Work Text:
(“Why do you want to be famous?”
“How could you NOT want to be famous?”)
Here is what Jaskier knows:
A bad bard is a mediocre one. You have to be either great or terrible. Or, if you can pull it off, both.
Every conversation is a fight, every step is a struggle, every room is a battlefield. Know when to win. Know when to lose. Lose often. People like winning. They like feeling clever, feeling superior, feeling like they are in on the joke. It doesn’t matter if you are the punchline.
A crowd that boos you is still entertained.
Laugh and mope and flirt and shout but always be easy. Be weightless. Be a light summer wine, consumed with barely a thought.
Your smiles are quick, and your tongue is quicker and there is music wherever you go, following you like the scent of flowers.
(No one is here to see the one who practiced the lute for endless hours, fingers bleeding, dissatisfied, frustrated and tired and STILL not able to play the sequence properly. No one wants to know about the one who used to dig around in the kitchen trash for rotten food when he was young, making himself sick for a cool, gentle hand on his forehead and a soft voice telling him that everything will be alright. No one wants to know about the way he sometimes lies awake at night, staring into the dark, terrified, terrified of dying, of decaying, of becoming less and less until there is nothing left, nothing left…)
So, don’t return to a town. Don’t sleep with the same girl twice. You are not flesh and blood, you are a myth, you are untouchable by age and disease, you are songs and stories.
Never forget, you are Jaskier and you can’t let that illusion break.
(“Why, my lady, how could it be cheating if I am not a man at all? I am a book you read, curled up by the fireplace, no more real than the characters brought to life with ink and imagination. Tomorrow, I’ll be gone, and you will think about this night fondly when the days grow grey and shapeless, a half-forgotten dream.”)
Here is what Jaskier knows:
Sorceresses freak him the fuck out.
Everyone knows that there are always more girls walking into these academies than walking out. And those who do make it out are… altered. Beautiful. Cold. Unchanging. Not quite human anymore.
The thought of touching them makes his skin crawl, the unnaturally smooth complexion and soft, glossy hair a carefully constructed weapon, designed to entrap and blind and manipulate those around them.
(Geralt doesn’t seem to have a problem touching them. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with that at all and there is a nasty, nasty part of Jaskier that sneers about inhuman creatures sticking together, and he immediately feels like absolute shit for that.)
He had heard the rumours, of course. Rituals and mutilations that go on behind thick walls. The horrible price these women pay for perfection, for power, for immortality.
But mostly, Sorceresses freak him out because he knows, if given the opportunity, he would do the same. In a heartbeat.
(It is not that he doesn’t like himself. It is just that he wants to be more. He wants to be everyone and everywhere, a ubiquitous being soaked into the consciousness of the world. He looks at a crowd and ACHES, because he wants and wants and can't even envision what could possibly ease this pain, if there even is a chance for that or if he will eventually waste away, confused and unhappy.)
Here is what Jaskier knows:
Once upon a time, he met a man in a backwater tavern who was hunting the devil. Finders Keepers. If you don’t take what you want, you’ll wait forever and end up with empty hands, an empty heart and an empty stomach.
(Rejection is never as bad as wondering ‘what if’.)
As it turns out, Geralt is perfect. He’s everything he could ever want for a protagonist. Strong. Handsome. Mysterious. Exotic.
(And ok, he mostly communicates in grunts and is about as sociable as a piece of celery, but Jaskier can work with that. He had made more out of less.)
And Geralt grumbles and curses, but he had only hit him once, and only because Jaskier hadn’t quite figured out the right angle yet, so it was mostly his own fault. Aside from that, he is surprisingly GOOD, no matter how much he tries to convince you of the opposite. He wants to help. He protects lives, breaking curses, guiding those who are lost. And no one sees it, they all treat him like a mindless beast instead of a hero.
It is all very tragic and very beautiful and the songs practically write themselves.
(He would feel a bit guilty about how easy it was, as if he was cheating somehow, but on the other hand, no one else had wanted Geralt. So why shouldn’t he get him?)
Here is what Jaskier knows:
Geralt could kill him easily. On most days probably wants to. But he doesn’t. He would never.
It’s funny. It is absolutely hilarious and Jaskier is giddy with it, with the knowledge that his Witcher is allowing him this close, allowing him to push and prod and drag and needle and provoke and only stares at him with a slightly dazed look, as if he couldn’t quite believe that this was his life.
Here is what Jaskier knows:
He is Geralt’s only friend. Which is sad, of course.
But also kind of great. Because thanks to him, everyone knows about The White Wolf, a lone wanderer in the night, glinting swords and glowing eyes and flowing hair, forever roaming the land, surfacing wherever needed and afterwards disappearing without a trace, like a ghost.
But no one knows about Geralt, the grumpy old man, who has terrible morning breath, talks to his horse, really likes baths and has a wicked sense of humour.
He is Jaskier’s own little secret, insignificant to others but precious to him, like the small, smooth stones you find at the river banks as a kid and carry around with you for days, touching them in your pocket with a smile on your face.
Here is what Jaskier knows:
He shouldn’t have let this go on, not this long, not continually, but he had been greedy, and he had been careless, and he has only himself to blame.
Geralt is rough sandpaper, scraping and scraping away at him, slowly, painfully, constant and unflinching and there are days when Jaskier stumbles delivering his lines, his own body and voice suddenly foreign to him and he wants to cry and cry and never stop so he talks and sings and hums and scribbles into his notebook feverishly, the words nearly illegible and Geralt is LOOKING at him, sometimes, with a small frown on his face, a man slowly waking up, noticing, noticing that there is something wrong with him.
It is already over. Just one more adventure. Just one more day. Just one.
(It still hurts, when it happens. But mostly, it’s a relief.)
Here is what Jaskier knows:
He had been Geralt’s only friend. And he had still fucked it up. Even though he had no competition.
(How can you be the only contestant and still lose?)
He goes to the coast and watches the waves. Everything moves on and on and if he doesn’t, he will be swept away. He thinks about it, for a moment. Just a moment. Then he packs up and leaves.
(The salty air is not good for his lute.)