Chapter Text
A week later, Vesemir declares it to be laundry day. Lambert and Eskel both groan, claiming it to be their least favorite of all the chores and demanding alternatives.
Vesemir is quick to provide them with loads of other things that need to be done; they need to hunt for meat to be dried for rations on the Path, the floors need a good cleaning from all the mud that’s been tracked in, the walls could use some more repairs before the spring thaw, the fireplaces could use a good cleaning, and so on and so on.
Jaskier volunteers to clean the laundry; it’s something he’d gotten rather good at, in his time as a lone wanderer. He would also benefit from a break from the library project; he’s rather tired of feeling like he’s made no progress with the unending stacks of tomes.
Vesemir gives him an approving nod, and Jaskier tries not to preen too hard.
Eskel says he’d rather hunt, Lambert quickly agreeing with him.
“Don’t come back without a good haul, or you’ll be scrubbing every stone of Kaer Morhen until they gleam,” Vesemir warns them, equally fond and serious.
They merely salute and leave in a hurry, armed to the teeth with just about one of every kind of weapon that can be found in the keep. Geralt trails behind them, more useful out hunting than attempting to clean linens.
“Alright, son, let’s get this over with.” Vesemir briefly places his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, and then the two of them go about gathering everything that could possibly need to be laundered.
Jaskier does the gathering while Vesemir does the holding; they start with Geralt’s - and now Jaskier’s, he supposes - room. Clothing, linens, cleaning cloths for the swords that will no longer see use - all go into Vesemir’s arms.
Then Lambert’s room. Same process, only halted when something catches Jaskier’s eye.
Right by the window, a sword is leaned against the wall, metal tip caught on the seam between two stones so it won’t budge.
“Gotta tell that boy not to keep swords like that,” Vesemir mutters as he goes to strip the bed. “Should tan his hide for treating a sword so carelessly.”
It isn’t the improper storage method that has caught Jaskier’s eye; it’s the necklace that’s dangling from the left side of the hilt.
“This is the one Triss gave to him,” Jaskier says, scooping the offending jewelry into his hand to ensure that yes, it is the magical pendant that’s supposed to give him another tether to his once-lost brother. “Why wouldn’t he wear it?” He looks to the elder witcher, hoping for some sort of explanation.
Instead, Vesemir only shrugs and continues gathering clothes from the floor, wrinkling his nose at particularly odorous garments. “Ask him yourself, who knows what goes on in his mind.”
Feeling slightly unsettled, Jaskier lets the necklace be. He’ll ask about it later tonight, he resolves. For now, he has chores to help with.
“Eskel too?” Jaskier points at the damn necklace, left on the sill of his window, next to a small collection of potions. “Why?” He can’t wrap his head around it, not for a second; why would they choose to have such limited connections with their own brother?
It feels like a betrayal to Jaskier, for no real reason. It shouldn’t upset him, it’s hardly any of his business. Yet it still feels like a punch to his gut.
“Are you wearing yours?” Jaskier rounds on Vesemir, whose arms are so full of linens that his face is hardly visible.
Jaskier still catches the way the elder witcher hardly looks at him.
“You’re not, either,” He surmises, feeling his hands crumple into fists. “Why not?”
Geralt must pick up on his distress; a sharp feeling, an extreme concern slices its way into Jaskier’s heart, asking him what is wrong, are you hurt?
Jaskier tries to send back a reassurance, though he is fairly certain that it doesn’t come across as so. He tries again, barely managing to seem fine long enough to dissuade Geralt from returning so soon.
“Breathe, pup, control yourself,” Vesemir says to him with the calm authority of someone who’s faced much worse than him. “Your hands.”
Jaskier looks down, and is surprised to find his palms set alight; He does his best to quell the glow, though he knows his light is hardly dangerous. He’s more upset about this than he initially thought, it seems.
“Why won’t you wear it?” He asks once more, less angry and more… concerned. “It’s not because of me, is it? Do you think I’m not worthy of it, of this connection it provides? You think I shouldn’t wear the thing that lets me know how the man I love is feeling, so you don’t bother with yours?”
“There you go, jumping to conclusions when I haven’t said a single word.” Vesemir shakes his head gently, looking every bit the tired father he’s come to be. “I’m not wearing mine because I don’t need it. I’ve known that boy for over a century now, I know his tells. I cannot speak for Eskel and Lambert, but I simply don’t need to wear the necklace to figure out how Geralt is feeling at any moment.”
If Jaskier wanted to, he supposes he could take the elder witcher’s words as a slight to him, a jab at the fact that he hasn’t known Geralt for over a century, that he needs magic to know what the man feels. Jaskier also knows that Vesemir is quite like Geralt in the way that they speak of things as they are. He has only stated the truth, in a sort of way that doesn’t frustrate Jaskier further.
Vesemir sees this, sees his acceptance of his words, and nods. “I know you’ll hound Lambert and Eskel the moment they return, but in the meantime, let us launder all of this nonsense.”
Jaskier follows without a word, lost to the thoughts in his head. Trying to come up with any explanation for the other witchers’ behavior, and coming up disappointingly empty.
He keeps his hands busy with the laundering, and mind busy with analyzing everything he knows about the two witchers that, a day ago, he would’ve hesitantly called friends.
Now, he just doesn’t know.
They’re hanging up the linens - the clothing is already drying - when Vesemir pauses. He listens for a moment, ears picking up something Jaskier can only wish to hear. Then he resumes clipping the linen to the hanging lines, and says, very nonchalantly, “Boys are home.”
Jaskier drops the corner of the sheet he’s holding, barely managing to catch it before it hits the ground and ruins all their hard work.
Vesemir is there to help him, taking the linen from his hand. “Go on, go bother them.”
“Thank you.” Jaskier takes off at a sprint, entering the keep and racing down the winding halls. He decides to go to the kitchen, figuring that the witchers will either be eating or preparing their hunts.
Sure enough, there they are. Splattered with gore, stinking of sweat and faces reddened ever so gently from the cold.
“You!” Jaskier bursts into the kitchen, and notices the lack of a certain wolf. “Where’s Geralt?”
“Springs,” Eskel answers, immediately on edge from the bard’s manic energy. “Bastard took down a deer and got coated in viscera. He’s more red than white at this point.”
Glad that he won’t overhear this then, Jaskier steps forward, places his hands on his hips, and glares. “Why aren’t you two wearing your necklaces that Triss made?”
Lambert groans, while Eskel’s hand comes up to scrub at his scars. Neither of them answer.
Jaskier crosses his arms. “I can wait all day. Why aren’t you wearing them? Do you not want to be able to communicate with Geralt, even if in a limited manner? Are you ashamed of what he’s become? Are you ashamed of me, and knowing that I also have the same connection despite only knowing him for a fraction of the time you have? Why won’t you wear them?” He doesn’t mean for his voice to weaken by the end of his rant, he doesn’t mean for the tears to gather in the corner of his eyes. He’s always been an angry crier, something his siblings mocked him relentlessly for.
While Eskel seems shocked by the outburst, Lambert takes the opportunity to say, “At the academy, did they teach you to spiral all your thoughts like that? It’s impressive, really. If they don’t already teach overthinking, you should make it the eighth liberal art.”
Eskel snaps out of his shock to give Lambert an elbow to the ribs. Then he gives Jaskier an apologetic look, as sheepish as a wolf can look. “That kind of thing just isn’t for us. I don't know how to explain it, but we don’t need it.”
“Vesemir says that he already knows how to tell what Geralt’s feeling,” Jaskier says, crossing his arms and digging his boot into the floor in agitation. “Is it the same with you?”
“More or less.”
“Fuck that. I don’t wanna know what the bastard’s feeling all the time, and I don’t want him to know what I’m feeling,” Lambert tells them, throwing his arms into the air like a child finally getting their say in an argument. “Even when he could talk, he’d barely tell us what was going through his head. Honestly, him as a wolf is no different.”
“That’s definitely more of a human thing,” Eskel agrees.
Jaskier blinks. “You were both human once!”
“Damn near a century ago, buttercup,” Lambert sneers. “We haven’t been human in a long time.”
“I beg to differ. You show more humanity than most, even if you won’t admit it.” Jaskier huffs, thinks for a moment. Focuses on Eskel. “Can you promise me that you’re telling the truth? That there isn’t any ulterior reason you won’t wear the necklaces?”
Eskel swallows, looks into Jaskier’s eyes without truly looking at him. “Yes.”
“Is it because of me?” Jaskier asks, trying his best to sound open, to not sound as upset as he is. “You can tell me if it is.”
“Not in the way you might think,” Eskel admits, walls cracking. He looks to Lambert, who rolls his eyes but nods along.
Jaskier lets his arms fall, tries to make himself seem less upset. “Then in what way?”
“The way that it feels fucking weird to step in where you’ve already staked your claim,” Lambert says.
“What he means is that we felt that we shouldn’t impose ourselves. You and Geralt have something more than what we have with him, so you deserve a special connection to show that.”
Jaskier rubs at his temples. “Wait, you’re saying that you didn’t want to open those connections because Geralt and I love each other? And you say I infer things too greatly, for Meliteles’ sake.” He takes a deep breath, feeling relief start to edge away his frustrations. “It’s not my place to keep the gate to Geralt’s heart. If you two want to wear the damn necklaces, don’t let me stop you. He’s your brother first and foremost.”
He leaves the witchers to dismantle their hunts, feeling the need to be close to Geralt. He’s never felt quite so tired as he does when attempting to deal with witchers and their emotions, or lack thereof. The effort just to get them to reveal themselves is mountainous.
He finds the wolf lounging on the hearth in the great hall, soaking wet and exhausted. Jaskier sits down next to him, close enough to pet but far enough to avoid the growing pool of water under him.
“Vesemir will have your hide for this,” Jaskier says, gesturing to the mess with fond exasperation edging his tone. “We just did all the laundry.”
Geralt sighs, and somehow burrows further into the bearskin rug he’s currently ruining. Jaskier smiles, feeling the frustrations of the day leave, tiring him out as they do. “Your brothers are short of a few marbles,” he murmurs, letting his hand wander the expanse of Geralt’s wet fur.
The wolf tilts head, angling up to look at him.
“Tell you later. Maybe.”
During the night, Jaskier has been having a wonderful dream featuring him conquering a certain rival of his who shall remain unnamed - whose name might possibly start with ‘V’ and end with ‘-aldo Marx’- when he is rudely awakened by Geralt jumping up from the bed.
After having sat by the fire until he was fully dry, he had taken to lying at the foot of the bed. Only now, he’s jumping up from it, and pawing at the door to the room. When it won’t open, he barks and barks and fucking barks until Jaskier drags himself out of bed.
“What the fuck is wrong?” Jaskier wonders just as loudly, wrapping the blanket around him as he unlatches the stupid door he’d forgotten to ensure was opened before he had gone to bed.
When Geralt takes off down the hall, Jaskier debates following him. The allure of his nice warm bed is almost too much to ignore.
Then the damn wolf starts pawing at Lambert’s door, and Jaskier decides he’s more concerned about what the hell is going on.
The door gets yanked open, and out comes the angered witcher in all his bed-mussed glory. “Yes, you whoreson, I put on the damn necklace! It’s there, see? Now freak out quietly or I’ll Aard you out the window!”
Geralt bashes himself against Lambert’s legs, practically bouncing on his feet.
Jaskier can feel the euphoric happiness pouring from Geralt, and feels close to the same thing. Progress, he notes with pride.
It only gets better when Eskel appears from his room, holding his necklace in his hand. One look at Lambert has him pulling it over his head, and Jaskier thinks Geralt might explode from love.
Jaskier takes that moment to slip away; this is something for witcher’s eyes only, he feels. A reunion of sorts, a reacceptance that they are indeed family, brothers bonded by something far stronger than blood, and even more than just love.
They’re bound by something far stronger than what binds Geralt to Jaskier, the bard has no disillusion about that.
He can only hope that maybe one day, he might come to love Eskel and Lambert as brothers as well. To open a connection with them, to feel what they feel even when separated by the Path.
Jaskier holds his head up high; he has a good feeling that he can make that happen. It might take some time, but that’s something he has more than enough of. They all do.
Later, when it is closer to morning than night, Geralt finally reappears. He slinks back onto the bed, utter contentment outpouring from him like a dam that had finally broken. Jaskier seeks him out with a foot, nudging him mercilessly in the shoulder.
“Can we come back next winter?” He asks softly, more into the pillow than to the wolf, but is heard all the same.
Geralt’s tail wags feverishly. Jaskier smiles.
This is definitely one of the best winter’s he’s experienced, and he cannot wait for many more to come.