Chapter Text
Jaskier surveyed the clearing, taking in the scorch marks and torn up earth that indicated a struggle. It took him a moment to notice the prone figure at the base of a huge oak.
“Oh fuck.” Jaskier scrambled closer to where Geralt lay slumped. He had hoped that those drunks at the tavern had been wrong. Or lying. They had to be. Geralt wouldn’t get himself killed on some routine hunt. He’d smelled the blood before he had seen Geralt, but that hadn’t prepared him for just how much of it there was. There was so much that he couldn’t tell where the wound was, other than Geralt’s upper body, and he was lying so still that for a moment Jaskier wasn’t sure he was still breathing. Geralt’s chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly, and Jaskier let out a huge breath in relief, “Good. You’re not allowed to be dead. You still have to hear about what an arsehole you are.” Jaskier lowered his voice in a mocking imitation of Geralt, “‘If I could have one wish.’” He scowled down at the witcher. “Prick.”
Jaskier hesitated for a moment, before rising. “I’ll be back.” There was no way Jaskier wanted to try to move Geralt, not knowing where the injury was, without giving him one of his potions. He’d survived however many hours it had been until Jaskier found him. He would survive another few minutes.
It didn’t take long for Jaskier to retrace his steps through the forest to where he had spotted Roach, and he led her as quickly as he dared to where Geralt still lay. The little calm he had managed to gather started to break apart as he searched through Geralt’s bag, looking for a bottle he had seen Geralt take after fights that had left him more injured than usual. After pulling a few bottles out, he simply tipped the bag upside down and shook, giving a small cry when he saw the small, red and gold glow of what must have been Geralt’s last dose. He wasted no time in pulling the cork before coaxing Geralt’s mouth open and pouring it in. Most of it dribbled out of the corners of his mouth, but surely some was better than none?
Several minutes of effort later, Jaskier had Geralt draped over Roach's back. "Clearly you've been eating well," he muttered. He hadn't dared remove any of Geralt's armour, in case it was all that was holding some hidden injury stable. He would wait until he had Geralt to a healer to search for the source of all the blood.
The trek back out of the forest felt like an extended nightmare that he couldn’t escape. The partially dried blood in Geralt’s hair had smeared across Roach’s coat like grotesque paint, and he remained utterly limp where he lay across her back. Jaskier remained uncharacteristically silent for the entire long walk, and tried to ignore the sweet metallic scent of blood that covered up everything else.
Finally, he emerged from the trees and was able to see houses in the distance, and urged Roach to speed up as much as he dared. Without quite noticing the distance covered, Jaskier found himself banging harshly on the door of the local healer, ignoring the yell from inside to “Stop that racket! I’m coming, already.”
The middle aged woman who opened the door barely glanced at Jaskier before looking behind him and raising her eyebrows. “You’d better bring him in. I certainly can’t lift him.”
Once Jaskier had Geralt laid out on the bed she pushed him out of the way and began matter-of-factly cutting his clothes off. Jaskier made a sound of protest and she shot him a stern look. “Do you want me to help or not? If I can’t see what wounds he has, there’s nothing I can do.” Jaskier subsided, and she turned back to her task, saying as she did so, “Make yourself useful and fill that bucket over there. There’s a well out back.”
In a daze, Jaskier did as he was told, and quickly returned. As the door thumped closed behind him, the woman nodded at him in approval and gestured to show where he should leave the water. “How long has he been unconscious?”
“I don’t- At least a few hours. I don’t really know.”
The healer grunted and turned back to her patient, rolling him with surprising ease for such a delicate looking woman, and tugging the remains of his clothing out of the way. She turned away momentarily to grab a cloth from a neatly folded pile, and began methodically, gently, wiping blood away. Her work revealed a few minor scrapes on Geralt’s shoulders, but not much else until she reached his head. She tutted, and reached for a pair of shears. Without so much as glancing Jaskier’s way, she began cutting away the bloody hair at the back of Geralt’s head, removing enough hair for the wound to be seen clearly. With a delicate touch, she probed the laceration and frowned deeply at whatever she felt.
She sighed, and turned to Jaskier, “If he were any but a witcher, he wouldn’t have lasted even this long. I doubt he’ll wake.”
Jaskier felt quite odd, strangely disconnected from his body, and heard himself answer, “But there’s a chance?”
She raised an eyebrow at him, “Aye, there’s a chance. But only because he’s a witcher. And even if he does, he may not thank you for bringing him to be healed. Head wounds can do strange things.”
“What do you mean, he might not thank me?” Jaskier fully intended to enumerate Geralt’s many failings to him, over the course of his entire recovery, but surely that wouldn’t be worse than being dead?
She gave him a pitying look, and said, “With injuries more minor than this, I’ve known people to be unable to speak, to walk, heard tell of some who, when they woke, were so changed as to be different people entirely. And even if, as a witcher, he can heal more than a man might, it wouldn’t be a quick recovery, or even necessarily a full one. There’s no telling.”
Jaskier drew in a shuddering breath and nodded. “I’ll arrange to have him moved to my rooms, then, at least until he wakes.” He would wake. Geralt would wake, and would listen to Jaskier tell him what a colossal twat he was, and would grunt monosyllabically at him, and would go on his way, as unchanged as ever. “How much do I owe you, healer?”
“Esbet. If you’re going to be taking up my time for however long he lingers, you may as well call me by my name. And nothing, unless he wakes. If he does, I insist on being the one to treat him. Call it professional curiosity.”
***
Geralt was warm, and resting on something soft, and the pain in his head was worse than anything he’d felt since the trials. He didn’t fight when he felt himself begin to slip back into unconsciousness.
Thirst woke him, and he tried to move, but even his eyelids felt heavy, and there was a pain radiating from the back of his skull. He made a sound in the back of his throat and gentle hands lifted his head slightly and dripped cool broth into his mouth. Swallowing was exhausting, and he let himself fall back to sleep.
Geralt was sitting propped up in a bed, in a small room, the remains of meals left in haphazard piles on most of the flat surfaces available. They must not have been there overly long, given that the smell was not yet offensive. The sounds of a shout and the wheels of carts on the street outside aggravated the pounding in his head, as did the sun slanting in through the window. Jaskier was in a chair beside the bed, fingers twisting around and around some bandages. Geralt furrowed his brow. “Which city are we in?”
Jaskier sighed, and answered, “Oxenfurt, near the university.”
Geralt nodded, and regretted it, the ache at the back of his head flaring into a sharper pain at the action. He reached for a cup on the table beside the bed, and his hand shook. “Why am I so weak?”
Jaskier’s hands clenched on the fabric he was still abusing as he said, “You were injured, badly, just over a week ago.”
The thought came to Geralt suddenly, and he jerked as he realised, “Where’s Roach?” If she had been abandoned near his hunt and come to harm, he would never be able to live with himself.
Jaskier went back to twisting the bandage, voice tense, “In a stable nearby, I saw her this morning.”
Geralt had no idea why Jaskier was so anxious, and it made him tense in reaction. Clearly something was wrong. He noticed that there were the remains of meals on most of the flat surfaces, but none of them smelled offensive, so they hadn’t been there long. There was the loud bustle of a city outside the open window. “Which city are we in?”
Jaskier cleared his throat before answering, “Oxenfurt. Near the university.”
Geralt nodded, and it made his head hurt more. He was so tired. He couldn’t feel the ache of muscles well used, so why was he so tired? “Why am I so weak?”
Jaskier let out a small sob, and stood, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I-” He swiped a hand over his eyes. “Why am I bothering? You’re just going to ask again.” Before Geralt could shift on the bed, Jaskier was out of the door and disappearing into the next room.
Geralt could hear Jaskier, taking deep, slow, shuddery breaths, and smell the salt that came from tears. Geralt struggled to throw the blankets off his legs to follow, but could not muster the strength to leave the bed. A loud shout outside the window made his head throb. Which city was he in, anyway?
Geralt could smell someone unfamiliar in the room with him, and he struggled to wake, to assess the situation, but sleep kept trying to pull him under. Whoever it was shifted a little, and he smelled the familiar scent of healing herbs. Reassured, he stopped fighting, and let go of consciousness.
There was a familiar voice somewhere nearby, but Geralt couldn’t make sense of the words. He frowned. Jaskier was sad. Why would he be sad? He had just won that competition in Novigrad. Or was it Cidaris? If Geralt could just open his eyes, he could find out what was wrong. He shifted his weight, preparing to sit up, and was alarmed to feel how weak he was. There was a dull ache in his head, as well. Where had that come from? The last monster he had fought had been- had been- What had it been? Where was he? Alarmed, he put all of his strength into sitting up, and that alarmed him more. Since when did it take all his strength to simply sit? His eyes flew open, and he immediately slammed them shut, the light feeling like knives directly in his retinas. Jaskier’s voice came close again, now sounding worried, and Geralt still could not understand the words. Familiar hands pushed on his shoulders, and he didn’t have the strength to resist when they guided him back to the bed. Jaskier’s familiar scent washed over him, and the blankets were once again drawn over his shoulders. He was so tired. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter too much if he were to go back to sleep?
Someone was playing a lute nearby. It was soothing. Geralt shifted slightly on the bed, and fell back asleep.
Geralt could hear two voices in the next room, and there was a dull ache at the back of his head. He tentatively groped at the spot the pain was coming from, and was disconcerted to find the soft, prickly sensation of hair shorn nearly to the scalp. Cautiously, he opened his eyes, and in the moonlight, made out a neatly kept room, with a chest at the foot of the bed and a small table next to his head. The table held a bowl and cup, as well as an unlit oil lamp that had been set down on one of Jaskier’s notebooks. Jaskier’s notebooks being there was a puzzle in and of itself. After what he had said to the bard on the mountain, there was no reason for Jaskier to want to be anywhere near him, and Geralt certainly didn’t deserve anything from him other than scorn. Outside, there were the sounds of a city, people and animals walking through the cobbled streets, the distant sound of music and laughter. Gradually, slowly, Geralt was able to focus his attention on the conversation nearby.
“He has woken up, though.” Jaskier was saying.
“Yes, and that is more than I expected,” a woman replied, “But for how long has he woken? And has he remembered any of it when he next woke? Keep your coin, for now.”
“Esbet, I cannot keep taking up your time like this without payment.” Jaskier sounded exasperated, as though he knew how this conversation would end, but was going to try anyway. Geralt was very familiar with that tone of voice.
“Nonsense. If you keep feeding me as well as tonight’s meal, I will consider myself well compensated,” The woman dismissed.
Geralt rolled to lever himself up, and was startled to discover that it took all his strength to do so. How long had he been in that bed? He sat, panting for a moment, before he attempted to stand. His legs immediately gave out under him, and he crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap. In an instant, he could see no future. What use was a witcher who could not even stand? If he were lucky, some monster or angry villager would kill him swiftly, and if he were unlucky, he would linger for some untold length of time before starving, or dying of exposure. As a short, slender woman charged into the room, he began to weep. Humiliation washed over him, and he turned his face away with just enough time to see Jaskier following her into the room. Roughly he wiped the tears away, but could not stop more from falling. The woman, who must have been the Esbet that Jaskier had been talking to, paid no mind, and tucked a shoulder under his arm to lift him, gesturing Jaskier to do the same. With less awkwardness than he would have expected, they worked together to settle him on the bed again. Once he was lying down again, Geralt found that he simply could not keep his eyes open, and fell back to sleep while Esbet poked at something at the back of his head.
Geralt was restless, itching to do something, anything, other than sleep, and eat. Even that had been a battle, for a time, his stomach rebelling at even the blandest food. Esbet had told him that it had been because he had gone so long being unable to consume anything other than broth. She had also told him exactly what he was to eat and when, and he excused immediately caving to her demands with how easily tired he was, and would under no circumstances admit that he would likely have been cowed by the tiny healer even had things been normal. She had a way of kindly, implacably, coercing the people around her to do her bidding, without question or resistance. The one time he had tried to get out of bed before she allowed it, she had watched impassively as he struggled, and waited until he gave up. She then clicked her tongue disapprovingly, and went to fetch Jaskier to help her lift him back into the bed.
He was finally starting to be able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, and while that was definitely progress, he was still unable to do much of anything. He could only walk a few steps, and attempting to read left him with a pounding headache. Both Jaskier and Esbet refused to bring him any of his knives to sharpen, and after the third time he fumbled his eating utensils he had to grudgingly agree with their reasoning. His unsteady hands also meant his usually clean shaven face had an untidy beard growing on it, although mercifully it had passed the itchy stage at some point while he slept. It all left him with remarkably little to do, and the longer he spent awake, the more time Jaskier seemed to need to spend performing his duties as a professor for the university.
Another problem with not being able to handle his knives, was that he was unable to do anything about the beard. Between the scraggly beard and the mismatched lengths of hair from where Esbet had shorn him to get a closer look at the wound, he felt almost as unpresentable as any time he staggered back into a town, covered in the entrails of whatever he had been hired to kill. The hair had begun to grow back, but that, he thought, only made it look worse. At least when it had been short, it had looked deliberate. Now it looked more like he had been the victim of some sort of prank.
Geralt was contemplating reading the book Jaskier had discarded on the bedside table, and dealing with the inevitable headache, when Esbet returned, carrying lunch. He laboriously sat up while she bustled about, setting the bread and a thin soup on a small table designed to be placed over one’s lap in bed, and her own food on the bedside table, before dragging a chair closer. Despite spending his time laying around, doing nothing, Geralt was starving, and devoured the soup in record time. Once the soup was gone, he started in more slowly on the bread, savouring the light texture and the hard crunch of the crust, the bread much finer than what he was usually able to afford.
Esbet allowed him one mouthful in peace before beginning her interrogation. “Have you been doing the exercises I showed you?”
Geralt stuffed another chunk of bread in his mouth, and grunted. He’d been doing those damn exercises every opportunity he had, in the hopes that it would get him out of bed sooner, but as far as he could tell, hadn’t made any progress at all.
Esbet scowled at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you resemble a recalcitrant child?”
Geralt glowered back, and grumbled, “I’m more than twice your age, woman.”
“So you would think you’d have developed more maturity, wouldn't you?” she shot back tartly.
Geralt chewed angrily on his bread. As high quality as the bread was, it was getting more and more difficult to swallow the plain slice he had been given, and he wished he had saved some of his soup. He swallowed his mouthful with a small struggle, and asked, “Are you hiding a cup of-” he stopped abruptly. What was the word? He knew he knew it, but somehow he could not find the word he needed.
Esbet watched him struggle for a few seconds, before offering, “Try talking around it. Words you associate with it, or describe the thing you were trying to say.”
Breath coming faster, Geralt started listing words, “Wet. Cup. Stream. Lake. Liquid. Water! I need a cup of water.” Was this what he was reduced to? Bedbound and useless, and an idiot on top of it?
Esbet simply nodded, and ducked into the next room, quickly returning with a metal cup. She handed it over, saying, “It’s called aphasia. You still know the words, but sometimes they are simply out of reach.”
Geralt took a deep, steadying breath, “So it’s only while I’m healing? Once I’m healed, it will stop happening?” He needed it to be temporary. Something to push through, and then be done with.
Esbet shrugged, “Perhaps. It might also be permanent. There’s no telling, really. You can’t heal everything, or you wouldn’t be covered in scars.”
Geralt could feel his usually slow heartbeat speed up, and the muscles in his back lock up. He could not stay like this. What use was he like this?
Esbet patted him gently on the shoulder and left him to try to pull himself together.
Some unknown length of time later, Esbet had finally given Geralt the okay to try moving around, with the limitation that he wait until someone was with him, in case he fell. He found that days blurred together while he was unable to do anything for himself, and it didn’t help that he could not help but to fall asleep at odd times, often waking to changed lighting without realising he had even drifted off in the first place, and having no idea how much time had passed. Geralt chafed at the restriction of waiting until someone else was there, but it only took one attempt while by himself, and getting stuck on the floor for hours until Jaskier had returned in the evening to discourage him from disregarding Esbet’s rules again.
To his frustration, Jaskier was spending most of his waking hours away from his home, which limited Geralt’s opportunities to stretch his legs. It took several days of trying, but eventually Geralt was awake in time to hear Jaskier coming up the stairs, and he quickly swung his legs over the side of the bed to lever himself up. By the time Jaskier walked in, Geralt was out of breath, but sitting on one of the two chairs at the table in the main room, only having stumbled once on the way.
Jaskier was carrying a bag with enough food for two, most likely charmed away from the dining hall at the university campus. He scowled when he saw Geralt. “Aren’t you supposed to stay in bed unless someone is there?”
“I waited until I heard you coming. I wouldn’t have been stuck long, if I fell.”
“Good for you.” Jaskier thumped the food down on the table, and began setting it all on the table, only sparing one small glance at the small lap table that Geralt’s meals were usually served on. Geralt may have had trouble staying awake for extended periods of time, but he wasn’t oblivious to the fact Jaskier was avoiding him. It was hard to miss, when most evenings he would bring in Geralt’s food, and then sit in the main room to eat his own dinner alone. The rejection stung, but Geralt knew he had brought it on himself. He never should have turned his pain regarding Yennefer outwards and aimed it at Jaskier.
“You’re angry.” Geralt observed.
“No shit, what tipped you off?” Jaskier snipped back.
“I’ll be out of your way as soon as I can be, I know you likely want your bed back.” Geralt fidgeted with his spoon, unable to meet Jaskier’s eyes. He knew ‘as soon as he could be’ was a long way off, and that was in the hopeful event that he was ever able to fend for himself again.
Jaskier huffed an angry laugh, and tipped his head back as though searching for strength. “You think I’m angry about the bed?”
Geralt stilled, eyes still fixed on the spoon in his hands, “Of course not. But I can’t change the past. I can take myself off your hands.”
Jaskier thumped a plate down on the table so hard the bowls rattled. “If I wanted you off my hands, I wouldn’t have bothered to save your sorry hide.”
Finally, Geralt was able to look up at Jaskier, “Why did you? Why would you want to-”
“Gods Geralt, just because I’m angry with you doesn’t mean I want you dead.” There was a look on Jaskier’s face that Geralt couldn’t make sense of.
Geralt shifted uncomfortably, at a loss for words. Eventually, Jaskier took pity on him and passed over the bowl of soup, letting the tension break. The conversation that followed was stilted, and largely about the food in front of them, but more than they had said to each other since Geralt had woken up, and Geralt started to feel a little bit of hope that they might, eventually, someday, be able to be on good terms again.
***
Jaskier’s steps slowed as he reached his door. He wasn’t sure which possibility he dreaded more- that Geralt would be having one of his bad days, when he couldn’t remember where he was or what was going on, or that he wouldn’t be, would be perfectly lucid and as infuriating as ever. It was a mercy that even when he was confused he clearly realised that he was there to heal, and hadn’t tried to leave or do anything foolish when left alone. And to Jaskier’s relief, as Geralt was becoming more mobile, his bad days were getting fewer and fewer. But there was still the chance that Jaskier would open the door and find that Geralt had disappeared while he was gone, and that he would never find out if he had simply chosen to leave, or had wandered off while confused. Yes, Jaskier decided, that was the possibility he dreaded the most. The idea of never knowing, of never truly getting the chance to properly have things out with Geralt, get everything off his chest, even if the result was not what he might wish.
When he finally made it to the top of the stairs, Geralt was thankfully upright and mobile, not lying on the floor, unable to pick himself up again, but he was also clearly angry about something. He must have heard Jaskier coming and was roughly shoving books off the table in the main room, taking no care with where they ended up, and crumpling the pages of some. Jaskier rushed the rest of the way into the room to rescue one of his more expensive tomes before Geralt irretrievably damaged it, yanking it out of his hands just as Geralt attempted to unceremoniously stuff it into too-small a space.
He rounded on Geralt and snapped, “What do you think you’re doing?” Wasn’t it just like Geralt to show no care for the tools of Jaskier’s trade, never mind that he was living in Jaskier’s rooms, eating the food that he brought back, and receiving medical care courtesy of Jaskier’s coin.
“How the fuck else am I supposed to get all your shit off the table? Or are we eating on the floor?” Geralt barely paused, and turned to toss a pile of papers, probably the essays Jaskier had only half finished grading, onto the floor.
Jaskier made a frustrated noise and snatched them away from Geralt as well, “You could try putting things away where they belong!”
“And how am I supposed to know where they belong?” Geralt growled, finally stopping, but looming over Jaskier, who didn’t back down.
He stashed his book neatly on the shelf it was supposed to be on, and pinned the essays under a paperweight before turning back to Geralt. “I showed you yesterday!”
Geralt’s face went blank for a moment before his eyes closed and his teeth clenched. While Jaskier watched Geralt blinked rapidly and turned his face away. He’d forgotten again, then.
Geralt grabbed the last thing Jaskier had left on the table, a marking rubric, and held it up, taking a steadying breath and asking, “Remind me where this goes?”
Jaskier let some of his frustration go; it wasn’t Geralt's fault, although, he noted irritably, Geralt still made no move to apologise for his rough treatment of Jaskier’s belongings. He had found that, as it became clear that Geralt wasn’t going to die from his injuries, he had become more and more irritable. The anger he still felt about Geralt’s words on the mountain months ago was making itself known in various small ways, leaving him waspish and often unpleasant to be around.
The next evening, however, it became clear that Geralt was not having a good day. He could hear thumps and cursing before he even reached the landing, let alone opened the door to his rooms, and when he opened his door he saw that Geralt had pulled his armour on, but had stumbled at some point, and with his current lack of grace, tumbled to the floor and was attempting to pull himself up. As Jaskier watched, he misjudged the distance to the bookshelf again, and rained a newly graded stack of essays on himself.
When Jaskier closed the door with a thump, Geralt swung around to look at him, eyes wild. “Jaskier! When the fuck did we get to- where are we? Oxenfurt?”
Jaskier sighed as he let his bag slip off his shoulder and walked over to haul Geralt to his feet. He started unbuckling Geralt’s armour before he could protest, not wanting him to get it into his head to leave, and hoping that the lack of armour would discourage him. Geralt must have twigged to what he was doing, and started to object, so Jaskier spoke of the top of him, “You’ve been here a month, you have a brain injury, you’re getting better, but it’s a two steps forward, one step back sort of healing. Today must be a step back.”
As he pulled Geralt’s vambrace off, he noted that Geralt’s fingers were trembling, and that the pulse in his throat was nearly human-fast. This must be what panic looked like on Geralt, this tightly controlled stillness, with only his wide eyes, elevated heart rate, and shaking so slight that Jaskier was only able to see because he was so close. Jaskier suddenly realised it wasn’t so different to how Geralt had looked when he’d snarled those hateful words at him. Something to ponder later, he decided.
It took a fair bit of coaxing before Geralt was willing to sit down to dinner, and by the time the meal was done, Jaskier was more than ready to turn in for the night. The next morning, Geralt knew where he was, and, so far as Jaskier could determine, knew what was going on. The tight feeling that Jaskier got every time Geralt forgot loosened, and he felt as though he could breathe again.
Jaskier was somewhat less relieved when, on the first morning in weeks that he’d been able to sleep late, he was woken by Geralt noisily getting dressed and then thumping his way out of the bedroom, catching his arm on the door frame as he went past. Esbet had given him the all clear to venture down the street to the stables the week before, and Geralt was clearly trying to make up for lost time. He had spent at least some time every day since then doting on his horse, and judging by the bite mark she had left on his forearm, Roach was getting rather sick of him.
Geralt sat heavily in one of the chairs at the table, and Jaskier sat up from where he had been sleeping on a bedroll on the floor and scowled at him. He was far too awake for simply rolling over and going back to sleep to work now. “You couldn’t have done that quietly, you arse?”
Geralt paused in pulling on his boots, his hair, finally at least somewhat tamed after Jaskier had taken a pair of scissors to it, just barely escaping its tie and falling in his face. “The sun’s been up for hours. I thought you’d be awake already.”
“And when you came out and saw that I clearly wasn’t awake?” Jaskier flipped the covers off and stalked over, arms crossed, and much less imposing than he would prefer in his nightshirt and with his hair still mussed from sleep.
“But you were awake,” Geralt frowned in confusion, “I could hear your heart rate. It was too fast for sleep.”
Jaskier threw up his hands, “Only because you made such a racket getting dressed!”
“I fell.” Geralt mumbled, not meeting Jaskier’s eyes. He finished pulling on his boots and stood. “I’ll begin making arrangements to leave today. I should be out of your way within the next few days.”
Jaskier roughly scrubbed his hands through his hair, “What are you going on about? You can’t even get dressed without falling over! If you try going back to the Path now, you’ll be dead within the month.”
Geralt stood, finally meeting Jaskier’s eyes, “You’re sleeping on your own floor, you spend as much time as possible away from your rooms. I should leave, and let you spend time in your own space. You clearly don’t want me here.”
Jaskier felt as though he could scream from frustration, “Because you’ve still never bothered to fucking apologise!”
It was clear that Geralt must have been brooding over what he had said on the Caingorn Mountains, because his hands balled into fists and his shoulders tensed, leaning forwards and looming over Jaskier as he answered, “What would be the point! You must know I regret it, that I didn’t mean it, and you still hate me for it anyway, what good would saying the words do?”
Jaskier was completely unimpressed by Geralt’s attempts at intimidation and yelled back at him, “Have you considered that I need you to acknowledge that you were an arsehole? Maybe say you’ll at least try to do better?”
“Why?” Geralt growled, “It has always been just a matter of time before you ended up hating me, before you realised you’d been wasting your life, spending so much of it with me, so what fucking difference would it make?”
Jaskier jerked back as though slapped, and blinked rapidly, trying to process what he had just heard. Had Geralt really spent their entire friendship convinced that Jaskier would one day change his mind, and start hating him? Finally, he managed, “I made my own decisions, and I’m pretty happy with where I’ve ended up. If I end up hating you, it will be for your choices, not mine.”
Geralt backed up half a step, and a look of confusion passed over his face, “You’ve spent most of your career performing in backwater taverns and following me to the arse end of nowhere with no audience at all, when you could have been performing in whichever royal court you chose. Why wouldn’t you come to resent me for that?”
That was possibly the nicest thing Geralt had ever said about Jaskier’s singing, “While I’m touched that you think I could have had my pick of royal courts to perform in, you’re ignoring what I said. I did all that because I chose to. And I don’t regret it, even if you are the biggest prick this side of the blue mountains.” That got the barest twitch of lips out of Geralt, and Jaskier pressed on, “Besides, before I met you, I was feeding myself by singing the worst songs I could think of so that people would throw food at me, because I certainly wasn’t making enough coin to feed myself otherwise.”
“Hmm, I remember. Bread in your pants. Was it any good?” After having known Geralt for so many years, Jaskier could see that he was only barely hiding a smile.
“Gods no, it was only preferable to starving to death.” Jaskier grinned at Geralt. He may not have gotten the apology he had wanted from Geralt, but he had gotten something almost as good; insight into his motivations. Even if those motivations were apparently even more self loathing than Jaskier could have possibly guessed.
***
Geralt felt like he was going to go out of his skin with restlessness. He had barely seen the outside of Jaskier’s rooms since he woke up, and while his trips to see Roach had been pathetically exciting at first, the shine had quickly worn off. Not to mention that Roach had started to make it clear that she was sick of him, by trying to bite him whenever he tried to brush her more than once a day. There was also only so much time he could spend practicing with his blades and working on physical conditioning before it left him in worse shape than he started in. The last thing he needed was to cut off some toes because he fumbled his sword. It left him with very little to do.
Jaskier, at least, had stopped avoiding him. It made evenings the highlights of his day, when Jaskier would return and bring with him stories of ridiculous things his students and other professors would do, as well as paperwork that he would gradually work his way through before dinner. Geralt enjoyed watching the animation on Jaskier’s face as he told his no doubt exaggerated tales of his day, and guiltily treasured the time spent sitting shoulder to shoulder on the low couch squashed into a corner of the room, feeling Jaskier’s warmth all along his side. Geralt found himself wanting to contribute more to their conversations, but without having done anything, had little to say. He resolved to weather the stares and sensory overload of walking through a city. It would be a way to pass the time, even if he did not end up telling Jaskier.
It had not taken long before he decided to explore further afield and he discovered another problem. Namely that Oxenfurt was a city. And, like any other city, full of stinking, noisy, erratic people that he simply could not escape. The first time he had decided to venture past the end of the street he had been driven back to Jaskier’s rooms in a matter of minutes by the overwhelming cacophony of people talking over the hammering coming from the blacksmith’s forge. Ordinarily he would have tuned out the sounds, but the extra attention he needed to pay to not bumping into things and maintaining his balance made that sort of concentration impossible. The next day the torturous boredom drove him to make another attempt, and he got several streets further before the combination of clashing smells, noise coming from every direction, and the unpredictable movements of a group of children sent him scurrying back. Despite the relative lack of success, the tedium of one small set of rooms had Geralt making short trips each day, since even short walks followed by hours of attempting to regain his equilibrium was at least something to do.
It took several weeks before Geralt travelled far enough to cross the bridge to the academy, and he had not intended to linger, but shortly after reaching the smaller island, a large crowd of students gathered near the bridge, and the sheer number of them, combined with the noise they were making, not only made the entrance to the bridge impassable for him, but made remaining nearby intolerable. Without his usual place to retreat to, Geralt cast about for another option.
There was a door propped just slightly open in the side of the large stone building, and he ducked inside before anyone noticed he was there. The sound from outside was muffled enough by the stone walls that Geralt felt his shoulders start to relax, and he took in the dim room he had entered. It was larger than he expected, and there were nearly a dozen people seated in the room, scattered about, most either scribbling furiously in notebooks or watching the older man at the front of the room expound on some point or another. Geralt was loath to go back outside to the noise he had just retreated from, and no one seemed to have noticed him, so he quietly sat in the nearest chair to wait until he could leave.
For lack of anything better to do, Geralt tuned into the lecture. The professor who was speaking had a sort of droning monotone that explained the student in the back row with Geralt who appeared to be asleep. “Ideally, any patients you see will have had their limbs stabilised after a break, however, as you are aware, we do not live in an ideal world, so be prepared to deal with a large amount of damage to the surrounding muscles, and the attendant blood loss. It is not uncommon for extremely severe breaks to necessitate amputation if the damage to the surrounding tissue is extensive enough.”
Despite the dim lighting and utter lack of inflection in the professor’s voice, Geralt found himself drawn in. He had an extensive knowledge of how to treat his own wounds, and what he could and could not recover from, but knew relatively little about the same regarding humans. Many of the treatments he used on himself would be outright lethal for a human, and he was able to recover much more swiftly and fully than any human ever would. He could think of at least a dozen times over the years that a knowledge of how to treat injuries and illnesses in humans would have been helpful after a hunt. People who may not have died if he had only known how to treat them, or even people whose deaths weighed heavily on him but who, even if he had been able to bring them to a healer, may never have been able to be saved.
Geralt was so engrossed that he hardly noticed the time pass, and started when the lecturer, in the same monotone he had been using the entire time, said, “Do not neglect to read chapter seven of your textbooks and to hand in your essays regarding best practice in treating skin irritations. Next week’s lecture will be on the symptoms, treatments and warning signs of head injuries. Class dismissed.”
There was a slight delay before the students began to collect their belongings and stand, as though they, too, had not noticed the lecture ending. Geralt stood and quickly left before anyone could object to his presence, with the intention of returning the following week.
Geralt was so exhausted by his longer than usual trip out that he found himself falling into bed as soon as he was back in Jaskier’s rooms, and only woke when he heard the door open and close. Geralt growled to himself, frustrated with his inability to remain awake for even a day. He staggered into the main room as Jaskier and Esbet began to unpack the food Jaskier had bought, and Geralt’s breath caught at the smile that came onto Jaskier’s face when he saw him. “Geralt! I didn’t think we’d see you!”
Geralt dragged a conveniently sized box over to the table to serve as a third chair, and grunted, “Fell asleep. Didn’t mean to.”
Esbet regarded him with narrowed eyes, “You haven’t done that in a while. You haven’t had any more dizzy spells, have you? Or spent more than an hour with that sword of yours?”
Geralt shook his head, “I went further than usual, and stayed out much longer.”
“Oh? Have you finally found a place that’s less overwhelming?” Jaskier asked.
Geralt shrugged a little. The lecture hall itself had certainly been peaceful, but the street outside had been anything but. “I got stuck on one side of the bridge to the university and ended up going into a lecture hall to get away from the noise. Stayed until the end.”
“Who’s lecture did you end up watching?” Jaskier bounced a little in his seat. “Was it Kristoff? He’s always entertaining. Or Viktoria? I always enjoyed her classes, even if I’ve never once used anything I learned from her.”
Geralt gestured helplessly. How was he to know the man’s name? “He was an older man, slightly balding.”
Jaskier made a disgusted sound, “Geralt, that describes most of my coworkers.”
Esbet snorted, and Geralt’s lips twitched slightly. “It was a lecture about medicine. I think the course is a beginner’s one, about general medical knowledge.”
Jaskier gnawed on a bone as he thought, “Was he particularly boring?”
“Well there were only around a dozen students there, and one was asleep when I arrived. Another fell asleep while I was there.”
Jaskier made an amused sound and waved the bone triumphantly, “Bertrand! That old bore. He doesn’t take attendance, so most students skip his lectures. He never says anything that’s not in the textbook anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. At least not in his beginners courses. He takes them begrudgingly and only because he’s absolutely required to. I’m told he’s much better when he’s teaching the higher level courses, but of course, I never took any of those.”
“I’m planning on going back next week.”
“That’s more than most of his actual students do. I can find the time the lecture starts for you, if you like.”
Geralt considered the offer then nodded. He hadn’t paid any mind to the time when he arrived and did not even know how long the lecture had been going on when he did get there. It wouldn’t do to miss the lecture entirely. And perhaps if he started leaving the rooms more he would have some sort of stories to offer Jaskier, although they would hardly be able to compare to the kind of stories Jaskier usually got from spending time with him.
Esbet made an irritated sound, “If you’re going back, tell him that he still owes me two crowns. That woman he was so sure would die from childbirth is hale and hearty, and so is her lovely wee baby.”