Chapter Text
What Jaskier had missed on the day they’d temporarily conquered Ard Carraigh comes to him suddenly on a sunny autumn day.
He’s just lounging in the herb garden, enjoying some of the last few warm sun rays of the year, when he hears Eskel’s strangled shout for him.
“Jaskier!”
He jumps off, rushing through the archway that leads him directly to the entry courtyard of the keep, though he stops dead when he sees what might be the source of Eskel’s panicked yell.
There is a treasure wagon in the courtyard, and through the open gates of the keep, he can see a line of other wagons, not just enclosed ones, filled to the brim with what appears to be anything ranging from bolts of wool and silk to grain and to, slightly confusingly, two goats.
Eskel is still dazed and his voice is thin as he once again addresses the soldier in Kaedwani livery, “just… repeat what you said for him, please.”
The poor man looks just as unsure as Eskel, with a bit more of a terrified edge, “Uh… My King, Szymon of Kaedwen, bids good fortune and offers tribute to his liege lord, the White Wolf, the Warlord of the North, overlord of Kaedwen.”
This really would make a great staging for a comedy of errors. Jaskier imagines they all make quite a picture, all the soldiers paralysed in fear, all the witchers looking around in horror, and him in the centre, the punchline, finally realising what he’d missed all those months ago. To use a choice word from Geralt’s vocabulary: fuck.
Eskel slowly turns to look at him.
“Overlord?”
The soldier, rather bravely for the situation, pipes in when Eskel and Jaskier just stare at each other in shock for a bit too long, “The White Wolf, the one who purged the evil of old king Henselt and instated our good King Szymon in his stead…”
Jaskier is still staring at Eskel.
“I… I probably should have expected this, actually.”
Eskel is too baffled to respond verbally, he just raises an eyebrow (which, now that Jaskier has spent a bit more time with Vesemir, is a move he recognises from the older witcher.)
“Well… King Szymon did bow to Geralt as we exited… I was just too tired to realise what that meant.”
“You’re explaining this to him then.”
Jaskier doesn’t whine, exactly, but he does pout, “but, Eskel, you’re his best friend and second in command.”
Once again, the brave soldier interrupts what was probably going to devolve into bickering, “My lords… Do you accept the tribute?”
“I suppose we must then?” Eskel responds though he looks at Jaskier for confirmation, and when it is given, he takes the reins offered by the man.
Now free of his burden, the man babbles his goodbye, “Thank you, Lord Eskel, Lord Jaskier.” He bows at each of them when he addresses them and then turns on his heels and starts walking towards the exit as fast as he can without actually running. As soon as he does that, all the humans accompanying him also start rushing out.
“Someone follow them to make sure they don’t break their necks on the way back down the trail,” Eskel orders while tacitly ignoring the mocking bow Cedric performs when he goes to follow the order. He then turns to Jaskier. “And what are we going to do with all of this?”
“Um… Inventory it, I suppose, and then we can figure out who gets what? Coën, could you?”
“I shall get to it immediately, Lord Jaskier.” Coën also bows, which does nothing to hide his amused smirk.
Jaskier and Eskel look at each other, refusing to acknowledge the laughter around them. Eskel mouths ‘Geralt’ and Jaskier eagerly nods.
__
They don’t actually find Geralt anywhere and as they reach the room Geralt and Jaskier share, Vesemir intervenes before they can frantically search for him throughout the whole keep.
“You won’t find him in the keep. As soon as he heard ‘overlord’ he grabbed his sword and a hunting bow.”
Jaskier looks to Eskel in despair as he collapses, sitting on the bed. He manages not to let his emotions strangle him, “I didn’t mean to scare him off. And I didn’t mean for him to end up overlord.”
Eskel joins him on the bed, wrapping an arm around him and drawing him into an embrace.
“It’s not your fault, bardling. Well… not just your fault. I will admit you did demonstrate some rather expert statescraft, but really, most of this is on him.” Eskel tries to reassure him, and he, sweetly, presses a kiss onto Jaskier’s temple. If Jaskier weren’t quite so emotional, he probably would have greatly appreciated the gesture, but as it is, he is unable to realise it even happened.
“But… what if this pushes him away?”
“Honestly, Jaskier, I don’t think anything could push Geralt away from you. And if this does, something which is in great part also his fault, then he is a fool. I think he’s just too scared to lose you.”
“I don’t know that he could do anything to lose me.”
“I mean, there are some things that could take you away from him without you wishing it: time, for one.”
This finally snaps Jaskier out of his emotional turmoil and he flops backwards as he laughs. He has to breathe deeply to avoid gasping too much through his next words, “Dearest Eskel, time is not something that can take me away from you and Geralt.”
Eskel looks like he’s been hit over the head. He whispers in his shock, “what?”
He looks adorable like that in his confusion and Jaskier stands, grabbing his hand and dragging him off the bed. He can’t quite resist kissing Eskel’s cheek as he does it, which likely does nothing to pull the stunned man out of his surprise.
“Come on, my dear, let's find our Wolf and I’ll explain. And we’ll all talk, actually. I think we all desperately need it.”
__
It doesn’t take all that long to find Geralt, now that they know he’s outside of the keep. Eskel is still an excellent tracker, even when half in a daze.
When they find him, he’s sitting in a cave. It looks like he hasn’t even used his sword or bow. He hasn’t been crying, exactly, but he looks lost and miserable.
“Oh, Geralt.”
“That man did call me Szymon’s overlord, right? I didn’t imagine it?”
Jaskier can’t help but chuckle a bit, even as he gathers him into his arms. Eskel’s words had had their intended effect. Jaskier is no longer scared of losing Geralt, after all, there are so many things unsaid but everything pointed to the fact that Geralt wanted to keep him around. He wouldn’t have asked him to come to Kaer Morhen that fateful autumn or asked him to stay by his side in Ard Carraigh if that weren’t the case.
“Well, yes. And I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming. It’s really obvious, now that I think about it.”
“How?”
“You did install him as king after conquering his city, my dear. He knows he is alive by the grace of your goodwill… or he’d probably say something like that if you asked him.”
“I didn’t do it for power.”
Jaskier chuckles again, “yes, well… sometimes those who don’t wish for power are those who wield it most responsibly.”
Geralt leans into Jaskier’s chest. It’s odd, Jaskier feels so protective of him in this position, when normally it’s the other way around. But there’s something missing; Eskel is still in the mouth of the cave, looking at them with an open expression that borders on adoration.
“Come here, Eskel, join us. I said we needed to talk things out, and that includes you.”
Eskel does as bid, and stretches himself out onto the rocky floor of the cave, laying his head on Geralt’s thigh.
“You first, bard. What did you mean when you said time wouldn’t take you away?”
Jaskier hears Geralt breathe in sharply, but he doesn’t react otherwise.
“Geralt?” At the sound of his name, Geralt turns his face towards Jaskier. There’s something resembling fear in his eyes, something so similar to his expression when they’d first learnt about Henselt’s deeds. Jaskier has to resist the urge to kiss his cheek as he’d done with Eskel earlier, but he does run his palm over it as a sort of a calming measure. “How long have we been travelling together?”
Geralt’s answer is instantaneous. “10 years, give or take.”
“That’s right.”
“Eskel?” When the witcher also meets his eyes, his expression is softer. He seems to have realised where this is going and it looks as though a weight has been taken off his chest. “How old do I look?”
“Like you’ve only just entered adulthood. I hadn’t considered it before, but…” there’s laughter in his words now, “bardling, are you saying you’ve got elven blood?”
Geralt has also lit up with joy as he asks, “does that mean we get to keep you for forever?”
Jaskier almost cries at their sincerity. He’d not imagined, when he left his childhood home, that he would ever be so wanted; that, as he is now realising, two men, who are noble like the knights of fairy tales, would want to spend their long lives with him.
He laughs again as he responds, “that’s right. You know, Barmin and Letho have already realised. Or well, Barmin knows, Letho’s just realised that I haven’t aged as I ought to have if I’d been fully human.”
It’s a testament to the absolutely emotionally draining day that they’ve just had that Jaskier decides to get straight to the next point, “now, I think there’s something important we’re missing. Eskel and I were almost in a panic when you left, Geralt. I understand that it’s overwhelming, but you can’t run off like that anymore, we care about you too much.”
Geralt is back to frowning and as he goes to speak, Eskel braves saying his piece, “we love you, Wolf, and we need to work as a team now that this has happened.” And because Eskel is a witcher, and witchers are taught to be brave, he leans in to kiss him.
It’s actually one of the best situations Jaskier has ever been in: the two men he’s in love with, those he considers the most gorgeous he’s ever seen, are kissing in his lap. He decides he may as well lean back and enjoy the view. Unfortunately, they separate far too soon.
Jaskier is fairly certain that they can both smell exactly how he feels about the situation because Geralt turns back to him with his beautiful eyes lidded.
“I thought I would lose you. I didn’t want to say anything for fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep you.” As Geralt says this, his gaze turns even more intense. “But I get to keep you, little lark, and perhaps we’ll conquer the world to keep it safe, but it won’t matter because you’ll both be by my side.”
With that, he lunges to kiss Jaskier as well. Jaskier can taste Eskel on Geralt’s lips and he reaches out to grab the darker haired witcher’s hand.
No matter what happens now, they’ll do it together, and that’s got to be enough.