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It takes two weeks of them traveling together for Geralt to finally notice, and he only does because for the first time since Jaskier started following him around he pays attention to the way Jaskier is constantly waving his hands around. The loudness of Jaskier in addition to the general noise of the inn is grating. Geralt needs to focus his attention elsewhere, so he watches Jaskier’s hands. He’s not paying attention to what Jaskier’s saying, but he starts noticing that there’s intention behind the motion of Jaskier’s hands.
Following the motions is just an idle curiosity until in the middle of his rambling he makes a series of gestures that Geralt knows very well.
“Repeat that,” Geralt says.
“It’s something of an axiom?” Jaskier looks at Geralt, confused, and without repeating the hand gestures. “Why? Do you disagree?”
“Wasn’t listening, don’t care.” Geralt ignores Jaskier’s indignation. He’ll get over it. “Repeat the gesturing you did, not the words.”
“Oh.” Jaskier smoothly repeats the motions. “There’s probably an actual sign for the word axiom, but I have a bad habit of fingerspelling.”
Geralt has no idea what that means. All he knows is Jaskier apparently knows how to make the sign for axii and that seems dangerous.
“Where did you learn that sign?”
Jaskier blinks at him, brow furrowing together like he’s trying to understand what Geralt’s just said. He does that a lot, actually, which is equal parts irritating and endearing. Sometimes, if Geralt didn’t know better, he’d say that Jaskier genuinely didn’t know the words Geralt is saying. It doesn’t matter what Jaskier does or doesn’t know. Geralt just waits for Jaskier to answer the damn question.
“Did you want to learn Rendanian sign?” Jaskier’s answer is hesitant, like he’s not sure if it’s the answer Geralt wanted. It isn’t, but that might not be Jaskier’s fault. “I also know Cintran, if it’s that you’re having trouble understanding the Rendanian.”
“I was asking why you know a Witcher sign.”
“I don’t?” The confusion on Jaskier’s face has only grown, and Geralt thinks that maybe they’re having two different conversations. Unfortunately, there’s no way of telling what conversation Jaskier thinks they’re having. “I know Rendanian sign because I studied at Oxenfurt and Cintran sign because my interpreter at Oxenfurt was originally from Cintra. A friend taught me some of the sign they use in Skellige, but I’m afraid I don’t know enough to carry on a conversation in it.”
Okay. Jaskier thinks that they’re talking about human handsigns. The only people Geralt’s met that know handsign are the sort of people he doesn’t think Jaskier would know, so how Jaskier came to learn handsign is another conversation. That’s not the crux of the problem here, though, so Geralt thinks he’d better bring the two conversations in line with each other. He says nothing, contemplating the options.
It would probably be fastest to show Jaskier what he means. Demonstrating axii is out of the question, but most other signs are meant to be drawn on surfaces, so igni it is. Geralt makes the motion and holds the resulting fire in his hand. Jaskier watches with the face that Geralt’s come to associate with him working through something, silent for a few moments as he watches the flames flicker. Then he shakes his head.
“You’re using the wrong one.” Jaskier holds his own hand up, fingers arranged slightly different than Geralt’s own, and makes a sign that’s very similar but not quite the same as the one Geralt uses. “Fire. You’re doing warm or heat.”
Nothing happens when Jaskier does it, which is maybe to be expected. There’s nothing approaching chaos in the bard—not more than every person has, anyway—but it startles Geralt to see someone not a Witcher doing it. He’s still unclear on why Jaskier knows these signs, but what’s clear is that there’s some amount of overlap between the signs Witchers use for magic and the handsigns that humans use. Why do humans have handsigns? He thought only thieves used them.
“Why do you know handsigns?” Geralt’s brow furrows. He can’t see what use humans other than thieves would have for it. “Do they teach everyone that at Oxenfurt?”
“No,” Jaskier says. He’s making the handsigns again, and Geralt thinks it might be a nervous habit. “Just the ones that have need of it for this or that reason.”
“And what reason do you have?”
Silence stretches between them, Jaskier biting his lower lip as he considers Geralt. There’s a nervousness in Jaskier’s form that Geralt’s never seen before. Jaskier is many things, but nervous isn’t one of them. It doesn’t fit him, laying on his frame like an ill-fitting doublet.
“Who ever heard,” Jaskier says, so quietly that a human wouldn’t be able to hear it over the noise of the inn, “of a deaf bard?”
Several things about Jaskier rearrange in Geralt’s mind very quickly. The loudness has an explanation Geralt never considered, one that fits almost too perfectly. The way Jaskier doesn’t always seem to hear what Geralt’s said isn’t carelessness or flippancy, it’s that he genuinely doesn’t hear. The way Jaskier’s eyes track Geralt’s mouth isn’t a come on, but a tool to track when Geralt is speaking.
“Hm.” Geralt would say something else, but he’s not sure what he should say. “You’d be the first.”
When Jaskier laughs, there’s something hollow to it. Like Jaskier’s forced the levity. It makes something in Geralt’s stomach turn uncomfortably, because he realizes something in that moment. Well, he already knew that the realest monsters he fought were humans. What he maybe hasn’t grappled with, not since Renfri blood spilled over his sword at least, is that he’s picked up bad habits from humans too. Geralt’s own casual disregard of possible explanations for Jaskier’s behavior because he thought he knew the way of the world is a problem too.
Someone or something has told Jaskier that he has to reconfigure himself to be accepted as whole, as human, and Jaskier’s done it unthinkingly and so well that Geralt would bet that most humans can’t tell it’s an act. He couldn’t tell either, and that fact makes him uneasy.
Nothing changes once Geralt knows Jaskier’s secret, except Geralt starts saying “quieter” and tries to remember to get Jaskier to look at him before saying anything. Also he learns Rendanian sign, because it’s so much easier. Knowing sign means he doesn’t have to try and make words if he’s tired or his voice has given out on him, plus he can have reasonably private conversations with Jaskier when they’re in public. It’s weirdly useful, which startles Geralt into another realization.
“Why don’t they teach handsigns to everyone?”
“It’s complicated,” Jaskier says. His fingers were absently playing the lute, but Jaskier slings it onto his back to free his hands instead. It’s more comfortable for him to sign, and Geralt turns his head to watch Jaskier’s hands. Many believe to talk with handsigns is to be broken. It’s a crutch to keep one from learning how to speak.
“Hm.”
Having traveled with Geralt for many moons, Jaskier isn’t offended when Geralt doesn’t immediately continue the conversation. They’ve come to an understanding about this too, and Jaskier leaves space for Geralt to turn over new information in his mind and understand it. To make sense of new things and fit them into what he already knows before offering an opinion. He doesn’t talk to fill space, but he’s gotten used to Jaskier doing it—whether verbally or with his gesturing—while he waits for Geralt to continue a conversation.
Not broken, Geralt eventually tells Jaskier. They’ve just set up camp, light slowly fading as the sun sets, and Jaskier tilts his head to the side. Or we’re the same.
How so? I can hardly hear and you hear far too well. Those are opposites. Jaskier raises an eyebrow as if in challenge. Besides, having to learn a new language just to speak to someone is exhausting. Not everyone is as eager as you to pick up handsign.
Ah. That’s a reality Geralt doesn’t have an immediate rebuttal for. It’s true enough. Humans are fundamentally lazy. Witchers and Mages aren’t much better, in Geralt’s experience. Learning languages that don’t seem to have an immediate benefit isn’t something most people would do, because learning things takes time and not everyone studied the seven liberal arts like Jaskier, who is always ready to learn. Jaskier thinks learning is its own reward, but most people don’t. Making an effort for no tangible reward is either beneath them or they don’t have the time and energy to spare.
Necessary. The sign is emphatic. Jaskier’s impressed the importance of body language in handsigns to Geralt, and he wants Jaskier to know he means this. You aren’t alone. It’s useful. Merchants learn—
Geralt pauses. He meant to say Nilfgaardian, but he realizes he has no idea how to sign that. So instead he asks Jaskier, who signs Nilfgaard near his mouth. Oh. That seems obvious now. Rendanian sign, at least, is mostly intuitive once you’ve seen it, and Geralt finds that makes it easy to learn.
Merchants learn Nilfgaardian to trade. This is more useful.
Jaskier laughs, just a little too loud, and vibrantly signs fuck Nilfgaard. His signs always have a fluidity, a poetry, to them that Geralt can’t quite manage. He’s not sure if it comes from practice, or from being a student of the seven liberal arts. It may also just be a trait unique to Jaskier, as Geralt hasn’t met many other people who know handsign, but the others he knows are nowhere near as fanciful as Jaskier. Even when Geralt doesn’t know the exact meaning of what Jaskier’s signing, he can usually get the gist of it.
Witchers are monsters, Geralt says after a moment. His hands hesitate, unsure of how to say what he means in any form. We don’t feel. That’s broken too.
Bullshit! You’re as human as— Whatever Jaskier meant to say is cut off as he pauses, eyes narrowing. Oh, I see what you did there. Clever Witcher. Maybe we are the same in that way. People see what they like and not what’s real, don’t they?
It’s not quite what Geralt would say. Not seeing the truth is a defense mechanism, in a way. If people don’t view him as being like them, they don’t feel bad about treating him poorly. People can wave a lot of poor behavior away when someone is lesser. You can stiff them on contracts. You can wave away the effort of changing your behavior to accommodate someone. You can pay a criminally low amount when a job is more complicated than expected. You can force someone to behave the way you think they should. You can refuse them room and board. You can cut someone down, bit by bit, until there’s nothing left.
Yes, Geralt says instead. Broken things can be thrown away.
There might have been a response to that, but Jaskier pauses with his hands halfway up and turns to grab his lute instead. Geralt’s grown used to the way Jaskier often pauses conversations for a few minutes or even hours in order to compose something. This time it’s several days later when Jaskier picks the conversation back up.
“My father made me learn to speak.” Jaskier’s tone is casual, and it takes a second for Geralt to remember what they’d been talking about. He turns slightly on Roach’s back to look at Jaskier. “He believed I wouldn’t be able to communicate otherwise. To him, it was a kindness.”
A kindness. Geralt almost laughs. How many things that happened before his trials were called kindnesses? How many things that seemed unspeakably cruel were framed as things for his betterment? Perhaps he was more right than he thought when he told Jaskier they were the same.
“That doesn’t make it one.” He signs truth in reverse, making lie. “You know that.”
“It’s hard to remember when it’s what you’ve been told your entire life.” Jaskier makes a sign that Geralt vaguely recognizes. It’s one of the signs from Skellige he knows, which means it’s some kind of insult. From what he’s gathered, Skellige’s handsign consists of ways to insult people and words for parts of a ship. “Oh! I want to show you something.”
In the way Geralt’s taught him, Jaskier reaches out and taps Roach’s shoulder. She slows to a stop at the touch and Jaskier waits until he has Geralt’s full attention before signing sword. No, that’s not quite right. The sign for sword is a fist and Jaskier’s fingers are shaped like the sign for g. It reminds Geralt of the way Jaskier signs his own name with the sign for sing but instead of swinging back and forth, he makes the sign for j.
“Is that a sign for me?”
Nodding, Jaskier quickly spells Geralt’s name and then repeats the not-quite-sword sign. It’s much faster, and Geralt gets the sense that Jaskier has thought about this for a while. He’s deliberately made a sign for Geralt that doesn’t use the sign for Witcher as the base and it’s unexpectedly… nice.
“Thank you,” Geralt says. He simultaneously signs it too, just to make sure Jaskier understands. “I like it.”
You’re welcome, Jaskier says. It’s a gift. Getting a name sign means you’re one of us now.
A monster?
The question is in jest, and Jaskier must know it because he only rolls his eyes. He repeats the sign he’s made for Geralt and then adds unique after it. Then, after a moment, friend. That one is hesitant, almost like Jaskier’s not sure it applies.
Not friends. Geralt doesn’t miss the way Jaskier’s face falls, but he continues the rest of his train of thought instead of reassuring him. We’re brothers, Jaskier. Family.
Family, Jaskier repeats. It’s signed with a hint of questioning. Does that mean you’ll take me up to your secret Witcher fortress in the mountains this year?
Maybe. Geralt gently nudges Roach back into a walk. “But only if you keep up.”
The squawk Jaskier makes is much too loud, especially in the relative quiet of the forest they’ve been travelling through, but Geralt doesn’t tell Jaskier that. Instead, he just listens as Jaskier scrambles to keep up with Roach and smiles to himself. Family. He likes the sound of that.