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Jaskier had started coughing just a couple of days before Saovine, which would have marked the beginning of their early trip across the Continent to reach Kaer Morhen before the mountain passes would turn into death traps due to blizzards and frost. Geralt had just assumed it was a common cold and nothing more; a sore throat, a runny nose, one or two nights with a slightly high temperature, something he had seen many times happening since he had met Jaskier all those years ago. Jaskier too had dismissed his cough for something unimportant.
“It’s a slight cough, Geralt. A trip to the nearest herbalist to fix my throat, and I’ll be as good as new,” he had proclaimed grandly, as giddy as ever, while riding through the many villages scattered across Redania, sticking to secondary roads to avoid hostile assholes and petty cutthroats. Which, however, they had found aplenty, even while keeping a low profile and staying away from larger settlements.
Jaskier had purchased a vial of a strong-smelling tonic that had made his hoarse voice clear again. Clear enough for a decent number of gigs, at least.
Yet.
The cough hadn’t subsided, despite the hollow promises of the herbalist. One week in their ride back to the Gwenllech valley, it had become an unsavory background noise that had threatened to shatter Geralt’s eardrums everytime the bard stopped mid-sentence to burst out in a brief but heated fit of cough.
“Another herbalist, perhaps? I might have heard of a healer, not far from here, that treats minstrels and bards, even court singers, maybe she can-” Jaskier’s babbling had come to an abrupt halt. He had coughed violently, squinting in the grayish light of the late fall, and then it had taken him a solid minute to regain control over his spasming muscles. “Make quite a miracle,” he had finished, flashing Geralt a flirty, charming grin as if nothing had happened at all. His personal way of saying I am good, I am fine, no need to worry about me, Geralt.
But, oh. Geralt hadn’t magically stopped being concerned just because his bard was a master at silent coaxing.
“We’re resting for a couple of days. You’ll see a healer. Don’t whine, or I’ll personally kick your butt from here to Kaer Morhen,” he had said, watching Jaskier shiver near the fire when they were camping in a clearing right past the Kaedweni border. The nights had yet to become chilly, the weather still unusually merciful, but Jaskier had seemed to be already freezing in his skin. Geralt had guessed it had been the fever, and he had endured a whole night engulfed in a pile of blankets that stank like horse mane and mildew just to provide additional heat to the bard’s shivering body.
And they had rested, actually. Geralt had even paid for an extra night because Jaskier needed a warm, soft bed and hot baths, which could only mean that they were already late on their schedule when they had reached Ard Carraigh.
Now that they were at the feet of the mountains, ready to start the real game of the trip, Jaskier didn’t seem to fare any better than when they had stopped in the capital to have a mage cooking up an overpriced, bitter tasting cough suppressant so that, at least, the bard could enjoy a decent night of sleep. Given how dark the circles under his eyes were becoming, though, the cough suppressant wasn’t doing shit to keep his lungs from spasming painfully at regular intervals.
Intervals that, with each passing day, were becoming shorter and shorter.
“How much will it take to reach Kaer Morhen?”
Geralt shot Jaskier a glance. He was packing away the scant supplies he could fit in his saddlebags and, by the looks of it, he had been very wise in purchasing enough food to last them some days more than what the usual climb would have taken. Jaskier looked bad, very bad, as if he was always on the verge of passing out. Still, his voice sounded shrill and slightly amused, his sense of humor intact though Jaskier was tired – and rightfully so.
Geralt reckoned it could be a con. Jaskier’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, which was a strange occurrence. Without bothering to check for prying bastards first, he gruffly put a hand to his forehead, feeling the heat radiating through his palm.
“I’m going to a healer. You need something for this fever, Jaskier,” he stated, ignoring his question altogether. Jaskier pouted just so - predictably enough - but he didn’t put up a fight, not with real bite at least.
“But it’ll go away, Geralt,” he defensively said, leaning into his touch with a small sigh. The mere act of sighing triggered a fit of cough that passed quickly, but left his muscles a quivering mess. Geralt’s lips thinned out to a straight, stern line.
“It’s been weeks, Jaskier. It’s quite obvious that it won’t go away. Let me-”
Jaskier pressed his cold, white fingertips into Geralt’s side, drumming.
“You shouldn’t squander coin over soothing herbals, I’ll be fine. I am quite the resilient type, am I not?”
Geralt quirked his brow.
“You made such a fuss of a sprained ankle in Maribor in spring. I can’t imagine you’re treating a long-lasting cold as a minor inconvenience, given the premises.”
Jaskier tried to bark out a little laugh, but he refrained at the very last second, when he felt a spasm in his throat. Geralt let go of him, indulging for a brief moment, then he suggested “Rest a while in the tavern. It’s usually dead empty this time of the year. I’ll go find the healer.”
How could he refuse such a graceful offer when he was feeling like shit? He did what he was told, for once, trudging to the tavern and investing some hard earned coin on a bowl of fat broth with which warming up his chilled bones.
Geralt found a healer and paid a little too much for a bag of herbs that should have helped Jaskier out. Anyway, once they had reached Kaer Morhen, Geralt was positively sure Vesemir would have known what to do about the cough . Decades had passed since the last time a child had been turned into a witcher up there, but Vesemir had treated countless coughs over the years, and colds and runny noses. No one was more qualified than Vesemir to take care of Jaskier in such a predicament.
When he got back to the tavern, Geralt found him fast asleep on a chair, next to a bowl of warm soup that was rapidly cooling down. He shook him awake as gently as he could, his chest tightening at the slightly lost gaze Jaskier flashed him before he started coughing like a rabid dog. The tavernkeep offered a short, pitying look before returning to her task, cleaning up tankards and bowls as if someone could really climb up there to have a taste of her homemade rye and acid beer. Geralt shook his head and helped Jaskier stand.
“Come on. You’re riding Roach. I won’t have you climb all the way up to Kaer Morhen when you can barely stand.”
Jaskier yawned, and the air made an awful gurgling sound in his chest.
“I’m tired,” he complained, pressing his heated forehead into Geralt’s shoulder. “Can we stay, Geralt? Only for one night?”
“No, we can’t, Jaskier,” he replied, trying to sound soft. It took him all of his might to file down the sharp edge in his voce not to upset him too much. Damn bard could become extremely prickly when he was tired. Geralt had never admitted it out loud, but he loved the fierce fire burning inside Jaskier, even when it was directed towards him. And, to be fair, he knew he was decidedly too blunt, boorish even, on his bad days.
Jaskier’s eyes were bleary and bright when they met his gaze.
“Why?”
“Because we can’t risk being swallowed by a blizzard when we’re halfway there. Come on. I’ve got an extra cloak if you’re cold.”
The bard nodded slightly, snorting ungracefully and leaning on Geralt heavily as the witcher propped him up on his feet and kept a steady hand on the small of his back while guiding him to the door. Outside, a nasty cold wind had set. Jaskier shivered, his slender hands a little livid.
“I could use the extra coat,” he stammered, teeth clattering. Geralt took his hands in his own and blew some warm breath into his icy, calloused skin.
“Better?”
The smile he got as an answer was dim, weary. He hauled Jaskier on the saddle and kept a worried hiss inwards, his eyes trained on the shallow and rapid rising and falling of his chest. Before nudging Roach softly to a gentle trot, he wrapped Jaskier’s shoulders in his worn-out, old coat, keeping him pressed against his chest while they both rode the poor horse. Even Geralt knew it was a pace she couldn’t keep long, not while carrying two people.
“Come on, girl,” he encouraged. Roach whinnied in response.
Bring us home in time, Roach, he silently prayed. Then he spurred the mare up the fading path leading farther and farther into the mountains.
***
The trek through the passes was proving a harder task than Geralt had thought. Jaskier was growing even more weary and tired with each passing day, and sometimes Geralt had to carry him when he was forced to dismount Roach for how steep the road became after a certain point. Which wasn’t a bad thing, per se. If it was already so impervious, it could only mean that the Killer was near, but on the other hand – Geralt couldn’t help but wonder if Jaskier would have survived the Killer in his conditions. Surely Geralt would have his hands full with watching over both Roach - notoriously, the Killer tended to maim a lot of perfectly fit horses - and the sick bard.
And he was already so fucking spent at the end of each day.
“Jaskier.”
He cupped Jaskier’s cold cheek. He was already dozing by the fire, his head bobbing slightly, an unpleasant wheeze in his lungs whenever he inhaled. Geralt had found shelter for them in a barren cave, walking deep into the innermost chamber to keep the worst of the winter cold at bay, but even his doubled efforts seemed to do very little against Jaskier’s constant shivering.
Jaskier peeled his eyes open slowly, as if the mere action of being awake cost him a great deal of energy. Still, he didn’t deny Geralt the sheer beauty of his smile, though as faint and melancholic as it was.
“Geralt,” he whispered, his chest heaving under the coats and the blanket. Geralt gently brushed a strand of damp hair from his forehead, not surprised at all of finding it hot with persistent fever. Nevertheless, he offered him a smile in return.
“We have almost made it. Get a sip of your herbal, it will help you sleep.”
The bard scrunched his nose. Geralt loved it when he made his best impression of a hare.
“It’s bitter. And my stomach hurts,” he weakly complained. Geralt lifted the cup to his lips anyway.
“Just a sip. I promise it will make you feel better.”
Reluctantly, Jaskier obeyed, managing half of the cup and then wincing in disgust, batting Geralt’s hand away. He was struggling to stay awake. In the first days of their journey, Jaskier had plagued Geralt to no end, requesting him to tell and retell stories of his adventures to lull him to sleep. Tonight, though, he didn’t look like he was prone to listen to any story at all and Geralt felt a surge of pure, unadulterated shame at realizing that a part of him was glad for that.
But it couldn’t be a good sign, could it? It could only mean that Jaskier was dangerously close to his limit, and Geralt wasn’t ready to lose him, not like that, not to some stupid lung ailment he had shrugged off as something of minor importance not too long before.
His stomach twitched painfully.
And yet. A stubborn, selfish part of him was still glad.
As if he could read his thoughts - somehow, Geralt was partly convinced Jaskier could - the bard softly said “No story tonight. ‘m tired.”
Geralt nodded, unfurling their bedrolls quickly and adding a couple of stunted sticks to their meager fire just to keep the flame going for another hour or two. Hopefully.
In the few beats that took him to slide from the blankets to the bedrolls, Jaskier’s face had become almost ashen with the biting cold. Slipping soundlessly next to him, Geralt took his time to massage some circulation back into his stiff fingers and kiss the purplish knuckles until Jaskier’s eyes were fluttering close languidly .
“I didn’t remember Kaer Morhen to be that far,” he said, a barely perceptible edge of amusement in his strained voice. His breathing was labored. Geralt sprawled his warm hand on his chest, in a vain attempt at soothing the frantic beating of his heart.
“We’re close to the Killer,” he replied, trying his best to sound casual. Jaskier’s heart stuttered, then it resumed its breakneck pace against his palm.
“Good. Do you remember…" He paused to gulp down some air, a wince curling his lips. Geralt motioned to get him some water, but Jaskier stubbornly kept him close, his shuddering nearing the convulsive spasm of a seizure spell. "Don't go. You're warm. Do you remember...the first time...on the Killer? Yes?"
Geralt nodded, placing a kiss on his cheek and rubbing soothing circles into his chest. Jaskier was doing his best not to moan; he was hurting all over, every bone, muscle and tendon in his body screaming and burning.
"You almost ended up in the same ravine twice."
"Yes...but it was...fun."
Normally, Geralt would have argued that no, his idea of fun wasn't only twisted but downright sick, but he just let go, agreeing with him just because and rocking him gently until he fell asleep. Unlike Jaskier, who miraculously didn't wake up to a fit of cough every hour or so, he slept poorly, his ears trained on catching every hitch and skip in the bard's uneven breath, his heartbeat a chaotic cacophony that would undoubtedly plague Geralt's nightmares for weeks...provided that Jaskier pulled through.
He grit his teeth against his gloomy thoughts. Jaskier couldn't die. Not to a fucking cold. He would have fought until the very end to prevent him from going out like that.
***
"Geralt? What the fuck?"
Geralt bolted off his saddle, Roach stomping her feet anxiously in the muddy ring of the outer court, the half collapsed barbican a familiar and most welcomed sight after so many days in the open. He shoved past Lambert, pushing Roach's reins into his palms, holding Jaskier against his chest all wrapped up in two heavy cloaks, minding little to no attention to Lambert's stricken look.
"Where's Vesemir?"
Lambert shook himself out of his haze and gave the reins a gentle tug, Roach protesting in return.
"Out, hunting. What's wrong with the bardling?"
"He said it was just a cold."
Lambert didn't understand. He watched the bard's wriggling form, his forehead beaded with sweat, and picked up his heartbeat, sickeningly out of rhythm and almost painful to hear. Hell, even a cold-hearted bastard like him felt a little sympathetic towards a dying man, for how annoying and vexing the bard was, especially when he tried to cheer up their long winter nights with makeshift gigs and parlour games.
"Eskel is inside. Hurry up, lest he freezes in this cold."
Geralt didn't even wait for him to finish his sentence, sprinting towards the keep as if the Devil himself was at his tail. Jaskier's conditions had worsened on the Killer. Now he was only awake for brief spells of time and he mostly blabbered incoherent things, wheezing and gasping after every fit of dry cough roughing up his lungs and airways, seizing his already stiff muscles to the point that Geralt had to work his fingers through the many knots in his arms and legs in order to keep him on the saddle.
He found Eskel by the fire, skewering some large birds on a spit. He looked as baffled as Lambert when he assessed how bad the situation was, and he quickly forgot the dinner to help Geralt upstairs, gently depositing Jaskier on the bed in the only bedchamber where the fireplace was ablaze, roaring merrily.
"We didn't know about your arrival, sorry," he apologized, kicking some of Lambert's gear out of the way.
Geralt shook his head.
"That's fine. I didn't know whether we would have managed or not either," he gritted, watching as Jaskier's chest spasmed and lurched. Eskel sighed in reply, helping him peel away Jaskier's soaked clothes, damp with sweat and molten frost, and went downstairs to fetch some cold water, letting Geralt rummage through his things to find a clean shirt for his bard to wear. Once Jaskier had been cleaned, toweled and dressed, Eskel placed a cold cloth on his forehead - Jaskier welcomed it with a grateful tremulous sigh - and sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Geralt's arm for a modicum of comfort.
"I'll peruse some books in our library," he said, his voice hushed not to disturb Jaskier's already troubled sleep. "I'm sure I'll find something. There are some notes from the old mages...they treated our colds, right? Perhaps we'll find a tincture, a tonic or whatever. And, fuck, Wolf. You look tired."
"I am," Geralt grunted in reply, touching a hand to his face and focusing to calm down the quick beating of his own heart. Eskel stroked him again, gentler this time, and cracked him a faint, encouraging smile.
"Jaskier is the strongest person I've ever met, Wolf. He'll pull through."
"I was hoping that Vesemir…" Geralt uttered, letting his head fall on Eskel's shoulder and inhaling his grounding scent of embers and aromatic herbs. His sentence hung unfinished. Eskel reached for his nape and dragged their foreheads together, closing his eyes for the briefest moment.
"He'll be back soon. And your bard will be just fine, Wolf."
Geralt didn't know if he couldn't believe that. Jaskier looked all too pale in the dim light of the room, his chest rising and falling shallowly, unsteadily. Was there anything a bunch of grizzled witchers could do to spar him the agony, save for a mercy killing or something equally appalling? His heart ached at the thought. Kaer Morhen had seen its fair share of mercy killings, back when creating witchers was still a thing between its ancient walls...even the castle wouldn't have survived another brutal execution. And it was Jaskier, of all people. Geralt had known a miserably small amount of love in his life, and most of it only coming from his brethren, but Jaskier – Jaskier had given, given, given, unconditionally, loving him even when he was at his worst, even when he had mistreated him unjustly. Jaskier had always loved him, even when Geralt would have gutted himself for how much of a stubborn ass he was being, and he couldn't cope with the idea of losing him, to a common cold moreover.
When Eskel announced he would be downstairs studying the mage's journals, Geralt scooted closer and tucked Jaskier to his chest, careful not to jostle him too much.
“Jaskier?” He called, almost afraid of startling him if he didn’t keep quiet. Jaskier stirred, muttering something about mutton stew, and he erupted in a short, weak fit, foamy spittle seeping through Geralt’s dirty shirt.
“Mother?” He called, tangling his cold fingers into Geralt’s hair and tugging, wailing petulantly, expectant. Geralt’s heart sank to his knees.
“No, it’s…it’s Geralt. Jaskier, it’s me.”
Jaskier cast him a curious glance.
“Why is your hair so white, Geralt?” He asked, his breath so raspy it almost drowned out the broken sound of his voice. Geralt opened his mouth to reply, but his words died in his throat when he realized Jaskier was having a hard time staying awake.
It’s fucking worse than I thought.
Helplessness made him antsy and fidgety. Downstairs, he could hear Eskel going about pages and pages of manuscripts, some of them so old they could virtually outdate Vesemir…and Vesemir was a relic, to say the least. The smell of cooking meat was inviting, but Geralt wasn’t hungry. Lambert was cursing and babbling about how cold Kaedwen got in winter, but that was just basic Lambert, nothing new. He took a deep breath. He was home. They were home. If anything, they had a proper bed, warm blankets, and an endless supply of officinal plants that could be useful with Jaskier’s cough and his terrible fever.
Hope dies last.
Casting a concerned look towards Jaskier’s face - chalk white and blotted in sickly pink on his cheeks and nose - Geralt could only wish that Death had forgotten about Kaer Morhen altogether and he imperceptibly tightened his grip around Jaskier’s far too slender waist to keep him from slipping away.
***
For the next few days, Eskel, Lambert and Geralt took turns in taking care of Jaskier, half-delirious with fever and almost unable to keep down more than a few spoonfuls of warm broth a day. Eskel tried many of the remedies listed by the mages in their journals though, by his own admission, they hadn’t written much about the subject, especially in times in which healthy children could be acquired easily.
“I suppose that kids who weren’t fitting were just left to die,” he said, not without a hint of fury in his usually so collected voice, trying to coax Jaskier into drinking another sip of a foul smelling concoction that had miraculously managed to keep his fever down for most of the morning. Lambert scrunched his nose, dipping his finger into the vial and wincing when he licked it.
“Fuck, this thing is vile. Are you sure you’re not killing him?”
Eskel flashed him a side glance.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to kill you ?”
Lambert rolled his eyes.
“How is he faring?”
“He’s still sporting a fever,” Geralt stepped in. He was sitting behind Jaskier, the bard propped up against his chest, and he was stroking his hair so he didn’t complain too much about the nasty medicine, nor blabbered nonsense about watering his precious calla lilies or sewing real diamonds to his hat. “And the cough is still bad.”
“But he’s alive. He didn’t look very much alive when you arrived…”
Geralt sighed, unable to argue with Lambert’s statement. Could the worst of it have already passed? He doubted that, but he wasn’t an expert on human illnesses anyway.
One night, Jaskier coughed up blood, and it took both of Lambert’s and Eskel’s combined strength to persuade Geralt that no, the bard hadn’t torn one lung but he had just scratched the insides of his throat so bad he had drawn blood. Still, Geralt kept him in close check all night long, falling asleep at daybreak and only because Eskel had almost begged him to.
When Vesemir finally came back with his bounty, Geralt insisted he saw Jaskier, but the gloom on his face suggested that even the oldest witcher alive was powerless against Jaskier’s cold – or whatever it was.
“It’s a bad infection that spreads in the lungs,” he said while they were all sitting at a table, having a dinner of roasted hare and turnips to which Geralt had reluctantly agreed to partake, his ears well straining to pick up even the faintest sound coming from upstairs. “If you have followed whatever the mages have written down on that, there’s nothing else I can contribute with. Luckily, neither of you has caught this illness before the Grasses, so I have never really needed to educate myself on that.” He turned to face Geralt, whose plate was still untouched despite having already cooled down. “I’m sorry, Wolf. You did what you had to do. It’s up to your little bard, now, to pull through this.”
It was anything but comforting. Geralt left the Great Hall with a bitter taste on his tongue, and it certainly didn’t depend on the sip of White Gull he had drank to wash down Vesemir’s honest confession; the old man didn’t have a clue, just as much as he, Lambert and Eskel. Three overgrown children trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. He held Jaskier tight, feeding him the strange medicines Eskel had brewed for him and applying balsamic balms all over his chest and back to help his airways open up. Tears pricked in the corner of his eyes with every whiff of stinging air, but he endured, just like he would have endured a wound on the job or a bad headache, like those terrible migraines he got after taking certain elixirs.
He couldn’t say how many days had passed since their sudden arrival at Kaer Morhen, but eventually Jaskier’s fever broke and, for the first time in what it had seemed veritable ages, he was lucid enough to wake Geralt up with a loud groan and complain that he was crushing his arm under his massive back.
Geralt had never been happier to hear Jaskier grumble about something.
“Seriously…Geralt. You’re crushing my arm, I’m serious. And why on earth do I feel so breathless? Was it that cough again?”
“It was definitely just a cough, hu?”
Jaskier eyed at him, his face still dreadfully pale and thin, his cheekbones so prominent they almost cut through the skin.
“What else? No, wait. Was I cursed or something? Because if I was cursed I might have a suspect or two and in that case I’d like to borrow your sword and-”
Geralt cupped his cheek, shushing him. He was still warm, but at least it didn’t feel like he was boiling from the inside anymore.
“Jaskier. Breathe,” he said, soft but commanding. Jaskier put on a great show of inhaling and exhaling a couple of times and Geralt nodded approvingly. “Good. Your definitely just a cough lasted weeks, Jaskier. You were…on the brink of death.”
For a long beat, neither of them said a word. Then, Jaskier began laughing, a genuine, deep laugh that reverberated through the empty hallways and sent some rats scurrying away in the pantry downstairs, knocking over some jars judging by the loud cracking noises and Lambert’s subsequent colorful and prolonged swearing.
“On the brink of death? For a cough? Oh, come on, witcher! You’re just trying to make me feel bad about my fragile constitution, aren’t you?”
“No, why…fuck, no. Listen, bard. I’m not making things up. Eskel, Lambert and even Vesemir can testify that I… we almost lost you. Don’t be difficult for once. Just…rest.”
“But…it was just a cough!” Jaskier protested, as if the sole idea of having spent weeks dancing with Our Lady Death for a common cold was intolerable to him. Geralt could understand that. His last close call had left him unconscious for days, and when he had woken up again he had felt strangely furious…it could be a normal reaction after all. He brushed his thumb along the sharp line of his cheekbone and offered him a weak smile.
“Hopefully, you’re feeling better. But you still have to rest. And take your medicine when needed.”
Jaskier huffed at that, puffing his chest but deflating almost immediately, pain lancing through him as if someone had run their blade right between his ribs. Geralt could say he was fatigued. Perhaps it was the very reason why he didn’t kick up much of a fuss when Geralt suggested he took his medicine and then lay down a little while longer.
“Only because you’re asking nicely, Geralt,” he agreed, feigning indignation. Geralt was more than sure of that, but his smile widened nonetheless.
***
“Did you really take care of me? All the time?”
Geralt sighed, letting his fingers roam around a little scar on Jaskier’s hip, an old insignificant cut he had gained during a tavern brawl. With his free hand he wrapped him tighter in his furs, the heat coming from the huge fireplace warming up his face, casting a nice orange light that complimented Jaskier’s fair - but by no means sickly anymore - complexion.
“Eskel and Lambert helped,” he replied, dismissive. Jaskier sucked a mark in the tender, scarred skin of his collarbone and snorted.
“Geralt.”
He flashed Jaskier a beaten-down look. He had yet to get over the feeling of helplessness and utter desperation he had felt while witnessing Jaskier being that sick, but at least he was recuperating fast, and that could only be an encouraging sign of nice and proper healing, even though most of the times he still wheezed badly after taking a flight of stairs.
“What do you want me to say?” He finally asked, cocking his head on a side.
“What do you want to tell me?”
Geralt huffed out a chuckle.
“You scared me half to death.”
Jaskier gave him a soft, apologetic smile.
“The mighty White Wolf getting scared of a cold?” He joked, attempting some levity. “I thought I wouldn’t live long enough to see the day, Geralt.”
The witcher scoffed, shifting Jaskier so he could rest more comfortably against him, his skin warm and flushed from the healthy heat radiating from the fire.
“You’ve nearly missed it,” he pointed out, placing a kiss atop of the bard’s head. It was hard to believe that Jaskier was still there at all, given the struggle of the previous weeks. Despite the odds, he had made it. He was alive. Geralt could only feel grateful for that.
“But I didn’t, did I? So. Cheer up, witcher, or the wine in the cellars will waste away and sour to vinegar.”
Geralt frowned, shaking his head.
“There’s no wine in Kaer Morhen, you know that.”
“I was joking. It’s…it’s a bit of popular wisdom.”
“I might have bailed out on that lesson.”
Jaskier kissed him most tenderly. His breath still smelled of medications and tonics - Vesemir had conjured up a thing he could gobble down at breakfast that, in his opinion, would have given him the strength to recover - but Geralt didn’t mind the aftertaste.
“It was just a cough, Geralt. You worry too much.”
The witcher licked his lips nervously, his grip on Jaskier’s waist a little too strong to be really casual.
If you’ll say it was just a cough once again, I’ll leave you to the harpies, he thought, but he immediately felt a chill creep up his spine. He could never hurt Jaskier or let him hurt himself, for how idiotic and unreasonable and stubborn the bard was. Insufferable asshole. Yet, his insufferable asshole nonetheless.
“Don’t you dare dying on me, Jaskier,” he said instead, quite out of the blue.
Don’t you dare dying at all.
Jaskier blew out an ungraceful cackle, but he nuzzled his nose against Geralt’s shoulder and pecked a loud, chaste kiss on the faded mark left by a werewolf during a hunt that had gone terribly wrong, with Jaskier in tow and no healer to stitch back the open gash the beast had torn in the soft crook of his neck.
“I’ll do my best, Geralt. I promise,” he said, closing his eyes and breathing him in.