Jaskier ♫ The Sandpiper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rollstoseduce) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
victory_road2021-05-21 07:41 pm
rollstoseduce) wrote in victory_road2021-05-21 07:41 pm
[Closed]
Who: A metaphorical wolf, an actual wolf, a bard, a swordcat, a rat king, a poison king, a horse with wings, a horse with a bug fish name and a wyvern eta and now a second horse
Where: National Park
When: Some time during 4th wall
Summary: Sparring! Powers! Potions! Animals! Secrets revealed, oh my!
Rating: let's give it an R for naughty jokes and references in narration
So you want to fight a witcher?
>Yes
>No
>Gwent
Where: National Park
When: Some time during 4th wall
Summary: Sparring! Powers! Potions! Animals! Secrets revealed, oh my!
Rating: let's give it an R for naughty jokes and references in narration
So you want to fight a witcher?
>Yes
>No
>Gwent
no subject
"Yours," Felix replies without hesitation. That was where they were the last time they had a serious talk like this--well, not this exact room, but the room Claude was staying in at the time--and having his Pokemon there seemed to help. So he reaches for his boyfriend's hand and, if Claude will let him, tugs him upstairs and into Claude's room.
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Maybe he needs to talk about it, even. He doesn't feel like he's fully processed what's happened, yet - like he's locked up. If anything and anyone can kickstart that process, it's Felix.
Once they're in his room, Claude sinks onto the bed. "I know you want me to talk, and that I promised to, but...I don't know where to start." He's not entirely sure what Felix wants to hear.
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And he's already been less himself ever since Lysithea left. Which Felix completely understands; he misses her, too, and Claude was closer to her. Between that and now this, Felix is reminded of the talk they had the day Sylvain didn't wake up--the conclusion Felix came to then, which was that Claude had never lost anyone before, and was having trouble figuring out how to handle it. Well, he knows a thing or two about loss. Maybe he can help.
"I do want you to talk, but not if you're only doing it because you promised to. I want you to talk because you told me once that talking through painful things with someone else would help, and you were right. If you really want me to give you more time, tell me. But if not, then...I suppose you can just tell me what happened. With Jaskier after we left, or with Geralt earlier. You looked furious with him."
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The thing with Geralt is definitely easier to talk about, and worth explaining; Claude naturally goes with that first. "I got angry with him because I told him about being a king, and he basically...implied I wasn't trustworthy because I hadn't shared that information with him earlier. That I owed better to my friends than to hide things like that, and that my lying over things that don't matter to him means that I'd lie to him about things that do matter. And that he'd like me better if I was honest."
He shakes his head. "It just...made me angry, because he's never done anything or acted so friendly with me that he's got the right to expect me to trust him with my secrets. Half the time he doesn't even believe or like me when I am completely truthful with him. So after I've tried so hard to get along with him, for him to say things like that...it was pretty insulting. Entitled, even. So I told him pretty bluntly that he's never given me any reason to trust him, or for me to want to share anything that might leave me vulnerable with him, and that I didn't appreciate him punishing my finally sharing something sensitive with him with lectures about how not telling him sooner illustrates why he doesn't like me."
He shrugs. "Anyway, once I'd told him off...that was the end of it. I'm sure it didn't improve anything between us, but I doubt I worked as hard as I'd need to in order to manage to make things worse."
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It's not like Felix doesn't understand where Geralt--and Jaskier, on some things, anyway--is coming from. Back when he didn't know Claude very well, he didn't like the way he kept secrets but hinted that there was more to know, either. But one solid night of conversation taught him that it was more complicated than that, and that Claude wasn't out to maliciously deceive anyone. Maybe he trusted Claude too soon
because of thirst, probably, but he had little reason not to; and Geralt and Jaskier have even less reason, not having ever been across from Claude on the battlefield or involved in politics with him. And they've both had more than one conversation with Claude, and Jaskier at least seems to be better at social cues than Felix is. So why can't they see what Felix sees?"Between that and what Jaskier said, I'd say neither of them understand..." He fishes for words. "You. I mean, that everything you do is for the greater good. Or to protect yourself, or someone else. But I don't see how they could miss it."
Is he biased? Maybe. But he wasn't back when he first arrived in Johto, and he still picked it up quickly.
"Especially the bard. With all the time he spent with you. Besides, there's a lot I don't tell Geralt, and he's never cared. So why he'd expect you to tell him everything, I have no idea."
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"You...you've fought him, which is a language I think the both of you understand a lot better than speech. And you clearly don't care what other people think most of the time, and are never afraid to say exactly what you mean even if it's abrasive. The things you haven't told him aren't secrets you're deliberately keeping. I'm sure all those things together mean Geralt feel like he can trust you to be exactly how you seem, in ways he can't with me." Claude sighs. "So no, I'm sure he can't trust that I have good intentions. I don't think Geralt can easily trust anything good unless there's not a shred of room for doubt...and I leave plenty."
"As for Jaskier..." Claude averts his gaze. "I don't think my secrets were ever the issue."
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Felix has no idea whether he's helping or making things worse, but this is so frustrating. It's not like back at the academy, when Claude used to make people mistrust him on purpose.
"But now you've fought him, too. And given him a piece of your mind. Maybe that will change something."
When Claude looks away, Felix holds out his hand for him to take if he wants to.
"Perhaps not. But Geralt could hear your conversation with Jaskier, and he told us a few vague things. Between that and what Jaskier said to all of us, I surmised that he didn't trust your intentions, either."
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He takes Felix's hand, looking down at their entwined fingers. "Of course...even liking me, or appearing to like me, isn't exactly foolproof when it comes to whether or not I can really trust someone."
Realizing that Geralt heard the conversation with Jaskier makes Claude wince slightly...although it's not surprising, when he thinks about it. If Geralt's sense of smell is good enough to smell someone's changing emotions, then what does that suggest about his other senses? And while it's not exactly a comfort to find out Geralt heard it all, there are worse things. For all Claude knows, Jaskier's going to regale Geralt with a rant about how it went anyway...and Claude's going to be talking it over with his boyfriends, so he can't judge the bard for that. It was probably destined to become semi-public knowledge in their respective groups.
"The intentions, trusted or not, weren't the problem," he murmurs. "Frankly, I don't think Jaskier ever cared what they were to begin with. He seemed to object to my actions, period. He also seemed to be treating them as...a lot more than the reality. Like they happened more often or were more severe than they were."
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"Still...I've never seen you that angry. I've made assumptions about you before, but you were never that angry with me." That he knows of, anyway. "I suppose everyone runs out of patience sometime. But are you still angry about it, now?"
He frowns when Claude reminds him that Jaskier couldn't be trusted despite seeming to like him.
"He does seem like the sort to blow things out of proportion. But I don't know why he never said anything before. He's no better at controlling his emotions than I am." Not something he'd admit to almost anyone else, but Claude already knows this about him from firsthand experience. Felix might even say Jaskier is worse at it than he is, which is really saying something. Ugh. "I would have expected him to rant about it the first chance he got. Unless he was biding his time for his best opportunity to use it as a weapon, but I don't understand why he would do that."
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"But also...Geralt's not my friend, because he actively doesn't want to be, and yet he acted like he should have all the rights of someone who is. That he deserves to know all about me. That I should trust him with my secrets and sensitive information, even though he's never given me anything except the cold shoulder. The closest he's ever come to even seeming to care about me was today, when he pulled me aside before our fight...and that was only after our whole argument." He sighs. "I've dealt with a decent amount of borderline rudeness and some occasional outright hostility from him, and I didn't expect more because he didn't like me yet, but that just pushed me too far. I can take being disliked, but I can't take people demanding I trust and confide in them when they know perfectly well they've given me no reason to."
He smiles a little at Felix. "Your own assumptions have never bothered me - however rude or off-base they've been - because I know you care about me as a person. That's the difference. And it's a big one."
But then Claude waves a hand dismissively. "Honestly, though...I don't know why we're talking about Geralt. He's not that big of an issue. I told him what he needed to hear, and provided he stops making demands like that, that's the end of it. I was frustrated at the time, but I've let it go. So no, I'm not still angry about it. I might get angry again if Geralt says something that ridiculous again, especially now that I've laid out why it's ridiculous, but I doubt he will. I don't think guys like Geralt live the kind of lives they do for as long as they do by being slow learners."
And indeed, it's obvious how much difference the subject change between Geralt and Jaskier makes. Claude seems to get quieter as the focus shifts. "I never expected Jaskier to keep something that bothered him hidden from me, either."
He closes his eyes briefly. "It was - about Geralt. Jaskier told me early on in our friendship that he was desperately in love with Geralt, but he thought Geralt was completely gone on someone else from their own world and would never look at him the same way he looked at her. That he essentially had no chance. I insisted that someone Geralt clearly cares about as much as he cares about Jaskier must have a decent shot, and that he ought to at least try. It wasn't all that different from how I was with you about Sylvain back when we first started talking, really.
"I knew Jaskier didn't agree with what I was saying, and didn't exactly want to hear it - one of the first things he said, the first time I encouraged him, was something like 'don't give me hope' - but he never seemed more than aggravated. He definitely seemed more despondent about his own hopelessness than he was ever bothered by my trying to give him that hope. I never tried to push too hard, or too often, and if he was getting uncomfortable in a way I could see, I backed off. I can really only think of a few occasions where it came up at all in any major way. One of them was when I told him about my getting together with all of you - when I teased him that maybe if I had ended up with the guys I thought I had no hope with, he might likewise have a chance with Geralt.
"But apparently it bothered him...so much more than he ever let on. Maybe even more than he himself knew. He raged at me as though he could never so much as bring up Geralt without my pushing him about it...even while pointing out that we hadn't talked about Geralt for months, because he didn't want to talk to me about him. He said I 'used it against him' when I got together with you guys, because I pointed out the similarities between what happened with me and all of you and his situation with Geralt. He said I've done nothing but 'preaching and scolding' since, even though...I hardly remember talking about Geralt with him at all since then. He said I had the 'upper hand'. Like I was...I don't know." Claude rubs a hand over his mouth. "Scheming against him? As though my obvious desire for him to be able to be together with Geralt like he wanted was some devious cage I was trying to drive him into?"
His hand squeezes Felix's involuntarily. "He said he didn't say anything because he was being 'patient for me'. And complained I didn't trust him, even though I've shared as much with him as with any of you - some of it even sooner than I shared it with you guys. Mostly about my sex life, which only makes sense because I slept with him before any of you. It was relevant with him sooner." He looks down at their linked hands. "He said his hiding his relationship with Geralt from me was to show me I don't know everything. Like he hid it to spite me, either to show he could hide something from me or he hated me being right, or maybe both. He made it obvious that he hates that I try to control things, and that - he's got no room for someone like that in his life."
Claude closes his eyes again. "None of it - makes sense. I never meant to hurt him, and he never let me know I had. It was a few missteps, months ago. But he acted like I couldn't and wouldn't stop if he'd ever just asked me, and that it wasn't worth even trying to talk it out with me. Like it was just easier to lash out and leave."
When his eyes open again, he's still not looking at Felix, but there's a dull look in them which is completely unlike Claude. "And it probably was. Now that he has Geralt, Jaskier doesn't need me for anything anymore. But until he had someone else...I guess I was worth keeping around. He slept with me that day at the farms, even though that was long after he was apparently fed up with me."
no subject
Yes, Felix does care about Claude as a person, and Claude is probably the only one other than Sylvain to whom he doesn't feel the need to qualify such a thing out loud to save face. Maybe it's just because he's broken down so many times in front of Claude by now that there's no point, but he suspects it has more to do with the way Claude sees him as few do.
Felix shrugs. "As long as it's no longer bothering you, then you're right. The matter concerning Geralt can be set aside."
The way Claude seems to just deflate the minute they start talking about Jaskier sets him on edge. This whole thing has hurt Claude more than Felix can accept. And he promised to protect Claude, to be his Shield as well as Dimitri's. But how is he supposed to protect him from people who are supposed to be his friends?
Felix listens, trying to make sense of it all. At first, it sounds like Jaskier just massively overreacted. But the more Claude goes on, the more it sounds like the bard actually thought Claude was being malicious somehow. Look, Felix gets that sometimes Claude comes across as smug, or like he planned the entire conversation before anyone knew they were going to have it and is very proud of himself about it. Felix himself has complained about the same thing before. But someone who's spent as much time with Claude as Jaskier has should have learned long ago that it doesn't mean Claude's scheming, or trying to lord it over anyone, or control them.
There are a lot of things Felix wants to say, but he bites his tongue until Claude's finished. And in the end he's glad he did, because it keeps getting worse. Of course it was easier for Jaskier to lash out and leave--it's something Felix has done many times, too. But with people he didn't like or care to talk to, not close friends--not since the academy, and he was an angry teenager then. Jaskier's forty years old.
But the worst part is the look in Claude's eyes after he opens them. Or the lack of one, more accurately. If Felix didn't know any better, he'd think his boyfriend might have gotten possessed by a Yamask or something. And what Claude tells him then has the first hints of fury simmering just under the surface. Felix remembers that day at the farm very well, because he'd wanted...well, he'd wanted Claude, but more than that, he'd wanted reassurance that Claude loved him and the others enough that if it came down to it, he would choose them rather than the bard. He knew it was stupid to want that, because Claude had already told them as much multiple times and it's not like Felix didn't believe him, but that day was the first time Jaskier actually showed up in person to take Claude away from them.
To know that Claude went out of his way to make time for that bastard, only to learn this now...
He scowls fiercely.
"He's nothing but a selfish, petty child masquerading as a man. You're worth a hundred of him."
But the thought occurs to Felix that...while Claude has said he knows that Felix cares about him, when was the last time Felix said so? It's hard for him to do that sort of thing, so he tries to show it in other ways, and he thought that by now his partners knew that. But Claude is a words person. What if, without the words, he isn't sure? He's just learned that one person he thought cared about him probably didn't. What if there's doubt about Felix now, too? Maybe he should write Claude a letter, like he wrote one to Sylvain...the words were easier that way. Still...
That doesn't do anything now. And he's right here already.
He lets go of Claude's hand to abruptly wrap his arms around him instead, pulling him close.
"Claude, I...I love you. You know that. Don't you?"
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For all that Claude said they could drop the subject of Geralt, he doesn't seem to mind explaining this. Perhaps it's because it's so much less of an emotionally fraught subject as the alternative.
What Felix has to say on the subject of Jaskier doesn't so much as lift Claude's head. It doesn't really need a response, for one thing, but also it doesn't really make him feel any better. Even if there were anyone capable of calculating his objective worth(and Felix is very biased), what Claude is or isn't worth doesn't really matter in this context. What matters to him is how seemingly little he's worth to someone who had actually meant quite a bit to him. And even if he tells himself that Jasker was never worth the amount of affection and trust Claude gave him, and so what he thinks of Claude shouldn't matter...that still doesn't help Claude feel better about himself, because it means he was tricked. And the unworthier Jaskier is, the more shameful allowing himself to be taken in by the man becomes. No matter what, Claude comes off as the loser here.
But then, suddenly...he's being pulled into Felix's arms. And while he's still blinking his surprise, Felix murmurs one of the most heartfelt utterances of those three words Claude has ever heard.
He hadn't actually known how badly he needed this - the touch, the words - until Felix was already giving it to him. But once it's happening, the need is irresistible. There's only a moment's stillness before his arms come up to grip tightly at Felix, his head lowering to hide his face against the other man's shoulder.
He's not crying - a rough and pitiless childhood drove most of the tears out him long ago - but it's within the realm of possibilities. He also doesn't speak, at least for the moment.
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But that thought goes by the wayside quickly. Claude clutches him tightly and hides his face, and it seems like a clear message to Felix--one he doesn't think he's ever gotten from this man before. He quietly brings one hand up to stroke through Claude's hair and holds him close with the other, seeing no reason to say anything else just yet. He wouldn't know what else to say, anyway.
Felix may not be a very patient man by nature, but there's no impatience here. He'll sit here like this for as long as Claude wants. All evening and all night, if that's what he wants. Maybe the way Felix can protect Claude from an attack like this is with a shield not of steel, but of the certainty that Felix cares for him more than he knows how to put into words.
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Claude really does seem like he could sit with Felix like this indefinitely. But, the longer Felix holds him...the more Felix will feel the tension, the desperation, slowly seeping out of him. The closeness and reassurance are clearly providing some kind of comfort, even without any words beyond that one spoken 'I love you'.
But, eventually, Claude does speak. "I love you, too." His voice is quiet.
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"We don't have to talk anymore," he says softly. "If you would rather not. I can stay here, or...I can go. Or we could do something else. I don't know. It's your choice."
Felix, for all that he often pushes people away when he's upset, rarely actually wants to be alone no matter how much he tells himself he does. Being alone and tiring himself out is much easier, but it's not any kind of comfort for him. He doesn't know whether Claude is the same, or whether he really would feel better being by himself for a while. He finds it strange and a bit alarming that he doesn't know that; he and Claude have been together for a while now. Why does he still know so little about what Claude truly needs or wants? He feels like he should know these things, but asking seems like defeat - like admitting he doesn't know, revealing how little he understands someone so close to him.
But maybe he knows one more thing now than he knew before.
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"I still can't figure out what I should have done differently, or better. I keep looking over things, looking for where they went off track, but even knowing it must be somewhere, I can't find it. I can't even figure out if I really did something wrong, or if I was just...an idiot to trust him. To believe in how much he acted like he cared about me. Not romantically, but even just someone who mattered to him. I've seen how he treats the one person who actually matters to him, and it's not like this. Not just...walking away forever over some minor grievance. Not using Geralt's insecurities against him because he's annoyed. So just how badly did I miscalculate? How much did I not see?"
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But Claude said I want you here. So he is helping, after all. Good.
Felix frowns, resting his cheek on top of Claude's head again and thinking.
"You once told me conversation could be like battle. So it makes sense that you're reviewing what happened to identify what you need to train to improve for next time. But sometimes, factors you couldn't possibly have taken into account ahead of time affect the outcome. It doesn't make sense to put the blame on yourself for those. Right?"
no subject