Chapter Text
They were wolves, they did not feel fear. But they were perhaps concerned that they were the ones home first. Decades on the path, and it was the first time that Vesemir wasn’t there to greet them. Even Lambert had mentioned going to check the woods where Vesemir hunted for winter meat, but when they went there was no sign of the man, so they did some hunting themselves. They had never realized just how much Vesemir did to make the keep ready for them. It was taking all three of them do the work that he did.
Eskel scrubbed down the hot springs, activated all the magic there. Geralt was fixing up the stables, and Lambert was cleaning flues and readying wood for the winter. They were all exhausted. The keep was readied though, except for Vesemir’s room. They were all reluctant to enter that private space, and finally agreed they would do it together. They aired the room out, readied the fire, and when Eskel was straightening shelves they found that Vesemir had kept some drawings they had done when they were children.
They all quickly left the room and agreed to never talk about it. And never ever talk about the tears that they had seen in Lambert’s eyes. He had smelled so confused, a weird mix of rage and affection. Generally the scent of rage on an omega was rank and hurt an alpha, but Geralt was so used to it pouring off Lambert, that the absence of was more upsetting. They all found tasks to do alone but when night fell and there was still no Vesemir, Geralt had first Eskel and then Lambert knocking on his door. He made room on his bed and didn’t say a word when Lambert cuddled in, needing the comfort of an alpha in his worry.
Lambert was the only omega that let Geralt comfort him. He nuzzled his neck, even as he reached out to hold Eskel’s hand. They all had a fitful night but when they woke in they could all smell Vesemir, and immediately let go of each other, Lambert elbowing Geralt as he hurried away. They all changed their clothes and went down to the main hall.
Vesemir was in front of the large fire, and he looked exhausted. They all leapt into action, Lambert lit the fire, Eskel hurried to the kitchens to get some food, Geralt took Vesemir’s boots off him, the gauntlets, cleaned up the cut on his cheek. “Thank you, pups,” Vesemir gave them all a smile and Geralt could feel the air around them just ease that Vesemir was now home. “I am sorry I was delayed. I was dealing with an issue in Kerack, and there was a foxtail on the trip home.”
“Contract?” Eskel asked as he handed over the oatmeal.
“Kerack?” Lambert snorted a bit. “It is a shit hole, with nobles who wish they mattered more than they do and in their attempts to matter more, fuck over their people. So, I mean like standard nobles, but they are pompous traditionalists to boot.”
“And they are the only noble families who would contract with us,” Vesemir replied. “I spent most of the season on the Path, securing a marriage contract.”
“Vesemir, you are getting married?” Lambert frowned a bit. “Why?”
“I’m not,” Vesemir replied.
Geralt felt his mentor’s gaze settle on him, a mix of apology and determination. “I am,” Geralt said softly and had to sit down. “Why?”
“The Path has gotten harder the last few years, hasn’t it?” Geralt nodded and knows his brothers are too. “The other schools marry a witcher, gain some respectability, which gains you better contracts, better pay. All witchers are unwanted, but we have become the most so of that. But even then, there still is advantage for humans to connect with a witcher school.”
“But Kerack?” Lambert whined.
“It also gives us Cedaris and Verden and Bruge,” Vesemir said. “A whole region with guaranteed room, and food, aid from a healer. Supplies for winter. Not the most exciting part of the world, but security for my pups, I will take any day.”
“Eskel would have been the better choice,” Geralt said.
“The noble family in question, had an omega child for the contract, and they are tradtionalist enough that only an alpha would suit.”
“You could have found an alpha noble, married Lambert,” Geralt was close to pleading.
Lambert smirked, and it wasn't enough to mask the pain in his eyes, in his scent. "Come on, Geralt, like anyone would contract with an infertile omega."
"I'm an infertile alpha, how the fuck is it any different?" Geralt looked to Vesemir. "It isn't any different."
"Yes it is, pup, and you know it. It is bullshit, but it is how humans think, and before you go suggesting, Eskel, a noble family choosing a beta? For a contract?" Vesemir shook his head. "Not going to happen. And -"
"He's the pretty one," Lambert said. Both he and Eskel had facial scars, just looked more worn. He sneered a bit. "Right?"
"Also, you'll never bow to any alpha human, and you know these nobles would want you to bow." Vesemir reached out for Lambert, and Lambert just swatted the hand away. "It isn't -"
"No, of course, he is the logical choice, like I'd want a goddamn alpha, you are right about that."
Geralt wanted to wrap himself around Lambert, but the arm that reached out would be broken in an instant. And it was crap but, it was true a noble would see a beta as an inferior option, no matter how clever and kind and wonderful Eskel was. A fair better marriage option that Geralt would be any day. "I'm the Butcher, no noble family would agree, if they had a choice."
"They don't, not really," Vesemir explained. "They are a small nation, and as Lambert pointed out a shit hole, but a land in between. Frankly, bringing a witcher into the fold makes them more interesting to Cidaris or Verden, better trade alliances if they had the pull to make one of those contracts." Vesemir had a bag next to him and pulled out some papers, handed them to Geralt.
Geralt scanned the contract, which read like any legal document - a thing that didn't necessarily read easily to him. He could read well enough, but it was difficult to focus on longer documents. He passed it to Eskel. "Help?"
Eskel nodded and began to skim. "A male omega, Julian Alfred Pankratz. To be married in the late fall. Why not spring when we come down from the mountain?"
"Julian it seems is finishing university, Oxenfurt," Vesemir finished the oatmeal and put the pull down. "He would be completing his last exams in the late spring, early summer, and they want a little family time before we take him away."
"I thought in these contracts the spouse stayed in their seat. They are more for form than anything else?" Geralt was confused because he was sure that was how the griffins handled it. These weren't real marriages, more just about securing borders and stability and the like. "Eskel?"
"The Viscount would travel with you and live with the wolves in winter," Eskel read. "The family feels that will deepen the bonds between the school and them. That makes zero sense."
"Ohhh, they hate him, and want to ditch him on Geralt," Lambert laughed. "They are fine with it being the Butcher, because they are actually hoping you'll kill him over the winter. They get rid of the problem child, and if he is dead - they don't have to keep their word to us. Clever."
Geralt glanced to Eskel who was still reading carefully. He was also making some hmms, and harrumphs. "How bad?"
"Vesemir created a solid contract," Eskel said when he finished, "But there are things to be read between the lines. And Lambert isn't completely wrong. But I can't put my finger on it."
"I saw his portrait, and confirmed with some servants that it was accurate to the boy," Vesemir said. "Asked around town a bit. There are fond memories of Julian as a boy - creative, inquisitive, bit of a dreamer from the accounts. But once he went away to school at seventeen, not seen much around the village when he was home from the university. The servants suggested some problems between he and his parents. Fights. But wouldn't share more. They knew who you were when I made it clear the contract was with Geralt of Rivia."
Geralt breathed in and Vesemir, also a beta, had a generally neutral scent, but something was in there. "What?"
"They think you'll be able to straighten the boy out. That perhaps the Butcher will see him to his senses and mend his ways."
Geralt flinched away from the implications of that and left the main hall. He went to the courtyard and picked up a sword and went through his formations, his scent veering wildly between anger, resignation, and bitter sadness. He would smell rank to a human, he could only imagine how much it would hurt his brother's noses. He went again and again, until the smell of sweat overcame his personal scents. When he turned there were Eskel and Lambert, who had clearly been waiting for him to calm down. "They want the Butcher," he said. He felt lost. "They want the Butcher for their child, what sort of people are they?" He looked at the blade, so natural in his hand, that he felt more awkward with the lack of it against his skin. "They are going to spend the whole of the summer telling that boy that the witcher butcher, the scourge of the land is going to set him to rights. He is going to be terrified of me."
"He shouldn't be scared of you for those old stories, he should be scared of your morning breath, or the smell in the garderrobes after you shit, or the fact that you literally couldn't tell a joke if it would save your life. Or your cooking, or -" Geralt threw the sword at Lambert's head, and the witcher caught it easily. "Or your aim, fuck this why you never have to replace your crossbow, your aim is so shit you never use it?"
Well, yes, that was the truth, but still. "I am to marry a man who will think I am a monster." Geralt leaned against the wall and pressed his hands to his eyes. "I'll have to be, they'll expect me to be, they'll want," he shook his head and leaned in when Eskel hugged him.
"It won't be so bad," Eskel said. "Think, noble's son, just out of university, one winter with us here, and he'll be running back home and you'll continue on."
"Maybe?" Lambert was standing in front of him. "Maybe, he'd be fine? With who you want to be?" He bit his lip. "Stranger things have happened?"
Geralt stared at him in surprise. "Lambert...are you a romantic?"
"No, fuck you, just saying maybe if you got laid you'd not be so much of a tit," Lambert tried to bluster.
"I'm going to hug you now," Geralt warned him, because you didn't touch Lambert in broad daylight without the man's permission. He waited until there was an indifferent shrug, and he pulled Lambert in, and turned him so that his back rested against Geralt's chest and Geralt looped his hands over Lambert's stomach. "You'd be fine with another omega here?"
"Not a random one," Lambert replied after a moment, "but if Vesemir's gut said this contract would be fine, then it will probably be fine?"
Geralt was worried though, Lambert had been the only omega at Kaer Morhen for decades now, it was his territory and he was not the best at sharing. Alphas were territorial over people, omegas over places, the philosophy went and it wasn't wrong. "Eskel?" He didn't let go of Lambert, but moved his leg so it was pressed against Eskel's. "Thoughts?"
"It is practical for out on the path, but there was something in there, I'm going to spend the winter studying the contract against what we know of other such relationships." Eskel hooked an arm around Geralt's shoulder. "I've never liked the idea of a marriage with a human, we are too...he won't understand us."
"I know," Geralt said softly. "I know." They were different, they took the dynamics both a lot more seriously and a lot less than humans. Because there used to be more of them, and now they were a small pack. They clung more than humans did, but at the same time didn't necessarily care what it meant to be a particular designation. They were just...them. He nipped at Lambert's ear, and Lambert elbowed him, and soon they were all scrapping in the courtyard.
Geralt let him be distracted from the future, it was 10 months away, the wedding and he would leave the worry about it to the gods, as best he could. Which turned out to not be very much, because when he had time alone, his mind went to his future mate. Eskel had helped him read the contract, explained a lot of the words that Geralt didn't understand, and left him alone with the section that contained a bit about the omega he was to be bound to.
Julian Alfred Pankratz.
He would be not quite twenty when they had the ceremony together.
The contract said Omega but there was an odd symbol beside the designation one that he didn't understand. He went through the books that Eskel had said would help him, and there it was. He was a 'sullied' omega. Geralt would never admit that it took him a long time to realize that it meant that Julian wasn't a virgin. His mind got too hooked on the idea that Jaskier was a messy, dirty individual. He didn't give a damn what Julian had done before.
But the rules of nobility were odd ones, and he supposed to some this was a thing that mattered.
Julian also brought with him 2,000 crowns which was a good bit of money, and they'd be able to outfit him well for his winter in Kaer Morhen.
He could speak four languages, read five, and there was every expectation that he was going to finish university with the highest honours possible. Geralt was at such a loss that these people would bargain their heir with all those accomplishments to him, of all alphas. The manticore school, or the griffins would have made sense. But they already had contracts in the south, strong ones. Ones that meant no wolf had crossed Nilfgaard's border in five years.
"I tried my best to draw him from what I remembered of the portraits," Vesemir said when he came into the library. He handed the piece of parchment to Geralt.
Geralt looked at the charcoal drawing. "He is a child."
"Portrait was a couple years old. I'd imagine he's matured some."
"There is baby fat on his cheeks," Geralt carefully put the drawing down. "I cannot be a mate to a refined noble, with all the education that is listed here."
"You speak several languages," Vesemir countered.
"I can barely read one."
"Your eyes don't let you, not your mind," Vesemir sat next to him. "You are smart, and clever, Geralt. You always have been. The mutagens just..." he shook his head. "It is what it is, and you cope just fine. And having a mate who can read easily, it will be a nice balance to you."
"You know he will loathe the sight of me." It was a joke that Lambert called him the pretty one, because he wasn't scarred like his brothers, but his hair, eyes, strength, everything about him was repulsive to most humans. "The stories they will tell him, or that he will hear. He'll be shaking on the wedding day. Be lucky if he doesn't pass out when we meet."
"I'm sure you exaggerate," Vesemir protested.
"I've had it happen, a few whores, noblewomen when I go to get paid."
Vesemir snorted a bit. "Were you covered in shit and blood?"
Geralt laughed, "Perhaps." He looked at the drawing. "He doesn't look like a Julian."
"Who would? The servants said he had a nickname, but I never heard what," Vesemir clasped his shoulder. "There are worse fates pup."
"Are there?"
"Mating only kills people in stories," Vesemir left him alone to his reading.
Geralt knew that was a lie, he had walked the path enough, seen people enough to know that they killed each other. He wouldn’t let himself think of Renfri, he had generally accepted what had happened that day, and that there was little he could have done to change it. Over a decade was enough time to let that sort of hurt go, even as the name he gained lingered out in the world. He looked at the contract some more but the words started to blur as they always did when he tried to read too much of formal writing. He had what he needed from it. He picked up the drawing and took it to his room. He carefully set it on the mantle and decided to indulge in a nap to stave off the headache that reading often gave him.
If Julian was as learned as the contract said that, he’d mock or despise that Geralt struggled with reading. He could do it, but the letters sometimes flipped on the page or were hard to tell apart in formal script - it gave him headaches. Notice boards were fine to read, the writing simple none of the flourishes that made it difficult to parse out. The mutagens that made it easy for him to hunt had fucked something up. He remembered reading everything under the sun before his eyes had changed, and then it was a chore, it hurt. Nothing had devastated him more. But they all helped him cope and he got by. But it was another reason his mate was likely to loathe him.
Geralt closed his eyes, this was all going to go horribly wrong. He wished desperately there was a way to get out of it. But there wasn’t.
Several months later, he was shocked because Lambert just usually disappeared in the night, but he was in Geralt’s room a new book bound in blue in hand. One he had made for Geralt. Over the decades, Lambert had taught himself book binding, and carefully copied Geralt’s favourites from their library in a script that Geralt’s eyes could focus on. The first efforts were held together more with hope, but the last half dozen were magnificent - any library would wish to have their quality.
Lambert would never say he loved Geralt, his pack leader, but it was there in every book. “So,” Lambert said.
“So,” Geralt agreed.
“Guess I’ll see you in the fall in fucking Kerack,” Lambert nodded and left without another word.
Geralt smiled a bit at the show of support. He packed and said his goodbyes to Vesemir and Eskel, and knew they would be there in the fall as well. Geralt set out on the path, and at least on the path, he wouldn’t have a chance to worry about his upcoming mating too much.
He hoped that this Julian Alfred Pankratz would only dislike him, and not loathe the sight of him.