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Though you didn't want to lose her, Geralt, you will.
He already has.
Witchers have a code of conduct of sorts. A set of rules to help them navigate the Continent they roam. It’s those rules that keep everything orderly should chaos come to pass. Of those rules, the most confounding was that Witcher’s should stay away from trouble. In particular, human trouble. When Geralt was still young it confused him, weren’t Witcher’s the ones who bounded headfirst into danger? But the danger was much different than trouble.
Geralt’s never exactly liked them, the rules, but he’s tried his best to abide by them. He didn’t realize when he kept constantly breaking them though.
Maybe it was Blavakin. Where a too curious mage and a scorned princess fought tooth and nail with him stuck in the middle, forced to choose a side. Maybe it was Posada; with the elves that could, and probably should, have killed him only to let him and his would-be barker go. Maybe Cintra when that same bard helped convince him to enjoy merriment for a night, only for a mistake and a surprise to ruin it. Or maybe it was Rinde where another mage, purple-eyed and searching for answers, was his only help for fixing his mistakes which only resulted in making another.
In the end, it didn’t much matter. He was a witcher through and through. As long as he could get back up and walk away hale from the ordeal it wasn’t all bad. But a part of him knew that someday, somehow it was going to come back and bite him in the ass.
He foolishly hoped it wasn’t today.
What you're missing is still out there.
I don’t need anything. And the last thing I want is someone needing me.
And yet…
But the biggest crock of shit Geralt’s ever been fed in his too-long life is the myth that Witchers couldn’t feel. Because as much as Geralt wanted to believe that lie, he’d known it to be false the moment they told him. He’d give anything to not feel the burn at the back of his throat, the throbbing headache behind his eyes, or the deep ache in his chest he felt whenever Yenn pushed him away. Whenever he pushed Jaskier away.
The flush he could feel rising when the bard showered him in compliments. When, rarely, the people of the continent nodded their thanks to him and he could feel himself puffing up with pride. He wanted nothing more than now for Witchers not to feel, because with the good came the bad. Because now his heart was torn in two and he feels like such a fool and the more he stews the more he can feel the anger rising and—
“Phew! What a day!”
He shouldn’t.
“I imagine your probably—”
But of course he’s going to. He throws all what’s in his head and heart, all the vitriol, all the pent-up pain onto Jaskier until there’s nowhere left for it to go. He makes Jaskier leave, because there’s nothing more that Geralt wants than to be left alone, while a small scared part of him screams for the bard to stay. Because the easier option is to stay as angry as possible, because damn Yenn for being right, because—
“If life could give me one blessing, it’d be to take you off my hands.”
Blaming someone else for all your problems seems a surefire way to solve them.
And as Jaskier leaves, time continues on because the world stops for no one, not even stubborn hard-headed witchers. Geralt’s jaw unclenches and his hands loosen. His shoulders slump and he lets out a haggard breath.
Damn.