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Jaskier was rarely allowed on dangerous hunts. He had learned to accept Geralt’s reticence to let him tag along on the most challenging contracts, but only because it was tacitly agreed that they would regroup in a local inn or tavern afterwards, and that Geralt would grunt a few details while tending to his own wounds like the grumpy wolf he was.
Geralt did leave without him that one time, but he had had his brain rattled by a stone troll and he probably wasn’t thinking clearly.
But Geralt wasn’t even on a hunt, or on his way to one, that morning. Contracts had been scarce lately, but Jaskier had earned enough coin for the both of them, so they weren’t in a hurry.
They were walking on a narrow path through some pleasant woods. Geralt was relaxed and out of his heavy armor, leading Roach and pretending he didn’t like Jaskier’s new song. The bard hadn’t taken his lute out, he was merely toying with rhymes and checking the witcher’s reactions.
Those were tiny and muted, as if emotions were a shameful thing that needed to be shunned and hidden. But Jaskier could see the glint in his eyes and the soft crinkles at the corner of his mouth. He liked it.
The air was warm despite the early hour, and the woods were quiet around them. It was going to be a nice day, Jaskier mused; maybe they’d find a small stream or a lake and take a swim to cool off at the end of the day, before setting camp for the night.
A deep, inhuman growl interrupted his thoughts and made the earth shake beneath their feet.
“What was–”
Jaskier never finished his sentence because Geralt pushed him off the path and sent him flying into the bushes, knocking the air out of him.
The ground shook again; the beast was getting closer. Jaskier risked a glance from where he crouched, because he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get a good look at the creature set on eating them.
He got his breath stolen a second time when he realized what it was – a manticore, looking exactly like in the stories. A beast made of several different animals, all deadlier than the other. He could see the heavy tail and its poisonous barbs, the dark wings and the pointed horns, and he could hear the angry roar.
Geralt swiftly got his silver sword out, his free hand ready to form a sign. Jaskier kind of hoped the witcher wouldn’t kill it, because that was the stuff of legends, but he didn’t say a word, not wanting to draw attention to him or distract Geralt.
It had only happened once or twice and every time he thought he’d never hear the end of it.
Geralt seemed to have the upper hand anyway, so Jaskier stayed hidden and watched, as the sword clanked against the deadly talons of the manticore. The witcher got a couple of good hits, but he was tiring. He wasn’t wearing his full armor, so he was forced to dodge a lot, and his potions were in Roach’s saddles, out of reach since the horse had done the smart thing and run for cover at the first sign of danger.
It was too late for Jaskier to do the same now, because the manticore was too close, and the bard had no intention to play bait – Geralt wasn’t allowed to use him to lure out monsters anymore. Jaskier had made him swear after that unfortunate siren incident.
Geralt grunted heavily and made the sign of Aard, but the beast hardly slowed down. It shook its head and pounced once more. Geralt fell and Jaskier stifled a yelp. Witcher and monster struggled on the ground for a moment. All Jaskier could see from where he hid was the flash of steel and the glint of teeth.
Then the manticore let out an ear splitting scream, and Geralt groaned in pain. The beast slumped and stopped moving.
Once he was certain that the beast was dead, Jaskier got to his feet and brushed his dirty doublet. Damn witchers and their lack of restraint. But he wasn’t hurt, so he decided he would only complain for an hour or two about the rough treatment.
“Geralt?” he tried.
He approached the beast cautiously, expecting Geralt to be standing next to it, ready to carve whatever gross body parts he needed to brew more potions. The lack of answer wasn’t worrying in itself, as Geralt was hardly talkative on a good day. But he could sense something was wrong and quickly got around the dead manticore.
It had bled all over the dirt path and the withered grass. All over Geralt. All over a very unconscious Geralt.
Jaskier fell to his knees next to him and shook him a little, to no avail. His hands roamed over his abdomen, until his fingers met damp cloth and he carefully lifted his black shirt, exposing a gash that was so deep it made him gag.
He was pretty sure he could see organs that were not supposed to see the light of day.
“Geralt?” he whined, because he wasn’t against some pointers there.
How did one make a tourniquet on a torso? Should he press everything back in and hope for the best? Potions, he realized in a panicked flash, he needed potions.
“Roach?” he called, a bit louder, his voice wavering. “Where are you?”
He felt hysterical as he called for a horse next to the corpse of a mythical beast, hands hovering above what looked like a deadly wound.
But witchers weren’t humans. He could see Geralt’s eyes, darting from side to side under his eyelids. He could see his chest, expanding ever so slightly with each shallow breath.
“I’m coming back,” Jaskier told him. “Don’t… don’t move,” he added, wincing at his own idiotic words.
He stood up and grabbed Geralt’s sword, so heavy in his hands. He didn’t like leaving Geralt unarmed, but the witcher wasn’t going to be able to use it anytime soon anyway. He wouldn’t want him to venture into the woods with only his lute on his back for protection, he figured.
He walked in circles, farther and farther away, trying to find where Roach had fled. But he was lacking Geralt’s tracking skills, or his witcher’s senses. Maybe the damn horse didn’t want to be found. He was stumbling, pushing sweaty hair out of his eyes and choking on his own panic.
He found her next to a small creek. She looked blissfully unaware of the dire situation.
“Damn horse! Couldn’t you hear me call?” he pestered, trying to grab the reins of the reluctant animal.
“Geralt is hurt,” he informed her. “Now come.”
Roach couldn’t possibly understand human language, but she seemed to agree to follow after that. She set her own pace and nudged Jaskier in the right direction whenever he hesitated.
Geralt hadn’t moved, and neither had the dead manticore, thanks for small mercies. Jaskier dropped the heavy sword and unbuckled the saddle bags. He knew more or less what potions Geralt would have drunk and poured on his gaping wound if he had been awake, he just needed to find them.
Sweat and tears were making it hard to see, and he wiped his face with his sleeve. There, he thought, grasping the small vials. They had stupid names that he once knew but couldn’t remember right now. At least he was pretty sure they were the ones the witcher needed.
“Geralt?”
He got no reply, but he wasn’t really expecting one. Not when Geralt lay on his back in a pool of blood, gutted like a pig.
Jaskier raised the witcher’s head and tried to pour the contents of the flasks into his mouth. He sputtered and coughed but ended up swallowing reflexively. Oh, that’s what it was called, Jaskier realized belatedly – Swallow.
He poured the rest into the wound and tried not to watch when the skin and soft tissues started to sizzle and hiss.
“You better survive, you bloody–”
He choked on his words when Geralt’s hand shot up and grabbed his throat, squeezing tight and cutting off his airway.
“Ge...” he sputtered.
He tried to claw at the hand but the grip was unrelenting. Geralt had opened his eyes, but they were pitch black and unseeing. He was still very much out of it, Jaskier thought, as he felt his own consciousness slip away. Damn witchers and their stupid reflexes.
So he hit him, out of desperation more than anything else. Geralt reacted against the perceived threat with the speed only a mortally wounded witcher could muster. He let go of Jaskier’s throat and punched him in the side of the head, knocking him out completely.
*
Geralt woke up with a start and groaned. Pain was all-encompassing, but the worst of it was centered on his abdomen. He could feel the burn of the potion he didn’t remember taking, and the pull of entrails on the mend. He could smell the rapidly decomposing remains of the manticore close by, left in the sun for too long.
He blinked stupidly at the darkening sky overhead and wondered how long he had stayed unconscious.
He grunted again and actually pulled himself up, once he was confident nothing would unravel if he moved. Then he took stock of the situation. Empty vials – Kiss and Swallow by the look of it. His sword on the blood stained grass. Roach waiting by the shade a little farther.
And Jaskier sprawled next to him, eyes closed with ugly bruising on the left side of his face.
“Fuck,” Geralt said, ever so softly.
He winced and moved stiffly, until he was close enough to shake the bard. When that failed to rouse him, Geralt started to panic a little, even if he wouldn’t admit it later. He wasn’t equipped to deal with human injuries, and his potions, even diluted, would be deadly.
But then Jaskier opened his eyes briefly and closed them again immediately after, trying to shield his face from the sun. Right, getting knocked out made people sensitive to light, he knew that.
Geralt got to his feet – shaky and unsteady – and slowly maneuvered Jaskier until he was lying in the shade, his back against a nearby tree. Roach sighed softly, as if she approved.
“You bastard,” Jaskier croaked, his voice barely a whisper.
So he hit Geralt in the arm to get his point across instead. But there was no real anger behind it and relief flashed on his battered face. He sagged against Geralt, holding his sleeve like he was afraid he would slip away.
Geralt lightly grabbed his chin and turned his head to the side to check his wound. The skin wasn’t broken, but the swelling and the colors marring his temple were proof of the violence of the blow. And Jaskier looked more rattled and definitively more silent than his usual self.
“What happened?” Geralt asked.
Jaskier rolled his eyes and gave him a pointed look. Right, the manticore.
“Did you get hit? You should have stayed put,” he berated out of habit.
At that, Jaskier let out a strangled noise of outrage, and Geralt frowned. The bruise on his neck looked like a handprint – he could see the outline of fingers on the skin, his fingers. He released him as if he had been burned. And yet, there was no fear in Jaskier’s eyes when he looked at him.
He sat back and stayed silent. The night was falling rapidly and they weren’t going anywhere tonight. He should start a fire. Unsaddle Roach. Make sure the area was safe.
He hadn’t realized he was shaking until Jaskier touched his arm lightly, a silent question clear on his face. Damn that bard’s expressiveness even when he couldn’t talk.
Jaskier tried to look at his wound, no longer gaping but still pretty tender, fretting over Geralt despite his own injuries. The horn of the manticore had nearly gutted him, and it was a good thing he had managed to grab potions before passing out.
He frowned, because that didn’t sound right. Roach wouldn’t have stayed near the battle, and he couldn’t even remember hurting the bard, let alone trying to patch himself up.
He stared at Jaskier once more and tried to read his expression. He looked anxious, but not about his own state, as he should have. He was the human one, he was breakable, not Geralt.
“I’m fine,” he said, because that was what Jaskier wanted to hear. “I will be soon enough,” he corrected when the bard cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.
He didn’t ask Jaskier about his headache, because he knew he had one. His eye had started to swell and close up, but Geralt felt even worse about hurting his throat, because Jaskier was always so prickly about his ‘second most precious organ’.
“I’m sorry,” he ended up saying hours later, once they got a fire going and bandages around Geralt’s midsection, at Jaskier’s insistence.
That got him a weird look from Jaskier, who still hadn’t uttered more than three words. Geralt couldn’t tell if he was badly hurt or merely giving him the silent treatment. But at least he didn’t flinch when Geralt sat next to him.
“Not your fault,” Jaskier rasped, his voice still hoarse.
But it was, all of it. Failing to hear the manticore before it was too late, nearly getting killed by it, and then…
“It’s not okay to strangle people when they are trying to help,” Geralt said, a broken apology.
“True,” Jaskier said with a serious expression. “I’m not people.”
“Bards?” Geralt asked, at a loss.
“Friends, Geralt, you shouldn’t strangle friends!” Jaskier winced, as if the outburst had hurt.
Geralt kept his head down and asked instead of commenting, “How did you know which potions to use?”
“I pay attention to the reckless stuff you do?” Jaskier shrugged with the hint of a smile.
Geralt felt confused pride at that. Maybe the bard was less whimsical and more resilient than he had thought.