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asweetprologue · 3 years

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Nili’s Benchmark Geraskier Fic Rec List

hey yall! I officially hit 750 followers (a few days ago, I blew past the benchmark without even realizing!), which is... insane. I truly can’t believe that so many people over the last year have enjoyed my presence in this fandom enough to continue to follow my work. you guys are so great and I love you all so much, so I decided to put together a gift for you!

this is a list of my favorite geraskier fics from the fandom, which I have been putting together over the last year or so. a few of these are big in the fandom, but a lot of them are smaller pieces that I feel deserve more attention! I have provided ao3 and tumblr links where I could find them, as well as ratings and summaries. Most of these are canon!verse because I’m not personally a big fan of modern au’s, but there will be a few of those scattered throughout as well. I’ve divided the fics into two sections: oneshots and multichapter. See the list below the cut!

Being in this fandom truly has gotten me through the pandemic in a big way and I have made so many good friends while here. thank you all for validating my weird obsession with these characters and enabling me in these trying times <3

Oneshots

all that was good, all that was fair (all that was me is gone) | M | 7517 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions Of Violence | @xdandelionxbloomx

Somewhere, deep in a forest, a man drags himself from his grave by sheer power of will. He lies gasping on the forest floor and does not know who or what he is. The world is wide and wonderful, though, and there is so much to see.

Or, Jaskier is so stubborn that he literally comes back from the dead.

Another fascinating addition to the mythology of the Witcher. Jaskier’s slow rediscovery of himself is so well done here. One I’ve come back to again and again.

As Fast As Love Can Go | T | 9628 | @bygodstillam

There are Faeries in the Wood.

That's what everyone said, at least, not that there was any solid proof. Jaskier had tried, more than once, to find some. Just a hint somewhere, of a real story, of real magic. But all anyone seemed to have was stories.

Jaskier was determined to find proof. He wasn't expecting to find a witcher in the process.

Fascinating fic with some really interesting worldbuilding, and a fresh new take on True Love’s Kiss. Also with some great art by @hehearse!

beautiful, he stirs up still things | T | 2575 | @alittlebitmaybe

“You’re not asking me to dance,” says Geralt.

Jaskier turns his palm up on his knee, offering it. “I think you’ll find I am.”

Just them dancing. This is a lovely sort of pre-relationship dynamic. So soft.

Dialogue Prompt | NR | 2932 | @reinvent-and-believe

Dialogue Prompt 48: “You make me want things I can’t have.” Wordless I-love-you 50: buying them a special treat when you go out shopping

Geralt gets Jaskier a gift, which prompts some confessions.

Even a small love | E | 22,272 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con

“Well,” Jaskier replies distractedly. “Lots of things want to strangle you.”

“You don’t.”

It isn’t a particularly troublesome accusation, or even necessarily an accusation at all.

This is one I read early on in the fandom, and it really stuck with me. The dynamic between Jaskier and Geralt is perfect, and the misunderstandings between them feel so realistic. The non-con is not extreme, but do mind the warnings.

For the Space of a Heartbeat | T | 2021 | @drowningbydegrees

As it turns out, falling into bed with your very best friend who you are privately very much in love with isn't nearly so nerve wracking as waking up with them the morning after.

Just sweet, morning after discussions. I love to see them talking for once.

Greensleeves | T | 10,414 | @rebrandedbard

When Geralt crosses paths with Jaskier in the spring, the world is dressed in green. Quite literally. Everyone everywhere is wearing green, and it all comes down to a song Jaskier has written that, to his mortification, has become popular throughout the Continent. It's torment, being forced to preform the song over and over again and have his heart broken anew. But who is this Lady Greensleeves the people say Jaskier is so maddeningly, heartbrokenly in love with? At the baron's wedding party, Geralt is determined to find out.

This is one of my personal faves - there’s just something about Jaskier’s feelings being put on blast while Geralt remains totally oblivious that I think is so very them. And the resolution at the end is delightful.

I Don’t Wanna Fall (If It’s Not In Love) | E | 13,902 | @writinglizards

The first time it's out of desperation. Things get rapidly out of hand from there.

OR the building of a relationship through mutual wank sessions.

I love everything Ashley writes, but this one was the first fic I read by her and it still has a warm place in my heart. I also highly recommend It’s Been A While (makes me cry every time) and Tell Me Honestly

Like a Storm, Like a Flood | T | 1065 | @valdomarx

Jaskier is leaving for the winter, and Geralt can't bear the thought of not seeing him for months.

It was soooo hard to pick only one fic by George, but this one is so soft and sweet and yearning I just had to go with it. This is really just about Geralt finally hitting a breaking point and saying enough is enough.

one flesh | E | 10,763 | WARNING: MCD

“Well, then. I’m a ghost.” Jaskier spread his arms grandly. Geralt held his gaze for a moment, then dropped his head and laughed. Jaskier put his hands on his hips. “Do fill me in on what’s so funny.” It wasn’t funny. It was just so - ridiculous, the things Geralt’s fucked up brain would invent. This had to be the last nail in the sanity coffin, it just had to be.

Or: Jaskier is a ghost, and Geralt is a mess.

Jaskier dies and comes back as a ghost to haunt Geralt into taking care of himself. Geralt does not handle this gracefully. This fic is so sad and heartbreaking, but the ending is so sweet.

to render it transparent | E | 23,901

Geralt wakes up warm, peaceful, and utterly content, which is how he knows that something is severely wrong.

Sigh. This fic. This is a time travel fic - Geralt ends up in the future living with Jaskier on the coast, just after the mountain. It’s slow and beautiful and extremely bittersweet, all about how we choose to love people despite how much it can hurt us.

With All the Continent A Stage | M | 4745 | @greyduckgreygoose

Later, Geralt learned that the play was four hours long. Four hours long. It didn’t feel like it. Most of it passed by in a fever dream of ominous music, dance-fighting and dryads in gossamer leaves, swinging from hoops attached to the ceiling. Yennefer made an appearance, played by Priscilla in a glittering negligee. She sang a song to Geralt about putting him “Under Her Spell”, and they had a sensual dance number which was made a little strange by a sickened Jaskier (played by Jaskier) coughing loudly in the background.

(Jaskier invites Geralt to a musical production inspired by his own life.)

Jaskier basically writes Geralt a love letter in the form of a four hour long play. Geralt is an idiot about it.

Multi-Chapter Fics

A Lover’s Lament | M | 25,364 | @somedrunkpirate

So,” Jaskier begins, as casually as he can, “you are telling me, that in theory, if I were to be in love with someone — anyone — that person could well be in terrible danger?”

Of all terrible and ridiculous things that have threatened Geralt’s safety, Jaskier’d never thought that loving him might be what will get him killed.

I honestly can’t count the number of times I’ve read this fic. The monster is so interesting, and the mythos of it fits seamlessly into the world of the Witcher in my mind. Jaskier being so afraid that his feelings are going to put Geralt at risk, clearly unable to see that Geralt is going through the exact same thing. I think about the scene with them looking at each other almost daily.

A Pair of Gloves, the Scent of Roses | M | 24,134 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence

In the bustling days before the Midsummer festival, Geralt is sent into the countryside to deal with a monster - with Jaskier once again by his side. But the bard has not forgiven him, and while he's not hiding his contempt for the Witcher, he is recalcitrant about revealing his true motives for joining him. As the hunt turns into a desperate mission to save an innocent man and the monster is not what is seems to be, Geralt learns a few new things about his old friend and decides to finally attempt to mend the rift between them...

This is one of my favorite’s in the fandom - it feels so believable, the world is so rich and the oc’s are convincing and charming. Geralt and Jaskier feel so honest here, stumbling around each other but still drawn together. Beautiful beautiful beautiful

Bearing the will of the flower | NR | 11,449

The way Jaskier sees it, his hobby of following a witcher around was always pretty likely to get him killed.

The fact that it's happening now because the witcher in question doesn't love him, he thinks as he coughs up crumpled flowers, hardly makes a difference.

My favorite hanahaki fic in the fandom. I’m such a sucker for these, and these two idiots being so incapable of talking about their feelings really makes them prime candidates.

Food of Love | T | 22,488 | @wallatile-qvibbler

I brought a dead princess back to life through the power of song is the kind of thing that would have got an eyebrow raise even from the stone-faced Geralt of Rivia, so it's a good thing he and Geralt will probably never see each other again.

(or: the one where Jaskier channels magic through his songs, and it almost never goes as expected.)

This is a Jaskier and Renfri centric fic, which wasn’t something I knew I wanted until I read this. Jaskier is a bard which in this AU comes with magical powers, but it feels so well integrated into the universe that I wish it was just... how the Witcher is. Renfri is so good here, and even though Jaskier and Geralt barely even interact you can feel the tension and love between them. Cannot recommend highly enough.

friends and allies of the witcher | T | 10,312 | @theamazingbard

Yennefer crawls over to her newest cellmate. They’re curled up on their side. Breathing, but only just. She’s not sure what she’s hoping for when she turns them over. Still isn’t when she sees that it is indeed Jaskier.

“Shit."

Yennefer and Jaskier each suffer in more ways than one at the hands of Nilfgaard.

Yennefer and Jaskier get capture by Nilfgaard and tossed into a cell together. Exactly what I want out of season 2 honestly. Their interactions are gold.

I’d Be the Choiceless Hope | E | 45,188 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con | @lesdemonium

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier's mother with Jaskier's obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the "gift" became more of a curse.

You know I’m not gonna make a rec list without listing Zoe’s Ella Enchanted au. Need I say more?

Silver and Copper | M | 56,139 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence | @kaer-cuan

Geralt is just supposed to pass through the quiet Lettenhove area. He's not anticipating being begged by its people to help save their viscount from a curse that keeps him from daylight. Lord Jaskier, they call him, and he's likely dying.

As Geralt struggles to untangle the ugly web of history that has lead to the increasingly complicated curse, he finds himself spending more and more time with the strange young viscount and wondering just what he might have been before the curse, and who he might be after. But things are not always as they seem, and as the curse tightens its grip on Jaskier, Geralt is forced to face the fear of failing yet another person whose choices were stolen from them.

Or-

Jaskier is kept from becoming a bard. Geralt finds him anyway.

This is a fic that haunts me. It’s very scary in parts, and mind the tags - there are some very heavy themes here. But it’s beautiful and touching, and Jaskier feels very true to himself even though his origin is so different.

we could be married (and then we'd be happy) | E | 50,222 | @a-kind-of-merry-war

Jaskier reached into his pocket, fingers grasping around the little box. He pulled it out with what he hoped was a romantic flourish, flipping it open to reveal the simple gold band inside. “Geralt,” he said, confidently, cooly, like this wasn’t terrifying, “Will you marry me?”

Geralt and Jaskier fake marriage proposals to get free deserts and shit but it goes tits up when Vesemir catches them in the act. Not knowing how to fess up, they go along with it for a while, which is hell because they’re both pining like mad. As I said, I don’t love modern au’s, but it’s merry so of course this one had to end up on my list.

And that’s it! 20 fics for you, and hopefully you can all find one or two you haven’t read before. There are a lot of people and fics that I didn’t include in this list only because I was trying to not put a million down (which I could). I highly recommend anything by @wherethewordsare, @julek, @contemplativepancakes, @witcher-and-his-bard, and @inber, as well as those linked to fics above, and I’m sure there are others I forgot to mention. Yall have truly made being in this fandom worthwhile <3

#geraskier #geraskier fic recs #geralt of rivia #geralt #jaskier #witcher #fic recs #fic rec #I'm certain i missed a lot of good ones I've read over the years but I didn't want to risk making this super fucking long anyways #if you didn't see your name listed it isn't bc I don't adore you and your fics it's because i'm stupid <333

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pillage-and-lute · 4 years

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Thicker Than Water (Part 6)

lPart 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, (here) Part 7, Part 8

Ao3 link HERE

TW for hypothermia, illness, talk of self-isolating behavior, mention of Yennefer’s self harm scars.

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The trek to Kaer Morhen was a penance, and that was just getting from the city to the base of the path that the witchers called ‘The Killer’. Autumn was truly giving way to winter now and fine flurries came down with more ferocity than was warranted from a few snowflakes.

They were all on foot, Roach pulling the cart with their supplies. As they advanced up the trail Ciri and probably Jaskier would sit in the cart. The path was called killer for a reason, it could kill witchers. For now, though, they let Roach rest as much as she could. It would be a tough climb for her as well, and whenever they stopped Geralt gave her extra brushing down and treats.

Geralt...hm. Well, since Jaskier had snapped at him back in the city their relationship, already tense as a bowstring, had gotten worse. They didn’t snap at each other, but tiptoed instead, walking on eggshells. Jaskier was waiting, had half expected Geralt to cast him aside again, or to gripe about Jaskier’s uselessness. Instead the witcher walked around like he’d been kicked.

He was always looking at Jaskier though, glancing at him with that piercing, penetrating gaze. He was examining the bard for something, but for what, Jaskier didn’t know. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let Geralt have the satisfaction of seeing it. He kept walking, head up, eyes straight ahead. He didn’t complain. He barely spoke. Making himself as unlikely a target for Geralt’s ire as possible.

That was the odd thing though. Geralt didn’t seem to have much ire, per say. It was almost an overbearing sort of concern. Jaskier tried to make it fit in his head, there was something there, Geralt’s anger at Jaskier for sleeping with the innkeeper, the care with which he’d carried Jaskier into town, this awkward caution. It meant something. In his heart Jaskier knew what he hoped it meant. He couldn’t trust his heart with this though, he needed to use his head. There was a disconnect between Geralt’s words and his actions. Between the mountain and now. He needed to use his head.

His head was aching.

Jaskier really barely could think, much less work out the complexities of Geralt’s character. His chest ached. That little, half-ache had taken root in his lungs and bloomed into a great, heaving flower. He was coughing now, which he was trying to hide, he knew, without much success. The cough had started dry and grating, but had progressed to a hacking wetness. It would have been bad enough, but it was upsetting Ciri. Jaskier wouldn’t go within six feet of her, for fear of making her sick too. Her big, grass green eyes watched him almost as consistently as Geralt did, and she was picking up the little crease between her brow as well. Sometimes, when a particularly vicious cough made him double over her lip trembled, and that was a special sort of torture. Yennefer kept giving him tea, too, which was a weirdly kind, somewhat pitying gesture.

“I’m not good at healing,” she grouched at him from across their campfire the first evening on The Killer.

Jaskier shrugged. “’s fine,” he said, taking another hesitant sip of the tea. It was herbal, not in the way that mint was herbal, but the way that a handful of leaves and moss tasted herbal.

“Mh,” Yennefer said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “It’s one of those things you have to specialize in, magical healing. Magic heals magic injuries best, anyway.”

“I’m okay,” Jaskier said, fully aware that he wasn’t, but glad that Ciri and Geralt had gone to fetch more wood so he wouldn’t have the big witcher sniffing out his lie.

“You need a healer.” Yennefer skewered him with her gaze, purple meeting blue like a lightning storm. “You’re sick.”

“I don’t see why it should bother you.”

Yennefer sighed and stood up, grabbing the kettle from the fire. She poured herself a mug of the tea and sat down with it next to Jaskier. After a brief examination she drank it, then winced. “Eugh. It bothers me because we’re friends.”

“We are not.”

“Eh, well, Geralt screwed me over, he screwed you over, the enemy of my enemy...”

“Geralt isn’t my enemy--”

“Could’ve fooled me with that shouting match back in town.”

“Anyway he screwed you over more...literally.”

Yennefer looked at him, a little smirk on her lips. “Is that what this is about? That I slept with Geralt?” She looked at Jaskier, squinting at him as he studiously examined his tea. “No, that isn’t it,” she decided. “You aren’t upset he slept with me, you’re upset he never slept with you.”

“I’m upset that he decided he loves you!” Jaskier shouted, unable to take the prodding. He regretted it as it kickstarted a coughing fit that made him double over. He spat out some phlem and straightened up in time to see Yennefer’s grimace.

“He decided he loves you,” Jaskier said, panting a little. “After only just meeting you. He decided he couldn’t live without you in his life, so he bound you with that djinn to keep you safe. And that sucks for you, it does, and he shouldn’t have done it. Melitele knows the man never thinks things through, it’s just...”

Jaskier looked into the fire and Yennefer waited.

“He barely knew you and he couldn’t bear to be without you. I spent two decades at his side and he’s never called me a friend.” He scoffed ruefully. “Called me a shit shoveler though.”

Yennefer nodded. “I heard.”

“You did?”

“I hadn’t gone that far when, well...you’re a pain in the ass, bard, but you didn’t deserve that. Men like Geralt...” she twisted the mug in her hands, turning it round and round and Jaskier saw flashes of scarred skin at her wrists. “People like Geralt and I,” she continued. “We pull at our safety ropes until they come undone. It’s just how we are. We were hurt so much, so long, that when we hurt we reach out and undo any ties that could help us.”

Jaskier was at a loss, so he bumped his shoulder against Yennefer’s. “You’re so much more fashionable about it though.”

Yen smirked and returned the shoulder bump. “Definitely. Geralt though, he cut all his safety ropes that day.” She didn’t have to specify which day. “I cut mine first though. I didn’t want him romantically, not really. It’s djinn magic, he’s not my lover, and I can’t fix him and I don’t want him to fix me.”

“Fix him?”

“I think people like Geralt and I can heal, but we can’t heal eachother. Ciri helps. I’m a mom to her, you know? She called me Mama the other day when she was really sleepy and it felt...” Yennefer trailed off, then she looked over at Jaskier.

“I don’t love him, not like you do, and he doesn’t love me. But I’m not good with these things, and I can’t help you two fix what he broke that day. More than that, I won’t. It’s not my job to fix you two, or to deal with your problems for you, and if you two can’t communicate on your own then maybe you shouldn’t at all.”

“I communicated,” Jaskier said. “Twenty years. I thought those were the best years of my life, and I gave them to him, and did all the communicating. I’m not doing anymore. If I’m not...” Jaskier was ashamed to find a lump in his throat. “If I’m not a curse and a burden to him then he has to tell me, has to say it, because I can’t keep going if his words are just going to contradict his actions.”

“Good,” Yennefer said, standing and pouring her tea out onto the ground. “Don’t. Make him communicate. It’s up to him. And to make it be up to him, that’s up to you. He has words. If he can use them to hurt you then he can use them to heal. Don’t give in.”

It seemed that portion of the conversation was over because Yen began setting up her magic tent. “You’ll sleep in here tonight. The cold isn’t doing you any good.”

Jaskier shook his head. “Can’t. I could make Ciri sick.”

Yennefer sighed again. “You’re right, of course, but you’ll sleep in Geralt’s tent. He can’t get sick and he’s a walking heater.”

Jaskier was about to protest when his lungs heaved again and he began coughing. The force was so great he swore he felt his ribs creak. Despite all the mucus his throat felt torn and raw. He dragged air back into his lungs then spat. Blood came out.

Of course, that was the moment Ciri and Geralt returned from getting firewood.

Ciri gasped, eyes wide, and Geralt dropped the armful of logs he was holding. They scattered but the witcher paid them no heed as he advanced towards Jaskier, stepping over the rolling wood. Geralt gripped Jaskier’s face and tilted his head back, holding his mouth open.

Jaskier wondered what he could see with his witcher-enhanced eyes.

“Throat’s raw,” Geralt grunted after an awkward moment of peering into Jaskier’s mouth. “Probably nothing internal.”

Geralt wiped the blood from the corner of the bard’s mouth with his rough leather glove, then he peeled off his glove and pressed a hand to Jaskier’s forehead. Jaskier just leaned in to the warmth of Geralt’s palm, but it was obviously chilled, the temperature of a normal human, not the furnace heat Geralt normally held.

Geralt frowned and stepped closer, taking his hand away and pressing his cheek to Jaskier’s forehead instead. It was a gesture that Jaskier’s nursemaid had sometimes done, an easier way to check for fever if one’s hands were too cold to tell. He wished he could linger there, in the warmth of Geralt, so close, with his cloak still smelling of the pine forest all around them and the copper-sharp scent of snow as well.

“Fever,” Geralt grunted.

“Dandelion,” Ciri said, eyes filling.

Jaskier pulled away and bowed theatrically, ignoring his aching joints’ many protests. “Never fear little princess,” he said. “’twould take more than a fever to best the bard Jaskier.”

Ciri didn’t giggle, but at least she didn’t begin to cry.

That night Jaskier and Geralt tucked in together, sharing not just a tent but a bedroll. Geralt had turned onto his side and pulled Jaskier in so that his face pressed to Geralt’s collarbone and he was surrounded by the witcher. It was as if Geralt was shielding him with his body, protecting him from an enemy, but that enemy was inside Jaskier already, and he could feel the fever burning through him, even as he relished the warmth.

His mind drifted to other times. Days and nights when coin had been tight and they’d shared beds, shared meals. They’d shared lives for so long, orbiting around eachother. Geralt like some bright planet and Jaskier his moon. He ached for it to be like that again, but he couldn’t do it alone, Geralt had to be part of it too, had to want that life to exist, not just allow it to happen.

The next day dawned white. Snow had fallen and continued to do so, the little flurries of before now a full snowstorm that whipped and raged. Geralt loaded a pack full of supplies onto his back to lighten Roach’s load, then they set off.

Ciri and Jaskier walked as long as they could, but the wind beat them back. Yennefer was struggling too, pushing magic in front of her so that the snow buffeted off of it, streaming around her and making the walking easier, but Jaskier could tell it drained her, and her shield flickered sometimes.

Ciri stumbled once, around mid morning, and Geralt picked her up by the back of her cloak, scruffing her like a kitten. He patted some snow off of her and placed her int the cart with the supplies. Jaskier was going to go at least a couple hundred more feet, but Geralt scruffed him too, bundling him into the cart alongside Ciri. Jaskier prayed he wouldn’t get Ciri sick, but with the wind howling around him he imagined that whatever ill humors he could exhale would get swept away. He curled up opposite the princess, the pair of them ducking down miserably as the snow blew over the sides of the cart. He heard Geralt speaking to Yen.

“We can make it by nightfall, if we push. Can you make it?” His voice was pitched above the wind, but still barely reached Jaskier.

“I can make it,” Yen said. “I’ll have to, they need warmth, and Jaskier needs medicine.”

“Vesemir knows herbs and potions, he can heal him.”

“Then we’d better get a move on,” Yennefer said. Her voice was strained, but they forged on anyway.

Jaskier took occasional peeks over the sides of the cart. It was a winding path, a goat track, really, but the northern mountains were said to be beautiful and he imagined it must be very scenic. As it was, the wind and snow obscured most of his vision. What he could see were ancient pines, large and weather worn. Nevertheless, they swayed like reeds in a current in the hellstorm that whipped around them.

“Ciri,” Jaskier wheezed. “Let’s play a game.”

Ciri, tucked into her cloak so far that he could barely see her, gave a muffled, “okay.”

“How many red things can you name?”

“...apples,” was the muffled reply.

“Cherries.”

“Rubies.”

“Wine.”

“Chili peppers,” Yennefer said, the wind almost stealing it, but Jaskier and Ciri smiled at eachother for dragging her into the game.

“Raspberries,” Ciri said.

“Blood?” Geralt grunted.

“Gross,” Ciri said, at the same time as Jaskier said, “What a witchery answer.”

“Tomatoes,” Yen said.

The game trailed away for a while as the cart rattled worryingly across some tough ground. Geralt and Yennefer ate while they walked, and Ciri and Jaskier chewed on some dried meat. Mostly Ciri, Jaskier dozed, too exhausted to even chew.

When he opened his eyes again the wind was still howling, but the sky looked darker. It must be evening.

“Dandelion,” Ciri whispered. “are you awake?”

“Mmhm,” he said.

“I’m cold.”

Jaskier was too, the snow had soaked into him so he was damp, but then it froze again, taking him with it.

“We’re almost there,” Geralt grunted. His voiced sounded strained and weary, but Jaskier didn’t have the strength to look and find out why. “C’mon girl,” Geralt said, clicking his tongue at Roach. “We can make it, do it for me.”

“Hey Ciri,” Jaskier slurred, tongue heavy in his mouth.

“Hm?”

“Roses are red.”

He imagined Ciri smiling at him tiredly, but he couldn’t see her, bundled in the blankets. He could hear her teeth chatter though. “Jam is red, sometimes,” she said.

“Eskel’s shirt is red,” Geralt said, raising his voice above the wind.

“N-no fair,” Jaskier muttered. “I’ve never even seen him.” To his surprise he was drifting off again. It felt different though, a little like drowning. Some part of him felt he should panic, but he hadn’t the energy.

“You can see him,” Geralt said, sounding a little frantic. “He’s right there, standing on the path ahead of us. We’re here, Jaskier, look at Eskel.”

Jaskier wanted to, but his eyelids were too heavy.

“Geralt--” began a new voice.

“Eskel please, they need help.”

“I know, give her to me, I’ll carry her the rest of the way.”

Carry who? Jaskier wondered, then he realized that he hadn’t heard Yennefer speak lately.

A whistle came from up ahead. “C’mon Pretty Boy,” another new voice. “I’ll take your pampered horse, you lay them in front of the fire.”

There was some rustling and Jaskier wreched his eyes open with his last ounce of effort. An older man with a moustache and a face like a wall of granite was lifting Ciri from the cart. He took care with her, cradling her and walking away quickly. Vesemir? Probably. His eyes fell shut again.

“Jaskier c’mon,” Geralt said in his ear. His breath stuttered warmth across Jaskier’s cheek. “You’re gonna be okay, we’re here, just don’t fall asleep on me, please.”

Jaskier wanted to open his eyes, just to reassure Geralt but everything seemed to be drifting away. He was laid down on something soft and felt the heat of fire on his face. There was the scent of pine logs, snapping and cracking as their sap burned away. Hands, Geralt’s hands, rubbed up Jaskier’s arms, forcing the blood to move. His soaked cloak was stripped away, leaving him chilled but dry, and then soft, dry fabric was pulled around him. Someone had wrapped him into a blanket and was rubbing his fingers. Both his hands were cupped between two larger ones and warm air was blown across them. The blood returning to his hands felt so hot it burned and hurt and he squirmed, but he was too tired to pull away.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he heard Geralt say as he rubbed more heat into Jaskier’s fingers. “Ciri’s okay, and Yen’s okay. You have to be okay, Jaskier. Warm up. You need to be warm.”

“Give ‘im some time, Lad,” Jaskier heard. Another new voice. Must belong to Vesemir.

“He’s so cold,” was the whispered reply.

“The boy trekked after you for years, he’s resilient. He’ll be okay.”

“But--”

“Keep doing what you’re doing, let him rest.”

Jaskier heard no more, but it was so nice, the fire and the fur beneath him, and Geralt, holding his hands. He couldn’t be bothered to worry about it.

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They finally got there!

Tag List!

@frywen-babbles @mordoriscalling @thedarkestangel1 @kerfufflezz @samukai @charlies-dragon @live-long-and-trek-on @holymotherwolf @morte-mistrata @mewithanie @sharondnovels @stinastar @ionlylikemycat @annafortoday @its-the-quenchiest-stuff @kkiyomizu @so--many-fandoms @endless-whump @ineffable-monster-romancer @sweetiepieplum @tookarma @seraphim-miryam

Tags are being weird, if I missed you, or you want to be added, let me know

#geraskier #the witcher #Yennefer #is a good mom #Ciri #Jaskier #jaskier whump #angst with a happy ending #not yet #it's coming though #Geralt cares he's just bad at emotions #sickness #kaer morhen #hypothermia #Roach is a very good girl #Yennefer Jaskier solidarity

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lesdemonium · 4 years

Text

romtober day 7: misunderstandings

Rating: M Ship: Geraskier Word Count: 4319 Summary: Cirilla's new nanny, Mister Julian, is her favorite person in the whole world. Geralt's new boyfriend, Jaskier, is pretty high up there as well. No one realizes they might be the same person.

AKA: the nanny/parent au written by a nanny

a MASSIVE thank you for betaing to @boppinrobin. y’all have them to thank for how romantic this wound up being.

read on ao3

“Mister Julian says that the things we learn in school are very important but it’s also important to learn things outside of school. Like about rainbows. Did you know that any time light… ref… refracts it can make a rainbow? Like through windows or… or… Daddy, do you know what refracts means?”

Geralt hummed a little as he and Ciri walked. He thought that answer was enough, until his five year old pulled impatiently at his hand and Geralt looked down to see her frowning at him.

“I do,” he said, nodding a little. “Do you know? Do you want to tell me?”

“I do!” Ciri insisted proudly. She let go of Geralt’s hand now that they were inside their building and she ran to the elevator to make sure she could press the button first. When the button lit up, she gave Geralt a devilish smile and he pretended to be disappointed that he couldn’t hit the button first, much to her delight. “It’s okay, Daddy. Maybe next time. I’m just too fast.”

“You are,” Geralt agreed. He nudged her into the now-open elevator. “Didn’t you want to tell me what refract means?”

“Yes! Mister Julian told me all about it! It’s when something makes light change directions! Like… like water! Or windows!” Ciri was literally bouncing in her excitement to share her knowledge and Geralt found himself grinning down at her, just before leading them both to the door to their condo.

“It sounds like you’re learning a lot of really cool things from Mister Julian,” Geralt said. He unlocked the door and ushered her inside.

“Mister Julian is the best. He’s the smartest guy in the whole wide world!”

Ciri attempted to drop her things--backpack, coat, art project and all--onto the floor, only to be stopped by a chiding look from Geralt. She huffed dramatically and picked it all back up and put her belongings back where they went. Geralt offered a quick “Thank you, Ciri,” but she had already moved on to go play in her room until dinner.

Dinner, of course, was filled with chatter about nothing but Mister Julian, but Geralt couldn’t bring himself to be bothered. It was nice that she enjoyed her new nanny at Yennefer’s. By the end of the meal, Geralt was pretty sure he wanted to meet Mister Julian.

Geralt thought it had to be a new level of pathetic to be stood up by your own brother, and yet here he was. He wouldn’t have necessarily chosen this bar for himself, but now that he was here, he figured he might as well order a drink, even if Lambert was a dick who didn’t bother to show up. Only a quick “something came up” text and some shitty joke about maybe Geralt could find someone to pull the stick out of his ass for him. Prick.

Geralt was halfway into his drink when someone sat beside him. He didn't bother to look--he was pretty sure the stranger was just trying to order a drink--until he felt the other’s shoulder knock against his.

“I’d love to give you a pickup line, but I get the feeling that wouldn’t go very far with you,” blue eyes said.

Turned out, the rest of him was just as beautiful as his eyes. Given the line the man had already paid him, Geralt felt no shame in letting his gaze drag over his company’s body, and Geralt had to admit he liked what he saw. The curve of his lips screamed mischief, and the cut of his shirt betrayed a deceptively muscular chest. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be a total bust.

“Perceptive,” Geralt answered, taking a long drink of his beer. His eyebrow raised as he met Jaskier’s eye again, and Jaskier straightened up as he settled into the stool beside Geralt.

“I’m Jaskier,” the man said, and motioned at the bartender. He ordered quickly, then turned his attention wholly back to Geralt. “So, does this statuesque masculinity come with a name, or do you prefer to brood your way to recognition?”

“Geralt,” he answered with a smirk. Geralt was pretty sure he had never been made fun of so quickly into what he was almost certain would become a hookup. He quite liked it.

“Geralt, the man of few words,” Jaskier grinned. He received his drink, and held it up, looking pointedly at Geralt’s beer until Geralt clinked the glass together in a wordless cheers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The pleasure, it turned out, was all Geralt’s. If Jaskier was bothered by carrying the conversation, he certainly didn’t show it. He seemed to even have a knack for pulling information out of Geralt efficiently, between stories. Geralt didn’t learn too much about Jaskier’s personal life--he didn’t think he would--but it only took a few minutes into their conversation for him to realize that he might like to.

From the moment he laid hands on Jaskier--in the privacy of Geralt’s own condo, as neither one of them was particularly keen on giving any unassuming strangers even a tame show--he felt indisputable chemistry. They didn’t have to discuss much to understand that they were on the same page about, well, everything. Even how they both liked to kiss, or the way they liked to be touched. It wasn’t magic, it wasn’t perfect, and Geralt definitely had his hands shoved away from somewhere Jaskier apparently did not enjoy being touched, but it was about as close to electrifying as Geralt had ever gotten with a new partner.

“Jesus,” Jaskier panted as his head hit the pillow.

Geralt snorted into Jaskier’s sweat-sheened shoulder, but he had to agree.

When Geralt woke to find Jaskier still in his bed, starfishing and completely unbothered by another body, Geralt was surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but still surprised. He sat up slowly and made his way to the bathroom, and by the time he came back, Jaskier was sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I swear I normally don't do sleepovers without at least discussing it first,” Jaskier said, smiling sheepishly at Geralt. “Apparently you wore me out.”

“Apparently I did,” Geralt answered, shrugging. “It’s fine. Do you want breakfast? I can make eggs.”

Jaskier watched him for a moment, with a cautious smile, then nodded. “Breakfast sounds incredible.”

Nearly an hour later, they both were fed, dressed (though Jaskier scrunched up his nose at rewearing last night’s wrinkled outfit), and Jaskier leaned forward into the kitchen table, staring at Geralt.

“Would it be bold of me to request a repeat performance?” Jaskier asked. “Maybe even a meal that isn’t immediately following an accidental sleepover?”

Geralt hesitated a moment. He wanted to, more than anything, but.

“I have to let you know,” Geralt started, “so you can make a fully informed decision. I have a daughter. A five-year-old.”

Jaskier grinned, then bent down, disappearing beneath the table. Geralt watched, his head tilting as he puzzled out this bizarre reaction, and then Jaskier sat back up, a pink stuffed bunny in his hand.

“You mean to tell me this isn’t yours?” Jaskier asked, his voice affronted, though he was still grinning and even managed to wink at Geralt.

“His name is Mr. Bun and he’s part of the family,” Geralt said, with a smile in return.

Jaskier left that morning with the clothes he had worn the night previously, a full belly, and Geralt’s number entered into his phone and a promise that, yes, they could try for dinner next time. Geralt found himself feeling almost as if he needed to thank Lambert for being a prick. He wouldn’t, though.

“You’re looking cheerier than usual,” Yennefer said as Geralt stepped back to let her inside.

“Ciri, your mom’s here!” Geralt called. “Do you have your bag ready?”

There was a bang from behind Ciri’s door, one that Geralt absolutely did not want to ask about, before she called back, “Yes! I just forgot something!” Geralt was pretty sure she was lying and that he should say something about that, but it didn’t seem like a battle worth waging when packing her bag was already going to take her time.

“Going to explain, or should I start guessing?” Yennefer asked, smirking at him. “Hm… there was a sale on ugly combat boots and you picked up a few dozen more?”

Geralt rolled his eyes. “Surely you could do better than that. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your touch,” he teased.

“Haven’t lost my touch, simply want you to get to the point. What has you looking so pleased?” She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow, and even if Geralt wanted to deflect, he knew from the set of her shoulders Yennefer wasn’t going to just let it go. There was no need for him to, though.

“I have a date tonight.”

“You do? Well, tell me about them? What’s so great about this date that made you pawn off your daughter a night early?”

“You asked to have Ciri early. She’ll think you’re serious if she overhears you,” Geralt frowned. Yennefer waved an insistent hand back. “His name is Jaskier.”

“Mommy!” Ciri called, bounding out of her room and running straight into Yennefer’s arms. Yennefer spun her around once before setting her feet back on the ground, and Ciri grinned up at her. “Is Mister Julian coming to see me this week?”

“Of course he is,” Yennefer answered, nodding at her. “He’ll pick you up from school on Monday.”

“Good.” Ciri’s voice contained every ounce of seriousness in the world, and Geralt had to bite back his laugh. Ciri did not like thinking that Geralt was laughing at her. Not that he blamed her. “I have something very important to tell him.”

“And what’s that?”

“Hippos make pink slime instead of using sunscreen!”

Yennefer’s nose scrunched up and she glanced at Geralt, who shrugged.

“We spent this weekend looking up facts to tell Mister Julian. She picked that one,” Geralt answered.

“That is fascinating and adequately disgusting. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.” Yennefer took Ciri’s hand and her bag, which she slung over her shoulder. “Say bye to your dad, Ciri. We need to run.” She pointed a finger on her free hand at Geralt. “I expect to hear all about your weekend when you come pick her up.”

It wasn’t until their fifth date that Geralt took Jaskier home again.

Coming back for a hookup was one thing; usually people Geralt brought home left as soon as they caught their breath and never came back. Going on an actual date with someone, though, was different. Bringing someone he was actively dating into the home Geralt shared with his daughter was a whole other level that had to be handled extremely carefully. And slowly.

Luckily, Jaskier understood.

“It’s been so long, I almost forgot where you lived,” Jaskier said, grinning as Geralt opened the door for him. “I’m flattered I’m being invited back. I must be doing something right.”

Geralt snorted, then backed up to let Jaskier back into the condo. Jaskier followed after him, only to crowd Geralt against the door and bring him in for a kiss. Geralt’s arms wound around Jaskier’s middle, turning them both so he could close the door behind them, lest they give Geralt’s neighbors an unintended show.

“A lot of things right,” Geralt answered once they pulled away, and he lived for the way Jaskier beamed at him.

“Did you know,” Jaskier said conversationally, over the dinner Geralt had cooked for them, “that your daughter and my charge are the same age?”

Geralt raised an eyebrow at Jaskier and finished his bite. Jaskier didn’t often volunteer information about his charge. Geralt hadn’t pressed, of course, after Jaskier mentioned his job as a nanny on their first official date, and then followed up with “For confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you much about her, but she is just the best.”

“I thought you didn’t talk about your charge with people you were dating,” Geralt answered. He put down his fork, as he was finished with his meal, and rested his hand on Jaskier’s leg.

“I don’t, but I would consider it, a bit, with a boyfriend,” Jaskier answered, and his hand hovered above Geralt’s, just barely avoiding contact. Though his tone was as even and nonchalant as possible, and he shrugged his shoulders, Jaskier wouldn’t look at Geralt; he was nervous. “And, well. I figured it might give you permission to talk about your daughter. And know that you’re not going to scare me off if you do.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. He captured Jaskier’s still-hovering hand and entwined their fingers. Geralt waited until Jaskier met his eye again, then smiled. “I suppose telling my boyfriend about my daughter makes sense.”

“I’m just wondering what sort of name Jaskier is, anyway,” Yennefer said.

Geralt rolled his eyes and gave her an exasperated look, but Yen only grinned wickedly back.

“It’s a stage name, and a nickname,” Geralt answered, shrugging.

“A nickname for what?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me and I haven’t asked.”

“You’ve been dating this guy for, what, three months now, and you don’t even know his name?” Yennefer sounded incredulous.

“I know his name. It’s Jaskier. “ Geralt smirked, and Yennefer looked likely to hit him.

She hadn’t given Geralt even the tiniest bit of rest about it all since Geralt had admitted that he and Jaskier were serious over a month ago, but Geralt found himself less and less bothered by it. She had made it clear that she simply wanted to meet him, and that was her goal with all this teasing, but Geralt wasn’t ready. Yennefer meeting Jaskier likely meant Ciri meeting Jaskier, and though he knew he was serious, he felt they needed quite a bit more stability before his five-year-old was brought into the picture. Jaskier seemed to agree, if his lack of pressing about it was anything to go off of.

“Do you even know his last name?” Yennefer asked.

“I do. But I’m not telling you. You don’t need to internet stalk him.”

“Oh, but I so love being nosey.”

Geralt snorted, then turned to the bright patter of Ciri’s feet running to him and jumping in his arms. He caught her, and lifted her up in a bear hug. “Ready to go?” he asked. Ciri nodded enthusiastically.

“Did you ask Mister Julian if he’s free Friday?” Geralt asked, turning back to Yen and holding out his hand for Ciri’s bag, which Yennefer passed to him.

“Sorry, he said he was busy,” Yennefer answered with a sympathetic grimace.

“Someday I’ll meet Ciri’s favorite person in the whole world,” Geralt said. He slung the bag over his arm and put Ciri down, instead taking her hand. “That’s fine. How’s a night at Grandpa’s then?”

Ciri’s eyes grew comically large. “Yes! Last time we had unicorn pancakes! For dinner!” she said.

Geralt very much did not want to know what unicorn pancakes were, or just how much of a sugarbomb they contained. Instead of asking, he waved at Yen and took Ciri back home.

Geralt could feel himself drifting. He shouldn’t let himself, he knew, but it was hard not to when he was wrapped up in his warm bed, still shaking off sleep, and Jaskier was lightly tracing patterns on Geralt’s bare chest. There were things he had to do, like clean up after their date night, and go pick Ciri up from Vesemir’s, but Geralt figured there wasn’t much harm in letting himself have this moment. He hummed, to let Jaskier know he was awake. Hopefully he’d not let Geralt drift off again.

“Morning,” Jaskier said. His voice wasn’t a whisper, but it was a near thing.

“Since when do you wake up before me?” Geralt asked. With great effort, he opened an eye to look at Jaskier, who was smiling down at Geralt, his head propped up with his elbow.

“I wouldn’t get used to it,” Jaskier answered. He continued trailing his fingers along Geralt’s chest. “I’m sure next time you’ll have to chase me out when I inevitably oversleep and your daughter’s on her way home.”

Geralt hummed and caught Jaskier’s hand, then pressed his lips to Jaskier’s fingers. Though the light streaming in from the window was entirely too bright, Geralt found he didn’t mind. Jaskier was haloed in the soft light.

“Maybe sometime you can meet her,” Geralt said.

Jaskier grinned and leaned in to press a kiss to Geralt’s collarbone. “I’d love to. When you’re both ready,” he said. He lifted his head again, then paused, before pressing a slow, sweet kiss to Geralt’s lips.

“Hmm, yeah, it’s official,” Jaskier said as he pulled back.

Geralt furrowed his eyebrows as he reached out to card his fingers through Jaskier’s hair. “What’s official?”

“That I love you,” Jaskier said.

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he hadn’t just thrown Geralt completely for a loop and left him boneless. Jaskier sounded so sure, so honest, and he was beaming down at Geralt.

“Is that so?” Geralt finally answered, his mouth dry.

Jaskier’s face did not dampen, not even a little, as he nodded. “It is. I know because I still felt that way when I kissed you, morning breath and all.”

Geralt snorted and pushed himself up to sit. He still held Jaskier’s hand, and he pressed a kiss to his palm--to spare him from any further morning breath--then let go and stood up. Jaskier sat up, too, and was looking at Geralt with such a look of adoration, that Geralt felt himself flushing under the attention as he made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

The escape helped clear his head. After his teeth were brushed, he left the bathroom to find Jaskier getting dressed, pulling a new outfit from the drawer Geralt had cleared out for him. They smiled at each other, then switched, Jaskier brushing his teeth and Geralt getting dressed.

It was so easy, that Geralt found himself a bit floored. It had been slow, and Geralt hadn’t truly noticed, but in the warm shock of Jaskier’s confession, he noticed there were little reminders of Jaskier everywhere: the clothes in the drawer, Jaskier’s toothbrush in Geralt’s bathroom. The pictures from the photobooth of the two of them sitting on Geralt’s nightstand.

Geralt returned to the bathroom and leaned against the doorway. Geralt watched, silently, as Jaskier finished brushing his teeth, then grinned at Geralt.

“Don’t tell me you’re kicking me out already. I woke up early for you! I thought we could go to brunch. Maybe do an early six-month anniversary thing, since I’m working on our actual anniversary.” Jaskier paused to let out a nervous laugh and card his fingers through his hair. “Monthiversary? Whatever. Six months is a big deal, okay, I promise I’ll let you off the hook for other month markers, but six months is a big deal.”

“I love you, too,” Geralt said. He reached out a hand and Jaskier allowed himself to be pulled into a hug. Jaskier’s body sagged in relief against Geralt and Geralt held him all the tighter for it. This was right. Geralt hadn’t felt this sure about anything in a long time.

“How would you feel about Jaskier meeting Ciri?” Geralt asked as soon as Yennefer opened the door.

Yennefer paused for a moment, blinking.

“I hate when you do that. Next time can you greet me before bombarding me with big questions?” Yennefer asked, frowning at him.

“Hi Yen,” Geralt answered, nodding a little. He supposed that was fair. “How has your week been? I wanted to chat about this before Ciri comes down. So she doesn’t get excited or think it’s happening if you say no.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” Yennefer let out an audible breath, then gestured for Geralt to come inside. “So, things are pretty serious with him, then?”

“Yes. We’ve been together nine months.”

Yennefer put her hands on her hips and regarded Geralt for a moment. “You’ve been seeing this guy almost a year, and you’re just now considering having him meet Ciri? Jesus, Geralt. I guess we’re all lucky you didn’t wait until a marriage proposal before any of us got to know him.”

“I can’t consider marrying anyone that Ciri hasn’t signed off on,” Geralt answered, shrugging.

“You are the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met. Yes, absolutely, have this guy that’s been in your life for almost an entire year meet Ciri, I give you permission.” Yen’s eyes rolled as she crossed her arms. “I get to meet him after. Before Lambert and Eskel.”

“Agreed,” Geralt said. He thought about sticking out his hand to shake Yennefer’s and seal the deal, but he figured now wasn’t the time to incur Yennefer’s wrath.

Geralt was nervous. In fact, nervous didn’t even begin to describe Geralt at this precise moment. Geralt had a feeling Jaskier was probably just as nervous, if not moreso, judging by how quiet he had been all day on the phone. No social media posts, only a couple clarifying questions about the plan for tonight to Geralt, and otherwise completely silent. It helped, if Geralt was being honest. That meant Jaskier knew how big of a deal this was, just as much as Geralt did. If Ciri didn’t like Jaskier--well. Geralt just had to trust that was impossible.

When he heard the knock, Geralt startled. He opened the door to find Jaskier standing there, looking sheepish and gorgeous.

“Ciri? Jaskier’s here,” Geralt said. He reached out a hand for Jaskier, who gladly took it and stepped inside.

Geralt was still turned toward the door, closing it, as Ciri’s steps turned from walking to an all out sprint toward them.

“Mister Julian!” she yelled as she jumped into his--thankfully, just barely ready--arms. Jaskier looked bewildered, and like he was still processing the girl now in his arms. Ciri pulled back and pressed her palms to Jaskier’s cheeks. “I didn’t know you were coming to my dad’s! You didn’t say you were coming over!”

“I...I didn’t know,” Jaskier answered. He bent to put her back on the ground, just a bit too fast to be intentional, but Ciri was delighted by the move. Jaskier then wrung his hands together, but Geralt could still see that they were shaking.

“Julian? You’re Mister Julian?” Geralt asked. He couldn’t process this. He felt dizzy and thrown and suddenly very uncertain of what he should do with his hands.

“Julian’s my first name,” Jaskier answered. Geralt could see the blush creeping along Jaskier’s face. “Since it’s on my driver’s license and easier to say, that’s the name I use. You’re Cirilla’s dad?”

“Dad,” Ciri whined, and when Geralt looked to her she had the most disapproving frown Geralt had ever seen on her face. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re friends with Mister Julian? You said we don’t keep secrets!”

“You’re right,” Geralt agreed. He hesitated a moment, then ran his fingers through her hair. “I didn’t know I was keeping a secret, it was an accident. I call Mister Julian ‘Jaskier.’”

Ciri turned her now very suspicious frown on Jaskier. “Were you keeping a secret? You didn’t tell me you’re my dad’s boyfriend.”

Jaskier laughed and shook his head helplessly. “Trust me, sweetheart. I had no idea. Apparently your dad and I are too good at keeping you safe.”

Ciri seemed to accept that answer, because she shrugged, then ran off to the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Jaskier, however, wheeled on Geralt the moment she turned her back.

“You were married to Yennefer?” Jaskier asked.

“Yes,” Geralt answered. Jaskier let out an incredulous bark of laughter and Geralt placed a hand on the small of his back--trying to steady them both. “We divorced just after we adopted Ciri. How did you not connect her name?”

“I thought maybe you were both inspired by Apple products! Who was I to judge?” Jaskier threw his hands up. A moment later, one landed heavily on Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt could still just barely feel that hand tremble. “And I don’t call her Ciri! She wanted me to call her Cirilla. I never connected--” He laughed again, shaky and disbelieving. “Oh my god, this does not help nanny stereotypes.”

“At least we know she already likes you?” Geralt offered.

Jaskier gasped, his free hand covering his mouth. He glanced at the kitchen, and by the time he looked back at Geralt, his entire face had crinkled into a broad smile. Jaskier took Geralt’s hand between both of his own and pressed Geralt’s knuckles to his lips, and now Geralt could feel Jaskier’s grin.

“She does,” Jaskier said, sounding as wet as his eyes were. “She does like me!”

Relief washed over Geralt as he really considered what this meant. The hardest part and biggest potential barrier to the future of their relationship had already been crossed before it was even a question. Geralt was not looking forward to how much Yen was going to laugh at him, but he wasn’t worried about their future anymore. Ciri loved Jaskier as much as Geralt did. Everything would be okay.

Geralt pulled his hand from Jaskier’s hold to cup Jaskier’s face and bring him in for a kiss. Somehow, they had managed to do this right. Somehow, they were being rewarded.

“Are we having dinner, or what, lazy boneses?” Ciri called from the kitchen.

Jaskier pulled away to laugh, and Geralt had to capture the mischievous smile Jaskier gave him in another kiss. This time, when Jaskier pulled away, his eyes were soft and his hand was warm as he pulled Geralt to the kitchen.

“Coming, lazy bones?” Jaskier asked, as if Geralt wouldn’t follow him anywhere.

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #gerlion #geraskier fanfic #geraskier fanfiction #geraskier au #geraskier modern au #my writing #romtober #pls reblog this like #i'm so freaking proud of it lmao

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mrobrotzly · 4 years

Text

sometimes it feels like a blessing

for @geraskierhalloween

Magic + 5+1 + Knotting - 11k

Or 5 times Jaskier and Geralt could see the effect of magic on them and 1 time it took them a little to realize it.

One day, in the middle of spring, Geralt had a contract for some unknown creature and, obviously, failed to convince Jaskier to stay at the inn, it had been a decade since they met and Geralt was never good at getting the troubadour to obey any of his commands - even if they're to keep him out of harm's way.

Fortunately, the creature wasn't dangerous, a hybrid of several animals, but - 'cause it attacked him and almost hurt Jaskier (which was what most infuriated Geralt, if the creature hadn't come close to the bard, it would probably be alive now, but he would never say it out loud, obviously, it wasn't like he cared, was it?) - it's no longer breathing at the moment.

The problem was - and seriously, Geralt should have thought of it earlier - that hybrids don't just exist freely, they're created. And they're usually created by people who're mostly crazy and who're, even worse, mages.

"My poor Delilah!" the sorceress was in front of both of them, eyes shining with anger and unshed tears, she prepared to release her chaos, but Geralt drew his sword quickly, making her hesitate.

“You killed her! My own creation!" Geralt watched her carefully, she was clearly not someone with a sane mind "Do you know what it's like to love something, Witcher?” she spat out the last word, making a face of disgust "I don't think you know, shame!" she laughed a bitter and hysterical laugh "I would love to destroy everything you love."

Her growl made him clench his fist in the sword's hilt, unconsciously taking a step to the side, hiding the bard behind his body.

She raised her eyebrows, tilting her head to the side, watching him for a few seconds and smiling, a smile that made the Witcher felt an unpleasant feeling grow in his body.

"Pretty little thing you’ve there, uh?!" she purred and Geralt felt a growl rumbling in his chest “A bard? Would you play for me, dear?”

Jaskier stuttered, Geralt didn't need to look at him to know that his blue eyes were wide.

"Leave him out of this" he said firmly, his voice lower than usual.

She gave a cynical laugh.

"Why, Witcher?" and she tentatively took a step forward, Geralt clenched his teeth, his knuckles white for gripping the sword's hilt “Your pet for mine. It seems like a fair exchange…” she tried to move again, Geralt's body moved together to stop her “The things I would do to him…”

This time he snarled and the sorceress narrowed her eyes, anger returning to her face.

"Let's do it in the difficult way then."

And she raised her hands, sending a pulse of magic at the same time that Geralt casted Quen, protecting him and Jaskier, he could hear the bard's surprised gasp and the sorceress' disgruntled noise for not having succeeded in the spell.

He pushed Jaskier aside, behind the nearest tree, as he went towards the woman, she was good at dodging, but not attacking and her magic wasn’t powerful enough to hurt him badly - probably the power she has was only for breeding creatures and hybrids, not for battles.

She danced - and had no better word to describe what she was doing - around him and even without causing significant damage, he felt her chaos tiring him every time it came in contact with his skin, making him even more irritated 'cause it's delaying his movements.

She laughed, dodging a blow from the sword and snapping her fingers "In a moment the magic will fully affect you, Witcher, and you'll no longer be able to move."

"Not if I kill you first" he grunted and, honestly, he didn't want to have to kill anyone that day, he only accepted the contract 'cause it seemed easy, but of course Destiny would laugh at his face.

He dodged a spell, one of the weakest he has ever seen or feel and he would have laughed at it had it not been for the yelp he heard coming from behind him, the spell had chipped a piece of the wood.

"Jaskier!" he called, without taking his eyes off the enemy.

"I'm fine!" was the answer, but he didn't have time to feel relieved 'cause the sorceress moved her hands again, this time deliberately missing Geralt, trying to hit the tree protecting the bard.

"Your fight is with me!" Geralt grunted, sword passing very close to the woman's chest.

"I don’t think so" she laughed and moved quickly, now closer to where Jaskier was "Let's see if you'll like to feel what I'm feeling."

As she raised her arms he heard Jaskier choking, as if trying to breathe while someone tightened their hands around his neck and he felt his whole body go cold, memories of the moment when he saw the bard spitting blood, his purple and swollen throat and Geralt being unable to do anything to help him...

The only thing that kept him from being still and unable to react was the years of training on Kaer Morhen, the woman was focused on the spell, frowning and the Witcher realized it was a difficult spell for her, so it would be the perfect time for he to attack.

When she realized he was approaching it was too late, he already had half the blade of his sword buried in her stomach.

"You" she said, widening her eyes as he pushed the sword deeper, her arms falling limp beside his body "One day, Witcher, you'll lose everything" she whispered to him, laughing and looking at him hysterically “They're going to leave. And you'll be alone like you truly deserve” she tried to spat blood on his face before falling forward when he pulled the sword out of her body.

And on the ground, meters from where her creature was, the sorceress stayed.

"Are you alright?" a soft voice asked, Geralt turned, seeing Jaskier behind him, looking at him with concern.

"I should be the one asking you that" he said.

"I'm. Thanks to you” the bard smiled at him and something in Geralt's chest calmed down, he felt a wave of relief relaxing every part of his body as he looked at Jaskier.

That was until the bard widened his eyes and opened his mouth as if something was very wrong.

"What?" the grip on the sword's hilt tightened, he looked around.

"Geralt!" he exclaimed taking a step forward "Look at me."

The Witcher looked at the troubadour, frowning in confusion, the feeling getting worse when he saw a smile spread across Jaskier's face. Did some magic hit the bard and he's going crazy? Geralt frowned, feeling concern wash over him.

"Okay, this is amazing!" Jaskier laughed, delighted with something, his face lighting up in a way that made Geralt's chest warm and he didn't want to understand why.

"Bard" he said warningly.

"Oh, no, don't bard me" Jaskier pointed a finger at him, but was still smiling "This is fantastic, Geralt."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he started to get annoyed, Jaskier not going straight to the point getting on his nerves.

"Okay, okay" he raised his arms in surrender "No need to be angry."

"I'm not" maybe a little.

"Yes, you're, it's on your face" he gestured with his hand "literally, Geralt, your eyes are red."

He blinked, staring at Jaskier to make sure it wasn't a prank, if that was true it meant that magic had affected him in other ways besides physical tiredness. Was this the only side effect? Or would there be others?

“They're turning orange now... Look, I learned a lot at Oxenfurt and I'm very wise in several subjects, but, unfortunately, not the meaning of colors, so you've to tell me: what are you feeling, Geralt?”

"I don’t-"

"Don't what? Have feelings?” the bard laughed wryly "Come on, Geralt, I've known you for a decade! I know very well that you feel and how much you feel, well Yennefer is a proof of that.”

The Witcher pressed his lips at the mention of the sorceress, refusing to look away from Jaskier, the bard raised his eyebrows.

"Black?" he brought his face close and Geralt held his breath. "It wasn't what I was expecting when I mentioned her."

He felt the irritation build up again.

"I'm not an experiment for your fun, bard" He practically spat, turning and starting to walk towards the camp, sword, still stained with blood, in his hands. Jaskier sighed.

"Okay, I admit, it wasn't fair" he followed Geralt and maybe, just maybe, the Witcher was walking more slowly so the troubadour could catch up "But you can't blame me for being curious, I'm a bard, Geralt!"

He didn't answer either that or the dozens of other things Jaskier said before they got to the camp.

And it was a little uncomfortable to sit on the forest floor and clean his swords while the bard stared at him like that.

"How long do you think the spell will last?" he asked.

"I don't know, she wasn't a very good witch."

Jaskier laughed and he felt the sound melting all his annoyance, he frowned at it while cleaning the iron blade with a cloth.

"Don't you want to see?" Jaskier asked "You know... your eyes."

“Why would I? I can feel the magic, I don't need to see it to know it's here.”

The bard shrugged.

"I dont know. I always wanted to know what I would look like if my eyes were a different color, maybe green or brown.”

Geralt stopped what he was doing, lifting his head and looking at Jaskier's face. The first thing he thought was "why?"

Why change such beautiful blue? Blue that he adores to look at, that seemed to shine every time the bard smiled or performed in places where his music was appreciated, blue like an ocean that want to pull him, drown him and he knew he wouldn't try to resist these waves. Eyes so beautiful that with one look the bard have him in the palm of his hands. Eyes that, for some reason, now stared at him with delight.

"That's a beautiful color..." Jaskier whispered so sincerely, smiling in such a way that Geralt had to bend his head and watch his dim reflection on the blade.

And he saw pink, a light and soft pink.

He swallowed, suddenly wanting to run away from there.

The truth was that he knew the meaning of colors, he'd read about it in one of the books he found in Vesemir's personal collection when he was a boy and, thanks to whatever made his memory flawless, he remembered it very well.

He stood up turning his face away, hiding it from Jaskier and looking towards the forest.

"I'm going to get us dinner."

And left without waiting for an answer. Ignoring not only the confused look the bard had on his face, but also the felling that growed up in his chest, this would be just one more thing he would bury and try to forget.

(Continue to read on AO3)

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#Geralt #geralt of rivia #geralt x jaskier #geraskier #geralt x dandelion #Jaskier #dandelion #the witcher #the witcher fanfic #the witcher netflix #geraskier fanfiction #geraskier hallow

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crowleyellestair · 5 years

Note

Could you write a Geralt x healer!reader where she is tagging along with Geralt & Jaskier. Over the time she has spent tending to his wounds and on occasion, saving him, Geralt begins to develop feelings for her but he doesn’t understand them (obvs) so he pushes it aside. But on one particularly awful part of their trek, she falls through some ice and plot twist! He has to save her now. The terror he feels when seeing her so close to death makes him realise what she means to him🥺

AN// Had fun writing this!! Let me know if you want a part 2!

Masterlist

Jaskier was the one to convince Geralt that she would be a great asset to their team. The Witcher could hear the bard’s voice ringing in his head as he sat there in silence. His chin was laying on his clasped hands that were propped on his knees. Geralt hadn’t left that spot in roughly a day and he was willing to stay for as long as he needed to. He scolded himself, hating that his mind replayed the bards voice on loop.

“The Dynamic Duo turned Terrific Trio,” was said with as much gusto as Jaskier could muster. Geralt had rolled his eyes at the comment, but didn’t disagree. Jaskier was known to leave him for periods of time to focus on monopolizing the music community in any given area. Geralt had just assumed at the time that the same would be said for Y/n. He knows now that that was a fatal mistake.

He had been convinced she wouldn’t be a burden as their first encounter had involved her saving him. It was a ‘wrong-place-worst-time’ scenario that she had quite literally walked into. Y/n had left the apothecary through the back door and into a skirmish that was forced onto the man. Some radical townsfolk had thought it wise to try and pick a fight with the ‘abomination’ known as Geralt, and normally he would have been fine. But it was seven against one in hand to hand combat. Geralt couldn’t use a weapon to dispatch them, as that would fuel the rest of the town to take arms against him as well. He had taken out five, but the sixth member was really sucking his attention.

The woman had walked into their fight, the ruffian pushing her out of the way and onto the ground. Geralt gave a look, showing that using force against her had pushed a moral line of his. He laid a hit directly on the man’s nose, and he stumbled back far enough for Geralt to turn to finish off the last man. Y/n had regained her bearings, and noticed the sixth wasn’t completely taken care of. He quietly stalked up behind the Witcher, pulling out a small shive. Geralt had taken care of the last man, but she knew he wouldn’t turn fast enough to catch the aggressor. She jutted her leg out in front of the radical, effectively tripping him. He let out a loud gasp and he threw the knife rom his hand to safely catch himself. Geralt had finished him off before giving a silent look towards her.

They had stayed there in silence for a moment, Geralt breathing heavy and looking down at his surprise savior. She rolled her eyes before pushing herself off the ground.

“No, thank you for needing help.” Her hands went down to pat the dust and dirt off her pants. She let out a soft curse as she swung her satchel forward, taking inventory and praying none of the vials had gotten broken. Geralt just watched with a quirked brow before releasing a mechanical and awkward,

“No, thank you?” Her gaze snapped to him, giving a genuine, humor filled smile.

“You’re welcome. Safe travels.” She gave a halfhearted, friendly salute before walking away. Jaskier had pushed himself from his hiding spot, clearly and loudly criticizing the warrior.

“Geralt, that was plain rude. Even a cute girl can’t get you to show gratitude. You truly are lost sometimes.” Geralt had given a displeased, guttural noise in response.

They had met again when he was given the task to liberate a small camp from a horde of wraiths. It was a few towns over, about a month from when they first met. He had been outnumbered tenfold, and when it seemed that he was exhausted and losing, a loud crash could be heard. His amber gaze raked the floor, finding four broken vials and a material quickly going airborne. He held his breath, but the odd shimmer was all too familiar. At first, he was impressed, thinking it was the bard who had come to aid, but when he turned to find the woman from before, he was taken aback.

His surprised gaze was met with an expecting one, and when he didn’t move, he finally heard the melodic voice that he couldn’t let go since the first encounter.

“Are you going to finish them off, or did I throw those in vain?” He had shifted immediately into action, swinging his sword and delivering fatal blows. He had sheathed his weapon as she approached with two empty vials in hand. She crouched down, gathering wraith dust in them, before straightening and meeting his gaze again.

“Why are you here?” He was confused at her innocent gaze and gesture to the vials. She had shown knowledge of dispersing dark creatures, and yet, she stood before him with purity in her eyes. She shrugged as her nonverbal reply didn’t receive a continuation of conversation.

“I didn’t think there would be twenty, I thought there would be like two. I was planning on using the bombs, pierce them with my sword, then collect the remains. I need it to help relieve a boy who caught yellow fever. I’m a healer, you see.” He gave a hum of acknowledgement and he started to walk back into the direction of town. When she followed, he gave only a questioning side glance. “Well, we both need to get back to town, so why not walk together? I didn’t catch your name before.” It was a fib, as she had heard Jaskier that day, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“That’s because I didn’t give it.” He was being honest, but quickly felt a tinge of guilt, as the phrase is usually used in a dismissive and rude context. She scoffed, and he gave her another side glance.

“Okay, that’s a little much. Heroes shouldn’t be shown such an attitude, but I’ll let it slide, Bartholomew.” Geralt fully looked to her, eyes furrowed. She matched his gaze with a playful smile. “Well, I need to call you something. Especially since it seems like you are my personal ‘damsel in destress’.” He looked forward, but after a moment, a quiet “Geralt,” passed his lips.

Her smile grew and gave a curt nod of content. They walked in a comfortable silence back to town, Jaskier waiting for his friend right outside of the tavern for his friend to return. When his gaze fell on Y/n, he looked to Geralt and smirked.

“Well, if it isn’t the lovely lady you failed to fully thank from before.” He grabbed her hand, bringing it up to place a kiss on her knuckles. “Let me give you thanks for him- tenfold because of the delay.” She laughed, but Geralt was surprised to find the usual blush women had to the bard’s tactics was missing from her cheeks. It seemed to him that she genuinely found Jaskier’s attempts funny. She dropped her hand, and smiled.

“Charming, but I’m going to have to pass.” She gave a polite and small bow to the bard. She turned to bid them a farewell, when Jaskier’s voice shrilled out of worry and surprise.

“Geralt, you’re hurt- how’d you get hurt?” Y/n’s gaze shot up to meet the man’s, before looking him over. Her brows drew in confusion, but she then stalked to the other side of him and lifted his arm. Her brows flew and her hands started pressing and prodding, trying to assess the damage. Gently dropping his arm, she gripped his wrist.

“Follow me back to my tent, I can patch you up.” She looked down; her next expression spoken in a hushed tone. “Why didn’t you tell me after I mentioned I was a healer?” Geralt threw a glare at Jaskier who shrugged, but returned a stern look. When Geralt looked back to the woman, who was solely absorbed in his injury, his gaze slightly softened.

She had never marveled or spat at the fact that he was a Witcher. Anyone who dare call themselves a healer knows about Witchers. They were born of magic, science and pharmaceuticals and revolutionary to the world of alchemy. Nothing she said was ever borne of awe or disgust. The only things to fall out of her mouth were friendly jests and inquiries. Even Jaskier wasn’t passive about Geralt’s true nature.

And since they first met, he hadn’t forgotten those facts.

So, when he caught his gaze softening, he was confused. This was the second time they had met, and the man had already lost self-control over his expressions around her? Geralt thought it uncomfortable, to say the least. His gaze hardened again, explaining,

“I don’t need help. I’m a Witcher.” Her gaze shot back to his again with an unconvinced and uncaring look.

“I can see that. The wound is deep- I won’t make you pay if that’s what you’re worried about.” That too confused him more, making him try to dissociate from the situation.

“I heal faster than humans. I’ll be fine.” He watched as she rolled her eyes and dropped his writ. Y/n planted her hands on her hips, puffing out her chest.

“Fine. I am looking to hire a Witcher to escort me back to my tent. As I am a healer, the only payment I can give is tending to wounds.” He squinted his eyes, the only reaction he could muster from the confusing emotions swirling inside.

“I decline. There is no danger here.” She leaned in, matching his squint with one of her own.

“I heard wraiths were running rampant in these parts.”

“Luckily for you, I just took care of the horde. You should be safe getting to your destination.”

“Unlucky for both of us, you didn’t let me finish. I heard men were also quite despicable here, just like every adjacent town. I heard you had a run in a month ago, so you should understand where a simple woman, like me, is coming from.” Geralt was impressed- and so was Jaskier for that matter. He didn’t know how, but this was definitely worming its way into a song or poem.

Geralt hadn’t known that, when she successfully convinced him, he would be convinced again and again for the following year. After Jaskier’s suggestion on their third run in, Y/n stayed with the boys to travel. Geralt often gave up his bed roll for her or let her come along to hunts without argument only because he just did. He simply let it happen. He didn’t know why or when it started, but he never thought about doing it when he made these decisions. Geralt seemed to stop thinking when she was around, and all he had left were his instincts. It seemed to him that instincts said to bathe her with temporal affection. He hadn’t tried- no, hadn’t wanted to dwell on the meaning behind the instincts. He had reflected on how it never got to the extreme level it was at, ever with Jaskier. And he was sure Jaskier would be jealous if he really knew how much Geralt spoiled Y/n, in his own way, of course. The only other person to make him have this effect was… Yen. But he constantly thought about his feelings with Yennifer, and how if they did stay together, it would be too toxic. It would implode at any second, and Geralt didn’t have the inner strength to go through that.

Time and time again, Y/n saved Geralt in more ways than one. She would help out when he found himself stuck in battle, she would tend to his every wound, and she would keep him company even if all they did was sit in silence. He had just assumed that this was the making of a true friend, and he never dwelled on it passed that line of logic.

The trio had split up earlier in the week, Jaskier staying in Aar Carraigh. Y/n was planning on travelling to Aedd Gynvael, a fort close to Kaer Morhen, so they could continue traveling once winter had passed. The fort wasn’t too far past Kaer Morhen, so Geralt had offered to escort her there safely, especially since the terrain was treacherous. It was only a week into winter, but since they were so far north, ice and snow covered everything the eye could see. The only way to the fort from Aar Carraigh, where they had dropped the bard off, was to pass over Gwenllech River.

It was complete ice, and the crossing bridge was too far out of the way to get to in a timely manner. The two were doing great until something hit the ice from under them.

“What could have possibly done that?” Y/n’s tone was short and tense. Her arms were held out for balance, and her feet splayed. Her eyes were pinned to Geralt, who was trying to decide what it was. Sadly, he couldn’t come to a conclusion.

“It doesn’t matter. We only have a couple feet left.” She nodded and took a step towards the other side. The ice ratted again, and to keep her balance, she had to slide back, out of Geralt’s reach. From this pressure from under, the ice began to crack. Geralt knew he’d be fine on his own, but Y/n would need to carefully pass over the unsafe terrain. While he was confident in her, he wsn’t confident in the surface. He couldn’t pass to help her as one pass could break the ice, and they wouldn’t be able to get back over. Or, if it was structurally sound then, both of their weight passing over it surely would send them into the water. Gwenllech wasn’t known to be a passive body, and there most likely was a fierce current.

It seemed to the Witcher that Y/ had realized she was on her own by the look of terror on her face. She swallowed hard and looked down to the cracks. Geralt reached an arm out in a comforting way while trying to meet her gaze.

“Look to me, and only me. It will be easier that way.” She nodded with her eyes closed and took a deep breath. Her eyes, which the Witcher had grown quite fond of, instantly found his. She didn’t lift her feet off of the surface, slowly and gently making shuffling movements to close the distance.

Geralt hadn’t blinked- he wouldn’t dream of breaking the eye contact, but in a second she was gone. His gaze dropped just a hair too slow to find her body disappearing under the ice. Luckily, she had known to throw her arms up, instead of trying to catch herself. He was there in an instant, his hand piercing the water’s surface, and grasping her outstretched hand. He pulled her out as fast as she went in, but it was enough to have the ill of winter set in her bones. Being closer to Kaer Morhen, he simply brought her there.

Eskel would pop in every hour to check on Geralt in his quarters, but Geralt refused to leave the room. So, they sat and chatted, the brunette trying to get the significance of the girl out of the ashen haired one. Geralt saw Eskel as a brother, but he had yet to figure it out himself, only telling him it was complicated. Lambert had caught that end, pestering him, trying to understand if it was like the Yennifer situation.

Geralt had felt sour discussing the witch with Y/n in the room. The only emotion he could pin it closest to would be guilt. But why would he feel guilty? It wasn’t lost on him that she went out of her way to tend to Geralt’s every need. He was sure that if he were to receive a paper cut, she would still give him full treatments. Y/n had a pure heart, treating everyone to the best of her abilities, but it had never reached the level it had with anyone else. She would help Jaskier with blisters and callouses from playing his lute for too long, but he knew that if Jaskier would receive a paper cut, she would probably jest, and go they’d all about their day. Jaskier knew this too, constantly giving him nudges and suggestive shoulder or brow raises when Y/n would do something that qualified as ‘cute’. And it wasn’t that she hadn’t done something that qualified as that because she did- every damn day, just by being herself.

Friends could think the other is cute, dote on their every movement, and instinctively give them all the other had to offer, right?

Right?

Fuck.

When Y/n had woken up, the first thing to catch her eyes were the wall to wall decorations. Different skulls and pelts were found littering every space of them. She would most likely find it off putting if her senses weren’t being berated by her favorite scent: Geralt. It was leather, metal and celandine flowers. Most wouldn’t assume that from a Witcher, but he was constantly around them as they were ingredients for a lot of the potion’s Y/n would make for him. They didn’t have an overbearing or really distinct scent; she was only familiar since she worked so closely with it. Y/n wouldn’t have it any other way, being convinced that no other scent would match him best.

When she shifted to her elbows, her eyes continued to inspect the place. She sort-of jumped in place when she spotted the crown of white hair at the base of the bed. Geralt hadn’t been facing her, and had settled on his knees to meditate. She felt bad, assuming this was his room. The only place he ever really considered a permanent home. And she was taking up his bed. Y/n pushed out to find that she wasn’t wearing her clothes. A Geralt-size shirt hung low enough to cover her small clothes. A blush crept up her neck, and she looked to the bed. The only disturbance was where she left from the middle of the bed. There was a mountain of blankets and a fire raged in the corner of the room in a small hearth. The moments before her passing out rushed to her, and it all fell into place.

Walking in front of Geralt, but a few paces out of reach, she called to him. She had learned that touching him or being too close alarmed him, as all he could process was something disturbing him. And while he didn’t have a ‘swing first, ask questions later’ mentality, it would still be jarring.

His amber eyes opened to her, and it immediately raked up and down her form. She thought she made it up when she heard a faint grunt of approval, but he small smile that graced him when their eyes met, told her otherwise.

Y/n felt her stomach drop when his smile wiped from his face. He felt that twinge of guilt again seeing her tense, but it suddenly came across Geralt that somehow, he would have to tell her his feelings.

Fuck.

Part 2 is up - Called Geralt's Problem

#geralt of rivia #geralt #witcher imagine #witcher x reader #geralt x reader #geralt imagine

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funkzpiel · 5 years

Text

Drift

So the original prompt had been lovely, utterly lovely, and asked for Alpha!Jaskier using his nature to help Geralt take care of himself (i.e. using his voice, body language, touch, etc. to help persuade Geralt to eat, drink, sleep, rest, etc.) and I LOVED IT and I sat down to WRITE IT and then whatever the fuck this is happened instead… I’m not sure how it spiraled away from me so vastly or how to even quite describe what it turned into, haha. So I’m keeping the original prompt in my rolodex, cause I’d like to try again per the asker’s original idea some time - but for now, have 13 pages of whatever the hell my non-stop headache managed to put together below…

warning: contains abo dynamics, however, literally focuses solely on the dynamic between Alpha/Omega. Does not contain smut. What has happened to me?

Also available to read on AO3

Little girl, little girl ~ don’t lie to me; Tell me where did you sleep last night?

In the pines, in the pines ~ where the sun never shines; Shivered the whole night through

- In the Pines

“Someone spotted your witcher out by the wood. He’s in a right state. No one’s brave enough to go near’em.”

Those had been the words of the messenger who had tracked Jaskier down at the inn, sent by the alderman. Jaskier had been prepared to go out into the rain and find a soggy, grumpy witcher. But “a right state” didn’t even begin to cover it.

It was raining. Of course it was raining, Jaskier thought petulantly as he braved the weather to find his witcher. It was easy to hide behind his griping. Easier to whine about the cold and the wet than to think too heavily on the messenger’s words: “No one’s brave enough to go near’em.”

He found Geralt at the tree line, as promised. There were at least six trees that had fallen victim to the man, carved up in great hacking lines that bore no pattern or reason. Just vicious, gaping wounds that oozed sap and frayed bark. Weeping splinters atop their roots. Geralt was busy carving up another tree. He was using his steel sword. It kept getting caught in the bark, the blade not made for slipping free of wood as easily as it cleaved flesh or bone. Every time it snagged, Geralt would snarl, shoulders heaving as he yanked it free and attacked again, each time without any of the finesse expected from a witcher. So he wasn’t practicing; not that he should be, so fresh from a hunt.

Jaskier could tell from afar that the man was exhausted. He could hear wheezing in his heaving breaths, see the way his armor struggled to make room for each inhale. His shoulders were low, his arms heavy. He didn’t move his feet more than he had to, instead forcing his hips and thighs to bear the weight of his movements, his attacks. His skin was pale and sickly, and even with the potions having faded off, his veins still showed through his skin like silvery cobwebs.

Something must have gone wrong, there was nothing else to it. Jaskier had seen Geralt like this before. Witchers by nature and grooming were not the most expressive people. They did not know how to tolerate any pain that was not physical. That usually meant their distress got channeled into outlets such as this: calculated violence. As if that stress and that emotion could be worked out of the body like a knot from sore muscles. Each blow exhausted him, each strike winded him – but it kept his mind off whatever had happened. Focused on movement, on the swing of his sword, the angle of the blade’s descent.

Jaskier leaned against the fench a short way from the snarling witcher, elbows braced atop its warped wooden rail. He’d let the witcher tire himself out, that tended to be the best move to make in this particular dance. He’d watch, be there when Geralt—

Jaskier’s thoughts came to a grinding halt as Geralt’s sword buried itself deep into the wood of his victim, then snapped with a clang that rang out like a song in one long, mournful note. The air drew sharp and electric, and Jaskier felt himself tense like an animal suddenly all too keen that a predator was nearby and on the prowl. Water trickled down the slope of his nose, under his collar, between his shoulder blades. He shuddered, eyes fixed on the witcher. Geralt stumbled with the force of the sudden break, and for a moment Jaskier thought that had done it, that had been the last straw of the witcher’s stamina. He waited for the man to fall to his knees. For an opening to go to him, gather him up and help him home. But instead Geralt drew himself up, sides heaving as he panted like an overrun horse, and held the broken sword up so he might better admire the damage.

The metal that remained attached to the hilt was jagged and short. It glimmered weakly, its runes in shambles, its use outlived. Magic popped and crackled along the blade in fits and bursts like a death rattle until finally Geralt tossed it aside – a sneer curling his lip, exposing his teeth. He stood still, like a rock in the middle of a raging river, head down as he glared at the broken sword among the grass. Jaskier prepared to walk to him, guide his exhausted witcher back to the inn, only to freeze when a wounded sound split the air with the same viciousness as Geralt’s sword had split the tree.

The bard’s eyes darted further into the tree line, looking for the source of that animalistic sound – then shot back to Geralt who was moving now, fast as a whip, fist colliding with the tree. Leaves fell, casting him in a veil of baby green leaves and spring petals as the force of the blow shook even a tree as thick as his victim to its core. But the sound, the sound had Jaskier shivering. Wet and fleshy. Geralt’s knuckles – gods above –

Geralt didn’t stop. He reared back, struck again, that howl that had sent icy dread down Jaskier’s spine tumbling from his lips, from behind his teeth, from deep inside his chest. Snarling and blind, Geralt punched again, and again, the sound of his knuckles impacting worsening each time. Jaskier heard a snap and finally that broke the trance that sight had cast upon him, wide-eyed and fawn-legged. He leapt the fence with more grace than he thought himself capable of. Long legs crossed the field, willowy and lithe, and although he knew he was in fact moving quickly, everything felt slow and distant.

“Geralt!” He shouted but could not hear his own words. The rain suddenly worsened, pelted him, as if each sheet might hold him back from his goal single handedly. Geralt either didn’t hear him or did not deign to listen. Petals and leaves kept tumbling down around him in bursts, decorating his hair, littering his armor. Haloing him with life as he raged. Striking, again and again, slap, slap, slap – “Geralt, stop!”

The words came out in a boom, slicing through the rain like a thunderclap.

Jaskier managed to catch the man by the bicep on his backswing, and even through his armor the bard could felt the whipcord tautness of the man’s muscles – the way he held himself, still yearned to strike, but neither relaxed nor continued. Vibrating like a hound snarling at the bit, waiting for the command to launch itself forward and maul its target.

Geralt wouldn’t look at him. His eyes were fastened on the tree, his jaw clenched so tight Jaskier swore he could hear the groaning of his bones, plaintive and grinding. A muscle was leaping in his cheek. His pupils were blown wide, so black and so large that only a thin sliver of amber remained. But he stopped.

He stopped.

Jaskier didn’t enjoy having to use that trick on Geralt – his voice. It was the equivalent of taking Geralt’s choice from him, his autonomy, and while once upon a time Jaskier used to look on such things with rose-colored glasses and nostalgic ideas of romance and “the way of things”, it wasn’t until he met Geralt that he learned that his voice was a very powerful, very painful thing. A tool easily manipulated into a tactic for control rather than kindness; control disguised as comfort. He was no master. Geralt was no pet.

The thought of trying to control something as untamable, as wild and beautiful as his witcher, made him shiver sickly.

No, he had long ago told himself he’d never use it. Yet here he was, the words tumbling so forcefully from his lips without a second thought. A command. Stop.

Geralt kept thrumming beneath his touch, every inch of him shaking. Trembling so finely that were he made of the fine edges and dangling trinkets of a wind chime, he’d be singing faintly. His nostrils were flared, every breath coming out in a huge, heaving plume from each. From his throat and beneath the falling hush of the storm, Jaskier caught the sound of something strangled emitting from the witcher. Lodged tight and captured behind his teeth; a moan, a whine, a snarl, a plea.

Help.

Jaskier hated to use it. It had been a problem in the beginning – his voice. What it stood for, what it meant, what it took away. A problem that took no small amount of effort to work through. Jaskier had been chock-full of all these ideas and notions of what it meant to be an Alpha, what it meant to have an Omega. The bard had built up this fantasy in his head of what that would look like. How he would coddle them, protect them, nest with them, because that was what an Alpha was meant to do. It took time to pull that structure apart in his mind. To rebuild on healthier foundations, all from scratch. Once or twice he thought Geralt would leave him. The Omega was too wild, too free. Every archaic tradition made him buck like a stallion refusing the bit and saddle. In the beginning, it had been infuriating. Frustrating. Offensive, even. Now…

Jaskier had been so blind. He had seen Geralt as something unique to be tamed rather than the truth – there was only one true way to love, regardless of secondary gender, and it was through respect, communication, and the understanding that tradition was a construct, not a rule.

Geralt stayed. They worked through it. Together, they rebuilt that house in Jaskier’s mind, in both of their minds. They made concessions, they navigated the dark together and created a language all their own with which to define what it meant to have a mate, to be an Alpha or an Omega. And one of those concessions had been simple and clear: do not try to own me or control me. Do not use biology against me.

I am a person, not a conquest.

Jaskier had used it. His voice. But he couldn’t watch Geralt do that to himself. Guilt curled coolly in his guy, greasy and sneering. But it was done. It was done.

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier said, voice raised over the howl of the wind and the rain, but normal. Unaffected, powerless. Pleading. “I didn’t mean to… but your hands, Geralt, gods above, you wouldn’t stop.”

Geralt’s pupils contracted ever so slightly, that mad expanse of black thinning with every word that reached him. His heaving exhales turned into something shaky and stuttered, and finally Geralt blinked. He let Jaskier guide his arm down, slim hands reaching for his pale and quaking one. His knuckles – Geralt hissed, the pain finally registering as he caught sight of them – were torn to shreds. Swollen, broken and bleeding despite the rain that ran over them. Bark stuck out in places. Stung. Geralt groaned, nearly whined, before he caught it behind his teeth and swallowed it down with a grimace of distaste. His hand was shaking harder now in Jaskier’s.

The longer he was still, the more Jaskier saw that panic – that frenzy – begin to take root again. Spreading like vines and weeds that filled Geralt’s eyes, blinding him, choking him. Overwhelmed. Amber eyes drifted from the wreckage of the tree slowly, slowly to Jaskier’s face. And for a man as stoic as Geralt, with expressions so minute and so fleeting, Jaskier looked at him and saw nothing but shattered glass, buried beneath the thin line of his lips, the little wrinkled dip of his brows, the unfocused haze of his eyes. Lost.

“Geralt?” Jaskier asked, his heart throbbing painfully against his ribs in great, crushing pulses, “Are you with me?”

Geralt clenched his jaw tighter. His pupils expanded. Something flickered – wild and animal-like – in the lines of his body and the tense edges of his bones. Feral and bewildered because his mad fight with the trees hadn’t worked as it should. It had exhausted him, broken him – and yet whatever had caused the panic remained with nowhere left to go.

His gaze strayed back toward the tree. In Jaskier’s hands, his own curled back into a fist even as he swayed on his feet, all color leeched from his skin – drenched and wrecked.

“No,” Jaskier said, softly but firmly. It drew the witcher back to him. Had the man stepping closer, pressing into his space. Drawn to the confidence of his tone. “Tell me what you want. How to help. Anything… just not that. No more. Please.”

Geralt said nothing, but in Jaskier’s palms and the cradle of his fingers, the witcher’s fist went slack. Trembling and bloody. Jaskier nodded at that, tried to think of how far the inn was without looking – too afraid to lose Geralt by breaking eye contact.

“How can I help?” He repeated, but Geralt just grimaced as though Jaskier had suggested plucking his nails from their nailbeds. He was searching for words that the School of the Wolf had never given him, Jaskier realized. So he asked instead, “What happened?”

All at once, Geralt’s pupils contracted to thin slits, then expanded all over again – worse – eclipsing all but the thinnest ring of amber at their edges. As though an electric current had gone through the man, he stiffened. A noise grew and choked him. Jaskier reached up to grasp the back of his neck on instinct and instinct alone, the call to soothe him too great to resist despite their many conversations. It went beyond tradition now. It was a bone-deep need, irresistible. His fingers dug into the witcher’s neck. Urged him down the scant few inches of difference between them until Geralt’s forehead rested against his own, white hair running into brown beneath the rain. Geralt huffed against him, a soft, relieved little sound, and his eyes flickered shut. Ever so slightly, his shoulders slackened, responding to that hand. Jaskier felt himself have to bear more of Geralt’s weight as the exhausted man leaned into him.

Geralt could have pulled away. He had before. But he didn’t.

“Does this help?” Jaskier asked.

The man keened, remained pliant in his hands.

“Do you want this?”

Another sound. Jaskier felt a plea of his own whimper past his lips, so desperately wanting to soothe – needing to soothe – and yet loathe to assume, to take advantage. Not when he had seen the wildness in Geralt’s eyes in those early days. Not when Geralt had asked for more than tradition dictates.

“I need a yes or no, Geralt,” Jaskier breathed, the plea nearly lost to the rain, “Please.”

Geralt shuddered under his hand, all the way down the length of his spine. His jaw worked at something, huffed helplessly, then finally wheezed, “Yes,” like a death rasp. Needing nothing more, that knot of dread in Jaskier’s stomach unraveled – curling out into long, winding tendrils of instinct that directed his limbs thoughtlessly. His hand on Geralt’s neck squeezed a little tighter and a purr rumbled in his chest at the sight of how that little gesture had made Geralt’s eyes soften, relax.

It was like finally flexing a muscle he hadn’t moved in a very long time – a need he hadn’t realized had gone unanswered for so long. Jaskier’s bones thrummed pleasantly at the sight of his Omega – Geralt – responding to him so openly. It wasn’t just that he was feeding into his instincts. There was a level of trust there. A bond that went unsaid. He had no doubt that Geralt would have slunk into the woods by now, fangs gleaming and eyes wild, if he didn’t want Jaskier to touch him, help him.

That was enough.

“Ok,” he said in a hush against the crown of Geralt’s brow. He inhaled the scent of the witcher – rain, blood, Geralt. Then he dipped into the waters of his nature that he had abstained from for so very, very long. He used his voice. “You’re going to follow me to the Inn.”

Geralt nodded, brow still against his, and beneath Jaskier’s hands the bard felt a shiver run through the witcher – electric and pleasant. When he was sure the man would obey, he let his hand leave Geralt’s neck, instead weaving one arm around his own neck so their sides were as flush as possible. Geralt burrowed as closely as possible, and the longer they walked, the more he found the witcher leaning into him not purely for the pleasure of touch alone. Geralt was exhausted. From the contract, from whatever had gone wrong, from his rage at the tree line.

He wouldn’t have made it home alone, Jaskier realized. He might not have even tried. That realization made something strange and uncomfortable twist dreadfully in a place that had never quite twisted before. Geralt was hardly his first partner, Omega or otherwise. Hardly his first trial with instincts.

But never had he felt this; this keen understanding that his Omega was just a man, and that despite every stereotype that insisted that a ‘good Alpha’ could protect one’s mate by will alone, he could not protect Geralt from anything. He could not protect him from this, from his Path.

He could only be there to help him home.

“Witcher,” the alderman exclaimed at the sight of him the moment they returned to the inn, but one look from Jaskier – sharp and feral, daring the man to come closer – had him pause. It was the growl that followed, making Geralt shiver in his grasp, that sealed the deal. It was apparent then and there the man had not even considered Jaskier might be anything more than a Beta. Whether it was from disorientation or surprise or a keen understanding that to push any further would be to invite a fight, the alderman merely said, “Apologies. It can wait.”

Jaskier didn’t realize he had been baring on pearly incisor, lip curled, until he managed to guide Geralt up the stairs and back to their room. He sat Geralt on the bed and when he realized the man would not look him in the eye, he forced his expression, his body language, into something open and familiar rather than bristled and tight as it had become the moment the alderman had tried to conduct business with them.

The village leader wanted to know the status of their contract. Jaskier knew this. Knew that the intent had been benign, one born of fear and concern for his people. But what about Jaskier’s people? What about Geralt? How had the man not known right away that now was not the time? He turned away lest Geralt see how even so much as thinking about it affected him.

Jaskier wanted so badly to ask what had happened. He had seen Geralt return from missions in a variety of states: pleased, exhausted, annoyed, covered in guts, clean as a whistle – and he’d even seen the man fail before. But never like this. Geralt sat on the edge of the bed like a man numbed from a blizzard, still and pliant, eyes staring. It was a drastic change from the feral thing he had found at the tree line, and Jaskier still didn’t know if it was an improvement or something worrisome. The white wolf’s hands quaked on his lap – bloodied, splintered and swollen – and Jaskier decided there was no better place to start than that, once he got the man into dry clothing.

“Let’s get your armor sorted out,” Jaskier mumbled, automatically going to work on the man’s many straps and buckles with the efficiency of the practiced, peeling him apart piece by sodden piece until nothing but a thin, whipcord tight witcher remained. Geralt just let him do it. No grumbling, no grunts, no protests. The bard felt sick, off-kilter.

Jaskier took care to set his swords against the nightstand where he could easily reach them, then to set his armor in the corner in the way he had seen Geralt do many times before. All the while, the witcher didn’t stir. He just sat there, similar to the way he meditated. Distant, detached. Drifting. There, and yet not.

Jaskier dipped into the other room to heat the water he had already ordered be drawn long before his trip into the storm – knowing Geralt would want it when he returned and eager to remove at least this from Geralt’s plate. He let it heat as he returned to the witcher.

“Stay there, Geralt,” Jaskier said idly, the words tumbling from his lips on instinct as he fetched first a stool, then the medical kit from Geralt’s pack and began setting up beside the bed. He placed the stool between the weak spread of the witcher’s knees and automatically placed one hand across the span of one thick thigh and squeezed as he navigated his way around the witcher’s kit. Geralt’s breathing steadied ever so slightly and without looking Jaskier rumbled softly, pleased, “Good, Geralt. Very good. You’re doing so good for me.”

Jaskier and Geralt had played with the merits of praise before. The bard knew firsthand that the witcher was utterly starved of it, that it was an easy way to twist the wolf around his finger and get him howling. But this was different. These were no mere words meant to rile up an affection-starved, stoic cut of stone of a witcher. This was so much more.

Genuine praise for a man who knew not how to ask for help, and yet in his own way was asking for it. Because while Jaskier had made his concessions with Geralt, he had asked for some of his own as well. That was the core of relationships: give and take. I will not pester you, I will not control you, but in return please trust me. Please come to me when you need shelter, no matter the circumstances. Let me anchor you in the storm.

Praise for a promise kept against the witcher’s every independent instinct, giving into a nature he had struggled against the image of for so long. For his health. Because he trusted Jaskier.

Geralt seemed to melt somewhat, the stiff line of his spine curving gently beneath the weighty blanket of Jaskier’s words and touch. The bard did his best to keep at least one hand on the man at all times as he went through the delicate process of cleaning the wolf’s knuckles and bloodied fingernails, plucking splinters and wooden shrapnel from his skin, and applying ointment and sterile wrappings. Murmuring in low tones, so close to his voice but not quite, how good the witcher was. How much he appreciated his trust.

In the cradle of the bard’s working hands, the witcher’s fingers slowly steadied but for the lightest, faintest tremor.

Already Geralt’s fragmented bones were reknitting beneath his tattered flesh; a taxing affair. Jaskier could see it in his eyes as a heady cloud of exhaustion began to overtake the man, but still Geralt fought it, too afraid to give in. Too afraid to loosen the steel trap that was his mind and open himself up to whatever had happened. Whatever haunted him from the woods. Jaskier’s mouth pulled into a taut, concerned line.

“Alright, up now. Out of your smalls and into the tub,” he said, the directions helping him as much as it did Geralt. He braced the witcher by the forearm as he obeyed, disrobing entirely with an eerie, distant slowness. Drifting. Drifting in the current of Jaskier’s voice, his direction. Drifting far away from the woods and whatever lay inside them.

Jaskier guided him to the tub. Eased him in, singing soft praises beneath his breath all the while – smooth and steady.

“That’a boy, Geralt, just like that. Keep your hands out of the water. I’ll handle the rest. Yes, good. So good,” he babbled, draping either of the witcher’s hands to hang over the rim on either side before taking a washcloth, lathering it with soap and beginning an intimately familiar habit. This he knew. This they both knew. In this, they had even, stable ground.

Geralt wasn’t terribly filthy, for once. However long he had spent in the downpour, it had done the trick of washing the evidence of the woods and the fight away. It was more a matter of warming and soothing the wolf now. Easing the tremors from the corded muscles of his shoulders, the tight lines of his arms. He washed his hair, digging his fingers into the man’s scalp gently, scrapping idly with his nails. In the mirror, he watched the witcher’s eyes begin to fall and hood. Dazed and heavy and drifting.

Jaskier had never thought he’d share a moment like this with Geralt. He’d help the man with his wounds before, of course. They’d learned ways to show their affections for one another. But this was different. Primal and organic, impossible to imitate or force. What he had always wanted, so very long ago…

He remembered once – one of their first arguments about their dynamics, back when they were both unpracticed in the art of loving one another – how viciously Geralt had sneered at him when Jaskier had described the way he was supposed to take care of the man, the Omega. Remembered the jagged cut of his teeth, the wildness of his eyes, so unlike the stories he had always been told as a boy about Omegas.

“Shall I swoon for you, too? Lay down and present right here like some animal in a field?” Geralt snarled, outrage breeding a tremor in his bones. Shaking him from somewhere deep the way earthquakes could rend great fissures in the ground.

“Is it really so terrible for me to want to take care of you!”

“You don’t need to take care of me, you like the idea of taking care of me. They all do, until the time comes – but no one wants to clean up after broken glass! You wouldn’t be taking care of an Omega, Jaskier. It wouldn’t be soft. It wouldn’t be a simple matter of building a nest and stroking my hair. You’d be taking care of a witcher. And that’s dangerous for everyone involved,” he roared, “I’m not some item on a checklist to cross off and prove that you’re an Alpha. Don’t debase me by trying. I’m not collateral in your identity.”

There was a wound there, somewhere, just as much as there was truth. It took time for Jaskier to see that, but he did, eventually. He learned to live without a checklist. Learned to bite his tongue when people mistook Geralt for the Alpha, Jaskier for the Omega. He found the beauty in a relationship established not by society, but by communication and trust. Slower to grow, but stronger for it, like a tree with roots that spread and spread and spread.

Roots that led them here – to the moment Jaskier could finally prove himself. Not as an Alpha, not to society, but to Geralt, as a partner. Prove that he was someone who could be relied on. Present and patient, without ulterior motivation. So he wouldn’t ask about the woods again, not while Geralt was like this. He wouldn’t take advantage, knowing that his voice could likely get him anything right now. The witcher was vulnerable, his every defense devoted to protecting his mind from himself.

So Jaskier would guide the man while he drifted until the witcher found his way home.

“Water’s cooling,” Jaskier murmured, rinsing the man’s hair carefully before brushing it back, looking Geralt in the eyes – searching. But the witcher wasn’t there. “Come on. Food, then bed. That’s all that’s left to do, Geralt, I promise. Almost done, you’re doing so well.”

He eased him out of the tub, sat him atop another stool. Toweled his hair – always so much whiter after washing, like freshly fallen snow – and brushed it out. Clothed him, double checked that his wrapped knuckles were still sterile and dry. He coaxed the witcher into eating a few strips of jerky from their packs and a glass of water, unwilling to leave the man alone to order food from the bar. Then, finally, he eased Geralt down unto the bed.

It was hard to navigate how much space to give. The Alpha in him bayed to plaster himself close, cover the man with his body – to protect him. But their arguments echoed in his head, replaying over and over. Was he betraying Geralt in doing this? Was he no better than any other Alpha? Was this right? Geralt’s pleading eyes from the tree line haunted him every time he closed his eyes.

He laid on his side, watching Geralt stare at the ceiling a few scant inches away.

“It’s done. Everything’s done. There’s nothing left to do, Geralt… Try and rest,” he finally said, giving the witcher the initiative to seek that rest however he saw fit – in Jaskier or otherwise. Geralt’s head slowly turned on his pillow then, gaze falling from the ceiling to land on Jaskier’s face. He stared, so far away despite the intimacy of the bed, until finally he blinked. His pupils contracted ever so slightly, focusing.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said.

“Yes,” the bard said, relieved and yet hesitant to hope. There was a long moment where it looked like the witcher was going to say something – eyes trailing across the room, no doubt wondering how they got there, how much time had passed. Instead those amber eyes just fell back on him. Was he mad, or—

Geralt turned onto his side so he might face the bard. He curled his hands between them, then reached until his bandaged hand could properly splay across the span of Jaskier’s chest – right atop his heart. He hummed, eyes closing as the witcher felt the tempo of the bard’s heart, Jaskier realized.

“You stayed.”

Jaskier felt his brow furrow, confused, and breathed, “Of course,” as if there were no other answer, no other possibility. Amber eyes bore into him for a long time. Then Geralt burrowed closer, only so close as to tuck his nose beneath Jaskier’s chin and into the hollow of his neck, and finally the witcher went lax.

Geralt had been right. It hadn’t been simple.

But it had been worth it.

Jaskier fell asleep at some point, the witcher tucked into his arms. One arm had fallen asleep, all numb and swollen feeling and promising the uncomfortable pinch of pins and needles when he finally freed the limb from Geralt. The witcher never stirred, not once, not until he woke.

When he did, he spoke into the long column of Jaskier’s throat, voice rough from shouting himself hoarse – no doubt in the woods.

“I didn’t get there in time,” Geralt finally said, lips chapped and brushing against Jaskier’s skin. Breath hot and steady. A shiver trailed down Geralt’s back beneath his hands, so he chased it with the warmth of his palms.

Jaskier closed his eyes. Now that he had Geralt back, the contract began to return to him. Something about a beast in the woods. Missing children.

Children.

I didn’t get there in time.

“But… the alderman said the children had returned from the wood,” Jaskier asked. He had been certain that’s what the messenger had relayed to him when he came to tell Jaskier about the raging witcher at the edge of the wood.

Under his chin, Geralt swallowed dryly – but when he spoke, the words followed as cool and detached as ever. Clinical and distant.

“Not all of them.”

Distance was entering the man’s voice again. Geralt had told him, once, on a particularly drunken night, about what happened when a witcher failed a contract. If he was lucky, he got to keep the upfront deposit. If he was marginally less lucky, he didn’t get paid.

Generally, he got run out of town. Stoned. Spat on. Cursed.

Geralt knew what lay ahead. It wouldn’t matter that he had saved some of the children. Wouldn’t matter that the beast was dead. Only pain lay ahead. Pain on top of the knowledge that he had failed. Disrespect on top of the memories of those little bodies and whatever had been done to them.

And Jaskier hadn’t a clue what to say. What was there to say. That it wouldn’t happen like that? Surely they couldn’t blame him when he had been the only one brave another or skilled enough to try? No villager would have done better and Jaskier didn’t think any other witcher would have had any more luck either. But that wouldn’t matter to Geralt. Any explanation, any pardon would wilt in the man’s hand, fall away to dust.

Respect for a witcher tended to go hand in hand with their successes, and it would appear that rule had bled into Geralt’s bones like marinade into meat, stewing and soaking until the man’s own self-respect obeyed the same principle.

Jaskier worked his jaw, searching for words, but nothing came. His years of education, his grasp of language, his every beautiful string of words – all of it felt stale and worthless before the witcher’s grief. Children were dead.

Jaskier held Geralt closer, buried his nose into the witcher’s hair, and hummed deep in his chest where the witcher might feel it against the splay of his hands and the tight curl of his body. The grief was Geralt’s to hold, who was he to belittle or speak it away? All he could do was share it. Be present for it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into Geralt’s hair. He felt the wolf let out a hushed breath against his throat, as though he had been holding it for some time. Geralt didn’t respond. He also didn’t pull away. He had been waiting for Jaskier to leave, the bard realized.

No one likes picking up after broken glass. Liable to get cut.

They stayed like that, together – the room silent, yet so full.

[LINE BREAK]

They dozed most of that morning. Jaskier let Geralt lead. After all, who better to navigate those waters than the man who had navigated them before. It was not his place to take it away, nor to numb it from the witcher’s mind. He did made himself present, and quickly realized that’s all Geralt ever wanted all along.

Eventually the witcher dressed. Jaskier thought they would go to the alderman next, but instead Geralt led them out of the village, back to the tree line. He never told the bard not to follow. In fact, he walked quite close to Jaskier all the while. It wasn’t until they returned to the edge of the forest – the bark scarred by Geralt’s outburst – that the witcher finally stopped, momentum faltered.

The bard looked from the woods to the witcher, confused, and asked, “Do you… not remember the way, or…?”

“I remember,” Geralt said, one hand on Jaskier’s chest just as he had done that morning – anchoring himself to the bard’s heartbeat. His gaze was firm if brittle, but he kept the bard’s gaze as he said, “You need to stay here.”

For the first time since Geralt had returned him, there in that inn bed, curled tight to his chest, Jaskier found that instinct to control rearing its head again. He had only just got the witcher back. The thought of losing him to that haze again made his gut clench violently. His eyes fell to the gloves that hid sterile white bandages, pain hidden beneath heavy armor and duty.

He could not stop himself from arguing.

“Oh no, Geralt, I’m not sending you back into there alone after last night, there’s no way,” he babbled, his own gaze turning a touch frantic at the thought, but Geralt just eased a hand to the back of Jaskier’s neck and squeezed – once – to get his attention.

“There are some things only a witcher should see, Jaskier.”

Ah. It was bad then. Messy.

It won’t be like caring for an Omega. You’ll be caring for a witcher.

The sound of Geralt punching the trees, splitting his knuckles, breaking his bones – all of it – echoed in Jaskier’s ears, running over him like a winter chill. But for a witcher, there were simply some things an Alpha couldn’t do… Some things they could not be protected from.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Jaskier tried. His eyes drifted to the trees. To their long shafts and shifting branches and dappled shadows, all swaying so innocently, so invitingly. Those children had been lured in by much the same innocence. They had played in the wood, in those trees. Fetched berries for their mothers and kindling for their fathers. Somewhere, back behind those pleasant bows of grass and gentle curves of oak, there were bodies. Small, fragile little bodies. Jaskier shivered.

And Geralt wanted to go alone.

The Alpha in him bared its teeth and paced the cage of his self control, looking for any gap in the bars, any sign of warping or fatigue. Gods above, did he feel fatigued. But Geralt’s warning rang like a bell in his mind and realized, finally, the truth beneath Geralt’s bristling and snarling and feralness: most Alpha’s didn’t want to stick around with someone they could not protect, could not control. A witcher’s Alpha had to be a man willing to go against instinct. It was no easy ask. Obviously, Geralt had been left before.

No one wants to pick up after broken glass that they cannot protect, cannot prevent from breaking. Picking up finer and finer shards, all so sharp and piercing, cutting up their fingers until they could hold on no longer. Dangerous for everyone, Geralt had said.

“I told you it wouldn’t be easy, Jaskier,” Geralt broached with surprising gentleness. With understanding. He was waiting for this to be too much. Braced for it. Expecting it.

Jaskier let his shoulders slump as he found himself at the crossroads Geralt had always known their relationship was leading to. Could Jaskier handle this – handle fighting his instinct to protect – knowing that there was no protecting a witcher?

I told you it wouldn’t be easy.

His career had not been easy. Leaving home and financial security and the royal safety net of his birth right had not been easy. Going against expectations and becoming a bard rather than head of household had not been easy. Loving Geralt had not been easy.

Difficulty was not synonymous for worth or regret.

The bard ran a hand through his hair, looking around, then finding a suitable stump he plopped down with bardly grace, crossed his legs, and said, “Nothing worth having ever is,” with a beatific smile.

The witcher stilled, eyes ever so slightly wide, and stared at him – stunned. Behind him, the trees swayed lovingly. Petals and leaves danced between them, carried on an unknown current. Drifting.

Geralt opened his mouth at that, then closed it – at a loss for words, not that he ever had been a man of many words at all. He looked out over the village, over the inevitable. He’d return to that village soon enough. He’d tell them of the fate of the children who hadn’t come home. And more than likely, he’d be run out of town – and Jaskier with him. Geralt was at a crossroads of his own: could he bear to let someone carry the burden of their scorn with him, knowing they deserved none of it?

Jaskier watched, waited – let Geralt lead.

After a long, searching moment, the witcher clenched his jaw and nodded before finally disappearing into the wood without him.

It took time to bury the dead. Time to make sure they were buried deep enough to be protected from ghouls or anything else that might dig them up for an easy snack. Time to transfer their little bodies from the scarred nook of woods infected with their fear and their death to somewhere deserving of little bodies to be put to rest. To honor their graves with rock markers and holy candles and incense to ward away any creature that might try to make an easy snack of them so early after their deaths. Time, and great care, and all the while Jaskier waited patiently because Geralt, in his own way, had promised to return if he promised to stay.

Petals danced. The woods whispered a hushed lullaby. And on the alter of Geralt’s table, he offered the only thing the witcher had ever asked for: in the face of every difficulty ahead, every non-conventional hurdle, every contradiction of instinct – Jaskier stayed.

Jaskier waited.

He stood only when a slim, broad shouldered figure appeared from the womb of the woods, solitary and wraith-like in that way wolves always seemed to appear when separate from their pack. He paused at the tree line, in that delicate state of existence between the wild and man; and seemed surprised to see Jaskier there. Surprised, Jaskier realized, but also relieved. Some unspoken tension seeped out from the man’s shoulders. Left him like a malicious spirit leaving cursed flesh, finally setting its victim free. His entire body language bespoke of a man finally breaching the surface of some vast, unknown lake.

Jaskier wondered how long he had been drowning.

“You stayed,” Geralt grunted. Stunted and unaccustomed to being proven wrong.

“When have I ever been conventional, Geralt?” Jaskier asked, unable to hold back the volume of his smile, the light of it, the relief. “Of course I stayed. You came back.”

Geralt shifted from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable.

“I did,” was all he managed. And that was enough. That was everything.

Jaskier broached the gap between them and laced his fingers in dirty, grave-soil stained hands; all too aware that beneath those gloves were the bandages Geralt had let him apply when the witcher had been weak, vulnerable and wanting. A symbol of the concessions that bound them. He could not protect Geralt as his armor did. Could not show his care publicly like any normal Alpha might. No one might ever know, may not ever see. But for that price, for that payment, he could have what mattered. He could have what the witcher was too scarred, too wary to offer anyone else.

Yes, he thought as they walked hand in hand back to the village – ready to face the people’s ire together. It was much better to love the man than the idea.

Geralt was real, more solid and more vast than any concept of intimacy or love that Jaskier had ever conceived of as a boy.

Geralt was real, and he was wanting. That was enough. That was everything.

#The Witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #gaskier #omega!geralt #alpha!jaskier #Witcher Writing #Witcher Ask Box #idk wtf happened #hurt/comfort #hurt/comfort (emotional)#no beta we die like men #ya'll someone needs to stop me lmao what have i done

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ficsandcatsandficsandcats · 5 years

Note

Could you do a little fic where the reader super nervously asks Yennefer to help her look beautiful to impress Jaskier? Like maybe they're going to a fancy ball or something and she knows she needs to stand out among all the gorgeous women, and shes super intimidated by Yen but loves her dresses and makeup and wants some help?

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Platonic!Yennefer x Reader, Jaskier x Reader, Geralt x ExasperationWord Count: 1,822Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak a/n: Genuinely, truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Love me some Yennefer x Reader bonding.

You’d been standing outside of Yennefer’s door for about 10 minutes trying to summon the courage to knock. You knew, logically, that the worst thing she’d likely do is say no. Even if she laughed at you that would be survivable. But she also might say yes, a thought that equally frightened you but also gave you a glimmer of hope. You were out of your depth in preparing for the ball tonight and while Jaskier had offered his services you wanted to make sure he didn’t see you until you were ready. You just needed to get past this damn door first and then, if she said no, you’d throw yourself on the mercy of the shopkeepers and maybe that was the better plan anyway because Yennefer was likely quite busy and-

“Are you going to come in or not?”

The door had swung open mid-thought and Yennefer stood before you. Her hair was perfectly coiffed and her makeup was already applied, a jewel-toned emerald shade gracing her lids and her lips a deep berry red. She wore a robe, not yet dressed, and she gave you an amused expression as you stood there gaping.

“Oh! Yennefer! Hello! Fancy meeting you in your room! I had a question,” you began. Yennefer patiently waited for you to continue speaking and when you felt certain she wasn’t going to close the door in your face, you continued.

“I’m going to that ball tonight and I don’t now much about… any of it,” you said.

“Any of it,” she echoed.

“Yes well I mean I know how to dance, sort of, and I’ve read about them but getting ready for one is totally foreign to me. Literally. They don’t really have balls where I’m from. Small village and all,” you were babbling but Yennefer considered your dilemma thoughtfully before standing to the side, leaving room for you to enter.

Though you all had similar rooms in the manor you were staying at, courtesy of the host of tonight’s ball, Yennefer’s struck you as much more refined. There were a couple of dress options, it seemed she was leaning towards either a black or gold gown, and you saw the vanity where the makeup she’d used was still sitting.

“Do you have a dress?” she asked, circling you.

“Um yes and no?” you said and when she gave you an inquisitive look you gestured to the simple grey frock you were wearing.

“Alright let’s start there,” she said, pulling open the wardrobe where you saw flashes of colors, dresses of varying hues and fabrics.

“Yennefer, that’s very generous and kind but what are the chances of a dress you own fitting me exactly the same I mean you’re much taller for one thing and-”

“Magic,” she said offhandedly as though it were obvious.

“Wait really?”

“Yes, did you choose grey or was that just what was available?” she asked, quickly moving past the many questions you had about the kind of magic that could make any article of clothing fit anyone.

“It was available,” you replied.

“What is your favorite color?” she asked, hands skimming through the dresses as you thought.

“I love purple but it doesn’t look good on m-”

“Try this on,” Yennefer says before you can finish speaking, tossing a dress into your arms. The silky fabric is cool to the touch and you have to grip it so it doesn’t slide right through your arms. You hold it up in front of you and then turn it around a couple of times. When you start to turn it upside down Yennefer stops you.

“I’ll help you put it on,” she suggests and you give her a grateful smile. Once you’re down to your shift Yennefer waits, still holding the dress.

“I’m ready,” you say.

“No, that has to go too,” she says, “There’s a slit.”

You didn’t know three words could inspire that much panic in a person but you were learning a lot of things today. You dutifully took off the slip, down to a simple corset and small clothes, and Yennefer unlaced the side of the dress and had you step into it. She murmured a few words you couldn’t understand and then slid the dress up your frame, the fabric contouring onto your body as though it had been tailored to you specifically. Once she finished lacing up the sides she turned you towards the full length mirror and you gasped.

“Oh no,” you say, “Oh no this is… Oh.”

The dress is held onto your body through the amethyst toned strap on the right arm which winds down, tucking into the bodice of the dress which is made up of mesh and detailed flowers in complementary violet hues. The skirt is long and loosely flowing with a little train and a slit that runs from halfway up your left thigh to the ground. Your leg peeks out boldly and you don’t quite know what to do.

“Do you like it?” Yennefer asks.

“It’s gorgeous but… it’s maybe too gorgeous?”

“Let me ask you a question. Why did you ask for my help tonight?” she asks.

“As I said I wanted help,” you repeat.

“Yes but why?”

“Because it’s my first ball and I want to look put together.”

“That’s not the real reason, is it, Y/N?” Yennefer asks, violet eyes peering into your face as though they already knew the truth but needed you to say it. You take a deep breath.

“I want Jaskier to notice me,” you say, “Really notice me. There are going to be many beautiful women there, women that look more like you than me, and I just don’t want to get lost in the crowd.”

“Alright,” Yennefer says, still eyeing you appraisingly, “Now tell me, how do you feel when you look at yourself in this dress?”

She redirects your eyes back to the mirror, hands on your shoulders and you aren’t sure if it’s to keep you pointed at it or just for moral support.

“I feel… powerful,” you answer. Yennefer smiles and meets your eyes in the mirror.

“This is the one,” she says with certainty and you can feel it too, nodding and nervously biting your lip. “Ok, there’s much more to be done.”

She pulls you over to the vanity and begins to brush through your hair with surprising tenderness. She doesn’t ask you what you want done with it, both of you trusting that she knows what to do from this point on. Instead you talk about the balls she’s been to in the past and she answers the questions you’d felt too stupid to ask like which fork to use and if there was an order to who was able to dance first and how often she’d have to curtsey. She braids your hair into a loose French braid, tucking it together with little ornaments that complement the dress you wear. She threatens to spell your face frozen while she puts on your makeup but you manage to get your twitching under control long enough for her to brush your lids with a soft purple shade and identical wings of black eyeliner. She chooses a subtle shade not much different from your skin tone for your lips but even the subtle change helps emphasize their fullness.

“Thank you for not laughing when I told you about Jaskier,” you said as she held up two pairs of earrings, trying to choose which goes best with your ensemble. “I know I must sound like any number of his adoring fans.”

“You sound like a woman in love. I don’t judge. For all of our blustering I’m not unaware of the bard’s charms,” you look at her in surprise and with a tiny bit of possessive suspicion.

“Luckily my taste in partners is much less refined these days,” she adds with a little smile and you smile in return. Once you’re done she quickly slips into her own dress, choosing the gold one which you help lace her into though you know she could do it on her own. You look each other over appraisingly and while you can’t help feel a bit overshadowed with Yennefer standing beside you, you feel much more prepared for what’s to come than you did before.

“Is Jaskier going to walk you down?” Yennefer asks as you leave the room.

“No I wanted to surprise him,” you answer. Your heart is skipping a few beats as you stand out in the hall where people are starting to enter, on their way to the ball as well. You see a few admiring eyes looking you over and it simultaneously makes you feel bolder and scares you. As though she can sense your distress Yennefer links an arm through yours and stands up a bit straighter causing you to unconsciously mimic the movement.

“Shall we?” she asks. You nod and the two of you join the growing throng walking to the ballroom.

“Have you seen her yet?” Jaskier asks Geralt, the fifth time in as many minutes.

“Still no Jaskier,” he replies.

“I knew I should have gone to walk her down myself. What if she gets lost? What if someone is trying to make advances on her? What if she changed her mind and doesn’t come down at all?”

“What if she’s standing right over there,” Geralt says, pointing towards the entrance of the ballroom where Jaskier sees Yennefer and a woman walk in together.

“I was talking about… Y/N?” Jaskier turns back, eyes still catching up with what he’s seen. He isn’t sure at first if it’s you but then you catch his eye and smile and he’d know that smile anywhere. Then his eyes travel further down and he sees parts he is nowhere near as familiar with. Yet.

“Geralt, Jaskier,” you say when you finally reach them, fighting the urge to curtsey at Yennefer’s suggestion to avoid making any such gestures unless those around you do the same.

“Y/N,” Jaskier breathes but says nothing more, mind fruitlessly searching for the right words. Geralt gives you the briefest of nods and then his eyes are back on Yennefer’s.

“You look wonderful,” you say as the silence grows awkward, Jaskier’s big blue eyes still as wide as they can get.

“You… I… Y/N… There are no….”

You see Yennefer look between Jaskier and Geralt and she gives him a meaningful look.

“Why don’t you ask her to dance, Jaskier?” Geralt asks with a heavy sigh. Yennefer smiles approvingly and gives you a supportive wink.

“Y/N, would you do me the great honor of having this dance with me?” Jaskier asks. You giggle.

“Gods, Jaskier, it’s still just me,” you say, taking his hand and letting him lead you away, past a crowd of nobles, past the Countess de Stael whose presence he neither notices nor cares about in the slightest.

#Anonymous #platonic!yennefer x reader #jaskier x reader #geralt x exasperation #reader request

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im-fairly-whitty · 4 years

Text

The Witcher Wolf: In Plain Sight

Two years have passed since Geralt was cursed with the ability to turn into a wolf whenever his medallion is removed, a curse that's turned into a blessing now that he and Jaskier are partners in everything they do.

It's no exception when they discover a Nilfgaardian army bearing down on Cintra, headed straight toward a certain child surprise. With Jaskier's help and Geralt's enchanted medallion they must find a way to get into the palace, make sure Princess Cirilla is safe, and get out with her in tow if needed, regardless of Queen Calanthe's orders.

[Chapter 1: Into the Fire] [Chapter 2: Old Friend] [Chapter 3: Bad Luck]

Chapter 4: So Much For Being Smart

Jaskier wasn’t here. He wasn’t here he wasn’t here he wasn’t here.

“Wolf, are you alright?” Ciri asked, reaching under the table to slip Geralt a bit of meat from her plate.

Geralt gently took it from her hand, stiffly settled back at the foot of her chair to eat it instead of continuing to nervously shift from paw to paw as he scanned the lively ballroom for the missing bard.

He had to be better in control, he had to play his part instead of imagining every single scenario of where Jaskier could be right now, and in what condition.

“He’s probably as bored as I am, two Skellige beasts trapped at a table.” Eist said, looking over at him sympathetically. “Why don’t I take him outside for a bit of fresh air, would do us both some good.”

In the end it had been Eist—Ciri’s step grandfather—who had pushed hardest to have Geralt allowed at the banquet with Ciri. Real white wolves all came from Skellige, which had apparently endeared the prince regent to him. Let him come Calanthe, it’ll almost feel like home having a brute like him under the table.

“Neither of you are getting out of this so easily.” Calanthe said dryly, her courtly smile still fixed on her face as she sipped from a goblet that Geralt could smell held something much stronger than wine. “No matter how much either of you whine or roll on the floor.”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t rather be rolling in bed too.” Eist teased.

“Gross.” Ciri said, but Geralt could smell her amusement.

“I think he’s just excited to see so many people.” Mousesack said with a smile, glancing over to meet Geralt’s gaze with a look that held no such happiness.

Because Geralt had managed to spell out (literally) the plan to Mousesack during their afternoon together, that Jaskier was to meet them at the banquet, that he had the medallion that could turn Geralt human again.

And yet here they were, at the banquet with no Jaskier in sight. Most worryingly was the fact that the normal lutist was present, meaning that Jaskier hadn’t even gotten as far as finding him. He might be a bard but Geralt knew Jaskier was resourceful enough to have gotten the competition out of the way on his own.

Something had happened to his bard, perhaps as soon as Geralt had left him behind in the crowded marketplace. Geralt had been a fool to leave him behind, if anything had happened to him-

“I saw the Wraiths of Mörhogg over the channel this morning.” Eist said, voice now sober as he shifted his goblet back and forth on the tabletop.

“Yes, you mentioned.” Calanthe said, sounding very much like she did not want to have this conversation.

“Who?” Ciri asked, looking up from petting Geralt’s head.

“No good will come of it.” Eist said, still staring ahead, watching the boisterous dancers whirling across the ballroom floor as the guests clapped in time with the music. “They're an omen of war.”

“The North has been at war since Nilfgaard took Ebbing.” The Queen said. “If legend is true, the Wild Hunt's years behind the curve.”

“The Nilfgaardian force crossed the Amell Pass.” Eist said, looking at her.

Geralt’s ears pricked. This was what they’d come to Cintra for in the first place after all, to find out if the Queen was taking the Nilfgaardian threat seriously, if Ciri would be kept safe.

“Headed to Sodden, if they're smart.” Calanthe said, still with an utterly unworried smile on her face. “And if not, fifty of your Skelligen ships are on the way. We have more knights. We are prepared in case-”

“Prepared for what?” Ciri interrupted.

“Nothing for you to be concerned about.” The Queen said lightly.

Geralt got to his feet, ears pinned back. It was certainly something for her to be concerned about, something all of them should be concerned about.

“Your dismissive tone says it is.” Ciri sulked, undeterred.

“We're talking of war, girl.” Eist said, leaning past Calanthe to look at Ciri.

“With Nilfgaard?” Ciri asked, confused. “Why?”

“Eist!” Calanthe snapped.

“Should we fall to Nilfgaard, your granddaughter will rule.” Eist said sternly. “She needs to understand the way of things.”

“We will not fall, because we are not under attack!” Calanthe hissed. “She's a child.”

Geralt felt an edge of a growl percolating in the back of his throat as he got to his feet. Which is why she should be protected, already out of the city with him and Jaskier, not kept here in harm’s way under a pretentious ruler’s false confidence.

He saw Mouseack lean back in his chair far enough to shoot Geralt a warning look from behind Eist. Geralt grit his teeth, but managed to keep from snarling at the queen.

It did children no good to have had hard things hidden from them, not when they should be hidden from it instead.

“You won your first battle in Hochebuz when you were my age.” Ciri insisted, absently reaching down to pet him. “I've heard the ballad.”

“Pretty ballads hide bastard truths.” Eist said with a humorless chuckle.

“It's a catchy song.” Ciri insisted, the girl refusing to be defeated so easily.

“Three thousand of my men died.” Calanthe said, fixing her granddaughter with a hard expression. “If we must do this now, here is your first lesson. As in life, it is impossible always to be fully prepared for battle. Keep your sword close...and keep moving.”

Cheering and clapping filled the ballroom as the song came to an end, dancers dispersing to look for new partners while the musicians caught their breath.

Not that any of those musicians mattered.

“Your Majesty, thank you for allowing our company at this splendid affair.” Said a nobleman who had walked up to the table, bowing along with his son.

“Your Highness,” said the young man, looking to Ciri. “would you honor me with a dance?”

Geralt actually did growl this time, looking critically at the young man who wanted to dance with his child surprise. Especially when Ciri had told him earlier how much she hated being made to dance at parties.

“Uh... Martin, I don’t know, I have to stay with Wolf, he-” Ciri started.

“She'd love to.” Calanthe interjected with a smile, shooting a look at her granddaughter.

Ciri grumbled under her breath, quiet enough that likely only Geralt heard her. But she obeyed with a sigh and a forced smile. “Wolf, stay. I’ll be right back.”

Geralt huffed, but sat. He watched Martin lead her onto the dance floor, his pinned back ears relaxing just a bit when he saw Ciri’s smile become genuine as the dance started. Well at least she didn’t really hate it as much as she’d complained. Although if that boy tried anything he was going to be nursing a wolf bite for the next couple weeks.

“Reminds me of your daughter's betrothal feast.” Eist said quietly, a nostalgic smile on his face as he leaned over to his queen.

Geralt huffed, head tipping in the closest to eye rolling a wolf could manage as he padded under the table over to sit by Mousesack’s side. Pavetta’s betrothal feast had ended in an accidental display of unbridled elder magic so fierce it had nearly ripped the castle down. Followed directly but Geralt being a fool enough to saddle himself with the law of surprise. Nothing that warranted anything approaching fond nostalgia.

He looked back to Ciri, the young girl grinning now as she whirled back and forth between partners along to the music. Her eyes shone as she laughed, ducking under arms and stomping in time. Geralt tipped his head in gentle amusement as he watched her.

Well...maybe a little nostalgia...

Geralt’s gaze caught on movement at the far end of the hall, a man with a grey streak in his hair ducking into the ballroom through the massive double doors. A latecomer to a royal banquet? He must be one of the queen’s men for that not be considered an offense.

He watched as the man took a seat at one of the tables, smiling and laughing with the others while he helped himself to a side of ham. Geralt looked away, only for a second latecomer to catch his attention, this time a man in armor. The armored man however looked decidedly un jovial as he made a beeline directly to the man with the grey streak, bending over to whisper something in his ear that made the color drain from his face.

Geralt slowly got to his feet, even his Witcher sharpened wolf hearing unable to pick up their words from across the noise ballroom. A harried man in armor appearing at a party was never never a good sign, and Geralt could already feel a cold heaviness in his gut, even before the armored man nodded to his companion and then made his way directly to the queen’s table.

Geralt nosed at Mousesack’s hand in warning, staring at the approaching man when the druid looked down at him. All four of them at the table looked as the man ducked behind their table to whisper in the queen’s ear.

Geralt nearly missed the man’s words entirely even with his enhanced hearing. Because even as the queen’s face went deadly pale Geralt was growling for an entirely different reason. He had caught the faintest scent of Jaskier on the armored man’s clothing.

Mousesack snatched at Geralt’s collar, narrowly keeping him back as Geralt tried to get at the man.

“Heel, Wolf.” The druid hissed, tightening his grip.

“I stand corrected.” Calanthe said hollowly to Eist, her face deathly pale as the armored man quickly retreated. “They're here. They're already here.”

Geralt whined and growled as he watched the man go, yanking halfheartedly at his collar, unable to make sense of what to do now. He had barely enough common sense under his panic to realize that chasing down and tackling the man in the middle of the banquet hall would not be the best course of action. Upon thinking another moment it also occurred to Geralt that the scent had been so faint that the armored man likely hadn’t actually been around Jaskier at all, but rather around someone who had.

“So much for being smart.” Eist quietly said to his wife, the scent of dread flowing off him. He was watching Ciri dancing with the guests, the party still in full swing and oblivious to the deadly fate quickly closing in on them. “You should tell the girl.”

“Let her enjoy this night in peace.” Calanthe said hollowly. “It may be her last for a while.”

Geralt growled, lunging to his feet and yanking Mousesack out of his chair with him. He was done playing nice. The queen obviously had no plan for keeping Ciri safe, meaning Geralt had to get her out to safety now, hopefully before the armies actually broke down the front gates and swarmed into the castle.

And they would. Geralt had seen firsthand the ruins left behind by Nilfgaardians armies, and the fanatics rarely left behind anything more than ash and charred bones in their wake. A fate that was not going to befall him or Jaskier or Ciri, meaning he had to follow the faint scent trail before it faded.

“I’ll keep an eye on him!” Mousesack hastily called back to the queen as Geralt all but dragged him across the room, heedless of dancers and guests who laughed at the sight.

Geralt burst out the ballroom doors, leaving the noise of the party behind them as he dashed into the hall, the loudest sound now the skittering of his nails on the stone floor and Mousesack’s indignant sounds as he stumbled to keep up.

“Geralt, stop, what are you doing? What are you rushing off after?” Mousesack demanded, giving a mighty yank on the collar that stopped him in his tracks.

Geralt twisted and snapped warningly at the druid’s hand with a growl, startling the man into letting go. He wasn’t an animal to be jerked around, and he wasn’t afraid to remind Mousesack of that fact, not when he was about to lose his chance at finding Jaskier.

He turned away and sniffed the air, frantically pacing across the hall until he picked up the scent again. Jaskier, still faint but stronger now than it had been on the armored man. Geralt had seen him leave with the gray hair streak man, was that who he’d picked the scent up from? Was that the person who knew where his bard was?

He locked onto the scent, dashing down the hallway after it. He heard Mousesack calling after him but ignored it as he scrambled around a corner, down another long hallway and down a steep flight of marble steps. The scent was getting stronger, if he just-

He turned a corner and pulled up short at the sight of two armed guards standing in front of a heavy oak door. The two men stared back at him, blinking in surprise.

“Never seen him around.” One of the guards said to the other. “Think he belongs to one of the guests?”

“Must, what with that pretty collar he’s got.” The other guard responded.

Geralt sniffed the air, pawing uncertainly at the floor. The scent trail led past the guards and through that door.

He started forward, intent on shouldering his way past the guards, but the men shifted into his way.

“Not for you,” one of the guards said sternly, prodding Geralt’s side with the end of his spear. “run off now.”

Geralt snarled, barking at the guards, making them jump. He could feel the prickling sensation of the fur along his spine rising in anger, making him look bigger than he already was.

“You, you don’t reckon he’s some kind of Nilfgaardian mutt?” the first guard said, face paling a bit as he defensively lowered his spear. “There’s something wrong with him, he’s lookin’ at me.”

“Shut up you idiot, it’s just a dog.” the other guard snapped, now lowering the business end of the spear instead. He looked at Geralt. “Get away you dumb animal, unless you fancy being stuck through.”

Geralt growled, the feral noise bubbling up his chest as he thought quickly, he’d have to take them out before they thought to get to their swords, their ceremonial palace armor left a few weak places that he could-

The guard jabbed at him and Geralt ducked under the spike, coming up underneath to latch onto the wooden shaft of the spear and breaking clean through the wood with a snap of his jaws. He yanked the rest of the shaft from the man’s grip, throwing it to the side.

“Bloody hell!” The second guard yelped, his spear clattering to the floor as he drew his sword. “I told you he weren’t normal, he’s one of them mutant Novigrad fighting mutts!”

Geralt snarled, crouching low as he tried to find a weak spot, his chances against two drawn swords and a closed door were becoming ever slimmer as the guards recovered from their shock, but he couldn’t just-

“Stop! Stop it, all of you!”

Geralt growled in irritation as Mousesack turned the corner, feeling a wall of protecting magic sweep between him and the guards, blocking them from getting at each other.

“Watch out sir! He’s rabid!” One of the guards called out.

“He’s not rabid, he’s stupid.” Mousesack snapped. He glared at Geralt. “Are you going to come to your senses and come with me so we can settle this intelligently, or am I going to have to resort to something you’re going to regret to keep you from further embarrassing yourself?”

Geralt’s growl turned to a frustrated whine as his anger simmered into clawing unease. He looked at the spooked guards--armored men he really had no chance of getting past, not in this state--and back to Mousesack, who was looking at him with an expression that said he would have no problem throwing a magic muzzle on him and dragging him out of the castle for this behavior.

Geralt pawed at his face, huffing a strained sigh.

“Good.” Mousesack said tightly, dropping his wall of magic.

“Hadn’t we better kill it sir?” One of the guards asked, not lowering his sword. “There’s something unnatural about it sir, I don’t fancy being sieged in here with the likes of him what with the Nilfgaardians coming. Master Wilhelm’s saying no one’s to leave the castle.”

“Then I suggest you focus on your own duties.” Mousesack said, shooting Geralt a look before turning to leave. “Melitile knows we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Geralt slunk after him, following in anxious silence until they were out of earshot of the guards.

“Is this something to do with Jaskier?” Mousesack asked, turning to face him. “I can’t think of what else would have you dashing off like a fool. Were you really going to try attacking two armed guards with nothing but your teeth?”

Geralt whined, shifting from paw to paw, wishing desperately that he could speak. We have to follow the scent, with your help we can get past the guards.

“I promised I would help you however I can, but you promised you wouldn’t do anything rash.” Mousesack said, “That door leads to parts of the castle not even I can go without express permission from her majesty or her spymaster. Especially not when the castle has just been placed under lockdown.”

Geralt barked in frustration, taking a step back toward the door, looking at the druid. But Jaskier’s scent led there, it was already fading, they were losing him.

“I’m sorry my friend, but without a plan I cannot help you and we can’t make a plan if you can’t tell me what’s wrong. I know this is frustrating but we’ll need to go back to my office to spell out what you’re thinking, and I must attend to the princess and the queen. I want to help you, but I also have my duties to the royal family first. I’m not going to commit treason by attacking their guards without knowing why just because it seems a wolf wants me to. You understand?”

Geralt was silent, staring off at nothing in tense resignation. Without Mousesack’s help he couldn’t follow the trail, and by the time he would be able to tell him the scent would have faded away. As a wolf he had no choice but to follow the druid’s direction, he depended too much on the man’s protection in a castle full of people who would happily skin him otherwise, even before knowing who he really was.

His tail tucked a bit between his legs, his head lowering a little. He missed Jaskier.

“Come, we’ll handle this as well as we can.” Mousesack said, starting down the hall again. “My guess is we have less than an hour at most before the guests realize they won’t be leaving this castle. Once that happens I’ll likely be asked to stay with Princess Cirilla as her protective escort while the queen decides what is to be done about this disaster. This is the only chance we’ll have to communicate in private for what I think is going to be a long time, we can’t waste a second more of it.”

Geralt swallowed, following dutifully after the druid.

As they made their way down the halls Geralt wished he wasn’t able to smell the descending stink of fear and worry that grew stronger with every guard and page and servant they passed.

It seemed news of the advancing army was spreading quickly through the castle, only serving to set Geralt more on edge as he tried not to imagine where Jaskier was, if he’d heard it yet as well.

[Read part 5: Secrets]

____

*meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV screen* me when I'm on tumblr and see themes of lockdown/quarantine seeping into the fanfic I'm reading while we're all IRL on lockdown/quarantine

Good news! I finally figured out how many chapters are left in this fic! The answer is two, there are two chapters are left in this fic.

#the witcher #geralt #jaskier #geraskier #ciri #the witcher wolf #witcher wolf au #wit writes

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dandywolves · 5 years

Text

So, uh, I had a bunch of thoughts and it turned into 1500 words of whatever this is

Building off my previous post about Jaskier getting captured by Nilfgaard or whatever and Geralt being confronted by a Doppler wearing his face (and please be mindful that literally all I know about the Witcher is from Netflix and stuff posted in the Geraskier tag here on Tumblr lol)

-Yennefer was also, at some point, captured by Nilfgaard. Probably during that last big climactic battle after she sort of self-destructed. She eventually manages to free herself, being all magical and badass, and she finds Jaskier in his cell. He’s beaten, bloodied, and generally in really rough shape. Despite their differences, she takes pity on him – even he doesn’t deserve to be subject to Nilfgaard’s cruelty – and she frees him, too.

-When Geralt finally tracks Jaskier down to wherever he was being held, the place is half-destroyed and Jaskier is gone. He’s left wondering what happened to his bard, unsure if he survived whatever was unleashed on the place.

-Thus starts the wild adventures of Yennefer and Jaskier travelling together. They don’t really plan to become travel companions, it just sort of happens – they spend some time in the same town together for a while, recuperating from their imprisonment, and they sort of bond. Jaskier probably performs Her Sweet Kiss in a tavern somewhere while trying to scrounge together some coin, and Yennefer is like, “First of all, I know that song is about me and Geralt. Second of all, I know that song is about YOU and Geralt.”

-They bond over their heartbreak and form a Fuck You, Geralt club.

-Months or years down the line, Geralt is wandering through a town with Ciri, looking for easy monsters to kill to train her and pick up coin. He hears a familiar voice – Jaskier singing in a nearby tavern. He’s shocked and excited and filled with trepidation – the last time he saw Jaskier, after all, it was a Doppler – but he enters the tavern with Ciri in tow.

-Ciri recognizes Jaskier as Julian, the charming bard who used to perform regularly in Cintra when she was a little girl. Her mother adored him and grandmother was deeply suspicious of him. When her parents died, he stopped visiting. But she knows that face and she knows that voice – he hasn’t changed a bit.

-Jaskier was performing some sort of solemn and bitter song about the White Wolf. Not hateful or damning – he can’t bear to actually sully Geralt’s reputation, given that he a) is in love with the bastard, and b) worked so hard to make a good name for him. But the song isn’t celebratory or happy or adoring. I’m thinking maybe even just the literal Song of The White Wolf from the OST.

-He catches Geralt’s eye shortly after Geralt enters, faltering on a line. Which NEVER happens. When Jaskier stops singing altogether, Geralt gestures for him to continue. “Don’t stop on my account. I’ve not heard this particular song.”

-Jaskier finishes his song. Geralt stands in the doorway like a doofus, listening to him sing, stung by the words, but strangely overwhelmed with relief and fondness to see his bard and alive and well and still doing what he loves.

-When Jaskier finishes the song, he tells his enraptured audience that he will unfortunately have to cut his evening short, grabs his things, and B-lines for a backdoor. Geralt moves to follow, but Yennefer basically materializes from the shadows to block his path. He’s confused and shocked to discover that they’re travelling together, Yennefer tells him to leave well enough alone, and she soon follows after Jaskier with Geralt watching in bewilderment

-Sometime later, Jaskier is again captured – but not by Nilfgaard.

-Yennefer seeks out Geralt. Explains what happened. Jaskier has been brought back to court to serve as Viscount. Geralt is ashamed that he did not, exactly, realize Jaskier was titled, to which Yennefer calls him an ass and points out that she heard Jaskier ramble about it on numerous occasions long before they even went on the fateful dragon hunt together. Geralt had always tuned him out, because he was an asshole and a shitty friend

-They head to Lettenhove. Jaskier is surprised to see Geralt, but quickly masks it with anger. Tells Geralt to fuck off and let him live his life. There’s some back and forth – Ciri and Yennefer try to talk to him, too, but to limited success, and it’s determined that Geralt has the best chance of getting a straight answer from him (because Jaskier is in love with him, though he doesn’t know that, and also because he has known Jaskier the longest and knows how to connect with him, no matter how shitty he actually is at doing so)

-He’s not actually captured or imprisoned or being held for ransom or anything of that sort. He’s literally just gone back to Lettenhove to properly serve as Viscount. But that doesn’t make any sense, because Jaskier clearly never had any interest in doing so, considering he left behind the comfort of nobility to live the rough life of a travelling bard. And he did this for DECADES. Clearly, something happened that forced him to return.

-Geralt finally gets an explanation from him: Nilfgaard (or maybe some other force, idk) has been moving in on Lettenhove. Their movement has been slow and insidious, enough to be a clear danger, but not enough that Lettenhove can seek aid/support from any of its neighbours. They don’t stand a chance against this threat alone, and they don’t want to be sitting on the defensive waiting for the inevitable.

-But if this enemy took an obvious, aggressive action against Lettenhove or its nobility, they could vie for protection and support from their neighbours. Enter Jaskier – a noble who has essentially never served his station, which means he isn’t needed and he won’t be missed. They want to stage an assassination against him and frame their enemy for it.

-Geralt immediately tells Jaskier he can’t do this. Jaskier, scowling at him, sneers, “You don’t control me, Geralt. I decide my own fate.”

-(I also visualize this scene happening while Jaskier is nursing a goblet of wine. He follows up this statement by downing and then slamming the goblet onto a nearby table. The wine has stained his lips red and splattered onto his pale hand, and all Geralt can think of is blood.)

-Geralt tries to follow Jaskier as he walks away, to reason with him, drag him away, maybe even beg him, but Jaskier doesn’t even look over his shoulder as he snaps his fingers and guards converge on Geralt to block his path. Geralt is left to watch Jaskier disappear through a door, slamming it shut behind him.

-Geralt tells Yennefer and Ciri. They are despondent and also like, “Fuck that, nope, we won’t let him be assassinated.”

-The hit is slated to happen at a welcome home banquet the following night. The trio show up unannounced and uninvited to the banquet, and as soon as Jaskier sees them he tells the guards to see to it that they’re removed. As guards crowd around them and start forcing them out of the hall, Geralt shouts, “Jaskier, you can’t do this!” And Jaskier just looks him dead in the eye and says, “Just let me live my life, Geralt. However I choose to.”

-Obviously, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri aren’t about to just LEAVE, but they also aren’t going to fight and cause a huge scene. It’s not just Lettenhove present at this banquet.

-They find windows with a good vantage point, watching for any sign of someone posing as the enemy.

-Later on in the night, Jaskier steps up to perform. He briefly explains the years he spent adventuring and singing, clutching his precious elven lute with a mix of reverence and fear. He says he’s leaving behind that life, but wants to sing one last time, for old time’s sake. Of course he sings, “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher.”

-During that building and repetitious final chorus, it happens. A Doppler had been hired to pose as one of the party guests, blending perfectly, and it emerges from the shadows in the guise of an enemy assassin, firing a crossbow bolt straight into Jaskier’s throat.

-The bard falls to his knees, clutching at his throat with one hand, gasping as blood pours over his hands, and Geralt is outside just SCREAMING because it happened too suddenly for Yennefer to try to stop it with her magic.

-But Jaskier is still clutching his lute with the other hand, and the beautiful filigree and detailing starts to glow. It’s filled with elven magic, unbeknownst to him – the same magic that has kept him so young, the same magic that might have protected him from the Djinn had he carried his lute with him that day.

-In a panic, he tears the bolt free from his neck, the hole spurting and gushing blood – and then it stops. The blood flow slows. And the hole in his throat slowly seals. The glow fades from the lute, all the beautiful detailing gone, and Jaskier is left covered in his own blood but miraculously alive.

-There is a shocked pause before the entire banquet explodes into chaos. People cheering for Jaskier’s survival – outcry at the assassination attempt – demands to find the assassin that a select few people know has already shifted back into the guise of a bewildered party guest by this point, the perfect master of disguise.

-And Geralt bursts in through the fucking window, shoving people out of the way as he rushes toward Jaskier, who he grabs and pulls into the fiercest bear hug. In a low, rough voice, he rasps, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

-And Jaskier can’t even pretend to be angry anymore, because he genuinely thought he was about to die and he DIDN’T, so he hugs Geralt back and just sobs against his shoulder.

#geraskier #The Witcher

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sirsparklepants · 4 years

Text

I’ve spent the last few days in a cold-meds haze, but I’m covid-negative, so to celebrate, here’s a snippet from the fic I’m working on where Jaskier is temporarily cursed to be mute but communicates with his lute anyway.

Unfortunately, the reason that they were in town - to kill a rather horrible insectoid creature left in the remnants of a much stronger magic than the town wizard's - was the reason that the town mage was hanging about to begin with. Like many of the nasty little critters Geralt was paid to stick his sword into, the parts of it were very valuable for potion-making. Unlike most of them, and the reason why Yennefer was interested, this creature was only created under very rare circumstances indeed, and the mage wasn't strong enough to kill it. Jaskier didn't know all of this as he watched Geralt dodge about, ably avoiding its attempts to knock the witcher down, of course. He only put it together later. As it was, he was perched in a tree, noting all the details he could of the stalwart way Geralt plunged his sword through its armored carapace - what a term! - when he saw the wizard who'd cursed him stride towards Geralt's unprotected back, his hands raised and glowing.

Jaskier's mind went blank. The only thing he could remember was a popular ballad from a several years ago about a king's mage who'd fucked his queen, and he strummed the most relevant line he could think of. "He was big and strong and his eyes a flaming glow." Then, for good measure, he strummed the danger chord - but Geralt was already whirling around to face the mage.

The man's eyes weren't literally glowing, but they were lit by avarice as he turned on the witcher - and, less metaphorically, by the wavering green glow around his hands. Geralt wasted no time, waving his off hand in a little gesture Jaskier had seen before, knocking the man off his feet, and the glow spluttered.

The mage sat back up, now with forest loam smudged over one cheek. "How dare you," he hissed, and gestured wildly. Behind Geralt, a tree limb cracked and crashed, and the witcher had to duck and roll to avoid it. Jaskier held his breath and clutched the tree trunk.

"My client is a lot scarier than you," Geralt said, circling warily around the mage. He wasn't powerful at all, just like Geralt said, Jaskier thought. He'd been unfortunate enough to be in the middle when Geralt and Yennefer truly set to once, and there would have been scorch marks on the ground and at least three toppled trees by now if she was here.

The mage laughed at him. "How?" he asked, hands glowing again. He swiped one up sharply, and creeping vines grew up to entagle Geralt's feet. "I control the power of nature! Of chaos! And I will have that claw. What use has a human for it?"

Geralt slashed at the vines, leaping free, and rolled again, coming up with his sword perilously close to the mage's throat. "Who said she was a human?"

The mage gasped, and gestured again. A tree branch swayed down unnaturally, trying to swipe Geralt's sword from his hand. Impatiently, Geralt gestured with his off hand, and a cloud of fire erupted from it, scorching the limb. The mage shrieked, and did… something, circling his hands like he was trying to build the force of the fire, bring it in towards himself. Geralt set his jaw and gestured wider, and the mage's control slipped. The fire ballooned out, scorching his hands, and Jaskier swallowed as the man screamed. Geralt dropped his hand, and the fire went out.

"That'll teach you to play with things you can't control," he said grimly. "If you had stolen from me, you would have had Yennefer of Vengerburg after you, and she would have done worse."

The mage whimpered, and now that Jaskier could see he would live, the churning in his gut settled. In fact, he felt rather smug as he climbed down from the tree and went to stand beside Geralt. So smug, in fact, that when he was sure he had the mage's attention, he played a condescending little series of notes on his lute.

"And stop cursing humans just because they piss you off," Geralt said, as if it was an afterthought. "I know he's annoying, but you do that to enough of them, they'll turn on you." He left the man in the dirt as he turned back to the corpse, Jaskier following along behind him and strumming a mournful line.

#my fic #the witcher

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strawberry-skies-xx · 4 years

Text

forget the bottle

C H A P T E R O N E

summary: Jaskier has always felt things on a deeper level than most, and more often, and he has gone through life this way. He has coping mechanisms, of course - drinking, talking, singing, etc. He can't be overwhelmed by his emotions all the time, after all.

After the mountain, Jaskier's coping mechanism is drinking. Turns out, there's something in it, and Nilfgaard knows exactly how to break the songbird.

words: 17097

tags: geralt / jaskier, yennefer, PTSD, post-s1e6, s1e6 fix-it, a fix-it of sorts, pyschological trauma, psychological torture, magical fuckery, mind manipulation, aftermath of psychological torture, emotional/psychological abuse, torture, nilfgaard, captured by nilfgaard, fringilla, fluff and angst, protective yennefer, yennefer ships it, idiots in love, love confessions, happy ending, solitary confinement

author’s note: alright, so here is the zillionth captured-by-nilfgaard fic in this fandom. and, yes, whenever i mention valdo marx + jaskier hate-fucking, i am passive-aggressively yelling at the fandom for not having more of it. it has massive potential, but i don't write smut. (aka, please link me to any amazing top/dom valdo and bottom/sub jaskier hate-fucking, i love it)

scheduled tuesday and thursday posting.

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

-0-0-0-

Jaskier felt too much.

He’d always felt too much. He spent his younger years raging at his parents, raging at the world, though he didn’t know what he was raging at, only that he wanted to get away, be free.

And when he was old enough, he went to Oxenfurt and learned - learned academics, learned the arts, and he flashed through emotions quicker than he did love. The world was new, the world was bright and big and bold and Jaskier wanted nothing more than to carve himself a place in it.

And he did. He went to an inn in Posada and met a white-haired Witcher, and he learned some more. Learned of the darker emotions - not just anger, but revenge, and not just sadness, but despair, oppression. The world was new, still, the world wasn’t quite bright anymore but it was big and bold and Jaskier still wanted to carve himself a place in it, by way of one grumpy, golden-eyed, white-haired Witcher.

So Jaskier went through the world, and he felt. He felt pain lance through him, sharp as any blade - pain of heartbreak, pain of rejection, pain of actual physical wounds. He felt happiness, like warm honey falling gently over him - contentment when he sat by the fire with Geralt and sang into the shadows, joy when he roused an entire tavern into singing and stamping with him and he danced between them all, singing his heart out to the world.

He also felt love, in a more permanent sense than he’d ever felt it. Love was…. a peculiar sensation for him. He fell into love hard, and fast, and deep - both literally and metaphorically; Jaskier did enjoy the finer things in life, and he wasn’t above flirting and taking everyone he met to bed, sometimes at the same time. He adored people, like soft warmth rising in him. Lust was sharp and primal, carnal in its intensity, and Jaskier sharpened it into something intricate, turned it into pretty words and meaningful looks and determined intent.

And he loved, loved with his whole being, loved with his entire heart. Jaskier gave a piece of his heart to everyone he met, and sometimes he took it back after a fleeting infatuation, sometimes it stayed with them and he yearned. Valdo Marx was one of those people - he had loved him as he did anyone, had ended up hating him, but Valdo was not a fleeting love. Jaskier still loved him, even if it was only for their sharp back-and-forths and the truly mind-blowing hate sex they had occasionally - Valdo knew him better than anyone, except for Geralt.

Geralt was different. For Jaskier, love shot through him like a lightning bolt - or, Cupid’s arrow. Sometimes it went out the other end and left, sometimes it stuck and bled and scarred. With Geralt, it had shot through him like any other person, except it had stuck, it hadn’t bled, and it hadn’t scarred. Jaskier loved Geralt, and he was never so selfless that he never wanted more of him despite having what he already did, but if he was truly forced to choose, Jaskier would have been perfectly content with the life he led with the Witcher, would have suffered through the pain of pining after him if he got to stay.

Jaskier hadn’t chosen, though. Geralt had chosen for him, and he had decided that he didn’t need him, didn’t want him, and Jaskier had granted him his oh so desired blessing, and left.

Heartbreak felt like needles, stabbing him, over and over and over, in multiple places, and when he thought it was done, he’d see something and he’d be pricked again, it would draw blood.

Jaskier had grown very good at coping with his feelings - he couldn’t go through life being overwhelmed by all of his emotions. He did this in all manners of ways - writing songs and singing them, putting on the optimistic act to simultaneously let out emotions while hiding others, and talking, constantly. One of his better - or, well, quite unhealthy but very effective - coping mechanisms was drinking, which was what he was currently using on the heartbreak needling at him.

He stared into the tankard of ale, which tasted more like piss than actual ale, and sighed. Even the damn ale reminded him of Geralt.

Maybe the Cupid’s arrow for Geralt had started bleeding. Jaskier wasn’t sure if it would scar.

He groaned and dumped coins on the table, ignoring the flirtatious looks some women were giving him. He would have accepted it at any other time, would have lost himself in pleasure, but he felt slightly dizzy and he wanted nothing more than to find someplace to sleep, without practically selling his body for it. He didn’t have enough coin for a room, so he’d have to sleep out in the woods. Which, dammit, was just like he used to do with Geralt. Minus the Witchery protection now, of course.

Jaskier’s head was thoroughly spinning by the time he got out of the inn, and he knew something was wrong. He was drugged, he knew what it felt like to be drugged, having been enough times that Geralt actually berated him for having to rescue him. He ran through in his head what drug it could be, landed distantly on the salty taste of the ale, and cursed under his breath. Or, maybe it was a curse. Jaskier’s head was too fuzzy to figure out whether it came out as an actual word or as incoherent noises.

He saw shadows out of the corner of his eye - black, large, vaguely terrifying considering the way he stumbled and couldn’t think straight. He was caught by two strong arms, Geralt flashing quickly through his mind before a voice that was decidedly not Geralt whispered in his ear, smooth and cruel.

“Hey, little songbird,” not-Geralt said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Fuck off,” Jaskier replied. Or didn’t. He didn’t know, his head was spinning and he felt a headache pounding and his limbs were growing slow and heavy, and the darkness dragged him down all too easily.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier woke up cold, and shivering, and very, very confused. He was laying on his side on a stone floor, feeling like he had been dunked in ice water - which, maybe he had, because his hair was dripping wet still and plastered to his face. His hands were behind his back, and at an experimental tug, they were tied together too. He wore nothing but his pants, and his bare shoulder pressed against the cold stone.

Jaskier cursed, both from his situation which had rapidly come back to him, and the very annoying strands of wet hair that had decided to plant themselves directly in his eye, and managed to roll himself onto his back with some effort. He lifted his head as much as he could and shook his hair out of his face, trying very hard to ignore the feeling of it plastered to his cheeks, his neck, just all over the place. He took the brief time to berate whoever had kidnapped him on hair care - honestly, did no one know how to dry hair? He liked to keep his hair soft and this was decidedly not the way to do it.

Of course, none of this was what he believed. He was ignoring the fear crawling up in him, feeling like spiders and making his skin itch, feeling like ice trickling down his spine and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. If he focused on anything other than the fear, then he wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It couldn’t do anything.

Jaskier rolled himself back on his side in order not to crush his hands beneath him, and after a long, heated moment spent mentally berating whoever had kidnapped him, again, on the best positions for singing, he actually started singing. The lecture went on, still - every time his voice cracked very much not artfully, or every time he couldn’t pull in enough breath, he took a second to come up with some particularly creative insult in his head about calling him songbird and then prohibiting his ability to sing.

He ignored the feeling of spiders crawling over him and the feeling of ice trickling down his spine.

It was an undetermined amount of time, measured only by the fact that Jaskier got through eight songs verbally before he started shivering uncontrollably, and six songs mentally before the door opened and a woman in blue robes and two men in black Nilfgaardian armor strode in.

He gave a dry laugh, ignoring the spiders crawling and the ice trickling. “Nice of you to stop by,” he said. “You know, it’s a bit contradictory when you call me songbird and then put me in a position like this, which is very much not conducive to singing, let me tell you.”

The woman in blue robes smiled and walked forward. She reached behind him and tugged harshly on the ropes tying his arms, pulling him into a kneeling position, before yanking him up to stand. Jaskier met her dark eyes, sensed the crackling undercurrent of magic around her, and supposed that this was Nilfgaard’s mage. Or one of them, at least.

She held his gaze for a long moment, searching, before letting go. “Untie him,” she said, turning around and standing several paces back as the Nilfgaardian soldiers descended on him.

Jaskier stood still, finding his heart suddenly pounding and adrenaline racing through him. This was his chance - he could try to escape now.

The ropes dropped from his arms and he lashed out, landing a right hook in one of the soldier’s jaws and aiming for another in the other soldier, when the entire room popped and Jaskier found himself slammed into by a wave of magic. His back hit the stone wall hard, knocking the breath out of him, and he gasped, arching. The sorceress walked forward, cruel emptiness in her eyes, watching him like he was a bug pinned to a board. Which, he supposed he was.

He was always a bug pinned to a board, poked and prodded and seen as amusing by Geralt and Yennefer and now this damned mage. Gods, Jaskier hated being human.

“Don’t struggle,” she said, voice oddly serene. “It’ll only be worse for you.”

Jaskier scoffed, rolled his eyes and studiously ignored the fear threatening to overtake him. Sometimes feeling too much was a blessing, sometimes it was a curse. Right now, it was a curse.

“Why? So I can become your puppet and you can do whatever you’d like to me? I’d be flattered you think of me that way, if this wasn’t a kidnapping,” he retorted sharply. The mage laughed, amused, and Jaskier tugged against his invisible bonds. Something in him wanted to cry at the fact that they didn’t even deem it necessary to tie him up, he was so weak and human.

The mage didn’t respond - not to his question, anyway. Instead, she raised two fingers to trace along his jaw. “It’s better to get this over with now,” she said.

Jaskier paled, felt the fear rising in him. “Get what over with? I’d rather you don’t-“

Her fingers landed on his forehead and his sentence ended with a scream. He arched against the invisible bonds, feeling the searing heat crawl into his mind, flood it with lava, with blood and pain and misery. She dissected his memories, sharply cleaving through every defense he had, and he felt the magic ripping through his body harshly, tearing through his mind.

Jaskier slid into the wooden seat, bread shifting uncomfortably in his waistband - but that wasn’t important. What was important was the lack of a review, the golden eyes staring flatly at him and the two long, sharp, menacing swords sitting beside the man.

“Come on, you must have some review for me. Three words or less.”

“No,” he gasped. “Don’t- please don’t-“

He screamed again as she ripped through another of his memories, feeling tears start in his eyes and the feeling of fear inch up his spine, waiting for the opportunity to get past his defenses and overtake him.

“How’s my singing, Geralt?” Jaskier asked loudly, because oh he wanted to have this conversation. He was quite heartbroken from the Countess de Stael’s rude break off of their relationship, and he thought spending a good long while defending his singing with a loud, unrestrained sarcasm he hadn’t been able to use since he entered the Countess’s court would make him feel better. There was something freeing about being with Geralt, not having to tiptoe around the darker and dirtier things in life.

Jaskier gasped through the pain, shaking against the wall, mouth now opening wordlessly as he arched and the mage tore into memory after memory, pulling everything he ever felt, thought, said, did, into full view, forcing white hair and golden eyes into the forefront of his mind. She learned he felt too much, she learned he loved too much, she learned of the frankly embarrassing number of times he hate-fucked Valdo Marx.

And she learned he loved Geralt with a love more permanent than anything he’d ever felt before.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

The agony ended with that line echoing in his head and he fell limp against the magic holding him to the wall, gasping for breath and still feeling the echoes of the searing pain ripping through his head.

The mage was entirely unconcerned, standing and waiting with a blank look on her face until Jaskier caught his breath and sent her a glare. He growled - which, of course made him think of Geralt. Damn the fucking Witcher who stole his heart. “Are you done? Learned anything useful?” he snarled, truly not giving a fuck about whether he angered her and made it worse.

She traced her fingers along his jaw again, sliding them beneath his chin and raising his head, lowering herself down to look him in the eyes. “Oh, songbird. We learned so much. I'm going to enjoy breaking you.”

Jaskier felt the fear rise up in him, felt his breaths start to come shorter and tears fill his eyes, and forcefully shoved it down. He couldn’t let his emotions overwhelm him.

“Why do you want me?” he asked, uselessly. He knew why they wanted him - and he knew he couldn’t give them the answers they wanted. Geralt had discarded him.

The mage released his chin and stood up, not responding. Jaskier watched as she stepped back, flicked her fingers, and suddenly Jaskier fell hard to the floor. He gasped when the cold shocked through him, and the mage walked to the door with the soldiers. She turned back at him when he raised his head to look at her.

“The Witcher has something we want,” she replied, and turned and left. The door slammed loudly behind her and the soldiers.

Jaskier was left alone in the darkness, and the sudden drain of adrenaline from the mage ripping through his mind left him exhausted. He resisted the urge to cry; he kept up the dying hope that Geralt would save him, or he would escape, because they were the only things keeping back the flood of fear, and he knew if the fear and emotions overtook him then he would break.

For now, he curled up on the cold floor and let his eyes close, succumbing to the deep exhaustion and letting sleep take him.

-0-0-0-

The mage introduced herself as Fringilla, and the next time she came in there were the same two soldiers with her. Jaskier had searched his cell when he woke up feeling marginally better, though still freezing cold, and found nothing - it was pitch dark, so he couldn’t see, but he had felt every inch with his hands and there was absolutely nothing that would help him escape. He could barely find the door in the darkness.

The bright light blinded him and he covered his eyes as Fringilla and the soldiers walked in. He glared at them, backed away when the soldiers came up to him. They reached out and Jaskier laughed harshly, ducking out from under their arms. “Nope, no, I am not letting you touch me.”

Fringilla sighed impatiently as Jaskier kept dodging the soldiers, who did nothing more than walk steadily after him in the small space. He hated this, hated that he was trapped and couldn’t do anything other than run three feet from the soldiers and make himself look weak by prolonging it. They still hadn’t deemed him a threat enough to tie him up, for fuck’s sake.

Jaskier would have enjoyed taking apart that delusion, if he wasn’t freezing cold, half-naked, outnumbered, and with no weapon to speak of. He uselessly avoided the soldiers for several more minutes, until even he was growing bored of the game, and the only thing that Fringilla needed to do was raise her hand before Jaskier was stopping, freezing like a deer in headlights, fear flashing through him. The soldiers took that opportunity and slammed him against the wall, hands pinning his arms and legs in place.

Jaskier wondered if the display of sheer power against him was intentional, deeming him too weak for chains or ropes, but Fringilla smiled in such a way that it was instantly confirmed and Jaskier bit back his noise of annoyance. It was truly insulting, and hit something deeper in Jaskier that was still fighting, that kept up hope. He figured that was the point - if they could restrain him so easily now, what was the point of fighting? It would only be worse.

“Love,” Fringilla said, and Jaskier felt his stomach drop and his body go cold. If Nilfgaard wanted to break him, they certainly knew how to do it.

“It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it? So volatile. It’s the only thing us mages can’t predict,” Fringilla continued, voice low.

Jaskier glared at her. “Shame. Thought you mages were all-powerful,” he snarked. Fringilla only looked amused.

“However,” she continued, ignoring his comment, “we can use it to our advantage.” And, yeah, that’s definitely not good for Jaskier, who squirmed just at the thought of what they could do to him regarding Geralt - because that was the only person he truly loved, really.

She raised her fingers, intent in her dark eyes, and Jaskier barely had time to protest, fear shooting through him, before cool magic washed over him like ice water, and he sank into darkness.

He saw the light first - saw the mountains in the distance, felt the clothes covering his back. Heard Geralt and Yennefer arguing below, saw Borch sitting on the ledge - and oh, fuck, this was the dragon hunt, he realized with a jolt of panic.

“Like fuck you didn’t,” came Geralt’s irritated voice, and Jaskier’s heart hurt just hearing it. He stood up, or, well, he tried to. There was a magical force pulling him down, forcing him to stay in the body of the Jaskier in his memories, the one who sat on the rock, and walked over, and then walked away. He wanted to cry, again, because he knew how this turned out and he could already feel the heartbreak needling at his skin, the pain of rejection lancing through him. He remembered how his dreams shattered like glass, and he cut himself on the sharp edges of them as he walked away.

He stood up, walked over once Yennefer left. Spoke without wanting to, felt the insistent magic tugging at him. “Whew,” he said. “What a day. I imagine you’re probably-“

“Dammit, Jaskier,” Geralt interrupted sharply, whirling around to face him, and Jaskier felt the needles of heartbreak start pricking him, stabbing and drawing blood. He was stuck in his memory’s body, though, so he was forced to listen, feeling the tug of Fringilla’s magic on his voice, on his body.

Geralt’s eyes were hard, burning with anger as he continued. “Why is it, whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you shoveling it?”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Jaskier replied, voice soft. It was just as painful the second time as it was the first, and back in the dark, cold cell, Jaskier was resisting the urge to cry. He didn’t want to relive this, it was too much for him to handle.

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! ” Geralt’s voice was harsh, everything about him was harsher and sharper and Jaskier was cutting himself on it, he was practically bleeding out with the force of the heartbreak ripping through him. He sang so many songs about Geralt, about him not being a monster, and Jaskier fought against the negative things said about Geralt with everything he had, but some dark, selfish part of himself whispered that maybe Geralt really was the monster everyone thought he was. He was certainly acting the part right now, hurting Jaskier in the most efficient, effective way possible. Jaskier was wrong when he said Geralt didn’t know how to use the blade of his words as effectively as steel and silver.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

Sharp pain lanced through him and Jaskier woke up gasping, laying on the cold floor. The cell was dark; Fringilla and the soldiers were long gone. Jaskier was alone.

Jaskier shoved down the tears, shoved down the fear and heartbreak and emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Crying was not one of his coping mechanisms. Drinking was, talking was, singing was. Not crying, never crying. Jaskier would not show weakness.

Well, he couldn’t drink. He had two options. Singing or talking. There weren’t many songs to sing that weren’t about Geralt - and he had just been painfully reminded of how he felt about him, thank you very much. So he curled up in a weak defense against the cold, and in a quiet, cracking, whisper of a voice, started to talk.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier had fallen asleep in the middle of some sentence about geography, some passage he had memorized from a textbook when he was at Oxenfurt. He didn’t remember it now; didn’t need to. All he remembered now was the surge of fear as the cell door opened and Fringilla and two soldiers walked in. Jaskier looked up, too exhausted to think about physically fighting as they dragged him up from his position on the floor.

He did fight verbally, though, if only because talking to someone to fight off his emotions was better than talking to himself. “In the old stories, the knights swept the princesses off of their feet,” he said. The soldiers started pulling him towards the door - he had a vague hope of escaping, though he felt like shit because he was being starved and really had to piss. “Does that make me the princess?”

Fringilla gave her signature, idly amused smile, the one that reminded Jaskier just how much he was a bug pinned to a board and surrounded by immortals who didn’t care for him. “You’re a bard, and nothing more. The place we’re taking you is not from the old stories.”

Jaskier frowned. “Shame. Oh, speaking of being a bard, why do you even keep me here? You already rifled through my mind, you saw Geralt abandon me. You know I don’t know where he is, or what he has that you want.”

Fringilla didn’t look bothered. “You’re still useful. You know the Witcher better than anyone else, you can tell us where he would go next. His patterns of behavior, the way he thinks. The best way we can ambush him. Or, if not, you’re good for bait.”

Jaskier laughed, and the sound was harsh and mocking. “He won’t come for me,” he said bitterly. “You’re delusional if, after looking at that memory, you think he would come back for me. He doesn’t care whether I live or die.”

Fringilla smiled. “You’re right. He doesn’t care about you, and he won’t come back. Whether you help us find the Witcher or not, bard, you’re still ours.”

It came so easily, so certainly, that Jaskier deflated in the soldier’s arms, staring at Fringilla with a sort of blank horror. She had looked through his memories, had seen everything he’d seen, and she was able to say with such smooth certainty that Geralt wouldn’t come back for him, and he was Nilfgaard’s now. It hit the same part of him that it had when they had so easily restrained him, the deeper part of him that glowed gold with hope even as the rest of him withered and broke.

They stopped in front of a simple wooden door that Fringilla opened to reveal a room with a tub, toilet, and sink. Jaskier turned to the sorceress. “You’re giving me time to clean myself up?” he asked incredulously. “Doesn’t that go against, you know… everything about torture?”

Fringilla smiled again, but there was something darker in it. Jaskier resisted the urge to shiver at the dark promise hidden in her tone and smile. “You’re going to need it, bard. You won’t come back here for a long time.”

Jaskier felt the dread rise in him, like being touched by ice, and the fear. He nodded, staying quiet, and went into the room, flinching when the door slammed and locked behind him.

An hour later, the door was opened and the two soldiers came to get him, just as he finished using the bathroom. Jaskier sighed. “I’m guessing you won’t pamper me as much anymore?”

Fringilla smiled in the same dark way when the soldiers pulled Jaskier through the hallways. “No.”

They got closer, and Jaskier thought he was immune, he thought he was still strong, but he thought of the pure darkness of the cell and the cold air and the sheer loneliness, and started struggling when he saw the metal door at the end of the hallway. The fear was threatening to overtake him, his breaths came shorter and his voice rose an octave.

“Are you really sure you want to put me in there?” he asked, while pulling against the soldiers, who forcefully manhandled him down the hallway. His heart was picking up, and dammit he shouldn’t be this affected after two fucking days, but here he was. Nilfgaard had better torture tactics than they were given credit for - Jaskier had a bitter feeling that the reliving the hardest, most painful ten minutes of his life factored into the reason why he was so scared. “I’m sure there’s another option, something much less… well, dark and cold.”

“Will you answer our questions?” Fringilla asked.

“No,” Jaskier replied automatically. He wouldn’t give up that easily, no matter how terrifying the cell was.

Fringilla opened the door and the soldiers threw him in. He landed hard on the stone, still in only a pair of pants because that was all the clothes he was given in the bathroom, and he barely had time to watch the sliver of light be sliced away by the door slamming before he was left in pitch darkness, the cold air already seeping into him.

Jaskier sat up and leaned against the wall. He sighed, very firmly refusing the urge to cry, and stared into the darkness. He couldn’t even see the edges of the room, for fuck’s sake.

He let out a breath that definitely wasn’t at all shaky, tilted his head back against the wall, and started to sing - about everything and anything, because he couldn’t give a fuck about whether the songs were about Geralt if it meant he was distracted from the pain of knowing this was all he would see for gods knows how long. After all, it was just another emotion to add to the pile, wasn’t it? Nilfgaard wouldn’t care if he broke down - fuck, they wanted him to break down. Some dark part of him wondered if it would be easier to break down, stop fighting; it was only exhausting him anyway.

“When a humble bard, graced a ride along…”

#the witcher netflix #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier

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ficsandcatsandficsandcats · 4 years

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What about a little fluffy based one where the reader finds out that its Jaskier's birthday soon, so she tries to throw him a really fun party. And then shes like "wait, I bet Geralt and Yen never had a fun birthday party either!" so it turns into one big birthday celebration and she makes them each a cake and buys whatever stupid gifts she can with spare change, just to make sure they all get some appreciation once in a while.

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Jaskier x Reader, Platonic!Geralt x Reader, Platonic!Yennefer x ReaderWord Count: 1,217Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle a/n: I love the idea of the gang getting a group birthday. Thanks for the prompt!

“But should we have three cakes or just one huge one?”

You addressed the question to the horse standing next to you, a list in hand that you held politely so both of you could see, though you had to keep moving it away from her mouth as she tried to chomp it. You’d written down all the things you thought may need for the evening’s festivities;

Cake (1 – 3)

Candles (3 if possible blue, silver, purple)

Presents (what does one buy a bard, a beast, and a mage? problem for Future Y/N)

“Thanks, Past Y/N,” you grumbled at the paper. You stood before the marketplace which was already fairly picked through. You hadn’t realized it was Jaskier’s birthday coming up until he mentioned it offhand at breakfast. When you’d demanded to know why he hadn’t told you sooner, his answer had crushed and inspired you all at once.

“I just didn’t think anyone would care.”

He hadn’t said the words petulantly like a pouting child. He’d said it like it was a foregone conclusion, likely come to from prior experience. When you cornered Geralt and Yennefer later to demand to know why they hadn’t told you about Jaskier’s birthday they’d both stared at you blankly.

“I know he was born, isn’t that enough?” Geralt had asked.

“No!” you’d cried, “No it is not enough! What about his birthday party?”

Yennefer and Geralt exchanged confused looks and a realization hit you that only deepened your sadness and spurred your determination; they’d never had a birthday party either.

“Right,” you’d said, nodding, “I’m taking Roach.”

You nearly ran out of the inn before Geralt could stop you and that was how you found yourself at the market which was nearly closing.

“They’re all getting a cake. I’ll bake them myself if I have to,” you decided aloud and then the two of you marched through the market trying to gather supplies as best as you could. It hadn’t been a terrible haul, all things considered. By the time you got back to the inn you had enough things to at the very least make the cakes and you had small trinkets of presents. Most importantly, you’d been able to gather a crowd of people who were excited at the concept of a party and all eagerly offered to bring some form of food or drink or entertainment. You hummed with excitement as you strode into the innkeeper’s office with a big, winning smile. Roughly fifteen minutes later you left with permission to use the kitchen and reserve at least one big table for the night, promising that there would be dozens of people coming to spend their coin on drinks and that he would be able to make a plaque that proudly declared the THE WHITE WOLF BIRTHDAY’D HERE.

You’d sent your three friends out, insisting they not return until the sun began to go down and they’d agreed (though Jaskier had protested a bit). When they returned they found the inn full of life. Music poured from the windows and doors and as the three travelers returned they were greeted with shouts of congratulations. This signaled to you their arrival and you doublechecked that everything was in order before running out to greet them.

“Happy birthday!” you cried, throwing your arms out wide. Jaskier (never one to waste an opportunity for a hug) embraced you but Geralt and Yennefer simply looked around a bit dumbfounded.

“They’re all here to celebrate your birthdays,” you explained as Jaskier gave you a kiss on the cheek.

“It isn’t my birthday,” Geralt said.

“Well I know but I figured Jaskier’s was coming soon and we might as well celebrate all you at the once! Everyone was happy to do it, they really appreciate your work, you know. And I just… I thought you should feel appreciated for once without having to literally slay something first,” you said, worrying a little that your surprise wasn’t as welcomed as you’d hoped. Jaskier sensed your concern and wrapped an around your waist, fixing Yennefer and Geralt with a pointed look.

“Wine, women, and song, Geralt,” he said, “And men,” he added, glancing at Yennefer.

Yennefer rolled her eyes at the bard but gave you a gracious smile.

“This is… very generous,” she said, genuinely touched.

“Come on! I have to show you the cakes!”

“Cakes?” Geralt asked, looking a bit more interested as he followed you inside.

“Alright so I don’t know everyone’s favorite flavors but we have an elderflower cake with a lemon drizzle, a chocolate cake with a chocolate glaze, and a rum raisin cake with – ah, yes, there you go,” you said, cut off as Geralt took the latter cake in hand though it was clearly large enough to share.

“Y/N these are gorgeous, where did you find a bakery that could work so quickly?” Jaskier asked, marveling at the delicate glaze and soft crumble of the cake. Yennefer took the cake from Geralt’s hands and put it back on the table so you could stick a silver candle in it and light it.

“Oh I made them,” you explained with an offhand shrug.

“You made these? By hand?” Jaskier exclaimed. You blushed a bit at his awed reaction and finished putting a candle in the other two cakes, chocolate for Jaskier and elderflower for Yennefer. They were quickly lit and you led the tavern in a chorus of happy birthday that was deafening. Jaskier glowed under the attention and even Geralt and Yennefer seemed to be loosening up a little, aided by the mead that was quickly passed their way. People came by to wish happy birthday to the trio, passing out food they’d brough to share while the musically inclined continued to play. Some dancing started and Geralt rose, offering a hand to Yennefer who accepted. The pair moved to dance slowly, a tempo all their own, and you watched with immense satisfaction as they swayed together.

“This is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Jaskier called to you, trying to be heard over the music. You planted a soft kiss on his cheek and then stood up.

“Oh there’s one more thing!” you said, and ran out of the room before he could reply. You ran back with a little box in hand.

“It’s not a big thing,” you said, holding it out to him, “But I wanted to make sure you had a present. They have some too but I think they’re happy as they are right now.”

Jaskier opened the little box and pulled out a small glass jar. He unscrewed the top and smelled the rich scent of cedar.

“I noticed you were running low on the oil you use to tend your lute. As I said it’s not a big thing and it isn’t even really fun, just a little necessity but I hope you l-”

Your words were cut off by a kiss, Jaskier still clutching the little bottle in hand as he brushed against your lips again and again, deepening it just a bit before remembering you were still very much in public. When he pulled back you saw the ocean blue eyes alight with joy.

“This is perfect,” he said. You beamed back at him.

“Happy birthday, Jaskier.”

#Anonymous #jaskier x reader #jaskier imagines #jaskier fluff

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ficsandcatsandficsandcats · 4 years

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I loved the punk!au Jaskier and Sam fic! I’ve just thought of another idea. How about when Sam is a few years older and she gets her first crush on someone in another band and Daddy!Jaskier gets overprotective, which the reader finds very funny.

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Punk!Daddy!Jaskier x Punk!Preteen!SamWord Count: 1,683Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miraclea/n: I’m so glad you guys are enjoying Sam! I made her 12 in this one and have expanded the Punk!AU to include a new character. Hope you guys enjoy!

“Hey gang, it’s Sam and Ciri back at you with another episode of As The World Burns, a weekly catchup on life, love and friendship during the End Times!”

Jaskier chuckled into his coffee as his daughter’s voice came belting out from the cracked studio door.

“Sam, you’ve got some exciting news today, why don’t you tell the people about it?” Ciri replied, sounding like an old timey announcer for a game show. Jaskier chuckled again and you shushed him.

“You’re going to mess up their take,” you chastised him.

“They’re a whole room away and I’m pretty sure it’s live streaming,” he whispered back.

“Well Ciri, it’s true. It’s finally happened. I’ve finally found the love of my life.”

Jaskier’s eyes widened and he stared into yours. Now you had to bite back your laughter as you watched your husband go pale at the news your daughter had already shared with you weeks before.

“Oooh,” Ciri replied, “Tell me more, tell me more!”

“His name is Nic Marigold. He’s in my class and we met one summer’s day in the lunchroom. We both reached for a gogurt and our hands touched…”

Ciri gasped and the two girls giggled while Jaskier paced the kitchen.

“Now, Sam, your name actually means marigold so would that make you…”

“Marigold Marigold!” the two recited in unison, their tiny minds blowing in sync while Jaskier glared at you as though this was your fault.

“It’s destiny!” you heard your daughter declare.

“It’s bollocks,” Jaskier grumbled.

“Hey,” you warned him, eyeing the room they were recording in.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Jaskier insisted, his voice hushed but deeply distressed, “Who is this Nic kid? Why have we never heard of him before?”

“I’ve heard of him before,” you said, preening a little as you took another sip, pretending not to notice the look of utter betrayal on Jaskier’s face. Sam had always been more of a daddy’s girl but there were things she trusted you with, things she insisted a dad could never understand, and while you knew you could tell her that her father was always there for her and would listen to what she had to say, you enjoyed having these little parts of Sam to yourself.

“Why does that last name sound familiar,” Jaskier muttered under his breath, “What kind of a name is Marigold anyway?”

“Jaskier you literally named yourself after a buttercup,” you said.

“That’s different,” he argued.

“You named our daughter Marigold. In Polish. We aren’t even Polish.”

“You agreed to that name but funny how all of a sudden I named her that!”

The door swung open and Jaskier jumped back guiltily, trying to look calm and relaxed as Sam and Ciri poured out of the room laughing together.

“Hi Daddy!” she cried, running up to give him a big hug, followed by Ciri who did the same. Ciri had been Geralt and Yennefer’s first foster child and though the adoption paperwork was still being worked out, she’d been fully adopted into the family’s hearts for quite some time. Sam beamed up at Jaskier, a wide smile that showed off the neon orange braces she’d worn proudly for about a year now.

“How was the show?” he asked, giving the two girls a quick hug before they headed to their real target, the fridge.

“It was good!” Sam answered, pulling out a plastic picture of lemonade while Ciri searched your freezer for pizza rolls.

“Any interesting news today? Any hot takes?” Jaskier asked, causing you to choke on your coffee as Sam gave him a side eye.

“Nobody calls stuff a hot take anymore, dad,” she corrected him.

“Alright what’s the hot goss?” he asked, doubling down on his archaic slang and making his daughter and niece laugh more.

“Sam has a – ”

“New plan to cut down on greenhouse emissions,” Sam said, cutting off her cousin and shooting her a warning glare.

“Oh?”

“Ya! Edible coffee mugs,” she said.

“Made out of what?” you asked, clutching your porcelain mug a little more tightly. It was one Sam had decorated for her at band camp one year and it was one of your prized possessions along with every other thing Sam or Ciri had ever created.

“Not sure yet,” Sam admitted, “Maybe seaweed?”

“Who eats seaweed?” Ciri asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she popped some pizza rolls in the oven.

“Aunt Yennefer! She took me out for sushi once! Seaweed is actually really good,” Sam explained.

“What else is going on?” Jaskier asked. Sam put on a show of thinking hard about his question, turning her eyes one way then another, staring at the ceiling as though the answer would appear before shrugging her shoulders.

“That’s pretty much it,” she said and began to walk away. She paused and you knew what was coming, familiar with this classic walk away then pause for dramatic effect move she’d been pulling since she was five.

“Oh, and I have a boyfriend,” she said with a little shrug. Jaskier sputtered and you bit your lip to keep from laughing.

“Oh! You have a boyfriend! Care to tell us a bit more about that?” Jaskier asked, propping his hands on his hips. Sam turned around, a look of fake surprise on her face as though it was genuinely unexpected that he’d want to know more.

“Oh, well, he’s a guy, His name is Nic and he’s in my class,” she said.

“Do we know this Nic?” Jaskier asked, knowing full well that they didn’t.

“He just transferred recently,” she explained.

“Who are his parents?”

“His mom’s name is Triss, I dunno who is dad is. I didn’t ask for his family tree,” Sam said the last part mumbling a little under her breath.

“Well I’d like to meet him,” Jaskier said, plastering a smile on his face, “You should have him over.”

“Uh I mean maybe?”

“No I insist,” Jaskier said, “His mom can come too! In fact maybe the next time I pick you up from school you can point him out to me!”

“Uhh,” Sam looked to you for help and you stood up and walked over to your nearly unraveling husband.

“Hey babe, Sam’s 13th birthday is coming up soon, I’m sure we’ll meet him then,” you said, wrapping an arm around his waist soothingly.

“Yeah exactly! Ok well we’ve got homework thanks love you bye!” Sam didn’t look back again before running upstairs and as soon as Ciri pulled the pizza rolls from the microwave she ran after her, her long blond hair disappearing around the corner before you could remind her to get napkins. You felt Jaskier’s body still tense and he worried his lip between his teeth.

“Hey,” you said, turning him to face you, “Talk to me.”

“I just… I just didn’t her to start having crushes so soon,” he said.

“Hon she’s had crushes since she could recognize that other people existed. She’s your daughter after all,” you teased. He gave you an affronted look and you kissed him.

“Jaskier, Sam is a smart, strong girl. We’ve raised her well and she’s going to want to explore a bit. We’ve talked about some stuff and she knows if she has any more questions she can come to me,” you said.

“Why can’t she come to me?” he asked, pouting a little.

“Well probably because you were one moment away from interrogating our child for another child’s home address and it’s just a bit much for a couple that hasn’t even had its first kiss,” you said. Jaskier perked up a bit at this.

“They haven’t kissed?”

You shook your head no.

“She would tell me if they had, right?” he asked.

“She tells you everything. Just in her own time,” you reassured him. You planted another soft kiss on his lips and moved away to put the mug in the sink. He pulled you back in and kissed you in earnest and you sighed, your body responding to his touch the same now as it had the first time.

“You’re a really good mom,” he said, his sky blue eyes gazing into yours adoringly.

“You’re a really good dad,” you praised back.

“Oh gross.”

You turned to find Sam standing in the entrance holding a now empty cup, grimacing at the two of you entwined in each other’s arms.

“What’s the matter, Mitka?” Jaskier teased, “Aren’t you happy that your parents are still in love?”

“Oh yeah it’s great,” she said sarcastically, reaching into the fridge to refill her glass. Jaskier let you go and walked towards his daughter. She’d grown so much, looking more and more like him every day though some of you crept in the older she got, mostly in the facial expressions she made. The same crystal blue eyes that he’d looked into when he held her in his arms the first time looked up into his now.

��What’s up?” she asked, pulling Jaskier back to reality.

“Just… I’m really proud of the work you put into the show,” he said. She beamed and gave him a wide grin, so wide you worried she may accidentally break the bands on her braces.

“Thanks daddy,” she said, pulling him for a hug that he returned so tightly you knew it took her breath away a bit but she didn’t relent, squeezing him back just as hard as though it were a competition.

“Alright,” he said, pulling back and patting one of the buns she’d twisted her chestnut hair into, a trademark style since she was little. “Go have fun and tell Ciri to tell her dad that I said-”

“Oh no, she’s not getting in the middle of that again,” Sam said, shaking her head and moving back to the stairs, glass firmly in hand. Jaskier shook his head as he watched her walk off.

“That’s your kid alright,” you said.

“Yeah,” he mused aloud, blinking back tears as he heard the familiar strains of Aevryn and Valdo’s demo playing from her bedroom, “Yeah she really is.”

#Anonymous #Punk!Jaskier x Punk!Sam #Punk!AU #Vicious Mockery AU #Punk!Jaskier #Punk!Sam #Sam Pankratz

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