Geralt examined his stitches while Jaskier was gone. He folded back mercifully clean sheets to his stomach and pushed fingers lightly against the bandage-- stained, but not badly-- and then smoothed calluses over a long line of new stitches and pink, healing flesh in a line from his mid-stomach to near under his armpit.
(Nails like talons, curved ivory that had no moon to flash in and thus give themselves away; he hadn't felt the cut until the blood had stuck his jerkin to his skin and slowed him further.)
There was a slow breath given to the silent room. There were noises of life in the village outside the window and even the house itself but the Witcher didn't need any such sunlit reminders to banish things that crept in the dark. He'd been made not to feel horror the way normal people did. His fingers slowed on the stitches. Lucky him.
The stitches were small and mostly even. Those with no mind to be physicians who were thrust into the position often skewed one of two ways-- too few stitches, because they were scared, because they were sick-- or too many, out of worry. Geralt was proud to see that Jaskier had done neither and wondered if it was simply borne of the vanity in the man that had forced him to learn to mend his own clothes once he began following Geralt further and further from towns. Had repeated practice become muscle memory?
When the door opened, Geralt's hand slid back to the bed. That he was impressed by both the handiwork and the fact that Jaskier had actually given up expensive thread to mend him didn't need to be aired. The smell of the food filled his mouth with saliva and if his reflexes had been in tact he would have grabbed a herring off the plate as it passed him-- as it was his stomach growled. Loudly. The boy stared at his stomach and then at him.
"Boo," the Witcher said, wondering if he'd scatter.
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(Nails like talons, curved ivory that had no moon to flash in and thus give themselves away; he hadn't felt the cut until the blood had stuck his jerkin to his skin and slowed him further.)
There was a slow breath given to the silent room. There were noises of life in the village outside the window and even the house itself but the Witcher didn't need any such sunlit reminders to banish things that crept in the dark. He'd been made not to feel horror the way normal people did. His fingers slowed on the stitches. Lucky him.
The stitches were small and mostly even. Those with no mind to be physicians who were thrust into the position often skewed one of two ways-- too few stitches, because they were scared, because they were sick-- or too many, out of worry. Geralt was proud to see that Jaskier had done neither and wondered if it was simply borne of the vanity in the man that had forced him to learn to mend his own clothes once he began following Geralt further and further from towns. Had repeated practice become muscle memory?
When the door opened, Geralt's hand slid back to the bed. That he was impressed by both the handiwork and the fact that Jaskier had actually given up expensive thread to mend him didn't need to be aired. The smell of the food filled his mouth with saliva and if his reflexes had been in tact he would have grabbed a herring off the plate as it passed him-- as it was his stomach growled. Loudly. The boy stared at his stomach and then at him.
"Boo," the Witcher said, wondering if he'd scatter.