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There’s dust and blood in Geralt’s mouth.
He chokes on the taste of it, letting consciousness roll over him like a slow wave against a jagged shore. He tries to hold back a groan—then thinks better of it, because fuck, everything hurts. His head; his chest. His fucking hair. Grit congeals on his tongue, thick like ash, and he can’t seem to catch his breath without more dust clogging his lungs.
He coughs, trying to clear his airway.
Fuck.
It’s dark wherever he is—dark even for him—though after a few seconds of blinking up into the dim nothingness above his head a shape begins to form. It’s made of stone, he thinks, or mostly so. A very large stone. Cracked down the middle and raining grains of chalky sandstone. The slab rests just inches from his nose, a hairsbreadth away from crushing his skull into a very fine, very grisly, pâté.
Geralt swallows, saliva washing away the worst of the blood.
The dust still lingers—it’s in his nose, his throat.
There’s a sharp pain when he tries to lick his lips. It seems that it’s his tongue doing most of the bleeding, not actually his insides, thank Melitele. He’s bitten it at some point, the puncture wounds aligning perfectly with his eye teeth. He’d spit out the taste if he could, but he can’t seem to turn his head more than a few inches to the side, his left ear uncomfortably pressed against a chunk of splintered wood. He has more luck turning to his right, his cheek now flush against the stone floor. Sand and slivers of glass scrape against his skin.
He stares out into the darkness as his vision grows stronger. A streak of ambient moonlight provides just enough light to see he’s facing another wall of debris. Broken chunks of masonry and wooden beams are slotted together like a child’s puzzle, haphazardly stacked at impossible angles. Geralt has never felt claustrophobic before, but he thinks he at least understands it now.
Fuck.
A wisp of fear slithers in his chest. He holds it a moment, then releases it. Fear does him no good here. There’s only survival—survival and breathing, and figuring out how he’s going to get himself out of this mess. It’s all easier said than done, of course. It would help if he could actually move.
That’s terribly fucking inconvenient.
Blinking the dust from his eyes, Geralt concentrates on the rest of his body. The slab above him is angled slightly, close to his face but not pressing down against his chest. Although his torso remains free, something heavy pins his waist to the floor. He feels the object shift as he lifts his hips, testing the weight, but it isn’t by much. The object settles as he lies flat again, the pressure bearable if not completely comfortable. For the moment, anyway. Farther below his right knee is bent—angled and uninjured, but held down by the same unseen mass.
As for his other leg, well; that’s definitely broken.
Geralt flexes his ankle, just to test the theory, and the motion sends a shooting pain up his calf. He clenches his teeth. It’s a good sign, he knows, that he can still feel his foot. Probably just a simple fracture.
Doesn’t mean it hurts any less
Fuck.
As for the rest of him, he’ll live. Maybe. Besides a roaring headache and an annoying twinge in his back, he’s doing surprisingly well considering an entire fucking building has fallen on him.
Geralt frowns.
A building?
Where the fuck—
Someone coughs.
It’s weak and barely more than a wobbly exhale, but fuck if it isn’t right next to him, and Geralt feels that tendril of fear coiling once again. Only this time, the fear isn’t for himself, it’s for—
Everything snaps back into focus.
Fuck!
The east tower.
He’s in Kaer Morhen. He’s in Kaer Morhen, and the east tower has collapsed. Or, at least, a portion of it has collapsed. Geralt can’t say for certain, as buried as he is, but he remembers the way the ground trembled, remembers how the walls next to him began to crumble. The east tower is the only section of the fortress they’d fully abandoned after the siege, the structural damage far beyond their meager means of repair. Witchers were strong, but they weren’t architects or builders—the stone keep where they trained and lived and died built by human hands long before Geralt was born. Damaged as it is though, the east tower remains beautiful. Gold flourishes adorn the mouldings and faded tapestries line every wall, while above it all shards of stained glass still cling stubbornly to the broken window frames. It smells of sweet things in the spring now, Geralt knows. Like rotted wood and clusters of wildflowers, grown up through the cracks in the flooring. Even with such destruction—the scorched rafters and the putrefied boards and the fallen stone archways—the tower’s main balcony still offers the best views of the eastern mountain ridges.
It was where he’d taken—
Jaskier.
There’s another cough. It’s louder this time, and deeper still, and Geralt turns his head, trying to peer into the rubble. He opens his mouth, but Jaskier’s name sticks in his throat, his tongue still coated with dust. Grit crunches between his molars as he swallows.
“J’sk’r?”
He hears the shifting of rocks, and the scratch of silk against craggy stone. It’s quickly followed by a mumbled groan of pain. The noise is weak, but so oddly close that Geralt flinches at the sound. Without thinking, he stretches his hand out, the sleeve of his tunic scraping along the floor until his fingertips brush against warm flesh.
A wrist.
“Jaskier?” he tries again, more urgently.
Another long pause. Until, finally—
“…eralt?”
Geralt lets out a breath.
“I’m here.”
Jaskier coughs again, then moans.
“F-fuck.”
Geralt’s fingers tighten around Jaskier’s wrist.
“Are you hurt?”
There’s no response, save the bard’s pulse fluttering beneath his grip, and Geralt squeezes harder, waiting for a response. Waiting for anything but the silence that’s overtaken them.
Jaskier’s fingers twitch.
“D-did a b-building…” he clears his throat, voice steadier, “just fall on us?”
“Not quite.”
“Half a building, then.” Jaskier coughs. “I think you need to look into getting a new roof.”
Geralt huffs.
“You noticed that, did you?”
“Mmmhmm. With the falling, and all that.”
Geralt turns his head to stare at the slab above him.
“My father knows someone,” Jaskier offers, offhandedly, talking just to talk, “if Vesemir is interested. Best mason in… in…”
He’s cut off by his own coughing. It lasts for several seconds—longer than before. It also sounds different.
Geralt frowns.
“Jaskier?”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question is that?”
“Are you hurt?”
A pause.
A long pause.
“Jaskier…”
“Geralt, I don’t—”
“Jaskier.”
“Fine! Fine, so I might not be able to… move.”
Fuck.
“Is that all?”
Another pause.
“There seems to be some… ah… blood.”
“Where?”
“Um. A few… just a few places. Just a little. I’m sure it’s all… fine.”
When he coughs this time, Geralt can hear the wetness, his lungs rattling with more than just dust. They have to get out of here now.
It’s only been a few minutes, at best, since the ground shook hard enough to knock loose the beams above them. Earthquakes aren’t uncommon here, this deep in the mountains, but they usually aren’t this bad. If he doesn’t get them free, and quickly, there’s no telling if an aftershock will send the rest of the walls tumbling around them. He can’t wait though—Jaskier can’t wait—for Vesemir and the others to clear a path.
Geralt releases Jaskier’s wrist. Drawing his hand back to his chest, he steadies both of his palms against the stone above him. When he pushes, he feels the heavy rock move—inch by slow inch—and it’s almost there, almost high enough that he can get his elbows locked to shove it over and—
Jaskier screams.
The sound is so piercing Geralt startles in surprise, his heart suddenly surging against his ribcage. He pushes at the stone with renewed force, needing to get to the Jaskier now—but as he raises it higher, the man’s wails only grow stronger, louder, his voice so wild and untethered the noise becomes like a serrated blade forced deep between Geralt’s ears.
He drops the slab.
Jaskier stops screaming.
Fuck!
“Jaskier?”
There’s no response. No groans, no panted breaths, just lurid silence. Fear slithers freely in Geralt’s stomach now.
“Jaskier!”
The scent of blood grows stronger around him and Geralt knows it’s not his—the wound on his tongue already half-healed. This is new, fresh; rust and salty iron invading his nostrils as he inhales. He closes his eyes, listening for a heartbeat.
He almost doesn’t hear it, over the sound of his own measured pulse.
But there it is.
Light and sluggish, and far too slow for Jaskier normally, but there. Geralt can hear his breathing as well. Shaky wet inhales that speak of injury and pain, mixed with a steadiness that only comes with mindless sleep. He’s unconscious. Geralt’s hands press once more against the stone above him, but he doesn’t push. The slab is long, jutting out over the rubble surrounding Jaskier. He can’t say if it’s the stone itself, or something under it, but they’re connected somehow. When he forces his side up, the weigh shifts onto Jaskier.
Geralt drops his hands.
Fuck.
The wall next to him had crumbled when the earthquake hit, taking with it the raised platform running beneath the inset windows and the small balcony. They had been up there, earlier, Geralt remembers, looking out into the valley as the sun had set. They had stayed long enough to watch the stars flicker to life as the daylight faded, nothing to see but shadowed mountains and snowflakes fluttering in the dusky moonlight. They’d just stepped down when the shaking started. Had they been up there, had Jaskier fallen from such a height—
Geralt growls.
He slaps his palms against the stone, for all the good it does.
He’s helpless.
Utterly fucking helpless.
Fuck.
Rocks fall, everyone dies.
Jaskier jerks awake
He regrets it instantly, of course. Sleeping is so much better than whatever this is. He would like to go back to that right the fuck now, thank you very much. Melitele’s bountiful heavers. He swallows, tasting blood. Oh, gods, it hurts. Everything hurts. He’s going to throw up, he’s going to—
“Jaskier?”
Someone calls his name.
He wants to reply, he really does, but the urge to vomit is so strong he’s not sure he can talk and hold that back simultaneously. Saliva fills his mouth. After a few seconds of desperate panting through his nose, the nausea finally withdraws, settling into a queasiness that’s somewhat more manageable. Gods, has he been screaming? Why does he feel—
Oh, shit.
Fuuuck.
It hurts. Ithurtsithurts.
There’s bile at the back of his throat.
Jaskier squeezes his eyes shut.
Not that he can see shit, as it stands. Or doesn’t stand. It’s dark as balls wherever he is, and oh—that’s right. He opens his eyes again, squinting at the dark outline of something above him. Jaskier swallows, and resists the urge to try and turn over. He doesn’t know why, but it seems like a bad idea. Perhaps he’ll just lie here for a bit more, shoulders pressed against the hard stone floor. He’s slept in worse places. He shifts, a million jagged rocks stabbing him in the back. The pebbly bastards. Gods, he wants to turn over and go back to sleep, maybe if he just—
No! Don’t go to sleep.
His inner voice sounds suspiciously like…
Someone.
Jaskier’s hands stretch upward, a bit shaky as his knuckles knock against something hard. A beam or stone slab of some kind then. He feels along the edges. When he can’t reach any farther, when the fractured surface begins to bite into his flesh, he lets his hands drop back against his chest.
Ow!
He winces.
There’s a sharp, fleeting pain in his side that speaks of broken ribs, but that’s not what bothers him the most. He can’t quite put a name to the growing pressure in his belly. It’s not pain, not exactly, but something close to that; almost on the peripheral of pain. An ache. Jaskier frowns, his hands trailing downward, scraping against the smooth pearl buttons of his doublet. It’s double insulated, the jacket. Layers of thick wool covered by understated caerulean silk, perfect for cold winters in… in…
Somewhere.
Jaskier’s palms trail lower, seeking the source of the ache. When his fingers bump against cold metal, all he can think is, oh, right, that’s it. That’s the ache. That’s the—
“Jaskier!”
Jaskier wrenches his hands back.
oh fuck
He remembers pain. Remembers something tearing at his insides.
oh gods
not again
no no no no no
no!
He’s panicking. He can feel himself panicking, and the worst part is, he knows he’s doing it but can’t fucking seem to stop. He can’t breathe. Everything hurts. His lungs don’t quite work as they should. There’s blood and ash in his mouth and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, the pain is going to come back again, and he can’t—
“Jaskier!”
The voice sounds… angry now. Yes, very angry. At him, and that’s not fair, is it? He’s not done anything to the voice to make it angry. The voice should just leave him alone so he can panic in fucking peace.
“Jaskier, can you hear me?”
Yes, he thinks. Go away.
He says nothing.
Not that he could talk, even if he wanted to. Not with his throat closing up on itself. Oh gods—he’s stuck. There’s a godsdamn building on top of him and he can’t breathe, and there’s an ache, and why is he so cold? It shouldn’t be this cold in Oxenfurt this time of year. Maybe later in the winter, when the lakes have frozen solid and the lanes are slick with sleet, but not now, with fall only a few weeks past. And yet, suddenly, every part of him is shaking, ready to snap in half like an icy tree branch. It shouldn’t be this cold, not while wearing his nice new insulated doublet and trousers, made especially for… for…
“Please, Jaskier.”
The angry voice sounds a little panicked now.
Hah! Jaskier thinks, his head suddenly spinning. He wants to throw up again. That’s what you get for… for being grumpy! A big, grumpy snowman who smells of leather and horse sweat and... and...
Onions?
Jaskier frowns.
He’s forgetting something.
Someone.
This will make a good story, he thinks. He just wishes he knew how it ends.
Rocks fall, everyone dies.
Hmm. That seems about right.
Jaskier closes his eyes.
“—kier!”
Jaskier blinks awake.
His hands shoot upward, pressing hard against the stone above his head.
Oh.
So, not a dream then.
Shit.
How long has he been asleep?
If he’s still here, then that means—
“Geralt?”
The question is tentative. He’s half certain he’s actually alone now; the voice he can hear calling his name nothing more than a manifestation of a lonely, terrified mind. Jaskier doesn’t want to be alone, of course. He wants to be anywhere but stuck under a precariously stacked pile of debris, but there doesn’t seem to be much he can do about that fact right now. But gods—he thinks he could bear being by himself if it means Geralt has somehow gotten himself free. If he’s okay. Jaskier vaguely remembers panicking about something earlier; but that was then, and this is now, and he doesn’t feel quite so afraid. His head is clear, or thereabouts, and he’s not going to—
“Jaskier!”
Geralt’s voice is raw, like he’s been shouting or talking too long, which doesn’t make sense. Jaskier does all the talking for them. When he doesn’t reply, Geralt’s tone grows demanding. “What happened? Are you—?”
“Dead?”
Jaskier can hear Geralt’s relieved grunt. They don’t always speak the same language—or any language, thanks to Geralt—but they’ve always shared sarcasm as a second tongue. And it feels right, in this moment. Better than the truth, anyway.
“Earlier, you were—” the witcher hesitates.
“Hmm?”
“When I tried to lift the stone above me, it shifted the rubble and you—you screamed.”
Oh.
Jaskier frowns.
His hands drift down to his stomach—and there, right there. He remembers. Fuck. There’s a piece of metal sticking into of his abdomen. Lower left, just below his ribs. A few more inches to the side and it would have missed him entirely.
Except it didn’t.
There’s blood soaking the front of his doublet. Not as much as one would expect, being impaled as he is, though he knows that once the object is gone, there will be no stopping it. Shit. He traces the curves of the metal. He can’t say for certain, but the shape reminds him of the torch sconces he’d seen lining the walls of the tower. Ugly things, he remembers—all flaked gold filigree with pointy flared tops. He’d made a dirty joke about them.
Geralt had rolled his eyes.
Jaskier’s fingers finally find the bottom edge, where the metal base is fused into the stone. It’s a large slab he can tell; probably long enough to reach Geralt, if it’s still intact. Which it clearly is.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“Jaskier?”
Jaskier winces.
“Ah, yes. I might have a slight problem with a… um… a sconce.”
Geralt’s whispered fuck emanates softly from the darkness. Jaskier smiles at that, his cracked lips protesting the motion.
“How bad?”
“Oh, quite bad. Who buys gold sconces? Utterly gaudy. They’re clearly not even real gold, Geralt.” He laughs, blood bubbling again in his throat. “You witchers were swindled, my friend.”
Geralt goes silent.
Jaskier swallows.
“Geralt?”
Fuck.
The witcher doesn’t respond, but Jaskier knows he’s listening. He bites his lip as tears begin to form at the corners of his eyes.
“I think… I think you should try again.”
“What?”
“With the stone.”
“Jaskier—”
“Look, I know it’s not ideal, believe me, but what choice do we have? If there’s another earthquake we’ll both be dead anyway.”
“I can’t.”
You can.
“Rocks fall,” Jaskier says softly, “everyone dies.”
A pause.
“What?”
“You’ve never heard that before?”
He can practically hear the cogs in Geralt’s brain turning.
Jaskier laughs. “It was something we used to say at school. When you’re—when you’re writing a story, and you can’t figure out the plot, or when it’s all gone off the proverbial pathway, as it were, you just… stop the story. Right there. Rocks falls, everyone dies.”
“Sounds like a shit ending.”
“Yeah.”
They both go silent.
Tears slip down Jaskier’s temples. There seems to be no stopping them, once they’ve started.
“Please, Geralt.”
Save yourself.
“No.”
“Geralt—”
“Shut up, bard.”
Jaskier fumes, the ache in his stomach growing stronger.
There’s a shifting in the rubble next to him—so quiet Jaskier almost doesn’t notice until warm fingertips brush against his wrist. Oh. He remembers this from earlier. He thought he’d been dreaming. The fingers worm their way along the edge of his palm, stretched as far as they can go, two of Geralt’s fingers slotting around his pinky and ring finger. It’s hesitant, and Jaskier expects him to pull away at any second, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. Jaskier shifts his arm closer, feeling Geralt’s fingers entwine with his, sword callouses and lute callouses intermingling like old acquaintances.
“The others will be here soon, Jaskier. Just… hold on.”
Geralt’s voice is soft now—softer than Jaskier’s ever heard him. It’s not unlike the voice he uses for young children and terrified innocents, or the hushed words he whispers into Roach’s ear when some beastie has her spooked. It’s the quiet way Geralt greets a widowed beggar, handing over the last of his meager coin; forgoing his own dinner for a night because he knows he can survive without it. Such softness isn’t meant for him. For Jaskier. Jaskier gets grunts, and demands, and full-body sighs.
He doesn’t get soft.
And yet, he can practically hear the please in Geralt’s words.
Geralt never begs.
More tears slide down Jaskier’s cheeks, mingling with the dust that coats the stone floor. It smells of petrichor, he thinks, like spring and rebirth, only in reverse. Winter and death. Geralt must know he’s dying—he has to know. That’s why he’s being so soft.
He chokes on the taste of blood.
“G-geralt?”
“Hmm.”
“A-are you s-sorry you brought m-me here?”
He’s started to shiver in the last few minutes. It’s strange though: he doesn’t feel cold anymore.
“To the tower?”
“No, t-to… to Kaer M-morhen.”
Geralt doesn’t say anything, and Jaskier huffs lightly. He can’t quite help himself. He’s been tagging along with Geralt for years now, a decade and a half of asking and cajoling to see the fabled keep, and he’s never been able to convince the witcher until this year. Until now. And then it turns into a disaster.
Of course.
“I k-know I bullied m-my way into an i-invitation, and you—”
“I wanted you here.”
Oh.
The smell of petrichor grows stronger.
Fuck.
Jaskier breathes deeply, trying not to let the panic bubbling up in his chest take root in his mind again. He remembers earlier; the sudden fear after the ache had grown completely unbearable. He doesn’t want Geralt to hear him like that again. They’re friends, even if Geralt denies it, and he won’t let it happen. He won’t be another corpse for Geralt of Rivia to feel bad about, to mourn as if it’s all somehow his fault.
He squeezes Geralt’s fingers.
His hand is shaking. He knows Geralt must feel it.
The witcher is so warm though. Is he always this warm? Jaskier wonders idly. He thinks Geralt is talking to him again, but it’s all been drowned out by a low buzzing in his ears. It’s gotten darker too—his eyes finally adjusted to the gloom just in time for it to fade—the gray around him narrowing and narrowing until there’s nothing left but shadows. Stars and snowflakes hover at the back of his eyelids until they also vanish into the same void. There’s pressure against his wrist, his fingers—squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. It’s somehow almost worse than the ache.
He doesn’t know why, but the thought makes him sad.
Rocks fall, Jaskier dies.
That’s fine.
Maybe that’s just how the story ends.
Jaskier sleeps.
Geralt dreams of dust and blood.
And rocks.
Falling rocks.
It’s always the same dream. He’s in a dark tower hall, lit by fading sunlight as he stares out at the eastern ridges of the Blue Mountains. Everything begins to shake soon after—the walls, the platform he stands on. Stained glass shatters, raining colored shards down onto the floor. And then the roof caves in like an avalanche of stone.
Rocks fall, and Geralt falls.
He always ends up half buried and bleeding and alone. As he lies there, dust motes dancing on the edges of his peripheral, a figure comes to stand over him, watching and waiting for Geralt to push against the stones pinning him, to free himself.
But he can’t.
He doesn’t want to.
Geralt has fought spirits before. Nearly a hundred years spent killing monsters—wraiths and ghostlings and ghouls, slain with silver and steel and iron—but he’s never seen anything like this. The thing that stands over him, haunting him night after night, is worse than a spirit. It’s still human. Geralt can’t talk in the dream, but he hears his own voice, somewhere in the cold distance, calling out a name. The figure never responds, of course. It can’t—whatever is left of its jaw too crushed to ever speak again. Too crushed to laugh, or to smile, or to sing.
Geralt killed him.
Jaskier!
Blood drips from Jaskier’s ears, his lips. His jaw hangs loose, the side of his head caved in—pulverized flesh and bone and brains leaking down onto his doublet. There’s a jagged metal bar sticking out of his stomach. It doesn’t bleed—at least at first. But as the thing with Jaskier’s face looms above him, the bloodstain grows and grows until it’s nothing but a river of blood pouring out of him, the red rising over Geralt’s feet, then his chest, slipping into his mouth and over his eyes until he’s sinking and he’s drowning and there’s no way he can—
Geralt startles awake.
He’s not drowning, or buried—not anymore. He’s a little cold perhaps, but that’s to be expected, in the dead of winter in Kaer Morhen. It’s always cold, even with the double-paned windows and the thick stones keeping the brutal winds at bay.
He grunts, sitting up in his chair.
His fingers itch for a sword he doesn’t have, but the room is quiet save the crackling of the hearth fire across the room. No ghosts, at least for tonight. He looks over at the bed next to him, relaxing just a bit.
Jaskier sleeps soundly, curled on his side.
It’s the uninjured one, thankfully. Geralt has woken more than once in the last week to find that Jaskier has shifted in his sleep, pulling his sutures. He usually sleeps through it all—the bleeding, the cleaning and re-bandaging of his wound—but sometimes he’ll wake, his feverish mind caught in some unending nightmare. He’ll sit up in a panic, trying to untangle himself from the pelts covering him, leaving Geralt to calm him without forcing him back down against his will. He knows what that’s like—waking up to think you’re back there, under the rubble.
When the fever eventually passes, so do the nightmares.
Jaskier sleeps better now. Noises don’t disturb him as they once did. He doesn’t so much as twitch when Eskel brings food, or Lambert drops off another bundle of firewood, his “quiet” voice still loud enough to wake the dead. Jaskier’s body is too exhausted—and too drugged—to stay awake for more than a couple of minutes at a time. He’ll take a few mouthfuls of water or broth, or let Geralt turn him over to clean him or change the bedding, but he’s asleep again before Geralt finishes.
He is healing though, and that’s a good sign. There’s color back in his cheeks, and he’s no longer coughing blood. More bruised ribs than broken ones, thank Melitele. He’s still too pale in Geralt’s opinion. Not that he isn’t always a little pale, but Geralt remembers how ashen he looked when his brothers had lifted the slab from atop him; how dead. His lifeblood seeping so freely between Vesemir’s steady fingers. Jaskier hasn’t spoken since their conversation in the rubble. But he will look at Geralt sometimes, really look, and Geralt knows he’s there and waiting to emerge, his glassy stares growing less vacant by the day.
Geralt leans forward. He draws back the pelts covering Jaskier’s chest, checking the dressings.
Still clean.
Another day without any major bleeding.
That’s good.
He covers Jaskier again.
There’s a ridiculous ratio of furs to bards on the bed. He counts at least a dozen pelts—deer and wolf and sheep and brown bear, all layered around Jaskier like a furry cocoon. He frowns, then makes a mental note to ask Eskel to go pilfer a few more from the store room.
It is chilly.
Geralt sits back, wincing as his broken leg drags against the floor. It aches fiercely in the cold. He knows it would help if he could sit closer to the hearth, but it’s too far from Jaskier’s bed, and the crutch he needs to walk slows him down too much. He can’t risk it, at least not yet.
Jaskier mumbles something in his sleep.
It’s still incoherent, but it’s something.
They’ve been weaning him off the pain potions for two days now. Vesemir’s concoctions are as foul as a swamp rat’s anus, but they’re potent, and they work. Geralt knows that from personal experience—they all do, he and his brothers. Jaskier is lucky. Exceedingly lucky. The wound in his stomach, though severe, isn’t as deep as they’d all feared at first glance. The bent tip of the sconce had torn at the muscles of his lower torso—agonizing for certain, and digging deeper every time the stone above him had moved—but it hadn’t perforated deep enough to cause any permanent damage to his insides.
Geralt has seen enough evisceration in his life to know it’s never a pretty death.
Shitless, it is not.
Jaskier will complain loudly about the scar.
In a few months, he’ll be more worried about the white, uneven edges of the fading wound than the fact that he almost died. They’ll go back to normal—or whatever normal there is to be found for a bard and a monster hunter traveling the Path together. They’ll go back to their mundane conversations about how to spice a spit-roasted rabbit or the promiscuous escapades of an alderman’s freethinking daughter or the fucking weather, of all fucking things. It’ll be just another scar to Jaskier—just another adventure to use in his songs. But it won’t be to Geralt. He can pretend all he wants, but he’ll remember, tomorrow and the next day, and the months and the years after. Every time he sees that scar, he’ll know it’s his fault. He should never have brought Jaskier to Kaer Morhen.
And, yet…
Jaskier will keep asking to return.
Geralt knows he’ll probably give in again. Maybe not next year, or the year after, but soon enough, when the leaves start to turn and the itch for home begins to pull at him like a siren’s bittersweet song, he’ll find himself mumbling something about heading north—about the winter and the mountains and the risky terrain—and Jaskier will nod, and agree, and follow him wholeheartedly nevertheless.
He sighs and settles back, his arms crossed loosely over his chest.
Fine.
When that day comes though, Jaskier isn’t stepping a single foot outside of the main keep; he doesn’t care how much the twitchy human complains, or how loudly. There will be no exploring abandoned towers and finding perfect sunsets and—oh fuck a bloedzuiger. He can’t even pretend. Jaskier will do whatever the hell he wants, and Geralt…
Geralt won’t even mind.
Not really.
Fuck.
Geralt will never tell him any of this, of course, but he suspects Jaskier will somehow still know. He always does. The little shit.
He closes his eyes.
Once Jaskier is awake—once he’s coherent enough to finally grasp everything he’s just been through—Geralt wonders how long it will take him to remember he’s lost yet another doublet to the Path. An exceptionally expensive doublet, Geralt recalls, remembering the size of the coin purse Jaskier had dropped onto the tailor’s stained counter in Novigrad last year. Made especially for the bitter, mountainous cold and double the price because of it. That’s now two in the last five months alone, and that’s not even counting the mamune entrails still staining the front of those hideous periwinkle trousers he keeps stored in Oxenfurt for tournaments.
Geralt smirks.
For once, he can honestly say he’s looking forward to the bitching.
Jaskier lies awake.
He’s been awake for a while—an hour, maybe two. He can’t remember when he woke up, only that it was dark outside when he opened his eyes and now it’s a bit brighter, the sunrise still in early bloom. A lovely bruised blue light seeps through the chamber’s high windows. Which, thinking of bruises—fuck, does he hurt.
Like, a lot.
A lot a lot.
Every inch of him aches, as if he’s been tossed arse over tit down a rocky hillside only to then be rolled through a briar patch waiting at the end.
Shit.
Of course, there’s no amount of broken ribs or sore muscles that can surpass a literal impalement. He might have been unconscious for most of it, including his rescue, but he recalls bits and pieces of conversations regarding his condition, and a gaggle of very concerned witchers standing over him at various points. He’d have thought it adorable, had he not been bleeding so profusely at the time. Still, he’s here, with his insides very much inside him, so that bodes well.
Hopefully.
His hand touches the bandage wrapped tightly around his belly.
The scar is going to be impressive.
Not that he’s seen it, but he can guess.
Jaskier shifts a bit, trying to get comfortable. Maybe Geralt will let him look at his sutures later. He’d tried to peel back the bandage and check for himself when he’d first woken up, but even that small movement had left him winded—and that’s besides the fact he can barely move.
He sighs.
He’s fairly certain there are actually more pelts than the last time he remembers. Not that he’s complaining. Sure, they’re a bit musty, and the bristly hairs prickle against his skin, but gods if they aren’t fucking warm. The only part of Jaskier that’s outside of them is a single arm, and that’s only because he doesn’t have the heart to pull it back within his own personal fur kiln.
Besides, he knows it’ll wake Geralt.
The witcher is asleep—head tipped back, booted feet stretched out before him. The chair he sits in can’t be comfortable, Jaskier knows. It’s a rickety old thing with legs like spring-fresh saplings, and he’s honestly surprised it hasn’t collapsed already. He can only guess how long Geralt’s been sitting there. For him.
Geralt’s right arm rests against his stomach, but his left arm stretches outward across the sea of furs to curl loosely around Jaskier’s wrist. It’s a light touch, barely more than the press of fingertips against his pulse. He doesn’t remember much from the tower, but he recalls Geralt’s hand, his unrelenting grip—it had been a tiny lifeline weaved between them in the rubble, keeping him from drowning in his own blood and pain and fear.
He doesn’t seem to be the only one who remembers.
When Jaskier tried to move earlier, shifting a bit to ease the pain in his ribs, Geralt’s fingers had involuntarily tightened. He’s certain—mostly certain—that his fidgeting hadn’t actually woken the other man. He’s gotten better at telling the difference between Geralt pretending to sleep—be it because he doesn’t want to talk or because he doesn’t want Jaskier to talk—and the real thing. That, and he knows a conscious Geralt would probably pull away the moment he realizes he’s been found out as a not-so-secret brood hen.
If he’s honest with himself, Jaskier doesn’t actually want Geralt to let go. Not yet, anyway. Not when the nightmares feel like they’re still pushing at the back of his eyelids, waiting for him to drop his guard again. He knows it’s silly, but the touch makes him feel…
Safe.
Yes, he hurts everywhere; yes, his mouth tastes like fetid bog water; and, yes, he’s literally drowning in furs and pelts. But if Geralt is here, it means Jaskier is going to be fine, because Geralt would never let anything bad happen to him.
Not willingly, anyway.
Geralt likes to pretend he’s better off alone, that he doesn’t care about anyone, but Jaskier knows that’s not true. Not really. The man may be shit at expressing how he feels, that’s nothing new, but he knows that Geralt isn’t one to do anything he doesn’t actually want to do. He’s more than capable of packing his saddle bags and leaving Jaskier behind in any podunk village this side of the Pontar, but he doesn’t. At least, not yet anyway. No, if he ever truly wanted to be rid of Jaskier, there would be no stopping the witcher—no amount of consoling or complaining or chasing after Roach’s fading hoofprints. He’d simply be gone.
Jaskier yawns, his body sagging deeper into the furs. Outside the sky has shifted again, bruised darkness now fading into pinkish gray.
He wonders if Geralt will ever let him return to Kaer Morhen, after such an inauspicious start. Blimey, he’s only been here two weeks—it’s really not his fault the earth decided to have a conniption fit and dump half a tower on top of their heads. Even if Geralt complains, and insists he can never come back, Jaskier will just have to work at convincing him again when the time is right. What’s another decade of asking? He doesn’t mind.
Jaskier shifts again, his hips weighed down by heavy pelts—and even the thought, the feeling, suddenly makes his heart start to flutter in panic. He swallows, forcing back the memory of stones and splintered wooden beams and fucking gold sconces, and tries to make himself relax.
He’s safe.
Geralt is here.
It only takes a few moments to get his thoughts under control, but the unexpected surge of emotion leaves him drained, his mind willing but his body too exhausted to do anything but blink languidly up at the ceiling. He’s safe. He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe. Jaskier swallows, and closes his eyes. He repeats it until he believes it; until it pushes everything else away.
Geralt’s hand remains warm and solid against his skin.
He’s safe.
He’s safe.
When Jaskier finally closes his eyes, he’s lost to any other thoughts save that; save pelts and warmth and creaky chairs, and comfortable quiet. He doesn’t notice the way Geralt’s fingers inexplicably curl a bit more tightly around his wrist—or maybe he does. Maybe he notices, but doesn’t say anything. Because what else is there to say? For either of them? They’re safe, and that’s enough for him. He hopes it’s enough for Geralt, too.
Jaskier smiles.
Rocks fall, nobody dies.
He can live with that.