#skai6prompt

[skai6]

Geraskier modern au where one of them is a bartender? I resent the fact i turned 21 in the middle of a pandemic, sometime you just wanna do a bar crawl.

I hope you will get to bar crawl next year! Loved the suggestion, by the way. <3

---

Jaskier has been craving this for as long as he remembers. A craving he had to fulfill a legal requirement to finally give into. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t been sneakily indulging before. Oh, dear, no. Jaskier was far from innocent. He had even faked his ID one too many times he became infamously renown in the area. From bouncer to bartender, word was bound to get out, and Jaskier was banned from the entirety of the city bars until he became of legal age.

And now, oh boy, are they all going to regret having stomped on his fun.

Black boots, tight jeans and a pink shirt, Jaskier walked into the bar with his nose up high. The noisiest, dirtiest, messiest of the neighborhood. The kind of hole in the wall you do not leave without at least throwing up twice in the bathroom either from overconsumption or whatever it was your seat-neighbor had slipped into your drink while you were busy checking out the bartender.

Jaskier never said this kind of place was safe. But to hell with it. Tonight was the night he would be getting legally wasted and rub it into everyone’s face. 

And if he got laid on top of it all? Well, extra points for this bitch.

He settled himself behind the bar counter and watched the well-built frame of the bartender reaching out for a bottle of whiskey at the top shelf without sparing it a glance, like his entire body knew the whole system, like he’s been doing it for years. White hair, black shirt, big biceps. 

Sexy, Jaskier thought, half-distracted, half-invested, until the other turned around and caught him staring. There was a short silence, in which the bartender was busy shaking the drink with skillful ease, his eyes - a beautiful amber - sized Jaskier up and down. Jaskier was smirking inside out. He knew that look. And he knew it too well.

Ask me my age, I fucking dare you.

“You’re new,” he said instead, and dragged down his gaze to the cocktail glass he was filling to the brim. “What will it be?”

Sexy and courteous? Jaskier might have half-joked the bit where he would check out the bartender but now, well, it might not be so terrible an idea.

“The strongest you have,” said Jaskier with pride, “Make it extra.”

The handsome man hummed, a smirk gracing his lips as he went to serve the cocktail to a girl at the other end of the counter. Giggles and small talk ensued. Jaskier’s shoulders slouched. He wasn’t alone at eyeing the guy, obviously.

He began turning his head to the rest of the bar, instead, letting his eyes wander, thinking: Look, plenty of fish in the sea, when the sound of glass hitting the surface of the counter brought his gaze back in front of him. The bartender was already returning with his order, a strange mixture of -

“What’s this?”

“The strongest we have.”

“Is it extra?”

“Just for you.”

With a proud grin, Jaskier lifted the glass up and downed the content in one-go. By the time the bottom of it hit the surface, his lips were burning and his throat was on fire.

“Fuck,” he mouthed hoarsely, “Another.”

With a skeptical look, the bartender left with the empty glass and this time, Jaskier watched him mix four different bottles from the upper shelf. Some he recognized, some he didn’t. Who was he to complain so long it knocked him out for good? He was here to get wasted, after all.

The surprising result landed in front of him soon after. Once he finished chugging it, Jaskier began forgetting the way back home. 

Fuck. It was strong.

“Easy there,” said the gruff tone, “At least enjoy the effort I put into it.”

Jaskier flushed.

“Sorry,” he said, voice slurred.

“First time drinking outside?”

Jaskier chuckled. "Do I give off first-timer vibes?”

“I work full-time here. I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”

His breath caught up in his throat, a drop of liquor going down the wrong pipe, and Jaskier broke into a fit of coughs. The bartender returned back with a glass of water, grinning smugly.

“Sorry, too much?”

“God, no!” he managed to utter, teary-eyed from the coughing. “Not enough, is what it is.”

A chuckle, rough-sounding but soft on the edges. The bartender leaned over the bar counter, biceps inflating in the process and god help Jaskier, he desperately wanted those arms around him by the end of the evening.

“What’s your name?”

Amber eyes flared golden from up close. Jaskier’s heart was thumping miles a minute.

“Jaskier,” he said, “You?”

“Geralt,” came the answer, “You have an interesting name.”

“It’s, well, not my real name but -”

“I like it.”

A smile. Simple, thin, sincere. Jaskier was weak. 

“Are you normally this nice to everyone?”

“Nice?”

“Yeah, I mean, you’re being nice, right?”

Geralt laughed. Jaskier’s cheeks turned bright red.

Then another customer called for his attention and Geralt pushed himself up to get back to work.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said with piercing eyes and a curved smirk, fingers grazing Jaskier’s before peeling the empty glass away from his hold. “I’m not done being nice to you, Jaskier.”

And fuck. Plenty of fish in the see, my ass. 

Jaskier would either get him or embarrass himself trying.

[skai6]

Hey, I saw your post asking for prompts :) I was thinking slight angst, with Jaskier trying to (not so) subtly let Geralt know of his feelings for him, but it doesn't work till Jaskier loses hope :) Happy ending, of course, cuz I have the angst endurance of a 5yo :)

Thanks for taking the time to do this :)

I didn’t know where I was going with this when I started but it checks all of the above! (Emphasis on Angst with happy ending)

------

It started with:

“You know, Geralt, I might have a thing for white hair and big swords.”

To which came the reply:

“Good for you.”

And Jaskier hasn’t stopped ever since. He would throw in a word or two at any given chance, compliment, tease, flirt, anything to get the witcher’s attention, to drill into that thick skull of his just how desperately in love Jaskier was with him. 

That, however, was easier said than done.

Two decades of trial and failure, Jaskier learned the hard way that it was perhaps not that Geralt was slow-witted, an idiot, a complete and utter fool, that on the contrary, the other might have understood the context, picked up the hints, but simply did not care enough to reciprocate. 

And oh did that realization hurt.

They spent their days on the road and Jaskier spent every second of it sulking. He was terribly mad, not at Geralt, but at himself, for being so blinded by the promise of hope that he did not see reason for the past twenty fucking years. Gods, if anyone was a fool out of the two, it had to be him.

Give it another decade or two, he told himself sarcastically, I’ll eventually get over the biggest rip-off of a fucking lifetime.

And when Jaskier was mad, he did not hesitate to burst out at every given chance. So, one evening, when Geralt returned from a hunt two hours later than planned, he found Jaskier at the inn’s rented chamber, waiting for him. Jaskier could smell it a mile away, the outrageous mixture of liquor and perfume, and that was it. The perfect opportunity - his chance to let out some steam. 

After twenty fucking years, he deserved it.

“Where in the gods have you been?” he yelled, standing with his hands on his hips, as if he had been waiting in that same posture for hours, boiling with the urgent need to start a fight. 

Geralt didn’t flinch at his tone. He clicked the door shut behind and began tiredly uncluttering his armour. 

“Beast’s taken longer to slay.”

And if Jaskier was not angry enough before, the lie did the rest of the work.

“Do I look like an idiot?” he scoffed, “No, really, do I?”

Geralt threw a skeptical gaze his way, said nothing, then returned to rearrange his armour on the dresser and marched to the bed to begin undoing his boots. 

Jaskier stamped after him.

“I’m talking to you, sir!” he yelled, “You can’t just leave me here and come back whenever you please! If you’re taking longer out there you ought to let me know! What am I? Your fucking wife?” 

Geralt grunted, and to Jaskier’s horror, he sounded amused.

“You find this funny? How dare you!” he spat, “And look at me when I’m talking to you!”

On the bed, Geralt kicked off his boots with a sigh and, at last, fixed his golden gaze on him. Calm and collected. To Jaskier - unbelievably infuriating.  

“What’s with you?” he said, “Got a horse’s hoof up your arse? Calm down.”

Jaskier’s anger only spiked.

“Calm down?” His voice raised an octave, and he threw his head back to force out an exaggerated laugh. “Oh dear, oh yes, but of course! How come I haven’t thought of it? The cure to all of my misfortune! Calming the fuck down! He goes out there doing gods know what, never telling me when he returns and I have to remain prettily seated like some fucking ornament, waiting for him. Listen here, you bastard. If there is one person in this room with a horse’s hoof up their arse, that’s you. And that whore of yours you’ve been fucking all night? My condolences to her expectations. She could do so much better than a butcher.”

And that last sentence, like a trigger, kicked Geralt off the bed and standing in an instant. Jaskier physically jolted in his skin when the other walked to him, jaw tight, glare burning with something that was a mixture of anger and hurt.

“Watch your mouth.”

Jaskier’s breath hitched, and the fool, the hopelessly, madly in love fool that he was, couldn’t help himself from answering.

“Or what? You’ll shut me up yourself?”

An irritated grunt. 

“I might.”

The room plunged into heavy, stifling silence. Jaskier could hear his heartbeats resonate in his ears. His anger was not as strong anymore, not when despair and ache and hurt came taking turns inside his heart. He felt his stomach turn. He felt he could cry.

On the outside, he showed none of it. His eyebrows furrowed, his lips curved into an insulting smirk.

“You witchers are all bark and no bite.”

And that was about what has done it.

Jaskier could not tell apart the second in which Geralt’s leg moved and the one in which his back was flattered against the nearest wall. His body kicked out a rush of adrenaline that forced him to send a whimper out in the open. Geralt picked up on his fear, his flaring eyes narrowed, his nose twitched. He was smelling him.

“You’re jealous.”

“Like fuck I a- Mm!”

A rough palm came pressing to his mouth, forcibly shutting him up. Geralt’s eyebrows furrowed. He was not done talking.

“I’ve been picking up hints for a while,” he said, “Racing heartbeats for no fucking reason. Long annoying stares. Whining under the sheets with my name on your lips. I just don’t fucking get it. Why? What are you jealous of?”

Jaskier’s eyes narrowed and he bit the skin that came muffling him. Geralt hissed and pulled away.

“You knew?”

Geralt swallowed.

“I... wasn’t sure what to know.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he barked, tears starting to swarm his eyes, “Geralt, I’ve been pining for you for decades and you knew? And you - and you did fucking nothing?”

Geralt’s hold of him loosened and Jaskier took his chance to grip him by the collar of his unlaced tunic and flip them over. To his surprise, Geralt followed willingly, letting himself get overpowered, and landed with his back to the wall, his eyes darting elsewhere, looking as guilty as they came.

“Look at me,” said Jaskier, “Gods fucking dammit, look at me, Geralt!”

Slow, unsure, amber eyes returned to him.

“Why did you never say anything?” Jaskier’s voice broke, and one tear trailed down his left eye. “All these fucking years. You saw me, like a lovestruck fool, looking at you like you’re the sun and the moon and everything beyond and you did nothing. Why? Just tell me, why?”

Geralt’s adam’s apple bobbed. He gritted his teeth in stubborn hesitance until Jaskier’s eyes fell down, and his grip on his collar began to loosen. That was when he came gripping his wrist, holding it where it was, against his chest. With a broken look of feeble hope, Jaskier lifted up his gaze at him.

“Do I ...” His voice broke. “Do I even matter to you?”

“You do.” 

"Don’t just say what I want to -”

“You matter, and that’s why. That’s fucking why.”

Jaskier didn’t know what to say to that, and Geralt continued.

“How do you think twenty years by your side felt like? Twenty years watching you live, age, grow. There’s only so much time can give. Until it rips it all away.”

Jaskier’s tears ceased. His eyes now bearing confusion and worry.

“I can’t have you,” said Geralt, voice tight, lip trembling. “Not when I know someday, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, but someday, I will have to let you go.”

And at those words, Jaskier, not knowing what got into him, burst into laughter. 

Under Geralt’s wary stare, he laughed loudly, whole-heartedly, until he could no longer contain it, until his cheeks hurt from the pain, and he had to cling into the other’s body for balance. Until the tears of sadness were completely replaced by tears of happiness.

Happiness to know that his feelings were not unrequited. 

“Jaskier...”

“Geralt, you fool.”

He didn’t need to speak the words he meant to convey. He completely and utterly gave in, right then and there, cupped the other’s face and kissed him. His lips tasted of cheap wine and hidden desires. It felt like bringing life back into a body that had long been depraved. He had watched the witcher kiss many women, and never, never had he groaned so desperately, so sweetly before in his life.

And Jaskier wanted to believe it was true, all of it.

"You’re afraid I’ll die?” he mouthed shortly after pulling back, the scent of the other already clinging to his nostrils, something that was pure Geralt, something that reminded him of his own fearlessness. “Afraid I’ll leave you alone? Well, fucking hell, Geralt, we’re all dying. We’re all deteriorating, day after day, waiting for that sweet death to take us. And so what do we do? What do we make of the life we are given? We cry, moan, complain. We never live. We never live, Geralt. I might die before you, but for gods’ love I want to die a fulfilled man. I want to have kissed and loved and fucked the one I love to my heart’s content before I get to lay in my death’s bed satisfied and happy. That’s life, Geralt. That’s it. You either live it, or you die trying. And I want to try.”

He placed a soft kiss on Geralt’s bottom lip and whispered:

“With you.”

He couldn’t witness the expression on his face after that. He was taken by arms so strong he thought he could suffocate. Jaskier loved every bit of that sweet suffocation. So tight was his hold and so everlasting he thought time was barely floating by. Until it eventually loosened and calloused fingers came grazing his cheek. 

“I want to try, too,” he said, “I want you, Jaskier. Always have.”

The look he bore, so vulnerable, so true, so bare, had Jaskier understand. He still was uncertain, still hesitant, still unsure. 

And perhaps it would take another decade for him to be convinced that love was timeless, that it didn’t matter if death took one of them away after they have loved each other so strongly and dearly and passionately. 

But Jaskier was patient. And he would wait an eternity if it meant Geralt would finally let himself be loved.