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Things had been going so well.
They had woken to clear blue skies even though Geralt had been sure from the clouds the night before that it was going to storm. Jaskier, who was being a bumbling idiot (as usual), had stumbled upon a narrow creek while “berry hunting” and they had been able to have a proper bath for the first time in nearly a fortnight. Geralt had shoved him into the water while he was testing the temperature like a pansy and nearly pissed himself laughing at the bard’s squeal and the way his sodden hair flopped into his eyes and dripped water into his mouth while he was trying to glare at the witcher, making him look like a flustered, half-drowned cat.
When they had returned to the path a passing merchant had told them that they were looking for someone to take care of a ghoul problem in a town up ahead, which pleased Geralt. Easy money, a warm meal, and a soft bed. Jaskier had also looked heartened at the prospect of playing for an audience (“It’s been too long, Geralt, too long, I’m practically wasting away. The people are my sustenance, my nourishment, my reason for living. What is a bard without someone to play for? And no, you don’t count, you great surly lout.”) and Geralt had been struck with an unexpected wave of fondness for the man.
As they continued, Jaskier had recited a few bawdy limericks that had made Geralt snort and then broken into song, belting out lively ditties with lyrics so filthy they nearly had the witcher blushing. With the sun shining cheerfully overhead, Roach trotting contentedly beneath him, and Jaskier making a fool of himself by his side, Geralt had felt lighter than he had in a long while.
Now, as he struggles against the wyvern pinning him to a tree, he wonders where it had all gone wrong. Maybe when he’d caught the scent of the beast and gone traipsing through the woods to find it, ignoring Jaskier’s loud protests from behind him. More likely when the monster had heard Jaskier’s voice and tried to swoop down to catch him for its lunch, forcing Geralt to leap off of Roach and shove the bard out of the way and making the distracted witcher an easy target.
Geralt scowls as the wyvern screams in his face. The monster has him against the tree with one clawed foot, a talon pressing into his sternum in such a way that Geralt thinks if he weren’t wearing his armour he’d have already been gutted. His steel sword lays on the ground next to them and his right arm is pinned uselessly by his side. He tries to get hold of the silver sword on his back with his left hand, but it’s twisted awkwardly away and caught between his body and the tree. He’s going to have to dislocate his shoulder to get to it. It will be unpleasant, but it’s definitely doable—the real issue right now is keeping the wyvern from biting his head off.
This could easily have been avoided if Jaskier had kept his mouth shut, Geralt thinks irritably, but the bard knows nothing about the nuances of monster-hunting. The witcher would have just waited at the edge of the clearing he can see up ahead, until the wyvern had stopped circling in the air and landed with its prey, and its head would have been rolling before it could even catch Geralt’s scent.
The dead ram the beast had been carrying lays a few yards away where the creature had dropped it in favour of a tastier snack. It obviously prefers the taste of human flesh—Geralt wouldn’t have bothered trying to kill it at all if it weren’t for the fact that he can smell the distant, sickly-sweet scent of rotting people-meat. He would have eventually found the village the wyvern had been terrorizing and had to kill it anyway, why not save himself some time?
The monster screams again, its tongue flicking over its needle-sharp teeth and coating them with saliva. “Fuck,” he grunts as it squeezes him tighter against the tree. He wrenches his arm back, but not sharply enough to get to the sword.
Just when he’s sure he’s about to become a tasty treat, a large rock hits the wyvern square in the eye.
“Oi! Over here, you fucking overgrown lizard!”
The wyvern drops Geralt and turns to shriek at Jaskier, who’s breathing hard and trembling, face pale except for two spots of red high on his cheekbones. Geralt, now free, grabs the steel sword from off the ground and shoves it upward through the beast’s meaty neck, but not before it sends Jaskier soaring with a whip of its tail.
Even though Geralt’s eyes are closed against the spray of monster blood, he hears it when the bard’s impromptu flying lesson comes to an abrupt end as his body smacks against a tree with a loud thud.
Shit, he thinks, yanking his sword out of the wyvern’s neck. The creature’s screech of pain cuts off with a gurgle and its body lands heavily on the ground. Geralt steps around it, quickly making his way over to where Jaskier is lying in a crumpled heap at the base of the tree.
He crouches by the man’s side and carefully rolls him over, surprised that there’s no reek of fresh blood in the air. The spikes on the wyvern’s tail are long and sharp, and Geralt is overwhelmingly relieved that Jaskier hasn’t been flayed open. There’s not even a scratch. The witcher thinks he must have been hit with the side of the beast’s tail and avoided the spikes. Lucky bastard.
Anger is quickly beginning to cut through Geralt’s relief as he probes along the back of the unconscious man’s skull. Fucking idiot bard. What was he thinking? He could have fucking been killed. Geralt steadfastly ignores the traitorous voice in the back of his head reminding him that if it weren’t for Jaskier he’d be stewing in the wyvern’s digestive juices right now. He scowls. If it weren’t for Jaskier they wouldn’t even be in this mess.
The bard comes to just as Geralt finds the sizeable lump at the base of his skull. He moans in pain and swats at the witcher’s hand, not quite all-there yet, but Geralt’s thunderous glare quickly brings him back to himself.
“You’re a fucking fool,” Geralt growls as he helps Jaskier sit up and leans him back against the tree. The bard huffs a little and then peers at him hazily.
“Alive,” he mumbles, his eyes tracking across Geralt’s face and down his body. “Okay?”
The witcher softens despite himself. He remembers how determined Jaskier had looked in spite of his obvious fear and feels a surge of affection. It’s a little bit of a weird feeling—but he’s gotten used to his bard stirring long-forgotten emotions in him and the affection isn’t as unfamiliar as it had once been.
“Fine, Jaskier,” he sighs. He takes his turn to assess the bard. “I’m not the one who decided to make a crash-landing into a tree. Bleeding anywhere?”
Jaskier shakes his head a little dazedly and then winces. “Just bruises,” he says. “Head hurts.”
“Hm.” True to Jaskier’s word, the only copper Geralt can smell is the dull, muted scent of blood pooled beneath the skin. Satisfied, the witcher stands and offers a hand. “Think you can walk? I’ve got willow.”
Jaskier nods and takes the proffered assistance, flinching again once he’s upright. He walks stiffly as they make their way back to where Roach is waiting with annoyance, but he doesn’t seem quite as confused as he had upon first waking. Geralt thinks again that he’s one lucky son of a bitch.
“Will we reach the town before nightfall?” the bard asks. Geralt hands him a vial of willow extract which he downs with a grimace. “I could do with a real bed.”
Yes, Geralt can imagine so. He glances at the sky where clouds are beginning to shroud the bright azure, deep grey with the promise of that storm Geralt had been expecting last night. He sighs. So much for the good day.
“If we hurry,” he tells Jaskier. “Want to ride Roach?” It’s a rare offering and he can see that the other man wants to take it, but then he just gives his own sigh.
“I don’t think it’ll do any good for my aching back,” he says, and Geralt nods.
Jaskier is quiet as they continue down the road. They’re moving at a brisker pace than they had been earlier, and at first Geralt just chalks the bard’s lack of chatter up to the pain that’s no doubt radiating through his body.
But then Jaskier starts lagging behind, and then he starts stumbling, and then the breeze carries the scent of Jaskier’s blood from where he’s staggering along a little ways behind Roach. Geralt halts the horse with a frown.
The witcher has to catch Jaskier’s arm as he dismounts. The man had just continued walking as though he hadn’t even noticed that his companion had stopped. Alarm bells go off in Geralt’s head as Jaskier stares at him, disoriented.
“Huh?”
“You’re bleeding,” Geralt says. He doesn’t like the pallor of the bard’s skin. He works one glove off with his teeth, his other hand keeping the bard steady, and presses his palm to Jaskier’s cheek. Cool to the touch and damp. His frown deepens. He doesn’t understand how he could have missed what must be a serious injury.
“M’not,” Jaskier protests, squinting at the witcher. The words are slurred and he sways precariously.
“Hm.” Geralt checks him over, turning him around gently, looking for the blood soaking through his clothes. To his surprise and confusion, he finds none. It seems as though the bard is, in fact, not bleeding. But Jaskier is behaving in every sense like a man who has lost a large amount of blood in a short span of time, and Geralt can smell it on him. It doesn’t make sense.
Unless—
“Fuck.” Dread pools cold in Geralt’s stomach as he spins Jaskier around again so that the man’s back his facing him. He yanks off his other glove and gently slips the strap of Jaskier’s lute case over his head, setting it down next to them before pulling the bard’s tunic up to look at the skin underneath. Jaskier moves pliantly without protest.
“Fuck,” Geralt swears again as he stares at the mess of purple and red and blue before him. This is bad. This is really fucking bad.
He leads Jaskier to the side of the road and pulls the bard’s tunic off so that it doesn’t get in the way before lying him down on his stomach.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he says, and then shakes Jaskier a little when he just blinks owlishly at him, his cheek pressed against the grass. “Jaskier,” he growls. “Don’t go to sleep.”
“M’kay,” the bard agrees, although at this point Geralt isn’t sure he actually knows what he’s agreeing to. The witcher scowls.
“Say it,” Geralt demands. “You’re not going to sleep. Tell me.”
“M’not sleep’n,” Jaskier slurs a little indignantly.
Geralt huffs. It’s not exactly what he’d wanted but it’ll have to do. He turns his attention to the litter of bruises covering Jaskier’s back, grimacing. The bard isn’t nearly as lucky as he’d thought. He quickly finds the worst of the injuries near the lower right ride, deep purple snaking outward from an angry red splotch at the centre. He presses gently around the wound, ignoring the pang of guilt he feels at Jaskier’s jolt and low keen of pain. The area is rigid and hot to the touch. It’s obvious that the kidney is either torn or ruptured, that Jaskier is bleeding out without any open wound at all.
Fuck. Motherfucking fuck. Fuck. Geralt almost wishes that the bard had been sliced by one of the tail spikes rather than bashed against a tree. At least he could have fixed that a little, patched it up enough to get Jaskier to a healer. He can’t do jack shit for internal bleeding. And unless the next town comes equipped with a mage, that godsawful song about an imp fucking a scullery maid will have been the last one to ever pass the bard’s lips.
It suddenly comes to the witcher’s attention that Jaskier has gone lax and too still. He scowls and smacks gently at Jaskier’s cheek, just sharp enough to sting.
“What did I say about sleeping, bard?” he growls as Jaskier’s eyelids flutter.
“Mm…not to,” he sighs breathlessly, and then his face contorts with pain. He whimpers. “No…sleep…ugh…”
Geralt sees what’s coming before it happens and hooks his forearms underneath Jaskier’s armpits, quickly lifting the bard’s torso off the ground as he retches. He watches the muscles spasm in Jaskier’s back as he vomits and grimaces. Jaskier finally stops heaving and spits, his breath catching on a sob. Geralt’s jaw clenches at the sound.
“Ger’lt,” Jaskier cries as the witcher drags him to his feet with his arms still hooked under his shoulders and then pulls his shirt over his head. “H’rts.”
“I know,” he says, carefully maneuvering the man’s arms into his sleeves without lifting them too high. You’re okay, he wants to say, but that would be a lie. Instead he gives the back of Jaskier’s neck a gentle squeeze before leading him over to where Roach stands patiently.
He slips Jaskier’s lute onto his own back and packs his gloves into one of the saddlebags before hauling Jaskier into the saddle and pulling himself up behind him. Clicking his tongue, he wraps an arm across Jaskier’s chest to keep him upright and presses his heels into Roach’s flanks. He starts at a trot, warring with himself, wanting to get to town as fast as he can but unwilling to aggravate Jaskier’s wounds and speed the bleeding even further. The decision is made for him when the first few drops of rain tap against his armour.
Geralt curses and pushes Roach into a gallop. Jaskier rests lifelessly against him, not even rousing with the pain now, and the witcher feels cold fear settle in his heart. He should have looked at the injuries earlier. Fuck, he should have known. If Jaskier doesn’t make it…
The town comes into view a short distance away, and Geralt notes with some hope that it’s large. There may be a chance of finding a mage after all. He spurs Roach impossibly faster, his hand pressed against the bard’s chest where he can feel his heartbeat, thready and too fast.
It’s pouring by the time they enter the town limits and the people who are ducking for cover startle at his sudden appearance. “Is there a mage here?” he growls at a young man carrying a crate of apples, feeling Jaskier’s pulse grow weaker. The man just stares at him dumbly. If Geralt had a free hand he’d throttle him. “A mage!” he snaps.
The boy nearly squeaks. “Oh! Um, yes, um—at the end of the street, the house with the red shutters.”
Geralt is gone almost before the man stops talking, galloping down the short stretch of road toward the house. There are no people in the street, which he’s thankful for, but they stare at him curiously from under awnings and out of windows.
He swings himself out of the saddle and pulls Jaskier tight against his chest with one arm under his shoulders and one arm under his knees. He kicks sharply at the door.
“I need help!” he shouts, kicking the wood again. He’s just about ready to kick the damned thing in when it opens and a small woman with piercing green eyes and hair almost whiter than his own glares at him from the threshold.
“I need help,” he repeats, jerking his chin unnecessarily toward Jaskier unconscious in his arms. “Kidney’s bleeding.”
“You could have been polite about it,” the mage grumbles, stepping aside for Geralt to enter. She nods to a cot in the corner of the front room next to a wood stove. “Put him there.”
Geralt lies Jaskier very gently belly-first on the cot, carefully tuning his head to the side so that his cheek rests against the thin mattress. The woman flits around the bard, checking his pulse and examining his injuries and tutting to herself.
“Can you fix him?” Geralt demands. He’s on edge and he feels wired and strung-out. The healer looks at him sharply.
“He’s not a puppet,” she snaps, “he’s a man. He doesn’t need to be fixed. He needs to be healed.”
Geralt opens his mouth to say he doesn’t give a flying fuck what she wants to call it as long as she helps Jaskier, but before he has the chance the mage shoves several vials into his hand and instructs him to make the bard swallow them.
He scowls but does as she says, kneeling next to Jaskier’s head and squeezing his cheeks to open his mouth. He pours the potions in one at a time, propping Jaskier’s head up with a pillow so that he doesn’t choke. After each vial he presses his palm over the man’s mouth and nose and strokes down his throat to get him to swallow reflexively. He looks up expectantly when he’s finished, but the mage is standing very still and mumbling with her eyes closed and her hands pressed lightly against Jaskier’s back, a warm glow surrounding them. He thinks he’d better not interrupt her, so instead he settles with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him.
He’s suddenly exhausted, as if his fear has sucked out every last bit of the energy he’d had. He’s come far, far too close to losing his bard today. He closes his eyes, not intending to sleep, but when he opens them again he’s lying fully on the ground with a pillow beneath his head. He blinks and pulls himself into a sitting position to find the healer sitting at a table in the opposite corner of the room, cutting herbs.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” she says without looking at him.
“I slept?”
The woman snorts. “Slept like the dead. You were almost as still as your friend over there.” She nods past him.
It all comes rushing back to him as he scrambles upright to examine the bard. He looks much less like a fresh corpse, although he’s still pale and there are dark smudges beneath his eyes. But he’s breathing freely and Geralt can hear his strong, steady heartbeat, and he nearly sags with relief.
“Easy, witcher,” the mage says gently, coming over to brush at the hair on Jaskier’s forehead. “He’s healed up nice but he’ll be hurting for a while yet. Rest, fluids, red meat. He’ll need to stay here for a few days so I can make sure he doesn’t start bleeding again. In the meantime you can take care of that ghoul that’s been prowling around.”
Geralt thinks there’s no way in hell he’s leaving Jaskier alone when he’s vulnerable like this. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he lets out a long, slow breath and tries to make his tone amicable.
“Thank you, miss…”
“Katya,” she says. She laughs. “You can’t fool me, witcher. Ghoul or no, you aren’t leaving that boy’s side. Well, you’re welcome to stay here while he rests. Your horse is out in the pasture. Fiery thing. There’s a spare room in the back—or you can keep sleeping on the floor, if you’d like.” She smirks.
Geralt grits his teeth against the blush he can feel lighting across his cheekbones. What is it with old healers that makes him so complacent? And what is it with Jaskier that makes him so predictable?
Before he can dwell on it further, Katya pokes his shoulder. “But you aren’t spending one more minute in this house with all that blood on you. There’s hot water in the basin out back.” The witcher glances down at himself and grimaces. In all the commotion he’s forgotten about the wyvern that had caused this whole mess. Geralt hesitates, glancing at Jaskier, but the healer just rolls her eyes and gives him a little push. “Go on. You really think I’d go to all the trouble to heal that boy just to kill him?”
Geralt sighs and does as he’s told. The tub is in a nice, private little spot behind the house, and he can see Roach chewing grass in the pasture and whipping her tail irritably at the other curious horses there. He huffs a quiet laugh.
As he sits in the basin of warm water, scrubbing the flecks of wyvern blood off his skin and wishing Jaskier were here to wash his hair, Geralt thanks Melitele that the bard is still with him. All this time he had been thinking that Jaskier is the lucky one. Now, he’s not so sure. His luck today has been nothing short of miraculous.
He scowls at the remnants of worry wriggling in his gut. He may have become accustomed to the emotions the bard forces on him, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Still, he remembers laughing at Jaskier in the creek, remembers him smiling and singing dirty songs, remembers him risking his life for Geralt’s, and wonders if the good feelings are worth the bad. Probably not, he thinks.
But maybe.