#man i hate songfic [writes 1.5k words of songfic that was supposed to be a QUICK drabble]

[lambden]

29 (I know this is ur witcher blog so I understand if legally you have to write a witcher drabble)

well. british one x superman/the lesser Hemsworth it is

G, 1592 words, no warnings except some canon anti-witcher sentiment

“Look at this,” rants Jaskier. Geralt doesn’t turn to look, sure their attention has been caught by the same thing. The notice board is rather scarce. Isla wants a farmhand to help with her unexpectedly rowdy herd of kids, without specifying if she means goat children or human ones. Preben, recently widowed, wants for a new wife— but not unless she’s blonde. The local guard wants everyone to pay the new levy without a fuss. Good luck with that one.

The only posting of any notice at all is a request to clear out some drowners by the river. Low risk, low reward. Geralt sucks his teeth at their circumstances, more bored than disappointed by the lack of opportunity, and his bard takes the sound as taciturn encouragement to continue complaining. “It’s unforgivable. Fucking bastardly idiots and their idiot propaganda! I— I’m going to take it down!”

Before Geralt reasons that they should probably take it down after killing the drowners, Jaskier lunges for the board. He doesn’t tear down the contract at all, instead going for a poster that Geralt hadn’t even noticed. He’s seen so many of these pinned up in the area that his eyes had honestly glanced over its details, but he is familiar with the general idea behind the idiot propaganda. In fact, he’s been dealing with similar bastardly idiots for decades before Jaskier was even born. He deadpans, “You gonna save it as a nice keepsake from your travels?”

“Save it for kindling, more like,” spits Jaskier, his eyes already blazing. He crumples up the poster in his hands, tossing it to the ground and then crushing it under his fancy but very solid heel. 

Even though Geralt hadn’t seen the specifics, he supposes this is probably a nice gesture. If the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire were the ones who posted it, their local chapter would waste weeks trying to deduce who was behind this heinous, heretic act of vandalism. And if the reigning local government posted it as an anti-magic measure, the consequences could be even greater for the town. Considering the hypothetical repercussions makes him grimace, but… Jaskier has already intervened, catalysing this town’s fate. For someone who claims to act as a narrator to the world’s plots, he is alarmingly good at stepping in and changing them. Geralt supposes the same could be said about himself, although he does it to his own chagrin whereas some great force drives Jaskier’s actions.

He wants to ask the bard what he might call that force, and what would possess him to venture so far out of his way to incur the wrath of people in power. But the inciting incident is already crumpled up in the dirt, and Geralt has no desire to enter yet another cyclical and monotonous conversation about why the bard does the things he does. It’s not like things will change. He has seen dozens of kings rise and fall, and the minutiae of each one’s rule only comes with more and more catastrophically cruel fallout for their kingdoms. Jaskier might have ripped down one poster, but an even harsher and more explicit one will be nailed up in its stead.

Geralt swallows his twisted, uncomfortable thoughts. He glances around to check that no one saw. Then he tears the drowner notice down from the board, shoving it into his pocket.

-

The mid-day sun beats down on them with a violence that would surely burn the shoulders and scalp of any normal human. It’s too bright to properly make out the path ahead, and they’ll need to stop soon so that Roach can drink and rest. Even Geralt, the only Wolf to ever survive the worst Trials twice, is fighting off fatigue. Maybe he should have taken Jaskier up on his offer to play an extra show last night, so they could have stayed in Novigrad another day. Instead they’re riding along the bank of an unnamed river, languishing together. And while the proximity to water should come as a relief and lower their temperatures, instead the humidity is just making his armour torturous to wear.

Or, rather, Geralt is riding along the bank and languishing. Jaskier, as he has been for the last few hours, is strumming his instrument and singing a quiet but fervent melody to himself. If Geralt didn’t love him so much he thinks he could kill him right now.

“Stop,” he commands, and Jaskier heeds him immediately, fingers going still on his lutestrings. “No, I… keep playing, if you want. But Roach needs a break.”

“I know what that’s code for,” sings Jaskier, which infuriates Geralt even more because he doesn’t know what that was code for, and he’s the one who fucking said it. “While I’m touched at your concern for my well-being, I’m right in the middle of composing, darling! Give me twenty more minutes and I think I’ll have something polished to perform at Midinváerne.”

Geralt digs his heels into Roach’s sides anyway. She stops cantering with a patient huff, and he directs her down towards the riverbed. 

The bard, despite his stupid request to continue onwards, trails after them down the bank. “I’m not that same boy who followed you out of Posada, you know,” he huffs impatiently, sounding amusingly similar to Roach. “My heels have blistered so many times they’re practically leathery now. And I can hold my piss like a champion.”

“That’s not why we stopped,” Geralt grunts, because ‘shut up’ would be too impolite. Unfortunately, he isn’t the same man who led the way out of Posada either. “How can you even compose without singing any words? It’s just humming.”

“Oh, I learned a long time ago to write my songs in my head,” laughs Jaskier, carefree. Guilt stings briefly and sharply at Geralt’s heart; he bats it away, turning to face the rushing creek beside them. “I can remember the entire thing, and I’ll take it down on paper once we make camp for the night. Got my invitation to eternal damnation. Get in line, pass the wine, we’re going straight to hell!”

Geralt’s pierced heart freezes, and it takes him a heavy, long moment as his blood runs cold through his veins without any added toxicity to get ahold of his suddenly churning emotions. He can just picture Jaskier’s pyre now, and all the bigots who would line up to applaud the demise of a loud-spoken free-spirit. “You can’t perform that.”

“What?” Jaskier stops strumming again, although this time the silence is paired with genuine hurt behind his open, vulnerable expression. “You don’t like it? That’s only the bridge, the rest is far more evocative. It’s a love song, really, and it’s about loving your community and your comrades. And it’s a call to arms—”

“No arms,” grunts Geralt, made ineloquent by his fear. “They’ll… What brought this on?”

“I will admit, I took inspiration from a source I thought I never would.” The bard drags his fingertip along a lutestring, clearly remembering something Geralt doesn’t from their travels. The fidgeting makes him look younger than he is, and it serves as an abrupt and unwelcome reminder of his immortality. Geralt scowls. “Oh, come now. You haven’t even heard the chorus!”

“Fine.” He stares Jaskier down, and while the bard has never looked intimidated by him, some form of tension does grow between them as they exchange a heavy look. The only sound in the world around them is Jaskier’s finger playing with the string of his instrument; even Roach is silent as she laps up running water. “What’s the chorus.”

“Umm…” The bard plays the same chord progression Geralt has heard over and over the last few hours, enough that it has phased into background ambience— only now, he accompanies it with the worst words Geralt could have imagined. “This hell is better with you… ?”

“They’re going to hang you,” Geralt blurts out before he can help it.

“They won’t—”

“They will,” insists Geralt, aware of the slightly pleading tone his voice has taken but unsure how to suppress it. Without quite meaning to, he stomps through the reeds over to Jaskier. Before he can think any better of it, he grabs the bard by the face and holds him tightly in place so as to impress his fear more clearly upon him. Maybe that’s what it is— maybe he’s fearful, actually afraid, for the first time in a long fucking time. “Jaskier. You can’t.”

“I have to,” says Jaskier, possessed by that horribly dangerous passion that Geralt has seen ignited across his young face a thousand times before. “It’s important.”

“You’re important,” Geralt blurts out.

The river rushes beside them; slowly, through his fear, Geralt realizes that he’s cupping Jaskier’s cheeks in his hands and standing rather close. Jaskier inhales sharply, his heart somehow beating even faster than the witcher’s. Neither of them pulls away.

“Alright,” Jaskier mumbles, blue eyes bright with emotion. “I’ll save it for just the two of us, then.”

-

“Walk a mile on these coals, busy cleansing my soul… getting ready for the night… damned for eternity, but you’re—”

“They’ll burn you alive.”

“There’s no one around,” Jaskier reminds him, gesturing at the wide, empty trail around him.

Geralt thinks on this, then thinks on it again.

“Damned for eternity, but you’re coming with me into the afterlife—” Jaskier’s lute plays a sour note as Geralt jumps down from Roach’s saddle, trapping the instrument between them as he kisses Jaskier like they’re both doomed. Which, of course, they are.