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“You’re lurking, little brother.”
Lambert doesn’t bother turning around. “What of it?”
Gweld props a forearm on Lambert’s shoulder, leaning against him heavily enough that Lambert has to brace himself against the balcony’s railing. Brothers. Ugh. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to set the ballroom curtains on fire just by glaring at them, you know.”
“I can try,” Lambert grumbles. Maybe if the fucking curtains catch on fire, their father will cancel this stupid fucking ball.
It’s not likely, but it’s possible.
“It won’t be that bad,” Gweld says coaxingly. “Drink a bit, dance a bit, try not to insult too many people, it’ll be over before you know it.”
“Easy for you to say,” Lambert snarls. Easy for any of his brothers to say, when they’re well safe from the ravenous packs of husband-hungry noble daughters and younger sons. Geralt’s already married with a child, the bastard, Eskel likes the game of courtly flirtation, and Gweld’s betrothal contract is signed and sealed and nobody sane would try to poach on his fiance’s turf. So none of them have much sympathy for Lambert, who hates the feeling of being hunted like a particularly fat stag more virulently than he hates almost anything else, which is saying something. (He could have been as safe as his brothers, if - but thinking about that is useless.)
“Maybe you’ll even meet someone you like!” Gweld says, the eternal optimist.
“Maybe pigs will fly and shit on your head,” Lambert growls, and shrugs Gweld’s arm off so he can stomp down the stairs. Gweld lets him go.
(There was someone he liked, and who liked him in return, but - but thinking about that doesn’t help anything.)
Four hours later, he’s standing in the reception line, dressed in perfectly-pressed formal clothes that feel like they ought to itch even if they’re actually quite comfortable, trying to keep his expression as close to neutral as it ever gets as he bows greetings to a seemingly endless stream of hungry-eyed guests.
He wants quite desperately to be just about anywhere else. Out roaming the forest, maybe, or down in the tavern in town listening to a bard sing the sorts of bawdy songs that will never be played in this formal ballroom, or hell, even just up in his room with a book. (Or here, even here, if - gods damn it. It’s not possible, and Lambert needs to stop thinking about it.)
Finally the last guest has trooped into the hall, and Lambert’s father makes a short speech of welcome before leading Lady Mignole out onto the floor to open the dancing. Lambert grits his teeth and picks a girl mostly at random from among the small horde simpering at him. Six dances, and then there’s a break for gossip and refreshments and he can escape into the gardens for a while. He just has to make it through six full rounds of people batting their eyelashes at him hopefully.
He’s the fourth son, he’s barely even got a courtesy title, he’s got the temper of an irritated badger and the looks of one too, why the fuck are they so interested in him anyhow?
He knows why. It’s because his father is a good man, and has enough lands that he’s declared that each of his sons will have their own holdings. Lambert’s future includes a tract of beautiful forest down near the southern mountains, with a hunting lodge that will be perfectly sufficient for one man or a small family and a handful of servants to keep it clean, and enough money set aside that he won’t have to worry about how to keep a household afloat if he’s sensible and maybe takes up breeding hunting hounds to sell or something to that effect. It won’t be as glamorous as being the duke, nor as important as being the family’s representative at court, nor as varied as being sent off to distant countries to make friends and influence people, but it will suit Lambert right down to the ground. (It would have suited - fuck. No. He needs to stop this.)
He is grateful, when he’s not miserably furious, that his father has put such thought into what future would suit the temperaments of each of his younger sons. But that future seems very far in the future just now, when Lambert is surrounded by the cloying scents of far too many perfumes and feeling utterly stifled by the high collar of his formal tunic.
Five more dances. Four more. Three more. Two. One, and then finally the music stops and Lambert can bow over his partner’s hand and bring her a glass of watered wine and excuse himself - mostly politely - and escape out the door into the gardens. Eskel, who isn’t a complete asshole, covers his retreat, distracting several of the guests with a tale that’s just on the edge of too scandalous to tell in polite company.
The gardens closest to the house are brightly lit, with lanterns dangling from every tree, and will soon be thronged with guests taking the air between dance sets, but once Lambert gets a decent way into the grounds, the only light is the moon high above. He can feel the tension draining from him with every step away from the light and noise of the crowded ballroom.
Finally he gets to his favorite spot, a low hill with a broad-branched oak at the top of it, and leans back against the tree’s trunk with a sigh. Fuck, he’s already exhausted and there’s still half the night to go.
He tilts his head back, closing his eyes, and loosens his collar, and just…breathes for a while. The wind is pleasantly cool against his face, and he can smell green growing things instead of too-strong perfume, and he doesn’t have to try to be polite to an endless throng of people he doesn’t know and doesn’t care to.
Finally he heaves a sigh and opens his eyes -
And freezes, staring up into the face of someone he recognizes.
“You’re dead,” he croaks after a long, frozen moment.
“Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Aiden replies, swinging himself down out of the tree with the same easy grace he’s always had.
He looks - well, he kind of looks like shit, actually. There’s a patch over one eye which only conceals some of what certainly appears to be a nasty scar. He’s far too lean, and his beautiful hair is hacked off to just below his ears, instead of falling halfway down his back in silk-soft waves.
But he’s here. Impossibly, inexplicably, inconceivably here.
“Exaggerated bullshit,” Lambert rasps, staring incredulously at his lover, who has been dead for almost two horrid, miserable years. “What the fuck, Aiden? Where have you been?”
Two years ago, Aiden had been ambushed on the narrow mountain pass between their fathers’ lands - that was the news brought to Lambert, long days after the fact. The merchants who ran across the bloated body of Aiden’s horse had found the unmistakable signs that someone had gone over the cliff and into the river below - snowmelt, that river, and rushing fast enough that even a strong swimmer is more likely to drown than reach the shore. And there had been more blood than could be explained by the horse alone.
Lambert had ridden out to see the site of the ambush - had climbed down the fucking cliff to check the riverbanks, just in case - had paid fishermen in every village along the river to tell him if they caught anything in their nets that might have been the remains of a drowned man. But there had been no sign of Aiden’s body.
Apparently because he’s alive, what the fuck.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Aiden says, shrugging. “The short version is my cousin tried to kill me. I took an arrow to the head and went over the cliff, and I don’t remember much between that and being fished out of the river down by the coast.”
Lambert grits his teeth. “And you didn’t send for me?”
“No, I didn’t,” Aiden says softly. “Because for most of a year I didn’t even know who the hell I was, and also I was half out of my head with pain and infection.”
Lambert winces. “Shit. I - shit. Sorry.”
Aiden shakes his head. “It wasn’t great,” he says. “And then once I got my wits back I figured - well. I figured maybe you’d have moved on. A year’s a long time, and I know you’ve got a line of suitors longer than the river.”
“You know I don’t want any of ‘em, too,” Lambert snarls.
Aiden shrugs. “Maybe you’d changed your mind,” he says. “I don’t want to fight about it, Lam, please?”
Lambert swallows hard. “Never gonna change my mind, you bastard,” he says weakly, and steps forward, wrapping his arms carefully around Aiden’s too-thin form. Aiden is stiff and still for a moment before seeming almost to shatter, collapsing against Lambert’s chest and tucking his head under Lambert’s chin. His fists close on the loose cloth of Lambert’s tunic tightly enough that the fabric creaks.
Lambert tightens his grip and clings, burying his nose in Aiden’s hair and inhaling the scent of smoke and cinnamon that doesn’t actually seem to have anything to do with Aiden’s soap.
“Which cousin?” he rasps.
“The dead one,” Aiden replies, muffled against Lambert’s tunic. “I got the fucker.”
“Shoulda let me help,” Lambert whispers.
“I should’ve,” Aiden agrees. “I didn’t tell anyone, though. Not my brothers, not my father. Nobody until the fucker was dead. I didn’t - I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t have you get hurt too.”
“Ah, Aiden,” Lambert murmurs. “You damned idiot.” He presses a kiss to Aiden’s hair. He feels like he’s drunk with joy, happiness bubbling in his chest like a wellspring. Aiden is alive, is here in his arms again - sure, he needs some good meals and a visit to a decent healer, but he’s here. It’s more than Lambert has let himself dream of, these last two miserable years. “The next time you need to take bloody vengeance on someone, you gotta let me help, alright?”
“I will,” Aiden says. “I just - fuck, Lam, it was…I don’t think I was thinking clearly from the moment that arrow hit me until the filthy traitor was dead.”
Lambert sighs. “Yeah, alright. And it’s not like I’m gonna let you out of my sight long enough for you to get into that sort of trouble without me again. Uh. Assuming you’ll still have me.”
“Fuck,” Aiden says, and pulls back just far enough that he can cradle Lambert’s face in his hands. “Fuck, yes, if you still want me I’m yours, Lam -”
Lambert kisses him.
Aiden makes a tiny, startled noise against his lips and then melts into the kiss, mouth opening under Lambert’s and single eye fluttering closed.
It’s been two fucking years. Lambert tries to pour every bit of his relief and joy into the kiss, every drop of the bubbling happiness filling his soul. Aiden moans softly, hands sliding into Lambert’s hair to keep him from pulling away - as if Lambert would want to. As if he could possibly want anything but for this moment to go on forever.
It can’t, of course, but they only part far enough to rest their foreheads together.
“Come back to the ball with me,” Lambert says softly.
“Yeah?” Aiden murmurs. “Need me to save you from the horde, Lam?”
“Don’t want to dance with anyone but you,” Lambert admits.
“I’m not really dressed for a party -”
“Don’t care,” Lambert interrupts him. “I don’t care, Aiden, I’ve got you back, you could be wearing sackcloth, or rags, or nothing at all -”
Aiden laughs - throws his head back and laughs, beautiful in the moonlight, bright and lovely as a dream. “If I was wearing nothing at all, I don’t think we’d be talking about dancing,” he teases, giving Lambert a brilliant smile. “Or not the upright kind. Alright, Lam, let’s go shock the assembled gentry with my miraculous survival.”
Lambert offers Aiden his arm, grinning, and Aiden loops his own arm around Lambert’s elbow and follows him down the hill and towards the lights and music of the ballroom.
Lambert has never faced a party with such a light and gleeful heart before. And gods willing, the next time his father throws a ball, Lambert won’t need to worry about hordes of hopeful husband-hunters. Not with Aiden at his side.