#deglan x m!reader

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part VII

Note: I’m proud (more like ashamed haha...) to announce that the one year anniversary of this requested fic has already passed, like oh god... Ngl I struggled so hard to find the direction I wanted to take this, I had several ideas but mid-writing I wanted to change it again and now we have this. Writing is hard. This will be a life-time lesson for me. But ey depression is really a big hurdle sometimes so yeah... anyways, please enjoy and once again, sorry for the wait :)

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, Mentions of Alcohol Abuse, Mentions of Addiction

Summary: After having suffered heavy injuries at the beginning of winter and being unable to return to Kaer Morhen, Y/N tries to mend his relationships slowly by approaching one of his friends but someone thwarts his plans and he has not yet prepared himself to meet that person again. 

Word Count: 5.05k

Taglist: @thatsequoia​

Note 2: For all the people wondering about the postal service in this story - like how the fuck did those letters find the witchers on the Path... Magic baby 😎 

The name of Deglan’s horse (Borsuk) translates to badger. 

This part mentions Vergen, which appears in the 2nd Witcher game but I haven’t played this game, so my description is inaccurate.

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VIII, Part IX

Masterlist

Deglan once thought he was a patient man. He was wrong. 

Birke was in two weeks and he was about to lose his fucking mind. 

Y/N was invading every second of his days and he had a hard time focusing on training the new brats and lecturing them. Every little thing reminded him of the younger witcher in some way or another. 

In every nook of the school's keep, he could conjure up a memory of them together and if he couldn't touch the other soon, hold him in his arms, kiss him, he would go on a rampage. 

His bad mood could be sensed not only by his apprentices but also by the other witchers. Most of them had already left on the Path, the bunch he trained for example, but some were still here. And all of them were known to be lazy and therefore, their presence stoked his fury whenever he saw them chattering away and lazing around in the Evening hall. 

The fiery annoyance was visible in his eyes and so most avoided him whenever they crossed his path. 

While their presence had been a curse, the presence of one peculiar younger witcher ended up as a blessing. 

Wendir, Y/N's close friend, was one of the men who still lingered in the school and one peculiar Saturday evening, he ended up knocking on Deglan’s door. 

He was working on his next lecture when he heard the knock and he raised an eyebrow when he came face to face with the witcher he had trained alongside of Y/N, Fenri, Barmin and the three others.

The brown-haired man looked serious and a suspicious feeling rose in his chest.

"I received a letter.” 

Those four words were enough for Deglan's heartbeat to speed up. 

Wordlessly he received the paper from the other and he began to read. 

Wendir,

I write to you in hope that you will try to understand my thinking and actions with an objective view. I don't dare send these words to Fenri or Barmin because I must have made them angry and I expect them to doubt my words, which they have every right to do. You're free to do so as well, though I beg you to try and see my reasoning before making your opinion about me. 

As you may know, I haven't returned to Kaer Morhen this winter and have yet to explain why I couldn't. 

At this point, I'm certain you're aware... of my secret, but please do not blame my absence on that. 

You might have already left the keep and though I am uncertain of your next location I ask you to meet me in Vergen and give me the opportunity to explain myself. 

I’m not there yet but I am close and as slow as I currently am, I expect to arrive around the time of Birke and if you still ride like you did when we were younger you possibly will as well. 

I hope to see you soon. 

Y/N, Vengerberg

If you could spare some herbs for me... An accident happened and I lost most of my stash...

Deglan read the letter twice and it took him less than a second to make a decision after he read the last sentence again.

He pointed his finger at Wendir and his voice held a determined tone: 

"You saddle your horse and Borsuk." 

The younger man blinked. 

"Right now?" 

Deglan pushed the letter into Wendir’s hands and began to button up his shirt.

"Right now. And fucking hurry up! I'll go and talk to Rennes before we depart." 

Wendir scratched his head but the brown-haired witcher turned around and hurried down the hall.

Deglan’s lips formed a grim smile as he pulled his witcher medaillon from underneath his shirt and then he turned around and quickly grabbed a few things from his shelves and stuffed them in the bags he had already prepared weeks ago. 

His heartbeat quickened as he put on his fur cloak and his sword scabbards over it. He loosened their belts a bit and then grabbed his armoured gloves. 

Almost, he thought as he put them on as well. 

He glanced at the papers on his table. The lesson plan for the next few days, the unfinished suggestion letter for another parcours course. 

Fuck his lectures, fuck the brats he had to teach and fuck Rennes. 

He would leave right now, whether their leader wanted that or not. He would not ask for permission this time. 

Quickly he wrote down a few words on a piece of paper, left the note on his bed and then he grabbed his bags and walked out of the room to go and find some herbs he could bring with him for Y/N.

Half an hour later Deglan and Wendir left through the gate.

Brace yourself, bastard. I’m done being patient, Y/N.

-

Lisica followed the path to Vergen in a slow but steady walk. The mare seemed content to take it easy for once and her ears moved around to take in all the sounds of the surrounding wildlife. 

Her rider absent-mindedly petted her mane and was deep in thought. 

Will he come?

Y/N had hesitated at first but Hannes convinced him to write a letter to one of his friends. 

At first, he thought about Barmin but something inside of him was too self-conscious to write to his best friend. It was the fact that he had not sent the other a letter in the last few months, he addressed the one where he apologized for his absence to Fenri...

In the end, he chose Wendir, the youngest of their friend group. He might be more understanding in this situation than his best friend. The brunette was surprisingly the most rational besides Barmin. Probably because he had a lot of time to think since he always used to avoid chores and his training in the school’s keep. 

Fond memories rose and he lifted his head to squint at the sun. He still had to ride for a few more hours before he would reach the next bigger village. And from there it would take him another 3 days until he would arrive in Vergen. 

The prospect of more aching leg muscles and a sore butt caused him to smile grimly. 

He had wanted to buy a new saddle for months now but he did not have the money. He had spent most of it on his unexpected stay in Vengerberg and alcohol. The druid, who more or less did a good job, had been expensive and even though Iven gave him a discount on his stay in the tavern, Y/N’s pockets were lighter than he liked. 

His annoyance only grew as he thought of how he spent the coins he had received from Fenri’s hunt. 

He sighed and patted his healing leg. It still hurt a bit and that was why he was travelling at such a slow speed. He didn’t want to hinder the healing process so he was riding at snail’s pace. 

On one side, it was relaxing, on the other, it was boring and it gave his mind a lot of time to wander and to mull over his upcoming stay in Vergen.

He really hoped Wendir would come. 

He needed someone by his side because the prospect of having lost his friends and giving up on the love of his life was filling his head with dark thoughts and things he did not want to think about at all. 

He sighed deeply.

I hope I can still fix this...

Anxious, his hand found one of the wine bottles in his saddle bag, while his other played with the blue cloth around his neck. .

-

3 days later Y/N lowered himself to the ground and led Lisica inside the stable of Vergen’s only inn, The Cauldron, with bowlegs.

Every muscle in his body ached and the dwarf who had pointed him towards the stables at the outskirts of the city and who he paid for Lisica’s stay, chuckled when he saw the hooded figure stiffly walk into the building.

The stable was made out of stone like all the other buildings in the town and since the sun had yet to set, the lanterns inside weren’t lit and therefore, only few specks of light entered the barn. Not that the darkness was a problem for his eyes.

He rolled his tight shoulders and examined the building. It was quite big with 12 horse boxes made of wooden walls that reached the middle of his torso. Most of them seemed occupied by horses of all sizes and colors.

The witcher led Lisica into the first unoccupied box near the entrance. Next to it was one with a white pony.

The little guy - who most likely belonged to one of the many dwarves in town - looked curiously over the wooden wall and Lisica greeted him with a snort, while her owner took off her bridle. She stretched her neck, and he followed her example and groaned as he stretched his whole body, her bridle still in his left hand. He stepped out after giving Lisica a head pat and hung it on the designated hook outside the door.

Next to the right wall of the box was a saddle stand and a small shelf with some brushes. He made a mental note to use them to reward his mare.

She had been very patient for the last day when they basically rode for 24 hours straight. He would give her a well-deserved massage and make her coat look the shiniest among the horses in the stable.

He was about to step into the box again to get his bags and remove Lisica’s saddle when he noticed a dark brown horse in the box right next to the white pony’s. He could only see the ass of the animal, but it had a scar on its rump that he could recognize easily and relief washed over him like a big wave.

Wendir was here. He had come.

A bit overwhelmed with joy, he quickly entered the box again and rifled through his saddlebags, while ignoring Lisica’s curious headbutts. He found the carrots he had bought from a farmer and gave one to his mare. She gobbled it up while eyeing the other one, but that carrot wasn’t for her.

He temporarily closed the gate to Lisica’s stable and then he walked down the hallway of the barn towards the box with the familiar horse.

In the dim light he saw how Wendir’s mare Katya was dozing while relaxing her right hind leg.

Based on the straw in her fur and some not-fully dried sweat stains, he guessed that his friend still rode like a member of the Wild Hunt and barely arrived before him.

“Hey girl”, he said in a low whisper, and she turned her head.

He held the carrot over the box gate, and it appeared as if she wasn’t interested at first. He frowned.

“Did he urge you like a demon again?”, he asked the horse, remembering the riding lessons he had with his friends, and he clicked his tongue disapprovingly. Katya huffed as if she was agreeing.

Tiredly, she stepped up to the gate and he petted her softly as she ate the carrot.

He was cooing her name, telling her how happy he was to see her, while scratching her head.

If someone saw him, the witcher who stank like a drunkard and looked like someone had used a plow on his face, talking in a high voice, they would probably shake their heads in disbelief and maybe disgust. But he was just too excited.

In maybe half an hour he would explain himself to Wendir and hopefully the other would understand him. His ugly mug would serve as proof and then his friend would help him calm Fenri’s anger and Barmin’s likely disappointment. He could see it before his eyes, and he breathed out as if a big weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

After realizing that he didn’t have more carrots, Katya had enough of his petting, and she walked away from him to return to her former dozing position.

Y/N saw that as a cue to take care of Lisica and returned to her box, where he took off her saddle and put it on the saddle stand. He grabbed one of the brushes and for the next 15 minutes he brushed her and spoke to her in a low voice, while she relaxed and nibbled away on the hay in the corner.

After making sure his mare was comfortable for the night, he grabbed his bags and left the building. It was quite dark now and, in the distance, he could see lights in the houses. 

He was about to slowly follow the stony path to The Cauldron when he heard a snort and when he turned his head, he noticed the small pasture next to the stable. Unlike he had thought before when he entered the stables, there actually was a horse in it.

Something put pressure on his chest.

A few feet away, behind the wooden fence stood an ash grey stallion.

He knew that horse well. He had learned mounted combat on it.

Memories bubbled to the surface, and he felt sick. The sweet aftertaste of Cintrian Faro suddenly tasted foul.

He remembered hours of training and having sore muscles, falling into the dirt, getting kicked after agitating Borsuk too much, hands that helped him out of the saddle, hands that checked him for blisters, hands that had put medicine on the hoof-shaped bruise on his back, hands that he had dreamed about so many times-

Y/N whirled around, his heartbeat thundering loudly in his ears and made one step, two, three- before someone grabbed him by his cloak and dragged him towards the side of the stable.

His attacker hurled him against the stone wall and the impact left him dazed and pain shot through his body from his head to his still healing leg. His collar was seized harshly, the other man basically carried all his weight, and he felt the breath of his assailant on his face.

Y/N didn’t dare open his eyes.  

“You goddamn bloody bastard”, said an agitated voice that he hadn’t heard in almost three years now. His heart quivered and he turned his head away instinctively. His hand let go of his bags in defeat.

Fuck was all he could think at that moment. Bloody fucking hell.

“Look at me, you fucker.”

The witcher breathed out shakily, and then opened his eyes to peer at the other man out of the corner of his vision.

Deglan looked the same as three years ago, besides maybe a few more grey strands in his hair and beard and some wrinkles. His jaw was still framed by a magnificent beard, and his sharp cheekbones combined with his broken nose embodied a handsome roughness. He looked better than ever.

Y/N had a hard time breathing.  

But Deglan’s face was dark, a blazing fury was visible in his yellow eyes and his lips were pulled into a snarl.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment”, growled the older witcher and had he said those words to him in any other moment, Y/N would have felt a sharp tug in his lower body, but due to these circumstances, he only felt panic rising in his chest.

“...S… ‘s good to see you, Deglan...”

At first, he thought that his low murmur was left unnoticed, but his former mentor rose an eyebrow and a second later, he frowned and sniffed the air.

“You smell like shit. How much booze did you drink on your way here? Did you lose your way during the winter and end up in a Brewery instead of Kaer Morhen?”

All of Deglan’s words stung like hell. Fuck, they were a low blow and Y/N winced inwardly. Because as much as it stung, it was halfway true.

He sunk more into himself, and his mentor had to hold him up.

The lack of any reply didn’t seem to sit well with Deglan, so he grabbed him by the chin and roughly turned his head.

“Care to look me in the eye when I speak to y-”

Y/N’s eyes were downcast, and his face was covered in the shadows of his hood, but this didn’t stop the witcher’s eyes from spotting the new ugly scars across his face.

His mentor sucked in some air sharply and he automatically formed his hands into fists. The h/c haired witcher digged his nails into his skin trying to ground himself but this situation was so much worse than any nightmare scenario he had ever imagined, it was of no use.

The grip on his collar left and Y/N’s eyes widened slightly as Deglan’s hand entered his periphery. An absurd fear of getting hit entered his mind, but his mentor did no such thing. 

He touched his cheek, light as a feather and it was so unexpected after his rough handling and talk that Y/N’s limbs turned weak.

His breath quickened automatically as the man he still loved so passionately traced the scar tissue in his face with an unreadable expression.

“...A forktail. It got me good”, he said awkwardly and tried to ignore the growing heat that crept up his neck.

Deglan remained silent, his eyebrows scrunched and with his other hand, he pushed off the hood of Y/N’s cloak to fully reveal the length of his scars, his chipped right ear and his disrupted hairline.

Someone breathed out shakily, Y/N wasn’t sure if it was himself or the other man, but he felt extremely vulnerable and exposed.

This is the worst...

He felt so embarrassed, so ashamed- Talented my ass, if he remembered the last 2 years, he wasn’t exactly the prime example of a good witcher.

Standing in front of Deglan now, he felt inferior.

He hadn’t bathed in weeks, he smelled like a drunkard and was one too. He lost all of his herbs and elixirs, had barely any money left and looked disfigured, and on top of it all, he didn’t even consider the possibility of Wendir’s letter getting into the wrong hands.

Deglan had either forced his friend to read Y/N’s letter to him or his brown-haired friend betrayed him and went to his former mentor by free will. Not so clever, are we…

Anger churned in his chest, but it was overshadowed by the growing black hole that seemed to suck every snippet of hope away from him when he looked at the stony expression of his mentor, the snippets of hope that had begun to burn again after Deglan touched him with such tenderness.

He must be disappointed that his “talented” apprentice let himself get mangled by a monster to such an extent. Why else would he look so stern? There was no other explana-

“Fuck, I worried so much.”

Hands grabbed Y/N’s arms and suddenly there was a weight on his shoulder. Deglan’s head pressed against the thick cloth of his cloak, and he heard him sigh deeply.

His heart pounded loudly in his ear. He blinked. And didn’t react. He stood still as a statue, while his former mentor clung onto him, his fingers digging into the leather armor that covered his wrists. The warmth of the other man was almost unbearable, and Y/N’s breath turned erratic once more.

“L-Let go please”, he croaked, something was blocking his throat.

The older witcher lifted his head and halted. Y/N could practically see how his pupils began to focus on the blue cloth around his throat and had Deglan said something in that moment, he would’ve been unable to hear anything because his heartbeat was thundering so loudly in his chest.

Fuck, oh lord-

“I-“, he began but before he could find the words to formulate the dozen dumb excuses in his mind, Deglan grabbed his head and took his breath away.

The kiss was sloppy and more forceful than anything else, but it ignited the dying fire in Y/N’s hollow chest, and before he could even think about it he found himself leaning into the touch subconsciously.

Their lips parted soon after and he breathed in hastily, feeling light-headed from the lack of oxygen and the fact that Deglan just fucking kissed him.

The younger witcher grabbed his mentor’s upper arms, keeping him at arm’s length away.

“What- what are you doing??” he whispered, staring at the thigh that invaded the space between his legs and his lip quivered as his mind spun from shock.

“Don’t run away anymore, Y/N. You bloody fool.”

He didn’t have time to process these words.

Deglan kissed him again, he pressed his body against his and in the dark of the night, against the cold stone wall of the stable, Y/N fell into the abyss.

His body was going up in flames, every part that Deglan touched started burning and the fire couldn’t be extinguished.

His mentor’s beard scratched his cheeks and his tongue sent shivers down his spine. His left leg was giving out, but it was nonchalantly ignored as the older witcher held him up with his arms and his leg on which Y/N was basically sitting by now.

The friction against his pants was driving him crazy.

Y/N moaned but the sound was silenced by Deglan’s greedy lips, and the two men lost themselves in the fiery heat of the other.

-

Sometime later he recovered and was suddenly he was sitting at a table in the tavern, one of his best friends in front of him while his mentor stared holes into the side of his head from the seat next to him. His bags were tucked under the stool he was currently sitting on.

He didn’t know how he even got there, still dazed from the sudden development. His face flushed as he remembered how his mentor basically devoured his lips and every spot that Deglan’s hands had touched tingled.

“Y/N?” Wendir asked and he blinked to regain his focus.

“Yes?” he croaked; his voice was rough, and he coughed.

Wendir gesticulated at his face, the brown-haired witcher was frowning since the moment he saw his friend’s red rimmed scars and his glossy eyes, as if he had cried just a while ago.

“What happened?”

He opened his mouth to answer but Deglan interrupted him:

“A forktail attacked him.”

Y/N stared at the older man in confusion while Deglan returned his look with a burning gaze. He gulped and turned his head to stare at the wood grain of the table. Because of that he missed Wendir’s raised eyebrow.

“I… I uh was on my way to Hagge when the bastard pounced on me. He surprised me, and I was careless”, he lowered his head and stroke his hair, clenching the other hand into a fist. It wasn’t exactly fun retelling that embarrassing moment again.

He felt totally out of it. All the things he had wanted to tell his friend were lost in the tornado that currently swept through his mind.

Deglan kissed me his brain screamed and between the excitement and the shock he was left dazed and speechless. So, he just told Wendir and Deglan the most important thing he wanted his friend to know:

“I was on my way to Kaer Morhen, you have to believe me.”

He hesitantly looked up at the other two and his gaze met Deglan’s. His mentor looked at him, his yellow eyes filled with something Y/N couldn’t quite fathom. Something flitted across his face and like many times before he wished he could hear what was going on inside his mentor’s head.

“I believe you.”

Wendir cut the moment between them short, but relief trickled through the h/c haired witcher and the tension in his shoulders disappeared. His eyes met his friend’s, and both smiled weakly.

“We know how old scars look on a witcher and yours are still fairly new” said Wendir and he gave their mentor a meaningful look.

Said man remained quiet, his expression was blank, hiding his feelings like a mask and it worried Y/N endlessly. But before he could say anything the inn keeper arrived and placed three jugs of beer down on their table.

“If ye want more, get it yerself, there-” the short man pointed at the barrels lined up at the wall across the tavern. The giant wood barrels were barely visible behind the number of patrons currently inside. “I’ll put it on yer tab. Ask my daughter if you want to pay.” He nodded at a young woman who walked past with some dishes in her hands.

The witchers all expressed their thanks and the inn keeper left, Y/N downed his drink in a few gulps, and then was about to stand up to get another and to momentarily flee but Deglan reached out lightning quick and grabbed his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. 

“If I were you, I’d stop drinking so much.”

His mentor’s hand burned like fire on his skin and for a second the h/c haired witcher thought about their moment next to the stables and how much his breath must have smelled, and he ducked his head and nodded slowly. 

Wendir looked at them with a strange expression but when he saw how Deglan watched his friend with eagle eyes after taking his hand back, his own eyes grew big and the corners of his mouth twitched. 

Oh, he saw what was going on. There must have been a reason why his mentor and Y/N had entered the tavern at the same time, the latter clearly dazed as if something life-changing had happened.

“Congratulations”, he said while lifting his jug, an amused smirk dancing on his lips.

Y/N stared at him and mirrored the gesture visibly confused but before he could ask why Wendir congratulated him, the brunette began to talk about his and Deglan’s journey to Vergen. 

The h/c haired witcher barely payed attention, Wendir suffering Deglan’s silence went in one ear and out the other, his head still back at the stable, Deglan’s words echoing in his mind.

“Don’t run away anymore, Y/N.”

Run away? Did this really mean what he was thinking? Was it all a misunderstanding? Did Deglan actually- 

“Okay, okay, that’s enough. Look at him, he’s fucking tired. He is not the only one. We should all go to bed, I already paid for our rooms.” 

Deglan interrupted Wendir’s dramatic retelling with rolling eyes and stood up, his empty jug in one hand, some coins for the payment of their drinks in another. His words interrupted Y/N’s racing thoughts and he felt as if he returned to reality. 

As if...

“Oh, yes, I need to ask for my room.”

“Wait-”

He stood up - his hands taking the bags from underneath his seat - and due to one of the barmaids manouvering herself and 6 jugs between the tables and bodies, Y/N evaded Deglan’s outstretched hand and he hurried to the inn keeper, who had retreated back behind the counter where he was cleaning the used jugs in a skilled fashion.

“I’d like to get a room please and a bath”, he said, a little breathless, rummaging through one of his saddle bags to look for his coin pouch. 

“Not with one of the others, huh? There’s only one room left and it’s connected to the one next to it but ye can lock the door. I’m sure ye take what ye can get. Room plus bath costs 120 a night, another 15 if ye want hot water.”

Y/N didn’t really understand what he meant with his first words but he didn’t think about it too long because he could feel a certain someone stare holes into his back and it messed with his head. 

“Uhh, yes, I’ll take that one. Here-” he handed the man the amount and some additional coins, “make sure the door stays closed. And I’ll take hot water please.”

The inn keeper nodded and then waved at his daughter, who hurried towards them as soon as she spotted her father. 

“Take the lad upstairs and prepare a hot bath in the corner room.”

His daughter, a red-haired, busty young woman, looked him up and down, her eyes visibly frowning when she saw his scarred face, but she said nothing and instead took the key for the room from her father’s hand and then gestured for him to follow her. 

The h/c haired witcher thanked the old man and then quickly followed her to the stairs. A look back showed him that Deglan was still watching him, his yellow eyes were dark and holding something predatory. Wendir behind him only grinned and gave him a little wave. 

The woman led him to the first floor and to the room which was furthest away from the stairs. She unlocked the door and gave him the key without touching his skin.

“Here”, she stated and quickly retracted her hand. “I’ll come back with hot water in a few minutes. It will be fully prepared in about an hour.”

He nodded and quietly whispered his thanks, as her eyes darted everywhere but his face. He bit his lip and then walked into the room, where he placed his bags at the foot of the bed. 

The room was small, there was only space for the bed, a chest in the left corner next to it and next to the door behind a folding screen was a wooden bath tub. 

The door which connected this room to the one next to it, was small, smaller than his height but it seemed to be used regularly as no dust appeared on the door handle. 

The daughter of the inn keeper took a bucket from behind the folding screen and then left him alone in the room, closing the door behind her.

Y/N sighed and sat down on the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands. 

What the hell had just happened in the last 30 minutes? Was he dreaming?

A certain witcher asked himself the same question but due to different reasons.

[chaoticforever]

I wanted to request a M!reader x Deglan (from the witcher ), where the M!reader has recently become a witcher and fell heads for Deglan during the training, but only after he became a Witcher he had courage to confess his feelings to Deglan, and he found out that the feeling was mutual.

(if you write for The Witcher of course)

I actually havent seen The Witcher before, and I like to write about things I've seen before. Is that show worth watching?? I need some new shows to watch.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part VI

Notes: Fate is a bitch and I’m loving it~ No Deglan again but hey we’re coming closer to the ending and he will show up again xD This is part 6 :)

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, Alcohol Abuse, Mentions of Addiction

Summary: Y/N ends up back in Vengerberg for another winter but not out of his own volition. He’s a miserable bastard but after some advice he knows what he has to do. 

Word Count: 4,203

Taglist: @thatsequoia​

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VII, Part VIII

Masterlist

Please note that The Witcher is supposed to be around the Middle-Age. Homophobia existed and is addressed in this story, if you potentially get triggered please do not continue to read!

There was one thing that Fenri hadn’t considered. That his friends and Deglan didn’t consider.

Yes, Y/N was hiding the truth from them in the letter he sent but he did not lie when he had told the blond witcher that he would return in the winter.

He wanted to return.

It was just that fate could be a real fucking bitch.

Which was why three weeks before the first snow fell, a certain h/c haired witcher was lying in a ditch on one of the forest paths at the edge of the Mahakam mountains with a bleeding head injury, his right eye barely left unscathed by huge claw marks while his ear was missing a junk of skin and his left thigh had a gaping tear in it. 

The grass around him was soaked in his blood.

Had it not been for Lisica’s distressed calls that alarmed a nearby merchant who recognized his armour and the blue neckcloth from his last year’s stay in Vengerberg, he probably would have bled out and died next to the corpse of the monster he had barely managed to slay after the surprise attack.

Thankfully he didn’t end up dead.

He sure felt like it though.

It took a while for his vision to adjust, his body was still weak due to the fever that had tormented him the last few days and whoever was taking care of him had yet to take off the bandages over the right side of his face.

He stared at the familiar wooden ceiling and watched how the small light of a candle flickered across the wood grain. He knew that pattern intimately and he was relieved.

He was in Vengerberg. Somehow he ended up making it to the tavern from his last year’s stay.

Slowly he lifted his right hand - it surprised him how weak he felt - and carefully touched the bandage over his eye and head. It itched terribly and he could feel his pulse through the fabric. It felt hot.

Gripping his teeth he sat upright, his bruised torso complained with spikes of pain and he felt dizzy. He didn’t have time to bitch and whine though and he scanned the room with his left eye for his belongings.

The room was similar to how he remembered it, there was a stool missing though and on the small wooden nightstand next to the bed was a basin with soaked linen dressings and a couple of herbs he could identify as Celandine and Ribleaf.

He was sure that those herbs belonged to him. Which meant that he didn’t lose his belongings when he got rescued.

Relieved he spotted his saddlebags in the corner on a wooden table.

The witcher pushed himself off the bed and almost crumbled right then and there, his left leg couldn’t support his weight and he had to sit back down again, squeezing out a pained moan between his teeth.

Taking deep breaths, he tried again, this time trying to maintain his weight on his right leg and he quickly hobbled across the room to his saddle bags. He heavily leaned on the table while he waited for the sudden dizziness to pass.

Then he grabbed his saddlebags and searched them for his potions. He was slow, annoyingly slow.

Suspicions began to rise when he pulled out the letters of his friends and the papers of the envelopes were discoloured and held a distinct herbal smell.

“Don’t tell me...”, he mumbled and sniffed the envelopes.

His other letters - the ones addressing Deglan were discoloured as well and when he finally felt the wood of his small potion chest, he had a bad premonition.

He pulled the chest out of the bag and some liquid dripped on his hand.

No, please...

Y/N placed the chest on the table with shaking hands and opened it.

When he saw the glass remains of his potion vials and the damp herbs he had to close his eye for a second and breathe. His hands formed fists on the table.

Those potions were of great importance for witchers and not easily obtained much less brewed. Before his departure on the Path, he had spent months brewing the contents of these vials and when he had left, he regularly took hours of his days to collect more herbs and ingredients for it.

Losing them was not only incredibly frustrating but also dangerous for his future endeavours. Their loss would force him to take on smaller requests which in turn would mean that he had less money to acquire rare ingredients from a herbalist.

Trying to calm himself he opened his eye again to inspect the damage further.

Most vials were shattered and their liquid remains were gathered at the bottom of each half of the chest in a dark puddle.

His Swallow potions gone, his Cat potions gone. His Golden Oriole, his Blizzard, his Black Blood, his Thunderbolt, his White Raffard’s decoction, all of their vials, broken.

There was one glimpse of hope though in this tragedy. One vial of the potion he was looking for remained intact. It was only a small comfort but for the moment it had to be enough.

Carefully, he felt the bandage around his head and began to unwrap it. It took a long time.

The exhausted witcher hissed alarmed - but not in pain - when the fabric stuck to his skin and he slowly tore it off. The air felt good on the skin and he discarded the bloody bandage on the table. His arm muscles quivered from exhaustion.

By now he had realized that the right side of his face was so swollen that he couldn’t see even without the bandage and it worried him greatly. Had he lost sight in his right eye? He had to check.

He didn’t touch the skin though.

Instead, he sifted through his bags once more to find the small broken shard of a mirror he had used before to stitch his wounds. He unwrapped the damp cloth that protected him from the sharp edges of the shard and then he examined his face in it. Y/N sucked in some air through his teeth.

The forktail’s razor-sharp claws got him right across the bridge of his nose and forehead, missing his right eye by less than an inch and the slash from the monster’s left claw breached his hairline and ended at the upper back of his head.

The slash of the forktail’s middle claw reached from his right cheekbone across his ear to the back of his head and some flesh of his ear was missing due to it.

At least the fourth one missed, he thought sarcastically but the ugliness of the future scars and the meaning of these wounds left a bitter taste in his mouth.

During the last moments of his hunt, he had been careless. He was already drunk from apparent victory and it ended up costing him.

With a mug like that no one - really no one - would look him eye anymore... And it was uncertain if he could look back at all with his right eye.

Not if the infection of the claw wounds spread.

The wounds hadn’t been stitched, most likely due to the inexperience of treating a mutant - and his flesh ended up getting infected - most likely due to him lying in the dirt for so long - and if he wouldn’t act fast, the skin would rot.

Breathing through his nose, he grabbed one of the only intact vials from its compartment and opened it. The black liquid seemed ominous and the pain he could expect in a few seconds made him grit his teeth in preparation.

He hoped his eye was swollen enough that the potion wouldn’t reach it, he had never accidentally poured this elixir into his eyes before so he had no knowledge of any side effects.

He slowly tilted his head backwards, then poured the potion directly onto his face and the tavern owner Iven entered the room right when he howled in agony and fell unconscious.

-

"And now they most likely think that I am lying. I messed up and I am too scared to explain the truth."

Y/N took a big gulp from his jug of ale and then slammed it on the bar with a deep sigh, spilling a few drops of his drink.

It had been three weeks now since he “almost killed himself” according to the druid who had treated him.

He, of course, saw that differently.

Had he not used that elixir that day, he would have probably ended up losing his eyesight and would have been forced to spend the rest of his days as at most an instructor at the school of the Wolf or more likely a beggar.

But now he “only” had to walk around with a shitface. The right side of his face looked like a plowed field - a real improvement from the white scars he had gained in his youth.

The skin was still red but it healed considerably well, thanks to his mutated body and the antiseptic elixir he used.

Unfortunately, though, his accelerated healing abilities didn’t help to grow back the hair he was missing. The forktail had made sure to mess up his magnificent hair before dying.

He chuckled humourlessly.

This kind of dark humour was his only comfort - apart from the ale, of course. Which he really needed, especially now after he had just sent a letter to Kaer Morhen for Fenri and his friends in which he basically told them that he was not coming home.

He knew how it would look to them.

As if he had lied to Fenri. Not once but twice. The blond man would interpret it as if Y/N had lied to his face and then in the letter he sent. As if he lied to all of his friends. To them, he would be a deceitful bastard and this guilt ached worse than his wounds.

Maybe he could have solved this if he mentioned his injuries in his letter but he doubted it would seem like the truth. Not after he had mentioned getting injured in the first year to his rival. There was also his reputation. They probably couldn’t believe that he got injured so heavily, he was notorious for his skills back in his training years.

But they didn’t know how much he changed. Y/N didn’t want to admit it but in the last two years he had developed an addiction to alcohol. 

He drank almost every day and it wasn’t just one mead. He drank excessively and the money he made was spent on more wine and alcohol. 

Due to his fast metabolism he wasn’t drunk for long and he had to drink many bottles to truly feel the buzz of alcohol and so he grabbed a bottle more often than any other drunkard. 

During that day when he was got attacked he felt the withdrawal symptoms. He had been restless and plagued with migraines and his hand itched for some ale but he didn’t have any on him. He had checked two times already and during the third time the forktail descended on him.

If his friends knew that he let a monster sneak up on him, him who had better hearing than any of them, because he was looking for alcohol like a booze hound, they would probably shake their head in disbelief and disappointment.

He couldn’t tell them.

So he just had to deal with their anger. Not that he was in the mood for it. The fact that he possibly had ruined their friendship was a sour truth to swallow.

Y/N cleaned his sticky hand with the hem of his shirt and let his gaze linger on the many scars and blisters that covered his skin.

Not exactly a beauty are we, he thought bitterly. Getting uglier by the day...

The bard sitting next to him hummed.

Hannes had arrived in the city two weeks ago and was shocked when he first laid eyes on the witcher’s mauled appearance. He rested in the tavern in the room next to Y/N’s and spent most of his free time at the witcher’s side and made sure he was eating and healing well.

They did not talk much during that time because moving his jaw stretched the forming scabs and so he had yet to tell Hannes anything about the events that led to his injuries.

When he finally did, the bard exhaled loudly and needed a moment before he could formulate his thoughts.

It appeared like now was the same.

Y/N lifted his hand to wink at the tavern owner's daughter for another beer when Hannes finally spoke:

"I don’t think you messed up that badly. And there is no shame in being afraid."

He lowered his hand and turned his head to the left, the bard smiled assuringly and the witcher grimaced.

A thought crossed the witcher’s mind and he sighed when an image of Deglan appeared in his head.

The days before he encountered the forktail on the Path he had been feeling anxious about the upcoming inevitable meeting with his mentor. His chest had hurt when thinking about Deglan’s face.

How would he react when seeing him again?

He had yet to ceremonially take off the blue cloth around his neck - as he promised himself - and he was even wearing it now - after washing it and cleaning it of his own blood. The fabric was a shade darker now, unfortunately.

His eyes left the cloth at his throat and wandered to the bard.

If only he could fall in love with Hannes. It would have made everything so much easier.

The musician was good-looking, with his black hair and storm grey eyes. The hint of a beard accentuated his cheekbones and his eyebrows gave him a witty appearance. Combined with his blue shirt and brown pants he looked charming. Y/N did find him attractive and his character certainly was endearing...

He sighed.

Why was his life such a mess?

Hannes' words replayed in his mind and he breathed in slowly.

The bard only touched upon the tip of the iceberg of his feelings and it stung to hear it. He was not only afraid of messing up his friendship with Fenri and the others. In truth, he was glad that he was unable to return to Kaer Morhen in the end. He was not yet ready to cross paths with Deglan again.

He slew monsters for a living, he had ventured into caves and forests no sane man wanted to enter and he had taken the lives of creatures that the common folk feared to death, and yet he turned miserable and weak-minded when it came to talking about his feelings and such dainty emotion as love?

Oh, the irony. He could almost hear whatever deity fucking played with his life cackle in the background.

Hannes tapped his shoulder and he focused his attention on him again.

"There is no shame in being afraid but sometimes you have to confront your fears. Often, that is the only way to let go of them."

"That is easily said", he replied gruffly but the words echoed in his mind.

If he wanted to let go...

Doubt swirled in his mind but Hannes was trustworthy when it came to his advice, he had learned that fairly quickly after the last winter. He simply was uncertain if he could overcome his cowardice.

The bard reassuringly squeezed his left shoulder.

"You are a great man, Y/N. You will know what is best for you when the time comes.”

He paused, something flitted across his face but before Y/N could try to decipher it, Hannes added: “Life holds a dozen of opportunities and as vast those opportunities are, words are the same. You just need some time to figure out the right ones.”

The bard let go of him and took a sip from his ale. He grinned over the jug’s edge and asked: “On another note, how are you faring with your letters?”

The witcher knew exactly what the black-haired man meant and he groaned defeatedly.

“They experienced an accident”, he retorted and remembered how he tried to save the many letters he wrote to Deglan.

However, in the end, both them and the letters of his friends were unreadable. The ink had smudged due to the elixirs and the lines were blurred.

He had mourned them wholeheartedly last week.

His expression was grave enough for Hannes to make a face. The bard turned thoughtful and for a while, they were quiet again.

Y/N studied the grain of the wooden table and absent-mindedly massaged his left thigh.

He had removed his bandages a few days ago but it still hurt sometimes, especially when he walked so he had yet to do anything physically challenging. All he did was sit around and lay on his bed. He couldn’t even visit the city, not that he really wanted to do that. In his heart, he had already resigned himself to wearing a cloak forever.

“You know...”, Hannes suddenly said and he turned his focus back to the bard, “As sudden and arbitrary love is, it can fade. You should not wither away because of it, I don’t want you to."

The witcher raised an eyebrow. Not only did he not expect that sudden change of topic...

"Should you say that as a bard with dozens of ballads about eternal love?"

Hannes shrugged his shoulders with a grin.

"Those kinds of songs make the most money."

Y/N gasped in false shock, deliberately ignoring the implication of that topic - his feelings for Deglan - and instead imitated a young maiden and the bard slapped his shoulder while they erupted in laughter.

The action felt liberating and his chest appeared a bit lighter. It had been a while since he had laughed like this.

An image of his friends flashed in his mind and his grin faltered. He coughed and took the last gulp from his drink.

Hannes downed his ale as well and then exhaled loudly in satisfaction.

Again they were silent, Hannes most likely because Y/N did not acknowledge his ways of trying to steer the conversation in the direction of the witcher’s feelings.

Y/N leaned back and crossed his arms and the bard cleared his throat and called out to the tavern owner. The man, an older fellow of short stature named Iven, limped towards them and leaned on the bar to hear what the bard had to say.

"Iven, I wanted to inform you that I will not come back next year. And probably the year after, so you should find another entertainer during the winter."

Y/N tilted his head, wondering about the bard's absence, while the other man crossed his arms before his chest and jokingly said:

"Fucking finally, aye. Your horrible singing kept all my guests away!"

"Ha, we both know that’s untrue!"

Hannes exchanged verbal blows with Iven and laughed, but he stopped when he saw the thoughtful expression on the witcher's face and then leaned towards him to explain:

"I will be settling down in Skellige."

"Skellige?", asked both Y/N and the tavern owner with surprised faces.

"Yes", Hannes was smiling to himself as he leaned back in his seat, "I decided that I have seen enough of the world."

Iven clicked his tongue.

"You found a lass?" He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone and Y/N and Hannes followed the man's forlorn eyes across the room where his daughter was talking to some of the regular guests.

They exchanged a look and Hannes grinned.

"Well, something like that. Anyway... Can I have another beer for me and Y/N?"

"No", Iven gruffly replied but he took their jugs anyways and turned around to prepare their drinks.

Y/N watched the bard carefully. He was settling down...? Don’t tell me...

"Something like a lass...?", he asked quietly, and his thoughts began to race because what if...

A pipe dream floated in his mind and the image of two men, both yellow-eyed and showing signs of ageing, one with fewer white streaks of hair, the other with more wrinkles, standing before a small house looking happy and in love made his heartbeat speed up.

Growling inwardly he banned the thought from his mind.

Hannes gave him a side glance and smiled weakly. But his eyes showed an emotion Y/N could only describe as longing.

"It’s not what you’re thinking", the bard replied and he thanked Iven with a nod as the man slammed two beers on the bar counter in front of them.

He waited for the black-haired man to continue and they both watched as the tavern owner went over to his daughter and his regulars.

"My mother sent me a letter. I haven’t heard from her in years but somehow she found out about my summer stay in Cidaris. I remained longer there than usual and her letter reached me through one of my benefactors. Her lover died. And she has fallen ill. She begged me to return "home" but you know what-"

Hannes stopped and took a big gulp from his jug. He snorted humourlessly and the witcher noticed the darkness in his grey eyes and frowned.

"Skellige is not my home. I grew up in a small village in Verden and years after I had left home to follow my dreams, I returned and all I found was a burnt-down house, a letter and my father's grave in the backyard. He died because of an unknown sickness and my mother took off and married an Islander just weeks after his passing. And now she wants me to care for her after that bastard passed away too. And I will do it because she gave me life and we share the same blood, even though we haven’t seen each other in years and she- she had cursed me when I left home."

Y/N stayed quiet.

He did not know what to say.

He grew up as an orphan and the only people he could vaguely see as his parents were the people of Kaer Morhen.

Familial bonds and blood never meant anything to him and he never tried to find out anything about his parents, unlike Fenri who had visited his family home once when he snuck out of the witcher's keep.

The blond boy had returned with dried tears on his cheeks and bitterness in his eyes and Y/N knew from that moment on that parents were not something he needed or wanted. That was at least what he told himself.

So he did not know how to respond to Hannes’ bitter words.

But he understood him. If Hannes’ mother cursed him because he was the way he was, he truly understood his bitterness. If his friends cursed him because of his feelings for Deglan, he was sure the agony would kill him.

"You should visit me."

The bard distracted him from his thoughts and the witcher awkwardly cleared his throat because he had not yet found the right words to cheer the man up.

So he grasped the line that the Hannes threw at him;

"Of course. I’ll visit you. I’ve never been to Skellige before... And I’m sure your mother will like a witcher's company", he jokingly added at the end.

Hannes laughed and shrugged his shoulders and then suddenly his storm grey eyes held a burning intensity as their eyes connected, Y/N could see every speck of blue in them, how the bard’s big pupils were taking him in and how the fire accentuated the other man’s face and made it glow. His throat went a little dry.

"I... for certain would enjoy your company", Hannes said after a while, his tone soft.

Y/N blinked. His not-so-sober brain helpfully translated those words for him and their implication. He bit his lip.

He watched the man next to him carefully and his words echoed in his mind.

You should not wither away because of it, I don’t want you to. And he remembered their first meeting.

Something rose in his chest, a mix of self-hatred and selfconsciousness. His mouth tasted bitter.

Hannes shouldn’t look at him like that. He wasn’t worth it.

Y/N breathed in and out before answering:

"Well, I will think about it. I have some other affairs I first have to attend after all..."

His chest tightened. Yeah... other affairs.

Hannes leaned back, his smile bright and content as he downed the rest of his ale and he sighed satisfied after the last gulp.

"I am looking forward to your decision."

Y/N did not know if he would ever reach that point because as far as he was concerned he was not even sure if he would live until that day.

He knew one thing.

He had to return to Kaer Morhen the next winter. Not only to fix his relationship with his friends but to finally take off his neckcloth, to let go.

And after that... Maybe he could finally find peace.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part V

Notes: This is part 5 of a request and the angst is still here yayyy but Deglan finally appears with his own POV :P

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, My sad attempts at making the language sound old

Summary: Y/N made a promise. A promise he’s willing to keep, even though he is not yet over Deglan. But fate has to be a bitch and for the second time, he does not appear in Kaer Morhen in the winter. Deglan is furious...

Word Count: 5,483

Taglist: @thatsequoia

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Additional note: Birke is on March 20

Please note that The Witcher is supposed to be around the Middle-Age. Homophobia existed and is addressed in this story. If this makes you uncomfortable or triggers you please do not continue to read!

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part VI, Part VII

Masterlist

"He will probably arrive in a few days, I’m quite early after all. So, don’t worry, Deglan."

"I don’t know, maybe he is stuck in the snow. He will come, he promised. Let’s wait a bit longer."

"I-I don’t think he was acting. He seriously promised me, he is not the lying kind."

"... I apologize, I... I really don’t know..."

-

Fenri pulled Barmin aside in the passage before the Evening hall. The torches only lit the place poorly and he pulled the red-head under the shine of the flame. He worldlessly showed him a letter. Barmin read it and his face turned into a frown.

"So... he lied to us?" 

Fenri nodded, his teeth grinding in anger. He was certain that Y/N had lied to him. Straight to his face. 

The blond man had been a bit suspicious after they had parted in Kaedwen and he never received a letter until the next winter but life as a witcher was busy so he made excuses for the h/c haired man. And they had never really exchanged letters before so it didn’t seem that strange. 

But he had been wrong. He believed his rival with blind trust. 

He knew Y/N could be a coward. Just not such a big one. 

Barmin sighed next to him. 

"He is a bloody fool", barked Fenri and crumpled up the apology letter.

The other witcher looked at him and hummed, his eyes showed disappointment as well but he tried to hide it.

"He must be scared. It seems reasonable that he didn’t return this year as well. Did you not tell him that we would never view him differently because of his feelings?"

Fenri shook his head with a frown. 

"What does it matter? He wouldn’t have come regardless." 

Barmin leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. He knew that the blond witcher wasn't yet done with his tirade, so he got comfortable.

"I understand him. I really do! After that fucking... After we had to watch that pair of lovers get strung up by the people who ate with them every day...  Their own damn family! - I understand why he is scared. But he promised. And after all those years of training together, I thought I knew one thing about Y/N for sure; that he’s not a liar. That he values promises."

Fenri paused and tried to relax the fists that he unconsciously formed during his words. He could still see the two men from all those years ago hanging before his eyes. The grotesque satisfaction in the eyes of their family members. The absolute horror on Y/N's face... 

He had witnessed that moment in his youth but that moment still followed him into his dreams even now. How much worse it had to be for his rival... 

"You know, I would have helped him with Deglan. I had this intricate plan for how I would aid him, how I would make sure he would finally see what-”, he sighed, “You remember Hannes, yes?"

Barmin nodded, his friend had recounted to him how he met a bard in Vergen who also knew Y/N. 

That whole encounter was embarrassing for Fenri because he had shown the bard his ugly side. 

He was drunk in a tavern when the other man started a conversation and told him about another witcher he met in Aedirn, Y/N. They quickly realized that they knew the same person and after a lot of ale, Fenri spilt the thoughts that had been plaguing him since his rival stayed away from Kaer Morhen during their first winter. 

Hannes listened patiently and then lectured him about the common folk and their attitude towards anything unusual. He told him many stories about people like him - he actually expressed his interest in men openly to Fenri’s utter surprise - and the blonde learned that Y/N's "avoid or die" stance was sadly a fairly good instinct. 

So he did understand his friend and sympathised with him. But the fact that Y/N broke his promise hurt him anyway. He wanted to spar with the fool, he wanted to boast about his hunts, spend time with him and the others like the good old days and also reminisce about Cole. He missed the fucker, okay. He was family.

But now he had to wonder if the h/c haired witcher would appear in Kaer Morhen ever again. It had to be his fault. After all, Y/N never said he forgave him and accepted his apology.

"Hannes believes that Y/N has already given up hope. That he resigned himself to be alone forever. And I don’t blame him for that. As witchers, we don’tt have it easy with love and most of us don’t even consider it, but we have places we can go to for relief. He doesn’t. Or at least not that I know of... But that isn’t what I am trying to say", he groaned in frustration and turned his head left and right to check the passage. 

After listening intently for a second he said: 

"If only he knew what Deglan feels for him. It’s so fucking obvious! I am telling you, those bastards are mutually in love. I bet all my belongings! If Y/N would just get his head out of his arse and come here..." 

Barmin watched the light of the torches dance on the stone wall with a pensive expression. He was uncertain about the letter Fenri showed him. He couldn’t imagine that Y/N outright lied to Fenri’s face. That just wasn’t their friend. He watched the blond witcher rant and crossed his arms before his chest.

"Quite funny that you are so noisy about their relationship. Considering the words you said to us all those years ago."

Fenri scratched his neck awkwardly. 

"I asked for forgiveness, you know that", he mumbled and his friend placatingly patted his shoulder. 

"I know. I merely want you to remember not to meddle in other people's affairs."

His eyes wandered to the dark end of the passage, where the corridor split into two parts.

Fenri only grinned apologetically.

The next day during a sparring match, he received a bloody nose. Groaning he tilted his head back while sitting in the dirt. He heard Barmin snort behind him.

"Mind your own business, boy", Deglan spat before walking out of the courtyard.

The blond witcher held his bloody nose and took the hand of his friend who helped him up. Barmin patted his shoulder.

"I told you", he said with a grin.

Fenri rolled his eyes.

"He had already heard everything by then."

The red-head only laughed and he sighed. Hopefully Deglan would do something now. He had big hopes that his mentor would bring their unruly friend back. If the older witcher couldn’t do it... 

There would be no hope at all.

-

"You need to calm down."

"Oh, shut your old mouth, Rennes! I am calm!" Deglan growled as he paced in the wolf school leader's room. 

He wanted to leave Kaer Morhen right now and go beat someone up. Someone with h/c hair and a lot of scars in his face. 

He would punch that someone real good and then he would drag him back to the school's keep. Where he would beat him some more, to get his point across. 

And after that, he would confess his love, kiss him breathless and then fuck the shit out of him. Preferably in that order. 

The fact that he couldn't do any of that, therefore, made him considerably angry. 

"Well, then you can fuck off and be calm in your own goddamn room, my attention is needed by those documents." 

Rennes massaged the bridge of his nose while he sat at his desk which was covered with papers and books of all sizes. Deglan was about to open his mouth and argue but Rennes interrupted him: 

"And I told you, you are not to leave these castle walls before spring arrives. You got punched too much in the head if you think I will let you go out there for merely one witcher." 

"He is not just any witcher-" Deglan started, but he got interrupted once more:

"He is Y/N, the best of the bunch you trained, I know. All the more reason to not let you storm off like a bloody fool. What do you even try to achieve? He probably arrived too late at the mountain range and got snowed in. Fenri himself said he was on his way here." 

Deglan had to physically restrict himself to not break Rennes' nose too. That was the thing, Y/N never planned to come home. 

And now that he knew why he could not sit still anymore. His patience had been running thin for years and when Fenri told him that the h/c haired witcher was finally returning to Kaer Morhen this winter, his blood began to boil in excitement. 

Excitement, because he had been waiting for two years now to finally clear up the misunderstanding that had driven them apart. 

Whenever he thought about that moment he needed to restrain himself from wanting to murder Olav - the witcher who was the cause of the misunderstanding. 

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. 

"When winter is over, I want to go out on the Path."

Rennes looked up from the letter he was reading and frowned.

"To go look for him? Deglan, what the fuck is the matter with you and that boy?"

"He’s not a boy anymore."

The older witcher dismissively waved his hand. 

"You can’t leave right away, you know the rules. You have not yet done all the training months from last year." 

Deglan gnashed his teeth in annoyance. Despite his anger, he gave in.

"Okay, but I will leave after Birke."

It was okay. He had been patient for such a long time. He could be patient for a bit longer. Just a bit. 

After Rennes finally gave his approval, not without scrutinizing him first, he left his room. 

It was already late afternoon but he was not in the mood to eat anything. So he went to his own quarters and lay on his bed, staring at the stone ceiling with crossed arms behind his head. 

Birke was still a few months away and the uncertainty about Y/N's fate was heavily weighing on his mind. 

Fenri believed that Y/N was staying away willingly and Deglan knew that it was very likely - he understood the younger man's way of thinking well - but he could not stop himself from worrying about his safety anyway. 

Y/N's character had never allowed him to back away from any fight much less one with a monster, at least not that he was aware of. Deglan wondered if he ever took his words from before to heart. The lack of knowledge tortured him. 

He wanted to see the h/c haired man. He wanted to grab him and shake him violently by the shoulders, to tell him that he was a bloody bastard. How dare he make him wait so long and break his promise?!

Deglan knew about the younger man's feelings for him for a long time. 

At first, he thought those feelings were simply admiration - every witcher had a mentor they looked up to - but when Y/N’s glances lingered longer in the following years, when his body turned rigid as soon as Deglan got a bit too close and his ears turned a deep shade of red, he understood. 

He remembered how Cole had told him about Fenri's comments all these years ago and how he had noticed the stares Y/n had given another witcher.

And then it hit him.

Never in a million lifetimes had he thought that someone would look at him like that again. As if their breath got taken away whenever Deglan looked at them. As if he was the most important person in their life.

He was not one to brag, but when he had been younger he turned a lot of heads. Not that many approached him, his witcher eyes and prominent scars deterred even the bravest among them. But he had been quite popular. Back then.

That changed though. His best years were most likely behind him, his beard and hair already had streaks of grey, and he never thought he would be someone's object of affection again. Especially not his student’s.

It came as a surprise. 

And Deglan had told himself at first to ignore it. Y/N would change his mind soon enough. He did not want to imagine anything, he was much older than the other and Y/N was still fairly young when his feelings bloomed and with a few more years he would forget. 

But he never did. 

The h/c haired youth turned into a formidable man with muscles at the right places, scars littering his lean body and the yellow eyes of a witcher full of courage and a sense of duty. 

And the look in his eyes never changed when he watched Deglan. The older witcher, therefore, could not stop his heart from wavering when the man reached the end of his training. 

After all, he had felt a certain connection to the other since he was just a brat.

The fact that Y/N appeared to also like the same sex had been reason enough for him back then to take him under his wings. Deglan knew well enough what could happen when that kind of preference got known and he saw his younger self in him, so he decided to watch over the boy in secret. 

He made sure that any kind of foul talk would be met with punishments, he tried to shelter him from any abuse and he thought he did it fairly well. 

But he noticed that Fenri's and Y/N's rivalry took a turn for the worse and then the two boys were sent on a hunt to the closest village by Rennes.  

The rascals' expressions when they returned had been strange. Both of them had departed with an exciting air around them but that was nowhere to be found when Deglan welcomed them back. Y/N's eyes appeared empty, his expression haunted. Something had definitely happened. Something bad. 

So, when Fenri was surprisingly meek the following days, he had asked the witcher who took them down the mountain what had occurred during their days away. 

He told him that they witnessed the hanging of some sinners during the last day.

Deglan counted two and two together and it broke his heart. 

He began to notice how Y/N became careful with touch, that he never let his hands linger on the shoulder of his friends. The youth looked lost and Deglan scolded himself that he was unable to protect Y/N from witnessing that awful moment. 

Once, he had been that boy - to be fair, he had been much older - but he had a close confidant who knew about his preferences, he had had support. 

Deglan remembered his late friend and he felt a sting in his heart.

Although Y/n appeared to have found good friends in Cole, Barmin and the others, he was most likely scared. Scared that if he showed his true feelings his fate would be the same.

And so Deglan had decided to become a confidant for the boy. He would try to be a better mentor. Someone Y/N could trust.

This decision had led to the improvement of their relationship and suddenly Y/N's eyes were stuck on him like a tick.

The boy grew into a handsome young man and his small hands turned as big as Deglan’s. Suddenly they were almost the same height and the skin around his chin scars grew hair. 

It did not help Deglan that the younger witcher had many attributes that he found attractive.

So, he was suddenly more conscious of the yellow eyes following him and the other’s movements when they tackled each other in their never ending training fights. Y/N's gaze sometimes burned like molten iron and during late nights when he was dazed from too much alcohol, Deglan's hands itched to just slam the younger man against a wall and kiss him. 

But he tried to ignore these thoughts. 

He really tried, he did not want to let his loneliness cloud his judgement, he did not want to take advantage of Y/N's feelings and so he held himself back. He was an old man after all, compared to the h/c haired witcher. He really tried to stop the growing emotions in his chest.

Until Rennes told him that his group of disciples would finally go out on the Path. 

Spring was only weeks away and Deglan was suddenly confronted with the fact that Y/N would soon only rarely appear in his life. If he did not die out on the Path. Which he did not really believe would happen, the young h/c haired witcher was the best among the ones he trained but still- 

He could not stop himself from worrying. Nightmares about finding Y/N's dead body out in the mountains began to torment his sleep. And his resolve wavered.

The prospect of seeing the man only once or twice a year for a few weeks upset him. He knew that witchers usually grew apart like this, especially if they were “only” mentor and apprentice. He did not want that. He did not want to see Y/N change and become a stranger in his eyes. 

Deep down he knew that he wanted to witness every little change, every new scar, every new freckle and wrinkle. 

He wanted to spend every minute, every second of the respite a witcher had in winter with the other man.

And then he remembered his past. His own sad attempts at finding love. He had pined for someone before, he yearned with the patience of thousand men and waited until that person finally realized his feelings. 

It took a long time but they were reciprocated. They had spent two years together and he would sneak out of Kaer Morhen every week to see the man at the foot of the mountain. 

He had been younger back then and believed he had all the time in the world to spend it with the one he liked. But then his lover died in an accident. And Deglan finally realized that life was fragile and as a witcher his was maybe better spent killing monsters and making coins.  

At least that was what he thought until that dumb fool with h/c hair and heart-eyes sprouted from a lad into a charming man and pinned him to the ground in one of their last fights before the end of his student’s training.

Y/N laughed heartily, he was out of breath and Deglan could feel it from the slightly vibrating blade that touched his throat. Under the sun the h/c haired man looked mesmerizing and Y/N being on top of him ignited something in his heart.

He studied his face, the pale scars on his cheeks, his sharp jaw which showed even more signs of a growing beard, the bridge of his nose that was like no other, his adam’s apple where a drop of sweat was running down and after he looked up after the few seconds that had passed, Y/N’s pupils had become fully blown and the air between them shifted.

He gulped and before his student could say anything, he pushed Y/N’s blade away and slowly sat upright, giving the other the chance to pull away from him. The younger witcher downcast his eyes when he moved away and Deglan could basically feel his insecurity.

“It’s my loss” he sighed and took Y/N’s hand to stand up. He held onto him for a bit longer and when he finally let go he had made a decision.

He would not wait anymore. 

He was done waiting and hoping something would change. He waited enough for the universe to change its mind, to tell him no, they were not meant to be, but now it was his turn and he would make sure that Y/N would become his better half. 

Yet, he didn’t immediately walz up to the other’s room and kiss him. No, he painfully decided to wait for the other to come find him. If he wanted to change his mind. It was one last chance for the other. But deep down Deglan knew, Y/N wouldn’t change his mind. He would come and confess. He was absolutely certain.

He knew that it would happen soon. He had noticed the looks of the younger witcher, he knew that Y/N wanted to tell him something as well. He could guess what it was. And that knowledge only stoked the burning desire in his chest further.

But then destiny had to be a massive twat and told him 'fuck you' straight to his face by making him go on a hunt a month before Y/N and his friends would leave on the Path. 

When Rennes had called him to his room that night he should have felt that something would happen. But he did not, he was too occupied with the idea of Y/N finally addressing the tension between them and maybe a little bit nervous about it too, not that he would tell anyone that. 

"I need you to go on a hunt." 

Rennes had not noticed his expression that night because it was too dark in the room but his face said something along the lines of 'are you fucking with me right now?' 

He did not want to go anywhere. He had been staying in Kaer Morhen for months more than the other witchers because it was his turn to train the younger generations - especially after he brought home that Vesemir boy - and now after he finally got his shit together and knew what he wanted, he had to leave for a hunt?! Why couldn’t any of the others go?! Why now?!

But Rennes did not allow any complaining and so he sent him on a particular job with two other witchers Finn and Olav - two younger ones who had gotten in trouble before because they were raging drunkards and he was supposed to supervise them to prove that they could get their shit together. 

Deglan was pissed. 

But it was alright. He could be patient for a few more days. That would also allow him to choose his words carefully and to restrain himself from just pouncing on Y/N when he saw the man. 

However, in the end, it wasn't alright. 

The nobles who ordered the hunt were a couple he knew. A sickly old man and a young lady who watched him with hot eyes. They had met once before when he was ordered to their castle to find the reason why their servants would disappear and show up dead. 

He was younger back then and the lady's eyes used to follow his every move even back then. 

He knew she was attracted to him since she begged him to protect her in her bed chambers. He had been a bigger fool in the past and did what she demanded because she was nobility and he was born piss-poor and the respect for the aristocracy wasn't yet beaten out of him by years of slaying monsters for sleazy whoresons. 

So he spent the night in her room and she basically dragged him to lay with her. He complied and sat on the bed while she tried to charm him but that was as far as he went. He used Axii on her and she spent the night in a confused daze while he worried about other things. 

That was all that really happened with that noblewoman but when Olav and Finn noticed the looks she gave him they tried to squeeze out any kind of gossip from him and when he told them the gist of what had occured in the past, their dirty minds formed their own opinions.

And it came around to bite him in the ass when they had returned to Kaer Morhen and Olav loudly declared that he was probably fucking that noblewoman.

That night the Evening hall was full of witchers and so he did not spot Y/N at first. 

He was casually playing with the fabric in the bag around his hip: On his way back they had encountered a merchant and instead of buying an intact shirt, he haggled with the man for some cloth as a present for Y/N, cerulean blue or whatever was the shade called by the fella. He felt like it would be meaningful to gift the other man something. 

That thought calmed his annoyance a bit but then Olav had to open his fucking mouth and mess up everything.

The comment made his heart skip a beat and he hoped that the object of his affection wasn’t there to hear it. But fate was a bitch and he picked up Barmin's worried voice in the bustling hall with his mutated hearing. 

He searched for him with his eyes and spotted Y/N right when he was leaving his table. 

His yellow eyes were glazed over and Deglan had a bad premonition. He called out to the h/c haired witcher but Y/N ignored him and left the hall in a hurry.

Deglan could count two and two together, especially when he saw Barmin stare at him from across the hall with scrutinizing eyes. 

He cursed loudly in his head and gave Olav a death stare before leaving the hall to look for the man who stole his heart, all while ignoring Rennes’ stupid commentary about his lack of interest in women. 

He needed to make things right, to tell Y/N it was a misunderstanding but the younger man was good at hiding and he did not find him in the end. 

The next day he tried to search for the other as well and the next, but that fucker seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to him because the witcher disappeared whenever he found him or flocked with other people to hide. 

Deglan did not want to approach him when he was with others because rumours spread faster in Kaer Morhen than in a group of washerwomen. And he had a feeling that if he wanted to separate Y/N from a group, the other would protest loudly. 

So he waited. Waited patiently for Y/N to calm down and act like a rational man for a goddamn second. 

And then he thought he finally had a chance to talk to the object of his desire.

One evening, he came across the h/c man in the courtyard. Deglan realized immediately that Y/N was drunk, but he expected him to be at least aware of his surroundings and actions, as witchers rarely experienced a truly drunk state but that apparently was not the case this time. 

The younger witcher leaned on him for support and buried his head against his throat. Deglan could feel his breath on his skin and the slightly agitated rhythm sent a jolt right through his body. 

He wanted to talk to him, he saw the opportunity to fix their misunderstanding, the change of their lives was in reach but-

Y/N had to throw up and he had to clean the witcher and carry him to his chambers. And once again fate told him to go fuck himself.

That night he left Y/N’s room and leaned on his door. He growled in frustration. 

“Tomorrow will bring another chance,” he told himself.

But another chance never came and then it was already time for the younger man and his friends to leave the keep for the Path. 

Deglan was furious and hurt and frantic and losing his mind from all that fucking waiting. 

But he would be patient. He was set on loving that man, on having a future with him. He would never let him go. Therefore he would be diligent some more and torture himself for three seasons. And then he would confess. Fuck Y/N, it was his turn. He would make things right.

The thoughts of Y/N by his side would be calming enough for him to endure spring, summer and autumn. Winter would bring relief with its cold days and Deglan could not wait for the snow to soothe his burning desire. 

That Friday morning, the sun illuminated Y/N's hair like a halo and Deglan clenched his fists to stop himself from just walking up to the fool and dragging him behind the stables. 

He did not want him to leave. His patience was especially wearing thin today and so he could not stop himself from walking up to the witcher right when Y/N wanted to mount his horse. The thought of the other just leaving, without a word to him, made him growl inwardly. 

He patted Lisica's flank, the chestnut-coloured mare he personally picked for Y/N all those years ago. 

The nostalgia made his eyes a little wet and he squinted them before he looked at the h/c haired man before him. 

"Are you leaving without saying goodbye to your mentor?", he said and tried to add a teasing tone when he saw the tension in Y/N's shoulders. The younger man avoided his eyes and stared at the ground, allowing Deglan to see his ears redden. 

Shit, he loved that bastard. He loved him so much that his knees weakened when he saw the shy reaction of the other man. That fool was in love with him, did he not see that he returned his feelings?! 

He really wanted to shake him by the shoulders. 

If Y/N could not see it, he would just straight up tell him. Next year. 

And he told him that with a determined tone. He would make sure that the h/c haired man got it. 

He could barely wait. He really wanted to cup Y/N's face in his hands and softly trace his scars before kissing all of them but that thought got interrupted by Rennes and he sighed. 

Three more seasons. He could endure that. He would. For the things that would come after. 

He petted Lisica again as a few very intimate scenes flashed before his mind. Oh yes, he would endure that torture. And then he would pay it back. Ten folds. A grin flashed on his lips and he nodded to himself, already imagining the ways he would get back at Y/N. 

He listened to the end of Rennes' speech and glanced at the younger witcher. 

If Y/N would not come back next winter... He dismissed the thought, that would not happen. That could not happen. Some of his nightmares flashed before his eyes and he bit his lip. 

No, he would be fine. 

Deglan took a step back as the other finally sat on his horse, but when Y/N appeared to just lead Lisica away, he ended up grabbing him by the wrist, stopping him. 

He needed a second to formulate his thoughts after he saw the alarmed expression of the other and an idea crossed his mind. 

He took out the expensive cerulean cloth from his bag, he had been carrying it around in the last few days like a treasure. He carefully tied it around the man’s wrist and told him to return safely because they had to talk.

You need to take care of yourself. If you die... 

“This is a promise that you return unharmed”, he softly said and his tone quivered.

His heart hurt and he allowed himself to trace Y/N's artery with his thumb, feeling his pulse. He was alive and well and he would be when he returned. 

Then he let go and patted Lisica's neck. She would take care of the dumbass, he knew it. 

She knew it as well as she whinnied and he sighed. 

His group of apprentices started moving and he waved at his former apprentices. He watched as they traversed the bridge and with every step of Lisica, Y/N moved away from his reach. 

Now he would have to wait. He bit his lip as frustration welled up in him. 

Why did he always have to wait?

Someone grabbed him by his shirt sleeve. It was Vesemir, the young boy he more or less brought with him after another hunt a few months ago. 

"How many of them will return?"

His eyes were dark as he watched Y/N's retreating back.

"All of them."

Then he left. Before he regretted his decision to allow the man he loved to leave.

He did end up regretting it. So much. 

Two whole fucking years.

He was about to go crazy. 

Birke, he thought. Six more weeks. Until then he would endure and after that... Y/N would have to prepare himself.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part III

Notes: This is part 3 of a request and we’re still on the angst train haha... I’m so sorry lol. I feel like the characters I made up for this story are more present than the love interest omg but he will appear soon I promise!!

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, my sad attempt at making the language sound old

Summary: Devastated, Y/N spends his first year on the Path with a broken heart and the wolf comes to a decision. He will not return to his school’s keep in winter to heal his heartbreak. But staying away has consequences he has not fully considered...

Word Count: 3,614

Taglist: @thatsequoia

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Please note that The Witcher is supposed to be around the Middle-Age. Homophobia existed and it is addressed in this story, if you are triggered by this please do not continue to read!

Part I, Part II, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII

Masterlist

Winter had reached the lands and Y/N's encounters with monsters became rarer and rarer. The young witcher had increasingly more time to rest and therefore think and as a consequence guilt and longing began to gnaw at his heart, and so he did what many men did when they suffered from their feelings; He drowned these emotions in alcohol. 

The h/c haired man had travelled to Vengerberg to spend the winter there and was now resting in a small tavern that allowed him to stay during the cold months for a fair price. 

Winter meant no business for witchers and all the money he acquired would finance his stay at the inn. Had he gone home to Kaer Morhen he could have used the money for better armour and advanced potions but Y/N had sworn to himself that he would not return during that winter. 

Because of his feelings. He was not yet ready to face Deglan, to look him in the eye and not feel all the longing and love he held for the man for so many years.

His mentor’s words had haunted his mind for months. 

What did he want to tell him? That he knew about Y/N’s feelings for him? That he was disgusted? Why did he give him the cloth around his neck? What did it mean? What if he wanted to tell him he had found a woman to settle down with within the year that he stayed away? What if it was that noble lady he mentioned?!

His imagination would spin crazier tales than any bard ever could and his dreams tormented him with images of Deglan and all the witchers at Kaer Morhen and his friends cursing him and chasing him away. 

This fear settled into his chest and weighed him down whenever his resolve to stay away was shaken. 

And then it had turned high winter and he had no way to return to Kaer Morhen because the mountain passes were snowed in and he had no chance to cross them in that weather. 

So he stayed at the inn, his constant companions the tavern cat, alcohol, his yearning heart and his misery. The cat was good company though. The others... not so much.

Due to his miserable appearance and the strong stench of alcohol, most people stayed away from him, so he had rarely anyone to talk to. Not that people went out of their way to converse casually with a witcher.

He tried to distract himself by taking a look at the city.

But when he roamed the streets of Vengerberg to look at the occasional herbs and trinkets traders brought, some brave women would approach him. 

He saw them hanging around the bustling whorehouses in the city and could guess what they wanted, but as much as his witcher side wanted to relieve his sexual frustration, the women did not attract his interest at all. 

The thought of trying to forget Deglan by sleeping with any of them never crossed his mind. Because he could not. The idea did nothing for him. Rather it made him feel more miserable, so he steered clear of the prostitutes and avoided them whenever he could. 

In his free time - and he had a lot of it during that winter - when he was not drowning himself in alcohol and misery, he worked on his bestiary, trained, and after some conversations, played cards with the tavern owner and his daughter. Barmin had been a good teacher and Y/N could win any round of Gwent easily. 

His skills became so great apparently that the enthusiastic and bored players in the city began to seek him out for a challenge - some scared at first because of his scarred appearance and the rumours about witchers, others with great interest - and he spent the last two months of winter with all kinds of people. 

He met traders, soldiers, simple farmers and even a bard who recognized him as the slayer of the royal wyvern in Gulet. 

The latter showed an unusual interest in his life and Y/N realized with absolute wonder that the man was making advances on him. 

It threw him in a loop because finally, he had proof that he was not the only one who liked other men, there were more like him, therefore, he was normal and his feelings weren't unnatural or even abominable at all! 

But as much as he liked the bard's appearance and character, he was not over Deglan. His heart stubbornly held onto his feelings. Even when he had no chance at all... 

That thought dampened his mood every time and the bard noticed his despondent spirit. He was quick to identify his mood as a reaction to unrequited love and apologized for his unwanted advances.

Y/N didn’t mind them though, he told him and they held a long discussion about their preferences.

Hannes was a noisy fella and the few things that Y/N let slip about his feelings for Deglan quickly earned him the advice of writing some love letters to the person of his interest to deal with his feelings. 

It was utterly bizarre to suggest a witcher write a love letter but the idea somehow warmed up to him and before Y/N knew it he had written several letters addressed to his mentor. 

He never sent them though. 

They held his deepest secrets and hidden feelings and while he enjoyed writing down his thoughts and desires, he stowed them away in the depths of his saddlebags where they would hopefully stay hidden for eternity or the moment until he was strong enough to burn them. 

He was quite embarrassed when the bard asked him about it a few days later and he confessed that he indeed wrote some letters.

Hannes had only smiled and patted his shoulder as if he was proud of him. 

Y/N felt warm but strange at the same time, it was unusual for anyone to touch him so casually - of course, Deglan and his friends were an exception, but a random person instead of a witcher outside of Kaer Morhen was something new... He liked it.

Maybe that showed how lonely he actually was.

The bard and the other people who played Gwent with him distracted him during the day and strangely enough, some of them were concerned about his excessive alcohol consumption and whenever they met, he was only allowed to drink watered-down wine or beer. 

This certainly helped him to get back on his feet when news reached him in the first weeks of spring that a kikimore has been spotted by one of the trade groups en route to the city.

He was surprisingly excited to fight against a flesh-devouring monster again, but in his defence, the times in Vengerberg when no one else had time to play Gwent or entertain him, he spent moping, remembering and imagining terrible things. 

The nights when he could not sleep were the worst. His scarred skin itched and he remembered his nights in the alchemist cellar in Kaer Morhen, the screams of other apprentices echoed in his ears and phantom pain of the alchemist concoctions haunted his body. 

He remembered Cole’s dead body and the bodies of countless other boys who lost their lives during the trials and the fights against real monsters in the valley of the school’s keep. All the deaths he had seen, all the screams he had heard. 

Those memories pumped adrenalin through his veins and his nerves were all on the edge, he could smell the rotting cheese in the cellar of the tavern, the mould in one of the other guest rooms, and he heard the quietest squeak of one of the rats in the attic, the gulps of the late patrons downstairs when they drank their beer and the rustling of fabric when someone moved.

Deglan’s cloth around his neck seemed heavy like hundredweights in those moments, like a scalding noose and he wanted to take it off but he swore to himself that he wouldn’t and he was stubborn, so he endured until his panic attacks subsided.

Y/N hated these attacks and more often than not he found himself gripping his thighs so hard that his fingernails left bloody half moons on his skin.

He tried to meditate but he rarely found relief because his mind wandered when he remembered the meditation techniques he was taught by Deglan.

Deglan, Deglan, Deglan. Like a loyal dog, his mind always returned to him. 

It was pure torture.

Y/N never wanted to experience that again. 

The prospect of working his body to exhaustion was therefore very welcome. And any injuries he would receive from the kikimore hunt... well, his subconscious saw them as an additional bonus. He did not really think about that though.

The next day, Y/N packed his travel bags, saddled Lisica and told the owner and his daughter goodbye and then he was off on the Path for the second time.

Unexpectedly though, he met several people of the city at the gate, people he knew, and like the year before at Kaer Morhen, he got sent off by a waving crowd. 

His chest was warm when Lisica rushed down the path from Vengerberg and he decided to return to the city again when the opportunity would arise. 

-

He hunted the kikimore successfully and soon the monster-killing business was in full swing again and Y/N was busy travelling across Aedirn. 

The letters in Lisica's saddlebags multiplied and he had to buy new paper and ink several times, for the letters addressing his friends but mostly for his letters addressed to Deglan.

With growing relief Y/N slowly felt like the distance finally did what it was supposed to do. Deglan did not haunt his dreams and thoughts as often as before and the pain in his chest lessened. The letters probably helped as well. He was surprised how good it felt to write his suppressed emotions down. 

But then he unexpectedly met Fenri. 

And everything went down the drain.

The two witchers met on the road after Y/N had just exterminated a nest of ghouls, still covered in blood and intestines. He came across a black stallion with a griffin head tied to the horse's saddle as he left the forest on foot with Lisica walking beside him. 

His mare whinnied excitedly and Y/N quickly realized that this was the horse of his rival. 

He tied Lisica to a tree because she was a bit too happy about seeing a friend from her filly years and then he turned around and approached the mighty stallion with a placating gesture. The horse snorted when he walked up to him to pet his flank. 

"What are you doing here, boy?" he asked calmly and laughed a little when Fenri's stallion nudged his hip where he had some snacks stored for Lisica. He was about to give the stallion half of a carrot when he felt something sharp pressed against his back. 

"Get your whoreson ass away from Cinder", growled a voice from behind him and Y/N smiled knowingly. 

Although Fenri was at fault for many of his nightmares, he tried to not hold it against him. After all, they had been somewhat friends since the moment they passed the trial of Grasses and they became real friends - and true rivals, according to Fenri - in the years after Cole’s death. 

The blond was also not the only one who had said horrible things in his youth. It was not like he could openly hold it against him either. People like him and Hannes were... rare, probably.

And to tell the truth, he was actually glad to know that Fenri was still alive. They rarely exchanged letters, so he was unaware of his whereabouts and adventures.

"I didn’t know you would be here in Aedirn, Fenri", he said and turned around to face the other witcher. Fenri's eyes widened and before Y/N could say anything else, he was punched in the face. 

His eyes watered instantly and he leaned back while holding his nose, groaning in pain. 

"What... the fuck was that for?!" 

The man felt blood trickling from his nose and angrily wiped it away with the back of his hand. The blond witcher in front of him still showed a dumbfounded expression and tucked away the dagger he hit Y/N with.

"Ah, I apologize. I don’t know what came over me." 

Fenri scratched his now-bearded chin awkwardly and patted Y/N's shoulder as an apology.

The two witchers looked at each other.

Both of them had changed in the last year. New scars, new freckles, different hairstyles, the absence of their last boyish naivety... 

A second later they hugged.

"You brute, why did you punch me?!" Y/N laughed and winced at the same time as Fenri's arms tightened around him. 

His rival and friend snorted but it sounded slightly aggressive and when they parted from their hug, he grabbed the older witcher by the shoulders. His yellow eyes stared into Y/N's with a stern look.

"Everyone thought you were dead. That you got mauled by a basilisk on the Path..." He paused, searching Y/N's eyes for any kind of guilt. 

"Barmin was actually crying, you fool. After Cole's death..." He paused again to take a deep breath. "His heart is fragile like a maiden’s, you know that well. Why did you not send a letter?" Fenri shook him by the shoulders. 

"Where were you?" 

Y/N gave him an exhausted smile, showing his blood-stained teeth and the man let go of him. 

He could understand Fenri's reaction. Their friend group had been tight-knitted ever since Cole's death and all the letters he received and which were currently in his saddlebags acted as proof. He received the most from Barmin, his closest friend.

He could guess what they imagined when he did not appear in Kaer Morhen during the winter... When he did not send any word of his absence. He just hadn’t expected Fenri to react emotionally and hit him in the face. 

He touched his nose carefully, it still hurt, but thanks to his mutated body he had already stopped bleeding. Y/N wiped the rest of the blood away from his lips and then tried to find the right words to explain why he did not return to the Wolf school's keep all these months ago. 

"I spent the winter in Vengerberg..." He turned away from Fenri to give Cinder the carrot from before, while he continued to talk: 

"It was already late autumn when I arrived in the city and I was injured. Even if I had left for Kaer Morhen then, I would not have been able to come before the arrival of the first snow. So I stayed to heal. I wanted to send a letter but I was busy so it slipped my mind." 

The truth sprinkled with half-lies went surprisingly easy over his lips. However, he forgot that Fenri was not easily fooled. 

"That is a load of crap. You didn’t want to come, did you not?" 

Y/N stilled, his muscles tensed and he bit his lip. How... How could Fenri know? Was he that obvious? He couldn’t be, right?

But Fenri destroyed his hope with his next words:

"It’s because of Deglan, or am I wrong?" 

Y/N's heart wanted to leap out of his chest and he abruptly turned around to face his friend. All these years he thought he was subtle, that he hid his feelings well. If Fenri knew who else did? What if...? 

No. No, that can’t ever happen!

His heartbeat began to pound loudly in his ears while he watched his friend with eagle eyes, trying to find any kind of sign that he was joking.

Fenri paced in front of him with a hand in his hair as if he tried to appear carefree.

"Fuck, you should have seen Deglan's face when he saw us sit at our usual table, you nowhere to be found... I have never seen that expression before, he looked like he-" the witcher snorted, "he looked like he was about to butcher someone. Now that I think about it, it will probably be you when you two will meet this winter. Maybe you shouldn’t return." 

He looked at Y/N again who stood still as a statue, his hand clenched into fists. The older witcher did not react to his joke and Fenri frowned. 

He understood Y/N's reaction to an extent but it still surprised him.

He had been thinking about the situation since Deglan had stormed out of the Evening hall when the news reached them that Y/N did not arrive at Kaer Morhen and no one heard anything from him, and Fenri came to the conclusion that the words he had said all those years ago had held some truth. He had some suspicions for years but only after Deglan’s obvious fury did he begin to seriously mull over it.

Y/N most likely held romantic feelings for Deglan. And Deglan... Well, he had felt that their relationship was special during their last years of training but... He was certain that they did not talk about it. Not yet.

It was probably likely due to Fenri's dumb comment and the bullshit talk of other witchers after it that Y/N was trying to avoid Deglan and why he stayed away from Kaer Morhen. 

But he was sure that the h/c haired witcher couldn’t let go of his feelings. 

The blue cloth sticking out under his armour said enough, Fenri knew it had been a gift from Deglan, he had watched the two men closely when he and his friends were sent off on the Path.

He could never believe that his rival was dead. So he counted two and two together and reached a conclusion; the older man was more of a coward than he thought.

"You should have just returned. Who cares what feelings you have for him, anything is better than him and all your friends believing you to be dead." 

Y/N's shoulders shook and he let go of the stallion's mane. 

"...ny."

"What?" Fenri tilted his head. Did he hear correctly?

"I do not have any feelings for Deglan."

Y/N had to squeeze these words out between his teeth and the lie burned on his skin like a whiplash. 

Fenri frowned. 

"You don’t have to lie to me, Y/N. Listen, I know what I said all those years ago hurt you and I want to say that-" He got interrupted by the other who had turned around. His yellow eyes held an icy gaze and the witcher's voice was flat: 

"I said I do not feel anything for Deglan. Stop assuming that I do. We both know men liking men is disgusting."

Having his own words from his stupid youthful self thrown back at him made Fenri feel horrible, especially because Y/N's eyes were full of withheld pain. 

He wanted to open his mouth to protest, to tell his rival that he had changed his mind, that he had been wrong and a brainless fool when he was younger, that he had no right to assume anything about the true feelings of another and he as a witcher should know better than to dare act presumptuous but Y/N walked past him without a word and Fenri opened and closed his mouth uselessly. 

The words just wouldn’t leave his lips.

He was too shocked and felt too guilty to react as his friend everyone had believed to be dead mounted his horse and left. He only stared at Y/N’s retreating back as Cinder whinnied, expressing the sadness he felt when his childhood friend disappeared without another word.

-

Y/N bit his lip so hard he could taste iron again. Lisica's speed made his eyes water and when actual tears rolled down his cheeks he did not stop them. 

A storm raged in his mind and he still could not quite fully comprehend what had just happened. 

At first, he had been happy to see Fenri again, even though it felt strange because the other had changed quite a bit. But then Fenri mentioned his absence in winter - he should have seen that coming - and quickly discovered his lies. 

Fenri knew all along. About his feelings for Deglan, about the impure thoughts he had, about him wanting to confess, fuck, he had probably known since that moment all those years ago! 

He had known about Tristan and now he knew about Deglan. Fenri knew he was a dirty disgusting immoral bastard and he had tried to act as if he believed Y/N was normal. 

It had to be a trick. He probably wanted to lure him back to Kaer Morhen only to condemn him before the school of the Wolf. Deglan would be there, maybe even that noble lady would be by his side, or another woman, his mentor was handsome enough... 

And his friends would be there. And everyone else. 

They would hang him.

He ignored the tiny voice in his head whispering that Fenri would never do that and his friends would not react that way. The fear that had tormented him for the few years since that one incident on a hunt coiled around his heart like a snake, crushing the excitement he had felt when he saw his friend again.  

He heaved a dry laugh and his shoulders began to shake. 

"Fuck." 

More tears escaped his eyes and he tightened his grip around the reins. 

For the first time in many years, he once more thought about joining Cole in the afterlife. 

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part II

Notes: Angst train here we gooooo >:)))

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, My sad attempts at making the language feel older

Summary: The usual life of a witcher is ruled by two things. Coin and monsters. Yet Y/N’s life has been overturned by his mentor. But Deglan is not in love with him and the young witcher is devastated. Thank god, he soon leaves for the Path.

Word Count: 3,218

Taglist: @thatsequoia​

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Fun fact: Y/N's mare in this story is called Lisica. It's the polish word for a female fox.

Part I, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII

Masterlist

Please note that The Witcher is supposed to be around the Middle-Age. Homophobia existed and is addressed in this story, if you potentially get triggered please do not continue to read!

After that evening Y/N began to avoid Deglan. 

He wanted to distance himself to sort out the storm of emotions in his chest. He felt embarrassed for being so disillusioned. What kind of stupid and naive dream did he have? Was he a dumb maiden? How fucking ridiculous. 

The love he felt for his mentor had to wither, it had to die, and so he tried to avoid the older man but it was hard.

Because even though he and his 5 friends would leave for the Path soon and needed all the energy they could store, the older witchers tested them whenever they could - and Deglan was set on making sure that the knowledge of their school was branded deep inside their minds. 

Which meant that Y/N could not escape the other man and his spiralling thoughts. Additionally, he had to hear his rival complain all the time like an old trout. 

Today was not an exception:

"Oh, for fuck's sake! It has been years, why are we still doing these exercises?! We are not snotty brats anymore!" 

Fenri swung his steel sword in annoyance and thrust it into the straw with more force than necessary.

No one said anything, the only one who would have tried to appease him was long dead and like usual no one wanted to fill his role. 

Robin kicked a pebble towards Milan and smirked when the other raised his sword as if to strike him, Barmin watched them with a frown, Sven leaned against his straw puppet and closed his eyes to enjoy the sun on his skin and Wendir wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Y/N continued to swing his sword absent-mindedly at the straw puppet in front of him. Moments like these reminded him of the past and Cole's face appeared in his mind. 

The boy had died a gruesome death and he could have prevented it. He should have been the one to- He stopped the thought before he could spiral.

He had tried to ban these kinds of thoughts before, remembering Deglan’s words, but in the last few days he could see the lifeless eyes of his late best friend more often and a familiar dull pain had begun to spread in his chest once again. If only you were still alive...

He sighed deeply.

The h/c haired man was about to lower his sword when he heard the crunch of boots on the still frozen mud behind him and he abruptly turned around to block the sword that was about to strike him. 

At first, he expected Fenri to challenge him like his rival had done so many times before, but when he came face to face with Deglan, he panicked.

"Not bad, Y/N", said his grinning mentor and Y/N was so panicked to see the man he wanted to avoid at all cost that he shoved his sword against Deglan's with such a force, that the older witcher stumbled a step back and almost lost his balance. 

Instead of attacking him again, he raised his eyebrows and looked at him with a thoughtful expression. 

"You seem motivated to go out on the Path", Deglan remarked and the younger witcher remembered what he had overheard in the evening hall. 

His mouth held a bitter taste and he looked at the ground to hide his pained expression.  

"Yes, I cannot wait to depart", he squeezed out through gritted teeth. 

Deglan looked questioningly at Sven, Robin and their younger friend Wendir but the three only shrugged their shoulders and Milan, Barmin and Fenri all avoided his inquiring eyes. 

His mentor opened his mouth to say something but Y/N saw it and hurriedly mumbled: "I will go look for Lisica" and then he hurried off to the pastures, carrying his sword still in his hand. 

Deglan and his friends watched him leave in awkward silence, especially since Y/N was still supposed to take part in the training as they had just warmed up but the h/c haired young man seemed to have forgotten. Fenri was about to open his mouth and ask why their mentor just let the older one go but Deglan’s death stare stopped him.

-

His mentor had probably noticed Y/N’s weird behaviour but he never got the chance to address it because the h/c haired man tried to surround himself with other people constantly.

He carefully avoided Deglan whenever he saw him looking for him. And whatever he wanted to talk about - he actually had an idea what it was, but he didn’t want to hear it - it seemed to be a conversation just for the two of them because he never approached the young witcher when he was with his friends.

And so time passed and he and the five others attended their ceremony and the feast afterwards - Wendir hadn’t yet passed his last trial - and the only moment when Deglan caught Y/N alone was when he got severley drunk after Fenri challenged him to a drinking match.

The older witcher had grabbed him by the arm in the courtyard and Y/N almost lost his balance because he sure as hell could not be sober after so many drinks specifically brewed for witchers, and so he leaned onto the other for a few seconds, not realizing that he was practically burying his head in the hollow of Deglan’s throat.

“We need to talk Y/N”, Deglan said, his tone wavering a bit. 

The younger man shook his head, the world was spinning and before the older witcher could ask him any of the many questions he probably had, Y/N shoved him back and threw up on his own feet. 

He could not remember the rest of that night or if Deglan had said anything else but as he spent the last of his days in the school busily preparing for his upcoming departure, he did not exactly have time to mull about it. Not that he wanted to anyway.

And then came the day for him and his friends to leave on the Path. 

They all wanted to depart at the same time, so six newly appointed witchers lead their horses out of the stables on a Friday morning while their mentors and some younger apprentices who had not yet finished their training - such as Wendir -  trickled into the courtyard to tell them goodbye. 

Lisica neighed when Y/N adjusted the girth on her saddle and he patted his mare with a nervous smile. 

Today would mark the start of his journey as a full-grown witcher and the years of training suddenly felt very short. Though, he knew he had no reason to feel unprepared. After all, it had been 2 years since he had won against Deglan, who was known as one of the school’s strongest, for the first time. Now their score was 242 to 102, and he knew that his 102 victories were well-earned. 

He had done more training than the others and he could hold his own without a problem but as soon as Lisica would cross the stone bridge of Kaer Morhen he would be on his own. There would be no more hunts with his peers and his mentors, no one to cover his back.

Of course, he could team up with the others eventually but they all got their own assigned destinations and he knew he was the only one who would wander towards Aedirn for their first journey.

His thoughts got interrupted by Fenri scolding his nickering stallion who was eyeing Milan's mare a bit too closely. 

"Get it together! I know you are excited, but do not stir up trouble!" 

“I could tell you the same thing”, said a laughing Wendir, who stood next to the blond witcher to tell him goodbye as well.

Y/N snorted in amusement when he heard his rival address his horse and he nodded in Wendir’s direction. His friend smiled and waved and he returned the gesture, his nervousness subsiding a bit when he saw his friend's reassuring smile.

He knew to whom his first letter would go. After all, the man would be left behind for one more year with lots of library duties. And everyone knew how boring that was. 

The witcher checked Lisica's tack and his essential belongings in the saddle bags once more and then grabbed onto the saddle to mount when Deglan suddenly showed up out of nowhere. 

Y/N was so surprised that he remained on the ground, with one foot awkwardly in Lisica's stirrup. 

The man patted his mare’s flank and then looked at him with squinted eyes. 

"Are you leaving without telling your mentor farewell?" 

Y/N felt his heart flutter against his will when he heard the teasing tone in Deglan's voice and he muttered with red ears "I will be back in winter anyway" while looking at a particularly interesting patch of grass on the ground. 

He actually didn’t expect the older witcher to show up. Or he hoped he wouldn’t. His chest felt tight.

The younger man waited for Deglan to say something, something along the lines of “you shouldn’t be conceited as a wrong decision can kill even the most experienced witcher” - one of his favourite teachings - but his mentor remained silent for a bit. 

Then he said: "I know. You will come back because we have to discuss something when you return." 

His tone was serious and when Y/N lifted his head to look Deglan in the face, something appeared in his eyes that the younger man could not quite identify. It appeared warm though.

He suddenly wanted to ask if Deglan really had bedded a noblewoman but the moment passed when Rennes cleared his throat and everyone turned to him. 

"In all honesty, it’s too fucking early for this so I will make this short..." 

The older witchers laughed at their leader's comment and Y/N's lips twitched a bit, but he was worrying about Deglan's words from before so he did not pay full attention to Rennes' goodbye speech and instead he finally climbed onto Lisica. 

He settled in the saddle and his eyes got drawn to Deglan who looked at Rennes with an absent-minded expression, his hand still on Lisica's flank.  

"...I want all your asses back here in the coming winter and if anyone is missing I will personally go search for the whoreson's grave to piss on it, so you better return safe and sound for a feast!" 

The five witchers beside Y/N hollered and they mounted their horses in unison. He took Lisica's reins and was about to steer her next to Barmin’s horse when Deglan grabbed his wrist and he halted. 

His mentor seemed to conjure a blue cloth out of thin air and he pressed it into Y/N’s left hand. This surprised him and the feeling grew when his mentor said:

"You take care of yourself, understood? There is no shame in running from an enemy who is stronger than you, aye?" 

Real worry showed in Deglan's eyes and Y/N could only nod, the man’s voice was deep and his heart beat loudly in his chest when Deglan gently tied the cloth around his wrist.

“This is a promise that you return unharmed”, he clarified and cleared his throat. Y/N could only nod and he almost imagined his mentor caressing his wrist when his hand lingered a bit longer.

The thought made his chest constrict and he pulled himself together when his mentor let go of him and patted Lisica once more. 

"Take care of this fool, okay?" 

The horse whinnied as if to say 'of course' and then Milan urged his mare to move because Fenri's stallion was getting too excited and the group set off across the bridge. 

Lisica followed the others and Y/N contemplated whether to turn around to look at Deglan one last time for the next few seasons or to look straight ahead. He wanted to do the latter to strengthen his resolve to let go of his feelings but when his eyes caught a glimpse of the cloth on his left wrist he knew he was not yet strong enough.

At the end of the stone bridge, he turned around, but when he searched for Deglan's bearded face among the waving witchers and trainees, he could not find him. The man had already disappeared. 

Bitter disappointment welled up in Y/N's chest and he kicked Lisica to catch up with his friends. 

Fool, he thought and scolded himself.

That morning he swore to let Deglan and his feelings for him go.

-

But that was easier said than done. 

In the beginning, it was not that hard. The nervousness of his first solo hunt kept his feelings and thoughts about Deglan at bay but after his first few successful kills, he unexpectedly encountered a royal wyvern near Gulet and had to flee because he was unprepared. 

And that event started a whole avalanche of thoughts about his mentor. 

He rode on Lisica to the small city, his obtained wounds throbbing and blood dampening his mare's fur while shame burned in his chest. He had followed Deglan's order and ran away and thanks to it he kept his life, but his defeat left a bitter taste in his mouth and he felt foolish.

It took a while for him to recover from that encounter and his mentality had certainly changed. He realized once more that even a witcher could be slain easily if he was not careful enough. If he wanted to kill that royal wyvern, he had to prepare thoroughly. Especially now that he was alone.

While he recuperated in one of the taverns - paying a lot more ducat than a normal person would have to, fucking bastards - he racked his brain for Deglan's lessons about wyverns while playing with the blue cloth his mentor gave him.

His bestiary was surprisingly empty in that category and he cursed himself for daydreaming during that specific lecture.

He remembered how some of the few sun rays that entered their classroom in the morning kissed Deglan’s yellow eyes and made them look like liquid honey, how the lips of the older witcher moved and formed each syllable, how his sturdy chest seemed to be at war with his shirt when he moved his arms to show the size of a wyvern's head, and how his big, rough, scarred hands touched the monster skull to show the anatomy of the draconids.

Y/N groaned. Why could he remember his daydream about Deglan's hands on his neck perfectly but not the full content of the lesson? 

All he recalled about the dangers of fighting wyverns were the few notes he had made in the bestiary, but he knew that Deglan had told them a lot more information.

His bestiary entry on royal wyverns was made up of only a few lines as well - if one ignored the sketches at the bottom that were definitely not drawings of his mentor from various perspectives.

With a sigh of frustration, he formed the soft cloth into a ball and threw it on the small wooden table in the run-down room and then ran his hands over his face. The skin was bumpy due to his scars and the growing beard. 

Maybe I should shave tomorrow...

The h/c haired man stretched his arms and yawned and then laid down on the bed to rest. 

He would have to find the ingredients for Golden Oriole before he could even think about another fight with the wyvern. Y/N's wounds were not yet healed and he had yet to talk to the mayor about the potential reward for slaying the monster. He also needed to think about his dwindling stash of herbs, send an answer to the letters he received from his friends and find a better saddle for his horse. And oh, he also had to fix the hole he had accidentally burned into his sleeping mat.

He had lots of things to do but no motivation to do them. So he would think about them tomorrow. Determined he shifted to lie on his side.

But sleep would not come to him. The thoughts about Deglan could not be silenced, instead, they buzzed on and on and his mind constantly returned to his mentor.

Y/N's heart ached when he thought of the man and the feeling was so strong, that he doubted he could ever let go of the love he felt for Deglan. 

It was not a flimsy childhood crush, he yearned for the older witcher and this fact would torture him if he could not kill those feelings.

But he could not stop loving him instantly. It was not that easy.

The distance between them helped to lessen the pain of his unrequited love but it also haunted him at the same time.

How would he ever be able to face Deglan again and act like he never used to dream about him almost every day? How could he face him and ignore the fact that he wanted the man by his side? In his bed? In his arms?!

Did he really imagine all the little moments they had together? Did he imagine Deglan smiling widely at him whenever they met in the halls? Did he imagine the tension between them? Were the looks they exchanged just in his imagination? What about the soft touches that seemed unnecessary and like Deglan went out of his way to be close to him?

He did not want to believe that he had been wrong all this time. But that evening... 

Y/N had challenged Deglan to a fight over 400 times - if he counted their draws as well - but he could not find the courage to ask the older witcher for an explanation.

He would not be able to face rejection, not from him, he was not sure how he would react if he had to hear Deglan tell him about a woman. A dark voice in his head whispered that he knew exactly what he would do-

So, it seemed like he had to suffer for a while. Until those feelings withered.

A strange thought crossed his mind during that sleepless night and when he prepared himself for the hunt of the royal wyvern during the next few days, it transformed into an idea.

He went on the hunt for the royal wyvern and made it out alive because he remembered one of Deglan’s lessons right when he was about to get gutted by the monster. He successfully slew it and he was still covered in the intestines of the monster when he returned to the mayor.

After he received two full pouches with ducats from the mayor his thought turned into resolve.

So he took out Deglan’s cloth, tied it around his throat and made a promise to himself, apologizing to his mentor silently. 

He would not return to Kaer Morhen in the winter. And he would not take off the blue neckcloth until he was sure that he could let go of his feelings for Deglan. 

When that happened, he would take it off and let go. Forever. Love just wasn’t for him. 

He was a witcher. All that mattered were monsters and coins. 

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Wolf’s Heart | [Deglan x M!Reader] | The Witcher | Part IV

Notes: Deglan is still not here yet omg -.- Next part maybe lol? xD

Fandom: The Witcher

Warnings: Mentions of Blood, Swearing, Depression, Angst, Slight OOC, Non-Canon Story, Century Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Spiraling, Injuries, Self-Concious Reader, Misunderstandings, My sad attempts at making the language feel older

Summary: Y/N meets up with one of his childhood friends and quickly realizes that his feelings for his mentor weren’t as hidden as he thought. Time for murder? More unexpected things happen and monsters need to be killed. No witcher can say no to lots of coins, even if he has to hunt alongside his rival...

Word Count: 4,279

Taglist: @thatsequoia​

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part V, Part VI, Part VII

Masterlist

Please note that The Witcher is supposed to be around the Middle-Age. Homophobia existed and is addressed in this story, if you potentially get triggered please do not continue to read!

Soon after they had left the forest, Lisica slowed down into a trot and when Y/N saw the sun, he took a deep breath. He realized that his thoughts were spiralling and the more he brooded the worse his imagination turned. It even influenced his breathing, as he felt a bit rapt.

Embarrassed he wiped his tears away and said loudly to his horse: “You didn’t see that.”

Lisica didn’t reply. Obviously.

He was still covered in ghoul blood and parts of flesh so Y/N abandoned the path and led his horse to one of the small streams in the area to clean himself.

When he tore his dirty armour and shirt off, he began to scrub at his filthy skin, harder than he had to, but he needed to feel the pain to ground himself.

He was so angry. Angry at himself, at Fenri, his friends, Deglan, his stupid feelings...

He grabbed the cloth around his neck, ready to tear it off but in the end, he could not do it. Shaking, he let go and sunk into himself.

The witcher knew that Fenri was still in the forest, that if he wanted to, he could find him easily, he had been the best tracker of their group after all. But somehow he knew that the other would not do that.

He cupped his hands and splashed his face with the water of the stream. It was icy.

He took a deep breath.

Now that he settled down for a bit, he was more aware of the pain in his chest. And the burning shame and guilt that had gnawed at him suddenly felt strange.

As much as his feelings for Deglan hurt, he never believed that they were disgusting, at least he wanted to. Hannes had told him he liked him so naturally and he never thought that the bard's feelings were appalling, so why had he reacted so strongly to Fenri's words?

Was he weak? He had to be. Why else would he cower and deny his feelings in front of his rival when they were apparently obvious enough for him to notice?

Deep down he obviously knew why he lied to the other witcher.

He was the man whose words tormented him for such a long time. Even now he still had dreams about that incident sometimes, dreams that always turned into nightmares. Was it not natural then for him to react defensively?

Every wound left scars, Y/N knew that intimately and Fenri's words had certainly scarred him.

This train of thought calmed him a bit and he continued to scrub his hands and arms, less harshly this time, however.

Lisica neighed and he decided to camp at the small stream. He felt exhaustion deep in his bones and was sure that he couldn't reach the next village before nighttime anyways.

So he prepared his camp for the night, he took off Lisica’s saddle to let her lie down comfortable, collected some nearby branches and lit a fire with Igni. Then he put his shirt next to it to dry and rolled out his sleeping mat.

He cuddled into a blanket while his thoughts and hurting heart were far away in Kaer Morhen. The feeling of uncertainty settled heavily in his bones.

He did not know what to do next. Helpless he looked at the stars on the firmament, while holding the cloth around his neck. Under this sky, he felt tinier and insignificant than ever.

It took him a long time to fall asleep that night.

-

The next day he woke up with a headache.

His emotional turmoil had taken a toll on him and when he rode to the small village nearby to get some food he felt like he had a hangover. Which he didn't experience often as a witcher with high alcohol tolerance.

His mood was therefore rightfully in the gallows when he spotted Cinder tethered in front of the village tavern. The stallion whinnied when he smelled Lisica and his mare returned the greeting happily.

For a second he contemplated whether he should just leave, but the idea of drowning himself in alcohol was very appealing. He had drained his stash that he had bought days ago rather quickly and his throat was aching for something strong like Temerian Whiskey.

Sighing, he tied the reins of his horse next to Cinder's stake and then entered the tavern.

He spotted Fenri immediately and he took a deep breath before he steered towards his rival's table, ignoring the fearful look in the barmaid's eyes and the disgusted looks of the other patrons. It appeared that the barmaid could sense the tense mood between the two witchers, or it was just that; the fact that two monster slayers were currently under her roof.

He sat down without greeting the man in front of him.

Fenri eyed him for a second, then signalled the barmaid to bring some ale for Y/N and she quickly did, leaving the two witchers in silence with each a drink in their hand.

Y/N took a gulp first and the blond man followed his lead. Both frowned, the ale tasted like watered-down piss.

They sat there quietly for quite a while and the air felt as if the world held its breath.

The few other patrons in the tavern certainly did, not that they were eavesdropping. They just felt the unsettling atmosphere and tried to act as inconspicuous as possible and they probably also wanted to avoid smelling the stench of the witchers who both reeked of blood, sweat and herbs.

Y/N was still deciding whether he should threaten the other witcher to keep his mouth shut, kill him right then and there, or just leave it be.

If Fenri knew about his feelings it was highly likely that his whole friend group knew since he knew that the blond was a bigger chatter mouth than any washerwoman. The thought scared him but on the other hand, the prospect of not having to hide who he was anymore from them also felt liberating.

Ahh, he didn't know what to do. He rubbed his tired eyes.

"You look like shit," remarked Fenri eventually and Y/N nodded weakly.

"That can happen when you find out your deepest darkest secret is known to your rival."

He took another sip from his jug as his counterpart lifted an eyebrow.

"You still consider me your rival?"

Amusement resonated in Fenri's voice as he grinned behind the edge of his jar. Y/N nodded again defeatedly and Fenri's expression changed into a serious one before he set down his ale.

"I apologize. For everything." He paused and searched for Y/N's eyes. When they shared eye contact he continued:

"What I said all those years ago was wrong. I was a fool... I’ve been a cunt to you for a long time... Yesterday as well. Please, forgive me, although I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness."

The older witcher did not say anything and Fenri awkwardly added: "You can give me some good punches if you want to. I will take ‘em."

Still, Y/N remained silent and stared into the brown swirl in his jug. Even though Fenri apologized, he did not feel better.

"It’s not like what you said back then was strange. Many folks think like that", he muttered grimly and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes focused on the texture of the wooden table.

Maybe he did not feel better because even if Fenri apologized and changed his mind about men like him, it did not change the fact that his feelings for Deglan would never be accepted. He was sure about that fact.

The expression when Deglan had annoyedly talked to that drunk witcher those years ago... As if a treasured secret of his had been revealed.

He gnashed his teeth in annoyance. Why could he not stop thinking about it?

As if his rival knew what he was mulling over, Fenri opened his mouth and after  checking their surroundings carefully he nodded at the cloth around his neck and Y/N looked down at Deglan’s present:

"Have you ever thought about... just telling him how you feel?"

Y/N gave him an incredulous look. Are you kidding me? his eyes seemed to ask.

"What? You never know how he will react, I am actually fairly certain that that old fool-"

Y/N interrupted him with a dead tone.

"I don’t want to talk with you about this."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Aye."

Fenri nodded vehemently and the older man peered at him with scrutinizing eyes.

That new beard annoyed Y/N.

It reminded him of Deglan as it covered Fenri's cheeks in a similar way to the beard of his former mentor.

Once again, his thoughts drifted to the man who was either spending his days out on the Path or was training some new brats in Kaer Morhen. That Vesemir boy most likely. His heart ached and he sighed.

Would his yearning never stop?

Sometimes he wished he truly were as emotionless as the common folk believed witchers to be.

With one gulp he downed the rest of his ale.

"Shave the beard. It looks ugly."

-

That comment made Fenri pout for a bit, which did not fit the image of a grown man and monster slayer at all - and then they carefully shifted their attention to another topic; the actual reason why Fenri was in Aedirn.

He had gotten a strange request from a rich madman from Kaedwen a year ago. The fella wanted several griffin heads as decoration and Fenri had hunted one across the border. The one which's head was currently resting on Cinder's back.

It was not the first gryphon he killed. The last year had turned him into a griffin slayer.

"You know, me and Milan, we have a wager going on. He challenged me and said he could make more gold on the Path than I could. I can’t let him win, I may or may not have bet Cinder... That bastard wants him for his mare. He should have become a horse breeder, not a witcher."

Y/N only hummed, h wasn’t really listening, Fenri's chatter turned into background noise as he ate the meal the barmaid had brought a few minutes ago and he wondered about his future.

If his rival knew, and most likely his friends, who else did?

Fenri was not the only chatter mouth in the group, Sven was one as well and the thought of him spilling the beans unknowingly... The thought of Deglan knowing scared him shitless. The rejection he would face would kill him if other people did not do it instead.

That was one thing he could not allow. Fenri knew, okay, he could deal with that. With his fists, if he had to. All of his friends knowing? He could live with that too - he knew how to silence them - but the object of his affection? No. Never.

It was funny how he had been thinking about confessing his feelings over a year ago. How foolish he had been.

"...that crazy fella in Kaedwen will pay me 5,000 crowns for ten griffin heads, so Milan can go fuck himself. I killed seven already, eight with the one back with Cinder."

Fenri looked at him with a smug grin but when he did not see the shock he expected, he frowned.

"Do you understand what I’m getting at...? Oi, Are you listening to me?"

Y/N blinked.

Yes, he was listening, or at least his brain got the last part.

"5,000 crowns is a crazy amount of money...", he stated, the witcher side of him excitedly calculating how much ducats that would be.

15,000, oh boy...

What kind of nutcase would pay that much for decapitated monster heads?

Fenri grinned, satisfied and crossed his arms behind his head.

"If you join me for the hunt of the last two, I will give you one-fifth of the total amount. If you promise to do something for me."

Y/N stared at him with wide eyes.

"You’re fucking with me. Why would you give me that much for a griffin hunt that you basically completed on your own?"

His rival snorted, grabbed his jar and took a big gulp.

"As an apology for my behaviour and as payment to hunt with such a famous monster slayer, my dear 'Flesher of Wyverns'."

Y/N blinked and frowned when he heard the dumb title. And then recognition flashed in his mind.

"Hannes", he groaned. Fenri nodded with a big grin.

"I met him in Vergen. A very peculiar man."

The blonde watched the h/c haired man with a knowing expression, but Y/N said nothing and took a bite from his bread.

So Fenri had talked to Hannes... Maybe the bard talked him into having a conscience.

He could imagine the chattering bard telling the big witcher that he had to apologize for all his misconducts. The image made him smile weakly.

The two sat in silence and ate until Fenri finished his meal and stretched his arms with a satisfied smile on his lips.

"So will you join me?"

"What about that promise?"

Fenri smirked as he finished his drink.

"I will tell you after the hunt."

Y/N frowned. What would he want him to do?

A suspicious feeling settled in his chest but he decided to ignore it for the time being. His emotions were all over the place but the prospect of that much money for two gryphons enticed him.

He sighed but then nodded.

"Okay, I will help you."

After all, a witcher could never say no to a lot of coins.

-

Fenri was a lucky man because Y/N had just recently heard from some travellers that a merchant group was slaughtered by a pair of flying creatures a bit further in the country, close to the village they were currently staying at.

Two creatures could mean a griffin couple, most likely freshly mated, since they usually did not hunt together after the female had already laid eggs.

He told Fenri about that possibility and the two left the tavern quickly after paying, to the relief of the barmaid and her other patrons.

Cinder and Lisica seemed happy that they could travel together and after asking a farmer about the route towards the next village, they headed off.

The two horses trotted alongside the road and Y/N was lost in thought. Having Fenri by his side reminded him of his years in training.

They used to get paired together because the other was the strongest out of his friends and Deglan wanted them to work out their differences.

After Fenri had made that comment about Tristan, Y/N had begun to unconsciously use more force in their training fights and a lot of Fenri's more prominent scars were his fault.

The blond man had retaliated and both were often covered in bruises and wounds they had inflicted on each other. Yet their rivalry reached a turning point when Fenri unsuspectedly made a dirty joke about him and Deglan and they started a fist fight in the stables. Rennes spotted them accidentally and punished the two youths accordingly.

The leader of the school forced them to partake in a hunt together and that lead to the two observing an awful incident.

That incident had haunted Y/N's dreams even months after he witnessed it - hell even now and then he still had nightmares about it - and since then Fenri had never told him any foul comments again. And when Cole died, their rivalry turned into an unlikely friendship that was more based on fighting and drinking afterwards than anything else.

The fact that Fenri had apologized for his words all those years ago and his behaviour... It certainly was unexpected. As he had never really apologized for anything before. It surprised him. Y/N glanced at the other witcher.

He has grown.

"What?"

Fenri stared at him with lifted eyebrows.

"Huh?"

"Why are you looking at me?"

He shrugged his shoulders and played with Lisica's mane, a contemplative expression on his face. Fenri sighed and slowed Cinder down. The stallion stopped and he had to turn around to look at his rival.

What are you doing? he asked with his eyes and the man scratched his head.

"Listen, Y/N. I know this is probably out of line considering I apologized exactly for this demeanour but you need to get your head out of your arse. I understand that you’re sullen over Deglan but we got better things to do. I don’t want to get mauled by these monster bastards, okay? So get your witcher pants on and fucking focus."

Fenri patted his silver sword scabbard to emphasize his words.

Y/N looked at him with scandalized wide eyes.

"I was not thinking about Deglan!"

Fenri shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, sure.”

The older witcher made an insulting gesture and urged Lisica to gallop, leaving his indignant rival behind to hurry after him.

Fucker, both thought at the same time.

-

Y/N’s guess about the monsters was correct, they were indeed two griffins and thanks to Fenri's already prepared stash of Grapeshot bombs and hybrid oil, they could start preparing for the hunt right away at the area of the slaughter. It was a bloody sight and all the human and animal bones appeared to be licked clean.

Both witchers spoke a few words in Elder tongue and downed a vial of Swallow and Fenri gave Y/N a Griffin decoction which he also drank in one gulp.

His skin discoloured and his arteries stood out in a mix of purple and green. Fenri's face mirrored his and they shared a grin, before coating their silver blades in the hybrid oil and loading their crossbows.

Then they tied each of their horses' reins into knots to make sure they would not step on them as soon as they ran away.

"Ready?", asked Fenri after patting Cinder's back.

Y/N nodded and took his silver sword in his right hand. He lead Lisica by her right rein as he followed the few footprints and blood marks on the ground.

The griffins had to be close since the white bones indicated that they couldn't satisfy their hunger fully. Therefore, Lisica and Cinder had to act as bait.

Which they did not particularly like, as could be seen by their nervous gait, their rolling eyes and their pinned ears. Yet, they stayed with their witchers, showing the fruits of their training as horses of monster slayers.

Thanks to their mutated hearing both of the men heard the shrill shriek of one of the griffins before they even spotted the monster in the sky.

It circled above them, each turn flying lower and lower, probably waiting for its companion to join and with Fenri's signalling him, Y/N performed Aard on the beast. The griffin plunged from the sky and both witchers let go of their panicking mounts.

“Yah!” he shouted and Lisica and Cinder ran off in a flurry of hooves while Fenri and Y/N attacked the downed hybrid. It shrieked in pain when Y/N's sword slashed its skin.

Even if the other griffin spotted their horses, it would not go after them, as its mate's life was more important. And judging by the furious scream, it was already close by.

Y/N's instincts told him to dodge and he did, right before the second griffin swooped down with its talons.

What followed was the deadly dance of a hunter and its prey and although they fought against two beasts, the common folk considered ones of the scariest and most lethal alive, the monster slayers held the upper hand throughout the whole fight. They were an excellent team and the years of joint training showed their unity even after one and a half years apart.

In other words; the hunt went well and two weeks later in Kaedwen, Y/N received a thousand crowns.

He received the coins in a small treasure chest but he did not have the heart to use Lisica like a pack mule so he stuffed the money into smaller pouches in his room in the aristocrat's castle. Thankfully, he had purchased another pair of bigger saddle bags on their way here.

Fenri watched his ordeal with an amused expression from the corner of the room, where he leaned on the wall with a jug of beer in his hand.

"You know you could buy another horse and use it to carry your things."

Y/N shook his head.

"No, that’s foolish. Witchers have to be nimble. I can’t chase a fleeing beast with two horses, you should know that."

He grabbed his old saddlebags and emptied them on the bed. Unfortunately, he forgot about his letters and they scattered across his bedsheets. Y/N's eyes widened in surprise, he completely forgot about them.

Since when did he have that many? And... Oh no.

He turned his head in alarm.

Of course, Fenri, like the meddler he was, immediately pounced on the letters and snatched one of the brown envelopes from the bed.

"What do we have here? A secret lover's poems?", the blond man smirked like a demon and he continued his teasing while opening the envelope and retreating from the older witcher in the room.

"Fenri, give that back", Y/N said, deadly serious with murder in his eyes. But the other had no mercy and he avoided his outstretched hands with surprising skill.

"You have to forgive me, Y/N. You know I must stay informed for Barmin and the others to..."

He quieted down as he read the first few lines and the teasing grin disappeared from his lips. Instead, an awkward expression settled on his face and he let Y/N snatch the letter out of his hands.

"Uh... I apologize", he murmured, looking like a child about to be scolded as the older witcher stared at him with an icy gaze.

Y/N stilled in the middle of the room as he held the pages with a tight grip. The paper crumbled in his hands. The atmosphere in the room was heavy and the silence between them stretched.

Until Fenri carefully asked:

"Why... Why did you never send any of these letters?"

The man guessed that all of the other loose envelopes were for Deglan as well since he had spotted a stack of letters bound by a string with Y/N's name in Barmin's handwriting.

Y/N tensed. He didn't want to talk about that. The other did not seem to care though.

"You know, when we returned from the Path last winter, we shared what you have written to us. Deglan listened as well and he seemed upset that he did not receive even one letter from you."

The h/c haired witcher bit his lip and massaged his temples with his hand.

Why would he bring that up?

Why did it seem like Fenri wanted him to believe that there was hope?

He did not want to hope, he did not want to wish, he did not want to wonder about a future with Deglan.

He wanted to forget.

Maybe he should have killed him after all.

Fenri's next words reminded him of the unsettling feeling he had in the tavern before their hunt.

"About that promise, I mentioned..."

He had a bitter premonition and before his rival could continue he turned around and growled:

"If it has to do with Deglan and my feelings I won’t do it. You don’t have the right to meddle in my affairs, Fenri. You overstepped many times and I will not tolerate it anymore."

Fenri held his gaze and the blond sighed.

"I won’t, I apologize. I merely want you to promise me that you will return to Kaer Morhen this winter", he held up his hands to stop Y/N who already opened his mouth to protest.

"You can avoid Deglan, for all I care, but I want you to spend time with Barmin and the others. They miss you. We want to feast and tell stories of our year and about Cole. You missed his anniversary...” The eyes of the older witcher glossed over, “Please... Please just come home this winter."

The sad expression in Fenri's eyes surprised Y/N and he frowned. He did not want to return. In all honesty, he wanted to stay away forever. But he did miss his friends. A lot more than he thought he would.

He missed their jokes and conversations. He wanted to know if Robin finally mastered the modified crossbow he was working on, if Wendir finally lost his laziness and Milan really wanted to breed his mare like a farmer, if Barmin got even better Gwent cards and if Sven still got in trouble with Rennes for his gossip...

He missed them. They were his family.

He sighed. If he returned, how could he avoid Deglan? The man seemed furious that he did not show up last year. And there was still that conversation he mentioned...

On one hand, he did not want to go. But on the other, his heart yearned for his friends and Deglan...

If he saw him again... It would be like drinking poison and a potion alternately. It would hurt so much. But he longed to see him.

Fuck, why was this so hard?

Then he remembered something Hannes had told him months ago. And in the end, he made his decision. Grabbing Deglan’s present around his neck, he sighed and said:

"Okay. I promise to come back this winter."

Fenri looked at him with relief in his eyes.

"Really?"

"Yes."

Y/N promised.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

Hi, it's me again lol, but this time with a different one 😅.

I wanted to request a M!reader x Deglan (from the witcher ), where the M!reader has recently become a witcher and fell heads for Deglan. (If this is okay and doesn't fit as a "fucked up pairing")

(also wanted to apologize for the other request/ask i didn't knew you didn't write for non-fictional characters)

Thanks you for the reply and the attention.

Hi again *waves*☺

To clarify, Deglan trained M!Reader and after he became a full-fledged witcher he fell in love or before? I don't think that counts as fucked up pairing, so don't worry😊

And it's totally fine no worries🥳

I'm quite excited for this request😍 Thank you very much! I'll tag you😌

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

quick update on my story; this is mostly for @thatsequoia but also everyone else interested in their Deglan x M!Reader request... 

The story is soooo long right now - I’m still tweaking the ending - and I decided to turn it into several parts xD 

I’ll tag you in all of them and if anyone else wants to be tagged, you can send me a pm or comment here :)

I’m so sorry that it’s taking so long <3

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

The Witcher Masterlist

[TV Series & The Witcher 3]

~Series~

The Dragonborn Series

Crossover AU with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Geralt and Jaskier meet a stranger in the woods while on the hunt for a special monster. They decide to team up but neither does Geralt realize that his prey is close to him nor does the stranger notice he’s the one being hunted…

[M!Reader x Geralt of Rivia]

Mini-Series:

Part I

Part II 

Related Stories:

Don’t Steal From a Dragon - Coming Soon

[M!Reader x Geralt of Rivia]

Geralt doesn’t return to their hut and Y/N is worried. A certain bard ends up visiting him and telling him about the witcher’s capture by mutant-haters. The dragon in him is furious and a few hours later, a black shadow appears in the sky, prepared to return his soulmate back to his side.

Unfamiliar Eyes - Coming Soon

[M!Reader x Geralt of Rivia]

It felt like home, a safe haven - just for him and his love. His heart swelled with anticipation and excitement whenever he entered that hut in the woods. Until it didn't anymore. He could no longer recognize the look in Y/N's eyes.

~

A Wolf’s Heart

witcher!reader - The Witcher animation: Nightmare of the Wolf

The life of a witcher is ruled by two things. Coin and monsters. Yet when Y/N looks at his mentor both fade into the background and a third variable enters the picture… But witchers don’t have it easy with love. And Y/N doesn’t seem to be an exception...

[M!Reader x Deglan]

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII