The scrunching of the snow underneath his boots sounds loud in the eerie silence of the night. Jaskier pulls the collar of his coat closer to his neck and leans against the wind as he passes the corpse of the basilisk lying shattered in the courtyard.
He stops at the hitching post where Geralt tied down his horse, and with a sick feeling of satisfaction, he pats the mount’s neck.
“You’ll be good for me, won’t you?” he murmurs. The horse watches him with attentive eyes and neighs.
“Good,” Jaskier mumbles and closes the buttons of his doublet and then of his coat. They are meant to mainly look good, but if he wants to leave the mountains behind without freezing to death, vanity and fashion need to take a step back, and the buttons will have to prove their true worth.
Jaskier unknots the reins and throws them over the horse’s head. He looks up at the keep, so much larger, so much worse than he had imagined it, made it sound in his songs. But he understands his friend Geralt better now, having been here. This is his home. This is where he grew to become the man he is now, where he recharged every winter they spent apart. For sure not a place for warmth. Not a place to learn to deal with emotions beyond reining them in during a hunt and keeping people at arm’s length.
The bard purses his lips, his jaws clenched. No wonder that even after decades, he couldn’t carve out a tiny space for himself in the witcher’s heart. No, for that to be achieved, one needs destiny, and that one isn’t on Jaskier’s side.
Granted, he comes from a privileged place. Not one filled with love either, but at least one needn’t worry to freeze under the blankets while being fully clothed.
The events in the hall have sobered him up, but he can feel the weight of a hangover combined with an adrenaline crash pulling on every muscle of his body.
What a fragile thing the human body is. No wonder Geralt never meant to burden himself with someone as fleeting as Jaskier. Humans must be like annoying midges for long-living creatures like him and his witch, irritating, but easy to slap away.
The first time had been easy. They were both drunk on love and ale and the remnants of nearly losing each other on a monster hunt. But now, with a few days and a lot of kissing down the road, Jaskier wonders how to resolve the problem on hand. Or his arse, to be precise.
He can feel Geralt’s hard cock nestled in the crease of his buttocks and while the witcher doesn’t push—neither in the literal nor the metaphorical sense—Jaskier is torn which direction to take.
He could play possum for one, but he did that the last few days. He could press back and invite Geralt to do with him as he pleases. He could turn and lend the man a hand, so to speak, clean him after and feign an important task trumping the reciprocation.
Jaskier doesn’t know which way to go. It’s not a problem he had that often before as his trysts were usually a one-time thing and seldom one where he spent the whole day with a partner.
This whole relationship thing is new to him, and maybe he should have put their first time off as two lonely men helping each other out, avoiding this whole dilemma. But Geralt had been so soft and sweet, had called him his little lark and been so content that Jaskier’s treacherous heart, lost to the witcher for years, had convinced him to stay.
Big mistake. Because despite Jaskier’s not unfounded reputation as a Lothario and man of many talents (especially in the bedroom), Jaskier has no idea how to navigate the pitfalls of a recurring bed partner and how to hide what he knows to be his biggest failing as a man.
Jaskier knows he’s meant to sow his oats, to chase every interested skirt or any inviting breeches. It’s what he saw the other students in Oxenfurt do, the barmaids and posters along the Path. And he liked the feeling of being wanted, of warm skin pressed together, lips tracing his neck and fingers skimming over his bum.
He enjoyed the noises of pleasure falling from his lovers’ lips, his name a barely breathed prayer, their mixed scents, the closeness. But most of all, he loved their sated sighs, the way they curled around him afterwards, the contentedness as they slipped into sleep with only him there to witness the beauty of a person being satisfied because of him.
It was worth the flight from villages, the bruises and the loss of his voice after running away through cold nights. It had to be. How else would he have found someone to give him the warmth no blanket could give, the touch, the want, the feeling of being human despite his shortcomings?
Jaskier wishes he could have more, could have this right here without a need to choose how to proceed, just feeling Geralt’s chest against his back and knowing that it’s enough. That he is enough as is.
Because it would be enough for him. Jaskier doesn’t need sex, doesn’t feel the urge that often, and if, then never with someone specific in mind. If anything, thinking of someone kills the bouts he feels now and then.
He loves looking at well-dressed people, and a high-necked garment always pulls his gaze more than breasts or broad chests on display. And don’t get him started on genitals. Urgh.
He’s not against nakedness. Everyone should show whatever they feel comfortable with, but whenever Jaskier plays a partner’s body like he plays his lute, his vision turns into pieces, the body parts he concentrates on in focus, the rest falling away.
He’s a skilled lover, never leaving a partner unsatisfied, but the price is high. He’s still willing to pay it for the before and the after.
He’s popular with the ladies, his reputation of being a man putting their enjoyment first travelling ahead, just as the news that he likes taking it up the arse.
Okay, liking is probably a stretch too far for how he’s truly feeling during it. He doesn’t mind it most days, and the days he does? Well, he focuses on the nice things—their hands on his hips, their lips sucking bruises in his neck, the teeth marks he will feel on his shoulder for days, reminding him that he managed to please, to arouse, to be worth someone’s time.
It’s a wonder that Geralt and he didn’t end up in bed together earlier. Maybe because Jaskier knew that it would lead to this exact moment.
Geralt is still hard against him, and Jaskier does his best not to sigh. He pushes back and rubs his crease over Geralt’s cock, eliciting a moan from the other man.
“Want you,” Jaskier croaks, hoping it comes off as arousal tightening his throat.
Geralt’s arm tightens around Jaskier and a growled “You do?” sets in motion what every normal person would want in this very situation.
“Yes,” Jaskier breathes. It’s not a lie. Not really. He wants Geralt to feel good, wants their scents to mingle until they are one, wants to see Geralt unravel under his ministrations or in the depths of his body. He wants all of that. He simply doesn’t want this for himself. He doesn’t want him to return the favour, and that’s always the tricky part. All he wants is for Geralt to stay.
He’s not only used to fleeing husbands and wives, but he’s also good at escaping lovers realising what a freak of nature he is. Someone who scarcely bears someone touching his prick, whose throat closes up if someone asks him if he finds them hot or says that he's so sexy. It should be the greatest compliment, but Jaskier struggles with the concept.
He loves tender eyes and gentle hands, the display of strength by any gender and smiles. He’s a goner for smiles, and dimples, and arched eyebrows, and… nothing that counts when it comes to the intimacy everyone else seems to crave. Everyone but him.
Geralt’s hand roams his body, touches him just right to send goosebumps over his skin, the good kind. But Jaskier knows it won’t end there. His hand will wander to his cock and…
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Geralt asks, his hand frozen on Jaskier’s chest.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Witchers and their stupid super senses!
“Just got something in my eye,” Jaskier lies, but he’s sure distress bleeds into his scent.
“Try again,” Geralt’s voice rumbles through his chest.
“I’m fine,” Jaskier says airily, conjures a smile on his face and turns around. “Let me take care of you, dear heart.”
He presses a peck on Geralt’s lips and kisses his way down over the beautiful cut of his jaw, then his neck, his nice chest, his ripped stomach…
“You’re not smelling aroused,” Geralt states.
Jaskier ignores his words and goes down on him. No one can think about his fucking scent when he pleasures them, plays them by every trick in the book.
No one but a stupid white-haired witcher.
Geralt pulls his body away and sits up against the wall. Jaskier is shamefully grateful that he covers his crotch with the bedsheet. Genitals are just not pretty, no matter which way he looks at them.
Jaskier takes a deep breath and pushes himself into a sitting position. He exhales and draws air back into his lungs, worried he won’t be able to as soon as he meets Geralt’s gaze.
The witcher stares at him, brow furrowed and forehead creased. It could be worse.
“If you don’t like blow jobs, you could have just said it, my love,” Jaskier quips, but the joke falls flat.
Geralt hums. He sets his jaw, eyes flickering through the room. With every passing second, the panic in Jaskier’s chest spreads. He must stink of it by now.
“Are you afraid of me?” Geralt asks, wrinkling his nose.
“No,” Jaskier huffs. He truly isn’t. Geralt looks more hurt than angry. Maybe it’s confusion? The witcher isn’t always easy to read in the best moments, and right now, Jaskier isn’t exactly calm.
“I’m used to smelling indifference, sometimes worry or disgust in whorehouses. But you smell… all over the place.”
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says easily, waving him off. “You know me. My mind is never a quiet place. But I’m sure that’ll change if you give me something to concentrate on,” he teases and reaches for the sheet.
Geralt grabs his wrist before he can reach it.
“The last time, you didn’t smell of arousal either, but excitement so I was thinking none of it. But today…”
“How would you know what my arousal smells like?” Jaskier tries. He has no idea if arousal smells the same on everyone, but maybe he’s lucky.
“I’ve smelt you spill your seed in the woods. Not often, but…”
Jaskier nods. If he had known, he had suppressed his unsteady needs. It’s not as if he needed the release. It was more like scratching an itch.
But he can’t give up now. He can’t lose the man he loves to something as stupid as this. He’s good in bed. He knows he is. If Geralt just let him…
“I tell you something,” Jaskier coos in his most velvety voice. “I help you spill your seed and right after, you can spill mine.”
It’s the biggest token of love he can give him. He knows it works. With closed eyes and images of after playing in his mind, his body can pull off an orgasm. Flat and bland, nothing compared to what his partners feel, but he is an artist. He can put it on thick, fake a mind-blowing orgasm. It’s not his favourite, but if it pleases Geralt, it’s worth putting on a show.
He crawls into Geralt’s lap, rubs his bum over him, searching for the sign of his arousal, but there’s none.
“Come, darling. I’m all yours,” he purrs and keeps up his movement over soft flesh.
Geralt grabs his hips and stops his ministrations.
“Why?” he asks, and Jaskier thinks he’s never heard him this confused and devastated.
Jaskier shrugs. Of course, Geralt wants to know why he’s broken, why he doesn’t experience the most basic of needs. The bard doesn’t have an answer, though, tried to understand it in the past, but he never met anyone like him, only found books describing lust not the lack of it.
“I guess I was born this way,” he tries, forcing a smile on his face, but his lips twitch with the loss he expects any second. Geralt will push him away, will go to the whorehouse down the street or—even worse—back to his witch who can give him what he needs.
Tears run over Jaskier’s face. No one ever truly cared if he drew pleasure from their encounters, affront came about a lack of physical reaction never him not fucking smelling aroused.
Tender thumbs brush away the wet trails on his cheeks.
“I love who you are. Every part of it,” Geralt says calmly.
Jaskier snorts a mirthless laugh. “Sure. What’s not to like?”
“Exactly,” Geralt says, and for all his annoyances regarding the bard easily proclaimed in the past he sounds so damn genuine.
Jaskier can’t take it. This will either tip over to pity or disgust when he’ll understand, and he can’t sit in Geralt’s lap, naked and bare in so many other ways when it’s going to happen.
He tries to move away but Geralt’s grip tightens.
“Exactly,” he repeats.
“I don’t want sex,” Jaskier growls, and Geralt lets go of him immediately.
“I don’t want either. Not when you smell like sorrow and shame.”
Jaskier gets off the bed and dresses himself. Geralt joins him in silence. It helps clear Jaskier’s head seeing the vast expanse of skin disappear under fabric.
He loves this man, loves his soul and body, but… Geralt deserves better. Deserves someone who gets hard or wet when he presses against them, whose sounds of pleasures are their own and not copies of others. He deserves someone who appreciates his body for every curve and every edge, and not only for warmth his heart fills with when Geralt holds him close.
When he’s finished buttoning up his doublet and slipping into his boots, Jaskier stalls. What’s he supposed to do now?
“I guess this is where we part company,” Jaskier croaks, his heart thoroughly pressed into his mouth.
“Why?” Geralt asks.
Jaskier feels sick. “Why? Well, I can hardly tie you to myself with what little I have to offer you, so…”
Geralt knits his brow together. “You don’t want to be with me anymore?”
It’s a question Jaskier didn’t expect, much less the hurt laced into it.
“You want me to stay?”
Geralt works his jaw and blinks. “Yes.”
Jaskier can’t help but laugh. “For what? You can’t enjoy being with me because of me smelling wrong and…”
“I love your scent. Just not when you're… Did I hurt you last time?”
Jaskier shakes his head. “It’s not you. It’s me. My head and my body, they are… wrong. I don’t know. I want to feel it, but I don’t.”
“You mean love?”
Jaskier groans in frustration. Not about Geralt but himself. He’s been there before. People always think love and lust are the same. Maybe it is for normal people, but love has never been a problem.
“No. I love you.”
He freezes. They hadn’t exchanged these words yet. He glances at Geralt, worried about what he might find there. Tender delight wasn’t it, but it’s there, softening all the harshness of the witcher’s features.
“I’m so sorry,” Jaskier says. “I… I shouldn’t have said that. That only raises your hopes.”
“It does. Why would you leave if you loved me?”
Jaskier exhales slowly. “You’re a magnificent man, Geralt. You deserve to smell your partner’s arousal, and I can’t give you that. I can give you pleasure, but I can’t give you that.”
Geralt just stares at him, and Jaskier presses his lips to a thin line.
“Do you like to be close to me?” the witcher asks.
Jaskier nods.
“Do you like lying in my arms?”
Another nod.
“Do you like kissing me?”
Jaskier quirks a sad smile. “Very much so.”
Geralt nods pointedly and closes the space between them. He tips Jaskier’s head back with a gentle touch and kisses him, soft and slow, their bodies gravitating to each other until Jaskier’s fingers are in Geralt’s hair and Geralt’s splayed over Jaskier’s back.
“This is all I need,” Geralt whispers after what feels like hours. “You, content in my arms.”
“But…”
“No but. Stay. I love you.”
Jaskier snickers, high on Geralt’s scent and smile.
“More than sex?”
“More than sex.”
Geralt pulls him back into a kiss, and Jaskier melts into him, the last tension leaving his body.
“Sometimes I feel okay with it,” the bard murmurs into his witcher’s lips.
Geralt pulls back and brushes the hair out of his face. “You know I can smell when you lie?”
“But I don’t right now,” Jaskier smirks.
“Yes, you don’t. But whenever…”
“No faking to like it. Got it.”
“Good,” Geralt grumbles. “Can we go back to bed then?”
Jaskier nods and goes for Geralt’s shirt.
“We don't…”
“I like feeling your skin on mine,” Jaskier pouts, and Geralt chuckles.
“Alright.”
It doesn’t take long until they cuddle naked under the covers again, Jaskier’s head tucked under Geralt’s chin. The bard runs his fingers idly up and down the witcher’s side.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
Geralt grunts. “No need to thank me.”
Jaskier thinks he has no idea how different he is to so many others, but he won’t jinx it with pestering his witcher. Not when he can enjoy his partner’s closeness without pressure and no expectations for the first time in his life.
