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He reaches Tiora in just enough time to see Jaskier die.
Geralt hears about the bard sentenced to death a few towns over, and a week in advance. That;s somehow the worst part of it. If he had thought about it for logner than a second, if he’d just used his damn head, he could’ve put two and two together — after all, what idiot bard would be stupid enough to deflower the virginal bloody princess when he’d been hired to minstrel at her bloody wedding? Only Jaskier.
But Geralt had turned it into habit, to stop listening when he heard that word. To think about anything else, to spare himself the— the sharp tug of pain in his chest, that felt like loneliness and guilt, that felt like heartbreak, all his feelings for Yen and Jaskier hopelessly tangled together, so he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
So he doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t think, and when some suicidally brave little idiot of a kid at an inn toddles over to him and demands if the bard they were about to hang ever actually met a Witcher, he’s struck dumb with surprise.
“Sorry about the boy,” the father mumbles, dragging him away, and Geralt thinks Jaskier, and sentenced, and no, with more vehemence than he had known he was capable of.
He rides Roach straight through Tiora’s winding cobblestoned streets, roars at the throngs in the town square to get out of his way! He sees the noose shiver gently in the wind, a too familiar figure standing silhouetted against the cold grey sky, a hood over his face, and Geralt leans deeper over the saddle, screams Jaskier’s name.
If Jaskier hears him over the roar of the frenzied crowd, he shows no sign. The noose is slipped carefully arond his neck, and the hood taken off. He is pale, his hair dark and lank, his ankles and wrists lashed together with rope. His mouth moves quietly, in prayer, or perhaps in half-remembered song. The exectutioner’s hand goes to the tall metal lever to his right, and the priest reads the last of the final rites, shuts his book with a grim finality; the crowd is fighting Geralt now, their screaming gone to fever pitch; no no, please god no, cry the voices in his head, and the executioner pulls the lever, you can't die, not like this, the square foot of wood beneath Jaskier’s feet opens up, no, god, not jaskier, please not like this, and his body drops, hanging from the noose, twitching, convulsing, NO NO NO, and then goes still.
Geralt stumbles from the saddles, draws his sword. The crowd leaps out of the blade’s way, and he makes the rest of the walk on nerveless feet. A roaring has filled his ears, the sound of a storm-lashed sea, and he drags himself one-handed onto the gallows platform. It is his blade that severs the hangman's noose with a sharp, overhand flick, and he snatches Jaskier’s limp, still-warm body out of the air before he can fall, cradles him desperately to his chest.
Somebody stomps hurriedly onto the makeshift pavillion, blustering and angry. “What is the meaning of— YOU! Put the corpse DOWN! Guards, get—” Geralt is on his feet instantaneously, blade at the fat man’s throat. A lord, from his dress, silk and fur, stained with sweat, despite the chill in the air.
“The next man to touch him,” Geralt snarls, “loses his life. And I won’t be as kind as the noose.”
The lord blanches. “I— I—”
“That’s what I thought.”
Geralt doesn’t know for how long he rides.
Deep into the forest, until they come out at the edge of a cliff, cool and high, the air silver from mist despite the lateness of the day, too high to be burned away by the afternoon sun.
He picks up Jaskier carefully from the saddle. His hands shake — Jaskier is still warm, his body still lax and soft to touch, and somehow, that is the worst part, the hardest thing, that he still feels so— so alive. His knees buckle when he lays Jaskier down on the cold, still ground, and he lets himself fall like he never has before, choking in his breath, a scream trapped in his chest, raking his insides with knife-sharp claws, beating, begging, to be let out.
Carefully, he smooths that dark hair from Jaskier’s face, touches the soft, warm skin of his cheek, and it’s some horrible unforgivable urge, some black thing inside him, an unspeakable selfish desire, and so he says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my god,” he whispers, on a shuddering gasp, “I’m so goddamn sorry,” even though what he did was unforgivable, even though he should never be forgiven.
“I should have never— I didn’t mean it, Jaskier, fuck, please—” His voice breaks uselessly, every part of him feels drained and cold, too numb to hurt. “I miss you,” he confesses, to a corpse in a lonely wood, “I miss you, I needed you, nothing— Nothing felt—” He looks away, up, past the canopy into the grey-blue sky. “I didn’t mean to, you know. I didn3’t mean to need anyone, and then you came, and you were—” Something burns in his eyes, and Geralt blnks it away. “You became…” He laughs blackly, and then shakes hiz head. Essential, vital, indispensable. Like the air in my lungs, like the blood in my veins.
“When love isn’t something you expect,” Geralt says carefully, looking down at his tightly interlocked fingers and nothing else, “when love isn’t something you think you’re capable of, you… forget to anticipate it. You forget to guard yourself against it.”
He touches Jaskier again, the lax, white curl of his fingers, grips the calloused shape of his palm, and his heart beats uselessly in his empty chest.
And then Jaskier coughs.
After Geralt gets over his fucking thrice-damned HEART ATTACK, he manages to help Jaskier WHO IS NOT DEAD sit up, and hack out the metal tube he shoved down his throat to prevent the noose from snapping his neck and killing him. His voice is hoarse, but his grin is familiar, too-bright for this place, lighting up those blue eyes, and Geralt can’t stop touching him. It’s like something inside him has been unlocked, set loose; he keeps a hand on Jaskier’s back, rests him against his side, helps him drink out of his canteen, rubs the wetness from his mouth when the water drips down his chin.
“Hi,” Jaskier says, his voice low, and a little hoarse. His lips are chapped, and there are deep, dark circles under his eyes, twisting to look sideways and up.
Hello, Geralt says, in his head, and, how much of that did you hear, you wily son of a bitch? and, please god, don’t leave me again.
But Jaskier must hear some of that, even if it’s only in his head, because he snickers at Geralt’s black, furious frown, and murmurs, “There’s the good stuff, thought I’d never see your angry mug again,” patting his bristly cheek, and doesn’t comment when Geralt’s arm tightens helplessly around his shoulders.
“The princess, Jaskier?” Geralt manages, a little while later, after Jaskier’s managed to finish the rest of the canteen. “Really?”
“Well, you know me. Aim high, and all that.”
Geralt arches an eyebrow, and Jaskier chuckles, sounding worn out. “What can I say, Witcher? Apparently, heartbreak makes me irresistible.”
“Oh,” Geralt replies. He shuts his eyes, tries to breathe. Of course, Jaskier moved on. After what Geralt did, after the awful things he said? Of course he did. Of course he found someone el—
Jaskier drops his head against his shoulder, and exhales. “You came for me,” he whispers.
“Of course,” Geralt replies. “Always.”
Jaskier’s left hand finds his right. The fingers tangle together on his thigh. “Don’t break my heart again, okay?”
Geralt stops breathing. “Okay,” he whispers.
Jaskier twists again, turns to him, shifts and straddles his lap. His eyes rove over Geralt's face, too blue, too seeing, too bright and clear and full of knowledge, and Geralt feels naked, raw, stripped to the bone. But he sits there anyway, unable to tear his eyes away. Something in him is starved, for this, for Jaskier, alive, for those beautiful eyes and that warm body touching his, and so he stares back, and wonders if this what men feel like, when they look into the sun.
"I'm going to kiss you now," Jaskier says, "so if you want to stop me—"
"No," Geralt says. "I mean, yes." He shakes his head impatiently, and starts to say, kiss me, i want you to kiss me, but Jaskier only laughs, a soft lovely sound, breathless and low, and bends down, and kisses the words out of his mouth. His hands go to Jaskier's waist, to steady him, to anchor him here, to this palce, and his mouth opens under that sweet onslaught. Jaskier makes a sound, harsh and yearning, and their kisses turn deeper, slower, as each second turns melting bright, endless. Jaskier pulls away, after— hours, days, a sunlit year— a few minutes, Geralt tells himself firmly, to sink deeper against his chest, face burrowing into the curve of his shoulder, their bodies so close, so perfectly fit together.
“I missed you too,” he confesses, and Geralt stays still, so perfectly still as only he can, feeling Jaskier turn warm and heavy with sleep, lets him arm curl around that firm, narrow waist, hold him closer, tighter, and thinks, love you, love you, i’ll never let you go, daggers cutting open his chest, happiness pouring out like sunlight.