@multiitis ( geralt & jaskier )
There’s this feeling that haunts him sometimes, low in his bones like some creeping monster. It fights its way through his blood, struggling through the thick, alchemical mess of it, and crawls through the chambers of his slow-beating heart, and settles somewhere in his lungs.
It’s not premonition, or destiny, or anything so foolish. He’d call it gut feeling, but it never resides in his gut, and it’s never wrong. It’s just a manifestation of the inevitable: the town that’s going to short him on his payment; the town that won’t talk of their monster, even to a witcher; the town that will run him out by sundown; the town where, despite the miles and years between them, he’s sure to hear an all-too familiar voice accompanied by an all-too familiar lute.
He understands all but the last. Jaskier’s ability to find him, again and again, might be chance or might be deliberate design. Geralt hasn’t asked, and doesn’t care to.
It’s Jaskier’s name that the thing in his lungs whispers to him here, as he relieves Roach of her saddle and methodically brushes her down. He doesn’t rush to prove himself right, taking his time to give the mare the attention she deserves after several long, hard days on the road. He’s taken a contract from the gravedigger, who’s lost two men to the beast in the crypt already, but he’ll start at first light. It makes no never mind; it’s always dark in the crypts no matter the hour, and its intended denizens, all dead, are not in particularly urgent need of his help.
“Maybe I should just stay out here,” he says to Roach when he’s done. He slices an apple, lets her take quarters of it from the flat of his hand. “Sleep in the stable with you.” She whickers, lips dragging over his hand in search of more apple before she lowers her head and butts him in the chest. “Fine,” he says, and runs his hand down her nose before he enters the tavern.
He doesn’t need to look for Jaskier, because Jaskier has a talent for making himself the centre of attention. And so, he pushes himself towards the bar—ignoring the sideways looks and the quietening of conversation—and when he notices Jaskier noticing him:
“No.” It’s flat and firm and final, and he knows that it will more than likely be ignored.
