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There’s someone in his room.
And he’s in his room for some reason.
He hasn’t been in his room, his actual bedroom, for what feels like centuries.
But he is in his room again so he must have come with a reason of some sort and then forgotten. He glances around, hoping to clear his own confusion, but the room only seems empty, faded, meaningless.
Why is he here?
“Because you should be,” his mother replies.
Jaskier whirls around to see her disapproving gaze and frowns. “Mother? What are you doing here?”
His mother sighs as if he’d asked her which spoon he was meant to use for his soup - a soup spoon, obviously, but people would be surprised how many times he’s gotten that wrong in the past.
“I live here Julian, and you should be here with me.”
“I… I am here?” Jaskier offers, wincing at the use of his actual name.
She tuts at him and folds her arms in front of her chest. “Does it look like you’re here, Julian? Does it look like you’re fulfilling your role as a Viscount instead of plaguing the continent with your musical nonsense?”
Jaskier flinches at the venom dripping from her words.
“Mother, you know I love-”
“Wasting your life chasing after witchers who will never see you as anything but useless? Haven’t you realised they’re going to leave you to rot the same way you left us?” she sneers.
He opens his mouth to protest that he hadn’t left anyone to rot, that he’d only left so his own soul didn’t rot, but he can’t find the words to explain himself. He can’t find any words for that matter.
“Isn’t that better?” she croons, stepping towards him, one of her hands cupping the side of his face. Her nails dig into his skin as he shakes his head and reaches up to clutch at his throat, his wordless throat.
“You’re nothing but a disgrace,” she whispers, and somehow he feels her words rattle inside his bones, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much.
Blood runs down his neck as she presses harder, the edges of his room moving to let her trap him between them and herself. He still doesn’t know why he’d come back but he wishes he hadn’t.
He just wants to step away, to stop her from touching him, but he can’t move and he can feel himself crying but his room is so dark and blurry and he can’t even see the door and he can’t breathe anymore and doesn’t know why he’d even come back and-
“Jaskier!”
-his eyes fly open.
He gasps loudly, his hands reaching for his neck immediately. He’s too relieved to be embarrassed about the way he sobs in relief upon feeling nothing but his own touch and the breath in his lungs.
“Jaskier, you’re okay. It was just a dream, you’re okay.”
And Eskel. Sweet, kind Eskel, who always helps him feel safe.
“Eskel?” he asks, his hands shaking as he goes to furiously wipe away his tears.
He feels Eskel’s warm hands around his own, neither of them moving until Jaskier’s shoulders stop shaking. Only then does Eskel remove one of his hands and wrap an arm around him, pulling him closer.
“It’s just us here, bardling, you’re safe,” Eskel soothes, and Jaskier just wants to live in his beautiful voice.
He lets himself melt into the witcher’s touch, erasing the feel of his mother’s nails from his memory, before sighing softly. “I love you.”
There’s a small pause in which Jaskier fears his mother was right but then Eskel presses a soft kiss to his forehead and smiles. “And I, you.”
Jaskier almost sobs again but somehow, he manages to settle for pressing closer to Eskel, choosing to listen to the heartbeat of the man he loves rather than the voice of someone who’d never loved him at all.
Being in Eskel’s arms is the only dream he wants to keep as a reality.
-///-
There’s a drowner by the lake.
And he’s by the lake for some reason.
And it’s hardly a lake if he’s honest, it’s more like a slightly sophisticated swamp.
But either way, it’s very difficult to run on such watery ground and he finds himself stumbling several times.
He can hear the drowner roar - or whatever the appropriate sound is, he can’t recall the correct term - behind him and can’t help but whimper, speeding up as much as he can.
He wants to stop and curl up and close his eyes but he doesn’t want to experience death by drowner so he carries on running, even as his lungs and his legs start to burn alike.
“Eskel?” he calls desperately.
They must have been together, they must have been, but Jaskier is alone if you don’t count the monster trying to kill him, which he doesn’t, and he hates to think that Eskel might already be dead.
But there’s no reply and he finds himself tiring as he passes a willow tree that looks exactly the same as the one he passed just a few minutes ago.
He can practically feel the drowner getting closer.
Breathing heavily, Jaskier all but keels over, landing painfully on his knees but somehow sinking into the ground at the same time and oh right, he’s in a swamp, isn’t he?
“Please…”
He’s not even sure he knows what he’s asking for and the drowner clearly doesn’t because there’s a sharp pain in his shoulder before he knows it. And then another stabbing sensation in his leg, and another in his stomach, and another in his forearm.
He can hear himself screaming but all he can feel is pain, so much pain, more pain than he’s ever known.
And the worst part is, he’s going to die alone. He’s going to bleed out whilst impaled under a drowner and nobody is going to find his body and he’s going to fade into this swamp as is he’d never even lived and it’s all his fault because he should have stayed away but no, he just had to see the drowner for himself and-
“Jaskier!”
-Eskel’s voice.
Eskel’s voice?
Jaskier groans and looks up at the drowner that seems to frown down at him but that can’t be right because drowners can’t frown, can they?
“Jaskier, come on, come back to me.”
That is definitely Eskel’s voice so Jaskier blinks, shaking his head and trying to look past the drowner, trying to see where his favourite witcher’s voice is coming from.
“That’s it, open your eyes for me?”
But his eyes are open, aren’t they?
Jaskier trusts Eskel more than he trusts himself so he lets the world fade to black and then, focusing purely on the sound of Eskel’s voice, slowly blinks his eyes open.
“You’re not dead,” Jaskier breathes as he sees Eskel, sees only Eskel and no drowner.
Eskel chuckles, but it’s clearly strained. And after a few seconds, Jaskier realises that they are by a willow tree but they’re definitely not in a swamp of any kind and neither of them are about to die.
“We’re not dead, we’re safe,” Eskel confirms.
Jaskier groans and throws himself at Eskel, who doesn’t hesitate to wrap him in a warm embrace and guide the two of them so they’re leaning against the tree together, Jaskier’s face buried in the crook of Eskel’s neck.
Jaskier is rather in love with the fact that, no matter what he sees at night, he always has Eskel to wake up to.
-///-
There’s blood on his sword.
And he has a sword for some reason.
He doesn’t know why, he usually travels with several smaller daggers that are far more easily hidden.
But the sword - silver, he notes - is in his hand and his grip is firm, suggesting that he’s been fighting with it for quite some time.
He can’t recall starting any fights but before he has time to remember exactly what he’d been doing, another sword is thrown into his line of sight.
Without thinking, he lifts his own to block it, wincing at the metallic noise the two make when pressed together. But the awful sound means nothing when he sees who’s wielding the other weapon.
“Eskel?” Jaskier asks incredulously.
“Stop fighting, Jaskier,” Eskel growls, none of his usual softness present in his tone.
Jaskier opens his mouth to ask what they’re doing, if they’re just training again, but then Eskel twirls their swords and moves to attack once more.
Jaskier gasps and steps backwards, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m not fighting you, I- I wouldn’t.”
But then he has to duck when Eskel makes to slide his head off and he finds himself scrambling backwards, narrowly avoiding falling to the ground. “Please, love, stop this. I don’t want to hurt you!”
Eskel only growls at him again. “Tell that to the blood on your blade.”
Only when he blocks another of Eskel’s attempts to stab him does he realise there’s a reason he’s not already dead: Eskel is injured. Or more accurately, he’d injured Eskel.
“This isn’t happening,” Jaskier mumbles, but he’s wrong.
Eskel moves before he can register it and he finds himself landing awkwardly on his back, one of his legs twisting under him as they both fall, Eskel glaring down at him as if they don’t love one another.
Wait.
“Eskel?” Jaskier doesn’t even know how to ask but he needs to know, he needs to know if the man he loves doesn’t love him back anymore.
A sharp pressure on his wrist causes him to cry out and drop his sword. Eskel grins above him, an awful parody of the true smile Jaskier usually has the privilege to witness. “Don’t use my name, bard.”
Jaskier flinches.
He tries to arch his back and throw Eskel off, managing to roll away for just a second, but Eskel is stronger and quicker and he finds himself trapped under the witcher before he can truly think of a plan.
And then Eskel presses a sword to his neck and Jaskier forgets how to breathe.
“Eskel, darling, please…”
The sword presses harder.
Jaskier gasps and tilts his head back but it’s too late, he can feel the warmth seeping out from under his skin. And Eskel only smiles down at him, pushing his blade down further and staying silent as Jaskier moans in pain.
“I love you,” he manages before the world blurs.
And it’s not so bad, he thinks, to die at the hands of someone he loves, because at least the last thing he’ll ever see is the face of the man he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with and, one way or another, that’s exactly what he’d done.
“Jaskier, wake up!”
How can he wake up if he’s dead?
“Please, Jaskier!”
Well, if they’re going to be so polite about it he can hardly deny them-
“Almost there. Come on, Jas.”
-and so he opens his eyes.
Only to be met with Eskel’s worried gaze.
He whimpers automatically, one hand flying to his neck and the other reaching to push Eskel away because he still doesn’t want to fight him, he’d rather die again.
“I’m not going to hurt you, you’re alright,” Eskel promises, his tone sincere.
Jaskier shakes his head and when his hands find no blood, he squeezes his eyes shut and just cries.
But Eskel is there, lifting Jaskier’s head, gently brushing his tears away. “I’ve got you, bardling, I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier sobs, letting their foreheads press together as he takes in the room around them, the bed beneath them, the lack of violence around them.
“Don’t be,” Eskel murmurs, “it wasn’t real.”
He can’t be lying because if he was, Jaskier would already be dead again, and he couldn’t possibly accuse the arms sheltering him from his nightmares of killing him.
And anyway, there’s no denying whether or not he’s awake this time because no amount of cruel imagination could possibly compare to the warm love he can practically feel radiating from Eskel.