#because i don't think jask feels all that secure in his relationship with geralt (at least to where we are in the show rn)

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

No, I Don't

For @witcher-bows-and-arrows

Prompt: Confession (SFW)

Relationship: Geralt/Jaskier

Rating: T

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier are trying to navigate their way through a brand new long-distance romance after a decade of friendship. So when Geralt accidentally tells Jaskier that he loves him, he panics. Just a little.

Also on AO3!

Novigrad International Airport is chaotic around Geralt and Jaskier, with people rushing around to get to their flights, announcements about lost baggage blaring overhead, and families and friends either having enthusiastic reunions or tearful goodbyes. Normally, it would be enough to put Geralt’s teeth on edge. He’s never liked noisy, crowded places, and airports are the worst of all. But right now, his focus is entirely on the man in his arms.

“You should really get going,” Jaskier murmurs. “Your flight leaves in an hour. You need to go through security.”

“In a minute.” Geralt nuzzles Jaskier’s hair. His boyfriend is a warm, familiar weight in Geralt's arms, his head tucked against the side of Geralt's neck. He smells like his fancy eucalyptus shampoo, the chamomile hand cream he favors, and the caramel latte he spilled all over himself on the drive to the airport. Geralt could hold him forever. As much as he loves these visits, saying goodbye gets harder every time.

They started dating six months ago after being best friends for a decade, since rooming together their freshman year at Oxenfurt University. Geralt has had a crush on his friend since that first day at the dorm and he knows Jaskier feels the same way. It’s just their luck that they finally both worked up the nerve to do something about it right before Geralt moved from Novigrad to Ard Carraigh to be closer to his family. But despite five hundred miles between them, they’re making it work.

"I'll see you at Yennefer and Renfri's wedding in thirty-four days," Jaskier says. "You won't even have time to miss me."

The problem is that Geralt already misses him. He missed him for the entirety of the four days he spent in Oxenfurt. He missed him on the plane ride over. He's missed him since their long weekend in the Kestrel Mountains last month. He always misses Jaskier, even when they're together, because it's never enough.

Geralt is trying to think up the words to say all that when Jaskier says, "Darling, you really need to get going.”

"Alright." But Geralt doesn't let go.

Jaskier huffs a laugh against his shoulder. "Have a safe flight."

"Can't really control that."

"Tell the airline you have a terrifying boyfriend and if anything happens to you, I'm coming for them."

"Not aiming to end up on the no-fly list today, Jask."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Jaskier cracks up at his own joke and pulls back to look up at Geralt with smiling blue eyes, lips curled into a grin. Geralt feels like his heart might burst.

"I love you." The words tumble from Geralt's lips before he can stop them.

Jaskier's jaw drops, the smile vanishing from his lips.

Fuck. Geralt freezes, mouth opening and closing as the enormity of what he just said, how deeply he just fucked up, hits him. "No," he blurts out in a panic. "No, I don't."

Jaskier's jaw drops even further. "Uh..."

“It just slipped out.”

Jaskier makes a noise that might be a laugh or a gasp.

"Got to go," Geralt says and runs.

***

Jaskier has been in love with Geralt Wolfe since he was eighteen years old and his brand new roommate carried him home when he got too drunk at a frat party to stand. He is very, very used to the man’s peculiarities: his charade that his betta fish named Roach is the same one he’s had since he was twelve, his bizarre love of the same card game that Jaskier's grandparents play, and the fact that he sleeps with no blankets like some kind of serial killer.

But Geralt telling Jaskier that he loves him, shouting “no, I don’t!” and running away may be a new level of bizarre. Most people would probably be in tears, but Jaskier knows Geralt loves him. He’s known it since before they even started dating. It’s in the way Geralt always has a box of Jaskier’s favorite sugary cereal at his place, even though he himself wouldn’t touch it. It’s in the way his eyes brighten whenever Jaskier walks into a room. It’s in the way he always clings to Jaskier when they reunite after a month apart or when it’s time to say goodbye.

Still, Jaskier really has no idea what to do next. He could just text Geralt and tell him he loves him, but he’s afraid that will send his boyfriend running for the hills. No, this situation will require subtlety. It will require finesse.

“What did Geralt do now?” Yennefer asks as soon as he calls her on his drive home, her voice crackling through his car’s speakers.

“Why do you assume Geralt did something?” Jaskier demands. “Maybe I’m just calling to see how the wedding planning is going.”

There was a time when he never would have called Yennefer Vengerberg, not even for a life or death situation, but that’s behind them now. Yennefer and Geralt’s five year relationship starting their junior year of college was tumultuous and messy, but their breakup was amicable. And now that she and the love of his life aren’t breaking each other’s hearts on a regular basis, Jaskier finds her downright delightful. He counts her as one of his dearest friends, not that he can ever admit that to her.

Yennefer groans. “Wedding planning is hellish and I don’t know how anyone does it. I’m being expected to have opinions on fucking centerpieces, Jaskier.”

“You could ask Renfri to have opinions of fucking centerpieces,” Jaskier points out.

After they both have a good laugh about that, Yennefer asks, “Seriously, why are you calling?”

“Geralt did something weird today.”

“Just today?”

“Weirder than usual.” Jaskier recounts the story of Geralt’s blurted confession.

After Yennefer has finished laughing, called Renfri over and put him on speakerphone so he can recount the story again, and both women have laughed a little bit more, Yennefer says, “Well, he told you he loved you. That’s progress.”

“And then he ran away.”

“Oh, and he’s probably planning on faking his death and fleeing the Continent right now.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

“He never told me he loved me,” Yennefer says. “Not once in all the years we dated.”

“Seriously?” Fuck, and Jaskier knows that Geralt adored Yennefer, no matter how rocky their relationship got.

“Me neither,” Renfri says. “Not that Geralt and I dated long. And I probably would have faked my death if he had.”

Renfri and Geralt’s romance was a three-month fiasco not long after Geralt broke up with Yennefer and ended when Geralt introduced Renfri to Yennefer and both women were instantly smitten with each other.

“I always knew he did love me,” Yennefer adds. “But he never said as much. I just don’t think it’s his way. His family doesn’t even say ‘I love you’ to each other.”

“Huh.” Jaskier has spent a lot of time with the Wolfes over the past decade and while they’re by far one of the most affectionate families he’s ever spent time with, he can’t actually recall a single instance of them exchanging verbal I love yous. Vesemir would do anything for his sons and Eskel, Geralt, and Lambert for each other, but none of them are particularly verbose, save for Lambert. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Yennefer asks.

“Well, that’s why I called you.”

“Jaskier, I’m planning a wedding, working a full-time job, and trying to keep Renfri out of trouble.”

“Hey,” Renfri says, not sounding particularly offended.

Yennefer ignores her fiancee. “I have better things to do than manage your relationship with my ex-boyfriend.”

Jaskier groans. “I can’t let him think it’s bothering me. And I’m afraid if I tell him that I love him, the patented Geralt Wolfe self-esteem issues will strike and he’ll think I pity him or am mocking him or something.”

Yennefer says nothing.

“But it seems wrong to just pretend nothing happened.”

“I don’t know, that’s what I would do,” Renfri says.

“And given your decision-making skills, I now know for a fact that that’s not my plan.”

Renfri cackles.

If Jaskier weren’t driving, he would probably throw himself dramatically onto the nearest surface. “I love him. I know he loves me. I just don’t want to lose him because he freaks himself out. He and I wasted way too much time while he did just that.”

Yennefer mutters something that isn’t quite audible, but Jaskier is sure isn’t flattering. “Treat it like an inconveniently timed fart. Acknowledge it, make it clear it’s not a big deal, and move on.”

“I’m not the best at not making a big deal over things.”

“Well, then do the opposite of what you’d usually do.”

“Thanks, Yenn,” Jaskier says. “Now, tell me about these centerpieces. Are they delightfully tacky? Do they match the bridesmaid dresses?”

And as Yennefer starts ranting about the price of lilies, Jaskier tries to put his worries about Geralt out of his mind.

***

By the time Geralt gets back to his townhouse in Ard Carraigh, he's replayed the conversation with Jaskier in his head at least two dozen times. The shock on Jaskier's face, the way his eyes widened. Even though he knows there won't be a text, he still checks his phone, heart sinking when the only texts are one from Vesemir, asking if he made it home okay, and another from his friend, Regis, asking him if he wants to come over for dinner some night that week.

"Hey, Roach," he greets his betta fish, dropping his baggage at the foot of the stairs. "Nenneke take good care of you while I was gone?"

Roach swims around her aquarium placidly. If she has complaints about his next door neighbor's treatment of her, she doesn't voice them.

“Why do you talk to your fish so much?” Jaskier asked him on their second night living together in the freshmen dorms.

“Who else would I talk to?” Geralt replied.

Jaskier’s resultant squawk of outrage was loud enough that it probably woke the neighbors. “Geralt, I am a delightful conversationalist.”

“Hm.”

“Just you wait, you’re never going to waste time talking to a damn fish again.”

“Jaskier says hi,” Geralt tells Roach. This Roach is bigger than the Roach he started college with, and looks nothing like the goldfish that Roach Jaskier sneakily replaced her with a few months later.

Geralt remembers walking into their shared room to find Jaskier looking sweaty, flushed, and wide-eyed as he hovered near Roach’s tank. The nearest pet store was a mile away and Jaskier didn’t have a car, so Geralt always assumed he had walked the whole way.

Thinking about Jaskier makes Geralt feel like he just swallowed a mouthful of acid.

Cursing under his breath, Geralt pulls out his phone and calls Eskel. “I need to fake my death,” he tells his brother. “How do I do that?”

“Why do you assume I’d know that?” Eskel demands. “What happened, did you finally help Jaskier kill Valdo Marx?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because there’s no better way to win his heart.”

Geralt grimaces. “That’s the problem. I told Jaskier that I loved him.”

“Good for you!” Eskel says. “Took you long enough.”

“And then I panicked, told him that I didn’t love him, and ran away.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why?”

Geralt shrugs. “Like I said, I panicked.”

Eskel is quiet for a moment, then Geralt hears him say in a muffled voice, “Triss, I’m going to have a beer. Want one?”

“It’s not even noon,” Geralt hears his sister-in-law say.

“My family is driving me to drink.”

“Lambert?”

“No, the other little shit.”

“I am not nearly at Lambert’s level,” Geralt grumbles, annoyed. Lambert was an absolute disaster while trying to flirt with his now-partner, Coën.

“I never thought you would be, but here we are.” Geralt hears the sound of a can being popped open. “What did Jaskier do when this all happened?”

“Just stared at me.” Geralt groans. “I fucked up.”

“You did, but you’ve definitely fucked up worse than this before.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“Look, Geralt, Jaskier adores you. Stop making whatever face you’re making. You know I’m right.”

Geralt smooths out his expression, even though he knows his brother can’t see him. “I just don’t…” He trails off, because he doesn’t know how to put exactly into words what he’s scared of. He knows how he feels about Jaskier. He’s fairly certain that Jaskier feels just as strongly about him. But there’s still a part of him that can’t believe that bright, beautiful Jaskier wants him, that nearly decade after he met his blue-eyed roommate and instantly knew this boy was out of his league, he’s finally dating him. He isn’t sure if he’ll ever entirely get over the fear that Jaskier will wake up one day and realize he could find someone just as funny and charming as he is, not a reclusive park ranger whose closest confidant is his betta fish.

Eskel sighs. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but the right thing to do here is talk to him. Not fake your death.”

“Faking my death sounds easier.”

“You’d be miserable without Jaskier.”

Geralt knows he’s right, so he just hangs up.

***

Jaskier normally FaceTimes Geralt every night after dinner, when he’s sitting on his couch in his pajama bottoms and one of the many t-shirts he’s pilfered from Geralt in their decade of knowing each other. But he finds himself stalling after dinner. He gives his kitchen an extra-thorough scrub-down, even though Geralt left it spotless after cleaning up from dinner the night before. He reads a chapter in a dense fantasy novel he’s been trying to get through for weeks. He preps his lunch for the next day, which is something he normally throws together before running out the door. He calls his parents and his sister and is contemplating his grandmother before remembering that she’s on a cruise.

It’s nearly nine when he finally summons his courage and calls Geralt. The phone rings for so long that he thinks that Geralt’s not going to pick up, but then his boyfriend’s face appears on the screen. Geralt must have just gotten out of the shower; strands of damp white hair are clinging to his cheeks and his skin is flushed. He looks uncertain.

“Hey,” he says, voice low and husky.

“Hey.” Jaskier tries for a nonchalant smile. “How was your trip?”

“Fine. No need to threaten any pilots.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

There’s an awkward silence. Silences between Jaskier and Geralt are usually comfortable things after all these years. Geralt is one of the few people Jaskier feels comfortable being quiet around.

Jaskier remembers his conversation with Yennefer and Renfri and forces himself into action. “Look, about earlier—”

Geralt grimaces. “Jask—”

“It’s fine, Geralt,” Jaskier says. “Look, things slip out sometimes. It’s not… I’m not mad or anything.”

Geralt’s expression is entirely unreadable. “Okay.”

“I just…” Jaskier trails off, at a loss for words. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to say something you don’t mean. I like the way things between us are right now. Nothing needs to change if you don’t want it to.”

A line appears in between Geralt’s brow. “I don’t want anything to change.”

“Good.” Jaskier nods. “So glad that’s settled then. Well, I know it’s nearly your bedtime, old man.”

Geralt snorts. “I’m less than six weeks older than you.”

“And yet, you’ve been an old man at heart since we were eighteen.” Jaskier smiles, relieved for the return to the usual banter. “Sleep well, dear heart.”

“Sleep well, Jask.” Geralt hangs up.

Someday, Jaskier tells himself, they will laugh about all this. Someday.

***

Geralt should probably be relieved that Jaskier isn’t more upset about the “no, I don’t” incident. He was worried that his boyfriend would be devastated, but Jaskier seems… fine. So fine that Geralt wonders if Jaskier is relieved that he ran away. Maybe if Geralt had stayed after telling Jaskier that he loved him, Jaskier wouldn’t have said it back. Maybe Geralt would have been forced to realize that his feelings really are one-sided.

In the weeks after Geralt’s trip to Oxenfurt, Geralt and Jaskier barely talk. It’s not that they’re purposefully avoiding each other, or at least Geralt doesn’t think they are. They’re just both busy with their respective jobs and keep missing each other. But the longer they go without really talking, the more strained the few quick conversations they have seem.

But then thirty-four days have passed and it’s time for Yennefer and Renfri’s wedding. Jaskier and Geralt have been planning on going as each other’s dates and sharing a hotel room since before they actually started dating. There’s no one Geralt would rather attend his ex-girlfriends’ wedding with than his best friend.

To Geralt’s relief, when he walks into the hotel room and finds Jaskier already there, his boyfriend throws himself into his arms like he did when he picked him up at the airport in Novigrad over a month ago. Geralt tucks his face into Jaskier’s hair, breathing in the familiar smell of eucalyptus and chamomile, and tells himself that everything is okay.

And the wedding is beautiful. Yennefer has always known how to throw a party and everything goes off without a hitch, save for a minor ruckus involving the flower girl and the chocolate fountain.

“Oh, I see Ciri takes after her godfather,” Jaskier says as their friend, Duny, walks by, carrying his chocolate-smeared, very smug three year old under one arm.

Geralt snorts. “I’ve never jumped into a chocolate fountain before.”

“Oh, but I used to have to drag you away from the snack table at parties, remember?” Jaskier pokes him in the arm. “Pretty girls would be flirting with you and you’d be making intense eye contact with the punch bowl.”

“Usually because I was hoping you’d come over and flirt with me instead.”

Jaskier smiles sweetly and grabs Geralt’s hand. “Come on, you can’t say things like that and then not dance with me.”

“Oh, is that how this works?” Geralt deadpans, but lets himself be pulled onto the dance floor.

Later that night, when he and Jaskier are back in their hotel room and Jaskier is looking up at Geralt with lust-drunk blue eyes, Geralt can feel the words, “I love you” on the tip of his tongue. He wants to say them so badly, but he can’t. So he tries to say it with kisses pressed against Jaskier’s lips, with fingers tracing patterns on Jaskier’s skin, with his body moving against Jaskier’s in perfect harmony. He hopes that Jaskier can see the love in his eyes and taste it in his kisses. He hopes he knows.

Later, when Jaskier is asleep in his arms, a gentle weight on his chest, Geralt whispers those words into his boyfriend’s hair. His only answer is a little snore.

***

Thirty-six days after he stood in front of the Novigrad International Airport and said goodbye to Jaskier, he stands at a gate in the King Demavend Airport in Vengerberg and hugs his boyfriend tight.

“I keep waiting for this to get easier,” Jaskier murmurs into the crook of his neck. “Every time we part ways, I wish someone would up and relocate Oxenfurt five hundred miles closer to Ard Carraigh.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. What he wants to say is, “I love you. I don’t want to leave you again. I want to stop saying goodbye.”

Jaskier kisses his jaw. “We’ll see each other in forty-two days.”

“Forty-two days,” Geralt echoes. “Roach looks forward to your visit.”

“And I look forward to seeing her. Give her some extra fish flakes for me to tide her over.”

“You always overfeed her.”

“She’s a fish. Her life is a tank, albeit a lovely and enriching one. She needs a little extra joy.” The flight attendant announces that it’s time to line up to board the flight to Novigrad and Jaskier gives Geralt one last kiss before stepping back.

“Fly safe,” Geralt tells him.

Jaskier’s eyes twinkle. “You going to fight gravity to avenge me if my plane falls out of the sky?”

“If I have to,” Geralt tells him, earning a bark of laughter from his boyfriend that draws the attention of the people around them.

“See you in forty-two days, Geralt,” Jaskier says, grinning, and turns away.

“I love you,” Geralt doesn’t say. He stands there, the flow of the airport moving around him, as he watches Jaskier line up to get on his flight, smiling to himself as Jaskier makes easy smalltalk with the people on either side of him. He waits for Jaskier to vanish from view before he goes to catch his own flight back to Ard Carraigh.

***

Geralt’s townhouse is just the way he left it when he gets home that afternoon. Roach bubbles contentedly around her tank. The book he’s been reading rests on his bedside table. Nenneke was kind enough to leave him some leftover casserole in the fridge so he doesn’t have to get takeout. Everything is exactly how it should be, and yet Geralt can’t settle down. There’s a strange restlessness under his skin, one that has him pacing the length of the house.

He tries meditating. When that doesn’t work, he tries watching TV, but the only thing that’s on is an old rerun of a sitcom that Jaskier used to love in college. Every time the laugh track plays, he can picture Jaskier sprawled across the foot of Geralt’s bed, which had a better view of the TV than Jaskier’s own side of the room, laughing so hard that he shook the entire bed. It causes something to squeeze in his chest.

Jaskier texted him hours ago to tell him that he arrived safely in Oxenfurt. Geralt wonders if his boyfriend is sitting on his own couch now, watching this same sitcom. Suddenly, it hits Geralt how badly he wants to be with Jaskier right now, his arm around him so he can feel Jaskier’s shoulders shaking with laughter, their legs tangled together.

He thinks of the love confession that lingered on the tip of his tongue all weekend. Alone in his house, he can’t think of a single good reason for him to not have told Jaskier how much he loves him.

It’s just over five hundred miles between Oxenfurt and Ard Carraigh. Geralt suddenly resents every single one of those miles, because he can’t wait another forty-two days before he tells Jaskier that he loves him and after over a decade, Jaskier deserves better than to be told over the phone. He deserves better than to have had to wait a decade, but there’s nothing that Geralt can do about that now.

Geralt’s bags are still packed from Vengerberg. He only has to text Nenneke to ask her to feed Roach for a few more days, grab his car keys, and head out the door.

***

Jaskier fell in love with Oxenfurt on his first day at university. It’s a city with so much life and personality; there’s nowhere on the Continent that’s quite like it. He loves the coffee shop where he gets a latte and a bagel every morning. He loves the Nilfgaardian place across the street. He loves being able to walk a block to visit Priscilla and Shani. He even loves his apartment, though it’s a bit of a shithole with a water heater that barely works and noisy neighbors.

But he loves it a lot more when Geralt met him at that coffee shop most mornings before they went to their respective jobs. He loved it a lot more when he knew that Geralt’s place was only a twenty minute drive away, in Novigrad, and that he could show up whenever he wanted, bringing food from their favorite Nilfgaardian place. He loved it a lot more when he could stop by Geralt’s place to shower when his hot water heater wasn’t working or to sleep on Geralt’s couch on nights he was feeling lonely and adrift.

All the things Jaskier loves are ten times better whenever Geralt is around.

Jaskier is always a bit moody after saying goodbye to his boyfriend and tonight is no different. He orders takeout from the Nilfgaardian place and watches one of his favorite musicals on TV, but can’t quite enjoy either of them as much as he normally would. Giving up on the musical halfway through, he calls Geralt. When his call goes to voicemail and his follow up text message gets no response, Jaskier gives up and decides to go to bed. He can talk to Geralt in the morning.

He falls asleep quickly and is having a dream about showing up to lecture and realizing that he’s wearing a court jester’s outfit when his intercom buzzes. Jaskier jerks awake with a startled shriek. After feeling his head to ensure that he’s not wearing a jingly little hat, he glances at the clock to see that it’s just past 1 AM. Who the fuck buzzes someone’s intercom at this time of night?

Jaskier disentangles himself from his bedsheets and stalks into the living room to press the intercom button, ready to give someone a piece of his mind, when a familiar voice says, “Jaskier?”

It’s the last voice Jaskier was expecting to hear. “Geralt?”

“I’m sorry, I should have called.” Geralt’s voice crackles over the intercom. “Showing up here unannounced seemed like a much better plan eight hours ago.”

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Ard Carraigh?”

“I drove here.”

None of Jaskier’s questions are answered, but he says, “Hold on, come on up. You are Geralt, right? Not a serial killer with a shockingly similar voice?”

“Given how often you forget to lock your door, if there was a serial killer after you, you’d be long gone.”

“Definitely Geralt, then. Only you would have the balls to show up at my door at 1 AM and then sass me.”

“Not at your door yet, Jask.”

“I should make you sleep outside just for that attitude.” But Jaskier buzzes him up anyway. A moment later, he hears footsteps in the hallway and swings his door open to find Geralt wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing at the airport in Vengerberg that morning, carrying the same luggage he brought to the wedding.

“Geralt—“ Jaskier starts to say, because he has a million questions. Has something happened? Is Geralt here to break terrible news to him? Oh gods, is Geralt here to break up with him? Because Geralt is exactly the type of person to drive across the Continent rather than break up over the phone.

“I love you,” Geralt blurts out.

Jaskier’s mouth falls open in surprise. He waits for the panic, for Geralt to shout “no, I don’t!” and speed back to Ard Carraigh. Instead, Geralt drops his bags and reaches forward to grab Jaskier’s hands.

“I panicked after I told you before,” Geralt continues. “I shouldn’t have run away. And I should have said something afterwards, but you seemed fine, and I thought that maybe you were glad that I had taken it back and run away.”

Geralt is almost babbling. Jaskier has never heard him babble before.

“I wasn’t fine,” Jaskier says when he recovers himself. “I acted fine because I was worried you were going to fake your death and flee the Continent if I wasn’t.”

Geralt cracks a tiny smile. “I thought about it.”

“Of course you did.” Jaskier loves him so much he feels like his chest may burst with it. "I'm sorry, my love, I thought I was playing it cool, as my students would say. I didn't mean to torture you."

“If you don’t feel the same—” Geralt starts to say before Jaskier silences him with a kiss.

“I have loved you since I was eighteen years old,” Jaskier tells him when they pull apart. “I loved you when you barely spoke to me those first few months and I kind of thought you hated me. I loved you that time you told that rugby player that you were the one he saw climbing out his girlfriend’s window and took a beating for me. I loved you when you were in love with someone else and I thought I would never have a chance with you. I loved you when we had that fight our senior year and didn’t talk for six months. I loved you when I got norovirus and you spent days nursing me back to health, even though I’m pretty sure I was gross.”

“You were repulsive. Thought I was going to have to call the Health Department to take you away.”

“And you know, I love you even when you say shit like that.”

Geralt huffs a laugh and leans his forehead against Jaskier’s. “I loved you even when you didn’t stop talking the entire first few months we lived together. I loved you when I got the shit beat out of me by a rugby player because I knew you couldn’t take a punch. I loved you when things were going to shit with Yenn and you let me sleep on your couch for a week. I loved you when you sang that song about my abs at open mic night. I loved you when you ran to the pet store to replace Roach with a fucking goldfish.”

“She was a damn fine goldfish.”

“I’ve loved you for over ten years now,” Geralt tells him. “And I should have told you that every single day.”

Jaskier’s throat suddenly feels too tight. “And I should have told you. Gods, Geralt, I’ve loved you so long, I’ve forgotten how not to love you. I don’t know why it took me so long to say it.”

“Because I would have panicked and run away.”

“You make excellent points,” Jaskier says. “But we figured it out eventually. Better late than never, right?”

“Right,” Geralt says and kisses him again.

***

“I can move back west,” Geralt tells Jaskier the next morning as they lie in bed. Well, afternoon, really, since it’s just past noon. Geralt hasn’t stayed in bed this long since college, but he and Jaskier were awake until nearly dawn and he doesn’t want to let go of Jaskier, who is warm and sleep-rumpled in his arms.

Jaskier props his chin on Geralt’s chest and frowns. “But you love living near your family.”

“I do.” Geralt feels a pang at the thought of being across the Continent from Vesemir, Eskel, and Lambert again. He lived apart from them for far too long.

“And you have that gorgeous townhouse. And you love your job.”

“Love you more,” Geralt says. Now that he’s started saying it, he can’t stop. “I don’t want to live five hundred miles from you anymore. I miss you like crazy whenever we’re apart.”

Jaskier presses a kiss to his pec. “I miss you too, dear heart. But I don’t want to ask you to give up your life for me.”

“I’d have you. It would be worth it.” Geralt strokes a hand through Jaskier’s hair.

“I could move to Ard Carraigh.”

Geralt frowns at him. “You love Oxenfurt.”

“I do," Jaskier says with a nod. “But I’ve had a decade in Oxenfurt. Maybe it’s time for a change.”

“I can’t ask you to move for me.”

“Geralt, I’m an adjunct professor who makes a pittance. I don’t own property. I don’t have any family that I’m close to in the area. Of the two of us, it’s far easier for me to relocate.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“But I want to.” Jaskier’s eyes are big and so, so blue. “I want to wake up like this every morning. I want to know that you’re close by when I need you or you need me. I’d cross the Continent for you every day for the rest of my life if need be, but I don’t want to have to do that. I want to be with you, Geralt. So long as you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will,” Geralt says hoarsely, cupping Jaskier’s cheek in his hand. “I always will. Roach would love having you as a roommate again.”

“Oh?” Jaskier waggles his eyebrows. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Roach would be furious if I didn’t.”

“Ah yes, can’t piss off the fish.” Jaskier kisses him. “I love you, Geralt.”

“I l—”

“No, I don’t!” Jaskier bounds out of bed, taking most of the covers with him. He nearly trips over the blanket, rights himself, and turns to Geralt with a shit-eating grin.

Geralt blinks at him, unimpressed. “You’ve been waiting for a chance to use that line on me, haven’t you?”

“Look, now that we’ve figured our shit out, this can be a funny story for posterity!”

“You’re never going to let me live this down,” Geralt says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, absolutely not.” Jaskier’s grin only gets wider. “I’m going to have ‘no, I don’t’ embroidered on a pillow. It’s going to come up in the wedding vows. I’m going to tell our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren about this.”

Geralt has to fight his own smile at the thought. “I change my mind. Don’t love you anymore.”

Jaskier arches an eyebrow in clear challenge. “Yeah, you do.”

With a sigh, Geralt drags himself off the bed and goes to pull his beautiful, ridiculous boyfriend into his arms. “Yes, I do.”

***

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