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Gods, he’s tired. The last thrum of adrenaline from performing finally escapes him and leaves the bard sprawled on the plush and warm inn bed it earned him. It’s one of the few nice inns they can stay at – with Jaskier’s performance bringing in enough crowds to earn their stay and the innkeep more than happy to accommodate the Witcher who’s clearing out a drowner nest on the edge of town.
Geralt hates it; the unnecessary opulence of the room, of a plush, goose-feather mattress and soft linen sheets, rich mahogany dressers and a desk, and a tub armed with oils and bathing salts already brought up and still warm.
He’s spent enough nights fitted into narrow, uncomfortable cots with torn and scratchy sheets, or on the side of the road with nothing for shelter. They can afford one nice luxury every so often. Jaskier drinks the last of his honeyed tea, humming as his throat cools and feels much better from spending several hours singing ballads and belting folk songs that locals cheered for.
He sinks back against the mound of soft pillows stacked against the headboard. With a lit and crackling hearth warming the room, Jaskier stretches out along the bed. Road-weary legs and blistered feet groan and ache as he relaxes.
He’s tired and his eyelids have been getting heavier and heavier with every passing minute. Sleep starts to slink out of the shadows within the corners of the room and begin to pull at him.
He can’t sleep. He rubs it from his eyes and winces at how difficult it is to keep them open. He can’t sleep because Geralt isn’t back yet. It was to be an easy and quick job. A small nest of drowners had been swept up along the river just outside of the town. While people kept inside of the walls, drifting from tavern to tavern to inn, Geralt was outside hunting.
He’s travelled with the Witcher for long enough to know that a small nest of drowners really is a quick and easy job – as quick and easy as slaying monsters can be, he supposes. Geralt seems to have the whole Witchering thing down. Drowners don’t tend to live in large numbers and a small nest will take only an hour at most to clear.
And he’s not entirely sure how much time has passed, but enough for Jaskier to get ready for his audience, perform until his throat was red and rasping and his legs ached from carrying him around the inn floor in between patrons.
Geralt had scolded him in the past for leaving where the Witcher leaves him. An inn is safe, as long as the bard’s eyes and hands and lips don’t wander. Not that it’s happened in a while. His heart belongs to Geralt, he’s sorry to say, even if the Witcher doesn’t seem to know what to do with it.
He really should tell him. Pick a date and tell him by then. But, gods alive, how does one even go about confessing their feelings to a man who struggles to acknowledge his own, or the fact that he even has any at all? A man who has been a travelling companion and muse and, dare he say, friend, for the better part of two years now; someone who has just gotten used to the fact that Jaskier is sticking around and can’t be shrugged off that easily? He’s a wordsmith, a poet, a bard – and he can’t think of where to even begin.
He won’t be able to sleep peacefully until Geralt is back. Past worries of the Witcher deciding to ditch the bard while he’s away are now replaced by imaginings of Geralt bleeding out somewhere, skin paling and life slowly starting to fade from his eyes.
Jaskier grips to his tea that bit tighter. Geralt isn’t dead. He isn’t hurt and bleeding in a ditch or bog somewhere. He will come back. But every minute that passes is longer than the last. Every footfall outside has him perking up – but he knows what pace Geralt’s sounds like. Other patrons return to their rooms, content with enough wine and ale in their blood and the last of their energy gone from singing and dancing with a travelling bard, and turn in the for the night. All the while, Jaskier, watching the door and the single window of their room, waits.
He drains the last of his tea and sets his cup away. Gods, he hates waiting. Waiting at a campfire is worse – flinching at every snapped twig or brush rustling around him, just outside of the glow of the fire and within the darkness that he can’t see anything in. Geralt usually leaves him with a blade, and he knows how to use it, but he’d prefer if it was the Witcher himself who stayed to make sure he was safe.
By the time he hears the familiar footfalls of a Witcher outside, Jaskier is fighting against tendrils of sleep threatening to drag him under. He perks up. The door creaks open and Jaskier can breathe that bit easier as Geralt steps inside.
Blue eyes frantically look over every inch of the man as he turns to gently close the door behind him. He can’t smell blood. That’s usually the first thing. Geralt isn’t favouring one leg over the other, or he’s not crumpling in on himself now that he’s finally out of the sight of the public.
Jaskier thanks every god he can remember the name of. He’s not hurt. The bard sits up. “Geralt,” he breathes, finding his chest can fill better now that the Witcher is back with him.
The man’s shoulders knit together. Geralt spends a bit longer at the shut door, head lowered and breathing level.
Jaskier’s brow furrows. “Geralt,” he tries again. “Are you alright?”
Where’s the closest healer? What if there is actually something wrong with his Witcher? Would the town’s healer even see to Geralt? There have been occasions in the past couple of years where they haven’t, all because Geralt is a Witcher. Someone who saved people’s sorry arses—
“I can hear you panicking.”
The words are Geralt’s. They don’t fall out of Jaskier’s lips and he’s pretty sure that there’s no one else in the room with them, so they must be from the Witcher. But the voice – the voice isn’t Geralt’s. It has a slightly familiar Kaedweni lull to it, Geralt’s accent, but the timbre is all wrong. It’s too low and rumbling and sounds like thunder.
Jaskier’s mouth hangs open for a moment. Nothing manages to get out. He’s gotten used to the Witcher being able to scent perfume on him after short-lived romps with nobles and maidens, even after he’s scrubbed his skin clean. Geralt knows how he breathes, how the rhythm of his heart sounds, what he smells like under all of the salt scrubs and lotions and scented oils he uses on his skin.
But he can hear his thoughts now? Gods...
Jaskier swallows around a lump in his throat. “Do you, uh,” he tries, “do you need any help? With your armour?”
There’s a long moment of silence that stretches out between them. Jaskier clears his throat to try and break it. The Witcher hunches in on himself. “Need to go.”
The words are so sharp and cut that Jaskier almost misses them. It’s almost swallowed by the hearth’s fire crackling and spitting.
Jaskier’s brow knits together. “What do you mean?” he asks, slipping over to the edge of the bed. The Witcher doesn’t turn around, even as Jaskier stands and takes a few tentative steps towards the man. “Are you hurt? Are townspeople after you? What happened Geralt? Tell me.”
Just as he’s an arm’s reach away, Geralt flinches. “Jaskier,” he forces out, turning away and out of Jaskier’s eyeline, “don’t. Just. You can’t stay here, with me. No, I, I need to go. Stay, I’ll leave—”
The bard’s frown only deepens. “Now, my dear Witcher,” he says, “wherever you go, I go. Are you in trouble? Did any rogue vagabonds get to you out there?”
Not that Geralt wouldn’t have a problem with forcing a group of rogues to lose interest in trying to raid and attack him.
In the soft glow of the hearths’ fire and candles scattered throughout the room, he catches sight of the Witcher’s skin. Pale and drained of all colour and like that of a wraith’s. Jaskier’s eyes widen. “Geralt, please,” he reaches out, catching the Witcher’s forearm, “are you hurt? Tell me. I can help you, please—”
Geralt rips his arm away. The Witcher had never been overly fond of touch, but a wrangled sound lurches out of the man’s throat as he all but darts away from Jaskier, keeping his back to the bard in some effort to get out of his eyeline.
The bard doesn’t chase after him. Quiet, tight sounds come from his Witcher and it cuts at Jaskier’s heart. Geralt reaches up. Pale fingers tremble as they cup and press down against his ears.
There’s a sharp smell in the room, left behind after the Geralt as he escapes into another part of the room. It’s acrid and stings the inside of Jaskier’s nostrils and something underneath all of it smells strangely familiar.
“Geralt,” Jaskier tries again, mindful to keep his voice softer than usual. “Geralt, is it your potions? Have they done something to you?”
Kiss and Swallow have saved his life in the past. Fumbling fingers belonging to the bard have set the edges of the expertly prepared vials against the Witcher’s numb and still lips. He’s seen most of the effects of countless concoctions. Vials of sharp, citrus-scented potions that have stopped Geralt from bleeding out, even if his skin and muscle is torn by a talon or claw or blade. Acrid and herby potions he necks when bitten by ghouls or jabbed by manticore stingers. But nothing has ever turned his skin this white, this pale.
If he’s toxic, then Jaskier can help. He’s been told what to do. He doesn’t even wait for the Witcher to respond. There are always vials of potions left in Jaskier’s bag, just in case Geralt’s supply runs out. White Honey. It’s the smallest vial in his pack, but the strongest. One drop will rid Geralt’s blood of alcohol, when the man occasionally can drink himself drunk. Downing the whole glass vial will purge whatever toxic mix is curdling inside of Geralt’s veins.
If he could get the Witcher to look at him, this would be easier. The room is opulent and cast in gold and silks, but not that large. It doesn’t take much to trail after the man and reach for his wrist. Geralt watches him out of the corner of his eye.
“Easy,” Jaskier hums, lifting his hands. Blackened eyes regard him and the small vial caught in his hand. “Why don’t you sit down, hmm? I can help. You’re in pain, darling. Let me help you.”
He’s helped in the past. Cuts sewn up and bruises laced and padded with poultices. He’s gotten good at looking after his Witcher. This is just something new to familiarise himself with.
Through the faint glow of the hearth and candlelight, Jaskier makes out thin spindling black lines sprawled throughout the Witcher’s pale skin. His eyes have changed. Any of the gold and amber that Jaskier finds so interesting and loves about the man has been swallowed whole by black.
Black Blood. Jaskier expression softens. “Come on, Witcher dear,” he murmurs to the man. Gesturing to the edge of the bed, not only a few shuffled steps away from Geralt, Jaskier’s voice turns that bit gentler. “Let’s get you feeling better, hmm?”
He still holds himself so tightly, flinching as Jaskier steps towards him. A pained expression flashes on Geralt’s face. A plume of noise works its way up through the floorboards. Crowds that aren’t finished drinking and talking yet. A sharp crowed laugh has Geralt wincing and ducking his head, letting strands of white hair fall and shield his face.
His hands stay firmly over his ears. Jaskier’s brows knit together before he realises.
Oh.
Geralt, to his credit, shuffles over to the edge of the bed and perches on it. As soon as he’s sitting, he closes his eyes and breathes as steadily as he can. Geralt has wandered back to him pale and bloodied before, clutching at his side or chest or shoulder. A few quick potions swallowed in one gulp and he’s always right as rain.
Jaskier’s chest aches as he watches the Witcher wince at every little sound. He’s mindful of his voice – a quiet murmur must sound like a roar. “Do you need anything?” he whispers, shuffling over kneel in front of the man. Would food help? Something plain, maybe. He’s sure he can get a plate of a few potatoes and broth together—
Geralt makes a tight noise. “Can hear your heart,” he groans, pressing his hands against his ears. “Breath. Thoughts. Everything. Downstairs is too loud. Make them stop. Please.”
He’s never heard that word from the Witcher before, and he’s never heard that voice either. Jaskier’s heart just about shatters in his chest as he stands. The tavern has livened up again. Whether a new round of ale and mead has started to flow or a new minstrel has begun to lure the crowd back into song, even Jaskier can hear people moving around and chattering. Gods only know what it must sound like to Geralt.
Right.
Jaskier makes a quiet noise. “Give me a moment, dear, and I’ll sort them out,” he murmurs. “I’ll be back soon. Until then, get yourself into bed, get comfortable.”
Geralt will be alright for a moment. That’s all Jaskier needs. It’s not until he’s out of their shared room and halfway down the hallway does he realise he didn’t bother with putting his boots back on. He can only assume what kind of sight he makes; sleep shirt loose around his neck, a travel-worn pair of breeches, and barefoot. But it doesn’t stop him from moving.
His poor Witcher, poisoned and suffering the after-effects of it. The least this forgettable town on the edge of nowhere can do is be considerate—
Jaskier steps downstairs with a huff. He catches the attention of those seated nearest to the stairs, sailors and farmers blinking at him for a moment before turning back to their drinks and dinners. Jaskier sets his hands onto his hips. “Right,” he says shortly.
A passing tavernmaid ambles to his side, hands laden with tankards and plates perfectly balanced on one of her arms. “You ‘right, lad?” she asks, the usual dialect of this side of the Continent lulling through her voice.
A pretty thing. If he wasn’t so focused on the Witcher upstairs and his wellbeing, he might have promised her a song and a dance. But he lets out a sharp sigh. “My companion is ill and this lot is being far too loud to let him sleep.”
Her brows knit together for a moment before realisation flashes over her face. “Oh, the Witcher! Of course, lad. I’ll sort it out.”
Sorting it out, it happens, means a loud booming voice thunders through the tavern’s floor, quietening the rumble of noise that had been there, and catching the attention of everyone gathered around tables and halfway through playing games of gwent with each other.
“Oi!” she calls out, “list’n to the bard for a moment, will ye?”
Jaskier blinks as the woman turns to him, a sort of there you go look etched into her round face. “Thank you, darling,” he says. His fingers press into his hips as dozens of eyes turn on to him. “Now listen here; you contacted my companion because you needed a chronic drowner problem dealt with. He dealt with it. He’s ill from his potions and upstairs trying to sleep it off, and how can he, when you’re all being this loud?”
A wall of silence meets him as people blink. Some let their heads drop, taking more interest in fidgeting with their tankard of ale than look at him. He imagines what he must look like. Still, he squares his shoulders. “He came all this way to this town to help you, and I’m asking that you be considerate of his wellbeing. He’s exhausted. He dealt with your problem. And he’s sick. So, be quiet.”
A few murmured words wash through the tavern. Jaskier’s frown tightens. “If I hear so much of a whisper down here, may the gods have mercy on your souls,” he says primly.
Someone joins his side. The tavernmaid from before folds her arms over her chest. She’s at least a head shorter than him and thin as a blade of grass, but he doesn’t miss the way the more hardened, weather-worn sailors nearby almost stand to attention as she puffs out her chest. “Got it?” she says sternly.
A chorus of aye, Miss Mara laps back at him, but Jaskier takes it anyway.
Alright then. Jaskier inclines his head and turns on his heel. Gods he hopes Geralt managed to get the rest of his clothes off by himself. Maybe he should have stayed, helped him to bed first before storming off and threatening half a small fishing town in his name.
He’s hardly taken one step of the stairs before his wrist is caught by a gentle hand. He blinks at the sight of the tavernmaid – Mara – smiling shyly at him. Her other hand fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “Mast’r bard, could you tell your Witcher friend that we’re grateful for his time?” she asks. “Drown’rs have made our lives here a misery. The Witcher’s payment will be waitin’ for him here in the mornin’. I promise.”
Her hand falls away and Jaskier flashes her a bright smile. “Of course, darling, I will. Thank you.”
It’s a quiet walk back to his room and, thankfully, he can’t hear a sound behind him from downstairs. If someone as small as Mara, who contains such a threatening and no-nonsense aura, can hold a town by its neck with just an assured stand and voice, he’d love to see her rule a city or country.
He’s mindful of the door’s lock opening and shutting behind him as he slips back into the room. The candles have been snuffed out, with the only glow of light coming from the lit hearth across the room. Jaskier eyes have to adjust to the darkened room for a moment, but he makes out the edge of the furniture pressed along the walls and the bed, including the blanket-covered mound tucked on top of it.
Jaskier’s chest loosens slightly at the sight of Geralt curled into himself. Most of his clothes are slumped into a pile on the floor – not unusual from what the Witcher usually does. His armour, though, is strewn along the ground. Jaskier takes the floor one floorboard at a time, wincing slightly at every occasional creak. Geralt must be awake. If he could hear Jaskier’s heart beating—
He picks up what armour he can, setting it aside and onto a nearby chair. Geralt doesn’t usually give a shit about his clothes, happy to wear the same shirt and breeches until they can’t be sewn back together anymore, but his armour needs to be cared for. He’s always so meticulous about fixing it and making sure it’s up to its job. Jaskier has been with knights and soldiers who are just as particular about their armour and weapons.
Once everything is set away, he takes stock of the room. Even the fire knows not to crackle or spit, disturbing the quiet that has settled over the room. Jaskier tries his best to shuffle across the room, aiming for his side of the bed. But as soon as he catches the edge of the blanket, he pauses.
The mound already curled up and dozing on the bed speaks. “What is it?” Geralt rumbles, voice low and rumbling like thunder. The sound of it almost goes right through Jaskier.
The bard swallows thickly, wincing at the fact that Geralt must have heard it. “Do you want me to—uh, I can sleep on the floor if you like? I took a bath and I know you don’t usually like my soaps. I don’t know what they must smell like now to you in this state. You know what? I can just get another room. I’m sure more are left—”
“Jaskier.” The Witcher’s voice is stern and clipped and low. Jaskier swallows. The man has his whole attention just by stating his name. It’s always been bard on their travels. With the Witcher turned away from him, he can’t gauge the man’s reaction or his emotions. Not that it was an easy feat anyway; Geralt is as readable as a blank page of paper.
The bard’s chest tightens. “Yes?”
An arm breaks free of the cocoon of blankets the Witcher has bound around himself, staving off the rest of the world. He lifts up the other side, baring the mattress and the pillow. Jaskier swallows. It looks soft. He remembers how soft and comfortable and plush that mattress was to lounge in. And now it has the familiar warmth of the Witcher’s body in it—
“Get in.”
Oh. Alright. Got it. Jaskier slips inside the sheets. The bed is big enough to comfortably fit both of them without having to be pressed up against each other. Usually, their bed-sharing has ended with being uncomfortably warm in the morning, or, mortifyingly, one of Jaskier’s arms or legs strewn over the Witcher and his nose buried into the man’s nape.
He settles down, looking right up at the ceiling and waiting sleep to take him. He’s tired. His bones ache from performing and his throat thrums with that familiar warm pain that usually comes to him after a night of singing getting a tavern to crow along with him.
And he’s aware of the man beside him. Geralt trembles slightly, curled in on himself as toxins work their way out of his veins. He’s never seen the Witcher this ill with it before, and he doesn’t know how long the potions will take to get out of him. Maybe he’ll be well again by the morning. If they have to stay for a few more hours, just until he’s happy that Geralt can be back on the road again, then they’ll do it.
Jaskier’s chest tightens at the thought of the Witcher doing all of this alone. In a time before having a travelling companion, what did he do? The image of Geralt having to weather an assault of noise and light alone doesn’t sit right with him at all.
“Do you need anything?” Jaskier murmurs, willing himself to turn his head and look at Geralt. The tendrils of black veins scrawled across his skin have dimmed slightly, but his skin is still too pale, and he shudders with every churn of his stomach and clench of his muscles as his body wills the toxins to get out.
Geralt’s brow furrows. He takes a steadying breath. Before Jaskier can look back up at the ceiling, reserved to try and go to sleep and let the Witcher be, the bed shifts and suddenly a warm, familiar weight is claiming one side of him.
Oh—
Jaskier blinks as Geralt curls around him, burrowing his nose into the hollow of Jaskier’s neck, taking in breaths of scent and letting it fill his senses. His arm curls around Jaskier’s middle, firm and tugging him close – not that Jaskier would want to be anywhere else. He always sleeps that bit better with Geralt curled around him; even when they have to pull apart and awkwardly shuffle away from each other in the following morning.
He’s an armful of Witcher by the time Geralt finally settles. The trembles shaking through him ebb away slightly as he burrows into Jaskier’s side, hiding his face in the bard’s neck and slinging an arm and leg over him, keeping him to the bed. There isn’t a reason to keep the blankets over them anymore. They’re just going to get too warm. But neither of them makes a move to throw them away.
Jaskier’s throat bobs. “You just want this?” he murmurs, mindful of how sensitive the man’s ears are going to be. “To be held?”
There’s a muffled murmur against his neck. “Smell nice,” Geralt mutters, “familiar. Like it.”
Jaskier blinks. Okay. This is fine.
An arm curls around Geralt’s shoulders, holding him close. If the Witcher just wants to be held for the night, while the potions wear off, then he’ll do it; completely selflessly, because Geralt needs it and he asked, and he’s a good friend.
He almost trips over the word. Friend. This is what friends do – they look out for each other. And sometimes they comment on the fact that their friend smells nice and they like it, and just want to spend the night breathing it in to calm them down from potion toxicity—
This is fine.
Jaskier’s eyelids grow heavy. Sleep starts to tug at him. Geralt grows heavy in his arms. Tremors slowly start to ebb away as he tumbles down to sleep. Even if the Witcher only gets a few hours, it’ll be enough for him. Maybe he can meditate later – when he wakes up before Jaskier and sees himself in the man’s arms.
The bard takes a steadying breath. Calm down. Geralt can already hear every skipped beat in his heart. There’s no point in panicking. All he can do is let himself sink into the mattress, held there by his Witcher, letting sleep shroud over him and tug him under.