The idea for this came from my fascination with the fact that Yennefer could just touch Geralt with a spell and slow his heart, all without him protesting or even asking questions. He messes with a lot of mages, why isn't he long dead if they could all just say a few words and kill him?
The headcannon that Yennefer is as attached to Geralt's slow heartbeat as he is to her scent was adopted from the fanfiction dot net author Yennefer of Vengerberg. I also read all the books, so if you're game cannon only there may be one or two insignificant details you won't recognize.
Yennefer sat on the bow of the frozen wreck, nestled into Geralt's side and breathing free for the first time in a very, very long one. Free of the Djinn and free of her own doubts she'd been able to finally, finally admit to herself that she was in love with Geralt. Truly, honestly, deeply in love with him. With the glossy haze of the Djinn stripped away and the full scope of every fight and every kiss and every touch bared she couldn't deny it any longer and the feeling was like laying down after running for miles.
Relief. Utter relief after a terrifying leap. She'd truly feared looking into Geralt's eyes after her admission and finding a stranger. She almost expected every nasty word and calloused glance to rush to the forefront of his mind and destroy the beauty he saw in her. She feared that he was the one truly under the Djinn's spell. She'd known in her gut for a long time that she was truly in love with him, even if she couldn't admit it to herself. But him—she'd hoped his resistance to magic would insulate him. That it would give him some chance to love her in turn, but she couldn't know what she really needed until everything was stripped away.
And then, wonder of wonders, when everything was bared she saw even more fondness in his golden eyes. His lips on hers were cool and earnest, his breath misting in the cold as it carried the words she feared she wouldn't hear.
I love you, Yen.
She was buzzing with a calm, joyful warmth, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm pressed into his side. His arm rest heavy across her back and she was happy.
That is, until she felt him slacken oddly. She frowned, looking up at him to see him blinking sleepily. At first she was utterly perplexed—after all, he hadn't taken any decoctions before the fight with the Djinn and it hadn't been that taxing. Especially not for a seasoned Witcher. Had the diving really been that bad?
That was when the icy air and what she'd done to him on the Skellige waters came back all at once and her eyes widened in alarm. She pulled away from his arm and he was sluggish to respond, blinking and furrowing his brow at her as she cupped his jaw and turned his head almost roughly to look at her.
"Gods, I'm a fool," she cursed. She got up, pulling at Geralt to get him to stand as well. She'd already opened a portal, its firey edges creating a constant sound like low thunder.
She felt Geralt bodily tense against her as she pulled him towards it. "Yen, what-"
"You're too cold," she said briskly. "It's slowing your body, making you drowsy. I should have realized it would be a side effect."
He was still resisting her and she was growing annoyed in the middle of her worry. "Should have realized what, Yen? I don't like portals..."
She huffed. "Listen, Geralt. My portals are safe. You need to step through it so we can get you out of your wet armor and into a hot bath before you freeze to death. I will explain when you are warm and returning to your senses."
His brow furrowed more and he opened his mouth as though about to protest again but Yennefer knew the damage the cold could be doing to him and she had no more patience for his prejudice against magical travel. She grabbed both his arms and yanked him through. They stumbled into Yennefer's bedroom where a great tub was standing and Yennefer had to bodily catch Geralt. He was too heavy for her and he fell to one knee with a soft cry of surprise and pain, his fingers digging into his thigh. It was plain he was gingerly keeping his weight on only one leg.
Yennefer gripped his shoulder, casting her violet gaze around for signs of blood or injury. "What is it?" she asked, kneeling and trying to pull his hand away from his leg so she could see. "Did the Djinn injure you?"
He was gritting his teeth hard and he waved her away, his hand digging harder into his leg as his breath came in pained panting. "It's—it's old..." he managed in a strangled voice. It took a moment, but Yennefer realized what he meant. The wound he'd received in the form of a crushed leg while defending Ciri had never healed properly, and it often hurt worse in the cold.
"Alright, easy, move slowly," Yennefer chided, ducking under his arm and helping him straighten up. "We need to get you into the bath, quickly." She placed a hand on his chest to help steady him and felt an unnatural chill against her fingers. "I've let this go for too long," she murmured, furious with herself.
She had ordered the bath ready for that evening before she and Geralt had left, and as a result it was already full of water. It was a simple thing for her to reach a hand out and instantly infuse warmth into it. She only wished she could do the same thing to Geralt's blood. If she were to try the spell she used on the water on him he wouldn't live to appreciate it.
The seizing in his leg seemed to pass enough for him to straighten up and it was short work to get him undressed and into the tub, though he was still balancing most of his weight on his good leg. Yennefer helped him pull his shirt over his head and step out of his trousers, holding her arm out for him to hold onto and bracing one hand against his ribs as he climbed in so he wouldn't fall. He was unnervingly off balance, something very wrong for someone so naturally lithe and graceful most of the time.
He hissed against the heat in the water and his fingers clenched so hard on her arm it hurt but Yennefer did not flinch. "It's too hot, Yen," Geralt protested, drawing back with an unsteady step.
"No," she said, stopping him with a hand against his chest and he turned to look at her, his white hair falling in strands out of its tie, his beautiful, warm gaze glazed with cold and pain and confusion. Yennefer felt her heart clench and she gentled her voice. "No, you are too cold. It's my fault, but you must trust me now. It will not burn you, I promise."
Geralt grimaced but he obeyed, his body trembling and his jaw clenched hard as he made himself sit down. When he was finally settled in the warm water he rest his hands in his lap and leaned his head back, the steam swirling around his white head in lazy streams only disturbed by his breath. Yennefer stripped off her gloves and rolled up her sleeves, taking a sponge from her dressing table and dipping it in the water. She knelt behind him and drew it over his chest and across his collarbones.
He hummed and rest his head against the side of the tub, leaning it back. His throat was exposed to the candlelight and her lips, and she tilted her head, watching the glittering of the drops of water disturbed by his pulse. The hollow of his collarbones rose and fell with a gentle breath, spilling water down his sternum in a tiny river. The throb of blood through his body passed warm and slow against her lips as she lowered them to kiss beneath his jaw. She kissed the tendons bared beautifully with his languid pose and she kissed the place where the collarbones turn into the throat. The Witcher sighed beneath her touch, and she listened to the resonant, earthy sound of his heart working deep inside him.
She closed her eyes to that sound, realizing in all her years she'd never loved anything so much. All the beauty of all the magical lies she lived in and around could not stand against the sound of Geralt's life still running hot and strong within him. It was so much more solid and assuring than the rabbit's pulse of other men. They tripped over themselves to be something they thought was beautiful and young, but when Yennefer passed them she could hear the way their sand raced to the bottom of the hourglass. They were a mournful, ticking clock. Each and every one. Even the decent ones had pulses that only reminded her they would soon die.
Geralt's heart had been calmed and strengthened in his youth, and the languid rhythm was one of the first things she'd noticed about him. She knew Witchers were mutated, everyone did, but she hadn't realized to what extent. She'd been surprised at first when meeting him, wondering how he was so very quiet. The answer was he moved in the space between heartbeats, in the four or more seconds where he walked the line between the living and the cursed, where his patient heart knew no panic or fear of death.
I can hear your heart beat. It's very slow. Can you control how much adrenaline you secrete? Oh, forgive me my professional curiosity. Apparently, you're touchy about the qualities of your own body.
She smiled faintly at the memory, pressing her lips against his pulse once more. She just rest them there, counting the seconds until she felt it surge again. She'd been interested in his heart, in his mutations from the first time she'd met him. After all, he was the first Witcher she'd seen up close. Over time, however, she grew to recognize his heartbeat and then even know it personally.
When he was conscious and active but not fighting it rested for three seconds at a time. She'd once had the priviledge of feeling his heart right after battle and the way it absolutely raced beneath her hand was indescribably beautiful. His chest had risen and fallen beneath his bloodied breastplate, his fingers still clenched on his silver sword, and his heart had surged beneath the hand she'd pressed to stop him rushing off to the foolhardy end his bared teeth said he would surely pursue.
At night, when she lay awake with the moonlight cast across their naked bodies like gossamer, she closed her eyes and traced the architecture of his muscles and bones as he slept. His heart beat as slow and as intoxicating as the kisses he'd pressed to her body before they'd made love like immortals.
Neither of them feared death so much anymore, not after the apple trees. They chose to live, and to live, and to live for each other. For Ciri. There was heat and passion and power in his touch. There was honesty and love and fierce pride in hers. But neither hurried.
She blinked, her thoughts drifting back with the sound of water lapping at the edge as he shifted his injured leg. Moving slowly, she settled on her knees, drawing herself up above him so she could use the sponge to squeeze water across his forehead. Trails wet his scalp and she passed her fingers through his hair, scratching gently. The hummed approval in the back of his throat was so deep it sounded like a panther's purr.
She pulled his hair free of its tie and kissed his temple, then the scar just above his left eye. She pressed herself against his head, hugging her cheek against his as she wrapped her arms around him and sighed. "Forgive me, Geralt. I was selfish and it nearly cost you quite dearly."
Her eyes were cast down and she felt him move, felt the fine strands of muscle tense under her touch as he turned his head and tried to sit up more to look at her. She only pressed into him more, wrapping her arms around him tighter and flattening her bare palm against his chest—mercifully warm again as steam rose from his skin. "Don't move," she said softly. "Just, don't. I want to listen for a while longer."
He obeyed, and though the puncture scar from a Rivian pitchfork burned against her palm she kept her hand in place.
"Yen," he said very quietly after several long minutes in her embrace. He gently took her hand from his chest and kissed her palm, closing his fingers over hers. "What is this about?"
She sighed and rested against the edge of the tub, meeting his eyes at last. "The dive. I was foolish with my spell and did not dissolve the ties quickly enough. You were diving in icy water with a reduced heartbeat and then spent time in the thin air and snow with wet clothing." She pressed her lips together and broke their gaze, wanting to pull her hand out of his. She didn't. "Had I not realized you were becoming hypothermic you could have died."
"You didn't force me to do any of that, Yen," he said at length, squeezing her hand. "You asked me if I would dive, and I did. You asked me if I would help you break the wish, and I did. I could have walked away at any time. I think some part of me wanted to know just as badly as you how much was the Djinn and how much was-"
"Real," she finished quietly, sighing and resting her head against his shoulder. "I know."
They were quiet for a while, the candles burning lower and their minds full of what had happened.
"I don't regret it," he said at length. "I'm glad we know."
"Me too."
"There is one thing I don't understand."
She lifted her head and met his eyes again, studying his face as she brushed his hair back and tucked it behind his ear. "What's that?"
"Why am I still alive?"
Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"If mages can just, take control of another person's heartbeat then how am I still alive? You know how many sorceresses and mages have wanted me dead. Why did they fight me the hard way? They can't all have been that arrogant."
Yennefer bit her lip, trailing her fingers in the water before sighing at sitting up a little. "They couldn't reach your heart with magic. Not like I did. Not like I can."
He raised an eyebrow, but he didn't interrupt.
"The will to live is a very strong protection against magic," she explained. "The willpower needed to overcome that and simply snuff someone out with a spell—it's enormous, Geralt. It would almost surely kill the mage using the magic at the same time."
Her violet eyes locked with his and she cupped his jaw, stroking his beard with her thumb. "Your will to live, your spirit, it trusts me. You surrendered yourself to me completely without knowing it. I can whisper to your soul and he answers. I could slow your heart on that boat because even then, separate from the Djinn, you allowed me to touch it. It was all the proof I should have needed, if I'm being frank. But I wanted to be sure. A Djinn could have bound us, but short of your own free will I never would have been able to influence you that way. You expose your very life force to me, Geralt."
The Witcher was quiet for a while, and Yennefer studied his face to try and understand what he was thinking without reading his mind. After a very long silence, he spoke again.
"I don't regret that, either."