Lucky
Jaskier is lucky. He knows he is.
He’s alive. It could have been worse. Geralt got him out after only a couple of days, cutting a bloody swath through Nilfgaardian prison guards and leaving his interrogator in twitching pieces on the floor before he swooped Jaskier up in his arms and carried him to safety, cradled gingerly to his chest. He can remember feeling a detached sort of shame at the uncontrollable, shaking whine that forced its way out on every exhale until he finally passed out.
He’s lucky. He’s alive. It could have been so much worse.
The thought drifts across his fuzzy mind along with voices in the room, the sound of them floating through the murky, dim air as he slips in and out of a dazed, pained confusion.
“Just heal him, Yen!”
Ahh, that rough, low voice, so familiar, but muted now as Geralt hisses quietly and fervently in anger that sounds more like desperation.
“I told you. I. Can’t,” the equally hushed and furious reply. The cadence of their arguments is one Jaskier knows well, the building frustration and exasperation bouncing and building between them until it explodes, and they’re finally driven away from each other again. “I used too much power portalling us in and out of the prison, and that fucking mage took more effort than I planned for. I have either enough power to try to heal him —probably badly, since this is nowhere near my specialty– or to take you both safely to Oxenfurt so a qualified healer can stabilize him. Not both.”
“These are complex injuries, Wolf.” A serious, gruff voice that Jaskier doesn’t know. “These aren’t clean, simple breaks. That bone is shattered. I haven’t treated injuries like this in decades, not since there were trainees here.”
Oh, this must be the mysterious and venerable Vesemir. Not exactly the way he planned on meeting Geralt’s father figure. In every one of Jaskier’s imaginings of this moment, he had definitely been conscious, and not covered in a crust of blood and shameful human filth. Wonderful.
“He’s not like us,” Vesemir continued, “if she encourages the bones to heal without setting them correctly, he might never use his fingers again. It will take weeks for the pieces to fuse, months to heal completely. He needs a human physician.”
“Months!?” Geralt sounds incredulous, and Jaskier would laugh, or try to, if he could open his mouth without screaming. Bless his wonderful witcher, he has no idea of how human bodies work.
Vesemir heaves a deep, weary sigh and Yen cuts in again, her voice tight with impatience and something unfamiliar that Jaskier can’t quite place. Fear? Guilt? Neither of those are things he’s used to hearing from Yennefer. “Yes. He’s human . And not a young man anymore,” she says flatly.
His half-lidded eyes struggle to take in the details of the room around him; he can see the shapes of the people standing over him but can’t quite understand any of it. The breath hisses through his tightly clenched teeth as he clings to control, sounding impossibly loud.
“An injury like this would take you a week, maybe two to heal with a couple doses of Swallow, and your body would rebuild ligaments and nerves rapidly. His won’t ,” she says, and the whole room can hear the words “you moron” tacked on to the end of her sentence. “He’ll need special care, and not just for a day–for weeks. someone who knows enough about the human hand to be able to piece this mess back together,” she finishes with a tone of frustrated disgust. But Jaskier barely notices, is too distracted by sudden focused awareness on his body brought on by her words…
He twitches and clenches his eyes shut, trying not to imagine the sharp, twisted grin of the interrogator, the flare of pain when the man moved his attentions from one ruined finger to the next. The acrid smell of burning somewhere in the room. The breathless ache in his chest as whimpers crawled out of his body unbidden and unstoppable on every pained exhale. His head swims and he can feel his heart pounding at the memory that rises up to swallow him.
Waves of trembling wash over him, tightening muscles in shivering surges that seem unstoppable. He must be in shock. Isn’t shock supposed to dull pain, though? If this is the pain dulled, he thinks hysterically as he tries to force his body to calm, how much worse will it be when he comes out of it? It would be easier if he could just fall fully unconscious.
“Shani. I can take him to Shani. She’s a physician and…Jaskier’s friend. She’s in Oxenfurt.”
“Can you trust her?” Vesemir asks sharply.
“Yes.”
The conversation keeps swirling around him and Jaskier loses track for a little while. Yennefer and Geralt seem to be arguing about going to Oxenfurt, and something about Ciri, but he can’t quite focus enough to take it in. He feels a chill of formless, shameful guilt anyway. He’s causing problems again. Putting them in danger again.
And then there’s a broad hand over his forehead, smoothing his hair back gently, and Geralt’s voice, cracked and miserable, close enough to feel the warm air of this breath.
“It’s my fault. They took him to get to me. To Ciri. I should have been there sooner.”
Jaskier usually loves when Geralt touches him like this, offering softness and comfort. It’s uncommon enough to be precious.
Right now, the touch is too much, though, overwhelming in a way that shocks him, and he flinches away from Geralt’s palm before he can stop himself, eyelids fluttering open enough to see the wince and flash of hurt on his friend’s face as he draws his hand away.
Geralt’s hand forms a shape in the air over his head and Jaskier feels a wave of warmth and relief wash through his body as his clenching muscles relax. “Sleep, and feel no pain, Jask.”
continue on Ao3