[ He sighs. This conversation is not what he needs. It feels like Alucard is asking, How do I stop caring, like you?, and the truth is, one does not. Sometimes he feels everything, sometimes he feels nothing, sometimes it's both all at once. None of it leaves him in a remotely ideal frame of mind.

And all these digging questions only brings forward too many jagged pieces of his past, his life. One that he does not share with Alucard. Not even close. Doesn't Alucard realize that he was raised so much more gently than a Witcher ever was? (Doesn't he realize he's asking for something Geralt has never wanted for himself? Something that even a hundred years later still leaves a painful wound that refuses to scar? That he's only the way he is because he was not given the choice to be otherwise?) ]

Every Witcher grows up understanding they are unwanted, from childhood. [ There's an underlying bitterness he can't completely hide, a rising irritation that makes him say too much. ] I did not move away from it. I was never a part of it. If you really want the same, I suggest you go back in time and ask your mother to discard you on the side of a fucking road instead of granting you your loving little home.