#tipsy and in love the real dream

“Sing me a song,” Geralt whispers into Jaskier’s thigh. “Please.”

Jaskier looks down at him. “What kind of song?”

“A soft one.”

They’re still tipsy from the festivities — had walked into town just as everyone had been hanging lanterns and tuning their instruments — and even though they should be sleeping, Geralt can’t find it in himself to be tired. Not yet, not like this: with Jaskier’s hand in his hair, smoothing out the pattern he’d braided into it earlier, the soft cotton of his sleep trousers a gentle pillow for his head.

“My voice is a bit hoarse,” Jaskier points out quietly, but Geralt can feel him sitting up a bit straighter. “It’ll hardly be a grandiose concert.”

“Mm.”

Fishing for compliments, his bard. He should not give in. He makes a habit of not giving in for a reason.

“They all are.”

“They all are what, dearest?”

“Grandiose concerts.”

Jaskier jostles him a bit, puffing his chest with pride. It fills the room, his ego (and it smells like roses and basil leaves, and Geralt loves it, and him, but he knows he shouldn’t feed it often, lest it become a beast he must slash away) and he claps Geralt on the shoulder. “Well, then! If you insist on me showcasing my talents, then I shall not leave you wanting, Witcher o mine.”

Geralt tries to roll his eyes — he really does! — but maybe it’s all that drink that’s made its way into his brain and is slowing his movements down, because, instead of his trademark-eyeroll, a smile dripping with fondness makes its way to his mouth.

(He should really check what kind of wine it was that they drank).

Jaskier’s fingers drum a simple, soundless beat on Geralt’s shoulder, and slowly his voice fills the room. It’s a bit hoarse, just as Jaskier had predicted, but it adds an edge to the honey-soft words that fall from his mouth. Geralt doesn’t really know what he’s saying — can’t really focus right now — but it’s a tender thing; slow and flowing like fallen leaves following a sunbeam on a stream.

It’s gentle. Good.

His eyes close without him ever meaning to, and suddenly there are hands in his hair and music in his ears and love in his heart and he knows, with absolute certainty, that this is where he belongs.

This is where he must stay.

“That was it, my love,” Jaskier murmurs when the song ends, voice rougher than before. “Did you like it?”

Geralt turns his head to look up at him. “I love you.”

Jaskier has a dimple on his left cheek. It deepens when he smiles. “A song was all it took?”

Geralt smiles, too. Dimple-less, but true all the same. “It was over for me when you offered me day-old moldy bread from your dusty pockets.”

Jaskier flicks him in the forehead, leaning down to kiss him anyway. Their mouths meet, their teeth clacking together because Jaskier can’t quite contain his laughter, and it’s far from their finest kiss, but somehow it is the best they’ve ever had — because they’re in a small bed in a small inn, with wine stains on their shirts and rose-tinted cheeks and Jaskier’s hair is falling in his eyes and Geralt can’t quite make his hand push it back, because they’re laughing too much and he’s a bit tipsy and too much in love.

“We should go to bed,” he says, even though they’re both wide awake.

“We should, old man,” Jaskier says with a smile, his fingers carding through Geralt’s hair. “I love you too, you know.”

Geralt closes his eyes, smiles back. “I know.”

They’re still smiling when a gentle, slightly off-kilter Aard blows out the candles on the nightstand. Geralt accidentally tickles Jaskier’s side and gets a kick to the shin for his troubles, and they’re laughing so hard they almost fall off the bed, twice. And when they’re finally settled, when it all seems to have died down, Jaskier snorts a laugh into Geralt’s hair and it gets them going again.

This is where they belong.

This is where they must stay.