Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Though bathing in wealth unjustly acquired through unsound cruelty towards their surfs is despicable enough as it stands, Jaskier has to admit that his contemporaries amongst Redanian nobility really outdid themselves with their latest matter of opulence. He has been in almost every higher and lower court in the North but it’s only his countrymen that have decided to add a dash of hubris to their spendings, mainly by investing in summer and winter homes.

The estate which overlooks Pontar’s shore at the very south of Redania between Rinde and Piana, is a prime example. It’s large enough to house not only servants but also villagers, blacksmiths, stable masters, greenhouses, and enough flower beds to render a good patch of otherwise perfectly tillable land useless. It’s a little village in it’s own right, multiple houses packed together and unified by their brown-tiled roofs, above which the main house rises its head in judgment. A perfectly functional wall circles the estate before spilling into a gate which has fallen into disrepair and which Geralt jimmies open without further trouble.

Jaskier gazes at the estate with little more than disdain before Geralt turns back and says, “Coming?”

Jaskier looks at him and, though perhaps not always, he feels as if Geralt and he share the same sentiment now. He follows. It’s not the first time he’s accompanied Geralt on a primary investigation for a job. This one fell into their laps all on its own. While travelling east, Geralt noted a nekker nest and decided to destroy it since it was bothering the locals, just to be scouted by the overseer of the region, Lord Vallei, and then rather sloppily pressed into doing this job.

Jaskier understands that not every Redanian noble is able to play the game of politics: a little bit of seduction mixed with a whole slew of lies which presented the perfected manipulation concoction. Gods know Jaskier wasn’t made for it either, and why Oxenfurt had him amongst its ranks to begin with. Still, even he knows that grave tragedy, mystery, and evil, aren’t particularly entrancing keywords to get someone excited for another job after having nekker guts spewed all over him.

First, they pass the arbitrary, and now abandoned, guard posts. Opportunities to keep a nobleman’s home spotless over the rest of the year hasn’t passed up on the less fortunate, and at first, he’s sure, it looked like a prime opportunity. But Jaskier smells decay in the air, and that particular after-stench when the body has already been decomposing for a while.

Geralt takes his time. There’s no rush for him, not when he’s collecting clues, and so they go from the granary, where wheat and grist rot—grain Lord Vallei now needs since his fortunes he acquired through its trade—to the brewery where the alcohol sits in large vats, undisturbed. The storehouse isn’t much better. The awful scent that fills his nose isn’t decomposing bodies but decomposing food, vegetables not having only rotted, but decided to merge with the tables into one giant green blob of fungi.

No, Jaskier thinks, not ideal three keywords but enough to get Geralt interested in the job.

“Considering they all went mad and killed each other at the height of summer,” Jaskier musses, following Geralt into the barn where the rest of the livestock should’ve been kept, “they had an enviable larder.”

The crops shouldn’t have been coming in for at least two weeks after the incident. The hay in the stables, or rather the very little of it left, is evidence to that. But the grain, and the rotting food, speak of unusual ritches.

“Even nobles can’t make crops grow quicker.”

Sure enough, Geralt grunts, as if to say, ‘noted’ and doesn’t reply, in a way that discourages any further conversation. It’s a fine line, reading Geralt. It’s a whole language that only one person speaks. One and a half, if you’re considering Jaskier’s masochistic efforts.

But it’s not the first time he’s been on a job with Geralt, and so Jaskier doesn’t take offence, nor does he demand audience and attention—he knows Geralt’s senses are, most likely, sunk into whatever stench will decipher what the hell happened here.

He watches Geralt poke and prod at dead livestock, dead either from wolves, hunger, one another, or perhaps killed in a crazed rampage by people. It’s been almost a full year since the incident, so the majority of the bodies have liquified.

“Torn open,” Geralt says, mostly to himself. “The blood is old, but something—”

He moves his head, and stands up from the crouch, as if following an invisible line. “Trail of it, something heavy but thin was dragging on the ground.”

He walks out of the barn, and slowly moves his way, finally, to the main house. There’s a couple of entrances there—the kitchen doors, the main entrance, and the side doors. Geralt goes to the kitchen first, and following, Jaskier is surprised to find the same green fungi blob growing out of the table. There’s food rotting everywhere, almost untouched, and the cold box, at least what should’ve been the cold box, is filled with dried ham, also untouched. There’s a few large ham legs, sausages, ribs, some rubbed with spices, some just salted. The splatter of brown in the corner, in comparison, barely smells at all. Definitely smells less than the animals, which is a rule Jaskier usually finds is reversed.

It’s not the first dead person Jaskier’s seen. That’d be impossible with the company he keeps, and he’s not particularly spooked by death, or by the scene in front of him. Even disgust evades him. The only thing he feels, looking at the carcass, is a vague sort of curiosity.

When Geralt starts examining the body, Jaskier decides to head to the foyer.

The picture there, however, isn’t prettier. In fact, it’s defiantly worse. Jaskier never thought he’d see blood splatter on such a tall ceiling, or on the crystal chandelier that now refracts morning light. The smell of decay, ignorable in the kitchen, is anything but here. There are so many dead bodies in the landing that the stench is overpowering, assaulting, coating Jaskier’s tongue and nose in it. He can’t even smell Geralt when he comes through the kitchen passage, and however strange and mutated his alpha scent is, Jaskier really ought to be able to recognize him considering he’s known the man for a decade.

Geralt goes from one body to the other again, but it takes less time. “Their stomachs. I’ve seen this before. The bodies don’t stink so much because they starved to death.”

Jaskier ticks an eyebrow. “There’s literally a cold box full of ham. Plenty of food, all around.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says. “Perhaps not the food they needed.”

Whatever that means Geralt doesn’t explain, and Jaskier doesn’t press. He’s learned that Geralt will not disclose information no matter how annoying he gets about it. Instead, Jaskier goes on ahead to the tea-room, where at least he finds brandy that he can sniff to cleanse his palate. He pours himself a thimble even as he observes the corpse in the room which looks to be the house dog.

“This is just depressing,” Jaskier notes to Geralt. “Who the hell kills their dog? I’m going to go look if they got some money stashed here or something. Perhaps a provocative letter or two.”

Geralt gives him a look. “Ten murdered people, and you draw a line because of the dog?”

“What, should I task myself with emotional labour every time we come across a carcass? They’re dead, Geralt, and sympathies are generally lost on, you know, objects that can no longer understand you. Though,” Jaskier says, putting a hand on his hip. “I suppose I could dabble in melodrama, weep a little, if nothing else than to annoy you.”

Geralt shakes his head, like he does every time when they inevitably lapse into the general territory of Jaskier’s contemporary views that amuse him, and gives the go-ahead. The house may be creepy but if a monster hasn’t jumped them yet, it’s unlikely it will do so now. Geralt would’ve sensed it. Or smelled it. So Jaskier goes through the tables, and the books, and finds a handful of florians before he moves upstairs, to the private room of one Lord Langley, who didn’t die in his four-poster bed as much as he was spiked on one of its pillars.

The bedside table holds letters Jaskier takes great care in reading because there are juicy details, if only Jaskier knew the ladies in question. Then he moves to his writing table on top of which he finds the prize. Jewelry.

As a Redanian, he’s well aware rings carry a purpose, and authority. There are whole bloodlines whose status of nobility relies on them. They’re a show of power as much as they are wont to open many doors. They carry secret messages, and in times, secret compartments—poisons, and cures all the same.

Silver and gold are valuable in their own right, especially considering the emeralds and rubies stuck inside the thick, and rather heavy, rings Jaskier slips onto his fingers. Among such expensive craftsmanship, it’s easy to spot a poorly made ring. It’s surprising to find something so plain in a nobleman’s collection—just a band of gold and not particularly decorated either. He nicks himself when he slips it on his finger and puts his mouth over it to stench off the blood. Perhaps it was a gift, because its value definitely isn’t fitting the jewelry box.

With that all finished, Jaskier turns his attention to the writing desk itself where, without much trouble, he finds a rather poorly hidden compartment, and within it, Langley’s diary.

There’s no shuffle of feet, no sound, but Geralt appears in the doorway all the same, and it’s only a few soundless steps until he’s in front of Jaskier.

“What kind of Redanian keeps a diary,” Jaskier says, leafing through the pages. “I mean, for Gods’ sake, if even one servant sees it, you might as well have published it on the notice board.”

“Redania’s information network that bad?”

“Worse,” Jaskier corrects.

Geralt hums, as if he wishes to inquire more but doesn’t have the words for it exactly, and so Jaskier ignores him in favour of going to the end of the diary, and working his way back, trying to see if there’s anything of note. Geralt’s still wonderfully unaware of Jaskier’s pedigree, and he’d like for it to remain so indefinitely.

“Anything interesting?”

“Nope,” Jaskier says. “Just Lord Langley over there complaining how he’s hungry, but can’t keep anything down, how sounds torture him, how he’s loathe to get up from bed before noon—which he might as well considering he’s got no job—” Jaskier tapers off as his eyes jump over the following text. He feels excitement rush through him, before dread coalesces. “Oh.”

“What?”

Jaskier reads, “—this year, after father’s death, it was my time to do the family duty—I brought a sacrifice to the temple. A good thing too. Vallei has been nosing around the family past for far too long, and has become far too interested in our traditions —”

“Vallei’s the name of our employer.”

Jaskier hums. “Perhaps he wasn’t so interested in the grain after all.”

“Read on,” Geralt instructs, with poorly concealed impatience.

“ Just like father instructed me, I went to the temple in the cavern, where it is said that great-grandfather sealed an immortal. On the sacrificial rock, I cut my hand and I said the words—”

“Don’t,” Geralt stops him right there. He takes the book, and reads quickly. Then, he says, “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a curse. An elven one.” He considers the information, then says, “We need to find this temple.”

Considering there’s a hill backing the estate, the treck isn’t too long. They climb for about half-hour before they come to the mouth of the cave, and sure enough, just as written, it’s been sealed. A large boulder sits in front of them, though it’s surface is smooth. Jaskier looks but can’t find the sacrificial stone—there’s no blood anywhere.

“There ought to be a mechanism,” Geralt says, putting his fingers over the slab of stone, looking for a weakness.

Jaskier lets him work, but when he hears Geralt’s frustrated huff, he sighs and says, “What are you looking for exactly?”

“Don’t know,” he replies. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Maybe there’s another entrance,” Jaskier offers, touching the boulder. But no sooner than he’s said that, the earth begins to rumble, and the boulder shifts to the side to reveal a small, concealed passage.

Geralt wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t say anything as he steps inside, having to bend his head to pass through. Jaskier doesn’t fare any better, though he’s pretty sure Geralt isn’t thinking what horrors he’s getting stuck in his hair.

They surface on the other side into a winding path that smells of death, condensation, and stale air, that leads them past stalactites and stalagmites, and ends in old rock-cut stairs. They follow them up into a clearing, surrounded by four pillars, at the center of which, on a slab, a body lay chained. A body, Jaskier thinks, that looks perfectly inhuman. In fact, it looks like a huge bat.

Geralt considers it all, then says, “They captured a katakan.”

“A what?”

“It’s a race of higher vampires. Intelligent. More beastly than true high vampires, but controlled enough not to butcher their victims.”

Geralt lights the old braziers, and the aged wood burns with renowned strength.

“I can smell magic. Old magic.” He moves around the room, stepping carefully, just like when he’s tracking a beast, and after a moment of consideration points at the floor. “The inscription is the same as the curse. They wanted immortality.”

“But could humans do it, considering the magic and all?”

“Katakans aren’t immortal anyway. They have an extended life-span, a few hundred years, but no more. The witch, if they had the help of one, was not very good.” Geralt steps closer to the slab to observe the mummified body. ”Even if they managed to enter the katakan’s magic into the family’s bloodline, they cursed themselves doing so. Langley wasn’t prepared for what was to happen.”

Jaskier hums. “A good story, but why did the curse befall the whole estate then? Why didn’t it happen to Langley’s father? Furthermore, wouldn’t have they figured out something was wrong when his father did die, like he wrote in the diary?”

“Good question,” Geralt says. “Maybe the katakan cursed all of his captors, not only the benefactors of the magic. Even if you have an extended life, things can still kill you like a big enough fall, a silver sword, or another higher vampire.”

Jaskier nods, collecting this information and storing it for later. “Perhaps, Langley would have survived had he not done that ritual.”

“They couldn’t eat regular food. They didn’t know what they could eat. And then, starved, they slaughtered each other. Fitting, considering. Look,” he points, “The katakan himself starved to death, held down by magic.”

Jaskier shivers. He’s travelled with Geralt for a long time, but whenever he thinks he’s seen the worst of humans, they inevitably manage to surprise him.

“We can’t do anything for Langley anymore but we can for the katakan. It’s best to at least burn the body. That should end the curse over the estate.” Geralt glances at him and huffs. “And take off the damn rings before you ruin them.”

“As if I’d ever do that,” Jaskier replies, but tugs them off anyway, folding them into his breast pocket for safekeeping.

When it comes to breaking the curse, Jaskier thinks, it involves much less magic than he thought. They take the katakan remains, carry them out, and burn them. The ashes, Geralt says, don’t hold any power anymore.

It’s midday when they’re finished. They don’t linger at the estate but ride back to their employer, who doesn’t look particularly happy about the turn of events. However, with all things considered, Jaskier’s fairly certain the prick didn’t want to end up like his friend.

They stay in the adjacent village two more days, waiting for Geralt’s armor to get repaired, before they peel off. There’s no song for the nameless katakan, nothing to make a ballad out of, only somberness of human cruelty. Jaskier has spent a decade in Geralt’s company, but it feels like no time passed at all between Posada and Piana. Just like then, Jaskier thinks nothing more of what happened, focusing instead on what’s to come ahead as he swaps the rings for coin.

-

The cramping starts about a month later, when they reach Flotsam. Now, Jaskier has been in many respectable dumps, but Flotsam is definitely among the worst ones so far, and he would have probably remembered to note it as such if he wasn’t overcome by the pain in his stomach. Furthermore, he feels fatigued which happens rarely, if ever, and heralds either an impending heat, which is not likely considering he takes his suppressants religiously, or he’s coming down with a case of something.

He drags himself rather miserably through the port, trying to dodge the cut-throat merchants and their steep prices. Flotsam, resting on the border between Redania and Kaedwen to the north, but also Temeria and Aedirn to the south, sits in the natural grove created by the Pontar river which cuts the continent, and the Kestrel mountains, in two. It’s one of the most lucrative merchant trade-routes. Goods can be ferried from Dol Blathanna, through the four kingdoms, to the shores of Cidaris, where Pontar spills into the North sea. However, unlike the usual settlements that bring in good coin, Flotsam and it’s cousin White Bridge, are made to be sturdy and to withstand the inaccessible wilderness that surrounds it.

Temerian colors that litter the streets tell Jaskier who the port is controlled by, though in truth, it’s the merchants who always have the final say. For instance, they're not inclined to part with coin half-way into their journey. Jaskier sits and plays for the majority of the day, and manages to earn just enough to cover the usual cost of the room, though, by evening-fall, Geralt’s already taken care of that.

Geralt doesn’t often sit and watch him play. If he must, he stays in the tavern long enough to eat or to converse with someone who has a job for him. While he gives little import to Jaskier’s craft, Jaskier also knows that he doesn’t wish to hear the songs about himself, which are the majority of Jaskier’s repertoire. Vanity is not one of Geralt’s faults, though Jaskier knows many men who would have preened and celebrated songs about themselves.

Taking all that into account, it’s a surprise to feel a hand on his shoulder by the end of his stint.

“What’s wrong,” Geralt says, leaving no room for argument.

Ignoring the insistence in his voice, Jaskier replies for the third time that day, “I’m alright.”

Just as he says it though, it’s as if his body revolts at the lie, and the pain flares up until he wishes to do nothing else but double over, the only thing keeping him upright being Geralt’s hand on his shoulder.

When the cramping stops, and he’s managed to avoid Geralt’s judging gaze, they walk up the stairs into their room. Jaskier toes off his boots and gathers every single blanket they have. Though he’s sweated through his undershirt, it’s from cold sweat, caused by naught but being racked with pain.

Jaskier pays no mind to Geralt until he says, “I can’t help you unless you let me.”

“There’s nothing to help with ,” Jaskier replies, slipping under the blankets into the bed.

He can hear Geralt’s exasperated huff but he doesn’t push further. Wonderful. Jaskier allows himself to enjoy the lull of conversation, the silence broken only by Geralt’s quiet steps and quieter shuffling. Geralt eventually sits on the bed—they’re travellers, and penniless, thus used to it—and with that the silence grows loud, until he can hear the patrons downstairs, the buzz of the summer insects, the pumping of his own blood in his ears, the pulsing of pain in his abdomen. He has no fever to break, but he still feels gripped by it, for the time passes just the same—sliding away from him, yet when he opens his eyes once more it’s as if no time has passed at all.

“Perhaps,” Geralt’s voice flutters over, clear as Pontar’s flow, “you didn’t cook that bear quite right.”

Jaskier scoffs. “I know how to cook meat, Geralt.”

He’d learned it the hard way, of course. After the first month travelling with Geralt, he realised that cooking was an option rather than a need for the man, and that if he wanted to avoid disease, and other unpleasantness when it comes to eating game, he ought to take matters into his own hands.

Jaskier turns in the bed, eyes landing on Geralt’s back. Jaskier observes the way Geralt’s shirt fits him, stretched over his shoulders, the way the collar presses softly against the back of his neck where his hair splits to reveal the silver of his chain. It’s not the first time Jaskier has seen Geralt like this, occupied with papers and letters that are requirements for his job, with his neck vulnerable to him. Yet, Jaskier still finds himself wanting to press his lips there even a decade later.

Geralt makes a sound of acquiescence to Jaskier’s point, but adds, “Any berries you’ve eaten this time that I need to know about?”

Geralt’s possibly the farthest person from the usual stereotype of an alpha Jaskier has ever met. Here Jaskier is, an unlikely omega—perhaps not slight enough, or short enough, or meek enough to fit the general social stereotype but still in pain—swathed in the scent of distress that even Jaskier can smell on himself, and all Geralt’s doing is mocking him. It’s one of the things Jaskier truly appreciates about his friend—his particular contrariety to the norm.

Jaskier’s grown up in a particular set of circumstances where information was key and privacy paramount, if unreachable. Alphas bullied others because they couldn’t stand the stress-hormones that grated on their senses until the issue at hand was revealed. Not for the benefit of the beta or omega, no, it was just to remedy their own senses which demand they be problem solvers and at the service of soothing others. An instinct frowned upon in Redania, yet used particularly well in squeezing out pertinent information.

Geralt doesn’t press him. Then again, there’s nothing to press Jaskier about. He’s just fine. What he needs is an interested prostitute who will kiss it all better.

Jaskier thinks about that last one for a moment, which must change his scent because Geralt turns to look at him. In return, Jaskier gets a good view of his wonderfully muscular back, and inviting forearms now on show, and his very complicated eyebrows that furrow now just like they do whenever Jaskier makes a move, or offers something casual in as many subtle words, with no consequences such as offended egos. At this point, it’s more a joke than anything else, unless Geralt wants to take him on seriously, at which point he’d drop the joke, and his trousers.

Geralt takes a not-so-subtle breath, and says, “Even in pain, you’re thinking about sex.”

“I’m a masochist, we’ve established this,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt makes a sounds of amusement, a cut off, dry laugh. Jaskier chuckles. He proclaimed himself exactly that after his latest failed love-affair, and Geralt mocked him for it incessantly. He’d take on any joke at his own expense if he always got to see the crow’s feet creasing the soft skin around Geralt’s eyes whenever he smiled, just like he does now.

Geralt’s hand reaches over and lands on Jaskier’s forehead.

“You don’t feel warm. I’ll get you some broth, when I go downstairs. Perhaps your boyish metabolism has finally failed you.”

Jaskier tries and fails not to push into the comfort of Geralt’s hand. “I’m twenty-eight, not dead. And it’s not indigestion, alright?”

Geralt hums, mocking him. He doesn’t look convinced.

Jaskier clicks this tongue. “Seriously, I’m fine. It feels no different than waking up drunk, sobering up, and that discomfort in the belly just afterwards, you know?”

“Intimately,” Geralt replies.

That makes Jaskier chuckle. Amused, he pokes his friend. “Don’t make me laugh, it makes it worse.”

Geralt lets himself be poked and prodded, perhaps a little too long, before he finally grabs Jaskier’s hand. “I’ll bite them.”

“Kinky.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, exasperated.

Jaskier does laugh this time, and pushes himself up on his hip. Geralt’s got his hand, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in his advantage. After all, Jaskier’s scent is thicker and stickier on his wrists, and right now he’s interested and could talk himself into a rather lecherous mood if prompted.

Geralt smells good. It’s got nothing to do with his secondary gender—he’d smell good even if he were an omega or beta. Jaskier doesn’t much care either way. Depending on the region, the people don’t care either. Not, at least, until it’s time to pop out a few kids.

The fact is that Jaskier has eyes, and Geralt smells good, and he’s too amused about bickering with him. He definitely wouldn’t be put out if Geralt were to do something about it. After all, the thought of all of that pressed against him, or all of that under him, has Jaskier’s cock twitching.

Geralt considers him, in that usual way of his, breathing in subtly enough not to give himself away, but Jaskier knows him, and thus knows the way his jaw works whenever he gets a good lungful of his scent. Jaskier wiggles his fingers, to see if he can move his hand. Geralt’s hold is loose enough that he can. Wonderful. He cups Geralt’s face, like he does on occasion when Geralt’s malleable enough to let Jaskier shave him, and brushes his thumb over his lips, knowing his scent is tantalisingly close. Jaskier straddling a fine line, a line of propriety—presenting his scent, which is flirty, but not rubbing it on Geralt, which would be a serious proposition.

Geralt opens his mouth, which makes Jaskier all the more excited. Jaskier brushes the pad of his thumb over his sharp teeth, and thinks he’s getting somewhere this time, somewhere he sure as hell never thought he’d be able to even approach. Then Geralt clamps his teeth down, nipping his thumb.

Jaskier yelps and jerks his hand away. “You asshole! Could’ve actually bitten it off!”

“Yes,” Geralt replies, the little twitch of his lip an indicator of smugness Jaskier can smell. “Will you be good by yourself?”

“Unlikely,” Jaskier snarks.

Feeling as if he’s on his hind leg, Jaskier needs to get revenge, and so he licks the pad of his thumb, presentationally, just to be a dick about it. Geralt didn’t actually lick him, so there’s no scent to chase, but it’s the thought that matters.

Geralt’s eyes narrow and his scent warms, until Jaskier can taste it on his tongue. However, Geralt only shakes his head and stands, finding his way out of the room in three large strides.

It’s late in the evening so Jaskier settles on his half of the bed and, bored of reading through the same books he’s read already, he glances at the diary he kept from the Langley estate. He considers it for a moment, but he’s too tired to read Redanian scribbles, and so he falls asleep before Geralt returns. Perhaps it’s for the best, because when he wakes up he smells broth, cold but still palatable, and downs it with the pitcher of water.

Jaskier can barely see the outline of Geralt’s back cut out from the cloth of dark that swaddles the room. Yet it’s such a familiar shape that even blind, Jaskier knows Geralt by touch, by the taste of his scent on his tongue alone, and finds himself curling into his back, face pressed between shoulder blades. Geralt always sleeps on the outside, turned towards the doors. The first line of protection.

Jaskier returns to sleep. It’s in the middle of the night that his pain crests, cramps overwhelming him, and not so very different from the pain he felt the few times he spent his heats alone before he got on the medicine. He shakes and breathes through it, wishing he asked Geralt to get him something for the pain, even though he knows he could have never uttered the request.

Eventually Geralt turns and throws a hand over him to keep him still—he’s probably rocking the bed—and somewhere between the sweltering heat of Geralt’s chest and the heaviness of his hand, Jaskier falls asleep again.

In the morning, the cramping is gone.

-

Ignoring his bout with phantom indigestion—Jaskier still claims it’s definitely not it, despite what Geralt might think he’s not a child eating berries off the side of the road despite knowing better—it’s no secret that Jaskier has big appetites. They’re specific, true, specific to his nature as a man, and nurture as a bard, which range from cuisine, comfort, and company. Just because he’s not in Redania anymore, having crossed the border a week ago, and he’s about ten years and a thousand leagues from Oxenfurt, doesn’t mean his standards aren’t consistent.

Most assume Jaskier’s creature comforts come from the fact that he’s an omega, if they can scent it on him to begin with. Jaskier, and Geralt by proxy, don’t share the same delusion. There’s little in the way of comfort to find on the road and horseback, despite any efforts in attempting to prove otherwise. The ground is solid enough to make Jaskier’s feet ache in the evenings, and it gets even harder when he has to lay down to sleep. They have bedrolls and blankets, naturally—the North rarely gets hot except on mountain peaks and valleys, which they skirt more times than not. Jaskier doesn’t mind, because that’s what life on the road entails. There’s no standard set up to say there are any comforts to acquire to begin with, and he doesn’t search for something that’s not there. The stables, the empty houses, towers, and dilapidated estates, are more often used to scavenge rather than sleep under, and inns are a rare and particularly expensive exception to the rule. But civilisation entails hygiene, and Jaskier demands that he wash his clothes every so often, and freshen and powder them up. He’s fine bathing in creeks, he is, but even Geralt appreciates a hot bath and no interuptions.

So here they are, just a week from Flotsam, in an inn that has criminally low prices. Jaskier thinks it’s because they don’t get much in the way of customers considering there’s a rumor the establishment is cursed. Having determined it to be just that, rumors, Geralt wasn’t against abusing the opportunity.

Ten years on the road, exceptions excluded when they had to part for a few months at a time, is a long time to know someone. It’s enough time to get used to sharing close quarters and helping scrub dried blood and dirt from their skin, hair, and nails. Jaskier likes to pamper himself, that’s no secret, but he’s never really found it satisfying to pamper another person until Geralt rode into his life, stinking of horse and adventure.

With their clothes sent off to get washed, Jaskier sits in a towel on a stool next to the bath with Geralt’s hand in his lap, determined in giving him a manicure. There’s a couple of issues with that, the primary of which is that Geralt’s hand is in his lap, too close to his cock for him to not think of certain possibilities, but that’s, Jaskier thinks, just a part of his life. Geralt remains mount-wateringly attractive and Jaskier remains infallibly attracted to him. There’s a sort of security in finding normalcy in that—as much as he loathes an ordered life, he enjoys certain rules of the world, and comfort comes from the familiarity of his attraction. And it’s no secret either that Geralt sometimes plays his games, engages, flirts back. That, in the face of the intent coloring Jaskier’s scent, he isn’t indifferent. His scent tells it all, from the low thrum that matches Jaskier’s, to the sharp jarring spikes whenever his gaze lingers on his naked form for too long.

His company is intimately connected with the comforts of his life, and the comfort here is the inevitable, and familiar, burning in the pit of his belly that comes from such exchanges, and flare up only in instances where the territory’s uncharted.

Jaskier enjoys flirtation. He enjoys the little love games. He enjoys having lovers, as much as he enjoys sex. The best course, he always finds to be the short and sweet romances, brief but potent meetings where both Jaskier and his lover still think the best of each other. It’s best, he knows, for long romances to be dispersed with time between meetings, so that neither gets bored. And if he shall be refused, then Jaskier will mope, because it is only appropriate, and pine, because it’s what the lady deserves—and in an appropriate amount of time, Jaskier will get over his self-induced heartbreak and find another to fill the void. That isn't difficult. People are so very different to each other, and Jaskier has found that, despite their many failures, he does love humanity. It’s not difficult to love the traits of beautiful faces, of raven locks the same as blond ones, of dark eyes and green ones too, meadows and deep river valleys, of rose and burgundy lips, of skins: pink, pale, rudy, rich, brown.

Jaskier was fifteen when the first love games started. The first ones, as expected, were the hardest ones. He fell in love, and thought he’d die when she looked cross with him, bored, and he still pursued her. It’s then that he realised what the games truly were. Getting attached was, and remains, no good. Fun, entertainment, that is the goal. Emotions are brief, strong, and disappear just as easily.

But he’s never really had a friend like Geralt. He’s aware of these games, and he isn’t opposed to entertaining a lady for a night or so, to sate her curiosity or appetite, but he doesn’t truly engage and has no wish for frilly words. Jaskier doubts he’d appreciate any such games between the two of them. Jaskier wouldn’t either.

After ten years certain pretenses fall away. Geralt knows him like nobody else does. There’s no novelty, no curiosity, no surprise. They have known each other too long. His emotions are less explosive and more fond and mellow, withstanding the stretch of a decade, and the time when Jaskier left only to see that he could. In the end, he’d hate to force himself to leave Geralt’s company. Better, Jaskier thinks, not to mix poisons. Though, of course, that wouldn’t stop him if Geralt made a genuine offer, consequences be damned.

A more practical issue is the fact that getting blood from under fingernails is difficult, which is why he has a little brush with him for it, and a whole slew of equipment including files, small scissors, and pliers. Geralt’s nails are sturdy, and not in a manner of speech—they’re thicker than his own, tend to grow pointy and sharp, and threaten to burst through Geralt’s gloves on the off-chance he remembers to wear them. They could easily grow into claws if Geralt ever let them go that far. Geralt doesn’t—it’s impractical for wield his swords.

Jaskier’s fascinated, as he is fascinated with everything that’s unusual.

Geralt is, and will remain, full of little secrets hidden in the corners of his body, some of which Jaskier has the privilege of knowing, the others that will never be revealed to him. This, for example, is something Geralt did, and usually does by himself. The first time Jaskier put his hand in his lap he’d not startled as much as he lifted his head up and glared, stock-still like an animal waiting to be hit. Jaskier feels pleased that Geralt’s shoulders remain relaxed now.

It would be so easy, Jaskier thinks as he finishes off Geralt’s left hand, to climb into the bath, kiss him a little, feel these thick, rough fingers pressing inside of him. It wouldn’t take him long to get wet. Not at all. And though he knows he shouldn’t engage, he is no more invulnerable to such thoughts.

Both hands done, Jaskier stands. Creature comforts or not, he always carries shears with him, and a straight razor. Sure barbers exist, but they tend to shy away from the woods through which Geralt and he tend to travel, and his hair growing out is not a pretty picture. It needs upkeep. Perhaps it’s not something Geralt cares for, what with his long hair and oftentimes beard, but he doesn’t mind the pampering a bit. He doesn’t protest even when Jaskier rubs the soap into his cheeks, when he sharpens the straight razor on some tanned leather to get the point sharp again, or when he sets it to his cheek. Pampering, Jaskier thinks, is what makes them civilized to begin with. He swipes the blade with practiced ease.

Jaskier’s also pretty sure that he shouldn’t be the one doing this. It’s the alphas that tend to coddle omegas, offering services such as this. As he wipes off the foam to instead rub oil into Geralt’s cheeks for a close shave, Jaskeir finds it fairly amusing. They’re as far as what they should be, or what people expect them to behave, and Jaskier appreciates the humor in it. The irony of stereotypes is that of cavalry boots—if you make one-size-fits-all, then only a small percentage of soldiers can actually wear them.

He supposes it’s an expectation of omegas to offer their neck, to be vulnerable to alphas like this. But there’s nothing particularly vulnerable about Geralt, even in this state of undress, except the little satisfied expression on his face that always, inevitably, surfaces when Jaskier has his hand on him for a little longer than usual. Jaskier likes touching him. Geralt likes to be touched, at least in this sort of manner. Jaskier just wishes he could do it more often.

When he’s finished he wipes off the razor, cleans Geralt’s face, and rubs the remainder of the oil into Geralt’s skin. It’s a nice, pleasant, soothing scent of chamomile, old and familiar. And, when working like this, if his wrists accidentally touch Geralt’s cheekbones, the sides of his face, the front of his throat—well. He doesn’t hear any complaints.

The shaving came from necessity—something Geralt let him do. The nails, that came from Jaskier’s own wishes. And now, as he takes a seat behind Geralt, brushing off his washed and wet hair, he finds another thing to busy himself with.

Geralt rumbles, low and soft, in that sort of way omegas usually do when pleased, and Jaskier laughs softly. Such a reaction always pleases him to no end. He’d exchange plenty of nights in court spent wooing people for calm nights like these.

He takes his shears, and decides to prune off Geralt’s ends.

“There’s um,” Geralt starts, sluggish and quiet whenever he relaxes like this. “Food’s still on the table.”

“You want some?” Jaskier asks, just as quietly. The loudest sound in the room is the snapping of the scissors.

Geralt makes another noise. “You should eat while it’s warm.”

“I’ll get to it,” Jaskier replies, perhaps not as honestly as he’d like it to have been.

The thing is, while his comforts and company remain as satisfying as ever, the aspect of cuisine on this side of the mountains has left something to be desired. In fact, Jaskier has pretty much found food dissatisfying since Flotsam. The only thing he finds marginally palatable, and generally less painful on his belly, are broth, apple juice, and good old friend wine. It’s not as if his figure is showing any changes so perhaps that stomach bug Geralt was on about is definitely a thing, which means that Jaskier will consult a local healer the first time they hit a village.

One of Geralt’s eyes opens, but since Jaskier isn’t in the line of sight, he’s safe from the judgment. All Geralt does is hum, as if there’s something he wants to say but couldn’t be bothered. All in all, Jaskier considers it a win.

However, days later, the farthest thing from his mind is a doctor when they trip into the next village overrun by ghouls, and eating is all but forgotten with the rotting corpses all around him. It never stopped him before, he’s always had a steel stomach, but lying to oneself is an artform.

He isn’t hungry, not in any particular manner of the word, and Geralt doesn’t push, so Jaskier leaves it be.

-

When it rains, Jaskier thinks, it pours. It’s not much later after ghoul village that Jaskier finds that he can’t sleep. Or rather, sleeping at night is a difficulty, one which he doesn’t find during the day. In fact, during daytime he’s positively lazy, and willing to go on laying for hours, just kneading the bed with his toes and fingers. When he does get up he’s in a haze, like after drinking too much. That haze turns into a headache, and the headache, later, turns into fatigue. When Jaskier becomes aware of that fatigue he also becomes aware of the pains somewhere in his back, and in his hip, and in his ears. People become too loud in lapses, until the headache feels like it’s splitting his mind. He becomes too aware of the food cooking on stoves, and of alcohol in taverns, scents that once would’ve attracted him, but now just make him nauseous.

If he weren’t aware of the fact that he hasn’t had a heat partner, ever, between the fatigue, nausea, and disgust towards food, he’d be certain he was pregnant. As it is, he’s hoping it’s a passing illness.

He still sings and earns coin, because during the nights he feels like himself. And yet, later, when he’s in bed, his body is racked through with shivers, with discomfort and heat and cold.

Jaskier isn’t sure what to do about it. He’s used to ignoring his problems until they go away but this one refuses to relent, just like Geralt’s gaze that becomes cogent and telling, as if trying to assess what’s wrong with him without words since he can’t needle it out of Jaskier. Something which Jaskier duly ignores, because he’s fine. He has to be.

Unlike what many assume, Jaskier is self-aware. He knows how he’s perceived, because the ways others perceive him is of his own making. It’s the Redanian way. He’s the bard, the fun maker, the flirt, the available bachelor who you take to bed for one night, either out of curiosity or out of revenge to another lover who scorned you. He is fun, uncomplicated and without obligations or connections. And in certain situations, he knows he’s the fool. He’d have taken afront ten years ago, but he knows better now. It’s easy to play the worriless fool, who, even when the ground is crumbling under his feet, proceeds to strut, unnoticing, and thus never falls.

That is who he is perceived to be, and thus to many people, that is who he truly is, from the beginning to the end. To stray from that rule, means that he breaks the illusions. You know you ought to be worried when even the fool isn’t laughing any more. But that’s not what’s desirable. That’s not what people want.

He’s made the mistake of growing attached to somebody, thinking it true love, only to be turned away. It was supposed to be fun, not true, and fun is about lies and illusions. He’s made the mistake of voicing his true opinions. He’s made the mistake of telling others his worries. And he’s paid for each. Dearly. When a fool stops being a fool, he stops having an audience.

He’s been told enough times to get a grip, and he’s been left friendless. Whatever fondness Geralt has for him, whatever has built their friendship, rests on that image. Perhaps he’s made a fool of himself in truth before, Geralt’s certainly seen him in compromising situations, and being serious in life-and-death, like when they were tied up in Posada, isn’t to be taken against him. But now? Now, he knows everything will crumble. He has to be fine, even though he knows he isn’t.

It all comes to a head about a week after that. They’re camping, and Jaskier falls asleep only around dawn, restless, nauseous, and in pain as he oftentimes is these days. His distress must be particularly potent because Geralt wakes him up in the late morning. It’s one of those sunny midsummer days, and Jaskier shields his eyes, which sting from the brightness.

Geralt, looming above him, covers him in his own shadow and says, “What’s wrong with you?”

Anyone else, Jaskier supposes, would be offended. Jaskier is, however, used to Geralt’s particular way of caring. “Let me sleep, for gods’ sake!”

The frustration in his voice is strong when he snarls, pushing Jaskier onto his back. “Stop. Lying. You’re having arrhythmia, you’re barely eating, and you’re tired all the time.”

“I’m not having a month long heart attack, Geralt,” Jaskier sasses. He sees the way Geralt’s face has grown serious and gaunt, the way his eyes have grown far too concerned.

Jaskier wants to be anywhere other than there, but he doesn’t have any strength left. He doesn’t even think he could stand now. All he can feel is his altered heartbeat, and the lies crowding his tongue, and the panic shovelling them there which sticks in his throat.

He knows Geralt’s angry. He sees it in every line of his body. He knows why too. He knows something’s wrong with Jaskier, and it’s been annoying him, because Jaskier’s supposed to be fine. Usually Geralt backs off, his face softens, and Jaskier knows how to breathe. But Geralt doesn’t back off now, and his anger calls onto Jaskier’s, and the injustice of it all—there’s a silent agreement between them after all, or so he thought, that Jaskier’s always fine and Geralt never presses, and now Geralt’s forcing him to admit to it, forcing him to terminate the very agreement that has made it possible to travel together for so long.

“Look,” Jaskier snaps, “I’ll be fine. Isn’t that what you want to hear? I’m tired, and I want to sleep.”

All that aggression seeps from Geralt’s face and turns into simple determination. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake—” Jaskier starts, attempting to get up, because he truly does need to physcially leave this situation. But it’s true, he’s so weak he can’t even push himself up, and leaving Geralt’s shadow sends a shank of light to his brain. He groans in pain, and Geralt’s hands are there on his own that clutch his blanket.

When Jaskier looks next at him even to his pained eyes, Gerlat looks a certain sort of helpless Jaskier’s never sees on his face before. They breathe together like that, before Geralt says, quietly, “Let me. Please.”

It’s not fair, Jaskier thinks. Geralt never asks for anything, especially not from Jaskier. How can Jaskier refuse him now that he is asking? He hates this hopelessness on his face, he hates the concern, simply because Geralt should be nothing else but content, though something in his belly churns at the fact that Geralt cares.

Would it really be so bad for Jaskier to let him in? It’s fear that holds those reigns, but in face of Geralt’s concern, and the sudden quiet, and softness in the air, it dissipates into resigned defeat.

Jaskier sighs. “Tried asking after one, last village. The closest one is in Ban Glean.”

That seems to alarm Geralt even more. They are nowhere near Ban Glean, having taken the road north from Hagge.

“I don’t know about human illnesses,” Geralt confesses. He sits down next to Jaskier then, still shielding him with his body, close enough to be of comfort. “When did it start?”

“In Flotsam. My stomach hurt, remember? And it just. Spiralled from there.”

Geralt rests a hand on his shoulder. That’s nice, at least. The chills go down Jaskier’s spine but don’t return to haunt him. He feels warm, and it almost makes up for his anxiety. He can’t stop picking at the blanket with his hands, and he can’t stop thinking about Geralt ditching him in the next village they come across.

“Do you think it has something to do with your heat?”

“Nah,” Jaskier says, falsely casual. “I take my herbs. You’d have smelled it anyway.”

Geralt hums. Between the two of them, they suffered exactly zero heats and zero ruts. Sex is another thing, uninformed by their cycles, but they’re both aware of the wear and tear of the lifestyle.

Geralt looks at him, his heavy hand rubbing carefully up and down his shoulder. Probably contemplating options. Jaskier is far more inclined to enjoy the petting, reaching for Geralt’s hand even as he curls in on himself, pressing his face to Geralt’s knees. Sleep threatens to take him again like this, though now it seems more like mercy, so he doesn’t have to contend with this pain.

Jaskier wishes he were back in Redania, where high end doctors were available for pay, and inclined to help, at least, for the fun of helping a witcher. A lot of things are easier in Redania, Jaskier thinks. Easier, at least, on nobility, and harder on everyone else.

Eventually, Geralt who’s let Jaskier take his hand, while still rubbing his shoulder with another—which is an indicator of just how bad he’s doing, when Geralt’s giving him physical comfort—stills. He inspects Jaskier’s hand and then he sniffs him for good measure.

Finally, Geralt says, “Where’d you get this ring?”

“What ring?” Jaskier mumbles.

“The one on your hand,” Geralt replies dryly. There’s an attempt at a joke there, but Jaskier isn’t aware he’s wearing any rings at all.

“Last time I got my hands on any was back at Langley estate,” Jaskier says, “and I sold all of them.”

He doesn’t feel Geralt tensing as much as he feels his attention turn sharp and pointed.

“Jaskier,” he says, “Look at your left hand.”

Jaskier pries open his eyes, exasperated. “I’m looking.”

“And you don’t see any ring on it?”

Jaskier squints, but just as he is about to tell Geralt off, now that attention has been brought to it, he can clearly see a ring on his index finger. A ring he was convinced, just moments ago, that he sold.

Jaskier considers this, and then, slowly, he remembers that haunted estate, and remembers the sting of the ring. He looks past his hand up at Geralt, his face, gaunt with his attention, eyes sharp but concerned. Jaskier feels like he’s in deep, deep shit. Geralt being so concerned that Jaskier can actually see it, or moreover, Geralt being so focused that he forgets to conceal it? It’s never a good thing.

Jaskier swallows around a lump growing in his throat and says, “I see it. Why?”

“Is it from the estate?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier nods, which makes Geralt sigh. But it’s a sigh of frustration rather than relief.

“Can you take it off?”

“I don’t want to,” Jaskier replies.

“I need you to take it off, just for a minute.”

Jaskier whines, and feels stuck between wanting the damn thing on his finger and not wanting to let go of Geralt’s hand. Why he’s debating with himself is ridiculous, he knows this. It’s just a ring. He knows he’s being unreasonable.

Still, he can’t help saying, “No, no, I’d rather keep it on, thanks.”

Geralt inclines his head, and takes no pause when he rips it off of Jaskier’s finger. The surprise is unpleasant, startling, and Jaskier doesn’t realise the shriek is coming from his mouth until it stops, and he clamps his hand over his mouth, startled and, perhaps for the first time, afraid.

“Magic,” Geralt hums, observing the ring. “I knew I could smell it on you.”

“What—” Jaskier tries, and when he sees no other otherworldly shrieks are coming from his throat, he swallows and continues, “—the hell was that?”

“We missed something on Langley estate,” Geralt tells him.

Jaskier jerks up, startling Geralt, who takes his hand back, and Jaskier reaches over for his pack. He still has the diary, he’s pretty sure.

“Oh no,” he says, as he flips through it. Geralt recognizes it and looks at Jaskier. “Oh no,” Jaskier repeats, flipping over to the end, where he reads, the exact same symptoms as he’s experiencing.

“He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep,” he says, sounding hysterical even to himself. “Loud noises, fatigue during the day—”

Geralt sighs, and the tension in him seems to seep out. Which is a generally opposite of what Jaskier does, which is panic, then tell himself not to, then panic some more.

“Geralt,” he says, “I don’t want to turn into a blood crazy vampire monster and kill anyone.”

He grabs Geralt’s wrists because he needs to hold onto something.

“You’re not,” he says, so irritatingly calmly Jaskier wants to deck him.

“We broke the curse didn’t we? How the hell did it happen?”

“They weren’t amateurs after all,” Geralt says. “They didn’t curse their bloodline. They just cursed an object. The magic must work through it.”

“But—then everyone turned into a katakan.”

“Perhaps Lord Langley expected the curse to work immediately. Perhaps he thought it didn’t work at all and he tried to experiment. Either way, the curse worked perfectly well, and he wasn’t prepared for a nest of katakans.”

“Then—”

“Unlike ekimmaras, who are never alone,” Geralt continues, clearly not done yet despite Jaskier’s interruptions, “katakans prefer solitary lives. A nest, full of them, however? No wonder we saw that slaughter.”

Jaskier tries to breathe. Chronic pain was all well and ignorable, but this? He can’t ignore this. “What do we do?”

“First, you need to calm down. You’re not killing anyone. I’m here with you.”

He turns his hands, and grasps Jaskier’s into his, and folds them into Jaskier’s lap. Jaskier can’t help but look at their hands twined together.

“You seem too relaxed about this.”

“I know what to do about it,” Geralt says. “I don’t know human diseases, but I do know vampires, and I know curses. You’ll be just fine.”

Geralt’s confidence calls to his own, and Jaskier knows that, whatever happens, he isn’t alone. Geralt is there with him, and Geralt will fix it. Geralt will help. And Geralt’s still holding his hand, giving him comfort.

“Oh,” he says, feeling both understood, in that way only a witcher can understand people afflicted with a problem of this nature, and understood on a personal level, as if Geralt knew that Jaskier needed reassurance.

Geralt isn’t going to leave him, he realises slowly. He isn’t cross with him, because he isn’t fine. In fact, he’s relieved that it’s all out in the open now. Jaskier is woefully unprepared for that, and he doesn’t know how to address it, neither out loud or with himself, so he doesn’t.

“Are you going to destroy it?” Jaskier asks instead, nodding towards the ring.

Geralt shakes his head. “I don’t want to make another mistake. What we need is professional help.”

He considers the ring a final time before he replaces it on Jaskier’s finger.

Geralt is a particularly practical person, especially in face of a solvable problem. Jaskier finds that he can stand, if he really tries, and he can get on Roach, with Geralt’s careful and measured touch. Geralt throws his cloak over him, and so, angled away from the sun, they traverse through the thinning woods.

“I thought you were a professional,” Jaskier mumbles.

“Curses, creatures, specters, true,” Geralt says, “but this is intentional magic. A mage or a sorceress will give us better insight and provide better help.”

“I take it you know someone?”

“King Henselt entertains the Conclave of Northern Mages and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers in Ard Carraigh. He has to have a sorceress on hand. Perhaps she can help us.”

Jaskier looks at Geralt. “I know you’re a witcher, and I know I can talk my way through any doors, but that’s a king. You can’t just waltz in and ask for his sorceress.”

Geralt doesn’t look at him. He simply says, “Powerful men are all alike. They all want something.”

“And take twice as much as they give.”

“Then so be it,” Geralt says, and it’s the final word.

Jaskier sighs. After the noon hits, everything starts being easier. As the sun starts reaching for the mountains Jaskier feels the pain in his body lift, and by the time dusk is there, he feels like himself again. The nausea remains, only a little, and the pain in his bones, it seems, but he can get off of Roach and walk by himself.

It’s a nice night, all considered. It’s light outside, the moon full and hanging like a teardrop, and Jaskier can find his way through the unlit forest easily. Usually, it would be exactly this time that he’d complain they stop, or complain to get on Roach and be led through the forest if Geralt insisted they push on.

Now he stretches, feeling not unlike when he was in puberty and still growing into his feet.

“I take it my sudden and inexplicable brush with nausea during daytime has something to do with the curse?”

“Katakans are weak to sunlight. Not as extremely as you, but you’re just starting to change. If you were an actual katakan, you’d be considered a hatchling. A child. Plus,” Geralt says, meeting his stride with ease, “you can see better in the dark now.”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Jaskier says, following the slope into a goat’s path. “The moon is just very bright.”

“It’s a moonless night, Jaskier.”

Jaskier frowns, and looks up, and sees it to be true. Above the treeline, the night is dressed only in its usual sparkling indigo gown. Jaskier shivers.

“Well,” he says, feeling uneasy with himself, but not knowing how to address it. “We should try pushing as far as we can tonight. Because uh, not to be a downer, but today was a nightmare.”

Geralt hums. “Maybe it’s best that we find you someplace you can rest over the day. Caves, lodges, hunting cabins, and travel during the night.”

Jaskier nods, easy to agree to any and all Geralt’s suggestions. Whatever he may say, Geralt is definitely a professional. At least he knows where to seek help. But Geralt is always like that, ever since he met him: he always seemed to know more than he said, and when he didn’t know he learned quickly. For people such as him, long-living, unchanging, and people that they’re seeking, mages, witches, sourcresses, perhaps it all comes down to that—knowledge born of experience, and acquaintanceships made along the way.

Jaskier knows half the nobility in Redania, and still finds it enviable. Then again, Jaskier always wanted to join exclusive brotherhoods which didn’t want to welcome him, and always found them dreadfully boring when he managed it.

He wonders then, if it is for the best that he’s an outsider looking in. Then he can be nothing else but Geralt’s friend and travelling companion, uninvolved in whatever politics witchers and other beings have between themselves.

Remembering, Jaskier looks at Geralt and says, “What about you?”

“Witchers don’t have sleeping patterns or cycles. We don’t have to sleep, at all.”

Jaskier blinks. “Well that’s news.”

“It’s not preferable,” Geralt says, “but a couple hours of meditation a day can keep us alive.”

He glances up at Jaskier, then returns his gaze on the road ahead.

“So you sleep because you like to,” Jaskier says.

Geralt’s face doesn’t betray anything. In the end he says, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you prefer bathing in cold water.”

He has a point, of course.

-

Jaskier is fairly certain he should be panicking more. The only reason he isn’t, he’s pretty sure, is because when they find a nice empty cave, Geralt sits him down and tells him exactly what to expect from the coming changes. It’s easy to kick down the dread when faced with Geralt’s ease.

“Your senses have been changing, that’s why your ears hurt. Your body has been adjusting to the change in your meal plan too,” he explains. “Katakans are stronger than humans and you may have not noticed it, but I did when you gripped my wrist. Perhaps that’s the reason behind those bone-aches you’re experiencing.”

“Didn’t Langley shift?” Jaskier asks, unnerved about the possibility of experiencing the same.

“He did,” Geralt agrees. “Doesn’t mean you will too. He was hungry and his territory was challenged.”

“What if I get hungry?”

“You’ll tell me and we’ll deal with it.”

It’s as easy as that. Any question he has, Geralt answers. Any concern he has, Geralt dispels. He’s left softly optimistic, looking forward to the journey to Ard Carraigh. They’re nowhere close to the city, not with their stilted travelling, which becomes more about finding a place to settle in before dawn than anything else.

Geralt worries, he must if his set of shoulders is any evidence, but with his calm scent and the credence Jaskier finds in his abilities, it doesn’t seem such a disaster as he is sure it rationally is.

The pain during the day increases exponentially during the following week until it crests on a particularly vicious day. Jaskier feels as if every bone in his body has been cracked, marrow sucked out, leaving nothing but hollows for air to scream through. Over the night it dissipates slowly, until it leaves nothing but a pit in his belly.

-

Travelling, unfortunately, doesn’t get easier. He finds himself dizzy during days—not as bad as the pain but still bad for walking on two uncoordinated legs over mountainous and rocky terrain—as if he has heat exhaustion which, Geralt informs him, is exactly right. Jaskier doesn’t feel the strength the man mentioned, especially not when he drapes himself over Roach’s back, holding onto her mane so as to prevent a painful reintroduction with the ground. Then again, Jaskier considers, how the hell would he know? Geralt himself has inhuman strength. To measure himself up to a witcher is to find oneself wanting. In more ways than one, Jaskier has to add.

“For hatchlings,” Geralt says, “one of the indicators of growth is their teeth dropping.”

Thus, Geralt has found it one of his priorities to thrust his fingers into Jaskier’s mouth to check his teeth—an otherwise attractive action, which Jaskier would make use of if Geralt weren’t so very quick about it.

Jaskier is fairly certain Geralt doesn’t understand how arousing the way he angles his chin up is, gentle but demanding, the way he pries Jaskier’s lips apart, or when he presses a thumb into his skin to check his fangs like dog’s canines. He traces the same thumb over his lips when he’s done, lingering just a moment too long, driving Jaskier to distraction. His wrist is right there during those moments, and Jaskier can smell that unmistakable mix of leather, metal, oil, and sweat that lingers on his scent. It’s musky, and Jaskier’s nose, now more sensitive, can catch it from a mile downwind. It never fails to make Jaskier twitch in his britches, and think about other things in his mouth, which inevitably earns him one of Geralt’s looks.

Despite what many can claim, scents are difficult to differentiate. Post-fight stress can obscure long-term anxiety, sexual interest can mask anger. There’s a right hierarchy to it all; the reason why sex, mates, and bonded pairs are easily distinguished first, danger, anger, agression second, and the scent of disgust third, is also the reason why Redania has a burgeoning perfume market.

Jaskier has been studying Geralt for years now, so he is privy to certain knowledge that his scent exudes. Like, for instance, he knows how Geralt smells when he’s coming back from a brothel, not exactly satisfied but definitely sated. He knows what interest smells on him, and what the warm shifting undertone means—they are, have been, and seem to still be compatible when it comes to their scents. His has always been overpowering, and Geralt’s is witcher-muted, but somewhere in the middle they’ve struck a balance. A maddening perspective now, when he can smell not only Geralt, but his concern underneath the soft interest.

Not for the first time, Jaskier wishes Geralt would kiss him and end this game, while he’s still, juxtaposingly, grateful that he hasn’t. Geralt isn’t someone who hesitates to take something he wants, and he doesn’t pussyfoot about it either—if he wants to get paid he asks for it, if he wants company he pays for it, and if he wants quiet he’s quick enough to tell Jaskier to shut up.

It’s not a question of desire, Jaskier thinks when he touches Geralt’s hand, and more of that delicious scent permeates the air between them, so it leaves Jaskier confused as to the real reason behind Geralt’s innaction.

“I’d tell you if anything changed,” Jaskier says, trying and failing to wiggle out of Geralt’s hold.

“You haven’t noticed the other changes,” Geralt challenges. It’s a fair point.

“I’m pretty sure that I’d notice abnormal growth in my own mouth.”

Despite his protests, he sighs and tilts his head up anyway, letting Geralt check. There’s a fine point between feeling warm over someone caring about you, and wanting to jump their bones. But nobody informed his dick about it. Generally, his dick remains uninformed about anything related to Geralt. Jaskier figured that out about four years back, when Geralt was sweaty, hurt, and going through potion withdrawal, and Jaskier wanted to lick him.

But being attracted to someone doesn’t mean they can’t annoy you, and this is getting tiresome. When Geralt’s done, he shifts himself enough to bite onto his thumb, and then suck it into his mouth.

Geralt watches him, quiet, but Jaskier knows him, he can smell his scent thickening with intention. Geralt curs his fingers under his chin, and presses down on his tongue. Jaskier feels a zing ride down his spine, a zing that, if Geralt does something, and soon, is going to morph into wetness between his cheeks.

But Geralt doesn’t do anything. He extracts his digit, pushes the pad of it against his mouth, as if to just feel his lips, and then retreats. Geralt’s reluctance to change at least is the same.

Nothing is ever static, not even Geralt’s slow and comfortable friendship, but change, sudden and consuming, offers only a binary option of pass or fail, a win or lose. It’s quick, and startling, exhausting, and draining. To change means to risk, and Jaskier is all about risk-taking. It’s why he keeps flirting, even though he knows the outcome, why he keeps acknowledging this tension between them, though he knows there’s too much water under the bridge, and why he finds comfort in the rejection. It is his nature to poke the devil, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Geralt keeps the status quo that they both want, need really. But if Jaskier could, he’d want to know why Geralt flirts back to begin with if they both know the ultimate result, why he has yet to grow bored with it. But such questions beget questionable ideas, and he didn’t follow Geralt, silent and fuming, from Cintra’s court two years prior just to set himself up for disappointment.

-

Traipsing through the woods, at night, isn’t a particularly safe matter even with these recent changes. The nocturnal beasts aside—which Geralt and Jaskier can skirt around considering they can smell and hear them now—there’s always a bandit camp or another tucked away, holding men who’d rather kill them than let them walk away. Though a menace to civilized society, Geralt and he tend to avoid conflict with them if they can. But the dawn is at their backs, and Jaskier’s feeling all out of sorts again, and they’re out of time. There’s only three bandits standing at the mouth of the cave anyway, laughing about robbing a village, and Geralt takes out his sword.

“Stay,” he tells Jaskier, and draws something in the air. Jaskier can feel the wave of magic washing over him. The witcher signs were a surprise to Jaskier when he first learned of them.

The matter is sorted within minutes. Geralt doesn’t linger. He flows with practiced manner from one swing of his sword into another, brutal and unrelenting. The morning scent of dawn grows rich with blood which pools into the forest ground, splattered over the bandits’ possessions, sprayed onto the fire, the tents, the weapons.

Jaskier feels that pit in his belly twist, and then his stomach drops, such aching hunger overtaking his senses that Jaskier stumbles, and has to hold onto a tree to stay up. He’s hungry. He’s so hungry he’s nauseous from it, unsure if he could even keep it down if he could eat anything to begin with.

Jaskier is pretty sure that he closes his eyes, because when he opens them he’s not leaning against the tree anymore. He’s on all fours instead, crouching over the dismembered bodies, Geralt’s strong hand the only thing stopping him from getting to their blood.

Panting, struggling, Jaskier realises he’s saying, “You have to let me, Geralt, Geralt please , it hurts, it—fuck—”

“You can’t drink it,” Geralt says, firm. He hauls Jaskier back, and in the struggle Jaskier ends up with his back pushed into Geralt’s knees and thighs. Geralt’s forearm presses into his neck, locking him in place, as Geralt looms above him.

“You’ll get sick, drinking blood of dead men,” Geralt growls, a bit of alpha seeping into his voice. Jaskier, at once, more than ever, feels pinned. Geralt never uses his alpha voice. In fact, Jaskier can count on his hand how many times he has. It’s shocking. It’s, Jaskier realises, making him wet.

Alpha voice is considered impolite in society. It raises the hackles on other alphas, annoys betas, and is about as effective on omegas as much as yelling at them is, except in circumstances where the omega is compatible with the alpha. Jaskier feels himself twitching, and, confused, hungry, turned on, and yet in pain, all he can do is whine.

“You’ll eat,” Geralt promises. “You will. I just need you to hold very still for me. Can you do that?”

Jaskier nods, despite himself, and feels Geralt’s thumb over his lips, pushing past, feels the pressure over his teeth just before he tastes sweetness on his tongue.

“Fuck,” Geralt says, ripping his finger away as if Jaskier might take it off.

Then he’s pressing his forearm to Jaskier’s lips, and Jaskier doesn’t feel like he’s in any control of himself when he wraps his fingers around it. Large bleeding gashes form under his fingers and bleed over Jaskier’s neck and doublet. Jaskier licks them, in no shape of mind to consider why Geralt’s bleeding, or why his own fingers have become dark, and long, and willowy where they bite into Geralt’s skin.

Jaskier had his fair share of bouts, fights, and papercuts, to know the metallic, tangy taste of blood. Geralt’s blood doesn’t taste like that. It smells it, certainly, but the taste on his tongue is like the first drops of schnapps after baking the grapes, freshly pressed sour-cherry juice, spiced wine, but fresh like spring water. It’s blood, but it’s more, and Jaskier forgets himself, completely subsumed and submerged into his hunger.

He doesn’t think much about sucking the blood from the wounds his fingers have made, from licking over them with a tongue rougher that his usually is, or from sinking his teeth into the flesh when it tapers off. It’s messy. He has blood all over his face, cheeks, lips, made worse when Geralt arrests his hands and keeps them firmly pinned to Jaskier’s own sternum. However the lacerations, and the bite mark he’s made, eventually close up. Jaskier breathes against the soft skin that now bears only pink, healing scars.

Reality pours in slowly, drops in a bucket, but eventually Jaskier realises that he’s still very much laying halfway in Geralt’s lap, he’s just drank blood from wounds his own hands made, and a scent of decay is around them—the fresh bodies not so fresh anymore. It’s dawn. It’s been dawn for a minute and Jaskier, despite all this, feels only a cozy sort of satisfaction of a man wanting a nap after a large meal.

He looks up, catching Geralt’s golden gaze. He wiggles his fingers, wrists still pressed together in Geralt’s strong hold, and feels his fingers have returned to normal. At least, it feels that way.

“You with me?” Geralt asks, tentative about moving.

“I’m always with you,” Jaskier mumbles back, perhaps not in a perfect intonation, but the thought ought to count.

It does. Geralt sighs, and it sounds too similar to relief rather than exasperation to go unnoted, before he releases Jaskier’s wrists.

“Can you stand?”

“Can you stand?” Jaskier replies. “I—did I—are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“Believe it or not, you’re not the first vampire to feed from me.” His hand turns, and he liberates his forearm enough to touch his cheek and jaw. “You’re a mess.”

Jaskier remains quiet while Geralt rubs his face, as if he were a child no older than three and in need of tidying up. But there’s something soothing about that, something that makes Jaskier’s mind skip over the panic of what he’s done, and dive right back into the calm Geralt exudes.

It’s that calm, Jaskier thinks, that has always attracted him to Geralt. As much as he likes making waves, it’s always comfortable to lay his head somewhere soft at times, to dive into the lake instead of just swimming on the surface. To sink down to the bottom, looking out and up, knowing he’s welcome and that he could leave any time he’d like, is to live within Geralt’s hidden heart of softness that makes him gentle when at ease.

“Just because you already went through this doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt, you know,” Jaskier says, knowing, despite his attempt, that Geralt would never admit to it. “Did I shift?”

“Partially,” Geralt says, “Your teeth, your hands.”

“What does that mean?” Jaskier asks.

“Blood is the only thing nutritious for a katakan,” Geralt says. “The changes will accelerate now.”

He releases him so Jaskier sits up. His pack is right there, and it’s easy enough to take out the waterskin and a rag from his pack to clean up his face. Geralt’s blood has dried, but he can smell it when it mixes with water, sweet.

Jaskier feels full. He feels normal again. Normal, if hazy. The sun is doing him no favors.

Finished, he packs away the water, the rag, and turns to watch Geralt pick at the bandits’ food, still fresh. Whatever loot they had will be spent well.

But as Jaskier watches him, he realises that however composed Geralt is, Jaskier can’t be. Not because he doesn’t trust him, because he does, nor because he doesn’t know if Geralt would help him in this matter, because Geralt is actively helping him now, but because Jaskier just felt himself lose control in a serious, possibly fatal, manner.

“Jaskier,” Geralt calls but Jaskier can’t make himself approach him. He sees Geralt’s eyebrows draw together. “We have to rest, come on.”

Jaskier goes, tentatively, to the mouth of the cave. “Geralt—what if, what if it happens again?”

“It won’t,” Geralt says, so cocksure that it makes Jaskier annoyed.

“How do you know?”

“This is the first time you’ve fed and it’s been two months since that estate,” he says, laying down his bedroll. “It was bound to happen. Now, you’ll know when you grow hungry and then we can deal with it.”

He turns to look at Jaskier. “Lay down. Sleep. You’ll feel better in the evening.”

Guilt creeps into Jaskier’s throat. All he can say is, “Thank you.”

Geralt grunts in reply, and turns away.

-

The thing about travelling like the two of them are wont to do is that you, inevitably, need coin. Now that Jaskier’s feeling better about existence during the day—Geralt was absolutely right, the blood made all the difference in mediating the side-effects of daylight—it’s easier to visit villages, to play for coin, and for Geralt to look for work.

There are no witcher contracts around, unfortunately, but the innkeeper says that the local lord would pay them regardless if they took on some raiders that’ve made their home in a partially dilapidated watch tower. Jaskier, who’s been feeling strange and unsettled, takes the chance to grab a drink while Geralt’s talking, and spends the next half-hour retching, which is definitely a comeuppance for every time he took the ability to drink alcohol for granted. He can’t wait to be rid of this stupid curse, and he can’t wait to eat normal, people food again.

Geralt sighs and hauls him up against a water barrel, and pushes a jug of it into his hands and says, “Slow drinks only.”

“Wine was alright before,” he complains, feeling miserable and out of sorts. Water seems to go down easily, and doesn’t come back up, thank fuck.

“Before you drank blood, yes,” Geralt agrees. “Now it knows what it needs, and is rejecting everything else.”

“How do they live like this?”

“Adult katakans can eat regular food. You’ll be able to do so as well, when you’re fully shifted.”

“Right,” Jaskier says, feeling nervous about the impending, and unavoidable, changes. It’s just a matter of time until he’s—as Geralt describes it—a horse sized bat, with long enough razor nails that they drag on the ground, a mouth full of fangs, and a near-inability to speak except to shriek.

Jaskier really isn’t looking forward to it.

Then again, Jaskier usually doesn’t go with Geralt on jobs like killing raiders either. They’re not monster contracts, and he can’t very well write a song about a witcher that isn’t doing any witchering, but Geralt gives him a look and says, “It’s a good chance to feed. And I need to keep my eye on you.”

Jaskier would have rather stayed at the village inn and played a few songs, or hollered at the moon, or whatever else katakans do. He isn’t sure. Were he afflicted by lycanthropy, he’d at least make dog jokes at his own expense. As it is, his material is slim pickings. In the end, the plan is to do this job and stay in the village for Velen, since holidays pay best for bards.

Just in case, Geralt waits until dusk to set off. They arrive at the tower about an hour later.

After spending years in Oxenfurt, Jaskier supposes he should still cling to some sort of conservative aghastness when it comes to casual violence. But Jaskier’s been with Geralt too long not to get accustomed to the fact that swords exist for a reason and that people will use them as leverage towards their own goals. Not everyone is fortunate to live in the capitals, and for every offended scholar there are hundreds of others for whom sword wounds are a fact of life rather than bragging rights from fencing clubs.

Geralt clears the first level of the tower quickly, only two guards to cut down. There’s no alarm, and so they make their way up the winding stairs in quick step until they reach the landing. That’s where the real fight begins, and where Jaskier pretends he’s part of the living scenery, merging with the wall so as to avoid being targeted. He so dislikes being attacked. Watching Geralt fight is like watching a fox enter a chicken coop—the outcome is inevitable and yet it raises his blood pressure in expectation anyway.

Jaskier isn’t afraid. He hasn’t been afraid when with Geralt for a while, but he realises it only then, as he watches the men choke on their own blood. The scent of it is intoxicating. And yet, rather than lingering, trying to feed like last time, Jaskier follows after Geralt's scent instead, stepping over the bodies to take the final flight of stairs. His mind is slowly filling with cotton as warmth sweeps all over his body, a fire lit inside him.

The third floor consists of a large room where the leader of the raiders has been waiting for them. Geralt doesn’t talk, doesn’t waste time. He lunges, urged by some invisible need, steady, strong, brutal.

Jaskier watches them fight, and wonders why he isn’t hungry. He’s not been hungry since that time, since he sapped on Geralt’s blood. His sword slashes the raider and blood sprays, its sweet cloying scent leaving Jaskier indifferent. He watches the man throw away his shield, watches him fall to his knees, submit, watches Geralt standing behind him, angling his neck up by grabbing his hair.

“You want him?” Geralt asks, and his hard eyes look to Jaskier, just waiting for his word. A shiver courses down his back, and he realises, suddenly, viciously, he’s wet. He’s wet, and he’s trembling, as the room fills with the scent of his want.

He sees Geralt stiffening, sees the way he grips the hilt of his sword, intention clear in every line of his body.

But a question is posed, and Jaskier answers, “No.”

The man is dead the next moment. Geralt, black eyed and huffing, says, “We should head back.”

Jaskier agrees, as soon as they rid the bodies of their coin. Yet, Geralt doesn’t wait for Jaskier to go down the stairs first, but presses himself up against him, stray blood on his face dangling, like bait.

Jaskier wants to kiss him and, in a maddening moment where Geralt leans forward, he thinks he will kiss him himself. But the moment stretches, and Geralt brushes past him, rushing down the stairs and making too much deliberate noise.

By the time they exit the tower, the night air has turned fresh and crisp, and it’s a nice early autumn night. They head through the forest—the quickest way back to the village. They’re circling around a rather imposing hill, when he hears a growl of sorts, a growl that he’s never heard before, and yet, the fuzziness in his mind increases at the sound of it, even as panic in his chest rises. Jaskier has never in his twenty-eight years felt like prey. Not like this.

“Something’s coming,” Jaskier warns.

Geralt draws on his silver sword, black eyes all-watching as he lowers himself in a stance, preparing for a fight. Forests are never silent but this one grows still just a moment before something bursts through the foliage, rushing down onto them from above. It’s only thanks to Jaskier’s new instincts that he manages to step back in time for Geralt to sweep his sword and wound a large bat. No, he realises, it’s a katakan. Another one. And an alpha to boot. The smell of it is unmistakable. Everyone can smell an alpha going into rut, and Jaskier realises that the only reason why it’s not on Jaskier is because Geralt’s holding it back with his magic, his sword, and his body.

It’s not an even fight. It never is. The alpha is huge, but Geralt’s still fresh from the previous fight, battle-high and quick-blooded. For others, that would’ve been a weakness. For Geralt, it’s an etude to warm up the fingers before going to the concerto.

Jaskier watches, intrigued, and with a strange sort of satisfaction, when he manages to separate the katakan from his head. The body is loud when it crashes onto the forest floor. There’s blood on Geralt’s face, splattered, and his hair is disheveled, and he’s panting. Jaskier wants Geralt to take him like that, bloody and black-eyed, press him against a tree and forget repercussions and hesitations, in favour of touch and pleasure.

When another wave of heat hits him, and he feels wetness sliding down his inner thighs, Jaskier realises why he’s been feeling off the whole day.

Geralt sheaths his sword and says, “Look, there’s the katakan’s cave right there.”

Jaskier does look, and manages a few steps towards it, before he’s halted.

“Oh dear,” he says, leaning back against a neighbouring tree. “Oh fuck. Geralt—”

Geralt is too far for it to be pleasant. His whine splits the night air, and then Geralt is there, clutching his arms.

“You smell like—”

“Heat, I know. This isn’t supposed to happen. I took my herbs. I don’t need another dose for a month. I don’t know why it’s happening.”

“Fuck,” Geralt says, and seems to have difficulty breathing. “You’re changing—the herbs might’ve failed. Or maybe they don’t even work on katakans. We need to get you to an alchemist, or a healer—”

“What?” Jaskier snaps. ”No! What if I lose it like that time? What if I hurt someone? If I couldn’t control myself while operating at full capacity, I sure as hell won’t be able to control myself during heat!”

He’s winded by the end, and feels a headache blooming with his irritation, made all the worse by the fact his body doesn’t care what Geralt is saying, but that, rather, it only cares to curl into him, and stick his nose under his chin which Geralt—surprisingly—allows.

“The alpha was probably attracted to your scent,” Geralt retorts. “And it’ll keep happening unless we either get you to a brothel, or a healer.”

Jaskier feels another wave of heat wash over him and he convulses. Geralt fought another alpha for him. Fuck. He fought an alpha, and won, and he’s here, covered in his blood, and Jaskier can smell Geralt like this, taste the potency of his want, unconcealable neither by exertion nor anger or concern.

“Just stay with me,” Jaskier finally says, voice breaking where he presses the words against Geralt’s throat.

“What?”

Jaskier circles Geralt’s waist with his hands, pushing himself up against him, exposing his neck and rubbing their cheeks together to get their scents to mingle.

“There’s a perfectly useful cave,” Jaskier mumbles. “We can stay there. You can fuck me through the heat. Nobody to disturb us.”

Jaskier feels the first cramps start twisting his guts, cramps that are insufferably painful, that appear only when his body is ready, it’s ready, and it’s not being screwed and held down on a knot, not pumped full of come, and then some.

It takes everything in him to say, “Help me."

At once, he feels Geralt’s hand clamping on the back of his neck, and a rumble go through him, warning, and wanting, at once.