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vestis virum facit

Summary:

Jaskier buys Geralt new clothes, and it all gets a bit out of hand.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

He knew there was something wrong with that woman. She was beautiful, eager, not after his money, and more than happy enough to take him up to her room, stand on her very tippy toes to kiss him, run her hands down his chest, unlace his shirt while biting her lip and gazing into his eyes, and all was going well until she decided to ruined it by stabbing him with a poisoned dart, stripping him of all his clothes in a decidedly unsexy way, all while giving a running commentary on what she had found and then stomping off when she realised how broke he was.

She knew what she was doing, Geralt gave her that, as he slumped to the floor. The dose she pumped him with was enough to fell a horse. An army of horses.

It was Jaskier who found him, having caught her angrily trying to break into his room in the blind hope that it was Geralt’s (which wasn’t wrong, as Geralt didn’t have a room just yet, because he was going to have sex with her and then stay in her room, and if she kicked him out he’d have ended up bunking with Jaskier anyway). Jaskier had hauled her downstairs and ordered the landlord to deal with her, and by the time Geralt came round the room was full of well-wishers gawping at his cock, and his feet didn’t feel entirely connected to his legs right now, please try again later.

Jaskier returned and chased the gawking masses away, helped him up and managed to help him get into what was now their room.

“Do you think you could hold yourself up for a bath, or am I going to have to get in with you?” Jaskier asked. “I’m not having your drown after you almost got gelded”.

“Nnshrs” Geralt said, and Jaskier scoffed and propped him up against the wall for a moment in order to change the ordered bath for one big enough for two.

Jaskier’s room was huge, now Geralt had a moment to look around. The bed was large and inviting, decked in purple silk and velvet and carved with flowers and ladies with their breasts out in that style that every sexually repressed carpenter turns to when the fires aren’t burning hot enough back home. There rugs on the floor were intricately patterned and the curtains were so heavy they weren’t moving in the strong spring breeze that Geralt can feel even through the poison coursing through his veins.

The bath comes up along with the landlord, who is apologetic and courteous to Jaskier. The erstwhile thief had been handed over to the local garrison and would be dealt with, and they’d found Master Geralt’s clothes. Unfortunately, the landlord commiserated, they’d been found in the slurry pit. Someone, the landlord made very clear not him, would be cleaning them, but he wasn’t going to make any promises. It had taken three bribes to get anyone to even attempt to retrieve them.

“It’s fine, sir” Jaskier said. “I’m sure we can find something for my esteemed Witcher friend to wear. Thank you for your help, it is much appreciated”.

The bath is wonderful and very much appreciated. The poison is nasty and chilling Geralt down to his bones, and he wants nothing more than to just give into the water and let it take him. For the first few minutes he’s in Jaskier tuts and manhandles him as best he can, hauling him up by the armpits every time the water calls his name. There’s some swearing, and Geralt sinks down for a moment and then Jaskier’s there next to him in the warm water, and he finally lets Geralt relax now there’s nowhere for him to go. When he raises his head an indeterminate time later, Jaskier has a goblet of something in one hand that smells honeyed and spicy, and the water smells of lavender and rosemary, and it seems that scents always come in pairs. He wonders, idly, what his are. Probably not flattering.

The poison seems to be passing through his system now, his body feeling more like his own again. The water is still hot, and there’s something bobbing in the water that looks like... a little boat?

He focuses, and its bread and cheese on a boat shaped tray. Jaskier is eating in the bath. He notices Geralt is awake and nudges the little boat his way.

“Do you want some? It’s good”.

“They bought you food?” Geralt asked, surprised by the level of service.

“And wine, it’s very nice of them. There’s plenty, do you want some? There’s more hot water for later if we need it.”

It wasn’t how Geralt had planned to spend his evening, but it turns out eating cheese and drinking mead in a bath with someone who is good company is about as good as the orgasms he’d been having recently.

When they eventually get out, pruned and well fed, Jaskier finds him clothes to wear and steps out while he dresses himself now he’s mostly operating under his own power. The clothes are nice. They’re soft; Jaskier is doing well for himself even if the size and state of the room didn’t give it away. Even his sleep clothes are fine wool from some discerning and obscure breed of goat with no buttons or bulky ties, instead Jaskier’s nightgown ties up with silk ribbon so slippery the ends can’t stay tied together.

The fire is roaring, and Jaskier returns and puts Geralt to bed, then changes into another sleepshirt of fine wool and silk (who ever imagined having two sleep shirts the same?) before drawing the drapes of the bed and and talks to him until they fall asleep, wrapped in all Jaskier’s various fineries made on the back of outrageous lies about Geralt’s adventures.

Whether it’s from the poison or the trappings of wealth, Geralt sleeps well. The next morning he’s back to normal, and during a fine breakfast the landlord brings up Geralt’s salvaged clothes, but while they don’t smell, whatever they’d done had completely ruined the leather and the shirt is now badly stained. He just abouts gets them on and laced, but it’s a close thing and he’s worried about them splitting. He has a vague, ancient memory of his training and Vesemir declaring that a man should never wear trousers that creak.

When he turns around, Jaskier is dressed in a smart suit of blue silk, looking at their matching sleep shirts mournfully. He’d laid them out on the bed, one on top of the other, and Geralt apologises at the sight, because it’s obvious what’s happened, the shoulders of the one he was wearing were obscenely stretched out to twice the width of the other. The arms lie uneven and twisted, and the holes of the lacing gape open obscenely.

“Never mind” Jaskier says, rolling both up and putting them in his pack. “I’ll have it unravelled and made into something else. Good yarn like that won’t ever go to waste. Or maybe I’ll keep it as a souvenir of the time I had the great Geralt of Rivia in my bed, eh?”

He stops himself and gapes. “Oh lord, what are you wearing?” he blurts out before Geralt can ask about that last quip.

“It doesn’t smell” Geralt says, defensively.

“Yes, and I am glad of it, but how did you get into it? Did you use oil? You look like you’re going to burst. This won’t do, we’re going to have to get you something else to wear.”

“I have other clothes”, Geralt says, insulted.

“No you don’t”, Jaskier retorts.

“I do.”

“I’ve known you how many years now, and you’ve never worn another outfit apart from one other time, and I bought you that. Show me one other outfit you have that you’ve worn in the last decade.”

“Oh, well, no, I don’t have another outfit. But I’ve got other clothes. I have layers”

“Like an onion.” Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Who knew I was so right, the day we met?”

It’s hard for Geralt to explain, but he has all the clothes he needs. He has base layers, warm layers, and the leathers he wears for riding, and finally armour. That’s just how he dresses. It’s how he was taught to dress as a nomadic witcher from other men who knew best how to live on the road and be comfortable.

Jaskier takes this in his stride, but is resolute. “Never let me be the one to get in the way of a certain dressing philosophy,” he says, “Maybe I could help? Fabrics have come a long way in the last century. Even leatherworking.”

He puts his arms around Geralt’s shoulders and grimaces at the touch of the ruined leather. “And while I have learned, over time, to associate your scent with safety and security and a certain breed of hulking, taciturn masculinity, there will always be a whiff of monster guts and wet horse around you, and even a hint of slurry pit will lead your to being even more unlucky in love than you usually are. Come on, I know a tailor in this very town who owes me a favour, let me treat you.”

Up close, Jaskier smells of the promise of spring. Not of white florals or roses or such feminine scents, he smells of life, of weeds, of the spontaneous generation of green things from black earth. He smells like his name, smells like how it tastes when you eat something green. He smells green. Green and acrid and like magic in the air.

It’s a nice smell.

Geralt sighs and grunts, which Jaskier takes as the assent it is, and doesn’t give him time to make excuses or use his words, just takes him firmly by the crook of the arm and leads him downstairs, through the alleyway and into a shop just a few streets away.

The shop doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside it is more ostentatious than many of the palaces Geralt has been to. Whoever owns this shop is doing very well for themselves.

The proprietor pops his head out from the back and thunders over. “Jaskier, my favourite customer! I was going to come over to your rooms this morning and bite your head off for coming through town without coming to see me, me, the man who made you who you are -”

He cuts himself off, stepping back and looking at Geralt. “Jas, is this who I think it is?”

Jaskier grins and bounces on his heels. “Yes! The Witcher of legend!”

The tailor smiles faintly, his eyes aghast. “Why...does he look so? Dry? Stiff?”

Jaskier slaps the tailor on the back, giving Geralt the up and down for a long moment before shaking his head. “It’s a long story of thieves and effluent and stretched out nightshirts, but I was hoping you could do something about that. Carte blanche. Make him look good.”

“Black” Geralt says. “Carte Noir. Maybe marron, if I must.”

The tailor’s smile got wider and more sincere as Jaskier talked. “I think...yes, I think I know what you need, Master Geralt. I think we will be able to come to a mutual understanding. Why don’t you go into the back and get undressed.” the tailor orders. “There’s a robe there to cover yourself with. I’ll be right in. I assume you’re paying” he says to Jaskier, who has wandered over to a rack of silks and is looking appreciatively at them.

“Hm? Yes, of course. You know I’m good for it.”

“About all you’re good for these days” the tailor says waspishly. “Find yourself a wife, for god’s sake, a young man shouldn’t have too much money, it makes him strange.”

Geralt goes into the small room and changes into the robe, thankfully a serviceable one of worn dark blue linen. The tailor comes in after scolding Jaskier for touching things, and he has a length of ribbon wrapped around his hand like a garotte, but he unravels it, clucks his tongue and starts taking measurements.

He measures around Geralt’s arms, frowns, measures again, shakes his head. Makes a note on the wall in chalk, and moves on to his forearms, wrists, the distance between them. Measures the span of his arms, wrist to wrist across the back, before huffing and calling out for another man to come and help him, and to bring another tape.

He measures Geralt’s chest, hips, his inseam and it’s equally embarrassing, but at least he doesn’t need assistance for those. Meanwhile Geralt can hear Jaskier talking to the man outside about fabric and cut, the riding leathers having been confiscated to help them understand.

Finally, the tailor finishes and tells Geralt to take a seat and brings him a glass of beer to cheer him up. “Almost done now, let’s go and see what that bard has in mind, hm?”

Obviously Geralt looked alarmed, because the tailor pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I mostly cater to the gentry and the officer classes; I know what real men need from their clothes. I won’t let the bardling get carried away.” He steps out the door before winking and saying “Well, not too carried away”, before closing the door and leaving Geralt to down his beer in sullen trepidation.

He’s in there for a long time. They bring him more beer and a sandwich and the tailor and his assistant come in occasionally to take more measurements or ask his opinion on which swatch he likes. The fabrics are reassuringly high quality. The leathers are rich and smell of mahogany and linseed oil, the wools thick but not scratchy, the linen well-woven without the burrs that new shirts have. There’s cotton underwear and a soft, tawny undershirt that fits him like another skin that is as soft as Jaskier’s sleep shirt from the night before with matching long-johns for the winter. They’re all well optimised, and Geralt and the tailor discuss space constraints on a horse, and it’s all very practical. The tailor makes him up two full sets with extras for hygiene’s sake, and they fold down into a knapsack barely bigger than his last one.

By the time they bring it all in and he gets it all on, he looks like a woodcutting of himself, all fine lines and layers, the leather gleaming and cut for movement.

He thanks the tailor, and prepares to go, but then he’s interrupted by another knock on the door.

“Do you trust me?” Jaskier asks, slipping in, mischief written all over his face. Geralt makes a big show and dance of looking him up and down, taking in the colour of his suit, the trimming and the fripperies, not to mention the enormous fuchsia hat with the ostrich feather drooping rakishly over his eye and scoffs harder than he’s scoffed in his life.

He says yes though, because these clothes must cost a small fortune, a years’ income most likely, and the tailor refused to let Geralt even mention giving him any coin. “Do you know how rich your bard is, Master Geralt? I would let him do this, if I were you.”

“Good.” Jaskier says, and pulls a garment bag out from behind his back. “I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t do this.”

The other set of clothes Jaskier presents aren’t as garish as Geralt had feared. In fact, they’re black as night, with a tasteful amount of silver embroidery somewhere in among the layers. He’s not really sure where.

“Get undressed, all of it please.” Jaskier says, turning his back and hanging up the pieces of the suit for him.

Geralt undresses and hesitates once he gets fully nude just a few short inches from Jaskier’s back, before he loses his nerve and puts the robe back on.

“Don’t say anything” Jaskier says quietly. “Just humour me. Now, I know you’re a practical man who doesn’t really know a lot about the finer things in life, but this is why I am such a good friend. I think you need something nice, something special. Undo the robe, please.”

Jaskier picks up the first layer, a small, almost translucent thin pair of silk pants, brief as anything, and coaxes one foot and then the other into them before sliding them up Geralt’s legs achingly slowly. He doesn’t even hesitate before he just lifts Geralt’s penis and balls up, his hand warm and sure, and tucks him in, before fiddling with the waistband so that it lies flat. Looks up, shyly, and takes the next piece, a matching silvery shirt, impossibly thin and gauzy and hands it to Geralt to pull on over his head, before moving round to check the fit of the pants against his arse.

The silk shirt gapes open almost down to his navel, and Jaskier stands and pulls a black satin cord off the pile and begins to thread each lace through the grommet. He’s breathing hard, which is when Geralt realises he is too, standing stock still and feeling the fleeting press of Jaskier’s lute-hardened fingers brush through his chest hair as they work the strings of the shirt into place.

Jaskier waits for a moment before pulling softly on the strings, and the shirt is done up, the silk moving sweetly against his nipples that he hadn’t realised were hard and so sensitive he grunts at the feeling.

“Oh,'' Jaskier says, staring for a moment, before turning back and picking up the trousers. He holds them up to Geralt’s chest for a moment, swaying closer, and bringing Geralt’s hand over to make him feel them. The fabric is strangely erotic; it looks like leather but feels like silk, somehow toughened and cool and soft at the same time, with slubs in the weave that give it texture.

Jaskier helps him into them, pulls them up his thighs and tucks the silk shirt into them, but leaves the fly gaping open with the unspoken realisation that there’s no way to do them up when Geralt is so obviously, rudely, aroused. Jaskier puts his hands on Geralt’s arse and squeezes, pressed up against him, tugging the tight, tight trousers into place, his breath huffing warm against Geralt’s ear, a smile curving against the line of Geralt’s jaw. Over his shoulder, Geralt can see the doublet hanging on the wall, richly embroidered with black and silver thread with an abstract design of dandelions and buttercups, the fasteners each obscene little knots that slide into tiny loops of silk. The arms are pleated with a cut that shows a sliver of the obscene crimson lining against the arms, a little tease of some forbidden cleft, just so obscene no man could ever wear a suit like this outside of a specialist brothel, and something in his mind snaps.

He growls, grabbing Jaskier to him and pushing him back against the door, crushing his aching, swollen, trapped prick against Jaskier’s silk trousers and cursing him. “Only you,” Geralt says against Jaskier’s lips, “Would have the idea to seduce me by putting me into clothes, rather than getting me out of them,” he says, before kissing him roughly. “This silk, this fucking fabric, it’s too much, and it’s your fault. I’m going to come any moment, and god, you’re going to feel it, feel as frustrated as I am, but don’t imagine this is over” Geralt growls, “once I can get these trousers done up, we are going somewhere else, and you will take these off me with as much care as you’ve just put me into them. Don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t over. I’m not done with you, and you’re not done with me. I have been promised good things, and I intend for you to deliver” and Jaskier moans “Yessss” and then Geralt is coming, his dick still trapped tight inside silk and soaking the thin material with a veritable fountain load of spunk, silvery as the embroidery against Jaskier’s blue trousers.

Jaskier revels in it, kissing him through it, his own prick an iron bar in his (thankfully much looser) trousers, and he shakes and keens and curses before grabbing himself painfully hard to stop himself from following Geralt and coming all over himself, before grabbing the silver cord and falling to his knees, and finally lacing Geralt’s trousers closed over the filthy, ruined underwear while Geralt tugs on the doublet, popping every little knot into each hole with deft, practiced fingers.

Jaskier turns them around, and there’s a mirror there, full length, and Geralt takes a moment to look at himself through the eyes of his bard, sees Jaskier’s fingerprints all over him in much the way his spunk is smeared across Jaskier’s front, smiles, and gets the door.

Notes:

For Nimlock, in thanks for the filth! You can see it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337182. I tried to hit all the points you wanted, but then this happened? Hope you still like it <3

Title translates as 'the clothes make the man' in latin, apparently.

Come and hang out with me on tumblr at cicaklah.tumblr.com.

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