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“Witcher.”
The voice belongs to a woman. Low, insistent, and neither the tone of a woman seeking to refill his mug of ale nor one offering her bed for the night in exchange for his coin and a story she can tell for years to come. He glances up slowly.
She’s an uncommonly beautiful woman- wearing an uncommonly fine black gown laced with coppery-gold embroidery, dark hair that falls in loose curls around her face, and a black cloak with a hood that frames that face in shadow even as it spills to skim the worn pine floorboards of the inn. Sorceress, then. And one who recognizes what he is when he’s doing his best to go unnoticed.
He says nothing, waits for her to talk. Tries not to flash his eyes. His swords aren’t visible at the moment, tucked away as they are. His medallion lies beneath his shirt. He looks younger than many of his rare brethren, and he’d taken pains to conceal his identity before entering this village. They’re prone to both suspicion and superstition around these parts, and he’d wanted to avoid anything that got between himself, a hot meal, and a warm bed.
His last job had paid well enough to afford the room, but not entirely enough to feel like fair compensation for the wounds his body had yet to finish healing. A few nights of inns and comfort are going to go a long way toward being back in fighting form. As plans go, it’s a perfectly fine one that gets a good deal harder if the innkeeper or the other patrons here perceive him as anything more than a weary traveler on the road. When people get curious, they ask questions and don’t always like the answers. And if she speaks any louder or stand here much longer, curiosity will be unavoidable.
“I’m Maria of Konik,” she introduces herself, “and I have a message of the utmost importance for you.”
He gestures for her to sit, and she does with grace and elegance of movement not often seen in roadside inns of this size or reputation.
“What is this message?” he asks tersely.
“Less a message in the strictest sense.” She hesitates. “I…have visions, sometimes. See the future.”
“A useful skill.”
“Sometimes,” she allows. “Other times confounding or infuriating. But this time clearer than most, at least. Your friend is in danger.”
“What friend?” he guards his expression with long practice.
She elides his question, answering something he didn’t ask instead.
“I see enough of the future to know we will become good friends over our immortal lives, Alexander of Brud, and one of the few you have. But as this is our first meeting, I know you bear little confusion as to who I could mean. The bard is in peril.”
This time, it takes effort not to allow his eyes to widen or his lips to move. But his heart still hammers out a few extra beats.
“Where is he?”
“Far from here,” she says swiftly. “Weeks of travel, by conventional means. But the danger he faces is far more urgent than that.” She lifts his mug and takes a sip. He could stop her any time and they both know it, but he makes no move to do so. The fact clearly pleases her. The earthenware meets the table with the faintest possible sounds and she draws her elegant hand back once more. “He has become the target of a spell that unleashes a Hodag upon its victim. It will not cease to attack until it has torn its intended prey limb from limb, and mortal men are no match for its teeth and claws and vicious hunger.” She looks at Alexander consideringly, and he has the sense that she is assessing him still. “I’ve protected him as well as I am able with a spell around the hunting lodge where he is sheltering. But the spell has limits, and loses its potency during a full moon. Moonrise tomorrow is when the Hodag will come for him,” she proncounces. “Unless it can be stopped. And only witchers have ever succeeded in killing them before.” The last of her words come out in a rush, and he has a sudden understanding of the terrible urgency of the situation.
“Why even tell me this, if we are weeks of riding away from where he is? What purpose does that serve?” He bites out the words, irritation rising to mask his concern.
“I can bring us there, with magic,” Maria of Konik replies, looking pleased with herself. Alexander is less than convinced.
“That’s complicated spellwork,” he observes. “Taxing. Not the sort of thing most magic-users are willing to perform. What is he to you that you are willing to bear on that cost?”
“Part of every best future I have glimpsed. So long as he survives past tomorrow. So long as you come to his aid.”
“And what of the other futures?” he inquires.
She meets his gaze, dark eyes open and expressive as she slowly shakes her head. Well then.
“I don’t suppose there’s compensation for this task?” he says, reaching for his pack. He imagines that’s indication enough he plans to go with her.
She stands, and he does as well. “We both know you don’t require it, in this case,” she says, brushing her fingertips against the worn tabletop and turning toward the door to the inn-yard.
He has no response to that, so he follows her.
The portal that she opens takes them to a hunting lodge tucked into the edge of an old forest. A small yard that had been cleared a hundred years or more ago has begun to cede itself back to the wood, and the boxy stone structure with its slate roof sits at the center of the yard. It’s taller than it is wide, though that says little. Sturdily built, despite its age, it’s the sort of structure that it seems ludicrous to imagine the nobility devoting their efforts and purses to creating as a fortification like this against bunnies and deer, until one realizes the level of fortification is actually built with the local folk who might want to hunt the bunnies and deer without the King’s permission in mind.
Still, stone walls should help to keep the Hodag from making an easy snack of the bard, so he doesn’t disapprove.
Looking about, he can sense the slight disturbance of the air close to the trees. He narrows his eyes, glad for his good vision in the darkness.
“That’s the boundary of the spell,” Maria supplies. “It will keep anything from physically crossing in as long as it hold, but if anyone steps across it from within its bounds, it will start to dissolve. That’s why I opened the portal here, so close to the lodge itself.
“He’s in there already?” Alexander asks.
Maria nods, and leads him to the heavy-timbered door.
The common room is empty, the fire banked in the hearth. But the glow of candle light spills down the stairs, and it’s those he climbs on near-silent feet. And there, standing in the center of the room, drawn from his seat by the sounds from below, is the bard, curls and grin the same as he remembered.
“Guerin,” he breathes, and then his arms are full of bard, forcing him to plant his feet as he returns the embrace. He doesn’t allow himself to cling to the other man, though the bard clearly has no such reservations. But Guerin’s hair is soft under his fingertips, the solid reality of his body a warm reassurance. Alexander allows himself to breathe in his scent
“You’re here.” Guerin marvels, pulling back and regarding him at arms length with astonishment. “How did you know…”
“Your sorceress friend found me, explained that you’d landed yourself in hot water again. Which jealous husband did you enrage this time?”
Guerin grimaces for the briefest moment, but covers it skillfully with a grin.
“That’s not fair, Alex,” he rejoins lightly. “You know sometimes its the jealous wives who send the hounds after me. Or sometimes both parties together if I’ve overstayed my welcome.” He smiles as he says it, but the smile doesn’t quite ease the sense of sadness or exhaustion from his eyes.
He starts to launch into a tale of woe, where he himself will be portrayed as both the put-upon martyr and the daring hero all at once, but Maria interrupts.
“Having heard this bit before, I’ll leave you to it,” she says dryly. “I know a spell that can help to slow a creature, and I believe I can use it to your advantage against the Hodag tomorrow night. But it requires things I don’t have access to here. I need to fetch them, and it will take time. I’ll return by mid-morning. Perhaps by then, you’ll have had a chance to bathe, Witcher. You stink of monster blood.”
He likes her. Possibly because she irritates him even as she makes his lips twitch toward a smile, though his tone remains measured.
“In all fairness, I’m not sure the creature had any blood. It was more of a goo.”
“Were there tentacles? I hate the tentacles, but they’re very dramatic when they have tentacles,” Guerin observes. Maria ignores him, her eyes widening slightly in surprise, and then the barest expression of mirth.
“What do you know- a Witcher who has wit. Bathe, and you might actually be tolerable company.” She tosses her head and trails down the stairs. The door closes behind her with a loud scrape and a sudden air of silence.
“She means it, you know,” Guerin eventually says. “There’s a bath tub here- fit for a king. She’ll have filled it by magic just now. Hot as if it has just been heated on the hearth and lugged up here."
“I could use it,” Alexander admits. “I washed the worst of it away in a stream yesterday, after I had been paid, but it was no finely heated bath. And tonight, she dragged me from my inn after I had eaten, but before I had called for a wash basin or had a chance to rest.”
“If Maria is right, there’s no real danger tonight. That will come on tomorrow’s moon. So…you have time. I can…help you with your armor, if you desire.
Alex nods, not trusting himself to speak.
True to Michael’s claim, there is indeed a wash tub- deep and luxurious- set behind a screen, already draped with linen and filled with water hot enough that he can see the steam curling into the air.
He loosens the straps and laces of his armor, lets Guerin ease the pieces of it from his body. It’s a ritual they’ve performed many times before, when they used to travel together. Before… Just, before.
He keeps his breathing even, every time Guerin’s deft fingers brush his arm, or his torso, whisking away another piece of the armor he wears like a second skin. But it takes effort.
Guerin turns away when he goes to pull his shirt over his head, perusing the bath offerings on the table against the wall, and keeping up a stream of even chatter that belies the skill he has in caring for people behind the glib, attractive facade.
“Chamomile, I think, for soothing and relaxation. And you’re favoring your right arm a bit, which means it’s paining you, so I think we should add calendula as well. Not Lavender, I think, but perhaps the geranium oil, for the tension in the sore muscles?” he adds the selections to the bath water, the steam making the scents dance across the room. Alex takes the time to pour water in the wash basin and scrub the worst of the filth of the road from his arms and chest, not wanting to foul the bathwater that Guerin has so thoughtfully prepared with scent and soothing herbs.
The delay means that by the time he reaches for the buttons that fasten his trousers, Guerin is finished preparing the bath. They meet each other’s gaze for a moment before Guerin makes to turn away.
“I should give you your privacy,” he says.
“You can stay, Guerin,” he says without particular forethought. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
He regrets the words almost immediately. It doesn’t do to remind Guerin of what has transpired between them, the gulf that has yawned between them ever since. It doesn’t do to remind himself. Guerin’s jaw clenches.
“You have wounds that haven’t healed yet. I have some of my salve in my pack. I’ll go and get it.” He ducks around the screen.
Uncertain if he truly intends to come back, or if the thoughtless words have sent him running, Alexander strips off the rest of his clothing, setting it aside haphazardly. His prosthesis, carved with sigils and bearing a silver toe cap to improve the force of his kicks, he takes more care with, stripping it from the boot that could do with cleaning and leaning it against the wall. He lowers himself into the bath, letting the heat soak into his weary muscles, the steam rise into his nostrils. He rests his head against the high edge of the bathing tub, lets himself enjoy the sensation of the deep water and the soothing scents, the last of the dirt dissolving from his skin.
Long minutes pass and then suddenly Guerin appears again, a small carved pot in his hand, and a wary expression in his eyes.
“I wasn’t convinced you were coming back,” Alex admits. “I…wouldn’t have faulted you.”
“Between the two of us,” Guerin observes, just a hint of a bite to his tone, “I’m not the one with the tendency toward leaving.”
**************************************
Alex thinks that Guerin might simply leave the salve and step away. He doesn’t though. He steps forward, not even glancing away.
People rarely look directly at Alex for long- most people don’t like to meet a Witcher’s eyes- they glance aside, look at the floor, speak to the air above his shoulder. It unnerves him how often Guerin doesn’t do that— how often he looks at Alex directly. How disconcerting it feels to be seen. For long moments, Guerin doesn’t speak- he just moves and looks and sees, until he goes to his knees beside the bath. Even then, he doesn’t speak, but sets aside the pot of salve, reaches for a cloth in silence, and dips it into the milky, herb-scented water.
The first press of the cloth to Alex’s chest makes him part his lips. The warmth of the water runs in rivulets across his skin and the scents in the water waft stronger for a moment, but the true heat that blooms is from the fact of Guerin’s hand on him, the cloth such an insufficient barrier to the touch of his skin that it’s a proxy for it instead.
Alex drops his gaze to take in the sight of Guerin’s hand, committing the details of his dexterous wrist, his agile bard’s fingers to memory. He’s seen those hands wrapped around the neck of a lute, coaxing music from it’s wooden body more times than he can count. It’s a much rarer sight to see them on his own body. And like this… suffice to say, it’s rarer still.
He bends his neck, lets Guerin glide the cloth across the back of it, dip it in the water again to wash his other shoulder.
“You know why I left.” He says it as carefully as he knows how. Guerin nods, his lips set in a thin line.
“Fear. Cowardice.”
Alex blinks at him, shakes his head slowly as he frowns.
“Is that what you think?”
“You left because you were afraid to love anyone. To love me. I’ve made peace with that as much as I can.” Guerin speaks his view plainly, never faltering in his ministrations.
“I’m not afraid to love,” Alex protests, a burr of frustration giving his voice more growl than normal. The amulet slides on his chest as his shoulders tense, fingers grasping the rim of the tub.
“You made love to me in the forest, that night after the water hag attacked us and nearly killed me,” Guerin recalls. “You kissed me, touched me, laid me back on our bedrolls and brought us both pleasure. And then then next morning, you declared it would never happen again. And not a month later, in the inn on the road to Svelberg, we proved that theory wrong- up against a wall no less. And then you left the next day. Because the idea of loving someone, of being with them even so much as twice, it scared you.”
“I’m not afraid of love, Guerin.” Alexander growls. “I’m incapable of it.The choice for love was taken from me. I’m a Witcher, and you’re a mortal man who deserves to give his heart to someone who can give him theirs back. My presence was keeping you from that. I had to leave.”
“That’s a chamber pot full to the brim with piss and shit,” Guerin says calmly. Alex grabs his wrist, stills his movement.
“It’s not.” He meets Guerin’s eyes, gets distracted enough this close to their amber depths that he has to blink to clear his mind.
“You left for my own good. So I wouldn’t get hurt,” Guerin summarizes. It’s a reiteration of what he’s just said, so he has to agree.
“Yes.”
“Setting aside the fact that you leaving like that hurt like a knife to the chest anyway…You believed I would get hurt if you stayed, because you didn’t want me to give you my heart?”
It’s not that he hadn’t wanted Guerin’s heart. He’d perhaps even become too accustomed to having it near at hand. Guerin’s smile had so often brought about his own. The touch they shared- casual, innocent, as between most traveling companions- was a balm on his world-weary spirit. Nights spent on the road, around campfires where the bard would play his lute and coax Alex to play a bit as well on the fipple pipe or ocarina before they bedded down under the stars (or lay close together under the shelter they made from the rain. The scent of rain makes him think of the Bard’s skin even to this day) were ones that made him actually enjoy travel. No, the problem wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to know a heart like that. It’s that wanting isn’t enough to make it possible.
“I wouldn’t have been a worthy steward of it.”
“That should probably be my decision, shouldn’t it?”
“You weren’t making the choice to protect yourself!” Alex protests.
“Did it ever occur to you that I had weighed the risks and determined that the barest chance of what I wanted was worth the possibility of pain?” The Bard’s eyes flash with passion. Alex feels a painful knot twist in his belly.
“Did it ever occur to you that I cannot bear to see you in pain?”
Guerin stills, then shakes his head slowly, a laugh whispering from his lips. When he speaks, the words have the ring of an idea long considered.
“You feel other things. Other emotions. I’ve seen them. Anger. Wrath. Grief. Mirth- though it’s admittedly hard-won. Lust. Why not Love?” He continues on, doesn’t allow room for a response. “You saved my life. Traveled with me at your side. Laid beside me at night. Lay with me as well. You care if I am hurt, the idea of my heartbreak causes pain for you. You never tire of my company- not truly. You care if I am well, you seek to protect me from harm, to make my life the best than it can be. Some of ideas of protection are misguided, but… how can you be so certain that you can’t feel love? Because from where I sit, it seems like you deny the possibility of love even as you suffer for it. Do you deny it? Truly?”
Alex’s fingertips ache with the desire to touch the bard, but he shows restraint, wraps them tigher around the rim of the washtub instead.
“I don’t deny that what I feel for you is the most that I have felt for anyone in all my long years of this existence,” he says in measured tones. But the greatest heights of what I can experience are a pale imitation of the emotions that mortal women and men may ignite. I have seen you love a dozen people in our travels. More. I know that I cannot love you as they can- the capability is beyond me. I do not write poems or songs, I do not think to shower you with lavish gifts, I cannot throw banquets in your honor. I dance better with my sword drawn than I do at a ball. My life is dangerous, not suitable to the things that a lover requires- safety and surety and certainty. I will always be drawn by events beyond my control. I cannot love you as you deserve.”
Guerin shrugs, curls shifting in the candlelight.
“I don’t need any of that. Or rather, I don’t need it from you. I can play at feasts and dance with people in any grand hall or country inn. I’m perfectly capable of writing my own songs, as you well know. I like the adventure that life on the road with you entails. And as for gifts… You gave me a dagger once, told me I had to be able to defend myself. You taught me how to use it. I pretended to be slower at learning it than I was so you would stay close, guide my hand as you taught me. I still wear it. A prince whose bed I shared for a few nights gave me a jeweled one to replace it. Gorgeous sapphires set into the hilt, completely stunning. And after you left and I found myself in need of food and lodging and couldn’t earn enough with my lute? I traded the prince’s dagger. Not yours. Yours I kept.” Guerin smiles. “I won’t deny that I like beautiful things. But there are many types of beauty in the world, and I consider myself a connoisseur who appreciates them all. I think you’re more capable of love than you let yourself believe, Alexander of Brud. And I think that you should trust me to give my heart to whoever I want— but even if you don’t agree, it’s too late in that regard. You’ve had my heart for a long time.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Alexander says hoarsely.
“That’s just insulting, and in honor of the fact that we’re together in the same room after far too long apart, I’m going to ignore it. Of course I know what I’m saying. I’m saying that whether or not you’re willing to admit how you feel for me, I love you. That what I want is to be with you and have what love you have to give. And I desire you, which,” here he glances down pointedly, “I have to say is something that you can’t exactly hide that you reciprocate. Your eyes betray you, and the water in this bath isn’t as clouded as you might suppose.”
“What is it you want?” Alex asks, his thoughts swimming with everything the man before him has just said.
“I want you to kiss me,” Guerin tells him, outragously assured. “We can figure the rest of it out over time. But I really want you to kiss me.”
That, Alexander can do, even if it’s not the wisest idea. He reaches his hand out, grabs hold of the laces of Guerin’s shirt, and draws him in with hardly any effort, for Guerin is already moving toward him.
The first brush of lips is startling in its familiarity. The next moment brings a heady spike of lust, a mounting desire. His awareness of the room fades around him, until the high edge of the washtub prevents a barrier to drawing closer, which draws a growl of displeasure from his chest. He feels the bard smile broadly beneath his lips.
“Yes, it is rather a large tub, isn’t it?” he says cheerfully. “Quite high. Well built. Almost big enough for two, even.” There’s mischief in his voice, impishness and roguery dancing in his eyes. The tub is decidedly not large enough to comfortably fit two men, yet Guerin stands, pulling off the shirt that has been dampened with water from Alexander’s grasp and tossing it aside. Alex cannot make himself look away from the expanse of golden skin and lean muscle. He doesn’t want to look away. His heart rate increases, but he doesn’t mind. The trousers are next, and then Guerin is standing there in full nude glory, candlelight flickering over curves of muscle that Alexander longs to touch.
Guerin must be nervous, but apart from the smallest tells, he doesn’t show it. He moves with assured confidence, surefooted like a cat as he steps to the bath and then climbs into it. He eases himself into the water, arousal evident, until he is settled into Alexander’s lap, the water lapping dangerously close to the edge of the washtub. And when he reaches out, cups his hand at the back of Alex’s neck…Alex goes to him, leans forward until their lips meet, lets himself succumb to the lure of the kiss. He lets himself touch as well, hands slick with water, tracing the planes of Guerin’s back, burying in his curls.
“Don’t leave me,” Guerin urges. “Love me as you will, but don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.” He licks salt from Guerin’s skin, nips at his jaw. “Not again.”