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A spider with zero respect for personal property crawls through the dividing wall and onto Jaskier’s pack. Geralt watches it out of the corner of his eye, half-considering getting up to kill it before Jaskier can come back and make a fuss, except it’s Jaskier’s fault that Geralt’s hands are busy, one shoved down his own pants and the other clamped over his mouth, stifling his sharp intake of air as he rolls his balls in his hand. The spider’s big, but not poisonous - Geralt’s building orgasm is a more pressing concern. It’ll serve Jaskier right if it makes a home in his sock.
They’re in a backwater inn in a backwater town. The inn boasts only two rooms, yet the proprietor is clearly a man of great optimism to believe this town can support so many. The bed had flung months of dust when Jaskier plopped down on it, sending the bard into a coughing fit and begging off an evening performance which no one had asked for. There are more feathers scattered on the dirt floor than tucked into their mattress, and Geralt strongly suspects that this room’s last occupants were the town’s chickens, sheltered from an uncommonly brutal winter.
Still, the rain outside had threatened to turn to hail, and any roof, even one thin and leaking, had seemed preferable to sleeping in the open.
Geralt, in a moment of clarity between a long and teasing upstroke and circling the head of his cock with his thumb, realizes he may have miscalculated.
The aforementioned dividing wall should be commended for its fortitude; only stubbornness alone can explain how it is still standing with the number of holes, gaps, and cracks marring its surface. However, with its attention elsewhere, it is largely failing at its primary task of dividing.
He catches a glimpse of Jaskier’s nipple, swollen red and with sharp bite marks around its edges. Smells the sweat coating his chest as he clutches one woman by the hair, wrenching her head back and mouthing into her neck, “wait your turn, pet,” as he works three fingers into the cunt of the other. A missing board lets Geralt know her screams are not exaggerated - only professionals remember to curl their toes when they’re faking it, and through the hole his eight-legged roommate used he can see Jaskier’s fingers, dripping with slick, as the widow with five kids and no time for bullshit tells Jaskier that she’s always wanted to see if a whole fist can fit, his hand in her and her friend’s hand him.
He can’t see Jaskier’s answering grin, but that doesn’t matter. It’s been directed at him often enough to envision it anyway.
“You know I’m up for anything, darling.”
Yeah, Geralt does. Everyone else does too. The worst part is, it’s all Geralt’s damn fault.
The kid is stubborn, Geralt will give him that. Cocky, reckless, and young enough that his voice still cracks once every few days, grating across Geralt’s ears, but stubborn.
A well-timed glare is usually enough to get any nosy human running. Ten times out of ten when an outwardly friendly face pulls up a chair beside him, their heart beating too fast, they’re trying to prove their mettle and win coin or cunt. He’s overheard enough tavern bets to understand that merely speaking to him is a mark of great bravery.
On the rare occasions glaring doesn’t do the trick, he’ll bare his teeth and that’ll be that. One notable summer, a budding missionary followed him around for three full days, having proclaimed that redeeming a witcher would be his crowning achievement in what Geralt pieced together as some kind of evangelical pissing contest.
Geralt had taken a forktail contract that third day. The proselytizer took one look at Geralt’s black eyes, exclaimed that there was no salvation for demons themselves, and fled.
But this damn bard.
Jaskier merely rolled his eyes when Geralt glared. When Geralt bared his teeth, Jaskier bared his in return, laughing.
And when he saw Geralt’s black eyes he ran closer, tripping over tree roots and fumbling to pull his notebook from his jacket, altogether doing a piss-poor job at listening to Geralt’s order to “Get the fuck away from its claws, the hell are you doing here?”
When Geralt got back to their camp that afternoon, nekker head in hand, Jaskier quickly excused himself, stuttering out something about piss and fire logs as he escaped into the trees. Geralt shared a commiserating look with Roach; it was a bittersweet triumph. The bard had a line after all. But then Jaskier crept noisily back to the fire, an improbable amount of time later, utterly relaxed and reeking of spend.
In short, the kid was possibly concussed and definitely going to get himself killed.
Well, if he wants to travel with a witcher, then he can travel with a witcher. Geralt can’t be fucked to keep up human niceties day in and day out.
He’s nursing a broken hand a few weeks later, tired and lightheaded and not about to bother with hunting down firewood this late in the evening. Jaskier has enough hardtack to last him a week - he’ll survive.
It’s a matter of minutes to kill a squirrel - he’s been able to throw an accurate knife with either hand since he was nine. He does a piss poor job skinning it, trying to hold the damn thing between his knees, and, cursing, calls it good enough as soon as there’s barely enough meat exposed for him to eat around. He’s pissed off, he’s hungry, and the taste of raw meat has never been his favorite, but at this point all he wants is the quickest path from dinner to bed.
He sucks the last bone clean, tossing it well away from their camp. Lounging back against the tree, he steadfastly ignores Jaskier jerking off on the other side of the fire and his own responding hard-on. There’s a gentle breeze on the wind and an endrega nest on the edge of his hearing five miles away. Plenty of other things to focus on.
He’s been spurning the kid’s increasingly less subtle come-ons for weeks, refusing to indulge his misguided fetish.
Or, more truthfully, he’s been ignoring the kid’s come-ons until he’s certain Jaskier is fast asleep. Alone, he can’t help but imagine how those lips would look leaking spit around his cock or what it would feel like to reach down and rub his own cockhead through the bard’s cheek.
It’s not that Geralt doesn’t hear Jaskier moving towards him, or notice when the bard sinks down to straddle Geralt’s outstretched legs. It’s just that he’s finally relaxed, and it seems like a whole lot of work to open his eyes when glaring hasn’t yet worked to date.
Geralt has every intention of waiting it out, whatever fumbling seduction Jaskier has planned for tonight. The bard’s ability to argue greatly outpaces his attention span. Letting this play out is the most expedient option.
He’s expecting Jaskier to grind himself into Geralt’s lap, or slide a hand up his shirt and grope at his tits.
Jaskier cuts a straight line through ninety years of Geralt’s expectations. He leans in, suspended, his breath mixing with Geralt’s own. The moment hangs for long enough that Geralt is seconds from breaking and asking if the bard needs a list of suggestions when Jaskier moves, the tip of his tongue swiping across the seam of Geralt’s mouth. It’s shocking enough that Geralt acquiesces, letting his lips fall open and tasting Jaskier’s spit mixed with the blood still coating Geralt’s teeth. He figures that’ll be the end of this game, that Jaskier will jerk back and reach for the ale, washing away the foul taste. Instead he moves, unconcerned, to mouth along Geralt’s bloodstained chin, swirling his tongue in the mess, his cock dripping in Geralt’s lap, stopping only to bite hard right below Geralt’s ear.
Something in Geralt snaps.
Fine. If Jaskier won’t listen when Geralt tells him what’s best for him, then Geralt will give him a more hands-on demonstration. Actions have always come easier than words.
The bard thinks he can handle a witcher? Let him prove it.
Geralt threads a hand into the bard’s hair and yanks. He holds Jaskier there, letting him test Geralt’s hold, until it sinks in that he’s not going anywhere until Geralt says so.
He’s pretty like this, exposed. On instinct, Geralt runs the back of his broken hand’s fingers across Jaskier’s neck, right where he would bleed out the quickest.
“Is this going the way you expected? Did you think you’d get to throw me down and render me speechless?” Geralt sneers.
Jaskier tenses and Geralt loosens his grip, ready to pull away. Good, the kid is finally scared.
Jaskier moans. His voice is gravel deep and a glance down tells Geralt that Jaskier’s still rock-hard cock agrees.
Fuck it.
Geralt adjusts his grip, shuffling out from under Jaskier but keeping the bard down in the dirt. Geralt holds him in place while struggles to pull his cock out with his bad hand, gritting his teeth against the pain.
He lets go of Jaskier’s hair, moving to grip Jaskier’s jaw instead, tugging him down until he’s eye level with Geralt’s cock. The kid visibly gulps but Geralt doesn’t give a shit, shoving two fingers into his mouth and pulling his jaw open. Jaskier has had plenty of time for second thoughts; Geralt doesn’t have the patience for them now. He knew what he was bedding.
Geralt feeds himself to Jaskier in one go, pushing deeper until he’s sheathed to the root. The bard gags when Geralt fucks in so Geralt forces his head steady until the convulsions subside, unwilling to slow down lose his angle. Jaskier doesn’t end up puking, so he’s probably done this before, not that Geralt had bothered to ask.
Jaskier doubles over and dry heaves after Geralt finally spills down his throat, tears leaking down his face. The kid’s cock has flagged to half mast, and Geralt figures that, finally, this will be the end of it. No more waiting to wake up alone, no more distractions during a hunt or worrying that the idiot is going to get too close and get himself killed. The bard won’t be able to sing for a week, and Jaskier might be dumb enough to gamble with his body but even he knows that he’d be fucked without a way to make coin.
Geralt falls asleep fast, relaxed and smug. Either the kid will get himself off or he won’t, he’s not Geralt’s problem anymore.
The problem is, Jaskier continues to be Geralt’s problem.
Geralt resorts to increasingly drastic methods.
The next time, he sits Jaskier on his cock after only two fingers of prep; weeks later he bends the bard over in a well-trafficked stable. Jaskier can’t look the stableboy in the eyes for the rest of the time they’re in town, but that doesn’t stop him from getting a hand up a lass’s skirt that night and still following Geralt out of town the next morning all the same.
Geralt gives in and lets Jaskier ride Roach the same day he buys a wooden plug - he’s never had a less attentive student. He shoves Jaskier’s face in the dirt while too high on Thunderbolt to give a shit about how rough he’s being and leaves bruises on the bard’s hips that lasts for days. He thinks the cock cage will get the bard to finally crack, but that backfires spectacularly and Geralt spends most of the month bouncing a pleading Jaskier on his cock instead.
The day Jaskier comes a hair’s breadth away from losing his leg to a foglet’s claws, Geralt pulls out a knife in desperation, tying Jaskier down and tracing shallow patterns into his skin until there is no part of him that Geralt hasn’t marked.
Still, Jaskier doesn’t smell of fear. Still, Jaskier doesn’t leave.
Geralt tries everything he can think of, every too-hard too-rough act that’s normally only available for a steep price. Sometimes Jaskier gets off, sometimes he doesn’t, but every time he stays.
Geralt doesn’t know what to do with that. Jaskier never pulls away, never says no. He lets Geralt use him any and every way he likes with no complaint. But he never lingers afterwards and never tries to pull Geralt back in when the witcher rolls away to his own pallet. Geralt doesn’t know if Jaskier doesn’t want that, or if he doesn’t ask because Geralt’s never told him he could have if he asked, and Geralt doesn’t know what to do with that so he does nothing at all.
There’s only so long even Geralt can convince himself that there has to be a line somewhere , that eventually Jaskier will come to his senses and the axe will fall. And there’s not much of a point after that, so Geralt just - stops. Sure, a quick tap of two fingers to his shoulder will still drop Jaskier to his knees, but Geralt can’t find it in himself to enjoy the bard’s tears when he no longer has any illusions he’s saving the kid (the man?) from future pain.
So Geralt goes back to paying for his pleasure, and Jaskier, armed with a breadth of knowledge and a complete lack of scruples, never has to pay for his.
Most nights Geralt can ignore it. Nights like this, when the air is thick and the ale cheap, Geralt can’t.
Sometimes just hearing him is enough. It doesn’t matter how thick the walls are; his voice is too familiar. Geralt can’t help but hear how gently Jaskier guides his partners to whisper desires they’ve never before said out loud; how good he is at delivering on those promises. It was odd at first, hearing Jaskier take control. He’s firmer than Geralt would have guessed, nothing like the pliable thing he is in Geralt’s hands. It’s a side of Jaskier he doesn’t know, and that sits uncomfortably in his gut.
Except, sometimes, Geralt will hear his own words in Jaskier’s mouth. It might be an order or a compliment designed to make his partner flush, but it’s undeniably Geralt’s. Because Geralt had him first, Geralt taught him how to play that way.
That makes Geralt uncomfortable just farther south.
Nights like tonight, it’s too easy to listen accidentally-on-purpose and feel Jaskier’s hands on his hands, his breath in his ear. Jaskier has gone off with the village farrier, a sturdy lad with a patchy beard and the guts to pull up a chair beside Jaskier. He boldly asked about Jaskier’s compositions, barreling through a pronounced stutter and the redhead sprawled across the bard’s lap.
It’d worked out well for the farrier. Geralthas already let his stew go cold in front of him, distracted by how Jaskier soothes the lad as he feeds a small steel rod down his cock.
On a different night, in a different inn, Geralt had cradled Jaskier against his chest, Jaskier’s legs spread wide and pinned outside Geralt’s thighs. He’d skated his hand down Jaskier’s chest, teasing his nipples and lingering when Jaskier’s abs jumped under his hand. His fingers danced over the bard’s cock until Jaskier was trembling against him, waiting until Jaskier’s fingernails were biting into Geralt’s thighs before using two fingers to pull back Jaskier's foreskin and expose his pisshole. He’d been unable to resist pushing just a bit further, kissing the tip of the rod against Jaskier’s hole, waiting to slide home until Jaskier had tried to thrust up on his own, desperate to end the anticipation.
The memory shifts and merges with the farrier’s gasps and Geralt’s hips jerk up under his tavern table, and now it’s Jaskier’s arm braced across his chest, Jaskier’s calloused grip painfully tight around his cock. Jaskier chides him for whining as the steel slides down, “It doesn’t become you to whine about such a simple thing. Didn’t a wyvern take off half of your side just last week?” Jaskier would say that if Geralt had promised he was “Fine, Jaskier, it’s nothing” with half of his blood outside of his body, then Jaskier can’t be expected to take pity on him now.
Geralt can almost feel Jaskier’s hand working over his cock as the farrier’s cries grow higher; the heat in Geralt’s gut rises alongside. It’d too much, seated on Jaskier’s cock, split in two on both ends and desperate to move. He’d be too full, but that wouldn’t matter. Jaskier would have Geralt so completely at his mercy he wouldn’t even need to tie him down. How could Geralt not listen when Jaskier would say “Sit still for me, there’s a good boy ,” like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Geralt wouldn’t be able to think clearly enough to push Jaskier away, even if he wanted to, not when his whole world would have collapsed into the steady slide of steel and Jaskier’s breath in his ear. He’d be close, so fucking close, and it’d be damn near painful when Jaskier finally shows mercy, pulling out the rod and bringing Geralt’s orgasm with it.
The farrier gasps in time with Geralt, who flushes when he realizes that the wetness in his pants has nothing to do with the broken glass in his hand. He grabs a barmaid’s attention as fast as he can, which isn’t fast at all given the busy hour, praying he can beat Jaskier back to their room and clean up before the bard returns.
Luck has never had much time for witchers and she isn’t looking to start new habits tonight. Geralt gets stuck haggling with the innkeep; the cost of replacing a mug is the same whether it was broken by witcher or human. The innkeeper has a different opinion and by the time a fair price is agreed upon it’s too late. Jaskier is already there when Geralt arrives, standing over the small basin with his chemise undone. The room smells of spend and sweat and Jaskier’s favorite lemongrass soap.
Geralt freezes, whatever Jaskier is saying lost to the sight of a slim steel rod rolling between Jaskier’s deft fingers.
Geralt is well aware of Jaskier’s preferences. Hell, he’s been getting off on the sound of them all night. Geralt aside, Jaskier tends towards control. But something about his posture, unabashed and confident, undoes Geralt.
Jaskier won’t go anywhere. No matter what Geralt does next - Jaskier won’t leave.
Maybe it’s okay to want, without pretense.
Jaskier trails off, Gerat’s silence noted. His eyes narrow, sweeping over Geralt, pausing on Geralt’s face as he takes in Geralt’s flushed cheeks and harsh breath. Geralt knows he must look ridiculous: his shirt sleeves are still soaked in ale and his hair has half-fallen out of its tie. Even so, Geralt is tensed for a fight, frozen in that moment before, when his body knew more than his mind about when to lunge and when to wait.
What probably gives him away, in reality, is that his cock has already filled again, impossible to hide while wearing only too-tight linen trousers that upon closer thought might actually be Jaskier’s.
Jaskier looks to the rod in his hand, assessing. Slowly, he raises it shoulder height, smirking as Geralt’s eyes follow its movement.
“Is there something you need, witcher mine?” Jaskier asks, falsely innocent. He walks across the room, backing Geralt up against the wall until there’s but an inch between their bodies.
Jaskier will not leave, Geralt reminds himself. It doesn’t matter.
He grabs Jaskier by the wrist, bringing his hand up to Geralt’s shoulder. He taps Jaskier’s fingers against his shoulder twice and drops to his knees.