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They were thirty minutes into dinner and twenty-nine into Ciri's monologue about Mistle when Eskel had an uncomfortable realization.
For a second, Eskel hoped he was wrong for Geralt’s sake. He was sitting across the table from Eskel, listening to Ciri, nodding along and making those little noises that could mean anything, but his eyes kept ticking around her face like he was memorizing it. He might be. Their court date for Ciri's custody case was tomorrow.
Then Eskel’s stomach clenched as he had a terrible realization.
If Calanthe got Ciri, she’d be the one to have ‘The Talk’ with Ciri. Vesemir had been bad enough, his whole ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ approach hadn’t been the kind of support either Eskel or Geralt needed, but Calanthe…Calanthe might make Ciri believe that who she was as a person was wrong.
“And then Mistle told Mr. Fleet that revolutions were about a change in philosophy as much as a change in government. She's just so smart, isn't she?” Ciri asked, wearing a grin that lifted her whole face, and Geralt's along with it.
“Hmm,” Geralt agreed, almost at the right time.
Ciri rolled her eyes at him and shimmied around in her seat excitedly. “I promised I’d call her after dinner, is it ok if I go?”
“Sure,” Geralt said. “It’s my turn to do dishes anyway.”
It wasn’t, and they all knew it.
“Hug?” Ciri asked, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself in the sign.
Geralt opened his arms and Ciri jumped to her feet. She hugged him quickly before dashing off towards her room, though she only made it about halfway before hurrying back.
“Wha—” Geralt started, and then she was hugging him again with tears in her eyes, the embrace lasting just a little longer than it would on any other night.
“Just for a few minutes,” she said nasally, tracing the scar on Geralt’s eyebrow as she let him go. “Then maybe we can play Mario Kart or something?”
“K,” Geralt said to her retreating back.
Eskel put down his fork and glared at it.
Yeah, Geralt was going to have to talk to her now, in case…just. Well. It was better not to put off this kind of thing.
“Uh,” Eskel started, eloquently, “do you remember when you and I, er…?”
Geralt, who’d gone back to pushing the food around on his plate like he thought it'd fool Eskel into believing he ate any of it, blinked up at Eskel. “Always?”
“Yeah, of course, me too,” Eskel agreed. He had always loved Geralt, though neither of them knew what it meant at the time. “But do you remember when we started, you know. Messing around?”
Geralt’s eyebrows clicked together. “Don’t know, maybe around—” he cut himself off.
“Fourteen or so,” Eskel finished, watching as Geralt’s milk pale skin faded to something closer to gray. “It’s not a bad thing, you know.” Although that early fumbling could have been less furtive, less shameful. “Or. It doesn’t have to be.”
Silence stretched while Geralt stared glassy-eyed at a point somewhere behind Eskel’s head.
“Ger?” Eskel prompted, trying to keep his lips from crimping up in amusement at Geralt’s poleaxed expression.
“I…it shouldn’t be a bad thing,” Geralt finally said, and the sadness in his eyes killed the last of Eskel’s humor.
“I think you should talk to her,” Eskel said. “Make sure she knows what she needs to know.”
“I should talk to her,” Geralt repeated flatly.
“Er. Surely it’d be better coming from you?”
Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “Why.”
“No reason!” Eskel began piling dirty silverware and dishes onto his plate, so he had somewhere to look that wasn’t Geralt’s face. “Not because of anything about you specifically. Except you’re her father.”
Geralt caught Eskel’s wrist before he could stand. “You said you were all in.”
“I am,” Eskel said, still staring at the flatware.
“For everything.”
“Of course!”
“This is part of everything.”
Eskel turned his wrist in Geralt’s hand so he could clasp his wrist in turn. “Well. I guess I can’t deny that. You really want me there?” Eskel allowed himself to peek up through his hair at Geralt’s face.
Geralt tugged Eskel’s hand up to his lips and dropped a kiss onto his scarred knuckles. “Doofus.”
“Fair enough.” Eskel cleared his tight throat. “What’s the approach?”
They still hadn’t landed on one when Ciri’s bedroom door creaked open again ten minutes later. She settled in one of the high stools at the kitchen island, facing Geralt and Eskel where they were doing dishes in noticeably awkward silence.
“What?” Ciri asked. “You two are being weird. Weirder than usual.”
“Thanks,” Geralt and Eskel said in unison.
Ciri laughed, toes kicking the cabinets as she swung her feet. “Ugh, you’re the worst.”
“Yes,” Geralt said very seriously. “You aren’t going to enjoy this.”
“What.” Ciri asked, and Eskel had to swallow a huff at her Geralt-like inflection. Or lack thereof.
Geralt took a deep breath and let it out, then took another. “Eskel and I, we were about your age when we. Started having sexual relations.”
“Oh God.” She was already blushing. “Who calls it that?”
“Fucking around?” Eskel suggested. He hip-checked Geralt, jostling the silverware in his hands.
“Fucking around,” Geralt agreed, still much too seriously, but now with a bit of mischief in his eyes.
Ciri plugged her ears. “I don’t need to know this.”
“Eh,” Eskel said. He pointed the spatula in his hand at her. “You need to know some of it, at least.”
“Yes,” Geralt agreed. “Yen’s probably a better source for the mechanics, although if you need to talk about it I will—”
“La la la I can’t hear you.” She had her eyes scrunched shut now. “I do not need to talk about the mechanics. I can’t think of anything I want to talk about less.”
“Good,” Geralt said with feeling. “I mean, don’t have unprotected sex—”
“LA LA LA! I have had health class. LA LA LA!”
“And that helped?” Eskel asked idly. His memory of middle school health class was a nothing more than a generalized feeling of profound embarrassment.
“Condoms, birth control, I got it.”
“This is important,” Geralt said doggedly. “You don’t want an STD; you don’t want to get pregnant. Not now.”
“I get it. I’m not stupid. Why are we still talking about this?”
“Because that’s not the really important part.”
That got her attention at last. Cautiously, Ciri opened one eye and unplugged one ear. “It’s not?”
“Not even a little bit,” Geralt said. “It’s like…trucks.”
Eskel blinked, his hands stilling on the plate he was drying. “Trucks?”
“Yes.” Geralt side-eyed him. “The important thing about a truck isn’t the nuts and bolts. It’s where it can take you, how it can make you feel.”
“I feel like you might have a strange relationship with your truck,” Ciri said conversationally.
Geralt sighed gustily. “You are a shit.”
“You love me. Even the parts that are a shit.”
“I do. Maybe especially those parts. But I need you to listen to me, please. This is hard to say and I don’t know if I can do it twice.”
Something in his tone made both Eskel and Ciri pause. Lowering her hands from her ears, Ciri clasped them on the counter before her. “Ok. I’m listening.”
“I’ve always felt…wrong,” Geralt said to the bottom of the sink. “For the way I am, for who and how I love.”
Ciri made a sad little sound. “Why?”
“I’m attracted women, and men, and…well, probably people who don’t like either label, or use more than one.” His teeth ground audibly, and he fidgeted with the dirty silverware. “I’m…I’m not picky.”
Eskel winced. “That’s not fair. You’re picky about lots of things.”
Geralt looked up for long enough to glare at him.
“I mean,” Eskel scrambled to clarify, “just not gender or what’s normal or any of that shit. It’s not fair to say it like you’re, like…”
“Slutty?” Geralt suggested to the dirty dishes.
Eskel and Ciri exchanged a look, both cringing.
“Anyway.” Geralt flicked water off his hands as if shedding the last few minutes. “My point is, I don’t want you to feel wrong for loving who you love, whoever you end up loving. The important thing about any relationship, sexual or not, is being safe and happy in that relationship.”
“Okayyyy…”
“I know it sounds obvious now, sitting here across from two old men—”
“Hey!” Eskel objected.
“But it won’t be so obvious at the next party, or the next time you and Mistle are alone in the dark.”
“We aren’t…we aren’t like that.” The blush on Ciri’s cheeks expanded down her neck.
Both Geralt’s and Eskel’s eyebrows jumped up.
“What?” Ciri demanded.
“We never were, either. ‘Like that’,” Eskel explained, smiling fondly at Geralt. “‘cept we kinda were the whole time.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Geralt said. He finally met her gaze straight on. “Boys, girls, both, neither, more than one person at a time…as long as you’re happy, as long as you aren’t hurting yourself or who you’re with…I don’t care. Love yourself enough to do what makes you happy and to avoid what doesn’t. Ok?”
Ciri nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Good.” Geralt nodded once, jerkily, and then dropped his eyes to the dirty dishes again. He began scrubbing a pan with more intensity than it probably warranted.
“I want you to be happy, too, you know?” Ciri narrowed her eyes at Eskel and tipped her head towards Geralt suggestively.
Eskel blinked several times. “…what?” he mouthed silently.
“No matter who you love,” she added. “Boy, girls, both, neither…more than one at once.”
Eskel swallowed hard. The rubble was still there between him and Geralt, the remnants of the walls Eskel had put up over Geralt’s attraction to Jaskier, and it hurt to trip over it again.
“I love Eskel,” Geralt said, putting on a half-smile that didn’t make him look any less miserable. “I don’t want what I’m like to hurt him.”
“Geralt, no,” Eskel said reflexively. “You don’t hurt me just by being you.”
Geralt shook his head and said nothing.
Ciri waved her hand frantically, gesturing for Eskel to continue.
"What if... what if I’m ok with it?" Eskel blurted. Anything to wipe the self-loathing off Geralt’s face, to give him the acceptance he so readily extended to everyone else.
“You aren’t,” Geralt said without looking up. He sliced one hand through the air, spattering water around, to emphasize his point. “I’m with you. I won’t do that to you.”
Eskel blinked at the finality in his tone. He could leave it there, five minutes ago he would have, but Geralt’s unflinching commitment made the next words a little less bitter in Eskel’s mouth.
“Maybe I could be ok with it,” Eskel said, trying to make it the truth.
“Yeah!” Ciri said much more convincingly.
Geralt put the clean pan on the counter between them and shot a look at Ciri that said he was on to her tricks, before turning his full attention to Eskel.
“Jaskier,” Geralt said. “That’s what we’re talking about now.”
“Apparently.” He didn’t quite deliver it evenly.
“Hmm. Do you think he’d want something like that with us?”
“What?” Eskel’s jaw dropped. “Us? He wants a relationship with you, that’s for sure. And I can share.” Despite his best efforts, that one was definitely a lie.
Ciri smacked her own forehead.
“But Esk,” Geralt said slowly, “the way he looks at you, he’s interested.”
“Very,” Ciri confirmed.
“You mean the way he looks at you.” Eskel poked Geralt in the chest.
“No, I don’t. I notice how he looks at you. I like how he looks at you.”
“Huh.” Eskel’s eyebrows climbed. He’d never thought of it as a good thing when other people admired Geralt. But now that he knew those looks weren’t going anywhere…it was kinda sweet, when other people saw what a good, and frankly handsome, person Geralt was. “How does Jaskier look at me?”
“Like Geralt does,” Ciri said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Like…like he’s been distracted from worrying about you by how cute you are.”
“Thanks,” they both said again, much more tartly this time.
Ciri giggled, then sobered. “Maybe it’s hard to see because you’re more of a ‘neither’ person than a ‘both’?”
Eskel’s blush crept down his neck. This wasn’t something he talked about; it wasn’t something he even thought about most of the time.
“Cub, it’s rude to just ask someone to out themselves,” Geralt said with an apologetic shrug for Eskel.
Eskel hadn’t known he was being outed, but that did explain his desire to melt through the floor and hide in the basement for the rest of his life. “I guess I’m more of a…‘interested in specific men’ person? If that’s a thing.”
“It’s a thing,” Geralt said with the confidence of someone much more in touch with the whole sexuality spectrum than Eskel was.
“Men? As in more than one?” Ciri asked. “Anyone in particular?”
“Leave him alone, Ciri, you’ve made your point,” Geralt said. “I take it you’re not opposed to adding another dad to the roster.”
“Nope!” Ciri said, popping the ‘p’. “Now. Mario Kart anyone?”
*
Much, much later, after a couple dozen races that were more about sabotaging each other than racing, and a not-quite-tearful goodnight from Ciri, Eskel found himself hesitating before getting into bed.
“I’m sorry,” Geralt said. He was already on his back in bed, eyes closed and face stony.
“No,” Eskel argued. “I don’t know what you’re apologizing for, but no.” Leaving his bedside lamp on in case he needed to be able to read Geralt’s face, Eskel slid under the covers and rolled onto his side facing Geralt.
“Sorry for Ciri picking at you?”
“…well. Not your fault, but thanks.”
Geralt sighed. “Among other things.”
“Don’t.” Eskel poked Geralt’s shoulder, waiting until Geralt tipped it toward him in invitation to snuggle close and rest his cheek on Geralt’s chest.
This was another thing that was different about being with Geralt now. Before, Eskel had usually been the one to hold Geralt, to tuck Geralt under his chin or wrap himself around Geralt’s back. And Eskel had enjoyed it, having the protective role. But allowing himself to be soft and vulnerable meant discovering how good it felt here in Geralt’s arms, cherished and adored.
It made him wonder what else he was missing because he wasn’t allowing himself to have it.
They lay quietly, just breathing together. Well. Geralt breathing while Eskel picked at his scars.
“Quit that,” Geralt said, grabbing the offending hand and lacing their fingers together. “What.”
“Do you really think Jaskier wants…us?” Eskel blurted.
“Pretty sure he does want you, yeah,” Geralt answered the question Eskel hadn’t dared ask, arching one eyebrow. “And I’m absolutely sure he knew we were a package deal before we did.”
“Huh,” Eskel said, wiggling a little as if settling into the warmth of that statement. A package deal.
Yeah, that felt damn good.
“Doesn’t matter,” Geralt said. “Because you don’t want that.”
“Hmm,” Eskel said, and the sound came out more contemplative than he meant it to. It was so much easier to be open to this new idea when he knew Geralt would be steadfast either way. “Do you want that? If he could have you, and…me, and if we could have each other and him, if somehow we made it work as some sort of three…ple? Threeple?”
“Throuple,” Geralt provided very quietly.
“A throuple. Would you want that?”
“You don’t,” Geralt repeated.
“Not what I asked.”
Geralt tipped his face down to meet Eskel’s eyes. “Esk, you can’t put what everyone else wants before yourself.”
“Says the expert in self-sacrifice,” Eskel teased gently, kissing Geralt’s chin. “Answer the question, nerd.”
It was silent for a long time, no movement in the room except Geralt’s belly rising and falling beneath Eskel’s hand. Eskel caught himself picturing Jaskier on Geralt’s other side, smiling with sparkling blue eyes at Eskel across Geralt’s chest.
“I would want that,” Geralt finally said, his voice a tentative whisper. “I’d want to try, with us three.”
“Hmm,” Eskel said.
“But you don’t want that.” Geralt said, and Eskel knew it was a question despite its flatness.
Eskel tucked his face against Geralt’s neck, hoping the anonymity would give him courage. “I think I might want to try us three, too,” he said into Geralt’s pulse point.
The arm Geralt had looped loosely around Eskel’s waist tightened a little. “Really.”
“Yeah,” Eskel said, and he meant it. “You know, after everything settles down again.”
There was a beat of silence while they both thought about tomorrow.
“What if…what if Calanthe wins?” Geralt asked.
“She won’t, Geralt. You’re the best thing that could have happened to Ciri after her parents died, and everyone can see it.”
“’We’,” Geralt corrected. “We’re the best thing that could have happened.”
“Because we’re a package deal,” Eskel reminded himself, rubbing his cheek on Geralt’s chest with a happy hum.
Whatever happened tomorrow, whatever happened with Jaskier, he and Geralt had each other. They’d figure it out. Together.