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“I’m getting old,” Jaskier admits.
The phrase hangs in the air, bereft of his usual swagger. Everyone stills, the blood in Geralt’s body running cold in his veins. In true Jaskier form, he recoups quickly, turning on an oren to tell his story. Sing his story, rather, and Yarpen grins as the rest of their little group raise their eyebrows. They don’t know this Jaskier, Geralt thinks. They know the Sandpiper, the smuggler, Geralt’s companion, but not Jaskier the Bard.
Geralt knows a fair amount of time has passed since he first met Jaskier. That backwash Posada tavern comes back to him in pieces, echoes of the thing he used to be. A boy in a bright blue doublet, with bread in his pants and a glint in his eye that made Geralt feel like punching him. He still remembers the sound Jaskier made when his fist connected, the scuff of his boots on the sand as he struggled to catch back up. Boundless. Geralt remembers pleading for the bard’s life without really understanding why, simply knowing it was not his time.
The thought of that boy now considering his own mortality is a paradox; Jaskier does not live as though he someday will die.
As of late, though, that’s less a truth and more a wish. During their travels Jaskier bore injuries and fear and hard nights and harder days with the same unflinching steadiness. Complaints were merely steam let off; Jaskier can’t exactly kill his problems like Geralt can. The complaining never seemed in earnest, either. Jaskier knew the price of the Path, and paid it willingly through every blister and bludgeon. After Brokilon, the bard grew warier. Geralt notices caution leading him more often, bravery now shown in knowing when to get out of the way. The brush with the wraith in the graveyard shook him far more than Geralt expected. The sight of Jaskier hunched over and shaking outside the mouth of the mausoleum made him uneasy.
And yesterday, oh. The repercussions of yesterday are still visible, the cloth tied hastily around Jaskier’s head reddening further with every gesture. Geralt cleaned most of the blood off his face last night, an excuse to monitor the bard’s shallow breathing as the potion ebbed from his body. Another droplet seeps from under the faux bandage, and Jaskier’s lithe fingers brush it away, the gesture hidden in a dramatic fling of the hand. Even now hiding his pain in song and sleight of hand, keeping concern at bay. Geralt’s chest aches and he frowns, rubs a hand over it.
Never in all their years together had he seen the bard so certain of death. Zoltan’s shout cut clean through the potion-honed focus, fight turned into a flight toward the prone figure. Nothing mattered; Cahir, the Nilfgaardians, the Cintrans, the elves the dwarves destiny it-fucking-self could have materialized in front of him and Geralt would have slain it to reach his goal. His eyes saw only Jaskier, barely conscious, still begging him to leave him, to go, to find Ciri. Still expecting Geralt to leave him.
He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to tune back into Jaskier, alive, singing about Valdo Marx and the time he’d lost everything. It’s a story from long ago, from the early days of their travels together when Geralt’s biggest headaches were monsters and ensuring Jaskier didn’t end up at the pointy end of some cucked nobleman’s sword. A simpler time, when Jaskier would bathe him before banquets and stuff him into old doublets and he’d spend the night brooding, watching this eternal flame flit around the dance floor.
Old stories bring up older memories; the djinn, the Law of Surprise, the mountain. In his less sober moments Geralt wonders if somehow destiny itself chose Jaskier as a conduit. Caingorn echoes in his head, something about piles of shit and Jaskier doing the shoveling. Geralt has never wished to take back a moment so fiercely. He was angry, then. The ache inside him never rested, only spurred him further and further into madness. No sleep, no meal, no distraction could ease it. Jaskier was simply the first target he felt certain he could hit, after everything. He kept waiting for the bard to yell back, he remembers. For the fire to flare and the two of them to shout it out and return to normal. Instead he simply turned away. For months afterward, Geralt’s mind tripped over memories of Jaskier like a tongue runs over a missing tooth.
Now, when he meditates, his mind lingers on the future. When these wars end, when the Continent returns to peace. In some dreams he continues on the Path, meeting and parting with Ciri and Yen as they follow their own destinies alongside him. In others they settle down, a farm or a vineyard or a cottage by a lake. Geralt finds mundane tasks to fill his days, comes home to a fire in the hearth and no blood on his hands save that from the night’s meal. Kaer Morhen in the winters, halls ringing with the sounds of their family. In all of those dreams, in every dream he will ever dream, Jaskier is there. With him, close to him, laughing and singing and filling all the quiet spots with joy. Through his own stupidity Geralt has known a life without him. There is no future without Jaskier, not anymore.
Some would call it love, he thinks. He is, admittedly, new to acknowledging his feelings. Jaskier began his softening all those years ago by force, and Yennefer and Ciri followed through in turning his insides into some sort of soup. He loves his girls fiercely in a way he never thought he’d know, fear and grief and hope and joy all tied up together in a tangle of warmth. If he does indeed love Jaskier, it’s different. Destiny, for once, had no hand in it as far as Geralt knows.
Jaskier chose him, all those years ago. No djinn, no Law of Surprise. Chose him and stayed, exiled and returned perhaps against his better judgment to help Geralt. He’s as steadfast a presence in Geralt’s life as his sword arm. These feelings fly in the face of all his training; Jaskier provides little save another mouth to feed. But the thought of him growing old, of dying, strikes ice into the core of him. He does not want to live this life without Jaskier. Maybe that is love.
Or maybe love is just how well he knows Jaskier’s story. Even half paying attention, he knows the cadence of these tales, the rise and the fall as Jaskier builds up to his grand finale.
“He stole the book,” he remembers, smiling at the memory of just how outraged Jaskier had been. The group gasps, and his grin widens at just how enraptured they are. Still got it, Jask. The rest of the story is truly a feat of embellishment; Valdo’s star indeed rose and Jaskier’s waned, but only for a short time. Not quite as ruinous as the bard makes it seem, but Geralt has learned his lesson in dramatic storytelling by now. That waning period changed something in Jaskier. He firmed up, began to take things more seriously. Dedicated himself not only to making sure Geralt ate and bathed, but that his potion ingredients stayed stocked. His hands stopped shaking when he stitched wounds, the sight of blood only turning his face resolute, not green. Jaskier accustomed himself to hardship. Geralt never thanked him properly, and the thought sits uneasily as the bard winds down to raucous applause.
Regis appears then out of the darkness, materializing in his soft and indistinct way. The witcher in him envies that stealth, monster to monster. His medallion shivers, almost pleading Geralt to do something, but when it comes to Regis he can’t seem to make himself. There’s a quiet sadness to the vampire that intrigues him. On a more callous note, they’re in dire need of a healer. Jaskier’s head needs more tending to than they have experience for, human skin and human infections evading their fields of expertise. Milva had done the best she could last night, bandaging it and cleaning it, but Regis deftly sews it shut, fingers dancing over Jaskier’s face.
Geralt watches him with an odd feeling. He wants to take the needle from Regis, sew Jaskier up himself. Instead he sits to the side, watching Jaskier gasp and bite his cheek and try not to scrunch his forehead as the needle slides cleanly in and out. While he stitches and cleans the wound Regis tells his own story, simply and plainly. Monstrosity and love and loss and healing. Geralt’s ears ring, the similarities too unnerving for destiny to not be showing its hand. Regis looks at him, smiles like he knows exactly what knot Geralt’s struggling to unpick. You are simply experiencing emotions you are known for disregarding, he says, packing his tools neatly into his bag. You are becoming something new.
Regis stays.
Their meal occurs mostly in silence, each member of their little group starving and still vulnerable after their admissions. Little pockets begin to form, openings like peace offerings. Yarpen and Zoltan bicker softly over Percy’s head. Milva and Cahir sidle closer to each other when they think nobody sees, two cats sniffing each other out. Geralt stares only at Jaskier, watching him eat and breathe. He wants, insanely, to check over the stitches on his head to ensure they’re not too tight, too painful. Jaskier meets his gaze once, rolling his eyes in a way Geralt interprets as I’m fine, you brute.
He turns away, finally, to find Regis. His skin crawls down his spine at his gaze. Two predators they are, eyes gleaming in the dark. Regis looks for a moment as though he’d ask a question, but only inclines his head, turning back to his own bowl. Across the fire Milva scoffs, lips twitching toward a smile before she goes back to whispering with Cahir. She’s savvy; her murmurs somehow escape his ears, crackling like the flames between them. Some secret sits in the air. Geralt can’t parse it. Doesn’t want to, if he’s honest with himself. His instincts still push at him to check on Jaskier, inspect the sutures and search for any pain not shown.
Instead, he sets down his empty bowl, grabbing his sword and honing stone and setting out toward the river. Zoltan asks where he’s going, but Geralt doesn’t deign to answer. He hears Jaskier’s irritated fuck if I know and the snap of twigs under new boots. Not the intended outcome of his venture, but not unwelcome. He moves slowly, letting the bard catch up to him. They walk in silence until the rushing of the river drowns out the sounds of their camp, returning to merriment as Percy pulls out a bottle of liquor. Jaskier turns to him, placing a hand on his hip and fixing him with a look.
“What, one head bump and it’s time to put Jaskier down by the moonlit river? Sword sharpened for efficiency? It is a rather picturesque place to die, I have to admit it- oof.”
Geralt doesn’t want to have this conversation, and instead chooses to work on instinct. He pulls the bard into his arms, mindful of his sutured head and bruised ribs. Jaskier stiffens for just a moment before he relaxes, bringing his arms up and around. Geralt closes his eyes, tucking his nose into Jaskier’s coat and breathing deep. Leather and blood and under it smoke and sweat and citrus and Jaskier. The bard huffs a laugh, soothing a hand over Geralt’s back.
“What’s all this, then, huh? Desperate for companionship? My hair gets a little long and you start seeing Yennefer where I stand?”
Sometimes Geralt wishes he could let Jaskier into his mind. Finding a way to convey what he feels when he himself barely understands has never been his strong suit. The words feel like stones in his mouth, heavy and pressing and grinding out of him.
“I don’t want you to die, Jaskier. I don’t want you thinking you’re going to. I’m not going to leave you again.”
Jaskier falls silent, hand stilling on Geralt’s back. For a moment Geralt wonders if he’s overstepped, if none of this is what Jaskier wants for himself. He pulls back, just slightly, to see Jaskier’s eyes brim with tears.
“You can’t mean that,” he whispers. “You have your family, what place is there for me?”
“I do. When all this is done your place is where it has always been. With me. With us.”
Jaskier gapes, and Geralt lets instinct take over again. His hands come up to cradle Jaskier’s face, thumbs rasping over stubble. Gently, so gently, he tips the bard’s face side to side, running a careful finger alongside the sutures.
“Not too tight? Any pain?”
Jaskier scoffs, sniffles. Shakes his head as much as he can within the confines of Geralt’s hands.
“No. A little headache, but whatever Regis put on there took care of most of it. Turns out I’ve got a rather thick skull, but we knew that.”
Geralt keeps a hand moving, soothing the hair back and off of Jaskier’s face, ascertaining the truth. No pain or he’d be flinching back from the touch. The sutures are tidy, neater than his clumsy fingers could have managed.
“We do, and thank Melitele for it.”
A whisper of smug amusement flits through his head, not his own. Somewhere, he knows, Yennefer is laughing, and whatever message she’s sending him carries the tone of kiss him, you idiot.
Geralt does, angling his head so that his forehead doesn’t bump into Jaskier’s wound. It’s as chaste a kiss as he’s ever had, and when he pulls away Jaskier looks dumbfounded.
“Okay, you have to promise me this isn’t some fucked-up prelude to killing me off or abandoning me in the night for my own good, what the fuck, Geralt.”
Geralt laughs, the feeling foreign but easy. Jaskier throws himself back into kissing with a fury, far less cautious of his head, and all chasteness disappears. It burns hot, teeth clicking together as they push closer. Jaskier’s hands roam like sentient things over his shoulders, down his back, across his waist, up his chest. Mapping out all the places he’s never been, but Geralt would very much like him to know. They break apart, Jaskier panting. When he sees that Geralt still breathes as evenly as ever he rolls his eyes, smacking at his arm.
“You brute. I give you the best kiss of your life and you can’t even pretend to be winded? My old, frail body must always be the one to give out?”
“Not old,” Geralt murmurs, drawing him back in.
“What, then? Weathered? Battered? Worn?”
“No. Just you.”
Geralt cuts off his oh with another kiss. He’ll kiss Jaskier every day for the rest of their lives, just to prove he’s not going anywhere. Hopefully more than kissing, someday, when he can carefully and meticulously take Jaskier apart in precisely the way he wants to with no interruptions. For now, he’s left chasing the bard’s mouth as he pulls away, met with calloused fingers instead of soft lips.
“Ah ah, dear. Any more and we’ll have an issue on our hands, not to mention our dear comrades-in-arms who may grow curious and come looking. Bothof which would be uncomfortable given our location.”
Geralt growls. It’s a testament to Jaskier, who has never once been afraid of him, that he only laughs, looping an arm through Geralt’s.
“Oh come on, you. Let’s go back by the toasty fire and get a little drunk and sleep. Tomorrow the water will have lowered and we can be on our way to find our girl.”
“Hmm.”
They break apart as they reach camp, pretending not to notice as the others level them with varying levels of knowing looks. Damn them for having an astute company. But, Geralt realizes with no small amount of horror, he trusts them. Trusts each and every one of them with this mission, with his life, with Jaskier’s life. The bard toasts over the campfire to good friends and better booze, tipping him a wink. Geralt smiles back. He likes becoming something new.