Archive of Our Own

“Lambert!”  Even if he didn’t recognize the bard’s voice he would have known who it was simply because there was no other living being that called his name with such evident joy at discovering his presence.  Sure, he had a significant suspicion that despite their protests Geralt, Eskel and Vesemir were usually happy to see him, but that was more of an implied thing, in scent and small smiles, and less of a loudly and obnoxiously yelled down a busy street thing.

He turned to see Jaskier waving and approaching quickly, with Geralt following a few steps behind on Roach and to his credit the first thing he thought was:  Don’t do it.  This is neither the time (winter) nor the place (Kaer Morhen).  We are two witchers in a city full of humans who can turn nasty at the drop of a hat.  We are already making people uncomfortable just by existing here.  Our continued survival depends on us sticking together and if I sow division, or even give the appearance of sowing division, between us here, we would be unsafe.  The second thing he thought though was:  Fuck it.  He grinned broadly back.  “Geralt’s lover Jaskier!”

He managed to time it so that Geralt had one foot out of the stirrup and so slightly fumbled the dismount.  Unfortunately, it was very minor and easily recovered and Lambert doubted anyone other than him had even noticed.  Oh well, it was still worth it for the flustered glare he was now receiving from the other witcher.  The look of smug satisfaction was wiped off his face when Jaskier threw his arms around him though.  It was the first friendly hug he could ever remember getting out on the Path (Kaer Morhen, as always, had its own rules) and it threw him off enough that Geralt was able to recover and smirk smugly back at Lambert’s flustered glare, which evened the score.

He had seen the bard approaching and waving his arms dramatically (as he was wont to do) with the clear intention of greeting him, but he had figured he was going to get a handshake or an arm squeeze, not a full body hug.  He tried to step backwards out of it, but Jaskier had thrown his whole weight into it so that that couldn't be achieved without letting the bard fall flat on his face.  Lambert was mildly annoyed to discover that he apparently didn't want to do that and so he was stuck letting Jaskier hang off him.  He tried awkwardly patting him on the back with one hand to indicate that he had been sufficiently greeted and Jaskier could let go now, but Jaskier, completely unfazed, just laughed and squeezed tighter.

“Okay, I give,” Lambert asked Geralt while gesturing helplessly to the clingy bard.  “How do I get him off?”  Geralt’s smug smirk became a full on grin as he raised an amused brow while Jaskier giggled again and Lambert figured out the issue with his phrasing.  “Oh for fuck’s sake you know what I-”

“Oh gods, I don’t even know which joke to start with.”  Jaskier let his forehead rest against Lambert’s shoulder and seemed perfectly content to remain hugging him all afternoon if necessary.  “I mean part of me wants to point out that you made such a big deal out of being able to hear me over the winter that you should have a pretty good idea already and part of me wants to lean into the wantonness of just propositioning me out in the street like that and part of me wants to poke at your presumably inadequate experience since you need to ask Geralt for advice and part of me is saying that brevity is the soul of wit and I should just ask you to buy me dinner first.”

Lambert scowled, but it was mostly just for show.  He was dimly aware of a warm feeling in his chest that he usually associated with being home when he realized that he knew Jaskier had learned to tell the difference between his serious actually annoyed scowling and his scowling for the look of the thing, but he quickly pushed the feeling away.  It was nice, but he had learned long ago not to just accept nice things at face value.  He simply took it as a fluke of fate.  Sometimes, given the random nature of reality, good stuff happened even to the worst of people and it was the rashest kind of foolishness to depend on it or anticipate it.  He had a sneaky suspicion that his scowl was slowly mutating into a smile though, so he spoke to disrupt it before it completely ruined his image.  “Do you remember when you used to think I was scary?  And you tried really hard not to say anything to bother me?  Any chance we can go back to that?”

“Nope!  It’s too late now.  I have seen your soft fluffy underbelly and can no longer be cowed by your prickly exterior.”

“I do not have a soft fluffy underbelly.”

“You, my friend, are all bark and no bite.”

“I bite.”  Lambert tried wiggling out of the embrace, which was far from the most dignified thing he had ever done, but he was running out of options.

“Yes, I’m sure you are very accommodating to your lovers if they ask for a bit of teeth.”  Jaskier was resolutely not letting go.  “Oh for gods’ sake, just hug me back!  Why do I have to teach all of you how to return a hug?  I am seriously concerned about Eskel and Vesemir now.  Does anyone know if they know how to hug?  Do I need to teach a class next winter?”

That did not make him terribly comfortable.  Jaskier had a bad habit of poking buttons he didn’t know existed, and while Lambert had determined shortly after meeting him (and witnessing his unbridled and frankly overwhelming sincerity) that he was going to universally forgive the man any faults of understandable ignorance, it still rattled.  His usual defence mechanism of running away until he felt more emotionally stable was somewhat stymied however by the bard still stubbornly wrapped around him.  Lambert caught Geralt’s eye with an unspoken question.  He received a pained look he couldn’t quite interpret and a barely registered nod before he brought his arms up around the bard and squeezed back lightly and quickly.  Jaskier seemed somewhat displeased with the paltry showing, but did finally release him, which allowed Geralt to grab his arm by way of greeting.  The old familiarity of the far less dramatic hello did wonders for Lambert’s nerves.

"If you're here for the revenant you’re too late, I got it two nights ago."  It wasn't that he didn't like Geralt and Jaskier and wouldn’t have happily spent a few days with them normally, but considering why he was loitering in town it would probably be best if they moved on quickly.

"No!  Don’t even say it!  Not a single word!  No witcher work.”  Jaskier rounded on Geralt, pointing a warning finger at his chest.  “Two days you promised me, today and tomorrow, and I will have all of them.  We're here for a party at-"

"Two nights ago?  Why are you still here?"  Geralt was both well practiced at tuning out Jaskier’s histrionics and too quick by far.  Fuck.  He could almost feel the other witcher’s senses crawling over him and assessing him for any signs of injury.  He was perfectly fine though and Geralt would be able to tell.  Which meant he had to come up with another excuse for hanging around after a job was finished.  Geralt, finishing his evaluation and detecting no physical trouble, assumed the next most likely source of contention.  “Trouble getting paid?”

Lambert considered going with that.  It would be a pretty good excuse, but the last thing he needed was Geralt (or worse, Jaskier) storming in somewhere and making an unnecessary scene.  Also, it rankled a bit that Geralt seemed to think he couldn’t shake down a few villagers for their coin by himself and needed Geralt to save him.  Besides, he had actually been paid quite well; the lordling who’d posted the contract was apparently a fan of Jaskier’s work, which always worked out in his favour.  He flirted briefly with telling them the truth (before quickly dismissing that as far too embarrassing) which was that before he’d come down here, he’d made quite a lot of noise at the Seven Cats Inn, where Aiden almost always stopped in around midsummer, about heading south to Dorian to deal with a contract and that he would likely be hanging around afterwards for a week or so.  It was clumsy and almost a complete shot in the dark, but if by some small miracle the Cat witcher did show up, Geralt and Jaskier being here stood a decent chance of scaring him away.  On the other hand, Aiden was a thoroughly infuriating unknown (even if he did show up, Lambert had no idea what kind of reception he might get) and Geralt and Jaskier were right here, right now and happy to see him.  If he spent the few days he’d been hoping to waste with Aiden with them instead he would definitely enjoy himself (although not in the same way) and his chances of getting robbed or arrested, not to mention disappointed, were drastically lower.  A certain small happiness over a purely potential encounter of nebulous satisfaction… Well, it was an easy choice.

He shook his head and decided to keep as close to the original story as possible.  “Naw.  Got paid well.  Well enough that I decided to take a few days to myself.”  He cuffed Jaskier playfully.  “Thanks to Geralt’s lover Jaskier.”

Geralt winced, minutely but still delightfully evident to Lambert’s heightened senses.  “Could you not-”  As Geralt began Jaskier helpfully interrupted with the first phrase of Toss A Coin before Geralt cuffed him a lot less playfully.  “Could you both not make a complete spectacle of yourselves?”  His eyes narrowed and his voice was pitched so low Lambert wasn’t sure if Jaskier could even hear it.  “We’re not at Kaer Morhen.”

He rolled his eyes, but decided he could lay off the nickname for a bit for the sake of keeping the peace.  “I’ll show you where I’m staying, the only other place in town is shit.  Unless you’ve got rooms at…”  He trailed off, realizing that Jaskier hadn’t actually finished his explanation for why they were in Dorian.

“Miss Aliss’.  And no, she isn’t putting us up for the night.  Her sister arrived in town for the party yesterday with her family and she’s only got the one spare bedroom.  It’s too bad really,” Jaskier chewed on his bottom lip, “if it wasn’t such a small, intimate gathering I’d try to swing you an invite.”

Lambert could not think of anything he’d like less than a small, intimate gathering of people he didn’t know.  He would, under extreme duress, admit to being more than a little jealous of Geralt for his relationship with Jaskier (I mean the bard was objectively gorgeous and it must be nice to have a steady source of sex just follow you around on his own two legs singing your praises), but this was definitely one aspect of it the other witcher was welcome to keep to himself.  “You really don’t have to-”

“He can have mine.”

Lambert snorted as Jaskier swatted his lover.  “Oh come on!  You threw me to the wolves, quite literally I might add, for a whole season with no consideration for my nerves at all.  You can suffer through one social engagement and meet a few people who are dear to me.”  The bard continued a pleasant ramble about how he knew Miss Aliss (they’d gone to school together, although she was a year behind him), what she had been up to recently (not getting married, to her family’s unending dismay) and how her teaching was going (wonderfully, she had a real knack for working with children) for the rest of the short walk to the inn.  It was quick work to get Roach settled with Lambert’s gelding in the stables and a room for Geralt and Jaskier before the three of them moved to a nearby tavern that Lambert insisted had better alcohol for a pleasant dinner.  Jaskier mostly dominated the conversation as was his habit, but he graciously let Lambert and Geralt trade a few stories about witchering, politics and recent contacts while he was chewing.  By the time they had finished their second round of after dinner drinks, the place was filling up considerably and Geralt was starting to look uncomfortable.

“I’m headed back to the room.  If you expect me to be sociable tomorrow, I get tonight off of crowds.”  He stood and reached for his purse, but Lambert waved him off.  He had been paid very well after all.

“But!”  Jaskier, well on his way to being soused, fumbled for Geralt’s sleeve.  He was keeping pace with Lambert and Geralt drinkwise, but lacked the witchers’ constitution.  “The night is young!  The place is just picking up!  If I could find my lute-”

“You left it in the room.  If I’m not working, you’re not working.”  Geralt looked around quickly to make sure that no one in particular was watching them before expertly extricating himself from the bard’s octopus-like fawning and pecking Jaskier on the top of the head.  “Stay out if you like.  I’ll see you when you get in.”  He nodded a farewell to Lambert and headed for the door.

“Mrph.”  Jaskier gave a disappointed gurgle as Geralt left, but quickly turned bright again when he realized he still had one of his companions left.  “So, what shall we two do with ourselves for the rest of the evening now that we are woefully unsupervised?”

“Want another round?”  Lambert was mildly interested in seeing exactly how much alcohol the bard could actually drink and was very interested in seeing Geralt’s reaction when he foisted an incoherently drunk Jaskier off on him in the wee hours of the morning.

“No.”  Jaskier grinned predatorily.  “Want to play cards?”

When Geralt came to the jail to post bail for them in the morning, Jaskier had insisted that the so-called card shark scheme that they were currently incarcerated for had, in fact, evolved completely organically and innocently and wasn’t actually at all cheating despite what the local constabulary seemed to think.  Lambert was fairly confident that Geralt was (correctly) not buying what Jaskier was selling, but for the exact wrong reason.  Based on the disapproving looks he kept getting from his fellow witcher, the high and mighty White Wolf seemed to think that Jaskier, the very soul of gullible naivety, believed it really was all a big misunderstanding and that Lambert, monster that he was, had somehow conspired to lead his poor blameless boyfriend astray.  The truth was the whole fucking thing had been the bard’s idea.

“So you were telling Lambert what cards his opponent had?”

“I’d already played him, Geralt.  I was just giving Lambert an inconsequential and very minor heads-up, you know, completely in the spirit of camaraderie and friendly competition.  ‘He has at least three commandos.  He seems to rely overmuch on weather effects.  His ranged line is weak.’  Things anyone could have known if they’d watched our game with even a passing interest.”

“‘e was losin’ on purpose!”  The hungover man from the adjacent cell was one of many suckers they had fleeced last night, but the only one who had also been brought in for brawling during the ensuing chaos of their arrest.

Lambert slammed his forearm loudly on the bars between their two cells, making the twerp jump and take a step back.  He recovered quickly though and switched his beady glare from the imprisoned bard to the imprisoned witcher.  Lambert had been hoping to intimidate him slightly, maybe remind him a bit exactly how much it had hurt when the witcher had laid him out in the bar fight the night before, but apparently a few inches of steel between them was doing wonders for the cretin’s confidence.

He pointed accusingly at Jaskier, but maintained eye contact with Lambert.  “‘e was makin’ rookie mistakes and leadin’ me on!”

“Jaskier just isn’t very good.”  Lambert sneered, showing overly sharp canines.  He could hear a rumbling growl from Geralt, pitched too low for human ears:  a ‘friendly’ reminder that behind bars was maybe not the ideal place to lean into his inhumanity.

“Bullshit!  ‘e was playin’ low stakes games and losin’ pittance to draw my deck out.  Then you come in, after listenin’ to everything ‘e tells you, and play for one big pot!”

“You’re just sore I beat you so easily.”  Lambert smirked cruelly and leaned into the smug superiority in his tone, enjoying the fact that he could at least anger and embarrass the other man if not actually intimidate him.  “You were playing there all night.  Everyone knew what you had.”  Actually, he figured that was a good argument to bring Geralt around to their side; the three younger wolf witchers had spent years playing each other all winter at Kaer Morhen so they knew each other’s decks intimately and wouldn’t consider familiarity to be an unfair advantage.

“Hm.”  Geralt was not in a good mood this morning and turned to the guard and jerked a thumb at their hungover accuser.  “You really drag them in just because Lambert was paying attention?”

The guard also did not look to be in a good mood this morning.  Lambert couldn’t figure out why, considering he’d been snoring loudly enough from the guard’s bunk all night after smugly refusing to give Jaskier or Lambert any bedrolls or blankets since ‘witcher’s can’t be trusted not to destroy public property.’  They were the ones who had spent an uncomfortable eight hours sitting shoulder to shoulder against a cold stone wall dozing on each other.  “Mr. Acker here was not the only person to make accusations against them.  Other patrons reported that the human was standing behind Magistrate Rothgan and signaling to the witcher as they played.”

Geralt turned quickly back to Lambert and Jaskier with narrowed eyes.  “Yes, well, umm.”  The bard fumbled for words and fidgeted uncomfortably as he did whenever he was caught and knew he couldn’t lie.  Lambert just sighed.  “You see, there was quite a bit of money on the table by that point in the evening and there was the small possibility that Lambert might have accidentally gone in for slightly more than we actually had in liquid assets at that exact moment in time and-”

Geralt waved away the rest of the explanation, disappointment and frustration with the both of them radiating off of him in almost palpable waves.  Jaskier did actually flinch at the onslaught.  Lambert did not.   With a performatory sympathetic sigh of world weariness, Geralt turned back to the guard and tried to look amiable, although Lambert wasn’t sure why he bothered.  Humans in authority never gave a fuck about amiability, especially when they had a nonhuman dead to rights.  “Fine, I’ll give you that.  They’re cheats and not to be trusted.  Unethical, but not illegal and it shouldn’t be a matter to trouble you.  Just give whatever they had on them to this magistrate and I’ll cover the balance of what they owe.”

The guard glared back.  “What they had on them went to Sergeant Oger for damage pay.”  He nodded towards the cell containing Jaskier and Lambert.  “He dislocated his shoulder.”

Lambert heard Geralt’s low grumble again and sarcastically rolled his eyes back at the other witcher.  He was going to unfairly get shit for not controlling himself better in a fight against humans and subsequently making this interaction more complicated than it needed to be when it was actually Jaskier who had done the dislocating.  Whatever.  He was honestly pretty pleased that all their winter training with the bard had actually paid off and it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to disappointing Geralt.  And besides, he was acutely aware of how he usually fucked up relationships and he’d hate himself if he messed up this surprisingly good thing Geralt and Jaskier had going.  If it made Geralt feel better to blame Lambert, fine, he could take it.  If Jaskier showed signs of feeling guilty later maybe he’d make him buy him a drink, but he figured the bard would just take the easy win and avoid the confrontation.

To Lambert’s surprise, Jaskier, who while not a witcher did seem to be getting preternaturally good at reading them and had almost assuredly followed their nonverbal conversation, instead crossed his arms and frowned petulantly.  “He shouldn’t have just grabbed me from behind like that without announcing himself.  If he had mentioned he was with the city guard and trying to protect the peace, prosperity and personal property of the good citizens of Dorian I would have come along happily.  We didn’t start the fight!  As I believe I was quite adamant about when you brought us in, we were just defending ourselves.  If someone accosts me yelling ‘I’ve got you, you whoreson!’ I think we can all agree it’s only prudent to throw first and ask questions later.”

“You threw him?”  Geralt's look of annoyance melted into one of pleasant surprise and Lambert, after getting over his initial shock that Jaskier was actually admitting guilt, just rolled his eyes again.  Of course when it was Jaskier hurting people it was impressive, but when it was Lambert it was damned inconvenient.

Despite his mild annoyance at Geralt’s hypocrisy, he was pretty proud of the bard though and found himself adding, “It was clean too, just like we showed him.  Bastard just landed badly.” 

“Hm.”  Geralt smirked a little, unwillingly since he was ostensibly supposed to still be angry with them, and Jaskier beamed at the noise of approval.

“Anyways!” the guard interrupted.  “He’s in here for assaulting an officer, same as Mr. Acker.”  He sized Geralt up for a moment, clearly weighing how much he thought the witcher might actually have on him.  “Fine is 1000 crowns.”

“One thou-  You’ve got to be out of your simple mind!” Jaskier sputtered.  “The cocksucker already took 800 off us last night, you told Mrs. Acker that her husband was only in for 200 and I happen to know, for completely innocent reasons that have nothing to do with any previous altercations I may have been involved with in your fair city, that the fine for accidentally hitting a guard in a bar fight is only 350 crowns!”

Lambert had no idea how Jaskier could have possibly been scared of him once when he now showed absolutely no fear towards the man who was quite literally holding the keys to his fate.  The bard’s first winter at Kaer Morhen, he had been afraid that Lambert would kill him for any number of minor offenses, but now he clearly did not think this guard would visit any undue repercussions on him for talking back.  He’d been arrested, after cheating at cards and dislocating someone’s arm, but was still confident that he deserved to be, and was going to be, treated fairly.  Must be nice.

Geralt, far more aware of the actual precariousness of their position, cut Jaskier off again.  “For both of them?”

The guard shuffled uncomfortably.  “For the human.  The witcher, well, it hasn’t actually been charged with anything.”

“Why’d you arrest him then?”

“He insisted.”

Geralt turned to Lambert with another unidentifiable look on his face.  It was happening more and more often since Geralt had brought Jaskier to Kaer Morhen and it made him uncomfortable, not being able to read the man he’d known for forever, so lacking any other options Lambert just shrugged.  Like he was going to let Jaskier be hauled off alone.  Geralt turned back to the guard, shaking his head slightly.  “I don’t have that kind of money on me-”

“I do.”  The voice was quiet, but carried unnaturally well.  It was a little bit like everyone present heard the newcomer speaking directly into their own ear from a thoroughly disconcerting few inches away.  Lambert was pretty sure it was some kind of non-standard use of Axii that gave that impression, but despite pestering the other witcher incessantly he had yet to actually figure the trick out.  And it shouldn’t fucking work on him anyways.  It annoyed him to no end.

The guard started bad enough to drop his polearm and bumbled to retrieve it while fruitlessly trying to maintain an illusion of being in control of the situation.  “Who the fuck are you?”

The new witcher ignored the guard and slinked past both him and the frowning Geralt to lean against the bars and grin at Lambert.  Or to threateningly show Lambert all of his teeth.  He was never one hundred percent sure which one it was with the Cat and it’s not like he’d never been bitten before.  “Fancy meeting you here, Lambert.”  He was practically purring.

“Hi Aiden.”

Geralt was still frowning when the four of them finally left the dim building and returned to the light of day while Jaskier, the thoroughly misplaced righteous indignation that had been carrying him through the morning so far having worn out when the cell door opened and now grumpy and visibly hungover, was muttering about the sun being personally out to harm him.  The older witcher ignored the bard and turned cold eyes on the unfamiliar other in the group.  “I don’t have that kind of coin to pay you back right now, but I should be able to get it by the end of the day.  I have some-”

“Fuck that,” Lambert interrupted quickly.  “You still owe me from the werewolf in Heatherton.  That was what?  700 that should have been mine?”

“350, split evenly.”  The Cat witcher seemed more amused than anything.  It was definitely getting under Geralt’s skin and Aiden could tell.  The illustrious White Wolf did not like being seen as a source of amusement when his hackles were up and Jaskier was in no condition to defuse the situation.  Lambert could handle it though.  He had, if such a thing were possible, even more issues with authority than Aiden, and was therefore much harder to get a real rise out of.  Well, that kind of rise anyways.

“But you didn’t do any of the fucking fighting now, did you?”  Lambert sneered.  “Plus three years’ interest and I’d call us square.”

Aiden scoffed quietly.  Everything the man did was quiet and reserved and with the kind of fluid grace normally associated with his school’s damned namesake.  It drove Lambert crazy.  In more ways than one.  “Except you still owed me for the cockatrice outside Crow’s Perch five years before that.”

Lambert did not wince.  Even though there was a sharp spike of guilt stabbing him from the, he could admit to himself, completely valid accusation, he’d trained himself out of flinching from Aiden years ago.  “I told you I was leaving in the morning.  Not my fault you slept in.”

A single dark brow raised in amusement.  “I’m not sure four hours before dawn even technically counts as morning-” he waved off Lambert’s inevitable retort, “- but as the philosophers would say, what is time anyways?  It’s all water under the bridge now.  Call it a gift for the pretty bird that’s made all our lives a little easier with his songs.”  He smiled affably at Jaskier and held out a hand to shake.  “Aiden, by the way.”

“Jaskier.”  The bard furrowed his brow, clearly trying to place where he had heard the name before, as he took his hand.

As soon as they made contact, Aiden pulled him inappropriately closer and nosed along his neck which made Jaskier flinch and step back and Geralt grumble disapprovingly.  The Cat just stared at them in patently put on wide-eyed innocence.  “Oh?  Only ‘friends’ with Wolves, hmm?”  Lambert felt his blood going cold with the implication as Aiden turned to him with a knowing smirk.  “I guess you are pack animals.  Used to sharing after all.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck!  His scent was all over Jaskier and vice versa.  They’d been huddled in the cell all night, leaning on each other for warmth and comfort, but it hadn’t meant anything.  They hadn’t been given any blankets or bedrolls for gods’ sake.  Surely Geralt didn’t think they had… That he would… Is that what the unreadable looks were about?  Was Geralt worried that Lambert was trying to ruin the one purely good thing that he’d managed to keep?

“Come on,” Geralt glared at Aiden or Lambert or both of them, it was hard to tell, and put a hand on Jaskier’s back to steer him away.  “I’ve got breakfast in our room back at the inn.”

“Wait,” Jaskier was rubbing his neck where he’d been touched, but didn’t seem that overly perturbed to have been manhandled, or accused of infidelity for that matter.  “Aiden?”

“We’ll save some for you, Lambert.”  Geralt didn’t wait for his response before leading Jaskier off.  It wasn’t a question, it was a summons.  Of course Geralt would think the worst of him; he’d never given him any reason not to.  Try as hard as he had to suppress it, his jealousy was probably garishly apparent.  Fuck.  The only saving grace he could see in the situation was that at least Geralt seemed to be holding only him responsible and not Jaskier.

The bard kept talking as they walked away, obviously intrigued now that he had finally placed the name.  "That was Aiden?  Like the Aiden?  Aiden Aiden?  The Cat?  The one that Eskel said was-"

"Jaskier,” Geralt’s timbre was softer and didn’t carry quite as well.  “They can definitely still hear you."

"Oh, fuck-"  The bard’s voice was finally, mercifully, drowned out when they turned a corner onto a busier street, leaving Lambert and Aiden alone in the quieter alleyway that lead from the jail.

Smug asshole that he was, the Cat seemed flattered. "The Aiden?"

“Don’t let it get to your head.  It’s nothing good.  Vesemir told them you were the cunt who shafted me on the werewolf hunt.  That’s all.”

“Aww, daddy bravely running to your defense little pup?”

Aiden was as equally adept at pushing Lambert’s buttons as Jaskier was, although with him it was always maliciously intentional.  He had a tendency to be particularly cruel when it came to his, well, family was really the only word for it, even though he vaguely resented the term and would never sincerely describe them as such in front of the Cat, or any other sentient being for that matter.  Something about their mere existence just seemed to make Aiden want to bare his claws.  Fine.  Lambert had no problem playing rough.  “Lay off before I lay you out.”

As opposed to aggressive, Aiden’s gaze turned decidedly lascivious.  “Promises, promises.”  He hooked his fingers into the waist of Lambert’s trousers and pulled him close so he could nose along Lambert’s neck just as he had Jaskier’s earlier.  He let his eyes drift closed at the pleasant sensation before, without any warning, Aiden bit him.  Hard.  Lambert shoved him off harshly and when he brought his hand away from the wound on his neck, it was tellingly red.  Fucker had broken skin.  Which, he had to firmly remind certain organs that were becoming distractingly active, was a bad thing and not mind-numbingly hot.

Aiden, as annoyingly poised as always, didn’t seem to stumble with the shove so much as flow with it and Lambert’s fingers twitched, although he wasn’t completely sure if he wanted to hit the Cat or grab him and pull him back.  Smiling, blood glistening on sharp incisors, he drawled, “So are we fighting or fucking?”

He knew he should say ‘fighting.’  Aiden had been nothing but confrontational since he had unapologetically turned up and started fucking up everything.  Plus, Geralt and Jaskier were waiting for him back at the inn with breakfast and a thoroughly insulting and utterly undeserved disapproving lecture on not trying to steal other people’s boyfriends.  Fuck that.  If Geralt didn’t trust him he could cry his self-righteous eyes out on the bastard bard’s shoulder.  Lambert didn’t give a fuck what they thought of him.  Besides, it had been a while since he’d got his end away and Aiden was always good for burning off some pent up aggression.  So despite the rational part of his brain being firmly convinced this was a bad idea, he grinned indecently back.  “Got a room?”

They finally ventured out for food after the sun had gone down.  There had been a brief moment in the afternoon when they had been comfortably entwined, Aiden tickling his hand playfully through the hair on Lambert’s chest as they dozed in the sun streaming through the unbarred window, when he’d been able to pick up Geralt’s inquisitive presence outside the ramshackle shithole where Cat had rented a room.  A twinge of guilt had almost had Lambert leaving then, but Aiden took that as his cue to rake his claws down Lambert’s front which had reminded him that Geralt could go fuck himself; he had better things to do and better people to do them with.  They quickly got to making enough of a commotion that even those without witcher senses could figure out that they didn’t want to be disturbed and Geralt obligingly trudged off without making a scene.

They went to the same tavern that Lambert and Jaskier had been arrested at the night before; it was Aiden’s favourite after all and one of the first places he had taken Lambert when he was showing him around Dorian on one of their early summers together, back when they habitually tolerated each other for months at a time.  After a brief kerfuffle with the proprietor (which was soothed over by Aiden’s smooth tongue and Lambert’s solemn vow that he would never play cards in this establishment again), they devoured an entire roast chicken between them, Aiden leaving Lambert the dark meat he prefered and picking mostly at the breasts and stuffing.  Noticing that ignited the same niggling warm feeling he’d got when Jaskier had been able to read him yesterday, the one that reminded him of Kaer Morhen and lazy winter days and toothless bickering.  It happened frequently around Aiden and was getting harder and hard to reject.  It was nice, but Aiden was cool tempered steel and feeling anything warm around him was always dangerous.  He motioned for another round of drinks and was surprised when the girl serving them brought over the whole bottle.

Aiden smirked at his confusion, licking the remnants of the chicken off his fingers.  “Drink up.  My treat.”

Lambert, rather graciously he thought, filled Aiden’s cup before proceeding to drink directly from the bottle himself, earning an honest laugh from the Cat witcher.  Lambert kicked his feet under the table.  “How the fuck are you so flush anyways?”

Aiden shrugged noncommittally.  “Work’s been paying well.  Wasn’t kidding when I said we all owed that warbling twat.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showing gratitude, acting like a first rate asshole, treating him like a cheap whore and pissing off his boyfriend.”

“While I must admit pissing off your prissy older brother was a nice bonus, I didn’t smell him on the bard until I got closer.”

“Oh so you were just acting like a first rate asshole and treating him like a cheap whore?”

Aiden’s eyes narrowed.  “From five steps away he just smelled like sex and you.”

Lambert snorted derisively.  “We spent 8 hours in that fucking cell leaning on each other and trying to get some fucking sleep.  That’s all.”

“You didn’t plough him?”  Aiden’s expression was hard to place for a second, before it settled on a teasing smile.  “That scared of big brother, huh?  You’ve got a gorgeous man in your arms all night, smelling eager as a virgin bride on her wedding night, but one thought that you might disappoint the mighty Geralt of Rivia, the famed and much lauded White Wolf of Kaer Morhen and your cock shrivels up like-”

The bone of the one of the chicken’s legs, picked clean, made a great projectile.  “Even if I had wanted to take him for a ride, which I don’t, we were in jail, you ass.  It was cold, hard and smelled like piss and vomit.  Now based on your choice of inn, I know nothing gets you going like some crapshack flea-infested hovel, but believe it or not that doesn’t do it for most civilized people.”  It was maybe not the best retort, given that Lambert had actually had quite a lot of sex in that very decrepit room earlier that day, so he pressed on quickly before Aiden could point out the inconsistency.  “Besides, no word of a lie, Jaskier always smells like sex.”

Aiden shook his head, disbelieving.  “Bullshit.”

“I’ve spent months with him and it waxes and wanes but never actually goes away.  And Geralt has drunkenly confessed he’s been like that the whole time he’s known him, even before they started stuffing each other.  I’ve got money against Eskel we find out he’s got succubus somewhere in his family tree.”

Aiden laughed brightly.  “Please let me know when you’re planning on accosting his family.  I do so love to watch you make an idiot of yourself.”

“Oh gods, I have to tell you about his first winter with us.”

The smile faded quickly as the other witcher rolled his eyes.  “I’ll pass, thanks.  I don’t need the sappy tales of your mushy winter family vacation time.”

“Jaskier made a complete idiot of himself.  And Geralt doesn’t come off much better.”  He refilled Aiden’s glass and sweetened the pot.  “Vesemir dramatically undresses.”

Aiden narrowed his eyes and the barest hint of a smirk seemed to grudgingly return to his lips.  Lambert knew he was probably staring overmuch at the Cat’s mouth, but it was one of his favourite parts of the other witcher.  And he might as well stare while he could, he never knew how long these trysts with Aiden would last.  If anything, it seemed like the longer they knew each other, the less time they got together before one or the other inevitably fucked it up.  Catching him staring, but more than willing to play along for now, Aiden rubbed his thumb along his lower lip, as if carelessly in thought.  “I could maybe stand to hear one story about your mushy winter family vacation time.”

Hours later, as they stumbled back to Aiden’s room, he was drunk enough to pin the Cat in a doorway and kiss him slowly and thoroughly.  Kiss him like he’d always wanted to kiss him, like Aiden’s always deserved to be kissed.  Kiss him like they had time to waste on kisses.  And for eight whole heartbeats the incomparable weight of that hung oppressively between them, heavy like a spell or a sentence or the sea.  Terrified of holding onto it for any longer than that, Lambert nipped Aiden’s lip and palmed the bulge in the front of his trousers and then Aiden moaned wantonly and tried to pull Lambert’s shirt off and the moment evaporated as they had to book it for the room before they both got arrested for public indecency.

When Lambert had suggested they relocate to his room in the significantly less dilapidated inn that morning he had honestly just wanted to escape the vermin plaguing the cheap place Aiden had settled on and had not expected to run into Geralt and Jaskier eating a late breakfast alone in the common room.  Not that he expected Aiden to believe him.  From what he could remember of Jaskier’s blathering two days before, they were supposed to have been feted and gone by now.  If he’d been paying any attention when they stabled Aiden’s mount he could have maybe recognized Roach and figured out they were still around, but horses were Geralt’s thing, not Lambert’s.  The hastily muttered excuse didn’t stop Aiden from elbowing him painfully though when they were immediately noticed and Jaskier began waving excitedly.

“Oh!  Lambert!  Aiden!  Over here!”  Jaskier was grinning broadly and while Geralt still seemed to be in a bad mood, he managed a curt nod of recognition which Lambert took to mean that if they chose to approach he was not going to immediately murder either of them.  Either the party must not have been that bad or Jaskier truly outdid himself in bed last night.

“Does he…”  Aiden looked displeased as well, but sounded almost amused.  “Does he think we can’t see them?”  Jaskier was continuing to call and beckon them over.  “They’re like twenty feet away and the only ones in here.”

Lambert couldn’t help but smirk.  “Like I told you last night, he’s not great with remembering we have heightened senses.”

Aidan rolled his eyes and made to continue past them, ignoring the couple, but Lambert didn’t follow.  He clenched his jaw in a moment of indecision.  Given Aiden’s mercurial nature, his next statement could be the end of this interlude together, but he just didn’t have the heart to storm off again.  Well, that and he didn’t like Aiden assuming he could tell him what to do anymore than he liked Geralt doing it.  “I’m going to go say hello.”

The Cat’s eyes grew hard as he looked back at Geralt, still petulantly brooding, and Jaskier, still waving and unflaggingly optimistic that they were all going to have a nice brunch together.  Lambert had a feeling the other man wanted to hiss, but repressed it and instead just shrugged.  “I’ll be in the room.”

Taking it as a win, Lambert joined the two at the table as Aiden skulked off upstairs.  He stole the last sausage off Jaskier’s plate.  “Enjoy your party?”

Geralt shrugged noncommittally, but Jaskier was obviously pleased.  “It was wonderful.  Kind of you to ask.  Aliss is an amazing cook and it turns out her brother trades horses, so even my grumpy antisocial partner here managed to find someone he was happy to make small talk with.  Well, as happy as he ever gets about making small talk.”  He gestured vaguely towards the stairs.  “That was Aiden?  He seemed nice.”

“That is not even a remotely true statement.”

“Did you know Aliss’ sister knows him?  She lives up near Seven Cats and apparently he’s by there almost every summer.  Helped her out a few times with chores apparently and only ever charged her a hot meal and a place by the fire to sleep.  Even volunteered to speak to her landlord about easing off the rent since her husband died.  He escorted her and the kids down here for this trip too.  Said he was coming to Dorian anyways to meet up with someone important.”  Jaskier winked knowingly as he finished the last of his bread.

As preposterous as it was, it was pointless to wonder what the odds were that Jaskier’s school friend’s sister knew Aiden.  Jaskier just got information about people; that was what he did.  If it hadn’t been her, Lambert had no doubt he would have somehow managed to find someone else to drill for details.  The bard probably knew more about Aiden now than he did.  Although nothing he said particularly surprised Lambert.  Aiden, when not intentionally being needlessly antagonistic, was almost effortlessly agreeable and had a knack in particular for putting humans at ease that Lambert downright coveted.  He’d even run with a few human gangs on occasion, acting as muscle and conflict deterrent.  He tended to bow out whenever the action got too hot however, ostensibly because any overtly illegal activity would incur a heavier punishment for him than his human, or even nonhuman, accomplices.  Lambert had a sneaky suspicion he just might not like killing people.  When he’d pressed him on it though (‘A witcher from a school of assassins who doesn’t like killing, ha!’) Aiden had snapped back about wondering what you called a wolf run out of the pack because the others didn’t think he was good enough and then Lambert had punched him and then they’d had sex so they could both pretend it had all just been aggressive foreplay and that no one had actually gotten hurt.  He was pretty sure Aiden’s ease with people had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t spent any significant time with other witchers in the decades between the fall of the Cat school and meeting Lambert, but he wasn’t dumb enough to bring it up.

Jaskier continued to chatter on as Lambert chewed.  “Esta, that’s Aliss’ sister by the way, says he’s quiet and quick and usually works all winter in Nilfgaard while it’s too miserable to travel up here in the barren north.  Says he has no problem with borders, he can get into anything.  Says he might be the only Cat witcher left, and their keep is long gone.”

He was careful to neither confirm nor deny anything; Lambert’s room was on the first floor pretty much right above their table and there was a decent chance the Cat upstairs could still hear them if he was paying attention.  The bit about the other Cats and their keep Jaskier had probably got from Vesemir, not Esta.  Lambert couldn’t imagine Aiden blabbing about that to anyone.

“You should invite him to Kaer Morhen.”

"No."  The thing was he'd tried.  He'd even tried to do it properly, sucked up his pride and asked Vesemir’s permission.  Of course, Vesemir had unquestionably forbidden it, in a booming voice that had carried easily to Geralt and Eskel eavesdropping in the hall, and Lambert figured that was the end of it:  no permission and no plausible deniability if he rebelled.  Instead, after almost three weeks of Eskel grossly oversalting or adding an obnoxious amount of lemon juice to everything he ate, the old man had uncharacteristically relented.  But that summer Aiden had fucked off instead of even giving him an answer when he brought it up.  Feeling like an idiot, he'd considered skipping Kaer Morhen entirely that winter, but just because Aiden was a solitary asshole didn't mean that Lambert had to be alone.  Then, to rub salt in the wound, Geralt had pranced in with the fucking bard on his arm…

“Oh come on.  There’s plenty of space and it would be nice to have more company.  The more the merrier after all!  And just imagine the stories he could tell!  And it would make me feel less like the only outsider.”

“Outsider?  You literally spent last winter making us rearrange the main hall more to your liking.”

“And it looks so much better now, right?”  Jaskier pressed on.  “Why don’t you just ask him?  It’s obvious you l-”

Lambert put a hand over the bard’s mouth to cut him off.  He wasn’t actually sure if the word he’d been about to say was like or love, but he wasn’t prepared to deal with either of them right now.  He made very deliberate eye contact so that his message would be crystal clear.  “Jaskier, no.”

Jaskier sighed dramatically and pouted, but ultimately let it go.  “Alright then.  I’m done eating so I’m off.  See you later.”  He wiped his hands on a napkin as he stood, grabbed his lute case, took Geralt’s hand and kissed the inside of his wrist, which made Lambert roll his eyes at the corniness of it, and bustled out the door.

Lambert met Geralt’s gaze and nodded towards where the bard disappeared.  “Shouldn’t you be chasing after him?”

Geralt shrugged.  “We’re sticking around town for a few days.”

That was the last fucking straw.  He’d come over here to play nice and Geralt was still treating him like some goddamn child, not to be trusted on his own.  He slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the other witcher’s drink and freeing a small wave to splash across the surface of the table.  “No way.  You can just fuck right off, the both of you.  You think I need you to look out for me?  I don’t need a damn babysitter!”

Geralt, unimpressed with Lambert’s fit, raised a brow.  “Esta does.  Jaskier’s watching her brats so she and her sister can have a day to themselves.  He is, unsurprisingly, good with kids.”

“Oh.”  He deflated quickly.  Stupid fucking temper.  Geralt drank in silence for a minute while Lambert played with the puddle in front of him and tried to decide if he actually wanted to be here anymore.  Mostly he felt like leaving now would be losing in some way and that he still had something to prove, which wasn’t a huge surprise since he frequently felt that way around Geralt, but it was compounded somewhat by mild embarrassment over his outburst.  Compelled to say something, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.  “I didn’t sleep with Jaskier.”

“I know.”

“I mean I didn’t try to sleep with Jaskier.”

“I know.”

“He tell you?”

“He didn’t have to.  I trust y-”

“Do not fucking say you trust me.”

“Fine.”  It was Geralt’s turn to roll his eyes.  “I trust Jaskier.  And I trust he’s not your type.  He’s not an irredeemable asshole.”

“Aiden’s good with kids too.”  He’s not completely sure why he said it, it had just sort of bubbled out, born of a well honed instinct to want to snap back quickly.  It was true though.  They’d actually been together the first time they’d heard Toss A Coin and Aiden, after catching one of the coins someone had tossed playfully at them, had taught the kids how to make it ‘disappear’ and then ‘reappear’ in their playmates’ ears.

Geralt stared at him with the unreadable look on his face again and if it wasn’t suspicion of ill intent Lambert really had no idea what it was supposed to mean.  So he finally just prodded, “What?”

The other witcher shifted uncomfortably and wouldn’t meet his eyes.  The silence stretched long enough that Lambert gave up, stood and turned to go.  But Geralt, having evidently finally finished some internal battle, stopped him.  “Can I give you some advice?”

He had to know that Lambert would bristle at that.  “Not unless you want to get hit.”

Geralt thought for a second before nodding quickly.  “Deal.”

“Really?”

“Learn to accept things.”

“What?”

“Learn to accept things.  Good things.  Jaskier.  Hugs.  Loyalty.  Being trusted.  Receiving thanks.  Feeling happy.  Aiden.”

He scoffed.  “Bullshit.  I can accept things.  I’ve accepted a whole fucking lot.”  He bared his unnaturally sharp teeth since it felt good to fight back and also because it helped his point.  “I’ve accepted more than most people can even imagine-”

“You can take things.  You can take a hell of a lot.  You took being mutated.  Endured it.  But the sun will burn out, the moon will crumble into dust and the stars will fall from the sky before you’ll ever accept it.  And believe me, it’s even harder than that to accept good things.”

Lambert felt his field of vision narrowing and clenched his fists.  “Fuck you.  Where the hell did this crock of shit come from?  Just because that cocksucking bard comes along and, what, magically fixes you, you think you have the right to run your damn mouth off at me?”  For a second he considered stopping, but his mouth just kept going.  “It’s going to be a hard fucking fall off that high horse, Butcher.  He’s going to be dead in twenty, thirty years, sooner if he stays with you, and then you’ll be right back down here, broken in the shit with the rest of us.”  It had been the cruelest thing he could think of to say.  He hated how easily it came to him.

He could see Geralt tense and flinch at the onslaught, but, infuriatingly, not lose his temper.  “Jaskier didn’t do this to me.  I did this to me.  It took ages and it wasn’t easy and I hated most of it.  Jaskier helped by being a good example and an even better reason to try, but the only one who can really change you is you.”

“Tell that to the fucking mages who administered the Trials you goddamn son of a-”

Geralt stood up, arms loose at his side and unblinkingly met Lambert’s rage.  “Go ahead.  That was the deal.”

He had a feeling that Geralt expected this to be some moment of revelation for him:  that he would just accept his anger or some such nonsense and sit down and talk it out.  So without hesitating and with all of his unnatural strength, Lambert decked him, knocking him off his feet and splitting his lip open, before storming upstairs.

By the time he flung the door to his room open, Aiden was sitting cross-legged on the bed, hair dripping wet and hanging in his eyes, searching for something in his bag.  He didn’t look up as Lambert entered.  “Hurt your hand on his chiseled jaw?”  And was apparently making no attempt at pretending he hadn’t been eavesdropping.

“No.  The layers of bullshit he surrounds himself with act as a cushion.”  Lambert threw himself onto the bed dramatically, trying haphazardly to disrupt Aiden’s rooting.  His bag was always a complete mess, unlike Lambert’s almost eerie level of organization, and Lambert took any chance he could get to try to annoy Aiden into converting to his obviously much better system.  “Although now I need a bath.”

Aiden just nodded towards a basin of water on the table.  “I’m done with it.”

“I don’t know if washing in that after you will mean I have less bullshit on me or more.  Or just a different kind.”  Lambert started ‘helpfully’ putting things that Aiden had displaced out of the bag during his search back in.

Finally finding what he was looking for, which was evidently a comb and pair of scissors, the Cat kicked him off the bed.  “C’mon.  Cut my hair.  It’s getting in my eyes.”

“You want me close to your head with a sharp implement while I’m angry?”  It was supposed to have been a light jab (he wasn’t actually that angry anymore; he found hitting people very therapeutic), but as soon as it was out of his mouth he realized he was basically asking Aiden to say he trusted him.

He didn’t have time to properly panic before Aiden responded.  “I heal fast.  And you can’t fuck it up worse than you did in Rinde.  If only because it is physically impossible to fuck it up worse than you did in Rinde.  I had to wear a hat for months.”  He forced the comb and scissors into Lambert’s hands and sat on the stool by the table.

Lambert resolutely told himself that the feeling he had when Aiden made light of the question instead of answering it sincerely was relief.  He didn’t make any more of a pretence of not wanting to acquiesce to Aiden’s request.  Honestly, he liked cutting Aiden’s hair.  He had been shit at it when he’d first started, no one else had ever wanted Lambert near them with scissors before, but he’d gotten better over the years.  More remarkably, Aiden had let him get better over the years, bitching about his fuck ups but always asking him to try again.  The Cat was just that fucking stingy with his money that he’d take anything he could get for free.  It was either that or… Well, the or was something they judiciously didn’t talk about.

He ran his fingers through Aiden’s hair, pulling the worst of the knots out before beginning to comb it.  “You are so fucking cheap.”

“You say to the kind gentleman who dropped 1000 crowns for you yesterday.  And fed you.  And let you sleep in his room.”

“I will never thank you for that room.  I’ve killed smaller rats on contract than they had in their walls.  Why were you in that shithole anyways?”

Aiden shrugged, almost getting his ear clipped as Lambert started with the scissors.  “This place was full.”

It was a lie.  Not that Lambert could tell based on Aiden’s delivery.  But if he had come south with Esta and her family as Jaskier had claimed that meant he had arrived in town before Geralt and Jaskier, who had easily snagged the room right next to Lambert’s.  So he had probably been trying to avoid Lambert.  Or, if Esta had talked about the other party guests, maybe he had been trying to avoid Geralt and Jaskier.  His pride preferred that interpretation.

Aiden let him work in silence for a few minutes before offering, “Want to head into the market after lunch?  The alchemist from Toussaint is here for a few weeks, roaming the area to try to drum up some business.  Supposedly has some new artificial light source he’s ridiculously proud of.  And he’s always got a decent stash of rare stuff.”

Lambert ruffled Aiden’s hair to lose the snipped bits and resisted the ridiculous urge to kiss the top of the other man’s head.  It was just something dumb he’d seen Geralt and Jaskier do the other day, that’s why it was in his mind.  “Sure.”

Because fate had always hated Lambert, they ran into Geralt and Jaskier in the market that afternoon coming out of a bakery, three happily sticky kids in tow.  While Lambert would have been more than willing to just ignore them, the youngest of the kids recognized Aiden and ran over giggling to throw his arms gleefully around the Cat and demand to be picked up, thereby forcing an interaction.  Since they were in public, and not actively suicidal, the witchers all defaulted into impersonally and sullenly polite instead of a full blown fight that would have inevitably drawn the guards and likely got them all incarcerated, if not executed.  Cursory greetings were exchanged.  Aiden did not apologize for harassing Jaskier or snubbing either of them that morning.  Geralt did not apologize for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong or antagonizing Lambert.  Lambert did not apologize for attacking Geralt verbally and physically.  Jaskier, on the other hand, the only one who unarguably had nothing to feel sorry for, did apologize.

“Sorry if I put you on the spot this morning at breakfast.  I just wanted to properly thank you for spotting that fine, it was really very sweet of you, and also to apologize for the lackluster and clumsy first impression yesterday.  As I’m sure Lambert can attest with great glee, I can be rather particular about a botched introduction.  I’ll admit it probably stems from a modicum of vanity and having a strong penchant for propriety beat into me by my schoolmasters, but, as I’ve heard you are a veritable credit to your profession I’m sure you’ll understand, it’s also buoyed by a somewhat selfish desire to ingratiate myself to you in the hopes you’ll grace me with inspirational stories of your heroic acts in the defense of mankind.”

The Cat shifted uncomfortably, but it was hard to run away with a three year old in your arms.  At least not without unintentionally lending credence to some of the more ridiculous old wives’ tales regarding what witchers ate.  “Don’t you get enough of that already?”

“Never!”  Jaskier laughed brightly.  “Don’t worry, I am well acquainted with and prepared to deal with the perils of being overly nosey.”  He clapped Geralt companionably on the shoulder, obviously having been told, or guessing, why his lover had a split lip.  “But anything worth having is worth risking something for.  And Melitele knows the only way to have a chance at getting what you want out of this cruel and indifferent world is to ask for it.  So, dinner tonight?  My treat?”

“No.”  Lambert answered quickly.  Aiden had made his feelings regarding socializing with them perfectly clear and he wasn’t going to let Jaskier’s unrelenting quest for his next greatest hit drive the other man away.  Lambert, or Aiden, would fuck this up soon enough; they didn’t need any help with that.

“He wasn’t asking you.”  Geralt mumbled.

“Yeah?  Well I was telling him-”

“Sure.”  Aiden’s quiet voice killed the budding argument before it could really take off.  When Lambert turned to gape at him though, he just shrugged and wouldn’t hold eye contact.  “Why not?”

“Excellent!”  Jaskier collected the child from Aiden, to minor protests from the child.  “I’ve got to get some of the sugar out of their systems before getting them home, but we can meet you back at the inn afterwards.  Enjoy the rest of your afternoon!”  Juggling the toddler onto his right hip and shooing the other children ahead of him, he grabbed Geralt’s hand with his left and herded his small flock off.

Aiden stared after them looking perplexed as they disappeared into the crowd.  He didn’t speak until they were back behind closed doors of Lambert’s room at the inn though.  The Cat was looking at the wall that they could both smell bordered on Geralt and Jaskier’s room as if he could see through it and read the answer to some unspoken question there.

“What?”  He didn’t like it when Aiden was pensive.  It was a matter of simple negative conditioning; one of them over-thinking something was always the beginning of the end.

Aiden rolled his shoulders, something between a shrug and a stretch.  “They were holding hands.”

Lambert paused, pretending that it was taking him a second to figure out what Aiden was talking about.  As if the sight of them affectionately and casually touching in public wasn’t burned into his mind and triggering his jealousy all over again, made even more confusing since Aiden was right fucking here and if he wanted a tumble before dinner all he had to do was start something so why the fuck would he be jealous of entwined fingers?  “Jaskier’s just touchy.”

Aiden glanced back at the wall once before joining Lambert in sitting on the end of the bed.  Lambert couldn’t help but notice their hands were a mere three inches apart.  If he wanted to hold someone’s hand so badly all he had to do was cross three inches of rumpled bedspread.  He'd made it three miles back to town struggling to hold intestines in after being gored by a wyvern once, this had to be easier than that, right?  His fingers spasmed with the effort and noticing this Aiden pulled his hand away, folding his arms across his chest.  “It’s idiotic.  Careless.  Everyone could see them.”

He balled his hand into a fist, nails biting into his palm.  “Yeah, well Geralt’s fucking whipped.  Thinks the sun rises and sets in those blue eyes.”

It was a joke, he’d meant it as a joke, so he’s not sure why it stings when Aiden laughs.  “I know, right?  Asinine.”  He flumpfed back on the bed, nesting his hands  beneath his head, safely out of Lambert’s reach.  “You had his number when he went all preachy on you this morning.  He’s just setting himself up.  If he had any brains at all he’d run for the hills.  Dumbest thing a person could do, get tied down like that.”  His eyes caught and held Lambert’s gaze.  “Right?”

“Damn straight.”  He’s agreeing with him, so why does Aiden turn away and look disappointed?  He knows this man, better than any other living being probably, and they’ve had this conversation a dozen times over the decades.  So why does he feel so lost?  He kicks Aiden’s dangling foot with his own.  “So why’d you say you’d go to dinner with them?”

Aiden just yawned, seemingly bored with this turn of conversation.  “I dunno.  Because you said no and I’m a contrary bastard?”  He smiled softly.  “Or maybe I am just doing my one good deed for the year.”

Lambert felt his stomach drop.  It was one thing to make fun of Geralt and Jaskier for being the sappy simpletons they were, it was another thing altogether to actually try breaking them up, no matter if Aiden did think that would be the best thing for Geralt in the long run.  “I don’t want to go.”

“What?”  Aiden sat back up, clearly confused.

“Fuck them.  Let’s find a card game.  Or dice.  Or a fight.  Or a show.  Something else.  Anything else.”

“Hey, why would I turn down a free meal?  Keeping your ass ain’t cheap.”  The other witcher rolled his eyes.  “Unless you got a good reason why you don’t want me there.  Worried I’ll say something or do something to embarrass you in front of your ‘family’?”

Lambert just laughed.  This was it.  It was ending and he didn’t know how to do anything but play his part.  “What, you expect me to believe you actually want to go to this dinner?”

“What if I do?”  His chin was tipped up aggressively and he was sneering, but even like this he looked gorgeous to Lambert.  Maybe if he just kissed him, hard and with a lot of teeth, this would blow over and they could have another few days, or at least hours.  But Lambert’s palm was still stinging from where his own nails had broken the skin and he didn’t feel like fucking.  Which left only one option.“You that committed to being a problem?  Just because you don’t have anyone left who cares whether you live or die, you think you can get off ruining things for other people?  That what happens to all the humans you run with?  You just destroy them and move on?  No school, no elders, no peers to remind you that you’re an irredeemable asshole.”  It was the cruelest thing he could think of to say.

And like clockwork Aiden replied, “You think you're any better. You think they want you for a brother?  A son?  You think that first winter you all went limping home after the pogrom, Vesemir wouldn’t have given anything to trade you for one of your fallen ‘brothers’?”  It was the cruelest thing he could imagine hearing.  You had to admit, they always were a good match for each other.

Lambert grit his teeth.  “Want it or not, I’m what they fucking got and I’m not going to let you-”

“I was never planning on actually going.”  Aiden turned and began throwing the few things he’d unpacked carelessly back into his bag.  “Nothing here worth staying for, right?  I just figured it would be hilarious, to take off and leave you all sitting around like obedient dogs told to heel waiting for hours for your supper.”  He was out the door before Lambert could tell him to piss off because no one wanted him here in the first place.  He said it anyways for the sake of getting the last word in.  Aiden had good hearing.

And it was over.  Again.  Lambert roared and collapsed onto the bed.  Two days.  They’d only managed two paltry days.  The anger disintegrated into pain that felt like a physical lump in his chest, crushing his heart and making it hard to breathe.  He knew if he tried he could force it out, turn it back into anger and let that rage burn away all the rank sentimentality that had infected him like a virus.  But as warped as it was, he couldn’t help thinking that sheer immensity of the pain was itself proof:  Damn, but Aiden knew him well.  And given the look in Aiden’s eyes, the way he’d flinched, the sour smell that came from poking old scars, the entire sensual symphony that was replaying in his mind and flavouring his pain with guilt:  Damn if he didn’t know Aiden.

He breathed through the choking feeling and wondered if he wasn’t, for the first time since he’d been mutated, about to cry.  Geralt, may every known god damn him in their own special way, was fucking right.  Holding on to this hurt was a hundred times worse than just taking it.  But if that was all he had left of Aiden…

He sat up suddenly, puzzle pieces clicking together.  If that was all he had left of Aiden he was a fucking moron.  What the fuck sort of sense did it make to hold on to this when he hadn't even tried to hold on to Aiden?  Hadn’t even really tried to understand what he’d been saying?  Hadn’t tried to make him understand how he felt about the other Wolves (and Jaskier)?  And yeah, maybe Aiden really was the scum he accused him of being, but maybe, just maybe he was just as scared and stuck in the fight-or-fuck script as Lambert had been.  Maybe that song and dance wasn’t as immutable as he’d made himself believe.  Sure, Geralt had needed Jaskier to make the first move, but Lambert was stronger than that.  Always had been.  It was no fucking fairytale and nothing was going to get magically better, but right here, right now, he could at least change enough to ask Aiden.  Whatever happened, at least then he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror for the rest of his life.

He was moving, racing down the stairs and out the door, before he’d even finished the thought.  He was trying desperately to think of which direction Aiden might have taken off when he turned a corner in the courtyard and almost ran headlong into the Cat witcher, panicked, out of breath and seemingly running back.  For a moment, all they could do was stare at each other, wide-eyed, neither clearly having expected to meet the other here in this weird half-space between gone and not.  Aiden was the first to break eye contact, huffing and smiling a self-deprecating grin as he took a half step closer.  "I was just coming to beg you to take me back."

Lambert took a half step to close the remaining distance, reached out and hooked his right index finger around Aiden's left.  They were not holding hands; there was no way they could possibly do that, not them and not here.  But it was a surprisingly intimate small gesture that neither were pulling away from and the single point of contact seemed to burn brightly between them.  "I was just going to beg you to stay."

“Fuck.”  Geralt froze when he entered the inn and found Aiden and Lambert at a table in the common room throwing dice.

“Ha!”  Jaskier beamed as he brushed past his lover triumphantly.  “Dinner is officially on Geralt!”

Aiden raised a brow.  “I thought you were the one trying to woo me.”

“Oh I definitely am,”  the bard slipped in beside Aiden, shamelessly helping himself to his drink.  “I’m just doing it on Geralt’s coin now.  Which is, incidentally, the best way to woo someone.”  He raised his hand to get a waitress’ attention.  “Shall we have a bottle?  Your finest wine my dear woman.  Money is suddenly no issue.”

Aiden addressed Geralt as he slid in beside Lambert.  “What brought on this spate of generosity?”

Geralt just grumbled, but it wasn’t his serious actually annoyed grumble, just his grumbling for the look of the thing.  With an unfamiliar hitch in his chest, Lambert realized he was looking forward to the day Aiden could tell them apart.  For the moment though, Jaskier was more than content to explain.  “Geralt swore one or the both of you would run before actually sitting down to a civilized meal with us.  Something about Lambert definitely taking things the wrong way and Aiden being too stubborn to explain anything properly and you both having commitment issues older than most humans.  I, on the other hand, said that was preposterous.”  If Jaskier said it was because they were in love they both would have probably bolted.  Recognizing this, he sagely added, “I am, after all, such engaging company.”

Lambert nudged Geralt playfully with his shoulder.  “You, who’s known me forever, lost a bet against Jaskier, who’s known me for three winters?”

Aiden and Jaskier laughed loudly, so it was only Lambert who heard the barely audible, “Happily.”

“By all the gods, he’s loud!”  Aiden tried to wrap the pillow around his head to muffle Jaskier’s dramatic moaning.

Lambert threw a boot at the wall their rooms shared, but it didn’t do anything to discourage the bard.  Or Geralt apparently.  Who was evidently enjoying himself immensely, the bastard.

“You should kill them for me.  You know, a suitable act of service to prove your devotion after your almost unforgivable fuck up this afternoon.”

“My fuck up?  Because it made sense to assume that I would know that you, without telling me, completely out of the blue and completely out of character I might add, decided to try to tolerate them for my sake?”  It had been one of the first things they’d cleared up in the courtyard.  Holding on to the warm feeling caused by the knowledge that Aiden was actually trying to do something nice for him was hard, just as Aiden still found it hard to believe that Geralt and Jaskier didn't instinctively hate him and forbid him from seeing Lambert, but ironically they both found needling at it helped.  Lambert threw his other boot against the wall, mostly just so that they would be together when he went looking for them in the morning as opposed to thinking it would actually work better at shutting Geralt and Jaskier up than the first one had.

“So I should kill them as a suitable act of service to prove my devotion to you?”

“No.”

“You like them more than me.”  It sounded petulant and playful now, unlike when Aiden had confessed it as a motivating fear for his departure earlier.  They could do this though.  They were strong enough.

“Everyone likes them more than us.  They’re not assholes like you and me.”

Laughing softly, Aiden rolled over and huffed against Lambert’s shoulder.  "Got to admit, I'm impressed by the human's stamina." They lay in silence for a moment, listening to the erotic noises from next door.  Seemingly figuring it was a good cover for anything they wanted to say without being overheard, Aiden murmured, “I asked you to stay.  When you left for the cockatrice without me.  I asked you to stay on the Path for the winter and you fucked off back to them.”

“You didn’t ask shit.  You just said there was probably enough work south in Nilfgaard for two witchers all winter.”

“You still scurried off with your tail between your legs.”

“Yeah.  I did.  Like you did when I told you before the werewolf that you deserved a break for a season and there was plenty of room in Kaer Morhen.”

“Ask me again.”

He waved vaguely at the wall through which Jaskier’s performance seemed to be finally coming to a climax.  “You really want a repeat of this nonsense?”

Aiden laughed and kissed his chest and whispered into his skin.  “Ask me again.”

When Lambert found out that Aiden had actually brought a gift, a bag of licorice root (good for tea, flavouring vodka or a chewed as a treat all on its own), Lambert had teased him mercilessly all the way up the mountain.  It went a long way towards pacifying Vesemir however (something about old inter-school traditions) and Eskel was a sucker for the stuff so they ended up settling in without any major incidents.  When Geralt and Jaskier arrived, Geralt grinned wickedly, unreasonably pleased with himself, and tried to refer to Aiden as "Lambert's lover Aiden" as if that was not something they would have obviously been prepared for.  Lambert, with unbridled honesty and humility, pulled his older brother aside and very politely asked him not to.  When Geralt protested that he had asked nicely and that had done nothing but encourage Lambert’s efforts at teasing Jaskier, Lambert had done his best to look abashed and countered with, “Yeah, but everyone can see how devoted you two are to each other.  Of course you wouldn’t be worried about him leaving over a stupid nickname.  I just, we’re still… Well, I don’t want to give Aiden any reason to run.”  It worked like a fucking charm.  Just like Jaskier had told Lambert it would.  That was his nickname and he had worked long and hard to earn it and all the fuzzy familiarity that came with it.  Aiden could get his own.  They had all winter after all.  Or possibly less than that if Geralt did actually murder the two of them like he promised when Aiden started calling the bard ‘Geralt’s lover Jaskier’ the very next day.