Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Geralt, you’re doing the buttons all wrong!”

“Who cares?”

“I care, thank you very much! I didn’t drop half my earnings on these just to wear them incorrectly.”

“What’s the point of clothing this complicated?”

“Geralt, really. You negotiated a peace treaty between a clan of mountain dwarves and a centaur herd yesterday and now buttons are too complicated for you?”

Geralt grunted. He pulled Jaskier’s collar a bit tighter than necessary.

“How are your arms?” he asked.

“A bit sore,” said Jaskier.

Geralt’s gaze flickered up to meet Jaskier’s. “Still?”

“Hmph. We can’t all heal overnight, you know,” said Jaskier.

Geralt didn’t answer this; he just straightened Jaskier’s lapels without seeming to think about it. Then he reached down to the side table and picked up a comb. He held it up to Jaskier in a silent question.

“Yes, please,” Jaskier answered.

Geralt leaned over him and started to gently comb through his hair. Jaskier closed his eyes. Moments like these, when he felt like a pampered, protected thing, sank into his skin, became wearable, staying with him for the rest of the day.

“This must be how Roach feels all the time,” noted Jaskier.

He kept his eyes closed to give Geralt the opportunity to smile to himself.

“You’re a bit more demanding than Roach,” Geralt said.

“Well, I’m also better company, surely.”

The silence that greeted this statement rankled Jaskier.

“Geralt, you better not be standing there thinking I’m no better than a horse,” he warned.

As the silence stretched longer, Jaskier finally opened his eyes to glare at him, releasing an affronted “Geralt,” only to be knocked silent when Geralt gently placed a hand on his cheek. Jaskier automatically turned his face toward it—he was never able to resist Geralt’s strange and oh-so-tantalizing warmth, even when he really should have—and looked up at him in mute confusion.

A Witcher thumb swept over the delicate skin under his eye.

“Eyelash,” said Geralt, as way of explanation.

“Oh,” Jaskier said. He blinked rapidly to try to clear his head, which became a much easier task when Geralt removed his hand. “Aren’t you going to let me make a wish?”

“No,” Geralt replied stonily. He wiped his hand on his pants and turned away from Jaskier to throw the comb back on the table and start gathering his own things together.

“Yes, I suppose we’ve had enough wishes as of late,” agreed Jaskier. He walked over to the small mirror on the dresser and turned left, then right, trying to view himself from as many angles as possible.

He looked quite good in yellow, all told. It was more of a soft gold, really, with embroidered honey-coloured flowers on the sleeves. He liked the barely detectable sheen the fabric had most of all; just enough to catch the candlelight and make him glow in a dim room.

“It’s like traveling with a peacock,” quipped Geralt, who, it turned out, had been watching him the whole time.

“Oh, quit your bellyaching. I’m just admiring your handiwork,” said Jaskier. But he graciously moved away from the mirror so they could set out to get dinner.

The tavern was bustling, full of village people who were looking to let loose and relax after the day’s fall harvest. There were no empty tables—that is, until Geralt glared pointedly at two youngsters, who quickly scurried out. Jaskier slowly lowered himself into the rickety wooden chair, conscious of the bruises on the backs of his thighs.

“You know, it’s a shame,” sighed Jaskier after he’d ordered some mead and pumpkin stew for them both. “A full house like this is practically begging for some musical entertainment.”

“You can’t play your lute in your condition?” asked Geralt. He actually seemed disturbed, and Jaskier could practically see the cogs of his mind turning as he tried to remember whether Jaskier had practiced his lute at all in the past few weeks.

“Oh, I can play well enough. My hands are fine,” Jaskier said. “But it’s not just about the music, Geralt. It’s about the performance.”

Geralt raised an eyebrow. “You mean when you jump on tables and guilt people into buying you drinks?”

“No. Well, okay, maybe that’s part of it—”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” A melodic riff broke over the omnipresent noise of human chatter, and everybody quieted. “It is my honour to be your entertainer tonight—to take you to a world beyond imagination…”

“No,” Jaskier whispered in horror.

“To a world that seems impossible, but truly exists. A world of daring exploits, of romance and chivalry, of pageantry beyond compare—”

Jaskier sank deeper into his chair. “Not De Rouleau,” he groaned. “Not now.”

“I present to you, a ballad about the great horse races at Garrah!” With a flourish, the bard pulled out his mandolin and started playing. He had a buttery voice, smooth and pleasing to the ear. “Horses beyond compare, / the endless glow of fanfare, / the crowd parts to reveal, / the track that turns upon a wheel—”

Then a bread roll smacked him in the head.

“The devil’s pants! You weren’t even there, Adrien!” Jaskier shouted.

Adrien de Rouleau squinted over at their table. “Dandelion? Is that you?”

“My name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, thank you very much,” was Jaskier’s haughty reply, “and as someone who was actually in Garrah, at his own peril, I’ll have you know, I forbid you to sing about this event you clearly know nothing about. What the hell does that even mean, ‘the track that turns upon a wheel’?”

“We’ve paid him in advance! Let him sing whatever he wants!” shouted the tavern owner from behind the bar.

“As usual, Dandelion, you have the worst sense of timing,” said De Rouleau, leaning back on his stool with a cruel smile, “in music and life in general.”

“The way I see it, you’re the one ruining a perfectly good dinner with your caterwauling,” snapped Jaskier.

“Oh, really?” said De Rouleau. The smile stayed on his face, but a vein pulsed in his forehead. “Why don’t you come up here then so we can ask the crowd who has the better voice?”

“Oh ho ho, you’re going to live to regret that invitation, De Rouleau,” said Jaskier, rising from his chair a bit too fast, but quickly recovering from his wince of pain.

“Jask,” Geralt rumbled, “sit down.”

“Geralt, this clown is slandering me as an artist! How can I possibly resist rising to the challenge?” Jaskier asked.

“Nobody cares! Will one of you play some goddamn music already?” shouted out a person from the crowd to immediate sounds of agreement.

“Jaskier, let the man play his songs. You’re injured.” In the dim light of the tavern, Geralt’s face was a shadowy mask and it was impossible to tell if he was concerned or just irritated.

The crowd started booing and throwing things.

“Ugh!” After a bread roll bounced off the side of his head, Jaskier returned to his chair in defeat and glared over at De Rouleau’s smug grin as he started to play the stupid horse race song again. “This is injustice of the cruelest variety. Honestly, he just gets up there and…and lies.”

“You lie in your songs all the time,” noted Geralt, taking an unperturbed sip from his tankard.

“I exaggerate. I take creative license. I never lie.” Jaskier huffed, picked up his own tankard, and downed half of it in three gulps. “I certainly never make up stories about places I’ve never been to and events I’ve never seen.”

“You don’t need to,” Geralt said.

Jaskier allowed himself a little smile of pride. “That’s right.”

“Most people do,” said Geralt. “And they’re smarter for it.”

Jaskier’s smile dropped into a glower. “Are you calling me dumb because I write my songs with integrity?”

“No,” said Geralt. “I’m calling you dumb because you put yourself in danger for no reason.”

“Honestly, Geralt, you are so—ngrhgrh!” The frustration gurgled out of Jaskier’s throat as he gagged down the rest of his tankard and then drained his soup, ignoring his burnt tongue. “I’ve had quite enough of this. I’m going back upstairs. You stay and enjoy your new favourite bard.”

To his genuine surprise, when he stood up from the table, Geralt got up to stop him. And in the instant that he grabbed Jaskier’s arm, De Rouleau was upon them like a hyena.

“Is this the famous Witcher?” he called out. “Geralt of Rivia?”

The whole crowd turned to look at Geralt, who became very still. He didn’t react in his expression, but it was the way he froze—and also the way he didn’t release his grip on Jaskier, but in fact squeezed harder—that betrayed his immediate discomfort.

Adrien de Rouleau started playing “Toss a Coin” in an almost jeering way, making the lyrics sound sarcastic instead of genuine.

When a humble bard
Graced a ride along
With Geralt of Rivia
Along came this song—

In a wave of fury, Jaskier rounded on him. He tore out of Geralt’s grip and stormed right up to the other bard, snatching the mandolin out of his hands.

“Get your own muse,” he hissed. “Or make one up, since you have so much experience with that. But step off. Geralt’s mine.”

He shoved the mandolin back against Adrien’s chest, eliciting a solid oomph.

“If I hear you sing ‘Toss a Coin’ ever again, I’m breaking this over your head,” he threatened darkly, then pushed his way back through the now muttering crowd.

He didn’t really look at Geralt as he passed by, but sort of consolingly brushed his shoulder on his way out the door. As soon he was outside in the crisp autumn air, he immediately felt better; like the tavern had been this weird little anxiety dimension that he had finally managed to escape.

Despite what he had told Geralt, he didn’t really feel an urgency to return to their room, exactly. He had just wanted to beeline out of there. So instead he wandered in the cool darkness of an autumn evening, which was really quite lovely in this rural area surrounded by trees and fields overflowing with crops. He strolled down the dirt path, starting to feel the effect of chugging both beer and blended pumpkin at the same time. He was still massaging the gurgling of his stomach when a great force knocked him to the ground.

He yelped in panic, already opening his mouth to scream for Geralt, when he saw the big white paws on either side of him.

He rolled over and looked up at his white wolf, who seemed in utter ecstasy to see him: it started licking his face with great excitement.

“Okay, okay!” Jaskier was somehow both touched and irritated at the same time. He pushed the wolf’s muzzle away from his face, which he was only really capable of doing because the giant wolf allowed him to. “Enough! Down, boy.”

The wolf got off him and waited for him to stand up—a process that was a bit more arduous because of his lingering aches and pains—before it bounded around him, rubbing up against his legs and occasionally smacking him with its great wagging tail.

“What is this? Why are we so affectionate today?” asked Jaskier, rubbing its ears with more vigour than before. He didn’t even bother to ask where it had come from; he had learned his lesson in Garrah. Anyways, the wolf was way too cute to interrogate: it almost looked like it was smiling, with its tongue hanging out, staring at him with such sweet devotion. “Who’s a good boy? Is it you? Are you my handsome boy?” cooed Jaskier, to even greater enthusiasm from the wolf.

He crouched down and sat back on his heels and let the wolf snuffle at his hair.

“I suppose I don’t really know you’re a boy,” he mused. “I’m kind of just going off what Geralt said…Well,” he said as the wolf gave a decisive lick to his forehead, ruffling up all the hair that Geralt had just combed, “whatever you are, I’m glad you’re here.”

Noise spilled out of the tavern down the hill when the door opened and a few people walked out, laughing.

“Oh, tits,” said Jaskier, glancing over his shoulder. “Time to go, pup. I don’t want to know how the villagers will react if they see you.”

When he rose to stand, the wolf let out a little whine. It stood up on its two back paws to balance against Jaskier and lick his face some more.

“Yes, yes, I love you too,” he said, giving it a light kiss on its muzzle—an act that made him feel very daring indeed, putting his face so close to a wolf’s jaws without even flinching. “But you have to go now. I trust I’ll see you around.”

The wolf returned to all fours and dashed back into the forest, surprising Jaskier a bit. That was quick. Did it understand common speech or not?

He felt very lonely all of a sudden. To be lathered with such overwhelming affection for a few scant minutes and then abruptly left standing alone next to a patch of spaghetti squash was a truly confounding experience. He slowly started making his way back to the inn, glancing into the trees a couple times to make sure the white wolf wasn’t following him. He was a little disappointed that it wasn’t.

Adrien de Rouleau was waiting for him outside the inn.

“Ugh.” Jaskier grimaced at the sight of him. “What do you want? I thought there was a tavern full of plebeians awaiting your mediocre songs.”

“I have generated a rather captive audience, yes,” agreed De Rouleau, “but I took a quick intermission to talk with you.”

Jaskier was tempted to push past him to get through the door. But what if he followed him upstairs? Then he would be doubly hard to get rid of. “What could we possibly have to discuss?” he asked in defeat.

De Rouleau considered him for a moment. He rubbed his thumb against his lower lip.

“I enjoy your songs about the white wolf,” he said finally.

Jaskier blinked at him in surprise. “Oh…well. Thanks. But I’ve only written one.”

“Perhaps only one that mentions him directly,” said De Rouleau, “but every song since has been about him, hasn’t it?”

Jaskier had no idea what to say to this. “Quit speaking gibberish, Adrien, and get to the point,” he said crossly.

A large hand thumped onto Jaskier’s head as someone leaned over him, surrounding him with his body heat.

“Is there a problem here?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier glanced at him with profound gratitude, but it didn’t escape him that Geralt’s clothes were all askew: his shirt untucked, his hair loose—oddly, his boot laces weren’t even tied up.

“You look like you’ve had a fun night,” noted Jaskier with suspicion.

Geralt gave an ambiguous grunt.

“I’m not sure how that’s possible,” said De Rouleau, jumping into a conversation which most obviously was not meant to include him, “considering he ran out right after you did.”

Geralt sent the strange bard a glare so vicious it could’ve melted steel. Jaskier leaned back against Geralt in silent support. He was curious, of course, but he’d be damned if he was going to give De Rouleau the satisfaction of interrogating Geralt in front of him.

“What I wanted to say, Dandelion, has more significance for Geralt than it does for you,” De Rouleau continued. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch under Geralt’s molten gaze, but met it head-on. “Don’t get too attached. As soon as Julian gets bored, he’ll drop you like a hot rock. He’ll bleed you dry for lyric fodder and then disappear into the night. That’s just his nature.”

Jaskier turned pink, then red, then purple. Acid bubbled up into his throat. He was running so hot he didn’t even notice when Geralt pulled away from him.

“Don’t talk as if you know me, you spiteful little rat,” he seethed.

“I do know you, Dandelion. More than you’d care to admit. That’s why I’m passing on the good word,” De Rouleau said coldly.

“You’ve said more than a word,” said Geralt. His voice was icy. “Get out.”

De Rouleau gave Geralt a look that could be called pitying—if one examined it in several lights through a microscope while squinting—and then started making his way back to the tavern.

Jaskier was positively vibrating with rage. He slammed open the door and stomped up the stairs, his boots making a heinous amount of noise against the old wood, and when he got to the room he let out a howl of frustration. He picked up a pillow from the bed and hurtled it against the opposite wall.

When he turned back around, Geralt was a shadow watching him from the doorway.

“I hate him! I hate that man! Gods curse him!” Jaskier rubbed a sleeve over his eyes, which had started to blur with angry tears.

Geralt sighed. He walked over and started to unbutton Jaskier’s jacket for him.

“He always acts so pretentious, even though he has no worldly experience. None at all. He’s younger than me, Geralt. Imagine talking to your…your senior Witchers that way!”

Geralt hummed and slipped the jacket from Jaskier’s shoulders. He examined the new dirt stains with mild perplexity.

“He’s jealous, is what he is! He knows I’m a better songwriter than him. And oh, I bet he loathes that I’m good enough to play in places like Garrah. That I have an actual source of inspiration and he, he just—” Jaskier made another animalistic sound as words failed him in the face of such disdain.

Geralt picked up a hanger and hung up Jaskier’s jacket on the far wall. When he returned, he looked resigned.

“…You slept with him, didn’t you?” was all he said.

Jaskier felt himself turning purple for the second time that night.

“Geralt! That’s the first thing you think of? Do you really think so little of me?” He met Geralt’s unmoved expression with a righteous glare. After a few seconds, it faltered. “Once. Okay? It was one time. That’s it, I swear. It was nothing.”

“He seems to disagree,” noted Geralt.

“Yes, well, I’m starting to doubt he has complete access to all his mental faculties.” Jaskier stepped away from Geralt when he reached out to help him take off his chemise. He crossed his arms and pouted. “You have to take my side in this, Geralt. You’re legally bound to.”

Geralt looked amused. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds of friendship, you lug! Stop acting like you don’t know basic social etiquette! We’re well past that!”

“…It’s just,” said Geralt after a considerable pause, “you do tend to run out on people in the night.”

Jaskier put a hand to his chest and squawked.

“Don’t you dare shame me for my sex life, Geralt of Rivia! I can fight fire with fire, you know!”

Geralt didn’t seem very intimidated by this threat. He reached out to pull Jaskier’s hem out of his trousers, and Jaskier let him for some reason.

Geralt’s stupidly warm and magnetic touch…it was going to get him killed one of these days.

“Why ‘Dandelion’?” Geralt asked after another moment.

Jaskier huffed. “Because—” He paused as the chemise was pulled over his head. When he emerged, hair ruffled, he continued, “I’m the weed that no one can get rid of.”

Geralt stilled in his folding up of the chemise. He looked at Jaskier. His expression was very hard to read.

“It’s a clever bit of wordplay. I’m the heir to the Lettenhove estate, you see,” Jaskier explained. “The only boy. But I was a bit of a letdown, for reasons I’m sure you can imagine. People started calling me ‘Dandelion’ at Oxenfurt. That’s where I met Adrien.”

Jaskier tried to keep his tone casual. He didn’t like the idea of getting emotional in front of Geralt over a past he had worked very hard to divorce himself from.

“We got along at first. In environments like that, you latch on to anyone who’s like you. But, well.” Jaskier sighed and let Geralt pull his sleep shirt over his head. When his head popped back out, he said, “I soon realized he was an obnoxious ass. Also his music is terrible. I had to end it.”

Geralt started patting down Jaskier’s hair to neaten it out. “Hmm.”

Jaskier stood still and let Geralt tend to his ministrations. But no amount of patting seemed to satisfy him. He ran his hands over Jaskier’s hair again and again, his jaw locked tight.

“What are you thinking about?” Jaskier asked after another few seconds of staring.

“…Dandelions,” Geralt finally rumbled back.

Jaskier blinked in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Really? Care to share with the class?” he prompted.

“I never really understood how humans think of flowers,” Geralt said. “Roses meaning love; peonies meaning good fortune—who came up with all this shit?”

“I don’t know,” said Jaskier. “Probably the same people who invented astrology.”

“Flowers are flowers,” Geralt stubbornly insisted. “They don’t mean anything. They grow and look pretty for awhile and then they die.”

“Cheerful, Geralt.” Despite the pseudo-reprimand, Jaskier closed his eyes because Geralt was still stroking at his temples with his thumbs and he was starting to lose track of the conversation.

“Who decided dandelions weren’t flowers?” Geralt continued. “They grow. They’re pretty. They do all the same shit.”

“I think it’s because they grow in too many places,” Jaskier answered absent-mindedly. He was getting sleepy.

“Because they’re not fragile. Because they’re resilient.”

“I suppose that’s a way to put a positive spin on it, yes,” Jaskier replied. “But what good is being resilient if nobody likes you?”

Geralt’s hands stopped moving. Jaskier’s brow furrowed in annoyance. He bucked his head against one hand to try to get the temple massage going again.

A thumb and forefinger seized hold of his chin.

“Jaskier.”

Jaskier’s eyes blinked open. He wasn’t expecting the intensity of Geralt’s gaze; it whipped up a flurry in his stomach.

“Humans,” Geralt said slowly, adding gravity to every word, “never recognize true beauty when they see it.”

Jaskier let out a heavy breath, as if he’d been punched in the gut. There was no oxygen left in the room. His whole body was thrumming; it felt like liquid fire had been shot into his veins. His face grew hot.

He could feel his carefully constructed house of cards starting to fall apart. He looked at Geralt and knew that he was about to do something really stupid.

“Don’t move,” he said.

He only got a glimpse of Geralt’s confusion before he threw himself forward, wrapping his arms around his Witcher and squeezing him tight, burying himself into the crook of his neck and losing anchor on the rest of the world.

Geralt smelled of leather and pine and the outside. Jaskier breathed it all in deeply.

Geralt shifted beneath him, as if he was going to pull away.

“Don’t,” Jaskier whispered.

To his relief, Geralt settled. Then, to his utter euphoria, Geralt’s arms encircled him in return, his head dropping down to Jaskier’s shoulder.

This implicit permission prompted Jaskier to bury himself deeper into Geralt’s warm chest. Everything felt too good, too much; he fit too perfectly in Geralt’s arms and Geralt smelled too inviting and the desire to do more was too strong. It was overwhelming in the way Jaskier imagined heaven to be—a sensory overload, too wonderful for a mortal mind to process.

It was a good thing a djinn wasn’t around, because Jaskier would have definitely wished in that moment to never let go of Geralt, which would no doubt wreak utter havoc.

“Jask.” Jaskier loved that he could feel the name rumble in Geralt’s chest before he heard it.

“Mm?” His own voice was muffled against Geralt’s tunic.

Geralt’s hand came up to lightly rub at the nape of his neck. “We should sleep.”

Together? Jaskier almost asked, catching himself in the nick of time. When he pulled his face out of Geralt’s chest, he was all bleary-eyed.

“You’re falling asleep standing up,” noted Geralt.

“It’s not so bad,” yawned Jaskier. “Quite pleasant, really. Now I see why Roach does it.”

Geralt released an amused hum and Jaskier nearly pushed his face back into his chest so he could feel it more clearly.

“Gods, I’m a mess.” He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until he heard it two seconds later.

Geralt had guided him to the bed without him noticing. “Lie down.”

He let Geralt lower him to the straw mattress. He let him settle the pillow more firmly beneath his head. He let him pull the blanket over him and tuck it up to his chin.

He did not let him creep away without a word.

Jaskier grabbed his wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” said Geralt; then amended, “The floor.”

“The floor?” Jaskier sat up, suddenly wide awake. “You’re sleeping on the floor? Why? There’s enough room in the bed.”

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” said Geralt. He was using his this-conversation-is-over voice. But Jaskier’s heart was so busy tripping all over itself he thought he might be sick.

“Look—I’ll just move over. See? Plenty of space.”

Geralt’s silence was too long; even longer than usual. “The floor’s better,” he said awkwardly, “for now.”

Jaskier stared at him for a few seconds, then let him go. He watched Geralt blow out all the candles, his silhouette moving to crouch on the far side of the room next to the door. After a minute or two he fell into a meditative Witcher half-sleep.

Jaskier rolled over in the bed. Though it was, of course, the kind of modest bed that you would expect in a small countryside inn, it could definitely fit them both—he and Geralt had shared more cramped lodgings before without complaint. This wasn’t a case of Geralt being self-sacrificial or a gentleman. There was no other way to read the situation.

Geralt was avoiding sharing a bed with him.

It wasn’t just Jaskier’s heart that ached. It was like this had woken up all his bruises and scars, reminding them to hurt; his whole body was wracked with sudden agony. He curled up into a ball and wept as quietly as possible—if he made so much as a sniffle, Geralt would’ve been able to hear it.

He knew the hug was a stupid idea. He’d known it even as he was doing it.

If he didn’t learn to control himself better, he was going to lose everything.

❀ ❀

When Jaskier woke up the next morning, he had a splitting headache. He also couldn’t stop shivering, even though the temperature outside was very mild.

But he refused to tell Geralt. He wanted to get out of this godforsaken village as soon as possible.

The inn served hot oatmeal with honey for breakfast, and Jaskier had a hard time keeping it down, even though it should’ve been the easiest thing to swallow. He took some mandatory bites in order to evade Geralt’s suspicion. Things might improve once they were back on the road; sometimes he gained energy when he started moving.

He could see that Geralt kept glancing at him and knew there was no way he was fooling him completely. But Geralt was in one of his silent moods, so he managed to avoid interrogation.

At least for the first ten minutes of the day.

“Well, well. Someone looks like a walking pig trough today.”

Jaskier released an overdramatic groan, collapsing back in his chair. “De Rouleau, could you please, please find someone else to inflict yourself upon, just for an hour?”

Adrien de Rouleau sat down at their table, heedless of the fact that he was uninvited. He ordered a pot of tea and poured himself a cup, as well as one for Jaskier, who accepted it, but with an aggrieved look.

“What happened? You looked in perfect health yesterday.” Adrien reconsidered. “Well, an acceptable degree of health for you, anyway.”

“I feel fine,” snapped Jaskier, steadily ignoring Geralt’s increasing agitation beside him.

“Oh, sure; my deceased grandmother said the same thing last time I saw her. Be honest, Dandelion. Is this one of your metaphysical maladies?”

Jaskier opened his mouth to respond, but Geralt interjected, “His what?”

“Adrien,” Jaskier said in a warning tone.

“You haven’t noticed? You’ve been travelling together for years, haven’t you?” continued De Rouleau, undaunted as usual. “That’s what the physician at Oxenfurt used to call his emotional fits. Julian has a delicate constitution; he’s very impressionable, you know. Mental distress gives him fevers. Sometimes all it took was a letter from his father for him to practically drop dead for three days.”

Jaskier could feel Geralt’s eyes drilling holes into him, and he was starting to break out in a sweat. Worse, Adrien had a consistently smug almost-smile on his rat face that was making the whole situation particularly intolerable.

“You self-serving whoreson,” Jaskier cursed, but it came out flat from exhaustion. “I hope you get ringworm.”

Geralt stood from the table.

“Get up,” he said. “I’m taking you back to bed.”

“No, Geralt, don’t listen to him. Can’t you see he’s causing trouble on purpose?” Jaskier was so dizzy, he was going a little cross-eyed. He clutched his tea with one hand and his forehead with the other. Just being here, seated between the two banes of his existence, was making him feel infinitely worse.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said in a tone that didn’t allow for refusal.

Jaskier refused anyway.

“Why do you always have to order me around?” he snapped. “Maybe I have a perfectly good reason to not want to go with you. Maybe you’re why I’m sick in the first place, Geralt. Have you thought of that?”

The silence that fell over the table after this pronouncement was thick and palpable. Jaskier closed his eyes.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” he said.

Both Geralt and Adrien jumped, but Adrien managed to get to Jaskier first. He put one of Jaskier’s arms around his shoulders and heaved him up from the table.

“I’ve got him,” he told Geralt before turning to look at Jaskier. “How about some fresh air, old fellow?”

“I hate you,” Jaskier said without venom.

“An honour,” said De Rouleau.

Jaskier didn’t have to look at Geralt to know that he was probably upset in his odd, stoic way. But someone else’s feelings are a difficult thing to be concerned about when one is vomiting up oatmeal and pumpkin soup and a broken heart.

❀ ❀

The wolf lifted his head and howled up at the purple sky.

Jaskier watched him from a distance. He knew the howl was meant for him, somehow; that it was him, specifically, who was being summoned. But though he could see the wolf clearly, and the wolf could see him, they were separated by a great canyon—a rift so deep that you couldn’t even see the bottom. It was like the whole world was hovering just on the precipice of an abyss.

Jaskier looked up. There were no stars.

The wolf howled again.

Jaskier returned his gaze to the wolf, who was watching him carefully, and skirted closer to the edge of the canyon. He tried to measure the distance with his eyes, but all the numbers kept escaping him.

“How do I get over there?” he called to the wolf.

The wolf gazed back at him silently.

Jaskier looked around for anything that could help; there was a single dead tree, black as ash, wilting nearby. Jaskier broke off a branch and tried tossing it to the other side to see if that would help him figure out how far he had to travel. The stick seemed to be about to land on the other side, but at the last second careened into the darkness of the ravine.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself.

When he looked back at the wolf, it was skulking closer to the edge. Its front paw stopped just short of slipping; a few small pebbles tumbled over with a light clatter before disappearing.

“Don’t! You’ll fall,” cried Jaskier.

The wolf met his gaze. Then it started backing up.

Jaskier immediately knew what it was trying to do.

“No, don’t,” he said, although he couldn’t tell if he had actually managed to say the words out loud.

The wolf sprinted forward.

“DON’T—”

He woke up with a wheezy intake of breath, covered in sweat. He was in bed with a cool cloth over his forehead. It was still daylight outside, but barely. When he sat up, he recognized his room at the inn.

“Good. You’re awake,” said a voice next to him. Adrien de Rouleau was sitting in a corner of the room. He shut the book he was reading with a thwump. “How are you feeling?”

Jaskier didn’t have any interest in small talk. “Where’s Geralt?” he asked.

Adrien huffed in amusement. “He’s out. He said he’d come back to get you later.”

“Oh.” Jaskier fell back against the pillows. “What are you still doing here?”

“Making sure you don’t accidentally drown in your own vomit,” replied Adrien.

Jaskier made a face. “Delightful. Thanks. Well, I’m fine now, so feel free to leave any time.”

Adrien shrugged and moved to get up, but then hesitated, hovering next to the bed.

Jaskier looked up at him in derision. “What?”

“I always thought it was because of your parents,” Adrien said musingly, “that you broke so many hearts. As a method of self-preservation.”

Jaskier narrowed his eyes at him. Adrien’s lips turned up in a small smirk.

“It’s not without a certain level of satisfaction,” he said, “watching you tear yourself to pieces over a man.”

There were no words with which Jaskier could possibly respond to this remark. He pushed himself back up on his elbows and stared at Adrien, mouth gaping but uncharacteristically silent.

Adrien de Rouleau breezed over to the door, then turned back one more time.

“On the bright side, Julian,” he said with a more genuine smile, “the new songs really are quite good. Heartbreak might be your genre.”

Then he was gone.

Jaskier collapsed against the pillows. He felt dizzy again. Damn that De Rouleau—he knew that would happen too.

He thought about his dream, which was already getting fuzzy around the edges in his memory. The wolf had been so far away. Impossible to reach. Even though he was standing right in front of him…

Could Adrien actually be right about something for once in his miserable life? Was he tearing himself to pieces?

Over Geralt?

His eyelids felt heavy. He closed them for what felt like a few seconds, but must have been longer, because when the click of the lock woke him up again, it was dark outside.

Geralt walked in and shut the door behind him. This alone made Jaskier’s face start to turn red, and suddenly he found he could barely lift his gaze from the blanket covering his lap.

Geralt didn’t come any closer. He stayed by the door.

“You alright?” he asked.

Jaskier nodded. He started picking at stray threads on the blanket, then tried to smile. “It’s really nothing. What Adrien said about my ‘metaphysical maladies’…it’s true. They happen occasionally. Not often,” he added quickly, “and I bounce back really fast.”

Geralt sighed. It wasn’t one of his usual quiet sighs, either—it was heavy; it carried some loaded thoughts.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“It—it didn’t seem relevant. It never cropped up, you know?” Jaskier was starting to get nervous about where this conversation was going. “All that nonsense De Rouleau said about me having a delicate constitution—it’s bullocks, Geralt. I felt perfectly fine on our travels. Really. It was just my teenage angst that caused all that stuff in Oxenfurt.”

“Then what happened today?”

Jaskier blinked rapidly. A stone sunk heavy into the pit of his stomach.

“Nothing. Nothing happened.” It wasn’t entirely a lie—after all, wasn’t that the worst part? That nothing had happened for Geralt, but everything had happened for him?

Geralt finally made his way across the room and dropped a bag of cold dinner on the side table before crouching down to look Jaskier in the eye.

“Jaskier, you came back last night reeking of wet dog,” he said.

Damn. Double damn. Triple damn. He’d thought he’d gotten away with that one.

“It was the wolf,” said Geralt without pretense.

Jaskier couldn’t even think of a witticism. “Yes,” he replied numbly.

Geralt pinched the bridge of his nose. Now he looked like he was getting a headache.

“It’s a wild animal, Jaskier. You shouldn’t—” He sighed again, this time with more aggravation. “You don’t have to push yourself to be friends with every damn creature you come across.”

Jaskier blinked at him. He was more confused than he’d ever been in a conversation with Geralt, and that was really saying something.

“He pinned you to the ground yesterday, didn’t he?” continued Geralt. His expression kept getting cloudier. “He jumped you.”

Jaskier had to really search his memory to recall what Geralt was referencing. He squinted up at the ceiling.

“Oh. Well. Yes, I suppose he did tackle me from behind—”

Geralt snarled and rose to stand.

“No, no!” cried Jaskier, sitting up in alarm. “Not in a hunter-y way. In, you know, an overgrown puppy way. He was just excited to see me. I don’t think he knows how big he is, Geralt, honestly.”

“Trust me,” said Geralt. His voice was impossibly low. “He knows.”

All the blood left Jaskier’s face at the familiar hostility in Geralt’s expression.

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” he asked.

Geralt let out an impatient growl. “If I thought I could kill him—”

He stopped short. The rest of the sentence hung between them, poisoning the air.

“What in seven hells is wrong with you?” Jaskier was now flushing red for an entirely different reason. “It’s not a monster, Geralt. It’s…it’s just a dog.”

“Listen to me, bard.” Geralt’s hands folded into fists, only just managing to stop himself from grabbing Jaskier’s head like he had done during his freak-out over Sehanine. “Get this through that thick halfwit skull of yours: The wolf. Is not. Your pet. It kills. It lives to kill. Maybe it didn’t this time or the time before that. But make no mistake. It will turn on you eventually.”

Time crawled by as these sinister words slowly sank in. Jaskier stared at Geralt like he had grown nine heads.

Finally he said, “No offense, Geralt, but I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Geralt growled in frustration.

“What will it take?” His voice was steadily increasing in volume. “Scaring you half to death…covering you in bruises so you could barely walk for weeks…making you sick from psychosis—what will it take for you to realize you’re in danger? Getting killed?”

“Geralt.” Jaskier worked hard to keep a level tone. He could tell something was wrong; something he was missing completely. “None of that was the wolf’s fault.”

“Then whose was it?” Geralt’s teeth flashed in the darkness.

Jaskier lied back down, suddenly feeling very tired.

“Nobody’s,” he said. “Sometimes bad things just happen.”

They were both quiet for a long time.

“I suppose you’re going to sleep on the floor again tonight,” Jaskier said.

Geralt gave a vague rumble. “Might hunt first.”

Jaskier squinted at him in suspicion.

“You have to promise you won’t hurt him,” Jaskier said.

Geralt didn’t respond.

“If you do, I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you,” Jaskier warned, his voice wobbling at the end. He swallowed back any more signs of vulnerability and tried to look stern.

“Never asked you to,” was Geralt’s cold response.

They glared at each other. Jaskier was the one to turn away; he rolled over in the bed so his back was to Geralt. He bit down on his tongue and tried to lie still.

When he heard the click of the door open and then close, he shoved his face into the pillow and howled in frustration.

It’s not without a certain satisfaction, watching you tearing yourself to pieces over a man.

De Rouleau, as usual, was only half-right.

He was already in pieces; now he was just shredding himself into confetti.

❀ ❀

“Dandelion! I thought maybe one of your meltdowns had finally done you in.”

Jaskier squinted at Adrien de Rouleau in deep loathing. The sunlight was way too harsh on his exhausted eyes; he hadn’t been able to get even a moment of uninterrupted sleep the night before.

“I wish it had,” he said. “I wouldn’t have to see your ugly mug for a few years, at least.”

De Rouleau frowned in confusion. “A few years?”

“Oh, we’re definitely both going to hell, Adrien. And your expiration date is coming up fast.” Jaskier examined him again, and then gave a melodramatic sniff at the air. “In fact, I think it may have arrived already. Or are you just wearing the latest Eau de Camembert?”

Adrien let out a mirthless laugh. “Ah, yes, a sharp tongue. The perfect bridegroom for a prickly mood. I’d be grumpy too, if I was wearing more mud than clothing.”

Jaskier glanced over his (new!) jacket and (new!) pants, where the pale yellow had darkened from an unhealthy mix of country road and sweat. The roughhousing with the wolf had done him no favours—first with Geralt and now with this. He heaved a sigh and ran a hand over his face.

“You’re a pissant,” he said blithely.

De Rouleau laughed, this time with more sincerity. He was propped up against a small wagon attached to a sleepy mule, and he had three leather trunks stacked inside of it.

“Are you leaving?” said Jaskier, brightening considerably at the thought. “Safe travels. May our paths never cross again, by Melitele’s mercy.” He clapped his hands together in mimed prayer.

“Yes, yes, I’m leaving, you clown. You know, most of us don’t wait around for monsters in this business. We go where the parties are.”

“Ugh. Any party with you as the main act will be over before it’s started. The guests would be jumping from the windows. I’ll take the monsters, thank you,” said Jaskier.

Adrien opened his mouth to respond in what would no doubt have turned into a verbal sparring match that would’ve lasted several hours at least, but he quieted as his gaze slid past Jaskier’s shoulder. Jaskier sensed it at the exact same time; the weighty presence of a Witcher, adding heaviness to the atmosphere of every space he enters.

“S-So, where’s this party?” asked Jaskier, catching himself quickly after the first stutter, resolving to ignore Geralt as long as he could.

“A castle up north in Rinde. I haven’t been because they’re not usually very welcoming of strangers there, but…” Adrien leaned towards Jaskier as if he was sharing a juicy secret. “A little bird just told me that the whole town has been in ecstasies recently, ever since a mysterious witch showed up and got them to let loose.”

“A witch?” Jaskier and Geralt said at the same time, causing Jaskier to furrow his brow in annoyance.

“The witch thing does sound especially ridiculous, I’ll admit. Maybe an odd choice of narrative embellishment. Point is, there’s a party. And where there’s a party, there must be music,” said De Rouleau, patting his mandolin affectionately and raising his eyebrows at Jaskier. “What do you say?”

“Say? Say about what? Your questionable choice of informants?” snapped Jaskier. Foreboding was rising up from his stomach like bile—something bad was coming, he could feel it.

“You promised me a one-on-one competition the other night, if I remember correctly,” said De Rouleau. “Of course, then you scampered off and returned sick as a dog, so, if you’re looking for an excuse to avoid it, you have them in spades.”

Jaskier flushed. “Maybe you should change careers to a jester, De Rouleau, because the mere idea of me being afraid of your musical abilities is so laughable that—”

“This witch have a name?” Geralt’s rumbling voice chopped through the bickering like an axe.

“I’m sure her parents did christen her, yes, but alas, I’m not privy to that information.” De Rouleau propped a boot heel up against the wagon. “Would you like to come with me to find out, Geralt of Rivia?”

Jaskier didn’t like the sticky sweetness in the way he said Geralt’s name. The frustrated wrinkle in his brow deepened.

“If you think there’s any way in hell—” he began.

“We’ll come,” said Geralt.

Jaskier whirled around and spluttered up at him in betrayal. Geralt’s expression was stoic, and he didn’t look away from De Rouleau even as Jaskier started whining at him.

“Geralt,” he said.

“Wonderful.” Adrien smiled, swinging his legs up into his mule cart. “I would invite you in, but I don’t think there’s room for all of us. You seem to have gained a bit, Dandelion; it’s showing in the hips.”

Jaskier didn’t fire back at this because he was too busy tailing aggressively after Geralt, fingers twitching in agitation.

“Don’t think for a second I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said accusingly.

Geralt reached out his hand as they approached Roach, letting her snuffle at it. “Hey, girl,” he said, tone soft.

Jaskier squinted at Geralt’s back. He was ignoring him in the carefully studied way that only Geralt knew how to do. But Jaskier refused to be ignored, in the chaotic manner only he knew how to do.

“You’re hoping the witch is Yennefer,” he said, leaning over Geralt’s shoulder to say it right into his ear, “and you’re throwing me out to the dogs on the slim chance that it is her. And if you expect me to take this sitting down, Geralt, you have another thing coming, because I’ll have you know I do maintain some level of dignity, and to fling me at De Rouleau of all people to entertain your fantasy of making your one-night stand with an admittedly sexy witch a two-night stand—”

Geralt turned around. “Get on.”

Jaskier blinked. “Pardon?”

“Roach. Get on.”

Jaskier exchanged an uneasy glance with Roach’s right eye. She looked less than happy at the prospect.

“You’re actually letting me…?” Jaskier shook his head, putting his hands on his hips. “Look, I don’t mind walking. That’s not what I’m upset about; it’s the destination—”

Geralt sighed, and before Jaskier could register what was happening, he picked him up by the waist and set him sideways on Roach’s saddle.

Jaskier glared down at him and half-heartedly kicked at Geralt with his boot-tip. “Geralt, you’re not listening to me.”

“Because none of the words coming out of your mouth matter,” Geralt said. “We’re going.”

Jaskier’s lips puckered like he had sucked on a sour lemon. He was fully planning to continue protesting, despite being treated more like a pet than a travel companion—not a particularly apt simile either, considering Geralt treated Roach with much more consideration than he treated Jaskier—but just as he had managed to subdue his outrage enough to speak again, Geralt stepped into one stirrup, threw his leg over, and climbed onto Roach right behind Jaskier.

A disorienting wave of heat washed over Jaskier, and he fumbled for stability, causing Roach to snort in disdain.

“Sit properly,” Geralt reprimanded him.

“Sorry,” Jaskier said automatically, before remembering that he was pissed at Geralt, and that this whole thing was entirely his idea. In the resulting outpouring of righteous fury, he swung one leg over to sit upright in the saddle and purposely headbutted Geralt in the chin.

“Tsch,” said Geralt in annoyance.

“Serves you right,” snapped Jaskier. “Why are we both up here, anyways? You know Roach doesn’t like this.”

Geralt reached down to soothingly pat Roach’s flank. “You’ve been sick,” he grunted.

“And?”

“And,” Geralt said, adjusting his posture so that he could reach around Jaskier to grab hold of the reins, “you didn’t sleep much last night.”

Jaskier barely processed the words—all his attention was suddenly focused on the way Geralt’s thighs were slotted perfectly against his. His brain was already tormenting itself with the lyrics he could write in ode to those thighs, how perfectly proportioned they were, how indecently tight the black leather was against them, how the muscles clenched deliciously when Geralt kicked Roach to start moving.

The dark angel dazzles
But flies overhead
High above,
High above,
Shedding his grace
In the effortless movement
Of his thighs…

For the love of Melitele, it was too early for this.

“You’re right, I didn’t sleep much,” he said, swallowing, keeping his gaze focused on the sky to resist the urge to paw at Geralt.

Geralt shifted again, managing to bring attention now to his arms, which locked more securely around Jaskier’s sides, and his hands, which settled comfortably in Jaskier’s lap.

It was intimate enough to elicit sensations similar to last night’s hug for Jaskier, but with the buffer of thick leather armor muting the heat of Geralt’s body. It was physical contact that was formal, almost business-like, but the knowledge that it was Geralt who was instigating it was enough to send Jaskier spiraling.

“So sleep now,” said Geralt, saying it right into his ear, his lips nearly touching Jaskier’s hair.

Jaskier closed his eyes. What delicious torture this was.

He leaned back so his weight was supported by Geralt’s sturdy torso, his head drooping to rest against his shoulder.

“For the record, I’m still mad at you,” he said wearily.

Geralt’s huff of amusement drifted right by his cheek. This caused an eruption of tingles in Jaskier’s belly and he immediately pushed his face into the crook of Geralt’s neck.

There was no leather between them there. It was warm, warm, warm. And Geralt smelled of pine.

Geralt’s gently enveloping presence, the rhythmic jostling of Roach’s steps on the country road, and the sunlight trickling over them through the leaves of the trees were all coming together like the world’s sweetest lullaby.

Jaskier’s head started drooping. In his tranquility, he hadn’t realized that one of his hands had gone rogue and slipped onto Geralt’s right thigh, until Geralt quietly picked it up and moved it back to the saddle. Geralt’s gloved hand wrapped over his, his thumb absent-mindedly rubbing at the inside of his palm, was the last thing Jaskier saw before he drifted off to sleep.

❀ ❀

The grey streets of Rinde were silent and almost empty when they came through. The few civilians they came across glared at Geralt with open hostility rather than fear. There was a pall that hung over the whole town—one that went beyond the heavy mist that coated the ground. Jaskier found it difficult not to fall asleep again; Geralt was holding him upright with a grip that was slightly tighter than necessary, betraying how unnerved he was.

De Rouleau, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease. He beckoned the only civilian who was willing to talk to them—an elven doctor whose eyebrows were knit together in perpetual anxiety.

“Oh no. You don’t want to go to the castle,” the elf warned, shaking his head frantically, neck flushing a patchy red. “There’s a witch there, and she doesn’t appreciate being trifled with.”

“We have no interest in trifling. Only trifles of the banquet variety,” joked Adrien. Jaskier groaned.

“There are no banquets going on there,” said the elf, after an uncomfortable pause.

“No banquets? How can that be? Half the town is missing; they’re up there, are they not?” Adrien gestured with a tip of his head to the castle, which loomed over the town on the highest hill.

The elf looked somehow even more tense. “Perhaps,” he hedged.

“Well, they have to eat, don’t they?” Adrien said with more impatience.

There was a long silence. The elf turned away from them, looking harried.

“If you insist on going, I can’t stop you. But I wouldn’t bring the Witcher. He’s sure to set her off.”

“Oh, he’ll set her off, alright,” Jaskier muttered under his breath.

He could feel Geralt’s irritated glare burning through the back of his head.

“Whoever this witch is, I doubt she needs a guard dog,” Geralt growled at the elf, whose face instantly contorted in embarrassment.

“Do what you want. It’s of no concern to me,” he snapped. “But when your heads start rolling out the castle gates, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“That would be quite difficult, with our heads missing,” noted Adrien.

Jaskier frowned as the elven doctor shook his head and walked away. His hand reached down to start patting Roach’s neck, a nervous tic he had inherited from Geralt.

“So…anyone else picking up on the impending doom in the air and thinking maybe we should turn back?” he asked.

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Dandelion, you really haven’t changed a bit. I thought you’d at least have grown out of your cowering disposition by now.”

“Oh, my apologies!” Jaskier said sarcastically. “Should I have waited for us to come across another omen-spouting elf in this ghost town before I started sharing my doubts?”

Adrien looked completely unmoved. “Admit you’re just getting cold feet about performing after me.”

Jaskier spluttered dramatically. “It’s a genuine marvel how the sheer power of your ego completely overwhelms any sense of self-preservation,” he snapped finally. “And I’m obviously performing first!”

Geralt released a rumbling sigh that Jaskier could feel against his back. He turned halfway in the saddle to appeal to Geralt’s flawed but still definitely existing sense of reason.

“Geralt, please. I know you sense it too,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

Geralt looked at him. He looked at him for a long time. Then he slowly shook his head.

Jaskier turned sharply away from him with a growl of frustration. “For gods’ sake, Geralt, you spent one night with the woman. How important can she possibly be? I’ve had more intimate relationships with head lice.”

He bit the inside of his cheek as Geralt prompted Roach back into a steady gait through the cobblestoned streets.

The castle gate was laying wide open when they approached, although no activity could be seen outside—it was a wasteland, even moreso than the town. As much as Jaskier tried to peer through the castle windows, he couldn’t detect any movement. Beyond the rustling of the small orchard of trees lining the walkway, there was no sound. But what did, eventually, reach him as Roach got closer and closer to the front entrance was a distinct aroma.

“Does anyone else smell that?” he asked.

Adrien shrugged. “I haven’t been able to smell properly since a bout of malaria at eight years old. So unless it’s the stench of rotting corpses, I’m not turning back around—”

“Roses,” said Geralt.

“Not just that.” Jaskier tilted his head back as he sniffed at the air and noticed Geralt mimicking the motion behind him. “Something sweet too. Like…sugar. It’s really strong.”

“Mm,” Geralt rumbled in agreement.

“Oh, horror upon horrors,” Adrien said, tone absolutely dripping with sarcasm. “Sugar. You’d best keep an eye out for any murderous bakers, Dandelion, lest they put you into a pie in the night.”

Jaskier pinched his lips together. “Easy to make jokes when you personally have nothing to worry about. I don’t think there are any recipes where rot and pigheadedness are key ingredients.”

Adrien opened his mouth to respond, but Geralt interrupted sharply. “Enough. Jaskier’s right. This is magic, so concentrated even humans can smell it.” Geralt slid down from behind Jaskier and gave Roach’s neck a pat. “Safer for you out here, girl.”

Adrien had finally started to look uneasy. He got down from his rickety carriage, his mule having already started grazing on the orchard grass. “Do you think we’re actually in danger?”

For the first time all day, Jaskier smiled. “Admit you’re just getting cold feet about performing after me,” he mocked in an exaggeratedly nasally voice.

“You wish I sounded like that,” muttered Adrien, crossing his arms.

As Geralt helped Jaskier dismount, he said firmly, “Stay close to me.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Jaskier replied immediately. “That’s been my only strategy for the past two years and it’s kept me alive so far.”

Geralt gestured to Adrien. “You too. Come on.”

Adrien’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, but he obediently trailed after Geralt as they entered the cobblestoned courtyard of the castle. Everything seemed quietly neglected; overgrown weeds had broken through the cracks in the ground and insects scuttled around with no fear of being stepped on. Geralt paused for a moment, then turned into a nearby entrance to an inner corridor, starting to manoeuvre through the castle as though he’d been there a dozen times before.

“Alright,” noted De Rouleau quietly as he and Jaskier kept pace a couple metres behind Geralt, “I see the appeal. He’s commanding. Intuitive. Good-looking in certain lights.”

“Shut up,” Jaskier hissed through his teeth.

De Rouleau gave a low whistle. “Touchy topic, indeed.”

“I said shut up because he can hear you, you mouldy quiche of a human being.” Jaskier could feel his neck and ears already flushing a mortified red at the thought of Geralt finding out about his feelings this way. Luckily, Geralt was preoccupied: occasionally he would stop and sniff the air, the strengthening of the sickeningly sweet rosy smell clearly responsible for his effortless navigating.

“You mean to tell me he doesn’t know?” said De Rouleau, looking genuinely shocked. “How is that possible? Is he touched in the head?”

Jaskier rounded on him, forcing De Rouleau against a wall because of the narrowness of the castle corridors.

“If you bring this up again, Adrien, Sehanine help me, I will shove your mandolin so far down your throat all your songs from now on will be instrumentals,” he threatened lowly.

Adrien’s eyes flickered wide for a mere second before settling on a tightly controlled smirk. “Gods above, you’ve got it bad. I’m starting to feel sorry for you.”

The heat had reached Jaskier’s temples, and he was seriously considering following through with his threat right then and there, when Geralt’s stern grunt interrupted any potential decapitation proceedings. “She’s in here.”

Jaskier and Adrien exchanged a final glare before separating so they could locate Geralt further down the dimly lit L-shaped corridor, standing before a bolted oak door. The aroma of crushed rose petals and sugar was overpowering—it seeped through the cracks of the door in waves so pungent they were almost visible. Jaskier let out a disgusted noise and promptly pulled his dirty gold tunic up over his nose.

“Are we sure we’re dealing with a witch and not a rotting garden that a rogue gingerbread man threw up and died in?” he asked.

Geralt shook his head, although his nose was also scrunched up. With his superhuman senses, it was shocking he was still standing upright.

“Love magic,” he said, with all the gravity of a death sentence.

“…Oh,” said Adrien after a moment. “Thank heavens. So no one’s dead in there?”

Geralt and Jaskier turned twin looks of disbelief towards him.

“De Rouleau, you pitch-impaired simpleton,” Jaskier pronounced, “clearly you’ve never endured the misfortune of someone obsessing over you. Can’t say I’m surprised,” he added as an aside. At Adrien’s scoff, he continued, “Maliciously infatuated people will do anything to be with the object of their affection. Spike a drink. Take away their free will. Murder their family.”

“Love magic is often the result of that obsession,” Geralt added. “It appeals to the dangerous, the deranged.”

Adrien shifted his weight, crossing his arms and suddenly looking distinctly uncomfortable. “So…not a party we’re invited to, it sounds like.”

Jaskier only had a split second to roll his eyes before Geralt said, “We are now,” and with two decisive kicks broke open the door.

The scene that greeted them defied description. Jaskier’s eyes continued staring, taking in information, as his brain simultaneously worked to erase it.

The room itself was dark, dingy, and pungent-smelling, only dimly illuminated by candles that floated about, suspended in midair and bobbing up and down as if they were alive. It was midday outside, but you wouldn’t be able to tell: an artificial night blanketed everything in the room. Red silk carpets covered the floor and stayed remarkably still despite the various movements of the bodies on top of it: bodies in various stages of undress, whose clothes were so thin and white as to be nearly transparent. Fifty-odd people were all engaged in various sex acts, some in twos, in threes, and upwards to nearly eight at a time, but they all seemed as suspended as the candles in the air—slow-moving and quiet, no moaning or sounds at all to be heard from the outside. They were like people possessed, with eyes that were either closed or entirely empty, gazing upwards as if to heaven.

“What. The. Fuck,” mouthed Jaskier into the silence, so frightened he couldn’t even voice it. He automatically reached for Geralt in his bewilderment, curling his fingers into one of his sleeves.

Geralt didn’t react, continuing to move forward slowly through the crowd of people, a nerve in his jaw ticking in time with his steps. Geralt wasn’t alarmed—he was angry and purposeful. Noticing this relieved Jaskier a little: any time Geralt was particularly unimpressed with something, it tended to ease his own terror of the unknown.

A form he hadn’t even noticed amidst the distracting scene and the moving shadows on the wall rose up at the end of the room. It was a woman in a revealing black dress that glittered when she moved, and when she turned around to face her new visitors, a dark feathered masquerade mask concealed the top half of her features. But it wasn’t enough to disguise her identity from the people who had only encountered her a month prior in Garrah.

Jaskier released a beleaguered sigh. “Fuck. Not you,” he said, the second time he had lost all decorum that day. His voice cracked through the silent room, breaking the spell of unease they had all been under.

“Geralt of Rivia.” Yennefer’s smile was a glossy and sultry red. “I was hoping it’d be you.”

De Rouleau, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the past couple minutes, bumped his shoulder against Jaskier’s. He glanced alternately at the glittering Yennefer, the glowering Geralt, and the quickly souring Jaskier. “And what melodrama is playing out here, I wonder?” he asked, eyebrows rising again.

Jaskier elbowed him sharply in the stomach. Geralt’s next words covered up Adrien’s resulting grunt of pain.

“Mass love magic, Yen? What the hell are you thinking?” he snapped.

“Trust me, it’s for their own good,” said Yennefer, nodding towards the people who had continued going at it, like possessed succubi.

Geralt grunted, and Jaskier recognized it as his “I-highly-doubt-that” grunt.

“When I first came here, this town was run by a council of ultra-puritans. No sex, no magic, no music, no anything. The poor women were flittering around their homes like ghosts, not allowed to leave them. As soon as the councilmen first caught sight of me, they accused me of being a witch. Told me I’d burn at the stake.” Yennefer shrugged nonchalantly. “So I thought I’d show them what they were missing: a good fucking time.”

A pronounced moment of silence followed this concluding line.

“You’ve got to appreciate the wordplay, I must admit,” De Rouleau whispered into Jaskier’s ear, who swatted at him.

“Let them go,” Geralt ordered.

Yennefer rolled her eyes and picked up a chalice of wine from a nearby bench. “Ugh. Don’t be such a Witcher about this, Geralt. I’ve got everything under control.”

“You’ve got nothing under control, as usual,” Geralt growled with vehemence. “Rinde can’t function without its council: it’s a ghost town outside. Tales have reached far enough to other localities. Soon you’ll have more than just this armful of puritans to worry about.” He shook his head and glanced back at the still-moving people behind him, shoulders tense, before leveling his gaze at Yennefer again. “I think they’ve been here long enough to have learned their lesson. Don’t you?”

Geralt was employing the tone he always used when dealing with monsters of even the most bestial kind: this firm but empathetic approach, like he was addressing an equal. It was interesting to hear him talking to Yennefer like that, with perhaps just a hint more impatience. There was always something that Jaskier felt like he was missing during these interactions: something that Geralt could not explain to him even if he had wanted to.

Jaskier tried not to pout.

He really tried.

“Learn their lesson?” he said in disbelief. Even before, he couldn’t look at the gyrating bodies around him; knowing the backstory made it even more difficult. “I don’t care what they did! Nobody deserves…whatever nightmarish shit this is. How long have they been like this? Weeks?”

Yennefer rolled her eyes again. “Gods, the dramatics. Four days, I’ll have you know. And how easy it is for you to make them into the victims, as a man with no skin in the game.”

Jaskier balked. “My manhood has nothing to do with this situation. Stop trying to distract from the fact that you’re using—well, I don’t know what you’re using, quite frankly: spells? Potions? Amulets?—in any case, weird sexy witchcraft to rob people of their free will!”

“And to be fair,” piped in Adrien, “I don’t think Dandelion would be very popular among the puritans. Speaking from experience.”

Yennefer stared hard at the pair of them for a long moment, then took a deep swig of wine. “Is this why you brought them with you, Witcher? So I could be lectured on my morals by a couple of bards, of all things? Consider me humbled.”

“Let them go, Yen,” Geralt said in a tone softer than Jaskier would’ve liked. “Then we’ll talk.”

Yennefer gave a long sigh and then sat back down on her chaise-longue. “Fine. It was getting boring, anyways.”

She snapped her fingers and simultaneously all the candles went out, dropping to the ground and emitting smoke still carrying that sickly sweet aroma. The hot wax splattered a few of the bodies, which actually began to make noises of pain, confusion, and fear. People blinked their eyes, separating from each other, gathering their nearly transparent clothes around themselves in a futile attempt to cover their private areas. They avoided the gazes of the people they had been coupling with only seconds before, let alone the stares of the fully-clothed newcomers and the witch who had been terrorizing them for the past week. In a steady, bedraggled stream, they ran from the room, out of the castle, and into the night.

“There. Happy?” Yennefer took another sip of her wine.

“No,” Geralt, Jaskier, and Adrien replied simultaneously.

“Colour me shocked,” said Yennefer sarcastically. She gracefully laid down on her side and propped her head up on her hand. “So. Who wants to go first?”

De Rouleau piped up, “I came here with the intention of playing to a party—a party of people who were just chased away…”

“You’re a healer, right?” interrupted Geralt, stepping in front of Adrien and ignoring his squawk of protest.

Yennefer shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“It’s what you’re best at,” insisted Geralt.

“Now, Geralt, darling. Don’t go spilling out things that I told you in a very vulnerable moment.” The smile playing across Yennefer’s lips widened as her voice dropped into sweeter tones. Jaskier bit hard on the inside of his cheek to prevent any choice words from popping out against his will. When Geralt didn’t respond, Yennefer prompted, “Why are you asking? Are you injured?”

Geralt shook his head. Then he turned to look at Jaskier.

For an odd moment, a moment that Jaskier simply could not wrap his head around, they stared at each other. It was in those few seconds that Jaskier realized two things: one, his head was starting to swim from all the sweet rose fumes he was breathing in; and two, his fingers were still firmly gripping Geralt’s sleeve.

Geralt turned back to Yennefer. “Heal him,” he said. Then, as an afterthought: “Please.”

❀ ❀

Jaskier shifted uncomfortably in the stiff white chiffon of his new shirt as he finished buttoning it up, his fingers slipping as they shook from nerves. He didn’t know what to expect next, and it didn’t help that Yennefer had insisted on examining him alone—and that Geralt had conceded, the traitor. The fact that he had felt that Jaskier’s occasional bouts of emotionally-charged sickness were such a concern that they needed treating by a witch—a witch with the impulse control of a toddler, at that—demonstrated just how much of a deadweight he feared Jaskier could be on his travels. Which was the only reason Jaskier had consented, despite having accepted this condition as part of his life long ago, and not trusting Yennefer as far as he could throw her: he was afraid that if he didn’t, Geralt would just leave him behind…in Rinde, of all places.

As for Yennefer’s payment?

“I’ll take the bards for the night,” she said, that implacable smile growing more and more wicked. “It’s been awhile since I’ve heard some music that truly moved me.”

“Leave it to you, Dandelion, to make me work pro bono for the first time in my life,” De Rouleau sighed, and then he and Geralt left him alone in the assembly room with Yennefer.

She took him down to the castle apothecary, something still oddly well-stocked with fresh ingredients—Jaskier thought suspiciously of the elvish doctor that had tried to warn them away. But before he could reflect too much on it, Yennefer tossed him some clothes: the exact same kind she’d made the council members wear in their four-day long orgy.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Jaskier said, instantly dropping them on the ground in protest.

“I’m not coming anywhere near you in those rags you’re wearing, so you’ll just have to suck it up,” Yennefer responded coolly. It was actually shocking how little she smiled when Geralt wasn’t around.

“I’ll have you know these ‘rags’ are brand new—” Jaskier bit his tongue as he glanced down and was reminded of all the dirt, sweat, and general ickiness he was wearing from the past two days. Not to mention the bits of stew lobbed at him when those peasants had booed him at the tavern…in defense of Adrien de Rouleau, of all people. The soft yellows and golds of the Garrah street market no longer held their original sheen.

“What good is a new toy once it’s been trampled by a horse cart?” Yennefer kicked the discarded white clothes on the floor so they landed on Jaskier’s boots. “I prefer my healing spaces to stay clean. There’s a bathtub in the next room over. I assume you know how to take one?”

Clean, cold, and shivering, Jaskier knocked with one knuckle on the door to the apothecary before opening it. He didn’t have much patience for courtesy, just as he didn’t have any for heating the water for his bath—he wanted this to be over with.

To his surprise, Yennefer was sitting with her legs curled beneath her, studiously reading a book with a pair of spectacles on. She took a minute to finish her page before putting in a bookmark and glancing over at Jaskier.

“The wet rat look suits you,” she quipped in an almost bored tone.

Jaskier crossed his arms over his chest—a protective action, considering how see-through the fabric was. “Can’t you just put some leeches on me or something? That would be preferable to any attempt at conversation.”

Yennefer smirked and gestured to the rickety wooden chair next to hers. As Jaskier warily sat down, she reached a hand to his chest.

Jaskier automatically slid back three inches, eliciting a tortured squeal from the chair legs.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

Yennefer looked at him with such a deadpan lack of amusement, Jaskier was embarrassed despite himself. “Checking your heartbeat, you troglodyte,” she said.

“‘Troglodyte,’” Jaskier repeated quietly. “Not bad.” He filed that away for ammunition against De Rouleau later.

Yennefer shook her head and placed one hand on Jaskier’s chest, and two fingers of the other to the pulse point on his neck. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then shifted to place the back of one hand against Jaskier’s forehead.

Yennefer went on to examine him in different ways, alternately asking him to cough, breathe deeply, and follow her finger as she moved it side to side. The whole procedure felt very clinical, and familiar—the same objective and detail-oriented approach that Geralt took when dressing Jaskier’s wounds. This similarity caused Jaskier to simultaneously feel less tense, but more impatient. His fingers dug into the thin fabric of his pants as he tried everything he could to avoid of thinking about Yennefer and Geralt together, the sounds he had tried so hard to erase.

Why was it that when he looked at Yennefer and Geralt, there didn’t seem to be a huge chasm separating them? The huge chasm that always, always laid in between him and Geralt?

“Your hand,” Yennefer said, cutting through his dark, spiraling thoughts.

Jaskier sighed through his nose and held out his left hand. She flipped it over to reveal his palm, as well as the long, dark scar that the wolf’s teeth had left on his left wrist when it had pulled him out of the irrigation ditch. Briefly, Yennefer touched a finger to the scar, before turning her eyes down to his palm.

“Palmistry? Really? I’m not here to have my fortune told,” Jaskier said shortly.

“You came to a mage, not a physician,” Yennefer replied, again with that cool calm that always set Jaskier on edge.

She brushed her fingers over the whole palm once, but her index finger kept finding its way to the top line stretching horizontally over Jaskier’s palm: it was a dark line, easily etched the deepest, trailing to the very edge of his hand. Jaskier, who had never looked closely at his hands before (beyond his lyre-callused fingertips), noticed for the first time a slight break a third of the way through the line.

“Something of interest?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Yennefer. She sounded bored again. Jaskier’s frown twitched in annoyance. But he was quickly distracted by Yennefer pointing a polished fingernail at the scar that ran along his wrist up to the bottom half of his palm. “Where’d you get this?”

“Normally I would love to elaborate, but I’m freezing and I think we’ve had more than enough of each other’s company,” said Jaskier, shivering dramatically. “So to keep it short: a wolf bit me.”

This actually caught Yennefer’s attention, breaking through her carefully maintained indifference. “A wolf?”

Jaskier nodded.

“Where did you run into one of those?”

Jaskier rubbed his eye with his free hand and looked at the ceiling. “Honestly? Everywhere, as of late.”

He wasn’t sure why he was so reticent to give Yennefer more details. He felt protective of the wolf, the sweet, kind, overgrown puppy who had been there for him when Geralt had not been; and considering that Geralt had been acting more antagonistic towards the wolf’s existence lately, he didn’t want to send a witch tailing after him too. Or, perhaps, it was mere possessiveness: it was his wolf, he thought, and none of Yennefer’s business.

Yennefer traced the scar to where it ended at the lower right of his hand, then traced further up the palm line that connected with it.

“You know,” she said, “it’s rather surprising how much concern Geralt has shown for your health. Witchers don’t normally take much notice of regular people. They prefer the company of the nonhuman.”

“Or the superhuman,” said Jaskier, eyeing her closely and just managing to keep the envy out of his tone.

The corner of Yennefer’s lips turned up in a smirk. “Yes. Well.” She stood up and made her way over to a shelf, where she started rifling through various glass vials. “I’m only pointing it out because your symptoms are so mild. He must be quite attached.”

Jaskier blinked. “Attached,” he repeated slowly, without really thinking.

I choose you too, you know.

He swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I’ve given up on trying to understand him.” A total and bold-faced lie. “A-Anyway, what are you looking for over there?”

“This,” said Yennefer. She pulled out a formidable-looking rounded vial of blood red liquid that left lingering stains against the glass when she swirled it around.

“Oh Melitele, what is that?” said Jaskier, shrinking back in his chair. “You just said my symptoms were mild. There is no way in seven hells that I’m drinking the blood of whatever animal—or, or person—” his whole body shuddered, “you got that from.”

Yennefer rolled her eyes and thumped back in the chair before him. “It’s not blood, you coward. And even if it was, it’s not worth the fuss you’re making.” She crossed her arms. “It’s a potion to take the edge off your fevers. It should help with resistance against any developing illness. One mouthful should last 8 hours.”

“Oh. So I can take it when I want? Provided I ever want to, mind you.”

“Like I said: mild. It’s not worth a more severe form of treatment.” She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Jaskier. You’re just extremely sensitive, and your emotions find a way to express themselves physically, however unpleasant the consequences. That’s how it is and that’s how it always will be. The best thing to do is accept that and manage it accordingly.” She pushed the potion into his hands and, to Jaskier’s surprise, squeezed his fingers over them. “Make sure to tell Geralt this, word for word.”

Her violet gaze was uncomfortably, almost hypnotizingly, intense. Jaskier found himself nodding automatically, and Yennefer released him. For a moment, there was no animosity between them. But then Jaskier held up the vial to the light and winced at how thick the potion inside was.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to trick me into drinking pig’s blood for a laugh? I would respect you more if you just owned up to it,” he said.

Yennefer rolled her eyes for the thousandth time that day. “Give it a try right now if you don’t believe me. It might help with some of your injuries.”

Jaskier squinted at her suspiciously and uncorked the vial. When he sniffed at it, it thankfully didn’t smell metallic like blood: instead it smelled pleasantly nutty and a bit sweet, almost like a dessert.

“Huh,” he said. “Maybe you’re not as much of a deceitful temptress as I thought.”

“Go ahead, try it,” Yennefer encouraged.

Jaskier shrugged and took a swig. Instantly, his tongue was hit with the most bloodcurdling bitterness he had ever tasted in his life, like rotten coffee beans mixed with sour weeds and nettle. He nearly spit it out, but it stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he started gagging helplessly.

When he looked up at Yennefer through his watering eyes, she was laughing into her hand.

“Witch,” he rasped. “You are absolutely foul.”

“Bard,” she replied, still smiling. “You’re nothing if not entertaining.”

❀ ❀

Yennefer hadn’t exaggerated about the potion: it helped ease aches and pains that Jaskier had grown so used to over the past couple months, he felt like a new person when they eased to occasional twinges. Mostly, it gave him energy—shook him awake, wide-eyed, to the colors of the world, a world that had admittedly for the past while fallen into mostly grey hues. He rolled back his shoulders and felt like he could actually move freely for the first time in months: and not a moment too soon, as he had to compete musically against De Rouleau that night.

As Yennefer leaned against a table that was obnoxiously large for three people, another generous cup of red wine sitting before her next to a plate of roasted chicken and potatoes, she suggested: “If you were serious about competing, you would make the songs up on the spot.”

Adrien’s eyebrows raised. “I don’t know if the lyrics would be that pleasing to the ear if we made them up as we went along.”

“Yes, that’s the challenge,” said Yennefer, sipping at her cup. “I want to hear something new, something raw. I hate all these bullshit ballads with AB rhyme scheme. Especially the chivalric romances. They make me want to puke.”

“Unusual tastes for a lady,” noted Adrien.

“She’s a mage, not a lady,” Jaskier corrected, and he wasn’t sure if he was insulting Yennefer or defending her in some strange way.

Yennefer smiled faux-sweetly at him. “Why don’t you go first, Jaskier?”

Jaskier looked at Adrien, who didn’t protest: now the stakes of the challenge had changed, he seemed a little daunted. So Jaskier shrugged and pulled his lute over his shoulder.

“Delighted to,” he said. But when he was standing, poised with his fingers over his lute, he hesitated. He thought that the story of a witch causing a town orgy as revenge was an interesting enough premise for a song, but he wasn’t certain which audience would appreciate it: almost certainly not the two people in front of him. But then what else was there to sing about?

“I don’t think ‘protracted silence’ is the genre she was looking for,” De Rouleau said dryly.

“Ha, ha.” Jaskier stared daggers at him, then started plucking the strings one at a time, at first uncertainly, but the music slowly yet surely evolved into a moderately paced, melancholic melody.

He had only one thing on his mind, and he didn’t know if this was the right space to voice it—but still, the words found their way into his mouth:

To chance upon a kiss of yours,
What would I give?

He glanced beneath his lowered eyelids at Adrien and Yennefer, who sat attentively with no discernible expression on their faces. He swallowed and tried to focus on his hands.

A kiss gone astray from your rough mouth
Which devotion could not outlive.
The dirt and the shadows
And the blood that follows,
To taste it all with my tongue, love,
What would I give?

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, as his voice became louder and reached a new pitch:

To see myself in your golden eyes,
And to kiss along your muscly thighs,
Oh gods, what would I give?
What wouldn’t I give?

All I could give, all I could give,
Yes, all I could give are
Sunrises of glittering red rubies
Arcing shameless and free above,
Stars that shine so bright through the trees
That at night we’d hear the morning dove,

And a bouquet of dried yellow roses
With all the devotion you know it exposes,
That is all I could give, all I could give

But what wouldn’t I give?
Tell me, what shouldn’t I give?

His voice became rough over the last line of the chorus, his brow furrowing and his fingers shaking as he tried to control the waves of feeling that were crashing inside of him—longing grated against his skin, just under the surface, and he could barely contain it. It came out in the song, adding a harsh note to what should’ve sounded sweet, an unsteadiness to a rhythm that was otherwise straightforward.

When the song finally came to an end with a lingering high note from his lyre, the dining hall was still and quiet. Finally there was half-hearted applause.

When Jaskier finally dared to open his eyes, he was surprised by the empathy in Yennefer’s face as she slowly clapped—a reflection of his pain in her furrowed brow and the tightness of her mouth, as if she too was holding something back.

Adrien’s expression remained stoic and difficult to read. He stood up and pulled out his mandolin, gesturing for Jaskier to sit down.

“Perhaps we need something more cheerful after that,” Adrien said. And the tune he picked was indeed much jauntier, more folksy. But when Jaskier paid attention to the lyrics, he realized that they didn’t exactly match the tune’s optimism.

I want to live where I can walk alone
And no one wonder,
Where I can be my singing self
And not be telling why.

I want to lie and watch the leaves
In trees that I am under;
Or sit awhile upon a rock
And watch the sea-gulls fly.

The chorus ended up mostly being a series of trilling and la-la-las, but the most repeated line, sung with a disjointed cheeriness, was I want to be in total control of myself.

The song had surprising emotional depth, considering De Rouleau’s usual calibre. Jaskier had never heard him sing a song that hadn’t been carefully practiced and jotted down first, and his music always had an artificial quality to it: this was the first time that he felt like he was hearing something real and unvarnished.

Salvador of Garrah’s words to him echoed in Jaskier’s mind: You have a sweet voice. The kind that drips honey. And you smile as brightly as the sun. But when you actually listen to your lyrics, most of them are full of sorrow.

This comment may have applied even more to Adrien de Rouleau, whose longing wasn’t for another person, but for a different life. Jaskier tried to think back to their academy days, but couldn’t remember anything that hinted at the context for this. The song was over quickly, ending as abruptly as it had started, and Jaskier found himself applauding with enough enthusiasm that Adrien looked suspicious when he sat down.

“Admitting defeat?” Adrien asked.

Jaskier’s smile became so tight it seemed more like a grimace. “In your dreams, maybe.”

Adrien leaned on the table to look squarely at Yennefer. “Well, Lady Mage, you’re our only judge and jury here. Which song did you prefer?”

Yennefer took a long draught from her wine cup and then patted her mouth dry with a napkin. “I warrant you won’t be too happy with my answer,” she finally said. “I feel like the winner depends on whether I’m in the mood to cry or not.”

Jaskier and Adrien stared at her.

“Well?” Adrien prompted. “Are you?”

“That’s absolutely none of your business, bard,” Yennefer said with razor sharpness.

When it became clear that there was going to be no give on this front, Adrien and Jaskier exchanged wary glances. “A tie, then,” said Jaskier.

“For the moment,” replied Adrien.

Jaskier shrugged and took a bite out of his chicken. After a moment, he said, “I have to admit, your song wasn’t completely intolerable, Adrien.”

“High praise,” said Adrien sarcastically. After several seconds under Jaskier’s increasingly expectant gaze, he sighed, “I suppose yours had a certain appeal to it as well.”

They gave each other a terse but companionable nod.

❀ ❀

Yennefer offered them all shelter for the night—a bold move considering the castle still technically belonged to the town council members, none of whom had so far returned. Jaskier knew that he and Geralt would have to leave first thing in the morning, before they got caught up in any trouble that was a direct result of Yennefer’s mischief-making. But for the moment, he was secretly grateful for a bed, not to mention a reliable roof over his head. He was slightly tipsy from the wine at dinner and he suspected that the potion was making him feel a bit lightheaded as well. So when he gratefully tumbled into the chamber Yennefer had directed him to, he almost didn’t notice the shadowy figure standing at the window.

“What-ho, Geralt,” he said cheerfully, after he had recovered from his jolt of surprise. “Where have you been?”

The room was dark and chilly, the atmosphere Geralt generally preferred. His golden eyes flashed an inhuman yellow in the darkness, and Jaskier almost took a step back from the intensity of them.

“You don’t have to answer me, I suppose. I’m plenty used to it by now,” he said, only a bit miffed. He shut the door behind him.

“…What are you wearing?” Geralt asked finally. There was more rasp to his timbre than usual.

Jaskier looked down at his sheer white clothes and released a deeply aggrieved sigh. “Yennefer made me change into them before she examined me. Afterward, she said my old clothes were being ‘washed,’ but not by whom—if she’s thrown them out, I’ll take her to court, I swear.” He tugged at the white collar self-consciously. He had seen his distorted image in the shine of his silver wine goblet at dinner, where he got a glimpse of a man in total disrepair: his hair hadn’t had a chance to be combed before it dried and now had a couple rogue cowlicks, his lips had been dyed crimson from the combination of revolting potion and red wine, and the clothes…he was just glad he couldn’t see them. “I know, they’re hideous. And laughably impractical. Speaking of which, I’m freezing: any chance we could get a fire going in here?”

As he walked further into the room to make his way to the fireplace that was currently lying dormant, he noticed Geralt take an almost imperceptible step back. It was done so subtly that Jaskier knew it wasn’t meant to be noticed, which somehow ended up bothering him so much more.

He squared his shoulders. Fine, he could play the Witcher’s games.

“Something wrong?” he asked faux-casually. “Are you morally opposed to me using the fireplace? Am I disrupting your relishing of complete and utter darkness?”

Geralt continued staring at him mistrustfully for a second, before finally looking away and shaking his head.

“Alright then.” Jaskier crouched down and set some fresh logs on the old ash-covered ones. He could feel his heartbeat, very pronounced in his chest for some reason. He swallowed and tried to stay focused on the task at hand.

Geralt wasn’t moving behind him. It was completely silent and still. But it felt like the air between them was becoming heavier, denser, slithering through the room like a deadly serpent.

Jaskier lit a match and threw it on the kindling, and the fire burst into life. He blew on it to get it to spread, and soon the crackling flame spread enough that it illuminated half of the room. He made a sound of contentment and stood, holding out his hands to warm them up.

“What did Yennefer say?” Jaskier jumped a little when Geralt’s voice came from directly behind him, mere inches away.

He bit down hard on his lip and made sure there was no wobble in his voice when he said with forced comedy, “You mean what diagnosis did she give for my life-threatening malady, my positively cancerous affliction, my self-destructive, tumorous—”

“Don’t make jokes,” growled Geralt.

Jaskier spun around. “I’ll make as many jokes as I want! This whole situation is a joke! Are you going to do this every time I get the sniffles? Tell me, are there other dark magic-wielding exes you’ve got waiting for your beck and call? Should I write ahead now and make an appointment just to make sure?”

Geralt stared down at him, his yellow eyes still visible beneath the shadow that cloaked half his face. “Why are you angry?” he asked.

“Why am I—!” Jaskier swallowed back the last word and furrowed his brow, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “I’m not angry!”

“You are,” said Geralt, unswayed. “Tell me why.”

Jaskier breathed out a long sigh and turned back to the fire. The warmth flooded his senses, prickling his skin, calming him a little.

“Why do you trust her?” he said to the flames. “I’ve known you for years longer, Geralt. But you’ve never trusted my opinion the way you do hers. If I ever did what she did today—”

“You couldn’t,” said Geralt.

“I know I couldn’t!” snapped Jaskier, annoyed again. “But in a hypothetical world where I could do magic, could do something that caused real damage, you would’ve kicked me to the curb long ago. I mean gods, Geralt, I get a bit feverish and I’m dropped. But Yennefer gets a free pass on turning a backwater town into a non-consensual harem?”

“‘Dropped’? I never ‘dropped’ you anywhere,” growled Geralt.

“Oh, let’s not pretend that you’re not looking for reasons to.” Jaskier’s voice caught suddenly, and he immediately bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to stop anything embarrassing from happening.

There was a moment of silence, and Jaskier had half-expected Geralt to have left, when black gloved hands landed gently on his sides. He took a fumbling step backward, breath catching, and backed himself right against Geralt’s armored chest.

“I don’t look for reasons,” said Geralt in an impossibly low tenor, right next to his ear. “I ignore them.”

Jaskier’s heart hammered. His hands automatically found Geralt’s, and his fingers tightly grasped over his. The castle was so impossibly quiet, the only sound in the world seeming to be the crackling of the fireplace. Inch by inch, their interlaced hands slowly made their way to Jaskier’s front, halting at his chest. If he focused, Jaskier thought he could feel the heat of Geralt’s skin through the leather.

“You’re shaking,” Geralt said quietly.

“Bit chilly in here.” Jaskier fought his hardest to keep his tone casual, but his voice still sounded like it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

Geralt’s voice sounded rough itself. “You’re wearing next to nothing.”

Jaskier was about to protest—sure, he’d used toilet paper with more textile strength than Yennefer’s chiffon, but he was still fully covered—only to look down and find that the blazing firelight had revealed clearly just how transparent his white clothing was: it concealed absolutely nothing, revealing every contour of his body with an obligatory strip of white gauze simply thrown over it. Somehow it was even more obscene than just being nude.

Jaskier’s blush traveled from his cheeks all the way to his toes. His grip on Geralt’s hands tightened as he inwardly warred with himself: he couldn’t tell if he was more mortified or turned on, more pessimistic or hopeful.

Geralt pressed his face against the crook of Jaskier’s neck and breathed in deeply, releasing a deep hum.

He’s smelling me, Jaskier thought. And he likes it. That had no right being as hot as it was. Jaskier couldn’t help but release the smallest moan.

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s voice was all rasp but Jaskier could still hear the plea in it. His fingers dug into the chiffon, causing it to stretch dangerously. “Stop.”

Jaskier shook his head and couldn’t help but let out a barked laugh of disbelief. “Stop what, Geralt?”

He wouldn’t put it past the big lump to say something along the lines of, Stop falling in love with me, it’s slowing us down. Now pack up, we leave at first light.

He found himself laughing again, a bit wildly. That ended sharply when the fabric of his top finally tore and two buttons went pinging down to the floor. Geralt’s gloved hands were suddenly against his bare skin and he flushed hot. His next breath was ragged and humorless.

A noise came from the back of Geralt’s throat. “Stop reacting to me like that,” he growled.

“I can’t.” Jaskier’s skull was so empty. He couldn’t generate a single thought. There wasn’t a single word in there beyond what rolled off his tongue like a prayer for salvation: “Geralt,” he gasped, “please.”

He needed to be touched so badly. Geralt was right, he was shaking, and he couldn’t stop himself either: to be this close to Geralt for this long, to feel him slowly starting to understand what Jaskier really wanted, made for the most sublime torture hell had yet devised.

Geralt’s hand on Jaskier’s chest jerked again and another button popped loose. Jaskier felt the chiffon come loose around his shoulders, exposing his skin to the cool night. He could sense Geralt’s sudden hesitation, and immediately grew concerned that he was about to disappear, like a dream, or—well, like a Geralt.

He was about to turn around to make sure that didn’t happen, when he felt a soft warmth on his shoulder, where the scar from a particularly nasty welt rested.

Because of the potion Yennefer had given him, there was no ache, only a tingle. The soft warmth reappeared on a different wound lower down his back.

Geralt, he suddenly realized, was kissing his scars.

Jaskier looked up at the stone ceiling, suddenly blinking back tears. Geralt had tended each one of those wounds for weeks, helped him dress and undress even as the pain slowly receded, supported him when they had to ascend a hill or a staircase. He knew where each wound had been, had it memorized, transparent clothing or no, and the industriousness with which he found them and kissed them was just as methodical as his application of bandages.

I love you, thought Jaskier, with ferocity. The words sat on his tongue, filling his mouth and making it impossible to say anything else.

At the same time, he ached. In all his fantasies he’d imagined he’d be the one kissing Geralt’s scars, asking about the story behind each one (provided that Geralt was even the kind of man to attach importance to remembering such things). He’d always envisioned being surrounded by Geralt’s heat, his perpetual shirtlessness no longer torturous but inviting, and meeting his gaze as he kissed him. And he’d relished in imagining how Geralt would look when he was languid, relaxed, loved—something he had never seen, but held out hope he would someday, even if it was not with him.

And here they were, the closest they had ever been. Geralt’s kiss, soft and melting away on his skin instantly, like chocolate on a warm summer’s day. He was being sweet and gentle in the way only Geralt of Rivia knew how to be.

And yet, his armor and gloves were still on.

And yet, he wouldn’t let Jaskier look at him or touch him.

And yet, the chasm between them remained. Uncrossable.

Jaskier closed his eyes, tightened his grip on Geralt’s hand and interlaced their fingers.

“Geralt.” The sensation of Geralt’s lips pressing against his skin stopped. He bounced their clasped hands against his chest and willed himself to memorize the exact sensation of it. The main question on his mind finally made it out of his mouth, steady and without inflection: “Why are we doing this?”

He felt Geralt’s whole body stiffen. He was fully expecting it when Geralt let go of his hand and stepped away, but the cool air against his back still made Jaskier wince. He stood up straight and forced himself to take steady breaths. His white shirt hung in tatters from his forearms. There was no rescuing it, so he took his arms out of the sleeves and let it drop to the floor, reuniting with its discarded buttons. He crossed his arms over his chest and finally gathered the courage to turn around.

But, just as he anticipated, Geralt was long gone.

He closed his eyes with a sigh, then slowly sank to the ground. He was starting to get feeling back in his limbs, and there was a tingling still in the places Geralt had kissed. With a bit more force than necessary, he banged his head back against the wall.

“Fuck,” he said out loud. “Shit. Fuck.”

He pushed his face into his hands and yelled.

❀ ❀

It was no longer in Jaskier’s nature to let Geralt disappear into the night when something…odd happened. So after ten minutes of panicked brooding and occasionally slapping himself in the face, he scraped himself off the floor. He realized he couldn’t go wandering around the castle half-naked. Luckily Geralt had left one of his black tunics hanging off the bed post.

He clucked his tongue and pulled it off. “How many times have I told him it’ll wrinkle if he hangs it like this?” he muttered to himself.

He blinked, and then barked out an incredulous laugh at how easily he snapped back into regular thought patterns with Geralt. He already could be half-convinced that the whole thing was a dream after all.

“I almost slept with Geralt of Rivia,” he said out loud to the empty room.

But you didn’t, said a voice in his head, one that sounded irritatingly similar to Adrien de Rouleau’s.

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”

Why not?

Jaskier stared at the flickering fire for a long moment. Then he pulled Geralt’s tunic over his head. It was so loose that the neckline reached nearly to his shoulders and the length of it hung below his hips. Just Geralt’s outdoorsy smell on the tunic sent a flurry of sensations through his body, the memory of Geralt’s mouth on his skin, his back pressed against his, his hands—

Jaskier made a frustrated sound and bumped his fist against his forehead. “Because…it felt like he was fighting himself the whole time,” he said in answer to ghost-Adrien’s question. His lips trembled, and he clapped his hand over his mouth and forced himself to swallow back any tears. After clearing his throat, he said sternly to himself, “No time for that.”

Geralt was surprisingly easy to locate: as soon as Jaskier opened the door he could hear muted shouting. The echoing of voices as they bounced around the crude stone walls distorted the words beyond recognition, but he would know Geralt’s voice anywhere.

Shouting was quite out-of-character for Geralt, but he had done a few unusual things already that day, so nothing could surprise Jaskier now.

His senses were not as sharp as a Witcher’s and the hallway torches laid unlit without the attendance of servants, so stumbling about in the darkness trying to determine which direction the yelling was coming from was a challenge. But when he made it out to the courtyard he could hear clearly that it was coming from a nearby room to the right.

“When will you stop messing with things you don’t understand?” Geralt’s voice came through loud and clear, and he sounded so angry that it sent chills down Jaskier’s spine. A voice that was clearly Yennefer’s shouted back—she obviously wasn’t the type to take someone shouting at her without a swift and venomous rebuttal. But she was less angry, and thus less loud, and so Jaskier could not hear her properly from the courtyard. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about! Just drop it, Yennefer!”

A few seconds later, the door burst open and Geralt stormed out. His shadowy, hulking stature was tense for a fight, his hands balled up into fists, and his yellow eyes were flashing with so much rage that for a moment, he was truly terror-inducing. Jaskier shrank back, suddenly reluctant to approach. He watched Geralt turn back around to snarl, “Fuck this and fuck you. I’m done,” and slam the door shut behind him.

Jaskier had forgotten how fast Geralt could move. He was always going at a pace Jaskier could keep up with, he realized. In two blinks of an eye, Geralt had left the courtyard. Jaskier cursed under his breath and ran after him.

When he reached the orchard, he looked around. For a moment, it seemed like Geralt had disappeared, and Jaskier’s heart sank to his stomach: then he saw movement in the corner of his eye and managed to barely make out Geralt saddling Roach under some trees. His heart sank impossibly lower at the sight.

“Geralt!” he called. His legs automatically started running without any conscious thought on his part. He half-expected Geralt to jump on Roach and gallop off into the trees, but thankfully he stayed where he was. When he finally caught up, he was panting.

Geralt didn’t look at him, just continued tightening the saddle bags with slightly more force than necessary. Roach whinnied uneasily.

“Geralt.” Jaskier reached out and put a hand on the bag Geralt was tying. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”

This did make Geralt stop. He let go of the bag but didn’t turn around.

“Where exactly are you going?” Jaskier asked. “With Roach and all of your belongings?”

Geralt stayed silent.

“So.” Jaskier huffed a laugh entirely devoid of humor. “This is how it’s going to happen, huh? This is how it finally ends? Honestly, Geralt, I’m impressed. I mean, sneaking out on your travel companion of over two years without a word in the dead of night? I didn’t think you could sink that low.”

Geralt stayed still as a statue. Jaskier was desperate for him to say anything, anything at all. Whenever he got Geralt talking, that’s when they were able to resolve things. It had been so long since Geralt had completely iced him out like this.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice rising. “If you’re going to abandon me, at least have the balls to tell me directly!”

He was working himself up, ready for a shouting match, the kind that Yennefer had gotten: but when Geralt finally turned around to face him, his eyes were impossibly sad. The grief in them hit Jaskier like no punch to the gut would. He could only watch as Geralt’s gaze panned over him as if he were drinking him in, before Geralt closed his eyes with a sigh.

“I can’t do this anymore, Jaskier.” The words fell like lead at their feet.

Jaskier breathed in sharply. He bit the side of his cheek so hard he tasted blood.

“I’m not…” Geralt’s eyelids fluttered open for a second and he seemed to wince before turning so he was facing Roach instead. The Witcher’s swallow was audible. “I’m not in control of myself anymore.”

Jaskier fought strenuously against the urge to touch him. “You don’t always have to be in control,” he said finally.

“Yes. I do.” Geralt said this in a way that left no room for debate.

Jaskier tried to keep his tone calm and reasonable. “Then tell me how I can help you.”

“You can’t.” No room for debate there either.

Jaskier huffed impatiently. “How do you know if you’ve never tried?”

Geralt suddenly erupted. “Because you make everything worse, Jaskier!” he shouted. “My life was already a pile of shit before you came along, and now every goddamn day the shit-pile gets higher! And you have no fucking clue how hard it is, day in and day out, just trying to hold everything together—”

Geralt cut himself off with a grunt and looked away, like he’d just remembered Witchers weren’t supposed to feel anger. Jaskier felt like he’d been slapped several times with a brick and then doused in lava. He would have preferred that, even. Every worry, every anxiety, he had ever had in his friendship with Geralt had just been confirmed. It was all falling apart, the elaborately stacked house of cards he had set up, the idea that someway, somehow, he and Geralt could scramble together a happy ending. The most words he had ever heard Geralt consecutively string together, and it was to tell him how much he couldn’t stand being around him.

His vision blurred. He covered his mouth with his hand to make sure no humiliating sounds escaped.

“But it’s not—it’s not your fault,” Geralt emended. Jaskier could barely bear to listen to him anymore. “It’s mine. I’m—”

“Geralt of Rivia,” said Jaskier, managing to hold back his tears long enough to laugh, “you cannot seriously be giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech.”

“I am,” said Geralt with no trace of irony. “You did nothing wrong, Jaskier.”

“I see. So what you’re saying is, I did nothing in particular to upset you, I just generally make your life miserable? Did I get that right?”

Geralt’s silence spoke volumes. Jaskier ran a hand over his face and tried to sort through the scrambled mess of his thoughts.

“I thought we were friends, Geralt,” he said finally. “I—I thought we mattered to each other.”

Geralt’s grip on Roach’s saddle tightened. She gave him a very judgmental sideways look.

“Jaskier, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Geralt said after a long moment. “Every day that you spend with me on the Path is a day you could have spent better elsewhere. You don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to put yourself in danger to write your songs. You don’t have to travel through forests and villages that all look exactly the same tracking down monsters for a bit of coin.” He unexpectedly put his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder and gripped it tight. Only then did Jaskier notice he wasn’t wearing his gloves: he could feel the heat of his palm through the tunic. “Go live in a city. Make your music. Perform in palaces. Settle down with someone. Be happy.” Geralt squeezed his shoulder almost to the point of pain, then said with adamance, “You deserve a better life than this.”

He dropped his hand from Jaskier’s shoulder and with a final tug, finished saddling up Roach. Jaskier had been stunned into silence, so much so he hadn’t even been able to react. He knew it would take several days to fully process everything Geralt had just told him, but one thing seemed clear right away.

“This is your way of saying goodbye to me forever, isn’t it?” he said.

Geralt climbed up onto Roach’s back, and when he looked down, Jaskier realized it was the first time he had ever seen Geralt wear an emotion on his face with no attempt to hide it. The guilt and anguish he saw there completely destroyed any hope he had been clinging to.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said.

And with those final words, he and Roach left Jaskier behind.

❀ ❀

A part of Jaskier still hoped this was all actually a dream-turned-nightmare—that he’d just overslept and would wake up any minute now. When he returned to the chamber where the fire was slowly starting to burn out, he didn’t weep or curse or make a sound. He stared listlessly at the white buttons scattered all over the floor. Nothing about the last couple of hours had felt real. There was no way all of that had just happened.

He got into bed still wearing Geralt’s tunic. If he closed his eyes, he could trick himself into thinking he was still asleep at an inn somewhere with Geralt next to him. When he opened them again, the only thing that made him feel connected to reality was how cold and red his hands were from being out in the autumn chill for so long.

Yes, Geralt was gone, his hands kept reminding him. Yes, he had chased after him outside. And still he had left.

He kept alternating between pretending to sleep and staring at his numb hands for hours, until Adrien peeked in through the open door in the morning.

“Good morrow,” he said, looking awkward. “How are you doing?”

Jaskier didn’t even bother to look over or acknowledge him.

“Stupid question, I admit,” Adrien said. “The Lady Mage told me what happened last night. I can only assume you feel like complete and utter shit.”

The word “shit” evoked an overpowering memory of Geralt telling him that his life was a shit-pile that got bigger every day because of him. Jaskier groaned and pulled the sheets up over his head.

The mattress sagged under some added weight. Adrien’s voice came from right above him, unavoidable.

“I know that you won’t be getting over this any time soon. No doubt you’re going to sulk for weeks, if not months, if not years, but you can’t do that here. The angry townsfolk will be arriving any minute and you won’t want to be in the line of fire when they do.”

“Why do you care?” said Jaskier, slightly muffled by the sheets. “Last I checked, we were sworn enemies.”

Adrien let out an impatient huff. “We may have our differences, Julian, but I believe we’ve built enough of a rapport to not want to see each other hung, drawn, and quartered by overzealous puritans.”

Jaskier threw the sheets back and met Adrien’s condescending gaze with a defiant one of his own.

“I may as well let them. I don’t have anywhere to go. Nobody wants me around.” He pointed an accusing index finger at himself. “Dandelion, remember?”

Humans never recognize true beauty when they see it.

Jaskier squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the sheets over his head again.

“Ever the reigning king of self-pity,” sighed Adrien. He wrestled the sheets away and fixed him with a firm look. “I’m here with an offer. I have to go back to Oxenfurt. My father demanded it.”

“Okay, so, you’re running back home when Daddy calls,” Jaskier said, deadpan. “Typical lot of a lordling. What does that have to do with me?”

A nerve ticked in Adrien’s cheek. “I’m offering to take you with me, you ass.”

Jaskier scrunched up his nose. “Go back to Oxenfurt? Why in seven hells would I do that?”

“Let’s see…you’re homeless, jobless, friendless, broke, and Oxenfurt always has odd jobs and available residence for alumni,” listed Adrien, counting them off on his fingers. “Did I miss anything?”

Jaskier’s glare could pierce steel.

“Look at it this way, Julian,” Adrien emended in a more conciliatory tone. “It’s a quaint town with steady employment, plenty of books, and lots of opportunities to perform to a crowd. You could do worse.”

Go live in a city. Make your music. Perform in palaces. Settle down with someone. Be happy.

A wounded sort of sound came from the back of Jaskier’s throat. He closed his eyes.

“Fine,” he said miserably. “I’ll go.”

“Alright then. Pack up. I’ll be awaiting the appropriate amount of gratitude once you’re in a better mood.” Adrien stood up from the bed and added, “Oh. I almost forgot. The mage also asked me to give you these.”

He tossed Jaskier’s matching pale gold jacket and pants, neatly folded, freshly clean and glimmering onto the bed. Wrapped inside were two more potion bottles and a note written in messy red cursive: Figured you’d need these for the weeks ahead. Best of luck.

❀ ❀

They loaded up the mule cart. The vast majority of luggage was Adrien’s: Jaskier just had the clothes on his back, Geralt’s tunic, and only a handful of other items that all fit in a small rucksack.

The sun was shining brightly by the time they set out, almost three hours later than Geralt would have opted for. But this had been his wakeup time pre-Geralt. It would be an adjustment, reverting to the life he lived before the Path. A life that consisted of slow mornings, steady income, coming back to the same bed each day.

But Oxenfurt was a long ways away yet. It would take them six weeks at the very least to get there, which, as Geralt would say, really meant eight weeks.

“Eight weeks, just the two of us in a high-stress environment…” mused Jaskier. “How many limbs do you think we’ll have between us by the end?”

Adrien climbed into the cart beside him. “As long as we have both arms, we’ll be able to pay our way,” he said indifferently. “Ready to set off?”

Jaskier took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air and nodded. Adrien snapped the reigns and said, “Hup, hup,” and with some groaning from the wooden wheels, the mule cart started down the dirt road.

It was a beautiful day, oddly enough. Not a single grim thing about it. The world kept on turning; it didn’t care about broken hearts. Jaskier was mostly feeling numb anyways: anytime he tried to reflect on the night before, his brain drew a blank.

Probably for the best, he thought. He didn’t want to feel anymore. He didn’t want to think about anything either.

And then a forlorn howl echoed up from the woods, crashing into his consciousness like a brick through a window.

Adrien’s brow furrowed. “A wolf? Howling at nine in the morning? That’s odd.”

Heart hammering, Jaskier looked around frantically, but as the wolf let out a second howl, it became obvious that he was too far away to see. Reluctantly, he settled back down in the cart. As the wolf let out a third howl, Jaskier crossed his arms tightly and covered his mouth with his hand, tapping his heel restlessly up and down. Oxenfurt was over 400 miles north of here. He would probably never see the white wolf again.

“What is it, Julian? Did you forget some—oh.”

Adrien pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to him. For the first time since Geralt left, Jaskier broke down, weeping big, ugly tears.

It’s over, he thought, crying so hard he was close to retching. It’s really over. This is real. Real. Real.

He sobbed, and the wolf howled, and together they made sorrowful, broken music that followed him out of Rinde.