Chapter Text
Jaskier was not sure when Geralt began a journal.
He knew the Witcher recorded all manner of beasts that they found. It was not uncommon to see Geralt scribbling in a small leather book. But he had no clue when he began to journal. It made tonight all the more strange, but he wasn’t particularly sure why that was on his mind. It seemed like something he’d wonder as he watched Geralt meditate, or sleep, on rare occasions. But it didn’t seem very important right now.
Because Jaskier, at present, was not on the Path. He was staying in his old apartments on the grounds of Oxenfurt University and teaching some wonderful classes, if he did say so himself. The headmaster had suggested a course covering monsters, or at least, the monsters that prowled Oxenfurt, and Jaskier had jumped at the opportunity.
And stranger still, though Geralt was often scant to give him details about hunts, he had actually talked Jaskier half to death when he asked for some material. He’d rambled for actual days about the monsters in the sewers, along the borders, up north where the Ofiri camps were. He taught him how the average man might defend himself against them, which Jaskier did balk at, because this was the first he was hearing about it. He supposed he had a professional to protect him, but it was the principle of the thing.
At this very moment, he had a pair of spectacles perched upon his nose as he brushed up on his knowledge of rotfiends. He had a bestiary Vesemir claimed he no longer needed, his notes from Geralt, and a few ripped pages from various other books he had found scattered upon his desk. They formed a neat halo around the parchment he wrote on, a slowly forming lesson plan that occasionally veered off into poetry.
It was far too late for him to be awake. He’d need to be up in two hours, maybe three, but he was rather restless. And yet, he pored, because he’d procrastinated once again.
The occasional drunk student made their way to his door, knocking once or twice before laughing and wandering away. He paid them no mind, as they did all leave on their own accord. The break in monotony wasn’t unpleasant, after all.
This knock was rather aggressive, though. He only started paying attention when the student knocked a fourth time, and on the fifth, he called, “Office hours are until five.”
And another knock. He was actually becoming irritated, now. “Begone!” He called.
They knocked again, the sheer force of it threatening to break the door down. It suddenly occurred to Jaskier then—and how silly did he feel for yelling now—that he only knew one man to knock that hard.
This would not be the first time that Geralt found himself searching for Jaskier in Oxenfurt. There was a time that he didn’t beat the snow, so wintered with him at the academy. There had also been an emergency involving a leshen in Lettenhove, which Geralt had deemed important enough to collect the bard on his way through the city.
“Recall, Witcher, that you do have a key,” he said, voice softer now that he knew there was hardly any reason to yell.
He laughed softly when, after a moment, there was the jangling of keys, because Geralt truly didn’t understand when it was appropriate to get rid of old keys, and it always led to this. He really only needed the keys that got him into the storerooms of Kaer Morhen; this same song and dance had happened many times: Jaskier told him to get rid of things such as contract related keys, Geralt would mention that you never know when you might need them, and they’d stand there for minutes while he searched.
He must admit, though, that Geralt found the key rather quickly. It did stick out, after all, with brass coating its steel core. The door opened, but the steps that came in were…audible. Uneven.
Fuck. He’s injured and I’ve just made him search through his keys.
“Geralt?” He called gently, frowning as he removed his spectacles and set down his quill. “Did you get hurt?”
There was no response, which was all the more worrying, so he rushed to the foyer to meet him. He was greeted with a very weak, very toxic Witcher, pupils blown wide and skin as pale as bone. There were three large gashes through the armor on his chest, all of which blood was steadily seeping from. What was worse, there was definitely a chunk taken out of his shoulder that looked an awful lot like a bite mark.
“Geralt! Melitele’s tits, get in here!”
Jaskier hurried to shut the door behind him before placing a hand on his shoulder to lead him. Geralt moved lightning fast, faster than normal, to grab Jaskier’s hand and remove it.
“Sorry. Come, let me get you laid down,” he cooed, gesturing to the cabinet door. As they walked—well, as he walked and Geralt stumbled—he asked, “what on earth did this?”
“Katakan,” Geralt managed, nearly falling as he reached the sofa. He gripped the armrest to steady himself, looking at Jaskier with those dark, eerie eyes. “I do not know you,” he said. Jaskier opened his mouth, hoping to argue—gods, how he wanted to argue with him. High toxicity could make him delirious, but never to the point that he failed to recognize people—especially Jaskier—but promptly shut it. “But my journals say I trust you.”
That is all Geralt says before promptly passing out on his settee.
Jaskier stared. “What?” He asked aloud. “Geralt, you cannot just say that and collapse with no further explanation, gods!”
The dark veins in his face that signalled high toxicity were extending down his neck. Jaskier guessed—fucking knew that it was that stupid Werewolf Decoction that Geralt so loved to down when he was hunting in the city. It lasted so long and was so pungent that half a dose of Thunderbolt was enough to set him over the edge.
The bard gently began to fiddle with the potions strapped to his chest, examining each one for the right color and thickness. And of course, there was no white honey, and of course, he would need white honey if he were to take any healing potions.
So he’d have to brew it himself. Fine, not like he didn’t know how, or didn’t have the ingredients, but he would have to see to these injuries first, and dear gods, katakans were venomous, weren’t they? So did he need to brew the white honey so he could get a dose of Golden Oriole—thankfully present in his potion holder—in him and neutralize that venom?
He resorted to grabbing a bottle of vodka to pour over the wounds. The bleeding was slowing, and while he certainly needed to get it under control soon, he wasn’t going to bleed out in the time it took Jaskier to get the potion on the fire.
He scrambled within his books to find the small journal he’d kept on potions. The recipe for white honey was bookmarked, because while he knew its ingredients, he was never sure how much of them to use.
He crushed a single stem honeysuckle blossoms from his herb stores and emptied a bottle of dwarven spirit into a pot, stirring them briefly before putting it on the fire. While it thickened, he gathered what medical supplies he had, and decided he could certainly get at least one wound stitched up while it brewed.
And once the complicated armor and undershirt were removed, he could—one and a half, thank you—before he could hear the bubbles slow. He took it from the fire and poured it into a shallow dish in hopes that it would cool quick enough.
Jaskier finished stitching Geralt up, did his best on the bite wound, and grabbed the still warm potion. He knew Geralt hated warm potions, but it was his own damn fault for not having any on him.
He slowly dripped the viscous liquid into his mouth, counting on his reflex to swallow. It took several minutes for him to get the entire dose down, but when he did, the lines of toxicity faded, and Geralt’s body could handle more potions.
So he retrieved three bottles—one of the Golden Oriole, which he gave him first, a dose of Swallow, and a dose of White Raffard’s Decoction. That should have been enough to ease his body into a quick healing meditation, should have been enough to save him.
He knew that Geralt may not wake for hours. The injuries were rather severe and the potions only did so much. So he gathered some food and drink, and naturally, brought his work over to the cabinet.
When Geralt finally woke, it was with a start, though Jaskier did not jump. He only finished the word he was writing before looking up at him, rather angry, rather relieved. “Did you take a Werewolf Decoction?” He asked pointedly.
Geralt only stared at him, bewildered, before nodding slowly. “Yes.”
“You foolish man. I’ve told you many times that it’s not worth how toxic you get. And you always forget it’s in your system!”
Jaskier shook his head, clicking his tongue. He retrieved the bread and water he had brought from the kitchen, placing both beside him. Geralt grappled at the waterskin first, downing the whole thing in two gulps.
“In any case, are you feeling alright? Do you still feel the venom?”
“No,” he said, breathless. “I—what did you give me?”
“Well first I had to make you some White Honey, because of course this is the one time you don’t have any, but after that? Swallow, White Raffard, and Golden Oriole.”
“You know your potions,” Geralt muttered.
“I would certainly hope so. You were delirious when you got here, Geralt. You didn’t even recognize me.”
Geralt only stared. His pupils dilated, then narrowed, and his brows furrowed.
“Oh, by the hand of Lebioda, you don’t recognize me.”
Geralt shook his head. And just like that, Jaskier’s whole world had fallen down.
“Bad fight sometime in the winter. I don’t know what I was fighting. Or why I was so far in the middle of nowhere. But I woke up and couldn’t remember anything.”
“Anything? absolutely nothing?”
“Nothing,” Geralt said.
“But—it’s been months since the last snow!”
“I… I don’t know. My mare made it back to the city at the base of the mountain I was on, and—”
“Oh my gods, you don’t even know your horse’s name. This is bad, Geralt, do you even know how old you are?”
“No.”
“Melitele save me,” Jaskier groaned, pushing his hands back through his hair. “How did you find your way here, then? How did you even know to come here?”
“I read through all the books I had. A lot of it was on monsters, so at least I could figure out what I was doing. But my journal proved pretty useful.”
“Journal?” Jaskier asked. “Since when do you journal?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Jaskier found it in himself to laugh, albeit incredulously. Not only did Geralt journal, but he apparently journaled about him. Apparently more than he journaled about Roach.
“I was already in Oxenfurt. Felt like it made sense to come here.”
“It did, I will give you that.” Jaskier capped his inkwell, shaking his head. “So tell me what you know.”
Geralt furrowed his brows, sighing heavily. “I know I’m a Witcher. My body certainly remembers how to fight monsters, even if I had to learn everything again. I know I travel with you more often than not. And I have—hm, a daughter?”
As much as it made Jaskier’s heart swell to finally hear him call her his daughter, he was suddenly terrified at the fact that they’d have to tell Ciri what happened.
“A daughter that’s probably worried sick. Sounds like you didn’t make it back to her.”
“What I’m still trying to figure out is why she wasn’t with me,” he said. “I wrote somewhere that you wintered in Oxenfurt, so I at least knew why I wasn’t with you. But I’ve no clue where she is, or why I’m not protecting her.”
Jaskier smiled, only faintly. “She’s at Kaer Morhen with the rest of your family. You always say she’s safer there than she would be on the path. She trains a lot. Hopes to be just like you one day.”
“I have more family?”
“In… a sense. The other Witchers. You call them your family. Your brothers and uncle. I think, at present, Yen is there too…” he said that last bit mostly to himself.
“Yen—Yennefer? She’s… Ciri’s mother?”
“Not… quite? Ciri is your, hm, magically bound ward? And she is certainly a motherly figure. She calls you two mum and papa.”
“…Oh,” Geralt said. “No wonder there was so little I could find about her.”
“Mean to tell me you wrote about me more than her? I’m flattered,” the bard hummed.
Geralt sighed, taking a hunk of bread and leaning back on the couch. “My…family. Can you tell me about them?”
Jaskier hummed, smiling briefly. “There is Vesemir. We call him Uncle, on occasion, though he’s more like a father to you boys than anything. He taught you everything you know—er, knew. Then your two brothers, Eskel and Lambert. Lambert’s sort of a prick, and you’ve said so yourself, you two don’t always get along. Granted, Lambert has a hard time getting along with everyone. And Eskel is very scary, but very sweet. He has a bad scar on his face from a blade, worse than yours or Lambert's.”
“What about Yen? And Ciri?”
“We met Yennefer when I was very unfortunately and inadvertently cursed by a djinn.” He was content to leave out the bitter details. He’d tried hard to forget them, himself, and it was so, so long ago that it hardly mattered. “She’s only a little insane. Very cutthroat, political. And Ciri, she’s… special. She has Elder Blood.”
“Elder blood?”
“She’s descended from Lara Dorren. A very powerful elven sorceress. Magic runs in her very blood, and we still don’t quite know its extent. So she trains with Yen and Triss—did your journal mention anything about Triss?”
“No.”
“Ah, she’s fun. A sorceress, like Yennefer. Anyways, Ciri’s father—birth father, I mean, is a very bad man, so she’s staying in the keep and out of sight while he cools down.”
“How bad are we talking?”
“Ooh… haha. He is perhaps the Emperor of Nilfgaard.”
Geralt only pressed his lips together, nodding.
“They’re all at Kaer Morhen, right now. Ah, I’m assuming you were headed there when you…well. It’s the only reason you’d be on the mountain.”
“I see.” Geralt took another bite of bread, sitting up some. “So tell me about you.”
“As much as I adore talking about myself, Geralt, you already know who I am.”
“But… I don’t. Not really. You’re important to me, that’s all I know. I don’t know why.”
Pride blossomed in Jaskier’s chest. You’re important to me. Yes, he’d certainly hit his head rather hard.
“Fine.” He shook his head fondly. “We met in a tavern, and I wanted to write songs for you. You told me you needed no such thing, but I followed you anyways. You punched me in the gut, I explained that I wouldn’t be going anywhere, and you one day stopped fighting me. Just let me patter on behind you and write my silly songs, stay with you when we could afford inns, cooked the food when we couldn’t. Sometimes we had a lot of coin, sometimes we had precious little. You taught me how to brew potions and care for a blade, how to land a lethal hit and how to patch you up after fights. Some winters, I’d come with you to Kaer Morhen, others, I would stay here and teach. Never really coordinated meeting up again. We just found each other, somehow.”
“Well… I’m sorry I punched you. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you stuck around.”
Jaskier smiled, laughing softly.
“It’s worth a lot.”