#yucky!!

Jaskier says it was only a few days since he parted with the rest of the company, staying behind at a safehouse that proved not so safe after all. Lots of orgies though, he'd joked, but she knows he regrets the thought of not following his friend to the last breath.

She sees his white hair, stained rust.

"Fuck," she says, a little whimper of a sound, and the huddle of bodies hears her. One of them turns its stiff neck and sniffs the air, holding open its black mouth. She imagines she can smell the wet stink of its breath. It's these things making this place stink so damn bad, along with the rotting garbage of the dead city above them.

The thing that isn't Geralt anymore turns its head, and its eyes have already got that fogged glass look that says he's been gone a while.

She'd thought maybe if she found him fresh, she could hope to pore through every damn grimoire she knew of to reverse it. Necromancy's what had gotten the world into this mess, but it's just one man, she thinks. It wasn't enough. We aren't finished yet. He's mine. I'm owed this. We didn't have enough time.

"Fuck, fuck."

One of the creatures manages to swivel enough on its heel to slowly bump its way in her direction. This one had been a woman, hair shorn around its ears. Yennefer wonders how many shuffling in this corner, attention caught by the beam of her flashlight, are deceased members of the company Jaskier talks about, the strangers who struck out with Geralt across the country to search for Ciri in vain.

"Geralt," says Yennefer, though she knows it is futile. She's seen the data, knows enough to say for certain there's no spark of human awareness left in one this advanced. The brain stem hums with a black spark of magic but the rest slowly turns to soup. He's gone. He's gone.

The creatures shuffle and stumble against one another, tread on each other's bodies. The thing that isn't Geralt is walking in her direction, dragging its left leg in a lurch.

"Geralt, I found her," she says. "She's safe. It's alright. I found her."

The creature flexes its jaw as though biting the air. The cheeks have sunken in already, vacant eyes roaming in their sockets. Its eyes look right through her, past her, and she has the sour, angry thought that it's not so different, is it? She can so easily imagine a living Geralt shrugging his shoulders, eyes downcast, mumbling.

Not quite alive even then, half-living, haunted. Never standing up to fight to keep her, disappearing into himself, and her shittily goading him, prodding, expecting at some point he would bite back but in the end, he always retreated.

Both of them a big mess of poor coping mechanisms, and maybe it would have all gotten better someday, given time and rethinking and a lot of therapy, the three of them a little family again, but then, the whole world ended. Out of time now.

It isn't fair. She wants to grab this facsimile of Geralt and shake him and say, I'm better now. I got better. I think I'm kinder than I was, maybe thanks to Ciri, maybe just because of the passing time, and I love you as you are, goddammit, I love the thought of a little house in the country and rain on the porch roof and a simple, quiet life. I love your little shrugs and sighs and mumbles, even when they infuriate me, even when you won't look at me, even when you won't say what I want you to. I'm listening, Geralt. I'm listening now. I love you to the end of the world.

"Yennefer?" wavers Jaskier's voice through the portal. She curses him and his inability to listen, to stay out of the room. "Yennefer, is everything alright?"

No, she wants to say. No, of course it's not.

"Stay over there," she says. "I just need to–"

She needs to turn around and go. She's in a room with a dozen reanimated corpses reaching their dead arms for her. Sure, one of them's wearing the body of the man she loves, but he's not in there. He's just meat and teeth, and she's the only one left in the world who knows how he used to look at her in bed on quiet mornings when he woke with her, how his eyes crinkled at the corners as he said, hey there Yen, have any good dreams?

The thing that isn't Geralt barely has eyes at all. They will rot out of the sockets, dribbling down leathery cheeks eventually, or the rats will gnaw them out.

It isn't fair.

It reaches for her, the spoke of an exposed fingerbone trembling in the stuffy air of the subway station, and for a moment, Yen thinks of reaching to take its grimey, oozing undead hand, holding it to her lips as the creature fumbles towards her mouth-first.

She knows now in retrospect that Geralt was always, always looking at her more than anybody else ever had, always seeing the realest and truest parts of her. Ones she'd forgotten even existed until too recently to matter.

She wants to say, you were right, Geralt. I worked too much for things that didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. Not like this means something. You, me, Ciri. A simple, quiet life. A good dream.

Beyond the portal, Jaskier is calling for her. Yennefer closes her eyes, imagines how dying like this would feel. Wrenched apart, dull teeth scraping, dead tongue lolling against the gush of her insides. Would his body know her as it tore and gouged, despite the dullness of his dead eyes, the empty void of his decayed thoughts?

Would the cracked, bloodied lips hold for a quivering moment against the nape of her neck, clumsy fingers tenderly pushing away the hair, before its teeth clenched and ground down?

It's a nice thought. A comforting dream.