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farmergilesofham · 10 months

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The Vanguard Swimsuit Fic, Part 4: Ada-1

"Yo Ada, how's it hangin!"

Ada-1 looked up from the Loom's command console, taking in the unusually jolly-looking Guardian coming down the Annex stairs.

"Hello Guardian. Do you have need of my services?"

"Yeah a bit. I've got a few questions actually, so I'll start with the first: can the Loom produce Ether?"

Ada looked back at the Loom, considering the question for a moment. The ambient chittering of nearby Eliksni, once an unnoticed hum, died down to little more than a whisper. The massive steel arms of the Loom thrummed with power as they folded a fresh batch of Synthweave in on itself, the soon-to-be programmed matter tinkling like an ocean of quiet windchimes.

"Yes. I think it could make Ether, but we would need a lot of Glimmer, and a lot of Methane, too."

The room burst into a wave of excited chittering, as Dregs rushed from one side of the room to the other, making extra sure that everyone else had heard what they thought they had heard. The few human workers, tinkering with the processing systems below Ada's balcony, stared around in mixed wonder and confusion. Meanwhile, the Guardian's face had lit up in an incredulous smile.

"You're serious? You could actually make Ether??"

Ada looked stately as ever, unperturbed by the sudden chaos of the room.

"Yes. But, it would take more Glimmer than the Vanguard budget could possibly allow, and more material than I have reach to import. Not to mention the difficulty in acquiring that material to begin with. I'm afraid that short of a miracle, there is nothing I can realistically do."

Her voice cut through the excitement, stamping it out like a flood over a campfire. Previously-elated Eliskni's shoulders slumped, conversation lowered, and one Dreg simply sat down, hard, their legs giving out beneath them. Nobody moved to help. The silence rolled out like a cold blanket, enveloping everyone in the room.

The Guardian broke that silence with another question.

"Ada, d'you have any Black Armoury weapons left over - things you never ended up giving to Guardians?"

Ada shot them a stern look, before returning to her stately repose. This was a subject already extensively discussed, and immediately struck down on every occasion.

"No. No weapons, not anymore." "The most I could give you is a Sparrow model the late Ms. Holliday worked on, but never finished. You should know," she said, again doling out a good dose of her particular brand of side-eye, "that I've parted ways with making weapons of war, Guardian. Permanently."

The Guardian simply nodded, and continued unabated:

"That'll work. I'm going to go upstairs and talk to Zavala about organising a few things, including the possibility of something to do with this."

Ada cocked her head to the side in confusion.

"If you advertise to guardians that - by giving you a certain amount of material and Glimmer over a, say, three-week period - they can get a Black Armoury sparrow which had been personally worked on by Amanda before her death, I think you will see some significant interest."

Ada remained silent, pondering.

"Now, imagine that you tell the guardians who want to participate that what you need is Methane and Glimmer. They will move Heaven and Earth and several other places to get their hands on the last thing our favourite Shipwright worked on."

Ada dipped her head, just a little, conceding the point.

"...I see your reasoning, Guardian. Some preparatory work would need to be done, and the Sparrow would need to be finished, but such a plan could work."

The room exploded with noise. Ada flinched a little, as the volume in the workspace shot through several decibel ranges; having felt a nascent joy, then dark despair, then the thunder-gold of pure renewed jubilation, the Eliskni had all either burst into tears, or into song. The Guardian was smiling so widely it almost hurt, but they, too, were a halfstep from openly crying. Ada affected to take all this calmly, of course, but the shifting of her feet and trembling of her entwined fingers betrayed the ancient exo's true feelings. Everyone, even those who did not understand what had been said, could just as well have danced a jig together, were it not for the constraints of the room's elevation.

Not that that stopped a few particularly eager Eliksni workers, who went capering across the catwalks in the few more moments before, inevitably, Ada asked everyone to calm down a little.

The sound dimmed down again to a gentle murmur, but there was no way to banish the twinge of merriment from every audible voice.

"As I was saying, Guardian, some preparatory work still needs to be done. Since this is your idea, I entreat you to find me a suitable engineer, someone who can faithfully complete Amanda Holliday's work without losing the essence of her hand."

The Guardian's Ghost fizzled into a existence for a moment just to give Ada a wink - or whatever passes for a wink when one only has a single eye (a saucy blink? No, that's the name of an all-Warlock club in the Lower City). Turning to the Guardian, Pebbles just bubbled:

"Noted!"

...before vanishing in a theatrical puff of holographic smoke.

"Hey so on another note, wouldya like to be in a swimsuit calendar?"

The room went dead silent again, every ear straining to hear Ada's answer.

"A what?"

"A swimsuit calendar! You know, the sort where good-looking folk lounge around in photographs with barely anything on?" it had not seemed to occur to the Guardian that hearing this may have some kind of adverse effect on Ada, as they stepped back in surprise when the Loom's Architect gave a most unusual utterance. One could even say it sounded almost like a huff of indignation.

"Absolutely not! I am no exotic creature to be gawked at, Guardian! Out! Out I say!"

The rosy colour of the ancient exo's cheek under-lighting told a slightly different tale, but the Guardian was not about to argue and lose all the goodwill they had just gained from their Sparrow idea. With a nod and a bouncing of feet, they traipsed back up the stairs to the Annexe, leaving Ada to fume on her own.

Yet who would they bump into at the top of those stairs if not the Drifter, who stopped them and pulled the Guardian aside.

"Hey, hot shot, you know you don't have to rope me into this whole mess, right? Ole Drifter's gettin' a bit too old for this--"

"Nuh-huh Drifty, you're going on the front page~" The Guardian said with a wide grin, though their eyes flicked to something in the former Dredgen's hand.

Clasped not-so-tightly in his grip were what looked like brand new Tex Mechanica Sparrow keys, the leather tag still shiny under the lamplight.

"Like what you see, hero? It's yours if you ju--"

"Ooooooh absolutely not. You're not worming your way outta this one. I've already sent Eris and Elsie both a message, so you made extra sure you're there on the day, hear?"

The Drifter visibly wilted under the Guardian's jolly glare, and half-heartedly still tried to peddle the Sparrow at them, but to no avail. Away they went, leaving the grizzled troublemaker to his own thoughts, which went something along the lines of: I'm not getting out of this, am I? in a dejected little voice as Germaine mouthed the words.

----------

Some time later, Ada-1 heard the stomping footfalls of another Guardian, and was just about to politely request they leave her alone when she realised who it was that stumped awkwardly down the narrow descent.

Saint-14, walking with a gait that almost implied fear, if not at least great anxiety, came up to Ada and whispered something to her, in a voice so used to shouting that the words still echoed across the room.

Ada stood and just stared at him for a while, then said:

"Do you at least have his measurements?"

The legendary exo nodded, and passed her a bundle of clothing topped with sheet of paper bearing a few carefully-written sets of numbers.

"Well, alright."

This was going to be a long day.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello and welcome to chapter 4! This has taken a good deal longer to finish than I expected it to, mostly on account of some life stuff getting in the way. I hope you enjoyed the read, and we'll be rejoining our characters in...

Chapter 5: Taming the Wolf

If there's anything you'd like to see, or any character interaction you'd like to have appear, do send me an ask.

Aight that's all folks, see ya next time!

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eiirisworkshop · 5 months

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Of Desire, Preference, and Convenience

The first in a series of Witcher oneshots Also available to read on Ao3 here.

The sun was just a sliver clinging to the horizon when Geralt, Jaskier, and, of course, Roach came into sight of the town they had set out from a couple days before. As they drew closer on the road a young man, barely more than a boy, spotted them from where he was sitting at the threshold of his home, whittling by lantern light so the shavings fell outside the door. Upon seeing them, he stood, stared a moment, set aside his woodworking, and ran towards the center of town well ahead of them.

“Well,” Jaskier said, cutting himself off in the midst of kvetching about the several minor injuries he'd sustained over the course of Geralt's hunt, “that's not the worst welcome you've ever gotten.”

“He's not the welcome,” Geralt grunted shortly.

Sure enough, by the time they got there, what felt like most of the town had spilled into the square to gawk. With slight commotion, the crowd parted to let through Geralt’s current employer, the local Baroness, flanked on one side by a retainer, on the other by some relative. Reins in hand, Geralt led Roach forward, hauled the decapitated head of a recently slain monster from under the canvas across Roach's back, and dropped it with a heavy splat on the flagstone at the Baroness's feet. Both noblewoman and mare did the same halfstep back, away from the splatter of gore.

Several parents in the crowd shielded their children's eyes.

“I solved your cockatrice problem.”

“I can see that,” the Baroness said tightly, one hand raised slightly to steady her relation, who had bristled. “You have done a great service for our town and saved untold lives. You have our gratitude.”

“I prefer gratitude in the form of coin,” Geralt said flatly.

“And you will have it,” the Baroness assured. “But we are not a wealthy town, especially this time of year. I offer you the hospitality of my household to make up for the limits of what I can offer you in gold. With my nephew visiting,” she glanced aside to her relation, “there is only one set of rooms available, but it's more comfortable than the inn, we can give you a meal, and a bath, wash your things.”

“Yes, um.” Jaskier sashayed forward and leaned around to preemptively answer on Geralt's behalf. “We gladly and humbly accept.”

While Geralt settled Roach into the Baroness's stables, Jaskier sat in the courtyard on the edge of a low wall, lute propped on his thigh, playing for a gathered gaggle of the younger members of the household, including the Baroness's son, his companions, and several servants. There was applause as the song ended. Jaskier lay his palm over the strings to quiet them. “Thank you, thank you! Are there any other requests?”

“I want to hear about the witcher beheading the cockatrice,” one of the servant girls said with a slightly alarming glint to her eye. Judging by the state of her apron, she probably worked in the kitchens, and the thought of her with a knife was also somewhat alarming.

“Ha, well.” Jaskier bowed his head briefly. “It does usually take me more than a few hours to write a new song, I'm afraid.”

“Besides,” the Baroness's son said superiorly, lolling his head toward the kitchen girl, “that'll be gross and gory, nothing a delicate thing like you would want to hear.”

She leveled him with the most unimpressed look. “I've ripped the heads of chickens with my bare hands. It works better if you twist,” she said with unaffected desensitivity. “Even with the head gone the bodies keep moving for a while sometimes.”

The young noble did a very poor job of covering for the full body cringe that ran through him. Jaskier brushed a thumb across his nose and muttered, “Basilisks do that too...”

“And besides,” the girl continued, echoing her young master's tone, “the last three songs have all been about gross gory monster slayings and this pansy narrowly avoiding being beaten to death or eaten.” She jerked a thumb at Jaskier.

“I prefer Dandelion, actually,” Jaskier said, rocking back a bit while he finished processing that, no, really, she had just said that, to his face.

She ignored him completely. “I don't think one more story of the sort would suddenly be a problem for me. I’m not a delicate flower.”

“She's right.”

Jaskier and his audience all looked sharply up and around at the growled comment, Geralt's approach having been preternaturally quiet.

“Hey, now,” Jaskier began, on the verge of taking offense.

“About the twisting. Works the same on anything with a skull small enough to get a hand around.” He shrugged. “Including humans.”

Jaskier bowed his head again to hide his expression of incredulous, horrified, amusement and busied his fingers with a few chords. That served nicely to draw the group's attention, spare anyone the task of figuring out how to respond to that, and give the Baroness's son a moment to pull himself together without any more needling. The kitchen girl, for her part, looked like she might be in love.

“So,” she said after a moment when it became clear Jaskier was just noodling lyriclessly, “since your bard hasn't had a chance to write about it, maybe you could tell us how you beheaded the cockatrice?”

“With a sword,” Geralt said flatly.

She blinked a couple times, stopped fiddling demurely with the end of her braid, and nodded slowly. “Right.”

Jaskier stopped playing and offered, “I do have a song about his swords.”

“You have five,” Geralt corrected. “And they're all shit because that's what you write whenever you can't think of anything else.”

“That is not true!” Jaskier objected, electing to ignore the giggles from his audience. “At least two of them are decent.”

“Excuse me, sirs?”

Geralt and Jaskier both turned toward another, older servant who looked like she might have been the girl's mother. She smiled gently once she had their attention. “Your accommodations are ready.”

“Fantastic,” Jaskier said, standing up.

Geralt clapped one large, rough hand on Jaskier's shoulder and steered the bard in front of him, following the woman. “C'mon, buttercup.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes, said nothing, and resisted the urge to elbow Geralt in the ribs. The effect wasn't worth an additional bruise.

The guest apartment they were shown to was about a room and a half—a bedchamber with a sitting area, and an anteroom with a bath. The servant woman pointed out to them where their bags were stacked by the settee, and the basket that had been provided for their dirty laundry, then she curtsied politely and left them be.

Jaskier shed his doublet easily, tossed it in the direction of the basket, toed off his boots, and went for the tray of food set on the low table. They hadn't made it back into town until after dinnertime, so their meal wasn't elaborate, but there was hot meat, bread that was less than a day old, cheese, fruit-filled pastries, and plenty of wine. He stacked some meat and cheese on a slice of bread, took a bite, made an appreciative sound in his throat, then turned to watch Geralt meticulously divesting himself of his weaponry and armor.

“Food's good.”

Geralt hummed a short acknowledgement. He definitely needed a bath—his hair, what of it was loose, was stringy and dark with grime. It must've felt disgusting. Jaskier felt filthy enough and he hadn't gotten covered in ichor. Geralt got down to his shirt, paused to roll his neck, then stripped to skin. Jaskier turned quickly to pour himself a cup of wine and did not stare at the way the muscles of Geralt's shoulders and back moved as he raised his arms. At least he didn't stare much. He was just observing. For creative purposes. As always.

He did, however, watch as Geralt walked past him naked toward the door of the bath room.

Mouth half full, Jaskier gestured at the food on the table. “Aren't you going to eat?”

“I'll eat when I'm clean.”

“'I'll eat when I'm—' Bah!” Jaskier shifted things around so everything including his cup of wine and one of the bottles fit on the tray. “There's no law that says a man can't eat while he bathes.”

Geralt pulled open the door and took a step back, expression stunned, as though the steam curling lazily from inside had struck him.

Jaskier cocked his head with curious concern. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” Geralt grunted, then continued into the room. Jaskier rolled his eyes, gathered up the tray, and followed. He realized about halfway to the door what had struck the witcher—the steam wafting from the bath smelled distinctly of lemongrass and lavender. It was pleasant, but fairly strong even to Jaskier's ordinary human nose.

The bath itself was part of the room's architecture; a large tiled tub built into a sort of dais raised a couple steps up from the floor, underneath which was a firebox of smoldering coals to keep the water hot. There was an elaborately grated drain in the floor, several additional buckets of clear water, and a basket of bottles, jars, soaps, stones, and brushes perched on the wide rim of the tub.

Geralt grabbed one of the buckets of water, stood on the grate in the floor, and dumped the bucket over his head, water flowing in rivulets down his body, cutting tracks through the grime that had gotten under his clothes. Jaskier turned his back to hook one ankle around the edge of the door and pull it closed so the heat wouldn't all escape.

While Geralt began washing with a cloth from the linen rack, Jaskier set the tray of food on the corner of the dais, then took off the rest of his own clothes, grabbed a cloth, and began to do the same. He finished the process more quickly since he was less dirty to start with, so he carefully moved the tray of food to the edge of the tub. He climbed in and sank into the hot, scented water with a satisfied groan—and a slight hiss when the water hit the scratches he had acquired on the road. He took up his wine in one hand, his stack of bread, meat, and cheese in the other, took a sip, took a bite, and leaned his head back, eyes closed. “I probably shouldn't have expected less from a town whose whole thing is its mineral springs, but this is nice.”

“Mh.”

For a while, they were both quiet, Jaskier eating and drinking by feel while Geralt washed. Then, at the splat of a cloth being discarded, Jaskier opened his eyes again. He watched Geralt snag a piece of cheese from the tray and cram it efficiently in his mouth, then take a stiff-bristled brush from the basket of bath things, sit on the edge of the dais with his emptied bucket partially refilled at his feet, unknot the tie holding his hair out of his face, and start brushing out his own mane as he'd done Roach's not long before.

Jaskier knew Geralt wouldn't believe him if he ever told him, but he really was beautiful. Not in a feminine way, not quite in the compellingly unearthly way Yen was, though that was more like it. With his long white hair and amber eyes, his constellation of scars that told a thousand stories the man himself rarely if ever voiced, his striking stature, the control to his moves which spoke both of strength and of a gentleness a lucky few were blessed to bare witness to, Geralt of Rivia was beautiful in his own way. Not that Jaskier ever would tell him. That...that was another urge to be resisted, for the effect wouldn't be worth the bruises.

Instead, he shifted in the bath, hazy water lapping around his waist, and leaned forward against the side of the tub to eat a pastry without dropping any crumbs or sugar in the water. He sucked a bit of filling off his thumb. “Wouldn't it be less trouble and less mess if you, I don't know, braided your hair back? Or kept it up?”

“Yes,” Geralt sighed and dunked his brush in the bucket.

“Then why don't you?”

Geralt shrugged.

Jaskier grinned slowly. “You like it, don't you? You like the way you look with your hair down.”

Geralt resolutely did not respond.

Jaskier laughed, the sound echoing off the tile brightly. “Melitele's tit's, I'm right!”

Geralt glared at him and he sacrificed one dry hand to splash water at him in rebuttal.

“For what it's worth,” Jaskier continued, “you're right too. You do look good with your hair down.”

Geralt looked at him dubiously. Jaskier shrugged. “You have nice hair. And the way you tend to wear it works well with the whole,” he gestured broadly at his own face with his half a pastry, “jawline-that-could-cut-stone situation.”

That earned him an inscrutable snort. Geralt carried on brushing out his hair. Jaskier finished his pastry, dusted off his fingers, and started snooping through the offerings in the basket. One jar was full of a citrusy smelling powder that fizzed against his damp fingers when he poked it experimentally.

“Oh, that's interesting.” He dumped it in the water where it hissed and produced a thick froth of fine, foamy bubbles. “That's very interesting. I like that quite a lot, actually.” He unstoppered a bottle to sniff at its contents, pulled a face, and moved on to the next, then the next, then the next. “We ought to find the glaziers' shop before we leave town; this glasswork is really excellent. Exactly the sort of thing you tend to carry potions and tinctures around in. I know you've had a few break on you recently. Honestly it must be some sort of cosmic joke that the best inert-but-moldable material to make containers out of is so brittle. Ooh, that's nice! That's, hm, I don't know what that is. Here, smell this.” He held out the bottle.

“I can smell it just fine from over here.” Geralt glowered at him through locks of wet hair. “It's almond.”

“Almond in a poison kind of way, or…?”

“No.”

“Wonderful.” Jaskier sniffed at the bottle again while Geralt dumped out the dingy water he'd been rinsing his brush in, poured a little more from one of the other buckets, and resumed the process. Jaskier poured a little of the bottle's contents into his palm and rubbed it between his fingers. “I think it's a hair oil.”

“Probably,” Geralt agreed and just kept brushing.

“Come here,” Jaskier huffed.

“I don't—”

“Like using soap on your hair, it makes it feel like straw, yes, yes, we've had that conversation a few times,” Jaskier said. “This isn't soap. I know you know the difference. Let me help you.”

Geralt's expression didn't appreciably change but Jaskier could see him considering.

“The sooner your hair is clean, the sooner you can actually get in the bath and relax,” Jaskier pointed out. “Ridiculous strength and healing or no, you've got to be sore. I'm sore and you took significantly more battering.”

With what was definitely not a resigned sigh, Geralt got up and moved to within arm's reach of the tub, his back to Jaskier, who grinned.

“I know you,” Jaskier singsonged as he poured more oil into his hand and started working it into Geralt's hair. It was always amazing to realize, again, just how much hair Geralt had. Truly, mane was the right word for it. And the way he wore it, in addition to being quite fetching, lent itself nicely to dramatic movement. There was a lyric to be found somewhere down that train of thought and Jaskier starting humming to himself as he followed it.

“What are you thinking about?” Geralt asked after a moment, voice low.

“Hm?”

“You hum when you think.”

“Oh.” Jaskier shrugged and scritched his fingers against Geralt's scalp. “Just trying to come up with ways to describe your hair color.”

“It's white.”

“Well, yes, obviously, but that's not very poetic. Also it doesn't—” He broke off and dropped his hands, ceasing his attentions entirely. “You have no idea what light does to your hair, do you? You can't see it.”

“I can see my own hair.” Geralt turned over one shoulder to pin Jaskier with a look that quite plainly questioned his intelligence.

“Sure, but only part of it.” Jaskier leaned on his elbows on the edge of the tub. “Only the ends. And never from behind or from a far.

“I've seen other people with white hair.”

“We're not talking about other people's hair. We're talking about yours. And you don't know how it shines in sunlight, almost too bright to look at; or turns liquid and metallic like quicksilver in moonlight; or reflects a stormy sky as though it, too, could flash with lightning—and sometimes I could swear it does.”

Geralt licked his lips and took a breath. “If you write an entire song about my hair, I will finally kill you.”

“If you were ever actually going to kill me for something like that, you would have done it a long time ago.”

With a sideways tip of his head that was unmistakably reluctant agreement, Geralt got up and went back to his bucket. “I do like,” he said as he started brushing the excess oil out of his hair, and with it the last of the grime, “that you haven't ruled out my killing you for other reasons.”

“I figure horse-related reasons are the most likely,” Jaskier said cheekily, rubbing the rest of the oil from his hands through his own hair.

That drew a snort of what passed for laughter from Geralt. “You haven't been doing anything to make Roach want you dead, have you?”

“Well, not that I know of.” Jaskier almost fumbled his cup of wine in slick fingers as he refilled it. “It's hard to be sure, though—she's almost as inscrutably irascible as you.”

Now Geralt chuckled properly and Jaskier beamed into his wine.

Geralt reached for the partial bucket of clear water, dunked his head in it, then sat up quickly, flipping his wet hair out of his face with an arching spray of water. He ran both hands through his hair, combing with his fingers a few times, then wrung most of the moisture out, manhandled the bulk of his hair up to the crown of his head, twisted it deftly into a bun, and tucked it into itself so it would stay.

“Honestly, that is one of your more impressive talents,” Jaskier said mildly. Geralt grunted, stepped up on the dais, swung one leg over the edge of the tub, then the other, then sank into frothy water up to his neck at the opposite end from Jaskier. He lifted one hand, shook the water and suds off, and folded some meat and cheese together to eat.

“On the subject of your talents,” Jaskier segued. “Namely, y'know, violence—I have to know, what the hell possessed you to tell a group of adolescents, one of whom already seems to have a potentially murderous streak, that ripping the heads off of people is the same as decapitating a chicken?”

Geralt smirked. “Did you see that boy's face?”

“That I did,” Jaskier laughed. “Did you see the girl's face though? The murderous one. I think she's fallen for you.”

Geralt rolled his eyes, finished his meat and cheese wrap, and one-handedly took the bottle of wine for himself. “She's far too young for me.”

“Obviously.” Jaskier pulled a face of disgust. “What do you take me for? Don't answer that. Come back in a decade, though, and she'll be grown and you will be exactly the same. I'm speaking from experience of course.”

“You haven't changed appreciably, either.”

“Myehh.” Jaskier waved a hand dismissively. “I'm just babyfaced. I looked about twelve until the summer before you met me. Trust me, I am quite aware of all the ways I've gotten older.”

“In a decade she'd be married, anyway,” Geralt continued. “And I, unlike you, am not keen to make enemies of husbands”

Jaskier flicked water at Geralt's face, and was rather proud to earn a slight flinch. “She might not be, though. A decade later and I'm still not married.”

“Well, yes, but you're…,” Geralt's nose wrinkled a moment, “you.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” Jaskier reached across the bath and attempted to snatch the wine back. Geralt held it fast.

“Did I mention the making enemies of husbands?”

“That only happens sometimes!” Jaskier abandoned his cup on the ledge and stood for better leverage on the wine bottle, foam clinging around his waist.

“Of course. Sometimes you're making enemies of wives. Or mothers.” He let go of the bottle and Jaskier fell backward, knocking his breath out on the far side of the tub.

He wheezed and spluttered, then jabbed a finger at Geralt. “It is not my fault that everyone worth my company who'll actually look twice at me is either already married or have a very controlling family.”

He took a swig of wine from the bottle as Geralt had. The witcher arched an eyebrow at him and cocked his head slightly. “Maybe you should focus a little more of your efforts on that third camp.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ones you think wouldn't look twice at you.”

“Ha. No. That's—no.” Jaskier turned to the tray of food, put the wine down, and intently perused the pastries. “I do rather like my head attached to my shoulders, difficult as that may be to believe. What about you, though?” he asked without looking at Geralt. “And don't say 'because I'm me' or anything like that. I know for a fact your options for willing—eager, even, and of-age—partners are not limited to whores and megalomaniacal sorceresses.”

Geralt sighed. “Everyone but the whores want things I cannot give and bring things I have no desire to possess. Even the whores do, sometimes.”

Jaskier turned back to frown at Geralt over a tiny lemon tart. “What sort of things?”

Geralt shook his head, shrugged, and looked away.

“That's not an answer.”

He shrugged again.

“Geralt.”

“I don't feel things,” Geralt snapped.

“Oh, don't give me that 'witchers don't have emotions' spiel.” Jaskier crossed one arm over his chest and took a bite of his tart. “I know you know that I know that's a crock of horseshit.”

“That's not what I mean,” Geralt rumbled and grabbed the wine back.

“Then what do you mean?”

Geralt took a drink and gestured broadly with the bottle. “People...like people. You seem to constantly be mooning after someone. I'm surprised you haven't spent the past week regaling me with embellished accounts of the beauty and charm of whoever you fixated on as your 'muse' in the last town, whether I want to hear them or not.”

“Do you want a pastry?” Jaskier held the plate out.

Geralt stared at him flatly for a moment. “I'm not hungry.”

“That's just as much horseshit as the idea that you don't have emotions.”

With a roll of his eyes Geralt traded the wine bottle to his damp hand, picked up a pastry with the dry, and took a bite. “The point,” he said, chewing, then took a drink, “is that you have feelings about people you want. I don't do that.”

“You….” Jaskier screwed up his eyes in concentration, then shook his head. “Give me that.” He took the wine from Geralt and drank. “You definitely seem to do that, at least sometimes.”

“I don't.”

“Then I need you to explain Yennefer to me.”

“She's…a friend.”

“I think you and I define 'friendship' differently,” Jaskier said slowly. He shifted how he was sitting, his foot slipped on the bottom of the tub and brushed Geralt's leg under the water. He pulled his foot back quickly.

“I'm not in love with her,” Geralt said, hawk-like eyes following a bit of swirling foam on the surface of the water. “I never was. I've never been in love with anyone. I've cared about people—usually against my better judgement.” His gaze flicked briefly up to Jaskier's face then continued to the ceiling as he leaned back, lifting one elbow to rest on the edge of the tub, bubbles clinging along the line of a scar as water ran off his skin. “Had plenty of sex. Even had sex with people I've cared about.” He shook his head. “Never fallen in love. I don't think I can.” He shoved the rest of his pastry in his mouth.

Cautiously, Jaskier held out the last of the bottle of wine and bumped it against the witcher's fingers in a silent offering that Geralt accepted.

After a moment—needed as much to take stock of his own sinking heart as anything else—Jaskier asked, “Do you want to? Fall in love, I mean.”

Geralt snorted and looked at him. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble.”

“You're not wrong,” Jaskier admitted, grimacing. “Is that a 'no,' then?”

Geralt shrugged. He pushed up on one knee and twisted to set the now-empty bottle safely on the dais.

Jaskier took that as confirmation and sank deeper into the water, pulling his knees to his chest—one of them popped and he winced. “Ow. What if…. What if someone fell in love with you? Really fell in love, someone who knows you.”

“That would be their misfortune.”

“It's not so bad,” Jaskier mumbled. Geralt stared at him. It took a second for Jaskier to notice. “What?”

Geralt continued to stare, brow furrowing.

“What are you looking at me like that for?”

“Are you in love with me?” Geralt asked, either incredulous or horrified. Hard to say which was preferable.

“I—wh—huh? No, no, of course not,” Jaskier stammered. “Not 'of course not;' I don't mean I or someone wouldn't. It's definitely something someone might, hypothetically do—be in love with, I mean.” He clasped his hands in front of his face, knuckles to his lips, choosing to believe the flush he could feel in his face could be blamed on the wine and the warmth of the water. “If, hypothetically, someone were—then what?”

Geralt shook his head. “Why?”

Jaskier dropped his face into his palms. “Fuck.” He tossed his hands up, shaking his own head helplessly. “I don't know.”

Geralt stared a second longer, then stood up to get out of the bath. Jaskier averted his gaze and halfway shielded his eyes with one hand. “I—Geralt, I'm sorry.”

“There's no point in apologizing for things beyond your control.” Geralt poured another half-bucket of clear water over himself to rinse away the salts and suds, then grabbed a bath sheet to dry with and strode out to the main room, hair falling from its unsecured bun, leaving the door open behind him.

“Geralt!” Jaskier swore under his breath, hauled himself out of the bath, rinsed with the rest of the bucket, wrapped himself in a bath sheet and followed. “I'm not apologizing for having feelings or for what they are.”

“Then what are you apologizing for?” Geralt threw Jaskier's pack at him from across the room, flipped his own open, and pulled out a pair of trousers.

Jaskier swore again and more deflected his pack than caught it. “For making you uncomfortable!”

“I'm not uncomfortable.” Geralt hitched his trousers up his hips and tied the laces.

“You are a terrible liar when it's not by omission.” Jaskier stooped to dig through his pack, found a chemise that was long enough to cover himself, and straightened back up, gesturing with the garment. “If you weren't uncomfortable you'd still be in that bath, luxuriating like a frog in a rainstorm because that is the only way you ever relax, and I am kicking myself for fucking that up because I, apparently, am constitutionally incapable of keeping my mouth shut.”

“Apparently.”

“Oh, hush.” Jaskier pulled his chemise on, let his bath sheet drop, crossed his arms, and took a breath. “I didn't mean to say anything. I wasn't going to say anything. I haven't said anything!”

Geralt took a step towards him. “And why not? To keep hanging around under false pretenses?”

“Because it's not important!” Jaskier flung a hand out in a wide gesture of contradiction. “You are, without question, my best friend in the world and nothing about that is false. Having you as a friend is more important to me than whatever one-sided fancy I might be harbouring. You, of all people, know my track record with love affairs is abysmal—we were justtalking about it—and it is far more important to me to not ruin this,” he gestured between them, “and that is why I never said anything.” He took another breath. “Right after you'd gotten through explaining that you don't fall in love is probably the worst possible time to have said anything, so of course that's when I let slip—and I'll admit it stings a little to hear in such certain terms, and I'm still a bit baffled about the whole thing, really, but it doesn't change the situation. I already knew things were hopeless on my end. I am asking for exactly nothing from you but that things stay as they've been. I'll get over it. Eventually.” He shoved a hand through his damp hair and shrugged. “At this rate it might take me another decade but that's, what, three heartbeats for you? It'll be fine.”

Geralt advanced on him, expression unreadable but intense.

Jaskier put his arms up over his face in an ultimately feckless warding gesture, eyes shut tight. “Really should have put horse reasons farther down the murder list,” he squeaked.

Hands closed over his wrists and pulled them to the sides of his shoulders.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said firmly.

He warily opened one eye, then the other, and looked up into Geralt's face, feeling very much like those amber eyes were looking through him.

“What else would you want?” Geralt's tone was as piercing as his gaze.

Jaskier swallowed and shook his head. “I'm not asking for anything. I refuse to ask you for anything you can't give, and you just told me you can't give,” he gestured as much as he could with his arms immobilized, “anything.”

“I'm not asking what you're asking for,” Geralt growled. “I'm asking what you would want.”

Jaskier retreated as much as he could, leaning back away from Geralt to study him warily. Geralt waited. Jaskier closed his eyes a moment. “Fuck it.” He inhaled deeply and looked Geralt in the eye. “Sex, kisses, cuddles. To wake up, not just at your side, but in your arms. To be able to tell you everything I think of you no matter how stupid or overwrought—and, no, I don't do that already. To sing you the songs knocking around in my head I would never dare perform in public. Maybe, occasionally, to be allowed to ride with you when I'm not on death's door. To know—” He stopped to breathe and looked down. “To know, maybe even be told once in a while, that you're glad to have me around.”

Cautiously, he let his gaze find its way back up, over all the scars, to Geralt's face, searching his expression. For a moment that felt like an eternity, nothing happened, then one of his wrists was suddenly free, there was a hand at the base of his skull, and Geralt was kissing him. He kissed back. Then his brain caught up with him and he smacked at Geralt's chest, mumbling, “Wha—? H'ng om, G'ral', w',” until Geralt gave him enough room to actually talk. He took a breath. “I'm very confused; what is happening right now?”

“I'm kissing you,” Geralt said like it was obvious, which, to be fair, it was.

“Yes, I noticed that.” Jaskier realized his hand was still resting on Geralt's chest and he quickly removed it. “Why are you kissing me?”

“You said you wanted to.”

“I said I don't want anything from you, then you demanded I tell you what I would want anyway!” Jaskier huffed. “I don't want to ask you for anything you can't give.”

“You're not.” Geralt let go of him entirely. “You don't get to decide what I can and cannot give; I'm the only judge of that. Nothing you said you'd want is something I can't do.” He paused. “With the possible exception of the songs.”

“Well, I don't want anything you don't want to give, either!”

Geralt looked highly annoyed. “You're such an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wouldn't do anything if I didn't want to.”

“You just told me—”

“That I don't fall in love.” Geralt rolled his eyes dramatically enough it turned into a rather equine head toss. “You can want to fuck someone without being in love with them.”

It was Jaskier's turn to stare. He ran a hand over his face. “Hang on, hang on. You want to fuck me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Geralt shrugged and swept a hand in an up and down gesture encompassing Jaskier's whole body. “I have no idea.”

“Why didn't you say anything?!”

“I assumed, given your predisposition towards reckless forwardness, that if you were interested, you would have said so.” Jaskier sighed, hands on his hips, head down. “That's fair, actually.” He looked up. “It doesn't bother you that I'm in love with you? Wow, that feels weird to actually say.”

“Not as long as it doesn't bother you that I don't feel the same.”

“Of course not!” Jaskier said earnestly. “I told you, I'm happy with your friendship. Anything additional is an unexpected, but very welcome, bonus. Though,” he hedged with a grimace, “also liable to ruin my chances of ever actually getting over you.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Why would it bother me to not stop wanting what I want when I have it? I only mention that in case it's a concern for you.”

“It doesn't.” Geralt tilted his head curiously. “You wouldn't rather want someone…more reciprocal instead?”

“No, see, part of the whole being in love thing is wanting that person even if it's not the most practical choice. C'mon, you've seen the kinds of decisions people make.”

“Pavetta,” Geralt sighed.

“Exactly. So, no. I don't want anyone else instead. I can't promise I'll never find any, um, distractions, but I'm not getting the impression you'd object too strongly to that.”

“I don't care.”

“Fantastic! And, of course, you'd be welcome to join.”

Geralt pulled a face.

“Or not!” Jaskier held his hands up, palms out.

“You wouldn't expect me to…include you, would you?”

“With other people? Only if you want to. Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your money. And I am kind of terrified of Yennefer, but—actually, no, I don't think I should tell you that.” Jaskier rubbed at his temple.

“I know you watched.”

“Oh, well, yeah, that is what I wasn't going to say. Anyway, no, do what—and who—you want. With or without me.”

Geralt nodded. “Alright. Then I think we're on the same page about this.”

“Whatever this is,” Jaskier said, gesturing between them.

“How does 'friends who fuck sometimes' sound?”

“Hm, I might prefer 'best friends who fuck a lot.'”

Geralt snorted, a hint of indulgent humor lighting his eyes. “Sure.”

“In that case….” Jaskier took a step forward, putting himself solidly in Geralt's personal space, lay both hands on his chest, then reconsidered and reached up to loop his arms around his neck instead. “Take me.”

Geralt rolled his eyes, but lifted Jaskier by the waist, easily walked the three steps it took to pin him to the nearest wall, and kissed him again, hard. Which, well, that sure was an experience. And Jaskier sure wasn't wearing pants. He tangled his fingers in Geralt's hair and kissed back—kissed down, which, frankly, he was not expecting to find himself doing with Geralt, even if he'd found himself kissing Geralt in the first place, but his wandering fantasies hadn't taken into account the fact that Geralt could throw him around like a rag doll. Truly a glaring oversight.

As it turned out, his wandering fantasies had made several glaring oversights.

~ Sprawled on the coverlet, Jaskier rolled over to smush his face against the nearest part of Geralt, which happened to be his ribs. “Truly,” he said, muffled, “your gifts are wasted on monster hunting.”

Geralt hummed in what could just as easily have been agreement as exasperation, pulled Jaskier up, and tucked his face against Jaskier's neck, arms around his back. Jaskier yelped slightly at being moved, then smiled softly, shifted to lay more comfortably against the unyielding angles of Geralt's body, pressed a kiss to his temple, and combed his fingers through his hair, now almost dry. “You are never getting rid of me now—”

“I already couldn't get rid of you,” Geralt mumbled.

“That's true,” Jaskier mused, still combing. “And you did try, though not very hard, you have to admit. Especially considering you could’ve, apparently, put me up somewhere I couldn't get down from, like a rambunctious kitten or something. I did know, in theory, that you could have—I mean, I've seen you fight—but I'd never really considered the implications. What's even more incredible than your strength, though, and stamina—can't forget the stamina, whew, I am…not nineteen anymore, but that's beside the point—”

“Jaskier.”

“—your precision, Geralt, I swear. And that's to say nothing of your attentiveness. Really, though, you're never getting rid of me, I'm staying right here, because I utterly adore you and because now that I know what I'd be missing I honestly believe any other lover would leave me bereft and unsatis—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growled, “please shut up.”

He chuckled but obliged, ceasing his combing to trace his fingers along the layered lines of scars on Geralt's shoulder and arm. Some of them he knew the stories—he'd been present for a few of them, written odes to more of them than that—others he didn't know, and knew better than to ask. He started to hum, fingers of his left hand fretting amongst Geralt's hair until they gave up the exercise around the third repetition of a single bar he hummed over and over while he tried to think of a verb that both fit the melody and made any sense in context. By the time he'd settled on rained, which was a bit more metaphorical that he'd been hoping for, but fit, the breath washing over his collarbone had gone even and slow.

“Geralt?” he asked softly. “Are you asleep or just breathing slowly?”

“Breathing,” came the muffled reply.

“Right. Good. It's just a bit hard to tell since I can't see your face and I'm pretty sure your heart rate is half mine or less at any given moment.” Jaskier pushed himself to sit up, sort of peeled himself off Geralt's skin, wincing at the sensation and the certain amount of not-fun hair pulling that went with it, and rearranged himself to press his ear to Geralt's chest.

Geralt sighed. “We need another bath.”

“You have been covered in far worse,” Jaskier pointed out. “Even just today. But,” he conceded, “yes. We did make a bit of a mess.” He poked at a bit of said mess just above Geralt's hip.

A moment later Geralt asked, “Are you going to get up so we can do that?”

“Eventually,” Jaskier hummed. “Probably.”

With a sound so low in his chest Jaskier probably wouldn't have been able to hear it if he didn't have his ear right against his heart, Geralt levered himself up, pushing Jaskier off of him in the process. Jaskier was just about to protest being unceremoniously dumped aside when Geralt scooped him up and tossed him over his shoulder so he wound up squawking indignantly and scrabbling for purchase against Geralt's back instead. “Telling you I enjoy being manhandled was amistake!”

“Probably,” Geralt agreed mildly.

Jaskier craned his neck to try to see exactly where he was being carried. “Geralt, I swear—don't you dare drop me in the bath.”

“You can tell me if it's cold,” Geralt said, then did exactly what Jaskier had just told him not to do.

There was a fair bit of splashing as Jaskier grabbed at the side of the tub to keep his head above water and just barelyavoided knocking over the tray of food still perched there. He huffed and glared. “Not as warm as it was, but amazingly, no, not cold.”

Geralt nodded appraisingly, “Good architecture,” and left the room.

“Where are you going?” Jaskier called after him. He got no answer but Geralt returned shortly with the other bottle of wine from the table and a length of leather cord. He handed Jaskier the wine, wrangled his hair back up into a bun more quickly now that it wasn't so wet, tied it up with the cord, grabbed a couple cloths, and joined Jaskier in the bath.

Jaskier took a swig of the wine, then held it out to Geralt who accepted it and did the same. Most of the foam from earlier had fizzled away by now, leaving only a drifts of fine bubbles swirling on the disturbed surface of the water, which was hazy but still clear enough to see their legs through.

Geralt casually dropped one of the washcloths on Jaskier's head, set the wine aside, and set about giving himself a perfunctory scrub. Jaskier also made a pass at washing. “So…,” he said slowly, then laughed at himself. “Why the hell am I feeling awkward now; we're already through what ought to be the awkward part.”

“Hm,” Geralt hummed unhelpfully.

Jaskier watched him a moment as they washed. “It's just,” he began again, dragging his eyes back to his own lap, “you haven't really said, well, anything, except for telling me to shut up, which isn't exactly unusual for you, nothing to be worried about, but, uh, I would appreciate some feedback?”

He hadn't meant for his voice to pitch that up into a question.

Geralt looked at him curiously.

“I mean,” Jaskier wrung out his cloth and draped it on the side of the tub, “it was good for you, right?”

Something softened in Geralt's gaze and a smile tugged subtly at his mouth. “Yes.”

Jaskier let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and felt something loosen in his chest. “Great! Fantastic. Glad to hear it.” He leaned forward, elbow propped on one knee in the water. “Anything else to say about it? Any notes?”

The softness to Geralt's expression vanished. “It's sex, Jaskier, not a ballad.”

“I will save the argument they're ultimately the same thing for another day,” Jaskier dismissed. “I'm serious, though—is there anything I should know? For next time. Assuming of course that there's going to be a next time? It sounded like we agreed on this being repeatable.”

Geralt rolled his eyes, pulled Jaskier into his lap, and growled against his throat, “There will be a next time.”

“Oh good,” Jaskier breathed, fingers digging into Geralt's shoulders where he'd caught his balance.

“Fucking you is far more convenient and much less fraught than dealing with a brothel.”

“I don't know how I feel about being called convenient but I have definitely been called worse.” He loosened his grip and stroked the upward swept hair at the back of Geralt's head while Geralt traced the tip of his nose along the line of a tendon in his neck, inhaling deeply. “Do you...like how I smell?” Jaskier asked curiously, trying to make sense of the plenty welcome attention.

“Mm; it's situational.”

“Noted,” Jaskier laughed, then took Geralt's jaw in hand and caught his mouth in a kiss. “Is there anything you like that I have voluntarily control over?”

Geralt shrugged. Jaskier gave up with a rueful sort of sigh and leaned their foreheads together for a moment before maneuvering out of Geralt's lap and settling against his side instead. “Let me know if you think of anything.”

“I will,” Geralt promised, and reached for the tray of food.

End of fic! Read the rest of the series on Ao3 here.

#eiiri made this #fanfiction #the witcher #aromantic geralt #aro!geralt

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