#broken hands

Captain, with a black eye and a limp, lifted two fingers to their temple in a mock solute. Their clothes were torn and there was blood on their uniform's collar.

Youngest trembled as one of the henchmen shoved them inside the gated door. They looked around, eyes brighter than a deer's in headlights. "H-hey Medic." They wrapped their arms around themself.

"Hey," Medic swallowed down the twisting feeling that rose up. He forced his voice to soften, to not carry any of the sharp panic he felt. "Where are you hurt?"

"We're fine," Captain cut in, gesturing behind Medic's shoulder. "It's--"

Medic had already whirled around.

Lieutenant.

The Lieutenant held onto the cell wall with a shaking grip. Where he touched it, blood trickled down the stones in a steady faucet run.

Drip.

Drip.

"Lieutenant?"

He glanced up. His nose was gushing red. It stained his uniform, bright and electric in the dull light.

"Turns out those fuckers can throw a punch after all," said Lieutenant with a hoarse laugh. Still unceremoniously reckless.

But he let Medic hold a makeshift bandage--ripped from Medic's shirt-- to his nose.

As Lieutenant sat down, Medic crouched beside him, correcting how he was holding the bandage. "Don't tilt your head up."

Lieutenant winced when Medic readjusted the bandage.

Medic drew away and reevaluated the situation. "It's broken," he said.

"It’s just a new look I’m trying out – call it avant-garde." Lieutenant tried to laugh but ended up grimacing. He waved Medic away. "I'll survive."

Medic shook his head. "Wiseass." But he smiled. Then. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Lieutenant tilted his head against the wall, pieces of choppy hair falling away to reveal a swollen eye and pulsing bruises. He closed his eyes. Through a clenched jaw, he managed, "I think they broke my ribs."

Medic swallowed down a wave of helplessness. "Just stay still."

Lieutenant kept his eyes closed, breathing shallowly. "My pleasure."

Medic turned to Captain and Youngest. "So, you and you, where are you injured?" He only asked to make conversation. He had already identified that Youngest's arm was dislocated, hanging loosely at their side. And on Captain's right thigh was a raw-edged wound, seeping and damaged.

Medic took off his jacket, ready to tear it into makeshift bandages and a sling.

But neither looked at him.

Youngest was staring at something over Medic's shoulder. They pressed back into the wall, shaking.

"No," they whispered. "No. Not again."

Captain put a comforting hand on their shoulder, mouth set in a thin line.

Electric fear whispered a spider-like path down Medic's spine. They turned just as the cell door opened.

Whumper entered with two henchmen strolling behind them. Whumper grinned, teeth canine-sharp. His blood-red hair was tied back, accentuating fox-like features. He didn't look quite human-- too tall, too much of a bounce in his walk.

And he wouldn't stop smiling.

He swung a crowbar.

Even Lieutenant flinched.

Oh.

Oh.

Whumper arched an eyebrow when Medic stood his ground. "You're Medic?"

Medic glanced at Lieutenant-- saw panic and web-woven fear-- then back at Whumper. "Yes."

Whumper flicked the crowbar side to side. He kept talking, a paper mache smile at the corner of his mouth. "I don't appreciate you wrecking what I'm trying to build here."

Medic failed to understand. "I'm a medic. I have to provide care," he said automatically.

His head buzzed. He couldn't-- couldn't think clearly.

Whumper appeared to consider this. He tilted his head to the side. "I see. Well, I have to do things too, I get it."

"Yeah. Wait. No, what?"

The henchmen grabbed Medic. One kicked him in the back of the knees, forcing him to kneel.

Medic struggled, lashing out like a trapped animal.

A henchman brought the edge of their gun over Medic's head and Medic slumped forward.

His vision suddenly doubled.

The short-wired tension burst into flame.

Captain lunged forward. "Leave him alone!"

It took two henchmen to restrain Captain, pinning their arms behind them, and another to kick Lieutenant in the ribs, so he doubled over coughing. Incapacitated.

Whumper leaned over Medic, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye. "You should have left well enough alone," he whispered.

Medic snarled something unintelligible. A curse. A plea. He didn't know.

Whumpr straightened. To the others, he said, "You all break as easily as his hands will. And if you don't believe me? Watch."

There was a sharp intake of breath. Realization hit with a dull, sick thud. "No!" Lieutenant cried out, "No! No-- don't!"

But the henchmen had dragged Medic's hand out and splayed it on the tiles, kicking him when he tried to pull it away.

Whumper lifted the crowbar.

Medic's eyes widened in horror.

"No-- no, nonono! Please--" His voice arched into a desperate cry, more animal than human.

Crack.

A splintering sound.

All Medic could see was white. Electric pain filled every nerve, spilled into every bone, coating his teeth and burning-- burning, burning, burning.

A terrible sound ripped itself out of his throat.

And then again--

Crack.

His left hand.

Medic screamed.

Maybe he had screamed before.

Had always screamed.

Maybe he would scream forever.

Darkness filled the corners of his vision, blurring the sharp flashes of red of white--

Electric, pulsing red.

Burning, vicious white.

Blood trickled down his arms, bright and throbbing with a cinching pain.

Whumper wiped the gory crowbar on Medic's shirt.

His henchmen let the unconscious medic slump to the floor, little more than a bundle of clothes. They released Captain, who sank to the cell floor, unable to look away from Medic.

Whumper bent down by Lieutenant, whose breaths were coming in sharp drags. He wiped a tear off of Liutenant's face. "Crying?"

"No." His voice shook.

Whumper smiled generously. "Oh, no." He stood. "Tomorrow, one of you will offer up the information on your base. I do not make idle threats."

The door locked on the blood-soaked cell.

Lieutenant muffled a sob.

"We...we can't," said Captain. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry.

They didn't know if they were apologizing to the unconscious Medic or to what remained of his hands.

    It was lonely. Very lonely. Gren tried to talk to the Moonshadow elf that had been placed in the dungeon. Even though he only answered once, the commander called it a win.

    Every time Viren came down the stairwell Gren wondered if he would be released. He knew that there was nothing he had done to be placed in the dungeon. His treatment has been unjust and when he was free he would make sure that the dark mage didn't go unpunished for his actions.

    The worst part was the silence. The Moonshadow elf wasn't good company.  He never spoke. Viren was the one who locked him down there. He hardly spoke to him as well.

    Gren heard nothing from the room further in the dungeon. With all the screaming from before the commander assumed that the mage had killed him.

    Now he was alone. It had been a while since Viren had come down the stairs. Gren didn't know if it had been days or just a few hours.

    Eventually he started to talk to himself to fill the void. He had been isolated from everything with no way to escape.

    After a while Gren's optimism couldn't help him. He was hungry and tired and scared; scared of dying alone. He missed the touch of another human being.

    His skin crawled because he hadn't been touched in what felt like an eternity. Gren craved a hug from Amaya or Corvus. It almost physically hurt how much he missed people. He was social and extroverted.

    People were his thing. The commander loved the presence of others. He loved talking to them and loved listening more. Now all he could do was talk and listen to himself.

    The conversations started silly and short. Then they stopped being silly. They turned into talks about life and death. It turned into him finally saying the things he was too scared to say out loud.

    Time was his enemy. Time ticked on as Gren wasted away, praying someone would find him and save him.

    Eventually he came to the conclusion no one was coming. There was nothing he could do to help them find him and no way he could escape. He gave up standing and collapsed to the ground, his arms jerking up. He yelled as pain shot though his wrist and arms from the quick movement.

    Gren began to breathe quickly. His chest quickly rose and fell as he heaved. He tried to pull his arms to his chest but was stopped by the chains. He screamed in frustration and slammed his fist into the wall behind him.

    Then one of his hands slipped out of the cuff. Still panicking he kept pulling in the other one. He looked down to see why his other hand had slipped out.

    Gren had already tried to break them back when he was first wrongfully chained up. But it wasn't the metal that had broken. His hand had.

    The commander's right hand had been broken when he struck the wall. He looked at his other hand and decided he had to break that on two.

    Blood dripped onto the ground from where his hands had cut open. Gren slammed the side of his hand into the wall over and over until he felt his thumb break. He slipped it out and tried to stand.

    It took a minute but Gren made it to the stairs. Then he forced his body to stay upright long enough to get get to the door. His legs gave and he fell onto the top step. He leaned against the door and waited for a moment before starting to yell and hit the door.

    "Help!" He screamed. No awesome. "Please" he whimpered.

    "Is someone there?"

    A voice. "yes! Please help!"

    "I'll be right back! Just hold on!"

    Gren smiled for the first time in a while. He was safe. When the door was opened Gren saw his saviors. A woman he didn't recognize stood before him. Behind her was the familiar face of Corvus. Near the door the interpreter could see Ezren. He sighed knowing he was safe.

Corvus moved to help Gren up. As soon as it was possible Gren grabbed the other and pulled him into a hug. It had been too long. He held him and cried. He didn't care about his hands all he wanted was to be around people. It was nice being warm again.

"Are you okay?" Ezren said as he walked over to him.

"I am now."

He was shuffled into one of the many, many spare rooms almost immediately, and Geralt tried talking to Yennefer. Of course, she’d been tense with him, but that was alright. At least she was alive to be tense with him. He’d take that over a particular alternative any day.

Speaking of tense...

The keep had never felt so cold as right now, when Geralt of Rivia stood in the doorway of Jaskier’s impromptu room. Here, the bard sat in an old chair, in front of a desk he did not look like he’d use to write on anytime soon. No, he looked at the wood slab despondently, not even seeming to notice Geralt.

So, he spoke up, speaking to Jaskier, his companion of twenty years, for the first time since that mountain.

“Jaskier… you’re here.”

Jaskier didn’t look at him, but he did speak.

“Wasn’t my idea. I didn’t know where else to go, and even if I did, Yennefer insisted - didn’t think I’d be safe anywhere else. Can you believe that? Yennefer of Vengerberg has a soft spot for me. The end of days may very well be upon us.”

His voice was hoarse. Geralt knew it must have been from screaming. His eyes drew down to Jaskier’s hands, where patches of horrendous blue and gods-damned purple peeked out from slivers of space between the bandages that showed his open skin.

“Your hands…”

“Oh, these old things?” Jaskier looked down at them,  “Well, Yenny did her best, but they still hurt like a bitch to play with. I won’t bestow new ballads on the world for a while yet. Sorry if you expected me to sing your praises…”

But his tone made it clear that he wouldn’t do that even if his hands were as good as they were that day in Posada, or in Cintra, or on that mountain…

Geralt pursed his lips, trying to hold back his question. He didn’t deserve to know, he knew that, but he had to…

“...Who did this to you?” he spat out.

Jaskier lifted his gaze to meet the Witcher’s, and he laughed. It wasn’t like before - like the sunrise in the spring, like the bloom of buttercups, like love and joy and all the things he came to equate with Jaskier’s laughter, however unconscious, unadmitted these comparisons were. No, it was an empty, sardonic, quietly angry thing.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“And for what?” he asked, “So you can tear some fucker to shreds for laying a hand on me? Because you think I’m still your naive companion that would swoon at the thought of you exacting revenge on him for my sake? So you can make some grand gesture of brutality?”

“I’m not the one of us enamored with grand gestures.”

Jaskier tilted his head back and huffed. The shift in his movement made his hair move a bit, and Geralt realized he missed that little swoop - the little… floof, even - of hair that went down his forehead before, when his hair had been shorter.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said “us” about me and you.” Jaskier remarked, “Twenty years, and you acknowledge that I was something to you. Not sure what, but something.”

“You were…” 

Jaskier’s eyes widened as if he remembered something, “Oh! Right! I remember - a shitshoveler. The catalyst for all your plights, something life would bless you by taking off your hands.”

Guilt sliced into Geralt like a kikimora’s claws.

“Looks like life heard “taking” and “hands” and went straight to me…” Jaskier huffed with the ghost of amusement with himself, looking down at his hands.

“Of course you can still joke.”

Jaskier shrugged, “Not much else to do. They took my lute, and my ability to play it, but they haven’t taken my wit.”

He crossed his legs.

“The funny thing is…” he said, staring down at the cracks in the table in front of him, “There was a little bit there where, if you’d apologized, I would’ve forgiven you. But… there wasn’t a trace of you to speak of after that hunt. Nowhere I went. Not that I went looking.”

“I didn’t have time to look for you, either.” Geralt said, “I was with Ciri.”

Jaskier snapped his gaze up.

“Oh, come now, Witcher.” he said with venom Geralt only ever knew from bigoted villagers that Jaskier had tried to change the minds of with his songs before, “Does your prolonged lifespan render you timeblind, or has your head been so far up your ass for so long that you can’t even properly tell time anymore?”

“I-”

“Two years, Geralt.” he said, “A blink of an eye for you, maybe, but that’s how long it was between that damned dragon hunt and the fall of Cintra. Two years you could have found me, before Cintra fell, before-”

He snapped his jaw shut.

“Before who?”

“No, Geralt!” he snapped, slamming his hands on the table to help him stand up. It seemed that his anger stopped him from realizing how bad that would hurt, and he hissed through gritted teeth. Geralt tried to step forward, but it was like the ground between them was covered in hot coals, and Geralt’s feet couldn’t have been more bare.

Once the pain seemed to quell, Jaskier’s eyes opened, and he glowered at the Witcher.

“You don’t get to know. You don’t get to make that bastard beg for mercy and act like that fixes anything - as if it does anything but conflate your ego that is so, so massive despite how much you hate yourself. You don’t get to take revenge on my behalf. You don’t get to act like this,” he held up his hands, “is anything compared to what you did to my heart.”

“I’m sorry-”

“And you DON’T GET TO SAY THAT NOW.” he screamed, killing Geralt’s words before it could leave his lips.

Geralt saw tears in his eyes as he huffed shaky breaths.

“You don’t get to say it like some off-hand statement, only brought up since it’s relevant.” he said with a wavering voice, “You don’t get to only say it now that I’m here, fallen right in your lap because Gods knew where else Yennefer could take me. And you don’t get to say it like it means anything now.”

“Now?”

Jaskier lowered his gaze.

“...I sort of figured you were embarrassed. That you were too scared to get your head out of your ass, like you are with a lot of things, but once you did, I would’ve…”

He sighed.

“But I heard you went to Cintra. Heard you went to claim your child-surprise.”

“What does Cirilla have to do with this?” he asked.

“Who do you think he asked about with each bone he broke?” Jaskier asked, snapping his gaze back to Geralt, “You? If it were just you, I would’ve…”

He sighed.

“That isn’t the point. When I heard that after twelve years of running from your claim, you hauled your arse to Cintra to protect her, I realized that you were always capable of going back to unfinished business, to scorned places of the past - you could always do it, if it was for the sake of something important enough to you.”

Jaskier lowered his gaze again, smiling sadly - smiling bitterly. It was an odd thing, a bitter smile, but Jaskier, like a fine doublet, wore it well.

“I just wasn’t.” he said, “I’m not your destiny, or your djinn-bound soulmate. I was just a bard.”

My bard. Geralt wanted so badly to say.

“What could I have said?”

Jaskier’s lower lip quivered as he looked at the Witcher near-dumbfounded, as if his incredulousness were a dagger that cut him deep. He leaned back against the table.

“You tell me.” he shrugged, “For those two years, I was still stupid enough that anything would have worked. Really, I wished some of my eloquence rubbed off on you, and I could’ve gotten a plea that, in a spur of irony, I was one of the few blessings life ever granted you, but anything that sounded remotely like an apology would have worked.”

He put his hands on his hips. Geralt could tell how hesitant he was.

“...At least, it would have made me think I was worth an apology in your eyes, and I was worth all the work it could have taken, tracking me down to say it.”

He rubbed a patch of cloth on his trousers with his thumb. Geralt didn’t miss how the corner of his lip twitched.

“At least, I could’ve known that what you said really was just a product of the heat of the moment, sprung forth by a misplaced attempt at levity, and there was no truth to it. I was so desperate that I would have taken anything if it meant I’d stop missing you.”

“You obviously stopped missing me eventually.” 

Jaskier threw his head back again, “Wrong again, Geralt.”

He stood up straight again and walked across the floor, which, to Geralt, was still littered with hot coals he couldn’t dare step over.

“Do you really think that the venom in your words - the spit from your lips - the fury in your eyes could clear you from my mind? From my heart?” he walked right up to Geralt, though the space between them felt like it was pushing the Witcher away from Jaskier like a magnet.

“Do you really think that anything but the Gods themselves could’ve made me stop missing you?”

Geralt couldn’t say anything. Hearing Jaskier’s words… it was like a vocal hex, like someone had sewn his very lips shut.

(Perhaps if he had done so himself before that day on the hunt, things wouldn’t have gone so bad…)

(No, no, he still would’ve found a way to ruin things. He was Geralt of Rivia, after all.)

Jaskier was only inches away from him now - a distance like something from a dream, after they’d been distant for so long… but even though this was the closest their bodies had ever been to one another, the Witcher knew that Jaskier’s mind - his heart - was as far away from Geralt as it could ever get.

Jaskier was the one to break eye contact - as if he was still terrified of giving the Witcher the chance to break anything - and he looked down to his feet.

“...If you want to know who broke my hands, Yennefer knows more than I.” he said, “She’s the one that found me, told me more of who he was. All I have is a name for a face.”

Geralt turned to leave. Jaskier grabbed his wrist.

The touch burned.

“But…”

Jaskier lifted his head and looked Geralt in the eye.

“...You want to know who did this to me? Who ruined me? Who broke me?”

Jaskier’s eyes bore into Geralt’s soul, the ice blue of his irises piercing him like shards.

He’d given no names other than his own which the man had already known and not cared about, to the man the messenger was a tool, an unwilling Swiss army knife that worked to make him money, but boy, that guy had to have some screws loose or something, the man had never had anyone last this long without breaking! 

He’d tried electricity then, jolting him until he convulsed without the aid of the rusty clamps. Until he went into shock and the man had had to take a break so that he didn’t kill him without getting what he’d wanted from him. 

When he’d come back from that place of panic the man had threatened him again with the electricity, knowing that he couldn’t use it again so soon but hoping for a chink in the armor, a ray of wicked hope…

“I’ll keep going until your skin sizzles off, tell me the names!” He’d struck him, making the chair wobble under the force of his blow, “You smell that burning? It’s you! You’re fried, dead already, so tell me the names! Where are your contacts?!” He’d screamed in his face, expecting tears and a final break through, that was what normally happened to him. 

But the messenger had smiled weakly up at him, his head only being held up by the man’s grip in his tangle of dirty dark hair, “If M’dead, th-then thanks, S’been a pl-pleasure,” the messenger had rasped back between shallow panting breathes, causing the man to let go of his hair with a sneer of disgust, the messenger’s head hung limply on his chest, “Dead m-men tell-tell n-no tales,” he’d gurgled through the blood in his mouth, choking and wheezing through his ground up lungs. 

This was when the man had decided to get serious, that has been five days ago, and other than bodily the delivery boy hadn’t broken at all. 

He’d broken his knees, his hands, bone by bone listening to him cry, and then the odd shell shocked silence accompanying each snap  for the other hand, he figured his boy had been though some trauma that hadn’t been in the file. At this point the man started to respect him, just a little, nothing crazy, he’d decided that when the time came and he’d gotten what he’d wanted,  he was going to kill the messenger cleanly and end his suffering the quick way, not his normal triple gut shot and then bounce routine he’d relied on for years.

If he broke that was. It was starting to seem doubtful. 

Finally, he’d caved and decided that it was today or never, his boy the messenger didn’t have many days left in him as it was, he’d taken his long Bowie knife and driven it through him and into the chair on the other side, the guy was too far out of it to do much more that gasp and shudder. 

“Tell me,” the man had said gently, cupping the messenger’s chin in his large bloody hand to lift it up, something the messenger had lost the strength to do more than a week ago, “Tell me and I’ll end it right now, no more hurting, Tell me and I’ll let you rest in peace.” 

The messenger didn’t respond, he continued to gasp for breath that didn’t seem to come, to the man it seemed like his messenger was emulating a fish left to die on a dock, so close to the water, so close he could smell it, but instead he’d chosen to dry drown. 

The messenger was looking him straight in the eye, for some reason this made the man uncomfortable, he’d killed several people in his days, in fact, he’d go so far as to say he’d killed a lot of people, women, men, no kids on purpose, but sometimes when you’re working with the Foresters you gotta fish or cut bait. 

And he’d always been a fishing man. 

But the way that this unbreakable delivery boy was looking him in the eyes while they could both hear his blood dripping onto the old mud caked carpet felt deeply wrong, and the man looked away before the messenger did, feeling not exactly guilt or empathy, but as close to it as he’d come in a great long time. 

The man was shaken, just enough to go out and smoke a few cigarettes until his hands stopped shaking. When he’d finished his third he decided that he was probably just hungry, maybe he needed to sleep, this kind of work took a lot out of a person, and he’d been at it a long time. 

Three weeks. 

Longer even than when he’d had to get Mal Gerring’s number from his favored son and lieutenant Paulie Gerring, that had been before the Foresters had taken over, crime had been better organized then, not on the books in your face like it was now,  but there had been something to admire about it. The romance of seedy hotels and driving his beat up car around the country, listening to regional radio and chain smoking, taking body parts back to waring mob families… Now he had a nice car that had cost more than his first house, but the job hadn’t changed–it never did, just the people paying changed. 

He sighed in nostalgia as he watched the sky darken, Paulie had only lasted five days. Message boy had him beat by two weeks. Maybe no more after this, maybe the messenger was his last, maybe he’d teach that class to other guys the Forester’s wanted to hire, working for the government had a lot of benefits–especially for the morally questionable. 

The man shook his head, if he hadn’t been busy reminiscing, if he hadn’t been so sure that he was the best, he might have heard the stood creak, he’d untied the messenger days ago, he hadn’t thought he’d been able to move if he could barely hold his head up, plus with the mangled hands he didn’t think he’d be able to do much harm. 

For the second time in his long and questionably successful life the man was wrong. 

Before he realized what was happening there was a sharp pain in the men’s temple, a crushing thunk that faded almost immediately to darkness, he didn’t even have the time to groan before he lost consciousness and slipped into the inevitable. 

Standing, or rather, sort of hunched over kind of holding himself up on the raining and swaying violently over him the messenger dropped his weapon, it was the handle of the Bowie knife he’d had to pull it out by degrees, stopping every time his eyesight started to darken, he clutched a hand over his dark wound and staggered over to his would-be murderer’s collapsed body, he raked numb broken fingers over pockets, searching until he found what he was looking for: the small black burner phone that the man had taken from him when he’d first gotten here. 

Phone cradled in broken hands he slumped to the porch, mostly laying on the stoop, he didn’t have long now, every movement was white hot and unsteady, to say that he hurt would be an understatement, but he still had a job to do, he was a messenger after all. 

He carefully dialed the number, pushing the buttons almost make him pass out, he kept whiting out with pain as the broken bones in his hands shifted, he cried out as he did it, not allowing himself the mercy of stopping now. 

Finally, after long agony filled minutes he pushed send, thank god for the universal cell towers! thank god for jamming software! the phone rang, he laid his head down on the stoop, fighting to keep his eyes open. 

It rang again, a droning buzz in his ringing ears. 

Please. 

It buzzed. 

Please pick it up! God, he’s so tired. 

It rang again, his heart sunk into his stomach, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to dial another time, he was already more out of it than he should be, this was it. 

It rang once more, he figured he’s have to leave the message on the voice mail, he knew that wasn’t allowed, too many people died that way, but then again, he wouldn’t be around for the higher-ups to yell at him. 

“Hello?” 

God bless her. 

“Nez,” he rasped, surprised to feel a lump of tears forming in his throat, he figured hearing a friendly voice after so much was making him sort of sentimental. 

“Shit! What happened to you? We’ve been so worried!” 

The messenger ignored her, he didn’t have enough energy to explain, “Nez, four-ten Walnut, lots of kids there, you’ve still got some time, bring Ralphie, the combo is 6899437, got it?” 

When Nez speaks again she’s quiet, it’s almost intimate like she’s whispering in his ear, “Where are you?” There is horror in her voice sure, but also hope, Nez hasn’t grasped yet that hope can kill you. 

“Last one Nez, I’m going dark,” he croaked, his eyes slipping shut, he focused on the voice at the other end of the line. 

“Oh Fuck, We’ll track you! We’re coming! Just don’t hang up! Please! Don’t hang up!”