@deathmsque , ❝ embrace embrace : my muse abruptly throwing their arms around your muse , hugging them tightly .
𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 . dangles him by the noose, what had begun as a thread wrapped tightly round. digs viciously into already scarred skin, embeds itself just so and geralt knows these will never fade. there’s an unforgivable moment which it even stops. viscerally, geralt can feel each molecule surrounding him in that one beat. ground is too warm through thick boots, last remains of tragedy told in fading embers as ash pulls into his lungs and chokes, coats his tongue and heaves his ribcage. bile wells at the back of his throat, biting the way fear rears her ugly head, fangs gnashing at sinews surrounding his heart. a singular bead of sweat trickles down, catches at his eyebrow and veers to the right to drop to the blackened mass, where grass maybe once curled beneath wooden foundation. it’s a selfish thanks that this is an inn, rather than their home.
𝚒𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜 . ❛ mal ! ❜ it curdled in his mouth each time he had spoke of it, leaving, a settled feeling of wrong he’d equated to parting from him. like missing a limb. and now it gaped, his absence, talons mercilessly taking hold to rip from the inside to the out. he should have known. teeth grind as if it might stop rising panic, waves lifting, towering overhead, as if the sacrifice of bone may stave the crescendo ( it doesn’t ). he doesn’t know how to hold this weight. moon stretches her silver hands unto the earth, unaffected. not much longer. that is, if ❛ MAL ! MALACHI ! ❜ ignore the way voice scrapes raw, serrated along chords, peak rising, blown by heated desperation. mal’s parting kiss is etched into his mind, a searing departure and he can’t he can’t. but he doesn’t have to. he smells him before hears, the sharp but welcome winter tones, first snow, they scream of home and geralt would gulp the air a drowning man if he hadn’t been stripped to his bones already. he is to the other before he can clear the drooping trees.
𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 . adrenaline’s lingering toxin. it’s that same ringing, after a striga’s shoved your head back into stone, or the lasting pitch of a boy’s dying screams beside you as the trial lays claim. there is no account for strength, likely too much, in reaching arms. geralt’s fingers find mal’s shoulders first, frigid as always, firm beneath unstable collide. his center of gravity is off from the aching fear that detests to depart so early, yet does not dissuade him from the crush of his lover to his chest. relief takes her sweet, unpitying time in unwinding taut muscles, geralt silent while burying his nose, hot, in the crook of mal’s chilled neck. witcher’s heart matches the pace of a human’s for the first time in decades. he’s safe. unharmed, for the most part ( or he wouldn’t have held so tight for so long ). lungs ache with vice’s sudden release, malachi himself the key. ❛ fuck. ❜ it’s another long moment before he drags himself up, lips pressed too light as he goes, until foreheads meet. ❛ are you alright ? ❜