#dandelionxgeralt

In the end, it’s the weariness that does him in.

Once when they were both younger men, Jaskier had asked him about retirement for witchers. If they retreated to Kaer Morhen in their old age to train the new pups, or if they settled down across the Continent, or gave up the hunt to have families of their own. Geralt had snorted. “We don’t retire,” he’d said, mixing potion ingredients by the light of their camp fire. Jaskier had looked at him with wide, curious eyes. “We get old, and slow, and something kills us. We don’t - buy seaside cottages, or whatever.”

Jaskier had hummed at that, a mournful note that seemed to resonate in the air. It was unfair, Geralt had thought, that his friend managed to convey so much in such a sound while the witcher always managed to say so little. “Seems a bit unfair,” Jaskier added.

Geralt had blown out an amused breath, not quite a laugh. “That’s life, bard.”

But now, three decades and countless battles older, he just felt tired. Jaskier no longer traveled with him as frequently, and the Path was a lonely place. He and his brothers no longer met at Kaer Morhen to winter, not once Vesemir had passed. They would stop occasionally to meet up on the road, but never for too long. Even Ciri was going her own way nowadays, though he saw her the most frequently. As the years wore on, Geralt found himself visiting Oxenfurt more and more often. Itching for companionship, for a cease in the ever grinding motion of the Path. The routine that had once been a comfort was now grating.

Maybe it was time to take a break.

It was with this mentality that he turned to Jaskier on the last day of his stay in Oxenfurt and said, “Come to Toussaint with me.”

Jaskier blinked at him owlishly, the expression making him look ten years younger. These days his hair was streaked with gray at the temples, and when he chose to grow out a beard it was as silver as Geralt’s. “What’s so important in Toussaint?” he asked. They were seated at a table in the rooms Jaskier had been provided, for accepting a temporary lecturing position. The term had ended a few weeks ago, hence Geralt’s visit. Jaskier shuffled his gwent deck as he spoke, the cards weaving together like a cascade. Geralt found himself watching the bard’s slim fingers dance through the motions with an old fascination.

“I have an estate there,” he replied, pulling his gaze from the cards. He meant to look Jaskier in the eye, but a brief moment of contact with the bright cerulean had him turning his head, his heartbeat growing ever so slightly faster. It was too hard to ask this if he could see Jaskier’s face. Instead, he looked out the small window, overlooking the red tiled roofs of Oxenfurt. The city was painted a rich gold in the light of the evening sun, reflected warmly off of the river beyond the docks.

Jaskier spluttered across the table. “You have an estate? Since when?”

Geralt felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. “It was payment for a job,” he said. “There’s a vineyard, gardens. I can send word ahead for them to start renovations on the guest bedroom. Come with me,” he said again, softly. He wasn’t above begging, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

Jaskier looked at him with a confused but affectionate look spread across his fine features, and said, “Okay.”

~

Geralt sent a letter ahead to warn the staff of their plans to summer at the estate, and they began their journey to the Duchy.

It was a long journey, but not an arduous one. For once, Geralt allowed them to stick to the main roads, and at this time of year even Velen was bearable. The sweeping fields spread out around them in swaths of green and gold, punctuated here and there by defiant patches of wildflowers. Jaskier wasn’t as quick as he used to be following Geralt on the Path, but they weren’t on the Path anymore. They purchased a second horse and rode side by side at a leisurely pace. When the day grew hot, they would post up in a convenient spot of shade and let the horses graze, lunching on sun warmed bread and sweetmeats. Jaskier rambled the hours away with stories of his students and old antics at Oxenfurt, and Geralt responded with his own tales of hunts and growing up in the keep with his brothers. It was good to have another voice on the road again after months of traveling alone. It was good that it was Jaskier. Geralt had missed him. Once he wouldn’t have been able to admit it, even to himself, but it seemed silly now to hide it. A wall put up against someone who had been inside for years.

They slept beneath the stars and in cramped inns, sharing small spaces like they had for decades. It was different, Geralt thought. Something had released in his shoulders when Jaskier had agreed to come with him. They weren’t in a rush - there were no contracts to fill, no galas to play at. Jaskier’s purse was heavy from his time spent lecturing, and Geralt was able to pick up a few simple contracts as they went. Easy jobs that would put some extra coin in his pocket and lift the tension from the shoulders of the locals. But for the most part it was just the two of them, drinking sweet summer mead and browsing morning markets, getting accustomed to each other’s presence again.

Sitting across the fire from him one night as they camped, Jaskier said, “You’re different, you know.”

Geralt lifted his head from where he’d been skinning the pheasants for supper. “Hmm?”

Jaskier smiled, his eyes soft. “Well, maybe not that different.” At Geralt’s odd look, he went on. “You told me once that witchers never change. That they’re set in their ways. I think you were talking about something like your potions routine when you said it at the time, but I thought it applied to the whole of the witcher experience.”

Geralt hummed again. “It’s true. We age slowly. Get set in our habits.”

“But you changed,” Jaskier said. “I’ve seen it. After Ciri, and now, since we’ve left Oxenfurt. You’re different.”

Geralt shifted uncomfortably. They’d never been on the road together like this, just the two of them as companions. Before Geralt had been focused on the Path, and Jaskier had been cataloguing his deeds as if he were some kind of hero of legend. He knew Jaskier admired Geralt’s drive, his ability to push on towards the next contract. Maybe the bard would think less of him, knowing that he was content to leave the Path behind for so long. “I’m still me,” he said aloud.

Jaskier gave him another smile, warm and honeyed. “I know it’s you, daft man,” he said. “It’s good. To see you… put down the torch for a bit.”

Geralt wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just gave an agreeable rumble in his chest. And then, because he’d spent so long learning how to use his words around his daughter, he said, “I’m glad you’re here, Jaskier.”

A brief moment of surprise passed over Jaskier’s features, his eyes widening. Though Geralt had become better at voicing his affections over the years, he knew that the bard was always taken aback by the behavior. After a second Jaskier’s smile became a grin, and Geralt felt something in him relax even further. “I’m glad to be here, my friend. You know I can’t resist an adventure.”

~

They arrived in Toussaint quickly after that, both eager to end their days on the road. The countryside spread out around them slowly transformed from the muted colors of the north into the vibrant greens, purples and reds of the vineyards and forests. Geralt always forgot how stunning the Duchy was, with its colorful houses and flashy clothes. For once Jaskier fit in with the crowd flawlessly; it would take more than a bright doublet to stand out in Toussaint. Geralt had always liked it here. The peasants tended to be less prejudiced against non-humans, witchers included, and the knights he’d met always treated him as a brother in arms rather than pest control. The winters were mild and the summers sweet, and the wines were rich even if they were impossible for him to pronounce at times.

Of course Jaskier proved to be fluent in the local language - “What do you think the Seven Liberal Arts even entail, Geralt?” - which was helpful when they passed through smaller villages. Those away from the common crossroads or larger settlements tended to have fewer people who spoke the common northern tongue. They made their way to Geralt’s estate through a series of inns, barns and guest bedrooms as Jaskier relentlessly charmed the locals in grandiose displays of hospitality.

As they approached the estate, Geralt pulled Roach to a stop at the top of a hill. “This is it,” he said, nodding to indicate the view.

Jaskier gaped, craning to look out over the small collection of buildings and the dozens and dozens of grapevines that were nestled in the valley below. Geralt could see several workers out tending to the fields; his majordomo must have been overseeing things as agreed upon. They would have to get to know the rest of the staff while they were here. “This is all yours?” Jaskier asked, snapping Geralt’s attention back to the present.

“The house, most of the fields. I’ve not paid all that much attention to it before now, honestly. The house needs work. Never had any reason to sink funds into it before now.” He’d sent a fair sum of gold ahead to Barnabas-Basil to get started on renovations, but it likely would have only been enough to make the main complex habitable. Geralt was confident that he could undertake much of the repairs himself, in time. It would be good to have a project.

“It’s expansive. You produce wine here?” Jaskier asked, turning back towards him.

“Yes, but you’ll have to ask the majordomo which ones.”

Jaskier nodded to himself as they continued down the hill, soon approaching the main gate to the small villa. Members of the staff bustled throughout the property, though many stopped to look as the two of them passed by. As they settled their horses near a storage shed, the majordomo approached them, apparently already made aware of their arrival.

“Ah, Master Geralt, I trust that your travels were smooth? Please, come inside - I will have someone come and tend to the horses.” Barnabas-Basil Foulty was a clean shaven, bald man with sharp, almost bird-like features, and the head of the estate in Geralt’s stead. He stood at perfect attention at all times, shoulders back and head held high. A proud man, if not also an extremely polite one. Geralt liked him immensely, because he was good at his job and could keep up in the cups the one time the two had drank together.

“Ah, this must be the famous Barnabas-Basil. Fantastic to finally meet your acquaintance, my good man,” Jaskier said, jumping in to give the majordomo’s hand a firm shake. “Geralt has praised your skills from here to Redania and back.”

Barnabas-Basil inclined his head towards Geralt, though his spine did not stray an inch. “I thank you, sir, for your kind words. Please, allow me to show you the progress that we have made on the main house so you might get settled.”

The domo walked them through the estate, giving Jaskier a brief tour and pointing out new additions to Geralt. He’d not been to the estate in at least two years, but it was clear that the workers were making good use of the space. The small collection of colorful houses down the road had fresh coats of paint, and children played in the courtyard below the main house. A garden flourished in the space between the manor and the vineyard, dominated by root vegetables and herbs.

“If you would like, we can have it cleared out so that you might use it for your own purposes,” Barnabas-Basil said. His face betrayed no feelings on the issue.

Geralt grunted. “No need. The staff can use it as they wish.” He refused to meet Jaskier’s gaze as the bard beamed at him proudly. After decades of friendship Jaskier still seemed to find it a delight anytime Geralt did something he thought was particularly chivalrous. Geralt was not eager for him to meet the knights, with their virtues and heroic deeds.

The house, as he suspected, was functional but only just. “We’ve done what we could in a short amount of time, sir,” Barnabas-Basil said, his tone politely apologetic. “I assure you renovations are far from complete.”

“It’s fantastic,” Jaskier said, already darting off to explore the other rooms. There was a small kitchen, a bedroom, bathroom and an upstairs loft that could be made into a second bedroom. The additional bed wouldn’t arrive for another week or two.

“We can share,” Geralt said without looking at Jaskier, and did not elaborate further. “Show me what else needs done.”

~

They fell quickly into a routine. Geralt spent his days working with the locals on renovations, slowly breathing vitality back into the old manor. When he grew tired of working with lumber, he waded into the vineyards, to help pluck the delicate grapes from their twisting vines. A pair of women admonished him for his sloppy work on the first day and taught him how to gently cut the branches away and check the grapes for ripeness. Jaskier fluctuated between helping out with the building work and composing, though he also made the occasional day trip into the city to perform. In the evening they would retire to the house to eat, drink and chat over games of cards. At night they would curl up in Geralt’s bed, as they had when sharing quarters on the road.

It was a strange new intimacy, to learn what Jaskier was like in his bed. They had shared bedrolls many times over the years, but never with any consistency. When the nights were too cold or the inn too full, they would sigh and grumble and agree to share a space for the night, as a matter of convenience. But as soon as they had the coin or the resources to do so, they would always put distance between themselves again. Geralt supposed it had been a kind of self preservation instinct, but he now found little threat in the warmth of Jaskier next to him at night. He learned that some days Jaskier woke before the sunrise, throwing himself out of bed in a tangle of limbs to scramble for a quill. Other days he slept late, sprawled out across the sheets and dozing until the heat of the day forced him up. Often Geralt woke to the bard curled around him, an arm thrown across his broad chest, nose tucked under the witcher’s jaw. Those times always made something tighten in Geralt’s throat. No one should trust a witcher like Jaskier did, but he was grateful for the bard’s foolishness. Jaskier had always believed that Geralt would keep him safe, even when the witcher had refused to even admit that they were friends. Jaskier deserved better, but it didn’t stop Geralt from turning into his warmth each morning, wishing to reach out.

When the second bed came, Jaskier made no effort to relocate to the guest room. Geralt didn’t bring it up.

It only took a month for him to openly think about it, but when he finally did he was surprised it hadn’t come sooner. He looked up from where he was carving a notch in a new post for one of the fences and saw Jaskier sitting on the steps of the manor, the end of his quill hovering near his lips. His mouth moved around abstract syllables as he reached for the next lyric in a new song. The soft, repetitive notes rose and fell in the still summer air, and Geralt could see a small spot of ink on Jaskier’s cheek where he’d tapped himself with the quill by accident. Later that night, Geralt would point it out and they would both laugh, and Jaskier would play at being angry Geralt hadn’t brought it up sooner, and then Geralt would offer to help him clean up. Jaskier looked up from his place on the stairs and met his eye, feeling the attention on him as he always did. When he saw Geralt looking he smiled, as brightly as if he’d not seen the witcher in months, instead of moments. Geralt’s chest swelled with an unspeakable feeling, thick and heady affection and trust and something else even beyond that, and he thought, Oh, I love him.

~

Geralt suggested a picnic. Jaskier was ecstatic, though he tried to act as if he had to consider the notion.

“Will there be wine?” he asked, eyebrows raised playfully.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, fondly exasperated, “we live on a vineyard.”

So they grabbed some bottles from the storeroom, packed a light cotton blanket and some food leftover from lunch and set off up the nearby hill. It took them about twenty minutes to reach the top, but once they did they were quite near the place they’d first stopped to look over the estate. It was nearing evening, the sun hanging low in the sky and making the shadows of the workers coming in stretch out long across the fields. The two men spread out their things, sitting to watch the landscape move below them as they uncorked one of the bottles.

Geralt let Jaskier chatter away about nothing for a while, letting the sound wash over him as they shared the bread and wine. After a while Jaskier fell quiet, leaving them both to gaze out at the beauty of the land around them. Geralt turned to look at Jaskier. The sweep of his brow, the soft bow of his lips. The smattering of freckles he’d collected from weeks on the road, lying in fields and letting the sun kiss his cheeks. To be jealous of the sun, Geralt thought wryly.

Jaskier turned to meet his gaze, realizing that he was being watched. “What is it?” he asked.

“Why did you come with me?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier chuckled a bit, leaning back on one hand. His shirt was unlaced a ways down the front, leaving his dark chest hair exposed. Geralt wanted to put his nose in the hollow of his throat and just breathe there for a while. “I’m not one to turn down a free holiday, my dear.”

“No,” Geralt said, trying to ignore the way the pet name made his stomach flip. “I mean, why did you always come with me? Everyone… People come and go. But you always came back. Why?”

Jaskier gave him an admonishing look. Geralt didn’t know what to make of it. “You know the answer to that,” he said, and his tone held a warning that the witcher didn’t understand.

“I know you value our friendship,” Geralt replied, “but I could say that of many. It’s not the same.”

“Oh Geralt,” Jaskier sighed, his face full of fondness and exasperation and, strangely, an old sort of grief. “You truly are the most unobservant man in the land. You’ve been far more than a friend to me for many years.”

Geralt felt his heart rate pick up at that, the slow thud speeding up to match Jaskier’s. “You’re saying…” He found himself unable to complete the thought. Even after so many years of trying to do better, it was still impossible to form words past the thundering in his ears. This moment felt delicate, like the wrong phrase might shatter it apart.

“I assumed you knew,” Jaskier said with a shrug. The line of his shoulders was just slightly too tense, his body radiating faux casualness. Anyone else may have been fooled, but Geralt had been watching Jaskier for years. “I would never have let it change anything between us, you must know that. You were always involved with someone else - Yennefer, and then Triss and Shani… I didn’t want to get in the way of that. Something that could make you happy.”

“I thought it would,” Geralt said honestly. His gaze flickered over Jaskier’s impassive face. The bard rarely showed his nerves in his expressions, too much a performer for that. Instead it made its way to his hands, twitching over his thighs and worrying the fabric of the blanket, and his heart, which raced in his chest. “I wanted to be the right person for them. Yen wanted me to be useful. Triss wanted me to be a knight in shining armor. They made me feel like I was better than just a witcher.” Jaskier’s lovely mouth twisted slightly, a note of bitterness in his gaze as he looked out over the vineyards. Geralt hurried on. “But you’re the one who made me feel like being a witcher was already good enough.”

Jaskier turned back to him, blinking in surprise. “Well of course it is,” he said, and naturally the bard had missed the point, honing in on his favorite subject: the reputation of witchers and Geralt’s sense of self worth. “You’re already useful, and noble, and good and kind besides all that. You don’t have to be more than what you are to deserve - fuck, basic human connection and love.” He settled slightly, his gesturing hands falling into his lap once more. “Is that why you left them?”

“The Path always calls,” Geralt said with a shrug. “No one but you ever wanted to follow me.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, blushing. Geralt watched the color rise up over his cheek bones with something like fascination, or maybe hunger. “Well, now you know why,” he continued, with obviously false cheer. He gave Geralt a rueful smile. “I promise I won’t make things awkward. I’ve had decades to practice. I mean, it’s been thirty years. If you were going to fall in love with me you probably would have done so already, hmm?”

“You’d think so,” Geralt agreed. “Sorry it took me so long.” And then he leaned into Jaskier’s space and kissed him.

It wasn’t a very good kiss. Barely a kiss at all, really, considering that Jaskier had frozen under him. Geralt pulled back, lifting a hand to run it gently over Jaskier’s side. The bard was absolutely still, his eyes closed tight. There was a small crease between his eyebrows that Geralt wanted to kiss away, but he wasn’t sure if he should. “Sorry,” he said softly.

Jaskier’s eyes fluttered open. It was unfair that a man could have beautiful eyelashes, Geralt mused, but here they were. “You mustn’t toy with me, witcher,” Jaskier croaked. His voice was raw, as if he’d been singing for hours.

Geralt moved his hand to the bard’s face, his thumb following along the line of his jaw and up to trace across his cheekbone. Freckles like stars under his fingers. “I’m not,” he rumbled. “I swear it, Jaskier. I just -” He paused, trying to marshal his thoughts. “You were always there. No matter how shitty the Path was, or how miserable people were to you because of me, or how much I pushed you away. You stayed. You made me feel like I was worth something, and you made other people think that way too. Every day without you on the Path was always misery. I should have realized sooner, but I’m not… good at this. I’m sorry.”

Jaskier’s head dropped forward, his brow resting on Geralt’s collarbone. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you apologize in the span of a minute,” he said, voice thin. “This is a lot to take in. Are you saying that you… that you love me? You, Geralt of Rivia, are in love with me?”

“Yes,” Geralt said, smiling into Jaskier’s hair. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Jaskier pulled away to stare at him. Geralt tried to let his affection through, drinking in Jaskier’s beloved face like he hadn’t allowed himself before. The last rays of the sun played over Jaskier’s hair, turning some of the strands to brilliant amber. His eyes were over bright. Whatever the bard saw in Geralt’s expression must have been enough, because the next moment they were kissing again.

It was, Geralt thought, a miracle that he had ever gone so long without doing so. Now that they’d begun, he never wanted to stop. Jaskier’s lips were warm and soft against his, and when Geralt licked slowly into his mouth he tasted of old wine. They stayed like that for a long time, Geralt holding Jaskier close, decades of tension not so much breaking as releasing like a quiet sigh of relief.

Finally they pulled apart, Geralt nosing at Jaskier’s cheek as he hummed contentment into the bard’s skin. He could feel deft fingers petting through his hair, easily working around the tangles that had formed on the walk up the hill. “I love you,” he said, pressing the words below Jaskier’s ear as if he could speak them into his core that way.

Jaskier shivered once under him. “I love you too,” he said, and Geralt could feel him smiling in the way his jaw moved. He knew Jaskier in his bones. “I’ll follow you wherever you go, you know.”