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“Jaskier.”
“Oh, see, now, that’s the growly voice to go with the scary eyes, but I will not be dissuaded. Listen, Geralt, I know you’re angry but--”
Jaskier actually had the gall to step in front of a witcher who was so angry his body heat was creating steam, and Yennefer had to give him points for boldness if nothing else. One eyebrow went up and she leaned back on her hands, observing from the ruined wall where she was wrapped in enchanted fur. She was warm as could be. Jaskier was wearing a thick cloak, and Roach’s winter coat had fully grown in.
Geralt, however, was stripped down to his trousers and black undershirt, and the actual source of the intense heat was his body holding onto both the water and temperature from a hot spring. Jaskier was the reason he was wet and without his breastplate in the first place.
“At least it was a hot spring. Hey? Wasn’t that nice?” The bard pressed, putting out two placating hands that Geralt walked right into. Jaskier’s expression twitched, then turned into a frown as he tried to plant his feet and stop Geralt. He succeeded only in getting himself slid through the snow.
“Where. Is. My. Fucking. Cloak. Jaskier.”
“You are steaming are you certain you need it? I--heeeey…” A smile slowly crept onto Jaskier’s face and Geralt stopped moving, narrowing his eyes.
Yennefer raised the other eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?” Geralt demanded.
“You had me going there, you,” Jaskier said, wagging a finger and smiling brighter as he pushed off of Geralt’s chest and stood up straight again. “But you’re not really furious with me. Your heartbeat is far too calm. You are a much better actor than I gave you credit for, Geralt. I am impressed.”
Slowly, Yennefer’s eyes fluttered shut and she couldn’t help her own smile. “Oh, bard I would bite your tongue,” she said, opening them and nodding to Geralt. “Geralt is no actor, and you are playing with fire.”
“Oh no, he’s all--,” he gestured, looking far more confident than he had any business being when Geralt was eyeing him like that. “Bark. He’s all bark.”
“Jaskier, a witcher’s heart is enhanced. It beats much slower than yours or mine.”
Jaskier snorted, crossing his arms and shooting her an amused look. When she did not return it, his posture faltered and he glanced at Geralt again, who was standing there in a billow of snorted steam.
“How--how do you mean? How much slower.”
“Four times.”
She watched him do the math in his head and then glance nervously at Geralt again. “So. If his heartbeat felt….normal…”
“That’s like yours beating two-hundred times a minute.”
“....Oh.”
***
It was almost a week later in a much warmer inn when Jaskier brought it up again.
“So...if your heart only beats once for every four of mine, how slow is too slow?”
Geralt hummed, shrugging without opening his eyes. He was clean and full of good ale, laying out on his bed looking more relaxed than Jaskier had ever seen him. Having a fireplace in their room probably had something to do with it. “Nonexistent.”
Jaskier shot his friend an annoyed glance. “Oh, good. Thanks for that. So I’m just to wait for you to die?”
“No pulse is too slow,” Geralt said, like the answer was reasonable. “Mutation doesn’t go as far as to make me undead.”
“Oh come on Geralt, give me a real answer,” Jaskier pressed, flopping down on the bed next to the witcher. Geralt opened one eye and shot him an irritated glance, but made no move to evict him. He just closed his eyes again.
“This has become awfully important to you.”
“Well, it is a pretty unique feature. Your vitals are different, Geralt. I’d like to know what they should feel like. The problem with ‘nonexistent’ besides the obvious, is that for me...nonexistent is about two seconds. For you….when do I stop waiting?”
Geralt sighed and sat partly up, propping himself on his side. “Why does this matter so much?”
Jaskier looked up at him, expression incredulous. “You are kidding, right? Why does your heartbeat matter?”
“Why do you need to know about it?”
It was Jaskier’s turn to sit up. “Because I like my friends alive, Geralt.”
Geralt blinked, seemed to consider and maybe answer, then lay back down. “Seven seconds.”
“What? Really?”
“More than seven seconds,” he closed his eyes, settling into the pillows again. “Probably not going to get another.”
***
“Geralt? Oh fates...Geralt...come on you...you tremendous idiot. You had better be breathing.”
Jaskier spotted his witcher laying on his side at the edge of a very bloody clearing, and he slipped in the viscera getting to him. Trying not to be sick, he all but crashed to his knees and rolled Geralt onto his back with shaking fingers. A noise he couldn’t quite help escaped him as Geralt’s pale, slack expression met him and he swallowed, frantically working ruined armor off so he could see the extent of the damage. It worried him deeply that Geralt did not wake or even react.
“Come on, you can’t just...die. I missed the entire…” Jaskier’s voice was stolen with his breath. Geralt’s chest was bloody, and he still did not move as Jaskier set his breastplate aside. “Fight,” he managed at last, startled tears brimming as he swallowed at the lump stuck in his throat.
“Oh...Geralt--” His fingers flit useless over the damage before he finally couldn’t take it anymore and lay his ear against Geralt’s chest.
He waited, eyes burning, hand curling in the remains of Geralt’s shirt.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven….
Eight.
Jaskier’s eyes twitched closed and fresh tears seeped into the damage. The seconds continued on and all he could hear was his own blood in his ears.
Geralt’s lay cooling and sticky against his cheek, but nothing stirred it.
“No...come on,” he whimpered, picking his head up and looking into Geralt’s peaceful face. “You can’t….you can’t go like this Geralt.”
He looked up, casting around for any kind of help, but not even Roach and the potion bags were nearby.
They were alone.
...he. He was alone.
The crushing reality of it blanketed his shoulders and he bowed over Geralt’s body again, feeling numb, clinging to what was left of him.
Jaskier didn't know how long he lay there. Far too long for a miracle, and yet, just as he was trying to gather his strength to get up and start...maybe just start to accept that his witcher was dead….the body twitched.
Jaskier's head jerked up, bloody fingers closing on bloodied clothes. "Geralt?" he asked, breathless. "Come on…" he lay a gentle hand over the Witcher's still heart, swallowing painfully. "Come on…come back..."
Another twitch, one he knew he couldn't have imagined, and then the most beautiful feeling in all the world as a heartbeat touched his palm. The moment of relief was so blinding Jaskier felt lightheaded and he gasped, laying his head back to Geralt's chest.
"Come on….come on give me another. Please...Geralt just…"
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six--
Heartbeat.
Jaskier sobbed out loud, turning his forehead into Geralt's breastbone just as the witcher wheezed in a weak breath. A bloodied hand came up to touch Jaskier's shoulder and Geralt's brow furrowed, eyes still closed as he drew another breath through the nose.
"Jaskier?"
"Geralt!"
A weak swallow, another breath, and those gold eyes cracked open to look at him. "Are you...crying?"
"Yes. Yes you utter bastard you said seven seconds!"
Geralt hummed, closing his eyes again. "I said probably."
Jaskier sobbed a sort of laugh then and buried his head back into Geralt's chest. "I hate you," he muttered, and the witcher's warm hand fell heavy to rest on his back. "I fucking hate you and your stupid mutant heart. I hope you know that."
"You don't," came the weary reply, along with a pat against his back. "You don't."
***
"I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Hate you. Or your heart. Rather hated that I thought it had stopped but the organ itself…"
"Jaskier, you're rambling." Geralt blinked once, leveling him with a fondly exasperated stare. They were back at the inn, Geralt was out of the woods, and Jaskier had been pacing for an hour.
"Yes...well, would you rather I sing?"
Geralt watched him pace back across the room again. "I can't decide. What's eating you? You know my job is dangerous. How many times have you had people tell you I was dead?"
That stopped the bard, who turned on his heel and held one finger up, a warning in his eyes. "That's different."
"Why?"
"Because this time, Geralt, it was you. It was you telling me you weren't coming back and I had your body and your blood everywhere to prove it."
"I did come back."
"BUT YOU TOLD ME YOU WEREN'T GOING TO, GERALT," Jaskier exploded, finally stopping for real. "And you…" his voice cracked, and his expression was sadder than Geralt had ever seen it. "You I believed."
I'm sorry seemed pitying and far too little, and Geralt looked away, closing his hand at his side. "Sometimes…" he began, still looking away "sometimes our bodies can….shut down. With help. Slow to the brink of death. Keep the blood inside, where it is the only reason we don't tip over. I knew I was going to bleed out without more time, and I knew if you came back then it would be safe and I'd have a chance. So….I meditated. Put myself into that death like state and waited to hear you. I….didn't expect it to go that far."
Geralt felt Jaskier's eyes on him and at last he couldn't ignore them anymore. He looked up, a furrowed worry between his brows. Jaskier looked pale, almost stricken.
"You knew. You knew you could do this and you didn't tell me."
"Jaskier…"
"No. Geralt. No. You might find me, insufferable, or a...a burden or whatever else unpleasant thing you consider but I--I care about you. You're the only true friend I've ever had and.... I might even say that I love you, so when you die on me it's going to break my heart and I need you to understand that if you can get nothing else, alright?"
Tears had started, and they left marks on Jaskier's cheeks that he quickly turned away to dash. Geralt was left speechless for a long time, feeling like anything he could say would belittle what Jaskier had given him.
Finally...Geralt found the only thing he felt he could say: "Forgive me, Jaskier. I haven't been loved in a long time."
"I know," Jaskier said quietly, moving to sit on the side of Geralt's bed. "Or else you wouldn't be so thick around me and Yennefer."
Geralt's expression really furrowed then. "Yen doesn't…"
Jaskier cut him off with a long sigh and leaned against him. "Of course she does, you idiot. Or she wouldn't have hated you so much when you broke her heart."
Geralt frowned at that and cleared his throat, glancing at his shoulder where Jaskier was leaning. "Are you going to leave?" He asked at length, not even fully knowing why he asked it.
"No, you big idiot," he muttered. "Of course not."
"I have a potion that makes me catatonic too," Geralt admitted into the quiet, and to his great surprise, Jaskier snorted a laugh.
"Of course you do. Much as I appreciate the sudden outpouring of truthfulness, let's save it for morning, alright? You almost died and I almost had to deal with it so….let's just...sleep for now."
Geralt nodded, shifting gingerly. Jaskier let him lay down more fully, but then hesitated. Geralt glanced at his torn expression and let out a long, tired sigh as he closed his eyes. "You can stay."
"Would you….can I use you as a pillow? I won't make your injuries worse will I?"
"Surprised you're asking at all," Geralt teased lightly. "No. I'll be fine."
Still, when Jaskier did lay down he was gentle, and Geralt wrapped an arm around him to keep him from having to balance too much on the small bed. He felt the bard's body relax against him, and the last of the tension went out of his own muscles.
Just as he was falling asleep, he became aware of Jaskier very lightly tapping fingers against his ribcage. His free hand came up to cover the bard's, and he hummed.
"I can feel you counting. Stop worrying, I'm not going to die in the night."
There was a long pause, and then: "Okay. You had better not."