"Why wouldn't you travel by main roads?"

Episode 5, Bottled Appetites - Jaskier

Let's start with Jaskier again.

"Geralt! Hello. What's it been, months? Years? What is time, anyway? I heard you were in town. Are you following me, you scamp? I mean, I'm flattered and everything, but you should really think about getting a hobby one of these days."

This is the third of Jaskier's four episodes. The first time he appears, he acts bold but there's definitely an aspect of putting on a front given how nervy he acts after getting punched. He's a lot more confident the next time - he does have to bully Geralt into coming to the banquet with him, but he doesn't hesitate to do things that annoy Geralt, even down to taking the drink from his hand, so he's certain Geralt will do it.

This time? I think Jaskier's uncomfortable. I think at least as far as he knows, Geralt doesn't ever seek him out. Either he makes excuses for that (Geralt does go places because Jaskier's there but always pretends it was a coincidence) or he's been ignoring it. It could be that this has been an ever-growing source of anxiety for Jaskier that's only coming out now because of an additional rejection pushing it over the edge, or it could be that Jaskier really was fine with it because he was feeling generally confident in himself but he's now questioning if he was right.

Either way, what's about to play out has a lot to do with the countess.

Jaskier: (takes a swig of mystery liquid, because Jaskier is drunk and set on staying that way.) "Ugh! Do you want some? "How are you doing?" I hear you ask."
Geralt: "I didn't."
Jaskier: "Well, the Countess de Stael, my muse and beauty of this world, has left me. Again. Rather coldly and unexpectedly, I might add."

Jaskier is upset about this. Now "left me. Again." paints a picture of an on-again, off-again relationship, where this sort of thing isn't necessarily such a big deal, and his whole "my muse and beauty of this world" thing is so over the top it wraps around to a joke.

But "Rather coldly and unexpectedly, I might add." is, I think, key. It's not at all a joke. Jaskier doesn't know why she got sick of him. He didn't see it coming. He's badly hurt.

And this is where OTP purity fixations cause a problem. Though the countess is only relevant for how this is going to impact the relationship between the two of them, it still requires Jaskier to have a relationship with the countess that he was invested in and is hurt over losing. If you want to make the countess solely about Geralt/Jaskier, Jaskier's side of this falls apart. The countess can't have not been a relationship, because then he wouldn't care why. The countess can't have dumped Jaskier because he wouldn't stop mooning over Geralt, because then he'd know why. She definitely can't have nobly given her blessing to the two of them and sent Jaskier on his way, because then he'd not only know why but be happy about it.

In order for Jaskier's other relationships to impact his relationship with Geralt, he has to be allowed to have other relationships. Remove that, and Jaskier's upcoming behavior here would be inexcusably awful. Really, even what he's done already would be inexcusably awful, because Geralt is also a mess right now and the only thing that excuses Jaskier missing it is that he's wrapped up in his own misery.

Now, will Jaskier himself admit that? No.

Jaskier: "I fear I shall die a brokenhearted man. Or a hungry one, at the very least, unless somebody fancies sharing a fish with an old friend?"

Jaskier tries to minimize how upset he is about what happened. It's unclear if Jaskier's the kind of person who does it because he needs some indication from the other person that he's allowed to be admit he actually is pretty hurt before he goes further or if Jaskier would be doing this little song and dance regardless because he prefers handling things by acting like it's fine and moving on to the next distraction.