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“So, Jonathan said he saw you stare at Jaskier today, apparently you looked like you want to murder him. The whole class believes you absolutely hate each other now,” Ciri explained, looking at Geralt and having another fork full of pasta vanish in her mouth. Jaskier giggled in delight.
“These rumors are so funny,” he commented. Geralt smirked. He certainly did not think about killing Jaskier, when he had been staring at him.
“Also Mara saw me get into your car and texted me, asking about this. So, I told her, you’re my dad but asked her to keep it to herself. I think she won’t tell.
“Good idea, wouldn’t want to have weird rumors spread around,” Geralt said. He knew how fast stuff like this could spread in schools. There was also a reason they kept it private that Jaskier and him were married as well as Ciri was Geralt’s daughter, which was pretty easy, since Ciri had Yen’s last name and lived mainly with her. And also it was funny to hear what people were talking behind their backs and Ciri made an excellent mole, especially since she loved doing it.
They had agreed that it wouldn’t be too bad if people would find out about them, but they wanted to see how fast they did. There actually were two betting pools going around among the teachers, one about the marriage and one about Ciri.
“What were you actually thinking about, when you stared at me, in school,” Jaskier asked when they were in bed.
“He wasn’t too far off, I was thinking about the things I would like to do to you,” Geralt answered and pulled Jaskier on top of him, so he was lying between Geralt’s spread legs. “Just not quite as violent.” Jaskier chuckled. “And what is it, you would like to do to me?” he asked, wiggling between Geralt’s leg so their cocks were rubbing against each other through the boxershorts they were wearing.
“Oh, I can show you.” And with a predatory grin Geralt had turned them around and pressed Jaskier into the mattress.
“Oh yes, big bad wolf, show me what you can do to me,” Jaskier answered, giggling and looped his arms around Geralt.
Jaskier walked into his English class with a bright grin on his face. He loved teaching and his students loved him. This way it was fairly easy to trick them into actually learning something, even the most rebellious teenagers usually walked out of his class with good marks, the earned. He held the firm belief that, if he was allowed to use the students first name, they should be allowed to do this as well. But since no one ever called him Julian, except his parents, he always introduced himself as Jaskier to them. Geralt had a very different approach to teaching his classes. He also made sure, his students learned everything, but he had a carefully crafted persona of being grumpy and very strict, never smiling when students could see it. He would still go to the end of the world to help a student in need as long as they would be respectful. And none of his students even knew his first name at all, except Ciri of course. The students certainly respected him but there was also some fear mixed into this. Ciri and Jaskier found it hilarious to imagine how the other students would react if they knew how Geralt actually was in private, with all his sarcasm and softness regarding his husband, daughter and their cat, Roach. Geralt had been horrified when Ciri once had threatened to tell all her classmates what kind of a softie Geralt actually was. In return Geralt had threatened to ground her until she was eighteen, which he would never do, they all knew this.
“Jaskier, do you and Mr Rivia hate each other?” one of his students asked as soon as Jaskier had entered the room. Jaskier turned around, it was Jonathan, the one who had told Ciri, Geralt wanted to murder him.
“No, why would you think this?” Jaskier answered, pretending to have no idea where this came from.
“I saw him stare at you as if he wanted to murder you and you seem to be avoiding him,” he explained. Jaskier struggled a little to keep his composure while he remembered last night, when Geralt had shown him what exactly he wanted to do to him and it had gotten pretty filthy. He couldn’t really remember avoiding him but it seemed that them trying to keep their distance in school made it seem like they were trying to avoid each other. He saw Ciri in the back of the class, silently snickering at her phone. Quickly he looked away, because else he would probably also start to laugh.
“I don’t think you have to worry about a murder and everything else is only concerning me and Mr. Rivia,” Jaskier explained. The students got the hint and dropped the topic for now. He knew they wouldn’t dare asking Geralt about it later when he had some of them in chemistry. But it seemed like the new rumor would be that they hated each other.
Jaskier had a free period as he entered the classroom where Geralt currently taught math to a class of twelfth graders. He looked at the blackboard for a second and his face twisted in disgust for a moment. He had always hated maths and was actually lucky, he still had managed getting his A-level and also that he hadn’t needed it in Uni later. Geralt on the other hand loved numbers and all that with a passion. The man in question was standing in front of the class, apparently explaining a formula. Jaskier made his best effort not to listen to it, while staring at his husband with a hopefully, not too fond smile.
After two minutes Geralt excused himself and stepped over to Jaskier, still with his grumpy face, not showing at all what he was thinking about Jaskier appearing in his class. Jaskier knew he was happy to see him.
“What is it?” Geralt whispered.
“Sofie asked me to tell you, there will be a meeting about Marshall Bolton’s behavior after this period, she wants you to be present there,” Jaskier explained. Sofie, the headmistress of the school, had always respected Geralt's opinion on problematic students like Marshall a lot. Geralt nodded and for a little moment he leaned in as if he wanted to kiss Jaskier before he realized where they were. His glowering expression had not changed while Jaskier beamed at him with his usual brightness. Jaskier turned around and got a glimpse of the students who were staring at them very confused, before he left the classroom and went back to the teachers room, where he would grade some papers.
“I have interesting new informations on you two,” Ciri announced at dinner and pulled out her phone. Presumably to check what exactly had been said in the group chat.
“Well I’m listening,” Jaskier said, interested. It probably had to do with him crashing Geralt’s class today.
“Apparently you have an unrequited but huge crush on dad, Jaskier, but dad hates you, so it’s all a big tragedy,” she explained in a dramatic voice. “Meredith said the way you looked at him, it’s clear you have a huge crush but sadly, dad could never love you back, he could tell he doesn’t like you.”
“Sounds accurate to me,” Geralt grumbled. Jaskier swatted his arm.
“The huge crush does, but good thing we know, you love me very much,” Jaskier announced. Geralt’s mouth twitched into a small smirk.
“If you say so,” Geralt answered with a growl. Jaskier knew he was amused by it.
“Apparently no one then saw how he nearly forgot where we were and almost kissed me,” Jaskier smirked.
“Oh they saw Geralt leaning forward and there is a lively discussion about this currently going on. We have two factions, one believes he intended a kiss, the other side thinks he wanted to get rid of him as fast as he can. It’s all very amusing. Some are betting when you will get together. I think I will enter and bet on already together,getting a little extra pocket money when you will inevitably come out.”
“I’m pretty sure, there should be a rule against this, since you have unfair insight,” Jaskier objected.
“Well there isn’t,” Ciri said with a smirk.
“Mr Rivia, do you hate Mr. Pankratz?” a bold student asked a couple of days later in Geralt’s chemistry class. Geralt turned around and glared at the student who asked the Question. Bethany had always had difficulties to keep her mouth shut. The whole class was staring at her in shock and she seemed to realize her mistake as she sank back deep into her seat. Geralt allowed himself to stare at her for a moment longer.
“Yes,” he deadpanned and turned around to the blackboard, starting to write down some information for the following lesson. He heard whispering behind him but when he turned around it stopped immediately.
This time Ciri didn’t even wait until they were at home, probably because she was at her mother’s this week, she flagged him down outside the school with a wide grin.
“Seriously, you can’t just say yes, when they ask you something like that, they think you're incapable of joking and believe you, the group chats are going absolutely crazy.” Geralt allowed himself a short smile.
“You see, that I can. Jaskier will think it’s the funniest shit ever,” he said. She laughed.
“I’m sure he will, he’s not wrong.”
“Want me to take you home?” he asked as he unlocked his car. It wasn’t a big detour to get her to Yennefer and even if it was, for his daughter he would still do it.
During spring break it had become apparent they would not be able to go back to school normally afterwards. They had planned to go to the coast for a week with Ciri but decided not to at the last minute and it turned out it had been the right decision. They promised Ciri to do it as soon as it would be safe again. For now they needed to plan how they would do teaching during quarantine because it would all be moved to online classes. Luckily they had at least one office room, with two desks facing each other so they wouldn’t have the same background there, but they couldn’t use it at the same time, obviously so one of them would have to sit at the kitchen table and the students would probably catch on even though their cameras would face into different directions.
“I guess by now it’s just a matter of when they’ll realize,” Jaskier said grinning as they both sat in the office, installing the necessary software for their online classes. Luckily both of them were pretty good with general computer usage. Jaskier didn’t want to imagine how much some of their colleagues would be struggling.
Jaskier’s first online class worked out nicely, he had drawn the shorter straw and therefore had to use the kitchen today. He explained that he did have an office, but it was occupied right now. Of course this led to some discussions between the students about who was occupying it. He wondered if they would realize that whenever Geralt was teaching from the office that day Jaskier would be teaching from the kitchen and the other way around. On the first day of course Roach made an introduction. Geralt could just close the door but they couldn’t lock the cat out from the kitchen where her food and water was. So when the students heard a meow they demanded to see the cat immediately. Jaskier went and fetched her to show to the class.
“This is Roach,” he introduced her while holding her up to the camera.
In return he demanded everyone with a pet to get it and show to the class as well. Ten minutes later there were five dogs, six cats, a snake, two hamsters and three aquariums on his monitor.
Geralt left his office, and walked over, carefully making sure not to show up in the camera and took a look at Jaskier’s zoom meeting. Jaskier turned to him and saw a grin.
“What are you doing opening a zoo?” he whispered sarcastically, low enough so the microphone probably wouldn’t pick him up. Jaskier just shushed him away. He was seeing cute animals, not his problem, if Geralt’s grumpy demeanor didn’t let him see animals in his class. Geralt turned around and left for the bathroom, when he returned, Jaskier had gone back to teaching his class music theory.
Next day it was Jaskier’s turn to use the office, where it was much better to work then from the kitchen. In one of his afternoon classes someone piped up.
“Mr Rivia has a cat that looks pretty similar to yours, it suddenly jumped in his lap and looked at the computer,” Adrian said.
“Does he now? Interesting, I didn’t know,” Jaskier answered, hoping his lie wasn’t too obvious. Internally he was laughing.
Ciri was texting them screenshots from her group chat not long after. There was a heated discussion if it could be the same cat, but apparently Geralt’s constant scowling had convinced enough people to believe he hated Jaskier and therefore it couldn’t be the same cat at all. Geralt had his head laid down into Jaskier’s lap and was shown the screenshots whenever a new one arrived.
“So, wanna see how far we can go until they actually realize what’s going on?” Jaskier proposed.
Geralt grinned widely. “This could get interesting. Let’s start with some more Roach and also see if someone catches on to the fact you are in the kitchen when I’m in the office. And dial it up from there.”
Jaskier laughed and leaned down to kiss Geralt on the mouth. “I love that idea and I love you for this. It might kill your reputation, though.”
“We’ll see about that, they better still be respectful,” Geralt growled.
“Sure, grumpy man,” Jaskier chuckled while he threaded his fingers through the long white hair. Geralt closed his eyes with a content smile.
“Please tell me you did this on purpose,” Ciri said, at lunch break. She was staying at Geralt’s and Jaskier’s place this week and attended zoom classes from her room which stretched the wifi quite a bit.
“What?” Geralt asked, raising an eyebrow.
“There are screenshots in the groupchat of you in front of the same part of the office. You never switch your desks, it’s gotta be on purpose. Also there are at least 20 screenshots of Roach, analyzing all of her markings.” Roach stalked nearer at hearing her name. Ciri picked her up and laid her down in her lap, where she lied down.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jaskier said, trying to seem absolutely innocent.
“Sure, no clue at all, why Geralt is holding Roach into the camera,” she showed him her phone with the described photo, “or,” she swiped through some photos, “why you clearly sit at Geralt’s desk here, something you never do. You’re trying to see when they’ll catch on. They’re going absolutely mad, because they think you can’t possibly be a couple, but all the signs are there.” She clearly seemed to have fun as well. Jaskier snatched the phone out of her hand and started to read the group chat for himself.
“They are really invested,” he asserted, scrolling through the messages.
“Wish they would be as invested when I want them to do some research for class,” Geralt growled, reading some parts, Jaskier showed him. But he couldn’t deny he was amused as well.
Geralt was sitting in the kitchen again, as suddenly Roach was running into the room and jumping on the counter, Jaskier running behind her.
“Drop it, Roach, drop it this instant!” he yelled and managed to grab the cat at the scruff of her neck. Geralt had no idea what Roach was supposed to drop. He had quickly muted himself so his class had only heard a word or two and they had seen him run through the screen once. Geralt couldn’t tell how much they’ve seen. This would probably lead to some more interesting discussion. He immediately heard some voices, asking who this was but he ignored it for now.
“Everything alright?” he asked Jaskier who was still standing outside of the screen.
“Yeah, apparently she brought a mouse in, but I didn’t know what it was, could have been something poisonous,” Jaskier explained. “Sorry, for running through the screen. Do you think they recognised me?”
“We’ll find out, when we get the update from Ciri,” Geralt answered with a grin, that his student couldn’t see since he was leaning to the side far enough to not be captured by the camera.
On his way back, Jaskier took the longer route around the table and vanished into the living room with the cat in his arms.
“I was laughing so hard when I saw Roach and Jaskier running through the screen. I had to mute myself and turn off the camera, so no one would ask,” Ciri said when Geralt asked her about it. This time she had been in his class and therefore witnessed the thing. “I assume this was not planned.”
“No, I think keeping it actually secret would be hard. Was I recognizable?” Jaskier asked.
“We did hear your voice for a moment but it was far away from the mic and only short, so they might have not recognized it and you were through pretty fast. I guess they realized there are some similar features. But no one seems to really be sure.”
“We should tone it up a little more,” Jaskier decided.
The next day, Jaskier walked behind Geralt again, this time on purpose and much slower. He walked into the office, got some papers he needed from his desk and then walked out, again behind Geralt’s desk, before returning to his laptop. It took about ten minutes until his students got a little restless.
Apparently this was how long it took for them to receive the message from the class Geralt was teaching.
“Jaskier, someone from Mr Rivia’s class said, they just saw you in the background of his class,” Lissa said. He had expected someone to ask.
“Really? I’m pretty sure, you’re not supposed to text during class,” he answered with a grin. Lissa turned red and scrambled a little, probably putting her phone away. It wasn’t that there had ever been real consequences if someone was using their phone in Jaskier’s class, usually his students only briefly checked them and he didn’t mind so much, as long as they were still paying attention. That’s why he didn’t say anymore.
Geralt’s class was much quieter than Jaskier’s. Geralt did see some shuffling but he completely ignored it and continued with his class as if he hadn’t noticed anything, while he was completely aware, Jaskier had been there.
“Did they catch on already?” Jaskier asked.
“I mean they did recognise you, and they took way to many screenshots from the couple of seconds you walked by but somehow they’re confused about why you’re at Dad’s place,” Ciri explained.
“They honestly still didn’t make the connection that we might be together?” Jaskier said.
Ciri scrolled through the conversation. “Some are starting to wonder if you are, but others think it’s impossible, you’re too different and there is no way you’d get along.”
Jaskier giggled. “Yeah no way at all we would ever be able to get along.”
“Aurora apparently thinks you would be a cute couple,” Ciri read from her phone.
“Well we are,” Jaskier answered and pulled Geralt close, who made some strangled noises and pretended he tried to get away. Ciri quickly took a photo.
“Who knows, when I will need blackmail, material,” she said with a grin.
It was in the middle of Jaskier’s music class, that Geralt walked into the office and placed a cup of coffee on his desk. Jaskier looked up at him with a bright smile.
“Thanks, love,” he said and immediately there was a reaction in the class. Murmuring, everyone wondering, who’d he called love. He did hear one or two people murmuring Geralt’s last name. This was when Geralt put two fingers under Jaskier’s chin to tilt his head up, he slowly bent down into the frame and kissed Jaskier shortly on the lips. Then he straightened up again and took a step back, but still staying halfway in the frame. Jaskier turns back to his screen and looks into about thirty shocked faces only one person was looking more bored than anything else. This was of course Ciri who was currently sitting in her own room just a couple meters away. For a moment no one said a word. In the background of his own screen he saw Geralt starting to grin.
“Uhmm are you… are you and Mr Rivia a couple?” Marvin asked carefully. Now Geralt was cracking up behind him and had to sit down. That way his face was visible to the students again who had probably never even seen Geralt smile. It must be a shocking experience.
“Oh no, what gave our secret away?” Jaskier asked dramatically and he could see Ciri grin in response. Geralt stepped forwards again, put an arm around Jaskier and held his hand into the camera, showing his ring.
“Married for seven years, but we greatly enjoyed seeing all of you very confused,” he said. This might have somehow destroyed the gruff persona he had built for himself but right now he didn’t care.