#bouncey's endless getting together fics

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

He Blinded Me With Science

Many thanks to the ever-lovely and always talented @spielzeugkaiser for collaborating with me once again on this goofy, exceedingly soft Star Trek AU! 4.3k

Boldly going where no fluff has gone before...

tw: simulated near-death experiences

---

Stardate 47634.44

Commander Geralt deRiv watched with a stoic sense of envy as Counselor Pankratz wrapped his arms around young Ensign Cirilla and gave her a bone-crushing hug. The pretty young Betazoid man picked her up and spun her in a quick circle, his superior height the only way to compensate for her excessively gangly teenage limbs.

The Commander watched from nearby - not too close to the group to be considered an intrusion - and tried to find a logical way to explain why he felt his own mild sense of happiness whenever he heard a note of joy in Counselor Pankratz’s steady tenor. Geralt looked on, still oddly and illogically jealous, as the Counselor pressed a quick kiss to either of Ciri’s cheeks and declared: “Congratulations, cub! I’m so excited that you’ll be staying with us for your last few years of Starfleet training!”

Once the Counselor was finished bestowing his blessings and congratulations, Captain Vesemir stepped forward and clapped his hand over the girl’s shoulder, his sharp hazel eyes sparkling with pride and perhaps even mischief. His bushy grey mustache turned up in the corners, the ultimate marker of his approval. “Congratulations, Ensign Cirilla. Let me be the first to welcome you aboard the USS Kaer Morhen as an official member of the Bridge crew. We’re happy to have you along with us, my dear.”

“Grandma would be so proud,” Ciri smiled. It wasn't her usual chipper smile, either, but something distant and sad and longing. Geralt found human culture far too touchy-feely for his tastes; except, apparently, when it came to Counselor Pankratz. “May I send a message to the Away team and let my Mom know about my appointment, Captain?”

“Of course,” Vesemir grinned. “I’m sure that she’ll be incredibly proud of you, cub.”

Counselor Pankratz hugged Ciri one last time and Geralt felt his jealousy return, crackling just beneath the surface of his too-pale skin. The Commander’s sudden bout of white-hot emotion jarred him back to reality and he took a step forward, ready to offer Ciri his own set of congratulations. When Jaskier shot him a curious sidelong glance, however, Geralt realized that he needed to keep his feelings more deeply in check than he already was - having feelings for a Betazoid was difficult enough.

He stepped forward and patted the newly officiated Ensign on the shoulder twice, as he had just seen Vesemir do, an obvious sign of trust and competency, “Excellent work, Cirilla. I look forward to having you on the Away team. You have a clever mind and sharp observational skills; they will be a great asset.”

The young woman’s eyes widened above her already enormous smile and she bounced twice on the balls of her feet, her hands clasped beneath her chin and her cheeks flushed pink with all the praise. “Thank you so much, Commander deRiv! It means the world to hear you say that!”

“You are a commendable officer and always do your job to the best of your abilities. I am pleased to hear that you will remain a part of our crew,” Geralt nodded, eyebrows furrowed with the seriousness of his statement. He folded his hands behind his back and shifted his eyes up to meet the Captain’s, unsure of how to proceed with the boisterous Ensign’s enthusiastic response to his comments. “May I be dismissed, sir?”

“Yes, thank you, Commander. I’ll read over your report from the last Away mission this evening and send you any questions or comments I may have before your bridge shift tomorrow.”

“Understood. Thank you, Captain.”

---

Stardate 47634.44

“So the two of them have actually met before?” Vesemir clarified. Lambert nodded, smirking a little too smugly for anyone’s comfort. The Captain continued, ever-wary of the officer’s tendency to play pranks, “And you think that they’re in love?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it love. I mean, not to interrupt Lambert’s gossiping, Captain, but your Senior Science Officer and your Ship’s Counselor definitely have feelings for each other. I’ve seen the tips of Geralt’s pointy ears go green just from passing Jaskier’s table in Ten Forward,” Eskel noted from the raised Security platform behind the Captain’s chair. “And despite being a serial hugger and hand-holder, Jask keeps himself politely disengaged and professional whenever he’s dealing with our shy Commander deRiv.”

“They’re idiots, Captain,” First Officer Vengerberg added from her seat at Vesemir’s side. Yennefer was radiating pride and happiness, resplendent from Ciri’s recent acceptance to Starfleet and continued assignment on the Kaer Morhen. Still, she found a moment to roll her eyes and contribute, “Commander deRiv refuses to let his human side show by constantly shielding and suppressing his emotions, meanwhile Counselor Pankratz is too polite to try and hit on a man from a species known for their lack of romantic tendencies. And, since Jaskier is still half-human himself, he can’t technically read thoughts. He can only detect feelings. In my personal opinion, Captain, Jaskier isn’t sure what the Commander thinks of him.”

“Aye, sir, I agree with the Witch,” Lambert nodded. He glanced over his shoulder from his place at the helm and winked at the dark-haired woman roguishly. “Unfortunately.”

Yennefer stuck her tongue out at him.

“Knock it off, you two.” The Captain tried to hide his amusement behind a stern tone but didn’t quite succeed. “I have more pressing matters to deal with than your endless bickering - like children, I swear. Anyhow, we only narrowly managed to make it away from Florelia-4 without breaking the Prime Directive and interrupting their sacrificial rites. We need to be more careful the next time we make contact with such a young, underdeveloped society.”

“I’m sure that Jaskier would be able to teach us a thing or two about diplomacy, especially now that he’s more comfortable around us and has adjusted to the ship. The Counselor probably should have been on that Away team in the first place, then perhaps our unfortunate little debacle could have been prevented entirely.”

“You’re certainly right about his place on the Away team, Yen. I think I’d like him to take the Bridge Officers’ test as well; it would be a great boon to our company to have an empath with Bridge clearance.”

“Do you think he’ll be able to pass on his first try, Captain?” the Security Chief asked.

“He’ll need help, Commander Eskel. I expect you’ll be able to tutor him?”

“I don’t have the time,” Eskel rebutted. “Nor does Lambert; we’re working on that new Ensign Training Program for the Holodeck. Starfleet asked us to have our rough draft turned in by next week.”

“Hmm,” Vesemir leaned back and closed his eyes. His eyebrows gathered at the center of his forehead as he concentrated and Lambert got a terrible idea; a truly awful, completely horrible idea that would definitely end with Commander Geralt’s infinite happiness (regardless of how long it actually took the dumbass Science Officer to get his shit together).

He piped up, chest puffed confidently: “Not to bring the conversation back around to the Commander and his nervous blushing, but why not have Pretty Boy tutor the Counselor, Captain?”

Vesemir let one eye slide carefully open, focusing on the sassy young Lieutenant at the helm. “You mean that I should ask Commander deRiv to keep an eye on Jaskier for the duration of his Bridge Officers’ training?”

“Precisely,” First Officer Vengerberg grinned, catching onto the meaning behind Lambert’s increasingly smug smile. “Oh, you’re absolutely evil, Lamb.”

“I don’t like to meddle in the lives of my officers,” Vesemir grumbled, truly conflicted. “But this promises to be both beneficial and entertaining to all involved.”

“C’mon Captain,” Lambert pleaded. “If he’s too busy to help the Counselor then he’ll tell you so; Geralt isn’t exactly known for his abilities to make excuses or beat around the bush.”

“Alright, alright. You’re all awful and so am I. So be it.” Vesemir huffed. He tapped his communicator pin twice and spoke clearly, “Commander deRiv, please report to the Bridge.”

“On my way, Captain,” the Commander’s monotone voice crackled back.

Lambert and Ciri high-fived at the helm and Yennefer shook her head, biting back a pleased grin. Even the usually calm and collected Eskel seemed excited for whatever was about to unfold.

---

Counselor Pankratz arrived a few minutes after Commander deRiv, determined to speak with the Captain about a completely unrelated matter, and found himself on the business end of Vesemir’s affectionately stern scowl. “After the incident that occurred on our recent Away mission to Florelia-4, I’d like to give you a promotion and increase your list of responsibilities to include supervising any potentially diplomatic situations the Kaer Morhen may encounter from here on out.”

Jaskier gawked openly for a moment before gathering his wits enough to reply: “I’m more than happy to accept your kind and generous offer, Captain Vesemir, and I’m incredibly honored that you would consider me for such a position!”

Geralt stepped forward to stand at Vesemir’s side and Jaskier found himself struggling to remain focused on his commanding officer’s continued speech: “I’d also like you to take the Bridge Officers’ test. Commander deRiv will be in charge of your training regimen, so I’d like you to meet him at the holodeck sometime tomorrow evening for your first round of tutoring. I’ll let you two figure out the finer details, since I’m not privy to your individual schedules.”

“Yes, sir.” Jaskier fought bravely against the growing urge to faint and hid his sudden anxiety behind a calm and grateful smile. “Thank you again for your trust in my capabilities, Captain. I’m truly excited for these new opportunities to learn and to become closer with the other members of the crew.”

Geralt gave a single, accepting nod. “I will do my best to instruct Counselor Pankratz, Captain.”

Lambert winked at the Captain from behind the two unwitting officers’ backs and Vesemir’s scowl relaxed into a near-smile. The Captain clapped Geralt on the shoulder much the same way Geralt had done with Ciri earlier and Geralt wondered if it was mischief glinting in Vesemir’s stormy hazel eyes when he replied, “I’m sure you will, Commander.”

Stardate 47634.44, Evening

Geralt dreamed of his father for the first time that night.

The two men were standing in Geralt’s quarters, familiar and comfortable, as if Korin deRiv had always been a member of the Kaer Morhen’s crew. The human man was grinning down at Geralt with a shining sense of pride.

“Look at you, my son,” Korin smiled, his green eyes crinkling at the corners to reveal his crow’s feet. “You’ve grown quite a bit since I last saw you.”

“Father,” Geralt bowed his head respectfully.

“Just like your Mother, I see,” Korin teased. “All mannerly and polite, with a resting expression more akin to a scowl than a smile. Are you logical to a fault as well, my son?”

Geralt frowned more deeply than he already had been and turned his face away, unable to let his own confusion and conflicting emotions show. Visenna had done little in the way of raising Geralt to begin with, and she’d grown even more distant after his father’s untimely death. Geralt supposed that, with only his Mother’s brilliant coldness as an example of affectionate behavior, he may have taken after her more than he’d realized.

His shoulders sagged and his head drooped.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. You even sound like her,” Korin said. He came around to Geralt’s other side and put one hand on his son’s broad shoulder. “I may not have the kind of mental prowess that you and your Mother share, but I know a yearning heart when I see one.”

“Vulcans do not yearn,” Geralt snapped. He glared up into those familiar eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, feeling (and looking) a little childish as he did so.

“Humans do,” his Father smiled. “And I think that you would feel better if you remembered more often that you’re only half-Vulcan. The other half of your very DNA demands romance, companionship, love, and creativity. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your logical enclosure once and awhile. You may be happily surprised with the results, my son.”

“Did you ever-” Geralt bit his tongue, considered his words, and then continued, “Did you ever regret your decision to stay with Mother?”

“Once,” Korin admitted. “Only once, and it was the day after you were born. She held you in her arms only long enough to feed you and then she handed you to the nursemaid without another word. Not even a parting kiss for her newborn child. Then I remembered her lineage, the way she’d been brought up - without even a scrap of affection - and I forgave her. I loved her all the more after that, to make up for the tenderness she hadn’t gotten to experience when she needed it most…”

Geralt felt an unfamiliar heat behind his eyes and reached up to wipe away a tear. He glared down at the glistening drop of moisture; it clung to the tip of his finger almost desperately, forcing him to confront the emotions he worked so hard to hide during his waking hours. His chest ached. His lungs burned. This felt more real than a dream, more solid and weighty than any subconscious urging.

“Let yourself love him, Geralt,” Korin said as he began to fade from sight, “Don’t argue yourself out of your own happiness. Don’t let yourself be held back by tradition. Not in the face of an emotion so wonderful it could change the way you see the lights outside your starship windows. Free your mind, my son, and your heart will follow.”

With Korin’s ghostly warning thus issued, Geralt sat straight up in bed. He gasped for breath, clutching at his chest - the tacky wetness of half-dried tears on his cheeks was a totally foreign sensation.

Jaskier was at the forefront of his mind, as if the Counselor had been caught on repeat in the Vulcan’s thoughts.

Geralt pictured the way the younger man’s blue eyes sparkled when he laughed. The way Jaskier’s hips swayed enchantingly as meandered his way through Ten Forward or down the starship’s plain beige halls. The way his hair fell just so over his forehead and around his ears. The way he made everyone feel comfortable and safe in their own skin when he was near, an accidental byproduct of both his empathic powers and cheerful personality.

With every little detail Geralt remembered about Jaskier, he felt his human emotions growing stronger and more easy to define. He sorted through them by name in an odd and stringently Vulcan attempt to calm himself down: Lust. Adoration. Excitement. Jealousy. Happiness. Confusion. Anticipation.

Perhaps, though he was still too nervous to fully accept or analyze it yet, Love.

Geralt remained awake all through the night as he attempted to understand and accept the feelings he’d spent his entire life desperately trying to evade.

Still, as a beam of artificial sunlight projected down from the ceiling to spread across his pillow at 06:00, Commander deRiv found himself smiling at the idea that he’d be joining the Counselor on the holodeck later that afternoon, joy blooming hot and comforting at the center of his chest.

It was a sensation he wouldn’t mind getting used to.

Stardate 47648.47

Commander deRiv spent two impossibly long weeks tutoring Counselor Pankratz for the Bridge Officers’ test. The stubborn Counselor insisted that his senior officer refer to him only as “Jaskier” and in turn only referred to the Commander by his first name, the word “Geralt” falling from Jaskier’s lips with such musical normalcy that it nearly felt affectionate.

The time he spent working as Jaskier’s devoted tutor were two of the most tortuous and wonderful weeks of Geralt’s extensive Vulcan lifetime. At the end of the final day of pre-test training courses, Jaskier asked Geralt to meet him for dinner at Ten Forward to celebrate. “I’ve never gone through the promotional system this way and it’s really quite thrilling. I owe you so many favors, dearest Geralt.”

“Hmm.”

“I can feel how proud you are of me,” Jaskier teased, his fingers brushing against Geralt’s shoulder in a casual gesture of affection. The Counselor had grown more comfortable around the Science Officer but still refused to let his touches linger for more than a few seconds at a time. The contact never included full embraces, either; a fact which seemed to grow more bothersome to Geralt with every passing day. The Counselor’s eyebrows crinkled together and his hand fell back to his side, “I suddenly sense an anger in you, a frustration that wasn’t present just before. Are you feeling alright, Commander?”

Commander.

The word struck Geralt in the center of the chest like a Romulan phaser blast, knocking the breath from his lungs. Jaskier hadn’t called him Geralt, musical and sweet and blissfully normal, but Commander. The senior officer reigned in his feelings, slipping back into the comfortable apathy of his Vulcan breeding.

“I’m alright,” Geralt replied smoothly. “I fear that I have not done your training justice; I apologize that I allowed my control to slip. I did not mean for you to experience the brunt of any such negative feelings, Cou- Jaskier.”

A slight smile returned to the Betazoid’s face and his cheeks flushed. Clearly Geralt had made the right decision by ignoring his instinct to use Jaskier’s full title. “I was just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Worried?” Geralt’s eyebrows furrowed again. “About me? Why?”

“Because I care about you.” Jaskier brushed his hand against the back of Geralt’s again, feather-light and far too quick to provide any satisfaction to Geralt’s endless yearning. “Anyway, I can’t sense them anymore, now.”

“I… handled them.”

“You can just turn your feelings on and off like a lightswitch?” Jaskier inquired, genuine curiosity strong in his tone. “They disappeared so quickly.”

“Hmm,” Geralt acknowledged, nodding solemnly. “Historically, emotional control is one of the greatest achievements of Vulcan society. We do not allow our feelings to affect our decisions. We are purely logical, even when parts of our culture appear... otherwise.”

“I am from a very different type of society myself,” Jaskier shrugged. “But I’m sure you know enough about Betazed to understand what I mean. Now, about that dinner?”

They ordered their respective meals from the tableside replicator and chatted as they ate, discussing a wide range of topics. Eventually they landed on: “Vulcan poetry! I’d love to hear some, if you’ve got anything memorized!”

Geralt gave a decent recitation of his favorite childhood poem - the nonsensical story of a young man who could speak to the stars - and watched as Jaskier’s eyes grew round. He knew this expression to be one of adoration or wonder, but he could not sense emotions, and could not parse out the Counselor’s exact reaction. Instead he asked: “Yourself?”

“Betazed has many great poets,” Jaskier mused. “But they’re always so truthful about everything. There’s no mystery in our art, no room for subjective interpretation. I like poems with nuance and insecurity and feeling. I can’t recite it because the written formatting is so integral to its message, but ‘How Do I Love You’ by the renowned human poet Mary Oliver always tangles my heart around itself like a web of yarn. To end the poem with ‘no more words now’ and no punctuation is… enlightening.”

Geralt nodded, adding that information to the bank of details he knew about Counselor Pankratz. “Her work sounds fascinating.”

“Perhaps I could show you my volume of her collected poetry? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.”

“I would be honored,” Geralt nodded, standing from the table and gesturing for Jaskier to lead the way. Counselor Pankratz stood and took Geralt’s hand in his own, interlacing their fingers as casually as anything.

The Commander startled and yanked his arm back without thinking, his mind reeling from the intimacy of such an embrace. Hand touching was… it was… what Jaskier had just done on instinct was far more intimate than anything Geralt had experienced before. The half-Vulcan’s emotions were running wildly away from his firm control.

Jaskier’s face crumpled when he registered Geralt’s rejection and he took a step back. “Oh, my apologies, Commander. I’m sincerely sorry for whatever offense I have committed.”

“It’s not an offense it’s just that-” Geralt took a deep breath to steady himself “-touching hands is not something a Vulcan does casually. It is a very meaningful and personal gesture on my planet.”

“That particular detail of your heritage slipped my mind in my excitement,” the Counselor bowed shallowly, his pretty blue shawl nearly slipping off one slender shoulder. “My continued apologies, Commander. I hope you can forgive me.”

“It was an accident,” Geralt replied. “And there is nothing to forgive. It pleases me that you were comfortable enough to treat me as a friend, Jaskier.”

“You called me by my name! That means you must forgive me. Now, are you still interested in seeing those poems?”

Geralt smiled, that warm joyful feeling spreading out through his limbs once again at the sight of Jaskier’s giddy grin. “Lead the way.”

Stardate 47653.52

Jaskier squared his shoulders and leaned over one of the Engineering monitors, “Computer, load Bridge Officer's test, Engineering qualification section one.”

“Computer ready.”

“Run programme.”

Lambert spoke up from beside him, the colors on his monitor flashing and shifting: “The control system for the primary containment field is not functioning.”

Geralt’s head snapped up and he locked eyes with Jaskier. “Something's severed the ODN conduit between here and the antimatter storage deck.”

Jaskier realized what was happening and felt a rush of icy anxiety down the length of his spine. “Geralt, could you repair the ODN conduit if you used the crawlspace between decks?”

Lambert frowned. “Sir, that crawlway is in a warp-plasma shaft. He would never survive the radiation.”

“I know that,” Jaskier snapped, trying to keep a level head. Even if this was just a simulation, he hated the idea of sending Geralt to his death. It was the most horrifying thought in the universe, but Geralt was the only one whose expertise could save the ship. And the hundreds of others aboard that ship. “Still, I’m afraid that particular information doesn’t change anything. Geralt, can you repair the conduit?”

The Science Officer nodded once, his face as unmoving as ever. “Yes, Sir.”

“Then do it. That's an order.”

Geralt grabbed a toolbox off the table, turned, and ducked into one of the Jeffries tubes that led to the crawl ducts.

Lambert laughed with glee as he slapped his hand down over one of the glowing instructional panels. “End simulation! Well, Officer Pankratz, I’d like to be the first to offer my official congratulations on your new promotion. You passed!”

Jaskier breathed shakily and smiled over at Geralt, who had returned to his position at the secondary control panel. “That's what this was all about, wasn't it? To see if I could order someone to their death. Someone… Someone I care about.”

Geralt nodded. “That's right.”

“I know that sacrifice is part of being in command and I thought I was prepared for it, but when the moment came... I hesitated. Maybe I shouldn’t have applied in the first place. I don’t know that I could ever hurt y- uh, hurt a fellow crew member, even in an emergency situation.”

“You did exactly what you had to do,” Geralt intoned, taking Jaskier gently by the hand. Jaskier gasped at the gesture, knowing exactly what kind of cultural lines Geralt was crossing for a Vulcan. Lambert disappeared from the room, finally showing his gentlemanly side, and Geralt continued in his low gravelly voice: “You considered all your options, tried every alternative, and then made the hardest but most logical choice a good Captain can make. Now, let's get out of here, Commander. Let me take you to Ten Forward to celebrate.”

Geralt had turned to make for the door but Jaskier tugged him back again, keeping both of his own feet planted firmly on the carpet. “Wait a moment, please?”

Geralt slowly spun to face Jaskier, one of his slanted eyebrows raised in curiosity. “Yes, Commander?”

“Stop calling me that,” Jaskier landed a limp-wristed slap to the Science Officer’s chest with his free hand. Geralt felt the urge to smile and allowed himself the indulgence; it was well worth the sunny grin that Jaskier gave him in return. “Anyway, Officer deRiv… There’s something I need to tell you.”

“I like you, too.”

“This may sound odd but I’m a highly emotional being and I- Wait, what?”

“You are incredibly sweet, Counselor Pankratz, and very kind. You care deeply for those around you and always do your best to help them find peace for themselves. I find those to be admirable traits, logically appealing in a mate, and I also find you… rather pretty.”

Jaskier’s eyes were nebulas, two sparkling pools of endless blue that twinkled and shone as if filled with the very stars themselves. Geralt’s heart raced as he brought their linked hands up and brushed his warm lips against the back of Jaskier’s knuckles. The Betazoid bit his lip, flushed an even deeper pink, and whispered his request: “May I kiss you, Imzadi?”

“We’re already kissing,” Geralt glanced down at their joined hands.

“According to Vulcans, yes,” Jaskier’s smile widened. “But may I kiss you according to my traditions?”

“Yes,” Geralt agreed, leaning forward to meet Jaskier halfway. The newly minted Commander released Geralt’s hand in order to tangle his fingers in the taller man’s silvery hair. He kissed Geralt with everything he had, pushing his feelings across the difference in their telepathic wavelengths, desperate to make himself clear. Make himself known.

When they pulled apart for air, Geralt was grinning. “Kissing for such a long time is completely illogical…”

Jaskier felt his heart drop into his shoes.

And then Geralt’s hands were on his waist, pulling him in again, rumbling laughter carrying the Vulcan’s next words, “Do it again!”

[inexplicifics]

First lines meme! I was tagged by the lovely @bygodstillam - thank you for the tag!

rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). see if there are any patterns. choose your favorite opening line. then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

Let me see now:

1. Breaking in Measured Thunder (AW AU, Aren & Esra):

Aren gives Esra a fierce, angry glare, and gestures at the bed in the other room, his four girls curled up together and fast asleep after a day of exploring the keep in Esra’s company.

2. Solitaire (Flash Fic, G/E/L):

Geralt lays the cards out on the little table, one by one, as though he’s challenging some invisible opponent.

3. An Interesting Perspective (Flash Fic, Geralt & Jaskier):

Jaskier flops down into the wooden chair and stretches his legs out, mug of tea in one hand, and beams at the beautiful view: a long sloping hillside leading to a narrow strip of black, seaweed-covered rocks, upon which the ocean crashes in endless percussion, sending narrow tendrils of foam up between the rocks to make inscrutable, ephemeral patterns which fade as soon as they are seen.

4. They Have To Take You In (Geralt & Jaskier):

Jaskier reaches Kaer Morhen as the leaves begin to turn.

5. Ease One Life the Aching (I Shall Not Live In Vain ‘verse, Jaskier/Wolves):

Gwen comes in to luncheon still stomping the snow off his boots, and slumps down next to Clovis with a heavy sigh.

6. Perennial (Flash Fic, Geralt/Eskel):

The best theory he or Eskel can come up with is that Geralt’s mother, if his hazy memories can be trusted, was some sort of druid, so maybe the second set of Trials woke something long dormant in his blood.

7. Float (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Eskel/Lambert):

It’s never safe to relax, out on the Path.

8. We Three (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Geralt/Jaskier/Eskel):

Jaskier stares at the bed.

9. The Witcher and the Winter Queen (Flash Fic, Geralt/Jaskier):

They say there’s an enchantress in the far north who steals men, turning their hearts to ice within their breast and bearing them away to her frigid, silent citadel, where nothing grows, and all the flowers that once bloomed are rimed in frost, too cold even to wither.

10. Sing For Us (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Jaskier/Wolves):

“How do you come up with these things?”

11. The Scent of Home (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Lambert/Aiden):

He isn’t sure where he is, or how he got there, or, for that matter, who he is.

12. A What-The-Hell Attitude (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Lambert/Aiden):

Lambert absolutely, categorically, undeniably cannot cook.

13. Hands Meeting Hands (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Eskel/Lambert):

It’s not anything Eskel expected Lambert to like, back when they were first getting together.

14. Await Felicity or Doom (Flash Fic, Geralt/Jaskier):

Jaskier crams himself back into the corner of the pantry, trying to curl up even smaller.

15. Sweetheart (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Lambert/Aiden):

Aiden eyes the man fidgeting in front of the desk a little warily.

16. Man In Black (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Geralt/Jaskier):

There’s only one person in the little restaurant wearing all black, and Jaskier is very very late, far too late to really think before acting.

17. When You Say Nothing At All (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Geralt/Jaskier):

“You wouldn’t make Roach travel in this, would you?” Jaskier asks plaintively, peering out the tiny window of their rented room at the torrential downpour outside.

18. The Star To Every Wand'ring Bark (Flash Fic, gen):

Vesemir can remember when the star was as large as a chandelier, hanging from the beams above the great dining hall and scintillating with every stray beam of candlelight or weak winter sunlight.

19. (You Turn Me) Inside Out (Sugar & Spice Bingo, Lambert/Aiden):

Apparently, the Wolf School teaches a different method of killing selkiemores than the Cat School does.

20. The Company of Wolves (Flash Fic, Jaskier & Wolves):

The ring will lead you to your destiny.

(I’ve skipped Like Stones in a Running Stream, the Accidental Warlord Supplements, and Once Upon a Wine, my collaboration with the wonderful Bouncey.)

I’m not sure if there are any patterns, except that my first lines tend to be either very long or very short...

My favorite may be (You Turn Me) Inside Out, because I like the understatement of it.

Let’s see now, tagging: @tumbleweedtech, @heronfem, @round--robin, @violaceum-vitellina-viridis, @octinary, and anyone else who would like to play!

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Prompt idea: Geralt gets a contract for a monster that has been sighted nearby. When he tracks it down, he is surprised to find mothman!Jaskier who (much like actual mothman) has an ass that won’t quit.

?

I just want you to know that Mothskier now lives in my head rent free 24/7. I love him. I would die for him. This is my new favorite emotional support au.

2k-ish words - please feel free to shove comments through the bars of my enclosure, I would really like that

art by the ever-wonderful @mawbwehownets, whose drawing of Mothskier made me legit cry.

tw: mild injury, brief blood mention, strangers to lovers

---

“So what you’re saying,” Geralt raises an eyebrow slowly, curious, “Is that you need me to catch a monster that’s half man and half moth?”

“Yup.”

“Alright,” Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger. The frustrated Witcher takes a slow breath to calm and center himself, before he ends up botching the entire contract-writing process. Humans tend to grow attached to the strangest monsters sometimes, and apparently this mysterious local being was no different. “Let me get this totally straight, so there are no mistakes or misunderstandings. You want me to capture this man-moth and get it out of your woods, but you don’t want me to kill it?”

“He’s called the Mothman, and he’s pretty damn stubborn about sticking around,” the aging farmer corrects Geralt with a little frown. Then his expression shifts and he smiles in a way that seems almost apologetic. “We were hoping you could find a way to relocate him without hurting or killing him, Master Witcher.”

“That’s completely possible, if he isn’t attached to this specific patch trees by any magical or biological means. You said his natural habitat is just… the forest?”

“As long as there's an abundance of pine around he seems pretty happy. Before he came to live with us, Mothman lived in a heavily forested area up the coast; or at least that’s what the historical records and local mythology seem to indicate.”

“That’s actually pretty helpful information to have on hand, I’m impressed,” Geralt nods. “Alright, Mr. Stevens. I promise to relocate the poor thing without killing or maiming him, and I’ll be sure to take him somewhere far enough away that your crops won’t be in danger. Thanks for calling me first instead of just going straight to an extermination service.”

“Honestly, Master Witcher,” the farmer sighs and readjusts his dirty baseball hat, “If it weren’t for the mischief he’s been getting into lately, we would have let him stick around until spring. I hate to admit it to a man as strong and stern-faced as yourself, but the poor creature is almost… adorable at times.”

“Well that’s a first,” Geralt chuckles, honestly amused by the situation he’s found himself in. “A monster being referred to as ‘adorable’ rather than ‘terrifying’. I’ve never heard such a thing in my many years of life.”

“Then you’d better prepare yourself, Sir Geralt. He’s got a pair of big blue puppy-dog eyes that’ll knock you on your ass if you aren’t careful. And that’s coming from a man who raised three daughters with dimples.”

“Hmm. Fuck.”

---

Geralt knows enough about moths to come up with a plan he thinks will work.

Before he heads into the woods to find and capture the poor wandering creature, the Witcher takes a detour through the lighting section of the nearest Lowe’s.

---

Unfortunately for Geralt, the farmer was right about the power of Mothman’s puppy dog eyes, which are big and blue and begin to water as soon as the Witcher’s net knocks him to the ground. The creature lies in a whimpering tangle of limbs beneath the heavy, magically enhanced restraints. Geralt takes an opportunity to look at what the locals called "a cryptid".

Mothman has a long, lithe body that's covered in a light layer of grey-brown fur, but his hair resembles that of a human’s, falling over those enormous blue eyes in a lovely chestnut fringe. When Mothman sees the swords on Geralt’s back he cries out in panicked recognition and tries to pull his arms up far enough to shield his face. The lamp Geralt used to lure him into the clearing is still bathing him in a pool of yellow light; it’s almost pretty for a monster, Geralt notes.

As the Witcher takes a step forward, the cryptid squeaks and buries his face against his own shoulder. His entire frame is trembling.

“Hey there, shhhhh,” the Witcher murmurs quietly. He drops into a squat and holds both hands up to show Mothman that they’re weapon free. Tears are now falling freely down the creature’s surprisingly human face; whoever or whatever this is, they are likely some kind of Fae. “I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to get you back through the veil.”

“Liar,” Mothman huffs. His voice has a surprisingly musical quality to it and Geralt is now sure of his Fae parentage (or grand-parentage).

“I promise I’m not lying,” Geralt reassures him, slowly crawling forward. When he reaches for the nearest corner of the net, he feels all of Mothman’s muscles go tense. “I’m going to lift this up and I am going to restrain you, but I swear that I’m not going to kill you. I wish to cause as little distress as possible. Is that alright, Mothman?”

The creature hisses and yanks his foot back away from where Geralt’s hand had nearly touched it. “Jaskier.”

“Hmm?” Geralt glances up, raising an eyebrow.

“My name is Jaskier,” the Fae repeats, glaring up from between the sections of woven rope that make up the heavy net. “Not Mothman.”

“My apologies, Jaskier,” Geralt bows his head. He words his introduction carefully, in case this thing can manipulate his name like others of his kind: “You may refer to me as Geralt.”

“That’s your real name,” Jaskier states. The Witcher’s head snaps up.

“How did you know?”

“Hmm,” Jaskier sticks his tongue out as he mimics the sound Geralt made earlier. “Not telli-AH! Stop! Oh go- gods, stop! Please!”

Geralt drops the short section of rope he’s trying untangle from around Jaskier’s ankle and snaps his eyes upwards, already searching for damage. “What’s wrong!?”

“My wing!” Jaskier bawls. His scent spikes out through the clearing, sharp with panic and pain. The creature’s chest begins to shake more violently than before, his shoulders shuddering with the rising force of his sobs, “It’s t-t-torn! Oh gods, my wing! Sir Witcher, p-please!”

Geralt freezes, his gaze settling on the torn section of Jaskier’s large, furry wing. It’s a nasty wound near one of the joints, a faint trickle of barely-luminescent blood has already dried around the edges. Jaskier tries to flutter it a little and screams in agony when the muscles shift too suddenly, shrilly enough that Geralt needs to cover his hypersensitive ears. The Witcher's heart crashes down into his boots; based on the way the shivering Fae has gone pale and silent, the pain is too much for him to process. He’s gone into shock.

A torn wing is exactly the kind of thing Geralt had promised the farmer (and the collective of townspeople he represented) wouldn’t happen to the peaceful moth creature if they hired a Witcher instead of an exterminator. He sighs and gives the strange being another once-over. “Everything's alright, Jaskier. You’re going to be alright. I’m so, so sorry that you've been wounded. We’ll get you out of this net and get you something for the pain, but it’s going to hurt a little to untangle you. Stay still, don’t struggle, and it’ll be over soon.”

“J-Just kill me,” Jaskier pants. He’s continuing to hyperventilate and Geralt needs him to calm down before he passes out. The Fae reaches a hand for the dagger at Geralt's waist and the Witcher twists out of reach with a frown. Jaskier sobs again, fingers still seeking, “I might n-n-never fly a-again so just k-kill me!”

“Breathe with me, Jaskier,” the Witcher instructs, forgoing patience and cutting through the net with that same dagger. He scoops Jaskier up into his arms, ignoring the keening sound at the back of Jaskier’s throat when his wing is jostled, and rushes the Fae to his truck, tucking him into the passenger’s seat and wrapping him in a large, fluffy blanket. “I’m taking you to my friend. She’s an expert at healing magical creatures and I'm certain that she'll get your wing fixed in no time.”

Jaskier doesn’t give an answer. When Geralt looks up into the creature’s face again, the injured Fae has already passed out.

---

Jaskier moves with all the grace of a newborn foal as he explores the room Geralt has provided for him. His wing has been inspected, treated, and bandaged by a rather scary sorceress named Yennefer, who glared at the Witcher the entire time she was caring for him. She had also taken one of Geralt’s old t-shirts and cut an enormous hole in the back for Jaskier’s wings to fit through. The shirt’s bottom hem falls to the middle of his thighs and the thick black material is softer than anything he’d ever felt before.

He hears a knock on the door and calls out, “It’s open!”

Geralt enters slowly, bearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a mug of tea. “I brought you some last minute supplies and - uh… I brought you some tea. Yen always likes some before she goes to sleep and I figured since this was a new place and new places can be scary that I should-”

“Thank you,” Jaskier interrupts, smiling shyly. His antennae twitch happily as he takes the offerings from Geralt's hands and the Witcher watches them with wide eyes. Jaskier carefully sets the pajamas and the tea on the nightstand before turning back to look at Geralt. “I will… see you tomorrow?”

Geralt gives one sharp nod. “Hmm.”

“Goodnight,” Jaskier sing-songs, taking a seat on the edge of the bed as Geralt exits.

From the other side of the closed door, Jaskier’s superior hearing picks up the Witcher’s final whisper: “Goodnight, Jaskier. I will always be sorry for causing you pain.”

The next morning he meets Geralt at the breakfast table, refreshed and ready to learn about the human world. He’s summoned a glamour in order to hide his more Moth-like traits, the only things that remain of his true nature are his wings and antennae; his fur is gone and he’s dressed in a pair of sweatpants and that same old shirt. The Witcher offers him a bowl of fruit and mug of something sweet-smelling. Jaskier glares into the mug with a slight pout to his lips before finally asking, “What is this?”

“Hot chocolate.”

Jaskier takes a sip and his antennae flutter, twitching happily as he swallows the best drink he’s ever had in his long life. He eats a strawberry from the bowl and slowly works his way through the hot chocolate, eyeing Geralt warily as the Witcher moves through the familiar kitchen to make his own breakfast.

“Where is Yennefer?”

“She went home,” Geralt shrugs.

“She isn’t your mate?”

“N-No,” Geralt sputters, turning to stare at the nervous young Fae. “Why would you think that?”

“You smell like each other.”

“We spend a lot of time together,” Geralt shrugs again. “Good friends, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” Jaskier mimics his host for a second time. Rather effectively by the annoyed twitch at the corner of Geralt’s mouth. “Just wondering.”

“Anything else you’re curious about?”

“Why don’t you have more lights?”

“Huh?”

“Lights,” Jaskier gestures around the minimalistic layout of Geralt’s open-concept kitchen/living room and its distinctive lack of lamps. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans forward against the dark marble countertop. The pout has gone from 'slight' to 'full-bore' and Geralt is clinging desperately to his braincell with how cute it looks. “It’s no fun.”

“You really like lamps, don’t you?” the Witcher replies, mouth dry. Jaskier huffs and takes another sip of his hot chocolate, antennae flickering back and forth in irritation. Geralt bites his lip to hide a smile; it’s too fucking cute, which is an odd thought for a Witcher to have.

“So what if I do enjoy a nice lamp or five in my living space?” Jaskier argues. "I'm a Moth of taste."

“No matter,” Geralt laughs quietly. “Finish your drink before it gets cold.”

---

Jaskier stays with Geralt for a few weeks while his wing heals, and for a creature whose sole interest seems to be fancy light fixtures, the Fae becomes a source of light in Geralt's own world. They go to a nonhuman friendly second-hand store to find Jaskier some more clothes and Geralt discovers the cryptid's love for oddly patterned shirts in bright colors. Jaskier chooses several to fill out his closet, as well as a sweater two-sizes too large in deep black (Geralt tries his best not to attach any meaning to this choice), a few pairs of pants, and a jean jacket that he declares, "Can be altered."

They watch movies together and make food together - Jaskier is always incredibly impressed by the way the automatic coffee maker works, and how easily Geralt can control the flames of the stove. Jaskier also follows the Witcher along on less dangerous hunts and helps bandage him up after worse ones, always there with a smile and a little kiss over the cleaned-up wound.

“It really is magic,” Jaskier always insists, lips pink and shining from licking them as he concentrates. "It makes you heal faster."

Geralt realizes one night - two weeks into Jaskier’s stay, as he leans against the doorframe and watches the strange creature’s even breathing - that he has gone and done the stupidest thing a Witcher can do: fall in love with a pretty, temperamental young Fae. Head over fuckin’ heels, actually.

So he makes a decision.

---

The next evening, after the dinner dishes have been cleaned and put away, Geralt herds Jaskier down the hall to the guest room. Those entrancing blue eyes blink up at him in obvious confusion. “Bedtime already?”

“No, not quite. I just- I made you… uh…”

“Do you have a surprise for me?” Jaskier asks, used to the Witcher's issues with verbalizing.

Geralt nods, relieved and thankful for the Fae’s steadfast understanding. “Do you want to cover your eyes or should I just open the door and show you?”

“I’ll close my eyes,” Jaskier smiles, covering his eyes with both hands. Geralt finds it adorable, as Jaskier always is, and allows himself a matching grin as he swings the door open. The ceiling light is off but Geralt has built a blanket fort at the center of the room and surrounded it with fairy lights of all colors and sizes. Inside the blanket fort is a mass of blankets and pillows; Jaskier has the odd habit of building nests - Geralt jokingly calls them cocoons - and sleeping in those on the floor instead of on the very comfortable mattress the Witcher has provided.

“Open them,” Geralt urges.

Jaskier pulls his hands away and Geralt watches as his pupils go huge and wide. Jaskier's face breaks out in the sunniest, most blindingly happy smile Geralt has ever seen. He turns and throws his arms around the Witcher, his wings fluttering behind him and his antennae twitching and flicking above his head. He tries desperately to speak but only manages a half-snuffled little “I’m-” before bursting into tears of joy.

Geralt just holds him, letting his arms fold carefully around Jaskier’s waist, just beneath his wings.

"I just wanted you to know that, if you wanted to stay, there would be room for you. Your room, if you want it."

"I do," Jaskier smiles, burying his face in the Witcher's neck. "I'd love to stay. I'd love nothing more than to spend my days going on adventures with you."

"Well then," Geralt gathers all of his courage and presses a soft kiss to the crown of Jaskier's head. He's met with happy spasms from the antennae so he does it again. And again. Moving from the top of the Fae's head to his cheeks and then his mouth - pretty and pink and pouting and so worth the trouble. "I suppose we can get started on our next adventure tomorrow."

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Geralt gets cursed to have a mini angel and devil on each of his shoulders that only he can see and one of them tries to convince him to make a move on Jaskier while the other thinks it would ruin things between them

oh now this... this is good shit, anon. yes! yesssss!

tw: Geralt has some anxiety

---

“To guilt and love I give a voice,

Don’t take too long to make your choice!”

And with that, the mage disappears in a cloud of dark, greenish smoke. Jaskier coughs, blinking back tears, his sleeve pulled down to cover his nose and mouth. “What the fuck was that about, do you think?”

Geralt shakes his head to clear it and stumbles back to his feet. “A curse, I think.”

“Well which one of us was it for?”

“Him!” Geralt hears Lambert’s voice from his left shoulder. He turns his head and finds a miniature version of his brother standing on his pauldron, grinning like mad. “Hello, big brother.”

“Hello!” chimes Eskel, who is sitting comfortably on his right shoulder. 

“Me,” Geralt groans. Jaskier raises an eyebrow. 

“I don’t see anything wrong with you. I wonder what she meant by to guilt and love I give a voice; what do you think, Geralt?”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t be getting much sleep tonight,” the Witcher grimaces. Jaskier shies away, moving toward Roach. 

“I’ll stay out of your way and be quiet, then.”

“Poor thing,” Eskel pipes up. “He cares for you so deeply; must you always snap at him like that?”

“He’s just along for the fame and fortune,” Lambert scoffs. “He’s using you for your reputation and adventures. He just wants to use you to make a name for himself.”

“Why would a Viscount need to make any more of a name for himself?” Eskel fights back, their bickering voices unusually soothing despite the topic of conversation, which is actually making Geralt’s skin crawl. He hates confronting his feelings for Jaskier. They’re annoyingly, overwhelmingly positive. “He could be taking a hot bath every night and sleeping on silk sheets, yet here he stands, silently waiting for our dumbass brother to get a move on.”

Geralt takes the prompt and stalks forward to swing himself up into Roach’s saddle. It hadn’t been a pleasant afternoon and he suspects that things aren’t going to get much better. Jaskier’s shoulders are slumped and his fingers toy nervously with the strap of his lute.

The Witcher mumbles, “You can hum, Jaskier. It’s... fine.”

“Oh,” the bard smiles up at him, blue eyes sparkling in the late afternoon light. “Thank you, Geralt. I’d like to try to work out this rather finicky new melody if you don’t mind.”

“Hmm.”

“You could... praise him?” Eskel offers. “You did so well just now, it was nearly a full compliment.”

“Psh, and reveal the secret he’s been hiding for damn near a decade? The bard would be crushed.”

Geralt bites the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming out loud. He’s frustrated already, and he suspects that until he confesses or swears to keep silent about his feelings forever, these two conjurations won’t be leaving any time soon.

---

“Kiss him,” Eskel urges, tugging a lock of Geralt’s hair. He’s established that Jaskier cannot see the tiny Wolf Witchers; the nature of the curse would be too obvious if he could. “He looks so lovely in the firelight, don’t you think? Actually I do know what you think. You think he looks lovely all the time, you just won’t admit it.”

“Why should he admit it? That would ruin a perfectly good friendship. Like you said, Eskel, Jaskier is a Viscount! He can’t stay on the Path with Geralt forever. Eventually he’ll need to return to Lettenhove to marry and settle down. He’s titled, and we can’t expect him to follow a monster around forever, much less fall in love with one.”

“He has never once thought of Geralt as a monster!”

Geralt wants to cry. He wants to rip out his hair and run, screaming with madness, into the dark embrace of the woods around them. Alas, the bard would be Wyvern-bait without him there for protection. 

And the curse would stay with him no matter how far he ran. 

He closes his eyes and kneels, but the quiet respite of meditation never comes. 

---

Geralt is fucking exhausted. His brothers never stop talking. Arguing. Debating. Pleading. 

He’s gone truly mad. Jaskier stirs in his sleep, four nights after the curse was cast, and Geralt flinches. His scent is otherworldly and the Witcher’s patience is thinner than tissue paper. Eskel has been very convincing as of late.

He smells like the damp earth after a summer rain, sweetened by something unnamable but floral. He smells like springtime. Youth. Beauty. Geralt whines unconsciously, the sound creeping out from somewhere high in his throat. Jaskier stirs again and blinks his sleepy eyes open. His cute pink tongue darts over his bottom lip and Geralt bites off the sound with a sudden gasp. 

“Sorry for waking you.”

“What’s wrong?” the deep concern in Jaskier’s sleep-soft voice stirs the love in Geralt’s heart violently. “You sound wounded. Are you alright?”

“I-” Geralt falters. Falls to his knees in the dirt next to Jaskier’s bedroll. Cups the bard’s face gently with one hand. Lambert begins to swear violently as Eskel cheers him, egging him on. “I love you, Jaskier.”

His brothers disappear. 

His ears ring with the sudden silence, the only ambiance coming from the crackling fire.

Jaskier balks up at him, a look of utter terror written plainly on his face. “Geralt? Is this... the curse? Why would you say that?”

“Do you- Are you angry with me, Jaskier? I understand if-”

“No, you fool,” Jaskier laughs, sitting up and leaning closer. “I- I love you, too. I didn’t think you’d ever- That you could ever- After Yennefer...”

Geralt kisses his bard with such sweetness that Jaskier melts against him, his hands braced against that familiar, broad chest. They kiss until sunrise, and then they kiss some more. There’s a lot of lost time to make up for, a lot of poor decisions to be rectified.

But they manage. They always do.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

🥺 babe 🥺 bAbE

What if Jask gets sick at Kaer Morhen but tries to hide it from Geralt bc he doesn't want him to think he's gross/weak/etc? And Geralt has the Feelings Braincell for once?

oh babe... thank you

tw: sickness, falling unconscious, fever, whump/angst with a happy ending

---

Jaskier knew he had a fever the moment he woke up. He could feel it burning beneath this skin like a forge, flushing his face a more vibrant shade of pink than usual. He glared at his reflection in the small, round mirror above his dressing table and willed himself to feel better. It was his first winter at Kaer Morhen, and he didn’t want Geralt to think he’d made a mistake by inviting Jaskier along to stay. The bard knew that his stoic, self-loathing Witcher would blame himself immediately for any misfortune or illness that befell Jaskier. Geralt might even reconsider inviting him back again someday. So he had to keep his little bug a secret until he was well. Surely it was nothing major. Surely it would pass after a few days, unnoticed and unremarkable.

He should have known better.

Jaskier dabbed a bit more perfume than usual (which was generally none at all) beneath his ears and along his wrists. He hoped the peony-lavender mixture would mask whatever kind of scent his illness might carry and slowly, carefully made his way down the long stone staircase that led from the guest bedroom to the enormous kitchen. His limbs felt achy and tired, even though he’d slept heavily the night previous. His head sat heavy and unbalanced atop his shoulders; the world wavered and spun around him as he desperately tried to keep from pitching sideways into the wall. 

“You alright there, boy?” Vesemir asked, catching his eye from the bottom of the stairs. “You seem a bit… nervous.”

Maybe his anxiety was doing a better job of hiding his secret than the perfume. 

“Just a little wool between my ears this morning,” the bard laughed brightly, ignoring the searing pain that throbbed through his chest with the movement, “I think I might go chop some wood and see if the brisk mountain air helps clear it out faster.”

“Hmm,” the eldest Wolf nodded sagely. There was no doubt which teacher Geralt had admired most as a pup. “Alright. Be safe, take care. I’ll send someone to fetch you when breakfast is ready.”

“Thank you, Vesemir,” Jaskier bowed shallowly and headed for the kitchen’s back door. He took the axe into his hands and tried not to sway on his feet from the added weight. The bard covered his tracks by throwing a smile back over his shoulder and pushing the door open. “See you for breakfast!”

He stepped out of the keep and let the heavy slab of wood slam shut behind him. The early morning sky above Kaer Morhen was cloudless and the sun was bright, blinding him entirely. His situation only worsened when the sudden change in temperature, from the warm kitchen to the freezing mountainside, punched the air from his lungs in one thick cloud. He struggled to regain it as he wove his way through the snow drifts to the woodpile. Slowly, and with great effort, Jaskier lined up a thick log to be split.

The world felt watery and far away. His hand, which he knew to be attached to the end of his arm by some miracle, would not obey his command to pick up the axe again. His lungs felt heavy in his chest cavity and his legs suddenly ached with a fierce intensity. 

With a quiet cry of protest against his own body failing him, Jaskier collapsed into the snow.

---

Jaskier’s heartbeat was so slow and quiet, his limbs unmoving and his lips nearly blue from the cold; Geralt wasn’t sure he’d ever been so scared before in his life. He turned to Vesemir and asked, barely keeping the frantic terror from clawing its way out of his throat: “How long was he out there?” 

“Half an hour at most,” the grey Wolf shrugged. “I don’t really remember, Geralt. I was busy taking care of the breakfast arrangements.”

“Fuck!”

“Calm down,” Eskel ordered. He frowned at Geralt from his place at Jaskier’s opposite side. He’d helped carry the bard from the courtyard to Geralt’s room and was just as worried about the human’s wellbeing. “Panicking won’t help him. Now, what’s the problem?”

“It’s hard to tell over all that stupid perfume,” Lambert snarled. “Stupid fucking bard fucking knew we would be able to smell it on him. He covered his gods-damned tracks.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt murmured, having grown suddenly calm. He let the back of his knuckles drag softly across the bard’s too-hot cheek until he could stick a stray lock of sweaty brown hair back behind his ear. “You idiot.”

The bard shifted against the blanket they’d laid him on, his brow wrinkling. His arms twitched slightly, as if he was trying to move them, and he whined plaintively: “G’ralt.”

“I’m here, Jask,” the Witcher replied quickly, forgetting they weren’t alone in the room. He took one of the bard’s freezing hands into his own and began rubbing the warmth back into his fingers. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you better. You’ll be alright.”

“Who are you trying to reassure?” Lambert huffed a short laugh. “You or the bard?”

“Leave off,” Eskel shot his younger brother a glare. The redhead rolled his eyes and moved to lean against the wall near the door. Eskel continued speaking to Lambert, but his eyes were back on Jaskier, who kept trying to get closer to Geralt even in his sleep. “Why don’t you go grab some clean clothes from his room while we get him warmed up and conscious again.”

“Fine,” Lambert spat. But he took off at a quick trot, regardless.

“Geralt, get his wet clothes off and get him wrapped up. Eskel, you come with me to the kitchen. I’ll need help carrying things and I’m sure the bard would prefer some privacy in this particular matter.”

Eskel nodded his agreement and followed Vesemir from the room, leaving Geralt alone with Jaskier. The White Wolf hurried to undress and swaddle the bard with a warm, heavy wool blanket and several furs, talking all the while in a low, worried voice. “Fuck, Jaskier. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry this happened and that you- Why did you hide it? Why wouldn’t you- Are you afraid of me? Is that why you didn’t come to me for help?”

Jaskier’s lids fluttered open and Geralt watched with nervous anticipation as two of the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen, blue as cornflowers and brighter than the spring sky, tried their best to focus on his face. “Geralt?”

“I’m here, Jaskier. What’s ailing you? Please, tell me how I can help you.”

“Hurts,” the bard managed to groan. “To breathe.”

“Fuck,” Geralt growled. “We need to get you warm. Lambert should be back with your clothes by now.”

Jaskier’s head lolled back against the pillow and he struggled to reach for his Witcher, “Hold me.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll warm up-” he gasped between words, as if every syllable pained him to expel “-faster if… you hold me.”

“Hmm,” Geralt’s brows furrowed in frustration. He knew Jaskier was right, that he’d feel better faster with skin-on-skin contact, but he also wanted to hold Jaskier for other, less emergency-based reasons. That was unacceptable. Losing Jaskier to death or sickness or other human reasons was intolerable but losing him, in all senses of the word, because of Geralt’s impossible feelings? That would be truly horrendous.

The warring factions of his heart were still clamoring over a decision when Eskel and Vesemir re-entered carrying two large trays. One was covered with foodstuffs and the other held an enormous clay teapot and mugs. A small pot of honey, gathered from Vesemir’s very own beehives, was the most obvious sign of affection Geralt had ever seen the older man display for a near-stranger. 

“I’m gonna… get… spoiled,” Jaskier gasped. The eldest Wolf shot Geralt a glare. 

“Why aren’t you in there with him? You know the best way to warm up a hypothermic person is skin contact, Geralt! I certainly taught you better than this.”

“I didn’t-” he stuttered. “I wasn’t-”

“He’s afraid,” Jaskier smiled sadly, cuddling himself deeper into the furs as he turned his gaze towards the fire. All three of the Witchers could smell his sadness, even more potent than the illness ravaging his delicate human body. Geralt winced when his brother and father glared at him in tandem, expressions nearly matching in fury. The bard was still looking away, watching the flames send dancing patterns of light against the stone walls. “Don’t worry… won’t ask… for any more.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt whispered, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. “May I hold you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s our cue to leave,” Vesemir smiled beneath his mustache. Jaskier was too tired to blush, and opted to bury his head in Geralt’s shoulder instead. “Come along, Eskel. Let’s see what Lambert has gotten up to.”

“What about Jaskier’s clothes?”

“He can borrow Geralt’s for now. I’m sure our White Wolf won’t mind sharing; he’s the possessive type, after all.”

Geralt rolled his eyes and grumbled out of habit more than disagreement. 

When Vesemir and Eskel had gone for good and the door was closed, Geralt pulled Jaskier out of the furs and removed his own shirt. He settled the bard against his chest and buried his nose in Jaskier’s dark hair, breathing in the scents of sweat and sickness and now, thank the gods, tangy-bright happiness. “Gods, Jaskier. Don’t scare me like that ever again. I can’t lose you.”

“I didn’t… want… to disappoint.”

“You never do and never will,” Geralt intoned. He pulled the furs over them both and splayed his large hands across Jaskier’s back. The bard’s skin was overly hot in some places and freezing in others; Geralt buried his panic in order to care for... for the man he loved. He took a deep breath and rubbed slow circles between the bard’s shoulder blades. “I… I love you, Jaskier.”

“Hmm,” the bard hummed tunelessly. “Love you… too.”

Geralt helped him sit up and drink a mug of tea. He listened, slowly allowing himself to relax, as Jaskier’s breathing eased and his heartbeat balanced. When the tea was gone and the fire was re-built to Geralt’s satisfaction, the Witcher tucked Jaskier’s head beneath his chin and wrapped his arms around the bard’s shoulders. “Oh, my little lark. I’ve been so foolish for too long.”

“Yeah,” Jaskier grinned into the Witcher’s warm pectoral. “Me... too.”

“Well, we’ll have plenty of time when you feel better,” Geralt murmured, lips pressing over and over to the top of the bard’s head. Jaskier couldn’t keep himself from smiling, even as he drifted back to sleep. The Witcher felt something settle in his chest when he whispered: “Rest up, dear heart. There are many more adventures to be had.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Swimmingly

a quick little Mermay ficlet

arranged marriage - royalty au

tw: Geralt’s canon-typic self-loathing, misunderstandings with a happy ending

---

“I don’t want to meet him,” Geralt hears the stranger yelling. His words echo down the long hallway that separates the royal family’s private living chambers from the rest of the Southern palace. Geralt’s fanlike fins are trembling with nerves and he tries with all his might to make them to stop; the young Prince of the Northern Sea doesn’t want to appear cowardly before his betrothed, whose tone seems imperious even from such a distance. 

The voice grows louder as the speaker comes closer and Geralt feels the ripples of two approaching figures as they flow through the water to batter gently against his skin. People here in the Southern Kingdom have different movement patterns than his own people and Geralt focuses on that singular detail as he hears the voice continue: “What if I simply refuse to accept the marriage contract and leave before the wedding vows are spoken? It’s not like Papa can make me go through with it if I really don’t want to.”

He must have heard the rumors, Geralt frowns, his head lowering of its own accord until he’s staring at the ground, his arms crossing self-consciously over the front of his chest. He knows about my hair and the strangeness of my eyes. He’s heard that I’m cursed, that I’m the bastard son of the King and Sycorax the sea witch. He’s heard about my strange scar and my impulsivity. He’s probably already terrified of m-

Geralt’s self-effacing thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a sharp inhalation. The Prince of the Northern Sea flinches at the shocked gasp, his tail wriggling uselessly in a vain attempt to distract from his shamefully pink face. The voice from before speaks again, but this time it chimes sweetly, sounding more like song than conversation. “Nobody told me that my husband-to-be was so lovely.”

Geralt’s blush only grows darker and he wishes for the ground to open up and swallow him, fins and all. He can’t bear to glance up at his betrothed now. He doesn’t want to see the mocking look the Southern Prince is no doubt wearing. He wants to raise his hands and cover his ears, sure that the next words from his future husband’s mouth will be sarcastic remarks about his appearance. 

“Are you mute, dear heart? If you are mute, or if you choose to be mute, I can learn to speak with my hands as I have seen others do. If you are simply overwhelmed, nod once, and I shall cease speaking immediately.”

Geralt nods gratefully and allows his eyes to flicker up a bit, taking in the gorgeous, deep royal-blue of his betrothed��s long and heavy tail. It curls in the water around them, shimmering and nearly iridescent in the filtered, wavy light of the midday sun. His fins are sharper than Geralt’s, pointed at the tips and only half a shade lighter than his scales. It’s lovely, and the Northern Prince wonders if his own tail, a deep green that verges on metallic, is pleasing to his betrothed’s eyes. His fins are fanned like those of betta fish and their contrast is markedly fascinating. 

The attendant that had been following the Southern Prince down the hall disappears in a flash, no doubt to summon the kings, leaving the two young mer-royals unchaperoned. 

“Are you afraid of me or something?” Geralt’s future husband finally asks, breaking the awkward silence.

Geralt shakes his head. “Just… nervous.”

“Ah, I see,” his betrothed swims closer. “Is it because of the rumors you’ve no-doubt heard about me? That I am pompous and fanciful and insincere, that I would rather sing that plot wars, that I am witty but otherwise empty-headed. Let me assure you that they are all mostly incorrect. Except for the battles one, I do prefer music to war.”

“Huh?” Geralt’s head snaps up in surprise. He finally meets the other Prince’s eyes with his own and hears another soft gasp. He flinches back, away from the pretty brunette before him, and moves to turn away. Before he can, however, the other man catches him by the arm. 

“Wait! Your eyes-” the stranger pulls him close and Geralt feel his cheeks practically glowing “-They’re even lovelier than your hair, and I thought that was the most gorgeous detail I’d seen so far. Truly, dear heart… you’re gorgeous. How did I get so lucky?”

“Don’t tease me!” Geralt cries, pulling harshly against the grip on his arm. “Please! I can’t take it!”

“No! I’m not teasing! I’m being quite serious, uh…” the Southern Prince releases Geralt’s arm and tangles his hands together anxiously in front of his abdomen. “I don’t even know your name; no wonder you think I’m being insincere. I’m Jaskier, Crown Prince of the Southern Ocean Kingdom. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m, uhm… I’m Geralt. Second Crown Prince of the Northern Kingdom,” he bows shallowly. “It’s very nice to meet you… Jaskier.”

“I like the way it sounds when you say my name,” Jaskier grins, closing the distance between them again, this time on friendlier terms. “It sounds like a caress.”

Geralt’s cheeks must be on fire. Oh, how they burn.

“You’re sweet when you blush. Your face almost matches the color of your Father’s tail.”

“You’ve met my Father?” 

“Only once, and very briefly. I saw him passing the library on his way to make our marriage arrangements.”

“Oh,” Geralt was smiling a little bit now, “Well it is nice to meet you. And you are very pretty, Jaskier.”

“Would you like to get to know each other better?” Jaskier asks. He sounds incredibly earnest and Geralt raises a curious eyebrow.

“Did you mean those things you said about my hair and my eyes?”

“Every word.”

“I don’t think you’re pompous or insincere, Jaskier. And I’d love to get to know you better. First and foremost, I must know if we are to be married, what’s your favorite book?”

“Oh, my dearest future husband,” Jaskier winds his arm through Geralt’s, grinning brightly. The way the word husband rolls so easily from his tongue sends the Northern Prince’s heart racing. “We are going to get along swimmingly.” 

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

And Tomorrow, Too.

I'm back!

Much love and many thanks to @stinastar @hailhailsatan @newnamesamecharlotte and @veritasrose for helping me yank this thing out of my brain!

Please enjoy this hurt/comfort that ends with glorious, glorious fluff.

TW: Blood, canon typical injury, infection

Jaskier was having a very rough day, objectively speaking.

He’d just finished dressing after a dip in the river when a lone bandit surprised him, shoving him to the dirt and kicking him in the ribs to keep him down. Having dealt with a gut-punch from a Witcher, Jaskier had recovered faster than anticipated and tackled the stranger to the ground.

“Foolish troubadour,” the bandit snarled. There was the quick flash of something silver and a sudden white-hot pain shot up the bard’s side from his hip to his ribcage.

“Shit,” Jaskier gasped, clutching desperately at his slashed doublet. The panicked bandit scooped up the largest of the bard’s travel bags and darted into the woods, leaving his bloodied weapon lying atop a pile of leaves beside his victim. When Jaskier pulled his hand away from the wound on his ribcage he grimaced; that was more blood than he’d been hoping to see. “Fucking cock.”

After he stripped to the waist and rinsed off in the river a second time, Jaskier took inventory of himself. The cut started at his left hip and slid up his ribcage to just beneath his left shoulder, and it was practically impossible to bandage; any attempt to wrap the upper half of his injury made him bite his lip to keep from screaming in anguish.

It was agony to move more than a few inches in either direction, since the twisting motion pulled at his torn skin and stung like hellfire. All he could really do was apply a loose poultice of chewed mint leaves to ward against infection and tie his shirt around his torso in lieu of a bandage. His cloak would have to work even harder than usual to keep him warm until Geralt arrived.

“Alright, well,” he muttered to no one as he accounted for the rest of his scattered clothing and supplies. “I need to find somewhere to rest and gather what wits I still possess… somewhere that’s still close enough for Geralt to find me. Shit, this isn’t good.”

The bard thanked every god he knew when he managed to find a small cave less than a hundred yards from the enormous oak tree where he met Geralt every year. He limped his remaining belongings into the slightly cramped space and deposited them against the left wall.

---

Fortunately for Jaskier, the idiot bandit had declared his beautiful elven lute “too bulky and annoying to carry”, and had left Sexy well enough alone. Unfortunately, the ruffian had still made off with all the bard’s coin from at least two months’ worth of contracted performances, most of his medical supplies, and most of his rations, as well.

But Jaskier had spent years at Geralt’s side and the Witcher had taught him how to deal with emergencies of every variety. Jaskier wasn’t about to disappoint his companion by flailing about ineffectively like some noble-born dunce at a time like this. No, Jaskier was determined to be healthy and ready to travel again by the time Geralt arrived in Kaedwen to find him. They only had a week or two together before they separated again for the winter and he wasn’t going to lose a single precious second in Geralt’s presence due to some silly highwayman.

Lovelorn fool that he was.

The bard used his remaining strength to gather a few armfuls of firewood and light some dried leaves with his flint and steel. He laid out his bedroll against the back wall so that he could see clearly if anyone approached from outside and wrapped his arms around Sexy to keep her safe. He re-wrapped his wound with more crushed mint and laid down to try and get some sleep.

Hopefully Geralt would arrive soon with his medical supplies and more water.

Hopefully.

---

After two long days spent huddled in a miserable lump at the back of the cave, anxiously scanning the horizon for any sign of another bandit (or Geralt) and unable to gather food or kindling, Jaskier was exhausted from lack of sleep. The wound in his side ached and burned far worse than it had on that first afternoon, aggravated by sweat and debris that had crept through his makeshift bandages.

Any added pressure around the edges of the cut made the skin nearly creak with the building strain of infection. He whimpered involuntarily every time he took a breath and trembled at any shift in the autumn breeze. It seemed as if his very bones were aching as his body flashed between the white-hot and freezing cold of a raging fever.

Slowly, and with a great effort on the part of his illness, Jaskier succumbed to the injury and sank into the quiet warmth of unconsciousness.

---

“Jaskier?” Geralt called, guiding Roach around another circuit of the old oak tree. “Are you there, Jaskier? We need to make it to the fork in the Pontar before the harvest ends and I’m in no mood for practical jokes.”

Nothing.

All his Witcher hearing picked up on were leaves twitching in the wind and a few rabbits foraging off to his left. Not even Jaskier could stay so still, even for a joke; his heartbeat and the uptick in his breathing would give him dead away.

“Well, I’m going to town.”

Geralt was about to wheel Roach back toward the road in search of a nearby inn when he caught a whiff of something on the wind - something that sent his heart plummeting into his boots.

Blood.

Jaskier’s blood. And it wasn’t fresh.

He dropped silently from the saddle and gave the signal for Roach to stay put. After a few careful breaths and some shuffling through the autumn leaves, Geralt discovered the bandit’s discarded dagger, still rusty-red around the tip and left edge.

“Fuck! Jaskier!” Geralt called, glancing around the small copse in the woods. “Jaskier, where are you!?”

The Witcher closed his eyes and tilted his head back to better clear his airways. He took a deep breath in through his nose and focused every one of his heightened senses on locating the bard. There it was again to his right, but slightly stronger. “Fucking hells.”

Geralt did his best to follow the trail without panicking. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if he lost his head while the bard was in mortal danger. If the bard was in mortal danger, he tried to reassure himself.

But if Jaskier had recovered he would have been waiting at the oak. Geralt knew that. He knew it with every fiber of his being, though he wouldn’t admit anything aloud. Jaskier’s long autumn absence had already set him on edge when he’d caught the blood-smell. “Gods-dammit, bard. Please be alive. Please, Jaskier, I can’t-”

Geralt bit his tongue and continued to follow the bard’s weak scent into the woods. After too many minutes - perhaps five or six at the speed Geralt was moving - the Witcher reached a small cave. The mouth of said cave was nearly covered-over with dry leaves and Geralt could tell, even from this distance, that Jaskier was not faring well at all. The whole area smelled like rot. Like decay. If it weren’t for the bard’s fluttering heartbeat echoing faintly from within the tiny cavern, the Witcher would have fallen to his knees and wept with despair at his untimely death.

When Geralt ducked inside and reached to pull Jaskier into his arms, the bard struggled weakly. “No, please,” he rasped. “D-Don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Jaskier,” Geralt replied softly. He shifted the thick leather strap of Sexy’s case over his shoulder and hefted the bard into his arms in one swift movement. Those usually brilliant blue eyes looked up at him in utter confusion. The irises were dull and foggy with sickness; the Witcher’s heart lurched in his chest and he turned back to the path, doubling his speed in his hurry to reach Roach. “You don’t have to worry any more, sweet Julek. I’m going to get you to safety.”

“If you must kill me-” Jaskier continued, muttering frantically as if Geralt hadn’t said anything at all “-then p-please do me one last f-favor. I need you to p-please find a Witcher. F-Find the White Wolf. Tell h-him… Tell him that I…”

Then the weight in Geralt’s arms seemed to increase by a fraction and the bard went silent. The Witcher shook the sweating, shaking bundle in his arms but Jaskier remained quiet.

“What do you want to tell him, Jaskier?” Geralt glanced down. His eyebrows furrowed deeply when he realized the human had fallen unconscious. The hummingbird pace of Jaskier’s fluttering heartbeat began to hammer even faster and his breaths were far too shallow. The Witcher rumbled out a determined, desperate plea the universe to save his darling songbird, followed by a quiet but emphatic, “Fuck.”

---

“Eskel!” Geralt kicked down the door to the kitchen of Kaer Morhen with one solid boot. He hadn't slept in two days and his body ached from sprinting up the path with a full-grown man in his arms. “Eskel, Vesemir, please!”

“Fuck, is that Geralt!?” Eskel came whipping around one corner at a sprint. Lambert and Vesemir were close behind, Lambert with a sword drawn and a scowl on his face. He lowered it when he saw that Geralt wasn't being pursued.

“Please, Ves, Eskel, please, help him to survive because I can’t- I can’t-” the White Wolf, for all his bravado and stoicism, was panting furiously. His kinsmen knew that he'd be crying if he had the capability to do so and crowded closer to help. Geralt immediately handed a warm, damp bundle to his Eskel with incredible gentleness and care. He looked up at the slightly taller Witcher and begged with all the strength he had left: “Please. I can't let him die.”

---

Jaskier woke up with a sharp gasp. His side radiated a dull, persistent kind of agony and he felt sick to his stomach. With a low groan he turned to retch off the side of the bed, into a conveniently placed bucket. He shouted when the movement made his wound ache all the more. “Fuck!”

The bard heard a heavy thud from his left followed by some clattering and a quietly whispered, “Shit.”

“G’ralt?”

“Jaskier!” the Witcher appeared at his side in a flash. Geralt leaned over him with a damp cloth in hand and wiped at the corners of his mouth. “You’re alive! Melitele be thanked. Do you need to be sick again? Would you like some water?”

“You’re o-oddly verbose,” Jaskier managed to half-smile.

“Was worried.”

“There’s my monosyllabic Witcher,” the bard grinned through his blinding pain. “It hurts, Geralt. Rather terribly.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t- We’re all Witchers so it’s not…” Geralt sighed and turned away to rinse the cloth in a bowl of cool water that had been resting on the sill. “We didn’t know which kind of herbs were safe for humans and which weren’t.”

“We?”

“How’s the patient?”

Jaskier's snapped to the doorway and his body automatically jerked in surprise. He whimpered at the reaction it elicited from his injury, his ribs blooming with a sharp sting. “Shit!”

“Fuck!” the red-headed man in the door replied, slamming his hands over his face. “I’m so sorry. Shit in the fucking nine hells.”

“Uh…”

“Jaskier, this is my brother Lambert. Lambert… This is Jaskier.”

“Ah yes,” the shorter Witcher smirked. “I’ve heard so much about you, Master Jaskier.”

“That I’m a royal pain in the ass?”

“Quite the opposite, really. In fact, when the two of you arrived, Geralt was nearly-”

Lambert’s statement was interrupted by a small wooden bowl to the side of the head, chucked across the room by a grim-faced Geralt.

“Nevermind. Anyway, glad to see you’re awake. I’ll let the others know that he's no longer going hand-to-hand with Death.”

“Others?” Jaskier glanced between Geralt and Lambert with wide, confused eyes. “Am I… Am I in Kaer Morhen!?”

“Aye,” Lambert winked. “And you slept through the first two days of snowfall, so I’m afraid to inform you that you’re stuck at Kaer Morhen for the rest of this season. I’ll let you and Geralt hash the rest of the details out in private. Tootles, Buttercup.”

And just as suddenly as Lambert had appeared, he was gone.

The bard turned to make eye contact with the White Wolf and blinked owlishly. “Wh-What did he mean about being here all winter?”

“I’m afraid he wasn’t lying,” Geralt returned to the stool beside Jaskier’s bed and sat down slowly, as if waiting for Jaskier to order him out of the room entirely. “Your injury was heavily infected and you were close to death when I found you in that cave at the base of the mountains. I ran the Killer in two days instead of one and brought you to Eskel and Vesemir for healing; they were the closest people I could think of who knew what to do to save you. I’m so sorry for trapping you here for the season when you should be teaching and composing in Oxenfurt. If you’d like, I can try to contact Yen or Triss and have them portal you back to the University before Yule.”

“Nobody would want to inconvenience a sorceress on their behalf,” Jaskier answered. "Myself included."

“So you don’t mind staying?”

Jaskier glanced up through his lashes, more self-conscious than Geralt had ever seen him before. “Were you really worried about me dying? Did you really carry me up the path all by yourself? In two days?”

“...Yes.”

“Why?”

Geralt felt his heart shatter to pieces in his chest. All these years spent thinking that if he was too obvious about his feelings he’d hurt Jaskier... and Jaskier had simply been waiting for any confirmation of his affections, friendly or otherwise.

"Because I..." the Witcher stood again and started to pace. "Because, Julek, I love you. I can't bear the thought of being parted from you. It's even worse because I know, I know that you're human and that I'm going to lose you too soon no matter what happens. Illness, age, injury... No matter how many years we have together they will never be enough."

Jaskier sniffled and Geralt turned on his heel to face the bard, hands already outstretched to offer comfort. "You enormous fucking idiot."

"Huh?"

"I have loved you since the moment I saw you sitting in the corner, brooding away," Jaskier grinned. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks and dripped onto the blanket. "Why didn't you tell me? You couldn't even look me in the eyes and call me your friend..."

"Witchers aren't very good at romance, if you haven't noticed," Geralt laughed humorlessly. "I knew I was going to hurt you eventually. It was only a matter of time."

"Well now we have all winter to figure things out," Jaskier offered, sliding his hand across the mattress to twine his fingers with Geralt's. The Witcher's skin was cool against his own and it felt glorious.

"Hmm."

"No! No going silent on me now, you fucker!"

"Get some rest," Geralt smiled, leaning forward to press a kiss to Jaskier's sweaty fringe. "I will be here when you wake."

"And tomorrow, too?"

Geralt smiled oh-so-softly and kissed him again, on the lips.

"And tomorrow, too."

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

hiya bouncey!!! i love you and i appreciate everything you do for us!!!!!!!! i have never sent a prompt to you before and i dont know if you are still taking but you kniw that post you reblogged about Geralt being high on painkillers and wanting jaskier? can I have some more of whatever that is? pretty please? i am absolutely in love with the idea. thank you 🥺

So I’m guessing this prompt was based on this lovely post by @darkverrmin (whose blog is a treat). 

I’d be happy to give everyone some post-fight, sleepy grabby-hands Geralt, high off his ass and desperate for snuggles.

tw: catmint, high Geralt in a soft way, very soft content

---

Geralt whined from beneath the thin covers of their rented bed and Jaskier darted to his side, hands outstretched and ready to hunt down the cause of Geralt’s discomfort. Ready annihilate it.

“Where- Julek, where?” the feverish witcher rasped. The bard settled at his companion’s bedside and let his cool hand cradle Geralt’s stubbled cheek. 

“I’m here, dear heart. What hurts?”

“Everything,” Geralt whined again, more quietly. Geralt was often impatient and prone to growling or snarling to get his way, but this complaint was plaintive, verging on childlike. The witcher looked up at him and outright pouted, “Give me the tincture, please?”

“As you wish,” Jaskier hurried to comply. He mixed a fair amount of the healer’s prescribed herbal concoction into a mug of ale and passed it to his witcher, who drained it in a single long gulp. “Will that break the fever? I thought you and your brothers couldn’t get sick.”

“I’m not sick, Jaskier,” Geralt replied, eyes already losing their focused edge. “I’m... poisoned...”

“It seems as though you’ll survive,” the bard joked, trying to lighten his own mood as much as Geralt’s. “Then we’ll be back on the road, I suppose?”

“Hmm.” 

“Should I leave you be, or do you want some company for the night? The floor here is rather comfortable and I could slee-”

“Julek,” Geralt interrupted. His pupils couldn’t seem to stay one size for very long and his gaze drifted across the features of Jaskier’s face without pause, drinking the younger man in like a fine piece of art. His voice was steady despite the delirium clearly clouding his thoughts: “Julek, you’re so pretty in the light of the fire. Like a fairy prince.”

“Geralt!” the bard leapt to his feet. “You’re out of your head again! I’ll-”

A quiet giggle interrupted his panic and Jaskier cut himself off. He stared down in shock as his stoic, grumpy witcher raised his arms from beneath the blanket and made grabby-hands at him. The gesture was accompanied by a high pitched, whiny “Hmm?”

“Do you need to be held, love?”

“Need you,” Geralt implored. Jaskier could not deny his witcher anything. He slid across the mattress and allowed Geralt to bury his snowy head in the crease of his hip, his heavy breaths warm against Jaskier’s waist. Two enormous arms closed around him as Geralt buried his face even further in the heat of Jaskier’s body. “My bard.”

A slow, steady rumble started up from the center of the witcher’s chest and the bard’s eyes widened. “Are you... purring?”

“Hmm.” An affirmative.

“Are you happy?”

“Hmm.” Another affirmative.

“Even though you’re poisoned?” he clarified. 

“You’re close,” Geralt murmured. “Like that. Like you. Love... Love you, Julek. Jaskier.”

The words were disjointed and the statement was full of awkward pauses, but Jaskier smiled nonetheless. “I love you too, Geralt. Now get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake, I swear it.”

“Hmm. Good. My bard.”

“Yes, indeed. Your bard.”

“My darling.”

Jaskier’s heart stuttered in his chest and he whispered, his hands slowly working out the knots in Geralt’s silvery hair. “Yes, love. All yours.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Dialog prompt? Sure!!!! "About f**king time you brought him home!!!!"

“Is that the bard?” a dark-haired man with broad shoulders asks, pointing to Jaskier, who nods back. “The one you’re always on about?”

Geralt grumbles something unintelligible and the red-headed man laughs. Fucking Witcher hearing.

“Hello. You must be Eskel,” Jaskier holds out his hand. Eskel pulls him into a bone-crushing hug and squeezes the breath out of him. “Oopmh!”

“Welcome to Kaer Morhen, little bard! Geralt, are you telling me you made this darling, petite little thing walk the Killer?”

“Not so little as Geralt makes him sound, eh?” Vesemir teases, measuring up Jaskier’s figure from a distance. “Built like a Cat. He probably made quick work of it.”

Geralt rolls his eyes at his family’s antics and leads Roach off towards the stables. Eskel, Lambert, and Vesemir herd Jaskier toward the keep. Lambert calls back over his shoulder, “We’ll warm up your guest and show him to your room, Geralt! Don’t worry about a thing!”

Geralt shakes his head. At least he can’t get into any real trouble with three Witcher chaperones to keep an eye on him. 

---

Geralt is halfway through Roach’s usual grooming routine when he remembers, suddenly and rather violently, exactly what his bedroom looks like right now. He takes off for the stairs like a shot, his heartbeat ringing in his ears. 

But based on the exclamations he can hear from the hall ahead,  it’s already too late. Jaskier has seen.

Jaskier knows. 

Geralt whips his body around the corner and into his room, eyes wide and panicked as they land on Jaskier who is... who is... smiling? He’s grinning from ear to ear, blue eyes watery and red-rimmed from nearly spilled tears. “I’m sorry!”

“For what?” the bard practically whispers. “Besides not telling me about... well, I could be assuming things. This could just be friendly support. Comeraderie.”

“I don’t think crying yourself to sleep singing Her Sweet Kiss counts as friendly support,” Lambert jeers. Geralt silences his jesting with a glare as powerful as a good right hook. The younger wolf hushes, eyes roaming the cobblestone floor. 

“You... like my singing?”

“Yeah,” Geralt mutters. His walls are evidence enough, why must Jaskier make him say it, as well? There are posters dating back to Jaskier’s time at Oxenfurt over Geralt’s small bookshelf. Scattered above his washbasin and near his armoire are various concert advertisements, part announcements, and even a few Wanted posters. 

Jaskier’s face is plastered across Geralt’s bedchamber walls. 

“Wow...”

“I know, it’s-”

“Eskel, Lambert,” the bard interrupts, snapping his fingers. The two other wolves give him odd looks and he shoots them The Glare. “Get lost, would you kindly?”

They do.

Finally, when they’re alone, Jaskier sits on the edge of the mattress and pats the space next to him. Geralt sits heavily, cradling his face in his hands. “Oh Jaskier, I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“You must be... I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to admit my feelings ever, much less like this.”

“Why didn’t you want to?”

“Because I- you can’t possibly- but the countess?”

“Long gone,” Jaskier chuckles. “Anyway, I’ve been following you around damn near fifteen years now. Of course I want you, Geralt. I love you.”

“So this isn’t... weird? Or creepy?”

“No,” Jaskier grins, glancing around, “But we will have to take them down before we have sex. Too much of a good thing, and all that.”

“And it would be awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, very.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

shelter me from winter’s bite

Everyone’s doing a hypothermia fic so I figured I may as well contribute. It’s one of my favorite tropes.

title taken from Brian Czyzyk’s poem “Hoarfrost” (he’s my favorite young queer poet and you should check him out).

tw: hypothermia, angst with a happy ending, whump with a happy ending

---

“Do you always have to be so damnably loud?” Geralt growls, glaring at Jaskier from across the small room. 

“My apologies for existing,” the bard snaps back. He’d only been rearranging his pack, looking for something reasonably clean to sleep in while his clothes were laundered by the innkeeper’s lovely wife. “I’ll try to do so more quietly from now on, good sir.”

Geralt huffs out a breath in passive-aggressive annoyance and Jaskier bristles. 

“Oh well, then. C’mon witcher, I know you want to say it!”

“Say what?” Geralt asks. His voice is low and threatening. He’s ready to play the game and by god he’s going to win this time.  

“It’s practically your motto at this point,” the bard hisses through his teeth, angry and bitter and tired. Geralt sees victory. Sees some peace and quiet on the horizon. “Say it!”

Geralt does as he’s told, like any good witcher would: “Fuck off, bard.”

“There it is!” Jaskier laughs joylessly, throwing up his hands. He pulls on his doublet and boots and heads for the door. “If you want me gone so badly, Geralt, then I will go. I’ll get out of your lovely white hair and leave you to mope in peace.”

“Fucking finally,” the witcher snarls, turning away. He doesn’t see the genuine hurt in Jaskier’s blue eyes as the bard quietly closes the door rather than slamming it. He doesn’t hear the quiet sob that rips its way out of Jaskier’s throat as he stands very still, shocked and suddenly exhausted all the way to his bones. He doesn’t smell the salt of his bard’s tears as he slips silently down the hallway and out into the late autumn night. He doesn’t notice the snow starting to pile up on the windowsill ahead of season.

He’s too busy being a self-flagellating moron to notice any of that.

---

Geralt is woken in the middle of the night by a commotion downstairs. He can hear several loud, panicked heartbeats and one very quiet, very slow heartbeat beneath all of those; it’s achingly familiar but the half-asleep witcher can’t quite call its source to mind. Geralt listens as the innkeeper barks out a series of sharp orders: “Meredith, you get to the kitchen and make some strong black tea! Florence, fetch a pail of warm water and two or three towels from the laundry. Josiah you lazy lout, get into the attic and fetch some blankets! The poor lad has gone blue all over!”

The witcher peers into the hallway and catches the skinny stable hand, Josiah, racing for the attic staircase. “What’s going on?”

“A farmer from the next town over was on his way over to help a friend’s sow give calf and he found-” the lad pauses to suck in a great gulp of air and launches off again “-and he found that friend of yours lying in a snowbank, muttering nonsense and shivering like a leaf. The poor fool didn’t have a cloak on him or anything, just a doublet and walking boots! He’s near-dead!”

Geralt curses and makes for the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reaches the main floor. There are voices coming from the kitchen and he follows them as if in a dream, his feet moving without aid of his conscious mind. “Jaskier? Is it the bard, Jaskier?”

“Are you the great brute what kicked him out?” the innkeeper’s wife asks, crossing her arms over her ample chest and narrowing her eyes. Geralt falters. 

“No, he- he left on his own, in a huff.”

“Wonder who could have started the huff,” the woman rolls her eyes. This isn’t about his status as a witcher, Geralt knows; this eye roll was made by a woman who knows a lovers’ quarrel when she sees one. Except that this stupid little spat might have cost Jaskier his life.

“Where is he? May I see him, goodwife?”

The woman points to a table in the corner, which has been cleared of cooking implements and cushioned with a heavy bearskin. Jaskier lies atop the brown fur, his skin frighteningly pale, his lips and fingers tinted a slight blue. Geralt rushes to his side and takes one of the bard’s stiff hands in his own. He brushes a stray lock of brown hair from Jaskier’s forehead and nearly recoils in shock from the temperature of his skin. Even colder than his hands, which are already dangerously frigid. If Jaskier cannot play his lute-

Geralt doesn’t even allow himself to finish the thought. Instead he works on rubbing small, careful circles onto the back of the bard’s hands with his thumbs, warming the skin in tiny increments: “Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.”

The bard remains unmoving, heartbeat fluttering weakly, lungs barely drawing breath; Geralt fights back an overwhelming sense of panic, trying to recall whatever training he’d received at Kaer Morhen concerning freezing humans. 

“Do you mind if I take him upstairs and tend to him myself?” the witcher asks.

“Can you take care of him?” the innkeeper’s wife replies. 

Geralt bows his head, shame licking like flames up and down his bent spine, and nods. “Yes, Ma’am. I have dry clothes for him in our room and I was trained extensively for emergency situations such as this, all witchers are.”

“Alright,” she narrows her eyes. “But he’d best be alive come morning.”

“I’ll happily turn myself over to the village elders to be dealt with accordingly should the bard come to any harm,” he vows. Her eyes widen minutely and he can read the surprise in her body language, but she remains relatively calm. 

“Any further harm, rather. Alright, then. I’ll have my husband and the girls bring those supplies up to your room for him. We’ll be glad to go back to sleep.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Geralt bows formally. She blushes despite her irritation with him and waves him away. 

“Take your bard and go, witcher, before I change my mind and spend all night caring for him myself out of motherly pity. Go.”

Geralt hefts Jaskier into his arms, heavy bearskin blanket and all, and hurries up the stairs to his room. He will not let Jaskier come to any further harm. Not by his hand. Not by his word. Never again. 

---

Back in their room, Geralt quickly undresses the shivering human, peeling away what few damp layers there are with growing disappointment. Jaskier hadn’t been prepared for a walk in the snow at all! Although, to be fair, it hadn’t seemed that cold earlier in the evening and the snow had been sudden and heavy. 

He wipes Jaskier down with a warm cloth and slips one of his own clean shirts over the bard’s head. He tries not to let his gaze linger on the way Jaskier’s shoulders don’t quite fill out the dark material. Or on the way his dark, wiry chest hair peeks out through the open laces at his throat. The witcher quickly shuffles him into clean smallclothes and wraps him in a thick wool blanket. 

They sit curled before the fire and Geralt holds Jaskier against his chest. He hums with his voice like gravel, grating out one note after the other in some attempt to soothe the bard’s aching body. Jaskier shivers and shakes violently in the witcher’s strong embrace, his eyes clenched shut with the cramps that wrack his frame as his muscles return to their normal temperature. Geralt feels like he’s holding a porcelain doll and keeps his grip deliberately loose, tight enough to comfort but not restrain.

“G-Geralt,” he groans. “Hold me, please.”

The witcher squeezes his arms more confidently around the bard’s middle, burying his face in Jaskier’s soft hair and breathing deeply. The warmth that usually emanates from his busy human body is gone and his chamomile-honey scent is buried beneath a layer of damp cold; it feels wrong. Terribly wrong. Geralt murmurs against his temple, begging the younger man’s forgiveness: “I’m so sorry, Jaskier. Gods, I’m so sorry. Will you ever be able to forgive me? I’m a fool, you know. I’m a fool witcher who never says anything important until it’s too late. I’m so incredibly sorry, my love.”

“This is a very good dream,” the bard sighs, smiling despite the pain. His eyes open, bleary and addled. “Like I was having in the woods, but better.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow and Jaskier seems to understand the unspoken question, even in his current sorry state.

“The real Geralt would never be so gentle with me, dear heart. You must be a dream, sent to me on my deathbed to ease my passage into the afterlife. There’s no other explanation for your sudden displays of tenderness.”

“It’s... It’s really me,” Geralt affirms. He runs his hand up and down the length of Jaskier’s spine, “I’m here, Jaskier. Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?”

“I forgive you for being stupid ever other day, dear witcher. It is of no consequence to me.”

“It almost was,” Geralt frowns. “I nearly- I almost-” 

Jaskier’s arm raises weakly and his too-chilly hand presses to Geralt’s cheek. “I shouldn’t have stormed off like an idiot. I shouldn’t have kept picking the fight. We both fucked up, alright? What matters is our second chance. We got to have one, Geralt.”

“Hmm.”

“Am I wearing your shirt?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

“Yours were all being laundered and this one was clean and it had been in my pack near the fire so it was already warm and-”

“Did you take care of me all night?”

“Hmm.” Geralt sighs after his hum and glances away for a moment. “What did you mean about... about the dream in the woods?”

“Oh. Well, when I was very cold and things were hazy and slow, I dreamed that you were there with me. Everything got very fuzzy and warm for a little bit, and when it was warm you were holding me like this and giving me little kisses. It was... nice. Even though I knew I was dying because you were being so soft, so considerate; saying things to me you’d never say out loud in real life.”

“I love you, Jaskier. I will try my best not to lose my temper needlessly,” the witcher swears. “You don’t deserve it.”

“Can we still cuddle like this?” Jaskier asks, leaning his weigth against Geralt’s firm chest. “It’s so nice to be held.”

“Of course. Anything you want. I’m not going to waste my second chance by treating you poorly. Not for another second, my beloved bard.”

“B-beloved?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, well then I’m definitely still dreaming.”

Geralt lifts Jaskier into his arms and carries him over to the bed, which is piled high with their extra blankets. He tucks Jaskier into the nest against the wall and lays along the outside of the mattress. He presses his lips to the bard’s, reveling in Jaskier’s returning warmth, and smiles. “I’ll prove it’s not a dream. Every day.”

“Sounds nice,” Jaskier yawns, snuggling into the witcher’s arms and settling down to sleep. 

“It will be.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Dialogue prompt🤗

“Wow.”

“What??”

“I’ve just never seen something go so disasterously well.”

Always love your writing!

here comes mr. steal-yo-bard to work his magic...

---

Lambert and Eskel are whispering. That’s never good. They have their heads bent together and they’re murmuring together in quick, low tones that Geralt can’t pick up from this distance; they must know that, those bastards. “What’re you talking about?” he asks, noticing their silence as he approaches.

“Just trying to trade chores without your nosy ass pawning the laundry off on one of us.”

“Fair,” Geralt smiles. He does hate the laundry. “I’m off to take care of Roach. Have either of you seen Jaskier lately?”

“I was about to meet him in the hot springs,” Lambert smirks, nudging Eskel’s arm. The older Wolf glares back at the redhead but there’s no real malice in it. Not even annoyance. 

“Hmm. Have fun,” Geralt offers, ignoring the prickle of jealousy that heats his face and neck. He’s surprised by his own reaction and tries to keep it hidden, though he suspects his brothers have caught on. He probably wasn’t fast enough to catch the vicious spike in his scent. “Dunk him once for me, Bert.”

“Can do, brother dear,” Lambert nods, strutting off towards the springs with an unusually eager sway in his step. Geralt heads off on his own errand, the jealousy still hot and tight in his lower abdomen. It stays there for the rest of the afternoon and only manages to grow larger at dinner, when Jaskier sits next to Lambert and keeps touching his hair and shoulders casually.

They shouldn’t be so... friendly. They shouldn’t be sitting so close.

He excuses himself as soon as the meal is finished and disappears into his room to mope (although he’d never actively admit that’s what he’s doing). Jaskier follows him up a few minutes later and Geralt answers his tentative knock with a welcoming frown. “Jaskier.”

“Geralt? You seemed... off, at dinner. I was worried. I know you said witchers can’t get sick but I thought maybe you’d been lying and I started to wor-”

“I’m fine,” Geralt cuts him off. The concerned rambling settles the green monster nesting in his gut and his expression softens. “Come in.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier steps past him, settling comfortably onto the edge of the bed. Geralt loves how easily the bard fits in here at Kaer Morhen. He loves to see the presence of his friend, his secret love, sprinkled around the keep. This place used to be filled with only pain and haunted memories but now- now there was song again. Song and voices and laughter. 

“What did... What did you and Lambert talk about in the hot springs today?”

“Well,” Jaskier is suddenly blushing madly. “He. Well, he offered to take me on the Path with him in spring.”

Geralt’s heart leaps into his throat and his breath freezes in his lungs. The world comes crashing down around his head. Lambert would never- His brothers wouldn’t really-

He schools his features into passive understanding and asks, “What did you answer?”

“I said no, of course!” Jaskier sputters, indignant. “I would never leave your side!” 

Before he can stop himself, Geralt leans forward and wraps his solid arms around Jaskier’s waist. He hauls the bard close and buries his nose in the warm, human scent of him, against the side of his neck. “I love you, Jaskier. I would never part from you so long as I live.”

“Geralt!”

---

Downstairs, Vesemir watches as Eskel slides Lambert a small purse. “Wow.”

“What?” Lambert looks up. 

“I’ve just never seen something go so disastrously well,” Vesemir smiles. “I’m proud.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Congrats Bouncey!! 🥳 Dialogue prompt for you, darling! "I have a pretty nice cock but my butt is divine"

oh... oh Wolfie you beautiful goob.

tw: spicy-ish, alcohol mention but it’s just the boys being goofy together

---

Geralt wasn’t drunk. He could feel the warm tingly sensation of alcohol swirling in his gut, sure, but he wasn’t drunk. Not like his brothers. The two of them were stumbling around Geralt’s spacious living room (’dancing’, Lambert had tried to assert before falling onto his ass on the carpet) to whatever Ke$ha song was blasting from Eskel’s “Pride” playlist.

Geralt leaned his ass against the edge of the couch and sighed. He loved his brothers, but they were a handful. As always.

“Why don’t you finally buck up and ask Jaskier on a proper date?” Lambert asked, swaying back up onto his feet like one of those inflatable noodle men you see at car dealerships. “He’s like a teacher or whatever, right?”

“Professor. He has a fucking doctorate, Lambert, show him some respect.”

“Whatever,” Lambert repeated, glaring. “You’ve been pining for months now, always talking about his sweet voice and his lovely eyes and his rather sizeable uh...”

“I think the exact description was enormous prick,” Eskel piped helpfully. “How did you see that anyway?”

“Guys,” Geralt growled, spinning away. “Swimming lessons with Ciri, I told you. We were both in the changing room at the public pool. Yen was helping Ciri in the women’s room but you know she doesn’t get her hair wet in public.”

“Well it doesn’t matter how you saw it, really,” Lambert smirked. “What matters is that you’ve been fucking drooling over this twunk for like two months and you can’t even say two words to him in person because your mouth goes dry when you think about bending over for him.”

“Shut up!” Geralt huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I have a pretty nice cock but my butt is divine!” chirped a voice from Geralt’s back pocket.

All three Witchers jump in surprise. 

“Did you...” Eskel grinned.

“Butt dial him? Yeah.” That was Lambert.

“Fuck, dude.” Eskel again.

“Geralt, do you want to take me off speaker so we can talk about this?” Jaskier finally asked. 

“Uh... yeah, I guess.”

“Good luck, bro.”

---

“Awwwwww gross!” Triss clapped. “What an adorable and weird getting-together story.”

“Yeah, that’s us,” Jaskier winked. “Adorable and weird.”

“He’s adorable,” Geralt smiled, nuzzling his nose into Jaskier’s over-soft hair. “And I’m weird.”

“We switch off,” Jaskier corrected. “He’s just being sweet.”

“Gross,” Lambert added from the couch. “Super gross.”

“Well not everyone can have an enormous pr-”

Geralt cut him off with a kiss.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Hi Bouuunnncceeeyyyy *flutters eyelashes* hahahah

Could I request a first kiss between Geralt and Jask.

Modern au, both in their 20's?

I'm thinking Geralt's first ever kiss? Because I can't get enough of Jaskier calming down a nervous Geralt with LOOOOVVVEEE and FLUUUFFFFF and REASSUURRANNNCCEEE ❤️💜❤️💜❤️💜🥰🥰🥰

oh Hailie... darling... you get me.

no tws tonight, kids

---

Jaskier and Geralt were both sitting on Jaskier’s shitty queen size mattress, a blanket covering both of their heads to form an impromptu fort. Jaskier grinned, glancing down at the app on his phone and then back up at his nervous-looking roommate. “Alright Geralt, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Psh, you always choose truth,” he rolled his eyes. He tapped Truth on his phone and watched as the question popped up: “What’s your most embarrassing memory?” 

“When I was fifteen, Eskel and I snuck out of the house to go to a party at my neighbor’s place. We were really stupid, and Vesemir was already at the party- hey! Don’t laugh at me-” Geralt smacked halfheartedly at Jaskier’s upper arm “-we were stupid and horny, okay? Jessica was going to be at that party and Eskel wanted to ask her out.”

“And you?”

“I wanted to watch her turn him down.”

“You’re a terrible brother,” Jaskier scoffed, passing the phone to Geralt. “I choose dare.”

“You always choose dare,” Geralt said, making his voice as flamboyantly articulate and nasal as possible to mock Jaskier’s earlier accusation. He shook the phone and passed it back to his friend, whose eyes widened. He shook it again and Geralt frowned. “That’s cheating!”

“You didn’t want to do that,” the music student chuckled nervously. “I’ll do the next one.”

“What was it?”

“Kiss another player.”

“Oh...” 

Jaskier could see the blush spreading across his roomie’s porcelain-white cheeks even in the mostly-dark room and even darker blanket fort. “Unless?”

“I actually,” Geralt cleared his throat once. Twice. His eyes looked everywhere in the small space except at Jaskier, who was literally the only other person and also directly across from him. An uncomfortable number of seconds passed before Geralt tried again, “I actually haven’t kissed anyone before.”

“Ever?” 

“Ever.”

“Damn,” Jaskier whistled. He tried not to think about the massive crush he’d been harboring on the sweet Medieval Literature major since the moment they met. “That’s pretty cool! We don’t have to kiss, then, if you’re saving it for someone special.”

“I’m saving it for the first person I really fall in love with,” the older man said. His cheeks flamed again, “So... actually, we could, if you wanted to?”

Jaskier blinked. He blinked again. He blinked a third time and shook his head to get the hair out of his face. “Wait, did you- Did you just say... Are you-?”

Geralt surges forward before Jaskier can really get the question out, pressing their lips together in an awkward, flailing moment of passion. Jaskier tumbled backward, taking Geralt and the blanket with him. The older man grunted, trying to keep his weight from crushing his roommate, and huffed in annoyance. 

“I’m sorry, Jaskier, I shouldn’t hav-”

Jaskier cut him off, leaning up to kiss him again. He allowed himself to take his time, carefully molding his lips against Geralt’s, feeling every groove and curve and texture. Neither of them want the moment to end. Eventually they pulled apart to breath, gasping in happy surprise. Jaskier smirked. “So you love me?”

“Maybe,” Geralt grumbled. “... Yeah.”

“I really really like you,” Jaskier replied. “Probably love you, actually. How about a date?”

“Alright...”

“Good. Perfect. Uh... more kissing?”

Geralt laughed, smiling widely for the first time since they’d moved in together at the beginning of the semester. “Doofus.”

“Your doofus.”

And then it devolved into more laughing and kissing.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

"Oh, really? I seem to recall a certain Witcher saying he needs no one and that the last he wants is someone needing him." Jaskier smirked.

Geralt dangled a few feet above his sword, arms just barely long enough to allow his fingers to brush uselessly against the hilt. He snarled, squirming his legs in an effort to free the knots, “Fuck!”

“G-Geralt? Is that you, White Wolf?” 

The witcher glanced up, eyes widening in surprise and perhaps shame. Jaskier was standing with his hands on his hips and a wide grin splitting his face. The look of incredulousness on the bard’s face said it all: he was having a fine time at Geralt’s expense. “Get me down from here, Jaskier.”

“Why should I?”

“Because-” the witcher flailed again, searching for the right words. “Because I need your help.”

“Oh, really? I seem to recall a certain witcher saying he needs no one and that the last thing he wants is someone needing him,” Jaskier smirked. “Or has your tune changed suddenly?”

“Jaskier,” the witcher growled. 

“Are you threatening me?” Jaskier laughed. “You really must like being upside down.”

“What do you want in return for freeing me, bard?”

“Do you grant wishes now? Are you a djinn as well as a witcher?” 

“Julek,” the witcher half-whined. The bard knew he was winning if Julek had been brought into play. “Please help me down, Julek, and I’ll give you whatever you ask.”

“A kiss.”

“A- A kiss?” Geralt twisted his torso to get a better look at Jaskier’s face. The bard’s cheeks were lightly flushed and his eyes were sparkling with mischievous joy. 

“I want one little kiss, on the lips, and I will free you.”

“I swear you shall have it.”

“Alright, then,” Jaskier reached down and lifted the silver sword with surprising ease. He hefted it over his head and cut Geralt’s ankles free of the snare that had bound them. The witcher took a moment to catch his breath and clear his head, which felt enormously heavy atop his shoulders. The bard sat down beside him, taking his boots off and beginning to rub his sore ankles. 

Geralt blinked in shock and made a surprised, happy noise deep in his chest when every push and roll of Jaskier’s fingers spread relief through the aching muscle of his legs. “You don’t have to do that.”

“And you don’t have to kiss me,” Jaskier smiled. “I rather like helping you, though.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Geralt said. “Just so you know.”

“Huh?”

“About... About needing no one.”

“Oh.”

“I-” the witcher grabbed Jaskier by the shoulders and pulled him closer, so that their faces were only inches apart. “I need you, Julek. The Path is lonely and silent when we’re apart.”

“G-Geralt?” 

“If you don’t mind,” the witcher whispered, face heating with the enormity of his words. “I would rather like to kiss you.”

Jaskier could only nod, eyelashes fluttering closed. Geralt closed the distance between them and laid a soft, reverent kiss against the bard’s plush lips. He let them stay like that for a long moment, loving but not passionate, before he pulled away again with a soft gasp. 

“I might... I might love you, actually,” the witcher half-smiled. Jaskier laughed, bright and lovely and loud; Geralt’s slow-beating heart fluttered like a maiden’s. 

“I love you too, my gorgeous Wolf. I always have and I always will.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Hiiiiiii my fluff monarch! 💖💖

For a fluff prompt: what about like.... mod au geraskier, they were childhood friends but one moved away, they run into each other as adults somehow and wow you grew *up* 😳😳 Getting together goodness.

😘😘😘😘

oh Stina, you’re such a darling. I do love my modern au boys!

tw: doctor’s office, medical facility, there is more flirting than actual medical care happening, Jaskier commits an OSHA violation, decently horny but not too bad

---

Geralt walked into the small, overly-bright waiting room and took a seat in the corner, far away from the other patients. He picked up a copy of Men’s Health and pretended to read it, his mind wandering as he flipped listlessly through the pages.

He hated physicals.

They took up precious time and were, in his opinion, completely unnecessary. He was a fucking Witcher; he couldn’t even get sick. 

The disgruntled feeling in his chest dissipated completely when the door to the examination rooms slowly opened and a brown-haired (and vaguely familiar) angel stood before him and said, in the world’s loveliest tenor: “Geralt deRiv?”

Geralt practically flew from his seat, crossing the room in four long strides. “Hello.”

“Hi there,” the brunette smiled. His grin was wide and lopsided and his blue eyes, so fucking familiar it was killing Geralt, sparkled even in the clinical light of the fluorescents. He was wearing a pair of ridiculously bright pink, llama-and-rainbow print scrubs and Geralt blinked stupidly down at the gorgeous creature. Jaskier giggled, fucking heavenly to behold, and gestured through the door. “Right this way, Mr. deRiv.”

Suddenly, hearing that voice up close and seeing the nurse’s colorful outfit, everything clicked gloriously into place. As Geralt followed the nurse down the hallway, he asked, “How has it been, Jaskier? I haven’t seen you in, what, nine years?”

“Something like that,” the younger man grinned over his shoulder. They stopped in front of a nondescript exam room and Jaskier opened the door, letting them both inside. He took a seat on the rolling chair and gestured for Geralt to sit on the table. “Are you still... Witchering?”

“Yeah,” Geralt grunted. Fuck, Jaskier had gotten even hotter since they were teenagers! All those years ago, when Geralt had developed a dangerously huge crush on the underclassman right before his father, some kind of ambassador, had been called away. “Still doing that. So are Lambert and Eskel.”

“Too bad about Lambert, he had a really great thing going with those accounting classes.”

“Hard to switch professions when you look the way we do,” Geralt grimaced. “It’s not too bad, all things considered. Technically I don’t even need to be here.”

“Well your health insurance provider said you do need to be here, so,” Jaskier sanitized his hands and reached for the blood pressure cuff hanging on the wall. “Take off your hoodie, please.”

---

Jaskier had not been prepared for that. No, sir. He had not been prepared for such glorious, absolutely picture-perfect titties to be right in front of his face this early in the morning.

Especially not Geralt deRiv’s titties, the man he’d been dreaming about like some stupid fairtytale fantasy for seven long years. All the way through medical school and then RN certification. And damn... those were some fine pectorals. 

“You okay?” Geralt asked, breaking the spell his chest had cast on Jaskier’s stupid, gay little brain. 

“Oh, sorry, yeah. Let’s just-” he applied the blood pressure cuff and had to turn away for a moment to breathe deeply and calm his nerves. And his arms, too!? “-lovely.”

Jaskier let his training take over, going through the list of tests one after the other and trying not to let Geralt’s eyes, which tracked his every move with predator-like precision, unnerve him into making a mistake. When he was finished, he stood and grabbed for his clipboard. “Dr. Maxwell will be with you shortly to conclude your exam.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt called. His golden eyes settled on Jaskier and froze the nurse in place. “Would you like to go out sometime? I know it’s weird, and that I haven’t seen you in years, but I-”

“Yes!” Oh gods, yes! “I’d love to! Let me write down my number.”

“It was good seeing you again.”

“You, too,” Jaskier blushed, handing over a slip of paper with his number written in neat, tidy print. Geralt accepted it and tried to stand, not realizing just how close he and Jaskier really were. They knocked legs and the nurse began to topple backwards; Geralt reached out on instinct, curling his arm around Jaskier’s waist and pulling him close. Jaskier’s hands landed on his chest and, surprisingly, stayed there for a moment. “Damn, dude. Work out much?”

Geralt laughed, long and loud. That had probably gotten someone’s attention. “Yeah, just a little. Helps with the monster fighting.”

“Right.”

“See you soon, Jaskier,” Geralt chuckled softly, releasing the nurse once he was sure Jaskier was steady. 

Surprising both of them, Jaskier pecked his reacquaintance on the cheek. “Yeah, but not soon enough.”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

My dearest bouncey! I have a prompt for you if you like: Witchers as a 90s/2000s boyband 😂🤷‍♀️💖💖💖

Ellie, darling, this started as 500 words and turned into like 3.2k words and also a piece of art so... thank you so much. also shout out to my amazing art pal @mawbwehownets for the little comic!!

this contains lots of 90′s/early 2000′s nostalgia so there is also that

tw: hornyish, smooching, perilous music video situations (corny)

---

“Do I have to?” Geralt groans, letting his forehead thud down against the linoleum surface of their tour bus’s shitty dining table.

“Yes,” Vesemir says. His tone leaves no room for argument or whining. “But what if I let you pick the winner personally?”

“There have to be like fifteen thousand letters to go through! How will I manage that in less than two days?”

“There were a few more than fifteen thousand applications, Geralt. There were probably closer to five hundred thousand.”

Lambert wolf whistles and Aiden claps.

Geralt grimaces and keeps his face hidden against the table, releasing a slightly muffled: “Fuck.”

“Language,” Vesemir frowns. He tugs gently at Geralt’s loose ponytail and the singer lifts his head up from the table again, looking at his manager with beseeching eyes. “Anyway, we’ve narrowed it down to about fifty. You can go through those and choose whichever person you’d like to play your love interest. But you have to give me an answer by Friday. The shoot is in three weeks and whoever wins this stupid competition will need time to make arrangements.”

“I thought we were footing the bill for their food and their hotel room,” Geralt raised an eyebrow. “What would they need to arrange?”

“Not everyone can board their pets at the flick of a wrist, dude,” Lambert scoffs from his seat on the couch. Aiden lies draped across his lap, as usual, and the two of them are halfheartedly watching The Lion King. They can only watch movies when the bus is stationary, otherwise the VHS player might move too much while running and damage the film inside the cassette. Even taking advantage of such a rare opportunity, Lambert and Aiden still seem more interested in each other than Jonathan Taylor Thomas’s voice acting. 

“Lambert has a point,” Vesemir sighs. He scrubs his hand over his lightly whiskered face like a tired grandparent and sighs again, more heavily. “It’ll be good for you boys to have a normal person around for a few days. Maybe they’ll be able to put some things into perspective.”

Geralt can only roll his eyes a little bit and thank his manager regardless of his own feelings; he and the rest of TW5 owe the seasoned musical expert their entire careers. Without Vesemir’s help and mentorship they would never have made it past their first disastrous record deal. They certainly wouldn’t have reached the heights they’re at now, enjoying international fame and recognition. 

The begrudging frontman accepts a heavy plastic bin of file folders from Vesemir and sets them down next to his bunk. “Are these organized in any particular way?”

“Nope.”

“Cool.”

Geralt digs his hand into the pile and pulls out a piece of pale-pink stationary, eager to get started and, by extension, get finished. He can already tell that it’s going to be a long couple of days.

---

“I want this one, please, Ves.”

“Huh?” Vesemir looks up from his palm-pilot. Geralt is standing in front of him and trying to hand him something. 

“I want this guy to be in the music video with me.” Geralt holds out the letter again, fingers trapping the accompanying polaroid headshot with great care. A pair of bright blue eyes stares up from the photo, highlighting the subject’s bright smile and unruly mop of messy brown hair. Vesemir tries to hide his amusement; totally Geralt’s type, if the big oaf could admit to having one.

“Alright. I’ll get everything in order. We start shooting in two and a half weeks so get your asses to the gym, please.”

“Yes, Ves,” all five young men chorus. 

“Tomorrow,” Coen mutters a moment later than everyone else, not glancing up from his composition notebook. Vesemir nods in understanding. Coen is the best lyricist of the lot and it’s easier to let him work when inspiration strikes than beg him to focus when he can’t get a solitary idea to stick.

“So why’d you pick that one, Ger-bear?” Lambert drawls. Aiden nods and leans against Lambert’s side. Geralt can’t help the mild jealousy that overtakes him every time he sees his bandmates touch each other with such casual affection. He wants that intimacy, that softness behind the veneer of famous indifference. He wants someone to hold. 

“Yeah. What drew your attention to that poor unfortunate soul. Was it the floppy hair, the big blue eyes, or the dopey grin?” Aiden smirks.

“Hmm.”

“Fuck you,” Eskel sighs, looking between the two troublemakers with the tired gaze of an eldest sibling, “Fuck you for even asking in the first place and expecting a straight answer.”

“Straight is the furthest thing from his answer,” Lambert chuckles. He is promptly smacked in the head with one of the couch’s hideous throw pillows. The youngest member of the band rubs the side of his face and chuckles, “Alright, I deserved that one.”

---

“Holy shit!” Jaskier practically screams. “Holy motherfucking shit!”

“What!?” Yennefer comes flying around the corner. “What’s wrong!?”

“Nothing is wrong, Yenna! Everything is awesome! Everything absolutely fucking rocks!”

“Did you get hit on the head by a falling branch between here and the mailbox or what? You were whining about your finals work not five min-”

“Look at this!” Jaskier shoves an open envelope into her hands and cuts her off. Yennefer reads the watermarked documents once. Twice. Her eyes almost pop out of her head when the words and their meanings finally sink in. 

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No, I am absolutely not!” her giddy roommate cheers, bouncing up and down in place. “I did it! I won!”

“Holy shit.”

“I know! I get to kiss Geralt deRiv!” he practically cackles. Then freezes. “Holy fuck I get to kiss Geralt deRiv.”

“You said that already,” Yen teases. She shoves the paperwork back into his hands and grabs a takeout menu from the junk drawer near her hip. “Since you won the makeout lottery, you get to buy lunch. Lucky bastard.”

---

“So this will be your dressing room,” someone’s underpaid PA says, ushering Jaskier into a small, bright room. “Priscilla will be here shortly to get you into hair and makeup.”

“Oh, uh- thanks!”

“Yup.”

And with that, the young man disappears back down the hallway toward the sound stage. Jaskier jogs his leg anxiously as he waits for Priscilla to arrive, nervous and otherwise totally alone in the huge grey building. As the minutes tick by and his heart rate rises, Jaskier’s intrusive thoughts make an unwanted appearance: What if they forget about me being here? What if there’s been a mistake and they accidentally hired two love interests and I just sit in here for hours all alone while-

“Hi!” a bright, peppy blonde woman flies through the door and startles him back to reality. “Nice to meet you, I’m Priscilla! You can call me Priss; I’ll be doing your hair and makeup for the video this week!”

“Oh… hi. I’m Julian, but I prefer Jaskier.”

“Lovely! Well, Jaskier, is your hair naturally this color?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Perfect! I don’t want to mess with such a lovely shade of natural brown, but do you mind if I give it a bit of a trim? I have a few ideas for styles right here in my book- How do you feel about some feathering back here? I think-” she fluffs a few of the hairs around the nape of Jaskier’s neck “-I could really bring out the curls if I adjusted the length a bit and used some product.”

“Just, uhm, go for it, then! Feel free to make me as pretty as possible!” Jaskier declares. He’s committing to this experience wholeheartedly, determined to allow himself every opportunity for positive change. He wants to really let himself enjoy it, and he needs a haircut anyway. Priscilla spends an hour washing, cutting, drying, and styling his hair into a lovely fringed sweep across his forehead. It ends just above his brows, giving his face a slightly softer shape than usual. He grins over his shoulder, “I love it! I’m going to miss you when I’m back at Oxenfurt. Good stylists are so hard to find.”

Priss blushes and nudges against his shoulder, “Oh, you little charmer.”

“I mean it,” he says, examining himself in the mirror. “I look like I could really be worthy of a heroic rescue! This is going to be such a fantastic memory, and I appreciate it. Thank you so much.”

Priss bites back a genuine tear and smiles, “Now that your natural prettiness has been mildly enhanced, let’s get you over to wardrobe, shall we?”

“Wardrobe? Do I have, like, a costume? What’s the music video even about?”

“They didn’t tell you any of this when you got here?”

“Not… not really.”

“Well, my darling, I think you’re really going to like it; they’ve got you in Versace for the first scene.”

“Versace!?” 

Then Jaskier is being ushered into a bright, colorful room full to bursting with grim-faced, middle-aged women and he loses track of his only braincell for the rest of the morning.

---

“You must be Julian!” Lambert declares, bounding up to him and grinning. It’s a feral, animalistic grin and Jaskier resists the sudden urge to take a step back.

“I prefer Jaskier, if you don’t mind too much,” Jaskier corrects him quietly. Lambert rolls his eyes in a long-suffering kind of way and throws a meaty arm around the shorter man’s shoulders, completely ignoring the wardrobe technician’s wincing as he wrinkles the expensive silk jacket. 

“No need to be quiet and polite around here, my dude. We’re just a bunch of rowdy idiots, aren’t we, guys?” 

“Hell yeah!” Aiden calls back. Eskel sighs like the put-upon nanny in a Victorian Redanian comedy. 

“Speak for yourself,” Coen barely lifts his frosted tips up from his book long enough to speak. Geralt is-

Holy motherfucking Britney Spears on toast.

Geralt is the hottest thing Jaskier has ever seen in his short, unfulfilled-until-right-now life. Forget Ralph Macchio. Forget Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet and Winona Ryder. This man is… Geralt deRiv is… he’s the picture of perfection. And he’s right there, standing in front of an elaborate party set with his thick, beautiful arms crossed over his chest and his eyes trained on the floor, as if willing it to swallow him whole. Jaskier realizes that he probably didn’t have any choice in the matter; maybe this was just as awkward and uncomfortable for Geralt as it was for Jaskier. 

“Ger-bear!” Lambert whoops, yanking Jaskier closer to the brooding frontman. If only he were brave enough to struggle for escape; alas. “This is your boy-toy for the week. Goes by Jaskier, apparently.”

“Nice to meet you,” Geralt manages to grunt. “How did you like the script?”

“I haven’t uh- I haven’t actually seen it?”

“Shit. Fuck. One second,” Geralt huffs, disappearing into the crowd of technicians and machinery operators and PAs. Jaskier loves him already, for real. Sure, he was pretty in the music videos and promo material, but the way he said fuck like it was the noblest word he could think of… Geralt interrupts his train of thought by coming back with a sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. He shuffle-shoves them into Jaskier’s arms immediately. “There you go.”

“Thank you!” Jaskier smiles. It’s genuine and shy, more tenuous than his usual goofy grin. He flips through the pages, glancing between the script to his expensive suit, “So I’m guessing we’re at a party for this scene? Or something?”

“This is… where we meet. This is where… you and I uh…”

Jaskier’s eyes scan the page as Geralt’s ability to speak slowly leaves him. 

Lover ENTERS LEFT, dressed to the nines. Lover adjusts their tie/boa and takes a look around the room. S/He looks sad and a little hopeful. PULL BACK to Geralt, who approaches slowly. Their eyes meet. HOLD SHOT. PULL BACK as they move towards each other. Geralt pulls Lover into his arms and they begin to dance.

“Oh, wow.”

“I hope it’s okay! If you’re not comfortable with that kind of thing we can-”

“I’ll be alright, thank you. I came here to put my acting chops to the test. Well, that and meet my favorite band, of course. Thank you again, by the way. It’s been wonderful so far and I really appreciate you allowing me to be here.”

“Allowing? Psh. Geralt ha-” Lambert is cut off by Aiden, who elbows him sharply in the side. “Ow! What the fuck, babe?”

“I knew it!” Jaskier crows, distracted. “I knew you two were an item!”

“They’re not exactly subtle.”

“They never confirm anything either,” Jaskier retorts. Geralt shrugs his acknowledgement and moves back towards the set. Jaskier follows after the taller man like a lost puppy, eyes flicking from one thing to the next, hungry for detail even in his anxiety ridden state. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and he doesn’t want to waste a solitary second of it. “This is incredible, really just...wow. You guys do this all the time? You get to make tiny little movies for already great songs that you get to perform for millions of adoring fans? And you get paid!?”

Geralt hadn’t ever really thought about it like that. He’d been raised in the industry. He’d signed to Kaer Morhen Records as an early teen because his mother was a member of the Board of Directors and he’d been making music ever since; an outsider’s perspective to things was… new. A little strange. “Yeah, I guess that is pretty much what we do.”

“Wow.”

“It’s not that exciting, I promise.”

“Have you ever written a fifteen page paper about the history of lute-string design and manufacturing?” 

“No.”

“Then kindly shut the fuck up about what I should consider exciting,” Jaskier grins. Geralt is immediately and irrevocably smitten. Fuck. It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes! “So, which door am I entering from?”

“Left,” Geralt points. Jaskier skips over and begins to introduce himself to the sound and lights crew. His smile seems to be as infectious as his cheer and soon the entire set crew is smiling at one another. There’s been a literal shift in the atmosphere; if he didn’t know any better, the TW5 frontman thinks Jaskier might be some kind of magical creature, because he can’t just be human. Geralt is well and truly fucked, and everyone in the band already knows.

---

“What do you think?” Jaskier asks, slipping anxiously from behind the changing screen. The Versace is gone and in its place are a pair of tight, high-waisted blue pleather pants and a billowing white shirt, which has been strategically ripped in several places to reveal slivers of the lightly tanned skin that lies beneath. He looks like he’s in desperate need of rescuing. He looks like every fantasy Geralt has ever had about the perfect guy. He looks like a fucking dream.

“Nice,” he says.

Lambert and Aiden wolf-whistle and cheer as they approach. Aiden claps twice, loudly, and shoots Jaskier a set of finger guns, “Hot damn, baby. You single? You lookin’ to mingle? Because I am bi and spoon like a Pringle.”

“First of all, babe, I love you but that was the most horrific combination of words yet known to man. Second of all, yeah, I’d dump Aiden for you for sure,” Lambert adds. Jaskier is at a total loss for words. His mouth hangs open and his breath comes in uneven little gasps for a moment.

“Uh… I- Thank you?”

“Oh god, Eskel! Eskel, he’s short circuiting, do something.”

“You absolute-” Eskel groans and makes his way over to the gathered group. He tugs Jaskier away and over to the other end of the set, where a comically huge rocket/bomb (Jaskier can’t tell) is standing at the center of a vaguely science-themed room. A laboratory, maybe? Or like, a really weird spacecraft? A hospital run by rocket scientists? It doesn’t matter, it’s the Evil Lair of the Villain and that’s where Jaskier is being held captive. “Here, Cameron and Elise will help you get set up for the next scene. I’m sorry about the boys they’re... gay?”

“I understand,” Jaskier nods sagely and Eskel relaxes. Then for comedy’s sake he adds an equally dramatic, “I too am... gay.”

The set dresser, an electrician, and a few specialists (likely a rope rigger among them) come over and tie Jaskier to the bomb/rocket/villainous mechanism, ending his conversation with Eskel, who is now in a much better mood than he was before. 

Jaskier is told to make sure his hands are crossed behind the small of his back and the director instructs him to wiggle back and forth “as convincingly as possible without actually getting loose or moving the ropes too much”. Which is manageable, he supposes. 

“Then, when the chorus comes up, we’ll get a few shots of the boys dancing in front of you,” the director continues to explain. That’s… kind weird, but okay. I’ve seen weirder. “Then we’ll do the action shots, with Geralt rescuing you. Are you okay to do the kiss, or would you rather not? We have dynamic shots with or without, so it’s totally up to you.”

“I’m fine with that,” Jaskier smiles shyly. “I consent to be smooched.”

“Adorable,” Lambert calls. Jaskier blushes and the director shoots Lambert a glare. 

“He’s already pink enough, don’t make me change my gels you little shithead!”

“Sorry, Pierre!”

“Fucking sorry my ass,” Pierre grumbles beneath his breath. Then he smiles at Jaskier. “Do something nasty to him for me, will you? Not too nasty but… just a little?”

“I’ve got your back,” Jaskier winks. 

“No plotting! Not fair!” Aiden whines.

“You have a team,” Pierre retorts. “Now I have a team.”

“Rules are rules,” Eskel sighs. “Now can we please shoot this damn video?”

“Right,” Pierre claps, getting everyone’s attention. “Places!”

---

Geralt races up the stairs, trying to keep the long sleeves of his black mesh shirt from catching on any of the set pieces. The solid black t-shirt he’s wearing underneath makes his arms and back look bulkier than normal; it’s a visual technique to make him look larger than Jaskier, whose billowing white shirt will hide how wide his shoulders actually are. Fuck, those are some nice shoulders. And the smattering of dark chest hair that peeks from the front of the college student’s shirt? Geralt wants to bury his face in it.

Okay, focus. 

He reaches the top of the set and rushes towards Jaskier, ripping the ropes from around his torso and pulling him close. He cups the back of Jaskier’s head with his upstage hand, framing the slightly smaller man for the camera and making him seem even shorter, another trick of angles and body posturing. Geralt plays Jaskier like an instrument, bending him back by placing his downstage arm around Jaskier’s waist, pressing their mouths together and holding them still for as long as it takes the director to yell, “Cut!” with a satisfied tone of voice. 

Geralt’s suspicions are confirmed when Pierre laughs and claps some more and cries, “Print it, lads! That was a one-take wonder!”

He tries to ignore the way Jaskier’s shoulders slump as if disappointed. “Good job,” he manages to say.

“You, too.” Geralt wishes he could keep a picture of Jaskier smiling in his back pocket forever. No other sight could light up the world so effortlessly. “Thanks for being gentle.”

“I’m trying to sweep you off your feet,” the singer shrugs. Jaskier wiggles his eyebrows and follows Geralt down the narrow set stairs.

“Are you, really?”

“Is it working?” Geralt asks, turning to look up at Jaskier. The student pauses to look at him and his foot catches on an uneven board. He topples forward with a short cry of surprise and seems surprised when Geralt reaches out to catch him. “Jaskier!”

“Oh my god!” Lambert races over, Aiden hot on his heels. “Are you okay, dude?”

“I’m fine,”  Jaskier laughs, a little breathless. “Just a little shocked.”

“You should take him to get a snack or something,” Eskel says, nudging his shoulder against Geralt’s. “He’s been busy all day and hasn’t even been to craft services.”

“You haven’t eaten?” Geralt asks, honestly baffled. Jaskier shakes his head, face heating once again. He wishes he could stop blushing, but Geralt’s presence seems to make it impossible. He wraps one arm around the younger man’s temptingly slender waist and leads him towards the food carts. He shoves a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of punch into Jaskier’s hands, not giving him a chance to argue. “Here, I’ll have something, too.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier smiles, understanding that he is, in turn, being understood. They sit comfortable folding chairs off to the side, food spread across their laps. Jaskier laughs and chats around his mouthfuls, pulling things from Geralt like his favorite color and his least favorite nicknames. Songs he liked and dances he disliked. 

“You made it fun again, today,” the singer smiles. “Thank you for that. I wish you could be here for every video shoot.”

“Looking for another member of the band?” Jaskier jokes, doing some half-hearted jazz hands. Geralt shakes his head and laughs. 

“I wish we were,” he sighs. “But I guess five is the magic number.”

“Makes the dances look cooler,” Jaskier nods. “I agree with whoever made that decision. I wouldn’t dare ruin the aesthetic.”

Geralt laughs again and Vesemir turns to look, honestly shocked at the volume of the sound. 

“Plus, you can’t be the frontman if there’s no front.”

“Shut up,” Geralt chuckles, still grinning broadly. 

Vesemir makes a phone call.

---

2 Weeks Later, Backstage in Kaedwen

---

“He’s been sulking like this ever since Jaskier went back to Oxenfurt,” Lambert whines. “C’mon Vesemir, do something.”

“What do you want me to do, make Geralt’s boyfriend appear out of thin air?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Geralt growls, stomping past his bandmates and manager. He can’t help but feel grumpy. Jaskier had been like the sun, bringing light and wonder to everything he touched, and without that joy around it doesn’t seem worth the extra effort to smile. So he’s been moping. 

“Fucking hell,” Vesemir sighs. “Thank goodness I thought ahead.”

“What do you mean?” Eskel asks, joining the little group in the hallway outside the dressing room. “What did you think of?”

“Three,” Vesemir smiles, glancing at his watch. “Two… One…”

“Boooooys,” echoes a high tenor. “Where’s my welcome wagon, Vesemir?”

“Jaskier!” Aiden practically screams, leaping out of the dressing room and flying down the hall. Lambert follows at a sprint and Vesemir hears the resounding oof oh fuck of both giddy musicians hitting their mark. 

Geralt comes back down the hall at a jog, eyes searching frantically. “I thought I heard-”

“Geralt!”

Vesemir’s heart clenches in his chest at the way Geralt’s face lights up. At the end of the hallway, surrounded by spilled luggage and apologetic boyband members, is Jaskier. Geralt floats to him, it seems, like he’s dreaming the whole thing. Jaskier takes his hands and then releases them and wraps his arms low around Geralt’s hips instead. 

“I missed you the most,” he whispers, just for Geralt to hear. “Couldn’t sleep without listening to your CD. I know it’s silly but I really like you.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt whispers reverently into his shaggy brown hair. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to do my thesis on pop culture’s relation to music history,” he says. “And then the manager of TW5 called Oxenfurt and offered me the opportunity to do some… first hand research while I worked on finishing the paper.”

“R-Really? You’re going to be here… every day?”

“Do you… do you not want me he-”

Geralt kisses him before he can even finish the question. It’s a stupid question anyway, of course Geralt wants him here. Wants him right here, kissing him silly. The singer presses his lips desperately, crushingly against Jaskier’s; he never wants to part from this man again. He never wants to be without that glorious laughter and contagious liveliness. Who knew that life could be so full of delight and happiness if he only let it? 

He kisses Jaskier for all he’s worth and more, pouring his heart and soul into it. When they pull apart, both gasping for air, Geralt asks, “Stay with me, Jaskier? You don’t have to do anything I just-”

“I’d love to be the big spoon,” Jaskier winks, whispering again. “Thank you, Geralt, for the rescue.”