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Jaskier has long since learned that the best way to hide a hurt, to keep someone close to you from worrying about something you’d rather they didn’t, isn’t to be silent and stoic and brave about it; it’s to whinge. Constantly. The louder the better. This strategy is most effective, of course, if you’re already in the habit of complaining about pretty much everything.
It’s a bit like those nutters that sometimes wander the streets of cities, ringing bells and proclaiming Woe unto us, ’tis the end of days! Tomorrow our souls shall be devoured by ravenous hellgoats! or some such nonsense. The ones who are out there every day eventually become part of the scenery, filtered out by passersby without so much as a thought.
Talk enough, for long enough, and eventually you become invisible.
He would know.
Of all the possible ways Jaskier could die in Kaer Morhen, he thinks falling down the stairs must be among the least dignified.
It is his own fault, of course. Simple clumsiness would be humiliating enough. Losing his balance because he drank enough the previous night so as to leave him still unsteady in the morning? That’s even worse.
He would love to blame it on the fire mage, the basilisks, the blood and bodies of Geralt’s brothers, but the truth is he was drinking too much even before that. Things have just been ... difficult. Losing his best friend. Learning, after twenty years, that maybe his best friend was never actually his friend at all. The war, and the elves, and the guilt of his own possible part in their fate by way of a stupid song he wrote when he was eighteen and clueless.
He has trouble falling asleep, did even before the nightmares of fire, and sometimes the only way he can rest is by drinking until everything goes away for a while. Which is fine. Everything’s fine. Right up until his foot slips off the edge of the stair and he plummets.
Jaskier is only a few steps up from the landing, and he manages to tuck his shoulder and roll into the descent, so really it isn’t so bad except for the way his head cracks off the stone floor at the bottom. A shattering burst of agony sears through his skull. He pants through it, and when it recedes, climbs slowly to his feet with a hand on the wall in deference to the dizziness. He half expects someone to pop out of a portal and shout at him, but the only sound is his own harsh breaths. Careful prodding reveals bruised tenderness but no blood, so Jaskier straightens his shoulders, gathers the tatters of his dignity, and proceeds to the kitchen.
He is meant to be helping Lambert peel potatoes this morning, which is the only reason he’s already awake. He can only imagine how enjoyable it will be to share space with the loud, abrasive Witcher while his head is throbbing so abominably, but there’s nothing for it now. He’ll simply have to endure. He is not letting anyone know about his humiliating little spill, thank you very much.
Lambert, of course, has beaten him to the kitchen. Before the man can even look up, Jaskier launches into a monologue of grievances, which his mouth can handle with very little input from his aching brain. He has just finished complaining about the cold and is gearing up for a good dissertation on his uncomfortable bed when Lambert puts down a potato, sniffs the air, and asks bluntly and a bit suspiciously, “How come you smell like pain?”
Jaskier stumbles back a bit. “Oh, well, I — as I was saying, the beds here are really not suited for—”
“It ain’t the fuckin’ bed,” Lambert snarls at him, taking another step closer and sniffing again, which is. Really. Incredibly awkward and intrusive. Does the man have no sense of privacy or decorum?
(No. No, of course he doesn’t.)
“You’re injured.” Lambert’s eyes narrow. “I’m taking you to Vesemir.”
Oh, fuck.
“My good sir,” Jaskier blusters, taking a step back, “I assure you that I am perfectly—”
Lambert steps forward. “Fuckin’ injured, so Vesemir’ll have a look at you.”
Jaskier steps back. “That’s truly not necessary. You’ll find that humans are quite pathetic, really; there are a great many things that can cause us discomfort, most of which are not at all serious or anything to worry about or—”
Lambert stops toying with him and simply seizes his arm. “Vesemir can figure out if it’s serious, because you’re fuckin’ goin’ to him,” he snarls in a tone Jaskier generally associates with the delivery of death threats. The raised voice, far too close to his ear, spikes pain through his skull, and he wavers and closes his eyes against the fractured, too-bright sunlight streaming through the window.
Lambert growls and drags him away, and then there is another voice and Jaskier opens his eyes to find Vesemir surveying him with an expression that could be carved from stone.
“You were right to bring him here,” the old Witcher says over Jaskier’s shoulder. Ignoring the muttered response of I fuckin’ know, Vesemir focuses back on Jaskier. “What happened, bard?”
He sighs. That’s it, then. His shame laid bare for all the world to see. “I fell,” he mutters resentfully. “On the stairs.”
“And?” Vesemir prompts with the weary, resigned exasperation of a man who has spent decades parenting a pack of Witchers.
“And I hit my head. It’s nothing.” Jaskier is tired. His words slur. He would like to sleep, right here, on the bare floor, for a week or possibly forever.
“Open your eyes,” Vesemir orders. Jaskier doesn’t remember closing them, but then there’s light, and ah. It’s made of fucking knives. That’s why he closed them.
Vesemir’s brows draw together, and suddenly his hands are gripping Jaskier’s shoulders. For all that the old Witcher’s voice seems as calm as ever, the sound of it reverberates painfully in Jaskier’s ears: “Lambert, get the mage. Now.”
The scuff of steps retreating, running, and Jaskier might be surprised by that urgency if only he could reel his thoughts back across the surface of some strange sea on which they have floated far from him.
All of the colors in the room bleed into each other, gently and then all at once. The world tips, upended. He thinks perhaps he will die after all, but instead he wakes a day later with a fierce headache, Geralt angrily sharpening a sword at his bedside.
The instant Yennefer bursts in through the door, Jaskier knows he’s in trouble. He just doesn’t know why. His head has healed but for the occasional dull ache, and he hasn’t done anything else stupid lately, has he?
The witch storms to his bedside and halts, arms crossed over her chest as she surveys the room. Her eyes flick to his hands, resting aimlessly in his lap; his wrists, mostly concealed beneath the frayed cuffs of his coat; his legs, folded atop the quilt. The scrutiny makes his skin crawl. He sits up straighter, fighting the urge to fidget. “Yennefer,” he says cautiously. “What are you doing?”
“Checking on an idiot,” she snaps, “who just thought, very loudly, I wish I were dead.”
Jaskier feels himself blanch. His mouth opens and closes several times. “You — you were listening to—”
“You were yelling!” she yells.
“I was thinking! Inside my head! Is a man no longer allowed to be sad and dramatic within the refuge of his own mind? Is nothing sacred?!”
Yennefer’s hands drop to her sides and clench the fabric of her skirt. She stares at him, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. Jaskier remembers the scars on her wrists and realizes she’s angry because she’s afraid, and shame twists into nausea in the pit of his stomach.
“Yen, I didn’t mean it.” The words tangle over each other in his haste. “I swear. I was just ... tired, and upset, and dramatic.”
She exhales. Straightens her spine, smooths her skirts and hair, and evens out her breathing with visible effort. “Don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try?” he says hopefully.
Yennefer glares.
“I can’t always control it!” he protests. “Thoughts just happen to me! You know how I rarely stop talking? It’s like that, but worse!”
She rolls her eyes, but the stiffness of her posture eases another tick. She pulls back, starts to turn away, but hesitates, her eyes flicking to his face again. “You are ... valued,” she says, a bit stilted and awkward, but horrifyingly sincere. “By me. And others. You know that, don’t you?”
Jaskier’s jaw drops a bit. The thought flits across his mind to test her with silver, to make sure he isn’t conversing with a doppler, and her second eyeroll is joined by a sigh of exasperation. He steps forward, reaches out to cradle her elbow, and finds himself suddenly engulfed in a fierce hug.
“I do know that, dear heart,” he says against her ear, breathing in the scent of lilac and safety. “So are you.” They draw away from each other enough that their gazes can meet. He rubs his burn-scarred fingertips against the pad of his thumb and tells her, “I just ... feel like I’ve lost something. The person I was, maybe. I don’t know how to be him anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” she says. “You can be whoever you want. Someone new. Someone better, even.”
It would be so easy to take that as an insult, as a slight to the person he’s been, and once upon a time he would have, but she is looking at him with eyes soft as violet petals, seeing him, and he can’t keep from smiling at her. “We’ll figure ourselves out together, then, yeah?”
She smiles back. There is still something fragile in her, some splintered edge he’s never seen exposed before, and it drives him to say, “What I was thinking before, I really didn’t mean it, Yen. I promise.”
Yennefer huffs a bit. “I know. If I thought you did, I’d already have locked you in an empty room and called Triss to come help.”
He tilts his head. “I don’t think Triss is that kind of healer.”
“I don’t think I care what you think,” she drawls, and he throws his head back and laughs, and the heaviness in his chest feels just a little lighter.
So, yes. Anyway. If you want to disappear, being loud and annoying is an excellent way to do so. Unless you are surrounded by invasive and overprotective witches and Witchers, in which case ... good luck. Jaskier wishes you the best. If you ever figure it out, please do let him know.