Chapter Text
It doesn’t change anything, the revelation that Jaskier sleeps with women. It can’t.
Jaskier is washing their laundry in the slow-flowing stream by their camp. Theirs, theirs, theirs . So much of her is entangled in Geralt’s life, now. How long has it been? Just the summer? It feels like Geralt’s lifetime. It feels like just a day.
The fact that Jaskier sleeps with women doesn’t change anything because Geralt won’t let it change anything. And it doesn’t matter that Geralt finds Jaskier pretty, because Geralt isn’t meant to have someone like her. It’s been ages since she’s bedded anyone at all, and she knows it’s because she’s such a freak, such a mix-up of things. Too feminine to be another witcher, too rough to be a real woman, always caught in the middle. So she does her best to keep her eyes and her thoughts to herself, wrestle them under control.
Jaskier’s in loose trousers, rolled up over her knees, and an old, wear-worn shirt rolled to the elbows. She’s giving the washing quite a violent bashing with a stick, kicking it over every so often to smack the dirt out of a different side. Geralt’s on the shore, cross-legged and barefoot, mortar and pestle and fresh-picked herbs sitting forgotten on the grass next to her.
The thing is, the thing is -
Jaskier’s beautiful, and soft, and smells like flowers. Geralt’s all calluses and teeth. Her fingers aren’t clever, her hands aren’t gentle - she crushes the flowers she picks in her fists. It doesn’t change anything because it musn’t , because Geralt has this growing soft spot in her heart for Jaskier, and that’s precisely why she can’t have her. Because Jaskier is good, and Geralt is not, and Geralt wants Jaskier to have what she deserves: someone who can meet her soft edges with velvet and honey wine, someone who can give her what she needs. Geralt can’t. There’s too much of her missing, and she won’t expect Jaskier to fill up the gaps in herself for her. Jaskier has earned better than that. If Geralt liked her less, maybe she would risk disappointing her. But she likes her too much, and that’s the problem.
Jaskier is beating the shit out of one of Geralt’s bloodstained shirts, water wicking into her own thin pants with every arcing splash. Sunlight collects in the droplets of water on her skin, clinging to her hair. Her breath is heavy from the exertion, her face flushed in the heat of the day.
Geralt closes her eyes. She can’t have this. She wants , god does she want. But she can’t.
It’s okay.
Geralt is practiced in wanting, and not having. It’s one of the few constants in the life of a witcher.
That evening, they sit around the campfire, in clean clothes that smell faintly of meadowgrass and sand. Jaskier is plucking her lute idly. She’s wrapped a heavy cloak - it’s only late summer, but the chill of autumn is in the air early tonight. Geralt will have to head north soon, back to Kaer Morhen. Jaskier and her will have to split up; she doesn’t want to. But the sooner it happens, the better.
“Fucking balls, this wind is cold,” Jaskier wraps herself up tighter in her cloak, tossing another log into the fire.
“Frost is on the way,” Geralt says.
Jaskier gives her a look, “Not for another month, I’d hope. The leaves are still green.”
“It’ll be here faster than you know.”
There’s a pause, as they both watch the fire. Geralt gathers the words crowding into her throat and tries to put them into the right order.
“I should go north--” Geralt says at the same time as Jaskier says, “We could head south--”
They both stop, biting off the tail ends of their sentences. Jaskier gives her a surprised look.
“North? It’ll be even colder,” Jaskier says.
“I…” and suddenly Geralt is reluctant to explain. It feels like a secret, too private, to talk about Kaer Morhen; to talk about the closest thing to home she has. But Jaskier is looking at her, confused and a little… disappointed, maybe. “The wolf school is up north. We- I usually spend the winters there. With the other witchers. Not much to hunt in winter, and life on the road is harsh.”
“Oh,” Jaskier says, and looks… more disappointed. “Right, of course.”
There’s another pause, heavy. The silence stretches between them like a thread, pulled taught, and snaps.
“I’ll find you,” Jaskier promises, “In the spring. When life on the road is good again.”
Geralt should say no. This was nice while it lasted, but it should end. Travelling together wasn’t- it was just for the season. But before that, it was just for the month, for the week, for the day. Jaskier keeps worming herself further into Geralt’s life, and Geralt… Geralt wants her to.
“Sure,” Geralt says, gruff as she can will herself, and doesn’t miss the hope lighting up in Jaskier’s eyes. It’s a lie, she tells herself. They won’t run into each other again.
They sleep close to each other that night, curled around the dying fire, the night chill creeping in under the edges of their blankets.