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Witchers were made to protect. Built for it.
Geralt knew this. He felt it.
The pull toward the path was deep. It ran through his veins, settled deep within his bones. The winter always ran long, the season always ran short. His brothers seemed to relish in the time away, drinking themselves into a stupor every night, neglecting their training in favour of the company of the townswomen down the mountain, letting their swords dull and armour rust.
Geralt had never been like them. He spent his winters training, researching. He stood in front of the medallion tree, growing ever taller every year, and counted and recounted the medallions.
There soon would be none of them left. The last medallion would one day not reach the tree.
His brothers relished in the company of the townspeople. They crowded tables and babbled stories of trysts and romances, of friendships and foes. They had long stopped asking Geralt to join them, for they realized he either had no stories to tell, or just never wished to tell them.
Geralt served his purpose, to protect the continent from monsters, and that included himself.
Or at least it did.
—
When he had entered Posada he had planned to do what he always had done. Take a contract, collect his coin, and move on. Keep his head low, his profile even lower, and be gone before the daylight could break again.
His brothers had managed to create quite a reputation for themselves, the subjects of folk stories and rumours. Geralt strived for the opposite .
However, he hadn’t expected to leave with a bard on his tail, bumbling along beside him as they entered into the thicket of the forest.
He hadn’t expected him to stay, either. But as he sat across a clearing watching him strum his lute quietly, with the winter’s icy fingers slowly grasping the continent, Geralt realized that he also hadn’t expected that he didn’t want him to leave.
Geralt tried his hardest for the first few weeks to rid of him. Pushing him through rain, rivers, days and days on end without a town in sight, but he stayed. He grew rumpled and dirty and tired, but he stayed.
How he had ever wanted to push him away was beyond him. They fell into a routine that felt comfortable, much more comfortable than Geralt had ever felt at Kaer Morhen.
But Jaskier also meant trouble, he would put his foot in his mouth more often than not, he wouldn’t listen to orders, and he was just a menace in general at the best of times.
The first time Jaskier had gotten hurt Geralt’s insides felt twisted up for days, as he watched his wounds slowly heal and be replaced by tiny pink scars. He had always swore that he would protect, so why had he allowed Jaskier to place himself at his side, a Witcher-shaped target on his back for the whole continent to see?
Witchers were meant to protect.
He had tried to ditch him at the next town. He placed more than enough coin for him to get wherever he needed to go on their shared table, left the rest of the salve he had mixed to lessen Jaskier’s scars, made sure his lute was leaned up safely against the wall, and had slipped out of the inn before the dawn had awoken. He had gotten to the tree line, and turned back for a moment to observe the sleepy town. It was quiet, a town of farmers and seamstresses. It was safe. He pulled Roach into the forest, only a few feet into the foliage before the leaves rustled behind him.
He turned, hand poised ready to draw his sword, only to see Jaskier, huffing, behind him.
“You didn’t think you would sneak out on a contract without me, did you?”
Geralt hummed, taking a moment to quell the feeling of his heart trying to crawl up his throat.
“No contract, just thought I sensed something.”
Jaskier nodded, eyeing the dark forest wearily. He pulled Roach back around, and he and Jaskier made their way back into the town, a warm breakfast and a long day of travel awaiting them.
Geralt never tried to leave him again, and vowed to never dare speak to him of the time he attempted to.
Jaskier was safer by his side, where monsters nor townspeople could harm him… Or at least that’s what he told himself.
“Geralt?” Jaskier said, breaking him out of his musings.
He hummed, hands stilling on the knife he was half heartedly sharpening.
Jaskier crossed the clearing, coming to sit beside him against the tree trunk he was leaning on. A chill was beginning to creep in around them, another reminder that winter was coming faster than Geralt could outrun it.
He began going on about some verse and how nothing rhymed with Kikimora and—
“The winter is coming, Jaskier.”
The steady flow of words stopped. Geralt watched him out of the side of his eye, watched how the familiar look of exasperation coloured his features. Followed the familiar curve of his lips as he sputtered out an “I know?”, and Geralt made a decision.
“Witchers go north for the winter.”
Jaskier cocked his head sideways, and turned to fully face Geralt, looking at him the same way he did the first time Geralt tried to teach him how to hold a sword. Confused and frustrated.
“Of course you fucking Witcher’s go north for the winter! Don’t know what else I expected, really, perhaps… I don’t know, moving south to a nice sandy—“
Geralt put his knife down on the grass, turning on his hip to face Jaskier.
“We have a home in the mountains. We return every winter.”
He watched Jaskier’s eyes carefully, flickering between confused acceptance and a tinge of something he couldn’t quite read. Even though he had long lost any semblance of mistrust between him and the bard, the existence of Kaer Morhen was regarded as a myth at most, although his brothers seemed to be looser-lipped than he on the subject, but he intended to keep it that way.
For the first time in a while, Jaskier was quiet for a long moment.
“Oh. I see.”
Geralt waited for the inevitable rush of words to come. But instead, Jaskier pushed up off the ground, and started back toward his lute. Geralt, who had assumed he had become fully accustomed to the sometimes strange mannerisms Jaskier exhibited along the path, caught his wrist before he could move too far. Jaskier’s shoulders tensed.
Geralt looked up at him puzzled. Jaskier’s expression was neutral, but his brown eyes were never good at hiding emotion. Geralt could see… hurt? Swimming amongst the flecks of gold around his irises.
Geralt rose, humming with displeasure.
Jaskier, eyes flickering between the hand that was holding his wrist almost just on the side of too-tight and Geralt’s now towering gaze, trying once to pull away before conceding that the grip was unescapable.
If Geralt didn’t have enhanced hearing, he may not have even heard Jaskier speak.
“I suppose I’ll have to find my own way back to Oxenfurt, then.”
Geralt let out a displeased scoff. Jaskier was looking across the clearing at Roach, who was grazing on some grass.
“My home’s name is Kaer Morhen.”
Jaskier huffed, “Good to know. Perhaps I’ll send a postcard.”
Geralt sighed. Witchers were never said to be good with words.
“I was actually hoping you would accompany me there.”
The tension melted out of him as quick as it came as Jaskier sighed, “oh.”
“Hmm.”
He turned, hair falling over his eyes as gust of winter wind whirled around them. Geralt thought back to all the times when he wanted to brush that damned hair out of his eyes.
As he laid sleeping in a bedroll.
As he sang him the newest instalment in his performance set.
As he stitched a particularly nasty cut which had managed to sneak through his armour.
A flush creeped up Jaskier’s cheeks as he met Geralt’s eyes, and Geralt did exactly what he had been wanting to do for months. He gently brushed the stray hair behind his ear, fingers brushing feather light on Jaskier’s skin.
Jaskier sighed, “Geralt—“
“If this isn’t what you want, we never have to speak of it again.”
Jaskier opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead surged forward, burying his hands in Geralt’s hair.
Geralt hummed, letting go of his wrist in favour of reaching for Jaskier’s hips.
Jaskier’s lips brushed his as he spoke.
“Take me to Kaer Morhen.”
Perhaps the winter could not come fast enough.
Perhaps Witchers could do more than protect.