Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You can’t be fucking serious.” 

The statement, flat and disbelieving, is directed at no one in particular, but he still sees the girl pause in her approach towards him, clearly torn. She’d scared him first, appearing at the end of a dark alley in this town he’s already forgotten the name of. He’s more than a few drinks deep, hard at work drowning his misery, but he’d know that face and that hair anywhere. He forces his shoulders to drop their tension and schools his face into something less hostile. If half of what he’s heard about Cintra is true, the last thing the girl needs is to deal with an angry drunk. 

“‘lo, love,” he says softly, raising his arms in an offer. He hasn’t seen the girl in a couple of years, but he’d spent more than his fair share of hours being used as a climbing structure by her when she still barely came to his knee, back when he’d thought there might be a reason she would need to know him one day. 

Well, as it turns out, there was. It just wasn’t the reason he’d anticipated. 

In the next moment, the girl is slamming into him with a breathless little noise of relief. He grunts and staggers back but holds himself firm. She trembles against him, but the force of her embrace is desperately strong. He can feel her grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, and her inhalations shudder, a small whimper escaping with each breath. 

“You’re alright,” he says quietly, bringing one hand up to cup the back of her head and press it tighter to his shoulder. He drops his head to rest his chin on the crown of her head, nose wrinkling a bit automatically at the smell; it’s clearly been a while since her highness has had the luxury of a bath. 

He doesn’t mention it, however. 

He simply holds her until the trembling stops. 

“It’s alright, Cirilla.” 

*

He sneaks her back up to his inn room when she’s finally able to let go of him, keeping her tucked against his side under one arm. Once inside, he leaves her briefly–after negotiating the release of his sleeve when she reaches for him with a squeaky “no”--to order a bath, draping a cloak over her head and directing her to sit on a chair and wait while the tub is filled. When it’s full, he sets out a soft, worn pair of trousers and a shirt, leaving a belt as well after a brief moment of consideration. Clothes supplied, he steps back into the hallway and drops down to sit on the floor in front of the door, head thunking back softly to rest against the wood. 

What a fucking mess. 

*

The first order of business after he’s gotten her fed and rested is to do something about her hair. The ratty cap was a good call on her part, but hair as bright as hers is a calling card for all sorts of trouble best avoided, especially when they don’t have the protection of someone else with distinctive hai-

So, dye it is. 

He applies the paste with a great deal more mournfulness than she seems to feel about the whole situation, feeling like he’s committing some kind of crime in covering up such pretty hair with duller brown. Ciri, though, just chatters away, growing more loquacious after some rest and food. She wrinkles her nose at the smell of the paste–a mixture his grandmother used to use to cover up greying roots–but otherwise keeps her peace. When it’s all rinsed out, her hair is a shade or two darker than his own, and she examines her reflection in the mirror, turning her head this way and that. For the first time, a little flicker of sadness crosses her features as she touches a strand gently, rubbing it between her fingers. He steps up behind her and rests comforting hands on her shoulders. 

“It’ll grow out,” he tells her gently, and she gives him a little flicker of a smile. 

The dye job makes it easier to sell the lie he spins about her sudden appearance beside him. His reputation gives him an easy excuse for a child at his side, and most people don’t look beyond her hair to note the lack of any other resemblance between them. A few quiet, subtle murmurs about dead mothers and uncaring families gets him sympathetic nods and more than a few nights in a soft bed far below market price, and soon enough the gossip has outpaced him, no longer requiring any input from him at all. 

He very carefully keeps the knowledge of his tattooed charm to prevent getting anyone with child to himself and tries not to worry about how many other paramours might try to take the chance to make a claim. He gets a few scolding letters from relatives about carelessness, but their family line is bound by too many rules of succession to allow a bastard–especially a daughter–to inherit much beyond direct gifts, so it’s not too much of an upset to anyone’s inheritance. He scrawls brief, stunted letters in reply and ignores orders to bring the girl to Lettenhove for inspection. Given his own delay in the important jobs of marrying and producing little Julians, he knows his family is itching for an advantageous marriage, and he’s not eager to add another crisis on top of everything else he has to juggle. 

(He ignores the part of him that’s relieved for the distraction Ciri presents, feeling guilty about it. With so many practical steps to take, he gets lost in his residual grief far less, and with a child along, he has far much less drunken wallowing time than he did before). 

Calling in a couple of favors gets him two horses from his sister’s husband’s stables, pretty beasts that he’s assured are fast and sturdy. He doesn’t usually bother with horses, never has, but it makes him feel better to know that Ciri can get away quickly if she needs to. 

On his own behalf, the first several days of saddle sores remind him quickly about why he always preferred his own legs before. 

*

After a few weeks of her sitting in the room while he performs, either tucked safely away from doors in pubs and inn rooms or trailing him like a pretty shadow at manor events–he avoids anyone higher than country gentry for obvious reasons and even shows an amusingly eager Ciri how to roughen up her manners a bit–the girl starts to show interest in joining him. She’s shy about it at first, quiet questions with an attempt at subtlety about how he got started as a bard, how he chooses what to sing, how he knows when to move or not move when he’s performing, but it’s not as if she’s that circumspect in her interest. One godsawful evening of caterwauling reveals that she’s not any less tone deaf than she’s always been, but a brief perusal of an instrument-maker’s shop yields a tambourine, and if her enthusiasm outweighs her talent, her darling little face lit up with joy and concentration buys her enough grace from crowds that they don’t get booed off of stages. 

For the sake of not starting too many rumors or inviting anyone to scrutinize her too closely, she usually sticks to the edges of the stage or the side of a room, always perched on the edge of her chair and nearly vibrating with her excitement to contribute. With time she cuts him off less with her enthusiastic deployment of her instrument, and he can tell how pleased she is whenever she scoops up coins of her own, usually handed over with indulgent smiles and conspiratorial winks. He waves off her attempts to contribute (and pelts her with the coins she still tries to slip into his purse while she giggles and dodges) and leaves her as mistress of her own pin money with some vague idea of teaching her a lesson about budgeting that he certainly never bothered to learn.

And then one of the first things she buys is a dagger. 

Of fucking course it is. 

He doesn't suspect what she’s up to when she first drags him near the stall. He keeps her in close range when they’re in crowded places, but her cover is strong, and he knows from watching her grow up that she chafes under a too-close watch, so he lets her roam in a close-ish orbit around him when they’re out and about, usually putting a bright hat on her or a vibrant ribbon in her hair so he can find her quickly if needed. 

With this space, it isn’t until he hears her say “stabbing” that he looks up, alarmed. 

When he spots her by the bright yellow hat he keeps pulling over her eyes to make her laugh, he finds her leaning over an entire table of pointy things, every muscle of her body speaking of rapt attention. She’s firmly grasping a dagger in one hand, and from the look on the merchant’s face, he isn’t the only one not keen on her gesturing with it wildly, seemingly unaware of it still in her grasp. 

He catches her wrist on a backswing when he reaches her, and she jumps slightly before she realizes it’s him, handing the weapon over with a chagrined expression when she realizes what she’s been doing. The merchant accepts it back with a relieved look and places it carefully out of Ciri’s reach. 

“And what might you be doing, love?” He asks, tugging the brim of her hat to her eyebrows before she stops him, grinning and swatting to get him to let go. 

“I want a dagger,” she says firmly, and with an enthusiasm that makes him want to say “absolutely fucking not” immediately. 

Unfortunately, she grasps his arm and bounces with enthusiasm and looks up at him with massive, beseeching eyes. 

Damned unfair, those eyes. 

His best attempts at dissuading her fail miserably, and finally with a sigh, he makes his peace with his acquired child obtaining a stabby thing. 

Joy. 

He takes over negotiations after that. He carries a blade in his boot himself–a gift from someone best left unnamed years ago, kept even amidst his anger for the security of it–and knows enough about weapons from years of experience to know quality. He does manage to talk Ciri down from a blade the length of her forearm and gets her to agree to a lovely little dagger with a smooth rosewood handle, small enough to fit into her hand comfortably but large enough that she’ll be able to grow a bit without compromising her grip. He attempts one last, valiant time to dissuade her, but she’s resolute in her choice and is already buckling the soft leather sheath to her belt as the merchant counts out the coins. 

“You couldn’t have just picked out some pretty ribbons?” He groans as they walk away, slinging an arm over her shoulder and leaning against her just to make her stagger and laugh while attempting to prop him back up. 

“Ribbons are next!” She enthuses, shoving at him with surprising strength for a little thing. 

He groans louder and leans more of his weight until they both go down in a giggly pile. 

*

He has a great deal of fun shopping for clothes with her. One of his favorite things growing up was lingering in the room when seamstresses came to outfit his mother and sisters in bright colors he was forbidden from wearing, and none of the delight of lady’s fashion has worn off in the years he’s been able to wear things as bright as he pleases. 

He has a few skirts and a dress in his collection for when he’s among more accepting company, but he takes great delight in picking out frippery for Ciri. Her tastes aren’t as grand as his own–likely a good thing given that his wardrobe budget now needs to stretch for two–but he convinces her into at least a little bit of lace and a few flounces. He gets her a better pair of boots to replace the ill-fitting ones she wore during her escape and a pair of soft embroidered slippers for when they’re not on the road. 

She goes quiet for a while before he notices when they’re back for her last fitting, and he finds her in the corner of the room looking misty-eyed. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks at once, and she jumps a little and sniffles while giving him a weak smile. 

“Just reminds me of-” She catches herself and looks to the woman scribbling away in a little book with notes from the fitting. “-of before,” she finishes. 

He smooths a hand over her head and uses the hold to pull her close enough to press a kiss to her temple, lingering for a moment before pressing his cheek to her crown. There aren’t words to fix this, he knows. Years of training and study and poetry, and there’s nothing he can say that will bring back how very many things she’s lost. She hiccups on the start of a sob and wraps her arm around his waist tightly, pressing her face to his chest. 

“I miss it,” she whimpers quietly. “I miss it so much.”

“Sh,” he soothes, cupping the back of her neck to hold her close and rubbing one hand in slow circles on her back. 

There’s nothing he can do to stop this pain, to give her back her life and her people and her kingdom. But there is one thing he can say, the only thing he has to offer. 

“I’m here, love,” he says, voice low. “I’ve got you.”

*

He discovers in their time together that despite never meeting the man, Ciri shares more than a few similarities to her father of surprise. 

Her proclivity for sharp and pointy things is one. He quickly has to invest in what he calls “play clothes” and she calls “training clothes” when one vigorous session of stabbing at air nearly ruins a new dress, and the trousers and close-fitting shirt and vest just makes her even faster. He’s certainly no expert, but even he can tell from years of proximity to talent that the girl has natural skill. She’s agile and quick and alarmingly vicious, leaving more than a few trees with deep gouges in their bark, although after one battle with an oak nearly leaves her blade too deeply stuck to get out until they employ the horses to pull at it with a rope, she grows a little more cautious about choosing her leafed foes. 

(It makes his chest hurt, sometimes, imagining the pride Geralt would feel if he watched this child he never wanted to claim. In these moments he imagines sitting by the fire and laughing at the two of them and calling out unneeded and unwanted commentary. He imagines tucking himself into Geralt’s side and watching Ciri show off her growing skill, imagines being able to share in joint pride of what would be their child in all respects in this wild, impossible fantasy). 

(When Ciri notices his teary eyes after these stupid daydreams, he always excuses it with smoke from the fire or dust or old age, the latter of which always makes her roll her eyes). (She doesn’t always believe him, he knows, but she doesn’t press at him further, and for that he’s grateful). 

He also discovers that she walks quietly as a damn cat just like Geralt, and the little demon seems to take great delight in scaring the hell out of him. Unlike the witcher, who only rarely startled him on purpose–no matter how much he claimed it was always an accident–Ciri treats spooking him like a sport, and soon he’s always cautious when he turns corners without her in sight, always half-sure his goblin of a child will be lurking, ready to pounce. 

She also shares some of Geralt’s expressions, impossible as it seems. Her little crooked smile when she’s amused at his antics, the angle of her eyebrow when she’s doubtful, the purse of her lips when she’s unimpressed. He sees the witcher in her face on an almost daily basis and gets a little pang of sorrow each time that the man himself will never witness any of it. 

He looks at her sometimes and sees a ghost, a spectre that haunts him no matter how fucking hard he tries to leave him in the past. 

He keeps those times to himself, excuses any damp eyes or melancholy moods to onions or the weather or pinchy shoes. 

It’s just him and Ciri now, after all, no white-haired, silent third party to be found. 

And it’s fine. 

It’s all so very fucking fine. 

*

When he stumbles into a clearing with a familiar horse and an even more familiar body lax on the ground, his first response is to look skyward. 

“Are you fucking serious?” He asks no one in particular. Not religious by nature, he’s not entirely sure which deity is responsible for yet another surprise find, but he’s certain that some godly fucker is having a good laugh at his expense. 

“Jask?” Ciri asks from farther behind. They took a wrong turn about an hour ago and ended up tromping through forest too thick to ride in, so he’d left her to lead the horses while he scouted ahead a bit. “What’s wrong?” 

He hears the tension in her voice and makes himself take a breath and calm down so he won’t alarm her. 

“Nothing, darling, just wait there a second.” Her own experiences aside, he’d rather not subject her to a dead body if he can help it. 

(Even the thought of the body in front of him being dead makes him feel like he can’t fucking breathe, but he shoves that down ruthlessly. He shouldn’t care. He won’t). 

Roach nickers to him, picking her way closer, and he spares a moment to press his head to hers, one hand stroking her velvet-soft snout. 

“Hello, beautiful,” he says softly, eyes pricking with tears. She snuffles him, and he laughs wetly. “No treats for you today, greedy,” he says fondly, and she snorts, bumping him hard enough to make him sway. He pushes her head away gently and squares his shoulders before turning to the witcher facedown on the ground, so still he’s terrified he isn’t breathing. 

Geralt. 

It takes him a few faltering steps to actually commit to moving closer, and he’s grateful for the support of Roach at his back, following him like a loyal hound. He slowly drops to one knee and shoves messy and tangled hair away–feeling a horrible mixed wave of fondness and exasperation and hatred and affection at the rough shape it’s in–to press his fingers to the witcher’s throat. The contact sends little pinpricks like lightning through his body, and he’s more than a little disgusted with himself that touching Geralt still feels thrilling. It takes a few horrible moments before he detects a faint throb, and the relief of it makes him drop his head forward, feeling boneless. He lets himself linger in the relief for a few long moments before he rolls his head up again, giving Geralt a critical look.

“This is so fucking typical of you,” he informs him. 

Geralt remains silent. 

So very fucking typical. 

*

They make camp in the clearing, and he leaves Ciri to set up and attempt to start the fire while he drags Geralt to a pallet. The girl has proven to be a little pyro, and he ignores the alarming sound of victorious laughter while she works, leaving Roach in charge as soon as the mare is done establishing that she’s the boss in this clearing with the other horses. 

Geralt’s really done some fine work on himself with this one, and Jaskier grumbles and swears as he stitches up a gash on the man’s side and hoists him up to wrap the wound. He applies bruise salve after digging it out of the witcher’s satchel and then pours potions down the man’s throat, propping Geralt’s head on his own shoulder to make sure he won’t choke. He presses his lips together tight when the witcher’s head lolls and presses their cheeks together, remembering when such a thing would have been a dream come true. 

As it is now, it’s a relief when he’s safely able to set him down and cover him with a blanket. 

Knowing Geralt’s habits, it’s quick work to find a few snares the man set earlier around the camp, and he leaves Ciri in the clearing while he retrieves them and the rabbits within. Geralt’s unconsciousness aside, Roach is a force to be reckoned with, and he knows the mare will look after Ciri just fine while he’s gone. 

When he gets back, he sees Ciri skitter across the clearing from where she’d been kneeling beside Geralt and sighs. 

He figured she’d have questions. 

He’d just hoped he wouldn’t have to answer them. 

Her mildly guilty silence doesn’t last long as he skewers the rabbits to cook. She slowly makes her way to his side and fidgets with things while he works until she gathers her courage. 

“He’s…he’s the White Wolf, isn’t he?” 

A quick glance to the prone form still asleep on his bedroll reveals that someone has tugged Geralt’s medallion from below his shirt, and together with his distinctive hair, it’s not hard to see how Ciri would guess such a thing. 

“Yes,” he answers, not meaning to sound curt but the word coming out snippy nonetheless. Ciri pulls back a little bit, and he forces himself to release the tension in his shoulders. His own shit with Geralt isn’t her fault, and his own anger and resentment aside, a dumb, foolish part of him doesn’t want to negatively color Ciri’s view of one of the last people in the world who’s definitively hers in some way. He hasn’t sung his latest little ditty about the man around her on purpose, and he doesn’t want to fuck up such a winning streak now. “His name is Geralt,” he tells her, and he’s proud that his voice comes out even, not like he wants to spit the name like something sour at all. 

“Geralt,” she mouths to herself, like she’s trying it out, even though he knows she knew it already from his own stories if nothing else. Calanthe had tried to forbid it, but it hadn’t seemed right to him, Ciri not knowing about the man she was bound to by destiny, no matter how little Geralt believed in such things. 

He thinks he should say something nice about the witcher, should share an anecdote like the time Geralt got his ass beaten by an angry mother swan while saving her cygnet after it got stuck in a fence, but his throat swells around the very idea of such a thing. He has so many memories, so many good times. 

But after the mountain, they’re all so fucking painful. 

Ciri, blessedly, rescues him from himself. 

“And that’s Roach, right?” She asks, turning to the mare who perks up and whinnies at the sound of her name. She comes closer and snuffles at Ciri’s hair, and the girl laughs and tilts her head up, kissing Roach’s muzzle and then stroking at her cheek. “You’re beautiful,” she tells the horse, and Jaskier feels his throat tighten again. Ciri loves horses, he knows, and it’s yet another thing that hurts, another thing she has in common with Geralt, another thing he both wants to share with the witcher and keep from him jealously. 

“She’s also a thief,” he warns her instead of retreating into his own head, “so mind your pockets.” 

Forewarned, Ciri turns out her pockets even as Roach leans her head down to nose at them, revealing lint and not much else. 

“Sorry, Roach,” she says apologetically as the horse snorts and stomps one foot. “I’ll give you a sugar cube in the next town, promise.” 

“‘s bad for her.” 

Both of their heads snap over at the sound of the gravelly voice, and Jaskier feels his breath catch at the first sight of those golden eyes, slitted as they are against pain or exhaustion or both. Geralt tries to push himself up but grunts and goes rigid. Jaskier pushes himself to his feet and motions for Ciri to stay. 

“Don’t,” he says sharply, and he sees the moment that Geralt realizes that it’s him. “Don’t,” he says quietly and even more sharply, jerking his head slightly to indicate Ciri, who is pretending very badly to not be trying to listen to them while she pokes at the sticks holding the rabbits above the fire. 

Geralt looks at him like he’s not entirely sure he’s not dreaming, and Jaskier bites hard on the inside of his cheek to distract himself from how it makes him feel. 

“Rip along your side, pretty severe bruising, at least a couple of broken ribs, and either some venom or poison or something. I gave you White Honey and a few others, so I think that’s at least taken care of.” It’s a distraction, this clinical repetition of his observations, and he’s grateful for the moment to breathe, to ignore the intense gaze still fixed on him. At last Geralt looks away, eyes landing on Ciri who jumps a bit when she tries to peek up and makes eye contact with him, snapping her attention back to supper. Jaskier snorts softly, and Geralt looks to him again. 

“Is she…” Geralt trails off, and Jaskier wishes he didn’t know the man well enough to hear the words not spoken. 

“Yes,” he answers tersely, tugging at a bandage needlessly and feeling a petty little thrill of satisfaction when Geralt grunts in pain at the motion. “You know about Cintra?” 

A nod. 

“She made it out. She found me. I dyed her hair. Happily ever after.” 

Story delivered, he goes to shove himself to his feet, and he nearly slaps Geralt’s hand away when the man reaches for him. The witcher withdraws at once, and Jaskier wishes he could be angrier about the attempt than he is. 

“Jas-” 

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he says loudly. “If Little Miss Scorch hasn’t burned it.” 

“Hey!”

*

Ciri has all of the hunger of a growing thing, and he leaves a rabbit and a half to her, sharing the other rabbit and a half between himself and Geralt. In another life, he might have tried to push a whole one on the man, knowing his enhanced metabolism, but Jaskier has never pretended to not be as petty as he is, and in the moment, he’s hard-pressed not to leave the man with a single leg just to be an asshole. 

Geralt at least seems to sense how the thin the ice he’s on is, and he holds his peace throughout supper. He offers half of his bread and cheese to Ciri, which gains him some small measure of goodwill in Jaskier’s books, but he quickly ruins it after Ciri has dropped off to sleep across the fire, belly full and tucked warmly into her bedroll. 

“It’s dangerous to travel with her,” Geralt says, low enough for only him to hear. 

He stabs at the fire with a vicious motion, annoyed already. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says with sarcasm he hopes is cutting, “I really should have just left her to starve on the streets.” 

Geralt sighs like he’s being dramatic, and it’s only the sleeping child across the clearing that keeps him from using his fire poking stick as a witcher whomping stick. 

“Jas-” 

“She found me,” he snaps. “She found me, and she needed me.” He laughs, a short huff of noise that doesn’t remotely approach amused. “It’s good it was me,” he says snidely. “Since we both know how much you hate anyone counting on you.” 

He shoves himself to his feet and crosses to lie near Ciri before Geralt can respond, snapping out his bedroll and tucking himself down for the night, back turned to the witcher on the other side of the fire. 

He doesn’t fall asleep until nearly dawn. 

*

Geralt hasn’t healed up enough by morning to move. Jaskier’s irritation with this state of affairs is exceeded only by the witcher’s. 

He seriously considers just leaving. Geralt’s a big boy who talks all the time about not needing anyone. It would serve him right to be left to develop gangrene all on his lonesome. 

Unfortunately, he also needs to at least try to set an example of something approaching morals to the child he’s acquired. 

He and Ciri leave camp to set the traps and to give the girl a chance to ask the questions he can tell she’s yet too shy to ask around Geralt. 

“Are his eyes always gold? Was he born like that? Do all witchers have animal necklaces? Are witcher eyes always like a cat’s? Can he really smell lies? Does he really kill monsters with his bare teeth?”

Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Kind of. Sometimes. 

Jaskier answers all of her questions academically, trying to pretend he’s just giving a lecture at Oxenfurt. Ciri doesn’t run out of them by the time they return to camp, but she’s not quite rude enough to talk about Geralt like an oddity right in front of him, no matter how much Jaskier wants to provoke her into it just to get under Geralt’s skin. 

Ciri takes out her dagger while he changes Geralt’s bandages, and he feels hopelessly fond of how she’s very clearly trying to show off her skills, fledgling as they are. Mentally, he dares Geralt to be an asshole about it for the sake of a justified fight. Instead, he starts giving pointers. 

“Move your left foot back farther,” he calls the first time, startling Ciri so badly that she nearly fumbles her blade out of her hand entirely. 

“What?” She asks, eyes wide. 

“Your left foot,” Geralt repeats with a nod towards her. “You’re off balance right now on that stab. Moving your foot back will make you more stable.” 

Ciri nods and then does as he suggests, sliding the foot slowly until he tells her to stop and then repeating the stab. 

“Good,” Geralt says, when it’s clear she’s got it. 

Ciri beams. 

Jaskier grinds his teeth. 

*

Despite his best efforts to avoid it with some perfectly believable fake snoring, they end up having another heart to heart the next night after Ciri is asleep. 

“I can take her,” Geralt says, and it’s all Jaskier can do not to slap him across the face. 

“You don’t know her,” he says at once. “You don’t know her, and she doesn’t know you. I’m not letting her go with a stranger.” He meets the witcher’s gaze directly and dares him to persist. 

Wisely, Geralt doesn’t. 

“There are powerful people after her,” he says, trying a new angle. “You can’t protect her from them.” 

“And yet she lives,” he says with mock surprise, pressing his hands together as if in prayer. “A miracle.” 

Geralt rolls his eyes with the slightest hint of the fondness Jaskier used to search his face for hungrily. Now it simply turns his stomach with how much he still likes seeing it. 

“Jask,” Geralt says in what’s clearly meant to be a placating tone. 

“Jaskier,” he corrects sharply, and he sees a satisfying flicker of pain cross the witcher’s face. Good, let him regret the loss of familiarity. It’s about time Jaskier doesn’t feel like the only fucking person who lost something. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says with clear care, “you can’t take care of her alone.” 

It’s a fair statement, and Jaskier resents it all the more for it. He knows they’re living on dumb luck, that it won’t hold out forever, but he’s loath to admit as much to Geralt. 

“And what’s your solution?” 

“You could…” Geralt stops, seems to reconsider his phrasing, wonder of wonders. “I could…go with you.” 

It’s a suggestion he saw coming, and one he desperately didn’t want to. It’s logical. It makes sense. It would make them safer. It would mean someone else to watch out for Ciri. Their own shit aside, he knows how Geralt feels about carrying out what he views as his duty. For all of his many, many, many, many faults, if he decides he’s responsible for keeping Ciri safe, he’ll die before he lets harm come to her. 

It’s a clear, obvious solution. 

And Jaskier would rather eat glass than do it. 

*

They go to bed without discussing it further, but Jaskier takes him aside in the morning while Ciri is arguing with Roach, the mare planting one hoof on the edge of her bedroll and refusing to move until part of Ciri’s apple is handed over. 

“Fine,” he says quietly. “Come with us. Keep her safe.” 

There’s more he wants to say, more words that have built inside of him for months, but Ciri has handed over the demanded extortion and has nearly finished packing, and he’d rather they get the whole ugly business over with before young ears have to hear it. He can tell already that Ciri admires Geralt and wants to know him more, and Jaskier is trying very hard to pretend that he doesn’t resent it. 

He can only hope he’s mildly successful. 

Geralt stops him with a hand on his shoulder, and he very nobly doesn’t take a swing at him for it. 

“Thank you,” the witcher says quietly, and Jaskier closes his eyes briefly, hating himself and Geralt and destiny all at the same time. 

“Whatever,” he says, shrugging off the touch and moving to braid Ciri’s hair for the day. 

*

The first hiccup in their new arrangement comes at the very first town they arrive in. They secure two rooms for the night–Jaskier insisting on two after Geralt tries to ask for one–and head up to leave their heavier bags inside before going into the market. They need to restock both of their stores of supplies, and Jaskier is already looking forward to the excuse to get some distance from Geralt. Ciri had kept up enough chatter for three people on the journey, her shyness melting away and her natural curiosity emerging. Jaskier had been on edge, ready at any moment to intervene if Geralt got sharp, but the witcher had been patient and obliging about the many questions, and so he had been left with a surplus of irritation and no easy out for it. 

Until Ciri sparks a disagreement as they’re readying to leave after dividing up who needed to buy what. 

“Can I come?” 

“Of course.” 

“No.” 

Both men speak at the same moment, and Ciri looks between them. Jaskier grits his teeth before he looks at the witcher from the corner of his eye. 

“It’s safer if she’s with us,” it grinds at him, having to say “us” when he wants to say “me,” but he’s still trying not to let Ciri in on the little power struggle he already anticipates is going to happen between them. 

“It’s safer if she’s here,” Geralt disagrees, and the confident tone of it is further fuel on the fire of his temper. The witcher is speaking like his word is law, as if he’s considered every angle and obviously come to the right conclusion. 

Arrogant fucker. 

“She’s safer with us so we can leave with her if we need to. It makes no sense to leave her behind,” he makes himself say evenly before he turns back to the girl. “Ciri love, grab your cloak,” he says with false cheeriness before Geralt actually speaks, cutting the witcher off even as he opens his mouth. Ciri still studies them warily but slowly turns to do as she’s been told. When her back is turned, his smile drops, and he gives Geralt his most cutting look, one that dares him to say shit about the decision. 

The witcher, miracle of miracles, doesn’t. 

*

Geralt is tense the entire time they’re at the market, but Jaskier and Ciri are in easy rapport. He catches Ciri shooting glances back to Geralt, and he tries to pretend it doesn’t hurt, how curious the girl is. She should be, it’s only natural, and once upon a time he would have encouraged it. 

Now it’s all he can do to not throw produce at the man as he picks it out. 

Chapter Text

They linger in the town long enough for Geralt to take a contract, and they’re easily able to present a united front when it comes to telling Ciri no to her request to go watch. A sulk is headed off with a promise to let her examine the corpse before Geralt turns it over for payment, and macabre little beastie that she is, she gleefully accepts the compromise, barely paying attention at all during their performance while they wait. 

“Are these fangs or just teeth?” She asks them both in a general way once Geralt’s back, as she pokes at the head of the thing with a stick, squealing with gleeful horror when a too-enthusiastic poke elicits ooze. 

“Do they look like they could kill you?” Jaskier calls back, safely out of splashing range from any decomposition, a lesson learned through disgusting experience. 

A brief moment of silence while Ciri contemplates and examines, and then a decisive, “Yes!” 

“Fangs,” he and Geralt answer at once, and they share a small, amused glance at the synchronicity before Jaskier remembers that he’s actually still quite pissed and looks away. In his periphery, he sees Geralt still looking at him, but he focuses on herding his child away from the slimy monster body and wrestling her now quite slimy stick from her while she threatens to touch him with it. 

They head out the day after the contract is done and payment has been collected, and Ciri wears the small fang Geralt gave her from the hunt on a cord around her neck. She had jumped up to hug Geralt with a breathless “thank you thank you thank you” when he gave it to her, and Geralt, after a surprised moment of freezing, had returned the gesture, patting her back gingerly while waiting for her to let go. 

Jaskier–remembering his own days of one-sided hugs when he wasn’t shoved away entirely–is trying very, very hard to pretend like he isn’t bitter about it. 

*

They’re a week into traveling together when Geralt suggests training with Ciri and not just instructing her from the sidelines. The girl agrees at once with happy enthusiasm, and Jaskier gives his reluctant consent with a terse nod after the girl gathers herself enough to think to check. It settles something in him, this small sign that she still defers to his judgment, but it’s a small enough consolation against how much she clearly worships the witcher. 

(It only rankles him a little bit a lot that his own stories have played a large role in that worship. He fed her a steady diet of White Wolf stories when she was a little thing, after all. He can’t be mad now that she’s developed a taste for proximity to greatness.)

He takes Geralt aside while Ciri digs through her bag for her boots, having already changed into her slippers after they set up camp for the night. He still wants to say no on principle, but he knows it’ll be useful. 

Still. 

Ground rules. 

“She isn’t a witcher,” he says baldly, and Geralt’s eyes narrow. 

“I know that,” he says with a faint edge, and Jaskier is hard-pressed not to escalate this into an all-out fight. He wants so very badly to finally have a brawl and get at least some of his ire out of his system, but Ciri is still in full view of them, and he’s still at least trying to act like a mature adult. 

“I know you know, but when’s the last time you were responsible for training a human child?” He debates the next point, knows it’s a sore point that he only knows about because of Geralt getting righteously drunk and letting slip a tidbit about his past years ago that he’s never brought up again. “You never trained other witchers until after the trials.” Predictably, Geralt’s face shutters entirely, a stonewall of no emotion at all that reveals more than he thinks just by doing it. “If you break her, she won’t heal like you do.” 

“I know that,” Geralt growls before turning on his heel. He moves to walk away, but Jaskier grabs him. He gets dragged a stumbling half-step before Geralt stops, still facing away. 

“I know you would never hurt her on purpose,” he says quietly, shooting a glance to Ciri, hopping in place to get her second boot on, the leather still tight from its newness. “Just…be careful.”

Geralt doesn’t respond as he shakes off his hand, but his dagger practice with Ciri involves using chunks of bark and not actual blades, so Jaskier will take what he can get. 

*

Given the necessity of keeping an eye on Ciri, he and Geralt don’t end up with a lot of time one on one. After enough stilted openers to conversations he doesn’t want to have, he ends up laying down for the night at the same time as the girl. He knows Geralt knows him well enough to realize that he’s only faking being asleep–he’s always been a night owl when left to his own devices–but the witcher doesn’t pry. 

They don’t even say goodnight to each other. 

Given this lack of time to talk, they stave off of a true fight for quite a while, which was the point of the entire exercise. 

And then they arrive at an inn with a bathing chamber off of the room while it’s pouring outside, leaving Geralt and Jaskier trapped in a space with each other as thunder roars outside. 

For his part, Jaskier does his best to work on his new composition. He’s not actually focused, is instead making nonsense notes and scratches around stanzas and refrains, but it’s better than having to focus on the awkward silence between him and the witcher. Mentally, he tries to urge Ciri to bathe faster and relieve them of this stunted togetherness. He’s never one to begrudge someone a good lounge in hot water, but gods above he feels like he’s going to climb out of his own skin if this tension goes on much longer. 

“Thought you would be spending the night with that baker.” 

He looks up at the sound of Geralt’s voice to find the man looking at him, face impassive. He narrows his eyes as he picks apart the statement and finds he doesn’t like it at fucking all. 

“I don’t know this town,” he says, only barely tempering the edge in his voice. He understands the implication, Geralt expressing surprise that he would flirt and not try to parlay it into a fuck. “Wouldn’t be safe.” 

“I’m here.” 

The two words shouldn’t make him as angry as they do. He knows this. If he were thinking rationally, not bothered by his own residual fury and hurt, he might think Geralt’s making an offer to keep an eye out so he can go pursue a climax or three without shirking his duties. 

The problem, however, is that Geralt hasn’t always been here. Has made it quite clear that if he didn’t feel bound by duty, in fact, he wouldn’t be here at all. 

To keep his snippy temper from escaping, he merely shrugs and looks back to his notebook, not even bothering to write this time, just making tight swirls of ink in a hint for Geralt to fucking drop it. 

“Then again, you’ve probably worked it out by now.” If he didn’t know better, he would say the words carry a trace of…what? Jealousy? “You’ve never been one to-” 

“To what, Geralt?” He demands, snapping his notebook shut with enough force that a loose page shoots out and flutters to the floor out of the corner of his eye. “To pass up an easy fuck?” 

“We’re both looking after her,” Geralt says with a shrug that makes Jaskier want to throw something at him. “I’m just saying. There’s no need to deny yourself if you want to go find him.” 

Jaskier can feel himself nearly trembling with rage, and he doesn’t even fucking know why. He can feel the sting of tears in his eyes, and he’s so fucking angry, with himself, with Geralt, with the fucking baker, with everything that’s been sitting between him and the witcher since that godsforsaken mountain. 

He’s pissed that Geralt would think he’s randy enough to chase a skit and leave the child he’s responsible for alone. He’s pissed that he has to share Ciri at all. He’s pissed that Ciri has lost her life and is left with such poor substitutes to look after her. He’s pissed that Geralt’s doing so well with her. He’s pissed that he worries every fucking day if Geralt’s going to get fed up and leave again and break her heart, too. 

He’s pissed he was ever a stupid 18 year old who loved a witcher and never quite managed to stop, no matter how fucking hard he’s tried. 

He knows Geralt can smell how righteously angry he is even if he couldn’t read it in his face, and he sees the man squaring his shoulders like he’s getting ready for a fight. The sight of it makes him want to give him one, but a splash and an alarmed squeal distracts him in a moment, and both he and Geralt move to the door as one, both grabbing for the door at the same moment. 

“I’m okay!” Ciri calls with a laugh. “Just slipped a little!” 

Both of them breathe out a huff of air in relief, and Geralt is the first to back away. Jaskier feels little pinpricks on his arm at the contrast of cool air when he does so from where the witcher had been pressed against him, and something about the loss of it makes the anger drain out of him. 

He’s so fucking tired of being angry. He’s so fucking tired of missing Geralt when the man is right there beside him. He wants his old life back, wants the same easy company they enjoyed for twenty years. He wants them to be a united front. He wants to be able to look after Ciri together without stomping all over each other’s toes in the process. He wants to be able to pour a glass of wine for each of them and toast to the challenges of childrearing. He wants them to be able to commiserate and moan and celebrate together. He wants them to be able to laugh at both of them being so tightly wound that they jump up at the same moment at the first sign of danger to Ciri. 

And yet Geralt is returning to his place on the floor silently, dropping down with feline grace and taking up a whetstone to sharpen Ciri’s dagger without another word said. 

And Jaskier thinks, not for the first time, that this broken thing, this horrible, ugly, forced togetherness is all they’ll ever have. 

He leaves the room with some vague excuse of checking on breakfast tomorrow so he can duck into a linen closet and cry without Geralt or Ciri knowing.

It isn’t the first time. 

It certainly won’t be the last. 

*

They continue in the same way, awkward and tense and so uncomfortable that he feels like he’s being wound tighter and tighter like wool on a spindle. 

It would be easier, he thinks often, if he was able to look back on his years with Geralt and remember only the bad, if he could reflect on twenty years together and remember only bitchy comments and shouting matches and cold nights and fights over blanket distribution. He wants, so very desperately, to be able to think about that entire part of his life as one protracted slog for the sake of his reputation and art. 

But what makes the bad so much worse is that there’s so much good tangled up in it. For each bad memory he can easily recall two or three of the best moments of his life. For every cold night in some muddy clearing there were nights tucked up against Geralt in a soft bed, tipsy and happy. For every day Geralt’s inherent angst overtook him to make him more of a grouch than usual, there are memories of attentive silence, of the witcher recalling some small detail at a later date that proves he was almost always listening, no matter how he acted to the contrary. 

He wishes he didn’t know what it felt like to have large, gentle hands tending his hurts, careful no matter the gruff words that accompanied them. He wishes he didn’t know what it felt like to have a strong arm lift him up to drink some foul medicine during an illness. He wishes-

He wishes he didn’t know what it feels like to love Geralt of Rivia. 

It would make it so much easier to hate him. 

*

He startles awake at the sound of a barely-stifled scream. 

He’s up at once, cursing as his blankets tangle around him. By the time he’s managed to free himself, however, it’s clear that the only danger they’re under is what Ciri’s sleeping mind can conjure. Geralt is already beside her, and she’s a tiny trembling form against his broad chest, one massive arm around her slender frame. He’s speaking to her, too low for Jaskier to hear, but he sees her shake her head. 

“Jask?” She calls, voice wobbly and tremulous, and big teary eyes look for him. 

He’s across the clearing in a moment, kneeling to gather her close, and Geralt releases her easily, sitting back and giving them space. Ciri sniffles and buries her face against his shoulder, and he moves one hand up to press her head down, grounding her. It likely makes him a horrible person, feeling smug that Ciri still wants him and not Geralt after a bad dream, but after being left in a camp alone because the girl trotted along after Geralt to go fishing without a backwards glance, he could use a little salve on his bruised pride. 

“Easy, love,” he says softly. “You’re alright. I’m here.” 

He looks up to find Geralt watching them, an expression on his face that Jaskier’s never seen there before. If it weren’t Geralt, he might be tempted to say it was something almost tender, but as it is, he doesn’t know if the witcher is capable of such a thing. He probably trained away the ability years ago in some misguided idea of independence. 

Well, it’s not his problem now, he dismisses easily, tucking his head down against Ciri’s, resting his cheek on her silk-soft hair. 

He has bigger things to fret over than Geralt’s emotional state. 

He’s learned that much by now at least. 

*

“Does she get them often?” 

Jaskier blinks at Geralt and finds the witcher watching Ciri attempting to negotiate loading a saddlebag on her horse, who seems to be making a game of leading her in circles. The witcher smiles a bit, the faintest little twitch of his lips, when Ciri stomps her foot and gets stomped at in return, and Jaskier aches a bit, seeing the fondness. He wants it to be shared, their feelings for Ciri, and it hurts each time he sees that they carry their affection separately. 

“The nightmares?” Jaskier clarifies, forcing himself to look away and snorting as Roach comes to investigate the proceedings, helping not at all by trying to nose at Ciri’s pockets for rogue snacks while she’s distracted. 

“Roach!” Geralt calls sharply, and the mare looks at him and pins her ears at the clear reprimand but huffs a weary breath and bullies the other mare into standing still so Ciri can fasten the bag. “Yes,” he says to Jaskier, looking to him then. “I’ve heard her wake up a few times, but she hasn’t been that bad before.” 

“She used to get them a lot more,” Jaskier says with a shrug. “I really got the newborn experience in that first week with her. She had me up at least twice a night.” He tries to say it lightly, but he can’t quite make a joke of a young girl’s terror. “She’s gotten better since, but they creep up on her now and then.” 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Geralt says quietly, and Jaskier presses his lips together. 

“I doubt you could have stopped an entire kingdom from-” 

“No,” Geralt cuts him off, and when Jaskier looks to him, his eyes are so earnest that it hurts a little. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you earlier.” 

He bites the inside of his cheek against the urge to point out exactly why Geralt wasn’t there, but he can’t quite stop it entirely. 

“It’s fine,” he says, with an evenness he thinks is admirable. “I was used to being alone by then.” 

He walks away before Geralt has a chance to respond. 

*

Geralt and Ciri’s practice frequently devolves into what can only be called play fighting at the end, and it’s one of Jaskier’s pathetic little weaknesses that he lets himself watch, smiling a little while watching a fully grown witcher let himself get tossed around a bit by a child who barely comes up to his chest. 

Ciri squirms and cackles when she’s hoisted over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and Geralt can barely hold back his smile when her wiggling increases. It lights up his entire face, that look. 

It’s a playfulness Jaskier’s only seen hints of before, during stupid jokes and pranks resolutely denied later. It’s the same expression the witcher wore when Jaskier woke up one morning to find his lute “mysteriously” 15 feet up in a tree after adding some perfectly lovely flowers to one of Geralt’s black shirts a decade ago. 

“No hair!” Geralt barks, trying to tug one little fist loose from around a hank of white. 

“Yes hair!” Ciri cries, goblin that she is, and she squeals when Geralt gets his hair loose and swings her in front of him by one leg while she kicks at him with the other. 

Jaskier smiles, watching her pure joy at being a pain in the ass. He’d worried at the start that Geralt would be too gruff with her, would be the same stoic dick he’d been in Jaskier’s early days with him. He’d been prepared to pick fights about it, to demand that Geralt behave, to ensure that Ciri would see only the best of him as far as Jaskier could manage it. 

As it turns out, however, Jaskier hasn’t been needed at all to whip Geralt into shape when dealing with his child of surprise. 

He’s a good father, apparently, attentive and supportive and patient. (And durable, he thinks with amusement, watching Geralt scowl but remain upright when a rogue kick lands). He clearly cares for the girl, his innate nurturing coming through full force, and unlike with Jaskier, he doesn’t double back and act like an ass later to make up for it, like he’s keeping some bullshit balance sheet tallied in his head. No, he’s perfectly behaved with Ciri, not a single snap or prickish comment to be seen. 

It makes Jaskier want to leave slugs in his boots. 

*

He wakes one morning to find himself snug and warm beneath a blanket. 

This wouldn’t be odd, except for the fact that he knows damn well he gave Ciri his last night to ward off an extra snap of autumn chill. 

The smell registers then, leather and herbs and horse, and abruptly he shuts his eyes against the way they sting with the urge to cry. When he has himself under control, he summons up his nearly ever-present irritation and leans in. 

He tosses the witcher his blanket back when Ciri’s kneeling by the stream and scrubbing at her face to ready for the day. Geralt catches it easily, and something about the lack of fumble makes him feel mean. 

“I don’t need your help,” Jaskier says, not quite looking at him, stuffing things into bags without paying attention to details, knowing it’ll probably annoy him later when he can’t find shit but unable to care about it in the moment. 

“You were cold,” Geralt says, like a reprimand, and Jaskier grits his teeth. 

“I’m a grown man,” he bites out. “I don’t need you to take care of me.” 

Geralt snorts, and Jaskier cinches the bag shut with so much force he hears a couple of stitches pop. 

“What?” He snaps, turning to look at the man. “I did just fine on my own, you know.” 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Geralt says, moving to rise, but Jaskier tosses the bag he’s holding at him to keep him down. 

He wishes it was heavier. 

“We can get along for Ciri’s sake,” he says, glaring with as much coldness as he can muster, “but that’s it.” He sees Geralt start to open his mouth, and he continues before he has a chance to piss him off any further. “I don’t need you, Geralt, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t need me.” He’s proud, a bit, of how that only feels like a punch to the gut and not a knife. “You don’t need to go out of your way to play nice with me.” 

“I’m not playing,” Geralt says, brows furrowed. “Jaskier, I know what I said-” 

“We don’t need to rehash it,” Jaskier snaps. Gods above, he hears it enough in his own head already. He doesn’t need a repeat performance. “We’re together because we have to be for the sake of a child. That’s it. That’s all we are to each other. So I don’t need your blanket.” It’s a rather lame end to his little spiel, but he’s running out of steam, and he’d rather not be pissed off too badly before the day even starts. 

Geralt searches his face for a long, silent moment. 

“Alright,” he says at last, softly. 

“Alright,” Jaskier echoes with a firm nod, turning away to pack another bag and clenching his jaw to ward off the way his lip wants to wobble. 

It’s what he wanted: Geralt to back off. He didn’t want the witcher to put up a fight, to insist on caring for him. He didn’t want Geralt to push back and say that he was wrong on the mountain, that he does want Jaskier at his side. 

It’s good, that Geralt gave up so easily. 

It’s exactly what he wanted. 

It is. 

*

He and Geralt don’t speak to each other outside of things directly related to Ciri for two weeks after that. 

And it’s perfect, exactly what he planned on. Not awkward or stilted or painful at all. 

*

Ciri notices, of course she does, and she tries to bring it up. 

“Are you and Geralt fighting?” She asks after tagging along to collect some watercress with him one day.

He doesn’t answer for a moment. He’s still not great at identifying food greenery from general greenery, which she’s well aware of, so he at least has an excuse for the pause before he responds. 

“No,” he answers, trying to sound casual. “Why do you ask?” 

A glance to Ciri shows the girl frowning at a rock in thought, little face scrunched in a way that makes his heart feel too big for his chest. He flicks a blob of mud at her. 

“Why do you ask?” He repeats, dodging a retaliatory blob, much larger than his original projectile. 

“You both seem…” A face scrunch again in thought. “Sad.”

Jaskier blinks. That wasn’t the adjective he was expecting. 

“Sad?” He asks. She nods. 

“You don’t talk, but you both seem like you want to. You both look like you’re about to say something to each other all the time, but then you just…don’t.” She tilts her head, looking at him. “And then you look sad about it.” 

Jaskier sighs. The last thing he wanted was for his own shit with the witcher to affect her, but he’s also loath to make her doubt her own observations by denying it. 

“Geralt and I had a fight,” he tells her. “A while ago. We’re still…” He trails off and pulls a plant at random just for the satisfaction of ripping it from the ground. “We’re still not totally over it, I guess.” A lie, a little one, given that he doubts Geralt was impacted at all, but he doesn’t want to be the only one seen to be moping. 

“But you will be?” Ciri asks at once, and there’s so much hope in her voice that Jaskier shuts his eyes, pained. She wants them to get along, clearly, and it hurts that he knows they won’t. 

“Yes,” he says, not turning around and forcing himself not to feel guilty. Parents lie to children all the time. “I’m sure we will.”

Ciri nearly bounces all the way back to camp, and Jaskier feels his own mood grow darker the entire way. 

*

“We need to talk to each other,” Jaskier says that night after Ciri is asleep, laying down with his eyes still closed while he talks.

A quiet hum of question from Geralt, and he sighs once before he sits up, turning and propping himself on an elbow to face him. 

“We need to talk to each other in front of her,” he says with a tilt of his head to the princess snoring softly in her bedroll. “It’s upsetting her, us not talking.” 

“You’re the one who doesn’t want to talk.” 

Jaskier looks at him, incredulous. 

“Yes, because nothing invites conversation like forbidding silence,” he says, words heavy with sarcasm. 

“It never stopped you before,” Geralt says, and his gaze is so penetrating that Jaskier nearly has to look away. “You always talked before, regardless of if I responded or not.” 

“And look how well that ended,” Jaskier snipes, and he sees Geralt wince, just slightly. 

“Jask-” 

“I don’t want to talk about the mou-” 

“We need to talk-” 

“-it won’t do anything but ma-” 

“-won’t listen to me-” 

Their overlapping arguing increases in volume until Ciri sits up, startled awake and looking between them both. 

“Sorry,” they say as one, and Ciri glares at both of them blearily, half-asleep and grumpy accordingly. 

“You’re too loud,” she says, aggrieved, before she turns over with a huff and tugs her blanket over her head. 

For fear of their child’s wrath, both Jaskier and Geralt go quiet for the night. 

*

“Morning,” Geralt says to him the next morning, and it startles him so badly that he fumbles his waterskin. He looks at the witcher, frowning. Even before the mountain, Geralt rarely greeted him first. What is-

Then he sees Ciri, who is trying and failing not to watch them hopefully. 

Ah. It’s not out of any desire to actually speak with him. It’s for Ciri’s sake. 

Well, Jaskier can play nice for her. 

“Good morning,” he responds with a nod, and Geralt gives him a small smile that would almost seem real if he didn’t know it was all a performance.

Geralt’s a good actor, he finds out over the next few days. He hadn’t thought the witcher one for duplicity, but the man commits to his role. They talk to each other throughout the day, and Geralt provides at least 30% of the conversation, a wild increase from the years it was just the two of them. Jaskier leaves most of the talking to him to Ciri, but occasionally Geralt asks a question or makes a comment just for him, and though it aches each time, pretending to get along and knowing it’s only for Ciri’s sake, he plays along. He even manages some smiles and fake laughs for Geralt’s godsawful jokes. 

He sees the tension leaving Ciri’s shoulders with each day they put on their little performance, and for the sake of that, Jaskier can swallow down his own pain and tell Geralt good morning and good night. 

No matter how much faking it aches. 

*

“We should start heading to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says apropos of nothing one morning. 

Jaskier fully drops the pot he’s holding, half-full of dishwater. Ciri jumps at the clang and then looks between them. 

“What’s Kaer Morhen?” She asks. Geralt looks to him, eyebrows raised. 

“That never made it into your stories?” 

“Well,” Jaskier says, shifting his weight and looking away, “you always acted like it was a secret. I didn’t think you’d want me to go around shouting it from the rooftops.” 

He looks up briefly to find Geralt looking at him with something almost like gratitude, and it hurts all the more to see it and know it’s for Ciri’s benefit, a part of this little play they’re putting on for her. He ignores the pain and moves on. 

“Anyway,” he says briskly, “why would we go to your super secret witcher fort no one’s allowed to know about under pain of death?” 

He sees a little flicker of an amused smile cross Geralt’s face, another detail to sell the act, and he focuses back on the pot, scrubbing at a bit of stuck oats. 

“It’ll be the safest place for winter,” Geralt says, kneeling down across from him and reaching to take the sponge. Out of Ciri’s direct line of sight, Jaskier doesn’t have to pretend, and he gives the witcher a look cutting enough to make him falter. 

“I have friends who can take us over winter,” Jaskier says, jerking the pot back closer to himself to keep it out of Geralt’s reach and ignoring the way it makes water slosh onto the knee of his trousers. 

“Kaer Morhen will be safer,” Geralt says, sitting back, and Jaskier sees frustration on his face. The look settles something in him, even as it hurts, this acknowledgement that their friendliness is all a performance. It makes it easier to keep focused. 

“And what will the other witchers think?” Jaskier asks. “They don’t like outsiders there, I’d imagine. That’s why I never got to tag along, isn’t it?” 

He means the last bit to come across as a joke because Ciri is listening, but he knows a little tremor of hurt comes through. It’s what he’d always told himself over the years as the reason why he was left behind each winter. He’d told himself he understood it back then. The other witchers are likely as private as Geralt, and with the world as ugly to witchers as it is, he had done his best not to begrudge them this little sanctuary. 

“That’s not why,” Geralt says and presses his lips together. Leave it to Geralt to ignore a perfectly good excuse. “Jask, I-” 

“So what’s different now?” He interrupts, before it dawns on him, and he sits upright at once, voice going hard. “You’re not taking her without me.” He doesn’t know what actual power he has to fight the decision, but he won’t let Ciri be taken, not while he’s still alive. 

“I’m not leaving Jask,” Ciri pipes in, dropping to sit next to him, even as Jaskier sees the hesitance on her face to be siding against Geralt. 

The witcher sees it, too, and he extends a gentle hand to ruffle her hair. 

“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” he says reassuringly, shoving her back with a measured push when she tries to bat at him. She launches herself back up with a gleeful war cry, and Jaskier loses them both to their wrestling for a few minutes as he finishes packing up camp, glad for the brief reprieve. 

When Ciri has emerged victorious and Geralt has allowed himself to be pinned with a dry “oh no” as she threatens dire vengeance, the witcher concedes defeat and moves to help finish packing. Jaskier barely resists the urge to flinch away when their shoulders brush. 

“Hey,” Geralt says softly, and Jaskier presses his lips together as he focuses on buckling his lute onto his saddle. “Hey,” he says with slightly more force, and Jaskier spins to face him. 

“What?” He demands, impatient. “What what what?”

Geralt looks a little taken aback by the vehemence, but he gathers himself. 

“It’s the safest place for her,” he says, voice earnest. “And I should have taken you years ago an-” 

“Don’t,” Jaskier cuts him off. He doesn’t want to hear meaningless platitudes. “Ciri’s not listening right now. We don’t have to play this game.” 

“It’s not-” 

“Will they be kind to her?” He asks, talking over him. “I know that witchers aren’t what people say they are, but I don’t want anyone hazing her in some bizarre manly bullshit contest as the price of entry.” 

“They won’t,” Geralt says at once, and the immediacy of it is reassuring. “I swear Jaskier. Even if they were the type, I wouldn’t let them, I promise. They’ll welcome you both.” 

“I don’t care about how they’ll feel about me,” Jaskier says, and he almost means it. Years ago it would have been his dearest wish to be embraced by what he knows is the closest thing Geralt has to family, but that’s a dream best left in the past. “I just need them to be kind to Ciri.” 

“They will be,” Geralt says, and there’s no trace of a lie to be found in his face or his voice. “They will be, Jaskier, I swear it.” 

“Fine,” he says, dropping his head for a moment, already tired before their day has even begun. “Fine, to your secret witcher castle it is.” 

“They’ve wanted to meet you anyway,” Geralt says quietly, but Jaskier walks away, pretending not to hear. 

He doesn’t need meaningless platitudes, not when Ciri isn’t even around to hear them. 

*

Naturally, that can’t be the only compilation in their immediate future. 

Of course not. 

Ciri’s magic reveals itself in a massive display when a sneeze makes her set their campfire ablaze twenty feet in the air. 

It’s about par for the course as their luck goes, frankly. 

Once the screaming has settled–hers and Jaskier’s–Geralt takes him aside while Ciri eyes the scorched tree branches above warily, rubbing at her nose like it’s to blame for the whole thing. 

“We should find Yen,” he says, and Jaskier feels like ice has crept into his bones, cold hurt and anger settling into him, stupid as it is. 

“I doubt a fuck is going to solve the problem of our magic child,” he says, hearing the acid in his own voice. 

“I’m not looking to f-” Geralt cuts himself off and shakes his head like he’s knocking the words loose. He breathes deeply, once, and then he continues. “Ciri will need someone to teach her. If she’s this powerful by accident, she needs someone to show her how to control it for when she means it.” 

“You know magic,” he persists mulishly. He doesn’t feel quite the same stab of jealousy towards Yennefer these days–at least, he won’t admit to it–but there’s still some residual resentment, reflexive hatred from long practice. “You can teach her.” 

“I can’t control Chaos like hers,” Geralt disagrees. “Witcher signs won’t work on her sort of magic.” 

“You don’t know that,” Jaskier insists, but a quelling look assures him that they both know he’s being ridiculous. He tries to glare for a long moment in rebellion, but one glance at Ciri, looking small and afraid, takes the wind out of his sails. 

It’s a marvel to him sometimes, the things he’ll do for his girl. 

“Fine,” he concedes. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Geralt says with what sounds like sincerity. “I heard she was last seen around Oxenfurt.” 

Jaskier’s heard the same, but the less Geralt knows about certain hobbies involving elves and codenames and late night visits when the witcher is on Ciri Watch for him, the better. He knows Geralt has had some questions about the hours he’s slipped away in towns, but he’s always been back before too long, unable to participate in evacuations the way he did before he was responsible for Ciri. He’s thought about telling the witcher about his work, but he knows Geralt will be a dick about it, and their peace is so fragile, he doesn’t want to risk it with another battle of wills. 

Geralt disagrees when he volunteers to be the one to retrieve the sorceress, which is predictable, but a reminder of their disparity in terms of general brawniness and pointy thing wielding settles it. He can tell the witcher isn’t happy to be left behind while someone else does something dangerous, and it’s satisfying, in a way, to see Geralt have to learn what it feels like for a change. 

*

He feels like the nervous parent he is on the morning he’s set to leave. Promises have been extracted from both of them that Ciri will be perfectly fine, but he still feels like he’s leaving an infant behind, too aware of her fragility and reliance, no matter how much he knows that she can handle herself when she needs to, especially now that she’s gotten some combat lessons under her belt. 

“Do you have to go?” She asks, not for the first time, holding onto his stirrup, and he smiles, kissing the tips of his fingers and leaning down to press them to her forehead. She’d been clingy last night, curling up against him and waking repeatedly with bad dreams, and she’s still uneasy, no matter how brave she’s attempting to be. 

“I’ll be back so fast you won’t even miss me,” he assures her, using the touch to make her rock back on her heels slightly. 

She gives him a tremulous smile. 

“And besides,” he says brightly, leaning in like he’s sharing a secret. “You’ll have fun with Geralt. You can do all of the stupid, dangerous stuff I never let you two get away with when I’m here.” 

Ciri gives him a smile at that that makes him reconsider the entire plan, but Geralt steps up behind her, putting a hand on each shoulder. She tilts her head back to look at him, and he gives her a patient smile. 

“He’ll be back soon,” Geralt says, looking to him then. He nods in acknowledgement. 

“Don’t burn too many things down until then,” he says in as forbidding a tone as he can muster. 

“No promises!” Ciri says brightly, and he snorts. He turns his horse to leave and locks eyes with Geralt. 

Look after her, he says with a look. 

With my life, he reads in Geralt’s face in response. 

And no matter their own issues, he knows that’s a promise he can trust. 

Chapter Text

Jaskier wakes up about seven times on his first night away from Ciri, stirring awake with some vague sense of wrongness and blinking at the emptiness of his room until it registers exactly what’s off. 

No child breathing quietly in the same space. 

Or, more recently, no witcher, either. 

He tosses grumpily, stuffing a pillow over his head and grumbling into it wordlessly. He’s exhausted, his feet achy, his muscles twitchy with soreness, but still, he can’t quite settle. He’s never slept well in a room alone, and recent events certainly haven’t helped. He’s grown used to keeping one ear out for bad dreams or soft calls of his name, and he can’t quite adjust to the silence. 

He groans and flops onto his back, spreading like a starfish. He feels a flash of painful fondness at the memory of how this specific habit used to get him eyerolls and grumbles from a certain witcher. With a horrible little swell of discomfort, he wonders how much of what he used to read as exasperated fondness was truly just irritation, plain and simple. 

He presses another pillow over his face, trying to smother the feeling out. 

It doesn’t help that he left on shitty terms with Geralt despite their continual act of calm in front of Ciri. 

The witcher had taken him aside to try and help him plan out a path back to Oxenfurt, and he’d resented it, this demonstration of a lack in faith in his abilities. Geralt had opened it with a little half-smile and a tease about which way the road was. 

“I’ve done just fine,” he’d snapped, and suddenly Geralt hadn’t looked so amused. 

He could tell from the set of the witcher’s jaw that he’d wanted to say more, and there had been a moment of silent challenge between them. Once upon a time he would have played in on the joke, would have laughed along at his own gods awful sense of direction. 

Now, however, he just hears the undercurrent of how Geralt still just views him as yet another burden, one more thing to check off of a list. 

Geralt hadn’t tried to give him any more directions after that. 

*

He got lost approximately an hour after leaving. 

Hot and sweaty and grumpy, he had cursed himself and Geralt in equal measure. 

*

He finds Yennefer. 

Naturally, she has to complicate things immediately.

“Geralt needs your help,” he insists, bracing his arms in the doorway as she tries to shove him through to get past. 

“Geralt can go fuck himself,” she snaps, driving into him with surprising force for someone so seemingly slight and managing to dislodge him. He grunts when he hits the ground, but he wraps his arms around her and refuses to let go even as she hits at him with the limited range she has. 

“I agree!” He yelps when a knee lands dangerously close to tender territory. “I agree! I agree! He can fuck himself with a fence post, and he’d deserve it!” 

That makes her still, pushing herself up on her arms braced against his chest and looking down at him incredulously. 

“Since when are you not his biggest fan?” She asks, one eyebrow raised. 

“Since he was an asshole to me on a mountain, too?” He asks snidely, bucking his hips to tip her off to the side. Fuck, but her elbows are pointy. He grabs her wrist before she can scramble away. “I get it,” he says sincerely, squeezing gently with the hold he has until she looks at him, mistrustful. “I get it,” he says again, willing her to hear him out. “But it’s not about him. It’s not Ciri’s fault they’re linked, and she doesn’t deserve to suffer because she was claimed by an asshole.” 

Yen snorts and sits up, crossing her legs and looking at him. At least she doesn’t look likely to bolt in the next few seconds. He sits up as well, leaning back on one elbow, still turned towards her. 

“She’s a child,” he says, as earnestly as he can. “She’s a child with a power that scares her. Fuck Geralt a dozen times over, but she shouldn’t have to pay for his mistakes.” 

“How did you even get involved in this?” She asks, narrowing her eyes slightly. “If you’re so pissed with him, how did you end up dragged along?”

Jaskier laughs once, bitterly. 

He’s been asking himself the same fucking thing. 

*

Through liberal bribery of the alcoholic persuasion and a general mutual disdain of their shared dick of an acquaintance, he gets her to listen, tucked away safely in the privacy of his room. 

“I still have to help the others get to safety,” she maintains, even after he’s extracted an almost-promise that she won’t knee him in the groin and bolt at the earliest opportunity. 

He can’t help but groan. She would develop a conscience when it’s least convenient for him personally. That’s just his fucking luck. 

“From what I hear,” she says, and the slyness of her tone has him on edge immediately. There’s nothing good for him at the end of a look like the one he’s getting. “You would be able to help with that, wouldn’t you, Sandpiper?”

“What?” He says, trying for innocent but coming out suspicious. “No. What? No.”

She raises one perfectly-arched brow. He does his best to put on his most innocent face, the same one that kept him out of trouble when suspicious quantities of sugar went missing from the larder when he was still in his nursery. 

She lifts her brow higher. 

“Fine,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air and thankful for the relative privacy of this room. He lowers his voice, hoping the neighbors are too busy to be eavesdropping. “Fine, yes. Yes yes. I’m the Sandpiper. Happy now?”

“Why?” She asks. He blinks at her. 

“Why what?”

She rolls her eyes like he’s being deliberately obtuse. He usually is, with her, but this time he’s innocent and feels offended by the lack of faith in his sincerity. 

“Why what?” He asks again. “Not everyone is a fucking mindreader.” 

He yelps and tries to scramble back when she moves forward in a sudden rush of motion and shoves his hair back to check his ears. He tries to shove her away while she straddles him, but she grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks. 

“Get off!” He demands, and finally she does, sitting back. It still leaves her straddling his thighs, and he bounces her repeatedly until she finally climbs off, rolling her eyes. 

“You’re not an elf,” she says. 

“Really?” He asks dryly. “Hadn’t noticed.” 

She feigns a slap at him, and he flinches back. 

“What’s your stake in this?” She demands, violet eyes so intense he feels like his soul is being stared into. 

“Why do I need a stake?” He deflects. They might not be actively feuding right now, but he’s not necessarily ready to have a heart to heart, not while his still feels so bruised. “Maybe I just want to do the right thing.” 

He reflexively pulls back when she takes hold of his face, her violet eyes blistering in their intensity. 

“What, are we-” 

“Sh,” she cuts him off, continuing to look in his fucking soul. 

After a long, long moment, she releases him and steps back. 

“Alright,” she says. 

Jaskier knows enough not to press her any further and take the win where he can.

*

It’s interesting, seeing Yennefer interact with the elves. There’s a bit of tension there, a bit of mistrust, but she fits in more with them than with any other group he’s ever watched her in. He sees the want in her eyes as she looks at them, these people who have embraced her without knowledge of who and what she is. He knows what that feels like, that hunger to belong. 

It occurs to him for the first time since running into her that perhaps he’s not the only one. 

*

He’s high on the thrill of success once the entire group is on the ship. No matter how many times he does it, there’s still a heady little thrill of rebellion, of pulling something off that no one expects of him. He leaves Yennefer behind to say her goodbyes and strolls through the brisk night feeling distinctly successful. 

He gives a faux-friendly wave to a guard making rounds, but apparently his willingness to swallow insults from the harbor master and smile through the irritation paid off, and word’s blessedly gone around to leave him be. 

He wonders with no small amount of dark humor if he could figure out how to get Geralt to leave him alone as easily. 

Distracted by his own thoughts, he never sees the blow coming. 

*

He wakes tied to a chair, head throbbing so badly he wonders if his brains have been scrambled once and for all. 

Somehow, it gets worse for him from there. 

He knows, even amidst the screaming agony of fire fucker’s torture, that he won’t give anything up. He may not be a stoic boulder of a man like Geralt, but he can trust enough in his own stubbornness to know that the man won’t get anything from him. Anything he has to say could be used to hurt Ciri, and he’s known for a while that he’d die before he ever lets that happen. 

But in the brief lulls between pain, he feels a yawning chasm in his chest opening at the thought of dying. Part of his terror is for himself– he isn’t nearly arrogant enough to claim that he’s ready for death–but a larger, unexpected part is how much he can’t bear the thought of leaving Ciri. He thinks of the times she’s cuddled close against him in the cold or the times he’s made her laugh on a hard day. He knows Geralt will care for her, will die for her if that’s what it comes to, but he doesn’t know if he can love her the way she needs, if he can trust him with such a thing, to know when he needs to be soft, to realize that no matter how tough she seems, Ciri is still a child and needs to be treated as such. 

Please, he begs some nameless, faceless idea of a deity. Please let me get back to her. I can’t leave her, not now. She still needs me. 

*

If he didn’t think he’d likely be right back in mortal peril for it, he’d kiss Yennefer of Vengerberg right on the mouth, magnificent, tricky bitch that she is. 

As it is, he settles on giving her the larger portion of supper when they make camp that night and hoping that she feels the gratitude behind it. 

*

Their bonhomie lasts until they get lost approximately 36 hours into trying to find the godsdamned witcher keep that just had to be in bumfuck nowhere on a fucking mountain. Cursing and stomping his way through a briar patch, he wonders if perhaps part of Geralt being Geralt just comes from living among people who hide their keeps so well a seeker is more likely to fall off a cliff than find it. 

Rationally, he understands the why of how hidden it is. In the moment, however, he’s already contemplating making them put signs up and down the entire fucking mountain if he’s to do this again. 

“We’ve passed that tree already,” Yennefer calls to him, hissing in rage when her hair gets caught on a branch. 

Again. 

He doubles back to help extricate her. 

“How the fuck would you know?” He asks tartly, yanking on the braid with perhaps more force than necessary. “It’s a fucking tree. They all look alike.” 

Their squabbling, it turns out, is useful. Their volume escalates to the point that a golden eyed man with a large scar on his face steps out of the trees with a raised eyebrow, making both of them freeze mid-tussle on the ground, their disagreement devolved into hair pulling and slapping. 

“The bard and the sorceress, I presume?” The man asks, not bothering to hide his amusement. He has kind eyes, Jaskier notes, as he picks himself up and tries to brush off the worst of the mud on his clothes, wincing slightly. Fuck, but the witch can aim her blows. 

“Jaskier,” he says with a bow, hitting Yennefer back when she pinches him and rolls her eyes. 

Before they can return to squabbling, the man moves forward to shake both of their hands, Jaskier barely getting out of it at the last minute when he gestures to the bandages still wrapping his fingers, blistered and weeping beneath the linen. 

“Eskel,” the witcher says, plucking a leaf from Jaskier’s hair with a grin. 

Jaskier feels himself blush. 

“Geralt’s had me on the lookout for you both. He wanted to keep going with Ciri, so I stayed back,” he says, and suddenly Jaskier’s embarrassment fades beneath irritation. So Geralt’s already made him out to be helpless and hopeless to his family. Fucker. Eskel tilts his head at whatever he sees on Jaskier’s face, seeming confused. “He’s been worried,” he offers in what seems like an attempt at consolation. 

“We’ve been fine,” Jaskier assures him, trying not to sound snappish. It’s not Eskel’s fault his brother is a dick, after all, and from what little Jaskier’s managed to learn over the years, Eskel is among the milder of the Wolves. 

Eskel gives their general state of rumpledness a critical look, but he apparently decides to hold his peace on the matter and offers a smile as a gesture of goodwill. 

Well fuck, better than Geralt already. 

*

He goes down in a heap the second he sets foot in the clearing, tackled by Ciri with a joyous, “Jaskier!” as his only warning before he’s on his back, wheezing. 

“Hi,” he squeaks, as Ciri sits back, blushing. 

“Sorry,” she says, but she’s still smiling broadly. “I just missed you.” 

She does make it so very hard to stay cross at her. 

He hears footsteps and looks over to see Geralt approaching, and his smile falters, making the witcher pause, uncertain. He gives him the smallest shake of his head. Ciri’s too excited to notice if they’re not playing their roles like they should, and he doesn’t want to risk any unpleasantness in front of Yennefer and Eskel. 

Geralt takes the hint, and after a momentary pause, returns to spitting rabbits over the fire. 

*

Ciri chatters his ear off all that night and throughout the next day. All of his worries were apparently for naught, as it appears the princess had a grand time in Geralt’s custody. 

How very fucking wonderful. 

“-and then I caught a fish that was this big,” she says with clear wonder at her own abilities, spreading her arms wide. He snorts, doubting the veracity of the claim, but Geralt speaks up then. 

“It’s true,” he says with a badly-hidden wink to Ciri. “Thought it would drag her right back into the water, but she got it out on her own. Didn’t need my help at all.” 

Jaskier feels like he’s been kicked in the chest. 

He should be glad that Geralt can do this, be playful and supportive and go along with a joke. Ciri deserves that. It’s not like it’s a surprise, after all. Geralt’s never been cruel per se, and Jaskier’s long known about his terrible sense of humor, but there’s something about the ease with which Geralt’s extended this sort of softness to Ciri that aches like a motherfucker. 

*

Yennefer and Geralt make a (poor) excuse to wander into the trees together on the second day. Jaskier muses idly that they’ll either fuck or kill each other, and he tells himself he doesn’t care either way. 

(He’s almost convincing). 

When they emerge again, Geralt’s cheek is clearly pink from a hell of a hit, and he’s limping in a way that suggests Yennefer is quite proficient at handling herself just fine even with her magic unreliable at present. It’s satisfying, really, to see someone doing what he wishes he could manage. 

But then they start getting along better. 

He feels vaguely betrayed when it’s clear that Yennefer’s worked out most of her vitriol and is now content to huddle with Geralt on the edges of the fire each night and make hushed plans about the future. It rankles, that they’re suddenly copacetic when he knows the sorceress has just as much reason to still be resentful and sullen. He had been counting on her to be resentment buddies with him so he wouldn’t feel so fucking alone in it. 

It feels like a betrayal, watching her move on while he’s still stuck in the very thick of his own pain. 

*

It’s wildly petty, the satisfaction he feels when Ciri chooses to press back against him and not Geralt when they meet the other witchers, but he can’t help how it makes him feel half a foot taller, even as he settles reassuring hands on her shoulders. He squeezes gently, and he feels the movement as she takes a deep breath, rediscovering her poise and standing straight until she’s every inch the princess once more. 

That’s his girl. 

*

They settle in tensely at first. 

It’s an odd situation to be in, being surrounded by people who have apparently heard of him before with the person who talked about him now more reluctant ally than anything approaching a friend. He smiles widely and flirts outrageously and avoids shaking hands as much as he can in light of his still-burnt fingers. 

It sets him wildly off-center, receiving little snippets of evidence that Geralt’s talked about him enough to the people he considers family that they would know things like the fact that he doesn’t like the ends of bread and that he likes wine more than beer. They’re…intimate, is the best word he can conjure, these little snippets. Eskel references a story about a feathered doublet that could only have come from Geralt, and Jaskier’s head spins so wildly that Geralt would even remember such a thing to pass it on that he nearly topples out of his chair. 

The other witchers are kind enough, and he has the feeling that he and Eskel could become good friends with enough time, but still. 

When he watches impossible feats of acrobatics or flamboyant displays of magic, he still hears a little whisper in his mind that asks, What the hell are you doing here? 

*

The first sign that something is wrong with Ciri comes when she starts coughing at dinner, small throat clearing coughs at first and then enough that her eyes water. Jaskier frowns and leans over to rub her back and finds Geralt’s hand already there, the witcher seated on her other side. He almost withdraws on reflex, but Ciri pushing her plate away and coughing again hard enough to jerk her body refocuses him. He rests his hand between her shoulders and pats, occasionally brushing against Geralt as the witcher rubs circles. 

“Alright?” Jaskier asks her. Eyes watering, she nods, and finally the coughing fit ceases. 

“Sorry,” she croaks, sniffling and rubbing the tears in her eyes away. She smiles at the rest of the table awkwardly, clearly embarrassed. “Think I swallowed wrong.”

“Chew your food more,” he and Geralt say at once, as Yennefer says, “Eat more slowly.”

The three of them glance to each other in surprise, and Ciri rolls her eyes. 

“I know how to eat,” she tells them all with as much derision as a child can summon, as the other witchers and Triss snicker into their wine. 

“Clearly not,” Jaskier says, as Geralt hums in what sounds like disagreement, and Yennefer flicks a pea at her. 

Ciri sticks her tongue out at the sorceress and kicks Geralt’s ankle when the witcher tries to lean over her to cut her meat into smaller pieces. While she’s distracted fending him off, Jaskier reaches to start tearing her roll into little bits. 

“Hey!” She cries when she notices, releasing Geralt to try and push his arms away, freeing the witcher to return to cutting her meat. 

Besieged, she grins, nose crinkling with the broadness of it, and tries to fight them both off at the same time, leaving her open to Yennefer leaning forward to start sliding her plate away, knife ready. 

The rest of dinner is spent tormenting Ciri affectionately, and by the end of it, the only tears in her eyes are from laughing. 

*

As mildly as it starts, Ciri gets worse quickly. The illness settles into something wet and lingering in her lungs, and he feels his heart race when her breaths rattle and when she coughs hard enough that her face goes beet red. Yennefer does what she can, but her magic still isn’t fully recovered, leaving them to infuriatingly pedestrian cures like herbs and steam and long hours in the hot springs for her to breathe in warm, moist air to help cut the congestion. 

He and Geralt work as a unit, both of them united in the fear of a new parent at the sudden appearance of a threat to their child they haven’t faced before. In the grand scheme of a lifetime, this illness is likely a small thing, but neither of them have ever had a sick child to care for before, and that makes the entire thing feel rather urgent. 

There’s no time or space for grudges and anger while Ciri’s sick. His anger and resentment is a distant, barely noticeable thing as he takes cool cloths from Geralt or motions for the witcher to lift Ciri up to dribble some medicine or broth in her mouth. There’s no room to think about Geralt himself at all but to be thankful for him being quiet and patient and strong enough to hold Ciri for as long as it takes to change out sweat-soaked bedsheets or carry her up and down long staircases. 

When he rises too quickly and a lack of meals and rest catches up to him with a wave of dizziness, the only thing he feels is thankful to find a firm shoulder beneath his hand. 

“Whoo,” he breathes, swaying a bit. Geralt hesitates a brief moment before reaching up to hold his arm to keep him steady. 

“You sh-” He starts but stops. He clears his throat and continues, quieter, “If you want to get some rest, I can stay with her.” 

He’s torn, pulled between the knowledge that he’ll be useless soon if he doesn’t look after himself at least a bit but afraid of leaving Ciri alone. Still, he knows Geralt can go far longer without rest, and the witcher barely looks tired at all. There’s tension around his eyes that speaks to worry, and his hair–half-bound back–is a mess, but he looks as capable and reliable as ever. 

“Alright,” he says, squeezing the shoulder still beneath his hand without thinking about it. He sees Geralt’s gaze dart to it quickly, but the witcher then looks away and releases him, reaching out to change the compress on Ciri’s forehead. 

*

Slower than he would like, Ciri recovers. Her face is a little thinner, and she still gets winded even walking across her room, but bit by bit, she grows stronger, her lungs clearing. It’s still a power struggle to get her to inhale the foul-smelling salts that help her cough up thick mucus, but luckily he mostly gets to let Geralt play the bad guy in that respect. 

It hurts, a bit, the easy way they work together, the way they fall into old routines and understandings. There’s scarcely a word to be spoken between them, both of them knowing without speaking what the other needs them to do. In the moments they aren’t thinking, they even exchange amused glances at Ciri’s complaints, even though Jaskier usually catches himself and looks away within a few seconds. 

There’s no need to poke at old scars any more than he has to. 

*

The complication to his resolution is, of course, fucking Geralt. 

He doesn’t know what has gotten into him, but the witcher is suddenly attentive in a way he hasn’t been before. He notices the things like Geralt handing him his favorite bits of the roast or his favorite jam or the softest part of the bread, and he wishes like hell that he knew what it meant. 

In the time before, his stupid heart would have read it as some sort of affection, unspoken because Geralt will always be Geralt, but something true and honest nonetheless. 

Now, though, he views every morsel through a lens of suspicion. 

*

The attentiveness boils his temper over on the fifth day of it happening, when Geralt tries to hand him the first sweetroll from the pan when they happen to be the only ones in the kitchen. 

Well, Jaskier was the only one in the kitchen and then Geralt had to ruin it. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” He demands, moving back from the pastry still extended. 

Geralt’s eyes widen the slightest bit. 

“Really,” he demands, coming close enough to shove at him, needing a vent for his anger, as irrational as he knows it is. “I thought we had an understanding. I don’t step on your toes, and you don’t step on mine. We’re raising a child together, Geralt. We don’t have any fucking choice about that, but I need you to stop whatever fucking power play you’re trying to pull here.” It’s the only explanation he’s been able to come up with. It’s a bit more courtly mindgame-y than he’d expect of Geralt, but as approaches go, being so nice that he looks like an asshole in comparison in front of others isn’t the worst plan. 

“I thought-” 

“Clearly fucking not,” Jaskier cuts him off, not interested in hearing any half-assed excuses. “Just leave me alone.”

He snatches the roll out of Geralt’s hand just to be petty as he leaves. 

*

By his fourth day in the keep, Jaskier had found an absolutely lovely sulking spot in Kaer Morhen, isolated and sunny, a little corner tucked away across from a window that brings some much-needed warmth, and it’s still his go-to spot when he can feel himself stuck in a mood. A few purloined cushions mean his ass doesn’t go numb quite so quickly, and all in all he’s quite pleased with his little slice of solitude, a nice little bolthole to go when he doesn’t want to put on a show or tolerate weird gestures from Geralt that he doesn’t understand. 

Naturally, Yennefer has to ruin it. 

“You’re being a prick to him,” she says cheerfully, dropping beside him gracefully and reaching to wrap around his arm, laying her head on his shoulder even when he tries to flex and bounce her. She pinches the underside of his arm to make him stop. “I’m proud of you for discovering your backbone around him finally, but it’s affecting the rest of us, too. Either tell him to fuck off once and for all and be done with it or punch him a bit and get over it.”

“I’m flattered you think me capable of getting a hit in,” Jaskier says drily, shifting slightly so her neck won’t be at such an awkward angle. 

“Oh, I don’t,” she says reassuringly. “I just think it would be funny to watch you try.” 

He sucks his teeth and shoves her off of him. He doesn’t cuddle traitors. 

She rolls her eyes as she sits up, moving to tug at his hair before he swats at her. She slaps back, and they descend to an absolutely absurd little spat they can’t help but both be smiling at the end of. 

“As I recall,” Jaskier drawls as they both settle, “I’m not the only one with a grievance.” 

Yennefer’s lips thin and she looks away, not responding. 

“I just think you’re wasting your time trying to get me to behave when we could simply pair up and be done with him once and for all.” 

The sorceress snorts and resumes her position against him, rubbing her cheek like a cat idly before she settles. He heaves a sigh and drops his head back. 

He misses the days when his biggest worry was how to slight her at their next meeting. 

His world used to be so very simple. 

Chapter Text

He remains in his lovely sulking spot even after Yennefer leaves, as the sun slowly moves across the sky. 

His sulking spot that was ever so much lovelier before stupid sorceresses and their stupid opinions invaded it. 

The issue is that the whole thing is simultaneously very simple and very complicated: he just can’t open himself up to Geralt again. He can’t let it happen twice, the way the mountain crushed him. For one thing, he doesn’t think he can survive that sort of pain a second time. For another, he can’t risk being so shattered that he can’t care for Ciri the way she needs him to. For both of their sakes, he can’t risk letting Geralt get close enough to hurt him again. 

(Even though, in a way he can’t admit even to himself, he desperately wants to.) 

*

Ciri finds him in his spot the next day, folding herself down beside him, still a little flushed from a training session. He contemplates kicking up a fuss for fun about her not even bothering to bathe before invading his personal space, but after enough travel with Geralt, he knows sweat isn’t nearly the grossest thing someone can be covered in. 

“I’m sorry,” Ciri says quietly, and he looks to her sharply. 

“What are you talking about, darling?” 

When she looks up, her eyes are shiny, and he tugs her down to rest against his shoulder. 

“You’re so sad here,” she says, voice wobbly. “I see it. You don't like being here, and we’re only here because of me. I did this to you.” 

He shuts his eyes tightly and gathers himself before he responds. 

“I came here by my own choice,” he tells her. “You didn’t do anything to me, love. I wanted to take you where you would be safe.” 

“But you hate it here,” she says, voice strained. “You’re not happy, not like you were before.”

“It’s just a poet’s whimsy,” he says lightly. “It’s very fashionable to change moods with the seasons. It’s like clothes.” 

“No it’s not,” she says, leaning her head against him more. “You got a little sad when we found Geralt, but now you seem sad all the time, and I-that’s my fault. You wouldn’t be sad if it weren’t for me.” 

Gods, of all the things she had to inherit from her father of surprise, she would get his misguided sense of guilt for the world’s ills. 

“Silly girl,” he says, kissing the top of her head, “I can assure you that I would be much sadder if I didn’t have my trusty tambourine player at my side.” A tambourine player who will be performing solo if his hand doesn’t heal up, a thought he tries very hard not to think. 

“But I-” 

“No,” he says softly. “My problems are my own, sweet girl, and not yours to carry or blame yourself over. I will be just fine, I promise. I just need a little moody time first. It’s all a part of the poetic process, trust me.” 

Ciri clearly isn’t convinced, but she lets it pass anyway, darling girl that she is. 

*

“Ciri’s worried about you.” 

He closes his eyes and resists the urge to beat his head against the desk he’s sitting at. Of course Geralt would come along to rub salt into the wound further, the knowledge that he’s worrying his child. 

“So I have gathered,” he says dryly, closing his book on selkies and stacking it neatly in the pile he’s been working through. He turns slightly to look at Geralt. “Is there a purpose to pointing this out, or are you just making conversation in your own stunted Geralt manner?” 

Geralt doesn’t take the bait. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, approaching slowly. “I’ve noticed it, too, you know. You’re not happy here.” 

Gods, and he used to think he liked being the center of attention at all times. 

“And since when do you care so very much about my happiness?” He asks snidely, rising to his feet. His plan is to shoulder past the witcher and be gone, but Geralt gets in the way because he’s never had a sense of self-preservation. “Move.” 

“No,” Geralt says steadily. “We need to talk.” 

“About what, Geralt?” He asks, tired already from this conversation. It’s been a long day, and he’d been looking forward to a quiet evening of reading, not of going round and round with Geralt about issues that won’t change. 

“About us,” he says stoutly. 

“What about us?” 

“How things are with-” 

“How things are with us?” He asks, a slight thread of snap to his voice. “And whose fault is that, do you think?” His, at least partially, with how steadfastly he’s been raking Geralt over the coals at every chance recently, but he’s not feeling particularly giving at the moment. “Whatever was between us is broken, Geralt. Let it go. You can’t fix it.” 

“It’s not like you’ve given me a fucking chance!” Geralt says in a sudden departure from his intentionally even tone. 

Jaskier jerks his head back like he’s been struck. He’s so angry in an instant that his vision tunnels and there’s a faint ringing in his ears. 

“You want to talk about chances?” He hisses. 

From Geralt’s expression, it appears he realizes he’s made a mistake.

“Jask-”

“No,” he snarls the word so it snaps like a whip into the air between them. The witcher’s tone is placating, apologetic, and Jaskier is shaking with rage. His breath comes in shudders, and for the first time in his life, he thinks he might actually want to hurt Geralt, really hurt him. 

“Ja-” 

“No,” he says again, and he clenches his fists against the urge to wrap his hands around Geralt’s throat. “This is the fucking problem, Geralt.” He laughs, a short, mirthless bark of sound. “Well, one of fucking many.” He takes one deep breath, trying to release a bit of his anger. “You never let me talk, not really. You get to say your piece, get to be angry and yell and take it out on me, and I just have to stand there and take it.”

Geralt is silent. It would appear he does have at least a few survival instincts after all.

His tears spill over, and he curses, dragging a sleeve across his eyes roughly. 

“Jaskier,” comes Geralt’s voice, soft and gentle, and when he drops his arm, he sees the witcher has come closer. He hates himself for the little part of himself that wants to dart forward, wants to try and steal a hug, even while he’s pissed. He hates how much of him still associates Geralt with comfort, with safety. “Can we please talk?”

“About what,” He demands, sniffling and scrubbing at his face again. “About fucking what.” He’s angry, still, but more than that he’s just fucking sad, and he wants this entire exchange to be over with. This foray into witcher keepdom was a mistake, just like he fucking knew it would be. He should have fought harder, should have pushed to stay somewhere that would have given him the advantage. He can’t even fucking run here. There’s nothing here that belongs to him, nowhere he can be that’s definitively his. 

Geralt’s moved closer, which he doesn’t notice until a large hand wraps around his forearm, and the presumption of it flares his temper higher in one fierce burst. He snatches his arm free and then puts all of his strength into planting his palms on the broad chest in front of him and shoving with all of his might. He makes a small whimpering sort of noise when the force of it makes the burns still on his hand sear with pain, and the fact that he knows Geralt only moves with the motion because he chooses to just makes him angrier. He wants to be able to make Geralt hurt, too, wants to be able to make him feel just as twisted and broken inside. 

“Please,” Geralt says, face earnest, tone so fucking beseeching, “I just want to talk.” He tries to wrap his hands around Jaskier’s wrists when he goes in for another shove, but Jaskier growls and shoves with more force before he staggers back. 

“What is there to say, Geralt?” It sounds like a plea, and he swallows against the knot in his throat. He wants there to be something to say, but what is there? Geralt didn’t want him. Geralt is now stuck with him. It’s all painfully, soul-wrenchingly simple. “Nothing,” he answers before the witcher has a chance. 

He bolts for the door and slaps away Geralt’s hand when the witcher darts to the side to try and stop him. 

“Jaskier-” He hears before he’s through the door and out, but he covers his ears and runs. 

*

He makes it to his room and realizes what a bad place to cool down it is the moment the door is shut. It’s not like this is some secret hiding place. It’s not even that fucking far from Geralt’s room. The witcher can find him here if he wants to. 

He desperately doesn’t want him to. 

He feels like he’s shaking apart, grief and rage and want and pain all threatening to rip him apart at the seams. 

He needs time to get himself together, to pull himself back into one piece. If Geralt finds him now, if he doesn’t let it the fuck go, he feels like he might shatter completely, and he can’t afford to shatter. There are months of winter left, months he’ll have to sit at a table in the dining hall and pretend everything is fine, months he’ll have to talk to Geralt about plans for raising Ciri, months he’ll have to be okay for the sake of the child depending on him. 

And it’s not as if it’ll be over then. As much as he might want to, he’s painfully aware that he can’t just ditch Geralt come spring. The witcher’s claim to Ciri is stronger than his own, after all, and she’s already become attached to him. He can’t be the reason she loses yet another person in her life. 

He feels like he can barely breathe. 

He needs space. 

A glance out the window shows a world lit bright by moonlight and its reflection off of snow. 

He feels himself settling the slightest bit, just looking at it. Space and nary a witcher to be found. 

Perfect. 

*

He wraps himself up in every cloak he’s borrowed and a heavy cloak lined with fur that is technically taken off of a hook without asking anyone, but it’ll either be back before it’s missed, or he’ll have an excuse to pick a fight. Win-win. 

The first blast of frigid air against the small amount of his face not covered tells him he’s made the right decision. He feels centered at once, dropped back into his body from amidst his own panic by the brisk breeze, gentle enough to not be dangerous but present enough to be grounding. 

He tugs the heavy door shut behind himself, the thick wood screeching on the floor the last few inches enough to make him grimace. He pauses for just a moment to make sure he won’t be calling down the wrath of residents with sensitive ears, but silence beyond the door reassures him that he’ll have some much-needed alone time. 

He sets out at a brisk pace, tucking his face down deeper into the scarf wrapped around his throat when his breaths start to burn. It’s colder than he thought it would be at first, but the chill is centering him as he’d hoped it would. He can breathe properly now, free from the walls of Kaer Morhen, and he speeds up, hoping that it’ll warm him more effectively. He has absolutely no fucking clue where he’s going, but he can feel himself calming with every step, so he simply dedicates himself to moving forward. 

Each step settles something in him, and out of the immediacy of it all, his problems seem less all-encompassing. 

*

He’s so lost in trying to find an inner peace amidst his inner turmoil that he doesn’t actually pay attention to what he’s walking on. 

Not until there’s a deep, damning crack right beneath his feet. 

And without a chance to draw a single breath or even begin to move, the world drops out from under him, sending him into water so cold it strikes like a blade. 

He only barely manages to resist a reflexive panicked inhale as he fumbles with panic-clumsy fingers for the fastenings of his many layers, all of the clothes that had protected him now pulling him down down down to his death. The cold makes his fingers even less dextrous, and he only gets through two buckles before he simply can’t undo clasps anymore. He kicks with all of his might, struggling, but even when he manages to get up, all his quickly numbing hands feel is ice, thin enough to drop a grown man but thick enough to prevent that same man from breaking through from beneath. 

He’s going to die, he realizes in a sudden moment of clarity. He’s going to die down here, drowned beneath the ice. They might not even find his body until spring until the ice melts, if they find it at all. 

Ciri will think I left her, he thinks amidst his panic, as sharply and painfully as a stab to the gut. She’ll think he abandoned her, left her behind like an unwanted pet. The horror of that thought gives him strength to start pulling at the layers, and he feels stitches rip, but even as he sheds more weight, he’s still trapped, his lungs burning for air that he cannot get, an inhale he cannot stop forcing him to take a mouthful of ice cold water that makes his teeth ache. 

No, he thinks, please no. I can’t leave her. She needs me. Ciri needs me. 

It’s his last thought before darkness overcomes him, the final thought before one last sensation of something wrapping around his arm, painfully tight. 

And then there is nothing at all. 

*

When he wakes, he hopes desperately that he isn’t dead, if only because he doesn’t want an afterlife so damned uncomfortable. 

“Jaskier?” Comes a deep, rumbling voice.

“G’ralt?” He croaks, finally forcing his eyes open to find the witcher looking a wreck, clothes disheveled, hair wild, worry creasing his face. He blinks, stunned, when Geralt reaches out one hand to touch his cheek gently, and he registers distantly that they’re in Geralt’s room, not his. 

“You’re alive,” he breathes. 

“Uh,” he says, tugging his face back as best he can when he doesn’t actually feel capable of sitting up. “It would…appear so. How did that…happen?” 

“I went after you,” Geralt says, sitting at his side. A small little half-smile. “You can be pissed about it if you want, but it meant I was there when you went under. It took me a few minutes to find where you were under the ice.” He looks guilty about this. Classic Geralt. “You were…you weren’t breathing,” he says, voice hoarse. “You had swallowed water.” 

Well, that would explain why his chest and throat hurt now. One mystery solved at least. 

Now the mystery of why Geralt looks like he’s gone through hell. 

“What happened to you?” He asks, grudgingly accepting the help when Geralt lifts him up enough to take a sip of water before helping him back down.

Geralt stares at him like he’s missing something. He stares back. 

“You almost died today,” he says flatly. 

“And you saved me,” he says in the same tone. “I don’t see what-” 

“I thought I was going to lose you today,” Geralt says. “When you’re still so fucking angry with me. I thought I wouldn’t-” He cuts himself off. “There are things I need to tell you, Jaskier. Things I should have told you before.” 

“And what’s so different now?” He asks, voice tight. He’s so tired, so very fucking tired, and he wants this conversation to be over with already. He feels decades older than he was when Geralt first started traveling with him and Ciri, and he has the feeling that this conversation won’t make him feel any younger. “What grand realization have you had that’s going to-” 

“It wasn’t,” Geralt cuts him off, and Jaskier raises an eyebrow. The witcher looks away, predictably, and swallows, fingers fidgeting with the blanket. “I, uh, I already knew. I just couldn’t…couldn’t accept it.” The witcher’s brow is furrowed the way it is when he’s deep in thought, and if Jaskier wasn’t so fucking tired of the general state of his life, he might be charmed by it. 

As it is, he wishes Geralt would just arrive at his point already. 

“Well then,” he prompts, wiggling back into the blankets more comfortably and closing his eyes. If nothing else, he’s going to take advantage of Geralt’s bed being more comfortable than his while he has the chance. “What’s this knowledge you've been keeping from me?” 

Eyes still closed, he feels a bittersweet little pang that he knows what expression and posture of Geralt’s goes with the little determined inhale of breath. 

“I love you.” 

His eyes fly open. 

“What,” he asks flatly, moving to shove himself up on impulse before a sharp shock of pain reminds him that that isn’t in his best interest at present. He waves Geralt off when the witcher darts forward to help him, but he persists anyway, and despite his reservations, Jaskier can admit that the assistance isn’t entirely unnecessary as Geralt helps him lay flat once more. 

Once he’s horizontal, though, he can focus on a larger problem at hand. 

The fact that he’s apparently begun hallucinating little things like Geralt confessing his love out of fucking nowhere. 

And then an idea occurs to him. 

“Don’t-” He starts, his voice breaking. He clears his throat and starts again, forcing his voice to remain even and calm. “Don’t say shit like that. I get it. You want us to get along for Ciri, but don’t-” 

“It’s not for Ciri,” Geralt says quietly. “Because of her, maybe. But not for her.” 

He stares at him. 

“This isn’t funny,” he says, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “I mean it. I know your sense of humor is gods-awful, but this isn’t a fucking joke to me. I’m not laughing.” 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, and he sees the aborted gesture as the witcher reaches to grab his hand and then thinks better of it, settling it in a fist on his knee instead. He flicks his eyes back up to the witcher’s face to find those golden eyes fixed somewhere around his chest. “I’m-I’m not just saying it to appease you or to make a joke. I love you. I have…for longer than I can even say.” 

“No you don’t,” he says, voice a hoarse whisper. “You don’t love me. You never have.” He used to think he did, sometimes, used to read signs that weren’t there in gentle touches and permissiveness, used to toy with half-formed fantasies about traveling together as something other than just a witcher and his bard. 

But he’s far too fucking old for those sorts of stories now. He knows better. 

“I do-” 

“No,” he says, cutting him off. He squeezes his eyes shut. He will not cry. He will not. “Someone you love isn’t a burden,” he says, opening his eyes despite the way they sting. “What happened on the mountain…you don’t do that to someone you love.” 

“And yet I did,” Geralt says. “And I have no excuse for it, Jask. I was angry, and I took it out on you. I don’t have words for the shame I feel for doing it. Of everyone, you didn’t deserve that, not after everything.” 

Gods, he might actually have died. This is some sort of twisted afterlife version of words he wanted desperately to hear since the moment the mountain happened. 

“Out,” he says, swallowing hard against the tightness of his throat. “Just…out.” 

“Jaskier, I-” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling, tipping his face so the tears won’t fall. He can’t cry in front of Geralt. He just can’t. “Just. Please. Leave me alone.” 

After a long, long moment, Geralt does, rising and crossing to the door, hesitating only a moment before he shuts it behind himself. 

He counts to a hundred to let that damned witcher hearing get out of range. 

And then he turns his face into a pillow that smells of Geralt, and sobs. 

*

Geralt apparently takes the request to be left alone to heart, because he doesn’t see him for the next three days. For the first day, Ciri flits in and out like a little bird, chattering his ear off and buzzing about, full of frenetic, worried energy. He coaxes her down a couple of times to sit with him and even gets her to bring a book from the library to read to him, but she’s young and she’s strong and she’s energetic, and he ends up sending her out for his own sake as much as for hers. By the second, he tells her gently that he’ll gladly see her at mealtimes but she doesn’t need to keep coming back for just his sake, and little dear that she is, she doesn’t take it personally. 

The rest of his time is consumed by his own thoughts. 

Well, his own thoughts and snooping through Geralt’s personal belongings. 

If he were capable of shame, he might feel it as he pokes through things that he knows Geralt would rather he didn’t touch, but given that the witcher was the one who left him in here, he doesn’t think he can get too mad. 

Mainly he just needs something for his fidgety fingers to do. 

In the past, he would have picked up his lute, would have plucked away the feelings roiling in a knot in his chest. He would have laid it all out on paper to get it out of his head, and he could have sorted through it there. He might have turned it into a ballad, something about a wolf and a songbird. 

Now, though, he has burned fingers and nary a lute to be seen. 

So, snoopery it is. 

For the most part, rifling through Geralt’s earthly possessions is boring. He had some half-formed notion of finding something titillating to distract himself with, but for all that Geralt has a surprising number of belongings squirreled away here in his room, none of them are especially scandalous. He has a moment of excited interest when he finds a poetry book tucked away, but then he sees that there are notes scrawled in the margin, and he rolls his eyes. Figures. Give a witcher a book of poetry, and he turns it into a fucking notebook. He probably-

And then he pays attention to which book it is, and the surprise of it makes him give the notes a second look. 

It’s a book of his poems, published shortly after the mountain from a manuscript he had handed over before then. 

A book he did not give Geralt. 

Which means it’s a book that Geralt would have had to acquire himself, after they’d already parted ways. 

The thought is so stunning that he just stares at the orderly little rows of writing in Geralt’s neat hand for a long, long moment. 

Valebrook? Reads one annotation beside a first stanza about a griffin hunt. It was Valebrook, in fact. His guess was correct. Gods, for the last time, griffins don’t give a fuck about lillies, reads another little scrawl, embellished with a little flourish at the end that he just knows means Geralt flicked his quill with exasperation. You’re missing the part where you were almost disemboweled, reads a comment at the end of the poem. Typical that you would exclude that little detail, bard. 

It sounds…it sounds like a conversation, he realizes. The same sorts of comments Geralt would normally drop when he read his compositions aloud, but here, written next to the compositions themselves, as if he could deliver them through the pages. 

As if they were still talking. 

He spends the rest of the afternoon right on the floor, paging through the book, running gentle fingertips across the words added to his own. There are little doodles here and there as well, and he snorts at one detailing a figure in a damnably familiar doublet dangling from a tree above a pack of nekkers while another figure in armor is clearly rolling his eyes, sword still drawn. It’s next to a poem inspired by a nekker hunt that had seen him treed because he got close when told not to. 

The thought of Geralt, alone beside a campfire, scribbling a little sketch of his own memory of how it went, does something very painful in his chest. 

If it were simply dickish comments about accuracy, he could perhaps still write the whole thing off, could perhaps save it to mock Geralt with one day about his own aspirations of being published. 

But they’re not all dickish comments. 

On page twenty, there’s a love poem, something that he’d thought was subtle at the time that’s now almost cringe-inducingly obvious, lines about a golden gaze and silver hair, of yearning for touch from hands that have known violence, of the desire to teach them to be gentle. Like yours? Is the comment beside the hands. They’re soft enough for us both. Mine are hard to keep yours soft. Beside a line about knowing love by knowing the focus of the poem is And I never knew love until I knew you. 

He lifts the book out of danger when his eyes fill so he won’t smudge the ink, and he makes himself take some steady breaths. 

A knock comes at the door, and he sends the knocker away with an idle response about not being hungry. He has no room in him for food. 

Not with a book full of Geralt’s words making his heart so fucking full. 

*

Ciri pokes her head through the door later, when he’s thankfully pulled himself together enough not to be a complete mess in front of his child. The book is tucked beneath his pillow now, out of sight but close at hand for when he wants another glance at the impossible words within. 

“Well hello there,” he calls. “What’s a lady such as yourself doing in a place such as this?” 

Ciri grins and then settles onto the bed with him, dropping her head to his shoulder. 

“Are you feeling better?” She asks. 

“Much,” he tells her. “Thank you, darling, you’ve been a most excellent nursemaid.” 

“I’ve just been doing what Geralt told me to,” she says modestly, but he pushes her up gently at that, making her look at him. 

“What?” 

Ciri flushes, and he knows at once that she wasn’t actually supposed to say that part. 

“Don’t tell him I told!” She says at once. “I promised I wouldn’t, but I didn’t want to lie.” He makes a mental note to work on deceit with her later. Her honesty is convenient for him but likely bad for the long-term survival of an exiled princess of an overthrown kingdom. For now though, he has other concerns. 

“Geralt’s been sending you?” He asks, frowning a bit. 

“Well no!” She hastens to assure him. “I was already going to, I swear! He told me to come a little less often, actually. He said you’d be tired, but that you wouldn’t want to tell me to leave.” 

He was correct. 

He doesn’t know how he feels about that. 

“He’s been asking about you,” she says, tilting her head a little. “I asked him why he didn’t come himself, but he wouldn’t tell me. He’s been really worried.” 

“Has he?” He asks, a bit absently. 

Ciri nods. 

“You should have seen him when he came back with you,” she says, and she presses close to his arm, wrapping hers around it. “I’ve never seen him look so scared, ever. Eskel and Lambert had to pull him back to let Yen work. He didn’t want to let you go.” She pauses a moment. “Are you…are you still fighting with him?” 

He doesn’t…actually know if they’re still fighting or not. 

“Not at this particular moment,” he says, stroking over her hair for the sake of something to do with his hands. 

He doesn’t know what the word is for what they’re doing right now, but he doesn’t think it’s fighting. 

“Could you do me a favor, darling?” He asks when she’s about to leave. 

“Hm?” She asks, leaning against the door. 

“Could you tell Geralt to come see me?” 

She nearly bounces as she skips away to do as he asked. 

*

Geralt slinks through the doorway of his own room with a hesitance that would be amusing under other circumstances, body language reading like a hound that’s stolen supper from the table and come to make amends. 

“Ciri said you asked for me?” He says, like he’s trying to make it clear that he’s still obeying the request to stay away and has come only after being summoned. 

Gods, but the man knows how to be endearing. Bastard. 

“You wanted to talk,” he says, patting the space beside him on the bed. “Let’s talk.”

He can’t help but smile slightly as Geralt approaches the same way he does a dangerous animal. It’s a bit flattering, being capable of making a witcher nervous. 

He pulls the book of poems out from under the pillow and holds it out. 

“Thought we might start with this and go from there,” he says, smiling a bit wider at the way Geralt freezes when he sees it before he recovers, sitting down with deliberate casualness. 

“Should have known you’d go through my things, nosy pest,” he says, with a tentative edge to his voice on the last word, like he’s treading carefully to find the boundaries of what he’s allowed now. 

“You put me in here, witcher,” he says with a shrug, snatching it back out of reach when Geralt extends a hand for it. 

There’s a quick flicker of amusement in the witcher’s eyes that tells him that before the mountain, they would now be wrestling for sport over possession of the book. For now, though, he rests it beside his thigh, hand over the top of it. 

“You looked through it?” Geralt says, looking down to it before he looks up again, meeting his eye. 

“Yes.” 

A beat. 

“...thoroughly?” 

He snorts and tilts his head a bit. 

“Why? Not ready to hear feedback about your feedback?” He asks, and there’s a tentative hope on Geralt’s face that nearly hurts to see. He wants this, he can see so clearly, wants this teasing, wants this ease. 

And gods, does he want it, too. 

“I…I missed you,” Geralt says, looking down again. “I saw the book in a shop in a town I was passing through and…” He shrugs. “You weren’t there to talk to.”

Gods, he truly was doomed from the start with this man. He’s only mortal. There’s no way he’s supposed to hear such a thing and not be affected. 

“Some fairly interesting annotations in here,” he says lightly, picking it up and rifling through the pages. 

Geralt hunches his shoulders ever so slightly, the witcher equivalent of a blush. 

“You love me,” he says, proud that his voice remains even. 

A quick flicker of golden eyes, and then Geralt looks away again, running one hand through his hair. 

“Yes,” he says on a sigh. “I do.” 

“And you’re…okay with that? I thought witchers didn’t do things as foolish as falling in love.” 

“We don’t,” Geralt says, looking back to him then. “But as I’m sure you’ve gathered, I’m about the biggest fool this Continent has to offer.” 

“The truest thing you’ve ever said,” he judges, and a small smile curves one side of Geralt’s mouth. “What led to this realization of yours? Out of academic curiosity.” 

“Well, for the sake of academic curiosity…” Geralt says dryly, and he lifts his knee to nudge him. A large hand settles over his knee and squeezes gently, and he forces himself to remain focused. 

It would likely be easier if Geralt’s hand didn’t so easily cover his knee, if the squeeze didn’t give him very lovely ideas about what such a grip might feel like applied to other parts of his anatomy. 

He looks up when Geralt snorts, expression amused. 

“Horny as a tomcat even in a sickbed,” he says. 

“Something you should expect by now,” he says with a shrug. “You’ve known me long enough.” 

“I have,” he agrees. “And I understand that your feelings aren’t the same. I don’t have any expectations, Jask. If you never want to hear me say it again, I understand. I-” 

“And why wouldn’t I want to hear it again?” He asks, and Geralt gives him a confused look. 

“You don’t feel the same,” he says, “and I underst-” 

“And who-” He says, pausing and licking his lips briefly. Gods, he doesn’t know if his throat has ever felt so dry before. “Who said I don’t? Feel the same, that is.” 

Hope suffuses Geralt’s features despite the way he’s clearly trying to remain stone faced. 

“You haven’t made a secret of how you feel about me since we met again,” he says. “And I understand. What I did on the mountain…it was unforgivable. I know I lost any right to what we had before. If I can make you no longer hate me, that’s enough for me.” 

“I never hated you,” he says, voice hoarse. “I wanted to but…” He reaches out a hand that shakes a bit, lifting Geralt’s from his knee and holding it in his own. “It’s hard to retrain a heart that’s spent so long loving you. It’s a habit I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to quit.” He snorts. “Figures you’d only catch up after that godsdamned mountain.” 

“It wasn’t the mountain.” Geralt shifts just slightly, clearly a little embarrassed. “It was. It was before. You can ask any of the others, they’ve teased me enough about it.”

“You told the others?” He asks with a frown. 

“No,” Geralt says. “And when they first started up about it…I didn’t even believe them. But I came back smelling of you for years and told them enough about you. It’s not like it was that hard to figure out.” 

Given that he certainly fucking didn’t, he would like to disagree, but Geralt continues before he gets the chance. 

“I couldn’t admit it, even to myself,” he says. “Witchers don’t…we don’t get people like you, Jaskier. Not ever.” 

“And yet here I am,” he says, trying to keep his tone light. “A miracle.” 

“Yes,” Geralt agrees, harpooning his attempt at levity with such genuine feeling in his voice. “You are a miracle, to me. I didn’t believe you were real, at first. I thought you had to have something else at play when you first started following me. You were too beautiful, too good. I’ve never known light like yours. It was-I couldn’t trust it. It was easier to try and push you away. I thought it would hurt less when I lost you.” A slow breath, in and out. “I was wrong. I don’t think there’s anything that could make losing you hurt less. Even when losing you was my own fault.” 

He doesn’t realize he’s started crying until Geralt reaches out to brush the tears away, and then he laughs wetly. 

“Gods,” he says, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve. “You should know by now not to say those sorts of things around me if you don’t want a weepy mess.” 

“I want you,” Geralt says softly before he smiles a bit. “Even when you’re a weepy mess. I want you, Jaskier, whatever that means, whatever you’ll allow.” 

“Well,” he says, “you should know by now that I allow a great deal.” 

“Is that so?” Geralt says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh yes,” he says. “I am quite generous, you see.” 

He leans forward, feeling a little dizzy with his own daring. 

“In fact,” he says, his lips a scant few inches from Geralt’s. “I’d like to give you something, if you’re amenable.” 

“O-oh?” Geralt says, looking flatteringly distracted. “And what would-” 

He cuts him off with a kiss. 

From the way Geralt freezes only a moment before he reaches up to cup the back of his head and angles him to deepen it, he doesn’t think the witcher minds. 

*

He loses himself, a bit, in the hazy surreality of kissing Geralt of Rivia. At some point, he ends up on his knees and then on the witcher’s lap, strong thighs beneath his own. A large, warm hand sneaks its way beneath his shirt, cupping his hip, thumb dipping down to rub teasingly beneath the fabric of the waistband of his trousers. He can’t help the little noise that escapes him, nor can he help the surge of want that flows through him at Geralt’s responding growl. He reaches for Geralt’s laces, ready to seal this peace of theirs with-

“Jaskier, are you- oh gods I’m so sorry!” 

He and Geralt push away from each other with such force that he ends up knocked halfway off of the bed, sliding down to the floor entirely, and in the scramble to catch him, Geralt ends up on top of him, one knee between his own as they both lift their heads to look at Ciri, who is blushing a furious crimson in the doorway, one hand over her eyes. 

“Nothing happened-” 

“Cirilla, this is-” 

“Oh gods, I should have knocked-” 

They all speak over each other in a flurry of words, and they haven’t reached any sort of meaning by the time Ciri shuts the door with a promise to take a walk a long, long way away. 

He doesn’t miss the tiny, pleased smile on her face as she goes, even amidst her furious blushing. 

The moment the door is shut, Geralt drops his head down, resting his forehead against his chest. He snorts and reaches up to thread his fingers through the silvery strands, rougher than they were when he used to tend them. No matter. He can fix that in short order. 

“Well,” he says thoughtfully, making Geralt look up at him, brows raised. “I do believe that’s some sort of parent right of passage, you know, scarring your child for life.” 

Geralt snorts and then pushes himself up, offering him a hand and pulling him to his feet with deeply attractive ease. 

“It’s good we can give her the full experience,” Geralt says with mock-seriousness, and he grins. 

“Now that she’s safely out of the way for a while,” he says, pressing close. “I think I’d like a full experience of another sort.” 

It’s deeply gratifying for his ego, the way Geralt’s breath catches when he presses their hips together. 

“Oh?” He says, deep voice a rumble. “And what sort of experience might that be?” 

He leans in, whispering into Geralt’s ear and feeling a shiver run through him. 

“Get me back in that bed,” he says, “and I’ll show you.” 

He laughs when Geralt does, so quickly that he’s on his back without realizing how he got there. 

As the witcher’s head moves down his body, though, he doesn’t really have the focus to think about it, or to respond, really, beyond closing his eyes and enjoying. 

From the eagerness with which Geralt presses his lips to each revealed inch of skin, he doesn’t think the witcher will mind too terribly. 

*

In the aftermath, when they’re sweaty and sated, and he’s a limp weight against Geralt’s chest, he turns his head and presses his lips above the witcher’s heart before he settles his head on his shoulder. 

“Say it again,” he requests softly, so quietly that someone without a witcher’s hearing wouldn’t have heard. 

Geralt doesn’t need clarification. 

“I love you,” he says. 

He closes his eyes and smiles, enjoying it. 

“Again.” 

“I love you,” Geralt says again, voice warm before he presses a kiss to his temple, fingers tracing nonsense patterns along his spine. 

“I love you, too,” he says, and he feels a rumble almost like a purr from Geralt’s chest as they both relax into the afterglow. 

*

Ciri blushes a bit when she sees them walk into supper that night, but she perks up immediately when she sees their linked hands, and she scoots over for them to sit on either side of her the way they usually do. 

“Are you two okay now?” She asks eagerly, and he and Geralt exchange an amused look over her head before the witcher reaches out to snag a platter of meat and bring it closer as the other residents of the keep file in. 

“Yes,” Jaskier tells her. “We are.” 

Ciri’s smile is bright enough that he thinks they don’t even need the candles on the table to illuminate the room. 

“Fucking finally,” Lambert calls as he settles. “Thought you two would never fuck it ou-” 

He’s knocked backwards by the potato Geralt lobs at him, striking him right on the forehead and sending him down in a wave of cursing. 

Jaskier laughs, even as he tugs Ciri to the side to keep her clear of the retribution he knows is coming. 

“I’m glad you two aren’t fighting anymore,” she tells him in a low voice after Geralt has been bodily wrestled off of the bench and pulled into a brawl that also managed to draw Eskel in, the entire thing devolving into a brotherly play fight with no stakes beyond bragging rights. 

“So am I, darling” he tells her, pressing a kiss to her hair. “So am I.” 

And then he turns his focus to cheering on his witcher, already planning how a few of those wrestling moves might be turned to more personally enjoyable activities later. 

He has a great deal of time to make up for, after all.