Chapter Text
“Are you sure he has to be in water?”
Eskel’s question is almost drowned out beneath the piercing shrieks of the seal pup currently vocalizing like he’s being dealt a slow and torturous death instead of dipped gingerly into the coolest of the hot springs. Aiden and Lambert are maintaining their positions nearby, but Geralt can see the same tension in their muscles that he feels in his own, the urge to flee from the painful pitch of the baby’s screams. All four witchers wince when Jaskier tilts his tiny snout back and manages to hit an even higher note, a warbling cry of desperation.
Geralt resolves to never comment on the bard’s singing once he’s returned to grown. Now that he’s experienced exactly how bad things could be, he knows there are things far worse than vocal warmups.
“Pups have-”
Geralt’s response is cut off when the pup flails wildly, and he has to focus to keep hold of the little body in his hands. The last thing they need is for him to drop the pup in the middle of this panicked tantrum.
Geralt hadn’t expected this level of terror when they’d come down to soak the pup, and he really has no answer for its existence. He knows from Jaskier that pups of this age and size need twice-daily soaks, so Jaskier at this age should have been well-acquainted with water.
And yet.
At the first scream, he had thought Jaskier was just displaying an early penchant for the same flair for the dramatic he possesses as an adult, but the scent of the baby’s terror had soon proven it wasn’t a ploy for attention. The pup had briefly ceased in his shrieking to turn giant black eyes to all of them, whimpering pathetically. They’d taken it as a promising sign of progress and even reassured him with “It’s fine” and “You’re alright” and even one now comically-inaccurate “It’s fun!” from Eskel.
All of the assurances had quickly dissolved beneath the horrible shriek of the baby’s screaming.
Lambert gives up on acting tough and brings his hands up to cover his ears. The suddenness of the motion flicks water onto Jaskier’s face, and that really sets the baby off, thrashing like a landed fish and wailing with enough force that Geralt feels half sure he must be a selkie/banshee hybrid.
“Lambert,” all three of the other witchers say, aggrieved, and Lambert spares one hand from trying to preserve his hearing to give them all a rude hand gesture.
“What?” He snaps defensively. “He’s a fucking selkie. Why the fuck is he afraid of water?”
He emphasizes the question with a flick to the surface of the pool. The splash, even though it doesn’t come anywhere near touching the selkie, makes Jaskier’s panic ramp up even higher. In desperation, he twists his head to the side, and Geralt barely moves in time to avoid a bite from those little needle teeth. Being held by only one hand beneath a flipper makes Jaskier swing over the water’s surface, dipping more of his body below, and Geralt immediately brings his other hand back beneath the little body as the selkie thrashes with even more force.
“What if you just let him swim?” Aiden suggests, and Geralt catches the twitch of the Cat’s arms as he resists the urge to cover his own ears at a particularly stunning crescendo of a shriek. “He won’t have time to be afraid if he’s swimming.”
The logic of that doesn’t seem entirely solid, but Geralt’s also half-sure his ears are bleeding at this point, so anything seems worth a shot. He gestures Aiden closer, and the Cat stops an arm’s length away, crouching down in the water and holding out his hands in a beckoning gesture.
“C’mon pup,” he says encouragingly, even though it’s almost inaudible beneath the baby’s screaming.
With a vague thought like a prayer to some nameless deity, Geralt releases the pup with a little shove beneath his belly to propel him.
The cries cut off.
Because the pup promptly drops beneath the water like a rock.
Geralt, Aiden, and Eskel all crack their heads together as they lunge for the pup at the same time, and Eskel emerges from the water first, Jaskier held in one arm, the hand of the other pressed to his forehead. Geralt and Aiden rise after him, hands also pressing to what will absolutely be bruises.
The pup looks between the four of them with absolutely massive eyes, evidently stunned by what just happened to him.
Then he tips his head back and makes his earlier cries seem like a mother’s lullaby in comparison.
The selkie tries to scrabble his way up Eskel’s arm, leaving behind bloody scratches where his little claws hook into the flesh. Eskel curses and attempts to hold him out above the water to save his arms, but the selkie threatens to bite at that, and Eskel gives up, hiking him up on his shoulder and patting the pup’s back, the fur now squelching faintly with each touch.
The noise reminds Geralt of something he’d forgotten up until this point. Something rather important.
“His fur isn’t waterproof yet,” Geralt tells the rest of them, only now remembering Jaskier mentioning it in passing a few years ago.
The other witchers shoot him pointed looks.
“You didn’t think to say that before you tried to fucking drown him?” Lambert observes, shoving Aiden’s hand aside to investigate the mark on the Cat’s temple where he’d collided with the crown of Geralt’s head.
Geralt valiantly resists the urge to dunk his brother, too, and wades closer to Eskel, moving behind his shoulder and attempting to catch the pup’s eyes. Jaskier apparently just sees him as a stepping stone closer to land and flops with vigor trying to get to him. Eskel releases him with a curse and lets Geralt hold him.
“What now?” Eskel asks, dipping beneath the water to wash the scratches out. The water makes it look rather gruesome, thinning the blood to run more easily, but with witcher healing, the smaller of them are already sealing over.
Jaskier, for his part, seems heedless of the damage he’s caused, gouging scratches into Geralt’s flesh now. The sting of them is bearable in comparison to everything else he’s used to, but he does curse when the baby bites his shoulder in frustration, sinking his sharp little teeth deep.
“Julian,” Geralt snaps in frustration, and the pup releases him at once, the screaming cutting off. There’s one moment of shared relief before the baby replaces the noises with heart-wrenching whimpers and frightened little calls Geralt now knows are meant to summon the pup’s mother. When the little body against him begins shuddering in fear, Geralt realizes why his birth name said in anger by a man would garner such a response.
Reminding Jaskier of his father makes Geralt feel more despicable than he has in a long, long while.
“Great job, asshole,” Lambert sneers, not helping at all, “you made the baby cry.”
Geralt glares at him, but the baby’s shaking intensifies when his calls for his mother continue to get no response, and then he makes himself calm.
“Easy, cabbage,” Geralt says softly. He tugs at the baby gently to try and dislodge the pup from his shoulder to cradle him more comfortingly, but Jaskier digs his claws in, refusing to be lowered any further to the water.
The whimpers, although quieter than his screaming, feel even more cutting as they fill the room.
“Did you kill him?” Yen’s voice demands, and Geralt turns to find her descending the stairs into the chamber. Being turned towards the body of water makes Jaskier shriek again, high and sharp, and Geralt turns back around immediately. The whimpers resume, and Geralt feels the shift in weight as Jaskier noses in Yen’s direction. “Oh, poor thing,” Yen says in a voice softer than Geralt’s heard her use before.
He looks over his shoulder and then away when he sees Yen tugging her clothes off.
“And what do you think you’re going to do?” Lambert demands as the witch slips into the water with a quiet splash.
“From the look of things, any progress would be more than you four have managed,” Yen says coolly, reaching up and dislodging Jaskier from Geralt’s shoulder. The pup goes easily, tucking his snout into the curve of her neck, and she gives the rest of them a superior look. “What have you even been doing down here?”
Given that the four of them haven’t achieved anything better than nearly drowning a baby, it’s not as if they have a great answer to that.
“There now,” Yen says softly, rubbing gently at the base of the pup’s little head. “So much drama over a little water. What’s that about?”
The pup doesn’t respond, but he peeks one eye out when Yen cups some water in her palm and dribbles it down his back. He snorts in displeasure but doesn’t scream, and Geralt feels distinctly shown up.
“Hm,” Yen says, a considering noise, and then she leans back, keeping the pup on her chest and belly as she moves to float on her back. Jaskier makes a little whimper of alarm but doesn’t fight the motion. When she remains in place, floating steadily, Jaskier pokes his head up warily, investigating his surroundings. Yen tilts to settle him a little lower in the water, but the selkie doesn’t panic. He wriggles slightly as if to test the security of his perch, and then he bobs his head and barks with excitement, dipping his nose beneath the surface of the water to blow bubbles before sitting upright again, giving the rest of them a happy look as if to include them in his fun.
All four witchers stare at him.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Aiden says flatly.
In answer, Jaskier ducks his snout to blow bubbles again before trilling happily.
Yen gives them all a lazy smile and then a dismissive gesture with her hand, like a queen.
“Well then,” she says, tipping her head back to rest it in the water more comfortably, “go make yourselves useful elsewhere and leave me and the baby to our bath.”
The witchers, with no small amount of grumbling, comply.