Chapter Text
A firm hand on his shoulder is what wakes him, a little shake and a hiss of his name. First thing that comes to mind is an emergency, obviously, since it’s the middle of the fucking night and they’re both exhausted enough to drop down and sleep for years. With traps around the cave entrance, because out of the two of them, at least Lambert knows how to use his brain.
“What?” he whispers back, rolling soundlessly to his feet. His blanket slides off and Lambert suppresses a shiver at the cold, already contracting his pupils and scanning their surroundings.
The fire at the back of the cave is dying out, only the embers giving out heat. Ciri’s curled by the fireplace, a cocoon of softly snoring blankets, oblivious. Lambert’s medallion is still and the forest around is quiet, save.
Lambert returns his eyes to Aiden, who’s just crouching there, looking all confused about the dagger in the wolf’s hand. “What the fuck?” he asks again, letting some of the tension disappear.
“I need to ask you something.” Aiden answers, pulling his eyes up from the dagger and to Lambert’s face, only to flash his teeth in a grin. “Move.” He shifts himself, too, shuffling to sit on the warm spot where Lambert has been sleeping.
He wants to gape, or maybe shake Aiden until he starts acting like a normal human being, but the sad truth is, he is used to it by now. So Lambert just moves to sit next to him, sideways to keep half an eye on the sleeping girl, and wraps his still warm blanket over them both. “What is it?”
Aiden sighs contentedly, folding his long body in a way that somehow allows him to cushion his head on Lambert’s shoulder and okay, fine, Lambert really can’t stay mad at the asshole. “You’ve ever seen a guy turn into a wraith? And I don’t mean the regular lantern waving pricks, but those.. you know, sunwraiths, noonwraiths, moonwraits, those things.”
“What?” Lambert repeats, blinking into the darkness. He moves his head to try and get a look at the cat, but the angle doesn’t allow it and Aiden hisses at him when he moves too much, so he just resigns himself for having this conversation blindfolded and half asleep.
“You know what a wraith is, gods above, you’re supposed to be the smart one here.” Aiden complains, digging a claw into Lambert’s thigh.
Lambert jabs a thumb under his rib as a very adequate response, “Rotting drowner’d be the smart one if it was traveling with you.” he answers, rolling his eyes. The heat accumulating between them is nice, though, and exhaustion still clings to him after the day they had, so there’s no fire in the words. “I know what wraiths are.”
A hum answers him and then Aiden shifts his head a bit, rubbing his cheek against the cloth of Lambert’s undershirt, like he’s trying to scratch his nose or something.
“Don’t get your hair on me, you shed like a damn stray cat.” Lambert tells him, gently moving an escaped strand of hair back behind Aiden’s ear.
“So have you or not?”
“Don’t think so..?” It takes Lambert a second to catch back up, distracted from the conversation by the man plastered to his side. But it’s true, not that he has ever paid too much attention to the fact. “Only gals turn into wraiths like that, I guess.” He should maybe be more alarmed about this being the topic of Aiden’s middle of the night ponderings, but again, he’s far too used to the man by now. “Why?”
Aiden shrugs against him and then yawns, that dick, settling his weight against Lambert like he’s seriously contemplating going to sleep like this. “Just doesn’t seem fair. Not like guys don’t get their hearts broken.”
Right. Lambert snorts, shaking his head, torn between fond and exasperated. “You planning on wandering the world and breaking hearts until some poor motherfucker turns wraith for you?”
“That’s an idea, but no.” Aiden grins, Lambert can feel the gesture against his skin, then turns his head to graze his teeth over the soft skin of the wolf’s neck. “I’d turn wraith if you dumped me.”
“You wouldn’t.” Lambert blinks down at the mess of curls, “You’re too dumb for that, kittycat,” he continues before Aiden can protest or get too far into the theory, “You’d fuck it up and turn into a rottfiend or somesuch shit instead.”
That finally makes Aiden straighten up, narrowing his eyes into luminous green-yellow slits to glare in his face, probably thinking he looks threatening and not like a puffed up kitten. “No way. Wraith, so I could haunt your sorry ass. And if you found another lover, I’d pop up and tell them how bad you used to be around a dick.”
Lambert laughs, a bark of mirth that he does try to stop but is unable to. “Yeah, well, our instructors taught us to fight monsters, not to suck dicks.”
“Always told you wolves don’t know how to have fun.”
“My point stands, though. You’d turn into those shitty exploding necrophages, just to annoy me. I’d waste an hour scraping your guts off my armor.” Lambert summarizes. He moves his arm, though, gently steering Aiden back against his side. When he settles, Lambert’s hand finds its way into the man’s hair and he strokes the strands gently, soothing them both back into a half asleep state.
Aiden bites his shoulder just to make a point, probably. However, he doesn’t protest getting moved into a more horizontal position so they can go back to sleep, so Lambert doesn’t complain. “‘Sides, I’m not gonna dump you, you fucking moron.”