Chapter Text
Despite what had felt like a momentous shift in their relationship the night before, a new day dawned on Geralt and Jaskier moving around each other the same as always. Geralt sleepily roused Jaskier before dawn and the two of them trooped out to feed the animals and reassure them the routine was resuming. Eskel was already in Bleater's stall in the barn by the time they got there, trying to milk her and apparently getting more than a little harassed for his brief absence, if the occasional cursing was anything to go by.
Usually if they'd gotten back the night before, Lambert didn't bother with bread in the morning, but when Jaskier brought the eggs in to sort through, Lambert was already viciously kneading some dough, his eyes locked on the lump of blankets and furs near the fireplace that was Aiden. Jaskier looked between them for a long moment before shaking his head and grabbing the second batch of already-mixed dough and started to knead, humming softly.
Aiden slept through the entire breakfast process, or did a good enough job pretending that no one bothered him. The quiet conversation over their food was about the day's schedule, such as it was. Training would be postponed a bit until they'd cleaned out the spare room and gotten Aiden settled, and then one of them would keep an eye on him for most of the day. Jaskier was the easiest to spare from the day-to-day running of what was left of Kaer Morhen, so Vesemir had apparently already decided that Jaskier would be the one to look after him and keep him entertained, should he wake up for more than a few minutes at a time.
"It's a fully selfish decision," Eskel said as the four of them trooped upstairs to clean out the spare room for its new occupant. "Witchers are pretty bad at keeping people occupied if they're not impressed by their stories and can't spar or drink. Vesemir's probably better than most, having helped raise a lot of younger cohorts like us, but it's not his favorite, and Aiden's not one of his pups."
"Ah, so he's expecting me to ply him with my bardic talents and keep him out of your collective hair for the day?" Jaskier asked with a laugh.
"Essentially," Eskel agreed blithely as he pushed the doors open.
The room was bigger than Jaskier had expected, with one very dusty-looking bed and a small desk, but plenty of extra floor space, and what looked like a little balcony. It was going to be a pain to beat the dust out of the bedding and re-stuff the mattress, and the room smelled musty and unused, but it would do rather well for a recovery room with a good cleaning, Jaskier thought.
"Oh good, the windows haven't broken," Eskel commented, and Geralt grunted as he entered as well.
"Bet Triss charmed them or something," he said, going to poke at said windows before throwing them and the balcony doors open to let the fresh air in.
"Who's Triss?" Jaskier asked curiously as he started to collect the bedding, pretending to ignore Lambert stomping around with a rag wiping dust off the little ledges and crevices of the room with great intensity.
"Old friend of Geralt's, Triss Merigold," Eskel explained when Geralt didn't answer after a moment. "Sorceress. She did him a good turn now and again, and we put her up one winter when the Eternal Flame was getting a bit too nosy for her liking."
Geralt snorted. "Something like that," he agreed.
"Not to mention she was ridiculously sweet on him," Eskel added with a grin. Geralt glowered and gathered the blankets off the bed, leaving Eskel with the rather sizable mattress. "Anyway, she stayed up here that winter, and a few other times, briefly. Never really used it for much else."
Geralt stomped out almost as grumpily as Lambert had stomped up, and Jaskier watched him go with a thoughtful expression before turning back to Eskel.
"Was he sweet on her, too?" he asked, trying not to let any of his unnecessary uncertainties slip into his tone. He wasn't sure he managed, but Eskel shook his head anyway.
"Nah. They were good friends, and he cared a lot about her, but he never had any romantic interest in her as far as I could tell." Eskel grinned and shifted his gaze to Lambert. "Now, Lambert here was definitely nursing a crush for a while, but--" he was cut off by a dusty damp rag to the face, and Lambert scowled at him.
"If you want help getting the mattress downstairs, you'd better shut up," he snapped, to Eskel's clear amusement.
"All right, little wolf, sheathe thy claws, I'm not gonna talk about your dumb crush anymore," Eskel assured him, though he rolled his eyes good-naturedly at Jaskier when Lambert turned his back. "Jaskier, if you can finish dusting and get a broom through here at least, we should be good with the bedding. Fireplace might need some work, but we’ll look at it in a bit.”
"All right, let me know if you need help," Jaskier agreed. "Window's open, so you can probably just yell."
"If you're paying attention," Lambert griped, but he ruffled Jaskier's hair on his way past with his half of the mattress, so Jaskier figured that however bad Lambert's mood was today, it was pointedly not directed at him.
It wasn’t too arduous a task to dust and sweep the room once the bedding had been dragged out, given how little furniture there was. Jaskier took the initiative to inspect the bed frame, just in case some rot had set in, but found it to be made of hardwood - skillfully if plainly worked - and probably in better condition than the cots they were sleeping on downstairs. he couldn’t tell if that was normal or if it had been enchanted by the room’s previous occupant - it seemed a silly thing to enchant if it wasn’t one’s own home or a favor for one’s host, but then again, Jaskier wasn’t a sorceress. Maybe it was common practice among the ladies of Aretuza to magically preserve any room they resided in throughout their lives.
By his own estimation it hadn’t even been half an hour by the time he was done - though he had been able to simply sweep the dust off the balcony rather than finding a dustpan or anything, which simplified things immensely. He considered getting a bucket and rags to give the floor a proper cleaning, but really other than the dust, it hadn’t been particularly dirty, and while he was willing to do hard work when it was called for, it seemed a bit excessive just now.
Instead, he went out to lean on the balcony and watch the boys deal with the bedding. Judging by the straw now strewn about the courtyard, Eskel had emptied the mattress and appeared to be checking the stitching for any needed repairs, while Geralt and Lambert worked on beating the dust and mustiness out of the blankets. Lambert especially seemed to be taking out his emotions - whatever complicated mess of them he was feeling today - out on them, judging by the cloud of dust that was drifting away from him.
“Lollygagging already, pup?” Vesemir’s voice rang out from below, and Jaskier pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.
“I’m offended you think so little of my work ethic!” he shot back. “Absolutely aghast you would insinuate such a thing!”
He couldn’t hear the low grunt of amused acknowledgement he’s sure Vesemir let out, but he could be relatively assured it was there given the way the old wolf shook his head.
“See yourself down to keep an eye on our guest, if you’re done,” was all Vesemir said. “We’ll fetch him when the room’s ready. Sing out if he won’t stay in bed, can’t expect you to keep him there if he decides to be trouble.”
“As you command, m’lord!” Jaskier replied, laughing at the long-suffering glare Vesemir shot him for it.
The kitchen was warm - enough that it would’ve been uncomfortable further south, or even out of the mountains - and Aiden appeared to still be asleep, though in a somewhat different position than Jaskier had last seen him in. That was probably a good sign - he’d been almost alarmingly still for the most part since they’d gotten to the village, so moving around in his sleep indicated recovery. Jaskier would assume. He was much more knowledgeable than he used to be on how to dress wounds, but didn’t know much about recovery from them.
He checked the bread Lambert had put aside to rise for supper, verified there were no remaining breakfast dishes to wash, then settled at the table with his lute and composition book, straddling the bench to give himself a bit more room while having easy access to a flat surface for his notations. He kept his playing to a faint plucking of the strings, barely audible to him, softly humming melodies when he needed to work out meter but trying to stay as quiet as possible otherwise.
“I honestly think it’s harder to sleep when you’re trying to keep quiet than if you were playing properly,” Aiden’s muffled voice drifted out from the blankets after a while.
“Oh, is it?” Jaskier said, immediately dampening his lute strings. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to wake you.”
“It’s fine,” Aiden said, shifting slightly. “I wasn’t really trying to keep sleeping, so it doesn’t matter.” He lifted his head and peered sleepily out at Jaskier in a way that was as reminiscent of his school’s namesake as Jaskier’s wolves’ rambunctious roughhousing was of theirs. "Huh. Guess I didn't dream you."
"Well, I can't speak to your dreams," Jaskier said, "but yes, I'm real."
"Thought you had to be a hallucination, never figured a bunch of witchers for the sort to adopt a human." He smirked lazily. "But, I guess wolves would be more likely than most."
"I'm not sure if you just insulted them or not." Jaskier set his lute aside and pushed himself to his feet. "If you're awake, I'm going to check your bandages and such, though, so if you'd rather not I'd fake some snoring now."
Aiden paused, his consideration of Jaskier seeming to sharpen for a moment, then shook his head. "No, they probably need checked to make sure I'm on the mend." He seemed to relax back into the blankets, but Jaskier noted how closely his movements were followed as he knelt next to the impromptu bed and pulled back the blankets and furs.
"You're definitely on the mend," Jaskier told him before even pulling back the first bandage. "You're properly conscious and coherent, for one thing. We had a few conversations on the way up, but you were still a little out of it, and kept falling asleep mid-sentence. Never mind the fact you weren't conscious for days before we got to you."
"That tracks, I'll admit reluctantly," Aiden agreed. "Though I'm not sure how you even knew I was there to get. Did I get closer to Kaedwen than I thought?"
"Rather," Jaskier said. "Ribs and back first so you can stay laying down for the rest of it, or save it for last so you can be done after?"
"Ribs and back first," Aiden said immediately, trying to push himself upright. Jaskier rolled his eyes in exasperation, then reached over to help support Aiden until he had his balance. Witchers. It seemed like they were all like that, then. Or maybe it was something he'd picked up from Lambert. Aiden started slightly at the contact, but didn't shove him off, so Jaskier counted that as a victory.
"You may be a witcher, but you nearly died," Jaskier scolded. "Until you've been able to stay conscious the whole day, you let us help."
Aiden looked at him like he'd sprouted fangs or an attractive second head, confused but not put off, but all he said in response was, "Far be it from me to turn down help from a pretty young thing."
Jaskier blushed. His instinct was to swat at him, but not only was Aiden not one of his wolves, there wasn't much space on him that wasn't at least still faintly bruised, and while Jaskier knew it would barely make a witcher blink to have him even swat an existing bruise, there was no reason to exacerbate anything when Aiden had clearly gone through a lot.
"There's no need for that," he huffed, ignoring the fact that he was revealing Aiden's bare chest and back. It had been much easier to ignore that when he was only thinking about Aiden as an invalid in need of assistance, and not being flirted with. Aiden laughed - amused but not unkindly so - at Jaskier's flustered huffing.
"Sorry," he said, and Jaskier rolled his eyes.
"You absolutely are not." Aiden's chest and back were still covered in cuts and bruises, but they were finally starting to look less dire, to Jaskier's relief. "You're absolutely smug as a cat with a dish of cream."
"Mmm, okay, maybe a bit," Aiden admitted. "But in fairness, I'm not much used to having pretty little things doing anything but hiding from me for fear of their virtue, so..." Jaskier grimaced as he grabbed the pot of salve Vesemir had left for this, starting to dab the mixture over the cuts that hadn't fully healed yet (which was most of them).
"Well, you won't have to worry about that here," he said firmly. "As to how we knew to get you, you made it all the way to the village at the base of the mountain Kaer Morhen rests upon before collapsing, and they sent someone up the path to fetch us."
That seemed to properly shock Aiden, as he blinked owlishly at Jaskier for a long, silent moment.
"The village knows you're here," he said slowly, "and you've not been driven out?"
"Oh hardly," Jaskier replied. "One or two of the wolves go down there with me for a couple of days every few weeks to help where we can, they trade us supplies or little niceties, I play in the evenings at the little pub, then we troop back up here with Clover's wagon full and do it again later." He finishes smearing the salve on the currently-exposed cuts and retrieves the clean bandaging to rewrap them. "They quite like us, by all accounts. Not just me, all of us. I'm sure they'll like you too. ...If you stay, I mean," he added quickly. He'd rather not assume anything, especially considering how long it had been since Aiden had been assumed dead.
"I think I can see why they adopted you," Aiden said after a contemplative moment. "You're a little good luck charm in bard form."
Jaskier laughed brightly, and moved on to the next bandage.
Aiden wasn't entirely wrong, after all.
Aiden fell asleep again after Jaskier finished changing his bandages, and didn't wake up again until lunch, ravenously hungry. Jaskier had considered that excuse enough to call the wolves in
"I truly must thank you for your hospitality, Master Vesemir," Aiden said from his blanket nest as the rest of them ate at the kitchen table. It was a bit crowded, but Jaskier had insisted, citing it being rather rude to eat in the next room where Aiden could easily hear them, just because he was not quite able to sit up at the table.
Lambert had declined to even come in for lunch, but Jaskier was going to work on him, and had told Geralt and Eskel in no uncertain terms they were not allowed to drag him inside unless Vesemir told them to.
"No need to get all formal, Cat," Vesemir said, a bit stiff but not dismissive, Jaskier was pretty sure. He'd gotten enough information to know that the Wolves and the Cats had not had a great relationship, historically, but Vesemir wasn't going to deny another witcher the help Aiden clearly needed. Jaskier thought the enslavement had probably made him more inclined to help, since whatever had happened to Aiden was clearly at the hands of humans. (That's what Geralt said, anyway - the wounds were from blades, not claws or teeth, and Jaskier was inclined to trust his expertise.)
"Still," Aiden pressed. "You didn't have to bring me here. I know I am likely not your first choice of possible guests."
"Hmm," Vesemir replied, and attended to his food for a moment. Jaskier was on the verge of starting a discussion with Eskel about the state of the chicken coop to break the somewhat awkward silence when Vesemir spoke again. "You one of Treyse's?"
Aiden's face immediately wrinkled into a grimace as he chewed and swallowed a chunk of buttered bread. "No," he said with feeling, as soon as he had. "I wasn't at the tournament. Guxart had me with the kits, to keep them out of trouble."
He and Vesemir held each other's gazes for a long moment, and Jaskier held his breath, but whatever Aiden said was apparently the right thing to say, because Vesemir nodded and turned back to his meal, the tension broken. Aiden cheerfully regaled the table with stories of monster hunts long past, and Jaskier swore he'd write a song about him one of these days if he kept sharing such interesting stories.
"Right," Vesemir said after they'd mostly finished eating. "Eskel, mattress?"
"Cleaned, fresh straw, back on the bed frame," Eskel answered immediately.
"Bedding?" Vesemir directed at Geralt.
"Fine but the sheets," Geralt answered. "They need washed. The blankets and furs down here will do well enough."
"Good. Geralt, gather any other laundry that needs doing, may as well do it all at once. Might be the last big wash before it gets too cold to hang the laundry outdoors. Eskel, you get Aiden upstairs, then go help Geralt." Vesemir pushed himself to his feet. "Jaskier, once you help get Aiden settled, take some lunch out to Lambert? He said something about going to start some repairs to the south wall."
"Yes, Papa Vesemir," Jaskier said, and did not manage to escape the (extremely gentle) cuff upside the head for his trouble. "You know you love me!" he called after Vesemir as he left to go do whatever he was working on. "He loves me," he repeated smugly to Aiden as Eskel picked him up.
"You're a menace," Eskel retorted. "Come on, menace, grab the blankets. Let's spare Aiden the mortification of being carried about like a fainting maiden."
"I don't know, it's not that bad," Aiden said with a laugh.
"He's very strong," Jaskier agreed as they headed up to the bedroom. "It's almost enough to make a man swoon just to feel so delicate and small."
"Is that why you keep getting wobbly around Geralt?" Eskel asked innocently. Jaskier sputtered and turned red, trying to come up with a good comeback and unable to retaliate due to his arms being full of bedding.
"You are full of it, sir!" Jaskier protested. "I do not get wobbly around him, intentionally or otherwise!"
"All right," Eskel allowed. "If you say so."
Jaskier sulked - playfully, but stubbornly - until Eskel retreated to go help Geralt with the laundry.
"So, real crush or just playful banter?" Aiden asked with a yawn. Jaskier threw a fur (gently) at Aiden's face, which drew a chuckle. "Sorry, sorry, it's just fun to indulge in other people's silly drama." His smile wavered a little, and he looked out the open balcony. Jaskier sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting for Aiden to speak again.
"Lambert's avoiding me," Aiden said quietly after a while.
"Seems likely," Jaskier agreed with a sigh. "He's been... kind of emotional since we realized it was you."
"When is he not kind of emotional?" Aiden asked with a faint wry smile.
"Oh, you have met him!" Jaskier gasped.
"Assuming he hasn't changed significantly since the last time I saw him," Aiden agreed.
Jaskier fidgeted for a moment, then blurted out, "Why did you disappear? If you don't mind telling me, that is," he added quickly. Aiden sighed.
"One of my fellow Cats decided he rather wanted me out of the way," he said dryly. "Still not entirely sure why. Probably got sick of my snoring in the caravan over winters or something. He incapacitated me, then sold me to some southern noble who wanted something interesting to add to his gladiatorial lineup."
Jaskier shuddered in horror, shaking himself as if he could shake off the knowledge of how horrible people could be like a bird shook water off its feathers. "I am so sorry," Jaskier said. "I know I had nothing to do with it, but just... I can't wrap my head around the cruelty of humans, sometimes."
"Yeah, well, nobles are assholes, pretty bird," Aiden said with a well-deserved but still a bit overly dramatic sigh. "Hopefully one you won't have to learn as personally as I did."
Jaskier barked out a startled laugh, and Aiden raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Sorry," Jaskier said, still restraining the urge to giggle. "I, uh. Well, obviously the townsfolk down the mountain don't know this, but I... came with Lambert and the others when they escaped the Keracki court."
"Kerack?" Aiden asked. "The fuck were they doing there?"
"A while after you went missing, King Szymon essentially declared war on the remaining wolves," Jaskier explained. "I don't know the precise sequence of events because they haven't talked about it and I haven't felt the need to ask, but he captured the four of them one by one. Put enchanted collars on them to force them to obey him or suffer excruciating pain." Jaskier rubbed at the disc of Geralt's medallion under his shirt with a grimace. "I don't know if he just wanted to have them or if he was saving them for something, but nearly three years ago he decided to give them as a gift to the Crown Prince of Kerack on his coming of age and official naming as heir to the throne."
"Shit," Aiden breathed with feeling. "What happened?"
"They were there about a year, acting as the prince's bodyguards because he was in danger from his father's abuse, until they got wind that the king was going to enact a genocide on non-humans in the kingdom, so they killed him and we ran as fast as we could for the border."
"They killed him?" Aiden looked shocked. "Well, son of a bitch, I didn't think most of the wolves had it in 'em to do something like that. A bit hung up on not assassinating people and shit in the past." Then he stopped and frowned suspiciously up at Jaskier. "So why'd they bring you with them?"
"Well," Jaskier said placidly, "after spending a year being my bodyguards, they'd apparently gotten rather fond of me, and as I had absolutely no interest in ruling a kingdom and had spent a year pretending I had total control over them and thus was likely to get branded a traitor when they killed my asshole father, we all thought it was probably for the best that I left with them."
Aiden stared at him for a long moment. "...You're the crown prince of Kerack."
"Was the crown prince of Kerack," Jaskier corrected. "I'm a traitor to the throne now, technically, not that my sister was at all bothered by my plan to rid the world of the foul beast that fathered us. Now I'm a bard and an honorary wolf of Kaer Morhen."
"You're going to be an interesting one to get to know, aren't you?" Aiden asked, before indulging in a jaw-cracking yawn.
"Probably not that interesting," Jaskier admitted. "You already know pretty much all of it."
"Well, you can save the story behind your dashing facial scar for more desperate times, then," Aiden allowed.
Jaskier laughed. "Thank you, good sir. Get some sleep," he added. "You're still healing, and you probably need so much rest if it's taking this long for you to heal. And I need to get lunch out to Lambert and see if I can't figure out how to convince him to talk to you."
"Good luck, then, little wolf," Aiden said, laying back and already starting to drift off. "You're gonna need it."
Lambert had, apparently, decided that "working on the wall" meant "throwing large stones that couldn't be used to repair it down onto the ground", if the scattered large bricks cratered in the dirt at the base of the wall were any indication. Lambert was nowhere to be seen, when Jaskier got down there with a little basket of food, but that didn't mean he wasn't up there.
"Please don't heave anything over the edge onto my head!" Jaskier called as he passed along the wall to the stairs. "I'm just bringing lunch!"
There was no response, but when Jaskier finally crested the top of the wall, he spotted Lambert flopped on his back staring up at the clouds. He didn't look up at Jaskier as he sat down next to him, basket in his lap.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jaskier asked. Lambert scowled wordlessly up at the sky. "Thought not," Jaskier agreed. "Well, I've brought you lunch. Dinner should be safe to attend tonight, we moved Aiden upstairs and I highly doubt he'll be up to coming downstairs for meals just yet."
Lambert's scowl didn't ease, though it seemed to shift to something more upset than irritated. Jaskier wished he knew how to fix whatever was going on in Lambert's head.
"Please at least eat, even if you're going to sulk?" Jaskier asked, lightly prodding Lambert's side with the toe of his boot.
"I'm not sulking," Lambert grumbled under his breath, but he pushed himself up to sit and took the basket from Jaskier so he could dig some bread and cheese out of it. "I just... didn't want to see him. He wanted to disappear, maybe he should've stayed gone."
"I think you should talk to him," Jaskier said. "But at the very least I can tell you he did not want to disappear."
Lambert froze and looked up at him, eyes wide. "...What?"
"Remember how I said something like what happened to you might've happened to him?" Jaskier asked gently. "Well, I don't have a lot of details, but he did mention something about one of the other Cats attacking him and selling him to some noble down south."
"Sold," Lambert breathed. "Shit. Fuck!" He was on his feet so fast his basket of lunch went tumbling off his lap and off the damaged edge of the wall, pacing anxiously. "I'm an asshole. I've been avoiding him and resenting him, and he was suck in a shit situation like I was, only worse 'cause he was alone and he didn't have you, and--"
"Lambert, calm down," Jaskier said. "He knows you didn't know, he's not angry, he's just..." Jaskier trailed off, trying to think of the best description. "I think he just wants to talk to you," he settled on. "Can't hurt to do that, can it?"
Lambert stopped pacing to give Jaskier a look, and Jaskier raised his hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay, I know, but for what it's worth, I think you should." Jaskier looked up at him with his best wide, pleading eyes. "I know I'd feel better about it all if you two talked at least once before winter hit."
Lambert groaned and pressed a hand over his eyes. "Not fair, Buttercup, how does this have anything to do with you?"
"It has to do with me because I sleep better at night when you're not brooding on the roof," Jaskier said primly. "Anyway, Geralt and Eskel are doing laundry, and I think Vesemir's working in the garden, so if you wanted a private conversation with him, now is a perfectly good time to do so."
"You know, I don't think people realize how much of an asshole you are," Lambert declared.
"Yeah, my good looks and charm throw people off." Jaskier agreed cheerfully, pushing to his feet. "I'm going to go see if Geralt and Eskel need help with the laundry."
"You mean you're going to go see if Geralt's taken his shirt off to avoid getting it wet so you can ogle him?" Lambert asked, somehow managing to sound weary and snide at the same time.
"I am making no claims regarding that one way or another," Jaskier said, though he could feel his face heating up. It had, perhaps, crossed his mind, but he sure as hell wasn't going to admit that out loud. He headed back down the stairs and called, "Don't forget to find wherever the basket landed before you come back," over his shoulder as he went.
"Fuck you, Buttercup!" Lambert shouted after him without any heat in his voice. Jaskier grinned triumphantly to himself. He couldn't be positive Lambert was going to be brave and actually go speak to Aiden, but it seemed likely, and that's really all that he'd hoped for out of the conversation.
As he entered the courtyard Eskel and Geralt were doing the laundry in, he tried not to be disappointed that Geralt was still wearing his shirt, and focused instead on the smile that spread across Geralt's face when he saw Jaskier walking toward them.
That was more than enough for him.