#so either way it would have been messy because Geralt would have gotten two kids at nearly the same time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

des8pudels8kern · 4 years

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Jaskiet and/or Geralt with T? Some non-mainstream AU?

Jaskier walks past the first visitors waiting scattered in front of the as of yet closed ticket booth through the southern entrance at his usual time and waves to Nadine behind the counter who nods back without looking up from the change she is counting. It’s fine; he knows she’s not a morning person. She’s always in a good mood come closing time, though, happy to finally get out of her booth and not talk in her customer service voice anymore.

He swipes his card and slips through the turnstile, twirling as he goes and winking at the people in line. This moment is the first highlight of his day – it’s when everybody wants to be him. The kids see that he already gets to go in while they still have to wait, and he’s wearing a stripey, candy-coloured uniform with an embroidered ice-cream cone at that, so not only does he get to go into the zoo early, he also works there and at an ice-cream stand at the same time. Yes, Jaskier is truly living the dream. The adults are probably a lot less envious of his summer job, but they do track the way he walks past the ticket booth without having to hand over any money and crosses into the zoo for free while they are about to pay enough to feed their family for three weeks for the pleasure of getting dragged from enclosure to enclosure by their sprogs for hours on end, only catching a break when they buy them appropriately zoo-priced snacks. Possibly from Jaskier, who will happily give them his best toothy grin when he announces a total for four scoops of ice-cream that makes every other parent look at him as if he just told them that the helmets from the pony riding might give their little darlings lice.

Jaskier is enjoying this entire experience a lot more than he expected, if he is honest. But he doubts this is what his parents meant when they said the honest work would build character.

He dips into the main office, says hello to folks, picks up and signs for his keys and cash drawer, and makes his way deeper into the zoo. He passes a few enclosures, nodding at other employees here and there, but doesn’t stop until he gets to the goats.

Eskel is just finishing up cleaning the enclosure, his usual shadow at his side, and Jaskier leans against the fence and exchanges greetings with both Eskel and the goat. Bleater is all grown up now, but it took Jaskier only two mornings of walking past the adorable duo to strike up a conversation, and after than Eskel didn’t need much prompting to tell him all about how Bleater’s mother had rejected her and Eskel had raised the little kid himself. There were countless baby photos and videos of all of Bleater’s important milestones on Eskel’s phone. Jaskier just about died from the cuteness.

He dawdles a bit and makes some more idle chitchat with Eskel. He likes talking to Eskel. He’s sweet, an all-around good guy, but he’s a bit shy, and he always tries to angle his face to the side so the scar from his temple to his mouth will be turned away from Jaskier. He’s clearly self-conscious about it, so Jaskier has made it a point to not ask for this story, but rather make nice, easy, uncontroversial small-talk to get him to ease up a bit. Did you try that Indian place I told you about? Yeah, should have probably warned you about that, sorry, ask for non-spicy next time. Oh, the weather, yes, so glad it’s finally getting warmer, I was almost freezing my butt off in my little ice box last week, and what a waste of a shapely butt that would have been, wink wink. …Okay, mostly non-controversial. He’d stop if he thought Eskel minded.

It’s already a quarter past ten by the time Jaskier arrives at his pavilion, but he’s far enough from all the entrances that no visitor will be here for another ten minutes, even if they aim straight for the wolf enclosure.

He unlocks his ice castle, checks that his stocks have been replenished before opening by the magical ice-cream fairy or whoever delivers fresh ice-cream at some point in the two hours between eight, when the delivery entrance opens and the zoo keepers arrive, and ten, when his shift begins. All flavours present and accounted for, and fresh waffles. He prepares his station, opens the window, and looks out into the world, ready for whatever the day may bring.

Okay, he’s looking to the wolves.

And he knows what the day will bring.

Ah, yes, there he comes. A vision in cargo pants. Nicely muscled legs, very nicely muscled chest, arms that act as a daily stress test to every shirt Jaskier has ever seen him wear. Hair in a messy bun – properly I don’t give a fuck how I look I just want it out of my face-messy, not that artfully messy hipster look. And that face, the kind of face that, if Geralt were more willing to emote every now and then, people would love to see in a movie, in 3D, great detail, and from every angle. The man even has a chin dimple, that is how Hollywood handsome he is.

The Wolf Keeper.

Capitalized, because he has yet to tell Jaskier his name. It’s Geralt. Jaskier has asked around. But until he introduces himself to Jaskier himself, Jaskier will continue to address him as Wolf Keeper. Because, yes, Jaskier has tried to talk to this very fine specimen of a zoo keeper, in the hopes that he’d be as beautiful on the inside as he is from the outside, or has at least summer fling potential, but he might as well have been talking to a Greek statue, that’s how much he got back.

Well. They might not be working with each other, Jaskier stuck in his Fortress of Solitude and Geralt usually either in the building to the side of the wolf enclosure or out and about prepping food, talking to the vet, or doing whatever else needed doing to look after his charges. But the employee entrance into the wolf building happens to be just across the path from Jaskier’s pavilion, so every time Geralt does go in or out…

“Hello, Wolf Keeper. Beautiful morning we are having, isn’t it?”

Geralt’s steps falter when Jaskier calls out, just a bit, as if he’d hoped that maybe today, Jaskier had finally thrown in the towel.

As if. Stubborn is Jaskier’s middle name. Well, technically it’s Alfred, after his father, but no one needs to know that. The point is, Jaskier likes people, he wants people to like him, and until Geralt gives him a change to get to know him, he’ll keep working at wearing him down. Now, if Geralt does end up talking to him and, after getting acquainted, makes an informed decision that he doesn’t like Jaskier, then so be it. But until then, well, Jaskier’s here all summer.

He plops down on the rickety little folding chair that he’ll have to put aside to move freely around the pavilion when business picks up later on, props his elbows on the counter and rests his chin in his hands.

Geralt somehow manages to square his already very, very broad shoulders even more and pointedly does not look into Jaskier’s direction as he keys open the door to the wolf building.

Yeah, Jaskier didn’t really think so. He estimates it’ll be at least another two weeks until he cracks.

“Bye, Wolf Keeper,” he chirps across the path and watches Geralt disappear in his den.

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Thank you for the prompt! And with this I conclude day 5 of my 500-words-a-day challenge. Today’s word count: ...1293 words. Look, as long as it’s not less than 500 it counts as a success.

Spinning this further, Yennefer is… the assistant zoo director? She comes to work in heels and meticulous make-up and works with budgets and the press rather than animals. She’s Geralt’s ex. Or girlfriend. It’s one of those on-again-off-again situations, Jaskier thinks. Or friends with benefits. Well, or she’s a dominatrix and they are like that.

Look, Jaskier has no idea, and I haven’t plotted that far, but there’s definitely something between Geralt and Yennefer, enough for there to be jealousy in the story, and then Geralt does warm up to Jaskier, yadda yadda romance, but Geralt does not know that Jaskier is ~living a lie~. You see, Yennefer looks down at Jaskier because she thinks he’s beneath her – some college kid on a summer job selling overpriced ice-cream, how very impressive. The one time they did have a conversation, when Jaskier was just getting his orientation tour, she approached him, because he was a new face and she wanted to know who was walking around in her zoo and whether he was worth talking to. She lost interest when she found out he was a seasonal worker doing untrained labor, and decided to actively disdain him when he let slip that he hadn’t even applied for the job but gotten it through a connection of his father’s. But what Yennefer does not know is that when Jaskier says family connection, what he means is that, technically, he is Pankratz Junior, his family owns half the city, his parents are some of the people Yennefer makes sure to invite to every single event, and Jaskier is working this job for the summer because he’s basically a prince on his pauper vacation to see how normal people live.

Cue angst about Geralt finding out! Deception! Judgement! Was it all a lie??? It wasn’t, obviously, but every secret identity story must have angst.

#nsfr #the witcher #the witcher fic #zoo keeper au #500 words challenge #not!fic #sorry i have no idea why tumblr keeps messing up the read-more i've tried fixing it #but i had fun with this one #oooh also! someone left me a tsn prompt! i did not expect that but i am excited about it! thank you anon!

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