When Geralt stumbled, one leg dropped first and then the other in the half second after it. He took Jaskier down with him, dragged the bard down like his arm was an albatross wrapped round his neck. Jaskier kept hold of his arm even as he fell down at Geralt's side, garroted by it. The sword in Geralt's hand clattered to the dirt with an awkward, ungainly series of noises--had he driven the tip into the ground? Oh no, Geralt was too careful to damage his blades, not if he could have avoided it at all.
"Geralt?" Jaskier tried as he pushed himself up onto his knees--the Witcher wretched, heaved and vomited. A thin stream of bright yellow and curling red splashed to the ground in front of him, stained the dirt a strange color. The Witcher's whole self shuddered under the effort of expelling that much and Jaskier tried to keep him up as his limbs--Melitele's mercy--as his whole back and neck went awry. Geralt seized and swayed and Jaskier still wasn't prepared for his weight as he fell forward.
Geralt had no sense to see the ground incoming, no reason to brace, and Jaskier was dragged down into a heap with him, face and chin hitting the ground as they both dropped forward into the thin puddle of sick and gore he'd just heaved up.
"Oh, oh no--Geralt, Geralt--" Jaskier called as he forced himself up, as he climbed out from beneath the weight of the Witcher's arm. That monstrous head rolled, loose and free on the ground as it tumbled from Geralt's other hand. It moved in an oblong, terrible way, all carried on momentum from being dropped. It rolled toward the culvert that ran along the opposite side of the road and came to a gradual halt in a puddle there.
It did not have eyes, not that Jaskier could see, but the teeth that filled its face were watching him.
Jaskier stared, entranced and horrified, for far longer than he ought to have. It wasn't until Roach, sweet lovely Roach, came and shoved hard at his shoulder with her nose that he came back to himself. Roach nearly knocked him back over, huffing sharply, and Jaskier reached for her. In what he felt was a truly bold move, Jaskier took a hold of her reins near the bit and led her down beside the fallen Witcher.
Perhaps she led him, it was hard to tell with his pulse hammering in his throat and his nerves as shot as they were.
Geralt was a study in blackened blood and sticky, gaping meat. Jaskier's hands fluttered--not out of anything as pedestrian as revulsion, but out of panic--he was fretting, caught in an episode as he tried to find somewhere to touch and grip that wouldn't result in his digging fingers into one wound or another. He didn't want to make it worse but, as Roach nickered impatiently, he realized he couldn't.
Only wasting time would make this worse.
In the end, he settled for digging fingers beneath a gore caked pauldron and slid his other hand around Geralt's ribs. Jaskier tried to haul him up, but his grip faltered, sliding on tacky blood and something he didn't want to be able to identify. He tried again, grabbed Geralt by the arm instead, and the man hung limp as Jaskier fought to lift him.
Geralt dangled--like a marionette with cut strings--and it was the most terrifying thing Jaskier had ever seen.
Time slipped Jaskier's mind after that--everything was a horrible haze of stinking blood and color and panic so deep he felt like he was drowning. If asked to recount how he got the Witcher onto Roach, how he managed to climb on his back straight after, he wouldn't have been able to articulate it. He barely recalled, himself--and he certainly didn't pay any mind to the abandoned silver sword or the head that watched him with a thousand teeth and no mouth to mind them.
Jaskier rode into the little bog-water town at a blind, furious gallop--he wasn't sure if it was his haste that startled the people milling in the light of early dawn, or if it was the state of the Witcher that dangled off Roach. Things happened fast after that, far faster than Jaskier could keep along with--well, not with his mind, but his body was positively determined.
Geralt was dragged into someone's home, the mayor he thought, laid out on the table and Jaskier recalled being the one who tore through the remains of the man's clothing--who pulled buckles apart with singular attention, who unlaced belts and undid fasteners. He couldn't tell if Geralt was even breathing beneath it all--but of course he was. He had to be.
He had to be.
This town didn't have a healer, it was too small for that and their ailments were usually very slow or too fast to worry over things like recovery. They hadn't a mage or an apothecary, but they had a midwife for all that was worth. She had some sense--helped boil water, helped Jaskier as he nearly scalded himself soaking rags and cleaning blackened blood away from the wounds and gashes--she had some supplies. He remembered demanding them.
Had he used his family name as leverage? He couldn't remember.
The sun was up and nearly set again before Jaskier could have even considered slowing.
The silk thread and steel needles were his own, kept for mending his own doublets or the holes that the Witcher wore through his threadbare shirts and trousers. He had a deft hand when turning a stitch or a hem, it was a skill born of necessity--this was not like that, not at all.
His hands didn't shake, he had too many years of careful control trained into them for them to fail him now, but Jaskier's chest and legs trembled as he worked. Each tiny stitch, drawn into a horrible gaping wound and pulled through Geralt's slowly, slowly bleeding flesh, was a weight that settled in his throat. He choked on them, the dozens upon dozens of stitches he had done and the dozens left to go. The needle went through, pierced ragged skin and flesh like nothing, came through the far side of it, and then pulled tight until he could tie it off.
There were so, so many.
The townsfolk had helped him eagerly, energetically, and they helped him still...but they were fewer and fewer as the day marched on. They came, they spoke at him and offered things in increasingly tentative, gentled voices. Jaskier didn't hear them, couldn't spare the attention, which was just as well. Each visitor was more somber and sorrowful than the last and, if he'd given them any mind, he would have been lost in his fury.
He had so much work to do, so very much, and they kept bothering him--when the midwife took him by the shoulder, he nearly took the woman's head off.
Both figuratively and literally.
He swung out with his arm and knocked her back as he moved to the next stitch, desperate to finish, desperate to help Geralt. Why couldn't these people understand? Why weren't they working as hard as he was? Geralt had done as they asked, even though they couldn't pay, even at the cost of his own l--Geralt was kind and decent and he didn't deserve to die like this--to be carved apart by some...hideous thing in a stinking bog in the middle of nowhere.
Jaskier hoped that tears wouldn't make it worse--he couldn't wipe them away and couldn't catch them all as he worked. More than a few ended up falling on the angry red flesh he was stitching back together. He could slosh white alcohol over them, could try to disinfect, but he hated that each time he had to do it--Geralt didn't even flinch when he dumped it over the open wounds. He reacted like it was water--just stayed there, dead still and silent.
No, he didn't have time to watch the Witcher's face.
no subject
"Geralt?" Jaskier tried as he pushed himself up onto his knees--the Witcher wretched, heaved and vomited. A thin stream of bright yellow and curling red splashed to the ground in front of him, stained the dirt a strange color. The Witcher's whole self shuddered under the effort of expelling that much and Jaskier tried to keep him up as his limbs--Melitele's mercy--as his whole back and neck went awry. Geralt seized and swayed and Jaskier still wasn't prepared for his weight as he fell forward.
Geralt had no sense to see the ground incoming, no reason to brace, and Jaskier was dragged down into a heap with him, face and chin hitting the ground as they both dropped forward into the thin puddle of sick and gore he'd just heaved up.
"Oh, oh no--Geralt, Geralt--" Jaskier called as he forced himself up, as he climbed out from beneath the weight of the Witcher's arm. That monstrous head rolled, loose and free on the ground as it tumbled from Geralt's other hand. It moved in an oblong, terrible way, all carried on momentum from being dropped. It rolled toward the culvert that ran along the opposite side of the road and came to a gradual halt in a puddle there.
It did not have eyes, not that Jaskier could see, but the teeth that filled its face were watching him.
Jaskier stared, entranced and horrified, for far longer than he ought to have. It wasn't until Roach, sweet lovely Roach, came and shoved hard at his shoulder with her nose that he came back to himself. Roach nearly knocked him back over, huffing sharply, and Jaskier reached for her. In what he felt was a truly bold move, Jaskier took a hold of her reins near the bit and led her down beside the fallen Witcher.
Perhaps she led him, it was hard to tell with his pulse hammering in his throat and his nerves as shot as they were.
Geralt was a study in blackened blood and sticky, gaping meat. Jaskier's hands fluttered--not out of anything as pedestrian as revulsion, but out of panic--he was fretting, caught in an episode as he tried to find somewhere to touch and grip that wouldn't result in his digging fingers into one wound or another. He didn't want to make it worse but, as Roach nickered impatiently, he realized he couldn't.
Only wasting time would make this worse.
In the end, he settled for digging fingers beneath a gore caked pauldron and slid his other hand around Geralt's ribs. Jaskier tried to haul him up, but his grip faltered, sliding on tacky blood and something he didn't want to be able to identify. He tried again, grabbed Geralt by the arm instead, and the man hung limp as Jaskier fought to lift him.
Geralt dangled--like a marionette with cut strings--and it was the most terrifying thing Jaskier had ever seen.
Time slipped Jaskier's mind after that--everything was a horrible haze of stinking blood and color and panic so deep he felt like he was drowning. If asked to recount how he got the Witcher onto Roach, how he managed to climb on his back straight after, he wouldn't have been able to articulate it. He barely recalled, himself--and he certainly didn't pay any mind to the abandoned silver sword or the head that watched him with a thousand teeth and no mouth to mind them.
Jaskier rode into the little bog-water town at a blind, furious gallop--he wasn't sure if it was his haste that startled the people milling in the light of early dawn, or if it was the state of the Witcher that dangled off Roach. Things happened fast after that, far faster than Jaskier could keep along with--well, not with his mind, but his body was positively determined.
Geralt was dragged into someone's home, the mayor he thought, laid out on the table and Jaskier recalled being the one who tore through the remains of the man's clothing--who pulled buckles apart with singular attention, who unlaced belts and undid fasteners. He couldn't tell if Geralt was even breathing beneath it all--but of course he was. He had to be.
He had to be.
This town didn't have a healer, it was too small for that and their ailments were usually very slow or too fast to worry over things like recovery. They hadn't a mage or an apothecary, but they had a midwife for all that was worth. She had some sense--helped boil water, helped Jaskier as he nearly scalded himself soaking rags and cleaning blackened blood away from the wounds and gashes--she had some supplies. He remembered demanding them.
Had he used his family name as leverage? He couldn't remember.
The sun was up and nearly set again before Jaskier could have even considered slowing.
The silk thread and steel needles were his own, kept for mending his own doublets or the holes that the Witcher wore through his threadbare shirts and trousers. He had a deft hand when turning a stitch or a hem, it was a skill born of necessity--this was not like that, not at all.
His hands didn't shake, he had too many years of careful control trained into them for them to fail him now, but Jaskier's chest and legs trembled as he worked. Each tiny stitch, drawn into a horrible gaping wound and pulled through Geralt's slowly, slowly bleeding flesh, was a weight that settled in his throat. He choked on them, the dozens upon dozens of stitches he had done and the dozens left to go. The needle went through, pierced ragged skin and flesh like nothing, came through the far side of it, and then pulled tight until he could tie it off.
There were so, so many.
The townsfolk had helped him eagerly, energetically, and they helped him still...but they were fewer and fewer as the day marched on. They came, they spoke at him and offered things in increasingly tentative, gentled voices. Jaskier didn't hear them, couldn't spare the attention, which was just as well. Each visitor was more somber and sorrowful than the last and, if he'd given them any mind, he would have been lost in his fury.
He had so much work to do, so very much, and they kept bothering him--when the midwife took him by the shoulder, he nearly took the woman's head off.
Both figuratively and literally.
He swung out with his arm and knocked her back as he moved to the next stitch, desperate to finish, desperate to help Geralt. Why couldn't these people understand? Why weren't they working as hard as he was? Geralt had done as they asked, even though they couldn't pay, even at the cost of his own l--Geralt was kind and decent and he didn't deserve to die like this--to be carved apart by some...hideous thing in a stinking bog in the middle of nowhere.
Jaskier hoped that tears wouldn't make it worse--he couldn't wipe them away and couldn't catch them all as he worked. More than a few ended up falling on the angry red flesh he was stitching back together. He could slosh white alcohol over them, could try to disinfect, but he hated that each time he had to do it--Geralt didn't even flinch when he dumped it over the open wounds. He reacted like it was water--just stayed there, dead still and silent.
No, he didn't have time to watch the Witcher's face.
He had to finish.
There were so many stitches left.