Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jaskier has been acting strange since they took this contract.

Well, Jaskier has been acting strange since the day Geralt met him. But this—

This is a different kind of strange.

Jaskier is fidgety, unsettled. He’ll talk a lot for long stretches— normal— and then fall silent for even longer stretches— not so normal. The beginning of the journey towards the manor was filled with complaints from him, different excuses and attempts to beg off or steer Geralt in a different direction; when those failed, he’d fallen into what Geralt assumed was a moping silence. Jaskier doesn’t usually fight this hard to be let off contracts this simple. It’s all strange.

The moping silence stretches on, and on, until Geralt isn’t so sure he’s moping anymore. A glance backwards at Jaskier as they hit the edges of the haunted estate’s gardens only confirms that fact for him, because Jaskier is staring straight ahead, lute strapped to his back, eyes wide and face drained and hands clenched tight in the straps of his own pack.

When he catches Geralt staring at him, he huffs, flicking his eyes quickly away, back up to the grand palatial mansion in the distance.

“You’re the one who wants to get this done,” Jaskier reminds him. “Quit dawdling now, come along, let’s go.”

Geralt lets himself be shepherded along with confusion throbbing in the back of his head, unable to be ignored. Before Jaskier, nothing much could bother him, nothing really affected him; after him, there’s always just that one distraction that feels slightly more important than everything else— even when his medallion is vaguely humming and has been for days.

Forcibly, Geralt makes his mind reprioritize. Whatever is up with Jaskier will come out eventually; by the time he’s finished clearing the ghosts out of this place, and they’re holed up back in the village with a crackling fire and hot food and warm beds, ensconced together beneath the covers, he’s sure he’ll get an earful of whatever’s been bothering him all day.

Until then, he has a job, and he’s going to do it.

Even if Jaskier’s continued silence is slowly shredding his nerves, peeling at his veins one layer at a time.

It’s not until they’re walking on a loose-gravel path up towards the manor’s massive front doors that Jaskier hesitates again. His footsteps falter; Geralt picks up on it easily, attuned as he is to him, listening as closely as he is for any signs of the spirits.

“Maybe I should stay out here,” Jaskier suggests, an offer he has not once made before. Geralt couldn’t pry him off of him, in most cases; Jaskier has followed him into actual certain death before and come out skipping at Geralt’s side. It doesn’t make sense for him to be this petrified of a random haunted house.

“Are you that afraid, Jaskier?” Geralt finally asks, and relishes in the frustrated noise of affront Jaskier makes. He doesn’t let his own steps falter, striding right up the stairs and to the door. Fishing the key their employer had given them from his satchel, he adds, “I’ve never known you to be a coward.”

The words hit their mark, and Jaskier spits, no hesitation, “I am not a coward, I’m just—” before he stops.

Fuck. Almost got him.

Geralt doesn’t push, waiting for Jaskier to fill the silence himself. That usually works, too, but Jaskier is so inexplicably and strangely tight-lipped today, he’s not sure he can make it work again.

Against the odds, though, Jaskier eventually bites out, “I just don’t think it’s smart if I go in with you.”

“They’re just ghosts, Julek,” Geralt points out, turning, and watches Jaskier visibly soften a bit at his nickname, his eyes flickering up to meet Geralt’s as he stands at the bottom of the porch’s stairs, still, not yet having climbed up to join him. “You’ve seen ghosts before. You wrote songs mocking the ghosts. Before I exorcised them.”

“Yes, well.” Jaskier fidgets with his straps, his pack, his lute, his satchel, his sleeves, anything and everything, unable to stand still. “That was before the—”

Again, he stops, biting his own lip until the pink flesh goes white with the sharp pressure. Geralt just barely fights down a growl of frustrated annoyance at the sight and sound of him.

And that’s when he thinks, for a second.

Properly thinks.

‘That was before the—’ Jaskier had started, but before the what? Before they took the contract? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe before they met— but, no, because Geralt has seen Jaskier face down countless ghosts since then.

It’s been a long while since they properly traveled together, taking contracts, fighting monsters, just— coexisting. Maybe he’s still thinking of when Geralt told him to leave; maybe that wound still stings, somewhere inside of him, and Geralt can’t figure out why that would be tangled up in ghosts, but it’s the real only before and after he can think of in their lives.

Unless Jaskier is hiding something from him.

But—

When would Jaskier have had the time to hide something else from him?

Geralt’s already heard about all the rest, and held Jaskier when he’s woken up screaming from nightmare-memories of torture and deprivation and chaos and magic and things his mind struggles to comprehend and process even on his best days. Sometimes, Jaskier can’t verbalize what it is he fears, but— Geralt was sure he knew all of it.

“Quit staring at me like that,” Jaskier insists. “You know what— Fine! Fine, if you’re that hell-bent on this, I’ll come in with you.” He takes the steps like they’ll burst into flames as soon as he puts weight on them, cautious, hesitant. “Only because you seem terrified to do this without me.”

Geralt is about to snap back, to remind him that he is the one who has been acting bizarre all day, but he just barely bites his tongue. He wanted Jaskier to accompany him inside, and he’s getting what he wants; there’s no point in pushing him when he’s this close to apparently snapping like a twig in a storm.

There’s no doubt about it: there are ghosts in this manor.

The second Geralt unlocks and opens the front door, he can feel the spirits inside, ghosts and ghouls filling every inch of the available space. It’s a near-palpable wall of tension; the air is so thick, Geralt feels that his sword may be able to slice it.

“This place is haunted,” Geralt states, unnecessary and mildly surprised by just how haunted it is. His medallion is practically shivering against his skin, making its recent low-level hum seem like nothing at all. “It was foolish to wait this long to ask for help.”

“Well, maybe they’ve had other priorities,” Jaskier comments, and Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m just going to perform a mass exorcism spell,” Geralt states, stopping right there in the foyer and slinging his bag off of his shoulder. There’s no point in wasting time, effort, or materials on taking out every ghost individually when he can take them all out at once.

He expects Jaskier to be grateful, since he clearly does not want to be here, and this will get them back out of the house and heading into the village that much quicker.

He does not expect Jaskier to immediately blurt, “Wait, no, no, don’t do that!”

Geralt halts, one hand supporting the bottom of his bag while the other pauses opening the snaps. Pinning Jaskier with an incredulous stare, he asks, “Why the fuck not?”

Jaskier’s hands fly together, then apart. He looks— panicked, which doesn’t make any sense, and that panic is mounting, becoming true fear. Something inside of Geralt seizes, tightening up and hardening at the sight of that fear without knowing what’s causing it, and he can’t take it anymore, he can’t. Not when Jaskier’s terror is becoming so genuine.

“Jaskier, what the fuck is going on?” Geralt demands. “You’ve been weird all day, and now—” He bites his tongue, then tries, “If something’s wrong—”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Jaskier insists, voice pitched high. Lie. “Why would something be wrong? I just don’t want to see a bunch of ghosts get blasted sky-high, is that such a crime? Maybe you should just— just let those ghosts alone, Geralt. They’re not bothering anyone out here, and—”

“They are, though,” Geralt points out. “That’s why we’re here. They’re haunting the house.”

“Well, has anyone considered how bloody fucking hard it must be to be dead?” Jaskier explodes, and Geralt has to stop himself from taking an actual step back, his energy feels so physical. “They’re alive one moment, and the next they’re not, and nobody comes along and tells you to move along to the next realm, do you? You’re just— just stuck here, and you don’t know why, and you really don’t want to leave, but you’re terrified you can’t leave, and— Well, who could blame anyone for being terrifying when you’re that fucking terrified—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt stops him, and Jaskier comes to a shuddering halt, chest heaving, face flushed with hectic colors, hands wringing together.

For a long moment, the two of them stare at each other. Geralt’s heart, normally so slow, feels like it’s racing, nearly the pace of a human’s, so fast it’s choking him.

“What happened?” Geralt asks him, throat tight.

He wants Jaskier to say, ‘Nothing.’ He wants him to ask, ‘What do you mean?’ He wants Jaskier’s response to be, ‘Nothing happened, silly, I just got on my soapbox, give me a moment and I’ll hop on down into your big, strong arms, if that’s alright with you?’

Jaskier doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, he lowers his head, hands coming up to dig his heels into his eye sockets.

“Jaskier,” Geralt repeats, and Jaskier exhales a shuddering breath.

“It was the fiend,” Jaskier confesses, like the words are torn out of him. He barely even sounds like himself. Geralt’s medallion is buzzing against his chest, and he’d assumed his own magic was setting it off, or something else in these last days, but—

—Maybe he was right. Maybe it was something else.

“What?” Geralt asks, feeling like he’s a staggering step behind.

“Near Vizima,” Jaskier clarifies, and that was weeks ago. “I know you said it was dangerous, but if it’s dangerous— Well, shit, Geralt, you shouldn’t be going alone, it was my own choice to go with you, and I—” He tears his hands away from his face, eyes flying up to meet Geralt’s. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, love, I swear, I just— I didn’t know how to tell you, and I didn’t want you to blame yourself, so, I— I—”

The puzzle pieces are fitting together in Geralt’s mind. His stomach is turning in a way it hasn’t in— in years, in years, because he can’t process this, can’t understand it, can’t accept the evidence and facts as they’re being presented to him.

“Julek,” Geralt says, and Jaskier’s whole expression melts, all of him crumpling, true fear and sorrow seizing him. They’re only an arm’s length apart, but it feels like an ocean. “What happened to you?”

Jaskier swallows. Geralt wonders if he needs to, anymore, or if it’s just a force of habit.

Then, Jaskier reaches to unfasten his tunic, pull apart his waistcoat, and expose his bare chest underneath.

Geralt hasn’t seen Jaskier in the light since then. They’d made love in the darkness, in shadows; Jaskier hasn’t let him see him dress, hasn’t permitted him to watch him bathe, and Geralt assumed he was self-conscious about something, and—

—And, now, he is staring into Jaskier.

There’s a jagged tear from his throat down, over his chest and slipped across his belly and dropping down even further, vanishing beneath the opened fastens of his trousers. The long laceration shimmers when he moves, as if it’s not entirely there; still, Geralt is treated to a full view of Jaskier’s insides, blood-red meat and torn-up organs and splintered bone, the ripped-up evidence of a fiend taking hold of him by the horns and tearing him to shreds.

When Geralt woke up the day after the fiend, asleep in his own bed, Jaskier had told him he’d been knocked unconscious. He’d told him he ended the fight for him; he’d told him he defeated the fiend himself.

‘Easy,’ Jaskier had said at the time. ‘Maybe I could even be a Witcher, too.’

Jaskier had been there. Jaskier had brought him home. Geralt doesn’t remember the end of that fight; he doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t remember any of it after he slammed his head and got knocked out, not a second.

“Jaskier,” Geralt exhales, staring through the wound of Jaskier’s torso into his own past, trying desperately to make this make sense in any other way.

It doesn’t work. Only one answer fits.

“I wanted to tell you,” Jaskier insists, voice choking on a sob. “I wanted to— I just— How do I even say that? I woke up, and I— I was just— I stepped out of my own body, Geralt! And you were laying there, and— Fuck, I thought you were dead, too, but you weren’t, and I— I panicked! I panicked, I didn’t— I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want— I don’t know. I don’t know, I—” He’s hysterical, now, voice high and tears flowing and hands flying. “—I didn’t want to be dead, Geralt, I— I don’t want to be dead, I don’t want to be dead, I don’t want to be dead—”

Geralt steps forward, reaches out, catches Jaskier’s twitching hands in his own and hauls him in, embracing him as tightly as he can, bloody spectral wound be fucking damned.

“Geralt,” Jaskier sobs into his throat. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want you to feel— to feel bad, it’s not your fault, I—”

“Shh,” Geralt shushes him, and Jaskier sobs again, clinging to him with tight fingers, falling apart in a way Geralt’s never seen from him before, ever, not even at his worst— not even at their worst. It’s almost more terrifying than Jaskier being dead.

Almost.

Jaskier.

Dead.

Geralt’s slow heart wants to stop.

“It’s okay,” Geralt says, if only because Jaskier says it to him when he’s upset, but it’s not. It’s not, it’s—

Or.

Or, Geralt could have woken up that morning in the muddied, bloody earth, rather than tucked into bed. He could have discovered Jaskier’s corpse next to him, split apart by the fiend, and no Jaskier in sight. No spirit to kiss him, or dress his wounds, or share his thoughts.

Jaskier is dead, but he’s not gone.

Geralt has to cling to something; he clings tightly to that, and even tighter to Jaskier.

“You’re still here,” Geralt points out, and Jaskier’s grip on him tightens.

“I don’t— I don’t know how long,” Jaskier says, through his crying. “I don’t know why I’m still here, I don’t—”

“I don’t, either,” Geralt points out. “None of us do.”

Jaskier half-snorts, unamused and wet. “This isn’t about the human condition, Geralt—”

“Hey,” Geralt stops him, and Jaskier huffs into his throat, arms tightening even further around him, unwilling to let him go. His ghost is warm; he feels like he’s still living.

Geralt’s medallion is humming, though.

And that hole through Jaskier’s belly—

“You’re still here,” Geralt says again, separating them just enough that he can grip Jaskier by the arms, pulling him in tight. He presses their foreheads together, insisting to him, “That is all that matters.”

“Ger—”

“Do you hear me?” Geralt demands, and Jaskier nods, swallowing, eyes flickering down before they flit back up to meet Geralt’s.

“Yes,” Jaskier whispers.

“I’m going to keep you here,” Geralt says, finding that he means it, that he will do— anything to keep Jaskier here with him. “We’ll find a place. We’ll— We can figure this out.”

Jaskier’s eyes stay on him. He doesn’t look like he quite believes him, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

Geralt tightens his grip all the same.

“Don’t go,” Geralt says, soft, vulnerable, more vulnerable than he thinks he’s ever been. He can’t help it; he feels like he’s just been gored to pieces, too.

“I won’t,” Jaskier says, like he has any control, like he can promise such a thing. “Geralt, I don’t want to go. I want to stay.”

When Geralt tilts in, reaching up to take Jaskier’s chin in his hand and hold him in place while he kisses him, his medallion hums, vibrating against his breastbone, and Geralt settles into the haunting of the rest of his life.