Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jaskier is acting strange. Well, stranger than usual. At first, Geralt was determined not to pay it any mind — the other man can never seem to shut up, so if he isn't going to bring it up then obviously it's nothing that he wants Geralt to know.

In retrospect, he realises that that was probably a stupid assumption to make. Everyone has things they don't want to talk about, but that doesn't make them unimportant. And he's met people like Jaskier, who talk and talk to hide what they aren't really saying.

It starts when Jaskier is more distracted and clumsy than normal. He trips over everything and nothing, even his own two feet or a flat dirt road. He trails off mid-sentence and descends into a sort of dazed silence. He starts to shy away from physical contact. Most alarmingly, perhaps, is that his normally steady hands become all but useless. He can't play a proper tune on his lute, things slip from his grasp constantly, he fumbles with the most basic things.

Then, he starts getting warm. It's not hot out, being the end of autumn, but he wears as few clothes as possible, sweats constantly, even has trouble breathing. He is flushed red even in cool water. At this point, Geralt is very worried — he has immunity to disease, but Jaskier does not, and Geralt doesn't entirely know what to do to break a fever.

"I'm fine, you old mother hen," Jaskier snaps at him when he suggests going to a healer. "I feel right as rain, albeit a bit hot. Besides, don’t people generally think they are actually cold when feverish? I assure you, I am anything but."

Still, Geralt doesn't like it. They're close enough to a small town that they should get there by nightfall. If he's lucky, he can find a healer just in case. Knowing that Jaskier will only argue and make it a hell of a lot more difficult than it needs to be, Geralt simply doesn’t tell him where they’re going. The bard is none the wiser until he sees the town on the horizon, and when he does it takes a few seconds for Geralt to realise that he’s stopped walking.

He turns around, worried that the strange fever has suddenly become too much, but breathes a sigh of relief — and mild irritation — when he sees Jaskier just standing in the middle of the road.

“Come on,” he says. “We’re nearly to the town.”

“No,” says the bard. It’s odd — Jaskier never refuses to head into civilisation for any reason. For some reason, now, his heart is beating twice as fast, and he’s shaking, fists clenched at his sides, and Geralt is once again very worried.

“Why not?” he demands, trying to sound gruff and irritated rather than show the concern he’s actually feeling. It won’t help either of them if he lets his worry show now.

Then, Geralt catches a change in Jaskier’s scent. Panic. The bard smells of panic. Something is very wrong.

“Fuck, you were going to find out one way or another,” he says through clenched teeth. “I just didn’t want it to be like this.”

“Find out what, Jaskier?” Geralt swings himself off of Roach’s back and walks toward the bard slowly, hoping that he can comfort him rather than make the situation worse.

Jaskier lets out a hollow laugh. “Come now, witcher,” he spits. “Surely you must realise it by now.” Geralt hates the biting tone, the way Jaskier is lashing out at him like a cornered fox. He doesn’t hate it because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it — he had done the same to Jaskier on more than one occasion, after all. No, he just doesn’t like how wrong it sounds in his bard’s voice. It doesn’t sound like him.

“Whatever it is I’m supposed to realise, I don’t,” Geralt tells him patiently.

“How many decades by your side, not aging a bloody day, and you mean to tell me you don’t know?” Jaskier demands. “Fuck. I’m not— I’m not human, Geralt, not entirely. My rut’s come early, and I— I simply cannot be around people right now. I should have taken my leave of you when it started, but I didn’t… I had hoped that I was wrong, that it was something else.”

“You’re in rut?” the witcher asks. He had supposed that there was something different, something not quite human about his bard, but he hadn’t paid it any mind. Why should he? Obviously Jaskier isn’t dangerous — well, a danger to himself, maybe, but that’s just who he is as a person. Geralt had never really been all that concerned with finding out what the other man might be, so if there were any signs, he’d simply ignored them. Now he finds himself scrambling, trying to figure out what, exactly, he could be — what kind of creature goes through a rut, and what it will entail.

“Not yet,” Jaskier answers seriously, warning in his tone. He lets the implication hang in the air: this will only get worse.

Geralt pauses, makes a split-second decision, and turns back the way they came. “Come on, then.”

“Wh— Geralt, what are you doing?” the bard hisses. “I just told you, I can’t be around anyone, can’t be around you. My rut—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jaskier,” Geralt tells him, continuing to walk forward with Roach’s reins in hand, hoping to affect a strong confidence he does not actually feel. “I’ll be taking care of you.”

Chapter Text

Stupid, stupid, stupid! is all Jaskier can think until Geralt takes his ability to do so and crushes it between his incredible, powerful thighs.

Er, metaphorically, of course.

Jaskier is not the most sexually adventurous person in his family. Simply put, he comes from a long, proud line of people who will stick their pricks in anything — or have the pricks of anything stuck in them. Sometimes both. The Pankratz family is not picky, and they are certainly not cowards. That is due (in no small part, he is sure) to the succubi and incubi in their family tree.

He isn’t quite sure if that’s where it started, or if he has more than just fuck-monster blood in his veins and just doesn’t know it. His mother is half-succubus, his father half-incubus, and they’d found each other all but irresistible.

It was a good union. Their nonhuman natures made them flighty lovers, difficult to tie down. Their human sides, on the other hand, craved someone to come home to after all is said and done. Perhaps an open relationship such as theirs is not the norm, but it works for them. They are happy, and they love each other no less for all the others that grace their bed.

Though he has about the same genetic makeup as them — basic mathematics would dictate that he, too, is half-incubus and half-human, after all — he’s a bit different from his parents in what he wants romantically. At first he’d thought his incubus side’s instincts were stronger, that he could only ever have dalliances that burned as bright as the sun and fizzled out like a candle in the rain. There was always a longing for what his parents have, for someone to come home to at the end of the day (or week or month or season, depending on the circumstances), but he was under no illusions that he would ever find that. After all, his parents had found each other as if by some miracle. It’s not likely for him to meet another half-succubus or half-incubus, and he knows that; and, even if he did, there’s certainly no guarantee they’d hit it off like his parents had.

He’d always assumed that he just wasn’t human enough to want a permanent relationship, that he’d never be able to settle down enough to be loved by someone, to be kept. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d want to be kept, either.

Then he’d met Geralt.

It’s all very tragic, honestly. For the first time, he has met a person that he always wants to come back to, a person who feels like home. He’s had actual dreams of coming home to a little cottage on the coast and seeing Geralt inside, turning a loving, amber gaze on him and saying welcome home... only to always wake up alone, or with someone else entirely. He’s no fool; he knows that the witcher could never want him in that way. Jaskier is simply too much. He grates on the senses of average folk, so for Geralt, he must be fucking insufferable.

Still, the witcher has always let him stay. And he knows, really, that Geralt does let him. Jaskier is part incubus, after all — he feeds off of emotion. Most of his kind get what they need from sex because it’s easiest, and he does enjoy a good romp just as much as the rest of them, but there are other ways to keep himself fed. Performing, for one — whether the crowd loves him or hates him, he can always get a decent high off of whatever they’re willing to give. The point is that he knows emotion, he understands what others are feeling on a basic level. And he’s tried very hard not to tap into Geralt’s, because it’s not fair, not right. It’s an invasion of privacy, and he isn’t going to do that. Well, not intentionally, at any rate.

It’s just that sometimes… sometimes he can’t help it. Sometimes Geralt will project his feelings without meaning to, or Jaskier will be too hungry to stop himself from feeling it, or… well, honestly, sometimes he feels a little insecure, and he just needs to be reassured that Geralt isn’t actually angry with him, doesn’t actually hate him, wouldn’t truly be better off without him.

The point is that even though Geralt has puffed himself up and pretended to try to push Jaskier away, the bard knows that he really does want him there. He knows that Geralt does like his music, does enjoy his companionship, does consider him a friend — and honestly, yeah, he knew all of that long before the witcher was ready to admit it.

After all this time, they’ve come to understand each other well. They play-fight, call each other names, act annoying and annoyed in turns, because that’s what their friendship is. Geralt will call Jaskier a nuisance with his words and a friend with his expression, and Jaskier will tell Geralt he is a brute with his own words while his own expression betrays just how little he actually believes it. At this point, “You little shit” is Geralt’s pet name for him, and “Crusty old hermit” is Jaskier’s pet name for the witcher in return.

Sometimes Geralt will project such a fondness toward him that he forgets how to breathe for a moment. He knows that his own longing is making him twist Geralt’s very platonic feelings towards him into something else. He knows he can’t trust what he’s feeling to be real rather than simply what he wants it to be. Because the thing is, feeling others’ emotions isn’t exactly a science. It’s much like tarot cards — a lot of interpretation, mostly useless, not a bad parlour trick when one is looking to get laid. And if he were allowing it to wash over him, allowing himself to really feel and savour and analyse it all, then maybe he would know what his witcher feels towards him with more accuracy, but… he doesn’t want to. As much as he doesn’t want to hope, he also doesn’t want to prove what he already knows.

He is in love with Geralt, and Geralt simply does not feel the same.

Which is fine, by the way — not that it isn’t painful, but it’s fine. Geralt doesn’t owe Jaskier anything, least of all his heart. Ignoring the constant onslaught of others’ emotions has made him very skilled at ignoring things in general, so he’ll be okay.

Only, that’s part of what led to this. His entire adult life, his rut has been like clockwork — the first week of winter, when Geralt was already at Kaer bloody Morhen and he was already wherever he’d decided to hole up for the winter — either Oxenfurt or some court or, occasionally, the coast — and he’d never had to deal with his unfortunate infatuation and his fucking rut at the same time.

At first he simply hadn’t believed that it was happening. It’s never been this early, to be fair — why would it suddenly come on like this? He has always run hot, after all, because of his incubus heritage. Perhaps the clumsiness and the inability to hold onto any thoughts for very long was simply due to fatigue. Perhaps he was actually coming down with something.

Unfortunately (well, it is usually fortunate, but not in this specific case), his aforementioned incubus heritage has always kept him from having fevers. They are creatures of fire, after all. Not once has he been feverish outside of his rut, never in his life. And the longer he waited, the more it progressed, until it was simply too late to do anything about it. Now he’s stuck. He can’t go into town; but he can’t, he simply can’t let Geralt do this for him. He’d rather try to ride it out on his own.

He knows that he’s going to let his feelings get in the way. He has wanted Geralt for so, so long, but not like this. He never wants Geralt to feel an obligation to bed him under any circumstances. And, selfishly, he doesn’t want this because he knows that he will never be able to come back from this. There is no way he can only have Geralt once (well, certainly more than once during his rut, but never again after) and just go back to how things were when all’s said and done. It’s going to break him.

First things first, though, he has to get away from this fucking town. The last thing he needs is to go feral, to lose control of his inhibitions with other people around. So as much as he hates it, he’ll play along for now. He’ll follow Geralt, and then as soon as they’re far enough away, he’ll stop this madness. He’ll go… somewhere, deal with it on his own. After, he’ll come back and salvage what he can of their friendship, and try not to hate himself for the rest of his life for turning the White Wolf away, for saying ‘no’ to the only chance he’ll ever have to bed the man he loves.

Fuck, he hates this.

It must take twice as long as it should have to get far enough from the town, with the way Jaskier is dragging his feet. He doesn’t want to, but he simply can’t find the strength or coordination to properly lift them. By time the witcher decides they’ve found a suitable place to make camp, Jaskier’s reason has almost entirely left him.

“Rest,” Geralt tells him. “You aren’t going to be of any use setting up camp in this state.”

He wants to make some kind of snide retort, but everything is all… fuzzy. His witcher smells so enticing, how has he never noticed before?

Fuck. No. He digs his nails into his thighs — when did he sit down? No matter, he just needs to fucking control himself. He’s not some animal. He’s gone through how many ruts by now? He can do this.

Usually he spends his ruts with someone who knows what he is, someone he trusts. He’s bought their silence in exchange for the pleasure he can bring, and the arrangement suits him just fine. The main difference is he never has feelings for them. It’s always an affair of convenience. Also, he knows he’s going to be worse this time, be more demanding, more hungry, have less self-control. Generally he takes some kind of special potion to suppress it enough that he won’t be too much for his chosen partner(s) to deal with. After all, an incubus in rut is absolutely insatiable, even if they’re only a half-blood like him. Unfortunately, he had not been prepared, and so he does not have that potion now.

He wants to explain all of this to Geralt, desperately, but his tongue feels at least three times too big for his mouth. His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton and his head feels like it’s full of angry bees.

“Geralt,” he whines, trembling with exertion from just keeping still. If he’s going to talk the witcher out of this terrible self-sacrificing idea of his, he needs to do it now.

Apparently the witcher misunderstands the nature of his urgency, because when he kneels next to Jaskier he is shirtless. The bard squeezes his eyes shut, trying very hard not to think about it. He needs his wits about him, for Melitele’s sake!

“Fuck, Geralt, we can’t,” he says, gritting his teeth so hard he’s half afraid they’ll break.

The witcher simply frowns at him; Jaskier can hear it in his voice. “You have another option I’m not aware of?” he snarks.

“Yes,” snaps the bard, “it’s called waiting it out and not taking advantage of my best friend’s stupid fucking martyr complex.”

“I don’t have—” The witcher cuts himself off, apparently deciding against that particular argument for now. Smart man. Instead, he settles on, “You wouldn’t be taking advantage of me.”

“I will not sleep with someone who feels obligated to do it,” Jaskier growls, opening his eyes to glare at his friend. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t — you never would have offered it otherwise.”

Now Geralt’s frown is so deep, Jaskier half worries that his face will get stuck like that. “Why would I offer something you could never want, under normal circumstances?” he asks. “I’m… I know I’m not your first choice, but I’m the only person around who can handle it.”

Jaskier gapes at him. “Either I’ve already lost my fucking mind from the rut,” he says slowly, “or you’re just saying words in random order.”

“What?”

“You aren’t making any sense, witcher!” the bard snaps, his patience very thin. “How in the fuck would you get the idea that I don’t want you?”

“You’ve never said anything,” answers the witcher, sounding suddenly very unsure of his own logic. “You always say something if you’re interested in someone. Usually you don’t wait a moment, and I… we’ve been friends for years.”

“Yes, friends,” Jaskier answers with a dawning sense of understanding. “Geralt, it took you decades to admit that we were even that. You have to understand that I’d do anything to keep that friendship — and you never said a word about your interest, either!”

They both stare at each other for a long, drawn-out moment.

“You… want me?” Geralt finally says, haltingly. “Not just because of… this?”

Jaskier grabs one of Geralt’s hands. The point of contact is blissfully cool against his heated skin, and he wants more, so much more — but he doesn’t allow himself to get lost in the sensation just yet. “Yes, darling, yes, for so long.” He pauses, and then says, “And you want me? This isn’t just some… I don’t know, some chore? I’m not another monster to throw yourself at to save some innocent townsfolk?”

It’s meant as a joke, but clearly Geralt does not find it funny. “You’re not a monster,” he snarls. “An idiot, and a nuisance, but not a monster.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jaskier murmurs. It’s very difficult to pretend to be offended when he can’t stop grinning.

“Now,” Geralt says, putting a hand on Jaskier’s cheek (oh, that feels so nice), “can I please take care of you, since that’s out of the way?”

Jaskier shudders. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t— I don’t have control over my rut. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Geralt is smiling at him, now, and it’s so soft that it makes his heart ache. “You won’t hurt me,” he says.

“Yes, yes, you’re a big, strong witcher—”

“No,” the witcher cuts him off, “I know you. You wouldn’t.”

Suddenly, Jaskier finds it very difficult to swallow around the lump in his throat. “That’s… a lot of trust to put in someone,” he whispers, unable to find his voice.

With a brief, tentative kiss to his lips, Geralt says, “You’re the only man who’s earned it.”

Chapter Text

They’re both fools. To think that they’ve both wanted the same thing, but neither man had said anything for the same reasons—

Well. They’re certainly a good match, it seems.

Jaskier’s skin is burning hot underneath his lips, and Geralt can’t help but privately marvel at how strong his self-control must be, to hold himself back like this now.

“You don’t need to hold back,” he murmurs. “I trust you.”

It’s as if those three words are a battering ram, breaking down the last of the bard’s defenses. The hesitance, the tenderness, it all falls to the wayside, makes way for a Jaskier that is dominant and confident and ready to take.

That isn’t to say that he’s not tender — no, he still is, but in a very different way. It’s more possessive, as if he’s taking care of Geralt simply because the witcher is his. He is entirely dominant, and Geralt is simply along for the ride.

“You smell so fucking good,” Jaskier whispers against his skin. “Gods, you’re wet already?”

Geralt shudders, the low voice doing a little too much for his libido. And, well, the thought that Jaskier can tell just how aroused he is by his scent alone? As a witcher he’s used to his own senses being that strong, but having it turned around on him is almost intoxicating.

“Is it all for me?” Jaskier asks, and Geralt feels the feral grin against his chest, just before those teeth are biting into one of his nipples, just this side of too hard.

“Yes,” he gasps, surrendering himself to the feeling. This was the plan, after all — to let it happen, to let Jaskier take whatever he needs. There is no reason for him to be difficult, now.

“Good boy,” his lover purrs. “So good for me. Will you keep being my good boy, witcher?” Gods, why is it so thrilling, to hear Jaskier’s voice praise him like this?

“Fuck, yes.”

“I’m going to ruin you,” the bard says as he trails his mouth down Geralt’s torso, leaving bites and kisses in its wake. “No one else will ever be enough after I’m through with you, my love.”

Holy shit, how is this so enticing? Being dominated like this should be terrifying. He shouldn’t enjoy giving up all control to another, shouldn’t so easily and willingly submit, but he finds that he can’t get enough. He craves it like one craves water in a desert. It’s sudden and overwhelming and all he wants in this moment is for Jaskier to do with him what he pleases. He wants to be good for him.

It isn’t long before both of them are naked. Time is passing in a blur of sensation. There is no time to think, no reason to do anything other than what Jaskier tells him to. He doesn’t know how it’s possible for someone to work his body so efficiently, but when he smells sulfur in the air, he suddenly understands. Incubus.

Admittedly, a lot of things make sense now.

Then nothing makes sense because nothing is worth thinking about, not when Jaskier’s lips are wrapped around his cock, when those skilled, dexterous, lute-calloused fingers are in his cunt. He’s never felt like this, never been so needy and loose and easy, but it isn’t unexpected. An incubus in rut feeds ravenously off of his sexual partners. Geralt knows that the bard is going to do whatever he can to make him come as much as possible, use all of the skill and power at his disposal to bring his partner — to bring Geralt — over the edge again and again before this is over. It’s simply in his nature — and when in rut, that nature is at the forefront, those instincts in control. Even so, he almost feels as though it should be embarrassing how quickly he comes, but being embarrassed would require thinking about something other than being a good boy for his lover.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jaskier croons, all the power of an incubus in rut swirling behind his words. Geralt’s medallion hums against his chest, and for once, he ignores it entirely. “You’re so needy. Let me mount you, sweet thing.”

“Yes, hn, Jaskier,” he groans. He’s dizzy with want, his desire pooling low in his belly again already.

“On your knees for me, gorgeous,” murmurs the bard. Geralt scrambles up — when did he lay down? It doesn’t matter, he gets to his knees and Jaskier grins. “Such a good, eager boy. Although… that’s not quite what I meant.”

Geralt makes a questioning noise, not trusting himself to speak.

“You see, as much as I want that lovely mouth wrapped around my cock, well. I can hardly mount your face, now, can I, dearest?”

The witcher whines — he could. Geralt would let him. Jaskier could fuck his face, spend down his throat, use his mouth for his pleasure before taking his needy cunt—

“Oh, Gods,” Jaskier groans, shuddering. Geralt hadn’t realised he was saying any of that aloud, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, he means every word.

“Hands and knees,” the bard barks, his patience apparently worn away entirely. “Now.”

Geralt wastes no time in placing his forearms on the ground, raising his arse up in the air — presenting himself for Jaskier to mount. And Jaskier… well, he wastes no time mounting him.

It feels so fucking good. Jaskier’s cock is hot inside him, almost impossibly so, and he’s so big. Geralt has used toys in the past, not usually trusting other men to fuck him, but it has done little to prepare him for the overwhelming sensations he is experiencing now.

Jaskier’s incubus power must be affecting him more than he thought, because he’s taking every thrust like a bitch in heat. He can hear the obscene squelching sounds his own cunt makes as Jaskier pounds into him, can vaguely hear his own voice grunting in time with each powerful, deliberate thrust. Jaskier’s cock hits every sensitive spot inside of him, like it was made to fill his cunt, and it’s not long before he’s coming again.

“Oh, fuck, that’s it,” the bard groans, not slowing down even in the wake of Geralt’s orgasm. Fuck, it’s almost too much, but it would be infinitely worse if he were to stop.

“I’m going to fill you up,” Jaskier says. “I’ll fill you with so much come, it’ll be leaking out of you for ages.”

“Yes,” Geralt groans, trying to push his hips back to meet Jaskier thrust for thrust.

“I’m going to breed you,” he continues, “fuck, going to make your belly swell with my imps.”

“F-fuck, Jaskier, I-I can’t. I’m st-sterile,” he stammers as the bard fucks the breath out of his lungs. It’s impossible to ignore the way he clenches at the thought, the heat that fills him when he thinks about being bred by his bard.

Jaskier bites his shoulder hard, and Geralt keens. “Don’t care. I’ll fuck you as long as it takes, come in you again and again until my little ones are growing and kicking in your belly.”

The thought alone already has him nearly back on the edge of orgasm, but Jaskier keeps talking.

“Do you know what it’s like, to carry incubus babies?” he asks. Geralt shakes his head, and the bard chuckles breathlessly. “Mm, we grow fast. You’ll need to feed my imps, of course — so you’re going to be begging for my cock all. The. Time.

“Gods, I want to watch your belly round out with my young. We only take about a season, you know. Would you stay with me, so I could fuck you nice and full whenever you want? Or maybe you’d rather go to your keep for the winter. Maybe you think my seed didn’t take, until you see yourself start to swell, feel the new life stirring within you. What will your brothers say when they find out you’ve been fucked full of my imps? How long until you’re begging them to fuck you, to feed our hungry children, wishing desperately that it was me, that it was my cock inside you? Would you call out my name, while your brothers feed the imps — our imps — growing in your belly?”

Fuck, that would be humiliating. He can imagine it vividly — making his way to Kaer Morhen as he always does, wondering why he feels twinges of nausea on his way up the mountain. He imagines a small bump forming low on his belly, and at first denying what he knows it is, deep down. He imagines wearing larger tunics and bulkier clothes to hide the way he swells, full and round with Jaskier’s imps, imagines feeling them grow and kick inside of him, imagines the shock on his brothers’ faces when they realise that he’s pregnant—

He comes again with a hoarse, ruined shout.

Fuck.

When he comes to again, Jaskier is no longer fucking him. Geralt can feel the almost unnatural heat of the other man’s spend inside him, mixing with his own slick as it oozes from his fucked-out hole, and he has no idea why it’s so arousing. Jaskier is looking at him with a clarity he’d lacked before, though, apparently no longer lost in his rut.

“I get a bit of a break after I climax,” the bard explains, as if he could read Geralt’s thoughts. Maybe he can just read his face that well. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he answers. His voice is more hoarse than usual, and thankfully Jaskier hands over his waterskin. He takes a few long pulls from it before asking, “How long does your rut normally last?”

Jaskier looks away as if embarrassed. “Ah… Well… it’s usually anywhere from three days to a week,” he admits sheepishly. “If that’s… if it’s too much—”

Geralt silences him with a kiss. “I think I can deal with that,” he answers cheekily. “After all, you did promise to breed me.”

From the look on Jaskier’s face and the sound that comes out of his mouth, Geralt knows that they are not going to be getting much rest over the next few days. That’s fine, though. After all, they have much better things to be doing.