Chapter Text
Geralt was definitely doing better.
Honestly, considering the state he’d been in a few days ago, this could quite possibly be considered a true Christmas miracle. His fever was stubbornly hanging on, and so was his sore throat, but he was sleeping better, breathing easier, and most importantly of all, he was eating. It was enough to make Jaskier want to weep with joy, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy Geralt.
“What are you thinking about, love?” The two of them were cuddled up on the couch watching A Wonderful Life, and Geralt had his pouty face on again. That was never good.
“Slept through the best part of the movie,” he said.
Jaskier would never say it, and of course he would rather his partner be feeling better, but Geralt’s sick voice was one of the most incredible things he had ever heard.
“I can rewind it,” Jaskier offered, reaching out for the remote.
“No, it’s fine,” he replied. “We’ll never get through it if we do it that way. I’m sleeping through everything nowadays.”
And there it was—the thing he was really upset about. He may not come right out and say it, but Jaskier knew him well enough. That statement was an invitation for Jaskier to keep going, and he figured he had a good chance of getting all the way to the bottom of it. Geralt wasn’t well enough to have his defenses up yet. Jaskier might actually be able to talk some sense into him.
“Rest is good,” Jaskier reminded him. “Let yourself rest.”
“I’m gonna sleep through Christmas,” he pouted. “I was so excited to be with my family for the holiday, but now I’ve fucked everything up. They aren’t even hanging out with us.” He pointed out the empty room. “It’s Christmas Eve. I was supposed to be better by now.”
“I know you really wanted to feel better in time for Christmas, but that doesn’t mean you’ve fucked anything up.” Jaskier rubbed his shoulder as he spoke, as if he could physically transfer some of his own positivity to his ailing partner through touch. “And your family does want to hang out with you.” It was merely a coincidence that they were the only two watching the movie.
“They don’t want to sit around all day on the couch,” Geralt grumbled. “Can’t blame them.”
“Well, would you like to do something other than sit on the couch?” Jaskier suggested. “Or we could text Eskel and Lambert and ask if they want to come watch the movie, instead of just assuming they’re ignoring you.”
“Hmm.” It seemed Geralt wasn’t pleased with either of these.
Jaskier took a minute to think. It wasn’t that much long ago that he’d been the sick one on Christmas. He knew how awful it was, and he hated to see the one he loved so much having to go through it.
“Do you remember after my brain surgery,” Jaskier said, chuckling. “When we made that gods awful gingerbread house. It could barely even stand up.”
This earned him a little twitch at the corners of Geralt’s mouth, which Jaskier took as a win.
“That was horrible.” Geralt’s voice cracked on the last word.
“It was fun though. Maybe we can do something like that,” he suggested. “Low energy, high Christmas spirit.”
“That project was not low energy,” Geralt corrected. “We were baking for days, and I nearly threw the pieces at the wall about a dozen times while we were assembling it.”
“Yes, but we were doing it from scratch,” Jaskier pointed out. “The ones in the kits are made for like eight year olds. I have faith in us.”
For a moment it looked like Geralt was going to agree, but then his face darkened. “I don’t think I’d be able to help though. Don’t want to get someone sick from touching all the food.”
“Nobody actually eats the gingerbread houses. They’re just for decoration,” he replied. “Come on. It’ll be fun. Might cheer you up a bit.”
At this, Vesemir stepped into the room. “I’ve got to make one last run to the store. Would you two like me to pick anything up?”
Jaskier grinned down at Geralt. “Yeah, actually. We would.”
***
Geralt was in competition mode. Flu or not, he was a professional athlete. When he played a game, he played to win, and currently he and Jaskier were locked in a fierce gingerbread house battle with Lambert and Eskel.
Vesemir had loved the idea, and picked up two kits, along with a prize—a little stuffed Christmas gnome, and a fancy bar of chocolate—for the winning team.
“I don’t care if you’re sick. No mercy,” Lambert said. “I didn’t come here to fuck around.”
“You didn’t even know this competition was happening until like five minutes ago,” Jaskier replied, carefully positioning the last piece of the roof of their little house.
“Okay? And now it’s my top priority.” Lamb took one of their gumdrops and threw it across the table at Geralt. “Get fucked.”
Geralt caught the candy easily, and popped it into his mouth. “Alright, Lamb.”
Considering they were still only on the third wall, Eskel doing all the work while Lambert dedicated his energy to his trash talk.
“Hey.” Eskel swatted at his hand as Lamb went for another candy to throw. “We might need those.”
“Not if you spend the entire time building the damn thing,” he replied. “We only have an hour.”
“It would go faster if you helped instead of throwing all of our decorations at the other team.”
Perfect. They were already infighting. He and Jaskier had this in the bag.
Geralt picked up one of their own gumdrops and aimed carefully. He hit Lambert right between the eyes, causing him to make a comically surprised face, and then glare at him. Geralt just shrugged, pretending he didn’t know who had thrown the candy, pleased when Lambert’s cheeks went red.
They went back and forth like that for the rest of the hour. Eskel did most of the work for their team, while Lambert alternated between eating the candy, and trying to tell him what to do. And Jaskier did most of the work for Geralt, who was happy to be here and having a good time, but still too tired to do much but sit and offer his opinion every once in a while.
The house was beautiful though, much more so than their last attempt, and to Lambert’s utter dismay, they were the ones awarded with the prize at the end.
“No fair,” he objected. “They had more candy than we did.”
Eskel smacked him on the back of the head. “Because you kept eating all of ours.”
Nobody was really angry though, and Geralt had to admit he was feeling more Christmas cheer than he had this year so far.
“See? I know this isn’t the holiday you expected.” Jaskier bent over and kissed the top of Geralt’s head, reading his mind, as he so often did. “But it can still be nice.”