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1262, Kaer Morhen
Winters spent in Kaer Morhen are, in general, somewhat miserable. First, there is the biting cold weather that could freeze even the toughest witcher’s dick off. Then, there are the bad memories that seem to haunt every inch of the old keep they’ve been trying and failing to hold together (though, those memories were quickly compartmentalized and laid to rest in lieu of drinking games with white gull, cheating at Gwent, regular chores, and beating the shit out of each other for coin.) Finally, the worst part of wintering at Kaer Morhen is the lack of real outlet when the snow is piled too high to push the door open or really do much of anything, trapping in five witchers with no outlet for their pent-up energy, aggression, and emotions they pretend don’t exist but very much do.
The fact that, despite all that, Geralt was capable of making it 1000 times worse with his moping and drinking and silent brooding, ruining any sort of fun they usually occupied themselves with was impressive. Even Lambert at his most feral and Aiden being, well, all of himself, couldn’t quite match the foul aura projecting around the white haired witcher the entire three weeks they’d been snowed in so far. Lambert was at the end of his patience (not that he had much to begin with) and Eskel was just worried.
Geralt had never been a particularly excitable or talkative person, but even he let loose and relaxed a bit when he got to the old keep. He’d indulge Lambert in his stupid pranks, talk to Eskel or Vesemir until the early hours of the morning, or heartily place bets on fights or gwent games (usually failing to beat Eskel the heretofore reigning gwent champion.) His painful, depressed silence this winter, however, clued Eskel into the possible reason for it.
Since the winter Geralt came home complaining about a human bard who couldn’t take the hint to get lost, following him and making a hit song out of it, who wasn’t afraid of him in the slightest, the entire keep had been subjected to Geralt complaining (read: pining) over the human man. He’d be talking about one of his hunts from the previous year and then drinks would be had. BAM, now every witcher at the table would be forced to sit through a ten minute rant about the specific shade of Jaskier’s eyes (“they’re ridiculous, how bright they are. I’ve never seen cornflower blue on a human before. And he has this way of just knowing all he has to do is flash those stupid blue eyes in the direction of the innkeeper to get anything he wants. He got us free meals, ale, a bath, and a room if only he would play for the night. I mean, no ones eyes can be THAT pretty!)
As a rule, no one in the keep told Geralt that, the more he drank, the more he would call his bard pretty, or talk about how shiny his hair was, or how Jaskier smiled at him like he hung the moon. It was amusing for the first decade or so to see Geralt be completely oblivious to the fact that he was in love with the bard. Then, one winter, it stopped being so funny anymore. Geralt told them about a sorceress with violet eyes, the djinn wish he made, how he’d almost gotten Jaskier killed because of his stupid idea to use a djinn to sleep instead of brewing some tea like a normal person. Lambert had loudly professed that witches could not be trusted, while Eskel wasn’t sure how to handle it when Geralt was all of a sudden telling them that Yennefer was important to him, that he thought he might love her.
Now, he wasn’t talking about either one of them. He wasn’t really talking at all. Over the past five years, Geralt had gone through a few periods of similar despondency (caused for the most part by Yennefer) in which he would silently seethe about whatever he and Yen had fought about, only to go through a portal one night and return the next day covered in lilac and gooseberry perfume. Their—whatever it was—wasn't healthy for either party but it wasn’t Eskel’s place to interfere in his brother’s love life.
If it had been just a fight with Yen, they would have made up and fucked it out a week ago. That meant something had happened to the bard, and it was absolutely nothing good. Eskel nudged his elbow into Lambert’s side, whose throat currently hosted the tongue of the cat witcher who somehow managed to domesticate Lambert (to a certain extent.) Aiden lifted his face away from the dazed, half-stupid Lambert beneath him, a question on his brow, looking where Eskel was looking.
Geralt was drinking what could have been his second bottle of white gull for the night, staring in the hearth of the great hall on the furs and clenching and unclenching his eyes shut as if he were keeping tears back. It was likely he was keeping tears back, which made something very cold drop into the pit of Eskel’s belly.
“Take it upstairs you two, no one wants to see that.” Eskel said, standing up from the bench at one of the tables and offering Lambert and Aiden a serious, I’ll tell you what happened later so start making a plan, face and settled himself down beside his closest brother. He stole the white gull, taking a fortifying sip.
“I’ve left you alone because I figured you needed space but, seriously, whatever this is has to stop. We’re all worried, wolf, especially me. The hell happened?” At first, it didn’t seem like Geralt would respond at all to the question, perhaps just ignore Eskel’s attempts at getting him to, the gods forbid, express his feelings. Then, a jumble of words barely strung together and not making much sense tumbled from Geralt’s mouth as if he physically could not stop himself from replying.
“I...Jask, he left and...didn’t know until recently... fuck.”
“Okay, I recognized exactly one thought in all of that. So, Jaskier, he’s your bard right? He left and you’re pouting because you, what, hurt his feelings? He’ll come back, he usually seems to find a way back to you anyw--”
“He’s dead. He isn’t coming back because he’s dead and I didn’t get to tell him how sorry I am for saying what I said at the mountain. It’s my fault and he died thinking I hated him and wished he would never see me again. Gods,” Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the man who has not cried since the year of Blaviken, breaks down in fat, rolling tears that he tries and fails to stifle with the palm of his hand wrapped around his mouth. Eskel waits patiently, knowing his brother almost as well as he knows himself, and waits for Geralt to give him the signal that it’s okay to hug him around the shoulders. It isn’t often, perhaps only seeing this post Trials two or three times, but when a man like him breaks down it takes more than just his own will to keep him together.
Lambert and Aiden returned from, most likely, eavesdropping in a convenient location and do not hesitate to join Geralt on the floor by the fire, letting Geralt work through his thoughts and regrets over the situation. He tells them his exact words on the mountain (which Eskel hits him for, hard), about how long he waited until going to find Jaskier (about a two months) before finding out in a random tavern in Aedirn that Jaskier the Bard had been sadly pronounced dead from illness in Oxenfurt after returning from his travels. He tells them about wanting to make the journey to Oxenfurt to at least see where his best friend is now buried but couldn’t bring himself to do it because it made it feel too real. At the end of it all, Geralt says those three damning words all too late for the bard, and for whatever was left of Geralt’s happiness.
“I love him. Still do.” Geralt whispered,the confession a heavy weight in his throat. A witcher’s lifespan was, as of yet, practically immortal until they met a brutal, bloody end orchestrated by both monster and man alike. How long a witcher could live was untested, but a human had, at most, a good 80 or 90 years before they fell to the passage of time. Geralt had kept his distance for that reason: because he couldn’t risk falling in love with someone he would outlive so easily.
Perhaps, Eskel mused, that was part of what aided the djinn’s magic in forging a connection between Geralt and Yennefer. Geralt needed to have a safer option for his heart, and Yennefer wanted someone to see her for exactly who she is beneath her barriers. They wouldn't have chosen each other if not for the djinn warping what was already there, granting Geralt's single-minded "wish" without considering the larger picture. There was no point in telling Geralt they were sorry for what happened to his human, though Aiden offered to drop off an honorary witcher medallion on the gravesite. For once, Geralt gave Aiden a small, if still heartbroken, almost-smile.
Geralt didn't talk about Jaskier the rest of the winter, but it was obvious even to Vesemir how often the man thought about the bard, how often that sour smell of regret and heartache colored his days. Sometimes, all it would take was a book of poetry in Vesemir's personal collection for Geralt to slam the door to his room and not emerge for hours. The white-haired witcher began writing in a beaten journal he found, detailing small things they assumed Jaskier would have liked or found amusing. Sometimes, they would find crumpled parchment somewhere in the keep with Gralt's blocky handwriting, messy and sometimes scratched out, drafting apologies and the sincere professions of undying love. They were not meant to be seen by anyone else, but Eskel kept one of the letters he found, tucking it away in a drawer in his room.
The rest of the winter still felt uneasy, Geralt still touchy and irritated and in a generally foul mood, but at least he didn’t look like he was about to jump off the highest tower in the keep anymore. If any of the others noticed Geralt hanging a lute string with a piece of smoothened and polished wood on the medallion tree, they said nothing. When they all departed for spring, Geralt was a very different man than he had been with the winter snows. Yes, Jaskier had changed Geralt over their twenty years of companionship, but his death broke the part of Geralt's mind that said he needed no one and nothing but himself. Though it was too late for Jaskier, Geralt finally understood how suffocating it was to be alone with nothing but the silence to follow you. For Geralt, the sun could never feel as bright as it did when harnessed in every fiber of Jaskier's being. Would he ever feel warm again?