Archive of Our Own

That's the thing about Jaskier. He has a sixth sense when it comes to music. 

Geralt isn't, it must be said, a follower of the bardic arts. He likes music just as much as the next man, which is to say he can appreciate a nice song when it's in the background while he eats, and he can recognise when someone with skill plays an instrument well. He doesn't pay too much attention to what's popular and what's out of fashion. It changes very quickly, after all. No point in keeping up when you get to his age. 

But Jaskier has that aforementioned sixth sense. Geralt hears him composing his songs, and would find it hard pressed to say what, exactly, is the difference between them and any other ballad, ode or chancel that he hears in the myriad taverns they stay at. But then he hears them again. And again. Everywhere he goes, people are singing Jaskier's songs. His ear for the popular is unparalleled. The bard sits with his lute, thinks for a moment, and then, haltingly, plucks out a melody that rattles around Geralt's brain for weeks. 

Earworms, someone called them. Jaskier makes earworms. 

Geralt writes it off as talent. He may tease Jaskier about his singing, but he isn't an idiot. He can see when someone is good at something, and Jaskier is extremely good at pinpointing what the people want - and then making it into a reality. 

But there are other things. 

Jaskier refuses to touch his swords without gloves. He claims he has an allergy to the oil Geralt uses to clean them - he even demonstrates it one time, wiping a small amount on the back of his hand, and lo and behold, angry red blisters pop up where he wiped. 

(But Geralt once forgot to tell Jaskier that he used the oil on Roach's bit, where the leather buckles into steel rings. Jaskier undid her tackle, removed her bit, combed her mane with all the care and tenderness of an old friend. But he didn't get angry red blisters on his hands. Geralt noticed too late to say anything, but he did notice.) 

And then there's the matter of his face. It's fine. It's a perfectly ordinary face. That's the problem. It's a perfectly, perfectly ordinary face. 

At first Geralt assumed so many people talked to Jaskier because he had some kind of charisma, some human presence the witcher lacked and couldn't identify, something in his smile or the way he talks. Over time, though, he begins to think it's because Jaskier looks familiar. 

Not in the "I have travelled with this man for almost two decades" way, but in the "I swear I've seen people walking around who look just like you" kind of way. People stop Jaskier and say, oh, it's been a while! How are you? How are the kids? And your lovely wife? And Jaskier has to explain awkwardly that they must have him confused with someone else, someone who looks similar: and yet they keep chatting to him after. 

Always someone different as his supposed doppelganger. Always someone new and unknown. 

Small things that aren't altogether suspicious individually, but come together to create something more than the sum of its parts. But Geralt doesn't pursue too hard. He's met stranger men on the road. He doesn't pry unless lives are at stake and there's the promise of a fat bag of orens, and while Jaskier may often endanger himself with his reckless habit of sniffing for truffles in the wrong forests, he's never caused the kind of killing that gets monsters the silver blade. 

Nor does he earn enough money to interest Geralt. So, as far as Geralt is concerned, Jaskier's oddities are his own - just a few more colourful stains on the lurid tapestry of his life. 

(There is one last thing. Jaskier's past. He has another name, of that Geralt is sure, but he keeps it close to his chest. Of his family he speaks little: of his schooling, only slightly more. Again, this doesn't interest Geralt, who also prefers silence over spilling his childhood. What interests him is Jaskier's expression when the subject begins to dawn in any conversation: completely unconsciously, he begins to look lost. Geralt pays attention to this because Jaskier never loses himself, never has, never will. And then he'll break a smile over his face and make some joke or other, and the conversation will shift into other things, and Geralt will watch but see nothing unusual in Jaskier anymore.) 

So. Jaskier sings and dances and follows Geralt like a cold he can't shake off. They part in winter and meet in the unlikeliest of places every few years. And, constantly, wherever he goes, Jaskier's songs follow, as constant and predictable as a metronome, twittering around him like spring birds in the hedgerows. 

-

"Say, Geralt," Jaskier says some time in Novigrad, as they sit outside and share a bowl of nuts. Geralt prepares for the question, whatever it will be. Hopefully it will distract Jaskier from his current activity: looking around with wide eyes, flickering over every face, expression somewhere between hope and anxiety. Geralt remembers that Jaskier has several women here in Novigrad, and almost all of them are after his blood. Every time he does it, it distracts Geralt, who is trying to shell his nuts in peace. "Has a doppler ever taken your form that you know of?" 

Geralt raises an eyebrow. The question isn't entirely unprompted - he knows Jaskier is remembering their misadventure here with a doppler some years before. He nods. "That time. He also impersonated you briefly."

"That explains it! Only I heard some rather worrying rumours when I came here again - that I was somehow a doppler myself, or that I had a twin, or witchcraft had cloned me. Was that then?"

Geralt nods. "If there really were a doppler wearing your face, Jaskier, I'm sure more concrete news of its actions would have come to you by now."

Jaskier laughs. Geralt wouldn't have found that strange, except this isn't Jaskier's normal laugh. This is the one he does in court or in front of beautiful women. It's hiding something. 

"A wonder. I hope he's doing alright."

Geralt doesn't answer. He breaks a pistachio shell in his teeth, and watches Jaskier watch the crowd. Interesting - what Geralt initially mistook for nerves that one of Jaskier's girlfriends would appear and give him hell is actually something quite different. His gaze lingers not just on the women, but on the men too, and not just humans but any of the strange multitude of Novigrad. 

"You probably wouldn't recognise him if you saw him," he says, and Jaskier jumps as if caught doing something illegal. 

"Hm. I suppose you're right." He flicks his hair behind his ear - it's growing long again, cycling as it does between a boyish crop and a slick longer style. Geralt has even seen it curled and blonded by lemon juice, though that's rarer these days. "So, was his facsimile of me accurate? Did he capture my good looks, my charm?" 

"He got your smug leer just right," Geralt says sardonically, and goes back to eating his pistachios while Jaskier playfully smacks his shoulder. 

-

There's a loud yelp. Geralt, who has been across the other side of the room listening to an elderly lady complain about the modern style of dress and how it encourages wanton behaviour in young men, looks to where the noise is instinctively. 

Jaskier is there, of course. He's holding his hand with wide eyes, while a noble stares at him with - is that fear? Shock? Disgust?

Geralt politely excuses himself from the lady, who won't notice as she goes on to describe how tight trousers make a man forget how to ride a horse properly. He's by Jaskier's side in seconds, but seconds are all it takes for the bard to spot him and turn on him with a grimace. 

"Ah, excellent, let's go Geralt, it's another case of a sadly mistaken identity I'm afraid-"

"Show me your hand," the nobleman says imperiously, though not too imperiously. Geralt is rather intimidating after all. "I tell you, show me your hand." 

Jaskier turns to Geralt with pleading eyes, and the witcher sighs inwardly. 

"The bard will take no more requests tonight," he says firmly, and all but shoves Jaskier away. "He has a case of the shits." 

The nobleman is gaping and muttering, but Geralt doesn't care. He's pushing Jaskier through an alcove and down a small passage, and then behind that, a door. 

"Geralt honestly, I do wish you'd come up with more flattering excuses - I won't get any more work if you keep implying I'm a flatulent castrato-" 

"Stop sleeping with noblemen's wives and I'll consider singing your praises," Geralt retorts, and Jaskier rolls his eyes. 

"Well. I suppose that since I apparently am suffering a terrible malady, I won't be performing anymore tonight. The poor little duchess will have to rely on those piss poor minstrels for her jigs. Shall we go?"

"Hm," Geralt assents. He's never been one for parties. They leave. 

Jaskier is oddly quiet as they go together. Geralt thinks about the things the bard isn't saying, which ring louder than the things he is; thinks about that flash of fear in the nobleman's eyes, so different to the usual disdain and cuckolded jealousy. Thinks about the burnt flesh smell that lingered where they had been, and the way Jaskier held his hand slightly away from Geralt, even now as they walk. Thinks about the shine of the fire on the nobleman's gold and silver rings. 

About how Jaskier won't touch his swords. 

He doesn't say anything, not yet. But he watches, and he waits. 

-

Jaskier's latest song is as popular as all his others. Geralt doesn't usually pay attention to the lyrics in songs, but it's impossible not to. As usual, they follow him. And perhaps they're not suspicious at all - Jaskier often makes up tales from thin air. Knights who don't exist fighting foes who live in dreams. Princesses of lost kingdoms. Monsters that would make a witcher shudder, if only because of the logistical nightmare of cutting off so many heads and loading them all onto Roach. Geralt has learned that Jaskier only inserts as much truth into his songs as he needs, which is not much. 

"... the man you once were that I never knew, the path of your climbing rose that never grew. Cut down in youth, a flower cruelly tossed: left aside by fate, and now forev'r lost..." 

He would write it off as a good old song about dead lovers. They're always about tragically dead lovers these days. Dead lovers jumping off cliffs and taking poison and falling on swords, left right and centre. It's amazing that midwives get any business at all with all these tragic lovers going around dying for doomed affairs. 

"... and yet your marks upon me never fade, nor bloom nor change, on my skin arrayed: lost flower, cut poppy, falling flower head - begrudge not my usurping to grow in your stead." 

He would write it off, but there's a silver itch at the back of his mind telling him to pay attention - to what, he's not sure. The woman singing Jaskier's song is talented. Her voice is calm and clear. She gives the tragic song as much gravitas as it deserves. She isn't Jaskier, but then, most people aren't. 

The tavern watches her with one eye, and Geralt with the other. He can sense the distrust in the air, but the people are too sensible to approach him while he eats. Besides, the woman is singing. It would be rude to interrupt her. 

"... forgive me, buttercup, forgive me I thou entreat.  Forgive the gentle weed that curls at your feet. A kiss I gave you, and buried you in the snow: and come summer, from your body, gentle flowers will grow." 

Geralt goes upstairs. He hears the bard switch to another song, a happier one but not one of Jaskier's. It does nothing to get rid of the tune rolling around his brain, buzzing like a fly. 

Meditation doesn't come easily that night. 

-

"... Julian." 

It's a name that Geralt shouldn't have heard. Not in a busy market. Not when it was whispered breathlessly by a woman he'd never met before, ten paces away, unnoticed by either of them. 

But he does notice it. And, judging by the way Jaskier freezes, so does he. 

"Julian," she says again, unsure, before stepping forward. Geralt isn't shocked, necessarily. Jaskier tends to inspire this kind of response in certain women. 

But none of them call him Julian. 

"... oh," Jaskier says, even quieter as his eyes catch hers, and Geralt quickly examines his face. Yes, there it is. He looks lost. The familiar is gone, and Jaskier has quite disappeared from his countenance. The woman approaches. 

She has brown hair, tied up into a neat wimple, of fine fabric that belies no small amount of wealth. Deep brown eyes, almost black. And, like Jaskier, her face is familiar. Oddly, strangely familiar. 

"Julian, is it you?" she says, with a hint of desperation, and Jaskier still isn't there, is still lost. 

For once, Geralt decides to be the tactful one of the pair. He steps away, and keeps stepping, until he's out if earshot. 

(But not sight. Not yet. Danger lurks in all kinds of forms.) 

-

She's scared. Geralt can see that even at this distance. The way her eyebrows draw together, the way her hand comes to touch Jaskier's face but not quite. She raises her voice, but he doesn't hear it. Sees her say the words "your eyes" before he looks away. Doesn't see Jaskier's response. For a still moment, Jaskier and the woman look at each other, and there it is, fear, confusion, all boiling in her dark eyes. 

The moment breaks. Jaskier turns heel, sprints, and runs. Geralt doesn't follow, not yet - he can track the bard down by smell alone at this point. Instead he watches her. Watches her stumble. Watches her look just as lost as he did. 

As if she's just missed a step, and doesn't know how. 

-

Jaskier is cowering behind a stone wall an hour out of town. He must have run all the way, drawing from the adrenaline that makes humans do odd, powerful things. Geralt followed with Roach in hand, nose following his tracks, stopping once or twice to ask the sleepy farmers if they had seen a colourful figure running past. 

He stands over Jaskier, who is clutching his lute tightly and panting for breath. 

"Not an old lover," Geralt says flatly, and Jaskier shakes his head. 

"No. No. A sister." 

A sister. Not his sister. A strange way of putting it. 

"Come on."

Jaskier shakes his head. Geralt knows this look, can remember the actions vaguely from long ago, half remembered. He guides Jaskier up from his position, taking his lute and swinging it over his own back. Gently, he puts Jaskier on Roach, curling the bard's hands around the reins. 

-

The campfire has long been crackling away by the time Jaskier unfurls. 

"I don't know what came over me," he says, summoning a tired smile. "I was quite overdramatic. Say, what are you cooking? Is that deer? Gods, tell me it's not badger again-"

"Did you kill?" Geralt asks quietly, and Jaskier's bright blue eyes land on him. His breath catches - Geralt can hear it - but that's no admission of guilt by itself. 

"I did not," Jaskier replies, sounding calm. "That I did not do." 

And Geralt has seen many things over his lifetime - seen the incestuous tangle of noble bloodlines, seen the petty emotions behind the bloodiest of murders, seen some men commit in broad daylight what others wouldn't say out loud at night. And Jaskier, well, Jaskier has always lived like a man on fire, driven by passion, dripping emotion until he bursts at the seams. 

He lives like he's starving. 

"Tell me," Geralt says. 

Jaskier shakes his head and stands suddenly, pacing around the fire. "Would that I could undo the whole sorry mess, Geralt, I would. Details I'll spare you. I'm no murderer, no villain, that I guarantee - ask me no more questions, please. I couldn't survive it if...well."

Geralt waits, as he always does. 

"And none of that contemptible silence, Geralt, it's deafening . Give me - give me time. One year. Next I see you, I'll tell you. Let me just-" 

He sits again, abruptly, and turns his face to the fire until his eyes glitter with the flames. 

"One year of you looking at me like you do. I like the expression you have when you watch me - do you know your face softens? Don't grimace, it's true. I've seen it. I rather like it, and I'm unwilling to destroy it. One year, that's all."

Geralt hums his assent, and Jaskier relaxes. 

"I've never met a more merciful man," he says quietly, and then pulls meat from the fire. "Thank you."

Geralt eats as well, and keeps his eyes firmly on the fire. He's not sure his face does soften when he looks at Jaskier, but he won't take any chances tonight. He's a patient man. He's lain in wait for monsters for days on end with no reprieve. 

He can wait a year. 

-

It doesn't last a year. 

Jaskier followed him on a hunt - stupid, idiotic fool - and managed to get a nasty barb right through his shoulder blade. Geralt can hear his heart slowing, feel the coldness at the tips of his fingers as his blood races from his extremities to his core, feel the shock clouding Jaskier's thoughts. He dispenses of all other sensory input - the pain in his thigh where he got stabbed himself, the cold of the snow, Roach's labouring pants as she gallops beneath them. They're secondary. What's important here is making sure Jaskier doesn't fall asleep. 

"I have to tell you," Jaskier says, out of breath, blood on his lips. "You'll see soon enough anyway. I want it to be from my mouth that you know, from my words. Geralt, please look at me." 

Geralt looks at him. The gods themselves could not stop him looking at Jaskier now. 

"I'm a doppler," Jaskier says. "For two decades I've been in this body. I was Jaskier before I met you - I never replaced anyone - trust me, Melitele trust me, I've never faked a single moment aside from this face. Don't look away, not even if you give me the look I've been dreading, the fear, the disgust."

His voice is very faint. Perhaps it's because Geralt's blood is pounding in his ears, heart beating faster than it's been in a long time. Perhaps it's because he can see Jaskier weakening. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" Geralt growls. "Stay awake. Tell me." 

"I cared so very deeply for him," Jaskier says, mumbling and half asleep. "He had so many songs in him, Geralt. He wanted to call himself a flower." 

"Jaskier. Tell me. Stay awake." 

"I think he would have loved you."

He could get no more intelligible words from Jaskier after that. 

-

The lung is one of the worst things to injure. Geralt has experienced it only once, and that was enough: to lose his breath and drown, to cough up froth, to watch his vision dim. Watching it on someone else was worse. Jaskier's breaths rattled until they came to the town, at which point they evened out. 

Geralt watched as his body flopped, eyes rolling back as Jaskier slipped into unconsciousness. 

The body bubbled. It grew and bulged. The colour leaked out of his skin, growing pale and sickly, a horrible warm grey. His features stretched out. 

Geralt looked away. He had seen dopplers before when they lost their forms, and it was always unnerving, even for him. He didn't want to look at Jaskier like this, because he knew he wouldn't be able to control his expression. He couldn't insult Jaskier, not now. He'd look at Jaskier when Jaskier was awake again.

Finding a healer who would take him was difficult. Two turned him away even when he offered ridiculous amounts of money, gagging at Jaskier's body. There was rage somewhere in him, he could feel it, but it was buried under the pragmatism that he relied on in situations like this. 

Finally, a healer accepted his coin. She stared at Jaskier for a long, long minute, before demanding more than Geralt had. He promised it. He would find the money. 

"Just fix him," he growled, and the healer began her work. 

"I've never handled one of these before," she said as she worked, hands stripping the bulbous flesh of Jaskier's pretty pretty clothes. "Ugly thing. Most people would rather speed the process along rather than bring it to me to save. Seems cruel not to put it out of its misery, but it's your coin." 

"Without the commentary," Geralt growled, lowering into the frequencies which make human hindbrains remember eyes glowing dark in cold forests, and she was blessedly silent after that. 

Which, after hours of tense waiting, of endless potions and tinctures, of the thrum of something magic that the healer declined to explain but seemed to work, brought him to this moment, now, when he hovers over Jaskier's bed and watches the amorphous shape slowly rise, fall, rise, fall with blessed, blessed breath. 

The healer is gone. There's nothing more she can do. "He either wakes up, or sleeps to death," she had said without mercy, and Geralt nearly punched her. But she's gone. It's just him and Jaskier. 

He doesn't know what expression he's wearing now, but he's sure it isn't pleasant. 

-

After two days of watching, Geralt sells his potions for a measly price to keep the room. He doesn't eat. He saves some money for when Jaskier wakes. He sleeps when he can. The world slows, and slows, and slows, and still the grey flesh rises and falls. 

And, finally, so quietly Geralt almost misses it, a bleary eye cracks open on the bulbous face. Geralt looks away, but it's too late. He knows Jaskier has seen his expression. 

The body makes a small noise. 

"Don't speak. There's soup when you can have it, and water for now." 

It drinks the water greedily. Geralt can hear it gurgle. After a minute, it says "soup" in a small voice, and Geralt obliges. After an interminable amount of time, the doppler takes a deep breath - and slowly, weakly, pulling itself from the doughy clay and with a sickening lurch, Jaskier opens his bright blue eyes and returns to himself under the woollen blankets. He's stark naked. Geralt knows dopplers can mimic clothes easily - it just means that Jaskier prefers to buy and wear clothes rather than form them with his skin. It's something that he'll never know is a quirk of the doppler's personality, or Julian's.  

"Geralt," he says, and Geralt shakes his head. 

"Everything. Everything, Jaskier, every detail."

"Yes. You're right." Jaskier swallows audibly, his voice still weak and strained. He gets out of breath quicker, and takes frequent breaks in his story. Geralt waits. 

"Dopplers are... some are helpful. We've got this sixth sense, you see, for certain things. Call it luck perhaps. Call it something else. I've always called it intuition. I wasn't very old when I ran across a young boy who wanted to be a bard. I'd done this sort of thing before, you know - helped someone along a bit by making some decisions for them. Always good ones! Never, ever bad ones. Sixth sense. And this boy was trying to be a bard." 

He looks away from Geralt, his gaze going to somewhere in the past that Geralt can't see. "So I copied his form and rerouted his carriage - just by a week, you know. He was on his way to Oxenfurt to study mathematics. I knew right away that mathematics wouldn't suit him, he'd be desperately unhappy on that course - when dopplers change into someone, as you know, they glean a deep insight into that person. Their memories, their wishes, their very dreams... and little Julian Alfred Pankratz dreamed of singing for royalty on his lute. Not being an accountant . So I went ahead to Oxenfurt and changed his classes. Signed myself up for music theory and lute lessons. Dropped the algebra and the experimental theory. It was a very good decision. He would have had the time of his life." 

Geralt listens. Jaskier continues: "He was late. I wasn't worried - I set him up with some good friends there, made acquaintances with the lecturers, a really terrific start for a scared boy away from home for the first time. He dreamed of having friends, you see. He wanted to be surrounded by laughter. So I did my best! And yet, he was still late."

His breath shudders a little. 

"Of course, nobody knew but me. I was him, of course, Julian in name and face, doing his work, making his friends, waiting for him to come along and reap the rewards - and he wasn't coming. I began to panic. Perhaps he got lost. Perhaps he went back home. But then a letter came from home wishing him luck despite going against his father's judgement, and I realised that he was missing. So I looked for him. Geralt, I looked for him. I stole a horse and went along where I had sent his carriage, and I searched high and low. And I found him." Oh gods, he had found him. He blinks rapidly. If he stops, he won't start again. 

"So I buried him. What else could I do? He was half gone from scavengers - he had such a beautiful face, I couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the idea that anyone ever saw him looking like that. And I made up my mind to tell people - disguised as a stranger, perhaps, saying they saw him fall in a river and drown - and I returned to Oxenfurt. And... his sister was there. Waiting for him. For me." 

Jaskier's hand clenches hard on the blanket. 

"She was so worried. She loved him. Adored him. And I was younger then - more cowardly - couldn't break her heart like that. I didn't know what else to do. I took his face once more and met her. And said that I was cutting her off, and the whole family. It wasn't hard to explain - his family were cruel - but she wasn't. She didn't understand. But my idea was that I would give her a different way of losing him, a better way than a brutal death. I didn't see her much after that. I travelled to stay away. Couldn't take the guilt. She loved me so deeply - loved a copy of him."

There's a moment of quiet. 

"I had intended to write a few songs for him - only the ones he was already dreaming of. He had so many songs in him. He wanted to be famous. I was going to be helpful and make him famous, make him write songs that would outlive him. The gift of my shapelessness is that my sixth sense morphs to the person I copy. And... and I have written his songs. Under the name he secretly always wanted for himself. Jaskier. Like the golden flower." He's crying now, thick and silent. "I lied, Geralt. I killed him. There's no other way to say it. When I sent that carriage down a different path, I sent him to his death without meaning to. Gods, if only - if I had known-"

Jaskier looks at Geralt and grimaces. 

"Yes, that's finally done it. That's killed the tender look in your eye. It hurts, but I deserve it." 

Geralt looks at Jaskier. Warm, human Jaskier, face crumpled and red with tears, guilt weighing his shoulders. 

"So." Jaskier tilts his head up, not looking Geralt in the eye. "The silver one for monsters, then. I'll finally feel it burn. Only - please, don't let people see me. If they see Jaskier the Bard melt into a grey sludge, it'll out shadow his songs. Do it and say I'm some pixie or sprite. Hide the lute." 

Geralt stands up, and senses Jaskier tense, tilt his head further up. Brave, stupid little idiot. He returns with more soup. 

"What's this," Jaskier says, but takes the soup anyway with weak hands. 

"If you want to die, do it yourself," Geralt answers gruffly. "I'll not kill you." 

"You're being too kind," Jaskier says, scrunching up his face to uselessly try and stem the weeping. "Too kind. I was doomed as soon as I woke up here and I saw your face." 

Geralt waits. 

"There wasn't a hint of disgust on there. I know you, I can read you now even without shifting into your double. You looked at me the same as you always did before." He's crying openly into his soup, and Geralt hands him a rag from the side to clear his eyes. "You looked at me exactly the same as before." 

-

In the end, Jaskier doesn't die. Geralt cannot kill him. Or, no, he can - he can turn off his feelings and do it in one fell swoop, painlessly and efficiently.

But he doesn't. Perhaps because he doesn't want to see that expression on Jaskier's face ever again - the trembling bravery of knowing that he's about to die. 

Jaskier stays in bed for another week, while Geralt takes a job in the next village to pay for it. They make the unspoken decision to part when Jaskier's well enough to recover. It comes too soon. They prepare to leave, Jaskier packing his things separately. 

It's when they come to the village border that they stop. 

"Geralt, wait," Jaskier says. "One last thing."

"There's always one last thing," Geralt answers, and Jaskier's smile is slightly chagrined. He pulls himself together. 

"Julian had never heard of you. Or, well, rumours and folk tales - a figure from afar. A bogeyman. Beware the big bad Witcher." He pauses and awkwardly hesitates with his hands, but his voice rings clear. "When I met you, all the love I felt for you was my own and only my own. The lines have blurred with time between me and him, but this has always been clear. The depth of how I feel - it's huge, terrifying - and it's all mine. So I want to say thank you for giving me something which I can keep even when I change faces and lose everything else." He's looking at Geralt now, bravely. "When I lose Jaskier. Please tell people I passed away painlessly. I'll... stop being him." 

Geralt nods. "What will you be after Jaskier?" 

He hums, a melody that Geralt knows, bone deep, will worm its way into his skull for the rest of his life. "Who knows? Perhaps I'll be a sweet little bird, whistling your songs." At Geralt's expression, he hastily adds: "It'll be different this time. I won't make the same mistakes. I'll do the right thing - I swear it." 

"I know."

That seems to be enough to make Jaskier's face go bright red again from the effort of not crying. Instead, he stands bolt upright and gives Geralt a wave. 

"Well then, goodbye," he says, voice wavering. "May the next time we meet be as someone you can respect." 

Geralt nods, and Jaskier takes a deep breath. He starts walking away, whistling with false bravado. Geralt watches until he's around a corner. Listens until the melody fades. 

I should be relieved, he thinks. I should feel the satisfaction of a problem sorted. Not even that - I should be thinking about my next job. 

Yet my hands are shaking. Look, Roach's bridle is jangling from the tremors as I hold her. 

He takes one step, and then another. And then suddenly he's running, fast as he's ever run, down the lane, around the corner, desperate to see that flash of colour, that hat with the ostrich feather, the flush upon human skin, hell, even the grey nothing - he wants to see Jaskier and catch him and say one more year, one more year before you go. 

There is nobody there. Nobody for miles on the road ahead. Geralt stops. His feet are stone. His hands are still. 

There's a whistle of that melody above, and his head turns so fast he hits himself in the eye with his hair. From the woods, the melody grows louder, messier, swooping and chattering. Geralt looks up into the swaying branches of the trees. 

A songbird - perhaps a lark - soars from the leaves, singing the loudest Geralt has ever heard from a beak, before soaring up into the blue, blue sky. 

+

Bonus Scene

"So what about all the sex?" Geralt asks. Jaskier nods sagely. 

"Well, you see, he was just really randy constantly. Just all the time. Constant randyness. That was his second biggest dream - to have seven girlfriends at once." 

Ah, thinks Geralt. That makes sense.