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He was so tired and everything hurt. Everything always hurt these days, because even with the mutagens bodies weren’t particularly designed to last into their three hundreds. But this was extra hurt that he was rather trying to ignore; he had a place to be, and he hadn’t missed it in a couple hundred years, and he wasn’t going to start now.
The world moved on, it always did, always would.
But he didn’t.
He remembered when there had been a small village here, now it was flat lands and wilds. The road was harder to see, it was the end of the world, who would bother coming here anymore anyways? There were far more interesting places to be. Roach stopped at the edge of town and whinnied, never willing to go a step closer than this.
Geralt dismounted and collapsed as he did so. So much hurt. Fuck. He downed another healing potion, because at this point toxicity didn’t matter, nothing mattered but making it to dusk, then everything would be fine. “You are such a good creature.” He managed to get all the gear off Roach, though moving his arms that much was agony. “Time to be free,” he whispered. “Go.” He gave her a nudge, and she wouldn’t move. “Stubborn,” he laughed. He ignored the blood he coughed up. He dragged everything forward past a line where everything shifted just a little. The air was sweeter, the sun brighter. He stepped away and cast igni on his bag of potions destroying them all. Couldn’t leave those for anyone to find. Not that they would, not in this long forgotten place.
He walked and remembered where cottages had been, a small marketplace. There was the crumble and ruin of a statue, worn so down by time, you had to be there when it was erected to know it was of a bard. He could see a few other bits and spots where life had once been, and he walked to where the inn had once stood. Geralt smiled at the filthy bathtub and the flowers that surrounded it. He touched the side. “I’m here,” he said.
The tub began to fill with water that smelled sweet and soothing. Or maybe that was the flowers. He warmed it and stripped off his armor. He realized he had left his swords in the lane, but it didn’t matter. Maybe one day someone would come to the end of the world and find them. The gear of the last witcher discovered at last. The last witcher. He chuckled a bit, and wondered if they’d even be remembered. They were barely stories anymore, notes in universities.
Jaskier’s songs, that a few still sang.
His shirt under his armor stuck to the wound and he didn’t fight it, because it would pull at the flesh that was already missing enough as it was. Geralt rolled into the tub and leaned against the back. The warm water was causing the blood to flow more, the water turned red.
He couldn’t smell the blood though, because he was either so close to death that his senses were not functioning, or the magic that sat on the land was giving him a kindness. Geralt was fairly certain it was the latter, because he couldn’t smell blood but he could smell the flowers. All of Jaskier’s favourite flowers.
It was simple, he just had to stay alive.
Not forever, not a month, not even a day.
Geralt just had to stay alive until he could see the sun touch the land, that was it. A witcher had faced harder tasks than that. “It was supposed to be the coast, I am sorry about that,” he said. As he did every year. He started with an apology, before he gave what the man always loved most. “But at least it is better than some of the places we saw. Certainly better than what I saw this year.” He spoke of the path this year, not that there was much left to hunt, and most of what he did was mercy killings, of creatures who wanted to be done but didn’t know how to finish. Helping others hide, helping the last of the sorceresses protect secrets that humans should never know about.
“Yen’s grave isn’t there anymore,” he said softly. “You at least have this. There is nothing there, no one will remember once I am gone. She’d laugh at me for being maudlin over it. She isn’t even buried there, it was just a marker I had needed.” Geralt’s eyes closed and he forced them open. If he let himself drift, death would find him, and it had to wait, another fucking hour. The sun was getting low and the air was stirring but it wasn’t time yet. The water in the tub became clear every time the blood overwhelmed it, but he didn’t bother heating it after that first time. He couldn’t feel his legs anyways so they didn’t need heat. “I’m the last, never expected that. Fuck, it shouldn’t have been me last.”
Geralt watched as the sun touched the horizon and he smiled a bit. The world around him slowly shifted as the village began to spring to life as it did every summer solstice. Buildings began to form, he could hear people, smell life. The inn built around him, floorboards covering up the flowers, and when the second floor existed he was there, and the water was warm, and he could hear lute music. Geralt let himself close his eyes.
“I swear, Geralt, what did you do to yourself this time?”
Geralt smiled and held out his hand. A warm hand pressed against it, he could feel string calluses on the fingertips. “Bit of a run in.”
“Bit of a run in, I’ll say. Why are you wearing a shirt in the bathtub?” There was a huff and then hands were pulling at the fabric, gently. So gently.
“All the rage these days,” Geralt replied. “Everyone’s been doing it the last twenty years.”
“Glad I missed those twenty years then,” Jaskier replied. “Geralt, you have a rather large hole in your side.”
“No I don’t,” Geralt answered back. “Check again.” He opened his eyes and looked at Jaskier. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Jaskier crouched and leaned against the tub. “Missed you. I presume.”
“I missed you too,” Geralt stroked his hair, smiled at the centuries old clothes on Jaskier. “Doublets are only worn at masquerade balls now. You’d hate the current looks.”
“You always say that. I am sure I would love them.”
“Men wear a lot of black.”
“Boring.” Jaskier stood up, and tossed some salts in the water. “The last?” he asked softly, he had been listening before the village had sprung up again, before he was there.
“Not even that anymore,” Geralt said. “Tonight will be the end. Is the end. Was the end?” He wasn’t sure how it would work.
“Just different, not the end,” Jaskier said. “And seems you were right, there is no hole in you after all.”
Geralt looked down. The water was clear, his skin was repaired, and he didn’t have the ache that had been in his bones the last seventy five years. That was nice. “Old times sake?” he asked.
He enjoyed the way Jaskier rolled his eyes. “As if you even have to ask.” Water was poured over his head and soon those fingers were in his hair, massaging his scalp. Geralt leaned into the touch. Once a year, he only had this for a few hours once a year. There had been decades where the only reason he kept going was because of this one night.
Two hundred and however many years of only really giving a fuck about one night. It wouldn’t have been all those years but Jaskier would have never let him live it down, if he had ever chosen to end it all. So he had fought, done his job, because he couldn’t disappoint Jaskier, yet again. He went on as everyone else fell, because there was always one more story to have, one more adventure to collect to tell Jaskier. Until he was the last, and being the last meant he was just a little too slow, and a fucking bear clawed him open on his way to tell Jaskier of his last year. He poisoned himself again and again to make it, because he would. And he did.
And he wasn’t the last, because there was no more last.
Water was poured over his head, and then a towel was drying it. A nudge and he stood. Jaskier dried him off, handed him trousers and Geralt sat on the bed, pulled Jaskier in between his legs. He held the man close, as he told him of the past year. Held him as close as possible, in a way he seldom had done when they had the time for it. Because there would always be more time.
There wasn’t then, but there was now. Perhaps.
“What happens next?” Geralt asked.
“I have no clue,” Jaskier replied. “Your life was what made this happen, this glimpse between worlds. And now -”
“And now,” Geralt agreed. “Will I see Ciri? Yen, my brothers?”
“I don’t know, I never did, but I was tied to you. Maybe, come morning.” Jaskier turned in his arms. “Suppose it will be another adventure.”
Geralt pressed his forehead to Jaskier’s. “With you finally at my side again.”
“Driving you crazy. Death hasn’t made me any quieter.”
“I look forward to it.” Geralt squeezed him at the sound of disbelief that Jaskier made. “Hundreds of years of too much quiet. I’ll enjoy it for at least a week. Are there even weeks anymore?” Geralt wondered what time was like for you, when it stopped mattering to you. He could feel his mind wanting to focus on those sorts of questions, drifting away but Jaskier’s lips against his cut off thought entirely. He respond to the soft kiss, and some years the softness turned passionate quickly, Geralt so desperate to have everything he could, the one night a year that he had Jaskier, knowing that come dawn it would all be gone again. But this time it wouldn’t be, or if it was he would be gone with it. Jaskier pulled a little away and Geralt looked at him. “Jaskier.”
“I know,” Jaskier kissed his forehead, his jaw, even the tip of his nose. “I know.”
“I suppose you do,” Geralt agreed. He began to undress Jaskier relished it when those strong shoulders, that chest pressed against his. “Remember that time we had to shave your chest?”
“No, because neither do you. We never speak of that.”
Geralt grinned. “You were so upset.”
“So were you, you like my chest hair.” Jaskier was pouting a bit. “It was so damn itchy growing back in.”
“I helped scratch your itch,” Geralt protested. He stroked his hands down over that warm skin, tugged Jaskier so that the pants could come off as well.
“Yes, you did,” Jaskier helped the pants ease off and then he was naked and perfect.
“Scratch any itch you want, you need,” Geralt promised. He touched Jaskier everywhere, and it was all soft and slow. Gentle. Quiet. Comforting. They didn’t have to worry about their not being oil for their needs, because they just had to think of a thing and it would be there. He opened Jaskier up, and then Jaskier was riding him and there were soft kisses, and softer words until they both crested, until they both felt everything they had ever felt together.
On their one night together, Geralt never slept, not wanting to miss a moment of it. But tonight, they slid under the sheet of the inn bed, cuddled close. The noise of below coming through the floor a bit. Geralt kissed Jaskier’s head. “What is going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jaskier replied. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“My body is going to be found at some point in a fucking bathtub in the middle of nowhere.”
“No, your body will be found in flowers, the bathtub was a part of the magic. I think. Part of the ritual or whatever it was that made this happen.” Jaskier squeezed his hand. “I don’t remember what dying felt like.”
“I was too busy focused on making it until I saw you, that I didn’t really notice when I died,” Geralt replied. “Better than I thought how it would be. Better than most had.” He pressed his face against Jaskier’s neck. “I really hope I see them again. I even have missed Lambert.” He could feel Jaskier’s laughter more than hear it. “I have, trust me that was a kick in the teeth.”
“We’ll walk whatever path it is, come the morning,” Jaskier turned in his arms, and Jaskier’s hand on his cheek felt perfect. “Together.”
“Together,” Geralt kissed him. “I’m scared to fall asleep.”
“Why?”
“What if you aren’t here when I wake up? What if this is all a dream?” Geralt bit his lip. “What if?”
“What if?” Jaskier countered. “Time to rest my love. Time to let go.”
Geralt nodded. He fell asleep and when he woke Jaskier was still there. And so was his pack. They dressed and went downstairs. They ate and outside Roach was waiting right out front. The first Roach that Jaskier had known. “Shall we?” Geralt mounted up and smiled down at Jaskier.
“Oh I have been waiting for this,” Jaskier grinned up at him. “Let’s see what is out there.” He began to strum as he walked and Geralt click his tongue so Roach would start to move. The left the village and Geralt turned back. For a moment it was there and it wasn’t, and Jaskier was right the tub was gone; he could almost see his body, there in the wild flowers that had grown over the few hundred years they had spent apart.
“Geralt?”
“Nothing,” Geralt replied. He could feel the weight of his swords on his back. He’d be lost without that weight. “Let’s see this new path.”
They started walking, like that had once upon a time. There was the song of horse hooves, and Jaskier singing, the sight of a witcher and a bard walking, and then there was nothing, just a road long overgrown, long forgotten at the end of the world.
Or the beginning of it, depending on whom you ask.