+ lia writes

He hums in agreement and tries to push the thought of what it would be like to run his fingers through your hair from his head. You glance at his form then, and he notices your cheeks flush, the tent suddenly feeling much smaller and a whole lot warmer.   

Last night, you’d woken in a cold sweat and the smell of burning bodies clouding your senses. Come morning, Geralt had noticed your haunted expression and innocently mentioned sharing your tent, only but to keep you safe. When Jaskier himself had cut in with a quick, “I can share…” you’d been quick to accept Geralt’s offer.  

He did make you feel safe. Even with the flickering flames on the sides of the tent, teasing your memories of what had happened only a few days ago. Plus, with Jaskier, his lute and his ego, you hardly believed there’d be room for you in the tent as well.  

After this moment of silence, your hands return to combing through your tresses and Geralt returns to losing himself in thought and ignoring the warming pull, low in his belly. When you next look his way, his eyes are shut, and you spend a while wondering if he’s truly asleep. You clear your throat – nothing.

“Geralt?”    

One eye cracks open, “hmm?”   

“Oh, I was just checking… I thought you were asleep.”  

There’s a pause where he thinks about telling you that Witcher’s don’t need sleep, and then he simply settles on asking, “do you need something?”   

“A comb at the very least, so nothing realistic.” The glint in your eye is light and Geralt chuckles breathily.   

“Well, I’ve a great many talents, princess, but producing something out of thin air is definitely, not one of them.”   

“Many talents?” you question, tone playful and egging him on. He pushes himself up to a sitting position, you hadn’t noticed the way his undershirt clung to his form before. Your heartbeat thumps in your chest and his golden eyes follow the curve of your body, down the dip at your waist… You clear your throat again, “do I want to know what you’re thinking?” your gaze drops, and you nibble at your lower lip.

Geralt ignores the desire that begins building within him. Your cheeks blush a light cherry red, and he can feel that ache, warming his veins. 

“That I think I could braid your hair better than you.”    Your jaw almost drops – almost.   

He smiles and your hands fall away from your hair.   “Is that some kind of bet, Geralt?”   

The way his name sounds gentle and soft in your voice rouses a slight warmth in his chest.  

As he opens his mouth to respond, you cut in. “Fine. Prove it.”  You turn around to face the side of the tent and find your shoulders tense as you hear Geralt eventually shuffling to sit behind you. Not after staring at your back for a while, pondering as to whether he should indulge your wish.   

He begins to feel a little out of depth, staring at your hair in the candlelight and willing himself to remember where to start. From the memory of once watching Yennefer, he separates your hair into sections and begins to fumble the beginning of a braid down your back.   

The rough pads of his fingers drag through your hair, and you fight leaning into it. Clarissa, your handmaiden, always had such a delicate touch, you would hardly notice her artfully styling your hair, until she’d show you in your small handheld mirror.  For a moment you’re lost, the sound of her screams as you’d been dragged from the room filling the silence.  

Geralt notices the way you suddenly stiffen, spine straightening and hands balling into fists in your lap. He hums a tune, likely picked up from his travels with Jaskier, or perhaps it was the one he’d overheard you singing in the garden of your home, where you’d been picking flowers in the late afternoon warmth.

“Have you ever been in love, Geralt?”   

He’s surprised at the question and his fingers pause for a moment.   

“Geralt?”   

“I’m a Witcher, princess.” Before he can continue, you’re glancing over your shoulder, his hands move with your hair to avoid hurting you.   

“And that means you’re incapable of finding love? Or are you just incapable of letting love in?”   

He chuckles at the way your brows knit together and uses his gentle grip in your hair to straighten your head.

“I am not made to fall in love”  

But when he blinks, he can see her. Violet eyes holding his stare captive, and her scent of lilac and gooseberries entangling his senses. The feeling of his hands in her hair and the sound of her in his ear.   

The moment is frozen in time within his mind. 

But the last few days, his thoughts have been flooded with you. The way you interacted with Roach, hand gentle and outstretched for her muzzle to sniff, the way you’d hummed along with Jaskier’s insistent singing, tuneful in his ear from where you sat behind him on Roach. The way your arms had fit around his waist.   The first time he’d heard you giggle, and he swore it had bathed the entire continent in warmth.    

The way Geralt’s stilled behind you in silence, tells you that love does somehow sit inside him. “I was to be wed to someone of my father’s choosing,” you sigh, “do you think that man would’ve loved me? or only loved what I can give him?” 

One of Geralt’s hands leave your hair, to pick up the ribbon at your side and he ties it around the end of the braid, casting an eye over his handiwork. He’s glad he doesn’t have a mirror. It’s much simpler than the crown of braids that had sat upon your hair the first time he’d met you.  

He thinks back to your question. “People will love you in any way that they can,”   

“So not everyone’s love will feel the same,” you do turn to face Geralt then, who still sits on your side of the tent before you admit, “I’ve only ever felt my parent’s love.”   

“You’ll know it when you feel it,” he moves away from you to return to his bedroll, and the warmth of him at your back settles deep within you instead. You swallow down your disappointment with a sigh.  

He watches as you chew on your lower lip and believes you’re about to ask him how?   

“You have good instincts, princess. Trust them.”  

For now, you pushed the longing down, and settle on your side, facing away from him.