And Howl Your Pain unto the Moon

Part 13 - Not Okay

It took almost a week of traveling and about the hundredth time of Jaskier avoiding his touch, for Geralt to admit, that it wasn't okay. To tell the truth, it was really fucking bad.

After leaving Yennefer's safe house in the northern Aedirn, they departed for the journey to Murivel, where they were supposed to meet Eskel. Why? Because the witcher was supposed to have traveled to Olviny to retrieve Jaskier's lute, while they were looking for the witch. Geralt thought, that after freeing Jaskier from the fear of killing someone because of the curse, the bard would be happy, but instead, after they left the witch, everything seemed to change almost drastically.

Things seemed to be normal at first, they just walked, Jaskier humming ahead, after that switching to the flute. There were always days when Jaskier preferred to just play while walking. Usually because he was planning his next travels in his head, or because he was composing and wanted to surprise Geralt with the words. This wasn't like it. In the evening, Jaskier sat on the opposite side of the fire, not next to Geralt, and when they went to sleep, there was an uncomfortable gap between their bodies. Geralt just moved a bit so that he would fill the space, and they slept. But. It wasn't stopping.

At first, Geralt blamed it on the emotional upheaval of the last few days. After all, going to Yennefer's and finally dealing with the curse was bound to be emotionally difficult to work through, even Geralt could understand that. The bard never particularly liked the witch and usually didn't trust her as far as he could throw her, which was not very much.

But then it didn't get better. Jaskier started talking again, he always would, but he got distracted even easier than ever before and it was so hard for Geralt to follow his line of thought, that he just ended up tuning the bard out completely, so he wouldn't go crazy. He did play the flute, sometimes, but somewhere in the process, the lively walking tunes were exchanged for more and more melancholic pieces. The witcher didn't even know half of them, he never heard the bard perform that stuff, and it made him wonder.

But the worst was the touch. The precious touch Geralt got so used to over the winter was suddenly and completely taken away from him. Whether they stopped for lunch or made camp, or just casually passed each other by, where before they would lean into each other or just casually pat each other on the shoulder, or just brush their fingers together when handing something to the other, all of that didn't happen anymore and Geralt was going crazy.

He was supposed to be touching the bard more now, especially with the full moon coming. He wanted to minimize the pain the bard would feel, and this was an easy way to do it. It wasn't just his selfish wants not being met, not just the horrible itch under his skin when Jaskier avoided his hand or leaned away when he tried to come close. But he didn't know how to voice all of that without lashing out like a hurt animal, because deep inside him, the worst kind of thoughts were brewing already.

It all became too much exactly the ninth day after they left Yennefer, with exactly one night left till the full moon. They spent the evening in uncomfortable silence, eating their dinner each at the other side of the fire. Then, when Geralt sat down onto his bedroll, ready for another night with that uncomfortable gap he didn't even try to breach anymore between them, Jaskier stood up, took his bedroll, and moved it away.

"What are you doing?" he barked at the bard, unable to control his tone or volume because of the horrible panic that filled him at that moment. Please, don't take this away too.

"I'm moving my bedroll away, I don't like your snoring," the bard's back was towards him as he continued arranging the bedroll, and Geralt stood up. He was very sure he didn't snore. No witcher did unless their nose healed very wrong after breaking. He saw the bard freeze in motion when he realized his lie was caught, but Geralt was hurt. And when he was hurting, he tended to lash out.