#jaskispeare

I will not stop until everyone ships this.

***

“What about you?” Jaskier tried to sit up more and winced at the flare of pain in his ankle. “What’s your name? You never said.”

“My… my name?” The man looked a little shocked. “You… you’re not a regular patron of our establishment, are you?”

“I’m not even sure what your establishment is. A theatre, I assume?”

He blinked, momentarily speechless. “This is The Globe, my friend. One of the most – no, the most famous and well-respected theatre in all of London. Perhaps all of England!”

Jaskier looked at him blankly. “Um. That’s… nice?”

back on my bullshit

So Geralt is - well - he's Geralt. It's all a lot of old-fashioned bullshit that Witchers don't have emotions but damn do they struggle to get them out.

Or at least, he does.

And it's that same night when he's turning the pages of this book that he realises the roiling in his stomach isn't just concern for his friend and it isn't just the horror of the realisation that Jaskier threw all of that love aside for him -

He's jealous. Jealous of a man from another dimension he'll never even meet.

And he looks back at the time they've spent together and he realises that all these years he's been quietly and secretly in love with the bard and just... never worked it out.

He wants to be better. He wants to do better. But he knows, now, what he has to live up to. What he has to beat.

He tries. He gets Jaskier alone and fumbles over metaphors and flowery imagery, but Jaskier thinks he's taking the piss. He tries to plan something grand but it falls apart and the words don't come.

He's desperate when he attempts to write his feelings down. But its wrong - its all wrong and difficult and gods if only this was a challenge he could defeat with a sword.

He's burning the pages when Jaskier enters their shared room. And Jaskier, of course, immediately realises he's up to something and there on the hearth is a particularly painful attempt at poetry thats only half-charred and still dangerously legible and for a moment Geralt considers wrestling it out of his hand -

But its too late.

And Jaskier's expression is unreadable, his eyebrows knitting together, and he begins

"Geralt, what is-"

"I love you." And there's silence, and for once its Geralt who can't stop talking. "I know about... about him. And why you... why you loved him. I thought..."

He doesn't get a chance to say what it is he thought because Jaskier storms over and shuts him up with a kiss, and a laugh.

"You love me?"

"Yes. But I'm not like him, I can't-"

So here’s an outlier everyone, and someone I didn’t even realise played Shakespeare till I was googling it in the bath this morning.

TIM MOTHERFUCKING CURRY

I mean I’m not sure what else I can say other than oh my god Tim Curry played Shakespeare and I don’t know what to do with this information aaa

I walk out and am met with deathly silence. I grip the stand and lean forwards.

My lips brush against the microphone. I wait - just for a second - before speaking.

Y E S

So Geralt, while they're trying to get Jaskier back, is beside himself. There's no monster to slay or evil to destroy: just waiting and casting magic and searching. It drives him mad.

And Jaskier, of course, vanished halfway through an argument, and Geralt knows he said things he didn't mean and, gods, the crux of the argument, like most of them - even if neither of them says it - is that Geralt refuses to just fucking talk to him.

And when they do get Jaskier back, he's different. He's sad. And it's been a couple of months for Geralt but its been over a year for Jaskier, and when that portal opened up in front of him he knew he had to make a choice. A choice between being saying, and being loved, and returning. Returning to Geralt, and uncertainty. To longing. To unspoken thoughts.

He bursts through the portal and its pouring with rain and there's a leather-bound book gripped in his hand which he refuses to let go of. He sings new songs filled with weird, unfamiliar words in stilted sentences that Geralt doesn't even understand.

He smiles, and says he's happy to be back, but it's a lie.

And then Geralt breaks. He waits till Jaskier is asleep, gently pulls the leather-bound book from beneath his arm, opens it up and begins to read and - oh -

Dandelion. My fair youth. Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

And suddenly he realises. Suddenly he can see the choice Jaskier made - the choice between this magical, lyrical man who loved him so hard he turned him into art and -

And him. The witcher. The butcher.

Look at that longing. That pining. Hands. 10/10 yearning.

Oh anon. OH, ANON. (also @oatplant I see u with your eyes emoji)

So it’s real, historical Shakespeare (See this post)  (imma reblog that too)

In brief: Jaskier, after an argument with Geralt, drunkenly storms out and, through a convoluted series of events, accidentally falls through a portal. The portal spits him out right in the middle of a performance of Romeo and Juliet, in our world. 

Unfortunately, it also spits him out about eight feet from the ground, and he breaks an ankle in the process.

Shakespeare is enchanted by him. He takes him in while his ankle heals. They inspire each other, and Jaskier’s tales of the continent and magic is what leads Shakespeare to write Midsummer Night’s Dream. Jaskier stars in it, as Puck.