Fanfics from Ao3 - Private

please love me (don't leave me) - TheSilverQueen

Suffice to say, Jaskier isn't exactly expecting for Geralt to rescue him at the most inconvenient time possible. He is expecting the rescue to be last minute, mostly because Jaskier did not, in fact, tell Geralt where he was going when he slipped out of the inn after supper, and he is expecting the rescue to be full of irritated Witcher and lots of noises, because knights do tend to startle when a cat-eyed white-haired broad man stalks into a castle, but, well.

Jaskier is quite literally tied to the lord's daughter with a golden ribbon and the mage is literally reciting the words to some sort of wedding spell when Geralt bursts through a door, shoves Jaskier down, and knocks the mage out with a blow to the head using the pommel of his sword.

"What did you do," he says flatly, ignoring the screaming and fleeing humans like the professional he is.

"Geralt! So lovely of you to drop by, I was just, I mean – "

Geralt looks at the furious lord, the fainting lady on Jaskier's arm, and the altar arrayed with blessings to the goddess, and sighs.

"We're leaving," Geralt grunts. He swings his sword down and slices through the ribbon, and then twists his hand and scruffs Jaskier like a misbehaving cat, which, ouch but also rude.

Jaskier flails as he's unceremoniously dragged away. "Geralt!"

"I leave you alone for five minutes," Geralt growls.

"I was asked to play at a dance!" Jaskier protests. "A very lovely lady wanted some music, and her father offered me a very nice amount of coin, and then, well, there was rather a lot of wine and things progressed, and – "

"If I've told you once, I've told you a million times – "

"I didn't even sleep with her!"

Geralt's nose twitches. Jaskier would be offended that Geralt doesn't trust his word, but Geralt was there that one time when Jaskier nearly got hanged for sleeping with a duke's wife, and that time Jaskier nearly got his head chopped off for kissing a count's daughter, and that time that Jaskier nearly got thrown off a battlement for holding a private concert for a lord's niece.

The current lord of this castle has, at that point, managed to rally some men to him, and they stand quivering in front of the door like young oaks caught in a storm, rattling about in their shiny armor.

Geralt comes to a stop and glares. "Move," he snarls.

"Give us back the bard," the lord shoots back.

"Get your own entertainment. I've a contract to fulfill, and this man," Geralt says, shaking him by the scruff, "is coming with me. He owes me coin."

Jaskier squawks. "I do not!"

Geralt turns his fierce glare on him. Shut up, says his golden eyes.

The lord is frankly unimpressed. "He deflowered my daughter," he says, "and therefore he must marry her! How else am I to uphold the reputation of my house, with a lowly little bard sneaking about to crawl into my daughter's bed like a snake?"

Geralt sighs like he wishes he had been the one to throw Jaskier off the battlements, instead of the one who had had to fish him out of the river. "He didn't," Geralt says shortly. "I can smell it."

The lord hesitates. On one hand, reputation is everything to a small time lord like this. On the other hand, Geralt is undeniably a Witcher, and Witchers are known for their enhanced senses.

"You travel with him," the lord says, testing the waters. "How do I know you aren't lying for him?"

"I don't interfere with the affairs of humans," Geralt says, the bold faced liar. "If he had slept with your daughter, I would leave him be. But he did not, and he owes me coin, and he is not to be cursed by mages for the crime of flitting about a court like animal just gone into rut."