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Geralt whirls around when Lambert barges into the stable, spooking the horses with how hard he throws the door open. Geralt almost expects to see a sword in Lambert’s hand and a monster on his heels; Lambert’s expression is certainly panicked enough.
“Geralt!” the young Witcher rasps. “I think I fucked up.”
This in itself is nothing new. But usually Lambert doesn’t come running to him about it. Whatever it is must be bad, then.
“What did you do?”
“Uh, fuck, I- I-” Lambert gestures wildly at the courtyard. “And then Jaskier –”
At the mentions of the bard, Geralt’s hackles rise. “What. Did. You. Do ?” he growls, leaving Roach’s box and stalking towards Lambert, ready to shake the answers out of him if he has to.
Lambert immediately lifts his hands in defence. “Nothing!” He takes a step back. “I mean, I just asked him about his foot. You can't have missed his limp. He reminded me of fucking Gweld when he –”
“Lambert,” Geralt snarls. “What happened ?”
“Uh, yeah, so, I told him about how my shoulder still twinges in the rain because of that fucking griffin. You know, the one contract when –” Lambert interrupts himself, wincing at Geralt’s murderous expression. “Anyway, Jaskier turned around and vomited his fucking guts out! At first I thought he had food poisoning or something, and I wasn’t even helping in the kitchens this time! But then, he punched the wall so hard he almost broke his damn hand!”
Geralt’s stomach flips. Jaskier hasn’t hurt himself like that for a while now, so that he's doing that again –
“Fuck,” he grinds out. Jaskier is hurt . Fuck. “Where is he?”
“He went inside,” Lambert replies tonelessly. “I was going to follow, but he said he wanted to be alone, and I didn’t want to… you know, like Eskel –”
Geralt shoulders past Lambert, too anxious for his friend to listen to the end of Lambert’s sentence. Lambert’s words conjured up terrible images of Jaskier lying catatonic on the floor, trapped in his past.
“For fuck’s sake, Geralt! How was I supposed to –”
Geralt slams the door behind himself.
He hears Lambert shouting after him, “So I came to get you !”
*
Later, when Jaskier is fast asleep in Geralt’s bed, the Witcher goes to find Lambert. He knows he probably shouldn’t have left him standing there like that, and he hopes the younger Witcher isn’t too pissed at him.
He finds him in the alchemy lab, scribbling something on a piece of parchment in the low shine of a single candle. He looks up when Geralt enters, a distinctly wary expression on his face that Geralt doesn’t like at all.
Knowing that he’s not in danger of immediately destroying Lambert’s experiment or blowing himself up, he enters the lab and walks right up to Lambert, who has jumped to his feet by now.
“Geralt, I –”
Before Lambert can say anything else, Geralt pulls him into a hug.
Lambert stiffens for a moment, clearly braced for a physical attack instead. Then, he seems to realise what Geralt is doing.
“What the fuck?” Lambert exclaims. “Let go of me!”
Geralt ignores his struggling because he knows if Lambert truly wanted him to let go, he’d have been punched by now. Instead, he holds on a little tighter, muffling his voice into Lambert's shoulder.
“Thank you.”
It’s the only way he knows how to truly bring across how much Lambert’s actions mean to him, and the only way he knows that Lambert will listen.
“What? I didn’t do anything!” Lambert says defensively, pushing at Geralt’s shoulders.
Geralt sighs and lets go. Lambert’s eyes are wide, pupils blown to accommodate for the low light. He looks nervous, unsettled, still expecting a punch to come his way.
“You helped,” Geralt says quietly. “With Jaskier.”
“I –”
“Thank you for getting me, and for being such a good friend to him.”
Lambert’s mouth closes with a clack . He stares at Geralt for a long moment until he finally seems to realise that Geralt means it.
“Yeah, uh, right,” he says, sinking back down on his chair. He cards a hand through his short-cropped hair, cheeks tinging with embarrassment. “Is he okay?”
“Hm,” Geralt hums, not knowing how to phrase Jaskier’s current level of okay-not-okay. “He- hm. He talked about Sidhar.”
Lambert’s gaze snaps up towards him.
“He never talks about it, Lambert,” Geralt adds with a grimace. “About what happened. But now he let a few things slip.”
Lambert looks at him for a moment, clearly several replies on the tip of his tongue, before he settles on, “Did he say what happened to his damn foot?”
Geralt shakes his head and sits down on the chair beside Lambert. The younger Witcher silently pushes over the mostly full bottle of White Gull he’s been nursing. Geralt takes a sip, relishing on the bite of the alcohol, before he adds,
“He said enough that I can guess.”
“Toe,” Jaskier sobbed –
“It hurt so much...I remember,” Jaskier whispered. “I broke out of Sidhar’s control twice, and there was so much blood...” –
“I think I- I threw up both times,” Jaskier confessed, tears on his cheeks. “I wanted to sc-scream, but I couldn’t, and...the sound of the knife cutting through the b-bone...and it was my hand cutting...” –
“It hurts,” Jaskier begged. –
Geralt takes another gulp of White Gull to wash away the taste of bile that rose in his throat just thinking about it. There’s anger simmering under the surface of his skin, and his fingers clench around the bottle.
“Fuck,” Lambert says, pulling the bottle out of his death grip and taking a swig. “It’s bad then, huh?”
Geralt nods silently.
Lambert looks at him consideringly. “If you want to talk about it, I’m the wrong fucking person, you know that.”
“Don’t wanna talk,” Geralt hums. “Just wanna drink.”
He tries to get the bottle back, but Lambert pulls it away at the last second. “Get your own fucking booze, White Wolf.”
“What?” Geralt snaps. “ Lambert !”
Lambert grins, pointedly taking a long gulp.
Geralt growls, and Lambert, the fucker, just laughs at him, like he’s not at all intimidated. He fluidly stands from his seat when Geralt tries to swipe the bottle from his hand.
“Too slow,” Lambert says gleefully, taking another swig. If he keeps going like this, Geralt really needs to walk down to the cellar and get more.
“Fuck you, Lambert!” he growls, preparing to launch himself at the younger Wolf.
Lambert’s eyes widen as he takes in Geralt’s stance. “Oh, you think you can take this from me, old man?” He holds up the bottle.
“Sure I can,” Geralt replies. They both know that Geralt is faster, twice-grassed and all.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lambert challenges with a cock-sure grin, walking backwards towards the door.
Geralt launches himself forward, but Lambert has anticipated this and is already out the door before Geralt can as much as reach for the bottle.
“Motherfucker,” he curses and chases after Lambert, pretending this is not exactly what he needed.
*
They both end up on the floor of the stables, breathing hard, sweaty and more than a little drunk from trying to empty the entire bottle before the other could get the chance.
“Bo’les ‘mpty,” Lambert grumbles, rolling the empty bottle to the side. It clinks against the stable door.
“Ugh,” Geralt agrees. The cellar is far too far away right now, and the stable floor is kind of comfortable actually. Nice wood. Clean. “Where d’you learn to clim’ up walls like tha’ ‘nyway?”
“Like wha’?”
Geralt gestures vaguely at the bottle. “While holdin’ a bo’le?”
When Lambert doesn’t reply, Geralt turns his head just in time to see a blush spread up Lambert’s cheeks. Noticing his gaze, Lambert quickly says, “No’ that hard, old man. Don’ ‘ave to be a fuckin’ Ca’ to manage.”
“Cat?” Geralt echoes, puzzled by the example.
Lambert’s blush deepens. “Jealous of m’skills?” he challenges.
Geralt snorts, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. “Dream on, arsehole.”
“Ach, verpiss dich [ piss off ]!”
Geralt bites back a laugh at Lambert’s predictable response. If Jaskier were here, he’d have already retorted with a fitting reply in Koviri or Lyrian. But Geralt isn’t Jaskier, so they lie in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the dust dance in the twilight.
“Lambert?” Geralt finally asks.
“Huh?”
“Thank you,” Geralt says. He needed that after the emotional taxing evening.
“Jus’ fuckin’ stop it already,” Lambert groans. “I swear t’you, if you hug me again –”
Immediately, Geralt rolls over, purposefully landing on Lambert at the worst possible angle, shoulder right on his face and knee in his groin. To call it a hug would be generous, more a tackle than anything else.
“Arg, ugh, Geralt !” Lambert protests, flapping helplessly like a fish on land, but he’s too drunk to push 220 pounds of muscle off him.
“Little Wolf,” Geralt teases.
“GE’ OFF ME, YOU ARSEHOLE!”