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It’s a comically ordinary day when Jaskier watches his life come crashing down.
The tragedy isn’t in the fact that it is the first day of spring, but rather that it is the first day in months that Jaskier truly felt like things were on the mend. For him and his daughter.
This is how it goes: Jaskier the bard, who had no trade to his name beside the lute strapped to his back, had fought tooth and nail to build a new, better life for himself and Ciri. His savings were enough, the first four months after they ran away, but Ciri was a young, still growing thing, and it hadn’t been enough. So Jaskier had to go. Julian had to go. Thus, Alfred was born, a stranger with a mysterious past in every town and village he went to, willing to do anything to care for his daughter with snow white hair and no name. And finally, after six months of running away from Kaer Morhen, they could finally afford to settle down, at least for a while, and he could let his girl learn to mourn the loss of her mother and father.
She cried for them, still, especially at night when Jaskier would indulge her just a little bit and take out his lute from his pack and play and play until her hiccups died down and she could go to sleep.
“I miss them,” Ciri would whisper, cheeks streaked with tears and eyes red rimmed, “I wish we could go back.”
“So do I, dear heart,” Jaskier would echo back, running her hands through his daughter’s hair, only 13 summers old yet wise enough to know they couldn’t return, “So do I.”
Which makes it especially cruel that when they do see them again, it’s… well.
Never let it be said that Jaskier didn’t cry. And never let it be said that Jaskier didn’t love. Maybe that was hard to believe, if one saw him slamming his lute down on the witcher at his doorstep and nothing else, but Jaskier wasn’t cruel. He was just scared.
This is how it goes.
Jaskier barges into their small, one-room cabin, grin wide and hopeful. He drops his bag to the floor, locks the door and can’t contain the joy in his heart, skipping and singing and dancing around the kitchen.
“Ciri!” he shouts into the otherwise empty house, putting away the eggs and dried meats in his basket; he’s as delightful as a warm streak of light in a cold, desperate winter day, and not afraid to show it “Ciri, love, great news! I spoke to Joris, you know, the merchant down the street by the blacksmith we frequented to patch up your sword, and they’re sending a caravan up to Vizima,” he laughs, clapping his hands as he kneels by the pantry to put away the lovely potatoes he had managed to get his hands on.
“Now! I know that sounds like a detour from Oxenfurt, but believe me, it’ll make passing into Redania much easier and safer than if we simply went by boat or followed the coastline, because Temeria, as you know, is being rather cruel and-”
The wind makes him pause.
Mouth hanging open mid-conversation, Jaskier stands up to his full height, listening to the silence.
Ciri isn’t at home.
He knows this because, though Jaskier could go for hours chattering, Ciri can go for hours without saying a word and still listening. But knowing the girl, there is a difference between listening silently and simply not being there.
Ciri is not in the house.
And a bitter draft cools Jaskier’s bare ankles.
Swallowing, he stands up and retreats to the kitchen. He doesn’t have much on his person in terms of defence; he’d sold the dagger he had gifted Jaskier, as much as it pained him, and the only sharp instrument in the place besides Ciri’s sword was a kitchen knife.
Jaskier grabs it, humming as he does, putting away things and tidying up the kitchen.
He knows he’s not alone now.
Beneath the cupboard beside the pantry, where they hang their coats, is a lute Jaskier hasn’t touched in a long time. The strings have gone out of tune, and the cold is horrible for the wood. It, like Jaskier, craves warmth one can only find in being touched with love and care, a warmth no fire can hope to ease.
Jaskier grabs the lute. He walks to the front door and listens. He knows someone’s there.
Whoever – or whatever – it is… It’s not a friend.
Which is why Jaskier doesn’t regret making the first move by throwing open the door and slamming his beloved lute down the head of the intruder.
Someone groans in surprise, not pain. Before they can return the move, Jaskier slams the door closed, locks it, and is already running towards the back door. Which makes it a terrible, terrible time to see a familiar streak of white hair before Jaskier feels a familiar lull of green settling behind his eyelids and weighing down his bones.
And then Jaskier is gone, movements dull and knife clattering to the floor alongside him. Which is strange, because he had always promised. He’d always promised to catch Jaskier if he fell. And somehow, witnessing that promise be broken hurts more than the freshly blooming hurt of seeing him all over again.
Jaskier’s breathing evens out, and the world stops turning, for once in his life. He’s caught between the sweet pause between sleep and dreaming, and the cold no longer bothers him. How could it? Above him, heavy feet step forward, and the face he’s spent the better half of his life devoted to steps into his view. He’s not older, Jaskier is stupid to think he would be. It’s been only a few months. But there is a certain exhaustion that shows through his hard eyes and unkempt beard that pulls on the strings of Jaskier’s heart. Jaskier can’t close his eyes, can’t look away. His glassy, numb expression looks up at his witcher and aches.
“Ci..Ciri…” Jaskier tries to say, trying to turn to the door, trying to reach with a languid arm. Above him, his muse growls, standing right above Jaskier and caging his torso between two heavy boots.
“How could you?” Geralt growls, wolfish and more witcher than Jaskier has ever seen him in all the years he’s known and loved Geralt, “How could you say that, having run away and taken her from us?”
Tears refuse to tip down his eyes. Jaskier’s heart is calm, and his head is still. He reaches out again, and Geralt presses down on his palm with the heel of his boot, not enough to hurt but enough to send a message.
Enough.
“Have you any idea what you’ve done, Jaskier?” Geralt asks, bending down. His fingers stroke through Jaskier’s long hair, and oh. Jaskier has missed it. Maybe it’s the Axii, or maybe the loneliness of going months, almost a year, without seeing one’s beloved that has him leaning into Geralt’s hold. But then Geralt pulls his hair by the roots, and Jaskier blinks as his face is wretched to look upon those lovely, golden eyes, “Have you any idea what you’ve put us through?”
He does. It’s why he left one night with his daughter tucked to his chest, abandoning the keep he has long called home.
The tears don’t fall. Geralt knows they can’t.
Wordlessly, he grabs Jaskier by the collar, dragging his limp body unkindly out the front door. They’re not alone; there are a few witchers about, some of whom Jaskier knows (but they pay him no mind, their eyes trained on their lord) besides a not-so-familiar witcher who is sporting a cut forehead among splinters of wood. Jaskier is too languid to feel sorry for him.
Geralt deposits Jaskier on the cold, snowy ground. Unkindly once again. The cold needs to hurt, but it burns, forcing some movement back into Jaskier’s arms. Geralt barks some orders to his witchers, and then he’s gone, pouncing into the thick of the woods behind Jaskier’s cabin.
Jaskier is left there, alone, for how long he doesn’t know. The Axii is reapplied anytime the witchers think Jaskier is close to getting sober, and each time it’s sweeter than the one before. He’s getting drunk on the familiar magic; he knows he’s getting drunk because he’s humming despite the pain in his chest and the wet burning on his skin seeping through the snow. The witchers don’t mind, or maybe they don’t care.
He starts to wake up.
Green explodes in front of his eyes, and he’s gone again. This time for good.
When he finally opens his eyes, it’s with a gasp of pain and the ruthless bite of the freezing snow beneath him. He tries to get up, to force himself to straighten up, but ends up writhing against the floor. There are binds around his ankles and wrists, and the rope around his hands is pulled around his neck so he’s forced to lie curled forward and humiliated, watching as the witchers stand around his cabin, watching Jaskier.
No. Watching Geralt.
Watching them.
Jaskier smells her before he sees her. Lilac, rotten, and gooseberries, poisoned in the Chaos. It’s enough to suffocate him, and it does, or maybe it’s the ropes carving into his neck as he tries to get away.
“Ciri,” Yennefer says, not to him, but to the forest, her voice level and cool and her presence nothing short of a hurricane. She bends down, and with the help of Geralt, manhandles Jaskier until he’s on his knees and back arched forward, “Ciri,” she says again, and her burning hand touches the skin of Jaskier’s back, “I know you’re there. I know you’re watching.”
Jaskier wishes it weren’t true. But he knows, too. He knows she’s close. He knows she wouldn’t leave.
“Yennefer –” he tries. Gods, he tries. He’s just about ready to do anything to get her attention, but her eyes are away, searching for their missing piece, and Jaskier is cruel to ask for her attention. He knows this. He doesn’t care, because though Yennefer’s attention can be intense, her indifference is torture.
And Jaskier realises that he’s afraid.
“Ciri!” he shouts, thrashing and afraid. Not for himself, oh no. He’s stopped being afraid for himself a long time ago, bearing the hurts and the pains and the labour of keeping his family going and together, “Run, Ciri, don’t –”
It’s not the first time they have hurt him. Nor is it the worst bruise he’ll have. It still burns his throat when Yennefer pulls the rope, choking the words and the breath out of him. Jaskier struggles to cough, to breathe, but she won’t allow it. Her eyes are still trained on the tree line, her focus entirely deadly.
So, he doesn’t notice it when Geralt tears his shirt.
So, he doesn’t see Geralt hold his witcher medallion above the open flame of an Agni.
So, he doesn’t realise the metal is getting hotter. Yennefer notices. She knows. They both know. Yennefer lets go of the rope, and Jaskier takes a deep, gulping gasp, coughing and sputtering in the cold, crisp air. Tears overflow, and he feels dirty, burning streaks shimmer down his hollow cheeks, wetting the ground with tears and sweat.
“Please,” he wheezes, collapsing forward and bound hands, grabbing Yennefer’s skirt, “Please, take me. Ruin me, but let her go. It was my idea, Geralt, Yenna, it–”
“Last chance, cub,” Geralt calls out, just as Yennefer yanks away her skirts. Arms manhandle Jaskier from both sides, holding him steady, “You still have time.”
“What?” Jaskier asks, trying to turn around. Yennefer makes a shushing sound, and then her palms curl around Jaskier’s face, holding him, cradling him. Like they used to every night and day of his blissful existence. Jaskier’s eyes close without meaning to, the tension in his shoulders bleeding out, the senseless whispering embracing the resistance away.
“Just remember, husband,” Yennefer speaks, tapping the skin beneath Jaskier’s eye, “We should have done this a long time ago.”
“Done what?” he means to ask, as he opens his eyes.
Then he sees white.
Then he feels the flame. It’s everywhere.
Red, hot, burning, jagged, heatwaves and dragons and a forest fire concentrated into a single patch of skin where his head meets his body, boiling the blood beneath and frying what it touches. Jaskier can’t think beyond his screams. If his voice were magic, the world would be afraid. If his pain could kill, Life would cease to be.
Jaskier screams, and burns, and writhes; convulsing as much as he can in the grip of the powerful people around him as Geralt burns him.
It burns
It burns
It burns.
Until the whiteness in his eyes and the ringing in his ears falls away, until his vision is not blurry from tears, until he’s too exhausted to scream himself hoarse so he simply slumps forward, not caring if he hits the floor dead or he hangs limp in a hold he hates. The back of his neck is throbbing, aching, still burning. Jaskier’s sobs have turned into cries of agony and pain, blinding everything. So much so, he barely recognises the hand carding through his hair.
“You did good, buttercup,” Yennefer says sweetly, tenderly, like she hadn’t just watched Geralt brand Jaskier, “So good. I almost believe you want us to forgive you.”
I don’t, Jaskier thinks, snot and drool dirtying the pure snow, I don’t.
Yennefer scoffs as if she’s heard him. She steps around, and Geralt takes her spot, looking regal and proud. A powerful man with a powerful stance. Yet he kneels in front of Jaskier, holding his chin like he once did, bringing them close until their foreheads touch.
“Just one more, now,” he promises, like it’s meant to comfort Jaskier. Like it’s meant to help, “And then we can go home.”
“Besides,” Yennefer says from behind them, a fresh stem of lilac between her fingers, “You always said you loved my flower.”
He has.
“And you know how much I love you.”
He does.
Jaskier sobs, and for the first time in his life, wishes that he did not love them. That he would not. That he could not. But he knows better. In every timeline, in every universe, at every age… It’s them. It’s always them. It can’t be anyone else.
“Please,” he whimpers, and Geralt brings a piece of leather to his mouth. Jaskier doesn’t want to take it, turning his face away like a child throwing a tantrum, “Please.”
If Geralt’s medallion was fire, Yennefer’s flower was ice. No, a mountain; the pressure of thousands of years contracted into a singular moment just above Jaskier’s tailbone. If Geralt’s was a century, Yennefer’s was but a moment.
If Geralt’s was a kiss, Yennefer’s was a stake through the heart.
Something must have happened. Jaskier must have died or lost consciousness. Something must have happened, because when he comes to, he is lying on the ground, hands untied, and looking up at a familiar face and a horrible sense of worry for her cries.
He wants to comfort his girl; he wants to raise a hand and wipe away her tears as Geralt holds her, arms wound tight around her body.
“Ciri,” he manages to say, hoarse and ugly, his mind messy and not-there, “Ciri…”
“He’ll be alright,” Yennefer says, lifting her hand from Jaskier’s back, which, oh. It doesn’t hurt. Not anymore, at least. It’s hot; hot enough so that Jaskier doesn’t notice the snow beneath his belly. But it’s not painful. It doesn’t make him come the closest he ever will to hating the loves of his life, “No more pain.”
“I hate you,” Ciri says, pounding her small fists to Geralt’s back, shaking the soil beneath them with vibrations of fuming, vengeful Chaos, “I hate you! I hate you!”
“Ciri,” Jaskier repeats, raising a hand. Oh, he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want his daughter to hate her parents. No, that would be wrong. That would mean Jaskier did a bad job. And he can’t have that. He won’t, “Ciri…”
Finally, she hears him. Or maybe Geralt takes pity on Jaskier and lets her go. Either way, Jaskier is suddenly looking up at Ciri, smiling morosely. She hiccups, wiping her red eyes. Jaskier extends a hand into her black dyed hair, and she lets him, supporting his weak and shaking hand, leaning into the touch.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he says, voice raspy and dry. Ciri shakes her head, but Jaskier is not done. He must tell her, before the growing heaviness takes him, before Yennefer’s hand on his back commands him to sleep, “I… I wasn’t… Oh, dear…”
“He needs rest,” Yennefer supplies from above, and if he weren’t so tired, Jaskier would have delighted in making a rather bitter and dry remark. Something about her and her bitchy powers being the reason he’s so fucking exhausted. Instead, he can only whimper as Geralt gathers him, lifting him to his knees. Back still raw and sensitive, he must be carried on Geralt’s shoulders like a pathetic sack of vegetables, not that he thinks Geralt minds. He probably missed it, the fucker, the way he cradles his legs, one hand resting on his buttocks.
Gods, he must look pathetic… In front of his daughter, no less. He can still hear her sniffles at odd intervals, but most of all, he can hear the hum of her magic reconnecting with Yennefer’s; a powerful, background buzz that shan’t be ignored. It’s familiar too, and once, Jaskier enjoyed it as much as Ciri revelled in the mingling of Chaos. It was home, it was safety and growth. But now, to Jaskier, it’s oppression and shackles around his heart and ankles.
Trying to call out to her, he’s shushed again, this time by Geralt. Jaskier bites the man over the skin in revenge, but it does nothing; the bastard probably enjoyed it, if anything. He snorts as he moves Jaskier so he’s lying down on something soft on his stomach once again. It’s a horizontal, rectangular wagon. The sides are all closed off besides the door Geralt opened to get Jaskier inside. The two windows are barred with thick iron, and there’s little movement Jaskier can accomplish that isn’t turning around or extending his legs.
It feels like a coffin.
And Jaskier can’t breathe.
“We’ll be in Kaer Morhen shortly,” Geralt promises. He closes the door, and Jaskier is afraid, yes, but he’s also insulted. Did he mean this little to his lovers, to his mates, that they would transport him in a wooden prison? He fights to stop frustrated, burning tears from falling, and it fuels him enough that he starts pounding, kicking, and screaming. Damn Ciri hearing him, damn Geralt and Yennefer taking offence at his ‘temper tantrum’, and damn the magic they probably wound around the wood so his protests wouldn’t be heard. Jaskier would not apologise and would not stop. Not until he felt the agonising pull of a portal on his navel, and the nausea that followed. It only added to the wound of his humiliation. He must have bit his tongue, or maybe clenched his teeth too tightly; his mouth tasted of iron, and some of it dribbled down to the blankets as he retched.
Then it all stops, and suddenly, agonising coldness sinks into Jaskier’s bones as the door opens. Geralt looks a little pale (well, as pale as he can go), and sweat shines on his forehead. Good to know he still hates travelling by portal. Before Jaskier can revel in the realisation, however, Geralt pulls Jaskier out of the tomb by the arm. Jaskier stumbles weakly like a newborn deer, and Geralt doesn’t help. Again. Shivering and barefoot, he continues to be dragged through the…courtyard of a very, very familiar place.
Jaskier looks around frantically, and across the yard, his eyes meet Ciri, who watches Yennefer literally knitting back the magic around the keep. Her eyes are still red and wet, and when he sees Jaskier, she makes a mad dash towards him, shedding her cloak as she does. Geralt spins around and creates a physical barrier between her and Jaskier, at full height and not backing down.
“Let me through,” Ciri demands, biting back the insults she most likely learned from Jaskier, “Let me through, Geralt.”
“We’re not having this conversation here,” Geralt replies coldly, without an iota of space for argument, “Go back to Yennefer while I take care of this.”
“You are not parading Jaskier around without a shirt,” she bites back, with the hint of a growl.
“That is not your concern,” Geralt bites back, and oh. Jaskier wants to intervene. It was like this, too, just before they left. Maybe it was why they had left, because Jaskier had grown weary from meditating, from keeping the peace, from having to choose between sleeping in his lovers’ room or his daughter’s, and being met with anger and resentment either way.
He doesn’t have the strength to get between, now.
“He’s my father!” she shouts, and Jaskier shivers.
“And so am I!” Geralt replies, and Jaskier wants to sink to the floor.
Just when he thinks the two will get into a feral cat fight at last, Yennefer steps towards them, her skirts and cloak billowing. Even in the dim lights of the torches, she’s angry. Jaskier can tell, can taste the wrath in the air. Geralt and Ciri step away from each other like children who have been admonished. Ciri still tries to get her coat from Jaskier, but Geralt drags them away, and Yennefer holds their daughter back by the shoulder.
Jaskier and Ciri look into each other until they can no longer.
The keep is just as he remembers, though he doesn’t have much of a chance to look around. Geralt takes him up to their wing and the corridor where he knows their rooms are. There’s Ciri’s door, still decorated with papers and runes and paints. But they walk past that, and they walk past their bedroom. Jaskier frowns. He doesn’t remember there being another door there. He doesn’t think he has the energy and the body temperature to care, though. The door doesn’t have a lock and opens easily when Geralt pulls the handle down.
The room is furnished simply. A single bed, a large window, and a bath. No mirror, no books, no clothes besides some folded on the thick red blanket. A single lantern shines on the small table by the window.
“Well, it’s not a cell, at least,” Jaskier jokes. It falls on deaf ears. Geralt looks at him like he wants to scream, wants to tear the truth from Jaskier until it heals the hurt in his soul. Jaskier’s lips are dry, and Geralt watches the flick of his tongue swiping over the chapped skin like a parched animal.
He doesn’t move. He just goes to the chimney and lights a pile of wood with Agni. The room glows softly, tenderly. Jaskier is too focused on the flames to see the way Geralt is watching him.
But then he turns around and leaves, closing the door behind him, leaving Jaskier alone and confused. His eyes flicker between the door and the fireplace while he tries to settle his thoughts, and then stops. Slowly, like he’s afraid of looking (and he is), he turns his head to the exit. To make sure. To make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
He isn’t.
Where there once was a door is just empty space. Jaskier can’t help it. He laughs, once and dryly, rubbing his eyes once, twice, thrice and checking back each time.
There is no door. And when Jaskier steps closer, his hand meets cold blocks of aged, dusty stone. Hands shaking, he runs the pads of his fingers to both sides, nudging and pushing, because surely, surely it can’t be. Surely a door doesn’t just disappear.
Surely, they won’t do that.
Surely, they aren’t that cruel, locking away Jaskier forever like some maiden princess in a tower.
Surely, they won’t leave Jaskier in a four-by-four room with nothing but his wretched thoughts for company.
And then Jaskier throws up, bile and rancid water burning his throat.
“Geralt,” he says when he’s done heaving, a clammy hand on the wall for support, “Geralt!”
The walls are cold.
“Yenn!” he tries, pushing to a stand, his bare, dirty feet disturbing the pool of vomit, “Yennefer!”
By the time Jaskier’s voice is hoarse and feels like it's bleeding, the room is a mess and Jaskier is too. The curtains are torn from the hooks, the bedsheets are thrown to the floor, and the candle still burns behind the glass of a lantern that won’t break. Jaskier lies, exhausted, beside the chimney fire that Jaskier can’t touch or feel. A barrier of Chaos keeps him from hurting himself more than the quiet, isolated room can.
“Bastards,” he says, on the verge of a terrible slumber, his back throbbing in rhythm with his slowing heart, “Bastards.”
The room doesn’t answer.
Jaskier closes his eyes and doesn’t scream when he dreams of fire.
He wakes up in bed, which is unexpected because he knows he passed out on the floor. Groggily, Jaskier looks away from the ceiling and around the room.
The clean and tidy room of a clean and tidy Jaskier.
The realisation bursts another storm in the flow of Jaskier’s blood.
Throwing off the sheets, he looks down at himself, and the sight leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He’s dressed in soft pants, a pair of warm, fuzzy socks and a sleepshirt. Beneath the cotton material, a white dressing wraps around his neck and lower back, fresh and smelling like a slice of Tiss’ apothecary. Disgusted and nauseous, Jaskier leaves the bed, his anger palpable, his disgust thick and dangerous like a coiling snake. The mess he’d made by the wall is cleaned up, the curtains are hung back up, the carpet is rolled neatly over the floor, and the chair he’d somehow managed to throw into the bathtub is back by the table, where the lantern stands beside a plate of food waiting for him.
Not a hair is out of place.
Jaskier laughs. What else is he meant to do? He laughs until he cries and looks at the space where the door was, shoulders tense and nose blocked. The food still hasn’t gone cold, despite it being hours since Jaskier woke up.
“Do you think this scares me?” he asks, and knows the answer is yes, “Do you think you can punish me with absence, as though I haven’t seen worse?”
Yes, the walls sing back, because they know that in the vast, vast world of Jaskier’s life and experience, only loneliness can scare him. Only silence, when the alternative is his beautiful wife, husband and child, can tame him, yes, you pathetic thing. Now let’s hear you sing.
“You won’t win,” Jaskier says, proud and voice strong, because it’s the first day, the first hours, and the future is yet to come, and it’s still all a game, “Mark my words, I’ll come out of this, and I’ll make you regret ever thinking you can hide me away like a secret.”
The again goes unsaid.
Jaskier knows they heard it, either way.
So, he sits on the bed, changes into the clothes his captors have oh so generously provided and doesn’t eat. He sings, and when that has bored him out of his mind, he walks. Over and over, around the room, until an inescapable tiredness catches up with him. He lies down on the bed, above the messy sheets, and wakes up close to evening with the blanket drawn above him and a new batch of food waiting for him on the table, and the tub filled with steaming water.
He bites his tongue until it bleeds, and doesn’t eat.
He takes the bath, because there’s nothing else to do, and he sings. And because he sings, he thinks and because he thinks, he remembers.
And he doesn’t stop remembering.
He remembers the day Yennefer had asked Geralt to marry her, and how Ciri, small and wonderful, saw her father (and now mother) enveloped together in a mighty, fierce hug. Jaskier’s throat had bobbed, dry and on the verge of revealing the salty-tear pieces of his broken heart. He’d smiled, of course, and clapped them both on the shoulders.
“About time, too,” he said, a sly grin plastered on his face, “And the perfect opportunity to share with the world my masterful repertoire! A witcher-witch wedding!”
“Keep dreaming, bard,” Yennefer said, but her pink-dusted cheeks betrayed her joy and heart.
“It’s what I do, dear heart,” Jaskier replied, and was thankful that Geralt’s veins were too drunk on joy to smell the ache in Jaskier’s voice, “Dream and let dream. Love and let love.”
Then Ciri had barrelled into them, and amidst all the real laughter and real joy, Jaskier had forgotten what it meant to be heartsick.
…Until that evening, when he was tasked with collecting apples out in the garden of Yennefer’s cottage, and the ladder decided to fall to the ground with a nauseating clap.
“That’s not good,” Jaskier said, and waved innocently at a frantic Geralt who had sprang out of the cottage, sword at the ready, “Evening, Geralt!”
Geralt’s eyes fell from Jaskier to the ladder, and Jaskier watched the recognition settle in place of frantic concern, only to be replaced by irritation. Oh dear. And on the happiest day of his life (yet). Jaskier felt guilt gnawing at his insides.
“Come on,” Geralt said below him, dropping his sword to the ground and opening his arms. Jaskier blinked, his lap still full of apples, except for the one he threw Geralt’s way. He caught it, of course, and regarded Jaskier with a withering look, “Jaskier. Come on.”
“What, just jump?” Jaskier said, baffled and gasping dramatically, “What are you going to do, catch me?”
“…That was the idea,” Geralt confessed, getting more irritated by the second, “So if we could stop wasting time…”
“I’m quite comfortable where I am,” Jaskier said, turning back to his apple picking, “You could just right the ladder, you know. I’m not sure what this display of chivalry is aiming for, not that I don’t appreciate it, but considering everything we’ve been through so far, I’d say-”
“Jaskier,” Geralt said his name with such fondness, Jaskier could taste it on his tongue, despite all the witcher layers of irritation and Geralt layers of ferocious control, “Jump. I’ll catch you. You know I will.”
And what could Jaskier say to that, except empty his lap of apples red as his cheeks, and throw himself down the tree.
It felt like falling, it felt like flying. It felt like hours of a freefall off a cliff’s edge. It was seconds of a heart-leap, before he was caught in arms strong and warm and everything Jaskier wanted.
“You got me,” Jaskier said, breathless, arms wrapped around his witcher’s neck. The witcher chuckled and didn’t let go of Jaskier just yet.
“I said I would.”
I am weak, my love, and I am wanting, Jaskier sings, coming back to himself, and thinks of soft touches and sweet nothings whispered in the dead of night. If this is the path I must trudge, I'll welcome my sentence, give to you my penance, he continues, and the bathwater, ever perfectly warm, welcomes the salty, grieving tears. Ghosts of gentle touches and kisses caress Jaskier’s skin, and he trembles, weak and homesick until he can barely carry himself out of the bath, body all rigid and wrecked with broken, poorly suppressed sobs.
“Oh,” he says at last, when he’s dressed and lying down on the bed, closing his eyes, “…she’ll destroy with her sweet kiss, her sweet kiss…”
It starts snowing, a few days later. That doesn’t stop the witchers from training out in the courtyard. Jaskier doesn’t have a clear view of them, but once in a while, when Fate favours him, he’ll catch a glimpse of a sword and a familiar figure, and it’ll make the hours pass by a little better. A little less agonising. Well, no. That’s a lie. It’s still agonising, still slow as the summer sun. But it gives Jaskier something to look forward to, and in is that Jaskier finds mercy. Like the pathetic creature he is. So, there he stays, on the windowsill seat, arms folded and eyes frozen on the icy white grounds. Sometimes he wraps a blanket around himself to make it more comfortable. It doesn’t change anything.
An ambiguous amount of time later (because what is time, really, in isolation?), he stops eating. He doesn’t do it on purpose, as they might assume. He already didn’t have an appetite and coupled with the languid lifestyle of a luxurious cage… Jaskier doesn’t eat. He doesn’t do it on purpose, to anger or frustrate his captors (because that’s what they are, isn’t it? Captors. Not friends, and certainly not lovers). He just doesn’t feel the heaviness of the emptiness in his stomach.
The snow continues to fall. Jaskier grows cold. The fire in the hearth burns day and night, his socks are woollen, and his clothes are clearly woven with the warmth of Chaos, glittering like speckles of salt, all to keep their host warm and comfortable. And yet Jaskier grows cold. Even when he remembers the day that everything was ruined. The best day of Jaskier’s life.
“I think,” Jaskier started, sitting beside Yennefer, leaning her head on her shoulder as they watched the fire, “I hate winter.”
“Not enjoying the hot water baths, bard?” Yennefer said, sipping on her warm wine.
“Immensely. But not enough to enjoy all the snow and dread Kaer Morhen has to offer,” he smiled at Geralt, shy all of a sudden, “No offence, Geralt dear. I’m afraid my gentle body isn't suited for the cold.”
“The cold or the manual labour?” Geralt asked, and Yennefer laughed, beautiful, and Jaskier enjoyed their mirth. Too much to be offended by the tease.
“You are cruel, just like Vesemir,” he pouted, “He ought to understand I’m not like his witcher sons with their bulging strength of arms.”
“Poor baby,” Yennefer said, and settled a kiss to Jaskier’s temple, making him smile.
“Oh, you’re forgiven,” Jaskier said, though there was nothing to ever forgive, “Just make me the court bard once you’ve established your war-lord plans here, and I shall be ever comforted, I think, dear love.”
“I don’t think that would be enough to satiate you,” Geralt said into his cup, putting it aside, “Yennefer?”
“Never,” Yennefer replied, and Jaskier had just enough time to realise the naughty pull of her voice before he was suddenly pushed against the sofa, and bracketed by Yennefer’s arms on both sides of his head, her skirts pooling around his lap, “Never this bard.”
“…What would you suggest?” Jaskier asked roughly, because it was all he could say with a dry throat and a mind on fire, skin burning where Yennefer’s hands skimmed.
“How about…” she leaned in, breath tickling Jaskier’s neck, “Husband, to one Yennefer of Vengerberg and her White Wolf?”
Considering all the precautions Yennefer has taken to ensure Jaskier cannot hurt himself, it’s strange no one comes to make sure Jaskier eats. Jaskier grows thinner and thinner, colder and colder, and every day, plates of food keep entering the room before disappearing hours later, still untouched. But though Jaskier grows weaker and more tired, his mind is clear and unclouded. He suspects there’s something in the food, placed there to placate and soothe. Jaskier is so hungry, but the thought of being drugged is nauseating, and he would rather go hungry than lose his faculties. At least, that’s what he thinks. But he’s so hungry, and the cold won’t go away.
Jaskier doesn’t know how much time has passed before he starts eating again, only that when he does, he throws it right up because of what he sees.
There, below by the courtyard, is Yennefer and Geralt. They’re not alone, though. Ciri is with them. And normally, it would mean the world to see them together and laughing, embraced in a warm hug full of life’s best joys and feelings.
Except now, the sigh nauseates Jaskier into a second round of hurling, his throat burning as he empties the little bread and water he had managed to get into his body. He can’t hear anything from outside, as usual, and he can’t tear his eyes away.
It’s over, the realisation hits, echoing in the chambers of his head like an avalanche on its way to consume him, it’s over, and you failed, and now nothing matters because they’re together, and you’ll spend the rest of your time here watching from the windows.
“You’ve done it,” Jaskier says, throat rough from misuse, his eyes dead as they try to search Ciri for any sign of discomfort, “You’ve taken everything. Are you satisfied?”
Jaskier feels the Chaos melt away, just as he thinks, 'What’s the point in leaving?'
The magic that kept the room warm, the door hidden, the corners dull, evaporates like it had never been there, and Jaskier knows what to do.
The door is still locked, of course, but Jaskier isn’t looking to leave. No. He’s going to stay. Even when the ages pass and the mountains collapse and the keep is nothing more than history, Jaskier will stay.
He rushes to the table, grabs the chair, and throws it against the window. The glass shatters with a scream into millions of pieces, showering Jaskier in sharp, hurtful crystals. The sudden flow of cold wind puts out the remains of the fire, and Jaskier catches just a glimpse of Geralt rushing away as he climbs to the window seat. Yennefer is watching, still and with Ciri by her side. Jaskier knows she won’t let him fall.
So he grabs the sharpest, biggest piece of glass he can and steps back. Outside, there is the growing noise of Geralt shouting Jaskier’s name. He pays it no mind. He has just a minute, maybe less, before his jailor breaks in and attempts to salvage what he can.
Jaskier thinks about his wedding, and how his spouses are not the ones he kissed beneath the light of the moon.
The impromptu knife hurts, sharper than all the grief, as Jaskier drives it through his chest, but when he collapses on the floor, gasping for breath, it’s no worse than the first betrayal of being locked in their bedroom, years ago, when Jaskier was madly, deeply in love.
…That’s a lie.
Jaskier is still madly, deeply in love. As deep and lunatic as the first day his lovers confessed.
But now he grows cold, looking up at the ceiling with determined eyes, and that’s okay too.
Geralt throws open the door, and in his eyes, Jaskier sees something ferocious and more alive than he’s seen in a long, long time.
“Dearest,” Jaskier says, softly, the bloody glass still protruding from his chest. He soon hears Yennefer enter the room, close behind, and closes his eyes.
“I’m going to kill you,” Yennefer says in a flurry of rage and skirts and magic, more Yennefer than Jaskier remembers her being in years, “I’m going to skin you and feed you to the wolves.”
“Just the usual, then,” Jaskier laughs, which is a good and bad sign. Good for Yennefer and Geralt, because the knife isn’t deep enough to be an immediate concern, and bad for Jaskier because it means he’ll still live. Which is a horrible perspective to have about life and not one he’d wish on anyone he loves, “You can just let me die, you know, save us all a lot of ahh!”
The Chaos suddenly dives in, plunging deeper than the knife managed to get, burning and freezing at the same time. Yennefer’s hands glow a vibrant purple, and Geralt captures Jaskier’s hands in an iron grip just as he’s about to touch the knife and wound, pulling his wrists above his head. Jaskier writhes and screams, cursing both their names in every language, every feasible tongue he can remember. Yennefer is not gentle, and Geralt only watches, not caring about the tears rolling down his cheeks.
When it’s all over, Yennefer is breathing deeply, and Jaskier can barely keep his eyes open. The witch stands up, using Geralt’s back for support, and Geralt follows her, pulling his husband up with him. Not fighting them this time (you had to choose your battles wisely, when facing two powerful creatures as they were), Jaskier follows, half stumbling, always held up by Geralt’s arm wound around his waist. And together they walk the short distance to their bedroom.
Yennefer opens the door, her back to the two of them, and immediately, Jaskier is hit with the smell of them and back then. The nostalgia hurts as much as seeing the bedroom, clean but dishevelled, as soft and cosy as it always had been. Gods, Jaskier’s things haven’t even been moved. They’re everywhere, scattered around like keepsakes and memories of a lifetime ago. Jaskier is too distracted to notice getting helped into bed, and even then, he looks around, feeling out of place.
Once Geralt has placed Jaskier safely on the bed, he moves to Yennefer, helping her sit on the armchair. They’re quiet, but Jaskier knows it’s a ruse. They’re talking, just in a way Jaskier can’t eavesdrop on. He still notices their small flicker of eyes, their ambience of concern as oppressive as their cruelty. Jaskier closes his eyes and imagines it’s safe. Like the first night he spent in their room, when he was doted on and spoiled till the first lights of dawn.
He only opens them when he feels Geralt looming over him. Wordlessly, swiftly, Geralt rips the bloody shirt off Jaskier, leaving him bare and weak. He knows the meaning behind Geralt’s frown as the witcher takes in the bruises and the bones, anger shimmering like firelight in his golden eyes. Thankfully, he doesn’t comment. Just leaves for the wardrobe in the corner and returns with a clean tunic. Jaskier takes it gratefully, glad to be rid of the sticky blood, and changes quickly.
They’ve yet to say a single word.
Shyly, Jaskier looks up from the bed. Yennefer’s closed eyes open when she feels his gaze, and Jaskier quickly looks away. He doesn’t know what to say.
“…How long was I…in there?” Jaskier asks, curling his arms around his knees. His closed wound gives a throb as he waits for what feels like too long for an answer.
“Eight days,” Geralt answers, and the carpet is pulled from under Jaskier’s world.
Eight days? Eight? All of his tantrums, all of his misery, the hunger and the cold and all it took was eight bloody days to break him down? He laughs, thinking they’re being cruel again. Because surely. Surely.
They don’t laugh.
And that’s when the tears fall.
He continues to laugh, along with the tears, letting them soak the world around him with the smell of misery and denial. Geralt’s hands flex like he wants to reach forward, to thumb them away with his strong, capable hands. Yennefer looks conflicted, tired of being caught between her heart and her mind.
The tears fall. And Jaskier can’t take it.
“Please,” he begs, voice on the verge of something terrible, breaking into wonderful whimpers of a wet, pathetic man. He extends his hand, and it does the trick. Yennefer is the first to surge forward, surprisingly, rushing forward like a fury and gathering Jaskier to her bosom like she does Ciri. Jaskier doesn’t mind. He lets himself be held, and for the first time in months, he feels safe enough to break down into ugly, melancholic tears.
Geralt joins them, though Jaskier doesn’t know when. He just knows that when all his energy is dried up and his bones feel too heavy to carry, he’s there to tuck them both in. Jaskier is in the middle, of course, and at his back, he feels the surge of power of Yennefer, her breasts against his back, her bare legs tangled with his. Geralt takes the front and has too much fun, in Jaskier’s flittering thoughts, in cradling Jaskier’s face and running his hands through his long hair and weak fingers.
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” Jaskier asks on the verge of sleep, drunk on the feel of the world around him magnified to the point of impossibility. He has to know. He has to know, so he can cherish this moment as the last of a life lived in pain and sometimes joy.
“Shh,” Yennefer says, kissing his neck, sucking all the thoughts back with a single touch of her lips. Jaskier lets her, “Don’t think. Just sleep.”
A final tear falls. Geralt kisses it away, nosing Jaskier’s jaw, breath as warm and loving as Jaskier remembers. Jaskier is scared.
“Tomorrow will come, either way,” Geralt says, and Jaskier is still scared. Distracted by kisses and sweet words, but scared all the same.
“I love you,” he says breathlessly, like it’s the last time he’ll get to say it, and finally drowns in their confessions of love and oppressive adoration.
Tomorrow does, indeed, come. It comes with soft light through the window that forces Jaskier out of his peaceful rest, only to immediately grow rigid when he notices the pairs of eyes pinning him to the bed. Geralt looks damningly calm despite the intense weight of his gaze, and Yennefer’s hand is heavy where it lies splayed on Jaskier’s bare back beneath the shirt.
“…Hello,” he greets, not knowing what else to say, but sure in the knowledge that pretending to sleep would never work. Geralt’s gaze grows softer, as if woken from a stupor, but Yennefer’s hand grows possessive, as if given the chance, it would sink into Jaskier’s bones and leave her fingerprints ingrained on the warm curve of his spine. Jaskier shudders, and Yennefer kisses the worries away.
“Good morning, lark,” she greets, pulling her hand back to let Jaskier straighten up. She watches, equally adoringly, as Jaskier rubs the sleep from his eyes and stretches his arm above his head. When he drops his hand on the blanket, Geralt takes it in his, lifting it to his lips to draw in the scent of his skin. Jaskier, despite everything, is still enamoured and watches with wide, aching eyes as Geralt smells and kisses his palm before placing it on his rugged, handsome beard, cradling his head into Jaskier’s hand.
All this time, and the action still leaves Jaskier’s breath hitching and heart speeding up.
Yennefer, the witch, takes great pleasure in watching this take place, while locating herself behind Jaskier and winding her arms around his waist like a bear, tucking her hands up Jaskier’s stomach and drawing lazy patterns on the skin there.
Remember what you’ve missed, their touches seem to say, growing stronger and more addictive, see how much more it is to be with us.
“I won’t leave,” Jaskier says, on the verge of a fresh set of tears, because it’s almost too much. They love him, and he loves them back, and he needs no reassurance, but they are powerful, and he is not, and it’s too much after a world of absence. They will drown him in his thirst, “I won’t.”
“Why did you go?” Geralt asks, Jaskier’s soft fingers are too close to his sharp teeth, “Why did you leave in the first place?”
“Because you would change me into something I am not.”
“To love is to be changed,” Yennefer supplies, running her hands up and down his chest unhelpfully.
“But not to kill,” he says, and they flinch, and the power, the hold, grows until all Jaskier can breathe in is them. Them and their scent. Them and their fear. Them and their love, “You would kill me.”
“You fool,” Yennefer hisses sharply, tugging his hair back sharply by the roots. Jaskier yelps, the back of his head hitting her shoulder. Her eyes are violent, his are cornflower blue. Her eyes are violet, and Jaskier’s are wide and wet, “You think it’s death to live beside those you love? To not suffer an early death as you watch your family age slower than time would permit you? Are we so cruel, Jaskier, that you’d rather die and kill us with your absence, rather than bloom within our lifespan?”
“Fate created me human,” Jaskier argues, or tries to, but can’t quite collect his thoughts when Geralt bites down, hot blood trickling out of his vein, “I-I’m not like you!”
“And we don’t want you to be,” Geralt growls, his lips and fingers painted with Jaskier’s blood, his anger unyielding, “But neither will we watch as you wither away. Not when we can prevent it.”
“You can’t keep me forever!” Jaskier shouts, even when Yennefer’s lips claim his, because it was never an argument about being kept. Jaskier was fine with being kept, as long as it was Yennefer and Geralt doing the keeping. But he’d be damned if he was treated as a caged bird who death could not liberate. He’d be damned before he was forced to be something he was not.
“No,” he manages to get out, just as Yennefer goes in, misses his lips and dives into his neck, “I won’t let you.”
“Oh, bard,” Geralt says as Yennefer chuckles, looking up from Jaskier’s stained skin, “It’s not about that. Not anymore.”
And despite it all, Jaskier wants.
And despite it all, Jaskier lets himself be consumed.
What he doesn’t expect, though, is to run into Ciri when he sneaks out of their room later, leaving them tangled between the sheets and pillows as he uses his only opening to his advantage.
Like a ghost who’s been stalking him, she’s there by the entrance of the stable, fresh white hair tied back and looking healthier and more fed than he’s seen her in months.
“Ciri,” he says breathlessly, and the two meet in the middle, hugging and collapsing onto the floor, the hood of Jaskier’s cloak falling down his head, no longer hiding the litter of marks on his neck, “Oh, Ciri.”
“I missed you so much,” Ciri says, on the verge of a sob, and Jaskier echoes the words, kissing her forehead and whispering, over and over, it’s okay. Everything is okay.
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier whispers, holding her by the cheeks, “Oh, my darling. I’m so sorry this happened.”
Ciri doesn’t respond. She holds his wrists, looking up at him with eyes glossed over with tears, and asks, “Were you going to leave? Without me?”
Suddenly, Jaskier’s mouth is dry, and he’s forgotten how to breathe.
“They’re your parents,” he tries to explain, to drive her mind away from the fact that he was about to abandon her like she meant nothing, “They are good to you.”
“You’re my parent too!” she argues back, the words laced with Chaos and louder than Jaskier is comfortable with, “So why do you get to leave?”
“Ciri,” he tries to placate, running a hand through her lovely hair, heart frantic and ready to shatter once again, “Ciri, love, it’s not about that-”
“I know what it’s about,” Ciri says, harsher than Jaskier has ever heard her, stepping back and wiping away the traces of tears, “They told me everything. And I tried to understand, but it doesn’t make any sense. Except… except if you don’t trust us. But I know you do.”
“…I don’t understand.”
Ciri curls her hands into fists, her frustration carved into the ugly turn of her brows, “Why don’t you want to live as long as us?” she asks, and it all makes sense in a most horrid, horrid way, “Do you not love us? Love me?”
“No,” Jaskier says, and throws his arms around her, pulling his beloved daughter to his chest, feeling her anger and hurt and defiance and strength, “No, Ciri. Never. It’s never that.”
“Then what is it?”
And he doesn’t have an answer.
Because it’s not my choice, he wants to say as he cradles her face, it’s not my choice. Because Chaos always demands a price, and I’m not ready to pay.
Because death is peace.
Because their love is also possession, and there’s only one way he can leave.
There’s a commotion from the keep. Jaskier knows his time is up.
He rushes towards the horses, leaving Ciri standing in the middle of the straw, and gets out his beloved friend. There will be time for reunions later. He has a single bag of necessary items, and he straps it on haphazardly, ignoring all the protests her daughter makes, all the shouting she does to get their attention.
He then turns to her, tries to grab her by the waist to place her on the horse. What he ends up with is a hit to the jaw and his face on the floor.
It’s the true moment he realises there’s no going back.
Not fighting the tears, he tries to crawl. As far as he can from everything he’s built, from the self-made destruction that can and will swallow him.
They’re here before the first tear hits the ground.
Ciri is by the door, blocking it, eyes red-rimmed and posture relentless. Then hands come, grabbing and wrapping around him like magic vines, turning him to look at their betrayed, broken faces.
“What part of this-” Geralt shouts, hand curling above the burning mark of his medallion on Jaskier’s neck, “-do you not understand, Jaskier? You're ours and you don't. Get to. Leave."
“I think this proves we’ve done enough waiting and convincing, Geralt,” Yennefer says coolly, going to her daughter, pulling her into a hug with praises in her ear.
“Hm,” Geralt says, and Jaskier can see him agree. He doesn’t try to wipe away Jaskier’s tears, merely manhandling Jaskier to a stand, holding on tight and strong. He doesn’t need to. Not for the first time (but certainly the last), Jaskier feels utterly, completely broken and betrayed. A single bard with no one in his corner. Not even his daughter. There’s nothing left to fight, "I think you're right."
“This will only end in tragedy,” he tries later, as a final plea, even when he’s herded and secured in the hall where they’ll have the ritual, “You have to see that.”
“Then we have a lifetime to prove to you otherwise.” Yennefer replies, mercilessly chaining him to the spot, “Big breath now. Remember what Geralt said: Tomorrow will come either way.”
“I hate you,” he says without venom, and they all know he’s lying.
“It will be like going to sleep,” Geralt assures him. Jaskier thinks he’s trying to assure himself.
“And we’ll see you when you wake up,” Yennefer says beside him, and begins chanting. Time stops. Colours start to fade. The last thing Jaskier sees with his mortal eyes is Ciri, small and powerful, watching with wide, uncertain but devout and obsessed eyes.
Jaskier sleeps and, though he knows it won’t be accepted, prays he won’t wake up again.