#time for my monthly reappearance on this hellsite

[geraltofriviasleftbuttcheek]

It takes Jaskier three days to find out Geralt is his soulmate. 

After the whole thing with the elves, he follows the witcher to the next town, ostensibly to debut his musical genius, but also because—well. He just finds Geralt of Rivia to be the most interesting person he's ever met. Jaskier is drawn, first and foremost, to interesting people with stories to tell, and Geralt, as he'd said that first day, is just full of stories waiting to be told. 

He sings Toss A Coin to much warmer reception than he's gotten yet in backwater towns like this, and Geralt comes back from a contract for some creature bleeding out his intestines and looking like he'd rolled in every single mud puddle on the way back. 

"Did you go out of your way to jump in every puddle you saw?" he asks, face screwed up in disgust as he helps the witcher up the stairs to the room he'd rented with his new earnings. "If you were thinking to clean the blood off, you didn't do a very good job." 

Geralt just grunts, slumped against him and breathing through his nose in a way that seems very concentrated. His eyes are very black, like pitch, and there are veins spidering their way over his cheeks. He's also much, much paler than Jaskier has seen so far, and for a brief moment, he wonders if he's going to watch one of very few witchers left in the world perish on the spot from some poison or other. 

That would certainly cock up his plans to give the sod an image makeover, and he says as much as he watches, with concerned bemusement, as Geralt struggles to get his armor off to check on his wounds. 

"Do you ever shut up?" Geralt finally asks, squinting at him. He yanks a vambrace off and tosses it aside, teeth gritting as it pulls at his wound. It's too dark in the room with all of the witcher's black clothes to see just how much blood there is, even with all the candlelight. 

Jaskier huffs in offense and puts his hands on his hips. "I wouldn't have to if you weren't so silent all the time. Honestly, it's like you don't know how a conversation works." 

"I don't want to have a conversation with you." 

"Tough shit," Jaskier says, and finally steps forward to help. "Gods, maybe you should just climb into the bath like this. Might soften up the coagulating blood in your shirt to let you take it off. Here, c'mon. You're disgusting, and I might have to throw up from the smell alone." 

Geralt gives him another look but doesn't argue when Jaskier helps him up and over to the bath. The water is only lukewarm now, but it's clean, and that seems to do it for a nasty, gross, blood-covered witcher. 

He splashes in with little other fanfare, and then Jaskier jumps away as Geralt makes a strange motion with his hand and the water starts to steam. He stares in awe as the witcher settles in with a content sigh. 

"How did—what was that?" he asks, curiosity brimming. "How did you do that? Witcher magic, obviously, but what was that?" 

Geralt opens one pitch black eye to look at him. The spidery veins are starting to recede, barely. "Witcher magic," he deadpans, and Jaskier makes a face at him. There's the smallest, tiniest curve of his mouth, though—the bastard is smiling.

"Ha ha," Jaskier shoots back, sitting beside the tub. He dangles his hand in to feel the water now pleasantly, muscle-relaxingly hot. "Keep your secrets, then. I'll get them out of you one day." 

"Will you, now," Geralt teases—teases! Melitele, the man has a sense of humor. 

Jaskier just sniffs primly and stands up again, moving to grab some of his soaps and oils. "I will indeed, witcher. Now—which one of these do you like best?" 

Geralt grumbles and scrunches his nose at all but two of the soaps (the unscented ones, he should have known), complaining how they're too much for his senses right now, heightened as they are with the potion he'd taken earlier—also the reason for his current black-eyed state. Jaskier is fascinated by that, of course, and immediately starts asking him about the contract, how it went, what he'd fought, what other potions he has in his arsenal. 

He just—he wants to know. Geralt is intriguing and fascinating and interesting and there's just something about him that draws Jaskier in and makes him want to know everything. 

To his surprise, the witcher, while brief about it, does indulge him and give him a bit of a retelling of the fight as Jaskier helps him out of his shirt finally and washes his hair, combing out the gore and tangles. He gets a bit more about the mechanics of making witcher potions and what ingredients go into them, and a bit on the habits of the creatures—drowners, it turns out—and how they compare to other beasties he faces. 

Jaskier files away the thought that Geralt prefers talking about the gentle, everyday things in his life over the blood and death and fighting. He wants to keep that for himself, he thinks. 

He's so caught up in this quiet revelation that he doesn't realize he's let his hands fall to strong shoulders, fingertips brushing delicately, feather-light over scarred skin, until he notices a bright spot of color from the corner of his eye. He looks down reflexively and feels himself still, sucking in a sharp, startled breath. 

Geralt with his witcher senses notices immediately, body tensing up under his touch. "What." 

Jaskier, rare as it is in his life, can't seem to find his words. He watches, gobsmacked, as a trail of soft light blue follows the places he touches the witcher. It shimmers as he moves his fingers, like the tail of a star shooting across the sky, almost glowing, and he's mesmerized. 

It's not the having of a soulmate that's rare—most people do, in fact, and many times even multiple ones—compatibility is always in flux, after all—it's the Color Touch that most people never get to experience. One in every one hundred thousand people will be lucky enough to find the person—or persons—that will show their Color Touch. 

It's the presence of a bond so immediately strong that it manifests to the naked eye. 

"What is it," Geralt repeats, tone sharp. "What the fuck are you—"

He sits up in the bath, as if to move away from Jaskier, but Jaskier keeps him in place, sliding his fingers down to his forearm where Geralt can see the trail of color left in his touch's wake. He feels the witcher still, eyes—no longer pitch black, now back to their normal, beautiful gold color, the spidery veins gone—boring into the places Jaskier's fingers leave spots of blue as he dances them up and down his pale skin. 

"Impossible," Geralt breathes, but it sounds more like he's talking to himself. 

He reaches out and grasps Jaskier's wrist, stilling his movements, and when Jaskier gently pulls out of his hold they watch as the burnished gold color he leaves behind shimmers for a few heartbeats before fading away again slowly. 

"Impossible," Geralt repeats, just as soft, and finally, Jaskier finds his voice again. He laughs, breathless and excited. 

"Oh, my dear, I don't think 'impossible' is a word that's familiar with you," he says. 

He smiles when Geralt turns wide, wary eyes on him, full of a hidden, repressed hope, reaching out and trailing his fingers over the witcher's jaw, once again mesmerized by the blue of his own Color Touch. "I knew from the moment I saw you there was something special about you, Geralt of Rivia, and I wanted in on it." 

Geralt swallows thickly at that, throat bobbing as Jaskier's fingers caress over it. He looks away, clenching his jaw. "I'm not a fan of Destiny," he grits out. Jaskier feels him lean into his touch, though, almost instinctively. 

"Can't say I am, either," Jaskier agrees. "Doing what I'm told has never been one of my strong suits. I prefer making it up as I go, and to hell with the rest." 

It gets a snort of laughter out of the witcher, the tense lines of his body relaxing back into the warm bathwater. They'll be alright, he thinks. 

Jaskier can't help but lean in and press a kiss to his cheek, though, just to see if that leaves a Color Touch, too. 

It does.