Based on This Prompt from the lovely @major-trouble
no trigger warnings necessary (1.4k words)
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In the aftermath of the Great Shrinking Spell Incident, Geralt is endlessly glad that Jaskier was there to keep him safe.
In the moment when both sorceresses scream a loud spell and launch their magic into the air with no consideration for the Witcher standing between them, however, Geralt wishes that Jaskier were standing in nearly any other room on the Continent. As the two opposing walls of chaos close around him and slam together, Geralt watches the world go wrong and wavy and odd around him. Everything inside him feels like it’s being compressed beneath two fully-grown wyverns. He’s being crushed. He’s being compacted. He’s being squished in on himself.
In the pain and confusion of two fully formed spells taking hold, Geralt’s body blesses him with sweet unconsciousness.
---
When he wakes up things feel...wrong.
His body is pillowed against something soft and warm and he’s covered from shoulder-to-toe with a huge, heavy blanket. When he sits up, his head spins and he groans, clutching at it with both hands and blocking out the light with the heels of his palms. “Jaskier?”
“Geralt!”
The thing he’s laying on shifts and suddenly Jaskier’s scent is overwhelming. He drops back against the pillow (because that has to be what he’s resting on top of) and cries out in real, legitimate fear. His best friend and traveling companion is towering over him, looking nervous. “Fuck! Jaskier, what the fuck!?”
“Don’t panic,” the bard soothes. His own lip is being bitten to shit between his front teeth and he holds up his hands as if surrendering. “I think it was those two crazy witches. After they did, uhm, this to you, they told me how to break both spells. It shouldn’t be too hard; we’ll just have to find our way to Yen sooner rather than later. We’ll get you back to your dangerous Witchering in no time.”
“Why do we need to see Yennefer?” Geralt asked, raising an eyebrow. Jaskier hated Yen. The two of them couldn’t be in a room together for more than five minutes before they started tearing each other apart either physically, verbally, or both at once. Then Geralt remembered that he was sitting down on the pillow as if it were a great bed. “Oh...right. She can probably undo it with some kind of counter-spell or something.”
“Not exactly,” Jaskier shrugs. “But close enough. The spells got kind of...twisted together, apparently. You’re stuck being pixie-sized until your true love can get her lilac and gooseberry lips on you.”
“Oh.”
“Mhm. I’m just glad your clothes shrunk with you. I’ve already started sewing up another suitable change for however long you’re in your current form. These need to be cleaned soon, anyway. I hope to be finished with your sleep-shirt by nightfall,” Jaskier rambles nervously. “But clothes aren’t that important now, are they? You see, my plan is to deliver you safely into Yennefer’s loving arms at that magically hidden manor house of hers and head to Oxenfurt for the remainder of the season. I figured that you two might want to have some nice alone time before winter arrives and chases you off to Kaer Morhen.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
The Witcher is thankful that his small size hasn’t seemed to change the pitch of his voice. If he had become a squeaky, pixie-like creature in all regards he would have died of shame long before getting to…
Well why had Jaskier assumed that Yennefer’s kiss would break the spell?
“Why do you think Yen can break the spell?”
“It’s True Love’s Kiss, Geralt. Try to keep up,” Jaskier’s voice is high and teasing but there’s an undercurrent of resigned sadness that the Witcher doesn’t understand. He breathes in deeply again, trying to find a clue, and notices that his companion’s usually bright and sunny scent has changed. Rather than the bard’s signature whirling notes of rose and lavender, the bard is surrounded by a cloud of bitter, acrid disappointment. Jaskier suddenly squares his shoulders and shoots Geralt a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes at all. The bitterness hasn’t disappeared from the air, either. “Surely nobody else will be able to break the spell, dear Witcher. You’ve been chasing after our good Lady Yennefere for nearly a decade, now, at least.”
“Hmm.”
“Eloquent as ever, Thumbelina.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Geralt huffs. He crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt to look menacing but he surmises that he must look rather adorable like this because Jaskier doesn’t look properly chastised at all. In fact, he looks about two seconds away from picking the minuscule Witcher up and nuzzling him like a kitten. Jaskier had referred to his behavior around small animals and children once as cute aggression.
“I just can’t help but pet these puppies so ferociously, Geralt, they’re just too sweet and little!”
“Have you never heard the tale of Thumbelina and her handsome Prince? Or in this case, sorceress?”
Geralt crosses his legs underneath him and pats the pillow invitingly. Jaskier lays down and turns to face the Witcher, who’s reclining back against the bedding once again. The bard tells his tiny friend the story of Thumbelina and the Prince who gives her wings, adding in some extra cute bits that he knows Geralt will sigh about later when he’s alone.
By the time he’s finished telling his Witcher a bedtime story, Geralt is dozing lightly. Jaskier pulls a few of the nicest scraps of velvet leftover from re-trimming Sexy’s case a few weeks ago and layers them atop his tiny Witcher. He runs the tip of his finger up and down his companion’s tiny, delicate spine with the utmost care and focus.
As Geralt slips into a relaxed and heavy sleep he thinks: I’m not sure Yen will be able to break the curse after all, Jaskier; but how do I tell you how I feel without losing you completely?
---
Jaskier appears back in the room the next morning at dawn, having already gone and gathered up a large silver punch bowl and some other odds-and-ends. Mostly sewing supplies, it looks like. He pours a pitcherful of steaming hot water into the silver dish and gives his companion a sincere apology, “Sorry, Geralt, but this was the closest I could find to a fairy-sized bathtub. Here’s a sliver of my almond soap. I hope it doesn't smell too strongly. Uhm...yeah. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Geralt looks between Jaskier and the ‘tub’ he’s been offered. “I won’t be able to get out by myself.”
“Huh?”
“I can climb up just fine but don’t think I’ll be able to get out of this thing without some assistance,” the Witcher clarifies. Jaskier blushes furiously Geralt cannot fathom why. They’ve seen each other (and other people, he imagines) in their bare skin plenty of times. Usually the bard went about his usual business but now he looked like a deer caught in the light of a hunter’s disorienting lantern.
“Do you need my help?”
“...Yes. If you don’t mind, of course. I’m afraid I might slip and fall headfirst off the table. Otherwise, if you don’t mind dampening a cloth, I’ll just wipe myself down in my smalls and consider it done with.”
“Oh no,” Jaskier insists. “I didn’t make up the world’s weirdest lie about moonlight druid rituals to borrow this ornate punch bowl bathtub for you, my little Witcher.”
“Fine. But turn away while I undress.”
Jaskier does, but wonders why. Geralt has never asked him to look away before. Has he offended the Witcher somehow? He hears a quiet, contented sigh and turns back to see that Geralt has managed to clamber his way into the punch bowl just fine. “Would you like me to wash your hair?”
“You’re likely to squish me.”
“You’re probably right,” Jaskier sighs. He moves across the room and lays back down on the bed, curled in around himself with his back to Geralt. “Call when you’re ready to be lifted out. Don’t want you slipping and dying doing something silly.”
“Hmm. Thank you again, Jaskier.
“Of course, dear heart. Anything for you.”
---
When Geralt has been dried and dressed in the new, somewhat clumsy nightshirt Jaskier sewed for him, the bard lays him back down on the pillow.
“Goodnight, little Witcher.”
“Hey!”
Jaskier smirks and covers Geralt up with his many layers of soft velvet.
“Goodnight, Geralt.”
“Goodnight, Jaskier.”
And if Geralt feels truly and unarguably safe for the first time in years, tucked in tightly and wrapped with scraps of material that smell so sweetly of his bard, then that’s nobody’s business but his.
For the fairy au! What if Geralt gets shrunk to Jaskier's fairy size? Would Jask stay small so they could cuddle like that or would he grow big so he could put Geralt in his own tiddies???
Geralt chirped.
Wait, what? He tried to call Jaskier’s name again but all that came out was the same, sing-song chirp. His wife appeared from around the corner of the pillow and immediately doubled over in laughter.
“Silly ass!” he jingled brightly. Geralt could understand him. Geralt was...he was... “You’ve gone and let me shrink you on accident!”
“Huh?”
“You...oh it doesn’t matter how it works. What matters is that you’re my size now,” the fairy flitted forward and laid his hands on Geralt’s chest. “Well...almost my size. You’re still huge.”
“Hmm.”
“And I like you that way.”
“So...now what?”
“I say we eat our fill while we’re this size and then maybe build a very small pillow fort. I’d like to spend at least four or five hours today being hugged and petted,” the Witcher’s wife demanded. “And I won’t hear any complaints or we’ll never get back to normal.”
I'm very very in love with the image of tiny pixie Geralt tbh. Thank you a billion times over for putting that image in my head
I'm glad you like it! I will work to make tiny Gerdlt a reality. Sadly he won't have wings. He'll just be shrunk down as is. If I were are artist I would draw him for you, since you've brought a smile to my face, anon 🥰
