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It isn’t until he catches sight of the inn that the shaking starts, rattling his bones so hard that he hits the ground, folding like a doll.
He catches himself–barely–with his arms, and curls into himself like a wounded thing, rocking back and forth. His chest feels too tight, and sound is coming to him in muffled waves, and suddenly all he can feel is terror at the night around him, at the openness and hidden places both. He clenches his eyes shut against the memory of how it feels to watch an ax swinging towards his head and bites his lip against the scream or wail or plea that wants to rise. On his knees, he rocks himself. It’s a frantic, shaking thing and not a soothing motion, but he can’t quite get himself to stop.
What makes it worse is the knowledge of safety so close, the awareness that within two minutes he could be safely in a room, within four he could be tucked against a wall with a large body between him and the world that feels all too dangerous now.
“Ge-” He wheezes, unable to catch his breath. It’s a force of habit, calling for the witcher when he’s frightened, and apparently that extends to when the danger is only in his own head, his own memories. “Ger-” He tries again, but it’s far too quiet, even for enhanced ears.
There’s also the little whisper in the back of his head that reminds him that Geralt hasn’t always stood between him and the world, that there was a time, not long ago at all, that Geralt walked away and didn’t return until he was useful again.
He would protect him, sure, but why?
That thought wrenches a thin, keening wail from his chest, and he tries desperately to drown the thought, clenching his eyes shut. No, no, he knows better than to think those thoughts. He’s worked so fucking hard on destroying them each time they arise. He can’t afford to think those thoughts, can’t afford to doubt.
Geralt’s here. He’s here now. Jaskier is back by his side, and it’s great. It’s all great.
And yet he didn’t pry when you said you had something to do, whispers that treacherous voice. You would never have let him go without explaining himself, but he didn’t even watch you leave the room. You told him two days at most, it hisses, and they had you for five.
He chokes on air at that, and he feels the first hot tears spilling over. He can’t even coordinate his body enough to reach up and wipe them away, so he tries to lean forward so the tears will drop vertically, an old trick he learned as a child that he’s employed over and over since. No puffy face for him, no sir. It’s fine. It’s all fine.
He’s just so very fucking fine.
*
He loses track of time a bit, huddled on the ground. He tries to will his body to move, his legs to pick him up. He’ll get back to the room, he’ll rest, he’ll move on.
He just has to make his body follow through on the plan.
The Scoia’tael had offered him an escort back, but he’d declined under the excuse that their forces were best used elsewhere so he wouldn’t have to risk having this exact meltdown in front of an audience, especially not when so much rides on them seeing him only as the character he’s created.
With the cold of the ground sinking into his body, however, he’s beginning to think it might have been worth taking the hit to his reputation.
“C’mon Jask,” he tries to say as bracingly as he can. He needs to get himself back in order, both to get inside and to keep his shit together once he’s managed the first bit.
They haven’t spoken of his extracurricular activities, and to him, at least, it’s become something of a battle of wills with Geralt. He’s given the witcher so many easy answers over the years. A petty, bitter little part of him makes him want to make the man work for it for once.
(The other part of him wants to throw himself at Geralt and wrap himself up in inhumanly strong arms until the world doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming).
He would have thought Geralt would have asked about what he gets up to on these little field trips of his. It’s not something he did before, leaving for a few days at a time and then returning. After the witcher had stopped trying to ditch him in year three, they’d stayed together for almost the full year of hunting unless Jaskier had a festival or competition that wasn’t near something Geralt could kill. Now, however, four months after their spring departure from Kaer Morhen, he flits away to go Sandpipering and then returns, and Geralt doesn’t ask anything at all.
And it only bothers him a whole fucking lot.
The irritation at least helps the world come slightly more into focus, and he finally has enough strength to push himself up to sit on his knees. He rests his hands on his thighs in an imitation of the way he’s seen Geralt meditate under the vague thought that perhaps there will be something soothing in the gesture. There isn’t, but enough time lets him finally stagger to his feet.
Still shaky, he manages to get into the inn and slip through a backdoor that he bribed to stay open for him. He has to take a breather in the dark, empty bar downstairs, and he tries very hard not to think about how many enemies the shadows could be hiding.
He all but sprints up the stairs after he fails entirely at not thinking about it.
The relief of spotting the door of their shared room threatens to send him to his knees once more with relief, and he takes a moment to collect himself, no matter how much he wants to bolt into the safety of Geralt’s immediate presence.
He hasn’t quite managed it when the door swings open, and the man himself appears in the doorway. He’s across the hall staggeringly fast, and Jaskier feels a little dizzy after witnessing it, so much so that he doesn’t first register one large hand turning his chin this way and that while another pats down his sides.
“...hands,” he manages after a stunned moment, the extent of his ability to form words currently.
“What hurts? What’s wrong?” Geralt asks, not responding at all.
Before he can even begin to work through that series of words in that order, he’s suddenly aloft, held in strong arms, and Geralt has him back in the room with the door kicked shut in the space of three breaths. Blinking owlishly, he finds himself set down on the bed gently, Geralt kneeling in front of him, gold eyes intent and searching.
“You smell like terror,” Geralt says, and now that he’s not so focused on staying upright, he can hear a thread of tension in the man’s voice. “What happened? Why were you late? Is someone after you?”
It’s a stunning number of questions for Geralt to ask at once, and before he knows he’s going to do it, Jaskier’s laughing. Even under his own residual daze, he can hear the strain in it, the fragile shell of mirth hiding lingering terror.
Geralt’s face goes visibly more tense, and somehow that makes him laugh all the harder. How absurd, this entire situation. He’s fine now. He doesn’t need Geralt’s worry, not when it’s too fucking late to be of any use to him.
He opens his mouth to say exactly this, to be biting and sharp like Geralt is when he wants inquiring minds to leave him be. It’ll be good for him, a dose of his own medicine.
“Where were you?” He hears himself say, voice cracking. “Where the fuck were you?”
His laughter dissolves into a choked sob, and he folds forward, resting his head on one strong shoulder before the shaking overtakes him again, and he all but slides off of the bed. He expects Geralt to leave him down there, to rise and get himself ready for bed and leave Jaskier to work out his dramatics on his own.
Instead, strong arms come around him, and a warm, slightly bristly cheek, comes to rest at his temple.
“I’m sorry,” Geralt says, voice husky. “Fuck, Jaskier. I’m sorry.”
Jaskier, for his part, trembles and cries and gives into the slow rocking he’s led into, one hand making slow circles on his back in a pattern that feels damnably similar to when Geralt’s trying to soothe Roach.
*
Without his ability to avoid tear tracks with his special technique, he knows his face must be abominably puffy when he finally calms enough to sit back. He feels lighter, from his chest outwards, but he also feels so fucking exhausted that he floppily obeys when Geralt shifts him to sit back against the edge of the bed. The witcher brushes one of his cheeks with a thumb, and the gesture is so unexpected and sweet that it almost sets him off again.
Luckily for his own nerves, Geralt rolls smoothly to his feet and moves briskly to the other side of the room. Letting his head loll lazily back against the mattress, Jaskier half-watches him bustle about, his back too broad to let him glimpse what he’s actually doing.
When he returns, he has a wet cloth and two glass vials along with a little jar of what Jaskier knows is honey. Geralt settles beside him and unscrews the first vial, lifting out the dropper.
Jaskier opens his mouth meekly enough, and in a lighter, less drained frame of mind, he might make a joke about baby birds and babying bards. Even amidst his exhaustion, the extreme concentration on Geralt’s face as he deposits a dropperful of the contents from each of the bottles on his tongue is amusing. He makes a face on reflex to the bitter, astringent taste, and then Geralt’s hand is hovering once more with a small jar of honey. Jaskier raises an amused eyebrow even as he tips his head back farther to accept a little dribble.
“Thanks,” he mumbles as he works it around his mouth, the sweetness chasing away the bitter. He tilts his head towards the bottles in a silent question, and it makes him feel a way he doesn’t quite have the words for that Geralt picks up on it at once.
“Passionflower,” he says, touching one. “Skullcap,” he says, touching the other.
Jaskier tilts his head in another question. Geralt fidgets slightly, shifting his weight.
“You haven’t been sleeping well,” he says carefully. “And you’ve smelled…stressed, recently.”
Jaskier snorts. Stressed is an understatement for how he’s felt in recent memory.
“They needed time to infuse,” Geralt says with something like apology. “And I wanted to ask a few healers what would work best for a human before I gave them to you.”
Jaskier blinks.
“You asked healers about me?”
Geralt looks suddenly very involved in setting the little bottles beside each other precisely.
“You’ve never needed-” He cuts himself off, and Jaskier catches the little furrow of his brow that means he’s realized at the last second that what he was about to say wouldn’t be quite right. “You’ve only ever been hurt physically before. I didn’t have anything else in our supplies.”
The thoughtless use of “our” feels a bit like someone is closing a hand around his throat, and he makes himself not focus on it for the sake of not making another damp patch on Geralt’s shirt.
“Drugging me back into my perky self?” Jaskier asks. He was aiming for levity, but he lands somewhere around bitter.
Geralt looks at him then, frowning. He opens his mouth to say something, but he apparently thinks better of it, because he shakes his head slightly and then stands, reaching down to haul Jaskier up as well. He sways slightly once he’s up, and Geralt obligingly lends his strength as he gets his wits about him. Whatever they are, the contents of Geralt’s little bottles are apparently effective, and he can feel his muscles loosening, releasing some of their tension. He feels heavy, suddenly, and he sags a bit, more calm than he has been in days.
He manages to sit himself down on the bed again, but anything beyond that seems like an inhumanly impossible task.
“Let me,” Geralt says quietly, before he’s kneeling once more, unlacing Jaskier’s boots and pulling them off. When he pulls the second one off, the sock goes with it, and Geralt freezes when he catches sight of ugly purple bruising around Jaskier’s ankle. For his own part, Jaskier frowns at it. He has a vague memory of his foot twisting beneath him when he fell at some point during the battle, but he’s been running on both adrenaline and exhaustion since, and it’s only been a distant thought.
Without the pressure of his boot around it, however, he can feel the first throbs, and he hisses when Geralt cups his heel in one palm and carefully tests his range of motion.
“A sprain,” Geralt diagnoses. He looks to Jaskier then, golden eyes something rather like accusation. “A bad one.”
Jaskier returns the look with silence, and finally Geralt breaks with a small sigh, pushing himself to his knees and rummaging through his packs again. He returns with a tin of balm and a roll of bandages, and Jaskier watches him gently dab it on the angry swelling before wrapping it all up firmly.
“Too tight?” He asks when he’s done, and Jaskier shakes his head, stifling a yawn. The attempt softens something in Geralt’s eyes, and the witcher shuffles him over to the side against the wall, helping him to wriggle the blanket from under him and draw it up. His body feels like it weighs four times more than usual, and he can feel sleep already reaching for him.
He’s out before Geralt even finishes putting his supplies away.
*
He wakes the next morning feeling better-rested than he has in weeks, if not months, and he stretches with a yawn, wincing when it jars his ankle. The pain brings him back to the present, and he sits up sharply, remembering his breakdown the night before.
Geralt, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, pauses in sharpening his dagger and raises one brow.
“Morning,” the witcher says, no inflection in the word at all.
“Morning,” Jaskier returns after a moment, growing more embarrassed about his own behavior by the moment. In the light of dawn–well, he notes with surprise, mid-day to judge by the sunlight coming through the window–his little show seems absurd, and he braces himself for a snide comment about it.
Instead, Geralt rises and moves to his supplies, digging out the same balm and bottles from last night. Jaskier watches him as he approaches, and the witcher hesitates for a moment when he reaches the bed.
“Your ankle,” he says, nodding to it. “It could use another dose.” He lifts the tin like he needs to explain what he’s referencing.
Slowly, Jaskier pulls his leg from under the covers and extends it to be within Geralt’s reach. The witcher hands him the little bottles before he sets to working on the wrappings.
“One dropperful of each,” the witcher instructs. Jaskier contemplates arguing on principle or demanding an explanation of why he’s being dosed in the first place, but the relief from the night before had been incredible, and he decides to pick that particular fight another day. He swirls the honey around in his mouth as Geralt inspects his ankle and then wraps it up once more after applying a fresh layer of the balm.
“It’s late,” he observes neutrally as he hands the bottles back over. The witcher got slightly more lenient in their years together about his wake-up calls, but Jaskier’s never allowed to use this much of the day sleeping unless he’s practically on death’s door, and he doesn’t think a busted ankle would normally make the cut.
“You needed the sleep,” Geralt offers over his shoulder, voice completely neutral.
“Give me a moment, and we can leave,” he says, swinging his legs carefully over the edge.
“No,” Geralt says, turning back and resting his weight against the side table, crossing his arms across his chest. “You should rest more.”
Jaskier feels his face heat.
Apparently Geralt has decided on the approach more obnoxious than dickish comments in response to his being injured: babying him.
“I’m fine,” he says, barely shy of a snap. He pushes himself to his feet resolutely, ignoring the way his body still feels residually achy from the tension he’s carried himself with for the past few days. He starts to move to his bags but finds himself blocked by Geralt. He looks up, scowling. “Move.”
“You’re exhausted,” Geralt says flatly, jaw set. Jaskier resists the urge to stomp. When the witcher takes on that particular expression, there’s no force of will on earth that’s going to move him.
He’ll be damned if he doesn’t try, though.
“Like that’s ever stopped me before,” he scoffs, trying to move around.
Geralt takes a sidestep to block his way.
“Get back in bed, Jaskier.”
And oh, if the command in that doesn’t go right to fanning the flames of his irritation.
“You’re not my mother,” he grits out, giving Geralt an ineffectual shove that still feels quite satisfying. “Let’s get on the fucking road.”
“We’re not going anywhere until you’ve had some time to rest,” Geralt maintains, not even swaying when Jaskier repeats the blow. “You look like shit. Go back to sleep.”
Jaskier can feel his ears heating in response to his rising temper.
“I’m not yours to order about, witcher,” he says, choosing the word specifically to indicate how close he is to full anger. “Order your child of surprise about if you want to feel nurturing so fucking badly.”
They’d separated from Ciri and Yennefer five weeks ago to let them do some witch-y training they wouldn’t be able to help with, and clearly Geralt’s newfound caretaking instinct is itching from withdrawals.
It certainly never made an appearance before, not for him.
(He ruthlessly shoves down memories of larger portions of hunts and warm cloaks spread over him on cold nights and steady hands tending his fevers). (They’d tortured him after the mountain, those little snapshots of something that had felt so close to love). (He’s tried his best not to think about them ever since).
“I’m not going to keep watching you run yourself into the ground, Jaskier,” Geralt says, stepping forward in what seems to be an attempt to herd him back to bed.
Jaskier stands his ground, even as they come nearly chest-to-chest.
“Since when do you give a shit?” Jaskier asks with a bark of a laugh. He sees a muscle tic in Geralt’s jaw. “If I’m holding you back, just say it.” He nearly says ‘ If I’m a burden, just say it,’ but he’s heard Geralt say as much before, and he doesn’t know if he’d survive hearing it a second time.
“It’s not about holding me back,” Geralt says, sounding almost offended at the idea. “You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up. I know you don’t want to tell me what you’re up to-”
“Don’t want to tell you?” Jaskier interrupts, incredulous. “You haven’t fucked asked!”
Geralt blinks, clearly surprised. His face scrunches slightly with consternation, and Jaskier wishes he didn’t look so fucking endearing doing it.
“You always…” He trails off, head tilting slightly. “You didn’t say anything. I thought you didn’t want me to know.”
Jaskier stares at him.
“Were you always this fucking stupid?”
Geralt narrows his eyes at that, but he doesn’t rise to the insult, instead returning to his plan of trying to move Jaskier back to the bed. He tries to continue resisting, but finally with a huff of impatience, Geralt picks him up under his arms like a toddler and carries him.
“Put me down!” He demands, slapping at Geralt’s ears. There are few enough ways to discombobulate a witcher, but he knows how delicate Geralt’s senses are when it comes to his equilibrium. Geralt drops him onto the bed hard enough that he bounces and then steps back a half-pace, rubbing a hand over one ear resentfully. When Jaskier attempts to spring back up, he finds himself held down with one large, implacable hand over his chest.
“Stay.” Geralt says, a clear command, and Jaskier brings one knee up to try and catch him in the jaw.
It doesn’t work, and the only thing he achieves is jolting his own ankle and sending a lightning strike of pain up his leg.
He hisses through his teeth and gives up his fight, bringing his leg up to clutch at the throbbing ineffectually.
“Easy,” Geralt coaxes, one warm hand resting over Jaskier’s own. “Let me find you something for the pain.”
Even through the discomfort, Jaskier rolls his eyes as the witcher begins to turn away.
“Are you looking to become a nursemaid?” He asks with as much derision as he can manage. “Is this you putting in practice with me?”
He sees the witcher’s jaw clench, but Geralt doesn’t respond as he rattles around in his bag. Jaskier holds his peace while the witcher pours some herbs into a pot and then fills it with water, casting Igni on the logs in the room’s hearth with enough power to have it bright and snapping in mere moments. It’s all clearly an avoidance tactic, this show of business, but Jaskier is in enough pain to allow it.
He holds his peace until the tea is finally ready, and he even lets Geralt help him back up to drink it, even if he shoves the witcher’s hand away as soon as he can. He sips the liquid–nearly scalding, cooled only slightly by a splash of water from one of their waterskins–and Geralt watches him in a silence that would be unnerving if he didn’t have so many years of experience with it. When he’s done, he attempts to hand over the cup, but Geralt doesn’t take it.
“You need to tell me what you’ve been doing,” the witcher says.
Jaskier tilts his chin up to his most arrogant angle.
“And if I refuse?” He demands imperiously. He’s wanted for so long to unload his worry, his stress, his fear, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, he resents Geralt’s confidence that he’s going to get the information he wants so easily.
Jaskier doesn’t give of himself like that. Not anymore.
“I’m worried about you,” Geralt says tersely, and that’s surprising enough to make Jaskier frown. The faintest little flicker of a smile flits across the witcher’s face. “Is that such a surprise?”
Jaskier looks at him for a long, long moment.
“Do you know what firefucker did to me?” He says at last, and Geralt’s face crinkles with confusion. “You didn’t ask, after all.”
“You…” Geralt trails off, tilting his head. “You didn’t say anything about it. Yen saved you.”
Jaskier scoffs.
“After the first little getting to know you activity.”
Geralt goes tense at that, no matter the levity he tried to say it with.
“What did he do?” He demands, and he sees the witcher’s hand twitch like he wants to grab a sword.
(He ignores the stupid way his foolish little heart warms at the sight, at the suggestion that Geralt might still be capable of violence on his behalf).
“Doesn’t matter,” Jaskier responds, trying to remain nonchalant. He’s had time to let the scars of that experience heal over–emotionally, at least, the physical ones healed by Yennefer’s magic and many tense, flinching nights in her room–and he’s not keen to scratch at them again. “Didn’t stop me from helping you, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Geralt says, leaning forward. “Jaskier, you have to tell me these th-”
“And why’s that?” Jaskier demands, irritated. “You’ve already made it plain how you feel about having to handle all of my shit. Gods forbid I shovel more on you.” The choice of wording is very deliberate, and he sees the slightest flinch when Geralt registers it at once.
Geralt studies him, so long that he only barely resists the urge to squirm.
“I thought about that fucking mountain every single day,” Geralt says finally, and Jaskier can’t help but roll his eyes.
“And what? You thought I just fucked off on my way whistling a jaunty tune?” He’d laid on that mountain and cried until he’d choked and wondered if he was ever going to find the strength to rise once more.
“Jaskier,” Geralt says with a tone that he doesn’t recognize. The witcher sits up properly then, and Jaskier jumps when one hand rests on his knee, squeezing lightly. “I didn’t mean it, not any of it.”
Tears prick his eyes then, and he blinks rapidly in an attempt to stop them.
“You still said them,” he says in a near-whisper, throat tight. “And then you left me alone. And you didn’t come back for me, not until you had a use for me.”
Geralt bows his head at that, and Jaskier has the mad thought that this must be what a priest is used to seeing, a penitent’s head bent before them, seeking absolution.
(He wants so badly to give in and be cleansed in turn, but the treacherous little whisper in his head reminds him of how it felt to have to drag an apology out).
“I have never deserved you,” Geralt says quietly, head still lowered. “I know that, Jaskier. I’ve always known that.”
“I’m not a prize,” Jaskier says, no small trace of resentment in his tone. He knows the way so many view him: a pretty fuck, something to be collected for a night and then discarded.
He just hadn’t thought Geralt saw him the same way.
“No,” Geralt agrees, and he looks up then. “You’re a blessing, the best thing life has ever put in my path.”
Oh.
It takes conscious effort to make himself breathe evenly, and he has the mad thought that perhaps he did die on that field after all, an ax buried into his pretty face.
But Geralt’s hand tracing up his arm, his shoulder, his throat, to rest gently against his cheek, feels so gloriously unbelievable that he thinks that perhaps death has its perks if he has indeed passed to the Great Beyond.
“I am so afraid of the things I have to lose,” Geralt says, voice rough. “I have never had good things like you before, not in a life like mine. I didn’t…I don’t know how to handle it. I thought it would be easier, sending you away before you could be taken. But it was a mistake, Jaskier, one that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.” Geralt’s face is so earnest that Jaskier almost wants to cry, and he cups one hand over Geralt’s against his face to ground himself by pressing it against his skin harder. If this all goes to shit, if Geralt snaps out of whatever this little spell is and storms off, he wants this, to know what it feels like to be precious, even if it was only for a moment.
“I love you,” he says in a rushed whisper, closing his eyes so he won’t have to see Geralt’s face twist with revulsion or rejection. “Even when I wanted to hate you, I loved you. You’re like a piece of me, and you ripped me apart on that mountain.”
He jumps a bit when Geralt’s hand comes up to his cheek on the other side and his head is pulled forward to rest against the witcher’s.
“I…” Geralt starts, and Jaskier can feel when he takes a massive breath like he’s readying for battle. It makes him snort a bit, and he can sense the little twist of Geralt’s lips in response. The witcher’s forehead leaves his for a moment, and he feels a lingering kiss pressed to his forehead. “I love you, too,” he says at last. “Even when it scares me. Even when we fight. Even when I shove my head up my own ass so far it’s a miracle I ever get it out again.”
Jaskier laughs at that, and he opens his eyes to find Geralt looking at him with so much tender affection that it makes his chest ache faintly. Slowly, so, so slowly, he leans in and presses his lips to Geralt’s gently. It’s a sweet, lingering thing, chaste but still enough to send little flickers of sensation through his whole body. When they part, he folds forward to rest his face in the crook of Geralt’s neck, breathing in the reassuring smell of him deeply, like he can fill his lungs with it and keep it forever.
“Now,” Geralt says, bringing one hand up to press against his back, grounding and steadying, “will you tell me what the fuck you’ve been doing?”
And Jaskier, still pressed close, does.
“
There’s a world outside of this room, he knows. It’s full of dangers and ignorance and pain. There will be more days he feels like he can’t fucking do it anymore, more moments where he just wants to give up. There will be arguments and hurtful words and storming off and stupid arguments about whether butter is an essential purchase or not.
But for now, there are strong arms around his waist and a solid chest beneath his cheek and a slow heart beating a steady rhythm beneath his ear. He sighs in mingled contentment and relief, eyes closing, and he smiles to himself when he feels the first faint rumble of a purr, a biological quirk that Geralt has never done while conscious around him before.
There is suffering, out in the world.
But in this room, in this beautiful, precious moment, there’s only him and Geralt.
And love.
Impossible, wonderful, unbelievable love.