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Geralt had been so patient. He’d sat in the heat all day, he’d listened to all those abysmal performances by Jaskier’s competition, and he’d been suitably proud when Jaskier (rightfully) came out of the music competition in first place.
Which meant that Geralt had earned his promised reward.
Jaskier was glad they had gotten a room on the first floor of the inn, this time, because he only hesitated long enough to set down his lute before he rushed Geralt, prepared for a tackle. Of course, Jaskier couldn’t realistically hope to take down a witcher on his own. Geralt easily swept him up and pushed him toward the ground, both of them landing with a thud on the pelt – was that bearskin? Must have been expensive – that covered the cracked wooden planks below.
“Really, lark?”
Jaskier grinned up at him. “I did promise you something nice, didn’t I?”
“Your promised ‘reward’ is a poorly executed attack?”
“Of course not!” Jaskier scoffed, then let his grin take over once more. “Your reward, my dear witcher, is a good, old fashioned tickle fight.”
Geralt raised an eyebrow. “A tickle fight.”
“Yes! Something to help you get out all that pent-up energy from the day, it’ll make you smile and laugh, break through all those brooding scowls of yours.” Jaskier pouted, batting his eyes. “Come on Geralt. It’ll be fun!”
Geralt huffed, and Jaskier thought that was it, that Geralt would refuse and Jaskier would have to come up with something else to make it up to him with. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing, he already had a few ideas lined up if it happened, but Jaskier was really hoping that Geralt would take the bait. After all, he’d won the competition. He deserved a bit of a reward himself for that, didn’t he?
And just when Jaskier thought that Geralt was going to heft himself up and go do… whatever witchers did to pass the time (sword polishing, probably. Geralt did a lot of sword polishing – and not the fun kind), Jaskier suddenly found himself with ten fingers squeezing into the muscles of his stomach and sides. He yelped out a startled, strangled little sound before tumbling into laughter, pushing weakly at Geralt’s hands.
“I wasn’t ready!” He cried out. “Geralt, you cheat!”
“You attacked first,” Geralt said. “I’m just defending myself.”
Jaskier growled through his laughter. Fine, if that was how it was gonna be…
He pushed forward against the hands, using all his willpower to sit up despite his urge to curl up in a ball and laugh his heart out, and made his own attack. Unlike Geralt’s strategy, Jaskier knew he couldn’t work his way up to Geralt’s weak points, not if he wanted to have a chance at winning. So instead, he swiftly maneuvered his hands up and into Geralt’s armpits, scribbling and scrabbling away. Distracted by his own efforts, Geralt broke into quiet laughter immediately, not fighting it off the way he usually did.
No matter the outcome of this fight, Jaskier had only one hope: that they wouldn’t get kicked out of the inn due to their volume, this time.