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The sound of a log cracking in the hearth is what rouses Geralt into drifting out of sleep. He hadn’t been particularly exhausted but the warmth of being piled under all their blankets and furs coupled with the lulling effect of long fingers combing carefully through his hair were more than enough to draw him under.
Jaskier’s hand remains even if it’s stilled since, palm pressed protectively to the crown of Geralt’s head. Geralt has never made it his business to admit to, as Jaskier puts it until Geralt has to make him shut up, purring. He can, however, concede to seeing how that might be said in his current state.
Paper rasps as Jaskier turns a page. Geralt tightens the arm he has around the bard’s waist, pressing his face closer into his chest with the same motion. Geralt has long since stopped trying to be subtle about smelling him since apparently he’d never been very good at it to begin with. It’s just too easy to find comfort in it, in him, especially within Kaer Mohren where Geralt has to be just this close to scent past the parchment and ink from the library, the lavender of their soap, to get to the true warmth of him underneath it all. Every person is different, there’s never a true identifier, but Geralt has always found Jaskier closest to happiness, home. He kisses the spot beneath his mouth, heartbeat a mark or so off beneath the soft fabric of Jaskier’s shirt.
“This is fucking fascinating,” Jaskier mumurs as he tends to do to himself whether or not Geralt is awake, absently pressing his own kiss to Geralt’s hairline in greeting. His voice is a pleasant buzz against Geralt’s ear. “Had a nice nap? I really did mean to join you, I just also absolutely did not once I got to the bit about the wyverns.”
It makes his mouth twitch into a grin, the thought of Jaskier flipping through the same pages he and other witchers before him had with the same reaction. “You didn’t expect them in Skellige.”
Jaskier’s already shaking his head, hair brushing Geralt’s forehead, “No, I didn’t. A migration from Vizima wouldn’t be too far-fetched, I suppose, if something pushed them to it, and I know there had to be survivors to even record it, but I truly thought they would be done for...”
Geralt finally lifts his head slightly to give him a look as he finishes his sentence. Jaskier is limned by the golden light of the candles he has on his side of the bed to read by, suffusing his skin with the glow it loses in the winter. Geralt would never forget Jaskier is beautiful; he’d claim it was due to the bard’s vanity in any other context but here, in their bed, Jaskier’s overlong hair mussed so it’s falling into his eyes as they flick to meet Geralt’s, he can’t claim it anything other than an inarguable fact.
“I’ve been very invested,” Jaskier reasons, dropping a thumb in the book as he closes it in his lap. “Do I get to know what pushed the migration?”
“Clearly. And yes, eventually,” Geralt says. He shifts to get an arm out from under the blankets and push the hair out of Jaskier’s face but that second of exposure outside the cocoon of their joint heat is enough to send him fleeing back under. He burrs out, “It’s fucking cold,” before he can realize his mistake.
Jaskier’s face splits into a near-manic grin Geralt has to immediately groan at, any efforts at hiding his face back into Jaskier’s shirt thwarted by his pulling back to point into it with the book. “Ha! So you admit it,” he stretches himself further back as Geralt once again attempts to burrow into him, “not as impervious as you claim, are you? I am so bringing this up next time you make fun of me for coming down to breakfast in a cloak and gloves.”
Which is mostly accounted to Lambert and Yennefer, but Geralt will never pass up an opportunity to make Jaskier get pissy enough to start throwing bacon. Geralt grunts and gets a better hold on Jaskier’s waist, tugging at him. “Come here.”
Jaskier laughs, a quick, bright sound that startles out of him in a way that warms Geralt completely. He puts up some resistance, regardless. “No, no no no, I’m not done yet.”
“I can tell you what happens,” Geralt says as he manages to get him down to where he can hook his chin on his shoulder.
Jaskier makes an aborted motion to the effect of smacking the book against Geralt’s back like he has countless times with his song journal, before perhaps realizing a century and a half old book he’s still actively restoring won’t fare as well. He quickly marks it properly as he uses his other hand to do the smacking. “No! No spoiling!”
Geralt hums, snaking his hands up to paw at where Jaskier’s shirt yawns open. His fingers meet chilled collarbones that erupt into gooseflesh complimentary to Jaskier’s full body shiver. “You’re cold,” Geralt says as he starts his efforts at pushing the shirt up.
Jaskier snorts, speaking dryly despite the sparkle in his eye as he continues to resist, “And, just so we’re on the same page, your solution is to get me more naked, yes?”
Geralt states, “Skin to skin contact is most effective.” It is a line Jaskier has used on him more times than Geralt could count on both hands. There’s a reason for it since it has never failed him so far, and, as his eyes widen a fraction and the shirt finally comes off over his head, it seems to not fail Geralt either.
Jaskier stows both shirt and book at the side of the bed, snuffing out his candles as he complains, “I showed you my weakness to your wiles too readily.” Geralt suddenly has him nose to freezing nose in his arms, Jaskier purposely pressing them together just so Geralt hisses as he continues, “I should have been more coy.”
Geralt takes the quickest route to assimilation and pulls Jaskier closer so he can wedge their cheeks together, making sure Jaskier can feel the curl of his lip when he speaks against his ear. “You’d do about as well as you hide your cards at Gwent.”
Jaskier gasps in offence, pinching his hip as Geralt starts snickering into his jaw. “You absolute— I gesture a lot!” He gives one of those gestures then, flicking his hand around under the blankets. Geralt uses his vantage with his own hands behind Jaskier to tuck a fur more firmly around them. “No matter. Next winter I’ll show you all.”
“Hm.” Geralt has to smother his grin by starting a trail of kisses down the tendon of Jaskier’s neck. “That’s what you said last winter,” Jaskier gives a sigh Geralt wouldn’t have been able to hear if he weren’t practically tasting it, “and the one before that—“
“I know a pattern in dialogue when I hear one,” Jaskier interrupts, tone warning despite the fingers he dances over the small of Geralt’s back. His other hand curls into Geralt’s hair and tugs him into view, one eyebrow raised exaggeratedly. “You’d be smart to abort it, witcher.”
“It would only be true, bard,” he smirks and doesn’t resist cutting any further retort of Jaskier’s off by leaning forward. Jaskier melts against him before their mouths even meet, making a soft, involuntary noise that Geralt chooses to call relief when they do because he feels it too.
Jaskier’s hand adjusts to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing over the rise of his cheekbone before dipping down to press into his bottom lip in a wordless request. Geralt lets it drop open and Jaskier licks inside, hand sliding down to hook into the chain of Geralt’s medallion so his rings clink quietly against it.
It’s maddening how tactile Jaskier is with it. The symbol of every reason he is to be rightfully feared so carefully adjusted over his armor or tucked back beneath his shirt by sure, lute-calloused fingers that are just as likely to use it to yank him in the direction he wants him in . He doesn’t yank, now, just holds it between their chests as he lightly scratches blunt nails up and down the line of Geralt’s spine.
For all Geralt was created and honed on a curriculum of pure survival and violence, for all it has never been out of place for him to follow it, there’s a rightness to doing this with Jaskier. There always has been. Every quick press of their shoulders at a tavern, every tentative tap to the base of his skull to get him to dunk his head in the bath water, every careful application of salves and bandages alike to wounds he could very well dress himself just served to tear down the bricks building his resolve and pave his way into this.
“I suppose it has been a few winters of bad hands,” Jaskier concedes when they part for breath, voice low in his throat as he grins dazedly when Geralt squeezes the dip of his waist and purposefully drags his hand downward, adding, “and perhaps some notably good ones.”
Geralt hm’s as he palms at Jaskier’s thigh, lean from decades of falling in step with Geralt, to hook a hand beneath it and sling it over his hip. He squeezes the way he knows it will make Jaskier react, a choked out sound Geralt ducks down to bite a kiss into his pulse point for. “Truly,” Jaskier gets out, “some truly godsdamned fantastic hands.” He pats Geralt’s tailbone. “You, my love, are wasted on swords. They’ll never know how good they have it.
Geralt lets his chest fill pleasantly with the title, drawing back to tilt his head into the pillow and look his fill. Jaskier’s cheeks are flushed red so his eyes are that much bluer as they focus on him entirely. He smiles crookedly and Geralt is helpless to return it. “So I should reach fulfillment wielding you instead?” He asks, running his fingers idly against the smoothness of Jaskier’s leg.
Jaskier considers this. He clears his throat imperiously. “Well you have. Many times over.”
Geralt gives an affirmative hum to that. He continues watching as the shadow of Jaskier’s eyelashes flutter in such a way that he wants to irrationally kiss each one individually. Then Jaskier starts tapping at his back, a rhythm that takes shape quickly with Geralt’s decades of experience listening to it. He narrows his eyes. “Don’t.”
Jaskier has the sense to not even deny it, walking his fingers up to dislodge that arm from under Geralt and join it with the other at his medallion. “Already planning a bridge about blades crossing, I’m afraid. Overt, but that’s usually how they like it best. I’ll work something in about the dichotomy of silver and steel.” He does tug on Geralt’s medallion, then, to dip in and kiss him in something that could be an apology if he ever did such a thing when it concerned his music. “My muse, always so hard at work.”
“You don’t get bored,” Geralt finds himself saying, and the blood rushes to his ears fast enough that he can’t tell if he phrased it as a question or a statement. He barely even knows why he said it at all. He’s thought it more and more over the years and especially now as they grow into something that feels so much more inevitable with each passing day, but he’s never actually voiced it. He’s not sure if he ever actually planned on doing that. He had just been so unguarded, relaxed.
However Jaskier interprets it has him cocking his head. Geralt slows his breathing to calm down his unexpecred panic. “Of singing your praises?” His heel slides absently against Geralt’s shin and stops as he amends, “Of you ? Does the lake tire of the river leading into it?” He lets go of the medallion entirely to hold Geralt’s face in both hands instead, palms splayed to span all the way down to his throat. Jaskier’s brow is furrowed as he peers into Geralt’s face seriously, without judgement. “Geralt, of course not. There’s nothing to be bored of because we have everything already.”
There would be fear here, he knows, had they had this conversation a few years ago. Hell, maybe even less than that. He would probably be itching to get away from the question, making some wordless excuse to get out of bed and leave Jaskier to deal with the aftermath.
He’s been learning not to become overwhelmed by this kind of intimacy, close and intense even when the situation isn’t directly leading to more than that. He lets himself settle into the familiarity of Jaskier’s touch, his sure, patient expression.
Geralt doesn’t look away. “Do we?”
And he knows, he knows he’s satisfied, but humans, ancestrally elven and functionally immortal or otherwise, will always be different, especially Jaskier, so unlike anyone else Geralt has come to know in his long, long life. There’s not a doubt in his mind to the surety of Jaskier in it. But he’d never had to think about it in a grander vision than that.
“I’d say so,” Jaskier answers easily. His thumbs tap against Geralt’s temples in punctuation. “Fame and notoriety, which in turn brings us semi-consistent coin, you are very welcome for the hundredth and oneth time. Freedom of movement. Family in your brothers and Vesemir, in Yennefer and Ciri. Friends everywhere else, enemies that have still not been able to beat us.” His smile is faint but undeniably there. “Roach. A place to call home when we need it.” He leans back into the arm Geralt has around his waist even as he tightens his leg. “Arms to fall asleep in at night and wake in come morning. I can’t think of anything that could make it better.”
Neither can Geralt. He’s never considered himself someone with much beyond his armor, his swords, and his horse, but with it all laid out so plainly, so undeniably his, theirs. “You want this then? Forever?”
Jaskier huffs a laugh, tone dancing over his words. “If we’re speaking in romantical terms, yes. Of course. I want for nothing except for you, and I already have that. Forever’s a very,” his eyes flick up as he searches for the words, which come quickly one after the other, “looming, charming, frankly fucking terrifying concept. I can understand why many see longevity as more of a curse than anything, but I’ve always approached it as time to build and we’ve no better foundation.” He shrugs one shoulder and Geralt can feel him curl a lock of his hair around his fingers, leaning in conspiratorially. “So yes, I’d love nothing more than to spend forever picking selkimore guts out of your hair and losing at Gwent with your daughter.”
This time, Geralt knows exactly what he’s saying when he says it. “Our daughter,” he corrects, watching that cause something heartachingly surprised bloom in Jaskier’s face. Geralt didn’t think he would need the clarification, at these heights, but obviously he’s glad it came up.
Jaskier ducks his head and comes up with shiny eyes he quickly wipes at with the heel of his hand. “Yes, I…“ He plucks at the air for the words, settling with his hand back on Geralt’s face and a tentative, “Alright. Our daughter.” He clears his throat, sniffing as he shrugs one shoulder. “I suppose she does have my voice, if you think about it.”
“Capable of destruction on a mass scale,” is what Geralt says instead of and your wit, your laugh, as he’s quickly realizing he’s finding a point to this conversation and Jaskier crying will absolutely put an end to it. The direction is making itself clear even if the words feel lost in the downstream of the river Jaskier had compared him to before.
Jaskier squawks, as expected, half a laugh wrapped around it. He pokes into Geralt’s chest. “You are so mean. I should never have fixed your reputation.”
Geralt hums and dips forward to kiss Jaskier’s bottom lip before taking it briefly between his teeth. Jaskier’s huffed noise of amusement fans out over his chin. “You seem to like me just fine mean.”
“I love you mean,” Jaskier confirms. “It makes it a lot sweeter when you’re not, which is often.” The fingers winding around Geralt’s hair twist so Jaskier can hold the back of Geralt’s neck securely. His eyes openly drift over Geralt’s face. “Do I get to know what this line of questioning is about yet?”
That openness, earnest and steady and familiar as everything else about Jaksier is to him, makes it so that he doesn’t have to search for a way to say it right. He lets himself relax into Jaskier’s hand, blowing a careful exhale through his nose. “You know that we…” The urge to look away is reactionary, and he gives in for a brief flick downward before forcing himself to meet Jaskier’s eye with the same grace he extends through them, “are raised to see life differently than humans are. The vision you detailed was never a want for me, before. My life was the Path and never straying until something on it forced me off.” He unhands Jaskier’s thigh briefly to brush errant hairs out of the bard’s lashes. Resettles his grip. “And then I met you.”
Jaskier blinks. He responds slowly, “Everybody deserves the chance to know life is worth enjoying. You would have found that out eventually.” He leans in with a conspiratorial flash of teeth. “I don’t know if you know this, but you do enjoy living. I’ve seen the fervor with which you attack fresh honey buns when they’re still too hot to eat.”
Geralt acknowledges that with a short, miffed grunt. He regains his train of thought and pulls Jaskier closer so he can kiss his cheek in an early apology as he continues haltingly. “On the mountain,” and Jaskier tenses immediately, Geralt already stroking a soothing thumb up and down the vertebrae of his spine, “I blamed you for things I ended up caring about more than I thought myself capable of, at the time. Now, I…”
He stops as he realizes the pounding in his head is his own heartbeat, racing so it beats between Jaskier’s where he can feel it against his jaw, the nape of his neck. Jaskier shifts. The scar on his palm lays more solidly against Geralt’s stubble and Geralt turns his face into it, presses his mouth to the center like he always does when he’s reminded of its unwelcome presence.
“Geralt,” Jaskier murmurs, coaxing yet unexpectant in that duality only he can manage in complete honesty, “talk to me, darling.”
It’s like fresh air after spending the night with a striga in a crypt. He had had to learn how to atrophy his emotions for so long that the hurt of trying to feel them deterred him from ever trying. It was Jaskier who forced him to learn that the hurt would always be part of it. Loving him, loving Ciri and Yennefer, only came easy now after decades of loyalty driven by the simple fact that Jaskier believed he was good.
What does it matter if you made it up, Geralt had grunted at him once, fresh enough in their partnership that Jaskier could still babble for hours on end without so much as a loud breath from Geralt.
He had been going over his currently published mythos for the White Wolf and hadn’t missed a beat, clearly delighted at Geralt’s comment but with no small ounce of sincerity.
I made up the name, Jaskier had corrected, plucking at his lute in an idle melody it would still take Geralt years to admit he enjoyed, I was only building off what was already there. I can’t create a person.
His eyes drank the sunlight beautifully when he turned them up to wink at Geralt with a final strum. I just speak the truth.
“Jask, you…” He looks at him, into that face he knows better than his own, and it all becomes so much easier. “You bring me a happiness I couldn’t imagine myself without.”
Jaskier’s breath catches in his chest. Geralt watches his eyes mist over in real time even as he blinks that away, his expression breaking into a quiet sort of awe. “Thank you. That’s— That’s rather lovely to hear.” Their next kiss is long, Jaskier curling his leg further up the dip of Geralt’s waist to bring them ever closer. They barely part when Jaskier smiles faintly, noses still brushing. “It’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere, then.”
Geralt is helpless to not continue speaking when it makes Jaskier react like that. “I know you’re not. You’ve never given me a reason to doubt that. But I want you to have no reason to doubt me either.” He splays his hand out where he has it on Jaskier’s back, just to feel more of him as he says, “I want to ask you to stay with me. As long as it pleases you.”
Jaskier’s brow twitches like it means to furrow before he gives an aborted gasp and creates a scant inch of space between them, the hand on Geralt’s cheek suddenly pressed into his chest as he stares in wide-eyed disbelief.
“Geralt, are you asking me to marry you right now?”
Geralt can only nod. “I can’t picture a night where I sleep or a morning where I wake without you. Call it marriage, if that’s what pleases you. Call me your husband. Don’t. I love you and I want to be with you. That’s all that pleases me.”
It feels like a sudden load off his shoulders, all these things that he’d already known but never shared the weight of until now. Jaskier bears it with a parted mouth and a sudden spike in his pulse. Geralt has seen him without words before, but never so entirely, utterly speechless. And he’s still completely unafraid.
Jaskier carefully holds his face in his hands. His eyes are flicking between Geralt’s rapidly, a tear finally escaping down his cheek as he gives a single, wild laugh. It makes Geralt smile back.
He isn’t sure which of them surges forward first. He can only be certain of the completeness of their meeting, teeth clashing and hands roaming, but perfect all the same. “Yes,” Jaskier says, and really doesn’t stop saying it for a long while.
At some point Jaskier manages to undo the black ribbon tying back Geralt’s hair, a gift Jaskier had given him fairly early on before Geralt placed it in his desk that winter and only occasionally took it out after that to feel the smoothness of it between his fingers.
It continues to be soft now as Jaskier winds it around their hands. He turns his head to the side, shuddering in breaths as Geralt continues kissing down his neck, his shoulder. Geralt can see his unfocused eyes narrowing as he reaches with his other hand around Geralt’s back to secure the bow he’s made. His fingers drag through the sweat on Geralt’s shoulder blades when he grapples at him so their mouths meet again, Jaskier pushing his mantra of Yes directly onto Geralt’s tongue. Geralt presses their joint hands into the mattress.
It does take some time for Jaskier to say anything else, after. They’ve resumed the position they had started the night in, Geralt’s head resting on Jaskier’s chest and Jaskier’s hand in his hair, with the exception of their catching breaths and still-bound hands splayed almost off the edge of the bed. The fire died long ago, but the cold isn’t a concern anymore.
“Well,” Jaskier starts, and Geralt is already grinning, “consider us well and thoroughly consummated.”
“Hm.” He thinks he’s said quite enough tonight. Jaskier must agree, since he doesn’t even comment.
“You,” Jaskier pokes at Geralt’s temple, pressing two fingers there in a soothing motion immediately after, “will truly get an earful for springing that on me once I regain my ability to articulate complex thought.”
Geralt can absolutely tell him later that he hadn’t anticipated it himself. He will, he decides.
“This is you without the ability to articulate complex thought?” He deadpans now, a bit meanly, because Jaskier loves him mean.
Jaskier responds with conviction, thumping their hands in one of his Gwent-adverse gestures. “Yes. I’m not even composing a song yet! The most complexity I can manage right now is attempting to remember what I have stored here that I could possibly wear for a celebration. Perhaps I can borrow something.” He drums his fingers from pinky to index along Geralt’s hairline in thought. “Very sheer. Lots of cleavage. Definitely Yennefer’s.”
Geralt is quickly snapped out of the mental image when Jaskier suddenly squeezes their hands, smacking them against his forehead. “Oh, she’s going to positively slaughter us when she finds out I married someone else without her knowledge. Ciri too. And Eskel. They’re all going to hunt us through the keep and hang our bodies outside the gate.”
Geralt would amount that to Jaskier’s love for exaggeration, but he truly can’t say for sure whether or not that’s not a possibility. He simply tilts his head up and kisses the underside of Jaskier’s jaw. “I’d be glad to hang beside you.”
Jaskier gives a quiet snort and pushes gently at Geralt’s head. Geralt glances up and sees him rosy-cheeked and fond, already gazing down. He strokes a thumb over Geralt’s eyebrow. “See, like this, I can’t quite recall any reservations I might have had over marriage in my youth.”
Geralt resumes what he will never call purring, melting into Jaskier’s touch. His voice muffles where his cheek is pressed right above Jaskier’s heart. “Do you want to call us that then? Married?”
Jaskier hums thoughtfully. His thumb taps once before continuing. “I haven’t actually decided. I’ve never felt particularly drawn to it, and it’s not like we’re changing so drastically from what we already are.” He motions between them. “You have me, I have you. We can leave it at that. Like it’s always been.” The blankets shift as Jaskier does too, dipping in to speak against Geralt’s forehead. “I definitely am abusing the use of calling you husband, though, you’re not escaping that.”
“Wasn’t going to try,” Geralt responds.
“Good,” Jaskier says and shimmies further down on the bed. He disturbs Geralt’s rest, but he also kisses Geralt’s eyelids, his nose while he does so, so Geralt can tolerate that. He lays a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth before turning around to plaster his back against Geralt’s chest. Geralt adjusts the arm over his waist so their joint hands remain outstretched and he can hug him closer. Jaskier hooks one of Geralt’s ankles between his own and sighs as he settles back. They fit together well, Geralt always notes, and is always pleased by the fact.
Jaskier wiggles his fingers between Geralt’s and Geralt can see the rise of his cheek from grinning. He lays a kiss there. Jaskier turns his head in time for the next to land on his chin. The wiggling has turned into a very apparent beat.
Geralt raises an eyebrow. Jaskier kisses him, not looking away from his mouth after he pulls away and softly says, “This one’s just for us. Don’t worry.”
That’s enough for Geralt to accept. He nods and gets kissed one final time before Jaskier’s head settles properly on the pillow. “Good night, husband,” he lilts through a yawn, with no small amount of satisfaction.
“Good night,” Geralt says back, so full of feeling he’s surprised the words make it out through it all.
It doesn’t take long for the beat along their hands to slow, then stop entirely, Jaskier’s hand falling lax in his own.
Geralt studies them where they rest on the blankets. Jaskier is all long, strong lines of lutestring calluses where Geralt is broad, riddled with scars from when his sword wasn’t enough, and yet together they look right alongside each other. Jaskier’s rings peek brightly through the black of the ribbon where they can. Having it on for so long will leave marks, he thinks. He falls asleep smiling into Jaskier’s neck at the thought.