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Jaskier laughs, as his father slaps him, as he calls him a disgrace.
It's okay, he thinks to himself. He spits the blood that Julian is losing. It's okay, he laughs. That boy is already dead.
He wonders if Julian has ever been born at all.
His father slaps him again. His lip splits open in yet another place. More blood drips down his chin.
But Jaskier keeps laughing.
"You fucking whoreson," his father curses him. "How dare you sully our household name?"
"Oh, father, it was already sullied," he replies.
His father slaps him again, enraged.
"You won't leave this place until you know how to behave yourself in proper society," he orders.
But Jaskier is not worried. No. Because, you see, never has Jaskier felt more free.
He doesn't belong here, he knows this now.
He no longer carries around his neck the chains of a place that was never meant for him. He no longer longs for a love that he knows he would never receive.
A few nights later, Jaskier escapes through the shadows. Passes the hanged body of the stable boy he had kissed.
He makes only one stop.
Says goodbye to the one person who had ever loved him in this place. The sister he never had, and runs.
Runs to find himself, runs to be free.
He doesn't look back as he rips that chapter of his life from his path.
His laugh dances free in the wind.
*
He perfects the act of laughing at Oxenfurt. You see, they are not laughing at you if you manage to laugh with them. It doesn't hurt if you are purposefully giving them the reasons to laugh.
Jaskier learns how to hide the shaking of his hand when in a room of people, he ends up still alone. When he learns he still doesn't fit in. That it was not Lettenhove the issue, but him.
That he carries the queerness in his soul, that it shapes him, that it makes him stand out.
So he learns to put on a smile, to redirect attention with a word here and there.
It doesn't hurt when they pelt him, if he was deliberately seeking their anger.
*
And then Jaskier meets him.
Him with few words and even fewer smiles.
With Geralt, Jaskier learns what laughing next to a fire means. He learns that sometimes, all a laugh means is happiness.
He learns that he, Jaskier, can be happy too.
Geralt hardly ever laughs, but he smiles at him over the fire, and it's more than enough.
*
He doesn't laugh however when they meet Yennefer.
When he learns that Geralt knew how to hand in his heart in the end. When he hands it to a witch that crushes it in a fist.
Any laughter to be found near a fire afterwards rings hollow.
*
He thought that he would be happy when he met Essi again.
But then Geralt falls for her, and Jaskier learns that Geralt could love a poet after all. Just not him.
He laughs nevertheless. It's a good thing he learned long ago how to hide his pain.
*
But then there's a mountain and a dragon.
Then he's alone, as he digs a tomb for the only woman he ever selflessly loved.
With dirt under his nails he learns that there's a fine line between sobbing and laughing. And he's long since walking it alone.
*
And then there's slaughter.
How can Jaskier complain when there's so much more suffering going on.
So Jaskier forces himself to laugh. Forces himself to be the remedy he wishes to see in this world. He picks up strength he didn't know he had as he pulls the strings of his lute.
When fire licks at him, he does not laugh.
But he does so afterwards.
When nobody asks him how he is. When nobody cares to check on him. When the men he worked for decades to help their reputation reject him.
He laughs, and pretends he hasn't been laughing for decades.
Pretends that his soul isn't dying bit by bit with each smile he has to fake.
Pretends he doesn't feel hollow. Just a chamber for fake laughter to echo in repetition for eternity. Just a vessel for things that do not fit.
"Jask?" Geralt asks.
But Jaskier has forgotten what it is to not pretend, so he smiles as he cracks a joke and hides hands that won't stop shaking.
*
But then the princess is smiling at him as she asks him for more embarrassing stories about Geralt.
And Yennefer hits him in the head, as she whispers an enchantment for his marred hand.
And Geralt. And Geralt asks him how he is every night. He doesn't push past his smiles. He only hums in reply and asks again the next day.
Until Jaskier's smile hesitates on his lips.
Until the night Jaskier breaks and decades of hidden tears finally fall. But he is not alone.
Strong arms surround him and hold him. "You don't have to be strong," Geralt tells him. "I've got you."
But that's all Jaskier has learned how to be.
What can a weed be but strong when everyone is pulling at it?
"I've got you," Geralt repeats.
And it's time for Jaskier to learn he doesn't have to keep a smile on his face all the time. That he can allow himself to show his sadness. That his family will love him nevertheless.
Because he has a family now. A family that accepts him as he is.
And now, when Jaskier does smile, it no longer hides anything. It doesn't have to.
Laughter is nothing more than laughter.
*
*
*
But all love ends in grief.
There is no dirt under his nails this time, only blood.
Gut-wrenching sobs transform into laughter. And his tears into chords.
Jaskier smiles as he regales people with the tales of the White Wolf. He talks about them as if it doesn't hurt.
"Gather thy around, young folk, and listen to a tale about heroics. Listen how evil is defeated and love triumphs."
He smiles at the children around him and he sings.
And he laughs, and nobody knows the pain he carries within.
And he laughs.
And he laughs.