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He has a plan.
Okay, admittedly calling it a plan is somewhat of an exaggeration. What Geralt has is an overwhelming sense of grief that floods the empty spaces left behind as his temper ebbs, and the horrifying realization that while it all hurts, it’s Jaskier’s departure that leaves his heart aching. What he has is an urgent need to set things right, and only a nebulous idea of how to do so. For starters though, he needs to catch up to Jaskier. That’s a straightforward task to set his mind to, and Geralt assumes he’ll figure out the rest on the road.
It should be a reasonable assumption to make. It’s a long path down the mountain, and even though he’s moving briskly, trying to catch Jaskier before the bard reaches the bottom, there’s plenty of time to think.
Plenty of time is not enough, apparently, because he finds Jaskier just after dark, sitting miserably in front of a campfire, and… nothing. He stares at the evidence of what a mess he’s made without a single useful thought in his head.
The bard had been idly strumming some song Geralt thinks he’s heard bits and pieces of, but it cuts off in a discordant twang as Jaskier sees him. There’s a distinctly bitter edge to Jaskier’s greeting. “Geralt. Kind of hard for life to bless you with my absence if you’re going to insist on following me.”
“There’s only one way down the mountain,” Geralt points out, even though that has nothing to do with why he stopped. It’s a mistake judging from the stormy expression that settles upon Jaskier’s features.
“Well, no need to stop on my account.” Jaskier doesn’t look at him, but Geralt can hear the slight waver in the bard’s voice. He could go. Jaskier seems to want that, and maybe he even should. But Geralt finds himself quite certain that if he leaves there will be no repairing this, and he has to try.
He doesn’t ask, certain what the answer will be, but Geralt strays from the road, leaving no more room for ambiguity. The words might have come out wrong, but he’s here because he wants to make amends, not because he saw Jaskier in passing. The bard values words in a way Geralt rarely has much use for, but he tries. “What I said… wasn’t fair.”
“No. It wasn’t.” Jaskier scowls at the fire as if it has personally offended him. “But good to know what you really think. You might’ve just told me that, oh, a couple of decades ago and saved us both from this.”
“That’s not-” Geralt doesn’t know how to finish and Jaskier never gives him the chance to decide.
“Not what, Geralt? Because so help me, if you tell me that’s not what you meant I might scream.” Jaskier gets to his feet, seeming to decide being loomed over is an unacceptable state of being.
“I don’t think that. I meant it at the time, a bit, but not… It wasn’t true,” Geralt settles on. “I just wanted to be alone.”
“Right. So, what then? You know what things flay me right down to my bones because I’ve trusted you with my everything. But you fashioned them into a weapon just because my existence was inconvenient to your… your brooding.” Anger is a feeling Geralt recognizes, one he knows how to rise up to meet. But this isn’t anger. There’s agony under all Jaskier’s fury, and Geralt would be hard pressed to think of a time he’s hated himself more than he does in the moment where Jaskier’s voice cracks. “You don’t get to just change your mind and pretend we’re good as new.”
Geralt bows his head “I know that.”
Jaskier holds his lute like a wall between them. “And yet, here you are.”
It’s rare that they’ve ever really argued beyond annoyed squabbling, but Jaskier is no shrinking violet. Geralt doesn’t know what to do in the face of it that won’t make things worse, so he holds his hands up in something like surrender. “Jaskier. Give me a chance to explain. Please.”
By some miracle, Jaskier doesn’t say no. The bard glowers at him, his eyes seeming icy in the moonlight. It’s an unsettling contrast to the fire’s glow across the rest of him. “That might be the first time you’ve said that in twenty years.”
Much as he hates to admit it, that’s probably not far off the mark, and Geralt privately resolves to be better if Jaskier deigns to give him the chance. But later is not right now, and Jaskier looks about two heartbeats away from turning Geralt back out into the dark.
“Jaskier, I…” Geralt sucks in a breath and tries again. “It wasn’t about you.”
“I know.” It’s awful, the way Jaskier smiles. The brittle, mirthless thing pulls at the corners of his mouth, never reaching his eyes. “I know and that’s so much worse. Don’t you realize?”
Geralt doesn’t say anything, but his expression must give away his confusion, because Jaskier sighs at him and keeps talking. “If you'd run me off on my own merits, I'd deserve that. Well, not deserve it necessarily, because that was entirely uncalled for, but it would be... something.”
There’s some kind of disconnect, and Geralt is relatively sure Jaskier isn’t talking about his choice of words, but he’s equally sure he has no idea what Jaskier actually means. “You want me to have been upset with you?”
“No! I just wanted to matter!” Jaskier shouts at Geralt, but almost immediately deflates, huffing out a miserable, strained laugh. “I just wanted to be something more to you than the collateral damage in someone else's storm.”
Emotion would have Geralt shouting right back, but he quells the urge. He owes Jaskier that much. Only when Jaskier is finished, drawing in ragged breaths does Geralt allow himself to speak. “But you do. You are.”
Jaskier makes a wounded sort of sound and crumples a little where he stands, all the fight gone out of him with his last outburst. The way he lets his head fall forward, Geralt can’t see Jaskier’s expression, but the bard’s words are laced with anguish. “You can’t just say that. You don’t get to do that to me now.”
It comes together, a single rock dislodged only to bring a landslide. Decades, Jaskier has spent at his side, and it’s only now that the why of it all settles in. He’s been so blind and with no way to take it back, there is only forward.
Words aren’t enough. That much is clear, even if it leaves Geralt at a loss. The coast? They should have just gone, but he’d been a fool and it’s entirely out of reach now. Start smaller, he tells himself, and cautiously takes a step closer. Hushed, like Jaskier is a wild thing he’s trying not to spook, Geralt pulls together what he thinks he probably should’ve said from the beginning. “What I said before wasn’t about you, but this is.”
“What?” Jaskier’s head jerks up, but the bard looks like he’s bracing himself for a blow.
“I came here for you. Not a side effect of something or someone else. Just you.” Geralt lifts a hand to reach out, but never actually closes the distance. Jaskier is nothing if not tactile and Geralt had thought… but he has no right. Not when he’s driven such a wedge between them. Curling his fingers against his palm, the witcher forces himself to finish the thought. “I never meant to make you feel incidental.”
Jaskier looks at Geralt with something he can’t quite place, and he doesn’t dare ask for fear of shattering their fragile armistice. The seconds spread out into what feels like eternity, horrible in their silence. Geralt scarcely breathes.
”I really hate you sometimes.” Jaskier sighs like the whole world is resting on his shoulders, but he sets his lute aside in favor of dragging Geralt into a haphazard embrace. “For fuck’s sake.”
It’s really more like Jaskier drags himself to Geralt, who is pretty certain he hasn’t moved at all. Some part of him had been so certain Jaskier was going to turn him away that it takes a moment to parse what it means that the bard’s arms are wrapped around him instead. Little by little, Geralt returns the gesture, gingerly resting one hand between Jaskier’s shoulder blades and the other against the back of the bard’s head. Jaskier tucks his nose against the side of the witcher’s neck, and it’s not an intimacy he’s eared, but Geralt quietly accepts it.
“I’m sorry,” Geralt murmurs against Jaskier’s temple, and truly, he is. He closes his eyes against the night that crowds in around them. “Forgive me.”
“Idiot. Did that before I even left,” Jaskier replies, the words muffled against Geralt’s throat. “Forgiveness was never the problem.”
That only makes the whole thing ache more, that Jaskier was ready to forgive before Geralt even thought to regret what he’d done. It leaves him more than a little unmoored, unable to fathom how Jaskier can so easily let go after Geralt wounded him with his own insecurities. But perhaps that could mend in time. “Then let me prove it.”
“That you’re sorry?” Jaskier lifts his head enough to rest his chin on Geralt’s shoulder. “I don’t doubt that.”
“That you matter to me.” It’s not the confession Jaskier deserves, but it’s the only one Geralt dares give voice to. He fears even that is a step too far when Jaskier’s breath catches. Unable to see his face, Geralt can’t quite tell if that’s a pleased sound or an aggrieved one.
Jaskier doesn’t pull entirely out of Geralt’s arms, but enough to give the witcher a watery smile. “Well, I guess if you must.”
They’re not quite alright. But as Geralt lets himself be herded to sit down beside the dwindling fire, he allows himself to entertain the notion that they will be.