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Jaskier is going to cry, he decides.
He’s going to pass out from exhaustion and cold and be found dead in the morning on the cold stone floor of Kaer Morhen, and it will all be very tragic and worthy of a song another bard will have to sing in his honor, but first he is going to cry.
Just an hour ago he had been tucked deliciously tight against his witcher, leeching heat from the way they were pressed together from head to toe, his head cushioned on a delightfully firm bicep.
Alas, Jaskier had awoken with a thirst that needed slaking before he could drift off once more.
“I’ll be back, darling. Just need some water,” he had said, pressing kisses to Geralt’s jaw to rouse him enough to grant Jaskier his freedom. The single downside of cuddling a witcher is that witcher strength means that there is no escape without being released. His Wolf had obliged him as ever and had even allowed himself to be pushed back down when he attempted to rise with Jaskier. “You stay, love. Keep our bed warm.” His use of “our” drew a soft, sleepy smile from Geralt.
“Sure you know the way?” His witcher’s voice was even rougher fresh from sleep, and the timber of it combined with that smile made Jaskier briefly contemplate putting off his mission in order to slake other thirsts, but he decided better of it. Water first. Tumbling in the sheets later. He wondered briefly if this is what maturity felt like. He pressed a quick kiss to Geralt’s lips before sliding out of bed.
“How many years have I traveled with you? And you still don’t think I can navigate a measly keep?”
As it turns out, Jaskier cannot, in fact, navigate a measly keep.
The halls, similar in daylight, are utterly fucking identical in the dark. And witcher aesthetic principles means there’s a severe lack of portraiture or tapestries to navigate with. The lack of soft comforts like rugs means that Jaskier is also freezing, a tremor already going through his muscles. He had thought his errand would be quick enough that he could suffice with a single fur over his nightclothes, but his errand has turned into a quest back to Geralt that seems destined to freeze him to death, ill equipped as he is to deal with the chill of Kaer Morhen in his current ensemble.
He huffs a frustrated breath that shudders slightly on its way out with his shivering before he turns a corner and finds yet another hallway that looks like every other hallway. As he’s about to slide to the floor and fall back to his tried and true method of shouting for Geralt at the top of his lungs to fix the problem, he catches sight of a flicker of light under a doorway.
Salvation.
He’s mildly disappointed when he whips open the door victoriously that the figure that startles immediately to their feet with a blade in hand isn’t white-haired, but needs must.
“Lambert!” He says with no small amount of relief, diving for the bed and settling himself beneath the covers, ready to cry again at the warmth, his fingers and toes tingling with the temperature change. The witcher in question simply blinks at him, weapon still in hand. There’s limited light with the fire burning so low this late at night, but Jaskier can sense as much as see the witcher’s alarmed confusion. “Put the dagger away, it’s just me.”
“I can see that. Why the fuck is it you?”
“Well now, dear witcher, that is a question.” Jaskier turns, pulling the covers more firmly over him as he settles, eyes closing even as he speaks. “The ‘why’ of a person is a true conundrum. At a class in my early days at sc-”
“Why are you in my room?” Lambert interrupts him impatiently, tossing his dagger to the nightstand beside him and putting his hands on his hips. Jaskier flips up the blankets and furs closest to the witcher and pats the bed invitingly. It’s too cold to waste warmth on being outside of the covers. Lambert looks deeply unimpressed at being invited into his own bed.
“I got thirsty, I got lost, then I got here. Now c’mon. It’s,” he’s interrupted by an enormous yawn, feeling tired enough to sink into the earth now that he’s safely in a warm bed and not doomed to wander until he dies, “too cold to not snuggle. Don’t be shy. I don’t bite.” He opens one eye, never too tired for such a good opening. “Well, at least not without asking first. And no one other than Geralt, these days.”
“Any more talk about fucking my brother, and you’re going right back into the hall,” Lambert tells him. The threat is belied by the witcher joining him at last under the covers, albeit with the tension of a stray cat creeping towards an offered hand. Jaskier flops over once the witcher is settled, sprawling halfway over him. Lambert goes impossibly tenser. Well that won’t do. Jaskier isn’t going to be able to sleep against someone drawn tight as a bowstring.
“Relax,” Jaskier tells him, tucking his head more securely against Lambert’s shoulder. Ah, how did he ever live without the perfection of witcher muscles to lay against? What a poor, bereft man he was without even fully realizing it.
“I was relaxed before an intruder stormed into my room and woke me up,” Lambert grumbles, but he softens slightly and even creeps an arm up around Jaskier’s back. The bard exhales contently and begins to drift off.
“G’night,” he sighs. This close, he hears a hard swallow from Lambert.
“Good night,” he responds, voice barely above a whisper.
Around an hour later, Lambert rouses yet again when his door opens once more, and he has to resist the urge to throw something. When the fuck did his room become a thoroughfare? The scent registers quickly, eliminating the need to open his eyes to know who it is, and he doesn’t bother opening them as Geralt steps closer to the bed.
“Lambert?” Geralt’s voice is soft in deference for the sleeping bard, although the bewilderment is clearly discernible.
“Who the fuck else would it be? This is my room.” He grouses, voice also soft despite his annoyance. The bard, roused slightly at the voices and now enveloped by both of Lambert’s arms, nuzzles slightly against the witcher’s chest before he settles again.
“Why is Jaskier here?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who brought him here in the first place. You can’t keep track of him?” Geralt snorts softly.
“Apparently not. I got worried when he wasn’t back after an hour and went looking. I tracked his scent all over the keep before I got here. He got up to a damn turret somehow, and I thought those doors had been locked for years.” Lambert grins, even as he feels sleep pulling him back under.
“Your bard is a real fucking wonder.” He says. He intends it to come across as bitingly sarcastic, but the edge of it is dulled by the pliant warmth sprawled against him. It’s been years since he’s had a bed partner willing and trusting enough to sleep next to him, whether coin has been exchanged or not. He can feel his eyes shutting slowly and would like to rejoin the bard in slumber as soon as possible. “Do you want him back, or can I go back to sleep now?” Geralt raises an eyebrow but shakes his head.
“No, let him sleep. The climb here was hard on him. I’d rather he rest if you don’t mind him staying.”
“Already here,” Lambert mumbles, eyes fully shut once more.
“Alright then,” Geralt says, moving back to the door. “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” Lambert says before he tucks his head back against soft hair that smells of flowers.
The rest of his sleep blissfully uninterrupted by bards or brothers, he wakes the next morning feeling more well-rested than he can remember in recent history. Eyes still closed and barely awake, he forgets his acquisition of a sleeping partner the night before until his stretching is impeded by warm weight against his arm and a leg across his stomach. He blinks his eyes open and finds his view fully obscured by a mop of brown hair tickling at his nose. He shifts slightly to escape the sensation before he looks down at the bard, still blissfully asleep with no sign of waking.
The depth of his slumber is unsurprising. He’s been fastidious about pulling his weight around the keep, but he still sleeps later than any of the witchers, usually joining them sleep-rumpled and barely awake at breakfast after they’ve already had a session of training for the day. He then spends half of the meal propped up against Geralt until he finally rouses enough to be fully conscious. His brother can play at grumbling all he wants, but he can see that Geralt is pleased by the contact and the trust it speaks to. With the bard sleeping soundly against him as if he’s never felt safer or more content, Lambert understands the feeling.
Jaskier makes grumbling noises and attempts to hold on when Lambert slips out of the bed, and in an attempt to avoid the strength of those grabby hands, Lambert shoves a pillow into Jaskier’s arms, which settles him quickly enough, the bard drifting back to a depth of sleep Lambert doesn’t know that he’s ever reached. The bard tucking his nose in against the warmth of the pillow makes Lambert feel a disgustingly warm surge of fondness. He almost drags Jaskier out of his bed to counteract the feeling with some conflict, but the damn bard looks so peaceful, Lambert finds he can’t quite manage it. He decides to pick a fight with Jaskier later to balance the books.
Satisfied with his resolution, he heads out to train in the early dawn light, leaving the bard asleep in his bed. A very small part of Lambert hopes foolishly that it won’t be the last time it happens,if only for how rested he feels after a night of sleeping with another body pressed close.
He’s the last to arrive in the courtyard where Geralt and Eskel are already sparring under Vesemir’s watchful gaze, and he grunts a greeting before stretching in preparation for a run. Geralt manages a neat set of footwork that lets him flip Eskel over his shoulder, wrenching the sword from his hand in the process. He grins down at Eskel as the latter scowls up at him before offering him a hand up.
“Thought we’d never see you,” Eskel calls, brushing snow off of himself before accepting his sword back for another round. “Catching up on some beauty sleep?”
“Hardly,” Lambert says back. “Geralt lost his bard, and he found his way to my room.” He directs a look to the witcher in question. “Like an octopus, that man. I barely escaped with all of my limbs attached.” Geralt snorts.
“I offered to take him back to my room. You chose to let him stay.” Lambert has no response to this that wouldn’t be disgustingly soft, so he shoots his brother a rude hand gesture and sets out through the gate for his run.
Jaskier wakes around an hour later and stretches contently. He rolls to his back and opens his eyes at last, yawning. He furrows his brow when he finds furs he doesn’t recognize over him. His head is muzzy still, and it takes him a while of blinking at the ceiling before he remembers that he’s in Lambert’s room.
Reoriented, he eventually rolls himself out of bed and realizes he’s going to have to return to finding his way back to his proper room if he’s to put on real clothes. He considers just waiting for Lambert to return eventually and give him some directions, but after sitting for a while, his hunger outweighs his patience.
He rubs his eyes as he shuffles down the hall. He has about as much luck as he’d had the previous night, and a call of his name from behind makes him almost ready to weep with relief.
“Geralt!” He cries with delight, running to his witcher and launching himself in a leap that makes Geralt drop his jacket to the floor in favor of using both hands to catch the bard when he jumps into a hug. “Oh my darling! I feared I would never see you again!” He presses a loud kiss to Geralt’s cheek and resists the witcher’s attempt to drop him by wrapping his legs around his waist. Geralt gives him an unimpressed look.
“There are only so many people in this keep, Jaskier. You’d cross paths with me eventually.” He pulls at Jaskier, trying again to dislodge him, and the bard decides to heed the effort, dropping back to his own feet. He loops his arm around Geralt’s in compromise, and the witcher allows it.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. This keep is fucking impossible to navigate. I thought I was going to freeze my balls off last night. Please can you take me back to the room so I can put on some actual clothes?” He asks sweetly. Geralt allows Jaskier to keep their arms looped as he leads him in the opposite direction from where Jaskier had been heading.
“You’ve been here a week now. You still can’t find the room?” Geralt’s tone is amused.
“I am a songbird , Geralt, not a homing pigeon.” Geralt snorts.
“And yet you’ve always managed to find me.” It’s said with faux-annoyance, but Jaskier can hear the warmth in it.
“I’ll always find you eventually, my darling, no matter how far we wander or how complex a keep we may be lost in.” He rises to his toes to kiss Geralt’s cheek again. “I just might have to find one of your brothers first.”
After his night of wandering into Lambert’s room, Jaskier manages a streak of several days in which he doesn’t need to leave his and Geralt’s room at all during the night, and he revels in full nights spent comfortably ensconced with his witcher, stirring slightly in the mornings to kisses pressed to his face in farewell before he settles back down and sleeps longer.
His streak ends on a night in which a winter storm is howling around the castle, winds shrieking like a banshee. It had kicked up early in the evening, and the wind had already found ways in to blast him with icy drafts even before the storm gained full strength. He’s exceptionally grumpy at the fact that he’s going to have to brave those drafts when he would love nothing more than to remain comfortably curled against Geralt.
Tragically, nature is calling him in a way he can’t ignore anymore than he can the howling wind outside.
He and his witcher had fallen asleep that night with Geralt’s back to Jaskier’s front, so at least he isn’t trapped, a small enough blessing. Geralt has always slept with Jaskier between him and a wall, and their sleeping arrangements at Kaer Morhen are no different. Jaskier attempts to stealthily crawl down to the foot of the bed to avoid waking his bedmate, but Geralt stirs as soon as Jaskier’s warmth leaves him.
“Jask?” He asks, rubbing a hand over his eyes before peering down at the bard sitting at his hip. Jaskier plants one hand on the mattress to vault over Geralt’s legs, and he lands with a grace he’s rather proud of, striking a pose like an acrobat. It makes Geralt smile slightly. “Off on another midnight adventure?”
“Tragically yes, my darling. I am called to deal with an issue of a rather personal nature, or I’d invite you along for a stroll.”
“I can still go with you, if you want.” Jaskier wrinkles his nose at the thought.
“No, dear witcher. There are certain matters a man wants privacy to deal with.” Geralt hums.
“Do you know the way back? Or the way there, for that matter?”
“Have some faith, Geralt. I’ve had enough time to acquaint myself. You’ll find me quite adept at making my way around this keep now.” Geralt raises an eyebrow.
“The fact that Lambert found you shivering in the stable when you were trying to find the library yesterday definitely fills me with confidence.”
“Ah, but my destination this time is not the library. You’ll see. I’ll be back in no time. Don’t even bother blinking. I’ll be back before your eyes open again.”
Jaskier manages to find the privy with a minimum of wandering, which is a source of pride and also relief. He’s feeling quite accomplished once he’s finished with his business and on his way back to his witcher. The accomplishment fades gradually after the ninth door he opens to an empty room.
By the fourteenth, including one leading to another fucking turret somehow, he’s shivering and his sense of accomplishment is well and truly gone. He trips on a loose stone and lands hard, feeling the skin scrape off of his knees and palms as he attempts to catch himself. It sends a shock of pain up his right arm and he’s terrified for a moment that he’s broken something, but some testing stretches tell him that he simply overextended something. The movements make him hiss in pain, but it’s nowhere near the initial shock of fucking ouch . Annoying, to be certain, but something that will clear up quickly enough. The same is true of his knees, but the heat of the blood dripping down his cold legs makes it all feel more than slightly gruesome in the moment. He wonders if this is a good enough reason to put his “yell for Geralt” technique into practice.
He rises gingerly to his feet and finds that he can still walk, albeit it haltingly. Capable of motion, he decides to limp for at least a little while longer before he says fuck it and starts shouting. He’s also rather embarrassed at being bested by the floor, and it makes him more willing to put up with the cold, even as he starts shivering.
He’s finally making his peace with the teasing he’s going to receive if he shouts for help when he hears the sound of someone turning over in bed one door down. He opens it and pokes his head around, hoping that he may have actually made his way back to Geralt this time, but it’s not their room. The question of who it does belong to is answered when Eskel sits up in bed at the creak when Jaskier leans more heavily against the door.
“Jaskier?” He calls softly. “Are you-” Eskel inhales suddenly and is on his feet in the next second, moving dizzyingly fast, certainly faster than a human could manage. “What happened, are you alright? Did you-”
“I’m alright,” Jaskier assures him when Eskel reaches the door and begins patting the bard down. “Seriously, just a stumble. It’s just my knees and my hands. And my wrist. But nothing too serious!”
“You sure?” Eskel asks, standing straight again after confirming a lack of any other injuries on Jaskier’s person. The bard smiles at him fondly, touched by the concern. Of all three other witchers at the keep, Jaskier has gotten on the quickest with Eskel, charmed by the man’s kindness and easy company.
“Positive.” A shiver runs through Jaskier and Eskel frowns, guiding him to the bed to sit and tossing a blanket around him. He frisks his hands up and down Jaskier’s arms until he’s satisfied that the man will warm up soon enough.
“Wait here. I’ll go grab something for the scrapes,” Eskel says. He pauses at the door and turns back. “Do you want me to get Geralt?”
“No!” Jaskier says firmly. “I’d prefer to be patched up before I admit how I got hurt in the first place if possible. Maybe that way I can come up with a better story first.” The comment makes Eskel laugh before he leaves.
He returns with some rolls of bandages and two tins of salve. Out of habit, Jaskier takes a sniff to confirm that they’re some of the ones suitable for non-witchers. Eskel looks amused.
“Don’t worry. It’s safe for you. Geralt would throttle me if I used something on you that wasn’t.” He dampens a cloth and begins gently wiping at the blood smeared down Jaskier’s legs. He hisses slightly when Eskel begins dabbing at the torn skin but holds still without flinching away. Eskel squeezes his leg gently in support, but his finger grazes the sensitive skin behind Jaskier’s knee, and the bard jerks automatically, his whole body jolting. Eskel freezes, ready to apologize, before he registers that the motion wasn’t out of pain. His smile turns more than slightly predatory. Jaskier feels his heart rate pick up in response. “Ticklish?”
“No!” Jaskier yelps. Eskel grazes his fingers lightly against the same patch of skin and then dodges Jaskier’s foot when the sensation makes him jerk his leg in a kick. The movement breaks open a clot of blood and Eskel drops the playing, pressing Jaskier’s leg back against the side of the bed to press lightly with the cloth to stem the flow.
“Sorry,” he says, clearly guilty at making Jaskier bleed again, even indirectly.
“You should be,” Jaskier says archly. Eskel flicks him an uncertain gaze. “It’s rude to tickle people. For shame.” The righteous tone Jaskier says it with makes Eskel smile again as he continues cleaning the scrapes. Once the blood has been cleared away, he slicks on salve with featherlight fingertips before wrapping the abraded skin with bandages tight enough to not slip while still loose enough to not impede the motion too severely.
He extends his hand for Jaskier’s wrist, and the bard hands it over easily. Eskel marvels, as he tests the range of motion of the joint, at the trust in the gesture. Eskel could snap the appendage like a toothpick and ruin the bard’s life, but the ease with which he offers up a pain for Eskel to fix makes it clear that the possibility has never occurred to him. It makes Eskel feel overwhelmed slightly, that trust. He smooths on a balm for swelling before wrapping the joint up in a strip of linen to restrict the motion.
He realizes when he looks up that his tending has made Jaskier begin to drop into sleep, and he feels the same sense of wonder, that his presence and care are enough to soothe someone who isn’t a Wolf. It makes him smile, a gesture Jaskier returns until it’s broken with a yawn, the bard rubbing at his eyes in a motion that’s distinctly childlike.
“Can I-” Jaskier yawns again. “Can I stay here? I must recover from my grievous wounds before I can return to my” another yawn, “darling’s side. Otherwise he’ll fret and deny me any rest at all.” Eskel huffs a laugh.
“Sure,” he says, helping Jaskier move up higher on the bed and then laying down next to him, pulling the covers over them both. The bard scooches closer, pressing his face to Eskel’s bicep and extending one arm gently over the witcher.
“Okay?” The bard murmurs, already dropping into sleep. Eskel raises one hand to rest on the arm across his stomach, patting it gently before stilling. He tilts his head towards the bard, the sweet smell of his contentment soothing.
“Yeah,” Eskel tells him, drifting off easily.
He manages to disentangle himself the next morning with a little maneuvering, the bard scrunching up a quilt in his arms and snuggling close the same way he had with the witcher the night before. It makes Eskel feel impossibly fond as he leaves the bard to sleep.
“You could at least have returned him in the condition you found him in.” Geralt says to Eskel when Jaskier limps into breakfast later. The level comment is a far cry from the instant fear he’d felt earlier that morning at finding Jaskier’s blood in the hallway when he decided to track down which Wolf he’d lost his bard to for the night. He’s thankful for how deeply the bard sleeps for the fact that he stirred only slightly at Geralt bursting into Eskel’s room to find him curled up peacefully, burrowed so deeply that only his hair poked out. The witcher had hovered for a few minutes, gently touching and inspecting before he was satisfied that the bard was relatively fine. With his brothers and Vesemir at practice and the bard completely out cold, there had been no one to witness his irrational panic, and he’s grateful for it. He’s still not fully used to having a part of his heart belong to someone so much more fragile than him, and he can admit, if only to himself, that it makes him horrifically prone to “motherhenning,” as Jaskier calls it.
“Don’t look at me,” Eskel defends. “He was already damaged by the time he got to me.”
Jaskier, still groggy, manages the energy to grunt an affirmative to Geralt’s question of “Alright?” before he settles against his witcher to wake up fully. Out of sight of the others, the witcher rubs soft circles against his hip, and Jaskier finds it soothing enough to almost send him back to sleep.
He makes it through breakfast without dropping off, and he’s fully in the land of awareness by the end, as he always is. He’d agreed to help out with repairs in the stables and makes to follow Lambert out to do so, but Geralt draws him aside first, ignoring Jaskier’s assertions that he’s fine. Geralt nods at Lambert to send him on while he shepherds Jaskier back to their room with a hand on the small of his back.
Recognizing a battle he’s not likely to win, Jaskier plops down on the bed as Geralt retrieves supplies and lets his witcher motherhen him until Geralt’s satisfied that Jaskier hasn’t managed to do himself permanent damage. He gently smooths a new layer of healing salve over the broken skin of Jaskier’s knees and palms and rewraps a strip of cloth around his wrist and hand to limit the movement until the muscles have had time to heal.
“Kisses always make injuries heal faster.” Jaskier offers when he’s done. “It’s a proven fact.” Geralt gives him a disbelieving look. “What? I always do it for you.” Geralt’s expression softens around his eyes, and he ducks his head obligingly, pressing soft kisses to both knees and one to the inside of Jaskier’s wrist, looking up at the bard through his lashes when he’s done, head still bowed. The bard takes a slightly shuddery little breath at the clear affection he sees in those golden eyes, and Jaskier feels like he could drown under the love he feels for this beautiful, impossible man.
“Better?” Geralt asks in a low voice.
Jaskier uses his good hand to pull his witcher up for a kiss before he explodes with how much he feels for him. He parts after a moment and uses the hand to keep Geralt’s forehead pressed against his. Geralt nudges Jaskier’s nose with his own just to watch him crinkle it. Jaskier obliges, partially on reflex and partially to see Geralt’s face soften into one of Jaskier’s favorite smiles.
“Much better,” Jaskier tells him. “I love you, by the by.” Geralt’s still shy about saying the words out loud, but Jaskier feels him return the sentiment with another kiss.
In a few days more, he’s largely healed from his late night misadventure, and although he’s a big enough person to admit that he’ll miss the coddling from Geralt, no matter how much the witcher denies that he is coddling, it is nice to return to fully contributing to the day-to-day chores needed to upkeep Kaer Morhen.
Jaskier’s duties largely consist of inside work, his constitution not as efficient at dealing with the cold as the witchers. Occasionally, however, there is simply too much work to spare him from the heavier labor. Such is the case with shoring up a wall near the main hall that’s begun to crumble and sag. The work is too important to wait and although he’ll never beat any of the witchers in an arm wrestling competition, which he knows from personal, drunken experience, Jaskier is still fairly strong. He sticks his tongue out at Lambert when the witcher makes a point of grabbing twice the number of stones as the bard with each armload, but he acquits himself well and is satisfied when the job is done.
He’s also fucking exhausted.
He allows himself to be dragged down to the hot springs to bathe with the others, but the bath is cut short when Jaskier almost falls asleep and slips beneath the water, prompting Geralt to declare that bard bathtime is over for the night. After a judicious application of puppy eyes, whining, and threatening to lay down on the floor forever if he’s forced to move under his own power, he manages to convince his witcher to carry him back to their room. He’s tossed onto the bed rather carelessly once he’s there, but he’ll take what he can get.
Geralt tries to rouse him enough to go to dinner shortly after, but Jaskier has been mostly asleep since he got into the water of the hot springs, and his exhaustion outweighs his desire to eat. The witcher tries to pick him up once more, insistent that he eat something, but Jaskier goes limp as a ragdoll and takes full advantage of his height to become as unwieldy as possible. His White Wolf finally gives up and drops him back to the mattress.
“You’re going to wake up hungry.” He tells Jaskier. “And I’m not bringing food into our room. That’s how you get mice.”
“Gods forbid the mice have some fun,” Jaskier mumbles, eyes shut and half asleep.
“I mean it. You’re going to be hungry later.” Jaskier desperately wants him to stop talking so he can finally get some rest. He turns his face into the pillow and responds with a drawn-out whine to indicate that he’s sticking to his decision. From years together, he knows Geralt is making his best “do as I say” scowly face, but that expression has never worked on Jaskier before, and it certainly doesn’t now. Geralt exhales a huff of breath and gives up. For all of his show of being put-upon by Jaskier’s obstinancy, however, the hands that pull the covers up around the bard are gentle and depart with a stroke over his hair before Geralt heads down to supper.
Jaskier sleeps like a rock and wakes a few hours later to his stomach growling. He resists the urge to groan. Now he’s going to have to hear-
“I told you so,” Geralt says, eyes still closed. Jaskier pulls a face anyway on principle.
“That’s what happens when you set me to manual labor. I grow too exhausted for logic and then we both pay. I hope this is a valuable lesson for you.” Geralt hums a response and finally opens his eyes. Jaskier contemplates trying to go back to sleep, but another growl from his stomach decides him. No, there’s nothing for it. He shall have to seek out sustenance. Geralt seems to read the decision in his face and rises, grabbing at a boot and tugging it on. Jaskier gets to his knees and settles behind him, wrapping his arms around broad shoulders.
“No, love,” he says, pressing a kiss behind his witcher’s ear. “I shall seek nourishment all on my lonesome. You stay and sleep.” Geralt turns his head, his expression unimpressed.
“I’ll be sleeping alone in that case.” Jaskier slaps him lightly on the shoulder, and Geralt shrugs out of his hold and lays back down. Jaskier straddles him, intent on making his point.
“I can find my own way back!” Jaskier insists.
“That’s what you said the last two times, and then I found you in bed with my brothers,” Geralt observes drily.
“Oh, darling, what a choice of phrasing. You know my heart beats only for you.” He boops the witcher’s nose on the last word and receives a shove that sends him off the bed. He pops up again, kneeling and glaring over the mattress to find Geralt looking irritatingly amused. “Well now I’m not sure if I want to come back. At least your brothers have proper bed manners.”
Geralt hums thoughtfully in answer before gesturing Jaskier closer. The bard resists for a moment, still peeved at his abrupt displacement, but a soft and sleep-rumpled White Wolf is too much temptation for a mere mortal to resist. He obliges the beckoning and leans in until Geralt wraps a hand around the back of his neck, pulling Jaskier in for a kiss that makes his toes curl. Geralt’s voice is practically a purr when they part. “Perhaps you need an incentive to make it all the way back?”
“An incentive, you say?” Jaskier parrots, his voice breathy. “What sort of incentive are we talking about here, my darling?” Geralt grins at him, a mischievous, promising glint in his eyes that makes a delicious little shiver shoot down Jaskier’s spine.
“Make it back and find out.”
Jaskier is happy to oblige and sets out with great determination and faith in his abilities, a blanket around his shoulders like a cape. He manages to find the kitchen with only two wrong turns, a new personal record, and gobbles down some bread and preserves, all the more delicious paired with his victory as a champion Kaer Morhen navigator. It turns out the third time’s the charm, as he suspected all along.
The confidence drains away rather quickly, however, as he finds that the third time is not, in fact, the charm. He’s beginning to doubt that any time will be the charm, frankly. The entire damn keep seems to defy him.
“ Fuck!” He shouts when he finds himself improbably in another fucking turret yet again, opening a door and getting a face full of sleet for his efforts. Wandering hopelessly while he has a lovely and amorous witcher waiting for him is a new sort of torture, although the cold, slushy snow dripping off of him now serves to cool his ardor almost completely.
He stomps back down the stairs and contemplates digging around in the next fireplace he finds for a stub of burned wood to use to mark which paths he’s already tried. The thought is tempting for the sake of finding his way now and in the future, but he dismisses it eventually. He doesn’t put it past Lambert to change the markings to fuck with him later, and it’s really too dark for him to have much use for them at present. Everyone else seems to find his lack of any sort of direction amusing. Jaskier thinks viciously that it must be nice to be able to use your nose to get around. Damn witcher senses.
Dripping and cold and frustrated, he drops down onto the bottom step to have a quick cry. Once he’s gotten it out of his system, he rubs his face off with his sleeve and rises. Distracted by his brief meltdown, he hadn’t noticed how cold he was, but the water soaking his sleep shirt has stolen heat far faster than he realized, and he can already feel himself shivering, his teeth chattering.
He feels the start of a swell of anxiety. He’s made jokes about it before, but he knows how serious cold can get when a person is in wet clothes. He’s been lectured enough by Geralt about it to present it as a lecture at the next alumnus event he attends. Wrapping his arms around himself to trap the blanket around his shoulders more firmly, he resolves that he’ll give it half an hour of more searching before he simply sits down and yells until someone finds him. He doesn’t imagine the rest of the keep’s residents will be pleased with his problem solving, but he flatters himself that they’d prefer being awoken to finding his corpse in the morning.
He’s about five minutes away from executing his plan when the faint smell of woodsmoke gets stronger, and he follows his nose to a set of doors along a hallway he doesn’t think he’s been down before. The first three he tries are empty, but the fourth has a bed and a fireplace glowing with embers, and he’s so relieved he could almost kiss whoever’s room he stumbled into, Geralt or not.
“Bard?” Calls the figure from the bed. The voice would be enough to tell Jaskier the identity, to say nothing of the moonlight coming through the window reflecting on silver hair. Vesemir.
Jaskier hesitates. He’s been welcome in the keep since his arrival, but he still feels a certain distance between himself and the eldest Wolf. He wonders sometimes if it’s down to the older man being such a professional in his line of work that he can’t be bothered being close to a non-witcher, or if it’s just the standard distance between a parent and their child’s paramour until they figure out where they stand with each other. For all of his experience as a lover, he’s had a lifelong aversion to any of his partners’ parental figures and thus lacks the experience to say for sure. Either way, this is not a Wolf he’d prefer to share a bed with if he could help it. At least not at present. Perhaps if he just wanders a bit more…
A shiver strong enough to chatter his teeth decides him as the wet cloth of his shirt seems suddenly to cool further. Thinking later. Getting warm now.
He steps into the room, shutting the door behind with a soft thunk. Perhaps he’ll think better of it shortly, but he currently values warmth more than pride or manners.
The light is too poor for unenhanced eyes to gather much, but the tilt of the head from the figure rising to a sitting position is a question he can read clearly enough.
“I’m lost,” he admits, reaching the bed and edging to the far side. He’s not entirely sure how he’s going to go about this. It was easy enough to shove his way into bed with the other two Wolves, but he feels absurdly as if there’s some decorum he should be observing here. His approach to the problem is further complicated by the fact that he’s going to have to strip his shirt off.
“I see.” Vesemir says, pausing briefly. “I can show you back to-”
“Can I stay?” Jaskier asks in a rush, deciding to risk it before he loses his nerve. His toes are so cold they ache and the temptation of witcher warmth is a siren song he can’t resist. He has absolutely no idea how far he’s managed to get from his and Geralt’s room, and he fears it’s a great distance indeed based on how long he wandered. A witcher in the bed is worth three in the keep, or something like that.
“Stay?” Vesemir repeats. His tone is utterly neutral, which makes Jaskier feel bold enough to begin skimming one hand up the cover, curling his fingers around the edge of the blankets.
“Just for a bit? I’ve been wandering for ages, and I am sure to perish from hypothermia any second now. I got a blast of snow after a poorly chosen door, and I’m absolutely freezing. Allow me merely to warm myself briefly, and I shall be out of your hair. And your bed. Hopefully back to my own Wolf’s, but I suppose we’ll see where the night leaves me.” He makes himself stop chattering with a great deal of willpower and waits for the judgment. He tries to tense his body to restrain his shivers and preserve some of his pride, but he knows he still makes a fairly pathetic sight. He contemplates leaning into it to help his cause. At last, Vesemir exhales softly and pulls the covers back.
“Alright, get-” Jaskier is shucking off his shirt and diving beneath the sheets before Vesemir finishes the invitation, the bard covering himself back up and wriggling slightly as he settles. Ah. Sweet, sweet witcher body heat. He shifts his wiggling to bring him slightly closer to Vesemir, although he’s careful not to actually touch. He settles close enough that he can feel heat radiating and sighs happily, rubbing his face against the pillow beneath his head to find the most comfortable spot.
Vesemir holds himself still as a statue as the bard snuggles into his bed.
Eventually, Jaskier’s breathing evens out as he drifts off, his shuddering tapering off as he warms, and Vesemir feels free to observe him more blatantly, turning onto his side to face the other man. His sudden acquisition of a bedmate is…unexpected.
Vesemir had been waiting years for Geralt to finally bring the bard for the winter. As much as his pup may have denied it, the bard had wriggled his way into the witcher’s life for good early on. Geralt may have complained about the bard’s excitement and artistic liberties and tendency towards loquaciousness, but he still arrived back every winter smelling of Jaskier to a degree only possible after months of traveling together. Vesemir had held back from the teasing Geralt’s brothers had subjected him to, but he had still wondered. He wonders still, although he’s beginning to understand.
Vesemir realizes that this is the longest he’s seen the bard be still. For as much as Jaskier waxes poetic about the benefits of lounging and as much as he can drape himself as languidly as a cat across any available surface, the man is always in some form of motion. Sometimes it’s sorting books in the library, sometimes it’s plucking away at his lute, and sometimes it’s playing with the hair at the nape of Geralt’s neck when the bard perches on the arm of the witcher’s chair; no matter what, the man seems incapable of stillness.
Vesemir had thought at first that the energy had come from anxiety, the fidgeting a manifestation of worry about whether or not he would be welcome within the walls of Kaer Morhen. As much as the bard tries to hide it, Vesemir has raised enough boys to see when someone is worried about fitting in. But as the days have gone on, Vesemir is becoming increasingly aware that Jaskier’s insecurities notwithstanding, the energy, the exuberance for everything life has to offer, is simply intrinsic to the bard, a determined cheerfulness that lasts even while the bard is complaining about being cold or tired or sore.
He’s glad, Vesemir decides, that this bard has found Geralt. After a life so determined to shove him into darkness, Geralt deserves someone so steadfastly bright.
The witcher rises after the bard has fully settled to sleep to retrieve the younger man’s wet shirt and hang it on a grate by the fire to dry. Task accomplished, he turns back to his bed and pauses. In his brief absence, the bard had curled towards his vacated spot, seeking out the warmth Vesemir had left in the sheets.
Slowly, the witcher reclaims his place. He attempts to gently nudge the bard back to his earlier distance, but Jaskier asleep seeks out warmth with single-minded focus, pressing himself against Vesemir and making a soft, content noise once he settles. Vesemir smiles slightly, recalling the earlier assurance that Jaskier had planned only to warm up and then leave. The smile falters slightly at the freezing toes that suddenly press against his calves, but his attempt at a retreat ends with an arm slung across his chest, the bard securing them together. He could free himself if he wished it, but he’s not sure that he could do so without waking his sleeping bedmate. The lad had worked hard enough today to earn his rest, Vesemir decides, making his peace with icy feet and hands leeching warmth from him.
His last thought before he drops off to sleep is gratitude that Geralt has this: a person smelling only of contentment, happy to do nothing more than press close with affection even in sleep. Well, Geralt has this until the bard gets lost in the keep, it seems. Perhaps though, Vesemir thinks, smiling sightly, he can stand to share now and then.
Jaskier manages to stumble down to breakfast the next morning after only about twenty minutes of wandering and greets the assembled witchers with a yawned good morning, slumping against Geralt as usual and giving Eskel a sleepy smile of thanks when he places a bowl of porridge in front of the bard. Geralt shifts his arm to nudge at Jaskier until he starts eating, pulling the bowl closer to eat without surrendering his comfortable slouch against his witcher’s warmth. The witchers talk amongst themselves, Jaskier largely ignored until food has woken him up enough to be properly aware, as per usual. Once the bard is sitting up fully under his own power, Geralt addresses him.
“More late night exploring?” Geralt asks, his voice fond if mildly exasperated at another night spent alone.
“Tragically, yes. I’m beginning to suspect there’s a curse on this keep, dooming any non-witcher to wander to their deaths in the cold.”
“Maybe you’re just shit at navigating,” Lambert offers. Jaskier narrows his eyes at him.
“I’ll have you know that I am an expert navigator!”
“No you’re not,” Geralt interjects. Jaskier ignores him and continues.
“It’s the keep that’s the problem, I assure you! Perhaps there’s a map I could study?” Jaskier asks hopefully, looking around.
“No maps of Kaer Morhen,” Eskel informs him. “Too much of a risk.”
“Damn,” Jaskier says. “Well then, I hope you will all simply make your peace with being havens of warmth on my journey of mastering the secrets of these hallowed and confusing halls.”
“Do we have another choice?” Lambert asks, raising an eyebrow. Jaskier gives him a warm smile, batting his lashes.
“Not at all. I’m afraid you’re all simply stuck with me.”