#i can't believe i wrote modern au witcher fic and still wound up writing a bath fic

[likecastle]

In which Jaskier cuts Geralt’s hair

Well, folks, I was inspired by Geralt’s slightly wavier wig in the new S2 promo photos to write a story in which Geralt finally gets some proper haircare and it brings out his natural curl pattern. This somehow turned into 7,000 words of Geralt musing about his own terrible self-image and Jaskier tenderly negotiating a haircut.

Credit for Geralt’s 3-in-1 shower products goes to @exrayspex​, with my thanks for their enthusiasm about this exceedingly soft concept!  

I’d like to put this up on AO3 at some point, but the title has me stumped, so if anyone has a suggestion, please let me know.

“When are you going to let me cut your hair?”

Geralt snorts, incredulous. “I’m not.”

Jaskier fixes Geralt with a pleading look. The streaks of peacock blue Jaskier recently added to his hair really bring out the color of his eyes—all the better to beguile him with. “Come on, Geralt, don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Geralt says, trying without much luck to keep his attention on the TV screen. Suddenly he has to fight the urge to tuck a stray strand of his hair behind his ear.

“It would look so nice if you just took proper care of it,” Jaskier wheedles.

“It doesn’t need to look nice.” Geralt can feel his shoulders creeping up towards his ears, and he wishes Jaskier would look at something else besides him. “It’s just hair.”

“But—”

Geralt jabs the remote in the direction of the TV. “Are you going to let me watch this or do you want to go home?”

“Fine, you grouch,” Jaskier says, returning his attention to the screen.

It must not hold Jaskier’s interest, though, because he can feel Jaskier’s gaze returning to him periodically throughout the rest of the film—which in itself isn’t all that unusual, since Jaskier watches even movies he really likes with one eye on his phone. Except that when Geralt meets his gaze, Jaskier’s looking at him with a wistful, almost sad expression. Geralt doesn’t let himself wonder what might be on his mind.

Later, Jaskier yawns wide and says he’d better be going if he doesn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel on the way home. It’s just a dramatic excuse not to help clean up, Geralt knows, but he can’t help smiling at the way Jaskier rubs at his eyes, smudging the faded remnants of his eyeliner. Geralt walks him to the door, and for a moment Jaskier just stands there on the porch, looking at Geralt thoughtfully.

When his hand reaches up, Geralt freezes. He thinks for a moment that Jaskier’s about to cup his cheek and drawn him down—but he just takes a strand of frizzy hair that’s come loose from Geralt’s ponytail and twists it around a finger.

“I thought so,” Jaskier says, with a private little smile.

Geralt’s sure Jaskier must be able to hear the way his breath’s gotten jammed up in his chest. “Thought—?”

“Nothing.” Jaskier digs his hands into the pockets of his jacket and starts down the front steps. “G’night, Geralt.”

As Geralt tidies away their takeout containers and empty beer bottles, his mind keeps wandering back to Jaskier’s offer. He knows Jaskier’s just trying to be nice—or trying to fix him, the way he tried to “liven up” Geralt’s wardrobe early in their friendship and tried to set him up on dates after he split up with Yen last year. But the options he tries to push on Geralt—the overpriced bomber jacket Jaskier bought him that’s still sitting at the back of his closet, the gorgeous chestnut-haired nurse Jaskier introduced him to—always seem to reflect more about Jaskier’s idea of Geralt than they do about Geralt himself.

Because the thing is, he’s not brash and stylish like Jaskier, who’s all eccentric colors combinations and flashing rings that accentuate his expressive hands. Jaskier knows how to construct an outfit that tells the world exactly who he is at any given moment, from his ever-evolving hairstyles to his painstakingly-sourced vintage clothes. Geralt, on the other hand, is just—nothing, an absence of style. His idea of a good outfit is one he can forget he’s wearing, one that will make everyone else forget him when he’s wearing it. His relationship to his appearance is as estranged as his relationship to his ex-wife. Being in his body, making use of it when he’s lifting weights or hammering a nail or swinging Ciri up in his arms—that makes sense to him. But thinking about his body is the opposite of that. He doesn’t like being looked at, even by himself. He avoids the mirror on his medicine cabinet as much as he can and starts feeling close and queasy if he so much as looks at himself in a dressing room mirror.

Before he goes to bed that night, he shakes his hair out from his ponytail and makes himself take a long, hard look in the mirror. All he sees is the sallow, tired-eyed face of a man who can hardly remember how to smile anymore, a face scarred from carelessness and creased from years of worry. His dull white hair, which Jaskier had twisted so carefully around his finger, is somehow greasy and dried out at the same time, limp around his face but bristly at the ends. He can’t find any sign of the potential Jaskier seems to think is there. He suspects it was never there in the first place—a mirage visible only to well-intentioned flatterers like Jaskier—and he feels foolish for looking.

No, Geralt decides, he’s not going to let Jaskier cut his hair, or do anything else to him. Better not to bother at all.

*

The next time the topic of Geralt’s hair comes up, he’s brought Ciri into Jaskier’s salon for an emergency haircut. Ordinarily, Yennefer handles things like haircuts and clothes shopping, but Saturday night, Ciri emerged from the bathroom with the front her hair lopped off somewhere around her eyebrows and a dawning expression of anxious regret on her face. Geralt had reassured her that everything would be OK, while texting Jaskier frantically for help and silently panicking about what Yen was going to say when she came to pick Ciri up on Sunday night. Thankfully, Jaskier was able to squeeze Ciri into his schedule this afternoon, and he promised to fix Ciri up.

So now Geralt is sitting awkwardly in the waiting area, hunched on a squeaky vinyl-upholstered chair. He’s been to Jaskier’s salon plenty of times—to meet him for lunch or a post-shift drink, to drop off something he left at the house or to give him a ride home—but he rarely does more than stand uneasily just inside the door. The relentless pop music and the echoing acoustics never fail to overwhelm him, as does the muddle of scents—clouds of different hair products and the pervasive smell of something sharp like ammonia. The abundance of mirrors unnerves him, too. Nobody can possibly need to see so many views of their own reflection, can they? Between the curious patrons peering at him in the mirrors and passersby staring in through the plate glass storefront, Geralt feels like he’s on display. And to make matters worse, he keeps catching glimpses of his reflection, his own hunted expression looking back at him from unexpected angles.

Ciri, at least, is having a great time, chatting happily with Jaskier as he snips away at her hair. The last time Geralt took Ciri for a haircut, it was at one of those children’s salons where the chairs looked like toy cars, and now here she is, sitting beside grown women almost like she’s one of them. It scares him, sometimes, to think of her growing up—more than sometimes. There are so many ways the world can fail her, and he can only do so much to protect her. There’s going to come a time when she’s going to get into some kind of trouble he won’t be able to bail her out of, and he’s not sure what he’s going to do with himself when that day comes. But for now, at least he can pay Jaskier to fix her disastrous home-brew haircut.

“What d’you think, Dad?” Ciri calls, and he looks up to see Jaskier removing her cape with a flourish. When he turns Ciri’s chair around to face him, Geralt’s heart catches in his throat. How grown up she looks, he thinks, but what really makes his chest ache is how much she’s coming into herself—becoming someone with her own unique taste in clothes and books and music, who won’t compromise about the bullshit dress codes at school and is brave enough to try something new even if the results are atrocious. He doesn’t know where she gets it.

“You like it?” he asks, not trusting himself to say something that won’t embarrass her.

“Yeah, I guess,” she says with a shrug, and hops down from the chair.

“We could do yours next, Geralt,” Jaskier offers, sweeping up the little blonde fragments of Ciri’s hair from the floor around his station.

“Ooh, yeah!” Ciri grins up at him. “I bet Jaskier would give you a really cool haircut.”

“I’m sure he would,” Geralt says mildly. He doesn’t want to quash Ciri’s enthusiasm or impart his own discomfort to her. It’s one of the things that keeps him up at night, the fear that he’ll pass down all his insecurities. He tries so hard to keep that shit buttoned up, to shield her from his own shortcomings—and he knows it’s inevitable that he’s just going to mess her up in other ways, but he wants to do better for her, has to do better. “Maybe some other time.”

“So you’ll consider it!” Jaskier says triumphantly, coming over to tell the receptionist the total for Ciri’s cut.

Geralt notices Ciri looking at herself in the big mirror behind the front desk, fussing self-consciously with her new fringe. Jaskier must notice, too, because he gives Ciri a big hug and says, “You look great, kiddo. Right, Geralt?”

“Definitely,” Geralt says, surrendering his credit card to the receptionist to pay a frankly staggering amount. He tips a hundred percent.

*

“You should take him up on it,” Yennefer says that evening when Geralt concludes the story of Ciri’s haircut by telling her about Jaskier’s offer to cut Geralt’s hair.

Geralt blinks in surprise. “Really?”

She glances back to where Ciri is waiting for her in the car. “Jaskier did a good job. She and I are going to have a serious conversation later about when to ask for permission and when to ask for forgiveness, but I have to admit it suits her.”

“It does,” Geralt agrees. He realizes he doesn’t know what it would be like, to feel his appearance suited him. He’s never tried, really, to make his exterior reflect his interior, wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Besides,” Yennefer says, gesturing to his haphazard ponytail, “you really do need to start taking better care of yourself, now that I’m not around to make sure you’re presentable anymore.”

Geralt’s eyebrows shoot up, a smile twitching his lips. “Is that what you were doing? Looking after me?”

Yennefer lifts one hand to tug a lock of his hair, the gesture so similar to Jaskier’s that it makes him shiver, for some reason. “No, but somebody ought to.”

He ducks his head, hoping to hide the ache that washes through him—a longing for something they both wanted but never quite managed to find together. “If you keep Ciri waiting much longer, she’s gonna make a break for it.”

“She would, too,” Yennefer says affectionately. “Take care of yourself, Geralt.” She surprises him by brushing a kiss against his cheek, then turns to go.

Geralt waits until Yennefer’s car is out of sight before he goes inside. As he loads the dinner dishes into the dishwasher, he thinks again about Jaskier’s offer. He’s never been good at asking for things, let alone holding on them once he has them, but it’s been especially hard since he and Yennefer split—even the littlest things feel like they require an effort it’s not worth making. It’s so easy to tell himself he doesn’t need anything—a fancy haircut, a new jacket, a reassuring glance, a gentle touch. But sometimes, maybe, it’s enough to want them.

Wiping soapy water off his hands, Geralt pulls his phone from his pocket and texts Jaskier. Does your offer to cut my hair still stand? Only if you’ve got time.

OMG YES!!! comes the immediate reply. I can be there in 20. Then, a moment later, Jaskier amends, Shit wait make that 40 need to run to get some supplies

Geralt huffs out a laugh. Have to get up early tomorrow. This weekend?

All booked up this weekend but I’m off on Tues so I can come over to your place in the pm if that works for you

He’d hoped to give himself a few days to cancel, just in case he changes his mind, and in this respect Tuesday’s almost no better than forty minutes from now. But he does like the idea of doing this at home, instead of in the salon. He types out OK and hits send before he can think better of it.

Don’t chicken out before then

No promises, Geralt answers.

Jaskier responds with a string of emoji that Geralt finds completely inscrutable, but which make him smile nonetheless.

*

Jaskier arrives on Tuesday evening with a six-pack of cold beer and bag crammed full of supplies.

“I thought you were going to cut my hair, not outlast a siege,” Geralt says, trying to ignore the way his stomach twists with nerves over this impending ordeal. He should have cancelled. He should never have said yes to this ridiculous idea.

“Oh, none of this would be remotely useful in warfare,” Jaskier replies. Then, contemplatively, he says, “Well, maybe some of it. But first, I thought we could have a drink.”

“So you can cut my hair drunk?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier rolls his eyes and brushes past Geralt into the kitchen, dumping his bag into an empty chair at the table. “So you can relax a little for once. And so we can talk.”

Geralt feels the knot of anxiety in his stomach tighten even further. “What is there to talk about? It’s just a haircut.”

Jaskier lets out a long-suffering sigh as he rummages around in Geralt’s cutlery drawer in search of a bottle opener. “Geralt, have you not listened to a single word I’ve said about my job?” He pops off the caps of two bottles of beer and hands one to Geralt. “No, don’t answer that, I know you haven’t.”

Geralt takes a sullen sip of his beer, but he doesn’t dispute the accusation.

With a nod of his head, Jaskier gestures for Geralt to follow him into the living room, and flops down on what Geralt has come to think of as his side of the couch. Geralt sits at the other end, turned to face him. “You need to know what you want going into this, or you won’t get good results.” Jaskier fixes him with a gaze that makes Geralt take another swallow of his beer. “Have you ever given any thought to what you like, or don’t like, about your hair?”

“Not . . . really,” Geralt mumbles, wondering how angry Jaskier would be if he called this whole thing off now.

“Well,” Jaskier says patiently, “why do you keep your hair long? I always assumed it was because you liked how it looked, but I’m realizing now I’ve never asked about it.”

Geralt takes another sip of his beer and tries to think of answer that’s not Because I do. He’s worn it long since high school, when it was primarily something to hide behind. It felt like a kind of fuck-you, an off-putting choice to keep people from looking too closely at him—and to help him forget about other people, too. “It’s easier,” he says finally. “Don’t have to get it cut every few weeks, and I can keep it out of my face.”

“OK, that’s good to know.” The calm, encouraging tone Jaskier’s taking should feel condescending, but Geralt finds he doesn’t mind—or maybe it’s just the beer starting to relax him a little.

“You don’t always tie it back, though, do you?” Jaskier goes on.

Geralt shakes his head. “When I’m working, yeah, but the rest of the time . . .” He shrugs. It depends—on who he’s around, how comfortable he feels with them, hell, how hard the wind is blowing. Sometimes he can’t stand the feeling of it in face, and sometimes the pressure of the hair elastic at the base of his skull is enough to make him want to rip it out.

“Can I . . . ?” Jaskier gestures to Geralt’s hair, and Geralt inclines his head. It’s inevitable that Jaskier will have to touch him if they’re going to go through with this, so there’s no point in being shy about it. Jaskier scoots forward on the couch, and Geralt holds very still, letting him reach back and undo the tie holding his hair back. A sheet of frizzy white strands spills around his bowed head, almost obscuring Jaskier from view.

He can feel Jaskier, though, running his fingers through his hair. The touch makes Geralt’s scalp tingle and a shiver runs through him that he tries and fails to suppress.

“OK?” Jaskier asks, and Geralt nods.

“You’ve never told me when you went grey.” Jaskier’s voice is hushed, almost as if he’s afraid of startling him. He continues to card his hand through Geralt’s hair—with professional curiosity, Geralt realizes, but the touch is so gentle it also feels like a reassurance. Geralt closes his eyes, grateful to be shielded from Jaskier’s view.

“Started in high school,” he says. It’s been a long time since he thought about how, when those first thick streaks of white were coming into his dark hair, kids at school would call him skunk and Cruella de Vil, shit he knew better than to respond to but that just made him even more self-conscious. It occurs to him now that most of his memories of being looked at—really noticed—are colored by other people’s derision for things he can’t help. “It was all like this by the time I was twenty-one, twenty-two. Someone told me once it’s genetic, but . . .” He shrugs again. He’s got no one to ask about a family history of premature graying, no photos of distant relatives to compare himself to.

Gentle fingers tuck his hair back behind one ear, and Geralt looks up to see Jaskier smiling at him. “I would pay good money to see pictures of you in high school. I bet you were so surly.”

“You wouldn’t have liked me,” Geralt says “I was insufferable.” Miserable and ungrateful and roiling with self-righteous anger all the time, hardly able to string a civil sentence together.

Jaskier rewards him with a snort of disbelieving laughter. “You’re insufferable now and I like you just fine.”

This is true, Geralt thinks. His anger has banked down somewhat since those days, but he’s no less difficult to be around, and Jaskier’s never seemed to mind his rough edges. If he’s being honest, he wouldn’t have been able to appreciate Jaskier in those day. His constant talking and absurd jokes would have grated on Geralt’s nerves, back then. They did when he first met Jaskier, in fact. He tried, for a long time, to keep his distance, sure that there was nothing he and Jaskier could possibly have to say to each other. But Jaskier kept turning up, kept surprising him, kept being kind to him for no damn reason. Geralt’s glad he did.

“So,” Jaskier says, pushing the conversation back in his desired direction, as he always does, “what I’m hearing is, you like wearing your hair long?”

Geralt considers, taking another swallow of his beer. Liking doesn’t figure into his thinking much, but it’s not just out of habit that he keeps it this way. “Yeah.”

Jaskier’s nod is solemn. “Anything you don’t like about it?”

Again, Geralt has to give this serious thought. “There are, uh . . .” He gestures to the wiry flyaways that tend to form around his head by the end of the day. They tend to tickle his face unpleasantly as he works, which is irritating when he doesn’t hand a hand free to brush them away.

“Yeah, it’s a little dry,” Jaskier says. “But we can fix that up.” Geralt knows exactly how soft Jaskier’s hair is, and he can’t imagine his own ragged hair could ever come close. “Anything else?”

Geralt shrugs.

“OK,” Jaskier says, “enough with the interrogation. I think I’ve got everything I need.”

Jaskier gets up and retrieves another beer—not for himself, but for Geralt. Jaskier’s fingers brush his as he hands over the bottle, and it gives him the same little shiver that he felt when Jaskier was combing through his hair. “D’you want me to tell you what I’m thinking, or just surprise you?”

Geralt’s gut instinct is to make Jaskier tell him what he’s got in mind, so that he has the option to veto it and put this whole thing to a stop. But he thinks of Jaskier’s teasing question the first time they talked about this—Don’t you trust me?—and how he’d said no when the answer is really yes. So he takes a deep pull of his beer and says, “Surprise me.”

The look of glee on Jaskier’s face is worth the knot of dread that immediately forms in Geralt’s stomach. He takes another drinks and reminds himself that it’s just hair. It’ll grow back.

“You’re not gonna regret it, I promise,” Jaskier says, and then his warm hands are urging Geralt up and off the couch.

It takes them a while to get everything situated to Jaskier’s liking—the bathroom is too cramped to accommodate a chair, so Jaskier has Geralt drag one into the kitchen, covering the floor in newspapers to catch the stray clippings. Then Jaskier sends Geralt to wash his hair while he sets up the rest of his supplies. When Geralt comes back downstairs, his hair soaking into his t-shirt, there is a truly staggering array of equipment spread out on the counter, Jaskier’s own little traveling apothecary kit, with everything from dangerously sharp scissors to brightly-colored bottles of product to some kind of instrument that looks like a bowl full of dull spikes, which Jaskier says attaches to his hair dryer.

“Rule number one,” Jaskier says, grabbing the towel out of Geralt’s hands. “No more regular towels on your hair. Your hair deserves to be treated with care.” Geralt snorts, but the towel he hands Geralt is pleasantly soft, with finer knap that’s soft as fleece in his hands. “And don’t rub at it,” Jaskier scolds. He steps closer, wrapping his hands around Geralt’s to guide him, his hand moving in a gentle squeezing motion. “That’s good,” he says, and Geralt feels his cheeks flush.

Once Geralt’s hair is toweled dry, Jaskier maneuvers him into the chair, and combs out his hair with a wide-toothed comb. Jaskier is exceedingly careful not to yank on the knots, but even so the gentle tug sets his skin tangling. Geralt knows his scalp is sensitive—he can remember fighting back tears while Vesemir struggled to brush out his unruly hair as a kid—but it’s never felt like this before. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that ordinarily, when he finally breaks down and subjects himself to a trim, he just asks Eskel do come over and cut it with the kitchen scissors. Even with someone he trusts as profoundly as he does Eskel, it’s still an uncomfortable ordeal that makes him unaccountably tense. But this isn’t painful, or unnerving at all. It’s . . . nice, embarrassingly so. He can’t help wondering what it would feel like if Jaskier were to drag his nails along his scalp—and then he has to force himself not to think about it, because even the thought of the sensation sends a shudder through him.

Thankfully, Jaskier is busy fiddling with his phone, and a moment later he puts on a playlist he likes to call Geralt’s Sad Dad Rock mix. Geralt appreciates the background noise—familiar songs he can tune out if he wants to, quiet enough that the music’s not intrusive.

“OK,” Jaskier says, snapping a cape around Geralt’s throat. His hand comes to rest on Geralt’s shoulder and he leans in to speak almost directly into Geralt’s ear. “Ready?”

Geralt suppresses another chill and says, “As I’ll ever be.”

Jaskier gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and gets to work. Geralt’s grateful for the lack of mirrors, because it means he doesn’t have to see what Jaskier’s doing, but at the same time it leaves him without much to go on—just the touch of the comb, Jaskier’s hands carefully repositioning his head, his fingers pulling this or that lock of hair taut to snip at them with the scissors. Eventually, Geralt closes his eyes and lets Jaskier’s voice wash over him. Jaskier often accuses Geralt of not listening to him when he talks, but in truth it’s easy to get lost in the lilting cadence of his speech, like hearing a song but not its lyrics.

“. . . and the thing is,” Jaskier’s saying, though Geralt lost the thread of his rambling long ago, “the more you do it, the better your results will be. You just have to help them along . . .”

He can see why Jaskier’s clients like him so much, how nice it is to fall into the pattern of someone else’s words, especially when that someone has as nice a voice as Jaskier. He’s often grateful for Jaskier’s conversation, which fills silences Geralt didn’t even realize were empty until he came along.

When Jaskier says, “OK, you’re all done,” Geralt is surprised by how quickly the time has passed. “We can just leave it at that and just let it air dry, or . . .” Even though he can’t see Jaskier, he can picture the hopeful expression on his face.

“What?” Geralt asks, twisting around in the chair to look Jaskier in the eye.

Jaskier bites his bottom lip, looking almost nervous. “Or I could show you how to style it. If you wanted. Nothing over the top, I promise.”

Geralt thinks it over. On the one hand, there’s no way he’ll ever bother repeating anything Jaskier shows him how to do, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t mind having Jaskier’s hands on him a little longer. “All right.”

“Really?” Jaskier’s eyes go wide. “Nope, never mind, I’m not gonna second-guess this. No take-backs! You’re committed now.”

Which is how Geralt finds himself being hustled back upstairs and into the bathroom. Jaskier pulls back the shower curtain and is about to start issuing instructions when he lets out a squawk and staggers backward.

Geralt looks around in alarm, expecting to see a giant spider in the tub. It’s only belatedly that he realizes he’s thrown an arm out in front of Jaskier, as if that will protect him from whatever nonexistent threat he was reacting to. “What?”

“Geralt, for shame!” Jaskier exclaims, pointing to the bottle of 3-in-1 shampoo/conditioner/body wash on the edge of the tub. “Is that yours?” He says it with all the breathless horror of someone discovering a murder weapon.

“Uh . . .” Geralt has the distinct feeling he should try to deny it, but there’s no point in trying to pretend. “Yes?”

And then Jaskier is laughing, but it’s warm with delight, not mocking or cruel. In fact, he looks up at Geralt with such fondness that Geralt almost can’t bear it. “Oh, you poor man,” Jaskier says between gusts of laughter. “No wonder your hair is so dry!”

“. . . It’s efficient,” Geralt mutters in a half-hearted attempt to defend himself.

“It’s like washing your hair with dish soap. But don’t worry,” he adds, pressing a hand to Geralt’s chest, “I’ll get you sorted out and then your hair will be so soft it’ll be completely irresistible.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says dubiously, but Jaskier just grins at him.

“OK, this next part is going to be a little awkward. Ordinarily you’d do it by yourself in the shower, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you’d rather not jump in the shower with me right now.”

Geralt very much does not acknowledge the wave of heat that rolls through him at the thought.  “Probably wouldn’t fit, anyway.”

“Eh, I’ve made it work in smaller spaces than this,” Jaskier says, with such casual confidence that Geralt’s mouth goes dry. “But luckily, you’ve got one of those detachable showerheads, so we should be just fine. Might be easier, though, if you, uh, take off your shirt off.”

Geralt’s already come this far, and, besides, it’s not like Jaskier hasn’t seen him without his shirt on before. As Geralt strips off his shirt, Jaskier puts a towel down on the floor and beckons him to kneel down at the edge the tub. He’s careful to get the water to a comfortable temperature before he puts a warm hand on Geralt’s bare back, guiding him to lean over, his head bowed.

The routine Jaskier directs him through is more complicated than Geralt could ever have anticipated. There’s a thick, dark purple shampoo that Jaskier instructs him to use only once a week—he has another shampoo he’ll give Geralt to use at other times, but really, Jaskier insists, he should only be washing his hair a couple of times a week, anyway. Jaskier shows him how to rub the shampoo into his scalp only and let the water draw it down through the rest of his hair. The pressure of the spray on his scalp makes his skin tingle, as does the press of Jaskier’s body against his side. When Geralt doesn’t apply the conditioner to Jaskier’s liking, he adjusts Geralt’s hands with his own, smoothing their joined fingers through Geralt’s slippery hair. And when it comes time to rinse the conditioner out, he shows Geralt how to cup the water in his palms and press it into the wet mass of his hair.

“You’re doing great,” Jaskier tells him, and Geralt is grateful his face is hidden behind ropes of his wet hair.

Finally, Jaskier pronounces himself satisfied and turns off the water. Now that they’re done the task of washing his hair, Geralt’s awkwardly aware of his chest dripping with water in the cool air of the bathroom—and of Jaskier standing less than an arm’s length away from him.

Jaskier, on the other hand, is nothing but professional, rubbing a series of products into his hands and then smoothing them over Geralt’s hair. After each application, he gathers Geralt’s hair in his hands and presses it up toward Geralt’s scalp, just like they did with the water. It’s a bizarre motion, like nothing Geralt’s ever seen before, but it seems to be having the desired effect, because the strands of hair hanging down in front of his face are slowly forming into thick coils, and Jaskier keeps making little satisfied humming sounds with each new application. Jaskier finishes by wrapping Geralt’s hair up in another one of those extra soft towels.

“And now we wait,” he says, hopping up onto the sink.

Geralt pulls his shirt on again, careful not to disturb the towel on his head, and he might be wrong but he thinks that he catches a little disappointed frown cross Jaskier’s face, but it’s gone before he can be sure.

“Thanks for indulging me,” Jaskier says. “I know you don’t really like this kind of stuff, but I’m having a great time.”

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Geralt replies. But that sounds worse than it did in his head, and he hastens to add, “I mean—it’s nice—when it’s you.”

Jaskier’s smile is something Geralt can’t quite get to the bottom of—fond and wry and maybe a little sad, too. “Well, I’ve been dying to do this pretty much since the moment I met you, so, you know, thanks for that.”

It’s strange to think Jaskier has been harboring private aspirations where Geralt is concerned. But then Jaskier’s always been full of surprises when it comes to him—immune to his ill temper, amused by his rudeness, tenacious enough to bully his way past his silences. He’s never understood what Jaskier sees in him, and he often feels he offers a poor reward for the hard work Jaskier puts in to being his friend. Because it’s not easy, Geralt knows. Plenty of people have decided Geralt was too difficult to get to know, or too prickly to stick with. Even Yennefer, who’s loved him better than he could possibly deserve, struggled to make inroads against Geralt’s defenses. It never seemed to matter how much he loved Yennefer, he could never bring himself to relax around her. He was always on tenterhooks, waiting for the other shoe to drop—until, in time, it did, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. He can’t blame Yennefer ending things. She wants things he doesn’t know how to give. He couldn’t figure out how to change himself into the sort of person she deserved.

“D’you want another beer?” Jaskier asks, nudging Geralt’s knee with his bare foot.

He wouldn’t mind another drink, but he’s loathe to puncture the peaceful little moment that’s grown up between them. “Let’s just stay here.”

Jaskier nods, and a moment later Fleetwood Mac comes on over Jaskier’s phone speakers—one of the only bands they can agree on—and Jaskier treats him to an inspired rendition of “Dreams,” his voice turned otherworldly by the chill acoustics of the bathroom tiles. Geralt watches Jaskier dance on his perch on the edge of the sink and wonders, with an ache in his chest, what it would be like to be so uninhibited, so comfortable in his own skin. He can’t imagine it, but sometimes he feels like he’s maybe just a half-step closer to knowing when he’s around Jaskier.

When the song fades out, Jaskier hops down from the counter and says, “OK, time for the last step.”

Jaskier sticks that torture device attachment onto his hair dryer and lets Geralt’s hair down from the towel. Jaskier lets him stay seated, and starts drying his hair. He doesn’t pull Geralt’s hair taut with a brush, as Geralt has seen Yennefer do when styling her own hair. Instead, he gathers it up a section of hair in that little torture device accessory and holds the dryer still, letting the air work around the strands. Geralt closes his eyes against the noise and sensation of the air against his scalp. It lasts a long time, Geralt bracing his arms on his thighs as Jaskier moves the hair dryer around his head. The noise of the dryer makes conversation difficult, and Geralt feels strangely distant from Jaskier all of a sudden, even though he’s standing so close Geralt could press his face to the soft flesh of his stomach if he wanted to. He knots his hands together between his knees to keep himself from just reaching out and pulling Jaskier close.

When Jaskier finally switches off the hair dryer, the silence it leaves feels big. It’s probably just the heat from the hair dyer, but Geralt feels flushed and a little rubbed raw.

“All right,” Jaskier says, fixing him with a considering look. “Let me just . . .” He reaches out and grips Geralt’s hair in both hands. He doesn’t so much tug as gently crush the strands, but the pressure is enough to make Geralt’s mouth fall open, and he doesn’t exactly make a noise but something happens in his chest like his lungs kickstarting. Jaskier glances down at him with an inquisitive smile. “Sorry, too hard?”

It’s all Geralt can do to shake his head.

“All done,” Jaskier says. When he lets go, Geralt immediately misses the touch. “Wanna take a look?”

Geralt stands up and turns to regard himself in the mirror. To say he doesn’t recognize himself would be an overstatement, but the sight of his reflection is a surprise. The cut doesn’t seem all that different in terms of length, but the ragged edges are gone. The dingy white of his hair has turned a gleaming silver, and it hangs around his face not in its usual lank tangle, but in softly curling waves. It’s almost . . . pretty, a word he’s never associated with himself in his entire life. The new brightness of his hair makes his face seem clearer, more open somehow, and the gentle curls offset the hard lines of his face in a way that make his features look almost delicate, or in any case less roughly hewn than usual. He reaches up to touch it, and to his amazement, it’s just as soft as Jaskier promised it would be. Maybe not as soft as Jaskier’s own hair, but much nicer than he can remember it ever feeling before.

“You like it?” Jaskier asks, and in the mirror, Geralt can see he’s looking at him with a hopeful expression. It makes something twist in his stomach—longing, and at the same time a rejection of what he wants, the certainty that he can’t possibly hang onto anything nice for long enough to enjoy it.

“You know I’ll never go to all this trouble,” he says, gruffly, and immediately regrets it when he sees Jaskier’s smile slip from his face.

“No, I know,” Jaskier says, and starts packing up his supplies. “I just wanted to try it. I’ll still leave you all the products, just in case you change your mind, or—”

“Jaskier.” Geralt swallows hard, and puts a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. “I—”

Jaskier looks at him with such a searching expression that Geralt hardly knows how to look at him. He’s never known someone who’s so much all the time, expansive and loud and demanding and generous and so goddamn bright.

“What I should have said,” Geralt says, against the tension threatening to stop his throat, “is that I wouldn’t have tried this if it weren’t for you. It’s . . .” He’s not sure how to answer Jaskier’s question. Does he like it? He looks so unlike himself that he honestly doesn’t know what to make of it. He can’t tell if it suits him or not, because he still isn’t sure what that would mean. But he likes the idea that Jaskier’s uncovered this version of him, that this might be how Jaskier sees him in his mind’s eye. “I’m glad we tried it. Thank you.”

“I am, too,” Jaskier says, quietly. “Even if you never do it again, I’m glad you trusted me enough to try. And for the record?” The twist of his lips is almost pained, but it’s a smile all the same. “You look fucking gorgeous.”

Geralt ducks his head, his shoulders inching up. “Jaskier . . .”

“No, I’m serious, Geralt.” Jaskier sounds annoyed, almost angry, all of a sudden. “I know you don’t care about superficial stuff—”

“That’s not—”

“—but take it from someone who spends a lot of time looking at people and doing my best to make them look as good as I possibly can: you’re objectively really fucking good-looking.” Jaskier lets out a harsh, reckless laugh. “And if you don’t care about my professional opinion, I also happen to think you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever met in my entire life, so there’s that.”

“I—”

Now that Jaskier’s started talking, he can’t seem to stop. “You’re the most incredible person I know, Geralt,” he says, in a breathless rush, “and I’m not talking just about your looks—although you are genuinely so ridiculously handsome that it’s really not fair. You’re kind for no reason and incredibly devoted and, OK, sort of a dick sometimes, but also so goddamn careful with other people and so fucking hard on yourself, and I just—I wish you could see yourself the way I do. I wish I could show you, even for just a second, because—”

“You did,” Geralt says. Jaskier stares at him, stunned into silence, and Geralt takes the opportunity to continue. “You do. Not just tonight.” He’s breathing hard, and he tries not to think about how dangerous this feels, like standing up on the top of a tall ladder or walking the line of a roof that might collapse under him at any moment. “When I’m with you, I feel like I could be that person you see in me, maybe. I just . . . don’t know how.”

Jaskier laughs again—softer this time. “You dummy,” he says, “you already are. You’ve just got to believe it.”

“Oh, is that all,” Geralt says.

“Yeah, no big deal,” Jaskier says, waving one hand dismissively. “You’ve got me to convince you, after all.”

“Oh, yeah?” Geralt can’t help the smile spreading across his face, despite the shivery feeling still simmering under his skin. “How’re you gonna do that?”

“Well . . .” Jaskier takes a step towards him, and then another, settling his hands lightly on Geralt’s hips. “I’d probably start a little like this . . .”

The first touch of Jaskier’s lips on his is like a breath of clean air after a storm, and Geralt can feel something that’s been knotted tight inside him for a long time unfurling itself. It doesn’t feel dangerous anymore, that buzz under his skin transmuting into a golden glow. He knows it’s not as simple as it feels—he can’t expect Jaskier to change him with a single kiss—but for the first time in a long while, something feels purely, unequivocally good, and he wants more of it.

In time, Jaskier’s hands creep up Geralt’s sides to his back, even as Geralt’s own hands drift down past Jaskier’s waist. When Jaskier’s hands slip into his hair, Geralt wrenches himself free with a shiver. “You’re going to undo all your hard work,” he says, teasingly.

“D’you really care?” Jaskier asks, and scratches his nails along Geralt’s scalp, wringing a whine from deep in Geralt’s chest that should be embarrassing but isn’t.  

“Not really,” Geralt gasps, his whole body pressing closer against Jaskier’s. “You can always do it again.”

Jaskier’s smile is wide as he bends to kiss him again. “That’s what I thought.”