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It’s a bright summer’s day and Geralt is caught beneath the yowling weight of a crazed, grief-maddened werewolf, weapons knocked far out his grasp. He grunts, tightens his grip around the werewolf’s slicing claws, and twists in the dirt, trying to find something to get this thing off him. He can’t see his silver or his steel sword anywhere, which isn’t good because if he doesn’t manage to arm himself soon, he’s not making it out of here without serious injury.
“Geralt!”
The werewolf howls, twists towards Jaskier’s dramatic entrance, and rakes its claws up through the bright blue fabric of his trousers and into the meat of his thigh – at the same time as Jaskier shoves Geralt’s silver sword into his hand. Jaskier’s scream is a shrieking counterpart to the werewolf’s guttural death roar, and he’s crashing back to the ground as the werewolf’s blood splashes across Geralt’s face. “Ah, fuck,” he spits as Geralt shoves the werewolf’s twitching corpse off himself. “This is a lot of blood, ah, gods, this isn’t good.”
Geralt comes to his side, werewolf forgotten, and studies the oozing gashes in Jaskier’s leg. The bard’s hands are hovering above the wound, fingers shaking, clearly dipping into shock, and Geralt pushes them away. “That was stupid,” he says gruffly. “You should have stayed back.”
Jaskier’s eyes are wide. “That’s what you’re worried about?” he squeaks, then yelps as Geralt rips his trousers leg open. “These are silk!”
Geralt raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s what you’re worried about?” he asks, and inspects the wound. Three long, vertical slashes, clean and fairly shallow. The blood is already beginning to slow. “You’ll be fine,” he says. “Stay still. I need to clean the wound – there’s water and bandages in my saddlebags.”
Jaskier looks up at him, eyes startlingly blue against the drained white of his face. “You’re just going to leave me here?” he asks, a little shrill. “Next to the dead werewolf?”
“I’ll be right back,” Geralt says, and squeezes his shoulder in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. “Roach isn’t far.”
Jaskier makes a muffled grumbling noise, hands now pressed to the blood-stained, ruined fabric of his trousers, and sits there, still and stiff, as Geralt fetches his bags. His expression is a little glazed, breaths coming too slow, heartbeat sluggish – and Geralt winces, kneels down next to him. “Jaskier,” he says sharply, shaking him by the shoulder. “Stay with me. You’re going into shock.”
Jaskier blinks at him. “That does explain why the world is all wobbly,” he says, sounding distinctly similar to how he does when he’s drunk. He looks up at Geralt, head tilted to the side. “You have really pretty eyes, do you know that?”
Geralt is going to pretend he didn’t hear that.
He rips the rest of Jaskier’s trouser leg away and empties the contents of his waterskin over the gashes in his pale skin. Jaskier yelps as he cleans the wounds, then packs them with healing herbs and wraps them in clean bandages. “They’ll heal,” Geralt says. “As long as you take it easy, the scars will be clean.”
Jaskier huffs a breath, his eyes still glassy. “Scars,” he says. “A scarred bard. I’ll look like you.”
Geralt doubts that. He finishes tying off the bandages, tucking the ends neatly away—it’s much easier to do when the bandages are on someone else, he’s discovering—and then pauses, surprised. Half-hidden by the rapidly bloodying bandages, there are… marks on Jaskier’s thigh – ink, healed into his skin. He touches, despite himself, smoothing his thumb across the inked skin. “What’s that?”
Jaskier blinks. “It’s a tattoo,” he says, still in that dreamy, absent voice. “Have you never seen a tattoo before, Geralt?”
Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. “I know it’s a tattoo,” he says. “What’s it a tattoo of?”
Jaskier sits up straighter, reaches down and rolls the bandages down, apparently to show him – which definitely isn’t the right thing to do, because he knocks his wounds before Geralt can stop him, yowls dramatically and falls back against the forest floor. The bandage is down far enough, though, for Geralt to get a good look at the tattoo – and he frowns as he fixes his handiwork. “Is that a harp?”
“Congratulations on your basic knowledge of musical instruments,” Jaskier says, still hazy but a little more alert – that’ll be the pain.
“You’re a lutist.”
“Very well observed, Geralt.”
Geralt starts to help Jaskier to his feet. “So why do you have a harp tattooed on your thigh?”
Jaskier goes with him, a little limp but mostly with it. “I had a term-long fling with becoming a harpist at Oxenfurt,” he says morosely. “Mainly because I was a little bit in love with the harp teacher. He had these hands.” His forehead slumps against Geralt’s shoulder, and he makes a noise of ecstasy in the back of his throat. “But then it turned out he was married and not into men anyway—which, you know, for a musician at Oxenfurt is rare—so I returned triumphantly to my true calling, my beloved lute.”
“But not after you’d got a harp tattooed on your thigh?”
Jaskier shrugs, his breath warm against Geralt’s neck. “I was drunk and Valdo encouraged me,” he says, borderline regretfully.
Geralt isn’t quite sure what to say to that, or who Valdo is, so he just half-carries Jaskier to Roach and boosts him up onto her back. The bard seems a little more lucid, a little less likely to go sliding off the horse into the nearest river, so Geralt takes Roach’s reins and leads her along the path towards town. Jaskier groans as Roach jolts across the rocky ground, complaining about the pain, the discomfort, the agony, the annoyance – but mostly about the fact that these trousers were expensive, Geralt, and now they’re ruined, and do you really think I have other clothes that match this doublet?
Geralt hums. “Next time, don’t throw yourself in the way of a werewolf,” he says.
Jaskier scoffs. “And leave you to be horribly maimed? Not likely.”
Geralt eyes him sideways. “It’s my job,” he says.
“Dying isn’t your job,” Jaskier rebuts firmly. “At least as long as I’m with you, it isn’t.”
There’s a strange warmth that settles in Geralt’s heart at those words, but he chooses not to look at it.
The winter snow is falling thick and heavy across the Redanian countryside when they finally stumble across a little hamlet in the middle of nowhere, lights blazing through the wintry gloom. The blizzard has been building since this morning, whirling around their ears, battering them off course as the path over the moors disappeared beneath Roach’s hooves. Geralt hauled Jaskier up on the horse behind him hours ago, and the bard is now clinging to him wordlessly, arms wrapped tight around Geralt’s waist and face buried in his shoulder.
“Not long,” Geralt shouts into the wind, vaguely feeling Jaskier stir against him, and snaps Roach’s reins.
The inn is crowded and hot, and there’s fortunately a room going spare upstairs. Jaskier sorts out food and drink for them, fingers too numb to strum his lute, while Geralt stables Roach, and by the time he comes upstairs and slips into their small room, Jaskier’s halfway through a bowl of thick stew, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looks up at Geralt enters, raises his spoon in greeting. “It’s good!” he says, around a mouthful of carrot. “Needs pepper, though.”
Geralt hums, deposits his snowy bags next to the fire, and picks up the second bowl, noting with pleasure the mug of ale that’s sitting alongside. The stew is good, surprisingly so for such an isolated inn, and he eats it quickly.
Jaskier has inhaled his bowl before Geralt is even halfway through his, and he gets to his feet with a groan, shrugs the blanket off his shoulders and starts stripping out of his trousers, sodden from the lash of the snow. He mutters to himself as he does so, but he talks pretty much all the time, Geralt realised very early on, so it’s fairly straightforward to tune him out. Jaskier removes his doublet and shirt, too, as Geralt chews on a tough lump of unidentifiable meat, and hangs the brightly-coloured wool as close to the fire as he can, then retrieves the blanket, slings it back around his shoulders, and declares, “I am fucking freezing, Geralt.”
Geralt finishes off the rest of his stew, unperturbed, and puts the bowl down. “What’s that on your ribs?”
Jaskier peers at him for a second, hair wild and cheeks flushed. “You don’t care about how cold I am at all, do you?” he says petulantly, ignoring his question. “It’s nothing to you. You might not feel the cold, Geralt, because of all your excellent witcher mutations, but I do. I’m just a human, remember? Petty and insignificant. And cold.”
“There’s a fire,” Geralt points out, “and we’re inside.”
“This inn is draughty,” Jaskier rebuts, “and the fire is shit.”
Geralt huffs a sigh, gets to his feet, and pulls off his shirt. “Come here.”
Jaskier eyes him warily. “No. Why? What are you going to do to me?”
“You’re cold,” Geralt says. “The fastest way to warm up is skin-to-skin contact.”
Jaskier squints at him. “Are you offering to warm me up with your… magic witcher body heat?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Jaskier says, studies him a moment longer, then climbs to his feet and takes a step towards Geralt, a little tentative. “Are you sure?” he asks, clearly dubious, and Geralt decides that this is taking far too long so crosses the distance between them in a couple of steps and basically manhandles Jaskier until they’re sitting together in front of the admittedly not brilliant fire, Jaskier sitting between his legs, his back to Geralt’s chest, skin pressed to skin. “Well,” Jaskier says, a little strangled. “Okay then.”
Geralt frowns, his palms spreading wide across Jaskier’s bare stomach. “You’re cold,” he says.
“I already told you that,” Jaskier says, craning his neck to look back at Geralt, his breath startlingly close against Geralt’s cheek.
“I thought you were exaggerating,” Geralt rumbles, because there’s a deep-seated chill in Jaskier’s skin that he didn’t expect, bone-deep, cold enough that it sends shivers down his spine. “You should have said something before, in the storm.”
Jaskier shrugs. “What could I say?” he asks. “Hey, Geralt, by the way, I’m getting a bit chilly. Could we maybe stop for the night and warm up? In one of these many inns and taverns we’re finding in the middle of nowhere?”
“We could have taken shelter,” Geralt says, pulling Jaskier closer, something tight in his gut at the feel of Jaskier’s cold, cold body in his arms.
“Pretty sure I would have frozen to death,” Jaskier says, surprisingly upbeat for someone contemplating his own mortality, and he taps Geralt’s forearm lightly. “Even with your magic witcher body heat.” He pauses for a second, then says, tone a little softer, “Thank you, by the way. This is helping.”
Geralt hums, and slowly spreads his hands across as much of Jaskier’s flushed, cold skin as he can. Jaskier’s silent for a long while, his body getting gradually warmer, the tension seeping out of his shoulders the longer he stays bracketed in Geralt’s embrace, and Geralt just listens to the whisper of his breathing, the thud of his human heart, the crackle of the paltry fire and the whistle of the wind outside.
Even when Jaskier’s as warm as he should be, he doesn’t move away.
Neither does Geralt.
“It’s my family crest,” Jaskier says, breaking the silence.
Geralt blinks. “What is?”
“You asked what’s on my ribs,” Jaskier answers, his head leaning back against Geralt’s shoulder, a flush in his cheeks that’s not from the cold. “It’s my family’s crest. A heraldic eagle in red, with a crown of gold vines.”
Geralt frowns. “You have a family crest?”
Jaskier nods, gazing absently at the fire. Geralt’s palms are still pressed to his stomach and, after a moment, Jaskier’s fingers flutter to the back of his hand, tracing the scars and the roughness of his skin. “I come from a noble family,” he says, an odd note in his voice that Geralt doesn’t recognise. “The de Lettenhoves. I’m technically a viscount.”
Geralt absorbs this. “I’ve known you for six years,” he says. “You never said.”
“Didn’t seem relevant.”
Geralt’s not entirely sure what’s going on here, not entirely sure where this is going, but there’s an intimacy and a trust in the warm air trapped between them that’s making him feel a little bolder than usual. One of his hands leaves Jaskier’s stomach and slips around the side, fingers tracing carefully over the faintly-raised lines of the crowned eagle. Jaskier lets him, soft and silent. “Why’d you get it?” Geralt asks.
Jaskier makes a soft noise in his throat. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says. “I don’t really get on with my parents. They wanted a lot of things for me that I didn’t want for myself, so eventually I just… left. Went to Oxenfurt, started over. But before that, for a while I tried to make myself what they wanted me to be: loyal, obedient, the good little son who only cared about his family and his lands.”
Geralt blinks. “You have lands?”
“Quite a lot of land, actually,” Jaskier confirms, and a lick of amusement seeps into his voice at Geralt’s interruption. It makes him sound brighter, happier, more like himself. “So when I was fifteen or so, I decided it would be a great idea to prove to my father just how much I was committed to the family name to get our crest tattooed on myself. Spent quite a lot of money on it, too, paid for a very well-respected artist to travel all the way from Novigrad.” He pauses, the silence heavy.
Geralt presses his palm carefully over the scarlet eagle with its golden-yellow crown of vines, set deep into Jaskier’s skin, indelible, unchanging.
“My father didn’t really appreciate the gesture,” Jaskier says, his body warm and solid in Geralt’s arms. “Had one of his courtiers thrash me borderline senseless – behind closed doors, of course. Can’t have the masses knowing that there’s dissension in the aristocratic ranks.” He sighs, his body pressed up against Geralt’s in every way it can be. “I guess that’s when I figured I was better off getting out of there while I still could.”
Geralt holds him steady, doesn’t speak, doesn’t break whatever spell it is that’s descended over them.
“I see them, occasionally,” Jaskier says, absent and distracted, staring at the spit and crackle of the fire. “I’ll pop back home for special occasions. It’s my mother’s fiftieth birthday soon – I’ll go back for that. I’ll get the disapproving looks from my parents and the sideways glances from my cousins, but hey.” He shrugs, bumping Geralt’s shoulder. “At least I’m happy.”
For a moment, they just stay there, warm against each other, skin to skin, Jaskier’s head resting against Geralt’s shoulder, Geralt’s hand pressed safe and secure over the tattoo on Jaskier’s ribs.
Jaskier stirs, eventually. “Thanks for warming me up, Geralt,” he says, a little too bright, a little too cheery. “I might have to take advantage of that magic witcher body heat whenever I’m a bit nippy in the future.” He pulls away, gets to his feet, goes back to where his clothes are now mostly dry and starts pulling them back on – and for a second Geralt just sits there on the floor next to the fireplace, an oddly empty feeling in his gut.
But he dismisses it, and goes to finish the rest of his now-warm mug of ale.
Spring blossoms bright and beautiful across the streets of Oxenfurt, cherry blossom petals smearing the golden stone with their pale pink fingerprints and green blooming in every garden and every windowbox.
Geralt rides Roach slowly through the streets early in the morning, enjoying the quiet before the city fills with its usual bustle of students and professors and vendors and locals. The snows only melted enough to release Kaer Morhen from its icy prison a few weeks ago, and he’s been travelling since then, heading slowly towards Oxenfurt to find Jaskier. They didn’t have formal plans to meet, per se, but Jaskier smiled at him when they parted, said, “When you come lumbering out of your mountain cave, Geralt, I’ll be at the university.”
It feels like an invitation. Geralt’s really hoping it was an invitation, because he’s not about to admit it but, well, he’s missed Jaskier this winter.
Not that he’s about to admit that at all.
He finds Jaskier lounging in one of the university’s main quads, strumming lazily at the strings of his lute, his lyric notebook sitting open on the bench next to him. He’s singing to himself under his breath in the way he does when he’s composing, his forehead furrowed as he works through the same line over and over again, and he doesn’t even notice that Geralt is there until he’s practically on top of him. It’s only when Geralt’s shadow flickers over the pages of his notebook that he looks up, expression a little disgruntled – but then he sees who it is, sees it’s Geralt, and his face just… lights up.
Geralt doesn’t think anyone’s ever looked at him with such unabashed joy before.
“Geralt!” Jaskier exclaims, bouncing to his feet and discarding his lute on the bench. “Good to see you! How was Kaer Morhen? Full of witchers? Gods what I wouldn’t give for those stories. You’re going to have to take me there one winter, you know? Although give me plenty of warning, because I’m going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe – I am not sartorially prepared for a draughty witcher fortress.”
Geralt rumbles a laugh.
“Come on,” Jaskier says. “Let’s get some breakfast. There’s an inn down on the waterfront that does fantastic kippers.”
Geralt pauses as Jaskier moves to gather up his lute and his notebook, frowns, because he knows Jaskier’s smell, knows it well enough to pick it out across a crowded inn in the arse end of nowhere – and right now, it’s different. He steps closer, breathes in.
Jaskier looks up at him, a little startled. “Geralt?”
It hits Geralt all at once. “You smell like blood,” he says, teeth gritted, worry shocking through his heart like lightning. “Jaskier, why do you smell like blood?”
Jaskier laughs, presses his hand to Geralt’s chest with an ease and a comfort that twists something in Geralt’s gut. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m not bleeding to death. No one’s been beating me up.”
Geralt’s hand is resting on Jaskier’s elbow, unbidden, almost unnoticed. “Jaskier,” he growls, because the stink of blood is all he can smell, now, thick on the back of his throat, bitter and metallic. Jaskier shouldn’t smell like blood. Jaskier should never smell like blood.
“Geralt,” Jaskier says, breaking through the haze of panic deepening in Geralt’s head. “It’s honestly fine. I just got tattooed yesterday, and it’s still fairly bloody.” His fingertips press harder into Geralt’s chest, and Geralt focuses on that, on that touch, on that comfort. “Geralt? Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Geralt says, and drops his hand. His breath is surprisingly shaky, and all of a sudden he needs to know, he needs to see. “What is it?”
Jaskier studies him for a moment, expression inscrutable. “It’s on my hip,” he says, and reaches for the laces of his trousers – which, Geralt notices, are tied significantly looser than usual, presumably to give the fresh, bloody wound in Jaskier’s skin air to breathe. Jaskier pulls his waistband open, wincing a little as he does so, to give Geralt a view of his hip, red and swollen, reeking of blood and plasma – and there, inked into his skin, is a display of unfurling yellow flowers, dandelions and tulips, carnations and buttercups, sunflowers and marigolds. It starts a few inches down his thigh and progresses up over his hipbone, just spilling onto the soft plane of his stomach.
“Flowers,” Geralt says.
“Flowers,” Jaskier agrees. “Observant as ever.”
“Why?”
Jaskier shrugs. “I like flowers.”
Geralt frowns at him. “That’s the only reason?”
Jaskier eases his trousers back into place and starts lacing them up again. “Does there have to be a better reason?”
“It’s on your skin,” Geralt says slowly. “For the rest of your life. Shouldn’t there be a reason?”
Jaskier’s lips curl in a small smile. “I like flowers,” he says softly. “That’s more than enough of a reason for me.” He cocks his head, gathers up his lute and his notebook. “Kippers?”
Geralt breathes in, smells blood and plasma – but smells springtime and pollen, too, smells the oils in Jaskier’s hair and the soap caught under his fingernails, the wood of his lute and the graphite of his pencil. “Kippers,” he says, and goes where Jaskier leads.
“Geralt,” Jaskier says, feeding Roach slices of apples as they walk slowly beneath the yellowing autumn leaves somewhere in Temeria. “Is there some kind of witcher taboo against tattoos?”
“No,” Geralt says, ducking underneath a low hanging branch.
“You don’t have any, do you?”
“No.”
“Never wanted them?”
“Tried, once,” Geralt says, hands loose and relaxed on Roach’s reins. “A few summers after I left Kaer Morhen for the first time. It didn’t take.”
Jaskier frowns up at him. “It didn’t take?” he asks. “What does that mean?”
“The ink fell out overnight,” Geralt says, shrugging. “Something to do with how quickly I heal, I think. Ink doesn’t stay in. Lambert had the same experience, so it’s not just me.”
“Interesting,” Jaskier says, and gives Roach another apple slice. “What did you try to get done?”
Geralt shrugs again, feeling oddly self-conscious. “A wolf,” he says, almost embarrassed. He can feel Jaskier’s gaze on him, but he can’t bring himself to meet his gaze.
“A wolf,” Jaskier echoes, a teasing touch in his voice. “Was it a white wolf by any chance?”
“Jaskier.”
Jaskier holds up his hands. “No judgement!” he says brightly, smirking. “We all make mistakes. You’ve seen my harp – not my finest hour.” He studies Geralt a moment longer. “Why a wolf?”
Geralt grunts. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
“Yes, okay, sure,” Jaskier says. “The wolves of Kaer Morhen, the whole witcher thing, sure. But why did you choose to get it tattooed?” He pauses, reassesses. “Or why did you try to get it tattooed, at least? Was it respect? Love?” He must sense Geralt’s confusion, so he clarifies. “I mean was it for a positive reason, or a negative one? As a happy memory? Or as a reminder, a warning?”
“It was a long time ago,” Geralt says. “I don’t remember.”
Jaskier falls silent, and offers Roach another slice of apple.
They walk until the sun starts to slide down the sky, drowning them in the soft light of early autumn. It’s warm enough that it won’t be uncomfortable sleeping outside but cool enough that Geralt will probably end up with Jaskier curled into his chest for warmth, his breath soft and whispering against his throat, his hands winding into Geralt’s shirt. They set up camp before they lose the rest of the light, Geralt rubbing Roach down as best he can while Jaskier gathers an armful of firewood, moving around each other in almost perfect sync, barely even needing to talk to know what they need to do – except Jaskier does talk, of course, relentlessly, incessantly, rambling in the way that he does where he needs no reply, no acknowledgement, no interlocutor. He talks for the joy of talking, for the music of the words, the rhythm of the echoes under the trees.
Geralt sits down next to the firepit Jaskier’s scraped out, adjusts the arrangement of the logs, then says, “It was a reminder.”
Jaskier’s hands pause, just for a moment, but then he keeps on going, taking out his tinderbox and starting to light the fire. “The tattoo?”
Geralt hums.
“A reminder of what?” Jaskier asks, not making eye contact, giving him space, giving him room.
“A reminder of what I am,” Geralt says softly, watching the sparks struck from Jaskier’s flint catch in the dead leaves he’s using as kindling. “A reminder of what humans think I am.”
Jaskier blows gently on the flames, nursing them to life. “An animal,” he says, voice tight. “A beast.”
Geralt doesn’t answer. He knows he doesn’t need to.
Jaskier’s quiet for a moment, feeding the tiny flames with dry twigs until they leap higher, eating into the logs, crackling around the bark. He sits back on his heels as the fire really gets going, starting to leak heat out into the cooling air, then he tucks the tinderbox back into his pack and comes to sit next to Geralt. He unbuttons his doublet, shrugs it off his shoulders, then pulls off his shirt as well, folding the fabric into a neat pile which he places on the hard ground next to him. “Here,” he says, turning to face Geralt. “On my chest.”
There’s a bird tattooed on Jaskier’s sternum, half-hidden beneath the hair on his chest. The tattoo is smaller than Geralt’s palm and beautifully done, a fragment of branch gripped in the bird’s claws, its beak open, mid-song. Its colours are flashier than any real songbird, bright blue chest, blazing red tail feathers, a streak of brilliant yellow down its crest.
Geralt understands before Jaskier explains.
“This is what people think of me,” Jaskier says, eyes shadowed in the firelight. “A songbird, pretty and colourful. Flighty and irresponsible, flitting from one thing to the next without thought or care for those around me. A plaything to be kept in a cage, to perform on command. Disposable and short-lived.”
Geralt presses his hand to the songbird, feeling the hammer of Jaskier’s heart against his palm, the heat of his chest. “That’s not you,” he says.
Jaskier tilts his head, smiles a little. “Just as a wolf isn’t you,” he says, and covers Geralt’s hand with his own. “I wouldn’t have spent half my life with you if you were just a beast, Geralt. I’m far too flighty and irresponsible for that.”
“You’re not flighty,” Geralt says, barely more than a rumble in his chest. “You’re loyal. You’re not disposable.”
Jaskier’s smile is a little sad. “Others would disagree.”
“You’re not disposable to me,” Geralt practically growls – and all of a sudden he’s very aware of how close Jaskier is, bare-chested and exposed, Geralt’s hand pressed to the echo of his oh so human heart. Their heads are bowed together, barely more than a handspan apart, and Jaskier meets Geralt’s gaze, eyes bluer than the bird on his chest, lips redder than its tail feathers. He’s so close.
“Geralt,” Jaskier says, little more than a whisper, and leans a little closer.
Geralt meets him halfway, kiss soft and cautious at first, just testing the waters, but then Jaskier’s hands slide into his hair, long-fingered and nimble, and something breaks in Geralt’s chest. He pulls Jaskier into his lap, kisses him like he’s wanted to for so damn long now, crushes him against his chest and loses himself in his smell and his touch and the sound of his rabbiting heartbeat.
“Fuck, Geralt,” Jaskier gasps against his lips. “I’ve been waiting years.”
Geralt just kisses him again, and doesn’t stop.
On a rickety bed in out-of-the-way inn, right in the middle of the autumnal Temerian hills, Geralt discovers that there’s a rose tattooed on the soft, sensitive skin of Jaskier’s inner thigh, petals blood red, thorns as sharp as death.
“It’s simple, witcher,” the lordling says, a cruel spark in his eye. “I want you to kill my brother.”
Geralt eyes him levelly. “No.”
The lordling tilts his head. “That’s not the answer I want to hear.”
“It’s the only answer you’re going to get,” Geralt answers. “I don’t kill humans.”
“You’ll kill this one,” the lordling says, beringed fingers tapping lazily against the edge of the table. The sound is tinny in Geralt’s ears, grating. “Or there will be consequences.”
Geralt settles his weight lower, loosens his stance, ready to fight his way out if he has to. “If you think you can kill me,” he says, disdain dripping into his voice, “you’re a bigger fool than you look.”
The lordling waves his hand. “No, no, the consequences won’t be for you, witcher,” he says. “I’m well aware that even a dozen of my men wouldn’t be much of a challenge for the famed White Wolf.” His eyes gleam. “But they were more than a match for the White Wolf’s bard.”
Geralt freezes. “What?”
“I have your bard,” the lordling says, sounding almost gleeful. “Don’t worry, he’s mostly unharmed. And he’ll be released once you bring me the head of my beloved brother and my position is confirmed. But, of course, if you refuse, or if you fail, I’ll be forced to take my frustrations out on your little friend.” He raises an eyebrow. “Do we have an understanding?”
Geralt bares his teeth. “You’re lying.”
“I’m really not,” the lordling answers.
“It’s common knowledge that the bard is my friend,” Geralt says, hoping his words sound half as reasonable as he wants them to. “You’re not the first person to claim they have him when they don’t. I’m not going to go around killing your relatives just because you think you’re being original.”
The lordling’s expression stills. “I am not a liar,” he says, soft, dangerous. “And you would do well not to accuse me of such.”
“Don’t lie, and I won’t.”
The lordling’s fingers are still against the tabletop. “There’s a rose tattooed on your friend’s thigh,” he says, and the bottom drops out of Geralt’s stomach. “For this insolence, witcher, I will have it cut out of his body and fed to my dogs.”
“Touch him and you die,” Geralt grinds out, hands spasming into fists at his sides.
That smile spreads across the lordling’s lips again, superior, grinning. “Do as you’re told, witcher,” he says. “Kill my brother for me and you’ll get your bard back. Delay, or disappear, or fail, and your bard will pay the price.”
Geralt fights the urge to snarl.
“Understand?”
“I understand,” Geralt answers.
He has no intention of actually going and killing the lordling’s brother, of course, but he needs to get out of the castle without drawing too much attention to himself so, for now, he plays along. The castellan gives him a whole wealth of information about his target, where he lives, what he likes to do, who he spends his time with, and Geralt makes a show of listening, of taking it in, of assessing – but all the while his gut is churning, his brain flooded with the memory of that delicate rose tattoo, soft and yielding underneath his lips.
The castellan shows him out of the castle, eventually, and Geralt takes off like a shot.
He goes to the inn he left Jaskier in three days ago, singing for their supper while Geralt tracked some unnamed monstrous hybrid through the hills. The innkeeper’s gaze is heavy the moment it lands on him, and he seems like he’s about to try to say something but Geralt storms upstairs before he can get a chance. Their room is chaos, bed upended, soot tracked across the floor in the shape of bootprints, a splash of blood dried into the rug beside the fire, and a cold hand closes around Geralt’s heart at the sight. He knew it was true, of course he did—how else would that fucking arsehole lordling know about Jaskier’s tattoo?—but seeing it is something else.
Jaskier’s lute sits untouched in the corner, wood gleaming in the candlelight.
The innkeeper comes up the stairs behind him, footsteps soft. “It was the night before last,” he says tightly. “In the small hours. Lord Josua’s men, they dragged him out of here in his nightclothes. My daughter woke me up, I saw them take him.”
“Alive?” Geralt grinds out.
The innkeeper nods. “Alive,” he answers. “His face was bloody and he was gagged, but he was alive.”
Geralt lets out a low breath, and turns to look at the innkeeper. “Do you know where they took him?” he asks, not particularly optimistic that the answer will be particularly helpful.
The innkeeper meets his gaze, surprisingly steady for a human. “My son’s a tracker,” he says, a note of defiance in his voice. “I sent him after them, told him to keep his distance but to follow them as best he could. They were so full of themselves, those soldiers, that they barely even bothered to cover their tracks.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “They’re in the forest to the south of here,” he says. “A small outpost two hour’s ride away. My son will take you there.”
Geralt stares at the innkeeper for a second, ignoring the hope that’s blossoming in his chest in favour of the suspicion he’s learned from long experience. “Why?” he asks. “Why would you send your own son to track a man you don’t know?”
The innkeeper raises his chin. “Lord Josua is not liked around here,” he says, words stiff. “My eldest girl, she was a maid at the castle. She refused his advances, so he took her by force, then set his dogs on her.” His eyes are bright. “She lived. But at a cost.”
It’s a story that Geralt has heard so many times in so many corners of the continent. It never gets any easier. “Is your son ready?” he asks.
The innkeeper nods, tight and bitter. “He’s just saddling his horse,” he says. “He’ll take you where you need to go, and he’ll bring you back here when you’re done.”
“Thank you,” Geralt says, “but we won’t return here. It is better for your safety if we stay away.”
Disappointment flashes in the innkeeper’s eyes, but Geralt sees that he understands. “Whatever you think best,” he says. “You’re the expert in monsters.”
Geralt grits his teeth, and for a moment allows himself the luxury of imagining his hands around the lordling’s throat, squeezing, cracking, breaking – but he can’t get distracted. If he killed every corrupt, violent noble he came across, his hands would never be free of blue blood. “Have your son meet me in the stables,” he says tightly. “I won’t be long.”
He gathers up their meagre belongings, shoving them roughly into their packs, then secures Jaskier’s lute back in its case, careful, tender, fingertips brushing lightly against the strings. In the stables, he loads Roach up as quickly as he can, then swings himself into the saddle and rides out alongside the innkeeper’s son, a taciturn youth whose hands are tight on his gelding’s reins. He doesn’t try to make conversation, doesn’t try to draw Geralt into camaraderie, just sets a punishing pace along the forest trails – and for a moment, Geralt thinks about his sister, violated and mutilated by a beast and his hounds.
They ride into the gathering twilight.
It’s evening by the time they reach the small outpost in the forest, a couple of low wooden buildings watched over by a bored-looking sentry who dies on Geralt’s sword before he even notices he’s there. Geralt studies the buildings for a moment, assigning them as a command station and a small barracks, then looks to the innkeeper’s son for a moment. “How many?”
The youth frowns. “I saw at least a dozen, maybe as many as two score,” he says. “But it was dark and they were moving fast. I can’t be sure.”
Geralt nods. “Ride home as fast as you can,” he says, dismounting and lashing Roach’s reins to a sturdy branch just out of sight of the outpost. He draws his steel sword from its sheath across his back. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I can stay,” the youth says, anger in his voice. “I can watch your horse.”
Geralt knows what he wants to say is I can watch you slaughter them. “No,” he says firmly. “Go. Now.”
The youth has enough sense, at least, to not argue with a witcher.
Geralt waits until he can’t hear hoofbeats anymore, waits until the forest air is still in his lungs, waits as the darkness deepens and the sounds of drunken merrymaking start to spill from the open windows of the outpost, then he stalks through the shadows towards the building he’s identified as the barracks. The door is on a latch, sloppy in the soldiers’ self-confidence, and Geralt is inside quick as a shadow. There are eight soldiers in the barracks, some stretched out asleep on their bunks, a couple playing a casual game of cards at a low table. Geralt leaves them in pools of their own blood, and goes on to the command station.
His heart is beating a slow, steady pace in his chest.
When he enters the command station, blood splashed across his hands, spattered across his cheeks, Lord Josua’s soldiers are so absorbed in their drunken revelry that, for a moment, they don’t even notice him. The room stinks of beer and vodka, plates of half-eaten meat scattered across the floor, and three men are pinning Jaskier facedown on what looks like their captain’s writing desk, braying with laughter as they lean their not inconsiderable weight into his lean frame. Jaskier’s naked, bruises and bloody bootprints scattering his pale skin, and Geralt can’t see his face but he can smell the fear and pain spiked high in his scent.
And that’s when he sees what they’re doing, those three drunken soldiers with their bruising hands and their laughing smiles. Two of them are actually holding Jaskier down, hard and heavy, but the third? The third has a pot of writing ink in one hand and a needle in the other, and he’s pricking the ink into the skin at the base of Jaskier’s neck, tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.
They’re fucking tattooing him.
“Hey!” a voice barks from the other end of the room, and Geralt swivels, sees another three soldiers sitting around a table, a fourth on his feet. “It’s the fucking witcher!”
Geralt gets to work.
When it’s done, he goes to Jaskier, slumped in a corner, other people’s blood staining his skin. He’s conscious, blue eyes bright if a little hazed with pain, and he looks up as Geralt kneels in front of him, tugs the gag out of his mouth, cuts the ropes around his wrists. “Hey,” he says, rich with relief. “Geralt. Fancy meeting you here.”
Geralt takes a quick survey of his injuries – cuts and bruises, mostly, a black eye, an angry-looking scrape running down over the eagle tattoo on his ribs. “You okay?”
Jaskier nods. “A bit battered and bruised, but I’m alright,” he says, wincing as Geralt helps him to his feet. “Although I think I might have managed to pick up a new tattoo along the way.” He raises his hand as if to touch the skin at the base of his neck, but pauses, thinks better of it. “What did they do?” he asks, looking up at Geralt with tightness in the line of his jaw.
Geralt looks, and feels his stomach clench. The lines are stuttering and irregular, technique amateurish and patchy—turns out that forcibly tattooing someone on a writing desk isn’t the best recipe for fine art—but the design is clear enough. “It’s a wolf’s head,” Geralt says, his mouth sour.
Jaskier stiffens, then sags against Geralt’s shoulder. “Of course it fucking is,” he mutters. He tries for a smile. “Well, at least everyone will know I’m yours now.”
The thought sits bitter in Geralt’s stomach. “Come on,” he says, and slings Jaskier’s arm over his shoulders. “Let’s go.”
“Good plan,” Jaskier says, and they go.
Geralt helps Jaskier dress, pulling his wrinkled clothes out of their packs, then gets them both onto Roach’s back and sets off into the trees, heading in the opposite direction of Lord Josua’s lands. They ride through the night and into the morning, until they find a sheltered little knot of trees next to a broad stream where they can rest for a little while. Geralt cleans and dresses Jaskier’s wounds, confirming his initial assessment that they’re superficial, that he’s fine, that he’s okay, then helps him wash the blood out of his hair in the stream. He lingers on the ragged tattoo at the base of his neck for a moment, cleans it gently, smears a thin layer of salve over the traumatised skin, then hears Jaskier sigh. “It’s not your fault, Geralt.”
Geralt doesn’t answer that.
Jaskier shifts in his arms, manoeuvres himself so that they’re facing each other. The bruise around his eye is darkening by the hour, sparking the blue of his eyes even brighter, and he pulls Geralt into a soft kiss, presses their foreheads together. “It’s not your fault,” he says again.
“It’s on you for the rest of your life,” Geralt grits out.
Jaskier shrugs. “So are the scars from that werewolf I saved you from all those years ago,” he says, and Geralt’s fingers smooth gently over his thigh, remembering the scarred skin beneath the skin of his trousers. “And the harp I got when I was an idiot student lusting after my teacher. They’re just memories, Geralt.”
Geralt kisses him. “They took you because of me,” he says gruffly.
“I figured,” Jaskier says wryly. “When people want to kill me, they’re usually less well armed.”
“I’m sorry,” Geralt says. “I should have been there.”
Jaskier’s fingers smooth over his cheeks, sliding into his hair. “You’re here now,” he says, soft under the whispering of the trees. “That’s what matters.”
The wolf’s head tattoo heals badly, raggedly, the ink uneven, skin scarred around the edges of the design. Sometimes when Jaskier is asleep, his back pressed against Geralt’s chest, breathing slow and soft in the night, Geralt runs his fingers over the raised lines, the crooked teeth, the clownish snarl, and feels guilt rise hot and fierce in his chest.
Geralt rides into Novigrad on midsummer’s eve, sweating under his armour in the heat of the summer sun. Revellers swirl around Roach as he makes his way through the narrow streets, avoiding her hooves as often as they shove flowers into her bridle – which Geralt tolerates for now, partially because he’s tired and doesn’t want to start a fight but mostly because Roach seems to be enjoying munching on the wildflowers being thrown her way.
Jaskier’s been playing at some month-long music festival while Geralt went hunting contracts, and they arranged to meet again on the last day of the festival at a tavern in the city centre called The Dancing Hart. Geralt makes his way there, stables Roach, then leaves her with an armful of sweet hay and goes to get a drink and something to eat. He gets a table outside, his back against the wall of the tavern, and the summer sun is hot in the sky overhead. The ale is pleasantly cold, the soup remarkably tasty, and he whiles away the afternoon watching the world go by.
Jaskier appears in the early evening, cheeks flushed with the heat, a victor’s wreath in his hair and his lute slung over his shoulder. “Geralt!” he says, bright as ever, and slides onto the bench next to Geralt, presses a kiss to his cheek. He’s clearly a little tipsy, and Geralt takes his lute off him before he can drop it, tucks it away under the table and orders them another round of drinks from a passing barmaid. They talk for a little while about nothing in particular, Jaskier recounting his victorious performances, Geralt pointing out all the obvious exaggerations and outright lies in his stories, and then Jaskier looks at him with a strange look in his eyes and says, “I have something to show you.”
Geralt raises an eyebrow. “If it’s that wreath on your head, Jaskier, you’ve shown it to me half a dozen times already.”
Jaskier snorts. “No, it’s not that,” he says, then puts his ale down with a thud, starts unfastening the high neck of his doublet. It’s been fastened since he sat down, despite the heat, and Geralt knows it’s only partially because that’s the fashion in Novigrad at the moment. In truth, Jaskier has been wearing collars like that for the past few years because the high necks hide the scarred mess at the base of his neck better – but now he’s shrugging out of his doublet, draping it over the table, then pulling down the neck of his loose shirt and turning around.
Geralt’s breath catches in his throat.
“The artist said that it was too much of a mess to just cover with something else entirely,” Jaskier explains. “She said she could rework it, though, make it into some kind of other animal.” His voice is soft. “I gave her a rough idea of what direction to take it in.”
Geralt runs shaking fingers over the reworked wolf at the base of Jaskier’s neck, the cartoonish snarl transformed into a peaceful howl, the crooked fangs hidden in solid shading, scarred tissue clearly treated with care and respect. The piece is done in black and grey, shading the shape of the animal around the pale gaps of Jaskier’s skin, except for the eyes which are—of course—as golden as the sun that hangs low in the midsummer sky. It’s a wolf, yes, but it isn’t angry, isn’t maddened, isn’t raging. It’s… gentle. Restful.
“She did a good job,” Jaskier says, reaching for his ale, taking a sip. “She wasn’t sure how well it would heal, and I did have to go back to get a few areas retouched, particularly around the scarring, but it’s come out well.” He laughs a little, drinks again. “Plus, she gave me a discount when I told her how it happened. Went on this whole rant about how shit like this is what brings her industry into disrepute, got pretty colourful with her insults. I didn’t mention that you killed the fuckers who did it, though, thought that might undermine what I’ve spent the last few decades doing with your image.”
They’re sitting at a table outside a tavern in central Novigrad, a stream of people flowing continually past them, bathed in the warm light of midsummer’s eve, out in public, on display. Geralt isn’t one to be free with his affections in public usually, no, he’s more likely to sit back and let Jaskier dance around him with his casual touches and smiling laughter, but right now the only thing he can think to do is grip Jaskier’s wrist, turn him around, pull him back towards him and kiss him, hard and searching.
Jaskier looks surprised but not unhappy. “What was that for?” he asks, eyes bright.
“You chose to have me on your skin,” Geralt says, the words nowhere near as eloquent as they should be, as he wants them to be. “As a part of you.”
Jaskier’s expression dissolves into a gentle smile. “Oh, Geralt,” he says, and kisses him again, light and fleeting. “I never needed a tattoo for you to be a part of me.”
Geralt sighs, a knot loosening in his heart that he didn’t even realises was there, and pulls Jaskier close.
They spend the evening there, sitting in the warm summer air outside The Dancing Hart as midsummer’s eve spills towards midsummer’s day. They drink chilled ale and eat perfectly-spiced meat pies, Geralt’s arm around Jaskier’s shoulders, Jaskier’s hair messy and his eyes bright in the gloaming, and when the barmaid comes around towards midnight, collecting glasses and plates, she finds them still sitting there, Jaskier’s victory wreath perched on Geralt’s silver-white hair as Jaskier dozes with his head in Geralt’s lap. She gathers their empty glasses up, then pauses, says, “I can bring him a blanket, if you want?”
Geralt offers her a smile. “It’s a warm night,” he says, his fingers smoothing across the wolf worked into the skin at the base of Jaskier’s neck. “I think we’ll be alright.”
The barmaid dips a nod, and leaves them to it.
Geralt sits back against the tavern’s wall, Jaskier’s wreath in his hair, Jaskier’s head in his lap, and watches the moon, silver-bright in the midnight sky.