Chapter Text
Geralt wakes at dawn. He sits up on his bedroll and inspects Jaskier’s still sleeping body. He’s tense even in sleep, partially from cold, partially from stress, Geralt’s sure. Geralt knows exactly how to get Jaskier to relax, how to make his muscles unwind and leave him completely boneless.
He’s got hundreds of memories to choose from, all of them mocking.
He stands, goes the few feet that he’s allowed by the curse to relieve himself. He wanders back towards Jaskier. Geralt is loathe to wake him. They’ve ridden sun up to sun down for four days straight, desparation clawing at their backs. But there’s no use holding off on the inevitable. He kneels down and puts a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder to shake him awake.
Jaskier whines a little as he’s jostled, a familiar and precious sound leaving his throat. He blinks awake, looks up at Geralt. He smiles softly, like maybe he’s forgotten he’s supposed to hate Geralt.
“Five more minutes,” he says, pulling the cloak higher up, to tuck once again under his chin.
Still half asleep, it seems he really has forgotten.
Geralt permits the bard his five minutes.
*
They pack up their meager camp and mount their horses. Jaskier rubs sleep from his eyes but sits tall in Begonia’s saddle. His long coat hides the broad length of his shoulders as he rides a foot ahead of Geralt.
They ride in silence. Geralt is still afraid to speak, and Jaskier plainly refuses to. It’s going to be a long fucking day. Boring in a way that traveling with Jaskier never has been before.
Or Geralt assumes it will be, until Begonia gets spooked.
It’s two deer, of all things, that causes her to rear up and take off like a fucking bolt of lightning.
As soon as Jaskier is farther than a handful of feet from Geralt, pain seizes his body, and it must be the same for the bard with the way he cries out from where he’s still sat on Begonia.
Geralt makes himself rip through the pain, pushes his heels into Roach’s flank, and pushes her to catch up.
It takes only a minute or two until the horse slows down. Jaskier’s hands are fisted in Begonia’s reins, pulling, begging for the animal to halt. Once she’s at a stand-still, Jaskier dismounts, then nearly collapses onto the road.
Geralt’s head pounds, his body aches, but the pain is subsiding. He dismounts as well, goes to kneel next to Jaskier.
“Are you okay?” He asks, catching his breath.
Jaskier whimpers like a small, wounded animal. His mouth is twisted up in pain, but he nods. “Are you?”
“I’ve had worse,” Geralt replies.
“Fucking mages. Get it?”
“What?” Geralt asks, confusion and pain fogging his mind.
“Because it’s so painful to be without you,” Jaskier says, breath coming unevenly. He stands on shaky legs, wraps his arms around Begonia’s neck as means of support. “I fucking despise mages,” he whispers into the horse’s mane.
*
Since they’re fairly close to Novigrad, the towns nearby are becoming significantly more crowded, and also offer better amenities. They have their choice of four different taverns, and Jaskier insists on the second most expensive, as a means of “compromise” though he foots the bill.
“Do you have a room with two beds?”
“I can do you one better, and offer you two separate rooms if you like,” the innkeep asks, looking to wring them of all of their coin.
“Just the one room, if you please,” Jaskier says, fumbling in his pockets for his purse.
“As you like,” replies the innkeep, handing over a single key.
*
They throw their belongings into the room after handing the horses off to the stable boy, and then Jaskier demands that they go to the bar for whatever their strongest spirit is.
Geralt has no qualms with this course of action. He’s dead on his fucking feet and has just about enough with fucking curses and magic for the day.
They share exactly two drinks, which are small glasses of vodka. Jaskier mostly keeps his head down and stares at the table.
“Are you hungry?” Geralt asks him.
Jaskier shrugs. “I don’t know, probably should be.”
Geralt orders food for them. They split a plate of grilled meat and potatoes, which Jaskier only picks at and Geralt only finishes because it’s impossible for him to waste food. They make their way up the stairs, to their shared room, bodies wrung out.
*
The room that they’re given is so large that Geralt has to drag the bed placed against the far wall to the middle of the room so that they’re close enough together. They’ll sleep only three feet apart, but at least they’ll be in separate beds.
Jaskier stares at the bed in the middle of the room, rolls his eyes, looks like he might cry from exhaustion. “Gods, this is fucking unbearable,” Jaskier mutters.
“We’re nearly to Novigrad, two days at most. Will you stop with the fucking dramatics?”
“I’m not being dramatic, I know when I’m unwanted. I know you bloody hate me and I know I’m stuck in this room with you, and I know that I’ve been a burden to you. This is fucking miserable.”
“You are not unwanted.”
“You need to stop lying, Geralt,” Jaskier says, voice pleading. “You don’t want to be near me, that much is obvious. You never came back for me, so just stop pretending, please , it’s awful.”
Jaskier runs a hand through his hair, then scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. His face is blotchy, eyes so thoroughly tired. He hasn’t sung, not so much as hummed, since they started traveling. It’s wrong on every level.
Geralt can’t let it continue. He breaks, his frustration and rage propelling him forward. “I was ashamed ,” Geralt says through gritted teeth, jaw clenching, stomach turning over with hot humiliation.
Jaskier looks like Geralt has just slapped him, his eyes so wide, mouth slack, words finally fully gone from him. “What?” He eventually asks, his large blue eyes never leaving Geralt’s.
“I was ashamed that I had spoken to you like that, you of all people.” Getting the words out is difficult, Geralt may as well be plucking his fingernails off one by one, that might actually be simpler. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me, but it was more that I couldn’t face you.” Geralt swallows thickly, shrugs. “I expected you to spit in my face if you ever saw me again, I would have deserved it.”
Jaskier blinks rapidly, shakes his head. “I would never do that.”
“You are wrong,” Geralt says, digging his nails into the meat of his hands so harshly that he can feel blood pooling in his palms.
“About what?”
Geralt’s head still aches from the magic, from exhaustion, from not saying what he should two decades ago. “Of course I love you.”
When he says it, his body sags, like something’s been physically plucked from his dirty, spoiled insides.
The silence between them is alive, has its own beating heart and rapid breath. Or maybe that’s just Geralt’s own body.
Jaskier’s lips twitch, like he keeps starting to say something and then losing the words. He inhales wetly, tilts his head, and then says, “Say that again.”
Geralt really, really doesn’t think he’s capable. He hasn’t been able to say it once in twenty years, surely he’s not adept enough to say it twice.
So it shocks him when he says, “I love you,” softly, not recognizing his own voice, and it doesn’t hurt.
Jaskier steps towards him. He places his hands gently on Geralt’s chest. “Again?” He begs.
“I love you,” he says again, because it’s Jaskier asking.
Jaskier lets out a soft moan, pulled from somewhere deep, somewhere Geralt shouldn’t have ever been allowed to touch with such dirty hands.
“I love you too, gods above, I love you more than I love myself, you are an awful bastard and you’ve got the kindest heart.” Jaskier’s hands move to cup Geralt’s face, fingertips tracing over jawline, a thumb across Geralt’s lower lip.
“Sorry I did this to you,” Geralt says. He releases his fingers from where they’re making fists at his sides. He wipes his bloody palms on his trousers. “Forgive me?”
“You didn’t do anything to me, you just let me fall in love with you. You are my dearest friend.”
“I fucking ruined everything,” Geralt says. He’s whispering now, unable to bear the sound of his own voice.
“Oh, you can’t take all the credit. I ruined at least some of it.”
The laugh that bursts out of him turns into a sob. He raises his hands, grips at Jaskier’s waist with his blood-tacky palms. He pushes his nose into the crook of Jaskier’s neck, breathing him in, loving him just as much as they day they first touched, his hands equally shaky.
Jaskier’s fingers make their way into Geralt’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. “Geralt?”
Geralt responds by pulling Jaskier tighter.
“Are you alright?”
“No,” Geralt replies against the thin skin of Jaskier’s throat. He kisses there, very softly, just a brush of lips. He doesn’t want to barge in where he isn’t wanted.
“Oh come on,” Jaskier says, tone joking though his voice is thick. “You can do better than that.”
Geralt huffs out a laugh. He tilts his head just so and kisses Jaskier in full, lets his mouth fall open in awe and to let Jaskier inside, wants to give himself over, offer himself up like he’s something to be fed upon, a sacrifice in its purest form.
Jaskier kisses back, so fiercely and eagerly. He wraps his arms around Geralt’s neck, pulls him so close it’s near smothering.
They kiss for so long, tugging at each other, ripping each other apart. The backs of Geralt’s knees hit the edge of the bed he’d pushed to the middle of the room. It’s a small bed, only meant for one smallish sized man, certainly not two. But Jaskier is pushing him into the mattress, and fuck it, if they fall off the bed it doesn’t matter. Geralt would fuck Jaskier anywhere. The bed or the floor seem perfectly reasonable in this moment, as Jaskier’s fingers press into his ribs, as the perfect weight of Jaskier’s body presses into his own.
Geralt’s head hits the pillows. He lets out a light grunt as the bed creaks under the weight of two full grown men. He pulls Jaskier on top of him, Jaskier who has shed his long coat, who has half the buttons of his shirt undone.
His chest hair is soft under Geralt’s fingers. His lips are soft too, and the skin at the small of his back. He pushes Jaskier’s shirt off in full, groping at every inch of bare skin he can reach. Jaskier moans into his touch, whimpers into Geralt’s mouth. He’s so beautiful. The most beautiful person to ever touch him. The most beautiful thing to ever happen to someone as unclean as him.
Jaskier seems desperate, the way he paws at the buttons on Geralt’s trousers, the way he digs his fingers into Geralt’s backside, the way he cries out when his hips grind up against Geralt’s body.
Geralt pushes Jaskier’s trousers down his hips. He wants so badly, has missed Jaskier like a fucking limb. But he thinks of Jaskier’s words days earlier. Geralt grunts, meets Jaskier’s eye. “Are you sure?” He asks.
Jaskier’s smile goes watery. “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he says, and then kisses Geralt so sweetly it makes him remember the first time, when he wept.
Geralt wants everything, but they’re both too close, too worked up and eager. There’s no oil to ease the way, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Jaskier’s cock slides against Geralt’s, searing and slick. Geralt moans, long and loud and should-be-embarrassing.
“Yes, like this,” Jaskier mutters, rolling his hips. Geralt nods, his own hips thrusting up, desperate for friction, desperate for Jaskier.
They create a rhythm, sloppy but perfect in its asymmetry. Geralt lets out a quiet sob when he comes, tries to hide it with the back of his still blood tacky hand.
“Let me hear you,” Jaskier breathes, then comes across Geralt’s hip bone, frantic and wild and the most gorgeous thing Geralt’s had the privilege of witnessing.
*
“I can’t follow you,” Jaskier says, his head on Geralt’s chest, his hand drawing perfect nonsense patterns across Geralt’s ribs and belly.
Geralt tries not to let it sting, but of course it does.
“Alright,” Geralt agrees. He swallows hard, runs his fingers through Jaskier’s long hair.
“Oh, darling, you misunderstand me,” Jaskier says. “I can’t leave Oxenfurt until my contract is up, I won’t be finished until winter solstice at least.”
Geralt’s heart releases the hook that had momentarily wormed its way inside. “What if…” Geralt begins, but he feels so frightened asking. Everything is delicate. He’s only just gotten Jaskier back.
“What is it?”
Jaskier sits up, keeps his hand on Geralt’s chest, his fingers splayed across Geralt’s collar bone. His eyes are so big and blue and though he looks different he is still as beautiful as the day Geralt met him. He looks so concerned, so intense in his investigation of Geralt’s face.
“Come home with me?” Geralt blurts. His face goes hot. He can’t blush anymore, but he can still feel the blood rush to his cheeks and to his neck.
“Do you mean that?” Jaskier asks. His brows pull together, his lips purse together in concern.
“Yeah,” Geralt says, nodding, afraid that Jaskier will never believe him.
“Alright,” Jaskier says. “If you want me, I’ll come.”
“I always want you.”
Jaskier makes a small wounded sound, looks away, but smiles. It’s so good, to see him smile earnestly again.
“Okay,” Jaskier says, nodding. “Okay.”