Before Jaskier could even be proud of himself for taking control of a situation, it was completely out of his control all over again.

Advancing on Darien, Geralt had him by the throat and against a wall in seconds. He pushed him so hard that Jaskier himself bounced off the bricks, and the sound Darien's back made-

Well, Jaskier felt his insides twist.

While he liked Geralt's abrupt defense, he felt a little sick, seeing the panicked non-scream on Darien's face, knowing his own fake screams led to this.

Whacking Geralt's arm, he said, "I think he gets the point."

Those yellow eyes flicked to him, and Jaskier felt his spine chill. But after a growl, Geralt lowered the vampire to the ground, his hands still pressed against his jugular, just enough to not leave him gasping. "Talk. Now."

Jaskier could see the discomfort on Darien's face, and he knew the vampire wasn't one for public confrontations. Hell, he wasn't even sure how the guy worked up the gall to jump him in an alley. If anyone had asked him about Darien before today, he would have said he was a gentle little bat, with adorable, giant black eyes.

Putting a tentative hand on Geralt's shoulder, as an underhanded apology to Darien for, uh, getting him choked, Jaskier offered, "Let's take him back to his place. There we can interrogate and investigate."

As Geralt's fingers flexed around Darien's throat, Jaskier's guilt caught in his own esophagus. This never was what he wanted. He just-

Well, he wanted Darien to shut up about Mlecz and Geralt back by his side.

But seeing Darien's dark eyes wide and desperate, he remembered how selfish his decisions could many dumb nights as Mlecz filtered through his head and he couldn't help but scrunch up his nose.

That past wasn't Darien's fault. It was his. Yet the vampire was paying for his visceral reaction to his own dumb mistakes. .

Luckily, Geralt didn't prolong the seething regret pooling in Jaskier's gut for too long. Letting go of Darien, he said, "Hmm."

In turn, Jaskier took a step away from both of them, gesturing towards the end of the alley, back towards civilization. "L-lead, the way, very strange vampire man that looks so very unfamiliar."

Both Geralt and Darien passed by Jaskier's leading hand, Geralt shooting him this bemused sidelong look. He didn't even bother to pantomime an explanation. He was way too close to Mlecz to be as charismatic as Jaskier should be.

Thinking back, Mlecz was much more like Geralt, anyway. Brooding, mysterious, but much more willing to take monsters to bed than hunt them down. Mlecz wasn't too... picky about who he spent the night with.

Haunted by the images of dark make-up, washed out clothes, and a frown that drove the ladies wild, it made Jaskier grimace. Mlecz wasn't exactly a person he was proud of. At least Geralt was saving people behind his old man grump.

Mlecz did his best to damn them.

And to think, all the demeaning things he said to himself and even Darien once upon a time.

With it all coming back to him, he kept rolling his shoulders to ward the bad memories away, but they never stopped nor never fell comfortably on him. How could he blame Darien for being so shocked, confused, submissive? He wouldn't want to run into that version of himself in a dark alleyway either.

After a quick stroll through town, Darien stopped them in front of a small house on the edge of the city center, capping the residential area of a road leading to more rural homes. What it lacked in charm, it made up for in neatness. Every window, awning, knob, even wood knot was in order.

While Jaksier found that tragically dull, it was very... Darien. An older, more responsible version. Under his breath, a mix between bitter and frightened, the vampire said, "Here."

"This is nice." Jaskier realized just how shocked he sounded, and while Geralt was doing his weird, disturbing sniff thing and opening the door, Darien was glaring at him. But his mouth talked before his brain did. "Why do you have something nice?"

The bitter look Darien was giving him was honestly justified. That was a Mlecz answer. Apparently all it took was a pretty boy from his past to sour Jaskier's charismatic sass into something much crueler.

Frowning so deeply that if it dipped into the ocean he'd catch a Kraken, Darien said, "Shut up please, bard of the Witcher." Jaskier could almost taste the venom in Darien's voice. It was quite the opposite of the sweet chirping from a little bat he used to wake up to; and yet still sweeter than some of the thwackings Geralt gave him for saying something stupid, or anything he'd said to Darien thus far.

Damn vampire couldn't fathom dropping the "please", could he?

For what it was worth, Darien was being much more gracious than he deserved, considering he was under constant threat of a Witcher's blade at this point.

Geralt shoved the vampire into his own home, made him sit down, and, while he had a one-sided glare-off, Jaskier lit a few candles.

When the bard turned back around, Geralt had put his sword back into its hilt, but was still looking at Darien like he was meat. The longer they spent in his home, the more Darien's rage faltered towards fear. It was like watching a stubborn toddler realize, mid-silent tantrum, that this rude adult wasn't just refusing to let things go his way. He was kidnapping him and he'd never see his mother again.

It swallowed Jaskier's breath so effectively that he was barely sure he was doing the whole thing right anymore. Breathing, that is.

Not that he did much else right today.

And to think, a little over a week ago and he was a majestically underrated bard of Posada, banking on the fact he would eventually make his big break. Perhaps that had been a better, less confusing idea.

Darien cut through the tense silence, his voice the only weapon in his possession. "Please tell me why I'm hostage in my own home?"

Growling, Geralt asked, "Tell us why you're going under the name Ariel and assaulting the men and women of this region."

"Ariel?" Soft brows furrowed, Darien looked back and forth between Geralt and Jaskier. "I'm not Ariel."

While normally he'd call bullshit on several high vampires "coincidentally" clustered in one area, that wobbling lower lip of Darien's spoke to another truth. The last time he'd seen that was when he told him-

Well, safe to say Mlecz wasn't kind with goodbyes.

Arms crossed, Geralt wasn't exactly a kind or tactful interrogator. "Then who the fuck are you?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

The Witcher grunted, as if to acknowledge the validity of Darien's statement. "Geralt of Rivia. Witcher. That is my bard. We're looking into the recent murder."

Shaking his head, Darien pressed his palms into his knees, leaning forward towards them. If Jaskier was reading the man right, he was just as confused as they were. "Ariel couldn't have done that. He's been gone for over a week now."

"So you did it."

Darien shook his head harder. "No. I wouldn't."

"Then who-"

"Wait." Jaskier watched Darien closely, but the realization that came over the vampire's face was like watching a tragic play unfold in an instant. His brows raised, fell, flattened. And those expressively scared black eyes turned into a well of melancholic quicksand. When Darien finally spoke, his voice was low, soft, raw. "If you're asking about Ariel, you must know about Emily."

Geralt, a bit slow on the whole human expressions thing, asked, "How do you know Emily?"

"You didn't know?" Jaskier's heart fell through the floor, realizing where he knew Darien's expression: he remembered it on the unforgettable forgotten man, with his kind eyes, bristly beard, the mortal who did strange things for love. The gentle little bat explained, "My name's Darien. She called me Derry."

"Fuck.", Geralt breathed out the word like it was the closest thing he had in his verbal arsenal to surprise.

Flushed himself, Jaskier scraped his mind over everything he saw, read, heard about the young fool in love. And all he sounded like was a soft, kind, hopeful boy. If he knew anything about Darien, even long ago, it was that every beat of his wings begged to be a person like that.

When Geralt said Emily had questionable taste in men, it was a fucking understatement.

Exhaling, Jaskier said, "Now thinking about her diary, it did sound like you." When Geralt tossed a confused look his way, Jaskier realized his oversharing and coughed. Perhaps a little too loud. Afterwards, he asked, "She didn't know you were...?"

"No. I never wanted her to get involved in any of this."

Furrowing his brow, Geralt asked, "How did a higher vampire end up in Gulet trying to become a miller?"

Jaskier wished he could ask the same question, but with very different intonation. Darien once was an outsider who dreamed of finding his own path. Not monstrous or milquetoast, just his. How did he end up pining for the most lily-white parts of humanity?

Rubbing his jaw, Darien pulled both knees up into his chair, hugging them close. "A few years back, I was travelling, tired of living a lonely vampire's life. I didn't believe in feeding off blood, so none of my kind wanted me. But then I travelled through Gulet and met Emily, with her big brown eyes and adorable freckles." When Darien smiled and laughed, it looked like it nearly burned him, and that saccharine expression soured as soon as he got it. If Jaskier didn't know any better, he might have thought Darien seemed close to tears. But he couldn't be, could he? For a silly little human girl? "She was so sweet and kind, and I knew it wasn't right. But I loved her. So I accepted the shitty fake name I gave her, Derry, and pretended I was from a nearby village. And I stayed. I just wanted to keep making her smile."

A few feet behind Geralt, Jaskier kept feeling his heart being squeezed, watching Darien talking about loving Emily. Not because he ever had any deeper feelings for the little bat, but he just kept seeing her lute, her diary, her father.

That was the price of loving a mortal. Not watching them die, but inevitably being an instrument in their death.

Over and over Jaskier kept picturing that dark-haired man, smiling at him, laughing with him, looking at him with such joy and lust and love-

Why couldn't he remember him? Who took these moments away from him, where he could grieve and feel guilty, like Darien could for Emily?

Geralt cut through his internal hauntings, asking, "And where does Ariel fit into this?"

That sadness on Darien's face changed; darkened. The little bat turned into a real, tormented vampire. "Ariel and I grew up together. Our fathers were close, but our mothers weren't. To be precise, my mother was a human. Maybe that's why I became so soft." The vampire said the word like he was biting it, tearing through it with his own teeth. "If vampires weren't so rare, I doubt Ariel and his mother would even have bothered with me. But her son needed someone to follow him around."

Explained why Darien was naturally submissive, didn't it?

Jaskier wished it could've been natural, not the kind of trait that came with great suffering.

Sighing, Darien continued, "We were once- Well, I once was trying to settle down with him, too, but in a much more vampiric way." The way he clenched his jaw hid the same kind of tears he was much more willing to cry for Emily. But unlike the miller's daughter, not a single drop left his eyes. "After my mother died, I left the vampires I knew. I tried to convince Ariel to come with me. The others found out and called me a blood traitor- Even Ariel. Presumably, he was the only reason they found out. So I left, alone, before they could decide I was better off dead."

Despite all the tragedy before them that was choking Jaskier up, Geralt remained still, tall, stoic. The Witcher asked, "And how did Gulet happen?"

"I hadn't seen any of them for years, not until Ariel found me a few weeks ago. I didn't know what to do. I was planning on asking Emily to marry me, but the second he came to town, she was entranced by him. And the second he knew that, he revealed his nature, our past relationship, and reveled in the fact that my beloved was fascinated with who- what- he was.

"I asked him to leave, but he convinced me that in ten years, maybe fifteen, she would realize what I was and my entire life here would be a charade. That, or she'd be trapped in a world that hated her, like my mother was." Darien failed in his quest to stay strong, letting a single teardrop slide down his cheek. In a completely platonic way, Jaskier wished he could hold him. "I didn't want that for her, I wanted her to have someone to grow old with, children to raise, so I left with him. But I didn't know he'd go back and-" Sucking in the kind of breath that stung one's lung with pin needles, Darien said, "Apparently, Ariel had an even lower opinion of humanity than I thought."

Jaskier wanted to feel bad. He could see the pain in Darien's face, the anguish. But there was something else in him, an anger he didn't know existed, that sparked like a beacon of injustice in his chest.

Flippant, he told Darien, "Well congratulations, you left your pregnant girlfriend to be murdered and turned into a wraith."

When Darien's eyes met his, they were...

Well, they were hollowed doors into his wide-eyed shock and compounding trauma.

Jaskier couldn't regret his words more. That wasn't something Jaskier would say; it was the echoes of the abandoned Mlecz.

The horrible taste left in his mouth wasn't nearly as bad as looking Darien in the eyes after saying it.

"She... She was pregnant?" His hands dove into his hair, pulled at it, a person on edge who could fly off at any moment, but not into a rage. This kind of hurt only stabbed further within.

And yet Geralt was still just standing next to him, motionless, while he and Darien got bruises and broken ribs from the catharsis.

Looking up to Geralt, like confessing to a holy man, Darien said, "I never should have left her. Ariel said he was just going to tell her we were in love, make her hate me, forget about me, but when he came back covered in blood, laughing about how good she tasted..." His words trickled out, the end of a river that had been dying for years. His eyes were red, his hands just kept grabbing onto his knees, and all that softness Jaskier used to see was being honed into a weapon primed for self-inflicted wounds. "I'm pathetic, aren't I? I knew he killed her, and all I could manage was kicking him out, like some damned jilted lover." Pressing his nose to his knees, his quiet words still hit Jaskier's chest like they were his own. "If I had believed in Emily, I could've been a father."

"So Ariel did kill Emily." Geralt looked as sympathetic as he could, but still was full business. "Where is he now?"

"Look, Ariel is a monster and I would give him up if I could, but I don't know where he is. And wherever he is, you shouldn't go looking for him. His mother is never far behind."

Geralt tilted his head up, his Witcher sense intrigued, clearly. "His mother?"

"Ursa." Jaskier was a little surprised that the little bat said the name with such animosity. He understood when he directed some towards him, or Ariel, but this woman they knew nothing about... He spoke of her like some religions spoke of the devil. "She's an... unforgiving woman. The worst of Ariel all came from her." Darien merely shook his head. "I doubt they stuck around. Aedirn would bore them. If anything, they caught scent of me while travelling, decided to torment me, and are now giggling over a pile of dead bodies because they ruined the "half-blood's" life. So Emily is their fault. My fault. But I have no clue what's going on here."

"Hmm."

"I didn't want any part of this. If I could, I'd beg my mother to choose a different life, a different husband. I wish I was not a vampire. Hurting people is not who I am."

Jaskier, for the first time in a long time, spoke up. "But Emily?"

When Darien met his eyes, there seemed to be an understanding between them, a mutual conference of their age, pain, and suffering. Even if Jaskier struggled to remember his. "She's a mistake I won't make again."

Geralt was still stern and inquisitive, a perfect "tough interrogator". Maybe Darien would be crying less if Jaskier had been a kind one, but instead he was just an asshole. The Witcher said, "But the Vergen victim had bite marks."

"Well, with my return to Darien, I reverted to some terrible, old habits, too. Like taking men I didn't know to bed and drinking a little bit now and then." Dairen looked exhausted, like the emotional rapids ride he went on had completely drained him. To Jaskier's surprise, he turned and smiled at him. "You know what that's like, don't you Mlecz?"

And there it was, his heart fucking stopping.

He wanted to be mad at Darien, maybe wring his throat, remind the little bat why he had no place to be telling others' secrets.

But because of Jaskier, Darien just revealed everything little thing that plagued his own heart. Was it really the vampire's fault that Jaskier forgot that he was technically one of those secrets?

Anyway, he had bigger concerns than Darien right now.

Like the tall, intimidating Witcher slowly turning towards him with confused murder in his eyes. It was very disconcerting.

Geralt growled, "Mlecz?"

"Ignore him, he's grieving and delirious and-"

When Geralt refused to break his glare, knowing he'd cracked Darien and the soft vampire was too exhausted for bullshit, Jaskier sighed.

And so the adventure was over, wasn't it? "Yes. Mlecz."

"Explain. Now."

Red-cheeked and overwhelmed by the haunting memory of Mlecz, Jaskier scrambled to give an answer that was honest... but not too honest. His hands gestured wildly, the visual motions helping him from vomiting mid-sentence. "It was a name I used to go by, when I didn't like myself very much. Spent a lot of time undermining my own misery by getting on top of anyone I could find. Darien was doing the same." Swallowing, Jaskier clenched his fists, stepped towards the Witcher, and stood his ground. "But I'm Jaskier. That's what matters. That's who I am."

Off-hand, Darien commented, "That was touching, for a man who tied me up to keep that secret to himself."

"Oh for the love of- I was feeling bad for not being very nice to you, but now, just shut the fuck up, Darien. You're not helpful."

Finally, after an interrogation session of general emotional obliviousness, Geralt furrowed his brows. If only he could have stayed an idiot who couldn't put two and two together for another fifteen minutes... "Don't tell me this is the vampire you slept with."

"I will not tell you that, then."

Geralt growled so low that Jaskier thought me might actually get bitten.

The exhausted Darien finally seemed to catch up, assessing Geralt's expression and Jaskier's own quaking boots. He offered, "It was many, many years ago."

"How many?"

Darien shrugged. "Dunno, ten?"

Looking between the two, Geralt's piercing, scary yellow eyes settled in on Darien and recoiled in disgust. "How young do you choose them?"

"I only go to bed with consenting adults, thank you."

Jaskier felt like his head was still being casually whacked by trolls, but he tried his best, saying, "Geralt, don't. I look young for my age."

Another wave of realization came over the Witcher's face, those brows shooting upwards now. "Wait. So you knew him in the alley?"

Worse. This was worse. But he couldn't exactly pull together a good lie at this point. Not with the multiple head and heart thwackings, at least. One sigh and Jaskier admitted, "...Yes."

"Fuck."

"Geralt, I'm sorry-"

The bard was cut off, though, by Darien's table bursting into flames.

When Jaskier looked back to the little bat, he was back to his old tricks. He wasn't a tall man with a golden mane anymore; Darien had turned into a little nocturnal mammal with sun-kissed fur. And before Jaskier could even say anything, a goodbye or to alert Geralt, Darien flew out his own window.

Darien flying off was the least of their concerns, though, as another table spontaneously combusted, Geralt turned towards it. Between the fire and Darien's dissapearance, he said, "Fuck."

That was about right.

Where Jaskier normally was the first to fuck off in a dangerous situation, he found himself frozen, staring at the flames. They felt too familiar, too charged with kinetic power.

These were mage flames, not natural ones.

And as he swallowed, Jaskier was afraid to know why he knew that, why he could practically feel them on his skin. He knew a fair bit about spells, but he shouldn't know this one. Not in the way where every one of his nerve endings remembered it and seized up.

When the fire started spreading across the room, Geralt grabbed the immobilized bard by the collar. Jaskier couldn't even say anything before Geralt was dragging him, shutting up his windpipe real good. And then the Witcher hurdled them towards the only exit that didn't have encroaching flames: the final window to the right.

Geralt went first, but after the glass shattered, cut the Witcher's skin, he sent his arm back through and took hold of Jaskier. Pulling him out, Geralt patted Jaskier off before walking off, towards the center of town.

Jaskier had to run to follow him, which he did pretty jankily, considering his nervous system still smelled mage smoke. The second he finally caught up, Geralt graced him with an ever-annoying grumble-groan. "Don't keep secrets from me."

"You're right. I made a mistake. I'm not proud of my past; I'd prefer to forget it. But I don't talk about it with anyone, Geralt. Why would you be any different?"

When Geralt growled, it was like the bard saw red.

Jaskier was already tired of this conversation; tired of bringing up Mlecz, Darien, the lot of it. He was tired of remembering fire on his skin and not knowing why. If there was any part of his past he wanted to dredge up, it wasn't the parts he remembered and hated. There was so much more that was missing.

So why the fuck did they have to talk about Mlecz?

And what gave the Witcher the right to demand it from him, anyway?

Scoffing, Jaskier threw his hands up in the air at Geralt's own enigmatic nature. This bitch was not allowed to be so bitter and cranky right now. "Don't fucking do that! You don't share your past with me. Are you saying you wanted me to tell you I spent a good portion of my life flitting from town to town, fucking men and women so I'd have a bed to sleep in every night? Not that I didn't enjoy the sex, but my intentions were all a little fucked up back then. Did you want me to go into great detail about it, how I lived to be naked on Darien's bed and have blood sucked out of me and his words telling me he wanted me because it would be the first time I felt something in weeks? And I still treated him like shit at the end because I wanted to hurt people before anyone could hurt me?" His breath heavy, tumbling out of his chest like an intermittent landslide, Jaskier crossed his arms, glaring up at the Witcher trapped in a standstill. "Right. I didn't think you did."

"Tell me when they matter." Geralt wouldn't look at him, though, like there was another dumb reason he was bothered. Emphasis on dumb. "Don't hide them until things are on fucking fire."

Most days, he'd be fascinated by an avoidant, scratchy-toned Witcher. But today?

Today, he was fucking over it, just like he was over every reminder of Darien and Mlecz.

He wished the little bat the best, especially after the torment he went through, but he hoped to never see his pretty, pale face ever again.

Instead, all he could do was keep yelling.

"Fucking fine!" Jaskier couldn't really regulate the volume of his voice, but he added, for good measure towards not keeping any secrets, "Well then you probably want to know I saw a child using fire magic when we walked into town today and didn't get the time to tell you!"

"Now that is useful." Geralt ruffled Jaskier's hair, but still wouldn't look him in the eyes. "Good work, Bard."

Blinking at the casual Witcher walking away from him, Jaskier didn't know how to feel. Was it that easy, staying? It couldn't be. And it also couldn't be so simple to be forgiven.

And even if Geralt was acting like things were fine, he couldn't help but notice that Geralt wouldn't look at him.

He glanced back at the raging inferno of what used to be Darien's house, burning away the vampire's last quaint tie to humanity.

With nothing left to say, and so much confusion like a wildfire in his own mind, Jaskier said, "I hate witches. They ruin everything."

/

I am SO EXCITED I got to talk about the Darien reveal. Poor little bat is just trying his best, guys

And now what the hell is with Jaskier and fire?

Dude needs to get his ducks in a row (Or at least, like, the same area)

PS: I know the Witcher universe calls them mages and sorcerers, and witches are a different thing, it's just to prove a point on Jaskier's distaste for them. But i wanted to let you know it was a deliberate choice, not a lore slip-up.

Anyway, thanks so very much for reading and triple thanks to my patrons:

Danyell Jones

Amy Connolly

See you Wednesday!