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Jaskier was asleep.
It was the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Being asleep was a perfectly reasonable thing to be.
Geralt, however, was not. He was lying in his bedroll, staring at the stars, wondering how exactly he’d gotten here.
Not here, geographically. Here with his bedding pulled up close to Jaskier’s. Here unable to sleep because he didn’t want to miss a moment.
Jaskier annoyed him to no end. Constantly got him into trouble. Argued with him. Sang songs that were blatantly untrue. Tried to talk women out of sleeping with him (even after they’d discussed that whatever it was between them would, by necessity, be open).
Jaskier was also the only person that Geralt truly trusted. The only one he knew he could depend on to be there, to support him, through anything.
And, fuck, Jaskier was beautiful.
Geralt shifted, rolling to face the bard, and for several long minutes just gazed. Jaskier’s mouth, usually pulled into a grin or harboring clever words, looked so soft and innocent in sleep. Stunning blue eyes hid behind peaceful lashes, dark against Jaskier’s pale skin.
Geralt reached out and pushed back a stray lock of Jaskier’s hair, marvelling at how soft it was, so much softer than his own. Granted, he mostly bathed in streams and only when he was trying to lose something tracking him by scent, but the silken strands felt like whispers against his sword-calloused fingers.
He couldn’t tell Jaskier how much he meant to him. Part of Geralt hoped he showed it in his actions. Mostly, though, he was terrified. Terrified of letting someone in. Of someone needing him. Of needing someone.
And Jaskier was no mutant. Geralt would have to watch his lover age and die, if disease or an arrow or a bitter cuckold didn’t do the job first. The thought of wrinkles creasing that smooth forehead made his heart hurt. Jaskier was already showing the slightest hint of laugh-lines, because he smiled too much, he was too bright.
Things that are too bright burn out so quickly.
For the thousandth time, Geralt considered leaving. Gathering up his things in the middle of the night, climbing atop Roach, and fucking off in a random direction. The plan had its appeal, of course. This pain would go away.
Only to be replaced by the pain of loneliness.
It had been so long since he’d let anyone in. Opening his heart to someone was a sharper, fresher pain than the dull ache of emptiness that he was used to. Often it’s easier to choose the pain that you know.
Jaskier fussed in his sleep, frowning.
“Shh,” Geralt murmured, brushing his fingers along Jaskier’s cheek, a gentle, soothing touch. “You’re safe.”
Smiling in his sleep, Jaskier snuggled closer, throwing an arm in Geralt’s direction and landing a hand vaguely on the witcher’s waist.
People said -- ignorant people, but Geralt could hardly blame them for that ignorance -- that witchers had no emotions. This wasn’t true, of course. Geralt himself was a stoic man, certainly, but that stoicism had been earned over years of abandonment and disappointment.
He caught up Jaskier’s hand and brought it to his lips, lying a tender kiss on the bard’s knuckles. Then, with just as much care, he kissed each fingertip, letting the barest tip of his tongue brush over the callouses born of lute strings instead of a sword.
Fuck, but he wanted to cover Jaskier in kisses. Messy ones, with lots of tongue. But he supposed that could wait until morning.
The smallest smile touched Geralt’s lips, a rare sight in the first place and rarer still as it was a genuine smile. The idea of travelling the kingdoms with someone who sang his praises instead of hurling vitriol, of making love under the stars, and of waking up to Jaskier’s loving smiles...it filled his heart with warmth and comfort and peace.
A friend. A trustworthy companion. And a lover.
Geralt shook his head, huffing a laugh to himself. It wasn’t anything that he’d ever thought he would find.
But, he supposed, it had found him, brooding in a corner.
“I treasure you,” Geralt said, barely above a whisper. “I’m thankful for you.”
Jaskier fussed again, yawning, his eyes blinking open. “D’you say something, Geralt?” he asked sleepily.
Geralt threw himself back on his bedroll, eyes once again fixed on the stars. “Go the fuck to sleep, Jaskier.”
***
Jaskier rolled his eyes before closing them as he was asked but his fingers still tingled from Geralt’s kisses. Mentally, he gathered up Geralt’s words and tucked them away, into a small jeweled box inside his heart, where he kept his greatest treasures.
He didn’t know why Geralt kept up such a gruff exterior but he had his suspicions. It can’t have been easy, being hated and alone for so long. The why of it didn’t really matter, he supposed. It wasn’t right to push for knowledge that wasn’t offered, not with something like this. He knew Geralt cared for him, even if his way of showing it was...unusual.
Jaskier pushed closer to Geralt’s warmth, wishing that the other man would relent and allow them to share a bedroll, and laid his arm across Geralt’s chest, hand very intentionally over the witcher’s heart.
Affecting another yawn and doing his best sleepy voice, he murmured, “Love you.”
Geralt grunted in reply, but it was one of his pleased grunts, a grunt of agreement. And that was enough.