#river rants

~~~~~

The crowd roared and applauded as Jaskier and his band finished their third encore, waving to the mass of faces in the Dolphin Stadium.

“Thank you, Kerack! You’ve been a beautiful audience, goodnight!” The brunet called to his fans with a beaming grin on his face as he took another bow with the band. As the stage lights dimmed and fireworks boomed over the stadium, Jaskier ran offstage with his band, hugging them all despite the sweat they were all drenched in.

“Guys, thank you, this tour has been absolutely incredible and in no small part because of you all. I’m sad this was our last show, but I’ll see you all again for the next one?” he asked with a cheeky grin, which was met with eager nods and resounding ‘yes’es from the band and crew alike. He gave them all one more embrace, handed his cornflower blue, electric guitar to his stage manager and turned to head for his dressing room with an exhausted, giddy smile on his lips.

As he turned, Geralt Rivia, frontman of The Wolf Pack, came running up to him from the wings, wrapped his arms around Jaskier’s waist and picked him up, spinning him on the spot, making the smaller man squeak in surprise.

“Geralt!” Jaskier laughed breathlessly as he was set back on his feet gently, “I thought you were going to wait in my dressing room?”

“I watched the whole thing from the VIP tent this time, lark.” Geralt told him with a fond smile.

Jaskier’s eyes welled up with tears, “Really?”

“Really.” The white-haired man assured him, cupping his cheeks in his calloused hands, “I knew how much this show meant to you. Plus, I was sick of watching the shows via shitty livestreams on my phone.” He chuckled, pressing a firm kiss to Jaskier’s forehead.

“Oh gods sorry, I’m probably so sweaty and gros-” Jaskier started but was cut off by Geralt kissing him fiercely.

“I don’t care.” Geralt murmured against his lips. “You’re still beautiful to me.”

Jaskier blushed a light pink as he kissed him back, grabbing onto the front of Geralt’s plain, black dress shirt; only breaking away as his manager, Philippa Eilhart, approached them and cleared her throat.

“Congratulations, Jaskier, the show and the tour as a whole were a complete success.” She smiled at the pair of them, “Even if I do think ending the tour in Kerack was a bit of a strange request.”

Jaskier chuckled sheepishly, “This part of the continent holds sentimental value to me, Phil.”

Philippa nodded, “Well, congrats again, I’ll let you have some peace now,” She eyed Geralt snaking one hand down to Jaskier’s lower back gently, “Or perhaps not” She gave Jaskier a knowing grin and walked away again.

Geralt shuddered, “Gods, that woman still terrifies me.” he chuckled nervously.

“Me too.” Jaskier admitted with a laugh as they started walking towards the exit where his tour bus was waiting to take everyone to a hotel for the night, before they all headed back home tomorrow.

~~~

Jaskier rolled over the following morning and nuzzled into Geralt’s broad, bare chest. “Mm, good morning, my white wolf.” He murmured with a contented smile, tracing his finger lightly over one of Geralt’s many scars.

“Morning, lark.” Geralt smiled and kissed him gently. He groaned and pulled away as his phone began to ring on the bedside table, the Jaws theme blaring from it loudly to indicate his ex-wife and manager was calling him. “That’s Yenn, I should get it.” He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Can’t she give you a single day of peace?” Jaskier whined and rolled away, grabbing his own phone to scroll mindlessly as he also sat up.

“Apparently not, sorry.” Geralt kissed his cheek then answered the phone, “Yenn it’s too early-”

“Well good morning to you too! Bad news, someone leaked you and your pop prince songbird to the press.” Yennefer told him

“What do you mean the press found out about me and Jaskier?” His brow furrowed as Jaskier reached over to hold his free hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Evidently, someone saw you at the closing night of his tour last night, Geralt.”

“No, I was careful last night…” Geralt protested

“You were in the VIP tent, that means something when there are already whispers about you two on Reddit." She told him sternly.

“I mean, yeah, I was in the VIP tent but so were a lot of people.” Geralt sighed, “Can we talk about it when we’re all back home?”

“Of course! We’ll sit down with Jaskier and Philippa.” Yennefer reassured him. “Make a game plan all together.”

“Alright, see you later.” He hung up and set his phone down, looking at Jaskier.

“Well shit.” Jaskier chuckled softly, “I mean, your brothers wouldn’t have leaked it… and I know my band won’t have.”

“It must’ve been someone on the crew at the stadium.” Geralt sighed softly, lifting their hands to kiss the back of Jaskier’s. “Maybe I should head back to Cintra separately, Jask, just in case…” He said reluctantly, his thoughts rushing by at a million miles an hour.

Jaskier frowned slightly, “What, no, we can take the tour bus instead if that’d be better for you?”

Geralt shook his head, “The paps will be crawling all over the bus by now. I should head out, lark.” He gave a sad smile and embraced the brunet tight to his chest. “I love you.”

Not enough to love me in public, thought Jaskier, “I love you too Geralt.”

~~~

As the lead singer of The Wolf Pack, the biggest heavy metal band on the continent, and one of three sons of a rock’n’roll hall of famer, Geralt felt he had a certain image to uphold; and dating a bubbly, colourful, pop star was the biggest blemish on that reputation he could ever have thought of. Yet, here he was, madly, deeply in love with Jaskier.

The man was a walking spectacle. ‘Freddie Mercury reborn’ one headline had called him during his first tour after making it big, Jaskier had that one printed out and framed in his living room. ‘A worthy successor to Bowie’ another had read more recently. That one was also printed and framed, hanging in pride of place next to the first one.

They’d met a couple of years ago at some awards show that Geralt was only at because Yennefer had insisted he go to represent the band. In her words, ‘Eskel will cause me a PR headache by fucking the wrong person’s wife, and Lambert will probably start a fight if you lose, I need you to go.’ So he’d gone and sat by himself, watching the party around him.

“I love how you just… sit in the corner and brood.” Jaskier had said, sitting down in the empty chair beside him. “Jaskier, pleasure to meet you.”

“Geralt Rivia.” He’d smiled at Jaskier’s quip.

“Darling I know who you are, your father is a titan in this industry.” Jaskier laughed. Gods, his laugh was like a melody that Geralt never wanted to hear the end of…

~~~