Chapter Text
Jaskier was outrageously drunk. Although, to his tastes, that wasn’t drunk enough by far. Because he was still forming relatively coherent thoughts and could still hold his balance on one foot (he had tested it) and most importantly, because Geralt of cursed Rivia’s face was still on the forefront of his mind, like an annoying blinking light. Look at me! I’m important! The world revolves around me! It was unbearable.
Still, Jaskier was sober enough to single-mindedly make his way, with purpose, grace and dignity even, to the more enticing alcohol selection. He was walking, very gracefully, mind you, in a wavy and unpredictable line and, just as gracefully, stumbled over the tail of a long black cloak. The owner of said cloak joined Jaskier in a pile of misery, since the owner was trying to walk in a different direction at the same time.
For a moment, Jaskier just laid there, his legs entangled with the fabric of the cloak. The polite thing to do would be to apologize and help the other person get up. The convenient thing to do would be to just lay there and be miserable.
When had being polite ever gotten Jaskier anywhere?
Ha. The one thing he had never tried on Geralt. Therein lie all his mistakes, for sure.
After a moment, Jaskier threw a surreptitious glance to his right. The cloaked person was also not getting up. Maybe they had hit their head and died. That would put Jaskier in a really bad light. One that made Jaskier’s pores look really large and accentuate the dark circles under his eyes.
Jaskier sighed deeply. He didn’t particularly want another murder on his consciousness either.
“So,” he drawled, “shall we get up?”
“I would prefer not to,” the muffled voice came from underneath the hood of the cloak.
A like-minded person. Jaskier’s head was swimming. He closed his eyes.
“Good point,” Jaskier said, “but have you considered, there’s no alcohol on the floor?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a puddle of it right next to my head.”
“I think I might have a better offer. Truly high-quality, watered-down rum. Not even the slightest bottom-of-the-shoe aftertaste. A whole, hmm, ninety percent chance that nobody spit in it.”
“Alright, alright,” the person said, “you’ve seduced me.”
“Wohoo!”
Jaskier stood up from the ground and held out a hand to the cloaked figure. He couldn’t see their face under the dark hood, but the haziness in his mind told him that this person could absolutely be trusted. He took their dainty, black-nailed hand and pulled them up. He led them to the secluded room where the better alcohol was stored.
He plopped down on the chair in the middle of the long table and the cloaked figure hesitantly seated themselves next to him. The black cloak covered their whole body and was especially wide around the arms. Jaskier slid a drink over to them after filling a glass of his own.
“So, my dear,” Jaskier started, “tell me what’s wrong?”
The figure – probably woman, judging by the voice and the delicate hands, but Jaskier can’t trust his senses completely at the moment – swirled their glass around.
“Oh, there was this party,” the person said. “And I didn’t get invited.”
Jaskier nodded understandingly.
“That’s terrible,” he said, “whyever not? You seem like such a lovely person.”
The lovely person shrugged.
“They just gave me some excuse about not having enough cutlery.”
“That’s outrageous,” Jaskier exclaimed immediately. “You could have brought your own. Or they could have bought new ones.”
“It wouldn’t have matched their set,” the person said despondently, “they are very particular about that.”
“That just means they were undeserving of your company.”
The person slammed their glass down.
“But everyone else got invited. Even Aunt Barbara, and really nobody likes her and her husband, even though he was seen in a compromising position with the painting of my great-great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side the other day.”
Jaskier’s eyebrows went up, but he decided not to comment.
“This was all for a new-born, by the way, such a tiny child. And I’m telling you – if she could speak or make decisions or, I don’t know, be aware of what’s going on around her, I bet she would have invited me.”
Jaskier nodded frantically.
“That’s right.”
“And what’s more – I’m great with children. I would make a fabulous godmother. I would, I would sing them lullabies, and feed them grilled crickets and teach them cute little spells like how to turn annoying boys into frogs or horrifying beasts. It would be a laugh.”
Godmother – she is a woman, then.
“It’s their loss, really.”
“Thank you for saying that,” she said and took a large gulp of her drink. “So, what about you?”
Jaskier sighed again, clasping his fingers around the glass in his hands.
“Imagine the worst person in the world,” he began and paused.
He looked over at the woman, trying to determine if she was really imagining it, but it was hard to tell under her hood.
“Now imagine the worst-smelling person in the world.”
All rogue and oniony, musky even, and sort of brave and charming -
“Now imagine you loved him and he broke your heart,” Jaskier started sobbing.
Suddenly, he felt it pouring out of him like an unstoppable waterfall. It began, the way all good stories do, in a tavern in Posada. Kidnappings, monsters, the start of a beautiful friendship. And then… the Child Surprise. The djinn. Yennefer. A dragon hunt and biting words on a mountain…
And twenty years…
Twenty years believing a lie.
“And the worst part is,” Jaskier said, staring at the bottom of his drink, “he might be right. What good has my companionship ever brought him? When have I ever done anything but… hurt him…”
“You stop that,” the woman said, sounding almost angry, “it’s not your fault. Stop wallowing. You deserve to be appreciated. You don’t even need him. If anyone should feel guilty, it’s him.”
“But -”
“No. No buts. We’re done crying into our drinks.”
She downed the rest of her drink, snatched Jaskier’s glass out of his hands and downed that, too.
“It’s time we took destiny into our own hands,” she said, “instead of depending on pathetic, unworthy people, who would really, really deserve to have their skulls crushed or in the very least, be taught a lesson…”
“Wow,” Jaskier said, feeling oddly enlightened. “You are so right.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Fuck forgiveness. Fuck Geralt. He doesn’t deserve a single one of my tears.”
“Revenge, then.”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea.”
Jaskier grumbled into the table, viciously imagining all manner of things that should happen to Geralt… someone should spit in his drink. He should cut his fingers on paper! While he was opening… a… scathing complaint about his services as a witcher. Someone should sneak into his room while he was sleeping and… cut his hair! No, no. That would go too far. (It’s such beautiful hair.)
“Because he’ll never change, will he? He’ll never apologize. He’ll never see me as anything but a nuisance. And for years, I gave him everything. Even if it was nothing to him.”
“To be unloved…” the woman said, “there is nothing as painful as that.”
Jaskier nodded mutely.
“So you believe people are set in their ways… and they are always going to despise that which is different. And in the end, there is no love. Only disappointment. I see.”
A bleak outlook, but in that moment, Jaskier couldn’t help but agree. He had lost it forever, he was sure of it.
“If you’ll excuse me,” the woman said then and stood up, “the child, her name is Rose, is here at this feast. I think I have something to say to her. And everyone who attended the celebration in her honour is here tonight, too. So… I have a score to settle.”
“Oh, yes. You show them!”
Jaskier squinted at his new role model for a moment, noticing something odd about her silhouette.
“Wait a minute… Is it just me or is your hood kind of shaped like you have horns?”
“Oh, it’s just… a hairstyle.”
“Wow, you really have it all. You give great advice, you have confidence and now style too? It’s incredible.”
It almost looks like she’s smiling underneath her hood.
“Thank you. You really helped me tonight. I don’t think I could have made this decision without you.”
Decision? Jaskier is mildly confused, but not overly concerned about it. In fact, he is suddenly very, very tired. Maybe he should sleep. Here would be a good spot, right here on the table. He slowly puts his head against the wood.
“You sleep now,” he hears someone whisper in his ear.
It sounds like an excellent plan. She says something else, but it’s all muffled now. He drifts away, ever so slowly…
After Jaskier has finished telling Geralt everything he can remember, omitting certain details about matters of the heart, Geralt looks at him tight-lipped again.
“Are you telling me you talked an obviously evil witch into putting a curse all over the castle?”
“It does sound like I did, doesn’t it?” Jaskier says. “In my defence, I was very, very drunk. And mad at you.”
Geralt is looking agitated now.
“How do we break the curse? You have to remember more. It’s not enough.”
“Cut me some slack, okay? I’m apparently in an eternal sleep. With a long line of people out to kill me.”
Geralt seems to think about this for a moment.
“So your whole family got put into a magical sleep and the first thought your cousins have when they hear about it is, let’s go finish them off.”
“There’s a reason they weren’t invited to the feast.”
Jaskier tries to see that evening clearly, but it’s hard when the alcohol was clouding his brain… What did she say to him? That bitter woman, so sad… Just like him. Rejected. It had made her angry.
And she hadn’t believed in…
In… true love.
In the kind of love that sticks.
“I remember now,” Jaskier said quietly, realization dawning on him. “It’s true love’s kiss. And you were so happy I wasn’t dead.”
That’s what she had whispered in his ear. When love is returned, I will know people can change. And that there is hope yet.
“What?”
It’s the one thing he knows is hopeless. He might even get Geralt to apologize to him, but love returned? It’s ludicrous and impossible, and even if she turned him into a ghost so he could have a chance to fix things, she should have made this easier on him.
“We’re fucked,” he says.
“No. No, no, no. You’ve been with so many people, surely one of them must have been your soulmate. We have so many to pick from.”
Geralt looks at Jaskier with wide eyes, almost like he’s afraid.
“It has to be reciprocated love though.”
“Jaskier, this is not the time to be self-deprecating. Someone will have loved you back -”
“No. The problem is – I didn’t love any of them. Not really.”
He had loved them, a little, but not in the all-consuming, unbreakable way.
“Why not?”
“My heart was otherwise occupied.”
Geralt clenches his fingers.
“What are you talking about? If – if you love someone, just tell them, I’ll help you find them -”
“Give it up,” Jaskier snarls, “get it through your thick skull. It’s over.”
Geralt only draws his shoulders up in determination.
“I’ll find a way,” he says, always so sure of himself.
But this is the one thing he can’t give. The one thing that’s a step too far.
“You?” Jaskier almost laughs, suddenly a bitter feeling rising up deep down in his chest. “You can’t help me. You don’t even like me.”
“You know very well that’s not true.”
“Do I? You said differently on the mountain. And you still haven’t apologized for it. What else am I supposed to think but that you meant it? Just go back to your perfect, lonely life and forget about me.”
Geralt presses his lips together more tightly.
“I thought you’d know. That. I’m sorry. I just. Can’t lose you. Again.”
Usually, Jaskier would have nodded and accepted the apology, despite how stocky and awkward it was. But now… now he is suddenly desperate, knowing that the apology won’t do, that it’s too late…
He knows. This is it. The confirmation he was waiting for.
He can never go back.
He’ll fade away soon enough.
And he finds himself holding on the sunlight. Holding on to the dew on grass in the morning. Holding on to it’s you, it’s you, it’s you.
Just like a leech.
“And whose fault is that,” he says, “who had to push me away at every opportunity?”
Geralt’s eyes flare up.
“We might at least have more time to figure something out if you didn’t make everyone in a five meter distance get a desperate urge to kill you -”
“Someone tried to kill you literally last night! You don’t get to lord this over me.”
Geralt takes a deep breath, visibly trying to calm himself.
“Just be reasonable, alright? There’s still time. We have to try every option.”
“There are no more options. The end of the road is right here. You thought you could save me because of your terrible incurable hero complex, but you were wrong. You don’t get to play the hero this time. I’m sorry.” Jaskier spits the last word. “You should leave before my cousins arrive and kill you, too.”
“I’m not leaving.”
And suddenly that’s becoming real, too – if Geralt stays, he’ll surely die. But he’s standing there, as stoic and unmovable as ever.
“You stubborn idiot! Just this once, let me save you. You are free from your guilt. I forgive you. No hard feelings. Now go.”
Geralt firmly shakes his head.
“I should have been here to protect you.”
“Ah, so that’s what this is about. But the truth is, you don’t owe me anything. I’m sick of your persistent need to do the right thing, the good thing. Sometimes it’s just not worth it.”
For twenty years, Jaskier mistook Geralt’s sense of obligation for something much different. But he knows better now.
“It is,” Geralt says. “Of course it is. What makes you so sure nothing can break your curse?”
Because he’s not worth the hustle. Because he’s not worth the sacrifice.
(Because there are thorns growing from his skin and anyone who even touches him gets hurt.)
“Because maybe she was right!” Jaskier didn’t mean to say it, but now that he has, it seems like the only thing that make sense. “She was right, you know? There is no true love. There is only lies and broken promises.”
“That doesn’t sound like your songs.”
Jaskier never should have let himself hope. Not when Geralt was so adamant on saving him. Not twenty years ago, when Jaskier thought he could find a home.
“The truth doesn’t make for great entertainment,” Jaskier says slowly, “even you should know that by now.”
Countless complaints about Jaskier’s slight embellishments in his songs and Geralt still doesn’t get it. That Jaskier is a performer, so he performs. And yes, Jaskier might have believed his own lyrics, singing of love in the past, but now he knows it’s only a myth.
“Why can’t you just understand?” Geralt says. His face is starting to turn red. “If you ever listened to me -”
Soon, they are talking over each other.
“If you didn’t run every time someone -”
Jaskier’s voice is rising higher and higher – and so is Geralt’s.
“It would have all been fine if you didn’t get so offended when -”
“Maybe if you weren’t so damn offensive -”
“And then you went and got yourself killed!”
Jaskier huffs contemptuously.
“Ah, right, this is starting to sound familiar. Everything is my fault. Of course. You want a repeat of what you said to me on the mountain?” Jaskier throws his hands up in exasperation. “Fine. Here you have it. You said, ‘you’re dead to me, Jaskier’. So I was just following instructions.”
“I said no such thing.”
“You might as well have! No space in your life for poor old Jaskier. And I didn’t want to be near you, I didn’t plan for any of this.”
Geralt stares at him rigidly, his arms tense at his side.
“Then why won’t you stop haunting me?”
Jaskier steps back, like he’s taken a physical hit.
Because that’s the point, isn’t it?
He’s only ever a bother. A burden. And Geralt was tolerating him for years. It’s not really his fault at all. He was the one who had bravely endured it.
And of course it isn’t love.
It’s a shell. Armour that is impenetrable. Geralt is never going to let him in.
He’d hoped they could have a better good-bye. A nicer one. Like old friends. (And maybe it’s not good-bye. Maybe Geralt will join him soon. But Jaskier is not even going to consider that.)
He glances down at his hands and is suddenly repulsed by them, like they could turn violent in a second, smell of blood. He looks at the callouses from playing the lute, the skin turned dry in winter, the long fingers, and hates them ferociously.
“Fine,” he says.
All the anger has left him. It was never really anger at all, just a ball of frustration and sadness.
He watches Geralt for a moment, his battered skin, his messy hair, and finds he still wants. To dress Geralt’s wounds. To find the gentleness he knows Geralt is hiding. He wants to share his life, not separate in winter. He wants a house by the sea. And he has dismissed Geralt every time he insisted they weren’t friends. In the end, it was all fantasy. The house by the sea all too easily washed away.
Geralt does care for him, in some way, sure. But this fierce hunger, this desperate storm, it’s only Jaskier. The part of him he knows is too much for anyone to withstand.
So he’ll go. And die alone somewhere.
(It’s just like sleeping, isn’t it?)
(To stop going through the motions. The ever same routine. Of sleeping and not sleeping. And drinking and hurting.)
(An ending. Yes. Finally.)
He turns his back and walks away.
(See you around, Geralt. See you never.)
He pauses in the big hall, all these people he knows or doesn’t know. He lies down among them. Lonely. But not quite alone.
It’s Geralt’s fault. They both know it.
If Geralt had been honest from the start, none of this would have happened. To let himself feel it. To be vulnerable. Not bark before you have to bite. Not bite before you get bitten.
On the mountain, he had known with sudden clarity that he would get hurt. And then he’d had foolishly set the whole thing in motion.
Hurting himself most of all.
And Jaskier. Always Jaskier. Geralt has never understood it. Why Jaskier chose him of all people. He’d expected Jaskier’s mind to clear at some point, but it never had. Where everyone else saw the necessary evil, the monster-killing monster, Jaskier saw… a friend. Someone to treat gently.
And all Geralt has ever done in response is wait for the illusion to pop and blow away like smoke.
He has expected the pain with such certainty that he never realized the joy of the moment. The quiet evenings. The sunny days to come back to. The warm knowledge of having someone.
Now he wants to cling to it more than anything. He wants to tell Jaskier, he wants this life. He can’t go back to the loneliness that has never felt like a void until Jaskier.
But it’s too late now. He’s lost it all. He can only fall backwards into the grave he shovelled for himself.
He only wishes he had told Jaskier, before he left. Even if Jaskier doesn’t want to hear it from him. So he knows that, even if it sounds ridiculous and unbelievable, that someone like Geralt could feel things like that – love exists and has burned a hole in Geralt’s chest for years. To know that Geralt would rather live with that hole in his chest than without it any day.
Geralt walks over to Jaskier’s sleeping body and strokes through his hair.
Even so. Even knowing he missed his chance. The years were good. And he will miss them.
Very carefully, he places an arm under Jaskier’s legs and one under his back and scoops him up.
“This is no place to sleep,” he tells Jaskier quietly.
He carries Jaskier up the stairs and opens the first door he sees. He doesn’t know whose bedroom it is, but it doesn’t matter. He places Jaskier on the mattress, pulling the blanket over his body with care.
That’s better.
Geralt runs a hand over Jaskier’s hair one more time. Like this, he can almost think Jaskier will wake up in the morning, well-rested, ready to face another day.
He can’t stop looking at Jaskier’s face, afraid that it will disappear any moment. He will stand by the door, he thinks. He won’t let anyone come in. He will let Jaskier get his rest.
Eventually, he bends down and places a soft kiss on Jaskier’s forehead. Just because he wants to. Because he wishes he had been tender to Jaskier earlier.
And then –
Jaskier’s eyes open.
And they look so alive.
Geralt stares at him, frozen in spot.
“What is happening,” Jaskier says.
Geralt stares.
“Where am I?” Jaskier keeps talking. “Did you just summon me? You do know that just because I’m a ghost, I won’t be summoned at the whims of a fool-headed witcher. I’m mad at you, why won’t you just let me storm off in peace -”
Jaskier cuts himself off abruptly.
He sits up.
Geralt stares.
“Wait a minute,” Jaskier says.
He stretches out his hands, just looking at them for a moment. Then, he clasps them together.
“I’m real,” he says. “I’m a real person. The curse is broken. You did it! Geralt!”
A wide grin spreads across his face, so strangely carefree. The next moment, he is jumping out of the bed and storming out of the room.
Geralt stares at the empty bed.
Jaskier needs to see it for himself, that everything is back to normal, that everyone is awake and alive. That it doesn’t have to end like this. He can feel it already. His whole body feels more grounded, more solid than it has ever since he woke up as a half-person. He feels like he has all the energy in the world.
People are starting to sit up in the great hall, some of them rubbing their heads – like they are waking up from a bad dream. It’s true, then. The curse is broken.
Jaskier has another chance. He won’t butcher it this time. He will look at the world. He will breathe deeply. He will get close.
“Jaskier!”
Jaskier turns to where the voice is coming from – it’s his cousin and friend from childhood Irena.
“There you are,” she says and smiles at him brightly. “I thought something might have happened to you.”
“I think something happened to everyone,” Jaskier says mildly and gestures around the room.
“Yes, but not everyone went off with a dangerous witch holding a grudge against pretty much everyone in the building.”
“You knew her?”
“Of course! How did you not recognize her? It was a huge debacle when she turned up. Some were embarrassed, some were mad, obviously nobody stupid enough to say anything to her, but everyone was talking about it!”
“That’s what I get for being away for so long. I’m not getting any of the gossip.”
Jaskier shrugs.
“But in my defence, gossip is usually not a matter of life or death.”
Irena inches closer and lowers her voice.
“Have you seen Cornelia’s boots?”
Jaskier lets out a shaky laugh. Relief floods through him. Everything is fine again. Irena is making jokes. He can see the two brothers he noticed earlier squabbling again.
The curse is broken.
Jaskier tenses – the curse is broken. There was only one way to break the curse.
Did… did Geralt kiss him?
Jaskier turns on his heel.
Jaskier marches back into the room. Geralt is still standing there, looking at the bed.
“You!” Jaskier says.
Geralt turns to him, an eerily stunned expression on his face. Instantly, Jaskier forgets everything he wanted to say.
“I’m going to slap you now,” Jaskier says, because it’s the only thing coming to his mind, “I’m warning you.”
Geralt smiles.
“So hard,” Jaskier says. “It’s going to hurt.”
“I bet it is.”
“I’ve been thinking about it all this time, when I wasn’t able to touch and now I can finally…”
He keeps staring at Geralt and steps a little closer.
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Geralt says.
“I’m doing it,” Jaskier promises.
Geralt starts to speak, but Jaskier has had enough. He surges forward, buries one hand in Geralt’s shirt and – kisses him. So forcefully that Geralt stumbles backwards, but he catches himself and impossibly, kisses back, much more softly. They break apart after a short moment, but Jaskier puts his hands on Geralt’s shoulders.
“You love me,” Jaskier accuses.
Geralt hms. Affirmatively.
Love returned.
“Geralt, you can’t want this,” Jaskier says in a small voice, but he doesn’t step back, can’t put any distance between them.
“Me?” Geralt’s lips curl. “You’re the one who’s out of his mind to even consider this.”
Jaskier looks down at the hands clutching Geralt’s shirt, solid and not falling through his chest. Tangible now. And Geralt stays whole underneath him.
Two people hurting – people.
Jaskier presses down, because he has to, but Geralt doesn’t shrink from him. Perhaps only the untouchable can reach for the untouchable.
On Geralt’s lips, Jaskier finds forceless softness. He couldn’t find it on the rim of a glass, he couldn’t find it in each spitting, fuming sound of his songs. But here it is. Something whole fitting to something whole. Jaskier lets his breath ghost over Geralt’s lips and decides to be a gust of wind, not because he is afraid of breaking, but because he is too reverent of how real it is.
And even when Jaskier digs his fingers deeply into Geralt’s skin, Geralt doesn’t turn into thin air.
Geralt’s hands come up at his sides, gently press into his ribs. But Jaskier wants more – he wants indents in his skin, the imprint of being held onto. The warm proof – someone touched him and lived through it. Geralt’s hands fit into the curve of his hip, one wanders upwards and fits into the crook of his neck. Jaskier wants the fingerprints.
Let’s try for each other. Let’s be kind to each other.
There is nothing rough in the way their lips touch. Still, Jaskier has been asleep for over a day and now his lips are chapped. A small bit of skin has peeled off and Geralt’s lips catch on it. Geralt startles and breaks away, only a small distance.
“Sorry,” Jaskier whispers, “did I hurt you?”
“No.”
Immediately, Geralt is back on him, kissing him the way you would someone who belongs in this world. Jaskier wants to feel Geralt’s nails graze his skin, he wants his grip to tighten. He wants to feel it.
And Geralt doesn’t – he keeps each of his touches tender, but Jaskier can feel it anyway. The world slips back into place. There is hard ground beneath his feet. He will keep Geralt right here, close, close, close.
They were touchable all along, he thinks, they were just afraid of it.
He remembers how to do this, how to sink into someone’s hands, how to have fingers to touch and real skin – he remembers how to have a real heart.
“I’m going to love you so much,” he says, “it’s going to hurt.”
“Please,” Geralt answers.
Jaskier had not been aware of the empty space his heart had left, but now it’s a weight in his chest, one he doesn’t mind carrying around. He doesn’t mind it at all.
He can feel it beat hard in his chest – knock, knock. I wanted to tell you. You’re alive.
And Jaskier – even without the hope, even numb to the touch - hasn’t forgotten.
He knows that he is.