#technically could also be Henry!Geralt but I definitely have the game's model of Geralt in mind for this

[author-morgan]

Title: A Fated Storm Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x fem!Reader Summary: If there's one thing you can count on, it's that Geralt of Rivia will be bleeding when he shows up at your door—or in this case, when you find him lying on the side of the road during a storm. ~3k words Masterlist

THE STORM RAGING in the night is unlike any you can remember in this lifetime. Rain pounds against the glass-paned windows of the forest lodge, the wind’s howl is a terrible howling shriek—only heard in the brief moments of reprieve between peals of thunder when flashes of bright white illuminate the leaden sky.

Candles and reeds flicker with the draft, shrouding the fading inks on the scrolls of parchment detailing potions, tonics, and salves passed down for millennia. You’ve memorized most—the ones used most often to treat infections, fevers, and morning sickness—but some recipes, like the poultice to draw out the venom and mend the bite of an alghoul, still warrant close adherence to the scrawling of those who came before.

In the lull of thunder and lightning, you can hear the heavy footfalls of iron-shod hooves and the squeal of a horse. Wiping your hands on the front of your leaf-and-berry-stained apron, you open the door of your lodge and are met with lashes of summer rain. The bay mare with four white socks and a white blaze is unmistakable—as is the red-leather hilt of the steel longsword strapped to the saddle. Roach. 

But she is without her rider, and there is blood on her neck and saddle. You take hold of Roach’s reins and lay your hand on her soaked muzzle, soothing the panic in her dark eyes. “Where is Geralt?” The mare neighs and stamps her hoof into the soft earth. “Take me,” you whisper, bringing the reins back over Roach’s head. You pull yourself into the saddle and set off to search for a wounded Witcher in the storm.

He lies face down on the side of the path leading from the road, his body contorted in an unnatural way—the puddle around him stained a dark red. A passerby would likely mistake him for a corpse already. You slide from Roach’s saddle and into the mud next to him, rolling him onto his back as gently as you can manage—he’s taller than you and must weigh twice as much with his leather-and-metal armor. Geralt flops onto his back, and a strained groan passes his lips. It's only momentary relief, though, as you see the gaping wound on his side.

The gash is deep, cutting through thick leather, flesh, and sinew—from breast to navel. It hardly bleeds now but is caked with dried blood and dirt. You need to get him back to your home, quickly. Slipping your arms beneath his, you start to drag him toward Roach. “Couldn’t just drop by for dinner and a glass of wine?” His reply is only a quiet grunt when your footing slips in the mud. Roach bends her front legs, easing your efforts to drape Geralt over the saddle. You mount behind him, spurring the bay mare on through the storm.

Roach stops at the door of your lonely lodge, and you slip from her back. Geralt slides off the wet saddle quicker than you anticipate, and you don’t have time steady yourself, let alone brace for the full brunt of his weight, and he doesn’t have the strength left to stop himself from falling. Your knees give, footing lost in the muddy path, and he lands atop you—cursing incoherently. You stumble trying to stand—hair and muck clinging to your face—but you maneuver him and yourself, pulling him into the dry warmth of your home and onto a low cot.

Geralt recognizes the smell of herbs and flowers and can make out the drying bundles hanging from the rafters. He can hear your familiar voice cursing, too—rummaging through a chest of glass vials. The firelight reflects in his weary yellow eyes when you return to his side, unable to smile for him just yet. The unstoppered concoction smells close to rotting corpses. “Drink this.” Geralt does, and he can taste the hints of mugwort and chicory with no honey or wine to reduce the bitterness, but the effects are near-instant. Most of the pain ebbs and his strength to speak returns.

“Attempt to finish me off?” His voice is unrecognizable—quiet and weak and laced with pain.

You start to work the buckles and laces of his armor, first taking off his gauntlets. “There is a bounty on your head last I checked.” The townsfolk say he offered offense to the Duke of Brugge at a feast to celebrate his victory in ridding the city of several beasts and more than a few unsavory characters. Geralt had ridden off in the night with the Duke promising six-hundred crowns to the man who could bring the Witcher back to face punishment. A fool’s errand. But you’ll hear the story from his own tongue soon enough—he always tells you of his exploits. You peel back his armor and ease his tunic overhead. His collection of scars has grown since last you saw him, but those will pale in comparison to this.

“Had worse.” He tries to tell you when you start washing away the muck and clotted blood before dousing the wound with vinegar. 

“No, Geralt” —you shake your head— “you haven’t.” The wound is among the most grievous you’ve treated and the worst you’ve seen mangling Geralt’s body —a human would have already perished. This is nigh enough to claim his life, even with his Witcher mutations judging by the amount of blood he’s lost. It doesn’t help the tonic to quell his pain is harsh and bitter on his tongue, the foulest tasting brew in your inventory, even compared to Witcher potions, but you know the toll your powers have on people. Fires can warm, and fires can burn. 

You lay your hands on either side of the jagged tear across his abdomen and begin to mouth the ancient language—it does not sound like the One Speech to Geralt, though. He knows you are skilled in magic, but this is different. This is something more. Your eyes slip shut as you focus, drawing from the power deep inside you’d kept hidden for years, and then warmth and light fill your palms, sinking into his skin. It feels like he is burning from the inside. He hasn’t felt this type of pain since the Trials. Geralt squeezes his eyes shut and grinds his teeth together, but he will not cry out. 

The torn muscles mend themselves at your bidding, melding together as though never severed, but with each passing heartbeat, each rumbling clap of thunder, you take on his pain—unbridled. But you must fight through it. Tears prick at your closed eyes and the first that trails down your cheek is stained red and burning. Voice trembling, you push on, hands sliding until both rest atop Geralt’s broken flesh—willing it to mend too, and it does. 

When the damage is rectified, you let out a tired gasp and quickly look away from him to wipe the bloody tears from your cheeks before he notices. He’ll reprimand you for exerting yourself to help someone like him and claim he would have been fine. But he’s too weak and tired to say much else or do anything besides let sleep embrace him. His yellow eyes are almost shut when you kiss his forehead. “Rest,” you tell him, and for once, Geralt of Rivia listens without complaint.

THE FIRST RAYS of light filter through the windows and draw you out of bed to start the day. Geralt is still asleep on the canvas cot—the furrow between his brows gone. He looks at ease, peaceful almost. It’s a rare thing to see. Craning down, you place a chaste kiss on his cheek and leave him be as you don your apron and begin the morning chores.

Roach has found the stable. Both her and your silver mare, Storm, munch on the last hay in the feeder. It’s all routine, and once muscle memory kicks in, you scarcely need to think about any of it—fresh hay, clean water, check the goat stall, feed the chickens and goose. Wiping the first drops of sweat on your sleeve, you set to relieving Roach of her saddle and preparing Storm for a short trip to the nearest village.

Geralt is sitting up when you return, his fingers prodding the silvery skin cutting across his ribs. Another scar to add to his growing collection, but this one is smooth, more a patch of discolored skin than anything. It bewilders him that you’ve never shown this talent before—always resorting to salves and tonics—but then again, he’s never come back with a wound quite so bad. His medallion begins to thrum as you draw near, another first. “Didn’t think you’d be awake so soon,” you note, sitting next to him. You press your hand against the mended flesh and close your eyes, feeling for any remaining damage. “Care to tell me what happened this time?”

“Wyvern nest,” Geralt answers. He’s cut down Wyverns before but never a bonded pair keen on defending their unhatched brood. Piece of him wishes he’d just taken his chances with the pack of necrophages, but Roach veered off the road before he could calm the mare—he shakes his head thinking about it all. Another lesson learned—he makes a mental note to buy Roach blinders, maybe even try casting Axii next time she tries to buck him and bolt.

Warmth trickles from your fingertips into his flesh, enough energy to spur the remaining cuts and scrapes on his back and arms to seal themselves. “Contract?” You ask to distract him.

He wishes it had been a contract—two wyverns would have earned him two heavy coin purses, maybe four if he’d returned to collect half-dead from the battle. “Happenstance,” he grunts.

“It’s good to see you, Geralt,” you breathe, hand trailing up from his ribs to rest on his neck—thumb trailing along his jaw and the coarse stubble there. His yellow eyes flit across your face, finally settling on your smile. He leans closer, thinking he might finally get a kiss, but as he draws nigh, your nose scrunches up. “Smell like shit, though,” you tell him with a laugh, pushing back on his chest.

“Mmm,” he huffs, watching you put a kettle of water on to start filling the bath, “missed you too.”

HE CLAIMS TO dislike baths, but the faint smile on his lips and soft little groan he makes when he fully slides into the steaming water say otherwise. Geralt soaks, content for the moment, his yellow eyes following your movements around the lodge as you gather up vials, bottles, and tins, packing them into a leather satchel.

Watching you work—just being here with you—feels oddly domestic, comfortable even, and it’s these moments which make his stomach churn and his heart ache for a life he can never have. He wonders if you would winter in Kaer Morhen with him if he asked, but Geralt thinks he knows your answer already. Too many people rely on you to remedy their ailments, and you would not have the heart to leave them for so long.

Geralt chases the thoughts away by sniffing the vials of sweet oils next to the wooden tub—the same ones you added just before he finished undressing. He knows the scents well from his alchemy lessons and crafting. “A Witcher that smells of bryonia and lavender,” he laments, leaning his head back. The way he says it makes smelling of sweet flowers sound like a worse fate than dying alone on the side of a muddy narrow path in the forest.

Alas, you take a seat behind the tub, setting down an oyster comb and boar bristle brush. “Don’t worry” —you unbind the black leather thong holding back his hair— “I won’t tell anyone,” you tease, not wanting his brutish and stoic reputation to be damaged because he smells of sweet summer petals. His white hair is stained with dirt and dried blood and tangled. With your fingers, you work through the largest knot, humming a soft tune.

“Not even Vesemir?” He asks. The old witcher made your acquaintance after he came seeking to purchase several blue lotus blossoms and arenaria. The townsfolk spake of your lodge to him. They took you for a simple herbalist. You were younger then—by about five decades—and a still reckless and eager Witcher named Geralt of Rivia had yet to stumble into your life.

But every summer, you can count on Vesemir to knock on your door, wishing to purchase his usual, with a few different oddities sprinkled in each time. It happened by chance that one of the times he stopped by, you had Geralt lying in your bed, a cataplasm covering a bite from a necrophage.

“Now that you mention it,” your voice trails off as you rub a cake of soap into a lather between your hands before sinking your sudsy fingers into his hair. Geralt’s lips part and his bright eyes slip shut as you rub circles on his scalp. “I think even he would agree flowers are more pleasant than wyvern blood and shit.” That earns you a dry laugh, barely audible. The silence that settles between you and Geralt is an easy one—understanding silence is preferable to empty words.

Time does not stop, even if you wish for it to, and the chiming chronometer reminds you of duties and promises. Filing a pitcher with the cooling bathwater, you douse Geralt’s hair, rinsing away the grime and soap. In place of a dingy grey is white snow.

His lips purse into a frown when you rise, meaning you won’t rub his back or aching arms, but you place a lingering kiss on his damp forehead, just beside the scar on his temple. “I need to make my deliveries to the village,” you explain. “Promised I’d have them by noon.” He nods, hiding his disappointment as you collect your satchel. “Geralt” —you stop at the door, looking back at him— “you will be here when I return, won’t you?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures you. The door to the lodge closes, and Geralt leans his head back against the tub, sighing. So much for Witchers not having emotions, he thinks, wondering if there’s a potion or decoction strong enough to halt the fondness he feels for you. 

It is not a long trip to the village, and when you return to the forest lodge with payment and new orders, Geralt is standing next to Roach, brushing the dried clots of mud from her mane. You greet him with a smile, and he offers his scarred and calloused hand, helping you from your silver mount like a gallant knight from a children’s tale.

HE TRACES LINES over the length of your spine as you lay with him, head pillowed on his chest, listening to the slow rhythmic beat of his heat, bare legs entwined. “I shouldn’t stay long,” he tells you in a whisper. There’s still a bounty on his head, and the last thing he wants is bounty hunters or the Duke’s men showing up here. But it’s always like this. Sometimes he stays for two or three days, and other times he is gone before you wake—leaving a bloom or trinket in the spot he laid. Only, it’s been nigh a year since you last saw him, and you are not ready to part again so soon.

“Just a few more days,” you beg of him. “I was going to visit Cidaris for Belleteyn” —you outline one of the scars on his breast with your fingertips— “see the bonfire and lantern lights.” Geralt’s muscle tenses under your touch. He stills your wandering hand, threading his fingers through yours. “Will you accompany me?” It’s a simple request and spoken sweetly. He will not deny you an evening to celebrate. He gives his answer with a kiss on the back of your hand.

After a long while, Geralt guides your hand to his mended wound, pressing your palm flat against his ribs beneath his own. “How did you learn this?” He asks—if you could heal such a wound with ease, you may very well have been able to raise the dead too. You think of the best way to explain it, but his curiosities are eager to be slaked. Geralt narrows his eyes, one corner of his lips quirking upward. “Mage?”

You shake your head and prop your chin up on his chest with folded hands. “Something else,” you explain. Once there may have been a name for the power, but it’s since been lost to time. “All the women in my family have the Gift, as we call it.” Some chose to use their power openly, but your mother and grandmother always felt there was more safety in anonymity. “Nowhere would have us,” you tell Geralt, “not even Aretuza.” It is simpler to live as an herbalist in the woods, and no one, besides wayward Witchers, has ever suspected anything odd.

Geralt shifts, rolling onto his side, his face level with yours, noses almost touching. “See” —you rest a hand on his scarred cheek and smile— “we are not so different after all.” He takes your lips and your breath, holding you close. You sigh into his mouth, letting his tongue brush yours, fingers slipping back into his pale hair. His kiss is achingly slow and tender, reverent even, and you cannot help but miss the cracked softness of his lips against yours when he parts. 

“I’ll consider it luck I found you then,” Geralt notes, pressing his forehead to yours, tiredness tinging his voice as the rough pad of his thumb grazes along your ribs and the underside of your breast. 

“Or destiny,” you counter, playing with the ends of his hair, gaze flicking up to his yellow eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s a twisting feeling in his gut that knows you’re right. No matter where his paths led, he always came back, always found you—surrendering to tangled threads of fate.

His arm settles around your waist, and he turns his cheek into your hair, lips brushing against your temple. Geralt thinks he could live in this moment forever, given a chance. He is a Witcher, though. And the longer he stays, the harder it is to leave—and leave he must. But the thought of leaving doesn’t plague him like it once did—people linked by destiny always found their way back to one another. 

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