Chapter Text
Years went by in the blink of an eye and never once Jaskier had thought of the intricate matter concerning his boundless youth.
At first, he believed himself blessed by the genetic pool on his father’s side, a man who hadn’t shown a single grey hair until the late age of fifty, but once Jaskier edged the scheduled period himself, and not a sight of a silver thread was visible upon his head, he thought it was perhaps time to stop feigning concern.
He consulted with witches, masters of the dark arts, and even elves who might perhaps recognize in him the forgotten heir of one of their promiscuous ancestors, to no avail.
They all agreed that his condition was one of the utmost peculiar kind, that surely no human alive is able of withholding their youth to such an extent, to not have a single wrinkle add to his vivid features since the age of eighteen. It must only be the work of the dark arts. Magic.
What sort of magic that might be, Jaskier was exhaustedly clueless.
During those very years, Jaskier had come upon Geralt quite regularly in his travels. They drank and dined, parted and reunited but never once did Jaskier mention the matter laying at the core of his worry for fear of uncovering a truth neither of them could live with.
Magic was not a matter taken with a grain of salt, Yennefer was a grand example of such. He thought if the truth unveils something dark and twisted, he would not be able to look the Witcher in the eye without seeing the shadow of a hunter staring back at him. He feared, deeply, that their friendship would not survive the truth, whatever it was.
Perhaps Jaskier was also afraid of facing himself. Afraid of looking upon a mirror and viewing not a man but a horrid creature meant to torment the world instead of healing it, afraid that he would turn out to be the exact opposite of what he devoted his life to become. Not a bard, not a romantic, not a lover. Just another beast.
But see, there were two things Jaskier was wrong about.
The first was that regardless of how little he spoke of his past, of his present or future, Geralt could see right through his worries and lament. The second matter was of a more delicate nature. Jaskier never knew who he was until the day he experienced it, and what he was, was nothing dark, corrupt, or twisted.
What he was, was a thing of utmost beauty.
It happened on a stormy winter day. He and Geralt trotted hurriedly through the mud seeking shelter from the drenching rain. They were caught amidst a downpour and Jaskier has been feeling ill for days prior to that day.
Feverish and dazed, he was laid down on the cave's dry stony ground and inspected for injuries. Geralt had gone out of his way to fetch the necessary ingredients for a potion and made him drink it before bed, promising that it would ease his discomfort.
“Am I dying?” he helplessly asked him.
“Rest,” came his friend’s answer.
And he did as told and rested until dawn. Nevertheless, his sleep was interrupted by a series of distressing nightmares, distorted and strange in their content, and which in his wake, left a pungent taste of ash at the tip of his tongue.
The morn came and his conditioned worsened. The fever which had subdued at night flared across his body with twice as much intensity, and he felt a lump in his throat akin to swallowed dust, massive and unwavering, no matter the amount of liquid he consumed.
His sole source of water was soon drained, and he waited for Geralt’s return with violent impatience. The Witcher eventually came back, drenched from the mild rain pouring endlessly outside, and bearing on his shoulder a bulky deer he heaved by the fire.
“You’re awake,” he stated with awoken interest, seeking to lay a hand upon the skin of the bard's cheek to examine his temperature. “You’re still burning. A cold.”
“No,” came the feeble voice of the other. “I recognize a cold. This is something else."
“How do you feel?”
“Horribly thirsty,” he expressed, running his palm over his burning forehead in worry. “As if I haven’t drunk in days. The burning is from within. The fever is not merely physical. I can feel it feeding off of my soul, eating at me from the inside. As if… As if I have a burning flame resting at the very pit of my stomach.”
Jaskier pushed himself upward with great difficulty, to which Geralt was objecting at first, then eventually allowed, taking the opportunity to concoct another potion for him to swallow.
“Do you think I contracted a disease of some sort?”
“It could be,” said Geralt. “Common in the wilderness. Drink this.”
“This again?” lamented the bard, accepting the vial of liquid nonetheless, and inspecting it with wary eyes. “What is it anyway? It tastes like piss. Even smells like it.”
“You don’t want to know,” hummed Geralt nonchalantly, then turned to tend to the skinning of his fresh hunt. “Drink it and rest. I’ll fetch more water and wake you up when the food is ready.”
The conversation had drained him immensely, and after gulping the piss-tasting potion he trusted Geralt did not make out of the water of a swamp, Jaskier fell into a peaceful slumber.
Until the heat torched his insides ablaze. The rain and sweat-drenched clothing clang to his body. He twisted and turned in his sleep and experienced for the first time since this disease befell him pain so sharp it tore achingly at his back. The sting was akin to a beast’s claws digging into the depth of his skin, itching and scratching and eager to tear him open.
His nightmares grew more twisted and grim, also, and in them, he felt a ravenous thirst for freedom undone. The kind experienced by a bird who, although longing for air, for the sky and all that is beyond, is left endlessly bound to a cage.
Jaskier woke up feeling a desperate need to break free.
A gentle hand came resting on his shoulder, tenderly reassuring him of his state. Geralt had gone out of his way to prepare dinner, replenish his water flask, and tend to his sweat-drenched skin.
“Feeling worse?” He guessed acutely, golden hues comfortably resting on his.
Jaskier parted his lips to answer but words failed to escape the lump in his throat, now far more swollen and massive. He was discouraged of further attempts and was handed water to appease, if not shortly, his dehydrated core.
“You’re sweating plenty,” continued Geralt in a monotonousness that reflected his innate worry. “I’ll need to turn you to your side to reach your back. You think you can handle the motion?”
Jaskier nodded vaguely, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion. Then, with two strong yet steady hands, one gripping his arm the other his lower back, he was turned to his side with minimum hardship, and his damp shirt was pulled off him, at last.
There was a moment of silence stretching afterward, in which Jaskier expected Geralt’s towel-wielding hand to dab at his back gently, but instead, and to his greatest agony, the Witcher’s fingertips came in direct contact with a part of him he could hardly recognize as his own.
He cried loudly and painfully after that, and even after Geralt’s hand was long gone, he could not appease the piercing twinge that shot at him with recurrent intensity.
“It hurts!” he growled, crying. “It hurts, oh gods, it fucking hurts!”
“Jaskier!”
Geralt was stunned, speechless. He stood behind, away from sight, and waited until Jaskier’s howling turned into a series of quiet sobs.
“Jaskier,” he demanded, the warmth of his body nearing his back. “Are you okay?”
A faint whimper broke out of him.
“What is wrong with me?” he lamented, tears streaming down to his chin, his back aching and burning as if it had been set aflame. “What is happening to me?”
There was hesitance coating Geralt’s next words, failing to find the right thing to say.
“Your back,” he spoke at last. “It looks… Different.”
“Don’t touch it!” cried the bard, “I beg of you, Geralt. Don’t touch it. It hurts, it fucking hurts. Like someone is skewing a spear onto my backbone. I’m in agony!”
“If I don’t examine it, I wouldn’t know what it is,” came the inevitable answer. “I’ll be gentle.”
And the bard fell silent after that, as if adhering, against his will, to the statement.
And when Geralt’s hand came touching him again, Jaskier braced himself for the shooting pain that drilled at him with excruciating intensity, setting his body and mind aflame, and in his suffering, Jaskier’s mind went blank, and he was revisited by the caged bird from his dreams.
Except that this time, the bird had broken free.
TBC