PSL Injuries and Patching up with Monsterbytrade

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier was not font of this particular hamlet, he decided. The lands were bleak, the people were bleaker, and there was a pervasive stench of bog that crept into everything. The sheets (the beds were fairly nice, he would give them that, but the feather mattresses all stank of bog water), the curtains, the wood, the people--everything smelled of still water and mold. It was enough to drive him to distraction.

He suspected it annoyed Geralt as well, but the Witcher had only given him a cursory grunt when prompted about it.

The town, apparently, had need of a Witcher to clear some terrible beast from the marshes nearby. Jaskier couldn't hope to pronounce the name of it so, until Geralt felt like describing the thing, he was out on a limb about whether to make a song of it or not. Apparently, it was dangerous enough that Geralt had actually deigned to request he stay behind, instead of just ordering it, and Jaskier had agreed without hesitation.

It was an unspoken agreement. Anything truly cataclysmic or terrible, Geralt would grit his teeth and be cordial about what he required and Jaskier would agree without argument. It was a nicety they both extended...unfortunately, that meant that Jaskier was left standing in the road, staring off into the night, pacing as he waited for Geralt to appear out of the darkness like a spectre of death.

He did not.

The night crawled on and Jaskier's pacing got a little antsier, a little less controlled, he started talking--to himself and to Roach, who waited patiently by the roadside. He bitched about Witchers, about whatever this thing was, about the town, about the smell, praised Roach for being a good girl, damned Roach for not being psychically connected to Geralt (that he could prove), and then sighed and just leaned his head against her neck as he waited.

It was just before dawn that the Witcher appeared on the road. He moved very, very slowly and Jaskier stared in horror as he watched him approach.

He didn't want to pry, to be more of a nuisance than he was wont, but Geralt didn't--that wasn't how he walked. He had brushed Jaskier off before, knocked aside hands and insisted he was fine when he was not...but the bard had never seen him move like that. Had never seen the way his legs seemed to drag, to move ahead only to catch himself. He was falling forward, repeatedly, more than he was walking.

"Damn it all," Jaskier cursed and abandoned Roach to run to the Witcher's side.

The stench of blood was--truly remarkable. It took him aback and that, alone, said something. His armor was destroyed, cut apart and gnawed free, and the dark splotches on his clothing--it was impossible to tell where Geralt's blood started and where the gore of the creature ended. He had one of his swords in hand, held in a tight immobile grip and in the other he held a grotesque severed head of something that resembled a mummified woman made of corn-husks and a layer of teeth stolen from children's heads. He nearly vomited at the sight of it.

Geralt kept walking, almost like he hadn't seen the bard come up, and Jaskier's hands fluttered as he considered how to--what to do.

"Geralt? My friend? Are you--oh you're looking a bit unwell--" His voice was very high all of a sudden. Was that a solid chunk taken out of him? Melitele's tits he could see through that hole in Geralt's side. Could see clear through him. That was very bad. There was a huge gash across his back, across his legs, he was a mess of holes and bites and Jaskier's heart felt very near to stopping.

He made a decision then and snuck himself under Geralt's sword arm. He drew the tense limb over his shoulders and lifted, took some of the Witcher's weight, and tried to lead him to Roach.

Comments

[monsterbytrade]

Children had been disappearing.

Surely Geralt himself always cultivated the impression that he was a heartless monster, his services only offered if there was coin to be had, the actual organ such a shriveled, blackened thing as to be non-existent. It was what he was taught. It was what all witchers were taught. Build your walls high and strong because the world hates you and will try and use you. They see you as a weapon to be loosed at a target, but that was wrong-- witchers were loyal to no one, beholden to no one, and swayed by no moral or emotional judgement. They were their own weapons. And if people believed that such power could only be purchased for silver or gold, well then, there was never any need for a lesser evil. And yet.

In the last decade rumors had begun to proceed the White Wolf. More people begged his mercy, less people offered coin. The world was shifting, yes, but he had somehow settled into a different orbit entirely, one that would have made Vesemir blow breath through his moustache in that way that meant he would have taken Geralt over a knee if he'd still been young enough.

Children had gone missing. And the town was poor, unable to keep the crawl of the marsh from their doors and beds and grain sacks. Whatever idiotic ancestors had set up the first ramshackle houses so close to such a pervasive bog had doomed the future generations of idiots to come. They should have left, packed up to a man and gone elsewhere but of course they wouldn't. Instead of taking his advice they offered him a meals and beer for him to fix their problem, along with a purse of coin hardly heavy enough to buy a sack of potatoes. But still they'd sat and ate the tough, gamey stew, drank the beer, and Geralt had listened to Jaskier complain too loudly. He'd only grunted in response. When the alderman explained the details about the thing had been plaguing the town Geralt had known exactly what it was; he'd used the elder-tongue word for it then because sitting in a crowded, moldy pub with downtrodden, moldy people missing their children, even he had the decorum not to say the words skin-eater.

The fight had been longer than he'd expected, or intended. Geralt had counted out his potions carefully, putting them into the small pouches at his belt as Jaskier flitted around while absolutely failing to cover his concern-- whether it was because Geralt had nicely asked him to wait or because he had accepted the job without real pay, he wasn't sure. He wasn't listening. He was breathing, listing the things he had, the things he might need. When he was done the sun was low and deeply orange. Geralt patted Roach on the neck and gave Jaskier a sigh and headed into the tree cover of the marsh where the footing was terrible and the stink was worse than the town.

Unfortunately for Geralt, he was not the preferred meal of the beast. Which meant not only a hunt but a lethal and prolonged game of hide and seek without the moon to guide him. When his cat potion wore off and the night swallowed him for good he was already sluggish from bloodloss, his sword too heavy in hand. The small, baiting strikes had grown bold when Geralt began to fumble in the darkness. The skin-eater would slide, a silken, chittering nightmare, released from the mud that caught at Geralt's boots and tear away chunks of his armor, his jerkins, his hide. There had been little choice in the end; all his little vials had been emptied, all of them down the hatch together because it was either risk death later from the toxins or risk death right then at the hands of the creature.

It worked. He wasn't dead. Yet.

And underneath the shambles of a man that walked out of the marsh at the edge of dawn, there was a faint smile on Geralt's mouth. That it was he carrying a head and not the other way around, well, that was that. No more children sacrificed.

He was moving forward and then something was swaying in front of him but Geralt didn't understand what it was as his ears roared and his eyes refused to focus properly-- he only knew that he was still pointed the right way to get to his horse and his feet were still moving. He needed to keep his feet moving. After a while the shadow that had flitted back and forth settled against his side and the moving forward was easier. That was fine. Even though his skin was burning faintly and there were a few pains that together were so enormous as to almost render him numb, he'd find Roach. And then. Huh, then. Something.

Geralt's stomach lurched and his knees buckled as he dropped to the grass near the road and heaved up little else but bile tinged pink with blood. After his stomach was empty his body continued to spasm for a few long moment and by the time it was finished both his momentum and his energy had gone. He swayed on his knees and night crept back in around the edges of his already-blurred vision.

[whatupbuttercup]

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.

He had to finish.

There were so many stitches left.

[monsterbytrade]

Accelerated healing was part of a witcher's mutations. Their capable bodies had been broken down in terrible and inhumane ways only to be taught-- if they managed to live through the teaching-- how to be better. Faster. Stronger. Reflexes sharpened likes fresh blades on a whetstone, spells and concoctions fine-tuning nerves and muscles to make predators out of young boys. Blood and humors added to and divided from until they were specialized, efficient. These were the only reason why, laid out on a table in this stinking town with only a bard and a midwife to help him, Geralt's body kept breathing. His already low pulse kept blood pumping. It was all that he could manage but it was enough and, as wound after wound was stitched, he began to retain more blood than he lost.

At first there was nothing but blackness. Geralt wasn't present; there was no light to step into. It was just cold, and dark, and he only lay there unknowing, not being. The sun rose and ticked across the sky and his skin was pulled slowly together with silk and the bite of alcohol against soft, vulnerable tissue was nothing. People came and went. Jaskier worked. Geralt was not present. There was just his breathing, his blood on the table.

At some point the blackness shifted. It didn't lighten but he became aware of it enough to know that it had filled with the chattering of teeth. There was no telling if it was an echo from his body inward or a memory of the thing that had stalked him in the marsh and though Geralt was not prone to nightmares, the veil was not sleep. If he screamed, it was only in his mind. And he did. He screamed over and over and no one heard him. It felt like the monsters was taking bites of him... small, focused bites with razor-sharp teeth. Geralt tried to thrash but his world tilted instead of him. It was like his limbs were weighted down, stuck. Another thing that had been taught to the boys of Kaer Morhen was will-power but rail as Geralt might he could do nothing by lay in the blackness and let himself be slowly eaten as the sound of teeth shook and clattered around him. Eventually the darkness devoured him again and he welcomed it, even if it was death.

Time passed. The sun moved again, this time back toward the horizon.

When it was nearing the horizon Geralt leapt through the darkness, though he wasn't awake. An arm that had been lying prone for so long jumped and iron fingers wrapped around the closest wrist, squeezing too tightly. His yellow eyes opened and looked without seeing. "Fuck off," he growled. "It's been done and you can't do anything for it. Fuck your money. Fuck your destiny." He yanked Jaskier closer and then his face spasmed in pain. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he panted heavily as his brows furrowed. For just a moment his eyes cleared.

"Jaskier?"

And then the darkness again had it's way with him.

[whatupbuttercup]

It was deep into the night when Jaskier finished--his eyes were sore and his focus was shot and everything looked the same. There was a thrill of satisfaction in a job completed, in stitching the very last of the gaping wounds that could be stitched, but it was a hollow thing. Geralt did not move, hadn't moved, in so many hours that as his task came to a close, the only thing that filled the void of adrenaline and panic was unadulterated dread.

He busied himself, cleaned the stitches gently with an alcohol soaked rag, applied some of the salves he had in his own pack--those ran out rather fast, though. They were not made for this and he didn't carry enough to treat even a third of Geralt's wounds. He would have to learn to make more, he couldn't be left wanting like this again.

Fuck.

If there was an again--and he hoped yes, so desperately: yes, but at the same time no. His heart couldn't take it.

He emptied the tins of salve and packed the puncture in Geralt's side. If something was severed in there, he lacked the skill to do anything about it. Fuck, he was useless. In the end he found himself just sitting, staring at everything but the Witcher, pallid and still on the table, soaked in sweat and a thin sheen of blood and stinking of alcohol and death.

This was a fucking kitchen.

A table for preparing meals, with hanging pots and pans and herbs drying over the fire. There were cleavers and knives on the far wall. What a shit place to bring him. To leave him splayed out on a table here, like a slab of meat to be trussed up and prepared. Jaskier rested his fingers against Geralt's chest and left them here until he felt the staggering slow beat of his heart--he hated checking. It took so long he was always sure, absolutely sure, it wouldn't come.

But it did.

He sighed and sagged with relief. His head landed in his hand, kept him propped up against the table, sat delicately and nervously on a stool. The room was quiet but for the crackling of the hearth. He was sweating but he felt very, very cold.

He drifted, then, exhausted from better than a day without sleep, and somehow his head remained on his hand. His fingers rested on Geralt's arm, right against his elbow, where even a clumsy fool like Jaskier's could track the beating of the Witcher's heart. The townsfolk had all but abandoned him--at his behest--and he dreamed of them coming back, of them cutting Geralt up and cooking him and tossing him into that horrible swamp. He dreamed he was doing the cutting--that he watched on helpless--that he had to sew Geralt back together from butchered steaks and flanks.

It was an unhappy dream but not really a nightmare, not by the standards he'd picked up traveling with Geralt.

Then something wonderful and painful happened all at once.

He was yanked from sleep unceremoniously, his hand went out from under his head and his head, suddenly freed, hit the table and startled him painfully awake. He scrambled up but his wrist was caught in a severe, crushing grip.

Fuck off.

Jaskier's heart leapt--he thought he'd imagined the gravel of Geralt's voice. But he hadn't. Geralt yanked him in and Jaskier went with him, bent toward him like a flower stretching toward the sun. His eyes were open--he was talking--his grip flexed painfully and Jaskier whimpered while Geralt stared.

He said his name and Jaskier had never, not once in all his life, felt happier.

Then Geralt passed clean out.

Jaskier laughed.

He broke into manic laughter, so full of relief that he found himself weeping with it. He had to pry that hand from his wrist and he was almost loathe to do so. But Geralt was alright! He was alive and cantankerous and that meant he would be alright.

The first thing he did was run to tell Roach. It was stupid but he hugged her long face with both arms, kissed her again and again, and told her the news. The second thing he did was find a way to move Geralt off that awful table...and thirdly: he apologized for his absolutely appalling lack of decorum. He'd pay every crown in his purse and his weight again in gold for all they'd helped him--he was so happy.

Geralt was alive.

[monsterbytrade]

The first thing was the smell.

"Smells like a fucking swamp."

Geralt's throat was dry, his words a deeper grumble than even his usual, and his lips were nearly bound together with saliva caked thick and unused. His eyelids stayed closed but the obvious eye movements underneath moved them to and fro. For a moment his sharp nose tensed and then all of him relaxed into the bed and he was asleep again. The smaller of his wounds had come together under their deft attentions and were already looking pink and puckered instead of red and angry. They were nowhere near healed but the witcher's biological integrity shone though. Nothing was seeping. He was not in stasis, but healing.

It was almost another full day before he woke again and this time his eyes opened. Geralt looked around the small, dingy room, the wood in the low corners green. By the slant of the sun through the dirty windows it seemed late afternoon but it could as well been late morning. He had no idea where he was-- but when he tried to sit up every part of his body screamed with less-than-merciful voices. He didn't know if it was the pain or the movement but his head swam and then despite how his side hollered, Geralt managed to lean over the side of the bed to vomit on the floor. He hung there for a moment, wondering why he was still awake, when he vomited again. There it was. Everything swam back into blackness.

ONLY 390 ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.

[whatupbuttercup]

Geralt rose and fell away a few dozen times over the next day. Mostly he was insensate, his eyes would open and he would stare and he wouldn't react to Jaskier's face as it dipped in front of him, wouldn't respond to words or the touch of his hand on his face. He would drift away, after that, each time, but he was awake and that--oh, that was something.

They moved Geralt to one of the rooms above the pub, the one they'd paid for when they arrived. The mattress was soft, if stinking, the sheets were passable, and the sun didn't rise directly across the bed. Jaskier was in and out, flitting from the bedside to the bedroll on the floor, to their packs, to visit Roach, to speak to the alderman and the pub owner.

The midwife had accepted his apology (with an unbearably fond look) and had taught him to mix a crude painkilling salve, himself. He spent the better part of a day out in the swampy bogs around the town picking ingredients and gathering flowers. He returned and, for the first time in quite a time, Geralt spoke.

Jaskier didn't even mind that it was a cruel criticism of his pungent odor. (He did bathe, thereafter, and made certain the room had sprigs of lavender to drown out the remaining, muggy stench of damp.)

He mixed his salves, spread them over Geralt's stitches, tended to the man as best he could, and waited. Geralt was growing thinner and Jaskier didn't relish the day he'd have to figure out how to feed the man--it would be soon, tomorrow if not today, and he'd gone to talk with the pub owner's wife about making something that wouldn't choke him if they poured it down his sleeping throat.

When he came back, the room stank of vomit and bile and Geralt was hunched over the edge of the bed. Jaskier dropped his tray, a pitcher of grassy smelling soup and the bread for himself, and rushed over without another thought--there was a racket as that all hit the floor but he couldn't hear it--he pressed his hands into Geralt's shoulders and tried to lean him back. To resettle him on the bed.

"Geralt?" he asked, quietly, hopefully. The Witcher's eyes were closed as Jaskier pressed him back, so he simply stared and waited.

NEEKID GERALT ICON IS YOUR ACHIEVEMENT ICON. CONGRATULATIONS.

[monsterbytrade]

The crash came just as he was slipping back, the hard, sharp friction of the sound disabusing him of any notions that he would return directly to the waiting arms of nothingness. He was pushed backward at least-- which while not pleasant, left him in a position he could breathe in. So he did draw a few deep lungfuls, each more painful than the last, until he was forced to subside and began breathing shallowly once again. Geralt opened his eyes simply because keeping them closed made the room spin too quickly. He tried to lick his lips but his mouth had nothing to give except the clinging remainders of vomit.

Why hadn't he died instead? He felt fucking terrible.

He tried to lift a hand to the worst of the injuries and found a dressed wound, nails skating along a bandage before he had to rest his arm against his stomach. "Don't tell me," he said, before stopping to breathe. "That you were my physician." The longer he was awake the longer the darkness built shadows around the corner of his eyes. His insides lurched again but he held it down with a will and exhaled slowly though his nose. Injuries-- plenty. But it wasn't blood-loss or even shitty stitches that was making him feel like this. He groped for Jaskier and, finding his doublet, made a fist into the fabric. It was cool and slick under his fingers, a strange, welcome difference to the sweat-thick sheets where he lay.

Now that his blood was helpful being kept inside his body and regenerating to boot, the Witcher was beginning to show signs of the effects the concoctions he'd drank in concert. His veins were darker against his fair skin and the old scars that railroaded his body like a map had gone from white to red. His body-- apparently content that it was strong enough to get into more trouble-- was conveniently trying to parse the toxins from itself.

"White honey," he croaked out before his hand fell, his chest took one more hard gasp of breath, and his eyes closed. Unlike the unconsciousness that had come before, this time his rest seemed more like a sleep... and perhaps not to his benefit. Geralt's temperature rose and he jerked on the mattress as he sweat through it anew.

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier was so happy, so delighted that the Witcher was aware, was awake--he sounded dreadful, parched and dried, his gravelly voice changed to a husky rasp. Jaskier was suddenly full of energy, he wanted to fetch water--fuck he'd dropped the soup. Geralt was surely hungry, it had been days--he didn't rise to the bait, to the taunt about his lack of medical skill--his voice would have broken if he tried and, frankly, thinking on it still made Jaskier a bit ill.

He didn't dash away, couldn't once Geralt grabbed him by the open breast of his doublet. He hauled him down, more with the weight of his limb than any muscles, and Jaskier went willingly, almost eagerly, eyes wide and attentive. Geralt was breathing hard and looked ready to faint again--

"White honey."

Jaskier stared and, as his hand fell away, the bard's hands hovered another moment. Geralt passed into sleep, lighter and less unnerving than before, and the sight of his head shifting, as if he were merely feverish, was enough to snap Jaskier from his stillness.

"Right! White honey," he repeated and stood back up, he turned and...at once, realized he had no idea what Geralt was demanding. He froze and his eyes darted to the door--he couldn't mean actual honey, could he? No, he'd have just said honey. Was there a special kind of honey? Some magical sort of nonsense that was white?

Jaskier paled and combed his memory. Had Geralt ever mentioned honey?

If there was a thing called white honey, if it could be found anywhere, surely it was something Geralt had gathered before. The Witcher was nothing if not well prepared--Geralt stopped and picked every herb and flower that struck his alchemical fancy. Jaskier scrambled to his bag, to the ingredients and potions he kept aside--he threw it open and was greeted by a myriad of bottles.

"White...honey?" Jaskier repeated and felt his stomach drop.

To his eyes, they all looked the same. Dark liquid in dark glass, bottles of varied size and shape, corked or sealed with wax. He plucked them up, shuffled through them, and felt his panic mount the more of them he drew out. Eventually, however, his hand found a light, cloudy bottle with a cork and a green mark upon it.

Somehow, impossibly, that bottle was familiar. The contents were white and translucent, though they didn't look like honey to him. Maybe it was a nickname--he had seen Geralt take it once, after a fight where he'd been come back abyssal eyed and shaking. He'd nearly crushed it in his hurry to drink it, had seized and groaned, and had seemed terribly sick.

The next day he'd been right as rain.

This was the one he wanted, Jaskier knew it had to be--he clutched the tiny bottle and returned to Geralt's side. It took him a moment of clumsy fumbling to get it open and then a considerably greater amount of fumbling to get the Witcher propped up, to rest his upper body against Jaskier's chest and tilt his head back over his shoulder. He was careful as he poured the vial into the Witcher's mouth and held it aloft to make sure every single drop emptied down his throat.

[monsterbytrade]

Jaskier was luckier than he was dim, then-- had he poured the wrong potion down the throat of a witcher who was suffering from an overdose, it would have almost surely killed the man on the spot in a most painful and gruesome manner. As it stood, however, that would not be the case today. After the contents of the bottle were swallowed (aside from the first choke of a dried throat that sent just a little dribble from the side of his mouth), Geralt's body stiffened and his eyes opened, those yellow orbs directly on Jaskier before they rolled back onto his head.

Then he was groaning, a base, terrible sound and pulling himself into something more like a ball despite the fact that the position was threatening to rip skin from stitches. He slid to the pillows and one of his hand fists into sheets with enough force to rip them. The honey was doing it's job as a purgative; if he had been able to have a sense of anything other the new, intense discomfort compounding his already destroyed body, perhaps he would have been thankful. Or at least relieved.

As it stood, however, he was back to wishing for death.

Unlucky for Geralt the pain was not enough to hand him back to unconsciousness. He tried not to move as much as possible but his body shook as the honey worked and his veins crawled, dark and strangely large. His skin glistened with fresh sweat and the red of his scars stood out in stark contrast to how pale and wan he had suddenly become; a man accustomed to pain and yet Geralt was hard-pressed to manage this in any way. There was simply too much for him to do anything but gasp as he rode the waves of cramps and nausea and the low, sickly burn of the antidote trying to scour his blood clean while muscles tensed and stitches popped. The wound at his side where he'd been thrown onto a wide, jagged piece of broken tree, seeped through the bandages. He knew it had to end soon, this, and yet he found that logic was a scant comfort in the moment.

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier stared on in abject horror as Geralt's eyes snapped open, as he twisted and curled and shivered. The bard could see how his skin crawled, watches as redness and gooseflesh spread and faded in patches. He had no idea if he had given him the right potion--that could have been sugar water just as easily as cyanide and Jaskier wouldn't have had the faintest which was which.

Unfortunately, there was naught to be done about it now. All he could do was watch as Geralt suffered, as he tore his stitches and the smell of blood seeped into the air. Jaskier reached out as the Witcher curled tighter but froze before he touched him again.

What could he do, now? Tell him it would be fine? Offer him a jaunty tune or some mediocre salve? He didnt even have any strong liquor left, he'd dumped the whole of what he had on Geralt's open wounds already.

So, anxious and terrified, Jaskier watched and waited. He was antsy and his focus was locked on the Witcher...but still he waited. If Geralt passed out, he could bandage that wound again. If he didn't, he might've needed something else and, by the gods, Jaskier hadn't spent days in a frantic tizzy just to fuck off before the end.

He knew he would definitely need water, between the blood lost, the sweat that streamed off him, and a few days of deep unconsciousness, Geralt would need a pitcher or two to feel human again.

He would wait. At least until the pain passed...if it did. Gods he hoped it would.

[monsterbytrade]

It felt like forever.

In reality it was about twenty minutes before the worst of the pain receded enough to let him breathe. After the jagged tenseness of his body until that moment, the contrast that was made as his chest actually rose and fell with something other than a shallow breath seemed pronounced and almost wrong. But Geralt's lungs kept working like bellows being tended by an overzealous forge apprentice and breath by breath the color was seeping back into his skin-- at least, to the eyes of someone who had seen how much whiter the normally pale witcher could become through blood loss and pain. The deep blue of his veins didn't go, nor did the color of his scars, but they didn't seem to be growing worse.

His eyes refocused slowly. Geralt lay on his side, breathing, staring at one particularly feather quill poking up through the mattress and sheet near his face. It seemed enough to be able just to do that. There was nothing in his head, probably by virtue of the fact that pain was still very much an agonizing constant even though having gotten past the worst of it a part of him reasoned that he was certainly better off in comparison. Reason would not pull a thought together, however.

Eventually he noticed the silk that backgrounded that rogue feather, a color and print that only an idiot would wear, though it was dirtied with too muddied a stain to distinguish the source or sources. There was a small hole and two threads of exposed silk crossed the skin showing beneath and Geralt stared at them as pain chased pain and he shivered and sweat. The hand that was his-- the one between his face and that dirty, ripped trouser knee-- slowly, slowly opened. The dirt and hells-knew-what else caked under his fingernails matched the color of the stained silk next to it. Geralt relaxed his hand palm downward onto the bed.

Only an idiot would wear that color silk, anyway.

The bellows of his lungs slowed with that thought, just enough to let his eyes close and sleep to come.

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier hadn't realized how still he'd gone, how perfectly statuesque he'd become while Geralt shivered and spasmed. He hadn't held his breath (and thank the gods for that) but he'd definitely waited, primed and and eager and perfectly static. Eventually, Geralt calmed, his whole body devoted itself to just breathing, and eventually that, too, slowed. The bard listened as he passed out again but now? Now Jaskier actually recognized the sounds he made.

Geralt had finally fallen back into the realm of Jaskier's memory.

"Oh...thank you," he said, breathless, and finally released the tension holding him up. He swayed a bit, considered just letting his weak legs drop him to the floor in relief--but that would probably be a hideous noise and--oh, fuck, he'd dropped the soup and bread.

There was nothing for the soup, the pitcher had overturned and spilled it everywhere, but the bread was fine. He set that aside, at least, and carefully left to get a mop and bucket. And more soup.

Jaskier's mind was calmer as the next few hours passed which was, actually, on whole, rather inconvenient for him. He didn't have adrenaline to keep himself upright and working and that had been the lynchpin of his efforts so far. Still, he cleaned the soup, gathered new linens and new bandages, mixed some more of that half-assed salve (Though after making so much, he felt he was getting pretty good at it. He had definitely grown rather skilled at crushing and combining everything into homogeneity.), and fretted over whether it was wise to maneuver a slumbering Geralt (not passed out) to remove and change those bandages.

He'd split stitches--Jaskier had heard them pop. He wouldn't be bleeding like this if it hadn't been a goodly number of them.

Jaskier put it off, fetched water, supplies, niceties, and even attempted a short nap--but it kept him up. It was just after dawn (again, was this the fifth day? Sixth? He'd lost count) when he finally gave in to the nagging in his skull and tried to tend to the Witcher once more.

[monsterbytrade]

Jaskier had been, in a sense, right to wait. In a way, too, he'd been wrong. Honestly-- there was no best answer, no lesser evil. Geralt had healed better with sleep but his body had weakened without food or water and the wounds had leaked, unchecked, against the linens. But it didn't take long for Geralt's eyes to open from what had been a real-- if particularly deep-- slumber as hands pried here and there and the sheets that were now sticking, dried, to myriad wounds. Instinct tried, and failed, to bring a curse to his lips for the sharp, bright, waking pain as his throat refused his call. Instead there was a nasty, wary grumble that was the best he could manage.

He felt disgusting.

Pain, dirt, seepage-- every bit of it was present and accounted for and the worst was for as fucking awful as he felt, Geralt could smell the wreckage of his body. He didn't know how long it had been but he could guess by the smell. He groped across the sheets for any bit of Jaskier that he could find because--

Jaskier. He'd dreamed of Jaskier. Of Jaskier, being close. The bright patterns of his silks, the tenor of his voice-- though in the dream he'd been singing The Ballad of Two Tits, which he'd never written in real life but threatened Yennefer with when they'd met the golden dragon Villentretenmerth years ago.

But Jaskier was here, now. Geralt grabbed what he could, his fingers sliding over silk. "That... fucking... hurts," he croaked. He didn't want fabric torn from his wounds, thank you, he'd rather just keep sleeping. Or maybe he wanted a beer. He tried to wet his lips but there was no saliva in his mouth to work with. In the last twelve or so hours since the soup had been spilt his veins and scars had lightened, at least. There was that.

[whatupbuttercup]

Geralt awoke as Jaskier started trying to peel away the bandages around his ribs. It was slow work and Jaskier had to cut them more than a few times with the fine little shears he kept in his sewing kit. The Witcher grabbed him around the elbow, grip as firm as he could make it (Jaskier assumed) and found it not nearly as strong or punishing as the grip that first night--oh, oh that was unfortunate.

But Geralt didn't let go, or lurch, or even release his elbow. His hand shifted and Jaskier couldn't help but smile. Geralt wasn't just present--he was awake!

"Here, hang on--I'll stop just, here--"

He had gotten the man a cup and pitcher, but curled as he was, it would be very hard to move him to drink. Instead he snatched up the waterskin he'd set aside to clean off the wound beneath the bandages. It was newly refilled, it would be fine--he pressed that to Geralt's mouth and gave him a moment before he tilted it.

"You sound awful, my friend," Jaskier told him and oh, he sounded far too fond and misty eyed. He cleared his own throat and that corrected his tone, somewhat. "Barely terrifying at all."

[monsterbytrade]

The waterskin was Geralt's best friend and worst, he had taken in a mouthful before he realized that he simply could not and coughed it all over the side of the bed. But the liquid that had hit his teeth, his tongue, the back of his throat-- it awakened a thirst that was as likely to kill him as soothe him and Geralt was fumbling for the leather pouch to make sure that Jaskier didn't try to pull it away, that sappy tone of his be damned. He coughed out two more mouthfuls before his throat was soaked by-proxy enough to release and then, with the bard's help, he chugged the rest of the skin.

Which he promptly brought up, in it's entirety. Not quite off the bed. Maybe it was an answer for the bard's words or maybe just an honest reaction but Geralt was sated and no one was pulling anything off his wounds anymore so he slid back toward the darkness, easy enough in his contentment.

[whatupbuttercup]

Geralt struggled, grabbed and chugged and desperately tried to crush liquid from the waterskin. It was a sight that gave Jaskier a bit of hope--made him glad he'd brought up that pitcher--he was about to offer it when the Witcher promptly coughed, sputtered, and vomitted the lot of it over the edge of the bed and, consequently, all over Jaskier's trousers.

They were ruined already, he reminded himself, but the sudden mess of it was still enough to have the bard freeze in place and just...stare. He let out a strained huff and looked up as Geralt dropped back into sleep--

He made another strained sort of sound and, once a few moments had passed, Jaskier reached and picked up the waterskin.

Right.

Well. Then.

He looked at Geralt's side--where he'd started to peel away the ruined bandages...and then looked at the state of the bedding and himself. He had no idea if the Witcher was aware enough that alcohol would sear him back awake...so, perhaps it was best if he...cleaned. A bit.

Perhaps.

The pub owner was more than happy to lend him use of a tub, to let him wash and clean his own clothing and the top-sheet. He had tried to extract the bottom sheet but the Witcher was not a small man and, without lifting him bodily, there would be no changing that. Jaskier settled for wiping up the thin watery mess and changing out the pillow, at least.

Geralt had complained, however briefly, about the pain of changing out those bandages. Jaskier supposed he could leave it, now that he was on the mend, but the thought of those wounds opening made him terribly anxious. He could recall just how awful they'd looked when he closed them the first time and, frankly, picturing that put him off every other activity he could have done.

So, whilst Geralt slept, Jaskier decided to soak the matted bandages off of his side. It would make the Witcher bleed again but the top-sheet was a lost cause, regardless. At least if he soaked off the clotted blood and mess, he could cut the fabric away and deal with the wounds. So, he did. With a bucket of very warm water and a rag, and more patience than sense, he set to task.

Unfortunately, Jaskier was dead on his feet as he started again. He barely even noticed that he was falling asleep until he finally succumbed, draped over Geralt's hip with a wet and bloodied rag still in hand.

[monsterbytrade]

The next time Geralt swam to the surface of consciousness, he wasn't sure what had brought him up. He was very thirsty, yes. And still in a good amount of pain, true. But there was nothing acute... except for the weight across his hip that was slowly causing the entire area to throb. He rolled his head to the side and found Jaskier sprawled half-across him, lips parted and hair having dried, apparently, in a very interesting position. There was a blush to his cheeks that spoke to deep sleep. For a long moment, Geralt just looked at him. Watched the way his back moved with the sure rise-and-drop of the exhausted and how the sun crawled across the soft lines of his face.

Idiot bard, running himself ragged.

Geralt sighed and blamed his current lack of motion to impact the current scene on physical weakness; it was obvious to him, after all, just how bad it was. And then, ironically, wondered if the actual reasons for him not immediately poking the other man awake were simply a different sort of weakness entirely. He closed his eyes, uninterested in having a scathing moral debate with himself if he could instead just go back to sleep. But thirst was drawing his stomach into empty cramps and his tired muscles didn't seem far from seizing-- something that the pressure of Jaskier's head and arm was only drawing to the forefront of his mind with each long second that ticked by. Finally, teeth clenched, Geralt slid his arm across the mattress in order to poke Jaskier in the side. It was not meant to be a gentle poke but it lacked any real strength behind it. The motion was accompanied by a grunt because there was no trusting his throat anymore; it felt like a rust-filled desert. Geralt did it again when Jaskier didn't immediately stir but didn't know how many times he could repeat the motion and the next way the bard would be waking would be to the dulcet sounds of Geralt's broken yells as his arm and chest muscles bound up. Dehydration was a bitch, after all. He sighed.

"Wake up, Jaskier." The devastated croak of the words made Geralt grimace at himself.

Aqa

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier was not an anxious or light sleeper, not usually. He could slumber through all manner of loud, sudden sound or even most nearby or casual movements. This last week, however, had him so very, very on edge that the sound of his name had him starting awake with a terrified, sharp gasp.

Jaskier's eyes danced, shot around the room in a panic as he sat up, very abruptly. They fell back on Geralt before long and, upon seeing his eyes open, the bard's sudden panic calmed. He stared a second, expression soft and unbearably fond, and when he realized neither of them was asleep, he jumped with surprise.

"Oh, Fuck, right--" he said and the cold, soaking wet rag in his hands fell onto the bed. "--you threw all that back up. Are you thirstier? Hungrier? Let me--"

He stood from where he'd lighted on the bed and swayed a bit as his legs woke back up. He was going to have a terrible series of cricks tomorrow. Idiot. The waterskin was near the tray with the pitcher and cup. He snatched it up and darted back, holding it out for Geralt's approval and use. He looked ready to run across the room or downstairs the very instant the Witcher grunted and gave a one word demand for something else.

[monsterbytrade]

Geralt only wanted Jaskier to get that look off his face until he started yammering, and then he wished for it back if only to have silence again. His eyes closed for a moment against the mercifully short onslaught that fell away as the man turned to activity instead of talk. Geralt breathed out slowly and tried to assess his body but with as weak as his body felt and as scattered as his mind was it was impossible.

The smell of the water when it was held near was sharp, even over the stink of the room that crowded Geralt's nose. There was no saliva to be had or his mouth would have watered at that clean, vaguely metallic smell that water takes on when it had been boiled in a cast iron pot. Yellow eyes opened and sharpened as well as they could; a hand made to raise and then settled back on the sheets. Fuck. There was no shame for his position, only frustration-- and half of that was for knowing his body well enough to know that holding that skin full of water would not only result in him spilling it, but triggering the cramps that threatened. His face contorted.

"You--" It did gall. "Please." It really couldn't be a surprise that Geralt neither looked nor sounded happy about asking for the help.

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier, once again, seemed startled by the reality of things. It was foolish, he'd been helping Geralt for nearly a week and the man had hardly eaten, had hardly drank--why he'd thought Geralt could take the skin and toss it back, himself, he had no idea. (He knew. He'd never seen the Witcher endure an injury this severe, had never been around to help him--he still had a notion that Geralt would wake up and shake it right off.)

"Right, of course," Jaskier agreed quickly and knelt by the side of the bed with the skin. He fluttered a bit, debated lifting up the man's head, maybe trying to prop him higher--but Geralt was awake and, frankly, Jaskier wasn't sure he'd tolerate that much henning while conscious.

The bard lifted the opening of the skin to his mouth and then lifted the skin itself, tilting and pouring the water at a bare trickle. He felt a vague flicker of worry--he'd only just donned clean clothing. He didn't have another set, not until his ruined clothes dried. (Ah, but that was a selfish thought. Geralt didn't want to vomit it up any more than Jaskier wanted to be soaked in it.) He tilted the bag a bit higher and let the stream intensify to a reasonable amount--come whatever may.

"Drink what you can, I can fetch more," Jaskier tells him.

[monsterbytrade]

Had Jaskier tried to pick up Geralt's head like he was an invalid, Geralt surely would have found the strength to disabuse him of that notion even had it meant every muscle in his body going into spasmodic paroxysms.

The trickle was good, now, his throat wet just enough from the last terrible attempt to be able to take the small amount of water with only a small, repressed cough that was not enough to stop the hungry swallows. When the bag was tilted higher Geralt gave it a few large mouthfuls before pushing his fingers into Jaskier's leg and then gulping for air when the bag was pulled away. When he lifted his arm carefully to wipe the corner of his mouth, it trembled and was returned to his chest instead of the bed. "Enough." More would only see him vomit it all up again. As it stood his stomach was lightly cramping with the liquid, but he was sure that it would pass.

His veins were almost normal in color again and his scars were white, as was normal. The dark circles under Geralt's eyes were nothing but natural. "How long?" he asked, his eyes on the window and then Jaskier. He knew that whatever the answer was, it wasn't good.

[whatupbuttercup]

Jaskier withdrew the skin when Geralt pushed it aside and, for some reason, drew it back to his chest like it was armor. He had no idea why he adopted that pose, barely even noticed he'd done it--he didn't offer Geralt a smile, then, his look still too closely bordered to worry for anything else to dash across his face.

The question was a good one, though, and Jaskier had to think for a long time--had to glance aback at the window behind him.

"Uh...six days, I think," he told him and gradually forced himself to lower that skin. To seem more casual than he felt.

"I'm not terribly sure, actually," Jaskier admitted a moment later and forced a small (somewhat wooden) smile across his face. "I've barely been paying attention."

Oh! But that did beg additional questions.

"How do you feel?"

It was a stupid question, given everything, but Jaskier asked it on reflex. Did he feel like he was going to die? It was preferrable to dying, he supposed. He didn't look nearly as bad--Melitele's mercy he looked so much improved. Except for his side--fuck, he'd fallen asleep trying to soak those bandages off. He'd have to deal with it...but: later.

[monsterbytrade]

Not, in fact, later.

Geralt tried to push back against the pillows in order to raise himself up and failed, managed not to gasp, and then lifted his hand off his chest just enough to see the seeping, wet, ruined bandages. Also the back of his thighs were angry. Felt like popped stitches... it was only a shame that he knew the feeling so precisely. He closed his eyes for a moment. Getting even that much water into him had his brain finally clicking over and his body feeling immediately better-- and though he knew it for the ultimate ruse that it was, he let himself wallow in it just a little. Just for a moment or two. Finally he blew out a breath and opened his eyes on Jaskier. Actually, watching the man there he wished he felt just a little worse, actually, so that he could not read the awkward worry of someone both out of his depth and sick with relief.

"I'll live," he said, quiet. Probably thanks to the mother hen currently swaying slightly as his bedside. Geralt wanted to tell him to lay down, for fuck'sake, and sleep-- if only because looking at Jaskier made him feel tired-- but he didn't. Instead he let his hand fall back to the bed. Neither of them would be getting rest for the next little bit. "These bandages. Need to be cleaned." And his thighs at least looked at. He wished that he could risk an elixir but only six days, considering what he'd taken in the marshes--

"Did you give me white honey?"

[whatupbuttercup]

"I did!" Jaskier chirped eagerly, glad that he'd been able to follow that direction, that it had worked. Just as quickly, though, he realized his juvenile the pride in his tone was. He used the energy of his response to push himself up from his kneel and hide the sudden flush up across his face.

"We will have to have a talk about how you label those bottles, by the way," Jaskier scolds idly and, while he was ginger in setting down the water skin, leaving it where Geralt could reach it, he was less precious about snapping up that cold wet cloth.

He could fetch more water but that would be terribly slow. It had been tolerable because Geralt had been out cold and immovable...but now, now he could actually tend to him, could actually clean.

"I can have a bath readied if you think you can tolerate one?"

He had only bled through in a few places, the rest of Jaskier's work had remained in tact.

[monsterbytrade]

The war between the ignominy of letting Jaskier haul him into the bathtub and the smell of himself was a quick but ruthless mental battle. "Give me a little more water," he said-- but he was going to get into the tub. He knew he was. The level of the water would have to be kept under the largest wound where the tree had more or less skewered him, but it would be worth it to sit there with his cock hanging out if it meant he could even have water squeezed over him. Geralt was sure at this point that his body might even try to draw the liquid in through his pores were it possible. Perhaps even if it weren't.

As Jaskier got the bath ready, Geralt sat with the water skin and sipped. He wasn't dead and he owed that to the bard for sure. He couldn't remember leaving the marshes, nor anything really between taking the Skin-Eater's head off his shoulders and the last time he'd woken up. And for as much as he loved Roach and trusted her instincts about certain things, he was sure that the mare would not have been able to drag him back to the inn alone. Did this ass end bog town even have a healer? Geralt couldn't remember one. "How did you know it was the right elixir?" he asked as Jaskier moved around the room. How he labeled the bottles was by not doing it, in most cases. He knew his bottles and he knew what each concoction looked, smelled, and moved like.

A small, tired voice at the back of his head asked himself if it was time to start teaching Jaskier some things. He shoved it away; there were other things to deal with.