Hey all! Sorry this chapter is late; I'm still trying to get caught up on classwork from what happened a couple weeks ago, but I'm nearly there and I'm hoping to be back on a normal schedule next week! Thanks for being patient with me while I figure things out! –Bel
A Wolf Among Lilacs
Part One: Longing/Regret
Chapter Four: Everybody Here Wanted Something More
"I still don't understand why you decided this was a good idea."
Yennefer paused, looking away from her reflection to meet his gaze in the mirror. "Why I think what is a good idea?" She blinked slowly, then resumed filling in her eyebrows with a pencil. She'd been steadfastly ignoring him for the past ten minutes as she went about her morning routine. It wasn't anything new—she never liked to be disturbed then—but there was tension hanging in the air between them. It had been there last night and it was there now, stronger than before. If he stopped to think about it, it had been there for the past year or so, but neither of them wanted to acknowledge it.
"This." He swept his arm out, encompassing the whole room in the gesture. "The whole…you know as well as I do that you're not exactly going to be the best teacher."
"No," she agreed, "I'm not." Turning away from her reflection, she walked over to the closet, considering a large array of black and white clothing. "But they don't give a damn about my teaching ability. They care about my research." She pulled out a dress and examined it for a moment before sighing and putting it back. "And my ability to keep a department full of men in line."
There it was—his other big concern, though he knew better than to voice it outright. If there was anyone who could make a department of men (and Keira Metz, though she certainly wouldn't be of any help) listen to her, it was Yenna. But she already had enough to deal with without that extra weight on her shoulders. "And you think you can do that?"
She didn't stop buttoning up the white shirt she'd settled on, but he could tell by the sudden force of her movements that she was angry. More and more often he felt he should just keep his mouth shut about his worries, but then she'd accuse him of hiding things. As if she hadn't been doing the same thing. He remembered Philippa's snide comment about how well he really knew her, and he wished he hadn't.
It had been like that from the start. The three of them, always together—or rather, Yenna and the two of them, because he'd noticed that Triss and Philippa didn't get along so well. At first he'd found it annoying, how protective they were of her, but he'd learned to keep his observations to himself. Every time he asked her about it, she would fold in on herself, lips pressed together, shaking her head, staring at something half a world away. It was frustrating—words couldn't express how frustrating it was—but one night she had turned to him and begged him with looking-glass eyes not to ask her again, that it hurt too much to tell.
So he stopped asking. But he never stopped wondering.
"Do you really doubt me that much?" She pulled on a black skirt, stepped into a pair of heels, and walked back over to the mirror. In a few minutes he would have to portal back to Aedd Gynvael, because she'd made it very clear she didn't want him to stay. It felt as if she were building a family here—her daughter, who didn't like him, Triss Merigold, who despised him, and soon enough, he was sure, Geralt of Rivia. He'd heard her talking to him the night before, and though he wasn't quite sure yet where he fit in the equation, he had a sinking feeling he was being pushed farther and farther out of it.
"Not you. Never you," he said. She scoffed at her reflection, pushing her hair aside to put diamond studs in her ears. The more active stones I've got on me, she'd told him once offhandedly, the better. "You know I wouldn't. They're the ones I don't trust."
He saw her purse her lips and exhale slowly in a way that clearly said she was trying to calm down. "Can we stop having this conversation now?" Without waiting for a reply, she picked up a green jar from the vanity in front of her and unscrewed it. Her scent filled the room as she smoothed its contents over her forearms, and he was suddenly filled with the desire to keep her there, not let either of them leave. Judging by the way she made a show of putting the jar back and grabbing the glass bottle that held her perfume, she knew.
The mood dissipated almost immediately, though, when, after carefully placing the bottle back where it had been, she turned to the side and started to examine her silhouette in the mirror. He tried to keep his annoyance internal. He knew what she was doing and why, and after nearly eight years, it was beginning to grate against the edges of his nerves. Standing carefully so as not to disturb the precise arrangement of things she'd laid on the bed, he drew up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. He could feel her hipbones under his fingertips. She met his reflection's eyes, her own expression unreadable.
"Don't dwell on it," he said as he pressed his face into her hair, trying his hardest to memorize its softness, the scent. He didn't know when he'd see her again after this; she'd said herself she wasn't sure when she'd get a break. She laughed a little, albeit resentfully, and rested her hands on top of his, wrapping her cold fingers around his wrists. They both knew it was pointless for him to say these things, that she would keep thinking about it no matter what he told her, so she didn't respond, just turned so her face pressed into his chest. He shifted one of his hands to the back of her head, and she sighed into his shirt.
"You're not terribly good at sympathy," she said, her tone a little lighter than it had been. Her fingers came to rest on his chest, and he pressed his lips to her scalp. It was these moments where he felt the gaps between them painfully acutely, where he started to get the feeling that he didn't know her nearly as well as he should. He'd been thinking it for almost as long as he'd known her, far before their relationship had become romantic, but things like this brought it to the forefront of his mind. She knew, he was doubtless, how he felt about it, but that had never changed her mind about keeping her secrets.
"I was under the impression you didn't want it." She hummed a little in amusement as she tried to pull away, but he kept her in place with his hand, fingers twined in her hair. When their eyes met he could sense slight irritation, but he was suddenly struck with the fear that if he let go now he would never get her back.
"That's ridiculous," she whispered. He sensed her probing at his thoughts and didn't complain. Anything to make her see. "If I were going to leave, I would've done it by now. Besides…" She slid her hand along the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The setting of her ring, twisted slightly on her finger, scraped against his skin. "I thought we'd already cleared things up."
The scent of her perfume clouded his thoughts and he kissed her, trying to imprint her in his mind—the softness of her lips, the way they slid against his own, how she sighed quietly into his mouth and wound her fingers into his hair. There was no space between them and he didn't want any space. He kissed a trail down her throat, right above the velvet ribbon that encircled her neck, satisfied by the way her breathing became shallow even as she pushed him back, smiling regretfully. He let her return to the mirror, and when she left he opened a portal home, not saying anything about how she'd taken a piece of him with her.
~oOo~
Geralt realized quickly that the job wasn't going to be at all like he'd thought. He had planned to keep the class mostly physical—demonstrate, pair the students up, walk around and correct them, much as Vesemir had when he and Eskel had been training. He didn't consider himself good at giving lectures, but that much he could handle. That plan went to hell the second a few of the students figured out who he was. From that point on he was bombarded with so many questions about his profession that he hadn't actually taught them a single thing when their time was up. Hours later, when he relayed the story on his way to lunch, Dandelion laughed so hard he almost fell over on the sidewalk. Triss was polite enough not to say anything outright, but he saw her trying not to snicker when she thought he wasn't looking.
"Well, what did you expect?" Dandelion choked out as he tried to catch his breath. Geralt stared down at the concrete as he walked, squinting his oversensitive eyes against the early afternoon sun. "You may not like it, but everyone knows who you are."
"That doesn't have anything to do with the class," he grumbled.
"But it's why they brought you here." Next to him, Triss dug through her purse, sighing in annoyance when she couldn't find what she was searching for. The breeze pushed her emerald-green dress against her legs, and a few minutes earlier she'd tied her hair up because she couldn't deal with it whipping around her face. "The same thing happened to Yenna this morning, if it makes you feel better. She got it under control fast enough, though. It probably helped that a lot of the questions she was getting were…of a personal nature."
"The difference," Dandelion said with his usual exaggerated air of authority, "is that Yennefer actually enjoys her fame."
Triss snorted, covering her face with her hand, and when Dandelion turned to look at her, offended, he ended up having to spit out a mouthful of his own hair when the wind picked up. "If you think that, you clearly don't know her very well. All Yenna wants is to be left alone. She might accept her notoriety, and she certainly knows how to use it, but she hates it just as much as Geralt."
The look on Dandelion's face indicated he didn't believe her, but he let it go for the moment. "Where is she, anyway?"
"She left already. I'm pretty sure 'getting a table' is what she said, but she really just wants to talk numbers with Regis before the rest of us get there."
"Re—what?" Geralt was beginning to figure out that he was being left out of the loop more often than he thought. "Regis is here too?"
Triss turned to him with a bewildered expression. "He's been here the whole time. He's you department head, Geralt. Don't you check your email?"
Before he had a chance to respond, Dandelion stopped and directed them through the door of a rather inconspicuous-looking diner. He craned his neck to look around as they made their way to the counter, and he finally spotted them, the sole occupants of a large corner booth. They were bent low over the table, black hair against grey, though they were equally pale. He kept an eye on them while he ordered and, when Dandelion and Triss had also paid, they made their way over, sidling around the mess of other tables in the center of the room.
"We're here!" Dandelion announced loudly and unnecessarily as he slid into the booth after Triss, who had moved all the way over to sit next to Yennefer. Regis stood for a moment and hugged Geralt, clapping him on the back a little too harshly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yennefer gather up most of the papers they'd been poring over and slide them into her bag, out of sight.
"Hello, Geralt of Rivia," she said as he sat down next to Dandelion, more or less directly across from her. There was a slight sheen to her lips and her hair, unfettered, reached halfway to her waist in glossy black curls. She barely glanced up at him as she said it, focusing instead on another pile of papers that had appeared in front of her.
"Hello, Yennefer of Vengerberg."
He hoped that was a grin he'd seen flit across her face, and not an expression of annoyance. "It just doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely, does it?"
"Yenna, are you grading already?" Triss interrupted as Geralt began to answer, and he was secretly grateful; he still wasn't quite sure what to do around her. "You're going to work yourself to death. It's one section. Take a few hours, at least."
Yennefer exhaled slowly as she looked at the stack in front of her. "Do you know what, Triss? You're absolutely right." With an exaggerated flourish to rival Dandelion, she picked them up and put them on top of the styrofoam container that held Triss's food. "You're my assistant. You should be doing this."
Triss's mouth formed a small O as Dandelion burst out laughing, and Geralt bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a laugh of his own. The action seemed very much like something Ciri would do. He wondered if Yennefer had been like that before they met, but he already knew better than to ask. Instead he turned to Regis, who was chuckling as he looked over his own notes. "Didn't know you two knew each other," he said, so softly that hopefully Regis and only Regis would pick up on it.
He must have, because he replied in near silence. "I'm not surprised. Most people don't." For a moment he paused, staring at the numbers in front of him as if that alone could make them behave. "But yes, we know each other. Have for…oh, a decade or two. Time does tend to get jumbled."
It seemed to him as if the longer he stayed there, the messier things became. All of his friends knew each other, had connected already in ways he would never have anticipated. Being on the Path for so long had made him miss more than he thought. "And what do you think of her?"
He glanced to the side, but the other three were embroiled deeply in another conversation, more or less ignoring them completely. Still, they were too close. "Later," he mouthed, and Geralt nodded, opting to ask instead what he'd been up to in the several years since they'd seen each other last.
"Oh, I've been all over. Mostly farther to the south," he replied vaguely, eyes darting back down to his notes. It was clear there was something he wasn't saying, something he couldn't say there. "I don't know that you would find it at all inter—oh!" Without looking away from the pages in front of him, he grabbed a felt-tip pen in his right hand and Yennefer's forearm in his left. She started as she turned to him but, surprisingly, she didn't pull away as he uncapped the pen with his teeth and started to write something very complicated-looking down the length of her skin. It seemed to him a very Regis thing to do. He'd always been excited about research, whether his or other people's, and had talked about his finds even when no one else around could understand what they meant. It was refreshing to see that that, at least, hadn't changed.
Yennefer watched his scribbling with great interest, turning her head to better read the equation he scrawled on her skin while Dandelion and Triss looked on in confusion. She pushed her hair behind her ear with her free hand. There were shadows of bruises on her neck that he suspected only he could see; she'd concealed them so expertly that no one else would be able to tell they were there. Regis let go of her wrist and she stared at it for a very long time, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
"No, that wouldn't work," she said finally, taking the pen and writing over his work, crossing things out as she went along in neat, slanted handwriting. "Well, perhaps for someone with a higher tolerance for magical healing. For someone like me, though…" She finished her revisions with a large X across most of the numbers. Triss pressed her lips together and focused on her food unwaveringly. She looked upset, though Geralt didn't see what she had to be upset about. Regis picked up her arm again, examining the corrections very closely, and Yennefer smiled tightly, aware that the whole table's focus was on her. He nodded after a minute, conceding to whatever it was she'd written.
"What's the research for?" Geralt asked. They both looked up at him—Regis concerned, Yennefer's expression unreadable. Dandelion still looked bewildered, and Triss was noticeably becoming more and more uncomfortable. He knew he'd made a mistake. He didn't know what the mistake was.
"It's fine," she said softly—she must have been reading his mind, and it must have been extremely subtle for him not to notice. At the moment, he didn't particularly care anyway. When he met her eyes, her stare was less piercing than it had been the night before. "I'm researching full-organ regeneration. With or without the use of magic, at this point."
"And how's that working out for you?"
Triss's head snapped up as she stared at him in shock. Even Regis looked a bit stunned, and it only took a second for him to realize the idiocy of the question. Yennefer, to her credit, just smiled again, though a bit sadly, as she slid her arm under the table, hiding what was on it from view. "Not very well, Geralt of Rivia. Actually, not well at all."
Triss made a choked noise as she pushed the remains of her food away and grabbed her purse. "I can't listen to you talk about this anymore," she muttered, forcing Geralt and Dandelion to stand as she shouldered past them out of the booth. The other stood too, and Yennefer called after her, but she didn't look back as she left.
Yennefer swore under her breath and started to gather the rest of the papers still on the table. "Apologies for the unceremonious exit," she said, looking mostly at Geralt, "But really, I've got to talk to her about this. She'll stew in it all day if I don't." She threw a glance at Regis that, he thought, said more than every word she'd ever spoken to him, and then with a wave of lilac-and-gooseberry perfumed air she was gone, the only proof she'd been there the looks of utter bewilderment on Geralt and Dandelion's faces.
"Well." Regis clapped his hands together, seemingly unfazed. "These things happen. Shall we return to the campus, then? I've some things in my office you two might be interested in."
"If you mean what I think you mean, I'm all in." In less time than it would've taken Geralt to cross the room, Dandelion was back to his normal self, chattering excitedly as they exited. He appeared to be the only one to even remember what had just happened. He had a feeling that would become a pattern.
"Geralt!" Dandelion said, pulling him out of his thoughts. "You've got a decent phone now, right? Oh, this is great! We can finally add you to the group chat!"
"Wait—the what?"
So there is a reason this is going to go fairly slow and it's that there are clearly some other plots happening here. The main focus is obviously on Geralt and Yen, but I don't want to take time away from these other things either. Things are really going to start to pick up soon, though...
(also: my absolute favorite modern headcanon (besides "the rats are a punk band") is "Geralt doesn't understand how to use technology" and there will probably be more of that in the future lol)
