"You always smell like other people," he says, jaw tight. That isn't usually a problem, most humans smell like other humans. It's inevitable, when everyone lives practically on top of each other. "You don't always smell like Eskel."
And he didn't always smell like Eskel after giving back his claim and avoiding him. Not even coming to dinner. Ciri had told him that the bard had been in the library and likely was there all night, based on how he had been slumped over his books. There were plenty of other bedrooms, the bard could have found one that wasn't even anywhere near Geralt, if he had wanted to avoid him so badly.
No one chooses who they love, Jaskier says, as though a heart is a thing that can make decisions on its own, without any input from his head. Not that Geralt would know, all he has for reference are the false feelings planted in himself and Yennefer both by a poorly-conceived djinn wish. It was a choice, even if it wasn't, perhaps, the best one he'd ever made. But it must chafe at Jaskier, a man who loves his freedom and his choices, to not be able to choose who is the object of his love, or to rescind it by his own will when he so desires.
"Then I am sorry," he says, "that I've given you a burden that isn't of your own choosing." Loving a witcher can be nothing else but a burden, and loving Geralt of all witchers, doubly so.
"And that I cannot ease it with reciprocation."
It's a cruel sort of irony that Jaskier, a man who feels love so deeply and truly, would fall in love with a witcher who has had all such emotions stripped from him.
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And he didn't always smell like Eskel after giving back his claim and avoiding him. Not even coming to dinner. Ciri had told him that the bard had been in the library and likely was there all night, based on how he had been slumped over his books. There were plenty of other bedrooms, the bard could have found one that wasn't even anywhere near Geralt, if he had wanted to avoid him so badly.
No one chooses who they love, Jaskier says, as though a heart is a thing that can make decisions on its own, without any input from his head. Not that Geralt would know, all he has for reference are the false feelings planted in himself and Yennefer both by a poorly-conceived djinn wish. It was a choice, even if it wasn't, perhaps, the best one he'd ever made. But it must chafe at Jaskier, a man who loves his freedom and his choices, to not be able to choose who is the object of his love, or to rescind it by his own will when he so desires.
"Then I am sorry," he says, "that I've given you a burden that isn't of your own choosing." Loving a witcher can be nothing else but a burden, and loving Geralt of all witchers, doubly so.
"And that I cannot ease it with reciprocation."
It's a cruel sort of irony that Jaskier, a man who feels love so deeply and truly, would fall in love with a witcher who has had all such emotions stripped from him.