Chapter Text
When Geralt approached the tavern where he was to meet Jaskier, he immediately sensed that something was not as it should be.
It wasn't in the air, because even though he was bathed in zeugl snot and blood, his sense of smell was just working fine. All he could smell in the tavern ahead was humans, with their usual stench of sweat and garlic and ale and urine. Not Jeskier, he smelled different, and he could make him out as well. So at least, the bard was there.
There was also no magic he could pick up and his amulet stayed quiet. No danger from that front, then. He decreased his pace and slowed his breath, his hands grasping his swords a bit firmer than before. Cautiously scanning the area around him one last time, he finally stepped up to the tavern door. He still couldn't make out what had alerted all his senses, for the simple reason that he just sensed nothing. And then, the very moment he grabbed for the handle to push open the door, he knew what it was.
He stilled.
It was the lack of music, of singing, of his bard praising the heroics of the White Wolf, that was wrong. Usually, the bard passed his time with earning a coin and doing his bard thing, until he came back with the head or a tooth of whatever monster he had been assigned to slay. And then the bard would sing still more. Admittedly, sometimes he composed a song, or wrote down anecdotes the patrons told, but no matter what he did, Geralt usually would hear Jaskier's voice long before he entered the tavern or inn. It was impossible to not hear the bard, for the man seemed unable to be quiet at all! If he didn't sing, he chattered, especially in a house full of listeners, and a tavern was the best place for it.
What the..?
Forcefully, he slammed open the door, striding into the crowded tap room with determination. His eyes scanned the dimly lit room, brushing by a couple of men on their way out who weren't quick enough to avoid the blood-sodden Witcher. He heard them curse but didn't give a damn about it. The bard was nowhere to be seen.
Threateningly, he planted himself in front of the innkeeper. “What have you done to the bard?” he growled.
The innkeeper's mouth opened and closed, like a fish without water. Finally, he seemed to have found his voice. “Nothing,” he squeaked.
Geralt leaned forward a bit so he could pierce the man all the better with his blazing, amber stare. “Where is he?” he snarled.
The innkeeper's eyes widened, darting sideways, and he actually started quaking in his boots.
“Geralt, you're back!” A merry voice made itself be heard. A tad too merry, maybe. “Good, fine. I see you've found the zeugl. Great. The people here were a bit weary, thought you might not come back alive. Or come back alive, but without having managed to killed the zeugl. Hah!”
Geralt glared at the innkeeper one last time as if it was the man's fault that the bard always tended to use more than hundred words where three would have just been sufficient. He turned. “Two,” he growled.
“They have literally--- What?” Jaskier looked at Geralt enquiringly, not sure what the Witcher meant. “Two what?”
“It was two zeugl, not one, and now I need a bath.”
“Ah, great, that doubles the price. Pay up, folks!” Jaskier said, gesturing grandly at the room. “I told you the Witcher would find out if there were more monsters to slay.”
The mayor of the town, who was amongst the patrons in the tavern, threw a leather pouch towards the bard who caught it elegantly.
“Pay your Witcher, pay the price, a town without monsters, it's oh so nice,” Jaskier started singing, and then trailed off, letting the last note end in a short cough. “Yeah, well, isn't it always good to have a witcher at hand to rid you of your worst nightmares? Send word whenever you're in need of the Witcher again, though I doubt any monsters will dare infest these surroundings any time soon.”
Geralt ended the bard's ramblings by letting his hand fall heavily on his travelling companion's shoulder. “Where's your lute?” he grunted.
“What? You want me to play? Now? Sing your praises? Look at you! Isn't it you who is always, always lecturing me that he needs his 'after-battle-quiet'?” Jaskier emphasised the words by painting quotation marks into the air with his fingers, making sure everyone knew what he thought of the Witcher's wish for silence. “I'd say you rather need a bath right now, not some hymn of praise, however great it would have been done by me. You smell, and not in the good kind of way. Well, I'll see to it that a bathtub is brought up to our room. I've already instructed the innkeeper to heat water, it won't be long and you'll soak in hot, scented water. You might also probably want some chamomile again? No?” Jaskier stopped, uncertainty shining through his usually so self-opinionated prattle.
Strange....
Geralt smelled fear. Or at least something very similar to it. A smell he had not picked up from the bard for a long time. And much less if they were safe and sound in a tavern, far away from being attacked by some monsters. Not if the bard was with him. It had been a long time since he had last smelled the bard's fear of him, it had only happened very early in their… well, since they’d travelled together.
Geralt shrugged it off. Who was he to wonder why the bard was without his lute? After all, every moment the bard was not making a sound, any sound, was a blessing.
**********
“Fuck, Jaskier!” Geralt snarled. “Can't you keep your mouth shut for just a minute?” Angrily, he hit the water with his flat hand and a spout of water splashed to the floor outside the bathtub. “Do you think only because you have apparently misplaced your lute and can't torture my ears with your howling you must chatter me to death?”
Geralt glared at the bard with such intensity that his head hurt from staring so hard. No, that was wrong, he realised, the headache came neither from the bard's chatter nor his staring. It had already been there before he had even entered the tavern. It was from the foul zeugl gore he must have inhaled or probably even swallowed. The bard had nothing to do with his current discomfort. But he didn't help either.
Jaskier stuttered, “Wha--, w-, oh, wait, what? How rude of you!”
“Just go busy yourself with something, preferably not within my close proximity,” Geralt growled, feral and harsh like the wolf he was.
It took Jaskier three attempts to finally find his voice. “Very well, I shall remove my humble self from your witchery eyes.”
After the bard had left the room, not without banging the door behind him so hard that it almost came off its hinges, Geralt let himself slide back into the hot water. He'd observed the bard's odd behaviour for the last half hour or so but hadn't thought much of it. His travelling companion was permanently doing things he didn't understand, what was one oddity more? Maybe, if his head wasn't throbbing from the damned zeugl's venom like it was right now, he might have probed the causes of it and gotten to the bottom of what was wrong.
**********
Three days later
Jaskier had tossed and turned on his bedroll for a while, muttering this and that, and Geralt had been willing to ignore it for the bard's sake, but enough was enough! It was a lovely, mild spring night, so the reason for the bard's fidgeting could neither be chilling night air nor unbearable heat. Nor could he be hungry, for they had had plenty of meat and bread for dinner. It was a perfectly fine place where they had set up camp, sheltered and safe, so there was really no reason for fidgeting.
“Damn it, Jaskier! Can’t you let a man have his well-earned night's rest?” Geralt barked. “Stop fidgeting already!” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other man still. And when would the bard finally understand that no matter how quietly he muttered, for a witcher the whispered words were as clear as was a fountain in springtime?
“Sorry,” Jaskier muttered, and it just sounded so miserable.
Geralt heaved a sigh. “In Melitele's name, just spill it out so we can go back to sleep. What's wrong with you?”
“Nothing's wrong, I just can't sleep.”
“And that's no wonder if you're permanently muttering about your lute. Where is it, anyway? Just curious, it's not as if I would miss it,” Geralt added gruffly.
Jaskier turned around on his sleeping mat so he could face Geralt with a scowl. “What? Have you only just noticed that I've not got my lute with me? Really? Three days on the road and now you ask about my lute?”
Geralt heaved another sigh, angrier now. “I asked about your lute, at the tavern, but you evaded. And frankly, it's not as if I'd miss it.”
Jaskier sat up. “Oh, that's so great to hear. Thanks for letting me know how things stand between you and me. If you so despise me weaving the tales and singing the praise of the Great White Wolf, only so that you can get a job and earn your money and aren't thrown disapproving looks wherever you go, you could've said so a long while ago, you know? Would have saved me a lot of time and energy and, and running after Roach and you! And having to witness all your, your... your Geralt the Great is doing his witchering thing, it's not as entertaining as you might think! That's just-”
“Stop!” Geralt barked, sitting up as well so he could silence the bard with a withering look. “You've been getting on my nerves for three days, even without your lute, so I'll ask for the last time. What happened to it?”
Jaskier stared back, squinting his eyes. “Oh, fine. It's broken. Happy?” he finally said, shrugging his shoulder.
Even though Jaskier had said it lightly, Geralt picked up on the undertone that resonated in the bard's voice. “You broke your lute?” he asked incredulously, staring at Jaskier so hard he feared he might burn a hole in his bard's face.
He couldn't believe the bard had been so careless with his instrument, not when he treated it like the sacred grail itself, screaming blue murder more than once if his lute got near any kind of danger zone. Not when his bard would rather hack his arm off than see his lute being damaged – well, metaphorically spoken, since he wouldn't be able to play any more with only one arm.
“Well, no. No!” Jaskier squirmed, averting his eyes. “No, I didn’t break it, what do you think of me? Have we not travelled together for long enough that you should know I would never treat my lute so carelessly that it might get damaged? Really, Geralt, I thought that-”
“Stop rambling!” Geralt shouted, and for once he let his anger resonate overtly in his tone. He pinched his nose, which seemed to have become a habit since being in the company of Jaskier. “Who?”
Jaskier hesitated, seizing Geralt up. “You remember the zeugl you slayed a few days ago? While I waited for you in the tavern I entertained the patrons and it seemed a few brutes among them didn't like my performance. Or maybe they didn't like the prose I presented, though there's definitely nothing wrong with the tales I weave.”
Geralt growled, prompting the bard to come to the point.
“Anyway,” Jaskier continued hurriedly, “they insulted me and my singing and started pushing me around a bit and making fun of me and one grabbed my lute and broke it in two. And then stomped on it. Repeatedly. And flung it into the fireplace.”
Geralt stared at Jaskier for a full minute without blinking until finally the bard started to get nervous under the Witcher's stare.
“It was just a lute, okay? A rather fine, elvish lute, it must be admitted, but I can buy a new one as soon as we come through a town where a lute maker has his business and....” Absent-mindedly, Jaskier trailed off.
Geralt scrutinized the man. Who did the bard think he could fool? Heartbreak about his broken lute was written all over Jaskier's face. Even a witcher could see this. Even he could see it!
“Well, I guess it was my own fault, what with me always singing. I should have stopped when they asked me to.” Jaskier waggled his head as if trying to get rid of the lingering memory. In a far merrier voice he continued, “Anyway, as soon as I can afford it, I'll get a new lute. No point in crying about it. It's certainly a bit tricky to earn money as a bard without a lute, I'll have to admit that, but I'll come up with something.” Jaskier stared into the star-lit sky. A moment later, he seemed to have a flash of inspiration. “Maybe I can offer other services? We could invite ourselves to the court in Ellander and I'm sure I could find some gentle person who would pay for the... for a service I can offer. Without my lute. I might recite poetry while... doing it. The women would love it!” Jaskier beamed at Geralt. “What do you say?”
It took Geralt a moment until he had figured out what the bard meant when he talked about offering services. “No! You won't offer any services to anyone,” he growled. “Not as long as you and I are travelling together. It would only end in me having to play your guardian again, dress myself up in colourful costumes and fight off cuckolded husbands. That's a price definitely higher than any lute is worth,” he grumbled, lying down again to signal he was done talking for the night. “Sleep now,” he said gruffly.
Surprisingly, the bard did as he was told without arguing, and it wasn't before long that Geralt could hear the steady rhyme of Jaskier's breathing, indicating that the man had finally fallen asleep.
Which was more than one could say of the Witcher.
Something hot boiled inside Geralt. If anyone in this or any other world was entitled to break the bard's lute for maltreating one’s hearing it was him, and no one else! If he had decided to part the bard with his lute, he would have done so long ago, but he would most definitely not accept it if anyone other than him broke his bard's lute. Not if he had a say in it. The elvish princeling had been the last to make that mistake, and if Filavandrel had not gifted the bard another one afterwards, they would not have parted ways the way they did.
What Jaskier had just revealed, and what he was willing to do to earn some coin, needed to entail serious consequences for the ones who had dared lay hands upon his bard. Even though Jaskier never needed to know of it.
Before he let his senses get some rest, he briefly wondered if the burning ache in his guts was still after-effects of the zeugl venom, or if it stemmed from something else entirely.