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Jaskier had never considered Valdo his friend. Spite-born-nemesis? Sure. Water-hag-sounding-villain? Absolutely. But never once his friend. Yet, it’s his house he trudges to after days of endless walking. He’s numb, a numb that had spread from the inner walls of his heart and now rests in each crevice of his being. He’s lucky he’s alive, he knows, in no condition to fight anything off, including cold weather and starvation.
He doesn’t know how long he’s walked, but he’s in Oxenfurt, forehead resting against the polished wooden door of his old enemy’s lodgings. He knocks, arm heavy as he curls his hand into a fist and rasps his knuckles against the door. How empty it feels, not having a purpose, being so alone. He has no one to go back to, the only person who’d been willing to let him tag along had so vehemently pushed him away with hate-spit cruel words.
The door opens, and he falls forward and into the arms of his old lover’s embrace. A strong arm encircles his waist, the other coming to rest upon the back of his head as Jaskier slouches against him. “What brings you here?” Valdo asks, “Did the monsterfucking get old, darling?” Jaskier closes his eyes against his shoulder, will too weak to keep the tears from slipping down his cheek.
Valdo closes the door behind them, and Jaskier has barely a moment to look around his house and at the beautiful paintings that line the walls before he’s swept up in the painter’s arms. “Perhaps the monster simply left you,” he murmurs.
“Don’t call him that,” Jaskier whispers, voice so weak. Soft lips press to his forehead.
“No, of course not,” Valdo mutters, and sets his travel-mussed form on a plush couch. He hears the sound of running water somewhere upstairs, and hears Valdo’s footsteps returning to his side. “I haven’t seen you like this since we broke up, Jas.” Jaskier staggers to his feet, and Valdo helps him into the washroom. They both know he’ll feel better after a bath. Jaskier says nothing in reply.
The water is blissfully warm as he settles himself against the rim of the tub. Valdo’s skin glows under the candlelight, and Jaskier is too miserable to appreciate how beautiful he is even as he allows Jaskier to rest his head against his shoulder. “I’m so tired,” Jaskier tells him, a confession he’s held for nearly a decade. He turns his head and buries his face into his the soft crook of his archenemy’s neck and cries as his gentle hands work over cleaning the muck from Jaskier’s worn form.
The water turns cold, and Valdo helps him out and into the bedroom, where he falls face-forwards into the feather-stuffed mattress. He groans, wiggling to get in a better position as Valdo chuckles and leaves. He comes back with a wonderful-smelling bowl of heated soup and a chunk of bread.
Jaskier sits, eating wordlessly as he finds his appetite after days. Valdo’s shoulder is warm against his, and he falls back onto bed beside him after his stomach fills. It’s just returning a favor; Jaskier had done the same things for him when Valdo had returned to him after his banishment from Cidaris, miserable and aching. But as Jaskier lays in his arms, blinking away tears of longing and heartache, he knows that he’ll always have home in his rival, and his rival will always have a home in him.