I hear you're alive

—-

day 7262

“Where’s your witcher?”

Jaskier despises that question.

Your witcher.

The implication that Geralt was ever his is laughable. So that’s what he does, he laughs.

He laughs like a lunatic. He laughs long after the commoner has left him alone. He laughs even as the man behind the bar seems like he’s two seconds from kicking Jaskier out. He laughs even though he feels all the eyes in the pub on him.

He doesn’t care. He can take a dozen people thinking he belongs in an asylum. It’s better than being beaten half to death like he was the last time someone had asked the same question and he spit in their face.

And so, he continues to laugh. He laughs because if he doesn’t laugh, he’ll cry again, and Jaskier is so tired of crying.

Jaskier knows he’s allowed to cry, what with the entire fucking continent reminding him of the white-haired witcher no matter how fast or how hard he tries to run from it.

But crying is exhausting. He’s spent too long crying over that emotionally unavailable, God of a man— a man who was never his.

Oh how he wishes people would stop pretending Geralt of Rivia, the Great White Wolf, ever belonged to him.

—

day 7444

“Please, I don’t know anything!”

Rience tilts his head to the side disapprovingly, “now, now, now. The songs in your catalog would suggest otherwise.”

Jaskier tries to bargain, he tries to fight back— he goes through all the stages. It means nothing to Rience. He wants answers, and answers he will find.

The funniest part in all of this is that he won’t be finding any of those answers from Jaskier. The bard knows fuck-all about the witcher’s whereabouts, and the realization dawns over him that even if he did have a clue, he’d never say a word.

Here he sits, the taste of death on his tongue, and still, he’s ready and willing to protect the man who’s left wounds that will never be healed.

Jaskier met Geralt when he was eighteen. He walked up to him in that tavern in Posada, then followed him out of that same tavern.

He fell in love with him before he even really knew what love was, and he’s been paying for it every single day since.

—

day 45

Jaskier had spent eighteen years of his life hidden away in a palace. He didn’t know much about anything. He was educated, of course, he had to be to continue the noble family legacy, but he didn’t know much about life.

He’s been traveling with Geralt for three fortnights and he’s learned more about life in this time than he had learned in the eighteen years he spent in his luxurious home.

Jaskier expected the monster hunting and whatnot— Geralt never lets him come but he can usually get a six-word summary about the battles if he pesters the witcher long enough. What he didn’t expect is a glimpse into how cruel humanity could truly be.

He knew people feared witchers, but he didn’t know the absolute misery they put them through.

Most nights, Geralt isn’t allowed the luxury of sleeping in an actual bed even if he has the coin. Geralt gets ran out of villages, he isn’t paid after completing contracts, he gets spoiled meat in his stew, he gets shit thrown at him— random stuff and actual shit. For a group of people who fear Geralt because of what he’s capable of, they truly don’t act like they value their lives much at all.

Geralt could simply kill them all, Jaskier suspects that most men would, but he takes the hatred in stride. He quiets Jaskier whenever the bard tries to defend him, he keeps walking whenever people spew ill words at him, he pretends like it doesn’t hurt when children run from him. It’s as if Geralt has come to accept that this is what his life is and that this is what it will always be.

Jaskier refuses to accept that.

He stays up night after night, quill dragging against parchment so fast he fears it may catch on fire, but he can’t stop. Not until he writes a ballad so great that what happened in Blaviken is never ever spoken of again.

Not until the butcher to be feared and hated becomes the greatest hero the continent has ever known, the White Wolf.

—

day 192

When Jaskier announced to his parents that he was leaving the palace to become a bard, his father had snarled that he always knew Jaskier was a disappointment, and his mother had said nothing at all. She didn’t need to, her eyes told him enough.

Jaskier thought that he’d never feel pain like that ever again. He was wrong.

The anger in Geralt’s eyes right now as he yanks himself away from Jaskier’s lips hurts more than anything in this world could have.

Jaskier had kissed him. Like a fucking moron, he kissed him, thinking that perhaps rejection early on wouldn’t be too bad.

He was wrong about that too.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Geralt snarls. He gives Jaskier one final glare, the harshest he’s ever given the bard, the kind of glare he gives to those who wish to harm him, and he walks away.

—

day 458

In a very Geralt-like fashion, it takes Jaskier nearly dying the second time they cross paths for him to admit to feeling anything for Jaskier other than annoyance.

“You’re a fucking menace,” Geralt hisses, “I told you to stay inside.”

“If I had, you’d be dead right now,” Jaskier points out to him, “you’re fucking welcome, by the way.”

Geralt looks like he wants to punch something. Not Jaskier, but something. He doesn’t. Instead, he kisses the bard.

It’s funny how one kiss can alter Jaskier’s entire perspective on the world.

That night, Geralt takes him apart and puts him back together until Jaskier can’t think of anything that doesn’t revolve around the witcher.

—

day 459

Geralt’s gone in the morning.

Jaskier is saddened to admit that he expected no different.

—

day 523

Not much changes after that.

Geralt is still quiet most of the time, Jaskier continues to talk the witcher’s ear off.

Geralt still fights monsters, Jaskier continues trying to write about it.

Geralt still pretends he’s the unfeeling being everyone makes him out to be, Jaskier continues to fall deeper in love with him every day.

Not much has changed.

Except for the fact that they fuck all the time now.

—

day 630

He’s just pulled another chunk of monster guts out of Geralt’s hair when the older man comments, “you never join me.”

“What?”

“In the bath,” he says, “you always sit on the outside washing me but you never come in.”

“That’s an interesting observation.”

“Wouldn’t things be easier if you were actually in the tub?” Geralt question.

Jaskier smirks. He leans in, allowing his lips to ghost over one of Geralt’s ears, “if you want to see me naked, all you have to do is ask.”

The witcher’s head sags, pressing into the contact as a sigh escapes his lips. Jaskier nibbles at the lobe teasingly as his hands move from Geralt’s hair to his shoulders where they begin to knead at the muscles there. Geralt’s hair is still dirty and it’s rubbing against his cheek but the bard doesn’t care. This is worth it.

“Jaskier,” Geralt grunts.

“Yes?”

“Get naked.”

Jaskier tsks lightly, “not until you’re all cleaned up, darling.”

—

day 976

Toss a Coin to Your Witcher is what some may call an immediate success, in the sense that it becomes quite popular in a short amount of time.

People love the ballad, can’t stop singing it, but the impact Jaskier had sought is taking longer to achieve.

People still fear Geralt. People still treat him like shit.

It’ll change one day. He has to believe that. It’s either he holds onto that bit of hope or he faces the fact that the love of his life may never find true peace for as long as he roams this continent.

—-

day 1101

It’s one of those nights— one of those nights where Geralt is drained from the day, one of those nights that leaves him malleable to Jaskier’s care, Jaskier’s touch.

On nights like this, Jaskier can take his time washing the blood from Geralt’s body and he can take his time rubbing oil into Geralt’s skin, feeding off the witcher’s barely audible gasps like a starving man.

Geralt’s gentler on nights like these. Geralt presses into him slowly. Geralt paints his neck with bruises. Geralt kisses him as if he needs it as much as Jaskier does. Geralt holds him like he means something.

Geralt doesn’t stop holding him on nights like these, even after Jaskier has tapped out.

“Tell me something,” Jaskier whispers.

Perhaps I’m pushing my luck, he thinks as he watches his finger trace over the scar on Geralt’s chest. Whispering the words gave him an out. He doesn’t take it. “Tell me a story.”

Geralt grunts, but tightens the arm he has around Jaskier. “What do you want to hear?”

“A happy story, one from your childhood.”

He hears the witcher chuckle, “there aren’t many of those.”

“I know,” Jaskier says, “but there must be a few. Tell me one. Please?”

“Hm, well…”

And that’s how Jaskier learns of the time an eleven-year-old Geralt choreographed a play alongside a group of other young witchers, a play that brought tears to Vesemir’s eyes.

—

day 2333

Jaskier is twenty-four the first time he feels fear in Geralt’s presence.

The witcher has blood splattered on his face, blood smudged over his black clothes, blood on his knuckles— the blood of the three men who had just attempted to assault Jaskier, different kinds of monsters than the ones he’s used to fighting.

Jaskier knows he should feel grateful. A part of him is, but that part of him is silenced by the terror that comes from what he just witnessed.

And the terror is silenced by emotion far more powerful than any feeling.

Geralt stands a few feet away, chest rising and falling as he catches his breath. His eyes haven’t left Jaskier. He’s waiting for something, probably for Jaskier to run for the hills.

The bard’s feet begin moving before he decides to move them. The space between him and Geralt lessens as the seconds tick by, and then, he’s standing right before the man.

He doesn’t say anything— doesn’t know what to say— but he lifts a hand and lays it on Geralt.

First, over Geralt’s heart.

Then, on Geralt’s neck.

Then, on Geralt’s crimson-streaked cheeks.

He tilts his head forward slightly and rests his forehead against the witcher’s own and breathes.

He doesn’t know when he stopped, but he realizes at that moment that Geralt is the breath of fresh air he had been seeking when he left the room of his tavern to come out here. He realizes that this is it for him.

Jaskier is twenty-four when he realizes he’ll love this man forever.

—

day 2546

“I want you to…”

Jaskier stills.

Geralt, despite what one may believe, has never really struggled with asking for what he needs in bed. He’s always self-assured and fluid, always knows where he wants to be touched and how.

Tonight is different. Tonight, he bends his legs, knees pressed to his chest, and hugs them. Tonight, he doesn’t look Jaskier in the eye. Tonight, he seems… small. Vulnerable.

“Hey,” Jaskier says. He lays a hand over one of Geralt’s, thankful that the man doesn’t pull away, and squeezes reassuringly. “You can ask me, whatever it is. I don’t think I’d ever be able to deny you a thing.”

Geralt meets his eye, at last. He pulls away, but only so he can readjust himself, lay his legs flat on the bed, and spread them.

He takes Jaskier’s hand in his again and drags their joined hands down his neck, then lower. Down his chest, then lower. Past his stomach, then lower. Over his cock. Lower.

And Jaskier gets it.

He takes his time opening Geralt up. Jaskier kisses him when he gasps and runs fingers through his hair when he gets tense. He fingers Geralt until the witcher comes and then fucks him properly until he comes again. The bedsheets are ripped to shreds by the time Geralt’s been worked to his third orgasm.

Afterwards, he asks, “have you ever done that before?”

Geralt is quiet for a few seconds and then, “once.”

Jaskier feels like there’s a story there. He doesn’t push.

—-

day 1354

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Jaskier doesn’t know why he says it, it’s not like it’ll get Geralt to stay. The witcher never does, why should this time be any different? Because Jaskier loves him? That would change nothing. And yet, naive as he is, he can’t help but hope.

Geralt doesn’t face him. Jaskier wants to pretend he’s just a coward, but he knows the truth. Geralt doesn’t care enough to grant him the small comfort of eye contact.

“You shouldn’t be.”

And Geralt leaves. He walks out of Jaskier’s life for what may be the hundredth time, taking the last of Jaskier’s hope with him.

—

day 3563

Geralt isn’t happy to see him, which is new.

It’s been years and every time they see each other, they fuck before greetings are even made. Today is different. Today Geralt is too busy searching for a djinn to care much about Jaskier’s presence at all.

They end up fighting. Jaskier ends up on the brink of death.

Pathetically enough, the first emotion that courses through him when he realizes he may die soon isn’t grief, but regret.

Regret that he may never get to tell Geralt he loves him again, regret that Geralt will never hear the certainty in his voice when he says it this time.

Yes, pathetic, indeed.

—

day 3567

“You slept with her.”

The words have been sitting on his chest for days, and they’ve been set free at last. Geralt’s silence almost makes him wish he hadn’t said anything at all. Almost.

“I saw you two,” Jaskier continues, forcing himself to not break eye contact despite the heat in Geralt’s gaze making him want to squirm on his log, “I saw through the window. You two fucked.” It comes out harsher than he intended it, but Geralt sits, unmoving, unaffected.

“Yes,” Geralt says at last. Simple as that.

“Okay,” he responds. Simple as that.

“Does it bother you?” As if you care.

“No,” he lies. Geralt looks at him like he didn’t even have to listen closely to his heart to tell it was a lie.

“Jask.”

“It didn’t,” he says again, willing his heart to not skip a beat. It does. Fuck.

Geralt sighs. “I didn’t realize we were…”

“Were what?”

“Working under such… confinements.”

Jaskier scoffs, “you can fuck who you want, Geralt.”

He hasn’t slept with anyone else since they’ve started this… arrangement. But that’s not something he’ll ever admit, especially not now.

“It bothers you.”

“It doesn’t.”

Jaskier doesn’t want to fight, not now, but if Geralt keeps pushing they will fight. Fuck.

“She saved your life,” Geralt tells him.

“So you fucked her out of gratitude?”

“No, I fucked her because I wanted to.”

Gods.

“You’re a prick,” Jaskier hisses before standing to walk away.

He doesn’t know where he’s going but being hidden miles away in a dark forest is far better than being around Geralt right now, he knows that for sure.

Geralt finds him an hour later, or maybe it’s only been ten minutes, who knows really.

But he finds Jaskier and stands there gazing at him and says, “Jask,” in that way that makes Jaskier’s knees buckle and the next thing he knows, he’s being fucked up against a tree.

Figures.

—

day 3903

Jaskier has never seen Geralt smile before, not really, not before tonight.

Usually, it’s a small lift of the corner of his lips, which can be seen as anything. Tonight, the witcher smiles and it’s unmistakable.

It’s big and it’s bright and it’s beaming and it’s because of Jaskier. It’s directed at Jaskier.

They’re at a celebration that is held in Geralt’s name, to honor him for saving the kingdom. Geralt didn’t want to come but Jaskier forced him out the door, and now here they stand, surrounded by people toasting to the White Wolf for his bravery.

Geralt holds Jaskier’s face in his hands and his eyes shine brighter than his smile.

“Thank you,” Geralt says to him, and then he kisses Jaskier, right there in a room full of people.

—-

day 4266

Jaskier’s sick.

He’s supposed to be seeing Geralt again after three months apart and he’s fucking sick. Melitele has always enjoyed games but this proves that her cruelty has no bounds.

He thinks he can power through it or just pretend that he isn’t sick. Geralt can’t get sick, so if he acts fine, the witcher probably won’t notice.

Thing is, Jaskier is not fine, and it is very, very obvious.

Geralt eyes him slowly, tilting his head to the side as he observes the bard. “You look like shit.”

Jaskier glares. “Be still my beating heart.”

“Looks like your heart is three seconds away from doing just that.”

Why is he in love with this man?

“You’re an arse,” Jaskier quips, not a smidge of indignation in his tone.

Geralt shrugs.

He parts his lips to curse the witcher’s name and finds himself hacking up a lung instead. Geralt’s by his side in seconds, running a hand up and down Jaskier’s back as he holds the bard upward.

And that’s how what was supposed to be a week’s worth of marathon sex turns into Geralt taking care of a sick Jaskier.

Geralt holds a tissue to his nose for him to blow when it gets stuffy. Geralt piles heaps of blankets over his form. Geralt brings him warm stew and even warmer milk. Geralt gives him warm sponge baths. Geralt stays by his side the entire time, nursing Jaskier back to health.

Then, he remembers, this is why he’s in love with this man.

—

day 4342

They’re fighting over her. Again.

The fight didn’t start because of her, but it’s ending with her name being shouted back and forth between the two of them. Jaskier has lost count of how many times this has happened, but this time is so much worse than all those that came before.

Because this time, Geralt is visibly angry. This time, his hands are clenched into fists where they hang by his hips, and Jaskier notices. And Jaskier is angry, too.

Maybe that’s why when Geralt bellows about how insufferable he is, his response is, “what are you going to do, Geralt? Are you going to hit me again?”

Geralt flinches.

It’s a low blow, he knows that. It didn’t stop him from saying it. It doesn't make him take it back.

Even as the air seems to vanish from the room, making Jaskier think that perhaps he’s suffocating, he doesn’t take it back. Even as Geralt looks at him like he wishes they never met, he doesn’t take it back. Even as Geralt turns to walk away, he doesn’t take it back.

He may never return, Jaskier thinks. He doesn’t take it back.

—

day 4345

Geralt does. Return, that is.

He doesn’t even give Jaskier the chance to apologize, not verbally. They resolve things the way they always do: sex.

Jaskier thinks that maybe he’s a bit obsessed with Geralt’s cock. There’s truly no other explanation for the way he acts around this man— the way he acts because of this man. Sex this phenomenal would be enough to drive anyone mad.

—

day 4385

On Jaskier’s thirtieth birthday, he realizes that Geralt may love him. Maybe the witcher isn’t in love with him, but there must be some form of love there.

One doesn’t simply spend a shitton of coin renting out the most expensive room in a high-class inn for someone they don’t love, right?

One doesn’t get someone they don’t love their favorite flowers, right? Flowers that they’ve only mentioned once in the past, years ago— one doesn’t just magically remember something like that if they don’t feel love for the recipient of said flowers, right?

One doesn’t hold Jaskier the way Geralt does during and after three rounds of sex that night if they don’t love another, right?

One doesn’t look at someone the way Geralt does while he’s laid out on the bed and Jaskier is soothing his muscles in a warm bath if they don’t feel love for that person, right?

Right?

—

day 4403

They meet Yennefer on the path again, and Jaskier accepts that there’s no way Geralt loves him.

One doesn’t treat someone they love this way.

—

day 4856

It takes them crossing paths with Yennefer six times in total before Jaskier decides to sleep with someone who isn’t Geralt.

It isn’t all that fun the first time. So he does it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

He does it so much he’s beginning to fear he’s slept with more people than the number of years Geralt has lived on this continent.

Jaskier doesn’t really get much out of it. He orgasms, which is fun. He makes people feel good, even better. But none of them are Geralt.

Still, he continues. If only to see the tension around Geralt’s eyes whenever he comes back reeking of someone else.

If only so he can laugh like an absolute maniac while Geralt fucks the name of the barmaid he just had sex with right from his brain.

He doesn’t recognize himself anymore. It scares him.

—

day 5919

“He never stays with me either, you know,” Yennefer informs him on a night where they’re drunk and acting civilized because they’re too tired to hate each other.

Jaskier laughs against the rim of the bottle of Yennefer’s incredibly expensive wine. “That’s our Geralt, fuck you into a parallel universe and then leave before you can even thank him for it.”

Yennefer scoffs. “I’ll have you know that I do most of the fucking.”

So does Jaskier these days, but he’ll never tell her that.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

He entertains the idea of having sex with her that night, just to see what’s so special— maybe try to understand why Geralt will always choose her in the end. He thinks that Yennefer might actually go for it.

There’s a flash in her eyes that burns brighter than the fire before them. That flash confirms his theory.

He doesn’t have sex with her. Geralt would probably forgive him, he knows, but he’d never forgive himself.

—

day 1620

Jaskier wakes up with Geralt’s head on his chest. He thinks that he’s probably still dreaming, so he pinches himself. Hard.

No. Not dreaming.

In his mind, he gets up from the bed and dances, dancing about the room with absolutely no rhythm, but not caring because he’s too fucking ecstastic to care.

In reality, he tightens the arm he has around Geralt and then stays still, too scared that if he moves, he may lose this moment forever.

—

day 7450

“I need your help.”

And there it is. The words he’s defenseless against.

Jaskier promised himself not too long ago that he’d never follow Geralt anywhere ever again.

He refuses to break that promise. So, when he leaves the cell with the witcher, they’re walking side by side.

—

day 7258

“Stop, just stop,” Jaskier groans.

The woman’s mouth slips off his cock as he sits up on the bed, adjusting himself so he’s leaning back against the headboard.

“This doesn’t happen to me,” he says more to himself than the stranger from downstairs.

“Apparently it does,” the woman mutters as she side-eyes him looking utterly unimpressed.

Jaskier would glare if it weren’t for the fact that she’s right. This is the fourth time he’s tried to have sex this week and each time has been just as unforgiving as the last.

He knows why, of course. What other reason could there be?

He hasn’t seen Geralt in over a month and the witcher is still screwing him over. Classic.

—

day 2931

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Jaskier gasps.

He didn’t even need to. Geralt shows no signs of stopping any time soon. Jaskier will tire soon, he knows this. He’s been holding out for too long, his body needs release. It’s fine because even when he finally meets that release, he will let Geralt go on.

Geralt needs this. He supposes any man would after saving someone and declaring the law of surprise just to find out that surprise is an unborn child.

Geralt needs this, so Jaskier will give it to him.

After, when the bedsheets have been drowned in sweat and half of the bed has been left lopsided because part of the frame broke, Jaskier turns to him and asks, “what will you do?”

Geralt’s eyes remain glued to the ceiling when he says, “nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean,” Geralt begins with a new tightness in his tone, “that child already has two parents who will love them unconditionally. They do not need me.”

“Geralt, the child is as much yours as it is Princess Pavetta and Duny’s.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“That child will be far better off without me.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jaskier says fiercely.

Geralt says nothing in return.

—

day 7462

Ciri is a lot like Geralt. She’s fierce, loyal, determined, and jumps into danger like nothing can kill her.

But, she’s talkative and she warms up to Jaskier quicker than Geralt did. They’ve become friends— best friends, as Ciri may tell anyone else.

She braids his hair and puts flowers in them.

He teaches her how to make a pie using the meager ingredients available at Kaer Morhen and the dessert is a success amongst all the witchers and mages.

She teaches him all she knows about how to fight and then begs Lambert to teach Jaskier more because she doesn’t know everything. Lambert does so, despite himself. He does it because Ciri wants him to. Ciri tends to have that effect.

Jaskier sings her to sleep most nights, or tells her stories he’s heard or experienced. Sometimes she corrects him, sometimes she shares her own stories.

They tell each other a lot. There are some things he feels that they’d tell to no one else but each other.

Ciri feels like family. It’s a dangerous thought to have.

—

day 7313

Jaskier is thirty-eight, sobbing into his jug of wine while sitting on the bed of the overpriced room he’s rented when he realizes he needs to get his shit together.

He hasn’t been cutting his hair or shaving, he’s been wearing far more cotton than silk, he lashes out at anyone who even glances in his direction. All he can do these days is drink and wallow.

Wake up. Have ale for breakfast. Go outside and wander the streets to make others feel as miserable as he does. Find himself at a bar to have wine for lunch with a side of bread. Dance even when there’s no music playing. Fall asleep after chugging a bottle of mead before bed. Repeat.

It’s pathetic. He’s pathetic.

He can’t be this person anymore. Jaskier refuses to be this person.

And so, he does the one thing he was born to do. He searches through his pack for the book that’s been left untouched for months and pulls out a quill, ready to do the one thing he was born to do.

He writes.

—-

day 7390

Burn, Butcher, Burn becomes a continent-wide success.

Jaskier hopes Geralt has heard it. He hopes the ballad follows him wherever he goes.

Jaskier hopes that it hurts him.

—

day 7461

“I heard your song.”

Shit.

Jaskier knew there was no way Geralt hadn’t heard it by now, but he had hoped that it was something they simply wouldn’t speak of— especially not when they’ve been sitting here in silence in Kaer Morhen’s surprisingly information-packed library for over an hour. The continued silence would’ve been nice.

“Yeah?” Jaskier breathes, dipping his tongue out of his mouth to lick at his dry lips, “what did you think? Three words or less.”

The reference to their past has done nothing to lighten the mood. Geralt’s features are serious when Jaskier finally looks at him, his eyes seem sad.

“It hurt me.”

Jaskier swallows. “I see.”

This is what he wanted, isn’t it? He wanted this. Why does the victory make him ache the way that it does?

“But I hurt you, too,” says Geralt, “I guess now we’re even.”

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but he can’t help it. It’s a funny thought. They’re even. As if. He knows not even Geralt believes that, knows that it was said to lighten the mood.

“Yeah,” Jaskier says between a chuckle, “I guess we are.”

—

day 7468

Jaskier’s quite surprised by how simple things are. Some days, he and Geralt barely speak a word to each other, and others, they have full conversations— Geralt’s actually capable of holding a conversation now, Jaskier never thought he’d see the day.

It’s not like things are easy, they’re just… simple. Tame. Less intense. It’s a relief. Jaskier doesn’t think he’d be able to survive their reunion any other way.

They haven’t had sex, they haven’t even acknowledged that they used to have sex, but there’s that tension in the room every time they’re together that says neither of them has forgotten.

It’s better this way, without the sex. It gives them the chance to navigate whatever it is they’re trying to create with a clear head. Well, sort of, since Jaskier’s mind is still clouded by how much he loves the man, but the absence of physical touch does make it better.

Jaskier never thought he’d enjoy not having sex but for once in his life, he does. He’s grateful for it.

—

day 7473

They never talk about it.

The first time Rience’s name was spoken in the keep, it was from neither Jaskier nor Geralt.

Gwain got all of two sentences in before Geralt stormed out of the room, stormed out of the keep, and didn’t return for hours.

“If they ever cross paths again, that firefucker is going to be a very sorry man,” Coën had murmured from beside Jaskier as they watched Geralt slice into anything his swords could find.

It’s probably true, but Jaskier tries not to think too much about it.

He doesn’t need to because Rience’s name is never brought up again.

—

day 7478

“He’s in love with you, you know.”

Jaskier looks up at Yennefer.

She’s watching him, but it isn’t in the way she watches everyone else like they’re being tested. No, this look is too… soft to be that. It’s too open. It’s as if the words have been sitting on her tongue for days, weeks, maybe, and she finally unburdened herself of them. Jaskier understands that completely.

Still, it’s a ridiculous thing to say. Jaskier spent two decades of his life wishing for that to be true. It wasn’t back then, it isn’t now, it never will be.

And so, all he can do is offer her a sad smile. “No, he doesn’t.”

—

day 7479

Jaskier doesn’t fuck Lambert out of spite.

He fucks Lambert because he hasn’t been fucked in weeks.

He fucks Lambert because Lambert’s hot and his body always feels nice against Jaskier’s during training.

He fucks Lambert because he needs his brain to stop repeating He’s in love with you, you know, over and over again like a broken record.

Still, the words play in his mind. It’s all he can hear. He’s crying when he comes and he convinces Lambert that it’s because the orgasm feels so good, which is partly true.

Lambert is a great fuck, but Lambert isn’t Geralt.

He can’t look Geralt in the eyes the next morning, but he feels the witcher’s eyes following him all day.

—

day 6238

“I’m in love with you, Geralt,” Jaskier tells him one night after their breaths have evened out, “and I think it’s beginning to consume me.”

A hand falls over the one he has rested on the bed.

“Then I guess we’re in trouble,” Geralt whispers into the darkness of the room. Jaskier hears it loud and clear.

That, they are.

—

day 7500

They’re in Geralt’s room, leaning over a map of the Nilfgaardian Empire. Geralt is saying something. Jaskier isn’t really sure what it’s about if he’s being honest. For the first time since they’ve met, he’s tuned the witcher out completely. He doesn’t mean to, but it’s hard to focus when he has this nagging in his mind.

He’s in love with you, you know.

He’s in love with you, you know.

He’s in love with you, you know.

Fucking Yennefer.

They’ve been slowly but surely trying to reach a stable point in their friendship again and now that’s all been fucked straight to hell. Though, Jaskier supposes that nothing about them was ever stable, anyway.

If this is going to be fucked, it may as well be on his terms this time.

“Yennefer tells me you’re in love with me,” he says, just to say it. Jaskier hasn’t repeated the words since they were spoken to him. It’s only fitting that the first time he does, it’s to Geralt.

Geralt stops moving. “Hm.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

Jaskier expects that confirmation to make him feel too many things at once. It’s all he’s been wanting to hear for over half his life, he’s wanted it more than he’s ever wanted anything, and now here it is.

Geralt of Rivia telling Jaskier that he loves him, at last.

He should feel so much, but he doesn’t.

There’s a certain stillness in him now, one he hasn’t been able to reach since the day he first met Geralt. He feels… peaceful. His mind is quiet, his heart keeps its pace.

He expected to feel too much, but he doesn’t.

Perhaps it’s because a part of him always knew.

Jaskier grins. “Well, I guess we’re in trouble then.”

“I guess we are,” Geralt says. Something in his voice suggests that he doesn't mind that one bit.

—

day 2547

Jaskier wakes up alone.

He had been foolish enough to believe that the way Geralt had opened up to him last night may have changed a thing. As if Geralt trusting Jaskier enough to let the bard fuck him would mean that he wouldn’t run away in the middle of the night.

Gods, he’s a fool.

He’s a fool for believing that anything would be different. He’s even more of a fool for crying over it.

—

day 7501

Jaskier’s eyes flutter open to a streak of light peeking out from behind closed curtains. The events of the day before come rushing back to him and his body goes stiff.

He’s afraid to look behind him, afraid to break the spell, but the sooner he does, the sooner he can face whatever is to come.

Jaskier turns.

Geralt’s eyes are already open and focused on him.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Hi,” Jaskier responds, cheeks quickly beginning to ache from how wide his grin is.

Silence stretches over them, and in this time, they both turn their bodies towards each other completely and Geralt reaches out to take his hand. They didn’t have sex last night, and Jaskier half expected them to immediately go at it the moment they woke up. He’s okay with this, though, more than okay. Geralt seems to be okay with it, too.

“Tell me again,” Jaskier whispers.

Geralt smiles at him disarmingly and doesn’t hesitate for a moment, “I love you.”

He kisses the witcher. His witcher.

—

Jaskier met Geralt when he was eighteen. He walked up to him in that tavern in Posada, then followed him out of that same tavern.