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1.
Geralt is fifteen when Jaskier transfers to their school, halfway through the year. He fits in astonishingly quickly, the way Geralt has never been able to; he talks to half the class before lunch, has them all wrapped around his finger by the end of the day. Laughter bubbles from him like champagne, golden and sparkling in the air, as he creates friendships like a composer creates music.
Geralt keeps his head down. Avoids him. An empty-headed, shallow rich boy, he thinks, who’s too much and too loud and not worth the time, and snarls at the voice at the back of his mind that tells him he’s jealous, that Jaskier wouldn’t want to be friends with him anyway, until it slinks away like a beaten dog.
Jaskier is beautiful, though. That, Geralt cannot deny. He sits cross-legged on his desk at noon break with his lunchbox balanced on one thigh, long limbs gesticulating energetically as he chatters, chestnut hair set perfectly and cotton-candy words falling from his lips like thistledown, turning everyone who listens soft and sweet and adoring. Little pins from a variety of popular media gleam on the collar of his uniform vest, a discreet little burst of colour that makes Geralt think he’d dress like a rainbow macaw if he could. He charms the teachers as easily as he charms the students; they sigh indulgently at his antics and never once chastise him for breaking dress code.
They smile, too, when he answers questions during class with jokes and sets everyone snickering. Boys smile when he replies to friendly jabs with witty parries, when he slings his arm around their shoulders like he’s known them since kindergarten, when he lends them his homework before they ask. Girls smile when he compliments their earrings, when he leans over their desks with puppy-wide eyes and his sleeves pushed to his elbows and asks them to explain sums that they know he already knows how to solve.
Geralt smiles the day Jaskier’s lunchbox slips off his leg and he nearly tumbles off the desk catching it. He looks up, breathless and grinning self-consciously, eyes summer-sky-blue beneath his fringe when they find Geralt’s.
Geralt’s heart kicks in his chest, a newly-born foal. He looks away, and stops smiling, and doesn’t look over again.
2.
Geralt damn near slips the second he steps into the bathroom. Five boys from his class are there, shrieking loud enough for the principal to hear them halfway across the school as they splash water at each other with wild abandon. Jaskier is holding someone’s head under the tap, his laugh gleeful, shaking back sopping hair from his eyes. His blazer is hanging open, his shirt soaked translucent. Geralt is struck dumb, struck motionless by the trickle of water down the hollow of his throat -
“Geralt!” Jaskier cries, sounding - pleased? - to see him. “D’you want to -”
Geralt turns on his heel and flees, cheeks blazing red as the pit of his stomach flares with heat. He skips his next two classes in lieu of hiding in the music room, revolted by himself, furious with himself, helpless to do anything but replay the moment over and over and over again in his wretched head.
Jaskier doesn’t try to talk to him again for the rest of that year. Geralt thinks that he deserves it.
3.
They’re sixteen, and Geralt has won a national mathematics competition. He shrinks where he stands when it’s announced during assembly, shrinks further when it’s received with the barest smattering of lukewarm applause. Eskel throws him a sympathetic look, Lambert an angry one. He shrugs, keeps his head down, and tries not to hear the mocking muttering, the dismissive insults. Freak, weirdo, creep, he’s heard it all before. He knows well, by now, how he is hated. If only the crowd would let him out, he could return to the safety of his seat in the corner of the classroom and go back to ignoring them all -
“What a fucking nerd,” Jaskier laughs as he passes by, surrounded by so many friends that he doesn’t notice Geralt standing there. The words are cruel but he sounds . . . amused. Indulgent. It makes something barbed twist, painful yet cotton-candy sweet, in the very centre of Geralt’s chest.
4.
Eskel makes the cricket team, and Vesemir permits it on the condition that Eskel makes time on the weekends to keep up with training. Geralt starts walking back to school before dinner to pick him up, because Eskel gets odd looks from people when he walks home alone after dark.
Certainly not because Jaskier made the team, too. Eskel only smiles when he says this, only shakes his head when Geralt insists it’s true.
Jaskier is a fast bowler, because of course he is. He’s rather grown into his lankiness, now a swift, lithe figure as he sprints to the crease, as he whirls around to demand the speed the second the ball knocks off the bails. The speedometer reads seventy kilometres per hour, then eighty, then ninety, as he practices, month after month, with single-minded focus. He rubs the ball on the seat of his pants the way Geralt’s seen Test cricketers do, and it seems pretentious, it makes Geralt laugh to himself, but the ball begins to curve, the stumps begin to drop every single time, and Geralt looks up swing bowling and then regrets laughing. When Jaskier bats, he goes for a six on every other ball, and he gets caught out more often than anyone else but he scores more, too. He always dives for the crease like his goddamn life depends on it. If his partner gets run out because of his signal, he apologizes before they even step off the pitch, and his determination redoubles when he faces the next ball.
He’s even more beautiful like this, in sweat-blotched shirts and grass-stained pants, gritted teeth and euphoric shouts as he struggles past every setback. Straining every muscle, always, towards being the best he possibly can. What drives him, Geralt wonders through dusky orange evenings as he waits for Eskel and watches without meaning to. Fear of failure, hunger for praise? Exacting parents, wanting him to put something impressive on college applications? Or a genuine love of the sport?
The last one, perhaps. He has no standard to compare Jaskier to, but he hears the coaches talking when he’s sitting on the benches. Almost a prodigy, they say, could probably go pro, he should be in proper training. But Jaskier seems content with the school team, and Geralt feels awful about how grateful he is for that fact. What kind of creep is he, sitting here and watching Jaskier like this, day after day, week after week?
“Those girls do the same thing,” Eskel tells him, kind and exasperated, offering absolution so terribly easily. He gestures to the benches on the other side of the field, where clumps of girls holler playful insults at the wickets and cheer brightly at the boundaries. “They’re all here to watch someone they like, and they’re here for two whole hours, not twenty minutes a day like you. Worst case, it’s a bit distracting, but no one’s upset about being admired.”
It still doesn’t feel right, Geralt thinks. Eskel reads it in his face, rolls his eyes, slings an arm around his shoulders as they walk off the field together. “Really, it’s fine,” he says. “You and I both know you’d do your damndest to keep your eyes respectful even if Jask stripped naked and did a pole dance just for you, so don’t beat yourself up about a bit of watching. Now c’mon, I’m starving.”
Geralt splutters, Eskel laughs and ruffles his hair. Geralt pinches his side in retaliation, grinning despite himself, and in the split second before Eskel puts him in a headlock, he sees Jaskier. Paused in the middle of packing up his kit, watching Eskel and Geralt leaving, a hint of a smile on his lips, a curiously satisfied lift to his brows. Like he’s made a discovery meant for him and no one else.
Then Geralt is trapped in Eskel’s arms, and when he gets out, Jaskier is gone. If he looks Geralt’s way during practice again, Geralt never sees it.
5.
Geralt gets the highest grades in eleventh year. At lunch on the day the exam results are posted, he’s done eating and halfway through a new book, glasses lying on the desk because myopia means he reads better with them off, and someone passes by and knocks them to the floor.
It’s clearly deliberate. The person who follows kicks them halfway across the room, which could be an accident, but Geralt wouldn’t bet on it. He doesn’t look up until they’ve passed - it’s always easier not to - and when he does, Yennefer is glaring daggers at them from two seats over, her eyes black with kohl and spite.
He shakes his head at her, ever so slightly. It’s a miracle that he’s finally found anyone halfway resembling a friend, even if it’s more because they’re outcasts together than anything else, and he doesn’t want her getting mixed up in the bullshit he has to deal with on top of her own. It’s not worth it, he tells himself, remembering Lambert coming home sullen and bloody-lipped last week, the way he has so many times before. Remembering Vesemir’s stone-faced disappointment, Eskel’s resigned sigh as he tipped antiseptic onto a wad of cotton. It never is.
Fuck, he hopes the lenses aren’t cracked. He takes a breath to steady himself, and is about to get up to get his glasses back when Jaskier comes over with them. They’re folded, nestled in his cupped, upturned palm; he holds them with the caution with which one might hold a baby bird. He’s clearly never touched a pair of glasses before. The right corner of his mouth is turned down, Geralt can see as he gets closer, and for once, there is no hint of a smile in his eyes.
He plucks them from his palm by the bridge and places them delicately on Geralt’s desk. Geralt is too surprised to avoid his gaze. Jaskier looks as though he might say something, then seems to decide against it. He gives Geralt a little nod - acknowledgement? Contrition? - and then turns and walks away. Leaves the classroom. Two seats over, Yennefer raises an eyebrow, a silent What the fuck? In the corridor outside, one of Jaskier’s friends gives a derisive little laugh, says Really, Jask? Jaskier either replies too quietly to hear, or doesn’t reply at all.
The glasses, miraculously, are not broken. The lenses are fine, the frame only slightly chipped. Geralt handles them with a little more care, afterwards, and can’t help wondering if Jaskier would hold someone else’s hand the way he holds their glasses. Gently, and carefully, and unfailingly conscious of his power to protect.
6.
They’re seventeen. Jaskier is team captain, Eskel is vice. Geralt doesn’t bother going home and then coming back for Eskel, these days; he does his homework on the benches instead, and for every twenty minutes of work, he allows himself ten minutes of watching practice. It’s rather peaceful, being able to get assignments done without yelling matches between Lambert and Vesemir or the neighbour’s dogs’ barking distracting him, and he’s become a familiar enough sight that no one pays him much mind.
The one time someone does, it’s when he’s packed away his laptop and textbooks and gone for a walk around the grounds to stretch his legs. He’s quietly pleased with himself for having finished everything that’d been pending, thinking about how much time he’ll have to sketch tonight, wondering if he can convince the stray cat that comes by their bins to model for him, when a ringing shout of “Catch it!” makes him look up.
It must have been a beautiful shot. The ball’s been lofted high, arcing in a lazy rainbow before hurtling down past the nets. Eskel shouts Geralt’s name in warning, but Geralt’s already jogged a couple of reflexive paces backwards, and he catches it just like he’s seen Eskel do - both palms cupped and fingers relaxed, elbows tucked close, letting his hands fall back and down with the momentum to soften the impact.
It still stings. He shakes out his right hand, wincing. How the fuck does Eskel do this for hours every damn day?
“That was a nice catch!”
Geralt nearly drops the ball. Jaskier must have chased after it - he’s standing behind the net, chest heaving as he pants, smiling at Geralt with something like surprise and something like delight. “Uh, thanks,” Geralt mutters, dropping his gaze, and makes sure their hands don’t touch when he hands the ball back. Jaskier takes it with a bright “Thanks!”, and jogs away fleet-footed. The ball’s been tossed back into play before Geralt can shake himself and walk back to where he was sitting.
Jaskier nods at Geralt when they pass in the corridors, after that. Geralt doesn’t quite know how to respond, but it doesn't stop even when he ignores it, so he tries returning the gesture instead. It can’t be anything but hesitant and awkward, but it makes Jaskier smile. So he does it anyway.
7.
There’s a party, one of those offensively lavish things where people don't know seventy per cent of the other attendees and huddle in little pockets of familiarity, plastic cups clutched to their chests as they try to shout above too-loud music. It’s a classmate’s birthday, someone whose name Geralt doesn’t remember. He came for the booze, and he brought Yen because Eskel gets snapped up at these things within seconds. He’s well-liked, Eskel, always has been. Despite everything. Geralt still doesn’t know how he does it.
So he’s sitting on the veranda with Yen, a lit cigarette in one hand, vodka punch in the other. She’s hugging a knee to her chest, the fifty-odd piercings in her ears shimmering silver, on her third cigarette of the evening. She’s a bad influence, probably - Vesemir doesn’t like her much - but she’s entirely unapologetic for her razor tongue and her whip-sharp smarts and she’s the only person ever who hadn’t brought up Geralt’s exam scores the first time she spoke to him, so.
She’s good with silences, too, and he sometimes gets the feeling she wants to be kind but doesn’t think she knows how, and it makes her sad and angry and defiant all at once. He knows what that feels like. He knows how it is to have your soul strung taut between wanting to spit at the world, wanting to turn your back on it like the outcast you’ve been named, and wanting to fall into its arms despite all the hurt. Wanting to trust that there is some kindness, somewhere out there, that you will find. That you will deserve.
He rather likes her.
She exhales a cloud of smoke, nods at his cup. “Done?”
“Mhm.”
“Get us both a refill, then.”
There are times he doesn’t like her all that much, too. He sighs, takes her cup and heads inside to the kitchen, squeezing past dancing people and trying not to step on food lying on the floor. There’s a couple of drunk people searching through the fridge, giggling something about ice cream. Geralt steps around them gingerly, is lifting the punch ladle when he happens to catch sight of a softly lit hallway leading off from the kitchen, further into the house -
- where Jaskier has a girl pressed to the wall, his mouth at her neck. Her head’s tipped back, her fingers woven possessively into his ruffled hair. She’s wearing this short skirt that shimmers like Yen’s jewellery, and his hands are buried in satin-red, pulling insistently at the backs of her thighs as their hips roll together. She makes a pleased, breathy little sound, her back arching, her head thudding back gently against the wall. His shirt is half unbuttoned, hanging off one shoulder. He scatters kisses up to her jaw, and in the second before his mouth lands on hers, his lips are almost the same colour as her skirt, bitten bright red -
- Geralt realizes he’s spilled the punch. Realizes his lungs feel like they’re made of ice. Realizes he’s been staring for the past fifteen seconds.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Get out! Get away from them!
He stumbles back out to the veranda with a litre bottle of vodka heavy in his hand. Yen gives it a glance, frowns, but makes no comment. They drink it neat, coughing through the burn, washing it down with curls of nicotine-laced smoke. When he bites down on the soft inside of his arm to keep quiet as the tears spill over, she frowns harder, but still doesn’t comment. Only puts her hand in his, lets him clutch it tight.
It helps, a little. Even if the memory of Jaskier in his pink-cherry-patterned shirt and black-and-silver jeans and electric blue sneakers, drinking that girl in like she’s all he’s ever wanted, burns worse than the vodka.
A rainbow macaw, Geralt remembers, realizes, and laughs until he cries all over again.
8.
The cricket team advances through a national tournament in increasingly rapid stages, and Jaskier starts coming by their house to strategize with his vice-captain outside of practice hours. He walks home with Geralt and Eskel, the first evening, talking to Eskel without a care in the world while Geralt sinks anxious nails deep into his palms. He thinks of their poky little matchstick house, with peeling wallpaper and creaking floorboards and windows that get stuck no matter how much they grease the hinges; the house with Lambert and his thundercloud brow, sprawled out on the sofa, spoiling for a fight more often than not; with Vesemir and his taciturn silences and his vicious scowl, already suspicious of this intruder. He thinks, Fuck, please, please let this go well, already despairing at knowing it won’t.
Jaskier’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker when they arrive, and he obeys Vesemir’s command of “Shoes off!” with cheerful alacrity. “Thank you for having me!” he says, and Vesemir gives him a long once-over, then a slight nod.
“Good to have you. Geralt, help me with dinner. Eskel, I want you down no later than eight-thirty.”
Geralt is thankful to be on kitchen duty, tasting and retasting everything to make doubly, then triply sure it’s palatable. Dinner is awkward, and Jaskier sitting in their dim, crowded dining room is really fucking weird -
( - seeing him drinking from the chipped mug you painted when you were ten twists something in your chest, barbed and cotton-candy sweet - )
( - it’s no use, he likes curvy girls with red-satin skirts, so what would he ever want with you? What have your months upon months of pining ever gained you but more hurt? Oh, how you wish you could stop wanting him, this boy with the summer-sky-blue eyes, this boy smiling at you across the table even though you haven’t said a fucking word the whole fucking evening - )
- but Eskel and Jaskier keep up a pleasant enough conversation, Vesemir listens with apparent interest, and Lambert doesn’t start cursing anyone out, so Geralt counts it an unexpected win.
“Come by again,” Vesemir says abruptly when Jaskier is taking his leave, to everyone’s shock. “My boys get few enough visitors. Be nice to have another voice around the house sometimes.”
( - Oh, fuck. - )
Jaskier does.
Lambert melts, slowly but surely, under the relentless onslaught of charm and chatter. He opens up about his interests half-defensively, like he’s expecting to be snubbed and ridiculed, but Jaskier exclaims over his wood carvings and peers at his homemade chemistry concoctions with genuine delight, and Lambert . . . blossoms. Talks for ages about wood grain and knife steel, acids and effervescence. Asks about the team’s tournament chances, tones the savage bite of his words down to something more of a nip. Grudgingly presents his homework to Jaskier for help. Lets Jaskier ruffle his hair.
( - your own brother, and it took Jaskier to show you this side of him, you didn’t even know he still had his whittling knife - )
With Vesemir, Jaskier is unfailingly respectful, seemingly understanding that the key to continued forbearance is never being where he shouldn’t be and not making any kind of a mess, ever. Vesemir watches Eskel and Jaskier strategizing on the living room floor with notebooks full of scribbled diagrams, watches a blushing, scowling Lambert present Jaskier with a carved little fox figurine, watches Geralt avoid Jaskier’s eye when they pass by each other, and says nothing even as something like approval softens the creases around his mouth. Once, Geralt sees him pat Jaskier on the shoulder, almost absentmindedly.
( - your own father, took him years to tell you, all gruff and stoic, that he was proud of your progress, but he’s made space for Jaskier in this little house already - )
Mostly, though, Jaskier is with Eskel. They get along like a house on fire, always have, Eskel’s quietly amused rumble a pleasant counterpoint to Jaskier’s melodious chime of a chuckle. They trade stories, music, books; Eskel borrows his pins to wear, sometimes, or Jaskier nicks Eskel’s leather jacket for a date; they discuss players and tactics, watching videos of their opponents’ matches on endless replay, and run themselves ragged at practice.
( - Eskel barely lets you touch that jacket, it’s his pride and joy, but he trusts Jaskier with it - he trusts Jaskier with so much -)
Jaskier doesn’t talk to Geralt much. Maybe he doesn’t know how - Geralt certainly doesn’t know how to talk to him. But even with how Geralt flees eye contact and tries to hide in his room as much as possible - it wouldn’t be a surprise if Jaskier figured Geralt hated him, honestly - Jaskier never seems uncomfortable around him. He always greets Geralt with a quick smile, always tries to draw him into the conversation, always accepts Geralt’s silence with a cordial ease that Geralt wouldn’t have expected from someone so full of fluent words. Once, he finds Geralt right before leaving for the night, cornering him by the sink with a hand held out.
“Congratulations,” he smiles. “You won that essay competition last week, right? Eskel told me.”
Geralt could say anything, anything at all, but he only manages to grasp that long-fingered, calloused hand for a second with a short jerk of a nod before he retreats up the stairs to his room.
( - you couldn’t even tell him thank you, goddammit - )
Geralt doesn’t understand why. Why Jaskier comes over so frequently, why he brings takeout to contribute to dinner, why he stays well past the clearing of the dishes. Why he’s content to stay cooped up in their matchstick house instead of inviting Eskel to his mansion or whatever so they can work in the comfort he’s surely used to. Why he isn’t out with his richer, prettier friends instead of on their sagging couch with the ragtag group of problem-foster-boys that the whole school sniggers about, that every single teacher disapproves of (Eskel, occasionally, excepted). Why he comes over even on the weekends, sometimes, and goes with them to the junkyard three streets over, and watches Vesemir drill them through sprints and wrestling and running parkour through the creaking jungle of rusting metal and fraying wires.
“So this is why you’re all so jacked,” he laughs, brushing dust from his shirt. He’d tried to keep up with them for all of five minutes and tripped, fallen headlong, in the first thirty seconds. “Damn, I’m jealous.”
Jealous of being forced to do this shit every week since we were seven? Geralt thinks with some incredulity, then sees a twist of real wistfulness in Jaskier’s expression and suddenly knows, with absolute certainty, that Jaskier in his mansion is just as lonely as Geralt is at school.
It becomes a little easier to meet Jaskier’s eyes, after that.
(- red satin, red satin, remember red satin and smoky vodka and Yen’s bony fingers holding yours tight. Don’t read into it, don’t smile back at him, don’t let yourself believe that there’s the slightest chance he could ever, ever actually like you - )
Jaskier happens upon Geralt sitting on the tiny back stoop, one evening. There’s nothing behind the house but a handkerchief square of a yard where they keep the bins and a few dusty, faded flowers, drooping to the ground in exhaustion, but the light is good. It’s a nice sunset, pinks and oranges washing the edges of the world soft and blurred, and Geralt is so absorbed in sketching that he doesn’t hear the back door open.
“Oh, that’s lovely.”
He startles, drops his pencil, looks up to see Jaskier peering at the sketchbook with interest. The cat in Geralt’s lap opens a bright yellow eye, reveals a warning gleam of teeth. Geralt pets her automatically, soothing, while Jaskier bends to pick the pencil up. Their fingers brush when Geralt takes it, and he has to resist the urge to snatch his hand back, as though from a flame.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Jaskier says, looking a little sheepish, a little nervous. “Or to snoop. Just came out for a breath of fresh air -” He indicates the mug of tea in his left hand. “ - thought it’d be nice out here. ‘Specially since Eskel’s scolding Lambert about something, and your dad just came down to sort it out, so I thought I’d be out of the way outside -”
Abruptly, his mouth snaps shut, the rapid, tumbling flow of words silenced. Then, quietly, “Sorry, Geralt. Didn’t mean to intrude.”
He’s biting his lip, cheeks glowing pinker than the sunset. Geralt’s never seen him subdued, uncertain like this. He goes to leave, and Geralt says, driven by some hasty, panicked instinct, “You’re not. You can - stay. It’s fine.”
Jaskier blinks. “Yeah? Sure I won’t be a bother?” A flash of a faint smile, oddly similar to the cat. “You like your peace and quiet, I know.”
“I’m . . . yeah.” Geralt looks away hastily, fiddles with his glasses where they sit perched on top of his head. “But I don’t mind you talking. If you don’t mind me just listening. I’m - I’m not much of a. A conversationalist.”
( - this is the most you’ve ever said to him, holy fuck, holy fuck, he wants to hang out with you, with you and no one else, holy fuck - )
“I figured.” Jaskier sits down, hugging his knees to his chest. “Just tell me to fuck off if I’m being annoying, yeah?”
Geralt gives an awkward half-shrug, then hunches back over his sketchbook. He feels like he might combust from - euphoria, anticipation, dread, some terrible, wonderful mix of it all. Jaskier is close enough to reach out and fucking touch, and Geralt wants so, so badly not to fuck this up.
The secret to doing that, he’s long since learned, is to shut up and keep his head down.
So that’s what he does, and there’s quiet for a long, nerve-wracking minute before Jaskier says, “You’re drawing that cat in your lap?”
“Yeah.”
Jaskier extends cautious fingers to the cat, watching her intently. Geralt lets his hand hover over her neck, ready to scruff her if she tries to bite. But she deigns to sniff at Jaskier, and allows him to lay a single stroke on her cheek before rumbling a warning. Geralt brushes Jaskier’s hand aside, tentative and apologetic.
“She’s not - not, uh, very friendly. Best not to.”
( - the cat. The damn cat took to him faster than she did you. Does it make you hate him or love him, make you jealous or adoring, the way he slots into all the most private parts of your life so fucking easily - ?)
“Mm, I can see that. She got a name?”
“No,” Geralt says, and adds a few lines to her whiskers on the page. Jaskier hums, says nothing. When Geralt chances a glance from the corner of his eye, heart thudding softly against his breastbone, Jaskier is watching the sunset, looking nothing but contemplative.
Geralt does both her front legs in silence before saying, for some unknown, unbearably compelling reason, “But I thought - maybe Roach.”
“Hm? Her name?”
“Yeah.”
“Like - like the bug?”
“Like the fish.”
“Oh.” The cat yawns, settles her head on her paws. “I didn’t know there were, um. Roach fish.”
“Yeah. They’re freshwater fish. Resilient, adaptable. Vesemir caught me one for a pet, when I was a kid. And she’s . . .” Geralt stops drawing, scratches gently under her chin with the end of the pencil. “She’s the toughest stray in the neighbourhood. Wouldn’t let me get near her for six months. I thought - I thought it was appropriate.”
He hasn’t even told Eskel this. Hasn’t told anyone this.
“Right. No, yeah. It suits her.” Jaskier is smiling, Geralt can hear it. “Queen Roach. Y’know, Geralt, I know you generally prefer not to use it, but you’ve got a really lovely voice.”
( - Remember the red satin, the way it glowed under his grasping hands as he kissed her. Don’t you dare. You know it’ll hurt. Don’t you dare let hope crawl its way into your weak, wanting veins. )
“I - thanks,” Geralt mumbles, his pencil flying over the paper in shaky strokes. He doesn’t say anything more; he doesn’t think he remembers how to. Jaskier eventually begins to talk about a dog he once had, Dandelion, who’d had a penchant for burying Jaskier’s jeans and chewing on his erasers. The cadence of his voice is smooth, unhurried, as the sun slips away and night dyes the sky deep indigo.
Geralt draws, and listens, and hope slips inexorably through the widening crack in his breastbone as his heart thuds, thuds, thuds.
9.
They make it to the finals, Jaskier and Eskel and their team. The match is in a real stadium - a smallish one, but still, a real stadium, with professional scouts in the stands - and Eskel’s made sure Geralt and Lambert and Yennefer have good seats to watch from. The other team’s uniform is black and gold, a nice contrast to Geralt’s school’s blue and white, and they’re two rows of glowing colour in the late afternoon sunshine, against the green of the field.
“They’ll win,” Lambert says confidently. The umpire calls the team captains forward, sends the coin spinning up in the air. “The old man’d kill Esk otherwise. They’ll win.”
It’s heads, and Jaskier chooses to bat. The spectators cheer as players jog onto the field, take their places, get in a last stretch or two. Geralt doesn’t know the opening batsmen by name, but he’s taken to sitting in the living room while Eskel and Jaskier talk, these last couple weeks, and he knows they aren’t great.
“If they score, fine,” Eskel had said to Jaskier, flipping through their notebook with a focused frown. “If not, get them out of the way quick. Gweld can be third, I’ll be fourth, and you’ll be next. Start slow, get our engine warm, build up to a big score.”
The first boy gets run out quickly, and Gweld comes on. He plays steadily, a bit conservatively, and the runs tick up in ones and twos. The second boy gets bowled out neatly in the fourth over. Eskel comes on strike at a score of thirty for two, giving Gweld a friendly punch on the shoulder as he walks to the crease.
Fifteen minutes later, the blue section of the stands is hoarse with cheering. “The fuck,” Lambert says, grinning. “I didn’t know he was this good!”
“‘Course he is,” Geralt says, grinning back fiercely. Without Jaskier, Eskel’d have been captain. Of course he is.
They’re at eighty-five for two after ten overs, and Eskel’s given them forty of those runs. He faces every bowler the same, calm and unruffled, slipping the ball through the gaps in the fielders no matter how they change their configuration. He scores two fours and three sixes, the rest all twos and threes, and Gweld’s stamina matches his as they take run after run after run.
Then Gweld is bowled out, and Jaskier takes his place. The crowd cheers for him, one section of students chanting his name enthusiastically above the noise; he raises a hand with a nod of acknowledgement, his grin blinding even under the helmet, walking onto the pitch like he owns it.
The very first ball he faces, he sends flying high over the boundary. The crowd howls, loud and lusty. Lambert gives vent to a satisfied snort. “Cocky fucking bastard,” Yen says, with that odd twist to her mouth she gets when she’s trying not to smile.
Jaskier changes the whole flow of the game, raises the morale of the whole team. He hits every ball with all his might, going for boundary after boundary no matter the pattern of the fielders, no matter the style of ball he faces, with a kind of careless confidence backed up by startlingly solid skill. The fielders seem rattled by his audacity, fumbling catches and missing the stumps, despite the fact that Jaskier narrowly avoids getting out twice - once, nicking the ball with the edge of his bat by pure chance so that it slips from the wicket-keeper’s fingertips, and once throwing himself past the crease just in time to cast doubt on whether the bails came off before he was over the line. The very ball after that, he knocks it flying right back past the bowler to net them a four.
It’s the most attractive fucking thing Geralt has ever seen in his life. He ignores both Yen’s sighs and Lambert’s loud whoops, and he’s no longer watching the ball. Only Jaskier as he runs, Jaskier as he bats, Jaskier as he fistbumps Eskel after every six and sends him exaggerated flying kisses after every four.
Eskel’s style of play changes, too. He takes more risky shots, and they nearly all pay off, though there’s one heart-stopping moment when he’s nearly caught out. He’s obedient to Jaskier’s signal to run, and he sprints across the pitch with wild abandon every single time - like it’s fun, like he’s panting laughter as he runs. The bowlers scowl, thunderous and irritated and unsettled. The stands are wonderfully energized - the blue section cheering, the black section jeering, both at the top of their lungs.
Jaskier’s out at thirty-eight after four overs, an attempt at a boundary with too little power behind it caught neatly by a fielder who’s immediately swarmed by hollering teammates. His partnership with Eskel has taken their score to a hundred and fifty-one runs. He removes the helmet with one gloved hand, shakes out his sweat-soaked hair with a rough toss of his head, raises his bat to the stands like he’s completed a century as he walks off.
Geralt could swear Jaskier smiles straight at him before disappearing to the bench.
The other team’s bowlers manage to restrict their runs, after that, and Eskel seems to allow it with grace, only taking two more boundaries. Saving the rest of his energy for the second innings, perhaps? Geralt doesn’t know what their strategy is, but they seem satisfied by their work. The final score is a hundred and sixty-nine for four, and the field is cleared.
“Seems like a good pitch for bowling,” Lambert mutters, one knee bouncing as he frowns at the threadbare grey clouds assembling overhead. “Just hope it doesn’t rain and fuck with it. Jask’ll take ‘em, rest of the team’s a lot of useless arseholes - ‘cept Esk, maybe. They should all be grateful Jask’s carrying ‘em.”
“Takes eleven players to make a team,” Geralt says. He has no clue why - it’s not like he’s in the habit of chiding Lambert. “I don’t think Jaskier would feel the same.”
Lambert, who’d been about to argue, grumbles, “Yeah, yeah,” at that, and lapses into silence. Yen, scrolling on her phone, is apparently entirely divorced from the mundane proceedings around her.
The break ticks by, and the second innings begin. Black-and-gold batsmen take the pitch, blue-and-white fielders spread out on the grass. Jaskier is fresh-faced and bouncing on his feet, not a trace of weariness in his body. Geralt leans forward without realizing, without caring - Jaskier as a batsman is great, but as a bowler he’s phenomenal, in his most natural element. And in a tournament final? With the mantle of captain proud on his shoulders, with his team at his back, with his every muscle straining towards victory and the gold of a medal already gleaming in his eyes? He’s enough on his own to enthrall the whole damn stadium.
It seems as though a hush falls the second the thought crosses Geralt’s mind, the audience holding its collective breath as Jaskier ruffles his hair back, backs up, spins the ball up into the air and catches it neatly. He launches into a sprint, bowls in a flurry of motion almost too quick to track - “Fucking textbook,” Lambert breathes - and the ball hits the ground almost full length, bounces neatly to the right and sends two stumps flying.
Geralt was wrong. This is the most attractive fucking thing he’s ever seen in his life.
The crowd roars with the boys in blue-and-white uniforms, swarming their captain to thump him on the back. Jaskier’s grin is savage in its wild triumph, and Geralt grips the edge of his seat with white-knuckled fingers and tells his heart to calm the fuck down. How is he going to last a hundred and nineteen more balls if this awful urge to race down to the field and kiss Jaskier in front of five hundred people floods him like a wave with every fucking delivery?
Zero for one, nineteen overs and five balls left.
The next batsman is good. Jaskier plays carefully, mimics the style of the bowler he switches out with every other over, and lures the batsman into trying for a sixer with a tempting ball at just slightly the wrong height. The ball flies lower than intended, clipped by the bat at an awkward angle, and is caught with ease in the outfield.
The batsman flips him off as he walks off the pitch. The smirk Jaskier gives him in reply is sexier than it has any right to be.
Thirty-one for two, sixteen overs left.
Jaskier bowls a short-pitched ball that bounces high. The batsman tries to duck under it, tries to scoop it back over his head. Eskel stumbles backwards, makes an awkward leap, and the ball lands neatly in his gloves before he rolls to his feet.
This batsman walks off without even looking at the umpire, shoulders slumped. Jaskier claps him quickly on the shoulder as he passes; he says something, and the batsman turns to nod back at him, seems to be smiling weakly when he walks off. Geralt’s heart lurches in his chest, and Yen has to tap his hand before he realises his knuckles have gone white again.
Forty-nine for three, thirteen overs and five balls left.
Jaskier switches to fielding. A teammate lets a catch slip through his fingers, kicks it airborne in desperation. Jaskier flings himself underneath it, twisting like a cat, arms outstretched. He comes up rubbing a bruised elbow, the ball clutched tight in one hand. Geralt wants to cradle his lovely face, wants to pick the grass out of his hair and smooth it back down with all the tenderness his clumsy hands could manage.
Sixty-three for four, eleven overs and three balls left.
The ball is smacked towards the boundary. Jaskier chases it, manages to grab it just before it touches the boundary, sends it whizzing back towards the wicket. It misses the off-stump by what looks like a centimetre - Eskel snatches it out of the air, quick as can be, and knocks the bails off while the batsman is still diving.
Jaskier punches the air with an exultant yell, his eyes alight, and is echoed from across the field by Eskel. The crowd is shouting as well, Lambert far too loud on Geralt’s left, and he almost, almost, joins in.
Eighty-five for five, eight overs and four balls left.
“They can’t reach one sixty-nine from this,” Lambert says, gleeful. The sentiment seems to be echoed; the black-and-gold section of the stands is noticeably quieter, the fielders are exchanging smiles, and the batsmen have a grim sort of doggedness in the set of their shoulders. They play riskier shots, now, trying for boundaries even off the most inconvenient of deliveries. Jaskier goes back to bowling for the thirteenth over, rapping the batsman smartly on his shin pads on his third delivery.
“Howzat!” Lambert yells as he surges to his feet, the cry echoed by hundreds in the stands, echoed by Jaskier on the field as he wheels around on the umpire, arms flung wide in appeal.
“Come on,” Geralt mutters under his breath, eyes trained unwaveringly on the pitch. “That was an LBW, come on -”
The umpire raises a single finger. The cheers are loud enough to be a solid wall of sound.
Ninety for six, seven overs and three balls left.
“No way the other team’s winning now,” Yen says, lounging back in her seat with her arms crossed, the very picture of studied indifference, but her phone’s been in her pocket for the last five overs. “They might as well give up and hand your brother the trophy.”
The batsmen don’t seem to share her opinion. The newest one gets three fours in the seventh over, and when Jaskier’s up to bowl again, he glares with clear hostility. Jaskier bowls a fast ball, gives it a little swing, and it’s batted straight back at him. It hits him square in the ribs; he lurches, fumbles, and just manages to catch it before it hits the ground.
A hundred and five for seven, six overs and five balls left. They’re chanting Jaskier’s name.
“Is he hurt?” Geralt blurts out, anxiety a painful stone in his throat as the knot of congratulatory teammates around Jaskier disperses.
“If he is, you can’t do shit about it from here,” Yen says dryly. Geralt shuts up and sinks back in his seat.
Jaskier bowls slowly for the rest of the over, and switches back to the outfield after. There’s no need to do anything but restrict the other team’s runs, now. Eskel still catches a particularly neat delivery - hundred and twelve for eight - and then they’re down to the tail-enders with the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth overs, where the batsmen rack up a measly ten runs. Jaskier comes back for the last over (they’re chanting his name again, like he fucking deserves) and he bowls fast and vicious. The batsmen, sensibly, play it safe, scoring all of three runs from the over.
And they lose by forty-four runs. On the field, a jubilant Eskel hoists Jaskier onto one shoulder, carrying him around like he’s the trophy. Geralt can hear the boys in blue-and-white, laughing and flushed with the joy of their win. Jaskier’s fists are raised in triumph, face turned to the sky, looking damn near incandescent with happiness as the first drops of rain start to fall.
Watching them feels like coming down from the best kind of high, like listening to the hot, heady hum of his blood start to slow after a gruelling day of training. They line up to accept their medals, and Geralt can’t remember the last time he smiled like this.
“If you two’re heading down to the locker room, I’ll head home,” Yen says, getting to her feet and shaking her hair back. Bracelets clink upon silver bracelets at her brown-smooth wrists. “I’ve got better things to do than go breathe in the stink of eleven sweaty boys. Say congrats to Eskel for me.”
“Yeah,” Geralt tells her. “Thanks for coming, Yen.”
She gives him a brief smile and Lambert an even briefer nod before leaving, her black kurti flapping around her knees with every stride of her clunky combat boots. Lambert scowls at her retreating back, then starts to head down to the locker room. Geralt follows, nerves slowly crawling up into his stomach at the thought, suddenly sharp in its clarity, that Jaskier will be there too. What should he say? What should he do? How can he possibly convey the sheer joy with which he’d watched Jaskier play, watched him lead his team, the way it’d made him feel like - like all of his desire, all of his attraction and admiration and adoration of the past two years, had coalesced in his chest to a star-bright knife-edge of such sheer want that it’d hurt with every heartbeat?
They’re at the locker room before he can even try to figure anything out. Boys are busy unlacing their shoes or changing out of their uniforms, excited friends and proud family clustered around them, the air full of giddy chatter and fresh crushed grass and, as Yen had predicted, quite a lot of sweat. The coach has evidently just finished with some sort of speech, and she gives them a brisk nod on her way out. There’s the faint hiss of showers from somewhere down a corridor that Eskel is walking out of, ruddy-faced and tired as he wrings his hair out. He breaks into a grin when he sees them, hurries to crush them both to his chest in a massive hug.
“We fucking did it,” he laughs. “God, I can’t believe we did it.”
He releases them, and Lambert slaps him on the back, hard. Geralt grips his shoulder, grinning right back at him. “You fucking did it,” he says. “Congrats. It was a great match.”
“Good job with those wickets, too,” Lambert grins. “Didn’t know you could jump like that, Esk, with your weight.”
“It’s all muscle, kid, don’t be jealous,” Eskel says, good-naturedly. “Listen, we’re going out to celebrate. Coach’s treat. Wanna come with?”
“Sure,” Lambert says, but Geralt hesitates, glancing around the room. Gweld meets his eye, gives him a smile, and a couple of the others don’t seem bothered, but some of them can’t hide the flickers of distaste that cross their expressions.
And Jaskier isn’t here, he realizes. Jaskier would have said he should come too, Geralt knows it, but he isn’t here, and there’s so many people Geralt doesn’t know, and he would just bring the mood down, just be the weird awkward kid in the corner that nobody really wants around -
“It’s okay.” Eskel’s eyes are too knowing. Too kind. “You don’t have to. I’ll pack you something, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Geralt sighs. “Thanks. Sorry. I’ll walk you outside, though.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eskel says, with a gentle punch to the shoulder, and that’s it. “So, Lamb, how could we have done better? I know you’re bursting with criticism.”
“Okay, first off, who was that guy who tried for a helicopter shot? On that pitch, against that bowler? Of all the stupid ways to get out - “
Geralt leans against the wall, hoping that no one else overhears - Eskel’s too tired to protect Lambert from incensed teammates, and Geralt doesn’t even want to try. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, so he wipes the rain from his glasses with the hem of his shirt and listens as Lambert and Eskel bicker, Eskel pulling on his clothes unhurriedly. Most of the rest of the team is done changing, it looks like; sports bags are being zipped up and lockers are being shut with an oddly solemn kind of finality. People trickle out in groups of two and three, teammates giving Eskel a smile on the way out. Geralt stares at the ground as they go by, fidgeting without meaning to, relieved when none of them say anything rude in passing. Jaskier is the only person he wants to see, and he’s -
- there, Geralt realises, his chest seizing tight with surging adrenaline. Jaskier emerges from the shower corridor, a towel wrapped around his waist, and lights up when he sees them.
“Look at that, the gang’s all here!” he exclaims. He grins at Geralt, who returns it with a smile that feels like a rictus, then at Lambert. “Got your match summary ready, Lambert? How’d you like that catch I made, the fourth wicket?”
Lambert immediately launches into a rapid-fire delivery of everything he’d been telling Eskel. Jaskier laughs and teases in response, unbothered and listening even when he’s pulling on his pants, even when he’s rooting around in his bag for a shirt. Geralt tries not to watch him as he talks, tries to look away from his hands as they gesture, from his mouth as it moves, from his hair as he runs a brush through it, but - fuck, there’s nowhere else to look but at him. There never has been.
He doesn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but oh, he wants to say so, so much. Congratulations, how are you feeling, is your chest okay where you got hit, you played so well, so fiercely, do you know you were the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen when you played? Do you know you’ve been the most beautiful thing in my life since I was fucking fifteen?
Jaskier tosses his shirt on the bench as he debates the best brand of helmet with Lambert, sits down right after it. Someone’s left an ice pack there; he wraps it in the wet-waist-towel from before, a fluffy white thing scattered with yellow flowers - Dandelions? Like his dog? - and presses it to the ugly bruise on his ribs where the ball had hit him.
“Put some pain cream on that,” Eskel says - when had he finished getting dressed? “It looks like it hurts.” He cuts a glance at Geralt, then, a glance says he knows exactly how badly Geralt wants to talk to Jaskier and how little he knows what to say, and smiles.
“C’mon, cub,” he says, looping an arm around Lambert's neck and tugging him out the door none too gently. “I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team. We’ll see you out front, Jask.”
“Oh, sure, see you!”
The wink Eskel gives Geralt on the way out is the exact opposite of subtle. Geralt glares at him with something between betrayal and panic, but he can’t do more than open his mouth before the two of them are gone, Lambert’s complaints fading outside.
Which leaves Geralt alone with a shirtless Jaskier. Fuck. Fuck.
It’s fine. It’s fine. Just - just talk to him. Be normal. Deep breath now, come on.
“Hey, you -” He has to clear his throat, get his voice steady. “You played really well. Um, congratulations. Again.”
“Thanks.” Jaskier smiles up through his fringe. He has a scattering of freckles across his neck, his collarbones, the tops of his shoulders; Geralt wants to touch every single one of them, draw them into constellations and give them all names.
“Lambert - said you carried the team. Seemed like that was. Kinda true.”
“That’s nice of Lambert, but nah.” Jaskier’s look of embarrassed amusement turns into a wince as he sits up straighter, rolling one shoulder. “I helped get people out, yeah, but we’d have won without me. We’ve got a couple of great batsmen, and the guys are great at putting pressure on the batsmen, restricting runs. And we wouldn’t have got half the wickets without the fielders, y’know?”
“Yeah.” I don’t think Jaskier would feel the same - Geralt had been right, before, when he’d said so to Lambert. The knowledge sparks a tiny measure of confidence, just enough to take a step away from where he's leaning against the lockers, closer to Jaskier.
“Yeah.” Jaskier smiles again, easy and warm. It makes Geralt’s knees kind of want to give out.
“Your - does it hurt?” he says, gesturing to the ice pack, hoping to god his face isn’t as pink as it feels.
“Hm? Oh, no. I mean yeah, it does, but it’s not a big deal. It’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
“Right. Good. That’s - so are you going to go with - “ Geralt makes a vague gesture to the door. “The team? Or with a girlfriend, or - uh, out to celebrate.”
Shit, shit, shit, why did I have to mention a girlfriend? Fuck -
Jaskier just looks at him for a moment, gaze clear. The hand with the ice pack drops to his lap. “With the team, yeah, but I’ll probably go home early. No girlfriend, I’m afraid, I’ve been single for quite a while. Besides - “ The smile is lingering, melting his mouth into something soft and hesitant and sweet. Pink sugar-spun lips for cotton-candy words. “I’m usually more into boys.”
Geralt might have stopped breathing; he isn’t sure. Jaskier is a statue in pale marble, washed out under fluorescent light, the little yellow flowers on the towel around the icepack scattered between his fingers. His freckles, scattered like stars. The long, lean lines of his arms, curving into a fine-haired, wire-muscled chest. His eyes, promising all the warmth of summer. His mouth, promising all the sweetness Geralt has never tasted, never once dared reach for. All the sweetness his frantically thudding heart has craved for so very, very long.
Red satin, a faint, persistent voice whispers. Geralt hears it, feels the fear - and somehow, somehow, manages to force it right back down his throat for the second he needs to -
- take one step forward. And another. He might be trembling; he doesn’t know. Jaskier’s chin tilts up as he gets closer, not breaking their locked gazes, and Geralt scrapes together the pitiful amount of courage he can find, rasps out weakly -
“Then could - would you - go out with me?” A beat. “I - please?”
Jaskier’s eyes widen. In the second it takes for him to respond, Geralt’s mind floods with a scream of such icy, terrified shock at his own daring that it feels like a blow to the head. What the fuck, you shouldn’t have said that! Of course he’ll say no! You fucked it up you freak you creep you haven’t had five real conversations with him and you think he would ever even be your friend let alone - !
“Yes,” It rings clearly through the rush of blood in Geralt’s ears, like a bell. Jaskier stands, so close that Geralt could count every eyelash if he wanted. They are, he realises faintly, nearly the same height. “I would love to go out with you.”
Geralt, shocked out of his shock by this, can only stare, mouth frozen open. Jaskier laughs softly, a lovely rich sound that makes Geralt’s skin prickle with goosebumps, and leans forward, and places the lightest kiss against the precise centre of Geralt’s right cheek.
“Come with me and the team to celebrate?” he whispers, right there, his lips right there. He smells of Dove soap and warm skin and clean, damp towels. Geralt never wants to breathe anything else, ever. “I want you there with me, if you’re okay with it. And we can figure this out nice and slow, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Geralt breathes, flooded with a helium happiness that melts the last dregs of disbelief to nothing, that damn near lifts him off his feet. He closes his eyes, and finds it in himself to turn his head, and a pink sugar smile melts slow and sweet against his mouth.
all out
They’re eighteen. Darkness is settling softly over the walls of Geralt’s room, the sinking sun muted to a faint glow by fully drawn curtains. Evening traffic is a constant whir outside, broken by the occasional yowl of an annoyed street cat. Jaskier’s backpack is on the floor, his shoes half under the bed, his school shirt and blazer hanging off the headboard next to Geralt’s. On Geralt’s little drawing desk, two letters of admission to university lie side by side, a pair of glasses folded neatly on top.
Jaskier’s arms are looped around Geralt’s neck, his thighs slotted neatly on either side of Geralt’s hips as they kiss with lazy tenderness. Geralt’s holding him close with careful palms on his waist; Jaskier’s inhales, exhales, his silent huffs of laughter when Geralt chases his mouth a little too eagerly, Geralt feels them all in the expansion and contraction of warm muscle under his hands, pressed against his bare chest.
It’s still hard to believe, sometimes, that Jaskier chose him. That Jaskier wants him. That where others see an awkward hulk of an oddity who’s easily kept in his place, away from everyone normal, Jaskier sees . . . sees worth. Not freak academic aptitude that only serves to set an unreachable standard for everyone else, but intelligence, curiosity, an insatiable hunger to learn. Not the stilted phrasing of his words when he struggles to speak, but the thought, the sentiment behind what he’s trying to say. Not ugly scars that mar his skin, but proof of survival of an ugly childhood. Proof of tenacity, of strength that deserves admiration.
Jaskier sees him, sees him and loves him for it, and Geralt feels rather a fraud, sometimes - surely he cannot be everything Jaskier tells him he is? Surely Jaskier has some manner of rose-coloured glasses on, even if he doesn’t realise it, to be able to compare Geralt’s eyes (more sickly yellow than green) to gold and sunlight; to be able to compare Geralt’s hair (thin and straw-brittle, so blond as to be nearly white) to silk and moonlight; to find any sort of beauty in Geralt’s unnaturally pale face with its too-thin mouth and too-sharp nose and too-square jaw, marred by angry red acne all too often?
Won’t Jaskier realise, someday, that he is all rough edges and uncertainty, a creature starved of love, too weak to resist sinking vampire teeth into Jaskier’s overfull, overflowing, too-freely given heart?
Jaskier breaks their kiss, pulls back. His smile when his eyes find Geralt’s is a lovely, cloud-soft thing that dawns so very slowly, not the lightning-bright split of a grin everyone else gets to see. He lifts a hand to trace Geralt’s face with a single fingertip, temple to curved cheek to chin, and Geralt closes his eyes and thinks that even if Jaskier leaving is an inevitability (and he’s slowly, slowly starting to believe that it might not be) - even if it is, Geralt will strive to live up to what Jaskier believes him to be for as long as he stays.
“I can’t believe we both got in,” Jaskier whispers. “We’re going to uni together.”
Geralt lets his hands drop to Jaskier’s hips. Flexes them, squeezes tight, nuzzles into the smooth skin of Jaskier’s throat as he hums. Jaskier presses a little closer, drops a kiss on Geralt’s forehead. “Yeah,” Geralt whispers back, distracted and belated. “It’s - yeah.”
“Eloquent as ever, love,” Jaskier says, a wind-chime chuckle in his voice. Geralt smiles reluctantly, lets Jaskier cup his face and tip it up, melts into his calloused palms as he kisses the curve of Geralt’s lips. Jaskier adores his smiles, he’ll drop anything and everything to kiss Geralt on the rare occasions that they appear. Geralt smiles just to watch the way he lights up, sometimes.
“I do, you know,” Jaskier murmurs, now trailing soft kisses down the line of his left brow. “Love you. So much, Geralt.”
“I know,” Geralt whispers. “You say it a lot.”
And he can barely believe it, every damn time.
“Well, you deserve to hear it a lot.”
“Mm.” Geralt ducks his head to kiss the vulnerable, hollow spot between Jaskier’s collarbones. “I love you more,” he says to the pulse there, as though confiding a precious, untold secret.
Jaskier cradles his head close, tucks it safe under his chin. “I love you even more, you ridiculous boy.”
“Even even more,” Geralt mumbles against his throat, feeling a bit silly but saying it anyway, and quietly delights in the laugh that rumbles in Jaskier’s chest.
“To the ends of the world.”
“To the moon and back.”
“To the moon and back and back again, and to the end of the solar system and back again a hundred times.”
“To the ends of the universe,” Geralt says, and nips lightly at Jaskier’s chin to distract him from arguing the point.
Jaskier’s fingers tug at Geralt’s hair, playful. “Well then,” he says. “If you love me so much, will you do something for me?”
“Anything,” Geralt says immediately, leaning back to look at his face. “Anything, Jask.”
This is Jaskier’s lightning smile, his teasing smile, a flash of white in the gloom. “Join the cricket team in uni.”
“ . . . Oh, fuck no.”
“Come on, please! Darling, I’m telling you, you’d be such a good batsman, and I’d love having you on my team, and -”
Geralt shifts his weight forward, toppling Jaskier out of his lap and onto the bed. Jaskier lands on his back with a startled squeak, and Geralt follows swiftly, bracing himself above him, elbows on either side of his head.
“Unfair,” Jaskier says, breathless, eyes crinkled. “You know how hot it is when you do that.”
Geralt valiantly ignores this. “I won’t join the team,” he says, punctuating the statement with a firm kiss. “No matter how many times you ask. But I’ll be in the stands every match, watching you. Cheering for you. Okay?”
Jaskier makes an acknowledging sort of noise, shifting underneath Geralt’s body. His hips press upwards, just for a second, and Geralt has to look away as warmth gently floods his cheeks, as a smile trembles its way to his mouth.
“Hmph. ‘Anything’, my ass,” Jaskier murmurs, looping his arms back around Geralt’s neck once more and drawing him down in a single smooth, seductive motion. “Fallen at the first hurdle. Shame on you.”
“Could make it up to you,” Geralt says, dropping his voice low and rough, the way Jaskier loves. “We still have half an hour, yeah?”
“Oh my god, don’t even - Geralt!” Jaskier laughs, squirms, tries and fails to push Geralt away as he kisses down his throat. “Geralt, that tickles - if you make me face your family with hickies, I’ll never forgive you, okay? No, I’m serious! Don’t you smirk at me, you rude, unbearable, annoyingly sexy -”
Jaskier’s heartbeat is a joyous, humming thing under Geralt’s mouth, and champagne laughter spills through the dark little room, floods Geralt’s chest as he leans up to drink it, golden and sparkling, right from Jaskier’s lips.
They’re eighteen, and Geralt kisses the boy of his dreams breathless, and he knows down to his very bones that he is loved.