[ OPEN/SOME CLOSED ] if I had to do it over, I'd do it all again

[cointosser]

Who: Jaskier, Ciri, Geralt, Yennefer, Alucard, and some open prompts
When: Mid-to-Late January
Where: Cadens and the Horizon
What: Jaskier wakes from a vivid, nasty dream to physical evidence that it was unfortunately very real. He spirals, but like, only a little bit. It mostly involves getting drunk and buying hats to cope.
Warnings: Mentions of bodily injury/torture, maybe PTSD, heavy drinking



[Will be throwing starters (including open ones) down below! You can hit me up at scathefire or #scathefire6612 if you'd like to plot anything or want an additional starter. Also, let me know if you'd like me to avoid S2 spoilers, because there will be a lot.]

Comments

[wiedzminka]

[ For a moment, she does let him go. The way he stammers and flinches from her--

It hurts. She doesn't understand. None of it makes any sense, and she doesn't understand why he's suddenly demanding these answers from her, pretending any of it can be 'just a question' when the look in his eyes says he already knows the answers, and she is more than aware her own expression confirms them. Still, she will not lie to him.

And so, she's left uncertain, stunned into silence because she has absolutely no idea what to actually say. She has no idea how he could possibly know. ]

The--

The dreams?

[ He hunches down, curling up where he stands, like he might just crumple right onto the floor. This time, when Ciri grabs his shoulders, she isn't trying to pin or even exactly to reassure him; it's only on instinct, to brace him in case he falls. ]

Jaskier! Are you wounded? Please, talk to me.

[cointosser]

[He hears her, he does, but it's so distant. It's distant as this sort of roaring sound takes him over, and the floor comes close, but it's only because he's kneeling down towards it with his body screaming to make itself as small as possible, less of a target -- as if the memories are a monster bearing down at him, and only fragile, mouse-brain instincts are the words that still make it through.

She's holding him and he knows it, distantly. He's too busy choking on his breath, gasping, feeling as if his every breath has been pulled out of him.

The faceless Witcher. A gaping maw of raw meat where a handsome face once was. A Nilfgaardian head. Basilisks, sliding through a portal, crushing sheer stone where their feet fell. Elves coming to him in the dark of night, tucking hair behind their ears where the tips had been sliced off. The thump of human boots into elven skulls -- the wet cracking when skin breaks.

A snap.

The heartbreak of a mountain devoid of company. The twist of a heart growing cold. That anger, like a flare, like a flame --

Fire is a forbidden source.

His body shudders, shivers. That same fear in that moment that could have been months or years ago, as time flowers, grips him. He survived. He survived and it doesn't matter because he so easily couldn't have. He could have died to the mage. On the mountain. In a prison cell. In the dirt and shit-filled streets of Oxenfurt. In a cold bed in Kaer Morhen.

Death never was the problem, really. He'd always been so safe before then.

It's such a shame you can't be useful.

There is a long minute where he's sure he will simply drown in the air because he can't catch a breath, his lungs betraying him. Where his face presses into Ciri's shoulder and he holds onto her, desperately, because she is here, and she knows him, and he cannot be dead if she knows him. He survived. He survived, like the others, but he was so close --

He was so close to dying.

But he was so close to breaking, too.

It isn't fair that he should find any comfort in Ciri when he had been so close to breaking, to condemning her, and Geralt. It would have proven Geralt right. That he was not a worthy traveling companion. That, in the end, he had only been a liability.

Breathe.

The voice is Ciri's, or maybe it's Geralt's, or, bizarrely, it may even be Yennefer's. He wrenches his eyes shut and shakes his head, hearing the question seconds, or minutes, or an hour later. Breathe. He may be an unworthy companion, and a shit friend, and a terrible confidant, but he is good at one thing. Observing. Learning. And in the midst of all these memories, he remembers Geralt kneeling on a thin saddle blanket, his hands on his knees, his eyes closed. Breathing so gently it was hard to tell if he was. Waiting as that pale, ghostly white faded from his face. As the black veins receded. As humanity returned to his visage.

Jaskier holds onto Ciri, and he closes his eyes, and he breathes.

The panic does not disappear, but it abates. He can breathe again. His heart recalls how to beat. And what felt like hours was only a minute or two. Jaskier breathes, and unclenches his fingers where they must have clawed at her back. He relaxes with exhaustion more than anything, the taste of bile still in his mouth.]

I had a dream. [He says, once words can find their way out again, though his voice cracks as he speaks.] Memories. Of Geralt, and you, and me, and the Continent. If you remember them too, then... they cannot be just dreams.

[wiedzminka]

[ It quickly becomes apparent that he cannot answer. If he can hear at all.

Jaskier presses himself against her, grasping like a drowning man at land with bruising desperation, fingers digging into her shoulders and back. Ciri lets him. She wraps her arms around him in return and, carefully, lets his shrinking, sinking momentum carry them both down. She guides them to sit on the floor, lets him drape across her as he needs. One hand presses to his back, palm flat between his shoulder blades, keeping a steady pressure that says you are here; this is real.

He gasps like he's forgotten how to make his lungs work. Ciri just feels numb. ]

Breathe.

[ It is her voice, cutting through the chaos. It echoes Geralt's, and also Yennefer's. She is only repeating it the way they had to her. ]

Steady. You can do it. Breathe.

[ Eventually, he figures it out. Eventually, she has to accept what he's going to say once he finds the air to do so.

Dreams that are memories. Dreams that leave bruises. (And... scars? He'd mentioned scars.) Ciri's never heard of such a thing before, but she is the last person who will doubt that anything is, unfortunately, possible. Faced with the reality of Jaskier bringing up something nobody else in this world could possibly know, she is forced to accept it.

And finally, belatedly, she answers his question. Even though she cannot give him the answer he actually desired. ]

I remember.

The demon. She trapped me in a pretty dream. She used my power.

[ She still thinks, even now: What if I'd been stronger? It's a senseless thought. What's past is done. Jaskier seems to be more proof. ]

How could you have dreamt that?

[ It isn't necessarily a question Ciri expects Jaskier to answer. She says it aloud, but not entirely addressed to him. The universe, perhaps. The Singularity or magic itself. Or nothing at all.

She cards her fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his face. ]

[cointosser]

[Breathe. He does. He does, for a long, quiet moment, after he's said what he has. He must remember this is Ciri. That he does, already, trust her with all of him. Before he woke this morning, he would have told her anything. Could it really change in the blink of an eye? Over a single night?

He breathes. Closes his eyes if only to concentrate on continuing to do so. His chest still feels tight, his throat burning as if he's inhaled smoke. (The smoke rising from his skin.)

Don't be dragged under again.

How could he?

He shakes his head. Turns until his face is buried in against her, if only because he must concentrate on staying here, in reality, in his very fragile human body. He cannot give attention to controlling his expression. (He can't hurt her again. Not with this.)]

I don't know. [Breathe. He breathes.] I'm sorry. I wanted... to get out. Before you came. Before. This.

[The mess he is right now. The mess he now will be, knowing... all of that. It was real.]

[wiedzminka]

...and go where?

[ Ciri sighs. She keeps her arms around him, letting him press his face into her shoulder and hide if he wants (it's better than running away). The numbness of disbelief begins to crack, slowly, but she still doesn't know how to feel.

How could he possibly remember? A prophetic dream? Magic? The Singularity's power, unintentional or directed? Too many theories spin in her mind, a dizzying cacophony that makes her feel ill. Ciri's arms tighten around Jaskier's back. ]

I do not know exactly what you saw in these dreams of yours. But it does not change what is real right now. Here.

I am still myself. Same as I was yesterday and the day before. See?

[cointosser]

Elsewhere. [He didn't plan that far ahead. He's still groggy with sleep, feeling like his head is going to implode, and he knows all the dingy and dusty corners of Cadens by now where a man can go to be alone and quietly fall apart.

He rests against her, having no strength right now to get up. Once he stills his swirling thoughts, hopefully. Once he stops seeing --]

I know. I know, Ciri.

[She is here. She is alive and grown and if didn't know it now, he would have never guessed something like this had happened to her. But as if they were seconds ago, he can see her, and Yennefer, and Geralt. Disappearing before his eyes. Nary the dust moved in their absence.

His breath stutters in his throat, and it threatens to choke him again.]

They are not dreams. They're memories. Mine. And I feel them as if they only happened moments ago. You'll forgive me if I'm -- I'm a bit of a mess.

[wiedzminka]

[ Memories, he says. It's impossible. And yet--

She believes him because he believes it. What else can she do? Memories in his head, of a life he hasn't lived yet, of a time he shouldn't know about, things that happened to her but not to him. How can it be? It makes her head hurt to think about, but in the end...

It doesn't matter. However it happened, it's true. It's real. Jaskier is a fucking mess right now, and it's proof enough.

(And what of Geralt? Wherever he is, out in the desert. What has he dreamt?)

Ciri strokes Jaskier's hair slowly. It's as much to comfort her as it is for him. ]

I will answer your questions. As well as I can.

[cointosser]

[It is a comfort to him, at least. Touch always has been. And in some way, some twisted, terrible way, he is glad to have met Ciri before these memories flooded his head. Or until they happened? Time is a nebulous sort of bitch right now, and it doesn't feel worth it to attempt to string it together. It can be as simple as it does not flow the same on these separate spheres. Somehow.

It's important that Ciri is not simply a child who shunned his company, who barely looked at him, who was roiling underneath her skin for a betrayal he had witnessed. He cannot help but wonder if it was Ciri's first time witnessing the lengths to which people will go to get what they want. To see who they are willing to sacrifice.

He holds onto her and lets the comfort come. He has Ciri before these things, and after her. And she is still a wonderful woman, and a friend, and a companion, and a daughter. Even after these terrible things.]

I don't have them. Right now. I would have wanted to know if you were... all right. After what you saw in there. But -- you must have come to terms with it. Eventually.

[wiedzminka]

[ She can feel him relaxing by degrees, and is relieved as well. He doesn't push her away. He doesn't try to run from her. If he wanted to leave, she understands -- but the initial, fear, that bone-deep knowledge of what she is that haunts her every day, that has subsided. If she lets him go and he has to remove himself to process, she isn't afraid anymore that he might not come back. (Not much, at least. But there's no helping that.)

With a slow exhale, Ciri loosens her grip around him to a light embrace rather than a desperate, grounding clinging. ]

They are not mutually exclusive things.

[ She almost laughs. It isn't funny. ]

One can come to terms with something and still feel horrible about it. Happens all the time.

[cointosser]

[The answer is sharp. Not because of how she says it, but the truth of it. He squeezes her, his arms slowly letting her go. He cannot keep her trapped forever.]

No. No, they're not.

[His hands slide down her arms as he pulls back. He is a mess: eyes puffy, his cheeks flushed, eyes just as red. He's cried over lesser things before, feeling better after. This. This feels like a well's opened within him. He feels empty. Scooped out. A fillingless pie.

Gods. Ciri. She doesn't deserve this. Not from him, nor anyone else.]

I'm sorry. That I stirred those memories. It's still... raw to me. Still new.

[wiedzminka]

You needn't be. You've done nothing to hurt me, Jaskier.

[ Not now. Not then.

She releases him, takes a breath, and slowly moves to stand. On the way up, she offers her hand. ]

I do not know how what happened to you... happened. I do not know why. But I believe you. That it really did happen, not a vision, but a memory. And for that...

I'm sorry, too.

[ He might tell her the same, brush her off, but Ciri knows it's not a parallel comparison. She is dangerous. Now, he will understand more than he ever had before. Something shifts inside her, somewhere a wall built higher, a window sliding shut. Before this, Jaskier had known her only as she is now, and though Ciri holds no illusions that she is easy to be around at any point, there is a surprising amount of bitterness that comes with the new realization that now, he has seen her be that. It hadn't been her, but it had been her hands. Her magic. Blood on her conscience.

It had happened, and it makes no difference that Jaskier knows (remembers?) now. Not logically, not really. But it still feels like something has... changed. ]

Do you want me to leave?

[ She offers quietly, without fear or judgement, only a steady understanding. ]

If you wish to be alone to think.

[cointosser]

[Be that as it may, he also seems to be around whenever these spikes of emotion happen in her. And how can he not imagine he's the cause? He says the wrong thing, stirs the worst memories. It's a miracle at all to him she was so quick to embrace him when they first met. Not -- originally, but here in Abraxas. When he'd not remembered who she was.

He takes her hand, gripping it in his tightly. Her long, scarred fingers next to his own. Jaskier gets to his feet with her help, his legs, his whole body pulsing like a bruise.

Ah. Well. He supposes he bears them now, doesn't he? Still.]

What? [He looks at her, incredulous. His hand hasn't let hers go yet.] No. Gods, no, Ciri. I don't want to be alone right now.

[He'd been about to do it simply to -- to save them from what he couldn't hide behind a smile now. As long as he could, at least. But if she knows now, if she realizes what he's remembered -- or lived through -- what does it matter? His thoughts scramble for something, anything.

And he recalls one of the last memories he has of Abraxas. The calm. The warmth.] Downstairs. You still have some of that chocolate, don't you? Let's make a few mugs. I need to taste something that isn't wine or blood.

[wiedzminka]

[ That reaction could not have been more clearly the last one she expected. Ciri's eyes widen, unable to conceal the surprise that crosses her fact when he insists on her staying. The relief that crashes down a moment later is just as embarrassing, the depth of it so much that it leaves her shoulders slumping, not having realized the tension they'd been bearing all this time.

Ciri squeezes his hand once, reassuringly -- for them both -- and nods to his question. ]

Yes. There's plenty. I'll make us some.

[ She is gentle when she pulls away, turning toward the door. If Jaskier wants a little longer in the room by himself but not alone, he'll have whatever he needs. ]

I won't go anywhere today. Promise.