Chapter Text
I’m not supposed to love you
but I do
I do
I’m not supposed to love you
but I do
too much
-Tora
Jaskier knew, intellectually, that he had done nothing wrong. He hadn’t said anything out loud, he hadn’t actually said it. Not a peep about his embarrassing, overwhelming, ridiculous feelings. Not in so many words, anyway. Sure, he had made that tortured half-aborted suggestion that they go to the coast (his home/not his home) but Geralt had held to his end of their charade, their farcical dance around Jaskier’s obvious crush – he had ignored the subtext as usual and carried on.
Jaskier knew that Geralt was just generally not good at feelings (was in fact possibly the pioneer of that particular myth about Witchers), got overwhelmed easily and resorted to stabbing his way out of emotionally difficult situations. It was almost definitely nothing personal, although it certainly felt personal when Geralt spat his rage at Jaskier with all the frustration and wounded pride of a broken heart.
Jaskier knew , he really did, that this was more about Yennefer and the child and Geralt’s own stubborn nature than it was anything to do with Jaskier himself. It was almost more mortifying that he wasn’t even significant enough in Geralt’s emotional landscape to warrant his own argument. He was just a convenient whipping boy, as he always had been. And then even that wasn’t enough to earn his place at Geralt’s side anymore.
Jaskier knew all these things, he knew this little drama wasn’t even about him. He was just a bit player in someone else’s story. But it still felt like he had confessed all his humiliating, squirmy feelings, held his heart out raw and bloody only to see it tossed in the dirt.
For all his lack of dignity, Jaskier still had pride. Or at least a semblance of it. He was well versed in the ways of rejection by now, he had practice at sweeping up the shreds of his jovial façade and weaving them back into place. When the Countess called him old and boring he hadn’t lingered for much longer than it took to grab his lute and several bottles of her finest Est Est.
As a bard, he was quite used to throwing his heart at people and watching it bounce off. His work was his heart, after all. For Jaskier, there really wasn’t much difference in the way he loved and the way he performed.
So it was with very little fanfare that he tooks his notes from the Dwarves (plus some of their profoundly strong homebrewed spirits) and set off down the mountain. He doesn’t really remember much of the trip south, only that he rather regretted leaving so much of his gear in Geralt’s saddle bags and that actually humans probably shouldn’t drink Dwarven spirits, no matter how diluted.
While drinking his problems was Jaskier’s traditional method of getting over someone, he also found getting under someone to work well too.
This is how he found himself at one of the seediest taverns in Novigrad (not the seediest as he’d already been kicked out of that one), considerably inebriated and debating whether he should try to go home with the behemoth he had just fucked in the privy or keep drinking until he fell asleep under the table.
Very nearly pickled by wine at this point, Jaskier apparently took too long to ponder the matter. The retreating backside of his companion made the decision for him. He had completely missed any attempts at goodbyes. Oh well.
“I’ll have another, my dear Anya. On my tab”
Anya fixed him with an unimpressed glare. “You don’t have a tab, Bard, and you certainly don’t need anything more to drink even if you could pay for it.”
Jaskier puffed his chest up, ready to launch into a diatribe on the injustices of surly barmaids when a hand reached in front of him to deposit several coins in front of him. “I’ll pay. Whatever our dear disaster Dandelion desires.”
Oh god, thought Jaskier. I fucking hate alliteration.
The alcohol muffled alarm that had started ringing in his mind when he heard the voice started to sound even louder as the owner of the hand sat down next to Jaskier. He refused to turn his head on principle, but in his peripheral vision he could see a riot of colour and silks that could only belong to someone deeply colourblind, fashion challenged or, well, a bard.
Jaskier’s dread only grew when the newcomer seemed content to be ignored while Jaskier quaffed the drink the man had bought him. This suggested he knew Jaskier and was in no hurry to introduce himself. A bard who knew him, who called him Dandelion , the nickname only his classmates remembered.
Shit and fuck, thought Jaskier succinctly, then turned to face his nemesis.
“Hallo Valdo. Fancy meeting you here. Crippled Kate’s close early?” Jaskier patted himself on the back mentally for such a witty opening.
Valdo’s unfairly attractive face creased in faux puzzlement. “But why would I be at a brothel when there’s a cheap whore right here?”
There was a beat, a moment where Jaskier could’ve, should have responded with his own clever barb about Marx’s lack of talent in bedsports compared to Jaskier’s reknowned skills. But Valdo’s arrow had struck too truly, and that moment that stretched too long betrayed him. Jaskier buried his face in his cup and attempted to reach the bottom in record time.
Valdo’s smirk dropped, his eyes narrowed. A predator smelling blood. He settled closer to Jaskier, slinging an arm around slumped shoulders. Jaskier knew he should throw him off, laugh in his face, dismiss the knowing smile with an airy wave. But he couldn’t. He was too drunk, and too sad, and too much in love with someone who wanted him off his hands. It was like watching a bad play he’d already seen before, but unable to tell any of the players to stop.
“What’s this, Dandelion? Not up to your usual witty repartee?” Valdo leaned in, his dark goatee lending him a sinister air that should have been more comical than it was.
“ Oh piss off Marx. I’m not in the mood.”
Valdo snorted. “The great Jaskier, not in the mood to entertain his adoring public? You must be unwell.” He pressed a heavily beringed hand against Jaskier’s forehead, a mime of care.
Jaskier half-heartedly batted at Valdo, wishing him away without the strength to enforce it. “I’d be a lot better if you fucked off back to Cidaris and obscurity where you belong.”
The arm still wrapped around Jaskier’s shoulder tightened warningly, and Jaskier suddenly remembered with great clarity why he fucking hated Valdo Marx.
“Is that any way to talk to your first love? Your greatest love? That’s what you called me in that charming little ballad you wrote in first year, wasn’t it?”
Humiliation finally pierced the fog of misery and drink deeply enough that Jaskier felt incensed, and let the anger drag him to his feet.
“You’re nobody’s greatest anything, Valdo. Greatest windbag, maybe. Greatest mista—oof!” Jaskier was abruptly cut off as Valdo yanked him back down to sit on his stool and leaned close to whisper viciously in Jaskier’s ear.
“That’s very rich, coming from a washed up forty-year-old catamite who can’t even get a witcher to fuck him.”
Damn him. Once again, Valdo had seen too truly what lay in Jaskier’s heart. Quite probably half the continent could have inferred as much from Jaskier’s dedication to his ‘muse’, but few would have realized that was what had currently brought the bard so low.
But Valdo knew him, inside and out, from his pink soft bits to the relentless whirlwind of his mind. That’s what happened when you offered someone your whole heart blindly, as stupid youths often did. As Jaskier had, much to his detriment. His relationship with Valdo Marx had been a disaster from beginning to end, a mistake it seemed he was still very much paying for.
Jaskier closed his eyes. He knew it was obvious the fight had gone out of him and he couldn’t bring himself to care.
A low, ugly laugh crawled across his skin. “Ah, so that’s the way of it. The great white wolf finally told you to fuck off.”
Jaskier couldn’t reply. He could barely breathe. He heard Valdo draining his own cup and setting it down on the bar with an air of finality. The hated arm returned to insinuate its way around Jaskier’s waist, far too familiar and invasive. He turned to glare at Valdo through slitted eyes.
“Is that why you let that brute back there have you? So you could pretend? How sad.” Valdo’s face was all false sympathy. “You could’ve just asked me, Dandelion. You know I’d take care of you.”
Jaskier almost laughed, but then realized maybe he would cry. Valdo’s idea of care would horrify most people. He felt sick at the suggestion.
Maybe that’s all you get though, said a hideous little voice deep in Jaskier’s psyche, maybe you deserve that.
Suddenly it was all too much, he’d had enough. Enough of this tavern, enough of the drink, enough of being sad little Jaskier pining over people he would never have.
“Alright then. Let’s go.”
It seemed this was the last response Valdo had actually been anticipating, judging by the genuine shock on his face as Jaskier made to stand again, this time inside the circle of Valdo’s arms. He recovered with admirable speed however, securing Jaskier to his side with his lightly muscled arm (nothing like a witcher ) and steering them to the door.
“How delightful! I knew you’d finally come to your senses and return to the best lover you’ve ever known. I can’t wait to get you all spread out and--”
Jaskier cut him off. “Just shut the fuck up and take me home, Valdo. Your dirty talk is as uninspired as your poetry.”
This was an incredibly unwise thing to say to a man like Valdo, but Jaskier had set his course for self destruction and was of a mind to compound his woes. He knew Valdo’s answering silence was merely a simmering resentment and Jaskier would pay for the insult later, but he was sort of counting on that. Might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, as they said. Let it never be said that Jaskier the Bard didn’t commit to a bad idea.