Chapter Text
Jaskier knew he was being petty in avoiding Geralt, but what he’d said on the mountain hurt. He knew Geralt had been angry and had taken it out on Jaskier, but it was the fact that it always happened. Geralt would be mad at life or have a stick up his ass and he’d yell at Jaskier, in turn Jaskier would sing songs about witchers with small cocks, and eventually they’d meet back up and never mention it again
Jaskier was tired of it though, he was tired of Geralt using him as a verbal punching bag, and he was tired of letting himself be treated like that. Geralt only did it because Jaskier had always forgiven him. Jaskier knew if he’d put his foot down the first time, and told Geralt he wouldn’t be treated like that, then they’d never have gotten to where they were now.
But Jaskier had been barely passed eighteen the first time, and had feared that Geralt had truly been fed up with him. The joy he’d felt when they’d fallen back into step with each other two towns later was a fragile, and he worried sticking up for himself would cause the witcher to leave.
Now, two decades later, Jaskier had no trouble telling the witcher what he thought of his bad manners, but they were stuck in the routine of it now. Admittedly the mountain was the worst by far, and Jaskier had decided it was a good time to start anew. Make Geralt sweat a bit, worry that Jaskier was gone for good.
Instead of a song about the Scared Witcher or the Witcher With The Small Sword, Jaskier penned Burn Butcher Burn, emptying all his rage and heartache into it, hoping that it would purge all the emotions from him.
It helped somewhat with the rage, though he knew no matter what he’d always love Geralt, and the heartache that those feelings would never be returned was something that wouldn’t leave him, no matter how many sad songs he wrote about it.
So he was being petty and avoiding Geralt for as long as he could. They’d passed the normal few months that went between when they argued and when they met back up, but Jaskier wasn’t ready to cave yet. Instead he followed rumours of other witchers, knowing that Geralt wouldn’t go near other witchers, as all the jobs would be done in that area.
It was working quite well, though Jaskier could tell they were travelling North in parallel. He fell into a routine of singing and sleeping around, drinking more than he should, and then moving on. It was fine until he ran into another Witcher. He knew he’d been dogging the footsteps of one, due to the grumbling of townsfolk and lack of monsters, but he hadn’t figured he’d catch up with the man.
Jaskier had been looking for a place to camp when he realised the spot he would have chosen had already been claimed. He crept up to the camp quietly, before realising that the spot had been claimed by a witcher and there was no use creeping because he’d likely given away his position several hundred feet ago.
“Here to try and kill me?” The witcher asked without even opening his eyes. His swords were a way from his meditating form but Jaskier was under no illusion that would hinder the man. “Go home and tell your shithead friends you couldn’t find me. Otherwise they’ll be looking for your body in the morning.”
The witcher had a Wolf medallion and that was almost enough to make Jaskier turn tail and flee anyway, but curiosity stopped him. Geralt had never spoken in detail about his brothers, only brief comments, Eskel and his bloody goat, or Lambert and his bloody bombs. Jaskier wondered which this was, or another wolf witcher, one he hadn’t even heard of.
The witcher had a fine mane of red hair and a beard. He was dashing in a roguish way, and still hadn’t opened his eyes.
“I’m not here to kill you. I was going to camp but you stole my spot.”
“Find somewhere else.”
The more Jaskier looked, the more he noticed the signs of wear on the witcher. His armour, which he was still wearing while meditating, was patched up in a lot of places and severely thin in others. It didn’t fit him very well, suggesting he’d lost weight recently. His swords looked weathered and in need of replacing. He also had a dirty old shirt wrapped around his right calf that was getting slowly soaked in blood.
“You’re injured.”
“Dealing with your town’s monster. Now piss off.”
“Not my town, not my monster.” Jaskier said, making his way over to the other side of the fire and sitting down. The witcher opened his eyes then.
“Piss off and find your own camp. Preferably off the next cliff.”
Jaskier glared at him, “I’ll do you a trade. I sleep here tonight, and you can have this pie I got in the last town and some clean strips of cloth for the wound. I’d offer to sew it for you but I doubt you’d let me.”
He unwrapped the cold pie he’d picked up and placed it on top of his bag along with the clean cloth so the witcher would know he was as good as his word.
“Why the fuck would you want to sleep here?”
“Because it’s late and I don’t fancy tromping through the woods looking for another spot at this hour. Also I’m far safer here with you if some wolfy comes looking for a late night snack.”
The witcher grumbled, “I’m more likely to kill you than some wild animal.”
Jaskier huffed, “No wonder people are still wary of witchers despite all my hard work, if you go around telling people things like that!”
“Your hard work?” The witcher asked, his eyes glancing between Jaskier’s face and his lute, “You’re never Geralt’s bard.”
“I’m not Geralt’s anything.” Jaskier huffed, crossing his arms and pouting, “Though I am the bard who penned Toss A Coin To Your Witcher.”
“And that bloody Burn Butcher song. For fucks sake, what did he do? Piss in your ale?”
Conversely the witcher looked even less inclined to accept Jaskier’s help than before when he thought Jaskier was sent by the village to kill him. Rude.
“I may be slightly cross with Geralt at the minute, however-”
“Then use his bloody name in the song. I’ve been getting nothing but shit for the last month because ‘a witcher broke that poor bard’s heart’, ‘Witchers are such bastards’, ‘what heartless monsters’”
Jaskier’s jaw dropped slightly at the venom in the witcher’s voice.
“Typical of a human. Made everyone forget he was called Butcher, made him a hero, and then as soon as you’re bored, you snatch it all away again, worse still you’re calling him Butcher again. Piss off bard before I actually kill you.”
Jaskier puffed up his chest, never one for survival instincts, “Excuse me! I followed that man across the whole bloody continent for twenty years! And apparently the only thing he’s ever wanted was to be shot of me. Life’s blessing! Well I’m no djinn but I’m giving him his wish. A life without me! No one giving him a good reputation, no one willing to put up with his foul moods and still sew up his wounds and wash his hair and-”
Jaskier realised he was tearing up, and stopped talking before his voice cracked.
“Wait, he left you?” The incredulity in the witcher’s voice was soothing to Jaskier’s hurt pride.
He nodded, and the witcher starting mumbling about his idiot brother.
“Geralt’s a moron. If you’ve got a good thing you hold on to that shit.” The witcher broke the cold pie in two and handed half to Jaskier, then he poured him a mug of hot tea.
It took Jaskier a minute to realise the mug he was holding wasn’t the witcher’s. The witcher had his own mug he was drinking from, so either he carried a spare around for visitors which seemed so unlikely it was almost laughable, or his mutterings about not wasting good companionship came from a much closer place.
Jaskier wondered who the witcher had been travelling with, whose mug he was hanging on to, and what fate they met.
‘The life of a witcher is short, bloody, and cruel. We live on the Path and we die on it.’ Geralt had once told him.
Jaskier wanted to give the poor man a hug, but he figured it wouldn’t go down well.
“So what’s the next part of your plan?” The witcher asked, “In your djinn wish, you take back the reputation you gave Geralt, and then what?”
“Fake my death.”
The witcher paused, his drink halfway to his mouth, “What the fuck?”
Jaskier shrugged, “It was about time anyway.”
“Is this just something bards do? Is it to make your songs more popular?”
“Fuck you, my songs are plenty popular. And no, it’s- I’m 38.” Jaskier said, waiting for him to understand.
“So?”
“I look like I’m still eighteen.”
The witcher shrugged, “Okay.”
“Honestly, Melitele preserve me from oblivious immortal Witchers. I don’t age normally, and I was going to given it another decade before faking my death and starting over, but given the circumstances, and the fact that Nilfgard are looking for the White Wolf and his bard, it’s probably better to do it now.”
Jaskier had heard about the fall of Cintra, and could only pray that Ciri had gotten out. He suspected that Geralt had gone south for her before his northward assent now. He hoped Geralt had. Jaskier knew that the man could only defy destiny for so long. He’d refused to step into Cintra and now it had fallen. Destiny would ensure Ciri and Geralt met. Jaskier had just always assumed he’d be there as well. It was why he’d made sure to make regular stops in Cintra, so Ciri would have a familiar face.
“Don’t think it’s wise to be telling Witchers that you’re not human.”
Jaskier shrugged, “I don’t even know what I am. Sluttiness is a family trait, all my siblings are actually half siblings, and it turns out my mother has a penchant for non humans. After reaching adulthood without any pointy ears or gills appearing I thought I must actually be the Count’s son, I figured mother probably had to sleep with her husband at some point. But then Maya pointed out that I hadn’t aged since the last time I visited Lettenhove and so ta da.”
“So Geralt gets someone who loves him and will follow him despite his personality, who also happens to be long enough living to stick around, and he manages to fuck it up?”
“Her name is Yennefer.” Jaskier said bitterly, ignoring the irony, “I’m more like a cockroach that just won’t die.”
The witcher looked at him for a long time before unwrapping the make shift dirty bandage on his leg, and tentatively taking the ones Jaskier offered. He went to wrap them on before Jaskier started protesting.
“You’ve got to clean the wound first! Otherwise you’re just picking dirt into the wound. Honestly, witchers,”
Jaskier drenched a different bit of cloth with water from his water skin and sat down next to the witcher, smacking his hands away from the wound. He started gently cleaning around the wound, and even daringly fetched some salve from his bag to dab around the cut, before bandaging it up in the clean cloth.
“You’re mad.” The witcher declared.
Jaskier laughed, “Just used to grumpy witchers with injuries they pretend they don’t have. It won’t need stitches and it’ll be mostly healed by morning.”
The witcher hummed and waited for Jaskier to head back to the other side of the campfire, before nodding his head to the lute.
“You know The Fishmonger’s Daughter?”
Jaskier grinned, “I wrote it, of course I know it.”
The witcher grinned wickedly, “Why’d you lead with Toss A Coin when you’re sat on that song? Go on,”
Jaskier blinked in surprise, before regaining his wits and running through The Fishmonger’s Daughter, and then Three Cocks and An Ass, the dirty version of Maid Marian and the popular brothel song The Matron and her Working Girls. By the end the witcher was grinning broadly and clapping along.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” the witcher said.
Jaskier was hesitant to travel with another witcher, especially so close to winter. He’d be heading up the mountain before long.
“Travel with me and pretend to be a witcher.”
“Wait what?”
“I don’t need a bard singing my praises, especially if you’re about to fake your death, but I do need someone to negotiate pay and shit. Apparently I’m foul mouthed and rude.”
“So I pretend to be you?”
“Yeah, go into town, get a contract, I’ll do the hunting, and then you go to collect the pay.”
The surprise of it stopped Jaskier’s automatic refusal that had been hovering on the tip of his tongue.
“You must be able to tell what contract is actually a monster and what’s a waste of time by now,”
“Of course but- surely they’ll know I’m not a witcher?”
“You wear witcher armour into town and no one will know.”
“And my eyes?”
“Not all witchers have yellow eyes.” He said but didn’t elaborate.
Jaskier sized the witcher up, he was slightly shorter than Jaskier but not by much, and as much as Jaskier tried to hide it, life on the Path had given him a burliness that was a blessing and a curse. He would probably fit the armour better than the underfed Witcher at this point.
“You can still fake your death, maybe grow a beard so you don’t look quite so fresh faced, and travel with me as a witcher.”
Jaskier thought it over.
“We’ll see how it goes. A trial run, until winter. And then if it’s acceptable, we’ll meet back up again in spring.”
The witcher looked like he was about to argue something before a glint came into his eye, “Sure.”
Jaskier clapped his hands together, “Wonderful. One last thing?”
The witcher raised an eyebrow in question.
“What’s your name?”
The witcher frowned, clearly going back over their conversation and realising Jaskier had agreed to identify theft without knowing whose identity it was he was stealing.
“Lambert.”