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“Will you miss me?”
The witcher cracked an eye, refusing to interrupt the pleasure of nuzzling his nose in lavender and wildflower scented soft hair.
“What?”
“What will you miss about me?”
The playful tone in the bard’s voice did anything but ease the tension suddenly invading his peace. He snorted.
“We are not having this conversation.”
“Come on, Geralt!” The bard chuckled and raised his head a bit to glance at him. “It’s like I’m asking you to describe what you like about me.”
“Love. About you.” A smile was now quivering on the witcher’s lips.
“Fine, yes, love. So, will you answer?” The bard smirked, drawing circles with his fingers on the forearm wrapped around his waist.
“Hmm.” The witcher heaved a deep content sigh. “I love the way your body is always warm as if waiting to be hugged. I love the glint in your eyes every time you sing. I love your relieved sigh every time I return from a hunt. I love the flowers you put in my hair when we’re on the road. I love the way you run your fingers down my back…” He stopped after he felt warm fingertips down his spine and shivered, hiding his face in dark hair. The bard laughed, cheeks blushing and placed a soft kiss at the corner of his lips.
“Gods, you’ll miss me like hell!”
The witcher fixed his look on the white bedsheets tangled between their legs. Then he nodded.
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
~~
“How much for the lute?”
Geralt took the pouch filled with coins and glanced at the innkeeper frowning, following his look at the lute case hung from Roach's saddle. He grunted.
“Not for sale.”
The innkeeper shrugged but he didn't seem to let it go by simply greeting the witcher. On the contrary, he was quite eager to start a conversation.
“It's already strange to see a witcher, let alone a witcher carrying a lute,” he laughed roughly, ignoring Geralt's glare as he climbed the mare. “What happened to your bard friend? Did he run out of songs?”
His sharp laughter stung the witcher's ears as he stared at the man wide-eyed, almost startled and clenched his fists around the bridles struggling to control his hand from flying a punch at him. Rage seethed in his chest. Yet he said nothing. He just hummed and reined Roach to fend off as fast as he could.
The sun was shining bright but it was cold nevertheless, making him wonder why the first snow was yet to fall. He didn't like snow though. It was too quiet, too cryptic. Too cold. He shuddered. It was frozen as if his forever cold skin wasn't enough for him to bear with. That was the thing with him. Even under his gloves and boots and multiple layers of clothing and armour he never ceased to be cold as ice. That never bothered him terribly though, his craving of a warm touch had always been fulfilled before. But now it did bother him. Now he noticed as the blowing breeze was getting chiller. As if it wanted to make the absence of warmth more intense than it already was.
He heard a singing bird closer to his ear than birds usually approached. Than anyone usually approached. He turned his head to see a nightingale flying around him, its singing growing louder with each flap of its wings. He hummed, observing it for some seconds. He’d seen that bird again, it was following him actually from day to day. Following him and singing in his ear and no matter how beautiful the singing, it got irritating at times. Yet, he said nothing. A bird wouldn’t stop singing if it was told to shut up. So he listened to it, when he was absent, ignored it when he was annoyed. That’s what he usually did anyway. With such company.
He passed by a tavern on his way out of the town. He would eat a good meal right now but he decided the last thing he wanted was to enter a crowded tavern only to hide in a dark spot and listen to all kinds of conversations and drunk laughter and singing and… He felt his heart aching for a moment. Aching harder than it already did as a foolish hope that suddenly sparked inside him faded right away. His ears caught the sound of a lute’s strings being clumsily picked and a distant, heady and deep voice singing.
Toss a coin to your witcher, o valley of plenty…
He hated that song. Hated that it brought up memories he was struggling to forget. Because that was his way of dealing with such things. Trying to forget. A witcher’s life was long and cruel and it was no place for memories, especially the ones that hurt. Especially for something he couldn’t go back to.
And yet, there he was, listening to an amateur bard getting paid for playing badly and singing a song he used to hear dripping from other lips, along with love and honey and a soft voice that felt like a breeze fondling his skin in a hot summer evening. Along with shiny, cornflower-blue eyes that gazed at him and devoured him whole with every word that came out of those lips. And then he wouldn’t give a single damn about the song, as long as it was sung for him and as long as it was sung by that angelic voice.
How dare they? Foolish questions twirled in his mind that bore no answer, only a flame that burned his insides, leaving him breathless and empty and numb. How dared they sing anything meant to be sung by another voice? How dare they remind him of all the things he missed so agonizingly that he wanted to forget them?
The bard finished pulling the last chord of the song and then laughed arrogantly. Geralt reined Roach once again. He hated that song.
~~
“Leave! Get out of here!”
“Geralt, you’re hurt–”
“Fucking go!”
The griffin was shrieking above their head, sidetracking the witcher as his sword missed and ripped the air instead. His vision was blurred.
“GERALT!”
The next thing he knew, he was laid on a field full of blue little flowers, his thigh bleeding profusely and a shadow in front of him. A human shadow. Struggling to balance a heavy sword in his hands. And the griffin was now facing him without flying anymore.
His heart skipped a beat.
~~
He returned to the glade he would settle for the night slightly limping, surprised to find the fire still burning.
“Hey, Roach.” The mare neighed slightly without distracting itself from nibbling the nettles and Geralt nodded with a resigned expression on his face. It was a horse after all and no matter the company and how much he talked to it, no matter how it waited for him to come back from a fight, it wouldn’t ever bother if he never came back nor would it sigh with relief when he did. He was just deceiving himself. And it was the kind of deceit that tortured his mind because it was due to no potion or spell. If it was, he’d know how to fight back, how to regain sobriety. Alas, it was not magic. It was pain and it was conscious. Pain that he himself was causing by replaying lost memories and seeking happiness he was never supposed to have in the first place. He was a witcher after all. Witchers were not raised to love. They were raised to kill monsters.
And anyway, killing monsters was easier. He had just returned from hunting a dozen of drowners with nothing but a claw cut on his knee. He cleaned the wound and wrapped a dressing around the light injury in no time; he was used to those kinds of wounds. He knew how to heal them. So after that, everything was fine.
Except it was not. It would never be fine. And he kept reminding that to himself every time that he glanced, even instinctively, at the hung lute in front of his eyes and every time his fingers would accidentally touch the soft fabric of a chemise when he put his potions back in his bag. Just like he did now. And he was confused at first because he thought he had forgotten, because he wanted to forget. But then he found himself pulling out a white shirt he had forgotten in the bag since three months ago. And now his fingers were shaking.
Three whole, damned months. There was a time when three months felt like three hours of a single day. And, oh, how he missed that time. Because then he knew that no matter the weeks, the months, that pair of cornflower-blue eyes would never fail to come across his way. But now it had been three months and then it would be another three, and another three after that. And those eyes were out of his way forever.
So there he was, sitting beside the campfire that hardly warmed his skin and even more hardly his heart, with a lute across him waiting to be played and a lavender-scented chemise waiting to be worn. And a pair of cold hands, clinging on a blanket, waiting to be held. And all of them would wait forever.
A bird’s tweeting was heard near him and he lowered his look beside him, being less than surprised to see that certain nightingale hiding between the flowers behind the lute. He nodded.
“It’s you again.” For a moment then he almost laughed at himself. If he kept it that way one day he would master in every field of animal communicating. But, sadly, he wasn’t given the chance to keep the conversation going because the bird fled upon a tree, the flowers it was hidden in shivering behind its flutter. And then Geralt noticed the flowers. That was not something he usually did if he had no reason to, but now more than ever he wished he had before settling here.
They were small, and they were blue, and they were forget-me-nots. His whole body shuddered as flashing images blinded his thoughts, like a lightning hitting directly the core of a tree. And for a moment, he went numb. A burst of thunderous laughter, a bright face, flowers tangled in his hair. A hint of happiness. And then the laughter became a cry, and the face turned pale, and the flowers turned red. A sob ripped his chest.
He laid on the bedroll and hid his face under the blanket as if he was sending the memories away like that. He refused to remember as if they would stop hunting him that way just like he hunted the monsters, as if they would stop invading every single thought that crossed his mind. But, oh, every memory he sent away from his mind was nailed to his heart and he shut his eyes close, as though commanding sleep to come and take the grief away. Still, even the dreams that kissed him every night left a bitter taste on his lips, and every night they cried a whisper; it was not supposed to go this way.
~~
“For fuck’s sake, Jaskier, I told you to go!” The bard’s body was now resting blood-covered on the trunk of a tree, away from the griffin the witcher had killed defying his own pain. And now he was kneeling beside him and his heart was ready to come out his chest. “Gods… Why did you not listen to me?” His hands removed the tattered shirt away but no wound could be discerned under the pond of blood on the bard’s abdomen and his chest that was now going up and down unsteadily in his attempts to breathe. Yet every breath he took did nothing but cause more blood gush out of the wound that didn’t seem possible to ever heal.
The witcher looked at his fingers, blood staining them as he wrapped a dressing around the body, with a look not as terrified as the one when he raised his head to a pained cry escaping the bard’s lips. Those lips once embroidered verses and songs that made his heart sing along. Yet now his heart was breaking. Because as he glanced at the tearful eyes fixed at him and the once rosy cheeks turning paler with each second passing, he knew there was no time. He’d seen those kinds of wounds and he’d known people long gone that left covered in blood. And as he saw the bard’s fingers weakly clinging on his shirt and his blood painted lips struggling to utter a single word, he realized time was running out more quickly than he’d hoped. Oh, Lord. It was not fair.
“Geralt.” The witcher took the shaking bard in his arms, restraining his urge to hug him tightly and hold him like that forever. Tears were burning his eyes, yet none of them dared to fall. He raised his head, hoping for the autumn breeze to dry them, but then he felt a hand on his face and, oh, it was cold. He closed his eyes. “Hey, Geralt, look at me… There,” the bard grinned faintly and not even oncoming death could take the brightness of his eyes away. The witcher then gazed at him, devoured him, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to do so ever again. His hand reached to wipe the tears mixed with blood down the pale face, his own eyes almost coming out of their niches.
“Fuck, Jaskier… You know I love you, don't you?” He was a witcher. He could endure all kinds of pain. But, was it really too bad that his heart was shattering? Was it too bad that I love you was the last thing he wanted to say to the first person that treated him with such love? It couldn’t be, since it brought such a smile in the bard’s lips.
“Thank gods, I do…” His voice was now hoarse and he was gasping for breath, yet the shaking of his body had almost subdued. He fondled the witcher’s cheek with his thumb and swallowed hard, his fingers cutting a blooded forget-me-not off its stem and putting it on dirty white hair. “Remember me, love.” The witcher leaned in his touch with a smile responding to the request. How could I ever forget you? But Jaskier knew better when he uttered those words, just like he knew the man above him. So he just nodded and as some final, raspy breaths made their way out his mouth, he placed a kiss on the palm cupping his cheek and whispered, “And it’s okay to cry. I will always be there to comfort you.”
Geralt shivered. But as he watched his comfort going limp in his arms and the soft hand on his hair falling slowly, he thought none of it. Instead, he gazed at the beautiful, lifeless eyes that seemed to search for one last smile and the parted lips that seemed to tremble for one last song, and a sob choked his throat, coming out of his lungs hoarse and shattering and scaring the birds off the trees. He leaned over the dead body shaking, having no fear of holding it tightly now against his chest and his whole being was burning, as if to replace the gone warmth, but no tear dared to abandon his eyes.
A maniacal laugh escaped his mouth. This was not real, it couldn’t be real. It was not fair. And yet, no spell was blurring his consciousness as he nuzzled his face in sweaty hair, just like he used to do, as he touched lips that used to draw paintings on his skin. And he just wouldn’t stop staring at that pale face, as if with his look he would make it laugh again at his sarcastic comments, grimace at an awful smell after he had killed a monster, smirk as fingers were running down his chest. And what he would not give to see those fingers picking again the strings of the lute, to feel them rubbing the tension of his shoulders away. But as the minutes passed and thunderous silence thumped in his ears, he knew it was real and he knew it was late, albeit so soon.
Then, finally, as Jaskier gave him one more empty look and as he ran his hand through soft hair, smelling the lavender and wildflowers one last time, he placed his lips on the cold forehead and a single tear flowed down his face.
And then a nightingale started singing.
~~
He jerked up on his bedroll almost shaking as not even sleep could save him from this suffering anymore. The same scene was playing over and over in his head, mercilessly, like a chain that tightened more and more around his heart, taking his breath away and leaving him paralyzed as no monster had managed to do before. But what monster could be more dreadful than the one feeding on his pain?
Remember me, love. Jaskier’s voice was so clear in his mind it might as well be real. One last desire, one would say. But Geralt had tried to forget. Even though he said he wouldn’t. How could I ever forget you? Oh, but he didn’t ever say that, did he?
Yet how could he ever forget him? How could he ever erase memories that still caressed his skin at night as he trembled under the weak light of the fire? How could he ever forget even that last smile that lingered on those lips as if it would stay there forever? He was a fool and a coward, and he’d never been any of those things in his life. A fool for thinking it would be easy to carry the same taste of a kiss on his lips even when he left his kisses elsewhere. A coward for backing off when he realized it was not easy at all. He had the chance to forget though. The mages and witches he’d found on his road would be grateful for his coin. But he resorted to none of them. Because he didn’t really want to forget, did he?
A familiar sound fondled his ears and he turned his head to see the nightingale popping out of the white chemise on the ground, holding a flower in its beak. He took the shirt in his hands hesitantly, as if it was made of glass and then reached his hand to the bird, letting it climb on his palm. Sitting there, under the faint light of the fire, he peered at it. A bird that followed him since that day. A bird that didn’t cease to accompany him with its singing in his hardest times. A bird he had sent away multiple times at the start but it didn’t ever leave. A bird that was now holding a flower stem in its beak. A forget-me-not. And he couldn’t ever.
Tears run down his cheeks. He didn’t stop them, he just closed his eyes. Because it was okay to cry. Because he would find comfort. He knew he would, as he felt warmth overwhelming his body, as he felt fingers running down his spine, as he felt a warm breath on his lips.
I am here, love. I will always be here.
Oh, how he missed him. And how real that soft voice felt in his ears and how real it actually was as he opened his eyes and looked at the nightingale in his hand and it was singing again. And how real it actually was as he clutched the white chemise on his chest as if it was not empty anymore, but falling on pale shoulders and lightning up an already bright face, always embellished by a smile. His tears fell on the fabric and he shook his head, a sweet taste in his mouth and a bitter smile curving his lips.
And it’s okay to cry. I will always be there to comfort you.
He cried till dawn. And the nightingale didn’t stop singing.