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The garden Geralt has escaped into is neatly trimmed and blooming in the slight chill of mid-spring evening. Bushes of rhododendrons and hydrangeas and azaleas line the cobblestoned pathways and form the alcove in which he currently sits on a stone bench, facing a weakly flowing fountain upon which a topless mermaid rests.
The mermaid glistens in the waxing moonlight, droplets of water clinging to her face and breasts, the shadows turning her sly, flirtatious smile into a frown. Jaskier would probably find something poetic in her, but Jaskier is still inside dancing with the tall brunette in violet into whose ear he’d been whispering when Geralt made his way outside.
Geralt shifts and tugs at his collar with one finger. It’s tighter than he’s used to, the topper on yet another extravagant outfit he’d never buy or wear if left to his own devices. This one at least is tailored to actually fit him and in shades of black and navy that will allow the night to camouflage him if need be.
The jacket is patterned with little golden stars that wink faintly when the light from the open ballroom doors catches them. He hadn’t intended to allow this detail, but Jaskier had looked at him with his mouth quirked up and said, “They’ll match your lovely eyes, Geralt. It’ll be utterly stunning. Try it, won’t you? For me?” and Geralt had shrugged on the sample. Jaskier’s palms had smoothed down his arms and along his waist and he’d repeated, “Lovely,” so quiet it was like he hadn’t meant to say it.
“How much,” Geralt had said.
The band winds down their current song, an uptempo number that is accompanied by some new dance craze that mystifies Geralt in its complexity. It’s something Jaskier would never choose to play, preferring either to be timeless, Geralt, or a trendsetter, not some ewe-eyed follower, depending on his mood. Jaskier is not in the band tonight but Geralt saw the earlier disapproval on his face as he politely sipped wine from his position at the high table, where he sat as childhood friend and personal guest of the bride. She’s some lady of somewhere, both her family name and new husband’s title slipping from Geralt’s mind like water, but Jaskier had called her simply Gemma with a grin and a blush that made Geralt wonder about the nature of their past.
From the back corner of the ballroom, Geralt wondered for the thousandth time what he was doing there as he watched the color rise in Jaskier’s cheeks, spurred on by wine and accentuated by the dusting of shimmery powder he’d applied in their room beforehand. Jaskier had laughed and popped open the top two buttons of his gold-embroidered doublet and shook the hair out of his joyful eyes and Geralt ordered himself to leave.
He didn’t.
It was almost a game with himself: how long could he stand there, ignored and unwanted, for Jaskier’s sake? For a few more minutes of quiet, unnecessary observation after a long winter apart? Would he walk out immediately? Would he force himself to stay through the unbearable festivities and lingering distrustful glances from the other guests until the party wound down and he carried Jaskier, no doubt past drunk, back to the room? There were no winners in this game. Least of all Geralt.
In the end, he’d left when the woman in violet, seated next to Jaskier at the high table, leaned in with a wanting glint in her eye and Jaskier had taken her hand, whispered in her ear, and stood. For just a moment he’d caught Geralt’s eye and grinned, and the woman had followed his gaze and paled before Jaskier was pulling her off to the dance floor.
Geralt walked out the glass doors into this garden, found this sheltered alcove, and here he has been, trying to let the comfort of fresh air and wide night sky soothe him. He’s not sure what exactly had left him so disquieted, but here he is, all the same.
Faint footsteps reach him from down the path, followed shortly by whistling and the sharp scent of citrus and sweat.
“Ah, there you are, my friend,” Jaskier says, rounding the bend past the fountain and coming to a stop with relaxed shoulders and a cocked hip. He nods toward the mermaid. “You know, you don’t make quite as pretty a lawn ornament as she does. Nearly as chiseled, though.”
Geralt throws him an unimpressed look and Jaskier flaps a hand at him in return.
“Yeah, yeah, you old grump. Budge over, would you?”
“You should go back inside,” Geralt says, staying put. “Finish your dance.”
Jaskier laughs. “What dance? I admit I was going to dance with my dear new acquaintance Rosalyn, but she took one look at you and your signature glower and said she didn’t want to step on any toes. I assured her that she is the epitome of grace, but you must have given her real cold feet, Geralt, because not only did she refuse to dance with me, she moved on down to the other end of the table. Sometimes I do ask you to be my bodyguard, but you know, this time I really don’t think it’s necessary. Budge over,” he urges again.
Geralt makes as much room as can be made on the little bench. “Someone else would have danced with you. I’ve seen you dance alone, if not.”
“I didn’t want to dance alone. Or with just anyone,” says Jaskier, now pressed warmly and infuriatingly along his side. “You have to put in the time with someone, build up the relationship first. Dancing at a place like this is no fun when there’s no connection. You need to be able to read each other, to follow each other’s body, to make something really beautiful. Otherwise it’s just the same steps again and again. Like you’re thirteen and dancing with your tutor.” He shudders. “Ghastly.”
“Your experiences are not universal, Jaskier,” Geralt murmurs with curled fists in his lap and eyes counting blooms on the rhododendron bush straight ahead. “But don’t let me stop you. There’s enough time for another connection. Pick anyone.”
“Well, you make a good point, Witcher. But I already did pick someone else, you see.”
“Strike two?” Geralt guesses. “Did you put a hand up her skirt too quickly?”
“That rather remains to be seen, since I haven’t asked them to dance with me yet.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Since you ask, I’m actually quite nervous they’ll turn me down, too.”
“They won’t. No one ever turns you down.”
Geralt can feel Jaskier’s gaze on his face, like the weight of a heavy blanket. “Someone does,” he says, “quite regularly.”
“You’re not asking me to dance,” says Geralt stupidly.
Jaskier turns his palm up on his knee, offering it. “I think you’ll find I am.”
Geralt swallows hard. “I don’t dance.”
“I’ll lead. I imagine it’s not so different from fighting. You’ll catch on.”
“I’m not going back inside,” he protests.
“We’ll do it here.”
The band, as if on cue, strikes up a slow tune that seeps out from the ballroom. Jaskier’s hand still waits, empty.
“Tell me if I’m pushing my luck, here, Geralt. I’ll leave you alone if you wish,” Jaskier says. “No hard feelings, none at all.”
Geralt tilts his head to get a look at him and immediately regrets it. His face is earnest and hopeful, still wine-flushed. The moonlight hits him gently, hugs the planes of his face, sparks off the blue of his eyes. Without any conscious thought, Geralt’s hand lands in his, and he beams like he’s never wanted anything more.
Then Jaskier releases it as he stands suddenly. Geralt looks at him in confusion, but Jaskier drops into a dramatic bow and takes the hand again. “May I have this dance?” he asks softly, dropping a kiss to the knuckles.
It’s ridiculous and over the top and sincere and Geralt can only nod wordlessly. This sort of treatment is so foreign that it tips into frightening, but as with all things Jaskier, Geralt finds himself diving in headfirst.
Pulled to his feet, Geralt is reminded that Jaskier is much taller, stronger, and broader than he seems. This is not news to Geralt, having woken wrapped around him or vice versa in many an inn or bedroll on cold nights. Situations from which he has always extracted himself rapidly and silently. There will be no escape from this one so easily, not with Jaskier stepping in, moving Geralt’s hand to his shoulder and placing his own at Geralt’s shoulder blade, so their arms are pressed together in one continuous line.
“Like this,” he says, then grasps their spare hands together to the side. It’s more comfortable than it should be.
“Is the song to your liking?” Geralt ribs him. “Shall we wait for a better one?”
“Oh, no, Witcher, no, no,” Jaskier smiles as if he’s caught the canary, “no getting out of this one now. The band could pack up and go home this second and we’d still be doing this.”
“Wasn’t trying to get out of it,” says Geralt.
There’s a moment in which Jaskier just looks at him and he looks back. He wonders if Jaskier finds what he’s searching for on Geralt’s face.
Geralt clears his throat and huffs, “Aren’t you supposed to lead?”
“I will,” murmurs Jaskier. “How much of a beginner are you, really? Can you feel the beat? One-two-three, one-two…”
“Yes. I’ve listened to you practice enough.”
“Excellent. Now, erm,” he licks his lips, “I’m going to step forward, and you’re going to go back. Okay? Just move how I move. Think of it like—like dodging a blow. But musically.”
Geralt is not sure it will translate as easily as Jaskier says, and he is right. When Jaskier steps forward with his left foot, Geralt also steps back with his left, and Jaskier treads on his toe. They both stumble slightly, Jaskier chuckling out an apology. They try a few more times in the same way, something going wrong each time: Geralt moves too soon, his posture drops and throws off their balance, Jaskier trips over a pebble.
“Fuck, okay,” Jaskier says, laughing in earnest. Geralt smiles back, embarrassed. “We can do this. I have faith in us. Um, here.”
His right hand drops to Geralt’s waist and pulls. Jaskier is suddenly very close, the safe foot or so of distance between them now merely inches. When Jaskier assumes their previous position again, it is less of a courtly dance pose and more of an intimate embrace.
Geralt swallows hard, feeling Jaskier’s breath on his cheek, their noses almost skimming together.
“Yeah,” says Jaskier. “Like this. All right?”
“All right,” Geralt whispers. His skin buzzes like his medallion where he touches Jaskier.
Jaskier repeats, “Yeah,” and lets his eyes roam Geralt’s face once more. Geralt feels them like the sun across his forehead, down his nose, traced along his lips and the cut of his jaw. And then Jaskier steps forward.
Gone are the false starts. With Jaskier so close, there’s no mistaking his next move; Geralt can anticipate it almost as if it is his own intention. Still, they move slowly, box-stepping around the fountain with no regard to the tempo of the music.
“One-two-three,” Jaskier counts, and Geralt recalls him sitting across a fire many years ago, eighteen years old and counting quietly to himself as he plucked out a new tune on his lute. “One-two-three,” their own metronome, his gentle voice their own music in conjunction with the patter of their feet and the rise and fall of their chests.
Geralt closes his eyes and follows the lead he’s given.
Dancing, it turns out, truly isn’t so different from sparring. There’s a natural push-pull that sends Geralt back to the Kaer Morhen training grounds. Being shouted at by Vesemir to watch his footwork, anticipating practice blasts of Aard from the younger wolves, locked in a hand-to-hand stand-off with Eskel. But Jaskier looks and feels nothing at all like Eskel or any other witcher, the lithe but insistent weight of him so different from anything Geralt is used to, and the memories quickly fall away and leave only the garden behind.
Gradually they speed up and fall in time with the band. Jaskier’s movements grow more daring, at turns swinging them apart and back in, switching up the steps, even once twirling Geralt with a bubbling laugh.
The song ends too soon and transitions into a jig.
“Damn this band,” Jaskier says with an exaggerated eyeroll. “Sheep, the lot of them. Try something original for once.”
He hasn’t released Geralt from their hold. They continue swaying in place, a bead of sweat rolling down Jaskier’s temple despite the cool air.
“Won’t Gemma be missing you?” Geralt asks.
“Oh, she’s fine. Other things to worry about. I’m happy here.” His thumb brushes over the back of Geralt’s right hand. “Thank you. By the way.”
“For what?”
Jaskier cocks his head. “For agreeing to do this. For enjoying it.”
“Never said I enjoyed it,” says Geralt.
“You did, though,” replies Jaskier knowingly. “You’re no mystery, Geralt of Rivia.”
It’s almost reassuring that Jaskier feels so confident about this. Geralt himself is floundering in the flood of it. Overwhelmed by merely existing in Jaskier’s sight, in his arms. He feels observed, even seen, in a way no one else has ever accomplished.
“You’re welcome,” he rasps.
Jaskier smirks. “Does that mean you’ll dance with me again someday?”
“I’ll consider it.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Witcher.”
Then, mind numbingly, Jaskier leans in across the scant space between them and presses a dry kiss to the corner of Geralt’s mouth. He breathes out through his nose before he pulls away, his five o’clock shadow dragging over Geralt’s skin.
Brief and unbidden, Geralt imagines grabbing the sides of his face and claiming his lips in full, parting them with his thumbs and tasting him, the remnants of wine and pheasant from dinner, the sharp citrus scent that he carries around. He imagines how Jaskier would gasp and lean into it, how his arms would wrap around Geralt and he’d clutch at the too-fancy doublet he’d picked out. How Geralt would feel Jaskier’s heart rabbiting against his chest. How they would part only to gasp for a few gulps of air before diving back into each other.
Brief and unbidden, he desperately wants to.
Jaskier pulls away, and they’ve been so close for so long that Geralt feels a piece of himself go with Jaskier. His hands feel clammy when they drop to his sides.
“’Spose I should head back in,” Jaskier says with a hesitant, crooked grin. “Distinguished, honored guest, yada yada.”
“You should,” Geralt says.
“Are you coming? You can go up to the room, if you wish.”
Geralt tries unsuccessfully to settle his racing thoughts, wipes his palms on his breeches. “I’ll stay out here for a while longer. I might come back.”
Jaskier nods and gives a funny awkward wave, walks backward until the garden path twists and he’s forced to turn and make his way inside.
Dropping back onto the bench, Geralt scrubs a hand over his face, feeling utterly poleaxed. The shadows have shifted, and the mermaid is now wearing a mocking smirk.
“Shut up,” he growls at her.