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Every once in a while, there will come a moment that has Jaskier go still and fight the urge to laugh out loud when he realizes just how domestic his life with Geralt has turned out despite everything. Tonight, it hits him when he and Geralt kiss their daughter of surprise goodnight beneath the open night sky and the little girl crosses her arms beneath the blankets they have tugged up to her chin and refuses to settle down even as her lids grow heavy and start slipping shut in spite of herself.
“Sweetheart, the only thing that’s keeping you from literally keeling over this second is the fact that you’re already laying down”, Jaskier gently points out as he shifts to put more weight onto the hand and forearm, he has braced against the bedroll.
His fringe has grown long enough to almost brush against Ciri’s forehead and cheeks when he leans over her again and a handful of strands slip out from behind his ear and tumble forward and down. Somewhere to their left Geralt fails to stifle his snort when Ciri shakes her head and sticks out her bottom lip.
“You can barely keep your eyes open”, Jaskier goes on, ignoring his husband as he shifts again to free one arm from underneath himself.
He has been in love with his witcher for nearly half his life at this point, and he’s known that there won’t be anyone else for him since he had first joined him on the path all those years ago, but there are still moments when he wants to throttle him just a little bit. This is one of them.
“I’m fine”, Ciri mumbles, lips barely moving at all anymore, “’m not tired”
“I can see that”, Jaskier tells her with a soft smile as he cradles the fingers of his free hand through her thick, ashen curls and finally touches her cheek with the very tips of his fingers, “but you do need to get a bit of shuteye if we want to make it to town tomorrow. Just try to close your eyes for a little while and relax, yeah? We’ll be right here by your side the whole night, I promise. You won’t miss anything important”.
He feels Geralt shift closer to him on Ciri’s other side more than he sees it out of the corner of his eye, feels the press of his shoulder against his own when he too sits up and bends over the little girl, feels the warmth of his breath against the shell of his ear when he opens his mouth to stage-whisper “mother hen” into his ear, just as Ciri leans into Jaskier’s caress and shows them a bleary little smile.
“He’s right though”, Geralt points out casually when he turns back to the little girl, like he’d never made fun of his husband at all, “we’re going to have a long day tomorrow”
His eyes have softened though, and the ends of his hair come to a rest against Ciri’s chest when he ducks his head to brush his lips against her temple. Even his smile has lost any edge it might have had by the time he pulls back.
“Fine”, she finally mumbles through a thick yawn, eyes slipping shut even as she drags the words out of herself and snuggles further into the blankets and Jaskier’s folded cloak that has been her pillow since the very first night she’d spent with them, “goodnight, mama, goodnight Geralt”
“Sleep tight, baby”
“Goodnight, Ciri”
Jaskier refuses to wince when he shoves his elbow into his husband’s side the second Ciri’s eyes close and she curls up in her usual spot between them, in the centre of their bedrolls, barricaded by their bodies on either side.
“This is your fault, you know”, he tells Geralt as he rolls back onto his side, arms crossed in front of his chest while his fingers close around his smarting elbow and rub the spot through his sleeve.
“And how exactly is that?”
Geralt doesn’t move, but his lips twist into a wry grin in the light of the nearby campfire. They probably don’t have to keep their voices quite as low as they do, not with how soundly Ciri sleeps these days once she has finally dozed off or the fact that she has been living with them on the path for the better part of the last year – which this far has meant either sleeping rough in forests or in ramshackle beds over busy taverns that don’t quiet down until the early hours of the morning. If the little girl has learned anything by now, it’s sleeping through all kind of noise and disturbances as long as either Jaskier or Geralt are there to watch over her and keep her safe.
“You know what I mean”
“I know that I told you not to encourage her”, Geralt hums as he reaches out to brush back Jaskier’s overgrown fringe and watch it flop right back over his eyes and brows when he drops his hand to redraw the arch of Jaskier’s cheekbone with one sword-calloused fingertip.
The bruise dark circles beneath his husband’s eyes have all but washed away over the last fortnight, now that Ciri is well again, but their shadows aren’t entirely gone yet and something within Geralt’s chest gives a low, dull tug at the sight.
“I didn’t”, Jaskier whispers, but doesn’t pull away.
His eyes flutter shut as he melts into the gentle touch, and he doesn’t quite manage to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching into a soft, sluggish little smile.
“O, you didn’t, did you?”, Geralt asks, smile morphing into smirk and Jaskier doesn’t have to see his face to know that his eyebrows are rising high on his forehead as he speaks, “so it’s simply my fanciful imagination that you grin like an loon and coo at her whenever she calls you-“
“I don’t”, Jaskier interrupts, but halfway through his answer, his memory catches up and he opens his eyes with a soft groan, “ah, fuck”
“Didn’t notice you were doing it, hm?”
Geralt is still grinning when his husband sits up and buries his face in his hands, but he does follow his example and carefully rights himself at Ciri’s other side. His hand is warm when he places it on Jaskier’s shoulder, and its warmth bleeds through the fabric of Jaskier’s shirt when he gently squeezes it and runs his thumb along the hard line of his collarbone.
“Of course, I didn’t notice it”, Jaskier sighs into the hollow between his wrists, “I’m always grinning and gibbering like a fool around her”
And he’d been even softer with her while she’d been sick and miserable with the bout of flu she’d caught. During the day he had done his best to distract her with stories, little games that wouldn’t exhaust the little girl even more, all the while promising that he wouldn’t leave her side until she was well again and trying to coax her into sipping the cups of tea and soup Geralt brought them in regular intervals whenever he wasn’t actually out and working through the heap of contracts he’d received when they had entered the village. At night Jaskier had rocked her in his arms as if she were nothing more than a babe and sung to her well into the wee hours of each morning when she wouldn’t fall asleep despite it all. He had barely left the little room they’d been given as part of Geralt’s payment, had hardly dared to go to sleep himself, even when his husband was there with them to take over coddling the little girl and his sleep had been almost as fitful as Ciri’s whenever he did. Thinking back, this had been about the time Ciri had full on stopped using his name, and Jaskier doesn’t have to strain in order to remember how he felt about correcting the little girl while she’d been ill.
“Which is why she loves being around you”, Geralt reminds him softly, “and why she loves you the most”
“Roach is the one she loves the most”, Jaskier mutters but makes no move to shrug his husband’s hand off or push him away, “why didn’t you say something?”
“I did”, Geralt points out, “you ignored me, as you usually do when it comes to this sort of thing”
“Ugh, I hate it when you do that”, Jaskier sighs again, but this time he lets his hands drop back into his lap, where Geralt gathers them up in one of his hands and brings them up to his lips.
“Being right?”
His breath washes over Jaskier’s knuckles, warm and damp in the cool night air and Jaskier can’t help himself but shudder at the sensation.
“Yes”, he grumbles, eyes soft again despite himself as he watches his husband nuzzle his fingers, leaning over the little girl still fast asleep between them, “and you do it insufferably often too”
“O, you poor thing”, Geralt drawls, cocking his head to the side and Jaskier wants to shove him onto his back, straddle his hips and bury his hands in those glorious pale curls before they have stopped swaying from his movement, “the hardships you suffer at my side”
“Hardships indeed”
Geralt snorts so loudly in turn that he’s half convinced he must have woken Ciri up by the time he slaps his hand over his mouth, narrowly missing his other hand and Jaskier’s, still held between his long, calloused fingers. His husband’s gaze follows his own when he shifts to regard the little girl’s face, which scrunches up for a handful of seconds until she shifts again and finally quiets down with a soft, little sound, burying back beneath the blankets and they heave a collective sigh of relief at the sight. It takes them a while to tear their gazes away and return to their conversation in the flickering light of the flames.
“Do you really mind it that much?”, Geralt finally asks, eyes flicking from Jaskier to Ciri and back again before he goes on, “truthfully, I mean? Because you surely look happy every time, she calls you mama”
“Well, it does make me happy in some stupid kind of way”, Jaskier admits with a somewhat tense half shrug, “that she might see me as some kind of parental figure or something, even though I know it’s not what she means by it-“
“My love, I’m sure that if there’s anybody she might view as family it’s you”, Geralt cuts him off in a soft voice.
“It’s us”, Jaskier corrects, absentmindedly, eyes still fixed on the sleeping child in their midst, “just how angry are you about it?”, he finally asks, turning back to face his husband.
This time, his voice comes out so low even Geralt barely catches it over the crackling of the fire and the gentle rustling of the breeze through the trees.
“Me? Why would I be angry?”
“Because you keep insisting that you’re not her father, no matter that you care for her like any parent would and-“
“Jaskier”, Geralt says and Jaskier falls silent despite himself, “that’s different, you know-“, he cuts himself off, shaking his head as if to clear it, “if you want to be her parent, it doesn’t make me angry at all. I know you wouldn’t choose to take on that responsibility if you weren’t set on fulfilling it – and I for one don’t really care what you and Ciri want to call it”
Neither of them points out that Jaskier has been gently needling him ever since the immediate aftermath of Pavetta’s betrothal and wedding had been sorted out. That he keeps referring to Ciri as their daughter of surprise, or that Geralt himself has definitely overheard Jaskier refer to him as Ciri’s father in conversation and has yet to react, other than calmly point out the mistake.
“I know you don’t mind either way”
For once, Jaskier lets Geralt have his out and doesn’t start the old argument up again – they’ve made it too far into the night for that one.
“Do you?”, Geralt asks, “mind what term she uses, I mean?”
“…not personally”, Jaskier tells him in the end, and Geralt furrows his brow.
“I don’t-“
“I’m just not sure how the rest of the continent is going to react to any child referring to me as their mum”
“Ah”
“And it’s not like this”, Jaskier slips one hand from his husband’s grasp to gesture vaguely towards himself, Geralt, and their daughter of surprise, “this family isn’t going to prompt raised eyebrows wherever it goes anyway”
“To be perfectly honest, my love, I don’t think a bit of unorthodox terminology is hardly going to be nail in our coffin when it comes to that”
“How reassuring”, Jaskier deadpans, but some of the tension leaves his shoulders while he speaks.
“You know me”
“O, that I do, yeah”
“You realize that you don’t have to figure all of this out tonight, right?
“Yeah, but I will have to figure it out at some point”, Jaskier sighs, “and I just don’t know- I don’t want to fuck up and hurt her in any way”
“I know”
“And I guess”, Jaskier goes on, absentmindedly gnawing at his bottom lip as his gaze grows unfocused as it sometimes does when he is deep in thought, “when I think back to my own childhood, I’d much rather take after my mum when it comes to raising children than my father”
“We can visit her again next time we’re in the general area”, Geralt suggests, if only to try and stir Jaskier from that particular line of thought and bitter memories, “last time was nice”
“Apart from the migraine you got after spending one afternoon with me and my siblings“
“Apart from that”
Jaskier shakes his head with a soft, fond sigh, the sharp line around his mouth all but gone and Geralt is careful not to audibly breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, he slowly raises his free hand to cup Jaskier’s cheek and run the pad of his thumb along the gentle curve of his jowl, giving him every chance to pull away.
“You’ll figure it out”, he finally tells him in a voice that doesn’t leave any room for argument, “try to stop worrying for now, it won’t get you anywhere tonight”
“You’re probably right”, Jaskier admits, reaching up to cover his husband’s hand with his own, “again”
Geralt merely grins at him, pale skin, and hair aglow in the light of the campfire and Jaskier shakes his head once more, never letting go. In the end Geralt climbs to his feet, rounds Ciri and Jaskier and sinks down by his husband’s side, who tips back his head to watch him through his long, dark lashes.
“Hi”, Jaskier whispers once Geralt has settled down behind him, knees tugged into the hollow behind his own and his witcher’s arms slung around his waist, “come here often?”
“Hm, not nearly often enough”, Geralt hums and Jaskier can’t help the shiver that runs through him when his husband’s breath stirs the hair on the back of his neck.
“Maybe we’ll run into someone who can watch the little one for a bit once your contracts are done”, Jaskier whispers.
Geralt’s hands are as warm and scarred as the rest of him and Jaskier’s fingers glide perfectly between his knuckles once his hand has finished its journey up Geralt’s forearm, wrist, and hand.
“Maybe”, Geralt echoes him, and Jaskier doesn’t have to read wistfulness into the single word as he buries his face in the nape of his neck and tightens his hold around him, “I love you, you know?”
“I had my suspicions”, Jaskier whispers with a soft laugh, gently guiding Geralt’s arm forward until his hand comes to a rest against his ribs, just below his heart and squeezes his fingers tighter between his own, “I love you too, witcher of mine”
For a couple of minutes, neither of them says a word and their silence is only disturbed by the occasional whisper of wind and flame and Ciri’s slow, even breathing. By the time Jaskier fails to stifle his first, proper yawn, the little meadow has sunken into true darkness and Jaskier is barely able to make out Ciri’s vague outline by the glow of the campfire anymore.
“Go to sleep”, Geralt whispers, still nestled so tightly into his husband’s lax body that Jaskier feels the vibration of his voice deep within his own chest, “it’s late and you’re just as exhausted as her”
He can’t quite help himself but smile into the nape of his husband’s neck when Jaskier merely hums in reply and snuggles further into the blankets and bedroll, fast on Ciri’s heels on his ways into oblivion while Geralt watches over them beneath the sickle moon.
---
The next morning Geralt lets them sleep in while he packs up everything besides the bedrolls, blankets, and clothes for the day. By the time Jaskier stirs, Ciri has snuggled into his chest, head tugged beneath his chin and little fingers buried in the fabric of his shirt as she sleeps on in his embrace, oblivious to the beginning of the new day.
“It takes about fifteen years”, Geralt hums as he sinks into a crouch beside his husband and leans down to kiss him, “but once she’s out, she’s out like a light and you could stand her up on her head without waking her up. Good morning, my love”
“Morning”, Jaskier tells him through a thick yawn, squeezing his eyes shut and carefully rolling his shoulders back in lieu of letting go of Ciri and being able to properly stretch, “whattimeisit?”
“Still early enough for us to reach the town before it gets dark”
“Great”
Jaskier yawns again, pink lips opening wide to expose his teeth and tongue beneath the steadily strengthening daylight, pouring down through the canopy of leaves and branches above them.
“How about we get some tea and bread into you before you fall back asleep?”
“I won’t”, Jaskier mutters beneath heavy lids, “probably. Fucking hell, I didn’t think we stayed up that long last night”
“We didn’t”, Geralt tells him with a soft laugh, “you just still have a lot of sleep to make up for”
“I’m fine, darling”, Jaskier mumbles, “you just worry too much”
Nearly two decades had passed since their paths had first crossed, and even back then, Jaskier had quickly become fluent in the way Geralt moved, the sounds he made when he couldn’t or wouldn’t bother with words – and right now the grunt he gets in return carries nothing but gentle disagreement and the assurance that there was nothing in this world or the next that could keep Geralt from either worrying about or taking care of him.
“Suite yourself then”
Nestled within his arms, the little girl makes a soft sound as she too starts coming to, fingers closing around the bunched-up fabric she’d caught in her sleep as her forehead wrinkles, and she buries her face further in Jaskier’s chest.
“I will, thanks”, Geralt shoots back as he climbs back to his feet, hands settling down on either side of his hips as he watches Jaskier stifle another yawn in Ciri’s hair even as she sleepily presses closer to his warmth, eyes slowly blinking open, “I’ll get breakfast ready while you two finish coming to, then we can go on”
---
Geralt is right, and they do reach the little town just as the sun starts setting behind the nearby woods and mountain.
“You want to play tonight?”, he asks Jaskier once they have passed the gates, tipping back his head to watch is husband’s face as he continues, “you don’t have to, we should have enough coin to stay at an inn for a couple of nights anyway”
Sitting in Roach’s saddle, Jaskier’s hips are just about level with Geralt’s head and he has to reach up to touch his husband’s knee through the dark blue fabric of his britches. He cuts a rather striking silhouette atop their horse too, one hand casually resting against the pommel of the saddle, reins wound around his fingers while his other arm has snaked its way around Ciri’s waist to cradle her close on the way. And it takes all of Geralt’ will power not to reach up higher, follow the inseam of Jaskier’s trousers and only stop when he’d reach the crease of his thigh, not to ease it up and away from Roach’s flank until he’d be able to bury his face just where his husband’s leg meets his hip and- he shakes his head in an attempt to dispel the thought, the memory of Jaskier’s smooth, strong thighs clamped around his neck and shoulders while Geralt took him apart with his tongue and fingers, drowning in the smell, and feel and taste of his husband all around him. It doesn’t work particularly well, and Geralt almost misses Jaskier’s answer entirely while he drinks in the sight in front of him like fine wine.
“I can do a set or two in the evenings, depending on what they’re willing to pay”
It’s been over a decade since Jaskier had last had to cajole his way onto any stage, and almost as long since his performance had not secured them a couple of nights at any inn, but the pride he takes in his work, in his contributing his share to their livelihood and budget is still clear as day, and Geralt wants to kiss him until both of them run out of breath.
“Alright then. Can you get us settled somewhere while I go check the noticeboards?”
“Course”
Jaskier’s hand settles over his husband’s while he speaks and gives it a gentle squeeze when he turns to Ciri.
“You want to come haggle with me or go with your dad?”, Jaskier asks her sweetly, maintaining eye-contact with his husband all the way through his question, who rolls his eyes at him but doesn’t correct him for once.
“I want to go with Geralt”, the little girl decides after a beat, stretching out her hands towards him before Geralt even lets go of Jaskier to reach for her in turn.
“Make him choose something that won’t leave him covered in slime and blood when he returns then”, Jaskier tells her with a laugh, already slipping his hands beneath Ciri’s arms to place her in his husband’s waiting arms, “which means that both of us are going to have to flex our haggle-muscles today”
His feet make no sound when he swings himself down onto the street beside Geralt and stretches up to first kiss Geralt, then her cheek, reins still clasped in one hand.
“Be careful”, Jaskier whispers when he pulls away from his husband, “I’ll see you later”
“We’ll find you”, Geralt hums, slowly opening his eyes again.
“I have no doubts, my loves”
“By, Jaskier”
Geralt’s and Ciri’s footsteps have long since drowned in the hubbub of the crowded marketplace when Jaskier realizes just why his chest feels so much heavier than it had a couple of minutes ago.
---
The feeling doesn’t go away when Geralt and Ciri join him in the common room of the little inn but lingers on throughout the rest of the evening while Geralt sharpens his swords and Ciri sits with him instead of taking her nap next to Jaskier while he prepares for his performance like usual. It’s just as strong as it has ever been by the time Jaskier finishes his set and encore and they head upstairs and settle down for an early night, carefully folded into one another on the straw stuffed mattress while the tavern below them periodically erupts into laughter and shouts and off tune, bawdy singing until it finally quiets down around three in the morning.
Jaskier struggles to fall asleep that night, pressed as tightly against Geralt’s side as if he were trying to smother the unease between their bodies while Ciri snuggles into his other side and doesn’t even attempt to haggle over bedtime, and his dreams are a dark, uneasy haze that leave him almost as drained as he’d been before he’d gone to sleep.
---
“How about you rest up a bit more while we go to the blacksmiths and the alderman?”, Geralt suggests when he disentangles himself the next morning and finds his husband’s eyes bloodshot and rimmed with heavy, dark circles, “I’ll bring back honey cakes if you want”
He combs Jaskier’s hair back with his fingers, and the limp brown curls slip back into his eyes before he lets go all the way.
“Honey cakes for breakfast?”, Jaskier asks, voice rough with lost sleep, “I thought that was for birthdays only”
“Hm, I think we can make an exception. What do you say, little one?”, Geralt turns to the little girl on his lap, who yawns even as she shrugs, sleep tousled curls bouncing along with ever movement she makes.
“Okay, we’ll see about breakfast then”, Geralt finally decides when he receives no further reaction from either of them and climbs to his feet, “and you try to sleep a bit more”
On any other day Jaskier would have made a show of sitting up himself, shoving his outstretched index fingers against his witcher’s chest and saying something along the lines of ‘don’t tell me what to do’ whist inwardly melting at the gentle tone of voice that took every last sting from Geralt’s supposed order. Today, he merely hums and shoves his hands beneath the pillow when he rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in the age-thin fabric.
“We won’t be long”, Geralt promises before long, bending over the edge of the bed to brush his lips against the back of Jaskier’s head and pull the blankets all the way up to his neck.
Outside their single window it’s light already, but Jaskier knows he wouldn’t be able to sleep if the sun were to never shine again before his husband and daughter of surprise have even left the room and ease the door shut behind themselves.
---
True to his word, Geralt and Ciri return after less than two hours with pastries, fresh bread, and information.
“I was going to head out after breakfast”, Geralt muses, casting a doubtful glance at his husband over his slice of gently steaming bread, molten butter oozing down between his fingers and slowly gathering in the lines of his hand, “if you two are fine here for a couple of hours”
“Course we’ll be fine”, Jaskier tells him between two bites, shrugging one shoulder, “we’ve managed far longer in far worse conditions, right sweetheart?”
“Yeah”, Ciri agrees, hands and face sticky with honey and half molten sugar, “’s nothing”
“Alright then”, Geralt sighs before he takes his last bite, climbing to his feet even as he licks his hand clean, “we should probably try and get a few things while we’re here. I started a list, would you mind going through the rest or our stores and adding everything else we’ve run low on?”
“Will do”, Jaskier promises through a poorly stifled yawn, but follows his husband’s lead and pushes himself up from the edge of the bed.
He keeps rubbing his eye whilst crossing over to Geralt, but his fingers are just as deft as they have been during every other time he’d batted his witcher’s hands out of the way and adjusted the straps and buckles that kept his armour in place.
“These probably need to be replaced at some point”, he muses as he tightens two of Geralt’s countless belts and finds the strap brittle and pale with countless tiny cracks and fissures that send little bits of leather flaking off the belt every time he touches it.
“They’ll do for today”, Geralt decides after a moment of careful examination.
His fingers are warm when he closes them around Jaskier’s wrists and lifts his hands up to eyelevel to blow away the stray flakes and finally ducks his head to press his lips against each of his husband’s pulse points in turn.
“I’ll probably be back by nightfall; you don’t have to wait up for me though”
Jaskier merely hums noncommittally, barely biting back his gasp when his husband’s breath washes against the heels of his hands and the sensitive insides of his wrists.
“You know the drill”, he tells Geralt once he has straightened up again, “you come back to us in one piece”
“Yes, my love”, Geralt laughs as he kisses Ciri goodbye and finally makes for the door, pausing just before the threshold as he casts one last glance at his tiny family, “I know the drill after twenty odd years”
“And yet you insist on disrupting it every once in a while and come crawling back on your last legs”
At some point during Jaskier’s complaint, his hands have found their way onto his hips, and he can’t help himself but heave a sigh at Geralt’s parting shout.
“Can’t have life be too boring”
“Sometimes”, he tells Ciri once the door has clicked shut and Geralt’s footsteps bled out of earshot, turning back to her and the table they had dragged over to the bed to serve as an improvised end table, “sometimes I wonder why I put up with that sort of behaviour”, he sighs again when he flops back down next to the little girl and kicks up his feet, “but then I remember that he’s the love of my life, no matter how… silly he’s being”
He'd given up on trying to stop swearing around Ciri when he had finally accepted that neither her uncles, nor Geralt would join the efforts, but there are some lines he won’t cross, and calling his husband an insufferable prick around her is one of them. Never mind that queen Calanthe’s granddaughter probably wouldn’t be fazed by a single phrase he could come up with.
Even now Ciri merely continues to chew, eyes trained on the remains of their meal on the tabletop in front of her as if he had never opened his mouth, and Jaskier barely manages to catch her hand when she reaches up to push her hair out of her face, fingers and palms glistening with honey and stray crumbs.
“We’re not spending today with trying to get dried honey out of your mane, baby”, he tells her firmly when her head snaps up and she looks at him with wide, sea-green eyes, “and I’m not going to explain to Geralt why we had to cut off half your hair while he’d been gone. Come here, I’ll help you-“
“I can do it”, Ciri cuts him off, not unkindly but Jaskier falls silent just the same as he watches her get up and head over to the wash basin.
“Ciri…”, he starts but trails off when he realizes that he has no idea how to phrase his question without making it sound like a petty accusation.
So they sit in uncomfortable silence until Jaskier finally gives up and starts clearing the table.
“You want to help me go through our things?”, he asks once everything has been put away and he has changed out of his nightshirts and pants, leaning back against the edge of the table that has returned to its old spot by the window, “I’m pretty sure we’ll need to get you some new clothes with the way you’ve been growing”
“Sure”
Jaskier’s teeth have sunken into his bottom lip by the time Ciri joins him in front of their packs, still mostly where they had left it the evening before and barely half unpacked on the wooden floorboards, but he does his best to keep his voice light when he sinks to his knees and prompts Ciri to join him on the sun-warm floor.
“Alright, how about we start with how much food we’ve good left?”
---
By the time Jaskier has added the last point to their list, there’s still over an hour left to go until he is set to play.
“Come on, we can get something to eat before I have to start”, he tells Ciri, fingers already closed around the handle of his lute case as he turns to the door, but her voice stops him dead in his tracks.
“Can’t I stay up here?”
Ciri isn’t looking at him when she speaks, but at the faded rug in front of the bed, arms crossed over her belly and legs dangling over the edge of the mattress.
“You’re not hungry?”, Jaskier asks, even as he sets the case back down, turns and returns to the unmade bed in the far corner of the room.
He merely gets a shrug in return when he crouches down in front of her and tries to catch her gaze.
“And you want to stay here all alone?”, he goes on without much hope for an answer, “Any particular reason for that?”
Another shrug. Jaskier doesn’t even remember the last time either he or Geralt had left Ciri on her own for more than a couple of minutes, doubts that it’s ever been longer than half an hour – and he certainly doesn’t remember her asking to be left alone either.
“What’s wrong, Ciri?”, Jaskier asks, careful to keep his voice even as he watches the little girl’s press her lips together until they turn white, “are you feeling sick? Did anyone say something when you and Geralt-“
He falls silent when Ciri shakes her head and shakes it again harder before he has made it all the way through his second question.
“Look, you don’t have to tell me, but I’m afraid I can’t do much of anything if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you – and something is bothering you sweetheart”, Jaskier finally tells her, reaching out to brush a loose strand out of her face and tug it behind her ear, “unless you’re not well, in that case you very much do have to tell me so I can get all set to coddle you until you’re better”
That at least makes her laugh, but the laughter doesn’t reach her eyes and Jaskier has to bite back a sigh, as he waits for her reply.
“I heard you and Geralt talk the other night”, Ciri admits in the end, eyes cast down to Jaskier’s chest instead of his face.
“Ah”
Jaskier rings clink together when he curls back his fingers and drops his hand between them, shifting to settle into a slightly more comfortable position on his heels that doesn’t send the muscles in his legs screaming quite as loudly.
“What exactly did you hear then, baby?”
“That you don’t people to think we’re family”, Ciri’s voice comes out softly, barely above a whisper but the hurt in it is obvious with every word she says, “and that you don’t want me around anymore”
“I don’t- excuse me since when has that ever been a question?”, Jaskier can’t help himself but cry out in surprise, throwing his arms into the air even though it has him wobble on his feet before he regains his balance, “do you think I’d- sweetheart, I’m afraid you completely misunderstood what we were talking about. I don’t think any parent could love their child any more than I love you”
“But you said-“
“Because I’m not what one would traditionally imagine when they’d hear the word mother, my sweet. That’s usually reserved for, you know, members of the female persuasion, not me”
“But why?”
“Why?”, Jaskier echoes softly, palms coming to a rest on the backs of his thighs as he looks up at Ciri’s flushed face, “well, it’s just the meaning of that word and- o baby, it’s alright”
The feeling returns to Jaskier’s legs all pins and needles when he rises to his feet and gathers the little girl up in his arms, but he pays it no mind as he hugs Ciri close and covers her hair with little kisses and soft, soothing words while she sniffles into the crook of his neck.
“Hey”, he whispers, over and over again as sinks down on the edge of the bed again and cuddles her close, “hey, everything’s okay, you did nothing wrong, everything’s fine. O, I’m so sorry I ever made you feel like you were unwanted, my sweet, sweet girl”
Her hands have knotted in the fabric of his shirt by the time Jaskier sits down on the edge of the bed and settles her down on his lap, never letting go of the little girl. Ciri on her part merely presses closer as Jaskier rocks her in his arms, humming under his breath and smoothing one hand up and down between her shoulder blades. It takes several minutes until her sniffs finally start to die down and she ends up merely quietly hiccupping into the wet patch she’d left on his shirt – and it's more than enough time for Jaskier to make the decision he’d been dreading for so long.
“Out of all the things I’ve ever been and will ever be in this life”, Jaskier tells the little girl firmly when he is more or less sure that she has calmed down enough to hear him, “being your mama and being with Geralt are the two things I wouldn’t trade in for anything else this world could ever offer me, okay? I don’t care what the rest of the continent might think about it, as long as we’re okay, okay?”
“Okay”, Ciri answers him after a beat, voice still thick with leftover tears before she slings her arms around his neck, “I love you”
“I love you more, sweetheart”
Jaskier can’t help himself but laugh as he returns the embrace and presses his lips against the top of her head, holding her close until they finally have to return to the tavern bellow for his set. His performance is far better than last night’s.
---
When Geralt returns to their room that night, he finds his husband cross-legged on their bed, leant against the wooden wall behind him and their daughter of surprise fast asleep in his arms, face buried in the soft fabric of Jaskier’s shirt while he quietly sings to her.
“Mother hen”, he mouths as he lowers himself onto the mattress next to Jaskier and kisses his cheek.
“You know what”, Jaskier whispers without opening his eyes, “I’ve decided to take that as a compliment actually”
He doesn’t see Geralt’s eyebrows almost vanish into his hairline, but he hears the incredulity in his voice clear as day when he asks, “What on earth else could it have ever been?”
“Well,” Jaskier starts but deflates halfway through the word, “o shut up, you stupidly sweet man”
“So, I take it, you worked things out?”
“Mhm, just about”, Jaskier whispers, careful not to move too much when he leans into his husband’s side and lays his head against his shoulder, “how was the contract? Are you okay?”
“Fine, bit dull to be honest. Good pay though”
Geralt’s hair, loose from its tie and curling down to his shoulders brushes against Jaskier’s cheek when he leans his head against his husband’s and ever so slowly works his arm into the gap between the small of Jaskier’s back and the wall behind it until he is able to curl his fingers around Jaskier’s hip and draw him just a tiny bit closer.
“Wanna hear about it?”
“Sure”, Jaskier whispers, melting in his husband’s hold as he tries and fails to stifle his yawn, “’s not like there’s anything I’d rather do than be right here with you two”