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janie_tangerine
Any other time, hearing Geralt that angry would have… felt good, Jaskier thinks.
Any other time.
Right now…
Well. There was a reason why he was indulging in his little secret endeavour only late at night and only when he was sure no one else would be around, but it seems like in the last months he had forgotten that Geralt’s sleep patterns are that fucked and that he has very, very good hearing.
He also wishes he could lie about this, but it’s not like he can. Not when… well.
Anyone with two eyes could figure out what the fuck he was doing.
He shrugs. “What does it look like to you?” It’s not a straight answer.
He just can’t give it, right now.
Geralt looks down at the… rather high number of half-burned matches piled at Jaskier’s feet, at the one he’s holding in his hand, the tip burned, then at his arm.
“It seems to me like you want to make sure you’re never going to play a note in your life,” Geralt says, “and why the fuck would that be?”
He still sounds angry. Fuck, it shouldn’t feel so good that he’s angry, and yet.
“That’s not what’s going to be the problem in that case,” Jaskier blurts out, and maybe it’s that he’s tired and maybe it’s that Geralt’s anger is making him feel like he cares and maybe he had thought he’d never see that again as long as he lived, and so he lets his right hand fall open on the bed, where Geralt can see it.
Geralt’s pretty golden eyes go wide in the moonlight.
“That’s — that was the mage that — the firefucker?”
“Apt definition,” Jaskier nods. “Let’s say he wanted to find you and he didn’t have much luck.”
“He — he did that to you because —”
“Excellent deduction,” Jaskier shrugs, looking back at the dark red constellations he burned into his skin just before Geralt came barging in. “He did that to you because I thought I’d know where to find you or could tell him where you could be, that after destroying my lute, so it’s not like I have anything to play anyway, and let’s just say that since then I really have a problem standing close to flames, and — never mind. Let’s say I thought that if I was the one doing it, it would help.”
It’s not the whole truth. Far from it. But — lightening up the match himself had felt better than just finding himself near flames had, and no, he hasn’t exactly tried to burn his own skin himself, it just — that wasn’t what he wanted, but.
But the closest he moved it to his skin, the more he thought he should have felt more, and then he had —
Then he had blown on the match and kind of smashed the blackened end into the skin of his forearm, and —
He wishes it hadn’t felt good, but.
But the sharp intake of pain had worked in throwing him out of his momentary funk, and then he had just turned the stupid match until his skin hurt and it was red and with a small, neat dot in the middle.
And then —
Then he had thought, and what else am I supposed to be doing anyway?
Clean-up was done, and all the witchers were obviously mourning, so any attempt at levity had fallen flat. He doesn’t have the lute and no one seems to want music around anyway and it’s not like he knows exactly what the fuck they would even like to hear. Geralt has been busy checking on Ciri, as he should, she’s his daughter, of course he would, and Yennefer just — locked herself in the laboratory and sometimes she comes out and she does talk to him like she wants him here, but all in all he just feels completely useless and it’s not like it’s going to change. He has nothing to do here but he also has nothing waiting for him down the mountain anyway and the only thing he ever wanted was being back at Geralt’s side as much as he told himself he didn’t want that, as much as he wrote a whole song about it that he regrets ever singing in public at this point because Geralt might have broken his heart but he didn’t deserve for Jaskier to unbury that one title and bring it back to everyone’s attention, and he just felt guilty every time he thought about singing that song in front of an audience even when he had to force himself to not cry every time he finished performing it.
Honestly.
Honestly, it made so much sense that he’d just light up another match and do it again. So maybe if there was a next time they’d catch him prepared, wouldn’t they, and it’s not like he could ruin his own skin more than Rience had anyway, right? What were a few burns here and there in comparison to the mess on his hand?
Honestly.
So maybe he might have gone overboard with it.
Maybe now he has… some fifteen small pinpoints on the pale flesh of his forearm, but so what? It’s not like anyone was going to notice. No one noticed the hand anyway, did they?
“You’re lying,” Geralt says, moving closer, sitting on the other side of the bed, not exactly touching him. he could take his hand, if he reached out. He looks like he wants to.
It’s throwing Jaskier for a damned loop.
“I am,” he shrugs. He knows Geralt can smell that on him, and even if he couldn’t… he doubts he’s up for pretending that was all.
“Can I…?” Geralt asks, nodding towards his hand.
“Be my guest,” Jaskier replies, not trying to hide how tired he’s feeling.
He expects for Geralt to grab his hand or something, not… not the entire arm. When he brushes his fingers along the burns he has to suppress a shudder, and if he always hoped to feel Geralt’s hands on my like this… well. He’ll take what he can get.
“Why?” Geralt asks, and Jaskier wishes that he — that this wasn’t the time he wanted to talk about things. Fuck, he’s starting to understand why Geralt is allergic to it.
“Because,” Jaskier blurts, not looking at him, he can’t look at Geralt as he says this, as cowardly as it might be, “because it felt good, I needed a distraction, I thought that if I got adjusted it might — I don’t know, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad it felt when he did it to the hand so I figured hey, maybe if I do that it will make it better, and because it’s not like I have anything better to do here and playing anything is out of the question, and —”
“And?” Geralt presses when Jaskier just can’t bring himself to say it.
“Because I wrote a stupid song about how much you hurt me on the mountain and the point of it was that I wished you’d burn with all the memories I had of you, which admittedly — I mean, I was — I was angry when I wrote it, I really didn’t mean that, but never mind, I — I regret all of it, and that was what I was performing when that asshole of a mage found me, and then you showed up and I couldn’t even stay angry at you and then I saw you with your daughter and I felt fucking horrible for having just… said those things, and honestly I can’t stop thinking that maybe the fact that it happened just after means I deserved it, and I know you’re going to think it makes no sense and it probably fucking doesn’t but I just feel fucking horrible about it now and well. I just. Seemed appropriate.”
That was not a dignified rant.
Geralt’s hands don’t move.
There’s a long, long silence.
Then.
“Are you saying — you were — you made that to yourself because you felt horrible about… doing something that might have hurt me when I —”
“You broke my heart and I’m not going to pretend you didn’t, and it was a shit apology but I know how to take it for what it is, but I didn’t have a right to just blurt all of that in front of an audience. I don’t know. The — the truth is that I feel like I’m not good for anything right now, so — might as well.”
His voice sounded too small at that for his liking, but whatever. He’s never made a point of not being vulnerable around Geralt and he doesn’t regret it, so he might as well do it now.
“How long have you been… feeling like that?” That… was not what he had expected to hear.
“I guess you’ll have to be a bit more specific,” Jaskier snorts. “Like what?”
“Not good for anything.”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “Honestly, I don’t. And maybe I did help those elves also because — well. It was the right thing to do. Someone had to. I also wanted to feel like I had a purpose, and now I don’t have that anymore either, so. Before. Probably. I don’t know.”
Geralt doesn’t say a thing for a while, but also doesn’t let his arm go.
Jaskier doesn’t even dare moving, figuring that if that’s the most he’ll get, at least he’ll take as much of it as he can and then remember how Geralt’s fingers feel on him until the day he dies.
“I heard that song,” Geralt shrugs.
“What,” Jaskier blurts, trying to move his arm back, but Geralt doesn’t let him and he doesn’t have the strength to fight it. “You did?”
“Once before we went up the pass. It was an inn down the mountain.” His voice ( ). Jaskier just missed it so fucking much. “Ciri didn’t… really catch on to it. And the rendition wasn’t exactly great, I suppose.”
“I shouldn’t have sung it,” Jaskier sighs miserably. “It’s already too little of you left and it got this far, how —”
“It’s fine,” Geralt stops him. “One could hear that you were hurt that badly. I’m not holding it against you. It’s not like you aren’t the one reason people stopped calling me like that anyway.”
“Yeah, I still shouldn’t have done it.”
“But if I hadn’t made you feel like you were expendable to me all this time maybe you wouldn’t have been as angry, would you?”
He has to half-laugh at that. “Maybe. That doesn’t make it better.”
“That’s — not it.” He can hear Geralt scoffing, and he’ll just — let him find whatever it is he wants to say. It’s a miracle he’s talking this much anyway, he won’t push it. “I just can’t — I can’t help feeling like I should have noticed. You shouldn’t feel like you’re not good enough for anything.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs minutely, wishing he had his coat on and not his meagre thrice-mended shirt. “Can’t remember ever doing that except when I was in university, I guess.” He knew he was good enough for his grades in Oxenfurt and he never felt like that around, say, Essi or any other of his close friends, but none of them had the kind of like that meant they saw each other often after they got their degrees.
He just. Doesn’t exactly know when he wasn’t feeling like he never could do good enough for anyone around him. “And except when I was with you. I think.” He didn’t want to admit it, but as it’s truth-sharing time, he might as fucking well do it.
“… You did?”
He sounds surprised now. Jaskier doesn’t even know if he wants to cry or laugh.
“Did you ever notice,” Jaskier says, “that you could have actually made sure I didn’t follow you at any time if you really wanted me to scram, and you never did even when I was annoying the ever-loving crap out of you?”
He finds it in himself to actually look at Geralt.
Fuck’s sake. He does look surprised.
Jaskier’s not even going to blame him for that. He’s seen enough of the other witchers around the keep to have an idea of why he would.
“No,” Geralt says, “but you have a point.”
“Yeah, well. If you never did do that, I could presume you actually wanted me there, so. You never made me feel like I was.”
“But I haven’t… done good by you, either,” Geralt replies quietly, his fingertips dancing over the line of burns on Jaskier’s arm again. Fuck. If he doesn’t stop — Jaskier doesn’t know what he’ll do, but still. Still.
“It’s — I mean.” He shakes his head. “Let’s be real, the entire point is that even if you didn’t hide you found me annoying, you never seemed to mind… whatever my faults were enough to not want me there.” He breathes. “The mountain really wasn’t great, in that sense.”
“If I say I didn’t mean it will it… ease things?”
“I know you didn’t,” Jaskier shakes his head, “you wouldn’t — be like this if you did. And you wouldn’t have come to get me in Oxenfurt if you did. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you actually didn’t need my help at all.”
Geralt does look a bit flustered in the moonlight, at that. “Yeah, well.” He shakes his head. “Yen said you were in trouble. And — I just. I missed you.” It doesn’t sound like he hates admitting it, though.
“Missed you too,” Jaskier admits, turning his hand over and grasping Geralt’s, figuring that at this point hiding things is just… useless. He’s tired of holding back. He’s tired of having his feelings be some kind of open secret they both don’t acknowledge.
He’s too tired for that now.
Geralt grasps his hand back. Jaskier stops breathing for a moment when it happens, and then Geralt’s looking at him sort of the same way as he had in the prison except softer —
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” he breathes as he runs his free hand over the inside of Jaskier’s arm.
“I don’t particularly want to,” Jaskier admits. “I just — it was — it sounded great at the time. It’s not. I — I think I need a break. Which is ridiculous telling you that, but —”
“I think we all do.” He breathes in. “This isn’t… much of a safe place any longer, but I think we should stay there a while longer. And then — will you come with? If anything, I should keep an eye on you.”
Jaskier lets a breath out, letting his shoulder touch Geralt’s, letting his warmth seep through his shirt, and when Geralt wraps an arm around him and pulls them back against the wall, he goes with. He’s too tired to do otherwise and he’s wanted this for a long time and just — when Geralt’s fingers brush against his burned skin again he doesn’t even try to move his arm away.
“Where would I go?” He says. “I did miss you.”
“Will you let… either Vesemir or Yen or me look at your hand tomorrow? The rest will heal, as long as you don’t prod, but. You should have said.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t seem pressing and — all right. All right, tomorrow I will. Can — can you —”
“Yes,” Geralt replies, and Jaskier’s just glad that for once he didn’t have to explain himself, and when he closes his eyes and feels one rough hand reach the back of his head and card through his hair, he lets himself sigh.
He’s nowhere near fine, he’s not going to lie to himself about that any longer, and sure as fuck neither is Geralt, but maybe they could — they could be, and that prospect feels better than anything has in a long time.
End.
