Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

He’s not banking on being spared — no one that ever got captured by these men ever came back. And considering he killed some fifteen of them before someone got him in the back of the head, he really doubts they’ll leave him alive unless he defects and fights for them, but honestly? He’s fucking tired and he knew what he was signing for when he joined the army, but he also had no illusions when it came to how to make use of his very limited skillset, so.

If he has to lose his head to these Vandals, so be it. It’s been what, twenty-five years, at some point he was bound to get too old and get slow and die, and at least he got his useless Roman citizenship for it. He’s not going to go to his death out of cowardice, at least.

He tries the bonds again. Too fucking tight, and of course he’s alone in the tent, he supposes they wouldn’t leave him with anyone else.

At least whoever’s playing outside is not so bad — the music’s nice, even if nowhere close to what he’s adjusted to. Then again, it’s not like you find gifted musician in the army, his army specifically. He has no idea of the language, but then again why would they sing in Latin or anything he could understand? Doubtful. He sighs, leans his head back against the pole he’s tied to, and when the music dies down he’s almost sad — most likely this is where someone drags him out and executes him. At least he went hearing something nice, he decides, and waits.

Except that some time passes and no one walks into his tent, which is not what he had expected, and then —

Well.

Someone does, except that it’s not a soldier.

He’s —

Considering that he has a lute under his arm, Geralt is sure this has to be the musician from before, and — well. He’s fought enough of these people to recognise the fashion, and he does have to be one of them, but somehow his clothing seems to be a tad more refined — the trousers hugging his legs are tighter than most he has seen, the white tunic covering up to the middle of his thighs has some kind of flowers embroidered all over the hems and the furs covering his shoulders are… the same color as the trousers. Also, while his hair is still long enough to touch his shoulders, it’s way more trimmed and well-kept than usual, from what Geralt could see, and his beard is… well. He takes care of it, that’s for sure.

“Didn’t think they’d send a bard to kill me,” Geralt mutters, figuring that there’s no other reason why he would be here.

“I am not here to kill you,” the man replies, sounding outraged, and wait —

“You speak Latin?” Geralt blurts. And well, too. That was some excellent pronunciation, actually —

“Sure I do,” the man says, “I mean, I guess it wouldn’t be obvious, but — eh.” He shrugs. “Years ago, we did get a prisoner from one of your cities that used to be a professor. My parents had half in mind of giving me an education, so he just taught me. He was from Greece, so I speak very passable Greek as well.”

“I suppose that’s why you’re playing songs and not conquering lands?”

“That, too,” the man says, “not that it’s a very popular choice, but honestly? I’d rather do that than spill blood. Also, I mean, most of them really have a beef with you lot, but me? Who cares?”

“My lot?”

“Whose army do you fight for, my extremely handsome friend?”

Geralt’s eyes go wide. They’re certainly not friends and he’s not —

He shakes his head. “Well, yes,” he says, “and I have my citizenship and all, but who cares? I mean, has the Emperor showed up anywhere near here recently? Does he even care? I joined the army because I had no other choice and turned out I was good at it, but in between that and my lot, I don’t know about it.”

“You still killed twenty of us back out there.”

“Well,” Geralt shrugs, “I don’t get paid if I don’t. And who are you anyway?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, forgot my manners. Jaskier, at your service. And you would be?”

“Geralt,” he shrugs, figuring that if he’s going to die there’s no point in not saying the name.

“Nice,” Jaskier says, what, “certainly better than what my comrades out there call you.”

“What do they call me?”

“Oh, the Roman White Wolf or something along those lines.”

“Why?”

“Apparently you ripped apart one of our soldiers with our teeth once.”

“I tore an ear out of one of them with my teeth once and that was because he was about to stab me in the gut.”

“Never said I blamed you for it. It’s a war, that’s your job. Anyway, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing in your tent.”

“Actually, yes,” Geralt says. “I thought the next person I see would just take my head.”

“Well,” Jaskier says, “I think it was the plan, yes, but most of them are drunk off their asses and they decided to leave it for the morning. I wasn’t drunk off my ass, though, and I was curious.”

“Of what? To see what kind of monster ripped soldiers apart with his teeth?”

Jaskier flushes. “Please,” he says, “I always figured that was exaggerated. No, to see if you’d take a deal.”

The fuck, Geralt thinks, but — well. Hearing him out won’t hurt, right?

“A deal. What deal would you want with me?”

“Right, so, as you can see, I’m not exactly… I mean, nothing against my people and all, but I don’t care for all this conquering and plummeting and shit, and I’d just rather play my music, you know.”

“You’re not half bad at it,” Geralt shrugs. “I mean, not that I know what the fuck you were singing about but —”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” the bard says, what the fuck, “and of course you wouldn’t, but I mean. Wasn’t great lyrically. But they don’t like my compositions either, so whatever. Anyway, long story short, I’d just rather do that, but I’m also… I mean, I can handle myself in a fight, but if I was to run away and they caught me, I couldn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Right. While I could?”

“While you could,” Jaskier says. “So, let’s say I cut those pesky ropes and we slide out of here and go back where your army is, you could leave me at some village where they’ll take me and I can, like, do my work in peace, and you can go back to whatever it is you handsome Roman soldiers do. You could handle a few people coming after us, couldn’t you?”

Now that was not what Geralt had expected.

It’s not even a bad idea. If everyone else is drunk, no way he couldn’t handle them.

And yet —

He sighs, stares up into the bard’s pretty blue eyes which look absolutely sincere, and he thinks about how much he loathes doing his job and how he was just sure he would die the second he got too slow for this, and —

“I mean,” he says, “I could handle them.”

“Great! Then —”

“A moment,” he says, wishing his voice didn’t sound like gravel. “Let’s say… let’s say that I didn’t care to go back to my army.”

“… You don’t?” Jaskier asks, and he doesn’t sound judging, and —

Geralt has no fucking clue why he opens his mouth and talks, except that he thinks getting this close to biting it gave him some perspective and it’s not like he’s going to lose anything by spilling the beans.

“Listen,” he says, “I joined the damned army because — let’s say I had no other choice.” Well, when your mother just leaves you in the middle of the road and never comes back and the next people passing by are a Roman legion looking for recruits and don’t mind taking you in and you have only your name and your clothes on you, what’s the choice? “I’ve been there as long as I’ve known, I was seven when they took me in, and it’s been… thirty years.”

“Thirty?”

“Well, they haven’t gotten the best of me yet, but I don’t care for it anymore if I ever did. And at least before it seemed like — they did give a damn, from Rome. Now it’s just… I don’t think we heard from the Emperor in years. They just send generals that sends us against your people and no one cares if we die. What if I don’t want to go back to my army?”

Jaskier crouches on his feet, staring straight at him, and how are his eyes so blue, damn it?

“I’m listening,” he says. “What it is that you would want to do?”

He shrugs. He feels ridiculous saying it, but.

“I always was good at dealing with horses,” he admits. “I just — always thought that if I got as far as getting paid for my service and be done I’d find a village, buy a stable and — do that. I don’t really care to go back to killing people I never knew for someone who doesn’t even know I exist.”

He tries to not look down, wondering when Jaskier’s face will go from interested to — well. He’ll see when he starts thinking it’s utterly pathetic — the one time he shared that with someone else in the army, long before the few friends he had were stationed somewhere else, he had to break the guy’s teeth to make sure no one would think he had gotten soft.

But Jaskier just grins at that. “That’s so sweet,” he says, “and I don’t see how that would change my proposal that much.”

“It… wouldn’t?” Geralt asks.

“I mean,” Jaskier says, “oh, I forgot to say, I did steal some money from the loot we got from your men. No one’s going to notice really, but never mind that. So… the plan could be that I cut those ropes, we go back beyond the border, we don’t find your army, we go ahead until we find a suitable village where I can play and you can buy off your stable, I win, you win.”

“Seems to me like I win more than you do,” Geralt says.

“Please,” Jaskier says, “nonsense. The money came from your army, so. I’m just caring and sharing.”

Well.

Put it like that.

“I’ll need a sword or two,” Geralt says.

“Oh, they kept yours right in the next tent over and the person guarding it is completely drunk. We can get them.” Jaskier moves behind him, cuts off the ropes with a small knife and then leans back as Geralt stands back up, trying to massage his wrists, except his fingers are still —

“Here,” Jaskier says, his own fingers covering Geralt’s wrists, massaging softly, and it’s probably embarrassing that he can’t remember the last time anyone touched him this gently. He does it for a while, until Great can bend his fingers properly again, and —

Well.

He was right. Everyone around here is so drunk they couldn’t stand up — they get the swords back in a moment and it’s easier than he thought to slide off the camp. Jaskier only has a small bag of provisions, apparently, and he has nothing bar his sword and armor, but that’s fine — he just wants to be out of here, and he doesn’t stop either of them until he thinks he’s put enough distance behind them and he’s reasonably sure they’re beyond the Roman border, and only then he makes camp.

Jaskier had been remarkably silent during the trip, but Geralt had warned him that they should try to not be too noisy, and he had sticked to it admirably. When they finally find a meadow they can sit down into, Jaskier looks exhausted but giddy, and Geralt just wants to sleep for a month for how tired he is, except —

“I’ll take watch,” he rasps. “It’s not long until dawn anyway.”

“Nonsense,” Jaskier says, “you can sleep. I doubt you did in that tent and you fought before and you kept watch until now. I can do that. I mean, I’m rested. And I’m not going to murder you in your sleep.”

“I’d hope so,” Geralt snorts, but — he is tired, and he hasn’t slept in three days not counting the part where he got knocked out. He leans against a tree and closes his eyes, wishing the damned leather on him wasn’t completely soaked in sweat, and he can hear Jaskier humming under his breath one of those songs in his language he was singing before.

He falls asleep in a moment and he doesn’t even have time to worry about how easy it had been.

— —

The next morning, he feels considerably better rested, at least, and Jaskier looks perky as he tells Geralt he found a river nearby if he’d like to take a wash, and Geralt does, and he can’t — stop noticing that while he’s washing, Jaskier is staring.

“What,” he asks, “too many scars for your tastes?”

“No,” Jaskier shakes his head, “I just thought you look remarkably handsome, and do not stare at me like that. I have eyes. And I know your lot doesn’t look down on men finding men remarkably handsome as much as ours sort of does.”

“How would you?”

“I read Catullus, Geralt.”

“You read who?” Poetry wasn’t exactly what people passed around in the army, and for that matter they were only taught basic reading, not — whatever this is.

“Hm, let me see if I remember that, oh, right, pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi, qui me ex versiculis meis putastis, quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum. Nam castum esse decet pium poetam ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est; qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem, si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici, et quod pruriat incitare possunt, non dico pueris, sed his pilosis qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos. Vos, quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis? Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. Truly inspiring, isn’t it?”

“What the fuck,” Geralt says, “was that.”

“Poetry,” Jaskier grins. “Roman poetry. Thought you’d hear filthier stuff, where you come from.”

“I mean, yes, but — never mind,” Geralt says, hoping he’s not blushing and that it didn’t show that what bothered him wasn’t the content but the way Jaskier’s voice sounded when he recited whatever that was. “And anyway, I’m not.”

“What? Handsome? Think again.”

“Considering people thought my eyes were cursed, I don’t know about that,” Geralt shakes his head. He’s heard enough about how weird they look, from his mother first and foremost.

“Then you’re surrounded by tasteless people and I’ll stand by it. And by the way, I have two changes of clothes. Think we’re roughly the same size, not counting that muscle. If you want to do away with that armor…”

Geralt doesn’t think twice about it and — fine, Jaskier’s clothes are a bit tight on him but they’re warm and thankfully they’re a nondescript brown color that doesn’t stand out, so they’ll have to do.

“Right,” he says, “pretty sure the next village’s that way, though maybe we should find somewhere not as close to the border.”

“Not in a hurry,” Jaskier smirks, starting to pluck at his lute, and — ah, well, he might as well ask since he’s at that.

“By the way,” Geralt asks, “that name of yours, I don’t know how well they’ll take it. What’s it for anyway?”

“Oh,” Jaskier replies, “fair. I mean, it’s for the flowers. Those flowers.”

He nods towards the side of the road, which is littered with yellow tiny buttercups — somehow, Geralt isn’t exactly surprised. It somehow fits him.

“Well,” Geralt says, “if you want to use that, whatever. Just, change it to Latin, I guess.”

“I don’t know how I feel about ranunculus,” Jaskier shrugs, “doesn’t sound like a bard’s name, but — oh, wait. What’s those?”

Geralt follows Jaskier’s stare, where a patch of dandelions is growing next to the buttercups.

“Taraxacum, I think,” he shrugs. It’s not like flower names ever were his forte.

“Well, better than the other one. We shall see. Maybe they’ll be nice villagers and they won’t care. Or I can go with that. You know, I have a better idea.”

“Such as?”

“Why stop at a stable? Just buy off an entire inn with the stable so you can be the innkeeper and I can just play there and I don’t have to look around. You’d get a very good cut.”

“… You really don’t sound like you’ll tire of me anytime soon,” Geralt tells him, and he wishes he hadn’t, but — he doesn’t make friends easily. He never did, and —

Jaskier grins. “I don’t think I will,” he says, and then leans close and kisses the corner of his mouth, what the fuck — “So, shall we? I’d like to get somewhere with a bed before night falls. For reasons.”

Thing is, Geralt thinks he knows those reasons.

He also thinks he won’t say no, if he’s right.

“Right,” he says, “stop chattering and walk then.”

“Oh, you aren’t saying no!” Jaskier grins, sounding delighted.

It would be a first, Geralt thinks, but —

Honestly, he could run an inn, and maybe he shouldn’t let himself hope too much before they actually find someplace where they could put that plan in action —

But he can look forward to it.

He thinks he really does.

End.