For Flowers May Fly If They Wish

For Flowers May Fly If They Wish

Part Two

A sex pollen fic where Geralt helped Jaskier out bc he's just a Good Bro like that :) Contains all of the usual consent issues of sex pollen (mostly in part one).

If you missed the first part, you can find it here.

When in Dorian

It wasn’t as though Geralt had never slept with his friends before – or at least his comrades. There had been a few long winter nights, both before and after he went on the Path, and sometimes you just had an itch. It was like uncorking a barrel that had been fermenting for too long, that was all. Everyone agreed that it didn’t mean anything; it wasn’t personal, just a way to work out a need in the absence of other options. He’d expected it to be like that with Jaskier. After all, they’d been friends for years now. He knew Jaskier was attractive, but in a distant sort of way, the way you might admire a piece of jewellery or a well-shaped flower. The knowledge didn’t have any weight of lust behind it.

But after he’d helped Jaskier with the frenzy that had been induced with the deoval-stones pollen, he kept noticing it. He’d see Jaskier smile at someone else, and notice the way it lit up his face, and feel a strange pang of something almost like jealousy. Such a thing had never happened before when he’d lent a hand to someone, but then usually it wasn’t someone with whom he spent so much time. This was likely why some of the mollyhouses he’d visited had rules about seeing any particular girl too often, he thought. You could get the good time you’d had confused with actual feelings. That kind of risk was probably greater with someone you genuinely cared for, even if the way you felt about them wasn’t anything that required nakedness to be involved.

He’d been worried about Jaskier after the poisoning, and had watched him carefully for the rest of the evening and the next day, but he seemed to shake it all off surprisingly well. If he was a little quieter than usual, then that was to be expected. Geralt could hardly blame him for that. Jaskier had been forced into a vulnerable position, and the two of them had needed to do things that they otherwise would never have done with each other. Geralt was still glad that it was he himself who’d been here, since he knew Jaskier trusted him, and that he wouldn’t betray that trust, but far better would have been for none of it to have happened.

Geralt couldn’t help noticing that the two of them were tiptoeing around each other for days after the pollen incident. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it, even as he was aware of it. It was almost as though he was outside himself, watching himself half reach towards Jaskier and then pulling his hand back.

This will pass, he told himself. We just need to wait a little, and then things will go back as they were before, once the embarrassment has subsided.

Geralt found the herb he was looking for in the end, although after all of the mess leading up to its discovery, he felt less triumphant than he’d expected. The mage had wanted the entire thing, root to flower, so he dug one plant out carefully, leaving intact the other couple that had sprouted up nearby. He placed it in a small jar that he’d been given along with the contract, and pushed the cork into the mouth of the jar to seal it. As soon as the cork was firmly in place, Geralt felt his medallion buzz on his chest. There was some enchantment on the jar, then – possibly to preserve the sample while it was brought back to the mage. That was clever. Geralt wondered if he could convince her to give him a few of those jars in lieu of the payment she’d offered. So long as the enchantment lasted longer than a few uses, it would be quite useful for some of Geralt’s own purposes.

As Geralt tucked the jar into a spot deep in his saddlebags where it would be protected from breakage, he hadn’t been thinking about Jaskier at all. When did the change happen? When did those strange new feelings take root?

Jaskier seemed to shake off his own self-consciousness after a few days, which was a deep relief. Soon they were back to their old selves, laughing with each other again, and Jaskier constantly touching Geralt in small ways as he usually did.

It was funny: when Jaskier had first started travelling with him, Geralt had been taken aback by those small touches. He wasn’t touched by anyone, other than girls in mollyhouses who’d been paid to, or the big bear hugs from Vesemir and his brothers when he arrived and left Kaer Morhen in the winter. Geralt had thought that was the way that he liked it, and he’d been taken aback by Jaskier’s easy touches: the way he’d lay a hand on Geralt’s shoulder before sitting next to him on a bench, or would pat his forearm when commiserating with him over ale, or the way he’d bump shoulders to get Geralt’s attention when they walked together when Geralt was giving Roach a rest. 

Once their friendship grew and Geralt became used to it, he found that he craved that touch when they were apart. His skin felt strangely hungry when Jaskier wasn’t there, and when he was back home, he found himself passing some of those casual touches on to his brothers. Eskel had startled much the same way that Geralt had at first, but soon it became what they did with each other. Geralt wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he liked to think that they were all a little happier and more relaxed that winter.

Now that Jaskier had trained him into it, the sudden absence of touch for those few days felt unbearable. He could hardly blame Jaskier for feeling uncomfortable in his own skin, with what he’d had to go through. Geralt had tried to make the whole experience as easy and uncomplicated for him as he could, but the fact still remained that Jaskier hadn’t chosen any of it, and likely would never have chosen to fuck Geralt under other circumstances. Even with the pair of them being comfortable with each other, Jaskier’s lack of capacity to choose was still a problem.

If only Geralt had gone alone that day; if only it hadn’t been such a distance from the nearest town large enough to have a mollyhouse. He’d done what had seemed to be the best option available to them at the time, and Jaskier had survived, which was the important thing. He could live with a little awkwardness, since Jaskier had to live with worse. But there was some part of him fearful that this would be the end of their friendship, that Jaskier wouldn’t be able to stand being near Geralt any more after he’d more-or-less forced himself on on his friend. Never mind it was for Jaskier’s survival, and never mind that Jaskier had seemed to enjoy at least some of it – Geralt had been around enough survivors of attacks by monsters (or attacks by monstrous people) to know that the way someone seemed to feel at the time wasn’t always how they felt once the danger had passed.

All he could do was try to be considerate of Jaskier’s feelings, and let him decide what he was comfortable with. It wasn’t that far off some of the techniques Geralt used to train his horses, truthfully.

‘Stop it,’ Jaskier snapped one evening, two days after the trip to the forest. 

They were camped in a lowland forest between villages, both sitting around the fire after supper. Geralt had just sat down again after tidying away the last of their meal. Admittedly he was sitting further away from Jaskier than he usually would, but that was just because he was trying to be a thoughtful friend. He had no idea what he’d done to annoy Jaskier this much.

 ‘Stop what,’ Geralt said, perplexed.

‘That … kicked puppy look,’ Jaskier said, waving a hand. ‘I’m fine, you’re fine. Roach is fine. I’m just a bit out of sorts, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t say you weren’t.’

‘No, your face was just very loud.’

Geralt made a face at him, and Jaskier laughed.

Silence fell between them again. Geralt searched for something to say, but drew a blank. There wasn’t anything he could say to justify any of what had happened, not without making it sound like Jaskier was at fault when Geralt hadn’t warned him of the dangers of that part of the world. Jaskier picked up a stick from the small pile of tinder he’d gathered earlier, snapped it two, and threw both parts into the flames.

‘I am going to push off for a bit, though,’ Jaskier said, not looking up from the fire. ‘I have something I really ought to do in Carreras, so. Might be time to finally put it to bed.’

‘I see,’ Geralt said, who thought he did. He thought he ought to say something reassuring, like I wish you all the best, or I’ve enjoyed having you as a travelling companion. But his throat tightened and wouldn’t let them through. Part of him didn’t want to reassure Jaskier that he was happy to be left, and another part thought that he couldn’t stand telling Jaskier how much his companionship meant to him since it would sound as though he were begging for him to stay. Jaskier was free to do as he willed, even if leaving Geralt behind would break his heart.

‘Are you likely to be heading north next?’ Jaskier asked. ‘Or heading back towards the south?’

Geralt shrugged. It hardly seemed to matter.

‘Only I don’t think it’ll take longer than a few weeks. I just want to know where we ought to meet up again.’

Geralt’s breath left him in a woosh and left him dizzy with relief.

‘Might be worth heading south again,’ he said. ‘Eskel and Coën tend to travel through the northern states, so I’m more likely to find work further south.’

Jaskier nodded. ‘Well then, how about Ellander? If I’m not there in a month, you could always leave a message at the tavern or the village noticeboard saying where you’re heading next.’

‘Sure.’

Jaskier grinned at him then, a brief and brilliant thing which lit up his face, and stood up.

‘Bed for me, I think,’ he said, and patted Geralt’s shoulder. ‘I’m absolutely bushed.’

‘Good idea,’ Geralt said. His chest felt fluttery in relief that he hadn’t lost Jaskier’s friendship after all. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

🪻

They had breakfast together the next morning – a simple porridge that was easily cooked overnight by setting the pot in the embers of their fire. Afterwards, Geralt cleaned out the pot and their bowls. He returned to the camp to find Jaskier adjusting his small pack – usually folded away in one of Roach’s saddle bags – before lifting his lute on his opposite shoulder. He fiddled with the straps until they were settled just so, then turned to Geralt with a small sigh.

‘Well, I should go,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Geralt agreed.

Neither of them moved for a long moment after that.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Jaskier muttered, and threw himself forward into Geralt’s arms.

Geralt hadn’t expected an armful of bard and baggage, but he folded his arms around him carefully and held on, turning his head so he could breathe in Jaskier’s comforting scent. He was so glad that Jaskier had stayed by his side this long, that he hadn’t run screaming after that day in the glade. Some part of him was still afraid that Jaskier might yet disappear and Geralt would never see him again after this parting. He held Jaskier tightly, and tried not to squeeze him hard enough to bruise.

‘All right, let me go, you old softy,’ Jaskier said, and drew back. 

Geralt let him go with a pang of regret.

Jaskier stood there, closer than usual, looking into Geralt’s eyes as though he were memorising Geralt’s face too. He smiled crookedly, then leant forward and kissed Geralt’s cheek. Geralt froze. This wasn’t their usual farewell, and he didn’t know how to respond.

‘Look after yourself, Geralt. I’ll see you soon.’

Then he turned away, and left.

🪻

A couple of weeks later, Geralt found himself with a heavier than usual purse. He’d taken a contract for a moola in a little town west of Anchor, and not only had the ealdorman paid him generously, he’d put Geralt up in his own house. In the stables, sure, but it was warm enough there, and the groom set up a palliasse for him to sleep on, and even provided blankets as well. Roach also seemed to enjoy having company for the evening. They fed him as well, directing him to the kitchens and he sat down with the servants for their evening meal. He had expected that it would be eaten in stilted silence, but the kitchen boy asked him a question about his ‘beautiful horse’, and that was enough to unlock the boy’s cheerful nattering. The cook relaxed into a smile as well, and it soon became apparent that the kitchen boy was her son. He told Geralt that he wanted to become a farrier when he was older, and said mother chimed in that she was hoping to find a suitable man to apprentice him to, but their village was too small for a blacksmith or a farrier of their own. She was waiting for an itinerant one to come through, as the boy about the right age to send him off on an apprenticeship. Geralt wished them both luck, and when his meal was done, went out to the stable to see to Roach and to settle himself. 

He wondered as he lay in the stable’s loft, with the gentle sound and smells of livestock below him, whether the fact that the ealdorman was comfortable enough with letting him stay here was because of Jaskier’s songs. Jaskier would surely think so, he thought with a snort, before settling for sleep.

Soon after that contract, he found himself in Dorian, and since he’d been paid recently and saved on the cost of a meal and bed, he had enough to find himself a little company. He made his way to the mollyhouse, and hoped that his good luck would last long enough that he could make use of the windfall.

The madam sniffed at him when he presented himself, but permitted him entrance, and didn’t even warn him away from any of her girls. No, not just girls after all, he realised as he adjusted his pupils to the darkness of the house’s parlour – her charges. A young man was playing cards with two of the girls, and he also looked up at Geralt’s approach. Not every mollyhouse had men working there as anything other than bouncers, and the novelty of it piqued Geralt’s interest. That wasn’t something he indulged in very often. Truthfully, he rarely had the opportunity. Besides, it had felt strange to do so on the odd occasions that he visited a mollyhouse with Jaskier. He wouldn’t have wanted to give Jaskier the wrong idea about their friendship, and besides, some men were revolted by the idea of other men fucking. He didn’t quite think Jaskier would be one of those, since he had always been so open minded it was a surprise that it didn’t just run out of his ears, but Geralt had been wrong before.

The young man had short, messy dark hair and bright eyes that looked at Geralt almost hungrily, and there suddenly wasn’t anyone else that Geralt was interested in. The boy was halfway out of his chair before Geralt even reached him, and the fire of interest in Geralt’s belly was stoked a little higher in anticipation.

‘Would you—’ Geralt began.

‘Yes,’ the young man said. ‘Oh, you’re a witcher.’

Of course. Of course the young man’s interested had waned when he knew what Geralt was. He couldn’t even fault him for that.

‘I am, sorry.’ 

He started to turn away, but the young man caught his arm.

‘I didn’t say no.’ His eyes, when Geralt turned back to him, were sparkling. They were blue, Geralt noticed, now that he was close enough to see.

‘What’s your name?’ Geralt asked.

‘Wasiley,’ he said. ‘What’s yours, handsome?’

‘I, uh …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Geralt.’

‘Geralt,’ the young man repeated. ‘Come with me.’

Geralt followed him into one of the private rooms. As soon as he closed the door behind them, the young man was pressing up into his personal space, his hands on Geralt’s chest. Geralt took a surprised step backwards, and found himself back against the door.

‘What would you like from me, darling?’ Wasiley purred. ‘Want my mouth?’ He tugged Geralt’s shirt free from his breeches, and started working on the buttons.

Geralt felt a thrill go through him at that darling. It was exactly the kind of pet name that Jaskier tended to give him. Usually being reminded of Jaskier would be a distraction, would jolt him out of the moment, but tonight it felt thrilling. He wasn’t inclined to examine why. Not now, with this young man’s hands on him.

‘Yeah, please,’ Geralt said, his voice a husky rasp.

Wasiley grinned at him, and sank to his knees before him. His fingers made light work of Geralt’s remaining buttons, and then the tie of his braies followed. Before Geralt could try to help, the boy was pushing his braies down just far enough that he could free his cock from its confines.

‘Oh, aren’t you a pretty thing,’ Wasiley cooed to Geralt’s prick.

Geralt wanted to find it ridiculous, but he was already most of the way hard, and the boy’s clever hand was already stroking him to full thickness.

‘Mm,’ Wasiley said, and licked along the Geralt’s length.

Geralt bit back a noise, and then the young man took him into his mouth, working the rest of the shaft with his hand. Geralt leaned back against the room’s door, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.

‘You can touch me if you want,’ Wasiley said, and guided one of Geralt’s hands into his hair.

Geralt couldn’t help but notice then, with his fingers tangled through short dark brown hair, that the man he’d chosen had something of a passing resemblance to Jaskier. From this angle, the illusion was even better. This similarity to his friend ought to have been a turn-off. It would have been before, he knew. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d shared such an experience with Jaskier so recently, but a vision of Jaskier kneeling before him and taking Geralt’s cock into his mouth was bizarrely tantalising. Jaskier had offered, hadn’t he? Geralt had refused him, since the purpose of that liaison was to keep Jaskier from harm. Besides, it was hardly arousing to have someone offer to suck you off because they were out of their head from a mind-altering poison.

But what if he hadn’t been? What if Jaskier had just offered because he’d been bored by Geralt’s search, and he’d decided that he wanted to make his own entertainment, and that Geralt himself would be Jaskier’s entertainment?

‘Mm,’ Jaskier said as Geralt tightened his fingers in his hair, and took Geralt a little deeper. 

‘Fuck,’ Geralt muttered.

Would Jaskier be this skilled? If he were offering to distract Geralt with it, he must be. Perhaps he’d been sucking men off for years behind Geralt’s back. Knowing his friend as he did, he couldn’t imagine Jaskier as anything other than skilled in this. He was useless in a fight, sure, unless you wanted to rile up your opponents with sharp retorts. But between the sheets? How could he imagine Jaskier being anything else?

‘Do you want me to finish you like this?’ Jaskier asked. ‘Or do you want to fuck me?’

‘Can I—Fuck you,’ Geralt said. ‘Please.’

Wasiley gave Geralt’s prick one more stroke, and kissed the underside of the head. Geralt was so hard he thought he would lose his mind with it.

The young man slipped out of his shirt, which was made of such fine linen as to give hints of the body beneath it, but still having that chest bared to him was a temptation. Geralt was obscurely disappointed at the man’s lack of chest hair, though. Whether Wasiley was naturally ungifted or if he removed it for whatever reason, Geralt didn’t know, but he thought it a shame nonetheless.

Wasiley gave Geralt coy looks from below his eyelashes as he unbuttoned his breeches slowly, teasingly.

‘Will you undress for me too?’ he asked. ‘Or are you going to fuck me fully dressed?’

Geralt grunted at the reminder. He pulled off his boots, and started stripping off his clothes as he might if he were about to plunge in a river for a wash. His efficiency meant that he actually finished before Wasiley did, and he laughed as Geralt closed the distance between them before he’d managed to step out of his braies.

‘Eager,’ he said, although his blue eyes were alight with mischief.

Geralt nearly bent his head to kiss him, but remembered where he was and who he was with just in time and stopped himself. At least Wasiley didn’t seem to expect any pithy response from him. He ran his hands over Geralt’s chest as though Geralt were the one providing him with a service, and he wanted to make full use of the brief time they had together.

‘How do you want me?’ he asked, looking up at Geralt coyly. ‘Do you want to take me on the bed? Bent over the foot of the bed? On the rug in front of the fire?’

Geralt pictured that as though watching a stage play: Jaskier laid out on a bearskin rug before a fireplace in one of the inns they’d stayed in, his prick hard and pink and leaking onto his belly. Geralt could almost picture himself kneeling between Jaskier’s spread legs, and then Jaskier would look up at him and—

‘On the bed,’ Geralt said. That seemed safest. He tried to banish those inappropriate thoughts about his best friend. Perhaps Jaskier had been right to leave for a little while. He knew the thoughts were only plaguing him because of that odd experience they’d shared, but their heat was confusing.

‘Mm, yes,’ Wasiley said, somehow managing to turn his few steps to the bed into a wiggle to show off his arse. It was, Geralt had to privately admit, a very shapely arse. ‘Come catch me, then, Witcher.’

He watched Geralt with hungry eyes as he stalked closer. As Geralt put one knee on the bed, Wasiley reached for a little bottle on a side table. He poured out a small measure into his cupped hand, and stroked it along Geralt’s cock. He groaned at that slick slide, but nearly as soon as had started it had stopped again. More oil was poured out, and then Wasiley was slicking a couple of his fingers and reaching back.

‘May I?’ Geralt asked. He wanted to touch, wanted it to be his fingers opening the boy up. And perhaps if he did, he could focus his attention on this moment, and not whatever peculiar new fantasies his brain was inventing.

‘You’ll have to be gentle with me,’ Wasiley purred. 

He passed the bottle over to Geralt, and repositioned himself onto his hands and knees, giving Geralt a coquettish look over his shoulder. Geralt clutched at the bottle and tried to make sense of the conflicting signals, but despite his words, Wasiley seemed perfectly relaxed. He’d been happy enough to turn his back on a witcher, so he couldn’t be too afraid. Wasiley arched his back, and sent Geralt another look to gauge the move’s effectiveness, which shook him out of his indecision.

‘Tell me if it hurts or if I’m going too fast,’ he said. He slicked his fingers, corked the bottle, and put it down beside the bed.

The first finger slipped inside easily – not surprising for someone who likely trained for his job much as Geralt did for his. The boy groaned, and Geralt caught his lip in his teeth at the feeling of the muscle fluttering around his finger. A second one was as easy to slide in beside the first, and Geralt moved his fingers slowly, trying to be as gentle as he’d been requested to be. In and out he slid them, spreading his fingers just a little to get the muscle to relax, and then sliding them in again. From the noises Wasiley made, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Hopefully that enjoyment was honest.

On the next slide deeper, Geralt managed to find his sweet spot, from the surprised little oh of pleasure from his partner. He smiled to himself; that didn’t seem like the kind of response that was rehearsed.

‘Do you want another?’ Geralt asked. ‘You seem loose enough.’

‘Mm, yeah, give it to me,’ he panted.

Geralt left his fingers where they were and leaned awkwardly to pick up the bottle of oil. He took the cork out with his teeth and managed to slick up another finger and get the cork back in the vial without too much difficulty. Wasiley groaned as Geralt slipped his fingers out and then slid a third in. Geralt could hear the boy’s heart beating faster, but it wasn’t the rapid-quick drum of panic. Still, he took his time easing his fingers in with small movements until that tightly clenching hole relaxed enough to allow him deeper.

‘Want my cock?’ Geralt asked. He watched as his fingers disappeared deeper, twisted around, and slid partway out, and the stretch of that hole around him. ‘Or do you just want me to fuck you like this?’

‘Whatever you want, darling,’ the boy panted.

Geralt bit his cheek and considered it. He wouldn’t get a truthful answer as to which the young man would prefer. He liked bringing his partners pleasure, but he was here for his own release as well. And the boy hadn’t been afraid of him, had offered this, which Geralt wasn’t always allowed to have. It would be foolish not to seize the opportunity when he wasn’t sure when the next chance to have this would be.

He still enjoyed the whine Wasiley made when Geralt removed his fingers, leaving his hole empty again. There was more than enough oil left in the bottle to slick himself with again, and then he was pressing his cockhead to that welcoming hole, and pushing in.

He groaned, feeling the clutch of the boy’s hole as he pushed inside slowly. He couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d had this, when Jaskier had been at the mercy of that flower. The entire situation had of course been much less pleasant, and his focus had been on ensuring that Jaskier made it through the experience intact rather than on his own pleasure. It had been an act more of ministering than of mutual lusts to be indulged.

Even so, Geralt had still found a certain quiet satisfaction in being able to bring his friend to climax with just his hands, and by the time it had become clear that something else would be needed, Geralt had been sufficiently affected by the smell of Jaskier’s arousal, and the thrill of bringing him to climax that he had needed little else to get him interested when Jaskier had needed it of him. Jaskier had been much tighter than this, and Geralt had been worried about not hurting him. Under other circumstances, he might have spent more time opening Jaskier up and getting him to relax, but there hadn’t been the time. There hadn’t been the time to luxuriate in any of it; the focus had needed to be on keeping Jaskier alive.

But Wasiley wasn’t going to die if Geralt enjoyed himself. He could focus on the physicality of the body beneath him: that long pale back that was smooth and unscarred, the tousle of dark hair, the hot clench of his hole around Geralt’s prick. If circumstances with Jaskier had been different, if they’d just fallen into bed out of boredom instead of because Jaskier was endangered, perhaps it would have been more like this. Geralt could have focused on sharing their pleasure. He could seek out that sweet spot, which must be somewhere – ah, there, based on that moan – simply for the reaction he could wring out from Jaskier. He’d prefer to fuck Jaskier face to face, as he had last time, so he could enjoy the pleasure he was bringing him, but with Jaskier on his hands and knees like this, at least he could still listen to his heartbeat, and those little desperate noises, because Jaskier was nothing if not demonstrative of his feelings. And he could kiss him, just at the base of his neck, or between his shoulder blades—

There was a little jolt of surprise from the man beneath him, and Geralt remembered himself.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. It wasn’t Jaskier beneath him. It wasn’t anyone he knew. It was a young man who was here because he was being paid. He wasn’t looking for any signs of an affection that they didn’t share.

‘It’s fine, darling,’ Wasiley said. ‘You fill me so well. Gonna fuck me beautifully, aren’t you?’

Geralt grunted, and started moving his hips again. He was here, in Dorian, with this young man, and they were both just looking for a physical release. Even so, Geralt couldn’t help trying to coax out those little noises of pleasure again, the ones that sounded genuine. That was far more exciting, the thought that Wasiley was enjoying himself too, rather than merely the feeling of another body beneath and around him. Soon every smack of skin was accompanied by little gasps and whimpers. The dark head dropped between his shoulders, and he was arching back into each of Geralt’s thrusts. It was Geralt who was bringing him this pleasure, the little open-mouthed moans, and Geralt could just picture what Jaskier’s face must look like, his blue eyes squeezed shut in pleasure—

He was getting close to his peak, so he adjusted himself, bracing himself with one arm on the bed and curling himself around the back beneath him so that he could reach beneath and take Jaskier’s – no, the smell was wrong – take Wasiley’s cock in hand to stroke him through it. The boy tipped over sooner than Geralt expected, coming over himself and the bed in spurts. Geralt slowed and stopped, not wanting to overwhelm him with sensation that he knew could easily become discomfort.

Wasiley was still panting as Geralt pulled out. 

‘You’re still hard,’ he observed.

Geralt shrugged. He felt awkward about not managing the timing right, even though he was here in this place for a purpose, and they both knew it.

‘You could come on me,’ Wasiley said, turning himself over onto his back in a languorous sort of flop. ‘Go on. Dress me up in white.’

He was watching Geralt with eyes still dark with desire. Geralt was used to being stared at, but usually it was uncomfortable, something he couldn’t wait to escape. Usually those watching eyes were filled with suspicion or hostility. Being watched with lust was setting his blood on fire.

‘Yeah?’ he growled. ‘You want that?’

He took himself in hand and gave himself a slow stroke. Wasiley watched him, and licked his lips.

‘Give it to me,’ Wasiley goaded, and opened his mouth.

Geralt lost control at that. He stripped his cock roughly, and the roughness and chafing feel somehow seemed to stoke that fire in his blood even higher, until the fire felt hot enough to melt steel. He spilled across the pale body beneath him in thin stripes of white, one managing to spill across the boy’s mouth. Once he had finished, the boy licked his lips and swallowed the small mouthful he had been given. Geralt groaned.

The young man was a sight, laid out across that bed, making no move to cover himself or to clean himself of Geralt’s spend. Geralt drank in the sight so that it might carry him through lonely nights to come. Without quite meaning to, for a moment he saw Jaskier there in the boy’s place, and pictured the satisfied look on his face. Geralt had seen the look before, when Jaskier sneaked back into their room at night after some successful rendezvous, but now he imagined it with a pool of spend on Jaskier’s tongue, and a strip of white across his cheeks. He imagined another stripe of white across Jaskier’s chest hair, and wanted it so badly he could almost feel the texture beneath his fingertips as he rubbed it in, grinding it in deeper.

Fuck. What was wrong with him? Jaskier was his friend, and he’d never had such filthy thoughts about him before. It didn’t feel fair to this young man either, who had done his job skilfully, but which Geralt had barely appreciated. He’d been too caught up in his own fantasies.

‘You should probably clean up,’ Geralt said, backing away and climbing off the bed to give the young man room to move. 

He avoided the young man’s gaze as he dressed again. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of Wasiley thinking that Geralt regretted something of what they had done together, or if he would somehow know that Geralt had been fantasising about someone else. And someone he didn’t even desire like that, no less! At least buttoning his breeches gave him cover. You couldn’t be expected to look at a bed partner while you were buttoning something at your waist; it stood to reason. But soon enough the last button would slip into place, and then he’d have to look up again.

By the time he looked up again, Wasiley was attending to his own clothing. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed Geralt’s discomfort – it wasn’t as though he was likely to be watching him dress while using the wash stand. Wasiley was facing away from him as he dressed too, humming to himself as he buttoned his own breeches. Geralt felt foolish thinking that this stranger would even care about his own tumultuous thoughts.

He sat down on the bed to count out the agreed-upon amount, and added a couple of extra crowns to it. Wasiley probably deserved twice as much as he was charging for treating a witcher as though he were human, but Geralt couldn’t afford that. He could still leave him a little extra for his kindness.

‘Aren’t you sweet,’ Wasiley said when he turned around again, sizing up the pile on the table with a calculating eye.

Geralt shrugged uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure any part of his behaviour this afternoon could be described as ‘sweet’. Especially not considering how much he wanted to escape now that he’d had what he came for. He wanted to leave, so he could put this entire confusing incident behind himself, and return to the ordinary parts of his life, which made sense. Wading through a midden after a zeugl might not be pleasant, but at least he understood it.

He checked he’d gathered all of his things again, and headed to the door.

‘You’ll have to come see me again the next time you’re in town,’ Wasiley said, leaning on the edge of the open door and looking up at Geralt from beneath his eyelashes, even though there was probably only an inch or two between their heights.

‘Sure,’ Geralt lied, and even managed something of a smile for the length of time before Wasiley closed the door behind him, and he could exhale in relief.

That night, as he stoked the fire beneath his cooking pot, he realised that he’d been blowing the entire situation out of proportion. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t had strange fantasies before. He’d had a dream during training, soon after learning about gryphons, where a gryphon had taken him during a fight. He’d woken hard and confused about it, because it ought to have been a nightmare, but it hadn’t felt like that when he’d woken. He’d never had that dream again, and it wasn’t as though he had suffered such strange desires when he eventually fought one of those beasts. It was as though his mind had taken the fearful dread he’d felt during his lesson, tracing his finger over the woodcut of a gryphon in the bestiary, and had tangled it up during dreams into something else entirely.

And he had been afraid when he saw Jaskier flushed and wanting, when he recognised the symptoms. He’d put that fear aside, had locked it inside his chest so that it wouldn’t slow his thinking – or his responses – but since saving Jaskier hadn’t been a fight, he hadn’t been able to subsume it into a stronger sword thrust or a faster sidestep. It shouldn’t be surprising that there was some kind of residue left behind from the experience, like trying to pour a Cat potion into a vial that had held Swallow without washing it out in between, and being surprised that the potion was altered. Doubtless, like most experiences, its hold over him would lessen with time. By the time he saw Jaskier next, he would have put all of this behind him, and one day he’d be able to laugh about it.

[When part three is uploaded, a link will go here.]