Imagine Amnesia!Jaskier who loses his memories of Geralt post-mountain.
The bard, while incredibly upset and angered over what happened on the mountain, continued to sing the praises of witchers despite his hurt. Call him what you want, but he would never be petty enough to screw over every witcher on the continent by running their already horrible reputation through the mud. To do that just because he got his heart broken by a singular stupid man that didn’t speak for the monster hunting community as a whole would require a level of apathy Jaskier hope he never reached.
So, yeah. That. But maybe also because people liked his songs about Geralt’s hunts and a bard has to eat.
Still, he doesn’t expect the witch, who had been giving him a stink eye all night apparently, to suddenly rise from her seat and curse the bard to forget every memory he has of witchers before fleeing the tavern.
An action which she performed in front of the very full tavern, actually, which contained a lot of townsfolk who were more than happy to explain the situation when the bard woke up and help him back to his room. And Jaskier would be more worried about the sudden gap in knowledge, except he knows that if this white wolf and he were as close as people make it seem, he would have written about the man in his journal/songbook.
Mentally praising his past self for keeping such good notes, Jaskier spends the next few days relearning all the songs he himself had written, his fingers remembering the notes even if his mind did not. And the bard read the stories of his travels with Geralt, smiling as he thought of all the adventures he and the witcher must have had, wondering why the witcher wasn’t here before—
Jaskier stared at the final few pages of his book, only having noticed them because he skimmed through the blank ones before to make sure he didn’t miss anything. And he read, and reread the pages, until the words were burned into his head. Only then did he close the book slowly, a small frown on his face.
The bard sat, and thought, and considered his next steps, before realizing this didn’t exactly change anything. He had songs to sing that people liked, and they seemed to be true, thus it didn’t really matter what Jaskier thought or felt for the man, did it?
So Jaskier continued on, acting like nothing had changed. He still remembered the towns that were friendly to bards, as well as those who would be against him simply because of his association with Geralt. Jaskier was even beginning to get used to the strange gaps in his memory when, one day, he noticed the man from his journal staring at him while the bard sang a fast-paced tune about a ghoul that the silver-haired witcher defeated some years back, if the time stamps could be trusted.
Thus, he wasn’t exactly surprised when, after he’d finished performing, he noticed a pair of footsteps following him up to his room. Refusing to be afraid, he glanced over his shoulder once to double check it was the man with golden eyes tailing him, before continuing up the stairs.
He closed the door after the witcher before proceeding to, very bluntly, explain to Geralt that he didn’t actually know the man. Which…the witcher didn’t take very well. At first he thought Jaskier was just pissed at him, which he wasn’t entirely wrong about, and then he thought this was a joke, which fair, and then the silver-haired man looked horrified as he realized the bard had been attacked because of him.
(Present-Jaskier thought past-Jaskier would have sugar-coated this part a bit. But quite frankly, present-Jaskier didn’t care much for the witcher’s apparently delicate emotions.)
Jaskier explained the only reason he knew it was Geralt was because of a sketch in his journal, which…wow, apparently the other man didn’t know the bard put anything in it besides lyrics. Jaskier couldn’t help but wonder why he ever followed the witcher around in the first place.
So when Geralt insisted Jaskier come with him, that he knew a witch that could help him get his memories back, Jaskier couldn’t help but laugh. It was more than a little gratifying to see the way the witcher almost flinched, eyes widening, as Jaskier explained he didn’t actually want his memories back. Or to have anything to do with the other man, actually.
And the witcher had the audacity to hold up his hands, like Jaskier was some wild animal in need of calming, as Geralt explained that he was a friend, and that Jaskier would have wanted to remember, would have wanted Geralt’s help.
So Jaskier pulled out his journal, flipped to the back, and started reading. He watched with no small amount of glee as the witcher’s expression fell with every instance detailed over the past two decades in which Geralt had hurt the bard, emotionally or otherwise.
Apparently past-Jaskier, in a moment of vulnerability, had written a sort of pros and cons list to answer the question of whether the witcher cared for him.
The list against took thirty minutes to read out loud from start to finish.
And Jaskier thought that would be it, that the witcher would see how much he screwed up and realize this new Jaskier would not come crawling back like some pet.
Instead, after seemingly getting over his shock at how horribly he had treated the bard, the man gave a stunted apology. Which didn’t really mean much, because it wasn’t this Jaskier who he’d hurt, but was better than just not acknowledging his poor actions the bard supposed.
The witcher asked if HE could travel with the bard. Not…not that the bard would travel with him, but that the witcher trail along behind the bard. Which was…okay, Jaskier hadn’t expected that.
So he said yes, on a trial basis, and tried not to feel too anxious the next day at the sound of a horse’s hooves behind him on his way to the next town. And it…it was weird, in some ways, being followed by a man who claimed to have known him for so long and yet didn’t know his favorite oils were rose and jasmine, didn’t know his favorite meal, didn’t even know his birth name!
And while every detail the witcher somehow didn’t recall hurt, in an abstract sort of way, it also made it…easier? To feel like they were both strangers getting to know each other, in some bizarre arranged friendship.
Plus, it made every gesture the man offered that wasn’t written in the book easier to accept, helped it feel less like the witcher was trying to earn his friendship. And while Jaskier didn’t remember traveling with anyone, couldn’t recall what it was like to fall asleep across the fire from someone else, the way Geralt seemed to sense his needs or wants and just fulfill them made him feel seen in a way the bard hadn’t in, well…ever.
From letting the bard ride Roach when he was sick, to helping the bard wash his hair when he fractured his arm, to giving Jaskier his cloak when he started shivering from a heavy rain. All little acts that didn’t mean much on their own, but spoke of a care that the witcher couldn’t easily and really had no reason to fake.
So it didn’t surprise the bard that it only took four months for him to start seeing the witcher as a friend.
Or that it only took another five after that for Jaskier to ask Geralt to help him get his memories back.
It took a lot longer, though, for past-present-Jaskier to trust that this new, emotionally competent Geralt was here to stay. That the man wasn’t about to return to grunts and insults of the bard’s voice, his clothing, his talkative nature.
And Geralt…seemed to get that? Seemed to understand that Jaskier trusted him with his body, but not his heart, not yet. For his part, the witcher continued to treat Jaskier as he did prior to him getting his memories back, the only sign anything had changed being that he made sure to get permission before performing actions he hadn’t prior to the mountain.
Until one day, when Jaskier woke up to an empty inn room, the bard’s first thought was that the witcher must have gone to the market to get the bard more oil for his lute. And then he blinked, realizing that even though all the witcher’s belongings were gone, he trusted the man would come back.
Trusted that he wouldn’t just…leave him behind, and head to the next village. Slightly startled, Jaskier realized it wasn’t even an unfounded trust, that the witcher had given no indication over the past year that Geralt didn’t appreciate and value his company.
And so Jaskier filed that thought aside for later as he smiled, before tugging the blankets up a bit higher.
It wouldn’t hurt to get a little bit more sleep before the witcher came back, and they would be back on the Path again.
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