Chapter Text
Lambert. Was. Fuming! If there was a height of furiousness, it was Lambert-tall. He was used to the bitchy ways of his brothers. They would put sugar in his stew. They would put sand in his bed. After short-sheeting it. They would pee on some of his firewood, and he wouldn't know until he would throw said piece of wood in his fireplace, and the horrid smell would tell him about the whole thing. They would throw his sword by the window. From the highest tower. Under his eyes. While pretending they didn't. It was annoying. But this, this had to beat every single thing they had ever done during their unhumanly long lives!
He should have been wary, when he had spotted their smirks. It was Geralt who had offered to settle the question over a drawing of the short straw. The loser would be left to clean the mess in the kitchen, after the bard had gone to a cooking frenzy. Truth be told, the result had been delightful! The pretty little thing could cook and bake, and Lambert had had his fair share of strange, chef-worthy dishes, things with such exotic names as risotto and soufflés, pastries covered in cream and sugar, delicately decorated with wolves carved in the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, that he learned was called marzipan, and that the over-enthusiastic performer had seemed to conjure out of thin air, water and almond powder. How were they supposed to find themselves fit the day after, when they had filled their bellies to the brim, so much so that even Vesemir had called quits early, asking the pups to clean up the kitchen after they were done.
None of them had been too enthusiastic about it, to say the least. If they were assessing the number of dishes correctly, the kitchen just had to be a mess. Normally, the cooker was the cleaner. But, well, you couldn’t actually expect the poor, frail, human bard to do it all by himself, after working himself so hard to bring - how had he put it?- their taste buds to a neverending heaven of pleasures. A cornucopia of earthly delights. Morsels worthy of the gods themselves. Or something like that. So yeah, no cleaning alone for the bard. Or no cleaning at all, if you were to believe the dark circles under his eyes, and the fluttering of his eyelids. The poor thing was exhausted, and he had rightfully deserved to rest after the fucking level of pampering he had achieved for them. The Witchers. His Witchers, as he liked to recall any chance he was given. Only fair, since he was their bard.
Alright, so, maybe he was more Geralt's bard than theirs. The two of them were disgusting in their lovey-dovey dopey affectionate ways toward each other. It made Lambert want to puke most of the time. Or at least he liked to pretend it did. Truth be told, it was mesmerizing to see Geralt so tame under the hand of this fragile little thing. Sweet. Cute. Lambert would kill anyone who would dare to pretend he witnessed the Witcher thinking those words. Lambert did not think about sweet. Nor cute. But Jaskier was sweet. And cute. And loving. And overfussing. He was always showing so much care where the Witchers were concerned. Whether it was about injuries to tend to, stories to hear, hugs to give... No. No hugs to give! Most certainly not! Lambert was not a cuddler, thank you very much! But maybe, sometimes, during the cold months of winter, it might have had been nice, indeed, to find some human warmth. Some gentleness. Some kindness. And Jaskier seemed to have so much of this to give, and to want to focus it all on their lonely witchery heads.
The first time he came to Kaer Morhen, neither Eskel nor himself understood what had hit them. Vesemir had frowned. What could the bard possibly be after to act so... tenderly over them? He was Geralt's bard, Geralt's fucktoy, as Lambert had so colourfully put it, which had earned him a fist in the mouth from said Geralt, and a fucking band-aid for the resulting bleeding from said fuckt... from said bard, and a fucking kiss on the cheek to make it better but-please-don't-say-this-kind-of-things-in-front-of-Geralt-it-upsets-him-and-well-you-see-how-he-is when-he-is-upset. And then he had winked at him? He had fucking winked at him! And had flirted with Eskel, as if the scars on his face were the most alluring thing he had ever seen! Both of them were at a loss for words, before Geralt explained to them in grunts the concept of an open relationship, and how the singing thing had so much love to give he could completely fit three more Witchers in his overgrown heart. Vesemir had politely declined. He might have been a bit old for this shit. But Eskel and Lambert had soon found themselves unable to resist the hurricane of love, devotion and lust that Geralt had brought along in their cold keep, and winter was nevermore just an occasion to catch up on their otherwise lonely lives between tankards of ale, but a delightful time of getting coddled, spoiled, and fuc... lovemaking in the warm, sweet arms of an everloving human.
And so, the last manifestation of his seemingly neverending care and love for them had been this gargantuan feast he had taken upon him to prepare, and after which the poor thing was definitely in no condition to put the kitchen back to their original pristine state. So, the Witchers had decided to do it themselves. But. They were tired. And someone had to put the sweet little bard to bed. And they had bickered. And bantered. Lambert doing much of the bickering and bantering himself, it might truly have been argued. So Geralt had offered to settle the matter over a drawing of the short straw. And Lambert had lost. How surprising. How even less surprising it had been, when he had been able to truly acknowledge the sorrowful state of the kitchen.
He had gasped. A loud, witcher-worthy kind of gasp. His jaw might well have hit the floor. If there was still a floor to find under this mess. There had been walls too, he was certain. And they definitely weren't this shade of white before. Nor were the tables. Which might as well have been altogether replaced by towering piles of pots and pans and colanders and graters and peelers and-- what were even all of those things?! And how could one tiny human accomplish such a revolution over a keep kitchen?!? Jaskier might be a love hurricane, but he was definitely a fucking chaos tornado! And Lambert had lost! He had to clean. All. By. Himself. He was fuming. His brothers were bastards. Of course they had cheated.
Well, payback will be a bitch if he had any say in it, which he had...