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"Hey Lambert, I got to pet a Cat” geralt said, smirking slightly. he had figured this was a good way to get a rise out of lambert and it had been an uneventful night, Vesemir already gone to bed and the three younger wolves just drinking around the fire.
lambert didn’t react accordingly though. instead of indignation or thinly veiled curiosity, he froze for a moment, grabbed the handle of vodka, drank, and said “Good for you. I’m going to bed” and walked out of the hall.
geralt turned to eskel in confusion, who looked only slightly less confused
“what was that about?” geralt asked
“dunno,” eskel said with the air of someone who thinks they know. “i’ll go check on him in a minute. he won’t talk to you obviously but he needs a few to calm down”
the designated few minutes passed and eskel bid geralt goodnight and made his way to lambert’s room. he knocked lightly and when lambert told him to fuck off through the door, eskel opened the door and let himself in.
lambert was sitting in front of the window with the handle of vodka still in his hand, shoulders slumped in a way eskel had rarely seen on the younger wolf
“you ok? you left in a hurry” eskel said, slowly making his way into lambert’s eye line.
“fine. why wouldn’t i be?”
“well. geralt made a joke about fucking another Cat witcher and you froze and then left and are now getting drunk by yourself instead of with us. i’m going to draw some conclusions and you can stop me if i’m wrong” eskel hesitated, but at a slight twitch of lambert’s eyebrow, he continued. “i know about aiden. i know you two care a lot about each other. my guess is you immediately assumed geralt and aiden fucked and that upset you” eskel waited for lambert to say he was wrong but instead lambert tensed slightly before being raising the vodka handle so he could drink deeply.
“so i’m right then? well good then i can tell you why you’re wrong. geralt knows about aiden too. you’re not the only one with friends in other schools, word gets around when a wolf and a cat meet up every summer. the cat geralt fucked was axel. not aiden. he wouldn’t do that to you,” eskel stopped himself from adding “little wolf” to the end, knowing that lambert was tetchy about the nickname unless he was in a certain mood
lambert was quiet for a long while before speaking. “good to know. can’t blame me for assuming the great white wolf could come along and aiden would forget about me though, can you?” he spoke with a self deprecating tone that eskel had heard before but never in such serious context.
eskel stared uncomprehendingly at lambert for a moment. “why would aiden forget about you? from what i gather, he likes you a lot”
“geralt always gets what he wants. the pretty boy, the golden child. i know i’m an asshole. i know you lot only put up with me in the winters bc you have no where else to go and i don’t either. i know you’d all rather coen or axel or even fucking letho to be here instead of me. it’s not a far stretch to think aiden would get sick of me too, especially in comparison”
eskel was too stunned for a minute to respond but he snapped himself out of it quickly. “lambert, none of us think that. yes you’re an asshole, but you’re our brother, our family. we don’t just put up with you, we love you and we want you here, whether or not anyone else comes to winter. whenever you’ve come home late i’m always terrified that youve died and i know geralt and vesemir are too. i know we don’t talk about this shit but seriously, lamb, how can you think that?”
lambert was quiet for a long while, still staring out the window. he had yet to look at eskel. “you know how i was a child surprise?”
“yeah” eskel said, wary of where this was going
“the witcher who claimed me didn’t word it right. he asked for the thing my father first saw when he got home, not what he wasn’t expecting. the first thing he saw was me. i was already almost too old to bother with, you know the trails don’t work after puberty. but what did my dad care? it would be one less mouth to feed. only downside to him was he’d lose his favorite punching bag. then i get here and i’m told consistently but the older guys that i’ll die in the trails. that there was no point in me being claimed at all. now there’s only four of us, and only three on the path. geralts fucking famous. sure the bard has helped us out with his songs but you can’t deny that since we don’t have white hair it doesn’t always extend to all witchers. i’m tired eskel. i think i love aiden and if being rid of me is what he wants, who am i to deny him?”
once lambert was done, eskel didn’t know what to say. he decided instead that words weren’t going to help as much in this situation so he slowly moved towards lambert, staying in his periphery and telegraphing his movements. when lambert didn’t react, eskel put his arms around his little brother and held him.
“i’m sorry, little wolf. i’m sorry your father was a piece of shit. i’m sorry the older boys were like that. i’m sorry we have to deal with humanity hating us while i they need us. but please don’t question your place here. we love you and we need you around.” eskel steeled himself first what he knew he had to say next, even though he had never planned on telling lambert. “and here’s a secret. i went and tracked down the cat caravan when i first learned about you and aiden. i said i was looking for aiden and i talked to him. i guess it was the classic big brother talk. ‘don’t hurt him or i’ll hurt you’. you can be mad at me, i know you don’t like other people fighting your battles. but i wanted to make sure you’d be ok with him. i don’t trust cats on a base level. either way, he promised me that he had no intention of hurting you. that he loved you. you know cats are more in tune with their emotions than us, i’m sure hes just waiting for you to figure out your feelings before telling you. he told me he was glad you had someone else who cared enough to look out for you. he didn’t give the slightest indication that he wasn’t being totally sincere. i guess it was early spring when i tracked him down, so two seasons since you’d seen him. but i didn’t smell anyone else on him nor did i smell him on any of the other cats besides the usual living together. i don’t think he’ll get bored of you, little wolf. and i don’t think he’d leave you for geralt or anyone else. you’re worth so much more than you give yourself credit for and i’m sorry if we don’t let you know that more”
lambert was silent. eskel didn’t really expect a response, not tonight anyway. the younger witcher was going to need time to process all that. but he had closed his eyes and his breathing had become slightly unsteady and eskel figured he was trying to not cry.
“do you want me to stay here tonight?” eskel asked gently, it wouldn’t be the first or last time any of them had shared a bed and he wasn’t about to leave lambert alone if that wasn’t what lambert wanted.
lambert barely inclined his head in an affirmative but eskel felt it, seeing as he was still holding lambert to his chest.
“ok, little wolf, let’s go to bed. its late and i’m tired”
with a little help, lambert managed to put the vodka on the side table and collapse into his bed. luckily they were all dressed down for the relaxed night so there was no armor or gambesons to deal with. eskel took off his boots for him, realizing that lambert had had more of the vodka than he thought. he’d remember this all tomorrow but his motor skills weren’t what they usually were. after taking off his own boots, he climbed into bed and pulled lambert to his chest again, knowing it would help the younger to sleep if he had a heart beat to focus on.
“go to sleep, little wolf. geralts going to apologize tomorrow. he didn’t think you’d be upset, he just wanted to rile you up a little.” he felt lambert nod again and was thankful the younger was still responsive.
privately eskel thought he was going to need to talk to geralt and vesemir about lambert’s abysmal self esteem. the younger witcher had always been reckless but now eskel wondered if there was a darker meaning to that recklessness. lambert would notice any coddling immediately but they could all stand to be nicer to each other and talk things out more.
after a while lambert’s breathing evened out and knowing he had done as much as he could for tonight, he drifted off to sleep as well. the next thing to do was to still be there when lambert woke up.
— epilogue —
-g apologizes and lambert just shrugs and then goes to scale to tower and sit on the roof
-eskel talks to g and v about his concerns about l's mental state while he’s up there and frets inwardly (not that inwardly, v and g know exactly what he’s doing) incase lambert decides that last night was too much and to see if his mutations gave him the ability to fly
-he eventually climbs up (slowly, how L does this in under five minutes he’ll never understand. it’s those damn cats) around dinner and finds him sitting against the battlements and not leaning over the edge like he feared
-they agree that they could work on being kinder, more gentle with each other and talk about feelings more. theres only four of them left, letting one of them alienate themselves would be awful
-they all have to ease into it so l doesn’t suspect it has much to do with him. they’re not coddling him and e was kind of right (he usually was a bastard) so he accepts it and makes an effort on his part too (as painful and awkward as it is)
-the next winter lambert doesn't come home alone and the sound of his real laugh (not the sarcastic semi-fake laugh he usually uses) rings throughout the keep, geralt brings his bard and his mage visits regularly who in turn brings another mage with curly hair who might be flirting with eskel? and eskel feels more at peace than he had in a long time