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It had been six months since Geralt shouted at him.
It had been six months since Jaskier learned that his best friend didn’t like him at all, actually, and endured his presence by his side stoically, like he did with everything that happened in his life.
Jaskier had gone to Oxenfurt, at first – there was something that he found soothing in the always moving city, in the sound of people talking and laughing in the streets until late at night, a soft wind entering from his half-opened windows as he lied on his bed, eyes closed.
It hadn’t helped with his heartbreak, though.
So he had gone back on the road again, his lute and his bag for only company.
The first time Jaskier heard the song, the only thing he could think of was “Oh. ”
He was in a tavern in a small town he had found after a week of walking through dark and sinister woods, wishing once again that Geralt were with him, knowing that it wouldn’t happen again. A bard had already been playing when he entered, which suited him just fine; the only thing he wanted to do was drink and sleep in a real bed. He didn’t even have the heart to find someone to sleep with for the night.
The second thing he did after understanding what the song was about – or rather, who the song was about – was glancing up to look at the bard. He looked happy and carefree, and for a second Jaskier envied him; that young bard probably didn’t suffer from a heartbreak so vivid it was physically painful.
He actually reminded Jaskier of himself, when he was just a young bard just out of Oxenfurt; oh, he hadn’t been a young soul by any means, had already lived multiple lives, but the spark in the younger man’s eyes… That was the spark of someone who didn’t know of Destiny’s ways. Not yet.
But back to the song.
Jaskier didn’t know the song and to be honest, he didn’t think it very good. It was not the bard’s fault, though, the man had a good voice. No, it was the lyrics themselves that lacked a certain… Well, call him a fool, but they lacked passion. Which Jaskier could not even begin to fathom, as the subject of the song was-
Well, it was-
It was Jaskier’s White Wolf, his best friend in the whole wide world, the man who held his heart without knowing it – Geralt of Rivia.
Jaskier took a sip of his ale. He wanted to know who had written the song; he knew he hadn’t.
But did he really want to know who had taken his place as Geralt’s bard? Who would now be singing the witcher’s praises, no matter how dull the songs actually were? Geralt deserved songs, poems, and some more. Jaskier just didn’t know whether he’d be able to survive, knowing he wasn’t the one writing them.
In the end, the need to know was stronger and Jaskier stood up to go ask. He needed to; if he didn’t, it would eat him.
The bard just looked at him and replied with a nonchalant shrug that didn’t match with the admiration in his voice: “Why, the great and honorable Valdo Marx, of course!”, and Jaskier could have sworn that he could taste blood in his mouth.
The thing was – it had been six months. Six months since the mountain, six months since Geralt made it perfectly clear what he really thought of Jaskier. But it had also been twenty two years; twenty two years of sharing suppers and washing hair, twenty two years of songs and adventures. And, sure, their friendship might have been a little more one-sided that Jaskier thought, but-.
Twenty two years, and all it had taken was six months for them to be gone like dust in the wind.
Because while Jaskier could still hear Geralt’s words – If life could give me one blessing – could still remember the witcher’s anger as if the shouting match had happened the day before, Geralt had already moved on. Not that there was much to move on from to begin with.
Jaskier thought it would happen; he knew. No one was irreplaceable (what was that saying? Cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people who have been replaced?), not even a bard with a slightly longer lifespan that most humans. But it was a thing to know that it would happen and another to hear that someone was already in the spot he used to have, by his – by the witcher’s side.
And to hear that that someone was Valdo? If Jaskier hadn’t been so heartbroken, he would have found it extremely poetic.
The first time Geralt heard the song, he hadn’t even paid attention to it.
No, that would be a lie; he was acutely aware of the song being sung, but it was about him and no one save for Jaskier would think him worthy of such dedication, and after what Geralt had said on the mountain – after he realized how much it had hurt Jaskier – after the guilt started to eat him alive – well. He tried to avoid the things that would remind him of the bard.
(It didn’t work. Everything reminded him of the bard, from flowers on the side of the road to a bird flying over Roach’s head. The songs, too, reminded him of what he had lost, of what he had broken, but mostly it was the deafening silence that accompanied him everywhere that prevented him from ever forgetting about his bard.)
He paid attention to the song; he owed it to Jaskier. The bard was talented, and it might be the last song he would ever write about him. Better listen to it, and not think about what he would do when the last note would have been played, the full stop of their friendship.
Except…
Geralt frowned.
The song was poorly written. Geralt knew his bard, and he would never even have the mere thought of writing such bad rhymes.
He frowned at his ale again, and thought about cornflower blue eyes. By the end of the song, he had come to the only conclusion possible: Jaskier had gone back to Oxenfurt and had given his students permission to write about the White Wolf.
Realizing that… did not hurt at all.
(Except that it did, and at first he didn’t know why. So what if Jaskier let someone else write a song about him? His students? At least he was still thinking about Geralt, and the song was… well, it might not be Jaskier’s, but it didn’t encourage the commoners to stone him either.)
And it was a relief to know that Jaskier was in Oxenfurt. He was safe there, away from Geralt and his misplaced anger; he had a warm bed and food and baths and everything that the witcher would never be able to give him.
Surely Jaskier had met his friends from the university, and had told them all about what a monster he was, after all.
Or- no, maybe he did not. Jaskier was many things but mean wasn’t one of them. Though he could be mean to people who deserved it – like that time he saw a man kick a dog and Geralt had to drag him away before he started a fight – and right now, Geralt knew he deserved more than harsh words whispered between friends.
But Jaskier’s student’s song was kind to him and it made Geralt feel even more unworthy of Jaskier than he had during the twenty two years of their friendship.
What hurt even more, Jaskier mused as he walked down a muddy road, off to the next village, was that Geralt knew who Valdo Marx was. Jaskier had told him about the man that had stolen his songs back at Oxenfurt and who had managed to accuse him of cheating to win a singing competition – resulting in Jaskier being banned from said competition and from the town that hosted it. Never in all his lives had Jaskier been more insulted and angry than he had been that day.
So Geralt must have known who Valdo Marx was when the man introduced himself, because Jaskier had told him. But once again, Jaskier did talk a lot, right? He didn’t blame Geralt for not listening, he wouldn’t be the first one – nor the last one. Somehow, at some point during their friendship (well, what he called friendship in his mind, he didn’t really know what were Geralt’s views on the subject – except that he did now, Geralt had told him in plain and clear words) he had convinced himself that Geralt listened. That his hmms and his grunts actually meant something. Twenty two years of illusions.
Jaskier knew he talked too much; it had been said to him multiple times, but even with his best efforts he couldn’t stop himself. He hadn’t asked for Geralt to listen all the time; just when it mattered. But that would mean that the witcher actually cared for him, and now Jaskier knew that it had never been the case. So really, he was just being unfair to Geralt because he was heartbroken and bitter and now the worst man he had known in centuries was the one that was by his witcher’s side. But Geralt had asked for one blessing, and Jaskier might not be a deity but he still could grant it to him – or try his best to do so.
He had considered abandoning his life as Jaskier. It required some work, to disappear like that, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before and he would reappear somewhere in a new town, a whole new man but still bearing the scars of what had happened, still heartbroken and yearning. And he quite liked his life as Jaskier the bard.
(Plus, once you’ve made the acquaintance of other immortal beings, it becomes quite difficult to just disappear – he didn’t want to fake his death and then run into Yennefer in a random town fifty years after.)
And so, Jaskier decided to stay as Jaskier; changing his identity would only be the coward’s way out. He would stay as a bard for as long it was possible without it raising suspicions, and only then would he fake his death.
He wondered whether Geralt would be affected by the news; surely not, since he would have by then reconciled with Yennefer. No use grieving an old and hated traveling companion when his friend and lover was by his side.
When he had been studying in Oxenfurt, he had gone to watch a play where the actors sang. It was a weird thing that his professor had dragged them to on their one rest day, something that had made him laugh then but that he was thinking about more and more these days of solitude.
It had been about cats – about how they all formed one clan, about which one would get to die to live a new life. Each character had sung about their lives, but the one that had struck him the most was the one cat that wasn’t a part of the clan anymore but longed to be accepted again. Her song had been the most powerful one in his eyes, and there he was, trying to remember the lyrics as he walked, alone.
It had rained the day before; Jaskier’s shoes were all stained by mud drops and so were his pants but he didn’t care – he would wash them.
“How did it go again? Something about a memory and moonlight, I th- fuck!”
He stumbled over a rock and fell into a particularly large puddle. His lute case, thank the gods, had been spared, but he was soaked to the bones.
Soaked and sitting in a muddy puddle in the middle of a road with no one around to help him build a fire; Jaskier suddenly felt discouraged and didn’t move for a few minutes, almost unaware of how cold he was starting to feel.
Had Geralt been there, the witcher would have snorted when Jaskier had fallen but would have helped him raise to his feet and would have offered to make camp early. Jaskier would have been able to sit next to a warm fire, slowly drinking a soup that Geralt would have made with whatever he had found in the woods.
But Geralt wasn’t there.
Cruelly, some part of the lyrics came back to Jaskier as he stood up and walked away from the road, limping. He found refuge under a large tree – it had started to rain again – and muttered them absentmindedly as he tried to change clothes.
“Memory, all alone in the moonlight – I can dream of the old days - where the fuck is my shirt- Life was beautiful then .”
He stopped; wasn’t that what he was doing? Dreaming of the time he knew what happiness was, knowing that Geralt would never reach out to him?
Nostalgia was not something Jaskier did. He tried not to, considering his whole immortal being thing – nostalgia would destroy him if he thought like that too much. But the things he used to feel nostalgic about were things he had parted with when he had felt ready; he had never been ready for Geralt to send him away, had never been ready to say goodbye.
He wrung his shirt, making a disgusted face when muddy water dripped down.
Maybe that was the problem; maybe he needed to say goodbye to properly grieve his relationship with Geralt – his one-sided friendship.
Well- that was it. He would go to Posada to mourn the best life he ever had, and then – then he’d try to figure out what pleased him.
Again.
The night was quiet around him, the only thing disturbing its stillness being the fire that Geralt had lit earlier to cook the rabbit he had managed to catch. He was sitting on a log, pensively cleaning his armor after having taken care of his sword.
He used to enjoy the silence.
He used to like going back from a contract to an unoccupied room with no one to coax him into a bath, with no one fretting over him, with no one gently humming a song as they stitched his wounds.
He used to like being alone in market places, with no one trying to convince him to buy apple turnovers, with no one sharing said pastry with him.
And then a bard talked to him one evening in Posada and all of these things – everything that Geralt had been so convinced were true – proved to be false.
He liked having a companion. He liked not being alone.
He didn’t like talking – but he didn’t mind listening .
He had no one to listen to now, and he had no one to blame but himself.
“I assume you won’t start talking out of nowhere?” he asked Roach, who did the horse equivalent of rolling her eyes. “That might be better, actually,” Geralt added.
The contract had gone well, for once, and once again Geralt was reminded that the moments he missed the most between Jaskier and him were the ones when they weren’t doing anything. When they were sitting around a campfire, eating whatever he had caught for them, Jaskier talking and Geralt simply enjoying the warmth that came with not being alone.
It was nice to have someone tending to his wounds when he couldn’t, but it was the camaraderie between them that he missed. Well; he preferred to see it as camaraderie. His feelings for the bard went further than that, and-
But there was no need to think about it. Would never be again, actually, since there was no chance that Jaskier would ever want to talk to him again. He had given his students permission to write about him – Geralt had gotten the message. Jaskier was over it, over them , and Geralt was disappointed in himself for feeling so bad about it. It was all his fault, he had no right to.
Still, it hurt to hear that song over and over again, among others, written as badly as the first one had been. Geralt hadn’t asked who the author was – he didn’t want to know. Not knowing would be easier.
“You know,” he told Roach, “I don’t regret knowing him. Even if it hurts now.”
Because that was the thing, wasn’t it? Knowing Jaskier had made the last twenty years of his life worth the decades of pain that had come before. Realizing that made Geralt feel even guiltier, memories of things he shouted at his friend coming back to haunt him. It was fair that his words haunted him when Jaskier had obviously moved on. He deserved it – because he knew that the bard must have been deeply hurt before managing to move past it all.
“He looked so naive, back then,” he sighed, and Roach snorted.
He looked up from his armor.
“I wonder – I could go back there. To see how the place has changed.”
It wasn’t something he usually cared about, places and people changing, but it suddenly felt important that he went there to see. An itch that had come suddenly and that would not let him rest until he had scratched it.
“I guess we’ll go there next, then. What do you think?”
Roach barely glanced at him, and Geralt looked at her fondly. It was decided. He’d go back there, to see how the place had changed and to regret every single mistake he had ever done during his twenty two years long friendship with Jaskier.
“You are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and let me tell you, cat, I’ve lived a very long life.”
Jaskier would have felt embarrassed by the fact that he was talking to a cat but he was the only one in the stables and horses never judged. Well, Roach did, but Roach had always been special.
He hadn’t planned on being in the stables, but he had heard a cat meowing earlier and he had always had a weakness for them. Something about how tiny and soft they were. Though the cat he was currently petting – the cat who had actually ran to him to get pets – was not tiny by any means. He was a big, extremely fluffy cat, his brown fur carefully brushed by whoever was taking care of him.
Jaskier had lost track of time, to be perfectly honest; he had sat down right outside a stall and the cat had climbed on his lap, purring.
“I’ve never met a cat so clingy, actually – not that I’m complaining. You’re kind.”
He would have closed his eyes and fallen asleep, had he not been alone in a town where he knew no one.
Because he had made it – he was in Posada. The place where it had begun. He hadn’t had the courage to enter the tavern, though – the tavern that was still there, that had barely changed after all these years and that probably never would.
As long as Jaskier stayed there with the cat, he would not have to enter the tavern, would not have to face the fact that that part of his life was done. As long as he stayed there, Jaskier would be able to maintain the illusion that the best thing that had ever happened to him hadn’t been nothing but a burden to Geralt.
“Look at me,” he said to the cat, “hiding like a coward because I can’t stand being hurt.”
He then said nothing for a while, lulled by the purr of the cat.
Then suddenly his feline friend jumped and hissed at the door before running away, leaving Jaskier alone once again.
The bard stood up, reaching for his lute case and putting in over his shoulder. He sighed and walked out of the stables. Time to face reality, then.
A brown mare was waiting outside, and Jaskier could have sworn that she looked just like Roach – that she was Roach, actually. But that couldn’t be. Geralt had no business in Posada, the notice board free of any contract for a witcher. Jaskier knew because he had checked.
“I’m actually going crazy,” he said out loud, then turned around and nearly walked straight into someone. “Sorry,” he muttered.
But the other person didn’t move and Jaskier looked up. His eyes fell on a Wolf medallion, then on white hair.
“Fuck,” he said, and Geralt took a step back. “Well- Hello, Geralt.”
Geralt was looking everywhere but at him. Right. That ought to be embarrassing for him – running into someone he had pretended to tolerate for so long after telling them he actually hated them.
Then, because apparently Jaskier liked to hurt himself, he asked to Geralt’s shoulders, not being able to look at his face either:
“Valdo’s not with you?”
Geralt looked at him, face completely blank.
“I assume he’s waiting for you in your room. I’ll just go, you don’t have to worry about me, there are many other taverns around.”
There were not, but there was no way Jaskier would be able to face Valdo. The man would gloat and Jaskier would want to punch his smug smile off of his face, but Geralt wouldn’t like that. For some reason he hadn’t liked when Jaskier got into fights, so he had to dislike that even more when the person fighting was someone he cared about.
Jaskier should stop thinking like that lest he started crying in front of Geralt. He had done multiple months without crying in front of anyone, he would not start now – especially not in front of the person responsible for his heartbreak.
Geralt frowned.
“Who the fuck are you talking ab- Valdo?”
Jaskier nodded, not really sure where this was going. Of course he was talking about Valdo – who else?
“Why the fuck would he be with me?”
Jaskier took a step back. Did Geralt want him to say it out loud?
“Don’t be cruel, Geralt. Please,” he added, voice breaking on the last word. “I know I’m not wanted, there’s no need to – rub it in my face like that.”
He hadn’t known Geralt to be cruel. Maybe it was a doppelgänger?
Geralt was looking at him like he was crazy. Which was unfair, because Jaskier was doing his best.
“What do you mean by that, exactly,” the witcher almost growled, and Jaskier fought back his tears once again.
“Well,” he started, playing with the strap of his lute case, “he wrote songs about you, so he must have traveled with you. Must be traveling, in f-”
“ He wrote that piece of shit song?” Geralt interrupted, and when Jaskier did not reply, added: “and the other ones?”
“What?”
But Geralt seemed like he was on a roll, eyes wide opened.
“So you didn’t tell your students that they could-”
“That they what, Geralt? Do tell, because I never ever told any of them to just go and use my muse and taint your image, even after you took my heart and tossed it aside!”
Jaskier was breathing hard; it had been satisfying to yell, but now he just felt drained once again. The whole encounter was going so badly that Geralt would leave convinced that he had done the right thing by sending Jaskier away.
Jaskier couldn’t blame him.
But then Geralt said, wonder in his voice:
“I’m your muse?”
“Valdo isn’t your bard?” Jaskier countered, not really ready to admit to someone who didn’t care about him that he was the reason Jaskier felt inspired enough to write.
“Why the fuck would I want that bastard to replace you?” Geralt almost cried out without realizing that his voice had gotten that loud. He glanced around him before his eyes fell on Jaskier’s face, watching him with a look that Jaskier might have called tender if it hadn’t been him that Geralt was looking at. But Geralt went on. “I mean, you're my bard, uhm, you were until I-”
Jaskier couldn’t even frown; he stayed there, speechless, as Geralt gritted his teeth then relaxed them, darting his eyes everywhere but always falling back on Jaskier.
“I'm sorry Jaskier. For what I said on the mountain, and before that. You're... not annoying. Quite the contrary. I... missed you. And you’re not responsible for all of my problems. I- I apologize for ever telling you that, and for- for hurting you.”
Jaskier didn’t know what to answer, so he turned back to the beginning of their conversation.
“You thought I had told my students that they could write songs about you?”
“...Yes,” Geralt admitted.
“And that – correct me if I’m wrong – that made you feel- hurt?”
“...Yes.”
“But why?” Jaskier asked, and it was more desperate incomprehension than a real desire to know the answer. It was not like he would be getting one anyway.
“Because-” Geralt started, and Jaskier looked at him, startled, “because it made me feel- special. Like- like you needed me as much as I needed you.”
“ You need me?”
His disbelief must have been clear because Geralt’s hand reached out to him, only to hang in the air hesitantly.
Jaskier recognized the two choices that were presented to him. He could accept Geralt’s hand, take it in his own, or refuse it and stay alone. He could grant Geralt forgiveness, or he could choose to be angry at him. Both paths were equal, each decision justified.
He took Geralt’s hand in his.
“Yes, Jask, I- I do. You bring so much in my life, just because you are- you. So. That’s what I mean.”
Jaskier looked at Geralt and then at their joined hands.
Then, because he had nothing to lose, he asked quietly, trusting Geralt to hear it:
“May I- may I kiss you?”
To Jaskier’s relief, Geralt smiled, his smile that showed his canines and made his eyes shine.
“Hmm. Please do.”
Jaskier laughed and leaned in.
Their kiss ended in a hug, Jaskier’s chin on Geralt’ shoulder. The sky was still gray above them, but thankfully no one was passing by.
“I wouldn’t replace you,” Geralt muttered, and Jaskier was sure that he wouldn’t have been able to hear the words without their current position, “you mean too much for me. ‘s you I want, not- not someone else.”
To his horror, Jaskier felt tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, “It’s just that I spent so much time convinced that you hated me, and now you’re back and I-”
“It’s okay.”
They stayed like that some more, then Jaskier suddenly felt too exposed.
“We could- rent a room? And stay in it for the evening, and- and just- stay with each other?”
Geralt let Jaskier go, but his hand found Jaskier’s.
“Hmm,” he agreed. “We’ll see if the ale tastes as shitty as it did twenty years ago.”
Jaskier snorted and smiled at the witcher – at his witcher. Geralt didn’t smile back, not exactly, but Jaskier knew how to read him.
He had twenty two years of experience, after all, and it seemed that he would have all the time in the world to perfect that skill.