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Jaskier has so many words.
They’re constant, relentless, ceaseless. A bombardment of words. An onslaught of words. A veritable barrage of words.
(Jaskier would appreciate the grandeur of these words, if Geralt shared his thoughts aloud. Bombardment, onslaught, barrage. Descriptive words. Poetic words. The sort of words the bard uses to transform the most banal contract into a thrilling adventure. They’re not words Geralt would have thought to use before Jaskier.)
He has words for the breathtaking beauty of the setting sun lighting a field of flowers they pass by, words for the awe-inspiring majesty of an archgriffin soaring through the sky (the cerulean sky, apparently) above them, words for the putrescent stench of a nearby rotfiend nest. He has words to make the shyest, most awkward village girl gleam beautifully under his doting attention, words to assuage the traumatized, stuttering child who witnessed a gruesome alghoul attack, words to charm the stingiest of men into coughing up the promised coin after Geralt completes a contract.
On a clear night a few weeks past the autumnal equinox, Jaskier has words for the grumbling innkeeper who protests that they “don’t serve your kind” when Geralt tries to procure a room. Furious, colorful words that surprise Geralt, even as he maneuvers his screaming companion out of the small country inn and into the still autumn night.
He lets him continue his ravings as they trek down the road, assuming that he’ll surely run out of steam soon. Geralt scans the terrain for a good place to set up camp, only half-listening to the diatribe that seems to be gaining momentum rather than reaching some denouement (Jaskier loves to talk about the denouement. He’d delivered a lengthy lecture on narrative structure to Geralt last month that seemed to last nearly the entire journey from Ellander to Vizima). Geralt picks a spot with some natural cover, far enough from the road to protect them from roving bandits, and begins removing Roach’s tack.
“—the utter churlish ingratitude of it all astounds me, truly, I’d love to see our dear Master We-Don’t-Serve-Your-Kind handle it himself next time a wraith starts to slaughter any who try to use the well after sundown!”
Jaskier is forced by physical necessity to take a breath, and Geralt seizes his opportunity to set the conversation to rest. “It doesn’t matter.”
Silence had been the goal, but he knows Jaskier well enough to know this isn’t the blissful quietude of the bard dropping it. He sighs and turns toward Jaskier, who is staring at him, mouth agape, with an expression stuck between disbelief and fury. “I’m sorry,” the boy says finally, fixing Geralt with a glare, “did you just say it doesn’t matter?”
And Jaskier is young, young and full of youthful pride, youthful expectations; more than that, he’s not a witcher. He’s travelled with Geralt on and off for the past two years, and while he’s seen traces, the witcher has tried to shield him from the brunt of these everyday indignities he’s met with. Jaskier hadn’t been in Blaviken, hadn’t witnessed decades of casual and humiliating and hateful and snarling dismissals that have hardened Geralt, changed Geralt, numbed Geralt. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeats. He stops his preparations for their camp and looks Jaskier in the eye. If the boy’s set on traveling with him, it’s best he understands. “Wraith’s dead. The alderman paid what we agreed, didn’t complain about the price or try to shortchange me. It was a success. The rest doesn’t matter.”
There’s a look Geralt can’t quite parse brewing on Jaskier’s face as the witcher speaks, seeming to vacillate wildly between frustrated and wrathful and agonized and so many other feelings, too many for Geralt to track, too complex to analyze from the muddled, conflicting scent. They’re close, he realizes suddenly, and he isn’t sure when that happened but they’re close and he can taste the confused feelings in the air between them, the metallic panic and the acrid fury and the brackish tears that haven’t fallen but threaten to, building in spite of the bard’s best efforts. “It matters,” Jaskier insists, a broken hitch in his voice, and then he’s kissing Geralt.
And maybe Geralt shouldn’t be surprised, but he is, somehow. He’s noticed the lust, of course. It had been there at their first meeting, the sharp, earthy scent, strong but not unpleasant. It had been almost flattering, though not nearly so flattering as it was overwhelming; but then it had spiked again nearly as intensely when Filavandrel entered the cave as they sat bound together, beaten and bruised, then later that night when a barmaid’s fingers brushed his as she handed him his ale, a coy smile and the slightest tilt of the head to indicate Jaskier should follow her to the shadowed cellar. He’d followed her and come back, smelling of sex and sporting a dopey grin, singing the praises of women with the exhilarated bravado of an eighteen-year-old would-be libertine—women, Geralt, women, of all the gods’ creations upon this good earth can any compare to a woman? And that had been that.
But Jaskier is kissing him, a hard, frantic thing, his palm warm against Geralt’s jaw, the salt in the air growing thicker, not at all what Geralt would have imagined kissing Jaskier to be like (has imagined kissing Jaskier to be like, in the dead of night, sometimes, as the last embers of a campfire glow on soft pale skin, or at the look of absolute peace as he closes his eyes and breathes in the cool twilight air, or when the first rays of dawn flicker in his sleep-rumpled mess of tawny hair).
But Jaskier is distressed.
The bard pulls away with a sharp inhale, and the scents and tastes and expressions keep shifting erratically, and Geralt tries to keep track but can’t. It’s silent for a minute but for Jaskier’s uneven breaths and the gentle sounds of the forest. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, not looking at Geralt, and it’s the copper tang of fear now, something he’s never smelled once before on Jaskier, on this brave idiot who’s seen no end of havoc and slaughter at the hands of monsters and men since joining the witcher’s company and yet never smelled like fear in his presence before.
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier repeats, and when he meets the witcher’s gaze there’s a flash of defiance there, now, “I shouldn’t have done that and if you no longer wish to travel with me I understand, I do, but it does matter, Geralt. It matters that that repugnant, contemptible prick thought he could throw you out like a mangy dog after you saved his pathetic life, all their pathetic lives. It matters that not a one of the other patrons offered a word in your defense. It matters that the songs aren’t enough, they aren’t doing enough, and it matters that this sort of abuse must be so very commonplace that you are, apparently, utterly unperturbed by the entire affair!”
Jaskier’s wrong, he knows that. It doesn’t matter how one small man treats a witcher. The Path is long and hard, and if scornful innkeepers and a night under the stars instead of a roof are the worst Geralt has to face then he is luckier than most. He’s no knight errant, no hero, no matter how gallant and romantic and chivalrous Jaskier insists he is in his ballads.
It doesn’t matter.
And yet.
Jaskier takes a shaky breath. He’s been staring, Geralt realizes belatedly, waiting for some sort of response, and now he seems to have taken silence as answer enough. “Right,” the bard says, nodding, swallowing, rubbing at his eyes wearily. “Suppose that’s my cue to make myself scarce, then.”
His chin trembles with the harsh set of his jaw, and Geralt can’t help reaching out, cupping his face gently with a strong, square hand, his sword-callused thumb rubbing soothingly over a smooth, pale cheek. He pulls Jaskier into a slow, tentative embrace, feeling the boy’s tension melt away in his arms, the copper tang dissolving into something sweet and familiar, something hopeful, something that smells like home.
Geralt tries to find the words. A rude backwoods innkeep doesn’t mean shit to him, but Jaskier jumping to his defense without the slightest hesitation does. Jaskier writing songs about him, about his selflessness, about his goodness—no matter how inaccurate, no matter how exaggerated—does. Jaskier looking at him like he’s something precious, something valuable, something worthy, does. Jaskier kissing him matters—certainly matters, and is certainly something Geralt is interested in investigating further—but Jaskier choosing to be with him, indignant and furious on his behalf, making his bed on the lumpy forest floor when he could have easily rented a room in that inn—matters even more.
Geralt doesn’t know how to say these things; the words sound trite and inadequate as he turns them about in his mind. But as he holds him close, their breath becoming one as they rock gently beneath the evening’s first stars, he thinks perhaps Jaskier understands nonetheless.
And if not, perhaps he’ll find the words tomorrow.