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Cleaning out the lab beneath Corvoo Bianco was proving much harder and much dustier than Geralt had been anticipating.
He’d sneezed a lot and at that point his eyes were watering. He scrubbed at them and sniffed, rubbing at his nose and taking a moment to go back into the open air.
“Ugh it’s ter-- choo-- ible in there,” he managed, blinking and shaking his head in the wake of yet another sneeze. When he looked up again Regis was staring at him, looking almost stricken. Geralt wrinkled his nose. “What?”
“Your heart just stopped.”
Geralt snorted, making a face at Regis. “No it didn’t,” he said, pulling an old rag from his belt and wiping his face with it. He plopped down on the wall, but Regis hadn’t stopped staring.
“Yes--yes it did,” he insisted, pointing at Geralt like that would prove his point as he got closer. “When you sneezed you were half way through a pulse cycle and your heart did not finish properly.”
“Regis, come on,” Geralt protested, even as the vampire reached out and captured his wrist and then his head in turn, looking half fascinated and half mortified. “Get off I’m fine, you probably just couldn’t hear the rest of the beat over the sound of my sneeze.”
“No, you most certainly had a disruption to your cardiac cycle.”
Geralt groaned. “Gods, Regis you’re speaking in textbook, let go Regis I’m fine--I’m fine get off!” he said, exasperatedly grabbing the vampire’s wrists with a firm grip. He narrowed his eyes at Regis but the vampire only stared back, hardly even fazed.
“I had no idea you humans could disrupt your own vital signs by sneezing,” Regis said, his eyes darting across Geralt’s scowl like it would tell him something.
“We can’t and I didn’t,” Geralt said petulently.
“You can and you did,” Regis insisted. Geralt rolled his eyes and let Regis’ wrists go, sniffing and wiping at his nose with the rag.
“Regis my heart is fine. You’ve assessed that yourself how many times.”
“I didn’t say it was damaged,” he said, almost sounding offended. “I said it stopped.” He started digging around in his satchel and Geralt squinted at it, feeling some kind of long-winded diatribe on the horizon. Sure enough, Regis pulled out a notebook and writing set, settling on the wall where the book could be propped on his knee.
“The thoracic pressure inside your chest has to change for a motion that violent and with the spacing of your heart between your lungs--”
Geralt sighed and rubbed at his dusty neck, scratching through his hair and pulling the tie out. His hair fell in half-sweaty locks around his neck and he raised an eyebrow at Regis, watching the vampire excitedly sketch things and make notes while he muttered to himself.
“The nerve I’ve found that tracks all the way through your thoracic cavity could very well be disrupted by aH-HA!”
Regis pointed at Geralt and Geralt frowned at him from over the cloth. He’d sneezed again.
“My heart did not just stop, Regis,” he said flatly.
“Yes it did,” Yennefer said lightly, coming down the steps with a bottle of wine and three glasses in hand. “Good to see you Regis,” she greeted, setting the glasses down next to him on the wall and uncorking the bottle.
“Come on Yen, humans can’t have a reaction like that to sneezing or we’d all be dead.”
“Did I say you died?” Yennefer asked, raising one delicate eyebrow as she poured and handed Regis his glass. “I said Regis was right that your heart stopped for a moment. It doesn’t happen near as often with you as many times you manage to sneeze between heartbeats but on occasion it does conflict. It happens in all humans.”
“It does??” Regis said, turning wide-eyed on Yennefer. “My my, that is fascinating.”
He made some more notes and Geralt gave a frustrated huff through the nose. Yennefer brought him his glass and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He grunted and took the glass.
“Come now, you must learn to take being wrong more graciously,” she teased. “And look how happy you’ve made Regis,” she added, leaning against Geralt and nodding to the vampire. “It’s not often he discovers some new thing about his human friends I’ll bet.”