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lesdemonium · 4 years ago

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I’d Be the Choiceless Hope Chapter 3

Ship: Geraskier Word count: 9,430 Chapter: 3/16

Summary:

“Such a nice, beautiful sound,” the fae crooned. “If only he were this way always.”

Julian’s mother stood up. She claimed she was prepared to stop the fae, to protect her baby, but in Julian’s darkest moments he doubted this part of the story. His mother loved him, of that he had no doubt, but she had been young and weary, and even years later, she couldn’t quite get the twinge of exhaustion out of her eyes when she recalled Julian’s infancy. Even if she had been keen on protecting him, the fae was too close, too fast, too set on his plan.

“A gift, for the new mother,” the fae continued. He leaned a hand in to stroke Julian’s cheek. “I give you the gift of obedience.”

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier’s mother with Jaskier’s obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the “gift” became more of a curse.

Additional tags: AngstAngst with a Happy EndingHeavy AngstUnrequited LoveNot Actually Unrequited LoveAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanon EraNot Canon CompliantCursed Jaskier | DandelionAlternate Universe - Ella Enchanted FusionCurse of ObedienceRape/Non-con ElementsImplied/Referenced Rape/Non-conJaskier | Dandelion Whump

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Being away from Geralt was harder than Jaskier ever anticipated. The safety, of course, was hard to replicate. Jaskier found his life was far easier when people stayed far away from him, though he did try his hardest to change the people’s tune on Geralt so that would happen less often . Let it be known that Jaskier was not a selfish friend--he truly tried to remedy Geralt’s reputation, even though there were many times that the witcher and any company he kept being completely unapproachable would have been exceedingly helpful to Jaskier. While Jaskier craved it, Geralt didn’t deserve it.

Truly, though, being away from Geralt was excruciating because Jaskier missed him .

It hit him as he was passing through Posada. He didn’t often make the return to Posada--it was kind of a shithole and even as he had started writing his amazing ballads, the crowds simply were not up to Jaskier’s standards. He figured it had been a while since he graced the lovely town with his skill, though, and so he had tried again to see if the crowds were more amiable. They were not. But, as he had already made it there and didn’t much feel like camping or traveling alone at night, Jaskier had gotten a room.

He and Geralt had parted ways months earlier, as Geralt went to Kaer Morhen for the winter. Even if Jaskier was not in much of an admitting mood, he had to confess that he was absently looking for Geralt. It was spring, surely Geralt would have left the keep, or was preparing to disembark. Jaskier wasn’t exactly sure where Kaer Morhen was or the route Geralt took to leave, but he reasoned that Posada had to be at least a decent guess.

Jaskier wanted to claim that he was absently searching for the witcher due to the protection he offered. Though he lied to everyone else, Jaskier did not much enjoy lying to himself. He was actively searching for the witcher because the past few months without him had been long and terrible and though Geralt had never been much for conversation, he was amazing for company. Also, Geralt’s particular brand of humor had been washing off on Jaskier and apparently it only seemed to work for persons who were large and brooding and vaguely terrifying.

Geralt was not in Posada, nor was he in Vengerberg, Aldersberg, or Rivia, but he was in Carreras. How Geralt beat him was anyone’s guess, but Jaskier found he was quite delighted to have found his witcher again.

“Geralt! Long time. I trust your winter was delightful. Full of witchery-like grunts and grimaces. I wonder, is there a witcher-to-common book in that reportedly extensive library of yours?” Jaskier greeted, arms wide in excitement (though Geralt eyed them warily like Jaskier was trying for a hug, and Jaskier would never mortify himself with that sort of expectation).

“Lambert and Eskel are more talkative. Not as talkative as you ,” Geralt answered with a huff as he continued walking, hauling the head of whatever beast he had just slain. Jaskier wanted to ask after the creature, but found himself far more interested in this snippet of his personal life Geralt was sharing with him.

“Ah, so it’s just you, then? Figures I should attempt to become the barker of a witcher who refuses to share gory details with me to his own benefit!” Jaskier knocked his shoulder into Geralt’s as he fell into step beside Geralt. To Jaskier’s great delight, he saw the corner of Geralt’s mouth tip up, just a smidge. Maybe Geralt had missed him, too.

“No. Vesemir talks less than me, now.”

Jaskier hummed. “So, Lambert, Eskel, and Vesemir, they are…?” Jaskier trailed off, hoping Geralt would continue his information binge--and wasn’t that truly distressing, that this was what Jaskier would refer to as a binge --enough to fill in the blanks.

“Vesemir trained us. Lambert and Eskel are my brothers,” Geralt answered.

Jaskier was dying to ask more. He didn’t know where to begin. Before the words had finished leaving Geralt’s mouth, he had formed hundreds of questions on the training of witchers alone . Geralt had to speak to the alderman, though, and to interrupt him on his quest to get his coin would leave Jaskier with a cranky witcher on his hands, and less information than he would like. Besides, a barrage of questions had never helped him get anywhere with Geralt. Sometimes he could confuse Geralt into answering one or two just to get Jaskier to stop, but Jaskier had a suspicion Geralt was becoming immune to his charms.

“Geralt, what is next on our docket?” Jaskier asked as they walked away from the alderman, Geralt’s pockets significantly heavier, due in no small part to Jaskier’s wheedling and dramatizing about the creature--which he still did not know the name of. “Perhaps a vampire? A harpy? One of those disgusting eight-legged creatures with a face that looks like every nightmare ever had pressed together?”

“A brothel,” Geralt answered.

“Right. A… a brothel.” Jaskier frowned, his eyebrows furrowed. “And then what, my good sir? The nightmare creatures?”

Geralt shrugged. “I imagine then a good fuck. I don’t usually find nightmare creatures inside brothels.”

Jaskier groaned. Had the witcher not been practically speed-walking his way away from Jaskier, he would have shoved the witcher. Not that it would have done much good anyway, but Jaskier would have felt better. Like he had made his frustration known.

“Geralt, I hope you aren’t being evasive on purpose. I know you’ve missed me--or at the very least, missed the way I can talk you into some extra coin--and I won’t have you trying to avoid me and leave when I’m caught unawares.” Jaskier huffed, crossing his arms in frustration. “I am going to get myself a room at an inn. If you try to leave without me after you have relieved your carnal urges, I will write you a scathing song. You’ve seen how much good I can do when I’m singing your praises. Do not underestimate my ability to destroy your reputation through song.”

Geralt rolled his eyes, but Jaskier liked to imagine he saw a flicker of fear in them. Jaskier would never do such a thing, but he’d certainly be heartbroken. It wouldn’t be the first time, but, like a sane person, he tried to avoid obvious heartbreak darkening his door.

The crowd, as he performed at the tavern that night, was much better than the one in Posada. They shouted out requests, laughed at his jokes, and stomped their feet more-or-less in time. Jaskier’s case was full of coins by the time the tavern door swung open and Jaskier was fully distracted by the witcher striding inside.

Jaskier had traveled with Geralt long enough to recognize displeasure on his face. It was hard to tell from his otherwise gruff and unhappy expressions, but Jaskier could read it in the tilt of his lips and the tension of his forehead. The witcher took a seat in the far back of the tavern, at one of the few open tables left, and though Geralt’s back remained to Jaskier, his head was tilted as if he was actually listening.

A moment later, Jaskier came back to himself. It would not do well for him to lose his audience, not when they were so enamored with him, and he had to put food in his belly somehow. Though every part of him longed to join Geralt, to inquire after what went wrong--because clearly something had, or Geralt would have remained in the brothel--Jaskier continued his performance. It wasn’t long, he had certainly done longer performances elsewhere, but it was long enough to keep the audience’s favor. Often, it was best to leave early, lest they lose interest.

Geralt was still at the table when Jaskier slid onto the bench across from him, but now he had an ale before him. And two empty ones besides.

“I expected you to be buried beneath a beautiful working girl for the better part of the night, and possibly into the early morning. No one there to your liking? Have you decided listening to my dulcet tones is a better way to satisfy your hunger?” Jaskier asked, winking.

“They stank. Every one of them.”

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “Do they not have baths there? Perhaps that could have been your foreplay. You do so love a warm bath.”

Geralt’s head began to shake before Jaskier finished speaking. He took a drink of his ale, spending enough time on it that Jaskier wasn’t certain Geralt was going to offer the information Jaskier was so clearly missing. “Not like that,” Geralt finally answered. “Fear. Every one of them smelled like fear. Strongly.”

He shrugged, as if this was nothing, and Jaskier’s heart ached for him. He hadn’t realized the witcher could perceive that, though, at this point, Jaskier had been certain there were few surprises left. Evidently, he did not know as much about witcher physiology as he thought he did. He would have to do more to press Geralt about this, but perhaps not at a point when Geralt looked so… sick of himself.

“Perhaps if you gave it another go? Maybe they were caught off guard?” Jaskier asked, and again, Geralt was shaking his head before Jaskier finished speaking.

“I will not lie with someone terrified I’m going to rip their throat out,” he answered. Hard to argue with logic like that. “It’s fine. I’ll try again in another town.”

There was very little Jaskier could do to fix this. As much as people were beginning to welcome the witcher, Jaskier couldn't fix everyone’s perceptions of him. And if Geralt really could smell fear on them, well, there wasn’t much Jaskier could do about that, even if he did change the public perception of witchers. It would take a long time before the automatic fear response went away. It was baffling, though. Jaskier couldn’t imagine how anyone could look at Geralt and not want to bed him.

“Well. Save your coin tonight, friend. I already have a room, and you are welcome to join me!” Jaskier announced cheerily.

Geralt snorted into his drink. “I’ll get my own room, bard.”

“Ah, yes, well, that is the thing. There is a rather large chance I have purchased the last remaining room.” Jaskier grimaced at Geralt. “I’m afraid it was less an offer of loneliness, but rather an offer of necessity.”

Geralt grimaced right back. “You needn’t sacrifice your room. I’ll find other lodgings.”

“No,” Jaskier insisted, shaking his head. “Geralt, really. Share my room. I will endeavor to give you space when we sleep, but you know I cannot help what I do while I am unconscious. Hence why I will fund this particular stay in a real bed that I know you will hold over my head for the length of our travels tomorrow. But I must insist that you stay here, and not only because I am still afraid you will leave despite my warnings of a scathing song.”

Geralt snorted again, and finished the last of his ale. “Fine, Jaskier. Only if you stop talking , though.” He pushed back from the table and stood up, looking expectantly at Jaskier.

“You know I can make no such promise,” Jaskier answered, though he grinned as he stood up.

Though this night undoubtedly was terrible for Geralt, it was shaping up to be exactly what Jaskier wanted. Even if sharing a bed rarely went well for them, as Jaskier had a tendency of wrapping himself around Geralt in his sleep, much like a snake would to squeeze the life out of their meal. Still, Geralt followed after Jaskier, and they oscillated between idle chit-chat and companionable silence as they both staged their belongings in the room and undressed for bed.

“Geralt,” Jaskier started, sitting on the bed as Geralt continued the long, arduous process of removing his armor.

“Jaskier?” Geralt answered.

“You can smell fear on people?”

Geralt paused for a moment, his hand stilling over his armor as he placed it carefully away. He nodded, and said, “Yes. It smells… sickly sweet. Like rotting fruit.”

Jaskier nodded back, mulling this over for a moment. “Have you ever smelled it on me?”

Geralt shrugged, returning to removing his armor, though he was now more methodical than he had been. Like he was trying to keep his hands busy. Curious.

“At times,” he answered. “When a beast gets too close to you, or when that drunk swiped a knife at you.” Jaskier shuddered at the memory, and just barely caught Geralt’s smile before it disappeared.

“Never with you, though, right?” Jaskier said this urgently, and Geralt turned to look at him, an eyebrow raised. Whatever he found on Jaskier’s face made him hum, and he turned to abandon the last piece of armor.

“Once. When you asked about the fae. But it was… faint. I don’t think it had anything to do with me.”

“It didn’t,” Jaskier answered immediately, then winced. It was important to Jaskier that Geralt knew Jaskier didn’t fear him, but he didn’t want Geralt to press on why Jaskier had been a touch afraid during that conversation. It wasn’t time, Jaskier didn’t have the words, and he just prayed to every god out there with a silent Please. Please let him not ask.

Geralt turned to Jaskier, an eyebrow raised, but he didn’t ask. Only looked at Jaskier. They both stayed there for a moment, watching each other, and as Jaskier stood from his seat on the bed, Geralt’s gaze turned guarded.

“So you’ve never smelled fear of you on me?” Jaskier clarified.

Geralt’s eyes narrowed, and his head shake was slow. He didn’t understand where Jaskier was going with this. Jaskier wasn’t surprised.

“So it’s possible for humans to look at you, and never feel fear because of you. It’s possible for someone to look at you and only see how amazing you are.” He paused, and looked at Geralt. His features took on a wounded quality, but he didn’t turn away from Jaskier, nor say anything. Instead, amber eyes stayed locked on Jaskier’s, and though he looked skeptical, this felt like permission to continue. Jaskier took a few steps forward, until he was just before Geralt. Jaskier could lean forward and kiss him, if he wanted. He so desperately did, but he wasn’t sure yet if Geralt would.

“You are not a monster, Geralt of Rivia. And even if it takes a hundred songs, I will make sure that one day you will have forgotten about the time when you had to sniff out fear before taking someone to bed.”

Geralt glanced down at his lips. It was just the briefest of glances, but Jaskier saw it. He shuffled closer, and tentatively put his hands on Geralt’s chest. Geralt hesitated only a moment, before taking Jaskier’s hips, and the corner of his mouth quirked.

“Bold words,” Geralt said. He wanted to say so much more, Jaskier could tell, but the words evaded him. Jaskier smiled.

“I am not afraid of you. And I won’t be the last.” Jaskier said the words softly, seriously, like a promise.

It was a promise. Jaskier had already seen a shift in the witcher’s treatment. Surely if he kept going, wrote more songs, he’d be able to keep Geralt as safe as Geralt had unwittingly kept Jaskier. Geralt deserved better, deserved more, deserved anything and everything the world could offer him. If Jaskier could do anything to change Geralt’s life, Jaskier would do it without question.

“Can I kiss you?” Jaskier asked, breathless. He didn’t mean to ask it, but with Geralt so close, touching Jaskier, and allowing himself to be touched by Jaskier, how could the bard resist?

Geralt answered by closing the distance between them. The kiss started off slow, exploratory, as if Geralt was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the stench of fear to overtake him. Jaskier could say, with certainty, that this didn’t happen. Jaskier allowed himself to be kissed at Geralt’s pace, as he slid his hands up to cup Geralt’s neck.

Soon, the kiss turned hungry.

Jaskier’s heart hammered in his chest as Geralt backed him up against the bed. Jaskier pulled away only to clamber onto the mattress, tugging Geralt with him until Geralt hovered over Jaskier. Geralt pushed Jaskier’s doublet and shirt out of the way, but made no move to remove them, and Jaskier untucked Geralt’s shirt as bruises were sucked and bit into his neck.

“Should’ve known you’d be bitey,” Jaskier teased, and he couldn’t remember the last time sex had made him this breathless this early. He thumbed at the fasteners on Geralt’s pants until they were undone, then pushed his trousers down. It wasn’t an elegant move, nor an elegant angle as Jaskier pressed his hand inside and against Geralt’s hardening cock, but Geralt replied with a groan that spoke of want .

“Does it bother you?” Geralt asked, trailing down to leave similar bite marks along Jaskier’s collarbone.

“Not in the slightest.”

Geralt’s laugh was breathy against Jaskier’s skin, and quickly descended into a bitten off moan as Jaskier finally, awkwardly, got a hand around Geralt’s cock. His touch was light, his only goal presently was to get the witcher hard for him, and to Jaskier’s delight, that didn’t take long. Geralt pressed his face against Jaskier’s neck, and Jaskier could have sworn Geralt smelled him, and something about it had Geralt’s cock twitching in Jaskier’s hand.

“Take your pants off,” Geralt ordered.

Jaskier’s body complied, but his blood went ice cold. Geralt must have noticed this, because he pulled back and met Jaskier’s eyes. Tried to, anyway. Jaskier couldn’t look at him, just kept his eyes trained on his trousers and smallclothes, which he now kicked to the side, off the bed.

“Jaskier?” Geralt asked, a hand on Jaskier’s jaw, forcing Jaskier to look at him. Amber, even now, with his pupils blown wide with desire.

Of course Geralt, with his enhanced senses, would notice. Jaskier flushed and offered him a half-hearted shrug and a shaky laugh. “I don’t like being bossed. That’s all. It’s fine. Are we going to do this, or not?” he answered, with all the bravado he could.

Geralt watched him for a moment, his eyes narrowed, but if he thought Jaskier would reveal more to him, he was incredibly wrong. Finally, he pressed forward to kiss Jaskier again, licking into his mouth. As he distracted Jaskier with the kiss, which quickly turned filthy , Geralt kicked his own clothes off and ground down against Jaskier’s hips in a move that had them both panting, open mouthed against each other.

“Fuck, Geralt,” Jaskier breathed.

He held Geralt’s hip, his fingers pressing into the flesh of his ass. Geralt pressed their bodies close, rutting up against Jaskier’s hip and pressing his own abdomen against Jaskier’s cock. It wasn’t quite enough pressure, but his brain didn’t seem to care, as the motion drew a chorus of moans and many renditions of Yes, please, Geralt from his mouth. As Geralt moved, Jaskier captured both of their cocks in his hand, pressing them together and the new pressure, the new friction, had them both biting off swears into each other’s mouths. They weren’t kissing so much anymore as panting, heavily, against the other’s lips.

“Jaskier,” Geralt moaned, turning and pressing his face into Jaskier’s neck again.

Jaskier lost himself as he came, though Geralt kept moving, and in a distant way Jaskier felt the oversensitive twinge of his cock as the witcher rutted against him. He came back to his body just as Geralt’s found his release, and Geralt caught his lips in a bruising kiss that had Jaskier tugging at Geralt’s hair brutally.

The fervor left slowly, and Geralt rolled off him and to the side as Jaskier followed, unwilling to sever this connection just yet. Geralt made a sound that Jaskier chose to interpret as a happy grunt, or at the very least a satisfied grunt, and Jaskier could understand. He was feeling pretty satisfied himself.

“You don’t like to be bossed?” Geralt asked, pulling away. He held his head up by his hand, his elbow pressed into the bed, and looked down at Jaskier curiously.

Jaskier had approximately zero interest in having this conversation as Geralt stared into his soul , so he pushed himself up to sitting. He shrugged off his doublet, tossing it to the side with far more nonchalance than he normally would have. The bed was warm and he had every interest in staying where it was warm, thank you. He left his shirt on, though. It was a ridiculous look, he was well aware, but there was something comforting in it. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be fully bared while he carefully talked around Geralt’s question.

“No, I don’t,” he answered, shrugging. “I don’t like people telling me what to do or ordering me about. Obviously I wanted to remove my pants, or I wouldn’t have done it--” Geralt’s breath in was audible, and Jaskier feared he heard the lie, so Jaskier barrelled on “--but I don’t like being told to.”

Geralt was quiet for long enough that Jaskier finally turned to look at him. He looked at Jaskier as if Jaskier was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. Jaskier couldn’t blame him. After a moment, though, he held a hand out to Jaskier, which Jaskier gladly took, and slotted himself against the witcher’s body.

“I will remember that,” Geralt promised, and Jaskier’s heart fluttered in his chest. “For… next time?”

Jaskier grinned and nodded. “For next time.”

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#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #gerlion #geraskier fanfiction #geraskier fanfic #gerlion fanfic #my writing

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