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"Do you love me?"
Jaskier is laughing and his eyes are doing this lovely thing of crinkling at the edges, as though the smile is fighting to spread wider than his face. Geralt finds it's addictive. Transmissive, even, and he finds himself grinning too, or maybe it's just the wine. A lot of wine.
Or maybe, and this too is a quite plausible explanation, he can't help but gaze at Jaskier lying on the white bedsheets, cheeks flushed and eyes glinting and lips red and kiss-swollen, and think that yes, that's what happiness looks like. And as their hands entwine between the sheets, as their bodies cling to each other despite the warmth and the sweat and the headiness of the summer night, that's what it feels like. And it's for him, only for him. Forever. As though Jaskier is trying to imprint himself on Geralt's skin, create a new scar in his shape, one that he will proudly carry.
Or then it could be this, the desperate thought of him slipping through his fingers, of Geralt unable to catch the threads. The crippling fear that he struggles to hide. Smiles. Wider, wider.
It's a bet.
Do you love me, he asks and it can't be that it's not that obvious. Yet Geralt complies, plays along, because how could he ever refuse him anything. "I do." He feels the words are inadequate. Leans down and presses their lips together, playful and promising and nothing like he's used to, but he wants to be.
He wants to be used to Jaskier, wants to be used in the sound of his laughter, the shape of his lips, the grip of his fingers and the curve of his shoulders. He wants to have the time. He needs it.
Jaskier raises his eyebrows, smug and hopeful and loving, loving. "I want you to scream it," he says, demands.
Needy. Geralt tilts his head. "Why?"
Not an exhibit, not that. Although if he had to, he would utter it every moment, every second of every day. He would breathe it. Jaskier is smiling still. "Humour me."
And Geralt does. He screams it, I love you, I love you, I love you, and it echoes between the walls and outside the open window and the breeze carries it away into the night like a promise to wait for them in the future. And Jaskier laughs, and kisses him deep and honest and it's so sweet, so so sweet it feels dizzying after a while. Geralt never imagined love to be so sweet.
It echoes in the silence, or so he thinks. Playful, it tangles itself in Jaskier's curls, strokes their cheeks, and if he didn't know better, Geralt would say he heard giggles.
Jaskier stares at him and there is something quivering in his smile. Nostalgia, perhaps, for something that is still here.
In the silence, the kiss tastes different.
It tastes like third kisses, fourth maybe, when the part of the longing that is fulfilled gives its place to doubt. To fear. When one needs to hold onto the other tighter, lest they turn into dust.
It's a bet, and Geralt is losing.
The nature of a tragedy, Jaskier once said, is that it is inevitable. That there is only one way it ends. Fascinating, isn't it?
Now he's lying there, soft under the moonlight entering from the window and lining his body, and it looks like Geralt could touch him and his hand would flow right through him. Unreal. He is smiling still as though he knows. The breeze blows inside the room and the candle on the nightstand goes out.
He must know something.
Geralt is losing. He swallows. "I fear it's doomed," he whispers after a moment. It wells in the silence, like a secret that has finally escaped the prison of his lungs. "The love." His voice is shaking.
The bard's eyes are shining brighter than the stars and he wants to capture their tenderness in a bottle of spilled tears and carry it with him forever, just for him. Jaskier breathes slowly. Slowly, he scoots closer. Huffs. "What a fool you are," he whispers as though to himself. No, to Geralt. Fond and so, so sad. He raises a hand and cups the witcher's face. "Of course it is. It's not meant to be anything." A sneaky smile. "But it sounds sweeter when you scream it, don't you think?"
It should be absurd. Such a thought. Jaskier is still young and Geralt is fast and they are here, lying on a bed on a summer's night, and they are lovers.
And still, when the sun rises, it will be but a lie.
For a moment, a single one, Geralt wants to laugh at himself. For thinking he could keep this, for once. For hoping that, just this once, he might not be made for love, but love was made for him.
And then Jaskier leans to kiss him again, this time slow and apologetic and careful not to break the glass they have sneaked into, and Geralt finds he doesn't care.
He can scream it. Make it sound like it is something. Maybe, one day, maybe their truth will echo louder than the lie that it is.
Under drooping eyelids, rumpled sheets and an ache whose source he can't really tell, be it his bones or his heart, Jaskier stares.
He's too tired. Too tired to ask of Geralt to return his gaze and really, what else is there to search for inside his eyes? What was spoken and what was eased and what remained trembling in the air between them is now long forgotten. Settled, even. And it's always the same with Geralt's eyes these days. Always an apology.
He doesn't know for what, not anymore.
Geralt picks up his hand, cradles it between his own. Gently, carefully, as though afraid to cause a pain greater than the one already clinging on Jaskier, he holds his fingers, and rubs a wet cloth on the smudges and bruises there. The blood. It must have been days. His chest still hurts when he breathes.
Geralt is meticulous in his work, as though he is sharpening a blade or studying his next hunt. These are long gone. Through the window, the afternoon light is seeping in as though to offer at least its comfort, to paint the air around him in what he once was. What they both were.
Jaskier knows Geralt's hands have always been careful. He remembers. How they used to run over his body, grasp his threads tightly and move him in a way that would feel heavenly, unreal. Slowly, gently. He rubs and cleans and dips the rug in the water and cleans again, avoiding his stare, and Jaskier is burning once again, only that now he needs to know. Even if Geralt never meets his eyes again, he needs to know.
Even if he himself is long defeated. "Did you love me, back then?"
And doesn't he deserve this at least? To know if it was doomed from the start? Geralt flinches.
His hand falters but he doesn't look up. He sighs. "I did, yes."
Jaskier wants to laugh. Cry. Scream, sob until his voice rips his throat in half. Instead. "Do you still?" His voice is shaking.
It doesn't matter, he tells himself. It never did, and it never will, not when he finally rises to his feet, they step outside this door, not when Geralt will follow another fate once again. Not when he is a bard and Geralt is Geralt.
The witcher huffs and finally raises his head, looks at him. There is a glint in his eyes that resembles a tear. "I do," he says, soft and kind and regretful and Jaskier finally understands what his problem is. Geralt is Geralt, and he never wanted him to be anyone else.
And in his troubled mind he doesn't know if he fell in love with him or the tragedy itself.
So he swallows. Shakes his head. "Well," he says and fakes a smile, a fitting patch on his heart. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's," he chokes back a sob, "nothing." It always was.
He expects Geralt to agree, he does. Geralt must agree. Because he has people to protect and battles to fight and it's too late for this, it was too late from the start, only that then they were younger and the world was simpler and they thought they could deceive themselves. For shame, it was real. But it would hurt much more to admit it.
And thus, Geralt shakes his head and he seems angry suddenly, no, passionate. He shuffles closer to him, hand still holding his, persistent. "You are right," he huffs, a frown between his brows and he looks enraged as he agrees. "It doesn't change anything. It doesn't matter. But I want you to know," his voice echoes, strained as though it pains him to utter anything else than the truth, "I need you to know that the love is there. And love is never just nothing, not to you. Not to me." His hand is now trembling and Jaskier aches to ease it. "It never was."
It was easier. Not admitting it. At least they could pretend it hurt less.
And yet the weight that is lifted from Jaskier's shoulders is too breathtaking to ignore and he lets out a sob, sudden, as though his heart was tired of remaining silent. "Oh, Geralt," he whimpers and with his free hand, he cups his face, warm and welcoming. Tears flow down his face. "Oh, you are the kindest man I've ever known."
"Maybe." Geralt laughs and leans into the touch, eyes fluttering for a moment as if he finally slipped under warm covers after a long day. "Maybe I am. But this is not kindness, Jask." He leans, kisses Jaskier's palm. "This is the truth."
Jaskier doesn't speak, for once. Only, he lets his hand trace Geralt's face like he did then, when they laid face to face, and now he can feel more lines under his fingers, and yet it's always the same. It's always Geralt, looking at him with these loving eyes and this hopeful curve of his lips and something that wasn't there before. Certainty. Now he is not afraid.
Perhaps, Jaskier was raised to avoid silence. Perhaps there was too much that would be betrayed by his eyes if he drew attention to him for too long. And now, there is hope. And he can't afford hope.
One last chance. To escape the pain that's already carved out ahead and the love, oh, the love. He tilts his head, smiles, a bitter thing. His voice is hoarse. "I want you to scream it."
Can you ever escape love?
Geralt frowns for a moment, helpless, and Jaskier suddenly grows weary. Suddenly, he does not know what he wants him to do.
But then the grip on his hand tightens ever so slightly and Geralt raises it to his lips. Presses a kiss on his knuckles. Smiles. "I will whisper it to you." His voice is low, quivering, like afternoon rain. "Every night, until it grows inside you. I love you."
He smiles and he is so beautiful in the sunlight, and his eyes are pleading for forgiveness again, because he can't help it, damn him, he can't help the love. And Jaskier laughs then, because neither can he.
He laughs and pulls him forward, presses their lips together and oh, it's been so long, and his lips taste sweet of longing, just like then, but they are not hiding anymore, and his hands are firm and his body warm and soft and he is there, he is real.
And as they break apart Geralt kisses his jaw, then his ear, and then he comes close and whispers, I love you, I love you, I love you , and it's like a caress, like the most sincere confession, like another kiss. And Jaskier cries, and laughs, and kisses him again.
Maybe they never needed anything more. And maybe, this time, maybe a whisper is loud enough.