The pointed sounds of the dainty crystal decorations against the cool, wooden floor were sharp little explosions that didn't stir the Witcher. Perhaps that should have been Jaskier's first warning; while it was true that Geralt was not exempt from hangovers and it was also true (if rare) that the man could drink enough to get to that point, being past a general advised level of inebriation never lasted long thanks to his body's expansive ability to purge toxins. Without the aid of witcher-concocted hallucinogens to fill his cup there was no real reason to need to sleep anything off-- the hangover usually happened before he'd even made it to bed and such a thing would never keep him from waking up.
Being upright was awkward. Geralt felt as if he might still be lying down, that place just before full unconsciousness where the mind untethered from the body and thoughts were cold honey, one slowly overtaking the other, incorporation too late for action. The feeling of Jaskier pushing his boots onto his feet was muffled and yet, not. There was no distance from his body-- just from his mind. "Jaskier." He heard himself say it as if he was listening to someone else entirely. Another man using his mouth. "Come here."
Very plainly Geralt saw himself reach out and cup the side of his companion's throat, stroke a thumb slowly up the soft line of his pulse. The ocean through the window filled his head, the waves like breath. It was a roar as it swelled louder and louder. It was everything-- except there was a voice inside of it, made from salt and foam and dark eyes. The voice was the real everything. It was carried with the pounding waves into every part of him as if he were a cave on the shore and high tide had come; there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to find breath. The voice spoke and he drowned in it.
Yellow eyes gleamed in the moonlit room, devoid of emotion. It was not the look of a man holding something back, someone who had learned to brutally quiet the pieces of himself as an avoidance of pain. Those slitted cat-eyes, pupils wide and dark to see in the night, were blank. Cold and empty. But they were downcast, watching the trace of his thumb up Jaskier's neck until it stopped on the place just under the jaw where the blood beat the hardest. A fragile spot. So many nerves connecting blood flow.
Fingers held fast to the back of Jaskier's neck and that settled thumb pushed in with a slow and inexorable pressure.
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Being upright was awkward. Geralt felt as if he might still be lying down, that place just before full unconsciousness where the mind untethered from the body and thoughts were cold honey, one slowly overtaking the other, incorporation too late for action. The feeling of Jaskier pushing his boots onto his feet was muffled and yet, not. There was no distance from his body-- just from his mind. "Jaskier." He heard himself say it as if he was listening to someone else entirely. Another man using his mouth. "Come here."
Very plainly Geralt saw himself reach out and cup the side of his companion's throat, stroke a thumb slowly up the soft line of his pulse. The ocean through the window filled his head, the waves like breath. It was a roar as it swelled louder and louder. It was everything-- except there was a voice inside of it, made from salt and foam and dark eyes. The voice was the real everything. It was carried with the pounding waves into every part of him as if he were a cave on the shore and high tide had come; there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to find breath. The voice spoke and he drowned in it.
Yellow eyes gleamed in the moonlit room, devoid of emotion. It was not the look of a man holding something back, someone who had learned to brutally quiet the pieces of himself as an avoidance of pain. Those slitted cat-eyes, pupils wide and dark to see in the night, were blank. Cold and empty. But they were downcast, watching the trace of his thumb up Jaskier's neck until it stopped on the place just under the jaw where the blood beat the hardest. A fragile spot. So many nerves connecting blood flow.
Fingers held fast to the back of Jaskier's neck and that settled thumb pushed in with a slow and inexorable pressure.