[ It all comes through at once, all of the trembling and steady good and— the rest, too. Until that moment, fear hadn't been part of his equation. Occupied by the experience of an old, old man with a mind filed away amongst millions of others, a little compartmentalisation is nothing. But now, with his journey already startled to a stop, her feelings find the crack and breach through into his own.
Her fear digs his fingertips harder into the flesh of her thigh, I'm here without the words. Her unease breeds an answering, subdued resistance.
It's so easy to forge ahead when ahead lies what you want, the shape of that desire blocking the view of any potential future consequences. She's all around him, thigh warm against his face and hand insistent in his hair and his want is no less fervent, his own entitlement and a greed that had once needed no curbing spurring him on to claim his comfort just as she does.
The hand around her thigh pushes up under her dress, following the curve of her, drawing himself toward the edge of the couch as his palm presses flat to the skin of her back, fingers splayed over her ribcage. She's anchored now, supported, and he's closer to her than he's ever been. ]
I'm not afraid of you.
[ Words direct to her mind where his mouth is busy with the crease of her inner thigh, at the point of almost no return. He wants nothing more than to give in to their shared want. There's the heat of her on his cheek conjuring up all his own too-rich memories of all the ways they've never been together, and God if he doesn't yearn.
But there's nothing they can hide from one another now. He feels her, all of her, and turmoil is impossible to bury when you're as overstimulated as they are now. No meditative calm here. Two instincts wage war in him, two opposing frustrations - one sharp and savage, one dull and deep. One pulling towards want and the other toward need, a line as fine as silk thread but helplessly absolute.
The deeper, steadier force wins out. Instead of sinking to the side he takes her at her earlier trajectory, tilts his head forward and up. Mouth abandons skin. His forehead rests on the soft stretch of her abdomen. ]
You're afraid of what comes after this.
[ And for as long as that's the case, the person he is now can't quite bring himself to forge on as though it isn't. ]
[ the brittle words snap on their way out. her expression is colder for the call-out, violet eyes shining and sharp instead of warm and bright. her grip on him tightens. she can sense his hesitation. it kicks up a low panic in her, which in turn curdles towards fury, as all yennefer's emotions do. ]
It's not your job to manage my fear. [ which is the farthest she can get into acknowledging it exists. better, she thinks, that she could boldly claim that she isn't afraid of anything — merely aware, merely astute enough to measure the real, practical possibilities of disappointments and threats. it's not true, though. her greed makes her constantly afraid of losing anything, even things that were never really hers. ] And it's too late to try.
[ too late to stop her from being afraid. every outcome from the moment she'd invited him under her skirt had been one that terrified her. this whiff of rejection might be the worst of all of them, though. ]
[ Torn two ways. A lot of him wants to relent to her vice grip and the ice in her tone, burn it all up the easiest way he can, do as he's told and make them both happier for it. But that fear isn't going away. And as it brews in her it draws in like a net around him. This is both of theirs to handle, no matter what she says. A pair of fish enjoying the ocean for the last (first) time. About to suffocate in open air.
Is it using her if she wants him to? If she's using him? Are they using one another at all if it matters enough for there to be a future worth fearing, even if there are consequences they're ignoring to take comfort in the now?
The rapid pattern of his thoughts translates into a fine, jagged stutter of anxiety. That's met with immediate derision and a flurry of snapshots and sense memories, times when sharing their bodies was the least complicated thing in the world. She'd given him a command. Why convolute it?
With a rough grunt of frustration and surrender he succumbs to himself and to her, sinking over the last slim stretch of skin and neat hair to where she's been waiting for him. The slick heat of her claws with hot talons at his insides and swallows whole any lingering doubt. Burden of indecision lifted, boundary crossed, he grips her tight as she does him and sets to work rediscovering a few choice ways he's many times but never yet taken her apart. ]
[ the relief of distraction sears through the tendrils of anxiety — his and hers, how quaint — gripping her. like tethers, cast off, and when his mouth closes over her skin, her head drops back in rapture and peace. for a time, let it be uncomplicated. he has worn this path over decades and he knows it well. traces his footsteps carefully, wringing sighs from her like water.
an old path, but it feels new. alcohol on a cut, scouring a wound that feels simultaneously recent and far away. she does not give of herself easily, and she had diligently fooled them both into believing she was at no such risk with him. that kinship and cooperation might be only that. now they are as tangled as she and geralt had been, and she has no one to blame. in that way, it feels like the resolving of a long-held chord.
yennefer grinds herself against his mouth, clinging tight. that other woman she had been, the cardinal, had been afraid to hold him too tight. holding too tight to things only ensured they would slip away. but he is still here, isn't he? if it's inevitable that he slip away, better she enjoy him before he does.
there are stars behind her eyelids. how long has she gone without seeing stars? yet she forces her eyes back open anyway, banishing them. stilling, breathing hard, she says, ] Not yet. [ she wouldn't want to risk the end of this. she would deny them both any kind of reprieve if it meant dragging this out. ]
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no subject
Her fear digs his fingertips harder into the flesh of her thigh, I'm here without the words. Her unease breeds an answering, subdued resistance.
It's so easy to forge ahead when ahead lies what you want, the shape of that desire blocking the view of any potential future consequences. She's all around him, thigh warm against his face and hand insistent in his hair and his want is no less fervent, his own entitlement and a greed that had once needed no curbing spurring him on to claim his comfort just as she does.
The hand around her thigh pushes up under her dress, following the curve of her, drawing himself toward the edge of the couch as his palm presses flat to the skin of her back, fingers splayed over her ribcage. She's anchored now, supported, and he's closer to her than he's ever been. ]
I'm not afraid of you.
[ Words direct to her mind where his mouth is busy with the crease of her inner thigh, at the point of almost no return. He wants nothing more than to give in to their shared want. There's the heat of her on his cheek conjuring up all his own too-rich memories of all the ways they've never been together, and God if he doesn't yearn.
But there's nothing they can hide from one another now. He feels her, all of her, and turmoil is impossible to bury when you're as overstimulated as they are now. No meditative calm here. Two instincts wage war in him, two opposing frustrations - one sharp and savage, one dull and deep. One pulling towards want and the other toward need, a line as fine as silk thread but helplessly absolute.
The deeper, steadier force wins out. Instead of sinking to the side he takes her at her earlier trajectory, tilts his head forward and up. Mouth abandons skin. His forehead rests on the soft stretch of her abdomen. ]
You're afraid of what comes after this.
[ And for as long as that's the case, the person he is now can't quite bring himself to forge on as though it isn't. ]
(cw: hints of dubcon ?? ? i think ? ?)
[ the brittle words snap on their way out. her expression is colder for the call-out, violet eyes shining and sharp instead of warm and bright. her grip on him tightens. she can sense his hesitation. it kicks up a low panic in her, which in turn curdles towards fury, as all yennefer's emotions do. ]
It's not your job to manage my fear. [ which is the farthest she can get into acknowledging it exists. better, she thinks, that she could boldly claim that she isn't afraid of anything — merely aware, merely astute enough to measure the real, practical possibilities of disappointments and threats. it's not true, though. her greed makes her constantly afraid of losing anything, even things that were never really hers. ] And it's too late to try.
[ too late to stop her from being afraid. every outcome from the moment she'd invited him under her skirt had been one that terrified her. this whiff of rejection might be the worst of all of them, though. ]
no subject
Is it using her if she wants him to? If she's using him? Are they using one another at all if it matters enough for there to be a future worth fearing, even if there are consequences they're ignoring to take comfort in the now?
The rapid pattern of his thoughts translates into a fine, jagged stutter of anxiety. That's met with immediate derision and a flurry of snapshots and sense memories, times when sharing their bodies was the least complicated thing in the world. She'd given him a command. Why convolute it?
With a rough grunt of frustration and surrender he succumbs to himself and to her, sinking over the last slim stretch of skin and neat hair to where she's been waiting for him. The slick heat of her claws with hot talons at his insides and swallows whole any lingering doubt. Burden of indecision lifted, boundary crossed, he grips her tight as she does him and sets to work rediscovering a few choice ways he's many times but never yet taken her apart. ]
no subject
an old path, but it feels new. alcohol on a cut, scouring a wound that feels simultaneously recent and far away. she does not give of herself easily, and she had diligently fooled them both into believing she was at no such risk with him. that kinship and cooperation might be only that. now they are as tangled as she and geralt had been, and she has no one to blame. in that way, it feels like the resolving of a long-held chord.
yennefer grinds herself against his mouth, clinging tight. that other woman she had been, the cardinal, had been afraid to hold him too tight. holding too tight to things only ensured they would slip away. but he is still here, isn't he? if it's inevitable that he slip away, better she enjoy him before he does.
there are stars behind her eyelids. how long has she gone without seeing stars? yet she forces her eyes back open anyway, banishing them. stilling, breathing hard, she says, ] Not yet. [ she wouldn't want to risk the end of this. she would deny them both any kind of reprieve if it meant dragging this out. ]