#taran writes

[hollcwboy]

britpicking lockwood & co fanfic for over 4 years and i still discover new weirdass british terms for things. wdym this is a VEST???

[mistandshcdow]

Schrödinger's Divinity: Christ the Man in Jesus Christ Superstar

The story of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) is one of doubt. It begins not with Christ singing, but with Judas's bitter anthem of disillusionment and fear for the future of Jewish people he believes Jesus is endangering with his reckless behaviour (“Heaven On Their Minds”). A central question directed to Jesus is for him to confirm his own divinity through mouth or deed (“Tell us that you're who they say you are”), one he is unwilling to answer (“It is you that say I am”).

The narrative is limited to Holy Week, after Jesus's 3-year ministry of miracle working has concluded. We never see him perform any miraculous act, leaving Jesus's supernatural power as much of a baseless rumour to the audience as it is to Herod and the Jewish officials. Instead, JCS is deeply interested in Jesus's humanity. Mary Magdalene sings he's "a man, he's just a man" ("I Don't Know How to Love Him") and Christ himself asks if any other man could be asked as much of as he has been ("Gethsemane"). To Judas, Jesus's belief in his own divinity (“You’ve started to believe the things they say of you”) is a crossed line he is unwilling to follow him over, as it endangers not only Jesus's own life, but the lives of those who would happily cross it - people who are undoubtedly mortal and liable to die in a religious uprising against the Romans.

But it must be noted that Judas's assessment of Jesus as falling for his own hype is not entirely accurate (a self awareness that is hinted at in "Damned for All Time/Bloody Money") - he too is riddled with uncertainty about the future and his role in it. Jesus's "I don't want" song in Act II shows Jesus at war with himself, not with God. He asks, exhausted, "why then am I scared to finish what I started," before cutting himself off with "what you started! - I didn't start it!" ("Gethsemane") With no outward confirmation of the existence of God, this number presents Christ as both unwilling participant and ultimate arbiter of his fate, one portrayed as final ("Why should I die?").

Indeed, Christ's resurrection is left undetermined. JCS concludes with his death and burial, leaving open the possibility that in this version of the Christ story, Jesus really is dead forever, just as possible as him returning to life in 3 days. Thus, at the finale Jesus exists in an opaque box (or, if I may, a sealed tomb), simultaneously fully human and fully divine (which is, aptly enough, the conclusion of many Biblical scholars on Jesus's dual nature), both risen and un-risen, equally alive as dead.

[iamtaran]

I found out my mum was dying-- then, now-- by text message on my way to the bus stop. I had work. My dad hadn’t told me that it was the day. Just like she hadn’t told me that she had had cancer and had it again. When they took her off the machines he was with her, and so was her friend Pat, and not me, and not me. She was going where I couldn’t see her, but already I could not. How, to be gone already? I crossed the street, then crossed back, walked up the bike path and stopped, lost. I texted my sister, who had in fact been the one to tell me, should I call out of work or go in? What was I meant to do? What do people do? Go in. Be distracted. I crossed again. To the bus stop. Because I had work, and my mum was dying. The idea struck me there, so I tried and couldn’t send the files, and asked Katie and she tried and couldn’t send the files, and finally she jerry-rigged a recording of me playing the piano and sent it to dad with my request: play this for her as she goes? Alright, he said, a man not accustomed to texting more than the occasional word. An hour later, at work: she’s got her wings, he messaged me. I was baking hypoallergenic dog biscuits when she died. I drank vinegary kombucha I didn’t really like and set the oven timer for 5m45s and wondered if maybe at all she could have heard the song and felt comforted, like we were at home and I was playing for her after dinner. She had this way of looking at me, like at once she adored me and would always be confused by me, and at turns the one made the other better and worse. I thought, was she able to know I loved her from afar? As much as I resented her, and hated her, and idolized her, and pitied her, and hoped and hurt for her, that I loved her with as much room as I felt all those other things? And then the oven timer went off, and I had to think about dog treats and oven gloves and not about silly winged things I didn’t believe in. I haven’t played the piano since she died. I don’t know what song my sister recorded and that dad played for her, if he played it for her; what song she heard, if she heard. I do know that if I did play, that when I play it now without knowing, the only certain thing will be that she won’t be there to hear it, and the one made the other better and worse.

[iamtaran]

X-Files The Witcher AU fic idea

but like, not what you expect. Geralt and Jaskier aren’t Mulder and Scully because Mulder and Scully are Mulder and Scully.  Geralt of Rivia really is a centuries-old witcher hunting down, de-cursing, and/or relocating dangerous magical beings beneath the nose of modern society. Jaskier is not centuries-old and is in fact is 31, thank you, no matter what his freshman students might think. He’s a fairly popular adjunct professor who teaches musical theory and history and uh... runs around after a centuries-old monster hunter whilst doing his best to keep his identity and activities secret from the authorities whilst also recording it for posterity. And has been doing so. Since he was 18. He does not see these two activities as antithetical at all. Oh, and did I mention it’s the 90s? The home cam recorder Jaskier carries with him on cases weighs about as much as a small child. His jeans are high waisted and nearly painted on and also yes they are appropriate field attire, shut up Geralt. (And of course there’s gotta be a “dressing Geralt up in modern clothes to blend in/escape or w/e” chapter where his ass, finely encased in high-waisted Levis, takes out every person with eyes in a two-block radius. The breezy shirt unbuttoned down the chest and with the sleeves rolled up is just overkill on top of that. Every one of Jaskier’s students thinks his big hunky boyfriend is to die for. Jaskier has to somehow keep up the ruse and get Geratl safely across campus and under the radar again without combusting on the spot. ) (Also. Scrunchies are IN, and Jaskier may or may not have picked up a package for Geralt as a joke that he is now afraid to carry through for fear of retribution being swift and juvenile.) Cue a ton of fun, tense, absolutely delicious half-true rumors being heard, near-misses being had, and shocking discoveries being made as Scully and Mulder chase after someone who cannot exist yet who they quickly begin to realize does; as Jaskier pulls his who, me? obfuscation routine when the Feds show up, multiple times and with an easy undaunted smile; and as Geralt just tries to do his fucking job. It’s not his fault no one thinks he exists. Like. It’s in the history books. It’s right there.   He’s still half-myth by the end of the fic, but Scully and Mulder get one earth-shattering scene where they actually see him in action, in the flesh, fighting or containing a thing that can’t exist. And then, I dunno, let him go or help him get away or something bc the government would just contain and probably dissect him and they’ve learned enough about him not to want that to happen. They team up with Jaskier to get it done. Cue the beginnings of a somewhat strange friendship. They get Jaskier’s number so they can ask him to ask Geralt when they find something that might be his area of expertise. Maybe they have brunch or something idk fin.

[iamtaran]

For the prompt thing: 15 and 37-together or separate I don't mind either way

:D Thanks so much for this prompt!! My first ever!! <3 I hope you enjoy it aah. (Also I… tried so hard……… to keep it brief RIP i’m bad at this)

15: “Was that supposed to hurt?” and 37: “So lie to me then.”

*

Three months after Jaskier last saw him on the mountain, in an upscale tavern in Novigrad playing for a gathering of minor mages, successful merchants, and actors, Jaskier looks up and sees Geralt standing in the back of the common. He is so startled that he ends up ending his set rather abruptly and stumping down from the little raised stage in order to quickly pack his lute away. If he can just get between the two parties exiled to social exclusion in the back and up the stairs to his room-

“Jaskier.” A hand lands on his shoulder. “You-

Jaskier shrugs the hand off roughly, and his voice is a whip crack even over the din of the common: “No.”

Because of course it’s Geralt, and of course he is standing there looking dumbfounded– as dumbfounded as he can, at least, when half the muscles in his face seem permanently pressed into his neutral scowl. They slacken now in surprise. Jaskier feels a mean little curl of pleasure to have shifted even those. 

“No,” Geralt repeats, like dragging the word over gravel. Jaskier cannot bear to look at him. He slides the last of the leather ties shut on his lute case and slings it over his back with too much force. It barks off the table behind him with a twong. He fights the urge to wince. He is hot across his neck with a familiar anger (which is in no way masking hurt, thank you) and unwilling to withstand a second more of this than humanly possible, and so turns abruptly away.

“That’s right, Geralt. No. Forgotten what it means? I know you’ve heard it enough in your life,” Jaskier says cattily. As he walks away, he throws caustically over his shoulder with a jaunty wave, “but let me introduce you one more time.”

He takes the stairs two at a time, an uphill rock fall of flailing and banging limbs and boots too heavy on the wood so that the whole tavern must hear the racket. No matter how much noise he makes, however, it is not enough to mask the sound of heavier boots following behind him on the stair. Jaskier scowls.

He had locked the door to his room, specifically because he room was nice enough to come with a lock. He had been pleased that his belongings would be safe while he performed. Now, he regrets it immensely. Stubbornly, he yanks the key from the pouch on his belt and struggles to fit it into the door. Struggles, because his hands are trembling. He curses.

He feels Geralt stop just behind him. His presence seems to exude– something. It sets all the hair on Jaskier’s body standing in emotion so strong he feels it in his fingertips. He doesn’t look. He refuses. As if Geralt is not there, he finally gets the key in the door and bursts in, swearing profusely when his boot toe catches on an uneven board and he stumbles. He tosses his lute on the bed. Still ignoring the undeniable presence in his doorway, he begins picking in the hooks down the front of his doublet. One tears loose under his numb fingers. He snarls.

“Jaskier-”

He whirls around.

“Did you not hear me?” His voice cuts through the room like a lobbed spear. “I’m uninterested, thanks very much. Now get out.”

Geralt’s brows snap together in consternation. The look is so familiar, which somehow simply rockets him from angry to furious like nothing else. Three months he’d had to forget, or try. Why did Geralt have to, to ruin it?

“You won’t even let me speak?”

“You didn’t let me, before,” Jaskier spits. Geralt– flinches. The molasses-slow shift of guilt oozes across his stiff features as unwillingly as ever. Even so, its presence is enough to give Jaskier pause, just for a moment. Not too long ago Jaskier would have flogged himself to see that expression, to catch a hint of it. Now it makes him grind his teeth.

“You…” Geralt sighs hard enough his nostrils flare and opens his hands wide. “You’ve always been a better man than me,” he points out as if clawing the words out pains him. Jaskier doesn’t take the olive branch.

“Pretty words for someone who claims not to be a man at all. Are you a man, Geralt?” Geralt’s eyes flash up to meet his, shockingly vulnerable for a split second. A single arrow of shame cuts through the red haze for a moment. Jaskier scowls and thinks, guess I’m not the better man after all. He changes course. “What could you possibly want to say to me? You got what you wanted, after all.” He turns away to finish undoing his jacket. It’s easier if he doesn’t have to look at him. To not have to read him as clearly as a friend of decades. His mouth runs away with him. “I’m off your hands. What, have you further complaints you were not able to air? Perhaps some long-carried unhappiness to get off your chest? Because I admit to being wholly uninterested-”

“No,” Geralt interrupts in a tight-strung voice. “I’m not- I didn’t find you to yell at you, Jaskier, what the fuck?” His honest bemusement grates. Jaskier throws his jacket on the bed and shoves his sleeves up to the elbow if only to have something to do with his riotous hands.

“Oh, then we’re breaking with tradition, then,” Jaskier says meanly. He flutters about the room impotently, unable to stand still, unable to look at him, yet unable to leave. “How quaint. Except, again, not interested so will you please-”

“-I’m trying to,” Geralt cuts himself off with a curse. “I came all this way to talk to you, will you just-”

“-and I’ve said no! Multiple times! You stubborn-”

Geralt bulls across the space so suddenly that Jaskier freezes.

“Will you look at me?” Geralt demands. Jaskier’s head snaps around.

“FINE!” he shouts. It does what he wanted; Geralt jerks back at the volume, eyes flown wide. Jaskier follows him with a single, sharp stab to the chest from one string-hardened finger. “I’m looking at you. Is this what you wanted? Do you see what you came for? Because that’s all that matters, right, is what you want?”

Geralt swells up like a thunderhead in a rush of barely-withheld frustration. He has to visibly quell himself. “I… care. About what you want.” His tone comes out bitten-off at the ends. “It matters. And, I’ll,” he scowls, “I’ll leave if you want. If you’ll just let me-”

“Let you what?” Jaskier snips, just to be an asshole. Geralt breathes in and out one through his teeth and rumbles,

“Apologize.”

Jaskier stares at him hard, with that deep unhappy line between his brows and the ready-to-pop tension of his mouth like an over-tightened lute string. He sees all of it and wishes he couldn’t. Geralt’s jaw is ground so tight Jaskier feel a sympathy pain in his molars. He looks paler than Jaskier remembers, with deeper shadows under his eyes. His hair is the dark grey it goes when it hasn’t been washed in a while. He smells of horse, sweat, road dust, and fire smoke. 

Jaskier tamps down on the sympathy that wells up in his chest like vomit and curls a petty lip.

“I wouldn’t think you’d know how. Do you need pointers?”

Geralt frowns.

“Don’t be childish.”

“Oh,” Jaskier gasps, feeling at once like he had won and yet burning, uncomfortable, unquenchable, out of control, “oh, I’m the childish one? Shall we reflect on your little tantrum, Geralt, some three months past? Side of a mountain, dragon hunt– ringing a bell?”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt grits out. Jaskier has to fight to keep his face from betraying his surprise. He doesn’t want to be surprised, or to feel anything stirring hopefully in his gut with the words, delivered however begrudgingly. Geralt steps closer so that he is all Jaskier can smell. His eyes catch the lamplight like copper coins. “You didn’t deserve that. I was…” He rakes a cruel hand through his hair, numb to how it yanks his disheveled queue further out of arrangement. It looks as if he has repeated the motion many times before he had arrived. “I was angry and I took it out on you because… because-”

“Because you’re an arse.” Geralt glares, mouth already open to argue. Jaskier raises his voice over him. “Admit it! I was an easy target for you to take out your upset over things ending between you and Yennefer. That’s how it always goes with her! She chews you up and spits you out, only this time it wasn’t temporary. So you took your hurt out on me, your obnoxious, worthless travel companion. Like an arse.” The bitterness curls directly off his tongue. He hopes Geralt can taste it.

“I…” Geralt chews on the words– like glass, if his expression is anything to go by. “You’re… right about Yennefer. But you, you’re not-” Jaskier is barely listening anymore. He feels righteous and vindictive, like draining an infected wound but it’s not a healing pain at all. He doesn’t realize he is trembling.

“I was an easy target,” he snarls. “Easy to cast aside. Like trash.” Geralt bristles.

“Don’t put words into my mouth,” he barks. Jaskier flares up at him.

“Am I? You threw away over two decades of friendship in a squalling fit! Only, of course,” Jaskier laughs sharply, “of course, we weren’t friends, were we? You couldn’t even stand the word. I’m amazed you made it so many years with my unbearable presence.”

Jaskier had been watching closely: the jumping of the muscle in his jaw, the clench of his fists at his sides. It’s the snapcord tight draw of the tendon in Geralt’s neck that marks the breaking of his composure. 

“Don’t be fucking stupid!” he snaps. His flashes teeth like a feral dog. “Of course we were fucking friends!”

An unholy vindication swells up in him when Geralt makes an aborted move forward as if to shove him.

“No,” Jaskier hisses, and then he is shouting. He can’t stop shouting. He shoves out with both hands. Geralt doesn’t budge and he shoves and shoves and he won’t fucking budge. “I was your friend! Me! For years! But you were never-”

“Never what?” Geralt pushes back. “Never saved your life from jealous husbands, thieves, shapeshifters?” Again. Jaskier staggers back a step. His heart is pounding rage in his throat. “Never saved you from your own stupidity?” 

Jaskier feels as if he’s been slapped.

“Thanks ever so!” he snarks over the pain. “If this is how you apologize-”

“I’M TRYING,” Geralt bellows, spittle flying. His eyes flash the color of gold in the sun. “But gods dammit, Jaskier, you can’t make this easy, can you? Nothing can ever be easy, not with you around to fuck it up.”

Jaskier slaps him.

In the sudden quiet, the sound seems inordinately loud. Three breaths pass with only their heavy breathing and the murmur of voices from below.

Ever so slowly, Geralt turns his head back, eyebrows drawn up into a little fist of hurt, before his forehead smooths. He lifts one eyebrow pointedly and sneers.

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

The room seems to drop away. Right, then. 

Which is when Jaskier reels back and punches him in the nose.

*

Afterwards, after Jaskier has bloodied Geralt’s nose and Geralt has broken the bed frame with tossing him back onto it– after they’ve wrestled like school boys, elbows flying and pinching and slapping and biting and pinning– after Jaskier had gotten the upper hand for all of a moment with an old move learned with the other noble boys destined for knighthood whereas Jaskier was, apparently, destined to end up on a shitty little palliase in Redania locking a witcher’s elbow behind his back– – 

After Geralt has, of course, come out on top and managed to pin Jaskier sweating and swearing and sputtering beneath him– and after he manages to haltingly, breathlessly, quietly press out his apology to a captive audience– and after Jaskier finds something inside him breaks open like a dropped wine bottle and, pinned, he has no choice but the let the ugly hurt and broken shards puke out–

Afterwards, they lay huffing and panting into silence. Geralt’s shoulder and elbow press into his own, exuding heat like a banked fire. His hair tickles Jaskier’s ear on that side. His chest rumbles on a hum, and it could be indistinguishable from any other such room. Any other such bed and night. If he closes his eyes and pretends that his chest has not been wrenched open, Jaskier can almost pretend. They had never parted and travel on instead. Hunts, and vodka passed beside the fire, shared strange and lonely sights in the wilderness, and two friends.

Jaskier swallows. His throat hurts from yelling.

“Don’t take this to mean you’re forgiven.”

“Hm.”

Jaskier scratches an itch, squirms.

“You look like shit. Have you been surviving without me?”

Geralt chuckles a dry sound like something catching fire.

“In a sense.” A pause stretches. “How have you been?” He clears his throat. “Without me?”

Jaskier stares at the far wall. This pause, by contrast, stretches more languidly than a stray cat on a fence. Whip-hard and starved. He feel Geralt turn to take in his sudden stillness.

“…I don’t want,” Jaskier says quietly, “to talk about how I’ve been, Geralt. I don’t want to open up to you. I don’t want to bear my soul, and I don’t want to be honest. Even if we’re…” Better. Closer to alright. “…It’s too soon.”

“Hm,” Geralt hums just as quietly. Jaskier hears the shift of fabric. When he turns his head, he finds cat eyes back at him from a bare foot away. He swallows– chest open, chest closed tight, chest flayed. Geralt presses his lips together and bumps their shoulders. “Lie to me, then.” 

Jaskier watches, just perceptible, as the corner of Geralt’s mouth curls uncertainly up. He breathes. Chest open, chest closed tight, chest flayed. 

He smiles.

“I’ve been fantastic. Smashing. All gay parties and glowing candlelit nights.”

If his voice chokes and cracks on the lie and his smile wobbles, Geralt does him the rare kindness of not noticing. Instead, he turns onto his side and curls up delicately, so carefully, until his forehead is just pressed to Jaskier’s shoulder through the thin material of his shirt. His breath rushes out, fluttering the sleeve.

“…Me, too.”

Jaskier swallows.

His chest is an open wound. But he thinks he feels it healing.

[iamtaran]

The Lagoon pt. 3

(Part 1 and part 2 if you like! 

Just as a note, any future updates to this will probably be posted to my AO3, along with the already existing parts in a single fic! Thanks everyone for reading, and @teddylacroix​ and @taketheshot21​ for showing interest in this weird idea the won’t let go! Please everyone know how supremely self indulgent this ha becomes :I is it good? nah. is it a good time? well. one hopes.)

Ever so slowly, daring eyed and unblinking, the man with lilies in his skin watches Geralt watch him as he pulls himself from the water. 

For Geralt, who does not for a moment release his gaze, or his sword hand, he catches only the barest impression of scales sliding silkly from the water. In the air, they melt into more and more pale skin, until the spirit lounges most deceptively, nakedly human on his mossy stone. A tumble of long lines and languidly loose elbows and knees. He leans forward ever so artfully, inviting Geralt’s eyes to drop. They don’t. 

“I’ve heard stories of your kind, witcher,” he says with air of a man sharing gossip.

Geralt says nothing.

“As personable as I’ve been led to believe. What could have brought you here?”

“I have heard stories,” Geralt says. Slowly, “Like you.”

Mischief. “Oh? And what have you learned?”

“That I don’t know what you are.”

“But you know what I do?”

Geralt cocks his head just so, to better see the planes of his face in the upside-down light. At times like this, with the Cateye potion in full effect, everything searing in his sight burns more vibrantly, more starkly, more. Against his background of wetly green vines and smartingly bright waters, his velvet shadowed moss, the spirit rests like a pearl. He is beautiful; but any witcher knows better than to trust beauty. His beauty tempts, and it is meant to tempt. Geralt knows better than to be tempted.

“Listen to woes. Sing songs. Tell pretty stories.” He tilts his head yet further. “Kiss pretty villagers.” The spirit smiles, there and gone. 

“I do that,” he admits, and says nothing more, though that inviting smile still lingers around his eyes. Geralt hums.

“Why?”

“Why do I listen?” He slithers up on his haunches then-- or does he pour himself out?-- and of a height with Geralt he straightens nearly knee to knee, a parody of Geralt’s kneeling meditation. “Or why do I kiss them?”

Geralt ignores his provocative glance altogether and instead allows the silence to press his question. After far too long a pause, the spirit makes a show of his disappointment and sighs himself back onto his heels. 

“Company, if you must know. They bring a glimpse at the world beyond this lagoon.”

“And gifts,” Geralt says meaningfully. 

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t mistake me, White Wolf. The gifts are just that-- non-binding, freely given, and inconsequential to the ones giving them.” He grins into Geralt’s face, pleased by whatever change he had caught there. Pleased by his own cleverness. “Yes, I know you. White hair, two very scary swords. I’ve heard of you, Geralt of Rivia, as you’ve heard of me.”

A clever spirit means a vainglory one. Geralt raises two dispassionate eyebrows. “Yet I don’t know your name.”

“Perhaps you should have brought me a gift, then,” he returns. Unblinking, moving slowly enough to see, he then curls his fingers in the chain around Geralt’s neck and lets his hand hang there beside the wolf like ornamentation. Geralt growls, and does not move. Two self-satisfied eyebrows jump and jig pointedly at him. 

“Are you sure you haven’t anything?” the spirit wheedles, and chuckles when Geralt frowns severely at him. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know, I knew you wouldn’t believe me about the gifts. It really is nothing nefarious. I’m afraid I’ve just been spoiled by my dear hearts, is all. They are much more appreciative than you.”

They are getting too far off topic.

“That’s what you want. Their appreciation.”

He huffs a breath as if Geralt is being particularly dull. “No. That is what I earn.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Why the interest?” He tilts his head in a coquettish mirror of Geralt’s posture, just this side of mean and grinning with it. “What do you want?”

“Answers.”

“So you can decide whether or not to kill me.”

In the sudden still and chill, Geralt says nothing. After a moment of calculating, he takes the risk and inclines his head. Just enough.

Though no describable change shifts his face or the curlicues of his always near-laughing mouth-- a twilight, in the eyes. The stars that had sparkled there recede to a winter’s distance. Wrath, or pain? From the bob of his throat, the latter. 

The grip on his chain shifts. “I’ll give you your answers if you’ll give me mine,” bargains the spirit with purposeful, dishonest lightness. “Tell me, were you called here to kill me? By one of,” mine, his lips shape, but only breath escapes. Geralt, who has heard many a man take a dagger to the back, finds himself… uncomfortable. Momentarily. But even a spirit can playact. 

Firmly, Geralt removes the spirit’s bold hand from his person. The spirit doesn’t fight, or blink, and no magic shifts, and the lagoon is quiet. His unwavering gaze so close could almost discomfit, were Geralt a lesser man. Thankfully, he is not a man at all.

“No,” Geralt says at last. There is no harm in sharing the truth, after all. And better to say it than risk turning an unknown spirit’s wrath on the good villagers. “They did their best to convince me of your good nature. I came to investigate only because I heard rumors in a neighboring hamlet.”

The admission gentles him immediately. He hides his relief in a turned gaze; Geralt lets him without comment. It gives Geralt the opportunity to observe every twitch of his eyelashes, and his fingers where they have risen to his neck in a mimic of human vulnerability. (Or is it genuine?) He rests it there only a moment, there and gone. When he turns back, his good humor has returned. 

He looks at Geralt then in earnest. He cannot say how he knows it. It weighs differently. Without the charade of before he looks, brow to chin, shoulders to glove-clad hands. Whether he searches out some hidden aspect or believes himself possessed of its secret already. Geralt wants-- no. He wants nothing, he tells himself, and does not twitch. There is no want when his duty is to watch, to understand, to wait for any first hint of magic or ill intent. He has come to either kill or let free. Clenched fist, Geralt-- does. Does not.

Blue eyes meet his own once more. The spirit settles, stills, and splits open like waters around sharp stone.

“Freedom,” he says. “It’s what I want. To leave this lagoon.”

“Hmm,” doesn’t say Geralt, who knows at times that no words are better than too many. It works now.

“Don’t misunderstand,” the spirit rattles out breathlessly, “I love every one of my visitors. I remember every one of them that has ever come to me, by accident or by purpose, and I have been here a long, long time, witcher. Since before the village existed. There are some who come to me today whose great grandmothers I remember in their youth. There are some who live only because I whispered secret courage to their parents when shyness or misunderstanding might have kept them apart. No, their company and the time they spend with me, the work of inspiring their joy and seeing it on their faces, or tasting it on their sighs. It has been reward enough for me. Only...” He hesitates. “I began to dream of leaving only when they... gave in return.”

It takes Geralt a moment. Eyes on his, then down to the silver chain, as tactile as his hands. Perhaps you should have brought me a gift, then. Geralt purses his lips.

“The stories,” he surmises. “The gifts.”

His teeth slash open a white flash. “You were listening. I want to leave these waters. I want to see the world and find the stories myself.”

Surprised, Geralt chews wordlessly on the admission. He had begun to believe him a tethered spirit. Something of the forest and mountains, something strange, for sure, but grounded in the land. Books and tomes and lectures, and he has never heard of such a spirit wanting to leave. The power that would take; and from what source? He thinks of the trusting, besotted villagers and nearly grimaces. Doesn’t, only by strength of will, and instead asks,

“How?” 

A frown tells him he did not hide his suspicions well enough.

“...You wanted to know what I am,” he says at last. Geralt grunts something like agreement. “Then let me tell you. Then you will understand.” 

He goes quiet, for longer than he ever has to this point. Then, he tells his story.

*

“Centuries ago, this forest stretched untouched and unbroken all the way to the coast. Even the Aen Seidhe did not touch these trees, for they knew as surely as you must that when they looked, the forest looked back. It was so looking that She saw me.”

(“She,” Geralt says.)

“She. She has no name. She is the forest. Far more ancient than any spirit I’ve ever encountered. I’ve always imagined She is as old as the spheres, though I can’t know. I’ve never seen Her, not as you see me. She is too grand to have a humanoid form. Like too many birds against the sky that by filling it become greater than it.

“Centuries ago, when the forest still reached down to the sea, before the humans too dumb to magic’s song to hear its cries cut back the forest’s edge to build their cities and towns there. A traveling bard wandered the wild lands. Upon finding the ocean, he fell in love with the blue of the water and the call of the gulls, and sitting by a sheltered cove composed a song. He picked up his lute and played. The waters there had never heard such music, not by lute or human voice, and they fell in love in return. He did not know, of course. But he played, and he sang, and it was the first song in any voice not the ocean’s own there sung. 

“And as he sang the bard dreamed of chime-voiced mermaids floating like lilies in the waves; and as the cove gazing up at him sang back and dreamed of sweet-face bards with gentle hands; all the while, the song echoed and returned greater each time from the throats of the rocks and waves --light that runs between crystals and multiplying grows brighter, like that. And the song grew; and the bard played, not knowing he sang a duet; and they sang with emotion deep enough to touch that stuff at the heart of all things, be they rocks or oceans or stars, the stuff of Chaos; and the song was the first; and the song was me.

“That is what I am.”

*

Listening, Geralt thinks that it is not the least likely thing he has ever heard. There have always been tales of spirits born from emotion if it is great enough. From Firsts, too, for they have power. Old tales from the elves recall a breathless time Before when the Aen Seidh knew only peace across years unbroken by suffering and hardship. In the stories, a betrayal between siblings saw its end. From the first death was all Death born, in all its many visages, its spirits and gods. Witchers had spent the past two centuries amassing all knowledge of such phenomena. Geralt had read every tome in Kaer Morhen, and so knew they understood so very little of these spirits. Who was he to say that it is not possible?

Besides which… as he had told his story, just for a moment in the way of true things hidden in a shape mundane, Geralt had heard and seen. Gulls and waves grumbled and shrilled beneath his breath. 

When he had first appeared, glowing and serene, Geralt had known his nature in part because he had looked for it. Now lit with the light of his own tale, recalling his creation, there could be no mistaking him for a human. A more-ness swelled about him. As it fades, blue eyes gone distant with remembering, Geralt finds he believes him. 

But he had not finished the tale. 

“And she saw you,” he parrots when the silence has grown too clinging. The spirit smiles brittly. “She did,” he says, and takes his cue.

*

“She had watched me for decades as I lived within the echo of the waves barking off the stone, and sang in the mist there. No, don’t look so grim, it suits you too well for my tastes. I wasn’t completely alone. What the bard did not know all those years ago was that there are mermaids in that cove. We enjoyed each other’s company quite immensely. The harmonies we created! Ten, twelve, twenty voices rising in tandem as the tides, ululating, soaring, sighing, deeper than the dark waters, lighter than the foam lacing the waves. Oh, the nights we passed, all of us silver and amber and umber on the rocks. How the moonlight gilded their abalone-smooth breasts-”

(“The forest, spirit,” Geralt reminds him. He gets an annoyed hand waved at him for his troubles.

“No appreciation for an artfully woven scene, I see. Tell me, are all witchers so short-tempered,” he teases, “or is it just you’ve not the attention span?”

“Spirit,” Geralt rumbles, this time in warning. Another flap of his unconcerned hand.

“Yes, yes, I was getting to it. It. Well.” He sighs.) 

“The humans came with their axes, and the forest dwindled until only the last willow smoothed its lonely fingers over the brow of the waves there in my cove. It was sitting under it that I first heard her whispers. Such a voice, Geralt. Never before had I heard one like it, and never since. She told me of how She had listened all those years as I sang, and how She mourned to never hear me again once Her final tree was cut from the embrace of the coast. How she sighed. The wind blew and moaned through that willow like a dirge.”

(“She pricked your bleeding heart. Played on your sympathy,” Geralt surmises, not flatteringly. The spirit turns from gazing soulfully out across the lagoon-- westward, towards the sea-- to glare at him balefully, beautifully wounded.)

“And can you blame me? Pah, don’t answer, I can see that you can. Yes, my heart went out to her plea. She begged that I come visit her. She would gift me the legs of a man so that I could leave the waters behind and move freely through the trees. I was fascinated. I had never left the cove, nor walked as any of the elves or humans or dwarves did. I had no ability to shift my form then. I had never even considered it! And She was the first spirit to whom I had ever spoken. How different She was from my friends the mermaids; how like to me, or so I thought. I longed to visit Her and to ease Her loneliness. I loved that She had listened for so long. I loved that She loved me.”

(Geralt does not need to speak to earn this frown. “She did,” the spirit snaps.

“She did,” Geralt agrees mildly, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Enough to keep you.”

For a moment, the spirit trembles. Expressive to a fault. Geralt can see why the villagers long to make him smile, if this is the alternative. Hearts softer than his would not be able to stand the blow of those crumpled brows, the agonized dip of eyelashes on his cheek. More’s the better, he thinks firmly, without the sliver-stab of guilt under his skin; the better that a witcher’s heart does not ache. 

“Yes,” he says at last, wet- and bright-eyed and, to Geralt’s surprise, unfaltering. “Enough to keep me.”)

“She told me to wait for the new moon, when I would find in the grotto beneath the willow’s roots a lily growing. I found the crevice, and the lily. I did as She had told me. I pulled myself up the vines and roots of the willow with the nectar held on my tongue, and only when I was free of the water did I drink it, and found I had legs like a man.

“But the change had been painful and long, and the climb tiring, and the air so dry. So I laid amongst the roots to sleep and regain my strength. I would then follow my new friend’s voice into the trees, or so I thought. Yet when I awoke, I was here. Here I have remained.”

*

“And yes,” he snaps, “I have tried to walk from the forest.” 

Geralt closes his frowning mouth. The spirit snorts. 

“I can only leave the waters at night, and even then, I cannot walk far. Too far from the lagoon and every step will feel as if I trod on a bed of thorns. Even pushing through the pain-- and I have, too many nights to count-- there is no path out that will not turn me back. I cannot be carried from the forest, either, no matter how determined my carter. No matter how far I go, when the morning rises, I or my potential saviors are lost, and then I am back in the waters. Always, I return to these waters. For what I am, if I am anything, is a prisoner.”

His tale told, he sits back as if in punctuation. Well? His stubborn mouth unspeaking seems to ask. 

Geralt finds the tale sits wrong with him.

It is not, he thinks, that it has the sound of a lie. And as a witcher trained to brutal honesty with himself as well as others, Geralt cannot say it is wholly that his sense of right and justice pricks at the fate, which it does. For all he might not experience those feelings of mortal men, in whatever fashion, he does feel some pity for the pretty, kept thing. He has always been a stalwart on the behalf of those unjustly kept. Princesses in towers, wolves in menagerie cages, and, now, spirits in lagoons. 

But it is not sympathy or any doubt that unsettles him. It takes Geralt a moment to realize what. 

“Most spirits of that age and breadth can’t lie. Not when they offer a greater magic, as it did in giving you legs. They can twist meaning, or hide it, but not lie outright. If she told you that your time would be to visit... there should be some way for you to be freed,” Geralt reasons. 

“There are… stipulations, to the magic she worked on me,” the spirit admits. “A way to leave her hold and the lagoon. She explained them after. Just once.” He beats his fist once upon the stone. “Would that I had asked that she be more specific, that day under the willow. It had sounded quite simple.”

“It always does.” 

They sit in silence for a while. It is nearly comfortable. 

Geralt’s eyes wince and prick. The Cateye will wear off soon, and he will let it. There will be no battle here tonight, and there is light enough from the waters besides. He should have no trouble finding his way out of the forest. Perhaps, if he makes good enough time, there might be an ale for him at the festival. They won’t have reason to turn him away. He needn’t slay their precious spirit after all.

“So?” The spirit asks, breaking his half-hearted considerations. “Will you be killing me? I should hate for you to have walked all this way for nothing.” This, for once, is not a flirtation. The spirit smiles blandly. “Though I suppose if you hurry, you might still make the festival. It is tonight,” he asks Geralt’s momentary startlement, “is it not?”

For a moment, so surprised by his own thoughts spoken back to him, Geralt considers that maybe-- but no. He looks, and there is no tilt of victory to the look leveled on him. It had not read his thoughts. At least, not any one that he hadn’t shown clearly on his face, apparently. He had let his guard down almost without realizing. Sometime during his story, Geralt wonders with a foreboding inkling of his fate? Sometime before?

Geralt realizes he has already made a decision and, sighing gustily, unslings his swords resignedly. He gives himself exactly one moment the mourn the ale he won’t be drinking. Then:

“What stipulations?” he grunts. The man jolts from his pointed slump. The ungracefulness of his gaping speaks to his real shock as Geralt settles the swords on a bed of ferns. He himself doesn’t speak, though his mouth moves. Opening. Closing. Smiling. Geralt dodges directly catching his gaze like one avoids a direct look at the sun and clears his throat, saying to his chin (which is just about the only safe place to look which isn’t his eyes), “The role of a witcher is not only to slay beasts and monsters. We are expert curse breakers. This sounds close enough.”

“Even if I’m one of the monsters you might otherwise slay?” he lilts, like a man who knows already. Geralt scowls at being made to say it.

“You’re a spirit, not a monster. You’re hurting no one. If I can free you, I will.”

Now it is Geralt’s turn to jump. 

“Thank you,” the spirit murmurs as soft and rasping as his fingertips across the back of Geralt’s hand. He leans close enough that Geralt wants to turn away-- not only for himself. He knows how his eyes and face will look from so close. The sickness of Cateye still burns through him; more so, when it is burning out. The thin, corpse-colored skin around his eyes does nothing to hide the blackness of the veins there. It seems almost indecent to expose a spirit infatuated with beauty and humanity (in fact, a spirit born from it) to such ugliness. “But I- it--” he stutters.

Geralt looks back then. Not once to this point has the spirit ever stumbled his words. So he looks, and the despair so clear in his face is all he needs to see.

“But you can’t tell me,” he concludes, and curses, and cuts his throbbing eyes back to the trees. “The magic prevents you from revealing how to break it. Of course.” Nothing can ever be easy.

The spirit bobs to the side, trying to catch Geralt’s gaze. Resolutely, Geralt turns his head.

“Witcher?” A moment. “Geralt? Why do you turn your face? Is there something you hear? Or see?”

“No,” Geralt grits out. He winces at the throb and sear of shifting blood and inflamed blood vessels. He raises a hand over his eyes when the spirit presses closer chasing his gaze like a child. He snaps. “Will you stay there?”

“No! Let me see what’s wrong.” A hand grabs his wrist. Geralt flinches.

“Don’t-”

“Touch you?” The spirit challenges.

“-look!” Geralt snarls, and closes his mouth tight immediately after, breathing hard out through his nose. A flush of nausea goes through him, followed by a dowsing of cold sweat. The sickness without battle adrenaline to cushion him from the full extent of the toxicity symptoms. Made more uncomfortable for the unfortunate honesty.

A thumb swipes along Geralt’s wrist, caressing tendon and bone.

“Your lovely eyes? Why not? Are they hurting you?”

“Not lovely,” Geralt grunts, “and not mine. The effect of the potion is wearing off.” Another throb, a flush of fever-hot blood draining down his cheeks. The muscles of his back ripple before he forces each one to release.

“You didn’t answer me. Are they hurting you?” 

Silence.

“Can I see?”

Stubborn. “You won’t like it.” No one does.

Geralt can hear him shift, him in his bare skin and naught else.

“Can I see?” he repeats, so softly that he could be talking to one of his kissing villagers. “Your eyes. Please.”

It twinges to have them open as his pupils begin to contract and close and the irises shift back into place. Geralt turns to look at him anyway and bears it because he wants to punish the spirit for asking. To see him reel back in disgust. He had acted too long as if he spoke to a man and not a witcher and, Geralt thinks, needs reminding.

Only, as the night leans in on its shadowed haunches to fill in spaces that had been bright as noon not seconds before, and as the lagoon and the forest and the man with lilies in his skin go pearlescent and cool blue, the spirit startles. He watches unbreathing as the pain and therefore the blackness begins to recede, receding, gone. The shift complete.

But he does not pull back. His eyelashes splay open their beautiful, greedy, grasping fingers, and he wondering breathes, “You have brought me a gift. You just didn’t know it.” Geralt stares.

“What?” 

At Geralt’s twitch his expression breaks open, not cool at all. He beams rose and peach and shell-pink warmth. His fingers weave their way into the hair behind Geralt’s ear; and he is reeling from the potion, he tells himself, that is why- why he doesn’t--

“My name is Jaskier,” the spirit says, a mere hand’s breadth away.

And that is when he dips forward and kisses Geralt on the mouth.

[iamtaran]

fairytales

* Once upon a time there lived an ancient warrior who trained young men to fight beasts. The old warrior knew what old victims know: that to best the beast at times meant to become it. 

In the frozen north, the people say, there is an ancient warrior who trains young men to become wolves.

*

Once upon a time, a crooked girl clawed her way out of the pigpens and stone towers of a powerless life and swallowed the world whole. She would spend the long, hungry years of her life fighting-- her appetite, or the world that could not fill it.

*

Once upon a time, in a tower with no princess locked inside, a stepmother with a smile like the sharp pin of a brooch licked her teeth and found they didn’t taste a bit like blood. 

In the forest outside its walls, a princess, a woman of Lillit, a portent of doom born under a black sun- no, nothing more than a girl-- she ran, and blood was all she could taste.

*

Once upon a time, between the shielding, smothering hands of the humid Kerackian coast and the stern faces of the grandfatherly mountains to the north east, a smothered boy picked up a lute and learned to breathe.

Naturally, one need only breathe to find they can sing.

*

Once upon a time, and another, and another time still, where the waters of the Yaruga rollicked to the north a riotous tumble like grey-backed dogs slavering to the sea, a Queen loved. She looked into the face of her husband from beyond the grey seas and she loved with hesitant tempo. She mourned the gold of her daughter’s face, now only to be found in her daughter, and loved boundlessly. For the people of her kingdom beset by enemies most ancient and most cunning, she loved terribly.

Woe be to the People of the land whom she could not love, for her love is a drawn sword held to their throats.

For a Queen red as blood, there lies no border between hate and love.

*

Once upon a time: love, Red Queen, blood.

Once upon a time, not so long after: a little blue hood fluttered from the burning stones of the Queen’s castle on trembling legs and did not look back.

Once upon a time, a princess met a Wolf.

*

And the Wolf? 

Once upon a time there lived an ancient warrior who trained young men to fight beasts. The old warrior knew what old victims know, that to best a beast at times meant to become it. 

Once upon a time an old warrior who trained young men to become wolves met a White Wolf who was more than a wolf.

A man who turns men to wolves. He finds it not so different to teach a wolf to be a man.

*

[iamtaran]

Dialogue Prompt 30

SO I’m a dingus and answered @partyhardwoohoo’s dialogue prompt (30: “You don’t see me.”) privately bc the button is the bigger of the two and I! Am! Easily! Swayed! By! Button! Size! Anyway, thanks so much again for the prompt and, uh, sorry for the fic now living in your inbox!  *

“You don’t see me,” Jaskier pants from behind his chair. 

And, really, of all the ways Geralt had foreseen this night turning out, this was not outside the realm of possibility. Rather than say anything, Geralt picks up his goblet and, sighing heavily, drains it.

He hadn’t known Jaskier would be at this celebration. Scratching that, he hadn’t even known Jaskier was in this kingdom. Last they had parted in some muddy marsh in Redania, Jaskier had been awaited in Cidaris to perform in some political wedding between two major noble houses. At the time, the last glimpse Geralt had caught of him had been: huddled in his cloak, made small from the last chill day of spring; caked in mud up to his knee-high boots, yet rosy cheeked and grinning with victory as he waved the witcher on with the parting farewell, “‘Til summer, then! I’ll just catch on with that caravan coming over the horizon. Looks like they’re very well to do-- exactly the type to enjoy a traveling bard’s charm and warmth on such a drab trek, don’t you think?” And then, when Geralt was nearly out of (human) earshot, he had called, “Don’t let anything get its claws into you whilst I’m not there, Wolf!”

In a month and a half, Jaskier seems to have come into some good fortune (the fine, soft linen of his flatteringly draped trousers, the kidskin of his soft boots) only to immediately lose it again. The last bit, of course, is only supposition. Based on the fact that he crouches behind Geralt’s seat, sleeveless tunic completely unbuttoned over his airy organza chemise where it gapes open at the collar. 

Geralt had caught only a glance of his flushed face, but he knows what his friend looks like when he’s been at the drink. He also knows from their time together exactly how recent debauchery shows on his skin and neck. He doesn’t need to turn and look to see it for himself. He can smell it. Instead, he reaches for the pitcher of wine.

“Jaskier,” he sighs. It is all he says.

Jaskier, of course, takes immediate offense.

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” he hisses from the shadows. Geralt hums, refilling his goblet. The wine isn’t bad-- not to a witcher used to the road.

“Or anyone?” he rumbles. Jaskier scoffs behind his ear. The main doors open; a harried guard and a fluttering servant stride up the middle of the hall between the two tables, headed for their host.

“Is there no respect for the choices of a grown man or woman in this backward kingdom?” he complains. “You’d think I’d killed someone by the way they carry on.”

“Jaskier,” he growls. Jaskier huffs an overblown sigh. 

“How am I to know who is engaged and who is not if they won’t tell me? Really, Geralt.”

The seneschal at Geralt’s elbow sends him a condoling look and passes the bread. Geralt happily takes another roll with thanks. This baron keeps the best baker in the state, and he is never one to turn away such a luxury. The road has only ever lined his gut with venison and crispbread, and recently the road has been long and his purse light. Even so, he is even more thankful that his other neighbor has yet to take any notice of their whispered conversation.

A hand snakes into view for just a moment. Petulantly, Geralt jerks the roll away and nudges it back with his elbow.

“And besides,” Jaskier continues, apparently unbothered by the fracas growing in volume at the front of the hall. He is lucky indeed that Geralt had been positioned in somewhat obscurity to the back of the hall. He doubts he would have been able to hide half as effectively where they any nearer to the windows and candles closer to the nobility. “It’s not a love match. No one has exchanged anything like a vow or even a half-hearted promise at this point.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt scolds. Fingers pinch his side.

“Not a word.”

“I thought traveling bards were meant to keep up on such news,” Geralt says into his food, which is many words. Jaskier exacts revenge by stealing the pickled cucumber from his plate. His hand retreats back behind his seat.

“News, yes,” Jaskier huffs. “Gossip, as well. But only a fool believes it.”

“I believe,” Geralt murmurs, “that you are about to face a cadre of very unhappy kinsmen if you continue to linger here.” Jaskier makes an agreeing sort of noise as he crunches his stolen goods. “Why haven’t you ridden for the border yet? Or left the castle, even, you dolt.”

“Lost my horse in a bet,” Jaskier grouses. Geralt snorts and pretends it was to spit into his napkin when it draws attention. The woman across from him glares her disapproval briefly. “Not a word, I said!” Jaskier hisses. “I was actually quite attached to- ah--”

“Marigold,” Geralt supplies. 

“-yes, Marigold.”

“Triss would curse you if she knew.”

Jaskier sniffs. “It was a tribute, meant only in the highest respect.”

“Was it respect when you bet her on-”

“-a case of Toussaint red.”

“-on a case of wine?”

“Let me take Roach,” Jaskier says rather than answer. Teeth-deep in a bite of roast lamb, Geralt frowns. 

“No.”

“Oh, come on, please,” Jaskier wheedles. For a man hiding from very unhappy kinsmen to his latest lover, he is quite chatty. Geralt remembers his flushed cheeks and reconsiders, ah, yes. Must have been wine. I thought he lost the bet? “It will just be until I’m outside the kingdom borders. I’ll take the highway and stop in the first clearing so you’ll know exactly where to find me. I’ll even oil your tack as compensation for what would otherwise be an unselfish show of friendship and trust.”

“No.”

“Geralt,” he begins. Geralt doesn’t get to hear what other argument he has up his sleeve, however. The seneschal picking at his salad on Geralt’s left clears his throat delicately. 

Immediately, he realizes what is wrong: the noise from the front of the hall has ceased. From the corner of his eye, he becomes aware of a half dozen armed guards led by two men he recognizes at the baron’s oldest sons striding down the length of the hall. 

Jaskier must notice, too. Rather than turn tail and make for the door-- or even, knowing him as Geralt does, standing to talk his way out of whatever trouble he has drawn-- rather than doing either of those, he crouches further, hisses at Geralt, “Move your thigh,” and with a shove to his side wriggles under the table. 

“Don’t!” Geralt whispers, too late.

It is a tight squeeze. The table is long but not terribly wide, and seated on both sides with every member of the household staff. Geralt hears Jaskier mutter a curse to himself and nearly jumps when two hands land on his thighs, pressing them apart to make room for Jaskier to squeeze between. The seneschal clears his throat once more, radiating judgement. Geralt resists the urge to clamp a hand over his eyes, barely. As if it would make the current situation disappear. 

The company of guards and sons moves past and out of the hall. 

“Don’t get excited,” Jaskier whispers, and pats him far enough up his leg that Geralt does jump. Jaskier chuckles. “Merciful goddess, that was close.”

“And what,” Geralt grinds out, “do you plan to do down there?”

The scandalized seneschal coughs into his fist. Roughly, Geralt grabs the pitcher of wine nearly out of the questing hand of the Housekeeper across of him and slams it down at the seneschal’s elbow. The seneschal, steadfastly ignoring him as he unashamedly eavesdrops, jumps like a man prodded.

“For your throat,” Geralt glowers. 

It is, admittedly, an effective glower. He watches just long enough to see the pale-faced man nod quickly and fumbling pour himself a glass that goes more on his plate than in his cup, then returns to his predicament. 

“Well, funny you should ask,” Jaskier hums, unawares, “because, you see, um, I haven’t quite, well, planned past this point-” 

Geralt really does lower his eyes into his hand. All he can do is prop that elbow on the table and hope he merely looks tired to any who should glance his way. Tired, and not like he is having a conversation with the man crouched between his legs.

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls at his lap as quietly as he can. “If you pull me into this fucking farce you’ve orchestrated before I’ve even been fucking paid for this job that took me two fucking weeks-”

“I haven’t!” Jaskier whispers back fiercely.

Geralt pins him with a look. “If it looks like they are going to find you here, I will drag you out from under there, march you to the Baron’s table, and offer to thrash your bare arse like a snot-nosed brat myself. I’ll do it in front of the whole fucking court if it means I will still get paid. Do you understand me?”

Wide eyed, Jaskier opens his mouth to protest. They are interrupted by one of the sons returning. Geralt doesn’t even hear him come up, so focused is he, until the man speaks.

“Sir Witcher?”

Jaskier shifts against his legs. Almost before he is aware of it, Geralt buries his hand in his hair and makes a hard fist. Jaskier, mid way to crawling-- back out, or away-- freezes. Casually, Geralt turns to face the second oldest son whilst his free hand reaches for his goblet with not a care in the world.

“Trouble, my lord?” He grunts, and takes a sip of wine. Jaskier’s boots shuffle under the table. Geralt tightens his hold and pins him to his leg. Jaskier stills, breathing sharply against his thigh where his cheek is pressed.

The son smiles grimly. “Purely human in nature, serah. Please don’t let me interrupt your dinner beyond the necessary.” 

A distracting hand wraps around his ankle. Geralt distinctly does not twitch.

“My thanks,” Geralt says dryly.

“My father has asked that I offer you room for the night, should you require.”

“Your father is uncommonly generous to offer,” Geralt notes. He can feel Jaskier’s rabbiting heartbeat thrumming where his knee has pressed into his chest. “No, I require nothing but the agreed upon price. I have a room booked at the inn for another night yet.”

The lordling smiles. “Very well. I’m afraid I can’t see you to our steward myself at the moment. But I will have my father informed to expect you in the antechamber after the meal has ended. He will see to your payment.”

It is unspeakably rude that he has not risen, Geralt knows. He also knows that he can get away with it. Witchers have always held a strange position in society. Outside of its rules and structures. It is a pleasant surprise, however, when rather than being offended as is his born right, the young lord merely offers his hand like a lowbornsman and with a short farewell leaves to catch up with his guard.

Under the table, Jaskier pants out an insult against his trouser leg. Geralt smirks and holds him there just long enough to make his point. It’s when Jaskier’s hands start fumbling up his legs looking for weaknesses and one finds the back of a knee that he lets go and goes back to his meal. Jaskier pinches him anyway and tells him exactly what he thinks.

“Neither of us know my father, and such a configuration seems unlikely,” Geralt replies mildly.

“Even more likely to be true, then,” Jaskier shoots back, craning his head as if to peer around Geralt’s chair for any other visitors.

From this angle, Geralt can see what he hadn’t before. A handful of deep maroon suck-marks spot the side of his neck and just behind the hinge of his jaw. His lips are still red from kissing whatever noble he should not have. (Judging by the stubble burn on his neck, it was the future husband.) He smells like wine, and sex, and cedar and bergamot perfume. His hair is mussed where Geralt had grabbed him. He doesn’t know what it had looked like before. He knows what it looks like now, however.

Suddenly, supremely aware of what the assumption will be if they are discovered, Geralt straightens. A passing servant pauses, takes up an empty plate to his left, and moves on without noticing anything amiss. Jaskier’s sigh of relief skitters hot and far too close across leather. It raises all the hair along Geralt’s arms. He freezes.

“In my belt purse,” he blurts. Blue eyes flash up at him. He tries to keep his face still and fails. He lifts his cup to hide it. “I still have a room at the local inn for the next two nights. Take the key from my purse and go there. And don’t get caught, or I’ll say you stole it.”

“And Roach?”

Geralt gives him a flat look. “Leaving on horseback is conspicuous. Or have you forgotten you’re sneaking out a fugitive?”

Jaskier pouts. “Point made,” he says, before ducking back enough to give himself room to work. Geralt tears his eyes away to look about the room nonchalantly. It is only the wood of the table creaking under his grip that makes him realize how tense he has become. Breathing in and out deeply, he forces himself to relax. 

Fingers grope at his belt for an excruciatingly long moment. Geralt takes up his forgotten roll and rips a bite off with perhaps too much gusto. 

“Got it,” Jaskier whispers. He leans forward just enough to wink up at Geralt one last time, grinning impishly. “Well, this has certainly been one of the more interesting nights I’ve spent on my knees-”

“Leave,” Geralt groans, and really does curl a defeated hand over his eyes as he feels Jaskier wriggle out from under the table. He doesn’t even watch him go. 

Only after he is sure he’s gone does Geralt slide a coin to the seneschal.

“This stays between us.”