to grow a winter garden [jaskier x reader] [complete]

6. more about life, about love

Time passes, because that is the nature of it. You have enjoyed — in more ways than one, if you are to be crude — the last few weeks with Jaskier. In so many ways, your mind is more at ease than ever, now that things have been resolved. Now that the truth is out. You almost can't believe you were ever so worried about — any of it, but perhaps that's a consequence of hindsight.

Of course, there are new things to be bothered about, instead. There isn't much time left with him before he'll have to be on the road again. You've tried your best to savor every moment, but there's still something bitter that comes to your tongue every time you think about it — whether too hard or only in passing.

You're half-sure, or more, that you're in love with him. He'd joked, before... everything, that someone had caught your heart, and it is the thinking of him being absent that has truly cemented that for you, right along with every considerate thing he's done or kiss he's given you.

You can't possibly ask him not to go. You know better than to expect anything other than the obvious answer, and besides that, you could never cage him in such a way. That's not love, is it? To be so selfish?

Instead, you have been making the most of the time you do have with him, in a desperate bid to keep every moment. You turn up later and later to work every day, dragging out mornings spent in bed or pressed together during breakfast. You stay up late to wait for him to come home, cursing every hour that he's absent and you aren't with him, but —

"Where are you playing tonight?" you ask, breaking the quiet that has blanketed the room. You've finished your breakfast and he is half-eating, half-writing something down in his notebook. Some thing will always stay the same, apparently.

"What was that?" He looks up at you, giving you his undivided attention, and your heart swells just from the look on his face. You can't help but smile just for looking back at him, at the ink stains on his fingers and the cheese he's been holding for several minutes, distracted.

"I was wondering where you were playing tonight."

"Oh, I'm at The Seven Stars," he answers, and you watch him think about your question in real time. "Why? Would you like to come see me perform?"

"I always want to see you perform," you tell him honestly. "But not usually with the public."

"Hmm. What's different tonight, then?" You appreciate, amongst other things, that he doesn't mince words so much with you as others do. If he is curious, he says so. Not everyone is the same.

Despite the fact that you don't really want to share your motivation. Talking about it hurts.

"I — well. Spring is almost here," you say, dropping your gaze to your hands. Maybe it will be easier if you're not looking at his soft face. You can hate it all you want, but not talking about it won't keep it from happening."

"We still have a few weeks," he says, voice — unreadable, for once. You don't much like that, either.

"Two weeks at best, if you're supposed to be halfway to Kaedwen when you meet your witcher again," you tell your hands. You've looked at too many maps and asked too many pointed questions to think it is any other way. He still sounds awed that the man agreed to meet up with him regardless, and you don't want to ruin that by — getting in the way. You know his relationship with the witcher is special to him.

"Are you so eager to get rid of me?" is what he says, and —

"That is the exact opposite of what I'm feeling," you say, looking up at him in surprise. Doesn't he know?