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Jaskier wakes up slowly with a shiver. It’s rare he feels the cold so deeply, but it feels as if it’s seeping into his bones regardless of the blankets that hold him snugly.
He wracks his brain to remember where he is as he tries to gain the strength to open his eyes.
He sees vague shocks of it, something with wicked claws and a poisonous spray and the way Geralt dodges like a dance. He was staying back as always, more a lover than a fighter, and then…he remembers pain.
The beast had a friend that had come up behind. Perhaps he had been watching Geralt too intensely, too rapt to notice while the beast was too quiet for him to detect. He remembers it tearing into his back and blood and Geralt leaning over him looking sort of blurry.
So why was he…?
Regenerative sleep. His mind offers from a far-off memory. It had been a long time. He was especially less prone to grievous injury with a big witcher watching his back.
He relaxes once more.
Lovely Geralt. Geralt who’s always known Jaskier was something more than human but refrained from mentioning it and allowed the bard to travel at his side for so many years. He wouldn’t leave Jaskier to sleep in a field he would pick him up and take him home and keep his body safe for however long it took him to heal.
Kaer Morhen! Perhaps that was why things were so cold. Although often when Jaskier got chilled he would slip into Geralts room with the roaring fire and share warmth.
Strictly platonic of course.
At least on Geralts part.
“Geralt?” His voice comes out in a dull creak and he cringes. It’ll be warmups and intensive scales for the foreseeable future.
“Geralt?” This time it’s a little clearer after he coughs a bit to get some strength back into his lungs.
No answer still.
Perhaps they weren’t sure what his body needed. There were enough rumours about burning vampires that they must’ve forgone the fire.
Jaskier sighs.
He’ll have to help them update the bestiary sometime soon, maybe vesemir will let him have a look. The old man took the whole winter last year to warm up to Jaskier enough to even sit with him, perhaps this year they could talk now that Jaskier wouldn’t be a new presence.
He wiggles his toes and feels the healing energy pooling in his guts and finally snaps his eyes open—
to find the sheet’s over his head.
He curses and begins to wriggle, finally he gives up on using his human gentleness and tears through the sheet with his claws—
To find a wall…no, a lid.
“Fuck.”
…
Jaskier is not proud to say he goes a little bit feral, but it’s been a while since mortals mistook him for a dead body—probably more than a century. And this is a first. As he remembers it, the last time he was accidently buried it had been in a nice mausoleum in a heavy stone coffin—he was in with the King of that country back then (of course it doesn’t exist anymore but at the time he was quite beloved with a different name and different life). A stone lid was easily removable, and he had gotten quite bored of court life. So, it had been a energizing rest and a fresh start.
The point is, Jaskier has never woken up quite literally buried alive.
So, although he knows he could stay there and be fine for a very long time his mind screams at him to GET OUT.
He tears through the fine craftmanship of the coffin like wet paper and sputters as hard and cold dirt pours into his mouth. He hisses and growls and claws and rips himself out of the earth into the night. He tears the shroud to ribbons when it comes out with him and he faintly wonders if this is what it feels like to be born before his thoughts are cut off as a book bounces on the ground as well as a small blade.
He takes heaving breaths and picks up the small objects from the frosty grass. His notebook for one, a blank copy though. He tucks it under his shoulder and looks at the silver knife. It’s well crafted, brand new, and has a small dandelion engraved on the hilt.
He pockets it, glad that he’s wearing a simple outfit with pockets if not a little offended that he wasn’t in his best and most gaudy doublet. Although if he was it would’ve been destroyed in his panic to claw himself out of the grave.
He’d assumed he’d find himself in some backwater village but instead he could see Oxenfurt just across the river. It looks exactly as he remembers it, with a faint dusting of snow along the rooftops.
“Shit.”
Snow meant it was winter, it had been late summer the last thing he remembered.
Fatigue makes him lightheaded as he thinks of how much time passed. How did he even end up here? Did Geralt not…
He shakes his head hard.
“No time Jaskier.” It’s a comfort to hear his own voice loosening up from disuse.
He turns back to the grave. He uses his slowly returning to normal fingers to flatten the earth out and prays that the snows will soon cover it. He takes a look at the headstone.
Here lies Julian “Jaskier” Alfred Pancrantz.
Who lived and died a storyteller and bard of the continent.
He almost wishes he could save it, but it would be rather concerning if anyone were to find his headstone and see him up and walking around.
Of course, he could disappear, become someone new, but Jaskier the bard still had a bit of life left in him. And it was a life that he quite liked thank you very much.
He kicks the thing with all his strength until it is broken into pieces. Then he carries the majority of the stones to the river’s edge and hucks them into the water with all his might and in five different directions.
“No chance of anyone piecing that together,” He mumbled before beginning the trek to one of the bridges.
He doesn’t bother playing human. He feels the healing fatigue creeping up again as he moves. He’s expended too much energy already just on transforming to claw his way out of the ground.
He sticks to the shadows, ducking through alleyways and hopes that it’s only been a few months since he was buried and not longer. So far everything looks the same.
Finally, he slips onto campus and makes a b-line for the instructor’s apartments right next to what had been his own. He practically runs into the door when he stops, he’s sore all over (a rare occurrence) and can barely stay upright. His hands feel numb with cold, all the energy to speedily heal his body mostly expended in the last however many months he’d been out.
He unsteadily raps on the door with a heavy hand.
“Just a moment.” Someone calls from inside.
In the hallways he can hear music and voices. It grates on his nerves. Everything is so loud to his ears after so much silence.
“Pris so help me if you don’t let me in right now!” He gives the door a petulant thump for good measure.
The door flies open, and Priscilla stands there is her nightclothes looking like she might vomit on his boots.
“Oh good, it is still you. Please tell me it’s not been long?” He stumbles into the apartment and makes a sound of joy as he sees his lute mounted safely in a stand.
“It’s been… some months, since the end of summer.” Priscilla sounds blank as she speaks and closes the door behind him. He frowns at the muddied streak his finger leave on the lacquer.
When he turns to face her, she remains stark still. That’s when it dawns on him. Priscilla smells of fear and something rancid.
“You didn’t think I was coming back.”
“Well obviously not!” She explodes back at him.
“I told you nothing other than one of my own kind could kill me!”
“Well sure but I thought you were exaggerating!”
“Well sorry for embellishing things a bit but I wouldn’t lie about something like this!”
“You’ve never even bitten anyone near me!?”
“Well, that would be rather rude wouldn’t it?”
They stare at each other in silence for a moment. And then Priscilla starts laughing and Jaskier can’t help but laugh a little with her.
Then it morphs.
“Oh no, no, Pris, hey.” He stumbles up and over to her as the rancid smell breaks and he recognizes it as grief.
“When he brought you here, I thought, well he didn’t say what happened and—”
So Geralt is fine. He thinks but pushes that problem to the back of his mind for now.
“And I was left to get it all in order like you would’ve wanted, and it was just—gods it was awful Jaskier.”
He swipes a dusty thumb under her eye and lets her tug him into a tight embrace without mentioning he’s covered in grave-dirt.
“Hey, I’m alright. I promise I’m really going to be fine, my body just conked out to heal up for a bit.” He tries to pat her soothingly as her sobbing grates on his overstimulated senses.
This is new for him. He’s never come back after an accidental ‘death.’ He always moves on—never had a reason not to. He’s never really seen what those who knew him had to go through. Although, none in the past had been so close to know he was a higher vampire.
She cries herself out on his shoulder for a while as he sways them back and forth until finally, she falls silent.
It’s jarring when she suddenly pulls back to look at him.
“We’re going to need to come up with a reason you came back.” She gets that look on her face when she’s composing or up to mischief.
“Yes indeed, I tried to leave little evidence but if someone saw me dragging myself from my own grave, and with all the flailing about I did with the shroud. I should think some witch hunters will be bursting through your door any moment.”
She snorts. Then her nose wrinkles and suddenly she’s jumping back.
“What!?” Jaskier pats himself down as if he might find a spider.
“Grave dirt—alright, I’ll call for a bath and I’ll brainstorm an elaborate lie while I do it.”
“Isn’t it too late?”
“It’s not even midnight yet. Don’t worry, just rest.”
…
Priscilla comes up with a lie while Jaskier soaks the dirt and grime away in a tub. They don’t bother with the privacy divider, they’ve both seen each other in various states of undress over the years, and he doesn’t like the way she reeks of nervousness when he’s out of her sight.
“Hmmm, so a curse. A cursed object that made me seem dead, but I was just in a state of limbo. Honestly, I’ve been cursed a few times, and none were that extreme, but I guess it’s possible.”
“I think they’ll buy it.”
“Yeah, If I put on the tired sickly look it should be believable. Do you think you can swipe a cane from the costume department?”
“That might be a bit far.”
“Oh alright. So how did I get out of the grave in this grand narrative?”
“I…dug you up?”
“Okay that could be believed I think…but why would you know to dig me up?”
“Uh, I got a letter from the Witcher! And he told me that it was a curse and what day it would wear off and I would need to save you.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him write a letter—”
“But no one else knows that.”
Jaskier huffs and dumps a bucket over his head and smiles when the water comes away no muddier than before.
“Are you angry with him?”
“No, I’m not angry with him,” He gives dramatic pause as he reaches for her hair oil, “I’m livid.”
She hums at that and plucks a little at her lute.
“He should’ve known better than to leave you with no instructions, you wouldn’t have suffered like that. No one would’ve.”
“Valdo cried at the funeral.”
“Well honestly as much as I hate the man that really doesn’t make me feel less angry.” He curls his lip as he feels the guilt settle more firmly in his stomach. Valdo is not a very good actor.
“Then he graciously took over your winter classes.”
Jaskier grips the rim of the tub with a sudden splash that throws water over the edge.
“That bastard!”
“He may or may not have your doublets as well.”
“What! Who gave them to him?!”
“Well, you weren’t using them, and you’re both about the same size. I didn’t want them to go to waste.”
He levels Pris with a glare. He can’t really blame her though.
“What? It’s not like I was expected you to dig yourself out of your own…” She trails off and her soft plucking ends with a jarring twang.
“Pris?”
“Are you okay Jaskier?”
“Of course, I’m fine—”
“I mean, gods, I let them bury you alive. Weren’t you scared?”
Jaskier can smell the beginnings of tears beyond the herbs of her bath oils. Before she can spiral, he reaches out to grip her hand in his wet one. Careful not to splash her lute.
“Six feet of dirt is really not enough to stop me. Sure, it was disorienting and unpleasant. I won’t lie to you Priscilla; it was scary and I did panic a little bit when I dug myself out but I am right here in a warm bath and with you at my side and not in some backwater village where I was certain I must’ve been buried and as much as I am livid that he didn’t explain to you what to do and that I wasn’t dead I am glad to know Geralt survived the fight I last saw him in.”
She wipes her nose a little before looking back at him.
“You truly love him, don’t you?”
“Of course, he’s my best friend,” he sinks down into the water when she smirks at him.
“Oh, best friend! Please hold me through the night for purely platonic warmth! Let me rub oil into your muscley thighs after a long day of riding and sing your praises across the continent.”
“I told you about the oil in confidence!”
“Well, I am confident that you’re quite enamoured and he would be lucky to have you.”
Jaskier sputters at that. Dunking his head once more to avoid Priscilla’s discerning gaze.
“Alright, I’ll leave you be. Dry off and we can terrorize campus with your miraculous recovery in the morning.”
…
Terrorize in a bit of an understatement, Valdo actually faints when he opens his door, and the dean of students does in fact make Jaskier hold a bit of silver just to be sure he’s not some kind of apparition.
He takes a bit of joy in sliding into one of his finer doublets procured from the unconscious Marx, who had in fact taken good care of them, and hugged Jaskier tightly once he came to.
Hmm, perhaps we aren’t exactly enemies anymore, friendly rivals then? Jaskier thinks. But he’s not sure if that peace will last when next summers bardic competitions begin.
He and Priscilla parade around campus a while and she invites him to join in her performance that night. He mostly plays, his voice still a little rough for any of his usual songs. But over time he knows his vocal chords will loosen.
Three days pass in celebration with various friends and colleagues as well as collecting his belongings from where they’d spread across the small campus.
Thankfully, they all parted easily from his small trinkets and pens. Priscilla didn’t say anything when he stopped at the shops to stock up on paper and ink as well as sell off a few of the nice doublets for warm winter wear. Far warmer than one would need for wintering in Oxenfurt.
She doesn’t mention anything at all until the third night when they make it back to her apartment arm in arm and fumble with the keys through drink and laughter before tumbling onto her bed.
“You’re going to go to him, aren’t you?” She says.
“Yes… I have to go give him a piece of my mind.”
“Is the winter trek worth that? You’ll see him in the spring.”
Jaskier thinks about it for a moment letting out a heaving sigh.
“I miss him, it’s been months, as much as I’m angry I also know that he probably left me here for my own safety while I healed. I’m much less likely to get hurt in the safety of Oxenfurt than laying in some field while he’s fighting wraiths.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Plus, I know Geralt and he’ll let guilt eat him up rather than have a fight and get all that energy out. So, I’ll bring the fight to him and then we can go back to how things were.”
“He’s hurt you before.” Pris shifts and throws off her hat and lays her head on Jaskier’s shoulder.
He hums.
…
Jaskier wakes early, rolling Pris off himself and begins packing his things. She only wakes as he sneaks back into the bedroom to find the papers and pens he’s stowed in her desk.
“Do you need…uh blood or something before you go? You’re still weak. Will you be safe?”
He snorts.
“Only you would offer. It’s really more like fine wine, I’ll be safer the less I have—or else you’ll be waving and watching me drunkenly stumble towards the mountains.”
She laughs.
“Let me walk you to the bridge at least.”
So, he waits for her to dress and they walk together, him decked out in his fur lined boots and warm blue cloak with all his travel gear back in his pack.
It feels right.
They pick up a few sweet buns for breakfast and eat as they walk until they stutter to a halt at the far side of the northwest bridge.
There’s still crumbs on her cloak which he brushes off before they embrace for a long time.
“I’m glad your still here Jaskier.”
“Me too.”
…
It’s still early winter, the first snow only a few days past, so Jaskier makes good time on his way to the mountain path to Kaer Morhen.
He sleeps in the wilderness mostly, but every few towns he passes he makes time to stop and collect coin. He joins a caravan for a while and spends his time teaching the children jigs and little tunes that reinforce the idea that they should stay out of the woods on their trip.
He’s sad to part ways with them when he finally must turn west but he enjoys the solitude once again as he can sparingly utilize some of his abilities to make the journey faster.
He makes it to the final small village before the mountains less than a fortnight after leaving Oxenfurt. The ground is rock solid now and frost lasts all day. Foreboding clouds hang ever-present in the distance and Jaskier knows he needs to pick up his pace if he doesn’t want to spend a majority of the trek wading through snowdrifts.
The trek is treacherous, even for him. No horse could make it up now. So, if there were any witchers left to return home they would be on foot like him. He knows one wrong move and it’ll be a few years before he wakes again, if he’s lucky.
So, he takes it slow, stopping in mountain caverns along the way. Once even sharing with a rather startled bear. But she was more scared of him than he of her, so he waited for the worst of the days wind to pass and left her and her cubs in peace.
The blizzard hits when he’s maybe a days walk from the castle. He’s not completely certain but judging by the pattern of well used caves much like the one he had stopped for on this night, he could make an educated guess he was going the right way. It would all be so much easier if he’d had his notebook from last years journey, but it had been misplaced or likely thrown out when they went through his things at Oxenfurt.
He watches the sky and breaths a cloud of hot breath. His choices are to wait out the storm, possibly getting snowed in for a week or get a move on.
So that night when he realizes the rising winds are a storm, he packs up camp and starts walking.
Visibility is horrible, even with his superior vision, but he follows the path carefully and steadily—humming as he goes to keep his voice limber against the cool dry air.
It had been weeks and yet he still felt that little croak of disuse that he was determined to stamp out.
The snow is nearing his shins as he finally begins to see the castle in the distance. His joints are stiff from cold, but he keeps going without pause. This is not the time to complain and whine like he would sometimes when travelling with Geralt. He didn’t much like the sound of his own complaining when there was nobody to throw their extra cloak over him even though they both knew well that Jaskier didn’t need it.
Last year when he’d seen Kaer Morhen in all it’s dilapidated glory he had taken time to pause and stare at the awe-inspiring fortress carved from the rock. Geralt’s home which he always returned to even after all those years on the path.
Jaskier has no time for beautiful scenery. Especially when he can barely see in front of his face and he’s well aware the wilds hide far more beasts than the populated parts of the continent.
Sure, he could take them. But he’d rather get to that warm fire instead. Perhaps Vesemir already had the mulled wine brewed. He was ready with it for the first storms of the season last year.
He feels the hard ground shift to stone as he approaches the keep and he can hear the faint wicker of the horses at the small stable.
For a terrible moment he worries Geralt didn’t make it back for the winter at all and he’d done the whole journey for nothing. But Geralt always turned back the same time of year Jaskier started to think of heading for Oxenfurt. Without fail he’d cock his head to the side one day as they walked, or squint into the wind and mumbled something about the weather.
“Well, if he’s not here it’s not like I can hike back down the mountain.” The howl of the rising winds punctuates the thought as Jaskier hastens to the main door.
He doesn’t bother with knocking, its far too cold for that and he spent long enough around Geralt that he knew he’d be welcomed by the others. Even if Lambert liked to pretend he wasn’t.
He pushes the heavy door open and is hit with a wave of heat as he scrambles insides.
“Lambert! I told you there was a storm comin’, batten down the door like you were supposed to hours ago.” Vesemir crows from some unseen corner. Probably the kitchen.
“Yeah yeah! Cause a little wind will ruin our delicate sensibilities, old—”
Lambert rounds the corner just as Jaskier pushes the door shut with a resounding clunk.
“Bard?”
“Hello Lambert. Is Geralt in?”
“How did you get here!” Lambert practically yells.
“Well, I walked of course,” Jaskier peels off layers and begins shaking them out so they can hang above the fire without the snow dripping everywhere.
“Help me with this will you?” Jaskier hands one of his bags over to Lambert who takes it without question, still staring bug-eyed.
“Lambert, I told you to—” Vesemir comes around the corner and stops short as well.
“Hello Vesemir, I’m sorry to intrude, could I perhaps get something warm to drink? It’s quite cold out.” Jaskier adopts the overly polite tone with the elder Witcher who had always seemed to be a fan of good manners.
“It’s a bloody fuckin blizzard out.” Lambert snaps before Vesemir can reply.
Jaskier is not sure what to make of the reaction. He was hoping for at least a warmer welcome from Lambert—especially after he helped him prank Eskel and Geralt at the end of last years winter.
“Get back!” Speak of the devil Eskel bounds down the staircase and into the hall, Jaskier watches as Vesemir and Lambert part rapidly and for a moment he wonders what’s happening until he sees Eskel’s fingers move to cast Aard.
He narrowly dodges the blast, dropping most of his clothes with a shriek and darting past Lambert and into the warmer hall.
“What the hell Eskel!” Jaskier yells as he swings around to face a silver blade and Eskel moving to advance on him again.
“He died last summer, Geralt told me.”
“No wonder he’s been such a sourpuss,” Lambert mutters.
“He told you what!” Jaskier dodges a swipe of the blade and jumps back again to get some distance, “Geralt! Your family is trying to kill me!” He yells in hopes Geralt is somewhere in the keep.
“Medallions aren’t moving,” Vesemir mutters.
“Must be a disguised enchantment then, or an apparition,” Eskel offers.
“Dodges like something living though,” Lambert mutters as Eskel finally stops his attacks.
“Pft! What are you talking about I am well and alive right now! Here, touch me—” He lunges forward to touch Eskel but is stopped abruptly by a Quen barrier.
“Tell us what happened Jaskier? Is there some unfinished business you need us to take care of?”
“I’m! Not! Dead!” He does the only thing he can think of and leans down to take off a boot before tossing it hard and fast at Vesemir. The old man catches it but lets out an ‘oof’ as it hits him in the gut first.
“Oh Vesemir! I’m so sorry I was jus—”
“What the fuck are you doing?” He turns to find Geralt at the bottom of the stairs, hair an utter mess and a look on his face that could curdle milk.
“Oh, thank the gods Geralt! They’ve gone mad.”
“Why are you here?”
Jaskier splutters as he notices Geralt is hiding one of his swords behind his back.
“Why am I— how dare you! I did not walk through a blizzard for you to brandish your swords at me! You’ve been telling your family I’m dead Geralt, what is wrong with you?”
“This is not a spectral boot, so ghost is off the list.” Vesemir chimes in.
“Thank you! The only one with sense in this god forsaken castle.”
“Probably enchantment then.” Jaskier barely holds back a curse, but there’s no way he could curse the man he privately love’s father figure.
Cornered by four confused Witchers he’s forced to take a step back, only to realize Lambert has finally collected his wits and fallen into formation, trapping him in a circle of idiots.
“I am here Geralt, because you apparently have decided you are done with me since I got injured and I wanted to come give you a piece of my mind for it. I cannot believe you would tell people I am dead! If this is some of your ‘I am a monster, you are better off without me’ bullshit I swear to god!”
“He does do that.” Lambert mumbles and then lets out a hiss from what Jaskier can only assume is Eskel whapping him with the flat of his blade.
“What? He smells fine. I wouldn’t be that shocked if Geralt lied for stupid noble reasons.”
“He wasn’t lying.” Eskel grits out.
“Who are you and why are you here?” Geralt asks again with a voice like thunder.
“Julian Alfred Pancrantz, check my bags if you’re uncertain.” He listens to Lambert beginning to rustle through his belongings and wonders for a moment if Witchers had somehow devised a way to kill higher vampires.
But he forces that thought back and does what he’s always been better than Geralt at—he talks about his feelings.
“Look I get that you couldn’t carry me all the way into the mountains! But you could’ve left her instructions! Poor Pris mourned me you know, and I very much don’t want to put her through that again.”
Lambert makes a curious noise and Jaskier hazards a look back to find him holding up the small dagger he’s found in the coffin when he first woke.
Geralt makes a wounded sound.
“Here, take this.” Suddenly the blade is in his hands.
“Don’t give him a weapon!” Eskel admonishes.
“It’s silver, Lambert’s obviously the only one thinking with his head tonight.” Vesemir snaps and Jaskier turns the blade round in his hands. The thing screamed of Geralt to him from the first moment he saw it.
“Jaskier.” Geralt says his name softly and his face does a complicated thing that makes him look pained but Jaskier isn’t done yet.
“Do you think crawling out of a grave is easy? Melitele Geralt did you think I’d enjoy being buried alive? What if they’d cremated me? Then gods knows if you’d have seen me again in your lifetime. Do you know how long it takes to—”
“How are you alive?”
Jaskier prides himself on reading people well, he prides himself on reading a certain wolf witcher extremely well. ‘Better than anyone’ he would boast when villagers asked him if he knew the fearsome white wolf. But he feels an utter fool now, as everything clicks into place and he can smell the bitter tang of grief and guilt rolling off Geralt in equal measure.
“Oh…you didn’t think I was coming back.”
“Say something only the real Jaskier would know.” Lambert cuts in before Geralt can reply.
“Oh? And what pray tell would you suggest?”
“Something we did last winter; no outsider could somehow have learned what went on in this keep.”
Jaskier glances around the room. Eskel is still tense while Lambert and Vesemir have downgraded their stances to only mildly threatened.
“Easy, Lambert and I planted chicken eggs all around Geralt and Eskels rooms to convince them that one of the chickens was loose in the keep.”
“God damnit! Could’ve picked something else bard.” Lambert curses and plops himself down onto one of the cushioned chairs around the hearth.
“I knew it! I would’ve caught a chicken.” Eskel sheathes the sword and Geralt drops his own unceremoniously to the ground. Eskel goes to cuff lambert upside the head but pauses to look at Jaskier again.
“This doesn’t explain how you survived.”
Jaskier peels off his boots to set by the hearth now that no one is attempting to kill him.
“Well, obviously something like a surprise monster attack wouldn’t be able to take me out.”
“Jaskier, you were shredded, no human survives that.” Geralt says, still not moved from his previous spot.
“Well obviously a human wouldn’t survive that!” Jaskier says matter of factly while Geralt gawps at him.
“Are you not one then?” Lambert asks.
“No, I thought you all knew? Didn’t Geralt tell…” He trails off as Geralt’s expression darkens.
“Melitele.”
“I’d assumed you were just very private about it but now I believe that was a misunderstanding. Please enlighten us master bard and save us from this confusing conversation.” Vesemir heads back toward the kitchen without another word. Fully in hearing range for a Witcher but removing himself from their small circle.
For the second time Jaskier feels a unwitting fool.
“You thought I was a human.”
“Yes.” Geralt mumbles.
“So, you thought I was dead, full-stop, no returning.”
“Obviously,” Geralt growls.
“Oh…I’m a higher vampire.”
“Wow! That explains a lot.” Lambert crows while Eskel gives a low whistle.
“Rare.”
“Oh yes Eskel I’m as rare as they come.” He throws him a wink before returning his attention to Geralt.
“I really thought you knew Geralt, I didn’t mean to deceive you.”
Geralt makes a low humming noise and still smells extremely upset. He doesn’t speak at all, just nods his head in the direction of the staircase and starts up towards the rooms without looking to make sure Jaskier follows.
Jaskier leaves the warmth of the fire and follows with a short wave to the other two witchers who give him curious looks. He’s certain they will be grilling him for details later.
He follows Geralt in socked feet all the way to the man’s room. It’s warm and the sheets are a mess that proves Geralt had probably already been in bed when Jaskier arrived.
“I really am sorry Geralt.” Is the first thing he says as he presses the door shut.
“Don’t be.”
Geralt moves about the room collecting random things, a shirt off the bed, a book off the table and a few other odds and ends.
“No Geralt I am sorry, I just burst in here and you were left thinking I had died on a hunt and I am sorry you had to go through that. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d told you directly what I am.”
“What you are is a bard. I am a witcher, this is my job and I didn’t even notice.” Geralt throws the pile of things down on the bed as he turns to argue.
“Yeah? Well I’m your friend Geralt and it’s my job to not hurt you!”
“Why does hurting me matter? I slacked off so much that you ended up in a coffin—” Geralt chokes off on the words and stares down at the floor.
“Oh Geralt,” Jaskier moves a close as he dare, not wanting to startle him, “I’m fine, it was my slip up —oof!”
Geralt moves fast, pulling Jaskier to him before he can react. Strong arms enveloping him in warmth as he listens to the low snuffle of Geralt pressing his nose to his hair.
Jaskier rubs his back tentatively, continuing the motion when Geralt relaxes further into Jaskier’s hold.
“I’m here.”
“You’re cold.” Geralt whispers, Jaskier laughs.
They hold each other for a lot longer than they’ve ever hugged. Long enough that Jaskier begins to hum in the silence as he waits for Geralt’s scent to transition from grief to calm.
Finally, as Geralt starts to perk up a bit Jaskier glances at the pile he’d thrown on the bed.
“Is that my shirt?”
Geralt steps out of the embrace nearly as fast as he’d entered it, turning a bright pink colour and stuttering over a few words.
“And my notebook! I was wondering where this got to,” Jaskier finds that everything in the pile must’ve been his before Geralt left him in Oxenfurt.
Geralt has already turned his back to go dig through a drawer while Jaskier looks through his forgotten things.
“Your room isn’t ready. Stay here with me tonight.” Geralt grunts out.
“Really?”
Geralt turns to look at Jaskier and raises a brow.
“Alright then! I’ll go get my things before Lambert takes them for his own!”
…
It takes no time at all to collect his things now that the Keep is relaxed again. He finds Lambert barring the doors while Eskel sets up a game of Gwent for the pair beside the fire.
He chats a bit with Eskel while he hangs his damp clothes over the hearth before slinging his pack and lute across his back and giving them a soft goodnight before hurrying back up the stairs.
When he gets back to Geralts room he finds the man is slipping back into bed once more, Jaskiers pile of things moved neatly to the desk and the sheets smoothed out from their earlier mayhem.
“Thought you’d want to visit a while?” Geralt sounds surprised.
“I’m too tired for that! I really am cold!” He turns from Geralt and begins his night routine as if it were any other night when the two of them shared a small Inn room in between hunts.
Once he’s in a soft shirt he slides into the bed beside Geralt, leaving plenty of space between them.
“I’m sorry for Pris.”
“We’ll tell her the next time we see her, and truly it’s not your fault. I’ll probably be the one begging her forgiveness when she hears that I just didn’t deign to tell you what I am.”
“Does she know?” Geralt asks.
“I told her our first year together at Oxenfurt.”
“Hmmm.” Geralt trails off, virtually ending the conversation. Jaskier snuggles down into the bed and closes his eyes, savouring how everything smells like leather and Geralt—with a touch of Roach.
The smell gets stronger and Jaskier lets out an embarrassing squeak as Geralt unexpectedly shuffles closer, snaking an arm over Jaskier’s waist and virtually spooning up against him.
“Geralt?”
“You’re cold.”
Jaskier looks up to find Geralt’s eyes are resolutely closed and his cheeks have turned a light pink. He can hear the man trying to be nonchalant about sniffing his hair.
Geralt is so warm. Jaskier can hear his steady too slow heartbeat and feel every breath against his hair. He turns into the touch, scooting back until they are flush and Geralt tangles their legs beneath the heavy furs and blankets.