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Geralt was ignoring Jaskier. The bard was working on a song, humming and singing under his breath, then scribbling in his journal and humming all over again. There was a snatch of melody that recurred; Geralt assumed it was the only bit Jaskier was happy with. Everything else changed, words, notes, all the things Geralt still didn't really have words for but that he understood as parts of the overall song.
Masterpiece, Jaskier would call it eventually, as he always did. Right now it was a single repeated melody and phrases that set the song in autumn. Geralt didn't know if it was anything specific - meant for the beginning of the harvest or its completion, or something else entirely and Jaskier would complain about Geralt missing the deep symbolic significance of harvest as a metaphor.
Geralt didn't feel compelled to pay that close attention, certainly not at this stage. He'd been more or less ignoring Jaskier all day, leading Roach along the trail towards the head of the Pontar. Jaskier usually left him there, heading down to Oxenfurt for the winter, or elsewhere to find a court or patron to put him up until spring.
A few days ago, Jaskier said something about it, asking Geralt how far along they were in the journey. Geralt...hadn't ignored him, not exactly, but there had been talk of a monster in one of the villages to the east, so Geralt had turned them in that direction. Plenty of time to head back and get Jaskier on his way, after.
The monster turned out to be a single nekker, apparently lost from its fellows and felled by a single blow of Geralt's sword. When he'd gone to tell the woman who'd given him the job that it was done, she mentioned a pack of something harassing folk along the path to the next village up. It sounded like wild dogs, possibly wolves, but Geralt said he'd take care of it, and Jaskier had just nodded, flirting brightly with the woman and humming as they made their way out of the village.
When they made camp that night, Jaskier asked if Geralt wasn't worried about the wild dogs finding them.
"Hoping they will," Geralt said, quietly.
Jaskier paused from where he'd been tending to his lute. "I'm sorry, what was that?"
Geralt nodded towards him. "All that noise, bright colors. Figure you'll lure them in. I can kill them without walking around looking."
Jaskier blinked at him. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Are you joking? Because you had better be joking."
"Mmm." Geralt focused on the fire for a moment, settling the camp pot onto a flat spot to begin heating the water for soup. He made himself stay still as a wadded up rag hit him in the chest. It smelled of linseed oil. Geralt picked it up from where it had fallen, and considered. He didn't have to look up to know exactly where Jaskier was sitting, where his nose would be. He balled the rag up tightly.
"Do not."
"You started it," Geralt said, mildly.
"You started it, you, you bass baffooned Witcher! Telling me you want me to serve as bait for wild dogs!" Jaskier wasn't shouting, wasn't even very riled up. If anything, he sounded like he was about to start laughing. Arms and legs still loose where he sat, not quite leant back, his entire manner was spread open and easy, lute resting in his lap. There was a smile on his face that said he was thinking the same question Geralt was.
Geralt made himself frown, much as he wanted to smile. "Bass baffoon -- what does that even mean?"
Jaskier gave a haughty sniff. "It's a classic literary convention, I'm not surprised you've never heard it." Then he laughed. "I don't know, sometimes things just come out of my mouth."
"Better than all the things that go in, I guess," Geralt said, taking the small sack of dried meat and vegetables and dumping them into the pot of water. He added the lid and left it to simmer, all while ignoring the way Jaskier was now huffing and objecting to his 'unfair and vile accusations.'
But Jaskier was still half-sprawled, relaxed and delighted despite his words of 'deep, wounding offense taken'. After another moment with Geralt not responding, Jaskier tilted his head back, staring up at the night sky for a quiet moment. He hummed, the same melody that Geralt had been hearing for the last several days. Then he stopped, and didn't say anything more. Geralt could see how his mouth and throat were moving, singing to himself without making a sound.
It was something he'd never done in those first few years; always, constantly, everything out loud and filling the air. It was only as time went on that Geralt realised that sometimes Jaskier had started composing silently. He'd thought at first it was just to keep the song in progress private until it was ready for an audience, with Jaskier not wanting to subject his efforts to criticism until he was more confident with it.
It had only been a couple of years ago that Geralt had discovered it was out of consideration for him, with Jaskier trying not to be a constant distraction. At the time, Geralt hadn't said that it didn't matter anymore, he'd grown so used to the scent and sound and sight of him that he was no longer a distraction, but as much a part of Geralt's immediate surroundings as Roach.
He hadn't known how to say that, how to make himself understood without saying things Jaskier would misinterpret.
"Song for the harvest?" Geralt found himself asking.
"What was that?" Jaskier looked for a moment like he wasn't exactly seeing Geralt, sitting there.
"Your song," he nodded, as if...clarifying which bard he might have been referring to. He wanted to smack himself, feeling ridiculous and exposed. Which was stupid, because it wasn't like he'd never asked about any of Jaskier's songs before. Or, well, he answered now when Jaskier asked him for opinions.
Jaskier stared at him, as though he was trying to parse the question. Or, just possibly, was realising the same thing as Geralt was. That he'd never actually asked, without prompting, about a song Jaskier was working on.
"I...yes, sort of," Jaskier stammered, and his heartbeat had sped up, but his voice smoothed out as he continued. "It's a love song, actually, the couple meet in the spring, court over the summer, and get married in the autumn."
"Mm." Geralt wished he could distract himself with tending to dinner, but all it had to do was simmer. He felt off-balance, and he didn't like it.
Jaskier was looking at him, his expression open and hopeful.
He tried to think of what he was meant to say next, wanting to continue this conversation, even if it didn't make much sense why they were having it. Why he'd started it. Normally he didn't care until the song was done and he could let Jaskier know if he liked it or not. He still couldn't give Jaskier any of the details he pressed for -- how would a Witcher know if a song was going to be popular or not? And all he knew about music was whether it was nice to listen to, or annoying.
He hadn't had to tell Jaskier the notes were painful, in a very long time. Not since the first time he'd admitted that high notes were too much for his sensitive hearing, and of course Jaskier wasn't subtle about the way he'd immediately lowered the notes of the song he'd been singing, then.
But still, the few times he'd ever met any of Jaskier's bard friends, he'd listened to them talk about music with words and phrases that made as much sense to him as... bass baffooned. He had gotten better about saying what he knew, though, which was when he didn't have any opinion one way or another, or when it was something he wouldn't mind hearing again.
"What happens in winter, then?" he finally asked.
Jaskier grinned, then winked. "Well they fuck all winter, of course."
"Of course." Geralt laughed. "Going to be one of those songs, then?" Jaskier definitely had a fondness for bawdy songs, though to be fair those were the sort that were popular in the taverns he played in.
"Maybe. I'm not actually sure, yet."
"Is that--" Geralt stopped, and when Jaskier just looked at him, waiting, he asked, feeling like his words were tripping over themselves. "Is that why you're having trouble with it?"
Jaskier smiled, sudden and wide and Geralt felt like the first time he'd successfully blocked a hit back when he'd been learning how to wield a sword. "You could tell?"
Geralt nodded. He knew he wasn't going to say it right, but he didn't want to stop having this conversation. Jaskier would be leaving soon, no matter how much Geralt dawdled by taking contracts that didn't need a witcher, only a strong arm and a sword or axe. They needed to stop wandering the countryside and be on their separate ways, before the weather decided for them where they were spending the winter.
But he didn't want to let go. "You keep humming the same bit, but all the rest of it changes. Normally...after a few days you've got more of it that repeats."
Jaskier was grinning, now, and the look on his face-- Geralt wanted to take that look with him, up to Kaer Morhen, and keep it tucked away close all winter long.
Geralt blinked.
"I haven't quite figured out what story I'm trying to tell," Jaskier was saying, not seeming to realise that Geralt was struggling to take his next breath. Metaphorically, at any rate, Geralt could hold his breath for quite some time. More, of course, if he took Killer Whale. If he had any, which he didn't, though it would be easy enough-- Jaskier was gesturing, and still talking.
"...because why am I telling it? I could easily sing a song about two lovers who meet, fall in love, have an incredible winter of sex." He gave Geralt a wink, and Geralt huffed a laugh. "But I don't know what the point is, so I don't even know: am I telling a raunchy tale of love and lust? Is it meant to be a tragedy, with one of them not surviving the winter? Is it a comedy where they both die of starvation because they never get out of bed? The tune won't settle until I know what story I'm telling, so all I have is the bit you've heard." He stopped, and hummed the music Geralt had been hearing, over and over.
"And I loved you, once in autumn," he sang, and the words were soft and slow.
Geralt watched him, the flames of the fire flickering shadows and light across his face. He was looking at Geralt, smiling slightly now, as though embarrassed by the song, or, more likely, his inability to compose more than a single line.
"Doesn't sound like a funny song," Geralt offered. It sounded sad, as though it were, in fact, a tragedy. The surviving lover remembering the previous autumn when they'd been married and looking forward to their lives together.
"No, it doesn't," Jaskier agreed. "But I can't quite make it into a full tragedy. It seems...I suppose I keep hoping it won't be. But the melody certainly seems to be leaning that direction." He seemed to give himself a shake, then smiled, and Geralt could tell it wasn't quite the same as the ones he'd seen moments ago. "I suppose I can finish it over the winter; Oxenfurt is really a wonderful spot for composing, surrounded by so many--"
"Come with me," Geralt blurted, then he clamped his mouth shut.
Jaskier blinked.
His chest tightened, like maybe the wild dogs had found them after all - though he could hear that there was nothing out there but some mice, and a couple of owls hunting. Maybe a badger in the distance.
"You could come with me this winter," Geralt said, unable to look at Jaskier's face as he said it.
"Do you mean it?" Jaskier asked, softly. Geralt nodded, jerking his chin and not trusting himself to speak again. Words were always hard, especially with Jaskier, who put so much into his own words yet did it effortlessly, saying things in ways that Geralt knew he could never match.
Jaskier scooted closer, rolling onto his knees and inching closer, until he carefully, cautiously put his hand on Geralt's knee. Geralt looked up at him, then, and his tension flew out of him. "Please come with me this winter," he said again. Jaskier's mouth was slightly open, like for once he didn't know what to say. But he was right there.
Geralt kissed him.
Turned out words weren't always quite so necessary.
~ ~ ~
It was a love song, after all.
Jaskier had been well-received by the other Witchers, grateful to have someone new, and entertaining to boot, and happy to try teaching him gwent and refusing, after the first week, to play dice with him at all. But they sat around the fire in the evenings sharing stories, making crude - if accurate - comments when Jaskier or Geralt was the first one to call an early night, and making vague threats about keeping the noise down for a change.
His brothers teased them both over breakfast, whenever Geralt and Jaskier finally made their way down to the kitchen, Vesemir pointing out that the chores wouldn't get done faster if they started them later. They split chores amongst them, and sparred in the afternoons while Jaskier watched, or disappeared into the library.
Jaskier didn't sing for them every night, but he did often enough, and sometimes he worked on new songs in the hall while they amused themselves with cards or drinking or both, and sometimes he holed up in a room far enough away that Witcher hearing couldn't overhear.
Geralt had a feeling he knew what Jaskier was working on, and hadn't pressed him. Then one night, a few weeks before Yule, Jaskier had brought out his lute and asked if anyone wanted to hear a new song.
I loved you, once in silence, he began, and Geralt recognised the tune.
I loved you, once in spring time, when the flowers were in bloom
I loved you once in silence all the summer, too.
I loved you, dear, in autumn, every time you went away
and I love you now in winter, and my forever days.
~ ~ ~
Later, in bed, Jaskier asked, "So what did you think of my song? Three words or less."
Geralt kissed him, then said, "Mm. You're never silent."
He tried to kiss Jaskier again, but had to dodge the pillow.