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Human blood was significantly less disgusting than monster ichor, Jaskier thought as he shed his red leather coat. Still disgusting, but less so. Perhaps this was the universe’s balancing factor for how killing a human being was much more emotionally taxing than slaying a monster. Not that he had much experience with killing monsters, but he had killed a drowner once and that definitely had not taken nearly as much of a mental toll as this. There was a good deal of blood on one of the coat’s sleeves, however he wasn’t currently near a source of water so he didn’t want to waste the water in his two waterskins on cleaning it off. He settled for doing his best to wipe off the slowly drying crimson liquid on the grass a few feet away. He didn’t want to be able to smell the copper-rust scent from his spot beneath a large oak tree any more than he already had to.
It was rather plush grass, soft under his fingers as he bloodied it. The tree was thick and ancient, its upper bows reaching for the sky while its lower ones stretched out in a wide diameter in every direction. Small clusters of purple flowers dotted the green carpeting the ground and the branches overhead were sparse enough to allow large patches of sunlight to grace the clearing. He could see the dust motes floating around in the golden rays. It was a perfectly lovely clearing in the forest, with the minor exception of the dead man laying face down in the middle of it.
Just one more addition on the list of things he did not regret but would be haunted by nonetheless.
He settled with his back against the tree and the most worn down chemise he could find in his pack in hand to clean his recently used dagger. He repurposed his lute oil, pouring some on the cloth. He didn’t carry things like sword oil in his bag but he knew the importance of taking care of your blades. Blade. Singular. Jaskier did not carry two. He did not keep the company of anyone that carried two. He’d recently lost his whetstone—he didn’t often need to use the dagger as a weapon, but one couldn’t properly skin a catch with a blunt blade—so he’d have to do without for now. For now getting the blood fully off was most important, he could see it properly tended to in the next town he stopped in.
“You kill him?”
The bard startled at the sudden voice, jerkily holding up his small weapon in front of him as if it would do much good when he was sitting down. Across the clearing stood a man that Jaskier could have sworn had not been there a moment ago. He didn’t have a weapon drawn, which didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of being attacked but did lessen it. The man had clearly snuck up on him, if he intended to do anything untoward he likely would have simply done it instead of alerting the bard to his presence.
Jaskier looked the man up and down and found his eyes stuck on the two hilts above his right shoulder. A witcher. Wonderful. No wonder he hadn’t heard anyone approach. Twenty-two years he went without meeting a witcher other than the one he traveled with and now as soon as their association had ended Destiny saw fit to throw another one at him. A quick glance at his chest revealed a silver medallion in the shape of a snarling wolf. Not just any witcher either, one of the mere three witchers that Geralt had directly referred to as being equivalent to family. He wasn’t sure whether there was something profound there or if Destiny was just having a laugh at his expense. Jaskier gave him the most unimpressed look he could muster.
‘You kill him?’ Oh fuck off. What an excellent conversation starter. He couldn’t tell if the witcher was being an ass or was just dumber than a bag of hammers. Was being a dick a requirement for earning a Wolf witcher medallion or something? Dumb fucking question either way. Perhaps he was being a tad harsher than he would have been once upon a time in the past, but frankly Jaskier didn’t give a damn. Everything about him had been harsher lately. “No,” he replied, imbuing the single word with such sarcasm it would have gotten him a proper caning from his tutor back when he was a child. “I was just wandering the woods and stumbled across this poor chap lying here and decided I absolutely had to have the dagger that was in his gut.” He scoffed heartily before continuing, “Obviously I fucking killed him.” He wasn’t ashamed of it and he refused to act like he was. He hadn’t resorted to such violence unprompted, and a witcher of all people was in no position to judge him for self defense.
The witcher peered down at the corpse and kicked the dead man’s side. He wasn’t particularly rough about it but he wasn’t especially gentle either. Unsurprisingly, the dead guy didn’t do anything. The witcher had to have expected that though, he would have noticed the lack of a third heartbeat. “Huh. You see something new every day. A bard with a blade. What’d he do to get on your bad side?”
Jaskier nodded towards his pack where it rested near his feet. “Tried to rob me. I happen to be rather attached to my personal belongings and declined. He tried to kill me so he could take them once I was dead and voila,” he gestured grandly at the body still slumped on the ground where it had fallen.
The other man hummed. Fucking witchers. “I suppose that’s understandable. So you’ll take a knife to a bandit but won’t even get to your feet when an even more heavily armed man approaches you? I could be his backup.”
He didn’t even bother to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He chose to not acknowledge the bit about him being another bandit. “I’m not stupid, Wolf. You’re a witcher. I’m a bard that carries a small dagger in his boot. If you wanted me dead it wouldn’t make a lick of a difference whether I was standing or not. If you wanted me dead we wouldn’t be speaking in the first place, I would be bleeding out without even knowing what happened.”
The man’s gaze seemed to turn more contemplative as he looked him over. No doubt the witcher could smell the lack of fear in his scent despite his words making it clear he was aware he was in the presence of a witcher, as well as aware of what kind of capabilities that entailed. “You seem rather certain that I don’t plan on killing you.”
“I think your pack would be rather disappointed if you slaughtered an innocent man you bumped into in the woods,” Jaskier told him confidently and just the slightest bit condescendingly.
The witcher’s expression twisted at that. “Who says I got some kind of pack? Witchers work alone.” Witchers didn’t have anything like families, witchers couldn’t feel emotions, witchers didn’t need anyone in their lives. At least this bit of bullshit had a reason behind it, that reason being protecting the other Wolf witchers.
“I called you Wolf for a reason. I know there’s a few Wolves out there still kicking, and I know you Wolves don’t kill humans without serious provocation. They wouldn’t be very pleased with you if they found out, save for Geralt perhaps. He might thank you for it.” Sometimes the bard simply didn’t feel like resisting the desire to be melodramatic.
The man narrowed his eyes. “The hell did you do that would make Geralt celebrate your death?” His suspicion was understandable, usually people on the White Wolf’s bad side had done something truly foul to land themselves there. Something worse than offering unwanted companionship in the wake of a breakup.
Jaskier shrugged and smiled bitterly. “Cling to him like an irritating tick for twenty years, apparently. I don’t think he’d truly celebrate my death, he’s too noble for that, but he’d be glad to know there was no chance of us bumping into one another again.” Regardless of whether anything Geralt said to him on that mountain was true, it was clear he wanted the bard gone. Jaskier was stubborn, but not impossibly so. He could take a hint when it was screamed at him. If the white haired witcher regretted his actions then it would be up to him to seek Jaskier out to mend things between them. Unlikely considering by now he’d probably convinced himself he was better off alone and that this was better for both of them. Emotionally constipated bastard.
“Shit,” the other said astutely, “you’re Geralt’s bard. The fuck happened between you two?” He crossed the clearing and smoothly sank into a crouch a few feet away. Apparently he was done posturing. Honestly the bard had expected it to last longer. Jaskier absentmindedly noted that his eyes were a very vibrant orange, not at all the yellow of his white haired brother.
Jaskier’s smile grew sharp. “I’m not Geralt’s anything. Not anymore. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t refer to me as such.” He knew there was no point in attempting to intimidate or threaten a witcher in any way, but it was still rather satisfying to accompany his sentence with a tilt of his knife that let it catch the light. The witcher seemed bemused at this, but the bard was serious in his request, knife or no. It seemed Geralt was no longer Jaskier’s witcher, if he ever had been; it was high time Jaskier stopped being the White Wolf’s bard. “I go by Jaskier, in case he didn’t feel like using my name when he complained about me during winters.”
“Jaskier,” the amber eyed witcher repeated, “like the flower.” He did not say whether this was the first time he had heard the name. Or whether Geralt had regularly mentioned him at all to the other Wolves.
“Like the flower,” he confirmed with a nod, internally daring him to say something insulting about his choice of name, to give him a reason to spit out some of the venom that had soaked into his gums on his way back to Caingorn. No such excuse came. The witcher wasn’t actively looking to pick a fight it seemed.
“I’m Lambert,” the man said at long last. The bard had suspected as much, but the confirmation was nice nonetheless.
“Of course you are,” was Jaskier’s immediate response.
Lambert cocked an eyebrow, the one with a long scar running through it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Eskel wouldn’t have acted like he was considering killing me. Also your gambeson doesn’t have spikes and I’m told his does. Interesting rerebraces by the way.” On the witcher’s upper arms there were chunky, peculiarly shaped pieces of metal. Jaskier assumed they served the same purpose as having spikes on your armor. Being hard to take bites out of did make witchering a bit easier.
Lambert’s eyebrow remained firmly raised. “You know what a rerebrace is?” he said skeptically.
Jaskier raised a judgmental brow right back. “I traveled with a witcher for over two decades. Of course I know what the different pieces of armor are called.”
“Ah, my apologies,” replied the other man, clearly not apologetic in the slightest. “You’re a right proper squire.”
The bard bristled, hands clenching around the dagger and cloth held in his hands. He’d done his best to take care of Geralt, to tend to his wounds and keep his supplies well stocked, but he’d always hated the idea that he was nothing more than some assistant, that the white haired man only kept him around because he was mildly useful as an underling. Fucking asshole witcher. Asshole Wolf witchers. Two decades of improving the reputation of witchers everywhere and this was the thanks he got. For a moment he contemplated grabbing his pack and walking off. He didn’t plan on camping here anyway, there were several more hours of daylight left for traveling, not to mention the possibility of the corpse here attracting any variety of horrid beasts he was not equipped to deal with. But no, he’d sat down in this clearing for a rest and he would not let himself be chased off by a witcher, especially not by a Wolf witcher, not even a Wolf witcher with a shit sense of humor.
“Are you feeling jealous, perhaps?” Jaskier asked, voice sickly sweet. “Maybe if you weren’t such a miserable ass you’d have someone that cared about you enough to learn about your armor.” Now it was the witcher’s turn to bristle, straightening up as best he could while squatting. The glare and scowl he sported were admirably fearsome, as to be expected of a witcher, but the bard didn’t let it intimidate him. Lambert was going to have to do better than that if he wanted to scare him. Jaskier smiled, the kind that was just as mean as it was pretty. “We can continue to sit here taking potshots at one another, but personally I would prefer not to. I’ve had far too much of that recently so either watch your tongue or fuck off.”
The witcher blinked at him, then chuckled. “You’re much more vicious than Geralt made you out to be.” He dropped down onto the ground to sit instead of squat, leaning back on his hands as he stretched his legs out in front of him.
The bard firmly held their eye contact. “I’m a lot more than Geralt made me out to be.” He kept his gaze on the witcher for a long moment after he spoke before dropping it down to the task at hand.
They sat in silence as Jaskier finished wiping down his dagger. He could feel the witcher’s eyes on him, but Lambert didn’t say anything further.
“You got a whetstone I can borrow?” he asked. He knew the other had to have one, but what he didn’t know was whether his belongings were anywhere nearby or if he would let him use it. Lambert grunted a sound that seemed vaguely like agreement, then rose to his feet and walked out of the clearing. For a moment Jaskier thought the witcher was sending rather mixed signals before he realized the man likely had a horse somewhere nearby with his belongings in its saddlebags. Surely enough, the witcher returned a few short minutes later—minutes the bard spent telling himself he wouldn’t care at all if the witcher walked off and did not return—with a whetstone in one hand and a waterskin in the other. He tossed the whetstone at Jaskier, forcing him to drop the cloth idly held in his hand to catch it before it hit him in the chest. Lambert barely telegraphed the move at all, leaving the brunette surprised when the stone came flying towards him, but didn’t throw it fast enough Jaskier wouldn’t have a decent chance of catching it.
“Consider that my act of kindness for the week,” the witcher said as he sat down in the grass near the bard once more. He placed himself in exactly the same place he had sat previously, no closer to Jaskier but no further away either. The bard was beginning to get the feeling that Lambert was a man that behaved like his every action was thoughtless and meaningless when they actually revealed a great deal more about him and his intent than his words typically did.
“Many thanks, Wolf.” He took the whetstone to the silver blade, honing the edge. It didn’t take incredibly long, the weapon was small and hadn’t seen much use since he last sharpened it. Today was one of the rare times he’d actually had to defend himself with it. Typically he stuck to talking his way out of trouble, or when that didn’t work, running away from it. He knew how to use the whetstone properly, Geralt had insisted he carry something to protect himself with—the dagger had been a gift from him the fifth year Jaskier had hunted him down in spring to travel together—and had shown him how to care for it. If he hadn’t known how he wouldn’t have bothered asking Lambert for the whetstone, the last thing he needed was to be making a fool of himself in front of another witcher. Geralt had also been the one to teach him how to set snares, and how to skin a catch. Geralt had taught him a lot of things, some more pleasant to learn than others. Some lessons were more intentional than others.
The other man wasn’t looking at him, but he wasn’t not looking at him either. From the corner of his eye he could see how the witcher’s gaze lazily flicked about their surroundings, occasionally landing on the human beside him. His eyes traveled over his work with the whetstone just as much as they did over the bard himself. Once Jaskier was satisfied with his maintenance of the dagger he tossed the stone back to its owner, not throwing it aggressively enough to seem like he was genuinely trying to hit the witcher with it but faster than he would have done to a human with no warning. As expected, Lambert plucked it out of the air with ease. He tossed it up and caught it repeatedly, occasionally giving it a bit of spin. Jaskier watched the stone rotate as it fell, how it landed in the witcher’s gloved palm for a brief moment before a twist of his wrist sent it flying into the air once more.
The bard pulled his pack onto his lap and retrieved one of his waterskins, taking a long drink from it before tucking it away once more. He mentally ran through his options for what to do next. He decided against attempting to pry any stories out of Lambert, as well as against making small talk of any kind. The brunette wasn’t in the mood to write about a monster hunt anyway and the witcher didn’t seem like he’d appreciate Jaskier striking up a random conversation. With conversation a dead end his hands itched for something to do. He certainly wasn’t going to sit and contemplate his life in the company of one of Geralt’s brothers. He tugged his lute case closer and opened it, taking out his beloved instrument. Lambert blatantly watched him arrange it on his lap—no sense putting on the strap when he could rest the bottom of the lute on his thighs. He’d played it while walking earlier in the day so he didn’t need to tune it, going straight into playing a few arpeggios. Quickly growing bored with that, he transitioned into a piece he’d learned in university as technique practice. By now he’d long since mastered it, his skill level beyond the point of it being truly challenging, but it still required just enough of his attention that it was a good solution for things like boredom or slightly tense silence between you and the brother of the man that threw you away after two decades of devoted companionship. He played through it once slowly, as was his habit for technical pieces, before going through it once more at a much faster pace. There were no lyrics, simply the sound of his lute and the gentle rustle of leaves from the surrounding trees. Lambert listened attentively, making it no secret he was watching.
He played several more songs, all purely instrumental. Some of them were composed as instrumental, some he worked the melody that would normally be sung into the playing. Integrating a melody part into what was normally only accompaniment was always interesting. How much time passed by like that, Jaskier couldn’t have said. At least a full set’s worth of songs. He eventually took a short break for more water. The brief period of silence was interrupted by the witcher’s quiet but raspy voice requesting a song. “You know The Old Maid’s Cow?” The bard did know it, a fairly slowed paced but complicated ballad. It wasn’t your typical tavern fare and it’s complexity meant it was usually left to the side in favor of easier lullabies. He nodded, and when he began to play once more he plucked out the lengthy intro to The Old Maid’s Cow. Jaskier hummed the song’s melody when the time came instead of working it into his playing.
When the song came to its end he transitioned into a ballad of his own, one he’d written nearly a decade ago. A betrothed couple had commissioned it for their wedding. It was soft and sweet, just like the love clearly shared between the young man and woman. Gentle. It was not a song of a fiery, passionate love, but of one strong and enduring. The warmth of the hearth rather than a blazing summer fling. The undercurrent throughout was of steadiness and stability. Love, in Jaskier’s opinion, was something long lasting. Something constant that served as a foundation for the rest of your life to be built upon. When all else fell to pieces, you still had love. Romance could be fleeting, but real love, of any nature, that was something that never left you. Even if the person did. Blood kept the body alive, flowing through every part of it, but love wasn’t found in the blood, no, love lived in the bones, it kept you standing tall. It made its home there over the course of years, burrowing into the marrow. That was the kind of love he had sung about at the couple’s wedding. One that was sturdy, capable of weathering the worst of storms. Strong, capable hands holding one another up and choosing to touch with care. That was the kind of love he sang about in a forest clearing somewhere between one backwater Redanian town and the next, a brother of the man he had traveled with for half his life sitting a few feet away.
He kept a careful eye on Lambert as he began to sing. He didn’t exactly expect the man to get aggressive because of his singing, or because of the song’s content, but if the witcher’s mood took a turn he wanted to be able to see it coming. Lambert didn’t visibly react to the introduction of his voice, or the content of the lyrics, but his gaze felt heavier. Like he was looking for something. The song ended. Jaskier wondered if the witcher had found what he’d been looking for.
The brunette then went into an upbeat ditty about two lovers getting caught in a hayloft by the girl’s older brother, laughing and stumbling as they ran half dressed through her family’s fields to get away. Lambert wasn’t exactly tapping his toes, but seemed amicable enough to Jaskier’s singing. Jaskier would’ve kept singing regardless of how Lambert felt about it. It was still nice to sing out in the woods with company without being told to shut up. His next tune was a filthy drinking song and he felt emboldened enough during it to throw the witcher a cheeky wink at a particularly lurid lyric. Lambert snorted, though whether it was at the terrible innuendo or at the audacity required to wink at a witcher, the bard didn’t know. It didn’t really matter.
Eventually the time came to go their separate ways. Jaskier was the first to stand up, shrugging on his leather coat and slinging his pack onto his back, lute in his hands, its strap across his shoulder. He didn’t know how Lambert felt about his impromptu casual performance, but the witcher had remained in the clearing the whole time Jaskier was there and that had to mean something. Witchers didn’t do things they didn’t want to do just for the sake of a human’s ego, not unless there was good coin on the line or a threat to their safety forcing them to.
“We’re not going to awkwardly separate only to realize we’re traveling in the same direction, are we?” he asked. “I’m making my way towards Oxenfurt.” Hopefully Lambert was headed anywhere but Oxenfurt. Jaskier had had his fill of traveling with a witcher, he didn’t need to accidentally pick up another one. Especially not one of Geralt’s brothers.
“Unfortunately for you, bard, I’m going the opposite direction.” Just as Geralt did, Lambert made rising to his feet something graceful despite his bulk.
“Truly a shame, witcher,” Jaskier drawled, a bit sarcastic but not caustic, a mirror of the other man’s tone.
They did walk in the same direction for a short time, just until they reached the road. They walked in silence save for the idle strumming of his lute, his fingers flitting from chord to chord on a whim in accordance with whatever pleased him at that moment. Near the road a saddled black and white horse was tied to a young tree, standing in the shade of a larger tree next to it. Lambert untied its reins and led it onto the dirt road. According to Geralt the youngest Wolf never named his horses, referring to all of them as simply ‘horse.’ Having met Lambert, albeit briefly, this seemed believable. The witcher pulled himself astride his mount facing the direction Jaskier had come from.
“Pleasure meeting you, Lambert.” The sarcasm was absent from his words this time. They weren’t warm, but they weren’t cold either. His tone was decidedly neutral. He hadn’t disliked meeting the man, but he wouldn’t be torn up if they never met again. He received a grunt and nod in response that he interpreted to mean ‘you too.’
They parted ways without another word, witcher in one direction and bard the other.
——————————————————————————
In the wake of the battle against Voleth Meir Jaskier was exhausted, in pain, and lonely in a way he had not experienced in years.
Traveling alone for a significant period of time after over a decade of regularly meeting up with another person had taken some getting used to, especially since the companionship he’d left had ended on bad terms, meaning there would be no meeting up in the future, but there was something soothing about spending time alone in nature and something satisfying in providing for yourself entirely. And he’d had things to do; music to play, songs to compose, classes to teach, and eventually elves to smuggle. He’d had several miserable months of heartache before shoving everything but his anger in a box and writing a hit fuck-you-I-hate-you song—what Shani had referred to as a break up song—then throwing himself into everything he could to keep himself occupied. Oxenfurt was full of people but Jaskier was too busy to really connect with old or new friends. It wasn’t loneliness if he’d chosen it.
Now he was surrounded by people again and he’d never felt more alone. He didn’t have a purpose here, didn’t have his lute and wouldn’t even be able to play it if he did, and was no help in a fight. He didn’t know the witchers—save for his one brief encounter with Lambert prior to accepting his professorship—Cirilla didn’t particularly like him nor see his presence at the keep as particularly necessary, he and Yennefer were no longer enemies but could not yet be considered more than tentative allies still working on letting go of past grudges, and his relationship with Geralt was a mere shadow of what it once was. Perhaps he would grow closer to the princess and sorceress with a bit of time, but the witchers were grieving and uninterested in playing house with a useless human bard and Jaskier was simply too mentally, physically, and emotionally tired to pour himself into repairing his friendship with Geralt. Not that there was much he could do there anyway. He’d already ended up here at the white haired man’s behest despite the lack of real apology or acknowledgment of what had happened on the mountain after the dragon hunt. What more could he do, every relationship had two sides and he couldn’t carry Geralt’s for him, regardless of whether he’d be willing to—he wasn’t sure he was, anymore. The best he could do was stay out of the way and make himself as small of a burden as possible. He kept his head down, helped where he could—which was really only the kitchen, and he didn’t have anything more than basic cooking skills in the first place so even that wasn’t very valuable. For years he’d longed for an invitation to Kaer Morhen and now he was there under the worst possible circumstances. Destiny was a bitch like that.
Jaskier kept his comments to himself. His tongue had a tendency to turn sharp when he felt scorned, and never before had he felt scorned like he did when Geralt had not only rejected his offer of going to the coast together, but then rejected his companionship entirely. The hurt that clung to him had only multiplied when he had finally accepted after two weeks in the keep that Geralt had no intention of attempting to repair what he’d torn apart. The brunette was bitter and the words sitting behind his teeth were more often than not harsh and biting, too critical for someone relying on the goodwill of their hosts.
He was so tired. Ever since he’d run into Yennefer in Oxenfurt everything had been go go go. There was always something more, another hit to take. Instead of his previous self-inflicted aggressive pushing onward in the city of scholars, life had taken to rapidly dragging him forward. He’d almost gotten used to the sensation, then whatever force had been hauling him along had suddenly dropped him in a unnaturally quiet witcher’s keep—it seemed so loud at times yet compared to the brief time he’d seen it occupied before Voleth Meir possessed Cirilla it was so still and silent—in a freezing mountain range, isolated from anyone that truly gave a fuck about him. (Not that there was an abundance of those anyway, people that cared about Jaskier the man rather than Jaskier the bard or Julian Alfred Pankratz the professor. He’d built his life around Geralt of Rivia, people like Priscilla and Essi and Shani were important to him and he cared for them, but even they came secondary to the witcher he had spent so many years beside.)
It felt like he’d been running on fumes and adrenaline and now that the dust was settling he was finally feeling the full extent of his exhaustion. His attempts to catch up on lost sleep were interrupted by dreams of fire and blood and pain, of Wolves slaughtered in the one place they thought safe. He woke up at night with his heart pounding and his jaw sore from clenching his teeth. He would try to fall asleep again, usually unsuccessfully, with the sounds of Cirilla’s chaos filled screams and the choked off gasps of dying witchers echoing in his ears. Nearly every night he drank till he could no longer walk straight in the hopes it would grant him a full night’s sleep. It rarely worked.
On the worst nights of sleeplessness he’d stare at the empty fireplace in his small room—he refused to light it, just as he refused to go through the recently dead witchers’ rooms for spare furs to keep himself warm, instead searching through the keep’s ancient storage room, a remnant of when it once housed hundreds of trainees and witchers, for moth eaten, stiff furs—and pretend he couldn’t recall the methodical way Rience had burnt away his livelihood and identity in search of secrets that weren’t his to give. First the center of his palms, both at the same time—a warning. Then the right hand, the strumming hand, one finger at a time from pinky to thumb, focusing on the fingertips. Then the left hand, the more valuable one, the one he needed in order to play more than the six notes of the open strings, starting with the thumb. The mage had gotten to the ring finger before Yennefer showed up. He wielded his fire the way a master blacksmith would a welding flame: with precision and confidence, a small blazing flame directed exactly where he wanted it to go with no hesitation. Fire had never been an enemy of Jaskier’s, not until Rience. It had been something to respect but not fear, something to warm his body and cook his food. Now standing close enough to the fireplace in the great hall to feel its warmth came with a hyper awareness of the persisting pain of his burns and the sorcerer’s taunting voice whispering about the future of a bard that couldn’t play. He told himself his hands would heal enough for him to play again and tried to enjoy the heat.
(Despite many years of writing lines for the critical eyes of his tutors, his handwriting was currently no better than that of a child. Yennefer had picked up his notebook—small, falling apart, dug up from a chest full of items that had once belonged to children that had most likely died screaming; they had only been kept since they could still be made useful. the first fourth of the pages were covered in unskilled drawings of animals and eyes—and misread the first line she saw.)
(Jaskier had once won third place in a calligraphy competition in university. He’d shown a baroness his original copy of the full lyrics to Burn Butcher Burn, written in the most aggressive, bold, elegant font he could muster, and she’d requested he copy out a version of it for her to frame.)
Relaxation was difficult to achieve with the ever present knowledge that his presence in the keep was only tolerated by the thinnest of margins hanging over his head. Jaskier hadn’t experienced such an extended period of active stress since his first winter as a professor. This was worse in every way. Nothing was actively threatening his life, he had consistent access to sufficient food and a roof over his head, and no pressing responsibilities; this was as close to a break as he was going to get and yet his body was perpetually trapped in the moment before the mind chose fight or flight.
His hands at the very least weren’t infected, Yennefer had managed to do that much with her slowly regenerating chaos. She claimed that she wasn’t very skilled with healing magic involving the skin, which meant even once she regained her full chaos she might not be able to heal his fingers in a way that wouldn’t limit their dexterity due to the increased speed at which the skin would heal—similar to if he didn’t flex his hands at all over the natural period it would take for them to heal. All he could do for now was keep his bandages clean and try not to aggravate the wounds, difficult tasks when he needed to at least make an effort to pull his weight. Current day or hundreds of years ago, Kaer Morhen was not a place for those that couldn’t make themselves useful. Sometimes he wondered if he would have survived being put through the witcher trials. Most likely not. Only three out of every ten boys had made it. Sometimes he thought he wouldn’t have lived through enough of the training to be put through the trials at all.
In Jaskier’s opinion, no part of the keep made him feel smaller than the kitchen. Nowhere else in it made him feel the size of its loss more acutely, the scale of what it had once been but no longer was. The battlements were vast and imposing, though crumbling, there were many large, empty courtyards, and the towers possibly had more floors than any other structure he’d seen before, not to mention the grand great hall, but none of these had quite the same effect. The armory was enormous and full of long untouched weaponry, the attached smithery holding only the smallest amount of fuel for its forge, and there was an entire fourth of the keep barricaded off due to its disrepair that had once housed hundreds of young boys and fully fledged witchers.
Still, Jaskier’s mind always came back to the kitchens. They consisted of a main room at least a third the size of the great hall and a small corridor connecting it to a root cellar, a room for housing fresh meat with large troughs meant to be filled with cold water to keep the temperature low, a room for dried meats, a sizable wine cellar with its own distillery set up, a room for grain storage, and a pantry that stored spices that he hated going in because of how it made him sneeze. He had no idea how the witchers and their sensitive noses could stand it. The actual kitchen itself had no less than eight large tables, four ovens Cirilla could climb fully inside if she tried, three fireplaces, and two separate spouts that could be turned on to draw near boiling hot water from the natural springs below. The sheer amount of supplies and work required to feed hundreds of witchers and growing boys had clearly been immense. What must have once been a bustling space staffed by a sizable number of people now felt perpetually empty.
The keep’s current occupants could be fed by one incredibly determined person, though kitchen duty was typically handled in pairs and passed around from day to day. Jaskier was featured on the cooking schedule more often than the others due to being unable to partake in the manual labor of repairing and maintaining the keep. He could theoretically do such work, but he was so much less efficient at it than the witchers that he was relegated to the kitchen. Being in the room by himself had a way of making him feel more alone than standing in one of the large vacant courtyards, possibly because the space was so clearly meant to be crowded. He’d not seen more than two of the ovens running at the same time so far and several of the tables went unused save for holding things that would be used soon enough that whoever had carried them in hadn’t bothered taking them to their proper places in the adjoining rooms.
He set down the knife he’d been using to chop vegetables down. He’d finally finished chopping and dicing them and dumped them into the large pot of stew simmering over the nearest fireplace, using the knife to scrape the ones sticking to the cutting board into the pot. He was the only one on kitchen duty for the afternoon. He walked to the opposite side of the room to grab a ladle from the rack it was hanging on—he suspected one of the keep’s occupants amused themself by moving all the frequently used cooking utensils from the rack by the more often used fireplace to the one across the room. He let himself linger there, enjoying the distance it put between him and the hearty cooking fire blazing in the fireplace beneath the stew. He breathed in deeply, gently resting the back of one hand against the cool stone wall, feeling the coldness seep into his skin. His hands weren’t shaking. They were not trembling. His hands hadn’t shook because of a fire in the kitchen in days. They were not doing it now, he refused to let them. He refused to lose what little control he’d regained. Clenching his fists didn’t steady his hands, it only made his burns sting underneath their cloth bandages. The slowly healing wounds were already paining him more than usual, especially those on the dominant right hand, after spending so much time gripping the knife and various vegetables. The constant usage of his hands was hindering his healing he knew, but he couldn’t be any more useless than he already was in a keep full of witchers and magic users.
Perhaps it was simply impossible to exist in Kaer Morhen, in any witcher keep, without pain as a constant companion.
What a maudlin thought. Melodramatic, even.
One day his wounds would heal, both mental and physical. One day. Not today, not tomorrow, but at some point in the future the pain would cease. His only concern was how he’d deal with the scarring left behind. He’d spent enough time around witchers to know that scars could ache. With overuse, with the cold, with storms. He didn’t like thinking about being unable to play multiple sets in a row or play his instrument in the winter, but at least that would mean he was able to play at all.
“Jaskier.”
He startled, smacking his knuckles on the wall as he hastily turned to face the source of the sound. Before him stood Lambert a table’s length away. As usual, Jaskier couldn’t glean anything from his expression. The only things Lambert ever seemed to express clearly were anger and amusement. He had something in his hands that he was passing back and forth in what almost seemed to be a display of nervous energy. The brunette’s knuckles were turning red from hitting the wall, contrasting with the off-white of the bandages wrapped around the upper halves of his fingers.
“Lambert,” he said, “Can I help you with something?” The others didn’t seek him out unless there was something they wanted from him, as rare as that was. There was little a human could do that they couldn’t.
“Got something for you.” He tossed the little object to the brunette.
Jaskier caught it with both hands. He didn’t even have to suppress a wince, he was too tired for things like that. His hands hurt all the time, more so when he used them, and apparently his body didn’t have the energy for useless reactions. Were it not for the way he startled at every crack and pop of sparks in the fireplaces he’d think he’d lost his ability to flinch. He examined the item, a small glass jar. It had a metal lid and was filled with some kind of light green liquid or paste. He looked back up at Lambert. He didn’t verbally ask what it was or quirk an eyebrow like he once might have. He simply stared. If the witcher planned on telling him then he would.
“It’s a salve for your hands. Human-safe. Apply it three times a day, more if you have to wash it off your hands before it fully sets in.”
“Why would a witcher keep have burn salve meant for humans?” It wasn’t a challenge, but the question wasn’t entirely innocent either. None of Cirilla’s training put her at risk of burns and any remaining pain from Yennefer’s burns from Sodden could be dealt with via her newly returned chaos. This wasn’t something made for either of them being repurposed. Either the witcher in front of him had hunted down salve meant for long dead trainees or had made it himself. Everyone at Kaer Morhen was only slightly more neutral towards him than they were hostile; he didn’t know what Lambert’s intentions were or what this meant.
“It wouldn’t,” the man said bluntly. “I found the recipe in a book and made it.” He shrugged lightly, like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t more than anyone had done for Jaskier since Yennefer saved him from the burning hands of another mage. “I’ve got a penchant for alchemy, it should work.”
Jaskier stared at the witcher, trying to glean any little bit of meaning possible from his expression and posture. He couldn’t find anything he knew how to interpret. He’d met Lambert before, but he didn’t know him, not well enough to read him. “Why?”
“You’re not very useful—“ Jaskier was so sick of being reminded of that—“but you didn’t ask to be here. Pretty boy dragged you into bringing his magical Cintran princess up to the keep and hasn’t looked at you twice since.” The truth of his words was painful to acknowledge, but true they were. Lambert had no problem speaking the harsh truths others avoided. Still, while the human didn’t ask to be here he did need to be. He had no desire to end up in the hands of someone like Rience again, and it was in the best interest of the Wolves that he wasn’t wandering around where he could let secrets slip when someone finally caught up with him. “Not your fault knowing Geralt’s fucked you over in more ways than one. What you can do isn’t the same as what we can, but you’re doing all you can for us and we haven’t exactly been doing all we can for you.” It was like the man had seen the guilty, bitter thoughts that sometimes crept up on him when his hands were aching fiercely from forcing himself to complete a task despite the way it rubbed his burns raw and someone made an offhand comment referencing his lack of contribution.
Jaskier didn’t know what to say to that, but that didn’t stop him from replying. The only other option was to silently stare at the witcher and let him see every vulnerability he couldn’t shove down far enough. “Everyone else has taken no issue with this arrangement.” It was as much a statement as it was an accusation. No one else had seen to remedy it. Statement and accusation, one and the same. Lambert did. Statement and accusation.
“I don’t give a shit about everyone else. I make my own decisions. Put on the salve,” Lambert told him. He seemed to want to watch the brunette apply it. It almost felt insulting, like he was a child that couldn’t be trusted to know how to take care of themself, but he soothed his ego. The witcher likely wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with the salve he had made. Jaskier still hesitated a moment before complying. The only person that had seen his burns beside himself was Yennefer. He wasn’t ashamed of them, but he was also in the habit of keeping his weaknesses close to the chest lately and this was practically putting his biggest one on display. He unwrapped the cloth strip around his left palm first then did the same for the fingers. He kept his head down and his eyes on his hands as the other man stepped closer. Were the wounds more than what Lambert had expected? Less? The last thing he need was for the witcher to think he’d been exaggerating his pain, especially when he’d put a significant amount of effort into trying to act like his hands didn’t bother him.
He let himself glance up at the witcher’s face as he unwound the bandage on his right palm. Lambert wore his typical neutral expression, which consisted of some of the strongest resting bitch face Jaskier had ever seen. He was intently watching the brunette remove the strips of cloth, standing just close enough for his enhanced eyes to get a good view. As if he could feel Jaskier’s eyes on him, Lambert’s gaze flicked up to meet his own. The brunette quickly turned his eyes back down to the task at hand. He pulled off the last of the bandages—from his pinky, the opposite order of what Rience had done—and felt a sudden swell of dread rise up in him as he realized that he hadn’t opened the jar of salve before taking off his bandages. He hadn’t been looking forward to it in the first place. The squeezing required to untwist the lid, especially if it had been firmly shut, would be highly unpleasant. Now he would have to do so without the buffer of the bandages.
Or so he thought until Lambert snagged the small jar off the table, easily opening it with a flex of his forearms and a quiet pop. He set the lid down on the table and held out the jar for Jaskier to take. The brunette mumbled his gratitude. He reached for the jar and was faced with another realization. Since he was putting the salve on his hands he couldn’t hold the jar in one hand and apply it with the other. He took the jar from Lambert’s hand and set it down on the table next to the lid. He had to purposely keep his muscles from tensing as their fingers brushed. How long had it been since he touched someone? Since someone had touched him? Yennefer had touched his hands to use her magic to prevent them from getting infected. Had he touched anyone else since arriving at the keep? Had anyone touched him?
He scooped a small amount of the salve onto his left pinky—the one fingertip free of burns. Not that he didn’t trust Lambert’s skill, from what he knew the witcher was indeed a dab hand at alchemy, but if he was going to have a poor reaction to the mixture he’d rather not find out on the sensitive skin of his burns. Lambert casually leant against the table next to him, no longer keeping as close an eye on his hands. Jaskier could tell the witcher was still watching him—monitoring his reaction—but he wasn’t being as blatant about it as before, keeping an eye on him overall rather than inspecting his burns. After nearly two minutes passed and the only thing he felt from the salve was a slight tingling, odd but not unpleasant, he deemed it safe to put on his burns. The salve was a thin paste, smooth but not slick. He carefully spread it across the burns on the thumb of his other hand. Within a few seconds of applying it he felt a sense of cool relief in addition to the faint tingling. When the sensation didn’t change he put it on the rest of the wounds on that hand. He repeated the same process with his other hand, applying the salve with the finger with the least painful burn.
As he delicately spread the paste across the worst of his remaining burns—the tip of his left index finger—it occurred to him that he didn’t have any clean bandages to replace the ones he had removed. He did have some, but they were in his room. He’d have to somehow close the little jar, trudge up several flights of stairs while awkwardly carrying it on the unburnt part of his palm, and then he’d have to haul the heavy oak door open, all without bandages protecting his wounds. The mere thought of it was exhausting. He kept thinking he would grow used to the pain, and perhaps he was, but the thing no one ever mentioned about growing used to something was that it did not necessarily become tolerable, merely familiar. He functioned as best as he could around the limitations imposed by his burns, contributing as best he could, because it was either that or lay down and give up, drink himself into the grave—what was one more dead man in a keep full of ghosts surrounded by a moat full of bones. But Jaskier would not die in a crumbling ruin inhabited by a silence so haunted it echoed. He refused to. When he died he would be laid to rest in Oxenfurt, his bones buried in the dirt where they could hear music playing in the wind evermore. That was the plan at least, it seemed much less likely the further he got himself tangled up with witchers and princesses and deathless mothers.
He allowed himself one deep, heavy sigh, his head bowed under the weight of all he had yet to bear but knew he would carry, then reached for his old bandages—he would need at least one of his hands covered in order to get the door to his room open without tearing open his healing wounds.
A hand stopped him, wrapping itself around his elbow. It was no delicate caress, but it wasn’t forceful. Firm enough to be felt but hardly restrictive. He looked to the witcher he’d been trying to ignore. “You better have a good reason for putting your hands on me, Lambert,” he said, a sharp edge to his voice. The witcher’s hand was not hurting him, and it wasn’t dredging up unwanted memories either, but it was…Jaskier had missed being touched in ways that didn’t hurt and this small touch made him ache for more. He didn’t enjoy being reminded of what he could not have.
Lambert pulled his hand away and shrugged. “I’m not great with words. Actions are easier. Figured if you’re going to be around for a while you wouldn’t want me to treat you any different than I do the others.” Some deeply buried part of Jaskier reveled in the acknowledgment that he was not a typical human, Lambert didn’t think he would be disgusted or upset by being touched by a witcher. Another part of him was valiantly attempting to violently smother that one. “If you don’t want me to touch you, just say so and I won’t. We all have our hangups from the shit we’ve been through.” As much as he hated the idea that his capture had left him with hangups—he was sick of having unwanted truths thrown in his face—he appreciated that Lambert made it clear he wouldn’t take it personally if he requested not to be touched.
Jaskier didn’t say he didn’t want to be touched. Instead he asked, “Well what did you get my attention for?” Lambert lifted his other hand, fresh bandages held aloft. “Oh.” The witcher set them on the table, all except one wide strip, the width perfectly sized to cover one of the burns on the centers of his palms. He held out the cloth, both hands holding the ends with only his fingertips. A silent offering. The brunette stared at the man’s hands. They were large and rough, fingertips visibly calloused, scars littering the flesh as liberally as freckles on a sun kissed cheek.
Jaskier held out his hand.
The witcher cupped the back of it as he carefully began to put the bandage in place, making sure it was tight enough for the brunette to use his hands without it getting in the way or falling off but not so tight that it hurt the burn underneath. Lambert completed the task with surprising gentleness, at odds with his general harsh demeanor. The silence between them as the witcher moved on to wrapping his fingers was not uncomfortable, but Jaskier felt tense. Anticipation was crawling up his spine, but he didn’t know what it was that he was anticipating. The other man began to bandage his other hand. The brunette watched his calloused hands work, moving far more deftly than one would expect—not treating him delicately but still careful all the same—and occasionally snuck glances at his face. Lambert certainly knew he was doing so, but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t look up to meet his gaze so Jaskier allowed himself to continue.
When the witcher finished securing the last bandage he then picked up the jar of salve and screwed the lid back on. Another wordless act of kindness. Lambert was made of contradictions it felt like. He’d express absolutely zero remorse for telling Jaskier ‘Get the fuck out of the way, bard,’ were he to block the witcher’s path in one of the corridors—which had happened more than once at this point—but also made a salve for his hands and helped put on his bandages. Lambert was the kind of person you could know for years and still keep discovering hidden depths, little nuances that caught you by surprise as much for the fact you didn’t already know them as for what they were.
“Lambert,” the witcher cocked his head slightly, silently waiting for Jaskier to continue, “Why are you doing this?”
The brunette observed the other man’s face as he considered how to respond. His brows furrowed slightly before his expression smoothed over once more. “Being a witcher is shit.”
Jaskier’s eyebrows jumped up. He was aware the life of the witcher wasn’t a glamorous one, it was in fact a painful childhood followed by decades of a lonely life that wasn’t much less painful, but he hadn’t exactly expected Lambert to just throw that out there. “You seek out shit that wants to kill you, get covered in foul smelling blood and guts, and walk into town to get cheated out of your pay by people that treat you like shit and probably want to kill you more than the monster did.” Thankfully he then went on to provide context for why that had anything to do with him helping Jaskier. “Walking the Path is still shit, but it isn’t as bad as it used to be. We’ve got you to thank for that. Figured I might as well return some of that kindness.” As soon as he was done speaking he broke their eye contact.
“Oh.” Jaskier was aware his efforts had improved things for Geralt, and he knew in a distant sort of way they had made things better for witchers in general, but he hadn’t ever come face to face with that fact before. He’d never met a witcher other than Geralt and Lambert before this winter and the ones in the keep seemed less than appreciative of his presence.
The witcher gathered up the used bandages lying on he table. “I still need those,” the brunette blurted out. He really couldn’t afford to be throwing out any of his supply of bandages.
Lambert turned his head to cock an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “And what, you don’t plan on cleaning them? It’s a miracle you don’t have an infection.”
“I do plan on cleaning them. I just usually clean most of the ones I have all at once. Saves time.“ It also meant he didn’t have to light as many fires. He could do it, he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding them when his only use in the keep was helping in the kitchen, but that didn’t mean he felt at ease having his hands so close to an open flame to light the wood. “And that miracle’s name is Yennefer.” Melitele bless that witch.
Lambert’s orange gaze was looking him over once more, and just like before it felt as if he could see through him, like he knew more about what Jaskier hadn’t said than he should. “You’re already in the kitchen, might as well clean them now.” The human was going to argue against that, but Lambert was already walking to the nearest fireplace. He poked at the wood for a bit then lit the fire. Presumably using igni, but the bulk of his body was between Jaskier and the fire so the brunette couldn’t say for sure. The witcher was actually crouching at an odd angle by the fireplace, not directly in front of it. Huh. Lambert had placed himself between Jaskier and the fire as he lit it. The youngest witcher seemed to make him have little moments of surprise like this somewhat often.
What was he supposed to do in the face of such consideration? Of such kindness as he’d been given over the past twenty minutes? He had nothing to offer in return, nothing to give.
When had Jaskier started seeing kindness as transactional? When had he stopped thinking it something that could be done for its own sake? Every time he thought he knew the toll the past weeks had taken on him he was proven wrong, finding something new he hadn’t even noticed was wrong.
Lambert rose to his feet. “Which of the pots do you use the least for cooking? It doesn’t really matter since the boiling water will keep it clean, but the old man will bitch about it if he finds out we used one of the main cooking pots.” He was talking about Vesemir, and since Jaskier had no desire to irritate the crotchety elder witcher he grabbed a small, less frequently used pot from one of the racks hanging on the wall near him and brought it to the water spout on this side of the room. Once it was sufficiently full he carried it over to the fireplace. Lambert took it from his hands and hung it above the fire without commenting on the way the brunette had been grimacing as he held the weight of the pot full of water. They waited for the water to boil in silence. Unlike earlier, this time it truly wasn’t uncomfortable for either of them, the muscles in Jaskier’s shoulders loose and relaxed.
The water soon began to bubble and froth, prompting Lambert to start dropping the bandages into the pot. As he did so he spoke, his face out of view. “You stuck by Geralt’s side for two decades. You didn’t leave until he sent you away. You could’ve had an easier life, a more comfortable life, without him.” Jaskier instinctually wanted to argue against that last sentence but bit it back. He wouldn’t have traded the life he had lived beside Geralt for an easier one, but it was true that he could’ve lived in comfort, in luxury even, tucked away in a royal court somewhere if he’d wanted to. “Geralt’s a fool. He doesn’t know how to appreciate good things when he has them and when he loses them he acts like he never had them in the first place.” Lambert sounded…bitter. Not quite angry, but frustrated in the way of someone that had accepted there was nothing they could do to change the situation. He sounded like he had spent his fair share of time raging over this but had grown weary of it.
“I had someone like that,” Lambert said softly, quietly. “And how Geralt’s been treating you pisses me the hell off because it hurts so fucking bad. Cause he’s stupid enough to throw you away in the first place and too fucking stubborn to be grateful for the fact that if he just put in some effort he could have you again.” Once again Jaskier wanted to contradict him, but held his tongue. The man was right. He would forgive Geralt if the man tried to make amends. “He doesn’t appreciate what he’s got and I…I would give anything to get Aiden back. Anything.” Lambert’s voice was raw, his pain fully on display for Jaskier to see. The brunette was struck by the magnitude of the trust the witcher was placing in him by telling him this. Every interaction he’d had or witnessed involving Lambert had shown him as someone that kept his feelings incredibly close to his chest. Why would he tell Jaskier, the human that been dumped in the keep less than a month ago, something so deeply personal? His brothers that he’d known since they were boys together were in the keep too. It occurred to Jaskier that maybe Lambert didn’t feel he could talk to his brothers about this anymore than the human felt he could talk to them about his pain.
Lambert stepped back from the fireplace. When he turned to face the other he did not continue to speak. Jaskier suddenly had the urge to get him to keep talking, suddenly he needed to make sure the hard-faced witcher had the chance to talk about the person he’d lost. And the brunette didn't want this moment of personal connection to end, it felt like it had been so long since he'd had any kind of emotionally honest conversation with another person. He hopped up on the table he’d been leaning against, careful not to knock the jar of salve off it. Once up there he laid down on his back, his knees on the edge of the table, calves hanging down. He kept his face towards the ceiling, eyes glued to the texture of the stone above. “Tell me about him?”
For a moment there was no response and he was worried he’d overstepped, then he heard the rustle of clothing that came with movement and from the corner of his eye saw Lambert sit down on the floor with his back to the fire. Once he was seated, between Jaskier looking upwards and Lambert sitting down, his face was no longer visible. “He was a witcher from the School of the Cat. They’re untrustworthy, you know, those Cats.” There was a touch of dark amusement in his tone, like there was something morbidly funny in that statement. “The first time we met I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. We worked another contract together five months later and then it was like I couldn’t get rid of him. Like a flea on a dog. At first we bumped into one another every few months, then within a few years it started becoming more frequent. One day I woke up and we’d been traveling together for two months straight, sharing food and coin. It was the deepest I had slept in years and I realized it was because he was there. He was already awake, starting on cooking breakfast even though he was the complete opposite of a morning person and it wasn't his turn just because he knew I'd slept like absolute dogshit that night and he wanted to let me sleep a little longer. I realized I’d never trusted anyone that wasn’t one of my brothers like I trusted him.”
He took a deep breath and Jaskier pretended he didn’t notice the way the exhale shook. “I’d known him for seven years at that point. It took until I’d known him for sixteen for me to admit to myself I wished I could bring him to Kaer Morhen with me for the winter, and another four for me to admit that to him.”
The human frowned. “Why couldn’t you bring him here?”
“Bad blood between the Wolves and the Cats.” Geralt had mentioned something like that years ago, but Jaskier hadn’t realized the schism ran so deep. “I tried a couple of times to talk Vesemir and the others—mainly Vesemir, the old coot, since this is his keep when it comes down to it—into it. Letting him winter with us. It didn’t work. You can’t trust a Cat,” he laughed, the sound cracking roughly in the middle. “Sometimes I wonder if I just didn’t try hard enough. If I could’ve talked them into it. If I should’ve told them that if I couldn’t bring him with then I wasn’t coming back. If I should’ve spent the winter out on the Path with him. Maybe I should’ve just brought him here anyway, tourney be damned, and dealt with the consequences. They might’ve killed him for all I know, but maybe they wouldn’t have. At least that way he might’ve had a chance to live.”
Aiden was dead. No wonder Lambert was so frustrated by Geralt choosing not to take the opportunity to regain Jaskier’s companionship. “Pondering ifs and maybes never leads anywhere good, but they can be so hard to resist thinking about,” was all the brunette said in response. He didn’t know whether the story could’ve gone differently any more than Lambert did, and he wasn’t going to speculate about regrets that weren’t his own.
There was a long pause before the witcher started speaking again. “I got to experience the joy of knowing him for thirty-three years. Then I came down from the keep one spring and he wasn’t waiting for me in the city we usually met up in. He was normally the first one there, he didn’t spend winters with the Caravan very often and when he did he was itching to leave it several weeks before the pass to the keep would thaw. I waited there for three weeks.” Three weeks was a long time for a witcher to stay anywhere that wasn’t the base of their school. Even if they had the coin to stay without picking up new contracts, the already minimal local welcome wore off within a few days of their monsters being slain. “After that I went to find him. Part of me was unbelievably pissed, but another part of me knew my Cat wouldn’t do that to me. That something must’ve happened. I hoped he was just held up by a big contract. It took me thirteen days to hear wind of what had happened, another two to get enough information to understand the full picture.”
The way Lambert remembered so many specific numbers related to Aiden made Jaskier’s heart ache. He so clearly cared deeply for the other witcher.
“I found out it was at least two months too late by the time the pass thawed. There was never a chance I could’ve gotten to him in time. He’d taken a contract to undo a curse, but some people with deep pockets didn’t want the curse lifted. They hired a band of assassins. There were six of the bastards and I hunted down and killed each and every one.” Dark satisfaction radiated from his voice. It was clear he didn’t regret a single one of those kills. “The leader was the last one I managed to track down. Bumped into Geralt in the process and he came along. The man was another Cat.” Jaskier was stunned by his own surprise. He’d heard that Cat witchers accepted assassination contracts, but a contract on a witcher, one of their own school no less? The Wolves would never agree to such a thing, he was confident of that. Geralt had never mentioned being involved in anything like this, but that he hadn’t was no surprise. “He was living as a merchant. He had a wife and two adopted kids and everything. Said he had turned a new leaf, was an honest man now. He even tried to convince us Aiden had fucked up the contract and bailed when the curse victim died. What bullshit. Aiden was a better man that. The best man I’ve ever known.
“My only regret is that he didn’t suffer more when I killed him. I miss Aiden so fucking much. He died five years ago. Every time I think losing him hurts less something will remind me of him and it’s like someone is cutting my heart out of my gods damned chest all over again.” The witcher’s voice was unsteady and he frequently stopped speaking to allow himself time to regain his composure. Jaskier tried to subtly wipe the tears trailing down the sides of his face towards the table, knowing it was futile since Lambert could no doubt smell them. The witcher didn’t mention them, the same way Jaskier didn’t say a word about how Lambert was so blatantly emotionally devastated in his retelling of Aiden’s death that it brought the brunette to tears.
“Tell me more about your Cat. What was Aiden like?”
“Yeah, okay.” Jaskier waited as Lambert took the time to think of what he wanted to say. “Aiden was a little shit.” The brunette barked out a laugh. Lambert never ceased to catch him off guard. “He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He was a good man but a bit of a bastard. Wouldn’t have been able to put up with me otherwise.” Jaskier snorted. That sounded accurate. “He had a temper. Not as bad as mine, especially since I’m bringing my grudges with me all the way to the grave, but definitely there. It took more to get him worked up, but once he was his anger was on a hair trigger. The most random shit could be the last straw. The Cat mutagens are fucked, it makes them more emotional and volatile. More angry and violent if they don’t keep that shit under control, which isn’t easy. Aiden always said he tried to let little things go but let himself blow up at slightly larger things so that he wouldn’t truly lose it when something made him seriously furious. Between the two of us we had enough bitchiness to rival an entire court’s worth of nobles.” The human chuckled at that, he knew all too well how angry and petty nobles could be.
“What’d he look like?”
“Fucking gorgeous,” Lambert replied instantly. Jaskier’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline. So it was like that then. “Tall and lithe. Shoulders barely any broader than yours—Cat witchers tend to be on the leaner side. Tanned brown skin and long dark hair with loose curls. One of his ears was split nearly in half by a striga, but the whole thing was still attached to his head. The prettiest green eyes you’ve ever seen. He had the kind of jawline you could cut yourself on. A charming smile that made maidens blush and a smug smirk that made you feel like you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to punch him or kiss him. He and I were…” he hesitated before going on to say “We never called it anything like lovers. We were partners. Didn’t matter whether there was sex or not. Sometimes there was and sometimes there wasn’t. He flipped back and forth between being repulsed by the mere idea of being touched like that and being the horniest fucker out there. The first time after we started fucking that he refused to let me touch him for a week straight I took it personally, thought he regretted doing that kind of thing with me. Fortunately he was less useless at communication than I am and we sorted it out. He liked sex some of the time, but sometimes he didn’t. We made it work.
“But no matter whether sex was involved or not, we were always partners. He had my back and I had his. I’ve never trusted anyone with my life as much as I did him. Not even my brothers.” He and Aiden must have had something truly special between them for him to trust a witcher from a different school more than he did his own brothers. The type of bond Jaskier could only dream of having with someone. The type of bond he’d once thought he had. “We spent as much time together as we could, only going our separate ways for winters and when we were in desperate need of coin. Traveling as a pair let us take on bigger contracts with less risk, but when there weren’t any big contracts around it was hard to support the both of us so we’d split up to take contracts in different places for a bit and the meet up again later.”
“I’m glad you had someone like that to share your life with,” Jaskier told him, meaning every word. It was tragic that it had come to an end, but he was glad the witcher had known that kind of happiness.
“Me too,” Lambert replied quietly. “Aiden was…Aiden was everything to me.” He spoke in a way that sounded pained yet also reverent, like talking about Aiden hurt but he couldn’t imagine doing so with anything less than all of his love. He hadn’t said the word love at any point, but that didn’t make it any less present in his words. “He was my reason to get back up and fight when some monster had me pinned down. He made the Path into something that could actually be called living instead of just surviving. He made me want to be a better man. Even now, he’s what keeps me going. He’d come back as a wraith or some shit and haunt me if I didn’t take care of myself. He wanted me to live well so I try to do so even though it’s so fucking hard without him.
“It’s like someone pulled a rib straight from my chest. It’s like he’s a phantom limb, now that he’s gone his absence aches. I miss him so much. Every day. Every damn day.” Jaskier was crying hard enough now that he had to sniffle to keep snot from dripping out of his nose. A couple feet away from him, sitting on the fire warmed stone floor, Lambert was weeping as well. He couldn’t see it, but the human didn’t need witcher senses to hear it in his voice. “He loved lizards. Thought the things were so damn cute. I had to convince him not to try to keep one as a pet more than once. He liked to call me pet names. He didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but he would eat sour candies by the handful even when they were starting to practically dissolve his tongue. He didn’t take human contracts unless the human genuinely deserved it. He would never say, but I think he didn’t start being so choosey about assassination contracts until after he met me. I think maybe I made him want to be a better man too.” If hearing Lambert talk about the partner he’d lost made Jaskier’s chest ache so strongly he could hardly imagine what it must’ve been like to be Lambert himself. “He mumbled ‘Cat for a Cat’ under his breath every single time he drank that potion. He had a decent singing voice but preferred playing this beaten up little ocarina he carried with him. He only had two the entire time I knew him, and when the first one got destroyed he had a literal funeral for it. He got the next one secondhand so it was just as beat up as the first right from the start.
“I have notebooks filled with stuff like that. Every little thing I can remember about him, every little detail I can clearly recall, even every way he pissed me off. I don’t want to forget any of it. I want to keep him with me always, every part of him. The only thing worse than remembering what I no longer have would be forgetting it. It’s ridiculous. I thought about having a mage remove my memories of him so I would be free of this pain yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to lose what left of him I still have.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” the brunette said lightly, tone carefully balanced between too serious and not serious enough, “He was part of your life for over thirty years.”
“Not just part of my life, the best part of my life.”
“He was the best part of your life for over thirty years,” he amended. “You care for him deeply. He had immense influence upon you. It is not ridiculous that you don’t want to lose your memories of him, even if they bring you pain.”
They both sat there and simply breathed for a few minutes, letting their tears dry.
“Moving on does not have to mean letting go,” Jaskier said without prompting. “You can keep him with you. There’s nothing wrong with that. It will always hurt, I won’t lie and tell you it won’t, but with enough years there will come a time when his memory will bring you less bitter than it does sweet. I don’t know how long that will take for you, though honestly I expect it will take quite some time, but until then all you can do is carry him in your heart as you keep on living. Nothing will ever be the same as it was when he was alive, but bit by bit you will learn how to feel joy again.”
Several more minutes passed in silence. The stone ceiling above Jaskier’s head had the most minuscule of cracks scattered across it. His hands still hurt, as they always did these days, but it was the least pain he’d felt since Rience had gotten ahold of him. “Thank you,” Lambert whispered, so softly the human almost didn’t hear him. He would’ve said something like ‘don’t mention it,’ in response, but that would have been mentioning it.
Eventually Lambert rose to his feet and banked the fire. He grabbed what seemed to be a randomly chosen utensil off the nearby rack and used it to pull the bandages from the hot water, laying them out on the table to dry. There was some discoloration on a few of them—the ones that had been used on the burns that oozed the most—but they were clean.
“If Vesemir says anything about the bandages drying, I was never here. Got it, bard?”
The ghost of a smile tugged at Jaskier’s lips. “Got it, Wolf.”
He watched the witcher leave the room. He wore a simple shirt rather than his jerkin and the layers he wore under it on the Path, but his shoulders didn’t look any less burdened than they did when they met months ago, not in the way Geralt’s did. In Kaer Morhen the white haired witcher was the most relaxed Jaskier had ever seen him, even in the face of losing so many of his brethren. He looked at home in a way Lambert didn’t. From what he’d just learned, the brunette would say the keep had never been a home to the youngest Wolf, but he’d found a home for himself in another person, and now that that person was gone he had no real home to return to. Jaskier had long known that he’d found his own home in another person. He hadn’t expected to lose it, especially not in the way he did. He was left wondering whether he’d ever be able to return to that home. There was a good chance he’d have to build a new one elsewhere. Preferably not in a person, but the brunette knew himself. His life centered around people, not places. If the many years’ worth of memories of Oxenfurt weren’t enough to make it a home—they hadn’t been, not when he knew there would be no witcher waiting for him in spring—then no place would ever be home. Jaskier didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.
He let himself appreciate the cool relief of the salve on his hands, then went to go stir the stew he’d left simmering earlier.
——————————————————————————
In the days that followed he didn’t start doing anything as childish as following Lambert around like a lost duckling or sitting next to him at meals—Jaskier always sat at the corner of the table closest to the kitchen, that way he didn’t have to walk past the others when he finished before them. He always finished before anyone else, there was no reason to force himself to stay where he was unwanted. He couldn’t leave the keep but he didn’t have to spend an hour sitting at a table where he was unspoken to. He’d take his dishes into the kitchen and begin the washing up with those and what had been used to prepare the meal. How he loathed washing dishes these days—it inevitably involved getting his bandages wet, but taking them off and letting the burns directly touch things was even worse.
No, he didn’t embarrass himself after Lambert gifted him the salve, but he did allow himself to…take comfort, perhaps, in knowing that at least one person in the keep thought he might be worth the time of day. Might even care about his well-being. There was a connection between them, pain that hadn’t been shown to anyone but one another. It felt good to be known. Lambert didn’t know him that well, nor he Lambert, but he knew what lay at the man’s core. In some ways the dark haired witcher knew him better than Geralt did.
In the evenings, when the brothers typically sat in the great hall together to get drunk on White Gull and play gwent and act like other Wolves hadn’t bled out on the stone floor there less than a month ago, Jaskier often ended up in the keep’s library. As much as he appreciated getting drunk in his current miserable state, he knew when he wasn’t welcome. He was shit at gwent anyway.
Kaer Morhen’s library was impressively large. Not as large as Oxenfurt University’s of course, but no library quite measured up to the northern half of the continent’s academic center. The majority of the books were related to witchering in some way; beastiaries, anthologies on herbs and witcher potions, personal journals detailing various witchers’ time on the Path. That didn’t mean there weren’t other kinds of literature though, those sections were just much smaller. There was a fairly decent sized selection of histories, many of which seemed to have been written by witchers—they may have been self-professedly uninterested in the affairs of men, but their political neutrality and long life spans did give them a long-term and largely unbiased perspective for recording historic events. There was a set of shelving full of fiction works that he suspected had only been brought to the keep after the majority of its occupants had been massacred. Kaer Morhen was like that—only after its purpose had been destroyed and its people killed had it become somewhere free of active suffering, no more boys being broken down, no screams as they died in agony or survived as something humanity loathed. Now there were only ghosts, the echoes of their suffering heard only in the whistling mountain wind. Kaer Morhen would be free of the horrors that had taken place here no sooner than the remaining Wolves would be able to forget experiencing them, but it had ceased to produce forther tragedy.
Despite this there were still signs of life, signs of contentment and joy scattered throughout the keep. Like the volumes of poetry on the highest shelf and the romance novels two shelves down—remnants of Eskel’s interest in literature and his penchant for angst filled love stories with happy endings. How many other objects in this keep were evidence of someone’s attempt to brighten the life they led in this place that he simply didn’t have the context to understand?
He sat down in one of the chairs near the lit fireplace—slightly further away than others seeking warmth likely would have sat—with a beastiary in hand. He knew a great deal more about monsters than anyone that wasn’t a witcher would—it had been some of the easiest information to pry out of Geralt, plus he’d seen the witcher at work enough to pick up a few things he hadn’t been explicitly told—but there were a few things he’d always wondered that he thought might be found in a beastiary. It’d be interesting as well to see the extent of what he didn’t know.
He quickly lost himself in his reading. It had been ages since he’d had the chance to let himself be swept up in a book. He’d been keeping himself far too busy in Oxenfurt for that. He didn’t bother to track the passage of time, hardly noting it beyond eventually admitting defeat and moving closer to the fireplace when it become too dark for him to read otherwise.
“That bit about necrophage oil is crossed out because it doesn’t do anything against them. They’re not actual necrophages.” The words were spoken from right over his shoulder, directly behind him.
“Melitele’s tits!” Jaskier exclaimed, craning his neck to look at the witcher that had snuck up on him. “Gods be damned, Lambert. Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Nah.” The other man dropped into the chair facing his, legs sprawled wide and upper body slumped to one side. “I was hoping for a stroke.”
The brunette shot him an unimpressed look. “Haha, very funny. That’s not how strokes work and you know it. Has anyone ever told you you could have great success as a court jester?”
Lambert grinned. It felt nice to have a smile directed at him, even if it was just Lambert being a bastard. “No, but I have been told I’d make an excellent whore.”
Jaskier snorted. It was an ugly thing, very undignified. It was wonderful to laugh at something stupid, something with no bitterness or irony attached. “I’ll bet,” he replied in a theatrically sultry tone as he raked his eyes over the other’s lounging form in a manner that would be indecent were it to be turned on anyone other than a rude, crude humored witcher. Doing so was no hardship, he’d been without company since a while before being captured by the fire mage and he had an appreciation for a wide variety of people—which was to say that strong, rogue-ish men were one of the many types of people he found himself attracted to, and Lambert was indeed both very nicely muscled and very rogue-ish. Almost charmingly so, Jaskier might have admitted if pressed.
The witcher laughed—it was just as pleasant to make someone else laugh as it was to feel amusement himself, the brunette discovered. He had missed having someone to jest with while he’d been stuck in this dreary place. “So what’s this about drowners not being necrophages?” Jaskier asked, genuinely curious. “They eat dead bodies, do they not?” He’d certainly seen a drowner eat a corpse on more than one occasion. He’d even seen Geralt use a dead deer as bait once when dealing with an unusually large nest.
“They do,” Lambert acknowledged, “but they don’t primarily eat corpses. It’s not their main food source. Other necrophages wander in search of corpses but drowners don’t like to wander too far from their nests, which makes them too stationary to rely only on the dead things that drift by. They won’t pass up an opportunity to gnaw on something dead if there’s nothing still kicking nearby, but if given the choice they’ll go for live prey." The longer he spoke the more he began to gesture with his hands. It was something none of the other Wolves did much. Jaskier suspected it was something that had been beaten out of them when they were young. Witchers that moved too suddenly made humans nervous, and sometimes nervous humans got violent. The brunette knew better than to assume the youngest Wolf hadn’t gotten that bit of training. It was more likely Lambert had purposefully redeveloped the habit out on the Path, an act as much about reclamation of bodily autonomy as it was one of spite and defiance. Having a traveling companion—someone to regularly talk to that wasn’t a terrified or angry human—had likely helped with that. It was even possible it was a habit he picked up directly from Aiden.
Jaskier hummed in response, which made him feel rather witcher-like himself. He held up the beastiary. “I grabbed this one since there were multiple copies of it, which I figured meant it had been used for teaching trainees, and you wouldn’t want to teach using questionable information.”
“That right there is baby’s first beastiary. You’re right that they used it for trainees. I got handed one of those as soon as I got here—“ in the back of his mind Jaskier noted that that meant Lambert was old enough to be expected to be capable of reading a fairly dense book by the time he came to Kaer Morhen as a child—“It’s simple, straightforward, and incredibly boring.” Personally the brunette found the contents interesting enough, but he could see why a child might not have been interested in learning about the differences between the various kinds of vampires—which there were honestly far too many of. “There’s a few tidbits in there that are outdated. That thing was considered old by the time I first read it, and old by witcher standards means really fucking old. If the inaccuracy was realized before the sacking it’s crossed out in all the copies, maybe corrected in some of them. As a whole it’s reliable though.”
Reliable or not, the human clearly had a much more interactive source of information right in front of him. He set the book down on his lap and began what could have been called a friendly interrogation. “Is there a reason zeugls smell so uniquely foul?”
Talking to Lambert in the library became something of a habit. The brunette could be found there most evenings, and every few days the youngest Wolf would wander in and occupy the other seat. Whenever Jaskier was at a loss for what to say he defaulted to asking about something from one of the beastiaries he’d looked through, but it didn’t take long to realize that Lambert could be nearly as talkative as the brunette if prompted with the right topic, or for the witcher to pick up on the fact that he had a brand new audience for all the tales his brothers were sick of hearing. He was certainly more forthcoming with the details than Geralt had ever been. His stories were also different from his brother’s in that he sometimes told ones involving Aiden—only sometimes, other times he didn’t mention the Cat witcher at all, like even just referencing him was too painful for him to handle that evening. The white haired witcher had only ever traveled with Jaskier, and the brunette didn’t need to hear stories he’d been there to experience firsthand, so it was rare Geralt told a tale involving any kind of companion.
He learned a fair amount of information about Lambert during these conversations. From little lighthearted things like how his favorite fruit was blackberries to more heavy things like how he was the only one in his cohort to survive to earn his medallion, the others all dying in the Trial of the Grasses, training, or the final medallion trial. In addition to his skill with alchemy, or more accurately perhaps an extension of his skill with alchemy, the dark haired witcher distilled his own spirits. He’d never been close to Eskel in the way Geralt had been, but Eskel had still been the Wolf he was closest to. He’d once had someone he was close to in the way Eskel and Geralt had been, but that person had died in the trial for their medallion. He preferred sunrise over sunset. His father had been a terrible man. He liked making and using bombs—his method of dealing with selkimores relied on throwing several high power explosives down the gullet rather than letting himself get swallowed.
And of course Jaskier was not one to withhold his thoughts in the face of a good conversation. He let Lambert know him back. His favorite fruit was cherries—both for the taste and the associated innuendo—and three years ago it finally sank in for him that whatever bit of nonhuman blood that ran in his veins didn’t just mean he might be able to live as long as a witcher(that Geralt wouldn’t have to watch him grow too old to travel or watch his eventual passing), but that he was going to outlive all of his human friends and family; he was already beginning to watch them grow old as his own body seemed not to age a day after thirty. His favorite alcohol was a specific Toussainti red wine, one he could never get anywhere but in Toussaint. He loved his older sisters, but the significant age gap between himself and the youngest of them—not to mention that between him and the eldest—and that he was the son of the household, faced with different expectations from the daughters, meant that he’d never been close to any of them the way they were with each other. He preferred sunsets since he hated getting up before dawn. His father was a decent man, but not a very good father. His second favorite instrument to play—the lute naturally taking first place—was the flute, though he generally preferred string instruments.
It felt odd to know the witcher so thoroughly entirely through conversation. There was none of the familiarity bred by long hours sharing the same space and witnessing one another at both their best and worst—though admittedly Lambert had essentially seen him at his worst. He knew things about the Wolf, but it wasn’t information that was incorporated into the grain of his life like Geralt’s like of major chords—he had a tendency to be less critical of songs in a major key so Jaskier played those more often when on the road—or his general dislike of mushrooms—which the brunette would steal from his bowl and let the white haired witcher pretend to be annoyed by. It was thrilling in a way to be offered so much information so willingly, but also strange. It did seem to Jaskier though that had he not been in such specific, rather miserable circumstances Lambert would not be so liberal in allowing the human to know him. But vulnerability could be traded for vulnerability, and Jaskier was pretty godsdamned vulnerable all the godsdamned time recently. The brunette had already taken the first step, been the one to let his vulnerabilities be seen—mostly unwillingly, he certainly wouldn’t be as transparent as he apparently was if he had a choice in the matter—so it was safe for Lambert to return it in kind.
Occasionally as they conversed, when Lambert asked him a question about himself, Jaskier wondered did Geralt know that? Had he learned it over the many years they shared or did it go unmentioned because the brunette didn’t say it and the witcher didn’t ask? Often the answer was most likely yes. He may not have asked many questions, but Geralt did listen and he did remember. No one knew Jaskier better than he did. It was so much harder to mourn a lost friendship when he knew it had been a good one. It hadn't been perfect, but it had been good. For two decades—half his life thus far—Geralt had been the strongest constant in his life, second only to the twin desires to compose and to perform. Twenty-two years—the bones had to be good, didn’t they? And yet here Jaskier was, the most important relationship in his life nothing but a pile of bones. What did that mean for him? Were the bones that housed and protected his love now a cage of dead weight? It certainly no longer felt as if his love was what kept him strong—but also it was, and that was the worst part, he wouldn’t have made it through torture without spilling information if it weren’t for his love. He should’ve known that there was no metaphor for love that didn’t function as a double edged sword. If he and Geralt never did reconcile, would he have to crack open the bones to get back all the love he’d poured into the marrow inside? A silly thought. Once love had been given it could not be taken back. And if fire to his fingertips and everything that followed hadn’t managed to do so then nothing would, not even breaking his own bones or attempting to destroy the foundations of their relationship. It was incredibly frustrating, he was so angry with Geralt—fury fueled by hurt was the strongest kind—and it had not made him love the man the slightest bit less.
Even now he couldn’t convince himself he’d wasted twenty years of his life.
So much love in these wandering bones of his and nowhere for it to go. Melitele be blessed, if this was even a fraction of how Lambert felt it was no wonder the witcher was still struggling to cope with his partner’s sudden death despite the years that had passed.
During the evenings Jaskier spent in the library without the company of the youngest Wolf he allowed himself the indulgence of humming whatever songs came to mind. The idea of singing was shot down, too likely for him to get carried away and forget to keep his volume low enough to go unheard in a keep full of beings with supernaturally enhanced hearing. He also didn’t like the thought that if he did allow himself to sing he would end up drowning in the grey space of wondering whether he’d be able to play the lute again when his hands were finally healed. With nothing to distract himself from such thoughts it seemed likely he would succumb to them.
One such evening he found himself with an unexpected visitor. Usually if Lambert was going to spend the evening with him he arrived in the library less than an hour after dinner. Tonight however an hour had long since come and passed, and Jaskier had—quite reasonably—assumed he would be in his own company for the night. He’d gotten through half of a volume of poetry—high quality poetry too, Eskel had evidently been a man of good taste—before giving in to the impulse to lay down upon the fur serving as a rug in front of the fireplace. Sometimes one simply needed to spend a bit of time lying on the floor. He was laid out on his back, near enough to enjoy the fire’s warmth, though his right hand was resting on the elbow of his other arm, placing it on the opposite side of his body from the fire. It was practically impossible to exist in Kaer Morhen with an unfrozen ass without spending a significant amount of time near the various fireplaces—for a human at least; the witchers enjoyed the warmth provided by the hearths but seemed content to go without it for hours at a time. He still felt his heart race when a natural shift of the wood led to a sudden increase in the height of the flames, and he absolutely loathed lighting fires and carrying candles or lanterns, but he was becoming gradually more comfortable with allowing himself to soak up some of the blissful warmth from the library fireplace.
He wasn’t asleep, but his eyes were closed and he was content to let his mind drift as he enjoyed the soft heat enveloping one side of his body. He allowed himself to hum quietly, a slow melody that felt familiar but that he couldn’t recall the name of for the life of him. It was peaceful, which made it all the more jarring when something suddenly grasped his ankle.
He jolted to awareness, pulse thundering as he flung himself upright and yanked his leg away from what he could now see was a hand. Lambert cackled and relinquished his ankle easily, looking the very dictionary definition of impish glee. “Fucking shit, Lambert! What the fuck?!” The witcher merely shrugged, sitting in a crouch near where the brunette’s feet had been, and proceeded to sprawl out on the fur a few feet away from him. Jaskier raked a hand through his hair as he gave an exasperated sigh. All of the witchers tended to sneak up on him, be it accidentally due to them forgetting that not everyone currently in the keep had their sense of hearing or because they were aware of this fact but didn’t care to make the effort to announce themselves—fairly reasonable considering Kaer Morhen was the one place they’d never had to do such a thing—but Lambert, oh Lambert. He was an ass about it to the utmost degree. He delighted in scaring the shit out of Jaskier. Horrible, horrible man. It was truly unfortunate they were becoming something like fast friends.
“You’re insufferable, you know that, right?”
“Yes, it’s a matter of personal pride for me,” Lambert drawled in response. He sounded lazy and indulgent as he stretched out on the soft fur, his back giving a few pops and cracks before he settled into a comfortable position. Where Jaskier had been arranged on his back, the witcher was lying on his stomach, head turned sideways towards the bard and arms not far from his sides. The brunette’s body and mind gradually calmed from the abrupt state of alarm Lambert’s bullshit had thrown him into and he allowed himself to recline back once more. When he did so he stretched his legs out like they had been before, which made his feet brush against the side witcher’s leg. Lambert didn’t move away so he didn’t either.
For once the two of them didn’t begin to converse within a few minutes, content to simply enjoy the comfortable moment they found themselves in. Jaskier hardly even realized he was humming again until he’d already been doing so for several minutes. When he did notice he cut the sound off immediately, his entire body tensing up.
“Something wrong?”
“Huh?” the human inelegantly replied.
“You stopped humming,” Lambert explained. “And your heart rate spiked.”
“Ah. No, everything’s fine,” Jaskier assured him. He wasn’t even lying—beyond all the reasons everything was most definitely not fine in his life currently, but those reasons were ever present and the witcher was referring to the immediate situation at hand—now that it was clear he had not earned the other man’s ire his anxieties were soothed. He started to hum again.
After that he let himself hum whenever he and Lambert sat in companionable silence. The witcher never said anything about it, didn’t complain or tease. Jaskier never said a word about the days when it seemed all Lambert could speak about was Aiden, all the words he’d been holding back for years spilling forth in halting syllables. Everything he’d never told his fellow Wolves, everything he’d never gotten the chance to tell his Cat. “There was this pudding he had me try in Toussaint—he was from around there, down south—and it was. Fucking terrible is what it was. I’m not sure I’ve ever hated a food more and I’ve eaten my share of disgusting things over the years,” the witcher told him. “But he asked what I thought about it and there was this look on his face, it was so obvious he was trying to hide how excited he was to share this with me, and I just didn’t have the heart to tell him if I ever ate another bite of this pudding it would be too soon. I told him it was the best pudding I’ve ever had and finished the bowl. Every time we went through Toussaint from then on he’d get us both a bowl. And I was a godsdamn sucker who couldn’t bear to see his disappointed face, especially the way he would try to hide his disappointed face, and I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell him I loathed that pudding more than I’d detested anything in years.
“I always told myself one day I’d tell him the truth and set myself free of this gods awful pudding. For fucking years, literally over a decade. After a certain point it just becomes too late for something like that. How do you tell a man you’ve been pretending you don’t hate his favorite dessert for the past five years?” He chuckled, a small smile tugging at his lips as he looked down at the piece of wood he was whittling with a small knife. “I figured I’d take this stupid secret with me to my grave, but really I always thought he’d figure it out eventually. And he’d be a bit genuinely hurt but even more amused and he’d hold it over my head forever. But he never figured it out. And then he was dead.” His voice lost the little bit of humor it had carried. “He never found out. He died thinking I love that fucking Toussaintois pudding. It just makes me wonder, is all. How many things did I never tell him because I thought I had all the time in the world to get around to it? How many things like that did he have? What all will I never know because he didn’t have the chance to tell me?”
Jaskier kept his eyes on the book they both knew he’d stopped reading several minutes ago. That was something they shared in common—neither of them could bear to look the other in the eye when they said anything vaguely emotional. Knowing they were being watched wasn’t much better, hence why they’d automatically fallen into an unspoken agreement that they’d keep their eyes to themselves when they spoke about things like this.
Sometimes Jaskier related to the things Lambert said about Aiden in ways he couldn’t explain—or didn’t want to explain. It felt rude to connect the man’s grief over his dead partner to how he felt about Geralt, who was very much alive. The thoughts were still there. How much of what he thought he knew about the white haired witcher was wrong? How many misconceptions did Geralt have about him? His friend of so many years was right there, living in the same keep as him, and yet Jaskier couldn’t find answers to those questions. He couldn’t make Geralt pull his head out of his ass and remember that the human was someone he cared about, and these weren’t the kind of questions that one could ask of someone they shared a fraught relationship with—one with no reconciliation in sight.
When Lambert was finished talking the brunette didn’t say anything—the witcher knew he’d been listening anyway—returning to the novel he’d begun the previous day. He hummed a sweet tune. It was one from somewhere near Toussaint about having a lover that was an absolutely terrible cook and giving every burnt or undercooked morsel they offered you the highest of praises.
“You can sing you know. I’m not going to take offense and it certainly won’t scare me off.”
Jaskier’s hand stilled mid page turn. “What,” he said, rather stupidly, before getting his wits about him, “Whoever said I wanted to? I know I’m quite the renowned bard—“ Lambert rolled his eyes, even though the statement was very factual—“but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to—“
“But you want to,” the witcher interrupted, his own hands stilling as he looked up from the piece he was carving. “Not always, but sometimes. Right now you do.”
The brunette’s mouth felt dry. He didn’t quite know why he couldn’t admit to wanting things anymore, especially something as simple and indeed as expected of him as singing. When did wanting become a weakness he felt the need to hide? How long ago had he been unabashedly singing I am weak, my love, and I am wanting to every ear people were willing to lend? “I do,” he confessed, ignoring how it felt like condemnation. He hadn’t allowed song to slip from his lips since the prison cell in Oxenfurt. He didn’t want to make himself a nuisance in Kaer Morhen and it seemed unlikely any of the witchers would welcome it. But sometimes he still wanted to. Now was indeed one of those times.
“Then don’t let my presence stop you, bard.”
Perhaps Jaskier wasn’t the only one here willing to listen to the other let out what they’d been holding in.
He took a deep breath and began to sing. It was soft. Tentative. Freeing. Jaskier had to practically force the words out at first, his instincts telling him he was making a mistake, but he was done being afraid. Before long he couldn’t have stopped the melodious words flowing from his lips if he tried.
He glanced at the witcher beside him. Lambert merely tilted his head as he looked at him. Jaskier quickly realized he didn’t mind that the other was watching. The weight of eyes on him as he sang was familiar and comfortable. There was so much he could not control in his life these days, but he still had this. His voice had not been taken from him. He had just needed someone to remind him of the value of that. The bard smiled and let the music come forth.