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Damn it, Jaskier!
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Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it's you, shoveling it?
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Damn it, Jaskier!
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Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit...
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Damn it, Jaskier!
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… It's you, shoveling it?
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Damn it, Jaskier!
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If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.
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"You always say that."
Geralt only glares at him. The haze of rage and pain parts enough to recognize that this isn't the response he might expect from his bard.
Jaskier looks tired. Weary, as if the world sits upon his shoulders, which seems a little unfair considering Geralt himself is in the process of self-destructing.
"What."
"If life could give me one blessing..." Jaskier says, dropping his voice in that silly, age-old impression of his voice. But he chokes off before finishing.
"You know how many times I've heard that now?"
A single tear tracks through the light layer of road dust on his face, and Jaskier scrubs at it as if that might erase its existence.
It doesn't, only smears the dust around a little more.
"Over and over, I have to listen to you say those words, as if they weren't enough to get your point across the first time."
"What are you talking about?" Geralt snarls. "This is the first time in twenty years I've said what needed to be said."
The bard laughs, a little hysterical. He staggers a little where he stands, as if he might fall. The instinct to step forward and catch him rears its head, but Geralt forces it back down.
"Yes," Jaskier says, tone a little too light. "The first day in twenty years, perhaps. And I've repeated this day twenty times now, listening to you unfairly berate me for things that aren't my fault, over and over and over."
He raises his hands, clutches at his hair as if it's his only lifeline.
"As if loving you for all that time wasn't hard enough, knowing you'd never feel the same, either because you were too full of your own self-hatred or too busy with your witch to need me."
He breaks off, breath ragged and face hidden behind his hands.
Geralt stands before him, below him on the cliff, warring with himself. The rage that threatens to explode and consume everything in its wake roils just beneath the surface, raring for another go.
One more push is all it would take, like kicking a man when he's down. More cruel words, words Geralt knows deep down are unfair and unnecessary, and the bard will leave for good.
And that's what he wants, right? To be alone, to leave behind all the ones who hurt him, to suffer as only a monster like him deserves.
It would be so easy to make the bard leave now.
"Why are you telling me this now?" Quietly, both words and tone the exact opposite of what he intended.
"There's no reason not to, is there?" The bard lowers his hands, exhaustion evident in the planes of his face, the tenseness in his shoulders.
"When we're done here, I'll leave first and find my way down the mountain, alone. If I choose the longer path, I'll make it down alright, only to find Roach gone and the things I left behind thrown carelessly on the ground. If I choose to take the shortcut, we'll meet yet again, only for you to grunt in my face and move ahead. I'll be halfway down the mountain when the boards break beneath my feet, and I fall."
All of this is said in an awful, matter-of-fact tone that leaves no room for uncertainty. "There's no reason not to tell you, because as soon as I die, or the day ends, it begins again, when I awake alone at camp."
Again, the bard sways like he might fall, and this time Geralt doesn't resist the compulsion to step forward. When Jaskier doesn't move away, he continues, until he stands before the ledge. Tentatively raises a hand, settles it on the bard's hip.
"And you forget," Jaskier chokes, looking down at him, his face now a mask of streaked dust. "No matter what I say or do, you forget, and I die, or you leave."
Geralt doesn't know what to say. He never does, but it seems even harder this time. Possibly because it matters.
"Not this time," he says, finally, and he thinks he got it right because Jaskier's eyes widen a little with surprise. It's a response he hasn't heard before.
The rage calms, and the pain fades to a manageable level, and Geralt wonders how he let his emotions control him so easily this time when they never have in the past. He wonders how he had come so close to pushing aside one of the few who had ever voluntarily cared for him
"Come with me," Geralt murmurs. "Give me a chance to prove myself a worthy travel companion."
His hand slides down Jaskier's hip, chasing the bard's hand. He takes it, squeezing his fingers gently.
"To the coast?" he asks the bard, a final invitation.
Jaskier squeezes his eyes shut, and Geralt can see the tears welling up. The bard squeezes his hand back.
"To the coast," he agrees finally.
They walk back to camp like that, each gripping the hand of the other. When Yennefer sees them, something flashes in her violet eyes before she snaps and disappears through a portal.
Geralt's medallion hums slightly, and the world seems to shift. Then it stops, and everything is normal.
"What was that," Jaskier asks flatly.
"She must hate me now," Geralt says, "But I think she wanted me to get at least one thing right today."
Jaskier looks at him, and for the first time since the accursed dragon business had begun, smiles at him.