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Truthfully, he doesn’t fall asleep on his back very often. Yennefer slowly slips the shawl off of her shoulders with a weary ache between them, looking over at Geralt where he’s already asleep on their bed. It's strange to see him on his back.
A book is laying next to his slack hand, still open, and his other hand is resting on his stomach. He’s still in his trousers and shirt, and Yennefer smiles sadly. Softly.
She’s just come from a funeral, one she insisted on attending alone, and Geralt must have tried to stay up for her.
She doesn’t mind. He’s exhausted and it's late. He needs to rest.
Quietly, she moves over to the bed and sits next to his thigh, looking long at his features. His chest is still for a moment, resting between breaths. As a Witcher the pause is even longer, his blood retaining oxygen three to four times better than other men. He simply doesn't need to breathe. He looks utterly peaceful. She has no reason to fear anything is wrong. When she left him for the wake he was in perfect health, and nothing has changed.
All the same, she feels a tiny wash of relief when his chest rises and he takes another breath. When it falls again, she slides her hand affectionately over his warm stomach, gliding her fingertips up his sternum to lay her palm flat in the center.
The corpse had been treated. A rich-man’s luxury, to be so steeped in chemicals and powders and spells that in death the body appeared sleeping. At least, at a distance. Closer up it was just...false. Everything about it felt wrong, and though it was foolish Yennefer found herself many times watching for some twitch.
A breath.
Geralt takes another and his throat works in his sleep as he swallows. When his chest falls again this time, Yennefer slides her hand more to his left and presses in, feeling the reverberation caused by his heart as his ribs settle atop it.
She hates this new trend. Bodies should be left to decay as is natural, or they should be burned.
She sighs softly and lays down beside him.
“Mmmm, Yen?”
His voice is sleepy, his head turns gently towards her as his hand fumbles up from where it’s resting on his stomach to take her hand in his own. He blinks once in the low candlelight and his brow furrows a little. He taps his fingers against her hand gently.
“Hey? You okay?”
“Mm. Tired.”
He shifts a little and she knows he’s trying to see her expression. She doesn’t let him, choosing instead to turn her head a little further into his chest and close her eyes.
“Funeral upset you, didn’t it?” he asks softly, and she creases her brow as his hand strokes through her hair and gently down her back. “I’m used to you listening to my heartbeat but I know the difference when you go looking for it. What happened?”
Yennefer sighs, closing her hand against his chest. He waits quietly for her to feel like she can speak.
“They preserved it, Geralt. This...shell. Tried to make it appear as though it was only sleeping.” She shakes her head against his chest. “I don’t understand it. The man was gone. Funerals are meant as closure but this felt like a fraud. A play act to make death seem less real. But it was like trying to perfume rot and the effect was...unsettling. Everything felt so false, like a dream. There were so many trappings you almost expected him to breathe, or to suddenly wake up, and yet…”
She opens her eyes and sighs softly against him, watching the gentle throbbing that comes through his shirt at the low point of his exhales. He isn’t stressed, his heart is just in the right place to press through visibly. She traces along that pulse with tender fingers.
Geralt’s hand gently comes up and clasps her own, stopping her. He draws her hand to his warm lips and kisses the place his pulse had just been before replacing it with a firm pressure. This time, she can feel the pumping as a welcome sensation along her entire palm.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep waiting for you then, especially tonight,” he says softly. “But I was only asleep.”
“I know,” she murmurs, turning her hand in his so she can clasp it. “There is a presence to life that no amount of spellwork can falsify. You may be still in your sleep, and peaceful, but I will always sense the difference.” She turns her head then, sitting up slightly so she can rest on his chest and look into his golden eyes. He blinks slowly, like a content cat, and she smiles at the white eyelashes and the way they catch the candle light.
She bends her head and kisses him, feeling with a pleasant shiver the way his chest contracts and shifts beneath her arm as he moves his body up to return the kiss. There is a rippling all through him as he moves against her, a lithe grace she thinks he isn’t even aware of bred into every gesture. Gently, he turns onto his side and nudges his nose into her neck, kissing down to her choker and lacing their fingers together against the mattress in a silent request for her to let him hover over her. She gives into his request, turning onto her back and feeling a great release of tension as his weight settles carefully. He bends his head and kisses her neck again, and she wraps her arms around him.