Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aiden is the first to break the heavy silence between them. “It was an accident,” he pushes out, words bitter on his tongue. “I swear.”

Lambert doesn’t even look over or bother to stop, whittling down a splintered piece of bark into… well, smaller bark. His grip is tight enough around his dagger that Aiden can practically feel the handle pressing into his own palm as he watches. That’s how injuries usually go for them, and why they have to prepare every potion in duplicate. Lambert’s poison runs through Aiden’s blood. Lambert’s calluses ache at Aiden’s fingers. They’ve been together for so long that they move as one, fight as one, eat as one, sleep as one. Or, they had, anyway.

“If it was an accident,” Lambert retorts, “then take it back.”

It really had been an accident— they’d been fighting over something else entirely when it had slipped out. Aiden hadn’t meant to fuck everything up, but Lambert stokes a unique fury in him. He wishes he had said it differently; he’d had all these childish fantasies of grand romantic gestures or a big dramatic confession. Instead, he’d sworn it while stomping his feet and fighting the urge to shove Lambert down into the mud. You’re fucking lucky I love you so much, you whoreson, or I’d be long gone by now!

Even now that Lambert is turned away, shoulders raised to his ears, Aiden can still perfectly remember the instant agony that shot through his friend’s eyes like blood through water. Lambert was devastated. Suddenly the trivial details of their fight were history as the Wolf deflated, begging Aiden to take it back. And by begging, Aiden means honest-to-fuck begging, pleading Aiden to take it back, please, please don’t say that, you don’t mean it, don’t fucking say that, please!

Aiden does, in fact, mean it. He sniffs. “I can’t.”

“Oh yes you can,” Lambert snarls, finally whirling around to glare at Aiden over his shoulder. But despite how his voice quavers with rage, he just looks miserable, eyes downturned and damp. Aiden shakes his head quickly. “Easy! You say you were joking, I fake a laugh and call you a prick, you and I never talk of this again and we go back to whoring and saving the world or whatever the fuck it is we spend all our time doing!”

“I wasn’t joking,” Aiden mumbles, throat dry as ash. “I love you.”

For a second he thinks Lambert means to throw the dagger at him; Aiden would be able to dodge, of course, but he still braces himself for the impact. But the other witcher just points the blade at him, grip still white-knuckled. Still trembling. “Don’t say that. You don’t love me.”

Hearing it spoken aloud shatters the last of Aiden’s confidence. He shrugs half-heartedly, retreating into himself. “Fine,” he hears himself say. “Fine. I don’t love you, and you don’t love me, and we’re just two normal friends who spend every single day together, and we definitely don’t have a future together—”

Before he can continue, Lambert rises to his feet, stalking across their camp and throwing his dagger away into the dirt. “You’re going to ruin this,” he nearly cries. He grabs Aiden by the collar of his shirt and Aiden very, very carefully doesn’t move a muscle. “The first— the first good thing I’ve ever had in my fucking life, and you’re going to throw it away because you want to have a fling! You selfish bastard!”

“If I wanted to have a fling, I would have fucked you long before now,” Aiden grumbles. Lambert’s glare flashes red, but he doesn’t care; the arguing has worn him down and he feels too raw to turn back now. “I love you, Lambert.”

“Stop fucking saying that,” whimpers Lambert, still clinging onto his shirt. Their medallions dangle between them, nearly knocking against each other. It would be so easy for Aiden to touch Lambert, but he doesn’t, keeping his hands firmly at his side. “If you really… if you really do, you’ll never say that again.”

“Alright.” Aiden closes his eyes. By the time he opens them, Lambert has retreated to the other side of the camp and picked up his dagger again.