From the prompts list if you are still doing it. #10 Please - Always finding excuses to stay with each other with Geraskier. If not no worries. Thank you and have a great day.

Geralt didn't get it. A decade ago, perhaps it would have made sense, but after Blaviken? It didn't make any sense why a human would insist on staying with him. 

The first day, Geralt merely watched the bard with narrowed eyes, waiting for him to slip up and reveal the real reason why he kept following him. Waiting for the knife to be pulled on him. 

But of course, the bard didn't carry a knife and even if he did, he was more likely to hurt himself than to do any harm to Geralt.

So Geralt kept waiting.

Tomorrow, the bard would be gone. Surely. 

-

"I'm afraid Roach has nominated me as her new best friend and it would surely break her heart if I left," Jaskier said as he bribed the mare into showing some tolerance for him by sneaking her an apple. "You can't seriously expect me to hurt a lady's heart like that.

But just the day before, Geralt had returned to camp only to find Jaskier scolding Roach for chewing on his clothes and telling her that she was the most uncivilized horse on all the continent. There was no love lost between the two of them. So clearly, Jaskier was lying about the reason why he had to stay. 

Geralt just didn't know why. 

-

He still was there by the time the new week rolled around. Geralt could be a patient man. He had to be, for when he had to wait for hours until a monster showed up.

But this was grating on his nerves. It would have been easy to say that Jaskier was the thing aggravating him, but really it was the not-knowing, the not-understanding. 

So Geralt waited. He could be a patient man.

-

"There's truly nothing as convenient as having a traveling companion who can hunt for food," Jaskier would declare, or "You really are the best at finding spots in the wood where the ground is slightly less hard. I'll have to stay a while longer, just so I get some good sleep." 

It was bullshit and they both knew it. After Jaskier's damn song had taken off, he had more than enough coin to rent a room at an inn - hell, there were even some taverns where he was offered room and board for free as long as he performed. There was no reason for him to put up with the hard ground of the forest or the unseasoned meat Geralt cooked. 

Clearly, Jaskier was making up reasons to stay. 

Geralt just had no idea what the real reason might be. 

–

"No, I don't mind wandering the woods with you," Jaskier lied, "In fact, it might be for the best if I avoided towns for a while. There might be some nobles whom I've not-so-accidentally insulted. No, best I stay away."

Geralt rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. It wasn't a lie exactly. By now he knew Jaskier well enough that he could tell that there definitely was a number of people who wanted the bard gone. Geralt's first instinct was to think that he understood that inclination only too well. But that hadn't been true for quite a while.

It didn't matter. What mattered was that Geralt knew for a fact that Jaskier didn't care about who he had pissed off or in how much trouble he was. His own safety could not be the real reason why he stayed with Geralt. After all, what could be more dangerous than being with a witcher? 

For a moment, Geralt contemplated saying these thoughts out loud, but the words wouldn't leave his lips. Jaskier might take them too heart and what would Geralt do, if Jaskier decided that there really was no sensible reason for him to stay? 

So Geralt banished all reason from his mind. 

"Come on then," he said as he lead Roach off the road. "Better stay close so I can make sure you cause no more trouble." 

–

After the sixth month came and went, Geralt decided that he had been a patient man for long enough. He was itching with unease. 

At first, he told himself the feeling came from wanting the bard gone, but the more time he spent with him, the more he realized that it was quite the opposite. 

For as much as the bard was annoying and inconvenient and overall a nuisance, Geralt found himself dreading the day Jaskier would leave. 

Because Geralt didn't understand why he was staying. So he didn't know what he could do to make sure Jaskier continued to stay. 

So there was only one thing he could do: Until he figured out how to keep Jaskier from leaving, Geralt simply had to take a page out of the bard's book and make up excuses for why they shouldn't go their separate ways just yet. 

He was determined that one day, he would find out the truth. And maybe, once he stopped focusing so much on why Jaskier wanted to stay with him, he could finally ask himself why he wanted so desperately to stay with Jaskier as well.