Chapter Text
It takes Yennefer Vengerberg nearly a year to admit that the mistakes were mutual, but in the hours afterwards, all she can think about is what a prick Geralt is. And to be fair, Geralt does act like a prick.
~
"I don't get why you're mad, you said you liked the flat. What's the big issue?" Geralt grumbles, brushing his long white hair out of his eyes.
"You pretty much signed the lease without me. Actually, if it wasn't legally impossible you would've done that! That wasn't the plan."
The plan had been to look over the rental listings again and submit the official applications together. It was meant to be a mutual action, hence why they were looking for a new flat in the first place. They'd both agreed that Geralt squeezing his belongings into Yennefer's studio flat would've been a mistake, as would've Yen moving into his place with Jaskier. Mistake was really an understatement, that would have resulted in a homicide.
"But you said you liked it, I've just sped up the process. Honestly, Yen it's not a big deal." He moves a little closer to where her electric wheelchair is parked and Yennefer glares at him.
"I did like it, but I wanted a place in a nicer neighbourhood. I told you this!"
"It's near the shops and your work, there's a cafe nearby, what else do you need?"
Her glare intensifies and she moves the control on the wheelchair so that she is closer to Geralt, who sits down at the battered table.
"A park, a school, that sort of thing!"
"Why?"
"Oh for God's sake as if you don't know."
He looks genuinely confused, so perhaps he really doesn't.
"I don't!"
"A kid, Geralt. For a fucking kid." Her voice has begun to rise and her words come out forceful and annoyed.
At that, Geralt has the gaul to laugh. "I'm not joking," She spits.
He stops abruptly to look up at her.
"You're serious? No offence Yen, but I'm not sure we'd make great parents."
"I know I can't biologically, but there are other ways. Wouldn't a family together be nice?" Her face softens, her frown fading a little.
"People with fucked up childhoods like ours shouldn't be parents. That just makes fucked up kids."
"So you're saying I'd be a bad mother?" Yennefer's features turn stoney again, and she gets up slightly, half standing with her arm on the chair for support.
"I'm saying a child is a damn stupid way to boost an ego."
"Oh, fuck you."
"Can't we just be happy, Yen? Get a flat together?" Geralt is almost pleading now, his eyes tired.
"You don't get to tell me how to be happy. You don't get to make all the choices."
He scoffs at that, eyes rolling slightly. "It was one damn application, don't try and make it about anything bigger."
"It's representative."
"Of one stupid mistake. Look, I'm sorry I said you'd be a bad mother, but I'm being realistic. Did you even want kids before you found out you couldn't?"
"You're an arsehole, you know that, Geralt?" Yennefer sits back in her chair and grabs her bag off the floor, putting it in her lap.
"No, seriously, did you?" He's almost taunting her now and any affection she holds for him is fast disappearing.
"We're finished. I can't be in a relationship with someone who doesn't take my needs seriously." She is shouting now and her fists clench. But fuck it she's angry.
"You're breaking up with me over this? It's been nearly two years and this is how it's going to end?"
"I'm not wasting anymore time on someone who has different goals. And you know it's not just this." With that she maneuvers the electric wheelchair to the door.
"Do you want me to open it or…?" Geralt pipes up from somewhere behind her, but she just ignores him, gets out of the chair, pulls the door open, pushes the wheelchair into the hallway, walks out and slams the door behind her.
Fuck.
~
They'd met on a dating app of all places, two years ago. Yennefer had been ready to give up on online dating all together, she'd suffered through too many dates where people demeaned her, gave her unsolicited medical advice and used her as a way to boost their self esteem.
She could see it in their eyes when they'd sit down in the restaurant, 'look at me, I'm going on a date with a disabled girl, I'm a real Saint.' They usually made excuses to leave early once they found out that she wasn't relying on their compliments to feel good about herself.
Then there were the ones that called her exotic and spent the night telling her about their gap years in India (always over enunciating place names to show her how cultured they were). Those dates always ended early.
So, her date with Geralt was the last chance. If it didn't work out, she'd stay off of dating apps for a while.
But then it had worked out. This tall, slightly intimidating white boy had been kind and smart. He'd rambled on about horses and plants. He'd laughed as she talked about her least favourite clients from work. And suddenly she was deleting her dating apps for different reasons.
~
"Are you sure you're okay, Yenna?"
The minute Yennefer had told Triss and Sabrina about the break up, they had slipped into the roles of supportive friends and invited her for drinks. Notably at a pub on the opposite side of town of Geralt's flat.
"I'm just angry, two years of my life with that bastard!" She takes a gulp of her drink.
"The idiot." Sabrina chimes in. Triss just smiles sympathetically and offers Yennefer a chip from the pile on her plate.
"And he had the balls to say I'd be a bad mother!"
"You could send him bees."
"I should what?" Yennefer's words slur a little as she eats another chip.
"Bees," Triss adjusts the strap of her top, and a scheming smile appears on her lips. "You can send them over the internet, legally I presume."
"She's not sending him bees, don't promote breakup induced violence, Triss."
"He'd probably tame them and set up a bee hive and start selling honey." Yennefer mumbles with a hint of misery and Sabrina leans over to rub her shoulder.
"Anything you need, other than bees, we're here hun."
Triss nods emphatically in agreement, shifting so she's sitting closer to the other two women.
Yennefer had met Triss when she was seventeen and too aware that she would soon be aging out of the foster system. So, she'd applied for a job at a vaguely trendy bookstore, which had happened to be owned by Triss's aunt. Triss had been a year younger, kind and bubbly and the two girls had become fast friends.
Triss had been the one who'd encouraged Yennefer to apply to university, had helped her apply for scholarships, pay for textbooks and had even let Yen sleep in her spare room for minimal rent.
It was at university together, that they'd met Sabrina and it hadn't taken long before they'd become a trio.
"It just feels like it's Istredd all fucking over again. Do I just attract people who don't want the same things as me?"
"Look on the bright side, you can take this time to look after yourself, practice some self-care, put yourself first etcetera, etcetera. I can recommend a great therapist." At this, Yennefer rolls her eyes, Sabrina has a bad habit of overdosing on self-help books
"Putting myself first is why I broke up with Geralt, it feels like all I've ever done is put myself first," she shrugs, "Maybe that makes me self-centered but nobody else does it, so I might as well."
"Cheers to that." Triss raises her glass and Sabrina and Yennefer join her in the toast.
~
Yennefer had been slightly reluctant about texting Renfri, considering her friendship with Geralt and all. But then she remembered how much Renfri loved to be a bitch if given the opportunity and had done it anyways.
Which is how she ends up getting high on a battered sofa in the house Renfri shares with her seven roommates (bartending is not a lucrative career).
"Geralt has a bad case of arsehole-itis, always has." Renfri muses as she lifts a joint to her lips.
"He's your friend."
"And that gives me the right to slag him off whenever I want."
Yennefer laughs slightly at that, leaning back into the sofa.
"I may have known Geralt for longer, but you're my friend too and you're a lot more fun to chat with right now. He's just moping."
"Serves him right." She reaches to take the joint from Renfri.
"I should've seen it coming, warned you really. Geralt seems to have a thing for messing things up with girls with scars in particular places." Renfri lifts up one of her hands to show the healed scar on her wrist.
It had been the first thing Yennefer had noticed when they'd met, Geralt had given her a muttered introduction and Renfri had brazenly introduced herself as Geralt's ex-girlfriend, with a "You don't have to worry we were doomed from the start" tacked on. Then she'd grinned at Yennefer and asked her about the scars. Yen had liked her immediately.
"I should've seen it coming, he wasn't exactly masking that bloody savior complex or his unresolved childhood trauma."
"Ah, the childhood trauma. Always comes to bite you back in the arse, doesn't it?"
Yennefer shakes her head, "Not me, I'm done letting that shit define me."
Renfri says nothing and instead takes the blunt back.
~
Yennefer Vengerberg doesn't make drunken mistakes. She always stops before she blacks out. There are no embarrassing videos of her doing stupid shit on the internet. Sure, she'll type out long messages to exes, but she'll never send them.
Yennefer doesn't make drunken mistakes.
Or she didn't used to.
This particular drunken mistake starts on an unassuming Friday night out at the pub, three months after Yennefer breaks up with Geralt .
Sabrina's rambling on about inner children and Triss is pretending to be interested and Yennefer can feel herself getting steadily drunker.
So she makes the first of a series of stupid decisions, she goes to get another drink.
"I'm going to get something from the bar, want anything?" Yennefer asks, raising her voice a little so she can be heard over the music and chatter.
"Nah, I'm good. Triss?"
Triss shakes her head and Yennefer maneuvers across the pub.
Which is when she sees him sitting at a table alone.
Jaskier.
So, she abandons her plan to get a drink and begins to make her way to his table, her fists already clenching.
She's never particularly liked Jaskier, and the sentiment stands now she's broken up with Geralt. He's vain, annoying and a bit of a narcissist. She's never understood how he's Geralt's best friend.
And here he is, clearly sent by Geralt to spy on her.
"You can tell him to leave me the fuck alone." Yennefer tells him once he's close enough to hear.
He looks up, surprised. Well, he is a performer, feigning surprise shouldn't be hard for him.
"What?"
"Geralt, tell him to leave me the fuck alone and to stop sending lackies to spy on me."
"I-I'm not-wait. Did you just call me Geralt's lackey?"
Yen glares. "Are you not? Because I'm pretty sure hunting down people's ex-girlfriends in pubs is exactly what a lackey does."
"Yeah, well you'll be happy to know I'm not spying on you on Geralt's behalf. He kicked me out of the flat and hasn't spoken to me since." Jaskier looks away, not meeting her eyes and instead stares intently at his drink. "Thanks for that, by the way, he decided to blame your break up on me."
Yennefer's brow furrows.
"He what?"
"Blamed it on me and then ever so graciously kicked me out. Which now means I have to room with my archnemesis who happens to like having very loud sex when I'm trying to grade papers."
"Sorry then." she mutters, ready to leave, when Jaskier speaks again.
"I was in love with him you know. Well, of course you know, that's why you hate me isn't it." He's still looking at his drink and Yennefer wonders exactly how drunk he is.
"I don't hate you because you're in love with Geralt. I hate you because you're annoying and pretentious."
At that, Jaskier looks up, seemingly cheered.
"Really?"
Yennefer's phone makes a small sound and she takes it out of her bag to check it. "One second."
It's a text from Triss asking her if she's okay, and she quickly drafts a reply.
8:42 pm
Yenna : Ran into Jaskier of all people, who was apparently kicked out by Geralt and is mildly depressed. Feel free to leave without me, I'll get a taxi home.
She glances back up at Jaskier who is gulping down his drink, and hits send.
"He was a real prick to me, you know."
He raises his eyebrows slightly.
"I thought you didn't like me."
"I don't, are you going to let me bitch about Geralt or not?" She moves her wheelchair closer to his table. “Don’t you know Pankratz, the enemy of my enemy is my...well my ally.”
"Uh-alright." Jaskier looks flustered and vaguely unsettled at the tenuous olive branch she's extending. "Um, how was Geralt a prick?"
"Oh you know basically signed a lease on a flat without me and said I'd be a shit mum."
Jaskier takes another sip of his beer, relaxing just a little, "Classic. He told me to stop following him like a lost fucking puppy. "
"Idiot."
"I was his first friend in university, his only friend for a while. He was practically glued to my hip that first year, a kid from a small town in a big new city. And he calls me the lost puppy?" He shakes his head, "Fucking ironic isn't it."
"Rather. Do you want another drink?"
~
So that's how she ends up spending her night getting very drunk with Jaskier Pankratz.
For all she finds him annoying, it's mildly therapeutic to bitch about Geralt with him, as he laments.
"I think I might be alone forever." he tells her earnestly, to which she bursts out laughing.
~
They chat until closing time when the bartender tells them to scram and Jaskier stumbles out of the building, leaning slightly on Yennefer's wheelchair for support.
"Do you want to smoke some pot at my flat?" She finds herself asking as they wait for a taxi. Jaskier nods enthusiastically and things become hazy as they fold her wheelchair up and get into the vehicle.
~
Yennefer Vengerberg doesn't make drunken mistakes but when she wakes up the next morning with a killer hangover and a warm body next to hers, she's pretty sure she's made one.