IC Inbox

[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

[lovelybottom]

It would, really, take far more than a thrown journal to hurt Geralt, or really to hurt the journal, either. As for why he might throw things, well... Geralt can be a frustrating person sometimes. He has, occasionally, seen fit to grab a pillow and pummel the witcher for a little while to vent said frustrations. And while Jaskier's emotional outbursts are annoying, they never seem to veer into anything that's actually harmful.

And if Claude is looking for some kind of enlightenment about Jaskier's moods from Geralt, he's... come to the wrong place.

"No," he replies, because, well. It wasn't right after prom, technically all of that shit was still going down. "It was right after Felix cracked me over the head with his pommel. The evening's entertainment--" sarcasm, that "--wasn't over yet."

Does that count as being injured? It was just a concussion, after all, and that's basically nothing. He's surely fought with concussions before. He's probably fought when he's had all sorts of near-fatal maladies, that's just what witchers do. Worrying about something like that is like... fussing over scraped knees or something. Probably.

"I've been injured worse. A little concussion never killed anybody," he says with the confidence of a man who, up until very recently, had superhuman healing abilities. "And I doubt he could've thrown hard enough to damage the journal, either."

[vrdantwind]

"I'm almost positive that's not true," Claude says dryly, "although I guess for witchers it might be different. Even then, though...well, I'm just surprised his mini tantrum managed to overpower his worry, even briefly. And if it didn't, and throwing the book was just an empty gesture because he never even tried to hit you, then why bother throwing it...?"

He shakes his head. "Honestly, the more distance I have from Jaskier, the more I realize I never actually understood anything about him. Not even because I wasn't trying, but because I'm not sure he understands himself, so probably no one else stands a chance either."

Considering Claude's evolving feelings about Jaskier - none of them good - this is the mildest of grumbling. But he's sensitive to who he's speaking to: someone who loves Jaskier, for all his foibles. Claude wouldn't offend Geralt by harshly criticizing his lover to his face; more than that, Claude has never lied about wanting them to be happy together, and he won't do anything to harm or cast doubt on their relationship. So the complaints Claude is offering are, he thinks, not just restrained, but probably quite relatable to Geralt - the sort of eye-rolling even a lover might do. Felix has certainly talked about Claude like this...possibly even more critically.

Any deeper bitterness Claude has...that's for other times, and other ears.

"Anyway, you don't have to throw any kind of book hard to damage it. All it has to do is fall in a way that crumples or crushes the pages." Claude waves a hand. "I'd hate to think of that happening to your sketches. And I think Jaskier and I should have at least that in common, so I wonder what he was thinking." More specifically, Claude wonders if he was thinking.