Somewhat Clear

deerna
somewhatclear

Rating: safe
Fandom: The Witcher
Relationship: Geralt/Jaskier
Tags: Pre-Slash, Canon-Typical Violence, Missing Scene, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Bathing/Washing, Scars, Massage, Hair Washing
Wordcount: 4585
Notes: //

Summary:
Geralt comes to Oxenfurt to sell scrap metal, and stays to see Jaskier perform. He doesn't get to leave. Not yet.

Excerpt:

When he and Jaskier travelled together, they washed themselves in freezing cold streams in the middle of the woods, as quickly as they could; having your teeth chatter from the cold wasn’t conductive to conversation, deep or otherwise. There was no room for any kind of vulnerability, for intimacy but here—

He makes himself close his eyes. “Fine,” he grunts, finally.

Chapter 1 { AO3 | DW}

Chapter 2 { AO3 | DW }

One drink turns into three. After that, as the night grows darker and the blizzard inches closer, Geralt stops counting, so he doesn’t feel too bad about lying to himself.

The tavern is too warm, the voices around them are too loud, but the edges of his awareness are starting to dull and melt in the mellow mead; they burn liquid on his tongue and in Jaskier’s slurred laughter, like potions dissolving in his blood.

He’s not leaving tonight.

Between one patron coming to compliment him on his singing and an admirer wishing him good luck for his blooming career, the bard tells him about his adventures and his wandering. Geralt just listens and watches on, as Jaskier’s tales wash over him, inflated and bright like soap bubbles. He keeps drinking, and he smiles.

It’s well past midnight when Stjepan cuts them off and starts shooing people out of the tavern and to their rooms. Jaskier’s farewells have a garbled quality to them when they finally get up from their seats, but when he turns to Geralt his crystal clear eyes are alert and lucid. He’s not more intoxicated than Geralt is.

So, one drink turns into one night.

He lets Jaskier pull him by the arm all the way to his quarters, making a show of dragging his feet; Geralt’s heart isn’t in it, for once too tired and too human to refuse the simple comfort of a warm place to rest. But even as a wordless song of triumph rises from Jaskier’s chest, Geralt is too paranoid and too witcher not to know that he isn’t going to sleep tonight.

As promised, the lodgings are spacious and comfortable, with a lit fireplace taking up most of the wall and a large bed pushed up against the other, the glint of a copper tub in the corner, a desk covered in strips of parchment. Furs and carpets and blankets are artfully strewn all over the place. Geralt hesitates on the threshold of such luxury, albeit small; Jaskier waltzes right in, at home in his silk outfit, his grandiose hand gestures, the Elven king’s lute hanging off his back like a prize.

“So, what do you think? Spending the night with a roof over your head for once! Not that I didn’t appreciate sleeping in the woods with you — cradled by the moon, sheltered by the night, very poetic — but this is nice too, isn’t it?”

“Hm.” It is novel, for sure. In the six month they spent together on the road, they never stopped at the inn, if not for a quick meal.

The witchers of old made their camp out of town, slept or meditated with their backs to the fire, their steel and silver weapons under hand. Ready for the fight. Ready to kill. Away from the eyes of men, more chaos than people.

Nobody really followed the old rules anymore, but the nights that Geralt spent inside were still far and in between, often with very specific needs in mind. He had to make every and each coin count; he didn’t have money to spare for pleasure when he could barely afford ingredients for his potions.

He has no reason not to indulge, tonight. His gut still feels heavy with steel.

“Come on, get comfortable! Should I call a bath for you? I had one yesterday before going to bed and it really hit the spot, I slept like a baby. At least put that down, would you?” Jaskier huffs, gesturing at Geralt’s pack.

Geralt’s hand instinctively tightens around the straps of the bag, the swords jangling against each other for a moment, then he relaxes. It’s Jaskier. The bard knows better than to try and take his gear from him.

“It’s fine,” he grunts, and drops the pack next to the desk, feeling strangely off balance empty-handed. He’s probably more tired than he thought, even with the liquor’s influence finally wearing off. “It’s late. We can just sleep.”

Jaskier clears his voice. “Actually, here’s the thing. Now that we’re away from the stench of ah, humanity, I can smell you pretty well—and I would love making a bawdy joke about that in any other circumstance, but it’s really not a good smell. Is that corpse, Geralt? Why do you smell like literal death?”

Geralt frowns and sniffs at his shirt. Ah.

“Rooting around necrophages’ nests would do that.” He shrugs. Even with his sensitive nose, he just stopped paying attention to the scent after a while. “You get used to it.”

“Right.” Jaskier pinches his nose between two fingers and sighs. He takes a moment to get the lute off his shoulders and lay it down on the bed, its neck against one of the pillows like one would with a precious lover, and he makes his way past the door. “Don’t move.”

He’s out and back before Geralt can tell him anything, half a dozen bleary eyed servants carrying several jugs of steaming water in tow. Geralt pretends to check something in his almost empty pack so he doesn’t have to look as they work to drag the tub next to the fireplace and fill it.

“I could’ve waited until morning, there was no need to bother anyone,” he mutters to Jaskier, when they have left.

“Oh, I’m sure you could have. I’m not so sure about myself.” The bard gives him a pointed look, and starts picking at the lacing on his doublet.

As he fiddles with the tiny buttons, the light from the fireplace catches on the shimmery silk; he finally manages to unclasp them, revealing a pale gold undershirt underneath. “What are you waiting for? Take off your clothes and get in there, before it cools down.”

Geralt clenches his jaw and turns to the tub, shedding his armor as he goes. The studded leather makes a weird, padded noise as it drops against the plush carpet that covers the floor; he hesitates before stripping his boots, shirt, pants off.

Is Jaskier watching him?

Feeling on edge, fighting the urge to expand his senses to track Jaskier’s movements behind him, he takes a deep breath, shoves the rest of his clothes out of the way and climbs in the bath.

The warmth of the water is an immediate relief to his fatigued body; a sigh escapes his lips as he perceives the tension start leaving his muscles. He’s definitely more tired than he thought; it would be so easy to just curl up, close his eyes and let go. He needs to meditate, to center himself.

“Well, that almost looked like a relaxed expression.”

Geralt doesn’t startle, because a witcher’s control over their reactions is better than that; he opens his eyes, and finds Jaskier half-standing, half-sitting against the edge of the tub, arms crossed over his chest and a gentle but smug smile on his face.

“Feeling better yet?”

A grunt as an answer. Geralt gathers some water in his hands and splashes his face with it, more to wake himself up than with any intent to wash. A bar of soap appears in his field of vision, way too close for comfort, but Geralt still takes it, wrinkling his nose at the sudden, herbal smell. It lathers quicker than he’s used to, but the scent has some familiar notes in it: mint and lavender and olive oil.

“It sort of smells like that salve of yours, doesn’t it? I immediately thought of you when I smelled it,” Jaskier comments, rolling the sleeves of his undershirt to his elbows, revealing surprisingly well-toned forearms. “Anyway, how long were you planning on staying?”

“I wasn’t,” Geralt grumbles, giving the soap back.

“You know what I mean.” Jaskier waves him off. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing in Oxenfurt. It’s definitely not your scene, and I thought you’d be on your way to Kaer Morhen by now. Isn't winter a witcher’s off season or something?”

“Or something,” Geralt mutters noncommittally, rubbing between his toes, up his calves, behind his knees.

It had been a bad season; too few contracts, too meager rewards, too much wasted time and resources. He wandered in the autumn rotting warmth until winter came nipping at Roach’s hocks, and then it was too late to get on the road. Not without potions or food or coin. Vesemir and the guys would understand, but he never likes showing up empty-handed.

A movement in the corner of Geralt’s eyes, reaching behind his back. “Don’t touch me,” he snaps, hackles up, before Jaskier’s hand can graze him.

“Alright!” Jaskier yelps, immediately displaying both hands. He’s got a copper pitcher full of water in his right grip, and what looks like a very small oil vial in the other. “I was just—”

He doesn’t actually know what Jaskier meant to do, but it doesn’t matter. He reaches up to free his hair from the tangled tie that keeps it out of his eyes, and dunks his head under the water.

When he comes up, Jaskier is staring at him with a concerned frown on his brow, pitcher pulled close against his chest, teeth worrying at the skin of his thumb. From this angle, even with the tremulous light from the fireplace, his eyes look liquid and almost colorless.

“Uhm,” the bard says, hesitates, and doesn’t finish.

Geralt immediately hates it. He doesn’t know how to fix it. He goes back to wash himself, methodically scrubbing every inch of his skin, staring at the water as it grows murky. A faint smell of corpse still clings to his hair; he pushes the wet length of it out of his face, awkwardly wringing the liquid from the drenched strands. He doesn’t know how to fix it and he hates it.

Jaskier clears his voice. “Do you ah, need help with that?”

When Geralt looks up, he’s holding out the vial and the pitcher. “I swear I won’t touch you, I just—you apply the oil and I rinse it out, how about that? No touching. Maybe more soap, first?”

He fetches the same bar as before and Geralt accepts it, a silent nod of thanks, an apology clenched between his teeth. He lathers up again, washes his hair with stiff fingers, keeping an eye on Jaskier, who has a nervous smile on his face.

“Tell me when you’re ready to rinse, okay?”

Geralt nods again, tilts his head so that Jaskier can pour. The water from the pitcher is clean and cool; it washes the suds away and clears Geralt’s mind. He watches Jaskier’s careful expression as he works, his hand hovering along Geralt’s hairline without ever making contact, not a drop going the wrong way.

“What’s the oil for?”

“Oh! It just smells nice. It’s supposed to be relaxing, having your hair smelling nice, and I figured you deserved to relax a little, yeah?” He stops pouring and gets the vial out of his pocket, hands it to him.

Geralt’s gut feels tight. Jaskier is safe. “My hands are wet,” he murmurs, gesturing to his hair. “Go ahead.”

Behind him, Jaskier lets out a breath Geralt didn’t realize he was holding. There’s a faint pop as the vial is uncapped, a brisk rubbing of skin against skin as the oil is warmed between his palms, and then the bard’s fingers are in his hair, gentle and soothing as they dig in Geralt’s scalp, focusing behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. He pulls a little at the strands as he’s spreading it along the length, and it itches a little, but in a pleasant way.

“Is this alright?” Jaskier asks in a low voice, making eye contact.

It feels like a weird question, given the context; Geralt doesn’t know what to say back; he fears that any answer would be too honest.

When he and Jaskier travelled together, they washed themselves in freezing cold streams in the middle of the woods, as quickly as they could; having your teeth chatter from the cold wasn’t conductive to conversation, deep or otherwise. There was no room for any kind of vulnerability, for intimacy but here—

He makes himself close his eyes. “Fine,” he grunts, finally.

Jaskier hums under his breath and keeps rubbing away.

“You have such nice hair and you spend most of your time mucking it up with entrails and blood and Melitele only knows what else,” he muses, gathering it in both hands and pulling it back, like he’s trying to tying it up in a topknot. “Time to rinse, again. Tilt your head back for me?”

Geralt obeys, following Jaskier’s touch easily. His hair feels weirdly slick and soft against his skin, but the smell of corpse is gone, banished to the water.

Jaskier runs his fingers through it one last time and gives a satisfied hum that resonates all the way down Geralt’s spine.

“Come now, let’s get you out of there or you’ll turn into a prune and you’ll start reeking again—of dirty bath water this time. That would be defeating the purpose of getting you to bathe in the first place, wouldn’t it?”

Geralt nods and pulls himself on his feet, the cooling water sluicing down his body making him shiver just so. He accepts the towel that Jaskier hands him and dries himself off, giving a quick rub to his hair before wrapping it around his hips.

He ignores the mess of puddles he makes on the carpet as he steps out of the tub, but he can’t overlook the pieces of armor still strewn over the floor, dirty and neglected. He gathers them and wipes them down quickly with a rag, paying no mind to the gashes and the worn-out scuffs, before going through his pack, looking for the grease he uses to keep the leather strong and supple.

The jar is empty.

Fuck. A clean shirt and pants are about the only things left in his bag, besides the small chest full of barren vials, the crowns he got from the blacksmith, a few treats for Roach and the salve for his scars.

His fingers hesitate on the salve’s jar. He picks it up, unscrews the top and crinkles his nose at the smell of mint, lavender, myrtle petals and arachas blood that wafts up. A thin layer of unguent covers the bottom, just enough for a couple of applications. He dips his finger in it, spreads it on his most recently healed wounds on his arm, his neck, his side.

He has to grit his teeth when he tries to get to a gash on his back—the most recent of them all, the only serious wound he got while he was snooping around the nearby graveyard. It’s between his shoulder blades, almost over his spine, but for all he knows it might be on another plane of existence. A frustrated sound escapes his throat as he forces his tired muscles to stretch beyond comfort, attempting to reach it.

“Oh, that didn’t sound like a good groan,” Jaskier pipes up. “The bath was supposed to relax you, there shouldn’t be room for bad groans. Don’t bother lying to me, I know all your groans—well okay, not, you know, all of them. Regrettably, I might add—but seriously are you okay? Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine—my scars. They get tight, especially when it’s cold out.” He doesn’t feel like explaining that sometimes being a witcher means recovering so fast from wounds that his skin will piece itself back together too quickly, itching with a tightness that won’t loosen up by itself. He said too much already.

“This helps,” he finishes, lamely, getting a little more salve on his fingers, then he looks up at Jaskier, who is staring at him expectantly, a hand planted on his hip and a raised eyebrow.

Geralt sighs, and hands him the jar. “The gash on my spine.”

Jaskier beams. Geralt’s back prickles when he sits behind him, but the bard’s hands are as gentle as they were when they were rubbing oil into his hair.

He can barely feel his fingertips where the scar tissue is thicker, where the nerve damage is more serious, but the salve tingles and soothes the itch away almost immediately. “It shouldn’t be dangerous, but it does contain arachas blood so please wash your hands after you’re done,” he murmurs.

“Don’t worry about that. Am I doing this right? Feels okay?” His thumb pushes a little more firmly in the groove beside Geralt’s spine, following the cut upwards.

It’s good. The way his thumb presses down in that spot — the relief feels deeper than when Geralt does it for himself, somehow. “It’s fine,” he says.

Jaskier clicks his tongue. “Your back is awfully tense, you know that? It’s a miracle you can move at all. Should I give you a massage? I have this lovely chamomile oil that is a wonder for tense muscles — I use it all the time.”

A massage. Uncharted territory once again, in this particular context. Geralt swallows thickly against the guilt, against the urge that pokes at his gut, prickles at his palms. He stares for a moment at his emptied out bag, the pile of gear discarded in the corner. “Fine,” he says, dry like a killing blow.

“Excellent! Why don’t you get on the bed as I wipe my hands? I’m not doing this on the floor, my knees are already killing me as it is. How the hell do you manage to stay still like that for so long, anyway?”

The bed looks large and cumbersome in the middle of the room. Geralt gets back on his feet with a fluid motion and climbs on it, a bitter smirk pulling at his mouth. “When your teacher threatens to shatter your kneecaps if you stand before the time is up, and then he follows through, you have all the motivation you need to learn.”

Jaskier chokes on a horrified noise. “Forget I asked.”

The mattress is soft enough to be comfortable, with a pleasant give; when Jaskier drops his weight just next to him it doesn’t feel like a goose down quicksand like certain luxury beds.

A wet sound between a pop and a snap, and then the gentle smell of chamomile. “Lie down on your front, grab a pillow if you like, get comfortable. The point is to relax, remember?”

Geralt follows his instructions, trying to empty his mind, but he finds it hard without getting into actual meditation. This isn’t new but it’s not something he’s used to. It feels a little strange to let Jaskier pour oil in the groove of his spine, to have him run both his hands down his back. His thumbs and knuckles dig in the worst of the knots as if he could read his tension patterns like a map.

It’s distressingly nice.

The rush of relief has him bite on an embarrassing sound more than once. Jaskier doesn’t comment on it when he doesn’t succeed at completely stifling it, but his hands slow a little, pressing deeper for a moment. Geralt didn’t realize how much his lower back ached until the pain was gone, banished by the bards fingertips; Jaskier works from the base of his spine up, pouring more oil from time to time, a gentle trickle of coolness on Geralt’s burning back.

“Be a dear and lean up a little so I can get your neck, would you?”

“That’s where the striga bit me,” Geralt rasps, feeling drowsy, as he pushes himself up a little, leaning on his elbows.

Jaskier’s hand stutters, pouring too much oil. “What? Which one?”

Geralt touches the scar absently, the tissue gnarly under his fingertips; he rolls over and then grabs Jaskier by the wrist, placing his fingers in the right spot so he can trace it for himself. “There. The curse was already lifted but she was so frightened—still thought I wanted to hurt her, maybe. I did spend the night throwing silver at her. She was completely feral.”

“Human teeth did this?”

The bard’s hand trembles a little as he splays it over the scar, gauging its size against his own slick palm. He swallows thickly, eyes tracing up and down the column of his neck and where his fingers are almost wrapped around Geralt’s throat.

“Damn. Holy fuck. It feels like she took a chunk out of your muscle. How did you even move your neck while this healed?” he says, awe and horror mixing in his voice.

Geralt can almost see verses piecing themselves together in the back of his mind, chords and melodies clashing and intertwining.

“I didn’t. I passed the fuck out. There was this witch who hired me for the job—she healed me.”

He doesn’t tell him he thought he was going to bleed out in that crypt. He doesn’t tell him he ran away from Triss’ care before the flesh had knitted itself together. He doesn’t tell him about the feeling of warm blood seeping through the bandage, making him hot and cold as he rode Roach in the darkness, feeling like he was going to fall off the saddle anytime.

“Well. It seems like Toss a coin will get yet another verse,” Jaskier says, brightly. If the cat who got the cream could speak, it’d probably sound like that; but his skin is clammy and pale, his smile nervous and hesitant, doesn’t reach his eyes.

The moment passes.

“Want to tell me the story of some other scar of yours, since you’re feeling so uncharacteristically chatty tonight?”

Geralt snorts, and goes back to lie on his front. “No.”

“Eh, I had to try,” the bard laments, a long-suffering sigh in his voice.

He goes back to work, fingers working into muscles like he’s trying to knead him in a new shape, like he’s made of clay and not of flesh.

By the time he’s finished, they’re both stifling yawns and Geralt’s body feels liquid. He smothers a groans in the pillow he’s been wrapping his arms around for what seemed a very long time.

He thinks he’s going to regret it, come morning. He’ll wake up completely sobered up and too-well rested, a deep sense of satisfaction in his core; every time he moves he will be reminded of how he spent the night, how soft he’s been. His sense of duty will kick in, and he’ll bristle over, shame in the face of his recklessness and stupidity, and he will pack up his gear, and he’ll storm off—

“How are you feeling?” Jaskier murmurs, so low in his ear Geralt he’s sure his lips must be touching his hair, one last gentle squeeze on his shoulders.

Geralt closes his eyes. “I don’t think I can leave the bed, to be honest.”

“Ha! Resounding success.I told you I was going to get you nice and relaxed. Let’s just get you under the covers, the fire is still going but—” Jaskier trails off, fussily rearranging a few blankets and furs on top of Geralt’s back.

“I don’t understand why you are doing all this for me,” he admits, drowsily.

Jaskier freezes. Then, he lets out a sound that should be a laughter but it’s so choked up it could be a cough or a sob. “All I’ve seen of you in the past two years is your shadow in the townfolk’s tales, and when you finally show up in the flesh is in the last place I could’ve expected, looking like hell and smelling worse.”

That’s a witcher’s life, Geralt wants to tell him, but Jaskier isn’t done.

“I know I’m probably a blip in the sea of your memory—six months aren’t probably enough to make a dent in your brain—but you’re not, in mine. You’re different from anyone else, you’re not— People have thoughts about witchers, you know that, I know that. But what I know, that people don’t, is that you go out of your way to help those in need, those who really need it, even if it’s not glamorous, even if it doesn’t sound good enough for a ballad, even if it’s stupid dangerous, even if you don’t get coin out of it. Which should be the whole fucking point, you doing things for coin, shouldn’t it? Sweet Gods I’m rambling again,” he mutters, voice quieting. “The point is — I’m doing this because I like you and I care about you. You’re a good person and your life is rough as fuck. You deserve nice things sometimes, even if those things are just a hot bath, a relaxing massage and a comfortable bed to sleep in, and if I’m the one giving those things to you—well, that’s me being selfish so deal with it.”

The shifting of Jaskier’s weight on the mattress as he gets up, the rustle of cloth as he finishes to undress himself, the sound of the lute being carefully put aside on the floor fill the silence for a long moment, before the bard lets himself drop on the other side of the bed to properly slide under the covers beside him.

To be perfectly honest, Geralt still doesn’t understand; but his body is clean because of the bath, his hair smells nice, his scars don’t pull and itch anymore and his skin feels hot because of the massage. He glances over, sees Jaskier lying with the back to him, curled up under the covers like a fawn hiding under a pile of dead leaves.

“Thank you,” he rasps out.

Jaskier visibly unclenches and rolls over to face him, a small pout on his face. He looks smaller with his head laying on the pillow, and Geralt suddenly remembers how young he is, full of hope and life and thirsty for adventure, bursting with that hunger that normal people have and that witchers have been taught to smother and suffocate. He looks still a little strained, a little hurt, maybe.

“I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, I—” Geralt continues, and then stops. He licks his lips, looking for the words. He’s not Jaskier, but he listens to him. “I’m just—I’m not used to this. You’re different from anyone else, too.”

The bard’s eyes are dark and wide in the dimness, his figure backlit by the fireplace. His jaw drops a little. A small grin lights up his face, tension draining from his features. “Really? I mean, thank you. I mean, you’re welcome. Anytime, really.”

Geralt hums. “Really. Let’s sleep, now. I kept you up enough as it is.”

Jaskier yawns and mumbles something that sounded like agreement, eyelids suddenly heavy. Tension drains from his limbs and just like that he’s out, face slackening in slumber. Like he was waiting for Geralt’s permission.

That level of trust — Jaskier showed it to him from the very beginning and it never fails to make Geralt uncomfortable and touched in equal parts. It’s a different brand of bravery, Jaskier’s, one that Geralt has always been lacking.

The wind picks up outside the shuttered blinders. The blizzard has finally hit the city. Geralt thinks of Kaer Morhen, he thinks of the Path. He still doesn’t know where he’s going to winter, how he’s going to replace his potions, if he’s going East, after all. His future days are full of fog and snow and cold.

Jaskier murmurs something in his sleep, rolls closer. It’s warm.

Geralt closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and sleeps.