#maybe geraskier after Geralt realizes that he's not going to lose his human to old age or sickness

[witch-witcher-witchless]

AU where everyone has varying degrees of vocational magic. Green thumbs and gardeners, cooking and kitchen witches, sculptors and minor animation, mirror makers and scrying, DnD bards and stitch witches.

After 20 years of friendship—yes, I'm your very best friend, Geralt you're as ridiculous as you are stubborn—Jaskier should be offended that the Witcher didn't know his magical vocation from his true vocation as a bard, but frankly, he's too busy crowing with the delight of a man handed priceless and endless ammunition. _________________________________________

Julian Pankratz is a minor noble, a powerful Stitch Witch, and dissatisfied with both. He runs away to Oxenfurt and becomes Jaskier the Bard. Jaskier the Bard barely earns the capital B, he's an exceptionally talented musician but barely displays the magical strength needed to do, you know, bardic magic. Nevertheless, he succeeds and rarely uses his magic beyond weaving melodies with his voice, working lute strings in a pale imitation of a loom, and spinning stories as he would spin a yarn.

Marginally magical but unquestionably talented, he sets off into the world and meets a man Witcher in Posada.

It takes a month for Geralt to get a wound too awkwardly placed to stitch himself.

"What do you mean, you just bandage it?? Bandage it until you get to a healer?"

"No, bard. I bandage it until it stops bleeding and I move on with another scar."

"No. Absolutely not." and so begins Jaskier's relentless and ruthless care, as unwelcome at first as it may be, "Yes, you're a big strong Witcher. Yes, you are sitting still and letting me do this or so help me gods, Geralt, I'll sing you to celibacy."

Jaskier hasn't properly used his magic in years beyond bits and bobs, rips and tears, attaching buttons loose from flings as hurried as they are ill-advised, and various etceteras and sundries. But apparently stitches are stitches whether on silks or skin and he hums in a futile effort to forget the presence of blood and muscle, and that might be bone and Geralt just chalks up the amount of magic in the air to Jaskier's slightly manic humming; bardic magic is notoriously fickle and is known to wax and wane.

Jaskier caves and uses his vocational magic much more frequently and in earnest after the third time he stitches skin where leather armour failed. He embroiders protection into tunics, knits swiftness and purls evasion, and spins strong thread and repairs leather to be stronger yet. Rarely when Geralt is present, but—honestly Geralt, not once in 20 years? Not once did you wonder enough to ask your dearest friend why your collection of self-sacrificing scars ground nearly to a halt??

"Melitele bless hopeless Witchers! Leatherwork was never my specialty, but when was the last time you had to replace Roach's tack?"

"When I was last in Minnowette. They did good work."

Jaskier can feel the edges of his own revelation and hear the edge of growing hysteria in his voice. "Geralt that town burned down 20 years ago."

Geralt, going frightfully still, remembers.

"...WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD TO REPLACE ROACH??!"

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But, Jaskier thinks, staring into Geralt's equally wide eyes, perhaps. Perhaps, he uh, he may have overlooked something substantial and glaringly obvious too. Roach's mane has had thousands of braids, twists, and flowers woven in. Countless little blessings that still do absolutely not explain—

Geralt...Geralt breathes. "A year before that. She was too old for a Witcher's horse and retired on a farm."

Or where Jaskier is a reluctant Stitch Witch so powerful that he accidentally makes Roach immortal and is incredibly distressed by this.

"I am a Bard! Not a little b bard, a big B Bard. Not a stitch witch! Can you hear how I deliberately used lower-case there?"

----------------

"...Jaskier. How...how old are you?"

"The reflection in this water tells me twenty, my mother would tell me forty, and I am incredibly conflicted about this Geralt how dare you bring this to my attention instead of letting me remain beautiful and oblivious"

[an-intronerd]

thoughts on jaskier (+ geraskier) post episode 6: rare species

this was honestly supposed to be a teeny little rant but like, my hands grew minds of their own.

...

ok, so like, i recently binged the witcher (and i’m one of those people who has not yet read the books and never played the games, so going in, i had no idea who these characters were or what their dynamics in the other medias were like or anything) and next thing you know, i’m drowining in the geraskier fandom. 

as one does, i’ve seen a lot of geraskier content, including fics and the like, and one idea that’s always there is that jaskier is this heartbroken, sullen, pining thing after the Big Fight. like, 98% of what i’ve seen or read has sad!jaskier. and like, the general plot is always like 

jaskier is sad that geralt yelled mean things at him. 

jaskier sings heartbroken love songs. 

jaskier runs into geralt/geralt finds jaskier/somehow these two meet again. 

geralt is a dick/geralt feels bad but is emotionally constipated so he doesn’t know how to use words to apologize/geralt saves jaskier’s life. 

geralt and jaskier make up because jaskier knows how to read his witcher’s emotions and forgives him. optional: they bang.

the end.

and its like, people aren’t perfect?? i think that’s a little unrealistic. and yes, fanfiction can be like that sometimes, because it’s what we want to happen. but like, imagine this:

jaskier going through the 5 stages.

jaskier goes down the mountain, leaving geralt behind. what else can he possibly do?

jaskier spends a few nights wasted and crying because hey, guess what, the love of his life for the better part of two decades is a gaint wart-covered dick. he’s sad about it, sue him.

jaskier decides fuck this, his witcher is a piece of shit and though he is by no means the best person on the planet, he is at least good enough to deserve better than what geralt gave him. or well, was incapable of giving him.

jaskier decides he will move on, and it’ll start with him getting out of this mountainside village and heading to one of the first places where he truly found himself, oxenfurt. afterall, music has been and will always be the one constant and greatest pleasure in his life.

it takes time, but jaskier perseveres. he gets over his denial pretty quickly. he will not believe geralt didn’t care for him at all. he knows that’s an insult to both of them. geralt cared in his own way. thats the truth. unfortunately, the other, much harsher truth is that it wasn’t enough. so, no geralt won’t be coming for him, and jaskier won't be waiting around.

anger is a bit harder to get over. once it truly sets in, it’s all jaskier can do not to hunt down that fucking white wolf and tear him a new one. jaskier is a person, he is a human with feelings, and that damned witcher had no right to treat him like the scum at the bottom of his shoe. if it wasn’t for jasker, geralt would still be run out of every other town he came across, stoned and bloody. he’d probably have died in a puddle of his own blood fifty times over by now, considering all the times jaskier had to patch him up. that ungrateful prick. except, once he’s exhausted three supllies of parchment and written enough songs about the bitcher, (yes not his most creative insult but he’s too petty to care!) he knows none of that is remotely true. and he wants closure.

and that’s when bargaining hits him full force. all of a sudden, he just needs to see geralt one more time. once more great adventure and a song to go with it, one more meal shared, one more conversation, to see if geralt really ever cared. he needs to ask him, and have geralt verbally confirm or deny his doubts. he needs this, just once. one more time, he needs to see his witcher, and it’ll be enough. one more time. just once. he almost fails himself, on one lonely night. he knows he can’t, he doesn’t even know where he’d start looking but he’s drunk beyond the point where common sense dictates his actions, and he’s packed half his belongings... and he’s getting ready... to track down the white... wolf... he wakes up with a bitch of a hangover the next day, but he didn’t go after geralt. he knows deep down once will never be enough. 

anger was tough, but depression was worse. it came for him like a siren in all her glory, drawing him in and in and in until he’s drowing and he didn’t even realise when that happened and then it’s too much, it’s too painful... he isn’t really surprised. he thrives on emotion, the good and the bad, it’s how he writes such brilliant ballads, he admits he hadn’t really delved into his own feelings about geralt yet. he hadn’t dealt with all the heartbreak follwing the mountain, and maybe he should have done so earlier, but he doesn’t think it matters. his heart wasn’t going to hurt any less months earlier when the wounds were still fresh. and though they may have closed up over time, the phantom pain is always with him. there are days where all he can do is curl up under his blankets and sob. some days he goes without eating a single morsel, finds himself lightheaded from dehydration, not leaving his bed for anything more than to relieve himself. some days, he flips through old songbooks, filled with twenty-odd years of adventure, both the fun and the dangerous kind, and laughter and frustration, companionship and solidarity... what was it he used to say? death and destiny, heroics and heartbreak. words of a lifetime past. some days, he compartmentalizes and sets all that aside in a little box in his mind and goes about his day as if he isn’t weighed down by the constant weight of his loss. it’s almost too much, but he’ll manage, he tells himself. he doesn’t let himself think of what he would do if he can’t.

it’s a cloudless day outside, and he’s in the market for new writing materials, and he’s going over next week’s lesson plan in his head, when he’s hit with the sudden realization that he hasn’t thought about geralt in a while. he’s thinking of him now, sure, but that doesn’t count because he’s thinking of how he’s not thinking of him, it’s a totally different thing, and oh- it doesn’t ache as much as it used to. he feels lighter than he has in a while, and he doesn’t know how that happened, or when, but he’s... okay. 

that’s the thing about healing, it happens whether you realise it or not, you just have to give ypurself a chance. it’s pontless to hold on to the negative feelings because you’re trying to hold on to something or someone that isn’t there anymore or maybe never really was. he didn’t know when it happened, but. the bitterness that accompanied the memories of geralt’s last words is no longer there. neither is the anger. there’s a dull sadness, but mostly it’s resignation and a sort of comfortable if lonely acceptance that geralt is gone. but there’s also a bittersweet understanding that jaskier will always love him. the history they shared isn’t erased because of a few angry words. jaskier will have, if nothing else, a lifetime full of moments and memories. if he sees geralt again, it will no longer be with a vision clouded in pain or anger or sadness, but rather a deep-seated love and forgiveness. he will let geralt decide now what they will be to each other. but he will not accept anything less than what he is worth. he will not be geralt’s punching bag. if geralt wants to have a relationship with him again, it will be one of equals, the bard and the witcher. if he wants to go their seperate ways, well, jaskier will live content like that too. 

he’s moved on.

sometimes, moving on doesn’t mean finding someone else. sometimes, it means mending your own heart, piece by broken piece, and then tucking it away safely inside, giving it a chance to heal. it’s about making that very difficult choice to let go of the bad that you’re holding on to, because it’s a way of holding on to the person you lost. it’s about finding yourself again, and who you were before the pain and heartbreak, and, figuring out who you want to be now. i need more of that, because that’s real. that’s how i imigine jaskier would feel. he’s not perfect, and he has his ups and downs as all of us do, and he is angry at geralt and sad and broken but also he’ll pick himself up, because he was someone before geralt, too, and he’ll still be someone after geralt, not just the witcher’s bard. he doesn’t know who that is yet, but he’ll figure it out.

and because i’m at my core a geraskier + happy endings hoe:

geralt realises an important thing on that mountaintop. he has been running from destiny and anything real all his life. he needs to get his head out of his ass, and find ciri. clearly, he was destined to lose yen, and that’s happened, no matter how hard he tried to make it different. she’s destined to be his and he accepts that now, but everything else is up to him. 

he finds ciri, and then, he’s a father. he vows to be a better parent than the one he had. 

he finds yen, and they learn to be enough for each other without turning it into something more than a vague frienship. somewhere between a truce and a partnership. for ciri, they agree.

he returns to kaer morhen, to his family with his daughter and his yennefer in tow. 

he realises that he has everything he could ever want, and more than any witcher ever gets, but there’s still something missing. 

then he realises it’s his bard, the one person who wasn’t unwillingly tied to him because of some wish or destiny, someone who chose him every single time, and who he misses with such a fierce ache.

then he remebers how badly he fucked that up, and then yen tells him he’s a wart-covered, emotionally constipated dick, and dumb too, but hey thank god you finally got your head out of your ass long enough to realise that you miss your bard and you’re sorry for what you did and you love him, and geralt just goes what? yen, love? oh- okay so that’s what the constant turning of his stomach and insomnia is.

then he sets out to find his bard, and ciri asks if she’ll finally get to hear all those famous songs about geralt from the source, and he says he hopes so.

it doesn’t take him long to find his bard, now a professor at oxenfurt academy, and geralt thinks that makes perfect sense because where else would jaskier have gone but to one of the few bright bits of his youth?

he gets to oxenfurt and it’s a cloudless day, and there’s people millig about and he thinks he’ll head to an inn and give roach a well-deserved rest, and then his heart stops. because there is jaskier, exchanging coin for parchment, and he looks just as he did a year and a half ago, except less disappointed and more happy and his heart hasn’t beaten this fast since he was a child left on vesemir’s doorstep. he thinks of all the nights he’s been unable to sleep because he had gotten so used to the bard’s humming and how it had been the most soothing wordless lullaby. he thinks of his last words, and he feels his breath leave him, because jaskier had taken it to heart, and left him. he’d given geralt his one blessing, and geralt thinks that those words are something he will regret for as long as he is living. he gives himself a moment to wonder if perhaps he should leave jaskier to the life he’s created for himself, be unselfish for once and let jaskier remain happy and safe and free. 

he should leave, though he knows that jaskier deserves so much more from him, an apology to start, and then a real friendsip, one tat goes both ways, and wow, geralt really is a wart-covered dick because he had treated jaskier so unfairly and he doesn’t undertsand why jaskier kept coming back to him, again and again. destiny hadn’t entwined their paths. jaskier chose to entangle them anyways. and he deserves so much more than geralt of rivia, and he should let jaskier have that, he should...

but he couldn’t walk away now, not when jaskier, his bard, his life-long friend, is standing right there, and jaskier turns, collecting his items and geralt stops breathing because jaskier looks over, and geralt watched the recognition flit over the bard’s face as he sees roach and then up, up, up, his eyes trace geralt’s form until.

their eyes meet, and jaskier smiles.

tl;dr: i just want more realistic portrayls of jaskier’s emotions after the Big Fight in episode 6, and i want to see jaskier go through all the feelings, and more depth to him that just some pining, heartbroken lump of a person. he’s more nuanced than that, i think. 

p.s: a big part of this ended up being based on my own experineces with love and friendship, pain and hertbreak, and the process of moving forward despite it all. idk how much of that comes through, and i hadn’t really planned for this post to go in the direction that it did, but i like how it turned out. i’m still trying to figure out that tricky little thing about making the choice to let go, and writing this helped?

p.p.s: this ended up way, way, wayyyyy longer than i intended, oops? why do i do this lol

p.p.p.s: if fics like this actually exist, please feel free to tag me in them or send me links, i would adore you forever!