#implied pairings

Geralt snarls at him, startling Elsa just as she sets down their ales. He snatches a mug from her hand and quaffs half of it in one go as the woman skitters away warily. “Why do you even bother asking? Shouldn’t you know already?”

O’Dimm leans back, amusement writ plain on his face. “Ah, but if I knew everything this wouldn’t be half as much fun.”

“This is your fault,” he mutters back.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I had nothing to do with your little…predicament. And as you know, I-”

“You never lie, yeah, yeah,” Geralt cuts him off with a sigh. Every time they encounter each other, Geralt has tried to disprove that claim, but again and again his words prove their troth, though often in a twisted way that would make even a lover of riddles grimace. Geralt finishes his ale and grabs O’Dimm’s too. He makes no protest, smiling at Geralt with his hands folded under his chin.

“You could end this, you know. Quite easily, in fact.”

Geralt scoffs. “Sorry, but I don’t feel like trading in my soul for eternal torment.”

“But isn’t this it’s own form of torment? You witchers aren’t built to live as long as you have. It would be so much simpler to simply cut a deal with me.”

“See, that right there,” Geralt points at him, “that’s how I know whatever you’ve cooked up is a thousand times worse. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll break this curse on my own.”

“You wound me,” O’Dimm rears back, hand on his chest where his heart would be if he had one. “And how is that working out for you so far? The Lodge has been useless every time you confide in your Merigold or Yennefer. Telling your daughter just makes everything worse, in the end. We could wager for something smaller – knowledge of where to start looking, or that elf’s firefly, perhaps?”

Geralt scowls at him deeply. The both know that O’Dimm has little to offer him in the way of knowledge – he’s bartered for it before – and doing things out of order usually end in the swifter, more painful death’s he’s experienced. Besides that, he knows his way through the damn mist blindfolded by now. Still… “I’ve beaten you before and I’ll win again.”

O’Dimm hums. “Granted, I’ve vastly underestimated you in the past. But the hundredth time’s the charm, wouldn’t you say?” When Geralt just keeps scowling, he shrugs. Geralt knows him well enough by now to see how practiced the motion is – how much effort O’Dimm puts into appearing as human as possible. But he sees more now than he has in past lives, how these human gestures fit him like a doublet stitched too tight at the collar, his eyes too sharp and empty to be natural.

O’Dimm takes a drink from the mug in his hand – Geralt doesn’t blink at its sudden appearance, his stolen mug still clasped in his own hands. “Tell me how you died this time. Did Eredin get a lucky swing in? Or did Emhyr lose his patience again and have you beheaded? That was an entertaining go-around.” Geralt twitches, unable to fight his grimace at the mention. “Hm, perhaps the Frost got to you. Oh, I know, a drowner! That would be embarrassing for a witcher with half a millennia under his belt.” In the face of Geralt’s continued reticence, O’Dimm’s gaze drifts over his face and down to his throat. Geralt doesn’t move away when he leans forward and brings up a calloused hand to rest at the edge of the scar left by the striga princess years ago. It’s a gesture so familiar that Geralt pays little mind to the attention they might garner as O’Dimm’s thumb strokes over the edge of the centuries-old wound to press at his carotid artery, even when he feels Vesemir’s gaze boring into his back. “What was it this time?” O’Dimm asks again when their eyes lock.

“One of the Hunt’s hounds,” Geralt says flatly, hands itching for silver when O’Dimm finally pulls back with a guffaw.

“Geralt of Rivia, the feared Butcher of Blaviken and father of the Savior of this Mortal Sphere, brought down by an icicled dog! That’s probably your most embarrassing defeat yet,” he laughs. Geralt keeps his mouth shut and valiantly doesn’t recall the time a harpy cornered him and he fell backwards off a cliff and broke his neck. If O’Dimm doesn’t know about that, he doesn’t want to bring it up just in case the man really does read minds.

O’Dimm quiets, and a nearly the same time the familiar murmurs of discontent over the Lilies rise behind Geralt. Eyes flutter past his shoulder before O’Dimm looks back to him. “Seems as though it’s nearly time to reunite with your heavily-perfumed lady love.”

Geralt sighs and stands, leaving the empty mug on the table as resignation fills his gut. It’s been years since he felt the need to seek Yennefer out immediately; even longer since the bone-aching desire to be near her was broken permanently. It seemed some enchantments, even those cast by djinn, couldn’t last through multiple resetting lifetimes. He says nothing as he turns to intercept the woman about to bang Elsa’s head against her own bar. He’s long past the need to draw a blade here – Vesemir eyes him sideways but says nothing as Geralt dispatches the ruffians with naught but practiced, bare hands and a few signs.

It’s as he’s pushing his way out the door that O’Dimm raises a mug in his direction. “Good luck on the path, witcher. May we meet once more under better circumstances!”