Work Text:
The fire alarm blares to life, pulling Geralt from sleep a scant few hours after he went to bed. He prides himself on not needing much sleep, but a brief glance at the clock reveals that this night was a mere two and a half hours long.
Less than three hours is too little, even for him.
He pulls the pillow over his head–it doesn’t do much to block out the shrill beeping, but it does give him a chance to reevaluate his life choices. He kinda hates them all.
Get a housemate, they said, it’ll be great! You need to get out more anyway, socialize a little!
Like Geralt doesn’t ‘get out’ almost every night as part of his job. And yes, he does get money for that, but surely it still counts as socializing? People certainly think that’s why he’s there, chatting him up and telling him all sorts of things he had no desire to know and wishes he could forget before they’re even done speaking.
But he hadn’t found those words when Triss and Eskel had ganged up on him, traitors that they are, which is how he finds himself here, with a housemate who thinks triggering the fire alarm at fucking 9 am on a Sunday is acceptable.
There’s a clattering noise somewhere in the flat, and then the alarm stops, giving way to blessed silence. Geralt keeps the pillow on his face, too exhausted to move.
Maybe he should get up and make sure his housemate–a kid by the name of Jaskier who had been among the people thinking Geralt was at his job to talk to people and not just make sure they weren’t too rowdy outside the club and didn’t engage in dangerous shit and were of legal drinking age–hasn’t set the microwave aflame. Again.
They’ve only had the current model for a month, and, loath as Geralt is to admit it, it would be a shame to lose it so quickly. He’d scoffed at Jaskier when he’d excitedly shown it to Geralt–it was a clearly new model with too many buttons and functions nobody needed, very much unlike the trusty old thing Geralt had gotten second-hand when he moved into his last place–and he still hates how needlessly fancy it is. Or maybe he hates how used he’s gotten to the convenience of the pre-programmed settings.
Either way, if Jaskier has set it aflame again, Geralt will have to have words.
The alarm starts blaring again.
With a growl, Geralt tears the pillow away from his face. It’s impossible to go back to sleep with this horrendous level of noise. Though, ‘horrendous’ still seems too nice a description. ‘Infernal’ might be a much better one, because surely this is what hell is like. There is no other explanation for this agony. The pillow must have helped more than he’d given it credit for, because without it, the beeping drills into Geralt’s brain and bounces around, derailing any coherent thought left after his interrupted night.
He needs the noise to go away.
He heaves himself out of bed and slips into his bathrobe, and of course that’s when the fire alarm stops again. He hesitates. He could go back to bed. Or he could see what level of stupid Jaskier has deemed appropriate entertainment for a Sunday morning.
It’s not that Jaskier is a terrible housemate, overall. Geralt has had worse during his stint at college. Jaskier pays his rent on time, and he’s okay about keeping noise to an acceptable level most of the time, and whenever Geralt gets together the energy to cook, he does the washing up without complaint. He needs to be reminded when it’s his turn to bring out the garbage, but as long as Geralt does that, it will get done.
He doesn’t even seem to mind that sometimes Geralt has to go sit in the shower at 4 am after a particularly bad night, even going so far as to drag his ass from his bed and help Geralt patch himself up. Not that Geralt needs the help. He knows how to wrap bruised knuckles and support cracked ribs–he’s dealt with the aftermath of telling angry drunks that no, they cannot go into the club, long before Jaskier ever came along. And in the bright light of the morning after, he unfailingly wishes Jaskier hadn’t come out to help, because it’s so easy, in those moments, to fool himself into thinking it’s more than it truly is, that it’s not just Jaskier being friendly and helpful and concerned.
And that’s the crux, isn’t it?
Jaskier is just–a little too friendly. A little too loud, too, when he gets a flash of inspiration at 5 am and trips over a chair or the pile of clothes on his floor. A little naive where the running of a household is concerned. Geralt had to explain to him how to clean the toilet, how to operate the laundromat down the street, and that yes, you need to vacuum before you try to mop the floors.
It sometimes feels like Jaskier has never actually lived in the real world, and Geralt would wonder if he was simply imagining his housemate if it weren’t for the fact that the fucking fire alarm has just gone off again, and now there’s pressure building behind Geralt’s eyeballs that promises a murderous headache for the rest of the day.
Fucking fucks.
He slams open his door–the bang does nothing for his budding headache, but it does cut off the cursing from the pantry Jaskier has commandeered for his homework–and immediately is enveloped by a cloud of smoke.
He has a cold flash of oh, fuck that leaves him too awake, heart racing and head pounding in tune as he tries to see what Jaskier has done, before it registers that the smoke doesn’t carry the smell of burning.
He inhales again.
The air is cloying, sweet and a little spicy, reminiscent of decades old smoke. It feeds the pressure in his skull, and he has the wherewithal to pull the door to his room closed before even more of the horrendous smell can make its way inside.
The beeping finally ceases again, and a moment later Jaskier appears in the hallway, clearly sheepish and clad in only a pair of sleeping pants with flowers in all shades of the rainbow on them. Geralt tears his eyes away before they feed his headache, but Jaskier’s naked chest isn’t that much better, if for a very different reason. It’s easy to forget, with his penchant for frilly or oddly patterned clothes, just how broad his shoulders are, how narrow his waist, how pink his nipples where they peek out from the dark hair on his chest.
“Gods, I’m so sorry–did I wake you?”
Geralt finally brings his eyes up to Jaskier’s–too blue, filled with emotions Geralt can’t parse in this half-delirious state of fading adrenaline. He grunts.
“I didn’t meant to, I promise–everything I saw said it was easy, but, like, clearly it isn’t, and I was so sure I’d just set it up and get it done with, no big deal, except it’s not, y’know? And the deadline’s at twelve, and I still don’t even have anything to work with, and y’know how slow Photoshop can be, sometimes, and I swear I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Geralt closes his eyes, as though that will help him take meaning from Jaskier’s babbling. It doesn’t. Well, it tells him that his housemate is trying to meet a deadline–which is typical, really; from the way Jaskier acts sometimes, deadlines appear out of nowhere. They don’t. But that doesn’t seem to fit into Jaskier’s world view.
“What… are you trying to do?” Geralt cuts into the nervous babbling. His eyes drop down to Jaskier’s pants again, and with a start he realizes that the things printed on are not flowers after all. They’re–they’re genitalia, tiny vaginas and penises in different sizes and states of excitement.
Mortification blooms hot on his nape and he prays to Gods he doesn’t believe in that it stays off his face.
They must hear his prayer, for Jaskier doesn’t appear to notice, half turned back to the kitchen where yet more sickly sweet smoke is drifting into the hallway.
“My assignment for my Photographic Series class–by Melitele, I didn’t think it would be this tricky!”
Geralt thinks for a moment. “The assignment I reminded you about last week?” he asks slowly.
A decidedly guilty expression settles on Jaskier’s face. “Possibly?”
“… you told me you’d completed that.”
“Uh…” Jaskier scratches his nails through the hair on his pecs, and Geralt cannot even appreciate it because–this is exactly why he has started reminding Jaskier of his deadlines, “I… may’ve overstated my progress… a bit?”
Geralt sighs. His limbs feel heavy and he just wants to crawl back into bed, but there’s a buzzing in his body that suggests he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep even if Jaskier’s project doesn’t set off the fire alarm again.
At least it wasn’t the microwave this time.
“So you settled on smoke photography?” Geralt asks.
“How–how did you know?”
Geralt pointedly looks at the tendrils of smoke still sneaking out of the cracked kitchen door. Jaskier follows his gaze and ducks his head. “Oh.”
Oh indeed.
“Want me to help you?” He might as well. If Jaskier misses the deadline, he’ll mope at least a week, and Geralt doesn’t want to–can’t–deal with that again. Jaskier may be a decent housemate, but a moping Jaskier? He shudders at the mere thought.
“Would you?” The look of hope on Jaskier’s face makes something in Geralt’s chest seize. Something he doesn’t want to think about while Jaskier is standing in front of him barefoot, in nothing but his ridiculous sleep pants–truly nothing else, if the way Geralt can see the outline of his dick whenever his eyes do drop down despite himself is any indication–and Geralt is so tired he might as well be drunk. Not that he drinks while on the job.
“Wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” he says gruffly, and tries not to look at Jaskier’s ass as he follows him into his makeshift studio.
The room is dark, smoke hanging in the air. The little table that usually lives in their kitchen holds Jaskier’s phone, rigged up with a home-made tripod, and several sticks of incense. One of them is still smoking and has undoubtedly left a burn mark on the table. Jaskier.
Geralt shakes his head. “This setup’s shit,” he says, already distracted by trying to figure out how to best vent the room.
Jaskier makes a hurt sound, but before Geralt can figure out whether he should apologize, Jaskier takes a deep breath, coughs, and then says, “Okay. How do we fix this?”
Geralt finally finds the cord used to crank open the passive vent in the pantry, hidden behind a black fabric screen, and manages to make it do its job with only minimal resistance.
“But–my smoke!” Jaskier gasps, and then promptly coughs again. Geralt has a sudden flash of Jaskier collapsing to the floor in the stifling air of the room, and has to exert too much effort to get rid of the image. Jaskier is fine. The air is still breathable, even if it smells terrible.
“If you want crisp pictures, you need to get rid of the old smoke,” Geralt explains. It should be obvious, and he doesn’t know how Jaskier missed it. Even the shittiest tutorials he’s seen online make sure to mention that. But then again, carefully reading instructions is an anathema to Jaskier, so he isn’t actually surprised.
Jaskier is quiet as Geralt props open the door to the kitchen and switches on the vent above the stove to help clear out the air. With the tight deadline Jaskier is on, he wants to take advantage of every tiny helpful thing.
“Secondly: you need a proper camera.”
Jaskier makes an unhappy noise. “I’m not even a photography major! They can’t expect us to drop hundreds of crowns on a camera!”
Geralt does not sigh again, but it’s a close thing. “Maybe your phone camera is enough for most things. But if you want to do smoke photography, you need a proper DSLR camera. And a decent flash.”
Jaskier sputters, and Geralt leaves him to it and goes back to his room.
“You–Geralt! You can’t just–can’t just leave me, how am I supposed to do this? Gods, this was a mistake…”
It barely takes a minute until he is back in the pantry, camera bag and tripod in his hand. Jaskier stops short, hands dropping from where he’d been pulling at his hair as he takes Geralt’s bounty in. “Oh.”
Geralt pushes the phone camera with its tripod–though it doesn’t truly deserve the name, unstable as it is–into Jaskier’s hands and sets up his trusty camera. It hasn’t seen much use since he dropped out of college and picked up more shifts at the club, but it’s of good quality (had certainly cost him enough when he purchased it) and the battery is still charged enough.
“Oh,” Jaskier says again.
Geralt hums in response and sets up the flash a little to the side of the camera.
It’s easy to sink into the familiar motions of setting up a shoot, and while he refuses to do Jaskier’s homework for him, he has no issue explaining how to take good pictures of smoke to him. Jaskier is an attentive student, even though the bright look in his eyes and the sight of his bare chest in the darkened room keep threatening to derail Geralt’s thoughts.
“Gods,” Jaskier breathes out once he’s followed Geralt’s instructions to set up the camera and close the vent and has taken a couple of test pictures that are already looking promising, “you’re my hero.”
There’s such open adoration in his voice that Geralt finds himself suddenly tongue-tied. “It was nothing,” Geralt manages, glad that his voice never really lets on when he’s flustered, and leaves Jaskier to his shooting.
“Yell if you need me,” he says as he turns to leave, and of course Jaskier replies with, “I always need you, oh hero of mine.”
Geralt flushes again, but this time he can pull the door shut behind himself and just lean against the wall in the kitchen until he has his thoughts under control again.
*
The things is, Jaskier doesn’t mean anything by it. Geralt knows he doesn’t. It’s just the way Jaskier is. He has been like this for as long as Geralt has known him, and it was, in fact, the first thing Geralt had noticed about him when Jaskier and his group of friends–all creative arts students at the Oxenfurt Academy–had shown up at the club Geralt works at. Well. The actual first thing Geralt had noticed were his clothes, garish, revealing, and somehow enticing in a way Geralt doesn’t like to dwell on. But the second thing had been Jaskier’s demeanour: easy-going, friendly, free with his compliments.
He’d been like this with Geralt, for all that Geralt had glowered at him and tried not to engage, right up until the night Jaskier had gotten into a fight outside the club. Geralt had missed the beginning, focused on a pair of girls who seemed too young to go into the club but whose IDs checked out even after he cross-referenced them with their driver’s licenses, only realizing something was amiss when he’d heard the dull thud of a fist meeting flesh.
Geralt wasn’t supposed to instigate violence–wasn’t supposed to involve himself in the matters of non-patrons–but Jaskier had been a patron, and clearly hadn’t escalated the altercation, and so he’d stepped in.
It had left him with a bruised rib and a black eye, and Jaskier had breathed, “Gods, you’re my hero,” in that same tone of voice, which was probably why Geralt hadn’t waved him off when he insisted on thanking Geralt. “There must be something I can do to show my gratitude,” Jaskier had said, and without considering the consequences, Geralt had blurted out, “I’m–uh, looking for a new housemate?”
He hadn’t had the chance to take back the words, because Jaskier’s face had lit up with a smile even as his thumb was brushing the edge of Geralt’s swelling eye oh so gently and he’d said, “Truly? So am I!”
And that, somehow, has directly led to his current predicament, where he is leaning against the kitchen wall, trying desperately not to think about his housemate breathlessly complimenting him for other reasons while said housemate is puttering around just behind the door.
He can hear him humming under his breath, the snick of the lighter as he prepares for his next shoot.
Fuck, Geralt needs a distraction.
First order of business is definitely proper clothes, because the boxers he sleeps in do nothing to hide his unfortunate reactions to Jaskier’s… everything, and sleep itself seems to be out of the question for the near future.
Once he is dressed and has also taken a trip to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, he returns to the kitchen. Jaskier has aired out his make-shift studio again while Geralt was away, so he should have the space to himself for another couple of minutes.
He lets himself sink into the familiar task of preparing breakfast. For all that Jaskier cannot cook to save his life, he does very much enjoy the elaborate brunches Geralt likes to prepare. Geralt, meanwhile, prefers not to think about why he does that. It’s just … nice, to be appreciated for something he does. That’s all.
By the time he has finished whisking together the batter for pancakes and put it away to let rise for a couple of minutes, Jaskier emerges from the studio, hair askew and Geralt’s camera in hand, the strap wrapped securely around his wrist.
“Can you help me get the card out?” Jaskier asks.
He only starts unwrapping the strap when Geralt has both hands on the camera, and Geralt gives him a pleased smile at the caution.
Jaskier grins back, utterly unguarded, and Geralt has to busy himself with the pictures Jaskier has taken before he’s tempted to turn the camera on him and try to catch this moment to keep it forever.
“Looking good,” he has to admit as he flips through the pictures, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Jaskier blush, all the way down to his dense chest hair.
His hands do not shake as he switches the camera off and removes the SD-card, but it’s a near thing. Their hands brush when Jaskier takes the card from him, and Geralt almost drops it.
Jaskier catches it easily, a brilliant smile on his face as he turns and almost walks into the doorjamb because he’s still looking at Geralt. “Uh, right–” he says and rights himself, “I’ll–go finish this up. Honestly, Geralt, I could not have done this without you. Thank you so much.”
“It was nothing,” Geralt says and rubs at his neck. “And try not to dawdle–breakfast will be reading in half an hour or so.”
Jaskier makes an appreciative sound that borders on a moan, and Geralt hurries over to the fridge to hide what that does to him. It was definitely a good call to put on proper pants.
*
Jaskier reappears in the kitchen just as Geralt flips the second-to-last batch of pancakes, a gleam in his eyes that speaks of a creative project gone well as he announces, “All done, and an hour before the deadline, too!” It’s a terrific look on him, and it really is a good thing that the pancakes need Geralt’s attention, because otherwise he doesn’t know if he could tear his gaze away from Jaskier.
Getting a housemate truly was a terrible idea.
“Are those strawberries?” Jaskier asks delightedly. “And whipped cream?”
Geralt grunts in response, which does nothing to curb Jaskier’s enthusiasm.
“Forget being my hero–I could marry you, Geralt!”
Geralt snorts.
“No, seriously–by Melitele, my friend, I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Geralt answers before his brain catches up to his mouth.
He stills.
For an interminable stretch of time, there is no sound other than the occasional crick from the heated stove. Geralt’s neck burns. He should have left his hair down, because it must be visible to Jaskier.
Jaskier finally breaks the silence with a soft noise.
Geralt ducks his head. “Forget it,” he says harshly before Jaskier can make a big deal out of it. Jaskier had even said my friend. Of course Geralt would be the one to make things weird. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
Another long stretch of silence. Geralt removes the pancake from the pan and pours fresh batter in.
“That’s not an I didn’t mean it,” Jaskier says behind him, voice careful. “Did you? Mean it, that is.”
Geralt feels hot with embarrassment all over, and he suddenly wishes he had gone back to bed after all. The lie is at the tip of his tongue, but he’s never lied to Jaskier and refuses to start now.
“I did.” Geralt hunches further over the pan, staring at the batter. It’s still too underdone to flip, even though he really could use the distraction. “I won’t make things weird between us,” he promises, even though he knows he’s just made them weird.
He knows what he looks like. There are several reasons he’s such a good bouncer, and his appearance with his muscles and scars and tattoos is one of them. He’s nothing like Jaskier with his colourful clothes and soft skin and impish grin.
“Weird?–Geralt,” Jaskier says, mildly exasperated, “my love. Look at me–please.”
“The pancakes,” Geralt protests weakly, but he’s never been able to resist Jaskier. And even less so when Jaskier pulls out the endearments.
“Fuck the pancakes. Well, not literally, but–I want to see your face? Please?”
Geralt’s hands shake as he flips the pancake–it tears, because of course it does–and turns off the stove before moving the pan from the hot cooking ring.
Only then does he turn around. Jaskier has put on a shirt–one of Geralt’s, judging by the way he doesn’t fill the shoulders, and Geralt doesn’t know what to make of that–and proper sweatpants without genitalia printed on, though he isn’t sure the neon pink seams are that much better. It’s the look on his face, though, that steals Geralt’s breath: achingly open and so, so soft.
His traitorous heart starts beating faster in his chest.
“I really was not subtle,” Jaskier says and steps closer to him. Close enough that Geralt can smell his aftershave, the citrus-y notes of his shampoo. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I’m stupidly, madly in love with you.” The blush that rises to Jaskier’s cheeks betrays the nonchalance with which he speaks, and it’s that which really drives the words home.
“I didn’t.”
Jaskier shakes his head with a small smile. “And here I was, so sure that–that you must have clued in but were letting me down gently and that was why you never responded to my flirting.”
“Flirting?”
Jaskier gives him a dry look. “Gods, I should have known it was that instead of a lack of interest.”
Geralt tries to think of something witty to defend himself with. “It really wasn’t a lack of interest,” he says when nothing comes to mind. He’d just put it down to Jaskier being, well, Jaskier.
Jaskier laughs a little, eyes definitely not meeting Geralt’s. Geralt licks his lips experimentally and is rewarded with Jaskier’s pupils dilating. Jaskier still doesn’t lean in to kiss him, though, instead gearing up for another slew of words.
Which leaves Geralt no other recourse than to take the initiative and lean in himself. Jaskier gasps against his lips, and Geralt uses that to slip the tip of his tongue into Jaskier’s mouth, which seems to be enough to get Jaskier with the program.
Too soon, Jaskier pulls away from him.
“I was promised breakfast,” he says with teasing smile. Geralt grumbles, but it’s undercut by his stomach agreeing with Jaskier.
“Someone kept me from finishing the pancakes.”
“Eh,” Jaskier says, poking the final, somewhat mangled pancake with a finger, “looks good enough to me.”
The pancakes turn out to be more than ‘good enough’, even though they’re cold. Or maybe it’s the fact that Jaskier doesn’t stop touching Geralt all throughout the meal, going so far as to feed a few strawberries dipped in whipped cream directly to Geralt. Whatever it is, it leaves Geralt keyed up even as he yawns around his last mouthful. Jaskier chuckles.
“C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” he says.
Geralt whines in response, which is a pretty good sign that he does, indeed, need to go to bed. He doesn’t want to, though; the thought of letting Jaskier go is spectacularly unappealing.
He still doesn’t argue when Jaskier pulls him up and starts manoeuvring him out of the kitchen and into Geralt’s room.
To Geralt’s surprise, Jaskier doesn’t abandon him once Geralt has settled on the bed. Instead, Jaskier strips out of his–Geralt’s–shirt, flushing again as Geralt can’t help the way his eyes hungrily rove over the revealed skin. Jaskier shucks his pants, too, crawling into Geralt’s bed wearing only his too-tight boxer briefs.
“Off,” Jaskier says with a tug to the shirt Geralt is wearing, and it takes his brain too long to catch up to what Jaskier is trying to achieve. When he does, he scrambles to comply, and it doesn’t take long at all until he and Jaskier are safely under the covers, lights turned off.
He wants–he wants to taste Jaskier, to feel him, to learn every place that draws the little gasps and moans from him he’s been trying so hard not to hear over the past half year. And yet, with Jaskier in his arms, he can already feel himself drifting off to sleep.
“I’ll still be here later, love,” Jaskier whispers as he cards his fingers through Geralt’s hair, and the promise fills Geralt with a warmth that morphs seamlessly into dreamless sleep.