(Lambert x Aiden)
Aiden came back late from the hunt, so he wasn’t surprised to see Lambert’s back turned to him. Their campfire roared in the middle of saddle bags, sitting logs, and potion ingredients, but Lambert mashed nothing with his mortar and pestle. Instead, he stared at the fire, watching the firewood crackle under its weight as Aiden approached. Aiden crinkled his nose at the lack of fanfare, but he was a Witcher. He walked quietly and had little to no smell.
If Lambert didn’t want to notice he was there, Lambert wouldn’t notice. Aiden walked up to the camp, feeling lighter than he often did after a hunt, and bypassed the log Lambert sat on to sit across from him in the dirt. They normally sat together, but after Aiden halfway abandoned him, it felt too presumptuous to sit beside him again. As Aiden plopped down, he folded his ankles and rested his elbows on his knees. Lambert still didn’t look at him.
“Hey,” Aiden said. “You doing alright?”
No response, which only left Aiden to purse his lip. He deserved the silent treatment. Lambert expected Aiden to have his back, just as Aiden expected the same, and Aiden fucked it up royally in their last battle. It had been the two of them versus a royal wyvern. In a battle like that, Lambert relied on Aiden’s quick, low-cutting style, while Aiden needed Lambert’s heavy hitting, over-head attacks. They always took one down together, but something hadn’t gone right this time.
“I didn’t mean to get hit, alright? Thing blasted me over the side of that hill. Knocked my head real good, I think.”
Aiden ran his fingers through his hair and winced; his head still hurt, and his thoughts came foggier than before. He couldn’t remember much beyond the battle, but that didn’t bother him. He’d had concussions before, and so long as he didn’t fall into a coma, he’d get everything back by the time it healed. Some Swallow would hurry along the process, but the idea of tasting that bitterness on his tongue was enough to make his stomach churn. Maybe not.
“Look, I get it. You’re mad at me. Think I left you to fight the damn thing on your own, but I did try! Just took me longer to get my bearings than I thought. Everything hurt for a while, and…” Aiden sighed. “Maybe I rested longer than I should have. I wanted to get back to you to help, but I saw you defeated the beast, anyway.”
Still no response. Lambert shifted on the log long enough to grab a stick to stoke the fire, but he neither looked at nor spoke to Aiden. Aiden’s gut sunk lower, and he wrapped an arm around his belly to quell whatever retching he might want to do. This wasn’t right. Lambert had gotten mad at him before, and it usually resulted in shouting matches. Once they shouted themselves out, Lambert’s arms would wrap around him, and Lambert would hold him as tightly as Aiden held back.
“I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? So fucking full of yourself, you can’t accept my mistake without making me grovel for it?” Aiden scoffed. “Fucking lug, you are.”
Nothing. Aiden’s forced ire died as he peered at Lambert, and something cold rose in his chest. Lambert didn’t look at him. He looked lost in the fire, like he hoped it might burn away his own body. The fire was far too small, and Lambert wasn’t trying very hard, but that was who he was. In all the times before they’d talked about death, Lambert had always said he’d go out in a blaze. He wouldn’t take a knife to his own neck, but he’d miss a strike at a pivotal moment and let a monster tear out his throat.
Now, Aiden’s throat tightened. Was Lambert never going to speak to him again? Was his mistake so large that Lambert couldn’t even look at him?
“Look, I said I’m sorry!” Aiden cried.
He grabbed the nearest rock and threw it across the campsite, but his aim was off, and his arm was weak. The rock landed at Lambert’s foot, jolting him from whatever stupor he’d found himself in. Lambert looked up, but his eyes didn’t meet Aiden’s.
“Lambert, please. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time. Don’t—don’t just never talk to me again.”
Aiden rarely begged, and he knew he sounded pathetic, but a reality popped before his eyes that he’d never considered before—that Lambert wasn’t his friend, his lover, or his confidant. That Lambert would leave him here, too overcome with grief that Aiden had nearly let him die to even consider trusting Aiden to have his back or share his bed. Aiden trembled and wrapped his arms around his legs, but that did nothing to quell the growing pain in his chest or his stomach.
He was going to be sick. Lambert looked right through him before ducking his head back to the fire. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t right. No matter how Aiden screamed for him or begged, his words fell on deaf ears. Lambert didn’t come to his comfort, nor did he make some quip about Cats and their emotions. Aiden had gone through the full spectrum in a minute, and he was about to start again when another moment of silence passed him by.
“Lambert, this is ridiculous. Please! Talk to me. Anything, just say something.”
Nothing.
Aiden’s eyes ached, but he wouldn’t dare cry. Not if Lambert was going to do this to him. One mistake, and Lambert wouldn’t speak to him anymore? Was that all their relationship was? A fumbling, stick built house on sand, it seemed. If one mistake was enough to turn Lambert away from him, then maybe Lambert had never been his to begin with. Maybe their nights together were two Witchers seeking comfort, and the pretty words had been nothing but lies to fill the silence.
Only now did Aiden realize he hated silence. He and Lambert didn’t do silence, and they didn’t need it. They always had something to talk about, whether it be villagers, monsters, or each other. They always talked. They always found a fresh conversation to keep the coals smoldering. They were in love. They didn’t need silence. Now that they had it, it was stifling. Even as Aiden talked and begged and shouted, the silence swallowed him whole.
He couldn’t hear his own voice anymore. No wonder Lambert couldn’t. A heavy, angry stupor surrounded them, and it was no use trying to claw his way through it. With a sigh, Aiden’s shoulders deflated, and he took another look at Lambert. Lambert’s hair was out of place from the fight, and there was dried blood on his face from a wound he hadn’t taken care of. Then there were his familiar scars. Aiden spent too many nights tracing them and being in love.
“Lambert…” Aiden sighed. “Goodnight. Maybe we can try talking again in the morning.”
Aiden hauled himself off the ground and took the brief trip to his bedroll, where he laid down to face Lambert. Even as he tucked his arms under his head for a makeshift pillow, he stared, hoping for the moment to change. This wasn’t happening. They weren’t breaking apart.
A stick cracked off in the distance. Likely animal, but Lambert jolted up and turned in its direction. Aiden’s heart sunk. He would look for a broken stick, but not him? How was it fair? But Lambert seemed to be looking for something. He stared off towards the echoed sound for three long breaths before deflating and dropping his head into his hands. Aiden’s heart sunk further, and it clenched so hard, it might as well have shivered.
Why did Lambert look so sad?
Aiden closed his eyes. In the darkness around him, Lambert made a choked, sobbed sound, but tears didn’t fall. Aiden would have heard them if they did. As sleep washed over him, taking first his body than his mind, Aiden felt colder than normal. He longed for Lambert at his back, but Lambert didn’t come to bed that night.
#
The forest. Aiden remembered the forest. The shriek of the wyvern. The tumbling. The sticks and brush in his skin as he rolled down the hill. The crack at the end.
#
When Aiden woke in the morning, the campsite was nearly packed away, save for the bedrolls. Lambert always left those for last. Aiden pushed himself up to his feet and looked to Lambert’s back as he finished strapping bags onto his own horse. None of the bags were on Aiden’s horse, which was strange. They shared the load. Lambert’s horse whinnied and kicked her back leg, but Lambert brushed her neck and calmed her.
“I know it’s more than you like. We’ll be out of here soon, alright? Just have to get something.”
His horse made her noises again, and Lambert dropped his forehead into her mane. The way he stroked her; he looked for his own comfort, not to comfort her.
Aiden clutched his hands to his chest and watched Lambert pull away from the horse. Lambert walked right past him, like he wasn’t there, and took his swords from the ground. He strapped them to his back and stared off towards the forest with a hollow, empty glare.
“We’re still doing the silent thing?” Aiden asked.
When Lambert said nothing, Aiden thought to deepen his frown, to be angrier. If he could start their yelling match, things would go back to normal, and he could escape the horrible chill in his body, but the ire didn’t come. Lambert stepped away, towards the forest, and Aiden was helpless but to follow him. What were they going back for? Had Lambert not scavenged the beast for parts? Had he not taken a trophy?
Aiden asked nothing as he walked back into the forest with Lambert. Lambert cleared away branches and brush, leaving a clean path for Aiden to walk in behind. As their surroundings thickened with tree trunks and flora, so too did the silence. So too grew the ache in Aiden’s chest as they walked a familiar path. This was the path Aiden had taken on the way out of the forest—he was sure of it.
They walked in silence. Lambert said nothing, and Aiden couldn’t bring himself to shatter this discomfort. If Lambert needed his space, then it was Aiden’s duty to give it to him. He only followed. Each time he brushed past something or moved a branch out of his way, Lambert stopped and jerked, like he was expecting something. Someone, maybe.
Aiden soured further, and he felt a terrible sickness on its way, but he swallowed it back down and followed Lambert’s unsteady steps. Whatever was holding Lambert together didn’t do a very good job of it, but if Aiden were to rush to him now, he would sever whatever was holding them together. He wouldn’t break their relationship on something as selfish as his own discomfort.
For five long minutes, they walked the same path Aiden had taken from the forest, almost exactly. He and Lambert had always had a similar eye for safe, straightforward paths, and this was it. This was the easiest, safest path from the site of the wyvern to the camp. Why Lambert would take it again, Aiden didn’t understand, but he followed. He followed until the wyvern’s dead body came back into view, but Lambert didn’t go for it.
Lambert went for the hill.
Suddenly, Aiden’s body chilled. He felt heavier than he ever had as he took those few steps towards the top of the hill while Lambert stomped down it. It wasn’t all that steep of a hill, but it was long, and on the pathway down were fallen trees and sharp rocks. Aiden swallowed, but he followed the path Lambert took down. Safe and easy, just as they all were. With each step closer they got, Aiden felt a tug. A pull that made him heavy, like the world around him had suddenly turned unyielding. It didn’t want him here.
They came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, and Aiden froze.
He understood.
Lambert’s wail was loud enough, broken enough, to shake the birds from the trees as he dropped to his knees. He reached for Aiden’s body as tears streamed down his face, but holding Aiden wasn’t enough. He brought Aiden to his chest and rocked him back and forth, screaming into the world around as Aiden didn’t respond.
“I waited!” Lambert cried. “You were supposed to come back to me! You’re always—you always come back to me!”
Aiden felt a familiar ache in his own eyes as he took a seat on the nearest rock. Lambert sobbed into his shoulder as he rocked back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Aiden’s tears didn’t fall, but he realized then that they couldn’t. He had no more tears left to cry. No more heart left to beat.
“I did come back,” Aiden whispered. “I tried so hard to come back. You have no idea.”
Suddenly, Lambert froze. He looked away from Aiden’s body, and though the tears streamed freely, he looked right at Aiden with an uncharacteristic calmness to him. His eyes widened, and his pupils dilated as they always did when he recognized the man he loved.
“Aiden.”
Aiden stilled on the rock and looked up. Their eyes met.
“You. You can see me now,” Aiden said. “Lambert, you can—”
Lambert laid Aiden’s body back on the ground and went for him. For the Aiden he knew was still there, but everything ached tenfold when his fingers went right through Aiden’s face as he tried to cup Aiden’s jaw. Like he always did. Always a comfort, when they stood so close.
“No.” Lambert cried. “No, you can’t do this to me. You can’t be. You can’t be—”
Lambert backed up and fell to the forest floor again. He wrapped his arms around his middle, desperate for protection from this cruel world, and sobbed. Aiden hurried after him and dropped at his side, but Lambert couldn’t feel the hand at his back or breath against his face when Aiden leaned in close.
“I’m never going to leave you,” Aiden whispered.
“You already have.”
Aiden shook his head. “No. Never. I’ll be right here at your side until the end, do you hear me? Right here. Always. I’m never going to leave you. I promised, and I don’t break promises. Not to you.”
Lambert’s tears didn’t stop, neither did his shaking, but he looked at Aiden with wide, accepting eyes. Oh, how he longed to touch. Aiden did the best he could with a ghastly hand against Lambert’s face, but he couldn’t feel it. He could hardly see it.
“I need you,” Lambert whispered. “I’ve always needed you.”
“You’ve got me. Until the end of the world, you’ve got me.”
Lambert strained a smile and nodded. Aiden wished to wipe the tears from his face, to hold him, to kiss him. But none of it would have mattered. Even if Lambert could see him now, he was dead. He’d been dead the whole time. When he thought his screams wouldn’t reach Lambert’s ears, it was because an entire plane of existence stood between them. No one could ever shout so loud.
A long few minutes passed before Lambert stood again. He turned his back on Aiden to hoist up his body again, to which Aiden gawked.
“You should burn it,” he said. “Lambert—”
“No. I’m taking you home. I’ll bury you there.”
“Home?”
Aiden had never had a home. Stygga Citadel hadn’t been much of one, and Dyn Marv even less. He didn’t remember the place he’d come from. What exactly was home? Especially when he was dead.
“Kaer Morhen. This was gonna be the year. I was gonna take you up there, and you were going to meet my family. They were going to love you, and—”
Aiden deflated. Lambert’s home.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Take me home. I want to see it.”
Lambert said nothing as tears welled back up in his eyes, but there was nothing to say. Even if Aiden followed close behind him, it would never be the same Aiden he remembered. Never the Aiden he could touch or the one he could hold. All he had was the body, which he cradled against his chest with only memories of laughter between them. Aiden remembered, too, when Lambert held him like a princess as he laughed and kicked his legs.
You ’re going to drop me!
Have some faith, you fucking idiot.
Aiden smiled.
They walked to the edge of the forest, and as Lambert continued on to strap Aiden’s lifeless body to his horse for the journey home, Aiden stopped at the edge and turned back into the trees. The wyvern flew at them with its wings beating and a shriek loud enough to shatter bones. Its eyes fixated on Lambert. He was going to strike it down, but it wouldn’t go without a fight. It would take Lambert with it.
Aiden died instead.
He’d do it again, if he could.
Aiden turned back towards Lambert and the horses and wrapped his arms around his chest. He’d do it again. In every lifetime. If this was the cost of Lambert’s life, he’d pay. Whenever he had to.