#not. maybe? maybe not. does it matter? no im already writing it. geralts thoughts are a joy to write as always because he is so so so so

[redjewelsforeyes]

completely out of nowhere the most convoluted and detailed crossover au that ive ever conceived of has entered my head. it's writing itself. why is this happening

[thegrimmgrimm]

oh im sorry did you think i was done with this?? 😂😂 https://thegrimmgrimm.tumblr.com/post/620532449904132096/an-idea-bouncing-around-in-my-head-for-the-last

Fair (I'll Stand Here With You)

Jaskier lets himself into the apartment, loudly declaring his entrance, and fairly sure he's left the two lovebirds enough time to finish up their morning celebrations. (Which he is certain will have involved pancakes, and copious amounts of maple syrup and whipped cream.)

Thankfully for his sanity, it appears he's correct in the assumption. He hears Yennefer call him into the kitchen where she stands nursing a fresh cup of tea, hair still damp from the shower and frame dwarfed in an obviously stolen shirt. Jaskier can't see any more of her from behind the counter, but he has to imagine that's all there is to the outfit. She gives him a lazy grin and a wink as greeting

Behind her, Geralt is quietly swearing at their perpetually-broken coffee machine and mumbling about infernal machines, wearing nothing but the most colourful pair of unicorn-patterned boxers Jaskier has ever seen. He turns to greet Jaskier with his own warm boneless-seeming smile and Jaskier can't help but laugh affectionately at the pair.

"Do you two still need a bit longer? I can go for a walk around the block and come back later?" Jaskier teases, watching Yen roll her eyes and Geralt huff out a silent laugh. Geralt just pushes a steaming cup of coffee across the counter towards him, looking fond and exasperated already.  

"So, year number five, eh? I, for one, am pleasantly surprised you two haven't managed to kill each other by now." It's Geralt's turn to roll his eyes at the line, but he's well versed in Jaskier's style of affection by now.

"What are we in for this time, Jaskier? More maudlin tunes to send us to sleep?" Yennefer asks, though the fondness in her expression takes the bite from her words.

Jaskier puts a hand to his heart in mock-horror. "Yennefer, you wound me. I have it from a good source you love all my songs."

Yennefer eyes him skeptically, then turns a suspicious eye on Geralt, who is suddenly very interested in the coffee machine again.

The three of them polish off their drinks whilst catching up around the kitchen counter, and soon enough Jaskier finds himself ushering his dearest friends into the living room to sit over on the couch.

He sets himself up on their sturdy coffee table, one leg tucked under him that he knows will fall asleep before he is finished but can never bring himself to care. Yen and Geralt sit watching him with the expression of school children told to be on their best behaviour.

Jaskier pokes his tongue out them and pulls out his phone to rest on his knee with lyrics he won't need, while they settle themselves down more comfortably and naturally. Yennefer sits forward with her knees tucked under her, and Geralt lounges back against the sofa with an arm thrown around her waist.

Jaskier smiles at them fondly before clearing his throat, "Right, now don't get all judgey-judgey. I've worked hard on this and no, I will not accept criticism."

They just laugh softly and Jaskier shakes off the barest of nerves daring to threaten him. It isn't really stage fright, or anything like that, and nor does he think they would be cruel or mean about it, not really. But Jaskier really has poured his heart into the song, and it'll feel inadequate if they don't end up liking it.

"Right then." Jaskier clears his throat again and starts plucking away at his guitar.

"It's what my heart just yearns to say In ways that can't be said..."

He watches his friends' reactions as he sings the first few lines, though he soon finds himself uncharacteristically overwhelmed by the attention and he looks down sightlessly at the words on his phone screen.

There are lines that draw small sounds of amusement from the two, but mostly they're silent as they watch and listen. Jaskier's eyes drift closed as he holds each line in his mind and tries to focus on keeping his voice steady. Each time he feels his voice strain or crack he fights a wince, as strong emotion threatens to choke his voice away.

There's just something about capturing how Jaskier sees the love between the two, and offering it back to them, raw and bare and honest.

"...Oh how, oh how unreasonable How unreasonably in love I am with everything you do I'll spend my days so close to you cos if I'm stood here Then I'm stood here And I'll stand here I'll stand here with you."

He fades off into a dreadful silence and waits for a moment before looking up, hiding only a little behind a hand he cards nervously through his hair. Yennefer and Geralt are staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.

"So, it was... good?" He ventures, tension growing in his stomach. He'd expected a much more jovial response, perhaps he'd overstepped? Maybe they're just that impressed. Completely lost for words. Jaskier is confident, but not that confident.

Yen and Geralt turn to look to each other in such synchronicity that Jaskier almost laughs aloud, and they share an indecipherable look before turning back to their long-suffering friend.  

It's Yennefer who moves first. She rises from the couch to stand in front of Jaskier and gently takes the guitar from his hands. Confused, he hands it over without complaint, did she not like it? She leans the instrument against the coffee table and her hands come up to cup both sides of Jaskier's face, her expression serious, yet somehow awed.

"Is that truly how you feel?" Her voice carries the same awe as her eyes, and Jaskier swallows round a lump in his throat, unable to answer with more of a jerky nod.

Something alights in her expression and all of a sudden, her hands are sliding back into Jaskier's hair and her mouth is on his mouth and she tastes of too-sweet tea and mint toothpaste and she's kissing him.

She pulls back and it's Jaskier's turn to stare in shocked awe. His traitorous voice remains elusive and his eyes flick to Geralt who looks so astoundingly soft and fond as he also moves forward, brushing his thumb gently across Jaskier's cheekbone, before he also captures Jaskier's lips in a kiss.

It's soft, and hard, and sweet. When he pulls back Jaskier eyes flick back and forth between amber and violet, slowly losing his mind. His hands are clinging to the fabric of his jeans, knuckles white, and he's sure he doesn't even have the leg he's sitting on anymore. "Hm." Jaskier finally manages.

"That's my line," Geralt rumbles back, and it's like the breaking of a dam. Yen's laugh ripples like a river over rocks and Jaskier can't help but join in, even as she pulls him in for another kiss, and Geralts hands pull him up off the table. He stumbles a little on his sleeping leg but is caught and held fast by strong arms. Cheeky ones at that.

Hands tease at the hem his shirt, and there's a mouth attached to either side of his neck, which is lovely, but might also kill him. Finally regaining the use of his hands, Jaskier twines them with one each of Yen and Geralts, briefly halting their fervour.

Jaskier clears his thoughts with the slight shake of his head, but the only discernible thing is, why on earth would you want to stop this? And Jaskier is hardly one to argue with himself, especially on such matters.

He gives an encouraging squeeze to each of the hands grasped in his and nods with a somehow shy and sly smile towards the bedroom door. "Should we, uh...?"

Yennefer's grin is cat-like and almost feral, and the rumbling groan he hears from Geralt is almost enough to make his knees give out, but like so many time before, but also like no other, Jaskier finds himself dragged after these two. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

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

Sometime later, (Minutes? Hours? Days? Who can say?) Geralt is, predictably, fast asleep, and Jaskier lies tracing meaningless shapes on the soft skin of Yennefer's back with his fingertips.

"So, I take it you liked your gift," Jaskier teases, mouthing softly at her shoulder.

Yennefer preens like a cat, dark curls falling about her shoulders. "Definitely the best one so far."

Jaskier gasps mockingly at her candour and she nudges him away with a laugh, sending him dramatically sprawling backwards, though careful not to wake the sleeping mountain. Yen just scoffs and rolls her eyes at him.

"Though, I'm not sure who out of us really got the better end of it." Yennefer teases back, and her smile turns devious. "We shall just have to endeavour to have you beat next year."

Warmth spreads through Jaskier at the implication, "You're on." He challenges, and he returns to doodling on her back, this time words forming under his quick fingers.

"What are you writing?" Yennefer asks, though she can probably sense the answer.

"Next year's song, of course." Jaskier hears the low rumble of laughter from behind him and Geralt's warm forearm wraps around his waist, stubble scratching between his shoulder blades as Geralt softly presses his face in.

"A hard act to follow," he murmurs, voice still thick with sleep. "But I'm sure we'll think of something."

[dapandapod]

All kinds of pointy

Soooo I asked for prompts, and kindly enough innocentcinnamonpun stepped up and offered me this:

“ Funny interaction with feral!Jaskier being outraged over peoples treatment of Geralt who’s soft ™ for his protective bard? <3 thank you " 

I just finnished it, it’s three in the morning, and I had so much fun.  You can find it here on Ao3 or down below.

And Im sorry, I might have strayed a little. Soft maybe inched its way towards just a little hard. Just a little.

Enjoy! _____________________________________________________

Things have most definitely changed since the bard entered his life. Calm nights at the taverns is but a memory. Wherever they go Jaskier sings loudly, flirts shamelessly and demands that every eye focus on him when he performs.

Most of all, Jaskier accepts no insults. None at all. And it turns out that this flowerysmelling man with a garment in every possible colour is fierce while defending their honor. Geralt quickly learns it is a safety measure to not give Jaskier a dagger. Less dead bodies that way.

It happens all the time. A snide comment in passing, a raging youngling with too much confidence, an innkeeper denying them a room. Every time it does Jaskiers hackles rise and his eyebrows get all kinds of pointy. An indication of murdertime and for Geralt to step in and save some lives.

His bard is truly not to be trifled with. It warms him in all kinds of ways that probably isn’t normal. He is not used to feeling cared for like this. It’s nice. He keeps those moments in a special place in his mind.

When Geralt is alone he still thinks back to the moment when someone dared tell Jaskier red is not his colour. It still cracks him up, honestly. “You will regret saying that, you impotent, slow witted, assfaced ratsarse!” The face of a snarling bard, eyes shining with rage, is a terrifying thing to behold. If Jaskier had fangs, he would without a doubt have ripped the offenders throat already. And if Geralt weren’t actually holding onto his doublet at those times, he might very well have tried.

Smiles can be a deceiving thing. You are not safe when Jaskier smiles, no matter the fluttery feelings it might have given you. Like that time Geralt insulted his singing. “Like a fillingless pie, you say?” Jaskier swaggers up to him, a smile stretched across his lips, his eyes taking in the witcher, up and down. “Alright. I can take criticism.” Geralt knows for a fact nowadays that he can’t. He didn’t know then. He wasn’t scared of that smile yet. Jaskier puts a hand on his shoulder, takes a breath. “You know, that song I wrote about you? Toss a coin and all that? Let me write you a better one, my dear witcher.” Patting his shoulder and walking past him, Geralt feels a false sense of security.

In the next tavern they set foot in, Jaskier performs a song about the benefits of chamomile for tender witcher behinds. Geralt never, ever remarks on Jaskiers singing again, and the song is blissfully forgotten.

~

They are in a tavern in a nondescript small town somewhere in the south, their patrons a loud and brutish sort. It is almost tradition that at least one patron throws an insult at Geralt in these kinds of places. He would be more worried if they didn’t, it would most likely mean that they were planning something worse. Insults are good. And when the insult came, he was lulled into a false security.

Jaskier gets spitting mad again and stops his performance mid song to actually throw a piece of bread at the brute. Geralt smiles into his drink, expecting this to turn into a shouting match. Jaskier is extremely good at outwitting tavern lowlifes.

Sadly, there is no shouting match. There is nothing actually, and the evening carries on without more disturbances. But when Jaskier goes to take a leak he is gone for a suspiciously long amount of time. He can see all the barmaids and there are no men that seem to be Jaskiers type here tonight (the slightly older, brawny type, preferably with a longer hairdo he noticed) that have gone missing with him. So Geralt deems it safe to go look for him.

And finds him and three of the men from the bar in confrontation with Jaskier.

One of them holds a knife, and Geralt can see Jaskiers eyes gleam even from where he stands at the door.

Shit.

The bard quickly and deftly disarms the man with the knife, just like Geralt showed him years ago when he still thought the bard was in need of assistance.

And this is where Geralt realizes Jaskier means business, because he tosses the knife up in the air and catches it again in a very showy fashion.

Shit shit shit, Geralt has to stop this now. He hasn't seen that move since they met Jaskiers arch nemesis, another bard named Valdo Marx. The other bard had sent brutes to trash Jaskiers beloved lute before a music competition and boy, did Jaskier not take that well.

Jaskiers grin is feral, he is showing all of his teeth and whoever said the pen is sharper than the sword needs to have a talk with this man. “So tell me again lads. Do you still think the lumpbrain with the eyes the colour of piss needs to come save his whore bard? Really, is that the best you can think of?”

There is a fluttery feeling in Geralt's gut. One he normally refuses to acknowledge making a reappearance.

And this time it is impossible to ignore. It tingles, burns, coils, whatever creative metaphor you want to use. Geralt is not the poet here, he is but a victim. There is something wrong with his face, because he can feel his frown go away and be replaced by something soft and not at all fitting for a witcher.

That is also the moment when Jaskier looks up and spots him.

And fucking winks.

One of the brutes takes a step forward and that is Geralt's cue. Geralt moves at the same time as Jaskier.

Time to do hero stuff.

Body language may not be his forte, but he can read fighting. Jaskier will slaughter them.

So he rushes forwards, grabs Jaskier round the middle and hoists him over his shoulder. “Oii, what the fuck Geralt?!” Jaskier protests, but Geralt pays him no heed.

Geralt tips his head in greeting when he passes the three angry men and with big steps walk them to the inn a few streets away. Luckily they seem in no mood to pursue them.

Jaskier splutters, flails his arms, and Geralt takes a firmer grip around his thighs to keep him from falling off.

“I can walk! I have legs! Let me down you absolute lumpbrain!” Jaskier complaints loudly and Geralt snorts. “Don’t forget eyes colour of piss please. Promise not to run back and mutilate them?” Jaskier clicks his tongue and Geralt can practically feel the eyeroll happening. “Tch. No.” “There you have your answer.” Geralt smiles, patting Jaskiers butt.

And then he have to forcibly make himself not freeze up, because that stirred up something in his brain he did not intend.

He just touched Jaskiers butt.

Jaskier seems to have the same struggles, because he lets himself be carried without more complaints.

And now it is kind of awkward. Should Geralt carry him all the way inside the inn? Put him down now, confirming how very awkward he suddenly made it?

Always helpful, Jaskier helps him make the decision. “Alright. I promise.” He sighs, and Geralt lets him down.

And something must have been fundamentally broken after that wink and that pat, Geralt has no filter between mouth and brain anymore.

“Will you walk beside me or do I need to hold your hand?” Geralt says. He must be drunk. That must be it.

“Stop teasing me.” Jaskier mutters, changing the grip on the knife he is still holdning.

“Or what?” Geralt smirks at Jaskier, and hell, did he learn nothing?

Jaskier whirls on him, pushing him up against a wall, knife still in hand. If Geralt really wanted, Jaskier wouldn’t have been able to do that. He can easily break the hold, push him away, but the thing is… he doesn’t want to. It’s thrilling to have him this close, to be at his mercy.

“Or I will tease you.” Jaskier murmurs, his breath hot against Geralt's face. “I see the way you look at me. You like it when I talk back to them.”

Yes. Yes Geralt likes that. And fuck, he likes this too.

Jaskier leans in a little, their noses almost touching. They are almost of the same height, Geralt having only a few more inches on the bard. Jaskiers blue eyes miss nothing, a wide smirk breaking free on his lips.

“Say it, Geralt.” Jaskier whispers, and Jaskiers hands on his shoulders, his all-kind-of-pointy eyebrows, that fierce glint in his eyes, it does things to Geralt.

Geralt surgest forward, grabbing Jaskier and pulling him against himself. He kisses Jaskier desperately, and he can’t tell which of them is growling, but it doesn’t matter. Jaskier lets the knife fall and kiss him back, all teeth and tongue and fierceness. A hand is pulling at Geralt's tunic, seeking skin.

“They were right.” Geralt says between kisses. “Red isn’t your colour. You should take it off.”

Things are definitely still changing.

~~

Bonus:

Geralt is a peaceful man in general. His threshold is so much higher than his bards. But there are exceptions to every rule.

“Man, that is the dumbestlooking fucking horse I have ever seen.” “Hold my beer.” Geralt growls, pushing it over the table towards Jaskier. Nobody talks about Roach like that. “Geralt! NO!”

[gayregis]

Hi, just wanted to ask, how did you get into the witcher franchise (did you read the books before you played the games or vice versa?). Love your blog, byeeee :)

ty for the ask!! i hope you dont mind if i go too in-depth because i was legit thinking about this earlier today... 

tldr: i played tw3 and liked it, then read the books

i got into the witcher because one of my favorite gaming youtubers was doing a playthrough of tw3 on youtube in around i think september 2017. i liked this specific gaming youtuber for being shit at games and not caring about it... but tw3 was a different game. it felt like the decisions mattered, that there was an actual story here, that when this youtuber made shitty decisions and didn’t really care about the characters involved, i got frustrated because this game seemed really good... so i picked up the game myself and played it though, it was magnificent. not to r/witcher “the witcher 3 is literally the best game created in this history of ever” but it was sincerely good... not only does it have a great story, characters, and graphics, but it is genuinely comfortable to play as a game, even if you’re not great at games (i like playing video games but i’m not good at them when it comes to combat, i literally just would prefer to hack and slash through). so, i played through tw3 and the fact that it made me cry multiple times i found to be really interesting... but it was still just a game to me, it wasn’t something i thought about when i have time to daydream headcanons. i had read i think the witcher (short story) halfway through playing, just to get a feel of what tw3 came from, but from that, i realized the books and the games were incredibly different entitities, and i decided to not read the books until i had finished the game, or at least until i had more free time on my hands (mind i was in high school and was a senior, and during this time was when i was submitting college applications... exceptionally stressful, and the reading/writing part of my brain was absolutely fried from essay writing and reviewing). i was particularly struck by geralt and ciri’s relationship and the isle of mists quests fucked me up pretty bad. 

then around later 2017, i was really enjoying tw3, and had finished tw3′s base game and hearts of stone, and was now making my way into blood & wine. i was just playing it like normal, then came the part when geralt met regis. at first i wasn’t too interested (i mean, i was, but in the story of blood & wine, not in the books) until the little journal text pop-up appeared on my screen. you know, the one about quests you just received, or characters you just met. it was going through the motions of saying i finished this quest, picked up this new one, i was all like fine, fine, okay, alright, and then it just fucking puts regis’ long-ass name on the screen taking up a good amount of my FOV and i am immediately like, what? what the fuck? who the fuck? that’s the name? of the guy we just met? that guy??? he didn’t seem like someone with a name like that? who the fuck IS this guy.

so i head over to the wiki page for regis. i thumb through the basic information, i’m pretty interested, this quest stuff to find ciri sounds interesting. i decide to give the witcher books another try, because i have more free time now and am way more invested as everyone here as characters. also, i want to find out more about yennefer, because she was being badmouthed by everyone i saw online, and i wanted to read more about her and see if she was really so bad (spoilers: she’s not at all, the internet is just misogynistic).

i don’t think that i’m going to actually really care about these books, i just want more flavor and explanation about how in hell a witcher met a vampire and these two somehow became friends. so, i don’t care about reading them in order. i go online and find fan translations of every book, i open baptism of fire and i just start reading the bit about the fish soup. i’m suddenly just laughing my ass off, really interested in who these other characters are, milva and cahir, and how dandelion seems to actually be the best friend to geralt that he was said to be in tw3. i also notice immediately that geralt... oh my god, geralt’s such a cranky bitch. i’m SHOCKED at how annoying geralt is. i realize that this is probably what geralt’s been like, this whole time, and tw3 just gave me a sterilized version of him. i’m trying to decide if i like this change or not, at first i HATED it... but then realized it actually gave him a character, where in tw3 he feels a little more... empty, waiting for the player to project a personality onto him.

so, i just read all of the hansa bits of baptism of fire, skipping over anything i don’t understand. i am saddened when i can’t find any more, so i move onto tower of the swallow. and then lady of the lake. “oh, so that’s why geralt was surprised to see regis in blood & wine...” feeling at a loss after reading stygga, i start at the beginning and make my way through the books chronologically, like they should be read. i soon realize that this series really isn’t about killing monsters at all, and i’m thrilled. i thought the series was just going to be about geralt killing things in a swamp and reporting back to whoever hired him, like in tw3... and i was wrong. this series is about personal connections! relationships! ... and fatherhood. [see read more for personal junk]

i can’t remember when i started disliking tw3. it must have been around the time that i finished the books (im using the word finished loosely... i still havent finished some scenes because theyre too violent to read and continue with my day in peace, and i also read tos/lotl by skipping around, so i never got the full experience of reading them as full novels).

i just distinctly remember returning to my tw3 new game+ save after rereading the fish soup scene, and thinking about how lonely the game felt... i just felt so dispairingly alone, this loneliness that i hadn’t felt while playing before, that i had to put the game down. i returned to the game again, but i had just reread edge of the world... and i felt so alone again. 

so reading the books ruined tw3 for me, not out of malicious intent, but just because i think i realized geralt isn’t meant to be the lone wolf. the novels center around him and his family and friends, and i just genuinely missed that when replaying tw3. plus, i began to realize a bunch of things, like ciri’s scar is supposed to be bigger, geralt’s supposed to wear his hair in a headband, yennefer’s hair is actually curly, dandelion’s supposed to actually be in the game. there were so many inconsistencies with the characters i had imagined while reading the books that eventually i just stopped playing tw3 (i already played it once, so nbd) and got really into the books. 

sometime later i saved up like $80 to buy the paperback versions of the books (UK versions including season of storms) because i knew i was in really deep lol and i wanted the official translations super badly, also we were doing an assignment in class that allowed us to do something with our favorite book, but we needed to have it in-person and not as an e-book, so it was the perfect excuse. much time spent on hansa headcanons later and... here we are today.

a read-more, because this is more personal. 

the witcher series picked me up at an eerily appropriate time. two things in it stood out to me: 1) geralt’s relationship with ciri 2) regis’s alcoholism. 

i distinctly remember an event where i started crying in front of my parents because my dad was being so absent in my life or maybe it was because they were arguing, something like this... and i remember referencing tw3 isle of mists quest actually by saying “i shouldn’t have to learn it (good parenting) from a video game” ... lol. it wasn’t an epic burn from a 17 yo, but it was just a painful remark made in anger. i still think back to it because of how first watching geralt hug ciri made me feel and how i was actually really bitter because i was jealous of ciri for about a week after completing the quest. then i kind of pushed it out of my mind and didn’t think so much about it, until the night i mentioned it.

in late march of 2018, something very bad happened in my family. that’s probably the best way to describe it. the situation ended in my parents finally separating. my mom and i were pretty afraid and lost after that. after i had collected my thoughts and everything and went back to as “normal” as i could, about a month later, when the creative part of my brain finally began to function again and wasn’t inhibited due to fear, i clung to the witcher more than i did before... and this time, actually particularly to regis, because guess who has a whole redemption arc relating to not being alcoholic and being a genuinely good person who speaks gently and heals the vulnerable?