Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

His eyes were green, before.

Before the potions that curdled his insides and the magic that turned brittle and remade his bones. His eyes had been green, and a rattling, wet wheeze had lived in his chest like rocks in a fisherman’s pail. He hadn’t been able to run for long without feeling like he could drown on dry land, but running had been something his survival depended on. Run and hide before that turned into run and fight, the direction changing just like his intention, skin coloring with wine stain bruises and splitting under the pressure from fists that liked to wrap around his throat. Run away became run toward, the need to fight something pressed into his breakable bones and his rock rattle lungs because he learned early on that his body could be a shield even if he couldn’t win.

His eyes had been green like his mother’s, like her mother’s, and he remembered how she smiled at him with split and swollen lips and brushed trembling fingers through his hair. He remembered how she had bruised wherever he wasn’t fast enough to catch the beating for her, and he remembered how she cried, but he couldn’t remember her voice. He couldn’t remember what she had laughed like, how she had said his name or what stories she had told him though she must have. Maybe she had sang, and she had to have laughed, but the half of his memories that weren’t lost to time and mutagen and magic had this strange, fog-like film over them instead, sounds muffled and distorted and the colors all seeped out. 

That couldn’t be anything healthy, but weak wasn’t an option when anything less than armed and ready was liable to get him killed. 

His eyes weren’t green anymore, and his chest didn’t feel like his lungs held every swamp in Velen in them, but he remembered the feeling. Like breathing through wet cotton and the way the other boys had been faster than him, the way they had left him behind only to underestimate him when it came to training. Smaller than them, quick to puff and wobble but just as quick to use it to his advantage, to let them think him frail and ill just so he could take out their legs, use his entire body as a weapon where they only used their sword arms. Anything could be dangerous if used properly, anything could be weaponized if one tried hard enough.

His smaller size and weak lungs had made him different than the other boys, broad and unhindered where they prodded and teased that he couldn't keep up. Where they had brute force his brothers had taught him to lean on his dexterity, slighter stature making it woefully easy to scale any number of things he shouldn't have. 

The trials had taken his humanity from him, had done their level best to make him into the perfect beast the Masters needed of him. Lungs that didn't scream, body broadened from the best efforts of the training he had been subjected to. Except, without his own organs trying to fight him, he ended up faster than most of his cohort, Vesemir called him scrappy with some quiet pride where Rennes scoffed and called him feral. 

He called himself alive , had traded his mother's eyes and failing lungs for a body that could keep up with the furious drumming of his heart.

Sharp golden eyes flit across the forest trail, body rocking gently in the saddle as his horse walked. He wasn't that little boy anymore, too scarred and broad to ever be small but he fit in a saddle now like he hadn't then. Wheldrake was far from his usual hunting grounds, the forested planes of Aedirn and Kaedwen traded out for the mountainous, coastal crag of southern Creyden. The pay was good enough, left so far north in the pale sky wilderness after he and Coen had parted ways outside of Talgar. His brothers swore he didn't play nice just because he wouldn't hunt with them , but equal coin and keeping up with the White Wolf or the Dragon of Kaer Morhen had never been an easy task. He was only one Witcher, one man, and obscurity suited him well enough.

The hamlet had put out a notice about a bandit encampment to the northwest. Honestly the opposite direction he wanted to travel, autumn well upon the Continent and he would need to wheel them eastbound within the next few weeks if he wanted to make it to Kaer Morhen before the pass closed. He should have turned east now, to give himself ample time to pass through the various mountains and valleys before snow clogged the world, with any luck he could cross paths with Coen again in the Kaedweni foothills. Except, their children had been thin and dark-eyed, had clutched their mother's skirts with starvation bruises along their skin and the alderman's wife had had a dull, haunted look in her gaze and a detachment to the swell in her belly that he recognized intimately. Her eyes were brown, but her hair was almost the same soft flaxen and that had been reason enough. He had listened intently as she spoke, taken in every word that the women gave him where her own voice faltered, and it had been enough.

They had taken over the laborer's camp at the salt flats, most of their men slaughtered by way of a show of force while their sons were picked off as slave labor. A few of their girls had been stolen, too young but old enough for the appetites of men and he had swallowed past the familiar fester of rage in his throat.

West where the trees grew thin and the Arcsea crashed violently in the distance, Lambert followed the burning smell of salt where it was strongest. A few hours of this and his head would ache, his lungs would burn something similar to how they used to, but the women had bid him to follow the path. Past the fork and to the left, the trees would give out just before the camp and sure enough he could see it just past the treeline. Soil to silt to sand, stretching for meters ahead before it became stiff and white, unforgiving where the salt had yet to be mined fully. The air was ripe with minerals here, salt and nitrites making his sinuses burn as he swung himself out of the saddle.

Grey hair caught him in the face, Mistress tossing her head against his chest almost in protest and he sighed. Braced a hand beneath the wide dip of her powerful jaw and cupped her head until he could press his forehead between her wide-set eyes. 

“You can’t go with me.”

She pressed against him with a chortling huff, hooves stamping in the dirt in protest. Heavyweight leaned on him like she could ground him and he laughed quietly, fingers slipping to her muscled neck to rub at the tendons there. 

“I’ll be back soon. We’ll see about getting some of the good hay when we get back to the village.”

Her dark mouth lipped at his pauldron like she meant to take it and he laughed anew, nudged her away and stepped aside when she swung back around.

“ Stay , I’ll be back.”

Soothing tones and he took another step back, dug in one of the pouches in the belt around his fauld to flick a sugar cube her way. Treat taken for the distraction it was and he moved quietly through the trees until it gave way to the silt. Tall, thin grasses swayed around his knees and thighs in thick bunches that slowly fell into thin swatches of plant life as the silt gave way to sand that shifted beneath his boots. Uneasy footing where his weight made everything shift and slide, better then that he hadn’t found them yet even as the camp stood in the middle distance. 

Marked by wooden beams that had been hammered together, the foreman’s cabin and the subsequent workers barracks beside it. He could see the smoke from a cooking fire spiraling up in a lazy plume as well as thin, hunched figures out on the salt flats, shimmering like mirages beneath the midday sun. Those would be the sons of the village women, bodies underweight and sunburnt from hours of forced labor, and he could only assume the worst with how bent their frames were, he could only guess at the state of those within the perimeter of the camp. 

The first arrow missed its mark by a wide margin less than three minutes after he had crossed onto the flat, fine film powder of white staining his boots instantly. It whistled weakly as it lodged into the ground and Lambert bent as he walked to pluck it free like a lone flower, twirled between his fingers before it was tucked back into his own quiver. 

“Why couldn’t they be the lazy bandit variety?”

Voice a grousing mumble to himself, the element of surprise well and truly lost as another arrow flew. Side stepped easily and it thunked into the ground to be left behind at collected later, an echoing cry of alarm ringing out from the single wooden tower that loomed. With a roll of his shoulders, he pulled his steel sword from its scabbard just before the first figures met him at the empty frame where the gate should have been, and Lambert ducked as they swung. Slid through the gap between them and spun to bring the edge of his blade down on the back of their throats in a single, savage arch. The both of them fell as another rushed him with a fierce cry and he threw himself forward, sword thrust deep through the man's chest with a harsh press of his weight. The blade tried to stick even as the man started to topple, his body only kept up by Lambert grip on the hilt and he snarled as he nearly tipped forward with him. He braced his foot on the man's ribs and yanked , sword pulled free with a wet sucking sound as the man fell with a gurgle. 

“Witcher!”

Bellowed out like a warcry and a warning all at once, like knowing what he was would save them any. Steel blade singing as it cut through the air, the motion catching the man that came up behind him at the waist. The sharp stench of bile hit the air as he screamed, as the slick ropes of his intestines draped and spilled from the gape of his abdomen. He garbled wetly, blood to his lips as he staggered and fell and Lambert moved through the crush of them with precise, vicious swings of his blade. Steel to flesh and bone and his muscles sang with the familiar rhythm of it, a partnerless dance that he knew as well as he knew his own body. Beneath an arm only to grasp at the wrist and yank the unprepared man over his back like a sacrificial sack for the blade of a fellow bandits sword. Cleaved open at the clavical with a sickly gasp, he caught an arrow with his shoulder as another fell, the cloying coppery scent of blood and viscera thick in the air when silence eventually fell.

The scrape of tools on the salt had fallen silent, the fight noticed by workers given strenght. The single bandit stationed as their guard had been overpowered by a cluster of the boys, harsh edged picks beaten into his skin out on the white ground where it spread red beneath his crumpled body.

"M-Master Witcher, we don't have-"

"Dead men don't need horses, last I checked."

Such thin things they were, the whole lot of them, the tallest barely reaching to his shoulder. Underfed and overworked skeletal like living corpses, they stared at him with sunken crevices for eyes and cracked bloodless maws in places of their mouths. Hunger and forced labor marked their bodies like war wounds, musculature reduced to willow tendril emaciation where they hadn’t been given nearly enough. Their heads looked too large for their bodies, strange caricatures of adolescent boys with ribs he could count through their thin tunics. Infection would take them if the fever didn’t, and as gaunt as they were, he doubted many of them would survive the coming winter. 

They blinked at him like he had given them some kind of gift and his skin itched beneath the sweat and the blood. Uncomfortable from the fervor in their eyes and Lambert looked away to prod at one of the corpses with his boot, idly yanked the bolt from his own shoulder and bit into his cheek against the throbbing pain. 

“Did any of the girls survive?”

Silence, uncomfortable and flavored with grief bitter where he could smell it, and he sighed even as he asked. Took that for the answer it was and ground his boot against the dead man's throat. It wouldn’t fix the wrongs they had made, this place would become the keeping grounds of wraiths before the next full moon where those girls had been killed. He would be brought back here by a contract by spring, if not him then one of his brothers, but the damage had already been done. They would dance where they had fallen, phantoms kept to this place by remembered horror and spilled blood until they had to be put down again. 

“There...there’s someone inside.” Hesitant, voice brittle like he hadn’t spoken in days, weeks, the boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen if he were even ten. If he was even old enough to hold a hoe, let alone wield a salt cutters pick like a weapon, but he stared Lambert in the face where his companions couldn’t quite manage. That took balls, hollow eyed as he was but he had the audacity to stare a Witcher in the face without flinching. He would live even if by sheer force of will, Lambert would bet his best dagger on it given the chance. Instead, he crouched beside the body to pull the remaining bolts from its quiver, deft fingers slipping into shallow pockets pulling out a few gold, a key. “He can’t leave.”

“He crippled?”

“Bound. He tried to protect the girls and they-they took it out on him before killing them to prove a point. I don’t-”

He falter then, dry tongue across cracked lips like he didn’t know if he should be speaking. Except, there was quiet defiance there instead of fear, like this breakable little human boy thought he could defend something against a Witcher slathered in blood and gore. It was admirable if nothing else, he recognized that noncompliance from the burn of it in his own veins. This one would live even if the others didn’t, even if it was out of spite alone. Gaze hooded, Lambert watched him over the turn of his shoulder as the boy refused to squirm. 

“He ain’t human, but he deserves mercy, Master Witcher.”

“Velast.”

Cheeky little shit, and he almost smiled. The nerve of this singular little human, to demand things from the person that had saved him. 

“Your mothers and sisters are waiting back in the village.”

Spoken like a dismissal and he rocked to stand, left the boys to either stand on the flats or to return to the village through the trees. They would go home if they were smart enough, would know the way back like a calling in their blood. Up the creaking wooden stairs for the foreman’s cabin, there was a single heartbeat inside, hummingbird frantic even as it tripped over itself, uneven from fever or fear. The porch acted like it wanted to sag under his weight and the door swung open easily under pressure, swung open with squealing hinges that marked his arrival. 

That single heartbeat pounded impossibly faster like it might burst, his own aching in sympathy. The air was thick with dried blood, with spend and wild, untamed magic and fear , such a profuse combination that it nearly staggered him. Head shaking, lungs burning as he breathed through it, Lambert turned narrowed eyes around the sparsely furnished interior until he could find the nonhuman Velast had pleaded for. 

Ashen stone blue skin smeared with blood but he recognized the black vein spider spread of poisoning when he saw it. Thick iron manacles at thin, blood-slicked wrists, attached together by a short length of chain before they were looped to the band around what should have been an elegant throat under any other circumstances. A clasp of similar nature about his bare waist, exposed ankles, the creature’s entire body clattered quietly with every stuttering breath. More than just bound, trussed up like a prey animal hunted for sport, every place the metal touched had been blistered and burned raw. 

Sharp toothed and feral even delirious with pain and trapped as it was, this was more than just some nonhuman. With frothy blood dripping from its torn lips and a seething kind of rage that only came from terror laced deep through its breathing, its appearance would have been sign enough even without its scent. The unrestrained ozone crack of chaos at its most natural made his lungs feel like a tinderbox ready to catch, and the creature stared at him with hooded, jewel-toned eyes. The humans had managed to ensnare a fae, probably young but no doubt powerful, and the state of it made him swear quietly.

Dried spend evident between its bare thighs, cool grey skin turned violet and burgundy from bruises and wide lacerations in places where iron poisoning had leeched into its blood in others. They had thought to chain and violate a being of pure whim and unadulterated magic, and he could only imagine its bloodlust. Worse, could it really be blamed, ruined flesh and its body used against it like some kind of toy? Surely it would crave the same kind of violence he did just from looking at it, bent and abused as it was.

Either it would die in its bonds, or it would die if it tried to attack him, but he couldn't just leave it there.

Its shoulders would be dislocated at worst, hyperextended at best even if he worried for the sockets. He was no healer even if he wasn't a slouch, botany far from his worst subject but the anatomy of the creature was something he had only ever seen in texts. Stone dark skin and dark blood, it gurgled and watched him with unnaturally bright eyes. Assessed him even with blood like a stain on its face, every bit still a caged beast despite how they had tried to break it. 

"I'm going to get you down from there. It will hurt, but let’s try not to bite the nice monster hunter."

Bright eyes stalked him as he crossed the room, every movement exaggerated and telegraphed to try and keep from startling it. Accidental or not, the last thing he wanted was to feel those teeth cut into him. The key he had pilfered earlier had a purpose now, chains slick with cooled, tacky blood where he grasped them. His hands slipped in it, fingers colored a deep violet wherever it touched. This close and it was impossible not to look, a strong jaw and prominent cheekbones so sharp they could have cut if he reached out to touch. A beautiful thing by nature even covered in its own blood, of course humans thought they had the right to brutalize it.

The iron had eaten through layers of skin, the knobs of its wrists pocked with exposed bone where the wounds had taken much. That would scar if it survived, a persistent reminder of what it had lived through for the rest of its long days. With any luck, this wouldn't turn it entirely against humanity, but it was difficult to tell how long the creature had been shackled to the ceiling. Long enough, the damage was already done by people that harmed things they didn't understand.

He worried for its shoulders, and quicker would be better in this case. A flash of his sword against the chains overhead and the links snapped with a clang, pressure lost on its shoulders. It fell against him instantly, a sharp stuttered cry bursting from its lips as he took its weight against him. One hand careful on its body while he sheathed his blade, its hummingbird heart beat furiously in its chest like it might burst. Pressed so close against him and there were freckles like stars on its cool face, constellations in abstract etched into its flesh beneath the violet smear.

Slick hands batted at his chest as the remaining chains rattled, left wet violet prints across the dark leather mail. Clutched at the straps for his scabbards with sharp obsidian nails that clicked against the buckles. 

"Easy. I won't let you fall."

Wild, wide eyes the electric blue that danced above Kaer Morhen in the winter nights stared at him, wet with tears and fear even if he could smell relief. There was such trust there that his throat felt tight, the sharp tang of blood filling his throat, and Lambert breathed through it. Carefully, mindful of the way each movement brought forth more of the reek of burning flesh and a hot rivet of blood, Lambert sank the key into the latch on the thick iron collar.

It cracked open with a rattling click , and fresh blood welled forth where he peeled the metal away. Burnt, ruined flesh tried to cling to it, thin curls of steam rising forth and he watched the exposed muscle flex as the fae swallowed. Whimpered and clutched at him, one long-nailed hand curling around his medallion with a chittering hiss. The collar hit the floor with a clatter and it flinched against him, trembling form pressed to his chest like his armor could protect it from anything.

"You're safe now."

Such words from a Witcher, but it seemed to do something as the fae held tight to him. Strained the chain of his medallion where it practically vibrated in its fist, and Lambert unlocked the band that cut into its thin waist one-handed. Dropped it to the floor with a clank, mindful of how the hand he held at its sharp hip was immediately washed with fresh spill of burning blood. It shook against him, reeked of charred skin where he could see sticky remnants of its flesh stuck to the inside of the newest metal piece on the floor. The shackles around its ankles would be the same, run through a ring drilled into the wood to keep it from kicking out.

His small step back only made them stumble, the fae clinging fiercely with another inhuman sound. Adrenaline pulsed through his body like a time-worn companion, strong claws and sharp teeth so close to his person and he knew too many ways that this could go wrong in an instant. He could scare it, it could take its freedom to lash out, it could lose control of its natural magic in its wounded state. Every scenario ended with more blood being spilled, his head possibly rolling on the floor, and Lambert wasn't ready to deal with any of that.

"I need to free your ankles." It had to understand Common, surely. He couldn't begin to try and think about what language it might have spoken, but he had to hope it knew Common at least for the sake of blending in. Slowly he reached up and wrapped their fingers together, lifted enough to put its hands on his shoulders. Too close to his throat, glittering claws poking against his skin before they curled into his hardened leather pauldrons. "Lean on me so you don't fall."

It still had his medallion in its hand, trapped between its palm and his shoulder as he folded down to his knees. The chain caught snug at the underside of his chin, shifted when he swallowed but Lambert just tucked his head a little further for sake of its modesty and undid first one foot, then the other. 

The shackles were barely cast aside before the fae swayed and started to crumple against him and Lambert swore. Surged to his feet to catch it only to get another handful of blood, grip sliding across the wounds at its waist. It shook with a keening sound, hands scrambling across his chest to try and hold somewhere even as its skin shuddered. Cool stone blue became a soft milky peach in seemingly random places, midnight ashen hair turning rich mahogany in clumps that didn't last. Its teeth tried to dull themselves, its blood starkly red for a flickering minute, free from its chains and the creature thought it needed to hide.

"Hey, hey no, don't- you're going to hurt yourself, stop it."

Cry like a wounded animal and an abandoned infant, its bright eyes stared up at him like it saw him for the first time before it started to weep.

"Damn it."

It wouldn't do any good to have its wounds exposed to the salt outside, and Lambert cast a quick, desperate eye around the cabin as the creature shook and sniffled quietly against him. No bandages that he could immediately see but there were bedsheets and possibly washed linen, and that would more than do.

Mindful of the creature’s weight, he shuffled the both of them across the width of the cabin toward the bed. Leaned aside, one fist caught the bedsheet and ripped it from the frame in a wide, ragged swath. It smelled of lye soap and tallow, of clean saltwater from where it crashed against the rocks. It smelled clean , it was more than good enough, part of it clamped between his teeth so he could pull and tear another strip, the motion repeated until he had enough makeshift bandages for what he needed. 

"I need to cover your wounds, but I have to have both hands to do that, so I need you t-perfect, just like that." Bloodied hands slammed down on the little wooden table, claws spread wide as the creature braced itself and he nodded. Moved carefully to wrap its midsection to stem the bleeding and prevent contamination. It would have to do for now, no poultices or salves on his person, but the fae didn't seem to notice. It barely flinched even as he made sure to keep his hands in sight when he wrapped its throat, and Lambert bit back another curse. "This should stem the bleeding for now."

A temporary fix for what was quickly starting to feel like a less than a temporary problem, bright eyes tracked his every movement as he methodically bandaged each wrist, each ankle where he crouched at the creature’s feet for the moments it took. Just moments and then the burned, bleeding parts of its body were swaddled with as much care as his calloused hands could offer, violet blood seeped into the cracks between his knuckles like ink stains. It shook like a leaf in the wind, weight braced on the table with locked elbows and clattering knees, but this close and he could smell the spend on its skin where it had been brutalized and marked. Actions meant to hurt it, shame it, and the notion made him want to drive his sword through the men outside again. 

But there were no survivors for him to take his aggression out on, and the best he could do was quickly scour the cabin for clothes to give the creature some sense of modesty back.

A shredded pile of colorful crimson silk lay scattered near the hearth, a fire poker with a blackened chunk of flesh dropped into the mess of fabric like a beacon. It had been fancifully dressed at one point, a supple leather satchel and the bent necked case of a fat-bellied instrument. Past the tang of blood and fear, it smelled of honey and woodsmoke, parchment and herbs and horseflesh and a thick, familiar scent. Familiar horseflesh, familiar musk, he knew those scents like he knew the way home and it gave him pause, the fine silks and the scent of wax pressing a nagging feeling into his belly. Regardless, those scraps weren’t wearable, and he yanked open a sticky drawer and dug until he found a set of smalls and brown breeches, undoubtedly the wrong size but hopefully, they wouldn’t cling to any wounds. 

“L’ttle wolf.”

Lilting, chiming words like witches bells even though its tongue was gurgled and abused, they pulled at his gut like barbed hooks. Made him startle, lean too heavy on the drawer where he pushed to close it even as his head whipped around. It shut with a snapping clatter and the creature-

The fae flinched where it had straightened, unsteady but trying, body roughly bumping the table that squealed and wobbled against the floor. Another chittering hiss, clawed hands scrambling atop the wood before its nails dug in deep and he watched as it curled in on itself. 

“Shit, sorry, sorry, I wasn’t expecting-you shouldn’t talk right now.”

“Name.”

Silver threaded through every letter, a deep blue tongue slicked across stone dark lips as it spoke. Watched him with those eyes like predator and prey and weighed him. Seemingly found him worthy of something, lacking as a threat. The wild whirl of magic still hung in the air, but his medallion stopped shaking and lay still like it had never trembled before.

He wasn't a threat, but it certainly was, watching him over its sharp shoulder like its nudity was second nature.

"What about it?"

Claws made quiet little sounds against the wood grain, and the fae straightened to it's- his full height. Male, broad-shouldered and flaccid anatomy splattered with violet like much of the rest of his skin, he straightened and watched Lambert like he had control here. Unbound now even if he still bled, perhaps the creature had some kind of power here still, but the stringent burn of fear was a curdling scent impossible to mistaken. Regardless of his freedom, the fae was still afraid, and Lambert knew all too well the unpredictable nature of a wounded animal.

"Ma-may I know it, ser Wi-Witcher?"

Know it, not have it, and he blinked at the deliberate way the fae spoke. May he know his name, leaving it within its right of ownership among Lambert's marrow, permission to borrow delicately asked even if the creature didn't really need it. Yet, names were everything, power and promise and blood oath coiled into a single word, the weight of a name could summon or squander even King's if put into the right hands. And the fae asked permission to know it, and Lambert nearly balked at the lack of strings.

"Lambert."

Of Undvik, of Skellige, of Kaer Morhen, of nowhere that mattered and everywhere that he had ever been, and the fae blinked at him with jewel chips for eyes like he knew.

Dark tongue across sharp teeth and split lips like he needed to taste every letter. His name known and savored like some patisserie treat, and he dropped the breeches onto the table. Handed it the smalls, eye contact held where the fae refused to look away even as he trembled. The creature smelled of fear but it was stale in the air, like humans and what they had done were more fearsome than any Witcher could ever be. 

"They're clean. I'll try and find a tunic."

"I su-suppose it would be too much to a-ask for something in color. I-if it would please, ser Witcher."

Gilded words on a curling tongue, the creature blinked even as he spoke. Like he didn't have control of his own mouth, dark lashes fluttering as he blinked like waking from a dream. 

Damn him, leave it to a fae to have a sense of humor, sardonic and sad as it was. It made him huff with amusement, a sharp grin breaking quick and fast over his own mouth. Fleeting, dwindled down into something smaller, there was nothing funny about their situation, but the sight of his own smile seemed to be worth something. The fae smiled softly, dimples set into his cheeks and a fresh well of violet blood across the split of his bottom lip, but some of the weight seemed to lift from those star-pale shoulders.

"I'll see what kind of palate the foreman had."

He nearly winced, tone more biting than he had meant but the fae just smiled like he didn't mind, head ducked as he pinched the smalls between clawed fingertips. That smile was a dangerous thing, a lethal beauty from charcoal lips  like every alluring monster he had ever been taught to know and hunt and fear. Those teeth could maim him with ease, that mouth could spell his doom if it so chose, saving someone had never made him feel quite so wrongfooted before. 

Twisted around until he couldn't see him, a semblance of privacy even as Lambert listened to the creature carefully shift around while he pulled on the smalls and struggled with the breeches. One of the drawers held tunics, hastily folded and shoved away and rife with the musty smell of undisturbed linen. Creams and off whites, browns and muted colors, he ruffled each garment about until he could find one left near the bottom, deep green and worn soft to the touch. Hand embroidered along the neck, clumsy flowers and vines in thread dyed wavering shades of pink and yellow, a few of the string had snapped with age. A festival piece, something for a celebration that was probably rarely worn but it would be something more than brown. 

As if the fae's comfort meant anything, and the tunic crumpled in his fist.

"Ser Witcher," quietly spoken from a throat that must have ached, tentative and trembling but there was a molten core there, the hint of a sharp tongue from either his species or just the creature's own nature. "Ser-ser Lambert, what man-manner of contract brought you h-here?"

Brow furrowed, he found the creature a few steps from the table, hands splayed as he tested his weight on unsteady, charcoal tinged feet. 

"What makes you think I have a contract?"

"Unless th-there is an infestation, a Witcher a-always requires a cont-contract for any services rendered. Pay-payment is required, coin preferably t-though alcohol, gr-grain and livestock are accepted depending o-on circumstance." The words were spouted immediately, lyrically, like the fae had heard them before. Vaguely like a lecture in a tone he was all too familiar with, and he squinted at the creature. Because he knew that tone, and he didn’t like that he knew that tone. “A-A Witcher is always pa-paid.”

“Where did you learn that?”

Tunic caught in hand, Lambert stared at the ethereal man where he shook like a leaf in the wind. Beneath his starlight freckles, the man seemed to pale, ashen skin loosing some of its soot color beneath dark fringe. He could hear the way that hummingbird heart sped up, could smell the panic and the misery that suddenly leeched from his skin. That stench had only just faded, bitter wash of it leaving the room, but his question had brought it back.”

“From a Witcher.”

The words were pulled out of him as if with a barbed hook, through gritted teeth and split lips. If it were possible, the Fae looked more panicked even by the way he spoke, by the fact that he had. Lambert nearly swore, a dawning kind of horror sweeping through him because he had done that, caused that. Fae couldn’t lie, and words meant everything, and here he was, phrasing things wrong and asking questions where he should have just gotten the man out of the foreman's cabin. There was no point trying to take it back, and Lambert stood there and watched the man start to fall apart instead.

“Would you be willing to tell me which Witcher?”

Words carefully chosen, and the Fae blinked at him. He hesitated, claws clicking quietly together as he stood there in pilfered smalls and carefully pulled up breeches. His hands couldn’t manage the ties very easily, and as Lambert watched, the Fae avoided his eyes to instead try and cinch the breeches without severing the thin cords. He wouldn’t look at Lambert, and the silence that settled on them was stifling. 

He started to reach out and put the tunic on the table between them, the Fae picking that moment to speak up.

“Geralt of Rivia.”

There was a world of barely contained emotion in that name. He shouldn’t have known that name, because Geralt didn’t fuck with Fae, because they weren’t supposed to fuck with Fae. Except, well, here he was, fucking with a Fae when everything he had been taught dictated that he use his sword rather than his words. They were far from harmless, traditional tricksters like nothing else could manage to be, often malicious creatures with a penchant for sinking their sharp teeth into flesh for the sake of it. 

Except that name came easily to that mouth, all things considered. 

Fae couldn’t like, and that meant this one had known his brother. The misery and heartache that came off him in waves spoke of a history there, of a story that Lambert didn’t know because he wasn’t sure how to ask without pulling another answer free like a rotten tooth. There was always such a grey area lack of consent with Fae that he had never been sure how to broach for all that he had never met one. The bestiary entries had always put a sour taste in his mouth, a creature controlled by words and unable to lie felt an awful lot like a lack of autonomy out of their control. It felt a lot like it now, prying questions burning on his tongue where he wanted to ask but wouldn’t. 

He put the tunic on the table between them instead, and watched as the Fae carefully took it. Violet blood oozed slowly from the lash wounds on his shoulders. Lambert could only imagine what his back looked like, because humans were thorough with their torture if nothing else, like an art they had needed to perfect. The Fae reeked of blood and spend, and the longer Lambert looked at him, the more he felt a low simmer of rage start to build back up in his blood. 

His anger would do no good here, and the Fae flinched a little under his gaze. 

“I don’t make it a habit of apologizing for other people,” He didn’t make a habit of apologizing at all. It tasted bad, was easier to just put himself in a position where he didn’t need to apologize. “But my brother can be a right bastard, so really, you’re better off without him.”

His eyes were like someone had taken chips out of the sky. They were fucking distracting, because for all the blood and the filth on him, the Fae was undeniably beautiful. From the soot dark of his hands and the skin pressed line of black that trailed from his lips to his chin, he was otherworldly, and Lambert felt like a bastard for even thinking like that. The man had been tortured and brutalized, and here he was, thinking that the poor sod was attractive. He was disgusted with himself enough for the both of them. 

The Fae blinked at him, curious and quiet as he took up the tunic with shaking hands. He didn’t say anything though, and that was fine. Lambert hadn’t really expected him to for all that he smelled a little like surprise. There was a sharp, ozone kind of smell to him, something crisp and wild, magic like he had never known it before. Even Eskel didn’t smell that strongly for all of his power, raw chaos mingled with honey and woodsmoke and blood. 

He could smell the infection on him from halfway across the room. 

“May I know your name?”

He could hear the way his heart kicked up again in his chest, a hummingbird trapped between a child's hands. The Fae watched him, tense like he was waiting for a fight or a blow. Which sucked honestly, he was a Witcher, not a murderer, no offense meant to Aiden. All things considered though, from the reek of blood and spend in the room and tinge of burnt flesh in the air, it was no surprise he was as tight strung as he was. 

He could hear the way he swallowed, tight and heavy. His heart sounded like it could come out of his chest, and while Lambert wanted to move, stepping closer would have just made things worse. Instead, a rickety table between them, he watched the way the Fae held his wounded ribs and his tense shoulders. As he thought about it, and the longer he thought, the more Lambert decided it was a stupid fucking question.

“Look, you don't have t-”

“Jaskier.”

He knew that name .

“Fuck me.”

The Fae blinked at him, and Lambert just fucking sighed.

Given what he knew, he couldn’t just leave the man there. 

He wouldn’t have actually left him there anyway, didn’t seem right to just leave an abused person in the nest of their abusers, whether said abusers were dead or not. Too many memories, too many things that could and would and should go wrong, because there was already enough trauma there, he didn’t want to add to it. He’d seen that sort of shit enough times that he knew better, had learned from first-hand experience what that sort of environment could do, and he refused to just leave someone to fend for themself following that kind of situation. 

This wasn’t just that kind of situation.

This was Geralt’s bard, and that fucking complicated things. That fucking complicated things a lot.

Jaskier had been silent when they walked out of the foreman’s cabin, clawed hands curling around the neck of the lute case where his nails clacked quietly together. He held the case where he looked like he wanted to hold himself, but the bandages pulled tight around his midsection seemed to be reason enough to not. Good, that meant he had some physical wherewithal even if Lambert questioned how much. He had put his own skin out for the rest of them, the boy’s had been half-feral about defending him. Fae or not, bad men didn’t just do shit like that, and that, combined with everything else he knew about the man, meant that this wouldn’t just be a pitstop to give him proper medical care before going their separate ways. 

He was responsible now, and he fucking hated being responsible. 

The man was quiet as they crossed the salt flats, pausing whenever Lambert did to let him gather crossbow bolts as they went. Waste not, want not, but his scavenger tendencies felt almost perverse with someone other than Aiden witnessing them. The Fae didn’t comment on it though, so Lambert didn’t comment on it, and it was a lovely, limping walk back across the flats and into the treeline where his horse was. The salt would have been murder on his feet if Lambert hadn’t found his boots relatively unscathed, and the man had put them on slowly but without complaint. As it was, their pace was half of what Lambert’s would have been if he was alone, made such by the way the man limped and the way that Lambert refused to rush him.

What had taken him ten minutes at most to cross on his way in took them nearly half an hour. 

Just inside the treeline where she had been left, Mistress tossed her head and let out a chuffing sound at the sight of him. He cracked a smile as she nudged her velvet nose against his shoulder and throat, and cupped a hand around her powerful jaw to soothe her. 

“Told you I’d be back.”

“S-she’s a beautiful horse.”

Eyes cutting to his companion, the man stood there just, waiting. Sun spilling across his horns where they branched up from beneath his hair, they nearly resembled a stag for all that their glittering obsidian color was unlike any deer Lambert had ever seen. He didn’t look like any Fae Lambert had ever seen, dusky stone skin and starlight freckles across his bruised cheeks. His tongue was a deep cobalt where it licked at the violet blood on his lip, and the black color that stained them ran down his chin like a mouthful of tar. He was colorful where Lambert was used to seeing people in varying shades of pink or brown, and he was otherworldly with his too-bright eyes and his arching horns. 

That wasn’t to say Lambert had ever seen a Fae before, just rough sketches in old bestiaries that he had been taught as a boy. Except, this man looked nothing like those depictions, too much color, no wings in sight. They hadn’t been cut from him because there had been no gutted incisions on his shoulder blades, and instead it was just like he’d never had them to begin with. No wings, no cloven feet, he wasn’t seven feet tall and he didn’t have any extra joints that Lambert could see at first glance, he just looked-

He wasn’t underwhelming by any means, he just wasn’t what Lambert had expected was all.

Mistress bumped against him as she forced her way past him, and he watched as overbright eyes went wide. The man held so still Lambert didn’t think he was breathing as she snuffled at his shoulder before lipping at his horn. He could hear the way the man’s heart screamed in his chest at the curious affection, and he let himself give a bit of a smile. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have stopped her, but she didn’t seem to be hurting anything, and the man didn’t seem to be afraid for all that he had stopped moving. 

“Mistress knows she’s pretty.”

His eyes darted to Lambert, wide and bright. Slowly, one scuffed hand went up and touched at her neck, the horse immediately leaning into the touch. He watched as the man huffed a quiet laugh and staggered a little under the weight of her. Touch turning more confident, hand spreading out against her grey dappled throat, he tipped his head to give her more room when she mouthed at his horn.

“Hello, Mistress.”

Her grey tail flicked wildly at the sound of her name, and that was good enough for Lambert. His own possible reservations aside, his horse was a fantastic judge of character. She had kicked more than her fair share of assholes and would-be thieves in her day. He was fucking attached, somebody fight him about it, he hadn’t paid out the ass for an enchantment from Keira to keep her from dying just for her to not be a good horse. 

Rescued Fae thoroughly distracted, Lambert flipped open one of the saddlebags to rifle through for his medical kit. He would need stitches if nothing else, and Lambert needed to clear and properly wrap his wounds to fight the infection that had already set in. 

“I’m going to need to play medic on you.”

Jaskier stopped and stared at him with wide, crystalline eyes. Mistress lipped at one of the points of his horn, and the Fae just stood there and let her. Lambert could hear the way his heart kicked back up, could smell the fresh well of anxiety in his scent. He seemed to steel himself though, squared shoulders and a set to his dusky jaw.

"Alright."

For as pretty as his voice was, it sounded strained. Lambert could only imagine how it must have pained him, but the man still spoke. He still let Lambert round his horse and approach him for all that Lambert could see the way he trembled. He didn't flinch away when Lambert helped pull the tunic back over his head, and he didn't flinch when he started unwrapping the violet splotched bandages around his waist. 

Geralt had called him a fool, but with the way the man watched him and let himself be touched despite everything that had been done to him, Lambert thought him impossibly brave.

"This is for infections. It's got calendula, elderberry and angelica in it, so you're going to smell real botanical for the next few days." Salve jar popped open, he puddled a generous amount on his hand before carefully smearing it across the raw mess of his torso. To his credit, the man held still, and with every touch, the stench of his anxiety faded away. "It'll need to be readministered twice a day. I don't think we need to pack any of your wounds, so that's good."

The more he talked, the more the man relaxed in front of him until his shoulders were loose. His breathing was about as easy as Lambert could expect it to be, all things considered. That was fine though, he could talk if that was what the other man needed. It wasn't too unlike talking to a trauma victim from a hunt, and, well- that was what he was, wasn't he?

He hated treating people like they were victims. Gentle was all well and good, but they didn't deserve to be pandered to. Shit sucked, they were hurt, but wounds meant they were alive, and things would get better.

"I'm going to smear it on your back too."

The Fae sighed, a stilted sound as he turned to let Lambert work. His back was a sight, a gory canvas of split skin and dried violet blood where they had taken the whip to him. Flayed open and left to hang there, left to bleed like he was some kind of animal. Lambert had never understood humans for all that he knew their brutality. It was different here though, sharper, because it always was when he watched them turn their hands on something wild and beautiful.

"This shouldn't sting. Tell me if it does, because then we'll need to wash the wounds and start again."

"It doesn't."

He nodded, curls falling in his face only to pause when he realized the man couldn't see him.

"Good. I'm going to wrap you up when I'm done, keep them keep."

The man gave a soft hum, a little rough at the edges but Lambert felt his medallion shiver all the same. His hands didn't stop rubbing in the salve, and instead, he took the time to inspect obsidian flecked deer horns and the pale dust of freckles across split shoulders.

"These are going to scar."

The man started to shrug only to catch himself and seem to think better if it.

"A scar means you survived."

Lambert blinked at the expanse of his back, because he wasn't wrong . It just wasn't what he was used to hearing from the more delicate looking sorts. Except, there was a layer of musculature across his battered body, sturdy shoulders and defined biceps like the man was no stranger to work. He certainly didn't look like a bard, but the inhuman skin and the horns didn't help any with his image either.

Lambert finished with his back and took up a long rolled strip of fabric. Careful of how much pressure he needed to use, he went about wrapping his torso until every lash and break was bandaged. It took longer than he had expected, but the lack of fresh blood made it more than worth it. He helped the man back into his tunic before using his water skin to douse his own hands.

"Can you ride a horse?"

"I'm aware of the practice, Lambert."

Huffing a sharp laugh, back turned to put his things back in the saddlebag, Lambert cast a glance over his shoulder. 

"You're going to need stitches, and I imagine you'll want to clean up. So, up on the horse, there's a stream some thirty minutes that way."

The Fae just watched him for a minute, eyes darting to Mistress before looking back to him for all that he didn't move.

"It'll be no different than riding with Geralt. Better, actually, he's a saddle hog."

Bright eyes fixed on his horse instead, looked anywhere but at him. A bitter, sour something overtook his scent, and Lambert's nose curled. 

"I wouldn't know."

"Why's that?"

One dark, clawed hand brushed against Mistress's jaw. The horse leaned into the touch, tail flicking. She didn't seem to mind at all though, affectionate creature that she was. 

"I walked."

He said it so simply, like there should have been no question to it. He walked the Continent, for all that Lambert knew damn well the pace that Geralt liked to keep. His brother has groused about this man for what, twenty years? Inhuman nature or not, what sort of companion just made their traveling partner walk the entire Continent?

"Mistress got herself a nice enchantment, she can take both of us." A pause, gaze sharp and scrutinizing. "You need help up?"

The man nodded after a real long moment. 

Touch gentle, Lambert took him by the hip and helped ease him up into the saddle. The man winced, breath hitching, but he didn't falter until he was seated, stiff, chest heaving. It would do neither of them any good to ride behind him, would have just put undo pressure on his wounds.

"You're going to hold onto me." It took a moment of maneuvering, but he got himself on the saddle in front of the other man. Mistress huffed under their combined weight, but she didn't smell like distress. He'd find her some nice fucking clover to munch on as a treat. "Tell me if I go too fast."

The man didn't say anything, and Lambert hadn't expected him to. His brother had called him the chatty sort, but at the moment, Lambert could sympathize that he probably had plenty of reason to not feel very chatty. Lambert was surprised he had even talked at all.

The man didn't talk the entire journey, and Lambert didn't plan on making him. Instead, he let them fall into a stilted silence as his horse plodded through the underbrush and back into the path. Eventually, the man relaxed against him. Strong hands gripped at the sides of his armor as the man held on. He didn't comment on it, so Lambert didn't either, but he felt the instant the man curled against him, head between his shoulder blades as he started to silently sob.

If Lambert slowed Mistress down to give him more time, then that was between himself and the birds.

Jaskier had taken his time at the stream.

Lambert had given him a rag and some soap powder and left the man to it. He had given him privacy to bathe, because, after everything he had been through, the man deserved a few minutes to himself. Lambert had taken the time to catch a few rabbits and get their fire going, skinning the hares and setting them on whittled wooden spits to roast. They had almost finished cooking, and he had almost gotten up to go check on the man before he had come back to camp.

He didn't smell of spend anymore, but there was a fresh, faint tinge of blood to him like he had scrubbed himself raw.

"Sit. I'll stitch you up after we eat."

The man sat slowly, something fluid and graceful to his movements for all that he still smelled of pain. He took a rabbit when it was offered to him and, as Lambert watched through his lashes, sank sharp teeth into the haunch without hesitation. They cut through the meat like a blade, and he filed that information away for later. The bestiary had said nothing about razor-sharp teeth, but then again, the bestiary had already proven to be wrong.

Jaskier ate while staring into the fire, and for a moment, Lambert was considering letting him have his silence. His eyes were distant and haunted though, and Lambert knew enough about trauma to know that not talking about it tended to not help.

"Can I ask a question?"

"I believe you will anyway."

Sharped tongued shit, but he could respect that. Words spoken with a dry drawl, the Fae blinked at the fire before turning those eyes onto him instead. His lashes were like soot, and as Lambert watched, he licked a welling head of violet blood from his split lip. He chewed as he thought about it, because that was a fair assessment for all that the Fae didn't know him. Sharp-tongued and quick-witted, and Geralt had spoken of neither of those things.

"True. Why aren't you with Geralt?"

A sharp tang of misery flooded their camp, so heavy that he would have thought the skies had opened up above them. It permeated through the air and made it hard to breathe for a moment, Lambert nearly choking on his mouthful of rabbit. Through it all, Jaskier just stared at him, though his expression shuttered suddenly. 

He had stepped in something, and Lambert winced behind his dinner. Because people didn't just smell like that, not without good reason. He smelled of pain so acute that Lambert would have thought him wounded anew, run through the chest by some unseen force. The reek of his grief was enough to send Lambert’s own heart racing, a smell like mourning, a death keel untold.

The question on if his brother was alive died on his tongue.

“I don't stay where I’m not wanted.”

Fae couldn’t lie, unless the bestiary had been wrong about that too. 

“His loss.”

Jaskier blinked at him, coming back into focus from where he had started to look through Lambert again instead of at him. He looked startled by the simple, curt sentence, stared at him with raised brows and bright eyes. Lambert just shrugged, and watched as those sharp brows rose higher still.

“You mean that.”

“My brother’s an ass. We don’t really get along, different perspectives on life.” Geralt let the weight of his failures threaten to drag him into an early grave, whereas Lambert learned and demanded to live, regardless of the cost. “He told stories about you for twenty years. That’s a long time to travel with someone just for him to be ungrateful.”

Set across the low burning fire, it was easy to catch the fresh well of salt water in the air. The man didn’t cry for all that his eyes went shiny and his mouth quivered. Instead, Lambert listened to him take a deep breath with a wet rattle in his lungs. They would need to keep an eye on that, more than likely pneumonia waiting in the wings to creep in when they least expected it. That was fine, he had herbs for that, and it wasn’t like he was letting this man out of his sight any time soon, not with the condition he was in.

“He can be a right bastard when he feels like it.”

Spoken quietly against his rabbit but Lambert heard him all the same. He grinned with all of his teeth and held out his own skewer a little, waving it around like a tankard in a tavern. 

“He’s a right bastard anyway. Really, you were the smart one, being the one that got away and all.”

Jaskier gave a wet, sputtering laugh, and Lambert grinned anew. 

“You make it seem like I’m a blushing maiden.”

He shrugged, going back to chewing on his food. The man was smiling though for all that he was wounded, and Lambert would take what he could get. Laughter was a priceless medicine, and if he could even bring forth a little bit of it, then it was all the better. The man would need whatever Lambert could give him when he set a needle and thread to his skin. 

“Geralt said you were human, fuck me to assume what else you’ve got going on.”

Without the blood he was unethically pretty when he smiled like that. For all of the bruises on his skin and the tear in his lip, he was ethereal in his dusky skin. He would have been a sight to see in human flesh, Lambert would bet his new pipe on it. 

Geralt had said he was trouble, but then, so was Lambert, so what did it matter?

The man laughed, deeper, more full, and Lambert beamed at him. 

“Finish your food so I can stitch you up.”

Their silence was more companionable, none of the stilted quiet that had taken them on the ride to their camp. They ate their fill and Lambert took the leftover bone to be buried. He shimmied up a tree to spread out the offal, farther northwest than he usually hunted but it was well and good enough to still be appreciated. He dropped back to the earth with a quiet huff, and turned to find the Fae watching him curiously. 

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

He didn’t sound necessarily defensive about it, but a little wary if nothing else, like his time in chains had made him skittish. Lambert dusted his hands off on his thighs as he ambled back over, taking his med kit up again before he dropped cross-legged to sit beside the other man. He didn’t lean away where he had expected him to, Jaskier turning a little to watch him instead. Guarded, but he hadn’t expected anything less, someone didn’t live through what he had and come out cheery to strangers, savior or not.

“You were thinking it. Ask.”

The man blinked, fingers curled in the bottom of his tunic where he had started to pull it over his head. 

“What were you doing?”

“Feeding the crows. I feed them, they bring me things and keep a lookout. Extra eyes are extra eyes. Shirt off, there y’go.”

He helped where the man couldn’t get his shoulders to move quite right to do it by himself. Listened to the way he sucked in a breath even as he set the tunic aside. Lambert let him have his moment, prodding at violet speckled bandages. Less bleeding than he had thought, and that was good. Better than good, that meant they had gotten to it in time. 

He unwound the bindings with steady hands, rolling them back up to balance on his thigh and be used again later. 

Needle cleaned with a quick, precise burst of igni, he threaded it on the first try and looked back at the man. Found him trying not to tense even though he had turned without needing to be told to, the macabre expanse of his back put on display. 

“This is going to take a while.”

“I assumed.”

He kept the length of thread long, checking in the bag to make sure he had enough. They would for this, and a few wounds extra if need be, but they would need to make a stop when they could and restock. 

“It’s going to hurt.”

“I’m aware, Lambert.”

He sounded so resigned to it, and Lambert scowled behind the turn of his back.

“Breathe with it.”

He pinched the skin of the highest break on his shoulder and set to stitching it up. To his credit, the man didn’t flinch, even though Lambert had expected him to. He stopped breathing for a moment, chest expanding and then refusing to fall. A sharp reminder on the tip of his tongue and swallowed back, the man started breathing again just as he went to admonish him for it. There were no hiccups after that, Jaskier kept breathing and Lambert kept stitching.

His hands were quickly stained violet, the reek of blood filling his senses all over again. 

It would dry under his nails and in the cracks of his knuckles by the time he was done. The scent would cling for hours, like it hadn’t set in already. He could deal with that though, a small price to pay for the way that the gaping, jagged wounds on the man’s back slowly pulled themselves together. His stitches were neat, the lines tightly closed until they ran in wild patterns across his back. They had been thorough when they had taken the whip to him, little off his flesh left untouched by the cutting edge. 

He worked in silence only to startle when it suddenly wasn’t . His hands didn’t jerk, and his movements didn’t stop, but Lambert caught the quiet, breath held way that the man had started to hum to himself. So soft he nearly couldn’t hear it, done so delicately under his breath that Lambert felt like an intruder for hearing it. Self-soothing, and he was reminded suddenly of the way that Aiden purred to himself when he was seriously injured, like he would cry if he didn't, sometimes crying even as he did. 

For all the things that set them apart, maybe they weren’t so different after all.

The sun shifted before he was done.  He tied off the last knot with steady hands and slick fingers. Tacky to the touch, blood sticking to his skin even though it didn’t look like it should have. He didn’t bother cleaning his hands off immediately, taking up his waterskin and carefully upending it against the man’s back in a slow, steady stream. The other man sucked in a sharp breath, humming cutting off for a moment before it started up again. Lambert carefully washed the blood away from his back one-handed until his strange skin was clean. Only then did he turn aside to clean his hands, giving them a quick, cursory scrub before setting the waterskin aside. 

“You did good.”

The man sighed as he started to smear the salve in once more. A thick layer of it, enough to keep things moist and properly coated. There would be no point in his skin cracking because it got too dry during the healing process. Lambert would be damned if he didn't do this right the first time. 

Just the same, the long roll of cloth was taken up once more. Diligently, he wound it around the man's torso and looped it over his shoulders until it was snug. Until he was satisfied with the work that he had done, wounds sealed and medicated and covered as best as he could manage. He was no healer for all that sometimes he watched and wondered, and this would have to do.

He gave the tunic back, and stood to return his things to their proper place.

"Thank you."

Lambert froze with his hands on the saddle bag, and turned to stare at the man. 

"I thought Fae didn't say that."

"I'm not, I'm-" he gave a frustrated, throaty sound, and Lambert just blinked at him. "Fae can't. I'm not Fae."

Bullshit.

"Forgive me for assuming, what with the iron burns and the-"

He gestured to the man in general, and watched as Jaskier bared sharp teeth at him. He didn't itch for his blade, because this didn't feel necessarily like a threat for all that he had probably just brought the man's temper to the surface. Fae were fickle things, unless that had been a lie too. Still, with all the work he had just put in over the last four hours, Lambert would bet that he wasn't feeling particularly murderous.

"I'm a Changeling."

He snapped like he wanted to insult Lambert but thought better of it at the last moment. Honestly, he would have taken an insult, any bard he had ever met always had some of the best ones, almost as good as whores.

Not bullshit then.

"I thought you all died in childhood."

"And Witchers eat children."

Fucking fair enough. Still, he couldn’t help the way his surprise must have clearly shown on his face. The other man huffed, squared shouldered and set jaw as he just, turned himself around and stared Lambert full in the face like he wasn’t a Witcher. He certainly didn’t smell afraid, rather frustrated more than anything else. An awful lot like he wanted to say something, and from what he remembered, Geralt had always said that the bard had plenty of things to say. Downright chatty , and Lambert could only guess at the kind of temper he must have had. 

“You use those teeth often?”

In response, Jaskier just snapped them at him. Lambert couldn’t helped the way he laughed, a sharp bark of sound. 

He finished putting the med kit away, and gave Mistress a long pet along her flank for good measure. He had been right, there was blood under his nails and in the seams of his knuckles just like he had known there would be. He would probably end up and take his knife to it later, a stupid habit that Aiden still hadn’t managed to break him of and probably never would. Which, whatever , Aiden took naps in trees, he didn’t get to have an opinion.

“Care to find out?”

There was a tang of fire in his voice, and Lambert could appreciate that.

“I’ve got another question.”

The Fae actually rolled his eyes at him, sass like Lambert hadn’t fucking saved him from being strung up. He just rolled his eyes and settled in the dirt to make himself more comfortable, tunic gingerly pulled back over his head. It caught on his horns at first, bulging the fabric where they didn’t quite fit. Lambert almost considered helping him, but by the time he put much more thought to it, the man figured it out for himself. 

“You’re much more talkative than your bother.”

Lambert shrugged, arms held out wide. 

“I’m a fucking delight, you think Geralt can compare to this?” He screwed his face up and furrowed his brow in a vague approximation of what the older wolf looked like. Their faces weren’t built the same, Geralt had cheekbones whereas Lambert was all sharp angles and a full beard, but it was close enough. “ I’m Geralt of Rivia. I’m going to make bad decisions and then pretend I’m not crying inside.”

Jaskier’s eyes went wide, and the hand he clamped over his mouth did absolutely nothing to stifle his sudden burst of laughter. Lambert smirked at the sound, tipping himself in a bit of a bow that had the man laughing anew. 

“That isn’t how he-alright, alright, fine . Out with the question, I’m sure you’ve plenty.”

He certainly wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean Lambert necessarily wanted to ask his question. Still, he had asked permission, and if the man was running from something, it would be better to know now rather than later.

“How did you end up in that cabin?”

Those bright eyes went a little dark, and Lambert twitched at the crackle of wild magic in the air, at the way his medallion started to tremble violently. 

“I was in the village when they tried to take the girls. I made myself a better target.”

Simply enough, but there was nothing simple about the implications there. The man had known exactly what would happen to him, even as a worst case scenario. He had known and he had put himself in that position anyway instead of leaving helpless girls to that fate. He had assigned it to himself instead, and somewhere along the way, they had found out.

“Why the iron?”

“I couldn’t hold my glamor after the whipping.”

There was a detached note to his voice, a little distant, a little cold. There was no use in prying beyond that, and instead, Lambert went about fixing Mistress’s saddle. 

“Then you won’t mind if we put some distance between us and them.”

“ Us? ”

“Yeah, us, unless you’d like to stick around.”

The man got to his feet, so no, it didn't look like he wanted to stay.

Lambert might have miscalculated.

It had been a week and he still had the man. What had initially started as him insisting he needed to keep an eye on him and his infection had devolved into him needing to keep an eye on him to make sure he took the tea to keep from getting pneumonia. Now, nine days later, it had fallen apart even further. Because Lambert didn't need to keep him around for medical purposes, his stitches had already been removed because evidently Fae healed faster than the average human. So, really, Jaskier didn't need him anymore.

Except, Jaskier hadn't left, and Lambert hadn't left either because he refused to be the one doing the leaving, and somehow it had just turned into them traveling together.

He couldn't necessarily complain, but it certainly wasn't what he had set out for.

It wasn't that different from when he traveled with Aiden, because the man helped hunt, and he helped break and make camp. He certainly shouldered his share of the responsibilities even though Lambert had tried to insist he didn't need to. He had been stared at with crystalline eyes and a guileless expression, and then by the time he had noticed what was happening, Jaskier had had both of their water skins and had wandered off to fill them. It wasn’t like he intended to have the man do things, it just seemed to keep happening.

It was completely different from when he traveled with Aiden, because Aiden had a system. Aiden talked all the fucking time, because Aiden was a chatty bastard that had decided that the whole damn Continent needed to know what he had to say. Which was fine, the man had opinions and far be it from Lambert to tell him where to put them. Except, where he had assumed the bard would measure up to his profession and well, be chatty, he only spoke when spoken to. Stranger still, he hadn't sang a single song, or hummed a single note past that first day. Bards were made of music, but if not for the lute that he carried around with him, Lambert wouldn't have thought him one. He didn't talk, he didn't make music, and he was so light footed that Lambert had to rely on the hummingbird of his heartbeat to actually know the man was there. It was downright unnerving was what it was.

Geralt had called him clumsy, but Lambert was coming to realize his brother hadn't known the man at all.

Worse still, the longer he traveled with him, the more it became apparent that that may have been an intentional deception. He couldn’t necessarily blame the man, as much as part of him wanted to. Geralt was an absolute troll even at the best of times, foul tempered and taciturn and just a no good, fucking grump all because he wanted to be. He had been shit on once in his life, and suddenly he had decided he needed to be a sad sack of shit about it. Far be it from Lambert to tell him how to deal with his trauma, but really, the man didn’t need to just wear it around like a second skin. 

Have some Gods damned self respect. 

He didn’t mind traveling with Jaskier, even if the man was eerily quiet. He didn’t talk in his sleep, he didn’t talk to Mistress, and he certainly didn’t talk to Lambert unless Lambert talked first. His hands moved an awful lot though, shaking fingers that looked like they were touching things even when they weren’t, tapping feet when they settled by the fire or in a stream. He was made up of constant motion, and slowly, steadily, Lambert watched as he started to relax more with each passing day. 

Which was good, great even, but there was a slight problem still. 

They needed to go into town, and Jaskier sure as shit didn’t look human. 

He needed to resupply his medical kit, basic essential things that he couldn’t make himself like new thread and a new set of needles where he had broken one. A restock on rations would have been nice, all things considered, because he happened to like cheese and they had run out within the second day of him having Jaskier. He could hunt to his hearts content, but outside of Kaer Morhen or the Caravan, it was far beyond him to have the time or space to make cheese, let alone age the shit. Humans though, they knew enough even if it wasn’t the same, and that was good enough. 

“Hey, Jaskier.”

The man refused to ride the fucking horse, which meant Lambert didn’t ride the horse either. They were slower because they walked, but he had given up the prospect of making it to Kaer Morhen for the winter. It wasn’t like he went often enough for them to necessarily worry, and if he used a raven he could locate the Caravan easily enough, so long as they hadn’t already gone south of the Amell mountains. Which, whatever, he would figure that out when the time came. Winter plans aside, he had more pressing things to deal with right now. 

Crystalline eyes found him over Mistress’s back, because of course the man was tall. Almost as tall as Lambert himself, and he wasn’t used to that sort of shit. Geralt was a tall enough for all that he was rather compact, sure, and Eskel was broad, but Lambert had always been the biggest of them since he was seventeen and suddenly his bones wouldn’t stop stretching. He was used to Aiden, barely coming to his shoulder and wiry like the best of them. He was used to looking down to have a conversation with someone, but what Aiden didn’t have in height he more than made up for in personality. Instead, he looked across at Jaskier rather than down, maybe an inch or two between them. A negligible amount, really, and one that he wasn’t used to. 

“We need to go into town.”

Which, shouldn’t have been a problem, because it was never a problem when he traveled with Aiden.

Stone dusky skin and antler-esque horns though, it was going to be a problem with Jaskier. He had no chance of blending in, not when he looked like this, all sharp toothed and pale freckled and well, decidedly not human. He couldn’t even pass for an elf, for all that those weren’t rarely accepted either, and this was going to prove to be a fucking headache and a half. 

The man just blinked at him though, mouth gaping open slightly as he thought about something.

“Your medallion isn’t going to like this.”

Lambert had enough time to frown at the blase statement, and then he wasn’t fucking wrong.

The piece of metal started to vibrate so wildly against his chest that it nearly hurt, surface turning more than body warm to the touch. Lambert yanked it out of his shirt with a grunt, and tasted the way that wild magic crackled through the air. A faint shimmer drifted over the man's skin like starlight, ephemeral and glistening. As he watched, the blue-grey of his skin turned a tanned, human tone, and his horns dissolved back into his skull. The freckles on his face became flecks of brown for all that the sharpness to his features remained. His eyes were still a crystalline blue where his hair turned a soft chestnut, and a ruddy, healthy flush of color grew on his cheeks. 

He looked unmistakably, undeniably human, with even the hummingbird of his heart slowing to a steady, human tempo. 

The bastard was unfairly striking even in human flesh, and Lambert could understand now how his brother had never known the difference. 

“Have yuou been able to do that the whole time?”

Jaskier shrugged.

“It itches.”

If Lambert didn't fucking know any better, he would swear the man nothing more than human. 

Instead he just sighed, a big heaving thing that was more theatrical than necessary. If he did it just for the way it made amusement bloom in the other man's summer smoke scent, well, that was between him and the Gods. 

He swung himself up into the saddle, and held a hand out for the Fae.

"C'mon, up you get."

Jaskier blinked at his hand before looking up at him, both brows raised.

"You're serious."

Like he hadn't been serious this entire fucking time. 

"As shit. I want to get to town before supper, so get the fuck on the horse."

Jaskier snorted a laugh, an entirely inelegant sound that had Lambert beaming. He took his hand though, and let himself be hefted up into the saddle. He was a solid man, and Lambert could appreciate that even if it made it require a not inconsiderable amount of effort to get the man to actually do what he wanted. It would probably prove to be a problem, but that was something for future Lambert to deal with. Here and now Lambert wanted a fucking bath and some stew.

Both of them on the horse like they should have been for the last few days, and they were off. They had skirted wide around Blaviken, because he knew well enough to know where his kind weren't welcomed. Redania wouldn't prove to be warm enough in the coming months, but if nothing else he could find himself an abandoned farmhouse and shack up for the winter. It wouldn't be the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

Within the hour they road into town, smaller than a city but bigger than a hamlet. The place boasted a brothel, a feat of civility above anything else where Lambert certainly wouldn't be welcomed during public decency hours. Too much of a reputation, too many split knuckles, and while Madam's tended to appreciate him, the other patrons hardly ever did. Instead he took them for the inn, rising through the town with his head just as high as it always was. They received a few side eyes, but nobody tried to stone him and nobody clutched at their children, and honestly, this close to Blaviken country, it was better than he could have expected.

He waited until Jaskier got out of the saddle to drop down himself. 

"Brush her down and get her some oats."

He pressed three whole gold into the stable boy's dirty palm, more than he should have but enough that he could spare it. The boy nodded eagerly, pocketing the coin and gaping at Lambert. He was missing two teeth, and Lambert carefully nudged him out of the way so he could get their stuff.

When he turned around, Jaskier had shouldered his lute, and there was something different about the way he held himself. Straighter spine, stronger shouldered, he looked confident where Lambert had come to know him to be quiet. He barely waited for Lambert to get their shit over his shoulder before he spun about and let them into the inn. He held the door for Lambert though, and led the way to the bar. A woman past her prime was cleaning tankards behind the counter, and barely looked up at them as they approached.

"Ten copper for a room, five for a bath."

"My good lady, I'm certain we could come to an agreement for the room and bath and two plates in exchange for my services."

She looked up then, flat faced and dark eyed. Unimpressed then, and Lambert bit back a sigh, ready to have to hand over even more coin than she had advertised.

"And who's you that I require your services, boy?"

Jaskier pressed a hand to his chest, and gave her a coquettish grin as he gave a little bow. Lambert could only blink at him, go smacked by the sudden display of charm that he hadn't known the man possessed.

"I, my lovely woman, am Jaskier the Bard. I'm certain you've heard of me. I would be delighted to offer entertainment for the evening, in exchange for our room and board, if you would be so kind."

He half expected his medallion to hum against his chest, but the metal didn't even twitch.

Worse still, or better if he wanted to press his luck, the woman did look like she recognized his name. She certainly stopped cleaning the tankard in her hand to stare at them instead.

"Thought you traveled with the White Wolf."

Jaskier's scent went a little bitter at the edges, but his smile didn't falter. He shook his head a little instead, still looking for to cheerful for the establishment. 

"Times change, my lady. Now I travel with Lambert the Red."

His medallion didn't twitch, but he fucking did.

Lambert the what?

She nodded along like she understood though, which was great because Lambert sure as shit didn't. She set aside the tankard and reached under the counter, and as he watched, dropped a key into Jaskier's outstretched palm. 

"I want five percent of whatever you make for the evening."

"Certainly. I would expect nothing less."

Like it was just that fucking easy.

"Crowd gets in here in a bit. You'll get supper then. Last room down the hall, bath'll be sent up after your performance."

He grinned at her, all teeth and bright eyes where he oozed charm. He fit the stories Geralt had told then, though the details had been sparse and Jaskier well exceeded them. His brother had called him a trouble, but Lambert knew a smooth talker when he saw one, and this was no different. His companion took the key and showed his head to the woman before just, going for the stairs. He left Lambert no choice but to follow, so up they went.

He didn't open his mouth until the door shut tight behind them.

"What the fuck was that?"

Jaskier had the audacity to look at him like he was surprised where he had dropped to sit on one of the empty beds.

"Unless I'm mistaken, that was me getting us a free room."

Rolling his eyes, Lambert dropped their shit into the little table in the corner. He took off his swords with a little more care, propping them up against the end of what was evidently his bed. He shrugged out of his gambeson then, letting the studded leather drop to the end of the bed beside his swords. Shoulders shrugging, neck rolling, he practically threw himself down onto the bed before sprawling out. 

Jaskier just watched him with an amused expression, suddenly easy to read where Lambert had gotten so used to him being shuttered and quiet. This was more than just his scent, this was in the arch of his brows and the set of his mouth. His eyes were bright, the corner of his lips upturned, and dare Lambert say his expression looked fond .

“Where’d the personality come from?”

“I-” He frowned then, forehead pulling and his eyes narrowing. “Excuse you, I have a personality.”

Wriggling a little on his bed to get comfortable, Lambert rolled over onto his belly and stuffed the pillow under his chest and chin. Propped himself up to stare at the other man and watch the way Jaskier watched him. 

It was like a staring contest that he guessed he had signed up for. 

“Yeah, I get that now .” Jaskier huffed petulantly, and Lambert just shrugged at him. “Did they beat it out of you, or did Geralt?”

He watched as that bright spark of personality started to drain from his eyes all over again. It made them flat once more where Lambert hadn’t realized they had come alive, and that was his fault. Hard questions that needed to be asked, because he needed to know what he was getting into, but that didn’t mean he liked fucking asking. 

“Fuck you, Geralt never beat me.”

Lambert only stared at him, heavy sigh in the back of his throat that he struggled to swallow down. It was like dealing with a victim that refused to admit to their trauma, and for all that he knew they weren’t, Lambert had hoped they were past this.

His brother would never beat anybody, but he knew damn well that the man could be a rotten bully when the mood struck him.

Based on the way that Jaskier had sunken in on himself, Lambert had a feeling his brother had lost his temper when he shouldn’t have.

“Hits don't have to be physical to hurt.”

Jaskier refused to look at him then, and Lambert didn’t press. Instead, hunkering down on his comfortable enough bed, he just let the man think about it and hide like he obviously needed to. He let him have his moment, listening instead to the quiet chatter from the floor beneath their room as people started to slowly trickle in. It would get louder soon, there would be no real nap to be had for all that he had started to get comfortable. They would have to go down for their supper, and the bard had made a deal that he would have to uphold his side of. 

He had just started to drift off when the man spoke up.

“He said some things over the years that I assumed he didn’t mean. I know better now. I’m not-” he broke off with a huff, frustration blooming through his scent. Lambert just bit his tongue and settled in to wait him out. “I talk too much, my singing is annoying, I sleep around and start trouble. I’m a shit shoveler and a fucking awful traveling companion, and I don’t actually understand why you haven’t told me to fuck off yet.”

He was right, and sometimes he fucking hated being right, because Geralt had opened his fat mouth when he shouldn’t have, and now Lambert had to clean up his mess.

“My best friend is this man named Aiden? He’s absolutely batshit, and you can tell him I said that. He’ll say thank you. He’s a Cat, they’re real wacky fuckers, the whole lot of them. Never seen a sane one. They never shut up, and they’re real twitchy, and they bite because they think it’s a form of affection. I can’t tell you the amount of shit I’ve gotten into because of that man.”

Jaskier looked at him then, wounded eyes and all.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and then up further still. Legs pulled up beneath him until he could sit on the bed, settled in to stare at the other man with a bit of a shrug.

“Because the biggest shit shoveler I’ve ever seen is my best friend. Geralt can’t appreciate a good thing when it’s handed to him on a golden platter. So he said shit. Fuck him, you don’t deserve that and he doesn’t deserve you. If you won’t travel with him, I won’t complain about you traveling with me.”

He could smell salt water before he was even finished talking, the sharp tang of tears filling the air. The man sniffled once, and then dashed at his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic. His shoulders shook a little, but Lambert didn’t call him out on it. 

“I’m a shit traveling companion.”

“Yeah, well I’m an asshole. I think we’ll get along just fine, Buttercup.”

He wasn’t going to make it anywhere for the winter, not at the rate they were going.

Too far south to make it to Kaer Morhen, too far north to make it past the Amell Mountains, he'd gotten himself squarely fucked right in the middle of it. Aiden had probably already left the waypoint south of Cintra and crossed through the mountains, which meant the Caravan was already on the move. Which meant Lambert was late if he thought he was going to winter with them again this year. Except, too far from Kaer Morhen to go there either and he wasn't actually sure what he was going to do. Find an abandoned house and squat through the winter probably, but that hardly seemed like the best option even if it was turning out to be his only option.

Dimly, he had asked the bard where he wanted to go, and the man had shrugged and said it had been a while since he had returned to Oxenfurt, so to Oxenfurt they had gone.

Now, some paces outside the gate and coming up on the Pontar, Lambert could smell the snow in the air. It was going to be a miserable fucking season, no way around it. They had a few weeks yet until the chill should have set in, but he could taste it in the air already. The cold would come in early, and he would be lucky if he got out of Redania before it started in on him. 

“Stop the horse.”

His tone was sharp where the man had been humming to himself, because Jaskier did that now. He hummed all the time, and he sang when he didn’t, and he talked when he wasn’t doing that. To Mistress who couldn’t answer but listened, to Lambert who could answer and did, but it didn’t stop there. He talked to the flowers they passed and he talked to the birds that Lambert fed, and he talked to the bugs that they saw and the clouds that spilled overhead. The man was full of sound and motion and laughter, and it did horrible, wonderful things to Lambert’s heart. 

It had been three weeks, and he already knew he was in over his head. 

Jaskier told him to stop the horse though, so he stopped his horse.

They were off the main path where they had yet to get into the small farming community that surrounded the city proper. Still in the shelter of the trees where the air was crisp and the wind was muffled and everything was almost quiet. It was also an awful long distance for the man to decide he was going to be difficult and walk again. It had been a recurring issue, and Lambert was ready to fight him on it for the second time that day, and they hadn’t even stopped for lunch yet. 

“Perfect, thank you, darling.”

Sure enough, he slid off the fucking horse, giving Lambert something to focus on instead of the way his insides went soft and warm at that stupid, simple name. 

“We’re not doing this again.”

“Of course we aren’t.” The man patted at his thighs and puffed away a little bit of road dirt. He shifted back and forth where he stood, because the man couldn’t keep still to save his life when he wasn’t forcing himself to. “I just need to spruce up a bit before we get in view of the gates.”

He was wearing brown breeches and a tunic they had traded three rabbit furs for, there wasn’t much ‘sprucing up’ that could be done. Still, he settled twisted in the saddle to watch whatever was going to happen this time, because it was sure to be a show. 

Jaskier bounced on his toes a few times, pulled in a deep breath, and then the air around him just-

Shimmered, a little, like a soft chaos crackle of glitter in the air. Everything went ozone sharp at the edges, and as Lambert watched, the simple tunic and breeches he wore became something else. Fitted trousers dyed a deep teal hugged his calves and thighs replaced what had been rough brown cotton as it instead turned to sleek silks. The too long of his tunic pulled at the sleeves and slashed a hem just above his hips, went tight in the shoulders and tapered at the waist with a swatch of silken fabric in the same jewel tone. He looked less like a weary traveler then, and more like the bard he was supposed to be, and Lambert just stared at him.

“There, that’s much better.”

Jaskier smoothed his hands down the panels on his chest, and Lambert followed the motion. There was metallic violet stitching in delicate, twisting designs all across the front of his doublet, because that was a doublet now, and it glittered faintly every time he shifted and breathed. 

“What the fuck?”

“Hm?” An inquisitive noise, like everything was innocent and normal still. He had just gotten used to the man looking inhuman where he had become rather...fond of the stone dusky of his skin and the pale glimmer of his freckles. Those things had gone away that morning when they had broke camp, and Lambert had bitten his tongue to keep from saying something stupid. “What?”

“What do you mean, what? What the fuck ,” Lambert waved a hand at him, and bless her honestly, but Mistress didn’t even shift beneath him. She was already used to their theatrics, and Lambert appreciated that, he did, but a little solidarity would have been nice every now and then. “Was that shit? Have you been able to do that the whole time?”

Jaskier blinked at him a few times before grinning sheepishly, like the shit that he was. 

“Yes?”

Of course he had. Lambert wanted to be surprised, he really did, but at this point, between the singing and the not being scared and the not being scared , he just couldn’t find it in himself anymore. He hadn’t necessarily gotten used to it, but the bits about questioning the man's sanity had finally started to go away. That had to be some form of progress, surely.

“Fuck you. Get on the fucking horse, or Lebioda fucking help me.”

Jaskier had the audacity to laugh at him, bright and witches chime singing as he always did. The bastard knew how pretty he was, he had to, just like he had to know the things that he did to Lambert’s poor, scarred heart. It wasn’t fair by a lick was what it was, but that didn’t stop him. Still, he took Lambert’s hand and helped in hefting himself back into the saddle, Mistress making a chuffing sound beneath their combined weight. 

Strong arms wrapped around his waist and Lambert would never admit to the way that he shivered. 

It took them another half hour to get into the city proper, and he felt the way that Jaskier took a deep breath behind him as they crossed the bridge. He sat straighter where he was pressed against Lambert’s back, and he just guided them through the gates and ignored the way that the man greeted the guards like he knew them. One of them gave a call back to the bard, and Lambert just nudged Mistress along a little faster. 

“You’ll need to turn left here, we’re going to the Universi-yes, perfect, thank you darling.”

That pet name was going to be the death of him, he just knew it. 

The man was quiet until they reached the bridge, but he could practically feel the way he was building himself up the closer they got to the University bridge. He started fidgeting on the second street, the hands wrapped around Lambert’s front started to clench with inhuman strength in his gambeson. He knew it was coming before it even started, it was just a matter of dwindling time. 

“I need you to trust me and let me do the talking. It won't be hard to procure us lodgings for the winter, but I’ll need to lend some favors I would rather not, and it’ll all go much smoother if you don’t object to things.”

He must have heard that wrong.

“I’m sorry, us? ”

Jaskier sighed against his back like he was a particularly daft child, and he would have resented that a little more if he had had the thought. 

“Yes, us, Lambert, do keep up. Now, I doubt you’ll like being cooped up for an entire season, but you’ll never be short on food or baths, so I don’t imagine you’ll have much to actually complain about.”

He would have found something to complain about if he hadn’t been so busy feeling a little poleaxed by the fact that, evidently, Jaskier had decided to keep him for the season. Jaskier had made winter plans for them , not just himself, and that sent something soft and simmering through his chest. It felt like being claimed, to be thought of like that, to be wanted , and it had that primal, feral thing that lived inside of him trembling. Because people didn't claim him, people didn't want him, not unless they were a batshit Cat or a whole cluster of them that didn’t have enough sense between the whole clowder. 

Jaksier though, Jaskier wasn’t a Cat, and he wasn’t a Witcher, but the Fae had decided he needed to be kept. 

He couldn’t get his tongue untied by the time they crossed the bridge and passed through the University gate. Once inside, there was a stark difference to the atmosphere that stood out in sharp relief to the rest of the city. It was calmer here, the buildings older and the windows polished to a stained glass shine. Everything felt well-aged and almost peaceful, and Lambert felt wildly out of place even as Jaskier slipped off of Mistress’s back. 

A youth greeted them near the stables, cheeks flushed and his eyes bright.

“Staffing stalls, if you could. We’ll be here for some time and she’ll need scheduled care.”

He could care for his own horse.

“I can take care of my own horse.”

“Of course you can darling, but it’ll be good to get Mistress set up somewhere nice for the winter, don’t you agree?”

He couldn’t exactly argue with that, even if he wanted to. She deserved a warm stall and fresh feed every day, and for all its pomp and pedigree, this place seemed ready to give it to her. It was a long way to Kaer Morhen, and Lambert loathed to push her through the impending snow just because of his pride. 

Instead, he dropped himself from the saddle and soothed a hand down her throat where she leaned into the touch. The boy took her reins with a nod, and Lambert watched him with sharp eyes. She didn’t fight it though for all that she made a curious sound, and that was good enough for him to let her go.

“Thank you. If you could have our things sent to Professor Julian’s quarters?”

“Of course, ser.”

Jaskier nodded, seemingly satisfied even though Lambert didn’t know who this fucking Professor Julian was. He sounded like a right prat with a name like that, and Lambert couldn’t even begin to imagine how Jaskier knew someone like that. 

“Lambert.”

He huffed a heaving sigh and let himself be led away from the stables and toward a curved door. Jaskier opened it easily, and the hall they were let into was downright opulent compared to what he was used to. Rich, deep wood paneling made for the walls, dotted with portraits of people he would have no hope of ever recognizing. His boots tapped quietly on solid stone, thick tiles of a dark limestone making for the floors. The air was warm, the hall was lit by hanging lanterns, and he felt like he would break the room around him if he put his weight down. 

The part of him that would always be a Witcher whispered that he didn’t belong here, and Lambert walked with purpose then, head high for all that he looked around curiously. 

Jaskier seemed to know where they were going, and he walked them past servants going about their duties and a series of carved busts. Lambert followed him quietly, watching a young girl carrying a basket of towels as she hurried past them. 

The Great Hall that they were let out into was just as ornate as the hall, if not more. High, sweeping ceilings arched above them with peaked ceilings and curving rafters, the ceiling painted in jewel-toned strokes of a cloud-speckled summer sky. He had never seen anything like it before, and as Jaskier brought them to a stop before an older man and a wide wooden desk, Lambert let himself look his fill. It felt a little like Skellige all over again, blue and clear and expansive, and it was enough to make him feel strangely small for the sky to be contained to a ceiling as it was. 

Lambert looked down, the man looked up, and he watched the way his eyes widened and a smile broke across his face. 

“Julian!”

What?

“Phillip! It’s wonderful to see you!”

The man laughed quietly, reaching out to take both of Jaskier’s hands in his own. The man let him, leaned across the desk a little to beam at him, and Lambert could only watch. He knew this man, sounded familial with him, and they half held each other for a long moment as they spoke. 

“We didn’t expect to see you back this season! I would have thought you would be at court!”

“Oxenfurt called to me, I’m afraid.”

The man nodded, made a knowing sound as if that made any sense, but maybe it did. Regardless, he let go of Jaskier then to clap his hands in front of himself before beginning to rifle through his desk. 

“Well, you know we’re always more than happy to have you. I presume you’ll be wanting the key for your quarters?”

“Two keys actually, if you could.”

Brown eyes turned to him then, but strangely enough, the man still looked just as welcoming as he had with his attention on Jaskier. Like he was pleased to see Lambert, like he could have possibly known him. It was enough to make him itch a little, but the man just smiled at him like people did that. 

“Of course. Your guest will be staying then?”

“For the season, I’m afraid.” Jaskier let out a put upon sigh that had the man laughing brightly, and Lambert barely resisted the urge to elbow him. “You’ll have to put up with the both of us.”

“Well, I’m certain we’ll be able to manage. You’ll be wanting to talk to the Dean, I presume?”

He handed over two keys, and Jaskier took them readily, the metal clinking in his palm. One of them was handed then to Lambert, and he took it on instinct, fingers curling around the thin twist of metal before he could think about it. 

“It would probably be best to get it done sooner rather than later.”

“I’ll have him informed of your arrival, so you and your companion can have a few moments to settle into your quarters.”

Jaskier smiled, bright and warm, a gesture that the man readily returned. 

“You’re a blessing, Phillip. Oxenfurt would be lost without you.”

The man laughed again before waving away, and as Jaskier nearly left him behind, Lambert saw the way that the man caught the attention of a young servant. Loathing to be left behind for all that he knew Jaskier wouldn’t, Lambert strode to catch up as the man began to climb the stairs. 

“So, Julian-”

“Don’t fucking start, Lambert.”

His voice was downright cheery even as he cursed, and Lambert could only laugh. He followed where Jaskier led with the humbling, consuming feeling that he probably always would. He felt out of sorts and unmoored here in these wooden halls, and gave a quick glance to the stained glass windows as they set across the second floor. 

“Didn’t realize you were a professor.”

He sighed, looking at Lambert out of the corner of narrowed eyes. 

“A man can have depth, Lambert, do keep up, darling.” Snorting, he bumped their shoulders together just for the way that it made Jaskier grin a slightly too sharp grin even as he swayed back into him. “That title is going to keep you fat and lazy for the whole season, thank you very much.”

“Never been fat a day in my life.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes, turning them up another flight of stairs. 

“Well, I suppose your ripe old age is as good a place as any to start, no?”

He should have resented that, but honestly, he was too busy being a little overwhelmed by all the wood and the candles and the paintings. It was a lot to take in when one was used to cold stone or canvas-covered windows in a wooden wagon, but maybe, probably, given enough time, was something that he could get used to. 

“You plan on fattening me up, Buttercup?”

Jaskier shrugged as he stopped them in front of a heavy wooden door. Key inserted, handle twisted, he let them into the room with a slick and a press to the door. It swung open, and the room was sunlit and dim from the northern windows. The door shut behind them, and Jaskier reached around him to lock it like he knew exactly what Lambert needed.

Clear windows dominated the northern wall, letting warm-toned mid-day light flood into the room. It left patterns on the wooden floors and the lush-looking rug set before a low-backed couch and a stuffed armchair. A broad desk was pressed beneath one of the windows, a round carved table with four low slung chairs set to one side of the room and a fireplace on the wall to the right. Two closed doors were pressed into either walls, one beside the table and chair and one near the fire place, and it was-

A little crowded, more so than he was used to from a room, but it looked downright comfortable. Well furnished, warmly toned, there were rugs on the floor and there were drapes on the windows, a swatch of cloth on the table and a shallow, open-faced wardrobe set into the wall beside the door with spaces for coats and cloaks and boots to be left. It felt like a place that could be home, and though long gone stale, it smelled of Jaskier honey and smoke that had since imbedded itself into everything Lambert owned. This place smelled of it like it had sunk into the furnishings and the fabrics, like Jaskier had lived here before. 

“I know it’s no Kaer Morhen, but I presume this will meet your exacting standards for the season.”

He was a sarcastic little shit, and he knew it.

“It’ll do.”

He could practically feel the way that Jaskier rolled his eyes as he began to unbutton his doublet. Just a few of the pearl buttons down the front panel, until the collar wasn’t seamed at his throat and instead gaped open halfway down his chest. A shock of dark hair curled up from his chest, and Lambert wanted to press his face there and breathe in the musk of his scent. He looked away instead, throat tight and his blood suddenly hot from the simple display. 

“It’ll do he says. Thank you, Jaskier, you’ve been a good friend, Jaskier, I can’t possibly thank you enough, Jaskier.”

“ Thank you, Jaskier .”

He spoke through his teeth on a sharp, biting grin just for the way that the man started to laugh. 

“That room will be yours. It should have everything you need, but tell me if something isn’t to your standards and we’ll get that taken care of. There’s another door on the other side of that bookshelf,” he waved one long-fingered hand, and when Lambert stepped around to look, there indeed was another door tucked back behind a tomb-heavy shelf. “It’s the privy and a bath. The University shelled out for dwarven plumbing for the faculty a few decades back. That one over there is my room, but you have full run of the place.”

He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. 

“Make yourself comfortable, I’ve a man to go sell my everloving soul to.”

“What?”

Jaskier grinned, a rueful, sharp slash of teeth just a touch too deadly, a pale stare flicker of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He cleared his throat though and the illusion settled back into place, teeth human and his features the same. 

“If we’re to have these quarters, I’ll have to subject myself to another teaching term. Which, means I’ll need to go and get my servitude squared away. I should be back within an hour, maybe two. If you get hungry, follow your nose, the kitchens should be making lunch by now.”

And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him. 

They established a pattern by the time the first snows fell. 

Every morning, a tray of food would be brought up for them from the kitchens, laden with some sort of fare that would get set out at the table to be picked over before they went their separate ways. There would be quiet conversation over their shared breakfast, where on that first morning Jaskier had introduced him to a Zerrikanian delicacy called coffee. They would eat, and then Jaskier would fasten his doublet up to his throat and go off for the lectures that he had signed himself up to teach, and Lambert would be left to his own devices. He went to the stables first to give Mistress her customary brushing down and requisite attention, but the mare seemed to be doing more than well enough in the enclosed stables where she had been sheltered. After an hour spent with his horse, Lambert would go to the empty faculty courtyard to practice his forms for another hour. Occasionally gathering a small audience by the time he was done, he would then take himself inside for a well-deserved lunch. He would then entertain himself in the grounds for the next few hours before meeting Jaskier for dinner either in their quarters or in The Alchemist across the bridge, and then they would return to their rooms and turn in for the night, only to repeat the process in the morning.

It felt fucking domestic, and Lambert could feel himself growing content and lazy with it all. 

That morning however, he had asked a different question, mind buzzing and his fingers restless. Jaskier had blinked at him a few times as he chewed, all crystalline eyes and dusky cheeked where he never wore his glamor behind closed doors. Lambert lived for those moments when the other man let his guard down, for the way the morning sun caught on his horns and how he didn’t shy away from Lambert’s gaze regardless of how he looked. He had been caught staring more than once, but Jaskier would just watch him unblinkingly, like a challenge he didn’t yet want to take. There was a heat there, some kind of friction between them, and for all that he wanted to press, there was something mouthwatering about the slow glide of it all. 

“The West Wing has the alchemical and botany labs. I doubt they’ll mind an expert dropping in to poke around the place.”

He had colored at being called an expert, Jaskier had laughed at him, and then they had finished their meal before going on to their respective mornings. He had taken care of Mistress, and he had taken himself through his forms, and then, for lack of anything better to do with his time, had let himself into the West Wing. 

The air smelled different here, greener, with the astringent of alchemical agents and the bubbling things that came with them. Jaskier had assured him they wouldn’t mind, but there was a difference between his bard telling him something, and others actually thinking it.

“Hey.”

The man looked to be in his late teens, wide-eyed where Lambert addressed him. Still, he stopped what he was doing, and that was good enough. 

“I was told there’s lab space where I can make some potions?”

“Oh!” That seemed to take some of his nerves, and the boy nodded eagerly, twisting around on his heel for the Witcher to follow. “Of course, ser Lambert, right this way.”

Brow furrowing, he followed closely, listening to the elevated tempo of the boy's heart. He didn’t smell like fear though, a little like Lambert had startled him but nothing more. 

“You know my name?”

“Of course, ser, everyone knows who you are! You’re Professor Julian’s guest!”

“Does Professor Julian bring guests often?”

It was fucking weird to hear Jaskier referred to like that, and he had spent many evenings teasing the man about it over a pint. It tended to get him batted at, or kicked beneath the table, but it was worth it for how bright eyes burned and a wicked smile pulled at that mouth. Stupidly, it felt like most things would be worth it for the way that that man smiled, and Lambert was more than willing to admit it if anybody bothered to ask him. He was fucking whipped, and when he inevitably found out, Aiden would never let him live it down. 

“No, ser, you’re the first!”

Miraculously, he didn’t pause in stride for as much as that was news to him. 

“He never brought Geralt?”

“The White Wolf? No, we’ve never had the pleasure of hosting him at the Academy. You’re the first Witcher we’ve had in over a century!”

He sounded fucking excited about it. Most of the staff sounded fucking excited about things, like it was some marvel to have a Witcher in their midst. It was fucking weird, but far be it from Lambert to complain about getting good treatment for a change. He’d done his time, he deserved this shit.

It wasn’t natural was what it was, but Lambert wasn’t about to ruin anyone's good mood, not if he had to live the whole season here. 

“This should have everything you need. Professor Ovolar used to teach in here, but he came down with the pox during Lammas and hasn’t been allowed on the grounds since.”

The room was dark inside, drapes pulled and a layer of dust permeating the air. Still, he could see the tables that lined the space and the shelves stuffed full of jars of dried herbs. It was clean enough, presumably untouched since the last Professor had been able to come through. A right shame to let this kind of space go to waste, but Lambert was more than ready to take advantage where they didn’t. 

“Where can I get fresh ingredients?”

“Did you have any specific requirements?”

Arms crossing over his chest, Lambert scowled a little into the darkened space. 

“What’s your name?”

“Amin, ser.”

Redanian name, couldn’t say he was surprised. Boy looked Redanian. 

“Anything you can get your hands on, Amin.”

“Lambert, darling?”

“Hm?”

Jaskier propped himself up in the windowsill beside the desk, taking some of the light with him. It wasn't like Lambert needed it to see, but it was the principle of the thing. It was probably only fair though, he himself had a tendency to sit in the window whenever Jaskier was grading papers that his students had turned in, or working on his own composition. He liked watching him work, and Jaskier never minded any.

A hand shifted through his curls, pulling the red hair away from his face. He leaned a little into the touch, because Jaskier had taken to doing that over the last two weeks. He touched Lambert just for the sake of it, a hand on his chest or fingers in his hair, and far be it from him to complain about a bit of affection from a beautiful man. Jaskier liked to touch him, and Lambert never minded any, and it all worked out just fine.

He'd taken his glamor off when he had come in, the light through his horns leaving patterns on the desk. Lambert wanted to draw him, but the moment hadn't seemed right, and asking was intimate. Jaskier was full of motion and sound, and for all that his image deserved to be remembered, something about trying to get the man to sit still just sat wrong.

“What’s this I hear about you running an Herbology lecture?”

"I'm not."

Amin had brought him things, but eventually, with Amin had come other students. Amin still came, because evidently he had stolen someone's assistant and made the boy his assistant instead, and that was all well and good, but he hadn't signed up for the rest of them. One became five, became twelve, which had somehow evolved into eighteen, and by the end of the second week he had found himself with twenty-four young adults who had nothing better to do other than get under foot and ask him questions that someone should have already given them the answers to.

Mahlia had had some questions about the different properties of mugwort, specifically in large quantities and how it could be used as a liver tonic. Lambert had corrected her and explained that it was also a contraceptive if taken in high enough doses, and the young woman had nodded along while taking notes. The whole cluster of young women had, actually, and he had gone through the process of questioning them on which herbs could be used as abortives, in what quantities they could be taken and with what frequency. Most of them hadn't been able to answer his questions, so he had directed them to the library with strict instructions that he wanted to know what they learned by the next time they showed up and bothered him.

That had been two days ago, and all nineteen of the young women and three men that came to his lab room had all given him papers going into the end of the week. Which meant they wanted opinions, and wanted to know what they had gotten wrong, and he had settled in to take a quill to their work and offer corrections where they needed them.

Naifi had had opinions about the medicinal uses of lily root and rue, and while the Cidarin wasn't exactly wrong, her methodology certainly wasn't safe.

"Sweetheart," one dusky stone hand wrapped around his own, stopping his quill. With a low rumble in his throat, Lambert transferred the feather to his other hand to be dropped back into the inkpot. He twisted his hand around and laced their fingers together then just for the way that Jaskier huffed a quiet laugh and held his hand. "You're grading papers."

"No, I'm not."

Jaskier had the audacity to laugh at him, and settled to sit fully in the windowsill. Backlit by the afternoon sun, he was a sight to behold, all dark lines and sky-chip eyes. He didn't let go of Lambert's hand, clasping it in both of his and holding it in his lap instead. Lambert leaned over a little, indulging him, because he liked doing that and he liked the way it made Jaskier smile like he did now. 

"Then what are you doing?"

"Vlatik had questions about wild carrot seed as a contraceptive, and he got the plant right, but his practical application is wrong, so I'm-" Jaskier positively reeked of amusement, all autumnal warm and smooth, and Lambert pulled up short mid sentence. "Shut the fuck up, Jask, I'm not teaching a class."

"Of course, and you haven't been added to the University payroll."

What?

"What?"

He let out this big, put upon sigh, all theatrical and shit. It had Lambert grinning, which seemed to be the desired effect, because Jaskier just smiled at him, all sweet and warm. That was his smile, the one the Fae only ever got on his face when he was looking at Lambert, and that meant something. That meant a whole lot of something.

"You're being paid to teach a class, because you have spontaneously started teaching a class. They have to pay you for services rendered, ser Witcher."

"I'm not a fucking Professor!"

Jaskier just nodded along, all pandering and shit. Lambert tugged at him and made the man pull forward out of the windowsill with a huff. He perched on the desk instead, all delicate like on the corner like he belonged there. 

"They asked me if you would be returning next winter so they can put you on the course catalogue as an upper division lecturer."

Mouth pulling in a sneer, Lambert leaned back in the desk chair. Jaskier didn't let go of his hand, and that meant he leaned forward with the motion. That was fine though, Lambert wouldn't let him fall and the brat knew it. Cheeky shit capitalized on it, walking on things he shouldn't have like desks and half walls and just expecting Lambert to catch him.

"Fuck for?"

"Because they have more than half the medical track student body wanting to know how they sign up to take your course next winter. They'd be fucking stupid not to want to pay you, so I say let them."

"You saying you want to put up with me next winter?"

Jaskier just stared at him, bright eyes and stardust freckles and all. The man gave another big sigh and let go of Lambert's hand then, standing with a stretch.

"It's hardly a hardship, dear heart." That hand shifted through his curls again as he went, and Lambert craned around to watch him as he went. Caught the way his glamor shimmered back into place as he went for the door. "I've got to go see Shani before dinner, I'll meet you at the Alchemist."

"Jaskier, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

The door clicked shut behind him.

"Jaskier!"

Jaskier still had nightmares, about things he wouldn't talk about that Lambert didn't press him over. He knew well enough to know that he didn’t need to ask questions, because some things didn’t need brought back up. He knew the spill of violet blood from broken flesh, a blackened eye and a split lip. Worse still, he knew the cause of the scars that littered his shoulders and spine, and he knew the foul reek of spend from between bruised thighs. 

He didn’t have to ask, and Jaskier deserved better than that, so he didn’t. 

Pulled harshly out of sleep by a choked-off scream though, he didn’t have to ask to know where his dreams had taken him. Wide awake in an instant, Lambert pushed himself up to listen for another sound. He could hear the hummingbird frantic of the man's heart even with the space between their two bedrooms, and that was more than enough. Quilts pushed aside, up to his feet, Lambert didn’t bother for much else other than pulling on a pair of breeches before prowling from his room. He could smell his fear in the main room, past the table and chairs and around the couch and the low backed chair that the man liked to drape himself across. 

His door opened easily, and Lambert staggered at the wretched stench of his terror. 

In the moon pale of the room, Jaskier had become twisted in his quilts until they strangled around his torso and legs. Sprawled on his back like a childs doll tossed aside, he writhed on the mattress with bitten sobs on his blackened lips. Lambert didn’t hesitate at sight of him, glamorless and deep in the throws of whatever phantom had come to find him in the night. He gagged a little at the acrid odor, but he planted one hand on the mattress anyway and watched as Jaskier’s body tipped toward his. 

“Jaskier.”

He shuddered in his sleep, leg kicking, and Lambert didn’t hesitate to touch him. A hand to his shoulder to grab him, to try and soothe him, and clawed fingers dug deep into his forearm. Fever delirium eyes stared back at him in the dark, sharp teeth bared, wild magic crackling through the air. He just let out a soft sound at the sight of it, pressing forward for all that his medallion sang against his chest. 

“Jaskier, hey.”

Those eyes stared up at him, wet with tears that ran down his dark face, and Lambert knew the moment he came back to himself. His breathing changed, hitching with sobbing, sputtering sounds as he started to breathe harshly. His grip shifted, razors across Lamberts arm that drew blood to the surface, but he reached for him. Bloodied hands calling out for him, and Lambert went readily, bore him down into the mattress where Jaskier trembled and clung. 

“Lambert!”

“I’m right here.”

He cried desperately, pressing against Lambert’s chest where he bundled the Fae close. He let him cling, rolling them across the bed until Jaskier was tucked beneath his chin. His horns made it difficult, but if Lambert angled his head right then it wasn’t a problem. Arms wrapped around the other man to keep him close, Lamber slid a hand up to cradle the back of his head. 

Jaskier cried until he went hoarse, curled sharply against him. One handed, Lambert pulled the quilt around the both of them to keep him close and safe. He kept him in his arms until the crying started to soften, until the viscous shaking instead died down into a fine boned trembling that he could feel to his core. Lambert didn’t shush him, and he didn’t try to stop him, just keeping the other man tight in his arms where Lambert could hold him and keep him safe. 

“You’re safe, Jask, I’m here.”

They didn’t talk about it, because Jaskier didn’t want to talk about it, but Lambert didn’t need him to. There weren’t any words for this kind of grief, this mourning for something that couldn’t be gotten back. It was like leaving a home you couldn’t go back to, and if there was a word for this horrible feeling, then Lambert didn’t know it. Instead, he just knew how to use his hands, and how to use the bulk of his body for comfort when someone needed it, and he used those things now to wrap himself around Jaskier and keep the man tethered to the waking world. 

Jaskier panted against his throat, and Lambert just let him. 

“I-I’m so-”

“Don't you dare apologize.”

He sniffled sharply, the tang of salt and misery thick in the air. Still, he didn’t try to apologize again, and Lambert would take what he could get. The hand not in his hair swept long and low across his spine regardless of the way the man shivered. Touch heavy enough to not be mistaken for anything other than real, he could feel the faintly raised lines from where they had taken the whip to him with every stroke of his palm across bare skin. Those things would never leave him, no matter what potions or poultices Lambert pressed into his skin, but for all the things he could have done, he wouldn’t have done the man the disservice of trying to take away the marks of his survival. 

“I just want this to stop .”

Sighing, head tipped until his cheek rested on the top of his head, Lambert stared into the dark. Snow fell heavy and thick just outside the window pane where Yule was soon to be upon them, and the blanket of it left the world beyond delicately hushed. Someone would take shovels to it in the early hours of the morning and cut paths across the courtyard from the main buildings to the stables, but for now it would be a slow trudge to any who tried. Their rooms on the third floor made them neigh impossible to sneak up on, between the locks on their door and Lambert’s own reflexes, none would get to him so long as Lambert had something to say about it. 

“It will.”

Jaskier made a harsh, wet sound, and Lambert just gripped him a little tighter. 

“It will , you just have to get there. You’ll live past this, because you lived through it. You did the hard part already, now you’re just in the after.”

Claw-tipped hands wormed around beneath his back, tightly packed between his spine and the mattress. It pinched for a brief moment, but Lambert didn’t complain and he didn’t shift around, let Jaskier do whatever he needed to feel safe. 

“I feel like a fucking infant.”

“I pissed myself when I saw my first Leshen.”

Jaskier stilled against him, and Lambert just took a deep breath and carried on.

“Absolutely scared shitless I was, because nothing prepares you for the first time you see one of those fuckers. They’re old magic, some of the wildest pre-Conjunction shit I’ve ever seen, because they’re just made of magic. They can turn themselves into a flock of birds, you know that? Just, this big angry tree man, and then suddenly theres a cloud of bloodthirsty ravens raring to go to pluck your eyes out and eat your innards. Sure, the bestiary says that, but theres a difference between reading it and seeing it. So there I was, twenty and fresh on the path and there’s this fucking Leshen where I had been expecting just a pack of wolves, because they’ve got those with them too. Because these things can’t be simple, they’ve got to have a fucking posse with them, like they need the moral support or fuckin somethin.”

He talked until his throat went dry, tongue clicking a little between his teeth. Longer than he had in some time, recounting the entire tale of how he hadn’t been expecting a Leshen, about how the fight had gone and how long it had taken him. Upwards of a hour spent rambling into the dark about how he had fought and the fact that he had pissed himself out of fright, and the way that he had never told anyone this fucking story because he knew he never would have lived it down. He talked and he talked, and he caught the way that Jaskier yawned, the sound breaking him off mid sentence.

“You think you can sleep?”

Those hands tightened against his back.

“Don’t leave.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Buttercup. I’m going to stay right here.”

His heart was a caged bird in his chest, fluttering against his ribs where Lambert could feel the stamp of it beneath his hands. He settled a little further on the bed, shoulders rolling and his legs splaying open a little to take more of Jaskier’s weight against himself. 

“Promise?”

“Promise. Go to sleep, I’ll fight anything that try to get you.”

“I love you.”

His heart seized in his chest, breath stuttering out of him. Everything narrowed down to those three stupid, simple words, because Jaskier’s heart didn’t flutter and his pulse didn’t spike. He wasn’t lying, he meant it , and Lambert couldn’t catch his breath. Instead, arms wrapped tight around the man that had become everything, he couldn’t find his voice until the man had already succumbed to sleep once more, and even then, his words were a hoarse whisper. 

“I love you, too.”

Yule wasn’t something Witchers celebrated, but he needed to, now. He needed to get this right, because it had to be absolutely perfect. Because Jaskier was perfect, for all of his sass and his snark and the poetry that lived in his veins. He loved Lambert , of all the fucking people he could have decided to put his affections in, and that meant Lambert had to make this worth it. He had to live up to that, because nobody had ever put that sort of trust in him for all that Aiden was his best friend, for all that his brothers were just that. 

This was different, this was more, and Lambert was in over his fucking head. 

Classes had let out for Yule, and his students, because he had those evidently, had mostly gone home for the holiday. It felt like the campus had been stripped down to its bare bones, only the adjunct staff and faculty remaining where the masses had fled the city. Oxenfurt itself still thrived, taverns full and the markets bustling, but by comparison, the city had turned practically sleepy. He could actually manage the streets now without bumping into a gaggle of starry-eyed young adults that wanted to talk to him, because word had spread that evidently he was the Great Bard Jaskier’s new muse, and supposedly that meant something. As far as he could tell, it meant that Lambert was now the topic ten songs and three poems, which was fucking flattering if he did say so himself. 

It did wonderful things for his already inflated ego, but if Jaskier wanted to spoil him, Lambert wasn’t about to tell him no. 

Except, for a bard, that sort of dedication meant a lot. For one of Jaskier’s caliber and acclaim, that meant more than he could hope to put into words. 

Lucky for him, his Fae had proven to be a materialistic little maniac with the tendencies of a magpie, the shinier the better as far as he was concerned. It meant that Lambert had to drop an inordinate amount of coin on things, but it also meant that Jaskier would appreciate them regardless of what he got. 

The problem then came from the fact that Jaskier had things, an awful lot of them. He had rings, and baubles, and earrings, and doublets, and all sorts of little trinkets and do-dads that Lambert couldn’t even keep track of, all cluttered up on the bookshelves in the rooms they shared. Over the last month, those things had blended in with the things that Lambert guessed he owned now, the books he had picked up from the market and all the watercolor set that he had been unable to deny himself, because he deserved nice things when he wanted them. 

That fucking problem was exactly what found him standing in the Oxenfurt market district in his heavy cloak and recently waterproofed boots. It was snowing in a heavy, fluffy fall that made his curls damp and left a healthy dusting on his cloak. He would be wet by the time he went back home, but it would be worth it for the shit that he had to buy. That didn’t mean he necessarily wanted to be out here in the snow, not when he’d been spoiled with warm rooms and plenty of hot food that put a healthy padding of fat on his bones. He hadn’t been this well-fed in ages, rich stews and braised meats and blood sausages whenever he wanted them. There would be no getting rid of him now, Oxenfurt had cursed themselves to dealing with him every winter for the rest of his wretched life. 

Sidestepping a guard on a horse, Lambert let himself into the gaffer’s shop. A delicate array of masterful stained glass made up the storefront, sending the inside of the shop awash in shades of violets and blushes and indigos that painted the wooden floors. Suddenly, this didn’t feel like Oxenfurt anymore, like he had stepped into one of the far-off places that Aiden talked about in Ofeiri. He puffed the snow off his cloak and stood there by the door for a moment, caught up by all of the blown glass and frail things that filled the shop. 

He didn’t belong here, and Lambert had never been so grateful to have left his swords behind. 

“Good morning!”

The man was far too cheerful for the early hour. There were actual spectacles on his face, wire-rimmed rounds of glass looped behind his ears to keep them in place. Lambert had never actually seen someone in spectacles before, and he blinked dumbly for a minute at the man. 

“Can I help you, ser?”

“Yeah, I need a-” He needed a bottle, but in a shop surrounded by bottles and vases and other carefully crafted, spun glass things, needing a bottle felt fucking pedantic. “Perfume decanter.”

The man nodded, stepping around his counter to guide them to the far wall of the shop. Various little bottles glittered in the jewel-toned light, stacked carefully on deep shelves to keep them safe from the floor. He kept his steps light out of something like fear, watching and waiting for any of them to clank together. 

“You’ve come to the right place! What sort of scent will it be holding?”

Did that matter?

“Mint and magnolia.”

“Toussainti flower, your beloved must be very lucky.”

He had put in a special request weeks ago with the University requisitions master, because this had to be perfect , and he knew exactly what he needed. Jaskier deserved soft floral scents and something decadent to douse himself with, because the man had complained that even his favorite rose perfume wasn’t exactly right. That was fine though, Lambert could fix that. He was great at fixing things that weren’t right, Aiden even said so, and it wasn’t like the Cat could lie to him. 

“Why does scent matter?”

“Well, perfumes aren’t just what they smell like. You need something that will showcase it, that will remind them of what's inside. The bottle needs to be just as appealing as the contents.” The man pulled six bottles off the shelf, all in different shapes and colors, setting them carefully on the display table. “These will do best for soft floral notes such as your magnolia.”

Evidently, bottles mattered when it came to perfume. He would have just grabbed a bottle, because they were just colors, and they were just shapes, but evidently, there was a method to this expensive madness. Lambert frowned down at all six of them, because trying to touch one seemed like an awful fucking recipe for disaster. Like he was fucking begging for something to go wrong. 

The pink one was pretty, all fluted lines and a long stem. It looked awful thin, glass barely tinted, and a lot like it would have been dwarfed in his palm. Worse, for all that it was pretty, it didn't look like it would fit much perfume in it at all. He hadn't gone through the trouble of making the shit just for it not to fit in the bottle.

There was one though, a fat bellied thing in sleek, divoted glass, dimples in four parts to give it an extravagant silhouette. A deep, oceanic blue in color, it looked like the crystal depths off of Undvik, like the pools that he and his brothers used to swim in before Kaer Morhen, his mother calling them in for supper when the sun started to set. Someone had partially dipped it in gold, a scattered dribbling of precious metallic glimmering that coated the top and ran down the sides. It looked big enough that he couldn't close his palm around it, and it looked like it was going to gouge his coin purse.

"That one."

"Excellent choice, ser Witcher. Would you like it wrapped?"

Almost two hundred crowns later, the fucking thing better be wrapped. The man had done more than just wrap it though, packed up with gossamer paper and put carefully in a velvet sachet that he notched to his waist beneath his cloak. Back on the street and everything was snow capped and chilled, the same thick flurry of it coming down just as strong. Lambert pulled his hood up over his damp curls and crossed the market in swift strides. 

A man on a mission and the good folk of Oxenfurt knew it, or maybe it was just his bulk and his feline eyes. Well, whatever it was, they moved out of his way, giving him a wide enough berth that he got to his next shop without even smacking in to someone. Good enough, he probably would have killed someone if that bottle broke, Witcher reputation be damned. 

The bookmaker's shop was tucked in against a seamstress's shop, and it was tempting to step in, but Jaskier didn't need another doublet. He already had an army of the damn things, adding another one to his collection wasn't on Lambert's current list. Maybe before they left town they could get him a few new ones for the road.

He stepped through the bookmaker's door and breathed in the scent of old paper and binding glue, door clacking shut behind him. A young man sat slumped behind the counter, doublet done up to his throat and a quill behind his ear. He looked fucking young to be a book keeper, fresh faced and barely like he could have been out of the Academy. Worse still, Lambert fucking knew him.

"Joffrey."

"P-Proffesor Lambert, ser."

He wasn't ever going to get used to that shit.

"You work here?"

The boy nodded, taking the quilt from behind his ear and slipping it into his book. It shut with a quiet rustle of pages as he sat up, a little bit of color in his cheeks and a faint spill of arousal in the air. Just the same then, that hadn't changed even with the two and a half weeks it had been since classes had let out. He wasn't going to get used to that , either, for all that he knew damn well what he looked like. 

“It’s my father’s shop.”

Stepping up to the counter, Lambert dropped one arm onto the wood and leaned forward on it. Watched as the blond man’s eyes went a little wide, as his cheeks flushed a little further when Lambert got a bit into his space. 

“I need a notebook. Thick sheets, leather bound, something that can withstand some travel.”

“Is this for Professor Julian?”

Blinking at the boy, his brow furrowed, weight leaned a little further onto his arm. He caught the way the boys heart skipped and the way his scent went a little sharper when his bicep flexed beneath his cloak. He didn’t miss being that young or having that much of a hairpin trigger. 

“Why would it be?”

“Eskeva and Agnes said you’re courting him.”

The twins fucking talked to much. 

“The notebook, Joffrey.”

“O-of course, Professor Lambert, sorry, Professor Lambert!”

Fifty crowns later, he had a new quill set and a collection of three notebooks, all leather bound and loaded with thick, creamy pages. They would get filled up soon enough, but for now, Jaskier would have enough of them to at least last him a few months on the path. He took his purchases and wandered back toward the Academy, stopping along the way to buy a half dozen honey cakes just for the sake of it. The University paid him damn good for his time, it wasn’t like he didn’t have the coin to spare. 

Upon returning to campus, he made a quick stop in their rooms before wandering down for the herbology lab. The halls were mostly empty, a few of the adjunct staff passing him on his way. Margarite from the laundress’ quarters nodded at him as she went by, a basket full of sheets in her arm and a determined look on her face as he hastily got out of her way. It was quieter in the natural sciences wing, and by the time he got to the labs, he would have thought himself alone if not for a single heartbeat.

“Amin, I thought I told you to go home.”

The boy didn’t bother to look up from his stone bowl, choosing instead to ignore Lambert for whatever he was working on. There was a small dish of melted beeswax at his elbow and what looked to be a stone bowl of goat’s milk beside it on the table. Lotion, probably, Unna’s hands had been close to raw the last time he had seen her when he had taken his and Jaskier’s bedclothes down to be washed. 

“I thought you were out shopping?”

Cheeky little bugger.

“Finished early. Why’re you here?”

“Ma’s still doing some wash up, she said she would see me at home. Can you get me the almond oil?”

Carefully setting the velvet sachet on his own workspace, Lambert crossed the room to grab the wide bottle out of its glass cabinet. It clanked quietly against the one beside it, the rose oil that he fucking hated because he had spent nearly a week distilling it and it was all he could fucking smell for days. He glared at it as he shut the cabinet tight, like it might tip through the glass at him and spill all over the floor again. It still hadn’t come out of the floorboards entirely, no matter how much he had scrubbed. 

“Almond?”

“I already grabbed the sandalwood.”

Squinting at the bottle for a minute, Lambert eventually nodded. Setting it down next to the rest of Amin’s supplies, he watched the ginger young man where he focused on his work. The fifteen-year-old had made progress since Lambert had first gotten him for all that he hadn’t intended to actually keep the boy. Jaskier called him his apprentice, like Lambert knew what to do with one of those. 

“You put thought into this.”

Amin side-eyed him, blue eyes narrowed.

“Ma deserves nice things.” 

He couldn’t argue with that. Dropping a heavy hand on the boys head just to hear the way he scoffed, Lambert went across the room to collect his own oils instead. Stoppered bottles of magnolia and mint scents pulled from the window sill he had left them in to help them develop, he stared at them for a minute before sighing. Before putting his things down on the other half of the workbench beside Amin and going to collect his purchase. A stool pulled over with one hand, bottle of grapeseed oil pulled from its shelf, he dropped himself down to sit next to the boy.

Amin didn’t say anything, but he could see the way the boy bit down on a grin.

The two of them worked side by side on their respective projects in silence marked only by the clinking of glass or the slop of cream as it was stirred in its bowl. Eventually, Amin took up a thin tool with a cluster of long, wiry tongs not unlike something Lambert expected to see in a kitchen. In all honesty, Lambert wouldn’t have put it past the boy to simply have taken the damn thing from the kitchens. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy poured in his beeswax and, bracing the bowl in the crook of his elbow, used the kitchen utensil to start vigorously beating it. 

“Can your arm take that?”

“Don’t you have a perfume to make?”

Hands held up in surrender, Lambert kept his laughter to himself as he took his perfume decanter out of its bag. It gleamed in the bright light of the lab and he stared at it for a moment, stupidly pleased with himself for his purchase. 

His own bowl pulled toward him, he poured out a liberal amount of the grapeseed oil first, eyeing the decanter as he did so. Eyeballing enough to mostly fill it, he capped the bottle before working the cork out of the magnolia oil. The light, almost fruity smell of it took softly to the air, and he drizzled a careful amount of it into the bowl. The thin stream turned the oil a pale blush, and he watched it pour before turning the bottle to catch the flow. Cork put back, bottle set aside, he used a shallow spoon to combine the two. The mint came next, the process repeated until he decided it was enough, the sharp zing of the mint mixing delicately with the floral bloom. 

Beside him, Amin’s heart rate had steadily increased, and a faint sheen of sweat had started to kick up on his skin. Still, the boy didn’t stop whisking, and as Lambert combined his own bowl of liquids, he watched the way that the milk had started to instead resemble a thickened cream.  

Gold filmed stopper pulled out of the decanter with a quiet pop , he set it carefully on the workbench so as not to lose it. Bowl taken up with one hand, the shallow divot in the lip proved itself useful as he tipped it against the mouth of the bottle. Slow to pour it, watchful for the level in the bottle, he probably took longer than he should have to make sure none of it sloshed on the outside of the decanter. He had been close with his measurements, about a finger width left between the top of the oil and the mouth of the bottle by the time the bowl was empty. 

Just enough to fit the stopper back in, and Lambert did so with a sigh of relief. 

Amin had stopped whisking beside him, sweat on his brow and dampening his chemise where he had shed his doublet before gathering his things. His bowl held a thick, softly scented cream in it where the milk and the wax had been rather expertly whipped together. 

Lambert was impressed, and he didn’t hesitate to say so.

“That looks fucking great. You practice before?”

The boy’s scent bloomed with pride, and he sat up a little straighter on his stool.

“Last week with a sweetgrass one. I sent it home with Mahlia, floral stuff makes her sneeze.”

Clasping the boy on the back of the next, he didn’t flinch under the weight this time like he had in the beginning. Lambert grinned at him, all teeth and a weird paternal kind of pride as the boy grinned back at him. He put his bottle decanter carefully back into its sachet, and took up his things to be cleaned and put back in their respective homes. 

“Your Ma’s gonna love it.”

“Thanks, Lambert.”

Jaskier had woken up before him, as he sometimes did. 

There was nothing strange there, because Lambert liked to sleep in when he had the option. It wasn’t like he had any students that were expecting to see him for the next few weeks, and the other man insisted there was nothing wrong with spoiling one's self from time to time. Getting paid to be shacked up in a nice set of rooms with a beautiful man for an entire season, without having to take contracts or worry about his meals seemed like a perfectly good time to spoil himself. All things considered, Lambert wasn’t afraid to call himself greedy.

There was a nice layer of fat around his middle, a bit of a well-fed cushion that had made him almost soft, and he started rumbling in satisfaction every time he thought about it. 

Jaskier had woken up before him, which was usually fine, except Lambert had planned to get up first. He had planned on getting them breakfast and stoking the fire, on having Jaskier’s gifts all set out for him to open and their meal set out on the table. He had had plans , but between the late night they had had and the Est Est that Jaskier had plied him with, he had overslept. The little shit had probably done it on purpose. 

Pulling himself out of bed, he took up a leather tie from the little table next to his bed and combed his curls back into as much of a knot as he could manage on the top of his head. Scratching at his beard then, Lambert pulled on a pair of breeches and the first tunic he could get his hands on. He hesitated then, barefoot and fucking comfortable in the room that had become his over the last handful of weeks. It was warm in here, and it was almost quiet, with the soft fall of snow against the window and the gentle, crooning sound of Jaskier quietly singing to himself in the other room. The muffled patter of feet on the floor, dampened by woolen socks where his feet got cold, the tinkling clank of cutlery being spread out at their spots at the table. 

It felt horrifically, delightfully domestic, and Lambert never wanted to let go. 

The room was awash in pale light, snow piled in miniature mountains on the outside of the window panes. He had lit the fire at some point, fed full of logs in a hungry flicker where it crackled in the deep curve of the hearth. It spilled a lush kind of warmth out into the room, warming him to his bones as his door shut behind him. Jaskier looked up at him with a delicate metallic chiming, and his heart did a strange, stupid thing in his chest. 

There was a deep violet flush high on his cheeks when he turned around, pale freckles like stars against his dusky skin. At some point in the morning, he had hunted down little metal cuffs and thin silver chains, tiers of them that lay in delicate layers laced between his horns. It made him look like the whimsical, mythical creature he was, shimmering and bright eyed in the pale light of their current home. Because that was what this was, the man he loves in the place that has come to feel like home, and Lambert was nearly bowled over by the feeling of it all.

"Good morni-"

"I got breakfast!"

Jaskier spoke hurriedly, words practically tripping over themselves to get off of his tongue. That violet flush to his cheeks crawled up to the high peaks of his ears, disappearing down beneath his chemise where it traveled to his chest. His claws clicked together when he clasped his hands in front of himself, dangerous and delicate and nervous. Wide-eyed, almost startled with himself, and Lambert didn't bother to bite back his grin.

"I see that. You smell anxious."

His expressive face twisted into a crumpled frown as he puttered to the other side of the table. 

"Sometimes I wish you wouldn't do that."

He snorted, watching the Fae as he went, woolen socks and ornamented horns and all. His hair was a little damp, like he had been up so long he had decided to take a bath already.

"Your heart does this thing when you lie? Like a hiccup?"

Sharp teeth bared at him, like Jaskier still thought he could be threatening after the season they had spent in one another pocket. Lambert just held his hands up in a mockery of surrender, laughter rumbling in his chest. Jaskier sniffed, face upturned, as dramatic as he always was even as he padded to the other side of the room. He did smell anxious though, a sticky kind of nervous that hung on the woodsmoke of his scent and trailed behind him as he went.

Lambert watched him disappear into his room for a moment, only to come back after a quiet bit of rattling with things in his arms.

"You're opening your presents before we eat. I've waited this long, I refuse to any longer."

Eyes rolling, Lambert stepped back through his own door and snatched up the two silken bundles he had left on the chair in the corner. It was going to be like that then, impatient brat.

"You're fucking bossy in the mornings."

" I am a delight."

He barked a laugh, depositing his things on an empty spot on the table. Two bowls of thick porridge sat at their places, a plate of blood sausage, brown bread with soft butter and hard-boiled eggs on a dish beside it. There was even a thick wedge of cheese, the kind with the rind on it still that meant he had raided the pantry that morning. He had decided they were going to gorge themselves then, rich foods and two wide goblets of mulsum that he could smell the spices in.

"Do you want your shit or not?"

Jaskier promptly sat down, his own bounty in his lap. 

"So I tri-"

"I might be mo-"

They both stopped short, blinking at one another across the laden table. Slowly, Jaskier broke out into a soft, dare he say bashful smile. Lambert felt his own face flush hot, and he cleared his throat roughly before handing over the two packages.

"Take it."

Jaskier floundered a little, moving aside his porridge and his mulsum to carefully set them on the table instead. He stared at both silk-wrapped packages for a long minute before deciding on the larger one much to Lambert's chagrin. The smaller, more delicate piece got set aside for the moment, and he stared at it almost accusingly even as Jaskier set about his happy unwrapping. 

“Oh, look at these beauties .”

He had found the quill set, soft Bluejay feathers molded with sharp metal tips perfect for the elegant calligraphy that Jaskier pretended to write in, and the quick scratch scrawl that he tended to devolve to when he really got going. He slicked one feathered quill between his fingers, the fibers dimpling beneath the pressure before fanning back out. Set aside after another few passes, he opened one of the journals with reverent fingers across the embossed cover. He cracked the book open after a moment, fingering over thick, creamy pages until they fanned and fluttered. 

“You got me notebooks.”

“Well, yeah, you filled your last one. Gonna need more when we go back on the path.”

When we , the words tumbling out before he could think about them. Jaskier caught it though, heart doing a tremble in his chest that Lambert couldn’t help but here. He puffed up a little where he refused to be embarrassed, but Jaskier didn’t seem to mind. He just wrapped his hands around the books and blinked with wide eyes, excitement swirling low in his scent. 

“Three won’t last me as long as you think.”

He shrugged, face hot and his body slouched back into his chair. 

“We can get more.”

Jaskier made a quiet, witches chime laugh, carefully rewrapping the notebooks and quills before stretching to set them on the window ledge. Lambert watched him as he took up the second, smaller package, struck still in his chair. Suddenly, this felt an awful lot like holding ones breath on a hunt, like waiting for something to go wrong. Part of him wanted to snatch the smaller package back up, and he could only stare as Jaskier started to unwrap it. 

His heart did a little flutter in his chest, scent blooming soft and sweet. 

“Lambert.”

His tone was reverent, touch featherlight where he carefully cradled the gold and blue decanter, unstoppering it to take a curious sniff. The fat belly of it fit snug in his palm, the gold drip complimenting the stone dusk of his skin. He held it like it was some sort of marvel, and he looked at Lambert with luminous, glittering eyes. He felt himself color at that look, at the way Jaskier just stared at him. 

“You didn’t like any of the perfumes you had.” The words burst from his chapped mouth before he could stop himself. Heart in his throat, blood roaring, he couldn’t get it to stop and instead, his hands curled on the edge of the table for something to hold. “You said they were too strong, or that they smelled fake. It’s magnolia and mint, I blended it with a grapeseed base so you can’t smell anything other than the aromatics, so it-”

“You made this?”

He sounded awestruck, and Lambert felt the burning way he flushed. 

“What if I did?”

The stopper made a quiet sound when it was twisted back into place, a little schink of glass against glass. Jaskier set it down on the table like it was something breakable, away from the edge like he needed to keep it safe from the floor or from nervous hands or anything else that might threaten it. Silk folded around the base like a little buffer, Lambert could hear the way his heart pounded something vicious and hummingbird fretful in his chest. 

Jaskier set his presents aside, and then he stood up, and Lambert stopped fucking breathing. 

The pale light from the windows made glitter out of the thin chains draped across his horns, sending little metallic flecks of light across everything they touched. It turned the pale freckles on his face into diamonds, made him as ethereal as only Lambert got to ever see him be. It wasn’t fair, he couldn’t look like that and he could move like that and expect Lambert to still be okay. His heart could only take so much where he wanted to reach out and touch with hands that would surely prove to be too rough. He wasn’t made for spun glass or spider silk, his hands knew explosives and blades and baptisms by blood, he was a Witcher for all that he often wished he didn’t have to be.

Two hide-wrapped packages were deposited in his lap, and Jaskier notched his hip against the side of the table. 

“Jaskier-”

“You need to open these before I can thank you, Wolf.”

He swallowed thickly, at the heavy weight he had been handed and the long, thin package that he wasn’t sure he understood. Neither of them felt like weapons, one too weighty and the other too misshapen. They weren’t things a Witcher could have then if they weren’t meant for combat, and he hesitated like he couldn’t out in the field.

“They won’t bite, love.”

Lambert shivered at that Gods damned name, and unwrapped the heavy one first.

That was rabbit’s hide, luxuriously soft beneath his hands. Wide lengths of it, pelts meticulously mended together until they made wide swatches of fabric. He touched them carefully as he went, silken to the touch as it was. The weighted thing revealed itself slowly, and he breathed deep at the sight of it. 

The mortar and pestle were easily twice the size of the one he carried in his saddlebags. Deep dished and wide-edged like the ones he used in the Herbology lab, with a sturdy stone foot and a spanning basin that could be used to make potions in batches rather than one at a time. There was a divot on one side of the lip, a little indentation for pouring, and he thumbed across that crevice and watched the way the shadows played on the labradorite. It shimmered in a polished, glossy wash of blues and greens and vivid slashing veins of gold, impossibly smooth to the touch. The end of the pestle had been chipped and roughened, the inside of the mortar seamless where the entire thing looked like it had been carved out of a single chunk of feldspar. 

“I already have one of these.”

“And I know you hate it. It’s too small, and the pestle is dulled down. Amin said you have one you favor in the lab, so I took its measurements and had one commissioned for you instead.”

He let out a gusting breath, and looked up at the way Jaskier smiled at him. He wanted to kiss this stupid, brilliant man, but he couldn’t get his hands to move right, and his tongue was all twisted and tangled in the bottom of his mouth. 

“Go on,” Head tipping toward the other package, chains on his horns dancing, Jaskier spoke softly. “Open that one.”

Mortar and pestle set carefully on a clear spot on the table with a quiet thunk , Lambert swept a thumb over the polished edge before taking up the second gift.

“I went a little overboard on the rabbit's fur, but, well, I figured it would be useful to line something with. And I know you don’t need this, but I’ve seen the way you illustrate for your students, so I thought, well-”

He sounded nervous, but Lambert didn’t have the heart to get him to stop. He couldn’t have been able to if he had tried, the long, Zerrikanian wood box unlatched and flipped open to a series of long tipped brushes. Carefully packaged sticks of charcoal, a little palette of oil pastel pigments all ready to be used. There was even a fat, stout little bottle of calligraphers ink, and it shone with tiny flecks of gold when he angled it in the light. 

“You got me an artist’s set.”

“Well, you didn’t have one.”

Spoken plainly, like that was reason enough. Like that was the only reason he needed to get Lambert fancy, expensive brushes and pigments that looked like they had come from a Beauclair market. They didn’t look like something he could afford or anything he should have touched, but they were his evidently, because Jaskier had decided they were. They must have cost a small fortune, but Jaskier just smiled at him all sweet and small like he was worth all that coin. 

He didn’t remember the last time someone that wasn’t Aiden gave him a gift. 

Art set and rabbit furs put aside, Lambert crowded against Jaskier when he stood up. The Fae tipped his head back to look up at him, the ink spill of his mouth soft and open with a quiet, questioning sound. His hair was soft where Lambert slid a hand into it, silken against his fingers as he cupped the back of his skull. Jaskier didn’t pull away from him for all that he could have, should have, a hand to Lambert’s chest instead. 

“Tell me not to.”

That claw-tipped hand slid up his chest, curling loosely at the base of his throat. Thumb against his pulse, just enough pressure that he could feel it, and that touch sent something hot spiraling through his blood. His own hand came up to cup at one hip through the thin slide of his chemise, and Jaskier just pressed up against him. Jaskier stared up at him with crystalline eyes and a mouth run with obsidian down his chin and throat. Jaskier just stared at him, and Lambert bit back a snarl.

“Make me.”

The growl in his chest was muffled against Jaskier’s mouth, but damned if he cared. He brought the other man flush against him and tasted the spiced honey wine that he had been sipping on all morning before Lambert had gotten up. He gripped tight at a thin hip and drank deeply from the man’s mouth, rumbling at the way that Jaskier looped both arms around his shoulders and held on. Held to him , weight against him where Lambert clutched him close. 

He wanted to drag his teeth across that ink dark mouth, and he wanted to take and press and taste until there wasn’t a stretch of skin on the man’s body that hadn’t been beneath his tongue. He wanted this man panting for breath where he writhed against him, burned to know what he sounded like when he cried out Lambert’s name to the ceiling with clawing hands at his shoulders for somewhere to hold. He ached to take this man back to bed and pull him apart until Jaskier didn’t care to ever leave, until he didn’t want to. He wanted like he didn’t think he had ever wanted another, but there would be time for that, later.

Instead, their mouths together and their bodies pressed close, Lambert kept his touch gentle. Fingers spanning across his hip, he nudged their noses together as he brushed chaste, drinking kisses across that dark mouth. A cobalt tongue teased out against his lips but he just gave him another kiss as soft and sweet as the first had been. 

Jaskier sighed against his mouth, liquid against him, and Lambert just hummed. 

“Maybe later.”

“Later sounds good.”