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“Eskel?”
“Mmmm?”
Shani chuckled, pausing next to the tub and leaning her hip against it.
“Are you enjoying your bath?” she asked, a fond smile scrunching her nose and making her freckles cluster.
“Mmmm…”
His own mouth cracked into a smile, the scar pulling at his lips making him no less adorable. He reached out a damp hand, grasping her wrist and looking up at her fondly.
“Missed you,” he murmured.
“I missed you too,” she said honestly, kneeling next to the tub and resting her arms on the edge, resting her chin on them. She looked into his golden eyes, reaching out to card back his damp hair. She settled, crossing her ankles. “Tell me about your contract?”
He hummed, turning his head lazily and sighing. The water sloshed and he shrugged. “Not much to tell. Simple fiend contract, didn’t give me too much trouble. Did get interesting territory-wise though.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How’s that?”
“The fiend and a leshen were in the same area. I finished off the fiend and went to take the head and felt just this--” he gestured “murder of crows watching me. Barely jumped out of the way before the thing appeared, all smoke and roots and skull head.” He made an exaggerated face and Shani snorted.
“You should be a poet.”
“Oh shut up, none of us Witchers are masters of description. Why do you think Dandelion has to embellish so much? Geralt tells him that he cut the head off of a rotfiend and Dandelion turns it into an epic battle bordering on good and evil.”
Shani made a face, tilting her head. “....can you cut the head off a rotfiend?”
Eskel raised both eyebrows and sat up in the tub, the warm water running in trickles down his muscles to pool against his scars. “You’ve been studying again, haven’t you?”
“Part of me misses my academy days. There’s something therapeutic in reading boring, dusty tomes,” She teased. “Besides, I like knowing what you’re talking about when you tell me about your hunts. Present or past,” she said, reaching out to stroke his scarred cheek. “So, can you cut the head off a rotfiend?”
“In theory. If you’re very, very fast. They have to trigger that--” he wiggled his fingers in the air and made a grimace “exploding reaction.”
“Sounds gross,” Shani commented mildly, trailing her fingers in the water. “What happened with the leshen?”
Eskel shrugged. “Let it go. It took one look at the fiend, then back at me, and dissolved in a puff of moss and dust. The area wasn’t heavily populated and I’m not going to go tracking and pissing off a forest spirit I haven’t been paid for. So I put my heart back in my chest, took my fiend head, and got paid.”
Shani shook her head, feigning surprise. “Wait, hold on--did you just admit that you were scared?”
“Startled,” Eskel said, raising a hand. “I was startled. You would be too if you suddenly had a ten-foot forest demon right behind you.”
She raised an eyebrow and smirked playfully at him. “Only startled and yet you had to put your heart back in your chest. That sounds like more than a knee-jerk, master witcher.”
Eskel narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “You’re walking a thin line, doctor.”
“Oh--really?” Shani straightened up, leaning in to meet his challenge. “And who is going to put you back together the next time you come back with one of these?” she asked, reaching out to touch a claw mark on his shoulder.
“I can stitch myself,” he protested.
“I can see that,” she scoffed, glancing up and down his body.
“Ouch.”
“Oh I’m sorry, do you need help dressing that wound? Your pride is, uh, looking a little critical there Eskel.”
Eskel’s lips twisted into a kind of smirk that was half mischief and just as she realized what he was going to do she simultaneously realized she was too late to stop him.
“Eskel, don’t--” she shrieked, just as he lunged out of the water and wrapped both arms around her, pulling her back down with him.
The water sloshed everywhere.
“Mess with a witcher you get the teeth,” he growled, dunking her soundly in the warm water and burying his face in her neck. He snagged her collar between his teeth and she pushed at him, laughing so hard her protests were barely intelligible.
“Eskel no hey these are new don’tyoudare.”
His arm around her waist kept her pinned solidly in the tub and she kicked without result. He growled and huffed into her shoulder but couldn’t keep up the facade and she was soon laughing too hard to scold him because he’d begun to tremble with his own laughter.
“Gods, Eskel. You could have at least waited until I was out of my tunic.”
“I could," he said, picking his head up. "Or I could help you with it.”
“Well at this point you owe me that at least,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting her head.
“Well who am I to skip out on a debt?” Eskel murmured, leaning in and kissing her warmly.