Chapter Text
“Fuck.”
It’s the only word that comes to mind. The last three days had involved stone golems, a cursed tower, and a young nobleman trying to prove himself and ended with this. This. This, scowly, Omega with his arms crossed over his chest and an angry flush on his face. Geralt had tried to reject the Law of Surprise as soon as it came out of young Lord Aedith’s mouth, but it was too late. He’d made the promise, Geralt dragged him home, and Geralt was thrown head first into this.
“A relief, really,” Aedith had said, clapping Geralt on the back. “He bit me the last time I tried to bed him. I thought he’d run away for good this time. Was actually quite hopeful of it. Well, he’s yours now, a promise is a promise.”
Geralt rubs his face and looks around the room Aedith’s family had been happy to give Geralt in exchange for saving their son’s life - though, Geralt suspected, it was more for taking the moody young Omega off their hands. The Law of Surprise was an honorable enough way to get rid of an unwanted marriage. Afterall, who could interfere with destiny? Still, the room was nice. The bed was more than large enough for the two of them and the view over town was something worth looking at.
“Right. Julian.” Geralt says, as the silence drags on.
“Jaskier,” the Omega snaps, bristling up immediately. Aedith said he’d been found with a dagger in his doublet and the tenacity to brandish it, barely three towns over. Getting stabbed in his sleep is the last thing Geralt needs.
“Jaskier,” Geralt says, correcting himself. To his surprise, the Omega simmers down a bit. His jaw is still a hard line, teeth clenched, but he crosses a leg under his body and doesn’t look ready to flee. “Ground rules. No stabbing me.”
“No promises,” Jaskier mumbles. He doesn’t look away from Geralt’s steely gaze, just juts his chin up further in defiance. Someone never learned how to submit and Geralt finds it as amusing as he does annoying. It’s going to make him difficult to deal with.
Geralt catches Jaskier’s jaw in his hand, intent to give him a good look over. The Omega immediately jerks away from the touch, and Geralt lets him go, startled by the visceral reaction. Someone has hit him. Standing closer, guiding Jaskier’s jaw up slowly without ever touching him, Geralt can see the fading blue of a bruise around his eye and cuts on his lips from where he’s bitten them. Geralt doesn’t know how to comfort anyone, let alone an Omega, so he puts his hand on the top of Jaskier’s head and sighs. “Try not to run away until I can get you somewhere safe. There’s places for Omegas in the Northern cities.”
“Where you’ll sell me to a whore house? Joy,” Jaskier says. He has every intention of running away the first chance he gets and Geralt knows it. He wishes he could at least get the Omega somewhere safe, but he has little faith in that.
“You can do whatever you want in the city,” Geralt says. “Do you have a Mark?”
Jaskier jerks his chemise away from his throat and shows Geralt his scent gland, unbitten. If Aedith hadn’t been able to Mark him, there was a good chance Jaskier could find a decent life somewhere far away in one of the cities. Who knows, he could even fall in love. Geralt will be happy to give Jaskier away to the first Alpha who shows no intention of beating him. It’s the least Geralt can do, to get them both out of this awful situation.
“Right,” Geralt says. “No stabbing. No fondling. No… whatever it is you plan on doing when my back is turned.”
The hard look doesn’t leave Jaskier’s eyes but Geralt isn’t worried. He turns away from the Omega to finally strip off his armor. The steam is fading fast from the bath brought to their room, and Geralt has every intention of enjoying the small luxuries while he can. They’ll be back on the road come morning and the next town over won’t be so happy to have a Witcher in their midst. It’s nice, feeling welcome for a change, but Geralt knows better than to get used to it.
He can feel Jaskier’s eyes on him as he strips, sizing him up, and Geralt does his best to ignore him. The Omega’s heart is still rapid, adrenaline thrumming through his veins and scenting the air with acrid anxiety, but he isn’t afraid. Not of Geralt, in any case. Mostly he seems determined to be in a bad mood and Geralt is content to let him be. Nothing about this situation is fair.
“Eat up at dinner,” Geralt says, relaxing in the bath. “We leave in the morning.”
Dinner is stew and wine, both rich and heavy in Geralt’s stomach. It’ll bring sleep quickly and Geralt is looking forward to at least one good night’s rest before they’re on the road again. He relishes a soft bed and a hearty meal when he gets the chance.
“You’re not having me,” Jaskier says, stripping out of his doublet and glaring when Geralt looks his way. “Aedith tried a half dozen times before he learned his lesson. I just don’t want to sleep on the floor.”
“He mentioned you bit him,” Geralt says as he strips. Jaskier scoffs. “I have no intention of taking you against your will.”
Jaskier’s grin is feral. There’s a knife stolen from the dinner table tucked up under his pillow and for Jaskier’s sake, Geralt pretends he doesn’t know. “Better just stay on your side of the bed.”
Geralt strips to his smallclothes, leaving his swords just in reach under the bed. Jaskier leaves his chemise on, though it does little to hide his body in the warm fire light. He hunches his bony shoulders up and turns his back to Geralt on the bed, curling in on himself. Like he isn’t sure he can trust Geralt’s word enough to relax and get a good night’s sleep.
“How old are you?” Geralt asks, as the fire dies in the hearth and Jaskier’s heartbeat sets in to a normal, safe rhythm. “How many times have you been paired off?”
“Seventeen,” Jaskier murmurs. He shifts under the covers, pulling them tighter to his chin, and he looks every bit the child that he is. Despite it all, he just sounds tired. “This was - is - the fifth time. Fourth time. Stregnor, once. Aedith would have been on attempt number three, if you hadn’t come along. His father is very interested in what the Viscount can do for him.”
Geralt sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. A seventeen year old Omega with a penchant for biting and stabbing people who try to touch him. He’s going to have a hard time finding somewhere safe for Jaskier to stay. He’d take him to Kaer Morhen, but he isn’t sure Vesemir would approve and it wasn’t fair to isolate him in the mountains just because he’d defended himself.
“Fuck,” Geralt says, and Jaskier just hums in tired agreement.
Jaskier didn’t have many belongings since his privileges were stripped away from him with every attempt he made to flee. A few changes of clothes, a lotion that made Geralt’s nose curl from the pungent floral scent, and a thick bedroll purchased sometime the day before when Aedith and his family realized they would finally be rid of him. No horse, no walking boots, no sense of direction. Geralt was already dreading the journey to the North.
The only thing Jaskier owned that he showed in particular devotion to was a battered lute, checking it over carefully before tucking it in its case before the long ride. So Geralt had that to look forward to.
He didn’t have much experience with Omegas, especially not independent ones, but their best bet was Oxenfurt. The city was liberal enough that Jaskier should be able to find himself a steady living there. He could get an apprenticeship or whatever it is young runaways did when they made it to the city. The problem was, Geralt wasn’t sure if he had time enough to go West to Oxenfurt and doubleback up North to make it to Kaer Morhen for the Winter.
Rinde wouldn’t be too horrible a place to overwinter but Redanians got under Geralt’s skin.
He’s cut short from his thoughts by Jaskier’s irritable voice. “Am I really expected to just walk the entire way?”
“Have you got enough gold for a horse?” Geralt asks. Geralt could probably afford a geldling if he didn’t have to worry about keeping Jaskier in food and clothing, but that would defeat the purpose of a second horse entirely. Better to save the coin they had and just travel slow.
“Some mate you are,” Jaskier says, sniffling. “I’ll have blisters on my feet before lunch.”
“Should have bought better shoes the last time you ran away,” Geralt says, humming. To his surprise, Jaskier laughs. It’s not an unpleasant sound, even if he is still radiating hatred and contempt.
“Tell me, am I at greater risk of being torn apart in the night traveling with a Witcher, or not?” Jaskier asks. He sounds genuinely curious. “Because I've seen a Ghoul before and frankley, it’s terrifying.”
“Keep close,” is all Geralt says. He wants to card his fingers through Jaskier’s messy hair, soothe him, but he doesn’t want to be bit. He also can’t pinpoint where the feeling of comfort even came from. Jaskier doesn’t need to be comforted by Geralt, he’d made that clear enough on his own.
They have a long ride ahead of them.
Jaskier whines. My feet hurt and I’m hungry and do you even know where we’re going, endlessly, on repeat. He starts up about midmorning and he doesn’t stop until they set up camp for the night. Even lunch had barely been a reprieve.
(“Where are we going?”
“Oxenfurt. They have places for Omegas there.”
“I don’t want to go to Oxenfurt.”
“Too bad.”
“I’m just going to run away again.”
“Be my guest.”)
Stretching out his bedroll, Jaskier is asleep almost as soon as his head touches the ground. Geralt lets him sleep while he starts the fire and stretches out his legs. The silence is nice after a day of needless chatter. He hadn’t expected the Omega to be quiet about the whole ordeal, but he certainly hadn’t expected this. So much noise from such a small, feral thing.
Jaskier’s insistence that he didn’t want to go to Oxenfurt and peddled off into a whore house certainly didn’t help matters. Geralt didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to make a match for Jaskier, but surely one of the Omega houses would be thrilled to have him. Healthy, young Omegas of breeding age were harder and harder to come by these days. Surely some pompous, middle-aged poet could use a muse.
Eventually, Geralt kicked Jaskier’s leg until he awoke and offered him dried meat and bread. He’d need something on his stomach, if he planned on surviving the trip. “If not Oxenfurt, where would you go?”
Jaskier yawns and shrugs. He chews slowly, still half asleep, chin resting on his knees as he stares into the fire. “I was accepted into Oxenfurt university’s school of the arts program, before I presented. They don’t take Omegas. Spent the last year trying not to be married off.”
It’s not uncommon for places to not accept Omegas amongst their ranks, but Geralt wouldn’t have thought Oxenfurt to be one of them. They accept women, after all, which is more than the School of the Wolf could say. He took a long drag from his waterskin and watched the flames dance in Jaskier’s eyes. He thought, this was a time for comfort, but he doesn’t know what he should say to Jaskier. Geralt never had aspirations outside of being a Witcher, not that he can remember. He spent most of his life just trying to stay alive.
After what seems like an eternity of silence coming from him, Jaskier says, “I’ve not seen the ocean since I was a child and I’d like to climb the Dragon Mountains someday.”
“The dragons are dead,” Geralt says. He doesn’t know what else to say. He understands the simple pleasure of roaming, but it isn’t a cheap or easy life. Seasons change and coin runs short and Jaskier could barely fight off two beta men, how did he expect to deal with a dragon?
Jaskier looks at Geralt, like he was expecting something and it went right over Geralt’s head. Geralt has never been good with subtly. “Are you a eunuch?”
Geralt growls low, more annoyed than insulted. He was made Null by the Trial of the Grasses, long before his body ever figured out how to pop it’s first knot. It existed pleasantly alongside the lack of hormones driving him to claim, mate, breed that Geralt had seen in other, normal Alphas. “Why, need me to cut you?”
To his surprise - and, confusingly enough, something warm and pleasurable deep in his gut - Jaskier just laughs at him tiredly. “I just wanted to know if I need to protect my ass from you as well as brigands and beasties.”
“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says, and it’s not an answer, but it’s enough for Jaskier to stretch his arms far above his head and lay back down. It’s still hours before Geralt’s mind has calmed down enough to do the same.