Chapter Text
It was common knowledge that pre-schools were cesspools of bacteria. Geralt and Jaskier expected when Ciri started attending pre-school a few days a week, that it would mean more illness around the house, but they hadn’t realized the extent of it—the perfect storm they had created.
They didn’t realize how a rugby team was nearly as bad. Many of Geralt’s teammates were young dads as well, and with the close proximity the sport necessitated they were taking their children’s germs from a handful of different preschools, elementary schools, and daycares around the city, and congregating them all in one place.
And Jaskier’s job wasn’t blameless either. He traveled often, and did a lot of work with local high school and university choirs, and in doing so he’d learned that teenagers were hardly less gross than toddlers.
The consequences were unavoidable, and to their credit Geralt and Jaskier handled the near constant sniffles, and ear infections, and fevers admirably, but there were still times where things just got out of hand.
Geralt had a sense it was coming.
During a full team training the day before, one of his teammates had mentioned how they’d kept their daughter home from school today since a stomach bug was going around her class and he didn’t want to risk her getting it. Taken at face value, this was a neutral, if not positive statement. He was taking precautions. Nobody had actually gotten sick. But Geralt was far too familiar with stomach bugs. They were a wildfire which spread quickly and devastatingly, jumping over highways and rivers as they went.
Maybe it was this comment which had tuned him into what was to come. Maybe it was a father’s intuition. Or maybe it was the pit in his own stomach he woke with the next morning, but when Jaskier asked him to go wake Ciri for breakfast, and he found her sitting up in bed already awake, he knew something was wrong.
“Good morning, Ciri,” he said cautiously, entering his daughter’s room. “Daddy is making breakfast, are you ready to get up?”
Usually in the morning she was clambering for cuddles and more sleep, but today she just shook her head.
“What’s up, lovebug?” Geralt knelt at her bedside, ignoring the nausea brewing in his own stomach, telling himself it was just anxiety and dread. “Are you feeling okay?” He already knew the answer. He could see it on her face.
She shook her head again, mouth shut.
That was enough for him. He scooped her up out of bed and set her on his hip, walking to the bathroom as quickly as he could without inciting panic. His own stomach was in his throat.
“Is it your tummy?” Again, he already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” she whimpered, sounding like she might start to cry.
“Okay. Let’s get to the bathroom. You’re okay.” He could see on her face though, that he’d caught it too late. “We’re nearly there.” But it was useless.
Her already too pale face went white, and Geralt watched, unable to do anything to stop it, as his daughter vomited onto his chest.
“You’re okay, baby,” he encouraged, rubbing her back as she gagged and brought up more of last night’s dinner onto his shirt and the floor.
Geralt’s stomach went from a little shaky, to, most definitely feeling sick, as his daughter finished throwing up on him.
“Jaskier,” he called out to his husband. “Can I get a little help?” They didn’t need this scene getting any messier than it already was.
“What’s up? Is everything o—“ his voice trailed off as he took in the scene in front. “Oh sh…” to his credit, he kept from swearing, but Geralt could see his husband go through the five stages of grief in the second it took to realize what exactly had happened here. But then he was finished processing, and starting to move.
He had always been quicker on his feet than Geralt was in situations like these, and now he navigated the mess expertly, somehow extracting Ciri from Geralt’s arms without stepping in vomit, and then ushering Geralt into the bathroom.
“Okay Ciri, let’s get these off,” Jaskier said.
By some miracle, although Geralt was absolutely covered, Ciri had managed to escape the mess apart from a few splatters on the legs of her pajama pants. He pulled them off her while she stood still, apparently stunned by what happened.
Geralt felt equally stunned, if not more. The warm, wet clothes stuck to him were a sensory nightmare, and he was still feeling very sick himself. It was too much, and he could feel his brain wanting to shut down.
“Geralt, get into the shower,” Jaskier instructed. “Rinse your clothes out the best you can and then put them in the hamper. I’ll put everything in the wash in a minute.”
He followed orders, stepping around the puddle on the floor and getting into the shower, not bothering to turn the water on first, just desperate to be clean. Still fully clothed, Geralt stood in the tub and turned the shower on full blast, hoping it would rinse most of the puke from his shirt so he wouldn’t have to pull it over his head. Vomit on his face would definitely be the last thing he could handle.
His sweatpants could go though. There was a long splatter down one leg, but the waist band was clean. Geralt thought he could step out of them and get them into the hamper before they were completely waterlogged. But when he bent over to pick them up all plans were forgotten. His stomach lurched.
If he’d been standing up he might have been able to handle it more gracefully. Being already bent double though, his stomach was compressed, his equilibrium was off, and he no longer had gravity on his side. There was no avoiding it. Geralt didn’t even have time to figure out the best way to handle this before he was retching, his own dinner from the night before spewing from his mouth.
The water washed it down the drain along with Ciri’s vomit still dripping from his shirt. Geralt watched it go, gagging and bringing up another heave onto the floor of the shower.
“Please tell me that’s just sympathy puke,” Jaskier said from the other side of the shower curtain when Geralt stopped to take a breath.
It wasn’t over yet though, and Geralt retched one last time, spat out the bile from his mouth, and rinsed it and his face off before answering. “I was already feeling a bit unwell when I woke up this morning,” he replied shakily. “Think this just sped things up.
“That is wonderful,” Jaskier sighed. It was clear he wasn’t upset with either Geralt or Ciri, but it was clear he wasn’t thrilled either. “Okay.”
“If you give me a minute to finish rinsing off and get dressed I can help clean up.” Geralt pulled back the shower curtain enough to be able to see Jaskier.
Seeing his husband’s condition made Jaskier look even more stressed. “No, you stay in the bathroom. I’ll clean up out in the hall if you can keep an eye on Ciri. Try and limit the puking to the toilet if that’s possible.”
“I can do that.” Geralt was eager to remain helpful despite the circumstances. “Thank you, love. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Jaskier assured him. “Now you two just stay in here for a few minutes while I mop and then we’ll see about getting you moved out to the couch.” He looked at Ciri directly then. “You stand right there in front of the toilet, okay Ciri? And if you start feeling yucky again you throw up into the toilet.”
Ciri nodded her little head, staring up at Jaskier. She started crying as soon as he left the room.
Geralt had been hoping to get himself together a bit, or at least out of the puke covered shirt, and then get out, dry off, and sit with Ciri, but it seemed like Ciri was not interested in waiting.
“You’re okay, bug,” Geralt tried to comfort her while also trying to manipulate the shower head into rinsing out his shirt more efficiently. “Just give me a minute. I’ll be right there.”
“No,” she wailed. “Papa, I want you.”
“I know love, I’m right here.”
“Papa.” She drew out the word, fully sobbing now, and grabbing at the shower curtain with her clumsy little hands. “I want you, Papa,” she sobbed, hiccuped, and then gagged.
Without hesitation Geralt reached out of the shower and scooped her up, setting her down in front of him just in time for her to throw up again, in the same place Geralt had not five minutes ago. So much for keeping it confined to the toilet.
Geralt held her wispy blonde, now soaking wet, hair back while she threw up, rubbing her back with the other. “That’s it. You’re okay.”
She retched one last time before turning to look up at him.
“Do you feel better now?”
She nodded, sniffling once and then wiping her face with the back of one hand.
“Good,” he replied. “I’m glad.”
His shirt had been rinsed thoroughly enough that he could pull it over his head now, and he did so before sitting down on the shower floor. He knew he ought to get Ciri out and dried off while she still felt alright, but he did not feel alright, and he wanted to take a minute to sit.
Thankfully Ciri seemed content enough to stay in the shower with him. He let her sit down and snuggle up against his bare chest, and he thought they might be able to stay that way for a while. It was nice. Ciri was relaxed, and the water felt good, but all too soon her attention was grabbed by something else.
“I can wash.” She reached up and grabbed at his hair.
“You want to wash my hair?” Geralt asked.
She nodded, extricating herself from his grasp so she could stand under the shower spray and look at him.
He weighed the pros and cons, and in the end decided it would require less energy to just let her do it than it would to tell her no and try to get her to go back to just sitting with him. So he took the bottle of shampoo and put some on her hands, scooting forward so she could stand behind him and work it into a lather in his hair.
It honestly felt quite nice, and this along with the sensory stimulation from the warm water, and the security of knowing any mess would get taken right down the drain should have been enough to get him to relax. Still though, he couldn’t.
Geralt sat with his knees bent, his elbows resting on them and propping his head up. The water poured down around him while Ciri continued to rub shampoo into his hair. His stomach was boiling, and he could taste bile in his throat. He really hated doing this right in front of his daughter, but again, privacy just wasn’t worth the energy.
He was able to hold out for a few minutes, but the nausea was only getting stronger, and before Ciri had grown tired of playing with his hair, Geralt was leaning forward and throwing up onto the floor between his legs. It was awful. The nausea was all encompassing, and the position strained his back as he vomited, the muscles contracting without his permission.
“You’re okay Papa.” He heard Ciri from behind him, parroting what he always said to her while she rubbed tiny zig zags on his back. “You’re okay.”
“Okay, so I’ve got the hallway cleaned up.” Jaskier called from outside the open bathroom door. “That was all of it, right? There’s nothing in her room?” He stepped inside.
“Yeah, that’s all of it,” Geralt answered weakly.
“Is Ciri in the shower with you?” Jaskier asked, momentarily confused.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to take her?”
“Would you?” Geralt honestly wasn’t having the worst time in the shower with Ciri, but she’d be more comfortable in fresh pajamas on the couch, and Geralt felt he could really benefit from a couple minutes of privacy.
“How are you holding up?” Jaskier pulled back the curtain and knelt next to the bathtub, accepting Ciri from Geralt.
“I threw up again a minute ago,” he answered. “Ciri a couple minutes before.”
“All in the shower?”
“All in the shower.”
“Good lad.” Jaskier had Ciri wrapped up in a towel up against his chest, and he leaned forward to kiss Geralt on his temple.
The water was off now, but Geralt still lay on the floor of the shower in his boxers with no intention to leave.
“Gods why is there shampoo in your hair,” Jaskier sputtered and wiped his mouth with the corner of Ciri’s towel.
“Ciri wanted to wash it.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet.” Jaskier set her down and started to dry her off. “Why don’t you rinse it out and get dressed. We can put a movie on or something.”
“I might stay in here a bit longer.”
“Oh.” Jaskier sounded a bit disappointed, but mostly just concerned. “Okay, well I’m right out here if you need anything. I’ll come check on you in a bit.”
“Thanks love,” Geralt sighed.
He wanted to hope that the worst was over, but he knew he could never be that lucky.