Archive of Our Own ^beta

After Posada, Geralt returns to his Path and doesn’t think of the small human bard with the blue eyes again.

For about three months that is.

Then one day he’s sitting – definitely not brooding – in the corner of a tavern and his ears pick out a tune from the usual human bedlam around him.

“When the White Wolf fought / a silver tongued devil…”

“That little shit.” Geralt growls to himself, as an image of the bard – Jaskier – pops neatly into his head again, and the rest of his senses obligingly fill in their parts: the smell of rosin off his lute and the bard’s own meadowgrass and fresh cider scent, and the sound of a rabbit-quick heartbeat and soft, panting breaths. Geralt had had that heartbeat in his ears the whole time they’d trekked up the mountain path, meaning either the bard had no stamina at all or he just used up all his breath on talking.

“That’s my epic tale / our champion prevailed…”

Geralt will grudgingly, grudgingly concede that the bard has an ear for a tune though. Just listening makes him want to rip the lute out of the current minstrel’s hands – a pock-faced nasal fellow who smells like sausage tallow even halfway across the room – but the rest of the tavern is roaring along, the song clearly hugely popular, and it’s raining outside and Geralt doesn’t want to be stoned out of three villages in a row.

Even for the Butcher of Blaviken that’s excessive.

For a moment he wonders if any of these rowdy peasants realise that the champion and the butcher are one and the same. Jaskier knew, and he wrote the song anyway. Stupid boy. Pretty as a picture and twice as dumb.

Except –

Respect doesn’t make history, the bard had said, and that’s the moment that’s fixed in Geralt’s mind, that his mutagen senses have decided to preserve in such excruciating detail. That moment, Jaskier standing there with the dust and the sunshine both in his hair, less than an hour previous so certain of his own death and already his fingers steady on his lute, twisting history to his bidding. That’s the memory Geralt’s successfully managed to not think about for the past three months.

Geralt growls and shakes his head to loosen the thoughts. The beer’s worse than he thought if it’s filling his head with this much whimsy. Or it’s better. Either way, he decides, he won’t think of such things again.

~

Geralt doesn’t think of such things again.

More than once a week that is.

And after the next time he bumps into Jaskier, and the next, and the next, and the years pass, it gradually increases to two or three times a week without him realising. They’re only passing thoughts – catching a whiff of apples hanging low on the bough and remembering the bard’s scent, or hearing a storyteller in the marketplace and smirking at how much better Jaskier would embellish the tale. Every time their paths cross, he gains extra details to fill out the memories – learning Jaskier’s love of finer things, like soft silk doublets and full-bodied wines; how much he adores old Temerian poetry; the way he’ll steal blackberries from every bramble they pass till his fingers and mouth are stained purple with the juice…

…or how he dips his eyes and blushes when propositioned in a bar.

(It's always Jaskier who is propositioned, Geralt notices. All the boy has to do is pose on a stool and open his mouth and he’ll have a dozen offers lined up before the end of the night, whilst Geralt goes next door to his whore. Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to be wanted that much.)

“Have fun?” He grunts one morning, when Jaskier staggers out of the tavern to join him. Both his doublet and his trouser laces are untied – the latter bidding fair to slide off slim hips completely, fuck the heavens, the bard’s waist is so small Geralt could probably fit both hands around – and there are purple marks peeking from his collar. Geralt eyes them. If he’d left such markings on a lover, they’d have had a different meaning, and wouldn’t have involved said lover leaving the bed alone (or at all).

Humans.

“Geralt, my good friend, the day is young and fair and beautiful, and I am in a stupendous mood!” Jaskier crows, whirling around with arms outstretched, grinning like a boy. He’s not quite that any more, Geralt reluctantly has to admit – a little more muscle to his shoulders, a little more hair on his cheeks. Geralt no longer feels like he should take his sword to himself when he looks at the bard.

Which in many ways makes it worse. It was easier when he wasn’t allowed to look.

“You forgot your lute.” Geralt points out, watching with far more pleasure than should be allowed the look of dismay creep over the bard’s face. Jaskier’s eyes slide up to the window of the room where he left his bedfellow – a hulking blacksmith that Geralt hadn’t much cared for – and Geralt lets him bite his lip and sway in indecision for a moment before he relents and pulls the instrument out from behind his back.

“Don’t make me pick up after you again bard.”

“Geralt, Geralt, you are a gem, a pearl, a prince amongst men – sorry, amongst witchers – say, do witchers have princes? Lords? Dukes? What about a nice viscount? No – okayyyyy then…mayors?”

“We have elder witchers. They’re the ones that aren’t dead yet.” Geralt says, and the clamps his lips together. He’s far too prone to dropping his guard around Jaskier’s guileless blue eyes, and next he knows there’ll be an entire ballad dedicated to witcher hierarchies, and the next time Geralt tries to winter in Kaer Morhen it’ll be his own who stone him out of a place.

Jaskier, of course, beams up at him as though he knows exactly what he’s thinking and there’s nothing that warms his coquettish little heart more than the idea that Geralt is as helpless before his charms as everyone else. Fuck, sometimes Geralt just wants to –

No.

He’s a boy.

“What are you thinking, when you look at me like that?” Jaskier murmurs, flicking his lashes up at Geralt as though he’s accepting another proposition in a bar, as though he’d ever actually consider it, as though someone as soft and pretty and wanted as Jaskier would ever need to entertain the affections of a witcher even for a moment…

“Like you’re a fool who’d forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his shoulders.” Geralt grits out, and it’s a weak comeback by their standards – measured in Jaskier’s wit and Geralt’s grumpiness and failing to live up to either – and he knows it and Jaskier knows it and the bard’s eyes are narrowing in thought and fuck…

Jaskier plays with words for a living, and Geralt was raised by men for whom grunting was a conversation. This is not a fair fight.

He grumbles to himself and sets his heels to Roach’s side. There’s talk of a drowner in the next town over, and a blacksmith willing to put an edge on his sword without charging him triple. He hadn’t felt like going to the one in this town for some reason.

He urges Roach into a trot.

Jaskier can catch up.

~

Geralt isn’t quite sure when he ended up travelling with Jaskier more often than not. He would also say he wasn’t sure why, but that bit he’s quite clear on – because the bard can’t take a fucking hint. Or a blunt statement. Or Geralt sneaking out in the middle of the night and spending three days in the mountains hoping to shake him. But as soon as arrives back in town to pick up another contract, Jaskier will already be there more often than not, peeking up at Geralt from under his lashes when he arrives, those clever fingers of his already sliding over his lute.

Geralt sometimes thinks about biting Jaskier’s fingers, and then making him suck his own.

Fucking bard.

But now for some woe-begotten reason they’re both in Velhad, in a small village not far from Yspaden. An early frost is threatening the corn and Geralt’s balls both, and what’s more has left Jaskier voiceless for a week now.

Geralt would be smug (and he was, for the first day and a half) but it’s harder now, because Jaskier is so miserable.

Geralt doesn’t get sick, not anymore, but he vaguely understands it as a milder form of being poisoned. But Jaskier just seems to be less somehow without his voice, as though being unable to constantly fill the air with every madcap thought that comes into his head just hollows him out inside. Geralt would have staked good money on Jaskier being the whiniest creature alive when sick, but he just curls up near the closest heat source (Roach, the fire, Geralt, which does fucking wonders for his own body temperature) and looks quiet and forlorn with all the colour gone from his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes.

That’s how Geralt finds him, snuffling softly in his sleep as the witcher stands above the bed. Without Jaskier’s voice to open purses (and legs) their coin had run out two days ago. Geralt took a quest to clear out a harpy nest and ignored all Jaskier’s frantic sign language to take him along, instead threatening the innkeep with a number of unpleasant things if anything should happen to the mute bard in the interim. Now he’s returned, and had half been looking forward to a waiting bath and dinner and maybe even a newly-chattering Jaskier, but the bard is under three threadbare blankets and shivering to the touch.

Geralt looks down at him a while more.

This far north the crowds care less for pretty ballads and noble deeds. Jaskier’s earnings have grown slimmer the further they travelled and never once did the bard talk of turning back, even as their meals grew smaller and their rooms dirtier. The night before this sickness had struck Geralt had made sneering noises about his ability to withstand the climes of the true north, and Jaskier had replied with some over-extravagant nonsense about following his heroic champion wherever his quests did lead.

Jaskier always refers to Geralt in such ridiculous terms. As though it would ever be possible for someone to look at him and see a hero.

The harpy claws and fangs are still in his saddlebag, and the alderman will not be pleased to be roused out of his bed this late. He’s just going to have to deal with it. Geralt lets his face settle into its normal expression – “oh yes, that’s perfect, very dark and brooding…tell me Geralt, have you ever considered sitting for a sculptor? I imagine your face would look very well as one of those door knockers on rich mansions in Toussaint – ow!” – and heads back out into the cold.

Jaskier finally stirs a couple of hours later, yawning and stretching like a cat and Geralt absolutely does not look at him, warm and sleepy and with a sliver of his belly showing under his shirt. The bard curls up again within his mound of goose-feather blankets – Melitele’s tits Geralt will not be jealous of a blanket – and blinks over at him, and the table, and the bath.

“Hurry up and get in before the water goes cold.” Geralt grumbles, ignoring the fact he’s been keeping it warm with steady blasts of Igni these past twenty minutes. He turns his attention back to the goblet he’s cradling as Jaskier almost dives into the water, making soft happy noises at the warmth. The wine’s the best he could afford with what he had left over and tastes like horse piss.

Thinking very hard about the wine helps Geralt ignore the splashing noises as Jaskier clambers back out of the tub behind him, and then the little sound when he finds the fresh clothing Geralt paid the innkeep’s daughter to wash for him. When the bard finally pads back into view he’s clean and damp and wearing soft clean clothes, sliding into the chair opposite Geralt and looking over the table with shining eyes. Dinner is nothing fancy, but heartening in the cold – good stew and fresh bread and the extravagance of decent butter.

“Thank you,” says Jaskier, and his voice is rough and croaky still round the edges and Geralt grips the goblet so hard the metal dents around his fingers. He sits there as Jaskier eats, summoning the willpower that got him through mutagen injections and the Trials and a lifetime of being stoned and spat on not to just take.

It’s still a struggle.

Jaskier yawns again when he’s done eating. His cheeks are pinker now and Geralt feels a hard curl of satisfaction in his own belly at the sight of him well cared for, by Geralt’s hands and Geralt’s money. He did this. He made things better. And goddamnit, that is not how he should be thinking – a witcher’s hands aren’t good for anything except swinging a sword, too stained with blood and guts and dirt to take care of anything else. Geralt is fine with admitting he’d quite like to fuck the boy. Anything else is impossible.

“Go back to bed,” is what he says instead, because he cannot handle this realisation, what taking care of Jaskier makes him feel like. The bard nods and returns to his bed – obediently, fuck, Geralt’s cock firms up so quickly he feels the rush of blood leaving his head – and curls up there, and falls asleep almost immediately, Melitele have mercy.

Geralt spends an hour finishing off the rest of the bottle of cheap vinegar wine before he leaves the table. Then he lies on his back on the bed for another hour, listening to Jaskier breathe and staring at the ceiling. He can still remember Posada, when he first met a bard barely old enough to be out of the schoolroom. Somewhere along the way Jaskier got older, and it became okay for Geralt notice the blue of his eyes and his slender waist and how easily Geralt could fit his hands around his thighs and push them apart…

And then, somewhere, somehow, that morphed into Geralt caring more about Jaskier being warm and safe and fed than just wondering what his mouth would feel like on his cock. He daydreams in equal amounts about leaving the bard a trembling sated wreck, and seeing his face light up in happiness should Geralt ever have the money to buy him a new lute. Geralt wants to make it so that Jaskier never has to play for anything again – not money or food or to get them a room – because Geralt’s already taken care of all that and then the bard can warble to his heart’s content for no reason other than he wants to…

Fuck.

When the Elder Witchers drew Geralt aside and told him he’d been chosen for extra mutagens, he trusted their judgement. When his hair turned white and he ended up stronger, faster, tougher, than any of the other boys, he didn’t doubt they’d made the right choice. But every change hammered the truth home even more, that Geralt was being re-made for one thing and one thing alone, and the Path would be the only thing he was ever good for.

The last thing a witcher wants is someone needing him. And they’re not supposed to need anyone either.

And besides…

Jaskier can do better than him anyway.

~

The next day Jaskier is well again, enough to hum quietly to himself as he packs up their things. The snow’s still coming down but the roads are firm and the next town to the south only half a day’s ride away. It should be warmer there. If not, they’ll keep going south.

Geralt lets Jaskier ride Roach. It’s just quicker. That’s all.

And if he barely says three words to the bard over the next two weeks, working their way back to where the land is still green and the air doesn’t leave a chill in your lungs, well, the bard’s used to it. Jaskier should know better than to expect anything better from him.

~

Geralt had been just fourteen when Vesemir had hauled him and the other striplings into one of the training rooms. He remembers being fourteen as just another year of training and growing, his bones permanently aching inside his skin no matter how much food the older witchers shoved into them every mealtime, the rest of life a blur of endless rounds on the training circuit, memorising bestiary entries and stirring stinking vats of alchemy. He remembers they’d been through two rounds of the Trials of the Grasses and six boys were already dead.

There were three more to come, three more lots of poison pumped into their veins and all of them knowing that if they lived they’d be even stronger, even faster, and if they died, well, the older witchers would bury them on the hill out back and no one would mark their grave.

Geralt’s sense of smell was already better than better, better than the others, and his hearing too. He could overhear the older witchers talking about him, Vesemir and the other training masters and the alchemy mages too – knew they’d marked him out as having more potential, worth experimenting on further, more and different poisons to try.

He also knew they expected at least another half dozen of the ten boys crowded into the chamber with him to die before the year was out.

But the mutagens to blunt emotions were in the very first round, so Geralt didn’t mind all that much. Fear had mostly been beaten out of him even before the Trials began.

Vesemir hauled them into one of the training rooms and for once sat them on chairs like equals instead of striplings-in-training. And then he told them about witchers, and sex.

After the first boy got a smack round the head that made his ears bleed for sniggering, the rest of them shut up and paid attention. Vesemir talked them through the mechanics of it, men and women both, and then the basics of how to give pleasure, mostly about paying some fucking attention, do you hear me you snot-nosed little bastards. You’ve got stamina and you’ve got control, so if I hear that one of you hasn’t set a woman to quivering at least twice before you spurt then you can think about wintering somewhere else! Geralt picked up on what most of the other boys didn’t, which was that witchers were already thought of as brutes and beasts and so the least they could do was not make that reputation worse whenever one of them took a whore to bed (Vesemir’s lecture on what he’d do if he found out one of them had forced themselves on a woman made the older witcher turn vivid purple).

And then Vesemir had stopped and looked all of them blank in the face. He’d been older than Geralt could imagine, even then, with scars they were all still stupid enough to admire.

“But listen to me – listen to me, you puce-faced whelplings – don’t ever make the mistake of thinking it’s more than a fuck. You’ll get offers of more…rich duchesses who want a man with muscle to parade on their arms, the village peacock who wants to crow he bagged a witcher, more likely than both someone who hopes that stringing you along a bit will mean you do jobs for free…but never forget that they won’t forget what you are. You’ll always be a witcher in their eyes, death in your hands and grave dirt in your skin, something two steps up from a ghoul itself. Whatever mewling daydreams of happy families you’ve got buzzing around those empty skulls of yours, get rid of them. There’s no room for that foolery on a witcher’s Path.”

Geralt remembers how Vesemir’s gaze had lingered on him, his white hair marking him out as different even amongst his own kind, the other boys bitter and resentful that he’d been tapped as more special as them. So Geralt took the lesson he was meant to.

Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’ll be loved. And especially don’t bother loving first.

~

Marked as special, hah. Marked as fucking dim as a hellhound trying to eat its own tail more like. Forget happy families, Geralt is so fucking stupid that he doesn’t just daydream about dragging Jaskier to bed and keeping him safe and pliant and well-fucked for the rest of his life, but he also has to tumble head-over-arse for a purple-eyed sorceress as well.

If Vesemir could see him now…

At least Geralt knows from the very first instance that there’s no chance Yen would ever be interested in having him take care of her. Yen is like water and fire both – she’ll either burn a path through, or wear down rock to make one, but either way, she’ll get to where she wants to go. She might love him, but she doesn’t need him, and she never forgets he’s a witcher.

The flip side of that is Jaskier who never seems to remember that he’s a witcher, that Geralt could break his neck without a thought and sees in the dark like a…well, like a wolf. Jaskier doesn’t seem to care. But then, he doesn’t care about Geralt either, not like that, not when he gets a dozen offers in every village they visit and Geralt is left to his whores, who he sets to quivering every time. Vesemir would be so proud.

God-fucking-damnit. Geralt has never hated his Path more.

~

Geralt’s first inkling that he may have made a miscalculation about something is when he finds Jaskier snoring asleep on a bar counter in a random little tavern in Rybnik and reeking of very expensive Toussainian wine…whilst the rest of the inn smells of lilac and gooseberries.

He sourly notes that nothing looks like it’s been on fire and Jaskier isn’t even singed. Apparently Yen is playing favourites now. She’s nowhere to be seen, so Geralt tosses Jaskier over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carrys him up to their room. Jaskier regains consciousness somewhere along the way, and he blinks up at Geralt blearily when he dumps him on the bed.

Gods curse him. How can he still look so fuckable when his eyes are pointing in two different directions? He also appears to be wearing two doublets.

“What the hell did Yen give you?” Geralt grunts. Jaskier holds up three – no, four – no, five – fingers.

“Colours!”

“Five colours?” There is nothing about that which is reassuring.

“Yes.” Jaskier nods very earnestly. He’s drunker than Geralt has ever seen him and Geralt has seen him very, very drunk. “Five colours and two smells, lilac and gooseberry just like you said…she went that way.”

“What?” Geralt automatically looks at the wall Jaskier has flung his hand towards. East, towards Wyzima. Hmmmm…Yen’s scent had still been strong in the bar. If he moved fast – “Jaskier. What are you doing?”

Jaskier squints at him from where he’s rolling around on his back like an overturned turtle, trying to get his boot off. As Geralt looks at him and he looks at Geralt his momentum carries him further…

Jaskier plops off the side of the bed. Geralt sighs very loudly, and bends down to pick him up.

“Let me help before you open a vein on a splinter,” he mutters, but Jaskier is batting at his hands and then pointing at the wall again. Geralt looks at it, baffled. Does Jaskier want to change rooms?

“Hurry on your way, noble witcher,” Jaskier manages to get out with only minimal slurring. “Thy fair lady lies…lies…ponder? Yonder!”

“I know where Yen is,” Geralt grunts in reply. He’s gotten the other boot off and starts work on Jaskier’s laces, till the bard shoves him away again. This time there’s force behind it – if a dormouse was to smack a wild boar perhaps – and Geralt sits back on his heels and frowns. It stings a little. Jaskier normally lets him take care of him this much. “What the hell is wrong with you Jaskier?”

Whenever it rains, the water smells one way as it comes down, and then different when it strikes the ground. When it hits plants, Geralt can scent them, soft crisp fragrances filling the air. Rain hitting stone smells rough and grainy, like cave dust. Rain hitting a river smells like it sounds, sharp notes of pine needles. And rain hitting still water, a lake or a pond…it smells like mint chewed after a cold drink.

Sadness smells the same way.

The way Jaskier smells now as he smiles into Geralt’s eyes.

“Just go after her Geralt. We both know you’re going to. The mighty hero and his…his…treasured damsel, fair of face and curvy of…of…oh, bother it.”

He rolls over, still in his clothes, and his body goes limp almost instantly.

I just wanted to know what she’d given you to drink, Geralt thinks, startled by the pang of his own thoughts as he looks at Jaskier’s back, the shoulders hunched up as the bard curls in to himself. It’s testimony to the damn nonsense of the conversation that Geralt feels something clutch in his chest at the thought that this is the first time Jaskier’s ever properly turned away from him. Like he doesn’t need him at all…

The smell of cold mint still hangs in the air, overpowering expensive wine and sweet meadow-grass both. Geralt sits down heavily on the side of the bed, still staring at Jaskier’s back.

Jaskier doesn’t need him or want him in any of the ways Geralt secretly wants him to, he knows that. But Geralt can’t separate from him in the way that a witcher should, the way that Vesemir would expect him to, and now something’s even more wrong and Geralt doesn’t have the first clue how to fix things or even when things went wrong.

Fuck.

~

Six hours earlier…

Jaskier is cursed! Nay, blighted. Nay...what’s another word for cursed? Burdened, oh, that’s not bad, though doesn’t quite convey the full magnitude of the…plagued? Too grimy. Ah – afflicted! Good ring to it. Afflicted…

Jaskier is afflicted by a white-haired, black-armoured, cats-eyed, muscle-bound –

Oh gods he does have lovely muscles though.

– witcher! One with the stamina of a herculean stallion, the fortitude of a hebridean ram…and the emotional capability of a pebble that’s been stuck under the trough of a pigsty for the last fourteen months, getting progressively more pebble-like and pig slimed-upon.

“Am I to take your mutterings about pig sties as a personal affront?” asks a cool gooseberry-and-lilac (see Geralt, he can do the scenting thing too) voice, and Jaskier really just wants to bang his head down on the bar counter for a bit, because really, that’s all he fucking needs.

“Yennefer of Vengerberg!” He announces loudly, to the complete disinterest of the three other people drinking in the tavern at ten in the morning, and who he’d hoped would bear witness to the name of his murderer if he’s later found as a pile of ash on the floorboards.

Not that there’s anyone who would seek revenge for him, except Geralt. And he’s hardly likely to do so against her.

“Jaskier of…where are you from?” Yennefer asks, seating herself beside him at the bar without so much as a by-your-leave. Rude.

“Nowhere that would interest a great and powerful sorceress of Aretuza.” Jaskier replies, with only the slightest, merest, most subtle trace of snideness. Yennefer only raises an eyebrow – a very comely eyebrow, even he can concede – and says.

“How true. I found Lettenhove utterly banal the last time I visited.”

Shit. Ding-ding. Round one to her.

There is a sharp, tight sensation in Jaskier’s chest and a dull ache behind his eyes. A time or two before in his life he’s sat across from a lover of a lover, and it’s never been an experience he’s ever been in a rush to emulate. But this – this is worse, simply because before he never much cared before, oh, that sounds terrible, that’s not to say he didn’t care, Jaskier has always thoroughly enjoyed every one of his liaisons, he enjoys pleasure and companionship and beautiful bodies and – well you get the gist.

But none of them were Geralt. Geralt, who is fortitude incarnate and the living embodiment of grit and determination and who is a great big lying liar who says he only cares about coin but does work for widows for free and gives bread to homeless children in the market, and who never betrays a single sign that he actually tolerates Jaskier’s company in the slightest.

And one of the reasons for that – yes there’s a list of reasons, Jaskier is feeling maudlin (ooh, good word) as tends to happen when he’s deep in his cups at ten in the morning when Geralt left an hour ago without so much as a grunt in his direction – is undoubtedly the stunningly beautiful, exquisitely powerful and eminently desirable sorceress currently looking at Jaskier with an exasperated expression on her lovely, lovely face.

“You can stop looking at me like that, I’ve really no intention of hurting you.” Yennefer says calmly. A barkeep has materialised out of nowhere and is pushing a goblet across the table with trembling fingers. Normally a woman willing to join him in drink at ten in the morning would be a grand candidate for his next muse, but Jaskier is currently so cursed – afflicted! He’s going with afflicted, lest any nearby magic-wielders take personal affront – that he can’t even muster the energy for an appreciative leer.

“What are your intentions then?” He says blankly, because honestly, why the fuck not. “Geralt’s not here. He took a contract for a basilisk three miles north, he won’t be back till tomorrow.”

“I am perfectly aware of Geralt’s location.” Yennefer says, pulling a face as she sips her drink. She circles a finger over the cup and the liquid changes to something clearly more to her taste. The symbolism does not escape Jaskier. “I am currently in the retinue of Lord Khaska and simply passing through this…town.”

“The lord is dallying long enough for you to frolic off on your own hmmm?”

“The lord and the rest of his retinue are currently under an enchanted sleep, and will awake when I will it.”

The symbolism of that does not escape Jaskier either.

“You don’t instil a great deal of confidence about those intentions of yours,” he points out. Yennefer shifts a little on her stool, drawing her cloak around her and reminding Jaskier of a slightly ruffled crow. The Black Crow and the White Wolf, he thinks, what a title for a ballad. A tragedy, surely, of an impossible love, doomed to disappointment, probably when the crow gets eaten by a fox or something…

“You truly have the most expressive face.” Yennefer says. “I wonder how Geralt can bear it.”

“I – what – excUSE me.” Jaskier says indignantly –

“He has the emotional capability of a rock, after all. I imagine your constant feelings is like a punch in the face for him.” The witch calmly continues, and the words are so close to Jaskier’s own thoughts of a moment ago that he’s stuck dumb by the comparison, and also by the irrational desire to defend Geralt, which would be monstrously hypocritical of him and also really quite a monumental task considering that, well, yes, the witcher’s as responsive as a petrified tree trunk sometimes.

Yennefer seems to have been waiting patiently for his brain to run its course, which, really, Jaskier has quite enough of this patronizing manner from Geralt, he doesn’t need it from –

“Do you ever stop?” Yennefer asks, something like honest amazement in her voice. Jaskier has been asked that question, in that tone of voice, on many occasions in the past….

The context was usually quite different though.

And now he’s unlikely to ever hear it again, seeing as he’s gone and doomed himself to a lonely life of endless pining. Goddamnit Geralt.

“At last,” mutters Yennefer, whilst Jaskier pouts sadly down into his beer. “Well then, what is it that troubles you?”

“Why on earth would you care?” Jaskier asks, too forlorn to put any real bite into it. Yennefer’s eyes flicker and she takes a small sip of her drink and Jaskier stamps down on a small spurt of envy because really it does look rather nice, much nicer than his grotty old beer –

“Because I am taking a wild leap of assumption that the dilemma that has you sighing into that pale swill being sold as beer is one Geralt of Rivia, and I am offering you a willing ear in case I ever have need of the same.”

Jaskier stares, and then stares a little more, because looking at a beautiful woman has always helped his brain work better and it currently needs all the help it can get.

Honestly, he doesn’t know what’s more brain-boggling. The idea that Yennefer is offering to listen to his woes, or that’s she’s suggesting that she might ever need him to do the same – and that thought makes a wave of nausea roll around in his belly (though in fairness, that might be the beer) because what could Yennefer of Vengerberg ever complain about in regards to Geralt of Rivia? Oh, oh, it’s so difficult, he loves me soooo much, oh it’s so tiring having such a virile lover, oh being first in someone’s heart is such a bore for me, oh –

“Melitele save me, what on earth’s going through your head now?” Yennefer asks, peering at him. Jaskier gulps and then drains his tankard. If he’s properly drunk when she reads his mind then it won’t hurt as much when she sets him on fire.

“Why in the name of the goddess’s sweet embrace would you come to me for such a thing?” He can’t help but ask.

Yennefer’s mouth twists in a way that suddenly seems very familiar. “Who else do I have to go to?” she replies, draining her own drink, and Jaskier remembers little bits that Geralt has let slip over the years, about disputes and divisions amongst sorcerers and Yennefer especially, which Jaskier never paid much attention to because songs about witchers rake in coin much better (and because he doesn’t want to listen to Geralt talk about Yennefer, ugh).

But then he wonders who would seek revenge for Yennefer, if some sorcerer ever left her as ash on the floorboards. And the only answer he can think of, once again, is Geralt.

Melitele’s sweet perfumed thighs, they really are a pair aren’t they?

“Well then!” He claps a hand on the countertop in an attempt to summon the barkeep, who along with the other three people in the tavern seem to have mysteriously disappeared. Jaskier is certain the man won’t mind if they serve themselves. He seemed like a generous fellow. “If we are to have these conversations with – let’s be quite clear – the last person in the world either of us actually want to –” Yennefer smiles and toasts him. “Then I would suggest…more beer.”

“That’s the only sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say bard.”

Jaskier pours them both a glass, and only sniffs a little bit when Yennefer immediately does her wiggle-waggle magic finger thing and conjures herself up that yummy looking drink again. Show-off.

“So, bard, what has our White Wolf done now?”

Jaskier feels the corners of his lips curve bitterly. It seems all of a piece really, to be admitting this to Yennefer, of all people, the love of Geralt’s life.

“Other than barely speak to me the past three weeks? Geralt and I do have our, ahem, temperamental differences, but I never quite thought he'd treat me like...like...”

“Like?”

“Oh, something between a puppet toy to entertain children and a stone caught in Roach’s shoe.”

Yennefer gives him a single long look, and then runs her finger around the lip of Jaskier’s cup. The liquid inside turns red and smooth and the first sip is heaven itself.

“I’ve often thought he treats me somewhere between a gilded statue and the cloth he uses to clean his sword. Either pedestal or purpose.”

They quietly clink glasses. Jaskier props his chin on his fist and sighs.

“But then of course he does something brave –”

“Or impossible –”

“Or death-defying –”

“Or ridiculously honourable that he then tries to deny –”

“Or sometimes when he properly laughs and he’s just sitting there chuckling to himself –”

“Or in bed, when he –”

“Ohhhhh, oh oh oh, I don’t think I need to hear that –” Jaskier starts, although of course he would dearly like to, and Yennefer just looks at him with a single raised eyebrow again that says she knows perfectly well he’d love to hear about how Geralt fucks.

Excellent. The sorceress he tries to avoid as much as the clap in a whorehouse has managed to notice he’s completely fucking in love with Geralt, and the witcher he spends near every day with still doesn’t have a clue.

They look at each other a moment longer, and then dissolve into giggles.

In between the helpless laughter Jaskier has half a thought of oh dear gods I am fucked already what the hell is in this drink but then he reasons that dear Yennefer is already a glass ahead and it would be scurrilous of a gentleman not to match her drink for drink…

…

…

…

It is a point later…later in the afternoon. Jaskier is sure of it. The sun, he explains to Yennefer, has moved, and that is how he is sure. They both watch his finger point at the sun on the tavern floor. Then they decide to have another drink.

They have moved to a bench in the corner. Jaskier has propped his boots up on the table, which he has always wanted to do in a tavern because it looks very manly and rogueish but has never dared to do it without Geralt there because he was scared a barkeep would yell at him, and never dared to do it with Geralt there because he was scared a Geralt would laugh at him.

“You smell nice.” Yennefer murmurs, her head lolling on his shoulder and Jaskier beams. Take that, you pernickety person who shall remain nameless called Geralt who keeps trying to shove him into a bath all the time. Yennefer thinks he smells just fine!

“You are very right. I do.” He tells Yennefer, who nods firmly. “As do you! My lady Yennefer. Very nice indeed.”

“Is that why he likes us?” Yennefer asks. She puts her finger to her forehead in deep thought. Jaskier does the same. He feels very inte - intu - intellectual.

“I think he likes you…because you are very pretty.” Jaskier says, merrily dredging up the burning envious depths of his soul. Yennefer laughs. It’s a sad laugh. No, Yennefer, no sad! “Very pretty!” He says, even more firmly.

Yennefer hits him! On the chin and also the chest. Jaskier is not sure which one she was aiming for. He drinks her drink in revenge. Oooooh that is good drink.

“Not just pretty!”

“Oh, yes, that is true.” It is true. Jaskier deserved to be hit. She is clever and powerful and determined too. He looks down at his chest and sighs sadly. Yennefer pats it.

“But you pretty too.”

Jaskier sniffs a little. That is the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to him.

Suddenly Yennefer sits up very very fast. Jaskier watches her. She is magic! He is in awe. No mortal man could sit up that fast.

“Jaskier!” Yennefer demands. “Why were you sad into pale yucky beer?”

Ahhhhhh. Yes! Jaskier being sad. That is why they started drinking the pale yucky beer and then the yummy red drink, and then some dark drink they found in a cupboard in the back of the bar, and then a pale bubbly drink that Yennefer went and took out of Lord Khaska’s carriage. Jaskier took a very nice red doublet from the carriage as well. Yennefer said the Lord Khaska wouldn’t mind at all.

“Geralt.” Jaskier sighs. Yennefer nods firmly.

“Geralt,” she agrees, and they toast and have another drink. Five minutes later, Jaskier remembers the question.

“Geralt doesn’t think I’m pretty.” He says. Yennefer nods many times to show she is listening. “And I think Geralt is…is…”

“Like this?” Yen asks, and makes her shoulders all big and looks all grim and frowny. Jaskier sighs at her dreamily.

“Yes, just like that.” He puts his head down on her shoulder (and very near her pretty breasts) because he is manly and rogueish and does not want her to see him cry. Yennefer pats his head. It feels nice.

Then Yen says: “Geralt does think you’re pretty. He wants to take care of you,” and Jaskier has to swallow very hard.

“No,” he sniffles, because he has had red drink and dark drink and pale drink and he misses his witcher, even though his witcher doesn’t really like him at all, not even as a friend, and Jaskier is suddenly very sober because fucking hell what possessed him to bring this up in front of Yennefer, the only thing more humiliating than admitting that Geralt doesn’t give two figs about him would be admitting it to the one person the witcher actually does care for.

Yen sighs heavily. Jaskier keeps staring at her breasts.

“Geralt gave me a – a – ekhidna decoction. Last time we –”

“I know.” Jaskier says, because he saw the little bottle on a silver chain, saw Geralt packing it carefully into Roach’s saddlebag each morning for a month, swaddled like a newborn – not that Geralt would have the first fucking clue what to do with a newborn – until Geralt caught wind of a purple-eyed sorceress two towns over and left ‘to do some scouting’ and didn’t come back for a week. “He cares about you.”

Several hours ago, that would have been the most embarrassing admission Jaskier could ever have conceived of making, and that’s including a number of bedroom requests he’s made in his time, but that was before a varied assortment of drinks and the realisation that he and Yennefer are bound in equally pitiful esteem of a grumpy white-haired witcher with the emotional capability of a stale bit of bread that even the rats turn their little rat noses up at, and so he doesn’t mind so much admitting to her that unlike her, in his case, the esteem is not returned…

“You think he doesn’t care about you?” Yennefer says, sounding so genuinely surprised that she might even have sobered up a bit too. Jaskier pulls a face at her.

“Um, my dear lady Yennefer, not to point out too much of the obvious –”

“He cares about you all the time.” Yennefer says, her lips pulling sideways in a mirror image of the heart-sore resignation that Jaskier felt in his own chest only moments ago. Jaskier rubs the side of his head where it’s starting to hurt.

“How could you think that –”

“Well, I mean –”

“Only one of the rarest decoctions there is –”

“Geralt doesn’t care about trinkets.” Yennefer says firmly. “What are Geralt’s favourite things?”

“Other than sex? Fighting, food and baths.” Jaskier says bluntly, and Yennefer raises one of her lovely eyebrows again.

“He takes you on his quests, and pays for your food and your baths, does he not?” Jaskier opens his mouth and closes it again and Yennefer presses her advantage and Jaskier is beginning to feel quite sullen at how quickly she seems sober again, it’s really very unfair. “If he thought you had any use or interest in alchemic decoctions he’d probably give you one as well, but Geralt’s a – very – simple creature, he doesn’t think beyond what’s in front of his nose. Unless you do want something besides getting to travel with him constantly and share his life’s purpose.” And she sniffs a little snidely, and Jaskier realises with a bursting flame of sudden awareness that Yennefer is jealous of him too.

“Every apothecary we visit he checks for rare ingredients that might interest you,” he blurts out. “He hunted that pack of ekhidnae for two weeks to collect enough mutagens for the decoction. A man in a tavern once said something rude about sorceresses and Geralt punched two of his teeth out.” They’d had to leave town very abruptly for that one and Jaskier had kept up his complaints for three days, jealous and sulking and damp.

He realises he and Yennefer are looking at each other, and if her lovely face is looking that blank then Jaskier feels certain that his must be worse. Though he must admit they do appear to have reached a rather strange form of truce…

“Another drink?” He offers weakly, and Yennefer slams two cups down on the table so quickly Jaskier’s head rings with the echoes for a while longer. When she runs her fingers around the edge this time the glasses fill with something pale blue and decidedly lethal looking, and Jaskier thinks maybe the ringing in his head is just a foreshadowing of what’s to come. Yennefer is looking down at the cups quite grimly herself.

“To idiot witchers,” she offers, and Jaskier heaves out a sigh, because he’d never imagined today would be the day he considered Yennefer of Vengerberg a – a comrade-in-arms (not a friend, uh uh, they’d need at least another three colours of drinks to get that far), and also he misses his witcher. Misses the broad presence of him and the way Geralt laughs with his eyes and the way barkeeps are always nicer to Jaskier when he’s around, and he misses him more than ever because there’s a little kernel of something like hope under his breastbone and he’s not sure what to do with it.

“To idiot witchers!” He cries, raising his glass, and they both drink.

It turns out that that was a spectacularly bad idea.

~

And back to drunken snoring Jaskier…

Geralt’s not sure how long he’s been sitting and staring at Jaskier’s back, when something prickles at the edge of his senses. He recognises magic, or the hairs on the back of his neck do, and takes his silver sword downstairs with him.

Yen has materialised in much the same position Jaskier was, her forehead resting on the countertop as she groans quietly. Even bedraggled and smelling of booze even worse than Jaskier she still looks gorgeous.

“Yen,” Geralt starts, and then doesn’t have a clue how to go on. Fortunately Yen lifts her head up and glares at him.

“Geralt, please tell me you have a vial of White Honey to hand. My current idiot Lord Khaska used mine as a facewash.”

Geralt fishes a bottle off his belt loop and hands it to her. He is very resolute about how he will not ask who Lord Khaska is. Yen downs the bottle on one go and then glances around the bar.

“Where did Jaskier go? He’s in no fit state to be on his own.”

“He’s safe upstairs, sleeping.” Geralt says. Does she really think he wouldn’t know where the bard was? He just sliced the head off a basilisk in record time because he didn’t trust Jaskier not to get up to mischief without Geralt to keep an eye on him. Yen is smirking at him as though she can tell what he’s thinking – he wouldn’t put it past her – and Geralt doesn’t like it one bit.

“Ah. Sorry. Should have known you’d have already taken good care of him.” The bar stool next to her slides out of its own accord. “Which gives us an opportunity to have a little chat.”

Geralt takes the stool. Witchers are trained to calculate risk, and his calculations tell him that his balls are in very great risk indeed if he refuses.

“My head hurts, so we are going to cut to the chase. When are you finally going to admit to dear Jaskier that you want to drag him back to a cave and wrap him in furs and fuck him till his little head pops right off? I won’t elaborate on which ‘little head’ I mean.” Yennefer says with a bright smile, and Geralt feels the start of his own pounding headache, and also a crushing grip around his chest that he can’t quite breathe through at all.

“Yennefer. Yen. You know I want you –”

“No, I know, that’s not –” Yennefer holds up a hand to pause them both. “That’s not what this conversation is, Geralt. I believe in us. Whatever other shitshow monstrosities are going on in the world or our lives, I know that you have me and I have you. What I don’t understand is why you don’t also have Jaskier.”

Vesemir’s lectures did not come within a fucking millimetre of any advice that would be useful for this situation, Geralt thinks. And as much as he cares for Yennefer he has no illusions about her vices, and both his balls and the hairs on the back of his neck are telling him there’s a good chance this is leading to some scheme…

“Obviously, I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.” Yen snaps, rolling her eyes. “Or some foolish self-sacrificing martyrdom. I’m doing this because I respect power, and neither of you idiots realise it but that’s exactly what your little bard possesses.”

“Jaskier?” Geralt says, and then hopes the bard isn’t awake yet because he would definitely object to the level of disbelief in Geralt’s voice.

“Yes, Jaskier. The Elders save me, yes, that blue eyed charmer who doesn’t even shave yet is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Jaskier shaves,” objects Geralt, because he feels he needs to object to something and the rest of it is too – too – Yen takes a deep breath and leans close, her eyes gleaming.

“Geralt. Do not play the fool with me. Power is not just a silver blade or a spell of fire. What Jaskier has is more elusive, more ephemeral, but every bit as effective. Jaskier can change minds.”

Geralt can’t help the snort. Yen looks like she’d quite like to hit him.

“Geralt, think. There have been witchers for centuries, and the whole while they were despised. No matter how many peasants you saved or monsters you killed, people would soon as spit on you as hire you.” There’s nothing there he can object to at all. “And that was the way it was for centuries. But now, in the span of years and through a few cheerful ballads, you are toasted in every tavern and acclaimed as a hero in every court. You didn’t do that, White Wolf. Jaskier did.”

Geralt’s head hurts. He would quite like Yen to stop talking, so naturally it gets even worse.

“Jaskier has what every king craves. Sure, his compositions may be lacking a little in…how shall I say it?…taste, sophistication, refinement, class…” She looks like she could go on for a bit so Geralt holds up his hand. He doesn’t like people other than him insulting Jaskier’s songs. “But even I must concede that Jaskier understands, on some level that you and I can never reach, what words will most resonate with the common man, what little ditty will linger in his mind and influence his thoughts, and what melodies will best convey them there. If I irritate your little bard too much in the future, I may find a song about an evil purple-eyed sorceress making the rounds in every town I come to, and then I will enjoy the experience of being stoned for once instead of you.”

“Jaskier wouldn’t do that.” Geralt says firmly. He wouldn’t. Jaskier’s own Path may be a rambling thing of high-minded romanticism mixed with cheerful opportunism, but he’d never do anything to deliberately get someone hurt.

“He might not do it with intention, but he seems even less aware of this power than you are, and his witlessness would hardly have made the stones hurt less. Honestly, Geralt. Has it never struck you odd that some random bard should be hired to play at the wedding of Queen Calanthe’s daughter? He is the acclaimed graduate of Oxenfurt University, the prodigy student of Herena Valfouris, there isn’t a town in the North that hasn’t heard his songs – if kings and queens are wary enough to keep him sweet, then I’d be a bigger fool than either of you to do otherwise.”

“I won’t let him.” Geralt says, grasping at the one bit in there that he can understand, which is, obviously, the potential threat. There’s a quiet place in his chest that he doesn’t want to think about, at the confirmation he’d always known that Jaskier could do better, was better, than anything Geralt had to offer. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t, Yen, I promise.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” Yennefer pauses for a second and Geralt realises with a slow sinking feeling that she does actually appreciate tit, that Yennefer is genuinely grateful that Geralt’s going to make sure Jaskier doesn’t…ruin her reputation by writing mean songs about her? Oh for fuck’s sake. “But I would like to do more than just not make an enemy out of Jaskier. I would be interested in a…détente, perhaps. Not quite an alliance, but a little more than a peace. Perhaps someday I will need minds changed myself, and I’d quite like him to be favourable to any proposal I make.”

“Yennefer.” Geralt says, very calmly. “Are you pimping me out so Jaskier will owe you a favour?”

Yennefer looks at him. Geralt looks back.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“I’m going to bed.” Geralt says, and when Yennefer raises an eyebrow at him. “My own bed. Or fuck it, where’s the nearest whorehouse?”

“That would upset both of us right now, so I would strongly advise against it.” Yennefer says. Geralt can’t quite imagine that either of them would care that much, but his head is reeling too much to question it.

Fuck you Vesemir, he thinks, your advice was worth pig shit.

“I’m actually rather flattered.” Yennefer is still talking, much to Geralt’s continuing unhappiness. “I originally took it as an insult that I was sharing your affections with a common homeless troubadour, but now it confirms that your taste, at least, I can rely on. Your choice of additional paramour reflects on me as well, of course, much like a king’s choice of mistress reflects upon his queen.”

“Please, please don’t tell me you told Jaskier he was my mistress.” Geralt begs. If he can salvage anything from this shitshow of a conversation let it be that.

“Oh no, we talked about other things in regards to you.” There’s a smile tweaking at the corners of Yen’s mouth. Geralt decides he doesn’t want to know.

“Right. Is there anything else then? The blacksmith I met yesterday doesn’t have the power to control the weather does he?”

“Don’t grump at me Geralt. You’re not an idiot, some part of your brain was perfectly aware of all of this – I’ve just forced it to the forefront a little. I have business in Murivel to attend to, so I wish you and Jaskier a pleasant romp or two through the rest of Temeria, and may you both have sorted out your nonsense before we next meet.” She’s slipping off her stool to come and stand before him, and Geralt bends easily to meet her lips, as perfect as always, the scent of lilac and gooseberries making his heart thump and his cock throb. “Till next time, Geralt.”

“Yen…” It was too short, too sweet, he misses her already. He always misses them when they leave him. And fuck, now his head with swimming with everything she’s just told him, making it clearer than ever all the paths Jaskier could walk in the world that don’t involve Geralt. After all, the bard's gift is unique and it’s all his, not something injected into his veins by old men who wanted a weapon.

Which makes it so much clearer then…why the fuck is Jaskier still with Geralt? Geralt’s been in earshot the half-dozen times Jaskier’s been offered a court position, cushy and easy and comfortable, and every time he’s turned it down with a smile and followed Geralt back onto the Path, to eat when they can and sleep on the ground more often than not. He could have fancy clothes and good wine and servants to pick him blackberries and the attentions of anyone he wanted, and instead, instead, he wants –

“He wants you, you great lummox.” Yennefer says, and Geralt jerks his head up to stare at her. She only gazes back at him with those eyes as clear as cut glass, and then raises her hand in the familiar gestures of the portal spell. “So take very good care of him, understand?”

Then she’s gone and Geralt swallows hard and puts his head down on the wood of the counter.

He wonders if the two of them left him anything to drink.

~

Geralt doesn’t think of it again.

More than once or twice an hour that is.

Yen’s words echo around his head like pebbles thrown at a cave wall and Geralt grits his teeth and tries hard to bury them deeper. Maybe – maybe – Jaskier does want to take him for a tumble, most likely just so he can write a song about witcher virility and then Geralt will have to immediately drown himself in the nearest millpond. But wanting to go to bed and wanting...wanting Geralt to take care of him, that’s a completely different thing.

(Except for the next morning, when Jaskier stumbles out of their room bare-chested and wrapped in a blanket and by the Trials Geralt will not be jealous of a blanket, and Geralt has got water and bacon waiting and Jaskier just looks at him, grateful, and –)

Fuck’s sake. Geralt’s never wasted so much thinking about something in his life. Whatever the hell Jaskier and Yennefer talked about, Geralt doesn’t want to know. He’s got monsters to kill and demons to fight and a very cushy contract to take out a nest of kikimores on the road outside Cidaris. The one hitch is that the contract states he has to collect payment in Cidaris itself and Geralt nearly refuses on principle, because big cities are noisy and dirty and he’s lost Jaskier in one at least three times but it’s a very lucrative payout. And he could do with some decent wine.

“Cidaris? The city of towers! Where the women smell sweet as summer mulberries and the crowds line up for –”

“Autumn.”

“– a chance to catch a glimpse of – I’m terribly sorry, what was that?”

“Mulberries are autumn fruits. Not summer.”

“Geralt. Geralt. I understand that this may be a difficult thing for you to comprehend, but there is such a thing as artistic licence, which, as a performer and creative of some renown, I might on occasion avail myself of in order to –”

“Strawberries bear fruit in summer.”

“…strawberries?”

“And grapes.”

“Grapes? Grapes? Geralt, I’m aware that your encounters will the fairer sex generally involve either coin or corpses, but I cannot for a moment fathom that you are so ignorant of the female temperament that you think comparing a woman to a grape is likely to get you beneath her skirts??”

Geralt lets the moment drag out a second or two longer. Jaskier’s outrage so indignant he can nearly taste it, sharp and sweet as…well, mulberries.

“Cidaris doesn’t have any towers either.”

“It does! It has the one…big…thing, right in the middle, you know, with the walls that do this –”

“That’s the keep.”

“A keep is a tower! A keep is a tower, Geralt, don’t you dare do this to me, don’t you –”

“We’re here.”

“We’re – what?”

Geralt points, Cidaris nestled into the valley beneath them, the squat shape of its keep directly in the centre to command a view of the lands in all direction. It looks just as dirty and crowded as he remembers, but Cidaris sits on the main trade route between the coast and inland cities, and the people here have money to spend and time to waste.

That much is apparent the second they get inside the walls.

“Well if it isn’t the Viscount of Lettenhove himself. Julian, my dear, how are you? Still going by that adorable nickname – Buttercup wasn’t it?”

“Marx.” Jaskier grits out, and Geralt raises an eyebrow. He’s never seen such an expression on the bard’s face before. He turns to look at the man coming towards them – tall, excessively groomed, smells of far too much perfume. He has a lute slung over his back, the same as Jaskier’s.

“Valdo Marx, Troubadour of Cidaris.” Jaskier is murmuring, low enough that only Geralt can hear. “He’s a pompous arse who couldn’t hold a tune if his mother’s life depended on it. Shamlessly steals the work of his apprentices. A buffoon and a skinflint to boot.”

“Yes I think I’ve heard of him. I liked that one song of his…” Geralt says, just to enjoy the betrayed expression on Jaskier’s face. Part of his brain is still stumbling over viscount. So Jaskier is nobility. That…comes as not the slightest surprise, actually.

“Julian, sweet boy, it’s so lovely of you to come to town to hear my latest piece performed, you know I adore it when my old students from the university have a chance to take inspiration from my work, you and your companion are most welcome to…” Marx trails off, finally looking properly at Geralt. Whatever Geralt’s face is doing, it seems to perk Jaskier up. “You…you must be the witcher dear little Julian writes so much about.”

“May I present…the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia!” Jaskier is speaking far too loudly, and with a lot of unnecessarily flourishing. Geralt gives him a look and Jaskier coughs quickly, his voice dropping back to normal levels, but that doesn’t stop him spouting more nonsense. “Champion Slayer of all things undead, Defender of the weak and innocent, Mighty Warrior –”

“Jaskier.”

“Gosh, he does talk you up a lot doesn’t he?” Marx is stepping closer, looking Geralt up and down. Geralt does the same. The man smells of roisin too, and grease under his perfume, but he’s sharply good-looking and his voice is rich and deep, the sort of sound that makes you lean closer to hear more. “Don’t you ever get weary of such…childlike adoration? It’s quite clear why our sweet boy is so enamoured of you, witcher, but surely sometimes you’d prefer less needy company?”

Geralt sees the hit land when the others had barely scratched, Jaskier biting at his lip and glancing away. Marx raises an eyebrow at Geralt, his dark eyes promising all sorts of things. Geralt lets his face settle into his most primitive expression, the brute everyone always expects him to be, and hefts the bundle at his side.

“You wanna buy kikimore venom glands? Give me a better price than the Town Maester and they’re yours.”

Kikimore venom glands, especially ones that have been in Roach’s saddlebags for half a day, are potent enough to drown out any perfume. Geralt watches with pleasure as Marx flinches backwards, his hand coming up to cover his nose.

“No, no, that’s quite alright witcher, you can keep your hard-earned bounty. Julian, if you want a special little discount to my next performance – I know times are lean for you wandering bard types – if you go to my agent on Canaval Street he’ll be able to sort something out for you, understand dear boy? So lovely to see you again.”

“Twat,” Jaskier mutters, as the fop rapidly disappears, Geralt still wafting the venom glands in his direction to speed him on his way. Then the bard turns on his heel and Geralt has to move fast to keep up with him as he speeds down the street and settles on an inn that at a guess, Geralt would say was on the opposite side of the city from Canaval Street. By the time Geralt has got Roach stabled and settled and joined him in their room, the bard is already halfway through a goblet.

“How many of your songs did he steal?” Geralt asks, because that question's preferable to how long has he been calling you sweet boy for. Jaskier just stares down at the tabletop, his shoulders slumping.

“Two. But that’s nothing, pilfery is a way of life at the University. He took two of my songs and made them better, the complete and utter –” He uses several words that impress even Geralt, who helps himself to some of the wine.

“When was this?”

“Oh, back in my first year – but it’s not the sort of affront a true artist can ever forget, or forgive! I vowed on that day to –”

“Jaskier. You’re ten times more famous now. Ignore him.”

“– like a fiery bolt of vengeance – sorry, what? What did you say?”

Geralt avoids having to look at the bard as he stacks his swords in the corner of the room. The venom glands went in the tavern cold cellar and he can deliver them later, once he’s sure Jaskier isn’t going to drink himself into a stupor again. When he finally turns back around Jaskier is still standing there, his mouth a little more red than normal from the wine, and Geralt feels the hairs on the back of his neck prick up…

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier blurts out, which was not what he was expecting. Geralt grunts.

“For what?”

“For what he said. For…for being so childish, and needy all the time, I’m not a fool Geralt I know you find me burdensome, constantly having to take care of me, though I do feel I contribute in some small manner to our living costs – ”

“Jaskier.”

“Um, yes?”

Fuck it. Geralt’s listened to Vesemir’s advice his entire life and look where that’s got him. He may as well try Yen’s for a change.

“I like taking care of you.”

Jaskier’s mouth forms a little ‘o’ shape. But he doesn’t smell of cold mint, so Geralt can’t have fucked it up too badly. Then his eyebrows go down and his cheeks puff out and he looks more baffled than anything else.

Still fuckable though.

“But…why?”

How the fuck should Geralt know. He just does.

“I just do. So don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, um, okay, well, I like you taking care of me too.”

Something tight and curled up in Geralt’s chest, something that’s been clenched too hard since he was fourteen years old, loosens, just a little. He nods gruffly and expects that’ll be it then, but no, Jaskier’s got that in common with Yen clearly, neither of them ever stop talking when he wants them to.

“So, er, just a quick additional point, not that I want to overexaggerate the importance of Marx’s words in any way, he’s a rapscallion of the highest order after all, but you might recall, possibly, the comment he made about me being enamoured of you, which I just wanted to clarify –”

“I get it Jaskier.”

“You…do…?”

“You can’t blame the man, not with all those idiotic things you call me.” Geralt can’t resist the dig. “But I’ve watched you tumble your way across half the North, I’m pretty sure I would have noticed if you were enamoured of me.”

“Ah. Aha. Ahahaha. Ah. No. No, you wouldn’t have. Haven’t have. Have not, at any point, noticed that I am, in fact, enamoured of you. Really quite a bit.”

Geralt stares. Jaskier is twisting his hands together so hard the bones must hurt, all the colour drained out of his face but his chin tilted up stubbornly. His bright blue eyes keep flicking up to meet Geralt’s and then away.

“So, um, if that’s going to be a problem, obviously I quite understand –”

“Why?” It’s the only word Geralt can get out.

“Erm…why? Why am I, um, enamoured of you –”

“Stop saying enamoured.” Geralt snarls, and then heaves in a sharp breath to control himself. Jaskier has clutched his hands to his chest like a maiden aunt clinging to her pearls and Geralt needs to know… “Why would you possibly want me? Either, like that, or to take care of you. You’re…you’re the famous bard Jaskier, you’re a viscount, you could set up in any court in the land instead of slumming it with me in the dirt –”

“I like it with you in the dirt!” Jaskier blurts out, and then slaps a hand over his own mouth. Geralt just stares at him. The thing in his chest is uncurling too fast, too much, into something loose and easy and warm and he hates it, it’s the worst thing he’s ever felt – “I like it with you! Courts and titles and all that, it’s all…insubstantial, completely at the whims of some ruler or if you’re in favour or – you’re solid, Geralt, you’re safe, you're true, you’ll take care of me always, with whatever you had, whatever you thought we’d like most, me and Yen both, you’d always be true to us…” Jaskier flushes a deep pink that makes Geralt want to lick him. Jaskier’s right, he would, he’d never let them down, if they were both his, but…

“I’m a witcher,” he grits out. “Witchers don’t need anyone. And no one ever wants us. We’re covered in dirt and blood, good for nothing but killing and –”

“Well that’s a load of absolute poppycock. Where’d you get that rot from?” Jaskier asks, looking indignant on Geralt’s behalf. “Honestly. I’m not sure who filled your head with such nonsense Geralt, but I can assure you that I very much want and need you, and now that you bathe far more regularly than when we first met the smell of onion – or dirt or guts or whatever other delightful aromas you regularly wade through – is barely noticeable. So there.” He crosses his arms across his chest and looks smug, as though he’s pleased to have won a decades-old argument against Geralt’s old training master, and then his face twitches slightly.

“Say, Geralt, considering I’ve rather, hmm, exposed myself here, one might say, what with the rather embarrassing emotional revelations and whatnot, it really would be decent of you to give some hint of your feelings in regards to –”

Geralt looks at him a moment longer, remembering the boy with the dust and sunshine both in his hair all those years ago, now standing just as determined before him, choosing Geralt over everything else. Then he crosses the room in four great strides, and is kissing him before either of them can blink.

“Oh thank fuck.” Jaskier pulls away to say, and then he’s trying to climb up Geralt, wrapping a leg around his hip and Geralt lifts him, easily, Jaskier barely weighing a thing to witcher strength, and tosses him onto the bed.

A sensible man would stop here, have them talk about this. A decent man would go slow, let his lover adjust. Geralt is neither, and besides, Jaskier is old enough to know the truth of the world and what he wants and yet still looks at Geralt with shining eyes, and Geralt cannot go another day without putting his hands around that slender waist and biting those thighs and leaving his come so deep inside Jaskier’s arse that the bard knows in his bones that Geralt is keeping him forever.

Their clothes disappear, Geralt doesn’t particularly care where, and then Jaskier’s lute oil is to hand and the sweet woody scent rises around them as Geralt shoves his fingers inside to watch the bard squirm, deliberately adding each one a little before the bard is ready so that Jaskier gives a high, shocked gasp each time. He’s tight and unyielding inside and Geralt has to make the space for his fingers and shortly his cock, pressing Jaskier wide so that he can catch a glimpse of the wet darkness within.

Geralt has never wanted anyone like this before, his cock like a steel bar and the fire in his belly roaring so hard he has to grit his teeth not to just spend all over the other man, rub his come into his skin and have done with it.

“Fuck, Geralt, do you mean to have me or not?” Jaskier gasps out, and Geralt flips him before the words are halfway done. Jaskier’s arse is round and tight and Geralt rubs down against it when he stretches out on top of Jaskier, who takes in a sudden breath as Geralt’s weight settles upon him. Like this he can’t kiss him, taste that gorgeous little mouth, but he can press his face against his shoulder and breathe his scent in deep and fuck, that’s pretty much as good.

Jaskier whimpers when he does and Geralt feels the heat in his belly get even hotter. Jaskier is so loud, so full of energy and vitality and sheer bloody unending noise, that it’s easy to overlook how tiny he is. Geralt covers him completely, his shoulders easy to pin down under the breadth of Geralt’s chest and the difference in their muscles making the line of Geralt’s jaw ache. And – he glances down, and feels the clench in his chest at the sight of his cock rubbing between Jaskier’s cheeks, looking monstrously huge as he slowly thrusts down against pale skin. Jaskier huffs out a breath, turning his cheek so he can breathe. All Geralt can see of him is a red cheek and a single blue eye.

“Geralt, unless you’d care for me to compose a ditty about witchers having pricks the size of toasting forks – ahhhHHHH oh fuck –!”

Every muscle in Jaskier’s back goes taut as Geralt sets the head of his cock against Jaskier’s hole and pushes, watching with deep satisfaction as the tiny entrance spreads wide for him. Inside is slick and warm and so fucking tight he wants to set his teeth in Jaskier’s shoulder and never let go. Instead he keeps shoving forward, opening Jaskier up further and making him take it, his perfect sweet little bard giving it up so good for him.

“Fucking hell you thrice-damned son of a whore, give me more.” Jaskier gasps out, soft and helpless and so goddamned pretty underneath him, and he wants Geralt, everyone wants Jaskier and Jaskier wants him, and Geralt groans desperately between his teeth as his hips pump helplessly, one, twice and he’s done.

He rolls off Jaskier with a groan, settling onto his back and enjoying the feeling of his muscles unknotting themselves. That was…fuck. Geralt feels like he’s taken a blow to the head and then a swig of Golden Oriole potion seconds later, like the world is golden and hazy and swirling around him. In fact, everything would be perfect except for the very loud silence next to him.

There is a long brutal moment and then Jaskier pushes himself up on his arms and looks over at Geralt. His hair is a mess and his lips as pink as his cheeks and Geralt approves of his own work.

“Geralt. Geralt. Geralt.”

Geralt snorts.

“Not your most poetic composition bard.”

Jaskier gives a little tremble all over, literally vibrating with fury. His blue eyes are brighter than Geralt’s ever seen them, like he’s incandescent with rage. It’s beautiful.

Geralt puts his hands behind his head and smirks.

“Did you, perhaps, perchance, maybe, forget something?” Jaskier makes an elegant gesture towards his own groin, where his cock is still hard and leaking steadily. Geralt tries to arrange his face into an innocent expression. It’s hardly likely to work but will have the added benefit of irritating Jaskier further – and Jaskier hard and desperate and frustrated is rousing Geralt wonderfully – but also sets yet another feeling off in Geralt’s chest, one that feels a little like butterflies, a little like something light and teasing and…happy.

It’s thanks to Vesemir’s training that Geralt is alive today. There isn’t a swords master in the whole of the North who could compare. However…

In regards to all his other advice, the old witcher hadn’t had a fucking clue.

Jaskier is starting to pout and Geralt hides his grin, keeps his hands behind his head and watches as Jaskier begins to draw in a breath to start a fresh rant – and then the hitch as his eyes drop south and he notices Geralt rapidly swelling anew.

Jaskier swallows very hard, an entirely new look in his eyes.

“How…many times…can you…”

Geralt smiles at him, his witcher smile.

“How many times can you take?”

The answer to both questions, it turns out, is a lot.

The fire is down to embers by the time Geralt feels his energy finally starting to wane. He’s propped on one arm on the bed, Jaskier a limp, sticky mess sprawled on his front beside him, occasionally letting out a little noise as Geralt slides his fingers in and out of his hole contemplatively. Geralt thinks he could do this forever, feeling his own come slide between his fingers, Jaskier hot and wet from how many times Geralt has taken him yet still so deliciously tight. After the second time he’d spilled inside him Geralt had put his head down and licked him a little, letting his tongue soothe the hole gone pink and swollen from Geralt’s cock pounding its way in.

“Can you do one more?” Geralt asks, and Jaskier shivers all over. Geralt considers him for a moment and then pulls at the bard’s hips. “Up. Ride me.”

“Are you three pheasants short of a pie?” Jaskier sputters, pushing futilely at Geralt’s hands as he’s pulled on top. “I can’t feel my toes and you want me to ride you?!”

“Come on bard, you’re always asking for a ride.”

“Roach, I want to ride Roach, you infuriating – oh, fuuuuck –”

Geralt lets out a pleased grunt as he slides home again and oh, fuck, he’s even deeper than before, every inch of him neatly tucked inside Jaskier’s arse, the bard finally loose enough to take him all. Geralt can feel the slickness of his own come smeared across Jaskier’s thighs and wants to add to it, leave the bard dripping with him.

“Put your hands on my shoulders.” He grits out, because fuck, he can feel it building in his stomach already. He’s never wanted anyone as much as he wants Jaskier, never been a hairsbreadth away from coming just from that tight pressure around his cock. And more than that is how much Jaskier loves it, his mouth open from pleasure as Geralt gives a starting rock of his hips, looking dazed and well-fucked as though he’s never had it so good before and will never go looking for it anywhere else again. “And hold on.” Geralt adds, and takes a firm hold of his hips.

His first proper thrust makes Jaskier gasp and then he’s just letting out high-pitched noises as Geralt hammers upwards. He can hold Jaskier easily, keeping him at just the right height for Geralt to fuck into just the way he wants.

“Talk,” he growls, and Jaskier lets out a strained laugh, more helpless gasps than any recognisable words.

“How the – fuck – do you expect me to talk – ahhh, oh fuck – when you – when you’re shoving that cock of yours inside me?”

“I can stop?” Geralt asks, pulling Jaskier all the way back down and stilling. The bard makes a garbled noise, sweat beading along his hairline and in his collarbone and Geralt wants to lick it off.

“Geralt, Geralt, you thrice-cursed demon-whelped tease, just fuck me!” He begs, his voice gone high and desperate as Geralt holds him fucked open on his cock.

“I am fucking you.” Geralt can hear the smirk in his own voice and for once doesn’t bother trying to keep it off his face either. His hands shift direction, moving Jaskier the other way. He doesn’t see any need to speed things up himself. Jaskier lets out a shocked sound when Geralt lifts him off an inch or two, just enough to spread him open even more, and then yanks him back down so his scent spikes deliciously with helpless lust.

Jaskier getting fucked smells like hot butter and suckling pig. Geralt plans to enjoy this every day for the rest of his life.

“Geralt…” Jaskier pleads, all the words fucked out of him. He looks good enough to eat, his hair dripping with sweat and his head drooping on his neck, above where he’s perched on Geralt’s lap like a doll, and Geralt thinks, once more for good measure, and tightens his hands to lift Jaskier again.

Jaskier just gasps the whole time Geralt is lifting him, desperate little breaths as Geralt admires his own cock coming back into view between Jaskier’s soft thighs. His eyes are blue and dazed as the bard slowly realises – yes, Geralt is easily strong enough to fuck Jaskier up and down on his cock without any cooperation required, and yes, also he fully intends to.

He lifts Jaskier to the highest point, where the head of Geralt’s cock is only just inside and he can feel that perfect tightness fluttering around him. Jaskier is scrambling at Geralt’s hands on his hips trying to get them to shift, his eyes shocked and dazed and Geralt heaves in a deep breath of satisfaction and begins the steady pull back down and heavens be damned –

Every single inch has him gritting his teeth at how fucking good it feels. He watches his cock sink back into that wet heat, slick with his own come, forcing its way back inside Jaskier’s hole as the bard’s thighs spread helplessly wide. It’s so good like this, Jaskier helpless in his hands and half-stunned with pleasure and safe, and smelling of it, and –

“Geralt, please –”

Fuck the gods, Geralt wants to keep him in this bed and never let him out of it. So he does the next best thing, pulls Jaskier down to his chest and rolls them over in one smooth move. Jaskier yelps as Geralt shoves his thighs apart even further and then he’s tossing his head back and moaning as Geralt ruts in again and again.

“Oh – fuck – fuck – Geralt you bastard are you trying to make me taste it – ah!”

“Next time.” Geralt promises darkly, hammering his hips home. Jaskier takes it so well, his own hips rocking to let Geralt get even deeper, fuck him harder, and Geralt has to lean down to kiss him hard, Jaskier’s mouth opening for him just as sweetly as his legs do.

“Ah, fuck, fuck!”

He can feel the knuckles of Jaskier’s hand against his belly as the bard pulls himself off, and then the musk of his come as his muscles tighten under and around Geralt. Geralt always wants to last longer, fuck him through the shudders and out the other side, but as always Jaskier just feels too goddamn good and he’s helpless to do anything except put his face in Jaskier’s neck to scent him and let his own hips slam deep the last few times, adding another load of come to the mess already inside him.

“Ughhhh,” Jaskier groans as Geralt pries himself off him and collapses down to one side. “Fuck me, if that’s the battering you give your monsters –”

“Jaskier.”

“I’m just saying, it’s quite an experience taking the full force of a witcher if you understand my meaning, acting as a sheath for his sword one might say –”

“Jaskier –”

“Actually that’s quite good I should write that down, very tasteful yet rather evocative, “Harder, oh harder!” cries out the young lord / as deep goes the witcher with each thrust of his sword” –”

“Jaskier.” Geralt props himself up on one arm and glares down at the bard. Guileless blue eyes and a face like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth looks back at him, and Geralt can’t help the low growl in his chest as he sets his teeth into the bit of Jaskier nearest him – his shoulder – and bites down.

He still can’t quite believe that Jaskier wants this, wants him – has chosen him over everything else the world could lay at his feet. He has no idea what either his bard or his sorceress see in him. Geralt guesses he’ll just have to spend every second striving to be worthy of them both. But first...

“Ow! Honestly Geralt, I’m sensing you’re rapidly developing an obsession with gnawing on me and I feel I really must –” Geralt swallows the rest of the babble with his own mouth, Jaskier’s lips curving underneath his. When he pulls away the bard is beaming up at him, blue eyes shining and his lips in the sweetest smile, and it makes something go soft and warm in Geralt’s chest again which is still not a feeling he is at all comfortable with.

“How hard must I fuck you to reduce you to silence?” He growls, because that’s both a distraction and genuinely a question he wishes to have an answer for.

“Tis impossible.” Jaskier informs him grandly. “Others before you have tried – ow! Okay, okay, that bit was a lie, but if you had let me finish, oh chompy bitey white wolf, then you would have been pleased to hear that the only way to guarantee silence is to keep my mouth entirely full with other things…”

He smiles smugly at Geralt, his lips curving even further, because he’s already cottoned on to Geralt’s fascination with Jaskier’s mouth (“ohhhhh I hadn’t realised, when you said it was a fillingless pie what you really meant was that you wanted to fill it yourself…” “shut up Jaskier”) and for a second Geralt can’t breathe, can’t fathom that this is a moment that’s actually occurring.

“The young lord surrenders, without much of a fight / helpless and begging under full witcher might…hmmm, a little crude but conveys some of the strength involved – ”

“Jaskier. If you write a song about me fucking you, I’ll –”

“Yes, Geralt?” Jaskier says, so sweetly that for a moment Geralt is tempted to order them a bath just so he can drown the bard in it. Then he sets his jaw firmly.

“Listen to me bard. One of the Elders, Szymon, took a human woman as lover once. Her village beat her till she was crippled for taking a monster to her bed, and turned her out on the road. She was dead of lung rot by the next winter.” Jaskier’s eyes have gone very big and Geralt can hear the rabbit-quick beat of his heart. “Don’t write a song about fucking a witcher, hear me?”

“Geralt…” Jaskier bites at his lip and then smiles at him, the same idiot smile he always has. “You’ve the only person in the whole of the north who never realised that all my songs are about wanting to fuck you. I’ve already weathered whatever petty jealous objections people wish to make, and besides, if anyone seeks to harm me I’m sure my noble witcher champion will defend me –”

“Don’t call me that.” Geralt says, desperately, because he’s never been able to bear it when Jaskier calls him things like that, things like noble and brave and champion, he’s never been able to bear the idea that someone looks at him and sees more than a monster-killer half monster himself, sees someone worth loving after all. Jaskier just continues to look at him like he’s an idiot.

“My valiant witcher, defender of the weak and innocent, bringer of light to the dark, saviour of the north –”

“Please, Jaskier, stop,” Geralt groans, bending his head to kiss him again and again to make him quiet. His chest is full of light now, like the sunlight in Jaskier’s hair has gotten trapped there. Jaskier finally – thank fuck – has gone quiet, and now he stretches and yawns, the blanket wrapped tight around his hips till Geralt pulls it loose and throws it on the floor where it belongs.

“Don’t look at me like that, my arse is sore and you’re not getting another round till I’ve had a good meal and several tankards of ale.” Jaskier says, waggling his finger in front of Geralt’s nose, and then quickly yanks them away at whatever look he sees on Geralt’s face.

Geralt smiles and shoves himself out of the bed. He’s still got the kikimore bounty to collect, and that’ll earn him enough for a new silk doublet for Jaskier and a hot bath and one of those lingonberry pies Cidaris is famous for so that Jaskier can get juice all over his fingers and mouth…plus their dinner and lodging for a few days at least. Then it’ll be another contract, another killing, all to earn the money to keep his bard as warm and well-fed and cared for as he can.

Jaskier is looking at him with the same worried disbelief Geralt recognises from his own head only moments ago, so he bends down to kiss him until the look goes away. He has his bard now, to fuck and care for both, and Geralt intends to keep him.

Wherever their Path leads them next.