Chapter Text
“He can be an absolute brat.” Eskel said, smirking over his mug of ale as he took a swig.
Geralt went red up to his white hairline and huffed in indignation.
“I am not.” He muttered, an edge of sullenness to his tone.
“See?” Eskel said, raising a dark eyebrow as Jaskier who was grinning from ear to ear watching Eskel tease Geralt.
“Shut up.” Geralt mumbled, moving to punch Eskel in the arm. Eskel intercepted the swipe and grabbed Geralt’s hand, placing a gentle kiss on his knuckles and putting it back on Geralt’s lap.
“Now Geralt, what have we discussed about keeping our hands to ourselves?” Eskel asked, his face mock serious. Geralt went even more red, redder than Jaskier had ever seen him, and then, to Jaskier’s absolute delight, stuck his tongue out at Eskel, like they were both six years old.
“See?” Eskel said again, grinning back at Jaskier. Geralt just groaned and put his head in his hands.
“You’re impossible Eskel. Don’t pay attention to him when he’s like this Jask, it only encourages him.”
They were holed up in the corner of a busy pub, all the noise and activity focused on the other side of the large hall, so they could speak fairly freely, the sound of the crowd drowning out any words and no one close enough to hear them. They were in a small booth, meaning anyone in the pub would be able to see Jaskier on one side of the table, but neither of the witchers on the other bench. This wasn’t the first time they had all sat down together like this, as a three, but it was still fairly new for them.
Over the past few months, Geralt had been visiting Eskel with increasing regularity, and Jaskier thought he seemed happier for it, whenever they met up on their travels. The relationship between himself and Geralt had not changed since the shift Eskel had caused, if anything, it had made their bond stronger. Geralt was more confident in himself, and they both realised that he had been missing something in their relationship that Jaskier wasn’t able to fulfil. Or at least, Jaskier mused sometimes, hadn’t fulfilled yet, never say never and all that.
Initially Geralt had worried about Jaskier becoming jealous, but it wasn’t in Jaskier’s nature to be jealous of a lover getting what they needed and deserved, especially when it was with someone Jaskier loved as much as he was growing to love Eskel, with his friendly bear energy and how he put Geralt so at ease. Jaskier loved Geralt, and whatever made him happy made Jaskier happy. And after saying this often enough, it seemed to be getting through to Geralt, and he had started organising small meet ups for them when they were all in the same area, although it hadn’t turned into more than that yet. Jaskier didn’t think Geralt was ready for anything more yet and he was being careful not to push him, they were still figuring out the dynamic between them all as friends before it went on to anything else. It was always clear before they met up who would be leaving with who, if they weren’t all just to go their separate ways, and no one begrudged it.
“Oh the tales I could tell from all those long winters in Kaer Morhen.” Eskel’s eyes twinkled with mischief as he looked over to Geralt, gauging his reaction, and seeing nothing there which forbid where the conversation was going, looked back over to Jaskier, “He gets into a right mood a couple of weeks in, likes to test the boundaries, you know?” He said to Jaskier with a wink.
“I do not get into a right mood!” Geralt tried to protest but it came out slightly whinier than he intended. Eskel looked back to him with an expression that made Geralt squirm a little under the attention, before conceding with, “I’m not that much of a brat,” in a sulky tone, with the most adorable pout Jaskier had ever seen on his face.
Eskel reached around and put an arm around Geralt’s shoulder consolingly, his fingers rubbing small circles through Geralt’s shirt. Geralt was tense for a moment, listening to the sounds of the tavern around them, but he quickly relaxed into Eskel’s hold. He trusted Eskel to keep him safe, Jaskier realised. That must be such a special gift for a man who spent his life protecting others. His heart swelled in that moment with love for this beast of a man.
Eskel’s voice dropped into a more sultry tone, “Would you like to hear some stories Jaskier, see what you’re really getting into with this one?” He bopped Geralt on the nose to punctuate the last word, and to Jaskier’s immense surprise, didn’t in fact get his finger bitten off in the process. Geralt’s eyes were becoming heavy lidded and if Jaskier didn’t know better, he would have thought that Geralt was slipping slightly. But as his slowing mind processed the words, a quiet growl emanated from him.
Eskel laughed softly, “Alright, a more tame one to start then. Wouldn’t want to scare our dear bard off would we?” Geralt hummed in approval, clearly no longer in a talkative mood, he looked pretty cosy snuggled against Eskel’s side, content to let him take the reins of the conversation.
“Okay, so a couple of decades back, when we were all a bit fresher onto the path, there was one winter where Geralt decided he wasn’t doing any more chores…”
“It’s your fucking turn to do the dishes.”
“Fuck off Lambert, who put you in charge?”
“Geralt come on,” Eskel said more reasonably, “You know what Vesemir will say, he was pretty clear that you’re back to normal training and chores this week.”
Geralt just crossed his arms and raised his nose slightly in the air, “No.” And he turned and threw himself down to lounge on the furs by the large fire burning in the hearth in the kitchen. Vesemir had left them after dinner to tidy up, Eskel was to sweep, Lambert to put the leftovers away, and Geralt to do the dishes. Except that clearly wasn’t what Geralt had planned for the evening.
“You’re just grumpy because Ves won’t let anyone fuck you this week.” Lambert growled.
Geralt dutifully ignored him, laying back and picking at his nails, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Eskel could read the lines of his body though, and knew there was tension starting to build there. Geralt did always get antsy a few days into Vesemir’s enforced breaks. If he didn’t have the willpower to enforce them, they would all be fucking like animals through the winter and no one would be thinking about if they were taking too much from Geralt, especially not Geralt himself. They were supposed to be a few scattered weeks where Geralt trained and did chores like normal and was forced to rest his body and his mind. Vesemir had only introduced them last year and so far, Geralt was the biggest protestor of them.
“Geralt, Vesemir’s going to be back down here in a couple of minutes and he’s not going to like that the dishes aren’t done. If you think it’ll make this break end quicker, you’re wrong.”
Geralt just shrugged and didn’t move, Eskel could tell his scent had shifted slightly into something more tense.
Eskel just sighed and finished up his jobs quickly, while Lambert noisily and grumpily banged about the kitchen doing the same. By the time Vesemir returned, his footsteps slow and measured on the wooden stairs, Eskel was sitting at the table, quietly grinding up potion ingredients, Lambert was flicking through his gwent deck and Geralt was where he had been the whole time, lying back on the fur, one leg over the other, looking up at the ceiling, like a cat basking in the warmth of the fire.
There was a long pause as Vesemir entered the kitchen, the door creaking shut behind him.
“What’s been going on here then?” He asked quietly. Lambert opened his mouth to speak, but Eskel quickly shook his head for him to keep quiet and kept grinding the herbs. The tense silence filled the room like thick syrup, broken only by the soft sound of the pestle. One of Vesemir’s tried, tested and true techniques for getting people to talk, the long hard silence. Eskel could hear when Geralt started to squirm under the pressure. Geralt sat up, and from Eskel’s position he could see him look over at Vesemir with big eyes.
“That look didn’t work on me when you caused that explosion in the potions lab pup, it ain’t going to work on me now. Why are the dishes not done?”
Another long pause and then a long pitiful whine emanated from Geralt.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself Geralt?” Vesemir asked, tone stern.
“I-I… I’m not doing the washing up.” He muttered, face shifting from wide eyed innocence to sulky. “I don’t want to.” He said, and crossed his arms, turning away from them. Eskel’s protective instincts flared a bit at that, was Geralt having a delayed drop after being forced onto a break?
“I see.” Vesemir said, tone level. And proceeded to do something no one in the room could have predicted. Nothing.
Vesemir took a seat at the table beside Eskel, opposite Lambert, and pulled out his own gwent deck, quickly shuffling and drawing a hand. Lambert just watched on, mouth slack with surprise.
“Well boy? Are we going to play or not?” Vesemir said, and Lambert recovered himself and drew his own hand.
Eskel kept one eye surreptitiously on Geralt while the others played. He was still lying on his back, one leg crossed over the other, the picture of ease, but his brows were bunched and his mouth twisted. He began chewing on his bottom lip, a sign Eskel knew as frustration from Geralt. Here in Kaer Morhen they were much freer with their expression and they all had certain tells they let slip.
Geralt’s eyes caught Eskel’s watching him and he scowled and slumped back, seemingly very interested in the ceiling. Eskel supressed a small smile, he understood now. Geralt was grumpy that he was being forced on a break and was hoping his outburst would compel Vesemir to do something, knowing Geralt, he was probably hoping for a spanking, and the guaranteed cuddles afterwards. But Vesemir, as always, knew exactly what the other witchers were thinking and had countered with his trump card. He would not rise to Geralt.
Eskel waited in anticipation of Geralt’s next move. If he knew his brother in arms at all, he knew Geralt was too stubborn to stop there.
Sure enough, as the others were beginning to deal their second game, Geralt piped up again.
“And I’m not going to be helping fix the roof on the North tower tomorrow, so you can all have fun with that.”
“Is that so?” Vesemir asked, the epitome of uninterested, and said no more.
Geralt huffed at that and rolled over to stare at the fire for a bit, shuffling as if uncomfortable and huffing and sighing enough that it started to become annoying. Eskel could see Lambert starting to tense up, his face reddening slowly, just as he opened his mouth to speak, Vesemir put a hand on his arm, and gave a very subtle shake of his head. Lambert managed to rein himself in and looked back down at the game.
Geralt had been watching from the corner of his eye and seeing that his latest attempt had failed, he suddenly hurled himself to his feet and then stood there, as if not knowing what he had intended to do. No one in the room said anything to him, but Eskel raised an eyebrow subtly at him, as if to say, “what next?”
After a moments indecision, Geralt suddenly stormed over to the sink, picked up one of the large serving dishes and raising it over his head, let it drop onto the stone floor, where it proceeded to smash into four jagged pieces, splattering meat pie filling across the floor.
Lambert and Eskel both stared, wide eyed and mouthed at the display, waiting with bated breath for Vesemir’s respone.
“No way you should have played the harpy there, Lambert, you’ve opened up your whole front line, I thought you were getting better at this.” before playing another card on the board. He didn’t so much as glance in Geralt’s direction.
Before anyone could say anything else, Geralt turned on his heel and left, slamming the door angrily behind him.
“What?!” Jaskier asked, gobsmacked, “ there’s no way you acted like that Geralt!” But the answering blush creeping up Geralt’s cheeks was answer enough, and he turned his face slightly more into Eskel’s broad arm.
“What happened next? What did Vesemir do?”
Eskel laughed, “Went on like that for a couple more days, this one,” He said prodding Geralt in the shoulder and earning a grumpy grumble, “kept breaking things and shouting at everyone while Ves ignored him. Until one morning, me and Lambert came downstairs and he was kneeling at Vesemir’s feet, tame as a puppy, eating berries out of his hand,” He scoffed, “And then he spent about a week cleaning up all his mess, and wearing a cage while he did it. Don’t think Ves let you come for at least two weeks altogether am I right?”
“Sixteen days,” Geralt mumbled, “I kept count.”
“But why did he give in?” Jaskier asked confused.
Eskel chucked, “Vesemir didn’t give in, if there’s one thing you need to know about Vesemir, it’s that he never ever gives in, where do you think this one learned all his stubbornness? Geralt’s the one who gave in eventually, what was it that you learned wolf?” Eskel said, deepening his voice and putting on a bit of mock sternness, to emulate Vesemir, Jaskier was sure.
“I learned to ask politely for what I need.” Geralt muttered, almost too quiet to hear, his face blooming red in the most adorable way Jaskier had ever seen.
“An important lesson, I’m sure you’ll agree Jaskier?” Eskel said, with a wide smile, “I’m just glad he finally got there, he was making everyone pretty miserable, and we’ve never been able to find a pie dish quite as good as that, they don’t make them like that in this century.”
“M’ sorry,” Geralt murmured, face buried now, shamelessly, in Eskel’s ample bicep.
“We all forgave you long ago, especially with everything Vesemir got us to do with you after.” Eskel said with a wry smile, tucking a stray strand of white hair behind Geralt’s ear.
“I wanna hear another one!” Jaskier said, bouncing slightly in his seat like an excited child.
“Ha! What one shall I tell next hmmm? How about the great edging debacle of “76?”
Geralt groaned, “Nooo Eskel, don’t.”