The Child of Surprise

A Heartfelt Confession

 30 weeks later

After that second night together, Jaskier began spending more and more time at Geralt's place. Despite his protests, Jaskier always turned up with a small gift for him; usually it was chocolates (Celebrations, of course), but sometimes it was flowers or something for the baby. The sex—as always—was spectacular, but over time, they got to know each other better too. Geralt learned that despite his assurances, Jaskier did, in fact, snore. He also learned pretty quickly that Jaskier never seemed to shut up. He talked and talked all of the time about everything and nothing. After spending the better part of a decade living on his own, that took some time to get used to. But then on the few nights that Jaskier didn't stay over, Geralt struggled to sleep, because now it was too quiet for his liking.

Geralt wasn't sure at what point they transitioned from dating to being in a full-blown relationship, but within a few months, Jaskier had moved into his flat on a permanent basis. The one and only time he saw Jaskier's shoebox flat in Camden was the day they'd gone to collect his meagre belongings, and to be perfectly honest, after seeing it for himself, he regretted not asking Jaskier to move in with him sooner. Having Jaskier's belongings suddenly occupying his flat was another thing that took Geralt some time to adjust to: he didn't mind the acoustic guitar being left on the couch, but he did mind the dirty clothes and wet towels that lay strewn across the bedroom floor. Despite the occasional disagreement about where to put their washing, it surprised Geralt how easy things were with Jaskier. He kept expecting everything to blow up and fall apart, but it never did. Jaskier kept just being Jaskier—‌funny, adorably awkward, and (today, at least) annoyingly attentive.

"How can you complain about him being too attentive?" Yen muttered to Geralt after he'd complained about it. "Is such a thing even possible?"

"Oh, it's possible," Geralt assured her. "He's gotten worse in the last few weeks. He's started rubbing chamomile lotion on my belly every night and singing lullabies to her."

Yen snorted. "Well, that's sickeningly adorable."

"Tell me about it. And to make matters worse, every morning, I wake up to breakfast in bed."

"Every morning?"

"Yes."

Yen pulled a face and took a sip from her prosecco. "God, I wish Istredd had done that for me."

"It's annoying," Geralt insisted. "He won't let me lift a finger around the house anymore. He insists that I put my feet up and relax, to leave it to him to take care of everything."

"Oh, how terrible for you," she replied sarcastically.

"I'm perfectly capable of doing things for myself," he bristled. "I keep telling him that but he won't bloody listen."

"He's only trying to help."

"I know," he sighed. "But I'm not used to having someone wait on me hand and foot."

"I know that, darling, but try and see it from his perspective—he's probably feeling quite useless at the moment."

Geralt frowned. "How do you mean?"

"Well, you're almost at the finish line now but you're going through a rough time of it. You're feeling tired and swollen, you're more irritable than usual—"

"Than usual?" he said accusingly.

"Yes, Geralt. Don't give me that look, you know fine well that you're a grumpy bastard, pregnancy has merely served to amplify that."

"Urgh, my back is killing me today," he relented, rubbing his throbbing lumbar.

"All the more reason to take Jaskier's advice and rest. He's probably feeling somewhat responsible for your current state—and rightly so, he's the one that knocked you up. Just cut him some slack, he's trying his best under the circumstances."