Chapter Text
Geralt didn't follow him, Jaskier realized with a strange mix of indignity and relief. Nor did anyone else in the inn. After a minute or two of waiting, staring up at the stars and feeling water trickle down his back from his still-wet hair, Jaskier started to pace.
The yard of the inn was small, really only a place for people to dismount and unpack their horses before leading them to the nearby stable where Jaskier could see Roach eyeing him dubiously. But it was large enough for Jaskier to pace in front of the horses so he could at least pretend he was speaking to Roach as he went.
"It's fine, right? It was just a stupid instinctual thing!" Jaskier paced and tried very hard not to look too unhinged signing to a horse.
Roach huffed, unimpressed.
"He'd just never washed my hair before," Jaskier continues, rationally. "Usually if someone else is washing my hair, it's romantic, and so I just reacted like I normally would!"
Roach didn't have any thoughts on this, apparently, judging by her lack of response. Jaskier could handle that. Really. He was a sane and rational adult person.
"So," he said, stopping in front of Roach's stall to face her, "I should apologize and say it won't happen again, right?"
He wanted someone to validate his choice to keep his feelings secret, even if that validation came from a horse who didn't know what was happening.
He was apparently going to be left waiting, because Roach snorted and looked at him deeply judgmentally.
"You can't expect me to tell him, can you?" he signed indignantly, his histrionics uninteresting to the opinionated horse.
"Roach, he'll leave me behind!" he protested. "And I won't be able to give you any more apples or sugar cubes!"
Roach huffed and leveled a deeply unimpressed gaze on Jaskier as he signed fervently (and possibly melodramatically) at her.
Jaskier drooped, his arms dropping to his sides and all the fight flowing out of him.
That was it, after all, wasn't it? He didn't want Geralt to leave him, but he no longer had the excuse of his love being too much of a burden. If his love was a burden, what would he call his helplessness, his need for translation and support, that Geralt already gave freely and (from all appearances) gladly?
So...
So why was his love so much worse than anything else Geralt had already expressed a willingness to navigate?
"What if he doesn't feel the same way?" Jaskier signed indignantly to Roach, who stared at him for a long moment before returning to her hay and oats. (She was, apparently, not concerned nor impressed by Jaskier's moral quandary.)
"What if he sends me away?" he asked, and it's a more honest question than he intended to ask of the reticent steed, but there it is.
"I won't," came a low rumbling voice from behind him, and Jaskier turned sharply to find Geralt standing - also barefoot and in naught but his shirt and trousers - on the step of the inn.
Jaskier swallowed hard, trying to work out the lump in his throat. It didn't disperse.
"I... sorry, I couldn't see everything you signed, but I thought I caught that," Geralt said, more promptly than Jaskier would expect even now, and it drew a smile from him regardless of everything else.
Geralt cared that he'd understood Jaskier in the first place. Jaskier could grant him the dignity of a proper response.
"Upstairs?" Jaskier offered, but Geralt shook his head slightly.
"Are you all right?" Geralt signed insistently, and Jaskier laughed silently. Was he all right? Gods, but this man sought to kill him and didn't even realize it.
"I'm fine, Geralt," he signed back with a faint (and sad) smile. "Everything was just... a lot. That's all."
Geralt frowned, and reached out to hold one of Jaskier's hands, running his thumb over the palm and giving Jaskier palpitations that wouldn't leave him for weeks, at best.
"I think I chose wrong," Geralt said eventually, and Jaskier frowned, tilting his head in question. "I thought I had to choose between my calling on the Path, my destiny," and Jaskier can't help but smile a little at the slight distaste in Geralt's tone, "and the person who was most important to me." Geralt let out a long sigh, and looked up at Jaskier, meeting his eyes. "But I don't," Geralt murmured, "do I? My destiny and my heart aren't different."
His destiny and his heart.
And his heart.
His heart.
Jaskier gasped, silent but for the hiss of air as he inhaled, and stepped into the circle of personal space that had always hovered around Geralt as long as Jaskier had known him.
"Maybe you can choose them both?" Jaskier signed, his movements restricted by how close he stood to Geralt, but his eyes never wavering from Geralt's face. Geralt was watching Jaskier's hands, but that made Jaskier's chest glow ever hotter and brighter.
"Maybe you can choose what you want over what's expected of you," Jaskier added, all reason and logic left behind as Geralt's eyes overcame everything in him.
"Can I choose you?" Geralt asked, his voice rumbling softly in Jaskier's chest.
Jaskier couldn't breathe. The possibility... He stepped back and smiled tightly at Geralt.
"We need to speak upstairs," he signed seriously, and Geralt nodded in agreement.
He held the door for Jaskier like he was a fine lady. Politely followed Jaskier up a few steps behind, rather than suffocating him and being right on his heels.
Jaskier was already pacing by the time Geralt stepped back into their room and closed the door.
"It's just that I haven't been with anyone in more than a year," Jaskier signed immediately.
Geralt didn't respond, only frowned slightly.
"It felt... romantic. Having my hair washed. I wasn't used to it." Jaskier's hands stilled and he chewed his lip, eyes flicking frantically over Geralt's face.
Geralt frowned. Lifted his hands, then lowered them.
"Is that all it was?" he asked, voice nearly flat, frown firmly in place. If Jaskier were more naive, he might think that... that...
"Do you want it to be more?" Jaskier signed slowly, his eyes locked on Geralt's face, even as the other man had to look away to keep his eyes on Jaskier's hands.
"I won't send you away," Geralt said firmly, his brows knit and his gaze locked on the ground in front of him. "Not over something like that."
He could leave it, Jaskier realized. He could leave it at that, not risk breaking his heart more than it already had been, let Geralt set the limits of their relationship without being pushed.
But...
He wanted to know.
Ultimately, after everything, Jaskier wanted to know if his affections had been a waste, or if somehow, miraculously, Geralt felt the same about him. Jaskier stepped closer into Geralt's personal space while still leaving room for them to sign, prompting Geralt to look up.
"You didn't answer the question," Jaskier signed with trembling hands.
"Jaskier, don't," Geralt whispered, his voice shaking.
Jaskier looked up at him with wide eyes, his heart beating out of control. This could be when it all came together, and Jaskier was... eager, to say the least.
"Do you want it to be more?" he asked again.
Geralt looked away, then closed his eyes tight against whatever the world could throw at him.
"Yes," he whispered. Jaskier rather thought the witcher had hoped he'd miss the breath that had carried his desire, but Jaskier had not.
Jaskier had heard it. And seen Geralt's face. And known Geralt as intimately as a friend possibly could for a decade and a half.
Jaskier reached up to wrap his hand around the back of Geralt's neck and pulled the witcher down into a soft kiss. He didn't deepen it, or prolong it unduly, but it was enough to express his desire, his want.
Geralt sucked a breath in when Jaskier's lips met his, and when Jaskier opened his eyes, Geralt was staring back at him with eyes nearly black from how dilated his pupils were.
"I... be sure," Geralt whispered, his tone desperate. "I couldn't stand it if you changed your mind."
Jaskier smiled, trying to comfort and reassure as best he could, and leaned in to kiss Geralt again.
They talked late into the night, cautiously gesturing fondness and hope into the air, interspersed with gentle kisses and soft touches, making plans for getting Geralt back into taking contracts safely, since he was out of practice.
It was well after sunrise, probably closer to lunchtime, when Geralt and Jaskier left the inn. Geralt led Roach by her reins instead of riding, under the pretenses of letting her re-acclimate to regular all-day exercise.
But if, as they left the town behind, he reached out to hold Jaskier's hand as he led her, Jaskier wasn't going to complain.
"I'll be back soon with food for dinner," Geralt said as he grabbed the bolts for his little crossbow, and glanced up at Jaskier for his response.
Jaskier felt that little warmth blossom in his chest the way it did every day when Geralt made a point to check for a response, and finished setting up the bedrolls with a little satisfied pat.
"Go on, then, I'm hungry!" he signed, and Geralt's mouth quirked in a smile.
"You have your flare?" Geralt asked, bolts securely in a pouch on his belt and hands freed.
Jaskier rolled his eyes fondly. Geralt had made a little flare of some sort after a week or two back on the Path, that would not only shoot off a bright light but make a loud whistling sound if it was thrown on the fire. It was Jaskier's way of calling for help if something happened while Geralt was away from their camp.
"In my pocket," Jaskier verified, patting it for emphasis (and to double check for himself).
Geralt nodded, satisfied, and came to drop a kiss on Jaskier's forehead.
"Stay safe, Jaskier," he murmured, his lips still on Jaskier's forehead.
Jaskier smiled and tugged Geralt down into a proper kiss, pressing his hand over Geralt's heart for a moment. I love you, it said, without him having to speak. Geralt mirrored the gesture, then strode purposefully out of the clearing they'd set up camp in.
Jaskier fell into his part of the routine that they'd rebuilt the past few months with ease. He combed out Roach's mane and tail as Geralt had already brushed her down otherwise. Made sure to build up the fire and collect extra firewood from the area just around the camp.
Once everything was ready, Jaskier started to grab the new journal Geralt had found him, where he'd started keeping track of stray thoughts and mental images. It wasn't quite songwriting, or even poetry, but it was still more than he'd done before.
He hesitated, hand outstretched toward his pack, and stared for a long time at the lute case safely tucked behind the saddlebags.
Maybe... maybe it was time.
He swallowed hard, but reached further to pull the case towards him, delicately opening the case and lifting the instrument out of the case it had sat in largely untouched for nearly two years.
Jaskier pulled it against his chest, his hands instinctively trying to fall back where they belonged before.
There was only one way to find out if it was time yet. Jaskier carried the lute over to the bedrolls, sitting on the edge and settling the lute in his lap. It glowed as it reflected the fire in the waning daylight. He didn't try to hum, but pulled up the proper pitch of the first string to circle his mind, and carefully, carefully slowly tweaked the first string's tuning until it was correct. And then the second. He barely breathed as he made his way through tuning all the strings, until he was left holding his gorgeous, somehow not even dusty and barely out-of-tune instrument in buzzing hands that had lost all of the proper calluses for playing.
His chest felt like his heart was trying to crack through his breastbone, but he licked his lips and brought his left hand into position, fingers pressed to the strings.
He plucked out a chord.
The world didn't end.
Jaskier didn't even notice that he had started crying as a wide smile split his face, and he threw himself into playing as long as his hands could stand.
He had a voice of his own in his hands, he had Geralt, and he'd finally found his music again.
Everything really would be all right.