“Jesus,” Shane mutters, swallowing thickly when his mouth fills with guilty saliva.
Rozanov steps dangerously closer to him, bringing big hands to stroke the lengths of Shane's arms, swiftly up before trailing them almost painfully slowly down again, the callouses on his fingertips snagging the silky material of Shane's track top; one snag for each of Shane's sins. Those big hands then circle Shane's wrists and Shane thinks not of shackles but of cock rings and wow, he is so fucking fucked. He feels Rozanov's fierce heat through his clothes and at once wants to sob at the fact they aren't tucked safely away in either of their hotel rooms, where neither of them would be wearing fucking anything by now.
Shit, this is such a bad idea.
“I am not usually into Bible, but if you want to call me Son of God is okay, I guess. I am very special,” Rozanov deadpans. His face paints a dour picture with zero hint of smirk, and Shane wants him.
Rozanov's deft fingers then leave Shane's wrists bereft, only to give Shane whiplash as he starts to trace along the waistband of Shane's sweats, dragging Shane's gaze up to that pretty face that's pretty like an engraved knife handle is pretty, when a long tongue licks at what Shane knows to be delicious lips, unhurried and with obvious purpose—and Shane needs that mouth enveloping his already thickening cock, stat.
Instead of ripping off all of Rozanov's clothes and shoving him into a nearby bush like both their bodies want him to, Shane says, “Yeah, you're special alright. A particularly special kind of asshole,” trying not to smile and failing miserably.
“Well, you would know,” Rozanov gifts him, raising a single brow right along with the stakes. Then it's as if he can read Shane's mind when he says, “So, you bring us out here to get naked and fuck in bushes like Oasis song, huh?”
Shane's brain stammers over that. Then his words do, too. “I—what? No! I mean, uh, yeah, maybe, but I don't just—wait, did Oasis really write a song about that?” He thinks about this for a second before asking, “And you like Oasis, Rozanov?” There's a slightly amused tone to the question. Whenever he's wondered about the kind of music Rozanov might be into, he's only been able to imagine shit like techno, maybe hard trance.
“Clearly more than you, philistine,” Rozanov replies snidely as he slips those gorgeously warm hands under both of the tops Shane is wearing. He begins smoothing over the planes of Shane's torso like he wants to climb inside, clever fingers climbing each of Shane's ribs then eager palms trailing down his flanks. Up and down, up and down. Shane's skin sings at the contact, his heart thumping out an erratic beat to the tune, and he has to gulp down the near-constant stream of needy saliva his glands are now wildly producing at the thought of what might come next.
Both of us, hopefully.
He allows his eyes to close as he imagines exactly what he wants, for just half a filthy, glorious second.
Then he's asking, “Man, how are you always so warm?” with genuine wonder, trying to dampen the feeling of just how much he likes that.
How much he likes Ilya Rozanov.
Then he jokes, “It's not exactly Florida out here,” just in case that was a weird thing to say.
Rozanov's patented Are You Stupid, Hollander? face makes the second appearance of the evening. Not that Shane takes mental notes of that sort of shit or anything.
“Silly Canuck,”Rozanov spits. “First, I am very hot. Second, I am Russian. Springtime here for me pretty much is Florida.”
And why does Shane want this arrogant Mean Girl so bad he'd allow himself to be called all the derogatory names under the sun if it meant he gets to have this?
Always, he thinks, and then immediately disgards such a ridiculous notion.
What the hell is wrong with him tonight?
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a (mostly unedited) snippet from my hollanov wip I'm writing for my bestie @shealynn88 titled That's Me In The Spotlight (Losing My Religion).
Sometimes, on cold nights—and occasionally on some not-so-cold ones—Geralt wakes abruptly in the forest with something tickling his cheek and bothering the inside of his nostrils.
Jaskier's hair is like silken web; soft, and fine, and fucking irritating when it tangles itself in your eyelashes like dandelion fluff caught in tree sap.
On these particular cold and not-so-cold nights, Geralt wants to grunt loudly and swear and push Jaskier roughly from Geralt's space on Geralt's bed roll, because what the fuck, bard?
He never does though.
Not even this time, as Geralt awakes to that mass of brunette spiderwebs in his actual fucking mouth, with one of Jaskier's surprisingly muscular arms and a long and shapely leg wrapped tightly around Geralt's midriff as if the cretin is some sort of tentacled ocean dweller. Oh and, for fucks sake, the idiot bard's stupid slackened, drool-covered face mashed right into the crook of Geralt's neck.
Half blowing, half spitting Jaskier's hair from his mouth, Geralt balls his fists and grits his teeth and sighs, heavy as granite.
With the moon fat and high in the inky sky and sounds of the wild all around them, he will try once more to find sleep.
Closing his eyes again, Geralt pointedly ignores how Jaskier smells of lavender and forest ferns. He shuns the way Jaskier's soft, rhythmic snores play their easy tune in his ear, taking no note of Jaskier's even heartbeat and how the sound of it is a welcome comfort in the dead of night. He pays no heed to the shallow breaths leaving Jaskier's mouth nor the way each exhale warms more than just the spot underneath Geralt's jawbone, and he certainly doesn't spare the slightest bit of attention for the way those smooth lips with their perfect cupid's bow feel on the skin of his throat as Jaskier mutters the sweetest of song lyrics from his dreams.
As sleep finally does pull him under, Geralt also most definitely does not take to heart the way the idiot bard makes everything better.
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(from my deleted witcher blog behonesthowsmysinging)
The first time they share a room together at an inn, Jaskier is, unsurprisingly, completely at ease with—well. With everything.
The bard is so comfortable in these surroundings, obviously much more at home with soft bed linens and oil lamps than a patch of damp grass and only the light of a yellow-y moon. Jask is seemingly still so at ease with Geralt, too, even in such close quarters. He's apparently also completely unbothered by his own stark nakedness as he now shamelessly strips down entirely, readying himself for a warm and replenishing lavender milk bath and a cup or ten of blackberry wine.
The witcher watches the bard, whilst trying not to.
Geralt's cat-eyes very much struggle to stop following pale and slender limbs as they swirl around like dragonflies in the fragrant steam that now sits heavy and hot in the midst of their small room. Jaskier prances and preens and eventually melts like jam in porridge into the bath's soothing waters. The eternal bard then, of course, proceeds to prattle on and away about something and nothing and everything, occasionally breaking out into broken verses of half‐baked songs.
Geralt—sat sharpening his blades, sometimes grunting in occasional outward acknowledgement, sometimes not—keeps trying his damned best not to look.
He fails.
Jaskier sips long and often from his cup, the wine leaving his full mouth lacquered. Plum‐stained. Inviting.
Geralt watches still, swallowing whole cupfuls at a time of the sweetened fruit wine, thickly and far too fast.
The bard is then nonchalantly asking Geralt if Geralt, “Would you like to maybe join me in the tub?”
Geralt pulls a face with an air of faux-disdain, huffing and puffing his cowedly dismissal.
Very obviously trying not to smile, Jaskier purses those berry‐smacked lips of his and merely blinks at Geralt for a few moments, just. Looking. Or looking back, seeing as Geralt—even red-faced and fuming as he is—simply cannot look away.
Then Jask concedes a small, secretive smile, like he knows something Geralt wants to, before he shrugs it off and says, not unkindly, "Suit yourself."
Geralt immediately hurls himself out of the room with the force of an enraged Archgriffin, the plucked excuse of purchasing more wine a most welcome gods-send.
"Hurry back, dear witcher!" Jaskier's giggling torment floats after him.
On his way down the staircase to the main part of the inn, Geralt bites into his bottom lip so fucking hard he's tasting iron for the rest of the hellish evening.
Nabrielise, 1668 words, Polyamory, Implied/Referenced Childhood Sexual Abuse, Gabriel Boutin has PTSD, Flashbacks, Gabriel Boutin Needs A Hug, Gabriel is In Love, Kissing It Better, Post-Season/Series 01, Getting Together, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Pre-slash, References to Drugs, POV Gabriel.
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Cyan fingers play ghostly along bright, beautifully brown collarbone mountains.
Un amour entaché.
Tainted Love, indeed.
Gabriel's face remains a book of blank pages, his default setting—a trillion miles away from the bloody battles that are raging constantly between his mind and his heart.
He's always been one to play defence. Especially with himself.
Only nineteen and already a ghost.
…well, almost.
Darkwave trance music pumps softly from somebody's bluetooth speaker—much softer than the current thump of Gabriel's industrial techno heartbeat. Nathan, the reason, now pushes upwards from where long forearms support his longer body, those big plush lips halting a mere millimetre away from Gabriel's. Gabriel stills his touch, forever-bleu fingertips buried in a perfect clavicle valley. He watches the boy's pulse ticking away under that smooth brown skin for a moment longer before allowing their eyes to meet—and do so much more than just shake hands.
Stay.
"What's this song called? Do you know it?" Nathan's mouth moves against Gabriel's as he speaks, then he's nodding his head in question towards the sounds of pulsating synth beats and low-sung neo-goth French words unknown to him.
Stay with me.
Gabriel swallows his urgency if not his want and licks his—and consequently Nathan's—lips, before taking a breath and answering, "Angélique," on the exhale.
Nathan peers out from underneath feathery raven lashes.
Stay, always.
Gabriel has become a walking/talking contradiction of himself.
Nathan's eyes flicker shut for a couple of his own now-also-racing heartbeats. Gabriel usually manages to tune out the sounds of others' life-force, or at least turn down the volume—never Nathan's though.
Or Annalise's, come to think of it.
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(read under the cut OR READ IT HERE ON AO3)
That thought digs beneath Gabriel's skin and makes a nest there, staining him just like his bloodborne alchemy. Marking him up. Tattooing him.
~Nathan&Annalise~
Nathan gently brushes just the very tip of his nose alongside the length of Gabriel's. Up and down, up and down. "So, does that mean, like…" and he mirrors now, licking his and Gabriel's lips, "...Angelic, or some shit?"
Or some shit.
Gabriel pants out three, barely there Yeses. One for each of them.
Gabriel, Nathan, Annalise.
Nathan smiles. "Like you. You're my guardian angel," he insists. "Mine and Annalise's."
Fallen angel, more like.
Stupidly, Gabriel lets himself be just that entirely fucking perfect for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Blinks and believes.
My darling angel, Gabriel.
Gabriel grits his teeth at the sudden mental intrusion. She can just fuck right off and out of his head, merci beaucoup.
He then swallows thickly again. "No, Nathan." And he's so desperate to Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
He won't be the one to instigate though. Can't ever do that. Can't ever be that.
"You mustn't—don't think of me that way, mon cher. I'm not so… good."
Nathan fusses his gaze over every single one of Gabriel's features, with no rush to the action. Searches for a lie. He doesn't find one. He doesn't relent either, though, and now gifts Gabriel with, "You won't convince me you're anything other than a decent bloke, you know."
"Decent?" Gabriel scoffs, deflecting by looking down at his state of undress, "Dans mes sous-vêtements." Nathan's face scrunches up adorably. Gabriel sighs affectionately and smiles wryly. "I am wearing only my knickers." A nod to Annalise.
Nathan smiles some more, his face splitting with the size and force of it and Gabriel thinks he'd kill for this boy. Then Nathan tuts, just as affectionate. "You know what I mean, Gabs."
Gabriel inwardly preens at the moniker. Plenty have used the nickname before, but never has it ever sounded the way it does tripping off of Nathan Byrn's lips. Makes Gabriel think he's the one tripping, every time he hears it.
You're smitten.
Gabriel tries to ignore the oh-so familiar shrill-pitched voice in his mind as Nathan tilts his gorgeous head. "I don't care what you say, anyway. You're an angel if I say you are. With your pretty eyes and your crazy white hair."
White hair.
Gabriel blinks, too much.
You must tell me…
His mask falters. It's only a split-second—too quick for most people to notice. Unfortunately in this instance though, Nathan is not most people.
"Hey, hey, what is it? What did I say?" Nathan's eyes are blown wide and his hands instantly attach themselves to Gabriel's biceps like they've found their way home; an anchor to Gabriel's wayward ship, mooring him from the coming high-tide.
"I don't—it's nothing.“
But Nathan never knows when to leave well alone. "Bollocks, it's nothing. Where did you just go off to?"
…Is it love?
"I…"
No, no, no.
Her.
"Nathan, I—"
M E R C U R Y
And Gabriel is gone, fucked up, spiralling dangerously in a way he's managed to avoid for the longest time.
Bony fingers—too big, too knowing—sliding up the warmth of his inside thighs, to get inside of him, to tug on his will, his shame, his goodness, latching onto his very sense of self.
She'd whisper, so loudly, "Let me in, my dove. Let me in and I will give you the whole world, my sweet, sweet boy. All you could ever want and need or know or be. All for you. All for me."
He never knew why she bothered to ask.
And he fought, tooth and nail, that dove. Every time. He pushed and kicked and scratched and flapped his little wings. Didn't matter though. None of it did. She could take whatever she wanted. All of it. All of him. Always. And she did. She took everything from that frightened little bird, that little boy, until he had no fight left in him. Would just lay back and let it happen. The Witch Mercury: his teacher; his pseudo-mother; his lover. She took away his blonde curls and his deserved innocence and left him as bitter and cold as the driven snow.
Forever Winter.
"Gabriel?"
You. Are. Mine.
…almost.
Gabriel notes vaguely that Nathan's hands are no longer gripping the tops of his arms but have found their way to holding his face—no longer a mask or even a face, really, but something else. His features, ruptured now, Gabriel is a great big hole ripped right open. A gaping rift with all of his pain and guilt and humiliation spilling right out, gushing, brimming, overflowing and threatening to drown him.
He can't breathe.
"Gabriel, tell me what's happening!"
Thumbs are swiping furiously at the thawing ice that's melting from the corners of Gabriel's sad eyes.
He's crying. Having a panic attack.
Nathan is panic-stricken, too.
Nathan.
Nathan!
Not an anchor, but a lifeline.
"Kiss me." Gabriel—even with no breath in his lungs—almost shouts it, fists now balling up and white-knuckled in Nathan's shirt.
Nathan finches like he wasn't actually expecting a response. "What? No! Tell me what's wrong!"
"Nathan, please. Please!" and now he is shouting.
Maybe it's the begging itself or maybe it's just the way Gabriel's voice has a hundred hairline cracks in it, like more thawing ice, but Nathan, he seems to hear it. Somehow through the haze of Gabriel's hysteria and self-hatred Nathan hears exactly what this broken boy needs.
The role-reversal. The control.
Gabriel needs to be needed. To be something good.
Angèlique.
"Kiss me."
So The Bastard Son kisses the Ruined Alchemist in a way neither have ever kissed another, and it's its own magic spell. A counterspell; one to break Mercury's wrong-doing. A conjuring to set Gabriel free and he's there, he's so there, all in, in deep, deeply in love, and the Devil himself couldn't stop this now—
But Annalise can.
They're all but devouring each other when she walks into the room and stops dead, mouth open in a quiet gasp. So, so, quiet. But Gabriel, he hears it. And it's deafening.
Gabriel is every single Evil he's been trying to run from his entire fucking life. If he's ruined this… If he… it's not even as if he and Nathan have been trying to hide this, the thing that has gripped them both, this thing that's binding them, it's just…
It's just—
"Annalise, we—" Nathan begins, but Annalise ends it in one word.
"Us." She corrects.
And that word. That one, small word is unbelievably—incredibly, amazingly—all it takes.
Then they are magnets, he and Nathan, their combined energies pulling Annalise into them. Or she is the magnet. Or they all are? It's not important, Gabriel realises, because there's only one thing that matters now.
Us.
Annalise O'Brien and Nathan Byrn—Gabriel's family—are here, bracing him and embracing him with all of themselves. With all of their selfless love.
Annalise, with her boldness and insecurities and raw beauty and stubbornness and fierce grace, climbs up onto the bed and takes residence, curling into Gabriel's other side. A mirror to Nathan.
And they're healing him.
Nathan takes one of Anna's hands and links their fingers, squeezing. So sure. Smiling. Alive.
Annalise smiles back and leans forwards to kiss him, also sure. All warmth and sugar and spice.
Jesus, they are everything.
Us.
Then they're both laying Gabriel down with their hands and eyes, loving him better. Better than he is, better than he deserves.
Nathan can surely read minds. "Stop thinking you don't deserve this," he says and smiles, le soleil du matin—the morning sun.
Us.
Annalise, la lune dans le ciel nocturne—the moon in the night sky, hums, "Silly goose," at Gabriel, then she and Nathan are kissing each other again.
Then they're kissing Gabriel, on his arms and his chest and his neck and his chin and his cheeks and his mouth and Gabriel can finally breathe.
"Us," he agrees, his tears drying up.
And laying in a bed in a hostel somewhere in Berlin with a boy and a girl who both love him, Gabriel Boutin—guardian angel, Angélique or not—is saved.
(a nabrielise WIP—pls let me know in the comments if you'd like adding to the finished work's taglist!)
Incessant babbling, day and night. Constant fucking humming and grating outbursts of half-baked songs with bastardized lyrics. The bard is—superfluous would be an understatement. More like pretentiously poncey and purposely pig-headed just to piss me off. And a liability, to say the least. He's a goading, impudent Puck, yet shite with a sword and can't even fight with his fists to save his own featherweight arse. I mean, the moron can't weigh more than a sack of grain, for fucks sake. In fact, I'm surprised a strong gust of easterly wind hasn't blown the idiot all the way back to Oxenfurt. Oh, and to rub salt into that wound, despite his puny stature the gannet puts food away like a damn ogre, therefore munching through coin as if there's no tomorrow, no warm bath to pay for after having to wash in murky lakes for weeks, no dry room at an inn needed for a well-earned ale and a plate of pie and at least a night's decent rest.
He's incorrigible. Flashy. Unnecessary.
The bard is a Nobleman's trophy bird—a fucking Peacock of a man.
Yet.
And yet.
When we part ways and he is gone, the absence of his noise is a troublesome thorn in my side. It's like a river run dry when all you needs is a skinful of water. All the wild sounds slightly out of tune; the night owls lamenting the sound of that surely enchanted lute, the mourning Mocking Jays mimicking his voice having stolen and butchered his song. I feel unchallenged. Unmoored, even. Having only myself once again to worry over and to protect, seems somehow more of an effort—a chore, almost. All food tastes bland. My appetite in general, it wanes. Everything is wrong. Even drinking away the day at its end is so much less appealing. Bathing without soft hands smoothing warmed lavender oil through the strands of my dirty hair? A pointless waste of funds. And a soft bed for the night, all alone? These days, I strangely find it a sort of soft torture.
Yes, a Peacock preens and parades and is as vociferous as it is vexing.
But.
And but.
It's intelligent. Cunning. Majestic. It is exquisitely beautiful. And in the dead of night, when I hear its call carried on the breeze, it is somehow a tonic. The dazzling bird of such brilliant colour laments its mate: another Peafowl, this one with a plumage of pure white. And, once together again, they are the most perfect of contrasts. They are whole.
Roach brays and nods her head, shakes out her mane a little.
Ah.
It seems this witcher may have been thinking out loud again.
nabriel fic (in verse), prose poem, poetry, queer poetry, the bastard son & the devil himself, nathan byrn in love, love poem, POV nathan.
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Come aboard and captain my vessel for a minute will you, mate? I wanna rest a while in your shadow, in your sheets—I'm desperate to wrap myself up in them and in you and have you throw me overboard to plunge down, down, beneath the surprising warmth of ocean-blue fingers, dive deeper while you let me fish for your affections. Yeah, I'll gladly sink under the crashing of waves that's the saltiness of your foam-white skin, go under, plunder, more than happy, so that when they come for me you can tell them honestly of how I drowned and was buried at sea after a sudden Kraken-attack of the senses; overwhelming feelings of having all of you folded around all of me.