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They were gone, then back. Now they’re gone again; Yen, Geralt and his kid surprise – and Jaskier just can’t follow anymore. His hands are shaking so bad he drops the half empty bottle of revolting liquor he’s holding. He flinches when it shatters on the kitchen floor, but nobody reacts, because everyone forgot about him.
Witchers are busy cleaning the hall from all the gore and carnage, tending to their dead and disposing of the mutated basilisk corpses. Oh gods, he saw a decapitated body just hours ago – he didn’t even know the guy’s name, nobody bothered introducing themselves when he first reached the keep with Ciri. Nobody cared about a tired, dirty, luteless bard. He stumbled through cold, empty corridors, until he found alcohol and a bed, happy to stay out of everybody’s way.
Apparently he slept through Ciri murdering half the keep – he shudders once more when he thinks about it. About how close Geralt’s mentor had been to killing that poor girl. About how close he’d been to getting crushed by a mutant creature from another plane. His right shoulder hurts where a witcher had barreled into him, pushing him out of harm’s way. There is probably an impressive bruise on his left side as well; his ribs grate when he breathes.
He sits down on the sticky floor and gives up on trying to pick the shards of the broken bottle. His hands shake too badly; he shouldn’t have been drinking on an empty stomach anyway. But everything tastes like ash these days, and he just wanted to wash it away with some liquor.
He should go back to the main hall and help, but he doesn’t want to move and face the others just now. Grieving witchers are snappy; he found it the hard way when he tried to ask the old witcher where Geralt had gone earlier. They all left, he thinks; they forgot about the useless bard. What was it with Geralt and abandoning him on mountain tops, it was getting ridiculous.
His laugh sounds broken to his own ears, like a hysterical sob that just won’t stop. He tries to take a shaky breath, calm himself, but his lungs won’t expand and he gasps. The tremors are so bad now, he’s shaking like a leaf and he can’t seem to stop. He hugs his knees and wheezes and thinks that’s how low the great Jaskier has fallen. Forgotten, broken, discarded. A burden.
“Shit,” someone says.
Jaskier startles so hard he hits his head on the wall behind him.
“You’re the bard,” the intruder says.
Not ‘Geralt’s bard’, for once, Jaskier notes. Just ‘the bard’. The luteless, useless, broken bard. The witcher shuffles closer, and Jaskier warily peeks at him. It’s the redhead, Geralt’s friend, the rude one. He can’t recall his name at the moment, which doesn’t matter anyway. He’ll go away and leave him like the others, any minute now.
“Can you stand?” the witcher asks.
Lambert, Jaskier suddenly remembers. His voice is gruff, as if Jaskier’s antics are annoying – of course they are, why would he care about the helpless human who can’t even pick up broken glass off the floor, let alone help clean up the hall with the rest of them.
Jaskier shrugs, or at least tries to. His shoulder hurts, his head hurts. The answer gets stuck in his throat and he tries to swallow around it, but he feels like he’s choking on air. What a bard he makes, unable to even speak. An arm loops around his shoulders and hoists him up, then helps him sit down at the kitchen table.
“You’re drunk,” Lambert says, totally misreading the situation.
Or maybe he is a little bit drunk, but he has his reasons. His whole body aches, and his fingers still smart whenever he uses his hand. It doesn’t matter anyway, since his lute got smashed, forgotten in an Oxenfurt gutter.
Lambert is talking to him, he notes distantly, asking him questions – like he cares about the answers. But then he does something with his hand in front of the fireplace, and fire sparks out of thin air. Jaskier bolts. He’s on his feet before he can think, and he starts running, heart fluttering in his chest like a cornered animal, trapped in his too-tight rib cage.
He runs until he trips over his own feet and falls to the ground, hard. Pain explodes in his mouth – he bit his tongue, he knows that – and the coppery taste of blood brings him back to that dark Oxenfurt tavern and suddenly the fear is overwhelming.
He tries to get on all fours, but his legs are tangled in his coat and he feels trapped. He whines like a wounded creature when a heavy hand falls on his shoulder and hauls him up. So he makes a fist and swings blindly, howling when his singed hand connects with solid flesh.
“Fucking crazy moron, will you get a grip already!” Lambert growls, and Jaskier snaps back to the present.
The witcher lets him go and he slides right back to the floor. He would crawl away if he had any idea where to go. Instead, he just curls up around his hand and swallows a mouthful of blood.
Footsteps approach – there is a hushed yet tensed conversation, and Jaskier knows they’re talking about him, about what they should do with the human liability cowering on the floor, but he doesn’t even raise his head to see who it is. The other person retreats and Lambert kneels in his line of sight, hands open and on display, non threatening. His copper hair hangs in front of his eyes, but it can’t hide his deep frown and his crooked, bloody nose.
“Sorry,” Jaskier chokes and it comes out garbled.
He’s half expecting more rude expletives from the witcher, but his expression softens inexplicably.
“What is wrong with you?” Lambert sighs, and Jaskier lets out a shaky laugh because it’ll take forever to explain.
“Firefucker,” he breathes.
Lambert cocks his head like he can’t decide if it’s an insult or not. He makes a move with his fingers, and a flame dances above his open palm. That’s Igni, that’s a witcher sign, Jaskier knows that, and yet he can’t help but recoil again. He’s too tired to flee this time, so he just quivers and blinks, eyes transfixed on the flame.
“Won’t hurt you,” Lambert says, as he closes his hand, snuffing the flame out.
Then he just stays there, sitting on his heels, and he gives Jaskier time to calm down and unfurl. He can probably hear his thundering heartbeat and smell his fear; how pathetic.
“Kitchen?” the witcher asks.
The floor is freezing, so Jaskier nods and accepts his help. He’s wobbly when he stands, and he lets Lambert guide him back to where they came.
*
It’s dark and quiet now, and Jaskier briefly wonders how late it is. Time flies when you’re having a full blown panic episode. He grits his teeth when Lambert lights the fire to reheat what smells like stew. His stomach growls and he can’t remember the last time he ate a hot meal. It feels like days, maybe weeks. No wonder he feels faint all the time – that and having to survive otherworldly monsters trying to snap him in half; and jail, and torture, and walking through snow in boots not made for it. How can everyone stand the cold here?
Lambert’s nose is rapidly swelling, and he has drying blood on his upper lip. Jaskier would feel bad about it if his right hand wasn’t that painful right now. The blisters have burst on impact, the skin is red and inflamed, and yet his fingers feel cold and dead. He can’t bear to look at it for fear he will start weeping.
“Thought you’d be chattier,” Lambert says. “Geralt always said you talked a lot.”
He pushes a bowl towards him on the table. It’s fuming, filled to the brim and it smells divine. Jaskier grabs it with his left hand and slurps the stew like a starving man.
“Love your latest songs,” Lambert continues with a smirk, and Jaskier feels his face heat up – all the break up songs he wrote those last three months, of course a wolf witcher would connect the dots.
“I liked the one where you call him a ‘bitcher’,” Lambert says again, and Jaskier can’t tell if he’s serious or not. “I hummed it once or twice to annoy him – he threw his bowl at me.”
“Pretty sure he doesn’t care about me,” Jaskier mutters; he doesn’t want to talk about Geralt right now.
Once he’s full of soup, he feels foolish and sleepy. He’s a burden, keeping Lambert up while he could be resting or doing witchery things instead.
“I have nothing to do right now,” Lambert says – since when can witchers hear thoughts, Jaskier thinks, head whipping up so fast it hurts.
“You’re muttering. I think you have a fever.”
That would explain the throbbing in his head and the distant, disjointed quality of his thoughts. The embers glowing under the cauldron are mesmerizing and he can feel the walls closing in on him slowly.
“Uh,” Jaskier says as he tries to stand up, and the whole room starts to tilt around him. The buzzing in his ears swallows him whole and suddenly he’s falling.
*
When he wakes up again, he’s on the floor with his feet up on the bench. There are two witchers looking at him with a frown. He tries to sit up, but the older one – Vesemir, his mind supplies – pushes him back down with the smallest of shoves. Lambert just smirks. His nose is all crooked.
“Look, I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience,” he babbles from where he is lying. “Help me up and I’ll be out of your way,” he assures. “Although I might need some directions to get down from this oh so lovely hideout, if you don’t mind…”
He’s pretty sure he’ll topple if he tries to stand right now, but the look of pity on their faces is making his skin crawl and he can’t help but run his mouth. It’s the only thing he’s remotely good at these days.
“You did good sending Coën to fetch me,” Vesemir says, which makes little sense because Jaskier certainly didn’t ask for anyone’s help. Then he realizes that was meant for Lambert. “Go get some pelts, we’ll be in Geralt’s room.”
Just hearing the name makes his heart ache, so Jaskier stays silent as he’s hauled back to his feet for the third time this evening. The old witcher hovers close, making sure he doesn’t faint again – or making sure he doesn’t try to make a run for it, he wonders.
*
The rest of the way is a blur – all those dark, cold corridors look the same – and then Jaskier is sitting again, this time on a bed that smells of Geralt and horse. That damn smell – he missed it more than he knew. It’s getting very tempting to close his eyes and fall asleep for good, but the old witcher doesn’t let him.
“It’s a shame the mage has already left,” Vesemir says.
Of course she left, she got her chaos back, and places to be. Scary freaking witch, he thinks; he misses her already. And through blurry, tear-filled eyes, Jaskier tries to focus on the witcher’s face as he carefully examines his burned hand.
“You did a number on those,” he says, talking about his fingers.
Jaskier doesn’t want to even look at them right now. His whole hand is throbbing in rhythm with his heart. He doesn’t want to talk about it either, so he just closes his eyes and tries to slow down his breathing while Vesemir applies a cool, pungent salve on his hand, before he wraps it in a clean cloth.
Jaskier isn’t sure what exactly pushes him over the edge – the infection making him woozy, the stabbing pain every time he takes a deep breath or the soft gestures of the older man he heard so little about from Geralt – he starts crying silently, unable to stop once the first tear rolls down his cheek. Vesemir doesn’t comment, and strangely enough, Lambert doesn’t either when he comes back with logs for the fire and heavy, warm-looking wolf pelts.
Jaskier considers protesting, he wants to say he can walk to his room – as if anything here was his anyway; he is nothing but an unwanted guest, discarded and forgotten once he broke.
“That room has a chimney,” Vesemir says as he tends to the fire. “Easier to heat.”
Lambert stands near the bed with his back to the fireplace, as if to offer protection against the bad memories.
“That keep is not meant for human visitors, and I wish my boys would stop bringing people over.”
He winces as soon as he says that, and awkwardly pats Jaskier on the arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jaskier wants to say – ‘I’m dying’, he thinks. He ends up mumbling, “Sorry for dying,” and Lambert’s look of alarm seems out of place.
“He’s alright, isn’t he?”
“It’s just exhaustion, on top of an untreated burn. He’ll be fine.”
Jaskier hears them talk about him distantly, like they’re talking about someone else. His hand is numb and the pelts are warm and soft. He’s sinking into the bed, unable to move, unwilling to open his eyes. Even the small crackling of the fire doesn’t bother him anymore. He falls asleep.
*
When he wakes up with a groan, he’s alone and there is sunlight coming from the small window above the bed. He’s comfortably warm and everything is only vaguely painful, like his body is a giant bruise that has started to heal. His hand is still wrapped and the bandage is clean, so he doesn’t touch it; his fingertips are a healthy pink for the first time in days, he thinks with a tiny smile.
Then he realizes he needs to pee – badly. He shuffles out of bed, taking a pelt with him, and wanders down the hallway until he finds a bathroom – they have inner plumbing, but no glass on most windows, he thinks, shaking his head.
When he comes back to the room, Geralt is sitting on the bed. Jaskier has to fight the urge to turn around and flee when he sees him. But who is he kidding, he’ll end up getting lost and freezing to death.
“I thought you left with Ciri,” he says instead.
“She’s with Yennefer for now.”
Silence stretches for a moment, as they both sit next to each other in the room that smells of Geralt and probably of him now too.
“Vesemir told me,” Geralt says, looking at his bandaged hand. “I didn’t know.”
It’s not like you asked, Jaskier thinks, but he just winces and shrugs.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Jaskier starts – because it’s probably what Geralt wants to hear anyway, it’s probably why he came as soon as the others told him what a mess his bard had become.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Geralt says, the fool.
“… Because I knew nothing!” Jaskier cries. “If I did, I would have broken right away! I’m weak, not like you all.”
“You survived.”
But to what good, Jaskier thinks. He wiggles his fingers, trying to pretend nothing hurts and that his lute is lying nearby, somewhere in the room. Geralt loops an arm around his shoulders and gives him an awkward hug – that’s the second one in days, Jaskier thinks, as he leans into the embrace and tries not to relish it so much. Maybe fatherhood or whatever he has with Ciri is actually changing him for the better.
Geralt doesn’t react when Jaskier grips him tight and hugs him back. And even if he knows he shouldn’t give in, he just can’t help it – he’ll chalk it up later to the fever still making him shiver. For now he holds on tight and breathes in. Geralt pats him on the back, timidly, like he’s afraid he’ll break – too late for that – but he just lets him. He’d have to physically push him off, Jaskier thinks, to get rid of him now.
“You never said why you needed me,” Jaskier remarks. He’s muffled, because he buried his head in Geralt’s shoulder, and he’ll stay there as long as the witcher lets him.
“I panicked,” Geralt admits sheepishly. “Thought you wouldn’t come with me otherwise.”
“I would have,” Jaskier whispers, like a secret he’s ashamed to admit.
“I’m sorry,” Geralt says again. He doesn’t say what for, but Jaskier will accept any heartfelt apology at this point. “I was preoccupied. Ciri is… important.”
So witchers are capable of love after all, he muses into the witcher’s chest. He’ll have to try and work that into a song, maybe, if Destiny lets him.