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Sometimes, Jaskier wonders if it’s possible to be entirely, utterly, forsakenly in love with someone if the future is assured. He looks at everything he has, every second that passes with Geralt by his side; his shining, glorious White Wolf, his hero – and wonders if this would even be happening, if the world weren’t the cruel, raw, evil place that it is. Every day that they’re together, he sees so much poverty, so much hunger, so much loss, and it doesn’t get better with time, either. There is an end to their travels together, to their friendship, to the way Geralt looks when Jaskier’s naked and sated in the bed they share; it is a finite thing, and who knows how long they may have? Geralt could live for centuries, or he could die tomorrow by the lucky swipe of a beast. Jaskier has less time, and less future spread in front of him, and he catches himself thinking that it would be kinder if he just left now, instead of giving Geralt decades together to mourn once he has passed.
When Geralt goes off with Yennefer, he can admit that it’s relief that he feels, deep down, as jealous as he is of her hands on him. There’s peace in a few moments away from that heart-wrenchingly harsh feeling of loving Geralt so much that it sometimes hurts to breathe. When Geralt is out of his sight, sometimes Jaskier thinks of just… getting away for a while. Or forever. When Geralt isn’t there, shining like the fucking sun, it’s as if the fog clears, and he can run, just for a moment. But he knows that the second he moved away, his heart would break, and he’d be bereft. But for just a few moments, he thinks how much easier it would be to strike out on his own.
Then Geralt returns, and once more the poet feels himself pushed under the wave of love again, drowning in the pressure of how much he needs to shout his love to the whole world, to tell the entire Continent that he loves this man, this glorious, wonderful, beautiful man. Never mind that he comes back to their shared bed bloodied and reeking of ichor, no matter that Geralt still takes whores when he’s in certain towns, and who cares if Yennefer is around, either. If even a tiny piece of Geralt is his, then Jaskier’s determined to carry that, to drive that silver sword right into his heart and lodge it there, for keeps.
It only gets worse when Geralt takes him up the mountain, and Jaskier gets to meet all the wolves, and little Ciri, and feel that ache in his chest every time, like the air has been punched out of him, like that first gut blow from Geralt at the cry of “butcher”, because they are all so wonderful and so incredible and his heart is so full with love for the lot of them that he wonders if he might have to carry it back down the mountain over his shoulder.
Vesemir is wary; the way old soldiers are, with a look that says he doesn’t trust anything Jaskier’s saying, and yet finds it all amusing nonetheless. He cooks wonderful food, and ducks his head at praise, and Jaskier can see the pride that shines in his eyes as he watches the boys he helped grow up as they go about the business of being Witchers. When he teaches Ciri, he’s tough but fair, gentle with her when she’s upset, hard on her when she’s playing up. When he offers her a hand up, there’s pride there, too, and Jaskier wants to weep for the sheer wonder of this man, who has suffered so many losses, being willing to take on another child whose time may yet be cut short. When Jaskier risks it and stands beside him in the kitchens, Vesemir puts him to work chopping herbs and slicing vegetables, and then, when everything is in the pot and stewing, he presses closer. Vesemir laughs at him, but does not protest the kiss they share, nor the ones that come after. Jaskier doesn’t know how to tell the old Witcher that loving him is like loving musical theory, the history of every single note ever penned, and so he tries to put all of that into the kisses and touches that he’s allowed, and hopes it might be enough.
Ciri herself is a delight, a bundle of roaring energy in the day, and then frightened eyes and screams at night, a dichotomy that Jaskier cannot imagine not loving instantly. Sometimes she wants a song to soothe her to sleep, sometimes she wants to be held, and sometimes she just curls into a ball and cries for her parents, her grandparents, her home, her life. She has lost so much, and has so much life left in her, and Jaskier would kill anyone who tried to take that away from her. To see her slowly come out of her shell, to sass the Witchers, to smart-mouth about her days in court; it is a privilege and an honour to be allowed to watch the light come back into her eyes, and Jaskier thanks every deity he can name that he’s there to see it. On the bad nights, when she curls into his chest and wants the songs he used to play on her birthdays, he has to bite his lip hard so as not to add his tears to hers. When he tells her, over and over, that he loves her, and she shakes her head, he has to swallow back the lump in his throat, but the pain passes quickly when she explains – family don’t have to say they love each other, because it’s already known. At that, he does weep, and presses soft kisses to her hair until she’s asleep against him and the candles have long-since burned themselves out.
Jaskier hadn’t been certain at all that Geralt’s brothers-in-arms would like him, or even tolerate him. Geralt hadn’t been that tolerant when they’d started travelling together, after all, and Geralt had seen him at his spring best, plump and happy, young and brilliant, still willing to clamber up the world’s ladder kicking and screaming, and cheerfully cuckolding husbands as he went. He doesn’t know what he has to offer two more Witchers, both of them so very different from his silent and stoic lover, the one who makes his heart skip a beat every time he quirks his lips in a smile. But it turns out, he needn’t have worried. In winter, it seems, the wolves band together, bedding down in a pile of limbs and easy touches, and it puts Geralt at ease in a way Jaskier’s never seen before. When he gets invited to join them, he’s wary at first, unsure of whether he’s truly welcome, but there’s Eskel’s sweetness and Lambert’s fire, and the way Geralt’s eyes burn with words unsaid as he strips off and joins them.
Eskel is so shy, and so soft, and Jaskier is in love with him before Geralt has even finished talking about him. Seeing him is just the keystone added to the bridge, the assurance that unlike the towers they find themselves in, this love will not come tumbling down. They read poetry to each other, and Eskel loves the way Jaskier looks in sunlight, and the two of them bond over silks and old words and the ways their fingers twine together. Eskel is so beautiful, from his eyes to his soul, the way he almost glitters when seen in the dark, and the first time Jaskier says this, Eskel doesn’t speak to him for two days, and Jaskier curses himself for not seeing such an obvious pitfall. The scars on Eskel’s face shame him, and Jaskier cannot bear that, cannot see one he loves in such pain – it feels as though the knife were raked down his chest instead, carving open his heart and ripping him open. So he kisses the scars, just like he does with Geralt’s, and holds Eskel, just like he does with Geralt, and loves him, just like he does with Geralt. When he sees Geralt with Eskel, he recognises the movements, and it’s a shot of lighting-bolt pain when he realises that Geralt romanced him the same way he romanced Eskel, so many years ago. Late at night, he kisses over Eskel’s closed lids, watches him smile, and pretends he doesn’t ache to set right things done years before he was born.
Lambert is an entirely different breed, and at first, Jaskier isn’t quite sure what to do with the boisterous, belligerent bastard who trades snide jokes and swears like he only knows four-letter words. His hair is so red, and his temper so apparent, and Jaskier would laugh if it wasn’t for the way he sees Lambert look at Ciri, the way his shoulders droop when he sees her taking lessons in the courtyard. Underneath it all, Lambert is very aware he is the last of his kind, and when Jaskier realises that too, the pain is like shoving his hand into icy water and leaving it there until it goes numb. Lambert prefers to fight or fuck over feelings, and so Jaskier gives him the second, and has loud, violent rows with him in the tall towers, before they fall back into each other and Lambert sobs against his chest, so much like the way Ciri does. He confesses his fears for her, for all of them, for himself, for Jaskier. He doesn’t want to see what it does to everyone, when Jaskier passes, as he must; his mortal life draws shorter every day, and Lambert isn’t the type to bet on a wounded horse. Instead of lying, Jaskier holds his hand, and kisses him, and takes him to bed, and never, ever says that he’ll stay forever.
Jaskier doesn’t know what the future holds; none of them do, and none of them can possibly speak as to what the world will do to them when it finds out who they hold in their midst, whether Nilfgaard will come for them, whether any of them will live to tell the tales that Jaskier writes, late into the night. But as much as the love he feels is wretched and broken, sharp and dark and forbidding, no matter how much it feels like dark water closing over his head, or a punch to the gut, Jaskier knows one thing for certain, and that is that he would be so much poorer, so much less, without them. Some nights, when everything is too much, and the threat feels too large, they all sleep tangled together by the big fire in the main hall, Vesemir in his chair and the others scattered among blankets and furs, Ciri in their centre where they can protect her. And Jaskier crawls in among them, kissing fingers and foreheads before settling down under the comforting weight of Geralt’s arm, and swears one thing, to any god who can find him – that no matter how short the time they might have, he is grateful for being allowed to love these wonderful, brilliant, glorious people, without withholding even a little of himself. Rise or fall, live or die, they’ll be together or apart, and Jaskier will love them all. It’s a truth as certain as any he’s ever known.