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The muzzle digs rather uncomfortably into Jaskier’s jawline. It’s begun to ache, but it’s not like he can politely ask them to take it off. He doesn’t see the necessity for the muzzle, anyways, given that his lips were quite literally sewn together the moment he arrived in the laboratory.
Jaskier has a history with laboratories that he isn’t particularly fond of. He grew up in one, with white coats and fluorescent lights and needles and surgical tools. A human experiment, they called him, both the scientists that raised him and the rest of the world when he escaped. He was fifteen, then, socialized only with the other experiments, didn’t know how to navigate through the world.
The other experiments were called Geralt and Yennefer. Well, they were called Witcher and Chaos. They chose their own names, that they called each other in secret. Geralt was eighteen when they escaped, Yennefer seventeen. They kept each other sane, in the lab, were each other’s entire world. When the commotion died down, after the court trials and the attempts to reintegrate them into society, Geralt took off. Told them it was nothing personal, he just couldn’t bear reminders of what they’d been through.
Yennefer stuck with Jaskier until she turned eighteen. They’d been bounced between government officials and psychologists, graduating to foster homes once they’d been determined to be normal. Jaskier held onto Yennefer for dear life, but she left, too, claiming she needed to find herself. Jaskier spent the next two years jumping from place to place, never in a stable home for more than a month at a time. He was a difficult child, the social workers whispered when they thought he wasn’t listening. He’s always listening.
When Yennefer left, Jaskier stopped talking. It was too dangerous. Without Yennefer or Geralt there, he was worried about what he might do. Because while Geralt and Yennefer were perfectly in control of the abilities that the scientists gave them, Jaskier was not. Jaskier wasn’t done being experimented on when they escaped, which meant that his abilities never stopped developing.
Geralt was superhuman, with enhanced athletic abilities and the power to withstand incredible amounts of pain. Yennefer was magic, able to control and morph the world around her. Jaskier didn’t know what he was, but he knew that sometimes when he talked he couldn’t stop talking and bad things happened when he couldn’t stop talking. He’s the one that broke them out, when the scientists forgot to muzzle him one night, and he whispered sweet nothings until the walls caved around them.
Geralt and Yennefer were always able to keep him from going too far. They knew how to shut him up, with strong looks and firm touches that would have him trailing off, quieting down. They’d pet his hair and tell him that they love hearing him speak, but it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous.
He’s dangerous.
Jaskier started talking again when he was twenty, when he thought he could control his gift. He went through college and he learned to love singing, even when his voice cracked from disuse. He carved his own path in the world, and was careful with his words. Then it wasn’t just his words anymore, it was his songs, his humming, any noise that slipped out of his throat or past his lips. He learned to control that, too.
When he was twenty-five, on the ten year anniversary of their escape, Jaskier found out that there were more laboratories.
He thought about contacting Geralt and Yennefer. Not for the first time. It was something he considered a lot when he was younger, but as time went on and he never saw them, never heard from them, he figured they’d realized they were finally rid of him and his curse. He stopped thinking about contacting them. He hoped they were happy, wherever they were in the world, and ultimately that’s what kept him from reaching out.
But he couldn’t sit by and do nothing when he knew that there were other kids suffering like they had. So Jaskier had put his belongings in a storage unit and ended the lease on his apartment and disappeared.
It was easy to disappear when you could talk your way into or out of any situation. Eventually he met people who he didn’t have to persuade. The Birds spent five years travelling the globe, researching and breaking into labs and freeing other experiments. They started burning buildings before they could even pop up, a race between the scientists and Jaskier’s little group of renegade vigilantes. Most of the Birds weren’t experiments; just Jaskier and Renfri, one of the first kids they freed.
Fifteen years after he escapes from his first laboratory, Jaskier is kidnapped.
They get the jump on him and knock him out. When he wakes up, there’s a woman in a lab coat stitching his lips together. He passes out pretty quickly. The time he wakes up after that, the stitchings are complete and the muzzle is on and he’s being dragged down a hallway and brought to another room.
Which leads him to now. Now, when he’s staring a man he hasn’t seen in fifteen years dead in the eyes. Stregobor was the leader of the group of scientists that was experimenting on them, not that anyone could ever prove it in the trials. Stregobor is the one that gave Jaskier his gift, and Stregobor is the one Jaskier has been trying to find and kill since he found out the man was still working.
“Dandelion,” Stregobor says, fondly, warmly, like this is a pleasant reunion and Jaskier isn’t being forced to his knees. Someone grabs his hair and jerks his head back so he’s looking up. He feels like he’s fifteen again. He feels like they’ve made a pretty big mistake, because he can’t speak or sing or scream but he can still hum.
He’ll save that trick for later, though.
“It’s been a long time,” Stregobor continues. He traces a hand down Jaskier’s face, slips his fingers under the muzzle. “You’ve grown up.” His fingers dig into Jaskier’s chin. “I’m sure you understand our… precautions. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
Jaskier rolls his eyes.
“Now, Dandelion,” Stregobor says. “We can’t have disobedience. You remember what disobedience leads to.”
He does remember. He remembers mouthing off and Geralt getting hit. He remembers trying to run and Yennefer taking the punishment. He remembers every time he did anything wrong, and one of the others would be hurt in response. And he did things wrong a lot. No wonder Geralt and Yennefer never wanted to see him again.
But Geralt and Yennefer aren’t here. God, he hopes Geralt and Yennefer aren’t here, they can’t be here, they can’t. Stregobor must see the panic in his eyes, because even if Geralt and Yennefer hurt him, Jaskier still loves them. More than anything, more than life. The scientist in front of him laughs.
“Oh, if only they were here,” he says, and he crouches down so he’s at Jaskier’s level. “No, it’s just you. You, and my other favorite experiment.” He stands up and holds out a hand, and another man steps forward. He’s not dressed like the other scientists, instead wearing a nice suit, his hair pulled back. “Rience,” Stregobor says, “has the gift of fire. An attempt to replicate Chaos that didn’t quite work as intended. But it still worked beautifully.”
Stregobor pauses. “Chaos,” he says, then he shakes his head. “I hear she’s called Yennefer, now. But she will always be Chaos, and you will always be Dandelion. There is no escape, you must know that by now.”
They haul Jaskier into a chair and strap his wrists and ankles down. He glares at Stregobor the whole time.
“Have fun,” Stregobor says to Rience, giving Jaskier a dismissive look as he and the rest of the scientists leave the room. Rience steps forward. Jaskier wants to talk, to reason with him. Rience takes the muzzle off gently, smiling at Jaskier.
“You won’t need this,” he says, and he tosses it to the side. “I’m told you’re harmless if you can’t speak. I certainly hope so.”
He holds up a finger and it bursts into flames.
“I’m going to enjoy this very much,” he says.
Jaskier learns quickly that Rience is a psychopath. Stregobor isn’t offering him money or freedom or what have you. Rience is his pet through and through. And he’s fucking crazy.
Blood drips from Jaskier’s nose and covers his body when Rience finally leaves the room. The burns aren’t too bad. The bruises and cuts will probably be worse. Jaskier leans his head back and closes his eyes and he’s about to start humming, to start healing his wounds, when he spots the camera in the corner of the room pointed right at him, red light blinking.
He was silent throughout the beating. He’ll stay silent now. He’s not going to show his hand yet, not until he figures out what Stregobor is playing at.
Rience comes back three times over what Jaskier thinks are the next several days. Various scientists set him up with an IV line to get nutrients into his system, since they can’t exactly feed him through his mouth. The woman who sewed Jaskier’s mouth shut yells at Rience when he cuts open the spot that they normally put the IV. Rience looks like he’s about to kill her, fire in his eyes. Jaskier almost wants to see it happen.
It doesn’t, though. Jaskier is incredibly bored. He almost starts humming just to entertain himself. He hopes the rest of the Birds are okay. He hopes Renfri is okay, Renfri who knows Stregobor just like Jaskier does. He works at the straps on his wrists and manages to get one undone without a hint of magic. He doubts anyone other than the Birds knows he’s missing. He’s been off the grid for a long time.
He’s startled out of sleep by what sounds like an explosion. Alarms are blaring and many people are screaming and Stregobor is striding into the room with fury on his face, flanked by armed guards. He puts his hands on the arms of Jaskier’s chair and gets right up in his face.
“How the fuck did they find you?” Stregobor asks, and Jaskier makes a confused noise in the back of his throat. He pours his intent behind it, and the four armed guards point their guns at each other. Stregobor doesn’t notice. “Answer me!” He shakes the chair a little. Jaskier snickers, and then he laughs, and he can’t open his mouth but it’s enough that the four guards each shoot another in the face.
Stregobor whirls around, then back to Jaskier, horrified. Jaskier keeps laughing, and his restraints come undone, and he stands up. He stretches his sore limbs, and every part of him aches, covered in blood and burns and bruises. He swings his arms around a few times. Rience left a blade on the table in the room. A scalpel. Jaskier picks it up and twirls it between his fingers. Stregobor doesn’t move. Not that he could, when Jaskier’s laughs have morphed into a single, solid note humming in his throat.
Jaskier walks right up to Stregobor. Holds up the scalpel. Traces Stregobor’s lips with it, and then cuts across the stitches holding his own lips together. The strings stay in as he opens his mouth, blood coating his teeth. He spits a wad of it in Stregobor’s face.
“You should have cut my vocal cords,” Jaskier says with mock pity. “A mistake you won’t make again, I’m sure.”
Stregobor, no longer frozen, tries to run. Jaskier whistles and his lips burn, but the scientist freezes.
“You remember what disobedience leads to,” Jaskier whispers from behind, right in Stregobor’s ear. He thinks of electrocution and waterboarding and screaming, screaming, screaming, and thinks that any death would be too kind to Stregobor. He wants it to be drawn out. He wants it to hurt. But there’s another explosion from somewhere closer, this time, and he sighs. Puts a hand on Stregobor’s shoulder.
“It would be so nice to kill you slowly,” he says, and Stregobor’s hands fly to his throat as he chokes. “Maybe crush every one of your bones.” His left hand snaps at the wrist. “Maybe squeeze your heart until it stops.” He drops to his knees. Jaskier stands in front of him. His gaze is on the floor. His face is turning blue. “Look at what you made and weep,” Jaskier says, and Stregobor’s neck is forced back, so he can look Jaskier in the eyes. “You have no mouth and you must scream.”
And Stregobor screams, and screams, and screams, his mouth sealed shut, and Jaskier wants to laugh but he doesn’t. He watches as Stregobor screams until his eyes are bloodshot and Jaskier wants to say so many things, use so many words.
Instead he takes the bloody scalpel and slices through Stregobor’s throat. It’s infinitely more satisfying than killing him with his gift.
Stregobor falls to the side, completely limp, unable to do anything other than gurgle. Jaskier takes a deep breath in, holds for four seconds, and lets it out.
He’s barely able to step into the hallway when something is slamming into him, pressing him against the wall.
“Finally,” Rience says with a mad grin. His hair is loose and he’s covered in blood and he’s got a long knife in his grip. He grabs Jaskier by the collar and turns him around so the knife is to his throat. “Stop moving.” He’s not talking to Jaskier. He’s talking to the two people that are running down the hallway from the direction of the explosions, who skid to a stop.
And Jaskier sees Geralt and Yennefer for the first time in a decade and a half.
They look the same. A little world-worn and weary. Geralt has dark circles under his eyes, which have gone completely pitch black. His hair is a little longer. Yennefer’s is, too. She’s got blood splattered on her clothes. Geralt is holding a sword. Purple magic dances at Yennefer’s fingertips.
“You’re going to leave, or I’m going to kill him,” Rience says to Geralt and Yennefer. Geralt and Yennefer, who are standing in front of Jaskier, who came for Jaskier, who look terrified. Like they can’t fathom the idea of Jaskier dying. Who look furious, like they always did whenever anyone hurt Jaskier when they were younger.
But they still left. They left him, and he needed them, and Jaskier purses his lips and then starts to laugh. Doesn’t put any intention behind it, just laughs. Rience shakes him a little bit. Geralt takes a step forward. Only a step.
“Sorry,” Jaskier says. “Sorry. It’s just–” He cuts himself off with another snort of laughter.
“What?” Rience demands, and that’s when he realizes Jaskier’s mouth is no longer stitched shut.
“Drop the knife,” Jaskier says, going very serious. Rience drops the knife. Jaskier steps away and turns around, turns his back on Geralt and Yennefer and looks Rience dead in the eyes. Like with Stregobor, there are so many things he could do to Rience right now. He wonders what the most effective would be.
When he was fifteen he couldn’t control his magic. But that was a long time ago.
“Hmm,” he hums, like he’s deciding what to do, and Rience’s entire body bends backward. Not quite enough to break his back. That would be too easy. “Do you think you deserve a quick death?”
“No,” Rience says, the word forced out of his mouth. Jaskier circles around so he can crouch down and look Rience in the eyes. Upside down, Rience is panting, horrified. Geralt and Yennefer have both taken a few steps forward.
“No,” Jaskier agrees. “You don’t. No one here does. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to burn.”
He whistles, the sound low, and Rience’s fingers catch on fire.
“Can you burn?” Jaskier asks, more to himself than anything else. If Jaskier says it, it will happen. He hasn’t felt this powerful in a long time. He whistles again, like he’s calling for a dog, and the fire spreads up Rience’s arms. Rience starts to scream. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he says, and the flames go out. Rience drops to the ground, panting, his arms covered in melting flesh.
“Jaskier,” Geralt says. Like he would if he were trying to get Jaskier to control himself, when they were kids. But Jaskier doesn’t need someone else to help control him anymore. He doesn’t take his eyes off Rience.
“How many kids have you tortured?” Jaskier asks.
“I’ve lost count,” Rience chokes. Jaskier hums again, and Rience’s arm snaps. He howls in pain.
“And you enjoyed it?”
“Yes.”
Jaskier hums again. Rience’s other arm snaps. Yennefer and Geralt look horrified, and Jaskier doesn’t know if it’s because of Rience or because of him.
They left him, he thinks. They left him when he needed them. But he made his peace with that a long time ago, and they’re here now, even if he doesn’t need them to be. That has to count for something. And Jaskier has always been a forgiving man when it comes to those he loves.
He is not forgiving with anyone who had a hand in what Stregobor was doing, however. So he stands up and takes a step back and says, “You are nothing,” and Rience’s heart stops beating and his body stops twitching and Jaskier takes a deep breath.
“Jaskier,” Yennefer says, like a question. She’s taken another few steps forward. She looks lost. So does Geralt behind her. “I’m so sorry.”
Jaskier… isn’t sure what to say to that. He’s not sure what she’s apologizing for. He’s sure he makes quite a sight, covered in blood and injuries, the string still stuck in his lips. He gives a sort of half-shrug. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.
When he turns and walks away, neither of them follow him.
He discovers quickly that he’s in a remote spot in Canada. They took him from France. It’s fairly easy to steal a car and watch the building blow up behind him as he drives to the Canadian safehouse they keep. It’s a ten hour trip and he’s still covered in blood and he hasn’t taken the stitches out of his mouth yet because he thinks if he does, he might start to cry.
He lets himself in. Renfri is waiting, a few of the other Birds behind her, and she barely takes him in before she launches herself at him.
“Thank God,” she says.
“Stregobor’s dead,” Jaskier replies. There are a few cheers, whoops of joy. Renfri pulls back to look at him.
“Did you get yourself out?” she asks, reaching up to trace his lips. He hisses in pain, and she pulls her hand back.
“Of course I did,” he says.
“I found your friends,” Renfri says quietly. The other Birds are moving around the house, now, making preparations to leave. They all stop to hug Jaskier or pat him on the back as he continues talking to Renfri. “They weren’t hard to find.”
“For you, maybe,” Jaskier says, because Renfri is good at finding things.
“Did they get to you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yes.”
Essi, one of their youngest, holds Jaskier for three minutes. Renfri waits until she’s gone.
“Did you talk to them?”
“What would I say?”
She gives him a sympathetic look. Before either of them can say anything else, there’s a knock on the door.
“Were you followed?” someone asks. Renfri gives him a look.
“Everyone upstairs!” she calls, and God bless Renfri as the Birds listen without hesitation. Jaskier goes to open the door. Yennefer and Geralt are standing on the other side, because who else would it be?
“I shouldn’t have left you,” Yennefer blurts out immediately. “Or I should have come back. I’m so sorry, Jaskier.”
“Me too,” Geralt says, and he sounds absolutely destroyed. Jaskier sniffs, once.
“Alright, then,” he says, and Yennefer takes that as permission to dive forward into his arms. Jaskier hugs her tightly, buries his face in her hair. She smells a little bit like chaos and blood. Geralt is there when she pulls back, tugging Jaskier into his grasp, holding him for even longer than Yennefer did.
“Your friend found us,” Geralt says.
“I’ve been trying to keep track of you,” Yennefer adds, as Jaskier goes to the living room. They follow him after closing and locking the door. “But you’re slippery.”
“I know,” Jaskier says, rolling his eyes. He pauses in front of the hallway mirror and pokes at his lips, which are starting to swell a bit.
“Did they stitch your mouth shut?” Geralt asks, and he sounds like he wants to go back and kill everyone all over again.
“Yeah,” Jaskier says, and he reaches up to start pulling out the threads of string. Yennefer makes a pained noise and grabs him, wrestles him into a chair and digs around the bathroom until she finds a pair of tweezers. She murmurs something under her breath and one of the plants on the windowsill withers and Jaskier doesn’t feel it as she pulls out the strings.
“Where else are you hurt?” Geralt asks as Yennefer disposes of the bloody threads.
“Everywhere,” Jaskier laughs. He’s still covered in blood and everything hurts. “Not for long, though. Do you have a phone?”
“What?” Geralt asks.
“No, he doesn’t,” Yennefer calls. “Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“It’s fine,” Jaskier says, and he starts to sing. A gentle song, one from a long time ago. He uses it to heal the child experiments they find in the labs they destroy, something comforting. Geralt and Yennefer are both staring at him with awe as his wounds slowly heal. They leave scars and dried blood, and the bruises don’t fade completely, but by the time Jaskier’s sung the song four times he’s feeling much better.
“Jaskier,” Yennefer says quietly.
“How powerful are you?” Geralt asks bluntly.
“I don’t know,” Jaskier admits truthfully. He pulls off his soiled shirt and Geralt looks away. “I’m going to take a shower. You’re welcome to make yourselves at home. The other Birds should leave you alone.”
They’re both still there when he gets out of the shower thirty minutes later, sitting on opposite ends of the couch in silence.
“The rest of your… Birds… left,” Geralt informs him. “Renfri said she would check in soon.”
“She winked,” Yennefer adds. Jaskier ruffles his wet hair and nods. He’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt and he’s feeling like perhaps everything might be okay.
“You both hurt me,” he says before he sits down, still half in the doorway. “Terribly. I needed you, and you left me. And I know that it’s what you needed, so I was never really angry. But for a long time I felt like a burden, and after you left, Yen, I didn’t talk for four years because I was so scared of myself, and–”
He can feel himself getting worked up, so he takes a deep breath.
“I have loved you for a very long time,” he says. “So if you’re going to leave again, I need you to do it now, before I get my hopes up.”
“I’m not going to leave again,” Yennefer says. “I’ve– I’ve wanted to reach out so many times. I was too scared, and I’m sorry, and I love you.” She says it quickly, firmly, straight from her heart. Jaskier almost smiles, but turns to Geralt before he lets himself. Geralt nods, once.
“I shouldn’t have left,” he says when Jaskier keeps staring at him. Jaskier figures that’s as close to an apology as he’s going to get out of Geralt. “I missed your voice.”
And that, Jaskier thinks, is as close to an I love you as he’s going to get out of Geralt. He lets himself smile and plops himself down on the couch in between the two of them, then swings his feet into Geralt’s lap and lets his head fall into Yennefer’s.
“Thank God,” he says. Then, “I’m dangerous, you know.”
“We know,” Yennefer says, and she runs a hand through his hair and scratches his scalp. Geralt rests a hand on Jaskier’s ankle. “It’s never bothered us.”
“It’s going to take a while to get back to each other,” Jaskier adds.
“Then we’ll do the work,” Geralt says, squeezing his ankle lightly. Jaskier closes his eyes and grins, settles down further into their hold. He lets the weight of Geralt’s hand on his ankle and Yennefer’s fingers carding through his hair and the sound of them talking quietly lull him to sleep, and when he wakes up, they haven’t left.