Chapter Text
Jaskier took the tools carefully.
Geralt turned away from him, staring intensely at the wall. He held his body stiffly, and Jaskier knew it wasn’t from the pain.
“It’s okay. Breathe and relax. It’s just me.” Jaskier said like he was soothing a spooked horse.
“Just get it over with,” Geralt spoke through gritted teeth.
“Okay. I will. I’m going to put one hand on your back to steady myself and use the tweezers with the other.” Jaskier may not know where Geralt's extreme touch aversion came from, but he hoped explaining what he was doing would help. Remove any elements of surprise from the equation.
He waited for the grunt of acknowledgment before continuing.
Geralt very deliberately did not move when Jaskier’s hand made contact with his back, but Jaskier felt the muscles jump under his palm.
He inserted the tweezers into the first puncture as gently as he could and soon pulled out a short thread.
Up close, the wounds looked even worse, if such a thing was possible. Geralt had already cleaned away the blood and grime, but new blood was slowly welling up from each puncture. At least it was slow. Despite the amount of damage a major artery hadn’t been severed.
What they lacked in arterial damage, they certainly made up with depth. Jaskier had to poke around inside each puncture, tilting his head this way and that to get the right angle to see into the wound. Several wounds were so deep he could barely reach the end of it with the tweezers.
Some wounds were shallower only by nature of the teeth having hit bone and being unable to continue further. Jaskier felt nauseous when he saw the white gleam of Geralt’s scapula through several of the holes. When his tweezers accidentally tapped against the bone with a dull clink, he almost threw up.
It was slow, tedious work, made only not boring through sheer disgust and horror at the severity of the injuries, but Jaskier was determined to do it right. Geralt had placed enormous trust in him to do this job and Jaskier would be damned if he missed even one piece of foreign material.
Eventually, it was done. Jaskier took his hands off of Geralt and took a step back. “All finished. Your bite is officially fabric free.”
Geralt didn’t move for a minute, breathing deeply and slowly releasing some of the tension from his shoulders. Jaskier took the time to look at the other scars on Geralt's back. He knew that Geralt was covered in scars–the Witcher was not shy about nudity–but he had never looked at the ones on his back this closely.
Geralt’s back was more scarred than the rest of him. There weren’t necessarily more scars, but rather the scars across his back tended to be wider, more raised, and more red.
He traced the line of one scar with his eyes. It started at the top of Geralt’s left shoulder and continued down at a slight diagonal to end in the small of his back. The top portion of the scar had healed well, a thin silvery line barely visible compared to the other marks on Geralt's skin. But as the scar continued downward, it became thicker and more gnarled.
It wasn’t the only scar like it. Several more followed the same pattern. They always got worse as they entered the area of his back Geralt would struggle to reach on his own. And while it was possible that some of the scars looked like that because the original wound had been shallower around the edges and deeper in the center of his back, Jaskier had a sinking suspicion that most had been the same depth all along.
Geralt’s back was a mess of poorly healed scars because he physically couldn’t reach the wounds to properly take care of them. If Jaskier hadn’t insisted on helping with this one–if Geralt hadn’t agreed to let him–then this injury would have turned out the same way.
The punctures on the front would have healed fine, becoming small circles of scar tissue. But the punctures on the back would have gotten infected from the fibers. They would take longer to heal, perhaps reopening multiple times to spill out pus and infection as Geralt wouldn’t be able to properly clean them. Scar tissue would build up each time until they were ugly and thick and raised. Or maybe the infection would get bad enough to eat away some of the flesh, leaving Geralt with pitted craters in his back when they finally did heal.
Jaskier felt sick. His eyes prickled with tears. The thought of Geralt, year after year, injury after injury, unable to or unwilling to ask for help was unbearable.
Geralt, oblivious to Jaskier’s internal crisis, opened a jar of honey-based salve and began slathering it thickly over what he could reach. When he was done, he only hesitated for a few moments before holding the jar silently back towards Jaskier.
Jaskier took it. He finished covering what Geralt couldn’t, making sure the salve got all the way into each puncture.
He stepped back, giving Geralt some space. All that was left now was to wrap the wounds, something that Geralt could do by himself, albeit a bit awkwardly. He had already trusted him so much today, and Jaskier didn’t want to push him too far, even if he wanted nothing more than to help his friend.
Geralt took a long strip of bandage, wrapping it twice around his injured shoulder before tying it off securely. When he was done, he didn’t say anything, but gave Jaskier a nod of thanks.
Jaskier tried to smile back, but it felt stiff and forced. Hopefully Geralt would attribute it to nausea from being up close and personal with a grisly wound rather than the horrifying realization that his friend’s touch aversion had more terrible consequences than he had ever considered.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
A week had passed. Geralt had reluctantly allowed Jaskier to apply more salve to his back several times. He wasn’t fully healed, but the wounds had closed enough that they were no longer in danger of breaking open again and bleeding when he moved.
This, of course, meant that Geralt was back to going on hunts again. Jaskier really wished his friend would take the time to heal fully before putting himself in danger again, but he could acknowledge the fact that Geralt had to hunt to get coin.
Geralt seemed content to move on, to pretend it never happened. But he just couldn’t stop thinking about those scars. Especially any time he saw Geralt shirtless.
Like now, when they were bathing in a slow flowing section of a river. Geralt was turned away from him, scrubbing his arms.
Jaskier should be scrubbing himself too, but instead he just stared. Not at Geralt’s muscular arms or perfect ass like he might have in the past, but at the gnarled scars along his back.
He had always accepted Geralt’s aversion to touch as just another part of him, like his love of Roach or preference for scalding hot water in his baths. He made an effort to respect it. He never touched his friend, even though it went against his own tactile personality. The offer–for washing his hair, or helping with his armor, or even just a hug–was always open, but he didn’t get offended when Geralt inevitably refused.
But it had never occurred to him that Geralt's fear was actually hurting him.
How far would it go? If Geralt got a mortal wound, would he refuse to let a healer save his life?
Geralt turned around, and catching him staring, raised an eyebrow. Jaskier hurriedly looked away, rubbing his bar of soap over his shoulder.
Geralt frowned. “Are you okay?”
“What?” He was worrying about Geralt. Geralt was asking if he was okay?
Geralt’s frown deepened.
“I’m fine,” he tried to reassure his friend. “Just thinking about some…stuff.”
Geralt somehow managed to look simultaneously concerned and annoyed with his vague answer.
Jaskier mulled over his thoughts for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say. “If you ever need help, you’ll ask for it, right? Me or anyone else.”
There was a beat of silence, in which Geralt stared at him, eyes narrowed, as though trying to puzzle out the meaning behind his request. Then, he answered. “Sure.”
Jaskier wasn’t sure if he believed him, but the vague not-quite-a-promise might be the best he could hope for.