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The first time Jaskier properly meets Lambert, the Witcher nearly breaks the bard’s nose.
Jaskier doesn’t blame him, not really. Waking up from a delirious fever-sleep to the sight of a strange man leaning over you would startle anyone, and well, Witchers tend to wake up swinging anyway. Jaskier’s certainly been on the receiving end of that fright before. He won’t hold it against Lambert for going straight into fight mode.
He does, however, fully hold Lambert accountable for the volley of insults he shouts at Jaskier for the next hour, all while Jaskier is still bleeding from that punch.
It’s not often Jaskier stumbles across a Witcher on accident, though he admits it probably happens to him more often than it does the average Joe.
Even more rare that he stumbles upon a Witcher that he doesn’t know in some fashion, though, and this is certainly no one he’s ever met, or heard of, that he recalls. The Wolf medallion half-strangling him indicates that Geralt may know him, though, which also means Jaskier might have heard of him. Nothing that jumps out at him now, though.
Not that Jaskier needed any kind familiarity as incentive to help a Witcher. Especially one that he finds passed out in a ditch.
He has a hell of a time getting the poor man out of that ditch. Jaskier is stronger than he looks, of course, he’s a lot of things he doesn’t look like, but Witchers are also much heavier than they look.
Something about muscle mass and the mutations. Geralt had told him, once, and Jaskier hadn’t listened. The specifics don’t really matter when Witchers are heavier than they should be suffices. So he has a rough time getting this unknown Witcher out of the ditch, and an even rougher time getting his dead-weight body onto the back of a horse.
Jaskier’s pretty gray stallion is less than enthused, to say the least. He makes many pretty promises of oats and apples, though, and Mint doesn’t buck the Witcher off, so he figures it’s alright. It takes a while for them to make it into town, both because of the Witcher’s weight over Mint’s back and because Jaskier doesn’t want to jostle the poor man any more than necessary, conscious or not.
He wonders what, exactly, made a Witcher pass out in a ditch. It certainly can’t be good; he knows that much, at least.
The healer is reluctant to even look at the Witcher, never mind touch him and whatever else is necessary to make sure the man lives. The usual application of too much of Jaskier’s money and casually flipping his dagger between his hands does the trick, though, and the man finally allows them in. Jaskier is left on his own to carry the Witcher from the horse to the bed, but he manages. With a minimal amount of grumbling.
“Poison,” the healer mutters. “I can smell it.”
“I can’t smell anything except blood and sweat and horse,” Jaskier says, pleasantly. “But I’ll trust your expertise.”
The healer frowns at him. “You should have left him to die,” he mutters.
Jaskier starts fiddling with his dagger again, pointedly, and hums. “No, I don’t think I should have,” he says, tone still pleasant, though his expression certainly isn’t. The healer won’t look directly at him. Good. “Now, can you help him, or tell me how to?”
The healer – Jaskier didn’t get a name and at this point, he doesn’t need or want one, the man isn’t worth the effort – shrugs one shoulder and busies himself with bandaging a nasty cut on the Witcher’s arm. “Witchers are different,” he says, finally. “I can give you an antidote, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work. Might just have to burn through his system, and if it can’t, well.”
“Yes, yes, we know your opinion on the matter,” Jaskier says, with no small amount of contempt. “Will the antidote cost me more?”
The healer glances to the dagger in Jaskier’s hands and shakes his head.
Ten minutes later, Jaskier has the Witcher back onto Mint’s back and a small vial of antidote in his pocket. One dose has already been administered; he’ll have to see that the second and third doses are done correctly, assuming the Witcher doesn’t die or wake up between now and then. He finds and inn and deposits the Witcher there, then quickly finds a stable for Mint, paying for the oats and apples he was promised earlier.
He also threatens the stable hand with his dagger before he leaves, but that’s not as important. He laughs, though, because once upon a time, he’d thought Geralt unnecessarily brutish for doing the same, but now he understands. More so after the one night in some backwater hamlet nearby Oxenfurt that Mint had been unreasonably nervous after a stay in the stables.
The Witcher is still out cold when he returns to the room, so he goes about the rest of his business. He calls up a bath and some food, and once that’s finished, starts arranging the room to his liking. He leaves the Witcher alone. He can’t imagine that sleeping in that armor will do the man any favors, but he also knows that removing it will cause more problems than it will solve. Besides, Jaskier can tell that removing the armor will just make the Witcher's skin look even more colorless, and it's a bit unsettling already - he's clearly a decently pale man naturally, and added together with the poison and whatever other indignities he's experienced, he looks almost eerie.
Jaskier sits in his own bed and watches this mysterious Witcher and starts to compose.
It’s several hours later that Jaskier finally stands and goes back over to the other bed. The Witcher has hardly stirred, and it’s time for that second dose of antidote. He uncorks the small vial, careful of the delicate glass and the precious liquid inside, and leans forward to reach out and try to pry the Witcher’s mouth open.
Of course, that’s when the Witcher wakes up.
So Lambert punches him, gives him a nosebleed, and then insults him in increasingly colorful ways for an hour.
Hardly the worst first meeting Jaskier’s ever had.
“Oh, you’ve got to be Lambert,” Jaskier mutters once he’s finally stemmed the bleeding from his nose. “Wolf School and a temper hotter than Igni, there’s no one else you could be.”
That finally shuts the Witcher up, and Jaskier grins triumphantly.
It doesn’t last long, though. Oh well. “Who the fuck are you?”
Jaskier snorts and gestures widely to his lute. “Who do you think I am?”
“A menace and a fucking creep,” Lambert answers bitingly.
Jaskier just grins again. “Well, those too,” he replies. “I’m Jaskier, or Dandelion, a notably famous bard across the whole Continent. Notably famous because of the White Wolf I sing about, a man I’m sure you know in some fashion.”
Lambert gives him a dead-eyed look that would frighten anyone else. As it is, Jaskier just takes a flourishing bow and moves across the room to change out of his now bloodstained chemise.
“Geralt’s bard,” Lambert finally says, as if it physically pains him to do so.
“That I am, my good man,” Jaskier replies jovially. “You’re lucky it was me that found you in that ditch.”
“Should have left me there to die,” Lambert spits. “Would have been more dignified than this.”
“Funnily enough, that’s what the healer told me, too,” Jaskier says. He doesn’t drop his jovial tone, but it sharpens, and Jaskier knows Lambert notices because he sits up straighter. “Good thing I’m notorious for never doing what anyone thinks I should. Also, fuck dignity.”
He turns back to his pack and pulls out a tunic to change into. Silence as heavy as iron sits between them until Jaskier turns around.
Lambert is just staring at him. “Get the fuck out,” he says.
“Well, that was sort of the plan,” Jaskier nods agreeably, gesturing to where he’s changed his shirt, “although I also plan to return, and I’m sure that’s the part you’ll take issue with.”
“Yes,” Lambert grunts. “Don’t come back.”
Jaskier laughs, loud and just a little too cold to be real. Lambert straightens again. “I don’t take orders,” Jaskier says, voice light but with intent as firm as the steel of Lambert’s sword. “Especially not from Witchers who made me bleed.”
Of course, that’s not exactly true. Geralt has made him bleed several times and he’ll still take orders from that Witcher. The difference is that Geralt, by now, only orders Jaskier around when it’s for Jaskier’s safety. And Lambert, as fiery and probably well-meaning as he is, knows truly fuck all about Jaskier’s safety or how to keep it.
“You should,” Lambert says, and there’s arrogance in his tone, something that Jaskier, as kind as he is and can be, just isn’t going to let stand.
Three large steps have him across the room, his dagger slipped out of its secondary hiding-place-slash-home in his boot. He leans down until he’s eye-to-eye with Lambert, twirling the dagger in his hand casually between their bodies. “Like I said before, I’ve never done anything I should have,” Jaskier says, tone flat and dangerous, and Lambert’s eyes go comically wide. “I’m not about to start now. Also, dear Witcher,” Jaskier flips the dagger, an impressive move he’s learned specifically for its intimidation factor, “I paid for the room, so if anyone is going to be getting out, it’ll be you.”
Lambert swallows audibly, very clearly taken aback by Jaskier. Jaskier grins like the wolf that he absolutely shouldn’t be, and leans back, still fiddling with his dagger.
“I’ll leave then,” Lambert finally says, temper apparently banked for now. It’s the shock, Jaskier knows.
Jaskier is much more than he appears, but he can’t actually best a Witcher in a fight. At least, not a physical one.
“No,” Jaskier shakes his head. “You’re hurt, and I’m not keen on finding you in another ditch. I fear the next time it happens you won’t be alive.”
“You can’t – ”
“I can do as I damn well please, Lambert, and what pleases me right now is telling you to sit and stay like a good little dog,” Jaskier interrupts, sharply. He’s not usually this…unhinged, but Lambert rather obviously won’t heed anything else. It’s kind of nice to let it out, if Jaskier is being honest, but that’s all beside the point right now. “You’ll tell me about how you ended up nearly dead in a ditch later. For now, I’m going to get us some food.”
He slips his dagger back into his boot and grabs his bag. Lambert is still staring at him, wide-eyed and mouth slightly open, when he disappears out the door.
It doesn’t take him long to get food and another bath ordered, but he lingers downstairs a little bit. He cases the patrons and the owners and decides that they probably won’t give them any trouble. Unless one of them was the person who contracted Lambert, that is, but he’ll burn that bridge after he crosses it, thank you very much.
Lambert is still in the room when he returns. Which was exactly what he wanted, but frankly, he wasn’t necessarily expecting it.
Hell, even Geralt has left, still injured, after Jaskier has gotten a little mouthy with him. Lambert both doesn’t know him and probably doesn’t like him, so there’s no real reason he would have actually listened to Jaskier.
All the same, it is what he wanted, so Jaskier doesn’t show any shock or relief on his face. “Food will be up shortly, and so will a bath,” he says, tone brooking no argument. “Keep those fists to yourself when they bring the water up, hm? We don’t need to be kicked out.”
Lambert grits his teeth but doesn’t speak, instead just nodding and glaring down at the bed between his knees.
Jaskier allows him space to brood for approximately three minutes before he’s sick of it.
“Alright, up,” he says, reaching over to Lambert’s arm but not touching it, not yet. He’ll posture all he needs to, but unless Lambert actually consents to his help with the armor – or anything else, aside from maybe more of the poison antidote, if it’s necessary – it’s not happening.
The last things he needs is to make a Witcher feel really, truly trapped. That won’t end well for anyone. It certainly didn’t end well for Jaskier’s balls or Geralt’s mental wellbeing when it happened for the first – and last time – between them.
“That armor cannot be comfortable, and in case you’re completely dim, the bath they’ll be bringing up is for you,” Jaskier continues, hand still hovering just over the buckle across Lambert’s bicep.
The Witcher glares up at him, but Jaskier just looks back, as calm as ever.
Or, well, maybe not calm.
But if Lambert thinks his glare and snarl are going to intimidate Jaskier, he’s sorely mistaken.
They remain at an impasse – Jaskier going no further, and Lambert glaring at him, daring him to do something – until after the second bath has been brought up. If the workers see anything odd about this encounter, they keep their mouths shut. Jaskier’s sure the gossip will abound downstairs, but that’s hardly his problem right now, and if necessary, he’ll deal with it. Later.
“Well?” he prods, finally.
Lambert’s frown etches deeper into his face. “I can get it off myself,” he mutters, and practically throws himself out of the bed, away from Jaskier.
Jaskier laughs. “I never said you couldn’t, Witcher,” he says. “Let me know if you want me to wash your back.”
“Does Geralt let you wash his?” Lambert asks, with a sneer, like it’s some kind of insult, and Jaskier just laughs again, full-bodied.
Lambert turns to look at him and Jaskier flashes him the same wolfish grin from before. “He does,” Jaskier confirms. “And his hair.”
He leaves out all of the other things he does for Geralt, but he thinks Lambert catches the drift. The Witcher frowns again, even deeper than before, and turns back to undressing and getting into the bath rather mechanically. Jaskier doesn’t bother to school his expression.
Lambert almost definitely doesn’t like him. But Jaskier definitely likes Lambert.
Jaskier eats his dinner and goes back to composing while Lambert soaks. Neither of them speak – at least, not to one another, and not more than whispered mumblings under their breath – until long after Lambert has dried off and started on his own dinner.
“So, what left a mighty Wolf School Witcher half-dead in a ditch?” Jaskier asks.
Lambert looks up at him, a glint in his eyes. So he caught the insult in that. Good. Jaskier just smirks back, and the Witcher actually snarls, tearing a chunk out of the bread he’s holding in a perfect mimicry of the animal engraved on his medallion.
“Going to answer my question?” Jaskier prods.
“Fuck you,” Lambert hisses, and eats more of his dinner savagely. Jaskier laughs.
“No,” he answers. That makes Lambert look at him again, rage in his eyes and shock in the slackness of his jaw. Jaskier grins. “Tell me what almost bested you, and maybe we can arrange something, hm?”
“I don’t want to arrange anything with you,” Lambert spits, but he’s looking away when he says it. Jaskier files that information away for use at a later date.
“Sure you don’t,” he teases. “Now, out with it.”
“Fuck you,” Lambert repeats. But, with a sigh and another frown, he continues, “It was a particularly wily human.”
Jaskier takes that in for a moment. It’s terribly difficult to catch a Witcher unawares, and Jaskier knows intimately all of the times it’s possible, because the list is only three long – when he’s badly hurt, when he’s already fighting, or when he’s fucking. Jaskier can put a puzzle together, and he’s very good at piecing together things that are never said.
“Well,” Jaskier finally says. “At least it wasn’t a child.”
There’s a tense silence, a split second where Jaskier is entirely unsure of how that joke is going to land, and then –
Lambert spills his food from laughing so hard.
Jaskier grins to himself and goes back to composing.
Two hours later, night has properly fallen and Jaskier has a brand-new song all about fiery tempers and sharp blades. Any resemblance to real life is entirely accidental.
Lambert has just finished with his own work of sharpening his blades that totally are not the basis of Jaskier’s new song. He stretches, a surprising show of trust – like a cat showing its belly – but Jaskier notices the way he flinches when he leans too far back.
“What was that?” he asks, putting his lute and notebook to the side.
Lambert is immediately on guard. “What was what?” he asks, deadpan.
Jaskier rolls his eyes. “You flinched,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Lambert pointedly stretches again, leaning heavily into the backward motion this time. He doesn’t flinch, but Jaskier can see the tightening around his eyes. “You’re seeing things, bard.”
“I very well am not seeing things, Witcher,” Jaskier retorts, standing and walking across the room. “Come on, up, let me look.”
“There’s nothing to see,” Lambert mutters. Jaskier quirks a brow, and they stare at one another for several minutes, both refusing to back down. Jaskier will win; he always does. He’s never stared down a Witcher and lost.
Geralt gives in to his exasperation, and he rarely actually cares if Jaskier wins. Eskel, on the other hand, wants so badly to be treated kindly, to have a friend, that Jaskier’s willpower greatly outweighs his.
He thinks it’ll probably be patience that wins this one. Lambert is young – well, young for a Witcher, at least – and hot-headed. Jaskier, as hot-headed and young as he is, too, has a whole lot of patience, when it comes to the right things.
This is, absolutely, the right thing.
Lambert caves, finally, with a muttered curse and one of his colorful insults from earlier as he stands. Jaskier doesn’t jab him in the kidney for it, but it’s a near thing. “Just a muscle spasm,” he says quietly.
Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Just a muscle spasm,” he repeats, heavily sarcastic. “As if a muscle spasm – on your dominant side, no less – couldn’t kill you.”
Lambert turns around whip-fast, that burning anger back in his eyes. Jaskier doesn’t even flinch. “What the fuck do you know about it, bard?”
“I know quite a lot,” Jaskier replies, blithely, holding Lambert’s gaze. “Like how easily it is for a monster – of any variety – to take advantage of you if you can’t control your sword exactly, or if you’re favoring one side.”
“Fuck you,” Lambert says, instead of anything more scathing, because he knows damn well that Jaskier is right.
“Well, you did tell me what poisoned you, so we could discuss something,” Jaskier grins. “But I was going to suggest a massage.”
“You – ” Lambert stops with his mouth still open. “What?”
Jaskier laughs. “A massage,” he repeats. “You know, I rub some oil into your back and use my clever fingers to beat the knots and hopefully that spasm into submission.”
Lambert is still staring at him, open-mouthed, as if he’s never seen anything quite as bizarre as Jaskier before.
He probably hasn’t.
Jaskier goes back to his pack and pulls out the oil he keeps, holding it up. “Go on, lay down.”
Lambert’s open-mouthed shock finally transforms back into his signature frown. “I don’t need a fucking massage,” he mutters, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child.
Jaskier snorts. “Yes, you do, and we both know it,” he says. “And more than that, you want it.”
The look Lambert gives him for that is scathing. Jaskier just smiles innocently and gestures to the bed.
It takes several minutes for Lambert to give in. Once again, Jaskier is sure his patience will win out, and once again, he’s correct.
Not that Lambert goes easily, mind you, but Jaskier hardly expected anything less.
“Careful, bard,” the Witcher says, voice dark, even as he starts to lay down. “I’m meaner than Geralt.”
Jaskier snorts. “Oh, certainly,” he agrees, and follows onto the bed. “But you’re all talk. Geralt is all action.”
Lambert makes an indignant sound, and gets an elbow under himself, but Jaskier thwarts that by digging a thumb directly into the muscle with the spasming issue and putting all of his weight onto that single finger. Lambert cries out, very un-Witcher-like, and collapses to the bed. Jaskier relents on the pressure.
He’s made his point, and really, he doesn’t actually want to see Lambert hurt. Taken down a peg, maybe, and someday Jaskier is sure he’ll get the chance. But he found the Witcher poisoned in a ditch, for fucks’ sake. He just wants Lambert to get a godsdamned nap.
All the rest of it is just play. Play and posturing and a façade of antagonism for Lambert to hide behind, because Jaskier can tell that he needs it.
And one of Jaskier’s favorite hobbies is giving Witchers what they need but don’t realize they do, after all.
Lambert is quiet as Jaskier spreads oil on his hands, and remains so even as Jaskier spreads that oil over his back. Jaskier sighs and allows it for the time it takes him to pinpoint the worst knots – all in Lambert’s neck and shoulders, and that’s hardly a shock, with all the anger the man carries. But once he’s formulated his plan of attack, he’s no longer content with the laden silence.
“Spit it out,” he orders. And it is an order; he barks it almost like Geralt does, though it’s quieter and of course his voice isn’t nearly as deep and growly.
Lambert flinches, up into Jaskier’s hands, and then again, back down into the bed. He’s caught, even though he isn’t really; he could easily throw Jaskier off, could probably put Jaskier through the far wall if incensed enough, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just tenses, hovering somewhere between the bed and Jaskier’s hand, and grinds his teeth.
Jaskier sighs again and slams his hands down on Lambert’s shoulders, none too gently pressing him into the bed. The Witcher yelps, like he wasn’t expecting it – he probably wasn’t, so strung out on whatever it is he’s not saying – and then struggles. Jaskier leans back immediately, lifting to his knees, giving Lambert room.
And that makes the Witcher still.
“What are you doing, bard?” he asks, soft and deadly.
Jaskier hums. “Proving a point,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate. “Now, will you speak your damn mind so I can give you a massage, you oaf?”
Lambert grunts, a cut-off, almost wounded sound. “Don’t… just…soft,” he says, as if that clears anything up.
“Let’s try that again,” Jaskier suggests. “Are you telling me to be rough?”
A pause.
“No.”
Jaskier nods. He guessed as much. “You’re asking me to be soft,” he says. It’s not a question.
Lambert makes that wounded sound again. Jaskier sighs.
“Lambert,” he says, slowly, softly. He leans down again, bracing his hands near Lambert’s head so that he doesn’t put any of his weight on the Witcher. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
There’s that sound, for a third time.
“Now that’s cleared up,” Jaskier sits back again, still raised up on his knees. “Can I continue with the massage?”
It sounds almost like the word is yanked out of Lambert with a hook, but he mutters a small, “Yes,” and Jaskier takes it.
Usually, he would keep up a thread of chatter while he does this. He does it with Geralt. But he doesn’t talk, now, very aware of the fragile nature of Lambert’s surrender, of how easily he’ll slip back into hostility and anger if Jaskier isn’t careful.
He’s not stupid enough to think he’s gotten through the walls – not like he has with Geralt, or even Eskel – but he has found a window. No reason to alert the guard and make them brick it closed.
So he works over Lambert's neck and shoulders and back, light at first, then a little deeper, and when the Witcher has finally relaxed, he digs into the knots properly.
Lambert groans at the not-quite-pain, but he doesn’t move, or growl, or say anything. Jaskier keeps going.
Once the knots are properly beaten down, he moves to the offending muscle that started this. He prods carefully at it, watching as it twitches under the skin, listening for Lambert’s pained breaths. There’s no damage that he can feel – and he knows what damage feels like, after years of tending to Geralt – so it seems like it’s just a twitch. Twitches, thankfully, can be relaxed out.
“This might hurt,” he murmurs, a warning more for Lambert’s mental comfort than his physical. “But it’ll help.”
And he digs in to the center of the muscle, where the spasm is the strongest. Lambert cries out, clearly pained, but doesn’t move. When Jaskier pauses, a silent check in, the Witcher just hisses and shifts his body up, into Jaskier’s touch.
Message received. He keeps going until the muscle stops twitching.
He’s stunned to find, when he sweeps his hands back up Lambert’s back in a parting gesture, that the Witcher is asleep.
Stunned, yes, but once he process it – smug. Very, very smug.
He’s very good at what he does, and usually when he says that, he’s talking about singing or teaching or fucking, but as much as he loves all of those, he loves his so much more.
It would be foolish to ever call a Witcher tamed, but he is very, very good at subduing them, all the same.
He creeps off of Lambert's bed and back to his own. If he’s still smiling like a self-satisfied cat in the morning, well, Lambert doesn’t mention it.
Just as well. Jaskier might have had to demonstrate that he does, in fact, know how to use his dagger.