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Someone had once told Geralt that he should never trust someone who says ‘I love you” for the first time during sex. It might’ve been Eskel, but it was equally likely to have been some old wise woman in a no name village in the middle of Velen. The problem is, Geralt so badly wants Jaskier to trust him.
Perhaps it is wrong of him to trick Jaskier into thinking he can be trusted, but Geralt has so few good things in his life that he almost feels like he’s owed something nice. Something pure, like Jaskier.
Geralt had thought he was stronger than this. When the bard first joins him in Posada, it’s no secret that he’s interested in bedding the witcher. Every gesture is a temptation, every word an invitation.
And of course, the bard is pretty. That makes it harder. Soft brown hard that curls at the tips, light blue eyes that seem to see past every wall Geralt has ever put up over eighty-odd years. And sweet Melitele, that chest hair. Geralt wants to bury his face in it and sleep there for a hundred years, gods permitting.
Geralt had truly thought he was stronger than this.
Within a few weeks of their meeting, Geralt finds himself giving in, late one lazy morning. They had managed to rent a room at the local inn the night before, though of course there was only one bed available. As tired as they’d both been, witcher and bard merely dropped their bags in a corner, undressed, and collapsed into the bed, asleep in seconds.
When Geralt finally awakes the next morning, the sun is high in the sky, shining through the windows. Beside him, Jaskier still sleeps, facing Geralt. There are soft red lines from the pillow embedded into his cheek, his usually neat hair is a tussled rats’ nest, and he’s snoring.
Geralt hadn’t known it’s possible to find snoring so endearing.
Geralt hadn’t known he could ever feel this way about someone. But the sun shines in through the windows and wreaths around Jaskier’s hair in a fine gold halo, casting soft shadows upon his face, and Geralt thinks he’s beautiful.
The snoring suddenly ceases, and the bard snuffles sleepily, burrowing his bead a little further into the pillow before finally opening his eyes to meet Geralt’s gaze. He smiles.
“Good morning, darling.”
Geralt raises a hand, and gently, ready to pull back at any moment, begins to trace the bard’s fine features. Jaskier lets him and simply continues to smile softly. Eventually, the witcher retracts his hand and props himself up on an elbow. Jaskier shifts as well, body still facing him, waiting.
And just as gently and hesitatingly as before, Geralt leans down and captures his bard’s soft mouth in an equally soft kiss. Slowly, it becomes more and more heated, bard and witcher as entangled as it’s possible for two humans to be. Jaskier threads the long fingers of his right hand through Geralt’s hair, while his left scrabbles and grasps at the witcher's neck and shoulder as if he can possibly bring them closer together.
Geralt changes their positions, lifting himself up and over, slotting Jaskier’s legs between his own as they begin to rut together. Jaskier moans into the kiss they still share, his cheeks and chest flushed a beautiful dusty pink.
Gods, he’s beautiful , Geralt thinks. And then, as Jaskier comes suddenly beneath him with a stuttered breath and the sweetest of moans, he thinks I love you before coming himself.
***
As much as Geralt tries to shake that thought away, it keeps coming back. The simplest solution, he thinks, might simply be to stop bedding the bard, and possibly even leave him behind.
But Geralt can’t bear that thought. Jaskier is his One Good Thing, and he is loath to rid himself of his bard. His lover. Their relations continue after that morning, and Geralt suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of a horny bard’s every affectionate touch. Every time they couple, Geralt thinks he’ll be able to suppress his feelings, his thoughts, but he just can’t.
I love you , he thinks to Jaskier every single day and every time they couple. Jaskier says it to him all the time, whether they’re sleeping together or not, but Jaskier says that to every person he sleeps with. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another one of those things that Jaskier says without thinking.
I love you , he thinks as Jaskier dumps a bucket of water over Geralt’s head and invites him to a royal engagement feast in Cintra.
I love you , he thinks as Jaskier throws a wink his way during a drinking song, even though Geralt is inches away from the Queen of the land.
I love you , he thinks as he walks away, away from his Child Surprise, Cintra, and Jaskier. But I can never tell you.
And perhaps Geralt hates Jaskier a little, as they meet again on the shore of a lake that hides a djinn’s amphora. Geralt just wants to sleep, but he also wants to stop loving Jaskier, if only for a moment.
Maybe then he can just get some damn peace.
***
Yennefer seems like a safe bet. He thinks he could fall in love with her too, and perhaps he does, a little. Geralt thinks they’re both just this side of too much to be able to fit together properly.
He hears Jaskier at the window.
I love you , he thinks desperately as he arches up into Yen.
They fall asleep and Jaskier leaves.
Geralt leaves.
***
He and Jaskier still fuck, but that is all it is, and Jaskier no longer tells Geralt he loves him.
***
“Do what pleases you, while you can,” Jaskier says, and looks at Geralt again like he used to before they met Yen. Jaskier smiles at him.
You please me , he thinks. I love you .
But he stalks off to Yen’s tent, because Jaskier deserves to be happy with someone he can trust.
In the end, that falls apart too.
Geralt leaves the mountain without Jaskier, because if Yen can’t trust him then the bard definitely shouldn’t.
I love you , he thinks, staring at the tread left behind from Jaskier’s awful eyesore of a pair of boots.
***
They meet again a year after the fall of Cintra. His Child Surprise, his Ciri, waits at Kaer Morhen with Yen and his brothers while he searches for his bard.
He finds Jaskier in a beaten-up old tavern that had last seen better days around fifty years ago.
The bard is playing when Geralt walks in, and though his eyes widen in surprise, he does not stop. Geralt steps up to the bar to wait, but when Jaskier finishes his set, he goes to a dark corner opposite Geralt to pack away his lute, his shoulders stiff. Geralt comes up behind the bard, shuffling his feet a little to alert Jaskier to his presence.
He hesitates, unsure of where to begin. Jaskier stands still now, ramrod straight, his back still turned.
“Jaskier,” he starts, but pauses with uncertainty.
I love you , he thinks, and thought still hits him as hard as it did the first time. But he doesn’t say that. He has to be someone Jaskier can trust.
“I’m sorry,” he says instead, haltingly. “What I said to you wasn’t… wasn’t fair.”
For a moment, there is only silence. Jaskier’s shoulder sag in what seems like relief as he turns to face Geralt.
“No, it wasn’t,” he agrees gently.
They stare at each other.
Then Jaskier smiles, and Geralt thinks he is forgiven.
***
They fall into bed together again, because they always do. Jaskier pants and moans and flushes as prettily as he always has.
He’s still beautiful, even after twenty years.
Jaskier pants and moans and flushes, and he still does not tell Geralt he loves him. Not like he used to.
Jaskier twines his right hand through Geralt’s hair and scrabbles at his shoulders with the other and cries aloud as he comes, flushed and come-drunk and beautiful in Geralt’s arms.
I love you , Geralt thinks with renewed force and reckless abandon. I love you, I love you, I love -
But Jaskier suddenly looks upset and is shoving at Geralt’s chest to get him off, and Geralt lets him up, of course he does. But he’s confused. Why is Jaskier suddenly upset?
The bard pulls himself to the side of the bed and sits with his elbows on his knees, breathing in and out slowly.
“Jaskier?” Geralt asks tentatively.
“You love me?” Jaskier replies coldly, and Geralt tastes ash. He had spoken aloud.
So the truth has finally come out. Jaskier has finally learned in the truest way that he can’t trust Geralt.
“I’m sorry,” Geralt says, finally, his voice low. “I’m sorry.”
He’s moving before he realizes it. He pulls on his trousers and is reaching for a shirt when Jaskier’s gentle hands catch at his arms.
“Geralt, stop.”
Jaskier gazes at him with those blue eyes, clear and unwrinkled and still young after twenty years. He somehow still sees through all of Geralt’s walls.
“You love me,” he repeats again, gentler. Like he’s trying to understand.
“I’m sorry,” is the only way Geralt can think to respond. “I know you don’t feel the same, and I-”
“Don’t feel the same?” Jaskier laughs incredulously. “Geralt, I must’ve told you I loved you a thousand times for ten years. You were the one who never said it back!”
“You say it to everyone,” Geralt says, confused and angry and sad. “It’s not the same, what we each mean when we say it.”
“Oh, darling,” Jaskier murmurs, stroking Geralt’s cheek and looking at him sadly. “I’m sorry you thought that, that I let you think that. But I do love you. Since I first laid eyes on you in Posada.”
“ I love you,” Geralt tells him earnestly.
It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Jaskier loves him.
Jaskier loves him.
I love you , he thinks, as he kisses Jaskier for the first time in what feels like a new chapter of their lives.