Geralt is not making a nest. Jaskier has noticed this. Geralt is in fact drinking a rather foul-smelling potion that sours the sweetness of his scent and muffles its otherwise obvious meaning. “Does that stop heat?” Jaskier asks curiously, absentmindedly tuning his lute as he speaks. He hadn’t thought anything could, but, well . . . witchers and their potions. “No,” Geralt says darkly.

“They had been told, as young witchers, that the burden of their secondary sex had been relieved by the Trial of Grasses. The mutations took away the change that would come as humans hit adulthood, and they would be without a subsex. Witchers were men, and men alone. They were not given the added burden of being an alpha, or an omega, or a beta. They were free from that particular form of madness.“ Jaskier is hired to be a heat companion for an omega widow, and Geralt is hired alongside him to play bodyguard. Unfortunately, being so close to the chaos that is human mating cycles, Geralt begins to suffer strange symptoms of his own. Trust Jaskier to take care of it. He’s a professional, after all.

Geralt doesn’t wear his courting jewelry—the medallion is apparently a witcher thing, not an omega one—and Jaskier supposes that makes sense. Geralt leads a very active life, and probably saves the jewelry for situations it won’t run the constant risk of getting ruined in. Certainly a nice set of earrings would be a lot more fragile than the plain studs he wears instead. A lot of omegas don’t wear their courting jewelry day to day, anyway, or at least not most of it. Geralt’s hardly unusual in that. It’s a bit of a shame, though, because Jaskier’d like to see him in it.

The bard is an omega, young and pretty but poorly received by the tavern crowd. He smells like a stray, is barely older than a pup, and isn’t very good at his work. Geralt isn't interested in him besides that, but for some unfathomable reason the other is interested in him. He lets the bard follow him mostly just because getting rid of him would be more annoying, and maybe because he pities him a bit. But it's not going to be that interesting a job, he's already sure. There's no harm in letting a human hang around. Of course, then they get kidnapped by vengeful elves. So . . . fuck.