Archive of Our Own

Geralt finds him in a tavern. Dingy and damp, smelling of puke. Jaskier strums his lute atop a wooden table, dressed in vibrant blues as the drunks around him cheer, cacophonize alongside the rough drag of his voice, the rawness and the ache in it. Geralts never hated a sound more.

Jaskier belts: Burn, Butcher, Burn.

Geralt lingers in a corner, where the shadows lend their cover. The crowd doesn't notice him. The chorus comes and they wish him dead with new fervor, mugs clunking together. He pulls his hood lower, and waits.

Jaskier's voice cracks. He plays the wrong chord, something ugly to better accompany the feeling deep in Geralt's gut. He stops, swallows, coughs. Apologizes to the merry people that groan and complain but are back to idle chatter and downing tankard after tankard the very next moment. Jaskier meets Geralt's eyes from the other side of the room, and sighs, before he turns away and slips through the door that leads to the rooms.

From the other side of it he whispers, low enough for only a witcher to hear.

Fourth door on the left.

Geralt takes care to tuck every white strand within his hood and follows.

The door is cracked open, when he finds it. Geralt stands outside of it for a moment, listening to the soft humming that spills out from it.

"Come in, would you?" Jaskier calls. It could be that he heard his footfalls on carpeted floors, but he knows that's not it.

The door swings open with a gentle push and a drawn out creak. Inside, Jaskier sits on edge of the bed, hands clasped firmly together. He sits oddly and smells of alcohol, and his lips quirk in a bitter smile as he looks at him.

"Hello, Geralt." He says.

His heart beats madly with twenty years worth of greetings much more enthusiastic than this one. Warm and bright and glad, and never reciprocated.

"Jaskier." Geralt grunts, like he's always done.

A tiny huff of air is all the reply he gets. There's a challenge in his silence, or perhaps punishment. He's always been the petty sort.

"New song?" He asks, bitterness spilling like blood, and it's not what he'd intended to say at all – he'd prepared much softer words for him – but the drunks downstairs still sing his song in his absence, laughter roaring as they curse his name, and Jaskier's company has rubbed off on him after all these years.

Jaskier's face twists, his eyes, always unbearably expressive, flooding with more emotion that Geralt knows what to do with.

"You broke my fucking heart, Geralt." He tells him. He does it softly, sadly. The anger, it seems, is reserved for an audience.

It— It makes him want to kill something. He'd rather he scream at him, go at him with a knife. He'd rather have him curse and chase him off like a rabid animal, throw a boot at him and sneer, because this—

This is going to kill him.

Out of the few that manage to get under his skin, none do it as excellently as Jaskier.

He gives him too much credit, treats him like he's a man like any other. Everybody else, they know better than to be surprised by Geralt being heartless. They don't hold him to the same standards they do others. If they fight together, they're friends. If they'd turn their back to him in battle, they trust him.

They don't call it a betrayal when he snaps. They don't call it anything.

Geralt had fucking warned him. He'd told him, over and over and over again, that they're not fucking friends. They can't be. But Jaskier was too damned stubborn to get it, and now they both regret it.

He wishes he'd never met him, and he wishes he could've proved him right.

"I'm sorry." He says, because he is.

Jaskier, strangely, stays completely still. "I know you are." He says carefully.

"I didn't mean it."

Jaskier snorts. It's an ugly sound. "You're a worse liar than I remember." He accuses. "Really, you should stick to glaring like a bloody cat and, and swinging your sword around."

Such a fucking asshole. "What?"

"You meant it." He states, face blank. "That's why it hurt."

Geralt exhales, his mind going blank. These are all the words he's managed to come up with during all these months. The only ones that matter, he'd reasoned. He's sorry, and he didn't mean it. Claiming he hadn't meant to hurt him wouldn't quite be true, and promising to be better pointless.

"I blamed you for things that were never your fault. I was angry, and you were near." He settles on eventually. He's not good with words the way Jaskier is. It's not even an apology.

The bard stares, tired. He takes in all of him, and Geralt knows he's seeing things even he doesn't, putting together truths he'd never be able to utter. Then he lowers his eyes, inhales deeply and plants his hands on his thighs, fingers digging in the flesh.

"I'm not to blame for your child surprise. Nor for whatever mess you've made with the witch." He states firmly. "The djinn thing, partly, and a couple of disastrous courts, a few tavern brawls, sure. Definitely shoveled that shit."

"Jaskier—"

"You were being unfair. And cruel."

"I'm sorry."

"But I do... Did. Make your life harder. You've always been up-front about it. I simply chose to ignore you."

"You don't make my life harder."

"Sure I do. With my pesky human needs for sleep and water and sustainance. I slow you down, steal your supplies, distract you. Drive you mad."

"You're wrong." He insists, a bit too aggressively. His fists clench at his sides and it comes out more like a growl. Jaskier just gives him a sad smile and shakes his head, but at least he doesn't flinch.

"I've traveled with you for twenty years, my dear. Not once did you ask me to. You always made sure to be perfectly clear about your disdain at the trouble I bring with me. At the mountain, you decided it was no longer worth it. That's why it hurt."

Geralt shakes his head. It's the truth, what Jaskier's saying, but barely some of it. He'd thought the bard had understood, and perhaps that's where he'd fucked it up. He'd thought it enough, that Jaskier had become fluent in his silence and his grunts, grown comfortable with the way he just saw him, in a way no one else has. He'd grown... Dependent on it. Every time he scowled and told him to get lost, he'd been betting on Jaskier knowing he doesn't mean it. On him laughing, like he always did, and staying anyway.

He'd believed that because Jaskier saw through him anyway, he could continue to hide.

He'd never once told him his songs had made a witcher's life tolerable, his presence the days worth remembering. That he's been a better friend than he could ever deserve, and that, if life allowed it, he'd want nothing more than to let Jaskier mould him into someone that does.

But he is not, and he is brittle, so he doesn't tell him now either. Instead he grits and teeth and asks: "So why the fuck did you follow me, Jaskier? Twenty years is a long time to chase after the same stories."

And Jaskier... Hardens. Stills himself like bracing for battle, muscles tight like a bowstring.

"Because you never sent me away, you fucking arse!" He snaps. "You never snuck away during the night and left me behind. You kept an eye on me any time there was danger and let me burrow into your bedroll when it was too cold for me to sleep outside, because you wanted me with you. You might've never admitted it, you obstinate, stubborn man, but I was your friend."

He stands, pacing, glancing at Geralt for only a few devastating moments.

"You always found me again. Or made enough noise for me to find you." He says, softer this time. "And you might be one grumpy bastard, but I actually enjoyed your company."

Geralt's heart beats fast like a human's. It's pathetic, how much that means to him.

"I did too." He exclaims. "Enjoy your company, I mean." It comes out blunt and stilted, and he hates himself for it. Jaskier is a man of words and he tries to speak his language, but he's old and he's out of practice, can't quite remember what it's like to fit abstract into words.

"Wow. That was basically a love confession." He mocks, and even that is tinged by sadness. Geralt thinks that perhaps it should've been. Perhaps it would've been, if he hadn't ruined everything already.

"Hm."

Jaskier sighs, exasperated, and drops back onto the bed. "So what's the contract?" He asks.

Geralt blinks. "I don't have one."

"What brings you to this shit stain of a town, then?"

"You. I wanted to apologize." He says.

Jaskier stares, surprised.

"Oh, Geralt, you always know how to make me feel special." He jokes. It's humorless and hollow, and it's entirely his fault.

Geralt frowns. He feels sick, and he doesn't know how to remedy it. He doesn't know what else to say to wipe the sadness from Jaskier's skin, how to bear it as it tickles his nose. Jaskier, he thinks, would know what to do. He tries to remember what the bard has done for him in the past.

"I'll buy you food." He declares.

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. "I already ate." He says. "The stew is pitiful, anyway."

Geralt grunts in frustration. "A bath, then."

"You have something to say about my hygiene, Witcher?"

Even now, Jaskier's tongue shapes the word more like an endearment than a curse. It drives Geralt crazy.

"Then tell me what I can do." He demands. Distantly, he understands it's unfair of him to ask, but he's feeling particularly desperate.

"You've already apologized. Apology accepted, forgiveness granted. No need to waste your coin." Jaskier says gently. He's reassuring him, and it should be enough, but it cuts like a thorn instead.

"Fine." He snarls. He doesn't mean to. "I'll leave you to your beauty sleep."

Jaskier rolls his eyes. "And they say I'm dramatic. It's pouring outside. Has been for days. Stay."

Geralt turns to leave anyway. Something stops him. A spark in his gut, a bout of darkness.

"Might butcher you in your sleep." He spits. "Better not risk it."

"Geralt!" He cries. He slips out the door anyway. "Geralt, wait."

There's a hand, gripping his shoulder. As if he can't shake it off, as if he can't live up to his nickname. But it's Jaskier, so he stills.

"I wanted to hurt you. You broke my heart on purpose and I wanted to return the favor. I just— I wanted you to know how it felt. It was petty, and it was cruel, and it was idiotic. I—"

"You realized others hadn't been as wrong as you thought."

"No! No, Gods, Geralt, of course not." He exclaims, tugging at his shoulder until he turns to face him. And then,

Then.

Because he's stupid and brave and insolent, he cups his cheek, strokes a soft thumb underneath his eye. He fights the harrowing urge to trap his palm underneath his own.

"You're not who they say you are. I know that. That— that was the point! I wanted to get your attention. Let you know you hurt me. I wasn't sure if you knew. I called you a... A butcher, because that way you'd know. I never believed it to be true. You must know that." He says. Pleads? It aches all the same.

"It's not a rumor. It happened." He says simply. He moves as little as he can, tries desperately not to dislodge the hand on his face.

"And you could tell me the story, one day, if you please. It won't change how I see you."

"It might." Geralt grumbles.

Jaskier exhales, gently lowers Geralt's hood, then pulls his hand back, lets it drop to his side. "You can be a real arse, dear, but you're the best man I know."

He takes a step back, and he hadn't realized how close they'd been. He misses it.

"It won't change a thing." Jaskier promises again.

Geralt almost tells him right then, just to prove him wrong. Get it over with, like the stitching of the wound.

But Jaskier brings a hesitant hand to take hold of Geralt's elbow, eyes vast like the ocean and just as dangerous, and Geralt is weak. He's a ship with shredded sails, helpless to the current, as Jaskier walks backwards, leads him back into his room and lets his hand slip off. Jaskier moves to close the door, and Geralt remains standing in the middle of the room on unsteady legs. The bard fucking does that to him, knocks him off center, leaves him to stumble into doubt and uncertainty and all things unfitting for a Witcher. He's unpredictable, unbound by the rules everyone else follows, and Geralt very rarely knows what to expect of him, how to act.

It's a blessing that Jaskier chooses to express his every thought. "I'm sorry." He says now, more earnest and regretful than Geralt reckons he ought to be. He is angry still, the betrayal boiling hot in his gut, but it doesn't mean Jaskier wasn't right to hate him. He'd caused this, betrayed him first.

He thinks to the only thing Jaskier has ever asked of him. 

"I killed a siren." He announces in lieu of a real response. It's cowardly and so much less that he owes him, but Jaskier's lip quirks.

"Do tell me all about it, then." He says, and Geralt does.

They don't speak of the mountain again. Jaskier tells him a bit about old lovers, stories he's forgotten he's already shared, and Geralt listens. Then it's late, and Jaskier asks him to stay once more, eyes full of heartbreak. It's only going to make his leaving in the morning harder, but Geralt accepts. Of course he accepts.

He goes to lay his bedroll on the floor, and there is Jaskier again, touching him, stilling his hands and nodding to the bed, and Geralt should refuse, he needs to, for his sanity, but Jaskier waits, one gentle hand patiently holding onto his forearm, and he surrenders. 

He undoes his armor, a task undertaken by the bard, once upon a time, when the best Jaskier could hope for was the lack of a bite and still stayed, and tries not to think of how thoroughly he'd taken him for granted. Allowed him to be the only constant in his life, and offered him nothing in return.

He lays down on the side of the bed closer to the door, and listens to the sounds of Jaskier shifting to get comfortable. They lay on their backs, each firmly in their side of the bed.

Long after Jaskier has been taken by sleep, his breaths even and slow, Geralt realizes he'd been anticipating his warmth, keeping himself awake until the moment that Jaskier would shift closer to him until at least some part of them was touching. A cold foot against his calf, or the back of a hand grazing his ribs and the bard's contented exhale to let him know he is right there, willingly within his grasp. Geralt had never told him he didn't have to pretend to do it in his sleep, purposefully avoided bringing attention to his inability to remain asleep through the tiniest shift of the bed. It felt like too dangerous of a confession, to admit he never sleeps better than when Jaskier brings himself close enough to touch.

There's the barest peak of elbow, now, sticking out from underneath the blanket Jaskier has wrapped himself with, kept carefully away from him. Geralt knows the bard has meant for it to be so, but he is asleep now, and he can just pretend to have done it in his sleep, come morning. He moves his arm, brings it closer to Jaskier until the fabric of their shirts is just barely touching. Too light a touch for the bard to register in his sleep, and just enough for the tiniest hint of warmth seeping out of him to guide Geralt gently into sleep. The pit in his stomach grows just a tad less ravenous.

~•~

The bard pulls away at some point, leaves him cold. Geralt doesn't chase after him. Doesn't do so much as open his eyes, not even when Jaskier sighs, the soft exhale warm against the side of his face, and gentle lute calloused fingers trail after it, brushing unkempt strands of hair from his face.

Jaskier shifts. A palm, kind and warm and feather-light lands on top of his arm. Geralt is finally allowed to rest, so he does.

~•~

He wakes in the late morning. Jaskier lays facing him, red lines marking where his skin had met the creases of the pillow. He blinks at him, a whisper of a smile softening his eyes. He still feels the warmth of Jaskier's palm, only recently relocated to the mattress, fingers rapping rhythmically.

"In twenty years of following you around, not once have I seen you stay asleep longer than me." He tells him, something like fondness and concern carried by the gentle rasp of his voice in the morning.

"Haven't been sleeping well." Geralt says, which is true enough, and frankly more revealing than he'd aimed for.

Jaskier pats his arm like he understands.

"I'm here for another weak, at least." He says. "You could stay, at least until the storm eases. Give poor roach a break. Ohh, I've missed her! Is she in the stables? Can I go say hi?" He asks, already removing himself from the bed, even if Geralt is not as quick to move on.

He sits up, watching as Jaskier dresses in vibrant purple silks. "You want me to?" 

The bard turns, earnest and sad and sweet. 

"When have I not?"

~•~

Geralt stays. 

They sleep in the same bed, wake and eat and wash together. The storm rages on outside; grows deadly, for a human. They have nowhere to go, so they sit cross-legged on the floor and drink from the same bottle, wrapping their lips around the mouth in turns, watching the drops that linger at the edge. 

Jaskier composes. Soft, slow tunes Geralt knows he's never going to perform. These are just for him, he's learned, for when metaphors feel safer and the melody softens the thoughts. He sings of fates bound, now, of inevitability and heartache. Just once, he sings a song he's heard before, soft and tender and raw. It's about love, that one. It sounds different now.

~•~

Jaskier handles all of the human interactions. They don't need to discuss it first. It's safer that way. Geralt only leaves the room to go to the stables, pulling his hair into his cloak and hiding his eyes, the only weapon in him a dagger. The staff are too disturbed by the damages caused by the weather to worry about him, and the stable is unguarded, empty as it is, with the exception of Roach. He spends a long time brushing her, only returning when he's sure the people of the inn are otherwise occupied for one reason or another.

It's Jaskier, more often than not, keeping them distracted, giving an impressively energetic performance, entirely devoid of any mention of Witchers at all. Geralt slips past the few occupants of the inn, listens to Jaskier sing all the way from their room. It's not too dissimilar to the way he'd avoided people after Blaviken, except now he's waiting for someone, and when Jaskier comes to their room he smiles, hands him a tankard of mead and calls him "dear" and "darling" and other things equally ridiculous.

An apology hangs by the edge of his lips each time. Geralt doesn't know what to do with it. When Jaskier asks to braid his hair one day, as he is forcefully pulling a leather tie tight around the bulk of his hair, he lets him. 

He settles on the edge of the bed, Jaskier standing behind him. If Geralt were to lean back the tiniest bit, his back would meet Jaskier's stomach. He straightens up, and doesn't think about it.

His hair is a mess, he knows, tangled and rough, but Jaskier works through it carefully, like Geralt is something other than what he is, someone who can be hurt by some tugging at his hair. He starts at the ends, clever fingers combing through weeks' worth of tangles that Geralt feels oddly ashamed off. It's far from the first time they've found themselves in the same position, and yet it has never been like this, uncertain and silent and concealing, dangerous like balancing on a knife's edge.

Jaskier is practically vibrating with nerves behind him, but he doesn't say a word. The bard talks in his fucking sleep, sometimes, and yet he stays silent, letting his thoughts grow heavy enough to suffocate instead. 

It's a blessing he never would've appreciated in the past, when Jaskier finally speaks.

"I never told you," he begins, fingers stilling near his scull, "why I followed you around all those years. I mean, you know me, never staying in one place for too long, burning bridges and... Being chased to be thrown off of them. Sometimes." He chuckles, hands resuming their work.

"You are one fascinating man, dear heart, but many people are. I wouldn't have spent twenty years running after anyone else, no matter how interesting. It was your kindness, that got me. You'd have every right in the world to become the monster the world so desperately wanted you to be, but you never did. You let them treat you like one of the beasts you risk your life to save them from, when you deserved to be worshipped for all that you do."

Jaskier tilts his head upwards with soft direction, and Geralt closes his eyes as one dull nail separates the hair at his hairline. It's dangerous, what Jaskier is doing, and irreversible. Geralt knows where this is going, vibrates with the need to stop him, but simple desires win, and that's as good as the damage having already been done, so he lets the bard move his head where he needs it to be and says nothing once again.

"I got my heart broken once, and I went mad. I caused more damage than I ever wanted to and hurt you more than you deserved. I am... Incredibly sorry, Geralt." 

There's not a world in which Geralt wouldn't forgive him. He hopes Jaskier knows.

"I deserved it." He says. 

Jaskier abandons his hair, half plaited, in order to join him on the bed, shuffling onto the middle of it, where Geralt can see him without having to move. Round eyes bore into him, defiant and determined. His lips move to speak, but Geralt cuts him off.

"I was a shitty friend." He insists. 

Jaskier laughs. Just once, low and bitter. "Oh, definitely. But you weren't a Butcher." 

"Doesn't matter." Geralt grunts. Jaskier was kind to him when he'd given him no reason to be, and he'd gone and thrown it back into his face. He had every right to take it away.

"Well I say it does. And you weren't that bad, usually. Sure you mostly stunk and refused to admit you liked my songs, but you also listened to me, even if you pretended you didn't." 

Geralt huffs. "That's a real low bar, Jaskier." 

"Don't patronize me. It means a lot to me. No one else has tolerated me for as long as you have." He responds stubbornly.

"Their loss." Geralt says. "Mine too."

Jaskier smirks. "And you say stuff like that, sometimes. Makes it worth the jibes." 

Geralt doesn't smile back, but Jaskier's used to that. He doesn't falter. He returns back to his position behind him with minimal drama, guiding Geralt to lean his head forward with a nudge at the top of his head, tutting softly.

"There goes my work. I have to start over." He complains, even if he sounds oddly pleased by that.

He is gentle again, unnecessarily careful as he combs through the hair and parts it all over again, twisting strand over strand, fingers grazing his scull with every new piece of hair braided. It's not relaxing — nothing Jaskier does will ever be; he's too unpredictable and intriguing and human for that — but it is safe, and that counts for a whole lot more, as far as Geralt is concerned.

It's strange still, all those years since. It had devastated him the very first time he'd felt it, and he lets it haunt him still, preserving the novelty of it like his life depends on it. Safety... Jaskier, is not something a Witcher gets used to and lives to tell the tale.

But he could. He really could.

Jaskier ties off his hair and beams, taking his jaw in his palm and turning his head so that he may check his work. There's something familiar that Geralt has never known and never will in the way he takes him in. "Absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself." He chimes, and Geralt's chest hollows. 

For a moment, he looks just like he had before, when he'd followed Geralt into certain death but only found him there, injured and full of venom and black-eyed, and he'd reeked of fear, but he'd he'd placed his hands over his own to keep the black blood from spilling and he'd shook his head, panicked, a shrill and frantic laugh spilling from his lips instead of curses as he joked—

As he joked.

"It's really unfair how you manage to look beautiful even when you're dying."

And Geralt had let him do more harm than good as he stitched him up wrong and checked his pulse and feared, because, he'd known without doubt, he didn't mean to. Jaskier wanted to help.

He'd believed, at first, that because he talked like a man and he walked like a man, that Jaskier had thought him to be one. He'd thought, and hoped, and sometimes resented, that Jaskier didn't see him as a monster. It was a difficult truth to accept that Jaskier saw him for what he was and stayed anyway. Acceptance had been tolerance, before Jaskier, and scarcely offered. Jaskier made it into something nice, free of charge.

Geralt hadn't known what to do with it. For his sanity, he'd refused to learn. As soon as he was healed, he'd left Jaskier behind.

"Thanks." He rasps now, because he'd forgotten to before, and slips out the door.

His hair lays neatly underneath his hood, not a one strand escaping.

~•~

He hears Jaskier coming from a hundred feet away. The storm has calmed and left behind upturned trees and muddy paths, but he's seen worse. Another full day, at most, before he can travel without Roach straining too much. He's not sure what happens after.

"Can you believe that illiterate, goat-brained piece of shit that wouldn't know art if it got shoved up his ugly arse called me— me! — uninspired? I mean, truly, if he doesn't think my retellings of real heroics are not inspired then what the fuck is?"

"Heroics, Jaskier?"

The bard glares, offended. "Do you want me to call slaying a manticore pest eradication?"

"You're singing your old songs." 

Jaskier smiles. "And some new. Trying to undo some of the damage."

"I'm assuming they didn't appreciate the switch?" 

"Got called a fool a few times. All in a day's work." 

"Hm."

Jaskier snorts. "Enjoyed your quiet?' he asks. 

It's not really quiet, the wind and light rain quite loud as they whistle and buzz, but he knows that's not what Jaskier's talking about. 

"Not quite." He confesses.

Jaskier exhales sharply and looks away, and Geralt's wretched heart leaps.

The thing is, Jaskier has always been... So much. Intense and loud and just there. Always there, taking up space that had never existed before him and wanting more, carving it out for himself when Geralt couldn't give it to him. It had been disconcerting, at first. Geralt hadn't appreciated it.

But it had been a brave thing to do, to walk with the Butcher of Blaviken, and Geralt could respect that enough to not drive him away by force. He did warn him, though. He did. The bard was young and inexperienced then, the kind of reckless that only those that have yet too much life to live are allowed to be, while Geralt had had a lifetime of watching what that does to someone. 

The very first day, he knew it was only a matter of time.

Jaskier had bought him a pastry on the third day.

He'd had told Geralt, once, drunk off his mind and in a somber mood, that he hopes he makes the loneliness lessen. Geralt hadn't understood. "When I first met you," he'd said, one bracing hand on his chest feeling dangerously tender, "You were terribly lonely."

He doesn't remember answering.

He remembers stripping Jaskier of his mead-soaked doublet, laying him down on the bed they'd shared the previous night and tossing an extra blanket at him, because he knew the bard gets cold when they're not both under the covers. He remembers thinking him reckless and stupid and naive for putting himself in such a vulnerable position before him. He remembers, distinctly and painfully, pitying Jaskier for trusting him.

They'd only travelled together for about seven years then, meeting each other less frequently and staying on the same path for weeks, rather than months. Geralt had not yet learned how clever he was, how good with people. He hadn't realized that at the end of the day, Jaskier was right to trust him. Even then, he would sooner kill a village than let any harm come to him, and Jaskier had known that. Geralt had somehow earned his trust, and unwittingly handed over his own.

It had still taken years for him to really understand. Because the thing is, Geralt wasn't lonely before Jaskier. Back then, he wasn't really anything.

He spoke to Roach and no one spoke to him, and he hunted and killed and hunted and killed and killed, and he didn't hope, didn't miss. Didn't want. In the winter he relayed facts and kept to himself and he definitely wasn't content, but he wasn't upset to be more Witcher than man either. He was alive, and that was all there really was to it. 

It's not that he couldn't feel, like the humans say, but rather that he had no occasion for it.

And then he'd met Jaskier.

And he'd talked to him about the weather and about himself and about art, for fucks sake, and treated him like a real person, most of the time, if not a falsely idealized version of one, and Geralt had had no choice but to become one. 

He'd never trusted someone he wasn't reborn knowing before. It had never been something gradual, fickle and complicated and precious, something to be nurtured. He'd thought trust to be an assessment of danger indicating harmlessness, until he saw it mirrored in Jaskier's own eyes, even if he was the furthest thing from harmless. It had given him hope.

It was a novel thing, and corruptive. It had made him want for more, a closeness, or a stability he knew he couldn't have and that the bard insisted he deserved. He'd burned with a desperation to obtain it.

And then he'd met Yennefer, and he'd wished for her in his life, and he almost had it, for a few moments.

Yennefer wasn't afraid of him. She had no reason to be. She cared not for his nature because she had no reason to, no reason to guard herself, and so she hadn't, and they fucked, and she didn't smile and she wasn't gentle, and she was just what Geralt needed, suddenly on his path often enough.

And Geralt had dared to hope she was something he could keep. 

Jaskier had led him to want for things people thought a Witcher ought not to. So it wasn't his fault when, on the very top of that mountain, his hope had been crushed, because being a Witcher had nothing to do with it. It was him, overriding Yen's will with a wish and ruining what could've been. 

Geralt had blamed him anyway.

He'd taken the bard's trust and smashed it to pieces and cut as deeply as he could with it and then, then, Geralt had understood what Jaskier spoke of when he spoke of loneliness.

He was alone then, but for the very first time, he'd wished he wasn't.

Jaskier was a lot. The silence left behind in his absence was large enough to bury the world in it.

"The path's too soft for Roach." He announces, and Jaskier stares fondly.

~•~

"If you ask me to come with you, I will." 

The sun's set hours ago, and the air flowing into the room is cool and humid, smelling of petrichor and the leaf the innkeeper smokes right underneath their window. Geralt's stuff are neatly packed for his departure, and Jaskier stares at it with disdain. 

He looks tired. Resigned, maybe. His refusal will be respected this time, Geralt's certain. His invitation graciously accepted.

Geralt can't do that to him. He won't.

"I'll find you, this time. In a couple of months. Wherever you are, I'll come to you." He says.

Jaskier stares for a very long moment.

"I'll await, then."

~•~

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He'd been prepared. Perfectly focused and more rested than he usually gets to be, awake and agile and quick. 

Cat coursed through his vains. He heard the creaking of roots and the writhing of the worms. The wind wailed, two monstrous hearts thumped like drums of war.

Cat burned through him. The chill on his skin stung. The silver scraped against bone as he pulled it out of the beast, and the other one growled, a sickening cacophony that nearly hurt. And then... That screech.

Like needles in his eardrums, a stomach-churning sound that caused him to wince.

It caused him to stumble.

His sword pierces through the beast's heart, but not before one rough talon tears him open. The Kikimora falls, and Geralt follows.

~•~

"You're a damn beast, but you've saved us, you have."

Geralt says nothing, and agony guides him to the dark.

~•~

"The fuck are you built out of, you fucker?" Geralt hears, and hits the ground, but it's soft enough. 

He doesn't open his eyes, but warm water spills into his mouth, wets the side of his face as he chokes on it. Someone curses, and then strong arms are sitting him up, and he's too weak to struggle. Whatever they want, they can do to him. He's tired of fighting.

More water travels down his throat.

~•~

The pain doesn't lessen. 

Geralt thinks only of Jaskier.

He hopes he won't wait for him.

~•~

"For Melitele's sake, Jack! You fucking idiot, what do you think he'll do to you when he wakes? That's the fucking Butcher you've brought into your home."

"Fuck off, he won't do nothing. I saved his life."

Geralt grunts, and the stench of fear suffocates him.

"You hear me?" Someone croaks. "I saved your life." 

"Thanks." Geralt groans, and sleeps.

~•~

"Are you awake?"

There's a man, hovering above him, wrinkled and dark-skinned, frowning intensely. He smells of smoke and wet animal, and fear.

Geralt grunts, shifting just enough for a bolt of pain to tear through him.

"You're truly something else. You should be dead." He says.

Geralt grunts again.

"Here." The man says, pressing a bowl into his hands. It smells savory and faintly meaty, and it makes his stomach churn. Geralt holds it, gathering the strength to try and sit up. 

He doesn't make it. The man catches the bowl before it tips, and curses. He rips it out of his hands, but only long enough to wrench him upright and lean him against the wall, before he passes it back to him. 

"My bag." Geralt groans.

"I'm no thief, Witcher." 

"Bring it." 

The man sighs, but he does. With every bit of strength he posseses, Geralt digs through it for the blessedly intact vials, and downs two of them. 

"Thank you." He rasps, and waits for a moment, for the familiar burn to overwhelm him as the potions begin to work. When it fades, he can at least pick up the wooden spoon that's passed to him and guide spoonfuls of potato mush and meat bits into his mouth.

"You'll live, then?" The man asks. He's been watching him from the corner of the small room, cautious and tense.

"Yes. I'm grateful."

"You've said. Three times now."

"How long has it been?" Geralt asks.

"Seven days since I found you. Don't know if you'd been there long."

Geralt's late. Or he will be. 

"I need to go." He says.

"Can you?" 

"I will."

"A babe can push you over right now. You're gonna kill yourself." The man chides.

Geralt passes out once more, denial trapped behind his lips.

~•~

When he wakes again, it hurts considerably less. He remembers it was night before, but it's light out now, and he takes in the space. He's pretty sure he's in a kitchen, laying on a pile of blankets on the floor. It smells of beef and herbs and sorrow.

The man – Jack, he recalls – is gone.

There's a cup of water next to him and he drinks it, moving his limbs experimentally. He's stiff and dangerously weak, but all of them function still. The torn flesh in his side is mostly healed, but terribly.

Another day, he thinks. Just so that he actually has a chance of making it.

~•~

"That beast you killed took my neighbor. Thank you, Witcher. May the Gods lead you to your Jaskier."

Geralt grips his sword. "How do you know his name?"

"You said his name a lot. I actually went out and searched for buttercups because I thought you needed them." Jack answers, raising his palms, but he's not scared, not this time.

Geralt hums. "Farewell." He says, and then he's gone.

He finds roach outside, tied to a tree and well taken care of, and he rests his head on her side for only a minute. He needs to get to Jaskier.

~•~

He travels for a couple hours the first day, then a few more the next. He sleeps on bare ground, too exhausted for anything more. His wound is healed enough, and the pain mostly bearable, so he rises with the sun and heads north.

The festival at which he'd find Jaskier is already over. The path Geralt's following floods with travellers returning home or leaving it behind, praising food and wine, already melancholic. Some hum familiar melodies. None get it quite right.

He sleeps less and rides Roach faster. Two more days of travel, he estimates, before he reaches the town. He'll have been a week late to the end of the festival, then. Jaskier will have left.

Perhaps, a year ago, he would've waited. Found someone with a bed they're willing to share and stayed another week, then given Geralt shit for being late. Even if he'd gone, it would've been in pursuit of him. They would've traveled together again.

It had taken all he had not to run away, for once. To run towards something instead, towards Jaskier, who is impatient and rash and angry, and far too good for him. Towards Jaskier, who, if he has any sense at all, will have left. 

Still—

Still Geralt moves onwards. 

It's not hope, exactly, that drives him. It's an ugly thing, a knot in his gut, suffocating. It's a sort of dread, rather, at the thought of what it will mean if Jaskier has waited for him.

He lets Roach take him to him.

~•~

There's three taverns in this town, he learns. The girl that tells him swears she's telling the truth, that she wouldn't dare lie to him. Geralt doesn't have it in him to soothe her, and no cooling voice to do it for him. He watches as her mother tugs her away by the elbow and promises protection she can't really offer. It's deeply human. He thinks of it no further and makes for the tavern on weak legs.

He finds Jaskier on the third one. 

Geralt's never managed to get used to the way his presence impacts humans; it puts him on edge just as much as he does them. Two dozen pairs of uneasy eyes settle on him as all chatter dies down the moment he walks through the door and mutters of mutant bastard are all that break the silence. He opens his mouth to inquire about the bard, but a chair is already scraping brutally against the stone floor. Even before he turns, he knows.

"Fuck, Geralt."

Jaskier faces him, hair a mess and cheeks pink from the mead, looking like a gods damned oasis in Hell.

"I'm sorry I'm late." He says, voice rough even to his own ears. 

Jaskier tenses the way he does when he's fighting to not give some poor asshole a piece of his mind. He threads through the patreons of the tavern swiftly to stand before Geralt. He looks him up and down, shaking his head.

"What happened?"

"I got injured. I was on my way here. I couldn't travel well." He explains. He doesn't offer any of the details Jaskier's always begging him for, even if this time he thinks they might exonerate him.

"I've got a room." Jaskier nods. "Can you do stairs?"

This... is not what he'd been expecting. He grunts his assent and Jaskier returns to his company for the night, bending down to whisper something in the man's ear. The man – blonde, attractive, precisely Jaskier's type – smirks in poorly concealed disappointment. Geralt's gaze lingers on the man's palm, how it comes to cup Jaskier's bicep softly, movement casual and unrehearsed; simply natural.

Then Jaskier is in front of him again, eyeing him with concern. "What?" He asks, but Geralt's already making his way to the stairway.

Once inside the stuffy room, Jaskier examines him for a few drawn out moments. He doesn't seem angry; doesn't smell like it either. It would be easier if he was. Instead, Jaskier just looks concerned. He steps into Geralt's personal space with a soft hum and begins to unbuckle his armour. He doesn't need to ask; this is natural too, for Jaskier. Geralt has let it be so. He tugs at the strap, unlatches it, pulls it through. 

It's a casual movement, disengaged by the requisite for thought. Care comes easily to Jaskier, always has. He is made for it, Geralt thinks. He can't help but offer it, and Geralt, Geralt can't help but accept.

It's a precious thing in his pain-soaked life, Jaskier's kindness. Geralt should've never tasted it. 

He doesn't let him do the rest. "I can do it." He says, reaching to finish the work. 

"You look half dead." Jaskier protests.

"I can do it." Geralt repeats, and for once, the bard doesn't push. Making an exasperated sound, he clasps his hands, and smiles brightly.

"Alright then. I'll be right back. I think they've got that disgusting meat thing you like." He makes a face. "It certainly smelled like it." From halfway out the door, he adds: "I'll ask for a bath too."

Fuck, it sounds nice. It sounds perfect, and Jaskier shouldn't be doing any of it for him. Not while Geralt is still standing, and not while he's yet to earn his forgiveness.

Jaskier leaves, and Geralt waits. 

He sits on the only wooden chair in the room, and undoes his armor, and waits. Jaskier returns with hot food and a small smile, a little smug and a little fond and reminiscent of the first birdsong of spring. 

"One crime against all cuisine, everywhere, steaming hot." He announces, placing the bowl into Geralt's hands. He can't help it, it makes him smile.

The food isn't so bad. It's pork and ochra stew, with some sort of grain too. Eskel cooks it in the winter. A past lover of his used to cook it, and decades later he makes it for them still. Geralt likes it for the way it still makes him smile a twisted, sad smile whenever he first tastes it. 

Jaskier is making a face of disgust over from the bed where he is sat, but Geralt likes that too. He's always done it.

It shifts into something softer in a moment. "Asked about a bath, but no such luck. They'll bring up a basin later." Jaskier informs him.

Geralt doesn't have the words to thank him. Jaskier doesn't expect him to. 

"The festival was wonderful. A real shame you couldn't make it." He says absentmindedly, tearing into a milkbun he'd gotten for himself. There's one for Geralt too.

Geralt could never repay him.

"I'm sorry I missed it." He says. 

"It was incredibly loud and full of glee. Not quite your speed, I'd say." Jaskier shrugs.

"No." Geralt agrees.

There's a beat, Jaskier spewing in his thoughts. He fidgets with his tunic for a minute, before he makes a frustrated sound. "What are you sorry for, then?" He asks.

He never was good with letting things go unspoken. He's staring expectantly, with that look of his that strips him bare and stirs the guilt. Jaskier asks for more than Geralt can give again, and the urge to snap is as great as it had been on the mountain. Geralt's not a steady mind; it's only shame that quells it.

"You don't need me to say it." He grits out.

Jaskier huffs. "Perhaps I want you to. Perhaps I've got no god-damned idea what it is that's got you even broodier than usual. It's just— I know something's going on, and if you have something to

tell me, Geralt, I'd really appreciate it if you'd just—"

"I'm sorry I'm late." He interrupts.

Jaskier stares like he's been hit. "What?"

"I thought I'd have been too late. You could've gone." He confesses.

The half-eaten bun slips out of Jaskier's hand. "You could never be too late." He blurts.

Thats the fucking problem.

Jaskier grimaces, like he knows Geralt's too fragile for the truth. The lines around his mouth deepen. Geralt doesn't notice it often, does his best to oblivious to it. He pretends not to notice when Jaskier needs to rest more often, looks away when he smiles for fear of being reminded that time passes and Jaskier's only human.

He's wasted half his life on him already. Geralt doesn't know what to do with that. He's not crafted for devotion; he's too full of cracks to bear the weight of it.

He grips the edge of the table so hard it splinters. "How long would you have waited for me, if I never came?"

Jaskier shakes his head. "It doesn't matter." He protests. "You came back. Why should it matter."

Geralt sighs. "It just does, Jaskier. You forgive me too much."

Jaskier trembles. He stands, just to the side of the bed, facing Geralt.

"Fuck you." He snaps. "You don't get to decide that for me. I thought, when you came back, you were going to stop trying to push me away. You— you apologized. You said you'd stop."

"I can't."

"No. You fucking bastard. You said you'd stop."

"Jaskier—"

"No! It's been twenty years, Geralt. Twenty whole years and you still can't let me in – I don't know what the hell you want from me."

Geralt feels like the wretched thing he's always been. He'd known it since the start: he could never be who Jaskier thought he was. He was fragile, just at the brink of shattering. He can't— can't let him in. He can't bear the weight of him, his kindness and his company, his friendship.

Can't bear to know it, to have him like he'd only ever feared, only to lose him. He can't soften, when it was hell getting his skin thick the first time. He knows, with harrowing certainty, that he won't survive it.

"You don't know what you're asking." He breathes.

Jaskier recoils. "I don't know what I'm asking? I'm asking you to let me be your friend. Some respect would be nice, and a compliment, every once in a while." He pants, hands grasping at nothing. "I'm asking you to trust me enough to make my own choices, even if that choice is you." He says.

Because Geralt is weak and selfish thing, he almost wants to. It makes his empty heart swell just to hear that he could and he wants—

Gods, he wants.

But he won't do that to him. He won't take Jaskier's life, even if he wants to give it.

"I'm a Witcher." He shouts. The chair makes an ugly sound as it drags on the wood and it clatters, and Geralt's standing, two steps away from Jaskier.

The bard scoffs. "That's a weak excuse. We both know you're man enough."

"There's a fucking reason Witchers are supposed to be alone."

"Bullshit." Jaskier spits.

Geralt steps closer, hates himself with an intensity that burns. "You know what I can do." He growls. "You know what I've done. I'd butcher Blaviken five times over for you, Jaskier! I shouldn't— I can't. Feel this way."

Jaskier inhales, fists clenching. "Well I don't need you to kill anyone for me." He says.

Geralt aches to look away, to flee. He doesn't. He holds Jaskier's gaze, steps eve closer. He needs him to understand.

"I can't give you what you need." He tells him.

"Why the hell not?"

"If I do— if I give in..." A grunt of frustration settles at his throat. He chokes it down; forces out the words with great effort.

"I won't be able to go without it." He confesses.

Jaskier lays a frantic palm at the center of his chest, and pushes. "You won't have to!" He promises, and Geralt almost surrenders.

"You're only human." He says instead.

For a moment, Jaskier doesn't answer. For a moment, nothing happens at all. And then Jaskier is stepping back, nodding as understanding settles in.

"I'll die."

"You'll die."

That's all there is to it.

But then: "Or, perhaps," Jaskier chastises, "you'll die first." His voice comes out strained, but he sucks in a breath and continues. "You would've died, What? At least fifty times already if I weren't there to stitch you up? Every time you go on a hunt, Geralt, I know you might not come back. I love you anyway."

He supposes it's true that Jaskier has always been braver than him. He's never shied away from pain, just tended to complain about it preemptively, loudly and at length. But it had been worth it to him, for a great adventure, a good fuck, a pretty view. For love, apparently.

He'd said it'd been torture, once, to wait for him to return from a hunt. Geralt had thought he'd been bored.

"I can't lose you, Jaskier." He begs. His last defence, and they both know it.

Jaskier says: "Don't be a coward."

Geralt kisses him.

~•~

They lay side by side, after. Stare at the same moldy ceiling, breathe in the same air. Jaskier's string calloused fingertips trace poetry over raised and reddened skin, through the few unscarred planes that persevere. They settle in the creases, travel to the edges of him and back.

Jaskier holds onto his hand simply because he wants to, and hums.

Geralt feels, so much it burns.

~•~

Jaskier sings a love song. A quiet one, slow, just for them. A pact, a deal like the one Geralt had been reluctant to agree on all these years ago.

He catches sight of him across the room and smiles, thin lines creasing around his eyes. Geralt sheds his cloak, places his freshly mended leathers on the chair. Jaskier sits with his back against the headboard, strumming the lute on his lap idly.

He sets it down beside him when Geralt reaches him. They share a kiss, soft and chaste, and Jaskier hums through that, too. He joins him on the bed – theirs, for two more nights – and lays his head down on his thigh, breathes him in.

"You're always very sweet to me the week after I almost die." He teases softly.

"Yeah." Geralt agrees, and listens to his heart beat fast and strong.

~•~

Another time, the monster's metaphorical. Nothing his swords could slay, so Geralt keeps Jaskier company, and talks. Tells him all about Kaer Morhen, all the things he'd like to show him come winter.

Jaskier, of course, talks back. Asks him more questions than everyone else combined ever has, then laughs at some of his anecdotes and pales at others, swatting at is arm and declaring that that's not normal at all, Geralt.

"Don't tell Vesimir." Geralt jokes, and Jaskier's eyes sparkle.

"Maybe I will." He decides.

"It's your life." He replies and shrugs, but what he means is I love you.

"You'll protect me won't you? Or have you gotten slow." Jaskier says back, and what he means is I know.

"I can do fast." Geralt says, and Jaskier laughs wickedly, surging forward with purpose.

Geralt won't ever get used to it, the ease and the lust and the ferocity of him. He meets it with his own, a growling laugh trapped between their burning lips.

He gets him off fast, like he'd promised, lays down beside him afterwards. He doesn't startle when Jaskier turns into his body and drapes an arm over his middle. He strokes Jaskier's back tenderly, like he'd taught him. He's been showing him how to be soothing, gentle.

Geralt no longer becomes undone by every gentle touch, no longer hesitates to hold. His hand trails up Jaskier's spine just to feel him shiver, then settles at the back of his head, the soft hair there.

He's been crafted for violence, grown up in its belly, but in between, he gets this. Soft and easy, and human.

"Thank the Gods you're stubborn." Geralt murmurs, and Jaskier laughs into his chest.

"Thank the Gods." He agrees.