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Chapter Text

Eskel had been glad, at first, when he came into a town and found that all the available contracts there had been scooped up a couple of weeks earlier by a white-haired witcher. Geralt was back on the Path, which meant he and Yen had probably gotten sick of one another again and it would be a few months at least before they made up. Geralt was bound to get lonely for some other company before then, and he was already in the same territory Eskel was patrolling, so they were bound to meet up soon.

That would be good. Eskel hadn't actually seen Geralt since Kaer Morhen--since Vesemir's pyre. It had been easy enough to work out what happened after that from the wild rumors out of Skellige, and the less-wild reports of Princess Cirilla's triumphant return to Nilfgaard.

And now life was back to something almost like normal: Geralt was alive and himself, he and Yen were doing their off-again on-again thing, and Ciri was off somewhere pursuing her destiny in reasonable safety. Eskel was on the Path in a world that held a more or less usual quantity of monsters and no active war zones or Wild Hunt.

Tonight or the next night he'd spot Roach tied up outside a tavern and Geralt would be slouching at a corner table inside, ready to scold him for being late as if they'd made an appointment.

But Eskel didn't see Roach anywhere. He never caught up with Geralt--and yet he kept seeing signs of him, never where he should have been.

Witchers didn't have regular routes they traveled, exactly, since the nature of the work was that they got called away to the most urgent task, wherever it was, and picked up looking for new jobs days or weeks after from wherever they found themselves. Still, everyone had their habits and patterns, and Eskel knew Geralt's mental map of the North, because it was much like his own. He knew where Geralt would normally go from any given starting point.

If he finished a job in a city, he usually wanted to get away from the press of humanity, so as soon as he'd taken care of whatever needed doing immediately, he'd go out of town. From Novigrad he'd usually head northeast and make a circuit, coming back to the city from the south. Among the smaller towns and villages, likewise, there were groups of them that could be assembled into a rough circuit which Geralt would usually follow day-wise, sharing Eskel's vague superstition against making any circle widdershins.

Geralt was traveling widdershins now, or striking out randomly north or south or exactly where Eskel wouldn't expect him to go--just as if he didn't want Eskel to be able to meet up with him.

If he didn't care to see Eskel, there was a hell of a lot of the North available to kill monsters in, and about five living witchers to cover it--to say nothing of Toussaint, where Geralt had a home and a reputation now. Hell, Geralt could probably go all the way to Nilfgaard and visit Ciri; she was sure to be happy to see him. He didn't have to keep circling around Velen, dodging just out of Eskel's path every few days.

But apparently Geralt didn't want to go away entirely. He just didn't want to actually meet Eskel, and Eskel had no idea what to make of that. It wasn't a Geralt sort of thing to do; he didn't give off secret signals and wait to be understood. When he wanted something he came for it, and when he didn't want that he was busy with something else.

What had Yen done to him, this time?

What had Eskel done?

The mystery of it kept him from striking off away from Geralt himself. Eskel didn't quite want to know whether or not he would succeed in losing him.

Still, no witcher could resist investigating a mystery. After more than a month, Eskel found himself walking into the Rosemary and Thyme. The look on Dandelion's face when he spotted Eskel--surprised to see him and then not surprised at all, only concerned--reminded him sickeningly of the last time he'd come to Dandelion for answers about Geralt.

Geralt had been dead, that time, and Eskel had asked for Dandelion's recounting of his death in Rivia at the hands of a furious mob. Eskel was half-tempted to walk out before he could find out what Dandelion would tell him this time, but Dandelion was already hurrying toward him, hands out, shaking his head.

"Come on, come upstairs," Dandelion said quickly. "Don't look like that, it's not--it's not like that."

So Eskel wasn't the only one who'd been reminded of that other meeting.

Dandelion drew him into a quiet nook on the second floor and said without any hesitation, "Yen threw him out. It's over. Actually over this time."

Eskel's jaw dropped, and he actually reared back a little, struggling to absorb that blow. He felt an odd hollowness, like he had in the first hours after Vesemir's death, before he'd entirely absorbed that it was real. Yennefer and Geralt's whole destined magical thing had been a fixture of his life for decades now; it didn't seem possible it could end, other than the way they all thought it had a few years ago in Rivia. When they both came back even from that, and found each other again, it seemed like surely that had to mean...

"But they--they always--"

Dandelion grimaced and spread his hands. "I'm guessing you're here because you can't get in touch with him and he's acting strangely, right? In a way he never has before?"

Eskel nodded slowly. "He--do you mean you haven't talked to him either?"

Dandelion shook his head. "No one has. I'm putting this together from all the--" Dandelion made a shape in the air between his hands, "empty spots. I haven't talked to him but I've talked to a lot of people who also haven't talked to him. And people who've talked to Yen. Or, well, been close enough to her to hear the shouting."

Eskel shook his head a little at that, though he didn't really disbelieve Dandelion's conclusions--he'd come for an expert's assessment, and he didn't distrust it now that he had it. Dandelion was never going to underestimate the power of true love.

He just still couldn't fathom what could have really, finally ended things between Geralt and Yen, though he supposed that whatever had happened, it had to have left Geralt ten times as off-balance as Eskel felt himself. He'd never known Geralt to prefer licking his wounds alone to the company of a trusted friend or two.

On the other hand, they were in entirely uncharted territory now. Ciri was down in Nilfgaard training up as a princess, and Yennefer was... permanently unavailable, as far as Geralt was concerned. Those two women had been the overriding focus of Geralt's life for twenty or thirty years now; it might take him a while to remember how his life had worked for all the years before then.

Eskel winced at the thought, remembering those years when Geralt hadn't remembered any of it. Hadn't known even him, who'd known Geralt his whole damn life. Eskel had managed to deal with that, mostly by staying well away from Geralt until that time they ran into each other in Velen and Geralt grabbed him in an abrupt hug and said, "Eskel," with such an emphasis that Eskel understood instantly.

It's you. It's me. I know you now, I know what that means.

Eskel had stood there clinging to him in the middle of the road for longer than he should have, probably, but that had been a good day--at least until Geralt told him what was going on, and asked him to head up to Kaer Morhen in the middle of summer.

Even so, really, that had been a good fucking day.

And now Geralt was off on his own being halfway a stranger again, and Eskel was sitting in Dandelion's bar.

"Okay," Eskel said, rubbing his face with both hands. "Right, okay. Makes sense. I'm going to need a drink."

Dandelion set down the whole bottle in front of him. "I'll put it on your tab."

The next morning Eskel headed north, traveling for a couple of days before he stopped to look at a noticeboard. He didn't look for signs of Geralt's presence, didn't ask any questions about other witchers. Geralt would find him when he wanted to find him, or he wouldn't. That was all.

Several weeks later, it was Ciri who found him. She'd apparently opened a portal somewhere halfway discreet, because she walked on her own two feet through the front door of the tavern where Eskel was sitting and drinking and not thinking about anyone in particular.

She looked concerned, but not panicked, nor grief-stricken, so he'd guess that Geralt was still in the wind. She wouldn't have come looking for Eskel if she knew where Geralt was, and he'd known her long enough that he would have seen it on her face if something was really wrong.

Still, when she came over and leaned down to kiss his scarred cheek while he slung an arm around her in a half-hug, the first thing out of his mouth was, "Geralt?"

Ciri grimaced and nodded. "Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?"

Eskel shook his head. "No and no."

Ciri studied him for a moment, then sat down at the table at his right side and said, "You're worried about him."

The problem with Ciri was that she'd known him as long as he'd known her, and she was one of the few people who knew him at all well who'd never known his unscarred face. She'd learned to read him exactly as he was now, and she was good at it even when she wasn't cheating with one kind of magic or another.

"He'll be fine," Eskel muttered, which wasn't really an argument against what Ciri had said. "He just... must be taking it pretty hard, if he's avoiding both of us."

Ciri grimaced and nodded. "What I've heard about it... I'm not speaking to Yen right now, but... I don't think he had any idea this was going to happen--I'm not even sure he knows why. I definitely don't know why."

Ciri cut a little sideways glance at him, and Eskel sat back and spread his hands. "Come on, kid, you know I don't know any more than I absolutely have to about what goes on--went on--between those two."

Ciri propped her chin on her hand and frowned at nothing in particular. "Yeah. You wouldn't."

That... sounded a lot like Yennefer's daughter talking. Not that she was on Yen's side, just that... well. Most of the time Ciri was just Ciri, their odd duck of a junior Witcher, and then sometimes Eskel was forcibly reminded that she was A Woman, mysterious and a little terrifying. In a different way from all the other ways Ciri could be terrifying. Eskel would rather see her throwing magic around than have that thoughtful look and opaque tone turned on him.

After a moment Ciri snapped back to the self she usually was around Eskel, grinning over at him. "Well, I guess they have to have their secrets. Do you want me to let you know when I find him?"

Eskel grimaced. Ciri, unlike himself, was perfectly capable of finding Geralt whether he wanted to be found or not. But if Geralt still didn't want to see him after Ciri checked up on him, what good would a message be? If he was in some trouble Ciri would handle it; if she needed Eskel's help she would come get him. All a message from Ciri would tell him was that Geralt was still avoiding him too thoroughly to even scrawl out his own note.

Still, Ciri obviously wanted to reassure the worry she detected in him, and Eskel wasn't going to explain what was really bothering him--not to Geralt's little girl. Not to Yennefer's daughter.

"Sure, princess," Eskel said, mustering up a dry smile for her. "Send one of those imperial couriers and leave a message for me in Vizima. I'll head that way and check at the inn when I get there."

Ciri nodded. "And you send a message if you see him, won't you? You still have that courier seal I gave you?"

"Nah, lost it playing Gwent last week," Eskel said, and Ciri snorted and slapped at him across the table.

"As if you'd lose. I'll see you soon, Eskel."

"See you when I see you," Eskel said, though he let his tone sound more like agreement than correction to save arguing. Other than chasing around after Geralt, Princess Cirilla had no reason to be up here rubbing elbows with the likes of him. Emhyr might put up with her haring off after Geralt, when he owed Geralt for tracking her down and protecting her, but he was bound to draw the line at his heir casually visiting everyone she knew in the north.

"C'mon, hug," Ciri said as she stood, and Eskel sighed like it was a hardship but got up without hesitation to wrap his arms around her. She was so small, but sturdy and strong enough to squeeze him right back, so that he still felt the echo of her grip for the rest of the night.

He tried not to think how long it had been since anyone touched him like that, or how long it might be until anyone would again.

He didn't hurry to Vizima. There was a message when he got there, written neither in Ciri's hand nor Geralt's but the tidy lettering of some anonymous scribe who'd received a message by megascope and recorded it.

Eskel,

I'm taking Geralt home with me. I think he needs a place to stop and stay for a while, so I'm going to try to keep him here for at least a few months. I know you're worried about him, so that will give you time to come and see for yourself!

See you soon,
Ciri

Eskel glared at the message as he knew he wouldn't have managed to glare at Ciri, if she was giving him the big-eyed innocent look he could see even through the clerk's handwriting recording her words. She was determined to lure him down to Nilfgaard after Geralt when there was absolutely no reason to go. Less than none: there was nothing he could possibly find there that would be anything he wanted to see. Geralt happy in Nilfgaard and Geralt miserable in Nilfgaard were equally dispiriting possibilities.

Anyway, if Geralt was in Nilfgaard for the foreseeable future, that meant Eskel had to pick up the slack in monster contracts. The world didn't stop for Geralt's heartbreak or Ciri's schemes, however inexplicable either of them were.

Eskel stuffed the letter down into the bottom of a saddlebag--next to the courier seal, which was carefully wrapped in a bit of old canvas so it wouldn't look too interesting if anyone managed to get into his gear. He went and picked up a few contracts in Vizima, and knocked out two in a day--but the third dragged on and on, and took him all the way down to Maribor before he could call it done.

When he went looking for a contract in Maribor, none of them sounded worth the money, and he was still lingering at a tavern and considering his options when a new contract was posted, looking for a guard to escort a small family caravan down over the border to Cintra.

Eskel hesitated for about five minutes before he picked it up, and by the time he'd ridden out of Maribor with the caravan he had to admit to himself that he knew exactly where he was headed.

He rode into the City of Golden Towers a little over two weeks after he'd delivered the caravan to their destination. He'd managed to keep Scorpion from coming up lame, but he'd pressed him hard and owed the horse a long rest, just as soon as they reached their actual destination.

Finding that was a little less obvious than he'd thought it would be.

Eskel did his best not to gawk like the Nordling yokel he was, but the city was unthinkably vast. He could see the palace, perched on a cliff on one side of the river--he assumed that was the palace, anyway--but even that looked like it might be as big as all of Vizima, and meanwhile there was this entire hinterland around it that was still city.

Navigating through it meant not only enduring the constant press of people and animals and vehicles and noise, but constantly turning down streets that didn't lead to where it seemed like they should, petering out into lanes or dead-ending at tall gates or just curving around in baffling patterns. One whole neighborhood, he realized after he'd been winding through it for nearly an hour, was laid out so that the streets would make an elaborate knotwork pattern when drawn on a map.

When he came out of a narrow canyon of high buildings and was greeted by the sight of a swathe of green and trees before him, he realized that he'd been navigating toward it by instinct for some time--the feeling of open space, the smell of something nearly like a forest, the sound of softer footing for Scorpion than these endless paving stones.

It wasn't at all his goal, but Eskel couldn't resist spurring Scorpion toward that respite. Once they were under the green shade, he let Scorpion stop on the softer turf and let his own shoulders slump under the guise of leaning in to stroke the horse's neck. He just needed a moment to catch his breath, and then he'd figure out how to get where he was going.

He couldn't have been sitting there more than a few minutes when he heard a shout--not even words, but he didn't need words when he had that voice calling to him in that bright tone, which told him everything he wanted to know.

Eskel jerked upright, automatically nudging Scorpion into motion toward the sound, only to subside in the next second when he saw there was no need. Geralt was up on Roach, loping easily toward them across the green, standing up as much as he could in his stirrups without slowing her down.

Eskel couldn't help smiling back, raising an arm in acknowledgement, but the closer Geralt got the more jarring little changes were visible. He was wearing lightweight clothes without armor, all in gray and white with no other colors, thoroughly in the Nilfgaardian style. He was clean-shaven, his hair half-pulled back like it often was but with elaborately patterned braids at his temples. Altogether he looked strangely smooth and sleek, somehow. Not just clean and neat but like he'd been replaced with a more expensive version of himself, finely worked from rare materials.

Geralt rode right up close, closer than some horses would tolerate--but Scorpion knew Roach, and was too tired to be flighty. Eskel and Geralt were snugged up thigh to thigh, their right legs pressed between the horses, and Geralt dropped his reins and surged half out of the saddle to throw his arms around Eskel.

Eskel grabbed hold of him right back, pressing his face between Geralt's shoulder and his neck, inhaling deeply--and getting nothing. There was the light salt smell of fresh sweat, and under that some kind of plain soap, a hint of oranges and lavender, but nothing that properly smelled like Geralt himself. He hardly smelled like anyone at all; it was like he really was some automaton made to look like a shining-perfect version of Geralt.

Eskel tried not to betray the reaction, but Geralt pulled back with a rueful smile, and Eskel made his own hands release their sudden clench. "And here I was just thinking how you you smell. It's weird, isn't it? You get used to it, though."

Eskel snorted. "You do, anyway."

Living in a palace with his foster daughter the princess--that was just the kind of thing that happened to Geralt. Nobody was going to be remaking Eskel into some expensively pristine version of himself. It'd take a lot more remaking, for one thing.

A weird look came and went in a flash on Geralt's face--something Eskel couldn't read, and he should've been able to know exactly what Geralt was thinking. It was just a second, and then Geralt looked away, staring out of the little green sanctuary toward the streets. "You planning to stay in the city a little while? Or just..."

Eskel stared at him until Geralt actually looked at him, and Geralt smiled a little when he saw the obvious answer in Eskel's expression. "Wolf, I've been riding two damn weeks--and that's just from the border. I'm not turning around and heading back at first light."

Geralt's smile settled, and then he just looked happy again--pleased to see Eskel, and pleased to show off, like he'd gotten some really excellent new gear after a well-paid job and wanted to show Eskel every feature and test the enchantments set into it against Eskel's signs. "Come on then, I've got my own rooms at the palace. Plenty of space for you to stay with me, and you've gotta see this place. It's ridiculous."

"You don't get used to that part?" Eskel asked, reining around to follow Geralt when he nudged Roach into motion, aiming further into the green, obviously planning to cut across it rather than navigate through the bright, clattering warren of crowded streets. At least Eskel could still recognize that much Nordling in him.

Geralt shook his head. "It's weird, because sometimes I do stop noticing, but then I'll come around a corner and just--how, how does anyone actually live like this, and Emhyr and Ciri act like it's nothing."

Geralt calling the emperor by his first name wasn't anything so unusual, but something about the way he said it now--without the defiant over-familiarity it normally implied, and said before Ciri's name when he mentioned both of them--was like the sound of a claw scraping on stone in a dark cave.

There's something there.

Eskel knew better than to give himself away by reacting to the first little sign. He glanced over at Geralt and said, "Weird to think Ciri lived like that before she came to us, huh?"

Geralt nodded. "Even Calanthe's court was nothing like this, but our little princess... I guess it's just another new world for her, and she's seen enough of those."

Eskel couldn't think what to say to that, and wasn't even sure he wanted to figure out more of what was going on right now. He really did just want to get off his horse and be still for a little while. They were nearing the edge of the park, and Geralt nudged Roach into a trot as they came out onto another street. Eskel stayed at his side, which put him right in position to notice how people got out of Geralt's way.

Not just in the normal way that people on foot would dodge a horseman--people on really fucking fancy horses reined aside for them without hesitation, even when they didn't look particularly pleased to do it. People on foot watched them pass--watched Geralt, clearly. Even with his Nilfgaardian clothes, he stood out enough for people to recognize him as... a friend of Ciri's? The princess's foster father?

Eskel fixed his gaze on Scorpion's ears and tried not to wonder. He didn't want to figure it out. Not right now. He just wanted to get where they were going.

With Geralt navigating--and no one in the way--they reached the palace gate faster than Eskel would have thought possible.

"Sir Geralt!" The uniformed guard called, touching his chest in salute. That was weird enough, but the man's gaze tracked to Eskel, and he sounded pleased as well as certain when he called out, "And Master Eskel!"

Eskel looked over at Geralt, and it was a little more satisfying than it should have been to see him looking as baffled by this as Eskel was--but that made Eskel realize exactly what was going on here. Dammit, Ciri.

"Let me guess," Eskel said, half to the guard and half to Geralt. "The Princess told you I'd be coming?"

Geralt shot Eskel a glance that was more startled than Eskel would have expected, then echoed to the guard, "The Princess?"

"Yes, sir," the guard said, touching his chest again. "Gave us a sketch to recognize you by, Master Eskel. We were to take you directly to her, or to Sir Geralt if she wasn't available, but..."

"Yeah, I'll take it from here," Geralt said, and headed in through the gate. They had to ride for what seemed like another mile or so, through a series of connected courtyards and passages and across two different bridges, before they reached a stableyard. Grooms hurried out for their horses, again with those deferential looks rather than annoyance at the imposition of these Nordlings who should have been brushing their own mounts, if they were even allowed to stable them beside the emperor's own horses.

"This is where Ciri brought me, when I came," Geralt said, and glanced up at a covered walkway that overlooked the yard. No one was there now, and Eskel wondered what he'd seen there when Ciri first brought him through.

He didn't ask, just handed over Scorpion's reins and said, "Check his legs twice, we've come a long way."

The groom nodded, and Eskel was a little heartened to see that his eyes were already on Scorpion's feet rather than bothering to salute or bow or anything. It was only as he was walking away that Eskel thought he should have claimed his saddlebags--but from the way things were going, it didn't seem like anyone was going to pilfer them, so they would probably turn up again.

And in the meantime he could probably borrow whatever he needed from Geralt, who showed no sign of concern. He slung an arm around Eskel's shoulders and guided him into the palace, which looked almost just like a normally wealthy person's place and then just kept getting more so. There was gold on everything, and everything was so bright and so clean and still no one they met tried to stop them going anywhere. No one even looked twice at them--not even at Eskel, though his face usually earned him a double-take even from people who weren't surprised to see a road-dirty witcher in their midst.

Eskel accompanied Geralt through a couple of sets of guarded doors, and came into a corridor that was actually less alarmingly fancy than a lot of what they'd just walked through.

"We're in the family's wing now," Geralt explained, and Eskel had a second to think he meant the place where families live and then Geralt waved a hand down the corridor and said, "Emhyr's down there, Ciri's down that right-hand corridor and then left."

So he meant the royal family. Which apparently included Geralt, at least by room assignment.

"There's a lot of rooms going spare here," Geralt said with a little shrug. "Not much royal family left, so... Ciri wanted me near her, anyway, so she put me in here the first time I came down with her."

Geralt opened a sturdy but not too weirdly ornate door, and led Eskel into a sitting room that clearly led into a bedroom, with doors out to a balcony and sunlight pouring in all golden. In here, everything looked a lot like Geralt himself--normal enough until you looked closely and realized it was perfect, nothing made of linen or wool that could be silk or cotton, no wood merely sanded smooth when it could be polished to a shine.

And there was a bathtub already waiting, towel-wrapped water cans beside it keeping warm like Geralt couldn't just heat his own damn water with Igni whenever he wanted to. There was a whole table loaded with food and drinks beside it. Eskel looked at Geralt. "Is that..."

He didn't even know what to ask.

"They always know if I go riding or training and," Geralt gestured, "make it hard to forget to wash and change when I'm done. And eat. Come on, you can have first bath, you've earned it."

Eskel thought he was probably supposed to argue, or be annoyed that Geralt's first priority was to make Eskel smell as much like a Nilfgaardian automaton as possible, but the truth was that he was tired and grimy and sore. A bath sounded fucking great. Arguing with Geralt, on the other hand, sounded like exactly what he hadn't ridden all this fucking way to do.

He didn't know what he had come here to do, but he didn't have to figure that out right now. He was taking a bath. How better to figure out what the hell was going on with Geralt than to live Geralt's bizarre new life for an hour or two?

Not that he wanted to know, right this minute, because figuring it out would probably ruin his nice relaxing bath.

Geralt was already moving to pour the water into the enormous copper tub. Eskel started stripping, and stopped short. There was no armor rack in sight, only furniture that looked like it might break and would definitely be scuffed and stained if he laid his things over it.

Geralt glanced up and shot him a wry smile, then tossed him one of the towels that had been wrapped around a water can. "The chairs are sturdier than they look, and the people who clean here may literally be wizards, for all I can tell. You can put your stuff wherever."

Eskel still draped the towel over the least-adorned chair in sight before he started laying his armor onto it, lining his boots up beneath it. When he straightened up he moved directly into an all-over stretch, rolling his shoulders and then raising his arms high, working his legs this way and that to stretch his hips and backside.

No sooner had he worked out the worst of the near-cramps from his muscles than he felt the warmth of a body at his back, Geralt giving him a half-second's warning. Then familiar arms went around him, and Geralt was plastered up against him from behind, face buried in the crook of his neck.

Eskel let his own eyes close, hands resting on Geralt's wrists as he leaned back into him, just enough to feel Geralt's body balance his. Like this, Geralt wasn't different at all. He felt the same, the strength and size and shape of him. Eskel was naked and there were only the thin layers of Geralt's clothes between them, and that wasn't strange, not when they were safe behind a dozen layers of barred doors.

Geralt's hand flattened low on Eskel's belly, not shaking off Eskel's hand on his wrist--available to be pushed lower, to make this that kind of reunion too. Eskel thought about it. He wanted to fuck, theoretically. He wanted to muss Geralt up, wanted to come and make him come too, to get all the way back to Geralt and make sure Geralt was all the way here with him.

But he was really fucking tired, and if he came right now he'd probably fall asleep on the carpet. Once he passed out he might just stay that way for a day or two, the way he'd been pushing himself.

He squeezed Geralt's wrist, not hard, but enough to be clear. "Bath first, Wolf. You got it all ready for me."

Geralt rubbed his nose against Eskel's skin one more time, then let him go.

Eskel forgot he'd ever considered doing anything else when he stepped into the bath; the water was exactly the right temperature, and silky-soft with lightly scented oil and mineral salts, like Eskel had felt maybe two or three times in his life when he blew some money at the nicest bathhouse in Novigrad. He groaned as he settled in, his eyes falling shut as he sank into a tub that was actually big enough for all of him to get wet at once--it was even deep enough that in the salt-rich water he floated a little, weightless and surrounded in warmth.

He tipped his head back gingerly, and found the edge of the tub was padded with another towel right where his head landed. He opened his eyes to slits, and discovered Geralt lounging on a little padded bench-seat, resting an elbow on the table with all the food. He raised a mug in silent toast to Eskel and drank deeply, head tipping back to show his throat working as he swallowed.

Eskel's own mouth felt abruptly desert-dry, and he lifted one hand out of the water, flicking a few drops at Geralt. "Hey."

"If you don't know well enough to keep your waterskin full when you're traveling," Geralt said, tipping the mug down, but he refilled it from a pitcher and passed it over. Eskel drank, frowning as he did, because he couldn't decide whether he liked it or not; it was weak beer but mixed with something lemony and slightly sweet. He passed the mug back when he'd quenched his thirst, and Geralt offered him an orange.

Eskel waved a hand--he'd had oranges before, and they were always disappointing and bitter for all their pretty bright outsides.

"Nah, try it," Geralt insisted, puncturing the thick skin with a thumb, releasing a sharp scent like nothing Eskel had ever tasted. He held out his hand for the fruit, and Geralt grazed companionably from the table while Eskel figured out how to extract a segment of the orange to eat.

His mouth watered so hard it hurt at the sweet vivid taste of it, and he remembered the faint smell of oranges that had been one of the few scents clinging to Geralt. Clearly he had been eating a lot of these. Eskel chewed it slowly and swallowed with more of an effort than should have been required.

"Good, right?" Geralt asked, eagerly.

Eskel nodded, but set it down on the table edge and said, "Just need something a little more..."

Geralt nodded again and offered him a parcel of spiced roasted meat wrapped up in soft flat bread, and Eskel took it and ate and tried not to think about anything. He'd mostly succeeded by the time he finished, tipping his head back again and closing his eyes, and then he felt and heard Geralt stand and move around the room before coming back to kneel behind Eskel, settling his elbows on the edge of the tub just to either side of Eskel's shoulders.

"Let me give you a shave?" Geralt murmured, low, like he thought Eskel might be sleeping, or near to it.

Again Eskel considered arguing, or resisting, but as soon as his attention was drawn to it he was miserably aware of the growth of stubble on his face. He'd once attempted a beard, after he was scarred, but the places where the hair didn't grow anymore or grew in white only made the scars look worse, so he was meticulously clean-shaven as a rule. He'd just been too tired to give a shit, the last few days.

It always felt like Geralt gave a shit, when he did it for Eskel. He was a hell of a lot more careful around all the scars than Eskel usually bothered to be. And Eskel could admit that he wanted Geralt's hands and Geralt's focus fixed on him, even if they weren't going to fuck right now.

"Yeah," Eskel croaked, tipping his head back. "Sure."

Geralt didn't say anything more, just started mixing up shaving soap--proper foamy stuff like a barber would use, naturally. Eskel let himself drift, and didn't so much as twitch when Geralt leaned over him, brushing soap onto his face and down his throat.

This was too familiar, too exactly what he wanted; it felt like a dream, like he could just let things happen and nothing could be truly dangerous because none of it was entirely real. An hour ago he'd been lost in a bewildering city, weeks into a long and exhausting journey with no certain endpoint, and now he was here, floating in a hot bath with good food in his belly and Geralt leaning over him.

The first rasp of a blade along his skin sent a frisson down his spine that would have been a shiver and a wave of goosebumps if he weren't so blissfully warm. The next stroke and the one after that fell into a rhythm he knew instinctively, and Eskel found himself sinking down into a mental quiet that hovered on the edge of proper meditation, like dozing instead of sleeping.

The thought occurred, drifting across his mind without disturbing its stillness, that a blade at his throat could never trouble him if it was Geralt's hand holding it there. He was aware, intensely and far away all at once, of every touch of Geralt's hands, every little satisfied noise he made, every breath he took and the sheer presence of him leaning over Eskel.

He was here, after all this time.

He was aware after a while that Geralt had finished shaving him and was washing his hair, and a while after that, just sitting behind him. He was perfectly at rest, giving no sign that Eskel needed to do anything other than lie there, so he let himself drift, sliding down into real meditation for a time, until he felt a bloom of heat that made him aware of how cool the water had gotten around him.

Eskel opened his eyes, eyebrow raised, to see Geralt stripped and waiting beside the tub, hand still hovering by one side. "Warm enough, or another?"

"Nah, it's good," Eskel said, rising and sluicing water off with his hands. He'd have liked it a little hotter for himself, but Geralt wouldn't want it steaming on a hot day like this. Eskel grabbed a towel and stepped out of the tub to dry off while Geralt settled in. He was much more businesslike--but then a bath like that would be nothing special to him. He scrubbed himself off quickly, nodding toward a tall wardrobe as he did. "Clothes in there, borrow whatever'll fit. I don't think they brought your gear up yet."

Eskel nodded and turned to the wardrobe, which was, as he'd expected, full of clothes that looked a lot like the ones Geralt was wearing, as well as housing Geralt's swords and an impressive long knife that looked like he'd given it some hard use. It was reassuring to see the evidence that Geralt was still the witcher he knew, if disconcerting beside the profusion of silks and finery.

Folded on a low shelf, Eskel finally found some familiar garments--a linen shirt that was twin to the one he'd just taken off, and an old pair of sturdy trousers, worn soft and repeatedly mended. He didn't look at Geralt until he was dressed, and then raised his eyebrows in silent question as he grabbed a pair of socks, light and fine enough to be suited to the weather here.

"This all right?"

"I said whatever," Geralt said firmly, nodding, but when he dried off and came to get his own clothes, it was more Nilfgaardian stuff. It made sense; it was the right stuff to wear here. Eskel should himself, except that those close-fitting doublets would be murder on his shoulders, which were just that little bit broader than Geralt's. Even the loose linen shirt clung tighter to him than it would to Geralt.

Eskel got the socks on and then pulled on his boots. The little rest in the bath had done him good, and he felt refreshed as well as clean, ready for whatever Geralt was going to show him next.

Geralt grinned when he was dressed himself and said, "Come on, I've gotta show you the gardens."

It was a long damn walk to the gardens and when they got there, Geralt kept on walking steadily; apparently these weren't the gardens he meant, although they were like nothing Eskel had ever seen. There were little engineered streams and places where vines and trees had been trained to make shaded walks, and then opened out to show some new vista of spectacular colors. He found himself making a mental map, not only of how to get back to Geralt's room, but also the locations of plants he wanted to come back and take a closer look at. The Nilfgaardians might just be growing them for show, but Eskel was pretty sure he'd seen a dozen now that were variants on herbs they used in potions, which would be interesting to test, if he could slip back here and make cuttings on the sly.

Geralt hardly seemed to see any of it, telling him how glad Ciri would be to see him, and what her training schedule was like and when Eskel would get a look at her sword work. Eskel was wondering if that meant that was the only time he'd get to see her--was it the only time Geralt got to see her?--when they crossed a relatively bare courtyard to a wooden door in a stone wall a little more than head-high. It'd be child's play to infiltrate, but Eskel didn't guess anyone built gardens for their resistance to forcible intrusion.

The thought went out of his head when he stepped through the door and Geralt, grinning, gestured at the vista of flowers around them, spreading out all over the walled rectangle in a dizzying rainbow of colors as the smell of roses filled the air with perfume.

"It's great, isn't it?" Geralt asked, setting out down one of the curving paths that wound through the roses. They weren't planted all in a mass, like a crop in a field, though they looked that way from the edge. Each rosebush was set down a little separate from the next, each one a particular specimen--colors from red to white to purple and every shade between, different shapes of petals and leaves, some standing alone and others trained up the inner sides of the stone walls.

After a moment of wandering through this one garden, a landscape and a barrage of scent he could at least adjust to rather than constantly encountering something new, Eskel refocused on Geralt, who was wandering the paths with a smile on his face all out of proportion to the garden they were in. Geralt liked roses well enough--he was a romantic at heart, and of course roses appealed to that--but this was something else. This garden meant something specific to him, not just that he liked the flowers.

They were nearly at the center--and, Eskel realized, that meant they could see all around them to every wall, and were a good way away from anyone lurking on the other side of them--when Geralt stopped and crouched down beside a rosebush that looked no more especially interesting than any of the others. The blooms were red at the center, shading to yellow at the tips, like a flame.

Geralt stroked his finger along one and said, "These are all just here to be pretty, that's the thing I can't believe sometimes. I'll show you the conservatory next--that's where the oranges grow, and Emhyr had them fill it with--"

Eskel took a sharp step back, and Geralt cut off and looked up at him, rising to his feet at whatever he saw on Eskel's face as all the little hints crystallized into certainty, even before he spoke. "You're fucking the Emperor of Nilfgaard."

Geralt didn't deny it, but he also didn't laugh and explain that that was the most ridiculous luxury of the place, the ass he could get here. He bit his lip and dropped his gaze. "He's not a bad guy, Eskel. I mean, he's not a good guy, but no worse than me, given what he is. It's not... we're not..."

Eskel rubbed both hands over his face, trying to assure himself that he hadn't just fallen asleep in Geralt's bathtub and slipped into some bizarre dream brought on by flowery bath oil. But everything stayed steady and solid around him, and Geralt was giving him a look that Eskel couldn't misread no matter how much he wanted to.

"You're in an actual relationship," Eskel corrected himself. "With Emhyr var Emreis."

There was a roaring noise building in his head--his own blood rushing in his ears--and Eskel told himself he was being stupid, that he had no reason to feel like this. To feel anything. He shouldn't even be surprised. Of course Geralt had instantly gotten serious about the first person he fucked after Yen.

The first one who could offer him all of this, anyway.

Geralt didn't seem to notice anything but Eskel's words; he was smiling a sheepish little smile. "I think I... I think I love him, Eskel. It's... I didn't know I could love somebody like this, so easily. I didn't know I could love a guy like this. I've never met anyone like him, I didn't know that was even--"

Eskel had no time to tell himself anything; his fist was already flying out, snapping Geralt's head back with the force of the blow, which landed squarely on his mouth.

Chapter Text

Emhyr was informed, as he left a meeting of his advisors in the early afternoon, that Master Witcher Eskel had arrived at the palace in tow of Sir Geralt. It was Mererid who came to him, which meant at least a half-dozen people had passed the message from one to another before it found its way to Emhyr.

Geralt must have been out riding, as he often was, and met Eskel before Eskel reached the palace.

"They have retired to Sir Geralt's chambers," Mererid murmured. "I've seen to the proper arrangements, of course. You were planning to dine privately tonight? Will that..."

"We'll see," Emhyr said, wondering himself. He'd considered a thousand ways the reunion might play out, and today he would find out, all too soon and still not soon enough. "Princess Cirilla has been informed?"

"I dispatched a messenger," Mererid agreed. Ciri was touring one of the military camps just outside the city today, with Morvran for escort; it would take some time for a message to reach her, though it was entirely up to her how long it would take her to arrive back here once it did.

"Very well," Emhyr said. "Make sure the servants know to give them some space. But..." Emhyr hesitated, considering whether he wished to raise the possibility--but better to have his people prepared for it than not, he judged. What he told the servants couldn't possibly influence what went on between the two witchers, for better or worse. "I'm to be informed directly, if anything seems to be... amiss."

Mererid didn't question that. He nodded, nearly a bow, and turned to more routine matters as he walked with Emhyr back to the office where he would spend the rest of the afternoon. It was a more productive hour than many he'd spent there in the last several weeks; for once he was not at all tempted to dwell on the thought of Geralt and what he was up to just now.

An hour, however, was all he got before a page burst in, causing two of Emhyr's guards to wheel on him before they recognized the boy.

"Your Majesty," the page said, wide-eyed and gasping. "The witchers--"

Judging by the wild expression, he'd seen it himself, or been close enough to hear.

"Where," Emhyr said, already rising. It wouldn't do to let any of his servants or, Great Sun forbid, guardsmen, get caught up in whatever was happening.

"Rose garden," the boy said, looking a little relieved not to have to explain further--perhaps because he was still catching his breath and would have had difficulty getting the words out no matter what they were.

Emhyr nodded, and gestured dismissal to the boy, so he could go compose himself out of sight.

"With me," he snapped at the guards, more to save the time he'd otherwise spend arguing with them than anything else. He headed toward the locked conservatory, which, among its many more interesting characteristics, was on the shortest route to the rose garden from this part of the palace. Emhyr had to unlock the door himself, and managed to scrape off a guard there by ordering, "No one comes through here."

Not that anyone could, really, but he kept moving fast enough that there was no argument. The second guard obeyed when Emhyr snapped at him to stay on the walkway, allowing Emhyr to walk alone over to the work table Geralt had all but made into a laboratory. If Emhyr wasn't mistaken, he'd said just the other day that he'd gotten some new potion formulations he was pleased with--worthy of my new vials, Geralt had said, giving Emhyr a little sideways smile.

There were several vials in a rack, each neatly sealed with a different color wax. Red was Swallow, for healing, Emhyr recalled from one of Geralt's rambling disquisitions on his work here--thankfully Geralt had made several of that one already. Emhyr pocketed two of them, then strode out of the conservatory by the outside door, heading for the gardens.

He walked faster when the first sounds of the fight reached him.

He recalled Ciri saying, weeks ago, that when Geralt and Eskel were truly angry with each other they would just fight. It had been some time after that conversation that he fully realized what she meant: even as recently as her years at Kaer Morhen, Geralt and Eskel would resolve conflicts through actual brawling.

They were witchers, and surely both evenly matched and constrained by the deep affection they had for each other, no matter how angry they were. What he could hear was mostly dull thuds and angry snarls in two different voices, confirming his suspicion that neither of them would have hurt the other too badly.

Then he heard the sharp crack of something magical--one of them using a sign against the other, most likely. He was compelled to reconsider what too badly might mean, by a witcher’s standards, and the potential collateral damage. At least the rose garden was a contained space.

Emhyr stopped within sight of the nearest door into the garden and said, "Make sure that no one comes near this garden until I give leave. Sweep the adjacent gardens for anyone in earshot, and send them elsewhere."

"Your Majesty," the young guardsman said, looking from Emhyr to the garden door Emhyr very obviously intended to walk through, in the direction of more actual violence than this man had likely encountered since returning from the campaigns in the North.

"My Favorite will neither harm me nor allow me to come to harm," Emhyr said sternly, as though it ought to have been obvious. "I've given an order."

He turned on his heel and strode briskly away, giving no opening for further argument, but as soon as he stepped through and closed the door behind him, he halted where he was, transfixed by the really rather impressive level of destruction.

Geralt was barely aware of what he was actually saying as he struggled to come up with the words to tell Eskel the really important part of what was going on with him and Emhyr, which was that Geralt would never be cut off from Eskel by it. It didn't matter so much what he said; Eskel would understand, or wait for Geralt to make himself understood.

He just barely caught the instant when Eskel's usual grim expression--which could mean he hadn't eaten in three days or he was planning how to dismember a nasty carcass or the sun was in his eyes--flipped into the highly unusual expression of Eskel getting really angry. It wasn't enough time to really do anything; Geralt was already watching Eskel's fist coming toward him when he recognized the fury on Eskel's face. He was still stuck thinking, No, wait, let me tell you the best part, when Eskel's fist made contact.

The pain turned his own confusion to answering rage.

"Fuck," he snarled, "Let me finish--" but he was swinging as he spoke, aiming for a body blow which he mostly landed, but at the expense of Eskel getting a grip on his arm. Geralt threw his weight immediately, flipping both of them to the ground--gravel and thorny roses, shit, that was going to sting.

Eskel snarled back something that sounded like, "You didn't fucking know," which didn't make any sense.

They quickly got beyond words, beyond thoughts. Geralt was just fighting to fight, reacting and trying to get the upper hand. He was always aware that this was Eskel he was fighting--he could never lose track of that--but the reason for every blow was the one that came before it, and nothing else.

The next escalation happened at once from both sides, just because they both knew the other well enough to know what it meant when they deliberately got their right hands free. Geralt cast Quen on himself just in time for Eskel's Aard to blow them apart, Eskel flying further than Geralt himself.

Geralt was on his feet first, stalking over as Eskel pushed himself to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth with a baleful glare.

"I don't know what the fuck I even came looking for," Eskel growled, low enough that it was as much to himself as Geralt. The words felt like a stab to the belly, a spot unprotected and out of bounds.

Eskel had come for him, and just because Geralt was with Emhyr, that didn't mean he wasn't the same person he'd always been, the same one Eskel had come looking for. After an instant of frozen shock, the hurt turned to a fresh wave of fury, and it was Eskel's turn to throw up a quick Quen before Geralt threw an Igni in his face.

Eskel tackled him, roaring, before his Quen broke, so that it buzzed angrily against Geralt's skin everywhere they touched. Geralt pushed through it, getting a grip on Eskel around the shield so he was half throttling him when it faded. They wrestled for a while after that, crashing through one rank of rose bushes and into another, then tried Signs again.

They were both wearing out--no one could push a witcher to his limits like another witcher, and it wasn't as if either of them was downing potions to prolong the fight. Eskel got Geralt pinned on the gravel and Geralt looked up at him and saw how tired he was. He'd come a long fucking way, and somehow something Geralt said or did had made him angrier than Geralt had almost ever seen him, angry enough to burn energy he barely had left to thrash it out.

"What the fuck are we fighting about?" Geralt demanded, going limp to keep Eskel from pushing another attack.

Eskel, straddling him, hands pressing Geralt's wrists down into the rocks, panted and stared at him.

"What," Eskel said, and then the furious tension went out of his face all at once. He shook his head and let go, pushing off Geralt to sit on the gravel beside him.

Eskel's abrupt concession felt a hundred times worse than if he'd beaten Geralt senseless--maybe more than that in the next second, when he saw Eskel go stiff, staring past Geralt.

Geralt sat up a little, knowing somehow what he would see even before he spotted Emhyr standing very straight and still, arms folded across his chest, just inside one of the doors. Geralt also saw, stretching between him and Eskel and the place where Emhyr stood, what they'd done to the rose garden. Dozens of rosebushes were crushed to some degree or another, and there were scars gouged in the neat gravel paths down to the earth below.

"Fuck," Eskel muttered, and Geralt looked toward him and followed his gaze in the other direction--Eskel was already throwing Quen at a few rosebushes and vines that were on fire. The golden barrier quickly smothered the flames.

"That was probably me," Geralt said apologetically, and Eskel just gave him a grim look that told him Eskel still considered Geralt responsible for all of this, even if Eskel had thrown the first punch. Even if Geralt still didn't know why.

Emhyr cleared his throat, jerking Geralt's attention back in his direction. Geralt opened his mouth to say... fuck knew what, but Emhyr spoke first.

Emhyr's voice was smooth, pitched so that it carried easily across the expanse of the garden without shouting. "Master Witcher, I welcome to you Nilfgaard, very sincerely if not as..." Emhyr let them see him glancing around the garden; Geralt felt like a kid caught in the wreckage of a really stupid prank. "...Energetically as Geralt has."

Eskel swallowed and nodded and said nothing; Geralt could feel the discomfort radiating off him. Emhyr clearly felt like no less a rare and dangerous beast than some higher vampire or godling to Eskel.

"The rooms across from Geralt's have been prepared for you," Emhyr went on, still addressing himself to Eskel alone, which made Geralt feel oddly proud and decidedly off-balance all at once. "Your belongings have been taken there, and anything further you need--" Emhyr's gaze on them shifted a little and Geralt realized that both of them were covered in scratches from the gravel and thorns; their clothes were torn in dozens of places, stained with blood and dirt everywhere else. "You need only ask, and it will be supplied."

Emhyr reached into a pocket and drew out two vials--two doses from Geralt's latest batch of Swallow. "I brought these, just in case. I'll leave them for you." He suited action to words, crouching briefly to set them down on the ground near the door.

He straightened and turned away in one motion, and Geralt couldn't help himself. He called out, "Emhyr."

Emhyr turned back, and Geralt realized he had no idea what to say. "I..."

Emhyr nodded. "I'm sure the two of you have much to discuss, my dear witcher. I don't plan on going anywhere you can't find me, once you have time, but for now I think your priority must be otherwise."

That answered a whole tangle of questions Geralt hadn't been able to ask, soothing some tight-wound uncertainty. Emhyr still wanted him, even now that Eskel was really here and Geralt needed to focus on him. Even now that they were being decidedly barbaric Nordlings all over the place. He was more grateful than words could express, and a sensation that he thought really must be love filled him.

"Yeah," Geralt said. "I will. Thanks." Well, he'd never claimed to be eloquent.

Emhyr maybe smiled just the tiniest bit, then turned away again and walked out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

"What," Eskel whispered, as Emhyr's footsteps receded on the other side of the wall. "The nekker-fucking fuck, Wolf."

It was only what Eskel almost always called him, for years and years now, but Wolf felt as reassuring as my dear witcher, just then.

Geralt twisted around to face him, grabbing one of Eskel's wrists even though he made no move to go any further. Eskel hissed, and Geralt automatically shifted his grip to see what he'd grabbed hold of. He winced in sympathy and set to pulling the thorn out from the end of the long scratch it had gouged in Eskel's forearm.

"I don't know," Geralt said, keeping his eyes on what he was doing. "You tell me."

Eskel sighed and leaned in, tapping Geralt's shoulder until he twisted so Eskel could reach it. He felt the sting as he moved, where he must have picked up a thorn himself. "Never knew you could love a guy, huh," Eskel said, sounding tired and resigned, no hint of a question in his voice. "Never felt like that about another guy."

Geralt jerked back to meet Eskel's eyes, but Eskel kept his gaze turned down until Geralt flicked the thorn away and grabbed Eskel's chin with his blood-streaked fingers. Eskel looked painfully wary, and Geralt growled and then tugged him into a hard kiss, not knowing a quicker way to show him which way this was going.

As soon as they broke apart, Eskel's eyes, still wary, flicked to where Emhyr had stood a minute ago. Geralt could feel the tension in his body, resisting Geralt's touch like he never did--unless he thought he had to.

"He knows," Geralt said immediately. "He--Eskel, before I ever let him touch me, I told him."

Eskel stared at him, showing no sign of understanding.

"About you," Geralt explained. "About us. I told him that I wouldn't stand for him taking me off the Path or away from you. In any way."

Eskel's eyes narrowed and his gaze stayed fixed; Geralt could see him working something out, and after a moment he said in a hollow voice, "Geralt, did you--did Yen--"

"Yeah," Geralt said, shaking his head and dropping his gaze to check for any other thorns Eskel had taken. There was one in his thigh, and Geralt picked at it while Eskel went back to work on Geralt's shoulder. "I kind of figured she must've known, by the time we actually spoke about it, but... she didn't. Never suspected. She... didn't like that."

"But it's not..." Eskel still didn't sound like he got it, like he thought what was between them was something less than Geralt's month-old affair with Emhyr, not just different. Like it shouldn't be enough to matter to anyone.

"It's not," Geralt insisted. "It's not the same thing, Eskel. You're not another guy. You were always there, before anyone, before I was anyone. You were always... anything they like about me, at least some of it comes from you. Some of it is you. You're where I come from and where I go back to."

The right word finally, finally came to him, and Geralt sat back to look Eskel in the eye as he said, "You're my home. That's not--no one else could ever--"

Eskel jerked him into a kiss this time, and Geralt finally exhaled in relief, knowing that Eskel understood.

Eskel hadn't understood, he belatedly realized. Fuck, Eskel hadn't known where Geralt was or why for months now, while Geralt was hiding from him because he was scared that what Yen said would change something. He'd never had words for him and Eskel, not for anyone else and certainly not between them, but... maybe what was between them was sturdy enough to stand up to a few conversations.

He owed Eskel that, for the last few months. Hell, the last few years must have been wretched. If he was Eskel's home too, or anything like it, Eskel must have felt like that home had been repeatedly attacked and destroyed--when Geralt died, and when he came back and didn't know Eskel from any other stranger, and when he took off after they'd saved the world and just never came back. Eskel had to have known Geralt was avoiding him, as surely as Geralt had known where Eskel was so he could do it.

"Sorry," Geralt whispered, getting a grip on Eskel's shirt. "I'm sorry, Eskel, I--"

"None of that, Wolf," Eskel muttered back, hauling him into a rough, tight hug, and Geralt exhaled and let himself relax into Eskel's grip.

He was home now. They were both home, here in this palace garden in Nilfgaard. They could sort everything else out from here, now that they had this much for sure.

"Oh, man," Geralt muttered into Eskel's shoulder. "I have to show you the baths, down underground. And there's this whole cave they let me have, I'm growing the mushrooms you only get up in the mountains--"

Eskel laughed, more a shaking than a sound, but he only held on tighter, so Geralt figured that was a yes.

When Emhyr emerged from the gate, an entire squad of his guards were waiting just outside; they immediately moved to close ranks around him, so Emhyr paused only long enough to firmly shut the door, heading back toward the conservatory in quick strides. "Are the entrances to the garden secured? No one is to go in until the witchers come out. No one is to disturb them in any way or impede them when they leave the garden. Master Eskel has the freedom of the palace and the city, the same as Sir Geralt."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the guard captain--var Elsen, a third son, bright, wounded twice in the Temerian campaign--said promptly. Clearly he'd had time to catch up with his men and get some control of the situation. He waved sharply to his sergeant, who peeled off to manage the gardens as ordered, while var Elsen stayed with Emhyr.

Emhyr passed his key for the conservatory to var Elsen as they approached the door, and var Elsen swiftly unlocked it, waving off most of his squad to return to their stations now that the emperor was in a less precarious situation. That still left var Elsen and another guardsman preceding Emhyr, two more at his back--a third, when they collected the man from his office, still standing where Emhyr had left him, guarding the inner door to the conservatory.

Mererid was coming down the corridor as they stepped through, hands moving in small anxious flutters.

"Significant work will be required in the rose garden," Emhyr said, continuing to move forward as the guards adjusted their positions, allowing Mererid to take his place at Emhyr's left hand. "But I believe at least cuttings will be salvageable from the damaged specimens. Have you prepared keys for Master Eskel? The same Geralt has."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Mererid said, volunteering nothing further. It was possible that Emhyr's expression, or relentless forward motion, did not invite further comment.

"Have the rest of my day brought to my private office," Emhyr said, indicating the door into his own rooms as his destination; the guards and Mererid formed up automatically around him as the door was opened for him. "I do not care to be unnecessarily disturbed. Has Cirilla returned?"

"No, Your Majesty," Mererid said. "Ah--" He proffered a small note, not addressed at all, sealed with the blue wax and swallow emblem that Ciri used for personal correspondence.

"That will be all," Emhyr said, and closed the door firmly on all of them. He went through without slowing his stride into his own most-used rooms, and then, finally, he could stop. He dropped into a comfortable chair, near the low table that still bore the deep gouge from Geralt testing the blade of his silver seax.

First thing first: he tore open Ciri's brief note, realizing as it did that if she had not returned herself, then the note would only elaborate on that fact. And, indeed, it was only a couple of quickly-scrawled lines.

I assume Geralt has Eskel's welcome in hand, but summon me back if I'm needed! See you tonight otherwise.

Emhyr neatly refolded the note and carefully set it aside on the table before he finally sank back in his chair and allowed himself to stare at nothing, replaying the view from the rose garden in his mind.

Like looking into a sudden bright light, it had taken a moment for his eyes to adjust to what he was seeing: the degree of ruination in the garden and the sheer ferocious speed of the fight made it momentarily impossible to parse anything. Emhyr had seen Geralt train, seen him spar, had even shared the stylized facsimile of a fight that was the sword dance with him. He hadn't quite realized until he saw it, how little he had ever seen of Geralt's true capabilities.

And after watching, and seeing even a little of what they were capable of, using witcher's signs as well as their swift, strong bodies against each other, something else quickly became apparent. He still wasn't seeing Geralt truly exert himself. Neither Geralt nor Eskel were bleeding more than incidentally; neither's movement was hampered by a broken bone or dislocated joint. Neither of them went for the face or groin with a blow. There was the evidence of the fire sign's use all over the garden, but neither of them sported anything like a significant burn, or even singed clothing.

They were holding back. This, for them, was perhaps almost as understood a ritual as a sword dance. The fight might look fierce, but this was indeed the sort of fight Cirilla had described: the kind they used to settle some conflict--at the end of which it would be settled, and they were able to go on as before.

Given how long it had been since they saw each other, and the likeliest cause of contention between them here and now, it didn't take any great stretch of the imagination to picture what they would go on to.

The thought of the two of them together sent an irresistible pulse of heat through him, making his cock thicken without a touch. Geralt himself was enough of a delight to watch; Geralt and Eskel together were--were--

Were right. They matched each other; they fit in a way that Emhyr would never match Geralt, could never dream of belonging with him. They inhabited the same world, while Emhyr's was merely a fairyland Geralt consented to sojourn in for a time, a gilded cage he would never bear for very long.

Geralt had confessed to a fascination with him in the person of the emperor, but Emhyr did not imagine that that could wholly make up for the fact that he was, in the end, also a middle-aged human of no special physical prowess and considerably less than average physical attractiveness. Geralt's most recent lovers were a witcher who'd been dear to him all his life and one of the most powerful sorceresses in the known world; what could Emhyr give him, compared to them?

Oranges, Emhyr thought, and he could almost hear Geralt's voice saying it. It coaxed a half-smile from Emhyr, halting the useless spiral of his thoughts.

Yennefer could have given him oranges, or anything else Geralt desired--but Yennefer had decided she didn't care to, and more fool her.

Emhyr shook off the last of that spasm of self-doubt, the persistent reflex that made him think of himself as something no one could ever desire if they saw him truly, even long years after his curse had been broken. Geralt had seen plenty of him, in the last few weeks--for that matter, Geralt had seen him at his ugliest, under the curse, and even uglier actions since--and Emhyr could not pretend not to know that Geralt was pleased with what he saw and what he got from Emhyr these days.

If this was a reflection of Geralt having incurably low standards, well, Emhyr was not above making the best of that for himself.

Still. He was cured of any temptation to waste time thinking about what Geralt and Eskel were up to just now. He stood and headed for his office, forcing his thoughts to the business of the empire.

His thoughts flitted back to Geralt from there, though, picturing him as a tenuously-held territory, with a rival power on the far border.

Well. Emhyr knew how to handle that situation, didn't he? If Emhyr could win Eskel over, then Geralt would have no impetus to look elsewhere, because Emhyr and Eskel would not be separate options to be chosen between. A united front could serve all three of them, if Emhyr could engineer it; a bloodless victory, for he surely had no hope of any other kind here.

As he sat down at his desk, Emhyr thought about the way Eskel had watched him in the rose garden--that tinge of awe that Geralt had never shown him. It was a distance he'd never attempted to traverse for any personal relationship; it would make an even more perilous project than seducing Geralt had turned out to be.

Emhyr did like a challenge. He pulled a blank page toward him, inked a pen, and began to jot down preliminary notes on strategy. He used Geralt's shorthand as he did, and not only because it suited the theme; no one else needed to catch sight of the Emperor's musings on this particular topic.

Eskel didn't let Geralt go, even when they'd checked each other everywhere for thorns and unnoticed wounds. He couldn't have said why; it was a physical instinct, like knowing which way to dodge in a fight. He simply could not stop hanging on, even when they stepped out the garden's doors and came face to face with what looked like an entire company of palace guards. Eskel could have sworn half their eyes went to the spot where Eskel's hand was wrapped around Geralt's wrist, and he remembered the way people recognized Geralt and deferred to him.

Because they all knew he was fucking--or getting fucked by--their Emperor, didn't they.

Geralt just sort of... waved at them and towed Eskel along by that grip, undeterred by their massed presence. "All clear, guys. Tell Martin--no, it's Loren out here, isn't it--I'm sorry about the, uh," Geralt waved his free hand back toward the garden. "Everything."

He didn't break stride, though, dragging Eskel to an unobtrusive, undecorative little door and into a narrow passageway.

"I shouldn't really use this way anymore," Geralt said, leading Eskel through. They had to walk in single file; Eskel thought if he'd been wearing his swords they'd have scraped the walls. He wondered if that meant that Geralt didn't wear his when he came this way, that he went around unarmed here often enough to form habits around it. "It's a servants' corridor," Geralt went on, as they went down a narrow stair, and then Geralt pressed Eskel to the wall at the bottom so two women could slip past them. "And I used to be sort of ambiguous but now they just have to pretend they don't see me."

"Oh?" Eskel asked. "Now that they know the Emperor's fucking you?"

And if they all knew that, did that mean they couldn't know about Geralt fucking Eskel? Although if the Emperor himself knew... Eskel experienced a sudden pang of doubt. Geralt couldn't really have said that, could he? That he'd told Emhyr about him? Him, personally, specifically? He must have told Emhyr about the Path, and that he'd fuck people who weren't Emhyr, but--

Geralt said, "This bit is a little awkward," and opened a door onto darkness, then pushed a curtain--no, a heavy tapestry--aside and stepped into a much wider corridor; Eskel looked around to orient himself and realized they were within a dozen strides of Geralt's door.

Which meant that the door just opposite was Eskel's, if... but no, the Emperor's words were printed very clearly on his memory. He couldn't doubt that part.

Eskel said, "The tapestry, or the fact that the servants know the Emperor's fucking you?"

"The tapestry," Geralt said, and Eskel tugged sharply on Geralt's wrist and headed toward the door of his own rooms, where apparently he would find his gear. He was about two steps away when a gray-haired man, elegantly dressed but not uniformed, appeared.

Eskel stopped short, glancing around to try to see where the man had come from. They had exited the servants' passage themselves, and he hadn't been there.

"Welcome, Master Witcher. My name is Mererid; I am His Majesty's Chamberlain and thus handle all these little household details, such as your keys." Mererid offered him a whole chatelaine's share of keys. "They are the same Sir Geralt has; would you prefer to let him explain them all to you?"

"Yeah," Eskel said, glancing over at Geralt. He'd told Eskel about Mererid, an amusing detour in the overall horrible tale he'd had to tell about the danger Ciri was in. This didn't seem like quite the same treatment Geralt had gotten back then.

"Yeah, I've got it from here, Mererid," Geralt said easily. "Thanks."

Mererid gave a tiny bow to Geralt, a certain precise degree that made Eskel's eyes narrow. That wasn't just treating the Emperor's Nordling lover with due courtesy. That was... correctness, and Eskel had no idea how Geralt rated that from any Nilfgaardian, let alone one as fussy and particular as he'd described Emhyr's chamberlain being.

"Master Witcher," Mererid said, addressing Eskel. "I must ask, is that the most correct form of address for you? Have you any other titles? Any name other than the personal?"

Eskel shook his head. "Nothing else ever stuck. I'm just Eskel, a Master Witcher of the Wolf School. Not the Master of the school," he added, because no one would ever be that again, not now. Not after Vesemir.

Mererid gave another little bow, this one not so tightly calculated and aimed vaguely at him and Geralt both. "I shall ensure that the correct form is used, sir. If you will excuse me."

Eskel nodded, just in case Mererid did need to be excused, and the man turned and walked away, disappearing down a cross-corridor.

Eskel looked down, bemused, at all the keys in his hand.

It was only then that he noticed his other hand had remained wrapped around Geralt's wrist through the entire conversation with Mererid. The imperial chamberlain, who knew enough about Geralt's status to defer to him just so, who was going to make sure people used the correct form of address for Eskel like he could possibly give a fuck... he'd just done all of that while watching Eskel hanging on to Geralt like he had a right.

Even now, knowing, Eskel didn't want to let go, but it was getting ridiculous. He forced his fingers to uncurl, using both hands to sort through the keys as he eyed the lock on the door. 

Geralt stayed close at his side and said nothing, letting him try first to solve it for himself. Eskel identified two near-equal candidates and stared at them for a moment, realizing that they must be the keys to his own rooms and Geralt's. Both looked new-cut, so there was no evidence of use to judge by. Eskel held them a moment, letting his fingers decide which felt more here-ish and which more there-ish, a lifetime's accumulated experience funneled into odd intuition.

The first key he tried turned smoothly, and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Eskel reached out and grabbed Geralt's wrist again to haul him inside, and Geralt moved as smoothly as the key and the door, matching Eskel's steps with ease.

Eskel closed and latched the door and tossed the keys toward a table he barely glimpsed. The layout was much the same as Geralt's room, though he hardly needed even that much of a hint to go straight through the little sitting room to the bedroom beyond. He stopped short for a second, looking at the bed. He hadn't slept in a bed in weeks, and he didn't know if he'd ever slept in a bed as wide and clean and doubtless luxuriously comfortable as that one.

Well. There was one quick way to make it feel more familiar. Eskel dragged Geralt to it, hauling him up even with himself and then giving him a shove; Geralt fell easily onto the bed, propping himself on his elbows and smiling sunnily up at Eskel.

"Clothes off," Eskel said sharply. "Probably not fit for rags around here anyway."

"That or they'll be cleaned and mended so you'd never be able to tell," Geralt said in a tone of amiable agreement, already tugging his shirt off without even sitting up fully.

He knew where Eskel wanted him. He was letting Eskel have this. Eskel still wasn't sure why; Geralt, here, like this, after everything, was a luxury almost as bewildering as the bed. But if all this was going to be put in Eskel's hands, he was going to take it for all it was worth. He'd gone hungry too often not to take what he could get while he could get it. 

Eskel didn't take his eyes off Geralt as he got rid of his own clothes; he still had that instinct that had made him keep his grip on Geralt all the way here, like he might disappear if Eskel looked away. Geralt looked right back, stripping and kicking the covers down so he lay, naked and still smeared with dirt and blood, on the pristine white linen sheet.

Without stopping to think of how it looked and what any of it meant, Eskel pounced on Geralt, kissing him roughly and pressing him down into the bed. Geralt responded eagerly, but he only pushed up against Eskel to be closer; it was obvious that he had no interest in taking control. Eskel solved that problem for him, grinding down against him, getting them skin to skin everywhere and just pressing closer. Geralt moaned happily into Eskel's mouth, around Eskel's tongue as he pushed inside.

Even that contact wasn't enough for Eskel; his hands moved restlessly, tugging the remains of the tidy braids out of Geralt's hair until it was all loose for him to run his fingers through, and then just touching him everywhere, fingers finding familiar scars and fresh scratches, the little hints of softening that meant Geralt had been eating well and not driving himself too hard lately.

He'd barely reached Geralt's hips before Geralt's legs were spreading wide under him, and Geralt was tilting his hips up, not just to press his cock against Eskel.

Eskel planted his knees and lifted his head to meet Geralt's eyes. "Want something?"

"Same thing you want and you know it," Geralt said, hooking a leg around his hips. "Come on, don't make me wait more. I've missed you."

Eskel's breath caught at those last words, even as he was grabbing Geralt's wrists and grinding against him, pinning him in place. Geralt had said that to him before, plenty of times, when they were about to fuck--when he wanted it hard and rough, the way Eskel wanted it a lot of the time when he got Geralt back. When Geralt had been off with Yen, usually.

He had always been too loyal, or too tactful, to say give me what she can't, but it was obvious enough. For him to say it now, even though he had to be getting fucked regularly--but probably not like this, because for all he was getting fucked by the Emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis still probably couldn't put his back into it the same way a witcher could.

Or, hell. Maybe it just meant that Geralt had missed him. That no matter who else had been fucking him or how they'd been doing it, he still wanted Eskel. You're my home, he'd said, and it had felt like a key in a lock--not like something Eskel hadn't known before, but like something he'd never thought would be spoken, and never thought would be the same for both of them.

Eskel kissed him again, as much teeth as tongue, and Geralt gave himself up, letting Eskel hold both his wrists in one hand. He brought the other hand to their mouths, catching the spit of messy kisses until his hand was thoroughly wet. He slicked his cock as he got himself lined up, and then it was just one rough thrust and he was sinking into Geralt as far as he could go.

They both stilled for just a second; Geralt's eyes had gone nearly all black, just barely rimmed in gold, and Eskel knew from the almost painful brightness at the edges of his vision that his must be the same. It was all right, as long as he didn't try to look at anything but Geralt--and what else could he possibly want to look at now?

Then Geralt's eyes fluttered nearly shut as he let out a groan so soft it was nearly a sigh, every bit of resistance running out of him as he gave himself up to this. To Eskel.

If he were a better, kinder man, it might have made him want to soften too, to be gentle with a man who'd already yielded, but Eskel was a witcher and had lived a long damn time trailing after the wandering star that was Geralt. He didn't give up so easily.

Eskel twitched his hips, pulling out a fraction just to push back in hard, grinding deep, using his weight to pin Geralt down in this half-curled pose, helpless under him. Geralt just tipped his head back, baring his throat. Inviting Eskel's teeth.

Eskel honestly wasn't sure he wouldn't bite down hard enough to derail them from fucking if he went for Geralt's throat right now. He scraped his teeth along the hard line of Geralt's jaw, then ducked his head to bite down on Geralt's shoulder, hard enough to make Geralt's breath go fast and his body tighten under him.

He still didn't fight back, though. His hands still stayed over his head, under Eskel's grip, and he was still hard, his cock heavy between them. Eskel started fucking him then, going full force right away, slamming hard into him and forcing little sounds out of Geralt's throat, louder and louder with every thrust. Geralt kept that leg wrapped around Eskel's hips, constantly urging him closer, welcoming every push in and resisting every pull back. 

Eskel let up his first bite and dug his teeth in just to the side of it, on the next patch of unmarked flesh, and Geralt groaned and snapped his teeth by Eskel's ear without actually making contact. Eskel gave him what he wanted, letting up on his second bite and catching Geralt's mouth with his, in something that was almost as much another bite as a kiss; Geralt just curled his other leg up around Eskel's back and whined happily under the rough press of Eskel's tongue and teeth. 

He licked deep, tasting mostly blood--and that, at least, was as rich and real as it should be. Though Eskel realized, jerking away to breathe and then to press his mouth and scrape his teeth over Geralt's neck, now that he didn't think he'd bite--Geralt was smelling and tasting like himself all over now. He smelled like his own sweat and like dirt and crushed plants, edged with the tingling not-taste that meant he'd poured a lot of power into signs recently. 

He'd found his Geralt, down under the shiny-clean surface Nilfgaard had put on him. Underneath, he was still the same as he'd ever been. Still real. Still...

"Mine," Eskel growled against Geralt's throat. He wouldn't have said it if he weren't half out of his mind, if he didn't feel close to shaking apart and only anchored by his grip on Geralt. It had never been exactly true, even if it wasn't completely false. Geralt always belonged to so many other people, to the Path and his destiny, more than to Eskel. He couldn't ever bear to stake his fragment of a claim, to such a small piece of Geralt that he might never notice.

Now, fucking Geralt fiercely, drawing blood and leaving the marks of his teeth everywhere, he couldn't hold it back. Now, just for one moment, it was true enough.

But Geralt didn't hesitate a second, didn't draw a breath, before he was nodding, tightening the grip of his legs around Eskel's sides, not in surrender but in fierce cooperation. "Mine too."

Eskel froze, because once again Geralt had said something Eskel never expected to hear, something that slipped into a waiting space shaped exactly to receive it, and cracked him open. Not just allowing the claim, not just yours. He'd said mine too.

"Don't stop," Geralt added gruffly, though his expression had gone a little tender, like he was reading Eskel as clearly as he ever had, and he didn't mind. He felt the same. Mine too.

 "Yours," Eskel offered, his voice rough though he suspected Geralt would still hear how tentative it was. 

Geralt grinned and flexed his wrists under Eskel's hand, just enough to make it obvious that he wasn't resisting the grip. "Yours too."

"Fuck," Eskel muttered, and lunged into a kiss before Geralt could quite finish saying fuck too. His mouth tasted like laughter anyway, as well as blood and sweat and grime.

Eskel let up on the kiss before too long, getting back to fucking Geralt hard enough to wrench those little gasps and grunts out of him. He bit the shoulder he hadn't marked yet, for good measure, and scraped up the other side of his throat, and fucked him until he couldn't help making the same noises Geralt was--until Geralt couldn't keep still and easy under him anymore and started writhing, making Eskel work to pin him down.

Geralt curled up when he started to come, catching the side of Eskel's throat with his teeth, giving him at least one mark to answer all the ones Eskel had left on him. Eskel couldn't last long after that, with Geralt clenching down on his cock and breaking his skin and the air full of the scent of Geralt's come and their mingled sweat and blood. He managed a few more hard thrusts, enough to make Geralt let go of his neck and then bite down again on his shoulder, and then Eskel let his head hang as he came, spilling deep inside Geralt.

"Mine," he breathed, so flooded with pleasure that he hardly feared it at all.

"Mine," Geralt echoed back, raising his hand to the scarred side of Eskel's face, tracing a thumb down the whole skin between two scars. It made Eskel shudder all over, Geralt's gentle touch on that island of sensation in all the scarred-over numbness, and Geralt did it once more and then drew him down into a kiss, slow and warm.

"Yours," Eskel murmured, letting his weight rest on Geralt, dropping his forehead to rest on the sheets.

"Yours," Geralt replied, soft but sure, as he ran a hand up and down Eskel's back, lingering on some newer scars like he was learning their shapes. Eskel thought about explaining where they had come from, but before he found the words, he was asleep.

Chapter Text

Geralt found himself smiling as he lay pinned under Eskel's warm, limp weight. Most of his body was stinging or aching, and he could smell his own blood trickling here and there. He could be bearing the marks of Eskel's teeth for a day or two at least.

Eskel had never done that before. Never left marks on Geralt that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. They'd bruised each other, of course, drawn each other's blood in just about every way there was. But Eskel had never claimed him like this. And now... now it seemed like Geralt really was going to get everything he wanted, and he was starting to think he was going to like that.

He let himself lapse into meditation, since the alternative was to lie there quietly and wait for his thoughts to turn against himself. He lingered in a quiet, comfortable no-place until he felt Eskel start awake. Geralt opened his own eyes and saw servants, eyes carefully averted, setting up a bath and a table loaded with food. Eskel tensed a little, but Geralt tapped a reassurance against his skin, the cadence that meant, we're safe here, keep still.

Eskel subsided, though he stayed awake, watchful, until the servants had all slipped back out and locked the door again behind them.

"That's fucking weird," Eskel muttered.

"I don't usually manage to see them doing it," Geralt said, rubbing a hand over Eskel's back. "It's weird, but it's not bad, just having stuff... appear. And I think it's, you know. This is how they show they're the best at doing this, if you don't ever see them but you have whatever you need."

"Huh." It was more of a grunt than a word, exhaled against Geralt's skin, and then Eskel sighed and rolled to his side, pushing against Geralt's shoulder so that he didn't follow and let Eskel peel them apart.

Eskel was blinking across the room at the food and the bath. "Do they take it away again?"

"When you're done," Geralt said. "If you don't touch any of it, they'll just replace it after a while with fresh food and heated water."

Eskel squinted at Geralt, then at the things set up for him. "That's... even weirder."

"Yeah," Geralt agreed, without qualification this time. It was weird, even if he'd mostly stopped noticing.

"M'just gonna sleep," Eskel said, making a little shooing gesture. "For... a while. You should go... do whatever you're supposed to be doing."

Geralt was about ninety percent sure that Eskel meant go to Emhyr, and studied him to be sure that it was really all right. "You sure? I can stay."

"No point, I really am gonna pass out," Eskel insisted, making the shooing gesture again, bigger this time. "No point in keeping you here too. Just..."

Eskel dropped his gaze to the sheets under them, and Geralt kept very still, waiting.

"Wake me if you take Roach out?" Eskel asked quietly. "Just... so I know, if you want to go alone."

"I'm not going anywhere without you," Geralt said quietly, and brushed a kiss over Eskel's mouth. "I mean, except to go find some of my own clothes that we didn't destroy and maybe eat dinner and all that."

"Yeah, go," Eskel agreed, flopping down flat on the bed again. "I just--" he yawned hugely. "Fuck, I'm tired."

Geralt grinned and pushed himself up to sit. "Catch up on your sleep, then, old man. I'll be back before you know it."

"Mm-hm," Eskel mumbled, already half-asleep again. He didn't object when Geralt hauled him around on the bed, and even snuggled into a pillow when Geralt pushed it close enough to be of some use, so Geralt figured that was all right.

He tugged on one of the tattered pairs of pants they'd left strewn across the floor--laundry folk only took things away in the early morning--and slipped out of Eskel's room, locking it again behind him, before he let himself into his own. As he'd suspected, there was a mirror version of the stuff set up in Eskel's room, a bath and spread of snacks, even some new clothes pointedly set out--somebody had probably reported that he'd torn up what he'd been wearing before. Enough people had gotten a look, between the garden and Eskel's rooms, including Mererid himself.

Geralt ate and bathed with efficient speed, not sacrificing thoroughness. Emhyr had seemed like he'd known exactly what Geralt would be busy doing with Eskel once they stopped fighting, and Geralt did want to see how he reacted to Geralt coming to him from Eskel's bed, but he didn't need to reek of it.

Among other things, he wasn't sure where Ciri was right now.

He did, though, dress in a loose shirt and a light, open-necked tunic that left visible some of the marks Eskel had so determinedly made on Geralt. He could have healed them to the point of being undetectable, or at least less obvious, with a dose of Swallow or even a short spell of focused meditation. He didn't even consider doing it. He needed very much to know how this was going to go over, and he needed to know as soon as possible. He was setting a test for Emhyr, and he knew it, but Emhyr would know it too, and would know what the correct answer was, so Geralt couldn't feel bad about that. 

He could feel a little tremor of unhappy anticipation, that this might be the thing that finally broke the spell of the past month and punctured the impossible happiness he had found here, but a Witcher did not let such things deter him from doing what had to be done. Geralt hesitated only long enough to listen at Eskel's door and assure himself that he was still sleeping peacefully--snoring a little, even, which meant he was really properly out--and then he headed down to Emhyr's rooms with a steady, confident stride.

So, of course, it wasn't just Emhyr on the other side, or even just Emhyr and Ciri. It was Emhyr, and Ciri, and Ciri's lady-in-waiting and possible girlfriend (she was still being cagey about that), Julena, and Morvran fucking Voorhis.

Geralt met Emhyr's eyes first after his quick, horrified sweep of the room's occupants, and Emhyr had a warm look in his eyes and a tiny smirk twisting his lips, amused and not entirely unsympathetic. Despite everything, Geralt couldn't help smiling back, holding his gaze a few beats longer than he probably should have, when Emhyr was the one person who wouldn't have any reason to doubt what the marks on his throat did and didn't mean.

The younger three, when Geralt finally looked back to them, were just kind of... staring. The two courtiers were doing it with Nilfgaardian composure and only slightly widened eyes; Ciri had let her jaw drop open. She moved first, jumping up and hurrying over to him. "Where's Uncle Eskel? Did you two get tired of each other already?"

There was a tiny choked noise behind her; Geralt thought it was from Morvran's direction. He didn't look.

Geralt pulled Ciri into a hug, squeezing her firmly just because she was there and he could, and not at all to block anyone else from staring at him for a few seconds. "Sleeping. Guess he wore himself out on the trip, coming the long way instead of having Her Imperial Highness set up a portal for his convenience."

"On the trip," Ciri echoed, taking a step back and sweeping a very obvious look down to his throat. Her tone was wry, but there was a tiny line of actual concern on her brows, and she did not look toward her father.

Geralt gave her a crooked smile and a little headshake, and raised a hand to brush his thumb over her forehead in case she didn't catch the Don't worry about it message any other way. "Yeah. So you may have to wait until tomorrow or the next day to start pestering him to spar with you."

"Am I going to be able to pry him away from your potions lab?" Ciri sounded mostly reassured, and let him go to take a half-step back, which meant Geralt couldn't hide behind her and also that he got an eyeful of Morvran and Julena's reactions. Julena looked kind of disappointed; Morvran was still a bit frozen, though there was now a bit of color rising on his cheeks, visible despite the discreet layer of powder dusted over his face.

Geralt hoped Morvran wasn't a prude, for Ciri's sake. Ciri and Julena's both, really. Geralt was already aware of Julena's opinion on being Ciri's girlfriend, whether Ciri had decided to go for it or not.

"Well, I'm sure you have other engagements to get to," Emhyr said, in an easy drawl that was nonetheless an unmistakable command.

"Yes," Ciri said immediately, about-facing to smile at her father and still standing squarely between Morvran and Geralt. "There's a dinner. Some of the guilds are finally getting their turn to throw me a party. General Voorhis is escorting me."

Geralt winced, and saw Morvran's attention snap to Ciri; he'd caught the hint of displeasure in her use of his title, when Geralt had been pretty sure they were on a first-name basis at least in this sort of semi-private setting. His lips parted, and his eyes were even wider now, fixing on her, obviously already looking for a way to make up his mistake.

Good. There was some hope for him yet.

Geralt sidestepped toward Emhyr, clearing the path to the door for Ciri and her followers, and Emhyr rose to meet him as they filed out; Morvran was still in the doorway when Emhyr hummed approvingly as he brushed a finger over the most obvious mark on his throat, and then tugged him into a kiss. If Morvran had a reaction to that, Geralt didn't hear it.

The touch of Emhyr's lips and tongue were feather-light, teasing--and a deliberate contrast to what Emhyr clearly knew Geralt had been up to. "If this is what you're used to," Emhyr murmured against his mouth, making Geralt want to shiver a little with some reaction he couldn't quite name, "I can see why you were so impatient with me being gentle with you."

That sent another feeling rushing through him, warmer and even more impossible to put into words--but he didn't dare let Emhyr get the wrong idea. "I, uh... I didn't mind you... being like that. Really."

Emhyr huffed and squeezed the back of his neck, firmly but no more than that. "I had noticed that, my dear. I've no intention of ceasing to give you something you don't get anywhere else. Especially not when we both enjoy it so very much."

Geralt felt his face actually heating, but now felt compelled to argue in the opposite direction. "Eskel doesn't--we're not always like this."

But they weren't like that, either. He and Eskel had never taken the kind of care with each other that Emhyr so regularly took with him--they'd go easy if the other was hurt or tired, of course, but they never just... lingered over each other for the sake of it.

That had to mean, Geralt realized with an unhappy twist in his gut, that no one ever took their time with Eskel the way Emhyr did with him. Geralt had done it a little himself today, while Eskel was dozing in the bath, but he knew that wasn't the same as being the center of someone's attention in the truly overwhelming way Emhyr could bring to bear.

Geralt had a moment of wild, incoherent temptation to, somehow, ask Emhyr to do that for Eskel. When he realized what he was thinking he also remembered that it was impossible twice over--he didn't know which of them would be more appalled at being offered to the other, but he had absolutely no right to try it--and shook off that train of thought with a little jerk of his head. He focused properly on Emhyr, who was studying him with a smile that wasn't quite a smirk--like he'd seen more than just Geralt being inarticulate.

"I'm sure you haven't always been like anything, in all your long lives," Emhyr said, sounding almost like he did really understand, sliding his fingers up into Geralt's hair at the nape of his neck. "Even if I dared presume to judge anything about what lies between the two of you, I hope I would know better than to try to do so purely on the basis of today's evidence."

Geralt just stared for a moment, transfixed by Emhyr's calm, steady gaze and his unhesitating touch. In the face of it, the words didn't come out as a question, however much he felt like it should have been one. "You... really don't mind."

Emhyr's smile turned sharp, and his eyes turned darkly intent. "Would you rather I put on a show of jealousy? Possessiveness?" Emhyr brought his hand around to brush against the marks Eskel had left, and Geralt shivered again. "Shall I act out a rivalry, my dear witcher? Would you be pleased to be fought over?"

"Not... not if you really meant it," Geralt managed after a moment, and that sounded a lot more like a question than it should have. He could see now: it wasn't that Emhyr didn't care. He was just putting a polite, civilized face on it because he'd agreed that Geralt could do what he liked with Eskel.

Emhyr cared a lot. Geralt remembered that remark he'd made about Geralt having more strategic virtues than a mountain pass, back at the beginning of this. He couldn't think of one bit of territory Emhyr had ever given up without a fight--and, in the end, he'd won just about all of those fights.

So Geralt didn't want to be fought over. Not... not an actual fight, where Eskel or Emhyr could really get hurt, even if not physically, and Geralt would be forced to choose a side. But he didn't think Emhyr would ask him if he wanted it, if Emhyr meant to really fight. So that meant this was something else, something that could be good.

"Mm," Emhyr said. "Well, that does leave some room to explore, doesn't it? If I only meant it a little. Just in the bedchamber, for instance, and not carrying on outside it..."

Geralt grabbed Emhyr's wrist and hauled him through to the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. Emhyr laughed, and Geralt couldn't help grinning at that, knowing that it would be just... something they could play at. Because Emhyr understood, and Eskel understood, and that meant Geralt could have both of them.

One at a time, though. With Emhyr's hands and Emhyr's eyes on him, Geralt thought that was fine. One at a time was plenty.

Eskel twitched awake at the sensation of magic nearby, and the first thing he was aware of was Geralt, sharing the bed with him, back to back. They'd slept that way since they were small, determined to guard each other's blind spots whether from pranks or from monsters.

It was also handy for not getting caught in an excessively compromising position when Ciri decided to portal into whatever room they were sleeping in instead of respecting a locked door and knocking. Eskel opened his eyes to find her perched on the edge of the enormous bed, wearing some fancy dress in dark colors he couldn't make out in the little starlight that leaked into the room. They were deep in the night, and Ciri--the Crown Princess, Her Imperial Highness--had snuck away from whatever she ought to be doing right now to see them in this room Eskel had been assigned in the palace.

"Hey, kid," Eskel murmured, low and easy so Geralt wouldn't wake; he was resting still and heavy against Eskel's back, and there didn't seem to be any need to change that. "Shouldn't you be in bed? Your own bed?"

"I'll get there when I get there," she assured him with a philosophical little smile that held a familiar hint of mischief. "I wanted to see you first, to see how things are..." She glanced worriedly past him, at Geralt, and her smile faded. "Going."

Eskel raised his eyebrows. "What've you heard so far?"

Ciri bit her lip as she met Eskel's eyes again. "I saw the rose garden."

Eskel grimaced. "Sorry about that. We, uh... had some things to hash out."

"Yeah, it looked like that," Ciri agreed, smiling wryly, and Eskel realized that their little girl had maybe understood a lot more of what was going on between him and Geralt during their time at Kaer Morhen than they'd realized. Or wanted to realize.

"I just... he went to see my Father earlier, and it seemed like he expected it to be fine, and I told him, but... I've met Emhyr."

Eskel shrugged. "Geralt has also met him, right? He'd know. I mean, do you actually think he's dumb enough to cheat on Emhyr and then flaunt it?"

Ciri shook her head slowly, staring thoughtfully at nothing, but she was still frowning. "I told him," she repeated, and then met Eskel's gaze directly. "Emhyr. I told him about you, within maybe an hour of him and Geralt... getting involved. I told him that you were close to Geralt like this, and he said we should invite you to the palace to visit him, then. But I told him you were probably already on your way."

Eskel stared at her, surprised to discover that there was something more unbelievable than Geralt having fought for Eskel's place in his life. Ciri insisting on it was...

"Princess," he said softly. "What the hell did you do that for."

Ciri smiled a little and leaned in, resting a hand on his scarred cheek. "Well, I'd already told him off about how he'd better treat Geralt well. I had to make sure he knew that meant treating you well, too. I thought Geralt might not think of it right away, and I didn't want Emhyr getting any ideas about sole possession. Like I said, I've met him."

After a breathless moment in which Eskel was more aware than ever of Geralt's even, sleep-feigning breathing against his back, Eskel managed to say, "He did. Think of it. He told me he talked to Emhyr about me beforehand, before... anything. To make sure it would be all right."

"Hm," Ciri said, glancing past Eskel's shoulder again. "He didn't check with you, though, did he."

Eskel made a faint protesting noise. That had never been the deal; they weren't that kind of thing, him and Geralt, and never had been. He'd never asked Eskel about Yen, after all, and Eskel might have had some things to say there, over the years.

"All right, well," Ciri stood abruptly, then bent to kiss Eskel's cheek--and leaned across him to kiss Geralt's too, which finally did make Geralt catch his breath and freeze. "I'll let you guys figure that part out for yourselves, then."

Ciri opened a portal with a casual little gesture and stepped through like it was nothing. That left Eskel alone with Geralt, who went on holding perfectly still at his back for the space of two of Eskel's breaths before he rolled a little away, sighing into the sheets.

Eskel rolled over to face him then, and the first thing his eyes caught on was a bite-shaped bruise on the back of Geralt's neck--where Eskel hadn't left a single mark, earlier. Eskel's hand flashed out without a thought, though he touched it as lightly as he might a puffball on the verge of bursting; he could feel the heat of it, and the perfect wholeness of the skin. Emhyr hadn't bitten him that hard, then.

Just hard enough to leave a mark, at least long enough for Geralt to carry it back to Eskel's bed.

As though he--as though Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of North and South felt like he had to leave a mark, to stake a claim, against Eskel.

On the other hand, Geralt was in his bed now--not the emperor's. Unless... 

Eskel's voice came out rougher than he meant it to as he blurted, "Did he kick you out?"

Geralt twisted to look at Eskel, his expression so honestly puzzled that Eskel immediately deduced the answer--he hadn't, and wasn't in the habit of making Geralt sleep alone in some empty room of this vast palace, which was as empty in places as Kaer Morhen even if it was kept in better repair, but had released him back to Eskel's company for the night. He'd received the message Eskel had left all over Geralt, and replied in kind. 

"Just figured you didn't want to be waking up alone in a strange place," Geralt muttered, fully rolling over to face him, settling with one leg hooked over Eskel's thigh. "And this is a pretty fucking strange place."

Eskel let out a rough breath at that, more than a sigh and less than a laugh.

Geralt gave him a crooked little smile and said, "I already ran off once to spend a week killing stuff, when it got to be too much here. Ciri's got a whole," Geralt waved a hand, "witcher information bureau going, just about. Wanna check with her tomorrow, see if there's anything we can go tackle? She'll portal us there and back, and Emhyr will understand."

And back. Because Geralt wasn't offering to really leave here with him, at least not immediately. Eskel couldn't go getting any ideas about sole possession either--not that he hadn't known that perfectly well since before he'd known people could pair off like that. He'd never imagined that he would, with anyone, least of all Geralt.

Still, Geralt was offering him something. Time out on the Path, working in familiar surroundings together, away from the insanity of the palace.

Eskel groaned a little at the thought of being back out on the Path tomorrow. The way people treated him here was fucking weird, but it still beat the hell out of getting spit on by people who wanted him to risk his life to solve their problems.

"Maybe... not tomorrow," Eskel said. "Or the next day. Did I mention I've been on the road for two weeks straight?"

"I seem to recall something about that," Geralt said drily. "It's fine, the work isn't going anywhere, and Ciri will tell us if there's something really urgent."

Eskel blinked into the darkness. It wasn't that he didn't believe Ciri was capable of something like that--she'd evidently been able to reconnoiter all over the north to find Geralt when she put her mind to it--but for everything else, he couldn't quite work out... "How?"

"Mm," Geralt said, squirming a little and settling himself more heavily against Eskel, who automatically adjusted his own position, getting comfortable with Geralt draped over him. "Well, the Imperial couriers are everywhere, right, so she has them check noticeboards and make observations of any situations that no one's advertising for that seem like our business. They report in at their stations, and..."

Eskel dozed off to the sound of Geralt's voice, proud and enthusiastic as he talked about Ciri's work. There was no sound more perfectly designed to tell him he was safe at home, and with Geralt pressed full length against him, Eskel let himself believe it.

Emhyr slept surprisingly well despite Geralt's absence from his bed. Geralt had taken the precaution of leaving his shirt folded on his pillow--just where he'd left the feathers that had greeted Emhyr the morning after he'd returned from his precipitous trip to the North. Emhyr only had to reach out to the space where Geralt wasn't, to be tangibly reminded that he hadn't gone far.

It probably ought to have troubled him more, that despite the distance between them being measurable in yards, Geralt had gone to another man's bed. Most lovers would consider that a much more significant defection.

Emhyr knew better than that, at least. Geralt was here, in Nilfgaard, and had stayed here so long that Eskel had had to search him out. That in itself was the strongest possible demonstration of Emhyr's significance to Geralt. He would not consider himself betrayed because he was not the only person who was significant to his lover.

And, after all, if he had not sent Geralt back to Eskel promptly, the effort of making marks that would last beyond a moment on Geralt's skin would have been rather wasted.

Now a new day was dawning--the first day Eskel would wake in the palace, and the first day Geralt would wake with both of his lovers--no, no, his lover and his home, as he had explained last night, immensely pleased to have found a word for Eskel which rang entirely true between them--under the same roof. Now Emhyr had to work out how to begin his campaign.

It would be a mistake, he thought, to imagine that the key to Eskel was to think of him as Geralt-with-some-differences. There would be similarities in their thinking at certain levels, but those similarities would be thoroughly drowned out by the fact that Emhyr's life and Geralt's had been entwined for decades now, for good or ill, while Emhyr had scarcely ever heard Eskel's name until a few weeks ago.

The fact that Eskel must necessarily have been far more aware of Emhyr's existence and actions, through Geralt and Cirilla's telling, was... not a help.

Well, so. If he wished Eskel to know him, he must let Eskel see him. If he wished to understand Eskel, he had to persuade Eskel to let himself be seen. And one of the traits Eskel and Geralt undoubtedly did share--Eskel likely only more strongly--was a discomfort with all manner of intriguing and subtle maneuvering.

It would not do to be subtle, then.

Emhyr rose from his bed and allowed himself to be bathed, dressed, and shaved by his silently competent servants, while he continued to consider what thoroughly unsubtle opening move might be available to him. By the time they left him, Emhyr had made up his mind; he strode out of his own chambers, down the hall to Eskel's, and knocked firmly on the door.

There was silence from the other side--which meant nothing, since Emhyr wouldn't hear a witcher moving unless he meant to be heard. It stretched long enough for him to wonder whether they were still sound asleep, or already up and out somewhere--or had recognized the sounds of his footsteps and breathing and decided not to respond--but then the door swung open to reveal Geralt wearing nothing but his braies and looking curious, verging on wary.

"Good morning, my dear," Emhyr said, reaching out to brush his thumb over a shiny little butter-smear on Geralt's lower lip. "I won't take you from your breakfast, I just wanted to speak to Eskel, and you, for a moment. May I come in?"

"Oh," Geralt said, that faint wariness fading into relaxed bafflement. "Uh..."

"Sure," Eskel said, from the likely location of the breakfast table. "Might as well hear this."

Geralt shrugged a little, smiling faintly, and stepped back to let Emhyr in.

Eskel was indeed seated by the breakfast table, wearing actual trousers but otherwise unclothed. Emhyr did not permit himself to stare at the sheer scarred breadth of the man, focusing instead on the almost aggressively casual slouch he had settled into--his edge of wariness certainly persisted, but this was demonstrably not the worst start they could be getting--this sunlit shared breakfast was surely the greatest possible contrast to his first attempt with Geralt, for instance. Emhyr would take it.

Geralt resumed his own seat by the breakfast table; there was no third chair, but Emhyr followed Geralt over and leaned against him, his hip to Geralt's shoulder, his hand lightly resting on Geralt's back.

"On reflection," Emhyr said, without further preamble, since Eskel was watching him with an utter stillness that made it clear he wouldn't speak first, "it occurred to me that coming up with some suitably diplomatic way to say any of this would be not only wasted effort but counterproductive, as I suspect that you have no more patience than Geralt does for convoluting anything which could be made simpler."

Eskel raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and nodded a little.

"So I shall simply inform you--strictly for your information, and not at this time pressing any question or invitation either explicit or implied--that I find myself drawn to you, Eskel--"

Eskel choked a little on nothing, coughed, and stared, his whole body stiffening though he didn't straighten up from his insolent pose. Geralt twitched under Emhyr's hand but kept perfectly still and silent.

"And would be open to deepening our acquaintance," Emhyr went on, unperturbed and in fact beginning to enjoy himself, though he did his best to betray no sign of that, lest he confuse the exceedingly clear message he wished to convey. "I imagine that a closer relationship between the two of us would only please Geralt, which might be reason enough, but I suspect I could very easily come to value your company highly for its own sake. You are, after all, inestimably dear to the two people I care most for in this world, and I trust their judgment in these things above my own."

Eskel drew in a breath as though he would speak, starting to frown, but then just went on staring, and absently rubbed at the scars that marked the whole right side of his face. A sign of self-consciousness? Well, it would be hard for anyone to be unaffected by the way such scars might be seen; Emhyr had spent enough years desperately hiding his own face to know the feeling.

"I hope you will not insult either yourself or me by disbelieving that my attraction is sincere; I would have no need to pretend if it were not. But, as I said, I ask you for no response now--I only wish to give you an opportunity to consider the possibility and, if you care to, discuss it with Geralt. Of course, if you do think of anything I could do to make such a prospect more appealing, I should be very glad to hear of it."

Eskel blinked a few times, and then said a bit faintly, "Sure."

"Excellent," Emhyr said. "I shall leave you to your breakfast, then--I shall be in my office most of the morning. My dear," Emhyr added, finally daring to look down at Geralt, to find Geralt beaming up at him. He ducked to press a brief kiss to Geralt's smiling mouth. "Enjoy your morning."

"Yeah," Geralt murmured against his lips. "We will."

Emhyr nodded, turned, and walked out without another word or backward glance.

He only allowed himself to pause when he was safely back in his own rooms, and then he took a few breaths, a little too deep, as if he had done more than walk briskly up the hall and back down. Which he had, of course; the die was cast. Now he had to wait and see what would come of it.

It was perhaps a good thing that Geralt had been teaching him patience and restraint, these past weeks. He had a feeling he would need all of it now.

Eskel stared at the door for several heartbeats--fast for a witcher, though slow for a human, far slower than the speeding he'd been able to detect in the Emperor's as he delivered that improbable speech.

Geralt moved a little, drawing Eskel's attention; his brother was sitting there with a positively idiotic smile on his face, stirring his finger around through a coiled orange peel he'd discarded on the table.

"Wolf," Eskel said helplessly. "What the fuck."

Geralt turned that stupid smile on him, and it didn't dim a bit. Eskel couldn't help recognizing that that was because that look on Geralt's face was for him, every bit as much as for Emhyr var fucking Emreis. It was for the fact that they'd been, however briefly, in the same room together and speaking to each other, and in those two minutes, Emhyr had propositioned him.

Eskel smiled back a little, but shook his head. A laugh bubbled out of him as he tried again to speak. "I mean--what the fuck was that?"

"Pretty sure you know what all those words meant," Geralt said, sounding somewhere between beatific and smug. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Emhyr's reaction to having to share me was to try and win you over too."

Eskel shot him a sharp look, the strategic calculation coming clear to him and draining the humor from the situation. "He wants..."

Geralt shrugged. "Like he said. He knows I'd be happier if it was all of us, if I didn't have to choose you or him. Which sounds like a fucking white gull dream, but... I would be. And it'd... he'd be good to you, Eskel. When he decides to be good to somebody he's..." Geralt gestured helplessly, and despite the lack of words, Eskel knew exactly what Geralt meant, given that Geralt had gotten around to telling him the whole story about the conservatory before they got out of bed this morning.

"He... makes total war with the might of an empire behind it?"

Geralt laughed a little himself. "Yeah. It's a hell of a thing to have him laying that at your feet, instead of aiming it at your neck."

Eskel looked back and forth from Geralt to the door, struggling to picture any part of that applying to him. Geralt, sure, people like that were drawn to Geralt; Eskel understood the feeling and had never blamed any of them. And he could even see the strategy--the undeniably correct strategy--that went into deciding to offer some semblance of the same attention to Eskel, in order to please Geralt.

Except that Emhyr had explicitly denied that possibility--I hope you will not insult yourself or me by disbelieving that my attraction is sincere--and while it didn't take a fucking genius to guess that Eskel wouldn't believe someone who already had Geralt would be attracted to him... Emhyr had said it. Had bothered to say it, when, as he'd said, he had no need, and surely had to know how adept witchers were at detecting lies, especially over any kind of prolonged period. Geralt hadn't asked him for this; Geralt had been nearly as surprised as Eskel was, but clearly hadn't picked up any sign of deceit despite knowing Emhyr well.

Any way Eskel looked at it, the simplest explanation seemed to be that it had been the truth: the Emperor of Nilfgaard wanted him, and had thought that the best way to say so was to just come here and say it, without...

Eskel focused on Geralt again, starting to frown as it occurred to him to wonder why, exactly, Emhyr knew that he had to carefully specify that he wouldn't push. People didn't tend to recognize how vulnerable a witcher could be to those kinds of pressures--especially not someone who knew that Eskel was important to Ciri and Geralt, not on his own here--unless they were the kind of person in a position to exploit that vulnerability. Those people could do the math just fine when they had a mind to.

"Geralt," Eskel said slowly. "Did he... with you..."

Geralt sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "He, uh. He was just trying to ask. I don't think he actually even said anything, he just came down to my room and I kind of... acted like he'd put a knife to my throat. Or Ciri's. And as soon as he figured out what I was thinking, he left, and the next day he apologized, and laid it all out for me, just about like that. Guess he figured he could skip the fucking-it-up step, with you."

"He," Eskel said, watching that sequence of events play out in his brain like something from a fairy tale, which, admittedly, was how things tended to happen around Geralt. "Apologized."

"Yeah, that's what I said," Geralt agreed, gesturing sharply. "He didn't even do anything! He didn't touch me! He just walked into the room being Emhyr var Emreis, walked back out after I said I'd do what he wanted but I wasn't going to like it, and then he apologized for not being more careful not to make a nuisance of himself."

"Fuck," Eskel said, a little reverently. "That's..."

Geralt nodded emphatically and shoved a roll into his mouth, and Eskel, reminded, picked up another pastry.

It was certainly something to think about; at some point maybe he'd be able to string together actual thoughts on it as something other than a wild fantasy. For now, he'd just enjoy eating his absurdly plentiful breakfast and living, however temporarily, in Geralt's fairy tale. It looked like it was going to turn out to have been worth the trip in more ways than he could have imagined.