#ayhwa

[ruffboi-mags]

voiceless Jaskier AU (part 6)

I EMERGE! With... uh, angst. I’m so sorry. It’s getting better, I swear to god it is

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) Now on AO3

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The road to Mahakam was not particularly long, but it seemed slow. By the third day on the road, Jaskier was confident that Geralt was traveling slower intentionally, and he wasn’t sure how to take it. It was probably concern, that mother hen instinct that Geralt absolutely had and denied at every turn. Jaskier’d seen it, the man was… well, all right, he was very bad at nurturing, but he also tried, and that was the important part.

The other option was that he didn’t want to go to Mahakam, or didn’t want to go with Jaskier, and that sat less easy with him. Was it that he felt like finding words for Jaskier that weren’t spoken seemed like giving up? Jaskier could understand that; he felt like that himself, in a way, and though he was trying to see it as a boon it was not lost on him that learning another language, especially one so alien to his experience, would take time. Time that they could’ve spent trying to get his voice back, if that was something so easily done. If it wasn’t easily done, well, it might be worth spending this time first, so he wouldn’t destroy himself through his forced silence.

But also… the reticence Geralt was showing in their travel could come from Geralt not wanting to be caught up in this. Jaskier wouldn’t blame him. He didn’t even sign up for a bard, not really, but at least before Jaskier could largely take care of himself. Now he’s just a voiceless nothing, draining on Geralt’s always-limited resources, not even pulling his own weight as much as Roach did.

Jaskier took a deep breath, from his perch on Roach’s back (at Geralt’s insistence), and then let it out slowly.

Geralt turned back to frown at him, because of course he did. “Need to stop?” he asked, and Jaskier wanted to kiss him and kick him in equal measure. Jaskier pulled out his tablet and scribbled, his letters large and a little wobbly thanks to Roach’s gait.

Fine, keep walking.

Geralt didn’t seem to fully believe it, but turned forward and back to leading. It would be okay. Geralt would take him to Mahakam, and whether he stayed or not, Jaskier could learn a hand sign speech and find someone to translate for him. There had to be those in Mahakam who could hear but knew this hand speech who’d like to leave, like a reason to leave, that working as a translator would grant them. If Geralt wanted to leave him behind, he’d be all right. He could manage.

He always had.

**

We’re going really slow.

Jaskier held the tablet out as Geralt chewed his dinner (rabbit, not rations, thankfully). Deciding to broach the subject had taken a while, but ultimately he just wanted to get where they were going. Once they were there, he could start learning, and have something to do with his evenings by practicing.

(Once they were there, maybe the noise and the people and the purpose would make the world stop feeling distant and unreal, like it was mist he could disperse with a wave of his hand, if he could bring himself to go to the effort of moving it.)

Geralt seemed a bit taken aback by the comment, and looked between Jaskier and the tablet a couple of times, that little crease appearing between his eyebrows that meant he was confused. (Jaskier wanted to kiss it until it turned into the thin-lipped, surprisingly frownless expression of exasperation. When had it gotten so hard to box up these feelings and put them aside?)

“You’re hurt,” Geralt said, and it was a declaration, sure, but Jaskier knew him. Knew what it meant. I thought you were hurt and reacted how I thought I should, but now I’m not sure anymore. The giant idiot. Jaskier rolled his eyes and reached over to gently smack Geralt upside the head with the tablet. The confusion deepened, and was joined by irritation. “What the hell, Jaskier?” he asked, more sharply than Jaskier thought his light love-tap warranted, but it was better than the just-this-side-of-too-gentle that he’d been getting. Nice as it was to be looked after tenderly, from Geralt it felt wrong, after a point.

Can’t talk, he wrote in the wax, the letters carved almost awkwardly deep in his rush. Not injured. Nothing healing. Can go faster.

“Hm,” is the only response Geralt gave as he read the words, frown firmly in place, and Jaskier could scream from the frustration of not being able to say what he meant and shout at Geralt for being overprotective and making him feel more broken than he felt already. He got up abruptly and all but stalked a few feet away to get on the other side of Roach and actually do it. He pressed his forehead to the mare’s side, grateful for her patience, took a deep breath, and just screamed.

If anyone could’ve heard anything but a sharp exhalation of breath, it would’ve been loud and long and absolutely feral.

It didn’t help as much as he’d hoped; his throat felt raw and strained in a way that probably meant he’d overdone it despite Yennefer’s magical healing, and the lack of sound made the catharsis feel hollow and empty.

Like a pie with no filling.

A few more deep breaths, trying to get air back into his empty aching lungs, and he went back around to sit down again, picking up his tablet. Geralt looked concerned, openly concerned, not just hidden in specific grumpy frowns, and Jaskier pretended he didn’t see.

I’d like a bath if we can afford to stop, he wrote, taking the time to write it completely, not leaving out unnecessary words or working quickly. And then, after handing it to Geralt, Jaskier left it with him, his bedroll already laid out, waiting for him.

Geralt waited a long time, and Jaskier had actually nearly fallen asleep, before he climbed in to curl around Jaskier as usual.

Jaskier sighed in relief that he’d come, muscles unspooling, and drifted off to sleep bitter that he was so comforted by the warmth of the witcher at his back.

**

Jaskier got his bath.

The water was still being warmed when Geralt strode back into their room to grab his swords.

“Found a job in the next village,” he said gruffly, strapping them on.

Jaskier scrambled across the room to grab his tablets, carving into it as quickly as he could, turning it back toward Geralt.

He didn’t look.

“Has to be tonight. Sprit only shows up on the new moon,” Geralt continued, and Jaskier tried to catch his attention with his tablet more insistently.

He didn’t look.

“Should be back in a day at most. If it’s two, don’t panic.” And then he strode out - not cruelly, not angrily, just in a rush. Trying to get to the neighboring village and its nighttime, new moon monster.

Jaskier was left in the room, holding his tablet in his lap as what just happened sank in. As his complete lack of being able to communicate, in any way, was taken and shoved back in his face like an old sock someone never wanted to see again.

Geralt. Didn’t. Look.

The girl who prepared his bath started to leave, and he gestured wildly to get her attention, then turned back to his tablet to scribble on the side he hadn’t written to Geralt on.

Is room and food paid up? Go ask please? The girl squinted at the words, carefully sounding them out with her mouth, and Jaskier was just glad she could make them out at all, to be honest.

“I’ll ask,” she said helpfully, and ran off. Jaskier undressed anyway, even though she could theoretically return any moment, and got in the tub, not bothering with salts or oils. There was a sharp knock and Jaskier tried to ask who it was, but-- oh. The girl opened his door and stuck her head in, carefully. “Miss says the room is paid for three days, but food was not included,” she said in the cadence of someone who was repeating something precisely. He smiled tightly, both in gratitude and because he didn’t have any coin to tip her with, because Geralt of Rivia set off with his coin purse firmly affixed to his belt, and Jaskier could feel his stomach sour already with the stress of it.

He sat in the tub for too long, everything feeling wrong, his heart feeling like it had been torn out and chopped up and stitched back into him in chunks. He had a room. He had no food. No way to pay for food. And Geralt had been right there and–

He sank into his bath water, holding his breath until he couldn’t anymore, surfaced and gasped until he could breathe again, then submerged again.

On his tablet, an unread message, carved too quickly into the wax, read, Everything paid for??

**

He’d write a letter, he decided. He’d write Geralt a letter about how upset he was by the fact that the witcher left him, without any way to buy his own food, and it was quite rude not to look at his message asking about it. He managed to look sad enough at the innkeeper downstairs that the man parted with a few sheets of parchment meant for his books, with promise of repayment once Geralt was back.

He started the letter quite sensibly, and reasonably. Laying out the facts and why it upset him. He only had his writing to communicate. If he’d been able to speak, he could have shouted and protested. If he’d been able to speak, he could have simply sung for his supper, which he couldn’t do anymore.

He made it about half a page before his handwriting was getting looser and larger as he scribbled, his words that had been so trapped in him spilling over and onto the page.

He ran out of paper quickly, and with a silent fuck that no one would hear, he reached into his bag, pulling out his journal, ripping a chunk of pages out from the back without thinking about the possibilities or repercussions. They were small. They were meant to be used with his usual cramped handwriting, and a few of the pages in fact included a few lines in faint pencil. Nevertheless, he starts letting his looser, angerier, cooped-up-in-his-throat words bleed out over the pages in ink.

I didn’t ask for this.

You fucking abandoned me.

I don’t want pity.

You can’t just fucking LEAVE.

I know I’m broken stop trying to convince me I’m not.

Fuck you fuck you fuck YOU.

It was like yelling, so fucking, not-quite, deliciously like yelling, and when he finally ran out of things to write, he made sure to spread them across the surfaces of the room. The bed, the little table, the floor. It wasn’t yelling, but he let an exhausted little breath out anyway, cathartic energy already drained.

He left enough room on the bed to climb into the far side, and all but collapsed into sleep.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) Now on AO3

[ruffboi-mags]

I wish you'd write happy poly fun times with Yenn being the smartest person in the room.

any time I write the ot3 that is what’s happening.

HOWEVER!!!! I am working on the follow-up fic to And Yet Here We Are, and Yen is absolutely sharing brain cells with Jaskier (and leaving Geralt bereft) in it, so hopefully it’ll prove happy for you. ;)

[ruffboi-mags]

Me: Okay, I wanna work on AYHWA tonight bc it’s been a month since I updated that

Me: ...fuck I need to re-read the whole thing don’t I.

AYHWA: *is 20k words*

Me: ...*sigh* okay.

edit: and then I forgot what fucking fic I was talking about /fixes THAT acronym, wow....

[ruffboi-mags]

voiceless!Jaskier AU (pt 9)

FINALLY MORE WORDS ARRIVE!!! Only about half the chapter, but it’s here, and the first hint of properly coming out of the early heavy angst and into something fluffier! :D I hope you guys enjoy it.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 10) Now on AO3

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Their teacher was a middle-aged halfling woman named Rose, and she was an absolute terror.

They took up residence in a boarding house of sorts in the town they were directed to, that was thankfully not built to dwarven proportions in all respects, and they did various chores and other needed tasks to pay their way in between lessons.

It wasn't really anything like what Jaskier was expecting, to be honest. He'd expected... something else. Something harder, he thinks. He'd expected to be slaving away over repeated motions and confusion, and watching Geralt apply himself only when necessary. In retrospect, that was unfair of him to assume, but it remained in his head for some weeks until it really sank in.

Geralt wasn't going to leave. Geralt wasn't planning to leave, at least not without Jaskier. They both worked as general laborers for their room and board, and Geralt worked almost more diligently than Jaskier at learning to sign, and stayed and stayed and stayed.

And spoke and spoke and spoke.

It could've just been practice. Throwing himself into learning to sign, so he could understand Jaskier, would make sense for Geralt to practice as often as he could, the same way he learned to fight or to identify monsters or to brew his potions. But as they gained knowledge and vocabulary, Jaskier found that Geralt would sign things that were... unnecessary.

Things like: [That boy keeps mooning over the blacksmith's daughter. He doesn't stand a chance, her attention's on the laundress.]

Or: [Do you want me to stew or roast the venison tonight?]

Or: [I saw it and thought of you.]

Or: [That cloud looks like a rabbit.]

Or: [I don't know why, I just thought it would make you smile.]

Rose put them through their paces, adding and adding to their vocabularies every day, and telling them that they shouldn't use any other form of communication if they could help it. Geralt shouldn't speak (not a difficult prospect, admittedly) and Jaskier shouldn't write (much more difficult). But... it helped. They learned, and Jaskier found it all getting easier and easier, found even poetic thoughts coming faster and looser from his hands. It was like being freed, and as he learned, he found that the suffocating feeling of his words pressing in his throat came less and less often.

The most unexpected part of it all, though, was still the fact that Geralt was actually... talkative, like this. Jaskier spent months just drowning in Geralt's words. Apparently making speech something physical, rather than verbal, was all it took to unlock Geralt's thoughts and opinions. Rose explained as they learned how much facial expressions and the emphaticness of the signs themselves were part of the language, and Jaskier found himself graced with an abundance of expression.

When Geralt was angry or irritated, he got that crease between his eyebrows and his signs were sharp and small, the bare minimum of movement to express his thought. When he was feeling things strongly, his signs got bigger and more expansive. When he was teasing Jaskier, there was a looseness to him, and a quirk of his lips. It was overwhelming, and Jaskier couldn't quite believe it was really happening.

But it was. But it did. It wasn't often, admittedly, but it was more often than had ever happened before. Geralt seemed almost glad to let go of any sort of audible communication, as they grew in skill, and the two of them signed... a lot.

Jaskier was feeling a lot.

Geralt said, comparatively, a lot.

They'd spent just over a year in Mahakan before Jaskier's grasp of sign met whatever threshold Geralt was comfortable with.

[If we go now,] Geralt signed, even though he could speak, and somehow Jaskier always came back to that, and how uncertain he felt about Geralt foregoing speech when it was right there for him to use, [do you feel you know enough to speak the way you want?]

It was the most thoughtful, awful, obnoxious, amazing thing anyone had ever asked him, and Jaskier wasn't sure how he felt, to be honest, but he wasn't willing to let things fall to the wayside because of him.

[If we don't know the official Mahakan sign for a word,] Jaskier signed back, [then we can make our own.] It was a lot to ask, but Jaskier wanted to travel. He loved Rose and he loved this little village, but it wasn't where either of them were meant to be. He wanted what they knew to be enough.

It was enough for Geralt, too, apparently. The next day, Geralt packed their things on Roach, Jaskier crouched to kiss Rose on the cheek and signed his thank yous even as she tried to shove extra supplies in his hands with verbal admonitions to write her and come back to visit someday if their travels brought them back this way.

It was strange, being back on the road after so long, but it felt like coming home. Geralt rode Roach, Jaskier walked next to them, and even though he couldn't hum a tune or play his lute Jaskier felt a weight lift off his chest that he hadn't realized was still there. He sped up a bit, so he was in front of Roach, scanned for any large rocks or dips in the road he might trip on, and when he felt like there was at least a short stretch of relatively smooth road, he turned to face Geralt, flicking a little wave to be sure he had Geralt's attention before he started to sign.

[So what's the plan? Do you think there will be any contracts for you before we leave Mahakam?]

"Watch the road, Jaskier," Geralt rumbled, but there wasn't a hint of bite to it. Jaskier was just too far away to tell if he had that tiny quirk of his lips that meant he was smiling, but it seemed likely. The thought of it made a spot under Jaskier's chest feel warm and safe. He rolled his eyes melodramatically, though, and threw up his hands in surrender as he turned back to face the road.

It was funny almost, how over a year ago, Jaskier would've assumed the conversation was over. And it might've been, too, if he was being honest with himself. But now the admonition was simply acknowledging that Jaskier wasn't deaf, Geralt could speak perfectly adequately, and if Jaskier tripped on a loose stone, he'd fall flat on his ass and possibly rip his trousers.

"Probably won't be contracts until we reach Aedirn," Geralt said behind him, and Jaskier couldn't quite hide the smile that stretched across his face at the sound. "Earn a bit of coin to tide us over. Then we start looking for a cure."

Geralt sounded firm, but Jaskier grimaced despite himself, pleased mood gone and a tired sort of frustration sinking into his bones.

They'd had the argument a lot, in recent weeks. While Jaskier was absolutely not opposed to finding a way to get his voice back, so much of the pain of having lost it was mitigated by being able to sign. Not all of it, he thought, pushing back thoughts of his lute, sitting largely unused in its case on Roach's saddle. He'd managed to pull it out a few times over the last year, to check it for damage, clean it, so a quick tuning to make sure it was at least close to properly tuned, to make sure it was ready. He hadn't played, but...

But mostly he was all right, and it was easier to get by and not feel like he was drowning in unsaid words. And in Jaskier's opinion, it would be easier if they worked more, saved up the money, and then went looking when they ran into a promising lead. But Geralt kept saying that the most important thing was finding a way to get Jaskier's voice back, and damn the effort. Which was a nice sentiment that had meant everything to Jaskier when they'd first come to Mahakam, but now it seemed reckless and silly.

Now he wasn't sure what he wanted. He wanted to feel comfortable playing again. He wanted to stay practiced in his playing, if not in his singing. He wanted to at least write the melodies of a song that he would sing one day when he had his voice back. He wanted his voice back. He wanted his voice, he wanted his music.

He wanted Geralt.

But mostly at this moment he wanted to not run himself ragged over the ensuing months trying to keep up with Geralt's attempts to frantically find a cure for something that he could, for the time being, bear with relative ease. Following leads was one thing, moving at a breakneck pace to try to find leads, which is what he was pretty sure Geralt intended to do, was a whole other thing.

But it was a conversation best saved for when Jaskier could talk at length without having to walk backwards. He could try again when they made camp.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 10) Now on AO3

[ruffboi-mags]

you know it’s totally crazy, out of all the fics on my AO3 account, most of them one-shots, I wrote one that was like 11k words and was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS INSANELY LONG bc most of my other fics fell somewhere between 1500 words and 4000 words.

And now I’ve got both BGSA, sitting at about 11000 words (including what’s not yet posted), and AYHWA which is somehow at fucking 19,500 words.  And all of those words in the last month and a half.

After years of writing, where I have written comparably so little and the most intense writing I’ve done in probably 7 or 8 years was a month in 2017 where I wrote an 11k word one-shot, all the sudden in the last month and a half I’ve written about 30k words and while I’ve slowed down a bit, I am showing no signs of actually stopping.

I’m fucking elated and blown away.  Holy shit, y’all.

[ruffboi-mags]

Thank you so so much for your mute Jaskier fic. I use ASL with my husband when I become non verbal and the series is just perfect.

Awww thank you! I keep wanting to learn ASL for days I’m low-verbal or nonverbal.

I just love that BOTH of them have a use for sign. It’s not just “Geralt needs to learn it so he can understand Jaskier” it’s a tool that helps him too, even though he didn’t expect it.

[ruffboi-mags]

Me, looking at AYHWA and how I’m writing Jaskier post-djinn-incident: Am I writing him too young? Maybe I’m writing him too young, I don’t know if a 34-year-old man would react like that.

Me, realizing that I am literally turning 34 in two weeks and would literally react this way: ...wait, no, that tracks, that’s fair, carry on.

[ruffboi-mags]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 7/8 Fandom: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Characters: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion, Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, voiceless!Jaskier, Mute Jaskier | Dandelion, Eventual Fluff, it is largely a soft story but the angst has to happen first, no beta we die like renfri, (kickass and stubborn), Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, eventual healthy polyamory, but not until the next fic in the series Series: Part 1 of So Many Songs to Sing You Summary:

Jaskier’s run-in with the djinn ended with him alive and unable to speak.

in this chapter: Geralt and Jaskier actually have an important conversation successfully!