Chapter Text
Gwen comes in to luncheon still stomping the snow off his boots, and slumps down next to Clovis with a heavy sigh. “Trail’ll be clear by this time next week, less’n we get another snowstorm through.”
Jaskier had almost forgotten that this interlude - this winter in a crumbling but still-solid keep, surrounded by Wolves (and a single Griffin) - must, inevitably, end. The witchers must go out upon their Path again. And since he cannot imagine that his alphas are going to leave him here - it would rather miss the point of having an omega - that means that he, too, will be going back out into the world.
But not as a ruined omega.
Oh, he has no mating marks, no silver-scarred bites upon his throat, but no one with a functioning nose is going to assume that he’s anything but very firmly claimed indeed. He smells of a warm autumn hearth: spiced rum and apples, woodsmoke and roasting chestnuts, rich savory stew, and over all of it the lighter notes of his own cinnamon and citrus.
The fact that there are three other scents layered over his - three very distinctly alpha scents - is going to confuse people, but Jaskier is fine with that. Let them be baffled. Let them be confused, too, by the knife he wears on his belt; an armed omega is not illegal only because no one in power has ever thought any alpha would be foolish enough to allow their omega to have weaponry. And let them be utterly flabbergasted by the lute - assuming Jaskier is allowed to bring it with him.
He’ll have to ask Vesemir about that.
“Ugh, packing,” Gardis sighs. “So we were thinking about doing the northern loop, through Caingorn and Poviss and all, if that’s alright with you, Coën?”
Coën looks startled. “I...have no jurisdiction over your travels,” he says warily.
“Well, no, but I figured I’d ask since you’re coming with us.” Gardis props his chin on one hand and grins across the table at the Griffin. “Packmate.”
Jaskier muffles a giggle as Coën gapes. Aubry chuckles softly, and reaches over to nudge Coën’s mouth closed with a gentle finger. “You can refuse,” the big beta says gently. “Gardis is pushy.”
“I did not realize I would be welcome,” Coën says, rather faintly. “It would be...very pleasant to have company upon the Path, if you are pleased to allow my intrusion upon your pack.”
“It’s not an intrusion,” Gardis says. “We want you along.”
Coën nods, eyes a little wide still. “Then I am honored. And the northern loop is perfectly agreeable to me.”
“Lovely,” Gardis says, grinning. Jaskier muffles a laugh; Coën looks rather as though he’s just had a bolt of cloth-of-gold dropped on his head: extremely startled and slightly dazed by his good fortune.
“Flip you for the southern loop?” Gwen asks Geralt, fishing a copper out of his belt-pouch.
Geralt shakes his head. “Yours this year. We’ve business in Redania.”
Business in Redania? Jaskier can’t help giving Geralt a startled look. Eskel catches it and winks, which doesn’t help. What business could their pack have in Redania, of all places?
The witchers spend the rest of the meal discussing the chores they’ll need to do before they set out: last bits of mending, absurd amounts of laundry, the bottling of potions and ingredients. Jaskier listens intently but has nothing to contribute. His own packing is going to be absurdly easy: the clothing his alphas have brought him, a few small toiletry items, and - if he’s lucky - the lute.
After luncheon, Jaskier follows Vesemir to the kitchens as usual, the other witchers dispersing to their afternoon chores. Vesemir is silent as they wash and dry the dishes - or, to be more precise, he doesn’t speak. He does hum a tune which Jaskier is delighted to realize is one of the songs Jaskier himself has made up this winter. Jaskier hums along, grinning to himself, and Vesemir gives him a warm and approving look.
Once the dishes are stowed and the evening’s meal - a haunch of venison, which Jaskier seasons without instructions, and a mess of stewed greens, and honey-baked apples for dessert - has been put in to roast, Vesemir says, “Right, pup, time you learned to make hardtack.”
“That sounds...appetizing?” Jaskier says. Vesemir snorts and tugs gently on a lock of Jaskier’s hair - a gesture he’s started to use in the last few weeks, at times that Jaskier thinks are similar to those where he would affectionately cuff any of the witchers.
“It’s bland as hell, pup, but it’ll keep you lot alive long enough for the boys to find some contracts and make a little coin.”
“Ah,” Jaskier says, and pays close attention as Vesemir turns flour, water, and salt into a dry dough and rolls it out.
“We’ll be making this every day until you all head out,” Vesemir says. “This and dried venison and dried apple slices, keep you going as long as you need to.”
“...Could we bake the apple slices into the hardtack?” Jaskier ventures.
“Hm,” Vesemir says, and raises an eyebrow. “We’ll do a batch or two that way, see how it goes.”
Jaskier grins all the way through making a batch of hardtack of his own.
*
Coën is waiting for him outside the library; he bows a little when he sees Jaskier approaching. “May I intrude on your afternoon, gracious omega?”
“I keep telling you it’s just Jaskier,” Jaskier says, smiling at the Griffin. “And your company is never an intrusion.” He likes Coën: the beta is polite, even-tempered, and well-educated, and has spent several pleasant afternoons discussing poetry with Jaskier and Eskel.
“Many thanks,” Coën says, bowing Jaskier into the library and sitting down in one of the other armchairs once Jaskier has taken his own seat. “I wished to ask your advice, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“My advice?” Jaskier says, eyebrows rising. He can’t imagine what advice he could give a witcher. “I am happy to give any advice I can, of course, but what could I have more insight on than you do yourself?”
Coën smiles a little crookedly. “Well, you’ve experience in being an outsider joining a Wolf pack.”
“Ah.” Jaskier grins. “I suppose I do, at that.”
“What ought I expect?” Coën asks.
“Well, they’re very cuddly,” Jaskier says. “Though I expect you’ve figured that out already. If they’re anything like my three, they’ll prefer to sleep all in a heap with you, rather than in separate bedrolls. And they hunt as a pack - I assume you’ll be part of that, rather than being left in camp to be kept safe, as you’re not a squishy human.” He offers a wry grin, and Coën chuckles.
“It will be very interesting to adjust to having companions to watch my back during hunts,” he admits. “And they are extremely cuddly, you’re quite correct.” He sighs and rubs a hand over his short-cropped hair. “It has been so long since I lost my Schoolmates, and even before then, we were not so...demonstrative as Wolves are.”
“They will back off if you want them to,” Jaskier says. He can’t imagine Gardis and Aubry will be any less careful of Coën’s boundaries than his own witchers have been of his.
“Ah, but I do not desire that,” Coën says, smiling rather dreamily. “I am only astonished at my own good fortune. Have you any advice on...demonstrating my appreciation for their welcoming me into their pack?”
Jaskier frowns and settles back in his seat a little, running a hand through his own hair. “Honestly? I’m still not entirely sure I’m...doing enough,” he says quietly. “They don’t seem to expect anything of me but my presence, but that seems utterly inadequate in relation to what they have given me.” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what makes someone a good packmate, not really. I just know I’ll do anything I can for them.”
“Ah,” Coën says. “Well. Then we shall each learn, and perhaps have advice to share with each other come next winter.”
“I’d like that,” Jaskier says. “This has been...maybe the best winter of my life, to tell the truth. I will be sad to leave these halls.”
Coën nods. “So too will I. Yet we are not yet parting,” he adds, clearly wrenching himself out of maudlin contemplation with an effort. “Tell me of the songs you are working on, of your courtesy!”
“Gladly,” Jaskier grins, and leans down to pick up his lute in its case. “I was working on one based on the story Gardis told last week, about the barghest hunt; there’s something wrong with the scansion that I can’t quite pinpoint. Can you help me figure out what’s eluding me?”
“It would be my honor,” Coën says, and settles back with his hands laced across his stomach as Jaskier begins to play.
*
The whole winter has felt like an odd idyll outside of time - isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by witchers who do not think like humans do, kept safe and made welcome, taught new skills and given the means to use his old talents - but this last week, time returns with a vengeance. Jaskier’s alphas rouse from their winter’s complacency and spend their days bustling about, packing and re-packing their gear, going over every inch of their armor and weaponry and their horses’ tack with eagle eyes, arguing cheerfully with each other about the best routes west through Kaedwen. They’re all keyed up in a way Jaskier hasn’t seen before: they tackle each other on the slightest provocation, roll about growling for a few minutes, and bounce to their feet again to resume conversations as though nothing has happened; they take to swinging by the library or even the kitchens to snuffle at Jaskier’s throat and tousle his hair and then go off again humming; they’re far too fidgety to sleep through the night, taking it in turns to get up and pace while the other two keep Jaskier warm and well-cuddled; and they can’t focus enough to actually fuck, though they’re eager to use their hands and mouths to keep Jaskier thoroughly satisfied, and can be rendered very nearly calm by a combination of kissing and hair-petting, though Jaskier can only soothe one of them at a time.
It takes Jaskier a couple of days to work up the courage to ask Vesemir whether he can bring the lute with him. Vesemir looks up from the chicken he’s been plucking and fixes Jaskier with a fierce yellow glare.
“Pup, that lute is yours,” he says. “You can do whatever you please with it.” And then, clearly seeing Jaskier’s incredulity, he sighs and dusts his hands clean and comes over to fold Jaskier into a shockingly comforting embrace. “You’re not here on sufferance, pup,” he murmurs in Jaskier’s ear. “You are pack, and this is your home, and the things you have been given are yours, not temporary loans.”
Jaskier makes an embarrassing sort of sniffling noise and buries his face against Vesemir’s shoulder, clinging to the old witcher’s tunic. Is this what having a proper father ought to feel like? Someone who teaches and comforts and protects, as solid and sturdy as stone?
The smell of hot iron is oddly soothing now. Jaskier’s going to have to start spending time near smithies while they’re on the Path.
Vesemir squeezes hard enough to make Jaskier squeak a little, and then pulls back, planting his hands on Jaskier’s shoulders, and gives him a little shake. “You’re pack, pup,” he says again. “We’ve claimed you, and what Wolves take, we keep.”
Jaskier swallows hard. “Alright,” he says, voice a little watery. “Thank you.”
Vesemir shakes his head and leans forward to kiss Jaskier’s forehead gently, warm affection like nothing Jaskier ever got from his sire, and goes back to his chicken. Jaskier sniffles a bit and wipes his eyes and sets about kneading the bread dough properly, feeling Vesemir’s words settling in his chest like embers, warm and comforting as a banked fire.
*
That night, wrapped up in Eskel’s arms in their big bed while Geralt and Lambert scuffle cheerfully on the hearth, Jaskier asks, “What business do we have in Redania?”
“Oxenfurt’s in Redania,” Eskel says, nuzzling Jaskier’s hair contentedly. Jaskier makes a questioning noise. Eskel chuckles. “Well, Oxenfurt’s likely to keep track of its graduates. It’s probably our best lead, unless you know of another way to hunt down this Valdo Marx?”
Jaskier goes still in shock. “You - we’re really going to do that?”
Geralt and Lambert stop wrestling, Lambert pinned under Geralt’s weight, and both turn to stare up at Jaskier. “Of course we’re really going to do that, buttercup,” Lambert says incredulously. “How else are you going to get to stab him?”
“Oh,” Jaskier says. “I - I don’t want to put you to any trouble -”
Geralt sighs and lets go of Lambert, rolling to his feet and coming over to cup Jaskier’s face in his big hands. “It’s no trouble,” he says. “Plenty of monsters in Redania. No trouble to hunt one more for you.”
“Precisely,” Eskel agrees. “Someone’s got to do the middle loop this year; stopping at Oxenfurt to see where this Marx knothead ended up isn’t even really a detour. And we’d do far more than this for your sake, and count it no trouble at all.”
“Oh,” Jaskier says again, staring up rather dazedly into Geralt’s golden eyes. “I don’t know what I’ve done to be worthy of this,” he confesses softly. “You’re so good to me, and I -”
Lambert interrupts him by clambering right onto the bed and into his lap, shoving Geralt aside and snuggling aggressively against Jaskier, pinning him between Lambert and Eskel’s bulk. “Shut up, buttercup,” he mumbles against Jaskier’s throat. “You don’t gotta be fuckin’ worthy. You love us, and you’re our pack, and that’s fuckin’ it, alright?”
“I hate to say it, but our little wolf is right,” Eskel says. “You don’t have to do anything to be worthy of our love. You’re pack. That’s enough.”
“Not little,” Lambert grumbles.
Jaskier can’t help laughing, and reaches up to scritch his fingers through Lambert’s hair. “Not little,” he agrees. “My big strong alpha.”
“Damn right,” Lambert says smugly, and snuggles even closer.
Geralt chuckles, shaking his head with a fond expression, and settles on the bed on Lambert’s other side, curling around him until he can press a soft kiss to Jaskier’s lips. “No debt between pack,” he says. “No need to be worthy. We look out for each other, that’s all.”
“Alright,” Jaskier says. “I can do that.”
The next morning, he wakes up to find Geralt sitting on the edge of the bed, toying with a silver chain. He looks up when Jaskier makes a quiet noise of curiosity from within his nest of witchers, and smiles.
“Pack,” Geralt says quietly, and leans forward, looping the chain around Jaskier’s throat. A pendant thumps gently against Jaskier’s sternum. He frees an arm from under Lambert and reaches up to lift it to his eyes.
A silver medallion, engraved with a snarling wolf.
“Oh,” Jaskier says, and feels himself tear up. “Oh.”
Geralt kisses him, soft and sweet.
*
They head down the mountain on a crisp, clear day after a night’s rain; the Trail is absolutely miserable to go down, worse even than it was to climb, but at least they don’t have a wagon. Apparently Vesemir will bring the wagon back down the mountain at some point during the summer, to sell goats’ wool yarn and some of the small handicrafts the witchers made during the winter, and buy flour and salt and other things the witchers cannot make for themselves. Jaskier feels rather sorry for the cranky donkeys who will have to pull the wagon down this horrible excuse for a path, and then go slogging back up it weighed down with sacks of flour.
He’s up on Scorpion, who is the strongest of the horses; Geralt and Lambert are leading Roach and the nameless gelding. They stop at the same little cave as they did on the way up; the ashes of the fire Clovis’s pack made last night are still heaped near the back wall. Apparently the packs usually stagger their travels by a day or so, to keep from crowding each other on the Trail; Gardis and Aubry and Coën will be leaving Kaer Morhen the following morning.
Jaskier is rather dismayed to discover that he’s gotten used to sleeping in a bed, and can’t quite get to sleep in the nest of bedrolls, even though he’s cushioned from the stony ground by Eskel’s warm bulk, and sheltered from the chilly air by Geralt and Lambert curled around them both. He’s gotten soft - it used to be he could sleep anywhere, accustomed as he was to hard floors or thin pallets.
He wriggles carefully out of the heap, stealing one of the outer blankets as he goes, shoves his feet into his boots, and pads as quietly as he can to the cave entrance, where he can see the stars.
He has no idea how this is going to go, really. He knows how to be a student, brash and flamboyant and devoted to his craft; he knows how to be a ruined omega, self-effacing and desperately eager to please; he knows how to be a pack omega, enfolded in the warmth of the Wolves’ keep and their unquestioning support. But he isn’t quite sure how to be a companion on the Path. He’s a claimed omega - the way he’s soaked in his alphas’ scent proves that, if the medallion about his throat doesn’t, even if he will have to wait for next winter’s heat to gain his mating marks - but being a witchers’ omega has very little in common with being the mated houseomega or trophy omega of a human alpha. He has a lute and a dagger and the training to use both - his alphas do not expect him to defer, to cower, to present - and he’s not quite sure how that’s going to work in human society. Gardis and Clovis can get away with being utterly astonishing, because they’re witchers; no one expects them to behave like humans. But Jaskier is not a witcher, and there will be certain expectations placed on him, even if his alphas don’t hold with such things.
Warm arms wrap around him, and a chin rests on his shoulder. Jaskier hadn’t even realized he was shivering until the shudders begin to fade, heat soaking into him from the witcher curled around him. “You look deep in thought, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs. “What’s eating you?”
“Just wondering how...how this will work,” Jaskier admits, leaning back against Lambert’s warm strength. Lambert nuzzles his throat and purrs a little. “How ought I act, out on the Path?”
“Just as you always do?” Lambert sounds baffled. “That’s what Remus always did.”
Jaskier sighs. “Remus was a witcher,” he says gently. “I’m not. If I act like Gardis or Clovis do, it will offend people. Even just the fact that I’m wearing a dagger is going to cause some fuss.” Quite possibly a lot of fuss, actually.
“Umph,” Lambert says. “I would say, let ‘em be fucking offended, but it won’t be me as gets hurt if something goes wrong.” He tugs Jaskier a little closer, like he wants to shield him from hypothetical harm. “But it’s the law all through Kaedwen and Redania that an omega can do whatever their alpha says they can, yeah?”
“Yes,” Jaskier agrees, though usually that law is interpreted the other way: an omega must bear whatever restrictions their alpha chooses to place upon them, without recourse.
“So we’ll make sure there’s always someone with you,” Lambert says. “One of us, to say you’re allowed to do whatever you please.” He sounds distinctly grumpy. “It’s fucking stupid that we’ve gotta do that, but we will. Fucking Eternal Flame assholes, making everyone think omegas aren’t fucking important.” He trails off into little growly noises, muffled against Jaskier’s blanket-covered shoulder. Jaskier watches the clouds drift across the stars for a few minutes. Having an alpha always with him would have terrified him not five months ago; now, honestly, it sounds downright comforting.
“Is there anything you want to do?” Lambert asks after a while. “Long as it isn’t going hunting with us - fuck if we’re ever going to let you anywhere near a monster.”
“I have no interest in going hunting,” Jaskier reassures him, patting one of Lambert’s arms where it’s wrapped around his waist. “I...suppose I wouldn’t mind seeing if I could perform, now and again.”
“Perform?”
“As a bard.” Jaskier bites his lip. Omegas don’t perform in public, usually - even while he was at Oxenfurt, while he’d dreamed of someday being a traveling bard, he’d known that it was a fever dream, an utter impossibility. If he’d been very lucky, the alpha his parents chose for him would have allowed him to play for their pups. And, of course, he had not been lucky...or perhaps, given the alphas he has ended up claimed by, he had been far luckier than he could have imagined.
Lambert hums. “Don’t see why not,” he says at last. “Certainly can’t hurt to try.”
“Thank you,” Jaskier whispers.
“Nothin’ to thank me for, buttercup,” Lambert says, pressing a kiss to Jaskier’s throat. “We want you happy, you know.”
Jaskier turns around in the circle of Lambert’s arms, and kisses his alpha as sweetly and thoroughly as he knows how. “I am,” he promises. “With you, I am.”
“Good,” Eskel rumbles from the nest of bedrolls. “Now come back to bed, hm? I’m cold.”
Jaskier laughs and obeys, Lambert right behind him, and somehow it’s much easier, now, to curl up between his alphas and slide blissfully to sleep. The cold of the stone floor can’t reach him, not with his alphas to keep him warm.
*
The lower half of the Trail still has some snow on it, enough to make the going uncomfortably slick, and Jaskier has rarely been more grateful to see level ground than he is when they finally reach the base of the Blue Mountains and the much wider road which leads into Wolvenburg, the town near the foot of the Trail.
The people of this town are as comfortable with witchers as any humans Jaskier has ever encountered; he recognizes the old herbwife, Hildy, who waves as they pass through the little market square and calls, “Lambert, you young reprobate, did you poison anyone this winter?”
Lambert laughs and goes over to kiss her cheek. “Nah, Hildy, but I made an awful nice juniper-berry infused batch of White Gull.”
“Well, that’s practically sensible,” Hildy laughs. “And who’s your pretty friend?”
Lambert beckons Jaskier over. Jaskier approaches a little warily - betas can be quite nasty, though not usually as aggressively physical as alphas are - and Hildy smiles at him, face wrinkled up like a winter apple. “This’s Jaskier, our pack’s omega,” Lambert says proudly.
Jaskier bows, as he would to a noble lady in her own house, and old Hildy laughs in delight. “Oh, you’re a polite young thing, aren’t you?” she chortles. “Is this mischief-maker treating you right?”
“He is, Mistress Hildy,” Jaskier says, smiling down at her. “They all are.”
“Good!” she says. “Here, a gift for my friend’s new mate.” She presses something into his hand. Jaskier looks down to see a little embroidered pillow, stuffed with - he raises it to his nose and sniffs - dried lavender.
“Thank you,” he says, tucking it away in his belt pouch carefully. “You’re very kind.”
“Eh, these boys need someone to look after them,” Hildy says, and grins when Lambert makes indignant noises. “You let me know if this one gets to be too much of a handful, my lad; my husband may have died these ten winters back, but I still remember all my old tricks!”
Jaskier can feel his ears heating. “Thank you,” he says again, a little awkwardly. “But truly, they’ve been nothing but kind to me.”
“Good,” she says, nodding sharply, and reaches up to pat Lambert on the cheek again. “Now get your omega into a nice warm inn, shoo, shoo!”
Lambert laughs and herds Jaskier away to where Eskel and Geralt are waiting with the horses, both of them clearly suppressing laughter.
“Well, now you have the approval of the most important person in Lambert’s life,” Eskel teases. Lambert growls at him, not very seriously, and Geralt huffs a laugh.
No one in this town really seems to bat an eye at the dagger on Jaskier’s hip or the lute on his back, but this town sees witchers regularly - presumably they’re used to Gardis and Clovis, who are of course as heavily armed as the rest of the witchers are, and so a single dagger, even on a mere human, isn’t enough to raise eyebrows. And the tavern-keeper looks Jaskier up and down, eyes the lute, and says, “So, are you any good with that?”
Jaskier swallows hard and puts his shoulders back and meets the beta’s eyes squarely. “I’m very good.”
“Been a while since we had a bard through here,” the tavern-keeper says. “If you’ll play tonight, and you’re as good as you say, your dinners are all on the house.”
“Deal,” Jaskier says, and the tavern-keeper actually holds out a hand for him to shake, as though they are equals. As though he doesn’t notice Jaskier is an omega. Jaskier shakes it firmly.
He plays for a steadily growing crowd that night - apparently news that there’s a musician spreads pretty quickly, and people keep trickling in through the door and then staying, watching Jaskier avidly as he paces back and forth on the hearth, wringing ballads and drinking songs and cheerful ditties from the lute and grinning with the heady feeling of being applauded at the end of each song. His alphas are seated at the nearest table, watching him with wide, hungry, approving smiles - well, Eskel and Lambert are grinning, Geralt is just looking quietly and thoroughly contented.
When he finally starts to flag, late in the evening, Jaskier bows to his audience and apologizes for needing rest, and is rewarded with not just a wave of applause and happy cheering, but a handful of coins, coppers and even a few silver pieces clattering onto the hearth at his feet. He gathers the money up as the patrons finish their drinks and go wandering out of the tavern, some of them singing snatches of the songs he’s sung, all of them in fine good humor, and goes to join his alphas at their table.
Lambert tousles his hair and grins; Eskel pushes a plate of bread and venison and stewed apples over in front of him; Geralt wraps an arm around his waist and nestles his head against Jaskier’s shoulder, purring so softly that Jaskier feels it instead of hearing it. And the tavern-keeper comes bustling over as Jaskier finishes clearing his plate and says, “Breakfast’s on the house, too, lad, and if you’d care to play when you come back through this fall, I’ll be honored to have you.”
“Ah - thank you,” Jaskier says, wide-eyed.
“Thank you,” the tavern-keeper says, beaming. “I made twice what I normally would tonight, and that’s on you, lad! You’ve a treasure there, witchers.”
“We know,” Eskel says, sounding pleased and proud.
Once they make it up to their room, Jaskier offers the handful of coins to Eskel. All three of his alphas go still, and then Eskel reaches out and closes Jaskier’s hand gently around the money. “That’s yours, Jaskier.”
“You earned it, you keep it,” Lambert agrees.
“But,” Jaskier says, eyes wide. Even mated omegas don’t generally get to keep the money they earn, even if they’re allowed to work - usually at making and selling handicrafts, since that doesn’t involve leaving the house. The money goes to their alphas, always. Good alphas, so Jaskier has heard, will use that money to buy nice things for their omegas, but that’s as far as that goes.
“It’s yours,” Geralt says, solid as if the words are set in stone. “What you earn, you keep.”
Jaskier swallows. “I’m...I’m part of the pack, though,” he says. “I know you all pool your earnings. Shouldn’t this be part of that?”
His alphas glance at each other, and then Lambert shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “You got us fed, dinner and breakfast both. Might be you’ll do that again, out on the Path. The coin is yours.”
Jaskier looks down at the handful of coins - maybe enough for a secondhand doublet, or some half-decent lute strings, or two or three good meals at nice taverns. More money than he’s had since Oxenfurt. Money that’s his, not an allowance from his parents or his alphas, but that he earned himself.
Slowly, he tucks it away in the belt-pouch with the little lavender sachet. “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank us for, buttercup,” Lambert says. “Come to bed; I’m fuckin’ exhausted.”
“Same,” Eskel agrees, and Jaskier sets his lute aside very carefully and kicks off his boots and collapses into the bed in the middle of his alphas, Eskel on one side and Lambert on the other and Geralt curled around Lambert with his hand heavy and warm on Jaskier’s chest. Everything smells like warm-hearth-and-safety, and Jaskier snuggles down happily, body still thrumming with the joy of performing - of being applauded and cheered and praised - and decides that if this is life on the Path, he’s going to enjoy it a very great deal.