Got a kind of bewildering ask yesterday that I won't bother answering directly as it didn't seem particularly relevant to me, but it did remind me how much I enjoyed writing Witcher fic, and that I still have some bits of Emhyr/Geralt(/Eskel) fic I was working on that I've never shared, and I am in a sharing mood today!
This is from what would have been Urbe Aureā #5, in which Emhyr begins his courtship of Eskel by offering him any witcher's favorite thing: a job in Toussaint. Geralt, naturally, goes along with him, and then they come home to the palace in Nilfgaard, mostly unscathed...
Geralt knew just what to do this time, returning to Nilfgaard in the middle of the night. He parted from Eskel with a mumbled agreement to meet again in the morning, shed his weapons and everything else he could without scandalizing any servants he met, and went directly to Emhyr's rooms.
He reached up to run a hand over the stubble that was all the hair left on the lower part of his head now. It was two days' growth, because that was how long it had taken him, Eskel, and occasionally Lambert, to deal with every other little problem someone had brought to their attention after the wraiths were dealt with.
He hadn't been dawdling this time--not like the days he'd spent in Tretogor chasing down stray bandits and necrophages. He just... couldn't go off and leave the place knowing there was a problem with giant centipedes popping out of somebody's vineyard, and a nasty ghost haunting somebody else's well--and then he'd had to make a few patrols to check for signs of any vampires who'd started making nuisances of themselves since he left. Those always turned up again when there had been a lot of them in one place, like seeds germinated by a forest fire.
But now, at last, he was done and back again. He and Eskel had availed themselves of the baths B.-B. had had waiting for them after they got back from sorting out those fleders, and then they'd agreed with barely a word to head back through the portal. They'd left Lambert asleep under his workbench, knowing well that he'd be happier to bitch about them leaving without a goodbye than to actually suffer through any parting scene.
And, after all, he knew exactly where to find them if he wanted them.
Geralt let himself into Emhyr's rooms and hesitated, listening out for a moment, but Emhyr didn't rush out to meet him as he had that time before. Maybe he'd slept a little easier, knowing Geralt had left on Emhyr's own errand, and with backup to boot. Maybe he just didn't expect Geralt to have returned after only a few days.
Either way, there was no point lingering in the sitting room. Geralt let himself into the bedchamber, and his heart did something painful and fond at the sight of Emhyr sleeping. He tried to ignore it, willed it away, even as he was walking over. He was at the side of the bed when he remembered: he loved Emhyr, and he knew that, and Eskel knew that, and Emhyr probably knew that, and as yet that hadn't brought about any more than the usual amount of destruction.
He could just... feel it. He could look at Emhyr sleeping, with his head on one pillow and another tucked under his arm like he'd lost the knack of sleeping without another body to lean against, and feel like he belonged there. In Emhyr's bed, in his arms, in his life, because that was a role he could fill, a job he could do. He could be the Emperor's Witcher and like it.
Emhyr didn't move--didn't give himself away, if the lurker in his bedchamber had been anyone less astute--but Geralt knew the moment he woke.
"Not an assassin," Geralt said softly. "Just--"
Emhyr pushed himself up to sit, a wash of delight turning his craggy features almost young, in the little light that reached Geralt's eyes. Mindful that Emhyr could see even less than he could in this dark, he stepped forward, holding his hands out, saving Emhyr the trouble of disentangling himself from the bedcovers.
"My dear witcher," Emhyr murmured, catching his hands and tugging him closer still, then catching his mouth in a kiss. "Where is your partner?"
Geralt laughed a little against Emhyr's mouth. "Not so quickly won over as that, dear majesty. But he did come back with me, safe and sound. He's in his own room, probably already asleep."
"Excellent," Emhyr said, and he genuinely did sound pleased. And he'd asked about Eskel first thing, when he might have ignored the whole matter of him until morning, and that, too, made Geralt's heart squeeze.
"And yourself?" Emhyr went on, his hands releasing Geralt's and sliding up his arms. "You smell clean enough, but you know I am not as keen as one of you. Any injuries? Any trouble?"
"Not as such," Geralt said, climbing onto the edge of the bed so Emhyr could reach more of him, and taking Emhyr's hand to guide it up to the base of his skull. "Lost some hair."
"A pity," Emhyr murmured, running warm fingers over the shorn part of Geralt's scalp before he settled his hand on the nape of Geralt's neck and tugged him into a deeper kiss.
Geralt leaned into Emhyr's firm grip, his whole body easing, muscles relaxing that had been faintly tensed for days on end. That human-strong hold on him and Emhyr's mint-clean mouth coaxing his open meant that he was home safe, done with the job, and it was finally time to let his guard down. He let himself sway into Emhyr, trusting his weight to the solid warmth of Emhyr's body.
Emhyr let out a little grunt, though his body betrayed no great evidence of straining under the pressure. He closed his other arm around Geralt and eased them both down, not bothering to sort out the covers or get Geralt naked--as though all that mattered was both of them here, at their ease. As though he needed nothing more than that.
Geralt sighed, nuzzling at Emhyr's chest, and went out like a blown candle.
I cannot find the coin emoji to ask for more Urbe Aurea, so please take the thought for the emoji?
Oh no, Eskel and Ciri and Julena have stumbled into something...
The library was a vast space, the worst kind for a fight--not to mention that they might wind up harming the books they had come to save, if things got dire. Eskel turned his head this way and that, listening, scenting the air, searching frantically for some sign to tell him what it was he had sensed, where the threat was coming from.
When he had it he moved before he'd completed a thought, spinning to push Julena further behind him, planting himself at Ciri's side as he would have at Geralt's, for he knew how she would move and where to guard her. Ten yards farther down the corridor, something shifted in the deepest shadows; Eskel's fingers twitched into the shape of a sign. Ciri's eyes narrowed.
And then came the low, rumbling laugh, echoing off broken stone.
🪙 sounds very intriguing! It’s one of (many) faves of mine of your fics
Meanwhile, back at the palace...
"Mm, that reminds me," Emhyr said, in a pointedly even voice that said he was declining to be led to talking about Eskel while they were both naked. "I have something for you, or... something I might lay upon you, if you permit me."
Geralt raised his eyebrows, his curiosity piqued enough that he couldn't argue with the change of subject. "Not a present, then?"
Emhyr made a thoughtful noise. "I do not know if you shall see it so. I had thought of it mostly as something I wanted, but if you do not mind it... perhaps Eskel would not mind either, though..."
Emhyr trailed off into a thoughtful frown, then shook his head and moved decisively to the edge of the bed--though no farther, as he simply retrieved a wooden box from the bedside table and rolled over to offer it to Geralt.
His sword was in his hand--he had drawn it somewhere between the jump and the impact--and now he stared around, feeling the northern chill bite into him, so much less than the last time he'd been here, but still a sharp difference from the desert heat they had just left.
He had made sense of nothing before Julena appeared beside him, and then Ciri came through last, and the portal dropped away to nothing. She drew her sword even before the last glow vanished, looking sharply around.
He saw her attention catch on something, and that at least snapped his senses into focus enough that he said it a second before she did: "There's someone here."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/3
Fandom: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, pre-Emhyr var Emreis/Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Characters: Eskel (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Emhyr var Emreis, Mererid (The Witcher)
Additional Tags: Relationship Negotiation, Established Relationship, Fist Fights, look it's relationship negotiation witcher style, Rough Sex, Polyamory, Marking, Bathing/Washing, Wiedźmin | The Witcher-Typical Bathing, I'm not sure if it is really but I'm so delighted by that tag I can't resist it
Series: Part 4 of Urbe Aureā
Summary:
Eskel comes to Nilfgaard, where nothing is as he expected.
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This is not the WHOLE Quid Pro Quo: Eskel Comes to Nilfgaard sequel, because I got stuck on the big action-y plot thing. So I decided to have Eskel’s arrival and introduction to this whole ... situation... be its own story.
