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“Well, Yennefer? Want s’more?” Jaskier asked, waggling his eyebrows in what he thought was a seductive manner. It made him look constipated more than anything else. Yennefer rolled her eyes.
“If you make that joke one more time, you’ll find tomorrow that your balls will have mysteriously vanished,” she replied, discreetly thumbing marshmallow from the corner of her mouth. The movement was interrupted by Geralt leaning in to kiss her, licking wetly at the marshmallow as he did. It tickled, and she bit his bottom lip in retaliation, tasting the sweetness of chocolate on his tongue.
He withdrew with a slight smile, and handed her another marshmallow, already speared on a stick—the stabbing of the marshmallow was something he excelled at, always his favorite part of roasting them. “Here. Before Jaskier burns them all,” he said, which gained him exactly the offended reaction he was hoping for.
“I could roast them if I so chose,” Jaskier sniped. “They taste better burnt, is all. A little bit of bitter among the sweetness, the perfect complement to the muted notes of graham cracker and the richness of the chocolate—” he waxed, cutting off when Geralt pelted another marshmallow at him.
Yennefer, meanwhile, was on the hunt for the hottest part of the coals—the secret to getting marshmallows a beautiful golden-brown, she knew, lay not in the flames, but in the red-hot embers. She hovered her marshmallow over them until it started to smoke, then quickly withdrew it, rotated it, and began again, searching for the perfect sear.
“It’s not rocket science, Yen,” Geralt said dryly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear that had fallen and was obscuring her vision.
“What would you know about it? You eat them raw,” Yennefer responded disgustedly.
“Like a heathen,” Jaskier agreed, completely missing the irony as someone who liked his burnt. He brought his flaming marshmallow up to his face and blew it out, popping it in his mouth seconds later, wincing at the heat, though he never learned from it. He got up from his seat around the campfire, intent on pilfering the last few from the bag that Geralt carefully guarded.
Just as Yennefer pulled her perfectly-roasted marshmallow from the fire, Jaskier’s boot caught on a rock jutting up from the ground. She saw it as if in slow motion: his arms pinwheeled, and for a moment she thought that he might regain his balance. But he didn’t, falling forwards into the firepit.
Geralt jumped up with supernatural speed, launching himself across the fire circle, one hand extended to push Jaskier back, the other aiming Aard towards the fire. The shockwave blew out the fire just as Geralt caught him, pulling him snug against his chest. Ashes sprayed everywhere, dousing them all in a fine grey powder.
“Alright?” Geralt asked, at the same time as Yennefer hissed, “Idiot.” She hated when he made her worry about him.
“Whoo,” Jaskier laughed shakily. “That was close. Thanks for the rescue,” he said, patting Geralt on the chest a few times, and then turning it into squeezing his pec. Something about Geralt’s chest never failed to mesmerize Jaskier—Geralt often had fun with it, turning Jaskier into a gibbering mess whenever he stepped shirtless out of the shower.
Geralt allowed it for a moment, and then, seeing as Jaskier was fine—only a little startled by the near-accident—dumped him on the ground. Jaskier flopped into the dirt, lying there limply like a sad puppet. Out of pity, Yennefer went to throw another marshmallow at him—only to see that the bag of marshmallows had ended up in the fire during the commotion, and was now a slightly-smoking mess of melted plastic and marshmallow among the ashes.
“The marshmallows,” Jaskier said mournfully. “Rest in peace. Your sacrifice won’t be forgotten.” His gaze then zeroed in on the last marshmallow standing—Yennefer’s, which had somehow miraculously survived unscathed so far. “Yen,” he began.
“No.”
“Yeeennnn,” Jaskier whined.
“No.”
“But—”
Yennefer quickly took a bite out of it to quell his pleading, but it didn’t have the taste of victory she’d been expecting. It tasted slightly of ash, soured by Jaskier’s wide-as-a-puppy-dog’s eyes. With a sigh, she handed him the other half. He broke out into an ecstatic smile, popped it into his mouth, and then levered himself up to plant a sticky kiss on her lips.
They lost themselves in it, all the while accompanied by the sounds of Geralt cleaning up their wreck of a campsite in the background.
“We ought to help,” Jaskier finally said, breaking the kiss.
“We could,” Yennefer agreed. “Or we could do this,” she offered, and snagged Geralt by the wrist as he passed. She pulled him down on her lap—he always sat so carefully, as if he was afraid to break her with his weight—and yanked him by the hair until she could capture his mouth in a kiss.
“Ohohoho, very nice,” Jaskier complimented.
“Yen,” Geralt complained, shifting in her lap. “What about the—”
“It can wait,” she interrupted. He gave up and sank into the kiss, trading places with Jaskier when he got impatient, and the sun slowly set.
It was getting colder without a fire, and the air smelt of burnt marshmallows and plastic, but the three of them had never tasted so sweet.