The flicker of candle light from every flat surface in the room had grown tiresome quickly. How long had he been here, exactly? Must have been a long time now considering how often he'd had to replenish the oil in the lantern on the vanity. It was more tedious, but preferable still to the dancing shadows cast by candles.
Tedious was a good word to describe his life over the last...gods knew how long. He'd returned to Novigrad in the hopes of finding some peace and quiet-those on the street would ridicule and scorn him, but these snide remarks were no stranger to Geralt of Rivia. That he could remember, the only place he'd visited where the common folk were at best kind to him and at worst, indifferent, was Toussaint. And just then, listening to the flowery nonsense of every perfumed, well-intentioned Knight Errant asking if he needed help wiping his own ass sounded as appealing as shoving splinters under his fingernails.
So Novigrad it was-somewhere he could blend in, maybe find some comfort when he wanted it. Though lately, comfort seemed harder and harder to come by.
"You stink," said the woman lying on his bed. She was pretty, with blond hair-brunette? Some kind of lighter color, not black. That was all he could remember about her, and he'd only come in and sat down in the wooden chair beside the tub a few moments ago. She was nothing special-just the first one he'd laid eyes on that didn't immediately shrink away from him in disgust.
"Happens when rotfiends gang up on a man with his back turned," Geralt said dully, leaning down to unbuckle his boots and grimacing as his left shoulder protested the movement. He pulled his boots off one after the other and curled his toes, feeling the bones pop and the muscles stretch and cramp up. He squeezed his eyes shut as he forced his feet to sit flat against the floor again, rolling his ankles. He could feel the cold wooden floor against bare skin-holes in his socks again. Wonderful. These boots were ill-fitting, and he hadn't the coin to purchase new ones, nor could he afford to keep buying new socks. But he would have to figure out something, as a witcher could develop blisters and infection the same as a human without appropriately sized equipment, then he would have many more costly problems...but he could worry over it another time.
"I don't want to touch you until you've bathed," the prostitute said.
Geralt didn't look up from his feet, just shook his head and pulled the torn socks away and tossed them over onto his boots. "Then don't," he said. "You're welcome to leave."
Though he couldn't see her past the privacy screen to his right, Geralt could just imagine the look of surprise on her face. The bed creaked faintly as she sat up, but she didn't leave yet, undoubtedly distrustful of a man who offered her a night off after already being paid. "But your coin," she said, confirming his suspicion.
"Keep it," Geralt sighed, grimacing as he reached up to unbuckle and shuck off pieces of armor. They were studded leather, yet felt heavy as plate mail in that moment. He had hoped he would feel more relief in his shoulder once he'd taken it off, but still it pained him. Fine, if it was going to continue to be a problem, he'd treat it like all of the other problems in his life-he'd studiously ignore it until he couldn't any longer.
With his armor removed, he looked down at the ruin of his shirt. The cloth looked intact, but it was plastered to his skin with rotfiend guts and blood in various stages of drying. Black, various shades of shit brown and yellowish green that reminded him of pus-filled wounds. He pulled at the hem and grimaced again as it peeled away from his skin. At least he wouldn't have to exfoliate ever again in his life.
"You've rented this room for so long, and you're not even using it to fuck anyone," the woman said, clearly displeased. He could hear her moving around the room, hopefully dressing so she would leave sooner rather than later. Geralt had never been terribly impatient with the men and women he bedded, but lately he found himself asking them to be quiet more often than not. Some of them had picked up on his dislike of conversation, others not so much.
"You can't keep doing this," said the woman.
"Can't I?" Geralt snorted derisively as he grabbed the hem of the shirt he'd been trying to carefully pull up and yanked it hard away from his body. It stung, but was hardly the worst pain he'd ever felt. Using mostly his right arm, he pulled the shirt up over his head, ripping it away from his back too where his sweat had helped the blood and worse wick up into the fabric. "I didn't realize Marquise Serenity had her accountants spreading their legs for coin. Business must be lacking."
He heard a disgusted sound and then quick, angry steps toward the door, which slammed shut and left his ears ringing. Finally, a moment to himself.
As he tossed the crusty shirt to lay atop his soiled socks, Geralt looked down at his hands. They were calloused from years, decades of swinging swords at beasts and worse-the callouses were a symbol of his hard work and dedication. But what caught his attention was the grime caked under his nails and in the beds of his cuticles-cuticles? Where had he gotten that word? Where had he learned it? Ah, yes. Jaskier, of course. It certainly wasn't a word Geralt had any reason to learn, yet there were a great many things he had no business knowing. And thanks to the dubiously affluent and flamboyant bard, he'd never get them out of his head again. Gods, he was even starting to think like the man.
The witcher stood with a grunt and sighed, reaching up in vain to rub his throbbing shoulder for a moment before he began untying his trousers. At least he could do that without adding to the pain. He reached in to feel the water in the tub, which he'd asked to have filled once per day while he occupied the room. Cold, of course. He'd returned to the Passiflora quite late that night. He'd intended to be back before the sun set, but the pack of rotfiends had spooked Roach and it had taken him ages to get close enough to her to use Axi. Even with the delay she'd caused, Geralt had paid the stable that housed her for an extra portion of grain. With everything they'd been through together, she deserved to be spoiled more than she deserved his ire.
Geralt pushed his pants down his legs, less worried about the thicker cloth peeling away from the skin of his thighs, and ultimately grateful that it hadn't soaked through to his braies. He pushed those down and kicked them both away toward his pile of clothing before stepping into the brass tub. After falling, diving and being pushed into water of all kinds of frigid, frozen or otherwise cold, he hardly noticed the temperature of his bath at first, but he wasn't going to let it stay that way. He'd been looking forward to this soak all day.
He leaned back and let his hands rest against the outside of the tub on either side. His shoulder felt like it was trying to pull itself out of the socket, but he grit his teeth and endured it. With a minor force of will and a movement of the fingers on his right hand, he invoked Igni, holding the spell at bay from unleashing its energy all at once. It felt like trying to hold back a sneeze, pressure building quickly in his head-specifically behind his eyes, and leading his head to throb painfully within seconds of beginning the spell.
The water heated quickly enough with the help of the spell and once he saw wisps of steam lifting up from the surface, he plunged his hands under, letting the sign release the rest of its energy into the water itself. Steam rose up in a billowing cloud that bathed his face, and he lifted his hands to scrub away some of the grime. His hair felt crusty, so he pulled it down out of its tail, running his fingers over the shaved sides and picking out bits of guts that fell down into the water. He dropped them into the basin on the floor beside the tub until even that became too tedious and he had to stop.
Slowly, the water began to soothe the aches and pains of his muscles. A good night's rest would let his body recover. If he was called on to act, he could do so immediately and with efficiency, but he would feel it later. A witcher, though enhanced, was still bound to the same laws of man to some degree or another-he couldn't recall Vesemir's exact words, but he didn't care to think too hard on it. Bathing was the one time in his day when he didn't have to think too hard, and he wasn't about to spend it contemplating his mentor.
A soft knock at the door erased any progress he'd made at relaxing, and he felt the muscles in his neck, shoulders and back tense immediately. "Fuck," he groaned, sitting up a little more and reaching angrily for a rag beside him. If someone wanted to talk to him, they could damn well do it while he was naked if it was important. He snapped, "What?"
He heard the door open and close, then the soft tick of heels on the hardwood floor. "Forgive me not asking if you were decent," came a gentle voice.
Geralt took a slow breath and let it out quickly, steeling himself to whatever nonsense he was about to endure. "Considering the establishment and our history, I don't imagine such formalities are necessary," he said, looking up at the woman from beneath his brows. He didn't care to pretend he was happy to see her.
Marquise Serenity was an older woman, someone well out of a prostitute's prime, yet still beautiful in her own right. Steel-grey hair worn back in a sensible tail, a well-tailored dress that framed her bosom modestly enough, yet made no efforts to hide what had earned her the title of Marquis, she was a sight to behold. She had smile lines and crow's feet in equal measure, but left precious little to be desired; if one were to meet those blue-grey eyes, one might feel a shiver down the spine.
Geralt felt nothing of the sort.
"And yet," she pondered, coming to stand at the end of the tub and run her fingers over the brass edge, "one might say that some formalities should still be observed." She studied Geralt for a long moment, eyes lingering on his chest and arms, though also occasionally straying lower. Her gaze did not make him uncomfortable, nor did it inspire arousal in him like it may have not so long ago.
"If you don't continue that thought, I'll start to wonder who should be charging whom," Geralt said, lifting the rag out of the water to continue scrubbing at his neck and chest. He wrapped his right arm over his chest to get at his left shoulder blade and tried to do the same with the other, only to feel the muscles pull tight and force his arm back into a neutral position. His jaw clenched in irritation more than anything now.
"I assume this is about the girl?" he asked, looking again to Serenity as she started to make her way around the tub, running her fingers along the surface of the water. She touched the hand that held the rag and Geralt was tempted to pull away. But the conversation might be over sooner if he just let her do what she was going to do and get on with both of their lives. So he relinquished the rag, resting his arms along the edges of the tub.
"A wise observation," Serenity said, dipping the rag into the water and ringing it out a little before she moved his hair aside and started to wash the muck from his skin. "Not that I should be surprised. You are, after all, a witcher. But can you guess what she had to say?"
"If I wanted guessing games and riddles, I would have gone back to the edge of the world," he retorted. "Speak plainly or not at all...please."
"Ah, a please at last," Serenity said, running the rag over the ball of his injured shoulder. The muscles twitched and Geralt pulled away slightly, the barest hint of a wince in his expression. She avoided the area, continuing down his right bicep and to his forearm. "Here I thought you'd forgotten your manners entirely."
Geralt's eyes narrowed as he very quickly decided this was, indeed, going to be a great deal of nonsense. "I thought I was perfectly pleasant," he said, leaning forward when he felt pressure from her hands. "She asked questions, I answered them. That's how I've always understood conversations to work."
"Mmm, but I'm left wondering if what you think you say differs from what leaves your mouth," Serenity said, her hands resting on his shoulders lightly to have him lean back again. "Multiple women you've shared a bed with this last month have told me you've behaved boorishly. I would have thought perhaps they don't understand the way of witchers...but you've been with these women in the past, and they've sung praises about your kindness and generosity in both lovemaking and conversation. What's changed, Geralt?"
It took everything in him not to snap back at her with the first thing that came to his mind, but in the back of his mind, he had everyone in his life who'd ever had the opportunity to see him interact with a woman screaming at him to keep his damn fool mouth shut. So that's what he did.
"You don't owe me an explanation," Serenity sighed, "but you've been here for near half a year. When you first arrived, I could tell that you were upset. I asked no questions then, and still I will ask none. Yaniva was out of line to bring it up with you, but she spoke sense. When we rent rooms, we do so multiple times per night. Your coin would go farther at an inn rather than a brothel, my friend."
"I'm not your friend," Geralt said quietly, but firmly. Stop. "I have no use for friends." Just stop it. Shut your damn fool mouth. "I need no one."
Serenity's hands stilled and she walked around to sit on the chair beside the tub, draping the rag over the edge of the tub neatly. "I think you believe that. I think you need that to be true. Maybe because you feel you can't rely on those around you, or simply because you're stubborn for the sake of being stubborn," she said. "I don't understand what's happened, I don't particularly care to know. But with how you've been behaving, I worry you are trying to burn bridges that ought be left standing. I'll forgive the debt you've incurred by staying here for the sake of the relationship we have cultivated. But I expect this room to be vacant by the morning."
She reached out to touch his forearm, but Geralt pulled his arm away from the edge and into the water, looking away from Serenity. "Goodnight, Geralt," she sighed. "Good luck on the Path."
Once she'd left, Geralt let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and leaned back in the tub again. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking slowly until his eyes closed altogether. But despite his exhaustion, the witcher could not rest yet. He finished his bath as well as he could on his own and slipped naked between the bed sheets, dreading having to launder his clothing in the morning before he left.
He laid there alone and in relative silence. In a brothel, there was no way to escape the indiscreet moaning and murmured conversations from the rooms around him, but it was a far cry better than the inns and taverns where he might have found lodging otherwise. Drunkards screaming, madmen ranting, he could block out most of that and sleep well enough. But the smell. It was the reason he had come here, in all honesty. He could handle the overlapping scents of different perfumes and the heady, musky scent of sex. But the stench of unwashed bodies and sewage, chamber pots in desperate need of emptying and the rank, diseased breath of every person who passed through the place-it was more than he could stand even to think about. This was better...this had been better. Now he had to leave, as he'd overstayed his welcome.
Geralt stared up at the ceiling for a long time, trying and failing to push his thoughts to the side so he could sleep. He couldn't expect Roach to be his legs and his brain, one of them would have to steer tomorrow. Yet despite his best efforts, he did not finally fall asleep until his room was full of predawn grey light and he heard the twitter of birds outside the window. He only needed a few hours...