#geraltxjaskierxyennefer | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

funkzpiel · 5 years ago

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Recover

The second and final part to ‘Smother’, because wow this story was way more exhaustingly elaborate than I thought it would be. Fun. But fuck.

Also they fuck now, so that’s a thing somewhere in these 27-fucking-pages-of-word-doc-hell. The first half of it is relatively decently edited, but shit unravels quickly. I’m tired, I’m sorry. Enjoy.

For all her long years, Yennefer had always assumed that a witcher’s proclivity to accelerated healing came purely from their trials and mutations. Sterility in compensation for longevity. Even now as she traced a faint, gnarled pock mark of a scar on Geralt’s shoulder idly, she remembered the first night she had ever laid eyes on it. How it had been hot and puffy under her fingers as she traced its edges, lying in bed with him one night after having rendezvoused at some nowhere inn. She had been high from a newly found boon of research and he had been freshly bathed after a contract done exceedingly well, his purse unusually heavy.

She remembered how the gash had been barely closed and somewhat weeping when they started, although the witcher didn’t seem bothered by it at all except for a hiss through his teeth here and there when he moved it just slightly more than he ought to have. They had their fill of each other, supping from the cup of one another’s company and victory, and by morning the wound had closed. Puffy still, but it looked more like a gash three days along rather than hours. She remembered being fascinated. At the time she had wondered what, if anything, could keep a witcher down. It was thrilling to bed a creature as tailored by human machinations as herself. Thrilling, comforting even, to be known by someone so intimately familiar with that very distinctive existence, that pain. Like hearing the pitch of a string plucked that matched the sound of your own heartbeat, vibrating in your bones.

But now, the more she was left to suffer with a bedridden Geralt, the more she wondered if a witcher’s inclination toward swift recovery was not in fact simply a blessing from the gods to spare both witchers and the mortal world from their impatience and bullheadedness. Surely they’d all be dead, if not. Particularly Geralt.

She sat at his side, her back cushioned by pillows and the headboard as she took her time perusing the world-weathered pages of one of the Kaer Morhen’s very many bestiaries. Despite the white wolf’s restlessness, he was not recovering from his weeks-long stint of suffering as quickly as he or any of them hoped. Vesemir had mentioned more than once that Geralt was the first known case of a witcher surviving what they referred to as a ‘witcher’s blight’ or a ‘witcher’s passing’ – the end of the “Path”, so to speak – so there was no telling how long it would take the wolf to recover, particularly given how closely the man had come to death. The older witcher didn’t seem surprised that Geralt slept for hours at a time and woke for less. She tried to take comfort in that. Tried to take comfort in watching her witcher rest, but neither she nor Jaskier found much comfort in it at all – particularly when Geralt began to press for freedom from his sickbed.

She remembered still leaving him for but a moment and returning to the sight of the wolf just after having picked himself up from the floor – hip already blooming into something purple and puffy, cheeks red knowing he had been caught. Jaskier had rushed to him, hands on the witcher in an instant as he lifted Geralt’s shirt, babbling all the while like a panicked mother. Dramatic as always.

“M’fine,” Geralt had muttered, but she knew how much the fall had smarted his pride. He wouldn’t meet either of their eyes, and furthermore, he allowed Jaskier to fret over him instead of shying away or snarling something cruel to hide his own apprehension. His surprising patience was likely a mixture of leftover guilt for the things he had said to both of them, despite having been forgiven as he vomited his self-inflicted punishment – and perhaps, just perhaps, the smallest sliver of fear. The wolf had never been left weak for long before this. She wondered if he had ever fallen like that after standing from any of his prior stints in sickbeds. He was used to returning to his feet quickly.

Instead he shook like a fawn before them, all lanky and trembling limbs. Despite how he towered over the bard, exhaustion stooped him somewhat from his normal stance, and Yennefer could tell by the cant of the man’s hips that he was using the bard as a crutch in whatever way he could that displayed that fact as little as possible and yet still supported him. Perhaps Jaskier could not tell, consumed in his fretting as he was, but Yennefer’s eyes were keen to the lies of a man’s body. Most men were like books written by children, perhaps four pages long at best.

“Fine? You’re black and blue! Why didn’t you just stay put, we were coming right back!” Jaskier bickered, giving Yennefer a look as though he expected her to weigh in.

She was hardly about to fault the man – particularly one used to fending for himself – for hoping he could make use of the privy under his own volition. But that hardly meant she would allow the witcher to keep making foolish choices either. Just as she knew why he had done it, she also knew he had purposefully waited for them to leave lest one of them insist on supervising at best, assisting at worst. Prideful beast.

“I did not think we had all reached this point in our relationship yet, but I’m more than happy to introduce ropes and bindings to how we share our bed, Geralt. Jaskier and I have discussed it at length, even, while on the road. Evidently our learned bard knows a lovely way to frame a body such as yours with knots.”

Surprising them yet again, Geralt blushed something beautiful at that, pale as he was. It rose up his neck to the tips of his ears, made a rosy home in the flesh of chest that peaked out from beneath his night shirt. And his cheeks!

That had cowed the witcher suitably; for a day.

They took turns watching him after that. Slowly, he began to regain the energy to leave their bed, albeit for small stints. It began with relieving himself, then bathing. Short walks, making it to a table to eat – a feat he conquered eventually, albeit as pale as a sheet that hung in a field and shaking like the wind that dried it. He improved, always with one of them beside him like a shadow, chatting casually as they tried their best to look as though they were not always anticipating the possibility that he might fall again. He got better slowly. Still, unease curled in Yennefer’s gut.

Despite his longevity and his hair and his eyes and every inch of him that said ‘I am more than a man’; despite the names society called him and the stories they told about the ferocity of witchers… he was so painfully mortal.

Even now Yennefer could not help but feel ill at ease despite the peace of it all. She had Geralt curled against her hip, his face pressed into the warm curve of her thigh, fast asleep. Jaskier had left to stretch his legs, and with any luck he’d return with a treat for them all – a plate of cured meats or fruit or cheese, perhaps. This particular little “nap” had already lasted four hours. And to think, he once struggled to sleep in the slightest… A part of her enjoyed it, of course. It brought a strange flicker of warmth to her chest to see the normally stoic man like this: soft in his sleep in a way he refused or perhaps simply did not know how to be while awake. Unburdened by his many layers of mental shields and emotional barriers that training had engraved into him as deeply and stoically as the groves on a bloodletting table.

But another part of her worried. She wanted him to rest just as much as she wanted him to wake and prove he was healing, that he’d be fine. Patience, as it turned out, was perhaps not her strong suit either.

He was still so thin, and his thinness only served to draw his scars tauter about his body. Not that they were unsightly – rather quite the opposite – but it served to make her larger than life witcher look strangely small. He’d eat, he’d regain what he had lost, she knew this. The question was not ‘how long until he was back to full form’ but rather ‘could they keep the witcher still long enough to heal before his restlessness got the better of him’.

As if he could hear her thoughts Geralt huffed against her skin, lips parted sleepily and just barely grazing the curve of her thigh from his nearness. A quirk of his she now recognized as the witcher growing closer to waking. She knew what would follow: a grumbly, stir-crazy wolf without the energy to back up his restlessness. Her hand drifted down to his hair out of habit rather than any true intention, nails grazing his scalp kindly as she burrowed her fingers into those thick white locks made soft as silk thanks to Jaskier’s endless soaps and oils. Beneath her hand Geralt slowly but surely settled, his breath evening once more. Another moment of peace bought, however brief. She’d let him wake when Jaskier returned, armed with meats and no end of rambling thoughts with which to distract Geralt with. Until then, she let the hush of the witcher’s breath and the beat of his heart against her leg soothe her worries – perhaps she too just needed to learn how to enjoy rest.

— • —

Jaskier woke, curled into the sheets alone. It wasn’t altogether uncommon in one sense – Geralt and Yennefer were both terrible sleepers. Yen had likely gone to the library to read her restlessness away. Since coming to Kaer Morhen, however, Jaskier usually woke with at least one large arm around his waist and Geralt’s nose pressed to his hair. The man had yet to return to his lighter sleeping habits, still neck deep in recovery. And yet, Jaskier woke alone with only sheets to keep him warm.

He came to slowly, his body and mind fighting waking viciously. His eyes felt swollen and gritty and he knew immediately that it was not yet close to morning, his lethargy far too intense to be even remotely close to a full night of rest. He felt struck dumb, everything connecting slowly. He had woken – but why? A sound. Wheezing. Close and relentless, steadily getting louder, more frantic.

Slowly that began to rouse him. It set off a warning bell somewhere in the sleepy fog of his mind, shrilling and ringing as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The moon spilled in through the window, shadows from the tree outside dappling the man sitting on the edge of the bed in shifting greys and pale moonlit patches. He could see the way Geralt’s back was quaking in tight, twitchy bursts. He had seen the look before, the way the coughing could seize the man up into a terrible knot of tightness. But there was no coughing, no flowers. Just awful, wrenching wheezes.

“Gr’lt?” he mumbled first, rubbing the worst of the grit from his eyes as he tried to understand what was happening. When the witcher didn’t immediately reply Jaskier tried again, “Geralt?”

Wheezing, high and thin and reedy. Now that Jaskier was looking, he could see the painful stretch of Geralt’s ribs against the taut stretch of his skin, flexing and expanding in short, aborted bursts – as if he couldn’t breathe. That sobered him.

“Geralt!” He gasped, fighting with the sheets to disentangle himself and make his way across the bed to him. Geralt turned somewhat to look at him with wide eyes, feverish with a glaze of fear and embarrassment. He had one hand to his mouth, trying to smother the sound of his panic beneath his knuckles as he waved Jaskier off with his other.

He tried to wheeze ‘sorry’ and failed spectacularly.

Jaskier pressed a hand to the man’s broad shoulder and he could feel every ripple of struggle in those muscles, every cut off breath that couldn’t quite be drawn deep enough. Geralt felt cold to the touch.

“What is it? More flowers?” Jaskier stammered, words coming in a quick tumble as adrenaline burned the last of his sleepiness away. “Geralt, what’s wrong? Should I fetch Vesemir? Yen? By the gods, Geralt, say something, I don’t know what to do!”

Geralt reached for him, nose flaring wildly as he struggled through the wheezing. A large pale hand curled in the front of Jaskier’s nightshirt and for a mindless moment the bard feared he might be struck – the movement far too similar to the men he’d cuckolded who’d caught him – until that fisted hand suddenly went flat against Jaskier’s chest. Bracing, as if trying to use him as an anchor.

“M’ – M’fine,” Geralt managed to mumble through whispered, harsh exhales and short, throbbing little inhales.

Jaskier grabbed his wrist, something hot and fierce rising in him at that as he snapped, “Don’t you dare lie to me. Not right now. Not after I nearly watched you die coughing flowers because you were lying to yourself. Don’t you fucking dare, Geralt. Do I need to go get someone?”

The witcher watched him for a long moment, yellow eyes flickering eerily in the low light of the room until finally he shook his head no. No, as if everything were fine, as if he wasn’t panicking. But Jaskier had seen Geralt face down all manner of monsters and bandits and dangerous situations. He knew what Geralt looked like when he wasn’t afraid because he was certain everything would be fine, confident in his training. He knew what that looked like, and it certainly was this: Geralt, wide eyed and wheezing and shivering so hard that Jaskier could feel it through the hand firmly planted on his chest.

Jaskier pressed forward. He grabbed Geralt by the jaw and looked for any sign of petals on his lips, in his teeth or on the bed. Then, and only then, did he feel some modicum of comfort fall over him. There were no flowers, no petals, no blossoms. It was more the memory of choking that choking itself; as if, even after being cured, Geralt’s body could not quite forget.

“M’fine,” Geralt wheezed again, jaw tight under the cradle of Jaskier’s hands. Pained. Afraid.

“How can I help?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt shook his head weakly, fingers digging into Jaskier’s chest ever so slightly, and bowed his head. His breath whistled and clicked something awful, but beneath all that, Jaskier saw Geralt’s breathing steady ever so slightly. Just somewhat deeper than before.

Jaskier wasn’t a stupid man. A man doesn’t go to a university like Oxenfurt and walk away with nothing under his belt but debt. Cause and effect, dots connecting like stars shooting across the sky, illuminating constellations. Jaskier was an anchor. An example to set his breathing to like a Skellege war drum urging rowers on to battle.

“Come,” he said firmly, taking Geralt’s hand from his chest and urging the witcher to follow him further back onto the bed. Confused, Geralt stiffly remained on the edge of the bed, eyes narrowed. Jaskier blew out an exasperated breath and reached forward again – twisting awkwardly – and tugged the witcher to him with a pleading, “I know I’m not mage or healer, but just trust me.”

Begrudgingly, wariness high in the exhausted fever glaze of his eyes, Geralt gave in to him. He followed the bard’s hands until he was sitting back against the head board, legs spread. Jaskier removed his shirt and wormed his way into the witcher’s lap in a flash, not hesitating for so much as a moment lest Geralt question him. He caught a glimpse of a struck-dumb expression on the wolf’s face before Jaskier was pressing his back into Geralt’s chest, his slighter frame engulfed against the witcher. He took either of Geralt’s hands and wrapped them around him, placing either palm flat against his belly and his chest, his own hands and fingers entangled in the witcher’s, keeping them firmly in place.

“Follow my lead,” Jaskier said, then took a slow breath – just a few seconds – held it for a short beat, then exhaled it. Each time he drew in a little more air, held it a little longer, exhaled a little more. Geralt didn’t catch on, not quite at first. Jaskier could feel the awful hitch of his breathing through the skin of his back and the slim curl of his ribs. But slowly, ever so slowly, Geralt began to follow the tempo of his breathing. In, hold, out, hold, in, hold, out, hold. Jaskier, despite himself, did not talk. He didn’t want to talk over the sound of their breathing. Didn’t want to miss one second of Geralt’s breathing as it steadily began to even out. He ached to babble comforts and frivolous encouragements, but witchers took actions to heart with much more gusto than words and he knew without looking that the sound of their breathing was helping Geralt far more than any conversation might. The hands he cradled began to warm in his. The wheezing eased, the clicking faded and the whistling disappeared. At some point Geralt had fully curled around him, his stubbled jaw a soothing burn against the smooth skin of Jaskier’s shoulder. Heavy and anchoring as Geralt’s limbs loosened around him.

The witcher hummed against him, soft and acknowledging. A thank you, Jaskier liked to think. Not that he could ask, what with the witcher quite nearly asleep. He eased them both down, careful to keep Geralt’s front to his back and his hands on his chest. And like that, finally, they fell back to sleep – legs entangled, the wolf’s nose in his hair, breathing easily.

In the morning, while Jaskier was still dizzy with waking – loathe to leave the warmth and comfort of sleep – Geralt pressed a kiss to his neck and murmured, “Thank you.”

Jaskier mumbled sleepy nonsense at him and Geralt kissed him again, confident in those early moments where Yen and Jaskier’s cleverness was made soft by morning and he could make small gestures with abandon, the two of them too sleepy to comment on it or see.

— • —

Jaskier told Yennefer the next day about the little episode. Privately, of course. He wouldn’t wish that scare upon anyone. Not the terror of seeing Geralt that way, nor the heartbreak of seeing that frustration in his eyes. The question rang in all their heads: why wasn’t he better yet?

— • —

Eventually, Geralt demanded to see Roach. It did not matter that she was safely tucked away in Kaer Morhen’s stable or that she had a whole pasture to graze from and enjoy. It didn’t matter that Vesemir was looking after her. Geralt needed to see her and that was that. He refused for them to bring her directly outside the entrance to Kaer Morhen. He’d make it to the stable or not at all, he had told them, and they could see by the set of his jaw alone that the matter was not up for negotiation. Not when it came to Roach.

He made it – nearly as pale as his own hair and stinking of sweat, but victorious nonetheless. Yennefer saw the softness on Jaskier’s face as the bard watched the witcher with his horse. Not that she could blame him, it was hard not to love Geralt in these moments – glimpses into a world where the man lived and loved openly because Roach would never tell him not to. Not like his training, not like the people who rebuked him and feared him.

He had a special sort of calmness to his face whenever Roach pressed her head into his chest, demanding attention. Without a doubt, the horse had worried. It fretted and nibbled and lipped at Geralt’s hair and the shoulder of his shirt, snuffling and touching as though convincing herself that her human was upright and alive. And Geralt, despite his weariness and the way the wind destroyed the mask his clothing had built to hide his thinness, looks years younger in her presence.

“I know emotions aren’t a witcher’s thing,” Jaskier whined playfully from the entrance of the stables, one hip pressed to its frame, “But I can’t believe I’m jealous of the way Geralt looks at a horse.”

Roach paid him no mind, far more enraptured with eating apple slices from Geralt’s somewhat trembling hand. He was strong enough to love her, and that was all that mattered to Roach. Geralt, though, couldn’t help but snort through a small, wry smile – an expression just as much a part of his vocabulary as words to a linguist.

“Speak for yourself,” Yennefer purred, taking up the other side of the door frame, “I’ve seen that look before.”

“No, no,” Jaskier continued, “You’ve seen a look. But I am quite fluent in witcher, and not every look is the same. He’s shared many a loving look with us both, but there is a special one for Roach, his first love.”

“First love,” Geralt grunted, the sound flirting with the tenor of a chuckle. When he moved for the brush, Yennefer sighed.

“Geralt, you cannot be serious,” Jaskier said, brows dipped in concern as he expressed, as he did in all ways, his theatric concern.

“I don’t often agree with the bard on principal – far more fun that way – but I can’t deny him now. Grooming is a long endeavor, Geralt,” she said, and it was as close as she could come to saying ‘I don’t think you’ll last that long’ as she could manage without fearing his pride anchor him mulishly.

Geralt merely grunted again and said, “The promise a man makes when he takes in a horse is a simple one: you carry me and I’ll carry you. If I don’t have the strength to see her well-kept, then my right to her companionship and service is forfeit.”

“Speaks more about the horse, too,” Jaskier scoffed, crossing his arms as his face twisted somewhat, as though he were taking into consideration something distasteful. Yennefer knew the look, her face likely matched. Neither she nor the bard had ever had a liking for taking care of working animals, and yet here they were, all for their fawn-legged witcher.

She sighed, the roll of her eyes heavy and pointed as she hung her lavish cloak onto a peg as far from the animals and the stink that followed them as she could. Then she took up another brush and said, “Jaskier, tie back my hair, if you’d please. If I’m to do this fool thing for our witcher, I refuse to let Roach’s lovely perfume follow me home too.”

The bard didn’t utter so much as one complaint, taking to her hair as though it had been something he had wanted to get his hands into for some time. She took note of that, but not before she turned her gaze to Geralt. Geralt who was staring at her somewhat owlishly, as though she had grown a second head.

“Don’t give me that look, I’m hardly heartless,” Yennefer snapped, sniffing disdainfully even as something playful flickered in her eyes. “But this doesn’t come without a price, Geralt. You’ll agree to a stool if we are to do this. And dry maintenance only.”

They spoiled her that day, the three of them. Roach whickered and nibbled at them cheerfully as three sets of hands went about taking care of her hair, her fur, her shoes and anything else Geralt deemed worthy of their attention. Surprisingly Geralt stuck to the terms of their agreement. He used the stool Jaskier found him, albeit grumbling somewhat at first. And by the end of it, despite his love for Roach, he seemed just as eager as the rest of them to return to the warmth of Kaer Morhen.

He didn’t even argue when they pressed close to him, worried by the way he stumbled. There was a glaze to his eyes that bespoke how much energy tending to Roach had costed him. A sluggishness in his grumbling and a lack of protest as they handled him that was both relieving – tired as Jaskier and Yennefer were – and concerning.

Yennefer had long ago enchanted Kaer Morhen’s tub into something larger, something far more similar to the one she and Geralt had first shared. It was a squeeze, but they all managed to slip into it together; a memory that, if pressed, Geralt actually thought was a dream and still didn’t quite believe it happened. But it had. Together, Jaskier and Yennefer had tended to him first – Jaskier behind him, kneading the worst of the tension from his shoulders as Yennefer went about erasing Roach’s smell from him. By the time they were done with him, the witcher was leaning back against the edge of the tub nearly asleep, watching them with lazy eyes as Yennefer and Jaskier then tended to one another with an easy familiarity that once again reminded him of the time the two had spent without him.

“M’we shoul’do this ‘gain,” Geralt had murmured, eyes fever bright beneath the glaze of exhaustion that dogged him.

“You like what you see?” Yennefer purred, reaching an arm back to cup Jaskier’s neck behind her, her breast exposed beautifully by the motion, twisting her face easily into the crook of his neck to peck a light kiss into the curve of the bard’s jaw, lilac eyes on Geralt all the while. That woke him up. “Perhaps if you are a very, very good witcher and don’t argue when we feed you – no, don’t give me that look, I’ve noticed your lack of appetite – and tuck you to bed early, we’ll keep that in mind. For when you’re better.”

He grunted, that crisp, growly sort of sound she was ever so familiar with; and behind her she felt Jaskier stiffen, his hands tightening around the soft give of her waist, dimpling her hips with the long fingers common to artists. Amber eyes watched them keenly, lazily, as they bathed one another. Watched where Jaskier’s hands cupped a firm breast. Watched as they switched, as Yennefer’s slimmer ones ran slowly down from Jaskier’s chest, over the slope of his flat belly, down to the thatch of hair at his crotch and semi-hard dick between his legs.

“But we could give you a show in the meantime,” Yennefer mused, now behind Jaskier, her chin on his shoulder as she exposed the bard to Geralt. She took her time stroking the slim man. Clever fingers tracing the slit of his head, making him grow fully hard as he whimpered and croaked, “Don’t tease, Yennefer, it’s cruel.”

“Should I stop?” She asked Geralt, one brow raised, her hand still on Jaskier’s prick. Jaskier looked at him like a drowning man.

Geralt ached to join them, but even now he knew willpower alone was keeping him awake – willpower and curiosity. To stand and join them felt like a feat more akin to climbing a mountain. But watching? His dick twitched in his lap and he rumbled, “No.”

He wanted to see this.

Jaskier mewled, something torn between surprise and eagerness and overwhelmed as Yennefer brought one hand up to tweak a soft, pink nipple – eyes on Geralt all the while.

“You need not be an inactive participant,” she said to Geralt, drinking in the hunger building in the witcher’s bones, “Direct me. I shall be your conduit.”

Jaskier moaned.

Geralt watched them a second more before he grunted and said, “He’s sensitive,” and let his lips curl ever so slightly into a smirk when Jaskier’s startled eyes darted to him. “Think you can make him come with just his nipples?”

“Mercy above,” Jaskier gasped as Yennefer crooned, plush lips against his shoulder. He could feel her grinning against his skin as she purred, “I’m sure I could figure it out.”

He whined when her hand left his prick and Geralt took his own in hand, eyes on them both. He felt hollow from their excursion to visit Roach, but if his cock could harden, he could find the energy to attend to it. The witcher thumbed the head as Yennefer brought both of her hands up to Jaskier’s chest, letting the man lean into her weakly as his knees threatened to buckle – but held.

“What lovely songs you sing,” Yennefer hummed between kisses to the man’s nape and shoulder and jaw. “I don’t know what I enjoy more, your lyrics or the sounds you make when you’re incapable of words in the slightest. What do you think, Geralt?”

Geralt growled, his cock twitched.

Yennefer grinned with a slow, “I agree,” and bit Jaskier’s shoulder. The man made a keening sound that made Geralt dribble a spurt of precome excitedly, unexpectedly. But he kept the tempo of his hand slow and steady, intent to follow Yennefer’s pace as she unwound their bard. Jaskier’s hands went absent mindedly toward his prick, but Yennefer gave him a more pointed nip and said, “None of that now, you heard the witcher. No touching,” and Jaskier moaned a wrecked, “I can’t.”

She flicked one nipple and pinched the other, and Geralt bite his cheek at the sight of how that made Jaskier’s cock jerk openly, neglected and aching.

“Perhaps I should suck them,” she mused, pinching and tugging and rubbing those small nubs mercilessly into hard little peaks. Jaskier brought a hand back to clutch the nape of her neck, to steady himself, and something hungry flashed in Yennefer’s eyes – pleased.

“Please, Y-Yen,” then, when she didn’t answer pointedly, he looked to Geralt and whined out his name.

“Tell him what you would do to him, Geralt,” Yennefer said, eyes on him over Jaskier’s shoulder.

Jaskier – horny by words as he was prone to be – was helpless as Geralt finally spoke.

“I’d fuck him,” he started, eyes sharp and bright and locked on them both. “Open him up with my fingers. Maybe my tongue.”

Jaskier jerked in Yennefer’s hold, an aborted sound caught in his throat as he craned his head back to rest on the woman’s shoulder.

“Gods, have mercy,” he wheezed as Geralt continued.

“I’d go in slowly. So slowly he’d be writhing. Maybe have’em on his hands and knees so he could service you while I service him. Put his clever tongue and fingers to use making you wet while I focused on making him sloppy from pleasure. Not let’em off until he got you off. Bring you off together. Fuck you by fucking him, like a chain.”

“F-fuck! Fuck!” Jaskier stuttered, hips jerking uselessly, seeking friction – anything – as Yennefer tweaked and rubbed. He wanted her mouth on him; on his cock or his nipples. Anything. “I – oh – fuck.”

“I’ve never heard him so ineloquent,” Yennefer purred.

“Yeah, well—” Jaskier’s words fled him in a shout as Yennefer did something tricky with her fingers. Something magical and electric, and a burble of precome dribbled helplessly from Jaskier’s cock.

“I can’t,” Jaskier babbled, “I can’t, I can’t!”

“You can,” Geralt said, voice so low it sounded more like rocks sliding down a mountain than a man, “You will. Do what you showed me in that tavern in Velen, Yen.”

Her eyes twinkled, and she said, “Gladly,” before drawing Jaskier’s face to the side for an awkward kiss, distracting him as one hand left his nipple to reach down into the bath water and slip a finger inside the bard. Geralt watched Jaskier’s eyes widen, then his mouth fall slack against Yennefer’s own domineering lips as she found that place inside him and pressed.

“Oh,” Jaskier whined, breathy and lost as he came, his whole body drawing taut like a sail in the wind. He came without a hand on his prick, one hand buried in Yennefer’s thick hair, the other braced against the edge of the tub and shaking, knuckles white. Geralt came to the sight of it, jaw tight as he grunted and released.

Jaskier melted into her a second later, chest heaving as he said, “You cruel, tricky devils,” with no real heat. “Utter monsters, you are, the both of you.”

Yennefer just looked pleased as punch as she guided the bard’s face up to look at her – soft and fuzzy from orgasm – and asked, “Think you can do one more thing with that beautiful mouth of yours?”

She traced his pink, puffy lips with a thumb. Jaskier sucked in a tired and yet intrigued breath, and Geralt saw it the moment the bard decided to rally.

The two of them agreed to wait for the bed though. First they had Geralt sit on a stool outside the tub. Jaskier dried the wolf’s hair as Yennefer attended to her own. Then they moved to the bed, Geralt beside them as Yennefer lowered herself onto Jaskier’s face. The witcher pet her sides, traced her breasts, brushed back her hair as Jaskier did his utmost to return the favor and render the mage just as senseless as she had him. Yennefer was unabashed with the sounds he drew from her. Long, lingering purrs and moans meant to direct him. And Jaskier – musician that he was – followed her music beautifully. Leading her to stunning crescendos and heady choruses until finally she came, his chin wet and his smile glossy. He cleaned himself up on shaking legs and returned to curl with them both.

Geralt made a contented, grumbly sort of sound, at peace – pleased to find the two people who had been taking care of him sated and satisfied. And then they curled together on the bed, the craft of fitting three bodies on the groaning thing long having become a science with Jaskier tucked into one of Geralt’s arms and Yennefer tucked into the other. The two of them traced idle patterns into his skin and made light conversation until slowly, inevitably, they lulled the wolf to sleep.

— • —

Kaer Morhen was no lord or lady’s courtly estate, that much was certain, but the longer Jaskier lingered in its marble halls, the more he found himself charmed by the place. It was a strange mixture of old and decrepit, and yet homely and comforting. Despite its delipidated look, it was obvious that the witchers of the School of the Wolf had made a home of this place; or at the very least, Vesemir had. In its nooks and crannies Jaskier found odd luxuries such as the open window seat that overlooked the gardens; although ‘garden’ was likely a generous word. It was not so much a garden as it was that the training fields had become somewhat overrun by flora. All the same, it looked beautiful and served to bless him with quite an astounding view whenever he took to playing his lute there as a ruse to watch over his rather stubborn witcher.

He and Yennefer had managed to persuade Geralt to bedrest for a week by various means, but the inevitable had come for them all – riding on Vesemir’s heels, of all things. The older witcher had made the case that Geralt should train now that his feet were beneath him again, that weeks of choking on flowers and focusing on getting to Ciri to Kaer Morhen above all things had taken its toll. And Geralt had latched onto that olive branch immediately.

It did not, however, go quite as Geralt had undoubtedly expected and precisely as Vesemir had thought. The white wolf had slowed. He was spryer than a man, yes, but slower than a witcher ought to be. Vesemir led him through grueling sessions, short at first and increasing each day – each one leaving the wolf dusty and more exhausted than the day before.

“Is this truly wise?” He had asked Yennefer from his perch one afternoon, eyes caught on Geralt as he let loose a font of Axii that knocked him back – his stance correct but his legs too exhausted to bear it. “How can he recover if Vesemir beats the shit out of him each day?”

Yennefer held her silence for a moment, lilac eyes drawn to their struggling wolf as well, before finally she said, “We could not keep him in our bed forever. He’s a witcher, not a pet.”

“Never said what he was or wasn’t,” Jaskier pouted, too worried to react as he usually might to the barb, “I just… I’ve never seen him struggle like this. How long before he goes hunting for contracts again?”

Yennefer drew closer then, her hip against the bard’s ribs as she lured his face away from the training fields to instead look upon her. She brushed the boyish cut of his hair from his brow with a seriousness that nearly made Jaskier comment on it, and yet he couldn’t find the words in the face of her intensity. Her hands were soft, softer than his own despite all the oils he used. Soft in a way human hands just couldn’t be, the double-edged reminder of her power and the price she paid to have it.

“I’ve come to find that the moments in which I was told I couldn’t do a thing only drove me to ruin as I tried to prove that I could,” she mumbled, eyes distant even as she stood so close. A memory played behind those lilac eyes and for a moment, Jaskier thought that maybe he could see it. Fire. Pain. “Perhaps the best thing we can do for him now is have faith, despite what our eyes tell us, lest we run him into the ground with our worrying.”

Through the open window and out on the field, Geralt gave a bitten off shout as the sound of a wooden sword striking his knee pierced the quiet, gliding in on the breeze that swayed the curtains. Jaskier’s gaze drifted in Geralt’s direction but Yennefer would not let go of his face. That alone made him return to her, face twisted in a grimace, nothing elegant or theatrical about it.

“How can you stand it?” He asked.

“Because that is what he needs: for us to stand it.”

— • —

Even as physically he improved each day, the sessions drew his emotional well-being tighter and tighter until Geralt was nothing more than a thread pulled too tight – practically singing with tension – ready to snap. Jaskier and Yennefer could see it in him. Could see that storm brewing in the painful constriction of his shoulders and the way he stopped himself during his training to close his eyes and breathe through flared, frustrated nostrils, jaw tight and teeth grinding. Witchers were quick healers, and yet the ways of witcher appeared to return to Geralt slowly; as if his body were loath to leave the peace of those healing days.

Learning as they were, it was hard to gauge whether he needed space or comfort – harder still because even when he needed comfort, he often ran from it. Reminding them all just how he had ended up in that state in the first place.

But no one turned out to be a better buffer in those early training days than Ciri. She sat in the yard often to watch him. At first Jaskier and Yennefer had worried if Geralt’s pride might be exasperated by the extra witness, but Vesemir had said letting her stay was a good idea -- and he wasn’t wrong.

Ciri crowed for Geralt often. Everything the man did was awe-inspiring to a mind so young, so new to fighting and so enamored by the man who had almost died protecting her, but didn’t. The first man who had survived the mark of fate and destiny that had ruined her life for unknown reasons. She’d sit on broken pillars or warped scaffolding. Sometimes she’d even attempt to mimick Geralt’s forms – crudely, but adorably, and Yennefer and Jaskier often enjoyed watching from afar as Geralt’s little shadow performed behind him.

Her opinion was only that of a little girl, Geralt knew it just as much as anyone. He was still recovering slowly, and that knowledge lingered on the heels of his patience, snapping at his ankles. But the company of a girl so innocent and optimistic despite everything that had happened to her seemed to soften Geralt like a bloom thawing in the spring. Ciri was sunlight and cheer and warmth wrapped in a small body, with small hands and too large eyes – and damn if her excitement wasn’t contagious.

“You were right,” Yennefer mused one afternoon, watching from the library window as Vesemir began to stack books for Ciri’s eventual education. The old man looked excited almost at the prospect of teaching again. It seemed no one was immune to Ciri’s charms. “She’s good for him.”

“Geralt may not remember this way, but this is a technique we’ve often used with mending witchers. Not everyone is as well off with their mutations as Geralt, afterall. He was always an almost unnaturally adept healer. For the others, when impatience and frustration began to rankle them, we’d put the new lads into the ring to watch. Their excitement and awe always did wonders for a man’s brittle ego. Geralt’s no different.”

“You mean to tell me Geralt was once one of those little boys cheering like Ciri?” Yennefer asked, amusement obvious on her face and in her tone as she turned from the window to look at the elder witcher.

Vesemir was smiling ever so slightly, fond and introspective – eyes blind to the room itself as he remembered days long since past.

“Yes,” Vesemir mused. “It took him time to open up. Geralt took his role as his father’s child surprise as sourly as any child would – but he eventually opened up to be a wild young boy, eager to learn. Had somewhat of a hero complex, actually.”

“Still does,” Yennefer laughed.

“No,” Vesemir chuckled, hanging onto the vowel, “Not in the manner that he does now. He has finicky morals in comparison to a lot of the witchers that have passed through these halls. No, when he was young, he had more a mind of being a hero than a monster hunter. He confused the two in his training. Learned the truth of things right quick though.”

Yennefer frowned slightly.

“What do you mean?”

Vesemir looked up from his stacked books, surprised, and said, “You’ve seen the signs, how townsfolk treat us. Mutants. Geralt could save a babe from a fire, and maybe that mother might appreciate it, but not a single man or woman – mother included – would invite him into their home to rest or sup or drink. He is a monster hunter. A damned good one. But witchers can’t be heroes. Not the way that little boys hope, at least.”

“You haven’t heard Jaskier’s songs then,” Yennefer said, turning back to the window. She watched as Ciri hooted, excited as Geralt’s tempo steadily began to pick up on a training dummy. He was improving, thank the gods. “Many have changed their minds.”

“Love, like hate, is quite contagious.”

That startled her. She turned to look at him, to delve deeper into that insight, but Vesemir was already heading out of the room – leaving her to stew in that way, she quickly found, he loved to do.

— • —

Geralt had never been a fussy eater. Yennefer, Jaskier, Ciri – all three of them had seen him eat all manner of (sometimes revolting) things on the road, albiet Ciri less so. Of them, she was the most accustomed to his recent lack of appetite. How he’d gag when trying to eat, only manage a few morsels or bites, then ultimately give up. Flowers, cloying and smothering as they had been, had made eating all but miserable. The petals and stems had scratched up his throat, made it a swollen and tight terrible mess. Swallowing anything heavier than water had been an exhausting task, and the aversion that followed had ultimately taken its toll on Geralt’s body.

They wanted him to eat. He wanted to eat. A witcher that could be blown over by a stiff breeze was no witcher at all. But even the mere sight of food sent his stomach flipping – torn between cramps of hunger and nauseating memories of the pain of swallowing.

Thus he found himself at a table, a bowl of stew before him and Yennefer looming across the table, both hands braces as she scowled. He drank the broth, picked at the vegetables made soft by the stew, but the meat – hearty and thick – laid untouched at the bottom amidst dregs of broth. His stomach curled painfully. He could practically taste the meat in his mouth. He wanted the protein, knew he needed it. Knew that Vesemir was excellent with beef, that each cut would be thick and juicy and satisfying.

But the thought of swallowing something so thick, even after chewing, made his gut clench dreadfully. It was stupid. The affliction was gone, his throat long since soothed since the flowers’ passing. Yet the memory persisted, cloying and demanding attention.

“Surely this isn’t too heavy for your stomach,” Yennefer said, hand waving at the bowl, agitated, “You can’t live off broth and vegetables, Geralt.”

“I know,” he growled, earning a sharp look from the woman. He hadn’t told them of his aversion. He didn’t even know how to describe it. It was nothing; a nonsense paranoia that was slowly starving him. It was easiest to say his stomach needed time to adjust to food again. They had done their best to cope with that – starting with bread and soups. Bread, well… they had long given up on that but soups, at least, he could make it look as though they were making progress.

It was Ciri that noticed first.

Children, so absorbed with learning everything that they could like sponges, saw it the moment Yennefer left – frustrated and needing space. Had seen how Geralt had grimaced and rubbed at his throat, just as he used to by the fire and in the many inns they eventually began to stay at. How he’d set his plate aside and rub at his throat. Pour himself something hot and soothing, sometimes even just hot water if they had nothing else. As if he could burn the pain away.

She went to Vesemir. He reminded her of Mousesack and Eist. Steady, clever as a whip – albeit much more subdued than either. Like the stone that won’t bow to the river’s wrath, worn smooth by experience and time, but still unmovable. Despite his quietness and despite how hard he drilled Geralt, there was a tempered kindness there – back, far behind his eyes. Something patient and weathered, the soft of love that grows in even the coldest of people after years and years of attending to children, watching them grow. Getting invested.

“Do we have apples?” She asked. ‘We’, as though this were already home. Something flickered in Vesemir’s wizened face – surprised and a little soft.

“Apples?”

“Yes,” she said, “I want to help Geralt.”

“Did he ask for apples?” Vesemir asked, one brow quirking. Ciri shook her head, but offered no other explanations – and much as she expected, that kindness bade the old man listen, even despite the way he grumbled. Just like Geralt.

He brought her one apple. She said she needed more. So he brought more.

She took them to the kitchen and Vesemir followed – more curious than anything else. She watched as she looked in drawers and cabinets before she finally pouted, turned to him curtly and asked, “Do you have anything to smash them?”

“Oh,” Vesemir said, smiling not so much with his lips so much as his eyes as the dots slowly connected, “Kaer Morhen’s kitchen may be no castle’s kitchen, but I think we can figure something out.”

— • —

Ciri found Geralt on the training field, battering a practice dummy with his silver sword. Vesemir had warned her to wait if she found him like that, so she did – more than willing to watch the witcher work. She had heard the adults whispering about her. That soon, once they no longer had to worry over Geralt, she would need to be trained to protect herself. How to focus and hone her magical talents as well. She was eager to get started, and that excitement and impatience grew every time she saw Geralt train in the fields or witnessed Yennefer perform an act of magic as if it were no harder than breathing.

She sat atop a large stone, one of Kaer Morhen’s many fallen pillars or walls, and set two bowls beside her, careful to cover both with a napkin.

If Geralt noticed her, he didn’t make it obvious. He continued, legs working into fast, firm formations to support the twist of his waist, the reach of his arm, the swing of his sword. Despite the fluidity of his form, however, he was breathing hard, nearly thready. She saw him sway and have to readjust his footing more than once – the movement so quick she almost missed it.

But she knew what it was like to go hungry. A princess was expected to fit into no end of fine, slim gowns, after all. Yes. Even young as she was, even as Eist coaxed her and Calanthe scolded her, she knew hunger. ‘You look as though a stiff breeze might take you, love,’ her grandmother used to say, her crisp critiques made softer by the worry in her eye. ‘Like a bird, you are. My little bird.’

Yes. She knew hunger. And she knew how it made one swoon.

She saw when it finally hit Geralt – both the swoon and the dummy. A strike made too wide, one he rebounded from too slowly and which gave one of the dummy’s many arms too much momentum, costing him a smarting blow. The wooden arm slammed into his shoulder and made him stumble with a short, cut off grunt of pain. He stepped away, watched until the arm slowly drew still, then let his eyes crawl over to where Ciri perched. He sighed, set the sword aside to be cleaned and sharpened, and made his way over to her wordlessly.

He sat on the ground, his back pressed to the stone she sat on, and leaned his head back. His eyes drifted closed.

“I’m not ready to teach you,” he finally said, as though expecting that to be why she had come.

“I know,” she said, making him open one wry, narrow eye at her like a sleepy, wary – albeit amused – wolf. She smiled playfully, then grabbed the bowl beside her and said, “I made you something.”

Geralt grunted quizzically.

She passed him the bowl and watching him pale ever so slightly.

“You don’t even know what it is yet,” she said, partially pouting, partially excited for the eventual reveal. Because while she had often been left helpless in the face of Geralt’s pain, hunger she was intimately familiar with. This, she could help.

He lifted the napkin with another grunt, then raised his brows. She could smell the crisp, sweet aroma of apples that wafted up. The kiss of cinnamon, the notes of something sturdier and bland hiding beneath it. Chill in his palms, just as hers was as she grabbed her own bowl.

“What is this?” He asked.

“Apple sauce,” she said cheerfully, not looking at him as she made her grand reveal that she knew what the clever adults didn’t. “Eist used to make it for me when my throat was sore.”

And that… that hurt to say. More than she expected, even as she had tried to prepare herself. But it felt good to share this piece of him with someone. As if this small meal meant he carried on. It was a recipe from Eist’s mother, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. A remedy for every little boy or girl who felt fussy at the table, whether it be due to a scratchy throat or an upset stomach or even just the whims and moods of childhood. Eist had recognized in her what others hadn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat, it was just the thought that eating something so heavy – thick slabs of pork or heavy cuts of steak, buttered and roasted and complimented with side dish upon side dish – brought forth a dread so fierce she could not swallow. Not when her figure was so closely tied to her worth, her destiny. Not by her grandmother’s standards, of course, but by the courts. She had heard their whispering. She still remembered a group of gossipers commenting that another princess not far from her age was sure not to get any reputable suiters with a waist of that size.

Not that any of that mattered anymore. That realization nearly made her laugh – something weak and trapped like a bird in her ribcage. To think she had starved herself for nothing.

She remembered Eist drawing her aside. Remembered how he took her into an empty kitchen because the recipe was top secret, not just any chef could know. Her throat felt tight as she recalled his hands steadying hers through the movements of smashing the apples. How one had flung across the room on accident, how they had laughed until they were a giggling pile on the floor.

Her eyes felt hot, but not like before. Not like how they would get in the forest, when she would try to smother her cries in her fist lest Geralt notice. It was more like a gentle reminder of the pain than anything else. As if Eist had passed by and squeezed her shoulder fondly. Warm, like hello. Bittersweet, like goodbye.

Geralt didn’t comment on her phrasing, nor on her sudden silence. He never did. He always seemed to understand, and she him, as though they had a language all their own. She wondered if it was because she had been promised to him. She liked to think it was just because they had found the words together their own way.

He tried it. She knew what he would taste. Sweet red apples, making the sauce both sweet, tangy and textured. Cinnamon, to make it warm and spicy. Small oats, to make it filling, and finally powdered protein, to make him strong and fend off the ache of his hollow belly. Easy to swallow. Cool on his throat. Soothing and sweet.

He hummed as he did whenever he knew not what to say. In its inflection she knew he was pleasantly surprised. Touched, even, though he would never say it. Geralt bumped his shoulder against her leg where it dangled over the stone and she said simply, “You’re welcome,” knowing what he meant.

From the balcony, Vesemir smiled knowingly and watched one child surprise share a meal with another; as was the way of witchers.

— • —

The biggest celebration they have is the night that Geralt is deemed well enough to climb the vast set of stairs of Kaer Morhen’s tower. For at the top is not only what Vesemir had dubbed as ‘Geralt’s Room’, it is also where the largest bed in Kaer Morhen resides; and while they had enjoyed learning each other in the tiny sickbed, every one of them was eager for the space of a bed made for more than one and a half witchers.

It is a large thing – evidently a gift from a merchant Geralt had once saved. With no home of his own, he had sent it to Kaer Morhen. Since it was his boon, it had gone unused until now. They washed the sheets, aired out the quilts and furs. And that night, they slept in a bed big enough for all of them –

And woke one atop the other, like always. Like a pile of puppies, drawn to each other like moths to the flame as they slept.

“I suppose your witchering was good for something,” Yennefer moans as she stretches into such ample space before curling back into Geralt’s front, his back confidently and skillfully spooned by Jaskier who has turned out to be more octopus than man now that they all had space to utilize.

“Glad I could be of service,” Geralt said dryling, the littlest curl to his lip at hearing a boon of his journeys had brought one of his lovers’ pleasure. It was nice to provide for them, for once, since their reunion.

— • —

Geralt began to sleep lightly once more as the worst of the Witcher’s Blight finally ebbed from his bones, leaving him feeling more and more like the man he once was. That was how he found himself in the library one night, wandering the halls with an apple and knife in hand, cutting off small and idle slices to nibble on as he paced. Ciri’s apple sauce had done wonders in easing him back into eating, and the comfort that taste had brought him while at his hungriest had transferred into a love of the fruit in general now that he was back to eating solid food. He had just bit into a crisp slice when his roaming eyes had fallen upon Yennefer in one of Vesemir’s high backed chairs. She had a pile of books that reached up nearly as high as the arm rest, her attention lost in the pages in her hands.

Geralt smiled, something making his heart flutter for just the briefest moment. He liked this, he realized. He liked seeing Jaskier safe in his large bed and Yennefer curled pleasantly in Kaer Morhen’s high backed chairs. He liked seeing them here, in what he had suddenly realized was in fact his home.

“Enjoying yourself?” He asked, “Or just can’t sleep?”

“When is it ever truly just one or the other?” She mused and he could hear in her words the breathy glaze of exhaustion that dogged her. She was close to being able to return to bed, then. Good. He wanted her to rest. Wanted to see her curled into Jaskier, their limbs entangled, the both of them safe in bed.

“Hmm,” he said, because he couldn’t exactly argue that. Not that he particularly missed the ability to fall asleep easily at the moment, not after so long bed bound. He would, eventually. But not now. He was more than happy to wander the halls in his sleeplessness for now if it meant he was improving, returning to his former self.

“I should have thought to visit ages ago,” Yennefer mused, eyes still caught in her book, “You witchers have an astounding collection of knowledge in these ugly old stones.”

“Kind of you to say,” Geralt chuckled wryly, amused by Yennefer’s amazement of their library as much as he was by her inclination to avoid admitting that she liked it here. It was no castle, no lord or lady’s house she might be used to – but it was charming in its own right, with more a sense of home than those of royalty or glamor.

She looked up at him then, her eyes roving up, then down over the sight of him.

“You look good,” she purred, letting her book fall closed in her lap as she better focused her attention on him, “Very good.”

“Feel good,” Geralt agreed, cutting another slice from his fruit. She leaned up at that and plucked it from his fingers, eyes blazing merrily as she placed it to her lush lips and took a bite, gaze on him all the while.

“Eating again too, I see. Good. The white wolf returns.”

He hummed again, moving to sit at her feet in lieu of dragging another chair across the stones. A part of him, though he would not admit it, sat there if only because it increased his chances of having her fingers in his hair again. He put his back against the chair, his shoulder pressed against the long line of one of her legs, and spread his own out before him lazily. He cut another slice, offered it up to her, before cutting one for himself as well.

“I’m happy to see you up,” she said idly as she nibbled at her apple, “But also displeased. Can’t sleep?”

“Was bound to happen eventually.”

It was her turn to hum this time, and Geralt tried not to think too hard about the little electric bolt of pleasure that flared in his chest when – just as he had hoped – Yennefer’s fingers drifted to his hair. He leaned his head back against the chair and her leg as she dragged her nails lightly over his scalp, sending pleasant shivers down his spine.

“You really are more wolf than man,” she said lightly.

“Hmm.”

“Though Vesemir tells me that before you were either, you wished to be a hero?”

His eyes slowly fell open at that, his body still. Her fingers continued to brush through his hair, soothing and steadfast. Geralt swallowed. He didn’t precisely want to talk about it. It felt foolish. A childish desire that had been stomped out of him quickly. But bottling things up had nearly killed him, and after everything she had done to save him, trusting him despite the Djinn, he could offer this at least.

“Yes,” he croaked. Winced. He cleared his throat and tried again when it became obvious that Yennefer was waiting for more, her fingers still against his scalp. “Yes… a foolish story, hardly exciting. As boys, we don’t run into many folk outside of Kaer Morhen. Those we do tend to have a generally decent opinion of witchers. I was… unprepared for how afraid the world would be of me.”

Yennefer leaned her own head back at that, her eyes falling shut.

“I can sympathize,” she said softly, resuming her stroking. After all, how many nights had she spent asleep with the flour sacks, dreaming of a prince charming coming to rescue her from her abuse? How many nights had she prayed her father would come for her even after he sold her to misery? Or that she’d actually found love in the circle, even as she knew better? Childish hopes, all crushed – then crushed some more.

“I know,” Geralt offered softly, one hand falling to curl around one of Yennefer’s ankles.

“We make quite a pair, you and I? We both grew up wanting the best, to be the best. Look where we are now,” she mused slowly.

“I quite like where you are now,” came a voice from the doorway. Both of them turned to see Jaskier there, done up in their quilts in such a way that he looked more like a kicked puppy or a sleepy boy than the man who could swoop into a pub and charm everyone into dancing with nothing but a lute and his voice.

Yennefer watched him with smoldering, considering eyes for a long moment before she patted the arm rest on the free side of her legs, opposite of where Geralt sat, and said, “I did not expect to see you, puppy.”

“Rude,” he said, but came to her nonetheless.

“Which part?” Geralt asked, a wry curl of amusement every so slightly tinging his mouth.

Jaskier just glared balefully, the effect ruined as his sleepiness turned the expression into more of a pout than anything serious. He settled in next to Geralt, the two of them crowding either side of Yennefer’s legs. She slide the fingers of her free hand into Jaskier’s hair and felt that man, too, slowly calm beneath her touch.

Jaskier mumbled something.

“What was that, dear?” Yennefer purred, almost certain she had caught it but unable to resist having him repeat it.

Jaskier drew in a deep, annoyed breath – utterly put upon – and repeated brattily, “Ican’tsleepwellaloneanymorethankstoyoutwo.”

Geralt watched him, something unfathomable in his face – blank but steadily showing more and more each day. Jaskier almost called it fondness. Above him Yennefer hummed happily and said, “How sweet. Now was that so hard?”

Jaskier curled his legs up to his chest and hid his blush in his knees, but did not pull away from Yennefer’s clever fingers.

“Used to sleep just fine, thank you,” Jaskier whined. “You’ve both ruined me. Your sleeplessness is contagious and unwanted.”

Geralt let out a soft, hushed bark of a laugh before leaning back into Yennefer’s touch, his eyes sliding closed, and grunted warmly, “Welcome to the club.”

— • —

The time was vastly approaching in which Geralt would finally be able to help supervise Ciri’s training. He could feel it building in him, day by day, and while he was not at full force quite yet, he was strong enough to begin what Vesemir and the others had long held off. Soon, but not quite. However, Ciri was restless. In her he saw himself – eager to leave his sickbed, to be back in his armor and on the field. To be well again.

She had to wait a little longer, but that did not mean he could not help her divert a little of that impatience and steam. He took her down to the stables one morning as Yennefer busied herself in the library, building a curriculum with which to begin Ciri’s training of magic; and as Jaskier took up perch in the garden, working on new tunes and songs with which to work through everything he had not yet had time to even think about.

“Roach saved us, you know,” Geralt said as they walked – swiftly now. It felt so good to walk swiftly. Ciri was skipping beside him with the same energy of a bouncy border collie capable of sprinting and yet choosing to stay by its master’s side. Buzzing with excitement and surplus energy.

Ciri swiveled her too large eyes on him and said, as if it were plain as day, “I know.”

Nothing else. He smiled at that. Ciri felt like a jigsaw piece he hadn’t realized was missing, and while he’d be forever bristly about the fact that that feeling was large and wide because of fate rather than any built up relationship – he still enjoyed it. Perhaps that was fate’s doing too. He shook his head of the thought before it drove him mad.

“Good,” he said with a nod, holding the stable door open for Ciri to pass in. She went to Roach immediately, and Geralt felt a strange flutter in his chest – affection, he told himself, working on identifying such things – at the sight of Roach pushing her long face happily into Ciri’s hand with a cheerful whicker. “One day you’ll have a companion like Roach.”

“I will?” Ciri turned to look at him, excited.

Geralt arched a brow and said, “Don’t expect me to believe your Grandmother didn’t give you plenty of horses.”

Ciri blushed a little, but went back to stroking Roach when the horse made it plain that she did not approve of Ciri’s sudden distraction.

“Not like Roach,” she said, and immediately Geralt understood. They had learned to talk like this on the road. Bits and pieces that would mean nothing to most, but said everything to them. Of course she had had her pick of horses, but she was right. None of them would be like Roach. Those horses – pretty and thorough bred – were made for royal aesthetics, symbols of power. Horses like Roach were different beasts entirely. Bred from only the most loyal and steady steeds. Trained as a colt to remain steadfast in the presence of danger, albeit sometimes with the help of a swift Axii. Raised beside their witcher-to-be until an unbreakable bond was forged. Roach was no mere horse. Roach was Geralt’s partner, his trusted confidant, and she had more than once saved his life.

“You’ll have a steed like her one day, yes,” Geralt said, stepping forward to brush some of the mare’s forelock from her brow. Roach watched him with big eyes. “We’ll select a colt for you when the first of the colts are born and begin the process of training you both. In the meantime, there’s things you should know about horses like Roach. Things I don’t think you had a chance to learn as a princess.”

He almost expected her to whine when she found out what those things were. Stables had to be shoveled, after all, and attended to. Roach needed her blankets washed, her coat and mane brushed, her shoes maintained. It was not a beautiful process. In fact it could be downright tedious – but it was important. It was the deal a witcher made when they took up a horse.

“Your horse carries you, as Roach did us,” Geralt explained as he guided Ciri’s small hand on the brush in long, slow stripes across Roach’s body. “And in return, you must provide for them.”

“So like you, Yen and Jask?” Ciri asked innocently, the question no more blithe than if she had asked after the color of the sky. Geralt’s hand fell still and Ciri’s continued on without him, unaware.

“What do you mean?”

Ciri looked up at him, her little brow furrowed as if she thought he was making fun of her.

“You all do the same thing, don’t you?” She asked. “I’ve been watching. Listening. Jaskier talks when you can’t. Yennefer is bold where Jaskier might cower. You are steady where Yennefer wants to do three things at once. You all give and take. Like we do.”

“You and I give and take?” He arched a brow now, something amused if a little exposed edging into his tone now, any embarrassment blown away by his amazement of how keen children could be.

“You teach me, watch over me,” Ciri nodded, continuing to work on Roach, eyes focused on her task. “And I watch your back, teach you things too.”

“Like what?” Geralt asked, amusement plainly obvious now.

“Like the apple sauce,” she pointed out, and he hummed dutifully, “Or, uh…”

He smoothed back her hair as she thought that over, drawing her gaze back to stare up at him. He had the wildest urge to kiss her brow but managed to smother it down. Instead he allowed himself a smile – she’d die, people who get too close die, they’re mortal and they die, and they’d be gone from old age soon enough anyway long before he began to feel the weariness of witchery in his mutated bones – and said, “You saved me on the road when you listened to Roach and fetched help instead of trying to fix things yourself, you’re right. We give and take.”

She beamed up at him, and that warm feeling rose in his chest once more like sunrise peeking over the horizon after a long night.

“Come on, let’s finish up. Roach detests blathering.”

“You detest blathering.”

“Hmm.”

— • —

By the time Geralt had finally healed, Yennefer and Jaskier quickly realized that they had a much different problem than they had anticipated. Although, honestly, they should have anticipated it. It was as if the white wolf felt he had to make up for lost time, because the man had gone from a cantering amount of activity each day to full out galloping through chores and training and building curriculum for Ciri and brushing up with the bestiaries and attending to Roach and, and, and –

“He’s going to wear himself out at this rate,” Jaskier said from the kitchen table before he plucked a grape from the vine and tossed it in his mouth, watching with an expression mixed between awe and horror. Geralt was currently leaning with one hip against the counter, a spread of pages across it, his hands full with a book and totally oblivious to the kettles beginning to steam and rattle behind him. He licked the tip of his quill and quickly jot down another note, only to startle comically when the kettle finally began its shrill screaming.

“Serves you right,” Jaskier snorted, grinning when Geralt cast him a dark glower over one shoulder before returning to pouring out water into three mugs, setting each to brew.

“I know this might be rich coming from me,” Yennefer said idly, watching Geralt work, “But you can afford to narrow your work to one thing at a time, Geralt.”

“No really,” the man grumbled, flipping a page, “We were lucky nothing happened while I was down, but that doesn’t mean that Ciri’s safe. Or any of us, for that matter. She must be taught. Trained. We—”

“—must be ready for a fight, if any, at any time,” Jaskier said, reciting the man’s words perfectly. Geralt glared at him again, but Jaskier didn’t back down. Instead he stood, taking a vine of grapes with him, and forced them into Geralt’s hand when the man had become distracted with his notes once more. “Eat. At least in this you must agree that you’re useless without food.”

Geralt grunted, but obliged.

Yennefer rolled her eyes at the table and muttered, “Stubborn mutt.”

They wouldn’t see him again until evening, they knew. And like clockwork, Geralt disappeared to fulfill various tasks until evening, returning only once his shirt was thoroughly ruined by the scent of a full day’s work, his hair tangled and the line of his shoulders weary. They managed to convince him to sit for another meal – relieved to hear that Ciri had managed to get him to eat lunch when he had insisted they break so she might eat lunch. Why should she eat and not him? Clever girl.

But when Geralt moved to return to the study where Vesemir would normally be waiting for him to go over next steps in training Ciri and reinforcing the keep, Jaskier and Yennefer struck. Yennefer came in behind him – one hand on his shoulder easily leading the witcher back down onto the bench – and Jaskier came to her other side. The two of them crowded him into his spot, and Geralt looked utterly bewildered. Or at least as bewildered as blank-faced witchers ever looked.

“Vesemir—” he started.

“—Is resting. As you should be.”

“Resting,” Geralt repeated dumbly, as if not familiar with the meaning of the word.

“Yes, you know, that thing when people sit down for a moment to decompress, just exist? Take a bath, lay down, read a good book?” Jaskier blathered easily. Geralt snorted.

“I’ve bathed and laid and read plenty,” he said, and tried to stand again, only to be forced down. Again. He blew out a haughty breath, bristling and confused.

“This is unhealthy and unnecessary, Geralt,” Yennefer pressed.

Geralt grit his teeth, but didn’t bother arguing. They were right, after all. There was no immediate need to act as though war were on their doorstep. But the sickness that had stolen so much time from him curled in his stomach, filling him with dread.

“I’ve done enough ‘resting’,” he said finally. Yennefer hummed as though Geralt had suddenly pulled back the curtains and revealed everything.

“There isn’t just one way to rest, Geralt,” she purred, bending and looming over him to brush back a wild lock of white hair and whisper in his ear, “And you haven’t rested with us yet.”

And that drew Geralt’s attention.

— • —

They coaxed him to the bedroom – two foxes luring a white wolf up the very many steps that led to their bed. They had set the mood as well, it would seem, because there were candles burning, filling the room with the heady scent distinctly Yennefer’s. Lilacs and gooseberries. If not for how far they had come, the things they had forgiven in one another, it might have made Geralt shiver – remembering the first time he had smelled it, the first time Yennefer had bent him to her whims.

“If you’re so restless,” Yennefer said smoothly, walking toward the open window to gaze upon the moon and twinkling stars beginning to rise in the sky, “Perhaps it is our fault.”

He expected Jaskier to balk, unsure of where this was going himself, and yet Jaskier just slid up beside Yennefer – looking downright scolded if not for that mischievous glint to his eyes – and said, “We’ve been poor masters indeed.”

“What?” Geralt asked dumbly, blinked, but in his gut something stirred hungrily, like a beast waking from a long nap, and yawned with sleepy interest. He nearly flushed.

“A master is expected to wear out their energetic hounds, lest they drive themselves mad,” Yennefer supplied helpfully, one hand slipping up to her shoulder to gently expose the skin beneath, the collar of her dress dropping down her arm somewhat. “I imagine a wolf is no different.”

Jaskier grinned with too many teeth, drawing up to Yennefer to give her a quick peck on the corner of the mouth and murmured softly, “I’ll get things set up,” before going to the vanity and picking up a box that Geralt couldn’t remember being there that morning. A chest, actually – one that Jaskier brought to the bedside and opened, plucking out vials and ornate jars, among other things Geralt couldn’t quite name.

“What’s going on—”

“—I didn’t say you could talk.”

Geralt’s jaw clicked shut despite himself, his eyes darting back to Yennefer who had removed the top of her dress, two round breasts illuminated by the milky light of the moon. Her nipples were peaked with chill. That hunger in his gut woke more properly now, actively invested. Distracted enough that he didn’t even question the order or when orders like that had started in their bedroom.

“Ah. Thought so,” Yennefer said, eyes twinkling and smiling a pleased, knowing little smile as if Geralt had revealed some great tell in a game of Gwent. “Excellent. You’re doing so well, Geralt.”

And that stoked the beginning of a blaze, catching him off guard. He had liked that. More than he ever thought he might. But there was a simplicity to her orders; they were easy to follow, chased by praise. It made it easy to turn off the racing thoughts that had been haunting him ever since he had properly recovered, and he found himself wanting to chase that feeling. To turn off.

“Strip.”

This was it. Now was the time to decide how much power he was going to give them. Should he continue the game or should he leave? He didn’t have the sense that leaving would ruin some element of their relationship that could not be fixed. Yennefer was testing, experimenting. He had a decently certain feeling that if he didn’t play along, she would not force his hand or try again – and there would be no ill will. They were merely learning one another; and there was no better way to learn than to try.

He grunted, but obeyed. Neither of them helped, but they both watched. Watched as he untucked his shirt without flourish, unlaced his britches, ditched his shoes. He stripped himself clinically, with the efficiency of a man who was unused to stripping for the pleasure of others. Yennefer was decently certain that the concept of stripping lewdly had never crossed Geralt’s mind – a game for another day.

He stopped with his underthings still on, maintaining his last step of modesty, and forced himself not to react when Jaskier chuckled, amused.

“Everything, Geralt,” Yennefer purred, eyes already roving up and down his body.

So he stripped himself of everything but the medallion of his house and stood there, flanked by two lovers – two very clothed lovers – and gestured with his hands in a ‘now what’ sort of maneuver.

Yennefer smiled, plump lips pulled into a pleased little line, and directed her gaze to Jaskier as she asked, “Well? What do you think?”

Geralt’s gaze followed hers and met Jaskier’s – smoldering with a hunger that was both naked, bold and unabashed. Jaskier very much looked the part of the fox, perched on the corner of the bed nearest the nightstand, hands loose around a bottle of some sort. Distracted by Geralt, he realized. He felt… strange. Not a bad strange. Just not familiar. He had seen Jaskier chase skirts and trousers alike in bars and court affairs. He had watched Yennefer take him apart with her hands in that tub. He had seen Jaskier aroused.

But he had never been on the receiving end of that look before, not directly. Not like this. Not just from Jaskier, but in general. He had never received a look that appeared as though someone wished to eat him. Well, not like that.

Plenty of monsters wanted to eat him, of course. Just not fuck him. Fuck. Shut up, Geralt. He felt his cheeks flush hot when Jaskier’s grin just grew wider – sensing that the witcher was off balance like a shark might scent blood in the water.

“I think he’s being startlingly good for us, Yen,” Jaskier praised, and Geralt startled when that shook a shiver down his spine and stoked the fire in his belly. “So good as to deserve a reward, in fact.”

“You heard him, wolf,” Yennefer said, catching Geralt’s very divided, very frayed and confused attention again. They were doing it on purpose, he realized. Corralling him now just as they had corralled him to their bed. They were dangerous together. Hunters working together. Geralt felt small between them. He shouldn’t like that as much as he did, but gods above, his cock twitched openly where all might see. And they both knew somehow he would like it. Foxes. “Time for your reward.”

Geralt’s brows furrowed, not following their train of thought. He looked between them – and even in hindsight he wouldn’t admit that he was looking for direction – at a loss. Jaskier took pity on him first. The bard patted the bed beside him and said, “Come on, wolf. Belly down for me.”

Now he was really lost. He glanced between the two of them again, but when they both just kept watching him approvingly, waiting – still both bloody dressed – he went to Jaskier and laid himself out prone on his stomach. He tried to brace himself up on his elbows to keep them in sight, but the bard merely tsked at him sweetly and gently guided him until he was completely flat.

“The effect isn’t the same without music,” Yennefer said, gliding over to the bed to sit beside him, not close enough to touch but enough to be present, to watch. “But Jaskier is about to have his hands quite busy, so you’ll have to do without.”

Geralt turned his head to look at her, still so utterly confused, and asked, “Without wha—” the question choked off when something decidedly warm trickled down onto his spine in a long line. He felt like a startled cat, bristly and arched, but Jaskier didn’t give him more time to react than that before he was climbing atop him, straddling his ass.

Another position Geralt was unfamiliar with.

“Hush, Geralt. Close your eyes, trust me, and be a good boy.”

Geralt shivered again, eyes on Yennefer because he couldn’t see the bard without breaking their unsaid desire for him to remain flat. She nodded at him, looking oh so pleased – an expression that grew when Jaskier pressed the heels of his hands into the small of his back and dragged them up the column of his spine. He full body shivered, something fluttering in his stomach. Even at brothels a touch like this was uncommon. He was a bit clinical in his general approach to sex. It meant that sensitive areas like his back – areas he never would have guessed were sensitive – left him reeling with new sensations. Jaskier did that move with his hands again, the heels of his palms digging into the thickly corded muscle beneath, and Geralt couldn’t hold back the shocked little breath that squeezed out of him.

“You witchers, I swear,” Jaskier sighed, rolled his eyes dramatically, “How any of you have survived is astounding to me. Have you really never had a massage before, Geralt?”

He opened his mouth to answer but Jaskier chose that moment – likely intentionally – to zero in on a knot in Geralt’s shoulder. He worked it with palm heels and thumbs, putting some leverage into it, and Geralt would never admit it, but his eyes had rolled up from the sheer relief of it. He hadn’t even realized the knots had been there, that they shouldn’t be there; what it felt like to have them loosened. He huffed out a long, slow breath – lashes fluttering weakly against the span of his cheeks – too melted into the moment to care when Yennefer let out an amused chuckle.

“So good for us,” she purred.

“Our soft witcher, our beautiful wolf,” Jaskier agreed, then a little more tightly when he worked on another knot, “Our mess of a beautiful white wolf – gods above, Geralt, you’re as tightly wound as a priest whose made his vows of abstinence with the gods!”

He didn’t answer. His brain was mush. The oil was so warm, Jaskier’s hands so soft and confident. Every knot released left him more and more like loose clay to be molded, his lips slack and his breathing sleepy.

Jaskier’s hands loosened his back, his shoulders, his biceps. They moved down, down past his lower back and – ah, yes. This was familiar.

“Can you really say we’re not friends when I just rubbed chamomile on your lovely bottom?”

Yes, this was familiar. Jaskier kneaded his cheeks like they were a baker’s dough. Pressing in with his thumbs, rolling them in steadily wider and wider circles.

“Don’t think I believe your sleepy ruse for a minute, Geralt,” Jaskier said cheerfully, his thumbs slowly moving in a way they hadn’t before. “I fully intend to put you through your paces before the night is done.”

What did that mean—oh.

Jaskier’s thumbs had slipped between the crack of his cheeks, brushed over the tight ring of muscle beneath. Slippery as they were, it was easy for the bard to flirt with his entrance. Pressing in with a thumb nail only to pull away and press with the flat of his thumb instead – again and again. He felt as though his limbs were made of molasses, his reactions slow.

“Far less resistance than I anticipated,” Yennefer commented, her hands reach out to brush back a sweaty lock of hair from his brow. The wolf’s gaze looked positively hazy, lost beneath his touch. Soft and trusting and curious, she noted, so curious. “Though I’m pleasantly surprised to see how utterly receptive you are, Geralt. Such a good boy.”

Geralt moaned despite himself, then turned to hide his face into the pillow when he realized what he had done, what he had let slip out. Yennefer chuckled fondly and curled a hand around the back of Geralt’s neck soothingly, her thumb petting over the knob of his spine. Jaskier’s progress was so steady, so minute, so gradual that Geralt didn’t even realize he had a finger up his ass until he had two of them in there.

“Jaskier,” he murmured into the pillow, feeling picked apart and exposed in a way he couldn’t even describe. That steady buzz of anxiety that had driven him to working nonstop these days was a distant thing now – buried deep beneath a layer of thrumming, hot-blooded pleasure.

“I’ve got you, Geralt,” Jaskier promised gently, so surprisingly gently, as he adjusted his fingers, his angle. “You’re being so good.”

Good. Theirs. Good. A good boy. His head felt abuzz with it all. Then that buzz scattered like stars streaking across the night sky when those fingers bent, crooked inside him, and left him reeling. White hot pleasure seared up his spine, tightening and rippling every muscle Jaskier had just loosened deliciously. Geralt had just sucked in a breath when Jaskier and Yennefer said something pleased to one another that he couldn’t make out and Jaskier crooked his fingers again. He clenched his teeth around a sound that was building in his chest, threatened to slip free, but managed to hold it in.

“Next time I’ll eat him out, I think,” he suddenly came back to, down from the high, Jaskier’s fingers gone as he adjusted his position. “If he reacted like that for my fingers, well… it’ll be quite a show with my tongue.”

“Tongue…?” Geralt repeatedly, woozy and fuzzy in a way that was not unlike being drunk, but so much better because he didn’t feel sick, didn’t feel dizzy. Just pleasantly floating. He didn’t have to think, have to move. Just follow orders and feel. He wish he had known about this feeling ages ago.

Jaskier’s hands were slipping under him now, coaxing him to kneel, and while his mind felt distant, Geralt’s body did it’s level best to follow on instinct. It left him propped in Jaskier’s lap, his ass above the bard’s crotch – his naked crotch. When had that happened?

“You undid him so beautifully, Jaskier. Remarkable work,” Yennefer hummed, that electric current of hunger sharp in her voice. He opened his eyes as she cupped his jaw, suddenly in front of him. Not just in front of him, but practically in his lap and getting closer. “Are you certain this won’t crush you, darling?”

“Only one way to find out,” Jaskier said.

Something was parting his cheeks again. He nearly twisted to see, to understand, when suddenly Yennefer had her hands on his prick, slicking it with that too-warm-just-right oil that Jaskier had used on his back. He moaned, the sounds too strong to hold back now as Yennefer teased the slit of his cock with a thumb nail. He tossed his head back, white hair spread across Jaskier’s shoulder, leaning heavily into the bard’s chest.

“I’ve got you,” Jaskier promised in a whisper against the flesh of his throat, peppering it with kisses and nips as he babbled, “You’re doing so well. So proud of you for trusting us. For letting us in.”

And in he definitely let them, because he was decently sure Jaskier was slipping into him with his cock. It spread him slowly, so fully, taking him in a place he had never been taken before – too buzzed to be anxious, perfectly content in letting Jaskier guide him to whatever destination he had in mind.

“Such a good wolf we have,” Yennefer said as she lifted himself over her lap. Something sparked at that, he knew this, knew this posture, this look. Her eyes met his as she sunk her wet heat onto his prick and his slack lips pulled back to bare his teeth at that – overwhelmed, taken at two ends. She clenched and writhed around him, walls of slick warmth undulating and tugging him deeper as she shimmied down further. He couldn’t even lift his head from Jaskier’s shoulder anymore, too torn between two worlds to function as Jaskier began to set a pace for both of them, fucking up into him, thus into her.

Above him Yennefer moaned like a litany, her hands cradling his jaw, forcing him to look at her, to keep eye contact as she said, “I want to see you. All of you.”

Gods above, how much more was left to see? He felt scraped clean and laid out to dry, every bit of him exposed and over sensitized. Her hands moved to loop around his neck – as well as Jaskier’s – and she kissed the bard over his shoulder before returning her attentions to him. Jaskier’s hands moved from his hips to his nipples. Yennefer’s hands guided Geralt’s to her breasts, urging them to cup and pinch and grope.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Geralt breathed in a reedy, broken chant. That fire in his belly was a blaze now; roaring and searing him from the inside out, stoked that much higher with every order – kiss me, now my neck, suckle my breasts, reach back to cup Jaskier’s neck, yes good – and every kind word of praise – so good, our good boy, our witcher, so good and all ours. There was a sound now, high and breathless and keening, and with a blink he realized it was him. He was whining, as close as he could get to begging, as Jaskier and Yennefer both closed a hand over his cock and began to stroke him as one.

Jaskier, the bastard, had remembered where his fingers had pressed to make Geralt react like that before and he was relentless in his dogging of that spot. Thrusting in short, abortive little burst, then in hard, deep slow strokes, then bursts again.

Geralt moaned, words beyond him, lost in the haze they had dragged him into. They had peeled him of every layer, laid him out beneath them, framed him on either side until there was nothing left but more and tell me what to do and don’t stop.

There was a deep, instinctual, almost animal pleasure in this. In simply existing, sandwiched between them, worrying only about rutting and being good. Something relieving in not making the decisions or the plans after decades of having no one but himself to make every decision and bare the weight of every plan. He melted into them totally, finally, and let them drive. He drifted, lulled by the hum of their voices now – nonsensical and far away, dancing over him like a stone sending ripples across a still pond.

“So good, such a good man.”

The haze broke only when that pleasure-heat had finally been stoked to a writhing inferno. It gripped his gut, sending his hips into a rolling, writhing mess atop Jaskier and pinned beneath Yennefer as he came, the force of it blinding him, head thrown back against Jaskier’s shoulder, mouth open – deft to his own howling. His hands would leave bruises on Yennefer’s hip and Jaskier’s thigh beneath him, he would find out later, but for now he held onto each of them like a life line until his orgasm passed. He wilted between them, chest heaving, as Yennefer chased her own pleasure atop him and Jaskier followed quickly after inside him – teeth buried in his shoulder and growling with more force than a bard had any right to growl.

“Downright territorial of you, Jaskier. Beautiful, albeit surprising. I was much more inclined to believe you would wax poetic to us or sing,” Yennefer mused as she removed herself from Geralt’s lap.

“Anyone else, I would,” Jaskier said, the littlest bit surprised himself it would seem, “But this was different.”

“Indeed,” Yennefer hummed, easing Geralt off of Jaskier’s prick – eyes on his hole as it gaped slightly with Jaskier’s absence, pearly cum beginning to leak from it. She gathered his jaw in her hands again, sought out his eyes, and smiled wolfishly as she said, “He opened up to that rather beautifully, didn’t he?”

Jaskier hummed, just as pleased, as he peppered Geralt’s back with kisses. “Better than expected, I really thought we’d need to coax him there with far more guidance. How long do you think this will last?”

“This deep? Hard to say with a witcher,” she said, easing up from the bed, drawing Geralts hands in her own as she murmured warmly, “Up we go, wolf. To the baths, then some meats and some cheeses, and bed. Up, up. Be good now.”

He followed. In a pleasant, cared for haze he let them ease him into the tub. He hummed and purring and grumbled pleasantly as Jaskier washed his hair and Yennefer cleaned his skin, each of them taking their time. He watched lazily as they attended to one another. They dried him. Plied him with food.

Then they tucked themselves into either side of him, petting him through the submissive daze they had helped him reach. It was some time later, the three of them dozing lightly in the bed, that finally his lashes fluttered open – some semblance of clarity in his amber eyes.

“Ah, there he is,” Jaskier said, propping his chin up on Geralt’s chest to beam at him, “Hello there.”

He felt Yennefer’s gaze fall on him as well, expectant and waiting – although for what, he wasn’t sure. His mouth worked open and closed a few times, but he had no words, no idea of where to even start. Yennefer smiled, pleased.

“Good. It worked. We struck the witcher too dumb to keep working himself into the ground,” she said. He grunted, grumpy – albeit too wrung out with pleasure, too loose from sex and exhaustion for there to be any real heat to it. She leaned over his chest to share a celebratory kiss with the bard, short and sweet and chaste. Geralt just stared on, almost owlishly, before letting his head fall back into the pillows with a soft, stunned ‘fuck’.

Jaskier patted his chest consolingly, but his grin was anything but remorseful as he said, “Don’t worry, Geralt, you’re in good hands.”

And he was.

#the Witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #yennefer #GeraltxJaskierXyennefer #OT3 #Recovery #Food Issues #PTSD #hurt/comfort #Sub Space #Geralt has a praise kink #and he's weary #he just wants someone to take the reigns for a bit #good thing he has two bossy partners #now back to the trash from whence I came #witcher writing

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