Work Text:
Death is on the air tonight, and Geralt fears it lingers on Jaskier.
He shifts in his spot, cool stone digging into his knees. The heavy chains around his chest and arms are looped tight - on a different night, he’d laugh at the idea of his assailants springing for expensive silver like superstitious grandmothers. But Jaskier across the room with a knife pressed to his throat leaves little room in Geralt’s stomach for amusement.
The hand in Geralt’s hair tightens its grip, tugging Geralt backwards at an odd angle into the leg of the fucking vizier of this fucking backwoods duchy. Geralt growls reflexively, eyes narrowing on the man with the knife on Jaskier's throat who fidgets more every minute the night drags on. Jaskier’s gaze has gone high and distant, wandering on the ceiling, and Geralt worries at the boredom on his face. Dissociation, probably - hopefully he doesn’t drift too far away to forget the steel on his skin.
The vizier is still talking. A thin man with a reedy voice, speaking through his nose - the whine of it boils under Geralt’s skin. “It wouldn’t even take you long, witcher. The duke is bed-bound. It’s the easiest thousand gold you’ll ever make.”
“How generous,” Geralt drawls. He tries, once again, to cast axii with his purpling fingers, but the vizier either has a mental fortress of magical defenses or he’s simply the most stubborn man Geralt’s ever had the displeasure of dealing with. “The easiest thousand you’ll ever keep is by letting the bard go now.”
Jaskier moves his weight to his right leg, eyes flicking downward when the sound of his name breaks him from his reverie. “Geralt, the man clearly knows nothing of witchers if he thinks you’ll kill an infirm old man on his deathbed. Don’t bother.”
Geralt exhales heavily through his nose. The vizier’s knee digs harder between his shoulder-blades. “Oh, my lovely bard. I am very familiar with the creed of the - the White Wolf, that’s what you named the mutt?” Geralt sees Jaskier’s jaw tense even as he smiles pleasantly back at the vizier. “I just don’t think I’ve given him the right incentive yet.”
Geralt can feel the vizier move from the shifting against his scalp and back; just above his head, he catches the vizier waving an arm. The man across the room - masked and hooded, but obviously a hired brigand by his ragged clothes and the worn handle of his dagger - moves his blade up to Jaskier’s cheekbone and draws it against skin.
Jaskier hisses. Geralt knows by the pressure of the blade that it’s dull. That it takes a heavy hand to break the skin rather than slice it. That the cut will bruise overnight - as will the ones on his arms, when they were ambushed, and the one on his palm from grabbing at the steel. A slow, cold fury builds in Geralt’s stomach and he bares his teeth.
Jaskier is not supposed to be here. Geralt nearly bites his own tongue to keep himself quiet. It'd just been so long since they stumbled across each other on the road, and Geralt was feeling indulgent and selfish, and he let his guard down to have Jaskier around. Again. As always.
Sighing happily, the vizier pets at Geralt’s head. Geralt wrestles against the chains, but he doesn’t even have the leverage to launch himself backwards against the vizier. “Look at that. Incentive.”
The man with the blade barks a laugh that rasps against Geralt’s skin. He moves his dagger back to Jaskier’s throat, pressing it to the bottom of Jaskier’s chin to force it upwards. Jaskier huffs as the dull steel drags against his throat, but Geralt reads anxiety in the way he balls his hands into fists and then releases them, again and again.
“You know, Geralt,” - and the vizier’s voice is sickly-sweet as his fingers slowly pull at Geralt’s hair - “I’m thinking the terms I gave you were a bit unfair. This contract is so simple, you see, and we’re on a tight deadline - I’m not sure it’s truly worth a thousand gold. I mean, it won’t take you more than an hour or so. Five hundred gold is more than fitting, don’t you think?”
Geralt watches the blood that runs sluggishly down Jaskier’s face and neck. The vizier leans down, breath hot on Geralt’s scalp. “Especially seeing I’ll give you the bard back afterward, more-or-less in one piece.”
Jaskier laughs once, dry and cold, like winter wind. They all look at him, Geralt wide-eyed and silently pleading don’t speak don’t make him angry with you let me fix this let me fucking fix this, and the smile that quirks just one side of his mouth is icy. His eyes narrow and his jaw sets, just for a moment, before a look of ennui washes back over his features. “Geralt, I’ve grown tired of this whoreson and his dog.”
Geralt blinks. The hired thug glances quickly between Jaskier and the vizier, who sputters a bit and relaxes the hand on Geralt’s head in his distraction. Before Geralt can even determine the most efficient way to take advantage of the vizier’s lowered defenses, Jaskier draws himself up and locks his gaze behind Geralt. His blue eyes darken, dilating, something molten flaring in them. His grin widens and his teeth flash like a fox’s in torchlight, and he speaks a single word:
“Rot.”
Everything slows for a long, awful moment. Geralt feels magic sizzling on the air, like a tree struck by lightning nearby, and static crackles against his skin. The edges of the room dim as all the light gathers between the four of them, and Jaskier is glittering, he's sparking with it, and then the torches along the wall fizzle out all at once, throwing them into a sudden and total darkness. The spell flies just above Geralt, splitting the air like an arrow.
The vizier goes completely still behind Geralt before almost lazily crumpling to the floor.
The man with the blade drops the knife like it burned him, and Geralt thinks maybe it did by the way the man stumbles over himself to get away from Jaskier and out the room. He trips and falls to his hands and knees besides the vizier, gags, and staggers to the door before bursting out of it. Geralt looks over his shoulder, eyes adjusting to the sliver of moonlight flowing through the window, and snarls.
"Jaskier."
Jaskier sits down on his haunches to pin the handle of the knife with his boot and carefully cut at the rope around his wrist. "Yes, Geralt?"
"Jaskier, look at me."
The bard sighs and does not stop sawing at his bonds. "I know, my dear - what a strange evening! What a gross, weaselly man! But let's hold our thoughts until we've made it to a nice tavern with a lot of ale and maybe some warm stew and fresh bread -"
"You mutilated him." Geralt stares in open wonder and Jaskier manages to tear through the rope with a little aha! "He's not just dead, Jaskier - he's decaying."
Jaskier shakes the ropes aside, grabs the knife, and stands. He looks younger in the soft light, his clothes and hair disheveled, and Geralt considers distantly if the jagged cut on his cheek will scar. Walking over to him, Jaskier slowly nudges the tight loops of chain over Geralt's chest and shoulders. He pulls them up and over Geralt's head to fall behind his back, and Geralt shakes his hands free as Jaskier kneels beside him to cut the rope around his ankles. His voice is quiet and steady when he finally speaks. "He did what I told him to do."
Geralt sits back on his ass when Jaskier frees his legs, shaking out his numb limbs. "You said one word. And you've - I've never seen you do magic before."
He doesn't mean to sound accusatory, but Jaskier laughs it off, standing up and offering Geralt a hand. "Well, I don't always have the luxury of traveling with a personal witcher bodyguard. We all have to learn to survive, somehow."
Geralt looks up at him, at his smile that doesn't reach his eyes, at the blood dried on his palm. He takes the outstretched hand and lets himself be helped upright. "Alright. We'll find an inn. Get some alcohol." Maybe a whole keg.
Jaskier brightens beside him and Geralt keeps a cautious hand on his shoulder as they make their way outside into the warm night air. The road isn't far and Geralt knows Roach will have trailed their familiar scents, and he remembers a welcoming hamlet lying a few miles away as the crow flies. And if he happens to give his full attention to Jaskier every time he speaks, listening for lightning and fire crackling on the air, Jaskier is charitable enough not to mention it.