Chapter Text
Over the seasons that Jaskier and Geralt traveled together, Jaskier found himself picking little things up about his victim— er, friend. Geralt slept on his stomach when at camp, arms folded under his head, one of his knees pulled nearly to his chest. In a bed, Geralt sprawled, wrapping blankets and sheets and curtains and Jaskiers up in his arms and legs. He would eat anything, if he had to, but Jaskier could tell when something was spiced too heavily for Geralt’s liking. He loathed the feeling of some fabrics but nearly worried a hole in the thigh of his leathers by rubbing it with his thumb while riding Roach.
The way that Geralt spoke hadn’t piqued Jaskier’s interest at first. His mouth barely moved, lips parting only enough for the words to escape. It wasn’t until Geralt began to express the little emotion he managed to let loose that Jaskier noticed the quarter turns, or the tucked chin, or the curtain of hair between Jaskier and himself.
If Geralt had to open up any more than a sliver, Jaskier was deftly deflected away with the practice of someone quite used to hiding his mouth.
Once Jaskier noticed, he couldn’t stop. He caught himself staring more than once, watching Geralt speak and dance away from him.
Geralt, too, seemed to notice. Quirked eyebrows met reddening ears and cheeks until one night, Jaskier much too far in his cups, leant over the table in the middle of a tirade to grip Geralt’s chin between his thumb and finger.
“Why do you turn away when you talk?” He asked when Geralt’s voice came to a screeching halt.
“I don’t,” Geralt replied, leaning back from Jaskier enough to tuck his chin ever so slightly.
“There, just there,” Jaskier said, shaking his still-outstretched hand at the other man. “You always hide your mouth when you talk. Why?”
Geralt hummed in response and his gaze languished over Jaskier before he stood and turned from the table.
“Where— Geralt!” Jaskier stumbled to follow him up the stairs to their room, chagrined when Geralt had to catch him by the elbows near the top.
It was very unlike Geralt to miss a chance to taunt Jaskier’s drunken antics. When Jaskier peered over at him, his lips were pursed and his eyebrows furrowed in what Jaskier knew was worry.
“Geralt?” Jaskier asked, voice raised an octave in concern, tripping after the man in question.
Geralt sat Jaskier down on the bed and took a few steps away, propping his hip on the small chest of drawers across the room. He stared at Jaskier for a few unnerving moments before frowning and taking a deep breath.
“If I show you something, do you promise not to scream?”
Jaskier’s ears began to ring with an emotion that he couldn’t possibly name.
“I— I won’t,” He promised, and Geralt took a long look at him before stalking closer and leaning over until they were eye to eye.
Jaskier took a quaking breath and blinked at the sudden proximity, so close he could feel the puff of air of Geralt’s short laugh at Jaskier’s jumpiness. Geralt’s eyes still held worry as he knelt down in front of Jaskier and hooked a finger in the side of his mouth.
If Jaskier had had a knife to his throat, he could not have guessed what Geralt had been hiding all the time they’d known each other. What secret he kept so jealously, so carefully, so fully that Jaskier’s head began to spin as he realised what he was looking at.
Geralt had fangs. Four of them; two on the top and two on the bottom. Jaskier’s first thought was that of a hunting dog he’d seen once to the south.
“Is that all?” Jaskier asked, brow furrowed.
Geralt, finger still in his mouth, blinked owlishly at Jaskier as though he’d grown an extra head.
“All?” Geralt slurred before remembering himself and taking the finger from his mouth. “Is that all?”
“They’re a little cute,” Jaskier murmured with a woozy, dizzy grin. Emboldened by Geralt’s apparent confusion, he took both of Geralt’s cheeks under his palms and used his thumbs to gently force Geralt to smile.
Geralt’s eyebrows nearly form into one angry, furrowed, confused eyebrow and the mixture of the goofy grin and the angry eyes made Jaskier dissolve into giggles.
“Definately cute,” He huffed, flopping sideways on the bed.
He drifted off, then, but he had the vaguest memories of someone taking off his boots and wrapping a blanket around him before climbing in the bed behind him.
At the time, he blamed it on a wonderful dream, but he could’ve sworn someone had pressed a gentle kiss to his temple before he slipped into a wine drunk slumber.
