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The punching bag swings with each of Geralt’s punches.
Right. Left. Front. Right. Right. Left. Front.
Geralt is no Steve Rogers, but he’d like to think that his mood can make him recreate a great scene from the first Avengers movie. God knows sending a bag flying would surely help him relax and clear his thoughts.
Believing in the good of your institution? How incredibly and disappointingly naive of you, Geralt.
Every agent has their case. The complicated one, into which they pour so much time and energy that it practically dictates their life.
Geralt’s case is an infuriating renowned thief.
Eskel says he’s wasting precious time and brain cells that he could, for example, use on other, more recent cases. Lambert always looks him in the eyes, and tells him he’s simply obsessed, and in need of new hobbies. Vesemir admires his focus and strong will, but has given up on catching the bastard himself. Letho is the only one who humors him, because he likes to see him run around in circles.
But yesterday, Geralt had him at gunpoint. In an alley. It shouldn’t have been possible for him to escape.
And yet.
Julian Pankratz, 29 years old. Better known as Jaskier amongst his peers, or called the Bard by the media.
Fair skin, dark hair, bright eyes shining with mischief that would make Loki proud, and what seemed like a constant smug smirk plastered on his handsome face.
Shame, he had said, a few seconds before fleeing. Had you been anything other than a fed, I would’ve asked you on a date.
Geralt hits the punching bag again. Because had Jaskier been anything other than a criminal, he would’ve said yes.
Jaskier is, Geralt has discovered, both fascinating and irritating. He has no relatives left, which makes him the last descendant of a very comfortable polish family. Money shouldn’t be a problem for him.
But he is still running around, stealing the most valuable tokens under the sun.
Not a single fingerprint on the scenes. Never an alarm triggered. Rarely visible on camera. Absolutely no casualties. Just his signature: a treble clef drawn where the stolen good had been, with what had by now been identified as liquid eyeliner, of all things.
One of their CIs had told them, once, that Jaskier considers himself an artist. Legends never die, and what better way for one to become a legend than to turn thieving into a work of art? Never caught, never slipping, a ghost in the moonlight who barely leaves a trace.
He also has a talented entourage, judging by the fact that none of the objects stolen have ever been found on the black market.
Geralt stops his punches and flexes his fingers, rolls his wrists, turning his hands around to examine the state of his skin. His knuckles aren’t split, but they’re bright red. The pain is a welcome distraction, as well as a self-inflicted punishment.
Because yesterday, he had him. He could have cuffed Jaskier, closing a case that was already over four years old.
But he didn’t.
How incredibly and disappointingly naive of you, Geralt.
He doesn’t really know what made him freeze.
Perhaps the implication that he is naive enough to believe whoever he’s working for is pure of heart. Geralt is no fool: he knows the FBI is nothing more than an old apple tree, with too many rotten fruits who have yet to fall to the ground.
(He just, above all, tries to believe in people he knows doing the right thing.)
But he’s painfully aware, deep down, that the reason he stopped in his tracks, letting his target escape and seeing the end of the tunnel get further away from him once more, is the fact that the criminal knows his name.
By all means, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Geralt has been on his tail for years, making a lot of progress in the case as soon as they’d given it to him. It stands to reason that Jaskier would try to find out more about the one fed who’d managed to find his real identity.
Hell, he probably knows way more than his name.
Still, Geralt would have loved to have the upper hand, for once.
He rolls the tape off his hands and takes a swig out of his water bottle, grabbing his bag to get out of the gym. That’s enough self-flagellation for tonight, he thinks.
Lambert looks at him suspiciously when he opens the door to their shared apartment, but thankfully decides to stay silent. They’ve known each other for long enough that he can detect when to shut his giant mouth.
Geralt falls on his bed, sweaty and tired, telling himself that he’ll catch him, someday.
He’d told the criminal as such, yesterday.
Oh, I’m sure you will, my love, Jaskier had said. But only when I want you to.
Geralt wishes he knew what it’s supposed to mean.
Jaskier’s apartment, or lair as he prefers, is hidden in a decrepit building that will never be for sale. It sits all the way on top of it, overlooking part of the city, with giant bay windows around the open main area.
He loves it with all his might, has fought to have it.
He loves it less when people come barging in, without any preamble, and disturb his well-earned peace.
Triss opens the front door without so much as knocking, and visibly tries not to comment on the fact that the only thing covering his body is a pair of yoga pants. He stops strumming his guitar, sinks into his couch and raises an eyebrow in her direction, waiting for her to start speaking.
She stops right in front of him, and sighs.
“So, Yennefer is pissed. She just received word that you got careless again, and that ruined date night.”
Jaskier can deal with Yennefer being angry. She’s not an incredibly good person (no one is, in this business) and she’s extremely hard on all of her associates, but he knows she has a soft spot for him. Neither of them know why. But the fact that his little escapade ruined her date with Triss does not bode well.
He fucked up.
“I didn’t mean to ruin date night,” he says. “I did the job and then I wanted to see if he was going to be there.”
He being his favorite federal agent. His white wolf. The love of his life. His future husband.
Right, some of these might just be fantasy.
“And he was,” she answers, looking exasperated, “and he saw you and almost got you, and we’ve warned you countless times that you can’t be seen too much. It’s not good for business. Clients start thinking you’re getting careless, and then we’re losing them.”
He snorts. “Bullshit. I got a 100% success rate. We can’t be losing clients.”
“We will if you keep going.”
Jaskier pouts, but doesn’t bother answering. His eyes fall back on his instrument, absently strumming again. Truth is, he’s bored. He hasn’t had a big job in what feels like ages, hasn’t been able to put a signature on something important, and life at home is just lonely, sometimes. He’s been thinking about writing a song, and leaving a partition behind, but he’d need something big for that.
And the song. He’d have to write it, first.
(He already knows who it would be about.)
Above him, Triss clears her throat with an expectant look. He rolls his eyes.
“I’m bored, Triss. The last big job I got was weeks ago, and I barely had anything to do after that.” Jaskier puts down the guitar, lying down on his couch. “I need to be busy. And I’m not. So yeah, I waited for the guy to show up because he’s hot, and smart, and I wanted him to know we know who he is. Tell Yen I’m sorry, but if she wants me to stop she needs to find me something fast.”
Jaskier snaps his mouth shut, carefully eyeing her from where he’s laying shirtless on his back, all vulnerable. She could hurt him if she wanted to. Thankfully, Triss is not her girlfriend, who wouldn’t have hesitated for even a second; she just squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath.
“You’re lucky I’m your friend,” she says slowly, “or I wouldn’t even consider telling her all of this. Pull yourself together. We’ll have something soon.”
He watches, transfixed, as she whips around, hair flowing with the movement, and waltzes out the door.
Jaskier stays where he is for a minute, thoughts going wild. He doesn’t know how long it will be until his next act, but something tells him that his piece could do with a musical number.
No soul dislikes a good song, after all.
Jaskier gets up, walking to his office, and grabs some paper and a pencil to bring back to the living-room. Sitting down, he takes his guitar again and scribbles a temporary name on top of the page.
The Song of the White Wolf.
The first thing Geralt notices upon arriving on the scene is the papers pinned in the middle of a frame, where a painting used to hang.
It’s been three weeks since his encounter with Jaskier: three weeks of nervous peace, of solving random little cases and worrying about the future of the Bard case, which is starting to be old. Too old.
Three weeks before Vesemir coming up to his desk with tired eyes, putting a small file with freshly printed papers in front of him.
This one’s for you, kid. Your boyfriend stole three different paintings. Expensive ones.
He can still see Lambert’s eyes rolling back into his head, his partner already dreading the boring hours spent looking for clues that won’t be there.
Lambert is talking to the local police, first on the scene, being distracted and distracting so Geralt can do his job in peace.
The painting frames are still hanging at their usual place, as if they’d never been touched, empty of any and all painting. The art in itself isn’t from any extremely famous painter; they were, however, artists on their way to fame, thus making the stolen painting extremely valuable without stirring panic.
Jaskier is an artist in his craft, but his masterpiece was never the stolen goods as much as it was the act of breaking and entering without ever being detected.
The thick frames are taunting him. They’re all around the same size, all next to one another. The one on the left and the one on the right are both hosting their own treble clef, but it’s the one in the middle that’s already driving him insane. He knows he’s not going to like what he finds on these pieces of paper.
Geralt takes gloves out of the pocket on his jacket, and slowly puts them on, eyes never leaving his target. When he finally steps over the security railing, he finds something he never actually expected to see.
He knows Jaskier likes music: just looking at his signature makes it obvious. But he wasn’t sure how much. He now has the confirmation that the infamous Bard does not only like music, he also writes music.
Geralt turns around, eyes roaming over the partition. It’s all in there. Both parts of the instrumental, and even lyrics. He’s a little rusty, and he can’t exactly figure out what instrument this is supposed to be played on, but he knows the melody is deep and dark. It extends on a few pages.
The music is not what stuns him the most, though. It’s the title and the end note, written in carefully handcrafted letters.
The Song of the White Wolf has a nice ring to it, and he’s not stupid enough to not get that the criminal wrote it about him. White wolf sounds flattering, in a way, if not a little sad. Should he feel flattered or scared by the fact that Jaskier is interested enough in him to do this?
“What’s that?"
Geralt is wrenched away from his daydreams by Lambert, who’s looking at the small stack of papers with a puzzled expression. He doesn’t know what to do with his own face, and opts for impassive.
“He wrote me a goddamn song,” he says simply.
Geralt is not sure he wants to give the partition to be studied as evidence. The note at the bottom of the last page is, after all, pretty damn personal.
I’m weak, my love, and I am wanting. We’ll see each other again soon, Geralt.