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Sliding off his horse, Lambert climbs the tree easily, untying the red knotted cord without much thought. Two knots, his fingers find. Not on a job then, just wandering. With just a glance he can tell–the cord is weathered equally, not discolored any more on the ends exposed to the elements than the bits tied inside the knots–that the cord hasn’t been there long. Less than a day, likely. Lambert looks in the direction the cord had pointed him in, almost smiling to himself. He knows the Continent well, and there’s a small village about half a day’s ride in just that direction.
“Soon,” he says, patting his horse on the neck before he mounts. Her ears twitch.
She’s right. It’s been too long.
It had been Aiden’s idea, way back when.
“Sure we leave messages at crossroads and villages, but this will be…for the two of us alone. A code no one else will understand, all with just a bit of cord. Our augmented eyes will pick it out easily, but the humans will almost never see. We’ve both been around for a time now; do they ever look up?”
Lambert had grimaced. He’d more than once seen humans killed from above because they’d forgotten that threats didn’t always come from level ground. “Fucking idiots,” he’d muttered.
Ignoring him, Aiden continued. “And even if they do happen to notice, what will they see? Just a bit of cord tied around a branch. They’ll think nothing of it and move on.”
Lambert had to admit, it was a clever system. Follow the direction the branch points you in. Two knots meant I’m just wandering the Path, three meant I’m on a hunt but I’m fine, four meant I’ve got a job and could use your help, and five meant FIND ME NOW DON’T STOP. (They’d only had to use five once, that time Aiden had been tricked into tracking a whole pack of odd, mutated werewolves. Thankfully Lambert had been close.)
“We’ll color code them too. You can use yellow, I’ll use red.”
“Why yellow?” Lambert made a face.
Aiden grinned, flashing his sharp teeth.. “For your bright and sunny disposition, of course.”
“Fuck you,” Lambert said, but there was no heat to it. “And red for your hot temper,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Nah, I just like red,” Aiden said cheerfully.
And did his eyes flick to Lambert’s hair? Lambert shook himself. Get a fucking grip. He’s your friend, he’s not thinking of you that way.
Aiden, naturally, already had the cord. “Save the bits you untie, you can return them to me to use again.”
Lambert grunted.
On the lookout for markers now, Lambert’s not surprised to find one a few hours later. Still two knots, so no new problems to report. He notices Aiden’s scent on this one; mellow, slightly of the sea. There’s a warming, low in his belly, and he growls inadvertently.
Lambert throws a punch at the trunk of the tree, bloodying his knuckles. It’s clarifying, the pain. His stomach flips, righting itself. He can’t let Aiden see his true feelings, can’t scare his best friend away. Because somehow bright, warm Aiden cares about a prickly fuckup like him, and he can’t do anything to ruin that. He can’t. He won’t.
Instead of climbing down the tree he jumps, startling his horse. “Easy girl. Easy.”
She gives him a reproachful glare.
“I know,” he mutters. “But my life is fucking complicated. I was having a moment.”
As he mounts she blows through her lips. The horse version of a derisive snort.
“Thanks for the fucking pep talk,” he growls.
Lambert doesn’t expect another marker–the village is close enough that he can smell gathered domestic animals and smoke from fireplaces and woodstoves, though no human could–so he’s surprised when a flicker of red catches his eye less than two hours after the last one. And it’s…Lambert tilts his head, squinting. There enough leaves in the tree that he can’t see it clearly, but it looks like…
He practically leaps into the tree from his horse’s back. She glares at him again, but he’ll apologize later. Buy her oats in the village or some other nonsense.
In less than a minute Lambert is staring at the red cord, knotted around the tree branch. But it’s not the normal knots this time, not Aiden’s usual simple style. He’d been right about what he thought he’d seen from the base of the tree.
The cord is knotted into the shape of a heart.
Aiden had been the one with all the ideas about the knots being a code. Could…could Aiden be trying to tell him something? A heart seems like…well, it seems like a fairly fucking obvious code.
Something new flutters in Lambert’s stomach.
Hope.
When he gets to the inn Lambert’s so nervous his hands shake and he fumbles at the buckles on his horse’s saddle. She blows spit at him, but he ignores her. He’s too intent on getting this done and getting inside. But he doesn’t rush the work, he gives his girl a proper grooming, even removing the few tangles she’d managed to acquire in her tail. When he leaves she lips at his hair, both a comfort and an apology.
“I’m sorry too, girl. You deserve better than me, but you’ve always done me well. Maybe I’ll even let Aiden talk me into naming you this time.” She butts her head against his shoulder, and he scratches her up under her mane, where she likes it.
It’s bustling inside the inn, loud and crowded and smelling of happiness and humans. But there’s the comforting scent of Aiden too, and yes, there’s Geralt and his bard as well, the latter sitting on stool tuning his lute while chatting with the five or six people hovering nearby, waiting for him to sing. Geralt’s at a table just off to the side, eyes fixed on Jaskier. He looks like he might be getting ready to smile.
What has that bard done to his brother?
“Lambert!”
Aiden’s voice breaks through Lambert’s thoughts, snapping him to the moment. He turns to find Aiden’s snuck up behind him, and his Cat is smiling so bright it doesn’t matter that the room is dimly lit.
“Aide,” Lambert says, low and rough. Before he can get a proper look at Aiden he’s caught up in the Cat’s usual tight embrace, and he’s overwhelmed by the scent and feel of Aiden. He’d like to stay here all day, all night, but of course it only lasts a moment and then Aiden’s clapping him on the back and grinning and asking him to sit and tell him how he’s been faring on the Path.
They’re at a table next to a window; for a moment all Lambert can see is the way the light from the setting sun flares purple and orange in Aiden’s unruly curls. He’s nearly intoxicated.
He wonders if Aiden ever feels this way looking at him, but easily dismisses the thought. Aiden is beautiful. Lambert is just…just surly. Everyone says so. He’s prickly and sour and an unruly bastard. The best that can be said of him is that his face is simply ordinary.
A serving girl puts ale and stew on the table before them, along with two good chunks of thick brown bread, breaking Lambert out of his thoughts. Aiden makes an almost indecent noise and Lambert laughs. “Been a bit between proper meals, then?” he teases.
“Been living on jerky and carrots for more’n a week. I came across an old man whose farm was being terrorized by a– well, he swore it was a werewolf, but it turned out to be just an ordinary wolf. Very big, and very rabid, so crazy as fuck, but an ordinary wolf all the same. Still, I killed it, so it couldn’t kill any more of his farm animals, and then, since he had no coin to speak of, he insisted on paying me with armloads of carrots. I’m afraid I might turn orange. Do I look orange to you?”
Such an odd tale, told with Aiden’s usual easy smile, but ended with such a serious question…well, Lambert can’t help tweak his tail a bit. “Well, actually…” he says, gesturing with his ale in the general direction of Aiden’s face.
“What?” Aiden gasps.
Lambert laughs, nearly spilling his ale all over the table. “You know, just a bit around the face,” he says, then laughs again. When Aiden begins sputtering, Lambert sets down his ale and, rather boldly, takes Aiden’s flailing hands in his own. “It’s the light from the sunset,” he says, squeezing gently. “It’s all orange and purple. It’s..” He looks around the room, as though words float in the empty space and he can just pluck them for use as needed. Giving up and looking back at Aiden, he finally just says, “It’s nice.”
Aiden’s looking at him with the most peculiar expression on his face. Confusion, amusement, and affection all seem to be vying for the top spot. Finally Aiden says, his voice even, “Thanks, Lamb. I’m glad you’re here, I’ve missed you.”
Oh fuck. Lambert doesn’t know if he’s ready for serious talk. Sure, he’d been the one to start it, but he’d only been teasing, messing with Aiden. Hadn’t he? He wants to say all the things he’s been holding in for years, that he lives for the times he has with Aiden, that winters without Aiden are becoming too much to bear, that he never sleeps when he has to share a bed with Aiden because he knows if he does he’ll wake up with his arms and legs and everything wrapped around Aiden and there would be no way to hide his feelings after that… But he’s been not saying all that for so long, he’s not sure he knows how.
To say it again: Oh, fuck.
Lambert looks down and jerks his hands away, making it look like he’s suddenly famished and needs to get busy eating. He’s sure the stew is good, it looks to be full of root vegetables–including, he’s amused to note, carrots–plus a good portion of meat, but he can’t taste a thing.
For a few minutes they eat in a silence bordering on awkward. Lambert is trying to figure out how to talk, how to ask what’s going on, what Aiden meant by the heart-shaped knot. Aiden keeps darting quick glances at Lambert, like he’s trying to figure something out. Still, he looks relaxed enough, which Lambert can’t understand. If he’d done something like Aiden had done, he would be a wreck.
“You saw Geralt and Jaskier?” Aiden finally asks, nodding his head back towards where the bard is peacocking his way about the room. Lambert rolls his eyes; Aiden grins. “They got here not long after me. Jaskier, somewhere between chattering a tale about a kikimora and a rather humorous recounting of Geralt covered in mud from…oh, something or other, told me they got the last room. But you can share with me, we’ve done that before often enough. Bed looks plenty big enough for two. And I’ve had a bath already, would you like me to call up for one for you?”
Lambert had been laughing at the image of Geralt covered in mud, but he’d frozen–body and mind–when Aiden had so casually mentioned sharing a bed.
Finally it just bursts out of him. Everything, all at once. “How can you just be sitting there like that? Just fucking smiling and acting like nothing’s changed? Or are you…” It hits him, suddenly, that maybe Aiden’s been waiting for him to do something. Aiden left the coded message, now it’s Lambert’s turn to answer.
Aiden’s looking at him with wide, bewildered eyes, but he’s waiting for Lambert to go on. So he takes a breath and says, “You know me, Aiden. Better than anyone, I think. I’m a fucking asshole, more likely to snap than utter a nice word. But I…” He looks into Aiden’s eyes, those perfect Cat eyes, and suddenly it’s easy to finish. “I love you, Aiden. I have for an age, I think. And if you want me to do that from a distance I will, but I hope you’ll let me closer. I dream about holding you while we sleep, about having your scent wrapped around me so closely that my brothers mistake me for a Cat the next time they see me. I want to run my fingers through your curls, to press my lips against the nape of your neck. And I don’t want to say goodbye when winter comes, Aide. I can’t take another winter without you. It’s bleak enough without losing you, too.”
Lambert slumps back in his seat, exhausted by the effort of letting go of so much. He doesn’t look at Aiden. He can’t. He’s too vulnerable, too raw. He can hear Aiden’s heart, a little faster than normal, and his breath, a bit erratic. These are the facts, but he’s not sure how to read them.
Then Aiden slides down the bench, and when Lambert looks up he’s there, standing next to Lambert…holding out a hand. “Lamb?” he says.
Looking into Aiden’s eyes, taking his hand, it feels like something important, like the answer to a question he’s been asking for his whole life. Like finding solid ground when he’s been drowning. Like reaching the summit of a mountain he’s been climbing for hundreds of years.
There may not be a question, but Lambert’s answer is “yes.”
Yes and yes and yes.
He takes Aiden’s hand and then…he doesn’t remember standing, doesn’t remember Aiden’s other hand gently cupping his cheek, but suddenly that’s where they are, and then Aiden’s soft lips are brushing against his.
He knows they’re in a crowded, noisy inn. He knows the sun is setting behind him. He knows Jaskier is singing and strumming his lute.
Lambert knows these things, but in the few moments he stands with Aiden’s lips barely touching his, everything else ceases to matter. He always thought this would be nice, would probably even be better than any other kiss he’d ever had. But this…
This is coming home.
“Aiden,” he whispers, not pulling away. Their lips buzz together when he speaks; a spark runs down his spine.
The hand holding his squeezes tight. “Been waiting for this so long, Lamb,” Aiden says. He presses their foreheads together. “Hoping. What made–”
From across the room comes a loud crowing, followed by a flourish on the lute. Jaskier. And then he’s there, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Finally! Ah, this is lovely, I knew all you two needed was a little push!” He strums another dramatic flair and then is gone, back toward Geralt, calling out, “Darling, do you see? Look at Lambert and Aiden! I think Lambert may actually be smiling!”
“Fuck off, bard,” Lambert says, not looking away from Aiden. Aiden grins.
But Lambert has a sick feeling in his stomach. A push? Does that mean…
“Aiden,” he says carefully, “the last marker you put up. The closest to the inn. Was it…different…than the others?”
Baffled, Aiden shakes his head. “Two knots, same as the others.”
Lambert groans, drops his forehead onto Aiden’s shoulder. He’s sure his face is as red as the cord Aiden knots in the trees.
“That fucking bard. I don’t know where he got the cord, but it was that– And probably Geralt too. He had to– Fuck. This could have been a fucking disaster. Fuck!”
Aiden takes him by the shoulders and separates them enough so they’re eye to eye. “Tell me, Lambert.”
Lambert tries to close his eyes but Aiden makes a noise that makes it clear that that’s not allowed. Lambert’s answering smirk says, “well, I tried…”
“The last marker, it wasn’t just two knots. It was a fancy knot. In the shape of a heart. It was your idea to use the knots as code, so I just thought...” Lambert knows his face is turning red again, and he’s sure Aiden will be embarrassed too, so he’s surprised when Aiden bursts into laughter.
“That Jaskier, he pays attention. And he’s patient too, I’ll give him that.” Aiden’s laughing, but he sounds like he’s almost proud. Lambert must look as muddled as he feels, because Aiden quickly goes on. “I ran into the two of them a few months back, Geralt and his bard. I was up a tree, tying a marker for you, and they asked what I was doing, so I explained. There was no harm in them knowing. Jaskier was quite interested, but of course he’s interested in everything, always taking notes with that fancy quill of his. He even asked me to teach him a few knots. I actually taught him that heart-shaped knot, I was showing off!” He shakes his head in wonderment. “When we were done he asked for a piece of the red cord to practice with. Geralt started to say he had plenty of rope when Jaskier elbowed him in the chest. ‘Your rope is boring, Geralt dear. And rough. This is pretty, and much softer. Please, Aiden?’ And he flashed his smile and of course I gave him a piece. He must have been scheming even then.”
Even Lambert is impressed. He’d never seen such conniving in the bard. Maybe he deserves further observation. Certainly he deserves a thank you.
As if Aiden is reading his mind, he says, “We should buy them a bottle of wine. We owe them that much, at least.”
Lambert slips his arms around Aiden. “We don’t have to talk to them, do we? We can just have it sent to them? I’d like to have you to myself for…awhile.”
Aiden’s eyes widen and there’s a purring noise deep in his chest. “I think that can be arranged.”
“Show me the way to our room, then, Cat.”