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“Oy, pretty boy!” There’s a shit-eating grin on Lambert’s face, one that promises nothing good. What Geralt wants to say is Fuck off, but he’s tried that, and all it does is make Lambert double down on the nickname. He grunts into his porridge. Apparently, that’s all the encouragement Lambert needs because a moment later, he throws himself into the seat opposite Geralt. “Anything new about your bard?”
Geralt clenches his teeth. Unfortunately, he has just shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, which now has a decidedly wooden taste.
Lambert raises one eyebrow. Geralt doesn’t actually look up to see him do it, but he doesn’t need to. Knowing someone for several decades will do that to you. (Just like he knew, even before he said them, what certain words would do to Jaskier. He tunes back into Lambert’s words before he can loose himself in a memory that is just as useless as a squishy bard on a fraught hunt for a Dragon.) “Trouble in paradise?”
Geralt promptly wishes he hadn’t listened. He grunts again. Usually, Lambert knows better than to bother him this early in day. Or at all, really. Lambert didn’t come home last winter, and clearly that’s been enough time for him to forget everything about interacting with his brothers. Or maybe he’s just an asshole. That’s always a possibility, too.
Lambert scoffs when Geralt doesn’t do anything else except eat more of his breakfast. “Took off with your words, hm? You’re not that bad, usually.”
It’s rich, coming from Lambert. He usually rivals Geralt in his grumpiness, though he’s been a strange mixture of antsy and too cheerful this winter. Geralt has no idea why, but he also hasn’t asked. He hasn’t felt much like talking this winter. Almost like someone did indeed take off with his words. “Fuck off.”
Lambert does not fuck off. Instead, Coën wanders over and perches on the bench next to Lambert. “Is it because your sorceress ended things?”
Geralt whips his head up, too surprised to remember that he should ignore them. Coën shrugs. “There was a song so catchy that it couldn’t have been by anyone but your bard. Also, it talked about a heroic witcher saving a dragon, which rather cuts down on who it can refer to.”
Coën does such a good job of appearing polite and chivalrous that it’s easy to forget what an asshole he is. But he is. An asshole, that is. “Not my bard,” Geralt grates out. It hurts to say, but there is no way that Jaskier would like to be referred to as Geralt’s anymore. The same goes for Yennefer, but adding that would confirm Coën’s words, and she was… sort of, before. Enough that it’s not worth arguing now.
Lambert snorts in disbelief, as he always does when Geralt denies that Jaskier is his bard. (And that’s why Geralt does it. He’d always known it would end, and at least this way, he’d never lulled himself into a false sense of security in Jaskier’s companionship. (He skilfully ignores that it wasn’t Jaskier who ended things.)) But Geralt’s relief at Lambert’s reaction is short-lived, because Lambert adds, “How long are you gonna keep up that denial? He’s been following you for what, two decades now? That’s a long time, for a human.”
Geralt scoops another mouthful of porridge onto the cracked spoon and focuses on eating. (That’s another thing he has been ignoring rather studiously. Human ages have always been distant, but it’s different when it’s someone who is close to him, whether he wants them to our not. He knows he is just as mortal as them, but when he dies, it’ll be because of a mistake he will have made and not the march of time. Witchers don’t retire, they get slow and then killed.)
“I think you’ll have more luck with some White Gull,” Coën says when becomes clear Geralt won’t add anything. He’s probably right, damn him; Lambert’s been busy in the distillery which never bodes well for any of their tolerance of his brews. That’s something to worry about when they get to that, though. “In related news, I actually had the honour of hearing Geralt’s – pardon, I mean, the master himself play on my way here.”
It’s not said for Geralt’s benefit, and yet he can’t stop himself from perking up. He’s been careful not to follow Jaskier, careful to avoid his usual haunts. (He told himself it was because he didn’t want to run across him after what he had said, that he wanted to give him time and space to calm down again, but the relief he feels at the confirmation that Jaskier is alive shows that for the lie it is.)
“Don’t tell me it was another love song – gods, your face says it was.” Lambert rolls his eyes. Maybe Jaskier has calmed down already, if he’s singing love songs again. “I hate love songs.”
“Only the songs?” Coën raises one eyebrow. “What happened to hating love stories?”
Lambert shoves at Coën and Geralt sighs as he grabs another ladleful of porridge from a little further down the table. So much for a quiet breakfast; now he has congealed porridge and busybodies bothering him with their antics.
“Love stories suck,” Geralt murmurs even though he should know better about reminding them of his presence.
“You suck,” Lambert retorts automatically, even though Coën is right and he should be on Geralt’s side. Used to be. What the hell did he do last winter?
“Children,” Coën admonishes, as though he didn’t just use Lambert’s distraction to free himself out of the headlock Lambert had had him in and isn’t a decade younger than even Lambert.
“Children?” Lambert lurches for him, toppling both of them off the bench. Children indeed. “I’ll give you children.”
“As if I’d let you stick your dick into me!”
Geralt gathers up his bowl and steps away from the table that has suddenly become a rather hazardous zone with two immature witchers rolling around, grappling. He is tempted to add that dicks going places or not would be the least of their problems, what with them being witchers and men, but that will only remind them that they were bothering him before they got distracted with each other, and he really doesn’t want that.
If only Eskel were here – never mind, if Eskel had already made it back, Geralt wouldn’t have gotten out of this almost-interrogation as unscathed as he has.
Still, right now he might even accept that if only he had his oldest friend beside him. It will s be a long winter either way, and a longer year on the Path after that. But that, too, is something better left to worry about in the future.