Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

1

There are many things Jaskier doesn’t like about swamps – in fact, he’d be hard pressed to name anything swamps have to recommend them – but the absolute worst part is how wet everything is.

His boots are caked in mud almost to the top; the dank air means every inch of his skin is clammy; his clothes are clinging to his flesh; his hair is literally dripping. It’s disgusting. He’s itching everywhere.

“Glad I left my lute at the inn,” he mutters. “She’d warp in a few minutes out here.”

From up ahead, where he’s wading stoically through the mire, Geralt sighs. His hair has split into lank strings and the leather of his armour is shiny and damp. “I did tell you to stay behind.”

“I know, I know,” Jaskier says mournfully. He almost wishes he had. It was warm in the inn, warm and dry, and Clara the serving wench made eyes at him every time she poured him ale. “But the arachas, Geralt! I’ve never seen one and ‘big crab’ does not cut it as a description.”

Geralt shrugs. “’S what they look like,” he says.

“The witcher faced the big bad crab / and slayed it with a single stab,” Jaskier warbles to annoy him, but Geralt only huffs with amusement.

“Accurate,” he says. Jaskier contemplates throwing mud at him but he doesn’t want to get any more of it on his hands, thank you.

Overhead, the trees clump together, green with moss and vines. Occasionally the wind will shake them hard enough to spatter water down. Most of it seems to land on Jaskier. “I honestly,” he complains, “don’t think I could get any wetter.”

“Could push you in the swamp,” Geralt offers, turning to favour him with one of his rare grins.

“Oh of course you’d find that amusing,” Jaskier says. “Wit, banter, wordplay, they all slide off you like water, but childish japes are hilarious.”

“I’m a simple man,” Geralt agrees.

“Ugh,” Jaskier says, and falls silent for a while, listening to the mud suck at his boots. They’re not his best, but it’s going to take hours to clean them. This arachas had better be inspiring, or next time he will stay behind with Roach whether Geralt likes it or not.

The thought that Geralt probably would like it sours his mood further. “I’m not a dog to be left to await its master’s return,” he mutters to himself.

“Dogs are more obedient,” Geralt calls back. Cursed witcher hearing. Jaskier kicks at the swamp, nearly trips, and then finds Geralt right by him, one hand on his arm to steady him. “Careful,” he says mildly.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jaskier tells him.

Geralt merely lifts an eyebrow – and fine, maybe Jaskier’s more scratchy than usual, but it’s so damn wet and he hates it – but then his attention is caught, his head tilting to one side.

“What is it?” Jaskier whispers.

“Stay,” Geralt says, a smile curving his lips, and he strides off into the murk, the fine rain making his shape blur almost to nothingness.

Well fuck that. Jaskier follows at a safe distance, focussing on what he can hear: the slosh of Geralt’s steps, the soft metal slide of his sword from its scabbard, the knocking scrabble of some large beast. The arachas, presumably.

Fog hangs above the mire, thick and white. Geralt can’t have gone far, but it’s hard to see him among the trees. If he’s gone still, he could be anywhere, just another thin black line in the grey air. Close by, Jaskier can sense, rather than hear, movement. The mud moves in waves as something disturbs it. There’s a low hiss.

I shouldn’t have come, he thinks. He takes a slow step back. “Geralt?” he whispers.

There’s no answer.

Something shifts. The moss in the bog next to him is rising, a mound appearing, green and brown, legs uncurling. The hiss comes again and something lands on him, white and constricting, a web of some kind, binding his arms to his sides. He opens his mouth to cry out, feels something sticky drip in, making him gag and choke; tries to run but his legs are frozen, tied together. Instead, he falls. First to his knees, then on his side.

He’s lying in the mud, the wet seeping into his clothes, dragging him down further. He blinks, can’t speak, his mouth stopped up, only his thundering heart to tell him he’s still living. He’s utterly helpless.

He’s felt this way before.

The arachas sidles into his view: brown legs, two huge armoured pincers; a mouth that opens like a flower edged with vicious teeth, orange and red and rotten. Geralt, he thinks, bordering on hysterical, that looks nothing like a crab. It moves towards him, legs knocking against each other, and liquid spatters onto his neck, his shoulder.

It burns like nothing else he’s ever known, pain so deep it swallows the world. His sight washes black: he can’t see the beast, can’t see the swamp, doesn’t much care. Everything’s on fire, a wail catches in his throat, he can’t even let it go because the air in his lungs hurts too much to breathe. Any minute it’ll kill him and he’ll welcome it…

There’s a wave of heat, a flash of bright light behind his closed eyes. The arachas screeches. He hears, dimly, the strike of a sword through flesh; the beast screeches again; and then the ground pulses as it falls.

“Jaskier,” a voice says. His feet are thudding against the mud, his body shaking his bonds apart. His fingers twitch, he can move them, he lifts them to where his skin is burning, he needs to shed his skin, his burning skin…

Someone catches his hands, and he sobs, twists, fights against the hold.

“Calm down,” the voice says, the meaning fractured by the agony he’s in. “Jaskier, hold still.”

He can’t. He can’t. He has to rip out the pain, the fire. He thrashes, tearing a hand loose and digging his nails into his shoulder, five points of distraction in an ocean of hurt.

“Fuck,” the voice says. “Look at me, Jaskier. Open your eyes, come on.”

He blinks, sees golden eyes, a shape held above his face, a word, whispered. And then—

Peace winds through him. He sinks under it, falling into stillness, falling into the wet ground. What was he fretting about? Probably nothing. There’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

The world blurs, tears pouring from his eyes, though he doesn’t remember why he’s crying.

“Geralt,” he says.

“Sssshhh,” Geralt says. “It’s all right. You’re not hurting. I’ve got you. Rest.”

He thinks, yes; and then a deeper part of him thinks, no – wanting to scream with it, because this isn’t right, he’s not in his right mind – but the command has him in its grasp. Rest. He knows nothing. He falls deeper.

The world returns slowly. He remembers fire, and pain, and damp, but it all seems very distant to the warm contentment he feels now. There’s a faint smell of ash, and the musk of the fur covering him, and something sharper, medicinal. He wrinkles his nose.

“Are you awake?”

It’s Geralt’s voice, softer than Jaskier thinks it ought to be, somehow. He’s slow to put the pieces together. The hunt, the beast, agony – then a surrender, a strange calm.

He starts to shake. That wasn’t him, that wave of blissful peace sweeping through him, invading him from the outside. He says, “What did I do?” Keeps his eyes closed to hear the answer.

“What did you— Nothing, Jaskier. I got turned round in the fog. You were hit with arachas venom.”

He’s not making himself clear. Frustrated, he pulls himself up, his neck and shoulder pulling under the bandage someone’s wrapped over them. When he looks around, he’s back in the inn, stripped to his braies. Geralt is leaning by the window, still in his armour, still damp from the swamp; there’s blood sprayed across one cheek. No doubt his armour is equally stained, if the dull black could only show it. For a moment, Jaskier’s anxiety takes second place to irritation: Geralt always does this, forgets to care for himself after a battle.

“You haven’t even washed,” he grumbles.

Geralt just looks bemused, like the thought never crossed his mind. “I’m sorry,” he says haltingly.

“What for?” Jaskier asks, confused. So he got hurt. Usually, when he gets hurt, Geralt responds with a lecture rather than guilt. So something else must have happened. He shivers, remembering inertia, a wholly inappropriate happiness that came from nowhere. What did he do?

“The venom – you were hurting yourself. I stopped you.” Geralt swallows. There’s almost a feeling on his face, maybe three quarters of one. Gods, he looks uncomfortable. “I used axii.”

“Makes sense,” Jaskier finds himself saying, after a frozen minute during which he doesn’t think or say anything at all. “It must have been – you must have – it was difficult, I suppose. Had to make a call.” He nods, pushes the covers back. His shirt and doublet have been hung carefully over the back of a chair, a surprising kindness. He reaches to put them on. His fingers are, he realises, shaking. He looks down at them, surprised. He has fine fingers, he’s always been rather proud of them. He doesn’t know what they’re doing, shaking, letting him down…

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, and he jumps. “What are you doing?”

“I’m – well, I’m going,” Jaskier says. After a moment, he remembers what that involves, and pulls his shirt on, wincing as it brushes against his shoulder. Then he pauses for a moment, not sure what comes next. His doublet, he supposes, then his lute, and he owes Geralt for the room still, but if he can’t play – and he can’t, the wound is sharp and painful – he’s not sure where he’s going to get the coin from, and—

Geralt’s hand touches his good shoulder, and he flinches. “Must you always move so silently?”

His complaint is ignored. “Why are you going?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier gapes at him. His mind is filled with wind. He can’t hear his own thoughts amidst the roar of it. “I just – I can’t – ” He gestures, broadly, and once again finds himself watching his arm as if it belongs to someone else, miles away.

He’s still staring at it when Geralt gently turns him round, herds him over to the bed. The backs of his eyes feel sore with unshed tears. His heart is beating faster than usual, but he doesn’t know why. There’s nothing here to be frightened of. It’s the lack of fear that is frightening.

“Rest,” Geralt tells him. “You can leave in the morning, when you’ve healed a bit. If you want.” He looks vaguely aggrieved. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. That always makes him cross.

Jaskier lies back down, lets himself be tucked in. Rest. He doesn’t feel as if he has another option, not when Geralt’s this determined. “Listen,” he says, “promise me you won’t, next time.”

Geralt’s face is weirdly close, his eyes golden and unreadable. “Won’t what?”

“Stop me. Calm me down, like that. Even if you think it’s the right thing to do, even if you don’t think you have a choice, don’t do it again. Please, promise me. Or—” Or what, he doesn’t know. Or I’ll leave in the morning – but he won’t, in the morning he’ll be fine, and neither of them will mention this. Or I’ll never forgive you – but what would Geralt care about that? Or I’ll never get over it. “Please,” he says again. He doesn’t even know why he cares so much, except that there have been enough times in his life when someone else dictated his actions, and he won’t let Geralt join their number. He doesn’t want to ever resent the witcher. He loves him too much.

“Hmmm,” Geralt says. “I promise.” Then, “sleep, Jaskier. I’ve got you. It’s all right.”

His eyes are sliding closed. He should leave. He should know, by now, not to outstay his welcome. But Geralt’s hand has come down to rest on his forehead, a thumb stroking into his hair. And just like always, he’s too weak to resist.

2

He celebrates his seventeenth birthday in the Old Swan, one of the more reliable cheap inns that cluster around the city walls, turning a blind eye to students and miscreants alike. Him, Priss, Valdo (ugh), Stefan, Piotr – more or less his whole year group, flowing in and out as the hours pass. He’s not exactly popular, Julian, but he’s popular enough that his party happens to coincide with where people happen to be drinking.

At one end of the bar an older man is sitting, maybe mid-twenties, watching the students with some amusement, a faint air of nostalgia. He’s a little weather-beaten, his skin tanned, his clothes rough from the road. His dark eyes survey the room. He seems comfortable, happy to sit alone, to be silent. Julian dreams of feeling that steady in his own skin: he’s too loud, too ludicrous, always has to be saying something.

“Fuck me,” Priscilla says at one point, slinging an arm around his shoulder, “is that Hakan?”

“Who?”

“Julek, you ignoramus,” she says cheerfully, swatting at his head. “Hakan the Wanderer, only the most famous travelling bard going. They say he comes back to teach some winters – fuck me, do you think he’ll teach us?”

“What’ve we got still to learn?” Julian laughs, pulling her away with him, spinning her around and then moving seamlessly into a dance. He’s drunk enough that the straw-covered earth, the bare wooden walls, the scowl of the bartender is all adding to his enjoyment. He’s a character, and this is his story: the carefree student, about to take the world by storm.

All the while Hakan rests one elbow at the end of the bar, and watches.

A week later the musical studies group crowd into one of the smaller lecture halls and find Hakan waiting for them. He makes them go around the room introducing themselves. When it gets to Julian, he says, “I’m Julian, but you can call me Jaskier.”

The rest of the class groans. Hakan raises an eyebrow. “What’s the joke?”

“He’s just saying it to be interesting,” Bartok calls out, the git. “As if he’s going to become a troubadour. Really he’s going to run back to his little country pile and get married off and have fat babies and inherit.”

“I am not,” Julian protests. “I’m going to travel the continent and sing and tell stories, all right, just because you’ve got a cushy position lined up in your mother’s cousin’s court—”

Bartok starts to flush with anger, because that was meant to be a secret, oops.

“Children,” Hakan drawls. “Before you continue arguing about your dazzling careers, shall I see whether any of you are any fucking good?”

Lecturers at Oxenfurt don’t swear (much – they occasionally swear at Julian). The class perks up. Hakan is still in his travel-worn clothes, rusty red silk. He’s brought along a pile of instruments. It doesn’t seem like he’ll bore them all with notation theory. They might actually learn something.

At the end of the class, Julian is the last to leave. Not entirely on purpose, but he is dawdling a bit. As he reaches the door, Hakan says: “Jaskier.”

“Yes?” he asks, turning, feeling a tightness in his gut, a sense of significance.

“It suits you,” Hakan says. Then, “don’t let anyone else tell you who you are.”

It starts to become a habit, hanging back at the end of class, exchanging a few words with Hakan while the rest of class tumble over themselves as they race to leave. He’s not sure what he wants, though Priss teases him for it, tells him that he should have got over his crushes on teachers at temple school. “Ugh,” he says in return, “hardly, you wouldn’t say that if you’d seen my teachers…”

They’re sitting in Julian’s dorm room side by side, their backs against the bed, splitting a bottle of red wine Priscilla’s parents sent her. They don’t believe Oxenfurt has good wine. It’s a slow weekend afternoon, light snow falling outside, and they’ve drunk enough for the world to become gentle and hazy.

Priscilla laughs and swats at him. “You’re so obvious, Julian,” she says. “It’s sweet. Sad, of course, but also sweet.”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like that. It isn’t!” he protests at her sceptical look. “I just admire him, that’s all.” She makes a scoffing sound, and he says, “what, you don’t think he’s admirable? Look at all the places he’s been, how far he’s travelled, the things he’s seen. I’d kill for what he has.”

“You’ll get there,” Priss says, her hand folding itself in his. “You will.”

He swallows. All the things he fears and won’t say tangle in his throat. That he’s not good enough, that he’ll end up fleeing back to the safety of his parent’s house and his inheritance, that he isn’t sure if he truly wants what he thinks he wants. His father called him a romantic when he left home, and he worries, sometimes, that it’s true, that he’ll abandon all his dreams the minute he learns how hard they are.

“Yeah,” he says. “But it’s nice to know it’s possible, that’s all. I don’t know why you dislike him so much.”

“I don’t dislike him,” Priss says. “I just think he likes being idolised a bit too much.”

“That’ll be me, one day,” Julian says dreamily. “The master bard Jaskier, lauded across the Continent, his songs on everyone’s lips.”

“Men,” Priss sighs, and finishes the last of the wine.

At the solstice, Julian volunteers to help with the bardic tournament, which mostly involves running around backstage fetching and carrying for the players. He watches from the side of the hall during the performances, fingers tapping lightly against his leg, imagining himself up there one day.

Hakan is one of the contestants. He comes third, and when Julian sees him after the prizes have been given out, he’s smiling but his eyes are dark and empty. “You should have won,” Julian tells him, loyally.

“Well,” Hakan says, “they’re a few years out of date here. Don’t appreciate the new styles.” His fingers are interlaced in front of his stomach, tense and clutching. “I need a drink. Do you want a drink?”

“Sure,” Julian says, blinking, and Hakan beckons him to follow, then leads him out of the hall, down winding corridors to the room where they have their classes. He roots around in the desk drawer and withdraws a silver flask, taking a long drink before collapsing into his chair and passing it to Julian.

Julian drinks, the tart plum brandy fiery on his tongue and then warm all the way down to his stomach. He’s standing in front of the desk like a boy about to recite a lesson, shuffling slightly. Hakan looks much smaller than usual, beaten down; he doesn’t like it. He hands the flask back. “I thought it was excellent,” he tries. “The way the refrain resurfaced at the end but in a minor key, I’ve never heard that done before.”

“And what would you know about it?” Hakan says. “You’re just a kid. How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” Julian tells him, stung. “I’m not a child. I know what I’m talking about.”

“You don’t know anything.” Hakan looks morose, takes another drink. “I shouldn’t have come back. Everyone here is so provincial. So cowardly.” He smiles ruefully. “I don’t belong here. I should be out on the road. Oxenfurt is a cage.”

“Yes!” Julian says, his heart hammering, skin pinking. “That’s what I keep saying. I can’t wait to leave. I want to be out on the road too.”

“We’re very alike,” Hakan tells him. “Don’t lose that spark, Jaskier. Don’t let them tie you down.” His grin is a little crooked, his eyes sad.

“They won’t,” he promises. “I’m brave. Truly. Like you.” He’s trembling at his own audacity when he leans forward across the desk, and touches Hakan’s cheek.

“You don’t mean that,” Hakan says. “You’re so young.” He sounds a little wistful.

“I know what I want,” Julian says, and then they’re kissing, Hakan’s beard scratchy on his skin. It’s far from his first time, with men or with women, but it feels new, exciting, like all the possibilities he’s waiting for.

For a while, Julian is as happy as he’s ever been. His studies are going well. He has good friends. He has a bright future ahead of him. He has secret trysts with a handsome man who’s smart and experienced and confident, in all the ways Julian isn’t, but who seems to like him anyway.

They linger after class and Julian goes down on him and then jerks himself off while Hakan watches. They can’t meet anywhere public, obviously, and it’d be too risky to be seen near each other’s rooms, but this – Julian on his knees, Hakan’s cock heavy in his mouth, the smell of chalk dust, sunlight catching in Hakan’s hair – this is the stuff songs are made of.

He doesn’t tell anyone. Hakan tells him not to, and anyway, Julian doesn’t want to. He carries the thought of it with him, like a precious gem cupped in his hands, guarded jealously.

And then, slowly, it shifts.

Hakan always did most of the talking. For one thing, Julian’s mouth was usually occupied. But after a while he stops asking Julian anything at all, or really listening when he talks. Their time together gets shorter. Once, Hakan tucks himself away and rushes off the minute he comes, muttering something about a faculty meeting, leaving Julian hard and aching in his breeches. Mostly he spends their time together complaining about how Oxenfurt is stifling his creativity, how hidebound and rulebound the university is, how they don’t know anything about real life.

“There must be something you like about it,” Julian says, fluttering his eyelashes. He is, frankly, bored. It feels terribly disloyal but Hakan is starting to remind him of the men his father brought home to dinner: obsessed with their status, rehearsing every slight they received and every success they achieved.

“I suppose there are some compensations,” Hakan says. His eyes go dark and he pushes Julian down, and Julian thinks, you could reciprocate for once.

He worries he’s starting to bore Hakan. He doesn’t talk in class much anymore, doesn’t really speak at all afterwards. Just tries to please him, with his mouth and his hands and the songs he hands in as assignments, coded but clear.

Priss seems worried about him. “You look tired, Julek,” she says. “Come out with us, have some fun.” But Julian doesn’t seem able to have fun anymore, not with his fellow students. They feel so young, now, compared to him. The secret starts to seem less delightful and more shameful. He thinks about Hakan all the time. He wants them to spend every second together. But Hakan doesn’t seem interested in him now. There’s no useful advice, no praise, when they meet: just the wooden floorboards under his knees, the salty taste of come on his tongue.

“Professor Nowak told me Hakan was leaving after Imbolc,” Priss says, and Jaskier, to his own astonishment, thinks: good.

But he still waits after every class, because he wanted this, didn’t he? And now he’s got it, he can’t give it up.

At the end of the semester, their grades are written down in the ledger, and all the students fight over each other to get to the head of the queue to read them. Julian’s late; he’s not been sleeping well lately; and when he arrives Valdo gives him a look of glee and Priss one of pity.

He turns the pages in the ledger as if it contains his death sentence, but he still doesn’t truly believe what he sees.

“Julek—” Priss says, but he’s already gone.

For the first time, he goes to Hakan’s lodgings. When he knocks, the bard opens the door. He looks irritated. Behind him, the room is covered with clothes, books, music.

“How could you,” Julian says. And then, “were you even going to say goodbye?”

Hakan’s expression softens slightly. “Hey,” he says. “We had fun, didn’t we? But it was always going to end.”

Julian doesn’t speak. He had dreams, quiet ones, that they would travel the roads together, play together. He knew they were foolish, which was why he never spoke of them, but he couldn’t help clinging on to the idea that it could happen. Until he saw the score in black ink against his name.

“I thought you thought I was good,” he blurts out. “I worked – I worked really hard, damn it.”

“You know I can’t play favourites,” Hakan says. He sighs. “You have some talent, true, but you’re overly interested in being flashy, a cute rhyme, a catchy chorus. That’s not real music, Jaskier. That’s just crowd pleasing.”

“Maybe I want to please the crowd,” Julian says. “Maybe I don’t care about what the academics think, I want to get an inn on their feet, I want to write songs that will be remembered, not just written down and forgotten.”

Hakan smiles at him, fondly. “Honestly,” he says, “I think the only thing I managed to teach you is how to suck cock.”

“Fuck you,” Julian spits.

“Now, now,” Hakan says. “Don’t be bitter. We had some good times. How about one for the road?” He sees Julian hesitate, and says, “I could make your life easier, Julian, don’t be silly.” And in his eyes Julian reads that he could make his life harder, too: could tell people about this, for a start, and wouldn’t that be shaming, worse even than this moment, because this moment will pass but the story of it could follow him for ever.

He doesn’t want that. Hakan opens the door wider. Julian goes inside, and goes to his knees.

Afterwards, once Hakan has dismissed him like a child he’s run out of patience for and Julian is walking down the hall and trying not to cry, he tells himself the next time he loves someone they won’t take him for granted. Next time, he’ll give his heart to someone worthy of it.

Despite everything, he still thinks he did.

3

The annual bardic festival in Beauclair is one of the continent’s biggest, which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that the city is warm, civilised, and noted for its fine wines.

Geralt, of course, refused point blank to come with him. “Too far south,” he said.

“Oh come on,” Jaskier said. “Wine! Women! Song! More wine!”

“Cat territory,” Geralt muttered, and then refused to explain what he meant.

Now he’s in Beauclair, Jaskier can’t say he minds overmuch that Geralt didn’t accompany him. There are so many people to catch up with, so much gossip to exchange. He can’t quite imagine doing it standing next to a large, scowling man carrying twin swords, though it would have created an enjoyable stir. He does wonder what Geralt would make of it all – the lightness of it, the frivolity, the insistence on pleasure. Geralt doesn’t really seem to understand pleasure. Jaskier would like to help him learn, some day, but in the meantime he’s happy to throw himself into his own pursuit of it.

There are numerous smaller competitions in the run up to the main event. Jaskier enters some, places respectably in all of them, comes second in folk songs and first in jigs. He thinks he’s got a pretty good shot at winning overall: Priss isn’t here for one thing, and for another while there are plenty of other bards with stronger individual focuses, not many of them can move from genre to genre, audience to audience, the way he can.

(Hakan isn’t here either. Last Jaskier heard, he was holed up in some cushy residency in Temeria, the sellout.)

The night before the final, Jaskier is drinking his winnings in one of the cellar bars near his hostel. He’s not over-indulging – he doesn’t want to be hung over when he plays – but he has spent more coin that he would otherwise on a particularly fine red from several decades ago.

“Are you Jaskier?” someone asks and he looks over: a sweet-faced young woman in her twenties, all big blue eyes and freckles.

“I am,” he says. “And you are?”

She introduces herself as Violetta, not a competitor but a fan, she comes every year— She draws up a chair at his invitation and lets a stream of words fall from her lips, talking almost as much as he does. Jaskier decides fairly quickly that he has no interest in bedding her (innocence has never really been his thing) but she’s good to talk to, and a flattering audience for some of his wilder tales. He buys them both a drink and lets the minutes drift by pleasantly enough, until he finds himself growing sleepy.

“I should go,” he murmurs, interrupting her mid-sentence, but suddenly quite convinced that if he doesn’t leave this second he might fall asleep on the bar stool.

“Are you sure?” she asks. Her face wavers a little in the candlelight. Odd. He slips from his seat, sways a little, makes an attempt at a bow, and stumbles up the stairs and out into the street.

The cold air revives him briefly. He turns to the wall and pisses, resting his forehead against the stone. The world around him feels as if it’s shivering; his hands are clumsy as he tucks himself away. He takes a step forward and his leg gives way, sending him to his knees. The streetlamps flicker as he blinks, casting haloes of light. His head feels light, fuzzy; his thoughts gone slow and distant.

I’m not that drunk, he thinks, maybe even tries to say, but his tongue is thick in his mouth and his eyelids keep falling closed and every time it’s harder to open them. He blinks and sees the cobbles strangely close to his face, the stone dancing in front of him; blinks again and is looking upwards at the night sky, the stars interrupted by a face, blue eyes; hears someone hiss, “careful!” and feels a hand grasp his arm. He tries to shake the touch away but only manages a faint shiver and then the blackness invading his vision conquers everything.

He is kneeling in a dusty lecture room in Oxenfurt, Hakan’s hands on his shoulders. He is bending over a desk in the temple school in Lettenhove, waiting for the cane. He is sitting in a cave, ropes around his chest, his back to a witcher he followed for some reason; he is hiding under a table while his father shouts; he is running from a monster, he is crying for his mother, he is playing his lute, fingers slipping, he is struggling to get away from something—

He is dreaming, he realises, suddenly, and the fractured images slide away from him and coalesce into a pattern of red and gold. A canopy. He’s lying on a bed, staring straight upwards, and when he tries to move he can barely twitch his little finger.

Fuck. Fuck!

Faintly, he hears music, and cold runs through him. It’s the last day of the festival and he can’t fucking move. That little shit Violetta drugged him. What the fuck.

With great effort he manages to haul himself over onto his side, landing in an ungainly sprawl. At least he can see something of the room, which is not his: it’s far more luxurious. The kind of place he could probably afford but chooses not to. Geralt’s a bad influence on him; he tends to save his coin for the really important things these days, like clothes.

Focus, Jaskier! He needs to get out of here. Maybe he can still make the competition, if it’s not too late… Though since he seems to have exhausted all his energy rolling over, it’s hard to imagine recovering enough dexterity to play his damn lute, even if he knew where his damn lute was.

Oh, he’s so fucked. He groans into his arm and pushes against the bed to try and gain enough momentum to sit.

It seems to take hours, but stage by stage his body remembers itself, until at last he’s perched on the edge of the bed, head hanging, all his muscles trembling. From here he can see the window: the light is dimming already. He must have slept nearly all day. Applause drifts in from the city’s square. Yeah, no chance. Whoever planned this has got what they wanted: there will be no performance from the great bard Jaskier today.

When he can stand, he staggers over to the door, and is unsurprised to find it locked. He pounds on it as much as he’s able – which isn’t much, his knocking wouldn’t disturb a mouse, let alone anyone more than four metres away. He’s just going to have to wait till his captor comes to let him out. Fuck’s sake. He hates waiting.

First, though, he has other business to attend to: now he’s upright, his bladder has woken too. A mean smile crosses his lips when he sees a travelling trunk in one corner of the room. With one hand pressed against the wall he limps towards it, lifts the lid, and relieves himself over the contents. Well, no one ever said the great bard Jaskier was nice, and the fucker had it coming.

Then he makes his way back to the bed and lies down. It’s an excellent bed. May as well seethe in luxury.

Time passes slowly as treacle. He occupies himself by coming up with increasingly elaborate ways to get his own back on whoever did this to him, starting with a rather excellently scathing ballad that suffers only from not knowing what name he needs to rhyme with, and ending with a pleasingly elaborate fantasy about a fake hanging. The sun sets. The crowds outside sound increasingly merry. His stomach knocks against his breastbone.

Eventually the door opens and a man comes through. He’s carrying a candle and smells of vodka; the light catches his face, and – “Oh it’s you, Valdo,” Jaskier says. “I should have known.” He rolls his eyes and ostentatiously relaxes into the bed even further. “Did you win?”

“Second,” Valdo says. He slumps down against the door, drink and misery coming off him in waves. “I’m sorry, Julian, truly, but I’m up for the state position in Cidaris, I really needed the victory.”

“And yet you managed to fuck it up all by yourself,” Jaskier says. He’s not scared of Valdo. He is furious. He detests feeling helpless; it reminds him too much of too many things. “Was it worth it? When I tell people about this you won’t find any bard willing to even spit on you in the street.”

“Oh, don’t pretend you’re so high and mighty,” Valdo sighs. “Not all of us have it so easy, all right? Some of us have to work to get anywhere.”

“And what exactly do you think I do?” Jaskier asks, briefly and honestly surprised. “What do I have that’s so easy?”

“Come off it,” Valdo says. “You bent over for Hakan back at Oxenfurt and now you’re bending over for your precious White Wolf, right? Maybe I shouldn’t say you have it easy, just that you are easy. You’re as much of a cheat as I am.”

Jaskier opens his mouth and for once in his life has nothing at all to say.

“Go on, then, fuck off,” Valdo says, tiredly. “I don’t want to look at your stupid face a minute longer.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaskier says quietly as he stands. “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You always were a hack, you wouldn’t know inspiration if it bit you on the arse.”

Valdo shifts away from the door so Jaskier can open it. “Is that what you call it when you have a mutant’s cock down your throat?” he asks blearily. “Inspiration, Julian, really? I’d call it whoring yourself out for a good story.”

He could deny it. Of course it isn’t true, though of course he wishes it were. But he doesn’t owe Valdo Marx anything except a kick in the balls, and he can’t even be bothered to do that: being Valdo Marx is already punishment enough. “At least I have a good story,” he says at last, and leaves.

He’s barely ten paces down the hallway when a strangled wail emerges from the room behind him. “Fucking hell, Julian, what did you do to my clothes!”

Ha. Oh, yes, he forgot about that. He smiles tightly to himself.

Next time he goes anywhere like this, he thinks, he’s damn well going to make Geralt come with him. This would never have happened if the witcher were around.

Next time is the wedding feast at Cintra.

It turns out Geralt fucking sucks as a bodyguard.

4

The gardens at the Countess De Stael’s estate reflect their owner almost exactly: beautiful, organised, and well-tended. The countess surrounds herself with the finest things in life, be they flowers, food or followers. Jaskier’s been there for two months and would quite happily never leave. Where else could he live in luxury like this?

“Don’t you miss your adventures on the road?” the countess asks, when he rolls over on the blanket spread on the grass and expresses his great satisfaction with his lot.

“Mud,” Jaskier tells her. “Mud and monsters and barely edible food and surprisingly few people who appreciate my genius…” He raises his eyebrows and she laughs.

“Good inspiration for your songs, though,” she teases, and he leans upwards to kiss her on her pretty lips. They have been lunching outside on the west lawn, and are surrounded by the remnants: a platter of cheese and meat reduced to scraps, a mostly empty bottle of wine sunk in a bucket of mostly melted ice. Jaskier fetches a chocolate covered strawberry, and feeds it to the countess, chasing it down with another kiss, catching the taste of it on her tongue. “Stop,” she says languidly. “You are awful, my love.”

“I live to serve,” he says, and lies back down again, his head in her lap, her fingers stroking through his hair. She calls him her love often, idly, the same way she says it to her servants or her dogs, full of unserious affection. He knows she doesn’t love him, but that’s fine. Jaskier has plenty of experience loving people who don’t love him back. “Shall I play for you?”

“Not now,” she yawns. Her hand stills. “Jaskier, darling, I have something to tell you. Alfred is coming home tomorrow.”

“Ah,” Jaskier says. The Count de Stael is about ten years younger than his wife. The lands, money, taste, all belong to her; the title belongs to him. A fair trade, as far as matrimony goes. She speaks of her husband fondly, and he suspects that she is genuinely fond of him, mostly because he spends most of his time away at court or hunting and leaves her to her own interests. Like travelling bards.

Presumably the count has his own interests too; nobles learn to be discreet about such things. Jaskier’s often profited from wives whose husbands sleep elsewhere, both in pleasure and patronage, though none of his previous patrons have been quite so delightful as the countess. At least, he’s never fallen in love with any of them, though to be fair, he’s never spent more than a night with most of them.

“It makes me very sad,” the countess says. “We’ve had such fun, haven’t we?”

Jaskier swallows down the more pathetic answers he could make to that: pleas for her not to send him away, to let him stay on as her court musician, that they could make it work. He’s not a child, now; he knows how the world works. This has been a lovely interlude; if he stayed, it would soon become a farce.

“We have, my lady,” Jaskier says. He sits, turns round, and strokes her cheek to make her dimple at him. “I shall treasure the memories.”

“You charming boy,” the countess says. “I’ll miss you.”

“I could come back,” Jaskier says before he can stop himself. But he could. Her husband will leave again, and he could return to her side, resume his adoration.

A shadow flickers in her eyes. Regret, he thinks. “Oh my love,” she says. “Don’t be silly. All good things must come to an end, how else would we know to treasure them? Life is all about new experiences, you know that better than anyone.” She kisses him, to soften the sting. “I rather envy you. You’ll be out there with your witcher having adventures while I’m cooped up in my little cage, dreaming of being free.”

Jaskier looks around him at the acres of cultivated and garden and meadowland, at the servants waiting within calling distance, at the three stories of warm honey-coloured stone behind them. “It’s a very pretty cage,” he points out mildly. He’s remembering one of the last contracts Geralt took before they parted ways: a farming family not too far from here, who’d lost a child to a drowner, and saved up all they could spare and more besides to pay a witcher. Geralt had killed the drowner and taken the food they’d offered but left the coin, knowing it would mean the difference between life and death to them if any disaster struck. The coin itself would, perhaps, have paid for one of the ribbons on the countess’s dress.

Still, he can hardly hold that against her; he’s spent two months living off her and she lives off the land the farmers toiled over. And he would come back in a heartbeat to enjoy the luxuries anew. There are tears stinging his eyes at the thought she won’t let him. He has no high ground to stand on; he dreamed of changing the world once and now he merely wishes to survive it. And he won’t tarnish her memories of him with sulking. He smiles instead. “If it must end,” he says, “let it end with your humble servant making you sing, one last time.”

“Naughty little thing,” she says, but she is already lying back, lifting her skirts, letting Jaskier kneel between her legs to worship her as she deserves.

He leaves later that evening, sneaking out before dinner, telling the footman to give her his fond regards. He tells himself it’s because he wants to be well away before the count returns; or that he doesn’t want a sad farewell; but secretly he knows it’s because he’s hoping she will, briefly, be sorry not to have said goodbye.

The sun is setting as he heads west, a fine blend of pink and purple blending in front of him. The world outside her pristine gardens is beautiful too, he reminds himself. No matter if she never thinks of him again. He’ll remember her, immortalise her in song, find others to love. Perhaps one day he’ll even meet someone who wants to keep him.

But first he goes to find Geralt. Geralt finds a djinn. It all gets a little chaotic after that.

Two weeks later he’s playing in an inn across the Temerian border from Rinde when he’s distracted by his audience who are, one after the other, turning to look at the door. Jaskier looks too, and sees black armour, white hair, two swords.

The disruption passes as Geralt goes to skulk quietly at the farthest table. Jaskier finishes his set, fetches a pint, and sits across from him. “Well, well, well,” he says, not quite meeting Geralt’s eyes. “Did you enjoy your fillingless pie?”

Geralt sighs, noisily. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That was… unnecessary.”

Jaskier does a little shrug to indicate that he is, absolutely, one hundred per cent over it. Geralt looks sceptical.

“What brings you here anyway?” Jaskier asks, when the silence has stretched long enough to become uncomfortable. For him, anyway; Geralt could presumably be silent for decades without minding.

“You left,” Geralt mutters into his ale.

“Well.” Jaskier pauses, and tries to figure out what to say next. He is honestly a little confused. “You seemed busy,” he hedges. “What with the—” He makes a hand gesture that possibly captures too well what Geralt was up to the last time he saw him. Geralt scowls.

“I wanted—” he says. “That is— hmmm.” He makes a face that somehow displays irritation, guilt and concern all at the same time.

“Geralt!” Jaskier says, delighted. “Were you worried about me? You were! Aww, how sweet, the mighty witcher, fretting over his loyal and brilliant barker.”

“Don’t push it, bard,” Geralt warns him, but he has that little twitch to his lips that is basically his version of beaming.

“Anyway I’m fine,” Jaskier says, gesturing at himself. “No harm done. Throat and dick all in perfect working order.”

Geralt chokes on his ale. Jaskier watches his embarrassment gleefully. If he were feeling mean, he’d probably suggest Geralt check for himself, but flirting always makes the witcher even more awkwardly silent than normal. And Jaskier is currently too touched that Geralt came looking for him to tease.

“So what next?” Jaskier asks, after a few moments have passed in companionable quiet.

“Found a contract for an arachas,” Geralt says. “It’s not far.”

“Ooooh,” Jaskier says. “I’ve never seen one of those.”

“I’ll tell you about it,” Geralt says. “You shouldn’t come. They’re dangerous.”

“Darling,” Jaskier says fondly, “surely you know by now that you can’t shake me that easily.”

“Hmmm,” Geralt grumbles instead of arguing, and Jaskier’s heart swells. Geralt may not love him back, but since that first adventure he’s never seriously tried to get rid of him, and frankly as far as Jaskier’s concerned that might as well be a proposal.

He taps his stein against Geralt’s in a toast to nothing in particular. As long as Geralt is happy to keep him, he’s staying by the witcher’s side. And in that moment, he can’t imagine anything that would drive him away.

5

Someone is saying his name with increasing urgency.

He tries to open his eyes, but he’s forgotten the blindfold, and his lashes brush uncomfortably against rough cloth. “Geralt,” he whispers, as much as he can around the gag; it comes out as something more like “err-ar.”

“Stay awake,” Geralt tells him, though Jaskier doesn’t know why it matters. Being awake is painful. He’d rather sleep, forget the cold and the aches, be happy in dreams before the soldiers come and rudely remind him of reality.

He curls up a little tighter, huddling into himself as much as the chains allow. His head is pillowed on one arm, his arms drawn up around his face, his thighs as close to his stomach as he can get. Every time they let him down, he crawls as far as he can from the dip in the centre of the cell where his blood and piss has collected. And then he tries to sleep, if only Geralt would let him. Geralt seems to have strong opinions about Jaskier sleeping.

“Talk to me,” Geralt says. “Anything you like.”

Jaskier daydreams. Before the soldiers caught up with him, he was halfway across Brugge, heading for Oxenfurt. The snow hadn’t begun to fall then, but you could taste the start of it on the air; the skies were that strangely heavy white. He’d almost been happy – he’d got ahead of the war, he was on his way home, he thought he was safe. And then, well, this.

“Don’t think about this,” Geralt tells him, shushing him as he moans. “What about Oxenfurt, tell me about Oxenfurt instead.”

He tries. He really does. But it’s so dark, and he’s so cold, he doesn’t have the energy for stories. He’s talked enough lately, he’s run out of words.

“Please, Jaskier,” Geralt begs, and Jaskier remembers that Geralt isn’t here, isn’t real, because the real Geralt would never beg him for anything.

He wakes again when they haul on the chains to bring him to standing. It hurts worse every time. He can’t rest his weight on his feet anymore – they caned them, on the first or second day, and now they’re swollen and bruised. He rests on his tiptoes as much as he dares, feeling the aches in his shoulders flare as they struggle to compensate.

It’s really very simple, what they’re doing. The cane to his feet. Fists to every inch of him – even his bollocks are bruised. Pins under his fingernails. A mild throttling occasionally to break up the monotony. His head in a barrel of water, once, though he’s trying to block the memory of that because that was the one that finally broke him.

Even this is so devastatingly simple, just leaving him to dangle like meat from a hook while the chains cut into his wrists, and his shoulders and arms scream in agony.

Once he’s up, gloved fingers untie the cloth shoved in his mouth. A wooden dipper nudges at his lips and he opens up to drink the water, almost sobbing in gratitude. It’s the voice, the only one who ever talks to him, the only one who touches him gently. Jaskier could almost love him, sometimes, for those gentle touches, if it weren’t for the fact they are always followed by more pain.

He’s glad Geralt’s not here to see him like this. Geralt doesn’t stay when the soldiers come. It’s just Jaskier, alone in his head.

“There you are,” the voice says, kindly. “We don’t want to do this to you, Jaskier. If you’d just tell us what we want to know, all this would be over.”

Jaskier spits blood in his general direction and the voice sighs.

“I’ve told you everything I can,” he says, because he has. He never claimed to be any kind of hero, and he understands people well enough to know that no one withstands torture, not for long. He told them everything on the second day. On the third day, he started making things up. The trouble is, he can’t give them the answers they want. He doesn’t know where Geralt is, he doesn’t know where he’s going, and aside from her name and her age, he doesn’t know anything at all about the Lion Cub of Cintra.

“You said there was a place for witchers,” the voice says. “In the Blue Mountains.”

“Kaer Morhen,” Jaskier agrees. “It’s in all the old stories. I read about it during the winters, you could just go to Oxenfurt library, get it straight from the source.”

Someone punches him in the back, right in the kidney, and his body jolts forward and is eased back by the gloved hand around his throat.

“Where is it, Jaskier?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never been.”

“But the witcher must have told you.”

“Why?” Jaskier asks. “Why must he have told me? I can tell you’ve never met him. Getting Geralt to talk about anything is like pulling teeth.”

“There’s an idea,” the voice says, thoughtfully. His fingers trace Jaskier’s lips, and one pushes inside, running along his teeth, pressing down on his tongue. He chokes.

“Please,” he says, when the finger withdraws. “I don’t know. Please, please believe me, I don’t know.”

The voice moves away, and Jaskier braces himself; the blows, when they come, land first in his gut and next in his groin, robbing him of breath and then making him want to cry. He loses his precarious balance and hangs from his wrists for a moment or two, feels the blood run down his arms from where the shackles dig in.

“You know we haven’t even really got started,” the voice says, as he struggles to regain his footing. “There’s a mage on the way. She’ll be able to root around in your head and find out every last pathetic secret. I’ve seen her do it. You’ll be begging for my tender care once she’s finished with you.”

“There’s nothing to find,” Jaskier says. “I swear. No secrets.” He tries to smile. “I’m just a bard. You really think I’m managing some manly resistance here? I. Don’t. Know.”

“You talk too much,” the voice says, and slaps him, hard, leaving his ears ringing. There’s a shift of movement and the chain slackens, letting Jaskier fall; he sobs in relief as his knees hit the stone floor. “I’m surprised the witcher put up with you all these years.”

“He used to complain too,” Jaskier murmurs. His hands are numb in his lap, his arms shaking. For a brief moment he wonders where his lute is, and whether he’ll be able to play it again. Which is kind of a stupid thing to worry about, considering.

“Did you let him fuck you?” the voice asks. He grabs Jaskier’s chin, tilts his head to make him stare blindly upwards. “Is that why you’re so loyal to the beast? Maybe I should have a taste.”

“If you put your dick in my mouth,” Jaskier says, enunciating as clearly as he’s able, “I will bite it off.”

They must kick him in the head, then, because the world goes away for a while, and when it comes back he’s lying on his side again and the cell is quiet. They’ve forgotten to put the gag back in, a small mercy. He lies there till he stops shaking, and then drags himself up the slight slope as far as the chains will stretch.

“You should stop talking back,” Geralt tells him.

He should. But they want him to speak, and they’re not interested in listening to what he actually has to say, so. He supposes when the mage comes they won’t need to hurt him anymore, they’ll just take everything he knows, and after that – well. After that it probably won’t matter what he does.

“Stay strong,” Geralt says, as if he hasn’t already broken ten times over, as if his strength counts for anything.

“The only thing they don’t know by now is that I love you,” Jaskier says after a while. It’s not a secret. He would tell them. They just haven’t asked. He told them all about the argument on the mountain, how Geralt pushed him away, so maybe they think he hates the witcher now. It would be a reasonable thing to think. Jaskier’s never been very good at reasonable. He misses Geralt with an intensity that is, if anything, stronger for being wrapped around with anger and with hurt.

He imagines Geralt sitting there, his face blank, the way he looks when the humans are being annoyingly human and he’s not sure what to do.

“I’m going to die in here,” he says, and Geralt says, “hmmm,” non-committal, oddly comforting.

“I love you,” he says, and Geralt doesn’t answer.

When they come back, they wake him with a bucket of cold water tipped over his head, chilling his already cold bones. Then they haul him up to standing.

It’s funny, he thinks, how you can get bored even of pain, even of fear. It all feels distant now, his ears ringing, sound blurring.

“I’m running out of patience,” the voice says. He hasn’t offered Jaskier any water yet, which is different, and Jaskier doesn’t know what that means.

Behind him, someone presses sharp metal to the meat of his shoulder and draws it down. Jaskier chokes on a scream. Then they do it again on the other side.

“The mage is coming,” the voice says, “but we can keep you busy till then. Hell, maybe I’ll keep you afterwards too. It’s not like we’d ever let you leave, and we’re having fun, aren’t we?”

Jaskier laughs a little, because it’s funny, isn’t it, given he used to wish that someone would want to keep him. This wasn’t really what he had in mind.

The voice snaps his fingers and he jolts back into the present. “Come on, bard. The castle in the mountains.”

“Kaer Morhen,” Jaskier says obediently. He’s pictured it many times. A ruin perched atop a crag, an eagle overhead, a hidden treacherous path winding upward.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “The Blue Mountains. Somewhere north of Ard Carraigh. We used to meet in Ard Carraigh, in the spring.”

Another cut. He cries out. His head is spinning. He can’t remember the last time he ate anything. Some bread, maybe, some time during the first day, whenever that was.

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats. “If you had a map, maybe I could—”

The gloved hand on his jaw. “You’re lying.”

“Of course I’m fucking lying,” Jaskier says, “because I can’t answer the question and you keep fucking hurting me. What do you expect?”

The punch rattles his teeth. He spits blood. The chains rattle, too, and he falls again, his head hitting the ground almost softly, as someone chokes. Probably him. There’s the sound of a body hitting the floor. That’s probably him too. The stone feels almost pleasant against his bruised flesh. He thinks he might pass out for a bit.

The room feels different the next time he’s aware of anything. Quieter, somehow. He’s got very good at sensing where people are from their movements and there’s someone breathing in front of him and maybe someone behind him but he can’t tell, they’re so quiet, just a faint swish of cloth.

Gloved hands cup his cheeks. “Please,” he says, not sure what he’s begging for.

The hands move to the back of his head, fumbling at the blindfold. Jaskier freezes. They never take the blindfold off. This can’t be right. But the hands slip it up and away and he opens his eyes, which burn even in the low light of the torches on the walls.

Through his tears he sees Geralt’s face.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, as far as the hands will let him, though it makes the world waver strangely, black spots crowding in. “No, you can’t be here. You don’t come when they’re here.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, frowning. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

“No,” he cries, trying to move away. This is all wrong. Geralt doesn’t come when the soldiers are there, Geralt only comes in the quiet, to keep him company when he’s alone. If he’s seeing him now – if he thinks he’s seeing anything at all—

The panic rises like a wave, cutting off his air, because he remembers this: I’ve got you. It’s all right. Rest. A memory, not anything real. What are they doing to him? Is he dead? Is he dreaming?

He thinks the vision of Geralt says his name, but he can’t hear the word, can’t see through the gathering darkness. He’s alone in his head again and everything is quiet and still.

+1

The first thing that registers is a distant sound of steel on steel, and someone shouting – maybe in pain, maybe in anger. He flinches, and various injuries make themselves known; his whole body feels like one throbbing ache, he can’t tell what’s actually hurting or where. It does seem like he’s hurting less than he should do. The pain is muted, far away. When he shifts experimentally there is soft linen above and below him. So: he’s been moved. Or he’s still dreaming.

“Geralt?” he says. No one answers.

He opens his eyes. The room is empty. He’s lying in a bed; his hand is resting on the pillow in front of his face, a bandage wrapped around his wrist, faintly spotted with blood. Well. That’s new.

Around him, dust floats in the sunshine from a narrow slit in the wall, barely even a window. The walls are great grey flagstones, the floor laid with scuffed wood, halfheartedly swept clean; there are piles of cobwebs clinging in the corners. There’s a chamber pot within reach, a clay mug on a small side table half filled with water. The air smells stale, mostly, with a vague tinge of iron. Blood, perhaps.

It occurs to him that he should maybe be panicking but his emotions are dulled. Mainly he feels tired. He keeps moving all the same, clambering slowly from the bed. He’s wearing a linen shift that reaches his knees. His feet are bandaged too. They hurt when he puts his weight on them, but he hobbles to the door anyway.

Outside the room is a dark bare corridor, with a glimmer of light at one end. He walks towards it. Last thing he can remember, he was in a dungeon, and they were threatening him with the same old threats: teeth pulled out, a violent fucking, the mage.

Ah. Yes. The mage. And then Geralt was there, supposedly to rescue him. So that obviously didn’t happen.

He knows where he is, now. This must be Kaer Morhen, a fantasy called up from his imaginings by a mage who thinks if he can picture it, he’ll be able to tell them where it lies.

The corridor ends in a door that leads out onto the battlements. They’re high up. The world stretching away is white with snow, and his breath hangs on the air. He should be shivering but he doesn’t seem to have the energy. The castle is indeed perched on a crag, overlooking a thickly forested slope that falls away below. It’s very far down.

His legs decide they’ve been used enough and give way; he catches himself on the stone parapet and eases himself down against it, looking out over the landscape. He’ll just… gather his strength for a while. Figure out what to do.

It feels strange to be outside, in a world this quiet. Surely someone should be asking him questions.

No sooner has he had this thought than someone says, “Jaskier?”

When he looks round, he sees a young girl peering at him anxiously from the doorway. “You must be the princess,” Jaskier says cheerfully, though the words grind against his dry throat and emerge barely comprehensible. He dips his head – if he tried to bow he’d probably fall forward and not get up.

“Geralt!” the princess cries. “Yennefer!”

“The gang’s all here,” Jaskier murmurs. “I really must credit you, mage, it’s all very much as I imagined.”

The princess stays hovering by the door. She’s wearing furs, but her face is still pink with the cold. The snow is soaking through his shift. He’s freezing, his swollen fingers numb and white, but it’s not as if it matters. He scrubs at his face, the thick stubble on his cheeks, breathes on his hands to warm them as much as he can.

Movement in the doorway. Geralt appears. He’s not wearing his armour, or his swords; his hair is held back in a loose ponytail. He looks almost relaxed. “Jaskier,” he says, and then hesitates. “What are you doing?”

“Hello, Geralt,” Jaskier says politely. “What does it look like? I’m enjoying the view.”

Geralt takes a step forward. “You’re not cold?”

“Oh, well, a bit,” Jaskier says, and waves his hand dismissively. “One must make sacrifices.” Geralt steps forwards again and Jaskier pushes himself up until he can sit on the ledge instead, which seems to make Geralt pause. Behind him another figure appears in the doorway: Yennefer, this time, her hands already wreathed in purple fire.

“Come down from there,” Geralt says softly. “You’re too near the edge.”

“What happens if I fall?” Jaskier asks. “Does it start over, or do I wake up?”

“Geralt—” Yennefer says, low, urgent, and Geralt says, “I know. Stay back.” He raises an eyebrow at Jaskier. “You’d die,” he says.

“But not permanently,” Jaskier argues. “That would rather defeat the object of this little scenario, wouldn’t it?”

“This is real,” Geralt says. “The Nilfgaardians found you, and they tortured you, and then Yennefer and I got you out.”

“Well,” Jaskier says. “I mean. That doesn’t sound very likely. Doesn’t sound like a blessing at all.”

“For gods’ sakes, Geralt,” Yennefer says. “Axii him already, or let me get him away from there.”

“No,” Geralt says sharply. “Yenn, take Ciri, go inside.”

She huffs, but does as he asks, and then it’s just Geralt and Jaskier in the quiet open air. It looks so real, Jaskier thinks vaguely. He wonders how long it would carry on looking real if he tipped himself backwards, let himself fall. “You could use axii,” he says. “It would be simpler.”

“No,” Geralt says again. His voice is very gentle, his eyes a warm gold. He’s looking at Jaskier the way he looks at Roach when she gets spooked, a steadfast, calming love. “I promised, remember? After the arachas. I promised I wouldn’t.”

Jaskier attempts to pull his muddled thoughts together. He’s so cold, and he hurts so much, and he remembers that promise so the mage could remember it too but he wants this to be real. So much. “Because I asked you not to,” he says slowly.

“You did,” Geralt says. “I didn’t understand why but I promised anyway.”

“I don’t like it when people make me stay,” Jaskier tries to explain. “I don’t like it when they tell me to go, either.”

“I won’t make you do anything,” Geralt says. “Just, please, Jaskier, I’m asking – will you come inside?”

Jaskier considers this for a while. Then he pushes himself forward, landing on his knees in the snow. Somehow or other, he thinks, he always ends up on his knees.

But this time Geralt is kneeling in front of him, and his arms carefully reach around to pull Jaskier close to his chest and he’s so warm, so beautifully warm, that Jaskier decides not to worry about whether he’s real or not.

Geralt must carry him back to the room where he first woke up, and Jaskier must sleep, because when he hauls himself out of a nightmare of chains and cold and knives, he’s wrapped back up in furs and dry linen, and Geralt is holding his hand and saying his name, his eyes dark with concern. When he sees that Jaskier’s awake, he fusses in a most un-Geralt way until Jaskier has drunk some water, and is propped up carefully against the pillows.

It’s almost enough to convince Jaskier that this is actually happening, because he can’t believe there’s a spell on earth that would make him imagine his witcher acting like a mother hen. And, unlike before, there’s a sharpness to the world, a depth, that makes him feel more trusting of it.

He makes Geralt tell him what’s been happening, a terse account of Cintra, ghouls, Ciri, Sodden Hill. Somewhere in there are the bare bones of a proper epic, one that Jaskier will write the minute he has access to quill and ink.

“So how did you find me?” he asks eventually, when Geralt’s account runs its course to the moment they reached Kaer Morhen.

“I asked Yenn to scry,” Geralt says, who’s moved to build up the fire in the hearth and seems to be carefully avoiding Jaskier’s gaze. “I wanted to know you were all right, and since you weren’t, we came to get you.”

Jaskier nods. Then, “but why, though? Since I was off your hands.” He laughs, to take the sting out of it.

“Jaskier…” Geralt casts igni to encourage the new logs to burn, then moves to hover awkwardly by the bed. Jaskier rolls his eyes and pats the mattress, and eventually Geralt sits. “I have too many apologies to make to you to know where to begin.”

“You could start in the traditional way,” Jaskier says encouragingly, and Geralt snorts.

“All right,” he says. “I’m sorry for shouting at you on the mountain, and blaming you for my own various idiocies. I’m sorry I insulted your singing, not once but many times. I’m sorry I never let you ride Roach. I’m sorry I hit you the first time we met. I’m sorry about that time I got ichor on your best outfit. I’m sorry I let a djinn nearly kill you, though in fairness, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry I never—” His voice dies away. Jaskier, who has been rather enjoying this, fantasy or no, raises a questioning eyebrow. “When Yennefer’s scrying spell found you, when we saw you in that cell—”

Jaskier winces. He can imagine only too well the pathetic picture he must have made, curled up like a child, naked and covered in shit. Or, even worse, babbling away like the coward he is. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “I told them everything I could, so it’s fortunate for all concerned that you’re a taciturn man and there wasn’t much I could tell them.”

“No – what – no. I don’t care about that. I thought you were dying, Jaskier. I thought you’d die without knowing that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean what I said.”

“This has to be a spell,” Jaskier says mournfully. “This is so exactly what I’d want to hear.”

The door flies open. Jaskier and Geralt both jolt and look towards it: an angry man, with dark hair, also a witcher, storms in. “Tell your fucking mage to keep out of my still room!” he yells and then storms out again, slamming the door behind him.

There’s a pause. Jaskier looks inquiringly at Geralt, who says, “Lambert,” as if that’s an explanation.

“Right,” Jaskier says eventually. “I take it back. That is not something I ever dreamed of hearing, so I’m forced to conclude that this is, in fact, real.” He still feels like shit; his head still feels like it’s barely tethered to his shoulders; he wants to cry; he wants to sleep for a decade; but also, within all that, there is a wild joy rising in him: that he’s alive. That Geralt came for him. “My darling idiot,” he continues. “I knew all that. Of course I did. You say what you want to be true, not what actually is true. Witchers have no emotions. I want nobody. You’ve been full of shit from the minute I met you.”

For the first time, Geralt’s face, almost imperceptibly, starts to clear.

“That’s not to say I forgive you!” Jaskier clarifies, hastily. “You were an absolute arse, and you compounded your arseishness by finally living up to your responsibilities, finding your child surprise, and getting me in trouble at the same time. But considering how often I’ve got you into trouble over the years, we can probably call it even.”

“All right,” Geralt says. He grunts a little; he must be near out of words. “I know I’ve put you in danger. And it might make sense to stay here, at least till you’re better. But you don’t have to. Yennefer can get you to Oxenfurt, if you’d rather.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier says slowly. “Are you asking me to stay?”

Geralt looks up, then down, then sideways, like a trapped, panicking animal. It’d be adorable, if it weren’t so ridiculous. “Hmmm,” he says, the acknowledging hmmm, the one that means yes.

“I love you,” Jaskier says. He’s been tortured, he’s tired, he can’t be bothered to lie. “Of course I’ll stay.”

Geralt nods, decisively. He leans over, letting his lips press against Jaskier’s cheek for an instant, before pulling away as fast as witcher speed allows.

“Oh,” Jaskier says, feeling himself blush. “Is that, perchance, another thing you wanted to tell me?”

“You’re hurt,” Geralt says, the absolute fucker. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”

“Consider me very happily overwhelmed,” Jaskier says. He yawns before he can stop it. “I’m going to go to sleep now. And when I wake up we’re going to talk some more. Possibly not only in words.” He smiles at his witcher. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, Geralt, but you’re not ever getting rid of me. I’m staying whether you like it not.”

“I like it,” Geralt says solemnly, and the last thing Jaskier sees before he falls asleep are Geralt’s eyes, shining with an invitation he can’t wait to take him up on.