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"I could," Lambert snapped at the sky, the argument he'd been having with himself all the way here finally bursting out. He'd reached the top of the hill and there was nowhere else to go--going downhill would be practically the same as going back, and he wasn't ready to go back yet. Not until he'd had this out.
With the stars, for lack of anyone better to argue with. He sure as fuck wasn't going to yell at Aiden. Even if he was going to be physically capable of yelling at Aiden any time soon, Lambert knew full well that this wasn't Aiden's fault.
"It was me," Lambert insisted. "I kissed him, he kissed me, I don't even know who started it but we did, which means I did, and that was. I wouldn't take that back."
Even he could see that there wasn't any more right way to react to coming suddenly face-to-face with your best--Aiden--after thinking he'd been dead for going on two years. He'd seen recognition flash through Aiden's eye, seen it in his whole body, and felt the same shock of inarguable familiarity race across his own skin, down his spine and through every muscle and bone. With every cell, he'd known, That's Aiden, he's alive and he's here. And he'd known Aiden knew him, that however altered he was physically, whatever he'd been through and however long it had been, he was still himself.
Lambert didn't take that for granted, after all of Geralt's bullshit.
So, yeah, there hadn't been a fucking word he could say that was enough. Of course he'd needed to fling his whole body against Aiden's, and of course he'd needed to make sure that he didn't shoot his fucking mouth off and say something fucking awful out of sheer surprise. So he'd just. Pressed his mouth against Aiden, and Aiden had done the same, and... it was all Aiden, his tongue as much as his cropped-short hair, curly and dark and threaded now with silver, and his shoulders, bonier than they should be but familiar.
They'd laid off kissing and gotten to the what and how and so sorry and all that pretty quickly, and the issue hadn't come up again. It could have been a one-off, a special occasion thing for rising from the fucking dead. They'd had a lot of other things to talk about, and do, and making sure Aiden actually recovered fully had been one of them.
And along the way maybe there had been a lot of touching and a certain amount of nudity and indignity, and maybe someone who didn't want to give the wrong impression would have drawn a line at some of that, or at least showed a little squeamishness. And Lambert hadn't, because like fuck was he going to be shy about whatever Aiden needed. And maybe he'd even made some jokes that sounded kind of suggestive, maybe out-and-out bawdy, just to make sure that Aiden was laughing about all of it instead of getting quiet and going away into his own head like he did sometimes. Maybe that had made it sound like he was interested in that stuff in a way that he wasn't, mostly, even if he'd absorbed the way everyone else talked and joked about it. All of that had been perfectly reasonable while it was happening, even necessary.
Only now Aiden was mostly recovered, and... apparently that first kiss hadn't been a one-off.
Fuck, and Lambert had bolted to exactly where Aiden still couldn't follow him easily, because climbing hills in the dark--even if the dark was lit with so many stars it was hardly dark at all--was still a challenge on a few different fronts. Lambert was such an asshole.
Aiden had never minded that about him, before. Aiden had liked it, somehow, or said he did.
But Lambert hadn't known everything Aiden liked about him, or wanted from him.
"But I could," Lambert repeated, to the stone underfoot and the multicolored glow of star-clouds that were only visible on the clearest of moonless nights. "It's not--I'm not scared or something. I could--we could fuck. It would be fine."
He could. He had before, plenty of times. Kind of a lot, when he was in training, and some of that had been bad like a lot of things during training had been bad, but sometimes it had been good, or at least weird in a fun and interesting way. Friendly stuff. There was enough of that kind that he hadn't, like, written off the whole thing. Sex wasn't bad, not if you were having it with people who gave a fuck--pun absolutely intended--about everybody having a good time.
It just... it wasn't the same for him as for most people. He'd figured that out pretty quickly, the way they all obviously talked about it and felt about it and wanted it. He hadn't made a big thing of it most of the time, because there was rarely a point, back then.
Once he was out on the Path, though, once he was able to choose his own routes and his own jobs and his own companionship, he'd realized... he didn't have to. He could just... not fuck anybody. He could say no, or just not ask, or pretend not to understand when someone else asked, and humans mostly didn't even know the difference.
And that had been such a fucking relief. No pun intended.
He'd begun to take it for granted, a few decades on. He just didn't do that stuff, and the few people who knew him well understood that without any words exchanged. Strangers never had any reason to wonder. By the time he'd met Aiden, Lambert had almost forgotten that it was ever a thing he had to negotiate with anyone. Aiden hadn't said anything, done anything, hadn't even smelled like he wanted anything from Lambert.
Not until after he was alive again, and Lambert fucking kissed him, and touched him and saw him in all kinds of intimate ways. Then Aiden got some perfectly logical ideas about what that meant, because other people meant something by that stuff. They only kissed people like that who they wanted to fuck--that hadn't even been a yeah, I guess kiss. That had been an I will die without you kiss.
And he had meant it, was the thing. Lambert couldn't lose Aiden again. He would not survive it next time. He knew that in a way he never had before losing him.
So maybe he should give Aiden what he wanted. He could, and he knew Aiden well enough to know that it wasn't gonna be bad. It would be good, it would be fun, it would be fine, and then Aiden wouldn't have any reason to be disappointed or mad or hurt. Aiden wouldn't need anyone else who could ever take him away from Lambert, and Lambert wouldn't lose him again. It would be the logical course of action to just... fuck.
Except that there was this stupid part of him that was mad, yelling, I don't have to, I wasn't supposed to have to.
And that part was apparently in charge, because when Aiden had kissed him, softly and sweetly, one hand coming to rest on Lambert's side, Lambert had first frozen and then bolted. To the top of a fucking hill that Aiden, with his one eye and his persistent balance issues and his bad leg, almost certainly couldn't follow him up.
Shit, he had to go back.
But then he was going to have to say something. And it had to be something that wouldn't make Aiden feel bad, or want to leave him, or want something that Lambert could probably give him but would probably resent being expected to give him, which would make him behave like a world-class bastard, and...
Lambert blew out a breath and looked up at the sky. He knew what the stars were, that they were unimaginably huge and unimaginably far away, but still he always found himself thinking of them as just... lights. Lanterns, campfires, candles, lamps. The ones that had more color to them might be little glowy mage-work things. It could be a whole city, a whole world, spread out before him without its walls and trees and barriers, so there were just lights.
And lights meant people, and right now most of those people were probably in bed, alone or with others, the lights left burning while they slept safe. Maybe some were wishing for others, if they were alone--though surely some of the ones with company were wishing to be alone, too. Probably none of them were alone because they could have company but they didn't want it except they did want it but they didn't want to fuck it up and they couldn't see how not to fuck it up, and so instead they were... fucking it up.
"Fuck," Lambert muttered, and turned to look for the way he'd gotten up here, only to spot a glint of yellow-green reflecting just enough starlight to glow in the shadows. "Aiden, fuck, how'd you--"
Lambert didn't remember moving, he was just on his knees, reaching out for Aiden and stopping short when his hands encountered the heat radiating off him. Aiden had always run a little warmer than Lambert, and now when Aiden pushed himself he tended to run hot. He'd pushed himself, chasing Lambert; hopefully this wouldn't turn into another long-running fever, but there was no fucking telling.
"Shit," Lambert muttered.
Aiden smiled, his teeth flashing white in the dimness. "What, you think I can claw my way back from the dead but I can't climb a fucking hill?"
"You shouldn't have to," Lambert snapped, and then nearly choked as he heard the words. That was what this was all about, wasn't it? What he should or shouldn't have to do.
"I didn't have to, dumbfuck," Aiden replied. He was breathing easy, at least, and Lambert hadn't been that distracted. He'd have heard if Aiden had struggled badly enough not to be cat-quiet on his way here. "But I wanted to see whether I'd driven you to fling yourself off a cliff or run off to join the Zerrikanian Foreign Legion."
Lambert made a scoffing noise only to be choked to silence when Aiden's hand curled around his. The touch felt charged, and yet he was so glad to feel Aiden's hand on his again, even if everything else was complicated.
"Yeah, see," Aiden said wryly. "I was not wrong to worry. Lam, I won't--"
"But I could," Lambert insisted. "I can, I will, if--"
"No," Aiden said firmly. "I'm not gonna be some wall you have to get over. I'm not doing that. That's not what we are."
Lambert stared down at Aiden's hand covering his and had to take a couple of careful breaths before he could ask--instead of snarling, instead of getting up and taking off again, just asking, which he almost never forced himself to do with anyone but Aiden--"What are we, then?"
"We're better than that," Aiden said, immediately, confidently but not aggressively, which was a balance Lambert admired and could rarely strike himself. "You're the guy who takes all kinds of disgusting, way-too-personal care of me--"
Lambert made a noise of protest, because nothing about Aiden was disgusting or too personal, but Aiden just squeezed his hand and kept going.
"Without letting me be humiliated by it, but you turn six shades of red and splutter if I try to thank you for it."
"Don't have to thank me," Lambert growled.
"And if you can be that," Aiden went on, too airily to be dogged but letting absolutely nothing stop him, "then I can be a guy who kisses you because I like you in every way including like that, but I like you so much that I would rather cut off some of the remaining intact bits of myself than make you feel like you have to do anything about it."
"That's not," Lambert said, and stopped short.
He'd been about to argue that it wasn't the same because Aiden already mostly didn't need that kind of care, and wouldn't need as much help as Lambert gave him forever. Lambert was always going to be someone who didn't want to have to fuck. But then if Aiden did always need to be cared for, or if he got hurt again, or anything else happened... Lambert would cut off a limb for the right to be the guy who took care of him.
"You really," Lambert said, and still couldn't quite bring himself to ask. You mean it? You won't mind?
"I never did before," Aiden pointed out, following Lambert's thoughts as easily as ever. Neither of them needed to specify before what. There was only the big Before. "Didn't need to kiss or fuck or whatever to want every day and every hour I could get with you then, and don't need it now. I like you, and that means I don't want to do anything that makes you run away from me, Lam."
"I wasn't," Lambert muttered. "I just needed to... figure it out. I was coming back."
"Well," Aiden said, all calm and reasonable in the way he could be sometimes where it somehow made Lambert listen instead of pissing him off more. "If you did something that you thought I might like, and I froze and then said some nonsense and ran out the door, would you just... wait for me to come back?"
Lambert honestly couldn't remember saying anything. Aiden had kissed him and then he'd been at the top of this hill realizing there was nowhere farther to go without turning around.
He knew what Aiden was describing, but the times he'd done something that got that reaction... it was because he had really upset Aiden, maybe reminded him of something that happened in between Before and that first kiss, and that was the last thing he ever wanted to remind Aiden of. And he had never let Aiden protest that it wasn't a big deal or that he was being stupid and freaking out about nothing, because he felt the way Aiden froze at the wrong word or touch, and he saw the look on Aiden's face when it took him away.
Aiden... must remember what Lambert's face had looked like after Aiden kissed him, before he took off. Lambert had no idea what his expression had been, but Aiden hadn't been willing to let him run off without following, so it hadn't been good.
And then Aiden had come after him--had come silently, had let him pace and talk to the sky, and now was being all calm and logical and not angry, not disappointed, not trying to get some other answer. Like this was a thing Lambert could say no to, and it wouldn't change anything. Like he really, genuinely didn't have to.
Contrarily, that only made him want to pull Aiden in close to himself, to press together the same way they had in that first moment of recognition. It's you, and you know me.
"Can I," Lambert said roughly, and then couldn't get the question out. Aiden gave him an encouraging, inviting sort of look, so Lambert tangled their fingers together and leaned in to press his mouth to Aiden's. Aiden held mostly still while Lambert moved. He tightened his fingers around Lambert's, and pressed into the kiss enough to let Lambert know that he was there, but he didn't push further.
Lambert sat back. "That's... I don't mind that part. I like that part, sometimes."
"Glad to hear it," Aiden said. "I hope you let me know when that kind of sometimes comes around, because I like that part practically all the time."
And that was that, apparently. They'd just... go on like that. Aiden sounded too serious and sure for Lambert to want to argue, not when he was getting what he wanted.
Lambert nodded, and finally looked around a little, to see what he was kneeling on. Aiden had found a rock to perch on, which let him stretch out his bad leg; Lambert was kneeling between Aiden's thighs. "I... we should... go back inside."
"We should," Aiden agreed promptly, with a tone in his voice that made Lambert look at him more carefully than before. "Just, you might have to carry me, because my knee and hip really didn't like that."
"Fuck, Aiden," Lambert muttered, reaching for him. Aiden moved himself to be picked up, because they both knew the easiest way to do this by now, and Lambert got his legs under him and cradled Aiden against his chest, looking around for the gentlest slope downward. At least Aiden didn't feel so hot in Lambert's arms as he had at the first touch; he was coming down from the exertion all right.
As Lambert picked his path, Aiden said softly, "You gonna get tired of doing this?"
Lambert glared at him. Aiden had made his point, Lambert had agreed with him, they could be done with this conversation now. But Aiden was smiling a little, waiting for his answer. "No."
"Then I won't either," Aiden agreed, and let his head rest on Lambert's shoulder. Lambert felt his face doing something strange--like a smile but it hurt? It was a good thing Aiden wasn't looking now, because Lambert was pretty sure he was happy, and Aiden was lying so easy against him, and the last thing he wanted was for Aiden to ask him what he was thinking or how he felt, because he had no idea. For once he was willing to let Aiden have the last word on this.