And Howl Your Pain unto the Moon

Part 7 - Human

He was woken up by a horrendous amount of pain. He was burning. Burning alive, from within, from the outside. The fever was horrible as if someone held him over flames while pouring liquid fire down his throat. And his bones. His bones were breaking, changing, stretching, his muscles and tendons tearing, as he screamed his throat out. He couldn't see or hear from the pain. He thrashed around, trying to escape it, until he couldn't move anymore, still screaming, only now it was silent, because his voice broke.

And suddenly it stopped. He was lying there, chest heaving, everything sore and painful, awareness slowly returning to him as he felt cold air brush over his sweaty skin, and he shivered. There were hands holding him. Multiple pairs of them gently cradled his limbs and his head, laying him down on a soft mattress before tucking a blanket over his body.

"...kier. Jaskier. Jaskier, can you hear us?" there was a voice calling to him and he slowly opened his eyes to find his vision blurry. It took a while of blinking to be able to see with only the moonlight streaming in through the window, by then he slowly realized where he was. Kaer Morhen. His room. His den. The witchers were all around him, Geralt's eyes wide, his hands hovering just as uselessly as the first time Jaskier woke up from a nightmare almost two decades ago. But this wasn't a nightmare, was it?

"Fuck." He used his own vocal cords for speech for the first time in weeks and soon regretted it when the sharp pain in his throat reminded him of the screaming. He was back.

...

He didn't fall asleep again that night. None of them did. Vesemir wanted to check him over to make sure no permanent damage was done, so Jaskier, still bundled into a thick blanket, as he didn't have any of his own clothing, followed him down into the infirmary, holding onto Geralt for dear life as he slowly got used to his center of gravity changing once again.

Aside from the lingering pain of his body changing so drastically, he was okay. After Coen, whose build was the closest to the bard's, brought him a change of clothes consisting of a nice blue tunic and comfortable grey pants, even including a pair of old boots, he could say he felt like a human once again.

And so, the morning light found him sitting on the battlements, huddled into said blanket, surprisingly not shivering from the cold. He stared at the mountains and valleys, at the snow-covered wild all around, uncaring about the snowflakes covering his hair. There was a nervous pit in his stomach that refused to let go.

He was human. For now.

The full moon would come in two days, with only one night left. Was the curse broken? Was the strange pack bond he had somehow formed with the witchers strong enough to do that? As much as he advocated that witchers were human, feeling just like everyone else, bleeding red like everyone else, he was still aware that, while amazing people, they weren't truly considered human by most, very likely including the mage that cursed him. Oh, he wished he could just tear their throat out and be done with it... Fuck.

He closed his eyes but quickly opened them again as a vision of piercing red gaze watched him from the dark behind his eyelids. There were deliberately loud steps coming up his way and he turned to see Geralt walking closer, the pinkish light of the rising sun painting his hair rose gold and making his eyes shine.

"Hello there, handsome," the greeting left him almost automatically, and he could see the corner of the witcher's mouth pull upwards.

"Jaskier," the deep, growl-like voice caressed his soul with its familiarity, and he smiled, even if his eyes stayed sad.

"What brings you here, out into the cold, so early?" he tried to put the usual amount of cheer into his voice, even though it did sound a bit false to everyone's ears.