#sheer perfection
Trasparenze Oleandro pantyhose alternative angle
okay but witchers at kaer morhen doing the pet thing of just following you quietly from room to room. not to interact. not to make noise. just to follow and hang out.
and like jaskier is flattered but also a little worried bc is he not??? trusted?? is this a signal???
is it a witcher thing?? should he also be following THEM around???
and when he brings it up none of them have ANY idea what he’s talking about bc they don’t even think about it. it’s not even a thought. it’s just “oh bard is moving rooms,” and they just pack up and follow and then continue doing what they were doing before.
the chair creaked precariously as jaskier put the front two legs back down on the flagstones and he winced, immediately looking around the room at the rest of its inhabitants.
lambert didnt even flinch at the sound from where he lounged by the fire, reading a book with one hand and lazily toying with a dagger in the other.
eskel had been writing something at the other table, but had petered out to sketching and doodling the last time jaskier had looked over at him.
geralt and vesimir seemed to be inspecting geralt’s gear; doing that mildly worrisome witcher thing where they didn’t speak a word to each other and yet carried a full conversation.
jaskier had been trying his best not to disturb everyone, immediately, all at once, but it was getting increasingly more difficult with how the wolves seemed to puddle around him as the day wore on.
he found himself thirsty and in want of his lute to give the new lyrics he’d penned a whirl, so he ever-so-carefully slid back his chair and crept into the hall.
to each of their ears, each footfall may as well been a klaxon and jaskier knew it, but the effort was what counted, right?
lambert always found him first.
the first couple of times, it had been worrisome. the witcher seemed to be keeping an eye on him, never fully out of jaskier’s sight. jaskier conceded that he was in their home, after all, and he had shivered at what had happened the last time humans had been within those halls.
so where jaskier puttered, there did lambert. quietly, with nary a stray glance in jaskier’s direction. almost as if it was lambert who had decided he’d like a drink and found jaskier already slaking his thirst by surprise.
eskel usually came after, bumping shoulders with whoever had already wandered in, offering soft conversation if the other would entertain him.
geralt would usually be last, save the mercurial vesimir. he would almost always scare the sacred shit out of jaskier; a chair being occupied between glances, a log being prodded in the fire without jaskier even seeing the door open.
if jaskier caught his eye, though, he always looked guilty. well, as guilty as geralt ever looked anything, which was minimally and predominantly diagnosed in the way his jaw was set.
in the library, it was one thing. there were couches and chairs and tables and rugs and vaulted ceilings and shelves to spread them out a bit.
shoulder to shoulder, each sipping ale in what was possibly the most agonising silence in jaskier’s short life, it was an entirely different beast.
“so,” jaskier said, popping his lips and keeping his eyes on the counter. “what’s all this, then?”
“the kitchen.” lambert replied, levelling him with a stare that informed him that lambert thought him quite dull. “tell me you haven’t seen one before. go on.”
“not the kitchen,” jaskier gasped, putting a hand to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. aaand, no! he refusedto acknowledge the smug look on geralt’s face. jaskier would never say it aloud, but he held a little more sympathy for the stoic witcher for entertaining all of his own wiseassery. “the…” he waved a hand at the four of them. “the. clumping.”
“sounds contagious,” eskel grunted, mouth hooking into a clever grin.
“bastard.” jaskier declared without any heat, pointing one finger into the other man’s shoulder. “no, it’s just… why are you lot following me around like pup— ah.”
“no,” geralt immediately replied, looking very much like he’d been asked to drink a goblet of bees.
“yes,” jaskier countered. “is it a witcher thing? is it a wolf witcher thing? do you know any others? do they,” he made a little walking motion with his fingers. “follow? i wont say it,” he promised, though it did nothing to ease the put-upon expression on geralt’s face.
“if you didnt want company, you couldve asked,” lambert grouched, crossing his arms over his chest.
“no, that’s not it!” jaskier insisted. “i… well, i guess i actually like it quite a bit, honestly,” he admitted. “it’s… cosy. nice. i just thought i was in trouble, i suppose.”
“trouble?” eskel asked, furrowing his brow. “what sort of trouble?”
“well, i’m a stranger in your home,” jaskier answered, now feeling silly. “thought you wanted an eye kept on me or some such nonsense.”
“youre hardly a stranger,” eskel replied, knocking elbows with him. “you’ve kept geralt company for years. heard all about you,”
ah. they’d be revisiting that, and the nigh on imperceptible blush creeping over geralt’s chest told him that the witcher knew it as well as he did.
“heard you’re shite with a sword and we could give you a three-day head start and still catch up to you,” lambert snorted into his cup. eskel elbowed him, making him cough and glare over the rim.
“i suppose we should start on dinner,” eskel said after a beat. he took lambert by the arm and began to manoeuvre him out of the door, lambert spluttering all the while.
“we? who is this we you speak of? i know it’s not you volunteering me for things again. if we’re making dinner, why are we leaving the bloody kitchen? eskel!”
geralt remained still at the other end of the counter, as though jaskier could forget he was there if he tried hard enough.
“heard all about me, then?” geralt grimaced and jaskier waved the comment out of the air. “oh, i won’t prod you for all the gory details.” at the raise of an eyebrow, jaskier conceded geralt’s point. “yet.”
geralt seemed to be winding up for a few words about his feelings, so jaskier busied himself with getting another drink and gathering up the others’ discarded cups.
“you really can ask for some alone time, if we’re… too much,”
the phrase made jaskier stop in his tracks.
“no, darling, you lot could never be too much,” he said, rounding on geralt with a frown. “i’ve always had the market cornered on being too much, i’m afraid, and you’re hardly one of me,”
“good. one of you is enough,” geralt held a hand out as though he could physically stop the idea of more than one jaskier. “you actually meant it.”
“meant what?”
“when you said you liked it. liked us.”
“yeah. it feels like home,” jaskier watched that wash over geralt. watched him melt a little into it. watched the little smile play across his face. “why don’t we let eskel and lambert actually start on dinner? i have this idea for a song that i could run by you,”
this time, geralt and jaskier left together, close enough for their shoulders to touch.
jaskier wouldn’t have it any other way.
