whatupbuttercup | PSL Hypnosis with Monsterbytrade

PSL Hypnosis with Monsterbytrade

The court at Cidaris was absolutely the most droll, boring court that Jaskier had ever been witness to--which was an absolute pity because the kingdom itself was rather delightful. Unfortunately, while the cities and towns of Cidaris were lovely and colorful, the court was as dull as dishwater and half as appealing. Normally, he would have declined an invitation to play at a celebration in the Cidarin court, but they had been relatively nearby and they still hadn't managed to replace Geralt's silver blade.

Playing a young Cidarin prince's birthday party was, on the whole, about the least interesting job Jaskier could imagine taking...but it paid well and was easy. So, after talking up the event, he'd asked Geralt to accompany him and the two of them made their way to coast.

The party had gone well enough, even if the night had seemed to drag on.

The boy had only turned ten, so the entertainment had been a bit on the childish side--Jaskier included. He had been specifically requested and had been hired over a whole host of Cidarin bards. He hadn't anticipated anyone wanting his head at this particular event, (not apart from those other bards, at least,) but Geralt had accompanied him nonetheless. He nearly made it through the night unnoticed but, once Jaskier had a request for Toss a Coin, Geralt's anonymity was up. After that, the Witcher had suffered a barrage of questions from the gathered gaggle of young boys. They questioned him regarding every type of monster they could recall, for near on two hours before the pomp of the celebration had forced them to disperse.

Overall, it wasn't the worst way to spend a night. The seaside chateaux they held the party at was removed, private, fairly pleasant overall. They had been granted room and board, their horses taken to the estate stables--there was even a bath waiting for them afterward. It was a firmly middling job that paid well and didn't involve murder. Jaskier called it a win.

Unfortuantely, ever since they'd arrived, Jaskier had a niggling sensation that he was forgetting something. It stuck in the back of his head like a burr caught on fine leggings, but he never could quite grasp it. All night, something about the guests, about the location prodded at him. It wasn't until he was nearly asleep, just drifting on the border of waking and slumber, that it came back to him. He heard the distant sounds of wooden and shell windchimes, the whistle of the ocean breeze, and Jaskier realized they were in terrible danger.

"Oh fuck--" he hissed as he bolted upright, eyes staring at the fine manor room around him with open suspicion. No assassins suddenly leaped out of the woodwork, nothing turned to snakes. He pawed at his chest, wondered if the drink had been poisoned, but no--he felt fine. Maybe she'd forgotten him, eh? It had been years, long years, since he'd last been in this part of Cidaris--surely the lady who owned the manor was just throwing the party for status. She might not have even noticed he was here--yes, that seemed likely.

"Geralt--Geralt--" Jaskier hissed quietly and reached behind him to grab at the Witcher's shoulder and shake him awake. The bed was wider than their usual fare and he nearly toppled over in his haste. "We have to go--"

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If Geralt were being honest-- which he never would, out loud-- he didn't mind the attention of the boys. It certainly didn't appear that way from the outside as he growled and barked at them, but if anyone had been paying attention to the ebb and flow of the lanky bodies circling the witcher more than their own cups and adult company, they would have noticed the trend of the motion grew gradually and gradually inward. Geralt wasn't scaring them away. He told bits of stories, answered questions with an ease that he didn't generally give to anyone, and perhaps even laughed once or twice, quietly, at a particularly cheeky comment that reminded him of another young boy ages ago. Youth didn't change even though the world did.

Also, the food had been plentiful, above middling, and free.

Cidaris, like most other cities of a large enough population and trade, was awash in magical trinkets. Even the seaside villa of royalty was not far enough away from the clamor of conflicting energies to make it less than a stew, and royalty had more money and more time to be paranoid. It had taken quite a bit of free food and beer for Geralt to finally stop eyeing each hung ward-- all of a similar design-- with a sigh and starting every time his medallion shivered and jumped against his chest. They hadn't been in a city this large in a while and witchers, for all of their mutations, still retained more than a few human foibles. Not to mention that Geralt was Geralt, and not well-built to relax.

Eventually, though, the boys and the food and the slow crash of the sea below had all conspired to put him in a decent enough humor. Jaskier had been on and on about how dull and boring the coastal city's royal breed were but, as Geralt accepted another pint from a female guest who smiled sweetly at him from behind her chestnut fringe, he decided that he didn't mind it so much. Jaskier probably would sniff at him when he said so-- but sometimes it was good to remind the bard that there were other opinions in the wide world other than his own. Ignoring the trembling of the silver snarling wolf tucked between his shirt and his jerkin, Geralt inclined his head and took a drink. He had taken two more-- with the very dark eyes of the smiling woman watching him-- and then there was a sharp clap between his ears and the sound of bees in his skull. And then.

Someone shaking him awake. Geralt grabbed Jaskier's wrist and held the bard far enough away that the onslaught would stop. His head was throbbing. He tried to remember getting to bed but couldn't. He remembered the boys. A particularly good lobster. A balcony and dark eyes--

The headache took his breath away and for a moment he squeezed Jaskier's wrist just a bit too tightly. Then he dropped his hold and sat up, letting the sheet fall to his waist. "What?" His voice was more of a rasp than normal. The shutters were open and the moon swum against the waves on the horizon, rising and falling. "What time is it?' He rubbed at his temples.

Geralt woke slowly, groggily even, and Jaskier tried very hard to strangle the frustrated sounds that wanted to creep out of his throat. He idly rubbed the wrist Geralt had all but pulverized as he came out of his post party stupor and clamoured out of bed. The moonlight streaming in mitigated the pitch darkness, somewhat, but Jaskier still fumbled as he cast about blindly for his pants and boots.

"It is time, my hungover friend, for us to make a hasty exit."

Jaskier tried to sound singsong about their current situation, but it was a hell of an ordeal to explain and speaking a disgruntled spouse's name aloud tended to summon them, in his experience. In this instance, Jaskier truly wanted nothing less than to be confronted with that...well, witch.

He shuddered as he finished doing up his fly and reached for a boot.

"Come on, come on, Geralt--" Jaskier hissed. The sounds of crashing waves were more ominous than not, frankly, and he had a truly awful time ignoring them.

The waves were loud. Geralt watched Jaskier scramble to and fro and forced his pupils wider so that he could see in the dim black. It didn't help his headache and his hissed his displeasure; there seemed to be a gentle humming at his sides of his head-- he laid back down and pulled the sheet up. "Go back to sleep, Jaskier." The waves lapped at the shore. He closed his eyes. "No one is battering down the door and nothing is on fire. Go back to sleep."

If he slept he could sleep off the hangover and that was far more preferable to whatever mad-capped caper Jaskier was sewing. Geralt pushed his face down into the pillow and drew a slow, deep breath. Within seconds, really, he was already in that grey space just before sleep-- it was so easy to get back to.

Jaskier tugged his other boot on, nearly knocking a lamp off a very decorative and very precarious end-table in the process. It wobbled ominously but didn't fall--the little crystal decorations on the tabletop, however, were not so lucky and more than one of them tumbled and shattered. Jaskier cursed and looked around--no guards, no incoming boots--he waited a long moment in silence--and then heard Geralt let out a soft snore.

"Geralt--" Jaskier whispered loudly, harshly, and whipped around, eyes squinting into the darkness. "Oh-!"

Geralt had shoved the blankets back lazily and was already pulling himself up into a lazy sort of upright. He swayed a bit, but he was getting up and Jaskier jumped to action. If only to make up for the way he'd hissed at the man (when he was clearly doing as the bard requested) Jaskier fetched up the Witcher's boots and breastplate.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Jaskier murmured quickly and jogged around the end of the bed. He tossed the armor onto the plush duvet and dropped to a knee so he could help stuff his hungover friend's foot into one of his boots. "You know, I bet if we cut through the downstairs we can make it to the stables before anyone is the wiser!"

Outside, the waves crashed in a constant droning repetition. The breeze swayed through the curtains, through the decorative wards, through those shell and wooden windchimes that dangled from gilded rafters. Jaskier hated that sound--he'd forgotten--by all the gods why did Cidarin nobility adore shells so? It was like they had a fetish for gilding things they found in the dirt.

Whatever, that didn't matter--he helped haul on Geralt's other boot, fingers scrambling with the laces whilst the Witcher nursed his hangover. If they hurried, they could be at the border before he heard even the barest mention of Vanessa and, hopefully, before she heard so much as a syllable of his name in turn.

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.

Jaskier knotted Geralt's bootlaces firmly. His hurried thoughts snagged as the Witcher groggily called his name. Well, not groggy exactly, but his voice had a sort of absent quality to it. His words were a little rough, like he'd been sleeping particularly well and hadn't come out of it far enough to have inflection yet. Jaskier looked up, an apologetic grimace already dashing over his face, and Geralt beckoned him with a hand on the side of his neck. It was a slow gesture, but it wasn't particularly sleepy or uncoordinated--

Geralt palmed his throat, settled fingers against the side of his neck and tucked his thumb up beneath the spot where his jaw and his ear met. He stared at the Witcher, met his absent amber stare, those slit pupils wide in the dark, and Jaskier let out a short whine. Geralt wasn't taking him seriously--there was no alarm, no expression on his face, at all, in fact. How drunk had he gotten?

--and he still wanted to--?

"Geralt," Jaskier started, the urgency of panic still hovering on the edges of his tone, and let out a short, exasperated huff of laughter. "Ah, truly, I am tempted, but we should go--"

There was appeal in touch like this, in letting the Witcher draw him up or forward onto his knees. The bed was a dream, the room was positively lovely, but the risk was not the heady, sexy kind of risk. Jaskier's pulse raced under Geralt's thumb, his panic real and earnest, and he gave the Witcher a soft, pleading sort of look. Geralt...didn't look away and his hand tightened against the nape of his neck, his thumb pressed down--

--Oh, was this the game? Fuck--a dart of surprise goes through him but the thready laugh the bard let out, then, was not inviting.

"Not really the correct opportunity, Geralt--I'm so sorry," Jaskier said and reached up to wrap fingers around the Witcher's wrist. The pressure of his thumb didn't release, it just kept increasing, and Jaskier's brows dipped. He gripped Geralt's wrist tight and open confused danced over his face. It wasn't more than a moment before the digging of his fingers went from firm to painful.

"Geralt--" he hissed, anger coloring his objection, and jerked his head to the side as he pried the Witcher's hand away. It took a lot more effort than it ought to, like he'd actually been trying to hold on but wasn't entirely there--Jaskier stared and found Geralt's gaze unchanged. The wrist in his grip was tensed.

Geralt looked at his empty hand, the wrist still held by a warm touch, before those cat eyes slid up to Jaskier's face. Cherubic, the bard had been called, and certainly his face had gotten him out of plenty of tight spots. That most of those had been of his own creation and design mattered far less than his charming escapes. Now his expression was almost comically mobile, sliding through arousal, confusion, anger. In comparison the witcher's current stoicism was stony, his silence deafening: he simply watched Jaskier and the utter flatness of his face served as a highlight to show how animated Geralt actually tended to be. Tonight there was nothing. Eyes on Jaskier, the rest of him was a blank. Inside his head was the roar and whisper-- maim him, humiliate him. Use him and toss him to the wolves. Death is too easy, too forgiving, for him. Make Jaskier suffer. Make it slow.

Every fiber of his being needed to make those words a reality. There was no consideration for the friendship that they shared, the time they'd spent on the road or in each other's pockets. All of his feelings for the man kneeling in front of him had been drowned by the ocean. At the back of mind, clinging to the smallest bubble of oxygen in that submerged cave, a small question was asked-- is this what it truly is to have no emotion? No ties? But it was mute next to the roar of the surf and the wooden smack of the wind chimes.

Maim him, humiliate him. Slowly.

"Come, Jaskier." His lips, his tongue, his voice. "It's nothing."

And then his free hand moved like a snake striking, stinking into the front of that lovely doublet, crushing creases into smooth fabric as fingers curled into a tight fist. His other arm twisted and bit into Jaskier's elbow and between the two grips he tossed the bard onto his back on the bed. Strong thighs straddled the man and Geralt leaned down, white hair falling like a cage around them. Palms on legs to balance him as he leaned there was very little concern of Jaskier managing to get anywhere else other than there as he sat his weight against the man's lap. "'A beautiful bed is a hard thing to pass up,' isn't that what you always say?"

Jaskier had been furious, that the Witcher was ignoring him, that Geralt wasn't taking him seriously, that he'd even gotten so drunk that he was behaving like this--but that fury was snuffed by a cold wash of unpleasant shock as he was thrown onto the bed. Geralt caged him in, rested his weight across Jaskier's thighs, and the bard went still as death on reflex.

"What I always say?" Jaskier repeated in a tone that was caught somewhere between indignation and distraction. He stared at the slit, amber eyes above him and there was a strange disconnect. The longer he stared the more pronounced the feeling was and, as it mounted, so too did the sinking sensation in his stomach. He couldn't make out Geralt's face with the moonlight cast over his back, couldn't pick out more than the light as it spilled over his shoulders.

He couldn't imagine those glowing eyes in Geralt's face.

Which was, frankly, ridiculous. Of course they were in Geralt's face--Geralt was right there. They were clearly his eyes. He knew what Geralt's face looked like. Why couldn't he reconcile those eyes with Geralt's face? Why did he feel as though he were staring down a snake and not a Witcher? His heart stuttered and Jaskier's gaze danced over Geralt's shape.

Geralt would never hurt him. (He wasn't easily taken by surprise. He'd promised it wouldn't happen again. He had a steel sword for--)

"Geralt," Jaskier tried again, voice forcibly jovial, and his placating laugh fell flat. "Please, I know I panic about everything, but we really have to go. Please--"

His hand was shaking a bit as he settled it on the Witcher's own, a physical counterpoint to his request--to his pleading. Surely Geralt would understand--he liked to be rough and tumble but he could shut it off. Jaskier had seen him do it. He'd grouse and huff and give Jaskier a look--he was being an idiot. Geralt would never hurt him.

They'd laugh about this later.

The hand covering his was nothing more than opportunity.

Geralt took it in his own, fingers sliding across smooth knuckles and the edges of string-built calluses as his weight shifted. He brought the limb up as he leaned forward and pinned it above the man's head to the soft sheets of the pallet. Between them it was dark and warm. "It's fine," he said again, his voice a soft husk. Not much attention was given to speech. Despite his actions there was no arousal in the witcher, he was simply considering with each crashing wave between his ears how best to humiliate the bard. The problem was that the cave that the water had occupied inside of him was deep and storied-- Geralt knew Jaskier too well to make the request that twisted through him a simple one.

Leaning in closer, Geralt's nose brushed the end of Jaskier's. The fingers of his other hand were back to the bard's throat; the back of his hand brushed with a barely perceptible touch before he settled the hard palm flat against the sensitive column of skin and cartilage. Hand and neck-- what could a bard do without those two things? He would be a ruin, a laughingstock.

As before, the pressure against Jaskier's neck slowly increased. After all-- better to do it slowly, to let Jaskier understand his downfall as it came.

There has never been a motion that has inspired more fear in Jaskier, not in the whole of his life, than what Geralt did then. The Witcher gently took his hand, wrapped it in his own, and deliberately--so very deliberately--brought it up and pinned it above his head. Geralt reassured him, murmured into the air between them, and Jaskier felt a terrible abyssal sinking in his stomach, like a pit had opened inside him. He stared up at that blank amber gaze, horror dawning in his own, and Jaskier froze in place.

Geralt--he would never hurt him. He-- he--

He leaned close and Jaskier felt his stomach turn--it lurched up against his ribs, threatened to empty itself as Geralt grazed his nose--and Geralt's free hand wrapped around his throat.

"Geralt--?" The question was asked weakly; it vibrated with the same fine tremor that climbed down his limbs.

That was the last thing Jaskier had the air to say. Geralt's fingers tensed and pressed hard against the sides of his neck. He crushed his palm against Jaskier's adam's apple, bore down on his windpipe, and still he squeezed. The hand that pinned his own above his head went tight in time with the other. Jaskier jerked, bodily, as pain lanced down his arm, as the bones of his hand ground against one another.

All at once, the bard was gripped by a violent confluence of emotions--panic, hysteria, terror, confusion, betrayal--and together they had him twisting, straining against Geralt's weight across his hips. He didn't--fighting was never worth it--but Geralt--Geralt would never hurt him. His free hand came up, clawed at the fingers around his throat, but he couldn't overpower a Witcher, not on his best day and Geralt's worst.

No, this--he couldn't reconcile that--this couldn't be Geralt--he didn't know what this thing was, but it wasn't--it couldn't be Geralt of Rivia. This was a fucking monster--not his friend, and suddenly the bard was more furious than he had ever been. He was furious enough that it drowned out his pain, his confusion, even his fear. He went from panicked bird to feral cat in an instant and thrashed against the beast above him. The hand clawing the fingers around his throat lashed out and clawed, instead, at those terrible, dead eyes.

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.

The untempered force of that backhand was enough to jar Jaskier's thoughts as surely as his skull. He gaped for air, sucked it down with a ragged gasp, and then the darkness of the room, the luxury of their material surroundings, the droning of the waves, all of it was eclipsed by an explosion of pain across his face. Lights and spots danced in front of his eyes and the taste of copper flooded his mouth.

Geralt had punched him before, in frustration or irritation, but it had never--he had never hit him so hard that it--

This wasn't Geralt.

Jasker blinked hard, dazed and livid, and stumbled forward as he was hauled up by his doublet. The fancy scrap of silk and satin creaked--a seam twisted too tightly and popped--and Jaskier struggled to get his feet under himself. Geralt's weapons were here, if he could get free, he could snatch them up, he could kill this thing and find Geralt--

An old, ingrained terror stole his focus with a fresh stab of fear--if he fought back again, it wouldn't be just a backhand that he suffered. If he went for a weapon he'd end up bloodied and bleeding out on the floor. It was best to endure it, the old voice assured him, to just give it what it wanted--surely it didn't want him dead, right?

That though sounded thin--thinner still as the door was all but blown through the wall. (That--that had been a sign hadn't it? His ear was ringing and his vision was swimming but that--that looked like Witcher magic.) Jaskier thrashed as he found his footing, twisted and heard the silk of his doublet whine as it tore. He stumbled back and away as he was hauled out into the dark hallway, tangled in the torn fabric but free enough to wriggle and slip it off.

He was nothing if not nimble.

He scrambled back, away from whatever the fuck this Geraltesque monster was, and took off at a blind run.

The pressure against his grip, the weight of Jaskier failing to keep up, that was nothing. Geralt just kept fingers in the silks as he stepped into the dark hallway. "Stop--" but the ripping of fabric was louder than his words and then Jaskier was twisting and free; without the direct light of the moon the dark of the witcher's pupils expanded as they adjusted to the new dimness that the bard turned and ran into. Geralt looked back through the doorway into the room... his swords were there, but that seemed less effective an option to achieving his ends than his bare hands. The blades were left behind and he started walking, boots kitten-soft against the flag stone as he traced where his quarry had gone. Jaskier always used such distinctive soaps; he would find it hard to hide.

Despite the sound that he'd caused with the door, no one stepped into the halls. The villa was eerily silent save for the sound of the waves off the shore. Most of the party goers would have left but surely the family, the servants... not that it was something that Geralt considered outside of the fact that humiliation was often easier with others to witness. Perhaps maiming would have to do. "Jaskier!" he called out as he walked, his voice bouncing off stone and seeming to shiver the chiming wards hung here and there. "If you want to play Hide or Seek like children, so be it!" No faces appeared at the sound of his voice, no light appeared at the cracks under doors.

Geralt's voice resounded through the villa in the same way the ocean noise did--it rolled over distance and crashed against walls and left a sucking terrible silence in its wake. Unlike the ocean, no other sound came crashing in to refill the space the Witcher's--the imposter's?--voice left in its wake.

Jaskier ran.

His feet carried him forward into the dark at a dead run, powered by fear and pain, edged on by the promise of escape. His eyes weren't nearly up to the task of parsing the pitch darkness of the villa, but they were wide with his terror and he could make out the hazy shapes of walls and obstructions. Mostly.

Jaskier turned a corner and his shin and hip caught on a fancy lounger set in the middle of the hall. He toppled over it and the chair punched the air out of him as he crashed and tumbled. He landed on his ass on the plush rug and gaped sileny. It was almost lucky that he'd stunned himself, no matter how much ground it let his pursuer gain.

Fuck--what was he going to do? He was going to be killed in some fucking villa in Cidaris. Was that Geralt? Was it a near copy? Was he hallucinating? Had the wine been poisoned? Was that a demon? Where in the actual, everloving fuck was everyone?

Everyone.

Jaskier couldn't--he lacked the ability to overpower the Witcher, but there was safety to be had in numbers. No one who had ever assailed him before had done so in full fucking view. Someone could help him, if not to fight then to escape before...whatever that was could beat him into the pristine marble floors.

Jaskier scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the nearest doorway. He flung the door open but it behaved strangely--it jerked, mid-swing, almost like someone had tried to catch it and it slipped their grip. He darted inside just as the door snapped shut and fumbled blindly as his eyes strained to adjust.

This was a...study?

Jaskier's hands found taxidermied creatures, cool leather clad chairs, the room stank of old tobacco, of familiar, old cologne, and--his hand clipped a tray too boldly and sent a decanter and crystal glasses to the floor. The smell of spilled whisky was strong and he backed up quickly. His thoughts raced and he stumbled toward the far side of the room.

Villas like this had servants' halls. This one did--he knew it did. There would be a door on the back wall, or a dumbwaiter, something--fuck, he'd take a balcony if he had to.

If Jaskier would have been easy for a witcher to trail because of his scent, it was amazing what a straight line boots were set on when that awful crash rang through the corridors. For all that Geralt couldn't see him, the bard had as good as hung a beacon over his head saying this way. A left turn and then a right turn, he could hear the frantic hush of the man's movements now, ahead. Then the snapping of a door.

"Jaskier!"

Geralt turned another corner into a small sitting area, the two-person settee on its back. He paused and looked around. There were a few doorways here... he walked a little further on to be sure that the smell of hyacinthe petered off-- and spun a tight turn at the sound of something large and delicate hitting the floor behind a closed door. There were two that seemed likely... one reeked of alcohol but the other still smelled of flowers.

The wooden door banged open with another sign, another blast of air. Geralt stood in the doorway and cast around, his eyes widely black in the night. A sitting room, probably for needlepoint or wine. There was no one inside, nothing broken. He stepped across the space and threw the curtains open and the sash outward to let in the salt air and the roar of the waves. The balcony ran almost the length of the house, from the room next door to the large central sitting area and even down, it seemed, to the strand below. Geralt retreated, back through the door. The one that stank of whiskey was next.

It occurred to him that he could use Axii on Jaskier and simply walk him to his doom with a smile on his face... he would hold out a hand for Geralt to break, perhaps not happily but willingly... maim, then, yes. But how would he understand what was being done to him? How would he learn his lesson?

This door Geralt simply sent inward with a single might kick.

The door across the hall crashed and splintered--Jaskier's heart caught in his throat as it resounded through the wall. Fuck--fuck--fuck--he was still blind. The shapes of the items in the study rose up in the inky blackness around him--a desk, leather chairs, a mantle, a dumbwaiter, a chessboard and chairs beside a curtain--the curtain!

Jaskier dove for it, threw the curtain open and found the window beyond had been boarded up. He stared in horror for a moment until his eyes grew used to the fine streams of moonlight that pierced through the space between the boards. The bottom boards had been pried loose and dropped down, cast outside toward the raging sea. Why? By a maid looking for fresh air? He had no idea why this one window lacked glass, why it had been left gaping when it faced the sea, why there was a decorative pennant of heavy vellum on it--who decorated broken windows?

This wasn't important--

His heart was in his throat--he didn't have time to wonder about ugly Cidarin decor--there was space to climb through if he had a mind to, if he'd had a few extra seconds. The ledge outside was narrow but he was desperate. Something pricked against the back of his neck, some vague instinctual warning, and Jaskier felt his pulse spike. He couldn't hear the Witcher, his ears were good, but even he wasn't that keen. He'd been around Geralt long enough, though, that he could usually feel when he was near--

Jaskier dove away from the window and scrambled to the heavy desk. He ducked under it and out of sight, went very still and held his breath. He could only hope the roaring crash of waves below was enough to drown out the frantic racing of his heart. He didn't have time to make another choice, to try to escape--something heavy and hard hit the door and he heard the cracking splinter as the latch broke away from the wood. The door swung in, bounced off the wall, and then it was just the sound of the waves.

Edited (Hey Geralt walked in, didn't he? Let's add that.) 2020-04-15 18:51 (UTC)

Geralt stood in the doorway for a moment as he had in the last room, taking stock. There was the source of the shattering that he'd heard, no doubt; the room was awash in the smell of whiskey. If Jaskier was here he didn't stink as badly as the liquor did. Geralt's face pulled into a slight snarl for how it stung his nose as he moved into the study. The curtains had been drawn... but there was movement. Was the bard back there, shivering? All Geralt could hear were the waves outside.

A few long, striking steps brought him to the window and Geralt yanked the entire leftside curtain off the hooks with a sharp motion. It fell quickly under the weight of its own lux fabric, the metal hangers that had held it hitting the floor with tiny, tinny noises; there was nothing behind except the nailed portions of the planking used to cover the window-- and the single, broken board at the bottom. The draft had been moving the curtain. Geralt kicked at the next board up, splintering it in half and then pried the two above it out by mean force, chucking them out toward the darkness beyond. Leaning into the wind, salt spray hitting his face, the witcher leaned out of the window enough to check the narrow ledge on either side of the window.

It was a long way down, after all, and bards couldn't fly.

Somehow, impossibly, Jaskier didn't jump as the curtains were torn down and a hundred little brass rings spilled across the floor. He didnt dare breathe as the floor creaked with the Witcher's weight, but his horror mounted as the first board gave under a sharp blow.

Light spilled into the room, watery and pale, and a quick, brisk ocean breeze chased after it. Jaskier watched dustmotes stir wildly in the air. Another board and another groaned and squealed as they were torn free from the wall. The sound of crashing waves was nearly deafening. It drowned out everything, save for the quiet flutter of that stupid pennant as it fluttered to the ground by his foot. The design on it was a sparkling gold nautilus.

He stared at the symbol as it glittered in the moonlight, and realized that Geralt must've been looking outside.

For him.

He had a window of escape, however narrow, and he had to take it.

He might have made it, but that stupid little parchment decoration floated up as he moved and managed to insert itself right underneath his goddamned boot. He dove out from under the desk and the very first step he took crunched with the sound of that paper underfoot. He darted for the gaping doorway, but that fucking paper stuck to his shoe, held there by whisky and bad luck (apparently). His foot skidded atop the smooth hardwood floor as he ran. He lost some traction, then, and Jaskier's nimble darting was reduced to a pitched, graceless scramble.

The soft sigh of the paper against the crash of the surf was more than enough to capture Geralt's attention and he was yanking himself back through the window, hair a mess, and launching himself forward almost before he'd set his eyes who had come out of the woodwork. In comparison to Jaskier's scurried and awkward flight, Geralt was some large cat-- all muscle and grace as he vaulted the desk with a single, fluid motion. Hitting the tacky floor on the other side he dodged a leather armchair and made to head Jaskier off. He would end this now, he would make sure the job was done. The roaring of the sea was loud, so loud, and the roaring of its voice louder still.

Humiliate him, maim him, take his joys away. Humiliate him, maim him, destroy his loves...

Geralt lunged for Jaskier just as Jaskier fell and not even a witcher could have changed his momentum so completely, so quickly. Hands that had been aiming for his waist caught boot leather instead and Geralt barely managed to keep his lower torso free of the flailing limbs of the bard as his momentum carried him past his target. He hit the shelving of the nearby wall with almighty shudder of wood and stuffed animals, books, glassed curios, all toppled and fell to the floor around him. The racket was terrible and utterly ignored. He looked at his hands-- a torn patch of lilac trouser leg and the pennant with the nautilus upon it. Yellow eyes darted to Jaskier and Geralt growled a deep, feral sound as he shredded the fabrics in his hand.

He hadn't even taken a step forward when the shudder gripped him; Geralt's gasp was audible and he staggered, went down to a knee, crumpled, ripped fabric clutched in his hands against the floor. The pain of glass slicing into his knee, his knuckles, was completely lost against a wave of dizziness; it was as if, for just a moment, all the water inside that large, dark cave inside of him had been sucked away and he had to remember how to breathe air again. He looked up at Jaskier and just for a heartbeat small wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes. And then they smoothed away.

Geralt drew in a deep breath with the sound of the next breaker from the ocean down below. "Boo," he whispered in that gravel voice, his muscles tensing before he launched himself forward again.

Geralt went crashing past him as Jaskier stumbled. He nearly caught him there--the tear of silk had been the bard's only salvation. He was yanked off kilter, twisted as Geralt hit the curio shelves and sent all manner of trinkets and delicate, decorative nonsense to the floor.

Jaskier hit the ground hard, took it hip and elbow as he was sent sprawling, and for a moment it was all he could do to watch the Witcher before him. He snarled, his expression placid even through that awful sound, and his hands ripped the fabric and that pennant savagely. He advanced and Jaskier's boots scrambled against the hardwood as he hurried to stand--

Then, to Jaskier's shock, the Witcher faltered.

He gasped and staggered, fell to a knee then to all fours, and those gold eyes locked on him. For the barest moment, he knew that face.

This wasn't--this was no monster--

It--he was Geralt--

Jaskier's eyes widened and watered--there was a desperate sort of recognition in those gold eyes--and then, as soon as the expression dawned, he was pulled under again. Jaskier watched as Geralt's eyes blanked, as his face smoothed, and he began to understand.

That awful, horrible bitch--

The bard's dudden, rising fury was not something he could indulge in. He had a bare moment to put it all together before Geralt leapt for him, sprang up from the floor like a wolf diving at prey. Jaskier twisted frantically, spun through the gaping doorway and narrowly avoided the Witcher's hands. His hip radiated pain as he forced himself back into a dead run--it slowed him, in truth, but he was suddenly too distracted to really notice. Jaskier raced toward the ballroom and his eyes danced frantically across the walls of the dark hallway--Geralt had been freed when he tore that fucking hideous pennant--

Of course there was a spell--of course it was cruel--fuck, why hadn't he remembered this place sooner? She'd snared Geralt, forced him to act--fuck it all he had Geralt on his heels--he was going to die.

Those pennants--the gold nautilus--those were the key--

Jaskier would personally shred every one he could find.

The wards were hung throughout the villa-- pennants and wind-chimes, baubles meant to catch the sigh of the ocean in some way or another, each with that signature gold nautilus to focus power. Geralt had noticed them before and thought nothing because in big cities (especially elf-ruin cities) magic was cheap and plentiful and that was doubly true for royal families. Was there a royal family in existence that hadn't at least tried to buy a sorceress? For a water witch, there could be no better place to work than with the rhythm of the sea lapping in every window-- and if she were powerful enough to bind that raw power to an object...

Geralt slammed into the doorframe as Jaskier skidded out from under his lunge. It slowed him down for long enough for Jaskier to get a head start but ultimately there was little chance for the bard to get away. Geralt was fast and he was sure and he could easily follow Jaskier's path based on scent alone, especially now that the man had fallen in the fresh whiskey. There was no reason to even slow down and consider. It took Geralt two long stretches of hallway and one corner to get the man in his sights, silks catching the moonlight as they slid through wide double-doors and into the ballroom.

The witcher hit the doors with a shoulder handful of moments later and they burst inward, hitting the inner walls and rebounding with enough force that he had to catch them; the slapped against his palms and stopped, shuddering. "Fingers or cock, Jaskier?" Geralt asked as he stepped into the room. He surely looked a sight. The ballroom was lined by fine, high arched windows and the moonlight slid though the curtains in flat, shimmery slats, cutting the room into slices. Geralt stood in one, hair a mess, face marred by three bloody lines across the left side of his forehead and cheek, chest pale and bare save its normal network of scars that shone white in the light. Even with his eyesight the sectioning of the light made it hard to see. "I could break one and spare the other."

He'd snatched up four of the damned things as he fled from the study--pennants and tags with that ugly nautilus emblazoned on them, each tucked in alcoves or dangling from vases as large as his torso. He surely missed half a dozen more--that he hadn't seen or his fumbling fingers hadn't managed to snatch as he ran. The Gods' damned things were everywhere.

How many magic wards did it take to snare a Witcher?

Could that have possibly been her main goal? Jaskier didn't know much about magic but he knew quite a bit about Witchers and this seemed like a risky gambit. What if Geralt had refused to attend with him? What if he had been immune to the wards? What if--what if--

Jaskier slipped into the ballroom and darted to the side. He hadn't made it ten feet before that question--what if--had been thoroughly answered. He plowed into something large and heavy, stable enough that he nearly knocked himself over. The room was brighter than the hall but it still took him a long moment to realize what had stopped him.

A body.

He stared and his heart siezed--no, it was a person. They were standing upright, eyes open, face slack, breathing but only just. Next to them there was another and another--his eyes tracked the perimeter of the room, ahead of him. The whole party was here, stood frozen in the dark, lifeless and waiting.

Behind him, he heard Geralt's shoulder as it connected with the doors. He jumped and dove behind the man he had collided with. The crowd of insensate statue people gave him some cover and he stepped lightly and quickly as he moved away from the doors.

She had a fucking crowd? Let it never be said that Vanessa did things by halves.

Had she planned to maul him at the party? Have the partygoers attack him and then decided Geralt would be worse? That sounded like her brand of vindictive bitchery, and also was entirely correct. Then why weren't these people helping the Witcher? Why hadn't they reacted as he moved through them?

Geralt had destroyed one ward and come out of it, if only for a moment.

The doors rebounded off the walls with an almighty crash and none of the bodies around him so much as flinched. They were so far under that they were nearly comatose. Geralt had gasped and doubled over--

She could only barely keep him enthralled.

Geralt strode in, through the shadows and slats of moonlight and Jaskier felt terror creep into him. The paltry handful of pennants he'd snatched up weren't going to solve this. (He clutched them greedily in defense, but they weren't enough.) He needed--fuck, he had no idea--the curtains stirred in Geralt's wake, cast more light over the floor and let in the sound of waves. Something above sparkled and Jaskier glanced up.

That awful tacky chandelier had dangling gold shells.

He would bet all the gold in Cintra that damned chandelier was the cornerstone of her spell.

He had to find a way to smash it.

The doors were shut behind him. The yellow of Geralt's eyes gave a slow shudder-- larger, smaller, almost a feral sort of heartbeat-- as he came through the shafts of light. There was no reaction to the husks that lined the space, the gentle breathing of the still people that echoed the ebb and tide of the ocean. Geralt's did as well, but unlike these party guests, he clearly felt no need to stand in one place; if they were the line of the shore than he was the tide, stretching ever forward, reaching, ready to devour.

"Nothing? Where's your sense of adventure, Jaskier!?" Geralt moved between those bodies as if he were water slipping through pylons, his body twisting with a sinuous grace to avoid elbows and shoulders entirely even as he kept his pace. The bard was here. There were two other sets of doors in the grand room but there were as large as the first, almost scraping the ceiling, and Geralt would have noticed if any of them had been opened. "Perhaps you should have named yourself after a bird instead of a flower." His voice echoed, bouncing against the high ceiling. "Since all your songs fall so quiet the moment something bigger comes along. Come out, Jaskier. Face your punishment."

Geralt lunged at a shadow near the harpsichord and found nothing, just a trick of the light. Growling he spun and resumed the hunt.

Edited (always preview first *sigh*) 2020-04-18 07:13 (UTC)

Jaskier stood stock still among the gathered bodies--had they not been here, he would have faced an empty room and been caught out in an instant. Geralt moved through the shadows, wove through the crowd, shouted and taunted in a way that was far more like the witch than the Witcher. Jaskier was terrified--he would be a fool not to be--but he couldn't let it glue his feet to the floor.

Geralt would find him.

It took far too long for Jaskier's eyes to adjust, to pick up the shape of the heavy rope that trailed down from the chandelier above. He might've imagined it, truth be told, but it was his only available course of action. Geralt lunged at the harsichord and Jaskier moved, nimble feet treading as quietly as he could toward the banquet table and the hook that anchored that rope.

Geralt didn't react to Jaskier right away-- between the crash of the ocean and the strange sectioning of the moonlight, even a witcher's senses had trouble picking one shadow from the many. It took a quiet handful of seconds to catch the motion out of the corner of his eye--a dip of chestnut hair where none should be--but he reacted instantly. Geralt slid through the wall of people and grinned as he headed across the room to the moving bard. There was no need to run because there was nowhere for the man to go.

"You love a crowd, Jaskier. Here they are." Geralt spread his arms. "Maybe I'll put you over my knee and paddle you to start." The sharpness of his husky voice was like the snap of teeth, promising so much more. His long steps ate up the ground between them too quickly even though he was only walking.

Jaskier had made it to the table when Geralt stepped from the crowd, from the shadows and into the space in front of him. His arms were spread wide and there was a terrible gleam to that grin. He had the posture of a man delighted to see him and the expression of someone delighted to skin him. Jaskier scrambled back, goal momentarily forgotten in his haste to avoid Geralt. His hip hit the table, glanced against the wood and reminded him of how hard he'd fallen earlier. Jaskier twisted away as he backed up and was unprepared when his knees hit the arm of a heavy chair.

He fell back into it, hands clutching those pennants too tightly to catch himself.

The pennants--Jaskier watched Geralt approach in the dark, watched those golden viper's eyes as they grew closer, and with haste born of fear he ripped the handful of papers he had. It would have, perhaps, been wiser to spread them out but Jaskier was gripped by panic.

That it was the bard's own clumsiness that left him prone was fine; Geralt didn't feel the urge to chase Jaskier, only claim him and perhaps pull parts slowly off of him as he screamed. Parts he wouldn't miss, ultimately. The grin didn't leave the witcher's face-- watching the other man there, the realization of how caught he was spreading across his expression bit by bit as his color drained away... that was good. The more scared he was, the more he would scream. Geralt thought that it was just what the whispered roar of the voice inside him really was demanding, make him sing his pain.

Good, then.

Geralt laid his hands on Jaskier's thighs, digging fingers into the meat of muscle. "This won't be quick," he promised, "but it will let you purge yourse--" the words strangled in his throat as the pennants ripped and the tide was pulled out from under his feet. Geralt fell completely to the side of the chair, curled into himself, hands that had released Jaskier clutching at his own head for a moment as a queer sound crawled through his lips. His head pounded and he was trying to breath, gasping, fighting his way up. Falling onto his back as his muscles relaxed he stared at the chandelier above himself, sparking golden-tinged rainbows in the moonlight.

"What--"

And then the waves were drowning him again but this time the cave didn't fill so completely. The word fell off his lips as Geralt slackened again, blinked upward. In the corner someone started sobbing but it wasn't Jaskier so he paid it little mind. Geralt turned his head, yellow eyes narrowing.

Geralt toppled, finger that had dug into his legs went slack and spasmed--the Witcher hit the floor and Jaskier was both consumed by shock and filled with a tentative sort of hope. Had those few wards been enough?

He dropped the paper and pushed up, gripped the table to lift himself from the chair he'd tumbled in to. Geralt was on the ground, blinking, almost awake--he heard a gasp to the right, along the wall. He looked on reflex and spotted one of the maids as she stumbled forward and collapsed to her knees coughing.

What--why was she--

He looked back and Geralt was--the face that stared up at the chandelier was not Geralt, again.

"Oh, fuck me, then--" Jaskier breathed and grabbed the table as he hauled himself up out of the chair. He made it to his feet but before he could vault the banquet table, an iron grip caught him around his ankle.

Fingers squeezed tighter and yanked Jaskier backward with enough strength to pull him straight to the floor. Geralt's other hand wrapped around his belt even as he was twisting on the floor, pulling the bard closer. "Listen here," he snarled before his expression drew in and his grip slackened. "Jaskier," he coughed. It was like a single, deep draw of oxygen. The roar was distant, the tide sucking at him even as he fought forward. Behind them, the servant girl sobbed. The sound was hollow in the high-ceilinged room. "Jaskier, do what you need--" and then another shudder rolled through him and Geralt shoved the bard away from him with every strength he had before he lost his grip on the slippery, algae-slick rocks in his mind and was pulled under again.

He crawled onto all four slowly, like a dog, and shook his head before drawing himself up.

Jaskier went crashing to the floor, dragged down with enough force that he couldn't even snag the tablecloth as he scrambled to stay up. No, all he managed to do was knock a bunch of cutlery and a dish to the floor before Geralt hauled him down onto the marble. The Witcher had him in hand, grip hard on his belt, and then suddenly he wasn't--or rather, he was--

Geralt was back behind his own eyes.

It was only for a bare moment before the Witcher shoved him away, but it was there. Jaskier watched him sink back under, and fumbled for a weapon--the steak knife in hand was hardly going to work on a Witcher (and besides, he wasn't going to stab Geralt--he couldn't--not knowing whose fault this was).

It would work on that rope, though.

"Melitele's tits, Vanessa," Jaskier shouted at the ceiling as he retook his feet, as he darted back around that chair and tried to put the banquet table between Geralt and him. The Witcher was still rising when he reached the back wall, reached that damn rope--he took all his attention off Geralt, then, stupid as it was. The knife in hand was only sharp in the distant sense and he had to brace that rope as he sawed at it--it split fairly quickly, but it was also as thick as Jaskier's forearm.

"You didn't even like Erik!" Jaskier protested at the ceiling, again, hoping to goad the witch so she didn't realize what he was up to. The sea crashed outside in a constant drone and the chandelier jangled as one of the worsted cables of the rope split--two more, maybe just one--the weight of it had to be impressive. Surely it would fall on its own if the rope were weak enough--

With a snarl sharp enough to mimic the tear of another pennant ripping-- and silencing the twit at the edge of the room-- Geralt grabbed the side of the table and hauled himself to his feet. Jaskier had already gone 'round and he watched him from across the long expanse of rubbed walnut. "Come on, Jaskier," he called, leaping both booted feet onto the table in a too-easy motion. "You know how numerous your si..." his face contorted and his step down the length of the table slowed.

Inside his head Geralt was waging a war. The sound of ocean had lost its edge and he clawed and tore at the surf; it only foamed through his fingers but it was something. He ripped his hands against the stone prison of the cave, at the dense, wet sand under his feet. His body seemed to lose its momentum for a moment, and all the while Jaskier was sawing, sawing.

"Jaskier!" It was a yell, a rasp, a pained growl. Geralt snarled, pounding both fists against the table top and then launching himself forward--

Just in time for creak and snap of the last of the ropes in Jaskier's hands. The witcher did glance up as the rope caught the moonlight and the golden rainbows overhead shuddered against the walls as they began their descent-- it was the only reason that he slid on the polished table top instead of running headlong into plummeting glass. He hit his hip in what looked half-controlled and rolled to the side, but sometimes even Geralt of Rivia was too slow. The chandelier smashed against the table, against Geralt, with a truly ear-splitting cacophony. The witcher had been half off the table; the hundreds of pounds of iron and crystal caught his back and threw him down against the floor. He stay where he had landed, unmoving.

As that last cord snapped, Jaskier felt a rush of triumph so complete he nearly crowed with it--he turned, eager and bright-eyed only to see Geralt, atop the table, in the path of the falling chandelier. Everything slowed for Jaskier in that hideous moment--the knife fell from his hands, the surf and a truly impressive wash of white noise filled his ears, and that ugly cacophony of crystal and shell plummeted.

Geralt rolled, but he wasn't fast enough--Geralt was always fast enough--and the chandelier crashed in an explosion of metal bits, broken crystal, and shattered gilded shell. It threw half the banquet table off onto the floor, bounced against the heavy wooden table, and bits of it went flying as it did. Jaskier had to duck to keep from getting a gods' damned eyeful of glass as half of it burst outward and scattered shards across the ballroom.

The crash was still ringing in his ears as the bodies around him started to go slack and fall to the floor. He watched as each enthralled person collapsed in the dark--there wasn't enough light to make out if they lived, if they'd taken bits of thrown glass or shell to their faces--he knew he was a bad person, then, because he couldn't bring himself to care.

They were innocents, probably, but Geralt--

Jaskier stood as the pinging and rattling of the cast off crystal and shell finally came to a halt. His eyes frantically searched the dark for Geralt, for any shadow still standing, but there was nobody. Nobody apart from him. Geralt had dove off the table, right? Surely he'd be crouched on the ground, still. Jaskier scrambled, picked around the bodies that littered the floor--glass crunched underfoot and the surf was relentless outside.

"Geralt?" Jaskier hazarded as he came around the table--he half-expected to find the Witcher sitting, propped against the table with a flat glower for him. This was all his fault after all--but, no, no he wasn't sitting. He wasn't glowering. Jaskier knew the fallen shape was Geralt without having to stop and think about it. He cursed as he ducked under the creaking, broken skeleton of that chandelier and reached out to the Witcher.

"Fuck, Geralt, are you alright? Please don't be dead--please, please---"

There was nothing for a long moment, just nothing at all, except for that quarter-time heartbeat going on as slowly and steadily as ever.

Consciousness was less than pleasant.

Geralt felt emptied, aching, hollowed out to the core-- and that was just his head. He groaned and put a hand against the floor in order to rise, only to find upward movement too large a hurdle at the current moment and rolling onto his back instead. Broken rib, possibly two. His knuckles, back and knees stung. Trying to focus his eyes upward at the ruins of the chandelier and the ceiling beyond was unpleasant and he still felt out of breath, felt raw in a way that he couldn't quite place... until Jaskier's face swam into view. Jaskier.

"Fuck," Geralt breathed out, closing his eyes. Jaskier's face and the sound of the ocean brought enough back, the sensation of drowning, of fighting a losing battle against the incoming tide. When he searched for how he got here, what had happened he found nothingness interrupted by the pale shock of Jaskier's face, the smell of whiskey and flowers, the downward swing of the chandelier and the sound of the ocean. What had happened? A mage, that much was obvious. But was it over? Had Jaskier taken care of it? Grunting, Geralt reached out and grabbed the shoulder of the bard's devastated doublet to help him pull himself up. Why didn't he have a shirt on? Why the fuck was he in the ballroom? "Jaskier, what happened?"

Jaskier let out a delighted, manic chirp of laughter as Geralt cursed. Geralt used Jaskier's sleeve to pull himself up and Jaskier tried to help him with hands under his armpits. They were all but kneeling in a pile of broken glass. They needed to move but, honestly, he was going to savor the moment. He already had his arms mostly around Geralt, it wasn't much of a stretch from that to a sloppy sort of hug.

"I am so glad you're not dead," Jaskier told him and left off as that maid in the corner started sobbing again.

"It's a bit of a tale but the long and short of it is: this villa is owned by a witch. She is not a fan of mine." At this point Jaskier twisted and shouted up at the ceiling, for some reason. "Good thing she's a predictable bitch with a penchant for shells!"

Vanessa probably couldn't hear him. She was probably not even in the manor, itself, but the shouting was still very cathartic. Jaskier let out a sigh and returned his attention to Geralt--his smile was chipper, even with the devestation around them.

His gaze drifted to the marks on Geralt's face and Jaskier debated, a moment, whether to fill the Witcher in on the nitty gritty (horrifying) details of the night. He started to elaborate--well, he wanted to start--but there wasn't really an easy way to detail the last few minutes.

Fuck, had it only been minutes?

"I can regale you with the tale another time. For now, let's get out of the pile of glass and twisted metal. Can you walk?"

Geralt found himself wrapped up by Jaskier and grunted for the places it made throb with pain but patted the man on the back until he decided to let go. So glad he wasn't dead? Must have been a fun night; shit he hated magic. When the bard yelled Geralt winced at the way it banged around his skull and put a hand to his closest ear. "Yes, you make fans wherever you go," he muttered. "I can walk, I'm fine."

And in fact it only did take a little help to get Geralt to his feet. He blinked at the other people in the room, people he recognized from the party earlier tonight. He didn't understand why they were all in this room-- he could certainly guess at a few connections but it didn't seem worth the ache of his head, only that for now the worst was over and they seemed in much better shape than he felt. The... the chandelier had fallen on him? He shook his head and rubbed his eyes and then turned his hand over and pulled a shard of glass from between his knuckles, letting it fall to the ground. He was sure it was in his hair and other places as well.

As Jaskier's words sank in, Geralt stopped picking his way through the mess of the floor and looked at his friend. "Is she still here?" His body tensed with the possibility, ready for a fight.

Geralt got up, looking...well, a bit rough, if he were being honest. He looked far better than anyone who'd just been crushed by a massive chandelier ought to look, though, and Jaskier took some comfort in that. He cast a glance at the others around the room once they were out from underneath that chandelier. Quite a number of the bodies around were still lying still (unconscious, he hoped), but more than a few people were groaning and getting to their feet.

"Here?" Jaskier repeated and spun, eyes combing the dark for the witch. His alarm was telling but she was nowhere to be found. "No--no I don't think she had been here all night."

He certainly would have remembered seeing Vanessa at the party. She was not the sort of woman given to subtlety and the drama with which she liked to enter rooms was on par with Jaskier.

"Honestly, if she had been here, I would have bet she'd be in this room, waiting to watch me get torn to ribbons by the crowd, or flung off the balcony into the surf."

"Lovely," Geralt said, his voice as dry as the desert. "You have such a way with women." He winced as boot slid on something that forced him to catch himself and a hand was pushed to his side with a wince and an exhale. "Next time your cock gets an idea," he said through his teeth, "I'm going to tie you to the saddle and continue on."

It was quite clear to Geralt that Jaskier had been through something tonight and likewise it was quite clear that he himself had been involved in it-- but until the bard decided to fill him in on the details he wasn't going to bother to speculate why he had glass sticking out of him like he was some demented porcupine and broken ribs from a chandelier that just missed crushing his skull. Frankly there were more pressing matters, even if the witch wasn't here. When they reached a set of doors, Geralt looked back at the mess of the banquet table. He knew where he was-- which was a start for the night-- and the people around were clearly shaking off the same trance as he, but vengeful women were generally if not prepared then at least happy to be redundant in their efforts... at least, it seemed, where Jaskier was involved. His medallion was shivering against his chest but it seemed a tremor compared to what he'd ignored yesterday in the daylight, the more fool him. "No more cities," he growled under his breath as he pulled the door open. The crash of the sea outside was a constant sort of itch against his nerves and all Geralt wanted to do was get the fuck out of Cidaris and perhaps somewhere landlocked.

Jaskier could not have been happier--well, that wasn't entirely true. He would have been far happier if they had been able to gather up the horses and ride out of Cidaris the very moment Geralt awoke from his trance. Unfortunately, waking the Witcher had required Jaskier to drop a mountain of iron and crystal on him. The cost of that desperate little maneuver was two-fold: Geralt was injured and covered in buts of broken glass, and he was in enough discomfort that he was surlier than usual.

Which, frankly, Jaskier felt was fair. He would have been a sight if someone had attempted that on him. He could hardly imagine the hell he would have raised.

So, the end result of the night's truly trying series of events was that Geralt had to put up with Jaskier extracting glass from him and trying to tend to his injuries, and both of them were stuck in their spacious, awful room until at least dawn. (At least Jaskier had torn down that stupid windchime the moment they returned. He couldn't stay the surf but they didn't have to tolerate those clattering wooden chimes.)

(Also they were terrible magical wards, or something, so tearing them down was a good idea.)

The one redeeming feature that this room included was a large, copper bathtub. They hadn't had call to use it before but, considering how they were both half soaked in whiskey and a fine layer of Geralt's blood, it seemed prudent to try it then.

Jaskier helped pick out the largest bits of crystal (and a few of that broken decanter) and then fetched a few of his own beauty supplies for the smaller bits. Geralt probably had something similar to the sticky waxy paste he applied over the scattered field of wounds, but he didnt bother asking. When it dried it would tighten up and stick to the smallest shards. (He tried to avoid areas with dense hair but that was a hurdle they would jump when they came to it.)

Once the Witcher was settled and waiting for that paste to dry, Jaskier went to fetch water. It was surprising how much easier it was to navigate when not being pursued by a bewitched Witcher hellbent on extracting a pound of flesh from him. It didnt take him long at all to find the servants' stairs or the pump, or the fireplace still smoldering after the night of revelry. By the time he returned, why, the salve on Geralt's hands and chest might not even have finished drying.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

PSL Hypnosis with Monsterbytrade

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