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There is a certain type of bitterness that grows after years of being treated like shit.
Geralt thinks that he’d done a decent job not letting the bitterness grow for many, many years. Every witcher had to contend with the realities of life on the Path, and he’d been able to make his peace with it for a long time (some days more than others). He wasn’t like Lambert, who seemed to have been birthed spitting mad and only got madder with each year. Geralt had made it decades quietly taking every slight and rock thrown his way, every short payment and every inn that wouldn’t house him.
The thing is, the bitterness builds up. Little by little, year by year. Blaviken only made everything worse. It builds up until that’s all there is.
There is a bard now trailing after his every step. The bard is loud and colorful and irritating as all hell. Geralt doesn’t know what he wants, or what’s going to happen once he realizes he’s not going to get it, but it sets him on edge. Something always seems to go sour when he’s close to humans, and this will be no different.
What sets him even more on edge is how touchy the bard is.
Jaskier gestures with his hands while he speaks and is only sort of aware of his surroundings, regularly smacking tree branches or Geralt or whatever else happens to be standing too close to him. The first time it happens, he smacks Geralt square in the chest and barely seems to notice, continuing with his rant.
Even through all the leather of his armour, the touch jolts him.
Jaskier pokes him in the side to get his attention and brushes hands with him as he passes a canteen. It’s nothing particularly affectionate or intimate, it’s just…normal. The kind of touches that happen when you aren’t particularly careful around someone.
If every touch feels like a drug, that’s between Geralt and the gods. He’s been on his own too long, he knows that. There’s just not very many people willing to be around the Butcher of Blaviken these days. Except for this one strange bard that is slowly growing on Geralt like some type of mold.
*
The bard makes it three weeks before he breaks down and begs Geralt to stay in a town.
“We’re two hours away at most, I’ve passed through here before, there’s a dingy little inn - well, okay, maybe that’s not going to sell you on it, but it has beds! And a roof! Which means we could be dry. Imagine it!”
“Inns cost money.”
“ - imagine, they might even have pillows! Do you remember pillows, Geralt?”
Yes, Geralt can remember pillows and his bed in Kaer Morhen and the many months of walking the Path that stand between him and it.
“Can’t afford it,” Geralt grunts.
“It’s not that expensive to rent a bed -” Jaskier starts.
It stings to have it pushed in his face that his life isn’t normal, so far beyond normal that someone like Jaskier can’t fathom it. Yes, of course most travellers with little coin to spare would rent a space on the floor of the tavern or a place in a dormitory in an inn. Shared rooms were normal and a fraction of the price.
“It’s expensive to rent a private room,” Geralt can’t keep the snarl out of his voice entirely, even if he knows it’s not fair. “Or do you think anyone wants to sleep near a witcher? Half the time they don’t even want me under the same roof.”
He’s not ashamed of what he is, not really. It’s just that, being treated like that, over and over, year after year, it’s degrading. It wears a man down until there’s only bitterness left.
The bard goes quiet for a long moment. “That’s bullshit,” he says at last, an undercurrent of real anger in his voice that throws Geralt off. “Well, if you aren’t opposed to sleeping near me, we could split the cost of a private room between the two of us.”
Geralt’s brain grinds to a halt. His feet do too, and the bard bumps into him at the sudden stop. It’s a line of heat down his back where the bard stumbled against him.
“Come on, we can share a bed - a real bed - and we don’t have to wait out the rain,” Jaskier says, his tone wheedling. Like Geralt would the one doing the favour. As though there’s an abundance of people willing to share his bed.
He sometimes shares a bed with Eskel or Lambert over the winter, when nights are cold, or when ghosts hang a little too close-by. But there are many months stretching between winters. The inns won’t let him in, half the time the brothels won’t either, and it’s not like it’s new, it’s just that it’s gotten so much worse. Geralt has always felt like he was living off scraps, but year by year the scraps are getting scanter.
“Fine,” he bites out.
Jaskier lights up like Geralt promised to shower him in gold.
*
They arrive at the inn and it all goes still around them, everyone eyeing Geralt uneasily. Jaskier is loud enough to make up for everyone else.
He charms the innkeeper into lending them a room, though reluctantly. She doesn’t have a good excuse to keep Jaskier from renting there, and maybe they think Jaskier will keep him in line - he’s got a human minder, so it’s okay to let the beast in for a night.
He refuses to resent Jaskier for other people’s bigotry, though sometimes it's hard.
All thoughts of resentment quickly fade when he hears what they are whispering about the bard behind his back on their way through the barroom and up the stairs. The words whore and bitch come up a lot. Most of it is quiet enough that only a witcher could hear it.
Jaskier’s expression twitches in a way that lets Geralt know he still heard some of it though.
The door swings shut behind them, muffling the noise of the other patrons to a bearable degree, and Geralt lets his shoulders loosen at the comforting sound of a lock flipping shut.
Locked doors are a luxury on the Path. He’s not stupid enough to let his guard entirely down while he’s in a town, but he can afford to relax a little bit, knowing that if someone tries anything, he’ll hear them well before they get to him.
It’s odd that he doesn’t really consider Jaskier a threat.
“What a bunch of assholes,” Jaskier said, dumping his bag on the table and lowering his lute case with significantly more care. He flips the latches on the case and pulls out the instrument that Geralt is pretty sure the bard values more than his life at this point. “Well, let’s see if I can draw a bit of coin out of them regardless. Don’t wait up, darling.”
Darling. The word makes Geralt feel off-kilter, like every pet name Jaskier uses. It’s nothing, just a quirk of the bard’s speech pattern - he calls complete strangers those names, and half the time it’s not even to flirt. Hell, he calls Roach darling too.
Geralt takes care of his gear. Faintly, he can hear Jaskier’s voice through the floorboards. Seems like he got the innkeep to agree to let him play. It’s still early when Geralt turns in, but he doesn’t get to sleep in a bed often, so he tries to take advantage when he can.
He doesn’t really expect the bard to come back. He expects this is probably just a kind thing Jaskier was doing for him, and Jaskier fully intended to shack up with his paramour of the day. Especially if his reputation was now being tarnished just by standing next to Geralt.
And yet, it’s a little past midnight, and Geralt is more meditating than trying to sleep, when the door cracks open.
He can tell the bard is trying to be quiet as he gets undressed and ready for bed. He can also tell, from the scuffing and uneven steps that the bard is a little drunk.
He stops breathing entirely as the bed shifts and the bard climbs in and settles on his side, back to Geralt, so close that he can feel the warmth coming off him.
The bard’s heartbeat slows and his breathing evens out, and just like that he is asleep. Asleep, with a witcher at his back, and zero hesitation.
And Geralt - Geralt knows he should sleep. He should take full advantage of this very rare bed that he has. But sleep evades him on a good day, and right now his mind is whispering that there is someone right there, within arms reach. Geralt could just shift an inch to the left and be touching the bard. (The bard is warm, and Geralt is cold all the time, somewhere deep in his bones).
He doesn’t move. It would be taking advantage - worst, it would be taking advantage of one of the very few people that trusts him.
In the end, though, he doesn’t need to move. Jaskier is not a still sleeper, and he shuffles and bumps Geralt with his elbows a few times before finally flopping over and throwing his arm over Geralt’s waist.
Geralt startles so bad that Jaskier also starts awake.
“Oh - fuck, hm, sorry,” Jaskier mumbles. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
He plops his face against Geralt's back and does not move his arm. His heartbeat has already slid back into the slow and steady rhythm of sleep.
*
It doesn’t stop. Coin is still thin between the two of them, but whenever the weather turns bad or Jaskier has had enough of sleeping rough, he will wheedle and cajole Geralt into splitting a room with him. The whispers about Jaskier being a witcher’s whore don’t relent. The first few times, there was anxiety in his scent and his heartbeat would pick up. After the third inn where this happened, he furtively casted Geralt a look once they were safely in their rented room.
“...Does it bother you?” Jaskier asked, voice deceptively light.
“Does what bother me?”
“Well, dear, they call me your whore every time we rent a room together. Some men get rather upset at those kinds of rumours.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Geralt said, which was only sort of true. “Anyways, it's you they’re insulting.”
Jaskier shrugged. “Let them talk. If they want to do more than talk, I’m very good at running and hiding behind you.”
Geralt couldn’t help but snort.
After that, Jaskier doesn’t seem to pay much mind to the rumours.
Geralt doesn’t understand but is too afraid to lose what they have to bring it up.
The strangest part is that Jaskier always returns to share the bed. Sometimes smelling of booze, often smelling of sex, he will always eventually crawl in besides Geralt and after a few minutes of shuffling, will throw his limbs haphazardly over Geralt’s.
It is such a dizzying relief everytime it happens, a temporary grace from the cold and hostility of the Path. For a moment, Geralt feels like the kind of man that could be loved.
*
When they part ways for the winter, the bard is legitimately sad to see him go, and promises him to meet up again in the Spring. Geralt, too, is sad to see him go, though he’d chop his arm off before he’d admit it. He believes the bard is sincere when he promises to find him in the spring, but Geralt knows how unpredictable both of their lives are, and he knows there’s no guarantee of seeing him again.
Over the winter, Lambert and Eskel give him shit for having his own personal barker now. But in a quiet moment alone one night, Eskel says: “You look better than you usually do when you make it up to Kaer Morhen.”
Geralt hums, but doesn’t really answer. He doesn’t need to. Eskel knows.
*
It’s their second year travelling together when Geralt breaks the pattern.
The bard and him split ways for four weeks so that the bard could go to a festival while Geralt tries to track down a lead on a leshi.
It’s four hard weeks of rain and mud and hostility. This close to Blaviken, he’s lucky not to get greeted with pitchforks, let alone paid. The usual miasma of fear and disgust trails after him wherever he goes, and there is no bard there to distract him from it now.
When he hears the bard’s humming coming from behind him on the road, something in Geralt loosens. He halts Roach and waits for Jaskier to catch up.
“Darling!” Jaskier says, with a smile so bright it could warm even a worn down witcher. “You are looking at the reigning champion of the Novigrad music festival.”
Geralt smiles and Jaskier falls into step easily beside Roach, like he belongs there.
They’re nearing a town, but it’s actually stopped raining and the ground is dry enough to make camp comfortably, and Jaskier is (for once) not whining about sleeping rough. It’s with a sinking disappointment that Geralt realizes that Jaskier isn’t going to ask to stay in town.
He’s getting weak if he can't go four weeks without kindness. And yet.
“Town up ahead. If you want to split a room,” Geralt said, trying to sound offhanded.
Jaskier looks at him in shock for a second, and all the ugly feelings of being lesser and beastly come crawling back to haunt him. “I’ll never say no to a real bed,” Jaskier says, cracking a smile.
Geralt just grunted.
“Is everything alright?” Jaskier asks, placing a hand on his elbow. It burns.
“I’m fine.”
Jaskier lets his hand fall from his arm. A furrow forms between his eyebrows that is quickly smoothed away. “If you’re sure,” Jaskier says with a smile, and he goes back to picking at his lute.
*
It becomes routine, normal. Jaskier asks to split a room often and loudly. Rarely, once in a long while, when the loneliness and isolation become too much to bear, Geralt will ask once, quietly. Jaskier will always get that look on his face, and immediately agree.
*
Two years turns into five in the blink of an eye. The bitterness recedes, bit by bit, season by season, like the tide going out.
*
It’s late when Geralt stumbles back to their shared room, hood pulled low to hide that the dose of Cat he took has not entirely left his system yet. Even though it’s well into the small hours of the morning, their room is right above a packed barroom that has yet to quiet down for the night. Even with a floor between them, it’s grating when he’s still riding out the last of his potions.
He wasn’t supposed to be back before dawn, but he was bleeding pretty steadily, the monster having thrown him into a tree branch that went clean through his shoulder before vanishing without a trace. After a couple of hours of trying to find the trail again, the blood loss had gone from mildly irritating to definitely a problem, so Geralt made the decision to drag himself back to the inn and try again in the morning.
Later, he will blame it on the racket from the barroom and the single-minded focus to just get to his potions and his bed, in that order. In the moment, he thoughtlessly unlocks the door and steps into the room without even checking how many heartbeats are within.
Jaskier is being pressed up against a wall by a young blond man, who is working at giving him an impressive love bite on his neck. At the sound of the door opening, Jaskier freezes for a second before roughly shoving his partner away.
The smell of fear floods the room.
“Geralt. You’re not supposed to be here,” Jaskier says, pulling his chemise straight with shaking hands. His eyes dart from his partner to Geralt. “Go,” he tells the stranger. “Now.”
Realizing that he is blocking the door, Geralt steps aside, and the stranger rushes out. The door shuts with a thud, leaving Jaskier and Geralt alone with the scent of fear.
It’s not the first time he’s stumbled on Jaskier with someone since they’ve been travelling together, but it is the first time that it’s a man.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Geralt.
“You weren’t supposed to be back til morning,” said Jaskier, voice tight.
“I lost the trail,” said Geralt. He knows he has to say something. Relationships between men are various levels of secretive depending on where you are on the Continent. There are places where people will shrug it off, and places where it’ll get you hurt or killed. Geralt knows this is important, that Jaskier is rightfully scared of his reaction, and yet between the blood loss and the potion toxicity, he can’t find the words. It’s hard to string words together on a good day, and this is decidedly not that. “It’s - it’s fine, Jaskier, I don’t care who you’re bringing to bed.”
Jaskier scrubs a hand over his face roughly. “You weren’t supposed to know,” he says, voice breaking.
“I’m sorry,” says Geralt, feeling at a complete loss. And then, because he really is losing quite a bit of blood, he sits down on a chair and starts peeling off his armour. Jaskier takes a hesitant step in his direction, but seems to think better of it.
Jaskier still stinks of nerves, and Geralt has the sudden urge to make himself smaller. Smaller, quieter, more human, less threatening.
“I’m going to go make sure Stefan knows he’s not about to be run out of town,” Jaskier says, avoiding Geralt’s eye as he ducks out of the room.
Sitting in the room by himself, Geralt patches up his own injuries and takes a dose of Swallow. He waits for Jaskier to return, but an hour later, he’s still not back. Sighing, Geralt goes to bed and yet finds that sleep evades him. He realizes he’s still waiting for Jaskier to come back - to crawl into bed in the middle of the night, like he always does.
For the first time, Jaskier never comes to bed. Dawn finds Geralt before he’s able to fall asleep, and he pulls himself out of bed with a sick feeling in his stomach. His only reassurance, as the suspicion that he’s ruined something starts to seep in, is that Jaskier’s lute is still in the room, so Jaskier will come back eventually.
Jaskier returns mid morning with dark circles under his eyes and a fake smile pasted on his face. “Morning, dear - I mean, Geralt,” he says. “I thought you’d have gone out to hunt by now.”
Geralt grunts, grabbing his swords and slinging them onto his back without meeting Jaskier’s eyes. He’d lingered precisely to make sure Jaskier didn’t cut and run while he was hunting.
“So…about last night,” Jaskier said, fidgeting with the ring on his pinky finger.
“I told you, it’s fine,” said Geralt. “Uh, sorry I barged in.”
Jaskier laughs once. “Well, it’s hardly the first time you’ve caught me in the act. Like you said, it’s fine.”
There is an odd beat of silence.
“I’m going to try and find the tracks again now that it’s light out,” said Geralt. “You should get some sleep while I’m gone. We’ve got room ‘til this afternoon.”
Jaskier hums noncommittally.
When he’s ready to leave, and Jaskier has drifted to the chair in the corner, pulling out his notebook from his bags, Geralt pauses. He wants to say something - wants to reassure Jaskier that he is safe with him, that Geralt would sooner fall on his own sword than hurt him. He can’t find the words, so he says nothing, and hopes all the same that Jaskier knows.
*
When they leave town that afternoon, and Jaskier is chatting away about his latest work in progress, his smile no longer forced, Geralt thinks maybe it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. Maybe nothing had been broken beyond repair.
*
It takes a couple of days for Geralt to notice.
It’s a small thing that draws his attention to it - he sits beside Jaskier on an overturned log by the fire, and rather than leaning against him, Jaskier shuffles so there is a respectable amount of distance between them.
Geralt had been braced for the warmth of Jaskier’s side against his own, but instead he’s left cold. And Geralt thinks back and realizes that Jaskier hasn’t touched him since the incident.
The bard continues to chatter away like nothing is wrong, like he hasn’t suddenly decided that Geralt should be kept at a safe distance.
Once he notices, he can’t stop noticing. Jaskier doesn’t sling his arm around his shoulders to get his attention, or sprawl on the ground, one leg tangled up with Geralt’s as they sit by a fire. When he looks at Geralt with concern, there is no soft touch to accompany it. They don’t so much as brush fingers passing food back and forth. There’s nothing. The kind of nothing that requires conscious effort to stay out of another’s way.
Geralt should be used to it. He should be used to the three food wide radius of impenetrable space that surrounds him when he moves amongst humans. After decades of aldermen refusing to shake his hand, and brothels charging extra for the bother of having to touch him, he should be used to it. Before Jaskier arrived in his life, the only people who didn’t avoid him like he carried the plague were his brothers, but even that was different. They roughhoused and sparred, clapped each other on the shoulder, and he was grateful for it. But they didn’t drape themselves over him like an affectionate housecat the way Jaskier did when the mood struck him.
The gap between them is maddening. It makes Geralt feel like the worst sort of creature, something unwanted and yet wanting always. He could cross the gap himself, but…he has never taken more than was freely offered. If Jaskier pulled away from him, or stank of fear again, he doesn’t know what he’d do.
*
The days drag into weeks and Geralt notices that Jaskier has stopped calling him pet names too. There are no more “dear”s or “darling” or “witcher dearest.” Jaskier doesn’t ask to stop in towns for the longest stretch since they’ve known each other.
*
It’s been raining for four days straight and Geralt can smell a lightning storm on the way, and so he asks, just as they are entering town: “Split a room?”
And Jaskier gives him that look, again. It’s concern, and for a moment, it’s so familiar that Geralt forgets himself. He expects the usual acceptance and sunny smile, because Jaskier has never refused him, not once in five years. But the look gets shadowed by something else for a moment, before Jaskier says, reluctantly: “Sure. Let’s get out of the rain.”
*
Geralt negotiates the price of the room because Jaskier seems oddly withdrawn and nervous, and they head up to their room. The whole way, he hears Jaskier’s heartbeat pick up from where he was trailing behind him.
The room was small but warm from the fire burning in the grate, one large bed taking up the center of the room.
“I’ll take the floor,” Jaskier says with a strained smile as he slips past Geralt into the room - without so much as brushing against him by accident.
Geralt feels something inside himself break. “What did I do?”
Jaskier stops by the fireplace, turning towards him with a confused look. “What do you mean? You haven’t done anything, as far as I know.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jaskier says, but it’s a lie, and the scent of anxiety starts to spread through the room and Geralt doesn’t understand.
“I know it started when I walked in on you with that - that man,” says Geralt haltingly. “I’m sorry if I saw something you didn’t want me to see. Are you angry? Is that it?”
“No - no, of course not, everything is fine.”
It feels like someone is carving his heart out of his chest very slowly. Because if Jaskier won’t even admit there’s something wrong, then there is no way to fix it, is there?
Jaskier must see the distress in his expression, because he moves towards Geralt, and starts to reach out but then aborts the movement. His expression crumbles. “It's just that I don’t know - I don’t know what I’m allowed to do anymore,” Jaskier says. “I mean - it's different now, because you know.”
“Nothing has to change, I said it was fine -”
“A lot of people say it's fine!” Jaskier snaps and that brings up Geralt short. Anger and frustration and an oh-so-familiar type of bitterness flashes through his expression before he schools it. “It’s fine as long as it’s out of sight, and I don’t talk about it, and I - I keep my hands to myself.”
The pieces of the puzzle slot into place, and a horrible sort of understanding starts to dawn on him.
“I learned a long time ago that I can’t go on acting the same way after someone knows,” Jaskier says. “Do you know how many friends I’ve lost that way? I know how I am, I’m - I’m touchy, and loud, and I flirt without any real intention, and it was all fine when they thought I was only taking women to bed, but then…I made them uncomfortable, they felt like I was preying on them, and I won’t have you feel that way about me, I won’t.”
“Jaskier -”
“So you don’t have to worry about it. Nothing else has to change, we can still be friends -” Jaskier says, an edge of pleading entering his tone.
Geralt steps up until he’s close to Jaskier. The bard stiffens but doesn’t step back, expression miserable.
Geralt forces himself to reach out.
It’s hard, it feels unnatural to be the one to initiate, and Geralt is still half convinced that Jaskier is going to flinch back in disgust, but Geralt is starting to see the shape of the problem.
He takes Jaskier’s hand and squeezes. Such a small touch, and yet it’s a burst of electricity and warmth. He watches as tears flood Jaskier’s eyes and he sucks in a sharp breath.
It hadn’t occurred to Geralt that Jaskier might be suffering just as much as he was in his self-imposed exile.
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Jaskier asks, almost desperately.
“Yes,” Geralt said. “People treat you like you’re dangerous. Like you carry the plague. They keep you at arms length because they don’t trust you any closer.”
“Yes, how did you - oh,” Jaskier says. “Oh.”
“You didn’t deserve people treating you like that.”
That look comes into Jaskier’s eyes again. “Neither did you.”
“You never treated me like that. Like I was less than you. You treated me like -” like a person, he thinks but cannot bring himself to say.
“Like a friend,” says Jaskier.
Yes, like a friend. Not just as a person, but a person Jaskier liked, and that was from their very first meeting. Geralt realizes that maybe Jaskier doesn’t know how much that meant to a lonely witcher at the end of his rope.
“It saved me,” he says. “You - you saved me. I would never treat you the way I’ve been treated. I would never do that to you.”
Jaskier lets his tears fall, and Geralt knows that for once he’s found the right words. What a strange thing to find kinship in with Jaskier, who is universally loved and charming and yet - only for so long as his secret is hidden.
Geralt disentangles their hands only so that he can steel himself and pull Jaskier in a hug. There is a moment where he fears he overstepped, but then Jaskier all but collapses into the embrace.
It’s more touch than he’s had in months, and it takes a moment for Geralt to remember how to breathe.
“Share the bed with me,” Geralt says.
“You’re sure?” Jaskier’s voice is muffled against Geralt’s shoulder.
“I’m sure.”
“It can’t be this easy.”
“It could be. Don’t be fucking stubborn.”
Jaskier hiccups a laugh. There’s a beat, and then: “What did I ever do to deserve you, dear heart.” The question is so quiet that Geralt thinks he wasn’t meant to hear it, so he doesn’t answer. He just basks in the warmth while it lasts, and lets the words dear heart wrap themselves around his heart.
*
When they are finally in bed, the candles put out, leaving them in the quiet dark, Jaskier shuffles closer, his touches hesitant until Geralt pulls him closer. Jaskier wraps his arm around Geralt’s waist, head resting on his shoulder. It feels like a homecoming.
“I’m sorry, y’know,” says Jaskier. “I didn’t think about what it would look like on your end. Didn’t think much beyond my own fears.”
“S’alright.”
There is something about the dark, about having Jaskier near after coming close to losing him, that compels Geralt to speak.
“I’ve never felt what you feel,” says Geralt softly.
Jaskier shifts. “Never felt what? The desire to bed a man? Can’t say I’m surprised, I never got that impression from you.”
“The desire to bed anyone,” Geralt admits. “I mean not that - not that fucking is bad. It’s more that…I don’t really care about any of it.”
“I know you go to brothels sometimes.”
“Takes the edge off, of being alone,” said Geralt. “Don’t bother with it much these days, not when I’m travelling with you.”
He can hear the bard’s heart thundering away beneath the sound of Geralt’s slower (yet still too fast for a witcher’s) heartbeat. He knows he’s shown his hand too much. He can’t stop now.
Geralt finds the courage somewhere to keep pressing forward. “Never really got what it meant to fall in love, either. I’ve never fallen in love and I probably never will - but I do love you, Jask. And I’m grateful that we met, and I’ll be grateful for every season you want to spend with me. I just…I just thought you should know.”
There is a long pause, before Jaskier’s quiet, shaking voice asks: “Is it okay if I’m in love with you?”
“If it’s okay with you that I can’t offer you more than this,” he said slowly. “Is this - enough?”
It can’t possibly be enough, can it? (Ignoring, of course, how it’s enough for Geralt, in fact it’s everything he’s ever wanted).
Jaskier laughs softly. It’s perhaps the best sound in the world. “Yeah, it’s more than enough,” he said. “I’m perfectly happy where I am.”
The scent of joy blooms thick and potent in the air.