I just want to be clear this is a no whumper situation, it’s hard to explain but the cabin is a sort of supernatural situation, like it’s WAY bigger on the inside than the outside and they were lost inside for nearly a week, he was not being held captive by any one person. This is not a long term captivity setting, which is not my jam and I know there are others who don’t care for that either, so I just want to make that clear.
Also also, for the record, the two primary characters in this story have not been nor are currently involved with each other, their friendship is strictly platonic. Though I’m sure some people in the fandom do ship them, this fic was written with a platonic friendship in mind.
And if someone familiar with the podcast stumbles upon this, don’t mind me this was me being like “Yeah he coulda been more fucked up from that” and started writing, and then realized I’d misremembered the scene because it had been about 2 years since I listened to it last. Just making it more whumpy and then expanding from there~!
Watching them bring Nic out of the cabin is an image that will stick with me forever, no matter how much I want to forget. He looked awful. His face and clothes were streaked with blood, what little colour of his flesh I could see was pale, alabaster in the afternoon sun. His brown hair was a mess, half plastered to his head and half standing nearly on end with a mixture of dried blood and mud. He seemed completely unable to focus on his surroundings, confused and blinking warily around the clearing. For a moment his eyes settled on me and I held my breath, hoping for a flicker of recognition. Instead it seemed like he looked right through me, as though I wasn’t even there.
He took slow steps away from the cabin with an officer on either side of him, their hands gripping just above his elbows as they guided him towards one of their trucks. I could hear the sirens of an ambulance making its way down the goat trail winding through the forest.
I took a step forward and called out to him. “Nic?”
His head turned towards my voice ever so slightly, but his blue eyes remained unfocused and unseeing. Before I could say anything more, they turned white as they rolled back in his head and the officers exclaimed as every muscle in his body spasmed and clenched. His head snapped back and his legs collapsed under him, the officers holding him doing their best to slowly guide him to the ground.
okay but geraskier modern au in which they first meet bc they live in the same building, and the landlord is showing up to fix something in geralt’s apartment that he didn’t expect, and they’re not supposed to have pets, so jaskier just opens his door to his VERY buff VERY handsome neighbor holding a VERY unimpressed-looking cat like, “hi we’re neighbors we’ve never spoken this is roach can i hide her here please” bc listen jaskier has good vibes and geralt’s desperate
there he goes again, geralt thought.
every morning, without fail, the neighbour guy says hello to roach.
in the beginning, geralt nearly came entirely unhinged. there he was, stepping out of the shower of his ground-floor apartment in a new city, and a shape of another human being stood straddling a bush directly in his front window. what had saved the stranger had been roach’s pleasant little chirrups at the shape and the realisation that the man was scritching at the window for roach to bat at.
okay. weird? yes. murderous? mmm. yet to be seen.
but the neighbour had done nothing but stop in geralt’s window each morning and make little coos at his cat.
the cat he really wasn’t supposed to have.
the cat the landlord was t-minus thirty minutes from running into thanks to a bum aircon unit.
all told…. the neighbour guy was his only option. he couldn’t very well put roach in the car. if the heat wasn’t a problem, he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. he didn’t have any friends in this city yet (he said yet like he hadn’t been there a year) and his family were miles and miles away.
so under the bed went roach’s personal effects and up went roach. almost as if she knew some absolute buffoonery was afoot, she very helpfully dug one paw’s worth of claw into geralt’s tit and made unconvincing hurgling sounds the entire way down the hall.
“he’s not going to be friends with you if you keep that up,” geralt muttered, reaching the stairs and putting a hand under roach’s bum just before she decided to turn into a liquid. “he’s really not going to be friends with you if you do that.”
geralt hadn’t been snooping. that’d be the hill he’d die on, if he had to.
he’d simply been… admiring the view one day, when he saw his cat-infatuated neighbour speaking animatedly on the phone with someone and pacing to and fro in front of his bedroom window. from that vantage, geralt had estimated that the apartment he was stood out front had to be his, but…
well, if it wasn’t, there wasn’t really a good explanation, was there?
he knocked.
“coming!” a voice trilled from inside. “you’re early, so i’m— you’re not pris— oh, hello, beautiful!”
“um. hi,” geralt replied. helpfully, roach yowled. “is that how you always answer the door?”
“i was expecting someone else, but now i’m curious.” the man replied.
“hello, curious. i’m geralt.” he hefted the cat slightly higher, wincing as she dug further into his tit and her upset sounds reached a peak. “this is roach, and we are about to ask you for a really weird favour,”
“i’m jaskier and i’m sold.”
“i didn’t even explain yet,”
“when someone this lovely shows up at your door, i think you’d be hard pressed to say no,”
geralt felt his face heat as he tried to prise roach’s claws out of him as delicately as possible.
“i— i’ve got to get back down,” he stammered. “landlord. aircon. you know,”
“i do now,” jaskier replied. “give me the baby.”
the baby, traitor, began purring the instant she was plonked into the other man’s waiting arms.
“won’t be long.” geralt promised heading back for the stairs. before he began his descent, he felt a little brave and turned back. “were you talking to me or the cat earlier?”
“the cat!” jaskier said decisively. “but you’re not so bad yourself.”
Summary - You would never expect it really. He’s doting. He’s sweet. He’s hardworking. But he’s forgotten his morals. Suspecting it is one thing, but when he confirms it, will you stay or walk away.
Please note the following chapter contains scenes of gun violence, gunshots, gunshot wounds, bleeding, trauma, scenes of a sexual nature and angst. Proceed with caution.
So many things happening here and…classic villain monologue—which I live for!!! Hello??
I’d feel sorry for Maiya if she didn’t try to ruin someone’s life in her desperation. And this bitch is desperate! She’s sounds like someone who’s got nothing else left to lose—which makes her dangerous
And seriously. Fuck Huru! I was intrigued at first but—NOPE! Just move your ass aside
Ugh—the end!! Just…YN revisiting that trauma and how “she” came to be. I don’t know how else to describe but you set that flow so well?? The jump from her pushing off from Namjoon and then slipping into that memory…I imagine it like a bomb going off. You hear that ringing in your ears as if it’s never going to end…and then suddenly there’s this “moment” of, not so much clarity but just a moment—that transports you in a way…
You will always be waited on
We needed a dramatic villain moment, let’s me completely honest. She’s been on the sidelines and in the background for too long.
She’s so,, out of sorts tho right. Playing a good woman at first. And now a bad one. What gives.
Maiya does have me feeling for her, because I have a brother, and those little shits are somehow the best things in life, I’d still trade him for a packet of chips though.
Aaah shina, Huru is still sexy, in his own way.
But he has REALLY overdone it. I was quite satisfied with Namjoon’s punch ngl.
Out here talking about my flow I literally had that done first, can you imagine, and then the whole update was built around that, and The way you DESCRIBE IT, IS SO PERFECT OHMYGOD.
