Work Text:
all the things you wished you'd done
Jaskier hasn't sung his song about Renfri to anyone else yet, as far as Geralt knows, and Geralt isn't entirely sure why not, but... there's something nice about it.
He's used to being the first audience for Jaskier's songs (he even almost likes it, though he would never admit as much to Jaskier), but that typically means Jaskier playing a half-finished song to him once or twice, complaining bitterly about his lack of useful feedback, then testing it out in the next tavern they find.
Not this song, though. Jaskier pores over the lyrics for hours at a time, forehead creased in thought. He plays the melody over and over, occasionally turning to Geralt with a painfully earnest expression to ask which of two phrases sounds best; Geralt finds himself wishing he had enough musical knowledge to give an informed opinion, but doesn't have the heart to admit that half the time, he can't tell one from another. Instead, he does his best to hear what Jaskier hears, and chooses as sincerely as he's able.
It's not usually like this when Jaskier composes. He's never seen Jaskier apply himself this hard to anything, and even though it's not yet finished, the song taking shape under his careful fingers is quietly devastating.
Geralt has always known that Jaskier has both talent and skill, however reluctant he's been to acknowledge it - even Toss a Coin, as annoying and embarrassing as it is, is at least catchy. But watching and listening to Jaskier craft a compelling, tragic narrative from a broken account of Renfri's death, seeing him mould those halting words into something that rings as true as a bell, makes Geralt realise he's rather underestimated Jaskier as a poet. The haunting melody and sparse accompaniment are unlike anything he's heard Jaskier create before, and even his mutation-blunted emotions are susceptible. Before now, Geralt has largely treated Jaskier's music as background noise; not unpleasant (even if he still complains now and then), and frequently useful when they need extra coin, but nothing more, nothing truly important.
He wonders now if he should have been paying closer attention; wonders whether this song is special, or if it's just that he's come to take Jaskier for granted. What else has he missed, if he missed Jaskier growing into a man who can write like this?
Not that Jaskier isn't still... Jaskier. He keeps looking at the soulmark when he thinks Geralt isn't paying attention, and Geralt can almost hear all the questions teeming in his brain. But he hasn't asked any; besides that first, full 'Geralt' when he couldn't help himself, and his quiet request to be allowed to write a song - this song, Renfri's song - he's shown a degree of self-restraint Geralt didn't know he possessed.
Her Mark has, after all these decades, started to fade. What that means... Geralt couldn't guess and wouldn't know whom to ask. There's something bittersweet about it; he wished it away so often after Blaviken, wished he wasn't constantly reminded of his failure to save one unfortunate girl, however justified the reminder.
Over time, though, it became familiar, and after the striga - well, it still ached, but it ached less. He expected Renfri to be with him forever, and this feels oddly like desertion. (He mounts her brooch on his sword, to keep the memory fresh. He doesn't want to forget what he learned from her.)
Whether it's connected with Jaskier's song, he's not sure. At least Renfri will be remembered; if Jaskier can cajole almost the entire Continent into treating Witchers less cruelly on the back of one annoying ditty, he can certainly memorialise a princess with a heartfelt lament.
Geralt discovers the other change sitting quietly, on a warm, bright day, letting the sun and the spring breeze dry him off after washing away the worst of their travel grime in a stream. He'd planned for them to reach the next town today, but Jaskier pointed out the flowers and the sky and his sore feet, and looked at Geralt with big sad eyes, and Geralt is a fool.
Jaskier splashes around like an idiot; Geralt shouldn't be so charmed, but it's nice to see Jaskier carefree, clothes discarded, abandoned in his enjoyment. He's even taken his shirt off to bathe, which he had stopped doing for a while except in dark tavern rooms.
The Mark he remains a little self-conscious about is still oddly subdued compared to the jewel colours typical of Jaskier's soulmarks. It's beautiful, it's just... quiet. Almost peaceful. Geralt stares at it openly for several minutes without thinking, mesmerised, then has to tear his gaze away. This river seems safe enough, and he checked for drowners and other possible hazards, but he still needs to be watchful in case of the unexpected.
(He is absolutely not concerned that Jaskier may catch him staring.)
He does look again, more surreptitiously, and it's then he realises that Jaskier has hardly any soulmarks besides the one on his back that, shockingly, still hasn't faded. In fact, it becomes apparent, there's only one, on the inside of his left elbow, one that he's had as long as Geralt's known him. Jaskier touches it unconsciously sometimes when he speaks of friends and home and how both are encompassed in his time at Oxenfurt, so Geralt surmises it's someone dear to him whom he met during his studies. It's muted and subtle, like the newer one; Geralt noticed Jaskier's fingers straying there long before he realised it was because of a Mark. He's often wondered about the person it represents.
It's strange to see Jaskier's skin otherwise unadorned, to see he hasn't found a new true love of late. If Geralt were a more optimistic type, or knew Jaskier less well, he'd think it a sign Jaskier is finally growing up, but frankly, that doesn't seem terribly likely.
Shaking his head, he returns to his own business, doing his best to look anywhere but at Jaskier, and it's then that he notices something on his leg that didn't get washed away in the chilly water. Some instinct tells him not to let Jaskier see; he wanders back over to Roach. He's not hiding anything, he just wants his privacy.
Roach looks at him, and it's his imagination, surely, but he feels a little... judged. "Not a word," he murmurs, then laughs at himself for being so absurd. Jaskier, against all odds, is making him whimsical.
He leans against Roach's side and hooks the offending ankle over his knee to inspect it, then swears softly. It's tiny, delicate; it's obvious what it is and whom it represents even before he realises it's a buttercup, and fuck. Renfri's Mark is finally fading, but here's another to make a fool of him. It's just as well he long since gave up worrying that such things made him a bad Witcher, or he might get a complex.
He traces the flower with his finger. Is it small because a Witcher's body isn't conducive to soulmarks? Will it grow larger over time? If he'd seen it when it first formed, he might have more idea of what to expect, but he would never look for such a thing even now, even after carrying Renfri's brooch for so long. There's something pleasing, or maybe just appropriate, about it growing up his ankle like a tiny weed; bringing sunshine to unexpected places in unexpected ways, just like its namesake.
He should move it, put it somewhere Jaskier will never see. That would be the wise move. He stands up. When he looks from this angle, it's so small he understands how he missed it before.
He gives Roach a pat. "Good girl." He could probably perform the ritual right here, quietly; Jaskier need never know. And yet, he doesn't. He slips on a shirt now he's mostly dry, then wanders back to the river.
Jaskier is on the other side, peering at the flowers on the bank, unselfconscious and shameless in his naked beauty, the Mark on his back almost blending in with the dappled sunlight.
Geralt can't quite get away from the notion that it would be cheating to put his Mark somewhere intimate. He's seen Jaskier's, after all, a Mark that makes so much more sense to him now he's seen the buttercup. Jaskier tried to hide his, especially when it was new; absent any comment from Geralt, he's become less skittish, but he's never brought it up, and Geralt can't figure out why.
If he'd thought about it at all (which obviously, he has not), he would've thought getting a soulmark that says they are friends, despite Geralt's increasingly weak protests to the contrary, would leave Jaskier jubilant. Who else in Jaskier's life would be represented by what, Geralt now sees clearly, are wolf tracks in snow? Jaskier should be crowing in triumph about Witchers having emotions, and how much Geralt must care for him.
And Geralt does care, despite his best intentions.
"Ah, Geralt," Jaskier says, when he finally notices he has company again, "this is a much nicer campsite than you usually insist on, are you feeling quite well?"
Geralt rolls his eyes and poorly suppresses a grin. "I'll remind you of that when the birds wake you at dawn."
Jaskier laughs with his whole body, and even Geralt manages a low chuckle. It's hard not be be pleased when he gets such a reaction.
Jaskier plucks something from the riverbank, then wades back over to Geralt and offers it up to him. "Look!"
It's a buttercup.
If Jaskier were better at dissembling about his emotions - if he didn't wear them aloud and all over his face at all times - Geralt would think it a hint. But there's no guile on his face, just honest delight in a thing of beauty.
Geralt takes a deep breath. It's fanciful (something else he will attribute to all the time he's spent with Jaskier), but it's as if his self-consciousness burns in the Mark. He's so aware that Jaskier could easily see it from where he's standing, if he only looked in the right direction. "It's beautiful," he says hoarsely, not taking the flower from Jaskier's fingers because he doesn't entirely trust himself not to crush it.
Jaskier's smile softens as he stares up at Geralt, softens and warms and becomes almost unbearably tender. "So. I suppose we should start setting up our camp before the sun goes down."
Geralt's fairly sure Jaskier is humouring him and giving him an out all at the same time, but he nods anyway. Jaskier tucks the flower behind his ear and climbs out of the water, shaking his limbs like a wet dog. The buttercup glows against his hair, and once again, Geralt is struck by how much brightness Jaskier brings into his life, at the same time as he takes on the burden of Geralt's darkest memories.
Maybe finding the Mark shouldn't surprise him after all. The sharing of that story, the emotional weight of telling Jaskier everything he remembers, something he's not even told his brothers in such detail... of course that's emblematic of a closeness even Geralt can recognise, though he's not about to admit it to anybody, least of all to Jaskier himself. The care and skill with which Jaskier writes about Renfri probably means something, too. It's never been in any doubt that Jaskier cares for him, but youthful infatuation has become real friendship. Geralt has definitely taken that for granted. Maybe whoever or whatever causes soulmarks has decided to give him a prod, to remind him that Jaskier's devotion is actually significant, and he should be a little more grateful.
And none of it has to mean more than that.
(He knows full well his Mark appeared long before he told Jaskier about Renfri. He remembers the fight that would easily have distracted him from the sting. He remembers Jaskier's Mark appearing. On some distant but sure level, he's aware soulmarks are always mutual. He remembers, and it makes sense now. This is not new.
But he's unwilling to admit that even in the privacy of his own head.)
~ fin ~