Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the dead of night, the village was near deserted. Geralt reined in Roach, grinding his teeth, and debated the merits of dismounting to bang on the door of one of the darkened houses. Even as he considered it, Jaskier threatened to slip from behind him, and he was forced to tighten his bruising grip on the arms he held around his waist. A stuttered breath, too quiet to be called a moan, left the bard. Geralt’s gaze flicked over the empty streets again and paused on what he’d taken to be an abandoned sack of grain. It was, but huddled behind it and using it as a pillow was an old man curled and trembling in the chill autumn air. Geralt urged Roach toward him.

“Hey,” he said. Then he repeated it louder. His jaw clenched as the man refused to stir, and his fingers formed the sign of Axii. “Wake up,” he commanded.

The man bolted upright, blinking and dazed. After a moment’s panicked breathing and whipping his head around, he gaped up at Geralt.

“Is there a healer in this town?” Geralt demanded.

The man continued to stare with open mouth and lidded eyes. “What now?”

“A healer,” Geralt barked. “Does this fucking town have one?”

“Oh, aye.” The man nodded and held up a shaking hand to point toward the far end of the village. “Cottage at the edge o’ t’wood. Mother Mora, we call her.”

Geralt reached into the purse at his belt and fished out a handful of coins without even looking what they were. He tossed them to spatter on the grain sack, and with eyes now wide open, the old man cupped his hand to slide them closer. As Geralt urged Roach back into motion, the man’s reedy voice called after them.

“Gods bless you, sir!”

Against the back of his neck, Geralt felt Jaskier huff a breath. The lips pressed into his skin curled up for a moment before going slack again. Jaskier’s weight slumped against him, and Geralt pushed Roach to a gallop.

As described, the cottage stood at the edge of a gnarled patch of forest that swallowed up the road and spit it back out as little more than an animal trail. The cottage itself was a stone sprawl covered in ivy and seemingly put together and added to at random. A rough wood fence marked off an overgrown pasture with a ramshackle lean-to of a barn on one side of the cottage and a profusion of herbs, flowers, and vegetables on the other. Roach stopped before the low gate, and Geralt kicked his feet loose of the stirrups before turning sideways to support Jaskier’s shoulders. Once his feet touched the ground, he shifted and pulled until the bard fell into his arms and against his chest, and then he pushed through the gate and jogged up the uneven stone walkway to the door.

Geralt kicked against it, but it was barred from the inside. He kicked it again. “Healer!” he called. “Mother Mora!”

Jaskier squirmed weakly in his arms as he surfaced to consciousness again. His panting breaths were the only sounds aside from the crickets in the garden.

“Ger’lt?” he gasped. “Where are we?”

“Healer,” Geralt answered. “Don’t talk.”

He kicked the door again until the wood began to shed splinters from the heel of his boot. A muffled shout from inside made him pause, and if he focused, he could hear the padding of bare feet on wooden planks. The door bolt rattled. An old woman with a long gray braid and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders flung the door open and raised a candle to the scuff marks on the wood. Pale green eyes glared up at him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“My friend needs a healer.” Without waiting for an answer, Geralt shouldered past her and into the cottage. Before he’d gone two steps, his boots stuck to the wood floor. He nearly dropped Jaskier as his upper body lurched forward without any participation from his feet.

“You’re a piece of work,” the old lady muttered behind him. “Storming in here and you don’t even know where you’re going.”

Geralt seethed as he tried to pry his boots off the floor. The old lady walked around the table that took up the center of the room, setting the candle upon it, and went to the fireplace along the wall. She took down flint and steel from the mantle; fortunately kindling was already laid, and the fire caught quickly. A cauldron full of water hung suspended above the flames. In the firelight, Geralt looked down at Jaskier. His eyes had slipped closed again.

The old woman picked up the candle again and then jerked her head to the side in a silent order for Geralt to follow her. As soon as she did, Geralt’s feet moved freely again. She led him to a small room with a proper bed along one wall and a cot along the other. She tugged a small table toward the cot, set the candle on it, and then gathered two more from other spots in the room. As she lit them, she nodded to the cot. With as much care as he could, Geralt laid Jaskier down, but the bard still hissed as his eyes fluttered open. Geralt put a hand over the knife wound in his side, pressing down on the linen pad that had soaked through with blood. He knew the back of his armor was likely wet with it as well.

The old woman positioned herself at Jaskier’s head and looked over his multiple injuries--the limp hands that dripped blood onto the blanket, the bruises along his ribs, and the bent and broken feet. He had no shirt or shoes, and even his trousers were tattered and torn.

“What the fuck happened to him?”

“Nilfgaard.”

“Bastards,” the old woman spat. She glanced up at Geralt, though one of her hands already rested lightly on Jaskier’s brow. “What’s he call himself?”

“Jaskier.”

She nodded and turned her gaze to the bard. “Jaskier, is it? You with us, young man? Can you hear me?”

Jaskier licked dry lips and nodded. The old woman’s wrinkled and spotted hand brushed back through his hair in a surprisingly gentle caress.

“That’s a good boy. Got yourself in trouble, did you?”

Blue eyes wandered from her face to Geralt. “I didn’t tell them anything,” he whispered in a broken rasp. “I swear it.”

Geralt couldn’t reply, couldn’t find words of gratitude or praise. How the fuck did anyone count loyalty as a virtue when it could lead to an outcome like this?

“Of course you didn’t,” the old woman answered for him. She petted Jaskier’s hair again despite the sweat in the lank strands. “Now, Jaskier, you look at me.” When the bard obeyed, she nodded. “You can call me Mother Mora, and I’m going to fix you up, but I need to ask you a few things. How long did they have you?”

A crease appeared between Jaskier’s brows. “I… don’t…”

Mora nodded again. “That’s fine. That’s fine. What day were you taken, you remember?”

“Day after Velen.”

“Two days then. They feed you?” Jaskier shook his head. “Any water?”

“A little.”

“All right,” Mora said as her eyes took in his injuries again. “I know the fingernails probably hurt like a bitch, but they’ll grow back. Ribs look bruised, not broken, and I’ll take a look at the knife wound in a second. They use a lash and a flog on your feet?”

Jaskier nodded, a sheen coming to his eyes. Geralt curled his free hand around Jaskier’s forearm and held tight.

“They use ’em anywhere else? Your back? Testicles?”

With a soft huff, Jaskier shook his head. “No, thank the gods.”

“They penetrate you with anything? Poker? Broken bottle?”

Geralt stiffened, and Jaskier’s eyes went wide. He shook his head in mute horror, and Geralt felt the tremble that went through him. He felt a little unsteady himself, and he went without protest when Mora shifted to his other side and pushed him to take her place at Jaskier’s head.

“Hold him, Witcher,” she said before lifting the pad covering the stab wound.

Jaskier looked up at Geralt with a wan smile. “Guess it could have been worse, after all.”

“Jaskier…” More words flooded up Geralt’s throat from his chest, but he couldn’t sort them before Jaskier was squeezing his eyes shut and gasping for breath.

Geralt whipped his head to see Mora pressing against the skin around the wound. Blood leaked out around her fingers, and Jaskier whimpered.

“I said to hold him, Witcher,” the old healer said without looking up from her work.

With a jaw clenched so tight he felt the muscles twitch, Geralt laid his arm across Jaskier’s chest. Soft moans escaped from behind the bard’s teeth, and Geralt lifted his other hand to his brow in pale imitation of the healer’s gentle touch.

“Can’t you give him something for the pain?” he demanded.

Mora bent low over the wound and sniffed at it. “Not until I’m sure it won’t do more harm than good.”

Geralt looked back at Jaskier, but his eyes were unfocused, vacant, staring at the rafters as tears leaked from his eyes. He had gone to that distant place beyond thought where only the pain could reach him. Geralt could do nothing except serve as an anchor back to the body that had been mutilated because of him.

After a small eternity, Mora finished prodding. She elbowed Geralt out of the way again and brushed her knuckles across Jaskier’s jaw. All tension in his muscles released at once, and his eyes slid closed.

“Right,” Mora said. “He’ll be fine. Keep up that pressure while I get what I need.”

She bustled out of the room, and moments later Geralt could hear the sounds of drawers opening and closing. He kept one hand on Jaskier’s wound and set the other on his shoulder. Even while asleep or sedated or whatever Jaskier was, his face was creased with pain. Guilt scraped at Geralt’s spine and clawed at his gut. If he hadn’t pushed Jaskier away on that fucking mountain, if he hadn’t been so focused on protecting Ciri, if he had bothered to think for even one godsdamned second, he would have recognized the danger that would stalk the man the whole Continent knew as the White Wolf’s bard. Yennefer had been the one to think of it, the one who pushed him to go and check, and she didn’t even like Jaskier. He wondered if she’d known somehow, if some intelligence had reached her that he didn’t know about, because he’d barely made it to the dingy jail in the small border town before Jaskier was shipped back to the Nilfgaardian capital.

He looked down at the bard, at the thick stubble covering the pale, haggard face, at the shadows beneath his eyes, at the furrow in his brow. Then he glanced at his own hand, where his thumb rubbed soothing circles against Jaskier’s shoulder. He hadn’t even meant to do it, and it was such a ludicrously weak gesture toward easing the man’s pain that he stopped.

A whine caught in Jaskier’s throat, and Geralt moved his hand to the bard’s hair. He glanced at the open door, but he could still hear Mora bustling in the other room. Bending down, he leaned his forehead against Jaskier’s and closed his eyes.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “I’m so…” His voice left him, and he had to clear his throat. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jaskier.”

He straightened when he heard a bang against the wall outside the door. Mora reentered, puffing for breath and waddling under the weight of two buckets filled to the brim with steaming water. A spool of thread, several large needles, and cloths for washing floated in one, and Geralt grabbed the handle once it was in reach and placed it at his side. Mora nodded her thanks and set the other bucket down beside the candle-lit table.

“All right,” she declared. “You have a horse? Go see to it. You can put her in the pasture with Valeena.”

“Valeena?”

“My goat.” Geralt found himself elbowed out of the way as Mora began to fuss over Jaskier’s wounds. “There’s a well out back. Get yourself cleaned up too.”

Geralt hesitated, reluctant to leave Jaskier in pain and vulnerable with a stranger, but Mora fixed him with a hard-eyed glare and flapped her hand toward the door.

“I said get out. I don’t need an audience underfoot.”

Even in the middle of the night, even knowing what Geralt was, she had agreed to help them. He kept that thought close and tried to let it comfort him as he walked out the door. He glanced back once, but Mora’s bent head blocked his view of Jaskier’s face. He prayed it would somehow bear a familiar smile the next time he saw it.

He had missed that smile.

Chapter Text

Outside the cottage, the night was dark and quiet. The creak of the gate seemed loud in the stillness, as did Roach’s snort when he led her through to the pasture. The barn at the far end was little more than a stall with a roof, and when Geralt ducked inside, a cream-colored goat eyed him with suspicion and let out a baleful meh. He released Roach’s reins and bent down to scratch the coarse hair along her spine.

“Pardon the intrusion, old nan,” he murmured. “Mother Mora’s healing my friend.”

The goat pushed herself up and trotted to the water trough, flicking her tail at him in clear dismissal. Geralt huffed a laugh, but he was pleased to see that the hay piled on the floor and the water in the trough were fresh and clean. He set about the task of removing Roach’s tack, and he offered her soft words of praise and thanks for carrying both him and Jaskier at speed. He brushed her down carefully, picked loose a few burrs from her mane, and inspected her back for traces of Jaskier’s blood to clean away, which he was relieved not to find. As he packed the brush and curry comb back into his saddle bag, the goat clopped over to Roach and mehed up at her again. Roach bobbed her head with a huff, but when she ambled over to drink from the trough, the goat didn’t object. Geralt hoisted the saddle bags over his shoulder and left them to clean himself up.

The well was dug at the far edge of the fenced-in property closest to the forest. The natural sounds of night were louder here, soft chitterings and slitherings and the creeping of both predator and prey. The winch of the well thunked with each turn as Geralt drew up a bucket, and the sound caught the attention of a large barn owl, who flew to settle on a fence post and watch the proceedings. Geralt hauled the bucket of icy water over the lip of the well and then began to strip off his armor. He paused when he heard a scuffling in the undergrowth just beyond the forest’s edge, and both he and the owl turned toward the noise. The owl looked back at him with its wide eyes and a tilt of its head.

“All yours, friend,” Geralt murmured. “I’m done hunting for tonight.”

With a flurry of silent wings, the owl dove back into the forest and out of sight among the trees. Geralt continued to remove his armor and laid out each piece in the grass. He retrieved a rag from his pack and settled in to wipe each section down with the well water. If he focused his attention on the cottage, he could catch faint snatches of Mora muttering to herself. He heard nothing from Jaskier. He told himself that was a good thing.

After finishing his armor, he dug out a sliver of soap from his kit and scrubbed the blood from his hands and the sweat from his face. He untied his hair, ran his wet fingers through it, and then tied it again. He dumped the soiled water over the fence before replacing the bucket on the well winch’s hook, and then, gathering up his swords, his sword oil, another rag, and his whetstone, he walked to the front of the cottage.

On the garden side sat two tall, thick stumps out of which rough chairs had been carved. Geralt settled in one and laid out his supplies on the other. He took his time caring for the swords; he did not relish the thought of continuing to sit and wait after he had nothing further to occupy his hands and mind. Too many regrets lay in wait, testing the walls that guarded the softer parts of his heart. Even so, he had almost finished when the door sprang open beside him. Mother Mora grunted at the sight of him--pleased or not, he couldn’t tell--and bade him reenter the cottage with an impatient gesture. He quickly laid his sword aside and followed.

“I’ll need your help to support him while I finish the bandaging,” she said.

Inside the bedroom, the candles had burned low. Geralt paused at the foot of the cot and let himself assess Jaskier’s condition. His feet were swaddled in thick bandages, and a blanket covered him from ankles to navel, above which a row of neat stitches sealed the wound on his right side. The left side of his chest was still mottled with bruises, but the pale skin had been meticulously cleaned of blood and dirt. Geralt’s eyes finally reached Jaskier’s face, and he felt his shoulders loosen as he took in the sight of the bard peaceful in sleep. His hair had even regained some of its usual soft-looking fluffiness. The stubble remained, and it aged Jaskier in a way Geralt couldn't quite reconcile with his memories of the man.

He braced himself before glancing at Jaskier’s hands, but, while he had prepared for ruin, he hadn’t expected the shock of seeing them whole and unharmed. The fingernails that had been cracked and ripped--and even missing in two places--were now regrown and smooth.

He looked up at Mother Mora. “His hands are healed.”

She gazed back with a bland expression. “So they are. Have you finished staring yet?”

Without waiting for an answer, she placed her hand across Jaskier’s brow. “All right, young man. We need your cooperation for the rest of this.”

Blue eyes blinked open, and Jaskier licked his lips as he squinted up at her. “You’re the… healer?” His gaze flicked to Geralt, and Geralt nodded.

“That’s right,” Mora replied. She took one of his hands in hers and gently pulled him upright while her other hand splayed against his back.

Jaskier hissed at the movement, but the sound was a considerable improvement over the moans and whimpers of before. Mora released his hand to grasp Geralt’s wrist and tug him over; she shoved him this way and that until he took up her place supporting Jaskier to her satisfaction. She shuffled down to Jaskier’s legs and helped him turn until he sat on the edge of the bed with his feet dangling. Moving those made him wince and gasp, and by the end, he was leaning heavily against Geralt, panting softly against his neck while Geralt curled his fingers around Jaskier’s shoulders.

Mora patted Jaskier’s arm. “That’s it. You just let your friend hold you up. We’ll finish and then you’ll have a nice sleep, hmm?”

Jaskier nodded weakly into Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt tightened his grip. Mora plucked up a sealed jar of linen bandages and cracked it open. Ducking beneath Geralt’s arm, she began to expertly wrap Jaskier’s stitched wound and bruised ribs. Geralt watched closely, but by the time she finished the last knot, even he was satisfied that the tying and tension were as they should be.

“Right,” she said as she clapped her hands. Then she scrubbed them in the bucket that still held warm clean water. The other was clouded red with Jaskier’s blood, and an empty basin held the soiled linens and needles and the remnants of Jaskier’s trousers.

“All right, Witcher. Let’s get him into the proper bed.”

Geralt heard Jaskier suck in a sharp breath, and then he raised his hands to grip Geralt’s shirt in tight handfuls. There was no way to make it painless, so Geralt settled for making it quick. He curved one of his arms around Jaskier’s shoulders, pushed the other under his knees, and lifted. Jaskier barely had time for a muffled curse before Geralt had carried him across the room and settled him on the narrow mattress. Mother Mora followed, fluffing the pillows and readjusting the blanket across Jaskier’s waist and legs. Jaskier simply lay back, eyes closed, chest heaving.

“Good lad,” Mora murmured and gave Jaskier’s arm another approving pat. “I’ll bring you something to help you sleep.”

She elbowed Geralt as she went past before picking up the detritus of the healing. She nodded to the window just above and to the side of the head of the bed. “Crack that. And fetch an extra quilt from the chest.”

As she carried out the basin and the used bucket, Geralt carried out her instructions. The cool breeze that washed in through the window cleared some of the smell of blood from the room. It lifted strands of Jaskier’s hair from his face, and he hummed appreciatively before shivering.

“Cold?” Geralt asked.

Pulling his eyes even halfway open seemed to take Jaskier a great deal of effort. “A bit,” he admitted.

Geralt looked around the room for the chest Mora had mentioned until he noted the trunk at the foot of the bed. He tugged it open and pulled out a thick, well-worn quilt. He draped it over Jaskier, mindful not to disturb his feet, and the bard smiled as he rubbed a thumb over the yellow floral pattern. He didn’t look up from it as he said a quiet “Thank you, Geralt.”

Geralt didn’t think he had ever heard an expression of gratitude that he deserved less. He was saved from trying to find a reply by Mora bustling back in with a tin cup. Steam and the strong scent of herbs wafted from it. She pressed it into Jaskier’s hands, and as he cupped his fingers around it, he suddenly jolted. He would have dropped the cup, but Mora steadied it.

“My hands!” he exclaimed. He looked up at her with wide eyes. “I thought… gods, I thought…” But whatever thoughts he’d had choked off in his throat as his eyes brimmed with tears.

“Hush,” Mora said softly. She nudged the cup back toward his lips. “You drink all that now.”

He nodded and leaned back against the pillows, taking small sips. Mora watched him with a hawk’s eye until he slurped up the dregs, and then she collected the cup back from him.

“Your hands and ribs and that stab wound will heal up fine now. That was a sloppy bit of knife work if they were trying to do you in. Managed to miss everything important.”

Jaskier’s eyes flicked to Geralt, and his lips twitched in a slight smirk. “I think they were a bit panicked about the wolf at their door.”

Mora snorted but quickly sobered. “Your feet though… I won’t lie. You’ve got broken bones beneath gashes that have started to fester. I can treat them, but it will take a little time and some ingredients I don’t have to hand. I’ll go out into the forest when the sun’s full up.” Her lips thinned to a line, and her fingers drummed against the cup. “And it’s not going to be pleasant for you.”

Jaskier swallowed and sank back deeper against the pillows. “I appreciate any help you can give,” he said. “And all that you’ve already given.”

Mora waved that away and turned to Geralt. “There’s a trundle under the bed and you know where the quilts are if you want to sleep.”

Geralt nodded. “Thank you.”

She grunted and knuckled the small of her back as she stretched. “Let’s all get a few hours’ rest. Don’t wake me again unless somebody’s dying,” she added over her shoulder as she walked out.

Jaskier chuckled, but when Geralt looked at him, the mirth faded from his face and his gaze dropped back to the quilt.

“I seem to be in good hands if you need to move on.”

“No,” Geralt replied. “I don’t want…” The words were bunching in his throat again, but he forced himself to try to sort them with a deep breath. “I don’t need to be anywhere else right now.”

Jaskier let out a quiet hum, and as Geralt watched, his blinks grew longer, his eyelids heavier. Mora’s concoction and days of pain without respite were clearly taking their toll.

“You should sleep,” Geralt told him.

Jaskier managed half a nod before his eyes closed and stayed that way and his body sunk into the mattress. Geralt shifted the edge of the quilt higher so it covered Jaskier’s bare shoulders. Then he settled onto the floor beneath the window and let Jaskier’s even breaths lull him into meditation.

Chapter Text

The next day dawned clear and cloudless. When Geralt felt the warmth gathering in the room, he brought himself back to full consciousness. He stood to open the window shutter a little wider and then turned to check that the quilt still covered Jaskier. It was exactly as he’d left it; Jaskier hadn’t moved at all in the night. Geralt watched as his chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of deep sleep brought on by exhaustion and herbs.

A whicker from outside the window drew his attention, and he smiled at Roach as she nosed at the open shutter. He reached out to give her a scratch at the neck.

“Good morning.”

Satisfied by the small attention, she ambled off to explore the bounty of the still-green pasture. The leaves of the forest trees were still mostly green as well, only the uppermost branches fading to yellows, oranges, and browns. Mora’s goat wandered out of the small barn and immediately trotted to Roach and began a litany of bleats. Mora herself came out next, holding a pail full of fresh milk.

After one last glance at Jaskier, Geralt left the room, but he kept the door open behind him. The cauldron over the fire still bubbled. He investigated the smaller pot that hung beside it--chucks of salted pork bobbed in simmering water--and then sat himself in a chair at the table that afforded him a view back into the bedroom. Mora bustled in through the front door, setting the milk pail on a counter and shaking loose her shawl.

“Got tired of impersonating a statue, hmm?” she said to Geralt. “Your friend still asleep?”

Geralt nodded. A moment later a covered plate landed in front of him. He lifted the cloth and found several thick slices of bread, still warm. Mora pushed a small pot of strawberry jam at him as well.

“Eat up. Then you can make yourself useful.”

As Geralt ate, Mora made several trips from garden to table, bringing in potatoes, onions, and carrots and then bunches of herbs. She laid it all out on the table and then went out again. Geralt had time to finish his breakfast before she came back with a bucket full from the well. She set it down at Geralt’s feet and wiped her brow.

“They teach you to scrub and peel vegetables up at Kaer Morhen?”

“They do.”

“Good. Too many young men think themselves above such work, the fools.”

“I’m not a young man,” Geralt noted as he bent down to clean the first potato in the bucket of water.

Mora made a scoffing sound and sat down heavily in one of the other chairs at the table. She pulled a bundle of the herbs toward her and then took out a small paring knife from the pocket of her apron.

“Don’t say that to a woman when you look the same age as her son. Especially if she’s holding a blade.”

Geralt smirked as he set the clean potato on the table and grabbed another from the pile. “I’ve lived more than a century.”

“You’ve survived more than a century,” she insisted, slicing through stems. “How many years you’ve lived is another number entirely. And not a high one, I’d wager. You could learn a lot about living from someone like me.” She gestured toward the open door of the bedroom with the knife. “Or someone like him. My chaos couldn’t rattle a henhouse, but even I can feel the spark of vitality in that man. He loves life, that one.”

Geralt didn’t know how to respond to that. He couldn’t deny it. No one who had spent more than five minutes around Jaskier could.

“He’d certainly be willing to teach you if you’d let him,” Mora added.

Geralt glanced over at her, frowning, but she just looked back with the same placid expression as when he’d pointed out Jaskier’s healed hands.

“So why haven’t you let him, hmm?” she prodded. “Too stupid, too stubborn, or too scared?”

Glaring down at the potato in his hands, Geralt scrubbed it until flakes of the peel floated in the water. “It’s not that simple.”

“You’re that simple,” Mora countered.

He slammed the potato on the table, and Mora tsked at him like he was a child having a tantrum. “What’s so complicated about it then?” she asked.

“There are other…” He grabbed a carrot and scrubbed that raw too. “I have a child to consider.”

“Oh? I didn’t think Witchers could sire children.”

“She’s not mine by blood.”

“How did she come to you then?”

Geralt stared at the dripping carrot in his hand for a long moment before meeting the old healer’s eyes. “The law of surprise,” he muttered.

Mora snorted. And then snorted again. And then her face crumpled as the snorts turned to full-belly laughter that had her banging the table and clutching her chest. The carrot snapped in Geralt’s grip, and both halves plunked back into the bucket.

“Oh, oh, my,” Mora gasped as she wiped at her eyes. “Destiny set you a nice little trap, did she? And you walked right in, blithe as a bird. No wonder you reek of her bullshit.” She reached across and patted his arm. “Oh, Witcher, you are good and properly fucked.”

Geralt couldn’t deny that either. He only hummed as he retrieved the drowning pieces of carrot. “My name is Geralt.”

Mora nodded. “You are good and properly fucked, Geralt.” Then she assessed him, tilting her head like the owl on the fence post. “But maybe not entirely, hmm? Maybe Destiny’s plan isn’t so terrible as you once thought.”

“Don’t read my mind,” Geralt said, but it lacked heat. He found it hard to be angry with the woman while sitting at her table with Jaskier peaceful in her bed.

Still chuckling to herself, Mora stood and gathered up her shawl and a basket. “All right. I need to go into the forest to get some things for your friend’s feet. You keep scrubbing and peeling.” She laid another covered plate on the table along with the tin cup with more herbs in it. “If your friend wakes up, get him to eat and drink. Kettle’s by the fire.”

After the door banged shut behind her, the little cottage fell quiet. A bumblebee buzzed through the open window and set to investigating the herbs laid on the table. If Geralt focused, he could hear the soft sound of Roach and the goat cropping the grass outside. If he focused more, he could hear Jaskier’s steady heartbeat. He lost himself in the simple task of preparing the vegetables and only paused when he heard the bed in the other room creak. He set down the potato he’d been holding, then stood and wiped his wet hands on his trousers. As he watched, Jaskier blinked open bleary eyes, so Geralt hurried to fill the cup from the kettle and bring it and the plate into the bedroom.

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice was a sleepy rasp, and he lifted one fist to rub at his eye like a child.

Geralt set the plate and cup on the small table by the cot and then carried it all over to the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Good? I think? Better at any rate, though that wouldn’t take much.”

When Geralt removed the cloth covering the plate to reveal the fresh bread, Jaskier’s stomach growled. An eager smile crossed his face, but when he tried to sit up, he winced and pressed a hand to his stitches. Geralt took gentle hold of his shoulder and helped him ease forward as he rearranged the pillows to prop him up.

“Thanks,” Jaskier sighed. His smile returned when Geralt handed him the plate, and he took a large bite of the bread.

“Go slowly,” Geralt reminded him. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

Jaskier nodded as he licked crumbs from his lips. “Gods, this is the best bread I’ve ever tasted.”

“Hunger will do that.”

“Or this healer is an exceptionally fine cook.” He craned his neck to see around Geralt as he took another bite of bread. “Where is she, by the way?”

“She went out to the forest.”

“Ah.”

The next swallow didn’t seem to go down as easily, and Jaskier reached for the tin cup. He took a sip and then released a pleased hum. “Chamomile and honey. That’s nice of her. I was expecting some foul-tasting medicine.”

“I think that comes after the trip to the forest.”

Jaskier grimaced in response but didn’t look up from his contemplation of the tea. “I suspect you’re right.”

When he did lift his eyes to Geralt’s, the smile he wore reminded Geralt of another bard they’d once seen in Vizima. Jaskier had criticized the man for his forced emotion; “a false promise,” he’d called it.

“Don’t let me keep you from whatever it is you were doing,” he told Geralt.

Geralt frowned. “I was just peeling vegetables.”

“Well, you’d better get back to it,” Jaskier said. “I don’t think you want the healer… what was her name again?”

“Mother Mora.”

“Right. That was it. I don’t think you want Mother Mora cross with you. She strikes me as the kind of woman who’d be rather terrifying when she’s cross.”

Just then the door of the cottage banged back open, and Mora walked in and plunked her full basket on the table beside the vegetables. “Dammit, Witcher,” she hollered to him from the outer room. “Aren’t you finished yet?”

Jaskier shot him a smug grin that clearly said “I told you so.” Geralt was thrilled to accept it over the uncomfortable smile of before.

“Mora, my angel,” Jaskier called back, “your bread is divine!”

Mora came to the door of the bedroom, leaned against the door frame, and gave Jaskier a very obvious once-over. “Save your flattery. You aren’t getting under my skirt.”

Jaskier snorted into his tea and coughed as he choked on a bite of bread. Geralt thumped him gently between the shoulders until he swallowed thickly.

“Mora,” he croaked, “you will leave me a broken-hearted man.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” she retorted with a smirk. “Not even the first time I’ve heard it from a bard within these walls.”

Jaskier’s eyes lit up the way they did when his interest as a storyteller was piqued. “Really? That sounds like a tale I have to hear.”

“Later,” Mora said as she turned and went back to her basket of herbs. “After I’ve treated your feet.”

All of Jaskier’s good cheer drained in a moment. He gazed down the length of the blanket covering him to his heavily bandaged feet, and Geralt realized he hadn’t tried to shift his legs once since he’d been awake. Even as he took another bite of the bread, a shudder cut through him.

“I was afraid she was going to say that,” he muttered around his mouthful.

Chapter Text

While Mora chopped and crushed the herbs she’d collected, Geralt returned to peeling vegetables, but his eyes refused to keep away from the bedroom. Jaskier had finished eating, and he lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. At his sides, his thumbs rubbed against his fingers in quiet agitation.

“He’s hurting,” Mora murmured.

Geralt resumed peeling his potato, not sure when he’d stopped.

“I know his type,” Mora continued. “He may be loud in joy or anger, but he’s quiet in his pain or sadness.” She fixed her gaze on Geralt until he felt compelled to meet her eyes. “Am I wrong?”

It sounded like a challenge, but Geralt didn’t know how to meet it. She wasn’t wrong, as far as he knew. But what right did he have to say he knew Jaskier? Had he ever asked? Had he ever listened? And even if he had, even if he’d once known Jaskier, did he know him now? Despite himself, his gaze strayed again to the man in the bed. Jaskier’s stubble was starting to fill in; it’d be more of a beard soon, and Geralt was startled to see faint streaks of gray in it.

Mora sighed and resumed grinding. “That’s the problem with you ageless types. Wisdom comes with age, so you’re all doomed to be morons forever.”

“Why aren’t you?” Geralt asked.

“Because I was born with a lick of common sense.”

“No. Why aren’t you ageless?”

She pinned him again with her sharp green eyes. “Because when I was young, I got very lucky, and as I got older, I got very smart.”

“Hmm.”

She chuckled at him. “Hmm indeed.”

Setting down her mortar and pestle, she retrieved a wash basin suitable for laundry and a bucket from a cabinet along the wall. She used the bucket to fill the basin with boiling water from the cauldron. She crumpled in handfuls of torn leaves and petals from her apron pockets--calendula, goldenseal--and then nodded toward the mortar on the table. Geralt reached for it and handed it to her, noting the bright orangish-red powder inside and taking an experimental sniff. The scent was vaguely floral, but it made his sinuses burn.

“I don’t recognize that,” he said.

“I’d be surprised if you did,” Mora replied. “It doesn’t grow many places on the Continent.”

When she sprinkled it into the water, it hissed and bubbled and then settled to the bottom, crimson sand in a shallow sea. Mora rose to her feet, wiping her hands on her apron.

“All right, carry that in for me,” she told Geralt. “You can finish with the vegetables later.” Her lips settled in a thin line as he stood and looked down at her. “He’s going to need you.”

A feeling like a tight grip, like a vice, clamped down on Geralt’s chest, but he picked up the basin and followed Mora into the bedroom. Jaskier watched their approach with the air of a condemned prisoner watching the headsman sharpen his ax. When Geralt set the basin down beside the bed, Jaskier turned his face to the wall, and when Mother Mora began picking at the knots of the bandages on his feet, his fingers squeezed into fists that bunched the bedsheets.

“All right,” Mora murmured in a soft voice. The bandages were still loosely wrapped, and they were discolored and stained with more than blood. “Geralt, help him sit up and then you climb up there behind him. Give him something to lean against.”

Jaskier pushed himself upright, though the effort cost him a pained grimace and the loss of what little color had been in his cheeks. “No need for that,” he said. The falsely cheerful words came between short, panted breaths. “I’ve been sitting on my own for decades now, and I’m sure I can-”

“Are you the healer?” Mora snapped with a glare.

Jaskier swallowed. “No, Mother.”

“Then shut up.” Her glare turned from him to Geralt. “And what are you waiting for? Shall I write up a formal invitation?”

Geralt knelt on the bed and supported Jaskier with an arm around his shoulders as Mora held his calves and slowly turned Jaskier so his feet hung over the edge, not quite touching the floor. The bard’s face went from pale to stark-white, and Geralt hurried to slide in behind him, legs bracketing Jaskier’s, prepared to catch him should he faint. Instead Jaskier shifted to keep a careful distance between his back and Geralt’s chest, despite how in need of support he seemed. Geralt denied himself the right to feel hurt by it.

Mora looked up at Jaskier from her place kneeling on the floor beside the basin. The lines in her brow and along her mouth had deepened to furrows with her frown. “This is going to burn like dragon fire, but it should draw out the infection.”

Jaskier nodded while his fingers clenched and unclenched in the blanket still wrapped around his waist. He sucked in a breath as Mora lifted his feet, slid the basin beneath them, and then lowered them into the water. With deliberate care, she pulled away the last of the bandages and let them sink to the bottom of the basin. Thin swirls of red and yellow and black bloomed into the water from the soles of Jaskier’s feet. He let out his breath and slumped a bit.

“That’s not so bad really,” he said.

Mora glanced up at him, face set in grim lines, and then she waved her hand over the bowl. It began to bubble as it had when she first added the powder, and the streams of blood and infection turned thick and clouded the bowl. Jaskier went rigid, and More clamped her hands down on his knees as he made an instinctual jerk to move away from the pain.

“Oh, ow,” Jaskier panted. “Ow.” He gulped in a desperate breath. “Oh, gods. Oh, fuck!”

As he began to tremble, Geralt wrapped his arms around his chest. Jaskier let out a ragged, wounded sound, and his hands released the blanket to cling to Geralt’s forearm. Geralt drew him closer, holding him as tightly as he dared, and Jaskier turned his head to bury his face in the side of Geralt’s neck.

“I’ve got you,” Geralt murmured as he felt moisture--sweat or tears or both--accumulate on his skin.

Jaskier arched his back in a weak attempt to escape, and Geralt’s stomach clenched with nausea even as he held Jaskier down. He’d seen the filthy cell. He’d seen the flail and the whip hanging from hooks on the walls. He’d seen the knife shiny with Jaskier’s blood. Pain atop pain and now more. Geralt could smell the agony in the air, could taste it. He wanted to spit it on the floor, wanted to claw it from his tongue. He wanted to wrap his fingers around the old healer’s throat and throw her from the room.

Without meeting his gaze, Mora shook her head, her implacable hands not budging an inch on Jaskier’s knees.

“Shit,” Jaskier whimpered. “Shit shit shit.”

“That’s enough,” Geralt bit out. “He needs a break.”

Mora ignored him, and he bared his teeth at her as Jaskier squirmed in his arms. A low whine left the bard’s throat as he struggled to writhe. Two days. Two fucking days he’d waited, letting them ruin his body to protect Geralt, and what was his reward? More fucking agony.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Geralt.”

Like a boy in Kaer Morhen who survived again and again only to be twisted further and further until everything human was wrung from his broken body.

“That’s enough!” Geralt barked.

He knocked Mora’s hands away and curled around Jaskier to worm an arm under his knees and raise his feet from the dark water. Jaskier went limp in the cradle of his grasp, his chest heaving and his heartbeat slamming against Geralt’s other hand. Mora’s eyes were wide for a moment, then narrowed, but eventually she only nodded and moved the basin away. She pulled a towel that had been tucked into her apron strings and spread it on the floor beneath Jaskier’s feet. It was immediately speckled with muddy-colored drops dripping from his soles.

“Stay like that for a bit,” Mora said as she stood with the basin. “Let them keep draining.”

Then she turned and left them alone. As gently as he could manage, Geralt eased his arm from beneath Jaskier’s knees and leaned back to let Jaskier settle against his chest. He wasn’t sure Jaskier was fully conscious, but his hands still gripped Geralt’s forearm, and after a long, low breath, he turned his face so his head rested on Geralt’s shoulder instead of being nestled against his throat. As they sat in the quiet afternoon, his breathing and heartbeat slowed and steadied, and Geralt could practically feel the exhaustion in every line of the body he held.

Right when Geralt thought Jaskier had slipped into much-needed sleep, his shoulders began to shake. Geralt settled into the mattress, prepared to hold him for as long as he cried, but he frowned in surprise when a quiet laugh fell from Jaskier’s lips.

“Jaskier?”

“I tried,” the bard chuckled. “I swear by all the gods and monsters of this world that I tried to take myself off your hands.” He lifted his own hands from Geralt’s arm in a helpless gesture. “And here I am, right back on them again.”

The words sliced through Geralt, cutting him open with a weapon he’d forged himself. The wound bled countless lonely nights and silent days, regret and bitterness and shame.

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned to press his forehead to Jaskier’s temple. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said any of it.” When Jaskier didn’t respond, Geralt swallowed against the tightness that threatened to rise from his chest to his throat. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I think you did, a little,” Jaskier said after a moment. Geralt shook his head, but Jaskier patted his arm and then let his hands rest there. “You lived so long on your own. You were free to do as you wanted, go where you wanted. No one to look after, no one prattling at you all day long. I’m sure it was a simpler life.”

Monsters and money. That was all it had been. Curses, ghouls, magic gone wrong. Everything corrupt and evil in the world. Even from humans. Especially from humans.

Except for one. One who approached him without a raised fist but with an open hand overflowing with joy and music and laughter. Friendship. Tenderness.

Love.

Geralt lowered his head slowly, as slow as the mutant heart pounding in his chest, and pressed his lips to the curve where Jaskier’s neck met his shoulder.

“It was empty, Jask,” he murmured. “It was empty before you.”

The fingers laid against his arm twitched, and the chest beneath his palm trembled with a hitched breath. Geralt pressed his hand to Jaskier’s fluttering heart, so much stronger than his own, so much larger. Large enough to hold the whole world and everything in it, even a foolish, lonely Witcher.

“It’s been empty without you,” he continued. “If you can forgive me, I want you with me again. I want you to be with Ciri and me.”

Jaskier cleared his throat. “You saved her then?” His voice was steady even as Geralt felt him tremble in his grasp. “The Nilfgaardians said you did, but I wasn’t sure if it was true.”

“I found her.”

When Jaskier turned his face toward Geralt again, Geralt could feel the scrape of stubble against his jaw and the curve of Jaskier’s smile. “I think that’s the first bit of good news I’ve heard since the war began.”

Then he jerked in Geralt’s arms. He twisted to face him and waved off Geralt’s attempts to hold him still despite the way he clutched at the stitches in his side. “Is she safe? Don’t say you left her to come for me.”

The genuine concern for Ciri in Jaskier’s blue eyes flowed into Geralt as a honeyed warmth. “She’s safe.”

“Where is she?” Jaskier shook his head before Geralt could answer. “No, better if you don’t tell me. If I get captured again-”

“Never,” Geralt vowed. He didn’t want to move Jaskier’s feet, so he turned himself instead, sliding his leg onto the bed behind Jaskier’s back while tucking him against his chest. “Never again.”

In Jaskier’s lap, his thumbs rubbed against his knuckles, and Geralt covered them with his own hand to still them.

Jaskier huffed. “So you want me with you to protect me?”

“Not just that.”

“Then why?”

Beyond the open window, a light breeze stirred the trees. They almost didn’t seem real, like everything beyond the small room, everything beyond the man is his arms, was a dream. But someone else waited for him and needed him and needed more than him, and he was determined to give it to her if he could.

“Ciri is… It’s better than I used to fear it would be. It’s more.” Closing his eyes, he rested his cheek against Jaskier’s hair. “But it feels wrong without you. Like we’re incomplete. There are things I don’t know. Things I can’t teach her. About living, about life. You can.”

One of the thumbs beneath Geralt’s hand slipped free, and the light touches as it began to stroke his skin made Geralt’s whole arm tingle. “You want me to teach Ciri?”

“And me.”

Jaskier let out a soft laugh. “You’re more than a century old. What can I possibly teach you about life?”

“How to live it. You love the world. I want to…” Geralt struggled to explain beyond that, but nothing more really mattered. Jaskier’s love was everything about the world he wanted to understand. “I want to.”

With a long, slow breath, Jaskier curled himself closer, and when his lips brushed Geralt’s collarbone, the tingling in his arm spread through his whole body.

“I was considering taking up a teaching post this winter,” Jaskier murmured. “I thought it would be in Oxenfurt, but if I’m needed elsewhere…”

“Needed,” Geralt agreed. He would make a list of things to love, and the scent of Jaskier’s hair would be the first. “And wanted.”

“I’ll need to get back on my feet first.” They were already as close as they could get, but Jaskier slumped a little more of his weight against Geralt. “Shit, I’m so tired. Do you think I can lie down now?”

Mora chose that moment to return, which left no doubt in Geralt’s mind that she had been listening. He didn’t care much, especially when she nodded to him and then helped him ease Jaskier’s feet onto the bed and his head against the pillows. His eyes were hazy and half-lidded, and Geralt crouched beside the bed, smoothing the hair from his brow, as Mora bandaged his feet again. Then she gently tugged the blanket straight and pulled it up to Jaskier’s chest.

“Rest now,” she said. “We’ll wake you in a few hours for some good, filling stew.”

Jaskier smiled. “I’ll write a song about you yet,” he told her.

With a snort, Mora slapped her hand on Geralt’s shoulder. “Save your songs for this one. I’ve had my share.”

For a moment, Jaskier roused, his gaze kindling with curiosity, but when he opened his mouth on a question, Mora pointed an imperious finger at him.

“Rest,” she ordered.

Jaskier’s pout was short-lived. He looked up at Geralt as Mora left the room and smiled as his eyes slid closed.

“See you in a bit?”

“I’ll be here,” Geralt assured him.

Chapter Text

Jaskier woke in the evening to eat a bowl of stew but immediately fell back asleep. Mother Mora seemed satisfied with the situation, so Geralt tried not to worry. Instead he washed the stew pot and bowls, checked on Roach, and then gathered his armor and swords and sat before the fireplace inspecting each item for any needed repairs. While the sunlight lasted, Mora worked in the garden, and a few people from the village wandered by to say hello or ask her questions or update her on the status of an ill or injured family member. Geralt unashamedly kept one ear on these conversations, but whenever anyone asked about Roach, Mora said only that she had a patient from outside the village who required a longer stay in her care. No one seemed to question it.

Geralt kept his other ear on Jaskier, but the bard slept on, his breathing and pulse deep and even.

Mora came back in when the light was nearly gone and her basket was full of herbs again. She dumped them in a heap on the table, and Geralt eyed them to see if any were familiar to him. All of them were, to his surprise, including a few that were harder-to-come-by ingredients in his potions. When he glanced up at Mora, she met his eye and nodded.

“If you sort them for me, you can take some for your own use. Not too much, mind.”

“Thank you.” He dropped the bracer he’d been holding and rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t have much coin, but you’re welcome to it. And if they are other chores you need performed, I will gladly do them.”

“I may take you up on that. My firewood box needs filling before winter.” Then she shook her head and flicked her braid over her shoulder. “But don’t buy the hen until you know she’ll lay. Once your man is fully recovered, we can talk payment.”

Geralt nodded, and Mora clapped a hand on his shoulder as she passed. She headed to the closed door that Geralt assumed led to her bedroom; it was the only other door the little cottage boasted.

“Bed for me,” she said as she turned the handle. “I barely got any sleep last night thanks to some brute trying to kick in my door.”

“Sounds like a cad,” Geralt replied.

Mora laughed and slipped into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Geralt straightened his armor into a neat pile in an out-of-the-way corner but kept his swords close to hand as he sat down at the table to organize the herbs. The fire in the fireplace slowly died down, and he let it, though he lit one candle before it went out completely. Sorting the various leaves and petals was calming work, and the familiar scents soothed him. He’d been set similar tasks as a boy in Kaer Morhen, and he appreciated having a quiet space of time to do the job properly.

When he was finished, he left the piles on the table to dry overnight; he could bundle and hang them in the morning. He took the candle into the bedroom and examined Jaskier’s sleeping form by its light. He looked flushed, and when he shivered, Geralt frowned and pulled the window shutter closed. The soft sound roused Jaskier, and he blinked up at Geralt with a pained frown.

“How do you feel?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier licked his dry lips. “Thirsty.”

Geralt nodded, set the candle on the table, and went to the kitchen to the pitcher of boiled water Mora had left out in the morning for the day’s drinking. He poured some into a cup and brought it to Jaskier, who drank it all greedily. When he held the cup out for Geralt to take, he shivered again. Geralt pulled the quilt up higher and then swept his hand across Jaskier’s brow. It was bone-dry and too warm.

“Try to sleep some more,” he said.

As Jaskier settled back into the pillows, Geralt reconsidered his thought to pull out the trundle bed and sleep himself. He’d be fine with another night of meditation, and he disliked the idea of being any less aware of his surroundings than that--not while Jaskier might need him. Instead of sitting beneath the window, he sat beside the bed with his back against the frame, and before he could close his eyes and try to reach a meditative state, he felt gentle fingers comb through his hair.

“You need a bath.”

Geralt’s lips curled up as he leaned into the touch. “We both do.”

“Do you think Mora has a tub?”

“If she does, it’s in her bedroom.”

“Could be.”

The smooth, repetitive strokes of his hair would have helped Geralt doze any other night, but he could hear as Jaskier’s breaths grew uneven. Without a word he turned and gently curled an arm under Jaskier’s shoulders. His other hand wiped away the tears that slipped from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier murmured, turning his face to Geralt’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I’m crying now.”

“Because you’ve been through something terrible. And you’re still hurting and ill.”

Nodding, Jaskier tried to burrow even closer against him. “I’m really cold. Except my feet. They’re burning.” He heaved a deeper breath. “That’s not good, is it?”

Geralt brushed a kiss against his hot forehead. “You’re going to be fine, Jaskier.”

“You sound very sure of that.”

“Nothing’s going to take you from me.”

In the long course of time, the words would prove a lie, as they did for anyone who said them to someone they loved. But for this night, for many years to come, Geralt was determined to make them true. He gently drew back his arm and adjusted the pillows to make Jaskier as comfortable as he could.

“I’m going to wake Mora.”

Jaksier looked up at him with wet, worried eyes and a nod. He chewed at his lip as Geralt lit the other candles on the table but managed a slight smile when Geralt glanced back before leaving the room.

Geralt knocked at the other bedroom door but got no answer. The handle turned beneath his hand, so he let himself in. A large wardrobe dominated the wall opposite the door; beside it a low bookshelf overflowed with books stacked and shoved this way and that. The near corner was concealed by a folding screen painted with cherry blossoms. A bed wide enough for two people took up the middle space, but Mora was curled on just the left side, her long gray hair loose across the pillow. The right side was undisturbed. Geralt made an effort to step noisily as he entered, but Mora still bolted upright with a gasp when he touched her shoulder.

“Sweet Melitele, Witcher,” she said, clutching her chest. “Don’t use those eyes on me in the dark.”

“They’re the only eyes I have.”

Mora snorted before rubbing the heels of both hands into her forehead. “And why are you waking me for the second night in a row?”

“Jaskier’s feverish.”

“Ah, fuck.” Mora dropped her hands to the bedspread, then swung her legs out from under the blanket and stood. After snatching her shawl from off the bedpost, she wrapped it around herself and shouldered past Geralt to pad to the other bedroom on bare feet.

“Causing more trouble, bard?”

Jaskier smiled at her even as he shivered again. “Deepest apologies, Mother.”

“Stay alive and I’ll forgive you.” She waved Geralt over to Jaskier’s side. “Help him sit back so I have some room.”

With Geralt’s forearm under his knees, Jaskier was able to push himself up the bed, though his face was tight with pain by the end. Geralt slid in next to him, and Jaskier leaned heavily against his shoulder. Mora sat at the foot of the bed but didn’t attempt to remove the discolored bandages on Jaskier’s feet. Instead she rested her fingertips lightly just above his ankles and closed her eyes. Jaskier’s hand sought Geralt’s, and he intertwined their fingers with a tight squeeze. Geralt squeezed back.

Sighing, Mora opened her eyes. “Well, the soaking didn’t get deep enough. The infection’s spreading, and we don’t want it getting into his blood.”

“No, we don’t,” Jaskier agreed. “We very much do not want that.”

“What do we do?” Geralt asked.

“I do something I haven’t done in a long time,” Mora replied as she rolled up the sleeves of her nightdress. “Just as well the Brotherhood has bigger problems right now, though if Tissaia de fucking Vries wants to bang on my door and try to drag me to Aretuza, she’s welcome to try.”

Despite all the old healer had done for them, Geralt felt a flicker of anger when he thought of the pain Jaskier had endured since they’d arrived at her door. “If you could heal him like that, why haven’t you done it already?”

Mora scoffed. “Why do you injure monsters and wear them down before striking the killing blow? Why not take the final shot first? I couldn’t have healed him as he was when you brought him here.”

“You healed his hands well enough.”

“Is killing a wyvern the same as killing a mouse? Regrowing fingernails is one thing. Mending bone and curing infection is another creature altogether. Now that his other wounds have improved, I have a chance with these.”

“Is it a danger to you?” Jaskier asked.

Mora’s glare at Geralt softened as she looked at Jaskier. “I’m not going to keel over dead from a little focused chaos.” She tapped her fingers lightly against his legs. “Might pass out though so don’t expect breakfast. And you,” she added with a point at Geralt, “milk Valeena for me.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“All right. Neither of you move or talk too much.”

Almost immediately after Mora closed her eyes, Jaskier disregarded her last instruction. “Geralt,” he whispered, and Geralt couldn't help a fond smile.

“What?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Jaskier lick his lips. “Does this sort of thing hurt?”

Geralt considered the times he’d been healed by mages in the past, the ones he’d been conscious for at any rate. “You’ll feel a lot of pressure,” he admitted.

“Shut up,” Mora muttered.

In the next moment, Jaskier stiffened beside him. His thigh flexed, and Geralt held it still with his free hand. Over the decades, he’d grown used to the sensation of healing, the feeling that someone was reaching into his body and moving things around. He remembered one particularly gruesome gut wound that had him deliriously convinced that the mage had reached straight through him. Jaskier slumped back against the pillows with a quiet groan, his face pale beneath the flush of his fever.

“Oh, gods, I’m going to be sick.”

Geralt shifted his hand to Jaskier’s stomach. “Breathe,” he murmured. “Deep breaths, like before a performance.”

Jaskier nodded and then inhaled deeply through his nose for a long count before letting the air slowly out of his mouth. He always said it stretched his lungs and kept him focused. After a few long breaths, some of the tension seeped out of his body. Geralt breathed with him, and he felt some of his own stress from the past few days wane as well. Behind it lurked a weariness that was as much emotional as physical. If the healing went well, he decided he might try to sleep after all.

Jaskier gradually relaxed more and more until he opened his eyes and smiled at Geralt. He looked to the foot of the bed and then shot upright, shoving at Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt turned to see Mora swaying, and he lunged to catch her before she toppled out of the bed.

“Is she all right?”

Geralt could see her chest rise and fall and hear the steady heartbeat in her chest. He laid his fingers against the pulse in her throat to double-check, and as he adjusted her position in his arms, her head tilted back, and she let out a soft snore.

“Deep asleep, but she seems fine.” He lifted his gaze back to Jaskier. “How do you feel?”

“Still a bit sick, but…” On the mattress beside Geralt, Jaskier’s feet twitched and then gingerly flexed. It was the first time he’d seen Jaskier move his feet voluntarily since they’d escaped the prison. “My feet feel better. A lot better.”

Geralt hummed and then rose with Mora in his arms. “I’ll be right back.”

Jaskier nodded, though he was still focused on testing his healed feet’s range of motion. After settling Mora back in her bed and checking her breathing and pulse again, Geralt went out to the cottage’s main room to retrieve the cleaned wash basin from the cabinet. With the fire out, the boiling water in the cauldron had cooled to pleasantly warm. He filled the basin and brought it back to the bedroom. Jaskier flinched when he saw it, then laughed to himself.

“Wouldn’t that be quite a phobia? Fear of wash basins.”

“You’d have reason.”

Shaking his head, Jaskier sat up under his own power and shuffled his legs over the side of the bed. Geralt helped him lower his still-bandaged feet into the basin, and he let out a soft groan of more pleasure than pain.

“And just like that I have conquered my fear,” he said.

Smiling, Geralt began to unwind the bandages that loosened in the warm water. When Jaskier’s feet were bare, Geralt gently ran his hands over them.

“Can you feel that?”

Jaskier smiled down at him, blue eyes shining. “Yes. All of it.” Then his smile slipped just a bit. “How do they look?”

Geralt hummed. He turned to the chest at the foot of the bed and dug through the bedding until he found a spare towel. He set it across his lap and drew one of Jaskier’s feet out of the basin. After patting it with the towel, he turned the sole toward the candlelight. The swelling had cleared, the bruises were yellow, and the gashes had closed to red lines of just-healed skin.

“Good. Like it’s been weeks rather than days.”

Jaskier blew out a loud breath as he flopped back on the mattress. “Thank the gods.”

“Thank Mother Mora.”

“Well, yes, obviously.” Jaskier pushed himself up on his elbows as Geralt set aside the basin and dried Jaskier’s other foot. “How will we possibly repay her?”

“Don’t worry about that now. You need to sleep off that fever.”

Without the fear of intense pain if he shifted his feet wrong, Jaskier moved much more freely. He twisted his legs back into the bed, scooted up to the pillow, and settled on his uninjured side. When Geralt came to kneel beside his head, he shifted to the very edge and patted the space behind him.

“Keep me company?”

“Hmm.” Geralt cupped Jaskier’s jaw in one hand and ran his thumb across his cheekbone. “You’re still too warm. You don’t need me heating you up.”

Jaskier nodded, but his gaze dropped away and his slight smile slipped. “Right. Of course.”

They would need time to settle into each other again and time to explore how they would be together in the future, both as themselves and with Ciri, but Geralt hated that he was the sole cause of any doubts Jaskier harbored. Reaching down, he found the frame of the trundle bed and tugged it out. It had no bedding, just a bare straw mattress, but that was more than enough for Geralt. He lay down on his side, and with his head on his fist and his elbow propped on the mattress, he and Jaskier were nearly eye to eye. He reached up to cover Jaskier’s hand on the edge of the bed with his own. Jaskier’s smile returned, and Geralt leaned up to press a kiss to Jaskier’s brow. When his eyes fluttered closed, he pressed another to a delicate eyelid.

“Sleep,” he murmured.

“You too,” Jaskier mumbled. “You’ll be here in the morning?”

“Unless I’m out milking a goat.”

Jaskier snorted into the pillow. “That’s going in a song. Geralt of Rivia, friend of humanity, milk maid to all of goatkind.”

“It’s one goat.”

“For now. Maybe you’ll discover it’s your true calling.”

“Jaskier. Stop talking.”

“When a humble goat needed her milk drawn…”

“Jaskier.”

“You didn’t say no singing.”

“It was implied.”

“Implication is weak. Declare yourself like a real man.”

“I declare I’ll smother you with that pillow.”

“There you go.”

Geralt shook his head, but as he lowered it to tuck against his arm, he kept his hand on Jaskier’s. He savored the feeling of warmth and strength in the fingers beneath his, and as he closed his eyes and drifted off, he felt lighter than he had in a very long time.

Chapter Text

The soft patter of rain on the roof woke Geralt the next morning. He pushed himself up from the trundle bed and went to the window to open the shutter and let in the sweet smell of wet earth. The leaves of the nearby trees dipped and danced with the weight of each drop and in time with merry birdsong. Geralt glanced at Jaskier and smiled to see he had flopped onto his back at some point in the night and sprawled across the entire bed in very Jaskier-like fashion. He reached to brush a bit of hair off the bard’s brow, which was lightly dotted with sweat but cool. Jaskier’s lips twitched a bit at the touch and released a soft puff of air before his chest settled back into its deep and peaceful rhythm.

Geralt checked in on Mora as well, cracking her door to make sure she was sleeping just as peacefully. He smirked at the volume of the old healer’s snore and then shut the door again. A variety of dried goods were stored here and there among the cabinets in the cottage’s main room, including a mostly full sack of oats. He scooped some into the bucket by the fireplace and carried it out to the barn.

Roach greeted him with a stamp of her hoof and then nudged her head against his chest when she spied the bucket. Valeena eyed him with considerably less enthusiasm, especially once he left Roach to her oats and approached the goat with the milking pail and stool.

“I have done this before,” he assured her. He didn’t mention it had been nine decades or so since.

His first few attempts resulted in kicks he narrowly avoided. Then he leaned closer against her side, breathed in the warm smell of her coat, and let muscle memory reposition his hands. When he pulled down the next time, a stream of foaming milk zinged into the metal pail. He smirked but refrained from saying “I told you so” to a goat. As soon as the pail was full, she wasted no time in bolting out to the pasture, despite the rain.

“You’re welcome,” he called after her.

He set the pail on the stool and then returned to Roach to smooth his hands over her neck as she finished the oats. She nudged him again when she lifted her head, and he smiled as he scratched between her ears.

“He’s going to be all right,” he told her, and she huffed her satisfaction.

Before returning to the cottage, he filled the oat bucket with water from the well. He carried the bucket full of water and the pail full of milk inside, then poured the milk into the cleaned stew pot and hung it on its hook in the fireplace. He relit the fire and spent the time it took to boil the milk hanging the bundled herbs from the rafters with twine, making sure they hung low enough for Mora to reach. After he stirred a batch of oats into the milk, he carried the large cauldron Mora used to boil water out to the well. He dumped the old water and filled it fresh, and by the time he carried it back inside and set it over the fire, Mora had emerged from her room, dressed for the day and with her hair back in its neat braid.

She whistled. “Must be nice being able to carry that thing while it’s full.”

Geralt shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “Jaskier asked if-”

“If he could bathe?” Mora nodded. “That’s fine. He can use the tub in my room. In fact I encourage it for both of you. You reek.”

“Thanks,” Geralt retorted as he handed her a bowl of porridge.

“You’re welcome,” she said with a smirk. “Use whatever soaps and salts you want. There’s fresh towels in the trunk in my room. Fresh sheets too. You should change that bed.”

Nodding, Geralt sat and tucked into his own breakfast. Despite the plainness of the porridge, Mora devoured her first bowl and went back for seconds. When Geralt raised his eyebrow, she smacked his hand with her spoon.

“I’m well past the age of pretending to be a lady who exists solely on sunlight and the scent of food. Healing’s hungry work.”

When she’d finished eating, she left her dirty bowl on the table and swept up her basket and shawl, which she draped over her head in deference to the rain. “It’s market day, so I’ll be gone for awhile. Don’t break anything.”

“You sure you’re up for shopping after last night?”

Ignoring him, Mora pushed open the door. “Don’t try to coddle an old healer,” she shot over her shoulder. “Makes you sound like a fool.” Just before the door swung closed behind her, she stuck her foot in the way and leaned back in with a commanding finger pointing at Geralt. “And don’t let that other fool try to walk.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

He wasn’t surprised when moments after the door banged shut he heard Jaskier call his name. He filled another bowl with porridge and brought it into the bedroom where Jaskier sat up in bed, tousle-haired and bleary-eyed. His expression brightened into a grin when Geralt held out the bowl.

“Yay, food!”

“You get a bath too.”

Jaskier threw back his head and sighed in exaggerated bliss. “A new day has dawned, and the world has brought me nothing but blessings.”

Geralt snorted. “I’ll fill the tub. But only part way. You can’t soak your stitches.”

“And now you’ve ruined it,” Jaskier said, pouting around a bite of porridge.

“You’ll live.”

When the tub was half full and Jaskier’s bowl was empty, Geralt returned to pull Jaskier into his arms and carry him to Mora’s room. As soon as the bard was in the tub, he used his hands to sluice hot water over every inch of his skin. He grimaced as he ran his hands over his face.

“I need a new razor. In fact, I’ll have to replace all of my kit.” His hands dropped into the water as his shoulders slumped. “And my poor darling lute. I’m sure those bastards left her on the road. She’s probably been trampled to pieces by now.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said as he sat beside the tub.

Jaskier offered him a sad smile. “It’s not your fault.” When Geralt opened his mouth to respond, wet fingers covered his lips. “It’s not.”

It was a pretty lie, the kind Jaskier had always been good at, and the truth was a knot they’d have to untangle at some point, but the marks were still fresh on Jaskier’s body and the lingering plea in his eyes told Geralt his guilt would only add to Jaskier’s pain. So Geralt swallowed it down, tucked it away, and vowed to offer Jaskier soft relief instead of hard regret, at least for now.

He started by sorting through the bottles and jars stacked on a stool beside the tub along with a cup for rinsing. He found a bar of chamomile-scented soap, wet it, and rubbed it between his hands until it lathered. When he dug his soaped hands into Jaskier’s hair, the bard arched his back and let out a loud groan. A heavy warmth prickled through Geralt’s chest.

“No wonder you used to get half-hard when I’d do this for you,” Jaskier murmured, eyes closed.

The warmth spread to heat the back of Geralt’s neck. “I didn’t think you’d noticed that.”

“Difficult not to when it was all just right there.”

“Hmm.”

Geralt kept up his careful scrubbing long past the point of cleanliness, letting them both sink into the action of giving and receiving care. When the soap threatened to drip into Jaskier’s eyes, he wiped it clear with a gentle sweep of his thumb. When Jaskier began to fidget, he picked up the cup and used it to rinse the soap away. His fingers passed through the strands again and again, the water a smooth stream that flowed through the channels of his touch like a creek in its bed. He set aside the cup and squeezed the excess water from Jaskier’s hair, and he couldn’t help huffing a laugh when it took the shape of his hands. Jaskier’s answering smile was incandescent.

Geralt handed him the soap. Washing Jaskier’s hair was one thing, but he held himself back from running his hands over the expanse of glistening pale skin before him. If he started, he wasn’t sure he could stop, and sex was as complicated as his guilt, not least because they were in someone else’s house. He had made so many missteps along the path that had led them here; he refused to risk stumbling again by rushing forward.

Jaskier’s gaze stayed locked on his, and the look of those blue eyes seemed to warm and then heat. Geralt had seen that look across the decades, directed at men and women in taverns and courts across the Continent, and even, once or twice in the early days, directed at him. Now he felt it, felt the flush of anticipation that all those potential lovers must have felt. He licked his lips, and Jaskier’s gaze flicked down to catch the movement. His smile spread to a toothy, predatory grin, and Geralt forced himself to stand, hands locked into fists at his sides.

“Mind your stitches,” he growled.

Jaskier let out a low laugh, but when he looked up, his face was the picture of the sweet and harmless bard too many took him to be. “Yes, Mother,” he said.

Geralt grunted, which just made Jaskier offer him a cheeky wink before he set to washing himself. Geralt went to the trunk to retrieve a towel, and once Jaskier was clean, he tossed it over his head, and Jaskier laughed as he rubbed his hair and face dry. When he reemerged grinning with his damp hair in disarray, Geralt was helpless to do anything but smile back. Jaskier hadn’t fully recovered, and injuries like the ones he’d sustained lived on in haunted memories, not just scars, but for this moment, he was safe and happy and back at Geralt’s side, as he always should have been.

Geralt spread the towel on Mora’s bed and then carried Jaskier, dripping and warm, to lay across it. While Jaskier finished drying off, Geralt gathered clean sheets from the chest and changed the bed in the other room. The new sheets carried a light scent of dried lavender, and he was happy to replace the sheets that smelled of Jaskier’s fear and fever. He went back to Mora’s room, expecting to carry Jaskier back, but the bard had wriggled over to the far side of the bed and was perusing Mora’s bookshelf. Geralt distracted himself from the view of his pert backside by filling the tub with more hot water from the cauldron. By the time he lowered himself in with a sigh, Jaskier had selected a volume and sprawled across Mora’s bedspread.

“For a small-town healer, our Mother Mora has a surprisingly vast collection of poetry,” he noted, flipping through the book.

As Geralt washed himself, he listened to Jaskier hum and read the occasional verse aloud. He read the entirety of one particularly abstruse poem, adopting a haughty accent that had Geralt chuckling into the bathwater. The door to the cottage opened just as Jaskier reached the stirring finale, though he did manage to cover his lower half with the towel in the middle of his theatrics. Geralt pulled the screen around the tub a bit more closed as Mora entered the room, but Jaskier greeted her with open arms.

“Mora darling, you return to find two virile, naked men in your boudoir!”

Mora snorted as she crossed to the wardrobe along the far wall. “I’m a healer. I’ve had every man in this town naked in my cottage at one time or another. And it’s time you wore some trousers.”

“Unfortunately all my clothes-”

A pair of black trousers hitting him in the face cut Jaskier off. He pulled them down and set them in his lap.

“Why is everyone throwing things at my head to-”

A dark-blue shirt interrupted, but Jaskier’s scowl turned to a smile as he pulled it off his head and held it up. “Ooo, I like this. Whose is it?”

“The trousers belong to my son. The shirt was my husband’s.”

“Well then, his taste in clothing was as admirable as his taste in women.”

Mora rolled her eyes and turned back to the wardrobe. Geralt got out of the tub and quickly dried and redressed himself. When he came around the screen, Jaskier was sitting in the bed in the black trousers and the blue shirt left unlaced at the collar. The color was striking against his fair skin, and when he turned to smile at Geralt, the shirt and the dark growth of beard across his jaw turned his eyes the brilliant blue of a summer sky.

“I suppose you might as well use this too.”

When Mora held out a black leather case with a familiar-looking shape, Jaskier took it from her eagerly. “Healer and lutenist? You’re a woman of many talents.”

“I don’t play,” Mora said. “But you do.”

“How do you know that?” Jaskier said, still holding the unopened case in his arms. “And how did you know I was a bard at all?” He shot Geralt a grin. “Geralt, have you been praising my musical prowess again?”

Geralt snorted. “No.”

“I healed your hands,” Mora reminded him. “I know that type of callus.”

Jaskier wagged his eyebrows at her. “Intimately?”

“Do you want me to drug you again?”

“All right,” Jaskier laughed. “I’ll behave.”

He opened the case, and his eyes widened. With reverent hands, he removed the lute inside. Geralt knew nothing of any musical instruments, but by the way Jaskier’s fingers traced the lute’s form, he guessed it was well made. The body had been carved with flowers that Geralt couldn’t immediately identify--until Jaskier’s eyes went to the folding screen behind him and its painted cherry blossoms.

With a gentle smile, Jaskier let his fingers graze the lute’s strings. He fiddled with the tuning a bit and then began to sing.

When the cherry blossoms fell
and covered the glade,
her pale green eyes danced
as they settled in her braid.
I asked for her hand,
and she laughed but she stayed.
And we were the match
that the cherry blossoms made.

He gazed up at Mora, and his eyes held a tender, wistful look.

“This is Roget LeFair’s lute. He’s holding it in his faculty portrait at Oxenfurt.”

Confused, Geralt turned to Mora, and he felt his brow furrow as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

“You should tune that fucking thing,” she murmured. “It sounds like garbage.” Then she turned abruptly and walked out of the room.

Geralt and Jaskier looked at each other for a long moment after they heard the front door open and close. Then Jaskier bent over the lute, and his tongue slipped between his lips as he set to tuning it in earnest.

Geralt sat on the edge of the bed. “Who’s Roget LeFair?”

“A balladeer. He was quite popular for a few years when I was a child. Played all the courts as well as spending time in residence in Oxenfurt.” The lute sounded a sour note, and Jaskier grimaced before adjusting the string. “That song is part of the standard curriculum, but the rest of his repertoire went out of fashion. I always thought that was a shame.”

“And Mora married him?”

“So it would seem.” Jaskier caught his eye with a slight smile. “He’s about my age in that portrait. Mora must have been quite a bit younger than him. Think she’ll tell me the story of how they met?”

“Hmm.”

Geralt picked up the empty case and slung it over his shoulder. Then he picked up Jaskier, who squawked at the sudden shift, cradling the lute in his arms like a babe. He carried it all to the other bedroom and deposited them on the freshly made bed. Jaskier continued coaxing LeFair’s lute back to life as Geralt cleaned up the towels and soaps, drained the tub, and washed the porridge bowls with the water he’d brought from the well. When Mora returned, she went straight to arranging a pan on the fire and cooking the eggs from her market basket for an afternoon meal, as if she’d never been gone at all. Geralt didn’t comment on the cherry blossoms that clung to her shawl.

Chapter Text

At Mora’s and Geralt’s insistence, Jaskier napped through the afternoon. Geralt spent the time working through a list of chores Mora gave him--repairing fences, patching cracks in the walls, ridding the pasture of the worst of the invasive vines from the forest. Rather than burn them, Mora insisted he carry the pulled weeds in armfuls and return them to the forest. He knew better than to question her logic.

She also sent him to purchase a demijohn of the locally brewed ale from the tavern in the village. The village wasn’t large, and most of the population was out in the fields, intent on bringing in the harvest before it could be ruined by an early frost or confiscated by Nilfgaard. The few people Geralt did pass merely nodded to him and continued on with their business. The tavern keeper greeted him politely and offered him a fair price on the ale. He didn’t know if Mother Mora’s presence had led to the town’s acceptance of those outside of normal human life or if Mora chose to stay because that acceptance had already existed. He supposed it didn’t really matter.

Back in the cottage, Mora simmered a string of sausages she’d purchased at the day’s market and more onions and potatoes (and if Geralt had dawdled a bit in his outdoor chores to avoid more peeling, no one but Roach and Valeena would know) in some of the ale. She set the demijohn with the remaining ale on the table with three mugs, and neither she nor Geralt hesitated to pour themselves hefty measures. The aroma of cooking sausage that filled the cottage soon woke Jaskier as well, and Geralt carried him to the table to join them.

Jaskier and Mora spent the evening telling tales of their surprisingly numerous mutual acquaintances. Jaskier caught her up on the current gossip, while Mora regaled him with stories of the antics of the young unknown performers who had become his distinguished professors at Oxenfurt. Geralt was content to sit back and listen, warmed by the fire, the good food and ale, and Jaskier’s clear enjoyment of the evening. During the recitation of a particularly bawdy court scandal, Jaskier threw Geralt a wink that sent the general warmth spreading to a more specific part of his body, and he downed his ale in an attempt to ignore Mora’s knowing laughter.

“Mora, my darling, you have lived a life of adventure and romance worthy of all the fine ballads your husband wrote,” Jaskier said as he divided the last of the ale among their mugs. “But how did it begin? What was the opening chapter of your epic love story?”

Mora shrugged. “Not much to it. Roget came to my village, and after his first night playing, I told my mother I would follow him when he left.” She raised her mug and smirked. “Three days later I did.”

“You were married in three days?” Jaskier asked.

Mora laughed. “No.”

Jaskier clutched at his chest in a mocking version of offended shock. “Mora!” he exclaimed in a scandalized tone. “Do not tell me you traipsed about the Continent as an unmarried woman.”

“I did, and I do. We never did get around to the ceremony of it all.”

“Yet you call him your husband,” Geralt pointed out.

“And so he was,” Mora retorted. “You know another word for a man I spent thirty years of my life with? With whom I had a child?” She pointed with her mug out toward the forest beyond the cottage walls. “We were in the middle of that forest when he got it in his fool head to ask me to settle down with him for good, and I was fool enough to say yes. Said and done. We bought this cottage, even if it was just the one room and falling down around our ears, and that was that.”

“How did he die?” Geralt asked.

By Jaskier’s frown, he suspected he would have gotten a kick under the table if the bard’s feet were fully healed, but Mora patted Jaskier’s hand. “I’m a healer, and he’s a Witcher. Death is an old friend to us both, and no need to be shy about the times he visits.”

She turned to Geralt. “Sometimes the body turns against itself. Magic can keep it at bay for a time, but the inevitable always wins out in the end.”

“That must have been terrible,” Jaskier murmured.

“The night he died, I thought the world would stop,” she replied, but her eyes didn’t leave Geralt’s. “But the sun rose in the morning, and it’s risen every day since. Somewhere along the line I remembered how to see the beauty in that.”

Geralt’s gaze flicked to Jaskier, to the soft lines beside his eyes and the gray sprinkled along his jaw. “Was it worth it?”

Mora huffed a laugh into her mug. “I imagine you’ve said a lot of dumb things in your long life, Witcher, but that’s definitely the dumbest.”

Jaskier’s gaze met his, his blue eyes shining in the way they did when the two of them were together and free of burden or worry or pain, and Geralt had to admit she was probably right.

Mora eyed them both and sighed. “Just so we’re clear, there’s to be no fucking in my cottage.”

Geralt scowled, but Jaskier threw back his head and laughed, deep and rich, and somehow the sound was both achingly familiar and brand new again. For so long, Geralt had steeled himself against feeling the pain of its absence; he had no defense against the way its return pierced the deepest parts of him.

“And just so we’re clear on another matter,” Mora said as she stood from the table, “if either of you wakes me up again tonight, Nilfgaard will be the least of your problems.”

As she passed, Jaskier reached for her hand and touched his lips to her knuckles. “How can we ever repay you?”

She gave his cheek an indulgent pat with her other hand. “Don’t get caught next time.”

“He won’t,” Geralt assured her.

Mora’s lips quirked up as she bobbed a quick nod of approval. Jaskier’s smile was fond and soft, another expression Geralt had seen a thousand times by fire- and candlelight, and yet it still caught him off guard, too uncertain to believe he could be its target or its cause. He looked down at the table and rubbed his finger through the circle of condensation left by his mug and didn’t look up again until he heard the door to Mora’s bedroom close behind her.

When he did, Jaskier leaned forward with a parody of a lascivious leer on his lips. “Take me to bed, handsome?”

Geralt snorted. He got to his feet, collected Jaskier in his arms, and carried him into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him. When he placed Jaskier on the bed, the bard immediately scooted back toward the wall and looked up at him with a wide grin.

“No fever tonight,” he noted.

“Hmm.”

After a moment’s pause, Geralt sat on the edge of the bed and bent to pull off his boots. Deft fingers slipped over his shoulders and began to flick open the buttons of his shirt.

“Remember what Mora said,” Geralt warned him.

Jaskier gasped. “Are you accusing me of attempting to seduce you?”

“You are literally taking my clothes off right now.”

“In an effort to make you comfortable enough for a good night’s sleep!” He tugged Geralt’s shirt loose of his waistband and up over his head. “Where is the trust, I ask you?”

“I think you left it in that town that we got chased out of by two husbands and a wife. All siblings as I recall.”

“That family had excellent taste in spouses.” Jaskier’s voice was muffled, by fabric being pulled over his face, if Geralt had to guess.

“Unless you consider loyalty a good quality in a spouse.”

When Jaskier’s shirt flew over Geralt’s shoulder, he raised an eyebrow and turned to face the bard who gazed back at him, all innocence.

“What? Like we haven’t slept shirtless in the same bed a thousand times before?”

Geralt hummed as he stretched himself out across the mattress and laid his head on the pillow with one hand tucked beneath. Jaskier lay down as well, mirroring Geralt’s position until they were side by side facing each other, close, close enough to feel the space between them warm from the heat of their skin but with a breath of air between them. They’d lit no candles, so the only light came from the moon that shone brightly through the window now that the rain had cleared off. Jaskier shivered with the cool breeze that trickled in, and Geralt reached down to drag the quilt up over them both. He felt a surge of satisfaction at Jaskier’s contented sigh.

A quiet moment passed between then, and then careful fingers reached out and traced the lines of his chest. Geralt went very still. Jaskier had touched nearly every part of him since they’d met, had wiped his skin clean and stitched his wounds. This gentle touch felt nothing like those. Jaskier’s fingertips barely skimmed his skin, yet he felt his breath come heavier.

And then Jaskier’s hand pulled away, pulled back. Geralt watched his eyes, but they never lifted from the path his fingers had traced, and Geralt’s hands twitched, suddenly desperate to reach across the sliver of separation between them.

“You regret what you said.”

The small, quiet voice--much too small, much too quiet for his bard--turned the desperation to touch to an ache buried deep within him, an ache he had no right to satisfy, a canyon he had no right to bridge until he had traversed the gaps he’d left between the pieces of Jaskier’s heart.

“I do.”

“When did you start?”

Geralt swallowed, his throat thick. “When I heard you walk away.”

Jaskier let out a considering hum; his gaze remained on Geralt’s chest as if he could see the truth written there.

“But you didn’t stop me.”

“No.”

“And you didn’t come for me.”

“No.”

Geralt knew what word would follow, knew he needed to hear it, to listen to it as much as Jaskier needed to say it. It didn’t come out as a plea, not a pained whisper or an agonized shout. It came out as a sigh, weary with the weight of decades spent unspoken.

“Why?”

It was one word that held a hundred questions. Why had he said the things he said? Why had he done the things he did? Why did he push Jaskier away with one hand and reach for him with the other? Not just on that windy mountain top but for all the years and miles traveled.

A hundred questions and only one answer.

“I was scared,” he murmured.

Blue eyes sought his, full of tender concern he didn’t deserve. A hand pressed against his cheek. “Oh, my darling wolf,” Jaskier murmured back, “what could you possibly have to fear by letting yourself be cherished?”

The ache inside Geralt squeezed tighter. Cherished. As if he were something precious.

“Because I don’t deserve it,” he whispered.

Jaskier opened his mouth to protest, but Geralt hurried on. “I feared some power in the world would figure that out and take you from me.” The ache pulsed in his throat, but he forced the words out. “You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to be caught up in my bullshit.”

Jaskier’s mouth twitched into a wry smile as his thumb traced Geralt’s lips. “Too late.”

“Fuck,” Geralt choked out, and the hand on his cheek became arms wrapped around him, and he let himself hide in Jaskier’s shoulder as he clutched at Jaskier’s biceps.

“I know,” he mumbled into the warm skin beneath his lips. “I know. I shouldn’t have… I should have…”

But he still didn’t know. Shouldn’t have let him close? Shouldn’t have pushed him away? Should have let him go? Should have held him tighter? Every step he’d taken seemed both wrong and right. Days ago he’d found Jaskier beaten and bloody. Hours ago he’d seen Jaskier glow with contentment as Geralt washed his hair. He brought Jaskier pain. He brought Jaskier joy. How could he ask him to endure the one? How could he ask him to give up the other?

Jaskier shushed him with soothing noises as he carded his fingers through Geralt’s hair. Every line of him spoke of comfort offered, of assurances given, of a surety that he had answers for all of Geralt’s unanswered questions. The lessons of life he wanted to learn flowed freely from the heart that beat beneath his ear, and the only question Geralt had to answer was whether he trusted Jaskier to teach him.

That question Geralt could answer without doubt, without hesitation.

Without fear.

So when Jaskier’s hand tilted Geralt’s head up, when warm, soft lips pressed against his, he closed his eyes and let Jaskier roll him back against the pillows. He parted his lips and breathed in the air from Jaskier’s lungs. He had spent so long surrounded by the scent of him that the taste of him felt like relief, like the first sip of cool water prayed for in thirst and yet somehow better than imagined. There was no need to fight, no need to struggle, just a long, slow slide into surrender. Jaskier shifted again, arms bracketed around Geralt’s head and one leg slotting into place between Geralt’s thighs, and Geralt grunted like he’d been thrown against a wall, like he’d been punched in the gut, like the sound Jaskier had made all those years ago on the road out of Posada. If this was the bard’s long-awaited revenge, Geralt would embrace it as his due.

He slid his hands down to Jaskier’s waist, careful not to press against his stitches. Jaskier’s tongue swept against Geralt’s, hot and sweet; his teeth tugged at Geralt’s lower lip. Geralt’s hips jerked up in response, which made Jaskier suck in a sharp breath. The bed beneath them creaked as they rocked against each other, seeking the friction that would ease the pressure beginning to build between them.

A loud thud against the wall made them both jolt. They went still and silent, and Geralt moved Jaskier off and behind him, eyes searching the room for any threat.

“I said no fucking in my cottage!” came the call from the other room.

Jaskier burst into a fit of laughter and stifled it against Geralt’s back. A different kind of heat burned up Geralt’s neck, and he turned and pressed his face into the cool of the pillow. Jaskier reached an arm around his waist, tugging him close to his chest. When his fingers tripped down Geralt’s side toward the waistband of his trousers, Geralt grabbed them, tucked them in his own hand, and held them firmly trapped over his heart. Jaskier laughed again, soft and low, and laid a sweet kiss against Geralt’s nape before snuggling down behind him. In the dark of the night, safe and warm and held close by someone who knew him, accepted him, cherished him, Geralt let himself feel the depth of his own contentment in a way he hadn’t in a very long time.

Chapter Text

After spending the first minutes of the morning engaged in lazy kisses with a sleep-rumpled bard, Geralt rolled out of bed and dressed despite Jaskier’s grumbles of protest. Mora had prepared a fresh pot of porridge, and by the smell, she had stirred in generous amounts of honey and bits of sliced apple. When he brought two bowls into the bedroom, the sweet aroma coaxed Jaskier out from under the pillow he’d pulled over his head, and he ate while sitting in a square of sunlight from the window, basking like a contented cat.

The promise of more sunlight finally convinced Jaskier to pull his shirt back on and leave the bed. Geralt carried him out to one of the stump chairs in the garden where Mora was already at work, ruthlessly pruning the vines of the various colorful squashes growing plump and plentiful. They soon picked up a thread from the previous night’s conversation, and Geralt left them to it while he headed to the pile of logs behind the far fence. They’d clearly been cut from the evergreen grove on the other side of town and brought to the cottage rather than harvested from Mora’s forest.

By the time the sun was high, he’d split about half the pile into manageable firewood and his stomach was reminding him that such hearty work required more than a single bowl of porridge. He set the axe beside the stump and grabbed his shirt from where he’d draped it on the fence post to wipe the sweat from his chest. When he saw Mora running toward him, skirt clutched in both hands, a cold wash of dread replaced his hunger. He quickly tugged his shirt on and strode out to meet her.

She grabbed his arm when he reached her, breathing heavily. “Niels from the tavern came by,” she panted. “His wife was out visiting family and saw Nilfgaardian soldiers on the road.”

“Fuck.”

Geralt left her to walk back as he ran to Jaskier. His eyes were wide in his pale face, and his fingers clutched at the edges of the chair. He said Geralt’s name in a tremulous voice, and Geralt wasted no time in scooping him up and carrying him inside. He set him down in the chair nearest the fireplace before resting one hand against his jaw.

“I’m going to saddle Roach,” he said quietly. “We’ll be gone before they get close.”

Jaskier swallowed and nodded, and Geralt kissed his forehead. Then he dashed back out to head for the barn. The familiar motions of preparing Roach to ride helped him set aside all of the heightened emotions of the past few days and reach a state of calm focus. As he led her back to the front of the cottage, Mora met him.

“Take the path through the forest,” she told him. “They won’t follow you in there.”

“What makes you think so?”

One side of her mouth tilted up in a smirk. “’Cause the path won’t be there when they arrive.”

“Hmm.” Geralt pushed the front gate open and then dropped Roach’s reins over the post. “How long does it take to reach the other side?”

“Can’t say,” Mora replied.

“You’ve never crossed it?”

“Oh, I’ve crossed it many times,” Mora told him, “and how long it took changed every time.”

Geralt breathed his irritation out through his nose. “Will we reach the other side by nightfall?”

“If you don't, you’ll find a clearing that’s safe to spend the night in.”

“How?”

“Your bard will know it when he sees it,” she said, and as she turned to walk back inside, braid swinging, he knew that was all the answer he was likely to get.

The two of them traveled in and out of the house; Geralt packed their supplies in one saddlebag while Mora tucked bundles of food she’d tied in clean cloths in the other. When they were finished, Geralt donned his armor, and Mora dug out a pair of soft boots from her wardrobe. She helped Jaskier to pull them on and then laced them loosely.

“These are just for warmth,” she told him as she knelt with her hands on his knees. “You get to a decent-sized town and you find a cobbler to make a sturdy pair fit for you. You don’t get enough support and those bones will start to ache.”

“I will,” Jaskier promised, and then he leaned forward and pulled the old healer into a tight embrace.

Mora closed her eyes as she hugged him back, and when she pulled away, she cupped his face in her hands for a long moment. Then she got to her feet and turned to Geralt. He had already taken his coin purse off his belt, and he held it out to her. He winced and Jaskier chuckled when she batted it aside with a stinging slap.

“Don’t be such a damn fool,” she snapped and then she marched out the front door.

Geralt huffed, but he retied the purse to his belt, bent to pick up Jaskier, and followed her outside. He helped Jaskier to situate himself behind Roach’s saddle and then swung up in front of him. With one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun, Mora looked up at them. A moment later, Jaskier was the one to wince and yelp as she jabbed a sharp finger into his thigh. Geralt twisted to look at him when Mora hurried inside, but Jaskier only shrugged.

When Mora reemerged, she was holding LeFair’s lute case. “What kind of idiot bard forgets his instrument?” she demanded as she shoved it at Jaskier.

“Mora, I can’t-” Jaskier began, but then he had to scramble to catch the strap as Mora threatened to drop the lute straight to the ground. He clutched it with a helpless expression as Mora stepped away.

“You think I want it sitting in my wardrobe?”

“But your son…”

Mora shook her head firmly. “He’s never played, and if he wanted it, he’d have it.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, but Geralt saw the sheen in her eyes when she turned her head away. “Just let people hear it again. That’s all I ask.”

Jaskier held the lute in his arms for a moment longer before slipping the strap over his head and settling the case behind his back. Geralt half-expected a flowery speech full of promises to follow, but Jaskier just held out his hand and smiled when Mora took it.

“Thank you,” he said.

Mora nodded, blinked away her tears, and squinted up at Geralt. “Stay on the path,” she warned him. “Don’t build a fire, don’t damage the trees, and don’t kill anything. If you’re confronted or questioned, you say Mother Mora grants you safe passage.”

Geralt hummed in acknowledgment, though he felt his hackles rise at the thought of plunging into a forest of unknown magic. Jaskier released Mora’s hand to wrap his arms around Geralt’s waist.

“Thank you,” he said again, and as Geralt urged Roach into a trot, he twisted to call back to her. “I’ll play his songs! The Continent will hear his music again!”

Geralt pushed Roach to an easy canter, a pace she could maintain with both of them riding for long enough to put some distance behind them. She didn’t hesitate at the edge of the forest, but Geralt thought he felt his medallion quiver as they crossed from the town road to the trail. When he put a hand to it, it was still.

They rode in silence for a while, and the path stayed straight as an arrow before them. Geralt tried to use the sun to measure the time, but every time he glanced at the sky, it was in a different position relative to them. If he watched the shadows beneath the trees, trying to spot their changing angles, a breeze would pick up, and the swaying branches and fluttering leaves would let in dapples of blinding sunlight. He’d blink, and the sun would move.

Eventually he slowed Roach to a walk. With her hoof beats quieter, he could hear the typical sounds of a forest all around them: birdsong, the rustling leaves, the buzz of insects. He listened intently for any sound of pursuit behind them, but none came.

“Do you think she’ll be all right?” Jaskier asked, his voice low.

“Mora? I imagine so.”

“I just hate to think of anything bad happening to her because she helped us. Helped me.”

Lifting one hand from the reins, Geralt laced his fingers through Jaskier’s at his waist. “She’d tell you not to worry.”

Jaskier huffed a laugh. “You’re probably right.” He shifted a bit, straightening his posture for a longer ride, and then poked Geralt’s shoulder with his free hand. “So tell me of Cirilla. I always was curious what she’d be like.”

“You never met her?”

“For reasons entirely unrelated to my prodigious talents, I was not invited back to the Cintran court. Calanthe seemed to think I would tell tales of you, and I got the feeling that was not a topic she wished to have discussed in front of her granddaughter.”

“And would you have?” Geralt asked. “Told tales of me?”

When Jaskier laughed again, the sound was louder, brighter, and the birds twittered merrily in response. “Of course I would have. Almost all of my songs are about you. Nobody wants to hear ‘The Fishmonger’s Daughter’ twenty times in a row, least of all me.”

“Hmm.”

His lack of further response earned him another poke. “So?” Jaskier prompted.

The creaking of the saddle filled the silence as Geralt considered the girl he’d come to know. He pictured her face, her voice, and found himself eager to return to her side, not only out of concern for her safety but out of a simple desire to be near her and provide for her in whatever way he could.

“She’s clever,” he finally said. “And brave. Probably more of both than is good for her.”

“I like her already.”

Geralt smiled. “She’s also strong. She’s seen more, been through more than anyone her age should, but she refuses to hide from it. She pushes forward, determined to fight.”

“That’s her grandmother in her.”

“She’s got a fair share of her mother as well.”

Jaskier leaned forward against his shoulder until Geralt could see him from the corner of his eye. “Is that your way of saying she has Pavetta’s magic?” At Geralt’s nod, Jaskier sat back again with a loud exhale. “Well, that will make life interesting.”

“It already has,” Geralt noted drily. A sudden flash of nerves went through him, and he licked his lips and tightened his hold on Jaskier’s fingers. “I had to find someone to teach her to control it.”

“Definitely wise after what we saw at the betrothal feast. Is Cirilla with them now?”

“Hmm.”

“Anyone I know?”

Geralt’s other hand squeezed into a fist on the reins. “Yennefer.”

“Ah.” When Jaskier drew his hand back, Geralt let him.

Quiet returned, but it felt less peaceful than before, as though they’d crossed some invisible boundary and the interlude at Mora’s cottage had truly come to an end. Geralt didn’t think he had ever been the one to break a silence between them, but the stretch of this one grew thick and smothering until he needed to crack it to breathe.

“Jaskier?”

“I’m here,” Jaskier murmured. “Sorry. I’m just, ah…” His fragile chuckle toppled to the ground instead of flying. “I’m struggling to imagine Yennefer caring for a child.”

“I did too,” Geralt admitted. “But she’s good at it. Ciri needs her, and Yennefer needs Ciri.”

“And does Yennefer have other needs?” Jaskier asked; the words were barely loud enough to reach a Witcher’s ears. “Needs that you’re meeting?”

“No.”

“No?”

Geralt shook his head. “Not since the dragon hunt.” The hand resting on his thigh twitched with the need to reach for the man behind him, but he forced it flat until the heel dug into his own muscle.

“So how do you imagine this working exactly? You and me and your former lover and your child surprise hiding away in some cozy cabin somewhere?”

“We planned to…” Geralt started, but even that simple beginning was wrong. Any beginning that included him and Yennefer and not Jaskier was wrong. He felt himself hunching forward, shirking, curling around the fear of Jaskier leaving. “We could go to Kaer Morhen for the winter.”

“So you and me and your former lover and your child surprise hiding away in a remote mountain fortress with your father and brothers?”

“If you don’t want-”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Jaskier admonished, but his tone was gentle, like correcting a wayward child. “I have quite enough of my own words to fill it.”

Jaskier let out a deep breath, and then his hands were on Geralt’s lower back. They traced a path, smooth and slow, along either side of his spine, then ducked under his arms and came to rest on his chest. Geralt’s tension left him as Jaskier rested his cheek between his shoulder blades.

“And when Yennefer finds out about… whatever it is we’re doing? Is she going to curse my cock off?”

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

“Good. I’m rather attached to it. And I’m not joking about this, Geralt. You need to protect me from your very scary ex-lover who happens to despise me.”

“She doesn’t despise you.” Geralt met Jaskier’s eyes over his shoulder. “She’s the one who sent me after you.” He huffed a laugh at Jaskier’s astonished face and turned forward again. “I thought you would be safe if you were away from me. She pointed out how stupid that was and demanded I find you. If she hadn’t, I might not have been in time.”

“Huh.” Jaskier’s fingers tapped a staccato against Geralt’s chest. “And you’re sure it wasn’t just an elaborate plot to spirit Cirilla away from you?”

Geralt shrugged. “Maybe. But you’d still owe her your life.”

“Gods, as if the past few days haven’t been taxing enough.” Jaskier slumped harder against Geralt’s back. “Do you think it would be safe to stop and rest soon?”

“Mora said you would know.”

“How the fuck would I know?”

“Ask Mora.”

A theatrical groan left Jaskier as he sat upright again. “Maybe we have to ask the forest. Oh, great benevolent forest,” he intoned, throwing one arm out wide, “wilt thou provide safe haven for two weary travelers? Preferably one free of monsters, Nilfgaardians, and anything or anyone else that might want to murder us in our sleep?”

The birds continued to sing, the insects continued to buzz, and the path remained as straight and unbroken as before.

“Well, shit,” Jaskier sighed.

Geralt snorted and looked up at the sky. The sun had shifted again; it now hung to their left, and it was clearly sinking among the treetops. Regardless of Mora’s warning, they would need to find a spot to stop soon. Jaskier still needed rest, as did Roach, and none of them had eaten since early in the morning. Just as he was about to rein Roach in and dismount, Jaskier slapped his chest and pointed through the trees.

“Do you see that?”

Roach took a few more steps, and Geralt could make out flashes of pink peeking through the undergrowth. A few steps farther on and they were looking down at a side path that branched off to the right, one that had certainly not been there a moment ago. Geralt did stop Roach then. He slid out of the saddle, and Jaskier moved forward to slide into it. With his hand tucked close to Roach’s bridle, Geralt walked her down the side path.

The sounds and shadows didn’t change, but soon pink blossoms dotted the mosses and grass beside the path. They became more and more prevalent until they overran the trail completely, and then they stepped into a clearing created by a ring of cherry trees in full bloom. Jaskier laughed with delight while Geralt turned a slow circle, assessing the area for any threat.

“This is amazing!”

Jaskier moved to swing one leg over Roach’s neck, but Geralt put a hand up to stop him and ignored the subsequent pout.

“It’s autumn,” he pointed out. He kicked at the shed blossoms that covered the forest floor in a thick carpet despite the fact that none of the trees appeared to be missing a single bloom.

“It’s the glade from the song, Geralt.” When Geralt looked up at him, he smiled with soft eyes. “It’s Mora’s glade.”

“Hmm.”

“She said I’d know when it was safe, right? This feels safe to me.” He sighed as he looked up at the darkening sky. “I wouldn’t mind enjoying that feeling a bit longer before we venture back into war and chaos.”

Geralt hummed again, but he untied their bedrolls from the saddle and laid them out on the ground. Jaskier grinned at him when he returned to take Jaskier in his arms and carry him, lute and all, to settle on the blankets.

“Oh, I like this,” Jaskier said. “Just how long will this ‘I feel bad you got tortured’ agreeableness last?”

“Not long,” Geralt replied, and he threw one of the food bundles, which Jaskier barely caught with a startled grunt.

“I am an injured man!” he protested, but he wasted no time in opening the bundle and tearing into a slice of bread.

Before Geralt unsaddled Roach, he led her a short distance back down the trail to where the grass was uncluttered by blossoms but where she would still be within sight.

“Safe for us,” he told her, holding his head in her hands. “Not for you. Not to eat anyway.”

She bobbed her head, and he smiled as he set about removing her tack. He brushed her thoroughly and tethered her in an area abundant with grass and near a trickling stream. After filling their water skins, he shouldered the saddle bags, gave Roach another pat, and then headed back to the glade.

By the time he arrived, Jaskier had just finished eating. He brushed the crumbs from his hands and wiped his fingers on his trousers before opening LeFair’s lute case. Geralt settled on the bedroll beside him and helped himself from another bundle with more bread and a cold sausage from the previous night’s supper. Jaskier strummed a few chords and then laughed to himself.

“What’s funny?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier’s smile was bright. “It’s perfectly in tune. That never happens.”

“I guess it does here.”

As Jaskier began to play, Geralt had to admit that the music was nice. Jaskier’s playing was always good, but the way it filled up the glade sounded sweet and pure compared to the way it had to fight over the noise of a tavern. In camp, Jaskier was often composing or practicing, playing pieces of songs over and over or adjusting tunes as he went. Here he simply played, letting the music trickle from his fingers into the evening air. Without even a campfire to compete with, the song resonated freely, and Geralt could almost catch an echo from beyond the trees, as if at moments two lutes played instead of one.

Geralt finished his meal, and Jaskier let his song come to a close. “All finished?” he asked as he tucked the lute back into its case.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He slid the case over to a safe spot among the saddle bags and then reached to tug at one of Geralt’s boots. “Then I demand you take your clothes off immediately.”

Geralt huffed a laugh and knocked Jaskier’s hands away to take over the task of undressing himself. “Impatient.”

“Oh, ho, ho no,” Jaskier retorted. Geralt kept a watchful eye for any sign of pain as Jaskier worked off his own boots, but he didn’t wince. “Abso-fucking-lutely not. I have been a god of patience when it comes to you, my dear Witcher.”

Geralt could form no argument against that, and as more and more of Jaskier’s skin became visible, he found it difficult to imagine an argument against proceeding with all haste. He stood to drop his trousers, and Jaskier crawled toward him, bare and grinning. The sight of Jaskier on his knees before him, the feel of those clever hands gripping his hips, made his muscles twitch beneath his skin, like Roach after a hard ride. When Jaskier licked his lips, Geralt’s thighs trembled; he began to doubt he could keep his feet if he tried to stay standing. Jaskier solved that problem by tugging his wrists and coaxing him down to lay on the bedroll.

The bard seemed intent on picking up precisely where they had left off the night before, hovering over Geralt as he kissed and licked and nipped at Geralt’s lips and tongue. Every drop of pleasure swelled to a flood with the feeling of skin and skin, and Geralt struggled to breathe as Jaskier’s mouth carved a hot path down his body.

He knelt between Geralt’s legs, lips kiss-swollen and blue gaze glittering. “Look at you. Laid out like a feast.”

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times before.”

“Yes, but now I get to taste.”

He ducked his head and licked a stripe along the underside of Geralt’s cock. Geralt shivered and bit back a groan. One of his hands fisted in the bedroll beneath him, and he threw the other arm over his eyes. They’d barely begun, but he already felt overwhelmed by the thick scent of arousal rolling off Jaskier, by the sight of his eyes dark with promise and focused solely on him.

Jaskier smoothed his hands down Geralt’s sides and then up again. They met in the center of his chest before sweeping down his stomach. The muscles of his abdomen shivered, braced for those hands to drag lower, but instead they followed the same circuit again--up, in, down, out--a steady path retread again and again. They moved in an even rhythm that coaxed Geralt to slow his breathing and let his muscles melt into the bedroll.

“My lovely wolf,” Jaskier murmured. “So gorgeous. I’m going to compose a hymn to your beauty so I can worship you properly.”

Geralt snorted, and Jaskier flicked at a nipple on his next pass in punishment. “You don’t think I can? You doubt the musical genius of the famous bard?”

“My looks would be a meager subject for a song.”

“Blasphemy,” Jaskier retorted, and his breath was hot on Geralt’s skin. “I’ll begin with the vocal component.”

He began to hum, deep in his throat, a tuneful little melody that Geralt lost all ability to appreciate when Jaskier’s mouth descended upon him. Jaskier’s lips vibrated with the sound, as did his tongue, and then his--fuck--his throat. Geralt clenched his teeth, resisting the urge to arch his back and contribute a chorus of moans to a duet. Jaskier’s hands rubbed soothing circles on his spread thighs, a gentle counterpoint to the diligent workings of his mouth.

He paused long enough to let them both breathe, and then he ducked his head to meet Geralt’s eyes from beneath the arm where he’d hidden them. The look of adoration clear on his face made Geralt want to hide away deeper, but he let Jaskier take his hand and set it carefully by his side.

“How do you want this?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt couldn’t find his voice to answer, but he reached to the saddle bags and dug out a small vial of chamomile oil. When Geralt pressed it into his hand, Jaskier’s eyes widened for a moment, but then he clambered up Geralt’s body to lay kiss after kiss along his jaw.

“You want me inside?” he murmured against Geralt’s ear.

Geralt closed his eyes and nodded, but he opened them again when Jaskier turned his face toward him with gentle fingers. “You have done this before, right? If not, maybe we should-”

“I have,” Geralt rasped, all the more desperate in the face of Jaskier’s concern. “Just been a long time.”

“Understood.” Jaskier captured Geralt’s lips in a kiss that was no less eager for its tenderness. When he pulled back, he grinned. “I’m delighted my fingers can provide instrumental accompaniment to my hymn of praise,” he teased.

Grealt’s snort became a grunt low in his throat as Jaskier scooted back to resume his humming. The smell of chamomile rose in the air; Geralt shifted restlessly, preparing for the burn, the stretch, the discomfort that would yield to heat, but a hand snaked back up his side and resumed the long, sweeping strokes of before. Geralt drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then another, and when a finger pressed inside him, he felt a bloom of pleasure that sent tendrils through his body, climbing the trellis of his bones.

The warmth of it all made him languid, sent him drifting, like sunlight on his skin. He had no need to chase his pleasure, no need to climb the hill; the vines had taken root and grew toward the peak, carrying him along, slow but inexorable. Every slide of Jaskier’s mouth, every press of his fingers pushed him higher. He unclenched his jaw to drag in a lungful of air thick with cherry blossoms, chamomile, and Jaskier. When Jaskier removed his mouth and fingers, he stumbled along his upward rise, but then Jaskier branded open-mouthed kisses along his torso, lined himself up, and pushed inside, and they left the hilltop far behind.

Geralt clutched at Jaskier’s back, feeling the strong muscle that urged him still higher. With every deep thrust, he expected the fall, but they continued to climb. His chest heaved like the air had truly grown thin, and a whine left him when Jaskier gasped praise into his skin.

So beautiful. So perfect. So fucking gorgeous. Gods, I’ve wanted you for a lifetime. More. Every second. And it’s even better… you’re even better… Fuck, Geralt, you’re so good.

The feeling of warm sunlight turned to flame, setting the vines alight and scorching him from the inside. For an eternity of moments, it felt like they would rise forever, that he would burn before he fell, but then Jaskier’s hand was on him. They hovered at an impossible height for one stroke, two, three… and then the fire burst from him in hot streaks across his belly and he hurtled back toward earth.

The impossible fall could have killed him, and he didn’t think he’d care, but as the pulses of pleasure slowed and softened, he began to float instead of fall. Jaskier’s weight across him anchored him back to awareness of his trembling limbs, his sweat-slick skin, the rough wool beneath his back. He felt simultaneously heavy and light, utterly spent and thrumming with energy. He felt as if he’d passed another Trial, one of pleasure, one of his own choosing, and rather than strip away his humanity, this Trial had given a piece of it back.

With a drawn-out groan, Jaskier shifted and then flopped over to Geralt’s side with all the coordination of a fish on the deck of a boat. They lay together, hip to hip, Geralt’s arm caught beneath Jaskier’s head, gulping down air. Eventually Jaskier rolled to his stomach and lurched toward the saddle bag. He dragged himself to kneeling and retrieved clean cloths and a water skin. After wiping himself down, he turned his attention to Geralt. Geralt tried to take the damp cloth from him, but Jaskier shoved his hand away.

“Get used to it,” he threatened cheerfully. “You’ve opened the floodgates now. Decades worth of devotion and lust unleashed, all to be lavished upon you.”

Geralt grunted but closed his eyes and let Jaskier scrub him clean; that part of things felt no different than before. “Will I get to do any lavishing?”

“Lavishing or ravishing?” When Geralt cracked an eyelid, Jaskier winked at him. “Either way, the answer’s yes.”

Opening both eyes, Geralt propped himself up on his elbows. “Would you like that?”

Jaskier laughed and leaned down to press a firm kiss to the corner of Geralt’s mouth. “Oh, darling, I’d like you any way I can have you. I’d like you in ways that are illegal in several kingdoms. I’d like you in ways that will require the invention of new words for pleasure.”

“It was a yes or no question.”

“I want to make sure you understand how very much yes there is in my answer. It is vast quantities of yes.” He cupped Geralt’s jaw with one palm. “When it comes to you, my answer is always yes.”

Geralt smirked. “So if I ask you to never play that terrible ‘Toss a Coin’ song again… ?”

“You’re a heartless bastard.”

Geralt snatched the cloth from Jaskier’s hand and tossed it to the ground before yanking the bard back down to his side. Jaskier’s yelp quickly changed to a happy hum as Geralt pulled the blankets around them. One of Jaskier’s arms stretched across his chest, and one leg angled over his thighs. With a delicate touch, Geralt felt along the line of Jaskier’s stitches; he felt no swelling or loose threads.

“It’s fine,” Jaskier mumbled into his shoulder. “Feels almost healed.”

Geralt gazed up at the sky. It was almost fully dark now, with stars peeking through the branches, but the cherry blossoms above them seemed to cling to the last remnants of light. He knew that in the days and nights to come, memories and nightmares would come to claim their due; Jaskier needed more than physical recovery, and thoughts of what might have been, had very nearly been, would haunt them both. But Jaskier was real and solid and warm beside him, and he would not waste this time dwelling on a past or future, real or imagined, where he wasn’t. A mild breeze swept across the glade, sending petals drifting down and whistling through the leaves with a sound like a melody.

With Jaskier held close, Geralt closed his eyes. He knew that, in the morning, the sun would rise again.