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The woods are dappled, foliage folding over and over one another in infinity to the point of almost shutting out the light entirely. It sets everything in shades of dark green and occasionally blinding white, pulling Jaskier’s wandering gaze up the length of his arm, to Roach’s mottled thighs surging over the forest floor, Geralt’s silver hair suddenly brighter than a halo.
He pitches his head back to stare straight up at the sky, squinting and strumming absently. He’s a might scared of the sudden inspiration that came from the image itself, Geralt’s body heaving and lolling easily with Roach, an extension of the horse and far less her master. Finger’s catching along the strings, he pulls one with his fingernail absently, a low hum vibrating his throat with the lack of any straight direction. A bird flutters and careens through the covers of the trees, eliciting a slightly mocking whistle from the bard, one matching its arc and direction.
“Ah, but the woods are mighty and gentle today, my friend,” Jaskier finds himself saying, the cadence of a poem with no intention of it being that. Geralt offers him a ‘hmm’ that means that ‘it’s cute that you think that’. He responds in kind with climbing scales, tilting and popping an eyebrow at the witcher’s unknowing back. It really is almost the same talking to his back as it is his front, just much less mocking. His gaze rakes over the gently swaying bushes.
“Well, what do you hope to find out here, anyway? Besides, good company perhaps? A smidgen of a song, a nice mid-day picnic?” He pops the consonants in ‘picnic’ and stumbles over a root. Roach’s tail flicks. “But really, is there a goal to being out here?”
“Just the scenic route. I thought you might appreciate it, Bard.” It’s Jaskier’s turn to hum, and he does so lyrically.
“The great Witcher, taking his humble bard’s feelings into account, takes him through a romantically green and sunlight dappled forest. Slows his gait so that he may walk and strum and hum to his heart’s content. It’s almost, well, I suppose I already said it, didn’t I?” Jaskier humors himself, more than he expects Geralt to be actually listening. He’s not self-important enough to believe that Geralt listens to all of his inane prattling. Chalks it up to background noise, like the cicadas or the-
Well…
Jaskier is having a hard time picking out anything, really. Not even cicadas (they were just the usual background noise in a summertime forest). He tilts his head, eyes boring into Geralt’s back, but not actually looking. There’s no sound, no wind rustling or birds flapping. Even the sun’s heat feels muted as the trees grow every closer, all but shutting off the sunlight.
Jaskier wraps one hand around the handle of his lute, stilling any vibration it might’ve thought about, and turns slowly as he walks. Eyes darting across the trees for anything. His feet pitch backwards for a few feet before he stops, and licks his lips as his mouth suddenly dries.
“Geralt?”
But he can’t even hear Roach.
He turns on his heel so fast he almost slips, breathe catching fast in his throat when he turns to look for his companion. Gone. The sun; gone. The sound; gone. It feels like someone’s shoved cotton in his head through his ears.
Let it not be said that Jaskier’s instincts were anything but the sharpest in the land. He knew it like a snap in his brain before he felt the tingle of it up the hair on his arms, settling at the base of his neck and rubbing against every animal instinct in his brain that said run, you fool.
However, let it not be said that Jaskier wasn’t a fool.
There’s a familiar sharp thunk, and Jaskier just manages to pull his foot back fast enough to avoid an arrow diving in where it had been moments before, green feather quivering in the solid ground like a flag. Three more are fired off in quick succession, causing Jaskier to do a rather inelegant jig to back up fast enough, before his heel catches on a rock and he unloads himself onto the ground. His head snaps back painfully, and he mouths a silent curse up at the dark leaves. A final loud thwip, and an arrow lodges itself directly above his nose into the tree not mere inches behind where he had fallen.
Deft hands raise to the still vibrating arrow, and he plucks it from the wood as a last-ditch effort at self-protection. Geralt would be proud, the bastard, he thinks grimly as he backs himself against the tree to cover his back. He snaps off the end of the arrow so he can almost conceal its metal head, and is proud that he manages it with minimal shaking. He swallows and blinks a few more times than he’s completely comfortable with.
“Who’s there?” Just kidding, Geralt would be utterly mortified that he hadn’t sniffed out the attackers and tore them to bits with his small, human teeth. There’s a low sound, like leather shoes on soft silt, and then a figure before him. Tall, feminine- even under the encompassing form of a thick cloak. She steps out from the trees, an arrow drawn and aimed directly for his throat. Her face is tilted curiously, eyes wide and green.
“Will you not dance for me anymore, little man?” She asks, her accent slowing and dipping her words, making her pronounce them with a purpose. It has a, threatening affect, and the only sound that seems to want to echo around the trees is the deep alto of her voice.
“I could always do that-” he reassures deftly, unsure if his skills were coming under fire or not. He flinches when she lets her fingers twitch for a moment, but neither movements were that pronounced. She grins, her teeth sharp and bright.
“I see you have sharp eyes for a, bard? Is that what you are called?”
“An entertainer, a bard. A lover-” he flinches and hurries to finish with “notafighter” when she takes a violent step forward. “Whatever you could want to call me, perhaps instead of little man?”
She regards him carefully.
“Are you not little, though?” Jaskier takes in her height, easily on par with Geralt’s massive hulk, and sniffs.
“Well, we can’t all be giants, now can we? Some of us need to be able to peruse the bottom shelves, keep an eye on the ground.”
There’s a long awkward pause, and Jaskier very nearly plucks his lute. Maybe the situation be not as dire as he’d thought at first glance.
“I am looking for valuables. What do you have, small one?” She asks, tilting her head around her bow to peer him straight in the eyes. Jaskier swallows and licks his lips, thinking of all the lint occupying his pockets right now and not quite liking the outcome. This woman isn’t interested in all the wealth that he had. A voice, inspiration, adventure.
“I have nothing-”
“Then what of the silk on your person? Fine garments for a poor man.” She sniffs indelicately.
“-On me.” He quickly finishes, giving her as severe of a glance as he can manage. “It is… with my companion on our horse. There… lies, my wealth.”
It was not his best work, but he never really did his best work at the other end of pointy sticks.
They’re interrupted then, by a bawdy song and the crash of a man stepping through the underbrush. Jaskier wrinkles his nose, he wasn’t even that loud, despite Geralt’s insistence that he was. He smiles at the woman, then turns a derisive look down at Jaskier.
“The other one is good and lost.” He says, tossing what appears to be a coin into the sky, but the hollow thunk it makes as he flicks it proves it to be wood. “They’ll be easy to pick off.”
“The other one is where the gold is.” She snaps quickly, gesturing towards Jaskier. “He has nothing on him.”
The man, in a flash, is on Jaskier. He grabs him by the neck of his shirt and drags him up the length of the tree, bark scratching down his back.
“Really, nothing?” He asks, shaking him once, twice, and then slamming him back against the tree so hard his head cracks, bursting stars and floaters into his vision.
“Poor as… poor…” Jaskier manages, tongue heavy. “But my companion, would be more than happy to give you what I have. Maybe just-” The lack of air making it to his brain is slowing down his usual quick tongue.
The man chuckles, “I saw who your companion was. A witcher. Don’t expect us to just waltz into his blood covered clutches so easily.”
“You know, witcher’s have an amazing capacity for anger, despite their supposed lack in other emotional areas.” The woman says. Pointedly, Jaskier can see her step into his vision, arrow still notched. He nods as well as he can imagine. “Maybe we can cloud his vision, make him easier to fight.”
The man opens his mouth at the sudden idea, “as a bull seeing red.”
“No, no. He only gets smarter the angrier he gets. Trust me, believe me, he’s smarter than any mage. Stronger than any bull.” Jaskier finds himself barking, his usual silver tongue edged with poison. “And I highly, highly doubt you two could pull the wool over his eyes.”
“It’s a shame that the same can’t be said for his dull, limp companion.” The man says cruelly.
Had Jaskier had the time to be offended, he might’ve. But he’d been called worse by better, and his scrabbling feet had just found a strange amount of purchase against the tree and he pushes up just enough to get the man’s knuckles off of his windpipe. His head tilts and he offers his raised eyebrow.
In his sweetest, lilting voice, he says; “Yes, I suppose it is.” And he stabs the head of the arrow into the man’s eye, wincing at the pop and splash of blood that hits his face. The man screams, dropping him to the ground as he grabs carefully to the arrow still sticking from his eye socket. Jaskier hits the ground and gulps in air, quickly rolling as another arrow is quickly protruding from the spot on the ground he’d been not moments ago.
Jaskier manages to scramble to standing, and take off running for the treeline. If he gets lost amongst the trees and bushes, there’s no way they can find him. Especially with a bow and arrow. Especially with one eye. He thinks wickedly. He thrashes his way through the trees, eyes darting, breathe hitching, Geralt’s name on the tip of his tongue and the top of his throat like always.
Then he tumbles out into a familiar circle of trees, two figures standing in the middle facing exactly where he is. An arrow finds itself planted into his shoulder and he absolutely howls into the foliage, Geralt’s name ripping itself from his throat like so much blood spitting from the wound, through his silk, onto his chin. He falls backwards, hands walking him away as best as he can until the one attached to the arrow gives out, and he’s perched atop one good arm, eyes darting between the two of them.
The man is back upon him, one good punch aimed at his eye, another set to the area surrounding the arrow.
“Witcher’s are possessive bastards. They don’t like their things touched. They don’t like their things harmed. He’s going to see so much red he won’t see the arrow until it’s too late.”
“Sounds like someone else we know,” Jaskier spits, aiming a weak bat at the arrow still sticking out of the man’s eye. The man avoids it easily with a snarl, then procures a knife from his belt and slides it between Jaskier’s two favorite ribs.
He swallows a witty comment with a scream, tongue choking up in his throat with a burbling, bloody cough.
_______________________________________________________________
Geralt pauses for a moment, the sudden lack of lute being enough to cause him pause.
Romantic, Geralt gives a snort of a laugh. Jaskier, for all of his short comings, can see through him as easily as a window at times. Others, he is as as dense as a brick wall. But the lute doesn’t start again.
Geralt draws Roach to a gentle stop, ears perked and skin prickling uneasily. There’s nothing, no early evening cicadas, no gentle thrush noise, no lilting bard.
He spins from his spot atop his mount, eyes catching nothing but trees and bush. He thinks he hears something, but it’s nothing but a huffed out breeze in the forest.
Geralt?
It’s the forest, and it’s magic, and Geralt feels worry like acrid spit in his throat. He turns, urges Roach back the way they’d came. But there’s no Jaskier. In fact, nothing looks familiar. The trees are all new, there’s no hoof prints to double back upon, there’s no gentle lute-noise and hum from that long, long neck.
Geralt grinds his teeth, and forces himself to focus. It’s obviously a spell, there’s no way that fool could have gotten himself lost in a matter of seconds, not from him. He could track a ghost through a church.
He sees him, plucking his strings and stepping over roots, tossing his hair out of his eyes and bleeding out. He’s so fucking soft Geralt doesn’t think he can even fathom it. His clothes, his hair, his skin. Way to soft to be lost in these woods.
And he’s backtracking as best as he can, senses on high alert for that smell, that woodsandsoapandcampfireandjasminebecausethat’sallhe’llfuckingbuyisbloodyjasmine when he hears it, splitting the otherworldly quiet. The scream.
The scream.
Geralt growls, deep down in his throat, inhumanely and possessively. And he pinpoints the sound.
Roach erupts into the clearing like a bat out of hell. The two figures give pause, but not as much as he’d like. One is standing, bow notched and at the ready. The other is crouched over a figure much smaller than himself, fist clenched upon a knife embedded deep into his ribs as his head is thrown back, teeth clenched and bloody as he breathes, blood spattering out in tiny bursts.
Geralt slips off of Roach, sword already drawn and at the ready. The bow switches, smartly, from him to Jaskier, and the woman’s face clenches.
“Don’t move, witcher, we just want your goods, not your blood,” She says sharply, pointedly. He narrows his eyes at her, then glances to the bleeding Jaskier, lurching on the ground into a cough that sounds so wet, he inwardly winces.
The bard’s head snaps back and they make eye contact. His bloody mouth makes a gruesome smile and he mouths his name, voiceless.
And Geralt sees red.
“You want wealth? You stabbed a bard, for wealth?” He asks, hoping the stupidity of their plan sinks in on their thick skulls. He moves imperceptibly closer, but the woman sees, tongue clicking as she pulls the string tighter. It’ll lob his head off in one clean move. The man laughs, and twists the knife.
Geralt doesn’t miss the arrow sticking out of his eye, broken at the ends and procuring a stream of blood and goo from the man, and he feels a flash of pride. Jaskier claws weakly at the man, then lets out a low keen and falls backwards again, eyes squeezed tight.
“Are you going to fight me? Or hide behind a captive like cowards?”
“Being cowards has gotten us far,” the woman says quietly, edging towards Roach. “All we want is our fair share, and then we will be on our way and you can take care of your little songbird. He seems to be bleeding out rather fast, witcher, you might want to just take it easy.”
“Plus, I need to get a little revenge,” the man snaps, leaning into Jaskier too close for comfort, his hot breathe waving his long brown hair. Geralt edges closer, still, essentially in a stand off with the woman as the man’s entire concentration is settled in on his bard.
His bard, by the gods he needed to rethink some things.
Geralt knew she’d have to put down the bow to get into Roach’s pack, and she seemed too interested in merely thieving to hurt his mount.
But the man on Jaskier obviously seemed of a different mindset. His eye was blazing, focused in on the bloody curve of his neck, on the way he hitches and bucks with every small turn of his hand on the knife’s hilt. Geralt feels his grip on his sword tighten, and he beckons the women to drop her bow to sift through the contents of his horse’s pouch. Just one more moment… and her focus would be gone-
Geralt let out an inhuman growl, sword swinging up with all of his might to catch the man off guard. But instead of pushing the bard off to get away, he pulls him closer for protection. Rips the knife from his gut, prompting a high pitched bark from Jaskier’s lips, and put it to his neck in cowardly self defense.
Geralt towers over him, sword aimed downward to pierce through his skull with nary a second thought. The man’s legs between his, Jaskier’s kicking out gently, curling around his calve, managing to catch his gaze for an instant. Geralt clenches his teeth so hard he thinks his skull will break, and growls. They say more to each other in that instant than Geralt has managed to say in the many years they’d known each other. But when he finally speaks it’s to the man under Jaskier, gravelly and angrily.
“Let. Him. Go.”
Jaskier holds his gaze evenly still, and Geralt has to fight to keep his gaze locked on the man he was currently trying to threaten.
The woman lets out a disgusted sound, but Geralt does not honor her with a glance.
“There’s nothing here, nothing but apples and brie.”
“S’not brie…” Jaskier manages, a new stream of blood starting out the corner of his mouth and running down his cheek, into his hair.
“There’s nothing here.” She snaps again, louder, angrier than she had been. “This has been a waste of time.”
“Not entirely,” the man sings, knife hitching on Jaskier’s throat even higher. “The head of a witcher could still bring in a pretty penny.”
“And you expect that to be an easy task.” She hisses at him, bow still drawn taught enough to kill. She looks perceptively nervous, as she glances between the two men and the bard. She’s realized that she’ll get nothing from this exchange except blood on her hands, and the dawning thoughts frighten her. Geralt looks down again, and catches Jaskier. He blinks once, twice, then twitches his eyes to the right, into the direction of the hand holding the knife. Discrete gestures were never his strong suite, but the sudden appearance of death consequences have made him quite eloquent. Geralt tightens his brow in response, and the bard flutters his hands, seemingly uselessly for a moment, before they fly to the man’s arm. Jaskier throws himself into the crook of the arm, managing to hold the knife back from piercing him more as he and the bandit tumble sideways.
Geralt doesn’t even think, stabbing his sword down into the ground between Jaskier’s head and the man’s, sharp side pointed to the man’s quivering neck. Bracketed by Geralt’s legs and sword, he has nowhere to run. He casts the woman with a severe stare, then glances at the arrow sticking from Jaskier.
“They’re not poisoned,” she says, resigned. Her arrow is still docked, but not drawn. He’s distracted by the wet coughing of Jaskier.
“Well, that was actually a well thought out plan on my part, good marks Jaskier. Good, uh, idea.” He’s running a trembling hand over his wounds absently, like they’re not even his, staring at nothing. His hand finally lands on the arrow in his chest and he finds himself with a hand wrapped around the length of it. “I get the big portion tonight…”
“Don’t-” Geralt urges, casting him with a severe stare. He knows the feeling, like a splinter. The adrenaline tantalizing you to draw it out yourself, easy as anything. Then, he turns his attentions back to the two bandits.
“I don’t kill your kind, for which you should thank your lucky stars that I follow my own code.” He snarls down at the man. “For what you did, you should be dead ten times over.”
“An eye for an eye.” The man mutters bitterly, but defeated.
“End the spell and be on your way. Do not bother us again, or there will not be enough stars in the sky to hear your pleas.”
“Ooh, he’s scary now, isn’t he? You were awfully set on poking the bear, weren’t you…” Jaskier titters, blood loss sending his brain in a spiral. The woman won’t look at either of them, but the man looks like he is biting his tongue.
“You want to say something?” Geralt asks the man, then quickly gives him a quick kick to the side before drawing his sword back. “Go.”
The man gives him an appraising look, then casts a severe look at Jaskier before slinking into the woods. The woman offers a more graceful retreat, her head bowed as she stows her arrow.
Geralt has only the patience to see them gone from sight before he is on Jaskier, hands everywhere all at once, appraising and pressing and gently dabbing at rivulets of blood that have stained his flashy clothes beyond recognition.
Jaskier is swaying too hard for him to get a good look at him, so he wraps one arm around him. The instant the contact is there, the bard drapes himself onto him.
“Didja see his eye, Geralt?” Jaskier asks in a whisper, scooping his head down to try and catch his eye contact. Geralt offers him a quick glance, eyebrow quirked. “That was me. She-” and he gives a bad impersonation of shooting a bow, “shot at me. Me. And I grabbed one, tore off the end, and waited for that bastard so I could-” Geralt finds the sword wound along his ribs and Jaskier’s body lurches.
The fabric is proving difficult to see around, and already knowing the response, Geralt takes two fistfulls of Jaskier’s shirt and rips it away. Jaskier’s face through the shroud of pain, is very much amused by him.
“You know, this whole outfit survived a bandit attack. A captive situation, if you will. But it couldn’t withstand you for a whole thirty- Geralt!”
But Geralt hadn’t really needed the bard’s warning. He’d heard the man’s fumbling attempts to dock the arrow and draw it back, nowhere near as skilled at it as the woman.
He clutches Jaskier as tight as he dares, ducking out of the way of the clumsily shot arrow, then deposits him in one swift movement. Spins on his heel to see the man at the edge of the clearing, bow lowering slowly as if he hadn’t thought of the possibility that he might miss the rather still and distracted man on the ground.
It was his last mistake. Geralt holds his eye contact as he stalks up to him, drawing his sword. The man doesn’t even try to run, just stands there and watches until his body falls in one way, and his head in the other.
The woman glances wearily at Geralt. She’s nursing a rapidly forming black eye.
“I was just waiting to get my bow back.” She says quietly. If she feels anything for the corpse on the ground, she doesn’t show it. So Geralt picks up the bow, then pitches it into the woods.
“I will not see you again.” He says. Then turns back to his bard on the ground. He makes it back in what feels like less strides than it took to get over there, and he whistles for Roach, who had been standing idle at the edge of the clearing.
“Jaskier, my friend, this will get worse before it gets better,” Geralt warns, eyeing the arrow. Luckily, it seemed to have missed anything of value on its path of destruction. Running a cursory hand over the back of Jaskier’s shoulder, he feels a small prick where the arrow had almost gone through completely. Jaskier was babbling nonsense wetly into his neck, nose brushing his jugular far more intimately than Geralt should’ve been completely comfortable with. But, the gentle brush of hot air he puffed there made any other thoughts scatter and leave just the one. He’s still alive.
So, he cleans him with water from their canteen. Dabs on ointment, wraps him in bandages. Forgets about the arrow for now, because that will truly be the worst. Takes the cleanest part of the fabric and dabs at the bards face. He’d gotten his chest, his neck, and he cups the fabric along his jawline to try to clean him up best as he can. Jaskier leans into the touch a little hard, eyebrows knitting down as he clenches his eyes shut and hums.
“The water feels nice…” The bard manages. Geralt brings his other hand up to catch his other cheek as Jaskier lets his head roll loose. His skin is cold, clammy, and paler than usual. Those eyes, when they flutter open, are unfocused. But they find Geralt’s for just a moment. Jaskier’s cheek creases around Geralt’s thumb when he offers him a goofy smile.
“You’re delirious.” Geralt says, warmer than he means to. His worry is tempered though, and he curses the bard. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Don’t push yourself.” He rubs out a spot of blood by the bard’s noise, and decides that he likes the way that he wrinkles his nose.
Now, for the hard part. Geralt steadies Jaskier into the crook of his neck. He’s got bandages at the ready to catch the blood. He feels, rather than hears, Jaskier talking to him for a long moment. He’d broken off the end of the arrow during his administrations.
“...he called me, friend,” Geralt can parse through some of the idle chatter, and he focuses in on that in lieu of a pulse-point. “…the white woof, whulf, wolf…” small titters, and that’s when Geralt grasps the arrow, and shoves, slicing it through the skin and muscle to the other side of Jaskier’s shoulder.
Geralt is prepared for the tense line Jaskier’s body makes the instant he can see the arrow on the other side, gleaming red and angry. Jaskier’s mouth is open in a silent scream, a low deep breath coming from his gut that almost sounds like a retch. He heaves, his mouth hovers like he wants to bite down on something, needs to bite down on something. The scream in his ear never comes, instead Geralt gets a sob, so quiet it could’ve been confused for a breath. When he finally rests his head back to Geralt’s neck, his eyes are wet. Geralt pretends he can’t tell. For all his flailing emotions, Geralt had never actually seen the bard cry. A testament to his strong will. Or his stubborn ass.
“It’s going to be ok.” Geralt says with the assurance only a witcher could muster. Jaskier’s fingers trace unseeingly against his armor, blindly fiddling, prodding, looking for grounding, and he is loathe to put the smaller man down. Jaskier’s head lolls, surprisingly still conscious. And he raises one of those shaking hands to Geralt’s face, the pads of his fingers touching his face just so. So tenderly they stay there.
Geralt puts pressure on the wound, and feels Jaskier keen into his shoulder.
“I-I’ve been awake…” Jaskier hisses. “But now I… won’t…” And he’s finally out, dead weight pressed against Geralt’s chest.
___________________________________________________________
Jaskier’s not too sure if you could call it ‘waking up’. It feels more like resurrection, if it entailed drawing one from the warmest, deepest sleep they’d ever experience and dragging them screaming into the flickering light of a fireplace. His body is on fire; his shoulder, his side, he’s cold and shaking and yet he’s still sweating it’s really all unfair it’s not fair it’s not-
Two hands gently clamp his face still, and they’re warm and big and so so calming. Geralt comes into his vision, and Jaskier can now connect that those hands are the witcher’s and he just wishes he could stop shivering. Tentative hands come up to wrap around Geralt’s, and he finds himself babbling.
“I thought I was dead. I felt like I was dead. Gods, Geralt, how do you handle all of that pain all of the time. I’ve seen you take care of an arrow wound like it’s no big deal, like it’s a splinter, but the moment I touched mine I might’ve well have watched my balls walk off down the mountain.”
Geralt isn’t saying anything, isn’t humming anything sarcastic or giving him that quirked eyebrow ‘shut up bard’ look that he had created specially for him. No, just peering at him with searching eyes, and one of his hands trails down from his cheek and rests on his arrow wound. It cuts the bard off mid-sentence, and he lets out a shuddering breath.
“You were close.” Geralt says finally, quietly. “You had lost a lot of blood. I never would’ve imagined someone so small could lose so much and survive.”
“I’m just full of surprises,” Jaskier says, his humor falling short. “Admit it, I surprise you daily,”
Geralt does quirk an eyebrow there, but it’s not the same kind he usually does.
“It keeps me young.” Geralt admits, hand still gently pressed over the wound. “You have multiple stitches, you’re not going to want to do anything too labor intensive anytime soon.”
“So, my usual day to day life is just fine, then?”
“It means I’d hold off on stabbing more people in the eye, if you can help it.” Jaskier finds himself raising a hand in mock, solemn vow, pressing the other hand on top of Geralt’s.
“Only if I can help it.”
Jaskier thinks he’s never seen Geralt so soft before. He even looks bathed- cleaner than usual. His hair is soft and flowing. Almost damned romantic. He takes back both of his hands, and Jaskier feels cold again. He tries to bite back a shiver, because the man isn’t his personal hot water bottle, yet it wracks down his body nonetheless.
Jaskier closes his eyes and focuses. The room is warm, he knows this. He shouldn’t be this cold, if only he could make his body understand that.
A weight lays itself delicately along his side, and Jaskier’s eyes fly open. Geralt is in the bed beside him, staring decidedly anywhere but at him. It’s an invitation, a question, one that neither of them really want to ask yet. But he’s so damned warm, even just that bit of contact there is enough to chase some semblance of heat back into his body.
He finds himself curling into it, hitching one leg over Geralt’s as he chases the dragon that was his heat. It’s embarrassing, just how fast he manages to entangle himself into the man, but he’s still so damned tired and cold and he settles his face against the soft fabric of Geralt’s linen shirt, nose just to his shoulder. He finds himself making a contented little noise at the back of his throat, and clenches his eyes against the hot blush that erupts over his face.
Jaskier finds himself slipping away far faster than he’d planned. The crackle of the fireplace and the heavy weight settling beside him, loosening and unwinding. He thinks he must already be asleep, with his breathing being as slow and heavy as it was. But he feels the hand settle into the crook of his waist.
“You are alive, my friend.” And a gentle press to his forehead. Through the haze of sleep, Jaskier leans into the pressure. Seeking after it until he feels his very cold nose bump against the witcher’s neck. Geralt recoils backwards, snapping his head back and hissing out a low, “shit!”
And Jaskier feels like he’s won.