Chapter Text
The winter passes as it always does; too slow and too fast, all at once. But for once, every moment of it is pleasant.
Geralt knows they have Jaskier to thank for that. Not even just because of their – arrangement? – but because Jaskier naturally livens everything up when he’s around. He jokes and sings and dances and makes a fool of himself, all to coax a smile or laugh out of them.
If Geralt thought he couldn’t appreciate Jaskier more before this winter, he was sorely mistaken.
Those grateful thoughts are interrupted when Lambert belches loudly into their silence. Geralt glares at him, but Lambert just smiles – almost sheepish – and takes another drink. Eskel is sprawled on the couch, head in Geralt’s lap, staring distantly into the fire. It’s barely past midnight; Jaskier had gone up to bed and left the three of them to their drinking and bickering.
It’s Eskel who speaks.
“Can I be honest?” he asks, words a little slow. They’re all at least somewhat tipsy – Jaskier had been properly drunk before he called it a night.
“Hm,” Geralt hums.
Lambert laughs. “Hm,” he mocks. “Go on, Eskel, spit it out.”
“Before,” Eskel hiccups a little, “before I knew him – I just…. I really thought you’d gone soft, Geralt.”
Geralt snorts. He might have been offended, a handful of years ago, but now it’s more of a compliment. “Fuck you,” he retorts anyway.
“No,” Lambert shakes his head. “No, he’s right – I thought you’d hit your head too hard or somethin’.” He nods vigorously and takes another drink. “I really – I mean he’s just a bard, right?”
“Hardly,” Eskel mutters, and Geralt laughs. He flips Lambert the bird.
“Jaskier is…,” Geralt pauses, fishing for the right word. Jaskier is, of course, much better at words than him. Literacy was beaten into me with a cane, he’d said once, and Geralt could relate to the beaten in part, but not the literacy. He could read and write and speak well enough, of course, but expressing specific ideas was always hard. “An enigma,” he finally decides.
Eskel snorts. “You can say that again,” he agrees. “An enigma, a fuckin’ mystery….”
“Feral as fuck,” Lambert adds, and they all laugh.
Silence falls between them again, nothing but the crackling of the fire to fill it, and Geralt thinks if he ever gets a chance to retire – like Jaskier always says – this is what he wants. His family all in one place, safe and fed and drunk. And happy.