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Run. It was the first lesson your mother ever taught you when you were a little girl, and it was the only lesson you held onto through your entire existence. There was no looking back, there was no second guessing, nor hesitating. Your life was all about self preservation. You were literally one of a kind, and decades spent in realms across the universes proved that to you. Which is why you ran, from the moment you were reborn until the moment you died again.
You didn’t allow yourself to think about the fact that when you came to, you were stark naked, considering there were four men standing over what you thought was a safe bed when you opened your eyes. You had been around plenty to recognize that greed anywhere, though you knew they had no idea what you were. Either way, you lurched to your feet and sprinted deeper into the woods as fast as you could physically go, but you were no match for their horses.
You came into a small clearing and skid to a stop as a man with long white hair and yellow eyes turned to look at the intruder, and his eyebrows raised as he stood up from where he was sitting beside a small fire.
“Please.” You whispered as you took a step to the side to take off running in a different direction until your powers finally got themselves back on line. “Don’t…”
“Move.” He said as he grabbed his sword and stocked toward you, pushing you back behind him when he met the men at the edge of the clearing. You let out a small sigh of relief and quickly took a deep breath as you tried to find the feeling of your abilities in your core. You tuned out the small fight as the man fought the intruders, and took the moment you needed as the feeling of a rubber band tightened from the tip of your head all the way down to your toes.
“Witcher!” You called out as you opened fire red eyes and let your natural flames engulf your arms. “Drop!” The second his body hit the ground, you screamed an inhuman scream and clapped your hands together in front of your body. Fire shot from your fingertips and instantly ignited the four men, pulverizing them to dust in the blink of an eye. The man’s head whipped over in the dirt as the flames receded, and he barely had a second to jump to his feet to catch you before you passed out cold.
——
You felt beyond exhausted when you opened your eyes later that night, but you were pleasantly surprised to find yourself clothed, and in a warm bed instead of being naked on the cold, hard ground. You looked down at the movement at the foot of the bed and curled into yourself a bit more as the Witcher sat forward to rest his arms on his massive thighs and tilted his head to look at you, curiously.
“What are you?” A small smirk pulled at the corner of your lips as you sat up slowly.
“My mark didn’t give you that answer, Witcher?” You asked as you reached up and pulled your hair off your neck so you could show him the symbol. “I’m a phoenix.”
“No.” He growled as he slowly stood up to step closer for a better look. “Those are just a myth.” You huffed a humorless laugh and glanced back at him over your shoulder as he gently reached up to brush his fingers across the raised flesh between your shoulder blades.
“And where I’m from, Witcher’s are a video game character.” His eyebrows raised as he looked up at you through his lashes, and he quickly sat up a little straighter.
“What’s that?”
“A hand held electronic game given to children to keep them from harassing their parents.”
“What’s electronic?”
“Something a hell of a lot more fun than lighting rooms with candles and shit.” You sighed as you dropped your hair and turned back around to look at him straight on. “You ask an awful lot of questions for someone who hunts monsters like me.”
“Like I said.” He grumbled as he stood up and walked back over to his chair. “You don’t exist.” You huffed and nodded your head as you glanced down at the outfit he had put you in.
“Well then I’ll just nope the fuck out then, how about that?” You sighed as you pushed yourself to your feet to leave, but immediately stumbled into the wall in front of you. The Witcher was at your side before you could regain your footing, and he guided you back to the bed gently.
“You need rest.”
“What’s your name?” You asked as he handed you a cup of ale, which you drank despite how it turned your stomach.
“Geralt… of Rivia.”
“(Y/N)…” You gasped as you handed him back the empty glass and wiped your mouth with your hand. “…of New York City.”
“Of what?”
“It’s a city.” You sighed as you leaned back against the headboard with a shake of your head. “A town far, far, far away from here, on a planet that doesn’t exist in this realm, or many others I have been to in my lifetimes. But time and space mean nothing to a phoenix. My reality is so fucked up…” You huffed and shook your head as you found his eyes. “Be glad you’ve never met a phoenix before. We are an emotional disaster most days, and deathly dangerous on a full moon. And every 29 and a half days, I burst into flames. Sometimes I am born again in the same realm, others, like today, I find myself somewhere new.” You heard him hum at the new information, and you couldn’t stop yourself from slowly snaking your way into his mind to read his thoughts as he stood up to get himself ready for bed.
“I can feel you doing that.” He grumbled as he dropped his shirt on the chair before leaning over to blow out the candle on the desk beside him.
“Wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it.” You said as you watched him walk over to your side in just his low slung leather pants that left nothing to the imagination. “You don’t seem like the sharing type.”
“Sleep.” He said as he leaned forward and blew out the candle by you. “We have to leave early.”
“We?” You asked as he made his way over to his side of the bed.
“We.” He repeated as he threw back the blankets and laid down beside you. “If you’re really a phoenix, you will be hunted for your magic the moment you step out those doors. I have to keep your magic with you for the next twenty nine days because the last thing we need is for it to be taken and used for dark magic. Get some sleep.”
“Wow.” You said in awe as you watched him blow out the last candle. “Chivalry isn’t dead to a Witcher.”
“Can’t sleep if you’re still talking.”
——
“So you’re from a land called New York.” Jaskier asked as he walked behind you, Geralt, and Roach, taking notes of your life for what he claimed was to be the richest ballad he had ever written. “On the planet Ee-arth.”
“Earth.” You corrected with a nod as you adjusted the sunglasses you had made from a handkerchief you had willed a shop keeper to give you before you left town on your nose.
“Earth.” He repeated as he jot down a note. “And you travel to realms that only exist to you in fairytales and fast moving picto-graphs.”
“Something like that.” You laughed with a nod. “Though, you make it sound much more exciting than it actually is.”
“It is fascinating.” He breathed as he looked up at you with a shake of his head. “Far more fascinating than the tales I’ve spun of Geralt.”
“You can always go home, then.” The Witcher said as he passed you back his water jug.
“Not likely.” Jaskier huffed as he looked back up at you in awe. “So these things hiding your eyes?”
“Sunglasses.”
“Sunglasses. What do they do? Are they magic?”
“Magic to me.” You laughed as you pulled them off your face and leaned against Roach’s back to hold them out to the bard. “They keep the sun out of your eyes. I have very sensitive eyesight.”
“Oh. OH!” You smirked and sat up straight as he came to a dead stop to look around the darkened field. “Fascinating. Geralt, you must see...” He didn’t finish his sentence as he watched both you and Geralt sit up deathly straight and look off to your left at a noise the bard didn’t hear.
“Jaskier, run!”
“Go, I’ve got him.” You said as you jumped off the horse and pulled off Geralt’s shirt, leaving you in just the bra you had transformed from a shirt you had stolen off a clothing line. “Head to the mountains. Follow my shadow.” The Witcher nodded and didn’t ask questions as he and Roach took off, and you handed Jaskier your shirt. “Cross your arms over your chest and grab my ankles. Do not let go.”
“Wha...? WHAT?!” He shrieked as your arms morphed into your wings. You were only able to half transform into your true state so far from the full moon, but you had enough magic that you’d be able to get the two of you to safety. You hovered above him and slipped your feet under his arms as he shoved your shirt and his notebook in his bag, and the second you felt him grab your ankles, you lifted both of you into the air, and not a moment too soon. You felt an arrow embed into your side and the rest thankfully missed when you aimed your body towards the mountain of safety and flew off. Your pain filled cry echoed across the valley as you easily caught up with Geralt, who pushed Roach even harder when he saw the arrow in your shadow on the ground in front of him. You struggled to breathe as your mutation healed your body around the arrow, which was one of the major downsides to what you were.
“A cave!” Jaskier called up to you as he let go of your ankle just long enough to point to a hiding spot a little ways up the mountain. You nodded and dipped down toward the alcove, and you tried not to just drop your companion, but you could only hold on for so long before the pain was just to much to bear.
“Come on.” He said as he crawled back over to you when you collapsed on your hands and knees outside the mouth of the cave. “Come on, crawl. Just crawl or something. You have to move.” You choked on your tears and tried to move forward, but your arm gave out the second you lifted the other.
“Get him inside.” Geralt called out as he jumped off his horse and ran the last few steps to your side.
“Cut.” You groaned as he pulled you on to your good side and lifted you out of the dirt. “Cut…”
“Alright, I’ve got it.” He said as he laid you down just inside the mouth. You looked up at the mouth of the cave and stretched your arm out as far as possible toward it while Geralt grabbed his knife from his waist band and looked at the arrow that was healed into your chest. Your scream rattled the mountain as he sliced deep into your skin to get the intrusion out, and you forced yourself to channel all of the pain through your fingertips to block off the mouth of the cave with a spell you knew would hold as long as you were still alive. From the outside, it would appear to be just another rock along the cliff face, but from the inside, it just appeared to be a screen door that the three of you could come in and out of as you pleased. Your hand fell to the ground when the arrow was finally free, and you instantly passed out from the pain, and the extensive use of your magic.
“Is she going to be OK?” Jaskier asked as he sat down on the ground to catch his breath. Geralt shook his head as he grabbed a blanket from his saddle bag and tossed it over your body.
“According to legend, Phoenix self heal. We’ll see. Get a fire started.” He said as he sat down beside you so he could lift your head onto his thigh. “We’ll be safe here.”
——
You seemed to do a lot better recuperating at night, than you did during the day, so Geralt sat as close to your spell as he dared with you in his lap. He was absolutely mesmerized as he watched your skin glow very, very faintly like a roaring fire, that got just a little bit brighter as you got better. Early in the morning on the third day, while the moon was still high in the sky, you woke with a start and grabbed Geralt’s knee.
“You’re safe.” He whispered, softly, as he gently put his hand on your shoulder. “You’re safe now.” You nodded and rolled onto your back to look up at him, while reaching down to feel your side.
“Did it work?”
“Did what work?” He asked as you pressed on your side to try to find the arrow head.
“The door.” You asked as you rolled your head back to look at your spell. “I don’t know many spells. It’s easier for me to just change the molecular structure of things.”
“It’s a door?” He asked as he looked up at opening with his eyebrow raised. You huffed and nodded your head as you rested your head properly on his thigh to see him.
“It should look like a rock on the outside to most. To us, it looks like a screen door you can walk right through. Please… don’t make me try to explain that right now.” You giggled as you covered your face with your hand before he could interrupt to ask. “My fucking head hurts.”
“I won’t.” He growled as he ran his fingers through your hair. “Did you know you glow?”
“I did.” You breathed as you peeked at him through your fingers. “It gets a little brighter every day until I burn out. Then starts all over again. It’s the life cycle for my subspecies of phoenix. Not everyone can see it though, so count yourself lucky.”
“Are there a lot of different kinds?” You shook your head and shrugged.
“There’s about ten different blood lines. Mine is the only one that goes by moon cycle. Meaning just me. All the others go by life time as far as I know. But we can all travel to different places when we resurrect. Where those places or the timelines are kind of up to us. Our subconscious mind chooses our favorite places or situations we learned about from our childhood and sends us there on the first new moon after we turn of age at 21 to spread our kind as far as possible. Before that, we are with our parents in the world they chose, and for the most part, we stay in that world forever. Not many of us go to different realms like I did.”
“Why are you the only one that goes by moon cycle?”
“I don’t know.” You sighed as you dropped your hand to rest across your stomach, realizing for the first time that that was where his other hand was. “I never got a chance to ask. I reincarnated for the first time in a super hero world I loved from a comic book series, and a month later, I was in a different franchise… sorry.” You laughed as you brushed your fingertips across the back of his hand when his brow furrowed at the unfamiliar words. “Different lands. I’ve been alive for over two hundred years. Sometimes I’m within a world for a single cycle, others, I’m there for years. Sometimes I go back to that timeline, sometimes I never go back. There’s no rhyme or reason, nothing to figure out and understand. It just is.”
“So there’s a chance that I only have one moon cycle to get to know you?” He asked as his fingers stilled in your hair at the crown of your head.
“Yea.” You whispered as you laid your hand flat on his. He nodded his head and leaned down to capture your lips softly, while bending his leg to bring you up closer so neither of you had to strain. You laid your hand on the scruff covering his sharp jaw, and moaned softly when he picked you up out of the dirt with one hand so you could straddle his lap.
“Well you’re not shy.” You giggled between kisses as you situated yourself on his thighs and reached back to take off your bra.
“And you are stunning.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t need to flatter me to get in your own pants. All you gotta do is ask.”
——
“OK, this traveling by horses thing is not all it is cracked up to be.” You complained as you sat behind Geralt, in long sleeves, pants, and a thick coat in an attempt to cover your bright, full moon, natural glow that could be seen a mile away easily in this world.
“You’re not in Kansas anymore.” He chuckled, repeating a phrase you found yourself saying often in this new world.
“Oh, you just think you’re so funny, don’t you?” You grumbled as you pulled the hood of your cloak down even farther on the sides and rested your head in the center of his back. “I’m dreaming of air conditioning every night from now on. And cars… did you hear that?” You asked as you sat up behind him and looked into the woods over his left shoulder.
“Where?” He asked as he pulled Roach to a stop. You didn’t even need to point, as suddenly a group of massive zombie like creatures poured out of the woods from an unseen graveyard over the hill.
“Oh, hell no!” You shrieked as you lurched back in terror, while your companion pulled his sword and jumped toward danger. You took a chance and pulled Roach out of the crossfire while fighting yourself to stay out of the fight, until one of the beasts bit your protector in the knee. When he hit his knees, you instantly reacted in a different kind of fear. Your ear piercing cry startled the beasts enough that they ‘stood’ above Geralt’s bent over body, just as an explosion of fire shot from your chest, wiping out all of the beasts and half of the forest in front of you. Your body continued to glow bright like the sun, as you looked down at Geralt, who just collapsed on his side, holding his thigh.
“No.” You groaned with a shake of your head as you took a few steps forward, pulling Roach with you, and creating a bubble of safety to protect you from anyone or anything attracted to your light. “No, no, no. Stay with me, Witcher. Stay with me.”
“(Y/N)…”
“You’re OK.” You said a with a nod as you easily pushed him over onto his back, knowing that your mixed form was probably terrifying to really look at, since his mutation probably let him see right through the bright glow that protected you at your most vulnerable. “It’s OK, I can make it better. Please, Geralt. Let me help.” He grunted and shook his head as you held on to his hands with one hand, and ripped the pants of his legs away from the gaping wound on his leg. You forced tears to your eyes and leaned down so they would fall down your cheeks into the wound. His whole body lurched at the healing sting, but unlike every other time you had done this, his leg wasn’t healing.
“No, no, no.” You whined as your tears started to fall faster. You tried to drop them off your fingers as you wiped them off your cheek, but even that wasn’t helping. So you did the next best thing. “Here, open your mouth.” You said as you gathered a few tears and brushed them on his bottom lip. He jerked his head with panic in his eyes, as the poison from the bite started to slowly spread up his leg. “Honey, trust me. You have to just trust me, please. Please?” His eyes searched yours for a moment and began to flutter closed as he grunted his response, and you quickly dripped a few more tears on to his lips in a desperate attempt to heal him from the inside out.
“Please.” You begged in a whisper as fear of having to make it in this universe without him started to make your tears fall even faster. “Please work. Please, I can’t lose you. I can’t. I won’t make it here without you. This is not a normal realm.”
“Hide.” He growled through clenched teeth as his eyes fluttered closed, nearly making you lose all hope that your magic could help, but they suddenly went wide as he reached up and grabbed your wrist, painfully. “Hide!”
“OK.” You sniffled with a frantic nod as you brushed his hair out of his face for him. “OK, I can do that.”
——
“What is that?” Geralt grumbled when he finally woke up out of his poisoned daze. You looked up at him from the half written book you were reading from memory, before glancing over at the half assed, magic record player you had made that he was looking at.
“It’s a band called The Beatles and it’s playing on what’s called a record player. Well...” you sighed as you closed your book, which almost instantly disintegrated into a pile of dead leaves from over use. “It’s really a stick, some acorns, and a giant leaf that I’ve magically turned into half a record player and a speaker of sorts. So it doesn’t sound anywhere close to what it should. Here. It’s water, but I can make it taste like ale if you’d rather. Just won’t have any alcohol in it.”
“How do you do that?” He asked as he gestured to the unusual contraption before taking a drink.
“Magic.” You giggled as you sat down on the bed, and picked up one of the many acorns from the pile at the foot of the bed. “I have the capability of changing anything into something else, but it will still hold the same properties as the original object. So for example, an acorn is pretty hard but not really sharp anywhere. I could make it into a sword, but it won’t cut anything.” He nodded his head and watched you make the change easily, before setting it aside and gesturing to his cup. “I could do the same thing with water, but the sword would break the moment you touched it.”
“So you can make anything out of anything.” He repeated as he touched the sword in his glass and watched it shatter and sink to the bottom of the cup.
“I can but there’s a science to it. And I can do bigger things the farther I am in the month. Like making a house out of a few trees with a barn for your horse. And a long vine can become a thorn filled wall surrounding us so we are safe. But when those trees or that vine reach their limit of my manipulation, they will die, and revert to their original, but dead state. Like my book. Leaves only hold up a couple hours.”
“What about food?” He asked as he sat himself up on the bed. “Can you make food?”
“I mean, I could.” You giggled with a nod. “But I need another kind of food to do it. Otherwise, you’re eating a stick that looks and tastes like bread or something. Birds are my go to in worlds that don’t have other foods available. And their feathers hold up to magic a while. They make great clothes and what not. Like this blanket.”
“How long have we been here?”
“Three days.” You said as you got up to turn your acorn album over and replace the needle with another transformed stick. “There was a little river about a quarter mile from where we were when you got bit, so I set us up by it. We should be OK here a few more days before my wall fails.”
“Thank you.” He said softly as a calm Slightly Stoopid song began to play.
“You saved me first, Geralt.” You breathed as you sat back down and pat his shin. “Twice actually. It was my turn to save you.” He nodded his head and looked down at your hand for a moment, not wanting to vocalize his thoughts, which made you sigh the slightest bit. “I’m here for 12 more days, sweetheart. You haven’t lost me yet.”
“I don’t know why it’s bothering me so fucking much.” He snapped as he met your eyes. “I don’t have feelings except for...”
“Me.” You whispered in his silence. “Except for me.” He nodded his head and his brow furrowed deeply. You moved your hand up his thigh until he looked up at you, and gave him a tight lipped smile. “You never know what fate has in store, Geralt. I could end up staying here for a few months, even years. But I don’t know. It’s all up to fate.”
“I wish it wasn’t so.” He breathed as he reached out to pick up your hand so he could lay down and pull you partially on top of him beside him. You wished for only a moment that you could give him the answer he was searching for, but just as quickly as the thought appeared, it disappeared when he kissed the top of your head.
The next twelve days were spent much like that one, talking, learning, and just existing in the same plane until that was no longer an option. You met up with Jaskier on the last night of the moon cycle to say goodbye, and so that Geralt wouldn’t be alone if you didn’t come back, but the bard didn’t really exist to the two of you as you sat by the fire and waited. With each passing moment, your glow got brighter and your body got a little bit hotter, but Geralt didn’t pull away or comment until the last possible moment.
“I love you.” He whispered just loud enough for you to hear as the glow finally burned through your skin. “I will find a way to see you again.”
“I love you, too.” You breathed as you gave him one last chaste kiss, before pulling away so he wouldn’t get hurt. You searched his eyes one last time through the inferno and prayed that this would be it, and with one final half smile, your body crumbled in a pile of ash. Geralt felt heartbroken for the first time in his life as he watched the fire dwindle out to next to nothing, but a single, palm sized flame, that lifted off the pile to float in mid air. It seemed to call to him as he glanced over at Jaskier, and when he looked back, it had slowly begun floating toward him.
“Geralt, what are you thinking?” The bard demanded as the Witcher reached out his hand to touch the flame.
“I don’t know, but if it brings me to her, then so be it.” He said as he touched the ball with his fingertips. A pleasant heat engulfed his hand, and spread up his arm the way it had yours, but much, much quicker. “Take care of Roach for me.” He said with one more look over as he tossed the bag of gold on his hip to his friend and picked up his sword. He had just tossed it over his shoulder when the fire engulfed him completely, and Jaskier only had a second to say his name, before he, too, disappeared in a pile of ash. Jaskier blinked at the two piles of ash in complete shock for only a moment, before Geralt’s figure flickered and appeared before him in the same spot he just was.
“What happened?!” He demanded, which made the Witcher look up at him, confused.
“What?”
“You... you touched the fire and just...”
“Just drop it.” He said, dismissively as he took off his sword and set it back down on the ground. “It’s over.”
——
You knew something was different the moment you woke up; you could feel it straight down to your core. You opened your eyes and looked at the still sleeping face before you, and every single thing you had been through in your existence was finally righted. With a very gentle touch, knowing he had been through a lot through all of this, you brushed your fingertips across the sharp jaw of the soulmate that choose you. His eyes flew open and his hand flew up to grab your wrist, but you simply smiled at him.
“You choose me.” You whispered as you continued to brush your fingers across his skin and tried not to cry. “Over everything you knew, you chose a life of uncertainty with me.”
“I can stay with you?” He asked as he loosened his grip, but didn’t let go.
“I couldn’t tell you the truth.” You said with a nod as you pushed his hair back out of his face. “I’m not allowed. The soulmate of a phoenix has to make his or her own choice to be with us. We can’t make that choice for you, or influence your decision in any way or it won’t stick.” Your smile grew as you laid your hand flat on his cheek with tears in your eyes. “That’s why you have feelings for me even though you were cursed not to have them, and why you could see my glow and Jaskier couldn’t. You, my love, can see my soul.”
“So I can stay with you?” He repeated as he slid his hand up your arm to your shoulder.
“Yea, sweetheart. You can stay with me for the rest of your life.”
“Good.” He breathed as he pulled you across the wood floor you were laying on and captured your lips roughly for a few moments, before someone cleared their throat behind you.
“Not the only one in the room here.” A smile pulled at the corner of your lips at the sound of the voice you hadn’t heard in a long, long time, and you pulled away from your soulmate to look back at the man you had known since he was a child.
“Hi Dean.” You breathed as you kept your torso against Geralt’s chest. “Think I could bother you for some clothes instead of you just creeping on your other mom? Maybe, I don’t know. You are a little freak...”
“Eww, gross.” He groaned with a shutter as he abandoned his lunch and got up to get you something to wear from your room in this world.
“Mom?” Geralt said as he sat you both up and pulled you into his lap to hide everything that needed to be hidden.
“Step son.” You breathed as you tucked your knees up to your chest. “It is a very, very long story and now, I can finally tell you all about it. But I will start with saying you only have to do the whole burning up, waking up naked thing this once. This is our forever spot.”
“We won’t go back to my world?” He asked as Dean came back into the library and tossed you a pile of clothes for the pair of you.
“You can go back whenever you want to, Geralt.” You told him honestly as you handed him an undershirt and met his eyes. “But you’d have to sever the tie you made to my soul... which means you’d have to kill me.”
“So we’re staying here then.” He said quickly.
“I’d kill you if you tried.” Dean grumbled over him on his way out of the library with his lunch plate.
“Be nice!” You snapped as you pulled your underwear up your legs and glanced over your shoulder at him. “Where’s your brother?” Dean hesitated just outside the doorway and looked down at his plate for a moment before looking up and straight forward down the hall.
“Out on a hunt. Should be back soon. Welcome home, ma.” Your eyes narrowed at his back for a moment, before you shook your head and turned back to continue getting dressed.
“What are they hunting?” Geralt asked as you stood up and pulled your panties and jeans up in place.
“Monsters.” You said as you offered him your hand to pull him to his feet. “But we’ll get there. Let’s start from the beginning, ‘K?” With a nod of his head, he grabbed his sword, which you were surprised carried over, and stood up. You grabbed a hand written lore book off the shelf and sat down at one of the two tables in the library to teach.
“The goal of every single phoenix out there is to find a soul mate, and procreate.” You started as you opened the book and put it between the pair of you. “I know you said you were sterilized, but like I said, phoenix tears are one of the most powerful sources of magic. They can cure just about anything. But that’s a story for another day because it’s not a cut and dry kinda thing either.
When we turn twenty one, we are sent off into the world to find our soul mate. We can travel to different points in time, to different realms, to anywhere we need to go to find our mate. We bounce from place to place to place not only to look for our soulmate, but to find the perfect place to finally settle down to live when we have found them. With me so far?”
“So far.”
“This world we’re in is from a TV show called Supernatural. The brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, fight monsters that aren’t supposed to exist to save the world. Vampires, werewolf’s, etcetera. Their monsters are different from yours, however. And I finally get why I’ve spent so much time here in my life. I probably needed to establish a home and a safe haven that I could easily bring you into that wouldn’t put you in harms way. Because another thing about being my soulmate is, if I die, you are fine. But if you die, I die. But I know my boys will keep us safe until you get your feet under you.” You said with a smile as you reached out to put your hand on his. “They’ve been keeping me alive for years.”
“So you’ve always known you’d end up here.” He said as he flipped to the next page in the book to skim it while you talked. “Why did you think you were supposed to be here before?” You paused as you looked at the page about soulmates that you had written out for the boys after their father died, and took a deep breath.
“Because you are not the first person that has seen my soul.” You admitted honestly as you pulled back your hand. He looked over at you in confusion, and instinctively reached for your hand, which gave you the strength to go on. “This world was the third world I ended up in. I pop up in story lines between big events. So in the case of your world, I popped up between a major fight of some kind, and some quest you were about to embark on. That’s the way it works. I showed up here about a year after Sam and Dean’s birth mother passed away. Their father was my first soul mate. He brought up my glow one of the first nights I was here. But he never claimed me. My soul gave him the option, it called to him like it did to you, and he just didn’t take it.
So like, if you hadn’t reached out and touched my soul near the fire, I would have come back within a few hours. And I would have kept coming back until you claimed me, or until you died. That’s just how it works. So with him, I came back here every single month for almost twenty-five years before John died. And he never claimed me. After that, I went to another world and spent almost a hundred years in mourning in my true form, as a pet of sorts. And the man that owned me while he wasn’t a soul mate, helped me in ways I will forever be grateful for, because it lead me to you.”
“Do you still feel for him?” He asked as he looked up and searched your eyes. “I mean, I believe I feel what you feel. I feel the hurt that is there in my soul when you said his name...”
“There is no love when it comes to John Winchester.” You interrupted with a shake of your head as you rolled your hand over to hold his. “When he died, the tie that held us together was severed permanently. Even if he were to walk through that door...” Your words cut off in confusion as the door to the garage opened and the man in question walked in in front of your youngest step son. Rage unlike anything Geralt had ever felt before filled his whole being from you as you let go of his hand and threw a massive ball of fire in his direction. John instantly dropped to the ground and Sam had only a half second to leap out of the way as it exploded on the wall beside them.
“Get out.” You growled as he looked up at you like you were absolutely crazy.
“Are you fucking kidding me?! I live here...”
“Dean!”
“And I will burn this mother fucker to the fucking ground if you so much as think that statement ever again! Go crawl back into whatever fucking hole you came out of because next time, I won’t fucking miss. I will burn your fucking world to the ground like you did mine!”
“I dare you to try, little girl.” He said as he stood up, defiantly, which made your blood boil.
“Alright, alright, alright!” Dean shouted as he jumped between the two of you with his hands in the air. “We’re going. Got a call about another hunt anyways.”
“I hope whatever it is sends you back to hell where you belong.” You barked with an evil glare at your ex. You grabbed the book off the table and picked up Geralt’s hand to bring him to your room as Sam told Dean he’d handle it because he had a much more likely chance getting through to you about his dad.
“So he’s not a threat.” Geralt said with a small, victorious laugh as he followed you around the corner and down the hall to your room, because now he had no question that you were meant for him.
“Not one bit.” You growled through your teeth as you pulled him into the room so you could keep teaching and slammed the door behind you. “He can go die all over again for all I care.”
——
“Hey Sam!” You called out from the garage as you searched one of Dean’s tool boxes for the keys to your truck. “Where did you guys move my keys?!”
“Ummm.... well...” Sam said hesitantly as he stopped doing research for Dean and John’s case and looked up at the open door. “Umm... maybe in dad’s room.” You stopped your search and scowled, despite the fact that Geralt was already trying to calm you down from the bedroom, where he was getting dressed after a shower before you left.
“Why does that asshole have the keys to MY truck?!”
“I’ll go look.” He called out, which made you close the drawer and come back in with a fake smile on your face.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. I got it.”
“Mom, please don’t...” He tried, but you were already across the room and heading down the hall. You didn’t even check to see if the door was locked, you just simply transformed it to a wooden hand with the middle finger raised and left it right where it was. You only had to go through five drawers, (leaving their contents on the floor for obvious reasons), before you found the keys and headed back down the hall to your room.
“Feel better?” Geralt chuckled as he zipped up his bag and grabbed both his and yours.
“I warned you phoenix were an emotional mess.” You teased as you showed him the keys. “And you never, ever want to piss one of us off. Ready for our road trip?”
“I am.” You smiled broadly and stepped over to give him a chaste kiss, before grabbing your purse and leading him out of your room. You hesitated a few feet down the hall and turned back just long enough to transform your door into a solid wall, before skipping up to your mate’s side and lacing your fingers with his.
“...taking my truck.... you’re not taking my truck!” John shouted as he stepped toward you, but you quickly threw up a wall of fire to keep him back.
“Bye boys!” You called over your shoulder while opening the door to the garage again. “So this is a truck. Think metal horse you don’t have to feed. Well... you feed it gas, but let’s keep this simple. This is what I complained about missing all those nights spent on the back of Roach.”
“And air conditioning.” He pointed out as he tossed the bags in the truck bed where you were pointing.
“And air conditioning.” You repeated as you gestured him into the passenger side before stepping up on the runner beside him. “Seat belt. You gotta wear it in the cars here. It’s a law. It can also save your life. The boys fight me on it because I raised them...”
“You did not fucking raise MY boys!” John shouted as he stormed out into the garage with rage pulsing through the vein in his temple, completely ignoring Dean and Sam as they tried to stop him. “And you’re not taking MY truck.”
“I promise you, I will run your ass over.” You said as you closed the passenger door and walked quickly over to your side. “See, my life’s not tied to yours anymore, John. My love for you died with you.”
“And how was I supposed to know...”
“He knew!” You interrupted as you pointed back at the man in the front seat, who was staring daggers at the man yelling at you. “I was with him one cycle and he knew he needed me in his life. He knew he needed to commit to me without a second thought about it. And he was created and manipulated not to have fucking feelings, John! YOU on the other hand are just fucking HEARTLESS! You are a heartless, miserable person who dumped his kids on a woman incapable of leaving for so many reasons...”
“I didn’t dump...”
“Goodbye, John.” You said dismissively as you pulled open the driver side door, tossed your purse in the back seat, and got in. “Be out of this bunker by the time I get back or you will regret that decision.”
“Don’t you threaten me!” He screamed over the roar of the engine. You couldn’t help but smirk as you rolled down the window with a shake of your head.
“Oh sweetheart... that’s a mother fucking promise.” He shouted your name and tried to lunge toward the truck, but you simply put it in gear and pulled out of the bunker’s garage. Your anger only lasted a few moments, before you and Geralt reached out for each other’s hand at the same time.
“I know how to make decent thumb screws out of one of my boots.” Your pout turned into a smile as you glanced over at him with a shake of your head.
“Come now, we can be more creative with our torture.”
“OK, let’s see.” He chuckled as he lifted your hand up to kiss your knuckles, grateful that once again he got you to smile, which was quickly becoming his favorite thing. “I once saw a table that could quarter a man very, very slowly. Very painful.” He joked as he looked over at you and kissed your hand again. “Seems fitting.”
“See, now you’re getting it!” You giggled as you squeezed his fingers between yours and looked over once more. “I love you, Geralt.”
“I love you, too, (Y/N).” You pulled your hands over to kiss the back of his, before letting him have both of them back so you could focus on driving. “So, where is metal Roach taking us?”
“We’re starting with New York.” You replied as you jumped on the highway and headed east. “So I can show you what the house I grew up in looks like in my home world. After that, we can go anywhere in the world. The options and my powers are limitless.”
——