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Lambert scowls at the unassuming cottage, hackles rising as his eyes trace its outline. It’s sitting in the middle of a clearing, small and cozy looking, with a garden at its side, and a covered well closer to the treeline. Everything about it is relentlessly cheery, and so fucking normal it makes Lambert’s skin crawl. It is an uncannily perfect mix of what a cottage should be, every detail painfully plain and mundane, and taken all together, it’s just… wrong, somehow. Lambert doesn’t need his training to tell him there’s magic involved, though his medallion helpfully starts to vibrate the moment he steps into the clearing properly.
There have been complaints in the nearby village of strange occurrences – nothing overtly sinister, just odd, but the more the Alderman described to Lambert, the more unnerved he got.
Oh sure, flowers blooming out of season, wild animals running about with winter coats when it’s still summer, and alcohol fermenting more quickly than normal don’t seem bad on the surface, but what it tells Lambert is two things – first, that someone’s fucking with magic nearby, and second, and much worse, that it’s probably time magic of some sort.
The list of people and creatures that can manage that sort of manipulation is thankfully short. Unfortunately, everything on it is also incredibly fucking dangerous. If Lambert’s lucky, it’s some idiot mage who is throwing around power they don’t understand, and a good knock to their head will solve the problem. But Lambert’s not known for being lucky, and he’d bet every bit of the meager amount of coin in his pack that he’s not going to start now. No, his money’s on a faerie, and an old one at that, if they’re able to alter their surroundings this easily and relatively subtly.
What he needs to figure out is why they’re here, and what the fuck they’re trying to do.
Lambert can’t see much reason to turn a small town’s seasons topsy-turvy, or speed up their liquor production, but he also isn’t a faerie, so could be he’s missing something, or just doesn’t understand. It’s also possible that the events the townspeople have noticed aren’t an end-goal, but a side effect, or a cost, of all the Chaos the faerie is throwing around. Which, honestly, is what Lambert’s afraid of. Because if what the Alderman’s told him is all just collateral damage, whatever the faerie’s brewing is big fucking trouble, and he can’t afford to waste time sending a request for help to one of his brothers.
He wishes Aiden was with him, but he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the Cat since he came down-mountain in the spring. It’s not the first time it’s taken more than a season for them to find each other, but it hasn’t happened in long enough that it’s making Lambert twitchy. Especially with the gift burning a hole in his belt-pouch, and the confession he’s hoping to offer along with it. If he doesn’t lose his nerve the way he has every other time, that is. Not that there’s anything he can do about it at the moment.
Like it or not, he’s on his own.
Lambert takes another wary step into the clearing, and there’s a sickening, pulling sensation somewhere around his gut, and he lurches forward, the clearing blurring and spinning. Suddenly, it stops, and he finds himself standing not outside the cottage, but in a lavishly decorated receiving room. Every piece of furniture is upholstered in silk or velvet, dyed in colors normally reserved for the obscenely wealthy. Platters of food are arrayed on various small tables, and there are multiple pitchers of what smell like sweet wines beside each tray, accompanied by jeweled goblets. The pitchers are frosted, chilled by magic, and Lambert finds himself suspiciously parched, though he was perfectly fine a moment ago. He has to tear his eyes away from the alluring offerings.
To eat or drink any of it would be a fucking stupid thing to do. He has no intention of being trapped into servitude.
He senses movement behind him, and reaches for the hilt of his silver sword on instinct, but the weight is suddenly gone from both of his scabbards, and his hand meets empty air. His eyes go wide and he frantically pats at his back, then at the smaller sheaths at his belt – all empty. Even the hidden pockets sewn into his sleeves are too light. It makes him feel naked, vulnerable , and a shiver of fear travels down his spine.
Lambert hears laughter ring through the room, like the chiming of bells, bright and ancient, and he whirls to face an unnaturally beautiful woman. Her skin is flawless, her hair so golden it almost glows, her dress seemingly made of water or air, swirling around her in mesmerizing patterns of blues and grays. Her eyes are piercing, and seem to change colors as Lambert watches, disorienting him enough that he has to shake his head to clear it, which makes her laugh again.
“Oh my, what have we caught today? It has been long indeed since we have had a Witcher at our mercy.” Lambert bares his teeth at her words, and she tuts. “How rude the little Wolf is to snarl at our kindness. Terribly inconsiderate we would be if we did not ease the burdens of its body by taking away its cumbersome claws. They will be returned whensoever it leaves our home. If it does not care for our goodwill, perhaps it should not run about sticking its nose where it is not wanted. Too late for the little Wolf to have regrets, now. Whatever shall we do with our wayward guest?” She asks gleefully, gliding closer, though it's clear she is speaking more to herself than to Lambert. “Perhaps we can play a game. Oh, we do love games. We will only hurt the Wolf a little , unless it displeases us. And maybe, if it is entertaining enough, we shall let it live a while longer to play more games.”
Lambert tenses and glares at her, hands flexing at his sides, a threatening retort burning acidic on his tongue, when her words catch up to him. It really must be a long damn time since she’s seen a Witcher, if she’s making a mistake as obvious as that. He forces his mind into calmness, setting aside his anger, and tries to recall Vesemir’s lessons about the Fae folk as best he can so he doesn’t fuck this up. Formality and wording are important, and she won’t appreciate him throwing around curses, much as he’d like to. “Surely you jest, lady of the Fae. You have named me a guest of your house, and as such you owe me a boon, not pain or punishment, lest you call down the displeasure of your gods and kin.”
There’s a fraught moment of silence as the woman’s eyes narrow, flashing with fury at being caught out. Lambert feels Chaos building in the air, the pressure of it making his ears pop painfully, and his eyes ache, but he stays carefully motionless, clenching his jaw so he doesn’t cry out. The woman exhales sharply, and the Chaos recedes, gone as if it was never there to begin with.
“Clever little Wolf, catching us in our own words. So be it, a boon it is owed, and we will not deny it, but the boon will be of our choosing. And what we want is for the Wolf to show us its pain, the things it desires most to change, so we can be a fitting host.” Her smile has too many teeth, and Lambert knows he’s in more danger now than he was before, her ire at being bested lurking in her eyes, awaiting a chance to escape and rend him limb from limb.
Fuck.
She raises a hand and snaps her fingers. The sickening, pulling sensation returns, and the receiving room disappears, morphing into a vast, seemingly endless hall. It is filled with mirrors, great and small, shining and tarnished, elaborate and plain.
“The little Wolf will walk down the hall, and the mirrors will show us the wrongs committed against it, and it will tell us which of them it wants to right. Go along, lest our hospitality be deemed rejected.”
Lambert wants to spite the faerie’s prodding by remaining still, but he can’t risk it. Defying them for even a few seconds could be enough for them to rescind their offer of hosting, and since the offer was a mistake in the first fucking place, they will take any opportunity to do so. He stalks forward, shoulders twitching as images start to form in the mirrors the closer he draws to them, sound following soon after. They are all different, bits and pieces of his life flashing before his eyes as he passes by them. He begins to notice patterns the further he goes.
Scenes that show in the smaller mirrors are fuzzier, the voices less distinct. Most of them seem to be reflections of moments from walking the Path – villagers making a warding sign against evil when they see his eyes, spitting on his shadow, shorting him his pay, refusing to serve him food, charging him triple for a room, whispering insults they think he can’t hear. An uncountable number of little burrs left under his skin, scraping and stinging at his insides, blurring together as the years go on.
Unpleasant to be sure, but it is unpleasantness he is plenty accustomed to. Not worth a second glance, though it does put him on edge wondering what else he is going to see. And being forced to look at it at all is making anger rise in him.
Lambert has never liked being toyed with, and he can feel that bitch of a faerie’s eyes on him.
As he feared, the larger the mirrors get, the worse the memories become, and the clearer they are, the wounds seared more effectively into his mind.
The first time villagers chased him out of town with torches and anything sharp they had at hand because he insisted on being paid fairly for his work. The time he nearly died dragging himself to the inn on his own after a rough hunt, because none of the villagers could be bothered to leave their homes and help. The time a Viper stole his kill and half his supplies after they hunted together, and Lambert swore off working with anyone but his brothers for decades, until he met Aiden. On and on the memories go, and Lambert can feel tremors running through him as he relives each one.
All of them are fucking miserable, and they leave Lambert feeling the ghosts of built-up fury, but he can’t see the point in changing any of it. Preventing any of those fuckers from taking advantage of him would just take away one incident from a too-long list of them, and it’s not like it would stop any of them from being the cunts they are.
He shakes his head, grits his teeth, and continues.
There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when the memories took place, one from his first year on the Path, the next from a few weeks ago, the next after that from three years ago, and the next after that from last fall. All that affects the order is how much they affected him , and the further he travels down the length of the hall, the grander the mirrors become – more large and elaborate until they are as tall as Lambert, with gilded frames carved into intricate designs.
That’s when they get really fucking bad.
Lambert’s years of brutal training in Kaer Morhen, enduring the Trials, being treated like a means to an end by the soulless mages, going to bed hungry, and hurting, and furious every night, knowing that there would only be more pain tomorrow. Getting dragged to Kaer Morhen by the bastard of a Witcher who hog-tied Lambert to his saddle because he kept trying to run away. That old anger tries to burst from where Lambert buried it years ago, a festering thing that Lambert only digs up when he is safe, surrounded by his brothers, or with Aiden.
He shoves it down, just barely, but the damned faerie laughs. It sounds far away and right behind him all at once, echoing strangely in the impossibly large space, but Lambert doesn’t give her the satisfaction of reacting. He squares his shoulders, determined to see this through, mind racing through possibilities of how the fuck he’s going to get himself out of this, when a voice he’s heard in far too many nightmares barks his name.
Lambert turns his head slowly, helplessly, to find the specter of his father staring back at him from a mirror at least a few feet taller than him. This one is different. The moment he focuses on it, instead of one memory, it shows many – layers upon layers of beatings and abuse, aimed both at Lambert and his mother, and that anger, that first anger, the seed that was planted when he was a child that hadn’t done any damn thing wrong but be born, bursts free out of Lambert’s control.
“Oh, is this the one the little Wolf will choose? So much pain, so much rage, eternal and dark, eating away at it. Gnawing in the dark of the night until its insides are hollow, a hole where its heart should be, and the only thing it knows how to feel is hate.”
Lambert knows he should be paying attention to what she’s saying, but he can’t stop staring at his father’s face. At the man who didn’t even have the decency to let himself die, instead using Lambert to pay back a Witcher for saving his miserable, worthless life.
The faerie draws closer, her words whispered directly into Lambert’s ear. “Is this what it wants to change? To turn back the hours and the minutes, to cut down the monster before it makes the Wolf one instead? We wonder, we do. It would be so easy, little Wolf. We understand how much it wants to tear its sire to pieces. To rip and rend until there is nothing left. We have seen the fire building in it. That is all the Wolf is good for, isn’t it? For anger, for killing, for revenge. And won’t it taste so sweet? Go on, choose.”
Lambert knows this is some sort of trap, but all he can feel inside is blazing fury, all he hears is the roaring in his ears while he imagines how afraid his father would be if faced with a Lambert who knows how to fight back. How satisfying it would be to be the one doing the hurting for once. The anger rises, narrowing his senses to the mirror before him, seething through his limbs and up his throat. He is about to take a step closer to the mirror, the expectant, excited breathing next to him an afterthought as the desire for revenge takes hold.
It almost consumes him, but then he hears a voice, one he doesn’t recognize, from further down the hall.
“Don’t look at me like that, brother. It’s not personal. I’m only doing what I must.”
Lambert snarls in annoyance at the distraction, and pushes the sound away. It’s not important. It can’t be as important as teaching his bastard of a father a lesson. He tries to ignore it, shoving the stranger’s words to the back of his mind, and almost succeeds. His father holds all of his attention for another moment, until a voice he does know, one he would recognize anywhere, is carried faintly to his ears.
“You don’t have the right to call me brother anymore. I’m going to gut you for this!”
Aiden .
Lambert snaps out of his fugue, clarity rushing back through him as if a spell has been broken.
What the fuck had he been thinking?
If he goes back and kills his father, sure, he’d never have to suffer through all of the fucking pain and heartbreak of becoming a Witcher, but he’d also never have seen the world, or had a chance to learn even half of what he knows, and all of the people he’s helped or saved would be shit out of luck. He would have been stuck in a small village in the middle of nowhere until he died of sickness, or an accident, or old age. Never really satisfied, never really happy, restless for something he couldn’t name.
He never would have met his brothers.
He never would have met Aiden.
The bitch almost had him. He practically offered himself up on a fucking platter.
Never let that anger get the better of you, pup. It can be an effective tool, but it must be wielded carefully, or it will cut you instead.
Lambert always hated when Vesemir trotted that out in one of his neverending lectures, but godsdammit, it’s true. And it’s exactly what the faerie is counting on. Which means, maybe, that will be his out, if he doesn’t let himself get tricked again.
And, speaking of tricks, why the fuck is he hearing Aiden talking to a stranger in a hall of mirrors meant to show wrongs committed against him ?
The faerie lets out a put upon sigh when Lambert turns away from the mirror showing his father, but her disappointment quickly disappears when Lambert makes his way with purpose in the direction Aiden’s voice came from. Her voice is disturbingly cheerful when she says, “we do not think the little Wolf will like what it sees in that one. Perhaps the Wolf should choose another, though, as its host, we suppose it is our duty to honor the choice it makes.”
Lambert feels terror, pure, and animalistic, because if she’s so pleased, the mirror must show something truly horrific, especially if it’s worse than his monster of a father. There is a terrible thought growing in his mind, the only explanation he can conjure for Aiden being shown in the hall, one he can’t bring himself to look at too closely.
He swallows hard and picks up his pace, afraid of what the mirror will show, but unable to turn his back when he hears the voices more clearly than before.
“Don’t look at me like that, brother. It’s not personal. I’m only doing what I must.”
“You don’t have the right to call me brother anymore. I’m going to gut you for this!”
“Big words for someone who’s outnumbered and already injured. Come now, Aiden, no need to make this difficult. I can make it quick and clean, for old time’s sake.”
Lambert’s heart rises to his throat, choking him at the sound of the threat, and then it plummets into his stomach when Aiden, his Aiden, snarls, “ fuck you, Jad . Even if you manage to kill me, you’ll have Lambert to answer to. And trust me, there’s nowhere you can go that he won’t find you.”
Lambert breaks into a sprint, setting eyes on a mirror that towers above all the others, reflecting a scene that sends panic coursing through him. Aiden, crouched with a cliff wall at his back, too sheer to climb even if there wasn’t a crossbow bolt sticking out of his thigh, and a bleeding gash on his arm. The hall seems to stretch itself out, the mirror getting no closer no matter how fast Lambert runs.
“I’m not worried about your pet Wolf. After all, he’d have to know there’s revenge to be had to seek it out. And how will he ever know who’s to blame without a body to find?” Jad tilts his head, and a cruel smile spreads across his face. “I wonder if he’ll even notice you’re gone.”
Aiden’s lips peel back from his teeth, and he shifts his weight, steel sword in one hand, and a knife in the other, one that Lambert gave him, and Lambert wants to scream , because the wind is blowing, and it brings the petals of spring flowers raining down around Aiden.
Lambert knows now why the mirror is there. It’s the same reason he hasn’t been able to find Aiden on the Path, and the pain is too much to bear.
“That is what I want to change,” Lambert gasps out, and the image in the mirror stills, showing Aiden frozen, surrounded by petals, staring down Jad’s crossbow. The moment just before the love of his life’s death, preserved in glass.
“So, the Wolf has chosen at last,” the faerie says eagerly, appearing suddenly at his side. “Is it sure? It must be sure before it answers.”
“I’m sure. Now let me change it,” Lambert snaps, still struggling to reach the mirror, but now his legs won’t move at all.
The faerie steps in front of him, blocking his view of the mirror, of Aiden , and laughs. This one has a chilling edge of madness to it, of a maniacal satisfaction.
“Oh, the little Wolf is confused. We said we would grant a boon of our choosing after learning what wrong it most wanted to change. We never said changing it would be the boon.” The faerie smiles, her eyes wild, their colors shifting nauseatingly. “Our boon is that the Wolf now knows what it holds most precious above all else, because to know what it desires most is to know itself at its core, in its very soul. That is something many a mortal has spent an entire lifetime searching for, to no avail. A fine boon indeed. It is no fault of ours that the stupid Wolf has already found and lost what it covets,” she mocks.
Lambert’s trainers and brothers have called him many things over the years – reckless, hot-headed, foul-mouthed, and insufferable, but not one of them has ever called him stupid and meant it, and for good reason.
Lambert is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t fucking one of them.
The only way to beat a faerie is to let them think they’ve won, and then cheat like your life depends on it. Because it fucking well does .
He drops to his knees, letting the faerie gloat all she likes, wielding her supposed victory like a blade, while his hand falls to the holdout knife still hidden in his boot. His brothers thought the dimeritium-lined sheaths he bought all of them for the solstice were exorbitant, but Lambert is a paranoid bastard, and getting all your weapons taken by a mage is a good way to die. And even if he has trouble saying it, he’ll do anything to keep what little family he’s managed to find safe and hale.
There’s another sheath stashed in one of his belt pouches for Aiden, too precious to leave unattended in his pack. The one he intended to give to Aiden when they met in the spring, and then tell him… no, he can’t think about that right now, because he might still be able to give it to him, if he plays his cards right. The mirrors have the same traces of warped Chaos wrapped around them that caused the changes around the village. The faerie’s magic manipulates time, and none of the memories the mirrors showed were through Lambert’s eyes, which means they can’t just be reflections of his memories.
The faerie is using the mirrors as portals to specific moments in time, and if Lambert is really fucking lucky, he can use one to change things after all.
Gods, please let me be lucky.
Lambert draws his knife and rises in one smooth motion, slashing the faerie’s throat before she has any time to react. He puts all of his weight behind the strike so it will be too deep to heal, if she even has the ability. He does so much damage she can’t even scream, a wet gurgle all she can manage as her hands fly up to clasp futilely around her neck. If the wound isn’t enough to kill her, the blade itself ensures she won’t last long. The knife is steel, not silver, and for once on a hunt, that is a relief. The steel blackens her skin, eating away at her magic as soon as it makes contact, an acrid burning smell filling the air as her eyes go wide, the colors in them slowing, then going pale.
Lambert has to trust that she will not recover, that the blood loss and the metal-poisoning will be her end, because he can’t wait to be sure. As her lifeblood spills out, and the steel saps her magic, the images in the mirrors begin to fade, and the one holding Aiden suspended is rippling like disturbed water. Lambert runs faster than he ever has in his life, left arm raised before him, his hand twisted in the form of Aard, while his right hovers above where the hilt of his steel sword would normally rest. Where, if he’s right, it will rest again once he passes through the portal.
He hopes, and he runs.
Lambert dives toward the mirror, heart hammering as his fingers make contact, and a shock of Chaos travels up his arm and through his body. He feels like he is being stretched, then wrung out, then stretched again, reality thrashing around him, fighting against his trespass, and all Lambert can do is pray that the faerie lasts long enough for her Chaos to win out.
For once, his prayers are answered.
He feels wind and sunlight on his face, the scent of spring flowers filling his nose, and he hears the click of a crossbow being drawn. Without hesitation, Lambert swings his left arm in that direction, casting Aard in a devastating wave directly at an unprepared Jad. The fucker goes flying, his back hitting a tree with a sickening crunch. His crossbow falls from his hands, useless, and the tree cracks from the impact. Lambert dismisses him immediately, his right hand wrapping around the hilt of his now returned steel sword. There are cries of panic and alarm from the other men in the clearing as he draws, and Lambert doesn’t give them the opportunity to recover.
He cuts them all down with ease, channeling all of his fury and fear into his motions, until he is surrounded by corpses. He glances to the side to make sure Jad hasn’t moved, but his body is lying limp at the base of the tree, no light in his eyes or breaths moving his chest.
Good.
Lambert flicks his sword to free it of blood, and then hesitates. He’s suddenly afraid to turn around. What if he was wrong? What if interfering didn’t change anything? What if Aiden’s – ?
“Lamb, is that really you? Where the fuck did you come from?”
Lambert spins around and feels relief crash over him like a tidal wave, because there’s Aiden, still crouched by the cliff wall, looking equal parts pleased and confused.
He doesn’t think, just drops his sword and crosses the space between them as fast as he damn well can, and falls to his knees.
“Lambchop, please say something. You’re starting to scare me a little, what with coming to my rescue out of thin air looking half-crazed, and then – Lambert?”
Lambert doesn’t answer, just stares into Aiden’s eyes, eyes he was terrified he’d never see again, hands shaking as he raises them slowly to cup his Cat’s face. “I lost you, and I couldn’t fucking bear it,” he rasps, the words rough after his panic and exertion.
“You mean you almost lost me,” Aiden corrects, looking more worried by the second.
“No,” Lambert disagrees. Then, because there’s nothing else he can do, Lambert kisses his Cat, his Aiden, like he’s wanted to almost since the day they fucking met. Aiden gasps against his mouth, and then there are demanding hands in Lambert’s hair, pulling him close as Aiden takes over, stealing what little breath is left in Lambert’s lungs.
Gods, Aiden’s kissing him back, and Lambert is the luckiest bastard alive.
Every time Lambert pulls away for air, Aiden yanks him back again, licking along his lips, then into his mouth, insistent and demanding. Lambert’s not sure how long it goes on, and is perfectly content to stay here as long as Aiden likes, but then he shifts and bumps Aiden’s leg, and the Cat hisses in pain. Lambert suddenly remembers that Aiden is injured.
Shit.
Lambert breaks the kiss, eyes wide as he looks between Aiden’s arm and thigh. “Fuck, I forgot you’re hurt. I’ll get my pack, and –” Lambert grimaces, recalling that his pack is in a village that is likely miles from here, and, presumably, months in the future. “Nevermind. Where’s yours? You need Kiss, and Swallow, and – ”
Aiden stops Lambert’s panicked tirade by pressing a finger to his lips, and Lambert stares helplessly at him, shivering at the way Aiden traces the outline of his mouth once he quiets.
“Jad took it,” Aiden says, giving Lambert an amused look when he growls angrily. “It should be just inside the treeline. He tossed it back there after shooting me.” Lambert tries to get up, intending to find the pack, but Aiden’s hand on his arm stops him. “Why’d you kiss me, Lamb?”
Lambert squirms under the intensity of Aiden’s gaze. “Can’t that wait until after I patch you up?” He asks weakly.
“No.” Aiden’s voice brooks no argument.
Lambert settles back down in front of Aiden, takes a shaky breath, and then presses their foreheads together gently. Aiden’s hum of pleasure at the familiar gesture bolsters him. “Because I love you,” Lambert whispers into the air between them, “and I couldn’t wait to fucking kiss you anymore after thinking… after thinking that you were –” Lambert can’t bring himself to say it. “After,” he says instead.
Aiden makes a soft, soothing sound, running his fingers through Lambert’s hair. “Well, that’s alright then,” he says, tone light and cheerful.
Lambert’s brow wrinkles, and he leans back so he can see Aiden’s face more clearly. “The fuck does that mean?”
Aiden chuckles, and kisses the tip of Lambert’s nose. “It means I love you too, Lambert.”
“Oh,” Lambert whispers just before Aiden kisses him again, more softly this time. When Aiden breaks the kiss, Lambert sways after him and whines, and Aiden makes a noise Lambert’s never heard before. It sounds like purring, like Aiden’s an actual fucking cat, and it should be stupid, but it makes Lambert’s heart flip.
“Gods, look at you Lamb,” Aiden husks. “So lost just from a few kisses. I can’t tell you how enthralling that is. I wish I wasn’t injured so I could find out how you react to… other things.”
Lambert stares at Aiden, slack-jawed, mind racing with all of the possibilities that he never let himself look at too hard. He wonders if they’re the same thoughts Aiden’s having, or if he’s come up with something different. Maybe something better . “What things?” Lambert rasps.
Aiden’s smile is hungry and dangerous. Just the sight of it sets Lambert’s blood on fire.
Aiden leans forward, lips brushing against Lambert’s ear as his whispers, teasingly. “You need to get my pack, remember?”
“Fuck!” Lambert chokes. He scrambles upright, aroused despite the words. He attempts to hide his reaction by jogging obediently in the direction Aiden points, but his gait is off, and he can hear Aiden smothering laughter.
Bastard. But he’s Lambert’s bastard, so he’ll take it.
He gets Aiden stable relatively quickly, thank the gods, mostly because Aiden leaves off teasing, since it’s torture for them both. When he’s finished patching Aiden up, Lambert strips Jad and his cronies of anything of value with vicious satisfaction, while Aiden watches with approval. Afterward, Lambert piles up the bodies and sets them alight with Igni. They stay long enough to ensure there’s nothing left to draw necrophages, smother the embers, and spit on the ashes for good measure, then prepare to set out.
Lambert shoulders Aiden’s pack, makes sure it’s settled securely, then picks the Cat up bridal style, so he doesn’t strain any of his healing injuries – which Aiden seems far too pleased by.
Not that Lambert is complaining.
The scent and weight of his Cat is a comfort, one he is happy to have for as long as Aiden will humor him. They are both thankfully familiar with the area, and Lambert makes for a secluded clearing they’ve used before with a spring that runs nearby. Lambert should probably be exhausted, but he feels nothing but elation as he carries Aiden, his Cat’s heartbeat so close to his own serving as proof that this is real.
That he hasn’t lost him.
Even once they reach the clearing, Lambert is reluctant to put him down, and Aiden catches on quickly, giving him a soft smile and a softer kiss. Lambert stays as close as he can while he sets up camp, insisting Aiden stay seated and rest. While Aiden would normally bristle at such coddling, he indulges Lambert instead, simply offering little touches every time Lambert passes by the log he’s perched on. At dinner, they steal kisses between bites of trail rations, pressed tightly together, side by side all the while.
They still go no further than kisses and chaste touches in deference to Aiden’s injuries, though the Cat will not stop making suggestive comments, and takes far too long to lick crumbs from his fingers. Lambert is torn between wanting to toss the Cat in the stream, and kiss him. The temptation of Aiden’s mouth wins out, and they end up half tangled together, teetering dangerously on the log as they exchange languid, torturous kisses that Lambert wouldn’t give up for all the gold on the continent.
After they’ve finally finished eating, Lambert awkwardly offers the dimeritium-lined sheath to Aiden, which earns him several more very enthusiastic kisses that leave him dazed, half-hard, and wearing what he knows is a stupid fucking smile, but it makes Aiden laugh every time he catches sight of it, so that’s alright.
When it starts to grow dark, Lambert lays out their bedrolls side by side, despite the balmy weather, unwilling to be separated, even in sleep. Aiden makes no comment, lying down without complaint. Once Lambert joins him, Aiden sighs and stretches carefully, testing the state of his injuries. The potions and a half day’s rest seem to have done their work well, because Aiden doesn’t flinch at all.
“Doesn’t hurt to move anymore,” Aiden informs him happily, wiggling slightly to get more comfortable. “They only pulled a little, so I should be right as rain tomorrow.”
“Thank fuck,” Lambert says.
“No, thank you , though I wouldn’t be opposed to some fucking tomorrow, if you’re game,” Aiden replies cheekily, voice dipping enticingly low. The Cat grins unrepentantly when Lambert shudders. How the hells did he manage to spend decades traveling with Aiden without ever learning his voice could do that ?
Fuck.
“Fuck,” Lambert says emphatically, at a loss for what else to say.
Aiden chuckles, but once they die out, his expression sobers. “Since that’s still off the table for tonight, though, let’s talk about how you arrived out of nowhere, just in the nick of time, to save me. And why you’ve been avoiding talking about it.”
Lambert jerks, startled, frowning at Aiden’s knowing gaze. “Uh,” is all he can manage.
Aiden rolls his eyes, but leans forward to give Lambert a kiss anyway. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been looking at me all day. And don’t try to say it’s just because I almost died. I’ve had plenty of close calls around you, and this is not how you normally react,” Aiden warns when Lambert opens his mouth. He closes it again, guiltily. “You rant, and curse, and call me stupid, but you sure as the hells have never looked at me like you’re afraid I’m going to disappear any second.”
Aiden reaches toward him, and cards his fingers through Lambert’s hair, and Lambert lets his eyes fall closed, sighing at how fucking good it feels. He almost never got to feel this, and that makes his heart seize in his chest.
Lambert debates with himself, but he has to tell Aiden sometime. Might as well be now, but how is he going to talk about this and not fall to pieces?
A solution occurs to him, and Lambert bites his lip nervously. “It’ll be easier if I can hold you,” Lambert finally admits, hesitantly.
Aiden immediately rolls toward him, tucking his head under Lambert’s chin, limbs pulled in close so that it’s easy, so damn easy , for Lambert to wrap the Cat up in his arms, and press his nose to his hair, inhaling until his lungs are filled with the scent of Aiden, of the person he loves more than anything. He releases the breath reluctantly, and sighs.
“You have to promise not to freak the fuck out,” Lambert warns.
“Absolutely not,” Aiden retorts. Lambert groans, and can feel the puff of Aiden’s smothered laughter against his neck. Lambert grumbles theatrically, just to feel Aiden laugh again. “How about this, I'll promise not to freak out, if you promise to introduce me to your family this winter.”
There's a hitch in Aiden's voice, and Lambert's mouth goes dry. The thought of his family, his whole family, all in one place for a season, is more than he's ever hoped for. “I promise,” he whispers.
“Really?” Aiden asks, so softly Lambert barely hears it.
“Yeah,” Lambert says, nuzzling his hair. Lambert lets the silence lie for a moment, until he feels mischievous. “But only if you promise to help me traumatize my brothers with loud sex.”
When Aiden nips at his throat in playful admonishment, Lambert knows, with an adamant certainty, that they are going to be okay, no matter what comes. Because this is what he chooses – the love he has for the Cat in his arms, and the love he holds for his brothers, and that is more powerful and precious than anything else in all the world.
A boon indeed.