Fingernails scraping red lines into Geralt's hand, fingers prying at fingers-- none of it did anything to loosen the grip against Jaskier's neck. The downward compression of the bard's hyoid cartilage-- after all, the goal was to ruin his voice, not render him unconscious-- was unmoved. Even the frantic bucking of the torso underneath of Geralt, when it came, was absorbed rather than reacted to. Jaskier simply did not have the strength in this position to do anything about the man above him; the physical differences between them weren't just a gully, they were a canyon and like this the shadowed waters at the bottom were deep and cold.

The stacked balance shifted, however, when Jaskier raised nails to Geralt's face. Even with the crash of the single thought taking his every focus there was still self-defense, self-preservation. Nails pulled lines of flesh from his temple and forehead and Geralt snarled-- a truly terrible sound-- as he jerked upright, his hands releasing their hold. Task accomplished in that regard, except that Geralt's weight was still pinning him down to the pallet. A normal reaction might have been to assess the damage, to touch at the rends in his face already welling blood-- but instead Geralt backhands Jaskier before he's barely unfolded, knuckles against cheek with a rattling force.

He would try something else instead, then.

Wrapping a hand back into the already wrinkled front of Jaskier's jacket, Geralt managed himself off of the bed and began to drag the bard behind him. That the witcher was in only trousers and boots and the blood that decorated his face didn't seem to be a pressing issue; he pointed them toward the door, with Jaskier managing feet or knees or any state in-between. The door was blasted open with twisted fingers and the sign of Aard and the heavy wood and iron fittings slammed into the wall behind it with an almighty boom, yet somehow managed to stay on the hinges.