need it if he’s going to prove he killed the beast. A quick glance around the cave shows that this was definitely what was killing all of the travelers on the road, and though he can’t see it, he highly suspects that the lighter tone of the tunic he spies has to be yellow. He cuts a swatch to bring back with him, and drags the beast’s head up and out of the cave.

-*-

Jaskier had scrambled to climb the ladder when Geralt had yelled for him to run. He’d noticed it earlier when they first came in, and figured height would be a good advantage against whatever had charged at Geralt. Watching the fight was better than anything Geralt could have described, and Jaskier takes it in with reckless abandon. The way that Geralt’s hair had flown about him as he spun, the sun glinting off his blade. The way that his shield, brilliant orange in the light had shattered after the first charge.

He’s going to have the best ballad to write when they get back to town, and already a melody builds in his throat. He hums it while he watches, nervous to see Geralt go up against such an impossibly large foe. He trusts that the witcher knows what he’s doing, and he winces, gripping the craggy wall as Geralt crashes into it just below his hiding place. A normal man would have snapped his spine from the impact alone, but Geralt struggles to his feet and runs off, following the fiend wherever it fled to.

Well, he can’t miss this, can he? Jaskier creeps down the ladder, stooping to pick up the vial Geralt had tossed aside earlier before plodding after where the two disappeared. He isn’t able to leap off ledges like Geralt can, so he has to pick his way down the side of the ruin and hope he doesn’t trip and fall. By the time he makes it down to the bank and follows Geralt’s footprints he can hear the dying bray and gurgle of a large animal. It comes from a cave in the hillside, and Jaskier is loath to go inside. Especially if it smells as bad as he thinks it will.

“Right, uh, I guess I should get a bit closer…” The bard says, not moving an inch from where he’s standing, staring down into the pitch black of the cave.

“No, you shouldn’t.” The voice has no owner for a moment, ragged and deep, and it takes Jaskier longer than he’d like to admit to recognize it.

“Geralt? Are you alright? I’m coming in, let me just-”

“No.” Geralt’s voice is sharp enough to stop Jaskier in his tracks, and he wrings his hands together in a nervous habit. “Go back to town.”

“I can’t just leave you here, what if a-a bandit or something were to come?” There’s a rough chuckle, and Jaskier thinks he spies a lock of white hair, dyed pink at the ends by blood. “Geralt, come out? Please?”

-*-

Of course the bard had followed. Geralt had asked one thing, one thing of him, and wasn’t even granted that. He had hidden at least, because Geralt had no clue where he’d gone in the rush of the fight. He doesn’t want to step out into the sun, not while everything is too much, too bright, but the longer he stays down here the worse it’ll be to adjust. And the more likely it will be that Jaskier comes in anyway, despite the stench he knows keeps the man away for now.

“Move.” Is all the warning the bard gets before Geralt tosses the head out of the cave, listening to the dull thud of its landing and the sharp yelp Jaskier lets out at the sight. He limps from the cave as his knee gives another sharp twinge of discomfort, hissing at the brightness of the sun filling his eyes. It blinds him- leaves everything in washed out shades of white and grey and he hates it. The wildflowers bunched around the rocky ground sway in the wind, but Geralt can’t see their true colors. He knows the stems should be green, the flowers a pale blue or white, given the local flora, but all he sees is three different shades of black and white.

He hears a sharp intake of breath near where he tossed the head, and his body goes taut, attention snapping to the source of the noise. Jaskier stares at him, eyes wide and pupils blown wide within what Geralt knows should be blue irises. But they aren’t. They’re so pale they almost blend with the whites of his eyes, and Geralt’s heart drops into his stomach. Jaskier’s heart pounds a frantic, steady rhythm in Geralt’s ears, and his scent, usually so dominated by lavender, has taken on an edge of what Geralt can only describe as cloying spice. He isn’t sure what it means, at least for Jaskier, and he draws in another breath, trying to sniff discreetly, or as discreetly as a witcher hopped up on potions can.

Jaskier reaches out for him then, to lend him a hand or- he doesn't know what- and Geralt flinches. He can see the hurt in Jaskier’s eyes, can smell the scent of dying roses on him, and he struggles to push words from a throat more ready to strangle him than talk.

“Potions.” He looks at Jaskier again, eyes searching every inch of him for any sign of blood or injury, and grinds his teeth in frustration when he can’t differentiate the difference between what’s the stitching of his doublet and what’s the silky chemise underneath. They’re all the same color.

“Oh.” Jaskier sighs out, breathy and soft, and that confuses Geralt more than his lack of color or his racing heart. “Do you need anything right now? Water, stitches?”

“Stitches?” He manages to mumble, taking a step back into the cave where it isn’t so damn bright.

Jaskier’s lips quirk in a soft smile, and he shrugs. “I can’t see if you’re hurt. So, stitches?”

“No. White honey?” Jaskier winces, shooting Geralt a sympathetic look.

“Back in the packs, I think. Should I go fetch it?”

The offer is tempting; Geralt’s heart is still racing and every nerve in him screams that Jaskier is an enemy and he can’t fucking see color, but he doesn’t want Jaskier to leave. Not with his humanity still crumbling within him as he tries desperately to hold himself together enough to talk. He closes his eyes, hoping that taking away one sense will help with the noise in his head, but he’s not sure anything will help right now.

“No. Gotta meditate.”

“Well, come out of the cave then, I’m sure you’d rather not smell whatever it is that’s in there.”

“Bright.” He hears Jaskier chuckle, and the soft shuffle of fabric and leather creaking as Jaskier moves toward him. The thought makes him want to run deeper into the cave, where he can’t do anything that might scare the bard off, but something warm and reeking of lavender is being draped over his head. The light burning through his eyelids lessens immediately, and he gasps as Jaskier gently takes his hands. His grip is iron on Jaskier’s poor hands, but the bard doesn’t protest or pull away, just talks soft and low.

“Do you trust me?”

Does he? He tries to think of all the reasons he shouldn’t trust the bard, but fails to come up with anything meaningful. “Yes.”

“How long till this wears off?”

“Couple hours, maybe more.”

“Okay. Let’s head back for the keep, it’s a bit safer I think. Can you carry the uh, head?”

Geralt nods, and Jaskier leads him over. Geralt can navigate by the scent alone, but he doesn’t want to let go of Jaskier if he can help it, and uses one hand to lug the head along by the horns. Jaskier leads him up the path he must have taken to get down, and settles him in the shade underneath a small ledge. He only lets go of Jaskier’s hand once he knows they aren’t going to move again for a while.

“Okay, go ahead and meditate, I’ll keep watch and let you know if I see or hear something.” Jaskier goes to move a few steps away, but Geralt’s hand shoots out, gripping his wrist.

“Stay here.” Jaskier’s heart gives a little stutter, but he laughs softly and settles down next to Geralt. It’s nice, Geralt decides, and though he doesn’t actually feel it much, he figures he has a right to complain. Blizzard has an apt name, both for making everything seem to go in slow motion, and for shooting ice through his veins. “S’cold.”

“Fire?”

“Too noisy.” Jaskier hums for a second more before suddenly leaning against Geralt’s side. It’s near impossible to notice through the leather armor he wears, and must be wildly uncomfortable, but he can feel the heat seeping into him and his heart beats just a bit faster at their closeness. Jaskier being so close also drowns out any other scents around him, and slipping into his meditation is easier when he has one thing to focus on. It's also the closest that Jaskier has gotten to him in days, and he finds he misses the contact. He tries to shut out the noises around him, bouncing through his skull, but where Jaskier has settled them has created some kind of echo around him, and he grits his teeth. It might not be so easy after all.

Jaskier reaches for something, dragging it across the ground before the distinct sound of two metal clasps pops close by. A note is hummed, a string strummed, before Jaskier begins picking away in earnest. The song is new, one he's never heard before- or maybe he has? The melody picks at the edges of his brain, and he finds himself slipping into that trancelike state he was looking for.

When he comes to a couple of hours later, dusk has fallen behind his lids, and he cracks an eye open experimentally. His heart and brain have calmed, and he doesn't feel nearly as cold as he did before. The potions have mostly worn off, except for the Cat, which should be gone in another half hour or so. He hopes.

For now, he'll just have to be content with the watery color bleeding slowly across his vision. Jaskier has stopped playing, lute tucked away, and has his jacket back on to ward himself from the cold. Now he scribbles in his notebook, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he concentrates on whatever he's writing.

"A new one?" His voice is rusty, and he clears his throat while Jaskier jumps, sitting up and clutching his book, cheeks red.

"You should warn a man you know, I could have done something drastic."

"Like what?" Geralt's lips quirk in a small smile, and he's glad he can somewhat recognize the teal of Jaskier's doublet again. Jaskier doesn't seem as amused, and pins him with a withering glance. "New song?"

He tries it again, hoping that showing interest will soften Jaskier's apparent anger. Jaskier regards him with suspicion for a moment more before sighing, nodding while also shrugging.

"I have a lovely new ballad coming, yes, but I was… drawing." Geralt hums low in his throat, nudging his companion and dipping his head toward the journal still clutched to Jaskier's chest. A silent question of can I see it? Jaskier hesitates, holding on a bit tighter before he sighs, holding it out for Geralt to take. "Don't laugh. Poetry was more my strong suit."

Geralt says nothing as he pulls off his gauntlets- they're covered in dried blood, and he doesn't want to ruin the page. Upon taking the journal and seeing what Jaskier has drawn, he almost wishes he had. It's a sketch of him, he can tell by the line of his jaw and the straightness of his nose, but he hates what else he sees. His eyes have been filled in with black, a spiderweb of inky veins creeping over his face and down his neck. His hands shake as he stares at himself immortalized in a state he never wanted Jaskier to see. He was too hopped up on potions to care at the time, but looking now, he feels his heart constrict. How could Jaskier touch him, sit beside him while he looked like this?

"Do you like it?"

"No." Shit, that's not what he meant to say. He glances up, can smell and see the hurt on Jaskier's face, and his throat tightens, strangling his words.

"Give it then, so you don't have to see it." Jaskier takes the book back quickly, closing it with a snap and standing up. He grabs his lute case, slinging it across his back and pacing a few steps away. Ready to go back to town. Geralt struggles to his feet, his damn knee cracking painfully as he rises from his kneeling position. He has to take a second for it to settle before he can bear any weight.

"Jaskier-"

"Let's go, Geralt. I'm tired of being outside." He finds that hard to believe, seeing as they've only been out half the day, but Geralt doesn't know what to say and Jaskier doesn't want to hear it. Geralt follows him in stony silence, hoisting the fiends head away from the ground and wincing at the congealed blood that saturates the ground under it. It reeks. He's not sure how Jaskier could tolerate the smell, let alone sit by it for hours.

Geralt collects his reward from the grieving father and hands over the scrap of what he can now see is mostly yellow fabric. The man laments his son's fate, and Geralt can't do more than stand there and promise he was avenged. The man waves them off, wanting to be alone, and Jaskier heads off with a brisk comment about finding an inn for the night. Geralt goes to check on Roach and gather their things, wanting to give the bard time to cool off. He's brushing Roach down, sneaking her a couple sugar cubes when Jaskier comes to fetch him, leaning with his arms crossed against the doorframe. Geralt follows without complaint, refusing to let Jaskier carry his own pack despite the hand held out for it.

The room in the inn is sparsely decorated, and there's only one bed, but a steaming tub of water waits for him, and his heart gives a strange leap. Jaskier’s doublet is off, tossed carelessly on a chair with his boots sitting nearby, and Geralt has to force himself not to stare at the dip of Jaskier’s chemise. "Bathe."

The command is rough, but Geralt complies easily, stripping himself out of his armor and the soggy clothes beneath before sinking into the water. Heat prickles uncomfortably at his skin, but he lets out a small groan and sinks a bit deeper. Jaskier perches wordlessly behind him, tugging the tie from his hair and working any blood out with whatever soap he'd managed to get from the innkeeper. It smells a bit stronger than Geralt would like, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe now he can try again, while he's relatively safe.

"It was nice." Well, that's a start at least. Jaskier's hands pause in his hair, nails digging in a bit too hard, but Geralt groans and leans up into the touch. Jaskier scratches along his scalp, nails digging in, and Geralt relishes the sensation. His vision is almost back to full color, and he stares at Jaskier's doublet, discarded on the chair. "The drawing."

Jaskier scoffs. "You don't have to lie."

"M'not. Just don't like seeing it. The monster." Geralt adds on the end, not wanting to fuck things up twice. Just saying what he feels makes his skin crawl, but Jaskier gives a soft oh, continuing to scratch at Geralt's scalp.

"So you weren't insulting me then?" Geralt shakes his head, going still when Jaskier clicks his tongue. He begins scrubbing at the blood under his nails while Jaskier talks, needing something to pay attention to. "I thought you looked… Gorgeous, ethereal, effervescent- I could wax poetry about it endlessly.”

Geralt snorts, shaking his head, causing Jaskier to press his fingers in harder to keep him from moving. “Don’t. Don’t pretend.”

Jaskier scoffs this time, fingers tightening in Geralt’s hair and pulling until Geralt is straining to look back at him or risk his scalp. A hot wave of arousal washes over Geralt at the sensation, but all he does is grunt, looking back at the bard with a mixture of annoyance and hopefully- suppressed lust. Geralt notices, faintly, that his color is back completely as the two of them lock eyes, glaring at one another.

“I’m tired of you telling me what to do and how to feel, Witcher.”

“What am I telling you to feel?” Heat creeps along Geralt’s spine, and oh he’s playing a dangerous game. Maybe those potions aren’t as worn off as he might have thought.

Jaskier looks at him, brow furrowed, and Geralt feels Jaskier’s grip in his hair loosen. He misses the sensation for an instant before Jaskier leans forward, pressing his lips to Geralt’s in an awkward, upside down kiss. It’s almost painful- Jaskier’s chin and nose dig into him at an odd angle, but his hands come up and out of the water instinctively to grip Jaskier’s hair, keeping him from moving away. Jaskier takes that as a good sign it seems, because he nips at Geralt’s lower lip before pulling back. Geralt doesn’t want to hurt him, ever, and he lets Jaskier go, breathing hard and pupils contracting to mere slits. He tracks Jaskier’s every moment, listens to the way his heart is hammering, that same cloying lavender scent oozing through the room.

Geralt leans forward as Jaskier moves around the side of the tub, a pale hand smoothing over his shoulder. He wants to know what’s going on, wants to ask Jaskier what he thinks he’s doing, but nothing escapes him other than a low growl. Jaskier laughs softly, almost mockingly, and leans forward to kiss the corner of Geralt’s mouth. The witcher moves faster than might be necessary, but just barely catches Jaskier before he leans back again.

“Bard.” Geralt warns, voice vibrating with the steady growl that’s built up. Jaskier glances at him, eyes darting down to Geralt’s lips for an instant as a smug, self satisfied smile lights up his face.

“Witcher.”

“Say you want this.” Geralt’s mind moves slow, so slow that for a moment he fears he’s drunk off of the scent of Jaskier, so incredibly close yet just out of reach. He can’t think with Jaskier so close, grinning at him like he’s a cat who’s just gotten a delightfully fat mouse, and his fingers twitch on the edge of the tub.

“I’ve never wanted anything more.” That’s all that Geralt needs, and he reaches out, snagging Jaskier by the hips and bodily hoisting him forward. Jaskier laughs as he slips against the edge of the tub, a hand splaying against Geralt’s chest.

“You’ll ruin my clothes and the floor.” Geralt grunts, not caring, but Jaskier is undeterred. “Out.”

Oh, this is dangerous indeed. He groans, impatient, but Jaskier is already stepping away and tugging at the ties on his chemise. A moment of hesitation slices through the haze in Geralt’s mind, and he pauses in the water. Jaskier has seen him naked more times than he can count, but it’s different this time. This time, he’s allowed to look, and Geralt isn’t sure what to do with that thought. He’s waking up slowly from the raging of his heart, but Jaskier reaches out, fingers brushing under his chin and tipping his head up. He kisses Geralt slowly, luxuriating in the action and nipping gently at his lower lip. The small bit of pressure from Jaskier's teeth has Geralt gasping, and he stands up blindly, stumbling out of the tub as Jaskier continues kissing him.

That one point of contact, their lips sliding against each other, is the anchor that Geralt clings to. His hands come up, fingers shaking before finding purchase on Jaskier’s shirt and gripping it tight enough that he can hear the fibers straining not to rip. Jaskier hums against his lips, hands sliding over Geralt’s chest and pushing him back and away from the tub. Geralt walks blindly, and every time he breathes, opens his eyes, the world is skewed with vibrant contrasts of color. Geralt’s calves hit the edge of the bed, and he tips back, dragging Jaskier with him and wheezing out a laugh as the bard lands on top of him. It feels good to have Jaskier’s weight on top of him, and he hardly lets him get far. He can feel Jaskier’s cock pressing against his hip, and he groans, glad it isn’t just him affected. Jaskier kisses him harder for that, and Geralt whines against his lips.

“The potions.” Geralt hums, glancing up at Jaskier with half lidded eyes. His hair is a mess, lips red and cheeks redder, and the sight steals his breath. He props himself up on his arms, sighing when Jaskier settles astride his hips. “Are they still affecting you?”

“I don’t know.” He admits softly, humming when Jaskier leans to lay kisses along his jaw. He arches his neck, giving the man atop him more room to work and huffing when Jaskier drags his teeth lightly down his neck. “Why?”

“I don’t want to do anything if you aren’t in full control of yourself. Not unless we’d agreed upon it before, of course.”

“It’s not like being drugged.”

“No, but how do I know this is because of sober thought?” Jaskier grinds down suddenly, and the friction of cloth against his bare skin has him hissing, hips snapping up of their own accord. Geralt chokes on a breath before glaring at the very smug bard atop him.

“Don’t-” Jaskier laughs, kissing him in apology and lifting himself up a bit. Geralt is both grateful and infuriated, hands clenching into fists. He’s definitely more affected than he thought. “What did you mean, agreed upon?”

Jaskier looks at him, humming softly and shifting to sit back on Geralt’s thighs. It sends a shimmer of pain through his knee, but the sensation grounds him further, and he sits up fully. “Geralt, if I can be frank-”

“When aren’t you?” the bard pins him with a look and Geralt raises his hands, gesturing for him to continue.

“I find you in all your witchery, black eyed glory incredibly attractive. I’m surprised you haven’t smelled it on me by now.”

“I don’t like to pry.” He can’t help himself now though, leaning a bit closer and taking a deep breath. He smells sweat, the lavender oil Jaskier uses, and most powerful, the sickly sweet, almost spicy scent of Jaskier’s arousal. “Really?”

“Really.” Jaskier shifts off his lap now, padding over to their packs and digging out clothes for Geralt. “So, get dressed before I decide to ravage you fully.”

Geralt catches the clothes as they’re tossed at him, flexing his thighs and steadying his breathing to calm himself down. He dresses slowly, skin hypersensitive and every sense trained on where Jaskier tidies up across the room. Now that the other man isn’t kissing him senseless Geralt takes a moment to think, and to admire him in full color. Jaskier catches him looking, but merely smiles and nods toward the bed. Geralt crawls under the covers at the silent request, and lays back, watching as Jaskier strips down to his small clothes and blows out the candles, leaving just the hearth for faint light and warmth. He crawls into bed and into the waiting arms of his witcher, pressing their legs together and grinning when Geralt loops an arm over his hips.

“Have I told you why I hate fiends?” Jaskier shakes his head before tucking under Geralt’s chin, cheek pressed to Geralt’s collarbone to feel the vibrations.

“Does it have to do with caves?” Geralt grunts, squeezing a bit tighter and reveling in the pleasant squeeze Jaskier gives back.

“Yes.”

#geraskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #minor sluttiness #high toxicity geralt

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jaskicr · 4 years

Text

reverse au BUT canon universe geralt and jaskier are sent to an alternate universe where their roles are reversed but they remember their canon lives

ft. bamf jaskier and blushy geralt

canon universe geralt and jaskier touch a weird artefact and they’re sent to an alternate universe where jaskier is a witcher and geralt is human

(this is established relationship)

so they grow up without memories of their past (???) selves but they get vague impressions/dreams that tell them something’s not right

they regain their full memories they’re 15/16 ish

jaskier is born first. he’s sent to kaer morhen and goes through the training and the trials to become a witcher (he gets extra mutations bc i said so, im a sucker for witcher!jaskier with white hair and cat eyes ok)

he remembers his life as a bard when he’s 16, not long before he sets out on the path

and he realises that geralt isn’t with him in kaer morhen - he’s in the cohort geralt would have been, he’s friends with eskel and all that, but geralt isn’t here

and jaskier thinks that whatever happened, geralt must be dead

it hurts, as he walks around kaer morhen, knowing that geralt should be there, knowing that, in another life, geralt had walked within the same walls

but jaskier still holds out hope, returning to kaer morhen every winter and hoping that someone like geralt would show up

but geralt never does, and on his travels, jaskier asks mages and researches to find a way to reverse whatever was done, but he can’t

after maybe 2 decades, jaskier gives up and properly mourns the witcher he had known, who doesn’t exist here

once, he tries picking up the lute, but it hurts too much. it reminds him of what he’s lost, reminds him that geralt isn’t here

he puts down the lute and picks up his swords. he doesn’t touch the lute after that

something like blaviken still happens but maybe in a different way bc it’s jaskier

a few decades after jaskier is born, geralt is born into a noble family

from a young age, he’s unnervingly good at sword fighting and combat, and he enjoys it, but something draws him to music

at first geralt isn’t very good at it, but there’s an inexplicable urge within him that tells him to continue, a quiet yearning for melody and music that makes him want to be good at it

so he goes to oxenfurt, and that’s when he remembers being a witcher once, remembers the path, remembers jaskier

and he searched desperately for jaskier. he scours the campus, asking professors and students, searching the faculty and alumni

but no one has heard of jaskier

and geralt knows that there’s no way that jaskier wouldn’t have gone to oxenfurt - the only reason jaskier isn’t here, isn’t in whatever universe this is, is because he’s dead

geralt vows to live in jaskier’s memory, and he takes up the lute

he misses jaskier’s singing, misses his songs. so he learns the lute, learns to sing, so that there’s always a part of jaskier with him

when geralt graduates from oxenfurt, he sets out on the road

in a fit of nostalgia, he travels to posada, something bittersweet and wistful rising within him

unbeknownst to geralt, jaskier is heading to posada as well, tracking a contract

they unknowingly end up in the same tavern

at this point, jaskier has learnt to tune out bards. it hurts too much to remember what he’ll never have, so he doesn’t register the bard that’s playing right now

geralt is playing when he spots a dark figure in the corner, black armour and swords marking him out as a witcher

it’s all too familiar, and a tentative hope blooms in geralt’s heart

maybe -

he makes his way over, heart hammering, and says the words etched deep into his memory

‘i love the way you just.. sit in the corner and brood’

and geralt’s heart is in his throat, hoping and hoping and hoping for the right response

and jaskier hears a familiar voice saying words he had said, a lifetime ago

jaskier raises his head and sees a familiar face, a face he knows as well as his own despite the different hair and eyes and stature, and his heart stutters

it can’t be. but it is. and jaskier just knows.

geralt almost cries when unnaturally bright blue eyes with slitted pupils rise to meet his, set in a familiar face marked by a long scar and framed by silver hair

‘i’m here to drink alone’

it’s this familiar exchange, repeated but reversed, that lets them know that the other remembers, that they’re here

and for the first time since they woke up in this different world, they feel complete

they bask in the moment, drinking each other in, because they’ve found each other, and even if they’re different, even if everything is different, they’re together

geralt slides into the seat opposite jaskier, and it’s so, so familiar, but so different

‘i thought you were dead,’ geralt whispers

jaskier smiles, a small and sad thing, but he reaches over and grabs geralt’s hand. their callouses are reversed, now. jaskier’s hands are rough from the grips of his swords, and geralt’s fingers are padded from years of playing the lute

‘me too,’ jaskier confesses softly. then his smile turns slightly more playful. ‘i didn’t think you’d have red hair and green eyes. you look good.’

then geralt ducks his head and blushes under his freckles (yes he has freckles it’s hella adorable ok) and jaskier is fascinated bc he’s never seen geralt blush

(and he!! has freckles!!!)

‘this suits you,’ geralt mumbles, still blushing. he peeks out from under his lashes and jaskier sort of melts. ‘the hair and the eyes, i mean.’

and, well. jaskier had been insecure about his mutations that mark him as something other, something inhuman, but hearing geralt’s acceptance of him...

jaskier squeezes geralt’s hand, still in awe that he’s here, he’s real. they’re here, together. ‘i missed you.’

geralt beams, and jaskier‘s heart warms at how easily geralt seems to smile now. ‘i missed you too.’

the elves happen pretty much the same way apart from the fact that geralt and jaskier expecting it

and when geralt follows jaskier, neither of them object to it

they try to find out what happened to them, but all they’ve figured out is that their lives have been reversed, and no one else seems to be affected

so they travel the continent together trying to find an explanation or a cure

they try to return to the place where they found the artefact, but they only find a patch of dirt

jaskier brings geralt to kaer morhen

they ask vesemir about their situation (and geralt aches at the fact that his old mentor doesn’t know him), but he has no idea

eskel and lambert look at geralt with no recognition, and it hurts

but they take to geralt easily, and in no time, it’s almost like they’re back in their own world

they find yen earlier than they do in canon. she’s hostile at first, not knowing why they’re seeking her out, but when she hears their story she’s intrigued and promises to try and find a cure

in the meantime they try to settle into the new lives and new dynamic

they both have two lifetimes in their heads, two whole lives that are theirs, that they’ve lived

of course, they’re not the same people, shaped by new experiences as well as old

geralt is more open, more affectionate, more vocal with his thoughts and feelings. he smiles more, and he’s less gruff with others, though he still isn’t completely comfortable in social interactions

jaskier is a bit quieter, a result of his witcher upbringing. he’s still mostly open about his emotions, and being around geralt makes him smile and chatter liked he used to, but there’s a hypervigilance in him borne out of his witcher training, something lethal and deadly

they learn about each other again, finding new things to love and explore

now, geralt is the one who plays in taverns, and jaskier is the one who takes contracts

geralt still retains the skills and memories of his training as a witcher. though he lacks the enhanced strength, he can still fight, and jaskier gets some lightweight swords for him

geralt helps out on contracts sometimes, when he’s confident that he won’t get hurt. jaskier is reluctant at first, but concedes that geralt should be able to hold his own against weaker monsters

that’s when geralt realises that witcher!jaskier is a huge bamf and also very buff (buff jaskier rights!!!) and geralt really shouldn’t like it as much as he does

jaskier also looks unfairly good in armour with his swords in his hands

and now he understands why jaskier used to be obsessed about his black eyes after taking a potion, because HNNNG

with geralt by his side, jaskier doesn’t mind playing the lute again. it doesn’t hurt like it used to, with geralt by his side once more

geralt lends jaskier his lute and jaskier plucks out tentative notes on the strings, before he launches into one of his songs

jaskier’s voice is rough and untrained, lacking the oxenfurt training he used to have as a bard, but it’s pleasant and sweet, and geralt joins in, their voices twining together in a lovely duet

jaskier doesn’t join geralt when he sings in taverns, fearful of how humans would react, but on the road, they sometimes sing together, and it’s unexpectedly nice

(maybe jaskier gets a glamour at some point, and the continent discovers that the famed bard geralt occasionally gains a partner)

as a witcher, geralt had been unable to lash out at the people who’d insulted him and attacked him

but now, he’s human, and watching jaskier’s shoulders slump as humans spit vitriol at him, well, geralt gets to be feral now

he’s far more dangerous than jaskier had been as a bard. sure, bard jaskier was feral, but he lacked the skills that geralt remembers from his time as a witcher

the humans don’t stand a chance against geralt, and jaskier is the one hauling geralt out of fights now, and many taverns witness a white-haired witcher dragging his redheaded bard out as he yanks him into a fierce kiss

they’re both very soft and very gone on one another. geralt is far more tactile now and jaskier does not mind. they cuddle a lot and jaskier is the big spoon

they’re both openly affectionate, there’s a lot of soft hand holding and hair braiding and casual touches and like. they’re just soft, ok?

jaskier makes it his mission to make geralt blush as much as possible, because it’s adorable

(he also discovers how far down that blush goes, and geralt gets to witness jaskier’s witcher strength and stamina)

they make it work. jaskier gets insecure sometimes, knowing that his features are unnatural and scarred and nothing like what he’d looked like as a bard

but geralt reassures him, telling him that he’s beautiful no matter what

sometimes, geralt hates his own human frailty, how weak he is without his enhanced strength and how easily he gets hurt

but jaskier shows him everything he loves about geralt’s human body, telling him how happy he is that geralt gets to live a life without the suffering of a witcher

and the longer they’re together and the more they get to know each other all over again, they become less sure whether they want a cure or not

geralt likes being a human bard. humans don’t hate him anymore, and he likes being a bard more than he thought he would

but he knows that jaskier is, by nature, someone who loves people. and watching jaskier be rejected by prejudiced humans makes geralt’s heart hurt, because jaskier loves people so fucking much, and now he’s hated by them

but jaskier doesn’t mind being a witcher either. he can help people now, even if they’re ungrateful. there’s a deep satisfaction as he slays monsters terrorising innocents, and like this, he also gets to protect geralt

(not that geralt needs protecting, but still, it’s nice. and geralt has realised that he quite likes jaskier swooping in to save him aka picking him up in his arms)

and jaskier sees how free and easy and open this geralt is, unburdened by decades of hatred and conflict, and he wants this for geralt, wants geralt to know the happiness of a human life without being hated by the very people he helps

both of them like the lives they lead now, and they don’t know if they want to go back. but their old life is the original world, and they still wonder if they should go back

idk how it ends - either they somehow find a cure and return to canon universe with a whole load of new experiences, or they never find a cure and they learn to live in this new world

or maybe they do find a cure and decide that they’ll stay in this world because they’ve learnt to accept and love each other even with the changes, and it’s their world now

there’s a fic for this now!

#geraskier #jaskier #geralt #geralt of rivia #witcher!jaskier #witcher jaskier #bard!geralt #the witcher #mine*

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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PFFFF The newest Witcher trailes LITERALLY throws shade! They have the 'Geralt, but you've been such lone wofl so long, what change' and deadass show JASKIER before later shoving Geralt saying 'Yennefer' like a cheap 'no homo!' excuse. I can't. xD Whoever edited it knows what's on. xD

I feel so conflicted about the Jaskier-Geralt relationship in the show because on the one hand, yeah, they're definitely leaning into this non-romance in a way that can get uncomfortable for some, how shall I put this... jaded viewers lol. We know they'll never be canon. No matter what else we might say about Netflix's inability to accurately adapt the books, Geralt/Yennefer has always and will always be endgame, so getting intimacy between Geralt and Jaskier in these particular ways (flirty jokes, bath scene, argument staged like a breakup), while not explicitly queerbaiting, can make viewers feel... icky about it all. Especially for any show-only fans who might not know that Geralt/Yennefer is endgame. Many viewers, particularly American viewers, approach shows as malleable forms of entertainment that can provide them with the representation they crave, provided the fanbase is vocal enough about wanting it. And the more talk that surfaces about major, crucial changes to the plot that reinterpret huge swaths of the books' purpose and intent, the more it can feel like they might just change Geralt's love life too! Even though they (obviously) won't. And frankly shouldn't given that this is supposed to be a faithful adaptation.

Yet on the flipside, the Netflix versions of Jaskier and Geralt don't feel intimate to me at all. Their hostile introduction, Geralt outright punching him, the continued performance of 'I'm a big strong manly man who can't admit that he cares about others,' reducing decades of their bonding to a surprising, throwaway line, that argument when Geralt blames Jaskier for all his problems... it's terrible and I've never liked this dynamic for them (even as I, somewhat hypocritically, play with it in fic). So I'm like, you're intimate enough that fans are starting to side-eye the creators' intentions and yet simultaneously not intimate in any of the ways you should be if you were actually faithful adaptations of the book. And these problems, I believe, go hand-in-hand. By ignoring the actual friendship of the books, Netflix has been forced to "prove" that they care for one another by falling back on tired buddy tropes that, historically, fans have used as evidence for a potential romantic relationship. By not writing Geralt and Jaskier as having the open, witty, philosophical, caring-but-also-taking-no-shit relationship they had in the books, Netflix has fallen back on a dynamic that isn't doing their show any favors. Fans either hate it, or love it to the point where they expect something of the show that the show can never deliver.

So it's a mess! And that mess hasn't done Yennefer any favors either. I'm really not in a position to be defending that pairing - I've never hid that I'm not a Geralt/Yen fan - but whatever the books did that made others love their relationship... I don't think Netflix is capitalizing on that either. In that other ask I brought up how in the games their relationship seems to revolve entirely around Ciri and sex. If they're not talking about their daughter (or if Yen isn't being cruel) their relationship is just about how horny they are for each other, which... isn't really a relationship to me. Or at least, not the deep, "We belong together forever, we're basically soulmates" relationship that the franchise is going for. Same with Netflix. I never liked the foundation of their relationship being an ambiguous wish that tethered them irrevocably and a quickie in the rubble as a replacement for actually getting to know one another... but Netflix takes those aspects and emphasizes them to a disappointing degree.

"You spent a lifetime alone. What changed?"

"Yennefer of Vengerberg."

Yet when it comes time for the trailer to show us what this deep, insightful relationship is that changed a man after an entire lifetime of wandering alone... it's just sex. That's literally all Netflix is able to show us because that's the only meaningful interactions Geralt and Yen have had together. Here's a clip of them falling into bed together and Geralt, without any of that emotional work shown to the viewer, professes that he loves Yennefer the way she's always wanted to be loved.

Here's a clip of the joke we got where Jaskier is gaping over them having sex on the floor post-Yen nearly killing the lot of them.

I'm like... what out of any of this is meant to be appealing to me? Besides the fact that they're both hot as hell? (The casting does make my little bi heart happy lol.) For me, Geralt and Yen are a classic case of a story insisting they're meant for each other because That's Just How Stories Work, without doing any of the actual, you know, work to show us why they like each other, or how they got there, or why these superficial things (the sex is great!) trump the huge hurdles they should be working through. The games might have their flaws, but god bless 'em for letting the characters point out, "Hey... how do we even know this love is real and not just a byproduct of the djinn's wish?"

Geralt and Jaskier, as established, absolutely have their problems in the show, but I can understand why so many fans ship them over Geralt/Yen. And no, though bigotry can play a part, we also can't demonize the entirety of its popularity with, "You just hate women/are racist/creepily obsessed with queer men/whatever the latest accusation is." Rather, the popularity exists because, whatever their faults, it feels like they actually have a relationship in the show. We see them developing together in a way we simply don't get with Yennefer/Geralt and because that development isn't largely reduced to sex scenes—the narrative trying to pass every bonding moment off as True Love, with True Love equaling physical attraction—it comes across (at least to me) as more realistic and believable, especially given Geralt's character, someone who is emotionally closed off. If Vesemir (I think it's Vesemir) asked what changed and we deliberately cut to that moment of Jaskier leaving after Geralt drove him away... I'd more easily believe that yeah, this relationship is causing Geralt to rethink things in a way he hasn't for an entire lifetime. We've seen them travel together, become (begrudging) comrades, defend one another, do favors for each other, tease each other, have a major fight that they'll inevitably make up from, Jaskier is presented as Geralt's first friend, and none of this is tied to a questionable wish, or passed off as the totality of Geralt's development.

The fact that Netflix would include those lines, cut to a legitimately heart-wrenching moment between Geralt and Jaskier, but when it comes times to show his relationship with Yennefer, the most powerful moments are her without him (smashing the mirror, undergoing her transformation, stepping out in her new body for the first time, etc.) and their moments together are just sex—one of which is used partially for comedy—well... that just illustrates the problem for me. What relationship? The one that supposedly exists simply because the story says it's there? I don't think I'll ever be a Geralt/Yen shipper, but I'm perfectly capable of separating my personal preferences from subpar writing choices. Netflix is far into the latter. The way that they're adapting the story is, imo, hurting both fans of the book material and fans who are on the fence about book material. Because so few of these changes are working well, we've lost all the good the books contained and are now stuck with so much new bad. Basically, "No one liked that."

Except, of course, for the Geralt/Jaskier shippers riding the coattails of those tropes... though many will likely be disappointed and hurt by the series' end when they're not made canonical, with others growing frustrated with how the fandom has turned on them simply for liking what they were given. It's really turning into a lose-lose for everyone involved.

#witcher #twn #twn critical

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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years

Text

Title: Kismet {8}

Henry Cavill x Famous OFC Aliya Taylor

Warning: Plot, Tiny Slow Burn, Mild Cursing, Dialogue Heavy, POV Changes, Small Time Jumps

Words: 6.6k

Summary: Aliya is a singer turned model turned actress. Since she was fifteen, she’s been creating her empire in the entertainment world. As the daughter of a famous fashion model/designer and Hollywood director, you’d think life is easy for her, but her past has been anything but easy. Due to past trauma, she’s forever changed and no longer trusts any man that is not in her family and a select few in her team. She’s sworn off love and serious relationships and has planned never to fall again, but love isn’t something that can be planned. It just happens when it’s meant to. Can Aliya outrun a love that seems hellbent on holding tight to her, a love that is Kismet?

If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG!! 😘

As always, thank you so much for reading. ❤️❤️

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

***Interactive***

Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

-Henry-

The minute he woke the next day and the alcohol had worn off; he instantly regretted his actions. His head was pounding and his nose stuffy, which was always what the morning after a drinking fest looked and felt like for him. the pain in his head made him painfully aware of everything he’d said to you. More than half of him wished he would have just held his peace and moved on, but the other side of him—the stubborn bull side felt nothing but satisfaction from what he’d done. It was time, especially seeing that you completely had the wrong idea about who he was and his character. He couldn’t help but wonder what you thought about your conversation, but instead of dwelling on it, he decided to push it to the side and do the logical thing. Move on.

It was now five days since that conversation, and though it felt strange the first couple of days to not send you a message when you ran across his mind, he did it and adapted. He now was throwing himself into work because there wasn’t a shortage of it. Most days, he was in pre-production for Witcher two, and that in itself was a lot of work. Production decided to kick fight choreography up a notch because last season wasn’t badass enough. The choreography this season was definitely taking it up several notches, and it meant more long hours of training and even more potential for him to be hurt.

By week two post convo, he was steadily counting down to his vacation time. Training was kicking his ass, and the more and more days that passed, the more he thought of you. That wasn’t all though, the more the way he thought of you changed. In the beginning, he thought he was infatuated or possibly obsessed. When he was around you, he always felt as if he wasn’t in control. He felt like there were forces that were controlling your interactions and pulling a starry blanket over his feelings. He expected this time away to act as a purge, but it hadn’t, not in the way he’d anticipated.

“Come on, her name is Becca, and she’s super cute,” Alisha said.

“Why is it that all my brother’s wives want to set me up?”

“Because we care. You’re too great of a guy to be alone,” Halley complimented.

They all nodded, and his eldest brother painfully squeezed his cheek.

“Plus, look at this face,” Nik teased, making all of them elate.

It had been like this since they were kids. Nothing had changed.

“I’m perfectly fine being alone,” he answered.

“Doesn’t mean you should be,” Amee piped out.

No matter what, he said it wouldn’t be good enough until he gave them what they wanted. He had no intention of doing it, though. He wasn’t sure if it was really his loathing of being set up or because he didn’t want to pretend to want anyone else. Whatever it was, it had him declining to their annoyance. He could stick it out for the next two weeks until he got out of London.

-Aliya-

“You fucked up, plain and simple,” Amaya blurted out as she flipped through a magazine.

You rolled your eyes and tried to continue writing notes to the song you’d just wrote. As sure as you were that it was pitch black outside, you knew she wasn’t done—not by a long shot. A minute passed in silence, but as projected, Amaya began again.

“Just explain to me why you don’t want to be happy.” Amaya tossed the magazine aside, giving you her full attention. Still, you ignored her and kept your eyes glued to the note pad.

“Liya, come on. At some point in your life, you’re going to have to be honest with yourself.”

She was right. For the last few weeks, you’d spent a lot of sleepless nights doing just that. Since Henry’s call, you’d been forced to look at your situation in a light you’d ignored. It wasn’t that you were doing it maliciously. It was just easier and neater to see the worst in every situation hence the worst in people. You’d been the girl who dug deep for the best in people and only focused on that and their potential for too long. It made more sense from a survivalist standpoint to be different.

You’d went back and forth and round and round your situation, and perhaps you were too quick to jump to conclusions. The bottom line was the things he said had affected you, more than you liked and more than you could ignore. A few days after his call, you saw his picture in The Sun. He wasn’t alone. It looked like he’d had a long night of partying. You deduced it was probably the same night he called you. Though he was obviously drunk, he still looked so damn good. In the last few weeks, you’d thought about him a lot. On several occasions, you’d taken up your phone for the sole purpose to stalk his Instagram or even scroll through your gallery to gawk at his pictures. Never though, did you attempt to call.

The main reason was that you hated being the one in the wrong. You hated feeling like the asshole and what was worse was that you also hated apologizing. So, you bit your tongue, pushed your thoughts and emotions aside, and just hoped time would make it all fade. It didn’t.

“Aliya!”

Closing your notepad, you stood. “We’re going to miss the flight.”

“Whatever! It’s a private jet. It’s your private jet.”

You were already out of the room, which meant thankfully, you didn’t have to see her face. The drive to the private airfield was about forty-five minutes. For the entire ride, you could feel Amaya’s annoyance with you. she didn’t say one word. Instead, she kept her nose buried in her phone scrolling her life away. It was okay with you; you had plenty of work to do. Plus, you knew this wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

Sure enough, twenty minutes into the flight to London, she was back at it. The difference between Amaya and Alicia was simple. Where Alicia liked to leave me be until she knew the perfect time to go in because she knew the perfect time would come when you would be more receptive to it, Amaya preferred to go in all the time. She was always on one hundred. You loved both your best friends dearly, and they both spoke to different sides of you, but sometimes you wished they were wrong a lot more often than they were right.

When you got pulled into a phone meeting, you were grateful and even more so when it lasted for almost two hours. By the time you ended the call, Amaya was napping. Though you thought the silence was what you wanted, it was a blessing in disguise. It meant you now had peace and quiet to think, and your thoughts more often than not went right to Henry.

When you landed in London and checked into the hotel, it was after midnight. Once you’d taken a shower and answered a few emails, you popped two sleep aids in hopes they would knock you out because you needed all your energy tomorrow.

-The Next Day-

Hectic was an understatement for how your morning and afternoon had been going. One of the great things about being you was that when you got bored with one career avenue, you had three more to distract yourself with. For the last several months, you’d been focusing on your acting career and had been able to complete two films and three guest appearances. In between acting gigs you were also able to do a few modeling events, including Fall and Spring fashion week.

What had fallen to the wayside was your singing career. It was almost time for you to fulfill your contractual obligations by releasing another album. You’d been focusing on writing new material for the last few weeks, and tonight you were putting on one of the last stops on a mini-tour your team had planned months ago. The travel alone was killing you. You were exhausted, even more than usual. With every show, you felt your body telling you it would soon be time to slow down or stop for a few months. You needed a break.

“I should have flown in days ago. I hate feeling like this isn’t perfect.”

“Aliya, it’s fine,” Alicia countered.

The perfectionist in you didn’t believe her.

“I promise. I wouldn’t lie to you. You have to go anyway. The show is supposed to start at six; it’s already three.”

She was right. Though you hated it, you would have to cross your fingers and hope things looked cohesive. After finishing up the last-minute wardrobe adjustments and a quick pep talk with your dancers, you made your way back to the hotel to get in a little bit of pampering before having to get back to the center for prep.

As you laid on the table and enjoyed your deep tissue massage, you allowed the worries to float away. There was nothing you could do about it now anyway. You were also sure it was perfectly fine, and just your obsessive nature taking over. Tuning everything out, you focused on your meditative breathing. Before you knew it, it was time to get back to the center to get into wardrobe and put on a show worthy of the hundreds that were spent on tickets. You were determined to perform your ass off.

-Henry-

He couldn’t have gotten out of tonight no matter what. He’d tried. When Charlie announced to everyone that Heather had made plans for their adults' date night, he rolled his eyes. Now that he thought of it, it was around the time that Amee tried to set him up with that woman. This was supposed to be a blind date, and since he’d declined, he was here alone while all his other brothers were snuggling up and whispering to their significant others.

Here he was an hour and ten minutes into your show, and he’d never had more fluctuating thoughts and feelings. At first, it was surprise; then annoyance, then it transitioned into awe until it moved to arousal and admiration. Now he was stewing deep in all of them, and it was not a good look. Your voice was incredible. He’d always known how talented you were. Your stamina to dance and sing blew his mind. Then when he watched those dance moves closer, it was impossible to keep his thoughts pure. It also didn’t help that the outfits you were wearing only fueled his imagination more.

“What’s wrong with you? You said you liked Aliya Taylor,” Amee shouted over the music.

Plastering a smile on his face, he nodded. “Yeah, she’s great. I’m tired.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

When you came out for the final song in a flowing low cut white gown and barefoot, he staggered backward when he envisioned you walking down a flower aisle.

“Fucking hell!”

All eyes snapped to him, and the curious looks on their faces only had him needing air even more.

“I—I’m gonna get a head start to the cars.”

Not waiting for a response, he turned and walked through the crowd, not daring to look back at you.

-Aliya-

Amaya and Alicia laughed together at something on Amaya’s timeline. No doubt it was some picture of one of her boy toys. You sipped from your flower decorated porcelain teacup while staring out over London to the Eye. Just behind it, Big Ben stood tall and proud as it chimes for four o’clock echoed through the city. This was a city you’d spent a lot of time in thanks to your grandparents on your father’s side. Not as much time as they’d like, but there was only so much free time you had. Big Ben and the Eye were two of your favorite things about London.

You should have been on cloud nine after another successful show and checking another thing off your extensive to-do list, but you weren’t. You felt almost as gloomy as the rolling clouds in the sky that threatened rain.

“You seem depressed.”

Alicia’s voice had you turning back to them you softly smiled. “I’m not.”

“You look it,” Amaya slid home.

Rolling your eyes, you finished your cup of tea and gently placed it on its matching saucer with a shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you then.”

Amaya then gasped with a smile in her eyes. “I know what it is. You’re finally missing your grade A prime beef of a man.”

Snorting, you shook your head. “Oh god. Try again.”

“You might be right, Mya,” Leece started placed her elbows on the table to peer at you closer. “This all started the night we had dinner with him. What’s his name again?” Both of them pretended to wrack their brains to remember his name, but they knew damn well what it was.

“Ah, Henry,” Amaya cooed, making you roll your eyes even harder.

“Both of you stop. You’re not funny.”

“We approve.”

“I second that,” Alicia added.

“What? Really?”

“Are you kidding? Yeah. Not only is he gorgeous, like drop dead gorgeous, but he is also super nice. Throughout dinner he was very courteous and sincere. You know I’m a good people reader,” Amaya attested.

“He’s funny, and he seemed to be genuine with his efforts to get to know Mya and me. He also was putting in effort into proving something to you.”

Sighing, you took a few sips of your water.

“Honestly, I couldn’t find anything wrong with him.”

“Really? Perfection?”

You couldn’t believe your ears. Yes, you’d suspected they liked him, but the perfect word was just uttered. It was never spoken of, not by them.

“Pretty much,” Amaya doubled down.

“Wow.”

“Tell me about it. Move on that before some other chick does. He will not be single for long,” Amaya added.

For some reason, this was the first time you’d thought about that, and you couldn’t believe it. She was right. He was gorgeous, among other things, and women already fawned over him. He wouldn’t be licking his wounds much longer. A knot formed in your gut, and a sour taste in your mouth followed. Glancing away from their penetrative gazes, you looked around the restaurant and nearly dropped the water glass when you saw Henry across the restaurant laughing. This was the first time you’d seen him in person since your breakfast in New York weeks and weeks ago, and he looked great.

Your eyes drank him up, taking their time soaking up every detail of his face, the slight stubble that decorated his chiseled jaw, his perfectly imperfect smile, his hair that fell slightly longer than you remembered. When he spoke again, you watched his mouth move and quickly got lost. You didn’t have to hear his words. You knew how he spoke them. You knew the effect his voice had. At the thought of that effect, you peeled your eyes away and tried to keep them on either Alicia, Amaya, or the table. Of course, it was impossible. Your eyes continuously found him, and it was on him they remained until you forced yourself to look away.

“What do you keep looking at?”

Amaya glanced around the restaurant. You knew she’d found him because when she turned to face you again, her smile was as wide as a thief's.

“Oh ho ho, looks like fate is on mine and Leece’s side.”

“Stop. Be cool, act natural. Don’t make a scene,” you pleaded.

“Look at that, same place, same time, just mere feet away.”

From the tone of her voice, you knew she was tempted to fuck with you.

“Stop, Amaya. Don’t.”

“Why?”

Trying to keep your voice down and the panic from your face, you pleaded again. “Just don’t.”

Amaya studied you for a few moments before she nodded in defeat. Relief flooded you. Though you tried, you couldn’t get your head back onto lunch and off of him no matter how you tried. The three of you left shortly after passing his table on the way out.

Thanks to a little free time, you, Amaya, and Alicia were able to soak up some shopping in London and before getting back to the hotel for a quick change, then dinner. Even though you tried to stop thinking about Henry’s face earlier, you weren’t the least bit successful, but you played it off like everything was cool. You didn’t know if you fooled either of them, but you really didn’t care. You were so ready to get the hell out of London.

-That Night-

Big Ben’s chime for one in the morning ringing out all around you. It was yet another night of sleeplessness. From your seat at the window, you could feel the nice breeze. It still smelled like rain, but for whatever reason, the rain was staying away. Finishing your glass of wine, you sighed out and nearly leaped out your skin when your phone rang in the quiet room.

“Hello?”

“What’s wrong?”

You smiled from the unexpected sound of your gramaw’s voice. It was like the concrete gate you had around your heart that was constricting it to the point where it was challenging to breathe loosened.

Sighing, you leaned back, reclining against the surface.

“I think I fell in love,” you whispered.

“In love?”

Hearing the words said back to you made you close your eyes and shake your head.

“Yeah, at least I think that’s what I’m feeling. I can’t sleep well, not that I could before. I feel a little depressed, and I can’t pinpoint why, but when I think about it, I feel this way when I think about him. Not to mention, I think about him all the time. Christ, I even dream about him.”

Pausing, you glanced at your phone to find his picture there. It was the last thing you’d been looking at before tossing your phone away.

“I truly feel like I did something wrong, like I was wrong,” you confessed.

“Have you talked to him?”

Hitting your head back, you groaned. “Not since he called me and told me I’m missing out on him and gave me all the reasons why I should realizing I’m missing out.”

You couldn't help but smile at his words as you remembered them.

“Do you feel like you’re missing out?”

Your Gramaw always knew the right questions to ask. She was one of the few that did, one of the few that you’d even listen to. Bowing your head, you sighed again.

“Maybe. Normally I’m sure about someone and sure that I don’t need or want them in my life, but with him—I have doubts with my snap judgment.”

“Oh no, snap judgments are never a good thing, Aliya.”

You groaned hearing the disappointment in her voice. “I know, jeez do I know.”

“What do you feel like doing?”

You scoffed, if you knew that you wouldn’t be going through this struggle.

“I’ll be to you in a few days. I’ll see you soon.”

“Your heart, Aliya, not your head,” she cautioned before you ended the call.

For the next thirty or so minutes, you paced the balcony of your room as you debated with yourself over what you were going to do. After psyching yourself up as much as you could, you bit the bullet dialing Henry’s number before you talked yourself out of it. After one ring, you almost hung up but forced yourself to stick through the terror running through you. Two rings passed, then three. At the fourth you began to lower your hand to end the call and then his voice echoed through the speaker.

“Hello?”

You froze drawing a blank and forgetting for a moment you had a voice.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” you whispered.

The rustling on his end was loud but brief.

“Aliya?”

Swallowing the lump, you took a deep breath. “Yeah. Hi.”

“It’s after one in the morning. Is everything all right? Are you hurt?”

Your heart lurched, and a soft smile spread across your lips. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m not hurt,” you assured.

He sighed, then yawned.

“I uh—I know it’s late or early. I know you, um, probably have something better to do than be up. I’m sorry if I woke you,” you half rushed and stuttered out.

“You’re rambling, Aliya.” You stopped your pacing then and slapped your forehead.

“Yes, I am. I do that when I’m nervous,” you blurted.

“Why are you nervous?”

Pausing, you gripped the rail on the balcony and used it to center yourself and get your nerves under control.

“Well, I’m about to ask the man I told I wouldn’t be with to meet me somewhere at nearly two in the morning. I’m—sending major mixed signals.”

Henry didn’t speak right away. Instead, he waited, making you chew your bottom lip as your anxiety increased.

“Why?”

“Wh—why? Why what?”

“Why should I?”

Stunned, your jaw dropped. “Oh, wow, out with the hard questions. Okay. Um—well—you should meet me because uh—it’s not often that I realize I was wrong or did something wrong and when I realize that, I like to say so.”

Again the silence over the phone stretched for long moments. After a full minute of it, your anxiety peaked.

“Still there?”

Henry sighed. “I’m here. I’m thinking.”

His voice sounded so deliciously deep. Either you had woken him, and this was his sleepy voice, or he was purposely giving you that sexy baritone.

“By all means. Think as long as you need to. Um—I’ll be at the eye until 2:30. I um—I hope you show. If you don’t, I understand, really I do and no hard feelings.”

Quickly you ended the call and panted as if you’d been running a marathon all in an effort to calm yourself down. It had been years since you’d put yourself through something like that, and you had a feeling it was only the beginning of you making amends.

Being Aliya Taylor afforded you some perks, and one was being able to have access to the eye well after closing. All it took was one call, well two to be exact, and voila, you were sitting in one of the cars anxiously waiting for Henry. You had no idea if he’d show, and the more and more time that passed with him not magically appearing, the more and more your brain worked overtime. The scenery helped a lot, but when you glanced at your watch and saw that it was almost 2:30, the scenery could do no more. Your nerves and anxiety had erupted like a volcano.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

Spinning, you saw Henry at the door still on the platform. You released a relieved sigh, realizing he hadn’t stood you up.

“Good thing I’m not—anymore.”

Henry stepped into the car and took a few steps to you but stopped when he was still a ways away.

“London after two is not safe,” Henry informed.

“I know.”

The doors closed, and the contraption began moving.

“How in the world did you get them to open this for you?”

Smiling, you shrugged. “I may know people in high places,” you replied, which made him smile.

“This is one of my favorite places in London,” you announced as you walked around the car, taking care not to get too close. You didn’t know if you could handle it right away, and you had to feel him out to see what his coming really meant.

“Why?”

“You can see all of greater London from here and out to the countryside if you really look once you’re up high.”

Henry also walked around the car, mirroring your intentions. Neither of you came close enough to touch one another.

“How often do you come to London?”

“A lot. I have some family here, plus I prefer the countryside.”

“So you have some British blood,” Henry inquired, half a question, half a statement.

“I had to. Only the Bris would dare think to send their daughters off to finishing school,” you quipped.

Henry’s laugh filled the car, making you smile widely. He walked to one of the many windows turning his back to you. Slowly you looked over his broad back, taking in every detail. Your fingers could still remember what the dance of his muscles felt like underneath them, and they itched to feel them dance again. Taking a deep breath, you fiddled your fingers.

“Uh--I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important by asking you here. Like I hope I didn’t impose on—anyone.”

You were fishing, it was obvious, and you felt no shame.

“Eh, who needs sleep anyway. I can sleep when I’m dead,” Henry replied with a shrug of those magnificent shoulders still keeping his back to you.

“Were um--were you uh—sleeping—alone?”

Your heart was pounding so loudly you could swear he could hear it. He didn’t speak or turn around. He just stood there torturing you. You wondered if he knew it was sheer torture what he was doing. Did he even care? The longer he remained quiet, the more you freaked out until you decided to backtrack all the way back.

“I’m sorry. Don’t answer that. It is absolutely none of my business. I don’t even know why I asked that,” you rushed out, rubbing your forehead from embarrassment before beginning to pace the car.

That was when Henry chose to turn around.

“I know a woman doesn’t say something she doesn’t mean, and usually when a woman asks a question, she wants to know the answer either to prove herself right or in hopes she’s wrong. What is it for you?”

His voice made you stop in the midst of pacing to watch his mouth as he spoke. There was something poetic about how he spoke, and it always distracted you. Nibbling your bottom lip, you thought about how to respond. You were already tired of the verbal Olympics and talking around each other.

Sighing, you rolled your eyes. “Henry--.”

“You know that’s the first time you’ve said my name without the word goodbye in front of it.”

That made you snap your mouth shut. Had it?

“That’s not true,” you protested.

“It actually is. I was beginning to think you like saying goodbye rather than hello.”

You took a step to him. “That’s not true. I like saying hello way more than goodbye,” you defended.

The neutral look on his face gave you no confidence to go on, so you rolled your eyes and continued to walk around the car. This would be harder than you expected, you thought.

“I was sleeping alone. I’ve slept alone for quite some time now,” he informed just as you were looking out of the window to the city.

“Look, Henry, I-,” you began again, but then henry cut you off.

“That day in New York those weeks ago, I should have plain and simply laid it out for you. I should have told you everything. I was with Francesca--.”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t. I honestly don’t want to know.”

“But you need to know. There is no way you can begin to trust me or begin to let yourself gravitate to me the way you’re entire being wants until you know,” Henry slid out. Pressing your palm to your abdomen, you tried to slow the butterflies that began flitting.

“I was with Francesca for about two years. The whole time I knew she wanted a family in life. She was always vocal about her wanting to get married young and have kids. I knew, but I never paid attention to it. I was away filming something for a while, and when I came home one weekend, I caught her with someone else.”

Your eyes widened, hearing his words.

“turns out she was beginning a relationship with someone else, someone who she thought would lead to marriage and kids,” Henry added. His voice held steady, but you could imagine the pain going through those memories again.

“I’m sorry.”

Henry shook his head, “It’s not necessary. After a few months of her trying to make amends, I thought we’d try again.” He scoffed then rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m a hopeless romantic. After months of trying, I knew it wouldn’t work, but I kept a relationship of sorts with her.”

You understood. They were bed buddies.

“I then met Abby, and what started as a fling developed into something more. Long story short, I got wind of a rumor she was using me for fame and money, so I distanced myself from her. after some time of her telling I had it all wrong, I decided it was easier keeping her around though my heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t juggling them. I hadn’t slept with either of them in a long time. I just—I felt it was better to have someone who misses me and wants me than living the lonely actor life.”

His honesty had you frozen. When he began to explain, you hadn’t expected him to reveal so much. You expected a bare minimum explanation, but what you’d gotten revealed so much more about him. You felt bad.

“I guess allowing the attentions and affections to remain is just as bad as juggling them. I was playing with their hearts. I’m not proud of it.”

Henry dipped his head, showing he felt some shame for his actions.

“When I met you, I realized although I had these two women sort of vying for me, I was still lonely, but those moments we were together, I didn’t feel alone. I felt--,” he paused as if trying to find the right word. His hesitation made you look down.

You knew what you’d felt.

“When I met you, I felt someone I’d never felt before, something I don’t fully understand. I don’t know what that means, but I know I want to find out—with you.”

Finally, able to release the breath you held, you took another, then cleared your throat. “I’m not juggling two guys. I was dating two guys, but not sleeping with both. I was with Liam first, and we had an okay relationship. We were busy, never saw each other and when we did it wasn’t for long. He um—he got annoyed and broke up with me. He said I was impacting his work, and he needed to focus.”

You remembered how he’d said it too. He’d said it like you were the one to blame for the roles he’d gotten or hadn’t gotten.

“I was fine with it, and during those five months apart, I met Jesse. We worked together and had fun and began dating. It wasn't anything sexual. Then Liam comes back and wants to pick up where we left off. I told him about Jesse, and he was fine with it.”

The shock on Henry’s face almost made you laugh. Alicia and Amaya were also surprised they’d chosen that unconventional path. Amaya, of course, thought you should have kept it secret from both of them.

“One day, Jesse sees Liam and me out, and it pissed him off enough to end things. Three weeks later, I lay it out for both that I don’t want to choose, and I don’t want anything serious. They were both fine with it, and so it went on. Six months later, I decided I needed to be on my own to focus on work and me. They didn’t like the decision. They call and text me to try to—rekindle something.”

Henry scoffed, and you watched a soft smile tickle his lips.

“I haven’t physically seen either of them in weeks, now maybe months,” you finished.

Henry was quiet for a few seconds before he snorted.

“They were mad.”

“Angry?”

“No, mad, bonkers,” Henry clarified.

“Oh, crazy.”

“Yeah. To be okay to share you, be willing to do something like that. I couldn’t do that,” Henry informed, making you smile in the process.

“Well, men do crazy things.”

“I can attest to that, but I’d never do something that crazy. I can’t share what’s mine. I won’t.”

Your eyes locked, and your body swayed toward his. It was like he was metal and you a magnet. Everything in you wanted to be close to him. The more you tried to fight the pull, the harder it became to breathe. The harder it was to breathe, the dizzier you became.

“I—I—I—I,” you began before gulping the knot in your throat down that was making you speak in a raspy whisper. “I don’t—know what this is.”

Henry nodded.

“I am not used to not knowing and being out of control,” you continued.

“You feel less controlled too?”

You couldn't help but to nod. Once you did, Henry took a step to you. You took a step back.

“Hold on. I like control. I like control a lot. Anything that threatens that control is not for me.”

Henry’s eyes lowered but only for a moment before he was looking right back into yours.

“But—I really want to find out why you make me less controlled,” you finally admitted.

The uncertainty on his face spoke volumes. “What does that mean? Where does that leave this—us?”

You chewed your bottom lip; you realized how ill-prepared you’d been.

“Honestly, I didn’t think this meeting out that far. I only planned up to when you showed up. I’ve um—I’ve been winging it this whole time.”

His smile started small but spread wide in seconds; then, he laughed loudly.

“So you won’t mind me making a plan?”

Oh lord, you thought, feeling his alpha pop out. You bit your bottom lip again.

“What kind of plan?”

Henry closed the remaining space between you. Every step he took had you shaking even more.

“A plan that I’ve envisioned every night since brunch.”

Stopped in front of you and held you captivated by his gaze and the sheer dominating energy rolling off of him. The way he stood there taller than you made your mouth run dry.

“Jesus, you’re freakishly short,” Henry teased in his perfect Englishman voice.

Smiling, you shook your head. “I know, I debated wearing heels but didn’t—I wanted you to see me normal for someone reason I don’t under--.”

Henry’s sudden movement cut you off. He dipped down the entire foot he overshadowed you and lifted you into the air to hold you flush against his body. Then he lowered his lips to yours, taking and keeping control of an intensely passionate kiss. A kiss you hadn’t known you craved until it began, a kiss you were not prepared for. You moaned against his lips, and that moan triggered his. Wrapping your arm around his neck, you clung to him, and every sensation you were feeling and even new ones he was awakening within you.

Slowly, Henry pulled his lips from your, but he kept your body to his. You kept your eyes closed, relishing the lingering effects.

“You’re shaking,” Henry whispered.

“So are you.”

You opened your eyes and gazed into his as he slowly lowered you back to your feet.

“What else is part of your plan?”

Henry's smile spread across his face. “For me to carry out any other part of my plan would be completely rakish of me.”

His smile was adorable, but still intimidatingly sexy.

“I take it you’re not a rake.”

“Not in the least.”

“All right. So, alternate plan?”

He smiled again. “Still pretty rakish.”

With that, he brought his lips back to yours, but this time he didn’t pull back for several long minutes.

Though you knew people in high places, it didn’t mean you could keep the eye open all morning. After three trips around, the two of you got off then walked around London holding hands and eating ice cream. It was such a weird sensation allowing someone to hold your hand. It had been a long time since you’d ever wanted to. The entire time you laughed and talked about everything and nothing at the same time. One thing was clear; neither of you was in any rush for your time together to end.

But end, it had to. When Henry walked you back to your hotel, it was almost time for the sun to come up.

“Home safe and sound,” Henry joked.

“Yes, thanks to Superman.”

“No, no, I’m just the man. Henry Cavill.”

He held his hand out to you. Smiling, you rolled your eyes.

“Now is when we get to this?”

His goofy smile and shrug had your head skip a beat.

“Aliya Taylor,” you said, shaking his hand.

“Nice to meet you. Mind if I call you Aliya or Liya, that's all a mouthful,” Henry teased.

Your laugh was loud, and you had to clamp your hand over your mouth, remembering what time it was.

“Yes, you can call me either. Can I call you Henners or Hank?”

“No. My friends call me that.”

“So, I’m not your friend?”

“If I have anything to say about it, which I do, then no. I don’t want you as a friend.” Henry replied, making you smile like a little girl at Christmas.

“Then what do you want me as?”

Your eyes lingered for a few seconds before Henry was pulling you closer to brush the back of his hand against your cheek.

“For now, I’ll settle for my girlfriend.”

The man was an expert at charm. You bit into your bottom lip and tried to stop smiling. “Girlfriend, wow. That’s a loaded title. What does it entail?”

“Well, for one, it entails being your true self with me, accepting my true self, being there for me when I need you, letting me be there for you when you need me or when I need you, allowing me to be your strength when you’re weak, your hope when you’re hopeless. Allowing me to grow with you, learn with you. Giving me your time and attention, enough of it so what we have can grow. Trusting me and letting me spoil you rotten.”

If he weren’t holding you against him, you would have fallen back.

“Is that all?”

Henry leaned closer kisses your cheek. “To begin.”

“And if I refused to be this girlfriend you speak of?”

“Then I’d just have to convince you,” Henry cooed.

“How?”

Right on que, Henry dipped his lips to yours. The second they touched, you moaned and held him close. Why resist when you could enjoy it, you thought. His tongue swirled with yours before he nibbled then sucked your bottom lip. When he pulled back, your eyes remained closed.

“I’m convinced.”

Henry pecked your lips once, then twice. “Good. Girlfriend.”

Your eyes locked again, and you forgot all common sense for what felt like an eternity.

“Eh-em—I have to be on a set in the morning.”

“Which is now,” Henry filled in.

Still hazed in the brain, you stuttered and smiled like a fool.

“Mm, did I stay out all night?”

“You did. I hope it was worth it.”

Smiling, you kissed his jaw. “We’ll see,” you whispered as you backed away from him, making your way to the door.

“Good morning, Henry.”

He smiled again, watching you disappear inside the hotel. As you walked to the elevator bank, you couldn’t stop smiling or stop the butterflies that had been flying all night in your stomach. As you stepped onto the elevator and watched the doors closed, you recognized the feeling you felt as happiness. It had been absent for a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#kismet fic #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill x black reader #black fanfiction #angst fanfic #slow burn fanfic

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suzukiblu · 3 years

Text

2020 (Fanfiction) in Review

Whoo boy, kids, strap in for a long one. I think a fair chunk of these I just UPDATED this year as opposed to writing from scratch, for the record, but pretty sure that still counts. Also if any of this is inaccurate, I apologize, I just filtered on AO3 and did my best from there.

Also-also, we are definitely gonna read-more this. We are DEFINITELY. There is . . . there is a whole lot of fic linked under here, haha.

fics written this year:

MCU

do you wanna be my sidekick, sidekick for ZepysGirl (Winterfalcon/Barbershop Quartet A/B/O)

I think I know why the dog howls at the moon for ZepysGirl (Barbershop Quartet)

I said you’re holding back, she said shut up and dance with me for belladonnaprice (Bucky/Peggy/Steve A/B/O)

people were mean to you, but I always thought you were cool for beckyh2112 (Steve Rogers & Scott Summers, X-Men fusion)

ready or not, here we go anyway for Zephrbabe (Wintershieldshock A/B/O)

we can take it if you just take my hand for untamedphoenix (Wintershock A/B/O [sequel to don't wanna break your heart, wanna give your heart a break])

hey I just met you, and this is crazy for untamedphoenix, Zephrbabe (Wintershock A/B/O)

I'd like to tell you everything I see for beckyh2112 (Darcy-centric, Slender Man fusion)

pack up, don’t stray (oh say say say) for ZepysGirl (Natasha/harem A/B/O)

YOUNG JUSTICE

you found me when no one else was looking for Okapi_chan (Superman & Superboy, background Supermartian)

when I was a boy for seagrey (Supermartian)

ORIGINAL

to the victor go the spoils for dancinbutterfly (OC/OC, A/B/O)

ATLA

rumor has it for Prim_the_Amazing (Zuko-centric)

you make a really good girl (as girls go) for Prim_the_Amazing (Azula/Yue)

when it comes to luck you make your own for Prim_the_Amazing (Azula-centric)

Avamorphs continuations (mostly gen, Animorphs fusion)

home is where you go when you’re alone for Redrikki

step one you say we need to talk for kaos_sparrow

do you believe that we are all innately good for Museflight

you are any way the wind blows for MirandaTam (Ty Lee-centric)

does the pain feel better when I’m around? (Sokka/Zuko A/B/O)

push and pull (mostly gen)

storm (Bato/Hakoda/Kya)

snow (Bato/Hakoda/Kya)

spark (Ozai/Ursa)

Jetko Renaissance Week (Jet/Zuko)

that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out (Jet/Zuko)

give me back my heart you wingless thing (Jet/Zuko)

our lives have come between us (Jet/Zuko)

I’m not listening when you say goodbye (Jet/Zuko)

if I were someone else would this all fall apart (Jet/Zuko)

we are all walking each other home (Jet/Zuko)

we ain’t got much to say (before I let you get away) (Jet/Zuko)

OVERWATCH

mad elephants continuations with dancinbutterfly (A/B/O)

bittersweet creature with dancinbutterfly (R76)

tell me where have you been with dancinbutterfly (McCree & Mercy, McCree & Jack)

I get by with a little help from my friends (McCree & Mercy)

if you don’t wanna talk about it with dancinbutterfly (R76)

the past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore with dancinbutterfly (McCree & Jack)

either you’re a blessing or a lesson (McCree/Genji, McCree/Hanzo, McCree/Genji/Hanzo)

give me back my young brother, hard and furious (Hanzo & Genji)

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

as long as we’re together, does it matter where we go? for beckyh2112 (Marius Felbane/Tehd Shoemaker)

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

a fever you can’t sweat out for beckyh2112 (Kegan Rodhe/Ryze)

GOOD OMENS

anathema device, professional descendant and amateur book-burner (Anathema/Newt, Ineffable Husbands)

STAR WARS

like my father before me for beckyh2112 (Luke & Vader)

LEVERAGE

every election is determined by the people who show up for Miss_Bubblegum (Hardison/Parker/Eliot)

THE WITCHER

hey, hey, hey, come pollinate me (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

I'll give them shelter like you've done for me (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer, A/B/O)

it’s a long way forward (so trust in me) (Jaskier/Geralt)

have you noticed I’ve been gone? (Jaskier/Geralt)

I know words won’t be enough (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

I could never find the right way to tell you for circa1220bce (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

the courting jewelry A/B/O (Jaskier/Geralt A/B/O)

you wear nothing but you wear it so well (Jaskier/Geralt)

in your eyes, love, it glows for dancinbutterfly (Jaskier/Geralt)

tied up and twisted the way I’d like to be for adptt12 (Jaskier/Geralt)

you are in my blood (Jaskier/Geralt)

if you understand (Jaskier/Geralt)

wanna hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it for Anoke (one-sided Jaskier/Geralt)

can you help me unravel my latest mistake (Jaskier/Geralt)

yeah you need someone to sing you to sleep for ragequilt (Jaskier/Geralt)

you must be new I guess, at least you’re new to me for Squiggly_lines (Jaskier/Geralt)

best friends means you get what you deserve for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier & Geralt)

it takes some time to get anything right for spinningjenny (Jaskier/Geralt)

I’m the plans that you made (but fuck all your plans, I’m bored) for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt A/B/O)

whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about for Prim_the_Amazing (Geralt/Yennefer, Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

make it easy (Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

you met me at the perfect time for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt, Jaskier/Melitele)

the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Yennefer, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)

some people talk to animals; not many listen, though for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt)

Takeaways from reflecting on your kick-ass writing, or kick-ass lack of writing, during a year more focused on survival than perhaps any other: Oh my god, I wrote so fucking much, hahaha. Like daaaang, self. I almost wanna add up the word count and see what it is but I’m not patient enough to sort it all out, hah.

Most surprising fic you wrote this year: . . . hmmm, probably “you make a really good girl (as girls go)”. That one’s gotten a REALLY good reception that I was REALLY not expecting and I continue to get people who are hype for more of it swinging by to say so.

How you grew as a writer this year: I got faster, I think, and less obsessed with perfectionism/fussing around on the details. Also I continued to be ever-more shamelessly id-driven in my writing, my true ultimate goal as a writer.

What’s coming in 2021: God if I know, you guys. God if I know. Hopefully more Push and Pull and Avamorphs; maybe a little bit more “I’ll give them shelter” and handmaiden!Anakin; MAYBE even the end of Clay Kids. This is all wild, wild guessing, though, because lbr, I write exclusively based on a) what other people ask for and b) whatever random bout of inspiration has struck me at the time. There is very little predicting what will result from this combination.

tagging: @asukaskerian, @darkpuck, @beckyh2112, and anyone else who wants to play.

#meme #a/b/o #not sfw #rinfic

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buckys-other-punk · 4 years

Text

No Air

Steve x Reader

Summary: Reader and Steve were dating for a long time until he decided to break things off with her because he felt like he was being suffocated.

Warnings: cuss words, angst, jealousy, and depression (I don't know what else)

Word Count: 1,423

A/N: Hello! Sorry I haven’t written in a while life has been interesting yet stressful, but I am trying to push myself into writing again because I miss it. Special thanks to @stuckonjbbarnes for letting my enter her 250 Writing Challenge, if you don’t already follower her please do because she is an awesome and amazing writer. Anyways please let me know if you wanna be tagged (or off this tag) and feedback is very much appreciated! Also this is unedited like always because I’m to lazy to quadruple check my work...

Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air?

“I don’t get why he has to be all touchy feely with you when I’m standing right next to you?!” Steve yelled slamming the door as you both entered your shared apartment.

You huffed with a hand over your forehead replying, “Steve I’ve told you this before me and Wesley are just coworkers. There’s no need for you to act up!”

“You don’t get it Y/N, I don’t want to see some guy being so close to my girlfriend.” he yelled back with his hands in the air.

“STEVE, Wesley is harmless!” you yelled back dropping you purse onto the couch.

“How am I supposed to know that he is harmless and whatever. What if his main purpose to get close to you is to fuck you?!” he said following your trail loosening his tie.

“He’s fucking gay Steve!” you yelled at him walking over to the kitchen.

“Fuck that he was trying to cop a feel Y/N! I saw it with my own eyes!” he exclaimed, walking towards the counter.

“Steve nothing is going on between me and Wesley for the thousandth time.” you said sighing rubbing your temples as a migraine starts to form.

“I find that hard to believe Y/N. You’re always getting home late from work because of all these quote un quote meetings with your team.” he says while using air quotes.

“Steve what the fuck am I suppose to do then? Huh? Quit my job and stay at home doing nothing with my life?” you yelled at your boyfriend.

“Peggy would have stayed done that.” he said under his breath thinking you wouldn’t her him.

“The fuck did you just say?” you looked at him dead in the eye. “Are you comparing me to your ex-girlfriend AGAIN, Steve?” he looked up at you with anger in his eyes.

“You know what, yes. You fucking heard me right Y/N.” He replied quickly to you fuming. “You’re always too fucking clingy when you get home from wherever you go. It's like I’m being suffocated by you. I can’t breathe whenever you’re near me.” he yelled staring at you.

Tears forming in your eyes and you refuse to let them fall down as you stare at the man you love. You look down at the counter in defeat and look back to him. Taking a deep breath you walk away from him to your room and gather all the necessary belongings you need. Steve still enraged looks at you and follows in your footsteps.

If I should die before I wake

It's 'cause you took my breath away

Losing you is like living in a world with no air, oh

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks with a strong tone.

“I’m leaving Steve because I can’t take this anymore. You accuse me of being what was it, oh right, clingy and you’re always comparing me to your beloved ex. So why don’t you call her and I'll leave you two be. How does that sound?” you yell at him finally gathering all your stuff and trying to wipe away the tears that have fallen down your face. You exit the bedroom walking towards the main door.

“Fine go then. I don’t need you.” Steve yells as he stops following you and sits on the couch staring at the blank TV screen.

“Fuck you Steve Rogers. I hope you have a happy life.” you yell while slamming the front door walking away from your once beloved apartment.

The sound of the door echoes throughout the entire apartment and that's what set Steve back into reality. What the fuck did I just do. He says to himself looking at his hands.

I'm here alone, didn't wanna leave

My heart won't move, it's incomplete

Is there a way I could make you understand?

“I fucked up Bucky” Steve said through the phone rubbing his temples.

“Steve, breathe. Just call (Y/N) back in the morning. Let her sleep it off.” Bucky replied to his friend.

“Fine. Whatever.” Steve said. “I’ll text you later.” he sighed and laid in his bed thinking of how upset he made you.

But how

Do you expect me, to live alone with just me?

'Cause my world revolves around you

It's so hard for me to breathe

*a month later*

Steve was a mess. He was trying to keep his cool around his friends, but on the inside he felt empty. Whenever his friends would ask about (Y/N) he kept to himself saying that the two of you weren’t meant to be, but that was a lie. He knew it was a lie. Right after you left he felt like his world collapsed. He felt so stupid mentioning Peggy yet another time. He knew whenever he talked about her that you would always get pissed off. Steve knew what ticked you off the most and used that against you. He fucked up hard. He felt like he was actually suffocating because you weren’t there with him. You were his world and fucked up so much. Why did I have to be such a dick? He said to himself.

Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air?

Can't live, can't breathe with no air

That's how I feel whenever you ain't there

There's no air, no air

*seven months later*

Steve was an even bigger mess than before. He isolated himself in his apartment still torn by the fact that he never called or texted you right after the fight. How could I be so stupid? He said over and over to himself. He knew he should stop thinking about you. He was the one that broke your heart. He was the one that fucked up. Bucky had been calling and texting him for the past months. Steve never answered and didn’t want to talk. It wasn’t until Bucky came to Steve’s apartment to checkup on his friend. Luckily he has a spare key just in case Steve forgot his. Bucky saw how trashed and gloomy Steve's apartment was.

“Shit. Steve?” Bucky said looking for his friend. Maneuvering around the mess walking towards his friend’s room. “Steve? You in there?” he asked while knocking on the door. No answer. He knocked again. “I’m coming in man. You better not be naked.” he joked pushing the closed door. He saw his friend covered in layers of blankets. “Fuck. Steve you gotta get up man.” No reply. “Right, well don’t let this get to you punk. Just please get out of here once in a while. It's too dark and depressing here. Get some fresh air.” Still no answer. “Well I’ll see you around Steve.” Bucky said as he exited the apartment.

Steve sighed as he sat up in his bed. Bucky was right, his life seemed life a mess. He should get out of the stupid apartment. He went into his bathroom and stared at his reflection. Man he looked like shit. He sighed staring at himself and turned around to turn on his shower.

After he made himself look more presentable than usual he walked to one of the nearby restaurants. Actually he went to the one that you cherished the most since they had the best waffles in all of Brooklyn. While walking to the small restaurant he passed a fancy one that he almost took you to. He looked through the windows and saw something. Someone. (Y/N). You were sitting at a table wearing an elegant dress, smiling at the person next to you. You looked like you were shining, you seemed so happy. You seemed happy. The man who was next to you grabbed your hand and smiled. His blue eyes staring at you with adoration and brought your hand to his lips giving it a gentle kiss. Steve stared at the two of you with tears in his eyes. You and your date (A/N: alright the man is Henry Cavill because i’ve been obsessed with the Witcher and oof him shirtless my lord. alright back to the story) looked so in love and peaceful. Steve couldn’t top that when he was with you. He couldn’t be the man you wanted him to be. He couldn’t be the one who would protect you, shelter you, love you. He wanted to do those things when he was with you. He tried his best to do all these things for you, but his stupid mouth got in the way. He hurt you. He drew you away. He made you leave. He needed to leave. He needed to not see you. So he ran.

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I flew right off

The ground and float to you

There's no gravity to hold me down, for real

He ran to the nearest bridge sitting on the edge. Tears slipping down his face. He couldn’t take it anymore. The pain was unbearable. He just wanted to stop feeling so empty, so alone, so alone. He looked down at the water staring at the reflection of the sky and himself. He wanted the pain to end. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Standing up and crossing over the railing, he leaned over the edge. One breath in. One breath out. He let go. He let go of everything. All of his emotions towards you, everyone else and himself. He let go of trying to love you, trying to forgive himself, trying to forget you. He let go and there was darkness.

Got me here out in the water so deep

Tell me how you goin' be without me?

If you ain't here I just can't breathe

There's no air, no air

A/N: so sorry for that lol. I’m thinking of making this a mini series possibly so a second part will come sometime in the future showing the readers POV. I don't know who wanted to be tagged so I just put those who were on my previous tags...Anyways if you wanna be tagged let me know and I’ll add you!

Tags: @sebtheromanianprince @aquabrie @amour-quinn @anbrax5553 @kitkatd7 @mr-skyline-r34 @carabarnes13 @pdy93 @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @httpmarvel @who-the-hell-is-sebastianstan @princess76179

#dani250 #steve rogers x reader #reader x steve rogers #steve x reader #reader x steve #you x steve #steve x you #Steve Rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction

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cicaklah · 3 years

Text

2020 - a year in fic

2020 was a terrible year, of course, but in terms of yer girl cicak writing fic, it was the most bumper year since *checks official records* records began. (Records in this case being 2010 and in the AO3). Ten years on the ao3! What a milestone.

It was a weird year in fic. I started out super obsessed with The Witcher, and was sure this was the second coming of old fashioned big fandoms, and then almost as soon as I started, I promptly lost interest. I like writing it, but I wasn’t really interested in reading it, or rewatching the series. Therefore I just sort of...wandered away, and periodically came back when some really stupid idea grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

These were: look what you made me do - the most popular fic I’ve written in a decade of concentrated fic writing. In which Jaskier is basically Taylor Swift c. 2014, and everyone in fantasy Poland wants to know who inspires all those bangers he keeps churning out, and Geralt has a lot of feelings about turnips and his horse and badly timed goats and also whether Jaskier really has been singing about him this whole time. Contains goatus interruptus and my second favourite OC, Titch Westmoreland, tax collector and enthusiastic shipper.

I wrote a sequel to that called Jas Queen, where Geralt goes to see Jaskier perform his new song cycle, and then gets hella laid in the dressing room by Jaskier in drag as Queen Calanthe.

Then @nim-lock drew said hella laying and as thanks I wrote vestis virus whatever the latin is wrong, which is Jaskier, rich aesthete, taking advantage of someone stealing Geralt’s clothes to play dressup, which was an excuse to write SEXUAL TENSION, which way too many months later, I consummated in an indentation in the shape of you.

I continue to not apologise to tswift for anything.

And then out of the blue I decided I wanted to write something stupid and so wrote how an egg makes another egg, which is the best thing I’ve written all year, you should all read it, I am a genius, all praise Meluhha and may she bless us with thick shells and double yolks in 2021.

Anyway in the spring I got SUPER INTO Star Trek Picard, and by that I mean SUPER INTO Agnes Jurati and into how she got away with murder and shagged Santiago Cabrera, who was extra attractive this year, (and I consolidated that by watching The Musketeers, for which I wrote no fic, but I did think about writing fic for it a LOT). I wrote a small thing called ‘a knife in the country’ expecting it to get jossed within a week, and when it didn’t I went kinda...mad? and wrote a series of interlocking stories that I will collect into a series when I can think of a title. They are: red to port, green to starboard, white to guide the way, not a star in the sky that’s got our name, and nothing to fear from the siren’s call. Of these, nothing to fear from the siren’s call, my Rios manifesto that also doubles as a reflection on 10 years of my own PTSD journey, is my second favourite thing I wrote this year.

The other thing I did this year was a WIP Amnesty, which I called the Coronavirus Decameron because at heart I am pretentious as balls. I really liked doing that, and will continue it for as long as the coronavirus continues to provide us with Unprecedented Times.

I finished off a Star Trek The Force Awakens cosmic horror story called if there is love at the end of everything that no one read because no one goes here anymore.

I completed a DS9 erotic farce called ‘I was born like this don’t even gotta try’ which is the closest I’ll probably ever come to writing ABO (where Garak goes into heat, and asks Julian to help, so Julian volunteers his encyclopedic knowledge of holosuite wank programmes, and finally his own arse, to the cause), and then a pet gen project about Bashir’s genetic augmentation from the POV of his mother called all the sinners, saints, that led to people in the comments accusing each other of wanting autistic people to be exterminated, because this is still 2020 after all.

I wrote part 4 of lesbian han solo, it takes a village (but there’s only you and me) a series I will eventually finish at this rate sometime in 2040, where Han and Leia’s daughter is born, and their relationship begins to fail.

I finished off one of my many, many Star Trek Discovery WIPs from 1st season when the show didn’t make me want to pull my hair out, and rediscovered my deep ashburn feels in someday I’ll love what I can’t find in you, thanks to the eternal cheerleading of @drstrangewillseeyounow.

I also finished a Modern Raffles story that I started writing in summer 2019 when England won the world cup, that if you know your raffles and your cricket is a work of genius, but mostly went over people’s heads. It is called by the barest of margins and just, this is my third favourite thing I’ve written this year.

Finally for the decameron, I wrote a hitman story called in every life a little rain about 47 being poisoned and hallucinating/fantasising/remembering Diana wearing fancy shoes and them maybe having a secret relationship, that I am really proud of.

Outside of the above, I also wrote a tenet fic called never odd or even, where I attempt to fix the film somewhat, and somewhat succeeded. I’m happy with it, even if I thought it would do better in terms of engagement.

All in all I published 68,140 words of fic, most of which was written in 2020. I also wrote about 30,000 words of thesis and 20,000 words of reports for my new job. Overall, I would have written more, but I got a proper job that requires me to do things and use my brain in October, so then lost the ability to sit in front of my computer on an evening.

Thank you to everyone who read my stories and commented in 2020, especially all the hannibal fans who discovered my old works, and anyone who reads even steak don’t cry or the rose of terok nor especially.

May Meluhha bless us all in 2021.

#fic review 2020 #fic reflections #my fic #fic writing problems #fic recs #cicak #2020 review

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written-prose-things · 4 years

Text

Oh, Elusive Freedom

Summary: Jaskier finds grey hair on his head. It terrifies him and his husband for entirely different reasons.

| AO3 |

Jaskier is obsessed. It’s isn’t something new, the bard regularly goes through phases of fancying new things he’s seen on the path. But it’s never been so closely associated with Geralt before.

The witcher shouldn't be surprised by this really. He’s experienced this with a few people before as well. So he decides right then, that he isn’t going to spend the rest of Jaskier’s life ignoring the fact that they’re losing time.

They’ve been camped out on the slopes of the eastern mountains for three days and Geralt is so done with it. They’re looking for solutions to a problem that shouldn’t even be thought of as a problem. So, Geralt gets out of their bed and starts packing up the campsite.

Geralt senses Jaskier returning from his morning session of writing when he’s only halfway through rolling up the canvas of their tent.

“Hey, Woah! What’s going on? I thought we were waiting for the blue elf?”

Geralt turns back to look at the bard, squinting his eyes against the early morning sunlight. Jaskier’s carrying a pheasant. He’s become a good hunter in the past decade. But that’s expected, he’s a fast learner. Geralt thinks smugly to himself after all the bard did complete studies worth four years in two.

Geralt shakes his head, “I already told to Jas, it isn’t the blue elf. It’s the blue elk. And it died a long time ago.”

Jaskier crosses his arms over his chest and squints his eyes at Geralt, He has so many more crow’s feet around his eyes and mouth now.

“What is your problem? Do you not want me to figure this out?”

Geralt gets up from his crouched position on the ground, “No, of course not.”

Jaskier scoffs, but Geralt can sense the betrayal that Jaskier is beginning to feel, “Of course I believe that. You’ve been dragging your feet since we began looking for a solution since the last winter. Do you want me to die? Are you bored with me? Your little human toy?!”

Jaskier is hysterical now and it hurts Geralt's ears just a little.

He sighs. They’re already approaching the next spring. A full year. That’s how long Jaskier has spent obsessing over the fact that he’s going to die. Not as the time, he has left with Geralt, but as the time he has left to figure out how to beat this. How to beat life itself.

And Geralt is tired. He’s been through this before, so maybe he should try a different technique with Jas. Maybe, just maybe, the bard might see sense.

Geralt sighs and speaks up, “I’ve had lovers before, you know? And I-”

Jaskier’s upon him, a little quicker and a lot more violently than usual. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he yells, “I’m asking you if you want me to die and you’re telling me about your previous conquests! I’m doing this for you Geralt! I’m doing this for us! And if you’re not interested, then there’s no point to it.”

Geralt takes the punches that Jaskier’ throws at his chest and only when the bard is heaving with exhaustion does Geralt take both his hands into his own.

“But you’re not really doing this for us, Jaskier. You’re doing this for a future us.”

Jaskier lets out a long-suffering sigh, “What the fuck does that mean?”

Geralt tries to gather his thoughts before speaking again, “In the past year, you’ve barely stopped to look at me. Spending our nights together is a chore for you-”

Jaskier tries to interrupt and Geralt holds up his hand, “It doesn’t feel like there’s anything left of us. You’re wasting these years, which mind you, are not the last ones of your life. Two grey hairs don’t mean you need to look for a life elixir. But even then, suppose you spend the next years of your life looking for a cure, some fucking blue elf you hear of in the forests, a tribe of fae near some pond, the selkies at the shore, or whatever else...”

He sighs before continuing, “ and you don’t find it. So, you won’t just be missing from my life since the day you died, instead, I wouldn’t have you in my real memories from the day you decided to leave everything else to look for this cure.”

Jaskier looks away, “I didn’t know that.”

Geralt clenches his jaw, “It’s happened before.”

Jaskier looks back at him, “Oh, that’s why you were talking about your...”

Geralt, “Yeah.”

Jaskier nods, “So what do you think we should do now?”

Geralt grimaces and shrugs his shoulders, “We’ll continue on the path. If we hear about something relevant to your cause, we’ll look into it.”

Jaskier nods, “Have you heard of anything that we might find on the path?”

Geralt nods, “I heard of a striga that’s been attacking a village on the way down this mountain.”

Jaskier laughs, “Ah! So it is a Striga that’s caught your attention. I knew it wouldn’t be some useless beast that would have stolen my husband’s attention away from me.”

Geralt laughs and hopes to the Gods that Jaskier doesn’t notice his blush. They’ve been together for decades now, but words of endearment never ail to catch him off-guard.

#geralt of rivia #geralt/jaskier #jaskier and geralt #geralt is protective and angsty AF #emotionally constipated #jaskier hyperfocuses #jaskier the bard #Jaskier

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jamlocked · 4 years

Note

C, J, U, V and X :))

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Ohhhh, boy. I could go three ways on this really...or maybe two, idk. I feel like my answer will be taken as problematic - - and I’m going for it anyway, because it’s just my opinion.

The ship I dislike the most is Sherlolly. It’s not because I don’t like Molly - I do, a lot. It’s not because that would make Sherlock straight or bi - the whole argument that used to fly about that Sherlolly = homophobic is fucking gross. It’s just not a ship that does anything for me. I used to think that I just found it boring (and this is NOT me saying that Molly is boring, or het romance is boring, or any of that), but I’ve come to realise it’s mostly because it vibes with the part of Sherlock’s narrative I like the least. The whole, ‘Sherlock was weird and abnormal with no friends, but now we’re going to turn him into a complete human being’, thing. Which, VOMIT.

Again, I’m not saying that het romance is too ‘normal’ to fit here. Sherlock could have a massive thing with Irene, and that would have a vibe I like far more. The issue I have with Sherlolly is that Sherlock has always been an extreme type of character in whatever canon. Molly, in BBC canon, is this wonderful character Sherlock came to find a great friend in. The notion that he could ‘learn to be normal/complete’ seems to be the arc of the four seasons, complete with the whole ‘I love you’ scene in TFP, where they full dangled the possibility of future!canon!Sherlolly by at least making Sherlock think about it seriously. It seems to equate with ‘the more we teach Sherlock to fit into ‘normal’ society, the more chance he has of having a ‘normal’ relationship, with someone...’ - okay, I’m not going to hold Molly up as a bastion of normality, given she falls for sociopaths and does autopsies, but even if you take that into consideration, it’s still the most ‘normal’ relationship the writers could put him into. A casual viewer would go, ‘he’s got a girlfriend now, he behaves better, he gets on with his family, he’s straight/white/upper middle-class = totally a character I’m easy with’.

And that’s just not what interests me when it comes to relationships I want to watch. Now, if we’re talking about dark!Molly who’s into Glee and cats, but also runs a black market organ business and wants Sherlock to help sort out the competition - I’m totally here for that. If Molly likes her knitted cardigans and secretly wants to kill Sherlock, while he likes his suits and is madly in love her but also wants to use her to get to her criminal mother who harvests dead bodies and practices necromancy? I’m all ears.

But ‘Sherlock gets a girlfriend, solves crimes, learns manners and is never obnoxious again, and OH LOOK WE FIXED HIM’ - fuck, no. ...that was a lot of words, and I didn’t explain it very clearly, but I’ma stop now.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

Tumblr has made me aware of BTS, The Witcher (although I had seen adverts for that on Amazon, but idk anything about it), Hamilton, Moomin, MASH, The Mentalist, Kyo Dir en Grey, Elementary ...oh man, there must be more, but I forget. I’ve been here a few years now. I’d heard of most of these shows/people before Tumblr, of course, but didn’t know much about them. And still don’t on some of them, but am definitely aware of them now.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Jim Moriarty, obviously. HE IS SO FUN. And there is such pain under the smirk, and THOSE SUITS, BABY. I am the biggest sucker in the world for obsession, and ...well, see my answer to X in a minute. There’s nothing about him I don’t ove. So much scope to play with in fic as well.

An old fandom of mine - Les Mis. My fave character is Javert, because of course I love the most awful dick of them all. Again, with him, see X below. And also again, so much to write about. I literally nearly based a PhD proposal around him, and his representation, his place in 19th century France, his attitudes and where they came from. Did you know the character of Sam Gerard in The Fugitive is based on him? He’s relentless, he’s unforgiving, and he collapses at the end in the most spectacular way possible. Total prick, and I fucking love him. :D

I’m really trying to think of character I love who isn’t a total douche, just for the sake of variety. But I can’t, so lets go with Gene Hunt from Life on Mars.

I expect most people won’t have heard of/seen this show (but omg they might be making a new series, sa;ldfkjsalfksj I CANNOT :D), but if you can watch it, you should. Gene Hunt is awful - a 70s cop with all the faults of the time. Corrupt, mostly alcoholic, sexist, violent, homophobic, racist...but also hilarious, and there’s a really big heart under there. You learn that he might do nothing but call people the worst names in the world, but he always ends up doing his job in. If you watch this four minute video, you’ll get the gist. If you’re a fan of the Discworld series and you like Sam Vimes, you’ll recognise Gene. He’s the arshetype of Copper, and he goes on this great arc from being the stereotypical bad copper of the 70s, to being something quite different. And he really is hilarious, with insane charisma. He and Sam Tyler are the perfect double act. :D

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Jim Moriarty. I may not be a criminal mastermind, but only because I’m not that smart. And don’t have his level of swag, because c’mon. Who does?

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

AHAHA. My bulletproof trope is ‘two sides of the same coin’. Sherlock/Moriarty. Javert/Jean Valjean - who, incidentally, were two characters based off one man; Vidocq. (A man who more films should be made about, incidentally.) These two are literally two sides of one man. Even Gene Hunt represents part of Sam’s psyche in Life on Mars, as well as the more obvious old vs new, forensic vs gut instinct.

But yeah, in literally any fandom, you show me a protagonist and an antagonist that are more or less the same person, and I’m there. Cannot get enough of it.

#anti-sherlolly #sherlock #life on mars #les mis #javert #fandom #all about meme #omg that got so long I'M SORRY

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theartfuldodger26 · 4 years

Note

Bellamort for the ship meme

Thank you @knightessofwalpurgis for the ask and apologies for taking me a month to answer - March has been... quite the experience. But Bellamort exists to give us comfort, so let’s get crackin’!

who is more likely to hurt the other?

Voldemort can tear anyone apart with some well-chosen words (as we see Locket!Voldemort do to Ron), but he rarely uses those on Bella, because a. she rarely deserves to be humiliated like that, and b. he just wouldn’t do that to her.

What’s more likely, is that he hurts her inadvertently, since he may fail to understand certain emotional needs that Bella most people have - a touch, a kind word after success, casual conversation over a cup of tea. In addition to that, Bella, who is obsessed with him and the position she holds in his eyes, tends to overreact to those “omissions”, getting convinced he ‘never truly valued her’ and he’s going to ‘kick her out any day now’.

However, let us take a moment to note the day that Bella deeply hurt Voldemort: the night of her betrothal to Rodolphus, when Voldemort proposed marriage and Bella turned him down for reasons that, in retrospect, she finds ridiculous.

So in a way, you could say that of the two, Voldemort is the brokenhearted one, even if it’s Bella who cries herself to sleep from time to time.

who is emotionally stronger?

They’re both incredibly strong people.

Voldemort pulled himself out of the gutter, basically raised himself and became one of the most powerful and learned wizards ever.

Bella survived fucking Azkaban, which is code for severe depression in HP-land, so all I can do is salute her and ask for her secrets.

The answer is a little tricky, in the sense that Voldemort appears to be a psychopath, medically speaking, who are... resilient people emotionally, if you will. This means that an event that would have had a massive effect on a neurotypical person, say witnessing a murder or war, to him it’s very blunted or even irrelevant. This description is very vague and generalising, but it’s supported by a lot of evidence. In fact, psychopaths can’t really feel fear, because their amygdala is the size of a pea, so it’s not fair comparing his emotional strength to others. In fact, I’d add that since he’s not used to “negative emotions” like sadness and fear, if they happen, they’d be more devastating to him, because he’s never learnt to cope with them, like the rest of us do.

Bella obviously has her own emotional/psychiatric problems, but I don’t feel comfortable making guesses, since I’m not a psychiatrist and she’s no textbook description of any personality disorder I’ve heard. However, she got an interestng upbringing, that trained her to be a person of importance. So I’d say that even after Azkaban and with whatever issues she has, she can still hold her own in a very difficult emotional situation.

I realise I haven’t answered the question, because honestly Idk. Also, take with a grain of salt anything psychiatry-related I said, I’m no expert, merely done some research, which I’m regurgitating here.

who is physically stronger?

Naturally, Bella. She trains a lot, does ballet (which is fucking hardcore, let me tell you), enjoys physical activities and martial arts.

However, after Voldemort’s transformation, he’s got many of his physical attributes improved, like the cat-eyes that allow him to see in the dark and so on (been reading a lot of the Witcher series as of recent so there’s that too), so he’s deceptively strong and yes, eventually stronger than her.who is more likely to break a bone?

Bella, 100% XD She’s in battle all the time, and when taking part in Voldemort’s magical research (which is their day-job, world domination is a weekend hobby in case you haven’t noticed) her motto is ‘safety third’.

An interesting point tho. Psychopaths have no fear and low-impulse control if they don’t train themselves. Fear is useful, informs us of danger ahead, so I HC that young Tom/Voldemort broke almost every bone in his body at some point doing something really dangerous simply because he didnt realise it’s stupid - like, say, go down a fucking cliff with waves crushing at it. Now he’s learnt to control those impulses and polices himself when it comes to danger, so no more broken bones. who knows best what to say to upset the other?

They’re both excellent at judging characters and have tongues that sting. Bella will rarely truly dare upset Voldemort, but she does love torturing him a little with something silly and not-truly important, like refusing sex, or messing with his OCD by taking stuff from “their proper place”. She knows that there’s only few things that tick him off: his loss of power to an infant, death and the abandonment from his mother. And she’s not that sadistic to bring up that last one unless absolutely provoked.

Voldemort can be a tease as well, but he’s too mature and dignified for such childish behaviour most of the time. who is most likely to apologise first after an argument?

Bella apologises compulsively out of fear she’s lost him even for things that aren’t her fault, tho in her mind they might be. However, she’s stubborn too, so if it’s a petty argument she might not apologise at all. Shes a spoilt little rich girl after all ;)

Voldemort’s never apologised in his life and never shall say the words, but he will change his behaviour if he realises he’s been wrong, because it’s the rational thing to do- also Bella is supersexy when she’s angry, so he wants to fuck her and he needs to her to be accepting to that. who treats who’s wounds more often?

Voldemort treats Bella’s wounds more often by default, since she’s the one out in the battlefield more often, and also can be clumsy and absentminded. And very rarely *trigger alert* she might self-harm.

Voldemort not only gets hurt rarely, but he also views it demeaning to accept help, so he won’t even mention it if he’s hurt. Bella will find out by accident or because he’s in so much pain he can’t hide it anymore, and with scold him first, he’ll storm off, she’ll hunt him down, they’ll argue and finally she’ll heal his wounds (usually his back which hurts because he’s Tall^TM) and he’ll act like a literal cat during this, touch-starved as he is. who is in constant need of comfort?

Right after Azkaban Bella is in need of a lot of care and comfort, understandably. Her physical and emotional problems are their reality for many months after her escape, but the physical ones mend themselves relatively quickly. She’s forever changed emotionally, again understandably, but I wouldn’t say she’s in *constant* need of comfort. In an AU where they win, she’s perfectly functional as his right hand woman and partner, with only the occasional problem.

Voldemort needs to get through his tough, bald head that he deserves love and comfort like everyone else, but he’ll never get it, so, in the whole, it’s him I’d say. who gets more jealous?

Interesting question, because fandom’s given so many answers relating to those characters, especially since Bella is married. Starting with this piece of solid information, I’d hazard a guess that Voldemort doesn’t care that much that Bella also sleeps with her husband from time to time - maybe it even turns him on and strokes his ego that she doesnt get all she needs from her legitimate, pureblooded husband. How he’d react if she slept with a random bloke... probably badly; tho I cant think of a situation where that’d happen. My Bella at least, doesnt sleep around. She might tease with her sex, but she’s a well-bred lady after all, who does what is expected of her.

Voldemort, I HC, used to be a bit of a whoremonger in his youth; good looks, mummy issues and no emotional attachment are the ingredients for that particular potion. Also he might have also been overcompensating for the fact that he was unable to marry the only women he found worthy of him: his pureblooded classmates. So he’d show up with a different, gorgeous girl at parties, which drove child!Bella crazy with jealousy, since she was still out of the healthy sexual attraction part for him and never thought he’d notice her. She’d stalk him behind curtains and through keyholes, keep her ears on alert for when the adults talked about him etc. Poor thing was really tortured by it. But now that they’re adults and, well, in a relationship, she’s far too confident to think he’d seriously care for another woman; after all, half the time she’s not sure he truly cares about her, and she’s the person who’s been closest to him.

One thing I forgot to mention about Voldemort’s jealousy, or lack thereof, is that Bella has certain emotional needs that he cannot serve, and I’m not talking about tenderness, because to some degree he can give her that, and it’s not the same with her husband anyway. No, I mean that Bella is a sexual sadist, who gets direct sexual pleasure by hurting people. Voldemort on the other hand, is not a masochist. Not that when they have rough sex/BDSM sex he’s never in a sub position, but he’d never just sit there to be whipped or something, it just doesn’t turn him on, and that’s totally fine. So they may invite a girl (and very rarely a boy) to join them, so that Bella can get it out of her system if the war is slow/over. Don’t ask where these people end up, just don’t hang your coat in the second floor closet is all I’m saying. who’s most likely to walk out on the other?

Depends on the situation?

Bella would NEVER abandon Voldemort in battle or for the Cause. In a Muggle setting though, if he pissed her off she’d totally walk out of the restaurant :P

Voldemort would never walk out on Bella either, tho, would he? He’s devoted to her, plus he does feel like he owes her after Azkaban.

The only concept I can imagine relevant to this is Voldemort saying something in his anger that he doesnt exactly mean tho it holds some truth in it, that hurts Bella so deeply, that she leaves, both out of spite but also because she thinks it’s the best for him. In fact, I have a very specific HC for this which takes place in the afterlife, after they;re both killed in the battle for Hogwarts, but there’s no time for that here.

There’s also another thing, but it’d quite controversial. If you, like me, HC that Bella started training with Voldemort since she was a child, and entered a sexual and later romantic relationship with him while still underage, this means that she literally hasn’t been alone as an individual, ever. So there’s also the chance that she, after they’ve had a huge fight and he’s terrible with her, leaves so she can find who she is without him. *cue the tears*who will propose?

Voldemort did propose, on the night of Bella’s formal betrothal. Very rude and uncourteous of him, yes, but it had to be the last minute for him to realise his feelings, because he only has one (1) brain cell that works part-time on the Emotions Department of his brain. She turned him down, because she was young, immature, didnt realise how deep her own feelings were (she believed what her mother told her, that ‘all girls fall for Riddle, it’s an infatuation, it will pass’), wanted the power, fame, money and public adoration that her position as the Black Heir brought, not to mention that she was loyal to her family and terrified since Andromeda had just eloped with Ted. So she broke his heart then, even if neither realised it. But they did continue with their affair, because that’s how it happened in the olden days if you had money and space.

After the war is over, neither proposes. They talk about it as a given (Rodolphus has fucked off to study penguins in Antarctica) and only need to figure out the details: how public it will be, who’s invited, what titles the ceremony gives them and so on. who has the most difficult parents?

Spoiler alert: Voldemort’s an orphan!

Okay, so hypothetically speaking, had any of his parents survived and raised him one way or the other, they’d for sure be a handful. Tom Sr. is a posh bloke used to getting his own way and being considered special due to his status as a squire, so he’d be fucking pissed if he were introduced to a world where he’s not all the shit. Nonetheless, I’d hazard a guess that in the end he, Bella and her parents would get along well-enough; after all they’re the same sort of people.

Merope, on the other hand, is a whole other story. In the most sensible AU, where she survives giving birth and raises her son but they’re still poor and she’s got trouble with magic due to the trauma of Tom Sr. leaving her, I think she wouldn’t like Bella at all actually. Because Bella is all she ever wanted to be: beautiful, wealthy, well-bred and shows it, and, most importantly, emotionally strong. So she pesters Tom all the time about how Bella is not ‘feminine enough’ in her behaviour, too outspoken, too bitchy, not for ‘her boy’. Tom/Voldemort gives exactly one shit about her opinion and moves on.

In the canon universe, it’d be naive to say that Bella’s parents were into Tom, simply due to his blood status. In the longrun, however, I think they'd come to terms with it, and they remember how brilliant and ambitious he was in school, so when he becomes successful in life, whether in-universe as Voldemort, or Minister or whatever in an AU, they’re sort of okay with it. Idk if they hand over the Heir of Blacks title to Bella tho, their kids wouldn’t be pureblooded after all. who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public?

No one. Not allowed. Not happening. Ever. It’s not their thing, anyway. Voldemort will offer her his arm, like a gentleman, tho. :)

who hogs the blankets?

Bella, especially after Azkaban. She sleeps with five blankets piled on top of her, has the fireplace going all year round and puts a warmth charm on the sheets. Voldemort doesn’t care. He experienced such cold temperatures in so little clothing as a child, that hot and cold make little impression on him; he even takes cold showers because it’s all the same to him. *sobs* who gets more sad?

Bella. She overthinks everything. Did she disappoint him today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? Will she ever be the person she was before prison? Why does Cissy wince every time she sees her? Should she have had children after all? These and all sorts of thoughts race through her mind all the time, torturing her to no end.

Interestingly enough, psychopaths in general dont get that sad, but Voldemort can be very... pensive. who is better at cheering the other up?

Bella has a wicked sense of humor that only Voldemort seems to find hilarious (comments from other people include ‘disturbing’, ‘scary’ and ‘morbid’), and even though he’s rarely sad, he can be very very serious and in need to relax his body and mind.

Still, Voldemort, the eternal student of human nature that he is, if he does notice that Bella is sad (which isn’t always because he’s... you know), knows exactly how to distract her, just like he can do with any other person. Just, in her case, it’s sincere. who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes?

No one ever hits anyone. Voldemort’s been beaten and whipped and flogged enough as a young boy that he wouldn’t do it to the only person he cares about in a non-sexy way, and Bella’s been raised to view such things as ‘Muggle animalistic violence’. She might bite him hard for fun, tho :Dwho is more streetwise?

This may come as a surprise to you because of my username, but Voldemort grew up on the streets in a Dickensian world. He knows all the tricks in the book; in fact he created many of them. Bella begged him to take her along in his travels incognito, and not on these formal things she attends with her family, and he did, so she’s learnt a lot, but she’s very much a pampered princess. who is more wise?

Hmmm... Hard to say. They have their areas of wisdom and their areas of not-having-a-fucking-clue. Bella, for example, understands emotions better than Voldemort, because she actually experiences them. Jk, jk, but you get what I mean. She’s also more knowledgeable in certain magical things, that, for example, not all prophecies have to be fulfilled and that there’s so much magic that it’s pointless to wish to acquire *everything*; had Voldemort listened to her more often, the books would have been very different.

Voldemort of course is much older and has more diverse life-experience. He’s also less impulsive in his older years than Bella; he can be the voice of rationality and reason if he’s not superobsessed with something; at which point Bella should remind him to take his meds, because they really do help with fixations. who’s the shyest?

Neither, in the strict sense of the meaning. They both know what they want and they’re not afraid to demand it. In the end, it’s Voldemort who’ll never say what he truly needs and feels, though, speaking about their everyday life together, it’d be Bella who’d rather have more affection from him but is too shy to ask. But yeah, Voldemort, not because he’s shy per se, but rather in deep hurt and denial. who boasts about the other more?

In the books it’s obvious that it’s Bella. However, Voldemort does this hilarious thing where he praises Bella in random conversation with other people without even noticing; like, he brings her up every ten seconds even if she’s barely relevant to the subject, so *shrugs* have your pick. who sits on who’s lap?

Nobody, because they’re both tall. Bella will straddle him even in a non sexual manner from time to time, and they often spend their evenings relaxing on the same sofa: Bella will put her legs on Voldemort’s lap and he strokes them absentmindedly (after all they’re superlong and soft and hot), and Voldemort, who refuses to nap in bed, might catch a nap with his head on her lap. The reason Bella doesn’t nap with her head on his lap is because he’s very thin and his femurs hurt her skull, when she’s got plenty of skirts and petticoats cushioning Voldemort. Finally, Bella often sleeps with her head on his chest, because his heart-beat, even tho abnormally slow, relaxes her panic attacks, after Azkaban that is. He will then stroke her hair compulsively - it’s a bit of a fixation of his.

Well,what a ride! Thanks again @knightessofwalpurgis for the ask, this was tremendous fun to write, especially after a very difficult month! And it did help put some of my thoughts on those evil babies in a row. Hope you found it entertaining! I get that those types of asks are usually made for monolectic answers, but yeah, explanations are better. If you made it to the end, dear reader, thank you very much for your time!

#bellamort #bellamort ask #knightessofwalpurgis #relationship meme #bellatrix lestrange #voldemort #lord voldemort #tom riddle #still can't write #but apparently i can do asks #so thats what we're doing today

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