Work Text:
“Yen?” Geralt’s voice was barely there, nothing but a hint of a whisper. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he was speaking or thinking.
When she opened her eyes, he looked straight at her.
“Can you see me?”
“No... Can smell you.”
“Lilac and gooseberries.” She tenderly kissed the tip of his nose.
“You’re tired.”
She sighed. Could he smell that too or had her voice given her away?
“Give me a moment, love.” She caressed his face, ran her fingers through his hair, and breathed him in. The scent that underneath the blood and burning skin was so uniquely his. “I need to rest a moment but then… then we’ll go.”
As soon as she could muster the energy to conjure a portal.
“I want to take you home,” he breathed. “Home to my brothers. You should meet my brothers.”
“I’ve met them. Plenty of times.” Yennefer propped herself up on her elbow. “The last time Lambert told me he preferred, and I quote, ‘bleeding Merigold cause at least she’s not got a fucking stick the size of a frost giant’s prick up her arse’, remember?”
“Lambert has his own inn,” Geralt said, ignoring that charming anecdote completely.
Well, that would certainly be news. If anyone could overlook the fact that the landlord was a witcher and therefore sure to murder clients in their sleep, they’d definitely be scared away by his temper soon enough.
“He has very good ale,” Geralt continued. “It’s always cold. Brews it himself. You’d like Lambert. He’s good with herbs. Makes a good stew as well.”
Geralt smiled and for once it didn’t flit away like a shy bird, but stayed and lit up his pale face like sun on a winter’s day. Who was she to tell him that a witcher would never own an inn, no matter how magnificent his stew?
“I’m sure he’s very good at breaking up fights in the inn,” she said. Or causing them, but that seemed unnecessarily realistic for whatever Geralt was dreaming of.
“Nobody fights in Lambert’s inn. They are all happy,” Geralt said. “Lambert makes them happy. He’s my youngest brother. He is very happy.”
Well, there’s a first for everything. Lambert was many things, but he certainly wasn’t happy. He was a bitter man, a hard man, and with all she knew about the life of a witcher, she now struggled to blame him.
“What about your other brother?”
“Eskel.” Geralt said it with so much love that tears once again flooded Yennefer’s eyes. “He comes to the inn sometimes, but he likes to be alone as well.”
“Why?” she asked, knowing full well that it was because of his scars, that poor, sensitive Eskel was too self-aware of the effect he had on people to impose his company on anyone and too hurt by everyone’s stares and comments.
“He likes the open air,” Geralt said. “He has a farm, you know. Raises goats. The goats give milk. And there are fruits and vegetables and herbs for Lambert’s stews.”
Her tears were falling freely now. What fairytale was this?
“What about Vesemir?”
“You know Vesemir?” Geralt beamed like a child. “We’re so lucky to have him.”
“Is he still a witcher?”
“A witcher?” Geralt seemed genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know any witchers. Vesemir might, though. He’s the village elder and he knows everyone.”
“What about the monsters?”
Why could she not keen silent? Did monsters really have to intrude on Geralt’s fantasy world?
“Monsters?” He frowned. “You mean like the ones in the stories? Those are just stories. There are no monsters in our village.”
There were no monsters because there was no village, because Vesemir would never preside over the small grievances among neighbours and the decisions that had to be made about the coming harvest, but only lived on to record which of his boys had failed to come home that winter. What Geralt spoke of wasn’t real because in reality Eskel raised his goats as bait and because she suspected they were just about the only beings who didn’t shy away from his face. Because Lambert would never be happy.
The wonderful world Geralt had conjured for himself was made of paper, to be burned or blown away or turned to mush by reality. But it was beautiful. A life without monsters, without witchers, without any of the horrors he’d told her about.
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you do in the village?”
What would a happy Geralt do? A Geralt with dark hair and round eyes. One who had never even heard of the trials.
Geralt closed his eyes, briefly, then blinked them rapidly.
“I’m in the village,” he said. “But I… I don’t remember… I… I’m sure I…”
She shushed him as he grew upset.
“It’s alright,” she told him through tears. How terrible that he could not even imagine a good life for himself, a life in which he could be happy…
She ran her hands over his body. Reassuring him, reassuring herself that this, this was real and it was, in its own twisted way, a good life.
He drew in a sharp breath and in the same moment, her fingers touched warm, wet blood.
She could have sworn her heart stopped.
And yet there was no way around it. There was blood on his leg once more.
Her stomach rose when she looked down. A dark, angry bruise covered much of his thigh, surrounding the charred red brand. Blood bubbled up along the edges of her star, not as quickly as before, but undeniably there and forcing the wound open once more.