valdomarx:

alright, go on then… what the “and yet here we are” line says about geralt:

geralt isn’t joking when he says he needs no one. in his mind, it’s clearly true: he can hunt alone and patch himself up alone, find food and shelter and treat his own injuries. he can head to kaer morhen if he really needs to. he’s been travelling and working alone for decades, just him and roach, and he’s been very successful at it.

when he says the last thing he wants is someone needing him, he’s serious about that too. he doesn’t want anyone getting close to him, partly because anyone who isn’t enhanced or magical would be a genuine danger to him while he’s working, and partly because he has, in his mind, neither the time nor the mental energy to be worrying about someone else. when you’re a witcher, losing focus gets you killed. being alone is as much about his own self preservation as it is about the safety of others.

that’s not even getting into the deeper subtext of geralt feeling that he is unworthy of trust or affection, and how he‘s convinced himself he could only even be a burden to those around him. he can’t let anyone need him, because he sees himself as unworthy of trust and incapable of providing the affection and human connection that another person would need.

geralt really doesn’t want anyone needing him. and he thinks he’s done an excellent job of putting jaskier off: he insists they’re not friends, he tells him to fuck off, hell, he gut-punched him the first time they met.

but he’s clearly done a lot that we don’t see as well. for jaskier to so confidently assert that he needs geralt and geralt needs him - and for geralt not to disagree - there must have been more to it. the fact geralt never simply rode a little faster and left jaskier behind, and the fact that they must have arranged to meet up every spring. that he must have taught jaskier how to camp, and shared his food and his water and his bedroll, because lord knows jaskier didn’t have anything when he set out from posada.

the fact he must have told jaskier the stories of every one of his scars, in enough detail that even a random prostitute has heard the songs and can identify them. how many times has he stepped in to protect jaskier from some monster, or gang of angry humans? enough times that jaskier’s first instinct when he thinks he’s in trouble is to yell geralt’s name.

because there’s two types of need, that’s the thing. there’s the type of need that’s based on survival: i can’t survive without you, so i’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me. geralt doesn’t have that with jaskier and soundly rejects it.

but there’s also the type of need that’s about something more existential: my life is lesser without you in it. for me to continue as i am, i need you to be there too. and geralt knows that jaskier somehow has wormed his way into his life to such a degree that he really would be bereft without him.

so for all geralt’s protestations about needing no one, he can’t bring himself to argue with jaskier because… here they are.