Chapter Text
Jaskier sleeps through the night and is still there when Geralt wakes in the morning. He groans when he wakes, sore, and stares at Geralt with bleary eyes. He moves with the stiffness of someone unused to sleeping on the hard ground, despite the thickness of his bedroll, and Geralt almost feels bad for propelling him to his feet. The Omega had been right about his feet blistering.
“Have you decided where we’re going?” Jaskier asks. His face is a mask of pain and exhaustion and Geralt is tempted to heft him up on Roach, at least for a few hours. “Or are you content to see how long you can run me ragged before I die?”
“You’d make decent monster bait while you still have your baby fat,” Geralt says, as he finishes loading up their packs.
“I do not have baby fat!” Jaskier says, indignantly. Like Geralt hadn’t seen the softness in his hips and arms when he stripped in front of the fire the other night. “I’m barely going to be jerky by the time you’re done parading me around, long walks with no water.”
“There’s water,” Geralt says. He grabs a canteen and blindly passes it to Jaskier, who drinks eagerly and chokes loudly.
“That’s vodka , you beast!” Jaskier sputters.
“Only water safe to drink in Temeria,” Geralt replies idly. He reaches for the canteen, but Jaskier stubbornly takes a long draught before handing it back. Something else he’s going to have to stock up on, next town they make it to. Not that he needs a drunk Omega on his hands, especially not one that’s known to bite. That’s just tempting fate.
Jaskier is still yawning by the time they’re on the road again.
It’s two days of traveling before they make it to the next village, and Geralt isn’t sure how Jaskier managed to do this on his own. The Omega is constantly whining and asking for breaks, but at least he sleeps through the night. The sound of his soft snoring is starting to be a comforting sound which means Jaskier has long since overstayed his welcome.
There’s a contract for Drowners posted outside the tavern and there is a room with two beds available for payment upstairs. Jaskier immediately throws himself onto one of the stiff mattresses and makes a near pornographic sound in pleasure. “A bed!”
Geralt grunts and drops onto the bed closer to the door. It’ll be a few hours before the sun goes down and the beasts start crawling out of the riverbed. He should take the opportunity to prepare or eat but Geralt doesn’t have the energy for either. “Don’t say I don’t take you nice places.”
“Nice places would include a bath,” Jaskier says. His feet have swollen in his shoes and he smells like the road when he strips down to his underclothes, stretching out on his bed. Geralt had taken a blade to the large blisters that hadn’t burst on their own and done his best to wrap them. “Maybe some bath salts. A nice glass of wine and a charcuterie board...”
He wants to ask where Jaskier is from, but he remembers the Omega saying something about a Viscount and that would explain a lot of Jaskier’s spoiled peculiarities. Wine and charcuterie boards sounded nice, but there weren’t any for Jaskier in Geralt’s future. He still hadn’t decided what to do with the Omega. Geralt kept saying he’d deal with that after he made it to town, but now that he was in town, he wasn’t any closer to the answer.
The problem was, Geralt didn’t just want to throw Jaskier to the wolves. Omegas were uncommon enough that he should fetch a fair price, but Geralt wasn’t in the business of selling Omegas and taking him to a whorehouse would be doing just that. Jaskier might have some independence and freedoms in a brothel he wouldn’t elsewise, but he’d still be selling himself. Still relying on another person for his well being.
Geralt lays back on the bed, not bothering to kick off his boots or armor. Unlike Jaskier, he doesn’t plan on spending the rest of the day in the room. Just a few hours, until the sun goes down. When he can ditch Jaskier for a few hours and do what he’s meant to be doing, what he is trained to do. Geralt wasn’t made for babysitting.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s been a long day.
Later, he wakes to the soft strumming of a lute. He knows it’s Jaskier, has seen him lugging the thing around for days now, but it’s the first time he’s actually seen - heard - the Omega play the instrument. He’d barely done more than check to see if it had been damaged in their travels before now. To his surprise, Jaskier is actually kind of good at it. It’s relaxing to listen to him play in the quiet of their room.
Geralt doesn’t do more than shift to get comfortable and glance at the window to gauge the time. Not quite sunset.
“You’re out of vodka,” Jaskier says, no apologies for waking Geralt. The canteen is sitting on the bed by his crossed leg, and there’s a pink flush to his cheeks. He’s still just sitting there in his undergarments, strumming away at his lute like this is normal. Like life with Geralt, on the road and in shitty inn rooms, could somehow be normal.
Getting up, Geralt stretches. His fingers find his coin purse almost blindly and he pulls out what’s left - a small handful - and he drops an even smaller portion of that on the bed at Jaskier’s side. He reaches out and touches the top of Jaskier’s head, dirty hair still somehow soft under his fingertips. “Get something to eat. Don’t wait up for me.”
Jaskier swats Geralt’s hand away and scowls, but his reaction to the touch is much less visceral than it was three days ago. His head bows, ever so slightly, before he sticks his chin up and starts plucking at his lute again, louder this time. “Go, Alpha, and provide for your starving Omega. Don’t expect me to lie here warming your bed when you return, though.”
“You’re not starving,” Geralt says. Jaskier had eaten at least twice a day since he’d been in Geralt’s care and it wasn’t his fault if the Omega balked at the sight of him skinning a rabbit. Jaskier was saying things to rile him up, to be obstinate. Geralt had figured out his little game the day they set off together. Mouthy Omegas were harder to part with.
“Well, don’t stay out all night,” Jaskier says, turning his attention back to the lute in his hands. “That’s how you catch the pox.”
Geralt means to say that Witchers are immune to that sort of thing but he doesn’t feel like riling Jaskier up. Besides, they aren’t going to be together long enough for that to be relevant.
The contract called for the slaying of five Drowners. By the time Geralt is wiping his silver blade clean of their blood, he’s cut down at least a dozen just to keep them off his back. He takes his time gutting them for any useful parts and he tries to tell himself it has nothing to do with distancing himself from Jaskier.
It’s just, Geralt knows how he looks when he’s taken potions. Ashen skin, black eyes, dark veins. Jaskier might be surprisingly well adjusted to being paired off again but that’s only because he doesn’t expect Geralt to hurt him. He doesn’t see Geralt for the monster that everyone says he is - and if Geralt returns to their inn room right now, that’s exactly what would happen.
It’s inexplicable but Geralt doesn’t want Jaskier to be afraid of him.
It’s just because they still have to travel together. Geralt is responsible for Jaskier until he can get him somewhere safe. He was dumb enough to agree to the Law of Surprise and now he was responsible for an Omega. Gods, how he wishes he’d scored a hound or some crop he could at least take to Kaer Morhen for the Winter. Taking an Omega home would present its own kind of problems. Like the indication that Geralt planned on keeping Jaskier.
The only reason he’d touched Jaskier was to comfort him and the only reason he’d done that is because he was used to the young Omega’s scent. This is exactly the kind of reason the Trial of the Grasses was supposed to Nullify and sterilize him. Geralt couldn’t afford to be distracted by the scent of an Omega, familiar or otherwise.
By the time Geralt runs out of excuses to avoid heading back into town, the potions have mostly started to wear thin. He grabs his trophies and all but throws them at the poor Alderman’s butler. The look he’s given as he’s invited inside is murderous.
“You know, they’re saying it’s going to be a cold Winter,” the Alderman says. He’s dressed for bed and his face is long from exhaustion. He takes his time counting out the golden coins. “The agreement was for five Drowners.”
Geralt knew where this was going. He was about to be scammed out of his hard earned money by technicalities and pleas for survival.
“Oh, but my wife saw that dreadful little mate of yours when you rode into town,” the Alderman continues. He hesitates, and counts out another fifty coins. “The least you can do is get him a proper coat while you’re in town. Melitele knows that drunk bastard of a tailor could use the work. Thinks a pretty mink coat for the wife will be enough to promise him my youngest’s hand in marriage…”
Jaskier isn’t his mate, but if it’s going to get Geralt an extra handful of coins to help feed his skinny ass, then Geralt wasn’t going to say a word edgewise. Besides, he probably would need a Winter coat. Dread as he was to admit it, the nights were getting colder and longer and Geralt was running out of time to make a decision.
To admit what his decision was.
“Get out of here, Witcher,” the Alderman says with a yawn. He all but waves his hand dismissively and the butler escorts him back to the front door. The Drowner heads have been left in a pile on the stone outside, like no one was quite sure what to do with them. Finally, something that wasn’t Geralt’s problem anymore.
Jaskier is in the tavern.
Jaskier is in the tavern, doublet half undone, laying on a table with his lute across his lap. He looks surprisingly clean and nothing like the grumpy, bitter Omega Geralt has been traveling with the last few days. There are fingers running through his air and Geralt can practically feel him oozing confidence from across the room, and it isn’t just the scent of unmated Omega.
It’s enough to make Geralt pause and stare, until he realizes he’s not the only one in the room giving Jaskier their undivided attention. Alphas might be as rare as Omegas, but they weren’t so uncommon that Geralt couldn’t smell their interest in the way Jaskier laughed and wiggled for his audience. The idiot Omega was going to get himself hurt if he wasn’t careful.
“The stories I could tell!” Jaskier practically purrs. “I’m traveling with a Witcher, see, and I’ve seen so many things .”
“Jaskier,” Geralt barks. Immediately, the bard sits up on the table and looks towards him. His face is flushed with alcohol and he smells guilty . Geralt stares at him and is surprised when the obstinate Omega hops off the table and makes his way across the tavern to Geralt’s side.
“I was just trying to make a few coins,” Jaskier starts. He’s so close Geralt can smell the clean scent of soap on his skin. He’d used the money Geralt had given him on a bath instead of vodka and bread. “Your eyes - “
Geralt looks away from Jaskier and it has nothing to do with not wanting the Omega to see his dark eyes. He heads towards the staircase, away from the noise, and he’s only mildly surprised when Jaskier follows him. “I told you to stay out of trouble.”
“Ah, no,” Jaskier says, elbow brushing Geralt’s. “You told me to get something to eat and to not wait up for you. You never explicitly told me to stay out of trouble. Which, I wasn’t in, in any case. I was just making friends and a few coins. Though, I expect the barkeep expects me to put out with the amount of ale he passed my way…”
The idea of Jaskier having sex with the heavyset barkeep makes Geralt’s blood run and he chooses not to examine why. Instead, he just lets himself into the room and blinks in the dying firelight. The bath is still standing in their room, with minimal dirt in it, all things considered. It smelled like the soap Jaskier had used and the floral lotion he rubbed himself with at night.
“I even got you a sandwich,” Jaskier says. He fetches a folded cloth parcel off of Geralt’s bed and seems delighted that it wasn’t picked apart by rats. “Ham! And some drink. I’m not completely helpless on my own, you see. There’s a reason I managed to survive every time I ran away.”
Jaskier was trying to prove a point. He was capable of taking care of himself. If his family and his betrothed hadn't constantly dragged him back for matings and marriage, he might actually survive on his own for a while. In a city, away from hungry Alphas, where he could bathe and pamper himself and put on a show.
Geralt just sighs and resists the urge to rub at his face. It’s late and he planned to be stocked up and out of town by noon. He had every intention of just going to bed, but well, the bath was lukewarm and it wasn’t that dirty. It had been a long three days on the road, and it was likely to be a longer stretch until they reach the next town.
“Go to bed, Jaskier,” Geralt says, eventually. “And next time I leave you alone, stay out of trouble .”
“Is that another rule?” Jaskier asks, flitting just out of Geralt’s reach before he can contemplate swatting at him. He’s already half undressed and in bed before Geralt can think to do more than just grunt at him. “Have you decided where we’re headed yet?”
“Posada,” Geralt says, stripping for the tub. He listens to Jaskier shift in bed and breathe, muttering Posada under his breath like it held some excitement. Geralt had been time and time again, just passing through. Where had his wanderlust gone?