#crawling out wet and wrecked what was that line in the script?

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

this is the video i watch every time im thinking abt pre-time thoschei btw

[little-diable]

Script - Chris Evans (smut)

Request by anon: I really like your writing! I’d love a Chris Evans or Steve Rogers story using prompts 10 & 24. Thanks!!!

Enjoy my loves. xxx

10 “I can’t keep on acting like we’re just friends”

24 “Let them hear you scream my name”

“(Y/n),” Chris whined into the phone, he was laying on the sofa in his trailer, eyes focused on his script, cursing the words that somehow didn’t want to stick with him. 

“What?” his friends annoyed undertone made him chuckle. “I need your help,” Chris chewed on his pen, he felt desperate, didn't want to embarrass himself on set, didn’t want people to make fun of him, for not knowing his lines. 

“Of course you do,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll be there in twenty,” she hung up the phone. 

Her jaw was clenched, hard eyes focused on the road, hands wrapped around the steering wheel, a storm was raging inside her mind, of course Chris would only call her, if he needed help. She hated herself for getting that excited as she read the name of his caller-ID, (y/n) couldn’t even think back to a time, where she hadn’t felt the tingles, the butterflies, every time she’d be near him, every time she’d hear his voice. 

“Evans,” she pounded her fist against the door of his trailer, sunglasses kept on hiding her tired eyes, she was holding two cups of coffee in the other hand, impatiently tapping her foot. 

“There she is, finally, what took you so long?” he chuckled as she stepped into the trailer, pushing his coffee into his hand, “yeah, you’re welcome.” 

(Y/n) plopped down on the sofa, hands automatically grasping the script, she couldn’t let herself admire him in that gorgeous blue shirt, didn’t allow herself to be lured into any smalltalk, couldn’t and wouldn’t stay around him for too long. 

“Come on, old man, let’s get this over and done with,” she mumbled, falling back into their normal routine. Ever since they had crossed paths she had been his study partner, she’d run his lines with him, endless nights of cursing the cowriters for coming up with those words. 

“Don’t know what I’d do without you,” Chris had his legs sprawled out on her lap, arms crossed behind his back, bright eyes hooked on her frame. “You definitely wouldn’t be an actor, no more,” her heart skipped a few beats at the sound of his laughter. 

“Will you watch?” Chris grasped her hand, fumbling around with her fingers, he’d always feel much calmer every time she’d be around the set, watching him do his scenes, teasing him all about his acting. 

But (y/n) couldn’t stay, at least not when he’d shoot a love scene, where he’d kiss somebody that wasn’t her, arms slung around the actresses waist, lips moving in synch with hers. Of course (y/n) knew, that it was “just acting”, but that was enough to make her feel sick to her stomach, insides churning as she’d wish for nothing more than to be the one he’d wrap his arms around. 

“No, no I won’t,” (y/n) rose from the sofa, pushing his legs off her lap, she walked up to her bag, ready to leave the trailer, to go back home and eat a bunch of comfort foods. “What? Why? You always watch my scenes,” Chris grasped her wrist, he turned her towards him, frowning as his eyes fell upon her distressed expression. 

“Scenes where you don’t kiss someone,” (y/n) mumbled before she could stop herself from oversharing her thoughts, both froze on the spot, her eyes slowly wandered up his face, hooked on his bright ones. She cleared her throat and stepped away from Chris. 

“Do I look that awful while kissing somebody?” Chris tried to come up with any explanation. 

“No, Chris,” (y/n) sighed. “What is it, (y/n)?” He stepped closer, set on finding out what was going on inside his friends head. 

“I can’t watch you kiss somebody else, while I wish that the person you kiss would be me,” (y/n) whimpered, her eyebrows were furrowed together. “I can’t keep on acting like we’re just friends,”  she shot him one last glance before she turned her back on him and walked out of the trainer, she had to get away, not giving him any chance to respond to her confession. 

Tears were blurring her vision, (y/n) placed her forehead against her steering wheel, god, why did she have to tell him? He’ll probably never talk to her ever again, how embarrassing, why why why? (Y/n) deeply exhaled as she left the studio, driving towards her apartment, ready to bury herself between a few blankets, stuffing her face with ice cream, cursing Chris Evans for simply being himself. 

(Y/n) had been laying there, back pressed against her sofa, blankets covering her frame, for hours, phone on silent, not noticing the messages he had sent her, the countless times he had tried to call her. A knock ripped her out of her thoughts, slowly (y/n) walked towards her door.

“Chris?” He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, an angry expression graced his features. He strode past her, right into her living room. 

“How could you?” His deep voice made her shudder. “I’m sorry,” (y/n) whispered, she felt like a small child, ready to be scolded by her dad for doing something so stupid. 

“How could you say all those words and just leave? Without giving me any chance to respond? I fucked up my scene, because I couldn’t stop thinking about you and those perfect lips I want to kiss,” Chris placed his hands on her cheeks, she gawked up at him, no words left her mouth, too confused by his words. “Fuck, (y/n), I’ve been in love with you from the first day I met you,” he whispered, hands wandering down to her middle. 

Chris dipped his head down and finally pressed his lips against hers, she responded to his touch right away, arms slung around his neck, blood was rushing in her ears, tingles shot up her spine, overtaking her body. He picked her up, made her wrap her legs around his waist, not breaking their kiss once.

“Bedroom,” she mumbled against his lips. 

Chris carried her towards her bed, hovering above her as he placed her down on the mattress. “I love you,” Chris whispered over and over again, glad to finally be able to say those words out loud. “I love you too,” she chuckled, fingers wandering underneath his shirt, tracing his abs, obsessed with the way his skin felt underneath her fingers. He helped her take off the light fabric, her eyes wandered up and down his chest, admiring his skin, hands tracing loose shapes and patterns.

“Doll,” Chris muttered, snapping her out of her trance, he attached his lips to hers once again, hands tugging on her sweatpants, taking them down her legs. “God, (y/n),” his mind was racing, drunk on the way she tasted, the way she felt against his skin, heart skipping a few beats every now and then. He impatiently pulled off her shirt, groaning as his eyes fell on her bare chest, no bra to hide her skin from his hungry eyes.

“Fucking gorgeous,” Chris sucked on her skin, hands cupping her boobs. 

A shuddered breath fell from (y/n)s lips, her fingers ran up his back, nails already leaving a few red marks behind, something he’d definitely tease her about later on. Chris kissed his way down her upper body, settling between her thighs, he nuzzled his nose against her clothed core, his name escaped her lips, back arched for him, moaning as he ripped her panties apart, tongue sliding through her folds. 

Chris devoured her, worshipped her in every way possible, he rubbed her clit with his thumb, teasing her skin, fingers dipping into her heat, exploring her wetness for the first time ever. He felt his length throb against his trousers, rock hard by now, aching to finally be buried inside of her, like he had dreamt about for ages. 

“Chris,” she called out his name, his eyes found hers, telling him everything he needed to know. 

“Condom?” He breathed out, eyes looking around her room. “Top drawer,” (y/n) whispered, watching him pull the material over his impressive length. “I love you,” he repeated, kissing her as he ran the tip of his member through her folds, a growl wrecked through him, (y/n) wrapped her legs around his middle, heels digging into the small of his back, getting him to push forwards, sinking into her heat. Their moans got mixed up, high on the feeling of finally being one, no clothes between them, skin on skin. 

She tried to bite down on her lip, toning down the volume of her sounds, mind focused on her thin walls, too scared to attract any unwanted attention. Chris tugged on her lip. 

“Let them hear you scream my name,” he smirked at her, set on watching her fall apart, while she’d moan his name. Her eyes fluttered close, he felt bigger than she was used to, nothing she had every experience, already obsessed with feeling that stretched and full. 

“Jesus fuck, you’re so tight,” Chris nuzzled his head against the crook of her neck, inhaling her heavenly scent, slowly building up the speed of his thrusts. Moans spilled out of her lips, he grazed her sweet spot over and over, pushing her closer to the edge, she could have already cum in that exact moment, his sounds were enough to make the knot in her belly grow tighter. 

“I’m not gonna last long,” he panted. “Shit,” (y/n) curled her toes, nails clawing into his shoulders, he felt too good buried that deep inside of her, meeting spots nobody had ever managed to graze. 

“So pretty,” Chris eyes wandered down to her hips, watching himself disappear into her heat with every thrust, her sounds engulfed him, urged him on, intensifying the heavenly pleasure. By now he ferociously pounded in and out of her, skin meeting hers, the noise echoed through the room, leaving them breathless as they were pushed over the edge. 

(Y/n) moaned his name as her walls clenched around him, fluttering as her orgasm crashed upon her, her eyes were pressed shut. The speed of his thrusts began to falter, Chris growled as he released himself into the tight fabric, hands placed on either side of her head. 

“Shit,” he chuckled, slowly pulling out of her, getting rid of the condom, eyes hooked on her the whole time. (Y/n) watched him with those gorgeous (y/e/c) eyes of hers, smiling as he crawled back underneath the covers, tightly wrapping his arms around her. 

[wolf-and-bard]

Drown With Me If You Can

Prompt: White Frost/Apocalypse

Relationships: Arnaghad/Erland of Larvik (from one of the witcher-centric cards)

Rating: M

Content Warnings: swear words, grief, themes of giving up on life and hopelessness at the beginning

Summary: After the fall of Kaer Seren, all that is left for Erland to do in his gloomy cave is write his journal and let the cold take him. He doesn’t expect to be saved, especially not by his former-lover-turned-nemesis Arnaghad. In which: Erland wallows and Arnaghad calls him out on his bullshit. A lot.

Word Count: 5.6k

AO3 link

I.

I close out this account with a warning: the knowledge I hereby hope to preserve is essential for the day the monsters return to our crypts, our battlefields, and our gardens. It is a call to battle and heroism and in that it is treacherous. If you use these pages with the intention to do good in this world, you will soon find yourself to be an outcast among humans. You will save them and they will spit at you. You will beg for fair payment and they will burn you at the stake. Be prepared for that, and take up the sword nonetheless for if you do not, no one will. Peace, brothers and sisters of the future, peace and blessings of the Gods. May you never need this journal.

Erland signs the bottom of the last page with fingers gnarled by the cold, trembling from how his muscles have hardened as a result of his lethargy. When it is done, he grips the quill hard, clings to it. It is a childish instinct that makes him do this, but this feather has been his lifeline for the past… past. A lifeline to the past. Time flakes away from Erland the same way the tattered pieces of the quill do once it breaks under his tightening fingers. The last few pages of his journal are barely legible and he can’t tell whether that is because his vision is fails him, like a pane of glass slowly devoured by a sheen of ice, or because his script has fallen prey to his tremor. As Erland waits for the ink to dry, he uses his weak hand to arrange his good one into the proper gesture for an Igni and casts it down the dark tunnel of his home.

A perfect cone of lightly crackling flames shoots outward, illuminating the glazed rock all around. The sign holds for several breaths, steady and sturdy and its heat singes Erland’s frayed cuffs, has the ceiling drip crystalline melt-off.  Erland smiles grimly to himself and shuts the journal. This time can’t take from him and the ice won’t feast on, this his body will always know how to do. A perfect channelling of what Chaos he may access.

Shaking, Erland crawls over to his makeshift bedroll – a dirt-hardened pellet of furs he collected on his way up here, a long hike with Kaer Seren a steady ruin at his back and the names of his brothers and children a steady weight on his shoulders – and collapses on top of it.

It is done. His lips trace the outlines of these words, but his tongue is too heavy to lift. Erland sneezes into his pillow and draws a ratty quilt over himself. It used to be bursting with reds and oranges, a gift from an old woman for saving her granddaughter from an early death by harpy, but now it is faded and as grimy as the rest of him. Erland cannot distinguish the colours of his belongings any longer, not even in the stale light of the last sparks of the Igni that cling to the cave’s walls.

It is done.

His journal is finished, his life chronicled, his school honoured and his knowledge preserved. All that is left to the former griffin master is to wait for the sparks of his life to die out alongside those of his magic. Erland flops onto his belly and uses his weak hand to arrange the fingers of his good one into the shape of Axii. His wrist creaks when he angles the hand at his own face and he casts it with the same impeccable precision. The spell hits instantly and his body goes slack, his mind punctured through by holes. Erland sleeps and hopes a harsh wind will blow through his abode tonight.

II.

There is a long interval of darkness that is marked by bursts of hot and cold shivers that wreck his body, but Erland doesn’t truly wake and by the time he does, he isn’t sure that they were real at all. He goes through a stage of sleep paralysis in which all he can do is to stare at the coarse ceiling of the cave. It has frozen back over and if there were any light, Erland would see his own face reflected in it. Sunken cheeks, eyes reddened from burst capillaries, undercut grown out into shaggy strings of hair. The griffin tattooed on the side of his skull drowns in them, just like the griffin witchers drowned in dust and snow the day their school was buried in an avalanche.

Erland sighs. He cannot move a muscle for half an eternity. His nose itches and another sneeze finally frees him, releases him into an unsettled slumber that pushes him along the maze of corridors that is his own memory. He retraces every step he took along the Path, faces all the monsters he slaughtered and all the humans he failed to convince that he shouldn’t be slaughtered alongside them.

There is no lesson to be learned from these dreams. Only patience. Erland has long lived with his regrets, knows them as intimately as the beasts whose traits he noted down in his journal. Only patience, yes. In all his striving to be more than a mere mercenary or rat-catcher perhaps his most undervalued and least practiced virtue.

Erland can be patient.

He vaguely remembers one who never was, an old friend, a former lover who faced the world with steel first and foremost, steel accompanied by a detached pragmatism that was so at war with everything Erland believed in. That friend – now less than an enemy – would not have lain here so wallowing in the drawn-out pain of his end days. He would not have waited for his death, he would have summoned it by drawing his slowly rusting blades and cutting himself open, would have watched his hot blood hiss against the ice at the heart of this mountain and would have born a proud curl of his lip until the moment the fire in his own heart extinguished.  

Erland smiles and his jaw creaks.

He takes the high-road.

He…

He sleeps.

He thrashes.

He recites every lesson the knight Gryphon ever taught him. They are the foundation of his life’s work, they are all he has left.

He is patient.

III.

Erland is caught in a sleep paralysis once more when it enters the mountains. The monsters usually haunt him when he’s somewhere in the realm of insanity, but now he is wide awake, body one rigid line under the quilt that has long since lost its ability to keep out the winter, which means the thing could be very real and out for his blood. Its steps boom and quake through the rock for hours before the giant passes into the dead end that is Erland’s makeshift dwelling. Even with no light to illuminate it, Erland can see it glittering, can see its giant head swing left and right, can hear the scrape of its fragile marble skin against the walls.

An ice elemental.

If Erland is extra lucky, this used to be its lair and he accidentally usurped it. There is no moving away, no putting up a fight and he resigns himself to a quick and violent death after all. How graceful of Destiny to show her face now, after everything else has passed her by.

But then the ice elemental shakes off the snow, hundreds of flakes that rain down to cover the floor, and Erland blinks. The outline of the monster softens from harsh crystals to wet strands of fur that hug broad shoulders. A werewolf? Erland can’t draw breath, doesn’t trust his ears when the thing opens its mouth and speaks, a deep baritone. Not nearly raspy enough to be of anything other than human origin.

"Alzur’s rotten balls, Erland is that you?"

Erland wants to laugh. Of all the demons the depths of his consciousness could have summoned to this cursed place, it had to be Arnaghad. Arnaghad with his hulking form and his smooth voice, his tattered bearskin overcoat and his terrible timing. Always terrible. He can’t laugh, of course, can’t do more than wheeze faintly.

A torch flares up, casting eerily long shadows at the feet of the apparition, more real than anything Erland has thought in a long time. At the same time, Erland catches Arnaghad’s eyes – dark ochre with narrow slits, eyes that are set deeply under bushy eyebrows which underline the blocky shape of Arnaghad’s face as though it was whittled from planks of red birch – and Arnaghad starts.

“It is you,” he says and follows that up with a curse Erland can’t discern, courtesy of Arnaghad’s Gemmeran linguistic oddities that persist to this day. With them comes a harsh edge to all his syllables and a tendency to mouth-breathe. Funny how after decades of reciprocal avoidance, Erland still remembers these details. Casting his mind down the drainage canal of history, he also remembers himself: a young fighter, just two decades of age, stuck in a body that was overflowing with emotions of visionary self-determination, of rough-and-fast passion, of compassionate anger. Erland waits for the spark of that anger to rekindle, especially as he watches Arnaghad toss his swords and pack and drop to his knees by Erland’s pellet, the torch held close. It’s heat licks across Erland’s cheeks and cradles his skull.

It remains the only heat.

His anger is but a relic of a more complicated time.

“By all the gods,” Arnaghad breathes, hand passing over Erland’s sweaty forehead. His touch too feels familiar, feels too familiar, but his scent isn’t and neither is the concern that drenches his tone. “You look like a giant lump of bird shit.”

Erland’s nostrils flare. Slowly, ever so slowly, his lips peel back in a snarl. He still can’t move, no matter how much he tries. He wants the ice elemental back, if only for the simplicity of its puny gravel brain. Arnaghad’s may only be a smidge bigger and more substantial, but with that comes so much. Arguments that have been left unburied, thoughts that have been left unspoken, memories that have been left unfinished.

Erland hisses weakly through his teeth and Arnaghad growls in reply. He doesn’t extinguish the torch, he sticks it into the ground somewhere to Erland’s right and sits back on his heels, the growl building and building. Erland drifts off again, waiting for Arnaghad to speak. He hopes that when he wakes, the phantom will be gone.

IV.

If anything, Arnaghad has solidified by the time Erland opens his eyes again. He sits by Erland’s bedside still, even cross-legged tall enough that his head grazes the ceiling of the cave if he straightens. Before him he stokes a small campfire with several crude bursts of Igni.

“That is a waste of precious firewood,” Erland says, voice croaky. He pushes himself up onto his forearms, head sluggish to lift from the scratchy pillows. Arnaghad doesn’t turn around, instead he retrieves an iron pot from his belongings and presses it against the cave’s wall, using his dagger to scrape off the ice there. Practical, first and foremost, that is exactly how Erland remembers his lover of yore. Lover being a euphemism for something Erland still cannot name.

“I’m hungry,” Arnaghad says and fires another sign. Briefly, the cave explodes with heat and Erland just about stifles a vulgar moan. When did he last have the pleasure of warmth this intense and indulgent? The fire slowly seeps into his blankets and furs and nestles against his skin. He sinks back into them and closes his eyes. “Besides,” the bear witcher continues. “You might have died of hypothermia if I hadn’t started it. It’s almost funny, Erland the righteous asshole letting himself freeze to death, where is the glory in that? Alas, I find it hard to believe that you have developed a sense of humour since last we met.”

“Neither have you.”

“Ha,” Arnaghad says and that’s it for a while. Erland listens to the water boil, to Arnaghad hacking at dried vegetables and jerky. It doesn’t even smell bad and despite his self-imposed fast, Erland’s stomach rumbles and the inside of his mouth feels coated in dirt. How long has it been since last he drank? It didn’t matter until Arnaghad stampeded into his life again, shaking him awake.

Erland sneezes.

Maybe not all of him.

“Bless you,” Arnaghad grumbles. “So, how did you end up here, little birdie? Your wings broken?”

“I’m not little and griffins aren’t birds.”

“Smartass.”

Erland snorts. He isn’t about to stoop down to Arnaghad’s level and start bickering and he has no inclination for small-talk. That’s what he tells himself anyway. A part of him is almost… glad for the company. Glad for this company in particular. Fuck that.

“I will allow you to stay the night,” Erland says, and squints to see Arnaghad raise one of his caterpillar eyebrows at him. It isn’t like either of them can tell day from night, and depending on where Arnaghad entered the tunnel system of the Dragon Mountains, the last time he saw sunlight may have been weeks ago. “Fine, I will allow you to have a rest. After, I want you gone.”

“I don’t care what you want. If it hadn’t been for me you would be a corpse right now. Take a peek.”

Erland follows the gesture of Arnaghad’s hand and glances down himself, gingerly lifts the blanket. He is swathed in thick, padded linens, an extra pair of breeches and woollen-knit socks. The bearskin that usually hugs Arnaghad’s shoulders is draped across him and what is more, his lips do not feel chapped any longer. His hair curls around his head in a long, neat braid, like a viper in slumber. Shit, how long was he out for?

“Have you considered that it might have been my explicit wish to die?”

“I have,” Arnaghad says on a low chuckle. “A ridiculous notion. You’re sick, that is all. Sick people lean towards melodrama.”

“I’m not being melodramatic,” Erland replies and, oh, there it is. Frustration breaking through the hard-packed stratum of the years like a flower through the earth in early spring. It’s fast to burst and blossom. He does try and sit up after all, but before the world can start to spin around him, Arnaghad has roughly pushed him back into the sheets.

“You are always melodramatic,” the bear witcher replies and glowers at him, face cast in darkness by his bulky outline. Erland’s eyes narrow.

“One night,” he says. “And then you’re gone.”

“We’ll see about that. The stew is going to have to cook for a bit, and you should go back to sleep. Want me to Axii you?”

“And have you make minced meat out of my brain? No thank you, I can do that myself,” Erland snaps. He’s being petulant, why is he being so petulant? It’s all these rifts tearing open in his chest, all these holes he abandoned when he left the order with his friends to found the griffin school. These holes pull him back to life and reality, pull him back through time and into a persona he thought he buried. Erland is not a child. Erland is the griffin grandmaster, Erland is a knight, Erland is a witcher. It doesn’t matter that these functions are all theory now, they make up his identity. Not Arnaghad and his quarrels. And yet…

Erland turns away, facing the wall. When he makes the gesture for the Axii, he doesn’t even have to use his hand to arrange the fingers. He didn’t want to live. Now he does. And that’s more than he can take after everything he’s lost. More than he deserves, really. Erland puts very little force behind the sign, letting it spill to the tips of his fingers then gently touching them to his own face and thankfully, the world blots out around him.

V.

Arnaghad’s voice pulls him up again, like the detonation of a bomb.

“Wake up, stew’s ready.”

Before Erland is fully awake, a coughing fit grips his body and although it scratches at the back of his throat, it also feels freeing in a way, loosening the plaque on his bones and the dust in his chest.

“So you’re still a victim of your winter sickness,” Arnaghad laughs. “I wondered.”

“What do you know of it?” Erland’s voice is muffled as he wipes his mouth, the words come out spiteful, acidic. This time, he does have the strength to sit up on his bed, but he needs the sturdy stone wall at his back to keep him upright. It’s a cool antithesis to the slight swelter of the cave’s air, a gracious counter-force to the merrily burning fire and the bubbling stew.

“Erland, you have spent twenty odd winters in my embrace, would you not think some of that has stuck with me?”

“In the face of your betrayal, no, I would not,” Erland says, crossing his arms, though admittedly, Arnaghad is right. Erland has always been susceptible to the cold, more so than any of his fellow witchers. Perhaps that is because Skellige, in the shape of his mother, rejected him when he was young, or perhaps it is because of his father whose origin Erland still doesn’t care to investigate. Either way, when the frost’s first tendrils start to wind their way into the atmosphere, he falls ill with sneezes and shakes, fevers too. It must be winter already then.  

“My betrayal, yes,” Arnaghad mutters and retrieves a wooden bowl from his pack into which he shovels some of the stew. It smells prickly and hot, thick with Ofieri spices and has Erland’s mouth water. Now that he is fully himself again, his senses have returned, an assault on his mind. As with any battle he ever fought, Erland decides to be methodical about it. First the food, then the fight. He reaches out for the bowl, but Arnaghad scoffs at his trembling hands. “Don’t think I’ll let your atrophied muscles spill any of this. It’s too damn good, here.” Arnaghad settles into a cross-legged seat before Erland and the fire paints a halo around him. He’s so big that it cowers at his back, which suits Erland fine. This way it is easier to ignore the concentrated, caring expression on the bear witcher’s face as he submerges a wooden spoon, scoops up a chunk of whatever dried meat he put into the stew and gently blows on it before holding it out.

“Why do you care?” Erland asks weakly, lips parting around the spoon. As soon as it hits his tongue – the perfect degree of scolding hot and spicy – he can’t help a small groan. Blunt though Arnaghad may be, his cooking has always been phenomenal. Erland’s stomach mewls for more.

“I always cared.”

“Funny way of showing that.” Erland gives him a pointed look and Arnaghad’s eyes dart along the scar that neatly sections Erland’s face. He has yet to receive even an attempt at apology for it. “Back then you didn’t seem too caring with me. In fact, I acutely remember your sword flaying me.”

“If I’d wanted to kill you, you would have died. But I didn’t want that then and I don’t want it now. I hold to my promises, Erland.”

Accusation is slabbed thickly onto those words and Arnaghad holds out another spoonful of stew which Erland dutifully swallows. It’s not the first time the sickness held him down so hard he had to be fed, but it feels strangely agitating for Arnaghad to be the one to do it. After he left and founded his own school, the only snippets Erland ever heard about the bear witcher were rumours of his death, especially with the vipers splitting off the bear school. Perhaps, Erland liked to believe that Arnaghad was dead because that took away the possibility of whatever was happening now. Perhaps, Erland left the one promise he spent all his life circumventing at Morgraig Castle the day he set out for Kaer Seren. Perhaps, Arnaghad didn’t change at all and neither did Erland.

“Do you even remember?” Arnaghad asks quietly, then allows himself a few gulps of soup before refilling the bowl. He doesn’t meet Erland’s eyes, but Erland can see the faint glow of anguish speckling his cheekbones. Oh, but this is bad. If Arnaghad goes berserk in here, they’ll both be buried in rock and ice and Erland is too awake and vivacious now to want that.

“Remember what?” Erland asks, feigning ignorance as long as that leaves him the proverbial high ground, the only place from which he can match Arnaghad’s sheer height. He accepts another two spoons, then shakes his head. His stomach feels brilliantly full, close to bursting, and he rubs it weakly. Arnaghad puts the bowl to his lips and drinks the rest of the stew. They’ll both want more later, especially with the firewood dwindling, but for now the next field is to be played. It all gets muddled anyway, who is he kidding. Erland sighs and that lets Arnaghad’s gaze snap upwards, latching onto Erland’s. They silently glower at each other for a handful of breaths.

“Of course, you do,” Arnaghad says eventually. “Knowing you, you remember your exact words.”

“I do,” Erland says and the ghost of his own voice flashes through his mind.

My heart lies at the end of a dream, Arnaghad. And as long as that dream remains unfulfilled, I cannot give it to you.

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie, I never lied,” Erland protests, but Arnaghad shakes his head.

“I don’t understand. You obviously felt something for me, feel something still. Oh, don’t give me that look, I told you I care. I always paid attention to you, you know that.”

Erland does. It pains him to admit it, but he does.

“I didn’t lie,” he repeats, hands balling into fists.

“You threw me scraps of affection when it would have cost you nothing to invite me to your table,” Arnaghad says.

“Do we really have to do this now? I told you I want you gone.”

“I saved your life.”

“UNBIDDEN,” Erland screams and his arm shoots out in an arc. It is only by Arnaghad’s quick reflexes that the Aard doesn’t have him fly into the back wall. Erland heaves, watching Arnaghad’s thick Quen dissolve with a buzzing static, and he doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. After everything, he doesn’t want to hurt Arnaghad, of course he doesn’t.

“Why couldn’t you love me?” Arnaghad says, so fucking stubborn in his resolve to have this conversation. What a stupidly vulnerable question.

Back then, Erland bought in to the delusions he liked to paint for himself in blood and gore. He was destined for more, he was a noble knight, he was to rid the world of evil forevermore. Arnaghad didn’t fit in with that dream. He would try and keep Erland from it because he didn’t understand, had no ambitions for himself. And while that was, and likely still is true, it was never the reason Erland didn’t allow anything more than physical between them. But it was the reason he clung to and dangled before Arnaghad’s eyes over and over. After the night of the sundering… it didn’t matter so much anymore and Erland locked the true reason away in a dark corner of his heart, huddled together with the feelings he held hostage in the hopes they would fade to nothing.

Erland listens to his own heartbeat thump at his temples in a nagging ache and he forfeits his answer. Arnaghad doesn’t deserve forgiveness for what he did to Rhys and Erland and whomever else his sword cleaved, but he deserves the truth.

“You really want to know why?” he asks weakly, cringing inwardly at Arnaghad’s curt nod. Erland continues on a sigh, feeling fragile now that his anger evaporated with the sign he just cast. “I was afraid. I ruined my mother’s life by existing and I couldn’t spare Jagoda the experiments Alzur put us through and I never managed to make the humans see us as anything other than aberrations. I can slay monsters and teach others to do the same, but I can’t save the people I love.”

“That is horseshit, just complete and utter horseshit. Your mother was a right old cunt and nothing could have saved Jagoda. All the girls died, remember? Do you blame yourself for their deaths too?”

“My school,” Erland whispers, blinking rapidly to do away with those questions. “I loved them too and now they all lay buried under rubble. My brothers, my sons, my whole life. I loved them and I couldn’t save them. I’m a curse.”

“…why did you never say anything?” Arnaghad reaches out and his thick fingers brush Erland’s scraggly face. Erland stifles a dry sob. Some truths are better left unspoken and this was definitely one of them. He never dared to utter it to himself, in the quiet safety of his own mind, and now Arnaghad knows it. Arnaghad his ex-lover, used-to-be friend, nemesis for some years, phantom of his past for more, saviour of his life. Arnaghad who does, when it comes down to it, have a claim to his heart.

“Because you would have ridiculed me, as you itch to do now.”

“It is true that I was never good at understanding how other people feel,” Arnaghad says and his thumbs come to rests against Erland’s temples, smoothing out the ache there. He shuffles closer and their knees bump together which sends a jolt through Erland’s weakened frame. “But if you would have told me this, I would have found it impossible to demean you. I care, Erland, why won’t you believe that?”

Because you don’t care about anything other than your own survival.

Because it took five years for you to ever look at me twice and double the time for you to answer my frequent knocks on your door.

Because you attacked our brother and cut me and your eyes were filled with pure hatred.

Because you spent decades on your mountain, pretending like that was the only life you ever knew.

Because…

Because…

Erland grasps for more reasons, grasps for the steely indifference he felt for Arnaghad ever since the day he left Morgraig for Haern Caduch. He stops. No forgiveness, not yet. But perhaps, in the face of his grief and all that he lost, it would do well to cast his gaze into the future. Erland releases his tense muscles and lets go of something. After, his breath comes easier.

“You would have me believe that your care is rooted in love? Even after all this time?” he asks.

“Yes,” Arnaghad replies. So simple, huh?

“So maybe you love me. That doesn’t change the fact that I would have let you down.” Or Arnaghad him. Or maybe they were fated to let each other down.

“Look, birdie. I don’t know what it means to dream big, but I know this, and I know it for certain: you did what you could and because you’re a persistent shit, you did it exceptionally well. There are forces at work in this world one man alone cannot overcome. You did what you could.”

Erland doesn’t know what to say to that. Because that isn’t simple, that is insightful and attentive and not at all Arnaghad’s usual refrain. Maybe he did change and Erland is the only one who stagnated. He feels stupid, all of a sudden. Stupid for holding himself up to such high standards, stupid for being afraid in the face of his own bravery, stupid for ever calling himself honourable.

What man gives up on love because he assumes himself to be cursed? No knight. A coward.

“Could I have stopped you?” Erland asks. “If I had loved you, could I have stopped you from attacking Rhys and from waging your war on the rest of us witchers? Could I have changed the course of history?”

“You’re doing it again,” Arnaghad replies with a sly smile. He shakes his head and leans over his own legs to press a dry and warm kiss to Erland’s lips. In a way, it’s a homecoming. In a different one, it’s completely novel. Erland tilts his head for a second kiss that has his body thrum with wanting more, and Arnaghad allows it, for a bit. It’s another kind of warmth, that of their bodies re-learning one another and before long, Erland finds himself on Arnaghad’s lap, held close in a way he thought he’d never be held again. It isn’t forgiveness. It’s far from forgiveness. But it’s a start.

VI.

“Erland, there is something I have to tell you,” Arnaghad says long after they have spent the pent-up emotions of the last centuries in drawn-out kisses and frantic clashes of their body. They’re both tucked under the quilt and the bearskin, Erland’s beaten body sheltered in Arnaghad’s mountainous embrace. Erland gives a sated mumble, basking in the magic of the moment for just a heartbeat longer. Of course it couldn’t last, contentedness with Arnaghad is always the eye of the storm. “Listen to me,” Arnaghad continues and a sense of urgency replaces whatever fluttery feelings Erland just had. “I didn’t come to the Dragon Mountains to find you nor had I head of Kaer Seren’s fall. I came here for a reprieve from the storm. Have you seen it before you entered?”

“It will pass,” Erland says, unwilling to match Arnaghad’s frantic cadence. His chest is a warm rumble behind Erland, an upset sky. Damn Arnaghad and his terrible timing. “Winter is always brutal in these parts and the storms bite, but they pass.”

“It’s not winter, we are coming up on Belleteyn.”

Belleteyn… that means it’s almost May. Erland blinks stupidly before the implications sink in. Snow storms in May simply don’t happen.

“By the gods,” he breathes, and grips Arnaghad’s hand which is splayed over his own chest. His body tenses up and the cave feels stuffy now. “How long has the storm been going on for?”

“October,” Arnaghad says warily and that is so much worse than Erland expected. A harbinger of conflict Erland can deal with, an old love he can squabble over, but he is not at all equipped to handle an apocalypse. It has to be the end of the world because October is only a month after Erland entered the mountains and straight-out winter for close to eight months can only mean one thing:

“The White Frost.”

Arnaghad nods, cheek rubbing against Erland’s head. A branch in the fire bursts with a mighty crack right then, as though it is afraid too. The prophesised end of the world. Erland always assumed it was a tale to scare children and he doesn’t believe in foresight. There is no other explanation. Arnaghad’s other hand draws Erland closer and his steady mass of muscles help anchor Erland as the emotional storm resumes alongside the one that rages outside.

“I know this is a lot, but we don’t have much time. Is there anywhere we can go? You are weak still and these peaks will not protect us for long.”

“I… yes. There is a gulf that runs deeply under Kaer Seren, it carries heat out of the earth’s core and disperses some leagues out into the ocean. We have dug our cellars deep enough to tap it for the winter months… we might have food stores left too, but… I don’t know that there is a way in any longer and with a snow storm we might die trying.”

“Better to die trying than to die giving up,” Arnaghad says.

“If this truly is the White Frost, is there any chance of survival?” Erland asks closing his eyes. This is not how he wants to go out, not when he still has so much grieving and loving to do. Not when he just discovered that he can.

“I’ve never been through an apocalypse before, I couldn’t tell you. We got this far, though, so we might as well try.”

“Might as well,” Erland sighs, pulling on Arnghad’s fingers to bite the tip of one of them. The other witcher grunts indignantly. “But I’m not spending the rest of eternity stuck in a damp basement with you if you are going to keep wearing that bearskin. My nose may be clogged up with snot, but I can still smell it and it reeks. Did you piss on it?”

“I didn’t, but you might have with all the feverish thrashing and moaning you did.”

“Fuck off,” Erland snaps and they both laugh. It’s a glimpse of a relationship they barely scratched the surface of back then. If they survive now, they could learn its ins and outs yet.

And if Erland is anything, if he’s ever been anything, it is determined. He is determined to give his long life one last purpose. It’s a selfish purpose, lacking chivalry and heroism, but Arnaghad was right. He did what he could and now he can allow himself this, a shot at love in the middle of the apocalypse. Erland’s had more idealistic and futile dreams.

“What a horrible retirement Destiny has chosen for us,” he says.

“This isn’t worse than being dragged away by an ugly mage and suffering his experiments for years and years.”

“Speak for yourself, big bear, speak for yourself.”

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@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo , @littoraly-art