Work Text:
Jaskier threw back a shot, preparing to drown out the small bout of nerves that always came with performing. Sure, he loves it, but there’s always been a twist in his stomach right before stepping on stage; a good twist, one not dissimilar from when he saw–it was a good twist. He leaves the shot glass on the bar and walks over to the stage entrance. It’s there he checks the set list. In order to not be repetitive, he liked to send potential employers a list of songs he’d be willing to perform and let them pick them out.
He’s running through it, a pretty standard selection, and he thinks tonight is going to go pretty well until he sees that song. That goddamn song that he know he didn’t include in the list. Meaning the owner recognized it as his own and requested it. There’s a good goddamn reason it wasn’t in the list of options, he needed to move on , and playing the same heartbreak diddy on repeat isn’t going to help with that.
Regardless of how he feels about it, he lets his arm drop and runs through the chords. After all, he’s the one with money on the line, not the owner of the establishment. God, he just wishes the song would go away. The song was meant to be cathartic and help him move-on, but instead all it did was give him more memories of the man behind it. Instead it gave him memories of the day his heart broke.
Thinking back on it, Jaskier still doesn’t see where the whole outburst came from. It was understandable that he was upset that day, he and Yennefer Vengerberg had just had a pretty nasty split, but his role in it felt like a reach. Regardless, Jaskier knew that his friend really was angry at him, for what reason he may never truly know.
He was just supposed to meet Geralt at that shop. Yennefer wasn’t supposed to be there, she wasn’t supposed to be angry and slamming doors. Jaskier really can’t blame his friend for falling for her; she a terrifying lawyer, smart, and gorgeous to boot. Jaskier can’t blame him, but he wishes he never would’ve gotten involved with her. Not when he left Jaskier high and dry, not when their relationship put unimaginable tension on Jaskier and Yennefer’s work relationship on account of him being massively jealous of her.
Yennefer looked beyond pissed that day, and Jaskier’s good mood quickly dwindled as he realized Geralt would also be upset. He mentally prepared himself for dealing with his, yes , extremely grumpy and monosyllabic, but kind, very best friend. He plastered on a goofy smile that can normally relieve at least a little tension in Geralt’s broad shoulders, and as he opened his mouth to comfort him, Geralt just… snapped.
He started going on about how Jaskier was the one to ruin his life, the “shit-shoveler” and everything he had done wrong. If it weren’t for him getting involved at Cintra he would not have met the now-late parents of his god-daughter, a responsibility he never wanted. If it weren’t for him getting a hit put on him, he never would’ve met the frightening and powerful lawyer. He was so mad, practically frothing, but the final blow was what knocked Jaskier down and out. Geralt’s last words to him: “If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”
And so Jaskier left.
The days following were a drunken blur, but at the end of it he came out with a number of songs about breakups and heartbreak to show for his pain. They were all good , he knows how to write songs thank you very much, but none were ever as good as “Good Things Fall Apart.” The song was actually his first big break, made it onto a few radio stations, but it wasn’t cathartic like he planned. Instead of getting over Geralt and his cruel words, it just forced him to relive every heartbreaking moment spent in his company.
Jaskier knows Geralt hasn’t heard it. The man never listened to radio, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to actively seek out the music of the man he hated. Honestly, he doesn’t think he ever would’ve released it if he thought Geralt would hear it, or if he thought he would ever see him again. No, the glory days of the two were done for, nothing but memories in an attic.
He lets out a sigh as he puts the set list back down for the band to play. He hates the song, he never wants to hear it again, but, well. Nothing to be done.
Fortunately he has a little while before it’s time to play that one. He settles in on stage, gives his introduction, and he lets the music take him away. The door opening and closing is muffled, the everchanging crowd of people blurry, and all that matters is the words he says and the chords he plays.
It’s been a long week, and all Geralt wants to do is sit down and have a drink in peace. Never mind the fact that he’s traveling all the time , no one he works with wants to actually listen to what he says, and he’s lonely . He can’t remember a time in the past few years where he has felt this upset about traveling alone. He’s not an idiot, he knows it has everything to do with Jaskier, the one person who stayed until Geralt spat cruel words like knives at him.
He’s lonely, he’s tired, and he wants a drink.That’s all that’s on his mind tonight. On account of the exhaustion and loneliness, Geralt can’t really find himself picky over where exactly he goes to get a drink. He’s walking down the street when he sees a bar, and his decision is made, even if they do advertise live music.
Music doesn’t feel the same since Jaskier left.
He pushes away the guilt he can feel building in his chest. It’s been a long day already, he doesn’t need to add more guilt and heartbreak on top of it. He opens the door and finds it relatively packed, but there are still seats open, so he’s definitely staying. He’s ordering his drink as music plays, no words yet, although with all the time he spent with Jaskier he can tell they are coming soon. He sits at the table as the lyrics start, and he turns his head so quickly that his neck aches and his drink spills just the smallest amount.
After all these months trying to find him, after chasing his social media for any lead he can get, he finds Jaskier on accident, in a bar that he walked into by chance.
Unable to turn his eyes away from the brown-haired man on stage, Geralt feels the chords tickling in the back of his mind. He’s heard this one before, he doesn’t remember when, but something about it makes his heart a little warmer. As it comes to an end, Geralt takes a sip of his drink and starts thinking on what he’s going to say to Jaskier. His thoughts are quickly interrupted as a new song begins just as soon as the other finishes. He hears the opening and racks his mind, but he doesn’t think he can remember anything with it. A new song then.
Giving his full attention to Jaskier, Geralt lets the chords and beat wash over him. Relatively upbeat, nice tempo, something in it that makes it undoubtedly Jaskier’s. It’s only when the lyrics start that Geralt’s smile is wiped off completely.
Did I say something wrong? Did you hear what I was thinking?
Did I talk way too long when I told you about my feelings that night?
Is it you? Is it me? Did you find somebody better?
Someone who isn’t me, ‘cause I know that I was never your type,
Never really your type.
God, this sounds…
Overthinking’s got me drinking,
Messing with my head, whoa.
This song is heartbreaking . It’s heartbreaking, and full of pain, and something in him itches.
Tell me what you hate about me,
Whatever it is, I’m sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know I can be dramatic,
But everybody said we had it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I’m coming to terms with a broken heart,
I guess that sometimes good things fall apart.
The itch turns to a tear in his heart. The song is about him. It is undoubtedly about him.
Geralt feels as if his heart has shattered, but he can’t turn away from Jaskier now. He’s caught in his sweet siren’s voice and ocean blue eyes. He tries to collect himself in the little break but it just feels like time is flying, it feels like he can’t even breathe.
When you said it was real, guess I really did believe you.
Did you fake how you feel when we parked down by the river that night?
That night?
He’s trapped and forced to watch a strong sadness fall into Jaskier’s eyes; he’s forced to listen as his tone grows sadder and his smile faker.
That night when we fogged up the windows in your best friend’s car,
‘Cause we couldn’t leave the windows down in December.
Whoa.
As if he could hear Geralt’s thoughts, the musician suddenly takes a breath and makes his tone a little more jovial. To anyone else it would seem genuine, like the thrill of performing, but not to Geralt.
Not to the man that has spent every day of his life loving him.
Tell me what you hate about me,
Whatever it is, I’m sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know I can be dramatic,
But everybody said we had it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I’m coming to terms with a broken heart,
I guess that sometimes good things fall apart.
Every word he sings feels like a knife in his body and, God, is this how Jaskier felt that treacherous day? Did he hurt like this?
Geralt’s eyes are glued to Jaskier’s slender form as he repeats the chorus one last time. As he finishes off the final notes he gives a broad smile, but one that doesn’t reach his tear-filled eyes. He begins plucking out the chords for the next song, but Geralt doesn’t hear them–all he can hear is the heartbreak in his voice, all he can see is the grief in his eyes.
So lost in his thoughts, it takes him a moment to realize that he’s begun crying. He doesn’t even remember the last time he cried. He feels the tears rolling down his face but the thought of moving is incomprehensible. All he’s capable of doing is watching Jaskier’s lips move and regretting every word he said that damn day. God, he wants nothing more than to sweep him off that stage, to look in his eyes and tell him he’s sorry, let him know that he loves him. He wants so badly, but he knows he has to bide his time. So he watches.
Jaskier finishes his set for the night and thanks the crowd, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. As he walks off, Geralt takes in his posture, the exhaustion in his eyes and stance. What he wouldn’t give to just walk over and wrap him in his arms, but he doesn’t have that right. He doesn’t get to hold him until he apologizes.
Geralt shrugs off his discomfort; it’s time to do what needed to be done months ago.
He keeps his eyes on Jaskier, sees him talk to who he assumes to be the owner, and watches him walk over and take a place at the bar. With confident strides he doesn’t feel, he goes to face his destiny, whatever may come of it. The burst of energy immediately dwindles as Jaskier notices him getting closer, as his eyes catch on the gorgeous blues that are filling with dread and pain. The rising emotion he sees slows with a hint of confusion, and it’s then that he realizes he still has the tears on his face. He can’t bring himself to wipe them away, to wipe away the little bit of physical evidence that would show he cares .
Before he knows it, he’s at the bar with the man he hasn’t seen in a year, and he forces himself to stop just out of arm’s reach, to not crowd Jaskier and scare him away. His lip is trembling and he looks like he’s about to say something, but for once he’s not the one who needs to talk. So Geralt says the first thing he can think of.
“I didn’t fake a thing I felt that night with you.”
His words succeeded in staving off whatever terribly wrong thing Jaskier was going to say, but it also left him confused and Geralt needing to give even more words. His worst nightmare, but he’d do anything for him right now, anything to get him to smile. Those big blue eyes are still staring right into his own, asking so many questions, so he gathers all the strength he has, and lets the words he’s kept for years spill out onto the floor between them.
“You don’t know how to exist in the quiet. You care an ungodly amount about your appearance, won’t stand next to me if I’ve not showered in two days. You sneak Ciri candy even if she hasn’t finished her supper, and you’re always starting fights if you think someone is being rude to me. You managed to get a fucking assassin hit on you because you think with your dick more than your head. You’re banned from various restaurants and bars for starting fights, and you’ve gotten me banned alongside you.
You have a heart made of solid fucking gold which means you have to stop for every sad story you hear. You insist on sleeping in, and whenever I try to wake you up you hit me with your pillow. You don’t let anyone except me see your hair in the morning because of your atrocious bedhead. I can’t order ramen with you if we’re in the car because you don’t know how to eat it without making a mess. You have this very specific laugh if you hear a raunchy joke or make a dirty thought out of something I’ve said.You’re at my side day after day, no matter how often I tell you to leave me alone, and you’re on my mind even more often.”
Jaskier is definitely crying now, silent little tears making gentle tears down his cheeks, but Geralt can’t stop until he’s said everything he needs to. “Gods, Jaskier, all of those things. Every single thing I just listed. They’re what I love about you. Every little flaw and eccentricity, they make you who you are, and I love everything about you. There’s so much more I can say, more I can list, but I never want to hear an apology slip from your lips about those things. I love every single one of them. I love you, because you made my life so much better. You made me not lonely.”
Geralt knows that he’s crying now to. He can feel the new tears carving his cheek like a knife, but he won’t let the smallest thing distract him right now. “I hate that day. I hate it, and I can’t stop thinking about it because that’s the day that I lost my love. If I could go back and change what I said, what I did, I would do it in a heartbeat. I hate every word that came out of my mouth that day. Those things I said, they’re not true. Thinking of those days reminds me of what fear is, reminds me how afraid I was of losing you, and in the end I was the one who pushed you away.
I listened to your song. The whole thing. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything I said, I’m sorry for breaking your heart, I’m sorry for pushing you away, and I’m sorry for not realizing what a good thing I was missing out on.”
The tears from Jaskier seem to be coming faster now, and the cracks in his heart shatter a little further when he hears the softness in his voice. “Geralt, I…”
Fuck it. He reaches his hand out, and the first touch of their fingers in months is electric. He cradles Jaskier’s hand, palm so soft, fingers so calloused, and he just holds them. These hands that have touched him so many times, he holds them with reverence, with tenderness, with all the love he has in his body. He holds it and lets the rest gently in his own work-rough hands, and he dips his head down to meet that hand, not the other way around, he lowers his head and presses a featherlight kiss to his knuckles.
So gently he kisses them, and so slowly he raises his head again to look into the eyes the hand belongs to. He keeps his tender cradle of it, but he meets those gorgeous blue eyes and has to look away.
“I should have told you years ago. I shouldn’t have held back from you. I don’t have your pretty words and passionate flairs to properly describe everything there is about you. All I have is the image of you burned behind my eyes, your name in my heart, and the knowledge that you are perfect to me. You’re perfect, and you’re ‘my type,’” they both huff a little laugh at that. “There is no one in this world I want to spend my days with. There is no one I’d rather listen to at 3 a.m. There’s no one who could ramble at me so nonsensically and still have all of my affections. I want you, every bit of it. No sorries, just unapologetic, unfiltered you.”
He lets his gaze fall back to Jaskier’s for a second, just long enough to see if he knows what he’s thinking, but the weight of it is too much. Geralt doesn’t know what he’ll say, what he’ll do, but he knows he will be prepared to walk out of his life and never return if that’s what he asks of him. He’ll do whatever he says, and the knowledge that he might never see him again has more tears stinging his eyes.
He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, or friendship, and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve a relationship, but he’s weak. He’s weak and he’s wanting so he asks, he asks so damn softly he doesn’t even know if Jaskier heard him over the din of the bar. “Please give me a chance. Let me prove myself, let me prove my words. Give me the chance to make things better.
Let me prove how much I love you, and how sorry I am for everything. Give me the chance to hold you and wipe away your tears and make you laugh in your millions of different ways. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I don’t deserve these things, but you make me so selfish so please.
Give me a chance to prove that good things don’t always fall apart.”
He gathers the last of his courage to look the man he loves in the eyes, and what he sees there is nothing short of a miracle. There is still pain and tears, but there’s also something that undoubtedly must be love . There’s love in his eyes an his cheeks are ruddy from his tears, but a sob tears through his lovely lips and he’s nodding so hard that Geralt is getting a little worried about—
He’s nodding.
Before he’s even conscious of his movement he is opening his arms and Jaskier is flying into them and he’s holding him . He brings his arms in, wraps them securely around him. He feels a wet-spot on his shirt growing and feels one on Jaskier’s as well so there’s no being mad about it. Not when he has everything he has ever wanted in his arms.
They stand there in that stupid, packed-out bar, and they hold each other, and while Jaskier’s song may always be a hit, it will never carry that pain again.