Archive of Our Own

Ordinary people don’t… date witchers. Granted, Geralt has been coming to the diner where Jaskier works for the last year and a half, just about. Twenty-one months, but who’s counting? It isn’t a precisely educational experience, but between the pancakes and mediocre coffee he’s come to realize that Jaskier is anything but ordinary.

Geralt had never meant to do anything with that information. If he sometimes goes out of his way to stop in between contracts, it’s no one’s business but his own. It’s just nice to have one place he can go where someone is genuinely happy to see him. And alright, Jaskier is more alluring than he has any right to be. And perhaps Geralt spends his visits wordlessly nursing a cup of coffee just to have an excuse to listen to Jaskier chatter on about nothing in particular a while longer.

Well, he did, anyway. Things are different in the months since they exchanged numbers after Geralt stumbled in half dead after a contract. Jaskier’s conversation demands more participation, his smiles more intentional. And though Geralt would like to think he put up at least a token resistance over these last few months (in which he has received what he’s sure are more text messages than his entire life before), somehow Jaskier has pulled Geralt right along with him.

The point is, Geralt doesn’t do this. He doesn’t let himself get attached to people. He doesn’t give himself a reason to maybe stay in one place a little more. He definitely doesn’t go for coffee shop dates. The fact that their current circumstances started with an attempt to do exactly that is completely coincidental.

Wednesday

2:15 p.m.

Like many things in Geralt’s life, things go sideways before they even start. They don’t even make it inside the coffee shop before his phone rings, and given the only person who calls him for frivolous reasons is right next to him, it’s probably important. All of which is why Geralt had to cancel and is pulling into the gas station before a six hour trip to Oreton.

He’s still not sure how Jaskier got here, though. It’s a bewildering leap from a coffee date to committing to hours in an enclosed space together, but by the time Geralt wraps his head around that Jaskier is already in the passenger seat.

“I’ll get snacks,” Jaskier offers, already opening the car door. “Do you want anything?”

Geralt motions to a box in the back seat. “I’m good.”

“Are those granola bars?” Jaskier makes a comically disapproving noise, sliding out of his seat. He leans over enough to poke his head back in. “Do you know who thinks granola bars count as road trip snacks? My grandma.”

“What’s wrong with…” Geralt starts, but Jaskier is already gone.

To Jaskier’s credit, he’s emerging from the gas station once more by the time the gas tank is full. Well, Jaskier along with a bag of what looks like more candy than someone could eat in a week and the two cups he’s juggling.

“I promised you coffee! I can’t guarantee it’s good coffee, mind you, but it is coffee,” Jaskier explains before Geralt can ask, circling the car to press a cup into the witcher’s hands.

He doesn’t do this, and supposes he could be mistaken, but Geralt is pretty certain the coffee isn’t actually the operant word in ‘coffee date.’ Still, it’s… it’s something he doesn’t quite know what to do with. Jaskier has always been friendly, but he’s taken up doing all sorts of things as of late that can’t be chalked up to it being his job, and they never seem to leave Geralt any less unmoored than he feels right now, staring at the paper cup aggressively warming the palms of his hands.

“It’s for drinking,” Jaskier prompts, and as silly as it is, the whole thing only gets more absurd. Because the glare Geralt responds with is normally enough to make people shy away, but Jaskier doesn’t even have the decency to pretend to be alarmed. He laughs, soft and lilting in a way Geralt never wants to let go of, like there’s nothing strange about any of this. Like the two of them are made for these ordinary things Geralt has never given himself the space to want.

But Jaskier has never been ordinary.

3:07 p.m.

He’s made a terrible miscalculation in this plan, Jaskier privately acknowledges about thirty miles from home. This plan. The one that was definitely an actual plan and not just an impulsive desire to go on an adventure and see Geralt in action. Does it count as a plan if he invents a purpose? Maybe he’ll write a song about it. The subject matter is a little niche, but that’s half the appeal.

The other half of the appeal is the man sitting in the driver’s seat, silently watching the nearly empty highway stretch out in front of them. He’s always pretty, but working third shift Jaskier has never really gotten to see Geralt like this, drenched in sunlight that softens his features and mutes the slight frown that seems to own permanent real estate on his face. It’s haunting, the way it lights up Geralt’s silvery white hair, like some particularly attractive ghost.

Therein lies the miscalculation, because the thing is, Geralt is no different than any other time Jaskier has been around him, which is about as talkative as the pet rock he had when he was six. Normally, that’s fine. Geralt tolerates Jaskier’s chatter at the diner. And since it’s Jaskier’s job, he usually only wanders to Geralt’s table for minutes at a time. But there are no places to wander off to in the passenger seat of Geralt’s car, and he’s barely gotten three words out of the witcher since the gas station.

“So, what are we hunting?” he tries, because it’s the one topic he’s seen loosen Geralt’s tongue. A lot, actually. He doesn’t remember even half of what Geralt tells him, but it’s terribly endearing all the same. Even if it leaves him longing to know more about what else Geralt cares about.

“I am hunting a leshen. You are staying in the car,” Geralt replies without so much as a glance his way. If he notices Jaskier’s exasperated sigh, he gives no indication.

“I… remember you mentioning those, I think,” Jaskier focuses on the leshen because it was very definitely on the list of things Geralt told him about the first night he successfully got the witcher to have anything resembling a conversation. He resolutely ignores all the words Geralt just said around that. If he doesn’t lie and say he’ll stay put, then he won’t be lying when he inevitably does not do that. Sheepishly, he ducks his head. “In my defense, there was kind of a lot going on that night. Maybe tell me again?”

That earns Jaskier a smile, however small and brief it is. It’s a win as far as Jaskier is concerned. Now if he could just wrangle a conversation.

“Tall. Sort of humanoid. Covered in branches.” Geralt says nothing else until Jaskier clears his throat, trying to prompt the witcher to give him something at least. “They have antlers.”

“Very informative,” Jaskier chides, shaking his head. He supposes he should have known better than to assume this would work. “Anything else?”

“They live in the forest.” Jaskier is so surprised to actually get an answer, he almost misses the way the corner of Geralt’s mouth twitches upward. “You know, like noonwraiths.”

Jaskier gasps, holding a hand up to his chest as if in shock. “Was that… I’m sorry. Was that a joke I just heard?”

It’s been a ridiculous joke between them for a while now, but it hits differently this time. It’s always silly, but for the first time it sinks in that it’s theirs. They have A Thing, and it leaves Jaskier all but vibrating to realize because that’s… well, that’s significant. It feels significant at any rate.

“You were serious about the woods though, right?” Jaskier asks once he remembers they were in the middle of a conversation.

“I was serious about the woods.”

Jaskier cocks his head to the side, trying to make sense of that. “Then, how is it an emergency?”

“This one was in someone’s yard,” Geralt clarifies. As much as Jaskier would like to be annoyed by the brevity, he has to admit that that actually more or less clears it up.

Jaskier tries to imagine this tree branch antler person… thing creeping over the fence of some poor, unsuspecting homeowner like a nosy neighbor. It’s a mistake, because Jaskier doesn’t know the shape in which those descriptors fit together, so it’s much more comical than frightening. He tries and fails to stifle an amused huff of laughter, but of course that would be the thing that finally gets Geralt to look at him for a second.

“Sorry, I…” Jaskier pauses, not sure he can actually explain why that’s funny since Geralt has the benefit of knowing how all his sparse descriptors fit together. “So, what are you going to do? Bribe it to go home?”

“Not this time. They’re intelligent, but you can’t reason with them. Most creatures kill because they feel threatened or to survive. Leshens are hostile. Always.” The explanation makes sense. It doesn’t sound like there’s any way around killing the creature, but Jaskier knows he isn’t imagining the sadness clouding Geralt’s features.

He has no idea how someone could possibly meet Geralt, who never takes a life if he can save it, who spends his existence keeping people safe, who has so much compassion for even the most unlovable of things, and think witchers are anything but good. Underneath the caustic disposition he shields himself with, Geralt is kinder than most humans. It makes Jaskier yearn to coax the world into seeing what he does.

Maybe he can. There’s the beginning of an idea, but before Jaskier can follow that thread, he’s distracted by Geralt. More specifically, he’s distracted by Geralt being distracted, something finally luring the witcher’s eyes briefly from the road. So, of course Jaskier turns his head to see what could possibly be so interesting.

“Horses?” Jaskier winces when he realizes he’s asked the question out loud. It’s not really even a question. They were definitely horses, one chestnut and one gray, happily grazing along the fence containing them.

“Witchers used to travel that way,” Geralt murmurs, before Jaskier even asks a question. It’s a good tactic, giving one piece of information to steer away from Jaskier’s pursuit of another. Or it would be if Jaskier wasn’t onto him.

“Yeah. Witchers and everyone else. It’d be pretty inconvenient now though, what with all the… highways and stuff. So, I’m not sure I’m following the significance.” Jaskier watches carefully, but Geralt’s expression betrays nothing. “Unless this is the part where you’re gonna tell me you’re three hundred years old or something.”

Geralt is conspicuously silent. Jaskier has never met someone who can express so much with the various ways he chooses to express nothing. It’s an exasperating quality, but impressive.

“Wait. You’re not actually, are you? I mean, not that that’s a problem, per se. Just that—” Jaskier pauses in the midst of his babbling when he catches Geralt turning his head away just the tiniest bit. It’s not fast enough to hide that Geralt seems to be biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

3:34 p.m.

There’s a lot of farmland out this way, miles of cornfields, sure, but animals too. Jaskier briefly entertains the notion that maybe Geralt grew up on a farm and is homesick or something. He’s a storyteller by nature, after all, and Geralt is such an enigma, surely he can’t be blamed for trying to fill in the gaps. Jaskier curiously watches Geralt when they lapse back into silence. They’re surrounded on both sides by… actually, Jaskier has no idea what those fields are. The only crop he actually recognizes is corn. But whatever it is, if Geralt has any attachment to it, his expression betrays nothing.

Jaskier is about to write his previous observation off as him reading too much into something ultimately unimportant when crops give way to a green, open meadow. It’s the kind of place Jaskier thinks looks about perfect for a picnic or laying out to watch the clouds drift by, or something. It’s also the kind of place where someone keeps a rather striking-looking horse, its coat a shade of gold just a touch warmer than Geralt’s eyes. “I’ve never seen one like that.”

“It’s a palomino,” Geralt replies, though Jaskier doesn’t think he’s actually looked that way. Either Geralt is even more subtle than Jaskier gives him credit for, or something about that merits remembering.

“The breed?” Jaskier presses. This is even more fascinating than coaxing Geralt into talking about monsters. It’s not a subject Jaskier knows a damned thing about either, but it’s an unexpected thing Geralt seems to be interested in, and that all by itself makes it worth pursuing.

“It’s not a breed.” Maybe ‘talking about’ is a little too charitable a description for the handful of words Jaskier gets Geralt to part with at any one time. That’s a puzzle too. Jaskier hasn’t quite sussed out whether Geralt actually doesn’t like talking or if it’s a side effect of the way humans tend to respond to witchers. It’s a shame either way. Jaskier quite likes listening to him.

“Okay…?” Jaskier prods. It’s only afterwards that it occurs to him that if Geralt truly isn’t interested in talking, maybe when the witcher is stuck a foot away from Jaskier and can’t extricate himself from the situation is not the right time to push the matter.

“It’s a color.” After a slight pause, Geralt adds, “Gold coat. White mane and tail.”

There’s more after, not that Jaskier can keep up with most of it. Often, even when Jaskier is actively trying to engage, all he gets from Geralt is a wordless hum or a raised eyebrow. So, the fact that there are a number of words in a row is noteworthy already. That Geralt is continuing to speak without being prompted is nothing short of a miracle. Maybe pushing wasn’t the problem so much as finding the right subject matter.

And thus, a new game is born. Whether out of some sense of dignity or something else, Geralt doesn’t actually mention when they pass by horses. It’s the very slight shift in Geralt’s body language, something Jaskier would probably say was him perking up if it were more explicit, that clues Jaskier in if he doesn’t see them himself. But the minute Jaskier mentions them, Geralt appears all too happy to talk about the precise measurement that differentiates horses and ponies (14.2 hands or less, which then becomes an extended conversation about why horses are measured in hands), the Lippizaner stallion troupe (which Jaskier will admit he would really like to see if they’re even half as impressive as Geralt suggests), and that one breed of wild horses that are maybe possibly completely divergent from domestic horses (Jaskier immediately forgets how to pronounce their name, but he does remember they sort of look like especially stocky donkeys).

“How do you know all this, anyway? I’m starting to think you should have gone to work in a stable or something instead of being a witcher,” Jaskier teases after a particularly emphatic explanation about what an utter failure Redania’s wild horse adoption program is. “I mean, it would definitely be my loss, but…”

He trails off, teasing smile immediately fading as he happens to look over at Geralt. Even when he’s happy, Geralt’s expressions tend to be a bit muted, but there’s no trace of anything like happiness now. His head is subtly bowed, like he’s ashamed of something, and that just won’t do at all. There’s nothing shameful about the details that make up a person. Before Jaskier can ask what exactly dampened the mood, Geralt softly replies, “I was going to.”

“You were?” It might be a mistake. This was meant to be fun. It’s just that Geralt so rarely gives Jaskier anything about himself, and Jaskier so desperately wants to know him. He rationalizes that if he drops the matter, Geralt will think he doesn’t care and won’t ever try again. “What happened?”

“Not important.” The words are clipped, but Jaskier has at least known Geralt long enough to differentiate between the witcher being actually irritated and any of the multitude of other emotions that make him sound irritated. This is definitely one of the latter.

“Of course it’s important if it makes you look like that.” Impulsively, Jaskier reaches out to lay a hand on Geralt’s shoulder. The way Geralt nearly jumps out of his skin is a stark reminder that he’s not quite so instinctively tactile as Jaskier is. Geralt doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t answer either, so Jaskier only lingers briefly before pulling his hand back into his lap.

“I thought everyone was exaggerating about how things would change when they made me into this,” Geralt explains, so quiet that Jaskier has to listen carefully over the engine. It’s an aching, vulnerable thing, as human a confession as Jaskier has ever heard before Geralt’s expression abruptly shutters.

“I’m so sorry… Wait, made you?” Jaskier realizes, not for the first time, that he knows nothing about witchers. Nothing true at any rate.

But whatever strange magic had coaxed Geralt into speaking has passed, and the witcher doesn’t even acknowledge Jaskier has said anything. He longs to know more, to soothe whatever it is that hurts so much, but Jaskier has at least enough sense to realize that if he presses now, Geralt will think twice about telling him anything later. The minutes stretch out between them like taffy, the silence deafening until Jaskier absolutely cannot take it. He impulsively reaches for the radio, turning the dial until the static of a station that’s long since out of range is coming through the speakers. “So… music!”

Geralt’s lips purse in… actually Jaskier isn’t all that familiar with this particular expression yet. His default state is so grumpy, it’s hard to tell this time if he’s annoyed or uncomfortable. Neither one is what he’s going for, so he pointedly does not ask what that station is, immediately setting about adjusting until a melody cuts clearly through the hissing noise.

4:19 p.m.

He’s messed this up, he’s pretty sure. It’s not a new phenomenon that in trying to keep up with Jaskier he says something he didn’t intend to. It’s just that usually it doesn’t happen when there is no place he can run from it.

Made you? The question bounces around his head long after Jaskier has traded out persistent attempts at conversation for whatever radio station he’s settled on. The reminder that Jaskier’s easy acceptance comes from a place of ignorance is an unpleasant one.

Geralt knows he’s not being fair. Jaskier has never given any reason to think more information would change his mind. But fair doesn’t soothe the way Geralt feels like his skin has been rubbed raw. Fair isn’t the shield he reaches for when the truth corners him like this.

Jaskier is unusually quiet, and Geralt thinks it should be a relief. He’s not used to anyone else’s prolonged investment in his existence. When someone does care one way or another, it’s usually in the context of a contract, a means to an end. But Jaskier is nonstop. He always wants to know things or wants to share things or chatters about whatever passing through catches his attention. It’s a lot and as the end of the third song fades out, Geralt realizes it’s probably the longest Jaskier has gone without speaking the entire trip. He should be grateful for the break.

But he’s not. Not when it’s accompanied by Jaskier staring out the passenger side window, his scent sour with distress. Not when Jaskier’s hands are tightly clasped in his lap, one thumb rubbing anxiously over the other.

Geralt’s brow furrows as he considers how to go about fixing it. Jaskier is generally the one who starts conversations. He could take a leap and answer Jaskier’s question, even though he’d rather play chicken with a Mack truck. He could find something to ask Jaskier about, even though the gesture would probably sound as hollow as it feels. He listens to the song coming through the speakers, upbeat and obnoxiously catchy.

“I thought you were putting on music,” he comments, unbearably relieved to find the faint smile that comes with doesn’t feel forced.

“What?” There are benefits to his enhanced senses. Geralt doesn’t need to look to catch the moment Jaskier realizes he’s being teased. That sour anxiousness doesn’t entirely dissipate right away, but it eases up as Jaskier makes an affronted sort of sound. “You take that back.”

Something finally loosens in Geralt’s chest. “Just an innocent question.”

“That was not an innocent anything, you… you…” Jaskier’s expression scrunches comically like he’s bitten into a lemon.

“I what?” Geralt presses, glad to be finding his footing again.

“You.” Jaskier sticks out his tongue. Before Geralt realizes what he’s doing, Jaskier is pulling the glove compartment open. “Fine. What, pray tell, meets your very refined definition of music?”

Thank goodness for music streaming, Geralt supposes. The only CDs to be found in the glove compartment are audio books.

...Wait.

“You nerd!” Geralt would normally parse the words as an insult, but Jaskier sounds far too warm to be mocking. “Lord of the Rings? Really?”

“They’re long books,” Geralt protests. “I have a lot of time to kill in the car.”

“That was so not my point.”

As much as he’s afraid to ask, Geralt can’t help himself. “What was your point?”

“It’s not a bad thing. I like fantasy,” Jaskier explains, the words suddenly coming very quickly. “I just didn’t peg you as the sort to enjoy it.”

“It’s…” Geralt considers how to answer. That it’s escapism. That it’s nice to imagine a world where inhumanity is a little less of an encumbrance. Only, he’s still keenly aware of how quickly things had gone sideways before and it leaves him hesitant to say anything too serious. “...fun.”

“It is,” Jaskier agrees, putting the disk back in the glove box. “I just didn’t know fun was in your repertoire.”

Geralt arches an eyebrow, though he’s not sure Jaskier can see it. “Now who’s being rude?”

“Yeah, but who started it?”

Banter is such an easy thing to fall into with Jaskier. There’s a pleasing push and pull to it, and for all Jaskier’s occasional squawking about it, he gives no indication that he’s truly upset. Geralt thinks, for one brief, dangerous moment, that he could get used to this.

4:28 p.m.

“And that’s how I” —Jaskier interrupts himself, pointing at something out the window— “Ooh. Have you been there?”

It must not be something that’s ever registered as important, because as many times as he’s come this way, Geralt isn’t sure what Jaskier is referring to without looking. He turns his head, but the only thing he sees is a billboard for some roadside museum dedicated to the ‘Beast of Finchlow.’ It would figure humans, who dismiss actual monsters as myths and fairytales, would make up some ridiculous nonsense like that. Every now and again someone will swear they’ve seen the thing, but conveniently there’s always a smudged lens or someone’s thumb in the way or an unexpected shadow. He shakes his head. “We don’t have time for a detour.”

“I know that. Leshen. Probably tearing up someone’s rose bushes as we speak. I wasn’t asking to go there. I was asking if you have been there.” From the corner of his eye, Geralt can see Jaskier curiously watching him. He can’t help but think he’s missed some kind of social cue or joke or something. Surely, Jaskier knows how pointless that would be.

“No. That’s not a real thing,” he says anyway, just in case Jaskier is trying to be helpful.

The amused snort from the passenger seat does not sound like someone who is trying to be helpful. “Real is not the point of those things.”

“Okay?” Geralt is more confused than he’d like to admit. Museums, as far as he’s ever known, are meant to be educational. There’s nothing educational about one dedicated to a particularly flimsy urban myth.

Jaskier laughs, though not unkindly. “It’s a roadside attraction. You know, like the Continent’s biggest cheese wheel, or the giant apple statue south of Cidaris or whatever. For someone who travels so much, you clearly have no idea how to do a proper road trip.”

“I don’t road trip,” Geralt points out. Traveling is a means to an end. It’s not some kind of joy ride.

“Right. Of course.” Jaskier’s voice is just the slightest bit flat, though Geralt has no idea why. He can’t imagine that’s a surprise, but there’s no shaking the feeling that he’s been measured up and found wanting somehow.

He’s still trying to work out how to ask when Jaskier looks over at him again. “None of it’s real?”

Jaskier has a tendency to flit from one topic to the next, sometimes with no clear connection, but Geralt is fairly certain this time it’s actually related. “The beast?”

“Yeah,” Jaskier agrees, nodding emphatically. “We all grew up with stories about it, you know?”

Oddly, Geralt thinks briefly about lying. Jaskier’s relentless sense of wonder is one of his more endearing qualities. But… there are plenty of awe-inspiring things without indulging a story that’s probably just a bear or someone’s overactive imagination. “It’s not.”

5:34 p.m.

Dinner is a quick, uneventful affair. It doesn’t bear much resemblance to a date, the urgency of the situation keeping them from stopping any longer than the time it took to eat in the restaurant parking lot, and they only stayed that long because Jaskier had pointed out that trying to eat tacos while driving was just tempting fate.

“I’m thinking of something,” Jaskier says as they pull back out onto the highway.

It seems like a weird lead-in for someone who is usually very quick to share whatever he’s thinking. “What is it?”

“No. It’s… It’s a game, Geralt.” Jaskier makes a startled sound as he opens a bag of Skittles and nearly dumps them all over the floorboard of the car. Recovering, he holds the package out to Geralt. “It’s 20 Questions. Want some?”

“It’s what?” Geralt thinks maybe he’s heard of that somewhere before, but it’s the sort of thing he had probably filed away and forgotten about as irrelevant.

“It’s a game,” Jaskier repeats, as if that’s any more illuminating the second time. Geralt forgets Jaskier had also asked about the candy until he settles the bag in the cup holder between them. “One person thinks of a thing. The other one asks yes or no questions to try and guess what it is before they get to 20.”

Geralt has to admit that the name is very straightforward. Also largely pointless. But… it is something he can do that might satisfy Jaskier’s attempts to turn this into something other than a job without slowing them down.

“Is it a person?” Geralt asks with a long suffering sigh. It’s not the kind of silly he’d usually indulge in, but he can’t help being just a bit pleased with himself when he sees the way Jaskier lights up.

“No.”

“Is it a place?”

“No.”

“Is it a thing?”

“...No.”

Geralt glances briefly at Jaskier who has opened a second bag of candy and looks really very intent on fishing out the pink ones. As much as Jaskier tends to look at Geralt, the fact that he isn’t is admittedly conspicuous. Geralt isn’t sure if gleaning clues from the other player’s body language is against the rules, but he can’t help it that Jaskier is, well, Jaskier. “Is it real?”

There’s a pause far too long to make any kind of sense, and when Geralt turns his head to look over, Jaskier is biting his lip, clearly trying to maintain his composure. His expression goes very briefly neutral, but he’s already grinning when he replies. “...Debatable.”

He will not laugh. He won’t. It’s childish and Geralt very definitely isn’t smiling when he asks the next question. He’s not. “Is it the Beast of Finchlow?”

Jaskier doesn’t actually say, but his helpless giggling when Geralt blindly throws a Skittle at him is answer enough.

7:11 p.m.

By the time they see the first mile sign for their destination - still a solid two hours away - Jaskier has badgered Geralt into learning Fortunately/Unfortunately, the Alphabet Game, Word Association, the other Alphabet Game (with no actual explanation of how one is meant to clarify), I Spy, Would You Rather, and some game that was mostly Jaskier yelling about cows. He wants to be annoyed, but the drive has gone so much faster than usual, he can’t really bring himself to mind. He privately concedes that it might be the stupid road trip games.

In the passenger seat, Jaskier is singing along with the radio. Very emphatically. He manages to smile around the words anyway, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than cooped up on a deserted highway and the radio station just beginning to crackle as they head out of range.

You've already won me over in spite of me

Don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet

Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are

I couldn't help it

It's all your fault

Alright. It might also be the company.

8:18 p.m.

“It’ll be too late to drive back tonight, but we’ll head back first thing in the morning. Do you work tomorrow?” Geralt asks when they’re about an hour out from Oreton. It’s the kind of thing he maybe should have asked sooner. Then again, if he’d asked sooner, he might have felt the need to act on whatever answer he got, perhaps leaving Jaskier behind. This far out, there’s no way to go but forward.

Speaking of answers, there isn’t one. After the fiasco earlier, Geralt can’t help the worry that creeps in on the coattails of anything like silence from Jaskier. “Is everything…”

Geralt trails off as he realizes why it is that Jaskier has been quiet for so long. There’s no telling when Jaskier fell asleep, but he’s tucked himself into the makeshift corner where the passenger seat meets the car door and smushed his cheek against the window. It’s… well, Jaskier is always attractive, but this is cute in a saccharine, tooth rotting sort of way that has Geralt blindly reaching into the backseat for his jacket.

It’s probably a terrible driving practice, what he’s doing. To his credit, Geralt mostly keeps his eyes on the road while he drapes his jacket over Jaskier, using one hand to tug the corners into a vaguely blanket-like shape. He only glances over long enough to verify it’s not going to fall off the minute they hit a bump in the road or something, long enough to catch the way Jaskier snuggles into the warmth of it in his sleep. It’s unfairly endearing.

But it’s something else too, Geralt realizes, heart lurching. More than any words could convey, it’s irrefutable proof of how much Jaskier trusts him. Not that Geralt had thought he didn’t, but knowing a fact is true doesn’t hold a candle to feeling it in the soft, steady cadence of Jaskier’s heartbeat, in the way he doesn’t so much as stir when Geralt reaches to rescue a precariously-placed package of licorice from Jaskier’s knee before it tumbles to the floor. It matters. Maybe more than it ought to.

There was a point, Geralt is pretty sure, when this was no more than an innocent crush, but even when he makes an effort, he can’t quite identify when it escalated. And it did escalate, didn’t it? Because, despite the incessant talking and the unexpected friction, Geralt is glad Jaskier tagged along. Maybe this, or some flavor of it, could someday be, well, ordinary.

Geralt curses softly to himself, glancing over to be sure he hasn’t woken Jaskier. He really is in over his head, isn’t he?

9:21 p.m.

It’s quite a bit warmer than Jaskier remembers it being when he fell asleep. He cracks an eye open, oddly touched when he realizes there’s a leather jacket draped over him. It smells like well-worn leather and Geralt, and Jaskier snuggles more emphatically into it before remembering that the very observant witcher who owns the jacket he’s currently trying to cocoon himself in is right there.

“Are we there yet?” he asks before he can think too hard, because at least that is a normal, unlikely to be embarrassing thing to say.

“Close.” If Geralt noticed anything, he doesn’t say, much to Jaskier’s relief.

The scenery has changed, little shifts in the world outside that harken a destination achieved, a journey at its end. Strange, the way something as innocuous as a string of houses always stirs up such melancholy. They’ve abandoned the highway for the quiet side streets of a neighborhood much more suburban than Jaskier might have anticipated. The leshen being in someone’s yard might not have been an exaggeration, even. When they come to a stop at the edge of the forest that hems Oreton in, Jaskier can still see street lights in the distance.

Geralt holds his hand out for… Jaskier doesn’t know what for. Probably not for him to reach out from under the jacket and take it in his. But in the absence of other information, it seems as good an idea as any.

“No. I” —Geralt shakes his head, staring at Jaskier’s hand in his like it’s some sort of puzzle— “I need my jacket.”

“Oh! Right, yeah that probably makes more sense. What with the monster hunting and all.” Reluctantly, Jaskier relinquishes the jacket so that Geralt can put it on.

“Stay in the car,” Geralt cautions before Jaskier can make any suggestion to the contrary.

“Right. Murderous forest monster on the loose. I know.” Jaskier supposes he can’t really argue with that logic. Geralt is doing the glaring ‘I don’t believe you’ thing he does sometimes, so Jaskier adds with a huff, “Yes. Alright. Fine. Staying in the car.”

That must satisfy, because Geralt is out of the car faster than he would have thought possible, rifling through the back seat long enough to grab a sword from the rear seat floorboard. Who keeps a sword in their car? Witchers apparently. Who kills things with a sword in this day and age? … Also witchers, apparently. Watching Geralt stalk into the woods, Jaskier has to admit it’s a really good look on him.

It’s dark enough out that even Geralt’s silvery hair disappears into the shadows among the trees. In all this darkness, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to sneak in a little bit closer without putting himself in danger? He shouldn’t. Really, he shouldn’t. Only Jaskier has never seen any of the monsters Geralt fights, and as delighted as he is that the witcher will talk his ears off (by Geralt standards, anyway) about this topic in particular, describing monsters is decidedly not the witcher’s strong suit. There’s only so much Jaskier can do with ‘covered in branches’ and ‘has antlers.’

Jaskier pauses with his hand curled around the door handle. He’s insatiably curious, but it’s not as if he’s intentionally a menace. In the end, it’s the crash that makes the decision for him. It’s loud, and probably close given that the car does absolutely nothing to muffle it.

This is exactly what Jaskier means about Geralt’s woefully inadequate idea of a description. Nowhere, amidst the handful of words Geralt had dedicated to the task did he mention the damned thing was huge, but it must be very large or else incredibly violent to be making all that racket. Maybe both. Jaskier really hopes not both.

So, Jaskier stays put because his sense of self-preservation might be tenuous, but he’d like to live long enough to do something with all this information and maybe go watch Geralt hunt something that sounds less inclined to eat him. Are drowners safe? They sound sort of ‘intro to monster hunting’ appropriate, and he’d bet they’re more reasonably sized. Though, come to think of it, Geralt has never actually said. Maybe they’re easy to take out because they’re huge.

Jaskier means to stay put, anyway. Only, there’s a sickening crack of something hitting a tree, an ancient-looking oak at the treeline shuddering under the impact. Jaskier watches it, half afraid the tree is going to fall right over onto the car, but then his gaze flicks downward to where a body lies motionless among the leaves and debris on the forest floor. The tree is the least of his worries.

“Geralt!” It doesn’t matter how skilled witchers are. Even Geralt can’t best a monster while unconscious, so it’s not even a decision really. Jaskier is out of the car and across the bit of clearing between them like a shot, with no idea what he’s going to do when he gets there.

Jaskier sinks to his knees as soon as he’s in arm’s reach, his mind empty beyond knowing he has to get Geralt to safety. Even this close, it’s too dark to see much, but Geralt’s head is lolled to the side, eyelashes fanned out against his pale skin. Bracing himself, Jaskier reaches to press his fingers to the juncture of Geralt’s jaw and throat, feeling for any sign of life. “No, no, no. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”

There’s a small, pained sound about the same time Jaskier finds a steady pulse under his fingertips. It’s heart-wrenching, but he’s never been so happy to hear anything in his life. Geralt blinks sluggishly, awake if not entirely focused. “Jask?”

“Come on. We’ve gotta get out of here. There’s—” Jaskier never gets to finish, because the leshen picks just then to advance on them. Jaskier is not a short man, but the creature is at least twice as tall as he is. Funny, Geralt never said anything about the terrible fashion sense, or the claws as long as his arm, or the horrifying skull face either. “Oh fuck.”

Things happen rather quickly after that. One minute, Geralt is barely conscious. The next he’s launching himself at Jaskier with inhuman speed like a man possessed. Jaskier finds himself pinned among the dirt and dead leaves, Geralt’s body caging his. It’s the kind of compromising situation that would lend itself to a lot of awkward flirting if not for the fact that Geralt is currently bodily shielding Jaskier from a really very terrifying monster.

Literally. The leshen bears down on them, but Geralt throws a hand out, and an eerie dome of light envelopes them both. The creature’s claws strike it instead, and though it sounds like glass shattering, whatever the wall is doesn’t give.

“Fancy seeing you here.” Jaskier huffs out a nervous laugh, instinctively bringing his hands up to Geralt’s sides. There’s a lot going on, and Jaskier gets to be very briefly fascinated by the glowy shield that seems to be emanating from Geralt’s outstretched hand. Is it some futuristic sciencey gadget? Is it magic? Do witchers have super powers?

Before Jaskier can pursue the matter, he’s distracted by the other thing that is going on, which is much less awe-inspiring. Geralt is glaring at him. Geralt glares at a lot of things, and usually it’s just the witcher’s default expression, but this is venomous in a way Jaskier has never seen, let alone been on the receiving end of. It leaves him cowed even before Geralt snarls, “Get back in the car.”

Without warning, the shield drops and Geralt is on his feet, scooping his sword up and facing the monster in one smooth motion. It’s even more impressive than Jaskier would have guessed, not that he spends much time appreciating it as he scurries back to the car. He doesn’t look down at his hands until he gets there, back out in the open where the moonlight properly reaches. Blood glistens along the palm and fingers of his left hand. Quite a bit of it, in fact.

“Geralt,” he whispers, not that the witcher can hear him. With a mess like that, Geralt has to be more injured than he’d seemed up close. Jaskier lingers once more with his hand on the door handle, this time from the outside. But it’s not a propensity for mischief giving him pause this time. It’s a hundred what ifs, each worse than the last. What if that injury distracts Geralt? What if the leshen gets in another blow? What if-

There’s a pained, bellowing sound that Jaskier realizes after a moment of panic must be the monster. It’s followed by a heavy crash of what might be the leshen collapsing amidst the trees. And then… nothing.

“Geralt?” Jaskier squints towards the forest, but it’s too dark to see much of anything. The seconds tick by sickeningly slowly, and all Jaskier can think about is the blood drying on his hand. He calls a little louder, voice cracking on the witcher’s name. “Geralt?”

For the briefest moment, Geralt’s shock of white hair at eye level is a welcome sight. It means the witcher is upright. But a couple of steps closer, Jaskier can see how heavily Geralt is leaning against a tree. When he finally grits his teeth and lets go of it, it’s only to stagger unevenly back in Jaskier’s direction.

“Oh, thank fuck. I thought you were—” Jaskier pauses, trying to compose himself. He never wants to think about how still Geralt was, there on the ground.

Before Jaskier can finish the thought, Geralt is all but bearing his teeth. “I told you to stay in the car.”

Jaskier sucks in a shocked breath. He’d thought Geralt’s earlier response had been in the heat of battle, but he looks no less furious than he had under the shield. He’d had a good reason, but it’s quite possible Geralt doesn’t know that, so Jaskier stammers through an explanation. “Yeah, and I did. You know, up until the part where that thing threw you into a tree.”

Geralt is decidedly not mollified by said explanation. He waves it off entirely, remarkably imposing for someone swaying on their feet. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

And that’s… Well, that’s just unfair. He scoffs, tries to say as much, but the words get all tangled up with the way his stomach dropped seeing Geralt in a heap on the ground. He gestures the way he tends to when emotions are running high, but that just reminds him that there is still blood smeared on his palm, that it’s Geralt’s. So, what comes out instead is high and thready. “I was thinking I didn’t want to watch you die out there!”

Geralt’s expression scrunches like he finds the whole thing distasteful, but even he can’t hide the hitched breath when he opens the trunk to fish something out. “I was fine.”

“Fine?” Distantly, Jaskier knows this isn’t at all how he wants his time with Geralt to go, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop. Because, to be quite honest, a date ending with said date being murdered by some forest monster is also not how this should go. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that was the dazed sprawl of someone who was fine. My mistake.”

Geralt freezes halfway through closing the trunk, an orange, strangely glowing bottle in his hand. Jaskier braces himself for Geralt to yell right back, but Geralt… doesn’t. His brows knit, head tilting ever so slightly to the side, and when he speaks, he has the audacity to sound perplexed. “You were afraid.”

“Damn right I was afraid. You didn’t see yourself, Geralt. I…” Jaskier sighs, gesturing vaguely in the direction Geralt had come from.

From the outside, Geralt probably still looks angry, but Jaskier is privately just a bit pleased to realize he’s gotten to know the witcher well enough to recognize otherwise. The shift in his expression as Geralt unclenches his jaw is minute, but it changes everything. He doesn’t smile, but he fiddles thoughtfully with the bottle in his hand, dragging his thumb over the cork, and there’s a familiar softness in his gaze that makes Jaskier just want to wrap his arms around the witcher (carefully, of course) and tell the world it can fuck off for a while. But Jaskier can content himself with this, with Geralt finally getting what he can’t work up the nerve to say out loud.

Geralt reaches out in fits and starts, like any minute Jaskier might pull away. Jaskier could lose himself in the contradiction between Geralt the witcher, half dead and still managing to bring down a leshen, and the man standing here, thumb just barely brushing across Jaskier’s cheekbone. Despite the last twenty minutes or so, this is a delightfully unorthodox place for a first kiss by Jaskier’s estimation. “I wouldn’t have let you get stuck out here.”

“Excuse me?” Jaskier blurts out as every romantic thought in his head screeches to a halt. There are circumstances where that might have been a sweet thing to say, but when it means Geralt has entirely misinterpreted Jaskier’s motives it’s much less so. “Are you serious? Is that what you think I was afraid of?”

“Isn’t it?” Jaskier wants to be upset, but before he can say anything to that effect it occurs to him that this maybe sort of makes sense from someone who is still visibly perplexed when Jaskier goes out of his way to do anything nice.

Taking a breath, Jaskier mentally backtracks. “I wasn’t afraid of being stranded, Geralt. I was afraid you were hurt.”

Geralt hums, looking away long enough to swallow down the weird, glowing contents of that bottle. He looks about how Jaskier feels, exhausted now that there’s no argument to distract them from it. When Geralt doesn’t say anything else, Jaskier sidles closer to where the witcher leans against the open trunk, tentatively nudging against his shoulder. “How’s your side? Do you, ah, need anything?”

“No,” Geralt snaps, but the face he makes at his own behavior is more than enough to keep Jaskier from butting in. It takes a moment, but Geralt eventually holds up the empty vial. “It’ll heal. Give me five minutes.”

Jaskier isn’t sure what that means, but he assumes it has to do with whatever was in the bottle and he doesn’t want to risk their delicate armistice, so he offers up a watery sort of smile and doesn’t ask. “Five minutes.”

9:56 p.m.

It’s easy to just say that humans don’t get involved with witchers and leave it at that. Easy, and not inaccurate. It’s the truth. It’s just not the whole truth.

Geralt doesn’t do this. For any number of reasons, really, but this might be the most pressing. When connections with other people are fleeting, it doesn’t matter that the idea of having something you might lose is terrifying. It doesn’t matter if so many emotions come out looking like anger.

He doesn’t know how to make it make sense to Jaskier. The horror of shaking off his stupor to the realization that he couldn’t protect Jaskier from the leshen looming over them both is huge and formless, consuming even in the aftermath. It makes him nauseated just thinking about trying to map out the boundaries with words. It’s vulnerable in a way that shudders inside him, fleeing for the darkest corner it can hide in.

But Jaskier’s palm slides over the back of Geralt’s hand where it sits in his lap, coming to rest over his knuckles like it was made to fit there. All these months, Jaskier has kept meeting him wherever he is, and maybe he hasn’t quite figured out how to give that back, but he wants to. I was afraid isn’t even a sentiment he knows how to make space for in his own mind, so Geralt leans on a safer truth. “It could have killed you.”

“Yeah. Shockingly, you practically getting thrown right out of the woods got that point across pretty clearly.” Jaskier laughs, the sound strained, but it fades almost as soon as it bubbles up. “Geralt, you’ve known me for almost two years. You cannot possibly think I’d just sit there when you looked like you were in trouble.”

“No,” Geralt agrees. It’s part of what makes him so extraordinary, isn’t it? Jaskier isn’t brave in any conventional way, but he’s fearless about how completely he gives himself to other people. In retrospect that, coupled with his woeful lack of self-preservation, meant this was probably always going to happen eventually. Geralt realizes it was probably foolish to think his own orders would be enough to put Jaskier’s personality on pause. “But, what were you going to do? You couldn’t fight that thing.”

“How do you know? Maybe I’m secretly in fencing club or something,” Jaskier responds petulantly. There aren’t words for the thing that eases in Geralt’s chest when Jaskier punctuates his answer with a lopsided grin.

“If you were, you’d know that’s not for fencing.” Shaking his head, Geralt gestures with his free hand towards the sword leaning against the car bumper.

“Maybe I’m just bad at it.” It’s accompanied by a playful nudge of Jaskier’s shoe against his, but Geralt is momentarily distracted. Jaskier shifts his grip just enough for his fingers to slide between Geralt’s and it’s… unfathomable. It’s not a step on the way somewhere else. It’s not laden with purpose. It’s just there for the sake of being, a surprisingly understated reassurance that they’re okay from someone so prone to grand gestures.

“Hmm.” Geralt half expects this to be the part where Jaskier cajoles him into saying something, but there’s nothing beyond the distant rhythmic chirp of crickets. Jaskier doesn’t press. Not as he watches the stars overhead. Not as he tips to the side just enough to lean his head on Geralt’s shoulder.

If not for the gash in his side, this would be just about the kind of perfect Geralt has stubbornly refused to allow himself to want. If he doesn’t want it, he can’t miss when it’s gone. But as Geralt watches Jaskier’s eyes flutter shut, only the soothing cadence of his heartbeat letting on that he isn’t nodding off, there’s a quiet, prickling suspicion at the back of the witcher’s mind that he’s been wrong.

Five minutes, the arbitrary window he gave his healing potion to work within, comes and goes. With an unexpected sort of reluctance, Geralt nudges Jaskier upright. “Come on. Can’t stay here all night.”

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” As gently as Jaskier asks the question, one would never know they’d just been arguing moments before. It comes with a hand resting against Geralt’s arm, not far from where Jaskier’s head had been.

“‘M fine,” Geralt insists, though he realizes the minute he stands up that it’s not true. He should probably wrap it up, but the desire not to spook Jaskier gives him pause. The wound in his side isn’t bleeding freely anymore anyway, even though standing up pulls sharply at the edges of it. For all of about two seconds, he considers handing the keys over to Jaskier, but Jaskier is already frowning at him, and Geralt is pretty convinced that if he gives any inclination that he’s had better days, that frowning is going to spill over into panic. Besides, it’s not even close to the worst injury he’s had, so Geralt does what he would if Jaskier weren’t there at all, rounding the car to open the driver’s side door.

At least the motel he usually stays at when he’s in the area isn’t far.

10:24 p.m.

Five minutes most definitely wasn’t long enough. Moving around only aggravated the wound, and without adrenaline to buoy him, Geralt aches pretty much everywhere else too. By the time they get to the motel, he can feel the wound bleeding sluggishly, hidden only by the fact that his shirt is black. He grits his teeth to keep himself silent, not wanting to worry Jaskier.

Too late, apparently. Jaskier shifts in his seat, concern scrunching his brows. “Geralt? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Geralt lies, coming to a stop in front of the motel’s little office. “Stay here.”

Jaskier does as he’s told this time, much to Geralt’s relief. Judging from the look on the desk clerk’s face, he’s doing a terrible job of hiding his discomfort. It’s for the best, probably, that Geralt is a creature of habit. Anna, the desk clerk, smiles when he walks in, but it’s short-lived. Though the expression drops, lips pursing in obvious concern, she doesn’t ask any questions as she hands over the key to his usual room.

Geralt doesn’t linger long enough for her to change her mind. He never tells her about the contracts that bring him through this way, and he’s certainly not going to start with this one. As briskly as he can manage, he flees the little office building to his car sitting right outside. Despite his best efforts, Geralt can’t quite stifle the pained hiss that escapes when he slides back into the driver’s seat. ‘Slides’ is perhaps an overly charitable definition of the way he clings to the car door, all but collapsing behind the steering wheel.

“Fine, huh?” Jaskier replies, his voice flat. Geralt glances over though, and Jaskier’s expression tells another story entirely.

The drive to the room at the end of the building is a short one at least, a parking spot open directly in front of the door. It’s not the most gracefully he’s ever traversed that particular distance, but he does successfully get himself and his duffle bag to the door. As he turns the key in the lock, he’s already thinking about crawling into bed.

Bed. Right. Fuck.

Swinging the door open confirms that it’s the same room with the same one bed that it’s been every other time he’s stayed here. It’s not that he has any particular objection to sharing a bed with Jaskier. He’s trying to get this right, though, and the last thing he wants is for Jaskier to think he’s the sort of person who would presume… things.

“Well, this is cozy,” Jaskier murmurs, following at Geralt’s heels.

“Sorry. Force of habit. I’ll go switch rooms.” Before Geralt can head back out the door though, Jaskier’s hand is around his elbow and he finds himself steered further inside.

“The only place you’re going is, is… I don’t have a clever way to end that,” Jaskier replies with an exasperated sigh. “But this is okay. Just sit down. Please?”

Oddly, it doesn’t even occur to Geralt to protest. He doesn’t realize how heavy he feels until he allows himself to sink down onto the mattress. It’s not fatigue, really. Not in the way he’d be exhausted after a more extended fight. It’s more like an echo of something he barely remembers, that drained sensation when you’ve cried your eyes out and all that’s left is empty.

Is this the price of caring about someone else? If they go down this road, it’s only a matter of time before Jaskier puts himself in harm’s way, for good reasons or otherwise. Realism makes the worst kind of promise, that one day he may be too slow or too weak or…

Over the sound of running water, Geralt catches a few notes of whatever song Jaskier is humming. It’s not all failure waiting around some dark corner. It’s the way Jaskier lights up when he walks into the diner. It’s surprise road trips and the precious way his chest aches watching Jaskier sleep in the passenger seat. It’s whatever this thing between them might become if they only let it.

What it definitely is though is an internal debate for another damned time. Despite the fight, he’s not nearly so much of a mess as he could have been. There are probably still some crumbled bits of dry leaves in his hair, but there’s nothing so offensive that he can’t sleep now and deal with it in the morning. Nothing except his side, anyway. Anna forgives many things, but she may hold a grudge if he bleeds all over her sheets.

He hasn’t yet though, so that’s promising. Gritting his teeth, Geralt pulls his ruined shirt over his head. He’s so focused on keeping quiet himself that he almost misses the sharp intake of breath from the bathroom doorway. Almost.

“We’ve really gotta work on your definition of fine, Geralt.” The witcher looks down and finds there’s not a solid argument to be had. It’s already beginning to knit shut but it’s gruesome anyway, his pale skin already bruising a sickly purple along his ribs.

Geralt shrugs, not sure what he’s meant to say. Not being fine has never been an option before.“It’ll be mostly better by morning.”

“Great, but that isn’t right now.” Jaskier closes the distance between them in a few steps, padding barefoot across the mottled gray carpet. He’s stripped down to his boxers and what must be an undershirt, looking a little disheveled and horribly domestic. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? Getting used to this?

“Can I?” Jaskier pauses at the foot of the bed, holding onto a wet washcloth he must have brought back with him from the bathroom. He worries the fabric with his fingertips like he genuinely believes Geralt is going to turn him away.

To be fair, once he would have, but… Well, they’re both here now. In lieu of an answer, he inclines his head. The enthusiasm with which Jaskier closes the distance between is as overwhelming as everything else about this trip, though not because it’s bad or unwanted. But kindness has always had a price tag.

Until now.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Jaskier teases, gingerly wiping away the blood that’s dried on Geralt’s flank.

Geralt hums a vague agreement, letting his eyes slide shut. “I’ll get right on that.”

The quiet that falls between them after is comfortable. There’s none of the simmering tension in the aftermath of a fight. The weight of a conversation stalling on an unwelcome memory is nowhere to be seen. Jaskier’s hands are as sure as they are gentle, with none of the hesitation Geralt might have expected. The comfort in this particular brand of silence makes it all the more startling when Jaskier hesitantly interrupts it. “Look. I… I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Geralt asks. He has to because Jaskier flits from one idea to the next without warning. There’s no telling what he’s convinced himself is wrong in the last few minutes.

“All of it, I guess. I know I can be a lot, and I made things more complicated, and it’s not like you even invited” - Jaskier rambles on at length. He might have spun out entirely, but he closes his mouth abruptly when Geralt wraps a hand around Jaskier’s wrist, tossing the ruined wash cloth aside.

“I didn’t invite you,” Geralt acknowledges, realizing his mistake when Jaskier visibly wilts. “That doesn’t mean you being here is a problem.”

“That’s a real ringing endorsement,” Jaskier jokes with a laugh that rings too hollow.

Maybe a different tactic, then. “Do you know how far Oreton is from Dolsk?”

Jaskier’s brow crinkles in confusion, but that’s an improvement over him looking like he wants the concrete foundation of their room to open up and swallow him. “No?”

“400 miles.” Comfort doesn’t come naturally to Geralt. He’s never mastered the art of believable platitudes. And so maybe he’s not good at cherry-picking the right words to ease the tightness at the corners of Jaskier’s eyes or to still the faint tremor in his jaw. Apparently, putting a number on it is even more distressing. Jaskier opens his mouth like he means to apologize again, so Geralt squeezes his wrist to get his attention. “So you what, forced me to let you sit in the passenger seat for 400 miles?”

Jaskier blinks at Geralt, so still the witcher can practically see the wheels turning in his head. He must get Geralt’s point because after a moment the tension bleeds out of his expression and Jaskier ducks his head. “Well, when you say it like that…”

Normally, rendering Jaskier speechless would be a source of pride. After all, it’s difficult when Jaskier talks like he has some bottomless well to draw from. The inclination to gloat about it just isn’t there, relief crowding out anything of the sort. Relief that that was enough mostly, because Geralt doesn’t have any sort of follow up.

Well, maybe one. Geralt smirks, enjoying the way that even out of sorts, the expression is enough to make Jaskier bristle comically. “Came out ahead anyway. I know so many more children’s car games than I did this morning.”

“You, sir, are a menace.” Jaskier complains, but the tension in his frame has dissipated entirely. “Do you happen to have a first aid kit or bandages or something?”

Geralt waves vaguely at the duffle bag. “I suppose you would know.”

Jaskier opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, gawping as he rifles through the bag, but much to Geralt’s surprise, he doesn’t really take the bait. The indignant reply Geralt anticipates never comes at all. Not in quite the way he expects, anyway. Jaskier does look up long enough to scrunch his face at Geralt. “Now who’s being childish? You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Oh. Geralt doesn’t have the first idea what to do with that. It must show on his face, because Jaskier huffs out a laugh, returning to Geralt’s side with a roll of bandages. “Now sit still.”

11:02 p.m.

The phantom pressure of Jaskier’s fingertips lingers, even when he’s stepped away to pack up the rest of the bandaging. Geralt could have done this himself, would have if Jaskier hadn’t bullied his way into the witcher’s space. But now this promises to be a feeling he recognizes.

Distracted as Geralt is, he doesn’t think about the next thing he needs to puzzle out until Jaskier is pulling the covers back on one side of the bed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.”

Geralt hums a vague agreement, stalling with one last check of the bandages to be sure they won’t come loose in the night. Anything to delay admitting he doesn’t know what Jaskier expects of him. That would be nerve-wracking at the best of times, but Geralt doesn't want to risk making a mess of things when Jaskier doesn't have the option of leaving if he wants to.

He watches Jaskier for any sort of direction, but comes up short. Utterly oblivious, Jaskier sprawls out on one side of the bed, and it really raises more questions than it answers. Because he’s far enough from the middle that pressing close would be a noticeably intentional act. But he’s close enough that to put much distance between them would require effort. It crosses Geralt’s mind that this might be on purpose, but Jaskier is turned away entirely to shut off the light, paying no attention at all.

Under the cover of darkness, it’s an easier decision to make. Like this, Jaskier can’t see Geralt hesitate, weighing his options. With the injury, there’s not much choice but to face Jaskier, but it’s not as if he can pick out Geralt’s expression among the shadows. With any luck, maybe Jaskier won’t even notice that Geralt puts too much thought into the amount of space to leave between them.

No such luck.

“You’d think you had never shared a bed with anyone,” Jaskier teases. Geralt can just make out the smile that curls Jaskier’s lips so easily that it seems like that was what they were made for.

And that’s… well, it’s not precisely true. There have been others, of course. Sort of. For every human who hates him for what he is, there’s someone who gets a look at Geralt’s eyes and suddenly “always wanted to know what it was like.” They’re fleeting, inconsequential things, only bearing a passing resemblance to a real connection. They’re never anyone who matters any more to him than he does to them. Despite the innocence of it, the empty inches between them, this feels far more intimate. Intoxicatingly, terrifyingly so. With a sigh, he admits, “Not usually with anyone I plan to see again.”

“What? Oh. Oh. That’s so...” There’s relief in knowing human eyes can’t see anything meaningful with this little light, because when Jaskier pauses, Geralt is waiting for the worst and it must be written all over him. He doesn’t know what he’s anticipating, really. Perhaps that this will be the thing that makes Jaskier recognize his esteem for Geralt is poorly placed. He’s so caught up in how the lack of connection must sound, he nearly startles right out of his skin when Jaskier blindly reaches out fingertips brushing across Geralt’s palm where his hand rests on the sheets between them. “...lonely.”

The dark isn’t cover enough. There’s no question he’s being asked to answer, so Geralt isn’t really sure why he says anything at all. “It’s fine. I travel alone.”

It’s true in the loosest sense, but after today Geralt isn’t sure there’s any conviction behind it anymore. The soft sound Jaskier makes suggests he’s as dubious about it as Geralt. “You don’t have to be an island. It’s okay to need people, you know.”

“I don’t need anyone,” Geralt snaps back out of habit. It’s only once he’s spoken that he realizes how it might sound.

But if Jaskier is hurt by Geralt’s words, he’s a masterclass in hiding it. Jaskier doesn’t say anything about it. He doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Alright.” Jaskier agrees in the strange, bewildering way he sometimes does in the midst of a debate. Geralt hasn’t quite figured out what the trigger is, but it almost never means he’s conceding. It’s more like a recalibration. Sure enough, hushed like he’s sharing a secret, Jaskier adds, “It’s also okay to want things you don’t need.”

Every fiber in Geralt’s being wants to argue. There’s little room in the life of a witcher to have desires that run any deeper than the most easily satisfied. More than that is just a point of weakness.

Which is precisely what it is about this that leaves him so unmoored. If he lost Jaskier tomorrow, the world would keep turning. He’d survive it, though just the thought of it claws at his insides. So no, he doesn’t need Jaskier, but wants him. And against every instinct, he let it happen.

There are things he wants to say, but even here where the world and all its consequences feel suspended, the words won’t take shape. They get caught in his throat. They shake apart on his tongue.

He stares at the space between them where Jaskier’s hand is resting. It’s not a need when Geralt reaches out enough to close the distance. Survival does not depend on him coaxing Jaskier’s hand out of the loose fist it’s curled in against the sheets. Something else entirely makes him slide his palm against Jaskier’s, marveling at how easily they fit together.

Jaskier smiles sleepily, thumb skimming the side of Geralt’s. Neither of them speak, but perhaps he’s found all the words he needs.

Thursday

5:20 a.m.

Waking up in a bed not his own isn’t exactly a new experience for Jaskier. Waking up in bed with another person also isn’t all that new. Granted, it's usually in the aftermath of something else and there are fewer clothes involved. This though? This is… well, it’s something anyway, a warm something that curls up behind his breastbone and fans out every which way.

Beyond the window, Jaskier can just make out the muted birdsong over the thrum of the room’s noisy air conditioner. The curtains are too heavy for more than a little bit of gray light to peek through, but he guesses it must be around dawn. Normally, this would be about the time he’d be grumbling to himself about blasted disrupted sleep schedules. Only…

Only, there’s a quiet sigh, a warm puffed out breath against the collar of his shirt, a face tucked against his collar bone. For all the awkward distance between them last night, Geralt’s arm is curled around his flank now. It’s really terribly charming.

Tilting his head down and getting a mouthful of long, white hair is decidedly less charming, but it’s an easy fix. Jaskier reaches a hand to sweep it away. He can’t help but linger, absently carding his fingers through the length of it.

Geralt is always sort of pretty, in a gruff, fierce kind of way. But this is something else entirely. Jaskier doesn’t have a word for it exactly. He can’t even see Geralt’s face, and can’t bring himself to pull away enough to look. Not when they’re so close, the AC just cold enough to make giving up the cocoon of blankets they’re ensconced in an utterly unconscionable course of action.

Jaskier hadn’t spent much time looking at the place the night before, too busy with the approximately six thousand emotionally impactful things that happened. But now he can look to his heart’s content. Normally, a random motel room in some town in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t grab his attention, but the fact that Geralt stays here often enough that there’s a particular room they always expect him to take makes it suddenly more interesting. Is it somewhere he stays because it’s convenient or is he just more inclined to stick to places that treat witchers like people?

Maybe one day he'll have been around enough to know. In the meantime, the room looks like the beginning of a horror movie, wrong in the way that cheap motels sometimes seem like they go out of their way to be. Jaskier eyeballs the floral wallpaper that’s peeling right in the middle of the far wall where the edges were clumsily matched. There’s a TV on the dresser that might be older than his parents. Does Geralt even watch TV? Somehow, in all this time they’ve known each other, it’s never come up. But, that’s not important.

Jaskier aches thinking about bouncing from one room like this to the next, entirely alone. Geralt is more comfortable with solitude than Jaskier is, but surely it must still get lonely. Maybe that’s why, for someone who may as well be allergic to conversation, Geralt is surprisingly quick to text back or to answer the phone.

How many times has Geralt texted him from this room, or another like it? It’s nice to think he makes things better, even just a little. As if even sleeping the witcher knows what he is thinking, Geralt’s fingers curl a little more in the fabric of Jaskier’s shirt, dragging him back to the present. There’s nothing lonely about this, after all. Jaskier adjusts his grip to draw Geralt a little closer and closes his eyes.

7:53 a.m.

He doesn’t realize he’s nodded off again until the sun is creeping in in earnest. Jaskier wakes to silence and empty sheets. Geralt wouldn’t leave him. He knows that, but worry still tangles in the pit of his stomach until he spies a piece of paper propped up against the lamp.

Running an errand. Be back soon.

Jaskier shakes his head, dragging his thumb over the ink. Even in writing, Geralt doesn’t say a word more than he has to. It doesn’t even clarify much. What errand could Geralt possibly have to run at - Jaskier glances at the clock on the nightstand - eight in the morning.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait long to find out. He’s only barely out of bed and dressed when Geralt turns back up. It also turns out it’s hard to be cross in the face of coffee and banana bread.

“You could’ve woken me up, you know,” Jaskier grumbles halfheartedly anyway.

Geralt lifts an eyebrow at him. “I figured you probably wouldn’t want to share the passenger seat with the leshen’s head.”

“I’m sorry. Did you just say you put it in the passenger seat?” Jaskier grimaces, considering the possibility.

“Of course not.” Geralt sets down a cup of coffee, biting his lip on a smile he can’t quite hide. “But only because the antlers wouldn’t fit.”

The expression is an infectious one. Jaskier likes Geralt as is of course, but that doesn’t stop him from cherishing the rare moments when the witcher is visibly content. Despite the more trying parts of this trip, it’s also the happiest he’s seen Geralt in all the time he’s known the witcher. That is worth the occasional mishap along the way. “You’re terrible. Do you know that?”

The coffee cup Geralt is holding isn’t any better a shield to hide his amusement behind. “Well, I do now.”

Whatever teasing thing Jaskier might have said never makes it to the surface, entirely crowded out by something softer. “You make up for it though.”

8:46 a.m.

“Are you in a hurry to get back?” Geralt asks as they pull out of the motel parking lot. He hopes it sounds like a casual question, but the look Jaskier gives him suggests maybe not so much.

“No?” It’s not meant to be a question, Geralt is pretty sure, but it ticks up at the end like one. “Why?”

Geralt hadn’t actually thought as far as an excuse, so he tells the truth. Technically. “Making sure there’s time for a detour.”

“Detour? What detour?” Geralt can see Jaskier’s suspicious expression out of the corner of his eye.

He hums noncommittally, partly because it’s meant to be a surprise, but mostly for how up in arms Jaskier gets at the lack of answer. It’s all he can do to pretend he doesn’t notice Jaskier trying to get his attention.

“What detour, Geralt?”

Geralt stifles a laugh, mostly, and keeps driving.

12:49 p.m.

They’re nearly there when Geralt begins to second-guess himself. Whatever inference Geralt had made, Jaskier hadn’t explicitly said it was something he wanted to do. When they come up on the exit, Geralt considers driving right past it. But it’s right there, and it’s not like they have to stay if it isn’t fun. So, Geralt pulls off the highway onto the frontage road and hopes for the best.

“Wait. The Beast of Finchlow museum? What happened to the whole ‘it’s not real’ bit?” Jaskier asks, as Geralt pulls into one of the three parking spaces in the little gravel lot, but he’s already unbuckling his seatbelt.

Any worry Geralt had that he got this wrong dissipates when he catches Jaskier grinning at him. “I have it on good authority that real isn’t the point.”

2:12 p.m.

It’s as silly as Geralt would have expected, all wood floors and wall panels like someone’s old hunting cabin. The things passed off as proof are all varying degrees of ridiculous. Blurry pictures of the woods are pinned on cork bulletin boards. Plaster casts of what are clearly bear paws sit in glass cases. There are two wildly different statues guarding the doorway to the gift shop with a plaque explaining all the hotly debated details of what the Beast even looks like.

Somehow, he’s still sorry when it’s over. They leave with an embarrassing number of pictures and a bobblehead that Jaskier promptly sticks on the dashboard of his car. It’s the sort of cheesy thing Geralt wouldn’t have bought in a million years. He’s definitely never taking it off.

4:03 p.m.

"A little unorthodox as far as dates go," Jaskier says with a smile. He hesitates with his hand on the door handle, lets go, leans in towards Geralt with a questioning look instead.

“Says the person who invited themselves along,” Geralt points out, not that he minds. If only to reassure himself that this is the beginning of something and not the end, Geralt offers, “We can always try getting coffee next time.”

"Are you kidding?" Geralt's heart nearly stops in his chest before Jaskier finishes. "After that, I'm not sure coffee can really measure up."

Geralt lets out a breath he hadn’t realized was caught somewhere along the way. "We'll come up with something."

"Mhm." The fond little quirk of Jaskier’s mouth is the only warning Geralt gets before he’s leaning in, close enough to kiss. It's not a demand, but an offer, leaving Geralt space to pull away. As if he ever could.

Geralt closes the inches left between them, marveling at how easily Jaskier's lips slot against his. It's soft, unhurried, pleasant just for the sake of being. The nape of his neck fits beneath Geralt's palm like it was made to be there, one in a thousand little details spelling out the way their pieces fit.

Jaskier breaks away to breathe, but he lingers briefly, murmuring against the corner of Geralt's mouth. "It's a date."

Jaskier is far from ordinary. Maybe though… just maybe the two of them could be.