well sussed!

That’s about the full extent of what the witcher knows, because the meaning of it eludes him. Jaskier claims to love many things and people and it never sounds like a lie, though it’s likely a sugar-coated phrase.

But how can it be? How can a man like Jaskier look at him with desire and affection marking his every gesture, when all he gets in return are meager scraps?

The bard loves fine comforts, scented oils, poetry, surprising days, sweet mead spiced with cinnamon and clover. He doesn’t love broken things, silence, pitch black eyes, disfigured hearts that can’t feel back.

And yet.

“What’s going on behind those dashing, catlike eyes of yours, Geralt?”

“Nothing.”

Jaskier has always had a knack for calling him out on his blatant lies, but now he knows when to push and when to let go.

His gaze burns with interest nonetheless.

Geralt was trained to sidestep and erase weaknesses. But calling the bard a weakness doesn’t sit right with him. For all the distraction he’s caused, Jaskier is surprisingly good at making up for it.

He’s whip-smart and resourceful. He shares his coin without a second thought. And he takes care of Geralt in many ways, most of which leave him grateful and relaxed, if a touch flustered.

In nearly a hundred years, never before he had shared a candlelit room with someone who didn’t demand to be paid for their service.

With Jaskier, it’s not sex that has him grunting face down on the pillow: it’s long massages and narrow beds. Somehow it feels just as tempting, if not more.

Even with the naked truth laid before him, Geralt can stall and conceal his own, traitorous thoughts. He doesn’t know what they mean, so why should they matter? All those mutagens have dulled his ability to feel things the way humans do. Enough to be sure that his feelings resemble a pot of wilting flowers, struggling to get a glimpse of the sun.

It doesn’t matter.

Until Jaskier is badly hurt during a hunt. The second the barghest claws are on him, Geralt lets out a savage scream and delivers the killing blow. Too late, too fucking late, how did he get so sloppy? And why the hell was Jaskier trying to help him by swinging a dagger?

But there’s no time for that now, because Jaskier is wheezing and clutching at his side. With a hiss, Geralt drops to his knees to get a better look at the wound. It’s deep and it must hurt like a bitch, but it’s better than he thought. His heartbeat slows down.

“G-Geralt? How... How bad-”

“Shh.”

There’s a healer back in the village. But Jaskier is losing a lot of blood and he’s not going to gamble on his life. If they want to ride back without Jaskier bleeding out, Geralt needs to act now.

With a nervous snap of his head, Geralt hauls him up and presses hard on the wound, ignoring how sick in the stomach he feels when Jaskier cries out in pain.

“You’re alright, Jaskier. I swear. Keep your eyes open for me” after some murmured words of reassurance, he sets about sewing up the laceration.

Any witcher worth their salt has rudimental sewing skills, but it’s been so long since he actually had to stitch a wound. By the age of sixteen, his body was already healing fast enough on its own, just like his surviving peers’.

Geralt asks Jaskier — no, he begs him — to talk out loud as he clutches the needle with an iron grip and threads it.

The bard coughs, but he even attempts some feeble singing. He makes surviving look like an art.

And with every crooked stitch holding the seams together, Geralt finally unearths his own truth. He doesn’t need clues or bitter musings about his nature.

In the end, it comes down to a simple realization.

I love him too.

It’s like a hymn roaring inside his mind, keeping him focused and steady, stitch after stitch.

Hours later, when he’s sitting by Jaskier’s bedside as the healer applies her smelly ointments, Geralt has to wonder if some part of it was a fever dream.

But no. The stitches were real, and so is the confession no one has heard.

Should he ignore that? Maybe.

But when Jaskier blinks his eyes open and thanks him for saving his life once again, with a cheeky flutter of eyelashes, Geralt has to ask.

“Why are you still travelling with me?”

Despite the blunt tone, the words aren’t meant to hurt, and Jaskier’s brow only furrows in mild confusion for a split second.

“Because I want to” he answers immediately.

“But how can you want this? No adventure can be worth it, after so long. How can you look— what do you see in it?” What do you see in me, is the unspoken question that has Geralt biting his lip and looking away in frustration.

Jaskier sighs and shakes his head in his spirited fashion. The effect is partly ruined by his exhausted pallor.

“You want to know why I could never see you as a monster? Because you’re not. You were the only one who gave me a coin, all those years ago in Posada. Gods, right from the start, Geralt!” there’s a pause as he shuffles and grabs Geralt’s hand, demanding his gaze back, “Then I started knowing you, really knowing you, and I was done for. It wasn’t even a choice.”

“You surely gave me no choice” Geralt grumbles. A feeble, delighted chuckle from Jaskier is enough for the hint of a smile to bloom on his features.

“You’re welcome. And look at us now. We have our fun, don’t we?”

“Yes” the somber reply suggests that ‘fun’ is a poor word to describe all that they have, and Jaskier seems to notice it too. Absent-mindedly, he rubs his thumb along the back of Geralt’s hand.

“I wasn’t scared, you know. Before. Knew you had me.” he murmurs, barely suppressing a tired yawn.

Geralt hasn’t been this close to crying in decades. And there’s so much he hasn’t said yet.

He will. Soon. But for now, he simply leans in to brush a feather-light kiss on top of Jaskier’s head. He senses the man’s heartbeat and it’s steady too.

“Sleep well, Jaskier.”