samstree:

“Anything you want,” Jaskier says.

“Anything I want?”

Jaskier nods with abandon, guilt still written all over his face. Geralt almost doesn’t have the heart to find it amusing that his bard feels this bad for forgetting his birthday.

Apparently, it was yesterday - they decided that ten years ago. Well, Jaskier decided. Not having a day to celebrate your existence is a crime, the poet said while the first snow of that winter drifted from the sky.

First snow, every year, is Geralt’s birthday.

He doesn’t know how Jaskier prepares for it - food, wine, a new song, written just for him and sung to him alone. Only that for ten years, Geralt held Jaskier’s hand and watched snow fall on his eyelashes, and leaned in and kissed it away.

Although, forgetting about it is a first for Jaskier. Teaching at Oxenfurt must be more intense than he lets on.

“Anything you ask for, my dear,” Jaskier says, crestfallen. “The day has passed and I only hope to make it up to you. Urgh, I don’t know what came over me yesterday. The snow started and all I could think about was how more students now had an excuse to be late! And I was so busy fuming at them that I missed the most important day of the year!”

“Thought that was the annual bardic competition?” Geralt can’t help chuckling before pulling Jaskier into his lap.

“And you mock me.” Jaskier is now pouting. “For committing the worst crime to my wonderful, wonderful witcher, who didn’t even complain when we went to bed like it was just another day.”

“It was.”

As if just another day with Jaskier isn’t the world.

Geralt sighs, linking their fingers together. The ink stains seem to stay on Jaskier’s hands most of these days. He rubs at it a little.

“You were tired,” Geralt adds. “Besides, you remember now.”

“Yes, and you haven’t named your price yet. Anything you want. I know wanting things isn’t easy for you, darling, but… please?”

Jaskier’s smile dances timidly on his lips, and all Geralt can see are the faint bruises under cornflower blue eyes.

“I want…my sleeping shirt back.”

Geralt means to tease but the softness on Jaskier’s face freezes, and he pulls away a little.

“Oh, okay -”

“Wait, no,” Geralt winces. Asking for the only thing Jaskier can fall asleep in on some nights is too cruel, even as a joke. The poet is taking this a lot more seriously than him, so of course not. “Not that. Um…”

Jaskier waits, resting his forehead against Geralt’s temple, now relaxed a bit.

“A kiss,” Geralt decides on, “from you.”

Jaskier blinks, and something in him seems to melt. With a hand over his heart, Jaskier presses his lips to Geralt’s.

The simple kiss ends with both of them smiling.

“Happy birthday,” Jaskier says.

Geralt loops an arm around Jaskier’s back, his stomach warming pleasantly. “Also, I want us to sleep in.” He places another kiss on the tip of Jaskier’s nose. “Just us. No papers. No composing. No students. It’s for me, after all.”

Jaskier lets out a small happy sound and buries his face in Geralt’s neck.

“You are not subtle, you know?”

A laugh rumbles out of Geralt’s chest.

“I know.”

iam93percentstardust:

Marry Me AU

aight i posted most of this on twitter already but here it is on this site for preservation reasons cause i can’t find anything on twitter. there are some minor changes to the au because i came up with a better ending on my run this morning:

tony is a music superstar getting married to slightly less famous but more critically acclaimed singer sunset bain. he’s been famous since he was 16 years old. his dad still owned stark industries, and tony was supposed to be an engineer and eventually take over the company, but he liked music just as much as he liked engineering. maria encouraged his love for music and eventually used her contacts in the industry to get him an in. in this universe, tony still loves irritating howard, so he agrees to give it a try. he thought he’d do it for like 5 years max, but 15 years later, he’s still singing.

after his parents passed away, tony handed the ceo position to one bambi arbogast. he’s still the majority shareholder and sometimes (increasingly rarely) when he has free time, he disappears into the lab in his penthouse and emerges with with new game-changing tech.

despite his worldwide popularity, tony’s never won any awards for his music, never even been nominated, and he’s never had a number one song. his critics call him a talentless hack who only got as far as he did because of his mother’s connections. in his darker moments, tony wonders if they’re right.

eventually, though, he meets sunset and falls in love. they’re together a year and a half before tony proposes. sunset says yes of course and then immediately suggests the big concert wedding. tony has had cameras shoved in his face his entire life, so he wants a smaller wedding, but sunset insists on it, says it’s what they deserve and as the bride, she should get what she wants. tony agrees, tries to get himself hyped up for it, and hides the fact that he really just wants to hole up in a chapel somewhere and elope.

on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have steve. he’s a single dad of a great kid (peter), owns an aging dog (dodger), and is an art teacher at peter’s school. he’s also recently divorced, and his ex-wife met and married the love of her life almost immediately after the divorce. his best friends are bucky, the music teacher at his school, and clint, the school’s guidance counselor. he’s only barely heard of tony stark, and only that because peter adores him. clint is a huge fan of tony. bucky is not, but his girlfriend is, so he manages to score three tickets to the concert where tony and sunset will be marrying.

just before the concert, bucky’s girlfriend breaks up with him over a text, so to spite her, he manages to talk steve and peter into going with him. everything’s going great, the concert is - well, steve’s not too excited about it, but it’s not bad. but then, right before the wedding, tony finds out that sunset has been cheating on him with his ex, ty stone. he calls off the wedding on stage and, because he’s having a very public breakdown, decides to take a leap of faith and get married to a random guy holding a marry me cardboard sign in the audience - steve.

and steve - steve gets heartbreak, okay? and he looks up at tony and sees that same pain in his eyes that he feels everyday… so he says yes. cue the weirdest wedding ever (and one helluva kiss) and they’re inexplicably married.

steve isn’t exactly great with people, especially when he was almost attacked by sunset on their way out the door after the wedding, but he does his best to comfort tony on the way back to his apartment, where they part ways, presumably never to see each other again.

except

tony doesn’t want a divorce.

he’s tired of being the punchline all the time, and despite what his manager (rhodey), his assistant (pepper), and his cameraman for his social media (happy) all say, he’s going to see this through to the end. rhodey and pepper both think this is a horrible idea. they’ve seen tony get hurt again and again in his relationships and that’s the only way they see this marriage ending. happy speaks out against it once and then shuts his mouth once he sees tony and steve together. he’s seen tony’s heartbreak close up through his camera lens and he’s not so convinced that this will end in heartbreak anymore.

steve takes a little more convincing, though bucky thinks it’s a great idea, but after their first press conference together and seeing how the press treats tony (and how he treats them right back) ((and after tony agrees to rearrange their press schedule based on steve)), he agrees to 6 months. over a whirlwind week of interviews, they get to know each other, both thinking that hey, maybe they can at least salvage a friendship out of this. their worlds are so different, but they’re both willing to put in the effort.

one night, they get to talking about their exes. tony has been married 3 times before steve. all of his marriages have ended because his spouse was the one to call it off, not him, but he remains optimistic that true love is out there because he doesn’t know what to do if it isn’t. steve has only been married once before this, but he really thought peggy was the love of his life, and it devastated him when she left. he’s far more cynical about love. tony thinks he’s crazy for giving up after one failed romance, but he’s at least willing to listen. it marks a turning point for them.

over the next 2 months, they grow closer, despite tony’s jet-setting life. tony stars attending steve’s art club meetings and befriends peter, who’s torn between doing what’s expected of him (photography) and doing what he wants to do (chemistry). tony sees a lot of himself in peter, who’s the same age now as tony was when he released his first album, and he tells peter that he’s always available to listen or offer advice. it means a lot to steve, who has known that he’s pushing peter away but didn’t know how to fix it. steve starts making appearances with tony, beginning to understand tony’s fast-paced life and how much of a show tony has to put on all the time. tony starts working on a song for steve and even walks out on an interview to go home to steve. most of tony’s fans are baffled by him dumping sunset in favor of steve at first, but steve manages to win their hearts. who wouldn’t love an attractive guy who’s secretly an old man at heart, doesn’t have a tv, and doesn’t understand social media?

they attend the semi-formal at steve’s school together. tony never got to go to any of his school dances, so steve makes it as close to perfect as he can, including taking cell phones from the students so that none of them can post footage of tony from that night. it means the world to tony, and he realizes that he’s in love.

but then tony and sunset’s song is nominated for a grammy. since it’s tony’s first nomination, it becomes important that he start making appearances with sunset before to boost their chances of winning, starting with performing the ballad version of their song at sunset’s next concert. it doesn’t make any sense to steve, but this is tony’s world, so he tells tony it’s fine and fakes a smile for the cameras, but he’s insecure about it.

when sunset makes a love confession to tony at the concert just before their song and steve sees the way tony smiles at her as they sing together, he realizes two things. firstly, that’s he’s madly in love with tony. and secondly, that he can’t keep holding tony back.

he goes to the afterparty and breaks things off with tony, only to realize that he’s never seen tony’s press smile before - not the one that tony uses when he’s hurting - but he knows it immediately, because he sees it now and it’s the same exact way tony smiled at the concert an hour earlier. but it’s too late. he already gave tony up and sunset moved right back in.

months pass. both of them are miserable. the song that tony wrote for steve, on my way, becomes his most popular song, hits number one on the charts, (and snags a last-minute nomination for a grammy), but he hates hearing it because it just reminds him of steve. on a whim, he sends an invitation to the grammys to steve. steve throws the invitation out, but bucky snags it from the trash when steve’s back is turned.

at the award ceremony, tony and sunset’s song wins. instead of the traditional thank you speech, they give an interview about what their lives have been like since the failed wedding. the entire world thinks they’re back together, but they’re not. they’ve just been doing press together to build up hype for their song. their interviewer mentions that they’re wondering when the next collab between them is coming, since marry me was written for the two of them, sunset’s song second chances was written for tony, and tony’s song on my way was written for sunset, so surely there has to be another one coming for the two of them. sunset laughs along, but tony freezes. he hadn’t realized that everyone thought on my way was for sunset. does steve think that too?

“i didn’t write on my way for sunset,” he interrupts. sunset pales. she’d been banking their success on tony never admitting that. the audience stirs. “i didn’t write it for her. i wrote it for steve.”

at home, steve stills. if on my way, tony’s greatest love song, was written for him, does that mean he still has a chance? bucky shoves the invitation into his hand, pushes him out the door, and tells him to go get his man. steve hurries to the grammys, which are being held in new york that year.

at the awards, tony tries to leave to go to steve, but rhodey, knowing that steve is coming, convinces him to stay by telling him that he still has to perform on my way because it won. tony stays, performs, and sees steve enter the back of the theater near the end of the song. at the end of his song, he confesses his love to steve and asks him to marry him again.

steve’s answer is two words: “i do.”