#geraskeferweek

“The path is no place for a bard,” The witcher grumbled. “You’ll hate it.”

“My dear witcher, I will cherish every precious moment by your side,” Jaskier argued back. They’d been going back and forth for so long the sun was nearly out of the sky. 

“That was almost your last precious moment back there.” Geralt retorts, glancing back at the bard with an upturn of his mouth one could call a smile and Jaskier’s breath caught in his throat. 

The sunset lit the witcher from behind in a golden hue that made his yellow eyes practically glow. It framed him in such a way that Jaskier wanted to capture this moment in perfect detail just so he could show it to every single ignorant bastard on the continent and ask how they could call this transcendent man a monster. 

That was the exact moment he fell in love with Geralt. Genuinely, truly, in love. And while Geralt he knew he loved from the beginning, Yennefer took him by surprise. 

They had been living in Kaer Mohren for just a few months and had settled into a civil acquaintanceship with each other. Jaskier was there to continue teaching the girl about nobility, Geralt was coaxing the lion cub into becoming a Lioness, and Yennefer was both mentor and mother to her. The adults had a very long conversation about putting aside their difference and past arguments for the sake of the girl and if Jaskier were to be honest, things were pretty good.

On a morning that was completely similar to the last one and the one before that, Jaskier was heading out of his room and past Ciri’s when he heard the girl let out a sob, followed by a soft voice shushing her. 

The door was cracked open so the bard felt no qualms about peaking in to make sure she was okay. The scene that greeted him made his heart stop in his chest. 

Ciri was sitting in front of her vanity, tears running down her face and clumps of hair scattered beneath her from a rather butchered hair cut. Yennefer was leaning over her shoulder, face makeup-free and hair in a loose bun, long nails combing her now-short hair away from her face and whispering sweet words of comfort. “Don’t waste your tears on your looks, my sweet,” The sorceress said. “I’ve been there. I wasted so many hours of so many days crying over the idea that no one would find me attractive. I thought that beauty was power. And it is, in a way.” As she spoke, she lifted Ciri up just enough to slide into the seat herself and place her into her lap. “I thought being beautiful meant being powerful, which meant being happy.” “Aren’t you happy, Lady Yennefer?” Ciri asked, breath hiccuping as she calmed down. “Of course I am, my girl. But it has nothing to do with how beautiful I am and everything to do with the powerful girl in my lap.” Yennefer finished and smiled at them both in the mirror. Then, without a change in expression, she shifted her gaze to stare directly into Jaskier’s eyes.

It took Jaskier a while to react. He wasn’t shocked at being caught, no, he’s smarter than to think he can spy on Yennefer without her knowledge. And yet breath stuck in his throat, caught on the overwhelming wave of affection that went through him at being looked at so tenderly by the most powerful mage on the continent. She let herself be vulnerable in front of him, let herself indirectly bare a part of her past to him. She trusted him.

He knew at that moment, that tender moment on a morning like any other, that he loved her. 

He nodded to her, offering a smile of his own before quietly leaving the room to resume his path to breakfast. 

(This is not the first of these attacks, where a wild sadness comes up and steals his reason, makes him weak and pathetic and useless, unable to be calmed down— but it’s the first in a while, in such a long time he’s forgotten how bad they could be and he hates it because he knows, very distantly in the part of his brain that isn’t functioning right now, that he’s overreacting. He knows that these thoughts aren’t true, but they feel real and he can do little else but ride it out until it’s gone and hope no one finds him in the meantime.)

He stumbles into the stables, wanting to be alone but also desperate for a corner to put his back against: it’s early enough in the pre-dawn hours now that the stable hands are all gone, so it’s just him and the horses. He fumbles with the latch for Roach’s stall door, still keening noiselessly because he doesn’t actually have enough air to make any sound at all right now and because it’s early and he doesn’t want to wake anyone and because he needs to hide until this passes, and his hands are shaking too much to get the metal bolt to slide out, and what the fuck kind of door is this anyways it’s not like a stall door needs a complicated bolt mechanism it’s just keeping fucking horses in place it’s not protecting anything fucking important— he kicks the door, utterly suddenly furious and then he punches it too, just once rabbit quick with clenched fists and Roach screams, startled and scared of him and gods he’s ruining everything.

He can’t be here— he shouldn’t be here, “I’m sorry, Roach” he means to whisper but it’s a garbled mess around the sobbing breaths his body is shaking apart around and then, because the universe hates him and exists to laugh at his pain, he runs face first into Geralt as he’s trying to leave. 

He’d been so quiet, and then he’d ruined it, scaring Roach and of course Geralt was here to check on her, because he loved Roach and he loved Yennefer and he hated Jaskier, could barely tolerate him, just let him follow him around because it was easier and he was too nice to tell him off. Geralt was sleep-rumpled still, and he’d pulled on trousers but no shirt, just his stupid witcher’s medallion sitting again this bare chest (the bare chest that Jaskier has just bounced off of, and that he’d spent several long glorious minutes exploring with his tongue last night) and his misery is renewed again as Geralt rubs one hand across his eyes and then notices Jaskier finally.

“Jask?” He asks, and Jaskier has one shining moment of hope where he thinks maybe Geralt hasn’t noticed and then Geralt has both hands on his shoulders and is trying to meet his eyes even as Jaskier looks away. “Jaskier, what’s wrong.”  He shakes his head, pushing his lips together to try and hold back everything. He can’t speak can’t admit to the truth of how fucking stupid he is, and now that he’s been found he feels even stupider, that he couldn’t just— hold it in long enough to hide it. He shakes his head, and then keeps shaking it, even as Geralt pulls him into his chest. He’s warm and broad and Jaskier doesn’t deserve this, but he needs it too so he lets himself fall apart in Geralt’s arms. It’s not like Geralt can think any less of him, he thinks slightly hysterically. 

He starts laughing, and then he can’t stop, a series of hiccoughing sobs the Geralt just shushes him through. “Jask, what’s wrong?” Geralt asks again, and the ‘nothing’ gets trapped in his throat so he’s so glad when Geralt just pushes his face into his shoulder and then picks him up. Geralt is taking him back to the inn, back to Yennefer and he can think of few things more immediately humiliating than letting Yennefer see him like this, so he tries to synch his breathing to Geralt’s. One of the better effects of being a witcher is that Geralt’s breathing is steady as a metronome, and Jaskier has used it to keep time while practicing out in the woods more than once. 

He hides his head in Geralt’s shoulder as they enter the room again, and he’s stopped crying, has calmed down from the worst of it just through proximity, (because Geralt makes him feel safe, like nothing else does, and if he can’t feel cherished at least he can feel that). He thinks, inanely, that if he just... keeps hiding he can survive this with some measure of dignity intact. Maybe Yennefer is still asleep, and Geralt will lie down between them and he can just... pretend this didn’t happen in the morning. He holds onto that thought all the way up until Geralt actually sets him down on the bed, and then Yennefer is suddenly all over him. She rolls him over so he’s on his stomach, and he’s half afraid of what she’s going to do, but all she does is climb on top of him so her weight is distributed across as much of him as possible. She’s smaller, but there’s still a whole human laying across his back and her breasts leave a soft cushion across his shoulders, her knees just pressing this side of uncomfortable into the back of his thighs. She’s still mostly naked, but he can feel that she’s wearing Geralt’s shirt, the extra fabric wrinkling oddly against his back. He shoves his head into the mattress, but then one of Yennefer’s hands is gliding through his hair, petting against the grain, and he shivers with the pleasure of her touch. Geralt sits next to them, and he’s... there’s no word for what he’s doing except petting, rubbing his rough hands up and down Jaskier’s shins, pressing in just enough to smooth the tension out of his muscles. 

He’s melting under their ministrations, and he’s half-asleep when Yennefer drops a kiss against his cheek. “What’s wrong, bardling?” she whispers and its not even really a pet name, but it’s the softest she’s ever been with him, and he shudders roughly, pushing through the instant flush of embarrassment because he thinks he owes them some explanation doesn’t he. “I-” he cuts himself off, because how does he put this into words that don’t make him sound ungrateful? “I just.. got scared.” he says, half a whisper because he can’t say it any louder. 

“Oh, it’s okay, little bardling,” Yennefer croons in his ear, and it should be humiliating to have her call him small, to be using such a voice, yet it does nothing but soothe him further, her weight across his back, the soft petting from both her and Geralt, the silent steadiness of Geralt sitting next to them. Geralt stretches out to lie with them, and he reaches out one hand to tap gently at Jaskier’s cheek until he opens his eyes enough to meet his golden gaze. 

“What were you scared of?” he asks, and god what a gut-punch of a question that he is. They’ve trapped him in their embrace and he won’t be able to wriggle out without answering. He can’t deflect here, and he thinks, perhaps uncharitably, that this has Yennefer written all over it. 

“I didn’t--” he can’t say, physically can’t make the words leave his mouth, but Yennefer must be using magic to read what he means to say anyways because she tuts, lowly, and then kisses the back of his neck, nuzzling into his nape. He gasps with the sudden pleasure, and then Geralt leans forward to steal a kiss from his lips (and the angle is weird and it should be uncomfortable for both of them but it’s so godsdmaned good because its them, because its always good between them). Yennefer and Geralt pull back at the same time, and then Yennefer has his chin in one hand and she too drops a kiss against his mouth, (this angle is even more awkward, but the slight twinge in his neck is worth it for how fucking sweet she tastes, like gooseberry jam and burnt sugar and just that hint of Chaos, swirling around everything she does. 

“I love you,” she says, when she pulls back, and he blinks, absolutely stunned by the bareness of it. She’s not holding anything back and he wants to revel in the feeling of it, but its so sudden he-- “Hey,” she says, cutting off his thoughts. “Don’t do that. I love you, and if you think you’ve been hiding how much you love us, you clearly don’t listen to your songs.” she smirks at him as he gapes at her because what a bald-faced insult, doesn’t listen to his own songs, what a load of cock, he knows exactly how obvious he’s been in his lyrics, he just rather hadn’t thought they were listening close enough to know. Geralt laughs, a rough sound that sends a low thrum of arousal straight to the base of him, and then he presses a gentle kiss to Jaskier’s temple and oh gods that’ so gentle he’s so gentle with him and Jaskier wants to cry all over again, but this time from happiness. 

“I love you too, Jask,” he whispers and then, smirking, because he is above all else a right fucking bastard, he reaches around Yennefer to slap Jaskier’s ass. “Go the fuck to sleep now, I’m tired.”Jaskier gasps, scandalized, but then Yennefer is sliding off him laughing also, and she crowds up against his back, pushing him into Geralt’s arms.

“Cuddle your witcher, bard. You made him all sad earlier when you left. You’ve gotta fix him now.” Yennefer says, pushing him with both arms into Geralt’s embrace. Geralt nods, very seriously, and Jaskier goes easily enough, laughing the whole time. 

“Oh what a burden I bear,” he says, letting both of them wind their limbs around him. “Do you feel cured, witcher?” he asks, smiling against Geralt’s collar bone. 

“With you two in my bed?” Geralt rumbles, releasing one hand from Jaskier’s waist to wind his fingers together with Yennefer’s. Their joined hands pull tight against Jaskier’s hip and he feels held by both of them, cocooned between their bodies and safe and welcome the way he’s always craved. “How could I ever be anything else?”

____