Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time they meet, Jaskier is young, and glib, and so painfully naive that Geralt is nearly fooled into believing he's only what he appears to be. But there's the sharp-sweet tang of hunger about him, and just enough ruthless pragmatism that Geralt finds himself, against his better judgment, not completely writing him off. He might not be too soft for this world, after all.

The bard approaches Geralt with the kind of fearlessness he's only ever seen in those who don't know what it is to be hated, and he doesn't back off even when he realizes what Geralt is. But Geralt saw how the other patrons reacted to him, and saw further how he turned their disdain to his advantage. Dignity rarely fills an empty belly.

Geralt trails behind as they wend their way back to Posada, letting the bard rove ahead. The young man disquiets him: mannered as a noble, but penniless; parroting the falsehoods of his teachers, but absorbing the truths he's presented with; lettered, but lacking the sense to be afraid of a witcher. A walking, talking, singing contradiction.

Geralt prefers knowing how to react to things by knowing how those things will react to him. It makes life simpler.

He sees the bard out of the badlands without further incident, and he's… it's good, to be free of him. The bard's fate is his own, now, and no longer to be on Geralt's conscience.

He leaves Roach at a hitching post with a trough and goes in search of the farmer who'd hired him -- Nettly, the bard had called him. He's not at the tavern he'd been in before, but the barmaid who'd served Geralt earlier suggests he check a different establishment.

Evening has come on, and the crowd here is thicker and livelier. It takes Geralt a few minutes to locate the farmer, and longer to work his way through the crowd without jostling anyone; no one is ever eager to rub elbows with a witcher.

"Your grain is safe," he tells the farmer, in the kind of flat, decisive tone that he has found does not invite further questions. Nettly swallows, glances at the blood on Geralt's forehead, and bobs his chin, and Geralt accepts that as all the thanks he'll get. At least he's not wiping spittle off his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the mighty witcher, the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia!"

The bard's voice rings across the tavern -- he has a talent for volume, at least -- and Geralt finds himself turning very slowly, incredulity gripping his limbs. The bard's wide smile twitches uneasily when he sees Geralt staring at him, then he looks away and launches into the song he'd been bouncing off the canyon walls all the way back into town.

It's not unlike having too many potions in his system, the shocky, disconnected feeling that this cannot possibly be happening. And the crowd…

… seems to enjoy it.

The bard's voice soars on the final note, and there are cheers, and a stomping of boots that seems ill-advised for a building halfway up a stone butte. A short, round man, sweat shining on his bald pate, steps up to him belly-first and says, "Did all of that really happen, Witcher?"

He glances up to see the bard's eyes, wide and imploring, and Geralt, it seems, has had too much of the citrus-tang of hunger in his nose today. "The bard tells the tale better," he says, loudly enough for all the nearby listening ears, which is both true and sure to be misinterpreted by his audience. The bard in question huffs out a breath of mingled disbelief and relief that only Geralt can hear over the roaring of the crowd, before said crowd demands the song again.

The bard is right, after all. Respect doesn't make history. And most people want to be lied to.

Geralt is in motion again before the first chorus, but before he can make his way to the door, a bar matron presses a tankard of ale into his hand. "I didn't order this," he says, but she shakes her head when he tries to hand it back.

"Me nephew died to them elven scum," she says, in a broad country accent, and bustles away before he has the chance to reply.

He thinks about setting the ale down untouched, but it's been a long day, he still has no coin in his purse, and refusing the drink won't change anything about the world. So he sinks back against the wall to finish the ale, then drops the empty tankard onto the bartop and slips outside.

He hasn't gone a hundred paces before there's the quick, hollow clomp of steps jostling the bridge behind him, and he whirls before he can be overtaken. It's the bard, grinning, face flushed, his ridiculous fringe of hair flopping into his eyes, and he catches himself on a support rope, a cloth bundle in one upraised hand and Filavandrel's lute bouncing against his hip.

"Sorry! I -- sorry, you're probably not a big fan of people sneaking up on you, are you?"

There was nothing sneaky about -- any part of that -- but Geralt is satisfied that he's not a threat, and so he turns to continue on. Undeterred, the bard steps up to keep pace beside him.

"Thrown out already?" Geralt asks, and sees the bard shaking his head from the corner of his eye.

"Hardly! But a wise bard knows when to leave the audience wanting more."

"I've never met one."

"One what?"

"A wise bard," he says, and glances over to see the bard's mouth flapping indignantly.

"I -- am going to let that go, because you're right, where are my manners." He ducks in front of Geralt as they step onto solid ground, forcing him to halt, and gives him a bow, no less graceful for being quickly executed. "Jaskier, troubadour, poet -- and barker -- at your service."

Geralt looks at him dispassionately for a moment, then steps around him.

"And of course, you're Geralt of Rivia," he goes on, as if somehow Geralt needed to be reminded. Those courtly manners again, requiring an introduction to be reciprocated. "I really think that 'White Wolf' bit went over well, don't you?"

He doesn't answer -- really, the bard speaks enough for the both of them. Jasker hurries to catch up to him. "Where are we going, by the way?"

"I'm making camp," Geralt says shortly. "I've no idea where you're going."

"With you, of course," Jaskier says, as if there's any of course about choosing to keep company with a witcher. He would think the bard had been sun-touched, if he hadn't been like this the entire fucking day.

Roach has her head bent near one of the other horses at the hitching post, and is displeased to be untied, whuffing in his face. "Sorry, Roach," he murmurs, meaning for not holding back the coin to give her a nice stabling for the evening.

The bard backs hastily away as he wheels Roach around, hands half-raised as if Geralt's earlier warning not to touch her actually sank in, and Geralt huffs out a laugh as he turns toward the foothills.

Again, the bard scurries to pace him. "You'll see, witcher, this partnership will benefit the both of us."

"We're not partners," Geralt bites out.

"Even so," Jaskier says blithely. "You've had just the first taste of what I can do for your reputation. Alas, even with my skills -- which are considerable -- one song does not make a repertoire, and so I must have more material."

It cannot be natural for any one person to talk so much. If his medallion weren't wholly silent, he would strongly suspect a curse.

"Now, is witchering more of a daytime or nighttime endeavor, generally speaking? How do you prefer to do your monster-hunting?"

"Alone," he seethes. If he believed in gods, it might be a prayer.

"Oh, I really admire this whole dramatic aversion to dialogue that you have going on, but you'll have to open up at some point. I can be very persistent when the mood strikes."

This isn't the fucking mood? If not, he'll have to hope that it strikes hard enough to knock the bard unconscious.

He's unspeakably grateful when a landmark he'd passed on the way back to town looms up ahead, and he turns from the path, toward a sandy clearing he'd noted earlier. The bard, because why would he not, follows. "You'll scarcely know I'm there," Jaskier says, as if his chattering weren't driving away any hopes of finding game nearby, consigning Geralt to another night of whatever dried rations are in his saddlebags. He leads Roach to a halt, looping her reins over a scraggly tree branch, then turns to stare at the bard, in one last hope that he'll change his mind about the adventure and excitement of sleeping rough in the wild.

He's rarely been called optimistic, but perhaps that's what that was, expecting the prospect of a night in the wilderness to deter the idiot. He had, after all, followed Geralt all the way to the Edge of the World and back.

The bard, instead of looking taken aback, simply holds up his cloth sack. "Did I mention I brought dinner?" he says, in a softer, more serious voice. "It's not much, but I do hate to eat alone."

Fuck.

It's just that it's foolish to turn down a free meal. That's all. That's the only reason he sighs, and nods, and decides to build a fire near the rock where the bard sits down, unfolding his bundle and dividing up his meagre spoils.

Turns out there's bread, and cheese, and cold sausages, and even a small wineskin, though the bard makes a face when he tries it. "I can even assure you that none of this bread has been down my pants," he says lightly, and when Geralt smirks at that, his grin gleams in the firelight.

At some point, Jaskier brushes his fringe of hair back, and were Geralt not a witcher, he might have missed the quick breath that stutters into a wince. He's still got a gash on his forehead from their capture, but he drops his hand quickly, as if to not call attention to it.

Geralt stares out into the darkness for a moment, then pushes himself to his feet quickly enough that the bard startles. "Is something out there?" he asks, but Geralt ignores the question. Of course there is. There always is. But that's not his purpose.

He stalks to his saddlebags, retrieving a small pot and bringing it back to Jaskier. "Here," he says, and Jaskier glances up at him, looking impossibly young with the light playing over his face. Geralt waves his hand, a bit awkwardly, and adds, "For your head."

"Thank you," Jaskier says, in a tone of soft surprise, and his smile is shy and genuine. Geralt looks away, crossing back to his seat and taking up a stick to nudge at the fire.

Jaskier rests the pot between his knees, holding his hair out of the way with one hand and dabbing on the ointment with the other, in deft, neat little strokes. His mouth tightens a little at some points, but he makes no complaint, though Geralt knows the ointment to sting over raw flesh.

Even Geralt knows that bards make their living with face as well as voice, particularly one as fresh-faced as Jaskier. Letting him take a scar that could be avoided would be a shitty way to repay him for the meal, even for Geralt.

"I'm sorry, did you need -- ?" Jaskier asks, holding the ointment up, and that's when Geralt realizes he's kept eyes on the bard for longer then he'd meant to; it was hours ago that he'd decided the best deterrent for a professional attention-seeker would be to ignore him. He grimaces at his own mistake, and Jaskier misreads it. "Oh, not that the mildly battered look is a bad one for you, it helped sell the story, really, it just looks a bit… painful?"

"I heal quickly," he says, both to end the talking, and to forestall the idea that such minor injuries as the cut on his forehead were a concern for him; the urge not to seem vulnerable in front of the bard is overwhelming. He'd actually meant to clean the cut, earlier, but this has been one of the weirder days of his life.

The bard sang about him. People applauded.

"Good, yeah, that's good," Jaskier says, bringing him back to the present. He leans forward, rapt and eager, and says, "Now, is that a witcher thing, or a Geralt thing, or what? How quickly is 'quickly'?"

There's honest, naked interest on his face, and Geralt draws in a breath. There's no fear, no disgust, no envy on the air, not even any morbidity in his curiosity. Nothing but simple fascination.

"We're not doing this," he rasps out, and stands again, to fetch blades and oil and whetstone from Roach.

He never drew a weapon today, but he feels the need to occupy his hands.

Meditation eludes him that night.

He finds himself instead staring at the soft, vulnerable curve Jaskier makes in the darkness, curled on his side. He'd dropped off to sleep quickly, doublet folded under his head, one hand brushing the wood of Filavandrel's lute, and no hesitation about giving the witcher his unguarded back.

Instinct and intellect were the pillars of a witcher's training. The body was taught to respond without conscious thought, instinct ground deep into muscles and bones by endless training. The briefest moment of indecision can get witchers killed.

Training of the mind was no less rigorous -- the habits and habitats of monsters, how to know them and to kill them with metal and magic. How to make potions and balance the brutal play of poisons in the body.

How not to react to the fear and hatred of humans who are only too glad to see him when there's danger and only too glad to see the back of him when it's gone.

The bard is a mystery to intellect and instinct both.

Though Geralt knows better than to ever write off a human as harmless, Jaskier seems to pose no threat to anything save his sanity. If he poses no threat, that should make him either useful or inconsequential, and though it was good not to have to dip into his traveling rations, one shared meal is not enough to prove usefulness.

And yet, something in him resists writing the bard off as inconsequential.

He's unworldly and effete, but there's a core of something more to him. Whether it's courage or foolhardiness is difficult to say; he snarls at elves threatening to slit his throat and follows a witcher who's already punched him in the gut once.

But he seems to know how to subsist on the scraps thrown at him by people who detest him. Perhaps that's what he senses about the bard: the act of rebellion that it is to survive in a hostile world.

No matter. Geralt knows better than to grow attached. Blood, or boredom, will drive the bard away soon enough.

The Path is no place for delicate things.

He wrenches his sword through the back of the kikimora's thorax, ripping out the nerves along the way, and it collapses like an unstrung puppet, its last breath escaping with a hiss.

Geralt heaves a few breaths himself, but the charnel stink of the thing's cave is too vile with the potion still in his system, and he turns for the exit. He can come back later for the organs.

Jaskier is standing at the cave mouth, one palm flat against the rocky wall, his mouth hanging open. Geralt hopes he's not planning to vomit; he'd rather not be subjected to that, either.

Miraculously, the bard doesn't; in fact, nothing whatsoever comes from his mouth while he trails Geralt back to the campfire where Geralt had left him in the first place. The silence is so uncharacteristic that, as he loosens his sword belt about his waist, Geralt feels compelled to mutter, "If you're a doppler, I should warn you, the bard is more trouble than he's worth."

"That… was the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen," Jaskier breathes. The sincerity in it snaps his head up before Geralt can think better of it. He realizes his mistake instantly, but too late; he can see the widening of Jaskier's eyes, the tremor in his upraised hand as he takes in Geralt's face, corpse-pale and black-eyed, betrayed by the fire he built too well. "You -- you look…"

He doesn't finish. Geralt knows all the words that could follow -- unnatural, terrifying, monstrous -- but Jaskier's fingers unfurl, stretch out, toward him, like an impulse he hasn't even noticed. Geralt freezes, though he's not sure whether it's because no one's ever dared reach for him with anything but violence while the toxicity of his mutations bleeds across his face, or because the thought of those gentle fingers on him while his senses are so sharp is too overwhelming to bear.

His gloves slip along the loosened belt, and he doesn't need to see the wetness there because the clear night air is quickly overlaid with copper. "Fuck," he mutters, and looks for the wound; the potions may help him fight, but the way they mask injuries is not always a blessing.

"You're hurt," Jaskier says, and if there's an odd tone to it, well, there's fuck all Geralt can do about it. He finds the rent in the leather over his ribs where a pincer caught him, blood seeping through the tear, and uses his teeth to pull off his gloves so that he can unbuckle his spaulders and rerebraces. When the chestplate comes off, he has to peel the black shirt wetly away from his skin; the fabric is ripped at right angles, and the torn point is conspicuously missing.

"Fuck," he hisses again, more sharply, and at the edge of his vision, Jaskier twitches.

"Can I," Jaskier asks, and Geralt hears him swallow, and fights the urge to curl in on himself. "How can I help?" he breathes, and Geralt looks up to see him, pale but determined, his hands twining themselves around one another.

For a moment, the words make no sense. Has he ever been asked that before? He can't be sure.

"Water," he eventually says, tipping his head in the direction of the nearby stream. It should be safe enough for now; the presence of a kikimora in the area will have driven away other predators.

With Jaskier gone, he unfastens his vambraces so he can strip off the shirt, unsheathes his narrowest dagger, and grits his teeth.

The wound has already started closing, so he has to slice along the raw red flesh to open it far enough; hot new rivulets join the mess soaked into his waistband. When he slips two fingers inside, the pain is still muted, but sweat breaks out across his skin, and the world spins sickeningly; he should have lain down, he should have found a rock or a tree to lean again, but he didn't want --

-- solid warmth against his back, bracing against his biceps, and he hangs his head and breathes until the grey recedes from the edges of his vision.

He's not sure whether he belatedly decides to sit, or his knees buckle, but he ends up on the ground more gently than he expected, and there's a fluttery presence beside him that resolves itself into Jaskier.

"What are -- is pain some sort of witcher fetish that I should know about?" he asks, his voice high and strained, and Geralt almost feels like he should laugh but he doesn't have the breath for it.

"A piece tore off my shirt," he says hoarsely, indicating the wound with his gore-covered hand. "If I leave it in there, it will fester."

"Melitele's tits," Jaskier breathes, and Geralt thinks he's not wrong.

The pain is starting to sharpen, and he doesn't have much time, so he tries again, ignoring Jaskier's harsh intake of breath. He snags the bloody swatch of cloth, and matches it up to the hole in his bloody shirt, and pretends that the grip on his shoulder that lowers him into the oncoming darkness could be anything.

He wakes, and with the knowledge that he is awake comes the certainty that waking should be a far more unpleasant ordeal.

His head is propped on something stiff but slightly yielding -- leather, probably saddlebag -- and there's an inexpert bandage covering his side. He can smell the salve he'd given the bard and never taken back, smeared liberally over the wound, and when he glances down, he can see that most of the blood has been wiped off, too.

Jaskier is sitting on a log by the fire, his notebook open on his knee, quill resting atop it. He isn't writing, though; instead, he's staring into the flames -- ruining what passes for night vision in a human, but it seems churlish to point that out right now.

Geralt opens his mouth and realized he's fucking thirsty; both waterskins are by his hand, and he downs the first one entirely before attempting to sit up.

It hurts, of course -- the ribs always do -- but he's had far worse, and he only grunts at the effort.

"Geralt," Jaskier says, and his notebook tries to slide off his knee; he traps it with one palm without looking, the other hand half-extended in Geralt's direction. "Are you -- should you be doing that?"

He takes a long pull from the other waterskin, then gets his feet under him. "Where's my sword?"

The bard twists around and retrieves it from where it had been sitting out of view; it's not entirely clean, not to a witcher's senses, but he's about to dirty it again anyway. At least Jaskier had the sense not to sheathe it covered in entrails. "Is it not… dead?" Jaskier asks, looking alarmed. "It really looked very dead, back there, what with the…" He makes some sort of gesture that is probably supposed to emulate a sword strike and very much does not.

"It's dead," he replies. Bending for the saddlebag makes him hiss, but he retrieves the oilcloth he needs. "You can watch me cut out its liver, if you think there's a song to it."

"I -- thank you for the kind offer, Geralt? But I think that might be a verisimilitude too far? If you catch my meaning."

He smirks as he turns away. Not bothering with a shirt -- no need to get kikimora guts on anything else tonight -- he heads back to the cave.

He takes the liver, and the bile sac, too, in case the town has a dye-maker. Roach tosses her head at the noxious parcel, and he pats her neck for her forbearance.

He turns back to the fire. Jaskier is watching him, and holds out the scrap of cloth he'd clearly used, earlier, to clean the worst of the kikimora from Geralt's sword. He settles himself a little ways from the bard, so as not to skewer him while repeating the task, and sets hands to work while waiting for whatever question lurks behind the crease in Jaskier's forehead, the tightness around his mouth.

It takes longer than he expected, and it's not a question he was expecting. "Does that sort of thing happen often?"

"I kill monsters," he says, nonplussed. He's a witcher. Jaskier knows this.

"No, I -- well, that is, I…"

He glances over to see that Jaskier's staring at the bandage. Ah. "Often enough."

He tests the edge of the blade with his thumbnail, looking for chipping or rolling. Jaskier's eyes rove over his arms, his bare torso, lingering over the scars that cross his body, and Geralt makes no move to either hide or display them.

This is the life. If his scars don't match whatever romantic ideal Jaskier still has in his head about clean kills and untouchable monster hunters, he'll have to learn to live with unforgiving reality.

Jaskier meets his eyes again. The bard seems to have an infinite variety of expressions, but this is one he's seen before: it's the same look he'd had when Filavandrel cut their ropes and let them go.

He still doesn't know what it means.

So he does now what he'd done then: he goes about his business. Tends to his blades and his armor. If Jaskier wants to spend the evening watching him, that's his choice, and as it doesn't interfere with Geralt's tasks, it's not his concern.

It's not until much, much later, when Geralt has gingerly laid himself down to rest, that he hears the faint scratch of quill moving over paper.

"Civilization, Geralt!" the bard exclaims, throwing his hands out as he walks beside Roach and smacking Geralt's calf in the process; Roach snorts at that, which means Geralt doesn't have to, but it's a near thing. "Or at least the closest thing one can get, in this backwatery, off-the-beaten-path part of the country."

The bard is at full performance volume, which means loud; a trio of women with washbaskets in hand give him the kind of look that Geralt is used to receiving himself. He doesn't so much kick the bard as shove him in the shoulder with his boot, but it's a near thing.

Jaskier's sole reaction is to absently brush the dirt from his doublet.

"With manners like that, it's a wonder you're not wanted at court," he rumbles.

"None has yet to deserve me," he says, waving a hand distractedly at Geralt, still looking about like a man on a mission to get pickpocketed. Geralt is certain that he has never before in his life been shooed like a wandering chicken.

It's true that the town is a small one, but it's bustling; judging by the carts and wheelbarrows narrowing the lanes around them, they've arrived during market day. Even so, Geralt is given a wide berth; children are tugged from his path by women with darting eyes, men glower at him from the other side of the street.

He can tell that Jaskier, too, notices how the crowd parts around them like a river flowing past a half-submerged corpse. At least it's harder for the bard to insult anyone from a pike-length away.

He finds the tanners's row by smell alone; Roach balks a bit when he turns her head that way, but it's the way Jaskier falters that has him pausing at the top of the lane.

The bard's face is twisted into a grimace. "Geralt, I… I'm afraid this is where we part ways, my friend," he says, his voice oddly thick. "Roach, you're in charge," he adds, patting her shoulder.

It hits him like a blow to the chest; for a moment nothing seems to work properly, and he can't draw a clean breath. Jaskier tosses him a salute, an elegant little wave, then turns to the crowd and is immediately absorbed by the mass of humanity.

Geralt sets his jaw, fists his hand around the reins, and guides Roach forward again. It's quieter, here, far from the village square, and Roach's hooves thud dully against the dry earth.

An apprentice directs him to the dye-makers nearby; like many towns, they group their most offensive industries together and delude themselves that the stink is confined only to certain streets. The kikimora's bile sac brings him some silver; Geralt doesn't haggle over the price, but the dye-maker meets his eyes for but a moment and makes him a fair offer.

There's feeling back in his chest now, but it aches.

He follows the dye-maker's directions to the apothecary, where he trades the liver for a bit more coin and a few supplies: herbs not native to this area, alcohol for a medium, phials to replace those he's lost or broken.

Then he takes Roach's reins and leads her toward the town's notice board. He's glad, now, that the crowd lets him pass untouched; he's in no mood to be jostled by humanity.

He finds the board and scans the notes without taking any of them in. Roach stamps, impatient, and Geralt shakes his head. The ache has traveled to the base of his skull and his neck is tight.

"Better to have it done with, Roach," he mutters. "You'd think I'd have learned the lesson, after all these years."

"What lesson would that be?"

He turns his head and stares, for just a heartbeat, but yes, Jaskier is standing beside him. The lute he'd been carrying over his shoulder is presumably in the new leather case he wears instead, and a small pack dangles next to it. Twin lines appear between Jaskier's eyebrows. "I hope you don't mind my saying so, but you look awful, Geralt. Did something happen?"

He chooses the less painful option, which is saying nothing. The alternate would be I thought you'd left, and then he'd have to eat one of his swords.

"Well, whatever it is that has that chiseled jaw clenched so tightly, you can tell me over lunch, all right? I've got a recommendation for a tavern that would be delighted to have some entertainment for the noon rush, and then afterwards, if you want, we can come back and glare at that town meeting announcement some more."

Geralt snorts out a breath, and some of the tension eases out of him, enough that he can roll his neck without it cracking. Jaskier is still looking at him with concern, and though the ache in his chest is fading, something else is thrumming beneath it, faint, but there.

"It's your coin," he says, and Jaskier's face smoothes over so quickly, it's like sunlight breaking through a cloud.

He ends up paying anyway, by having to sit through not one, but two songs about his, in Jaskier's words, "heroic exploits." Jaskier's new lute case catches the silver he's thrown, which doesn't gleam nearly as brightly as Jaskier's grin when he drops onto the bench afterward, leaning into Geralt's shoulder and stealing the last of his beer.

Throwing himself through the second-storey window of a decaying country mansion in the middle of the night is not the stupidest thing Geralt's ever done, but that's faint consolation on the way down.

He lands on the cracked, mossy stones of the carriage yard with a grunt, glass raining down around him. It crunches beneath his boots as he staggers to his feet, staring wildly about for a glimpse of his attacker, but decades of neglect and untended growth have turned what must once have been a pleasant court into a haven for strange-edged shadows. The moonlight seems to slide around them like oil, seeping into the stones rather than illuminating them.

There's the faintest of shifts in the air, and he spins away. An ear-splitting shriek pierces the night as pain lances across his back, and the strike meant to rip out his spine tears below his shoulder blade, instead.

The alpor screams again, and makes as if to lick his blood from her claws, but instead just gives him an obscene display of her pointed, too-long tongue, and doesn't that just complete her grotesque parody of a naked, shapely young woman.

"Fuck," he spits out, and bolts for the half-collapsed carriage house.

She's toying with him, lets him get a lead before following him, her fetid breath quickly upon his neck. He throws himself through the doorway, landing hard -- again, his body is quick to remind him -- and she stops just outside, striking a coquettish pose above him that's ruined by her unnatural, disjointed elbows.

"Witcher," she hisses, and gurgles in what might be a laugh. "I've never had witcher before."

She tilts her head then, turns just a bit, as if she's heard a noise, and something icy and merciless stops his breath for an instant.

"You know what they say," he rasps, shoving himself away from her, leaving a smear of blood along the dirt floor. The alpor's attention snaps back to him, a predator's instinct. "Once you go mutant, you never go back."

She hisses again, hungry, and flings herself through the doorway, claws and fangs arrowing for his neck.

The Yrden sign he'd drawn earlier flares to life, and her screech this time is of shock and pain. He pushes himself to his feet, less hurt than he'd led her to believe, and in the same motion, buries a long silver knife in the meat below her jaw. With both hands on the hilt, he shoves and twists, and the blade comes free in a spray of thick black ichor.

The corpse drops to his feet, and he limps across the yard to the dilapidated stables, leaning heavily against the stone wall with his less-injured shoulder.

"I fucking hate Touissaint," Geralt grits out, because now that the alpor is dead, the most important thing is reestablishing that fact as soon as fucking possible.

"I'm starting to understand why." Jaskier, who has for once in his fucking life stayed away from the fighting, thank fuck, pushes open the creaky stable door. An uneasy look steals over his face as he looks over at the dead vampire. "They're not all nearly so enticing as the stories would leave one to believe, are they?"

"Few things are," Geralt replies, taking a moment to gather his strength.

Jaskier visibly wrestles his attention away from the corpse. "And yet it's important to give people what they expect, isn't it?"

That's a loaded fucking statement. Geralt scoffs, and tries to push himself away from the building, but the torn muscles across his back go into spasm, and he gasps.

"You're hurt," Jaskier says, reaching for him immediately, and Geralt shoves himself back out of range, despite the cost.

"Don't fucking touch me," he growls, and Jaskier's face just goes -- hollow, like he's been punched in the gut. Worse, actually -- he didn't look this bad when Geralt had actually punched him in the gut.

"Sorry, yeah, sorry," Jaskier breathes, faintly. "You're right, I shouldn't assume, I -- is there? Anything I can do?" he finishes, soft and steadfast, and Geralt grits his teeth, because it makes something burn under his ribcage, nearly as badly as the alpor's talons.

"Black blood. Toxic to monsters." Geralt grits his teeth. "I don't know what contact might do to a human."

He doubts anyone does; he doubts anyone has bothered to find out. it's not as if it's ever been a danger Geralt himself had to worry about, before.

He doesn't look too closely at the urge to explain. Nor does he think about how Jaskier's face is clearing, turning thoughtful instead of. Well.

"Oh, that's new," Jaskier says, blinking. "Is it because of the...?" He gestures at his own eyes with two fingers, while looking into Geralt's, though Geralt knows they're still as black as the night around them. "Must be," he murmurs absently to himself, not really waiting for an answer from Geralt. He recognizes the worry in Jaskier's hands, short twitchy movements nothing like their usual fluid grace, one hand gripping the other as if to keep them from mischief. The talk, he realizes, is Jaskier trying to soothe his own anxiety.

It's not forbidden to discuss witcher alchemy with humans, though Geralt can understand why Jaskier might think otherwise. He's seen how carefully Geralt mixes his potions and oils, as it's literally his life on the line, and perhaps he thinks Geralt only trusts the ones he makes himself. The simple truth is, no one's ever cared to ask.

"My bag," he rasps, and Jaskier startles briefly, before dashing back into the stables. Geralt limps over to a rain barrel around the corner, and Jaskier meets him there with the satchel. He pulls out a small round bottle, pauses, and then takes out a cylindrical one as well.

There's a bucket by the barrel, the lip rotted away, but it will serve well enough. He dunks it to fill it, then hands it to Jaskier. "Rinse the wound until the blood is no longer black," he says, gesturing over his shoulder, and downs the White Honey before he can think better of it, or Jaskier can ask any questions.

The night is instantly darker, colder, and agonizing; the brutal ache of his shoulder would be more of a concern, but the pain searing across his back steals all other thoughts. He faintly registers the bite of wood against his palms, as he grips the edge of the barrel so tightly he can feel it through his gloves. More prominent is Jaskier yelping out a curse, and then water is sluicing over his back, the cold making his muscles twitch and bringing a new dimension to the pain.

"It's red, Geralt, it's red but, shit, there is a lot of it," Jaskier hisses, tightly -- is he angry? -- and Geralt downs half the bottle of Kiss, holding the rest out to Jaskier.

"Pour this over the wound," he grits out, and Jaskier's fingers shake when he takes the bottle.

The searing pain quiets to a warning burn, like standing too close to a fire, and Geralt draws a deep, careful breath, then another.

Vesemir would give him five kinds of hell for using the White Honey like that, neutralizing both the poison and the healing potion already in his system. But Vesemir isn't here, and Jaskier is, and he could not abide the risk. Some kinds of pain are more easily endured than others.

Jaskier is suspiciously quiet, and Geralt manages to straighten -- carefully -- and haul himself around to face him. There's a mulish set to Jaskier's mouth, but even without a potion, Geralt's night vision is sharp enough to see that his eyes are glossy and rimmed in red.

"You could have fucking warned me, Geralt, I thought you were going to bleed out all over my boots," he says, and Geralt glances down, on the verge of making a remark about those boots. But Jaskier's voice is clipped and tight, in a way that makes Geralt think that, for all the bard's exclamations and theatrics, he's never truly seen him upset before.

Not like this.

But something about Jaskier -- it's difficult, to say genuine things to him. And so Geralt reaches out, wraps his palm around Jaskier's forearm, tries to communicate with pressure and warmth what he can't articulate.

It must work -- something about it must work -- because Jaskier reaches back to him, his hand finding its way to Geralt's elbow, one of the few spots above his waist not covered by armor. His grip is tight, too tight, perhaps, for a normal man, but Geralt is a witcher, and it's fine.

The first version of Jaskier's song about the vampire is not well received.

Geralt prefers not drinking in taverns where Jaskier is singing about him. His mutations ensure that he's stared at wherever he goes; he's had decades to become inured to the whispers, the glances that might be fearful, hateful, disdainful; mere indifference is a blessed luxury.

The stares he gets while Jaskier spins his life into fanciful tales are different, and so much worse; it's like his skin has been boiled off him, peeled away and leaving him exposed.

But they're still in fucking Toussaint, and this is wine country, so he takes a table in the back of the only tavern that serves beer and tries to blend with the shadows.

He tries not to show overt interest in Jaskier's performance, lest any of the audience who care to make the connection haven't yet. But Jaskier's been into the wine, had a goblet or two pressed upon him already, and it's made his cheeks rosy, his voice rich and warm and inviting.

Then he tries out his newest composition, and the mood turns against him at his description of the vampire. Or, perhaps, they've stumbled upon a town of grammarians who object to his rhyme of slavering and ravening; it's hard to say.

Jaskier, his head down for a moment, misses the turn, until a goblet sails past his ear. He stops, looking up, seeming almost more surprised than offended.

"I -- is there a problem, milady?" he asks. Far more politely than he might have, but the young woman in question has five more friends at her table, all of them similarly armed and glaring at him in feminine outrage.

"You know nothing about vampires," says the aggressor.

"You can't talk that way about them," adds her friend.

"It's fucking rude," from a third, strident and vicious.

"Are we possibly not talking about the same kind of creature?" Jaskier asks carefully. "Big shiny fangs, thirst for blood, desperate need of a manicure or several?"

"They're not evil, they're tragic," chimes in a fourth, slamming her goblet down hard enough that wine slops over the metal rim.

"Nothing like real monsters," says the first one, pushing herself up from the table. "Not like the one back there in the corner."

And she points directly at Geralt.

Ah. Likely not upset about the rhyme, then.

All eyes swivel to Geralt, and suddenly he's back on familiar ground.

No one seems to have the drive -- or be deep enough in their cups -- to lead the charge against him, though, so that's fine. He finishes his drink with the well-known weight of unfriendly stares on him, stands without any particular hurry, drops coin on the table, and takes up his bundled swords. No one blocks his way to the door, and he's soon enough outside.

He doesn't always have the luxury of finishing his drink. He's had worse nights.

In fact, ordinarily, he might not even leave at this point; the quiet seething of others is hardly his concern. Jaskier has a livelihood to earn, though, just as Geralt does; he won't make it any harder for him to do so.

But there's a whirlwind of bard beside him before he's even finished untying Roach, lute case banging awkwardly against his side in a way that seems like it would be uncomfortable. "Can you believe -- ! Of all the ignorant, vile, unmitigated -- !"

"Yes," Geralt says calmly.

"I -- I -- I -- what?" Jaskier says, a little wild-eyed, hands on his hips. The color is still in his face, burning spots high on his cheekbones now. "'Yes', what?"

It's almost funny -- Jaskier considers himself such an expert on the human heart, and yet. "I believe it," Geralt says simply, and begins leading Roach away.

Jaskier falls into step beside him, and Geralt frowns at him. "You didn't finish," he says. He knows Jaskier has more songs in his regular rotation, and he's seen him bring unruly crowds back under his sway before.

Now Jaskier's frowning back at him, almost as if he's mad at Geralt. "Fuck that," he says, and shakes his head, as if he's had to state the obvious and, as he once put it, it pained his very soul to do so. "Those louts don't deserve to have their spirits lifted by a single note."

Geralt huffs out a breath, feeling the corners of his mouth curl up.

Later, Geralt sits on a log by the fire, with an awl and one of his pauldrons in hand. The buckle has been sticking of late, and he's trying to widen the hole without splitting the leather.

Jaskier is on the ground beside him, back braced against the same log. One knee is bent, and he has his notebook resting on it, but he hasn't brought out his lute, and he hasn't written a word. He just taps his quill against the notebook, and bites the inside of his lip, and stares somewhere around his boots.

They're not touching, but they're close enough that Geralt could comb fingers through his wind-tossed hair, if he wanted to. He'd barely need to reach out at all.

In an irony that Geralt will never admit to anyone, not now and not on his dying day, it's the quiet that gets to him.

Jaskier composing is like a babbling brook -- snatches of song repeated over and over, different wording, different notes, with his lute and without it. Murmuring to himself, asking questions and giving his own answers, raising his voice to ask Geralt questions, and then proceeding as if he'd answered when he hasn't.

Jaskier, quiet, sometimes means contentment, but more often means distress. He smells of anger and disappointment, but he'd placed himself next to Geralt, which, for the bard, tends to mean he's not averse to interaction.

Which is why Geralt decides to say something. He generally tries to leave Jaskier be, when it comes to his work. But Jaskier has aided Geralt before, and so, perhaps, Geralt might be forgiven his trespass.

He's grown unused to initiating conversations, though, except with Roach, or when a transaction is underway: buying supplies, returning for the coin that he's owed. Get burned often enough, and one stops putting one's hand in the fire. So he gropes around for an opening, and settles on:

"The song wasn't bad."

"What?" Jaskier says, and then turns his head to stare at Geralt, incredulity creasing his features. "Wait, I'm sorry, I'm not sure which part to address first: my astonishment that you've finally deigned to offer an opinion on my songsmanship? The overwhelming tepidity of said opinion? Or how said opinion is clearly in the decided minority, given how acutely everyone else in the tavern responded to the song in question by running us out of town."

Geralt lets the torrent of words rush past him without interruption. One has to drain the infection from a wound, lest it get worse. He lets the revisionist history go as well, though it bemuses him as always when Jaskier decides to rewrite the dreary into the dramatic.

"The song wasn't bad," he repeats, when Jaskier runs down, and he wonders at himself; he never repeats himself, because why would anyone listen the second time after ignoring him the first. "But they weren't ready to hear it."

Jaskier turns, then, resting his arm on the log between them, a hairsbreadth from Geralt's thigh. He looks thoughtful, now, his brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what you mean? That one was all true; I know how you feel about it when I embellish the tale."

Geralt hums in answer to that, because it lodges something under his breastbone, something he can't define, and he's not even sure whether it's about Jaskier guessing so close to his thoughts, or Jaskier changing what he writes because of how he thinks Geralt might react.

He buys himself a moment by setting the pauldron aside, resting the awl atop it against a row of studs so that it won't roll away. The deep breath he takes doesn't shift the knot in his chest, and so he chooses to ignore it. That which cannot be cured must be endured.

"People say they want the truth, but they rarely do," he says, meeting Jaskier's eyes. "They prefer a lie they can believe."

Jaskier nods, though of course Geralt isn't telling him anything he doesn't already know. Respect doesn't make history, after all. But Jaskier seems content to listen to him, his expression open, blue eyes clear and calm, with the same deceptive depth as warm ocean waters.

Geralt has the ridiculous impulse to brush his fringe away from his brows, the better to see him. He doesn't, of course.

Instead, he brings himself back to the conversation, which is more difficult than it should be. "You lost them when you tried to convince them their beloved local myth was a monster."

"Which -- she was," Jaskier says, spreading the fingers of the hand that's braced against the log. His fingertips brush the seam of Geralt's trousers.

"To them, it was one lie too many," he says, and Jaskier's face draws up in confusion again. "You'd already asked them to believe a witcher could be a hero," he says, feeling his lips curl in a smirk. "Should've quit while you were behind."

"Geralt," Jaskier says, his voice surprisingly low for how his eyes are blazing. His hand curls into a fist, knuckles pressing into Geralt's thigh.

Jaskier's face is closer than it should be, and Geralt realizes that he's leaned in at some point. It's disturbing, to have lost control of himself like that. To be a witcher to is to control himself, his actions, his words, at all times. This is how he is allowed to live in the world of men.

He straightens, carefully. In control. He chooses to look away from Jaskier -- Geralt chooses, not some half-formed impulse or nebulous physical sensation -- and takes up the awl and the pauldron again.

"You may want to work on your rhymes, too," he says, continuing not to look at Jaskier. "'Ravening' and 'slavering' don't rhyme."

"It's called 'assonance', you -- ass," Jaskier says, somehow still subdued, but with a bit of fire in his voice. He turns away and starts muttering to himself, throwing in the occasional phrases like "uncultured barbarian" and "wouldn't know prosody from prolixity."

When he breaks out the lute, Geralt allows himself the briefest smile.

The next version is called "The Vampiress Wept." The vampire is a tragic figure, a monster who doesn't want to be one. The noble witcher mercifully puts her out of her misery.

It proves to be wildly popular, even outside Toussaint; Jaskier tends to play that one with an almost defiant level of melodrama. He starts to pick up more coin, and Geralt picks up more contracts -- which sometimes lead to money and sometimes to injury, but such is the Path.

Though he's loath to tell Jaskier such, the bard's efforts have made life a bit easier. Geralt is approached more often and driven away less frequently; his pay is more regularly handed over without protest when a job is finished.

Geralt has fewer qualms about allowing the situation to continue. It's… agreeable.

Which is, of course, when the bard announces that he really is leaving.

".. now, the festival itself lasts for a week, but many of the lords and nobles take advantage of having so many performers in town to throw the most extravagant parties. Why, a canny minstrel can even find themself with a permanent position... "

Jaskier has been going on for some time now, about some festival in Oxenfurt, his breath puffing in the chill air. The Redanian countryside they're passing through is unremarkable -- softly layered in snow, all but swallowing the occasional shuffle of small animals in the fields.

There's nothing else to draw his attention, or pass the time with, so he lets Jaskier natter on without comment. His enthusiasm helps keep Geralt from being lulled into complacency. And while Jaskier's schooling on history or the ways of monsters has often been colored by the agendas of his instructors, his knowledge of the current customs and politics of the greater cities of the Continent tends to surpass Geralt's. Though Geralt tries to stay far away from the affairs of royalty, royals often fail to take no for an answer, and it's good to have tools other than steel with which to deal with them.

The bard spins around, gesticulating dramatically to illustrate some point or other, walking backward as he faces Geralt and continues to ramble. His face is shining with delight, and Geralt has to avert his eyes for a moment.

There's a rut across the path, and he considers and discards the idea of warning Jaskier about it.

Jaskier stumbles, rights himself with a grin, then dips the courtliest bow to Geralt that he's ever received. The hood of his cloak flops forward over his face. "Never let it be said that Jaskier is not a full service entertainer," he says, brushing the hood back, and turns to keep pace when Roach reaches him.

Geralt hums, amused despite himself.

"So I'll pick up some supplies once we get to the next town, and then I'll be off first thing in the morning," Jaskier says, matter-of-factly. "This will be an amazing opportunity to share the tales of the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia, with a wider audience." He smiles up at Geralt. "Songs of your exploits will soon be crossing the Continent, Geralt. Just think of the exposure!"

Exposure being the very thing he suddenly seeks to avoid, Geralt focuses so fixedly on not looking down at Jaskier that his neck goes stiff.

He'd somehow allowed himself to become so distracted that the bard's true intent had eluded him until now.

He's no doubt that Jaskier can easily maneuver himself into one of those permanent positions, personal entertainer to a lord's house or even an appointment at court. He's young, charming, fair of face and manners, and when he remembers to play to the audience instead of his own cleverness, well-liked. As long as he keeps his dalliances from interfering with his employment, he can probably have his pick of soft, comfortable living arrangements.

Which is… good. Jaskier deserves a better life than blood and body parts, muddy trails and outdoor camps, singing for indifferent crowds, scraping for coin.

So Geralt will do nothing to keep him from that life. The bard has done as he promised; he's eased the Path a bit for Geralt. It's more than he expected, and asking for more still would be the basest selfishness.

It seems to take no time at all for Jaskier to provision himself once they reach town, and he finds Geralt at one of the inns, behind a tankard of beer. It's not his first.

"Some silver for the road, I think," Jaskier says, his eyes gleaming, and he's unstrapping his lute without even stopping to sit.

Geralt makes his way to his room before the second chorus. The crowd is lively and raucous, except in his immediate vicinity; he removes himself before he makes it worse.

In the morning, there's a sharp tap at his door, and he rolls off the bed he'd long since given up trying to sleep on. "Well, I'm off," Jaskier says, pack and lute over his shoulder, his face twitching in a tentative smile. "Wish me luck?"

Geralt tilts his head at him, and Jaskier laughs. "It was worth a shot," he says. "Take care of yourself, Geralt. Don't get into any trouble you can't get out of," he says, and winks.

"Likewise," Geralt says, and raises his eyebrows. Jaskier grins again, and then he's gone.

The stiffness in his neck has become an ache, and drink seemed to have no effect. Perhaps he can fuck it away, if the whores are willing enough.

Coin has never been particularly dear to Geralt, in and of itself. Useful for obtaining that which he cannot supply himself, armor and weapons, rare herbs, ale. Useful for proving to humans that what he provides is a service, not servitude, not charity. But it won't matter what riches his purse contains if his body is rotting in a swamp somewhere.

When he overstays his coin for three days of companionship, it's due to a simple miscalculation.

Nothing more.

On his return to Astfal, he goes first to check on Roach; if she's not been well cared for, his conversation with the innkeep will go very differently.

As soon as he gets near the stables, a well-swathed urchin hops off a low wall beside a brazier and takes off running: a lookout, no doubt. It doesn't change his course; he finds Roach and lets her grumble at him while he checks her over, then waits for what he assumes will be the innkeep.

But it's not, unless the man has lost considerable weight and developed a passion for running --

-- no, he knows that tread, but that's not possible. Its owner is in Oxenfurt.

He skids to a halt on the snowy cobbles and catches himself on the doorway. "Geralt?" he asks, meeting his eyes for an instant, and then Jaskier doubles over, hands on his knees, breathing hard. "Hoo, boy, definitely one too many pies, I'll be," and he holds up one finger, panting, "just give me one," and finally he straightens, his face red. "This winter air, really," he waves a hand near his face, "really does a number on the lungs, doesn't it?"

"Jaskier," he growls, without meaning to, but he is surprised, and tired, and in pain, and Renfri is far too close to the surface still. You'll never know if you made the right choice. "Why are you here?" he asks, to drown her out.

Jaskier steps inside, then. "Well, you may not believe this, Geralt, but it turns out..." He spreads his hands, as if in revelation. "... that bards are incurable gossips. So while I was in the middle of the most delightful salon, bending the ear of the Earl of…"

He trails off as he gets close enough to see the bandage still covering the side of Geralt's neck, and his eyes get very wide.

Geralt feels old, suddenly, every one of his years weighing on him. "Fuck off, bard," he mutters, and leads Roach out of her stall, shouldering past Jaskier on his way to the door. He'll take Roach with him to see the innkeep, so that he may leave this fucking place at the first opportunity.

The bard catches up with him in the lane. "Afraid I can't do that," he says breezily. "I may or may not have implied to various persons of note that I am your official chronicler and thus am bound to personally document your deeds and exploits for posterity."

Geralt says nothing.

"All right, I didn't, that's bollocks. As if you wouldn't punch any strange bards who came sniffing around looking for tales, anyway."

He glances at Jaskier, who spreads his hands in surrender.

"As you would any familiar bards who overstep their bounds, yes, yes, I know, big scary witcher."

Now he stares incredulously at Jaskier, who is starting to seem like he's trying to get punched again.

"I paid off your debt," Jaskier says lightly, and Geralt stops dead.

He has coin enough from Triss, now, but it's the gesture that surprises him.

Eventually, he says, "You could have led with that."

"I could have," Jaskier says, bobbing his head at Geralt. "You're welcome. But I couldn't take the chance you'd mount up and leave me behind. You had that sort of look about you."

He might have, at that. The furor in his head has died down now, though, driven away by Jaskier's chatter. The ache is easing away from his bones. It's enough.

"Now that that's settled, Witcher, allow me to buy you dinner and regale you with tales of the festival, the fête and the fait accompli therein -- "

"No," Geralt says, and takes a step forward.

Jaskier, who's apparently lost the smallest bit of self-preservation that he possessed, steps in front of him. "All right, fine, you can buy dinner, but I pick the venue."

Geralt breathes out through his nose. He could move the bard, of course. But it is late in the day, and the wind smells of snow. And subjecting Roach to a winter storm out of doors for the sake of Geralt's reckless restlessness would be poor recompense for having left her behind in the first place.

Jaskier seems to correctly read his surrender, possibly from the fact that the bard is still standing there, unharmed. "This way," he says, and leads them back through the town.

The inn, to Geralt's surprise, looks like one he might have chosen himself -- shabby, but workmanlike. The tavern is full of tradesmen and laborers who show no interest whatsoever in their arrival, which is how Geralt prefers it.

Jaskier, in turn, ignores the tables and goes straight to the bar, returning with two mugs and a pitcher. "He'll send dinner up to my room," he says, and indicates the staircase. "Shall we?"

Jaskier's room has two narrow beds, a narrower table, and not much else. Geralt sets his pack on the bed that smells less like the bard, and frowns around him. Jaskier's been here a few days, that much is clear by scent alone, but there's none of his characteristic sprawl. He's packed as if prepared to leave at a moment's notice.

A knock at the door keeps him from inquiring further, and Geralt trades a few coins for two bowls of stew, half a loaf of brown bread, and a wedge of hard cheese.

Despite his earlier threats, Jaskier is quiet throughout the meal, glancing up only to give Geralt a close-lipped smile when their eyes meet. Geralt is more comfortable than most with silence, but Jaskier is not, and Geralt does not like not understanding things that might affect him.

"Jaskier," he says, when the bard is all but finished with his meal. "Why are you here."

Jaskier lifts his head from where he'd been industriously swabbing up the last of his stew with the last of his bread. "Oh. Well, as I was saying, Geralt, I was in a salon hosted by the Earl of--"

"Without the name-dropping," he grinds out, and Jaskier stills.

He looks across at Geralt, at the bandage peeking out from below the armor that Geralt chose not to remove. "What happened to your shoulder, Geralt?" he asks, very quietly, and it lands as if Geralt had stripped himself bare.

Jaskier tends to speak in one of two voices. His usual choice is the one Geralt thinks of as his performing voice: sometimes loud, always theatrical, leaping up and down scales like a mountain goat. That voice demands attention and isn't always bothered about whether the attention is friendly or hostile.

Then there's his other voice, the one Geralt has no name for. That voice is soft, earnest, seeking out intimacies and sharing confidences. Geralt has no name for that voice, because to name a thing is to have power over it, and Geralt is nearly powerless against it.

For all that the first voice can bring trouble upon them, Geralt finds the second voice to be far more dangerous, and it's the one Jaskier's using now, his face solemn in the lamplight, hands at rest, loosely clasped between his knees.

It all sticks in his gut, a hard, frozen knot of family tragedies, betrayals old and new, and Geralt doesn't answer.

"There were -- I heard stories, out of Temeria, from people who listened to me singing about a witcher. Wild stories, I thought, can't possibly be true. I've started a vogue, that's all." Jaskier draws a breath, and Geralt can hear it shuddering past his lips. "Some said a witcher ran from a contract. Others…" His fingers twist together, knuckles going white. "Others said a witcher had been killed." He breathes out a laugh with no humor at all in it. "Took the fastest horse I could hire to the last place I'd seen you, and I found Roach." He meets Geralt's eyes. "And then I found out where you'd gone."

There's a sea of emotion in Jaskier's eyes; it's a wonder he doesn't drown in it.

"A witcher was killed," Geralt says, thinking of the medallion buried in his pack. "Another nearly so."

Jaskier swallows then, and his voice comes out husky. "What happened?"

Geralt shakes his head, once. "This is not a tale for one of your songs, bard."

"No, that's -- that's not why I'm asking." Jaskier stands then, sitting on the narrow bed beside Geralt. Geralt doesn't shift away, and so the dip in the bed means Jaskier's knee ends up resting against his thigh. "I want to know. Not for a song, just… just for me."

"Why?" Why would Jaskier expose himself to that kind of ugliness, to no benefit?

"Because I'm your friend, Geralt," he says, and this time the laugh is soft but genuine.

Friend? Surely not. Witchers don't have friends; they have temporary business transactions. He wouldn't know how to be one. Doesn't have the slightest idea where to begin. They can't be friends -- friends, he would guess, don't end up in danger merely by being near one another. And even if he wanted one, wanting things has never worked out for Geralt. It's easier not to.

But he knows that Jaskier will keep at him, if his curiosity is not satisfied, and so he tells him about the deaths, the false stories, the secrets, the fight that was nearly his last. All of it, every ugly, petty, sordid piece.

At some point, Jaskier's shoulder ends up pressed against his own, and Geralt, for no reason he can explain, makes no move to end the contact.

"Geralt! You're letting this lovely lady handle your sword, and you didn't invite me to watch?"

Grete takes Geralt's sword away from the grinding wheel and looks over at Jaskier, then Geralt. Geralt shakes his head minutely, and isn't himself sure whether he's trying to convey he's harmless or I'm not sure what to do with him, either.

"Don't you have something to lyrically misrepresent?" When he'd left the bard outside the smithy with Roach, Jaskier had been scribbling furiously in his notebook, hardly seeming to notice Geralt's departure.

"The term is 'poetic license', and yes, several somethings," he says, with an airy wave. "But I can't resist the opportunity to watch a master -- or mistress, in this case --" He presses a hand over his heart and bows at the waist to Grete. "-- of their craft at work. To see skill and practice made manifest in the world is one of life's truest pleasures."

"Jaskier," he warns, as the bard steps closer to Grete. But Grete, to his surprise, pulls down the leather kerchief over her mouth and nose, though she leaves on the mask with its narrow slits to see through.

"I like him," she says after a moment, brushing her short blonde curls away from her forehead with the back of her wrist. "He can stay."

"See that, Geralt?" Jaskier beams at him. "I can stay."

"Hm."

Grete pulls her kerchief back up and returns to work.

"I should have known you like to have your sword edged by a beautiful woman," Jaskier says, far too merrily and not nearly quietly enough. It will be unfortunate if he makes Geralt have to choose whether to stop one of the better smiths he knows from kneecapping the bard with a hammer.

Grete tests the sword's edges, then sets it aside to pull on a stained pair of gloves. She then retrieves the bowl with the silvering solution she'd mixed earlier.

Jaskier starts to lean in to get a better look at the metallic gray paste, but Geralt pulls him back with a fist in his doublet. "Trade secret?" he asks, as Geralt sets him back on his feet, a safe distance away.

"Toxic," Geralt grunts. "Though I'm not surprised you'd confuse protective gear for a fashion statement."

"Was that -- are you of all people criticizing my taste?" He huffs in feigned outrage. "When you've never met a black shirt without thinking, 'oh, this could be blacker, like my dark and tormented soul.'"

Grete, who's smearing the paste over the blade with a waxed rag, turns her head away, and Geralt, though he's never seen it from her before, has the distinct impression that she's laughing silently.

She then sets the blade to heat in her forge. Jaskier pushes up onto his toes, but doesn't try to get a closer look.

"This is what you've been saving your money for, lately?" Jaskier says, and there's an odd tone in his voice that Geralt can't place. He hadn't realized Jaskier had noticed, but that's part of the conundrum of the bard -- when he's not being painfully oblivious, Jaskier tends toward the unexpectedly perceptive.

"Silver swords only work when there's still silver on them."

Jaskier nods, and they watch Grete work.

After she pulls the sword from the forge, and quenches it in a barrel of oil, she brings it back to Geralt and hands him a wood-handled burnishing tool. "I assume you'd like to finish it yourself, as always," she says. "Faster that way, too, yeah?"

She strips off mask and kerchief and gloves, and he hands her a small but hefty pouch of coins. Grete is a strong-boned woman, less beautiful than handsome, but Jaskier takes her hand and presses a delicate kiss to her work-roughened knuckles.

"A myriad of thanks to you, my lady," he says seriously. She cuffs him gently across the top of his head -- Geralt knows it's gentle, because the bard is still upright -- and Jaskier's delighted laugh follows him as he moves to the workbench.

There are pits and bubbles in the silver plating, left behind when the mercury vaporized in the forge, and Geralt works to smooth out the worst of them. He'll keep at it later, after they camp for the night, but he doesn't like to travel without cleaning the blade up a bit first.

Jaskier takes a seat atop the bench, watching him work. "Perhaps I should have gone with 'silver wolf,' instead," he says, and tucks an errant strand of hair behind Geralt's ear. Then he freezes, and snatches his hand back to cover his mouth as Geralt lifts his head.

"Sorry!" Jaskier says, over a high-pitched laugh. "Don't know why I did that."

Geralt watches him for a moment, and then says, "'Silver wolf' means something different in certain parts of Novigrad."

Jaskier blinks at him, and then bursts into giggles. "Oh, gods, it does," he says, around his fingers. "Oh, that would have been such a cock-up."

Geralt stares at him for another beat, waiting for him to hear it, and Jaskier loses all control, curling around his own peals of laughter. Both hands are on his face now, pushing his fringe of hair out to tremble with his hilarity.

Across the way, Grete raises her eyebrows at Geralt, and he shakes his head again. Then he gets back to work.

By the time Jaskier has run down -- red-faced and teary-eyed, and after several false stops -- Geralt has done all he needs to, here, and he crosses the smithy to return the tool to Grete.

"You've never brought company before," she says, and Geralt huffs.

"Less brought, more 'can't get rid of,'" he replies.

She smiles, and doesn't elaborate, and while most of the time he appreciates her reserve, it feels like he's missing something. But she turns back to her forge, so he collects bard and sword and goes on his way.

The sun bakes the roadway under Roach's hooves, glittering through the dust that each of them kicks up with every plodding step. Geralt's down to his shirtsleeves, walking beside Roach, and Jaskier's doublet is so loose that it seems to be staying on through force of habit alone.

It's too hot and still for beasts to be about; all he can hear is the rustling of rodents in the fields, the drone of cicadas adding an aural component to the summer haze.

It turns out that even Geralt's bloodymindedness has limits; when he smells fresh water past a copse of trees, Jaskier's bowed head and Roach's hot breaths on his neck drive him to turn aside, leading the mare into the shade under the hanging boughs.

Jaskier drapes his doublet over a branch and drops down onto the gnarled roots of a tree, head tipped back to rest against the trunk as he pants. Geralt watches his throat bob when he swallows, and then turns away to find the stream he'd sensed.

The stream is clean and clear, just shadowy enough to be cool where it widens to a pool. It feels too wholesome for drowners to be near; if anything, there might be a water nymph minding the area. He kneels and passes a hand through the undergrowth, gathering a handful of asters, and weaves them into a quick little wreath to set on the water, to signal that they mean no harm.

"It must be the heat," Jaskier says from behind him. "I'd swear that I saw Geralt of Rivia do something whimsical."

Geralt doesn't react, just holds out a hand, and Jaskier passes him their waterskins and canteens. When the first canteen is full, he hands it back without looking. "Don't get heatstroke. I'll not have Roach carry you if you pass out."

"Did I once say friend of humanity? I meant 'heartless bastard.'"

"Doesn't rhyme," Geralt says, and takes Roach's reins from Jaskier, leading her to the bank to drink her fill.

They wait out the hottest part of the day, drowsing under the dappled green canopy. Geralt rouses when Jaskier wanders down to the stream, hears him talking quietly to Roach. Then there's a happy, pleased noise from Jaskier, a splash, and a scoff of theatrical outrage, and Geralt closes his eyes before Jaskier can stomp up to him.

"Oh, I see how it is," Jaskier says, and Geralt looks up to see water dripping down the bard's face. He bats at his wet hair, sprinkling fine droplets over Geralt's forehead, and Geralt smirks.

He does not tell Jaskier about the aster caught above his ear.

Jaskier settles beside him, and Geralt closes his eyes again and just… lets the day drift on. They have ample supplies for once, from a grateful farmwife who had more cured meats than coin on hand, and neither of them has any appointments. He listens to the little noises that Jaskier makes when he's contented, and it's…

He's had worse days.

The sun has moved onward for the day, slanting through the trees instead of boring down, when Jaskier shuffles around a bit, and Geralt brings himself out of the light meditative trance he'd slipped into.

"Geralt, I've been wondering…"

A phrase that has never heralded anything good, in Geralt's experience, but perhaps this once, it wouldn't hurt to indulge the bard. He doesn't continue, though, not until Geralt rolls himself upright, hands clasped over his bent knees.

Jaskier has a few shredded stalks of grass in a pile in front of him, and he flicks another victim away when he sees Geralt looking. "Should I… Well." He smiles, a quick, nervous thing that flees as soon as it's seen, and he reddens, a bit. "Do you think I should carry a knife, or… something like that?"

It's somehow the last question Geralt ever expected, and it sets off an ugly tempest in his mind. What brought this on? he wants to ask. Did something happen? he wants to know. But his thoughts race ahead to some of the possible answers, and they dredge up a well of cold, hard anger that he's unprepared for.

"Why?" he asks finally, and he feels the word rasp in his throat.

"I, well, of course my wit and talent are absolutely lethal by themselves, and certainly it behooves an observer to remain, ah, impartial, to observe rather than participate, but…" His blush deepens. "Well, my dulcet tones are hardly an impediment to, say, a pack of dire wolves, or something."

"That's not a thing," Geralt says automatically, and Jaskier quirks a small, more genuine smile.

"Band of brigands, then." He raises his eyebrows at Geralt. "Or hostile music critics."

It's not -- it shouldn't be -- an unreasonable question, not given the life Geralt leads and Jaskier follows. But the thought of Jaskier bloodying the hands that should be playing his lute makes something roil unpleasantly in Geralt's stomach.

"I'll handle the monsters," Geralt says, and it comes out deeper and grittier than he intends. Jaskier, though, doesn't react, just nods. "As for the rest…"

As for the rest, Jaskier is not always with him, and has a propensity for finding trouble. Sometimes solely by virtue of what -- of who -- he chooses to sing about.

"Having no weapons may put you at a disadvantage," he says, slowly and carefully. "But having a weapon makes you a threat and a target, even if the weapon is just for show." A sudden tightening in his jaw forces him to regulate his breathing. "It's your choice, Jaskier. I cannot make it for you."

And he pushes himself to his feet, to see about setting up camp. That, at least, he can do.

He's giving Roach a second brushing-down when a hand closes gently around his wrist. "Why don't we give the poor horse a rest, hmm?" Jaskier says, and Geralt stills.

The bard has always been the tactile sort, but there are still times it takes Geralt by surprise when Jaskier touches him, whether casually, in passing, or deliberately, as deftly as he plays upon his lute. It's as if he's never heard that witchers steal the souls of the unwary, that they'll poison a town if they drink the well water.

He's right, though -- he should leave Roach be. So he drops the brush and twists his wrist in Jaskier's light hold, freeing himself from that gentle captivity and capturing Jaskier's wrist in the same motion.

Jaskier gasps, and Geralt looks over at him, fearing he went too far -- only to find Jasker staring at his wrist now caught in Geralt's hand in transparent delight.

"That was -- do that again, Geralt," he says, wiggling his fingers, and Geralt blinks at him.

And then, for reasons he cannot adequately explain, he does -- releasing Jaskier's wrist, letting Jaskier take his, and then carefully repeating the reversal.

Jaskier's pulse thrums under his fingers, tendons and toned muscle shifting under soft skin. "Brilliant," he breathes, grinning at Geralt.

And then Roach body-blocks him to fuck off out of her space, her patience clearly at an end.

Jaskier tugs him closer to their bedrolls, further from their irate companion, and squares up in front of Geralt. "My turn," he says imperiously, and gestures for Geralt to take his wrist.

Geralt could crack his bones without effort, and that Jaskier does know. But he places himself in Geralt's hold anyway, and then twists himself free, wrapping his fingers around Geralt's wrist -- not quickly enough for a true fight, but the basic movement is solid. "Like that?"

He should stop this nonsense here, now -- but Jaskier is so intent, and sharing knowledge is an instinct that Geralt has never really tried to curb. "For me, yes," he says. "Keeping an opponent close to you should not be your strategy."

"No?"

Geralt meets his eyes, trying to convey this point, if Jaskier remembers nothing else. "Incapacitate if you can. More important to run when you have a chance."

Jaskier's head bobs backward, and his expression turns mulish.

"Eyes, balls, knees and elbows," Geralt adds. "The throat is good, but you rarely get a clean shot."

Jaskier draws back his hand, the better to place both of them on his hips. "'The face of a cad and a coward', you once said." The dark frown doesn't suit him at all. "Is that how you'd have me fight?"

Of course he would hold on to that, after all this time.

It's too important that he gets Jaskier to understand, and so Geralt tries to speak Jaskier's language -- not the poems or the performances, but a simpler speech. He reaches out and carefully, carefully, sets his hand on Jaskier's shoulder. "I'd prefer you not fight at all," he says, his voice low. "But if you must, fight like a survivor."

Jaskier looks back at him, and after an eternity, his eyes soften. "All right, White Wolf," he says, and his stance loosens. "So, again," he says, and holds out his wrist.

Geralt takes it, and Jaskier twists free. He aims a slow punch at Geralt's face that will never land, and Geralt catches his fist. "Good instinct, but no," he says, releasing Jaskier's fist. "You're more likely to hurt your hand than to knock someone unconscious. Wrong result." He gestures between them. "By grabbing you, I'm left open. Go for the balls if you have a shot, or claw for the eyes. Even if you miss, the instinct to protect the eyes is distracting."

Jaskier huffs out a laugh. "Is this what it's like in your head, all the time?"

"When it needs to be," Geralt says, and Jaskier shakes his head.

"No wonder you're such a grump," Jaskier says, as if a witcher's mental discipline can be compared to an ornery old drunk on a barstool, and Geralt closes his eyes briefly.

He then switches hands, reaching across his body to take Jaskier's opposite wrist. Jaskier twists free, but stands there, uncertain as to the follow-up, and Geralt nods to his other hand. "Side of my elbow, hard as you can."

Jaskier's face twists up in unease. "Wouldn't that … break it?"

"Leaving them significantly less likely to follow you," Geralt agrees, and Jaskier shudders.

Geralt readjusts, taking both wrists this time, and nods to Jaskier.

He's not expecting Jaskier to drop, straight down, all his body weight yanking at Geralt's hold; it's not a tactic he would use, putting himself on the ground by choice. It's unconventional, though, and if Geralt had been a man, it would have freed Jaskier. Geralt is a witcher, and he reacts instantly, instinctively, tightening his grip before Jaskier can slip from it.

But strength can't overcome the pull on his center of balance, and Geralt crashes to the ground on top of Jaskier.

Instinct, again, to catch himself on his hands, pinning Jaskier down by the wrists, the rest of his body trapped under Geralt's weight.

The shock of the fall stuns them both for a moment, and Geralt stares down at Jaskier, taking him in without filter or forethought. Jaskier is a solid weight under him, lean but muscled. Geralt can see the dust clinging to the sweat on his throat, almost taste it, and he watches those blue eyes dilate, hears his breath heavy over parted lips, feels the pulse picking up in his wrists.

Smells the earthy note of male arousal bleeding into the evening air.

Jaskier is so filled with passions that he falls in love when the wind blows, and the faint scent of his arousal has long since become part of the background of having him near. But this is stronger, more demanding, and --

Geralt shoves himself to his feet, offering a hand to Jaskier, who takes it and sits up, looking wary.

"When you're down," Geralt says, and wills away the burr in his voice, "roll onto your hip, kick the side of the knee, hard as you can."

"And run away," Jaskier says, his own voice thick, a little subdued. "Right." He rolls as he pushes himself up, stands facing away from Geralt. "I think dinner is in order," he says, and heads for their packs, on the other side of camp.

Geralt takes his time gathering Roach's supplies to put away, ignoring the nagging feeling that he is being judged and found wanting by a horse.

By the time they've finished eating, the air between them is mostly clear; Jaskier has snuck looks at him from time to time, and Geralt, for his part, has pretended not to notice them.

"I've thought on what you said, earlier," Jaskier says, and Geralt, who has said more than he should tonight, is a witcher, a mutant, a threat used to terrorize children into compliance, and thus does not freeze like a cornered rabbit. Jaskier smiles, briefly, and says, "And I cannot deny that I am a lover, not a fighter. Thus, I believe I shall forgo steel for the silver of my tongue."

Geralt only hums an acknowledgement, because what should be simple relief gets tangled up with thoughts of Jaskier's tongue, and his belly gives a slow flip that has nothing to do with their dinner.

The mayor of the town is young and painfully earnest, made less painful by his willingness to open the town's coffers and hire a witcher to clear out some local pests along the roads in time for the harvest faire.

The contract even includes room and board during the faire, but Geralt takes three paces into the room, drops their packs, and turns around again.

"I'll see about a second room," he says, because, well.

The matron is sincerely apologetic, but apparently the whole town is booked up. Her attention is called away by another guest, and Geralt sighs, closing his eyes briefly before ascending the stairs again. He doesn't stomp, because witchers don't stomp, but he can feel the tension in his thighs and calves stymied, in want of release.

He takes those three paces back into the room and unstraps his bedroll from his pack.

"What in the name of Melitele's callipygian arse are you doing?"

Geralt does not respond at all, which he presumes Jaskier will correctly interpret as what the fuck does it look like I'm doing, Jaskier.

"The bed's big enough to share," Jaskier says, in what Geralt is sure he believes to be a reasonable voice.

Geralt ignores him in favor of devoting far more attention than is deserved to a pile of bedding and blankets.

"Fine then," Jaskier says, and his own bedroll joins Geralt's on the floor.

Geralt turns to stare at him, which is his mistake, because Jaskier is twitching his blankets into place, his long, graceful fingers dancing along the folds.

They'd stayed outside of town until Geralt had finished the job; gratitude was never guaranteed, but spending it before it was earned was a quick path to resentment and anger. He'd taken care of the drowners in the stream and the ghouls in the cemetery, and thus, in Jaskier's words, he was free to enjoy the fruits of his labors.

"Oh, or the fruit tarts," he'd said, staring avariciously at a bakery stall, until Geralt hauled him along, opening up the bottleneck he'd caused in the lane.

Geralt stopped at an herbalist, picking up a few essentials and keeping Jaskier in his sight at the next stall, where he was sniffing at soaps. The varied wares at the table seemed to be made of honey, or beeswax, or honey and beeswax; the hand-scrawled sign had an illustration but was not otherwise forthcoming.

They moved along, and Geralt didn't realize Jaskier had yielded to some form of temptation until he heard the rustle of the little paper sack; he'd thought perhaps the honey scent had been cloying enough to linger in his nostrils. Jaskier popped a morsel into his mouth before Geralt got a good look at it, and then immediately made a noise that had Geralt appreciating as rarely before the fact that witchers didn't blush.

"Oh my gods, Geralt," he moaned, and a passing grandmother gave him the kind of glare that probably preceded charges of public indecency.

"Control yourself," he growled, dragging Jaskier along by the elbow.

"Not possible," Jaskier said, drawing the words out. "I've found a new earthly delight, and I renounce all appeals to divine salvation."

Fortunately for Geralt's sanity, he spotted the opening to an alley, and dragged Jaskier away from his nascent public spectacle.

Completely unabashed, the bard dug his fingers into the paper sack again and held up his find. "Geralt, you have to try these," he said, holding up what appeared to be a square of honey-dipped cake.

Geralt would never be able to pinpoint what made him do it, whether it was the shine in Jaskier's eyes, or on his lips, his desire to stave off another indecent display, the need for a little petty revenge, or the certain knowledge that Jaskier would not relent until Geralt gave in... but he did.

Without taking his eyes off Jaskier's, Geralt nipped the square of cake out of Jasker's fingers, letting his incisor graze Jaskier's thumb.

The cake did have a pleasing, delicate taste, but it paled in comparison to the flush that broke out over Jaskier's cheeks, the way his mouth dropped open, breath whispering unsteadily over Geralt's chin.

"Not bad," he allowed, with a sharp little smile.

Jaskier stared at him for a moment, absently popping his thumb into his mouth, pink tongue laving at the sticky traces of honey, and it was abruptly stifling in that alley.

He propelled Jaskier out into the crowd again, because fuck it all if that didn't feel like the safer option.

But Jaskier was quieter as they navigated the rest of the faire, even if his eyes widened every time he glanced over at Geralt, and thus Geralt couldn't really tell him off simply for licking his fingers after every bite; they were after all, his fingers, and whatever he wanted to do with them was --

-- absolutely, positively no concern of Geralt's.

He did breathe easier when Jaskier crumpled up the empty sack and threw it away.

But that was only because he didn't want the bard making a scene.

And now the bard in question is making a production of arranging his bedding by the fire, plucking at imaginary wrinkles; again, Geralt wants to snap at him, and again, he doesn't feel he has the right. Jaskier drives him to distraction with jokes and questions and songs; what he does with his hands should be of no concern whatsoever, so long as it's quiet.

He's not sure what this idiotic display is intended for, except to taunt him in -- some way -- and so his voice comes as a growl. "You like sleeping in a bed."

Fuck knows he's heard enough complaints about the alternative.

Jaskier turns to him, hands on his hips. The fireplace glows behind him, but Geralt can easily see the stubborn jut of his chin. "I don't like sleeping in a bed with you sleeping on the floor."

If he lets this happen, Geralt will hear about nothing else for at least three days. "It makes no sense for neither of us to use the bed."

"If it's foolish for both of us to sleep on the floor, then it's foolish for either of us, when there's a bed that will fit us both." Jaskier throws out his hands, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "Preserve me from stubborn witchers," he entreats the rafters. Then he looks back down at Geralt, eyes narrowed. "It's a good thing I love you dearly, Geralt, because sometimes I think you choose to be contrary just to keep in practice. It's hardly as if we've never shared before."

For a moment, everything slows, like trying to fight through molasses. Then the oren drops, and Geralt realizes he's the bigger fool here.

Jaskier is simply being Jaskier; he drops endearments like discarded sweets wrappers. He's unashamed in his enjoyment of life's pleasures. And he's not at fault for whatever nonsense Geralt's mind latches onto when there are no monsters to fight.

"Don't steal the blankets," he finally grumbles, and Jaskier gives him a sigh of exasperated relief.

He doesn't bother with the bedrolls; putting those away will be a good task for tomorrow morning, when Jaskier inevitably groans and whines and insists that it's far too early to be moving about. He simply readies himself for bed, listening to the familiar noises of Jaskier doing the same, and gives him a withering stare when Jaskier climbs in first and ostentatiously holds the blankets up to usher Geralt in beside him.

After waiting long enough to make a point, he turns down the lantern and joins Jaskier under the covers.

The bed is a good enough size that, were they to both sleep on their sides, they'd have plenty of room. So Geralt sprawls out on his back, enjoying Jaskier's little scoff of outrage as he props himself on an elbow to look at Geralt.

"Satisfied?" Geralt asks, resting a hand behind his head.

"Mollified, perhaps," Jaskier says, his eyes dancing like there's a joke he desperately wants to make but is sensibly taking the win.

Then Geralt recognizes what satisfaction usually means to Jaskier while in bed, and huffs at the obviousness of it.

"I promise not to imperil your virtue," Jaskier says, his voice bright with mirth, and Geralt closes his eyes.

He must be overtired, because his lips quirk at that. "There's little enough left to imperil," he murmurs, and hears Jaskier's laughter. He doesn't let himself look for the expression that surely goes with that laugh, because his fingers are tingling, and can't be trusted not to map their way across Jaskier's merriment.

"Good night, Geralt," Jaskier whispers, and there's the barest brush at his shoulder before a rustle and jounce indicate he's rolled to face away from Geralt.

He still smells faintly of honey.

When Geralt awakes, he's on his side, facing Jaskier's back. One hand has slipped under the hem of Jaskier's shirt, the backs of three fingers resting against the soft, unscarred skin, rising with his breaths, thrumming with the beating of his heart. He smells sleep-warm and contented, and Geralt closes his eyes to savor all of it for one selfish moment.

Then, because he doesn't have any right to any of that, he carefully draws back his hand, so as not to wake the bard.

Jaskier's star continues to rise, as he puts it. He receives invitations to play at celebrations, at competitions, at courts of increasing rank. Invitations to give lectures, too, the first one of which had bemused Geralt to no end.

"Sounds like a trap," he'd muttered.

"Oh, it is, my dear witcher, it very much is," Jaskier had said, laughing and beaming at him.

He can always tell when Jaskier's been at Oxenfurt; every time, Geralt has to suffer through another torrent of his songs being sung by the wrong bards.

He keeps waiting for the day when Jaskier has found inspiration enough. When Geralt will stop being of interest to him, because Jaskier has so many opportunities to spend his attention elsewhere. When he finally takes up one of those comfortable positions somewhere, and the only bards Geralt will hear singing his songs on the road will always be the wrong ones.

But for some reason, Jaskier always comes back. Geralt finds him, or he finds Geralt, and they travel together again. Geralt never puts voice to his thoughts, but recognizes how ridiculous that is -- as if it hasn't occurred to Jaskier that he could have a better life than outdoor camps and roadside inns where every meal is a gamble.

As if Geralt failing to point out his options will keep Jaskier from ever noticing them.

He never tells Jaskier that Geralt himself was the one with the wishes.

There's nothing to be gained by it. He'd done everything he could to save him, after all, even before he knew that he was the one responsible for the bard's plight. Even if he knew, Jaskier would merely extract some ridiculous favor from him and forgive him instantly; the bard is generous with Geralt, and he'd understand that Geralt hadn't meant to harm him.

He'd found Jaskier waiting with Roach when he emerged from the half-collapsed mansion. Jaskier, fortunately for Geralt's peace of mind, had changed his shirt for one of Geralt's and cleaned himself up; the scent of dried blood lingered, but Geralt couldn't be sure whether that was real or imagined.

"You do know that she threatened to slit my throat?" Jaskier said conversationally.

"I know that she saved your life," Geralt said, and tried not to be too obvious about drinking him in -- alive, whole, his voice sounding none the worse for wear. As a distraction, he added, "That can't be the first time a beautiful woman has pulled a blade on you."

"Well, that's -- fair," Jaskier said, rubbing the back of his neck and giving Geralt something like a wistful wince. "But if it's all the same to you, would you mind very much if we fucked off out of here?"

And off they fucked.

After that, Geralt did his best to avoid thinking about the whole affair at all. It made him wish that the rumors about witchers were true; surely feeling nothing would have been preferable to the icy cold that had gripped him while watching Jaskier cough up blood, hearing that he might die. Surely it would have been easier to bear Jaskier's panicked grip if Geralt weren't gripped by panic himself.

So he says nothing to the bard. And if a new set of nightmares come to claw him awake at night, that's no one's concern but Geralt's.

Yennefer keeps happening. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he and Yennefer keep happening to each other. Damage is done on both sides.

To hear Jaskier sing of it, love is supposed to hurt. But he never said how much, and thus Geralt doesn't know if what he has with Yen truly qualifies. But what they do have turns out not to be enough; Yennefer wants everything, on her own terms, always, and Geralt has chosen to want nothing so often and for so long that all he knows is how to make do with what he gets.

High up on a mountain, Yennefer leaves him, and Jaskier stays, and he takes the one out on the other.

He puts off going to find Jaskier, afterward. They'll come back together on their own, as they always do, and Jaskier will forgive his cutting words, as he always does.

But suddenly there's no more time.

The dwarf, Yarpen Zigrin, had been right. War is coming, and even a witcher can no longer ignore the signs when they become literal.

When the postings on the notice boards begin to change.

He's always read over the missing persons flyers when looking for monster contracts, for there's often information hidden in them: last seen along the river road, or the night of the full moon.

Now, the flyers speak of refugees. Seeking news of a sister, a daughter, a cousin, last known to be in Ebbing, in Metinna, in Nazair. In one town, the notices are so thick that they cover one another like shingles on a roof. In another, a second board has been put up beside the first, the new wood rough-hewn and pale yet.

In a third town, some of the flyers are in a particularly neat, upright hand, and he yanks off a glove to trace a fingertip over the well-formed letters.

He rides to the next town, and the flyers are newer, less weathered. He doesn't even dismount from Roach, just pushes on, and in the following settlement, he can smell the freshness of the ink.

A woman sees him looking, and says, "The scribe's in the tavern, still, if you've need of him."

He almost doesn't see Jaskier at first, as he's looking out for cardinal red or peacock blue, something gaudy that wants to be seen. But he recognizes the tousled head, bent over a table, glimpsed through the gaps between a few milling, nervous people.

He takes in the rest of Jaskier while waiting in the shadows near the door for the bard's business to conclude. His outfit is much the same kind of thing he always wears (human fashion changes too quickly for Geralt to keep up with, even if he'd cared to), but it's in a dark, sturdy traveling material, no puffs or ruffles that Geralt can see. His voice doesn't carry across the room, begging to be heard, but is quiet and thoughtful, and Geralt doesn't make an effort to listen in.

After the last man leaves, gripping the wide brim of his hat and convulsively thanking Jaskier, Geralt makes his approach.

He sets a silver piece on the table with a gentle clink, but Jaskier shakes his head without looking up, sharpening the nib of his pen. "No no, keep your coin," he says softly, and dips the pen in a dwindling ink pot. "Who is it you're looking for?"

"A friend," Geralt murmurs, and Jaskier's head shoots up, eyes wide.

"Geralt," he says, breathy and low, and Geralt would swear his eyes were never that blue before.

Up close, he looks solemn and a little tired, and Geralt can't stop drinking him in. It's as if the lines of his face make up a map to a place he's just remembered he used to know well, new and familiar all at once.

Pink appears in his cheeks, and Jaskier looks down briefly, his lashes fluttering. "What, ah, what are you doing here?" he asks, looking back up again, and Geralt might be fooled into thinking the question was casual, if he didn't know Jaskier so well.

"Asked and answered," he says, feeling the corners of his mouth curve up, and Jaskier gives a punchy little laugh.

"Are you -- are you staying nearby?" he asks, fidgeting with his pen, failing to notice that he's smeared ink on his fingers.

Geralt shrugs. It all depends on whether Jaskier allows his company, after all.

"Right. I have a room upstairs -- we could… talk?"

It feels almost like the shadow of a joke about Geralt's reticence, and Geralt can more than afford to lean into it; it wasn't his pride that led him here, within arm's length of the bard. "My specialty," he says flatly, and Jaskier shakes his head, with what might be a faint smile.

Jaskier stands, looks down to gather his things, and mutters, "Shit," when he notices the ink on his fingers. He swipes them across a blank piece of paper, then crumples the paper into a ball, palming it while he tucks the rest of his writing supplies under his arm. "Shall we?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, just leads Geralt up the stairs and down a dim hallway. At one of the doors, he looks over at Geralt. "You might need your sword," he says, while pulling a key from his pocket. "This place has roaches the size of… Roach."

"That was never funny."

Looking nearly as pleased as he did the first time he made that joke, years ago and leagues back, Jaskier says, "And yet I shall never stop saying it."

It's unwise, to read so much into a joke, but words are Jaskier's livelihood; they are precious to him. So the possibility that Jaskier means he will never stop making that joke to Geralt both heartens him and sends tension winding along his spine.

If he still has a chance to fix things, he also still has a chance to fuck them up beyond repair.

Jaskier unlocks the door and closes it behind Geralt, dropping his writing supplies on a tiny table. His lute case rests against the table's legs; Geralt had wondered, having not seen it downstairs.

The room seems, to Geralt's eyes, no less livable than many of the ones they've occupied. Jaskier sees him glance between the two beds, and says, "Oh, no, I'm alone, they just gave me this room because…"

But he doesn't finish, instead taking a deep breath and straightening up to face Geralt. One hand rests on his hip, and the other worries at the little ball of paper he still holds. "What are you really doing here, Geralt?" he asks, and the ease has left his voice.

It shouldn't surprise him that Jaskier doesn't believe him, after Geralt has denied him so many times. But the time for denial is over, and as Jaskier has accused him of being many times in the past, Geralt can be a tenacious asshole who doesn't know when to quit.

He does, however, know how to change a strategy that isn't working. "Nilfgaard is on the march," he says. "War is coming."

"So I'd gathered," Jaskier says, with a solemn nod. "You've been through wars before, I'm sure," he adds.

In the past there would have been an interrogative lilt to that statement. It's not there now, but Geralt volunteers up that bit of his past anyway. "Squabbles, between kingdoms. Over borders, or imagined slights between kings." He'd always tried to avoid getting involved, but wars were greedy things, and tended not to care whether those they affected had chosen a side. "Not like this."

Not razing cities to the ground, not murdering innocents instead of claiming vassals. Not committing mass atrocities with holy zeal. Not casting a pall over the entire Continent. He realizes he's let his gaze drift and meets Jaskier's eyes again, willing him to understand. "It's… my priorities have... changed."

"Since when do you concern yourself with anything that doesn't involve monsters or money?" Jaskier asks softly, and if he sounds dubious, it can only be because he's spent years listening to Geralt's horseshit.

Geralt breathes a humorless laugh, and it's as much surrender as anything else. "I started to think there might be more to life."

Needed there to be, because he's been aching, like a chunk of flesh had been torn from him and he couldn't staunch the bleeding. Like he'd cut away the best part of himself.

"Of course there is, what do you think I've been singing about all this ti-" Jaskier says hotly, and then cuts himself off, narrowing his eyes at Geralt. "You've… really never listened to a single one of my songs. I had my suspicions, but told myself, don't be ridiculous, Jaskier, he can't have sat beside you for all those years and not --"

"Jaskier." He can't afford to be sidetracked. Stepping forward, he closes the distance between them. "I… want there to be more to life."

Jaskier draws in a breath, raising his chin a little. "Whatever happened to not wanting anything?" His voice is quiet, but Geralt can't remember ever in his life being looked at so intently before. "Or should I file that next to 'not feeling anything' and 'never getting involved' in the great canon of witcher myths?"

It burns and warms at the same time, like too-hot water on frostbitten fingers. No one else has the power to press into Geralt's vulnerable spots, to voice those painful truths, because no one else has spent so much time learning to navigate around them.

What happened was that a seemingly harmless, damnably tenacious bard cracked his armor and slipped inside, and Geralt never noticed the weakness until he cast him out and found a gaping hole left behind.

"Someone convinced me I was wrong," he says, matching his tone to Jaskier's. He closes his eyes briefly, allowing himself only a moment of weakness. "And in return I tried to banish him from my life."

Him, and every single thing he represented -- loyalty and laughter and light. But that cracked armor doesn't fit any more, and he's tired of trying to force it.

Jaskier's eyes are very wide. "Well, that… sounds like you were quite the horse's ass," he says, and only Jaskier could sound careful and acerbic at the same time.

"Yes," Geralt says, and Jaskier blinks.

"I mean, really, to an astonishing degree," Jaskier ventures.

"Agreed," he says, dropping his chin in a nod.

Jaskier opens his mouth, breathes in, out, then closes it again, eyes flicking over Geralt's face. He swallows, and then says, "It would take a person of truly incredible character to forgive such a thing."

"It would," Geralt says, the tension along his spine coiling just a bit tighter.

Jaskier's mouth twists wryly. "Or an utter fucking idiot, you know, take your pick."

Geralt feels his brows lower at that. "I'd not take kindly to someone talking that way about my," and it's just a passing hitch, a bad habit he needs to shake, "friend."

Jaskier's face brightens. "And who would dare cross you with that face, hmm?" he says, his tone light, and it's as if something breaks free inside Geralt, something he's clutched too tightly for too long.

"Forgive me," he says, because Jaskier deserves to hear it. "I regret my words."

"I know."

Geralt believes him, because Jaskier, unlike Geralt, has always chosen to revel in the vagaries of emotion. "It wasn't fair to you."

"I know," Jaskier says, more firmly, as if giving Geralt an out.

But the wound must be cleansed thoroughly, if it's to heal properly. "And I regret not seeking you out sooner," Geralt says, and shakes his head. "Some might say I was an utter fucking idiot."

Jasker purses his lips. "I've always known that one," he says, matter-of-factly, "but woe betide anyone else who says it."

And then he flicks the little ball of paper at Geralt, bouncing it off his chest. Geralt glances down, nonplussed, and looks back up to see Jaskier smiling at him, warm and genuine.

He honestly hadn't realized how much he'd missed that smile, but his heart gives a painful throb, as if reminding Geralt that it's there.

"I'm going to hug you now," Jaskier says, holding one finger up as if he's giving a lecture. "I require naught but stoic acceptance on your part; anything less will be noted and may be counted against you."

"You were in Oxenfurt too long," he says drily.

"Ye gods, was I ever," and if his laugh is a little watery, Geralt won't mention it.

Jaskier slips both hands around Geralt's waist, palms splayed and pressed tight against his back. In return, Geralt wraps one arm around Jaskier's waist, the other across his shoulders, fingers threading through the hair at the back of his head to tuck Jaskier's chin against his neck.

"Oh, you're good at this," Jaskier says, voice slightly muffled against his shoulder. "I always wondered."

Geralt breathes a laugh against Jaskier's hair, and the coil of tension unspools, leaving nothing but liquid warmth behind.

It's -- difficult to leave Jaskier, even for a few minutes. The amity they've reestablished feels fragile, both different and familiar, like the pink skin of a healing wound. But he should see to Roach; he hadn't stabled her before entering the tavern, on the chance he'd missed Jaskier and would need to ride out again.

She butts him in the shoulder, and he rubs her nose in apology. "It was important," he tells her, and she snorts on his neck.

The stablegirl openly admires Roach on sight, and her enthusiasm when he gives her a few extra coins to pamper the mare makes Geralt think it's not impossible she'll have flowers in her mane when he comes back for her. He catches himself wondering whether Jaskier will laugh to see it, and tries to dismiss the idea; he has no idea where the bard is going next, or whether he'll travel with Geralt at all.

But the possibility is there, and apparently won't be ignored.

When he returns to Jaskier's room, the bard has changed into an outfit of deep green. "I've ordered you dinner and a bath," he says, and he smiles as he buttons the doublet halfway up. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, Geralt, but you smell like you've been riding for days."

I have, he considers saying, but doesn't; it feels too much like a confession.

Jaskier stops before opening the door, his lute case swinging against his hip. "You'll be here when I get back?"

It's just shy of being casual, and Geralt discards the flippant replies in his head. "If that's what you want."

"'If that's what I'--" Jaskier says, rolling his eyes. "This is what he says to me," he adds, as if to himself. "Of all the unmitigated --" and closes the door behind him.

Geralt decides to take that as a 'yes'.

The food arrives first, and he scarcely takes note of what's on the tray, except that it's filling enough; the chambermaids leave the door open while they carry in the tub and the cauldrons to fill it, and he can hear Jaskier downstairs, beginning to play.

Tonight, Jaskier forgoes epic ballads of war, and even his songs about Geralt; he alternates between merry, bawdy tunes and melancholy love songs, and even after the door is closed, Geralt can hear him, and the crowd's enjoyment. Geralt has watched Jaskier learn, over the years, how best to please an audience, and it seems he's caught this one in the palm of his hand.

Geralt strips, and bathes, and relaxes in the tub, the warm water and the sound of Jaskier's voice soothing him into a pleasant haze. It's not until he hears what must be the final round of applause, the tavern patrons stamping and pounding on tables, that he realizes he's nearly fallen asleep in the now-tepid water.

The ever-vigilant witcher, he hears in Jaskier's voice; he towels himself off quickly and slips into smallclothes before he never hears the end of it. Then he gives his hair a vigorous rub with the towel, and at the vicious tug on his scalp, realizes he never removed the leather tie.

"Geralt!" calls Jaskier, opening the door just as Geralt snarls, "Fuck," and Jaskier's laughter floats past the towel.

"I did miss your delicate way with words," he says, and Geralt pulls off the towel to give him a stony look.

Or tries to, but Jaskier is flushed and pleased from his performance, and grinning at Geralt, and there's a hollow in his stomach like stepping too close to the edge of a cliff.

Jaskier looks up at his hair, and the grin widens. "Oh, no no no, Geralt, you are committing a crime against your lovely hair, please let me help," and without waiting for an answer, he takes the towel from Geralt's hands, draping it over a chair. He then steers Geralt over to one of the beds and pushes him down, pulling off his boots before crawling onto the bed behind him.

He wants to tell himself he's still groggy from the bath, but it's hardly the first time he's let Jaskier take liberties without objecting.

There are fingers in his hair, tugging gently at the snarled tie, and Geralt lets out a slow breath.

"Sorry," Jaskier murmurs, when he tugs a few strands more sharply, and then he hands the tie to Geralt over his shoulder. "You've made quite the mess here, though, Geralt, well done."

He starts to turn to glare at Jaskier, but the bard places his hands on either side of Geralt's head and makes him face forward. "Bark later, White Wolf," he says, and Geralt just blinks at that.

Then Jaskier's hands start easing through his hair, picking apart knots and scratching gently at his scalp, and a shiver runs over Geralt's skin.

Jaskier takes his time, starting on one side and working his way across to the other. Geralt listens to him breathing, hears his subvocal hums when a tangle is particularly stubborn. Every now and then, he feels the cuffs of Jaskier's doublet brush his shoulders, never letting him forget that he's barely clothed, and while he's been nude around Jaskier before, he's rarely felt this naked.

It's a very different kind of haze he finds himself in now, this one rife with tingling potential.

Eventually, Jaskier's fingers are slipping through his hair without hindrance, and it's an exquisite torture; Geralt keeps himself still, to avoid encouraging the bard to stop. Too soon, or not soon enough, Jaskier runs his fingers through one last lock of hair, and then shifts it to one side, baring Geralt's shoulder. "This one's new," he says, tapping a raised scar. Geralt can hear the frown in his voice.

"Giant centipede. Poisoned mandible." He feels Jaskier shudder behind him; the bard once described all manner of giant insects as unfair, unholy, and, most damning of all, unsongworthy.

"And this one?" he asks, shifting to one side to trace a twisting ridge on Geralt's flank.

"Nixie." It had been half mad, trapped away from a water source, unable to hold its shape, its screams driving the unwary to their deaths.

"Really?" Jaskier says, his fingertips running along Geralt's skin. "I've heard one can learn a particular kind of music from them. I wish I'd been there for it."

He traps Jaskier's hand against his side, stilling it, and turns to look over his shoulder. "I'm glad you weren't."

Jaskier's face is very close, and when he licks his lips, Geralt can't look away. Jaskier's fingers twitch against Geralt's side, and Geralt lifts his hand quickly away, freeing Jaskier's. He's never wanted his own strength to cause an issue between them.

After a beat, Jaskier shifts away, climbing back off the bed, and the room seems colder for it. "Well, I should wash up, too," he says, falsely bright, and it rings harshly in Geralt's ears. Jaskier strips quickly and steps into the tub without asking Geralt to heat it with Igni, and Geralt turns away as he slips into bed, giving the bard a semblance of privacy.

He keeps his back turned while Jaskier readies himself for bed, though he can trace every step by sound and familiarity. The room plunges into shadows when Jaskier turns down the lamp, and he hears the bedding compress when Jaskier tucks himself into his own bed.

"Good night, Geralt," Jaskier says softly, and Geralt is not proud that he pretends to be already asleep.

Geralt is searching for something.

He casts a net into a shallow lake, drags up broken sword hilts, rusted scraps of armor.

"So that's all life is to you? Monsters and money?"

Something is caught in the net, something blue, the shape hidden by the murky water.

"It's all it needs to be."

It sinks below the surface, back into the depths.

He dodges the trunks of a darkened forest, trying to make his way to something glinting golden through the trees.

"Not answering questions is a pillar of your brooding charm."

Branches whip at his face. He pushes forward, goes faster.

"It's been a long time since someone saw me."

The trees are thinning. He's getting closer.

"This is where we part ways, bard. For good."

The glint vanishes, plunging the forest into darkness.

He navigates a narrow, rickety footbridge driven into the side of a windy mountain. There's a flash of red ahead of him, partly hidden by the curve of the rock face.

"That hole inside you. That itch that can't be scratched, burns your brain, keeps you awake at night."

The footbridge is collapsing behind him. The wind shoves him back, but he growls and forces his way through it. The flash of red is nearly in sight, just around a jagged outcropping.

"Do not tell me that this is finally the moment you've decided to actually care about someone other than yourself."

The boards fall away in front of him.

"Fix it, and I'll pay you. Whatever the price."

He jumps.

And a hand catches him.

"Geralt?"

He blinks up at the ceiling, and then at Jaskier, perched on the side of his bed. Both are illuminated by the dim glow of the lantern, but Jaskier is infinitely more interesting to look at.

He's got one knee drawn up on the bed, elbow resting on his thigh, his hand on the mattress near Geralt's arm. His hair is sleep-tousled, and there's a faint pillow crease up one cheek; the loose shirt he wears to sleep in is slightly askew, his chest hair peeking out from the low collar.

"Something wrong?" he asks, feeling it rumble in his chest. He wants to rub his eyes, but if Jaskier's just a vision, he'd rather not chase it away just yet.

Jaskier shakes his head, scattering his hair a little more wildly across his forehead. "No, no. I think you were… dreaming?" he says, and glances away, before meeting Geralt's eyes again. "You said my name."

He did? It's fading quickly. He remembers… reaching for something.

Jaskier picks idly at Geralt's bedding. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he says, without really thinking, and Jaskier nods, shifting like he's about to stand up.

Before he can, Geralt reaches out, circling Jaskier's wrist with his hand.

"Oh," he says softly, looking down at Geralt's hand before settling back down. He looks back up at Geralt and says, "Do you want to talk about… something else?"

Geralt lets him go to shift himself into a sitting position. Jaskier keeps watching him.

It's easier to forget -- Jaskier makes it easy to forget -- that there's a keen mind behind the chatter and the affectations. Geralt's accustomed to be stared at, but before Jaskier, he was not accustomed to being stared at without a hint of disgust or anger or fear; even the whores he paid to lay with were the thrillseekers.

Jaskier studies him with quiet curiosity.

The truth that Jaskier will never understand is that most humans don't care how their monsters are killed, and prefer to think on their monster hunter as little as possible. Jaskier is oblivious to how rare he is in that regard; he asks Geralt questions as if he were a man and not a mutant. Jaskier wants to know him.

So much of their relationship has consisted of Jaskier reaching out, and Geralt treating him as… a nuisance. A friendly adversary. A trial to be endured. Jaskier has allowed him to --

No. He has allowed himself to take what the bard gives, and told himself that his forbearance was an adequate exchange. As if Jaskier ever deserved something so petty as mere adequacy.

Slowly, carefully, he raises his hand, brushing Jaskier's hair back and to the side. He runs his fingers down his temple, the edge of his cheek, thumbing at the faint pillow crease, and it doesn't seem to matter that Geralt's hand is trembling, because Jaskier covers it with his own, nestling his cheek into the curve of Geralt's palm.

Jaskier never looks away from him, his eyes luminous in the lamplight.

Geralt draws him in close, brushes his lips against Jaskier's, tasting his shivery intake of breath. With a supreme effort of will, he draws back, just far enough to see Jaskier's face. "If this isn't --" he starts, but loses the words and has to begin again when he sees how dark Jaskier's eyes have gone. "If you don't want this, tell me."

"It is true," Jaskier says, a crooked smile on his parted lips. "You never listened to any of my songs."

Geralt breathes a laugh. "I listened," he says, stroking his thumb across the corner of Jaskier's mouth. "I didn't let myself hear you."

This time, Jaskier closes the distance, cradling Geralt's face in his hands as they kiss, and he's never felt so -- cherished, as if he were worthy of care and attention. It burns at him, a little, and he tilts his head to deepen the kiss, to try to ward it away.

Jaskier makes a hungry noise in his throat and meets him, and it turns a little wild, a little messy, before he pulls back, panting. There's color in his cheeks, and a nice flush is working its way below the collar of his shirt. Shaking his head, he says, "You know, I'm trying to take it slow, here, Geralt, but you're making it very hard."

Geralt grins, slow and wolfish. "Glad to hear it."

"Oh, gods, he jokes in bed." Jaskier puts his face in his hands, so his wry laugh comes out a little muffled. "I'm doomed."

"Hey." He tugs at one of Jaskier's wrists until one blue eye is looking back at him. "Whatever you want, Jaskier," he says, and he can feel the rasp in his throat. "I just want you."

Jaskier drops his hands, and his face is nearly solemn, but his eyes gleam very, very brightly. "Oh, my White Wolf," he whispers, and crawls up the bed, until Geralt has a lapful of warm bard straddling his hips, looking down at him like he's found himself in possession of something unexpected and precious.

Jaskier drops a kiss on his forehead, his cheek, his jaw -- his scars, Geralt realizes, even the ones where he barely remembers the wound. He brushes his thumbs over the stubble on Geralt's jaw, then threads his fingers into his loose hair and tips his head back. "You're gorgeous, every part of you," he breathes, and kisses Geralt before he can reply.

The kiss is slow, careful, but inexorable, like Jaskier's opening him up, trying to get to the heart of him. Like he doesn't know he's already there.

Geralt's hands have been running up Jaskier's thighs, flexing on his hips -- everything covered by the loose sleep pants he prefers while sleeping indoors. Playing it safe, still. Afraid to reach too far. Afraid to want too much.

But Jaskier's gentle assault is tearing down his every defense, and the least Geralt can do is meet him halfway.

He slides his hands up under Jaskier's shirt, feeling the warm, smooth skin along his sides, the soft tickle of chest hair against his palms. Jaskier rewards him with a pleased hum, breaking off to pull his shirt off and drop it -- somewhere; Geralt couldn't care less where.

Jaskier's hair is a mess again, and Geralt reaches up to tease it off his forehead; the soft strands slip through his fingers like water. "You like that," Jaskier says, with surprise in his voice and a sweet, pleased little smile.

I like you, he wants to say, but it's not that easy, it can't be that easy, nothing ever is, and the words don't make it out. Instead, he cradles Jasker's head, pressing a kiss to the hinge of his jaw, nosing along soft skin to leave another on the point of his chin, at the hollow of his throat.

"No fangs, White Wolf?" Jaskier asks, teasing, and he drapes his arms around Geralt's neck, exposing his soft underbelly. There's a sultry note to his voice that sounds like Jaskier wouldn't hate the idea of sporting a few marks. Nor would Geralt mind leaving them, but not tonight; Jaskier is perfect as he is, and Geralt wants to savor it. Instead, he mouths a soft kiss over Jaskier's pulse point, feeling it jump.

"Not even any claws," he says, and drags his callused fingertips down Jaskier's torso, carefully, with no hint of nails. He leaves faint white trails through his thatch of hair that pink up again instantly, and feels the muscles twitch under Jaskier's delicate skin.

There's a hint of sweat on Jaskier now, darkening the hair on his temples, and when he shifts in Geralt's lap, it's clear that he's just as affected as Geralt is. "And yet you might still be the death of me, Geralt," he whispers, a laugh in his voice. "I knew you were dangerous, of course, but not --" he swallows, but his lips are slick and flushed and his eyes are shining and he all but shimmies under Geralt's hands. "I may have experienced a failure of imagination," he ends on a breath, and sways back into Geralt's mouth like he can't stand being parted from it any longer.

It's more desperate, this time, Jaskier's fingers curling tight in his hair, and Geralt grips his hips, pulling him closer still. He rubs his thumbs up the hard line of Jaskier's cock, through his pants, and Jaskier gasps, "Fuck, Geralt," into his mouth. Jaskier drops his hands between them, freeing both their cocks with less fumbling than Geralt suspects he would have managed himself.

"How do you want --" he starts to ask, his voice gone to gravel, and Jaskier cuts him off.

"Like this, like this, just like this," he says, stroking them both one-handed. His other hand is tangled in Geralt's hair again; he's one to talk about liking it. "I want to keep you close," Jaskier breathes, and the raw honesty in his voice makes Geralt's throat hurt.

Geralt mirrors him, one hand joining Jaskier's around their cocks. With the other, he cups Jaskier's jaw, thumb gliding over his cheek, and draws him in to press their foreheads together.

"Don't judge me if I don't last, Geralt," Jaskier says, puffing out a laugh. "You've no idea how I've wanted this."

He shifts, just far enough to see Jaskier, just far enough that Jaskier can see him. "I know," he says. It would be easy, so easy to let the weight of every denial he's allowed himself to believe drag him down. But witchers were created, above all else, to be strong. "Jaskier," he says, willing him to see, willing himself to be seen, "I know."

Jaskier's eyes flash, and if his earlier kisses threatened to overwhelm Geralt, this one is purely devastating.

Jaskier's hand is ruthlessly clever, thumb circling slickly over the head of Geralt's cock, his hips rolling them against one another. A vague joke about Jaskier playing him like an instrument floats through his head, but he forgets it when Jaskier's callused fingertips rub just right along the underside of his cock.

He comes over their joined hands, groaning, and Jaskier wrings it all out of him, whispering encouragement all the while.

"Gorgeous," Jaskier whispers again, and moves to fist his own cock, but Geralt catches his hand.

"My turn," he rumbles, and Jaskier draws in a sharp breath.

He swipes the come from Jaskier's hand and eases it over Jaskier's cock in a steady, unhurried rhythm. Jaskier pants, "Oh, fuck," and squirms with impatience.

Geralt presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I thought you wanted to take it slow," he murmurs, and Jaskier makes an outraged little choking noise.

"Now, now is when you choose to listen to me," Jaskier says, his voice thready. "You can start a sideline in torture, if the witchering thing doesn't work out," he pants. Geralt twists his hand just so, and Jaskier bites his lip over a moan.

"No," Geralt says, and thumbs at Jaskier's mouth with his free hand. "Let me hear you," he says, and kisses him gently, swiping his tongue over Jaskier's abused lip. "I want to hear you."

"Fuck," he moans, "Geralt, please," and Geralt speeds his hand, just a little, in return for Jaskier being so accommodating.

He's gifted with a litany of encouragement, pleas, and profanity, and it's intoxicating, having that kind of effect on Jaskier. Tempting, to draw it out, but that's a selfish want, easy to dismiss. Jaskier has waited for Geralt long enough.

"Jaskier, look at me," Geralt says, and he does. Eyes wide and dark with desire, framed by eyelashes spiky with sweat, lips pink and parted -- he's captivating, but words don't come so easily to Geralt. He presses a kiss to his damp cheek, whispering, "Come for me, Jask," and Jaskier curls into Geralt with a lovely, broken sob.

After a time resting his temple on Geralt's shoulder, occasionally pressing kisses into Geralt's neck, Jaskier raises his head. "Good, yeah, good, we should do that again," he says, wiping his hand on a corner of the sheet, and then giggles when Geralt tries to glare at him.

Not the result that usually gets.

Then he runs his fingertips down the side of Geralt's face, and the irritation vanishes. "Better," Jaskier says, and scratches lightly at his stubble. "Sorry, sometimes I get giddy after really," he pauses, his cheeks flushing pink, "really good sex."

Geralt smirks at him. "Think what might happen if we actually got our clothes off." His arm has been curled loosely around Jaskier's waist, just because he wanted it there, and he flicks idly at the waistband of his pants.

"Oh, I have plans," Jaskier says promptly. "A list, actually. The top item includes 'my mouth' and 'your --'" he waves vaguely at Geralt "-- everything', really. Are you ticklish, should I know about that?"

"Jaskier," he growls; the thought of Jaskier's mouth does cause a stir of interest, admittedly, but he's too content right now to follow it up. "Is there a cure for your current condition?"

"I -- yes," Jaskier says, and he looks a little abashed. "But I wasn't sure you'd be into it."

Geralt just raises his eyebrows.

Jaskier rubs the back of his neck, and says, "Hold me?"

Jaskier had it the wrong way around, earlier. He's sure to be the death of Geralt. What a pair they make.

He wipes them off with the sheet Jaskier's already defiled, then shoves it aside. He tucks them both back into their clothes, and then pulls Jaskier down to the mattress with him, dragging the blanket over them.

"Learn to use your words, bard," he murmurs, pulling Jaskier tight against him, and he falls asleep to the feeling of Jaskier laughing softly into his chest.

When Geralt wakes, he's too warm, and there's a clingy bard wound around him, drooling on his biceps; the idea that he has this, that he can have this, makes his head swim a little. His arms tighten, and Jaskier rouses, giving a sleepy, sensual wriggle in his arms.

"Mmm," he murmurs, turning his head into Geralt's shoulder, and Geralt has to kiss the bare column of his neck. "I was having the loveliest dream."

Geralt hums, not wanting to take his mouth away from Jaskier's skin.

"I think I'm still having it, actually," Jaskier says, and unfolds himself in tacit invitation, eyes still closed. "Let's see where it goes."

Where it goes is Geralt taking the idea from Jaskier's supposed list, seeing how many wet kisses he can place on Jaskier's body before Jaskier is writhing, murmuring curses and compliments both. He pushes Jaskier's pants off, finally, and swallows him down, and when Jaskier comes it's Geralt's hair that he clutches and Geralt's name that he moans.

Jaskier's gone mostly boneless, but he makes frantic little tugs with his hands until Geralt strips off his smallclothes and presses him into the mattress, rutting against the crease of Jaskier's thigh, already close. Jaskier gives him a soft kiss and a wondering smile, whispering his name in something like awe, and that's all it takes to push him over the edge.

He uses their abused sheet again, then slumps down, half on the mattress and half on Jaskier. It takes a moment for the thought to occur that he might be too heavy, still, but Jaskier wraps both arms around him, hands folded together at the small of Geralt's back, his whole posture giving a distinct air of and you will stay there until I allow otherwise. So Geralt does.

He drifts a little, until Jaskier turns his head and presses a kiss to his temple. Then the bard starts quaking under him, and Geralt lifts his head to see his face turning red and his bottom lip going white with the imprint of his teeth.

"What," Geralt rumbles, and Jaskier curls into him, giggling uncontrollably, pressing their foreheads together.

"I was about to say," he eventually gets out, "'that was a long time coming,'" and then he covers his face with one hand, still shaking with laughter.

"How are you the most popular bard on the Continent," Geralt grumbles, and he slings a heavy arm over Jaskier's chest, tamping him down.

"You waited," Geralt says, when it's quiet, and Jaskier turns serious eyes on him.

"Longer than I ever have for anything or anyone," he says, brushing his fingers over Geralt's lips. "That's how I knew I --"

But he cuts himself off, eyes a little wide, and leans in to kiss Geralt, a little messy, a little yearning, a little hungry. "That's how I knew," he says softly, and Geralt doesn't press.

He rolls onto his back, drawing Jaskier back into him, enjoying the weight of Jaskier's head on his chest. Jaskier plucks at his chest hair, almost delicately, and Geralt breathes a laugh when he realizes the bard is absently fingering the hairs like a lute.

Jaskier raises his head, looking at Geralt, then at his own hand. "That… was very silly," he says, grinning, and flattens his hand against Geralt's chest.

When he speaks again, Jaskier sounds different, almost far away. "When I learned how slowly a witcher's heart beats, I…" He licks his lips, and then shakes his head, his hair brushing Geralt's chest. "Well, I had a rather fanciful moment, that's all. Never mind."

Geralt runs the fingers of his free hand over Jaskier's, tracing the veins back to his trimly muscled forearm. "When have you ever declined to share your flights of fancy, bard?"

"When those flights of fancy were fairly personal and concerned my rather taciturn travel companion," Jaskier says, with a brief kiss to his chest. Then he huffs out a breath, and says, "I thought to myself, well, that explains so many things. A heart that slow takes time to realize what it wants."

That heart gives a painful throb. Now, it knows, and is the stronger for knowing. But, "Needs," Geralt corrects him, roughness in his voice. "What it needs."

Jaskier scrambles up to meet his mouth, and there's no more talking for a while.

Geralt does heat the tub with Igni, this time. Jaskier gives him a grin that is somehow both sweet and filthy while he runs a little chunk of soap over the marks they've left on each other.

If he could, he would linger even longer with Jaskier, exploring this thing between them. Maybe making a list of his own. But it's as if filling one void in his life has opened up another, and he feels it yawning within as he dresses, as he straps his armor back on. He has unfinished business to the south.

"Jaskier," he says, as Jaskier is buttoning up his dark, somber doublet, and he lifts his head, his expression already serious; he's picked up the tension in Geralt's voice, maybe.

"What is it?" he asks softly, as he walks over to Geralt, stopping in front of him and placing a hand on his chest, just where the sword belts cross it, fingers covering the wolf's-head medallion.

Geralt strokes his thumb over Jaskier's jaw; he hasn't put the gloves on yet, not wanting any more barriers between them while he can help it. "The war," he says, pressing his palm to the side of Jaskier's neck. "If Nilfgaard continues on as they have, it's a straight line to Cintra."

"Your child surprise," Jaskier says, nodding gently; Geralt is grateful that he doesn't have to explain. "Go. I'll be here."

"Not here," Geralt says; this place is far too close to the danger. "Gelibol."

"What's in Gelibol?"

"It's on the way to Kaer Morhen." And there are a few more kingdoms between Gelibol and Nilfgaard, if Cintra fails to halt their advance. They could buy Geralt the time he needs to get Jaskier and his child surprise to safety. "I'll see to the child, and meet you there."

"Kaer Mor-" Jaskier starts, taken aback, but he cuts himself off, blinking rapidly. "Right. Okay."

It's not enough, and Geralt presses on; he needs Jaskier to understand. The child surprise may be his destiny, but Jaskier is his choice, and he'll be no use to either if he has to sacrifice one for the other. "I have to know that you are safe, Jaskier. I can't do what I must unless I know that." He grips Jaskier's shoulders with both hands. "I will come for you."

"Geralt -- " Jaskier says, his brows drawing together.

"I will come for you," Geralt repeats, and lays his forehead against Jaskier's. "Be there."

"I will," Jaskier says, stroking Geralt's cheeks, slipping his fingers through his hair to cup the back of his head. His eyes are solemn, in a way Jaskier should never be, but this is the world they live in. "I swear I will." He leans up to kiss Geralt; worry and longing make it a haunting thing. When he pulls back, his eyes are shining, but his jaw is firm. "Be safe, White Wolf."

And Geralt leaves, while he still has strength to tear himself away.

Roach tosses her head when she sees him. She looks well and rested and eager, though his fears of flowers were unfounded.

He's not sure if she balks when they ride past the inn alone, or if he does. "We'll see him again, Roach," he promises the both of them, and then they ride for the south.