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"Okay, you can open your eyes."
Jaskier hesitated.
It wasn't that he didn't trust Geralt. In fact, he was comfortably sitting on what seemed like a wooden bench of some sort, he wasn’t likely to trip and fall or anything like that. But he had kept his eyes closed for most of the morning, and being allowed to use them now felt strangely like a violation of some unwritten rule. He squeezed Geralt's hand, but after a second, the Witcher let go of his fingers anyway.
"You're raised the stakes a lot with all the secrets and whatnot," he joked. "I'm nervous now."
"It won't disappoint," Geralt assured him. "It's fine. I'm going to sit right behind you. We can both look at the same time, if you'd like."
Jaskier took a deep breath, listening intently as Geralt walked around him, the wood creaking under him as he sat in, presumably, a different bench. He was close enough that the wind swirled around them both, somewhat shielding Jaskier from its full impact.
Geralt had woken him up insanely early that morning. So early, in fact, that Jaskier had been convinced it was still the previous night. He'd promised Jaskier a surprise, though, and the bard had never shied away from those. They had been together for a long time, and it wasn't often that Geralt would do such unpredictable things, so Jaskier had followed him.
The path had been too dark for his eyes most of the night, so he'd walked with Geralt, holding onto his arm for dear life and trailing his steps, but mostly trusting him blindly. By the time the sky had started to get clearer, Geralt had requested to be allowed to blindfold him for the rest of the walk. Not much longer, he'd insisted. They'd be there before sunrise.
True to form, Jaskier had barely had time to get used to the weight of the cloth wrapped around his head before Geralt had sat him down and taken it off.
"Ready?" Geralt asked, close behind him.
They weren't touching, but he was close enough that the wind carried his voice into Jaskier's ears like the whisper of the mythical muses. There was something poetic in that, but he didn't have time to dwell on that now. He nodded, realized that Geralt couldn't see, then cleared his throat in anticipation.
"Yes."
"Then... watch, Jaskier."
He opened his eyes... and gasped.
"Geralt," he choked out. The Witcher chuckled.
"Do you know where we are?" he asked, quietly. Jaskier couldn't bring himself to speak, and Geralt seemed to interpret it as a no. "This place is called Ban Ard A'baeth. That might ring a bell?"
Of course it did.
Jaskier looked at the valley, extending in front of him, endless, infinite. At the mountains, surrounding them, almost a circle around them. At the balustrade around them, shielding them from a fall to their deaths from the peak they had walked up to during those hours of darkness. When he looked up, Jaskier's gaze was met with the roof of a wooden gazebo. It looked old, but clean. Jaskier was sure someone nearby cleaned it often, and probably repaired it as well.
When he turned around, he saw Geralt, already half turned on his bench, observing him. The sunrise was nearly upon them, and the timid first rays of light of the day reflected in his amber eyes, in his slitted pupils.
"Geralt," he whispered again. "This is Ban Ard A'baeth?"
"It is," the Witcher agreed, with a smile. His shoulders relaxed a fraction.
"And it's about to be sunrise," Jaskier added. He wondered if he was imagining the note of desperation in his own voice. Geralt grinned.
"That it is."
"You're sitting behind me, Geralt."
"I am indeed."
Jaskier was going to murder him one day.
Perhaps Geralt knew it, because he laughed, seemingly aware of how frustrating he could be. He turned around a bit more, placing an arm on the backrests of the benches, leaning toward Jaskier.
"You were talking about it a few months ago," Geralt reminded him. "It was in one of the songs you learned from that bard last time you were in Oxenfurt, but you were saying you weren't sure if it was real, or if anyone had seen it in the last century, remember?"
"Yes," Jaskier sighed. "Pris has always had a penchant for romantic ballads, but..."
"Do you remember the legend of Ban Ard A'baeth?" Geralt interrupted him. Jaskier chewed on his lower lip.
"Geralt..." he warned.
For all his faults, his White Wolf didn't have the best communication skills, but he wasn't usually cruel. He smiled, this time, raising his hand to caress Jaskier's cheek.
"The song you learned is based on an old tale in Elder," he said. "Roughly translated and paraphrased, it says that this gazebo acts as a confessional. The sunrise, the opposing benches, the valley… You sit here with your partner, back to back, and you tell one another things that you daren't say to each other's face. The legend got translated poorly through the years, and the version we know now of this place is that if your partner brings you here, it equates to a..." he grinned. "A statement, I suppose. Of intention."
"You don't strike me as the kind of man who yearns for marriage, my dear Wolf,” Jaskier clicked his tongue. "I wouldn't ask that of you."
"I thought that we could try it anyway," Geralt continued, rolling his eyes at the interruption. "For its original intended purpose."
"Wha— telling each other secrets?"
"If you will," he shrugged. "Indulge me?"
"Do you have something to tell me, Geralt of Rivia?" Jaskier asked, pretending to be scandalized, but already turning around to comply. "So, how does this work?"
"I can start," Geralt said. "It's meant for saying things you can't say face to face."
"Very well. I expect nothing but your nastiest insults, or I shall be very disappointed, love."
Geralt chuckled, and Jaskier grinned. He heard him take a deep breath. For a moment, only the birds around them dared make a sound. Then he spoke, calm, tempered.
"Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night to relieve yourself. You think I'm still asleep, and you say the sweetest things to me. But I wake up whenever your breathing changes, and I hear them anyway."
"Geralt..."
"Your turn," he added, hastily avoiding any reply from Jaskier, who couldn't help but smile to himself. So that's how it was going to be, huh?
"Hmm... Ah! When people toss coins at you thanks to my song, you end up slipping them into my coin pouch when I'm not looking. Or using them to buy me sweets," Jaskier murmured. Geralt laughed, and for a moment Jaskier was tempted to look back, but restrained himself.
"True enough."
"Your turn!"
"Very well."
They exchanged memories and small secrets back and forth, laughing together with some of them, the feeling of wanting to turn around to look at Geralt growing more and more with each little confession. Jaskier had always enjoyed listening to his voice, but it was rare that he volunteered it so freely, and he was loath to disturb the peace in their cocoon of secrets.
"I..." Geralt sighed. "Don't let this go to your head, but I do like your singing," he mumbled. Jaskier laughed.
"I have gotten much better in the past years, dear. I am not offended anymore that you didn't like it back then."
"I did like it," he brushed it off, shifting on the bench, making the wood creak.
"Thank you, Geralt. I quite like your fighting skills, of course! Though I don't think I have ever made a secret of it."
"Not exactly," he chuckled. "I... I'd like to train you in some self-defense, sometime. You're good in a bar fight, but... something more refined."
"That would be something, wouldn't it?" Jaskier agreed. "Maybe I'll pick up a sword yet."
"I have one more secret," Geralt said then, and he sounded... resolute, though perhaps also apprehensive. Jaskier hadn't heard him sound quite like that before... He waited and, though this time he couldn't hear him move, his voice sounded like he was facing Jaskier when he next spoke. "I did want to bring you here for a... statement of intentions."
"Wh—?!" Jaskier startled, but Geralt continued, perhaps spurred by the interruption, or perhaps simply not wanting to lose his nerve.
"I know I'm not human. And I know binding you to me is selfish. And I know you have already given me so much, and I know I haven't always deserved it. So I won't ask you to do any of it. But I wanted to give you this as a proof of my... devotion. We have never asked commitment of one another, and I won't ask it of you now either. I just... I just want you to have this, Jaskier. If... If you'll have me."
Jaskier nearly hurt his neck as he turned around, his heart suddenly in his throat, beating wildly, eyes prickling, threatening to tear up. He felt faint as he looked at Geralt, and then between them, to an elegant but deadly-looking dagger sitting balanced on top of the backseats of the benches. Geralt looked down at it, then nodded at Jaskier.
"A dagger?" he asked, taking it eagerly, examining it under the morning sunlight. He pressed a cautious finger to the blade — sharp as anything.
"Witchers don't gift weapons. We lend them, perhaps, when needed. We borrow them. We even loot them from bandits or soldiers who oppose us. But we don't gift them. Do you know why?" Geralt asked. Jaskier looked up at him, at those beautiful golden eyes.
"Why?" he whispered, drinking in the sight of Geralt's eyes crinkling at the corners in delight.
"Our weapons are part of our identity. They are forged for us, or by us. They aren't meant to fit other people's hands... unless we forge them for someone."
"Did you forge this for me, Geralt?" Jaskier breathed.
"One could argue that you have always taken a piece of your identity and linked it with mine. You chose to become the bard that traveled with Geralt of Rivia, and you gifted me your songs, and your name with them. I thought... it was long overdue that I gave you a piece of mine, too."
"Geralt..."
"You don't have to take it, of course," he added, finally moving, as if suddenly restless. He wiped his palms on his trousers, looking around the mountain as if looking for something Jaskier couldn't see. "Like I said. Intentions."
"Intentions of what, darling? Would you make an honest man out of me with it?"
"Hardly," he snorted. "You're not one to settle, but you're not a young boy anymore, and I have told you many times, Witchers don't retire."
"I have many years in me yet, Witcher. Many years to convince you to retire, too. Monster hunting won't be profitable forever," Jaskier warned. Geralt grinned, still not looking at him.
"You speak as though you would be able to settle down, yourself. We both know you have the Path in your veins, bard."
"Perhaps," he accepted. "Or perhaps I can't bear to part from you, beloved. I shall accept your dagger, on one condition."
"Oh?"
Geralt did look at him then, smirking with a hint or resignation, as if ready to hear the bad news... Jaskier raised a hand from the dagger to caress his face. His fingers, normally so poised, were trembling.
"If you're willing to state your intentions as a Witcher... Do it as well as a man. I'm not a Witcher, you see. I cannot reciprocate like this."
"Jaskier..." he gasped, nearly pulling back. Jaskier waited, breath caught in his throat. "You..."
"Well, Geralt?"
"Jaskier, I... you..."
It was endearing, Jaskier thought as relief washed through his body, watching Geralt stumble with his words, flustered. Endearing, but familiar, and he reveled in the way the sun bathed his lover's face as he sought Jaskier's tear-filled eyes.
"Jaskier. Marry me," Geralt said, simply, not even truly a question, but placing a hand around Jaskier's on the dagger, tapping his ring finger with his pinky.
Jaskier was a fool.
Innumerable people, not to mention his own family, had warned him repeatedly against following a Witcher around. How dangerous it would be, how deadly they were, how terribly inhuman.
As he finally let his tears fall, he realized they had been right — Geralt was no human, he was more akin to a god; following him had always been dangerous, so much so that Jaskier had been on the verge of breaking his own heart a million times over...
Jaskier was a fool. But he was a fool in love.
And so, here they were.
He leaned in, kissing Geralt, pouring every single song he’d written for him into a single word.
"Yes!"