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“Are you happy with Yennefer?”
The question comes from nowhere. One moment, they’re sitting together at the edge of a cliff, knees pressed together ever so gently, as if they’re afraid they’ll break some unspoken boundary, and in the next, Jaskier looks at him with those steel grey eyes, the ghost of the words that just escaped dancing across his lips. Jaskier’s eyes hold an alarming amount of lucidity for someone who, thirty minutes prior, vomited in some poor rabbit’s burough.
Geralt knows he’s drunk. Jaskier had gone shot for shot, pint for pint with him, and while the magic running in Geralt’s blood dulls the effect of alcohol, he knows Jaskier is a mere human. Still, he’d humored him, had humored him until Jaskier could hardly stand on his own, leaning on him for support. It was odd, Geralt supposes. In the years that Geralt had known Jaskier, he had never gotten this sloppy drunk, almost as if he’s escaping from a demon only he knows the existence of.
The cliffside retreat was meant to sober him up just enough to help Geralt set up camp, not for him and Jaskier to have a heart to heart about his romantic escapades. Still, he decides to humor him with the truth, figuring that he’s drunk enough to not remember it in the morning.
“No, I don’t think I am,” he says, and Jaskier nods much too solemnly for someone with the blood alcohol content high enough to kill a small Selkiemore.
“What about with Triss?”
A guffaw escapes Geralt before he can stop himself, and he coughs to distract from it. “I…wasn’t aware you knew of her, but no, I don’t think I was happy with her either.”
They sit in (blessed) silence for a moment, but the comfortable mist of mutual contemplation earlier has been lost, and in its wake leaves only curious tension. When Jaskier knocks his knee against Geralt’s, he knows he certainly has another prying question.
“Have you ever been in love?” Jaskier asks, and the force of the question sends Geralt emotionally reeling. Without pausing for a response, Jaskier continues. “I used to think I was destined to live life as a bachelor. I mean, hell, I’ve slept with every nobleman’s lover and mother from here to Nilfgaard. After a while, I even stopped craving love. I figured it was karmic, even poetic justice for an infidel like me.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Geralt can feel the force of it, even from two feet away.
“But lately, I’ve been wondering if fate has decided to be crueler. To pit this cold unfeeling heart against someone whose heart is even colder by nature of his profession alone.” At that, Jaskier chances a glance at Geralt, almost longingly. “I have spent tens of years singing praises of monsters and men, spinning pure emotion into tangible words. I suppose the best form of poetic justice for a musician is to place emotions I can’t sing about, or even quite comprehend for a man who couldn’t possibly love me back.”
“Geralt, please. I just need to know. Had I been born a woman, would I have a chance?”
He wants to tell Jaskier that it doesn’t matter what form or incarnation he chooses. That he would love and follow Jaskier in whatever damned meat suit he chose, so long as he’d have him. Instead, he turns his head away from those brilliant slate grey eyes and the earnest hopefulness they hold.
“If you had been born a woman, you’d have been raped and beaten before I ever had the good graces to meet you.” Geralt says after a beat.
He’s not shocked that Jaskier doesn’t answer. He is shocked, however, when Jaskier places three of his (well-manicured, Geralt notices, so thin and long that it’s no surprise he became a musician) fingers and tugs Geralt’s face towards his.
“That’s not what I asked.” He says, and they’re so close Geralt can practically taste the hint of mead on Jaskier’s lips.
He doesn’t know who initiates the kiss, only that one moment they’re separated by a hair's breadth and the next, they’re pressed against one another. Someone moves and the hands that have been calloused from years of hard work and manual labor cup the back of Jaskier’s thighs. A knee (Geralt doesn’t know whose knee at first) finds its way between Jaskier’s legs and the sound that drags out of his open lips into Geralt’s waiting ones only-
Jaskier pulls away abruptly. His cheeks are flushed, hair mussed, lips kiss swollen and blood red. The lucidity in his eyes is even brighter than it was before, and those scintillating orbs stare deep into Geralt, almost as if Jaskier believes if stares deep enough, he might just unlock the secret to his affections. It almost makes Geralt want to assure him that he already has his affection, no matter who Jaskier thinks Geralt is with.
“We should set up camp,” Jaskier says instead, and he untangles his legs from the mess of limbs and lust of Geralt’s lap.
They do just that. Jaskier is still a little drunk, as far as Geralt can tell, but he manages to find firewood and set the wood ablaze without incident.
Geralt isn’t surprised when Jaskier pointedly makes a show of setting his sleeping arrangements far away from him, but he also isn’t surprised when, not ten minutes later, he is almost angrily trudging towards Geralt’s sleeping bag. Geralt, for his part, acquiesces, and groggily shifts his body to make room for Jaskier.
In the morning, they’ll have to discuss whatever...this is. And what even is it? A make out session fueled by hormones, liquor, and unresolved feelings? Held together by rope and spite and messily arranged to look somewhat like the relationship they’re trying to emulate? The thought of unpacking these complex feelings from within him makes Geralt want to retch. He’s the great White Wolf, for fuck’s sake. He leaves the soft, emotional aspect of the world to the bards and the damsels in distress.
Jaskier is soft beside him. Everything about him, from the way he takes his breath to his unscarred skin is soft and lyrical. When his head nuzzles into Geralt’s chest, Geralt again acquiesces. He doesn’t sleep for a while after that.