spring, summer, spring

by yogurtgun

Summary:

After spending a treacherous winter together, Jaskier and Geralt make an arrangement: they travel together for three seasons before Jaskier finds a town or a court to winter over until spring. However, this year Geralt meets Jaskier a little earlier than expected during Imbaelk. Between holiday celebrations, solstices, and plum schnapps, Geralt falls in love and loses his way.

Notes:

This is very much a fic about Geralt and Jaskier just travelling and attending holiday celebrations. I have mixed and matched some slavic traditions-- I'm not Polish but I wanted to introduce some of my country's slavic traditions into the universe. Hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 1: Winter

Winter has always known to be miserable, and yet Geralt is always surprised at just how bad it gets. Rotating between chilling rains, snow, and windstorms, the ground has known little else than ice and frost, making the paths treacherous to cross, roads impossible to follow when they’re hidden under the white blanket, and the side routes so dangerous he rarely takes them into consideration. If that isn’t enough,when he does get to a village, the ground is a mix of slush and mud that frequently freezes over, just waiting for someone to break their neck.

Furthermore, he thinks as he hands Roach off to the stablehand, there’s little to hunt and fires are impossible lest he finds a good cave. Roach’s legs threatened to freeze twice in the last month alone.

Contracts are more difficult to fulfill and take more time, the reward disappointing for the amount of work. The North still, very much, relies on its summer exploits to prosper, especially villages such as the one he rode into. It has always been the truth of these lands that the people always think of winter no matter the time of year. Preparing the fields, the cattle, the cottages and houses, stocking on feed for livestock, firewood, medicine, pickled vegetables that won’t perish quickly, cured and smoked meat, flour and stiff drink to weather out the cold.

Geralt’s still wet from last night’s snowfall, but today it seems the weather has finally broken, and while the cold hasn’t left, the overcast clouds have retreated to reveal the cold white sun and blue sky.

At least, Geralt thinks, the snowdrops have pushed through the snow and blackthorn surrounding the eastern part of the forest has begun to bloom. Shrikes will be coming back soon to crown its thorns with their catch.

That thought follows him from the stables further into the village. It seems that every person has taken a chance to go outside and enjoy the nice day-- one of the few they’ll have until winter proper ends. But the abundance of people in the streets means the village is loud, and Geralt is pressed to find refuge from it into the nearest inn.

It’s early in the day yet, and the drinking and drunk crowd has already filtered out, the ground cleaned, the pitchers refilled. Still, there’s people inside if only to warm themselves by the giant hearth, and have a meal.

The air is clear, he notices. As if the inn too has been spring cleaned on the early morrow. He glances up and notes that one of the top-most windows is cracked open. The only scent that lingers is of the wax from the candle that sits above the bar, lit, out of reach of hands and awkward elbows. Considering it’s still light outside, Geralt assumes it’s some sort of symbolic gesture.

As he passes to the bar, he notes that one of the tables is crowded. Only two people sit, but they’re surrounded by a crowd.

Geralt’s stomach gives a twist, and he hopes that he won’t be ran out of the village before he can get a meal into his belly. It’s a general rule of thumb that large towns, and sometimes larger villages, care less about travelers unlike smaller communities which gives him a little hope.

“Ale,” he says to the barmaid, “and whatever food is warmest.”

She eyes him for a moment, as if weighing out his worth. He understands that. After all, customers that don’t pay are only a loss to the business. But, despite his armour that is in need of repairs, his cloak which is mud streaked and definitely in need of a wash, and the fact that he is what he is, she nods and says, “Coming right up.”

Geralt takes a seat, relieved, and soon has his hands around a warm bowl of stew that, for once, tastes good. Beside the bread, freshly baked and still warm, the barmaid also pushes forth a sort of pastry at him. He doesn’t recognize it, and he certainly didn’t order it, but he never refuses free food.

He eats before asking any questions, and by the time he’s torn through the pastry filled with plum jam, the crowd around the table has dissipated.

Washing down the sweet taste on his tongue with ale, he finally asks the barmaid, “What’s going on there?”

“Mara’s divining for us today,” the woman replies. “The Sprouting started yesterday at sundawn.”

Imbaelk , Geralt thinks. So the third savaed is about to start.

Geralt grunts in reply.

The woman looks at him, then says, “You should go to her as well.”

“I know my destiny,” he replies.

She clicks her tongue as if he’s being daft. “She could tell you good or bad omens for this year. And wouldn’t you want to know that, witcher?”

Geralt hums in reply, and sighs when the woman’s gaze keeps needling him about it. Good omens or bad, he doubts a regular women, one that’s neither a witch nor a sorceress, can tell him anything he doesn’t already know. Still, after everyone has had their go, Geralt sits in front of her.

Mara, a rather short stout woman, dressed in that sort of standard ensemble of skirts and thick cotton shirts held down by a woolen vest to fend off the cold, smells of that particular old-people scent Geralt has associated with normal aging, and something like cooked nettle. She does not give him a particular sense of sorcery or magic. In fact, she looks like any great-grandmother he’s met along the way.

“Good tidings to you,” she says in that sort of certain way most elderly do when faced with the world. “What interests you them? Family, love?”

“I was told you can tell omens, good or bad,” he replies.

Her eyebrow twitch, and he watches her take a handful of beans in her hand. This, Geralt decides at once, is ridiculous. He has seen enough divination to know beans, just like bones, can say very little of the future.

She throws the beans on a decorated plate, and they scatter.

“Hmm,” she says for effect and Geralt sighs with disappointment.

His eyes flick over the tavern again, paying the woman little mind as she reads into her beans. It’s why he notices a shadow dancing from one of the windows behind her.

“You have a death sign, but it’s a small one. Fitting isn’t it, witcher? It won’t carry the face you expect tho. Still, someone will make you rich for it, even if you try and refuse it.”

As she says it, Geralt watches a bird swoop down from the opened window. It arches low above his head once, twice, and on the third time he catches it with both hands. It chirps, confused, black eyes and black beak on a background of grey feathers. A shrike.

“A butcher,” the woman says, somewhat ridiculously seriously. “That’s a bad omen to be sure. Give it here now, we need to be rid of it quickly. It must‘ve followed you here.”

Geralt looks at the tiny thing in his hands. He hums under his breath, and stands. “If shrikes are early, then spring will be early. Good omen for you, right?”

Mara’s face crumples, and she huffs, and waves him off with loud noises that would have been curses, if cursing was allowed on a holy day. One of the patrons opens the doors for him, and Geralt, along with the shrike, leave the inn.

He lets the bird go at once, and he watches it takes off. It starts swooping again, flying tightly above the crowd, before disappearing somewhere to the east, probably returning to its blackthorn bush. Geralt can’t be sure of this, because his eyes lock on a patch of sky-blue in the distance, chestnut brown hair, and a red-sycamore lute that is older than both its owner and Geralt combined.

As if the only ones to notice the bird, two cornflower blue eyes turn skyward, and then travel across the village houses to land on Geralt.

The familiarity of them strikes Geralt somewhere deep, in the marrow of him, making a house for itself in his bones. The discomfort grows when the eyes crinkle, and a smile washes over Jaskier’s face. Geralt’s heart does something entirely strange and unfamiliar as he watches the man change his course at once, walking, determined, towards him.

It’s been a terrible winter true, and he hasn’t seen Jaskier for the whole of it. He thought he left the bard more south than he finds him now, and it is not without cause that he’s surprised to see him--time passes by Geralt quickly, and he knows some partings are for forever if destiny has her hands involved. Sometimes people keep missing each other be it by an hour, a week, a whole lifetime.

Grudgingly, Geralt admits to himself that Jaskier is a sight for sore eyes. Nobody has ever been relieved to see him before. Jaskier, when he’s finally in front of Geralt, smile growing toothy and entirely too fond and his shoulders relaxed, sounds it when he says, “Geralt.”

“Jaskier,” he replies, the discomfort in his chest only growing when he recognizes the usual warmth in Jaskier’s eyes. “I thought I left you in Prokopovo?”

“Ah yes,” he says, the smile slipping. “That...worked out either too well or absolutely horridly.”

“Are you allowed back?”

He winces. That’s really all Geralt needs to know.

“Perhaps,” Jaskier says, “After tensions have cooled.”

His face clears a moment later, as if he can’t bother lingering on anything that’s not right in front of him, and he’s back to being enthusiastic and happy again. Geralt’s forgotten how exhausting just being near him can be. He also forgot his chattering. It is true what they say -- distance makes the heart grow fonder. Right now, however, he’s growing annoyed.

“But hey,” he says, “now that you’re here I won’t have to worry. We can get on our way and--”

“It’s still winter, Jaskier.”

“Oh haven’t you heard?” he smirks. “It’s the Sprouting and they’ve said good omens are abundant. It should be an easy road to spring.”

Geralt hums, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh come on, admit it, you missed me! It’s alright, I am quite easy to miss.”

“You can say that again,” Geralt replies, turning on his heel.

“Hey,” Jaskier shouts, “That’s hurtful Geralt! That hurts!”

He doesn’t have to wait for Jaskier to catch up to him. The bard falls back into his company as if he never left, as if they’re continuing a conversation they just had minutes ago and not months apart.

A strange though then crosses his mind of Mara’s words, of his three omens, but he dismisses it quickly when Jaskier slips and Geralt has to reach out to steady him lest he plants his face into the slush.

-

The interesting thing, at least, about travelling with Jaskier is that Geralt gets a semblance of how a normal person would react were they able to see his lifestyle. It’s a semblance only because he’s decided Jaskier has a few floorboards loose in his head, that he should look forward to travelling with him and not staying with regular people, people he belongs to, and sentence himself to long days of walking, camping, and little coin. That being said, his complaining is definitely along the lines of humanity Geralt’s learnt to expect.

He grumbles now about the hard earth where there is one, about the wet if not the cold, and then about the cold if he’s feeling particularly vengeful that day. In the mix of it all he has time to scrunches up his nose when he gets another whiff of Geralt -- he’s killed a bullvore so the blood of the creature must smell something terrible. Geralt can’t tell anymore since its on him and he’s habituated to it.

Strange too, is that despite wrinkling his nose at it, Jaskier warms a little water on the fire in one of his metal cups he usually uses to store spare string, and dips a rag from his pack once its warm enough to clean up his face.

Geralt has learned not to protest these things. Mostly, he thinks, it’s because Jaskier grows quiet when focused, or only speaks under his breath, and it wouldn’t work anyway -- the bard would either bitch at him about it or he’d try again later.

“Ugh,” he says, passing the rag gently over Geralt’s stiff brow. When Jaskier is this close its difficult to be anything but stiff. “There’s so much gunk. It’s either going to freeze or dry in your hair with these temperatures.”

The rag scrapes under his jaw, a finishing touch, before Jaskier pats his shoulder in a ‘that’s all I can do’ manner he always does when he’s doing something for Geralt.

There’s a snowdrop pinned to his breast and its scent, instead of being overwhelmed by Jaskier’s or the horse’s, blends.

The village where he met Jaskier, Drvorad, is a good two weeks distance behind them. The contract took Geralt north, and the reward lays in the next village over, Cjepkanje. They’ve been steadily going up a large mountain pass. The village, he’s been told, is at the first base. He can’t miss it.

While Geralt still can’t smell the smoke from chimneys or the particular stink of humanity, he notices the wolf prints. It isn’t surprising for wolves to wander down the mountain if they haven’t anything to hunt.

He shouldn’t have taken Jaskier with him. Not, at least, until the first lambing season. With Jaskier they can move only from dawn to dusk, which is but a handful of hours, lest he props the man up on Roach and guide the two through the trees.

“I found a cave,” Jaskier tells him, drawing Geralt out of his thoughts.

“I told you to stay--”

“Yes, yes, you said ,” Jaskier replies, dismissing him. He’s never really lingered on the past it seems. “But it’s done, and there’s a cave, just west of here. There was a distinct lack of bears inside.”

Of course Jaskier would check, Geralt thinks. Sometimes he wonders if Jaskier just wants to get maimed.

“I’m just saying that perhaps , tonight we shan’t be exposed to the elements.”

Geralt looks at the fire for a long moment. There’s not one urge in his body to move, not for a long time. Fighting a bullvore is exhausting, even for him. Jaskier’s eyes are expectant though, and as annoying as it is, perhaps he’s right.

He rises to his feet and Jaskier follows, bouncing on his heels, as much as he can, considering the snow.

“Show me, then,” Geralt says, tugging Roach by the reins.

They trot along the bard, the bullvore’s still-warm head wafting unpleasantness from where it’s tied down to her side. He needs evidence; he’s gone unpaid one too many times to repeat the same mistake.

The closer they come, the more the mouth of the cave becomes obvious, even tucked into the cliff side. There’s a strong scent coming from it, something familiar but difficult to parse out.

“Wait here,” he instructs Jaskier before unsheathing his sword and walking inside.

It’s pitch black, as it ought to be. The path winds around, and then sinks, suddenly and steeply, so Geralt has little choice but follow it down to the landing. The stone there is even and slippery from the steam that rises from a large pool of water.

It’s a thermal pool, the air filled with the scent of sulfur, true, but wet and welcome to his dry lungs. It’s been a long time since Geralt came across a hot spring.

The prospect of lingering in the cave doubles in its appeal. He wants nothing more than to just sink into the warm water and bathe until his fingers have pruned.

He turns on his heel and exits. First, to tie off Roach.

“What is it?” Jaskier asks, who’s been leaning against her side, fidgeting with his hands.

Geralt only grunts. “We should get some firewood.”

-

The light from the fire illuminates the cave stone above them, painting shadows in all the crooks of uneven, jagged stone. Geralt took the first chance to divest himself of clothes and dip into the water, and now he lays, rubbed red from a washcloth and soap, soaking in the pool and listening to Jaskier mess with clothes, buckles and belts. His bare feet patter over the stone, creating a rhythmic echo.

Geralt sinks under the surface, re-wetting his hair. Jaskier was right, the blood coagulated quickly, and half-froze on his head. It will be a pain getting rid of bits and pieces from it by himself. For now, however, he isn’t wont to move. He listens to Jaskier’s soft breathing, then a careful sound of a brush -- not for the first time Jaskier is doing as he likes, and what he seems to like to do right now, instead of bathing, is clean Geralt’s armor. There’s something strange about it Geralt’s can’t quite pinpoint. Nobody’s particularly cared to clean his armor for him, or do anything else without asking for something in return.

He leans back until his head rests on the rock, and doesn’t realise he’s closed his eyes until he’s slowly blinking them open to Jaskier standing above him. Jaskier has stripped down only to his britches, the leans curve of his body not unfamiliar, but it’s been a long time.

Jaskier kneels behind him and their eyes meet.

“It’s really creepy how your eyes reflect,” he tells Geralt, and Geralt snorts, look away. “I mean,” he continues, “it’s amazing but also fairly creepy. I like it.”

“You would,” he replies, not knowing what else to say. It isn’t like one of Jaskier’s usual comments which range from flattery to outright ass-kissing. Despite that, Geralt begrudgingly accept they’re all honest.

Jaskier sits down behind him. “You still have gunk in your hair.”

He takes the slip of soap left, and decides to take matters into his own hands. Geralt stiffens, as he usually does when anyone touches him. When Jaskier, especially, touches him. Touching, for him, is reserved for brothels, or for battle. Either someone wants to fuck him, heal him or kill him.

Jaskier, it seems, wants to do neither of those things, which only confuses him further, the discomfort in his chest expanding. Yet, he cannot deny that it’s easier to let someone else bother with the hair. It wouldn’t be the first time, only the first time in a long while.

Jaskier’s fingers are gentle, even though taking his time must be murder on his eyes and his limbs. His breathing is soft too, unobtrusive even though he’s bent over Geralt. The ease of his movements allows Geralt to slip his eyes closed, and sink further into the comfort of the heat and the touch. Eventually, Jaskier’s fingertips wander over to his scalp, massaging slow circles that relieve tension from his spine, shoulders and neck. That’s why it’s startling when Jaskier’s hands pull away.

Geralt blinks the sleep from his eyes and turns to watch Jaskier go to their packs.

Silver shines in the half light, and Geralt, despite himself, stiffens all over. A blade is always the first thing he expects from everyone, and though he knows Jaskier, he also knows people change.

But when Jaskier returns, he sees the silver in only a comb. He settles behind him again and Geralt feels the tugging at once. Jaskier starts at the ends, working the way up the length of his hair until Geralt’s sure he’s combed every bit of grime, dirt, and oil from it.

“You still have this,” Jaskier murmurs, as he passes the comb through his hair.

Geralt hums. Jaskier gave it to him, after all. Said Geralt would make more use of it than he did. It was stolen, he knows, nicked off of his last lover. Geralt doesn’t read too closely into it being in his pack.

“Alright,” Jaskier says, tapping his shoulder. “You can dunk.”

Geralt does, and rubs all the soap out of his hair. He walks to the other end of the pool, the deeper end, and stands. The water reaches his ribs. When he looks back to the shore, something tightens in his throat. Jaskier stands for a moment, bare, one long, slender, line from his feet to his throat.

Nudity is common and unsurprising when privacy is unavailable on the road. It isn’t the first time he’s seen Jaskier naked. Not the first time, he tells himself, and yet it affects him quite the same.

Jaskier dips his toes first, a shiver running up his calf, his thighs, and spine, and finally lowers himself into the warm water. A soft pleased noise leaves his throat, and he dips his head in. When he comes up his hair is plastered to his forehead and he looks blissed out.

Geralt licks the water from his lips and shifts his gaze away. No use, he thinks, in starting something he won’t be able to finish.

-

The firewood crackles, blue flames dancing among the coals. In the humidity of the cave, it’s difficult to feel cold, even nude and wrapped in blankets. Their clothes lay on the dry cave walls to dry, water dripping from them in an even pitter-patter.

The darkness presses against his senses. Just because he can see in it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know it’s there. All his sight allows him now is to see Jaskier’s face, half hidden in the blanket where he’s curled up on his bedroll. Here, there are no attacks to worry about, no wolves, creatures, or people. They have everything they need--food, water, warmth. If he were someone else, he would wish to linger. But if he were someone else, he would have also pressed himself against Jaskier in the water, and seen where it took him.

Geralt closes his eyes. In the morning, he knows he’ll come to his senses.

-

The snows begin to melt not a week later. The weather gets progressively dryer, until the hills are covered in patches of green peaking from the fading blanket of ice. They’re too high in the mountains for Geralt’s comfort.

The calmness and the sun’s warm kiss, and the blue sky, are deceptive. It’s this season, after the horrid winter, that’s prime for rockslides and avalanches, especially with so much water running downhill.

“Geralt come on, I want to dry my feet,” Jaskier repeats for the third time that hour. They can see a village above them, it’s just a matter of crossing the winding path.

He continues talking about warming his fingers, and perhaps getting his teeth into the lamb, and Geralt, as usual, focuses on everything else but his chattering, tuning it out into a frequency which is pleasant but ignorable.

Geralt hears the crackling of large logs first, before seeing the bonfire. Most windows are thrown open, people working on removing the last of the snow from their fields. He sees women cleaning inside as they pass, children rushing with chicken eggs from house to house.

“We must’ve hit Birke,” Jaskier notes.

Geralt stiffens further. He notices the gaze from people they pass quicker than Jaskier so he is not surprised when he hears a loud, “Halt!”

Roach snorts when he pulls on her reigns. Jaskier still doesn’t seem to know his situation. He smiles and says, “Oh, so nice to see you good sir, might you point us to--”

“Out,” the man commands. He has a thick mustache covering his face. He isn’t unlike a bear.

Jaskier’s face falls at once. “We’ve got coin if you’ve got--”

“I don’t care for your coins lad. It’s Birke. We don’t need bad luck here today.”

In the distance, Geralt can smell the food, incense, and spilt wine, can hear the noise of people chattering as they ready for the nightfall celebration.

“Well, it’s certainly bad luck turning away guests,” Jaskier huffs.

Any other day, it might have worked. But it’s Birke, the celebration of the coming spring, cleansing of old evils. It’s important to these people. It has always been important, so Geralt has never been welcomed.

“Jaskier,” he warns.

Geralt can see children holding each other’s hands as they spin in circles around the young bonfire. They’re playing but it's mimicry of the kolo. A dance, a tradition, and steps, he’s never known and will never be asked to join.

Jaskier turns his way, looking petulant and Geralt levels him with a look that deflates all his protest.

“Let’s go.”

He turns Roach around, and is not surprised to hear the man tell Jaskier, “I don’t know what you’re doing with that witcher, but you should be rid of him, quickly. For your own good.”

“And you should be rid of your stupid prejudice. I have yet to meet a better man than him.”

Perhaps that simply speaks to the quality of the company Jaskier keeps, but it still sits strange in Geralt’s chest. This is not the first time this has happened, but Jaskier has remained stubborn in his silly conviction to speak well of Geralt’s honor, as if words alone could ever change the world around them. It’s difficult to shame people for their beliefs when the whole village excuses them.

But, for all of Jaskier’s brisk and sharp tongue, he knows what to do with people better than Geralt. He knows to be convincing, and usually people let Jaskier linger in the taverns, the villages, the shops, happy to take his coin, or Geralt’s for that matter, as long as they don’t have to look at him.

This time that isn’t the case. This time the man tells him, “You’re just as bad as he is then. Go then, let your bad omens and devils take you.”

Jaskier’s footsteps are obvious. They’ll need to find a place to sleep on this forsaken mountain and quick.

Jaskier huffs a couple of times, as if he’s having an argument with himself. He looks at Geralt, shakes his head, and contains whatever he’s wanted to say. That’s another thing about Jaskier -- he’s only silent when he’s angry.

Geralt is, despite himself, amused. He wonders, however, if Jaskier realises that people will begin treating him in a similar manner should he continue his travels with him. He isn’t stupid to think Jaskier an outcast -- he isn’t, not even a self-croclaimed one. He fits, like water fits in the riverbed. He doesn’t know why is it then, that the water only lingers to wet the lips of the rocks and caves, before it dives back into the ground.

Chapter 2: Spring

Notes:

This fanfic is written, I'm just posting it as I edit :)

It’s not in Jaskier’s personality to wander. He likes to plan into the future, taking into account only where he is at the moment, and not looking back. That’s why he often times meets scorned lovers, husbands, brothers and fathers in towns, castles and estates he should have probably known to avoid. So, Geralt assumes, there's a method to his madness, just like Geralt’s method is chasing after coin.

Why he’s thinking about the bard is beyond Geralt, especially after three days of griffon tracking. Perhaps because he left him in Kovac to entertain the masses and wait for him to finish -- griffon tracking’s arduous even for a witcher and lasts through day and night. Jaskier wouldn’t have been able to follow.

Geralt has to admit that it got out of his hands. He was supposed to finish this in one day, get the reward, and leave. Unlike his first two misses, keeping track of the days is simpler when the weather has been warming, and the spring rains have gone past; Belleteyn will be coming in a few days, and he doesn’t wish to be ousted from another village without getting a rest, food in his belly, and grain for Roach.

By the time he finds the beast he’s tired, and by the time he swings a finishing blow, decapitating the thing so he can carry the head as evidence of a job-done, he’s exhausted. Trotting down to the village carelessly, at least he’s not splattered in blood more than usual.

The night falls with a scent of burning birch. The lights in front of each village house are on, but the houses are empty. It’s only in the distance that he hears the sound of people.

He sighs and follows after it. The center of the village has been transformed: rows of tables and seats have been carried out, food and drink set out, and the people gathered already seem far in their cups. Perhaps, Geralt admits to himself, he’s more tardy than he assumed.

Music fills his ears, easy on his hearing, carrying an unfamiliar tune. His eyes swipe over the crowd and he spots Jaskier, tucked into a corner, strumming his lute, accompanied by harsh drumming. His eyes shine in the firelight, perhaps from drink or perhaps from glee that has twisted his mouth into a smile. There, among the people, he fits as if he’s one of them.

A kolo is a reel dance. He can’t spot the children, but he sees young people, like pearls on a necklace, strung together into half circles, each holding the other’s hand, dancing to the beat of the drum. They look feather-light on their feet, and when they jump, it’s as if it’s in the same breath.

The village heads, all sat at one table, take notice of him, tightness around their eyes betraying their discomfort. The youngest of them stands to greet him.

Geralt lifts the griffon head for show. “I want to get paid,” he says, “and get out of here.”

“So you were successful. Very well,” the man says, presenting him with a coin purse. “Your bard, in his spare time, has offered his services. It’s Belleteyn , witcher. It would be bad luck not to invite you to join us.”

Geralt releases a long breath. Belleteyn is a night of food, drink, and love. If he were present today he would have probably seen couples marrying, and lovers starting and ending their affairs. It’s all about ties, relationships, and obligations to others, of which Geralt has none. He’s ill-fitted here. He knows this is just politeness speaking, and perhaps use, considering that if Geralt left he is sure Jaskier would follow. That stops him in his tracks. When had he become so certain of that?

“I need to--” He grimaces looking at himself.

The man laughs and says, “The inn should still be open.”

When Geralt reaches the doors and tugs them open, he confirms that indeed its still open. He drops the griffon head by the doors and ventures inside.

It’s empty, of course, and he heads up the stairs to the room he and Jaskier rented. To his surprise, a bath has already been drawn for him. He reconsiders and finds it more likely that Jaskier has planned on dunking himself after the celebrations; after all he did not know when Geralt would be back. Whichever it is, he uses it to his advantage.

Geralt plucks at the well-worn leather that keeps his armor together, and cleans the worst of the three day hunt off of himself in the lukewarm water, which he then disposes of. No use in stinking up the room. Refreshed, he heads back to the party. He is hungry, and in a need of good liquor.

Even dressed less, the heat seems to have increased. The people, now truly drunk, laugh and dance and pay him no mind, and their bodies are warm from the alcohol, the scent of which blurs with the traditional celebratory herbs and birch. Sitting at a table is like crossing an invisible barrier, and at once he finds himself in another, different world, where happiness is a given, and everything is allowed.

The roasted meat is good even cold. He follows it up with pastry, which he follows up with a glass of wine, before he finally moves to the plum schnapps, amber colored and strong. From where he sits he can’t really see Jaskier, but he can hear him. The music grows ever louder, crescendoing, and if he focuses hard enough, he can hear the stomping of his foot that matches the quick drumming.

Two crescents dance around the bonfire now, one made out of girls with wreaths on their heads, the other with boys wearing the traditional caps. They couldn’t be older than fifteen. Their voices rise above the music, a conversation in the song: the boys singing that vilas catch them in their traps, and girls replying that its not only vilas that hunt for them. Geralt realises, when the two sides merge to create an even larger crescent, that it’s the courting dances.

The music halts when the first couple--chosen by nothing more but the fact that they stood opposite each other--step forward. They raise their arms together, and start jumping, circling around one another like the hawks they’re trying to imitate.

Meanwhile, the kolo sings, “ Come young man, jump higher, dark eyes are watching you .”

The pair makes another circle before returning to their place in the kolo, another couple stepping forward at once to take their place. The kolo begins singing once again.

It’s tradition for unwed girls to have flower crowns different to those who are wed. Their wreaths can either be stolen, gifted, or they can throw them and the person who brings it is to be wed to them.

He watches the young ones chase each other around, this still a game for them. But soon, after two, or three summers, it will cease to be a game and gain its seriousness.

It’s then that he sees Jaskier running, or rather, being chased. Geralt stiffens, but he sees the smile on his face, and he sees its girls who are after him. He avoids them, as is the custom. Geralt doesn’t think any villager would be amused if Jaskier accepted any wreath, no matter that it was given to him. The boys help him escape, if only because it’s proper. In the end, he’s red faced, and heavy of breath, when he spots Geralt.

Jaskier smiles and takes a seat beside him, his lute, the one Filavandrel gifted him, resting beside the chair.

“You missed the bread breaking,” Jaskier informs him, and reaches for the schnapps.

Geralt grunts in reply and, since he’s closer, pours a thimble for Jaskier and hands it over. The glasses have always been small but, he supposes, schnapps really needs to be served in controlled doses.

“It would do us good,” Geralt says, “that we leave with the first morning.”

Jaskier eyes him for a moment, and sips on his drink. “Nobody will be awake until midday.”

“We’re already threading dangerous grounds. The only reason--”

“It’s Belleteyn yes,” Jaskier interrupts. “But then again, it’s Belleteyn, Geralt. For once, we should enjoy ourselves.”

It’s not his lips that smile as much as his eyes do. In the half-light, Geralt can’t help but notice how long his lashes are. Jaskier is all proportional: large eyes, small nose, smaller mouth. His wide shoulders slim all the way down to his feet. He’s like a tapered blade. Geralt doesn’t think, though, that he’d appreciate the comparison.

Jaskier’s eyebrows scrunch up and he reaches over. Perhaps it’s alcohol, or something else entirely, that makes him not hesitate even when Geralt tenses.

His fingers find Geralt’s pulse point, raise up to his jaw, and rub. “You still have blood on you.”

Geralt grunts, raising his hand to cover Jaskier’s. It’s warm, he realises, and for a moment their fingers almost twine, before he plucks it from his skin.

Jaskier licks his lips and his eyes stray back to the people, and he folds his hands back into his lap. It’s then that his scent hits Geralt, warm, spicy, heady, plums and wheat, and the snowdrops he still hides inside his doublet that he’s refused to do up, instead fancying to show off the embroidery of his undershirt.

Geralt refills his glass. It's a relief to feel the smooth burn of the alcohol on his tongue.

There are many young ones in the village, and all want to get their turn. Geralt watches them dance circles around one another, singing: “ That girl has jumped you, yes my young pine !”, and “ That girl dances well, and you boy, go with the devil !”, and “ Oh girl, my golden apple, do you love, do you kiss, anyone but me? ” to which the reply is quick, “I n sky’s name, fo earth’s sake, I don’t love anyone but you !”

“Oh no,” Jaskier says, “did you see he almost--”

“Tripped and pulled the rest of the kolo with him?” Geralt asks, amused. “Yes.”

Jaskier leans in his chair, and their shoulders press together. Jaskier doesn’t move away and Geralt doesn’t either.

“He lost his cap, it flew off under the table.”

Jaskier chuckles, “Oh no, and the girl, the one-- you see-- she almost lost her shawl into the fire.”

“They’re drunk,” Geralt chuckles now, and it is true. They’re drunk, and happy, and this is probably the first celebration they can indulge in for a while.

“Have you ever danced?” Jaskier asks him.

Geralt, finally, looks away to look at his side profile. “No,” he admits.

Kolos are, after all, reserved for these small villages, where everyone still knows everyone, where the families are connected, where family is everything, and your future depends on their wealth and good standing. Kolo is the people. It’s the people he came from, people Geralt protects, and yet can’t return to anymore. It’s the people he doesn’t fit with, the people that hate him, thinks him a plague and parasyte. He can’t dance the kolo if he doesn’t belong. If he’s not invited. All kolos mean something.

He watches as the two kolos finally twine together, and the couples pair off, dancing in circles.

This kolo is for prosperity, for happiness, for love and marriage, for young people. He can’t dance it, same as he cannot dance the wedding kolo, or the married kolo, and Jaskier can’t either.

“You?” he asks.

Jaskier smiles, but sadly. “A long time ago. Back home...well. It was frowned upon. Countryside customs, you see, can’t fit in cities.”

“You could have danced the courting dances,” he pushes.

Jaskier laughs quietly, and looks at him. “Well, I wasn’t invited, and in any case...”

He trails off. His eyes become even more glassy, and they stray from Geralt’s to look at the rest of his face before settling on his lips. The pressure of his shoulder against Geralt’s increases and Geralt, feeling his heart in his throat, his blood suddenly quickening in his veins, heat in his belly sparking, holds still while Jaskier looks his fill.

“In any case?” he murmurs, in question.

Jaskier looks up at him, the flush on his face making Geralt want to chase it down his neck with his tongue. Gods, he thinks, he’s drunk. Maybe that’s why, or maybe it’s the herbs, or maybe it’s Belleteyn , that have him trembling when Jaskier finally closes his eyes and leans in to kiss him.

It’s been a long time since Geralt’s been kissed so chastely. Jaskier’s kiss is just a press of lips together, warm and soft, and there it seems with no other purpose than to exert the affection that Jaskier oftentimes hides in other ways such as, Geralt realises now, washing his clothes, and his hair, and rubbing dirt from his face.

Jaskier pulls back slowly, tenderly, as if moving quickly would break Belleteyn’s spell. He hums when he catches Geralt’s eye. Something shifts in his scent, something Geralt can’t quite parse out so drunk, but it’s there nonetheless, and it coats his tongue.

“Sorry,” Jaskier murmurs.

Geralt blinks once, twice, and decides--fuck it. He cups Jaskier’s jaw and guides him back to his mouth. Under him, Jaskier shudders and opens his mouth for Geralt, for his lips and for his tongue, and lets him taste him--sweet, and spicy, and like plum schnapps.

It’s Belleteyn , Geralt thinks, and nobody sees them, the people are drunk, the couples are dancing, and they’re tucked away in a corner in any case.

He swallows Jaskier’s whimpers, sucks on his bottom lip and tongue, and when Jaskier’s hand lands on his thigh, fingers squeezing it, a little too high, a little too close to his cock, Geralt groans.

His fingers hold Jaskier’s chin, and slowly, as slowly as he can bear, he pulls away, ending the kiss. He wants to say that they should go back to their room to follow up on the promises the heat behind Jaskier’s kiss, yet he also wants to end this at once as well because Jaskier is, despite Geralt, still his friend and this is stupidly dangerous. Geralt wants too much.

He opens his eyes when their lips part and sees the expression on Jaskier’s face, eyes half-lidded, mouth red, cheeks flushed, and he can’t help leaning back in, to steal quick kisses. Each time he pulls away, wanting to speak, he finds himself leaning back in, unable to stop himself from kissing Jaskier again. Not until Jaskier’s other hand curls into his sleeve, holding onto him.

“ Fuck ,” Geralt groans under his breath, and Jaskier’s mouth twist into a smile.

“We should--” Jaskier starts. And Geralt groans in agreement, and kisses him again.

“Yes,” he replies when his mouth decides to chase down Jaskier’s jaw.

“Room,” Jaskier strangles out.

Geral hums, happy to kiss Jaskier’s neck. And isn’t that a thought? But there, where his neck meets his jaw, his scent is so strong despite his perfumed oils, and Geralt wants to sink his teeth into the soft skin. He wants to ruin him. He remembers that lithe body hidden under all those clothes, and Geralt wonders how long his strength can last.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says near his ear and the fingers leave his thigh to touch his neck and shoulder. “Someone will see.”

It’s a fair warning. Geralt, finally, unlatches himself from Jaskier’s neck and pulls back, releasing him. Jaskier’s own hands return to his own body, and he looks-- gods . He has to admit that the winter was miserable, and that it’s been a long time since the last brothel, and that he’s drunk, and that Jaskier is probably too but that doesn’t take anything away from the fact that Jaskier looks so thoroughly debauched that Geralt’s cock thickens in interest.

Geralt takes a deep breath, clearing the scent of Jaskier’s need from his nose, then pours himself another thimble of schnapps and drinks it all at once. Then he stands, circling their seats, and heads for the inn. When he turns around, however, Jaskier isn’t following. He has his head resting in his palm.

“Come on,” he growls low because it’s Belleteyn, and he’s drunk, and he wants to fuck, and he doesn’t have to think about anything else tonight. Not tonight.

-

The doors of their room close by the grace of pinning Jaskier to them, and he has only little mind left to turn the key in the lock before Jaskier grabs his face and kisses him, chasing rationality away. His hands are warm on Geralt’s face, fingertips little fires that dance across his cheeks and tangle in his hair, setting the tinder in his gut aflame. Jaskier is, Geralt thinks nonsensically, always warm. Whatever the hell his drunk mind wants that to mean.

He thinks he understands though, when Jaskier steps on his boots so Geralt can toe out of them, and they leave a trail of doublets and shirts on the floor before falling to the bed. Jaskier oofs when Geralt’s weight lands on him and laughs a little nervous ensemble, but then he’s shimmying out of his britches, and all of that pale skin, smooth and clean, is at once on full display for Geralt to crave.

Geralt doesn’t try to even think why his hands tremble when he touches his thighs, he just watches all that supple skin shift under his touch, so soft, so accommodating, hiding lean muscle that dances underneath his fingers from nerves or, Geralt thinks, expectation. It’s when he reaches Jaskier’s hips and arrests them in his grip that he finally bends down so they can kiss again.

Jaskier’s mouth is just as soft and inviting as his legs that welcome Geralt between them, as if there’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing to dread, nothing to protest. And there isn’t, Geralt thinks as Jaskier’s hands land on his shoulders, because they are known to each other in all other ways and this isn’t anything but what they wish it to be. It’s comfortable to kiss Jaskier, familiar in a way he doesn’t understand, and comforting to hear his wispy little whimpers when he catches his lip bottom between his teeth, sucks on it, before diving back into the wonderful heat of his mouth. As comfortable and comforting, he thinks, as it can be when it’s not throwing oil on the fire.

He doesn’t know why Jaskier has such an effect on him, especially not tonight. He doesn’t know why he wants so much. He doesn’t want to find out because if he does, he knows he will inevitably be disappointed. It’s Belleteyn , after all, and it carries magic and music and song. This, Geralt knows, won’t be happening again but he is determined to enjoy it. Belleteyn only comes once a year, after all.

“Geralt,” Jaskier groans, his hands twisted around his neck.

To stop kissing him is impossible. It’s a need, a deep compulsion in his marrow, to feel his breath, taste him, touch him. The gasping filling his ears when he finally gets a hand around Jaskier’s cock blankets his senses, allowing him no room but that which Jaskier’s body gives.

“Fuck,” is bitten out, and he doesn’t know if he says it or Jaskier.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Jaskier’s hands unwind from his neck to curl around his shoulders and trail down his back, tracing over scars, old and new, and don’t stop to ask questions. His scars are all familiar to Jaskier. He asked, once, about them but for a song, and a story. When Geralt refused to share, he let it go, and hasn’t asked since.

No, Jaskier doesn’t care much about the past especially if he wasn’t present to recount it later on. His eyes always look to the future, planning for the next winter, next town, next song, next stop. But now, those blue eyes look at him, and there’s warmth in them too.

Geralt groans when Jaskier’s nimble fingers pull him out of his undone britches.

“Oh gods,” Jaskier says. “You’re...quite large, aren’t you?”

Geralt laughs against his throat before mouthing over his jackrabbit pulse.

“You don’t--” he starts, breath stuttering in his lungs when Jaskier’s other hand joins his efforts, palm pressing against the tip of his cock while the other jerks him, “--seem to take offence.”

Jaskier snorts, bucking his hips, fucking into Geralt’s hand. “You think you can go more than once tonight?”

Geralt presses his teeth against Jaskier’s voice-box, and his breath stutters. His cock twitches. Fuck, Geralt thinks.

“ Yeah , why?” he asks, tightening his hold on Jaskier’s cock. He can feel the moan that follows under his tongue.

The question is if Jaskier can as well. Geralt desperately wants to get all of this wildfire that burns under his skin out of his body, and he knows now that there is no way he can be sated until he’s made Jaskier delirious.

He kisses the thin, stretched skin of his throat, teeth pressing into it only when he reaches the hollow at the top of his breastbone where he tucks away a groan. Jaskier’s hands feels so good, it feels like he’s hitting something with his cock, and really, wherever Jaskier learned this he is grateful. Geralt lowers his hips and Jaskier accommodates until his hand is wrapped around both of them, their cocks rutting against one another.

“I want-- fuck, Geralt -- I want to suck you off,” he says. “I want-- oil, we have oil, I think somewhere--”

“You’re going to come first,” Geralt says, nosing against his clavicles. His hand wraps around both of them, aiding Jaskier’s attempts and Jaskier shivers all over, his thighs twitching around him. “And when you’re all pliant and loose, we’ll see.”

Jaskier’s response is garbled by his moan.

Geralt keeps rolling his hips, fucking into the hold. Geralt’s composure now extends to his voice only, and that’s because he hasn’t been using it a lot. Inside, however, pleasure has spilled over his mind, down his back, making his rhythm erratic.

Jaskier’s hands, now liberated, claw onto his biceps, and his eyes, finally, screw shut, teeth grinding for a moment before a final series of desperate little gasps slips between them as he spills all over his belly. The scent hits Geralt’s nose then, and he feels himself growing weak, shaky, wanting . The blanket on his senses now smothers every other thought. That scent is what he’s been chasing all this time.

He can’t last. It’s impossible. He releases Jaskier and strips his cock quickly, until he’s adding to the mess on his belly, hot-white pleasure rolling down his spine. For a long moment he’s engulfed in the flames of his desire, until he’s completely spent, and the fire retreats back to the cauldron in his gut, leaving him panting and shaky.

Geralt sits back on his haunches and there’s something terribly appealing about the way Jaskier holds his legs open, the way he’s looking at him from under his lashes clumped with tears, the scent of his satisfaction.

He looks at him for maybe a little too long, as his skin cools. Long enough, at least, for Jaskier to regain sense and to swirl his fingers through the mess on his belly. Geralt’s pulse quickens almost immediately and that has to be some sort of magic, natural or not.

Jaskier doesn’t know what he’s doing. He can’t know. The scent of them two mix on his skin and though he probably has no intention of it, he almost looks as if he’s rubbing it in, and it sets Geralt’s teeth on edge.

He grabs his hand before he can think of it, and Jaskier doesn’t startle as much as his breath does. He looks at Geralt, blinking slowly, and Geralt really doesn’t know why he takes those two fingers and sucks them into his mouth.

Jaskier groans and says, “Oh fuck. You’re-- This is unfair.”

His fingers press against Geralt’s tongue, his thumb rubbing his lip. It’s Jaskier who asked to suck him off, and though they’ve both come, it seems whatever bewitchment has fallen over them hasn’t dispersed yet.

Geralt doesn’t care anymore. Tonight he can indulge and so he will. Consequences he will weather tomorrow morning when Jaskier inevitably decides this has been a mistake, as men often do when they find themselves sharing a bed with another man, or, more amicably, they will agree this was just Belleteyn and go on their usual way. Such thought brings Geralt comfort.

He lays between Jaskier’s legs, letting go of his hand so he can lap up the spent from his belly. It’s too late though, even with it all gone, he can still smell himself on Jaskier. It’s the most maddening thing.

He feels Jaskier twitching against his skin when he’s done, and he looks up at him. “Already?”

He shouldn’t be flattered really. Jaskier is twenty-something, and gets hard when the wind blows the wrong way.

“I don’t think you understand the way you look,” Jaskier replies, finally finding his words.

Geralt hums, amused, and takes hold of Jaskier’s legs, throwing them over his shoulders, before properly lowering himself between them. He can see Jaskier swallow.

“Oh,” he says, “I do.”

He licks over Jaskier’s cock, and he hears a bitten out, “Fuck you.”

It makes him hide a silent laugh into Jaskier’s belly.

Getting Jaskier hard again isn’t particularly difficult. He licks his cock until he’s pooling precome from the tip, and then licks that too, drunk both from alcohol and his scent. Jaskier’s hands, eventually, stray to his hair but it’s to release it, the leather tie flying in the general direction of the bath. Jaskier pushes his hands through it, as if he’s wanted to do this from the start, and groans even as his hips roll.

“You’re a bastard,” Jaskier eventually says, and that definitely makes Geralt laugh. That only, however, seems to make him even more miffed. “And oh now you laugh. Great, wonderful-- oh, oh --”

Geralt holds the grin as he sucks on the tip of Jaskier’s cock, tongue pushing against the crown. Jaskier shivers , and one of his hands flies up to his mouth, the other curling behind Geralt’s ear.

He pulls off and says, “You said something about oil?”

“Fuck, fuck get back there--” Jaskier whines, rolling his hips. “Later--later Geralt--”

He has to give it to Jaskier. Geralt doesn’t think he’s shared a bed with one person who was so genuinely responsive. The brothel workers tried but he didn’t care for their spurious sounds and they dropped the pretense soon after. In comparison, there’s nothing false about the way Jaskier groans when Geralt lets him slide further into his mouth until he’s halfway there, and the other half he fists in his hand.

He hasn’t done this in a long time. He doesn’t know how well he sucks, or if his hand is too rough when it starts moving around Jaskier again, but if Jaskier notices any awkwardness, he doesn’t seem to mind it. In fact he seems pretty fucking satisfied if Geralt is going by his responses.

Geralt closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling of Jaskier’s cock against his tongue, the tip rubbing against his palette, the way his thighs squeeze every so often around his ears, the hand tugging his hair, sending pleasant little signals down his spine. Jaskier doesn’t rolls his hips up. He doesn’t push Geralt’s head down. In fact he’s as still as he can be, and Geralt can sense the tensing of his belly under his hand every so often, as if he can foresee what his body wants and stops himself moments beforehand.

Geralt presses the heel of his hand on his lower belly before dragging his nails over his skin until his fingers reach the softest point of him--the gentle and unmarked flesh at the thickest point of his thighs where he splays his hand. There, he can feel how his muscles tighten and jump when Geralt pushes his tongue against the underside of his cock, taking him just that little bit deeper.

It’s a mesmerizing feeling: the ticking underneath his fingers. It speaks of some sort of rhythm between their bodies, but Geralt’s lost to the language of such signs that speak of compatibility. He has Jaskier on his tongue now, his scent filling his nose, and he can’t think of anything but chasing after that scent again, the scent that has his senses kneeling before it as if they want to get drunk on it too, just like he got drunk on plum schnapps.

His hands slides down the curve of Jaskier’s thigh until it’s framing Jaskier’s cock and tight, drawn, balls. He brushes his fingers over them and goes lower, to press just underneath, earning him a loud groan. The thighs around his ears begin to shake. The hand in his hair grows hard, holding Geralt’s head in place just as Jaskier’s hips finally lift, chasing after pleasure.

Geralt opens his eyes to look up at Jaskier, and sees that the hand, the one that was on his mouth, has now migrated lower, tugging and twisting on a nipple.

“Sorry--sorry I can’t I--” Jaskier gasps and does it again, bucking his hips and moaning these pained, needy moans that tell Geralt he’s close.

His heels dig into Geralt’s back for purchase, his thighs strain around Geralt’s neck, and the thought of pinning Jaskier leaves his mind at once. He can’t choke--he still has a hand around Jaskier’s cock, so he lets Jaskier keep bucking, until he’s a coiled string of energy, tremors running down his spine until he’s ready to burst.

“Geralt,” Jaskier moans, “Oh, fuck, I’m--”

It’s not the best warning he’s ever heard, but then Jaskier’s shooting into his mouth and he forgets about it. Geralt doesn’t usually allow this, if there’s anything usual about the handful of times he fucked men, but Jaskier’s trembling apart with a groan that makes it sound as if he’s being gutted, and his pleasure allows Geralt to remind himself of his taste that he’s been chasing. The taste of his spent that’s coating his tongue now, that he drinks down so willingly and licks Jaskier clean of, sucking him until he’s gone soft and the hand in his hair is pulling him away as much as the thighs around his ears are keeping him in place. Pleasure and pain know to mix, often, and when he looks up at Jaskier and catches his eye, it’s then that he lets him slip out of his mouth.

His eyes have gone glassy again, but with want this time. His mouth is bitten red, and Geralt moves, without much thought, to kiss him.

Jaskier groans, probably tasting himself on Geralt’s tongue, but he has one hand in Geralt’s hair still, the other on his face holding him close, and he only mutters, “ Filthy ” before kissing him again.

For a moment Geralt forgets about his need, chasing the taste of Jaskier and the schnapps on his tongue. The next time he tastes the alcohol, Geralt knows he will be thinking of this night.

Jaskier shifts then, and Geralt’s cock rubs against his belly. However, it’s Jaskier that groans in his stead.

“Come up here,” he mutters against his mouth, “fuck my throat.”

Geralt growls, pressing him into the sheets, climbing on top of him, kissing him again. “Fuck,” he says, “Not worried about your voice?”

“I doubt we’ll be near a village again very soon,” Jaskier replies. He is right, for once. Mountain villages are rare and spaced apart. There’s not many places for tillable land or good pastures, and it grows dangerous when you have to deal with wolves and bears.

Jaskier braces himself against Geralt’s shoulders, using them as leverage to slide up the bed, and turns to arrange the pillows for his comfort. While Jaskier arranges himself, Geralt decides to deal with the issue of his britches, still half down his thighs. Kicking them off is a quick feat whose momentum he uses to kneel above Jaskier’s chest once the bard motions with his hands for him to come closer.

Geralt realises that Jaskier knows what he’s doing. Many of his lovers he so often talks about were probably men. Still, Jaskier looks somewhat fragile bracketed by Geralt’s thighs in such a manner, mouth pretty and red and inviting. If Geralt’s blood wasn’t already pumping quickly, it’d be doing so now.

His cock is hard and red and really, Geralt won’t need much-- not now. He doesn’t know what happened to his stamina, and he isn’t about to ponder on it when Jaskier’s hands grip his hips, and he licks his mouth before opening it for Geralt, so he can slowly push his cock inside.

Control is difficult, yet it is something Geralt is intimately familiar with. He holds himself still, even though the inherent assumption of such a position is for him to take rather than indulge. Yet, Jaskier looks so pleased to taste him, to lick around him and feel the heaviness on his tongue that Geralt feels ill at ease to ruin his satisfaction. He doesn’t even know how his pretty little mouth will be able to take him in any capacity.

Jaskier looks up at him, cornflower blue eyes crinkling at the edges, and his hands push, signaling that he can continue. Mindful of his breathing, of his weight, of his pleasure, Geralt sinks, and sinks, and when he’s halfway in, Jaskier groans, fingers clawing at his hips.

Geralt exhales. This is why he usually doesn’t request this. Sex is, after all, quicker. He sticks with professionals because they know how to take him, endure him, and entertain him for however many days his need lasts and he can afford to abide by it. No matter how good it feels to have Jaskier like this, he should have just gotten the damn oil.

Jaskier’s fingers spasm on his hips, and then press again. Geralt thinks his vision goes a little blurry because he sinks slowly into his mouth, into his throat , until Jaskier’s nose is pressing against his belly, and his throat is tightening around him, twitching as he swallows.

Jaskier’s hands fall from his hips and slide lower to his thighs, and Geralt pulls out slowly until he’s just in his mouth. When Jaskier looks up at him again, his eyes are wet. Geralt knows he should control himself, and he does, even though he trembles from the strain as he starts moving his hips, sinking into the tight heat of Jaskier’s throat over and over again. But pleasure is always difficult to handle, especially when Jaskier moans around him, trailing his hands up his thighs until they’re squeezing his ass.

“Fuck,” he says, hips snapping forward, and then, it’s over. It feels too fucking good.

Jaskier said to fuck his throat and so Geralt grabs his hair, if nothing else but to hold onto something, and starts rolling his hips deeply, grinding against his mouth, staying there, burried inside him until he feels Jaskier’s throat convulsing and he pulls back to let him breathe. The dew on his eyelashes, that would have been alarming otherwise but now is alarmingly appealing, slips down Jaskier’s cheeks, mixing with drool on his chin as he keeps swallowing him down, over and over again, until Geralt’s cock is hitting the back of his throat.

“Hold on,” he groans, hand scrambling over Jaskier’s hair, “Alright just--”

And Jaskier hums and nods as much as he can. Geralt leans over him, resting his hands on the headboard, and starts snapping his hips in and out. If he were inside Jaskier, he doubts he would have such control. Geralt fucks hard because he likes to feel it. But this, this is something else entirely, and his belly twists from pleasure when Jaskier’s hands trace across the small of his back, his sides, down to grip his ass again before returning to his thighs, it seems just to touch him.

Geralt feels his pleasure cresting, and he growls, not particularly enthusiastic in choking him. He slips from his mouth and Jaskier closes his eyes just in time for Geralt to come all over his face. Geralt trembles, air difficult to come by at the sight beneath him. He rubs his cock over Jaskier’s abused lips until Jaskier opens again to suck him in, groaning low in his throat.

“Jaskier,” he says, voice hoarse, feeling him press his tongue against the tip of his cock, until Geralt groans again and slips out for good.

Jaskier pants, breath obviously laboured. His throat works, but it seems it’s difficult to speak. Geralt marvels in the moment.

The fact that he’s looking up at him with those eyes is getting to Geralt, as if the position itself isn’t enough to make him want to do it all over again.

In a fucked out voice, Jaskier finally says, “A rag, perhaps--”

Geralt releases the headboard and shuffles down to taste himself right over Jaskier’s lips. His mind is stuffed with cotton, orgasm chasing away everything that won’t indulge more pleasure, but he feels something shake inside him as he licks himself off of Jaskier’s face.

Jaskier complains with an aborted noise of disgust, but he’s not pushing him away. “Next time just come down my throat.”

Geralt hums, knowing full well that there’s hardly going to be a next time. But there’s a certain time for reality, and a certain time for sex talk, and he has never been wont to ruin anybody’s afterglow.

Once he’s done he tilts Jaskier’s chip and kisses him, making him taste Geralt’s spent. It’s thrilling, in a way, when Jaskier’s so responsive, as if he understands what this does to Geralt. When finally satisfied, he rolls off of him, to catch his breath on the unoccupied side of the bed.

Jaskier doesn’t make any move to curl into him or touch him, which Geralt appreciates probably more than the bard could understand. He just lays on the bed, breathing. Geralt almost tunes him out, and would have probably fallen asleep if Jaskier didn’t suddenly shift and curse.

Geralt watches him drag himself up onto his legs. Now, Geralt looks his fill of his thighs and his ass, and he doesn’t understand this want that sparks inside him again because he just had all of that under him, around him, close enough that he’s left beard burn all over Jaskier’s fair skin. The redness is obvious when he tilts his chin, spread across his neck and legs. Geralt’s marked him up with his mouth, his teeth, his scent -- that should satisfy him.

Jaskier heads for the washbasin, and proceeds to clean his face as best as he can. After he’s done, he reaches for the waterskin, and drinks his fill. Geralt doesn’t feel parched until he sees Jaskier’s long throat bobbing.

He doesn’t have to ask for it. With Jaskier, he doesn’t have to ask for a lot of things, except maybe blessed silence. The bard just assumes what Geralt needs and does that for him with no requests later, no clauses, no catch, and is right more times than not. It doesn’t stop surprising him even when it’s simply sitting on the bed, with his back against the headboard, handing Geralt the waterskin.

Jaskier reaches down for his clothes and procures a small, metal, and far too expensive-looking flask, engraved so thoroughly it can’t have come from anywhere but some other spurned lover. Jaskier, Geralt thinks, seems to like collecting trophies as much as stories and songs.

“I may or may not have nicked some of that schnapps,” he offers. His voice still sounds hoarse, like two days into a cold. It’s still an attractive sound.

Geralt is far too amused by the bard for his own good. Jaskier is, after all, shameless in this admission.

“You steal anything else?”

“All their hearts, of course,” Jaskier shoots back, and Geralt huffs out a laugh.

Jaskier grins and takes a swing himself before handing the flask to Geralt. He rests against the headboard for a long moment, averting his eyes which focus on some in the distance. Then he stands to feed the fire.

Geralt watches him, propped as he is with one hand under his head, still cooling off. He tips the flask and lets the taste of the schnapps wash over his tongue. He wonders if Jaskier understands this game they’re playing -- mounting excuses for themselves. He wonders if Jaskier will ever speak of this with him afterwards.

The coals spark against the dry bark and soon the fire bursts back to life, aiding the half-melted candles in their efforts to wash the room in pleasant orange light. From where he lays, sipping on the schnapps, he can see the slender muscles of Jaskier’s belly that flow into his leg, hiding his cock. The shadows play across his back, the slender curve of his neck, his ass, his long legs, hiding Geralt’s marks. His hair is a mess, and yet, Geralt thinks him as appealing as before. Perhaps, maybe, if he allows himself to admit it, as he has always been. At least since Geralt’s gotten to know him.

He watches the fire dance in Jaskier’s eyes and realises it’s not an unfamiliar sight. A fire has always burned there, yet never in quite so serious manner as now. More serious, at least, then Geralt’s ever seen him.

As if sensing the heaviness of Geralt’s gaze--though really where else is Geralt supposed to look with all that skin to look at--Jaskier turns and catches his eyes.

“Did you know your eyes shimmer in the dark?”

“You’ve mentioned it,” Geralt replies. “Used the word creepy. ”

Jaskier’s mouth twists, and he steps away from the fire. There’s intention in the way he walks, in the way he looks at Geralt, so Geralt pulls himself up against the headboard while Jaskier makes a stop to his pack before returning to bed, settling astride Geralt’s hips.

Jaskier doesn’t seem to know shame, in any form or manner. It makes him stupidly appealing.

“I think the atmosphere has something to do with it,” Jaskier says as he adjusts himself on Geralt’s belly. “There’s something inherent about caves that makes me think everything is creepy.”

“Oh?” Geralt lifts an eyebrow. “It isn’t just you thinking with your cock now?”

His hands reach for Jaskier independent of will, and he traces them up and down his thighs.

“Please,” Jaskier snorts. “When have I ever--”

“Prokopovo,” Geralt replies. “Lesheno, Mrdush--”

“Yes, yes alright,” Jaskier replies. “The point stands. When I see eyes reflecting at me, I first think mountain lion. And if I recall, I added that I liked them anyway.”

As he says this, Jaskier uncorks the little vial of oil he took from his pack and the scent of chamomile bursts in the air. He pours a few drops onto his hand, spreading it evenly, before reaching behind him.

Geralt’s voice is a little tight when he says, “You’re not the first one to be afraid of them.”

Jaskier hums, and Geralt reaches to pluck the cork from his mouth.

“Don’t be silly,” Jaskier says, absolutely unbothered, even as he angles his hips, clearly pushing the oil inside himself. “How long have we known each other? Two, three years? Have I ever been afraid of you?”

No, Geralt thinks.

“Yeah, there you go,” Jaskier says, as if Geralt spoke anyway. He bows over him, and Geralt is now absolutely aware of the little sounds that rest in his throat. Jaskier has flushed again, and his voice grows slightly strained when he says, “If you’re asking for adjectives, I’d say shimmery, and transcendent, and stupefying--”

“Oh shut up,” Geralt tells him, making Jaskier laugh.

“What? Everybody’s ego needs a little stroking.” As he says it his hand, the one slicked with oil, finds Geralt’s cock, and squeezes. Still, despite the attention, Geralt’s only half-hard.

“Should I blow you?” Jaskier asks, “I can, if you’d like.”

His hand leaves him, and Jaskier angles his hips again so he can stretch himself properly. Geralt’s mouth goes dry.

“How many fingers do you have inside yourself?”

“Three,” Jaskier replies.

“Hmm.” He bucks his hips slightly, and says, “Up.”

Jaskier shuffles forward a little, and Geralt cups his hand so Jaskier can pour oil into it, before reaching around where Jaskier’s fingers are still pressed inside himself.

“You gonna let me finger you or not?” Geralt asks.

“I was--” Jaskier swallows now, throat clicking, “--sort of hoping we’d get on with it.”

Still his fingers slip out and Geralt is free to press one, than another into him.

“Oh,” Jaskier gasps, tightening around the digits for a long moment before he bucks back into them. A shiver runs through him, one Geralt can feel.

Geralt knows his hands are rough, but perhaps that’s more of an addition now rather than a detriment. Jaskier is soft and slick already, but Geralt’s fingers go deeper still, stretching him further as he scissors them apart.

“Oh fuck,” Jaskier moans, the hand with the vial reaching for the headboard, the other pressing against Geralt’s belly.

He grinds back, rolling his hips to meet Geralt’s fingers, and it’s a fucking sight and a half when he throws his head back. The flush has spread from his cheeks down his neck which bobs invitingly, tempting Geralt’s teeth to sink into it, and spills across his chest. Each time Jaskier sits on his hand Geralt can feel the soft skin and muscle against his palm.

Next time, Geralt thinks, he’ll take him from behind.

Jaskier bows his head for a moment before he chuckles, voice shaky. “Should’ve let you get that oil huh?”

Amused, Geralt replies, “Probably.”

He hooks his fingers then, and Jaskier shivers. Geralt feels confident enough to add another finger, and then Jaskier is groaning, lifting himself to really ride his hand. He’s moaning quietly in his throat, and combined with the sight in front of him, it makes Geralt ache to get inside him. He’s tight, true, and wet inside, and fuck, what is he doing, he should be fucking him right now.

His mind is taken off of it when Jaskier whines and says, “Yes right, there, oh fuck Geralt--”

He rubs the same spot and Jaskier’s thighs quiver, eyes screwing shut for a long moment. His muscles ripple as pleasure courses down his body.

“Alright,” he pants, “alright, you can--unless you want me to come on your hand--”

“Don’t you want to?” Geralt asks, pressing his fingers deeper inside him.

Jaskier gasps, and when his eyes open it’s to look down at him. He stops moving his hips, and Geralt, begrudgingly, slides his fingers out.

“Much rather come on your cock,” he says, pushing himself away from the headboard to sit back onto his haunches.

Geralt takes a deep breath, and regrets it a moment later. The scent of sex may be covered in chamomile, but underneath it the scent himself on Jaskier’s skin is undeniable. It mixes in a heady concoction with Jaskier’s lust. It’s the spiciness that clings to the back of his throat and warms him up.

Jaskier pours more oil into his hand before offering the vial to Geralt so he can finally put the cork back in. He twists to look over his shoulder, the red column of his neck on full display, and palms Geralt’s cock, smearing oil on it. It’s indulgent, the way Jaskier touches him. Though they’re both needy now and expectant, his hand is slow as it jacks him off, as if Jaskier wants everything to feel good.

Finally, Jaskier lifts himself up on trembling thighs and sinks down on his cock.

Geralt doesn’t know when Jaskier did this last, but he knows tight when he feels it. Even Jaskier is aware of his limitations, and he has to stop himself three quarters of the way down. It still feels good, too good. His hole is so tight Geralt thinks he might come just by having it around his cock.

Jaskier pants quick huffs of air, clearly winded. Unable to hold off anymore, Geralt wipes his palms onto the sheets, and grabs his hips. They look far too small between his hands. Jaskier is built so differently then he and yet, in this way, they fit.

“Wait,” Jaskier says, bowing his head so all Geralt can see is the top of his head. Voice straining, the plea rises when he continues, “You’re...bigger than I thought you’d be.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls, nails digging into his skin. He doesn’t know if he’s holding too tightly anymore. He can’t tell. “You need to stop saying shit like that.”

“Or what?” Jaskier asks, lifting his head to grin at him. “You’ll fuck me?”

His smirk is lost in a groan as Geralt shifts, lifting him up, off of his cock, and sliding him down again. Jaskier’s erection has flagged, but he only knows it because he can see it. If he was going by the look on his face alone, he’d think Jaskier has never felt better.

“That-- yes ,” he chokes out, and finally gets a hold of his trembling legs that help him slide up and down Geralt’s cock. Despite the rush Geralt feels underneath his skin, it’s slow. He grips Jaskier’s hips, trying to help in any way he can.

“Work me up to it,” Jaskier says, “I want to--feel you. All of you, later.”

Geralt feels the growl in his throat just a moment before it escapes. Jaskier’s grinning again.

“I’m not just saying it so say it,” he huffs. “It-- you feel good. You’re making me feel good.”

Geralt decides that’s enough, and gets his feet underneath him so he can buck up. Whatever response to that is, it gets lost because Jaskier’s gasping, suddenly, and lifting his hips up so Geralt can do it again.

Taking it slow is brutal on both of them, muscles overworking to compensate for the position, Jaskier’s thighs holding him from sliding all the way down, Geralt’s arms and thighs burning as he keeps himself from thrusting all the way in. By the time he thinks they get a hang of it Geralt feels sweat crowd his temples, his neck, and the top of his lip. Underneath his hands, Jaskier’s skin is covered in a sheen of perspiration, his fringe plastered to his forehead.

It feels as if they’re in that cave again, moisture in the air clinging to their skin and crawling inside their lungs, and Geralt thinks how he wanted Jaskier then, wanted to lick the water off his lips and grip him in his lap until he was all warm and needy. To admit it now, seems like the simplest thing. Pleasure roils under his skin, to be felt, but nowhere near cresting. It feels good just to indulge in it even with his body straining.

Jaskier starts shifting and Geralt halts his movements. Jaskier sits up completely, and then says, “Angle.”

He doesn’t need to say more. Geralt straightens out his legs, something his thighs are thankful for, and Jaskier leans back, tight, so fucking tight, and fucks the rest of Geralt’s cock inside himself until the softness of his ass cheeks is pressed against Geralt’s thighs.

Geralt grunts but Jaskier doesn’t stop. He leans back further, finding purchase on his thighs, and starts fucking himself like that. He’s breathing as if he’s ran and Geralt feels as if he’s gone a few sparring matches himself.

Jaskier’s chest collapses quickly, showing hints of muscle and ribs, and Geralt watches it, transfixed, before his eyes go lower, and he notices the swell of his belly. The belly that still smells of him, and now, every time Jaskier falls back down onto his dick, it disappears and reappears.

“Oh fuck,” Jaskier says, “You’re harder-- how are you harder?”

Geralt releases his hip, lays his hand over Jaskier’s belly, and he can almost, almost, feel himself inside.

Jaskier focuses on Geralt’s hand long enough to notice the same bump a moment later. He squeezes around Geralt’s cock, and his eyes, when they capture Geralt’s, are completely, absolutely, consumed with need.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Geralt’s hands are on his hips again, and then he’s slipping out of him, bucking, and rolling them around so Jaskier’s pinned under him. Jaskier spreads his legs without question and Geralt grips them under his knees, bending him as far as he will bend, before sliding back inside him.

Control , Geralt thinks. Fuck control. The band around his hips finally snaps and he fucks into Jaskier like he wanted to from the beginning, grinding into him hard and fast until the air is filled with nothing but the sound of skin slapping skin each time his hips meet Jaskier’s ass, and garbled little wounded sounds that he isn’t sure are from his or Jaskier’s throat. Jaskier isn’t moaning, in fact, he doesn’t seem able to do anything more but gasp and strip his cock, the nails from his other hand biting into Geralt’s shoulder.

He looks lost to pleasure. It’s a good look on him. Geralt understands now, what his other lovers have seen, why they kept him. He understands why they broke his heart, or he broke theirs, and they still left him with their gifts because, though he says otherwise, Jaskier is no thief.

There’s something about it all, something Geralt can’t quite place, but makes him continue to fuck Jaskier hard until his pretty little hole, so stretched around him, trembles while trying to sqeeze but is restricted due to his girth, and his whole body starts spasming, and his nails burried in Geralt’s shoulders turn into claws as he lets out a little wail and spills all over his fist and belly.

Geralt fucks him through it, and fucks him until those pained little noises of overstimulation ring in his throat, and still, even when Jaskier looks dazed and he’s barely breathing, he fucks him through it too, until he’s spilling himself inside him, a growl on his lips. Even after he can’t stop, urged by the fire in his veins, until he has fucked all of his come into him and grown completely soft. It’s only then that he lets Jaskier’s quivering legs drop and he plants himself squarely on his ass next to him, catching his breath.

Fuck , Geralt thinks, that got out of hand .

Jaskier rolls slightly to the side, away from him, and breathes. He’s trembling. Aftershocks. Or, Geralt concedes, he went too far. Still, he’s farily certain Jaskier will tell him to fuck off if that’s the case so he doesn’t worry too much about it. Instead, he reaches for the waterskin, quenching his thirst.

Jaskier’s breathing evens out, slows, and then he takes a sharp breath, before turning around to look at him. “I think if you continued, you might have fucked me into another orgasm.”

Geralt sighs, relief filling his lungs, and shakes his head. “Of course that’s your takeaway from it.”

Jaskier laughs. HIs voice is even more hoarse now, almost shot through, but it’s a good sound. It’s a new sound, soft and affectionate, and sex drunk.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I can’t feel my legs, so there’s that. Good job, all in all.”

Jaskier rolls onto his belly, gets his arms underneath him, but remains looking at Geralt. The curve of his spine and his ass is still inviting. Geralt feels like a dog in rut.

“Thanks for the evaluation,” Geralt replies dryly, offering the waterskin, but Jaskier refuses.

They’re too close. Geralt can feel the heat from Jaskier’s skin, see the sweat run down his arm and spine. Yet, Geralt can’t make himself move away.

Jaskier hums quietly, moving his feet like a cat kneading the sheets, trying to find a comfortable position. As if, Geralt thinks amused, he has to do something at all times. Yet, his usual restlessness has been soothed.

Eventually, Jaskier lies on his side, sliding a knee up towards himself for comfort. The scent hits Geralt then, the scent of himself on Jaskier refreshed. He really may be a dog in rut tonight because, even after everything, he feels his cock give a valiant twitch. He knows how many times he can go in a night. He knows how many times he can go in a day. He also knows that it’s not the same for other men. Still, he shifts, even though it’s too soon, to kneel between Jaskier’s legs.

“Geralt?” Jaskier asks, and he truly sounds fucked out. “What are you-- oh gods --”

Geralt spreads his cheeks to watch how come drips from his loose pink hole.

“I can’t-- I mean I can , and I definitely want to, but a little rest--”

Geralt bends down to lick himself off of his skin. Jaskier’s words lose themselves in a little moan, and then he manages to scramble out, “No, nevermind, continue please.”

Jaskier’s ass is firm underneath his hands, yet dwarfed when he splays his fingers. That too twists something in his belly.

Geralt licks into him, lapping up his spent, and when he can’t fuck it out with his tongue anymore he uses his fingers, scooping it all out, and continuing anyway after he’s done until Jaskier’s shaking and making pleading little noises in the back of his throat.

Geralt reaches under him, and sees he’s still soft.

“Too much?” Geralt asks when he lifts his mouth away. It comes out as a barely coherent growl.

He’s reddened this fair skin too and he laps over it again, unable to stop himself, pressing his tongue flat over Jaskier’s hole. If he could he’d fuck back inside him this instant. Jaskier’s a little loose, and pink, and wet, and warm, and his scent is so fucking inviting that Geralt isn’t sure what to do with himself anymore.

“Fuck me,” Jaskier says.

Geralt groans. “Jaskier--”

“Come on, you can’t just-- just do that and not--” The whine is his tone is obvious and grating. Jaskier takes a breath, then continues, “It feels good, and it hurts, and it feels good alright? And I know-- I know how long usually you go anyway--”

“Doesn’t mean--”

Jaskier lifts his head up and looks over his shoulder at him.

“I’m giving you a blank check, Geralt. Tonight is-- hmm-- tonight so do what pleases me, and I’m going to do what pleases you, alright?” Geralt feels a lump in his throat. He swallows it down. Jaskier adds, “Anyway, I cant belive I’m talking you into fucking me? Don’t you have a cock, man?”

Geralt growls and Jaskier laughs.

In the end, Geralt does as he’s told, and slides back home inside him, cutting off his laughter and turning it into a groan.

-

By the time Jaskier blacks out or falls asleep, Geralt’s isn’t sure which, the candles have almost burned down. Geralt lays under a thin blanket that feel too harsh on his skin, still covered in sweat. The night is still potent and strong -- he can’t hear any other person close to the inn. Or Jaskier’s just tired him out enough that his senses have decided to protest further use.

Jaskier’s next to him on his belly again, only this time most of his skin is striped in Geralt’s spent. He doesn’t seem to mind this. He didn’t seem to mind anything, except perhaps his hair being pulled, and that was easy enough to resist. Why pull his hair when Geralt can press his hand against his forehead to pull his head back while he grinds into him?

As it is, they’ll both need a bath in the morning. Jaskier will wash Geralt’s scent from his skin, and it will be as if nothing at all has happened. Its presence doesn’t reinvigorate Geralt anymore; the need simmering under Geralt’s skin has finally exhausted itself. He simply feels sated even as he himself falls asleep and wakes, only a couple hours later, with the first dawn.

He would linger in bed, but the air is stuffy, too warm, making him feel overheated, even though he’s covered Jaskier with most of the blankets.

Getting to his feet is easier than it has ever been after a long night of drinking. His joints pop when he stretches, muscles pulling in that pleasant way like after a good sparring, and the sated beast inside him rolls onto its back happy to, for once, help him ignore his old pains.

Geralt pads over to one of the windows and cracks it open, careful not to make too much noise. Brisk morning air rushes in, carrying the scent of old smoke, dew, and pine. He drinks his fill, watching as dawn chases night’s darkness across the sky, turning it from indigo, Cintran blue, to powdered blue of Jaskier’s clothes.

The silence is audible. Nothing stirs, at least, not for a little while yet. With one ear turned inside, he can hear Jaskier’s soft breathing. In sleep, Jaskier usually stirs, restless even then, but not now.

Geralt steps away from the window. He realises his mistake when he feels his heart stutter. He got accustomed to the air inside but now, refreshed, he can smell everything they’ve been doing last night. The scent of sex clings to the room, want, need, palpable, release heady, making his mouth water. Geralt opens the window wider. It will filter out eventually.

He goes to the hearth to stir the dying embers and build up a fire. A bath in the cold is never particularly pleasant. Then, though he’s loathed to do it, he dresses and goes downstairs. The inn owner, whose room is on the ground level, is asleep if the sound of his snoring is anything to go by.

Geralt heads for the kitchen where a low fire still burns--the only thing in its proper place. Someone managed to bring back some of the chairs and tables, but they’re all amassed in one corner. There’s leftover schnapps and food, and Geralt helps himself to it while he sets one of the large cauldrons to warm the water.

He supposes that Jaskier will be sore. He also assumes that walking, for too long, will be absolutely out of the question. He grumbles under his breath as he goes upstairs, carrying the cauldron in one hand, and some pilfered food in another. However, he can only blame himself for that. Whatever idiotic insatiability pushed him last night until Jaskier was sobbing into the blankets, has now retreted, thank the fucking gods.

Only a little maneuvering is needed for him to set the food on the table, pour the warm water into the bath, and return the cauldron downstairs to warm some more.

His muscles uncoil when he dips himself inside. He washes his skin and hair with liberal amounts of soap, ridding himself of Jaskier’s scent. Yet, he feels, when he redresses, that it still clings to his skin like an invisible mark.

By the time he’s drained the bath and drawn another one, Jaskier begins to stir. Geralt watches him attempting to stretch which only makes him hiss in pain, and lift himself slowly until the blankets pool around his waist. He blinks owlishly at the bed, at the floor then around the room until he spots Geralt. His eyebrows draw together.

Geralt can see the redness on his neck, scratches, bruises and bite marks. Geralt can’t remember the last time he lost it so hard. Usually, he knows how to handle himself. Usually, people are cross with him for a single mark. Jaskier however, has dozens all over his body, on his chest especially when Geralt had teased him and fucked between his pretty little tits.

Jaskier’s mouth works as if he isn’t sure what to say. Geralt stills, growing uncertain himself. It was Belleteyn last night, but that’s no longer the case, not as soon as the sun breaks over the mountains. He’s been with enough men to expect the words: “ This was a mistake, ” and “ I was drunk, ” and an abundance of awkwardness. So he rises an eyebrow and crosses his hands over his chest, prompting the bard to say something.

Jaskier’s voice is gone, cracking and exhausted, but he manages to say, “It stinks in here.”

Geralt closes his eyes and huffs. Of course. Of course that’s Jaskier’s first complain.

“You stink,” Geralt replies, and he isn’t too wrong. Jaskier looks offended, but he doesn’t have the energy to protest.

“Water,” he mouths, and why Geralt moves at all to hand it to him he doesn’t know. Yet, he does, and Jaskier drinks his fill and sighs.

Jaskier looks at Geralt, something curious behind his eyes. Last night there was something spectacular about the way he looked at Geralt, like he really wanted him, which made Geralt take him until they were both bone-tired. This morning, it only inspires the well-known discomfort.

“Bathe,” he says, throwing a washing cloth at him.

Jaskier huffs, and sits up. “Fine,” he says, as if he’s conceding to Geralt rather than following reason.

He pushes himself off of the bed but with a first step his legs buckle underneath him, and he lands down onto his ass with a pained yelp.

“Oh,” Jaskier says, face coloring. “Uh, a little help here?”

Begrudgingly, Geralt walks over. It’s easier to hoist him up than help his fawn legs across the floor, and Jaskier holds tightly onto him as he lowers himself into the bath. His body disappears from sight, hidden beneath the refracted light, and the scent of Geralt on his skin is momentarily extinguished.

Jaskier groans, pleased, and the discomfort stirs in Geralt’s gut. “Thanks,” he says, oblivious. “Everything’s sore now.”

Geralt acknowledges this only with a hum and stands, unable but to linger on the scene in front of him for a moment too long, before he turns on his heel and leaves. Best, he thinks, that way.

Chapter 3: Summer

Notes:

Thanks for the comments, they're all lovely. Hope you enjoy this chapter :)

With the incessant beating of the summer sun swaddling the heat starved hilltops and valleys, the world becomes an oil-spill of colors. In the distance, Geralt sees the mountaintops that pierce the sky still wearing their white hats whereas the rest of their coat has turned a deep emerald hue that now appears almost black. The base of those peaks remains hidden by two ranges of olive-colored-mountains. They descend into sloping hills, so tightly packed with trees, that from a distance their outline is fuzzy and cloud-like, if clouds wore that vibrancy of color green. The tint spills into the valley at the bottom where fields of hay are separated only by a winding river that cuts the valley in half.

The exhausted grasses that were hiding under blankets of snow now stand tall and grow waist-high, hiding field mice, snakes, and birds that take flight when startled by Roach’s puffing and neighing. Bushes of prickly blackberry and raspberry followed the goat paths Jaskier and he pass, descending into the valley after summiting the mountain, accompanied by a few lonely poppies that swing in the breeze. Jaskier has plucked one from the road, and it has been resting behind his ear for the better part of the day.

Jaskier hums to himself now, never quiet, but these days it fits right in with the background. After all summer, unlike winter, can never be silent. If it isn’t birds chirping and buzzards calling from on high, it’s the squealing in the grasses, bleating of ibex and mountain sheep, the buzzing of flies and bees, and occasional bumblebees that trot behind them, jumping from flower to flower.

Tempered as the young summer usually is, the pleasantness extends even to the scents in the air as ferns, quillworts and sedge mix with the wildflowers that have started to blossom, overpowering the scent of horse. Geralt isn’t looking forward to higher temperatures.

The first village they come across has only six houses, and is closest to the river source, where the water bubbles up in large shallow pools. A drowner problem is easy to solve, but they can only be repaid in food and information.

Being pointed towards another village in need is as good as coin, and so Geralt and Jaskier do not linger there that night, but instead head northwards, following the winding riverbed.

They camp near the riverbank roasting rainbow trout that Geralt caught only minutes earlier, seated on thick woolen quilts they acquired three villages back. Jaskier insisted on them despite both of them having bedrolls, and each morning diligently plucks whatever got stuck in them, brushes off the grass stains and packs them away. Comfort for Geralt usually isn’t an issue because it’s never the objective as its difficult to find it sleeping in the wild.

However, Jaskier looks just this side of snug with his feet thrust out to the fire to warm them after he washed them into the river water, his quilt covering the log he rests his head on as he plucks at the strings of his lute. Above him the moon is absent, yet the sky is still bright with the splattering of stars that form a loose arching line.

Jaskier usually works on his new songs in the night, puzzling over words that sound different but mean the same, trying to fit them into meaning under rules of songwriting Geralt has never learned.

Despite the constant use, the lacquer on Filavandrel’s lute has not yet worn down. It glistens in the firelight as Jaskier shifts the instrument closer to his face as he inspects the strings and the pegs--something he does much more rarely than Geralt would have thought.

Geralt’s hearing has been altered due to his mutation. Jaskier’s seems to have been taught to focus on certain frequencies--Jaskier knows when he’s out of tune almost as quickly as Geralt.

It’s only in these moments that he sees Jaskier’s face grow so focused and serious that he can almost imagine what he might look like in three decades, if he doesn’t get himself killed beforehand.

Geralt easily admits that he doesn’t know much about music. He knows the tavern jigs packed with story he hears during his travels, he knows the ballads and masterful performance the highborn prefer, and he knows when something sounds bad.

After meeting Jaskier, Geralt has also learned that there are trends, and that there are people who push the boundaries of what is well-established. Jaskier’s sound is different enough from the rest to be entertaining, but similar enough not to be rejected.

As Jaskier sets his hands to the strings, not just plucking at them to test but playing, he sounds nothing like his usual tunes. Fingers of both hands dance on the twelve strings of the lute, as if chasing after one another, creating clean but complex melodies that sound like a mix between Zerrikanian and Nilfguaardian music.

Jaskier doesn’t sing, yet, whatever song he is playing makes Geralt think of horses in gallop, of a chase through the planes, of a desert and high summer heat. No bard Geralt’s come across has ever played something like this: old enough to carry a memory, composed to impress an image into his mind, and different enough for Geralt not to grow bored listening. Smoke fills Geralt’s lungs, and for a moment he thinks it’s a song of fire spreading across burning hills; it’s not rare for the mountains to catch on fire during high summer.

Abruptly, the music stops. But the song continues in Geralt’s ear for a few lingering moments, until it fades into the sounds of night.

“Why don’t you play more of that?” he asks Jaskier, without really intending to.

Geralt feels as if he’s been put to half-sleep. He would blame magic but there is no magic here, just the summer night, Jaskier, and fire. Perhaps that’s magic in its own right.

“For you, I’d play anything, Geralt,” Jaskier says, as if such a thing is obvious, and he even sounds delighted to do it.

Geralt feels something strike him between his lungs and tightens. Before Jaskier can continue, he adds, “I mean in taverns.”

Realization is soft on Jaskier’s face, as is the little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “For whom, exactly? People don’t want to hear these ballads, they want to be entertained.”

“In courts then.” Geralt knows Jaskier has numerous patrons. He supposes he understands why now.

“It sounds too southern, or it sounds too western, or its too boring. Courts want polite songs of love and lovers told in words they can understand,” Jaskier replies. “All these compositions are good for today is warming up the fingers and checking the tune. My teachers would be appalled if--”

He shakes his head, laying to rest the last part of his sentence with a roll of his shoulder.

It strikes Geralt then, how much Jaskier doesn’t belong to his world. He does not know from which family Jaskier comes from, but they had to be influential enough to have Jaskier be taught lute. He is of a different world than his. And yet, Geralt thinks, here they are. Jaskier has chosen this path.

“Don’t scowl,” Jaskier tells him. “The evening is beautiful, and here you are, ruining the view.”

Geralt gives him a look and Jaskier smirks.

“Alright,” he amends, “ maybe you’re not ruining the view because you are the view, but the point still stands--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, cutting off his ramblings.

Jaskier hums in question, smirking. He shifts his legs, knee drawing up an inch, but it’s an inch of invitation. Jaskier has been inviting him since they left that village, two days after Belleteyn.

Geralt’s pulse quickens when he releases the lute and lays it down next to him. There’s intent in his gaze now, intent that wets Geralt’s tongue, makes him realise Jaskier’s scent has turned sharp and spicy. Geralt wants to bury his face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in until his lungs are full of him. He wants to take him by the waist, and sit him in his lap until they fit. He wants to beat redness into his cheeks and skin with his lips, tongue, and stubble. He wants to see Jaskier’s back curve, like it curved that night on Belleteyn. It’s not an uncommon thought these days.

He was right to think they wouldn’t speak of it afterwards -- they still haven’t. Jaskier flirts and Geralt looks, and Jaskier invites him without words, over and over again until it’s easier to give in than suffer this temptation.

Geralt thinks, as Jaskier stands, it didn’t take much, even the first night after Belleteyn. Jaskier just hit his leg where Geralt was curled up on the other side of the bed, rose on one elbow to look at him over his shoulder and said, “Look.” And Geralt, choking on his scent and the want in it, toppled him to the bed again and kisses him until they were panting and sweaty, and both in need.

Now, Jaskier kneels over Geralt, blocking out the firelight, making the edges of him soft and aglow. His fingers are in Geralt’s hair, brushing it away from his face, touching his cheeks, neck, shoulders, making his presence known in gentle yet maddening ways. Gentleness, after all, is from a different world and burns in its newness, exposing the raw center of him.

Jaskier may not leave his scent on Geralt’s skin, and what damage his nails do heals the next day. It’s instead in this way, in the cruelness of his gentleness, that he burns himself into Geralt’s skin, sinks into him, and Geralt is daft enough to let him do it because he is stupidly easy for Jaskier.

Geralt shudders, closes his eyes, and says, “We can’t keep doing this.” Yet, he pries them open the next moment, unwilling to lose a moment of this.

Jaskier’s hands stray lower, to pluck at the buttons of his shirt. His breath ghosts over Geralt’s skin, as if unsure whether he wants to lay his mouth on his neck, jaw, or mouth. The warmth of his body is familiar and intoxicating.

Geralt curls one of his hands around Jaskier’s nape, and guides it up into his hair, which he tugs. The breath he startles out of Jaskier’s mouth strikes a fire in Geralt’s belly, a fire that guides his other hand to cup Jaskier through his pants.

“Last time,” Jaskier moans, pushing into Geralt’s hand. It’s a promise he’s heard before. Every time since Belleteyn has been their last, until it happened again.

‘Really, this time,’ he wants to say, but then Jaskier seems to have finally made up his mind, and when he kisses Geralt it’s as if an avalanche of pleasure has descended upon his mind, burying Geralt’s thoughts with smells, sounds, sensations all colored in Jaskier’s particular tint of blue.

His gut twists with want when Jaskier moans, inflaming him completely, as if Jaskier has been feeding him fire instead of kisses. He’s weak to stop himself from sitting him in his lap, and letting his hands sneak under his shirt, touching warm skin. It’s simple to lose reason for a little while, for however long this will last, as long as he has Jaskier close, under his hands, melting.

-

They arrive in Leshovo in time to catch the summer solstice celebration just as the light has turned the whole world golden. Small villages like this, there’s nothing to do except have a day free of duties to break bread with other families, and that seems to be exactly what the people have done. Gathered outside under a large oak, Geralt sees them sitting in the grass and on thick blankets, sharing wine and food, and carrying a tune.

It’s the children who notice him and Jaskier first, always looking for entertainment, and run ahead of them to warn the others. However, unlike the village elders they faced before, now a woman steps away from the group to greet them.

After bauks and poludnicas, it’s a relief now to see nothing more than a witch.

“Good day, travelers. What might bring a witcher to our village?” the woman asks, clearly suspicious.

“Passing through,” Geralt replies. “Heading for a village named Krkinje.”

Understanding passes over her face, and a smile blooms, lighting up her face. “Ah, we’ve been hearing of a devil plaguing those parts. You’ll have to take the western pass, but before going, why don’t you sit with us? I am Katya.”

“Geralt. I’d appreciate it.”

Her smile brightens even more, making her dimples prominent. “And who’s your friend?”

Geralt glances back to see Jaskier squatted down, chatting with the children. Geralt sighs. “That’s Jaskier. He’s a bard.”

“Oh, then we might have use of you yet,” Katya laughs.

She has almond fox eyes that glow amber in the light, a scattering of freckles over her brown skin, a smirk to entice any man, and long dark hair left undone. She’s the only one who doesn’t wear it either hidden under a veil or in braids.

Katya turns and her hair follows the movement, enveloping Geralt’s senses for a long moment with the scent of hay, soap and mint.

Quick on her bare feet, she reaches the villagers ahead of him and announces, “Everyone, we will be having a bard entertain us tonight!”

Jaskier does a little flourish with his hand, always a crowd-pleaser and an attention seeker, and it is not long before they’re sat together: Katya on Geralt’s right, Jaskier on his left. They’re poured wine, offered food, given bread from the celebration loaf, and after all proprietary customs are finished, the song requests come in.

At once the air is filled with the sound of lute. Jaskier’s voice follows along his quick melodies, singing about nothing more than mountains and valleys--something like a love for a home coloring his voice. Perhaps even Jaskier gets homesick.

They should not linger--they still have a long way to go to Krkinje. Devils don’t exist, just like absolute evil doesn’t, but he’s a bloodhound enough to smell coin. Yet, somehow time passes quickly sitting there, eating, sipping on wine, watching children play together and adults talk when not singing and sing when they’re not silent, all swaying and humming, pulled to the rhythm of Jaskier’s music. There’s magic in that too. Jaskier may be entirely human but this is that ‘salt and earth’ sort of everyday magic that makes life for these people, that makes Geralt’s life, a little easier to bear.

When everyone’s gotten into their cups, everyone at least except Jaskier and he, Katya touches his hand and nods towards the fields. She stands then, and Geralt follows.

Witches bless the fields during midsummer either in high noon or during these golden hours. Dressed in simple skirts that show off her proportions, Katya twirls in the air, carried by Jaskier’s music. Chuckling to herself, she walks backwards into the fields, still barefoot and unbothered.

She quirks her finger at him and Geralt sighs, following after her as she speaks quiet favors to the earth, blessing not only the crops she wades through but all the crops throughout the valley, for the hay harvest to follow. It is a good day today, the longest day of the year. The power of the sun, the magic created from chaos, rises, and he has been using it to strengthen his sigils and increase their intensity. Magic is thick in the air and for once that isn’t a bad thing.

“Young,” he comments, “for you to become a witch.”

“Young you are too, to be a witcher,” she replies.

He hums. “I am older than you think.”

Her laughing, fox eyes turn to his. He feels the pull, the quickening in his blood. He is surprised to find its not as overwhelming as it would have usually been, faced with a beautiful woman.

Her lips twist into a smile. “Then you like pretty young things around you.”

Geralt isn’t sure if she’s talking about herself or someone else. “Do you blame me?” he asks, not caring much if either is the case.

“Not at all,” she replies turning around. Her waist is slim, hips wide. But it isn’t her hips that he’s thinking about.

Geralt left bruises last time Jaskier rode him, and he wonders if they healed yet, and he wonders if Jaskier will come to him again tonight if they linger after all even though doing anything is stupidly dangerous in such a small place. He shouldn’t and Geralt shouldn’t let him even if he does--he should let that last time be the last.

“After all,” Katya continues, “I cannot think even I would give up the eyes that look at me so.”

Geralt frowns. “Stop with the riddles.”

Katya laughs. “We have a song here,” she says, as if it matters. “ Pluck his eyes, two blue skies, trade them for two sapphires. He will always need you then, and you will need riches still, ‘cause he cannot till the land. ”

“Fun,” he replies dryly. “Why are always folk songs so dreary?”

“Because they were instructions, once,” she smiles.

Dusk colors the sky a rich orange hue this shade of bloody. Everything is rich during summer. But indigo stretches, reaching across the horizon, snuffing out the color. The witching hour passes too, and in the infant night the world falls silent and comes to a still. Then, songs spills again and when Geralt turns back he sees that a fire has been built under the oak, where he can see a few reluctant drunks trying to dance and failing, much to the amusement of the onlookers. The night is warm and pleasant, and it would not be difficult falling asleep right there.

“The fern flower blooms tonight,” Katya says, making him look away from the crowd. Behind her, the forest heaves, as if two lungs expanding. He can see small lights flickering between trees, and the sound of young voices laughing. “The young ones have gone to look for it. Shall we look as well?”

The fern flower is a myth. He knows well enough that it’s couples that go in search of it: girls crowned with flower wreaths and boys to keep company. If they return, and the wreath is on his head, they are to be engaged. But Geralt is tired of myths, monsters, and the rest. The song, familiar, calls to him instead.

In his silence, Katya finds an answer. They return quicker than they left, the sound of Jaskier’s lute and laughter evident even amongst the chatter of people, and growing louder as they approach. He always fits in, Geralt thinks, and he never stays.

Katya gives Geralt a sly look before she rushes ahead, leaving him to stalk back at his own pace. She claps along with the music, and no sooner than she’s brought the scent of hay and night with her, she has also found herself in Jaskier’s lap.

Jaskier laughs at that as well, one of his hands circling around her waist to hold her so she doesn’t fall.

“Why I am flattered,” he smiles, looking up at her.

“Do you sing romantic songs?” she asks, batting her lashes.

“Why, m’lady, of course!”

“And do you know any about blue eyes?”

Jaskier’s smile turns questioning, and yet he nods.

“Is there a special someone on your mind?” The lilt of his voice is suggestive but quiet, only for the two of them. Not for the first time, Geralt’s hearing makes him an interloper.

She grins. “Not telling.”

Jaskier chuckles. Then turns to the people and says, “The lady asked for a song.”

She sits next to him and Jaskier strums his lute. “ Tell me, where have you gone with your pale eyes, and whose name rests on your lips. Tell me who creases your sheets, and who has the golden keys to your secret chambers? ”

It’s a quick song, one for fun, and Katya joins in, clapping filling in the absence of drums.

“ Come on ,” Jaskier sings, “ My blue sapphire, come on, my longing and restlessness, come to me and stay .”

He doesn’t think Jaskier would like being compared to treasures very much. It’s banal, and overused, and his poetry, just like his style of music, is ahead of these rural parts. Yet, here he indulges Katya, sings music these people want to hear, perhaps even need to hear. And even so engrossed, his eyes meet Geralt’s and they fill with warmth-- warmth that wasn’t there before for the others, yet sparks for him. His mouth tugs into a smile, coloring the longing in the song a happy wanted note. It makes Geralt want to take him apart, splay him on a bed and ruin him.

Geralt crosses his hand in front of him and feels as if, whatever game he and Katya were playing, he has just lost.

-

Geralt wakes up with his nose pressed to the nape of Jaskier’s neck. The scent of him has filled his lungs and coated his tongue. It’s trapped between them by a blanket creating a holding chamber that spikes its intensity. It’s clean sweat, and oils, and beneath it all, soap and skin. It’s comforting in its familiarity. Juxtoposingly, having it so close now as they lay on their sides, their bodies very nearly touching, incites him.

Summer nights, even in valleys, know to be cold and this isn’t the first time Geralt has awoken to Jaskier being close. It’s the first time, however, since this whole thing began. The first time that he knew he was allowed to touch, and that it would be welcome.

The house creaks as the wood cools and settles. Unaccustomed to having a roof over his head and packed earth underneath with blankets as cushioning for his bones, sleep’s visits are brief. He’s roused by something else quickly, be it Katya’s soft breath coming from her bedroom above them, the cat’s purring at the foot of the fireplace, or the scent of herbs that hang from the wooden beams, perfuming the night air, which made him press his face to Jaskier’s neck in the first place.

Geralt noses over Jaskier’s hair and behind his ear, where he catches a whiff of whatever flower he had there the other day. Even like this, soaked in sleep, he wants him. It has become a constant as of late -- this feeling, this hunger, and he fears he will never be cured of it again.

Geralt curls his hand over Jaskier’s hip, feeling the softness of his clothes against his calloused palm. He should stop. Yet, he rubs his thumb over the fabric, chasing the pattern on the silk as much as the feeling of Jaskier under his hand, wondering what the hell he’s doing the whole time. They went to bed drunk, and for once nothing happened--Jaskier was either tired or too well-aware of dangers of extending an invitation tonight. He should let this affair come to its natural conclusion: let it come to an end.

Instead, Geralt presses his face into the junction of Jaskier’s neck and shoulder, where the soft cotton of his embroidered undershirt softens the press of his nose. Jaskier is made of juxtapositions: sharp eyes but sweet tongue, hard in built but soft of skin, wrapped in cold colors but all warm on the inside. He sees danger and runs to it, sees safety and leaves. He’s with Geralt, here and now, when he could be still in the same court Geralt left him in.

Geralt doesn’t understand him but he’s never been good with people so that’s not the issue. What alarms him is that he doesn’t understand himself , and this craving within him that has his hand leaving Jaskier’s hip to slip over his belly and up to his chest, just to touch him. Then, all he can smell, see, hear, touch, is Jaskier.

It’s why he notices when Jaskier rouses, toeing the doors of wakefulness open enough for the change in his breathing, and the way his heartbeat picks up--a rabbit taking off through the grass. Geralt closes his eyes, but caught, he doesn’t move. Instead, he waits for Jaskier to push him off.

“Geralt?” Jaskier whispers, and his hand lands right over Geralt’s, not to push, but just to rest.

Geralt takes a deep breath and rumbles out in reply.

There, just like that, he senses Jaskier’s scent change to spice once again, and Geralt feels heat shoot down his spine, a shiver, like his body has been trained into it.

Jaskier shifts, and slots himself into Geralt, his back into Geralt’s chest, knees tucked together, and Geralt squeezes him to himself.

“Do you--” he whispers, bucking his hips back into him. “I thought-- with Katya--”

Geralt huffs over his neck, and kisses it. “No,” he whispers back.

He can hear Jaskier’s heart trip over itself. His grip tightens on Geralt’s hand when he twists to look over his shoulder. Geralt lifts himself up on an elbow to look at him. He’s sure that in the darkness of the room Jaskier cannot even see the shape of his face, just his eyes, and yet it seems somehow important to look at him, and to lean down and kiss him. For a moment Geralt sinks into that softness as well, the softness of his mouth hiding sharp teeth that rarely sink into Geralt except in pleasure. Jaskier tastes like sleep and schnapps--like candied lemon peel.

When they part Geralt presses their foreheads together. “Sleep,” he says, far too fond for his own good.

“You can, you know, touch me,” Jaskier mumbles, only a breath separating their lips. “Even if I’m asleep.”

Geralt groans low in his throat and screws his eyes shut. He can hear Jaskier shaking, laughter silent and hidden behind his smile.

“Another time. We’re guests,” he replies in the end.

He can hear the surprise in Jaskier’s hitched breath. He can see the way he looks at Geralt when he lifts himself up, and when he turns back and gets comfortable. Geralt never talked about before or after. He never initiated it first either. Tonight, he knows, he submitted to it in the end. He reached out for Jaskier. He’s holding him now. Jaskier, loud as he may be, has sharp eyes and speaks Geralt’s language well--he speaks the language of signs. So Geralt gives up and gives in, lays down in the softness that is Jaskier and opens the doors to him, the doors to the softest bits of him, small and vulnerable, and hopes he won’t be hurt again.

However much Geralt wants him, the hunger inside him is sated just by this touch, small and sentimental and casual, and Jaskier slips back to sleep, blissfully unaware of the consequences of him. Geralt tries to breathe, and tries not to feel as if his slow, slow heart is trying to escape his chest.

-

Srem isn’t a village exactly. It’s far too big to be one, and yet, it’s so rural, and so dependent on agriculture, that it cannot be a town. Either way, it’s the closest thing to it they have seen in months.

This summer has dragged itself slowly, for once, even though he’s had more work. Between Krkinje and Srem, travelling longer and sleeping less, he thought the days would blur, but they don’t. He isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or not.

As it is, Srem is welcome because larger villages care less for outsiders, and this one seems to have only one thing on its mind -- preparation for Lammas . They’re a week early, and Geralt doesn’t care to stay to see it.

Between singing in the bed and trying to heal his voice for the day, Jaskier finds time to complain about it.

“Look,” he says, in that usual way of his, “I like playing in inns and taverns. But Lammas is literally celebrations of wealth. Feast of the Scythe and all that.”

“Farmers sacrifice cereals, fruits and vegetables on the fields,” Geralt says. “No coin in it for you.”

“Quite the opposite. It’s my favorite holiday for a reason , Geralt.” He takes a sip of his herbal tea, now gone cold. “Everyone, human or otherwise, wants to hear songs of Dana Meadbh, and I have accrued plenty.”

Geralt grunts. That is true. Dana Meadbh is the eternal one, goddess of earth, loving everyone and everything alive. There are no temples for her, and there never will be--she cannot be contained. She is worshiped in front of people, in front of the sun or bonfire, brazenly, loudly, with pride. Showing love to her is as blatant as she shows it back to them--in the world going green once again.

Something in Jaskier’s voice softens, and he pokes Geralt’s naked shoulder.

“Anyway,” he says, adjusting himself against the headboard. “I know you’re the first one who likes spending some time in civilization. Baths, drink, women, what more to ask for?”

Geralt snorts against Jaskier’s hip. “How do you have this much sass in the morning?”

“Alright,” Jaskier concedes. “Baths and drink. Still good, isn’t it? Just think of the succulent lamb.”

Jaskier’s hand finds his hair, and Geralt groans when his fingers push through it. Jaskier pets his, massages his scalp, and hums to himself as if he’s satisfied just to do this. Perhaps, he is. After all, Jaskier does what he pleases.

The morning they woke up in Katya’s home, Jaskier stiffened and turned, and Geralt kissed him. Since then, this unspoken arrangement between them has extended to morning as well, to these casual touches, to lingering in bed to chase pleasure together. Geralt has given up trying to stop it.

He knows that this change affects him. The only solace Geralt has is that it appears as if Jaskier’s affected as well. Where once, in a village like this, he would have headed straight for the brothel while Jaskier broke at least three hearts, or more likely, gotten shived outside the tavern, now they lay in the inn, engrossed in each other. Jaskier is liberal with his hands, and words, and kisses, and doesn’t hide just how pleased he is with the turn of events. What that means is beyond Geralt.

He sniffs Jaskier’s skin, mouthing at it to tease and marveling at the softness and smoothness under his mouth. Jaskier’s body responds as if starved for affection.

“Again?” he asks, tugging at the sheets to reveal Jaskier’s half-hard cock.

“What else do you expect when you’re--right there,” Jaskier grumbles.

Geralt chuckles low in his throat and shifts to kiss more soft skin stretched over Jaskier’s belly. Unsurprisingly, he finds himself there. These days, Jaskier always smells of him, tastes of him, no matter the potency of his soap and oils. It does something to Geralt, bringing some distant, red-eyed beast alive.

He should come to terms with the fact that this arrangement will end, because he’s gotten used to Jaskier like this now, and it’s difficult for him to break patterns. Jaskier will see reason soon enough. He just needs to meet the right person. He just needs another winter -- he will find a court to impress and ladies to entertain.

Geralt doesn’t want to feel hurt by this. Thinking about it hurts him anyway, and he wishes he knew why. The discomfort from before has twisted into this strange sense of yearning, because Jaskier is beautiful and not his, and it flares up each time he sees Jaskier flirting with someone other than him. Yet, at the same time, he cannot be anything else but amused by him and amazed at his shamelessness. Whatever the hell their arrangement these days is, it definitely doesn’t involve not fucking other people.

Katya comes to his mind again, her chestnut hair, her fox eyes, her easy smile, and the waist that he could have circles with both his hands. And then he takes a breath and smells himself on Jaskier, and underneath he smells Jaskier himself, spicy, wanting, and those thoughts perish.

He shifts until his head is in Jaskier’s lap, licking him to full hardness.

Jaskier’s hand is tentative where it brushes hair from his face and tucks it behind his ear. He doesn’t speak, though Geralt knows he wants to. Instead, he just touches his face, rubbing traces of himself onto Geralt. It’s the biggest cruelty anyone has ever done to him yet. A cruelty, only because he wants it, but shouldn’t.

Jaskier’s breath hitches and the first hums leave his throat, controlled and soaked in unhurried pleasure. When Geralt takes him in his mouth it’s not to drive him wild, it’s to hear it again, and feel his fingers in his hair, and his soft little, “Geralt.”

Sex has become strange for Geralt -- he’s always craving Jaskier now, his blood rushing down at simple things as if he were still a youth, and yet, when he’s there, when he can take, he’s halted by an inescapable need to please Jaskier. A need that feel more like taking a sacrament, worshiping at the altar of his body, if altars could contain any part of Jaskier, because to see him come undone feels like more of a victory than his own release.

“You’re--oh fuck-- you’re going to kill me.”

Geralt hums and sucks harder. The thing is, Jaskier is still so responsive even though Geralt is familiar. As if what gets him off is the fact that Geralt’s doing it. Taking him apart he does readily because his noises, his hands, his fucked out breath later, is rewarding in itself, even as Geralt bucks his hips, unhurried, rubbing his cock against the sheets.

He forgets about their conversation as he does this, distracted by the feel of Jaskier in his mouth, the heaviness on his tongue, the taste of him when he swallows, the headiness he feels when Jaskier falls apart under him, because he made him become like that.

Geralt licks him clean and returns to breathe slowly against his hip and kiss and mouth at him, while Jaskier catches his breath.

“So,” Jaskier says eventually, when Geralt has slipped his eyes closed, enjoying Jaskier’s afterglow. “Is that a yes?”

Geralt grumbles out an affirmative.

-

The scent of Jaskier’s perfume has rubbed off on his shirt. Each time Geralt shifts, he gets a whiff of it--an accidental but true mark of ownership. It stands out in stark relief from the other scents that crowd Geralt’s nose, too fresh and gentle against the heaviness of, alcohol, smoke, and sweat.

Jaskier has been absent the whole day, and he has found himself a little troupe of local musicians. Apparently they’ve been exchanging music, or whatever the hell musicians do, because whatever he’s playing now isn’t something Geralt recognizes.

The bonfires were lit the moment dusk hit, and the first kolos were spun mostly by children who have, by now, been laid to bed. He is sure there were more traditions he’s missed, but he cares little for them. He’s half hidden by the crowd, and happy to sit and eat and drink, and spend Lammas like he’s spent every other holiday so far.

There are too many people for the intimacy of Belleteyn. The women are all dressed in flowers, married or otherwise. It’s a tradition for Lammas to imitate what Dana Meadbh might look like, so she can come walk among the people without anyone knowing it. It means Geralt’s nose is filled with the scent of pollen, the only relief Jaskier’s scent which lingers.

When everyone is drunk enough, the elders take stage. Heavy set women, women who have carried one too many children, older women and all married, join hands then, and start another dance, one that makes them look like they’re flying on their feet despite the wear of years. Those who cannot dance singing instead. The music fades into obscurity when faced with the strength of the voices that sing of prosperity, happiness, and themes of a married life that they now know.

It’s then that Jaskier comes to him, walking around the crowd to reach him. For once, his doublet is buttoned up as is proper, and Geralt knows, if he presses his face to his neck, he will smell chamomile, and poppies, and himself. He wishes he didn’t know that smell. He wishes he could remember how Jaskier smelled without Geralt’s scent on him. He is still so glad to be right, when he does press his face to Jaskier’s neck, breathing him in.

“Tell me you’re not drunk,” Jaskier tells him, laughter in his voice.

He pries Geralt’s hands off of his doublet and takes a seat next to him. One of his hands curls around the backrest of Geralt’s chair, the other reaching for the alcohol.

Geralt isn’t drunk. He’s just been drinking because it’s been a long day, as all have been long since that morning when Jaskier talked him into staying for Lammas . Since he realised he wanted to keep Jaskier like that, bright and happy, smiling and touching his face in the morning when he thinks Geralt’s asleep. The question that remains is whether Jaskier feels the same, but pondering it feels like a fool’s errand; Geralt has been alone for a long time and for a reason.

Jaskier fills up his glass with schnapps despite the question, and clinks it against Geralt’s before drinking.

“Have you finished?” Geralt asks.

“Ah,” Jaskier says, looking a bit guilty. “Not quite. This is an intermission.”

“Hope they’re paying you well.”

Jaskier’s eyebrows do something, and at once Geralt recognizes the expression for fondness. His scent washes over Geralt’s senses so he closes his eyes, breathes, and when he looks at Jaskier again he is still there. One day, he won’t be.

Geralt turns into him, their shoulders rubbing together. They’re sitting so close their knees are touching. It still seems an insurmountable distance.

“Do you think she’ll appear?”

“Doubtful,” Geralt replies.

Another look of fondness passes over Jaskier’s face and he says, “You’re grumpier than usual. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

Geralt woke up distinctly alone, and at the time he was upset to find the bed empty. Now he is upset for being upset at all. Jaskier’s presence softens him, his lightness piercing through the cloud that has been hanging over his head. His smile is infectious and freely given. It makes Geralt’s shoulders unwind, and cushions his words with a smile when he replies, with a certain sort of defeat, “Something like that.”

Jaskier’s face tightens, and his brows pinch as he licks his lips. The hand behind Geralt tightens around the backrest, creaking over the polish.

Jaskier clears his throat, and mumbles, “Now that’s just unfair.”

Geralt rises an eyebrow and Jaskier flails, his hand gesturing at--Geralt is pretty sure--most of him. It never ceases to make Geralt amused. At first he didn’t understand but as of late, whenever Jaskier’s eyes crease and make his heart jump, he thinks he has some kind of an idea of what he means. At least what he hopes it means.

Geralt has been with a lot of people. It’s rare, however, that he should have lingered with someone as long as with Jaskier, and he isn’t sure if it’s him clinging to their friendship or to hope that makes it so.

Geralt feels Jaskier’s thumb brushing over his back, and it turns from a startling motion into one of comfort. Geralt sighs and looks at him, but Jaskier’s eyes have strayed away to the kolo. When Geralt pays attention, he sees that men have joined their wives now, and the song has evolved into another conversation: “ Oh beauty, where did you pick your roses?” and the reply, “Oh, my dear, I picked them from your gardens. ”

“It’s fascinating,” Jaskier says, eyes still on the dancers. “They dance so freely but in words they’re conservative. You know this song is about kids, right?”

“Have you ever though of--” Geralt bites his tongue halfway through the sentence, and yet, he knows, the damage is done.

Jaskier, thank the gods, simply laughs. “What, marrying? Settle down?”

“You fit,” Geralt says. “With them. With everyone.”

Maybe he has been drinking too much after all, for his tongue to rush ahead of his mind. Yet, he has been contemplating this since the start: Jaskier is always welcome and never stays, and for the life of him, Geralt still can’t understand why.

Jaskier doesn’t take it as an insult. “You’re different, and so you don’t fit. I’m too common and I fit everywhere. But by fitting everywhere, I fit nowhere since I’m replaceable. You, on the other hand, are one of a kind.”

Geralt arches an eyebrow. “You think so low of yourself?”

“Not low,” Jaskier laughs. He gestures back to the people dancing. “I go where the wind carries me, and I don’t settle. That’s the life I have chosen for myself. Doing anything else feels like sentencing myself to a slow death by complacency.”

“Wouldn’t a proper court be easier for you?”

“Easy? For a winter, yes. But the cost of staying longer is one I cannot afford.” Jaskier sighs, and his hand slides up completely, touching his back. “You cannot turn dandelions to roses, and that’s what would become of me I fear. No, being commonplace allows me the freedom to be who I am. Boredom is the real enemy.”

Confusion blooms in Geralt’s mind. “You travel three season with me.”

Here, Jaskier smiles, soft and flushed, and he replies, “I do.”

“You see more of my face than any other. Wouldn’t that be boredom too?”

Jaskier laughs, knocking their foreheads together. “Never.”

Suddenly, even so close, they’re too far apart but he cannot touch Jaskier more than he already is. Their shoulders are pressed together, their knees touch, and their heads are bowed together in hushed whispers, Jaskier’s hand on his back, and there is nothing more they can do. That which has allowed them to become this in the first place, during Belleteyn--the drink, the people, the tradition--now feels inadequate, falling short, restricting him from expressing what he truly feels. He cannot kiss Jaskier, cannot hold him, cannot even take his hand and hold it. Yet, how else to react when someone tells you, in so many words, that they’re living the best version of their lives with you? How to reply to happiness but with happiness? How to answer this surge of affection on Jaskier’s face except with his own?

“Oh,” he ends up saying, half-strangled out from his restricted throat. Because Jaskier is full of contradiction Geralt now is beginning to understand--He sees danger and runs to it, sees safety and leaves because Gerlt is where danger is, and if Jaskier stays anywhere, it’s by his side.

If he were in a room, in private, he would have kissed Jaskier. But he doesn’t have that luxury here. He only has stolen moments and a feeling in his lungs that suffocates him, a feeling he’s refused to name in fear and rejection, yet now washes over him with sweetness of relief, threatening to spill from his lips should he say anything.

Something must show on his face because Jaskier’s smile grows dim, uncertain, not as hurt as much as resigned. He looks away first, and his eyes turn away from Geralt. Despite all the rules, he grips Jaskier’s wrist, startling those two sapphires to look at him again.

“Jaskier,” he says, “however long you wish to travel with me, you’re welcome.”

Jaskier’s eyes widen, his lips part, his breath startles, but only for a moment until he realises what Geralt is saying, what he’s confessing in the only way he can, in the way he knows, using wrong words to carry the right meaning. Then, a smile breaks over his face, a smile that even tugs onto Geralt’s. He can’t kiss him, but for a moment their foreheads rest together.

They pull away quickly, and in time too, because no sooner than he has, Jaskier is called away. Geralt watches him as he rejoins the other musicians, taking a seat, face shifting into a well known mask.

No sooner than he’s sat down does a girl approach him from behind. She tucks a poppy behind his ear, which seems to please him greatly. She’s not the only one. Geralt notices other women handing out flowers in a similar fashion, in another turn of tradition Geralt doesn’t understand. This time, he is not except from it either. He can hear footsteps behind him and holds still as a flower is nestled behind his ear as well.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” she asks. He can’t see her face, but there’s a smile in her voice.

“Yeah,” Geralt replies, still looking at Jaskier.

The woman laughs, and it sounds like stream rushing over rocks. The flower falls from behind his ear into his lap, and he sees, shocked, that it’s a fern flower. By the time he turns around to see who the woman is, she’s gone.

Chapter 4: Fall (And Winter, Again)

The wedding starts at dawn. Observing customs has always been a way of preserving culture, stories, and history which have always been intertwined with religion, and altered only by the people themselves. Geralt knows it’s impossible to compare the beliefs of villagers on Skellige and in Nilfgaard. But culture requires people, and his people have always been adjacent-to society, never included within it. He has never attended a wedding before. But, it starts at dawn all the same.

All the female relatives that the bride has wake her up. Duties are determined based on age and the closeness in the family tree: some stay to prepare the food and clean the house, some decorate a flagpole, and others, older and wed, go with the bride to wash her in the banyas. It’s customary to do this very early, so she doesn’t accidentally see her husband-to-be. Then, scrubbed clean, she returns to her father’s house for the last time. There she is dressed. It will be the most glamorous dress of Lada’s life. Finery is worn only on special occasions, and in villages such as Cherno, those are rare and far between. The embroidery had taken her aunts, and her grand-aunts months to finish. Then, she is dressed in flowers and leaf. Finally, the house is decorated, awaiting the groom.

It is tradition that select few members of the groom's family go to buy her off of her family. It’s an old practice. It’s a practice that not everyone observes. Yet, the morning grows warm, and the groom’s side rises with it, and dresses in its best finery. The people who should be present are the old groomsman, oldest unwed cousin of the groom, the best man, whose father were the groom’s father’s best men as well, a flagpole bearer, and most importantly the groom’s brother who should arrange the price for the bride with her brother. Tradition. But nothing, Geralt thinks, about this wedding in Cherno, is traditional.

There are no uncles, cousins, no brothers to arrange prices, no fathers who should watch their daughters leave their houses forever. What men remain are children--no older than fourteen. The groom is a groom in name only, because the people here cling to tradition in times of terror and have no words for this new sort of union birthed from fear and death--a flower of a battlefield. There are mothers, and father’s sisters, and aunts aplenty, and fit into the traditional roles as well as any man might have were he present.

So the groom is not a groom and yet she must be, and she must shoot a golden apple with an arrow, hung from the highest point on the house, if she wishes to enter the bride’s house. The groom, Sasha, does so on the first try. And so the procession goes in, one after another, and Geralt and Jaskier follow.

They should not be involved. They are strangers, paid to solve the issue that plagues Cherno, but they are also men so they’re sat with the groom’s procession. There’s a price to be negotiated. But Cherno has no money, and no gold but that which was scrounged up for Geralt, so the words are meaningful but empty. Yet, the bride is bought from her older sister anyway. It’s then that they finally lay eyes on Lada as she exits her room with her kid cousins.

The girls, lithe and quick on their feet, carry large platters filled with flowering branches of rosemary which they pit to the lapels of everyone except the groom’s best man, the old groomsman, and groom’s brother, who the bride decorates herself. Those three will be present through the whole wedding, and will sit with the bride and the groom at their table.

The moment he has a rosemary branch pinned to his tunic, he feels his shoulder unwinding, as if the marriage has been in question the whole time, but now, it’s something nobody can stop anymore. The smell of rosemary spreads until the whole house is covered in the scent. There’s something about it, a certain sort of magic that envelops both him and Jaskier, as if the herb is a secret key, a special invitation to another world created just for the bride and the groom. It isn’t unlike what he felt during the Imbaelk and Lammas--the feeling of being included.

Once they’re finished, the cousins return to Lada’s room with the platters, now empty of the herbs but filled with gifts--a stray coin, a beautiful sash-- symbolic and important. The only ones not wearing rosemary are the bride and the groom. They don’t need it. This is, after all, their event and everyone else is just a guest.

The groom’s brother--sister, in this case but has to carry the title of brother nonetheless--stands and goes to the bride to hand her the ring. Then, she opens the doors and lays a pair of new shoes so that, when she steps out of the house, she’s no longer an unwed girl, but a wife. She’s stepping, quite literally, into her new life.

When Lada slips her new shoes on, everyone stands. An entourage forms around her and the groom. The flagpole bearer buys the flagpole off of Lada’s cousins, and waving it in his hand, begins to lead the procession with a song.

Geralt knows that once, this was supposed to mean that the bride would never return to the house of her father. But Cherno is small, and terrorized, and it would be cruel to deny a daughter her mother, and mother her child. She will be back, of course, but never as a child again. It isn’t her house anymore. Her house waits for her, open. Waits for her to bless it, to throw grain around it and the sieve on the roof, and waits for her to be carried over the doorstep.

There are other customs, Geralt is sure, but in that moment, the village leader, a stout and serious woman named Ulana turns to him, and so Jaskier slips inside the groom’s house without him.

“It’s time,” she says. It’s not even noon. What other ceremonies there are, Geralt doesn’t know, because he nods, and goes to the empty house he and Jaskier were given to stay in, an empty house that wasn’t so empty just a month ago, just like Cherno wasn’t quite-so-bare a year ago, and puts on his armor.

Something has been killing men in Cherno. Someone has been killing grooms in particular, when they went to get their own traditional and ceremonial washing in the lake just north of the village.

Geralt crushes the rosemary branch when he puts on his armor but doesn’t take it off because it’s tradition and he fears that, somehow, he won’t be able to find his way back to the village if he does so. It’s a strange feeling, foreseeing something that doesn’t make sense.

Shame is a strong emotion, and it’s something women dolt out particularly well. It’s how they teach children. It’s how Geralt too learned that taking something that did not belong to him was shameful and how he knew that he shouldn’t do it again. It’s something men are terrified of. If there ever was a man who didn’t care for the opinion of a woman he’d be lying -- whether it be sister or mother or something else -- and those who love women, in particular, seem to struggle with shame’s necessity, considering the absence of which has built their pride. As such, they are terrified of their pride being ruined by shame, and yet, it is shame who has taught them how to behave, so they can be prideful.

Shame and pride is what stops a man’s tongue, what keeps his secrets secret. It’s shame too, that creates a need for secrecy to begin with, but women handle it differently -- they have too many secrets to begin with, and divulging a few is not so detrimental to them. It’s been a long time since Geralt didn’t have to hunt for information, but Cherno village is desperate so Ulana has told him everything she knew.

Men started dying a year ago after Ludmila, the village head’s youngest daughter, died in an accident. They tried looking for her body in the lake, but they couldn’t find it. They thought the river carried it to the waterfalls.

The women of the village do not think it was an accident, but the punishment has already befallen any man or boy who could have hurt her. It’s time to move on. Villages die like this -- when no babes can be born, when people need to leave, when they’re killed. Villages die, and their stories, and traditions, and beliefs. This, Geralt knows, is a matter of survival.

The women were right in their assumption, Geralt thinks when he gets to the lake. He sees a wisp, an almost-ghost dancing under the water. He knows its beauty isn’t real. Rusalkas are not born, they are made. They are young women who died before their time. They are unmarried women who either drowned or were drowned, or they were otherwise killed near a body of water. They lure in men, thinking them their lovers, their husbands-to-be. And then, when the boys realise they are at the bottom of the lake, it's already too late.

Geralt unsheathes his sword. It’s been a long time since he needed to use ignii.

Though it is his duty as a witcher, some monsters Geralt does not enjoy slaying. He cannot be gentle with the rusalka. It’s a memory of an unfortunate girl, contempt and despair twisted into existence by magic. It’s vengeance manifest. All he can do is do slay her quickly.

-

By the time the moon passes overhead, so has the rusalka. Geralt is dripping wet from head to toe as he trudges back to the village. The witching hour has settled over the world, the sky stuck between blue and gray, as if someone has stopped time and commanded the night not to come yet.

Usually, villagers are happy when he presents them with the head of their monster. The village does breathe with relief--they did not want to lose another groom, after all. It’s been a long time since they saw a real wedding. He thinks it’s traditional for the bride’s family not to attend the rest of the wedding but here, in Cherno, it’s ignored. Rosemary swirls in the air as the women run to tell the good news, run to tell everyone to light the bonfire, that they are having a wedding after all.

Ulana stays to look at the head in Geralt’s hands. He thought it inappropriate to carry it by the hair, as usual, so it sits between his two armored hands half a dream and half reality, pale skin like a pearl, eyes green like moss, hair faded yellow, its color lost as if the lake sapped it out.

But Ulana is a mother, and she touches the face of her daughter anyway, and says, “Couldn’t you bring the rest of her?”

“It’s burned,” Geralt replies, not without feeling. “I will need to burn this too. She cannot return.”

Ulana’s fingers drop, and she doesn’t weep. The sigh tells enough on its own. She looks at him and nods, and turns away, walking down to the field where the bonfire has been lit.

Geralt finishes his duties and the head is gone too. Afterwards, he goes to the empty house, the house he and Jaskier were let to sleep in, and he takes off his armor, wipes it free of dirt and grass stains, dries his clothes by the hearth while he does it, and then, compelled by the smell of rosemary and the sound of music, returns to the wedding.

Night has fallen properly now, and what soberness lingered in Ulana’s eyes has dissolved in the face of true joy of the other villagers. The first kolo has already been danced, a celebratory kolo where the groom and bride dance with everyone. Now, the two sit together, observing the others, eating, drinking, and speaking with the cousins and aunts that surround them. It’s the youngest ones that dance now to the tune of Jaskier’s lute.

It’s a familiar sight: girls with wreaths on their heads. Everyone’s wearing flowers tonight from the children, the widows, to the bride on her clothes, and the groom who has a wreath around her neck. She has been caught.

Geralt takes a seat where Ulana puts him, and pours him a drink. It’s deep amber colored, probably aged, probably expensive, probably kept only for weddings. Geralt drinks it and thinks of Belleteyn , as he thought he would when drinking plum schnapps.

The issue with tradition, Geralt thinks, is that he always feels as if everyone has read a book of rules and knows how to behave except for him. He doesn’t know what to do, what’s expected of him, and so when people start standing up, dancing, singing, not very unlike the other holidays he attended, he stays seated and drinks. He knows this is a formality. He knows, as he has always known, that the village would have felt better if he insisted on leaving despite the customs.

Yet, the twig of rosemary sits on his breast and he is compelled by it to be here, to witness the bride and groom looking at each other and laughing, unbothered by the turn of events, unbothered by the swell of Lada’s belly, and by him. Young people, Geralt thinks, don’t linger much on the past. They use it to propel themselves into the future.

Loud laughter and whooping distracts him and Geralt looks away from the couple to find Jaskier among the young women. It’s easy to focus his hearing, easy to hear one of them laughing at Jaskier and saying, “Shouldn’t you be on the groom’s side?”

Another, tall and pale like a strand of wheat adds, “No, no, look at him Vaya, he’s as pretty as us.”

An older girl, with a twinkle in her dark eyes, says, “Then he also needs a wreath.”

They’re laughing again, but their nimble fingers are quick to plait a wreath out of spare flowers plucked out from their own. The older girl puts it on Jaskier’s head as if she’s bestowing a crown upon him, and Jaskier accepts it with flourish, making the girls break out into giggles.

The fun is only spoiled by the aunts finding them like that, and telling the girl’s off. “Forgive them master bard, certainly no insult was meant.”

“As none was meant, none have I found,” Jaskier replies. “And I have never really had an honor of a wreath.”

The woman rumbles out a laugh, and says, “Then you dance as well.”

Everyone, Geralt thinks as he sips on his schnapps, is already drunk.

It’s late summer. The heat has subsided some, and the evenings have grown to be even colder. Facing the fire and with alcohol in his body, Geralt feels pleasantly warm. The courting dances go past quickly, and the married kolo is spun by the bride and groom, and their four guards. Then, the music changes again and everyone joins them, joins in their happiness, until it’s only Ulana who sits next to Geralt.

The music changes tune, becoming quicker, and the kolo starts winging as well. Heat sparks, ground thunders, and the burning wood begins to scream a silent happy fury as its fire tries reaching for the heavens and the moon above them. The scent of rosemary in the night air turns into the scent of magic, old magic, taught, given, thousands of years ago, making old women jump high in the air, making girls’ wreathes stay on their heads, and making this marriage possible. Geralt feels his soul surge with it, as if it too wants to leap to its feet. He watches a butcher fly overhead and repays him with two sapphires, two eyes that turn to look at him.

Jaskier leaves the celebratory kolo and stumbles over to him.

“Geralt,” he calls, “Geralt you must join, look how big it has gotten!”

Geralt looks at Jaskier, red-cheeked, glassy-eyed, smiling, stinking of perspiration and happiness and schnapps, and Geralt doesn't think he's ever seen a better thing in his life.

Jaskier smiles at him, for him, offering his hand to him and Geralt is struck with such a strong feeling, throat tightening, his heart beating in a quick rhythm, flushing with warm all over, that he at once wishes to be rid of it as much as he wants to marvel at its existence. Then, with a breath, all of that is covered with a blanket of fondness, making Geralt take his hand.

"I don't know the steps," he says. He's never been taught any kolo steps, he’s never attended a wedding, and he’s never been asked besides. Only no, Geralt realises. Jaskier has been asking, this whole time.

They’re standing too close. If he leaned in just a little, their noses would be brushing. More importantly, their hands are still clasped together, and Jaskier isn’t letting go.

Jaskier smiles in relief and squeezes his hand. "it's easy to learn."

Geralt laughs softly, so amused, so full of softness and warmth, and he presses closer. "I'm not the one for dancing," he says and gestures at the wreath, "but I can keep this safe.”

Jaskier’s eyes widen and, even glassy, they still fill with emotions. Emotions Geralt knows . Beyond a shadow of a doubt, at this moment, Geralt understands that what Jaskier is feeling he feels as well.

Jasier barks out a quick, delighted, laugh and takes the wreath off his head before placing it around Geralt’s neck. "if there's one person I trust, it's you.”

Geralt reaches for his hands that are still wrapped around the wreath, because he wants to hug him but can't, and kiss him but can’t, and so he can only caress his hands and look at him, feeling flayed open, gutted, all of his ugliness on display, and feeling soothed and triumphant all the same.

Jaskier smiles, because he understands, and runs back to the gaggle of friends he's made, while Geralt sits back on his chair, shocked, honored, and completely lost to the world until he reaches for it, and his fingers brush over soft flower petals. The symbolism isn’t lost on Geralt.

“Fuck,” he mutters, with feeling.

Ulana, apparently amused, pours him more schnapps.

“So,” she says, after he’s drunk. “Did you know, it is rude, and bad fate, to be invited to someone’s wedding and not dance?”

“I am not versed in the steps,” Geralt replies.

“Neither is your bard,” Ulana laughs. “And yet.”

He looks at her and only sees amusement in her eyes. One poignant eyebrow lifts up, and she asks him, “What do you want, Geralt of Rivia?”

He looks back to the kolo and Jaskier, and finally understands. A breath leaves him, something between a laughs and surprise, and he finishes his drink. Then, he reaches into his pocket.

He’s been thinking what to do with the flower ever since it landed in his lap. He knows it should bring luck. Carried under the shirt, just like Jaskier likes to hide his snowdrops and poppies, it allows people to see all hidden treasures, understand thoughts of others, talk with animals, and watch trees walk in the forest. It is not just a love flower. It’s destiny, potent. It’s something Cherno, now, desperately needs.

He’s wrapped it in fraying linen and now, without looking at it, he gives it to Ulana. “Hide it,” he says, “and in the morning, pin it to your breast pocket. Your village needs it more than I.”

The kolo hasn’t joined yet, and instead there are crescents fading in and out of each other. Geralt barely gets there in time, just a moment before the first couple steps forward. Jaskier spots him immediately, spots him and stops, shocked, and then, delighted.

It’s the same process as during that Belleteyn . A couple starts jumping, circling one another as the kolo sings. They’re children, true, but the boys jump high, awkward and tired as they are now, and still they smile at the girls, and still the kolo sings “Young doves, young apples, our happiness!” and “Strawberries she’s picked, our little strawberry cheeked!” and “Tired, you till the land, tired, you fell a tree, but jump higher boy, for dark eyes are on three!”

Then, it’s their turn. Geralt steps forward, and then the singing starts, and somehow, rising his hands, and jumping isn’t such a difficult feat. The kolo laughs and sings, “Jump high, sapphire blue, jump so a shrike might just catch you!”

Delight is obvious on Jaskier’s face, delight so potent, it’s better than any schnapps Geralt has ever laid his mouth on. It’s only a few moments, where the world spins, and there is only Jaskier, and singing in his ears, singing not of people, but of kolo, singing of an old voice, of a prophecy, of magic in the air that smells of rosemary. It’s only for a few moments, but that’s more than Geralt’s ever thought he’d have.

They step back, and then it’s the groom and bride who steps forward.

“Look at them dance,” the kolo sings, “look at them dance, as if they don’t know each other!”

Afterwards, it’s couples of women who take the stage, and the songs change. Now, the kolo sings blessings, “Jump, nana, jump, for your niece’s wealth! Jump, nana, jump for, your nephew’s health!”

-

When the blessings are over, he’s gripped under his shoulders, and then he’s carried, carried as if the kolo is the wind and he dandelion on air, carried like snow during a storm, carried around the fire on legs that don’t know the steps but have learned them somehow, learned them by watching Jaskier, always watching him, looking at what he thought he couldn’t have. And his heart leaps, and the kolo sings, and for a little while Geralt belongs.

But, eventually, the night turns dark, the fire burns low, and throats go weary. It’s then that Geralt meets Jaskier’s eye. A knowing look fills his gaze, and Geralt nods just before he steps out of the kolo; the void of him fills right back in, and none seem to note his absence.

Halfway to the house Jaskier catches up, knocks their shoulders together, and smiles in such a way that Geralt question if he has never seen a true smile before now. He laces their fingers, unabashed and unashamed, and hums a tune until they reach the house.

Jaskier laughs as they stumble inside and jumps. Geralt catches him, and he isn’t so heavy, isn’t heavy at all, to press into the doors and kiss his smiling mouth.

Where urgency has always colored their coupling, need running high and pushing them to take and demand of their bodies, now Gerlt feels, for the first time, as if he might have all the time he wishes to do whatever he wants. Jaskier’s kisses are sugar on his tongue, a delicacy he refrains from when he must, but indulges in now, knowing that stopping is no longer an option. Not when Jaskier wants him close.

Jaskier kisses the corner of Geralt’s mouth, his cheekbone, his jaw. His hands unwind from around his neck, trusting Geralt to hold him up, and reach to undo the leather tie that keeps his hair at bay. Jaskier pushes his fingers into Geralt’s hair, brushing it out of his face so he can kiss his lips again.

Geralt feels as if something within him might just burst. But it doesn’t. Instead, the limited space in his chest only expands, holding everything Jaskier gives him, making him realise that he’s had the capacity all along.

When he pulls away, Jaskier’s hands caress his face, nails scraping over his stubble as they rub his cheek.

Murmuring, Jaskier says, “You’re just so--” and then, perhaps for the first time since he’s met the bard, Jaskier’s words fail him. He sighs with a noise of complaint, as if he’s weak here, absolutely helpless in this regard--in putting the feeling in his chest to words.

Geralt feels quite the same. Yet, it’s easy to laugh, and put Jaskier down so he can chase the taste of schnapps on his tongue.

“We have a bed,” he says between kisses, “A room. A fireplace.”

“Privacy,” Jaskier adds.

“Privacy,” Geralt agrees.

The houses in Cherno are unlike those in Leshovo where Katya hosted them for a night. The mountains require a more compact build. The two sides of the roof are slanted at a harsh angle and separated from the ground by a thigh’s height of wall, to protect against snow. Inside, the walls are covered with rugs and tapestries to hold in the warmth from the fireplace that’s placed in the middle of the room. Packed dirt is replaced by planks that cover the floor. Two chairs and a table are pushed into a corner while items for everyday life hang from the ceiling webs. Water barrels line the far corner, near the tub. The pantry has a few old bottles of liquor, dusty and untouched, grain, pickled non perishables, and some fresh bread and cheese they were gifted the day before. There’s even some mead.

Geralt peels himself from Jaskier’s front to agitate the sleeping coals hidden under ash, building the fire up with trimmings before he can finally put a proper log in. It catches fire quickly, ushering the shadows to the far corners and washing the room in warm light. There are few candles but Geralt still lights them, to help Jaskier’s vision. Geralt doesn’t want to do this in the dark. He wants, selfishly enough, for Jaskier to see him, and see what he does to him.

Finally, Geralt carefully removes the wreath from his neck and lays it onto the empty table. When he turns, Jaskier has unrolled the sleeping furs onto the floor, and is kneeling on them while rummaging through his pack.

Amused by the sight, as he is amused by everything Jaskier does, Geralt walks behind him, hands going down to his shoulders and the paleness of his neck that now beckons his mouth. He traces his fingers over the soft cotton of Jaskier’s undershirt, feeling the smooth embroidery under his calluses. He’s lost his doublet somewhere along the way, along with his lute.

He kneels behind Jaskier all the same and hums, nosing against the low shirt collar, before he begins pressing soft kisses into his skin, kisses that make Jaskier’s shiver. Geralt smooths his hands over Jaskier’s shoulders and down his arms, where they linger only for a moment before they move to Jaskier’s chest.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, and it's a complaint. He’s doing something, and he’s clearly annoyed with the interruption. At least as annoyed as Jaskier can get with the breathy way he says his name. Despite this, he leans back, slotting his head next to Geralt’s and his back into Geralt’s chest.

Geralt splays one hand over the center of him, where he can feel the hard thudding of his heart, the shifting of skin and ticking of muscle. The other goes lower, to untuck his undershirt just so he can slip his hand underneath and touch warm skin stretched over his belly. He can hear Jaskier’s heartbeat tripping over itself, can feel the twitching of his muscles underneath his hands, the little hitch in his breath when Geralt lays his hands over his peck to rub.

They never really took their time before but now, drinking Jaskier’s scent in, he realises the mistake. Before, it was either Jaskier’s everyday scent, or the strong whiff of peppery attraction. Now, though, he can sense his scent changing and slowly developing like spices on low fire.

Geralt groans in appreciation. He slips his other hand under Jaskier’s undershirt, letting his short nails scratch along the trail of hair on his belly that disappears under the waistband, while the other continues to grip his peck, thumb tracing over a nipple every so often. He feels Jaskier’s shaky breath leaving his lungs, feels his belly tightening, feels tension rising, whetting Geralt’s hunger for him.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you out of this.”

He feels the shivering that goes down Jaskier’s spine, and it's a heady feeling. Jaskier leans forward and lifts his arms and helps Geralt’s efforts until the shirt is just a bundle of cotton in his hands. Geralt kisses his nape, his shoulder, everywhere he couldn’t before, admiring Jaskier’s nudity with his fingers and tongue.

Jaskier’s breathing has grown harder, now noticeable. Geralt can feel the rise and fall of his chest under his hand. Yet, he moves it up, over Jaskier’s clavicles, to reach for his jaw, and gently command Jaskier’s head to the side, so he can kiss him. Under his fingers, his neck is a smooth ark, vulnerable and warm.

Kissing Jaskier has become familiar. That’s perhaps the reason why he understands the need with which Jaskier pushes against his mouth, the need that’s echoed within the quickness of his own blood. But that need still lives alongside gentleness, gentleness that makes Geralt lose his breath when Jaskier moves away and those eyes open to look at him, and soften as a small smile imprints on Jaskier’s mouth.

“You’re not drunk, are you?” Jaskier whispers, the accusation fond.

Geralt’s hand has circled Jaskier’s neck enough that he can feel Jaskier’s voice box tick up and down, his throat moving every time he swallows. It’s a heady sensation when he squeezes, softly, and a burst of Jaskier’s wonderful scent hits his nose. Others would have been scared. Jaskier, however, seems perfectly comfortable under his hands.

Weak, knowing he’s admitting the truth that has always been unnecessary during night like these, he says, “Never.”

Jaskier closes his eyes and laughs a soft, “Fuck, I knew it.”

He pushes against Geralt's back, as if he wishes to fall into him, and Geralt nuzzles into his temple, hands circling around his chest to hold him. He snuffles softly, breathing him in, chasing after his scent the moment it fades from his nose. He wants his tongue coated with it. He wants anything Jaskier is willing to give.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, a gentle laugh in his throat, sounding as breathless as Geralt feels. “I wasn’t either.”

A pained little noise leaves him, a noise he can’t stop, not until it’s lost between their mouth in a sloppy and perfect kiss. He should have known that this feeling-- feeling of being flayed open-- would remain despite everything. It’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, as much as he feels it’s necessary. Growing pains. He feels desperate to be seen, to be known, even though it is exactly Jaskier who does see him, who does know him, who touches him with no fear, kisses him to make him feel better, who would never abuse his weakness. And that is exactly what he is-- he’s weak for Jaskier, for this tenderness, and for once he isn’t afraid that he will die because of it. It’s no death wish. It’s quite the opposite. It’s a wish to remain alive.

“You want me like this?” Jaskier mumbles against his mouth.

His hand rises to touch Geralt, but Geralt arrests his fingers and kisses them. “I want you any way I can get you, Jaskier.”

And isn’t that a confession to make? He sees Jaskier’s eyes opening, feels the groan in his breath, and then he’s pulling away, only to spin around and kiss Geralt properly. His pack topples over, and Geralt sees stuff spilling from it onto the furs. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Jaskier is kissing him and that he smells of want, and that he’s breathing hard, and that his fingers are cradling his jaw, gentle and warm and callused.

“You have me,” he says, throat clicking, once he pulls away.

His fingers find the buttons of Geralt’s tunic, and Jaskier’s had enough practice to know how to undo them quickly. Yet, somehow, his fingers fumble tonight, even though Jaskier’s mouth chases all the skin revealed. He grumbles, annoyed with himself, and Geralt can’t stop touching him, can’t stop rubbing his shoulders, sliding his hands up and down his arms, and nosing over his temples.

The struggle is brief. Then, Jaskier’s pushing the fabric off of his shoulders and Geralt’s helping him take it off, until it joins his own shirt.

“Every time,” Jaskier starts. “Every time I think--I saw what was underneath, I touched and licked and scratched-- and every time I realise it will never be enough.”

As he says it, his hands are on Geralt’s chest, touching him in a reverent sort of way that has Geralt’s breath shaking loose. He holds still, though he wants to do nothing but leap, until Jaskier has had his fill and looks up at him.

Geralt covers Jaskier’s hands with his own, and guides them up around his neck as he leans in to kiss him. They rock like that, on their knees, suspended in a long moment as they breathe and kiss. But Geralt leans forward too much. Jaskier overbalances, and catches himself against Geralt just before falling backwards with a gasp.

For a moment he just looks at Geralt with wide eyes. The laughter that follows is short and musical, making Geralt join in with it. Jaskier kisses him again afterwards, to show its not mocking, and shifts, dragging Geralt on top of him, until he’s lying down on the furs and Geralt’s kneeling above him.

Their hips slot together easily, and Geralt cannot resist grinding against him, even clothed. It’s barely a relief, if any at all. It feels more like he’s teasing himself. He doesn’t stop, not when Jaskier’s gasping against his mouth, his hips arching up to meet Geralt’s, even as frustration builds within him.

Jaskier guides Geralt from one kiss into another, their quick breaths mingling, as his hands trace over Geralt’s back down to where they’re joined together. He sneaks a hand between them, cupping Geralt in his britches.

The gasp that flies free of Geralt’s mouth Jaskier catches with his lips, but then he leans away, smirk evident on his face. He massages him for a moment more before his fingers tangle around the buttons that keep Geralt’s britches closed.

Geralt huffs against his mouth and lifts up to see what he’s doing, and to help with Jaskier’s own britches.

“Boots,” he says once they’ve finished, sitting next to Jaskier’s hip.

Leaving the cradle of Jaskier’s body is a difficulty that he bears long enough to unlace the supple leather of his boots before toeing them off. His britches follow soon after, much to his relief.

Jaskier, stretched out on the furs, and looking content to do nothing but stare at him, is still dressed when Geralt looks back. He huffs and Jaskier grins, so Geralt plucks the boots off his legs, and lets himself trace all that lovely pale skin from his hips, over his thighs, down to his ankles as he helps him take his britches off. With their close gone, mingling on the floor together, Geralt takes a moment to look his fill of Jaskier’s body, unclothed. He doesn’t have to catch glances anymore. He hasn’t had to for a while. No, he can admire him now, blatant and brazen, and know it's appreciated.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jaskier mumbles, mostly it seems to himself, and demands, “Come here.”

Geralt crawls up between Jaskier’s legs, kissing all the skin up his thigh, but Jaskier’s hands drag him up until they’re belly to belly, kissing. Jaskier’s cock strains against his hip, hard.

“Didn’t think you’d get so worked up already,” he says, when he’s free to kiss Jaskier’s jaw. For once, it feels as if it’s Jaskier falling apart and not him.

“You’re going at an excruciatingly slow pace,” Jaskier replies. “Of course I’m worked up.”

Geralt hums into his neck, and lifts himself up. “Oil.”

He finds it easily among the mess of things that have spilled from Jaskier’s pack, but he doesn’t return to his place between Jaskier’s thighs. Instead, he presses himself along his side, finally stretching over the furs next to the man. With Jaskier laying down like so, his skin shines pink-orange, like the first sun that kisses the mountaintops, and so he props himself up on an elbow to better look at him, as he takes one of Jaskier’s legs hostage between his own.

“Oh fuck,” Jaskier says, realisation washing over him.

Geralt hums and kisses him, and keeps kissing him even as his oiled hand strays down to wrap around his cock and gently, so gently, start tugging on him. Jaskier groans, and decides to wrap a hand around Geralt’s neck, just to have something to hold.

Neither of them are used to slow, and Geralt sees the way it affects Jaskier. He tries fucking into Geralt’s hand, but it’s too soon, so Geralt lets go of him and says, “Slow, Jaskier, slow .”

So it starts again, feeling how warm Jaskier really is until he eventually screws his eyes shut, loses control of his hips, and Geralt has to let him calm down again. He doesn’t know how many times he has to stop. He’s only looking at Jaskier, the need growing on his face, the way his cockhead starts slowly leaking against his skin, and the way Jaskier starts whining low in his throat.

The scent of his need is peppery and strong now, making Geralt’s mouth water, his teeth aching to sink into his skin, his own body responding in kind, wanting to do nothing else but soothe him.

 

Geralt does nothing, not even when Jaskier’s pleading eyes turn on him, and he calls his name, in a broken, gasping, voice, just as his tense body begins to shiver. It's mesmerising, watching how his belly pulls, muscles twitching each time he passes his fist over his cock.

Jaskier shifts to hide his face into Geralt’s neck, moaning out, “I can’t I’ll come, I’ll come--”

 

He bucks, his fingers turn to claws, and though he’s beautiful like this, beautiful when awash with relief and pleasure, Geralt still moves his hand away.

It’s pitiful, the noise Jaskier makes then. At least until he starts cursing.

“You bastard,” he says, groaning. “I could’ve-- we could’ve-- at least twice until now--”

Amused, Geralt pushes him onto his back again and kisses him until Jaskier is all lost for words. Then, he says, “Jaskier, the oil.”

Jaskier needs a moment to understand, but then he’s taking the vial and opening it, coating Geralt’s hand with more slick. He closes it as quickly as he grabbed it, and his body strains with anticipation. However, Geralt doesn’t want Jaskier to come like this. So his fingers, instead of wrapping around Jaskier’s cock again, go lower to press against his hole.

Jaskier groans but his cock twitches, and he’s kissing Geralt again, now with more tongue. His other hand has landed on Geralt’s chest, gripping a nice handful of his peck.

It’s not the best position to finger someone, and yet his fingers sink into Jaskier with no issue, all the same. He twists them, touching Jaskier’s rim with his thumb, and starts thrusting them in and out.

Jaskier’s body stiffens and releases almost at once, and then Geralt closes his eyes because Jaskier’s hand is on his cheek, and he’s being kissed within an inch of his life, making his cock difficult to ignore. After all, it’s pressed against Jaskier’s hip, twitching in sympathy each time Jaskier clenches around him, each time Jaskier’s tongue passes over his, each time Jaskier moans and whines because Geralt’s fucking him open, stretching him for more.

The hand around his neck begins to tremble only moments before the trembling spread all down Jaskier’s body. The kiss grows too sloppy, breaks, and Jaskier gasps, “Yes, yes, right there-- fuck--”

So Geralt continues, even as Jaskier’s legs twitch and he lifts his hips to meet Geralt’s hand. Stopping only for a moment, Geralt adds another finger.

This too is something they don’t usually have time to indulge in during their hurried fumblings. Either Jaskier is straddling him and fucking himself down onto his cock the moment he can, or Geralt’s so needy he’s taking Jaskier’s cock before he’s ready. It doesn’t matter really, not when they go multiple times, and the way, eventually, gets slicked by their spent.

He should have known to appreciate it more. After all, Jaskier’s whole body seems to be twitching, on edge, and he seems lost somewhere between frustration and pleasure. Geralt kisses his neck, his clavicles, bends a little to kiss and mouth at a nipple just to feel him tightening around his fingers again. He knows he’s teasing, he knows he’s going to be called a bastard again, but there is nothing quite like having Jaskier like this. Winding him up gives him pleasure in return, because they both know where it leads.

When he lifts his head he sees Jaskier has reclaimed his hand, and is biting on his own fingers. Not to keep himself silent, no that is impossible for him, but it seems just to have something to do, or something to oppose the pleasure his body craves, but is denied. Jaskier has always had wonderful hands-- a thing Geralt never thought he’d appreciate until he had them on him.

Their eyes meet and Geralt opens his mouth. Jaskier curses, and whines with feeling, and pushes two fingers into Geralt’s mouth, pressing down on his tongue. Geralt sucks them, keeping Jaskier’s gaze until Jaskier’s own mouth opens, as if he wants something in his mouth as well.

He pulls his fingers out, pads just touching Geralt’s mouth, pulling the lower lip down, mesmerized with it.

Geralt thinks of the times he had Jaskier’s cock inside his mouth, or just pressed against his lips like this, before Jaskier pushed it inside, and just how many times Geralt sucked him until his lips were rubbed raw and red, stripped with Jaskier’s come.

“Jaskier,” he says, meeting his gaze.

His eyes are blown open, two black pools, his scent almost unbearable now, aphrodisiac to his senses, making him want to do stupid shit.

Jaskier removes his fingers and Geralt bends down, nosing over his cheek as their lips ghost over one another, careful, though their breath is labored, though Geralt’s other hand is still moving in and out of Jaskier, though they’ve kissed dozens of times before. It’s the temptation to break that makes denial so sweet. And nothing is as sweet as when Jaskier fills the space between their lips with moans.

He keeps Jaskier like that until he adds another finger. Jaskier groans, shaking, truly shaking by now, and says, “ Fuck, Geralt, I don’t-- I don’t know if--”

“Almost there,” Geralt promises, because he too is near the edge, this close to losing it. He twitches his hips, hissing at the feeling of his cock rubbing against Jaskier’s hip. “Almost--”

He groans into Jaskier’s mouth when Jaskier clashes their mouths together. But the kiss is not long lived, not with both of them so worked up.

“I know,” Geralt soothes, “I--you’re taking my fingers so well, can you feel--feel how many I have in you?”

“Four,” Jaskier moans, tightening around them, as if the thought alone now could get him off.

Geralt nods, blinking away the perspiration that has beaded on his forehead and slid down his temples. Perhaps he isn’t as affected as Jaskier, but he can feel the way his fingers slide in easily now, the way Jaskier stretches so well around him, takes him, greedy, and clamps around him, his heat perfect. Next time, he thinks, he wants to watch this.

“Geralt,” he says, and his voice breaks, and it’s a tone he hasn’t heard before. “I can’t, I really, really, really , can’t anymore, alright? So please, for the love of fuck --”

He groans, when Geralt does actually stop, and slides his fingers out. He sees Jaskier’s a little shocked, a little taken off guard, and so his words and his frustration and anger dissipate with it, until his eyes turn to Geralt.

“I can fuck you like this,” Geralt offers, “from behind. Or do you want me on top of you?”

Jaskier screws his eyes shut and bites his swollen lip. Battling with desire is difficult for him, but he knows what he’s sentencing himself to when he says, “On top.”

Geralt hums, and it only takes a moment to slot himself between Jaskier’s thighs again. He leans down and kisses Jaskier’s face, and the corner of his mouth, his jaw and says, “You’re alright, you’ll be alright.”

At which Jaskier chuckles and says, “I’m falling apart. You’re ruining me for anyone else.”

Geralt’s cock twitches where it’s resting in the crease of Jaskier’s groin. The beast within him surges, something prideful, something jealous, something greedy halting his body. It passes when he remembers the wreath, which can mean something if he wishes it to have meaning, and the fact Jaskier is here with him now.

He barks out a short laugh, and presses a soft kiss to Jaskier’s brow. “Good.”

Jaskier curses under his breath. “In me, in me now .”

Geralt rumbles, amused, but he does as he’s told-- he slides into Jaskier slowly but to the hilt before he leans forward, planting his hands on each side of Jaskier’s body to hold himself up. A good thing too because Jaskier locks his legs just under his shoulder blades and around his neck, clinging to him as if he might run.

Geralt feels his thighs twitching as he holds himself still. After so long, to finally bury himself in Jaskier’s heat is excruciating-- too much pleasure that swings into pain, only to swing back into pleasure with a vengeance. Geralt has to hold himself stiff, control his breath, and sit inside him until he adjusts to the feeling so he doesn’t come the moment he pumps his hips once or twice.

He rests his forehead on Jaskier’s shoulder and breathes. “Gods,” he whispers, “Gods.”

Jaskier lets out a breath that Geralt catches with his own lungs just before he rocks into him for the first time. Jaskier gasps again, and in sync, they breathe together, just like that, letting Geralt rock slowly, in and out, as if they’re fucking for the very first time.

Geralt remembers Jaskier rode him like a fucking jockey the last time he was on his cock, all smirks and grins until he came all over himself, and Geralt flipped them over. There’s none of that now. They move together but it's slow, feeling each other but controlling the urge that wants them to finish this prematurely.

Geralt pushes Jaskier’s hands away, pressing them into the furs as he twines their fingers together.

“Fuck, Geralt,” Jaskier says, not even urging him to move quicker. No, he holds still, very nearly vibrating, and then, as if seeing something in Geralt’s face, he finally relaxes into the bedding, and becomes putty in Geralt’s hands.

“I have you,” Geralt says.

“You have me,” Jaskier replies, but it sounds as if it means a different thing. It sounds-- well. It sounds like a wreath around his neck.

Geralt kisses him, and picks up the pace. It can’t compare to the fucking they usually do-- there’s no slapping of skin to fill the air, no biting, tugging, pulling. He just feels Jaskier’s body underneath his own, and loves him in a way he only knows how to do--curving his body and arching it until he finds the proper angle that makes Jaskier’s breath hitch. A moan gets stuck halfway in Jaskier’s throat, a throat that he kisses as he sinks into Jaskier over and over again, abusing his sensitive spots until Jaskier’s panting, his thighs trembling around him, losing their grip and sliding lower to the small of his back.

Geralt is so close that he can feel how Jaskier’s cock rubs against his stomach each time he moves, and so he stops, spreading Jaskier on his cock for a long moment as he does nothing but kiss him, before continuing.

He can feel when Jaskier gets close to release. He starts twitching around him, tightening so sweetly, and his moans change in color, and his fingers turn to claws. So he knows when to pull back, knows when to stop to make it last.

Each time he does, Jaskier’s groan of disappointment is there, and yet pleasure makes his electrified body curve back into Geralt’s, asking for more.

It’s torture for both of them. Geralt isn’t sure how long he does this, just that sweat drips from his body and mingles with Jaskier’s, flows down his brow and stings his eyes. He knows that he’s kissing Jaskier’s neck, his clavicles, and he knows that the metal of his medallion has become warm from their body heat. The fire is blazing, so strong now that Geralt feels it in waves over his skin, making the air thick with the scent of sex.

Jaskier’s grip on his fingers has turned his knuckles white, his hands trembling. He’s tried blinking away the wetness from his eyes, but Geralt still sees when Jaskier starts crying, softly, from frustration and pleasure all at once.

Geralt can sympathize. He feels quite the same--wrung out and near snapping. He feels as if his hips might give out soon too, if he keeps rolling them like this.

“Please,” Jaskier says and his voice is ruined. “I can’t stand this anymore, please, I’m-- I’m going mad.”

Geralt has to kiss him then, kiss his face if nothing else, because his begging sends a thrill down Geralt’s spine, and his cock is twitching where it's buried within Jaskier’s warm clutch.

“Alright,” he says to Jaskier. “Last time, promise.”

Jaskier nods, relief sweet in his scent, anticipation crackling in the air.

Geralt wants to let go and drive into Jaskier’s body but he also knows this isn’t what he set out to do. So he fucks him like he’s been fucking him for the past hour. The intent, however, changes everything. He knows he’s going to make Jaskier come now, and Jaskier knows it too, and their movements turn frantic. Jaskier’s heels dig into Geralt’s back, into his ass, urging him to fuck into Jaskier harder and harder until he’s pressing all his weight into him. Until Geralt’s rutting into Jaskier like the desperate dog that he is, because pleasure is one thing but he’s always been desperate for Jaskier and not even this can change that.

“Oh fuck-- oh fuck Geralt!”

Jaskier’s moan grows louder until he’s yelling his pleasure out as his cock finally spurts out between them. He tightens around Geralt into a vice-like hold impossible to ignore and resist, so Geralt can’t do anything else but fuck him through it before he’s fraying apart, popping at the seems. He drives his cock into Jaskier’s tight little hole, bruising his hips against Jaskier’s thighs, until he’s spilling into him with a needy whine pressed into Jaskier’s neck.

His hips move on their own after that, twitching in and out, driving his come into Jaskier’s body, drawing out as much pleasure as he can until he’s gone completely soft. He doesn’t collapse as much as he pins Jaskier underneath him, their heaving chests pressed together to expand and collapse in rhythm. He holds himself on his elbows, seeking the warmth of Jaskier’s skin and mouth even as the man’s freed hands finally loop around his chest to hold him.

They stay coiled into each other, until their breathing evens out and Jaskier says, ”Oh fuck.”

Geralt understands. He doesn’t think he ever came that hard in his life.

“You’re such a bastard,” Jaskier says, but it sounds as if he’s saying something completely different. There’s appreciation in his voice. “You sadistic bastard, fuck, I love you so much.”

It slides free in the air, an arrow notched and now let to fly. It doesn’t strike Geralt. It’s not that kind of arrow. Instead, it arrives at his feet for him to take. It’s an arrow that could ruin only Jaskier himself.

That’s what love is, Geralt thinks. Firing a last arrow and leaving yourself exposed to be struck down by it. He sees at once the realisation on Jaskier’s face, but his body doesn’t stiffen in denial. No, he just gives Geralt a little shrug as if to say, ‘Alas, there’s nothing to be done about it.’ His hands spread over Geralt’s sides, inviting him to sink into his gentleness.

Geralt sees all this, and sees Jaskier’s blue eyes so overwhelmed with emotion, not afraid, never afraid, but still waiting to be struck. He would let Geralt ruin him , he thinks. He would let him do anything.

Geralt presses their foreheads together, and let’s his own arrow fly.

-

The night is a long one. It’s easy to tire each other out like that, especially when Jaskier decides he can’t keep laying anymore and hikes a leg over Geralt’s hips and decides to ride him as slow as he can, as slow as both of them can manage, until they’re falling apart all over again.

And then Geralt fucks into Jaskier from behind anyway, while they’re both on their sides and he has to hitch a leg forward. It's just slow shifts of his hips while he jerks Jaskier’ off, unhurried and lethargic, until Jaskier’s coming all over Geralt’s fist where he can lick it away.

He hides his love in the folds of Jaskier’s skin, whispering it in the crevices of Jaskier’s neck, the curve of his neck, the bend of his elbows and into his fingers between each kiss. He never thought that giving something could make him feel so full and yet here he is, chest full to bursting because Jaskier says the words back, says them every time, because he knows it’s important to impart that knowledge into Geralt’s mind until it's undeniable.

It’s been, Geralt thinks, a long time coming.

Winter, Again

Partings, in the end, are never easy. That’s why, the night earlier, they say all they need to say, kiss as much as they need to kiss, and ruin each other, slowly, over and over again until sadness is the last thing on their minds. Geralt never thought he’d be the one leaving. He’s usually the one left behind. Still, as he picks up his pack, wraps his cloak around him, and presses a kiss into Jaskier’s round and sleep-soft cheek, he knows this parting won’t be forever.

-

He thought he knew miserable winters but not one is as miserable as the one following the fall they spent in Cherno. Geralt wonders if it will be like this every winter from now on: he’ll miss Jaskier, miss that fall, miss the softness of his body until the ache turns terminal.

However, like all wounds, this one too scabs over and the pain ebbs slowly, until Geralt is accustomed to it. It becomes his new reality. He’s cold, he’s hungry, and he yearns for spring.

-

The dawn mists roll down the mountain sides, sloped and heavy with snow. He watches the snow-capped peaks reach above the clouds, standing tall against the fading ink-spill remnants of the previous night. Familiar powdered blue color spreads across the horizon, running ahead to herald the first yellow rays that break over the land. The mountain peaks, one after another, begin shining in pink-orange light until the untouched snow appears as if it’s on fire, and in the distance Geralt sees a mountainside.

It’s beautiful. Geralt doesn’t think he will ever be tired of it. Yet, that morning, he takes Roach’s reigns, and starts walking south.

-

Partings are difficult, that is sure. But for each bitter tear, each sigh, and each word left unsaid because sometimes silence is kinder than truth, the reunion makes up for it a dozen times over. He’s in the town where he left Jaskier, and its days after Imbaelk. Still, a bird swoops down, though he isn’t sure which, and he turns to spot Jaskier in the crowd. Destiny. It has always brought them together.

The pain inside him surges, making itself known.

Without thinking, Geralt moves forward, body yearning to meet with its heart once again, and Jaskier laughs and runs until their chests are colliding and he’s wrapping his arms around Geralt.

It feels like collapsing when Geralt presses into him, standing cheek-to-cheek, arms wound around Jaskier’s shoulders in a tight grip. He breathes him in then, breathes the fresh scent on his skin, and whatever flower he’s hiding in his breast-pocket, and the scent of the sycamore lute, and doesn’t understand how he could go without it.

They’re in the middle of the road, surrounded by people, but it doesn’t matter. When Jaskier cradles his face in his hands, Geralt feels as if he can finally sigh. As if he can finally rest. As if he’s home.

He supposes this is his life now. Going from winter to winter, biding his time, remembering fall and waiting for spring, summer, and spring again.

Notes:

Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments! As per request, I have put a few links of the dances I have referenced in the works:
Kolo
Courting Dances
Wedding
Wedding pt. 2
Uzicko
Bulgarian Horo

 As for music, I would like to present you with the fantastic women's choir Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares:
Ergen Deda
about an "old man" joining into the courting kolo (old was around 35 at the time) and how all the girls run away except Angelica
Kalimankou Denkou
If you notice, I mention the "best man" is usually the son of the groom's father's best man himself. It's called "kumstvo". This song is about a son of a best man, with whom the subject has fell in love with. The subject says "you have turned me into dry wood, you have burned me". It's beautiful. They have a lot more wonderful songs, I encourage you to check them out. This has been on loop for me for days.

Every other tradition you can pretty much google in "serbian wedding traditions" though of course they differ from one region to the other.

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