Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jaskier is not interested in meeting any other witchers. Getting his heart broken once is plenty, thank you very much. He doesn’t need to deal with that pain a second time.

Unfortunately, destiny doesn’t seem to give a fuck what Jaskier wants.

He sees the body in the river while he’s filling his waterskin, and for a moment he thinks about leaving it to float on down. The man is clearly dead, after all, what with the arrow still standing out of his eye and bloody gashes showing through half a dozen rents in his tunic. But there’s no point letting him foul the water supply. Jaskier sighs and sets his waterskin aside and wades in to catch the body as it drifts down with the current, grabbing it by the ankles and hauling it out of the water. Fuck, but it’s heavy, waterlogged and unwieldy.

He’s thinking vague thoughts about piling stones over the body to make a cairn when the man moans.

There’s no fucking way he can be alive, not as injured as he is, but a second glance shows that he is, somehow, impossibly, still breathing. Jaskier stares for a long moment in shock and horror, and then he grits his teeth and goes and gets his pack. He’s had almost twenty years of learning how to care for injuries. These might be the worst ones he’s ever seen, but he knows what to do. He doesn’t want to think about how he gained that knowledge, but apparently destiny isn’t listening to what he wants right now.

He cuts the man’s tunic off and cleans and stitches the gashes, and then looks at the arrow. The eye is a loss, that’s clear enough. He should probably bring the man to a healer...but the chances of him living that long are slim, and Jaskier doesn’t have a way to get him there anyhow. Jaskier bites his lip and braces his knees against the man’s shoulders and draws out the arrow - no, a crossbow bolt, which means it doesn’t have a flared tip, thank fuck. He cleans out the horrid gaping socket and packs bandages into and around it, and sits back to regard the man thoughtfully.

He could leave the man here. No one would blame him. The man could be a bandit, a fleeing criminal, a mercenary deserting his troop. The scars littering his body certainly bear out the theory that he’s someone who makes his living with violence.

The...really quite familiar scars…

That one’s an endrega bite, or Jaskier will eat his own hat without salt. And that one’s from a werewolf, or maybe a warg - those are hard to tell apart. And the long one down the man’s ribs was probably from a kikimora’s claw. Jaskier has sewn shut wounds just like these, a dozen times and more.

“Ah fuck,” he says out loud to his unconscious audience. “You’re a witcher, aren’t you.”

The unconscious witcher doesn’t respond.

Jaskier puts his hands over his face and just breathes for a little while. He can’t believe he’s doing this. Why is he doing this. The chances are that this witcher will be just as much of an asshole as Jaskier’s last witcher.

But he can’t just leave him here to die.

Jaskier sighs and grabs his cloak, spreading it out on the muddy ground, gets his hands hooked around the unconscious witcher’s shoulders, and hauls him onto the cloak inch by painful inch. Then he uses the cloak as a very makeshift sledge to drag the witcher away from the riverbank, up towards the clearing where Jaskier has made camp. He makes it, back aching from bending over and hauling a couple of hundred pounds of deadweight, and lays the witcher out beside the firepit. Lighting a fire was easier when all Geralt had to do was twiddle his fingers -

Jaskier’s not thinking about that.

He gets the fire lit, and goes back down to the riverbank for his waterskin, and checks the snares that Geralt taught him how to make (fuck it, he’s not thinking about Geralt, he isn’t), finding two rabbits and a pheasant, which is a pleasant surprise. He wrings their necks and guts the bodies, grimacing at the blood and the smell. Geralt usually did this bit.

He’s got the rabbits roasting on sticks over the fire, and the pheasant half-plucked, when the witcher groans and blinks his one remaining eye open. It’s not gold, somewhat to Jaskier’s surprise, but a clear and inhuman green. The pupil is definitely slitted like a cat’s.

“Hullo, witcher,” Jaskier says, and waits to see what will happen.

The witcher lies still for a very long moment, breathing slow and even. Then he reaches up with one shaking hand to brush his fingers against the bandages wrapped around the side of his head. Finally he turns his head, very slowly, to look at Jaskier.

“‘Lo,” he croaks. His voice sounds like ten miles of bad road.

“Would you like some water?” Jaskier asks.

“‘Es,” the witcher rasps.

Jaskier moves slowly, keeping his hands in plain sight, to pick up his waterskin, and then kneels down beside the witcher and lifts his head a bit so he can pour sips of water slowly into the witcher’s open mouth. The witcher drinks about half the skin before he closes his mouth. Jaskier sets his head down and backs away again.

“Who?” the witcher asks, sounding pain-drunk and very confused.

“Nobody important,” Jaskier tells him sadly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just a bard.”

“Bard?” says the witcher, even more confused, and passes out again.

Jaskier finishes roasting the rabbits and puts the pheasant on to cook, and goes and washes his hands and re-fills the waterskin, and eats most of a rabbit, remembering to bury the bones off a ways so they won’t attract scavengers. The witcher is still unconscious. Jaskier hangs the remaining cooked rabbit and pheasant in a tree, hoping that will keep them from luring wolves close to the smells of fire and people, and curls up on his bedroll, watching the witcher through hazy eyes until sleep drags him down.

The witcher is still unconscious in the morning, or so Jaskier thinks until he comes back from his morning ablutions to find himself the focus of a brilliant green eye. “Good morning,” Jaskier says. “Water? Rabbit?”

“Please,” the witcher says, and attempts to push himself up with a shaking arm. Jaskier shakes his head and goes to grab the rabbit and pheasant out of the tree, and then sits behind the witcher to support him as he tears ravenously into both, not even bothering to spit out the bones. The crunching noises are quite unpleasant, but Jaskier’s heard worse. At least these are cooked, after all.

The witcher drains Jaskier’s waterskin before he slumps down again onto Jaskier’s much-abused cloak. Jaskier leans over to check on the gashes down the witcher’s chest, finding them half-closed already. Some more food and sleep, and not doing anything too stupid, and he ought to heal up well enough, even without any potions. Jaskier doesn’t know how to make witcher potions, but he does know they require really unpleasant ingredients, none of which he has on hand. The best he has is a bit of willow bark, and as far as he knows, that’s not potent enough to even make a dent in the sort of pain this witcher must be suffering, so the fellow will just have to cope without it.

“I remember you saying you’re a bard?” the witcher says, and Jaskier looks up to meet that single green eye again, slightly hazed with pain but much clearer than it was yesterday.

“I am, yes,” Jaskier says.

“How does a bard know so much about patching people up?” the witcher inquires.

Jaskier winces. “Long and unpleasant practice,” he says. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”

“Fair,” the witcher says. “Given that you’ve saved my sorry ass, I shan’t pry as to how you did so.” He raises a hand and offers it. “Aiden, of the Cats.”

“Julian,” Jaskier says, taking his hand. He doesn’t want to risk this witcher having heard of him. “Julian Pankratz.”

“A pleasure,” Aiden says, grinning weakly. “I would bow, were I able to stand.”

“How’s about you don’t try to get up and ruin all my work.”

“Fair! Very fair.” Aiden sags back a bit, hand falling back to his side. “I can’t repay you, Julian.”

“Didn’t do this for repayment,” Jaskier says. “Just don’t go and die on me now that I’ve used all my thread on you, and we’ll call it even.”

“That seems like I’m getting the better end of the bargain.”

Jaskier shrugs. “Maybe you’re my good deed for the year.”

“For the decade, I should think, given how close to dead I was,” Aiden says. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jaskier says, and gets up. “I’m...going to go check the snares.” He has to move, has to get away from this witcher who is not only not communicating in grunts and snarls and glowers, but is funny and well-spoken and even friendly.

He can’t let himself think about how sometimes Geralt was like this. How the grunts and glowers had gotten rarer as the years went by, until he’d thought they were gone forever, and then -

Well. He’s not thinking about that.

There are two more rabbits in the snares. He field-cleans them and brings them back to camp, and finds that Aiden has passed out again. He’ll be hungry when he wakes up.

Jaskier hates that he knows that.

He cooks the rabbits and leaves them where Aiden will see them when he wakes up, contenting himself with stale bread and jerky from his pack. He could leave now. With a couple more rabbits, Aiden will be able to heal enough to get to the river to drink and to hunt more food for himself; he’d be fine without Jaskier. And even if he isn’t, it’s none of Jaskier’s business. He’s done more than enough already.

He doesn’t leave.

Aiden wakes up and turns his head to see the rabbits, props himself up shakily on one elbow, reaches out and drags the first one close enough that he can eat it in a startlingly few enormous bites. The second one vanishes only a little more slowly. Jaskier rolls his waterskin over to within Aiden’s reach, and he scoops it up and drains most of it without bothering to pause between swallows.

Then he sits up the rest of the way, slowly and carefully, with one hand pressed to the bandages over his gashed side.

“Have you pulled your stitches?” Jaskier asks.

“No - no, they’re still all there, I think,” Aiden says. “Nice work, by the feel. Please note that I’m not asking where a bard learned to stitch wounds so well.” He rolls his shoulders, wincing. “How long have I been out?”

“A night and most of the day since I found you; I don’t know how long you were in the river.”

“Haven’t the faintest idea. How far are we from Hengfors?”

“Several days’ travel.”

Aiden grimaces. “Then I was probably floating for a couple of days, at least. Ugh.”

Jaskier knows he shouldn’t ask, but - “What happened to you?” A witcher without his swords or armor or medallion is unusual, given what he knows of Geralt -

No, gods damn it. He’s not thinking about that.

“Ambush,” Aiden says. “There was - I was on a contract - and then I remember seeing one of my brothers on the road - and then -” his hand drifts up to touch the bandages wrapped around his head, then drifts down to his chest and pauses.

Looking for his medallion, Jaskier realizes. The one that isn’t there. The swiftly smothered expression of grief that twists the witcher’s face is bitter enough to make Jaskier’s heart clench in his chest.

“I don’t remember what happened after that,” Aiden murmurs.

“I can’t blame you,” Jaskier says.

“They must’ve taken my gear and dumped me in the river. Huh.” Aiden stretches out his arms and legs slowly, wincing occasionally, and frowns down at his feet. He was wearing socks, which Jaskier tugged off and left to dry by the fire; his boots are gone the way of the rest of his armor. “This is going to be...interesting.”

Jaskier knows he shouldn't. He knows it’s a terrible idea. He does it anyway, because when has he ever been known for good decisions? “You can come with me to the next town. I’ve got enough coin to get you boots and a decent outfit, at least.”

Aiden looks up at him, single eye wide. “That’s…” His eye narrows. “That’s uncommonly kind. Why?”

“Because I’m a fucking pushover,” Jaskier says, and stands up. He has to go gather firewood or something before he screams at his own folly.

When he comes back, Aiden is doing very slow and careful stretches, and wincing occasionally. Jaskier builds the fire up and empties the sack he’s made of his doublet - edible plants, berries and roots and leaves that Geralt taught him how to recognize, but he’s not thinking about that - and plops the pair of rabbits that his snares have provided down beside them, then hands the witcher a knife. “I hate skinning them.”

“You really don’t fear me, do you,” Aiden says, frowning at him and twirling the knife in long, callused fingers. “No one sane hands a witcher a weapon.”

“Yes, well,” Jaskier says, and his mouth runs away with him, as it always does. “One of you lot’s already cut my heart out; if you’re going to do so literally rather than metaphorically, you may as well get on with it.”

“Huh,” Aiden says, and thank fuck doesn’t say anything else, just reaches out for the rabbits and begins skinning them with swift, efficient motions. He waits until the rabbits are roasting over the fire, along with several of the roots, before he adds, “Walking into town with a weaponless witcher isn’t going to win you too many friends, Julian-who-saved-me. It might be best to go our separate ways.”

“And have you die on the side of the road and waste all my good thread?” Jaskier asks, frowning at him. It is true that an unarmed witcher - one so obviously injured, too - will be awfully tempting prey for the sort of assholes Jaskier has learned are regrettably common among humans, the ones who think witchers are no better than the monsters they destroy. Without swords or armor, Aiden’s at a distinct disadvantage. But they can’t get swords or armor or even boots for him without going to a town…

“I have it,” Jaskier says at last. “We’ll put a bit of cloth over your eyes - thin stuff, so you can see through it - and tell everyone you’re my brother, who saved me from bandits by sacrificing yourself, and was beaten and left for dead.”

“That is ridiculous,” Aiden says, staring at him in dismay. “It will never work.”

*

“Oh, you poor thing!” the innkeeper fusses, patting Aiden’s shoulder and chivvying him towards the hearth. “Sit down, sit down - there’s a stool just to your right - oh, you brave man, such a good brother, and at such a price!”

“Well,” Aiden says, offering a lopsided smile towards the sound of her voice - he can’t see more than vague shapes, it’s disorienting and sort of terrible but he’s dealt with worse - “he’s the one who knows how to patch people up, and I certainly can’t play for coin to earn back what they took from me.”

“Oh, you dear brave man!” the innkeeper says. “You sit right there and I’ll bring you some food.” She bustles off, and Julian laughs, a bare huff of breath that no one but a witcher would have heard.

“You doubted my genius,” he teases quietly.

“I sit corrected,” Aiden murmurs back. He hasn’t had so warm a welcome in a tavern in...well, pretty much ever, in point of fact. Julian chuckles again, lays a gentle hand on Aiden’s shoulder, and then swaggers onto the hearth, drawing the attention of the tavern’s clientele with a flamboyant sweep of his arm. At least, Aiden assumes that’s what the gesture was.

“Gentlefolk! My friends!” Julian says. “I come to lay my songs before you, in hopes that you will favor me with a smile - a mere smattering of applause - perhaps a single coin or two, that I may use to buy boots for my valiant brother, without whom I would no-doubt be even now as dead as last year’s bacon!”

Aiden flinches a little as everyone slews around to look at him, but the innkeeper picks that moment to come bustling back over and press a warm bowl of stew into his hands, and apparently that’s enough to convince everyone that he’s...harmless. Or maybe even friendly. It probably helps that he’s wearing an old shirt Julian had in his pack, which hangs on Aiden like a tent, and his feet are bare, and there’s a strip of thin linen wrapped around his head (and his other bandages) so no one can see the unnatural pupil of his remaining eye. There’s a round of murmured greetings, and then Julian slings his lute over his chest and starts to play, and Aiden is distracted from stares and stew alike. The bard is good. Not tavern-circuit good, court good. Aiden’s lurked in enough rafters, listening to court musicians while he waits to spot his mark, to know what court-quality bards sound like, and Julian is easily better than half the ones Aiden’s ever encountered. What the fuck is he doing out here, wandering around alone, dragging three-quarters-dead witchers out of rivers and patching them up?

He’s certainly good enough to draw a crowd; the common room is full to bursting by the time Julian finally stops playing, and Aiden has lost count of how many soft pings of coin on stone he’s heard, as people toss copper and silver onto the hearth and into the lute case laid out near Aiden’s sock-clad feet. Even if every one of those coins is copper, it’s still a good haul, and Aiden has definitely heard the chime of silver several times.

“Thank you, my friends!” Julian says at last, his lute falling silent. “Thank you, thank you! You have been the finest audience I have had in months - nay, years! I shall sing of the hospitality and courtesy of this fair town across the length and breadth of the continent!”

That earns him some chuckles and a few approving hoots of good humor, and he comes over to sit beside Aiden, smelling of happiness and sweat. “Well!” he says, under the noise of renewed conversation, once the innkeeper has brought him a bowl of stew of his own, “we can certainly start getting you re-outfitted tomorrow.”

“How much did you make?” Aiden inquires.

“Hm,” Julian says, and there’s a faint clinking as he sorts through the coins in his lute case. “You know, I think this must be a good strategy, claiming you as my heroic blind brother. There’s got to be close to a hundred orens in here.”

Aiden boggles. That’s as much as he might ask for a couple of nekkers - more than enough for a room for the night, and a new pair of boots, and half a dozen other things. “You’re very good,” he says at last. “I don’t know that I’ve heard better outside of a court, and often not even then.”

Julian is silent for a long moment. At last he says, in a surprisingly small voice, “Thank you.”

That can’t be the first time someone has told Julian he’s a good musician.

“Anyhow!” Julian says, tone all false brightness. “The gracious Mistress Pola has given us a room in thanks for the custom I brought in tonight, and tomorrow we can get you some gear to replace what you lost in your valiant defense of my person, o bravest of brothers.”

The room they’ve been given is small but clean, and the bed is large enough for two without any uncomfortable squishing. Julian doesn’t show any worry at sharing a bed with a witcher - doesn’t even hesitate, in fact.

Aiden has so many questions that he really can’t ask, not without probably offending the man who has saved his life and is now saving it again by not leaving Aiden to wander unarmed and still-healing in the wilderness.

He settles for being a very polite bedmate, keeping to his side of the straw mattress and not flopping atop Julian as he would one of his fellow Cats.

Or as he would Lambert.

Fuck.

He’s been trying very hard not to think about Lambert. The Wolf will have expected them to meet up - will be wondering where Aiden is. Will probably be pissed, because Lambert’s first reaction to almost any emotion is anger, especially if what the anger is covering is disappointment. Aiden promised to meet him in Hengfors, and that was the better part of a week ago. By this point, Lambert will either have given up like a sensible person, and gone fuming off to find something else to do, or will still be rattling around Hengfors, seething, and dealing with every monster within a day’s ride of the city.

By the time Aiden has finished healing, and has boots and armor and maybe even a sword again, and has maybe figured out some way to repay Julian for his life (twice or three times over), even a stubborn Wolf will have moved on, though. Will have gone on the Path, leaving no note behind.

The best chance Aiden has of finding him isn’t Hengfors - by the time he could make it there, Lambert would be long gone. But there’s one place Lambert is guaranteed to go.

It’s a place banned to all Cats, of course, but Aiden doesn’t much care about that. His own School has betrayed him - and he’s not letting himself think about that, about seeing the twins to his own medallion around the throats of his murderers - and his medallion is gone, at the bottom of the river or in the pockets of a trophy-hunter, he doesn’t much care which. Fuck the Cat School anyhow. If old Vesemir wants Aiden to disavow them entirely as the price for getting into Kaer Morhen, Aiden will do so with a song in his heart. One of Julian’s songs, even.

But getting to Kaer Morhen means getting across Kaedwen before winter closes the pass. Aiden has no idea which direction Julian intends to go after this; the chances of it being east are probably fairly slim. Still, it’s worth asking.

In the morning, over bowls of honeyed porridge, he does so. Julian hums.

“I’ve no preference,” he says at last. “I suppose I should try to circle around to Oxenfurt by the start of winter, but it’s only a month past midsummer; I’ve time to wander. If you want to go east, we could make a loop through Kaedwen easily enough.”

Aiden frowns. If Julian wants to go to Oxenfurt, it would make more sense for Aiden to bring him there and then head for Kaer Morhen. Aiden can keep himself safe on the road - current circumstances notwithstanding - far better than a bard can. But the first step for either plan is to head south, so they can do that until they get to the Pontar; conceivably Aiden could even stick Julian on a reputable boat going west and head up into Kaedwen himself without feeling like he’s abandoning his savior to the dangers of the road.

Well, the very first step is getting Aiden some boots, and some decent clothes.

It turns out word of the “heroic brother” who saved the bard from bandits has spread through town; the cobbler offers a pair of re-soled boots for a downright ridiculously cheap price, and the woman at the secondhand clothing stall offers a steep discount as well. Aiden is used to the upcharge that comes with being a witcher; being given things cheaply is just...astonishing. Julian seems to take it in stride, though, flattering both cobbler and shopkeeper beautifully, and by midmorning Aiden has new boots and a couple of sets of decent clothing and even a pack with half a dozen useful traveling essentials and a bedroll strapped to it, plus a truly ridiculous wide-brimmed hat.

“I think it’s dashing,” Julian says. “Also, useful when it rains, which it does so often in these parts.”

Aiden has to admit there’s something to that, when, around midafternoon, the skies open. They’re several miles along the road already - the bard walks fast, and without apparent effort, as though he could keep this pace up all day - and there’s nowhere nearby that looks like a promising place to make camp, but Julian just sighs and tugs his cloak’s hood up a little higher, and Aiden adjusts his hat and slogs onward. He’s not going to be outdone by a human, even so unusual a human as Julian is proving to be.

*

Aiden finds them a shallow cave so they can get out of the rain for the night, and they make a cold meal of bread and cheese and mutton from the last town, and then Jaskier unpacks his lute and plays for a little while, practicing some older tunes since he doesn’t think he can currently bear to try to write any new ones. He’s not expecting any sort of reaction from his companion. He’s certainly not expecting Aiden to say, “D’you know The Swamps of Velen?”

Jaskier blinks. He does know it, actually - it’s a comic song, in which the singer bewails the misery of living in Velen’s swamps but ends every verse by concluding that he’ll never actually leave, because everywhere else will probably be worse. He just wasn’t expecting Aiden to - to have an opinion about music. To give a single solitary shit.

“I know it,” he says, and launches into the song before he can let himself go any further down that particular rabbit hole.

Aiden claps along, and joins in on the chorus, and is generally a marvelous audience. Jaskier tries very hard not to think about the phrase fillingless pie.

“I’m not prying,” Aiden says once Jaskier has finished playing and packed his lute away, “but I am dying of curiosity. How in hell does a bard of your quality end up wandering about in the back end of nowhere?”

“Terrible life choices,” Jaskier says sadly. “And, apparently, very bad taste in friends. Or ex-friends, I should say.”

“Huh,” Aiden says. “Well. Their loss is my gain.” He leans back against the wall of the cave and laces his hands behind his head with a slight wince. “How long do you think we can keep up the blind-brother act?”

“Well, you’re already looking much less battered,” Jaskier says, taking the change in subject gratefully. “But maybe one more town? Especially if we keep the bandages on and you try to look pitiful. I don’t think I can make enough to get you a silver sword, not in one night, but I might be able to manage steel.”

“Steel’s a damn good start,” Aiden says. “And then I can start earning us some money, too.” He sighs. “Assuming I can find things to kill that don’t require silver.”

Jaskier hums. “I…don’t suppose you’ve got any musical talent,” he says thoughtfully.

“Musical talent?” Aiden raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never learned an instrument.”

“You’ve got a very nice voice,” Jaskier says, thinking the idea through properly. “And I could buy a tabor or something fairly easily. How would you feel about being my brother, who plays the drum and sings a bit and protects me, until we can get you…wherever you’re going?”

“That’s…very generous,” Aiden says slowly. “You know I can’t repay you even for what you’ve done so far, right?”

“I know,” Jaskier sighs. “But…ah, hell. Call me a fucking pushover if you like. It’s nice to have friendly company, and I happen to think witchers are kind of important to have around.”

“That makes you pretty damn unique, bard,” Aiden says. Jaskier…flinches, just a little.

Bard, in a witcher’s voice…

“Alright there?” Aiden asks, sitting up and peering worriedly at Jaskier.

“Could you…not call me that?” Jaskier asks.

“Sure,” Aiden says easily. “D’you prefer Julian?”

No one’s called him Julian since he left home. It’s…not much better than bard, actually. And he doesn’t want to admit to Jaskier, either. Which doesn’t leave much. But if they’re supposed to be pretending to be brothers…

“Julek,” he says. “Call me Julek.”

“Julek,” Aiden agrees. “My little brother Julek.”

And apparently it’s…just that easy. Jaskier and Aiden pull off the blind-brother act at the next town - Jaskier makes very good coin again, though the audience is less extravagantly generous than the first one, probably because Aiden looks less like a wet cat - and they manage to find a decent sword and a small tabor, and set off south towards the Pontar, refining their story and their double act as they go.

Aiden turns out to have a decent sense of rhythm as well as a good voice, which is a pleasant surprise. They have to stop using the gauze - an apparently blind man with a sword is odd enough to attract comment - but Aiden apparently can control how wide his pupil is, and manages to fake being human well enough, at least in the dim light of tavern rooms. He claims the eyepatch makes him look dashing, which Jaskier suspects is a cover for how worried the witcher is about having lost so much depth perception; at the very least it gives them a good prop for the story about Aiden having bravely defended his brother from bandits, which does continue to make audiences a little more willing to throw money into Jaskier’s hat.

Between towns, Aiden is good company, chatty and amiable and not too irritated by Jaskier rehearsing aloud as they go. He does vanish into the woods, sometimes for hours, but he always returns with rabbits or pheasants or, once or twice when they’re near enough a town that they can sell the excess meat, an entire deer or small boar. He finds them camping spots, too, sniffing out small caves or pleasant clearings near running water, and takes over cooking duties. He’s much better at cooking than Jaskier is, and entire orders of magnitude better than Geralt was -

And Jaskier isn’t thinking about that.

Aiden acquires some throwing knives once they have enough coin, and starts practicing with them near-constantly, learning how to adjust for his new lack of depth perception. Jaskier would be slightly taken aback by how quickly Aiden learns to compensate - how quickly, in fact, he goes from bedraggled and miserable to the picture of health and strength - but that’s witchers for you, right? Unnaturally swift healing is part of the package.

But it’s easy to forget that Aiden is a witcher, when he’s laughing at one of Jaskier’s jokes or pestering Jaskier to teach him ever more complicated patterns on the tabor or singing along gleefully with some of the more ridiculous bawdy songs in Jaskier’s repertoire, taking the lady’s part with a sort of wicked delight and pretending to swoon against convenient trees.

He’s nothing like Jaskier’s other witcher -

Which Jaskier isn’t thinking about godsdammit, because if he does think about it, he’ll fall apart.

Jaskier almost thinks he’s going to be able to manage to keep himself together all the way down to the Pontar, where he can send Aiden on his way up towards Kaedwen and head down towards Oxenfurt and maybe put this whole traveling-with-witchers portion of his life behind him…

And then, in the sixth town since the one where Aiden first pretended to be his blind brother and they earned a ridiculous amount of coin from Aiden’s presumed heroics, in the middle of Jaskier’s set, someone in the tavern crowd calls out, “Oi, bard! D’ye know that Toss a Coin song, belike?”

Jaskier’s fingers falter on his lute, plucking a discordant note, but he rallies quickly - he doesn’t think anyone but Aiden notices his lapse. “Of course I know Toss a Coin, my good fellow!” he replies, and launches into the song without letting himself think about it any further.

The tavern-goers clap along and bellow the chorus, which really ought to be immensely flattering, and Jaskier closes his eyes and lets his mouth and fingers produce the song he knows maybe best of all the songs in all the world.

He segues it into another bouncy drinking song, and another after that, and by the time he’s earned enough to pay for provisions and to satisfy the innkeeper, who has been making good coin off of the people crowded in to hear Jaskier play, he’s almost forgotten about singing Toss a Coin again. Really he has.

Definitely.

Totally.

The door to their rented room closes behind him and Jaskier sets down his lute and puts his hands over his face and bursts into uncontrollable tears.

Chapter Text

Aiden drops his tabor next to Julek’s lute and wraps his arms around the bard, who lets out a sob that seems to come from the very depths of his soul and collapses into Aiden’s embrace.

What the fuck.

Aiden picks him up and carries him over to the bed, and sits down with Julek on his lap, cradling him close like - well, like he used to do with his little brothers in the Caravan, back when there were little brothers to be coddled. “Hey now, hey now,” he murmurs, kissing Julek’s hair softly and rocking gently from side to side. “What’s the matter, kitten?”

The endearment just slips out, but Aiden doesn’t bother trying to take it back. Julek is his little brother, at least as far as anyone else knows - his little brother who Aiden lost an eye to protect, and damn if that isn’t a much better story than what actually happened. A less painful one, too. Aiden would far rather have lost his eye protecting Julek from bandits than being ambushed by his own Schoolmates.

“T-toss a Coin,” Julek whimpers against Aiden’s shoulder. “Oh, gods, oh gods, I gave him twenty godsforsaken years -”

“What,” Aiden says blankly, and then it all spills out in broken words and heaving sobs:

Julek is Jaskier, the bard who wrote Toss a Coin and all the other White Wolf songs - the bard whose tunes are part of the reason Aiden and Lambert actually get paid most of the time these days instead of getting stiffed and run out of town - the bard who Aiden and Lambert and every other witcher they’ve encountered over the years have agreed is absolutely mad and utterly invaluable to all of them.

And he’s sobbing in Aiden’s arms because Geralt of Rivia, the colossal prick, decided to tear his metaphorical heart out and abandon him on a mountain.

What the fuck.

When Aiden finds Lambert, he is going to get his Wolf to team up with him, and they are going to turn the White Wolf into a red smear. What sort of jackass says such horrid things to the bard who has made the continent immeasurably better for every witcher out there? What sort of imbecile leaves a human stranded on a mountaintop? Yes, obviously Julek got down off the mountain just fine, but still! What the fuck!

What sort of heartless monster looks at a man like Julek, who still so obviously loves Geralt to distraction, and turns that sort of devotion down so cruelly?

He murmurs soothing words to the weeping man in his arms and makes mental plans to stab the White Wolf somewhere painful. His crotch, maybe, since apparently the bastard doesn’t seem to have a heart.

“Julek, kitten, little brother,” he croons as Julek’s sobs start to taper off at last. “Oh, Julek, you didn’t deserve that.”

Julek sniffles miserably. “I mean, I - I am annoying, and, and pushy, and silly, and I do put my - my sausage in inadvisable pantries, and I get into so much trouble -”

Aiden puts a finger over Julek’s lips to still them. “Bullshit,” he says. “And even if it wasn’t bullshit, Julek my brother, even if every word of that was the gods’ own truth brought down from on high, you would still be the man who pulled me out of a river and patched me up out of nothing but the goodness of his heart. The man who has made the continent a better place for every witcher still alive. The man whose songs bring joy to entire towns, and whose heart is big enough to hold the world entire. And even if you were annoying and pushy and foolish, that still doesn’t justify that asshole stomping on your heart and leaving you on a mountain of all godsforsaken places.”

Julek’s eyes are enormous. “You - you really think so?”

“Julek, I have had some spectacular arguments with my own Wolf,” Aiden says gently. “The sorts of arguments that end in mild stabbing, in fact. And we’re both witchers, and we both know the other can do just fine in the wilderness. And we still stick around to make sure the other is somewhere safe and not too badly injured before we go storming off to have our snit somewhere else.”

Julek blinks at him for a moment. “I - I have some questions later. About you having your own Wolf. And, uh, mild stabbing, I have some questions about that too.”

Aiden chuckles. “Fair’s fair, you’ve shown me yours, I’ll show you mine. Not just now, though.”

“Yeah,” Julek says, and curls forward to tuck his head against Aiden’s throat. “You - uh - you really think I’m - not annoying? Not - not just trouble?”

“Julek,” Aiden says, very gently indeed, “you are a treasure.”

Julek starts to weep again, more quietly this time, and Aiden shuffles back on the bed until he can lean against the wall, and strokes Julek’s hair, and hums the melodies of some of the slow sweet lullabies Julek often plays late in the evenings, until finally Julek cries himself to sleep.

Aiden lays him down gently and goes and gets a damp cloth to wipe his face clean of tears and snot, and wrangles him out of his boots and doublet, and then kicks his own shoes off and curls around Julek like he would around any of his little brothers, cradling the bard close so that even in dreams, Julek will not doubt that he is loved.

*

Jaskier wakes with a Cat on his chest. Aiden is draped over him, heavy and warm and oddly comforting. Jaskier feels…drained, almost, like all the tears he shed last night have left an empty space deep in his chest that hasn’t yet had time to fill with anything else, but he also feels…

Very, very loved, actually.

He doesn’t think he’s felt quite this…this cherished since…he doesn’t quite know when.

There was - well, there was the time right after the whole djinn debacle, when Geralt was so worried that Jaskier was going to die, and even if that whole mess did end with Yennefer it was still sort of heartwarming that Geralt cared that much, that he panicked at the thought that Jaskier might die. That he offered Yennefer anything, anything at all, to save him.

There was the time Jaskier broke his ankle leaping out of a window - and yes, he probably shouldn’t have been in the bedroom in question anyway, but it’s actually quite hard to turn down a countess when she requests the pleasure of your company, and it was a pleasure right up until her husband got home - and Geralt actually let him ride Roach for three weeks until they made it to Oxenfurt and then fussed over him for most of another week until Jaskier had everything set up so he could limp about his own rooms without too much trouble.

There was the time Jaskier had gotten his heart broken by a girl he really thought at the time might be able to win his affection even from Geralt - he’d been planning to settle down, gods help him, had been making vague plans about finding a noble patron and buying a ring - and Geralt had brought him out of town to a stunningly beautiful meadow and sat with him under a tree and just listened, not saying a word, until Jaskier finally ran out of miserable ranting, and then Geralt had said, quietly, “She was a fool,” and oh, Jaskier has kept those words in the lockbox of his heart like the treasures they are.

And there was a time in Oxenfurt, right after Valdo Marx, that rat bastard, stole his songs, when Priscilla took him out and got him very, very drunk and told him that he was going to be far more famous and well-loved than Marx ever would, and would write far better songs than the ones Marx dared to steal.

But it’s been…a while.

And now here he is with a Cat holding him close - with Aiden having called him little brother, and Julek my brother, like it’s not just a pretense for the townsfolk, like Aiden wants to claim him as family, wants to keep him around, cares about him.

Aiden is, Jaskier realizes after a moment, awake. Of course he is. He probably woke up when Jaskier’s breathing changed. But he’s still lying atop Jaskier like a particularly heavy duvet, seemingly utterly content to remain so.

“Aiden,” Jaskier says softly.

Aiden makes a quiet humming sound and snuggles somehow closer.

“Did -” Jaskier stops and swallows hard. “Did you mean it?”

“Every word, Julek,” Aiden says, and sits up so he can look down at Jaskier, single green eye solemn. “You’re a treasure, little brother. And I’m going to stab the White Wolf somewhere painful when I meet him.”

Jaskier snorts in sudden amusement and scrubs his hands over his face. “You don’t have to do that for my sake.”

“No, I really do,” Aiden says. “Bastard needs a good stabbing.”

Jaskier sighs and sits up. “I hate to admit it,” he says slowly, “but I am willing to bet he’s beating himself up more effectively than you can.”

“Bullshit,” Aiden grumbles.

“No, it’s -” Jaskier sighs again and leans over to rest his head against Aiden’s shoulder. “He does this, the great idiotic lump. He’s so bad at emotions, just - just really terrible at them. I thought it might be a witcher thing but you actually have an emotional range beyond ‘grumpy’ so maybe it’s a Wolf thing?”

“Wolves, in my experience, are in fact not encouraged to develop healthy emotional communication,” Aiden says dryly. “It’s taken me most of thirty years to get my Wolf to have useful conversations instead of growling and stomping off into the underbrush. These days he’s very nearly housebroken, though.”

Jaskier snickers. “I’m going to ask you so many questions about your Wolf,” he warns Aiden. “But - uh - the Cats did teach you useful emotional communication?”

“Sort of,” Aiden says, and sighs, leaning back against the wall and drawing Jaskier with him so Jaskier is draped against him. “So the short version is, the mages who made us, they wanted truly emotionless witchers. They thought that would make us more efficient, better killers.”

“That’s…actively horrifying,” Jaskier says, feeling slightly ill.

“Yep!” Aiden says, popping the ‘p’ dramatically. “A whole School of actual emotionless killers would in fact be a terrible thing, but that’s mages for you. Anyway they fucked up, and what they actually produced was a set of Grasses that enhance emotions. Whatever Cats feel, we feel very strongly. Which…” He heaves a very heavy sigh. “Which means that if you get us angry enough, we do in fact go berserk and murder everything within reach.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “That’s…bad.”

“Horrifically bad!” Aiden agrees. “So after we killed all the mages for being sadistic bastards, our trainers put some serious effort into teaching us things like recognizing our own emotions and learning to regulate them effectively, so that the number of Cats who actually do go absolutely batshit and murder entire towns is in fact fairly small.”

“How small?” Jaskier asks warily.

“At the moment, one,” Aiden says. “My brother Brehen lost it in Iello. I have no idea why, since he didn’t come back to the Caravan before I left it for good, and there’s nobody else left in Iello to tell their side of the story.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says softly. “Oh, that’s horrible.”

“Yep,” Aiden agrees. “And I am genuinely surprised that you’re still cuddling me.”

Jaskier pulls away a little to blink at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just told you Cats are capable of berserk rages that kill everyone around them?” Aiden says, raising an eyebrow. “Most people find that somewhat off-putting, little brother.”

“You also said that you’re taught how to not do that, and only one of your School has done it,” Jaskier points out. “I - I prefer a companion who knows he’s capable of strong emotion, and will therefore tell me if something’s wrong well before it gets to a boiling point, to one that just bottles it all up until it fucking well explodes.”

“Which does seem to be the Wolf School modus operandi,” Aiden says ruefully. “Since we now have two examples between us, and frankly, mine was just as emotionally constipated as yours when we first met.”

Jaskier sighs and slumps against Aiden again. “Anyway. He - Geralt - he does this, he bottles it all up and then he has a horrid outburst and then he beats himself up about it forever. So. He’s…probably sulking, and thinking I hate him, and hating himself, and I’m so very angry at him and I want to scream at him and also I’m pretty sure he’s more miserable already than I could ever make him.”

“I am perfectly willing to see if we could make him more miserable,” Aiden says. “Emotionally constipated fucker.”

Jaskier sniffles a laugh. “You said - you said you taught your Wolf to actually talk about his emotions,” he says. “What - what was I doing wrong? I tried, I swear I tried, and I thought it worked a little and then -”

“Oh, Julek,” Aiden says, wrapping his arms around Jaskier and rocking them both a little. “Just because they’re from the same School doesn’t mean they’re the same person. What worked on mine would not necessarily work on yours. And, bluntly, I don’t think you could have done what I did, because what I did was quite literally knock my Wolf down and sit on him until he started talking. Which took some doing. You may be stronger than the average human, little brother, but you’re not wrestle-a-Wolf-down strong.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. That…yeah, the chances of him actually being able to pin Geralt down long enough to make the White Wolf actually talk are slim to none.

“But!” Aiden says. “If you’re sure you don’t want me to stab him somewhere permanent, I betcha I and my Wolf could sit on your Wolf until he talks. My prickly darling would probably enjoy that, come to think of it.”

“I…might take you up on that, actually,” Jaskier says slowly. “Because otherwise - oh, hells.”

“What?”

Jaskier buries his face against Aiden’s shoulder in exasperated despair. “The asshole could have caught up to me. I’ve seen him track griffins in flight, he could track one footsore bard. I am willing to bet that once he got over being a miserable ass, he went straight into hating himself so much that he’s sure I never want to see him again.”

“And so he let you wander about alone in the wilderness, picking up stray Cats,” Aiden says dryly. “Brilliant solution.”

“I never said it was smart,” Jaskier mumbles. “Gods damn it. He’s going to go off and brood like a gargoyle and probably get himself so twisted around he never comes looking for me.”

Aiden takes a deep breath, hesitates, and then says, slowly and carefully, “Do you want to see him again?”

“Yes,” Jaskier admits. “If nothing else, I deserve to yell at the bastard. But I - well. I’ve loved him for twenty years. That doesn’t go away in one terrible moment. And I - if he is willing to apologize, then I damn well deserve an apology.”

“Very true,” Aiden agrees. “Well then. I was planning - I was planning to head up into Kaedwen once I’d seen you off to Oxenfurt. To go looking for the Wolf School’s keep. I know roughly where it is. It’s supposed to be fucking hard to get to, and also it’s full of Wolves who might well want to stab me on sight, but…if you want to come with me, you can. If nothing else, you’ll be made welcome, that I’m sure of.”

Jaskier sits back to frown at him in confusion. “I will? Why? Surely they won’t want someone around who made their brother so miserable.”

“Julek,” Aiden says gently, “every witcher on this damn continent owes you a debt. You’ve made the Path easier - made it more survivable. We can tell which areas you’ve been through, because people toss coppers at us and sing at us and pay us without more than token grumbling. Geralt may have been foolish enough to not tell you how fucking valuable that is, but I’m not. You’ve made an incredible difference in a whole lot of lives, little brother. The Wolves won’t be stupid enough to turn you away.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says wonderingly. “It - it does work, then? My songs do make a difference?”

“They do,” Aiden says. “They really, really do.” He grins. “Even if they also get stuck in my head at occasional inopportune moments.”

“I beg your pardon, there is never an inopportune moment for my songs,” Jaskier blusters, grinning back.

“If I never have to stop fucking my Wolf again because I have the fucking Fishmonger’s Daughter stuck in my damn head, it will be too soon,” Aiden replies, smirking.

“Fair,” Jaskier allows after a pause. “That’s…that’s very fair, actually. Sorry about that.”

“Forgiven,” Aiden says generously. “But seriously, did you have to make that one so very catchy?”

Jaskier snickers. “It makes me a lot of coin! And people remember it, and ask for me specifically to come and perform, too. I’ve gotten at least three festival contracts out of it that I know of.”

Aiden sighs. “I suppose those are both good arguments,” he says, looking so mournful that Jaskier laughs harder.

“I really am very sorry about ruining your trysts, though,” he says through his chortles. “I’ll write you another one, if you like - one that won’t be quite as terrible to fuck to?”

“Sure,” Aiden says, stretching and yawning luxuriously. “I won’t turn down an offer like that.”

Jaskier's stomach makes a complaining sound, reminding him that dinner was quite a while ago and he’s had two emotional outbursts and a performance since then, and Aiden snickers.

“C’mon, little brother, let’s get you fed,” he says, and Jaskier takes the Cat’s hand and is hauled to his feet.

He wraps his arms around Aiden and squeezes, hard. Aiden squeaks a little. “Thank you,” Jaskier whispers. “I - thank you.”

Aiden puts his own arms around Jaskier, holding tight. “You’re welcome,” he says softly. “It was my honor, Julek my brother, to be a comfort to you.”

*

They’re a good few hours out from town, heading east, when Julek says, “So I had some questions about your Wolf.”

“Ah, I was wondering how long your patience would hold out,” Aiden laughs. “What do you want to know?”

“What’s his name, and what’s he like, and how did you meet, and - oh, anything!” Julek says, waving his hands about enthusiastically. He seems…lighter, this morning, than he has for the last couple of weeks. Brighter, somehow. Like he’s put down a very heavy weight that was crushing him.

He needed that weeping fit, Aiden thinks. Needed it badly. And now he can start to recover his usual temperament, which is apparently extremely bubbly.

It’s nice. Aiden’s looking forward to seeing what sort of mischief the two of them can end up getting into on the way to eastern Kaedwen.

“Anything, hm?” he says, grinning down at Julek. “Well then. His name’s Lambert, and he’s a bit younger than Geralt - a couple decades, I think it is. Big handsome redhead, and his temper’s as fiery as his hair. Absolutely brilliant alchemist, and he could burn water. I have, in fact, seen him do so.”

“Oh dear,” Julek says, muffling a laugh with one hand. “So you do all the cooking, then, I presume.”

“All the cooking that I want to actually be edible, yes,” Aiden agrees. “Let me see. He’s terrifyingly good with a sword and worryingly fond of bombs, he swears like a whole tavern full of sailors, and I love him to distraction.”

“He sounds marvelous,” Julek says, with a rather dreamy look on his face.

“He is that,” Aiden agrees. “He’ll like you, too.”

“He will?” Julek says, startled. “How can you be so sure?”

“Well, you saved my life,” Aiden points out gently. “Which means that I suspect Lambert would cheerfully do just about anything for you, same as I would. But also he actually does like your songs, though getting him to admit it is like pulling teeth, and he also enjoys giving Geralt shit, so, y’know. You should get on splendidly.”

“Oh,” Julek says wonderingly. “Should I write him a song, do you think? The Red Wolf - no, no, too similar. Lambert Blade-Tongued, maybe, if he’s as prickly as you say?”

Aiden snickers. “I think if you write Lambert a song all his own, he will go and hide until he stops blushing the same color as his hair, and then he will probably go kill you something impressive. But aren’t you going to write me one, Julek?” He gives Julek his best pleading expression.

“Of course I’m going to write you songs!” Julek says, rather indignantly. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I’ve got one almost done about that wyvern fight you told me about last week!”

Aiden blinks. “You do?”

“Yes, of course!” Julek says, and then looks down at his feet, shoulders hunching in a little. “I - uh - I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to write you one, so I haven’t been practicing the lyrics out loud, but it’s that tune you like with the fancy fingering on the chorus.”

Aiden puts a hand on Julek’s shoulder and draws them both to a stop. Julek blinks up at him in confusion.

“Julek. Little brother. I am honored that you are writing me a song,” Aiden says softly. “I will love it to pieces. You are an incredibly talented bard and having a song of your crafting is a marvelous privilege. And I’m definitely going to stab Geralt for not telling you as much himself, the stone-brained idiot.”

Tears well up in Julek’s eyes, and he sniffs hard before flinging his arms around Aiden. “Thank you,” he says, muffled against Aiden’s shoulder. “Not - please don’t actually stab Geralt, or at least not very much, but - thank you.”

Aiden hugs him back, of course, pressing kisses to his hair. “No thanks needed, little brother. I’m only telling the truth.”

“I am going to write you so many songs,” Julek says, and squeezes Aiden again before letting go and setting off down the road again. “But first you have to tell me if you like this one!” And he launches into song before Aiden can say anything.

It’s - well, it’s good. Aiden wouldn’t have expected anything else, given all of Julek’s other songs - even Toss a Coin, which is very much an early work, is still damned catchy - but to hear a song that’s about him, even if it never names him, that makes him out to be some sort of hero, and on top of that it’s good -

Aiden has to swallow a lump of some unnameable emotion before he can catch up with Julek and start singing along with the chorus. With emerald eyes and silver claws the wyvern to confound / He met it in the morning air and dragged it to the ground -

Even while he was taking pleasure in the existence of songs about witchers in general and the White Wolf in specific, Aiden never dreamed there would be a song about him someday. And now there is.

Now his little brother has not only given his life back to him, not only given him care and affection and trust such as Cat witchers never see, but now he has given Aiden this priceless gift, this song ringing out over the trees, and Aiden has no idea how he is ever going to be able to repay Julek, but by the gods, he’s going to try.

He gets his chance to start making some sort of recompense in the very next town they come across.

*

Jaskier leans against the bar, mug of startlingly good ale in his hand, and beams at the beautiful young lady beside him. She’s buxom and brown-eyed and brunette and other delightful things beginning with b, and she seems to be utterly overwhelmed with glee at having a chance to talk to a real bard, and by the way she’s been sidling closer and closer, Jaskier suspects that if he wants to have a bit of a romp in a convenient hayloft or perhaps a meadow, he’s in luck.

He might want to, too. It’s been a while since he shared such pleasures with anyone - since before the Mountain, in fact, and yes, it does deserve the capital letter, being as how it’s changed his life so dramatically, and also there was a dragon on it and if dragons don’t deserve capital letters he really doesn’t know what does.

In any case, he hasn’t had a decent tumble in more than a month, which is frankly unheard of for him, and the lovely young lady seems extremely amenable, so he’s working up to asking if she’d like to go for a bit of a walk, show him the sights of the town if she knows what he means, when Aiden appears beside him.

“Time for us to get to bed if we’re going to hit the road early tomorrow!” the witcher says cheerfully. “Come along, little brother.”

“Ah - you go ahead, I’ll come up in a bit,” Jaskier says, trying to communicate that Aiden is interrupting with subtle movements of his eyebrows.

“Nope, you get cranky when you don’t have enough sleep,” Aiden says, still far too cheerful, and slings an arm around Jaskier’s shoulders, steering him away from the bar and up the stairs with an inexorable grip. Jaskier waves at the lovely young lady as he goes, fairly sure the disappointed look on her face is not merely his imagination.

“Aiden, what the fuck?” he demands once the door of their room has closed behind them.

“I was figuring you didn’t want the local smith breaking your arms for seducing his fiancee,” Aiden says dryly.

“Ah,” Jaskier says ruefully, adding betrothed to the blacksmith to the list of b’s that describe his erstwhile partner in flirtation. “Well. Thank you. Somehow she failed to mention that little detail.” He sighs. “Which…is a reasonably frequent occurrence for me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?” Aiden asks.

“I do end up putting my sausage in a great many inadvisable pantries,” Jaskier says ruefully, “but usually I don’t know they’re inadvisable. A truly distressing number of people somehow fail to mention that their affections are meant to be devoted entirely to a spouse or a fiance or similar.”

“I see,” Aiden says. “So I should keep my ears open, is what you’re telling me.”

“It would be better for my health if I didn’t have to exit quite so many houses through the windows,” Jaskier admits. “I’m getting a little old to be doing such impromptu acrobatics. Better for my wardrobe, too. I lose more doublets that way…”

Aiden raises an eyebrow at him. “Come to think of it - I’m terrible at telling human ages between child and greybeard, but you don’t look old enough to have spent twenty years traipsing about behind a witcher. I’d guess you closer to twenty than forty.”

“I have a marvelous skincare routine,” Jaskier informs him with feigned hauteur.

Aiden frowns at him. “I haven’t seen you doing anything fancy.”

Jaskier blinks. He did leave a lot of his possessions in Geralt’s saddlebags, come to think of it, including his assorted unguents and cosmetics. He’s been so discombobulated since the Mountain that he completely forgot about it. He hastens to pull a hand mirror out of his pack, a little bit of polished metal, and studies his face anxiously, looking for wrinkles or grey hairs. He doesn’t want to have to change his stage persona to have gravitas! He’s very bad at having gravitas!

There are…no grey hairs that he can spot. The corners of his eyes and mouth show no imminent crow’s feet. He looks about as he did in Oxenfurt this past winter, before he set off into the wilds with a witcher for the year.

“What the hell,” he says weakly. “I - I -” he pokes at his cheeks. The skin is as smooth and soft as it usually is, but he hasn’t been doing anything more than scrubbing it down with water and harsh soap. “I don’t look any older.”

“You certainly don’t look old,” Aiden agrees. “Or even middle-aged, really. But like I said, I’m bad at human ages.” He hesitates. “If you, uh, aren’t aging the way you expect to…are you sure you’re fully human?”

Jaskier blinks at him for a long moment. “As far as I know?” he says slowly. “I look a lot like my father and I’ve got my mother’s eyes, so I’m probably not a bastard - it’d have to be - oh.” He puts the mirror down and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Family legend has it that my great-grandmother was an…adventuresome woman. I’m named after her, actually: Julia, her name was. There have always been rumors that some of her children weren’t Great-Grandfather’s, but no one ever made any fuss about it, so…”

He takes a deep breath. “Would having a great-grandparent who wasn’t human be enough to…to have an effect?”

“It might,” Aiden says gently. “Blood comes out oddly sometimes.”

“Huh,” Jaskier says, and sits with that for a few moments, trying to fit that into his personal view of the world. He’s occasionally wondered if some of Great-Grandmother’s children were from the wrong side of the blanket, but he’s never wondered if any of them weren’t fully human.

But if one of Great-Grandmother’s lovers was part-elf, or part something else, gods only know what, then that might actually explain why Jaskier is still as agile and energetic and randy as he was when he was eighteen.

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” he says at last. “Except that I wish Great-Grandmother had said something, because now I want to know what I might possibly be. Maybe I’ll write home and ask my sister to see if Great-Grandmother kept a diary.”

Aiden nods. “Sensible enough.”

Jaskier grins weakly. “I did not expect to spend the evening having a minor crisis about my actual species. But it’s still better than being pursued by an angry blacksmith, I suppose.”

“Truly a useful unit of measurement,” Aiden agrees dryly. “And I’m guessing whatever you are, it isn’t terribly strongly magical. I don’t have a medallion, but given that the White Wolf is supposedly rather good at his job, I would assume he’d have noticed if you were setting off his all the time.”

“He never mentioned anything about that,” Jaskier agrees. “And he is good at his job.”

Aiden shrugs and sprawls out on the bed beside Jaskier. “So Lambert says. Still, if he couldn’t see the quality of the bard right under his nose, I don’t think much of his general perspicacity.”

Jaskier snickers. “He’s good at monsters,” he says. “He’s never claimed to have any particular talent at musical criticism.”

“Pfft,” Aiden says. “He should have learned.”

Jaskier blinks. That - he - “What?”

“He should’ve learned!” Aiden says again. “You’ve learned plenty about monsters and healing and surviving in the wilderness - I’m assuming those aren’t generally covered in bard school -”

“It is true that none of those are among the seven liberal arts,” Jaskier agrees.

“Right! But you learned ‘em anyhow, and damned well, or I wouldn’t be here right now. The least he could have done would be to pay attention to your profession.”

Jaskier swallows hard. “Please stop,” he says in a very small voice. “I don’t want to have another crying fit tonight.”

“Ah,” Aiden says, and immediately rolls over to curl around Jaskier like a particularly affectionate limpet. “Sorry, Julek. I’ll stop.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier says, petting Aiden’s hair as the Cat nuzzles against him. “Um - tell me something about your adventures?”

“Sure,” Aiden says, and launches into a tale about him and Lambert hunting down a mated pair of griffins that turned out to be a royal griffin and her common-or-garden-variety griffin mate, which were therefore much more difficult to defeat than had been expected.

Jaskier takes mental notes for the song he means to make of it, and does not think about Aiden’s insistence that Geralt should have paid more attention to his endeavors to keep their joint purse full of coin.

*

Aiden keeps a close eye on Julek as they head east the next morning, a little worried about the barely-averted crying jag from last night, but Julek starts singing as soon as they’re on the road again, and apparently isn’t even thinking about anything beyond the songs. Which may or may not be true - Julek is clearly a consummate performer - but Aiden suspects that bringing up the earlier conversation will only make Julek unhappy, and he’s not willing to do that.

It’s not a long way to the next town; they make it by midafternoon, and Julek goes to find out if the local tavern will be willing to trade performance for supper while Aiden goes to wander through the market and see if there’s anyone here who sells heavy enough leather to make decent armor out of.

He glances at the noticeboard as he passes, and then pauses. He’s got only the steel sword, and no armor to speak of, and, of course, he’s still adjusting to the loss of an eye, so he daren’t take on anything really dangerous, but a handful of drowners…

He thinks he could handle some drowners. And the money from dealing with them might be enough, with what they’ve been squirreling away thus far, to get him a silver sword. And drowner brains are one of the main components of Swallow, and if he has Swallow he can stop worrying quite so much about getting hurt on contracts.

He’s not the alchemist Lambert is - no one is the alchemist Lambert is, except Ivar Evil-Eye himself - but Lambert has drilled the recipe for Swallow into him stubbornly enough that Aiden can make it in his sleep, just about. The good version, Lambert’s version, that works faster and more effectively, and doesn’t cause a bout of vicious nausea.

He turns his steps towards the alderman’s house.

“You’re never a witcher,” the alderman says, ten minutes later, eyeing Aiden dubiously. “You’ve only got the one sword!”

Aiden has genuinely never had to convince someone that he’s a witcher before. Generally people notice the eyes, and the swords, and the armor, and the general inhumanness pretty quickly. But he’s wearing perfectly normal secondhand clothing, with only a single sword, and between the eyepatch and the hat his vertical pupil isn’t that noticeable, and, well…

“Whether I’m a witcher or not, I can kill your drowners,” he says, deciding not to argue about something this godsdamned stupid. “If I do, will you pay me?”

“Sure,” the alderman says. “But tell your brother the bard that I won’t be held responsible if you get yourself killed in this folly.”

“I will do so,” Aiden says wryly, and goes off to tell Julek that he’s going to actually do some witchering.

“Be careful,” Julek says, eyes wide and worried. “Don’t - fuck it, I just finished patching you up. I do not want to have to sew you up again so soon!”

“I’ll be extremely careful,” Aiden promises. “Don’t you go sticking your sausage into any pantries until I get back, alright? I can’t fend off any blacksmiths if I’m killing drowners.”

“I promise,” Julek says solemnly. “I’d ask to come watch, but - Geralt never let me -”

“In this, I will admit that I am in complete agreement with the White Wolf,” Aiden says. “Even drowners can be nasty, and you may not be wholly human but you’re still mostly human and you definitely still bleed. Stay here and sing for our suppers, and I’ll be back before dark, alright?”

“Alright,” Julek says, still sounding worried, and hugs Aiden tightly. “Be safe,” he says, and Aiden kisses his forehead and nods. He can’t promise that, not when fighting monsters is in fact inherently dangerous, but he will be careful.

He doesn’t intend to let a pack of drowners kill him.

He takes the time to scout out the stretch of river carefully - far more carefully than he would if Lambert was with him - and catches a rabbit to use as bait so he can draw the drowners out of the water.

They come thronging out after the scent of blood: four drowners, which is not too bad really. Aiden drags the rabbit-on-a-string up close to the treeline and then casts Yrden to trap all four of them, and from there even without silver it’s reasonably simple, if not necessarily easy, to lop their heads off one after another. He doesn’t quite manage to dodge one swipe from a clawed hand, but it barely scratches him, and it’ll be healed by the time he makes it back to town, so Julek shouldn’t fret too much.

He collects the brains, sticks the emptied heads into a sack, and gathers several bunches of celandine flowers on his way back up to the town.

The alderman looks gratifyingly surprised when Aiden dumps the drowner heads out in front of his house, and hands over a little purse of coin without any particular complaint, which is a nice change of pace. Aiden thanks him politely and heads for the market, looking for strong spirits - they don’t have to be good, just strong - and ends up with a bottle of rotgut vodka which the stallholder sells him for a shockingly low price on account of it being really genuinely foul. He finds a handful of little glass jars, too, not as good as the vials he can get in a city, but good enough to be going on with.

He also buys a rather battered little tin pot, because he learned the hard way that using the same pot for alchemy and cooking is a terrible idea.

He sets up outside the town walls, since Swallow smells terrible when it’s being made, then minces the brains up fine and boils them with the rotgut and the celandine until it stops smelling like warmed-over death and starts smelling like it might actually be useful. He decants it carefully into the jars, goes down to the river to rinse the pot out several times, and heads back to the inn whistling one of Julek’s better songs.

It feels good to be taking contracts again.

Julek is playing cheerful music without any lyrics when Aiden arrives, and lights up visibly when he lays eyes on Aiden. Aiden waves and trots upstairs to change his tunic before Julek can notice it’s covered in blood and drowner gore, tucks the jars of Swallow away safely, and grabs his tabor before heading back down.

“You’re alright then?” Julek asks worriedly, under the sound of the music, as Aiden settles beside him and starts to tap at the tabor.

“Just fine, little brother,” Aiden assures him. “It went very well. Tomorrow we can look for a silver sword, maybe.”

“Lovely,” Julek says, brightening, and starts playing a little louder. “Well then, lovely people!” he calls over the noise of the crowded room. “Has anyone got any requests for us?”

“Melitele and the Shepherd,” someone hollers, and Julek laughs delightedly and starts to sing.

Chapter Text

Town by town, contract by contract and tavern by tavern, they collect the coin to purchase the things Aiden needs to take contracts as safely as possible. A silver sword turns out to be hard to find, but the town whose drowners Aiden dealt with does provide sturdy leather that Aiden turns into a heavy vest with a high collar to protect his throat. They find the ingredients for some of the potions Aiden needs at various herbalists and apothecaries, and Jaskier haggles cheerfully for glass vials and the wax to stopper them, more thread and bandages, and other such useful sundries. A stop in Montecalvo gives Aiden another contract for drowners, this one large enough to require three long days of hunting through the sewers, but also there’s a silversmith in the city who can actually make a silver sword, and that makes life a great deal easier.

By the time they reach Murivel, Aiden looks like a proper witcher once again, with two swords on his back and sturdy leather armor, though he still wears the hat Jaskier inflicted on him back when they were pretending Aiden was human. He’s still wary of taking truly dangerous contracts, with his missing eye and lack of bombs, but he’s cleared out a great many drowners and nekkers and even some barghests, half a dozen ghouls and several archespores; he seems very pleased with himself every time he comes back with a trophy, and regales Jaskier cheerfully with the tales of his successful hunts. Jaskier suspects he’s glossing over the truly dangerous bits, since Aiden does occasionally come back with nasty injuries, especially on his arms, which his armor does not cover.

He doesn’t get hurt as often as Geralt did, though.

Jaskier points that out one evening in Murivel, while stitching up a gash along the back of one of Aiden’s legs where a drowner got him before he could behead it.

Aiden laughs. “Different fighting styles.”

“What?” Jaskier asks, looking up briefly before concentrating on his work again.

“Cats focus on agility and getting the hell out of the way,” Aiden explains. “Wolves are a little more willing to just wade in and take the hits in the service of killing whatever it is quickly. Also they have this terrible habit of just letting really big monsters swallow them and carving their way out from inside.”

“That’s a Wolf thing, not just a Geralt thing?” Jaskier blurts incredulously. “Are they all insane?”

“Quite possibly yes,” Aiden chuckles. “I about shat myself the first time I saw Lambert do that. I have managed to talk him out of it now.”

“What do Cats do instead?” Jaskier asks, tying off the last stitch and sitting back to wipe his hands clean.

“Throw explosives down the gullet,” Aiden says dryly.

“How immensely sensible,” Jaskier sighs. “So of course Wolves don’t do that.”

Aiden snickers. “Cats may be crazy but we’re not stupid.”

“Indeed,” Jaskier sighs. “Wolf training doesn’t emphasize self-preservation, does it.” He doesn’t even bother making it a question. He’s spent too many years watching Geralt fling himself sword-first into truly absurd amounts of danger.

“It really doesn’t,” Aiden says ruefully. “Nor self-esteem.”

“I’m going to stab anyone who says they helped train Geralt and Lambert, just so’s you know,” Jaskier informs him. “I understand that I won’t actually be able to hit them, and also I almost certainly won’t be able to do any real damage, but gods damn I am going to give it a good try.”

“I’ll help,” Aiden says. “So will Lambert, I’m betting. From what he’s said, though, there’s only one trainer left, and he was…not the worst of the lot.”

“Do I even want to know what being the worst of the lot entailed?” Jaskier asks warily.

“No,” Aiden says softly. “You don’t. Because the worst of the Wolf trainers were nearly as bad as the worst of the Cat trainers, and they were…” he trails off, grimacing. “Bad,” he says at last, very quietly.

“Are any of them still alive?” Jaskier checks.

“No. They died when the mages did.” Aiden shrugs, looking unhappy. “It’s a long sordid story full of horrid things. I don’t care to tell it tonight.”

“Then I will tell you about how I successfully did not allow the head hostler’s wife to seduce me,” Jaskier says, and Aiden, thank goodness, bursts into laughter.

“I’m proud of you, little brother! Well done!”

Jaskier sticks his tongue out. “Anyone would think you’d doubted my ability to keep from getting into trouble.”

“Julek my brother, in the last six weeks you have ended up in bed with four different married women, one married man, two betrothed ladies, and an alderman’s sister.”

Jaskier pouts. Aiden laughs harder.

“In my defense I did ask all of them if they were otherwise obligated, and all of them said no!” Jaskier points out. “It is hardly my fault if there are a great many people whose spouses are evidently unsatisfying in the pants department.”

Aiden laughs so hard he cries. Jaskier grins triumphantly. “And!” he says. “I definitely did not leave any of them with anything but the most flattering tales of my prowess. So really I think I should be commended for my services in promoting the general happiness of the populace.”

“How you don’t have every venereal disease known to man, I do not know,” Aiden gasps between guffaws, and then sobers abruptly. “Actually that is a little baffling.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jaskier says, shrugging. “I used my first allowance from home, right when I got to Oxenfurt, to get a charm tattooed on: I can’t get a pox or give a child.”

“Tattooed on where?” Aiden asks. “I thought I’d seen pretty much everything you’ve got to show.” Bathing in rivers and communal tubs does not exactly leave a lot of room for modesty.

“Right above my prick,” Jaskier admits. “Currently there’s hair covering it - and having that grow back in after I shaved it for the tattoo itched like hell, I do not recommend the experience - but I did ask specifically, and being covered doesn’t affect the efficacy.”

“Huh,” Aiden says. “That’s…very clever, actually, I approve, although I must admit I didn’t think most human - or mostly human - men would be quite so willing to geld themselves.”

Jaskier shrugs. “It was the price for never getting the pox - something about spending fertility to earn immunity, I didn’t quite understand the whole explanation, it was all magical mumbo-jumbo and I was fifteen - but honestly I didn’t mind. I don’t want to have children.”

Aiden blinks at him. “You don’t?”

Jaskier shakes his head. “I - do you know, I never told Geralt this?”

Aiden sits up, looking curious and worried.

“I told you my name is Julian Pankratz,” Jaskier says slowly. “Technically, it’s Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove.”

Aiden’s eye goes wide. “You’re a viscount?”

“Technically, yes,” Jaskier sighs. “But I’d be a terrible viscount, really just awful. My sister and her husband are running the fief, and doing a much better job than I ever could, and my eldest nephew bids fair to be a fine successor, but if I ever have a son, that child would be the heir. I don’t want to do that to my sister and my nephew. The line can go through them, and that’ll be fine.”

“Huh,” Aiden says softly. “Well. You’re full of hidden depths, Julek.”

“To be fair, very few people expect a viscount to be wandering around as a bard,” Jaskier points out. “Which makes it a very effective disguise.”

“True!” Aiden agrees. “You never told the White Wolf this?”

“He never asked,” Jaskier says quietly. “I don’t know that he would have wanted to know.”

“Ah,” Aiden says, and tugs Jaskier down to sit beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist and resting his head against Jaskier’s. “Well. I want to know anything you want to tell me, little brother.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier murmurs, leaning against his brother and sighing softly. He didn’t know how much it would mean, to have someone he could tell anything, and still be…still be loved.

*

Aiden is starting to worry a little that they might not make it to Kaer Morhen before winter. They still have to cross all of Kaedwen to the far northeastern corner, and when they get to the mountains, they have to find the Trail up to the keep, which Lambert has mentioned in passing as being both steep and treacherous, and also nearly impassable once the snow starts.

“Julek,” he says thoughtfully, looking north up the Buina, “do you think a boat would be faster than foot, even if we’re going upstream?”

“How far upstream do we need to go?” Julek asks.

“Up to where the Buina splits, and then as far up the Gwenllech as we can go.”

“Huh,” Julek says. “Well, the only way to find out is to ask!” He saunters down towards the woman supervising the loading of a barge down at the riverside. “Good madam! My brother and I need to reach the headwaters of the Gwenllech before the snow begins to fall. Would you advise taking a boat?”

“Only if y’want to get frozen in near Ard Carraigh,” the woman says, crossing burly arms and frowning at Julek thoughtfully. “Nah, if you want to make it up t’the mountains ere winter, y’want horses, belike.”

“Thank you, madam,” Julek says, sweeping her a deep bow. “For your advice!” he adds, and presses a silver coin into her hand before trotting back over to Aiden.

“Horses,” Aiden says, and grimaces.

“Do you not like horses?” Julek asks.

“Horses,” Aiden says, “do not like me. I’ve never yet met one that didn’t try to bite me on sight.”

“Oh dear,” Julek says, obviously suppressing a laugh. “I fancy I’m rather good with them - at the very least I’ve managed to coax Roach into not kicking me, and she’s an ornery old mare, this most recent one anyhow.”

“What?” Aiden asks, because that sentence made no sense whatsoever.

“Geralt, for reasons he has never vouchsafed me, names all his horses ‘Roach,’” Julek explains. “And he has a preference for bad-tempered chestnut mares.”

“I see,” Aiden says. This puts some of Lambert’s comments about Geralt being ‘weird about horses’ into context, at least.

“On the other hand, I haven’t actually ridden a horse for more than a few minutes at a stretch for, oh, twenty years or so,” Julek goes on thoughtfully. “So riding the breadth of Kaedwen is going to be…unpleasant.”

“That’s one word for it,” Aiden says, grimacing. Crossing hundreds of miles on an animal that hates him, plus worrying about saddlesores…

“We could turn around and head for Oxenfurt,” he says softly. “Come back next year.” He could maybe send a letter north to Ard Carraigh, and hope Lambert sees it in the spring -

“If I don’t do this now, I never will,” Julek replies just as quietly. “I’ll keep making excuse after excuse about how if he wanted to see me he’d come looking, and the long and short of it would be that I’d never see Geralt again, and as angry with him as I am, I don’t want that.”

Aiden sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “Alright. So. One palfrey and one packhorse, then. I’ll run.”

“You’ll run?” Julek asks incredulously.

“A witcher’s faster than a horse over long distances, and got better stamina too,” Aiden says. “And also then hopefully I won’t get bitten too much.”

Julek chuckles. “Alright,” he agrees. “A palfrey and a packhorse. Let’s see how good my haggling is. I think the exchange rate between Redania and Kaedwen is currently in our favor, at least.”

Aiden hangs back and watches while Jaskier goes through the horse market in Hagge; Aiden has no idea what to look for in a horse, but Jaskier chats with the sellers in arcane jargon about teeth and wind and gaits, seemingly utterly at ease. He emerges at last with a tall grey horse and a shorter dark one.

“This is Pegasus, and that is Fancy,” he says triumphantly. “Pegasus has a lovely smooth trot so hopefully I shan’t end up with too many saddlesores, and Fancy is a very sturdy lass on top of being absolutely gorgeous, so I think we shall get on very well!”

Aiden sidles closer to Fancy, who snaps her teeth at him. “I think you get to care for the horses, Julek,” he says, edging away again.

“You hunt, I’ll handle the horses,” Julek says easily. “That seems an equitable division of labor to me!”

“Alright then,” Aiden says, and still somehow ends up looking after the horses while Julek goes and barters for provisions for the first leg of their journey. Thankfully, he can tie their reins to a fence rail and sit far enough away that neither of them does more than shoot him wary, vicious glances.

Aiden has a theory that something about his mutagen mix makes him appear to be a predator to horses. Whatever it is, though, it’s damned irritating; his life would be much easier if he could keep a packhorse around. Or even a mule! But no, shank’s mare it is and always shall be for him.

Julek returns carrying bulging packs and looking very pleased with himself, so Aiden assumes his shopping went well. “Oats and plenty of dried meat and - oh, all sorts of things,” Julek says cheerfully, loading the packs and the rest of their gear onto Fancy. “We shan’t have any particularly delicious meals, but we won’t go hungry, and nor will the animals.”

“Good enough for me!” Aiden agrees. “Shall we?”

“We can probably make it to the next town if we start now,” Julek agrees. “Onward! To the mountains!”

Aiden laughs as Julek swings himself into Pegasus’s saddle, and leads the way up the road, settling into the easy ground-eating trot that every witcher learns.

*

Jaskier is very, very sore when they reach the first little town north of Hagge. He manages to slide gracelessly off of Pegasus without help, but then his legs give out under him; Aiden catches him easily, hoisting him away from the horse before Pegasus can bite the witcher. The little inn’s groom eyes Pegasus warily.

“It’s just me,” Aiden assures them.

“He’s a complete sweetheart with anyone but my brother,” Jaskier agrees.

The groom looks wary, but Pegasus and Fancy are both very well-behaved when the groom takes their reins. Aiden eyes Jaskier thoughtfully for a moment, and then swings him up into a bridal carry and bears him into the inn.

“I really should object to this affront to my dignity,” Jaskier says as they approach the bar.

“What dignity?” Aiden asks, smirking.

“I am offended,” Jaskier pouts. “Extremely offended! Dreadfully! I shall swoon with sheer offense! How much for a room and a bath, good sir, and the stabling of our horses?” he adds to the innkeeper, who is watching them with a slightly baffled smile.

The price named is fair, and Jaskier is in no shape to offer to sing for their suppers. Maybe once he has gotten used to riding for hours at a stretch, he’ll be able to muster the energy to perform at the end of the day, but today is not that day.

Aiden deposits him on the bed in their little room, and Jaskier sprawls out with a moan. “Oh, fuck me, my hips are extremely displeased,” he says mournfully.

“I think fucking you would be counterproductive in that case.” Aiden smirks. “Also you’re not my type, sorry.”

“Darling brother of mine, if I were not utterly exhausted I would definitely be offended by that,” Jaskier sniffs. “I am everyone’s type.”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” Aiden laughs, and goes out briefly, returning with two plates of food and a young man carrying a washtub. Jaskier eyes the food and tries to decide if eating will be worth the pain of sitting up. The young man goes in and out twice more, bringing in buckets of steaming water, and then vanishes back down the stairs, and Aiden throws the doorlatch and comes over to the bed.

“Roll over if you can, Julek,” he says gently.

Jaskier manages to do so with rather more flailing and thumping than he wants to admit. “Why am I lying on my front?” he asks into the pillow. “Unless that’s a suggestion that I should smother myself and put myself out of my misery.”

Aiden chuckles softly and settles on the bed, kneeling over Jaskier’s legs, and then his thumbs are digging into Jaskier’s knotted back and Jaskier goes limp with a helpless little moan. “Oh fuck that’s good.” It hurts, but it’s the ache of relief, and Jaskier could almost cry from how amazing it feels.

Aiden laughs and keeps going, finding each tense muscle and coaxing or forcing it to relax, until Jaskier is a puddle of bard on the bed. “You have magic hands,” he slurs against the pillow.

“Quite literally, yes,” Aiden snickers. “But I don’t think you want me casting Yrden right now.”

“No I would not,” Jaskier says, with as much dignity as he can muster while also being a puddle.

“Then I shan’t,” Aiden says, and digs his fingers into the tense muscles of Jaskier’s shoulders. Jaskier whimpers into his pillow.

“Right then,” Aiden says a few moments later. “Can you sit up now, Julek?”

“Not with you sitting on my ass,” Jaskier points out. Aiden snorts and gets up, and Jaskier manages to roll over - rather more gracefully than the first time - and then, slowly, lever himself into a sitting position. Aiden plops a plate of food on his lap.

“Eat up, and then into the bath with you, and then sleep,” he says. “Any saddlesores starting?”

“Not yet,” Jaskier says.

“Then we’ll save the liniment for some other day.”

Jaskier swallows a bite of mediocre stew. “Aiden - thank you.” He knows Aiden could move faster without him, could be sleeping right now if he didn’t have to care for a feeble probably-human bard, but Aiden hasn’t even suggested that he resents having Jaskier around.

“No thanks needed, little brother,” Aiden says gently. “You’ve done as much and more for me.”

Jaskier wants to say that was different, he was saving Aiden’s life, Aiden is only being kind to Jaskier’s weakness, but he’s pretty sure Aiden will give him a disappointed look if he says as much, so he finishes his stew instead. Aiden steadies him as he stands and strips, and then casts Igni into the washtub to get the water hot again, and Jaskier sits down in it and immediately decides he’s not getting out again, ever.

Aiden laughs when he says so. “You can’t sleep there, Julek,” he says. “You’ll drown.”

“But I’ll drown warm,” Jaskier points out.

“Not after the water goes cold, you won’t,” Aiden says. “Come on, scrub down and out you get. The bed will have a nice warm witcher in it!”

“You make a compelling argument,” Jaskier allows, and takes the rag Aiden hands him to start scrubbing the sweat and dirt of travel from his skin. Aiden helps him out when he’s clean, rubs him briskly dry with a bit of spare toweling, wrangles him into smallclothes and a shirt, and tips him over into bed again, all in about the time it would take Jaskier to finish drying his hair on a normal day.

“Sleep, little brother,” he says. “I’ll be along in a moment.”

Jaskier means to say something clever and snarky, but he’s asleep before he manages to make his mouth form the words.

He wakes up, as promised, with a nice warm witcher wound around him; he’s stiffened up a bit overnight, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was the previous evening, and a little stretching ought to deal with it easily enough.

“Mrrph, put out the light,” Aiden mutters against his throat.

“That’s the sun, brother of mine,” Jaskier says, grinning and stroking a hand over Aiden’s hair.

“Don’t care,” Aiden grumbles, nestling further into the crook of Jaskier’s neck. “Don’t like it.”

Jaskier laughs. “We could sleep in a bit, but I think we’d better get moving. Your Lambert’s waiting for you.”

“Only for Lambert would I go up into the ass end of Kaedwen to spend the winter,” Aiden sighs, and gets up, offering Jaskier a hand to his feet. “And maybe for you. Alright, come on, your terrifying hellmounts await.”

“They’re very nice horses!” Jaskier objects, getting to his feet with a wince and bending immediately into a deep stretch, groaning as his back complains.

“They’re hellbeasts sent to torment me,” Aiden corrects him. “But they’ll get us to Kaer Morhen, so it’s fine.”

Jaskier snickers against his own knees. “I’ll teach ‘em to like you,” he promises.

“If anyone could, I suppose it would be you,” Aiden says thoughtfully. “But I don’t know if there are enough carrots in the world.”

“Never know until you try!” Jaskier says cheerfully, straightening up and twisting back and forth a little to loosen his muscles. “Right. Onward! To the ass end of Kaedwen!”

“I don’t think that’s going to catch on as a rallying cry,” Aiden observes.

“Eh, I’ll work on it a bit,” Jaskier says, shrugging. “Gods, I hope they have something other than porridge for breakfast.”

“Good luck with that,” Aiden says wryly.

As it turns out, the inn has oatcakes with honey and dried fruit, so Jaskier feels extremely pleased with himself as they head out into the brisk autumn morning to collect Pegasus and Fancy from the groom.

*

Aiden does not know how Julek is doing it. Or rather, there are two things Julek is doing which astonish him. The first is, of course, riding across Kaedwen. Julek grouses and groans and gets off the horse wincing and nearly weeping with pain every day for a week before he starts to grow accustomed to the pace, and does get saddlesores, though thankfully the liniment eases them before they can get to a dangerous point, and yet never even suggests taking a break or turning back. Aiden wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t been watching it, and even as it is, he’s genuinely taken aback by Julek’s stubbornness.

The other thing is that Julek is, in fact, trying to teach the horses not to hate Aiden. Every morning and evening, he leads them a little closer to Aiden, just until they balk and start to get witchercidal looks in their eyes, and then he feeds them carrots and apples and pets them and tells them they’re wonderful animals until they look less likely to devour Aiden and crunch his bones for marrow, and then they go on with the day or turn the horses over to the grooms for the night, and the bizarre thing is, it seems to be working. Julek can get Pegasus to within six feet of Aiden without any unpleasant reactions now, and Fancy to within eight!

Horses, of course, cannot run all day without taking breaks, but Aiden can, so he uses the hours while Julek is letting the horses rest to hunt in the forests and fields around the road. The game he brings back is actually very useful even when they’re not camping, because they can trade it to innkeepers for reductions in the price of rooms and meals - and at least for the first week, neither of them is making any coin. Julek is far too exhausted to perform, and Aiden hasn’t seen any notices for anything he thinks he could kill both quickly and safely without bombs and Lambert’s backup.

After that first week, though, Julek starts to get used to riding for hours at a stretch, and begins bargaining with the innkeepers for their usual deal: a performance in exchange for room and board. They do still have to pay for stabling for the horses, but that’s not so bad in comparison. And Julek, of course, makes quite a bit of coin, even if he has to stay sat on a stool rather than dancing about as he usually does.

By the time they’re halfway across Kaedwen, Julek has fully adjusted to riding for so long each day, and is back in fine form, cavorting around the inn rooms and flirting cheerfully with anyone who bats their eyelashes at him. Aiden is kept rather busy making sure that Julek doesn’t find too many married people to tumble, though he does stand back the time both the husband and the wife are flirting vigorously, and Julek comes back to their rented room in the small hours of the morning, reeking of sex and looking as pleased with himself as a tomcat on a fence rail. Aiden throws a pillow at him, which doesn’t actually make Julek look any less smug.

Aiden is genuinely starting to wonder if Julek’s hypothetical scrap of nonhuman blood might not be incubus.

Or, possibly, bards are just like this, and Aiden simply hasn’t spent enough time around any other bards. Though if that’s the case, then Oxenfurt really ought to be a sort of continuous orgy, and the couple of times Aiden’s been through, it’s been rowdy but not quite that rowdy, so probably it is just a Julek thing.

Aiden is half-tempted to draw up a bestiary page, honestly. Julek, genus: bard, species: unknown. Nonthreatening unless your name is Geralt of Rivia, or you say anything rude about witchers or his singing. Primary weapon vocal; primary defense consists of looking utterly adorable. Innate powers of seduction, possibly incubus-descended. Extremely stubborn; frequently reckless. Range: anywhere he damn well wants it to be.

Julek would probably find that hilarious, actually. So might Lambert, once he’s met the bard. Maybe Aiden will be able to find the materials to draw it up this winter, assuming he doesn’t get tossed off the mountain on sight.

Hopefully the fact that he isn’t wearing a Cat medallion will win him enough time to explain himself. Hopefully Lambert will be there.

Gods, Lambert must be frantically worried. Neither of them has missed a meeting in decades. And, Lambert being Lambert, that worry will doubtless manifest itself as incandescent anger. Aiden fully expects Lambert to punch him when they finally meet up again. After the punch, though, that’s a bit less certain: Lambert could do anything from stalking off to work through his emotions in private, to slinging Aiden over a shoulder and carrying him off to a bedroom. Aiden is admittedly rather hoping for that second option. Unlike a certain possibly-part-incubus bard, he hasn’t been getting his end away at irregular but extremely frequent intervals.

Not that he would, even if he were as effective a flirt as his little brother. Aiden has his person, and doesn’t care to stray. He’s heard that actual cats are often much the same, choosing one human to adore and being utterly indifferent to all others. And Lambert, the darling puppy, is a Wolf through and through, which means he is as loyal as the day is long to those who have earned his loyalty.

Aiden has, many years ago now. And Lambert has earned his.

Come to think of it, Lambert is probably going to want to hunt down the bastards who nearly killed Aiden.

Well, that’ll be a good errand for next spring. If Aiden’s former brothers have grown amoral enough to accept contracts on other witchers, then they’re honestly too dangerous to leave alive. There are plenty of assholes out there who would be willing to take out contracts on, say, the big redheaded witcher who was rude to them, or the Butcher of Blaviken, or even just a random witcher passing through who happened to not be able to save everyone, because sometimes contracts are shit like that.

So yes, Aiden probably does need to do something about the people who tried to kill him. But he won’t be telling Julek about it.

Not because Julek would disapprove. Because Julek would try to help, and then he’ll get hurt, because a lute and a dagger are not actually very good weapons against truly vicious men.

And if Aiden has lost his School-brothers to their own vicious folly, he has gained a brother who is worth all of them twice over, one as loyal as a Wolf and as wild as a Cat and as marvelous as the first sunrise of a new and glorious year.

Chapter Text

Jaskier actually prefers walking to riding, he has decided, because riding makes it much harder to play his lute while he travels. But he has to admit that they are definitely covering more ground than they would if he was on his own two feet, and Fancy can carry a lot more in the way of food and baggage than Jaskier and Aiden could have managed alone. So for the purposes of this particular journey, riding is definitely a better option.

Especially now that he’s mostly gotten over the saddlesores. Those were miserable, and the fact that Aiden didn’t make any fuss about having to rub liniment onto Jaskier’s ass was a very small consolation. Aiden was very kind about Jaskier’s exhaustion and general uselessness, that first horrid week, and Jaskier is grateful for it, but he’s very glad that he’s grown used to the relentless pace of their travels, and has been able to start actually contributing again.

As the weather grows colder and the evenings grow longer, taverns and inns start to be quite eager to have a bard around, someone to help keep the crowds happy and drinking and not having brawls. Not that Jaskier has anything against a good tavern brawl, but they’re more fun in the summer, when being dunked in the horse trough won’t end in icicles and hypothermia.

As the harvest is brought in, there’s more coin around, too, and laborers satisfied with their long day’s work are more likely to be willing to throw a bit of spare change into a bard’s hat, so Jaskier is actually making money, even with having to pay for the stabling for Pegasus and Fancy, which is a delightful surprise. He is usually most of the way back to Oxenfurt by this time of year, and the area around Oxenfurt has such a glut of bards that audiences tend to be rather jaded and bored by anything but the most compelling tunes. The rural areas of Kaedwen, however, are not overwhelmed with bards, and Jaskier is utterly overjoyed to be an object of fascination and the center of attention in whatever tiny town they’ve found to stop in for the night.

There are ever so many pretty maidens and handsome farmer lads, too, and Aiden only keeps him from flirting with maybe half of them, which leaves a gracious plenty, and means that Jaskier has quite a few delightful opportunities to hide his sausage in only slightly inadvisable pantries. And on the nights he is not engaged in any sausage-related shenanigans, he gets to sleep curled up with his brother, safe and warm, which is just as good in a very different way.

It is twenty-six very long days (Jaskier counts, of course) before they reach a town at the base of the Blue Mountains with the extremely hope-inducing name of Wolvenburg. Yes, it could just be that there happen to be a lot of wolves up in the Blue Mountains, but there also might be Wolves in the Blue Mountains, and given that the town is on the banks of the Gwenllech, which Aiden says apparently runs through the valley below Kaer Morhen, Jaskier thinks there’s a very good chance that the Trail up to the mysterious keep starts somewhere near here.

This theory is borne out almost at once when he walks into the tavern and spots, in the darkest corner (it must be a witcher thing, Aiden does it too), a big man with two swords leaned up against the wall beside him, and yellow eyes gleaming out of the dimness.

Jaskier pays full price for room and board, for once, and collects a pair of ales, then leaves Aiden in the second-darkest corner of the tavern and goes sauntering cheerfully across to join the unknown witcher, leaning on the back of the other chair and grinning at the wary look he earns.

“Hello!” he says brightly. “You’re a Wolf, right?”

The witcher is a large, sturdy-looking man, in a red-and-black striped gambeson with some impressive spikes on the shoulders; he’s got some of the most dramatic scars Jaskier’s ever seen, a trio of marks raking down the side of his face, but he’s quite handsome nonetheless. Both of his hands are curled around a large tankard of ale, though there’s a sheathed knife on the table within easy reach. He definitely looks rather taken aback by Jaskier’s greeting.

“I am, yes,” he says, in a low, raspy voice. “Do you need a witcher?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Jaskier says. “May I sit down?”

The witcher lets go of the tankard with one hand to gesture a welcome. Jaskier slides into the chair with a grin. “So,” he says, offering a hand across the table. “I’m called Jaskier the bard.”

The witcher grips his hand gently as he speaks, and then goes very still, fingers tightening just a little in shock. “Jaskier the bard? The Toss a Coin bard?”

“That would be me!” Jaskier agrees.

The witcher lets go of his hand carefully and takes a long drink from his tankard, then shakes himself a little. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says. “I’m Eskel of the Wolves.”

“I’m honored,” Jaskier says, quite honestly. Eskel is one of the few names Geralt has mentioned more than once - mentioned in tones of extraordinary fondness, no less. Usually Geralt’s idea of a high compliment is ‘Not bad,’ but Jaskier has heard him call Eskel both ‘really fucking smart’ and ‘competent as all hell,’ so honestly Jaskier is assuming Eskel is, in fact, the finest witcher alive short of, well, Geralt. And possibly slightly less of an ass than Geralt, too. Not that that would be difficult.

“So,” Eskel says slowly, “why is Jaskier the bard in Wolvenburg without my brother?”

“To be perfectly frank, your brother broke my heart and left me on a mountain in Caingorn, which I feel was extremely rude of him.”

Eskel blinks at him for a moment and then sighs and rubs his forehead. “Of course he did, the great daft idiot. Abandon your best friend on a fucking mountain, I swear, fucking rocks for brains…” he trails off into an indignant mutter and takes another deep drink of ale.

“He calls me his best friend?” Jaskier asks in a very small voice. He had hoped Geralt might have mentioned him to the other Wolves, but had expected it would be as - as an annoyance, an acquaintance, a mayfly human who happened to spend his time buzzing about Geralt’s ears.

“Not in so many words,” Eskel admits. “But, well. You know Geralt. Words aren’t easy for him.”

“And when they are, they tend to be the wrong ones,” Jaskier agrees. Eskel snorts and nods.

“Exactly. So no, not in so many words. But - well. Your name comes up a lot. ‘Jaskier won four bardic competitions this year’. ‘Jaskier kept putting flowers in my hair for some reason’. ‘Jaskier got treed by a drowner and sang at it until I came and killed it’.”

“In my defense it did seem to like my singing,” Jaskier says. “And also - I didn’t know he actually paid attention to my competitions!”

“Oh, he does,” Eskel says. “Tells us every year how many you won, and what songs you used, and if you beat someone named Valdo Marx.”

Jaskier sits there in stunned silence for a moment. “Holy shit,” he says at last. “I…really didn’t think he paid that much attention.”

“Geralt is - and please understand that he is my dearest brother and my closest friend, and has been for the better part of a century, and so I say this with great love and affection in my heart - very, very bad at actually telling people about his feelings.” Eskel shrugs. “You have to pay attention to what he does, and even then, he usually tries to make it seem like he just happened to make too many socks and so has hidden some in your saddlebags, or something absurd like that.”

“Oh my gods the ‘I have hidden this in your pack because I can’t actually give gifts openly like a normal person’ trick!” Jaskier says. “I swear to Melitele, for a while I thought I had a lute-string fairy because there kept being more in my pack!”

Eskel snickers. “Yep, that’s Geralt for you.” He shakes his head. “Daft creature. Anyway. So he left you on a mountain in Caingorn, because he is, in fact, occasionally a colossal dumbass, and somehow you have gotten from Caingorn to Wolvenburg in order to…?”

“If I don’t find Geralt this winter, he’ll go off and sulk, and I’ll never have the balls to go looking for him again,” Jaskier explains. “And I don’t want to lose out on twenty years of friendship because Geralt was - well, he was fucking miserable and he took it out on me, and I’m pissed about it but he’s still…” He sighs. “He’s still important to me.”

Eskel nods. “I understand completely. Do you want to come to Kaer Morhen? You’ll be welcome there. We all know how much we owe your songs. And we’ve been wanting to meet Geralt’s bard.”

“I - actually I thought that was going to be a much harder sell,” Jaskier says, blinking. “I know humans aren’t allowed there, generally.”

“Humans in general, no. The bard who’s stuck with Geralt for twenty years, rehabilitated his reputation after the Blaviken debacle, and in the process made all of our lives quite a lot easier? Yes.”

Jaskier sighs. “Well, that’s - thank you. But there’s a…a further complication, I suppose.”

“Of course there is,” Eskel says wryly. “Lay it out, then.”

“My companion,” Jaskier says. “My brother, in heart if not in blood. His name is Aiden, and he’s also looking for a Wolf.”

“Aiden,” Eskel says, and frowns. “Aiden. Why do I know that name?” He takes a drink, still frowning, and then his expression clears. “Oh. Lambert’s lover that he thinks we don’t know about. He only talks about him when he’s very, very drunk. That Aiden?”

“Ah,” Jaskier says. “Well. Yes. Lambert’s lover that he thinks you don’t know about.” He takes a deep breath. “He missed his scheduled meeting with Lambert on account of nearly being killed by assassins, and would very much like to assure Lambert that he is, in fact, not dead.”

“Ah. You know, that’s fair,” Eskel says slowly, clearly thinking the matter through as he speaks. “And honestly I’m just as glad he is here, then, because if Lambert thinks his lover is dead -” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Lambert’s a prickly bastard at the best of times. Lambert grieving? Gods, I don’t even want to think about how bad that could get. Call him over, then, this Aiden fellow.”

Jaskier doesn’t bother getting up; Aiden can hear everything they’re saying, of course. It’s the matter of a very few seconds before Aiden is lounging against the back of Jaskier’s chair. Eskel looks up and goes utterly still, a stillness that Jaskier suspects is that of the Wolf quite deliberately not reaching for the knife beside his hand.

“Witcher,” he says softly, and his eyes flick down to Aiden’s chest, where no medallion hangs. “What School?”

Aiden sucks in an audible breath. “I was trained by the Cats,” he says quietly.

Eskel growls, an almost subterranean sound, and his hand clenches so hard on the tankard that the wood cracks beneath his grip, ale leaking out over his fingers. The wetness seems to startle him out of his rage, though, and he shakes himself roughly and grimaces down at his broken mug.

“Right,” he says. “Cat. You have two minutes to explain why I shouldn’t take you out back and finish what those assassins started.”

Aiden swallows hard. “The ones who tried to kill me were Cats,” he says. “They took my medallion as a trophy. Given that, I’m pretty sure my School doesn’t want me anymore, and frankly, I’m about ready to renounce them.”

“Good start,” Eskel says, nodding slowly.

“I was in gaol with Guxart for the whole fucking Tournament debacle,” Aiden continues. “I haven’t been back to the Caravan in almost a decade. And I love Lambert enough to walk into a den of Wolves just for the chance to see him again.”

“That’s…quite a declaration,” Eskel says. “Huh. How long have you been Lambert’s lover?”

“Better part of twenty years, and we traveled together for over a decade before that,” Aiden admits.

Very slowly, Eskel nods, and breathes out a long slow sigh as his posture untenses a little. “Pull up a chair, then, Aiden.” Aiden does so, looking a little shocked. “Thirty years ago is about when my little brother started looking less like he wanted to kill everything, all the time,” Eskel continues. “It’s also about when I started hoping he might not die of sheer spleen. So if that’s your doing, well. I owe you my thanks.”

Aiden looks gobsmacked. “No thanks needed,” he says a little hoarsely. “I’m just glad I’ve made a difference for him.”

“Huh,” Eskel says. “Well. Vesemir’s going to be a harder sell than I am, but I think we can probably talk him into not throwing you off the mountain, at least. And Geralt will probably be a jackass, but he’s going to be a bit distracted, what with the bard and all.”

“You’ll let me come?” Aiden asks, eye wide with hope.

“I will,” Eskel says. “With the understanding that if you hurt my brother, or if you do anything to bring further harm to Kaer Morhen, I will break every bone in your body and set you on fire before I throw you off the mountain.”

Aiden nods. “Understood,” he says firmly.

“Then I suppose tomorrow you can help me buy supplies, and the day after we’ll head up the Trail,” Eskel says.

“We can make Jaskier haggle,” Aiden offers. “He’s very, very good at it.”

“I would be glad to,” Jaskier agrees. “And we’ve got both a packhorse and a palfrey, so if you’d like to get a cart to fill, we can do that.”

“Lovely,” Eskel says. “Right then. I’m going to go get a new mug of ale, and you two can tell me about your adventures with my brothers.” He stands, looking down at both of them for a long thoughtful moment, and then sighs. “Swear to fuck, those two get me into the strangest scrapes,” he mutters, and heads off towards the bar with his broken tankard dangling from one hand.

“Well,” Jaskier says. “That went startlingly well. I think Eskel needs at least one song, don’t you?”

“Definitely,” Aiden agrees, grinning. “Something about him being extraordinarily even-tempered and good-natured, I think.”

“Ooh,” Jaskier says, and starts to hum.

*

Aiden had rather thought that Lambert, who likes to make mountains out of molehills whenever possible (although not about things that actually matter to him - those, he keeps so close to his vest it’s almost impossible to ferret them out), had been exaggerating the treacherous and miserable nature of the Trail up to Kaer Morhen.

It turns out Lambert may actually have been downplaying the fucking thing.

“This is,” Aiden says tightly, bracing his feet against a tree and his back against the cart so that Eskel can use him as a fulcrum to haul the cart around a hairpin turn, “a truly terrible excuse for a path.”

“Yep,” Eskel grunts, as the cart settles onto its new heading with a creak and a thump. “Last ten furlongs are the worst.”

“Oh joy,” Aiden says. Up ahead of the cart, Julek is riding Pegasus, swathed in several layers of cloak and huddled down until all that shows above the heap of fabric is the absurd bobble on his knit hat.

“We call it the Killer,” Eskel says. “For that bit, you look after Jaskier. I’ll handle the cart.”

“Melitele’s frozen tits,” Aiden mutters. “I thought Lambert was joking about that.”

Eskel snorts. “More’s the pity he wasn’t. Does mostly keep unwanted visitors out, though.”

“Very few problems with traveling trinket salesmen, I expect,” Aiden agrees. Eskel clucks to Fancy and his own stallion, Scorpion, and they obligingly start to haul the cart forward again. The chickens in the cage at the back of the cart squawk angrily at the world.

“Almost none,” Eskel agrees. “And when we did get invaded, well, the bastards lost almost as many to the Killer as they did to those who died defending the keep.”

Aiden winces. Lambert has mentioned the sacking of Kaer Morhen - but not often, and never while sober.

“Sorry,” he says softly.

“Eh,” Eskel says, shrugging. “You didn’t mean anything by it, I don’t think. But don’t bring it up around Vesemir, yeah? He - well. He was the only survivor.”

Aiden winces again, harder. “I’ll try to keep my foot out of my mouth,” he promises. “And thank you for the warning.”

Eskel claps him gently on the shoulder. “I think you’ll do alright. Lambert likes you; the rest of us should be easy.”

“That is a very encouraging way to look at it,” Aiden says. “Thank you.” And then, grinning crookedly at Eskel, “Mind you, I have a way to keep Lambert sweet with me that I won’t be using with any of the rest of you.”

“I would prefer not to think too much about my little brother’s sexual habits, thanks ever so,” Eskel says dryly.

“Picky, picky,” Aiden teases. “And here I thought you were the least prudish of your School. Lambert has this story involving you and a succubus…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Eskel grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Stories I tell while I am drunk off my ass on Lambert’s ridiculous moonshine shouldn’t count.”

“Because they’re not true or because you’d know better to tell them if you were sober?”

“That second one,” Eskel says, sighing. “I’ve got a reputation as the sensible one to uphold, you know.”

“I feel like compared to Lambert and Geralt, you could probably fuck a succubus a month and still be the most sensible of your School,” Aiden admits. “I love Lambert to distraction, but I’m not going to claim he’s a paragon of sane and rational decision-making.”

“Yeah, he’s fucking a Cat,” Eskel says, and then, “Sorry. That was low-hanging fruit, but I should have resisted all the same.”

“Honestly, we’ve both made that joke before,” Aiden admits. “It was a lot funnier when I thought most of the real bastards had died in that fucking Tournament, though. Haven’t made it in the last, oh, decade, something like.”

“Ah,” Eskel says, and sighs. “Well. If he had to pick a Cat, I gotta say, you seem like a decent sort. A lot less crazy than the rumors paint your brothers.”

“A lot less crazy than my former brothers actually are,” Aiden says grimly. “Not all of ‘em. Some of them are honestly not bad. But the ones that are…other than the stupid rumors about Blaviken, I’ve never heard of a Wolf going wrong.”

“No,” Eskel says, and hesitates. For a long moment, there’s nothing but the rattle of the cart’s wheels on the stone of the path. “When one of ours went wrong,” he says, slowly and quietly, “we dealt with it ourselves.”

Aiden bites his lip. “Ah,” he says after a long moment. “Well. That’s…responsible of you.”

“It didn’t happen often, and it was usually in the first few years on the Path,” Eskel says. “So it hasn’t happened in a while. And I never had to, thank fuck. But.”

“But,” Aiden says, and nods. “Did - fuck, I hate to ask, but you know the saying about curiosity and cats. Did your Schoolmates think that was what happened in Blaviken?”

“Someone going wrong?” Eskel asks, and sighs. “Yeah. Specially as Geralt went to ground and didn’t come back to the keep for three fucking years, the colossal dumbass.” He pauses. “I found him, actually. Sat on him until he told me what’d actually happened, and then dragged him back so he could actually spend a winter resting instead of hiding in a cave and brooding. Jaskier’s not wrong about needing to catch Geralt before he really gets stuck in his own damn head.”

Aiden nods understanding. “What did actually happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Geralt got himself caught between a cursed princess and an absolute fuckstain of a mage, and tried to save the townsfolk,” Eskel says grimly. “He killed the princess and her bandits before they could slaughter the town, and the mage made it out to look like he’d just gone mad and started killing people for no damn reason at all.”

“What mage was this?” Aiden asks, keeping his voice deliberately light. “Just for personal reference, you understand. Absolutely no intention of possibly meeting him down a dark alley some evening.” Because Aiden may be pissed as hell at Geralt of Rivia, but that sort of nastiness is a threat to every witcher alive, and also just purely cruel in a way Aiden doesn’t like at all.

“Stregobor of Ban Ard,” Eskel says, and spits off the side of the trail.

Aiden nods, committing the name to memory. Stregobor of Ban Ard, huh? Maybe Aiden’s list of people to pay a visit to this coming spring needs to be a name or two longer.

“Come to think of it,” Eskel says slowly, “Geralt’s gonna be…really damn slow to trust you. None of us like Cats much, but - well. He was in the arena.”

“Well shit,” Aiden says, wincing.

“Yeah,” Eskel says. “‘S why we thought he might have broken. Blaviken was only a couple years after.”

“So he had the world’s shittiest five-year stretch,” Aiden sums up. “And it started with the Cats betraying your entire School. Fuck. I’ll stay out of his way.”

“At least until he’s gotten over his initial bout of idiocy - because he will have an initial bout of idiocy - yes, that would probably be wise.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Aiden sighs. “Well. This got incredibly depressing very fast.”

Eskel snorts. “We’re climbing a trail that ends in a section called the Killer. What did you expect?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Aiden says, grinning. “Oh gods, there’s another curve coming up.”

“Yep,” Eskel says. “Want fulcrum or steering?”

“Fulcrum,” Aiden sighs. “Your horse hasn’t learned to put up with me yet.”

“Probably shouldn’t let Scorpion trample you,” Eskel agrees. “It would be a damn shame to have to tell Lambert his lover got almost all the way to Kaer Morhen and then got stomped on by my horse.”

“Yes, that would indeed be a shame,” Aiden says, keeping his face as straight as he can. “So I guess I’ll just be fulcrum all the way up.”

“Sounds good,” Eskel says amiably, and backs up a few steps, then performs an absolutely gorgeous flying leap that launches him over the cart and onto the path in front of the horses. Aiden takes a moment to admire that. His heart may be given to Lambert, but he doesn’t think his Wolf would blame him for being a bit impressed by the most sensible son of Kaer Morhen.

*

Jaskier is very cold, and very tired, and very very done with the horrible excuse for a trail which leads up the mountain, by the time they finally reach the gates of Kaer Morhen. There’s a man standing in the arched entrance: an old man, which is a bit startling. Jaskier hadn’t realized witchers ever looked old. It’s not the false age that Geralt’s white hair provides; this man has wrinkles, and his steel-grey hair is a much more natural color than Geralt’s moon-white. He’s still a very strong-looking fellow, of course; no doubt he could overpower Jaskier easily. But he looks to be in his late middle age, rather than the prime of his youth.

He looks the three of them up and down, frowning silently, for a long moment, and then says, “Eskel. Who have you brought to Kaer Morhen?”

“My guests,” Eskel says firmly. “Who are under my protection, and for whom I take full responsibility, at least until the people they’re actually here for arrive. This is Jaskier the bard, who needs to speak to Geralt.”

The old witcher gives Jaskier another once-over. “Jaskier the bard,” he says slowly. “Be welcome to Kaer Morhen. You have done a great service to all witchers, and I thank you for it.”

Jaskier bows in his saddle. “Sir, I thank you for your welcome,” he replies. “It is my honor to do any service to the witchers who protect our continent from such terrors as roam the darkness, and I hope to continue to do so for many years to come.”

The old witcher actually cracks a tiny smile. Jaskier would never have seen it if he wasn’t used to watching Geralt’s face very closely for the slightest expressions, but yes, it’s definitely a smile. So that’s probably a good sign.

“And the other?” the old witcher asks Eskel.

Eskel takes a deep breath. “This is Lambert’s lover, Aiden, who is also sworn brother to Jaskier.”

The old witcher narrows his eyes, examining Aiden slowly from top to toe. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asks at last.

Aiden sighs and shakes his head and steps forward, sinking gracefully to his knees in front of the old witcher. “I was trained by the School of the Cat,” he says plainly. “I have never knowingly harmed a Wolf, and if you desire it, I will here renounce my School, both because it was my former brothers who cost me my eye and almost my life, and because I would pay any price to stay at Lambert’s side.”

Jaskier bites his lip and holds his breath. This could all go so terribly wrong. He sees the old witcher’s hand rise towards his sword hilts as Aiden names his School -

And then, to his surprise, and obviously to Aiden’s too, the hand falls, and the old witcher frowns a little. “Why do I know you - ah. You were with Guxart.”

Aiden looks confused. “What?”

“You were in the cell next to Guxart’s during that fucking tournament,” the old witcher says. “Well. Get up. I’m not best pleased to have a Cat in Kaer Morhen, but at least you’re not one of Treyse’s lot.”

“...Thank you, sir,” Aiden says, standing up slowly and still looking baffled.

“If I find out you have ever done Lambert harm,” the old witcher says calmly, “you had best start running, because I will find you, and you will not enjoy what follows before you die.”

Aiden swallows hard. “Understood, sir.”

“Good. Get that cart in and unloaded, night comes early these days,” the old witcher says, and turns to stump back into the courtyard.

“That went surprisingly well,” Jaskier murmurs.

“I’m also fairly surprised,” Eskel admits. “But I’m not going to argue.”

“Definitely not arguing,” Aiden agrees. “Come on, the faster we unload the faster we can get inside, and I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing and I’m betting Julek is even worse off.”

“I can still mostly feel my toes,” Jaskier says.

“How’s about you head into the stable and start untacking Pegasus,” Eskel says. “We’ll bring the other horses in to you.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, and nudges Pegasus through the gate and towards the long, low building up against the keep’s wall.

If he had to guess, he’d guess that the kitchen is on the other side of the wall, because the stone radiates a gentle heat which is an immense relief after the biting wind out on the Trail. Pegasus seems pleased by it, too. There are about a dozen stalls in the stable, one of which is occupied by a sleepy-looking donkey, another of which holds two goats; Jaskier leads Pegasus into the next one and starts untacking him, finding a currycomb and a stack of horse-blankets on a shelf at the end of the stable.

Eskel brings Fancy and Scorpion in a few minutes later - and really, Jaskier is going to have to tease him properly about the apparent inability of Wolf witchers to pick decent names for their horses, because Scorpion is, in fact, not a lot better than Roach, and no, knowing that Geralt means the fish and not the insect does not actually help at all.

He gets all three horses untacked and brushed and blanketed and settled for the night, with oats and hay in their mangers and water in their troughs, and then the old witcher comes in with buckets of hot mash for all of them and the donkey and the goats, and Jaskier follows him out of the stable and into the keep.

The front hall is dark and cold, and Jaskier is starting to wonder if this was actually a terrible idea, when the old witcher turns sharply to the right and pushes his way through a heavy door, holding it open just long enough for Jaskier to slip through, and Jaskier walks right into what may in fact be heaven.

It’s actually a kitchen, but he stands by his first impression, thank you very much.

It’s warm, that’s the first important thing about it - warm enough that Jaskier can take off his heavy coats and drape them over the back of a chair. There’s a long table near the hearth, with sturdy chairs set about it, and a cauldron bubbling away over the fire and producing truly astonishingly good smells, and a tray of fresh-baked loaves sitting on the table, and an oven along one wall radiating heat like - well, like an oven, actually, Jaskier is too tired and cold to come up with better metaphors - and frankly he could just stay here all winter, that would be fine. He can sleep on the hearth.

“Sit,” the old witcher says gruffly, and picks up one of the palm-sized loaves, breaking it in half and then opening a cupboard and pulling out a round of cheese, from which he cuts a generous slice. He sandwiches the cheese between the halves of the loaf and hands the whole thing to Jaskier. “Eat. You look ready to collapse.”

Jaskier obediently sits and eats. The bread is amazing, warm and savory and a little tangy, and the cheese is sharp and crumbly, and the mug of ale the old witcher plunks down at his elbow is cold and rich and a little sweet, and Jaskier genuinely isn’t sure he’s had a better meal in years. Maybe ever.

The door opens again, letting in a gust of cold air, and then Aiden and Eskel are settling into the chairs on either side of him. The old witcher grunts a greeting - gods, he sounds almost exactly like Geralt, it’s uncanny - and puts together sandwiches for each of them, shoving them gruffly across the table, before turning to poke at the pot of stew simmering away on the fire.

“I got your room ready when I spotted you on the trail,” he says over his shoulder to Eskel. “Not sure where to put you two, though.”

“We’ll share,” Jaskier says. The old witcher turns and gives him a dubious look. “He’s my brother,” Jaskier says. “And also a witcher is a marvelously warm bedmate and I like waking up able to feel my extremities.”

“Definitely happy to share, at least until Lambert shows up,” Aiden agrees. “Then maybe you can have Julek-cuddling duties, Eskel, if Geralt’s not here yet.”

“The things I do for my brother,” Eskel sighs, obviously pretending to be much more put-upon than he really is. “I suppose I can look after the bard for a while. How much trouble can one human be?”

Aiden bursts into laughter, clutching at his sides and slumping over against Jaskier, who thinks about being offended and decides it isn’t worth the energy. “Oh, Eskel my friend, you are going to eat those words,” Aiden gasps out between guffaws. “Believe me, the amount of trouble our Julek can find is infinite. The man could cause a riot in a nunnery.”

“That was once,” Jaskier says indignantly, and then realizes he’s proving Aiden’s point and decides to finish his sandwich in dignified silence, ignoring the baffled looks Eskel and Vesemir exchange.

Chapter Text

Kaer Morhen is a ruin.

Aiden knew it had been sacked - Lambert’s told him a little of that, of going back after a year on the Path to find the keep a burned-out hulk and all the trainers and trainees laid out in the dry moat in tidy, terrible rows - but there’s hearing the story and there’s seeing what the mob did to one of the last true strongholds of the witchers.

There is no gate in the gaping entryway; merlons have been broken from the wall, leaving gaps like missing teeth. One tower is crumbled and bent, seemingly mere moments from toppling the rest of the way over. There are great burn-marks streaking the inner walls, and brown-red stains upon the cobblestones that even decades of spring snowmelts have not been able to wash away. Half the corridors within the keep are closed off, and peering down them, Aiden sees the remains of chairs and beds and clothing chests, the detritus of a keep that was a home to many, and now houses…four. Five, perhaps, if Aiden is made welcome in the future.

It is a place of grief, and Aiden walks softly so as not to rouse the ghosts of the past - not true ghosts, not the wraiths that witchers lay to rest, but the memories which cannot be quieted while their bearers yet live.

He makes himself useful in the kitchen, earning gruff nods from Vesemir for his skill there, and for the recipes he has from the south, where the Caravan roams in the upper reaches of Nilfgaard and its vassal states. He helps Eskel clear out a bedroom above the kitchen for him and Julek to share, carrying out the broken furniture and bringing in an intact bed and the heavy curtains to go with it, thick rugs for the floor and a rack for Aiden’s swords and armor and a stand for Julek’s lute, and spends the nights curled around Julek, listening to the oddly soothing sound of the bard’s snoring and occasional sleep-singing. He investigates the training grounds, discovering an obstacle course made of pillars and pendulums, and runs through that two or three times a day to keep training his single eye’s depth perception. He spars with Eskel and Vesemir, carefully, all of them a little wary of actually going full-out against each other. He listens to Julek writing songs, and practices with his tabor. He spends shifts in the half-crumbled tower above the gate, watching down the horrible Trail for any sign of the other Wolves coming home.

It’s Eskel, though, who spots the fire partway down the Trail, and announces someone will be arriving the next day.

It could be Lambert. It could be Geralt. It could, apparently, be the last remaining Griffin, a man named Coën who Eskel speaks of with great fondness.

Aiden bites his nails to the quick and runs loops on the battlements and can’t sleep until Julek finally sighs and rolls over and flops on top of him and starts humming, deep in his chest, and the steady rumbles of it jostle the racing thoughts out of Aiden’s head.

In the morning, Vesemir gives him a resigned sort of look and tells him to go sort the eastern cellar, which apparently Lambert left in a terrible mess last winter, and that’s enough to distract Aiden until midafternoon, when Julek comes pattering down the stairs and announces that the approaching witcher will arrive within the hour.

If it’s Geralt, Aiden needs to not be visible, so he climbs up onto the roof of the stable and flattens himself against the slates, lurking in a shadow as he has so many times before for far less benevolent reasons. Eskel and Vesemir wait in the courtyard. Julek is down in the kitchen, staying warm and out of the way in case it is Geralt.

It seems like a very long time before footsteps ring on the cobblestones beneath the gate, and Eskel lunges forward to wrap his arms around a tall, broad-shouldered man with a very familiar head of red hair.

Aiden scrambles gracelessly off the roof, nearly falling, and lurches across the courtyard, heart pounding almost out of his chest. Eskel lets go of Lambert and turns him gently by the shoulders, and Lambert’s jaw drops.

“Lam,” Aiden croaks.

“Kreve’s crooked cock, you’re alive,” Lambert rasps, and seizes Aiden in a rib-crushing hug. “You bastard,” he snarls against the side of Aiden’s head. “You twice-cursed sheep-fucking chort-brained fucker, what the absolute fuck happened? You were fucking gone!”

“I don’t know why I thought Lambert would be any politer with a lover than he is with us,” Aiden hears Eskel say to Vesemir, but the words are distant and almost meaningless.

“Lam,” Aiden whispers against Lambert’s shoulder. “Lambert, my Wolf, my darling puppy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, they tossed me in the fucking river and by the time Julek patched me up it had been so long I figured I wouldn’t be able to find you anywhere but here -”

“How are you here?” Lambert says, and then pushes Aiden back by the shoulders and looks him up and down, lovely yellow eyes narrowed, and says, “How the fuck are you here, how did the old man even let you in, what happened to your gods-be-damned eye, who the absolute hell is Julek -”

“Maybe have the rest of this conversation in the kitchen?” Eskel suggests.

“Yes, that might be a good idea,” Aiden says absently, drinking in the sight of Lambert at last. Lambert looks…sort of like hell, actually, far too lean and with his armor battered and patched, his packs lighter than the bags beneath his eyes.

“Shit, Lam,” Aiden says softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” Lambert demands.

“Never,” Aiden swears. “I would never abandon you on purpose.”

Lambert’s shoulders sag a little, and he closes his eyes for a second, an expression of pure relief crossing his face. “Then don’t fucking apologize, asshole,” he says, opening his eyes again, and pulls Aiden back into an embrace, nuzzling at his cheek until Aiden tilts his head up for a kiss.

Lambert’s kisses are always a little surprising. In everything else, he is brash and bluff and fierce, full of prickles and fire and venom, but in this - in this, Aiden’s Wolf is gentle, every time. Aiden loves this hidden sweetness at his Wolf’s heart, this gentleness no one else would ever dream existed. It feels like a secret, a treasure for him and him alone to keep.

Distantly, Aiden hears Eskel or Vesemir make a quiet sound of surprise, but he ignores it.

“Aiden,” Lambert whispers against his lips. “Thank fuck, you’re alive.”

“Thank Julek,” Aiden says.

“Who the fuck is Julek?”

“Julek saved my life. He pulled me out of the river and patched me up,” Aiden says. “He spent his own coin to replace my gear. He’s - he’s my brother, by both our choices.”

“Then he’s mine too,” Lambert says. “Fuck, if he saved your life I owe him - fucking everything.”

“Come meet him,” Aiden says. “He’s in the kitchen.”

*

Jaskier is peeling parsnips. He’s not bad at it, really - Geralt taught him to use a knife without cutting himself, back when Jaskier was a callow youth with more balls than brains - and it’s mindless enough that he can also sing through variations on the chorus for the song he’s trying to write about Eskel’s battle with a fiend, which Eskel related a few days ago.

The door bangs open, letting in a swirl of cold air, and Jaskier jumps a bit, dropping the parsnip and the knife -

And then someone is picking him up, and Jaskier flails for a moment before realizing that it’s not an attack, it’s an embrace.

“Hello?” he says awkwardly, to the unfamiliar redhead who has him wrapped up in a hug so tight it’s pretty much inescapable. “Um - pleasure to meet you?”

“Bet your fuckin’ britches it is,” the redhead mutters.

“Ah,” Jaskier says, starting to grin. “You must be Lambert.”

“He very much is,” Aiden agrees. “If you squeeze him much harder he’ll turn as red as your hair, Lam.”

Lambert puts Jaskier down with a little harrumphing noise, and dusts him off roughly. “Lambert of the Wolves,” he says, offering Jaskier a big hand.

“Jaskier the bard, also known as Aiden’s brother Julek,” Jaskier says, shaking the offered hand firmly.

“Jaskier the fucking bard?” Lambert blurts. “The fucking Toss a Coin bastard?”

“That would be me, yes,” Jaskier agrees.

“How the everlasting fuck did the fucking Toss a Coin bard end up hauling Aiden out of a river?”

“It’s a long story,” Jaskier says ruefully. “Come and sit down and have some bread and cheese, and we’ll tell it.”

Lambert flops down into a chair, and when Aiden gets close enough, hauls Aiden down into his lap. To Jaskier’s delight, Aiden settles contentedly against Lambert, tucking his head under Lambert’s chin. The Cat looks happier than Jaskier has ever seen him before. Lambert hooks his chin over Aiden’s head and curls his arms around the Cat and looks deeply pleased. Eskel sits down next to Jaskier, looking at Lambert and Aiden with something like wonder on his face. Vesemir goes over to fuss over the roast on a spit over the fire, glancing over his shoulder at Lambert every so often with a very faint expression of bafflement on his face.

“Right then,” Lambert says. “How in hell does Geralt’s bard end up with my Cat, who the fuck hurt Aiden this badly, and how in the name of every fucking god out there did you convince Vesemir to let a Cat in the gates?”

“He offered to renounce his School for your sake,” Vesemir says mildly. Lambert’s jaw drops, and he makes a garbled little noise of incoherent protest, leaning back to gawp down at his lover.

“You - what - Aiden you lackwit what were you thinking -”

“I was thinking it was Cats who did their damnedest to kill me, Lam,” Aiden says gently.

Lambert deflates like an abandoned bagpipe. “They what?” he says weakly. “They - your own fucking School?” He’s staring down at Aiden with enormous sad eyes, and Jaskier isn’t quite sure how a man half again his size with more muscles than anyone really needs can look like a kicked puppy, but somehow Lambert manages it.

“Cats aren’t like Wolves,” Aiden sighs, reaching up to cradle Lambert’s cheek in one hand. Jaskier bites back a little coo at the sheer adorableness of the scene. “We aren’t a pack, even in the winters. And we don’t -” he shoots a glance over at Eskel. “We don’t deal with our own broken brothers,” he says softly. “They just get to go on causing problems until they run afoul of a monster or a noble or a mob with pitchforks. So yes. My own fucking School. That absolute bastard Jad and his cronies. They made a damned good attempt at killing me, and very nearly succeeded. Would have done, if Julek hadn’t pulled me out of the river and stitched me back together.”

Lambert makes a soft, miserable sound and rests his forehead against Aiden’s for a moment. “I should have been there,” he whispers. “I should have been there with you.”

“And then we would have both died,” Aiden says. “I’m glad you weren’t. I - if they’d hurt you - Lam, I would have lost my temper.”

Jaskier almost laughs at the sheer incongruity of that sentence, and then he remembers what Aiden told him weeks ago, and swallows hard. Not ‘lost his temper’ like Jaskier himself throwing a tantrum. ‘Lost his temper’ like gone berserk and slaughtered everything in sight.

Lambert winces.

“If I’d hurt you, Lam, it would have killed me far more surely than their blades,” Aiden whispers.

“Oh,” Lambert murmurs. “Ah hell.” He bites his lip for a moment, and then kisses Aiden softly. “So how the fuck does this end with Geralt’s bard fishing you out of a river?”

“Well, my end of it starts with Geralt telling me I’m the source of all his trouble and abandoning me on a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Caingorn,” Jaskier says, as lightly as he can.

“Pretty boy what now?” Lambert says, blinking at him. “But he fucking adores you!”

“And sometimes he’s a very stupid man with a very bad temper,” Jaskier sighs. The way both Lambert and Eskel seem so convinced that Geralt loves him is, well, rather reassuring, actually.

“Yeah, alright, that’s true,” Lambert says. “Still. That’s fucking idiotic. I’m going to dunk him in the horse trough and leave him out to turn into a godsdamned icicle if he doesn’t apologize as soon as he gets back.”

Jaskier snickers. “That seems a little harsh.”

“Eh, he’s already about snow-colored anyhow, it won’t be that much of a difference,” Lambert says, shrugging.

“No witchercicles,” Jaskier says firmly. Lambert wrinkles his nose.

“He won’t let me stab the bastard either,” Aiden grumbles. “I wouldn’t stab him anywhere permanent.”

“I hope you aren’t going to object to me whacking him upside the head and calling him a dumbass,” Eskel says.

“No, that seems fair, actually,” Jaskier says. “He was in fact being very dumb.” He hesitates. “I - he - oh, damn it.”

There’s a pause, and then, “Damn it?” Eskel asks gently.

“The reason he lashed out at me is because his witch just told him they were through forever,” Jaskier says. “He’s hurting. And if he comes home and feels like his brothers have abandoned him too…”

“Julek,” Aiden blinks at him in astonishment, “the bastard broke your fucking heart, why are you trying to protect him?”

“Because he may have broken my heart, but I do still adore the idiot,” Jaskier sighs, “and if his home and his family are taken from him - even if he thinks they’re being taken from him - it will break him, you know.”

There’s a long pause while all the witchers stare at him.

“My little brother is a better man than I am,” Aiden says slowly after a while.

“You’ve helped,” Jaskier admits. “If I’d gone on without finding you, I think I would have just…stewed and gotten bitterer and bitterer. But having you around let me - let me bleed off the misery, I suppose. Like lancing a wound.”

Aiden leans over the table, Lambert’s hands on his hips keeping him from toppling into a platter of bread and cheese, and kisses Jaskier’s forehead. “Julek my brother,” he murmurs.

“Aiden my brother,” Jaskier replies softly.

Aiden sits back down in Lambert’s lap, and Vesemir says quietly, “There are not many humans who would defend a witcher who had harmed them as Geralt has you, bard.”

“Yes, well, I’m not known for my self-preservation instincts,” Jaskier sighs.

“He’s really not,” Aiden agrees fervently.

“Also I - well. We’ve had twenty years of friendship. He’s saved me from furious cuckolds and amorous bruxae and starving in the wilderness. He’s looked after me when I was ill and trusted me at his back when he’s injured and offered a sorceress anything she wanted to save my life. I’m pissed at him, really and truly angry, but I - I am really hoping that when he gets here I can yell at him for a while, and he might actually apologize, or do whatever the Geralt equivalent is, and then we can patch things up.”

There’s another pause, and then Eskel says thoughtfully, “Not many humans who give witchers second chances, either. I’ll sit on him until he actually listens to you, Jaskier.”

“I’ll help,” Lambert grumbles. “If I’m not allowed to dunk him in the horse trough.”

“And I’ll stab him if he doesn’t apologize,” Aiden says. “I’m not his brother, me being pissed at him won’t break his damn fool heart.”

Jaskier shakes his head, laughing, and Vesemir snorts. “You accrue loyal protectors, bard,” he says, and turns back to his roast.

“To be fair, he’s earned my loyalty,” Aiden says.

“Right,” Lambert says. “You started your story and then we got distracted by ragging on pretty boy.”

Jaskier snorts. “I was making my way south, feeling very sorry for myself, and happened to see a body floating in the river while I refilled my waterskin. I hauled it out so it wouldn’t pollute the water supply, and it was still breathing, so…I patched him up.”

“Patched him up, he says,” Aiden says, shaking his head a little. “As if I just needed some bruise balm and a little pampering. He pulled a fucking crossbow bolt out of my head, and stitched up more gashes than I like to think about.”

Lambert makes a wounded little noise and curls around Aiden, clinging like a child to a favorite toy. “Fucking crossbow,” he mumbles. “Melitele fuckin’ wept, Aiden.”

“It was not a high point of my life,” Aiden admits.

“No shit,” Lambert says. “Right. So. You got ambushed and nearly killed, Jaskier - Julek - what the hell should I call you anyhow, bard?”

Jaskier blinks. He hasn’t actually considered that.

He’s Jaskier to Eskel and Vesemir. He’ll be Jaskier to Geralt, if Geralt ever shows up. He’s Julian to his sister and her family. He’s Julek to Aiden, who is as dear a brother as if they truly did share blood.

And Jaskier doesn’t hurt the way it did right after the whole Mountain debacle - even in Eskel’s deep rasp, so similar to Geralt’s, even in Vesemir’s gruff tones. It’s been his name for twenty years now, and he’s made it famous from the Blue Mountains to the sea, and he’s proud of the songs he’s put his name to.

“Jaskier,” he says. “Let it be Jaskier, except to Aiden.”

“Fair,” Lambert says, nodding. “Right. Where was I? Aiden gets fucking beat to hell, pretty boy breaks your heart, you fish Aiden out of a river, and then…what, you just decided to adopt a witcher?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Jaskier says, shrugging. “He was very polite and also very bedraggled and I - well. Honestly it was nice to have someone accept my help without throwing it back in my face, you know?”

Eskel puts a hand over his eyes. “I swear to fuck, I am going to give that Wolf such a piece of my mind,” he mutters, low enough that Jaskier suspects he wasn’t supposed to hear it. “Godsdamned beef-brained idiot, fucking up the best thing that’s ever fucking happened to him…” he trails off in a long sigh and picks up his ale-mug to drain it.

“Huh,” Lambert says, and looks down at Aiden, lifting a hand to twist a lock of Aiden’s dark hair around his finger. “Well. Thanks. I…fuck. You ever need anything,” he looks up to meet Jaskier’s eyes, “and I mean anything, you tell me, alright?”

Jaskier swallows astonishment. That offer from anyone, much less a witcher, is terrifyingly generous. “Thank you,” he says carefully. “But I have already gotten all the reward I could desire. A brother like Aiden is a treasure beyond price.”

“Still,” Lambert says. “I mean it.”

Jaskier nods solemnly, and then Vesemir breaks the moment by setting the roast down in the middle of the table and handing Jaskier a plate.

*

Aiden hesitates in the hallway, glancing from the bedroom he shares with Julek to the doorway where Lambert is waiting. He doesn’t want Julek to be cold or lonely, but oh, he wants a night with his Wolf in his arms -

“I’ve got Jaskier-cuddling duty, I think,” Eskel says cheerfully, coming up the stairs after Julek. “Your bedroom or mine, bard?”

“Yours - I don’t wish to put you to any trouble,” Julek says.

“No trouble. I like having someone to cuddle,” Eskel says easily. “Grab your nightshirt and come along.”

Aiden sighs with relief and hugs Julek tightly. Julek squeezes him back, and whispers in his ear, “Go get your Wolf! I bet he howls beautifully.”

“You are a filthy-minded creature and I adore you,” Aiden sighs, kisses Julek’s forehead, and follows Lambert into his bedroom.

He hasn’t been in here before - he wanted to snoop, but he also didn’t want to intrude, not when Lambert is a territorial bastard at the best of times - and it’s…very Lambert, actually. The shelves on the walls are lined with alchemy texts and bestiaries and journals, each in its proper place; there are racks for weapons and armor beside the door. A board on the wall near the fireplace has clearly been used for target practice for many years, judging by the deep divots in the wood. The floor is covered with the pelts of bears and wolves, and the walls with battered ancient tapestries, covering nearly every inch of stone. The bed has heavy curtains in the deep green that Lambert will never admit is his favorite color, and a heap of furs and blankets that Aiden wants to burrow into immediately. The clothes-chest at the foot of the bed is clearly Lambert’s own work, sturdy and solid and adorned with obscene symbols from several different cultures.

“I like your room,” Aiden says quietly, closing the door behind himself.

Lambert’s ears go red. “It’s just a room.”

“It’s your room, and it feels like your room, and I like it,” Aiden says, and crosses the slight space between them to nestle against Lambert’s side. Lambert wraps an arm around him at once, and nuzzles at his hair.

“I want to fuck,” Lambert says quietly. “But I’m so fucking tired that I think I’m going to pass out as soon as we lie down.”

“Honestly I will be utterly content to just spend a night sleeping next to you - or under you, given your usual blanket-like tendencies,” Aiden admits. “And then tomorrow morning I can make you howl.” He looks up and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Lambert snorts a laugh.

“Bastard,” he murmurs, and kisses Aiden, softly and sweetly and adoringly. Aiden melts into it, sighing in happiness. “We gotta stop splitting up, Aiden. I can’t do this again. You can’t be gone.”

Aiden swallows a lump of grief and love. “Alright,” he says softly. “I - yeah. I can’t do that again. You’re stuck with me now.”

It’s been him insisting on their occasional jaunts away from each other. Not because he doesn’t want to spend all his time at Lambert’s side - gods no - but because he has always figured that taking occasional breaks during the spring and summer would help make their three-month parting every winter less painful.

He’s never even dreamed he could be welcomed in Kaer Morhen.

But now here he is, and if he doesn’t fuck it up, Vesemir will probably let him come back, and so -

Well, now there isn’t any reason for him to leave Lambert ever again.

“You mean it?” Lambert asks, staring down at him with a sort of painful hope on his too-thin face. “You mean it, Aiden? You - you won’t leave?”

And oh, hells, Aiden hadn’t realized how much their partings were hurting his lover. Gods, he’s an idiot sometimes. He thought it would help, practicing being apart like that, and now the realization crashes down on him like a wave: no, he’s just been making Lambert worry, every fucking time, that he won’t come back.

“I mean it,” he says, cupping Lambert’s face in his hands and meeting his lover’s eyes solemnly. “I will never leave you again unless you send me away.”

“Never gonna be that fucking stupid,” Lambert says wryly.

“My brilliant Wolf,” Aiden agrees, delighting in the way Lambert flushes. His Wolf is always so flustered by compliments - it’s purely adorable, though it does mean Aiden usually only compliments him in private, because Lambert hates it when anyone but Aiden sees any sign of weakness whatsoever, and would definitely consider anyone else knowing that he blushes when complimented to be showing a weakness.

So Lambert’s blushes are all for Aiden, and he will hoard them like the treasures they are.

“My Aiden,” Lambert sighs, and kisses him again, such an achingly sweet kiss that Aiden feels tears pricking at the back of his remaining eye.

“Yours,” he agrees gently. “Come on, let’s get you out of these filthy things and into bed. Julek-cuddles are lovely but I have missed the way you hold me.”

“Fuck,” Lambert says.

“Yes, I’ve missed that too,” Aiden agrees, and Lambert groans and knocks their foreheads gently together.

“You are such an ass,” he grumbles, starting to unbuckle his armor. Aiden lifts it away as the buckles come loose, brushing his fingers over the patches and gouges in the leather before he hangs each piece on the rack. Lambert hasn’t been taking very good care of himself. That’s…

Well, that’s Aiden’s fault, sort of. So Aiden will have to make sure that Lambert actually gets enough food and sleep this winter, and some better armor, so that when they set out on the Path together in the spring, his Wolf will be ready.

They leave their clothes in a heap by the door, and Lambert burrows into his bed with a little groan of exhaustion. Aiden makes sure the fire is properly banked and follows his Wolf into bed, tugging the curtains closed to leave them in a little dark cave all their own, everything soft and warm and smelling like Lambert, like leather and metal and the sweet oil he uses on his hair.

Lambert hauls Aiden close and flops over on top of him like the world’s heaviest blanket, and Aiden snickers against his lover’s shoulder. Who needs blankets when you have a Wolf?

“Got you,” Lambert mumbles. “Keeping you, you fucking idiot.”

“Yes,” Aiden says softly, and then Lambert is asleep.

Aiden lies there under his Wolf, warm and safe and so happy he could weep, and thinks that if he were even a fraction the bard Julek is, he would make a song of this moment, to preserve it for the rest of time.

*

Jaskier has no idea how this is going to go. Sure, Eskel says he’s fine with Jaskier-cuddling duty, but -

“You don’t have to,” he says, hesitating in the doorway to Eskel’s room. “I can sleep by myself. There’s plenty of blankets, and the bed-curtains are nice and heavy -”

“Jaskier,” Eskel says, turning to give him a thoughtful little frown. “If you don’t wish to spend the night in my bed, I won’t be offended. But - well -” He hesitates, then shrugs. “Geralt and I bunk in together, most winters, for the comfort of it. Been doing that since we were children. I like having someone to hold onto.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, unaccountably reassured. “Well then. I rather like having someone to hold onto, too, though I can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of that person being Geralt. When we’re at an inn, he usually takes the floor, unless he’s too beat up and I can force him to take the bed - and then I take the floor, since I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

“Seriously?” Eskel says, and sighs, rubbing his forehead wearily. “I know exactly why he wasn’t sharing beds with you, and I am going to give him such a piece of my mind when he gets here, the great daft lump.”

“...You know why he wasn’t sharing beds?” Jaskier says incredulously.

“Close the door, you’re letting the warm out,” Eskel sighs. “Are you staying?”

“Oh - yes, please,” Jaskier says, shutting the door behind him and sitting down on a stool to start unlacing his boots. “But - you know why he wouldn’t share a bed?”

“Well, I can guess, at least.” Eskel shakes his head. “And if I had to guess, it would be him thinking that sooner or later, you’re going to leave him, and so it’ll hurt less if he hasn’t gotten used to having nice things.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, turning that over in his mind a few times. “Ah. Yes. That does sound like Geralt, actually.” He regards Eskel thoughtfully for a moment as the witcher shucks his tunic, revealing a broad scarred chest and truly magnificent shoulders, and then says, “This is going to sound terrible, but how in the world did you end up being so…so sensible about people, when your brothers are so very, very not?”

Eskel snorts. “Oh, hell, there’s a question. Honestly I suspect it’s mostly temperament. But it might be that I was brought in a bit older than Geralt, old enough to have actually started to learn how to be around people, and my childhood wasn’t as much of a complete shitshow as Lambert’s. And then because I had a little bit more - hm - more grounding, once we got out on the Path, people responded to me better than they do to my brothers. Or they did, until I got these, anyhow.” He gestures at the scars on his face. “So, y’know, one thing reinforces another.”

“Like building a melody of many chords,” Jaskier agrees. “That makes perfect sense. People treat Geralt like shit, so he expects them to treat him like shit, so he grumbles and growls and scowls at everyone…”

“So they’re scared and angry and treat him like shit,” Eskel finishes, nodding. “And Lambert figures everyone is going to be rude to him, so he’s rude back, only he’s rude back first -”

“And then of course they’re just as rude as he expected,” Jaskier says. “Huh. That explains so much about your brothers.”

Eskel grins ruefully. “Doesn’t solve anything, of course, but it does explain things.”

“Very true,” Jaskier says, taking off the heavy tunic Vesemir leant him from an ancient-looking clothes chest and folding it carefully. Eskel sits down on the side of the bed to kick off his own boots, then wriggles out of his trousers and flops back on the bed with a contented sigh.

Jaskier has gone to bed with a great many people, but usually it’s for sex. He doesn’t actually spend his nights cuddling much of anyone, as a general rule. Aiden is an exception; so is Priscilla, when they happen to be in the same city. He’s not sure what the etiquette is for snuggling up to a very new friend.

“Come here, Jaskier,” Eskel says gently, and makes a gesture with one hand. The candles go out.

Eskel’s eyes gleam in the dimness, but Jaskier has long since learned to find that comforting, since Geralt’s do the same thing. He leaves his trousers folded with the tunic and clambers a little clumsily into bed. Eskel wraps an arm around him, and Jaskier fidgets and wriggles until his head is resting on Eskel’s shoulder and they’re both under a heap of blankets, making a cozy little two-person cocoon. Eskel puts off heat like a furnace; it’s lovely, and Jaskier can feel the exhaustion of a long day in the cold - and a rather emotional conversation - creeping up on him very quickly indeed.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“You’re very welcome,” Eskel replies quietly. “Incidentally, do you snore?”

“Yes,” Jaskier admits. “A little.”

“Mm. Long as you’re not as loud as Clovis used to be, we’ll be fine.”

“I want that story in the morning,” Jaskier says, unable to keep his eyes open any longer.

“Sure,” Eskel says, and Jaskier is asleep before he can think of anything else to say.

He wakes up wondering why he can hear a very slow drumbeat, and it takes him a moment to realize that he’s shifted around during the night until his ear is pressed against Eskel’s chest; the drum is, in fact, the slow beating of a witcher’s heart. Eskel is petting his hair gently.

“Mmwake,” Jaskier says, though he doesn’t move or open his eyes. Eskel’s fingers running through his hair feel awfully nice. He could just stay here for a while.

“Yes, you definitely sound bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to go run about on the battlements,” Eskel replies, chuckling.

“‘S cold on the battlements,” Jaskier protests.

“It’s invigorating!” Eskel says. “Wakes you right up, gets the blood pumping!”

Jaskier sits up just enough to peer down at his companion. Eskel’s lips are curved in a distinctly mischievous smirk. “You,” Jaskier accuses, “are making fun of a poor hapless human without fancy witchery mutations to withstand the cold.”

“Guilty as charged,” Eskel says unrepentantly.

“Humph,” Jaskier says, and flops down across Eskel’s chest again. Eskel goes back to petting his hair. “I sentence you to cuddle me for at least another quarter-hour.”

“A dreadful punishment,” Eskel says contentedly. “Terrible. I have no idea how I shall ever endure such a trial. Do you ever grow this out long enough to braid?”

“I did once, but it turns out it tips me over from ‘youthful and charming’ right into ‘lost puppy,’ and that doesn’t make as much coin,” Jaskier admits. “Also it makes flirting much harder.”

“All the pretty ladies want to feed you up and dote on you instead of taking you up into the hayloft and tumbling you?” Eskel chuckles.

“Precisely.”

“Probably wise to keep it shorter, then,” Eskel says. “Although now I’m tempted to ask you to grow it out this winter, so I can see the full lost-puppy effect for myself.”

“I don’t see as I have much choice, unless one of you is secretly a barber,” Jaskier points out.

“Vesemir’s quite a good barber, actually. Used to cut all our hair when we were children, and I guess after the first few decades all the other witchers started asking him to do theirs, too.”

“I really should have guessed at least one of you had that particular skillset,” Jaskier says thoughtfully. “It involves very sharp blades, after all.”

“Yep. Just don’t ask Lambert. He’ll cut rude symbols into it.”

“Please tell me someone learned that the hard way.”

“Of course someone learned that the hard way.” Eskel chuckles. “And he deserved it, as much shit as he was giving Lambert about his hair. That was also Clovis, come to think of it.”

“Clovis of the terrible snoring?”

Eskel snorts. “One and the same. The snoring was because he managed to piss off the most good-natured boy in our year when we were all sixteen or seventeen, and Gweld broke his nose spectacularly, and then Clovis went off and sulked instead of going to get it set properly, and it healed wrong. He sounded like - have you ever been up to the Skellige coast?”

“Once or twice, yes,” Jaskier says, wondering where this is going.

“Did you see those enormous seals they have, the ones with the wobbly bits on their noses?”

“The water oliphaunts? Yes, they have the most amazing honking bellow - oh my gods.” Jaskier bites his lip to stifle a guffaw. “He sounded like that?”

“Yep. It was awful. And he wouldn’t let anyone re-break it to heal straight, either. It did mean he got a bedroom to himself.”

“The more fool he,” Jaskier says, stretching and sitting up properly. He’s hungry, and his bladder would like it to be known that he drank quite a bit of ale last night. “Witchers are clearly superior bedmates. I have never slept so well as I do with you or Aiden holding me.”

“Well, that’s flattering,” Eskel says, grinning broadly. “You’re quite a nice bedmate yourself. Very quiet snoring, and you don’t kick.” His grin gets wickeder. “You do sing in your sleep, though.”

“Oh gods, I do?” Aiden has never said anything about that. Neither has Geralt, and surely he would have mentioned it at least once in twenty years?

“It’s very soft, and not at all unpleasant,” Eskel assures him. “Pretty sure ‘toss a coin to your little green chicken’ isn’t going to replace the original, though.”

“‘Little green chicken’ doesn’t even scan,” Jaskier says indignantly. “What was I thinking?”

“You were asleep,” Eskel points out.

“Even asleep, I should be better than that,” Jaskier sniffs. Eskel snickers for a moment before he loses control of his laughter and breaks into loud guffaws.

Jaskier feels really quite absurdly proud of himself for that.

Chapter Text

By the second week after Lambert’s arrival, everyone in Kaer Morhen is starting to wonder if Geralt is actually going to make it back. Julek has gotten steadily more jittery since the snow started to fall, a week or so after Lambert got in; Lambert and Eskel spend hours up in the watchtower over the gate, peering down the Trail and muttering to themselves, and Vesemir apparently bakes when he’s unhappy; Aiden’s not complaining about the abundance of bread and pastries, but he’s a little concerned about the frown-lines deepening on Vesemir’s forehead with every passing day.

Aiden may be planning to stab Geralt somewhere painful and embarrassing when he finally shows up, but he doesn’t want the man dead. It would make Julek and Lambert sad. But there’s fuck-all he can do except run Lambert over the obstacle course and around the battlements until he’s tired enough to sleep, and pet Julek’s hair until he’s relaxed enough to sleep. Thank fuck Eskel is apparently very happy to continue taking on Julek-cuddling duties. Aiden isn’t sure Lambert would be comfortable having a third person in their bed, even one to whom they both owe so much, and Aiden really doesn’t want to choose between his brother and his lover, even for a night. But Eskel evidently quite likes having Julek in his bed, and Julek apparently quite likes being in Eskel’s bed, so Aiden probably owes the big Wolf something very nice indeed for being so good to his brother.

He’ll figure out what once Geralt finally gets his pale ass up to the keep and stops worrying everyone. Aiden doesn’t want to be worried about the White Wolf, he wants to be righteously pissed off.

Everyone gets even more worried near the end of the second week, when a snowstorm blows down off the mountains, surrounding the keep in flurries that mean nobody can see more than a few dozen feet at most, and they have to string lines between the keep and the stable to go and tend the animals (a duty Aiden is excused from on account of Scorpion being quite determined to turn him into witcher-paste), and nobody can even get up to the watchtower to look for travelers, and wouldn’t be able to see anything even if they could.

Aiden really does hate this sort of enforced inactivity. Give him something to kill, or an errand to run, or - anything, really, that isn’t watching his brother and his lover and the Wolves who have made him welcome going slowly out of their minds with fretting.

It’s very late one evening, and they’re all starting to think about heading for bed, when Lambert looks up, frowning, and says, “Was that -?”

“Was that what,” Eskel says, and then Aiden hears it, too, a sound that might be a halloo, and the three younger witchers all go tumbling out of the kitchen to the courtyard as fast as they can, leaving Vesemir to stoke up the fire and start heating stew, and Julek to stay inside and not freeze his pretty ass off.

There are two horses in the courtyard, and a lean dark man in witcher armor holding both of their reins.

“Coën!” Eskel cries, hastening forward, and then they all catch sight of the burden draped over one of the horses:

A limp, unmoving man with snow-white hair.

“Fucking hell,” Lambert bites out, as Eskel lets out a soft cry of horror and sprints to the horse’s side.

“He’s alive,” Coën says.

“Melitele’s fuckin’ icy cunt, what the absolute fuck,” Lambert says, and takes the reins from Coën. “Get inside, you’re half frozen. Aiden, get the doors for Eskel.” Eskel has gathered the apparently unconscious man into his arms, where he looks…oddly small, one hand trailing limply down, head lolling against Eskel’s shoulder.

“On it,” Aiden says, and hurries to haul the main door open so Coën and Eskel can get in.

Julek is still in the kitchen, though he’s tucked himself into a corner out of the way; he comes hurrying forward, though, as soon as he sees Eskel’s burden. “Geralt! What happened?”

Eskel kneels down on the hearth and lowers Geralt onto the warm stone. Coën collapses into a chair, and Aiden hurries to bring him a bowl of stew and a mug of ale as Vesemir and Eskel and Julek all fuss over Geralt’s unconscious form.

“Breathing and shivering,” Vesemir says bluntly. “Not hypothermic.”

“Just starving,” Julek says, sounding close to tears. Aiden drops the ale in front of Coën and slides to his knees beside his brother, gathering Julek into his lap, and gets his first good look at the famous and infamous White Wolf.

If Lambert was too thin when he finally made it back to the keep, and his armor in an unfortunate condition, then Geralt is easily twice as badly off. He looks like a wraith, cheeks hollow and eyes sunken, skin far too pale even for a man supposedly almost rendered albino by the Grasses. He’s not wearing anything like heavy enough clothing to be climbing the Trail in a snowstorm, and what he does have on is tattered and torn beneath equally battered armor.

He looks…well, he looks like hell.

“I found him in the little cave halfway up,” Coën says quietly. “He’d laid out all the fodder he had for his horse, and gone into meditation. He didn’t wake even when I put him on the horse. I thought it would be best to get him here as quickly as possible.”

“You did well to do so,” Vesemir agrees, standing with a grimace as his knees creak audibly.

“Broth,” Eskel says, and Vesemir nods. Julek swallows hard.

“I can help,” he offers in a shaky voice. “I’ve - I’ve done it before.”

“Thank you,” Eskel says solemnly. “If you could hold his head?”

Aiden shifts so that he’s still wrapped around Julek as Julek gathers the White Wolf’s head into his lap. Geralt doesn’t make a sound. Vesemir brings a bowl of broth over to Eskel, and Eskel slowly and carefully tips a spoonful between Geralt’s parted lips.

One of the few truly good things about being a witcher, in Aiden’s opinion, is that they’re built for feast-or-famine conditions. Humans, Aiden knows, need to be very careful with starting to eat again after long deprivation. Witchers just need food, and their instincts know it. Geralt’s eyes don’t open and he doesn’t wake, but he swallows the broth down as fast as Eskel can spoon it into his mouth, and goes through three large bowls of it before he stops opening his mouth again to be fed.

There’s a little color in his cheeks now, and he’s stopped shaking.

“Alright,” Eskel says softly. “That’s…better.” He sits back with a heavy sigh. “Thank you, Coën.”

“Any of you would have done as much for me,” Coën replies calmly. “It was my honor to aid one of those who have made me so generously welcome. I see I am not the only guest among you this winter?”

Lambert, who came in quietly about halfway through the second bowl of soup, snorts. “The handsome one is my lover, Aiden,” he says. Julek looks up from staring at Geralt with an indignant little huff. “And the pretty one is Jaskier the bard.”

Julek subsides against Aiden with a sniff. Aiden chuckles. “You are prettier’n me, Julek. Specially these days.”

“The eyepatch makes you look very much the dashing rogue,” Julek says, turning his head to kiss Aiden’s cheek, and then straightens to smile at Coën. “I’ve heard such a lot about you from Eskel and Lambert - it’s a pleasure to meet you, master Griffin.”

Coën actually stands and bows. “And mine to meet you, master bard. Your songs have eased my Path, and you have my gratitude for that.”

“I am glad they have done so,” Julek replies. “I hope you will grace me with some tales of your deeds during the long winter nights, that I may add some songs to my repertoire honoring a noble Griffin.”

“You honor me with the suggestion, and I would be pleased to relate any tale which you thought worth the hearing,” Coën says, settling into his chair again with a broad smile.

“Shit, there’s two of them,” Lambert groans. “It’s gonna be all courtly bullshit for the whole damn winter.”

Coën smirks. “Master bard, prithee, would you enjoy joining me in a small mischief?”

“If by that you mean being extremely courtly until Lambert snaps and tries to dunk one of us in the horse trough -” Julek beams. “I would be delighted, good master Griffin, to aid you in this endeavor.”

“Aiden, they’re ganging up on me,” Lambert whines, slouching over to the hearth and slumping down behind Aiden to bury his face in Aiden’s hair.

“Poor darling,” Aiden says sympathetically, reaching back with one hand to pat Lambert’s head. Lambert makes a grumbly noise and cuddles closer.

Geralt shifts slightly, and is instantly the center of everyone’s attention. Julek hisses a very quiet curse and shuffles backwards as Eskel leans forward to take Geralt’s weight. For a moment, Aiden thinks it might be a false alarm, and then Geralt’s head tilts a little and his eyes open, just a slit, and he peers up at Eskel dazedly.

“Esk’l?” he rasps.

“Hey, Wolf,” Eskel murmurs. “I’ve got you. You’re in Kaer Morhen.”

“Esk’l,” Geralt repeats. “I fucked it all up.”

And then the bastard passes out again.

*

Eskel looks up at Jaskier and gives him an apologetic sort of grimace. “I hate to kick you out of my bed, but -”

“But Geralt needs body heat, and you’re the best person to provide it,” Jaskier finishes for him, having already realized that several minutes ago. Even angry as he is, he wouldn’t make Geralt sleep alone, not when he looks like eighty furlongs of bad road. “It’s alright, Eskel, I won’t freeze in a night -”

“Fuck it, you and Coën can bunk in with us,” Lambert says gruffly.

Jaskier and Aiden both turn to look at him in confusion. Lambert shrugs.

“Coën usually bunks in with me during the winter,” he says, a little awkwardly. “And you’re Aiden’s brother. My bed’s big enough. Don’t see why we can’t all pile in.”

“Lambert, my love, how the absolute hell do you continue to surprise me after thirty years?” Aiden says softly.

Jaskier muffles an adoring little coo; he’s pretty sure Lambert would not be pleased to be considered cute. The big redhead looks a little sheepish as he shrugs. “Hidden depths?”

“So many hidden depths,” Aiden agrees. “And I shall very much enjoy spending the next three hundred years discovering all of them. But for now - yes, I would be delighted to share our bed with Julek and Coën.”

“Thank you,” Eskel says quietly. “Alright. I’m going to take this idiot up and make sure he doesn’t freeze to death tonight, then, and in the morning maybe we’ll actually get some fucking answers.” He rises to his feet, holding Geralt easily, and Vesemir stumps ahead to open the door for him.

Jaskier sighs. “Roach was alright?” he asks Coën.

“The horse was in substantially better shape than the witcher,” Coën replies, shaking his head a little. “If I had to guess, all his coin has gone to her care rather than his own.”

“That’s Geralt all over,” Jaskier says ruefully. “Well. If you don’t mind having a very crowded bed, master Griffin?”

“I should like that, actually,” Coën says. “My School tended to sleep in groups during the winter; it will feel quite like home.”

“Lovely,” Jaskier says, and stands, slowly. He feels as wrung out as a used dishcloth. Whatever reunion he thought he was going to have with Geralt, it wasn’t this. He figured -

Well, he figured Geralt would come stomping in looking grumpy, and probably object to Jaskier’s presence, and Jaskier would get to tear verbal strips off of him. Or possibly he’d show up looking hangdog and try to avoid Jaskier until Eskel did in fact sit on him. Or -

Well, in Jaskier’s wildest fantasies he’d show up and fall at Jaskier’s feet to apologize for being an ass, but those are fantasies and Jaskier knows it. Geralt doesn’t do dramatic apologies for anyone, even Yennefer.

Jaskier doesn’t quite know what to do with a Geralt who isn’t even awake to be yelled at - and who looks so horribly weakened that yelling at him would feel awful even if he was conscious.

“Come on, little brother,” Aiden says, looping an arm around Jaskier’s waist, and Jaskier lets himself be led out of the kitchen, mind whirling in useless little circles.

He doesn’t really notice his surroundings until he realizes he’s down to his smallclothes and Aiden is urging him towards a bed which is, in fact, large enough for four, though they’ll have to be a fairly friendly four.

Coën crawls in first, settling at the far side of the bed, and then Lambert and Aiden and Jaskier himself last of all; he snuggles into Aiden’s waiting arms and tucks his head under his brother’s chin, clinging shamelessly. Somewhat to his surprise, a big hand pats his shoulder; Jaskier peers through Aiden’s hair to see Lambert looking a little hesitant.

“He’ll be alright,” Lambert says awkwardly. “He’s a sturdy bastard.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, genuinely touched by the prickly Wolf’s attempt at comfort.

“He’d better recover quickly,” Aiden grumbles. “There’s not enough of him left to stab.”

Jaskier snickers against Aiden’s throat. “I’m sure he only starved himself to a wraith in order to inconvenience you specifically.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Aiden sniffs. “Inconsiderate bastard.”

Coën says, “May I inquire as to why you are planning to stab Geralt?”

“Asshole broke my brother’s heart,” Aiden explains. “Lambert and Eskel can’t do it because they’re Geralt’s brothers and it would be wrong, but the fucker needs a bit of stabbing. Once he’s back on his feet, anyhow. And not anywhere permanent. Because that would make Julek sad.”

“I see,” Coën says, sounding extremely confused. “Well. I look forward to hearing the full tale of Geralt’s misdeeds, then.”

Jaskier isn’t quite sure what to do with the almost painful warmth in his chest at how all the witchers seem to be willing to accept that Geralt has, in fact, fucked up somehow - and how the Wolves all seem to believe that for all his grunting and gruffness, Geralt really does feel some affection for Jaskier, and will regret leaving Jaskier on a mountain after breaking his heart.

Gods willing, they’re right. Gods willing, when Geralt wakes up properly, Jaskier will get some sort of an apology.

Of course, there’s a decent chance Geralt is a wreck because of losing Yennefer, and hasn’t actually put any thought into having abandoned Jaskier at all.

Jaskier cuddles closer to Aiden, hiding his face against the witcher’s shoulder, and tries hard to think about nothing at all until sleep finally rises up to claim him.

*

The White Wolf is still unconscious in the morning, and Aiden chases Julek out into the training yard and coaxes him through some dagger practice, figuring his little brother needs the distraction, and then runs the pendulum course twice at speed. Julek applauds vigorously; Coën looks gratifyingly impressed; and Lambert stares up at him with blown-dark eyes that suggest they should probably find a private corner at some point, a decent ways away from everyone else, so Aiden can make his Wolf howl.

“I did not hear what School you are from?” Coën says as they all troop back inside, heading for the room below the kitchen with the lovely big tubs - and, more importantly, the mage-made plumbing to fill them without hauling buckets around. It’s simplicity itself to heat the water with Igni once the tubs are full, and Aiden is of the firm opinion that the baths are right up there with Vesemir’s cooking and Lambert’s lovely big bed on the list of virtues of Kaer Morhen as a place to spend the winter.

“I was trained by the Cats,” Aiden says carefully. It’s a useful phrase, he’s finding; it lets him put a little distance between himself and his former brothers. Lets him pull away a bit from the memory of seeing medallions matching his around the throats of his murderers.

“...I see,” Coën says slowly. “There is a tale there. I will not pry!” he adds hastily. “You are made welcome here, as I am, and I would not do the Wolves such disrespect as to assume they have erred in doing so.”

“Thank you,” Aiden says. “I…it is a bit of a tale, yes, and I don’t want to tell it over again right now. The short version is I’m probably going to renounce my School. Not sure what that makes me, but…eh. Something to figure out over the winter, I guess.”

Coën frowns. “It must be a dreadful tale indeed, to give you cause to renounce your School.”

Aiden shrugs and nods. “It earned me this,” he says, gesturing at the patch over his missing eye. “So yeah.”

“Ah. I grieve for your loss, then,” Coën says solemnly.

“Thank you,” Aiden says, surprised and touched.

When they make it up to the kitchen for lunch, Eskel is standing in front of the hearth, looking drawn and weary as he stirs the pot of stew over the fire. “He’s awake,” he says bluntly as they all pile in through the door. “Vesemir’s checking him over for anything we missed yesterday, but he probably just needs a lot of food and sleep.”

“Has he said anything?” Lambert asks.

Eskel sighs and rolls his eyes. “Of course not. That would be helpful.”

Lambert snickers.

“Are you alright?” Julek asks.

Eskel snorts and gives Julek a crooked smile. “Fine - I just didn’t sleep much. Kept waking up worrying Geralt’d stopped breathing. Fucker needs to stop worrying me like this,” he adds, voice suddenly rough with something very like rage - or maybe terror. “First Blaviken and now this - I swear to fucking Melitele -”

“Hey,” Lambert says, and crosses the kitchen hastily to curl a hand around the back of Eskel’s head, drawing their foreheads gently together. “Hey, Esk, it’s gonna be alright.”

“I can’t lose the bastard,” Eskel rasps, and Julek hurries over to wrap his arms around the big Wolf, crooning a wordless, soothing sound deep in his throat. Aiden and Coën exchange a look and a nod and join the group embrace. Eskel sighs and sags, resting heavily against Lambert and closing his eyes wearily.

“Come on, Esk,” Lambert murmurs. “Come take a nap. We’ll look after the Great White Idiot for a while.”

“Yeah, alright,” Eskel whispers. “Wake me if anything happens?”

“Of course,” Lambert promises.

“I will nap with you, if you allow,” Coën puts in. “I am still weary from the Trail - a few more hours of sleep would be a pleasant thing.”

Eskel snorts softly. “Thanks,” he says, and Coën tucks himself under Eskel’s shoulder and leads him out of the kitchen, murmuring softly about having seen a white deer on the Trail, a quiet little tale that requires no real response from the big Wolf.

Aiden shoos Julek and Lambert over to the table and pokes at the pot of stew on the fire, trying to see where Vesemir left everything; there’s bread in the oven, too, starting to smell like it’s just about ready. Aiden fishes the bread out and makes up a tray, enough for two very tired witchers. “Take that up to Coën, love? He and Eskel should probably eat something before they pass out.”

“Good thought,” Lambert agrees, and steals a loaf of bread for himself before heading up the stairs.

Aiden makes up plates for himself and his brother and settles next to Julek, leaning over to knock their shoulders together -

And of course, of course, right when there aren’t either of the young Wolves around to act as buffers, the kitchen door opens and Vesemir helps a gaunt, miserable-looking White Wolf to stumble in.

There’s a long, frozen moment while Geralt stares at Aiden and Julek - mostly at Julek. Vesemir looks grim and worried. Aiden slowly eases a hand below the table to grip the hilt of one of his knives.

“Jaskier?” Geralt croaks. “You’re - here?”

“I am, yes,” Julek agrees warily.

“How?” Geralt asks incredulously.

“Eskel brought me up the Trail when I asked nicely,” Julek says; Aiden admires the partial truth of that statement. “Incidentally, you owe Eskel an enormous apology for worrying him so badly.”

“Yeah, I do,” Geralt says, shaking his head in clear confusion. “But - why?”

Julek doesn’t pretend to believe Geralt is asking why he owes Eskel an apology. “Because I am very, very angry at you, but I’m not going to let you throw twenty years of friendship off a fucking mountain, you jackass.”

Geralt blinks at him dazedly. He’s leaning a lot of his weight on Vesemir, who is watching the whole interaction just as worriedly as Aiden is.

“You’re not?” Geralt says, in such a tiny voice that Aiden starts feeling unwillingly sorry for the poor bastard.

“No, I am not,” Julek says firmly. “And when you are recovered enough to stand without needing help, I am going to yell at you, and then we are going to actually talk about this whole mess so that this doesn’t happen again.”

Geralt winces. “You - but - I -”

Julek sighs. “Sit down and eat something, you great lummox. I’m not going to have it out with you until you can string two thoughts together coherently.”

Vesemir steers Geralt across the kitchen and sort of pours him into a chair, and Geralt sits there blinking confusedly across the table at Julek and Aiden until the old Wolf sticks a bowl of stew and a steaming loaf of bread in front of him, upon which his instincts clearly catch up to him and he inhales both in less time than it took Vesemir to fill the bowl. Vesemir snorts and refills it, and stacks a few more loaves of bread next to the bowl, and Geralt devours them all like - well, like a starving wolf.

Aiden eats warily, keeping an eye on Julek, who is tense but not obviously unhappy, and waits for the explosion he’s sure will come soon enough.

*

Lambert comes back into the kitchen and stops dead, staring, then sighs heavily and crosses to sit beside Aiden, scootching his chair protectively closer to Jaskier’s brother. “Sorry it took so long,” he mutters. “Wanted to make sure Eskel got to sleep.”

“It’s alright,” Aiden murmurs back. “Geralt only just got here.”

“Huh,” Lambert says, and takes a bowl of stew from Vesemir with a little nod of gratitude. Jaskier watches Geralt watch the whole interaction, his yellow eyes narrowing slightly in thought. He’s still clearly not recovered from whatever idiocy left him meditating in a mountain cave, nearly starved and entirely too battered for Jaskier’s liking, but the abundant food and almost fourteen hours of sleep have obviously done him a great deal of good.

“Who?” Geralt asks once he’s finished a fourth bowl of stew, gesturing with his spoon at Aiden. His voice has a nasty rasp to it, even more than its usual growl. What has the idiot been doing to himself?

“Aiden,” Lambert says, bristling all over, like he’s daring Geralt to say a single thing wrong.

Geralt frowns, looking Aiden over again. “Your lover, Aiden?” he asks slowly.

“Wha - how -” Lambert sputters.

“Apparently you talk about me in your cups, Lam,” Aiden says.

“I do?”

“You do,” Vesemir confirms. “Not in much detail. Just his name, and that you are fond of him.”

“Oh. Shit.” Lambert looks gobsmacked.

“Fond?” Aiden asks, chuckling.

“Fond,” Vesemir says, and then smirks. “I will not embarrass my youngest pup any more than I already have, but ask me next time we’re cooking together, and I might be persuaded to repeat a few of his compliments.”

“Ooh, yes please,” Aiden says, and Lambert groans and covers his face with one hand.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters.

Geralt is looking back and forth between Aiden and Lambert and Vesemir, so clearly baffled that Jaskier wants to lean across the table and pat him on the shoulder and tell him not to worry his extremely exhausted little head about it.

“Aiden and I encountered each other in Caingorn,” he says instead. “I count him my brother, dear as blood to me.”

“Oh,” Geralt says, obviously even more confused. “Alright. Uh. Welcome?”

There’s a brief pause. Aiden rattles his fingers on the tabletop, tapping them rapidly, and then blurts, “Oh, hell, this is going to be even worse if I don’t get it out of the way now - look, up until my brothers tried to kill me I was part of the School of the Cat.”

Geralt goes utterly still, the same inhuman lack of motion that Eskel showed when he was too surprised to react at all. “Cat,” he rasps.

“Until my brothers tried to kill me, yes, keep up,” Aiden says, and Jaskier would believe he really is as carefree as he sounds except that he can see Aiden’s hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of a dagger beneath the table, his knuckles white with tension.

Geralt looks from Aiden to Lambert to Vesemir. “You know?”

“I’ve known for thirty years,” Lambert points out dryly.

“He told me when he arrived,” Vesemir says. “He is welcome in Kaer Morhen.”

“...I don’t understand,” Geralt says plaintively, exhaustion clear in his voice and the lines around his eyes.

Aiden takes a deep breath. Jaskier reaches over to wrap his own hand around Aiden’s; Lambert leans in closer to press himself against Aiden’s other side.

“My brothers tried to kill me,” Aiden says. “They took my medallion as a trophy. My School has betrayed me.” He takes another deep breath, clearly bracing himself. “I renounce them. I will never again claim to be a Cat.”

Lambert makes a little wounded noise and wraps an arm around Aiden’s waist, clinging tightly. Jaskier squeezes Aiden’s hand; Aiden lets go of the dagger hilt and turns his hand over, lacing his fingers through Jaskier’s and squeezing back.

“Oh,” Geralt says, and blinks at all of them for a very, very long moment, and then, to Jaskier’s surprise, he looks straight at Jaskier and straightens his shoulders, as if the sight has given him some sort of strength or clarity. He turns back to Aiden and gives him a solemn little nod. “Then - uh - welcome. To my brother’s lover. I’m - hm - I’m glad you’re alive.”

There’s another brief silence, while Jaskier’s heart turns over in his chest at this reminder that Geralt is, in fact, under all the grumbles and growls and general gruffness, actually a very sweet man, and then Aiden says, “So am I. Thank you.”

“Hm,” Geralt says, apparently having run out of words for the time being.

“You look like you’re gonna pass out again,” Lambert says, breaking the moment magnificently. “C’mon, you can crash in my bed with Eskel and Coën.”

Geralt nods, and Vesemir loops a hand under his arm and helps him to his feet. “I’ll bring him up.”

Geralt gives Aiden a little nod, takes another long look at Jaskier and gives him a nod, and then shuffles out, moving like he’s older than his mentor is. Once the sound of their footsteps has faded, Aiden sighs heavily and sags back in his chair.

“Well, that went better than I expected it to.”

“Why the fuck did you just blurt it out like that?” Lambert demands.

“Because I’m pretty sure that if he’d found out two weeks from now, after making me welcome as your lover, he’d feel all betrayed about not being told the truth,” Aiden says, shrugging. “Better to get it all out in the open now, so I don’t have to spend the rest of the winter worrying about him finding out and trying to stab me. Specially as he’ll be in a lot better stabbing shape once he recovers.”

“Fucking hell,” Lambert says. “Asshole. Scuse me, bard, I’m stealing Aiden.”

“Oh?” Jaskier asks, snickering, as Lambert stands and picks Aiden up, slinging the smaller witcher over his shoulder. Aiden makes a startled noise and flails a bit, then subsides with a huff and reaches down to grope Lambert’s ass, prompting the Wolf to jump and make a sound Jaskier will never admit is closer to a squeak than a yelp.

“Back for dinner,” Lambert says, and strides out, Aiden craning his head up to give Jaskier a broad grin and a lascivious wiggle of his eyebrows. Jaskier bursts into laughter. Oh, it’s like that, is it now? Well, that’s a fair response to stress. Jaskier himself has frequently found relief with pretty maids or handsome lads after some particularly nail-biting competition or desperately worrisome stretch of waiting for Geralt to get back from a contract.

It does leave Jaskier somewhat at loose ends, though.

He’s wondering if he should go and find his lute or his notebook when Vesemir comes back in, looking tired but distinctly relieved. He raises an eyebrow when he sees Jaskier alone, and Jaskier shrugs.

“Lambert carried Aiden off for nefarious purposes.”

“Ah.” Vesemir snorts. “I will hope they actually get out of earshot this time.”

“Oh dear,” Jaskier says, biting his lip to stifle his chortles. “I have never before had cause to be grateful for my poor merely-human ears.”

Vesemir chuckles. “I have earplugs,” he says, and pokes at the stew for a moment before settling across the table from Jaskier and giving him an oddly contemplative look.

“Thank you,” he says at last.

“...For what, sir?” Jaskier asks. He hasn’t actually spoken much to Vesemir - the old witcher is nearly as taciturn as Geralt is, and for all he’s been willing to welcome Jaskier and Aiden to the keep, he has expressed that welcome more in good food and warm clothing than in words.

Vesemir takes a while to respond; he’s clearly trying to choose his words carefully. Jaskier waits, trying not to fidget too much.

“Geralt has lost…many people,” he says at last. “Do you know what truly happened in Blaviken?”

“No,” Jaskier admits. “I assume it was not Geralt’s fault, because Geralt would not slaughter anyone in cold blood, but he’s never told me the true tale.”

“Hm,” Vesemir agrees. “He should have walked away. But he would not be Geralt if he had.”

“He is very bad at walking away if people need him,” Jaskier agrees.

“Not my story to tell,” Vesemir says. “But. Hm. Twice he has been forced to slay those he cared deeply for.”

“Twice?” Jaskier asks, feeling the blood drain from his face in horror.

Vesemir nods solemnly.

“Melitele wept,” Jaskier whispers. “No wonder he pushes people away.” He would, too, if he had not one but two horrifying instances of having been forced to kill people he loved.

Vesemir nods again. “He does. He tried…very hard, it seems, with you. But you are here. So. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jaskier says quietly. “I - well. Thank you for telling me. It puts a great many things in context.”

Vesemir nods and stands. “You’re welcome,” he says gruffly, and goes off into the pantry; Jaskier assumes he has used up his store of both words and emotions for the day, and decides to go and get some songwriting done.

And maybe have a bit of a cry, just quietly, for his White Wolf. He’s still angry, but oh, he’s going to give Geralt such a hug, see if he doesn’t, just as soon as the man can stand on his own two feet. And then yell at him for being an asshole. Or possibly both at the same time. Jaskier can multitask.

Chapter Text

Aiden is grateful all over again for the baths in the basement, since his darling Wolf did get him a bit messy, and while he knows that all the other witchers will be able to smell what they’ve been up to, there’s no reason to be too obvious about it.

They make it to the kitchens just as Eskel and Coën appear at the top of the stairs, Geralt half a step behind them and moving with a sort of painful slowness, but clearly determined to make it on his own. He looks less terrible than he did even at midday; there’s a little color in his pale cheeks, and the bags under his eyes are almost gone. Eskel also looks much better, thank fuck. And Coën is carrying himself a little less like he’s holding up the weight of the world.

“Sleep well, then?” Aiden asks.

“Very well, thank you,” Eskel says, grinning down at him. “And you’ve had a pleasant afternoon, too, I take it.”

“Very,” Aiden says, grinning. Lambert goes red around the ears.

In the kitchen, Vesemir is fussing over something that smells absolutely divine over the fire, and Julek is scribbling frantically in a notebook, apparently blind and deaf to anything else around him. Aiden has seen him like this a time or two on their travels, when the muse takes him strongly. He settles next to Julek, peering at the notebook curiously; he can’t read musical notations, or at least not yet, but the lyrics appear to be about the trio of very clever bruxae that Lambert and Aiden took down together five or six years ago.

The White Wolf sits down on Julek’s other side. Aiden bristles. Geralt gives him a little nod, oddly respectful, and then reaches out and switches the locations of Julek’s inkpot and the ale mug that Vesemir has just put down in front of him. Aiden is about to ask what the fuck Geralt thinks he’s doing when Julek reaches out without looking and dips his quill into the inkpot - exactly where the ale mug was a moment ago.

“Wrote a whole song in specter oil once,” Geralt says quietly.

Aiden snickers, amused despite himself. “Which one?”

Geralt glances at Julek. “Eight Fair Maids Went Walking.” Which is about a particularly clever and nasty katakan; only the eighth fair maid survives long enough for the White Wolf to show up and rescue her.

“Ah! I am fond of that one,” Coën says.

“Too depressing,” Lambert snorts.

“Poignant,” Eskel argues, pulling out the chair next to Geralt’s and sitting down. “It’s a good one for nights when you feel like getting a little drunk and maudlin.”

“I don’t do drunk and maudlin,” Lambert says.

“Ah, so the nights you drank far too much White Gull and told us all that your lover was ‘too fuckin’ sweet, you don’t understand’ weren’t maudlin at all?” Eskel teases, smirking when Lambert snarls.

“Fuck you -”

“No thanks, Aiden has that covered.”

Aiden scrambles hastily over to sit in Lambert’s lap, just barely getting there in time to keep Lambert from getting up and going over the table. Lambert subsides with a growl. Eskel snickers. “Sorry,” he says, “but really, we’ve been good about not teasing you about him for years.”

“...Guess you have,” Lambert sighs. “You’re still an ass, though.”

“Yep,” Eskel agrees easily.

Aiden nuzzles against Lambert’s cheek. “You think I’m sweet?”

“You’re a fucking menace,” Lambert sighs, and kisses him.

“Yes,” Aiden says cheerfully, and wriggles until he’s properly comfortable; he may as well stay in Lambert’s lap just to be on the safe side.

Geralt, he sees when he turns back to the rest of the table, is giving him a very odd look. “What?” Aiden asks.

“Hm,” Geralt says, frowning a little - in thought, Aiden thinks, rather than pique. “You’re…good for Lambert.”

“What,” Lambert says blankly.

“What?” Aiden repeats. “I mean - I hope so? I try?”

Geralt frowns more deeply, and makes a gesture like he’s groping for words. “It’s…good. Seeing him happy. Seeing you make him happy.”

“Thank you?” Aiden says, not sure what to make of that. He doesn’t particularly need Geralt’s approval, but he supposes it’s nice to have. Especially since he’s probably going to be spending winters with the Wolves for the foreseeable future.

“Hm,” Geralt says, which is - well, Julek is a better man than Aiden is, to have managed to put up with someone whose primary mode of communication appears to be grunting for twenty godsforsaken years.

“I…need to ask,” Geralt says slowly. “The Tournament.”

Aiden blinks. Geralt doesn’t look angry, or like he’s on the edge of violence, just…sad. Haunted, almost. “I was in a gaol cell for the whole damn thing,” he replies.

“Next to Guxart’s,” Vesemir puts in. “I saw him while we were getting out. Younger then, of course.”

“I didn’t have the beard,” Aiden agrees.

Eskel tilts his head and looks Aiden over thoughtfully. “You’d look a lot younger without it.”

“I look like a stripling in his first year on the Path without it,” Aiden agrees. “Which can be handy, but it also makes it much harder to convince people I know what the hell I’m doing.”

“Huh,” Eskel says. “Makes sense.”

“Also the beard makes me look like a dashing pirate, according to Julek,” Aiden adds. “Well, White Wolf? Was that what you needed to know?”

Geralt looks…confused, maybe. Or possibly just tired, hell, Aiden doesn’t know how to read his expressions. How the fuck did Julek put up with this? “There were…others?” he asks softly. “Who were not…part of it?”

“Yes,” Vesemir says. “Half a dozen, maybe.”

“Half a dozen of the ones who came when Treyse called for us,” Aiden says. “There were a fair number of Cats who were too far away, or just didn’t care to come have a big mock battle with the Wolves. But of those who did come - Treyse gave us the same story he gave you, to begin with. A big tournament to see who got Radovid’s royal imprimatur. It was only when we all got there that he told us what he really had planned, and - well. Guxart told him he was a vicious bastard and the whole plan was fucking stupid, and there were about half a dozen of us who agreed with him. Me, Gaetan, Kiyan, Cedric, Axel - I think that may’ve been it.”

“And you got thrown in gaol for it,” Eskel says slowly.

“Yep. Radovid’s druids knocked us out.” Aiden shrugs. “It was…well, given how the whole thing ended, I genuinely don’t know why they didn’t just kill us when they had us down. Maybe Radovid was trying to keep Treyse from figuring out he was going to get triple-crossed, I don’t know.”

“Huh,” Geralt says, frowning a little. “How’d you get out?”

“Me,” Vesemir says. “I got nosy, went poking around the night before the tournament started, and got knocked out and tossed in with them to keep me from telling anyone. They didn’t search me very well, though - didn’t find my lockpicks. Once I woke up, I got us out.”

Aiden nods, remembering the door to his cell swinging open to reveal a very worried-looking Guxart next to a rather younger version of the old Wolf. In the chaos of the moment, he’d never gotten their rescuer’s name, but now that he knows to look for it, he can recognize the shape of Vesemir’s face. “For which you have my everlasting gratitude,” he tells Vesemir solemnly. “And then we all ran like hell.”

Vesemir nods. “It was…well. You remember. It was a fucking mess.”

Geralt nods grimly.

“Since when can you pick locks?” Lambert demands of Vesemir.

Vesemir raises an eyebrow at him. “Since, oh, two and a half centuries ago. It’s a useful skill.”

“But you’re all -” Lambert breaks off indignantly, gesturing at Vesemir. “Stuffy!”

Vesemir snorts. “Lad,” he says, smirking, “believe you me. All the trouble you lot get up to out on the Path? I was as bad as all of you put together, and then some.”

Lambert gapes. Eskel and Geralt also look extremely taken aback. “You were?” Eskel asks after a few moments of stunned silence.

Vesemir’s smirk gets broader. “Ask me sometime about how I met Filavandrel of the Silver Towers,” he says, and turns to start ladling out bowls of stew before anyone can reply.

There’s another brief silence, and then Coën, who has been watching the whole conversation with great interest, says, “Did you say Radovid had druids helping him?”

“Yes,” Geralt says, softly and furiously.

Vesemir’s shoulders sag. “Yes,” he agrees, setting the first few bowls down on the table. “I have never been able to learn why or how he gained their allegiance - it seems entirely contrary to their normal habits. But there were druids, and a mage. Astrogarus.” He spits into the fire at the name.

Geralt’s knuckles have gone white, he’s gripping his spoon so tightly. Aiden wonders if the sturdy wood is about to splinter. Eskel looks bleak.

And Julek finishes scribbling down a last few words, looks up from his notebook with the air of someone waking from a dream, and says, “Holy shit, what the fuck did I just miss?”

“We’re about to learn why the mage Astrogarus is on my list of people to hunt down and string up by their intestines, I think,” Aiden says, keeping his tone as light as he can, because he’s pretty sure one wrong word and at least one of the Wolves is going to break, and he’s not sure whether that fracture will be towards violence or uncontrollable weeping.

Vesemir glances at Aiden and shakes his head. “No need,” he says. “He’s dead.”

“He is?” Geralt asks, startled out of at least a little of whatever horrid fugue he was dropping into.

“Yes,” Vesemir says. “You…weren’t in any place to hear it, I always thought. But Guxart and I - we met up, the year after the Tournament. Went hunting.” He shrugs. “Wolves don’t take contracts on humans, but…this wasn’t a contract. He killed my pups.” His voice is suddenly raw, and Aiden flinches at the pain in it.

All three young Wolves are staring at Vesemir in shock. “You killed him?” Eskel asks hoarsely.

“Guxart let me have the death-blow, yes,” Vesemir confirms.

“Oh,” Geralt says, and then, to Aiden’s abiding shock and dismay, takes a raspy horrid breath, half chokes on it, sucks in another painful-sounding breath, and lets it out in a wracking, terrible sob.

“What the fuck,” Lambert says.

“Holy shit,” Julek agrees, staring wide-eyed at Geralt, as if he’s never seen him before.

Geralt sags against Eskel, clinging to him, and Vesemir hastens around the table to put a hand on the White Wolf’s shoulder, and everyone else just stares at each other in bafflement.

“Should we…give them space?” Coën asks hesitantly.

“Probably, but first I want to know what the fuck is going on,” Lambert says, sounding about as frantic as Aiden’s ever heard him. “I know the Tournament was a shitshow from start to finish, but I wasn’t there - why the hell is Geralt crying?”

Eskel gathers Geralt into his lap so the White Wolf isn’t draped across two chairs, and cradles him close; Geralt buries his face against Eskel’s throat and shakes with the force of his sobs. Vesemir looks like he has no idea what to do besides keep patting Geralt’s shoulder worriedly.

Julek shifts over to sit next to Lambert and Aiden, looking very confused and very distressed. Aiden reaches over to link their hands together, and Lambert, bless the Wolf, wraps one arm around Julek and draws his chair as close to Lambert’s as it will go.

“The extremely short version,” Eskel says, in a voice so carefully controlled that Aiden aches for the pain that Eskel has to be shoving down, “is that during that godsforsaken Tournament, when the Wolves started to band together against the attacking Cats, Astrogarus and the druids used their magic to render several of the Wolves…well, berserk, essentially. One of the Wolves was Gweld. He was…we were the three survivors of our year. We were…close. Geralt was forced to kill him in self-defense.” He looks down at the weeping witcher on his lap and adds, softly, “I should have been there. Maybe if there had been two of us, we could have disarmed him - could have saved him.”

“Fucking hell,” Lambert whispers, staring at Geralt and Eskel in shock and horror. “Fucking hell, I - I just heard everything’d gone tits up, nobody told me the fucking details.”

“You did not attend the Tournament?” Coën asks Lambert and Eskel.

“I was in Caingorn, on a contract that ran very, very long.” Eskel grimaces. “I got back to Kaer Morhen a week after…everything.”

“I was down in Cidaris,” Lambert says. “I’d wintered there - didn’t even know what had happened until I got back that autumn.”

“Thank fuck,” Eskel says bluntly. “I’m glad you weren’t there. I wish none of us had been there.”

“That would have been better,” Aiden agrees softly. “Gods, if we’d just all told Treyse where to shove his stupid plan - or told Radovid that witchers don’t need any fucking king’s imprimatur -”

He didn’t know about the mage, about the Wolves being driven into the berserk rage that usually only afflicts Cats. He didn’t know Geralt had been in the middle of that horrid scrum. That he had been forced to slay one of his own brothers - and Wolves, unlike Cats, count that brotherhood as actually meaning something.

It sounds an awful lot like Geralt had to kill someone who meant as much to him as Julek does to Aiden, and that’s -

Gods, Aiden would rather die than ever hurt Julek. If he’d been forced to do so, then the aftermath might look -

Might look an awful lot like this helpless, overwhelming grief.

He doesn’t want to feel sorry for the White Wolf, but damn, it’s hard to do anything else, when sorrow and exhaustion have reduced him to a weeping mess in his last remaining year-mate’s arms.

*

Jaskier is, for once in his life, at a complete loss for words. He has never seen Geralt lose his composure quite like this. He’s seen Geralt angry - gods, has he seen Geralt angry - and he’s seen Geralt afraid, and he’s seen Geralt in physical pain, and he’s seen him in love (or at least overwhelming lust and djinn magic), but he has never seen him so utterly lost as he is right now.

Apparently nearly starving to death and then being dealt several severe emotional shocks and then reminded of what must have been one of the most terrible days of his entire life is enough to break Geralt’s sturdy stoicism into tiny, shattered pieces.

Jaskier has occasionally wished to see Geralt without all of his walls, Geralt laid bare and vulnerable, Geralt honest with his emotions.

He is currently regretting that wish. Seeing Geralt like this hurts, and hurts worse because Jaskier can’t do a damn thing to fix it, and might actually be making it worse just by being here. Geralt’s not going to be happy that Jaskier has witnessed this, Jaskier is guessing. He’s not going to be happy that anyone has witnessed this, but at least Eskel and Lambert and Vesemir are of his School - are people he trusts. Jaskier and Aiden and Coën are outsiders.

Jaskier sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted anyone but Aiden to see his breakdown, weeks ago.

“Coën,” he says, “it occurs to me I have not yet properly greeted Miss Roach, nor your own faithful steed. Do you think we might go and have our dinner in the stables?”

“I would be honored to introduce you to my dear Bucephalus,” Coën says, picking up his cue beautifully. “Would you like to accompany us, Aiden?”

“Sure, I’ll come see if Fancy remembers she’s not supposed to bite me,” Aiden says, and in a few moments they’ve collected bowls of stew and loaves of bread and some apples to bribe the horses with, and are hastening out of the kitchen. Vesemir gives them a solemn, grateful nod as they leave. Jaskier nods back, almost a bow, and gives one more glance to Geralt - not sobbing anymore, just clinging to Eskel - before the door swings shut.

Roach is, at least, gratifyingly pleased to see Jaskier, and Pegasus and Fancy are willing to let Aiden lounge on the stall doors while Jaskier fusses over them and feeds them apples. Coën’s roan gelding Bucephalus is not pleased with Aiden’s proximity, and Aiden carefully gives his stall a wide berth.

“I have never seen him react like that,” Coën says.

“Horses don’t like me,” Aiden explains. “I think it’s a mutagen thing. Julek’s been teaching these two to put up with me, but it’s taken the better part of a month to get them willing to let me this close.”

“Fascinating,” Coën says. “Do other - I beg your pardon. Do others who have been given the Cat mutagens have the same problem?”

Which is a nice circumlocution, and Jaskier appreciates Coën’s willingness to differentiate Aiden from his former brothers.

“Some of them, yes,” Aiden says. “It depends on the year. The mages changed up the mutagens pretty often.”

“That seems…unwise,” Coën says slowly.

“Horrifically,” Aiden agrees. “They really wanted their emotionless killers, though, so…they kept trying.”

Coën shakes his head. “I understand they are all dead now?”

“Very much so,” Aiden says, with a sort of grim satisfaction.

“Good.” Coën settles onto a haybale and gestures for them to join him. Aiden flops down, sprawling out extravagantly, and then eels around when Jaskier sits down to put his head in Jaskier’s lap. Jaskier snickers and starts petting his hair - it’s truly lovely hair, really, soft and sleek and loosely curled, and petting it soothes them both.

Which they definitely need right now.

“Is the history of every School of witchers one of cruelty and woe?” Jaskier asks plaintively.

“Bluntly, yes,” Coën says, shrugging. “Humans like you, who find us congenial company, are exceedingly rare, and mages unfortunately tend to find us…compelling as experimental subjects.”

“Bleurgh,” Jaskier says, wrinkling his nose. “That’s horrifying.”

“It’s absolute shit is what it is,” Lambert says, shoving his way through the stable door with a pair of bottles in each hand. “Here - White Gull for those of us who can handle it, wine for our bard.” He hands out the bottles and flops down onto the floor beside the haybale, leaning back to rest his head on Aiden’s stomach.

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, very touched. It’s even a pretty good wine - Toussainti red, by the label, and old enough to be worth some decent coin.

“I dunno about you, but I need to be drunk to deal with pretty boy actually having emotions,” Lambert says. “Eskel took him up to bed again. Vesemir’s making Toussainti layered bread.”

“Shit, that takes fucking ages,” Aiden says.

“Yeah,” Lambert sighs. “Gods fucking damn it. I knew the Tournament was shit but I didn’t know it was that shitty, fucking hell.” He takes a long pull from his bottle. Jaskier recoils a little at the scent of extremely strong alcohol. Lambert, Aiden, Eskel, and Vesemir have each warned him that drinking White Gull would be a very bad idea, and Jaskier does not feel terribly inclined to try, if it smells like that.

Aiden props himself up enough to take a drink from his own bottle and then stretches out again with a sigh. “I don’t want to spend the afternoon drinking ourselves into maudlin stupors,” he says. “Sing us something cheerful, Julek?”

“Something cheerful that isn’t Fishmonger’s Daughter,” Jaskier says thoughtfully.

“Oh gods, please no,” Aiden begs, giving Jaskier a very good pleading look.

“I quite enjoy The Sailors and the Sirens,” Coën says hopefully.

“Oh! Yeah, that one’s fuckin’ great,” Lambert agrees.

Jaskier takes a deep drink of wine, hoping his blush is not as visible as it feels, and starts to sing.

It’s…very, very nice, being surrounded by witchers who like his singing. Who think his life’s work has been useful.

Although - Eskel said Geralt did pay attention. Said he kept track of the competitions Jaskier won, and the songs he wrote. He just never showed Jaskier any of that, which is…

Jaskier wants to shake Vesemir by the shoulders and demand why the fuck the Wolf School never taught the trainees how to handle their godsdamned emotions. Sure, Eskel seems to have a decent handle on them, and Lambert seems to be doing alright now, after thirty years of having Aiden around, but Geralt…

Geralt is carrying so fucking much guilt. Guilt over poor Gweld, guilt over whatever the fuck happened in Blaviken, guilt over every person he fails to save -

If the Wolves had any sort of tradition of actually talking about this sort of shit, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten bottled up so hard that when the top finally came off, Geralt first nearly starved himself to death and then broke down sobbing like an abandoned child.

And maybe he would have actually been able to say something about the fact that, at least according to the rest of his School, he really does enjoy Jaskier’s company. Instead of just pretending to be the godsdamned lute-string fairy.

Jaskier segues from The Sailors and the Sirens into How Not to Feed a Zeugl, which has a lovely catchy chorus that all three witchers clearly know by heart, and tries to stop thinking about fucking Geralt of Rivia and his godsdamned emotional constipation.

Much better to try not to trip over his own tongue as he leads his impromptu choir in a rousing rendition of “- and a pig in a poke, and a poke in a boat, and the boat down the damned old causeway!”

*

They don’t see Geralt for a couple of days, which doesn’t surprise Aiden much. Lambert used to go and hole up and snap and snarl and hate everything for a while every time he actually let anyone see his tender underbelly, and it’s taken entire decades for Aiden to teach him that Aiden, at least, won’t immediately take advantage of the revealed vulnerability.

Geralt, presumably, has no such faith in…well, anyone but Eskel, probably. So honestly Aiden’s a little surprised Geralt does emerge from Eskel’s bedroom eventually; he wouldn’t have been completely shocked if Geralt just spent the whole winter up there.

Annoyed, given that doing so would mean Geralt never let Julek actually yell at him, but not shocked.

But Geralt does emerge, late one afternoon three days after his breakdown. Lambert and Eskel are out hunting - for boar, because Wolves like going after dangerous animals in the snow - and Coën and Vesemir are down in the cellars doing who knows what, and Aiden is lounging on the hearth in the kitchen while Julek plays snatches of tunes on his lute and then mutters to himself and changes a few notes and plays them again. It’s oddly soothing to listen to.

Aiden is halfway asleep when the door opens, and he doesn’t bother to move for a moment, assuming it’s Eskel and Lambert back from hunting.

And then Geralt’s gruff, low voice says, “Jaskier?” and Aiden freezes, torn between the urge to get up and put himself between his brother and the White Wolf, and the urge to stay still and listen to whatever conversation might ensue.

Julek says, voice surprisingly calm, “Geralt. You’re looking better.”

Aiden stays still. He can always get up and stab Geralt later if he has to.

“Hm. Feeling better,” Geralt says, and there’s the splash of a mug being filled with ale, the scrape of chair legs on stone. There’s a pause; Julek keeps fiddling with his lute, testing variations, and Geralt sits in silence, the only sign that he’s even present the occasional slosh of ale as he drinks.

Aiden is built to be an ambush predator, and even his patience is getting a bit strained.

Finally, Geralt says, “You said…hm. Said when I was recovered, you’d yell at me.”

Julek stops playing, one string giving a rather startled-sounding twang. “I did say that,” he agrees.

Geralt swallows audibly. “I’m recovered,” he says.

There’s another pause. Aiden is fairly sure he’s vibrating with the effort of holding still, but if he moves at all he might ruin whatever is happening at the table behind him.

Julek says, voice tight and very controlled, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” It’s low and quiet, but clear.

Aiden hears Julek take a deep breath, and a soft scrape as he pushes his chair back, followed by the gentle clunk of a lute being carefully set down, then the tap of Julek’s shoes on the stones as he begins to pace.

“You left me. On a fucking mountain. In the wilds of fucking Caingorn. After telling me that everything bad in your life was my fucking fault!” Julek’s voice spirals up an octave on the last few words. “You told me your one wish was to never see me again, and I’m sorry for choosing to disregard that, but it would have hurt less if you’d actually fucking stabbed me, you bastard! I understand that you were having a fucking horrible day but I am not your training dummy and you are not allowed to take it out on me when your fucking witch decides to break your heart!”

He stops, breathing hard, and Aiden waits for Geralt to respond, but the White Wolf makes no sound at all. Jaskier hisses between his teeth. “And while I am yelling at you for things! Your brothers have informed me that you do in fact give a shit about me! That you actually pay attention to my fucking songs! That you care when I am unhappy! It would be absolutely wonderful if you could get over yourself and actually say as much to me in actual words instead of pretending to be the godsdamned lute-string fairy and hoping I figure it out! I don’t even care what words you use! Speak fucking Ofieri for all I care! But you have got to stop assuming I will be able to guess that you actually give a shit when you can’t even bring yourself to give me a fucking hug when we meet! I have given you twenty years of my life! I have patched you up and wrangled aldermen for you and rubbed chamomile on your shapely ass! I am not leaving you, you asshole, so you can stop behaving like you think I’m going to vanish and start actually treating me like your godsdamned friend!”

There’s a brief silence; Julek is panting with exertion. Finally he says, “Alright, I think that was pretty much all of it.”

Geralt says, quietly, “Me kernyn. I’m sorry.”

Aiden’s jaw drops. He - he genuinely didn’t expect that. Apparently Julek didn’t either, because there’s a sputtering sound and then Julek blurts, “Did you just call me ‘my friend’ in fucking Hen Linge so you wouldn’t have to do it in Common, you utter troll?”

Geralt must nod, because Julek sputters some more, and then there’s the distinct sound of a slap, muffled enough that Julek probably whacked Geralt’s shoulder or arm. “You bastard,” Julek says. “You emotionally constipated lummox. You - you - you unspeakably dense bonehead, why the fuck do I love you?”

“Don’t know,” Geralt says quietly.

The soft thump, Aiden guesses, is Julek hitting his own forehead. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Julek sighs. “You beef-witted numpty. You are in fact a good and honorable man, you have a gloriously dry sense of humor, you’re protective of children and idiots and stray bards, and you’re my friend. Even if it has taken you twenty fucking years to admit it.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says again, very quietly. “I don’t - people don’t - the only person I’ve ever gotten to keep is Eskel. And only in the winters.”

“So you don’t know how,” Julek says wearily. “Or trust that someone will, in fact, stick around.”

“You’re human,” Geralt says, voice very small and sad. “You’ll leave, even if you don’t want to.”

“Ah,” Julek says. “Well. About that.”

“What?”

“Geralt, by any chance have you actually noticed the fact that I don’t seem to have aged over the last twenty years?”

“...No?” Geralt admits rather sheepishly.

“Well, I would be miffed about that, except I didn’t actually notice either. I thought I had simply happened upon a particularly effective skincare regimen.”

“Pink bottle on the face, green bottle on the hands, blue bottle anywhere the skin wrinkles, spritz with whatever that stuff is that smells like lemons,” Geralt says. “That’s not it?”

Aiden is rather charmed despite himself that Geralt knows that routine by heart.

“Alright, first, I had no idea you’d actually paid attention to that, and second, no, apparently not, because I haven’t had any of my lotions for the last several months and there hasn’t been any appreciable change.” Julek takes a deep breath, and there’s a soft scrape and thump that’s probably him sitting down again. “Aiden thinks I might have a tiny drop of nonhuman blood. Just enough to keep me young a long time.”

Geralt makes an incoherent little sound of shock. Aiden hides a grin. He spotted something the Great White Wolf didn’t.

“Aiden thinks it’s incubus,” Julek adds, and Geralt snorts.

“That…would explain a lot,” he says slowly. “Hm.”

“Hm?” Julek says, sounding a little tense, like he’s worried how Geralt is going to take this.

“I’m glad,” Geralt says slowly, and then, “Please don’t - I don’t think I can say this twice. Please let me say it all in one go?”

Julek must nod. Geralt takes a deep breath and speaks, haltingly but determinedly.

“I’ve tried…hard…to push you away. So it would hurt less when you left. When you…got what you needed from me, and went on to something better. Or when I…hurt you, as I hurt everyone who matters. But you kept not leaving. And now you’re here. Even after I was…cruel.”

Aiden is pretty sure he could see Geralt stark naked and not see him laid so bare. If he were a better man, he might feel bad about bearing witness to this vulnerability, but as it is, he’s staying right here, pretending to be asleep, to make sure Geralt doesn’t trip up at the finish line and tear Julek’s heart out again.

“Eskel told me I was a damned fool, to not see how much you care. And Vesemir…he apologized to me. Said he should have - should have talked about everything. Showed us how. And Aiden - Aiden’s been a better friend to you in three months than I have in twenty years. Even looking after you now. Guarding you from me.”

Aiden winces. Or Geralt could know perfectly well that he’s here and be…be laying himself bare anyways, because he cares that much about Julek.

Damn it, Aiden’s not going to be able to stab him after all, is he?

Aiden rolls to his feet, since his sleeping act is completely ruined anyway, and drapes himself over the back of Julek’s chair, wrapping an arm around Julek’s shoulders and giving Geralt a solemn little nod. Julek curls a hand around Aiden’s arm, holding on tight, but doesn’t say anything. Geralt meets Aiden’s eye for a moment and then fixes his gaze on Julek, looking determined and maybe a little scared.

“I’m sorry,” the White Wolf says again, very quietly. “I will…do better. If you will give me one more chance, Jaskier, my friend.”

Julek bursts into tears, and Aiden very nearly does stab Geralt, except that Julek is scrambling out of his chair and flinging himself at Geralt to embrace him.

Geralt makes a startled little noise and catches him, rocking back in his chair with the force of Julek’s lunge. “Uh,” he says, giving Aiden a sort of baffled look, and then carefully wraps his arms around Julek and pats his back.

Pet his hair, Aiden mouths, and mimes the action. Geralt raises an eyebrow but does as ordered, and Julek melts against him just like he does against Aiden. Both of Geralt’s eyebrows go up.

Thank you, he mouths back to Aiden.

Aiden shrugs awkwardly. Yes, he’s been fairly clear about his annoyance with Geralt, but the most important thing is Julek, and Geralt did actually give a fairly decent apology, especially by Wolf standards. Aiden’s not going to sabotage Geralt’s attempts to do better by Julek. That would make Julek sad.

Aiden can always stab Geralt later, if he starts to backslide in his newfound determination to be less of an ass. Or while they’re sparring, if he can make it look accidental.

Julek would probably still object, more’s the pity.

Chapter Text

Jaskier doesn’t know what he’s expecting to change after Geralt’s startling apology. Quite possibly nothing at all, except that Geralt will presumably start joining everyone else for meals and sparring and the apparently endless labor of trying to keep the rest of Kaer Morhen from falling down around their ears.

He’s honestly a little glad that Lambert and Eskel came back with not one but two boar carcasses just about when Jaskier had cried himself out, giving Jaskier the golden opportunity to take a leaf out of Geralt’s book and go hide in his bedroom - which is really more a storage space for his things, given that he’s been spending his nights sleeping with Lambert and Aiden and Coën - and wash his face and tidy his hair and generally look a little less like he’s just been weeping.

By the time he comes down again, the boars have been disassembled and hung up in the cellars, and the Wolves and Aiden are all down in the basement washroom, and Jaskier can sit down and spend a little time poking at the song he’d been working on when Geralt came in. He’s pretty much gotten the chorus hammered out when the witchers all come piling back into the kitchen, Coën and Vesemir included, and gives it one more play-through while they all jostle for ale-mugs and places at the table, before setting his lute carefully aside.

“Pretty,” Lambert says, lifting his mug to Jaskier with a little nod. Jaskier grins and gives him a little bow for the compliment -

And Geralt says, very hesitantly, “I like the - plinky bit? With the pause?”

Jaskier turns and stares at him. “The - arpeggio and rest?”

Geralt shrugs. “I…are those the words?”

“They are,” Aiden says, and hesitates for a moment. “I’ve got a glossary I’ve been working on, for bardic words. You could copy it, if you like.”

“Thank you,” Geralt says, nodding.

Jaskier swallows hard. “You…want to learn?”

Geralt shrugs uncomfortably. “You know monsters.”

“I…do, yes,” Jaskier agrees; he could probably write his own bestiary by this point, though a fair number of monsters would just be labeled ‘too dangerous for a human to deal with,’ and getting actual details out of Geralt is always like getting blood from a stone.

Geralt shrugs again. “It seems…fair. To learn.”

Jaskier grimaces. “Don’t force yourself just because you want to be fair,” he says, trying not to sound bitter.

Geralt winces. “That’s not - fuck. Words. Hm.” Jaskier waits, wondering what Geralt is trying to say. “Music is important to you,” Geralt says at last, frowning hard, like he’s trying to make sure he’s phrasing things exactly right. “As…vital as monsters are, to me. I…know about brewing, because Lambert talks about it. About goats, because Eskel likes them. I want to…have the words to understand, for you, too.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says weakly. And then, because fuck it anyway, “Do you even like my singing?”

Geralt curls in on himself a little, looking distinctly guilty. “Yes,” he admits. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Mostly is a hell of a lot better than not at all, which had been Jaskier’s assumption up until - well, about ten seconds ago, actually.

“The high notes are…painful, sometimes.”

“...Oh,” Jaskier says. That…makes an uncomfortable amount of sense, actually, given witcher senses, but he’s never thought about it before, because Geralt just seemed indifferent to all of his songs. “You, ah, you never said anything about that.”

Geralt looks sheepish. “Didn’t want you to stop singing.”

Well. Alright. Fewer high notes it shall be. He reaches back for his lute and runs through the chorus about an octave lower, and all the witchers cock their heads and smile a little. “Is that better?”

“Hm. Yes,” Geralt says, and gives Jaskier a tiny, tentative smile.

“Alright then,” Jaskier says, and sets his lute aside again to accept the plate of venison Vesemir hands him, already making plans to go and rewrite as many of his songs as possible to avoid the sounds which make his witchers uncomfortable.

He’s going to need some time to wrap his head around the idea that Geralt really is going to change the way he behaves. Admittedly, this could be a sort of honeymoon period, and Geralt might well go back to being cold and gruff once he feels like he’s apologized enough, but…Jaskier is enough of an optimist, even after twenty years following a witcher around, to hope that this is a signal of a real shift in their relationship.

In the meantime, though, he desperately needs a distraction so he can keep from tearing up over Geralt caring about his music and having opinions about it that aren’t calling it a fucking pie with no filling, so -

“Hunt went well, then?” he asks Lambert and Eskel.

“Pretty well,” Eskel says, picking up his cue beautifully, bless the man. “Lambert might have fallen into a snowdrift or three.”

“Fallen, the fucker says,” Lambert grumbles. “Got Aarded by this sneaky fucking bastard, more like.”

Eskel smirks. “You weren’t paying enough attention to your surroundings.”

“I shouldn’t have to worry about my fucking surroundings when it’s my godsdamned brother behind me, you ass,” Lambert gripes. “This fucker likes to pretend he’s all sensible and shit,” he continues to Jaskier, “but he is a sneaky bastard and don’t you let him convince you otherwise.”

“I will bear that firmly in mind,” Jaskier assures him, trying not to laugh.

“And Coën has fucking cold toes,” Lambert adds.

Coën laughs. “Truly a dreadful shortcoming of mine.”

“It is when they’re being applied to my calves, you dick - isn’t there something in the fucking Griffin code of honor about not putting your godsdamned icicle toes on your bedmates?”

“Alas, I fear our founder was not so foresightful as to have included that particular circumstance in our code,” Coën says, grinning broadly.

“Should’ve been the first fucking line,” Lambert grumbles.

“What is the Griffin code of honor?” Jaskier inquires. He knows Geralt has a personal code, though he’s never gotten the details of it out of the Wolf - indeed, he’s not entirely sure Geralt could articulate it - but this sounds rather as though the Griffins have an actual script of some sort.

“Ah, well, as to that, it is based in the code of chivalry as of about half a millennium ago, with some modifications to account for the necessities of a witcher’s life.” Coën takes a deep breath, and straightens in his seat with obvious pride. “A Griffin must live by honor and eschew all meanness, unfairness, and deceit. He must never refuse a challenge from an equal nor leave undone any endeavor he begins. He must speak the truth as he knows it, save when the truth will harm an innocent. He must refrain from the wanton giving of offense, and respect the honor of women. He must ask no more than a fair price for his labors. He must always serve the right, as he perceives it, not for gain nor glory but for the good of the people he was created to defend.”

Jaskier is fascinated. “And your whole School held to that code?”

“As best we could, yes,” Coën says. “Some of us better than others, and I am sure all of us lapsed in our adherence from time to time.” He shrugs. “It is sometimes difficult to remember to be polite and refrain from giving offense when it is cold and raining and the fourth alderman in two weeks is refusing to pay one the agreed-upon fee for one’s labors, and the local inn has already refused one entrance.”

“That is a situation which would seem to call for some rudeness, yes,” Jaskier agrees. “Is there an equivalent Wolf code?” he adds to the other witchers.

“Not really,” Eskel says, shrugging. “We don’t take human contracts, and we try to avoid contracts on things that think and aren’t making trouble. Past that…I dunno. Don’t get involved in politics. Finish the contracts you take. Don’t be complete asses.”

Coën tilts his head curiously. “If you have not got the strictures of a code to hold to, what do you do when you are in such a situation as I described, if I may ask?”

Eskel sighs. “Loom,” he says glumly. “And try to stay polite. Sometimes it works.”

Lambert snorts. “Cuss the fucker out. Sometimes threats work.”

Aiden shrugs eloquently. “Come back later and steal whatever they owed me.” He grins at the looks everyone else gives him. “What? I was trained by Cats!”

Vesemir grunts. “Look disappointed,” he says. “Works better now that I look old.”

All eyes turn to Geralt, and Geralt, astonishingly, smiles, just a little. “Sic my bard on them,” he says.

Everyone but Aiden and Geralt turns to stare at Jaskier, who is definitely feeling a little curl of warmth at Geralt calling him his bard. “What does a bard do?” Eskel ventures at last.

Jaskier grins at them, sharp and a little vicious. “I can harangue like nobody’s business. And no alderman wants a song out in the world about how his town is full of miserly cowards who mistreat their visitors.”

Coën bursts into laughter. “Ah! So you do not threaten their lives, but their livelihoods. How immensely clever!”

“Admittedly sometimes I also threaten to stab them,” Jaskier confesses. “But only if Geralt’s out of earshot.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Geralt smirk. “Ah. You’re not actually out of earshot, are you,” Jaskier sighs, putting a hand over his face.

“Nope,” Geralt says.

“Fucking witcher hearing,” Jaskier says. “Sneaky bastard.” He leans over to whack Geralt on the shoulder. Geralt looks surprisingly pleased by this.

“Can’t get too far away,” he explains. “You might seduce the alderman’s wife.”

“Hey!” Jaskier objects. “I -”

“Definitely would,” Aiden says brightly. “I told you all how many married ladies he bedded on the way here, right?”

“I’m still not sure I believe you,” Lambert says, shaking his head. “Nobody’s that fuckin’ randy.”

Aiden and Geralt share a commiserating look. Jaskier laughs. “I like people,” he says. “Often they like me too. I like sex, and I’m good at it. Why shouldn’t I bring joy to the lovely ladies and charming gentlemen who are bold enough to offer a few pleasant hours?”

“Because a distressing number of them have spouses and suitors who object?” Aiden suggests.

Jaskier shrugs. “It’s hardly my fault if so many people are terrible at holding to their promises.”

“No, but it’s your broken head the morning after,” Geralt grumbles.

“Only if I don’t have a witcher around to protect me!” Jaskier grins, and Geralt and Aiden heave deep sighs in perfect and utterly hilarious unison.

*

“Jaskier,” Eskel says as they all reach the top of the stairs, and Julek pauses. Aiden turns to see what Eskel wants. “Geralt won’t ask. But - d’you want to bunk in with us?”

“Ah,” Julek says, and looks from Aiden to Geralt and back again. “Geralt, do you…mind?”

Aiden squints. Is there a faint hint of color on the White Wolf’s pale cheeks? “I,” he says, glances at Eskel, takes a deep breath, and finishes, “would like that.”

“Oh,” Julek says, going very pink and pleased. “Well then. Eskel is a delightful bedmate, and if you don’t mind, then it might be polite to let Lambert and Aiden and Coën stretch out a little bit. Four is slightly crowded in Lambert’s bed.”

“We don’t mind,” Aiden says.

“Indeed, we do not,” Coën agrees, “but we have been hoarding the bard, rather.” To Aiden’s surprise, the Griffin gives Geralt a brief, hard look. “As long as he will be well treated, I see no reason we cannot share.”

Geralt nods solemnly.

“I’m not a children’s toy, to be passed about,” Julek says dryly.

“No, indeed,” Coën says hastily. “But you are dear to us, and we are honored by your company.”

Julek shakes his head, chuckling ruefully. “Your courtesy instructors were very skilled,” he tells Coën. “I think I would like to spend the night with Geralt and Eskel.”

Aiden hugs his brother tightly and gives Geralt a brief glare over the top of Julek’s head. “Then do so, and I will see you in the morning,” he says, and then can’t quite help hovering in the doorway until the two Wolves and Julek have vanished into Eskel’s room.

“Nobody’s going to bite the bard,” Lambert says, looping an arm around Aiden’s waist and pulling him into the bedroom. “Geralt got whapped on the nose proper, and Eskel’ll sit on him anyhow, if he fucks up.”

“Yes, but -” Aiden says, and sighs, slumping against Lambert, hiding his face against the Wolf’s throat. “He’s my brother and I don’t want him to get hurt and I don’t want to lose him,” he finishes plaintively.

“Ah,” Lambert says, and Aiden can clearly imagine the look of help, I don’t do emotions well that his Wolf is probably wearing. “You…won’t?”

“I will, though,” Aiden whispers. “He’ll go off with Geralt in the spring and I won’t see him again until winter. And he - he’s got his Wolf back now. He won’t need me.”

Lambert swallows hard and guides Aiden carefully across the room until he can sit down on the bed and pull Aiden into his lap. “Right,” he says. “First off. We’re talking about a man who’s so godsdamned fucking loyal that he crossed half the continent and climbed the fucking Killer to find my dumbshit brother, who is his friend. I don’t think a man like that is going to forget about someone he claims as a brother.”

Aiden…has to admit the truth of that, at least. Julek is painfully loyal.

“As to the other bit -” Lambert hesitates. “The bard plays at a lot of festivals, yeah?”

“Yes,” Aiden says, wondering where Lambert is going with this.

“So before we leave next spring, ask him which ones he’ll be at. We can plan to meet up.”

Aiden sits back enough to stare at Lambert. “You - we - you’d do that?”

“Of fucking course,” Lambert says. “I like the little fucker, and you love him, and I -” he swallows. “I want you happy,” he finishes, very quietly.

“Oh,” Aiden says softly. He feels like his heart is being squeezed by a giant hand - like he’s so full of sheer love that it might just overflow and drown them both. “Lam, you sweetheart,” he chokes out at last, and kisses his Wolf, trying to pour every bit of gratitude he can into the press of lips and tongue.

Coën clears his throat gently when Aiden finally breaks the kiss to nuzzle against Lambert’s throat. “Should I find another bed for the night?”

Aiden hesitates for a moment, but - he doesn’t actually want to fuck Lambert at the moment, just cuddle and kiss. And he likes Coën; and the bed is warmer with three. “Only if you mind us kissing,” he says.

“Not in the slightest,” Coën says cheerfully, and undresses quickly before taking his usual spot on the far side of the bed, rolling over to put his back to them for an extra bit of privacy. He really is a gentleman. Aiden lets go of Lambert just long enough for the two of them to strip to their smallclothes, and then Lambert slides into bed, his back against Coën’s, and Aiden pinches out the candles and snuggles into his arms for more kisses.

Lambert’s lips are soft and a little chapped, and his hair is pleasantly coarse against Aiden’s fingers, and he makes the loveliest little noises deep in his throat, and -

This is what Aiden owes Julek, right here. Not just that he is alive to be kissing Lambert, but that he gets to keep Lambert, to stay with him year in and year out, to winter with him inside Kaer Morhen’s still-sturdy walls, to never again have to leave Lambert’s side. Their lives are dangerous - the Path is hard - but the two of them have never yet met a monster they could not defeat, and Aiden knows he fights harder with his Wolf beside him to defend.

And knowing that Julek has given him this happiness, how can Aiden deny him his own?

Especially as Lambert is entirely correct: they can plan to meet up with Julek and Geralt four or five times over the course of the year. The Path isn’t predictable enough to allow for letters, really, but even just knowing he’ll see Julek once every month or two will be enough to keep Aiden from fretting too badly.

“Nobody’s losing anybody,” Lambert whispers against Aiden’s ear, so soft that maybe even Coën won’t hear it. “We all get to fucking keep each other, alright? Fuck the lone wolf bullshit. Your brother’s made us a proper pack, somehow, and we’re damned well keeping it.”

“Lam,” Aiden says hoarsely, and kisses his lover as sweetly as he knows how. Lambert curls around him and strokes his hair and makes tiny, gorgeous sounds against his lips, and Aiden clings to him, feeling tears slip down his cheek and not caring in the slightest.

He’ll keep Lambert, and he’ll keep Julek, and he’ll keep Coën and Eskel and Vesemir and hell, even Geralt, too, gods damn it.

His former brothers tried to kill him. His new brother has found him a whole damned pack to keep.

Anyone and anything that wants to get to them will have to go through Aiden first, and he is demonstrably very hard to kill indeed.

*

Jaskier wakes up, for the first time in his life, with Geralt in his arms.

It is…surprisingly comfortable, actually.

Eskel had insisted on Jaskier being in the middle - humans being more sensitive to the cold than witchers, after all - and Jaskier certainly wasn’t going to protest being between two glorious furnaces of witcherhood, but he’d rather thought Geralt might object. Had figured he and Geralt would both end up cuddling up to Eskel - who is eminently cuddleable, and if it wouldn’t be an absolutely terrible idea, Jaskier would definitely write a song about the sweetest son of Kaer Morhen and how comfortable and soothing it is to sleep beside him - and had been perfectly happy with that arrangement.

But no, Eskel insisted that Jaskier be in the middle, and they’d all ended up lying down rather awkwardly, Eskel curled around Jaskier and Geralt a few inches away, looking uncertain.

And now Jaskier is wrapped around Geralt, Eskel pressed against his back with one brawny arm draped over both of their waists, and Geralt’s lovely hair is tickling Jaskier’s nose, and Jaskier’s hand has ended up spread over Geralt’s chest, where he can feel the slow steady throbbing of his witcher’s heart.

This is either very good or very bad.

Good, because Geralt is comfortable enough to sleep so close to Jaskier. Good, because he’s warm and heavy and here, and maybe this means that out on the Path Jaskier won’t have to lie awake in inn beds or his lonely bedroll wondering what it is about him that’s so abhorrent that Geralt won’t even share a bed with him, maybe this means Geralt really is trying to be a better friend, to stop pushing Jaskier away.

Bad, because this might very well be too much too fast, and if Geralt gets overwhelmed and pushes him away again then Jaskier might do something drastic.

…Burst into tears in the middle of Kaer Morhen, probably. Again, and not from relief this time.

“Hm,” Geralt says quietly. Jaskier sucks in a breath and freezes. Geralt pats the arm wrapped around his chest gently. “Thinking too hard,” he says. “Winter is for sleeping. Sleep.”

“Uh,” Jaskier says faintly.

“He’s right,” Eskel agrees, voice morning-rough. “Not dawn yet. Sleep.”

“Alright,” Jaskier says - squeaks, really - and deliberately tries to calm his breathing and his heartrate. Both Wolves go limp and heavy against him, sandwiching him firmly between them; he’s not sure he could get out of the bed even if he wanted to.

That’s…leaning towards the good option, then?

Jaskier does fall asleep again, because it’s hard not to when he’s warm and slightly squished and there’s no light but the banked coals on the hearth, and the second time he wakes, it’s to discover that Geralt has squirmed around to face him, although he hasn’t wriggled out of Jaskier’s embrace. Which means their faces are very close together indeed. Geralt’s eyes are extremely golden. Eskel has nuzzled in against the back of Jaskier’s neck and is snuffling softly, clearly still at least half asleep.

“Good morning,” Jaskier says, very quietly, for lack of anything better to say.

“Hm,” Geralt replies, but it’s a contented, happy little noise. And then he shifts forward to press their foreheads together, the way Jaskier has seen Lambert do with Aiden and Eskel when he wants to express affection.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says softly. “I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. But. This is…a very large shift from where we were?”

“Hm,” Geralt says again, thoughtfully this time. Eskel has stopped snuffling, but isn’t moving either, apparently willing to wait and see what Geralt says.

“You’re…staying,” Geralt says slowly. “So I can let myself have - let myself do what I’ve wanted. For years.”

Jaskier blinks. “What you’ve wanted - you really have wanted to, to be - close?”

“Hm,” Geralt confirms.

“You’re an idiot sometimes,” Jaskier says.

“Hm,” Geralt agrees. Eskel snickers against Jaskier’s neck.

“And you are damn lucky I love you,” Jaskier adds.

To his surprise, Geralt smiles, a real smile, not just the tiny quirk of his lips that Jaskier has gotten used to seeing out on the Path, and says, “Yes.”

Jaskier’s heart turns over. Fuck. That’s not fair, that he can make Geralt smile like that, that Geralt can smile like that, that that smile is for Jaskier -

It’s like he’s being handed everything he ever wanted on a platter, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Effective communication at last, thank fuck,” Eskel mutters, and Jaskier bursts into laughter. Geralt sighs heavily and curls in to thump his head against Jaskier’s shoulder.

Feeling greatly daring, Jaskier lifts a hand to stroke Geralt’s hair, and is rewarded by Geralt flopping even more heavily against him, pinning him very effectively against Eskel.

“He’s an extremely cuddly bastard when he’s home,” Eskel says. “I think he saves it all up on the Path.”

Jaskier sighs. “Yeah, probably.”

Geralt grumbles something wordless and snuggles closer. Eskel joins Jaskier in petting his hair.

“You’re on Path-cuddling duty from now on, I suspect,” Eskel says.

“And glad to be so,” Jaskier agrees. “Though I hope that will not deprive you of your usual winter Geralt-cuddles.”

“Won’t,” Geralt murmurs. Which is just painfully cute, actually.

“I have a question for you,” Jaskier says. “How is it that in twenty years you’ve never mentioned even once that I sing in my sleep? I would have thought you’d grumble about it.”

The bit of Geralt’s ear that Jaskier can see goes very slightly pink. “It’s…cute,” he mumbles. “I like it.”

“Aww,” Jaskier coos, and Geralt makes a grumpy little noise and burrows closer like he’s trying to hide from his own emotions. Jaskier loves him so much, the darling idiot.

“How much of the whole stoic-grumpy-witcher thing is a mask?” Jaskier asks thoughtfully. He knows much of it, because between towns, sometimes, it does come down a little. He’s seen Geralt stop to admire a sunset, or take an hour to sit beside a stream with his feet in the water, or laugh at one of his own terrible dry jokes - seen him smiling at Roach, or looking baffled and pleased when someone has been nice to him, or even being amused at Jaskier’s own antics - so yes, Jaskier knows that ‘emotionless witcher’ is a mask Geralt wears. But he’s never been sure how much of it Geralt still keeps in place even while it’s just the two of them.

Evidently the answer is ‘a fair bit.’ Which could easily be very hurtful, but Jaskier is trying to put that behind him, because he had his nice cathartic yell and Geralt did apologize, and now Geralt is…

Is treating him like he does Eskel, evidently. Which may be one of the finest compliments Jaskier has ever gotten.

He’s not going to say it was worth the whole Mountain debacle, but it’s at least a start at a decent recompense.

“Not a mask,” Geralt says slowly. “Armor.”

“Armor?” Jaskier says, a little startled, and then thinks about it for a moment. “Oh. Huh. Harder for people to hurt you if they don’t know where the soft spots are.”

“Precisely,” Eskel says, a little sadly.

“Well,” Jaskier says briskly, “that won’t be making it into a song. As far as anyone else will ever know, witchers are stern and honorable men without any vulnerabilities at all, who should always be well paid for their labors and also are probably very good in bed.”

“Thank you,” Eskel says, snorting softly. “Though far as I know you’ve got no personal knowledge of that last bit.”

“No,” Jaskier admits, and bites his lip. Geralt and Eskel are both silent, waiting. “I learned the hard way, in Oxenfurt, about…expectations,” Jaskier says slowly. “I had a lover, there, who - I thought I was very clear, but in retrospect we were both young and foolish, and what he heard might not have been what I said - in any case, he thought that my having a steady lover would mean I didn’t take anyone else to bed. And then he was very, very hurt when I did.”

Geralt hums. Eskel makes a little thoughtful noise.

“So - I don’t know, it might be an overreaction - but I figured it would be easier on everyone, really, if I just…kept sex and long-term relationships separate?” Jaskier shrugs. “You’ve got eyes, you know Geralt’s damnably attractive.” Geralt makes a dubious noise; Jaskier whaps his shoulder gently. “Stop that, you are. But if we’d started sleeping together - no, let me rephrase that, because I dearly hope we will indeed be sleeping together from now on, you’re a very pleasant bedmate - if we’d started fucking, you might have expected that I would…settle down, I suppose. And then there would be hurt feelings, and we’d both be uncomfortable, and it was just…easier not to have the whole problem in the first place.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. Jaskier sighs.

“And also at least for the first few years I was so worried you’d send me away anyhow that I didn’t want to add anything else into the mix.”

“Sensible,” Eskel says thoughtfully.

“Makes sense,” Geralt agrees. “Especially if you are part-incubus.”

“Part-incubus?” Eskel inquires, sounding more curious than worried.

Geralt snickers. “Would make sense,” he says.

“Aiden thinks I may have a tiny bit of nonhuman blood that keeps me young,” Jaskier explains. “He also thinks it might be incubus, given…well, me.”

“Hm,” Geralt confirms, sounding very amused.

“Huh,” Eskel says. “Unusual but not unheard-of.” There’s a brief pause, and then he adds, “Is that going to be a problem if you don’t have any sex over the winter?”

Jaskier blinks. That was not the reaction he thought a professional monster-hunter might have. Sure, Aiden and Geralt had both seemed fine with it, but Aiden is Jaskier’s brother and Geralt is clearly trying to not be cruel again. “Firstly, I don’t actually know - I haven’t gone four months without sex since I was sixteen. And secondly, that’s not…an issue? For witchers?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Eskel assures him. “Incubi and succubi are a lot like humans, actually; mostly they just want to live their lives. Some of them are vicious, and then we get contracts on them, but for the most part they’re just people.” He chuckles. “Sometimes very friendly people.”

Jaskier turns that over in his head a bit. “Eskel, my friend, just out of pure curiosity - how many incubi and succubi have you fucked?”

“That would be telling,” Eskel says cheerfully. “And as far as anyone else in this keep knows, the answer is ‘one’.”

Geralt snickers. “Until we get enough of Lambert’s moonshine into you.”

“Good luck with that,” Eskel says. “Anyhow. I suppose if we don’t even know if your hypothetical nonhuman blood is incubus it’d be a bit silly to start making plans for how to deal with you possibly needing sex before spring, but let us know if you start to feel unwell.”

“I will do that,” Jaskier says, genuinely touched. “Anyway. The long and short of the whole thing is that I would rather be your friend than fuck you and risk losing that, Geralt, so…I’ve never tried.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. “That’s. Hm. Thank you.”

Jaskier hums a querying sound.

Geralt shrugs and sits up. “Can’t…I don’t have the right words. But for - hm. Wanting more than my…skills. In bed or in battle.”

“Oh, darling,” Jaskier says, sitting up in turn. Eskel grumbles a little at losing his cuddle object. “I would adore you if you were a - a baker, or a horse-trainer, or a bookshop owner.”

“Aww,” Eskel coos.

Geralt reaches out and tugs gently on a lock of Jaskier’s hair. “You’d always be a bard,” he says slowly. “And always a - a friend worth cherishing.”

Jaskier presses a hand to his chest, where his heart has just clenched. “Thank you,” he says softly. “I am glad you think so.”

Eskel awws again, and Geralt rolls his eyes. “We’re not your damned goats, stop cooing over us,” he grumbles, and Eskel snickers, and Jaskier hastily scrambles out of the way as the Wolves start tussling.

He’s so happy it almost hurts.

Chapter Text

Aiden gets down to the kitchen rather earlier than he probably should - early enough that Vesemir looks startled to see him - but he’s worried about Julek. Yes, alright, the chances that something will have gone terribly wrong in a single night are slim, and Eskel will have been right there to make sure Geralt doesn’t do something idiotic, but still. Julek’s his brother and Aiden is allowed to worry.

Of course, being up that early means both that he had to leave Lambert cuddling Coën, which is adorable but means Lambert isn’t cuddling him, and also that he ends up spending the better part of an hour and a half helping Vesemir make oatcakes and fancy berry-flavored syrup to go with them before Julek comes skipping into the kitchen, bright-eyed and beaming.

“Aiden!” he carols, and wraps Aiden in an embrace, dancing him about in a circle, then lets go and hugs Vesemir, startling the old Wolf considerably, and then plops down at the table and props his chin on his hands and grins at them both. “What’s for breakfast?”

“No more sweets, apparently, you’ve already got enough energy,” Aiden says, chuckling. “Sleep well?”

“Extremely,” Julek says brightly. “And hashed a few things out with Geralt, too. He and Eskel will be down after they finish trying to bite each other.”

Vesemir rubs his forehead and sighs. “Those boys. They’ve always been like this.”

“If I ask for stories about the two of them as adorable baby witcher trainees, will you just glare at me?” Julek asks.

“Depends on what you’ll use them for,” Vesemir allows.

“Teasing them mercilessly while we’re here in Kaer Morhen,” Julek says promptly. “If I do write any songs, they’ll stay within these walls.”

“Good lad,” Vesemir says approvingly. “Well. There was the time they decided to learn to be bats.”

“Wait what,” Lambert says, coming in with Coën on his heels. “I smell gossip.”

“Vesemir was about to tell me about Geralt and Eskel learning to be bats!” Julek chirps gleefully.

Lambert settles beside Julek, mimicking his chin-on-hands pose. “This I gotta hear.”

Coën snickers and comes over to help Aiden pull the oatcakes out of the oven. “Ah, the perils of being late to breakfast.”

Vesemir is just wrapping up the tale of how Geralt and Eskel and Gweld ended up dangling by their belts from the rafters of the currently-unused great hall, upside-down and squeaking in terror, when the still-living Wolves in question arrive looking rather disheveled.

“Oh fuck,” Geralt says, and turns right around to walk out again. Eskel snorts and snags him around the waist, hoisting him up onto his shoulder and carrying him over to the table.

“Nope, if I’m getting hideously embarrassed over breakfast, so are you, Wolf,” he says, dumping Geralt into a chair across from Julek. Julek and Lambert are slumped against each other, crying with laughter, and Aiden and Coën have had to stop meeting each other’s eyes, because any time they do so, they both start sputtering with the effort needed to not break into helpless guffaws.

“Did you have to pick that story?” Eskel asks Vesemir rather plaintively.

“It’s a good story,” Vesemir says cheerfully. “Eat, and then I want to see how badly Geralt’s form has suffered.”

Eskel sighs heavily, but neither he nor Geralt can keep their indignant expressions long when Aiden and Coën plonk plates of berry-syrup-covered oatcakes down in front of them. Julek and Lambert take a little while to recover from their laughing fits, but the lure of breakfast is a strong one, and it isn’t terribly long before the lot of them have devoured the truly astonishing stack of oatcakes Vesemir and Aiden made and are piling out into the courtyard - minus Julek, who is staying in the kitchen to do the dishes and not freeze - for morning sparring.

Aiden runs the pendulum course a few times, just to warm up, and gets a good bout in with Coën and a second with Lambert before they trade partners once again and he finds himself facing Geralt.

Geralt gives him a little salute. “If you still want to stab me,” he says quietly, “now would be the time.”

“Julek’s happy, so you’re off the hook for now,” Aiden replies. “Stabbing is still on offer if you break his heart again, though.”

“Fair,” Geralt says, and then Vesemir claps his hands sharply and they lunge for each other.

Geralt is still clearly getting over the effects of almost starving to death, but he’s…

Well, Aiden hates to admit it, but the White Wolf is really damned good.

He’s both faster and stronger than Lambert is, which is impressive in its own right, and he’s smooth with it, more agile than Aiden generally expects a Wolf to be. He’s clearly picked up bits and pieces of techniques from all over the continent - Aiden recognizes a Toussainti parry, a Zerrikanian stop-thrust, even an Ofieri sequence - and turned it all into a style all his own, smooth as silk and absolutely hellish to face.

Aiden manages to hold his own, just barely, because Geralt is still recovering, and also doesn’t quite know how to deal with Aiden’s sword-and-dagger style, but it’s a damn close thing and Aiden is panting heavily when Vesemir calls an end to the bout.

“How the fuck,” Aiden asks Lambert quietly as they all take a moment to drain their waterskins and catch their breaths, “is he so good this soon after almost dying?”

“Poor bastard went through the Grasses twice,” Lambert replies just as softly. “Only one who ever managed to survive it, that I know of.”

“Kreve’s crooked cock,” Aiden says, borrowing one of Lambert’s favorite oaths because the situation definitely seems to call for it. “Twice?” Once was the worst damn thing Aiden’s ever been through, even including almost being murdered. Twice is…unimaginably horrific.

“Twice,” Eskel agrees, joining them beside the stable. Vesemir is running Geralt through the pendulum course, the White Wolf moving slowly but smoothly past each obstacle. “It’s why his hair is white - used to be red when he was young. All fell out and came back like this after the second round. And I think it’s why he’s so damn quiet.” He sighs, expression uncharacteristically bleak. “He used to be a little chatterbox,” he says, very quietly. “I think - I think something broke, in his throat, that second time. He got used to not talking while it healed, and he’s had that rasp ever since.”

“No shit?” Lambert says, looking surprised. “I didn’t know that - about him talking before, I mean.”

“And I thought the Cat mages were sadistic fuckers,” Aiden breathes. “Twice. Melitele’s tits. I’d be a taciturn bastard too, in his shoes.”

Eskel sighs and shrugs. “It is what it is. Can’t change it now. Can’t say as I wept for the mages when the keep got sacked, though.”

“No,” Aiden says grimly. “No, I would think not.” He spits to the side. “I hope whatever tattered souls they have are feeling every scrap of pain they put too many boys through, Cats and Wolves alike, in whatever stinking hell they’ve ended up sent to.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Eskel agrees, and he and Lambert touch their waterskins together and drain them in unison. “But anyhow. That’s why Geralt is that fucking good.”

“As opposed to Eskel, who just got lucky,” Lambert says, offering a clear opening to talk about anything that isn’t quite as depressing.

Eskel snorts. Aiden raises an eyebrow. “Lucky?”

“Best theory we’ve got is I could have been a mage, if I hadn’t been sent here,” Eskel says, shrugging. “Frankly, even allowing for everything, I’d rather be a witcher. Mages seem to get their consciences removed somewhere along the line, and I don’t like to think of being that sort of cold-blooded sadist. But it does mean I’ve yet to meet the witcher with stronger Signs.”

“Oh, is that why your Quen is so fucking frustrating to hammer on,” Aiden says. “Thank fuck, I thought I was losing my touch.”

Eskel laughs. “No, no, that’s me, not you.” He grins. “Once we get some proper snowfall, I get to play with my Igni to clear the courtyard.”

“Which is fucking amazing to watch,” Lambert says, nodding vigorously. “Fuckin’ dragon of Kaer Morhen, our Eskel is.”

“You realize if you say that around Julek, he will make a song of it,” Aiden says.

Lambert lights up. “Ooh, yes!”

“Fuck,” Eskel sighs. “Right, that’s it, you’ve got to help me come up with a proper nickname for Lambert, too. Fair’s fair.”

“It will be my absolute pleasure,” Aiden says, grinning as Lambert starts to sputter in dismay.

“Lambert! Aiden!” Vesemir calls. “Break’s over. Come along!”

*

Jaskier finishes the dishes, stacking them neatly on their shelves, steals a bit of bacon from the cupboard, and goes up to grab his coat before wandering out to see what his witchers are up to.

Eskel and Geralt and Coën are taking turns casting Aard at each other’s Quen, which is always entertaining, but Lambert and Aiden are facing off against Vesemir together, which is fascinating, so Jaskier makes his way carefully around the courtyard until he can hear what’s going on.

What seems to be happening, he sees as he gets closer, is Lambert and Aiden doing some sort of coordinated attack at half-speed or slower, Vesemir defending against it, and then all of them stopping while Vesemir speaks; and then they back up and do it again.

Jaskier gets to a decent vantage point and hunkers down in the lee of a wall in time to hear Vesemir saying, “No, look, if you turn like that you aim your blind spot at the enemy.”

“Ah shit,” Aiden says, grimacing. “Right, yeah, run through that again?”

“Yep,” Lambert says, and they back up and start again. Jaskier, watching carefully, thinks that Aiden is trying to keep Lambert precisely in his blind spot, so that the Wolf can cover the weakness in Aiden’s defenses.

Lambert and Aiden have clearly been fighting together for a long time; they move in perfect unison, not needing to look at each other to know where the other will be at any given moment. It’s startlingly beautiful, like a glorious and deadly dance, and Jaskier definitely needs to write a song about them. Maybe not a witcher song, come to think of it - a dancing song, something meant for partners, I know where your hand will be, stretch it out and catch me spinning -

Vesemir nods sharply. “Better,” he says gruffly. “Run that through another few times to lock it in.”

“Sir,” Aiden says, unwontedly solemn, and they do as ordered, walking through the modified attack four or five times until they can do it at speed without any bobbles at all. Vesemir nods again when they finally stop.

“Good,” he says, and glances up at the sun. “Shoo. Work on another tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Aiden says, and Jaskier scampers out to fall into step with him and Lambert as they head for the keep.

“Do you have to re-learn everything, then?” he asks.

“Not everything everything,” Aiden says, shrugging. “But a lot of things, yes.” He snorts. “Honestly, I’m a lucky bastard - pretty sure Vesemir’s actually a better teacher than any of the remaining swordmasters of the Cats. Less prone to beating his students, too, at least so far.”

Lambert snorts. “Yeah. I…well, I hated the old bastard pretty solidly for a while, because I hated everything about being a witcher, trainers most definitely included, but I’ll give him that. He’d only wallop us if we fuckin’ well deserved it. Not like that absolute sadist Varin - he’d beat a boy just for lookin’ at him wrong, or just because he was having a shit day and wanted something to take it out on.” He shrugs. “But he’s dead and I’m not, so fuck it, I won that war. Anyway. Vesemir was never nasty just for the sake of it.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, wincing. His tutors would sometimes beat him, when he was particularly rowdy or inattentive, but not hard - he was a noble son, after all, and if they did him actual harm, his parents would have been extremely displeased. It doesn’t sound like this Varin fellow had any such checks on his cruelty.

“But hey! By the time we go out on the Path next spring, I think I should actually be fully back in fighting form,” Aiden says, deliberately cheerful, and slings an arm over Jaskier’s shoulders. “I’ll bring you a trophy, if you like. Want a chort horn?”

“I want you to come back to Kaer Morhen in one piece next autumn,” Jaskier says.

“Now see, this is why I like you, bard,” Lambert grins. “You’ve got decent priorities. And speaking of the fuckin’ Path - oi, pretty boy!”

Geralt and Eskel and Coën fall in behind them as they head down to the basement washroom. “Hm?”

“We gotta figure out where your bard’s gonna be singing this year, so we can meet up with you.”

There’s a brief, startled silence. Jaskier blinks. “That would be wonderful,” he says. He hasn’t been looking forward to spending eight or nine months away from Aiden, especially when there won’t be any way to know if his brother is even alive or not.

“Meet up?” Eskel says, sounding slightly taken aback. “That’s…huh.”

“It is always hard to know where the Path will lead us,” Coën observes.

“But I do usually know which festivals I plan to sing at,” Jaskier says. “And I would be absolutely delighted to see any of you, if you happened to be in the area.”

“It would be pleasant to see friendly faces on the Path,” Coën says.

“Damned nice, really,” Eskel agrees.

“Hm,” Geralt says. “Get that big map out later. Plan it out.”

“You’ll do it?” Jaskier asks, twisting to look back at Geralt in delight.

Geralt hunches his shoulders a little, looking sheepish. “No reason not to,” he says. “And it’ll make you happy. And I…wouldn’t mind seeing my brothers.”

“Good answer,” Aiden says, grinning fiercely over his shoulder at Geralt. “Heck, maybe we could kidnap you for a little while, Julek,” he adds. “If there’s a couple festivals close together - Geralt gets you all year, we could bring you along with us for a bit.”

“Could take turns,” Eskel suggests. “Everyone gets the bard for a few weeks.”

Geralt, to Jaskier’s surprise, actually huffs a laugh. “Think you can keep him out of trouble?”

“How much trouble can one bard get into in a few weeks?” Eskel scoffs, kicking his boots off beside one of the tubs and flipping the handle that lets the water flow in.

Geralt and Aiden exchange a look of deep commiseration. “Just for that, I think you should let Eskel borrow the bard,” Aiden says.

“I’m not a book,” Jaskier objects. “You can’t just lend me around!” Admittedly this is hilarious, but still.

“Sorry,” Eskel says, very sheepishly. “But it would be nice to have company on the Path, now and then.”

“Would you enjoy accompanying other witchers than Geralt?” Coën asks.

“I would, and thank you for asking,” Jaskier says. “Actually I think taking turns among you all would be delightful. During the summer there are usually a great many fairs quite close together - I could spend a week or two with each of you, and then take up with Geralt again for the autumn.” It’s not as though he and Geralt spend all their time on the Path together anyway - usually, during the summer fair season, Geralt is quite busy, so Jaskier goes off to do a circuit and they meet up again at the end of it. This way, at least he’d have some company along the way.

“Could work,” Geralt agrees.

“And we’ve got all winter to work out the logistics,” Eskel says, turning the spigot off and sticking his hand into the frigid water to sign Igni; the water starts steaming immediately. “I like it. Good thought, Lam.”

Lambert looks like he doesn’t want to admit how much the praise means to him.

Aiden hooks his chin over Jaskier’s shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist. “I’d miss you too much if it was a whole year,” he admits softly as the Wolves and Coën all start shucking their clothing.

“And I you,” Jaskier agrees. “I’ve gotten used to having my brother there to keep me warm.”

“Geralt’ll do a decent job of that, or I really will stab him,” Aiden says cheerfully. “But yes. We’ll figure out the logistics, and I’ll see you every month or two.”

“Good,” Jaskier says, leaning his head against Aiden’s. “I owe Lambert something awfully nice for coming up with this plan.”

Aiden grins. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to giving him an appropriate reward.”

Jaskier snickers. “I’m sure you will,” he agrees.

“Not in front of the rest of us,” Geralt says, flicking water at them with a little smirk. Lambert squawks; Eskel chuckles; Coën puts a hand over his eyes and sighs. “Wolves,” he mutters. “No dignity.”

“And yet here you are,” Aiden teases. “Isn’t there a saying about lying down with wolves?”

“Apparently one gets up with bards,” Coën replies, and Jaskier dissolves into delighted laughter.

*

Aiden genuinely did not think that settling into Kaer Morhen would go this well. He expected hatred, mistrust, violence - expected that even if the Wolves allowed him in, they would doubt and despise him, and give Lambert endless trouble for having had the bad taste to take up with a Cat. He was willing to bear all of that for Lambert’s sake - willing to bear just about anything, really.

But instead of having to bear anything, he’s found…welcome. Good-natured Eskel, gruffly kind Vesemir, chivalrous Coën, even taciturn but oddly gentle Geralt, who seems to think Aiden’s willingness to stab him in Julek’s defense is a point in Aiden’s favor.

And Julek has found welcome, too. The Wolves and their lone Griffin are frequently baffled by the bard, and often bewildered, but always charmed. And it would be very hard for Julek to accidentally fuck an alderman’s wife in Kaer Morhen.

A fact which actually becomes something of a problem as the winter marches on.

Julek starts sleeping in later - well, they all do, it’s winter, that’s the whole point of winter lodgings. More worryingly, he starts picking at his food, leaving half his serving on the plate until one of the Wolves finishes it off. He starts developing a sort of drawn, pale look, which cannot be completely explained by the lack of sunshine, especially given the deep shadows under his eyes. Geralt starts frowning every time he looks at Julek, and fussing, in a quiet sort of way - making tisanes and leaving them where Julek will find them, and putting the choicest bits of meat on Julek’s plate, and shoving the honey pot in Julek’s direction every morning.

The final straw for Aiden is the day Julek comes downstairs for lunch, having slept through breakfast, without his notebook, and says he doesn’t quite feel up to writing any music.

“Are you ill?” Aiden demands, pressing the back of his hand to Julek’s forehead. It doesn’t feel any warmer than it ought.

“I don’t think so?” Julek says. “I just feel…sort of hollow, I guess? Like there’s something missing, and food doesn’t fill it. Not that the food isn’t marvelous!”

“Hm,” Geralt says, leaning over and peering at Julek’s eyes, then sniffing at his hair. “Don’t smell ill.”

“He obviously is,” Aiden snaps.

“Jaskier, you nitwit,” Eskel says. “Didn’t I tell you to let us know if you started feeling off? Here, come here.” He hauls Julek onto his lap as soon as the bard ventures within reach; Julek squeaks a little and flails until he finds his balance. “Can I kiss you?”

“Ah - certainly?” Julek says, looking rather confused.

Eskel kisses him. Aiden, observing worriedly, does note that Eskel kisses absolutely nothing like Lambert does. Not for Eskel the soft, yielding, gentle nature of Lambert’s kisses - no, this is a deep, hungry, claiming sort of kiss.

Julek doesn’t seem to mind. He chases after Eskel’s mouth almost desperately when Eskel leans away.

“Did that help?” Eskel asks.

Julek blinks at him for a few moments, looking dazed and astonished, and then seems to realize he’s draped across Eskel’s lap and clinging rather desperately to his shoulders. “...Yes, actually,” he says, sounding baffled by his own words.

“Part-incubus,” Eskel says, nodding. “Aiden was right. May I take you upstairs and give you a proper meal, then?”

“By which you mean fuck me senseless, I presume,” Julek says, starting to grin.

“I very much do, yes,” Eskel agrees.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to be carried off and ravished by a handsome witcher,” Julek says cheerfully. “Please do!”

“Be down for dinner, probably,” Eskel says, standing up with Julek in his arms like a bride, and Julek waves gleefully over his shoulder as Eskel strides out of the kitchen.

“...Huh,” Geralt says, staring after them. “That really does explain a lot.”

“It certainly explains how he can seduce so many people with such absolutely terrible lines,” Aiden agrees.

Geralt snorts. “He told a Zerrikanian warrior she had a neck like a sexy goose once,” he mutters, almost to himself. Aiden, who was taking a drink of ale, sputters and chokes in surprise and has to take a moment to get himself under control.

“So two months is too long for Julek to be celibate,” he says once he’s stopped spluttering. “Good to know.”

“Please, please, please tell me I get to tease Eskel about having fucked two ‘cubi,” Lambert says, eyes alight with mischief. “Even if the bard only counts as a partial one - please?”

Vesemir sighs heavily. “Were the Griffins this absurd?” he asks Coën.

“Yes and no,” Coën allows. “Very few of us had intercourse with succubi or incubi. On the other hand, many of my Schoolmates had the unfortunate habit of bringing home pets. Our masters had to spend the beginning of almost every winter convincing someone that a young wyvern, or barghest, or arachas would not be a good companion. And nearly half of every trainee class tried to hatch the eggs they brought back from their medallion trials. Unfortunately, actual griffins are not amenable to training.”

“Huh,” Aiden says. “That’s a pity. I’ve always kind of wanted a flying steed - specially as I can’t have a regular horse.”

“Pegasus almost likes you,” Geralt observes.

“Pegasus will let me put food in his manger without trying to bite my hand off,” Aiden sighs. “Which, to be fair, is far more than any other horse has ever allowed, so I’ll take it.”

“Remember that one gelding in the swamp?” Lambert says. “That was a shitshow.”

Aiden shudders. “I would like to never remember that particular disaster again, thanks ever so, Lam.”

“What happened?” Coën asks.

“There was a horse stuck in a mudpit, and its owner said he’d pay us fifty crowns to get it out,” Lambert says, shrugging. “We got the damn thing out, alright - Aiden’s good with ropes, and we rigged a pulley on a tree - and then it bit Aiden hard enough to scar, kicked me into the swamp, and went galloping off without a care in the fucking world. Ungrateful bastard.”

Coën is too polite to laugh as hard as he obviously wants to. Geralt is not that polite, and snickers into his mug of ale.

“So we don’t take horse contracts anymore,” Aiden says. “Fuck it, what’s your stupidest injury story?”

“Oho!” Coën says, laughing, and leans back to roll up his trouser leg and show off a strange branching scar like a lightning bolt. “I was down in Lyria,” he starts, and Aiden settles back with his ale for an afternoon of trading tales.

Some hours later, they’re all laughing over Vesemir’s recounting of a misadventure involving two bruxae, three very stupid young men, and a large pot of pease porridge, when Eskel and Julek come back down the stairs.

Julek looks shockingly better. The dark circles are gone from under his eyes, his skin has lost its unhealthy pallor, he’s grinning like the cat who’s gotten the cream and the fish, and there’s a distinct spring in his step…as well as something of a hitch, which makes Eskel smirk every time he notices it.

“So yes,” Julek says, sliding into the chair between Aiden and Geralt and wincing a little as his ass hits the seat. “I think we can conclude that I am, in fact, part incubus. Gods, I feel better!”

Eskel chuckles as he settles into his own chair. “Happy to help.”

“I hope you won’t mind continuing to help?” Julek asks, giving Eskel a pleading look.

“Delighted to,” Eskel says smugly. “Often as you like, sweetheart.”

Julek, astonishingly, goes rather pink even as he beams with pleasure. “Glorious,” he says. “So! What have you been up to while I made the closer acquaintance of Kaer Morhen’s very own dragon?”

Coën splutters into his ale, and Lambert guffaws. Geralt puts a hand over his eyes and sighs deeply. Vesemir rolls his eyes; Eskel’s smirk just gets bigger. Aiden slings an arm around his little brother’s shoulders. “We were telling stories about stupid contracts,” he says. “But I bet Geralt’s tales would be better from Geralt’s bard.”

“Ooh,” Julek says as Geralt groans. “Oh, yes, I know just the one!”

*

Almost three months into their stay in Kaer Morhen, midwinter well behind them and spring looming around the corner, Jaskier still hasn’t quite gotten used to waking up with Geralt beside him.

He’s not sure he ever will, really. He’s woken up with friends and lovers and even occasionally complete strangers before, but Geralt is, frankly, the longest-running relationship he’s ever had, and he’d just about gotten used to being kept at a careful arm’s length away. But now he has Geralt in his arms, and it’s just as astonishing every morning as it was that first time.

He hasn’t spent every night in Geralt and Eskel’s bed. Sometimes he and Coën swap, so that Jaskier can get Aiden-cuddles, which are always marvelous. Once, he was foolish enough to try White Gull and as best he can recall, Vesemir declared that all the younger witchers were too irresponsible to look after their bard, and Jaskier woke up in Vesemir’s bed, being cuddled quite sweetly. But usually Jaskier wakes up just like this: cuddled between Geralt and Eskel, with Eskel’s warm breath against the back of his neck and Geralt nestled comfortably into his arms.

Jaskier would not necessarily have guessed that Geralt likes being the little spoon, but it makes a certain amount of sense now that he has a little more context for Geralt’s…well, everything.

He also had no idea that Geralt actually likes sleeping in - he’d been under the distinct impression that his White Wolf was a morning person - but apparently all the witchers take ‘winter is for sleeping’ very seriously, Geralt included, so Jaskier can doze to his heart’s content. And if he does wake before his Wolves, well, Geralt makes the most delightful soft happy noises when Jaskier pets his hair.

This particular morning, it’s snowing - there’s a particular quality to the silence that Jaskier has learned means heavy snowfall - so there won’t be morning training, so nobody’s in a hurry to get up. Jaskier does squirm out of bed briefly to use the privy, and when he gets back, Geralt is sprawled over Eskel, the two of them looking absolutely adorable, white hair tangled with black on the pillow. Which -

Jaskier finds his notebook and a pencil, inkpots not being particularly wise to have in a bed, and settles next to his Wolves, notebook propped on his knees, to scribble the idea down before it escapes. When he finally looks up, he’s the focus of two pairs of lovely yellow eyes.

“And what’s this one going to be, sweetheart?” Eskel asks, grinning.

“A love song, for my beloved Wolves,” Jaskier replies. “Or, well, not identifiably about you, because I do have an investment in your reputations and putting it about that you are the cuddliest bastards in the world would be counterproductive, but -” He shrugs. “There’s always a market for love songs, but a lot of love songs are about first love, about that rush, you know, so one about the deep intimacy of knowing each other so well after so many years, I think it’ll be just enough of a novelty to really catch people’s attention.”

“Hm,” Eskel says, and snorts when Jaskier and Geralt both raise eyebrows at him. “Shut it, Geralt doesn’t have a monopoly on humming. Does it matter if it’s not -” He pauses, frowning. “Not the same sort of love as most songs talk about?”

Jaskier shrugs. “Love is love is love,” he says. “You’re my dear friend and also damned good in bed -” Geralt snorts; Eskel smirks. Jaskier grins at both of them. “But neither of us wants more than that from each other, I think. And Geralt’s as close as I’m ever going to have to a husband, I suspect: we share our purse, we spend most of our time together, we look after each other. But I don’t plan to complicate that with sex. So. I love you both, and I love Aiden as a brother and Lambert and Coën and Vesemir as friends, and none of those are the same…the same aspect of love as romance, but it’s all still love.” He chuckles. “And I certainly know enough about lust to be able to incorporate that into my songs without any trouble at all.”

“That you do,” Eskel laughs. “Little incubus.”

“Part-incubus, thank you very much, and not exactly little,” Jaskier says, sticking his nose in the air with an indignant sniff, delighted when both Wolves laugh.

“Hm,” Geralt says, as they all stop snickering, and reaches out to brush his fingers gently against Jaskier’s. “I do, you know. Love you.”

Jaskier goes still. Geralt hasn’t said that before. He’s showed it, in the trust he’s giving Jaskier, in the way he’s letting Jaskier close as he never has before. But he hasn’t said it, and Jaskier hadn’t realized how much the words would mean.

Very carefully, he sets his notebook and pencil aside, and then flings himself at Geralt - Eskel oofs softly at the added weight - and wraps himself around the White Wolf to cling like a particularly affectionate limpet.

“Are you going to do this every time I say that?” Geralt mutters against his hair, wriggling a little and then evidently resigning himself to his fate and curling around Jaskier as best he can. Eskel wraps his arms around both of them to keep them from falling off of him.

“Maybe,” Jaskier mutters against Geralt’s shoulder. He’s not crying. He’s not. His eyes are just watering from the light, or something.

“Hm,” Geralt says, but he doesn’t let go of Jaskier, nor protest being clung to by a definitely-not-crying bard, so Jaskier will take it.

“Do I have to carry you both down to breakfast?” Eskel asks after a while.

“No no, I can let go,” Jaskier says, and completely fails to do so. Geralt snorts and stands up, Jaskier still wound around him. Eskel snickers at them.

“Need a little help there, Wolf?”

“Yes,” Geralt says ruefully. Jaskier laughs and lets Eskel peel him off of Geralt - going down for breakfast does call for clothing, after all - and then goes skipping down in front of his Wolves and plops himself down in Aiden’s lap. Aiden gives him a slightly startled look.

“You’re in a good mood this morning, Julek.”

“Geralt looooves me!” Jaskier carols gleefully.

“We knew that,” Lambert says.

“Yes but now he’s said it and he can’t take it back!” Jaskier replies, wriggling in happiness and nearly falling off Aiden’s lap. Aiden hauls him back up, shaking his head in amusement.

“You are ridiculous, little brother,” he says, and then looks up and gives Geralt a little nod of approval.

“We knew that, too,” Lambert mutters.

“Hey!” Jaskier yelps, as everyone else starts to laugh. He manages to hold an offended expression for all of three seconds before he joins in.

*

The evening before they’re all supposed to head down the Trail again, Aiden finds Julek on the battlements, watching the sun set over the distant Kestrel Mountains.

“You look thoughtful, little brother,” he says, leaning against the merlon next to Julek and looping an arm around the bard’s shoulders. Julek nestles contentedly against him.

“Funny, that, since I was thinking,” Julek teases. Aiden snorts and nudges him. “No, actually I was.”

“What about?”

“I found you six months ago, give or take,” Julek says slowly. “And we were both at…about the lowest we’ve ever been, I’m guessing.”

“You with your metaphorical heart torn out, and me a hair’s breadth from dead,” Aiden agrees. “Can’t say as I’ve been any worse off than that, no.”

“And now -” Julek makes a vague gesture out at the sunset. “We’re here in Kaer Morhen, and you have your Wolf, and I have my Wolf, and we have each other, and Coën and Vesemir and Eskel, and it’s - even before the Mountain, I couldn’t have imagined this, you know.”

Aiden hums. “No more could I,” he agrees. “I didn’t dare think about coming to Kaer Morhen with Lambert, because I knew they’d turn me out at best and toss me off the mountain at worst.”

“So it’s -” Julek sketches a line in the air. “We were both going along with the way things were, even if they weren’t…great, really, you having to leave Lambert every winter and me never getting past Geralt’s armor. And then things got absolutely terrible,” his finger dips down into a deep trough, “and then we found each other.” His hand swings up, much higher than the original line. “And now things are better than they were, by so much that if you told the me of before the Mountain that I would be here, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“You have a point,” Aiden says slowly. “Me of before the ambush would not have believed that losing my School could be the precursor to finding - well. A much better little brother, to start with. And a welcome in a place I never thought I could approach. And my Wolf, to keep for always.”

“I’m never going to say either the Mountain or you almost getting killed was a good thing,” Julek says. “Because oh gods, the thought of a single thing going wrong and me not finding you haunts my nightmares -”

Aiden nods grimly.

“But I will say that at least for my part, maybe it was worth it,” Julek finishes.

“Mm,” Aiden says, thinking that over. “Well, I’m a witcher.” Julek makes a curious noise. “We’re used to risking our lives for things of value. And yeah, it almost cost me my life, but I got you and Lambert and this bizarre little family of Wolves and Griffin out of it, so yeah. I’d say it was worth it.”

Julek rests his head on Aiden’s shoulder with a sigh, and they watch the sun sink below the horizon in contented silence. As the last glowing rays begin to fade, Julek shivers. Aiden snorts. “C’mon, little brother, it may be spring but it’s still fucking cold up here.”

“Yeah, it is,” Julek agrees, and follows Aiden down into the keep.

Somewhat to Aiden’s surprise, everyone else is waiting for them around the kitchen table, but nobody is eating, and everyone looks oddly solemn. Aiden hesitates in the doorway, wondering what this is about.

“Come here, lad,” Vesemir says gruffly. Aiden eases forward, Julek staying at his side. Vesemir gives him a grave little nod.

“As we all know,” he says, “the mark of a witcher is his medallion. Not only does it show his School, it allows him to detect magic and monsters before they can attack, protecting him out on the Path.”

Aiden nods, wondering where this is going.

Vesemir glances around at the other witchers. “The witcher Aiden has renounced his School, and his medallion has been taken from him,” he says. Aiden flinches a little at the reminder. “But it is the unanimous decision of the witchers of the Wolf School that the witcher Aiden has earned his place among us, by skill, by loyalty, and by love.”

Aiden’s breath catches, and he stares at Vesemir in rising shock.

“Yet though he has a place among us, and is welcome in our halls, the witcher Aiden is not wholly a Wolf, for we must never forget where we come from,” Vesemir continues, and sets down a silver circle on the table in front of Aiden. “So we, the brothers of the Wolf School, and our cousin of the Griffin School, offer you this medallion, recast from a fallen Wolf’s, to be the first of the School of the Fox.”

The medallion shows a canine head, far too pointy around the muzzle to be a wolf’s, with a scar across one eye and a cunning look about it.

Aiden swallows tears and picks the medallion up with shaking fingers. “Somewhere between a Wolf and a Cat,” he rasps.

“Quick and clever, ruthless and loyal,” Vesemir says softly. “Not quite a Wolf and yet welcome among them. Do you accept?”

It takes Aiden a moment to gather his composure enough to speak. “I do,” he says hoarsely. “And I thank you, Wolves and Griffin all.”

“It is right,” Vesemir says, “for a witcher to be given his medallion by a brother. Jaskier, bard to the White Wolf, brother to the witcher Aiden, will you do him that honor?”

“With all my heart,” Julek says, and takes the medallion gently by its silver chain, lifting it high. Aiden turns to face Julek, bowing his head, and Julek lowers the medallion gently to rest around his neck, just where it ought to be.

“My brother, Aiden of the Foxes,” Julek says softly and solemnly, and kisses Aiden’s forehead.

“Aiden of the Foxes!” the other witchers chorus, and then the solemn moment breaks and Aiden is surrounded by Wolves, Lambert picking him up in an enthusiastic embrace as Eskel pounds on his back and Geralt pats his shoulder. Coën and Vesemir both stand a little back, looking pleased and proud, and Julek is unashamedly weeping.

“The fox thing was my idea,” Lambert says proudly, once they’ve all calmed down and sat down for dinner. “Eskel did the smithing and Coën helped with the carving and Geralt did the sanding and Vesemir knew how to make sure the enchantments stayed on while the metal was being recast.”

Aiden sniffles and brushes away some stray tears. “So it’s from all of you, then.”

“All of us,” Geralt agrees, nodding.

“It really was unanimous,” Eskel says. “We’d have adopted you properly but Lambert says you think killing selkiemores from the inside is stupid.”

“It’s ridiculously stupid, why the fuck is that a Wolf School technique,” Aiden says, sitting up straight and taking the offered bait eagerly, and goes off into a rant that leaves everyone else gasping with laughter, because really, it is a very stupid technique, and also a bit of a break from being overwhelmed with gratitude and joy is honestly rather a relief.

He can still feel the emotions, though, like a banked fire in his chest.

Everything his former brothers took from him - family, School, medallion, almost his life - has been returned in greater measure. Well, except the eye, and that - that’s worth it, to have this. His little brother, and his lover, and his sweet ridiculous Wolves and their darling Griffin, and even a new School to claim, a name that he can make his own, not tainted by his former brothers’ deeds.

As they head up the stairs that evening, Coën grins and murmurs, “I’ll bunk in with the Wolves tonight,” and Aiden hugs him in wordless gratitude.

And he spends the night holding his Julek and his Lambert, his brother and his heart’s own love, and wondering which gods he pleased, to be so very marvelously blessed.

Chapter Text

“There you are, you idiot,” a vaguely familiar voice says, and Guxart looks up from his mug of White-Gull-spiked mead, blinking blearily, to see a witcher looming over him.

Yellow eyes mean it’s not a Cat, and the medallion is too spiky to be a Viper, and there are hardly any Griffins left, and he doesn’t know any Bears -

He squints, and his vision clears a little. He knows this Wolf.

“Vesemir?” he asks incredulously.

The old Wolf sits down on the other side of the table, picks the pitcher up, sniffs at it, and wrinkles his nose in disgust as the scent of White Gull hits his nose. “Why aren’t you with your caravan, you antique moggy?”

“Fuckers,” Guxart spits venomously. “Thought we’d gotten rid of the worst of ‘em when that backstabbing bastard Treyse died but no, at least Treyse actually thought the School meant something -” He cuts himself off and takes another drink of mead, draining his mug. “Gimme that pitcher.”

“Got a better offer,” Vesemir says, putting the pitcher down gingerly.

“What, fisstech?” Guxart bites out.

“Come to Kaer Morhen,” Vesemir says, and the shock of it actually counteracts a fair amount of the White Gull. “There’ll be someone there this winter who’d like to see you.”

“What?” Guxart asks, utterly baffled, and gropes for the pitcher, taking a deep drink. “Who?”

“Lad named Aiden,” Vesemir says, and Guxart chokes on his swallow and thumps the pitcher down hard.

“Aiden? But he’s - they said they - he’s dead!”

“Not dead,” Vesemir says. “He nearly was, I’ll grant you. But he’s alive, and reasonably well so far as of the last letter I got from the bard. Not a Cat anymore, though.” Guxart shakes his head, trying to make any of that make any sense at all. Alive? Bard? Not a Cat? What?

“He claims the School of the Fox, now,” Vesemir says, very gently. “Halfway between Cat and Wolf. Quick and clever and ruthless and kind. Guess he could maybe use some more brothers. You interested?”

Guxart takes a long look at Vesemir and then eyes the pitcher, wondering if he managed to put Black Gull into it somehow, because this sure as hell feels like it might be a hallucination. Vesemir grins, a crooked grin that Guxart remembers from that terrible gaol cell so many decades ago, and offers a hand across the table.

“Come on,” he says, the same words he used back then. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go find your brother.”

Guxart takes a deep breath, smelling White Gull and old blood and leather, and puts his hand in Vesemir’s. “Alright, you old dog. Lead on.”

School of the Fox, hey? That’ll be different.

But there’s no reason an old Cat can’t learn new tricks, now is there?

Guxart follows Vesemir out of the shitty little tavern, headed for Kaer Morhen and whatever wonders await him there.