Dreams of You Still Live Inside of Me Part 1/?
Welp... @theamazingbard posted this a few days ago and I couldn’t help myself so here we are. Uh, mind the tags, this is probably going to get kinda spooky at some parts and fairly wumpy at others. I’ll update tags as I go and there will also be a posting on AO3... soon...ish?
Obligatory tag for @jaskierswolf <3
If you want to be tagged on this series or anything going forward, please let me know! :)
-Jay
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The den reeked of unwashed bodies, festering wounds, and spilled blood, layers of it. Geralt wrinkled his nose, his eyes scanning the darkness for the telltale sign of blue he had been warned about.
The village had called it a djinn, but what they described was nothing near what Geralt had ever heard of before. It was possible that maybe this thing had been a djinn at one point, or it was something completely new. A new mutation that the Witchers would have to now be wary of.
Looking around, counting up the huddled forms, Geralt got the distinct and unnerving feeling that this thing was not new. It was in fact incredibly old and incredibly dangerous. Every once in awhile there would be a soft sound of contentment or even a rolling giggle, half murmured words.
He knelt beside an older woman, and watched her face closely. She was still breathing and there was the tiniest smile curling her lips. He looked her over and saw what he had seen on the others around her. Her arms were covered in long scratch marks, like tallies, angry bruises around each of them. Geralt rolled her as gently as possible, finding what looked to be a tendril, almost like a vine slipping into the back of her neck. Glowing blue fluid trickled sluggishly around the wound where it dug in.
Geralt looked around, not seeing any sign of the monster. Pulling out the dagger from his boot, he propped the woman up and made to cut the tendrel in her neck. He barely had his fingers around it to pull it taught when her eyes flew open, milky and burning bright blue. She let out a scream that nearly burst his eardrum.
“Fuck,” he tumbled back, pulling the dagger up and wheeling around. Something behind him, always behind him slithered along the ground. His hand clamped over the back of his neck as he felt a pinch but it was too late.
“Fuck!” Geralt was unconscious before he hit the ground.
-o-O-o-
It was the feeling of his heartbeat, too fast but steady in his throat, that must have woken him. The smell of something terrible lingered but he was safe in his bed at home.
Safe? No, he had just been fighting a… something? Bright blue specks floated behind his eyes, a dull ache pushing against his head.
The sheets pooled around his hips when Geralt sat up, softer than he thought they should be. Far finer than anything he had been used to when travelling with-
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to stave off the pounding behind them. He felt-
“Well good morning, handsome!” Jaskier waltzed in and Geralt started.
He finally took in the room around him. The furniture was understated but still lavish and he found himself in a large four poster with linens that were far more expensive alone than his whole armor set.
But I don’t have armor? He thought, frowning down at the covers that he gripped in his hands. He looked up again to find Jaskier was standing there with a look of concern on his face.
“Are you alright, dear heart?” Jaskier leaned first against the edge of the bed before climbing in and onto Geralt’s lap, his arms wrapping around him as if it was just something he did. He gave Geralt an easy teasing kind of smile. “Did you have far more to drink last night than I originally thought? You shouldn’t let Merik egg you on so much.” And then…
Geralt’s mind went pleasantly blank as Jaskier leaned down and kissed him, his fingers threading up through Geralt’s hair. If Geralt wasn’t pretty sure he was losing his mind, he would have even thought it an incredibly nice kiss. Jaskier’s mouth was warm and soft above him and it was easier than breathing to wrap his arms around his waist. He was rewarded with Jaskier’s soft breathy laugh and, oh, he wanted to hear that again.
This was a dream, Geralt decided. A very good, very vivid, very warm dream. That’s why when he took a deep breath, trying to fill his lungs with as much of Jaskier as he could, he found that the smell of him was muted somehow. But he was there so Geralt rolled them, tangling them both in the sheets as he dipped his head to drag his teeth along the pale column of Jaskier’s throat.
Geralt tried not to think of how everything around him seemed muted in the same way. Shadows around the edges of the otherwise bright room were deeper, how he had to be pressed tightly to Jaskier to feel his heart beating in tandem with his own.
He didn’t have a chance to think about that before Jaskier was pushing up on his shoulder gently, still beaming under him but now deliciously rumpled.
“Come on, you big oaf, we have people to meet today,” he hummed leaning up to nip on Geralt’s chin affectionately.
It struck Geralt how easy the gesture came, how openly affectionate Jaskier smiled at him. His hand came up, cupping the side of Jaskier’s face, pushing his hair out of the way as Geralt’s thumb traced his cheekbone.
That’s when it caught his eye. Geralt looked closer above Jaskier’s brow and frowned. The small scar that had been in his hairline nearly as long as they had known each other was gone.
They were sitting in camp and Geralt took Jaskier’s face gently in his hand, dabbing at the cut with a damp cloth.
“It will need stitches,” he said flatly.
“Oh no, Geralt! Not my face, I’m far too pretty to scar!” Jaskier squirmed. They had been travelling together for only a few months and this was the closest Geralt had ever seen him to fear, and it wasn’t directed at him.
“Don’t worry. You’ll still be pretty.”
“You think I’m pretty, Witcher?” Jaskier tried to waggle his eyebrows but winced, a fresh stream of blood sliding down his brow.
“Hold still, you’ll only make it worse,” he hid his smile behind annoyance and exasperation.
When had they been traveling again?
Jaskier was turning his face into Geralt’s hand, kissing his palm. “As much as I would love to stay like this all day,” he leaned up, propping himself on his elbows, “we have so much to do before overmorrow.”
Geralt let him up, watching this Jaskier closely. As Jaskier moved from under him, Geralt caught his hand, letting himself revel in the way Jaskier just let him as if it didn’t bother him. But the skin he found there was soft and unbroken. The calluses he knew populated Jaskier’s fingertips and the top of his palm were all smoothed away.
“My you’re affectionate this morning,” he leaned down and gave Geralt a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you at breakfast, dear heart.”
Geralt watched from the large unfamiliar bed, tracking this familiar and unfamiliar Jaskier as he left. But his eyes caught instead on something else.
Across from where he sat, a long looking glass hung on the wall. What he couldn’t quite understand was that the man there was in fact, handsome. Geralt had the distinct memory of long silver hair and bright amber eyes from the last time he looked into his reflection. Now, he was met with tousled dark curls and warm hazel eyes. His bare chest was unmarred by battle wounds. He was just… a man? A human, stripped of his mutations and the wear of the Path.
The only thing that seemed to not have changed was the deep concerned scowl reflected back at him. Even in his wildest dreams, Geralt was still always Geralt the Witcher, he would never even hope to be…
“It’s a djinn, Master Witcher. It has to be! How else could it have shown me… It’s all I ever wished…” The man sat there, haggard and on the brink of breaking down. His eyes had been sunken and they couldn’t seem to focus on Geralt’s face.
“Hmm. We’ll see,” Geralt nodded, leaving the tavern and the only survivor of the monster that had taken up residence in a nearby cave.
“Fuck.”