tagged by @poledancingghostson (doing this here because it was ostensibly a writing blog at some point) (main blog is @catastrophicbleus)
Post five passages you've written that you're proud of. Can be anywhere from a sentence to a few paragraphs. No time restriction. WIP or published work. Can be fanfiction or any other writing you're doing. Hell, if you want to post more (or less) than five, that's fine too. Just any work that makes you think "damn, I wrote that, huh?"
In no particular order:
From Black Eyes
Death is white. A snowstorm that blinds and suffocates you, that turns your skin a perverse blue, like mould, or a nightmare’s sky. That’s one of the things that bothers me most about these fucking humans and their bullshit superstitions — they look at black and see their own fear and ignorance staring back at them; they see death, the charred remains of their own wars, the fetid blood of illnesses they could have avoided. They don’t know shit.
Black is the dark of winter nights you wish could last forever, those hours of blessed peace where we could almost imagine being free, those hours when — out of boldness, or ignorance, we felt ourselves safe enough to talk, whispering to each other so as not to penetrate the incorporeal cloak surrounding us, protecting us.
Black is the colour of his hair, flowing like a river where his head rests on my lap.
From: Our Passion on This Lonely Sea
He came again last night, swimming from Port Vanis because, he insists, “it’s easier.” Where and how he spends his time that swimming to these ruins is easy in comparison, I do not want to know.
He looks so tired. Sometimes I wonder if he only sleeps when he’s with me, on a damp mattress facing the ripped edge of a broken hall, overlooking the ocean. The ocean crashing against the rocks below — I keep telling him that one day he will dash his head on a boulder, or a fallen parapet, and that I will not go looking for him. We both know this is a lie. I will go, and I will look for him at the risk of my own demise. Perhaps it is all the push I need to end this pitiful thing I have come to call “life”; squatting in this empty graveyard. There are no ghosts here, nor wraiths. Ivar helped me burn the bodies — burn, not bury. He said it would be safer, that there was too high a risk of them turning into malevolent spectres that we’d just have to kill again. He had said “we” even then, his hand firm on my shoulder as we watched the pyres float on the water — fire floating on the water; a sight that surely, under different circumstances, had I been a younger, less tortured man, would have been beautiful.
From: Reprise
The war wears on thinly. We receive news of it in drips, a little more with every new soul to enter our ranks. Hector’s afterlife swells to fullness in its own bittersweet way as not only relatives, but friends join him. Comrades and soldiers. Serfs and townspeople who adored him in life and honour him still in death. Even now many of them are eager to work his fields. It startles me to see how, by contrast, there is so little to me outside of war. How quickly I become nothing.
From that first night I could not go back to the would-be-Pelion alone, so when Hector offered me a room in his ever growing palace, I humbled myself to accept. I become his shadow, slinking silently in his wake. I remember his brother, Paris — how beautiful he had been (is — I am the past tense, not he). The quick slip of his jaw, the sharp bow of his lips, how his eyes danced as he spoke in his brother’s ear. I think how happy he seemed to always follow one step behind his brother, even though it was himself who was - is - favoured by both Aphrodite and Apollo.
I think of Patroclus. I think how much happier I could have made him if I too had been wise enough to not pursue a divinity that was never mine to grasp. It is my own fault, I know that, and yet still there is a part of me who rages at the thought of my father, so eager to let a child lead the way, and my mother with her wishful ambition. I am glad to never to see her again. I want to drag her down and ask her she still thinks it was worth it; my name, for the life I could have had.
I never ask Hector why why he allows me to follow him around so. It is only pity, I presume. Or this mutual longing — he for his wife and I for my Patroclus. “Someone will right his name in stone,” he assures me time and time again. I wonder if he means to kill me again with fruitless hope. It is only what I deserve.
He tells me about his wife, and his children. This and this and this. He is not ashamed to weep for them, but more often than not some youngling already with us will come bounding up to him, and he will wipe away his tears, smiling feelingly while they demonstrate their artistry. A newly acquire skill.
I tell him about Patroclus. About this, and this, and this. There is no one to interrupt my sorrow.
From: Burning
“Hey.” Ed’s fingertips on his jaw, gently tilting his face upward. They’re cold, like they always are, and Izzy presses into it slightly.
“I love you. I love you today, I loved you yesterday, and I’ll love you tomorrow. I loved you twenty years ago, and I’ll love you twenty years from now, and I’ll love you the day I die, okay?”
Izzy only nods. His nose smarting. Eyes watering. “See you at home.”
“Can’t wait,” Edward says, leaning in close, nudging Izzy’s forehead with his own.
It’s spring, but the rain does not stop. The clouds do not part to reveal the sun and they do not feel its ichorous rays on their faces, but when Izzy chuckles, and shoves Edward's shoulder, they both feel a certain warmth spreading through their cheeks. Burning in their chests.
From: Untitled Original Project
I have always been envious of novelists. Memoirists, essayists — anyone who can communicate their thoughts at length with any degree of clarity and precision. I have never owned up to my anything in my life. I never thought of myself as a poet, but I suppose that’s what I was. A mediocre student poet, filling the ivory pages of slim black notebooks with one overwrought image after another, always alluding to the sense of something to which I would never admit. I haven’t written anything in years.
tagging @iboughtaplant, @jayofolympus, @lohrendrell and really any writer who sees this and needs a pick-me-up!
So maybe I've been emotionally devastated by The Song of Achilles and wrote a little fic about Achilles in the afterlife leading up to (and inclusive of) Patroclus appearing, here: Reprise
My first thought — the one before thinking — is how like Pelion this place is. Blue skies and blue waters. The mouth of the cave. A gentle breeze shifting through chattering trees and clouds passing idly across the face of the sun, or something like it. All these things resent themselves to me at once and for a moment it seems as though is is twelve years ago, and I have just awoken form from some dark labyrinth of a dream. It cannot be. If it were true, then where is Chiron? What is this aged heaviness in my chest? Why is Patroclus not at my side?
Patroclus. Patroclus is my first thought of thoughts, and he is not here.
Whatever misgivings my fellow Greeks have concerning me has evidently not reached the ears of the Lord of the Underworld — or perhaps he simples does not care, being above our petty , mortal squabbles, so to speak. What ever the circumstance, I am invited to give him audience immediately, and soon find myself in his great hall without any recollection of getting there. A roar of approval thousands strong rings in my ears — something that surely would have stoked the brightness of my ego — my hubris — had he still been alive, or were he with me now.
Warnings: Some vague references to Lambert’s unhappy childhood, and canon-typical child death, but it’s mostly just Voltehre having a big ol’ crush
A @continentcakeshop fic, for the Decembert prompt, Snowmen.
also on AO3
Lambert and I snuck out to build snowmen just now. It was past curfew—a lot past curfew, and I was a bit scared we’d get caught (we did but it was okay) but it’s hard saying no to him, he’s a lot of fun, and the lectures from Varin always end up being worth it.
You know, I honestly thought I’d never be happy again when I lost ma and da. They always said that all you needed to be happy was your family, because your family loved you and took care of you. Sure, there’s lots of food here, and it’s much warmer than sleeping on the streets, but none of the instructors act like a ma or da, and it’s hard to be properly happy when you know you might die soon anyway. I’ve only ever seen one batch go through the Grasses since I got here… six years ago, but I think that was enough. I probably already said this before, but only four of them made it, and they were never the same after that. I don’t just mean the eyes, or that they started growing really fast. They stopped smiling, and they didn’t look at us younger kids anymore.
So yeah. It was pretty shitty until Lambert came.
The instructors call him a stuck up brat, but he’s nice to me, and he makes me laugh all the time. So when he asked me to go with him to build snowmen even though we were already in bed, and even though we’d already built snowmen in training earlier today, I said okay.
He didn’t answer at first when I asked him why. He just shook my shoulders and said 'Come on Voltehre let’s gooooo, in that way that makes me think the instructors might be onto something, but later, after we built a few, he told me that he used to do this all the time at home. He didn’t like going inside when his father (he always says ‘father’, not ‘da’ like me) was in, so during winter he’d stay outside and build snowmen. His house was big, though, like, he said they had a ballroom as big as the great hall downstairs—a ballroom! Can you believe it? But anyway, it was so big he couldn’t always tell when it was alright to go inside, so he’d end up falling asleep and the cook would have to go get him.
He started looking really sad again, so I asked him if anyone helped him build the snowmen then too. Sometimes he gets distracted if you ask him questions, and he stops being sad, but sometimes he gets angry and walks away. I always tease him that he must be destined to be a Wolf, because he snarls like one. Anyway, he said he built them alone, that the village children used to bully him and say that he had no friends so he had to make them out of snow. He said that he hated them, but that he hated more that they were right, because they were his friends, he gave them names and everything. He still looked sad, so I tried to balance a snowball on my nose. It broke all over my face. That made him laugh, and we did that for a while before we went back to the snowmen. I like it when he laughs, it sounds nice. Looks nice too.
We made like, ten before we got caught, but we didn’t get in trouble though, it was just Geralt and Eskel—you know, the ones that Lambert has a massive crush on? It was so funny, his face went as red as theirs were (I think they’d been drinking, though there were these weird bite marks on their necks, so maybe they weren’t only drinking) when he saw them. I thought he was going to pass out when they walked over and offered to help.
They were good fun though. Most of the Witchers talk down on us if they talk to us at all, but they just asked what we were doing and started doing it too. They’re a lot bigger and stronger than us, so it was easier for them to stack the spheres, so we managed to make a few really big ones. The biggest was Arnaghad, the next biggest was Eskel and the one that looked skinny (for a snowman) was Geralt (Lambert’s idea, of course). They said he was ‘really sweet’ and ruffled his hair. I thought he was going to die.
Then they said they were really tired, and that we should all go to bed. They didn’t look tired, and I definitely wasn’t but Lambert looked a bit sleepy so we decided to go in, but first we had to get rid of the evidence. Eskel and Geralt said we could just leave them up for training tomorrow, but then Lambert looked sad again. I remembered what he said about them being his friends. I don’t think he wanted us and the other trainees going at them with swords. So we took them apart instead, and scattered the snow, buried the rocks we used to make their faces. Geralt and Eskel gave each other this look like they thought he was mental. I wanted to hit them. But then they carried us on their shoulders to go back to our dorm, and I know that made him really happy, so I guess it’s okay.
He hugged them when they put us down, then ran off to bed before they could say anything about it. I wanted to ask for a hug too, but I was scared he’d laugh at me or something, even if I’m the first person to build snowmen with him. Is it bad that I was a bit happy when he said he’d never had a friend before?
I hope there’s a blizzard tonight. They’ll let us sleep in if there’s a blizzard, and we won’t have to train. We can just play instead. Maybe if it stops during the day, Eskel and Geralt will take us out to build more snowmen we don’t have to practice swordwork on.
Summary: Nearly a year after Gascon's mysterious disappearance, he returns to explain himself to, and hopefully make amends with, the man he left behind. (ao3)
Even by the stars’ cold light, he could tell that the gardens were far more beautiful than they were when he last saw them. Wilder, and more colourful, vibrant, but with an undeniable air of dignity. It suited her well, Gascon thought. Nothing else would do for the warrior Queen.
It was the height of summer, and the sultry air hummed with cricket choruses and cicada songs. His clothes were stifling. On another night, he might have gone to the pond nearby, and passed the dark hours sleeping near the cool water. But there was someone he wanted to see, if only he could summon the courage to find him.
He still hadn’t found any when Reynard found him instead, sitting down, leaving much fewer inches between them than Gascon anticipated, or expected he deserved. They sat on the marble bench, eyes fixed on the marble fountain — a matching set, a present from Meve to Reginald after some battle or other, he couldn’t remember which. Stags locked in battle, it was supposed to be, hooves flying, antlers clashing, the sides of their faces grazed. An unnatural posture. Gascon always thought they looked like they were kissing.
“You have shite security, Reynard. I expected better from you.”
“You were seen, Gascon. The guards were instructed to come find me when they saw a man in a funny hat skulking in like an admonished fox.”
“Am I admonished, then?”
“No, not by me. Nor by Meve, if that’s what troubles you.” If Reynard had to guess by the state of him, the only person doing any admonishing was Gascon himself.
“What makes you say I’m troubled?”
There was his unusually slight frame, his hunched posture, his dishevelled attire, the nervous jiggling of his leg, and, well- “You could have used the front door.”
Gascon paused, stilled as he considered, then his head cocked to the side, and an amused smile spread across his face as he said, “Hadn’t even occurred to me.”
Neither man said anything for a long moment. Reynard only watched, wishing the other man would turn to look at him. Gascon only wrung his hands between his knees, eyes fixed on the entwined, marble stags, one white veined grey, like the fountain’s basin and the bench, the other black veined white.
Reynard had promised that when he saw Gascon again — because the man would come back, of that he’d been certain — Reynard promised himself that he would remain the pinnacle of composure, that he would let Gascon explain, and he would listen. But now, with the man himself so close, seeing him after so long — much longer than Reynard had anticipated, he couldn’t stop from feeling wounded.
“Did you sneak out the back door when you left too?” His voice shook as he spoke, but whether it was from anger or hurt he could not say.
“Reynard-”
“Why did you leave? I thought- especially after- it seemed like-”
“It was only one night, Reynard,” Gascon reminded him, sounding more tired than the older man had ever heard him.
Reynard’s body jerked away, as if slapped. The hurt evident in his voice as he spoke. “It was hardly the only night that mattered.”
There had been so many nights, as many pints of ale and campfires as there were stars in the skies they slept under, and after, there were the lavish meals in candlelit banquet halls, and strolls through moonlit gardens when it all got too claustrophobic, and so much laughter through it all. All from Gascon at first, far too pleased whenever he earned himself a scowl or a blush from the older man, but then one day, Reynard found he’d started laughing too. Then came the lingering glances, the brushing of hands on arms, on thighs, grazing shoulders and backs, growing firmer, bolder with each pass.
There was the way Gascon smiled at him — gradually less smug as a quality akin to sunlight began to blossom, a light that warmed Reynard’s heart and fluttered in his belly. Then at last, on one of the older man’s increasingly frequent visits to Gascon’s manor, in a moment of uncommon bravery, Reynard adorned the role of romantic hero, and kissed him. He grabbed Gascon by the face and brought their lips together and in the ensuing fit of ecstasy he almost forgot to panic. Fortunately, the younger man was much better versed in such matters, and so their dance moved at last to Gascon’s bedroom. He was gone by the time Reynard woke up.
“Should have known you’d been the sentimental type,” Gascon half sighed, half groaned.
“Why are you here, Gascon?” Reynard asked — demanded, a steely edge in his voice that at one time amused Gascon greatly, but now cut deeper than any blade ever could.
“I need to tell you something.” Gripping the edge of his seat tightly, he rocked forward as if he were about to be sick, his face suddenly taking on a concerning pallor. If the younger man were being at all honest with himself, he would have confessed a desire to be in bed, perhaps with his face pressed against Reynard’s chest, the older man’s fingers in his hair like they laid that night, warm and glowing, feeling like so much lay before them. Perhaps then it would have been easier to speak.
Perhaps Reynard sensed something of the sort, for his fingers itched to take off Gascon’s stupid hat, and card through his surely sweat damp hair. But he stayed his hand, too wary of being stung again, and waited.
“I- it’s my birthday tomorrow.” Of all the things Gascon could have said, Reynard would never have thought to expect that.
“Okay-?” he prompted when Gascon seemed to have lost courage again.
“I’m not turning eighteen,” the younger man confessed, his voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.
“Aren’t you?” Reynard asked dryly.
“You knew?”
“I had an inkling.” He’d had a well of inklings. Reynard hadn’t once believed that the bandit was a mere boy of seventeen, childlike though he was. But Gascon had his secrets, and Reynard didn’t want to pry. “How old will you be then?” he prompted Gascon again, when he fell into another uncharacteristic silence, leaving Reynard with the tiresome task of being uncharacteristically vocal. He’d do it though, if that’s what Gascon needed from him then, he’d do it a thousand times over.
Gascon’s eyes were nervous now, fraught, and far away where they bored into the ground. “Twenty-eight.” His voice even quieter than it was before. He swallowed dryly.
“Not a bad age. Why hide it?”
“Because! Because I- I wasn’t a child when- when they-”
“When your family was killed?” Reynard finished softly. Any other night, had they been talking about anything else, Reynard had no doubt that Gascon would have found his tone unforgivably patronising, but now he just nodded slowly, looking at the older man with wide eyes, looking every bit the child he claimed he hadn’t been.
They never talked about it. Reynard first began to suspect just who Gascon was that night he asked to take his leave of them, and Meve followed, his strange demeanour causing her concern. He’d been so quiet when they returned, and Meve so evasive. Reynard knew the area well, knew they were near the Brossard estate. When Meve ordered the family graveyard repaired, the pieces slid into place all too easily; when she returned the land to Gascon’s care outright, there was simply no denying it. But still Gascon never spoke of his family, and Reynard never pried, though now he was beginning to think he should have.
“I should have been there,” Gascon whispered. With his eyes fixed downward at nothing again, it was hard to say if he spoke to Reynard, himself, or the earth below their feet.
“Then you’d be dead.” Reynard answered bluntly.
Suddenly outraged, Gascon whirled around, standing in front of the other man, his arms spread wide as he spoke. “Do you know why I wasn’t there? They’d sent me away. To fucking Cintra. With a friend of my father’s, hoping he’d be able to entice me into being the heir they needed.”
“Gascon-”
“They loved me so much.” His voice, thick with emotion, dropped again, and even in the low light, Reynard could see glistening tears swelling at his eyes. “They did everything for me, gave me everything, they loved me so much-”
“So they would have been relieved you weren’t there. They would have been happy that you lived.”
“I failed them.”
“You’d be dead now, if you’d been there. You would have died.”
“So? I was old enough. I should have died for my family.”
“Dying for, and dying with, are not the same, Gascon. And you were only a child.”
“I was a man!”
“You were hardly a man when I met you,” Reynard laughed in spite of himself.
Gascon glared at him reproachfully, pouting in a way that more than proved his point, and dropped to sit on the fountain’s edge, head in his hands. Reynard pushed away from the bench, walking over slowly, his boots crunching deliberately on the gavel. When he stopped in front of the other man, he crouched down, his face level with Gascon’s bowed head. Carefully, he pried those remorseful hands away, leaving Gascon no choice but to look at him.
“So say you died for your family, hm? And then what? Where would that have left us?”
“You would have been fine,” Gascon insisted weekly in answer to Reynard’s unvoiced question.
“Fine, maybe, but fine isn’t living, is it? You taught me that.”
“Reynard-” Gascon moaned. Before he had a chance to hide away again, Reynard was on his feet, cradling his head to his stomach, holding him steady as sniffed wetly, hands fisted in the sides of Reynard's tunic.
“Is that why you left?” he whispered. “The guilt of being there became too much?”
Gascon shook his head, and gasped, “No. Well, yes, but not like that.” As anticipated, finding the words was easier now that he had Reynard against him, touching him, but it still took a moment, quietly nuzzling into Reynard’s stomach, for him to find his voice. “I went back because I thought that I could finally be the man my parents would have been proud of, but after that night-”
Reynard’s stomach turned cold at those words, at that loaded silence. Unconsciously, his grip on Gascon’s hair tightened, but if the other man noticed, he didn’t show it. In all the months of his absence, it never occurred to Reynard that Gascon might be ashamed of him.
“I just- I thought you deserved to know the truth, to know the man I am, but I- I couldn’t tell you. I only meant to be away a few days, but the longer I was gone, the worse I felt about leaving and I- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”
Loosening his grip as the cold fled from his body, Reynard instead took Gascon’s face in his hands and pulled him up, looking him in the eye unyieldingly, almost sternly as spoke. “I know the kind of man you are, Gascon,” he said firmly. “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
Relief lightened Gascon’s chest as something warmer bloomed where the weight of his guilt had been, spilling over to flood his skin, his eyes watering again. “Fuck- Reynard-”
“May I kiss you now?” Reynard cut in. They weren’t going to unpack everything Gascon was feeling in its entirety in one night, let alone resolve all of it, but certainly they’d done enough to earn a kiss, and Reynard had been left waiting for so long.
Quite agreeing that they’d lost enough time, Gascon simply grabbed Reynard by the waist and pulled their bodies flush, so that nearly every inch of them from their chests to their feet were touching. Tilting his head so his silly hat wouldn’t get in the way, he brought their lips together with barely tempered desperation, eager to treat the man in his arms right. Reynard’s lips were thin and soft, naturally turned down in a dour expression that Gascon teased him for relentlessly. All it had taken was one night with those lips on him for Gascon to spend the better part of a year missing them dearly.
Reynard had promised himself that when they at last kissed again — because this moment had been inevitable, he was certain of it — he would not get carried away; it would be slow, and tender, and almost chaste. And it was, for a while. He pressed softly against Gascon’s wind-chapped lips, his tongue poking out just enough to lick a little, and, thankfully, Gascon was content to follow his lead this time, grateful for his attention. But before Reynard knew it, his hands slipped to cradle the back of Gascon’s head, thumbs pressed into the hinges of his jaw as he tilted the younger man back, nipping, then biting on his lower lip, seeking to deepen the kiss. And Gascon was parting his reddened lips, and licking inside his mouth to invite the same. Happily, Reynard obliged, moaning into Gascon’s mouth with all the airs of a sailor’s wife at last seeing her husband returned to shore.
“God’s I missed you,” Gascon breathed when he was at last allowed to come up for air, and it was the easiest breath he’d taken since they last saw each other.
As much as Gascon would have liked to stay in the garden, in that night, lost in Reynard’s kiss forever, Reynard did eventually convince him of the delights and virtues of a good bed. Late as it was, neither could in good conscious call for a bath, so they made do with a bucket of well water and a couple of washcloths, Reynard helping scrub Gascon to get him in bed all the faster. He’d waited far too long to sleep in Gascon’s arms again, and been denied the joy of waking up in them even longer.
Face to face, Gascon snoring lightly into his neck, his arm around his waist, holding him tightly, it should have been easy to fall asleep. Perhaps it would have been, if Reynard had not been quite so eager to watch him, feel him, make sure that he was really there after so many months of missing him, and not some vision conjured by the heat of a midsummer’s night.
His worries were quickly dispelled when Meve snuck into his room, sliding the false wall shut behind her, as he usually did when he made the journey in reverse.
“I hear you got your puppy back.” She said quietly, padding around to sit on the farther side of the bed, so that she could see Reynard’s face as they spoke.
It had been well over a year since their relationship transformed into something more… intimate, and yet still Reynard fought the urge to at the very least sit up in deference to her presence. However, being shirtless, he supposed that would be rather more indecorous, and besides, he didn’t want to risk stirring the man sound asleep in his arms. He was so tired.
“You see him too, then?” He asked, unable to keep a smile from his lips.
“I do. I take it he explained himself?”
“He did.”
“To your satisfaction?”
“To my satisfaction, yes.” He sounded almost reproachful. “You needn’t worry, Meve.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She only watched them for a moment, taking in the sight of what she knew her lover had so longed for. They were pretty together, she had to give them that, and there was something delightful in the very idea of Reynard being softer on the bandit than she was. Tentatively, she reached out to stroke Gascon’s dark hair, and the back of Reynard’s hand where he held the younger man’s head.
“It’s his birthday tomorrow.” Reynard said softly, absently, but with a sense of wonder in his voice, like he found it truly marvellous that Gascon’s birthday was tomorrow.
“Oh? How old will he be?”
“Twenty-eight.”
She mulled that over silently, quickly puzzling out why the young man had lied in the first place, letting the weight of Reynard’s knowing — of Gascon’s telling him the truth, sink in. So, it appeared, the puppy was finally ready to live a little more honestly. “I should have a special breakfast brought up to you then.”
“And you’ll eat with us?” Reynard inquired hopefully.
“If you wish it.”
He rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. It was a game she’d been playing, trying to get him to express his wishes to her. “I’d be grateful if you did.”
“Well, how could I deny you now?” Neither spoke for a moment, both their eyes cast tenderly upon the man sleeping between them. Then she laughed, snorted. “‘Seventeen’ my arse.”
In spite of himself, Reynard laughed too.
Meve stayed long enough for him to fall asleep, his arms still wrapped tightly around Gascon, Gascon’s hair kissing his lips in a way she knew the older man found inexpressibly gratifying. She kissed one man on the temple, and then the other, and existed once more through the concealed sliding door. She never spent the night, not since she and Reynard first fell into bed together, the day the paperwork had been signed on their victory. True, there was no small amount of relief that the deep, abiding affection they held for each other had finally spilled over into something outwardly passionate, and with any luck it would continue to do so for years to come, but Meve also knew they couldn’t work together in a way that suited them both.
First, she had long felt that Reynard would make someone the perfect husband one day, told him as much for years, but she’d already been married, and had no inclination to being so again, even to a man like Reynard. Second, though she would never tell him this, Meve suspected that her chief advisor would never be able to fully remove her from the pedestal he’d set her upon for so many years. So she kissed one many on the temple, and the other, and slipped back through the sliding door to her own room, and into her own bed, assured in the knowledge that they — the two men who were perhaps her best friends — would wake up in each other’s arms feeling as close to complete as humanly possible, and alone in her room, so would she.
Sure enough, when a shard of the early morning sun’s golden light alighted on Reynard’s face, he could feel the warmth of Gascon’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist, Gascon’s hand pressed against his chest, Gascon’s body snug against his back, his nose brushing the dip behind Reynard’s ear, his breaths skating across Reynard’s skin. In short, they were exactly as they had been the first time they’d fallen asleep together, and Reynard was finally waking up in the glow of that glorious night. Sleepily, smiling, he placed his hand over Gascon’s, twined their fingers together, and brought it up to his face. Pressing a lingering kiss into Gascon’s palm, he mumbled, “Happy birthday, Gascon.”
a/n: I just wanted to experiment a little with non-explicit sex, and @round--robin gave me a need for tender Lambskel runion sex yesterday so, et voilià! (This ended up having much more backstory than intended but oh well) also on ao3
Eskel was there when he awoke. He was always there, every winter since his first. Lambert would stumble through the courtyard gates, sleep dragging his body down to the rough stone floor, already spattered here and there with snow. And warm, thick arms would catch him; curling under his body and wholly lifting him up.
That first year, he held onto consciousness as long as possible, confused and more than a little suspicious of the other witcher. He couldn’t open his eyes, but he could feel himself being carried upstairs to a room — new to him, now there he was a witcher on the Path, and all his since there were so few left. There was already a fire going in the hearth, and the room was almost sultry compared to the biting cold he had just come in from. He felt as large hands — surprisingly deft and gentle for their size — carefully stripped him of his clothes, and wiped off the sweat and dirt crusted to his skin with a wet, warm washcloth.
Those hands, that washcloth went everywhere, cleansing every inch of his skin. He thought he would fight if he had to, or he’d fight to fight anyway, but the thought became irrelevant when he was carefully dressed in fresh braes and a soft shirt, and tucked under layers and layers of furs. Sleep now little wolf he’d heard a voice say, rumbling so soft and low, for a moment he thought that the mountain itself was speaking, you’re safe .
And sleep he did.
It went like that every year; despite Lambert staying in or close to Kaedwen, Eskel always got back at Kaer Morhen first, and he’d be up and waiting by the time Lambert arrived. Every winter he fell asleep faster, easier, sooner, until one year he passed out right there in the courtyard, trusting that those same, strong hands would catch him before his knees hit the ground.
That year was full of firsts.
Eskel was sitting in an armchair, a few feet away from the foot of the bed when he woke up. Though it was his room, Lambert always thought of it as Esekl’s chair, for the older witcher was the sole reason for its presence. His scent was always infused into the soft leather after his week-long vigil; suffused into the fleece that was then draped over the back of the chair; the fleece he slept under at night, unwilling to leave Lambert’s bedside.
Every winter he and Eskel got closer and closer, (Eskel was an easy man to love, once you’d shown you weren’t horrified by his scars he was all bright smiles and easy touches) and Lambert spent more and more time curled in that chair, burrowing his face into that fleece. It started with a cursory sniff, then a deep inhale; he became increasingly addicted to that smell until, the winter before, he spent every second of every day in the desperate pursuit of more.
That year he slid from his bed and sauntered over to Eskel’s chair on legs rendered coltish by disuse. It was night, and he was still swimming through the thick, almost liquid fog of sleep, and his head felt as light and as empty as his stomach. Thusly dazed, he thought nothing of allowing himself onto the other man’s lap, and hooking his arms around his neck. “Hey,” he said, as though it were every other winter.
If Eskel was startled, he did a bloody good job of hiding it. His hands had come up to hold Lambert’s hips, to keep him steady more than anything else, but the younger man relished the touch anyway. “Hi.”
“Why?” Lambert blurted out, apropos of nothing.
A frown deepened the crease between Eskel’s eyebrows. “Why what?”
“Every winter you — why?” Eskel’s hands hadn’t moved, wouldn’t, Lambert knew, but he wished they would.
The older witcher’s eyes were cast down, examining the spot where Lambert’s body met his as he considered his answer. “I worried,” he said eventually. “It was your first year, you’re the only one left of your class, there are so few of us left at all, so I worried.”
Something deflated in Lambert’s chest then, but he still had enough air in him, enough hope, to ask — “And now?”
Eskel’s silence this time was not in search of the right words, rather, they were right there in his mouth, eager to burst forth heedless of any wisdom. Eventually, they proved too strong, too true to keep in. “I worry because I miss you.”
Lambert lunged forward, closing the scant few inches between them until their lips were pressed together. It was an artless, graceless mashing of soft flesh against soft flesh that only got more urgent as Eskel’s hands roved under his shirt, exploring his body with equal parts passion and reverence.
Despite his best efforts, Eskel refused to give Lambert everything that night. “We have time,” he insisted, the words breathed against the soft skin of Lambert’s neck, “and I want to do this right.”
It was days of gentle touches and careful fingers before Eskel deemed him ready, and Lambert knew on that first slide in, when felt that first flood of glowing, liquid fire settle deep in his gut, that he would go through all seven realms of hell, and square off with the Eternal Flame itself, if only to get back to this man.
Alright, so it was a little dramatic, and it’s not like he didn’t love the guy before, but that was the first time he let himself feel it, and felt loved in return.
That was decades ago. You’d think, by now, the intensity of their couplings would have tempered somewhat, and they did, sort of. At least, it would slow down, weeks into winter they’d start to get lazy, idly nipping, petting, tugging, their writhing and thrusting just the right side of sloppy as they smiled at each other, occasionally dissolving into breathless chuckles.
But the first time? Every first time of every winter was a revelation. This one was no different; Lambert woke up, and Eskel pounced on him, pinning his hands above his head, taking an ear between his teeth before moving down with open mouthed kisses. His hands slid down Lambert’s body, grabbing and massaging his lover’s firm, lean muscles as he sucked a trail of love bites down Lambert’s neck. Those hands slid down his legs, between them, ravenous, as if needing the assurance of touching every part of him to make sure he was all there, that he was real, that he had survived another treacherous year and come back to him.
And Lambert’s hands did the same; checking for new scars and relishing in the old ones; in the feel of familiarity; of the dips and curves unique to the bear of a man he had made his home.
They both gasped when that first, slow glide ended with the meeting of their hips, and Eskel dropped forward to drape himself over his lover, so much more slender than himself. Neither of them moved as they basked in the heat of each other’s skin, inhaled the scent of their combined musks through their mouths so as to taste it.
When Eskel did move, it was with all the grace of a rolling tide; his body rippling over Lambert’s like a large cat prowling the verdant jungles beyond the Zerrikanian desert. Each slide and thrust was like a burst of warm, deep pink light carved into the shape of a hundreds of thousands of glimmering butterfly wings, set to clockwork and fluttering through Lambert’s body, escaping his parted lips in soft moans and gasps that kissed Eskel’s cheeks.
Eskel dipped his head and their lips slotted together — more practiced than that first time, but no less hungry. His tongue delicately swiped Lambert’s skin, and he took his plush lower lip between his teeth, tugging lightly in silent request before diving in. He swallowed all those little, breathless sounds like a man starved because in many respects he was; Lambert had always been content with his own hand, but Eskel was — had been, used to more. It’s fine Lambert had insisted when they parted that first year. But Eskel wasn’t so sure, and he soon discovered that being with anyone else could only be described as akin to having ash in his mouth.
So he drank Lambert in like fresh water, like fine wine, like milk and honey; he was alive, he was intoxicated, he was nourished by the all consuming presence of Lambert; his heat, his softness, his spice, his sweat, the way his body held on to Eskel, tethering him to this world and even as he pulled him higher. There was no telling who reached their peak first, each one seemingly spurring on the other as they shuddered in ecstasy, trembling as though the light of the gods sprinted through their veins.
And then they were falling, tumbling through the air as they held onto each other, plunging into the cool depths of heavenly bliss. The world around them became somehow muted, as though they floated in the velvet night, cradled by the liquid dark and golden firelight.“I love you,” Lambert said, whispered as he panted, catching his breath. Eskel still could not speak, but he pressed his lips to Lambert’s forehead, and held him firmly to his chest.
The younger man gathered himself enough to fetch the washcloth and basin of water Eskel always kept ready. He cleaned himself up quickly, before moving back to the bed and taking care of his lover with just as much care and reverence as he was shown at the beginning of every winter. He’d hardly enough time to set the basin aside before he was pulled to lie on top of Eskel’s broad chest, thick, tree-trunk arms wrapping around his slender waist. I love you too, he said with his hands, over and over as he rubbed Lambert’s back, and he’d say it again later as he fed him, and washed his hair, and stroked his cheek when they went to sleep. At some point that night he’ll find his voice and he’ll say it aloud, but it didn’t matter when, because Lambert felt it, as he always did, in every wordless touch.
Content Warning: Oblique reference to human trafficking
Summary: A story of a love that endures in world that seems determined to take everything away; a love forged in quiet moments, over kitchen fires, long suppers, and in the darkest of sleepless nights; a love found in the warmth and smell of a familiar shirt.
1.
It started in the kitchen, as all good things do. He was making mulled wine of all things. Said he used to see the older Witchers partaking, laughing and carrying on and having a jolly old time. He said it seemed nice, like all the bullshit they had to go through might be just a little bit worth it if he could have that some day. He’d drift off to the tune of raucous singing, and dream with the cloying scents of citrusy wines and ciders dancing in his nose.
He thought of it often, his first year on the Path. Only one other boy in his class made it that far. They’d never really gotten on, but he thought maybe they’d sit together, and have some mulled wine. Or course, everyone was dead when he got there. Those few who remained, trickling in too late, just like he did, preferred the company of the wind rushing through the ruins, howling like the ghost of their fallen brethren. If there was ever a home to be found in Kaer Morhen, it burned with them.
Lambert couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t bear to be alone in a room, in a crumbling fortress, on a signed straw mattress that still smelt like death. Just months ago he shared with the other adepts, their warmth, their breaths and heartbeats humming in the air. It was too quiet now. Too cold, and empty.
“Thought I’d never smell that again,” a voice like spring thunder rumbled from the doorway. One of the older Witchers -- Eskel. He may have been the next youngest after Lambert, but he still had a good few decades on him. He’d come back almost every winter since Lambert could remember. The affable, charming type, he was never alone, until now.
“You want some?” Lambert offered, trying very hard to not sound like the wee sprog he suddenly felt like again.
“Love some, thanks.”
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Every night, for weeks. They talked some, then a lot, but Lambert tried not to look into those eyes like Tokay in candlelight. One look and he’d be a goner, he knew. Now was not the time --
It was a short trip from there to Eskel’s bed -- just to sleep. The older witcher didn’t like sleeping alone either. He kept waking up in the middle of the night, shocked by the silence, the stillness. The sound of Lambert’s breathing, the beating of his heat, the soft snuffles he made in his sleep; it was the sweetest lullaby he’d ever heard.
Summary: When a rough season on the Path has Eskel feeling all out of sorts, he goes looking for the one person that can make him feel right again.
Strictly speaking, he’d no reason to be in An Skellig, but Lambert hadn’t been in any of his usual hunting grounds, and Eskel was getting desperate. At any rate, if the young Wolf wasn’t there, there was nowhere else on the continent Eskel would have had a better chance of finding a willing bed partner. Not the sort he was after, anyway.
He didn’t need to find Lambert; they’d tried not fucking anyone else for a while, but at the end of the day, they were as much animal as anyone else, and they got desperate. At the end of the day, they were still Witchers, and they couldn’t always stay together on the Path, especially in recent years. Anti-Witcher sentiment was always at a steady simmer, ready to boil over at the slightest shift of the wind, and no matter how consistent they tried being with their travels, they couldn’t always find each other when they needed. Clearly. But even by his standards, it was a shit year, and there was only one man who could stop him from crawling out of his skin.
Eskel had been run out of villages that, merely a decade ago, offered him food and board for a job well done; one man on the road to Attre was bold enough to spit on him, and aldermen decided to argue for lower prices after he'd killed their monsters, if not stiff him entirely; a lordling insisted that his dick was payment enough, then threatened to have him tried for buggery when he refused. By that point, Eskel already wanted nothing but to spend endless days with his little wolf, soft and pliant beneath him. That made him desperate. So, thinking it best that he left the vicinity until the snivelling shit’s bruised ego had healed enough to forget about him, away to Skellige he went.
In the first stroke of luck he’d had since winter, the man he longed for was sitting at the bar of the very first tavern he walked into. Even if the smell of home hadn’t slammed into him as soon as he opened the door, scrambling through the muddled odours of meat, sweat, and stale alcohol, he’d recognise that tight back and that carefully slicked back dark hair anywhere. Lambert must have been feeling desperate too, if the deep blue handkerchief sticking out of his back right pocket was anything to go by. Eskel smiled to himself as eager anticipation bubbled under his skin.
“Harlot.” Moving quickly, he pulled the piece of fabric out and slapped it over Lambert’s head, letting it fall. His little wolf recognised him in an instant, and all but flung himself into his arms, burying his nose into Eskel’s neck, trying to find his scent past the sea salt that clung to his skin. Their indiscretion earned them a few sidelong glances, as well as a cheeky smirk from the barkeep, but there were more men in here with cloth in their back pockets than without. No one was about to give them any grief, Skellige was good like that. Eskel indulged further, pressing a quick kiss into Lambert’s hair before thumping his back in a most manly fashion and pulling away.
“What are you doing here?” Lambert asked as he took his seat, and Eskel the one next to him.
Can you share something about With All the Holy Vows in Heaven? 👀
In fact I can share a snip from the scene I'm working on now! It's rough, but it exists.
“You have a wooden duck.” Gezras said, apropos of nothing, referring to the small wooden mallard that accompanied the older surgeon into every operating room. He wasn’t looking at Regis — who was still shrugging off his jacket — his thumb and first two fingers running up and down the stem of his glass. He leant back, his legs spread in that way men tend to do when they feel insecure, his head turned to the side, his eyes scanning the decorations on the back wall, as if making passive inventory simply for the sake of something to do.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Since university, there isn’t a problem I haven’t solved by talking to him. And it’s nice to have a friend around.”
Gezras looked at him then — like he was crazy, sure, but still. He looked him right in the eyes, pond weed green meeting silt brown, brow quirked in question — but he decided against asking any, it seemed, for the next thing said was, “It’s very wee.”
“So I can keep him in my pocket,” Regis explained, perhaps too enthusiastically, fishing the duck in question from the aforementioned pocket. “That way I’m never caught without him.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Toulouse.”
“Good name for a duck.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
But I just realised you said about, not from - it's the prequel to Crêpes with a Side of Existentialism which you already now know because we've talked about and you just saw a snippet
