Repose - jaskiercommabard - Wiedźmin

Chapter Text

“I simply cannot,” Jaskier moans, pirouetting away from the small, doe-eyed woman who had beelined for him after his third and final round of Toss a Coin. She’s pretty enough, with long, plaited hair and skin like fresh clay, but her breath stinks of too much ale and Jaskier is bone-tired besides.

“It wounds me, my dear lady, but I’ve just remembered I have to see a man upstairs about…a...a…” Jaskier holds his lute in front of him like a shield as she backs him toward the stairs of the inn, “a hat!”

He gives her a final, playfully dramatic bow before turning on a heel and flying up the steps alone.
He aims for the rented room he shares with Geralt and doesn’t let loose his held breath until he’s inside. He flips the shoddy lock and presses himself against the inside of the door, his head falling against it with a sharp whack. Something had started growing under his skin about halfway through tonight’s set - the third in as many days - and now it is ripping to get out.

Jaskier pulls in a breath of fragrant air. He repeats the action again, slowly, and then once more before cracking his eyes open. His gaze falls on his witcher, who sits at a low table just a few paces away. The table itself is covered in neat piles of mostly unrecognizable plants and herbs - this must be the something something hellebore nearby that Geralt was grumbling about as he left in the late afternoon while Jaskier slept in the sun like a cat.

It’s unusual for Geralt to keep them in town this long, and Jaskier should be delighted - had been delighted - until the crowd had grown so heated. Instead of the attention he blooms under, this bunch had grown insistent. Needy, and overly familiar - likely due to word of his appearances in the backwater hamlet somewhere outside Dorndal spreading.

By the end of the third night, the great room of the Wilted Lily had been packed with sweaty, needy, indisputably drunk patrons who became bolder with their grabs and demands as the evening wore on. Bawdier than what Jaskier had come to expect from Temerians, but then again - they had converged on the place to see him, after all. He had played well past the point of aching fingers and scratching throat to please them, and they still hadn’t had their fill by the time he stole away upstairs. He half expects them to come pounding at the door he’s plastered to, and the thought makes the breath leave him in a huff.

“Jaskier, what is it?”

Geralt’s grumble rolls its way across the small room and into the bard’s frenzied head. He hisses another breath in and pushes it out before sliding his eyes over to meet his companion’s. Geralt’s pupils are wide in the dim light, searching. Jaskier just shakes his head tightly, but the witcher translates well enough.

He is used to Geralt analyzing and taking him apart this way, now. It’s been a season of tight quarters and tighter purses. They’ve been f*cking each other down from good shows and bad hunts, softening some of the sharpness in one another, and it’s good, gods it is so good, but-

“Come here,” he says. His tone is temperate but it leaves no room to question, not that Jaskier is inclined to anyway. Geralt gestures to the floor beside him, where a thin pillow from the bed is already waiting, but does not look up from his work. Jaskier eyes the pillow and takes note of it, filing it away as something to examine another time when he doesn’t feel so hot and confined inside his skin.

Jaskier toes off his boots and hesitates, rubbing the pads of his thumbs into the insides of his fingers, before shuffling across the room to lower himself to the floor. The action earns him the slightest nod from above - an incline of Geralt’s head that might have been imperceptible, had Jaskier not been watching hungrily for it. A thread of that manic lightning inside him dims.

Long moments pass and Jaskier grows impatient, fizzing beneath his skin. He fidgets - sighing, shifting his weight, plucking at his trousers where they gather at the knee. The sour scents of spilled ale and dried sweat cling to him just like phantom hands, and it is all too much, too much.
“Can you be quiet,” comes the rumble from beside him, still gentle, and Jaskier snaps to attention. Geralt hasn’t yet looked up from his work of sorting herbs. “Or do you need help?”
I need help. I need you to look at me. I need you to touch me, to f*ck me through the wall if you want, just put this fire out. I need- “Help me,” Jaskier replies, and it’s far softer than he thinks it ought to be. “Please. Take it away.”

Geralt just hums and finishes separating out a few more bundles of herbs before standing. Without a contract to see to, the witcher is dressed down in a thin shirt and linen trousers. The ensemble does little to soften his imposing shape, however, and Jaskier watches him stalk across the room like a mountain lion. Heat blooms beneath the collar of his doublet at the sight and the sensation yanks him back into his body. His own clothing becomes suddenly confining and precious focus flits from him once more. The muffled din of the patrons floating up from where they still mill about downstairs floods his ears, the fabric of his doublet scratches along his arms and shoulders, the heavy scent of herbs and woodsmoke invades his nose, and his eyes drag across the small room restlessly.

Just as Jaskier’s breath begins to thin and the pull of it threatens to drag him under, Geralt is there, kneeling, crowding into his space. His eyes find steady gold and the insistence, the demand of the night begins to fall away. Geralt only wants one thing from him, doesn’t he? There was a pillow waiting for him on the floor.

Jaskier feels cool fingers beneath his chin and at last, every bit of the deranged restlessness ricocheting around his body grinds to a halt to gather there. He peers up at Geralt through his lashes as the witcher turns his head this way and that - appraising.

Jaskier’s eyes are already half-lidded when Geralt rumbles, “You’ve overworked yourself, bard.”

Jaskier nods his head in agreement - would have anyway if Geralt had called him the thrice-damned bastard son of a noonwraith, if he is honest with himself. Would have agreed to be archgriffin bait, or do naked cartwheels into a succubus den if Geralt would only ask.

Geralt presses a soft and solid something against Jaskier’s palm, and he flicks his eyes down before faltering over a breath at the sight. Geralt has tied an intricate, impressive-looking knot into the center of a length of smooth rope. He feels heat catch high in his cheeks and low in his belly as he nods, inviting Geralt to continue.
A cool thumb slides across his full bottom lip, petal-soft, and Jaskier opens his mouth to accept it as his eyes slip closed. The pad of Geralt’s thumb is smooth, gently coaxing Jaskier’s eager mouth open wide enough to fit that intricate knot behind his teeth. It’s enough of a stretch to keep Jaskier grounded - and quiet - but not enough to aggravate his already fatigued jaw. Somewhere behind the haze starting to settle over his mind, Jaskier is grateful for that.
“You can be quiet now,” he says, and Jaskier sags into the relief the statement brings him. It’s permission, not admonishment. Permission for Jaskier to set down the performance, the roiling crowd, the heaviness of all that expectation - to absorb some of Geralt’s stillness for himself.

Geralt moves him by the chin once more, assessing, and lets out a grunt that only Jaskier could translate as pleased before turning away. He sits once more at the small worktable and beckons Jaskier closer when he sways at the loss of contact. He shuffles forward on his knees, then sits back on his ankles to watch Geralt tie the meticulously sorted herbs into bundles. He admires the sureness of the witcher’s hands as he wraps lengths of twine around stems and knows that this task is something more like a ritual than a chore - something perfected and performed hundreds upon hundreds of times long before Jaskier ever bore witness to it. It’s comforting, methodical - like caring for his lute.

Soon enough, his body begins to feel warm and heavy - comfortable, like settling into a particularly heady wine. He doesn’t realize that his eyes have fallen closed until a tender hand at the back of his neck guides him forward until his cheek rests against the solid curve of Geralt’s leg. He is thankful for the reprieve, knowing that Geralt is about to wind him right back up and break him into pieces. For now, he breathes through his nose, comforted by the earthy-sweet air filling room. He can smell mild chamomile and bright, vegetal yarrow, banked fire, and Geralt. The scent of leather and cypress soothes Jaskier as much as it excites him while he kneels, existing in this safe and quiet place his friend has made for him.

Time dances away from him, gently punctuated each time a steady hand drifts down to feather through his hair. He sighs, turning into the small touches like a cat as the tension in him softens.

A word - a request, maybe - comes floating down to Jaskier, but he can’t make it out. It rolls into him, honey over gravel. Jaskier drags his eyelids open with some effort to see Geralt leaning down into his space again, his saturnine features close enough for Jaskier to admire through the haze.

“I asked if you were feeling better,” he says, and Jaskier nods. Geralt, for his part, seems satisfied with the answer.

“I’m going to touch you now.” Another nod, and then those steady hands are - blissfully, finally - on him, releasing what few buttons remain fastened at the front of his doublet. Geralt pushes it off his shoulders and then it disappears, taking some of that wretched heat with it. Those steady hands are there soothing, patting, pressing, insisting, and he is only vaguely aware of the needy little sounds leaving him when Geralt eases the twisted rope out from behind his teeth.

“Tell me what you need,” Geralt growls against his ear, and it would be enough to topple Jaskier if he wasn’t already on his knees.

“I don’t - f*ck, Geralt,” he whines, “I don’t know. I just need you. Please. It’s too much.”

“ What is too much?” This one is mumbled into the skin behind Jaskier’s ear. He sucks in a breath, searching for some of his frayed focus.

“The- The crowd, all of them. It was too much - they were too much tonight. They wanted so much.” Now he sags against the solid bulk before him, his tired voice gone quiet once again.

“They needed…everything. I didn’t want them tonight, their attention. I wanted-” he snaps his jaw shut, forehead pressing hard into Geralt’s shoulder. The bliss that had blanketed Jaskier a few moments slides away, and he feels exposed again.

The request still hangs in the air. Geralt waits, but doesn’t repeat himself.

The witcher is growling something above him, but it’s warm - tangling his hands in Jaskier’s hair, but it’s gentle. Jaskier doesn’t realize what’s happening, doesn’t care, until Geralt is shivering apart and spilling into his mouth and petting his hair and saying yes, saying good.

After moments or days or lifetimes, after Geralt stops to give him air he doesn’t want and swipe tears from the corners of his eyes that he doesn’t register, the witcher is leaning into his space and Jaskier is coming back to himself. He feels a lazy smile spread across his face and then Geralt is kissing it, swiping his tongue into Jaskier’s eager mouth. He pulls away just enough to press their foreheads together, to let Jaskier pant against his cheek as he slips a hand into his trousers. Geralt strokes him lazily, slowly, as he places sharp kisses along Jaskier’s slackened jaw.

“Alright?” Geralt rumbles, low and quiet, like he’s asking Jaskier for a secret. He waits for Jaskier to nod, leaves a kiss on the tip of his nose, before drawing himself up to lean back in the chair once more. The space between them feels like a loss as he reaches for a small vial of chamomile oil and returns to press it into Jaskier’s hand.

“Open yourself for me,” he says, so casually that the direction is almost missed - except, Jaskier must hear it, because his traitorous heart slams in his chest and he can feel the resulting blood rush all the way up to his ears.

“Wha-” he manages to squeak, but Geralt only inclines his head. His words from earlier clang around in Jaskier’s head like cut lutestrings.

You have my attention.

Jaskier just stares for a moment, growing pinker and pinker. Something in him is beginning to buzz once more, and he tenses around it until Geralt leans forward and catches his jaw with a steady hand.

“Jaskier,” his voice is soft again now, “we won't do anything you don’t want to.”

“ I want to,” he whispers. He tries again, concentrating. “I want to. I want- ”

That grounding pressure beneath his jaw disappears and he bites down on a whine.

“Then get on with it,” Geralt replies, but there is no venom - only gathering heat, unfaltering command. He presses a single, soft kiss to Jaskier’s swollen lips, another beneath each of his eyes, close enough that Jaskier can see his own. They’re blown wide, topaz-ringed black, and the breaths warming his cheek are coming nearly as quickly as a human’s.

Jaskier is not alone. Geralt is not unaffected. The tightness in his chest relaxes and turns buoyant again.

“I want to,” he says again, clarity coloring his voice. Geralt’s eyes are still locked with his as the mask of composure slides back into place, and the smirk on his face would be imperceptible to anyone but Jaskier.

The bard takes a steadying breath and drags his last ounce of half-stale courage from some long forgotten shelf in the back of his mind and uses it to co*ck an eyebrow as he wiggles out of his trousers and smallclothes. He snatches the pillow from where it had been forgotten on the floor and settles it beneath his hips before leaning back on an elbow, now fully on display in just his barely-tied chemise.

Jaskier ghosts a hand down between his legs and watches as Geralt takes in the performance. He looks every part the wolf Jaskier has named him; he is silver-white even in the warm firelight, coiled even as he hooks an arm across the back of his chair in a play at relaxation. The sight of Geralt’s fingers twitching where his other hand rests on a muscled thigh, betraying his own unraveling, is enough to set Jaskier trembling all over. If his hand shakes a bit as he fumbles with the vial of oil, Geralt is kind enough not to tease him any further.

Debauched embarrassment blooms in Jaskier’s chest as he presses a calloused finger into himself, so he closes his eyes and lets his head tip back. This, at least, feels familiar, if somewhat mechanical - preparing himself is nothing he hasn’t done before, though it’s usually a result of picking a careless or hasty lover. That thought cools him a little, strips him somehow, even as he’s laid out like a meal in front of Geralt, and he feels himself drifting again. He opens his eyes, heavy-lidded, to search for his wolf once more and finds steady gold.
“Slower,” Geralt demands, and it goes straight to Jaskier’s co*ck. “Touch yourself like I would touch you.”

Jaskier can’t help the groan that rips its way out of his throat, but he keeps his gaze locked on the other man’s. Geralt doesn’t just want Jaskier ready for him, he wants a show - wants to give Jaskier the attention he so openly admitted to needing.

The bard obliges, letting his trembling thighs fall open as he lowers his shoulders flush against the floor.
“That’s better,” Geralt breathes, and it’s enough to replace some of the coal-hot burning in Jaskier’s chest with a heavier warmth. He sighs, hitching a leg up to change the angle a bit as he presses into himself again, adding a second finger. Somewhere far away, a low rumble confirms that it was the right thing to do.

Jaskier goes on like this, spreading himself on the floor before Geralt. His free hand flutters as he indulges himself with images of what may come next - he traces the outline of his own mouth with a delicate finger, scratches along his collarbone, coaxes a soft whine from himself as he rubs over a sensitive nipple. As that hand drifts lower, toward his aching co*ck, Geralt’s voice comes grinding through the haze again.
“No,” he growls, and Jaskier’s eyes snap open. Geralt is no longer reclined in the chair above him, but kneeling between his legs, pinning him to the spot with those sharp amber eyes. Jaskier’s hands still - both of them, Melitele preserve him - and he begins to pull them away from himself before Geralt stalls him.

“Not fair!” he pants, “Not fair, using your- your- your witchering, to sneak up on me.”

“I think you were distracted,” Geralt purrs, and his voice is so smooth that Jaskier spares half a moment to be almost annoyed. There is no sign of the breathlessness that has left Jaskier gasping on the floor - no rabbit heart like the one that tries to leap out from between his ribs when Geralt slips a third finger into him beside his own.

Jaskier bites down hard on his already swollen lip and smacks his head back against the floor. The stretch, the obscene slide of Geralt’s cool skin against his own in that hot, hot space, the smell of him so close - Jaskier is senseless with it. He hardly registers the nonsense spilling from his own lips, the please, please, more, Geralt, I need- f*ck- I need, until Geralt is there, swallowing his words, pressing him deliciously into the unforgiving floorboards

“You need another,” he soothes to quiet Jaskier, bites at the soft lobe of his ear to make him whine again.

Geralt shifts the arm trapped between them and the resulting twist of fingers is a bolt of lightning. He shouts, and Geralt catches that, too.

“I need you,” Jaskier pleads, panting against the witcher’s cheek. It bubbles out of him, wanton, heedless - need you, need you, now-

A low growl is his only answer before Geralt pulls away. The empty air between them is an affront, one that Jaskier peels himself from the floor to remedy, but it doesn’t take long for those strong, sure hands to return. He’s being lifted as if he weighs nothing, carried across the room and deposited on the narrow bed. Geralt crowds him immediately, slotting himself between Jaskier’s spread thighs to grant him a taste of blessed friction against his aching co*ck. A whine rips itself from his chest and lands in the bend of Geralt’s shoulder.

He must be too occupied to notice, scraping his sharp teeth over Jaskier’s collarbones as he is. The witcher is rutting against him, dragging the hot length of himself down where their hips meet. Jaskier is tempted to hook his ankles around Geralt’s back, trap him there until they finish like this, like beasts, but he needs more.

He must say so, must beg for it, because Geralt peels himself away and nudges at Jaskier’s hips until he is on his knees, face buried in his folded arms. He tenses just slightly when he feels the hot, blunt head of Geralt’s co*ck pressing at him, and then broad hands are petting down his back and sides. He relaxes, bowing his spine further and canting his hips back; he doesn’t miss the slight flex of Geralt’s hand on his side at that, and smiles a little into his elbow.

“Please,” Jaskier breathes, and Geralt obliges. He rolls his hips slowly, filling Jaskier, allowing him to adjust in the gentle way that means he won’t pull any punches later. The bard pants into his arms, both of them sharing a punched-out groan when their bodies meet. For a moment it is overwhelming, almost too much - it’s always almost too much, but then…there are Geralt’s thumbs, rubbing mindless, patient little circles into his back.

“Move,” he whispers when the molten heat in his spine begins to swirl again, but the other man remains still. Jaskier raises his head to look back at Geralt, but a hand snakes into his hair and wrenches his gaze up instead. He sees….himself, reflected in the tall mirror that leans against the wall on the other side of the room. He looks debauched, flushed, unfocused. Geralt looks….pleased.

That mirror had been behind the door when he left for his set.

“Oh, you bastard,” he hisses, and feels the answering chuckle in his own spine. Geralt rolls his hips and Jaskier watches the ripple of it move through them both. Well. If it’s a game his witcher wants, the bard is happy to oblige.

Jaskier straightens, arching up until his back meets Geralt’s chest, and guides those corded arms around him. The image of them there in the silvered glass - so intimate, so tangled - wrings a gasp from them both. Jaskier lifts his arms, looping them behind himself to cradle the back of Geralt’s head. He catches those golden eyes in their reflection and raises himself up, arching his back in that way Geralt calls pretty sometimes when he’s been deep in his cups, before pressing back down with a thready moan.

The way Geralt’s grip on his skin tightens sets little fires alight along Jaskier’s spine as he continues working himself against the solid body behind him. Geralt is turning bestial, turbulent, sinking his teeth into Jaskier’s shoulders over and over. Sweet-sharp soreness starts to replace the tension there and he watches himself go boneless in the mirror. The corners of the room are softening, the dissonance in him turning melodic, and Geralt is growling through it into his ear.

“Stop. Performing,” he demands, and Jaskier obeys, giving over to that delicious haze. Geralt’s arms are an iron band around him, keeping him upright as his own arms fall to clutch desperately at anything he can reach - Geralt’s wrists, his thighs, the curve of his outrageously perfect ass. Those relentless hips snap forward, just once, chasing the air out of both of them as Jaskier’s head rolls back over Geralt’s shoulder. The sounds the witcher slips into his ear are obscene, unhinged, just as affecting as the rolling thrusts.

“Then stop - ah, f*ck, Geralt - stop teasing me,” he gasps, and before he can make sense of it, he’s being pushed down into the bed. Gently possessive fingers grasp the back of his neck as Geralt begins snapping his hips forward in earnest. Jaskier’s awareness fizzles down to the points where they connect - where Geralt holds him by his neck and hip, where they crash together relentlessly, where something is sparking inside him. He’s pleading - to Geralt, to the goddess, praying and cursing in turn. A voice is soothing him, calming his heedless babble, saying I know and you can, saying good.

In this moment, he would continue to beg - he doesn’t have to. All he has to do is take, and Geralt gives. He’s unaware of the new sounds he’s making but there are no more words, just the breath punched out of him as he claws at the bedclothes, seeking more friction, more depth, more, more.

“Greedy,” Geralt purrs into his ear, but there’s something rough at the edges of it. His hips stutter where they grind down, shoving Jaskier harder, higher up the bed like he can’t make himself pull away. Suddenly Jaskier knows what he needs, what more he’s seeking.

“Let me see you,” he rasps, and it comes out softer than it was supposed to. As soon as he makes the request, he’s being turned in Geralt’s arms.

The fire has died down without him noticing, casting soft shadows around them. Geralt’s hair falls like a curtain, tickling his cheeks, and Jaskier’s head is quiet again as his hands drift up to tangle in it. They’re suspended in this private eternity, Jaskier catching his breath and Geralt losing his.

“Please,” he whispers, and this time he is not the one who trembles. Geralt’s eyes fall shut as he slides back into Jaskier, and the bard’s stay wide open, memorizing the dip between Geralt’s silvery brows, the impression those sharp teeth leave in his lower lip, the way his throat works as he pants. Jaskier’s own breath starts to come in burning little pulls as Geralt begins moving again.

A distant part of him thinks that he could stay like this forever - safe, enveloped, irreparably entwined with the body above him. Geralt hooks an arm beneath his knee, snakes the other between them to grip his leaking co*ck, and Jaskier’s mind goes white before he can stoke the thought any further.

Jaskier tenses, balanced on a sword's edge, on a lute string. He is ready, he is not ready. He clings to the precipice, digs his greedy fingers into the undulating muscle covering him. It feels so good, he feels so good, he wants-

“Breathe,” Geralt instructs, and he feels it like stars exploding across his body. Jaskier keens - a snapped string, a hot sword - and spills into the tight circle of Geralt’s fist as he f*cks him through it until he’s shivering out of his skin. The witcher’s hips still even as his breath comes in hot, ragged waves against the hollow of Jaskier’s throat.

“Keep going,” he breathes, and wild gold eyes snap to his. “Don’t stop.”

Geralt’s hips jerk forward, uncontrolled, pulling a shout from both of them.

“f*ck. f*ck. Jaskier,” he growls, half-mad.

“That’s the idea,” Jaskier pants, and it earns him a huff of breath that could have been a laugh in another life. The corded muscles in the witcher’s broad back twitch under Jaskier’s hand, betraying the shred of self control he still clings to. Jaskier rolls his hips, seeking to destroy it.

The fizzing under his skin is like champagne, like little fires lit to beckon Geralt closer, to burn them up together. Pain and pleasure at once, far too much and not nearly enough - it’s not fair, this feeling, but it is exquisite.

“Can I-”

“ Yes,” Jaskier grinds out. The body above him shudders.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” Geralt growls into the shell of his ear. It’s predatory, pleased.

“You’d just let me, wouldn’t you?" Yes. "Let me have anything?" Yes. "Let me come inside you?”

“Yes,” he gasps aloud this time, the sudden, white-hot need threatening to rip him apart. He can't remember ever wanting anything else. “Anything, f*ck, anything, please, inside- please-”

Geralt falls over him, crowding him until every line of them is tangled together. One iron arm snakes beneath Jaskier’s shoulders and the other lands somewhere on the headboard behind them. Geralt noses at his ear, kissing sweetly, but the voice that comes from him is anything but.

“Hold on to me,” he growls, and Jaskier scrambles to obey, locking his arms behind Geralt’s neck. He can’t get any closer. He tries anyway.

“Come on, wolf,” he whispers, just as Geralt’s hips stutter and quake, as he’s filled with warmth and noise and heat, as everything else is gently taken from him. It’s the last thing he says for a long time.

Later, after Geralt has untangled himself from his unruly limbs and returned with a warm cloth, with water and food, Jaskier floats softly back down to meet him. The sweet, dusty air of early autumn has made its way into the room through a window that wasn’t open before.Jaskier likes that, after, and Geralt knows.

“Thank you,” he says around the last bite of the treacly, spiced cake that Geralt had produced from nowhere and pressed into his hand. The witcher just hums and takes up his other hand to stretch his tired, calloused fingers.

“Still eager to skip town?” he asks as Jaskier spreads himself languorously at his side. The question feels like…

It feels like three days in a noisy tavern when there are contracts in the next town. It feels like a cushion beneath his knees. It feels like the soft cry of his own name and a bowl of sweet figs on the table that don’t grow in Temeria.It feels a lot like an open window.

“Surely one more day won’t hurt.”

Repose - jaskiercommabard - Wiedźmin | The Witcher (2024)

Chapter Text