Chapter Text
Witchers in the modern world were about as welcome as unsolicited dick pics.
People saw their cat eyes, the scowls permanently etched on their faces, and the weapons always strapped to them, and they promptly locked their car doors like that was going to stop a mutated monster slayer with anger issues, chips on their shoulders, and more bulk than a gym bro on steroids.
Witchers got it. They really did. They were so mutated, so far removed from most of humanity, that they were considered a threat on sight.
But it was all still bullshit!
“People these days are so just jumpy ,” Lambert said gleefully as a woman, not five feet away, triple-clicked her key fob with the sort of panic usually reserved for horror movie victims about to open the basement door where the murderer was lying in wait.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“Like I’m gonna vault the hood and steal your purse full of expired coupons and hand sanitiser.” Lambert sneered at the woman as she walked away from her car, watching the witchers as though they would kill her before she took her next breath.
Lambert waited precisely one second before he moved towards the car.
“Lambert, no!” Eskel called to his brother, already dreading the lecture they would get when Vessimer heard about this. They were hundreds of years old, and still, Vessimer made them feel like little boys who had tied string to a bumblebee.
Geralt made a few grunting noises that Eskel was sure were meant to mean “Lambert, stop,” but seeing as how he didn’t voice the words,
Lambert completely ignored him. Not that he hadn’t ignored Eskel’s actual words anyway, the bastard.
Lambert was already halfway to the car, ignoring both of his brothers. His wide smile showed off the tips of his unnaturally sharp teeth.
Lambert sauntered up to the car’s passenger side window, leaned down dramatically, and tugged the door handle gently but with a grin sharp enough to gut a ghoul.
“ Don’t worry, it’s locked! ” he called out to the woman who was just standing there, wide-eyed as she watched him.
The woman yelped when Lambert’s golden cat-like eyes met her own fearful one. She clutched her chest and dropped her soy latte on the ground like it was radioactive.
Lambert laughed as the woman scurried away in her high heels as fast as she could. When she turned around, he threw double-finger guns over his shoulder before he strutted back to his brothers.
Eskel stared at him. “You love to be hated, don’t you?”
“I thrive in adversity.”
“You’re thriving like mould in a damp cupboard.”
Geralt didn’t bother to look up as his brothers insulted one another, knocking shoulders as they walked down the street. “You’re a plague.”
Lambert shrugged at Geralt, his face full of faux innocence and very real mischief. “And yet you keep inviting me on these monster-killing road trips. Wonder why that is?”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it kept happening.
Not the whole locking your car doors, or spitting in the street at them etc.
Well, yes, but also the way Lambert kept up his new ridiculous routine of checking the car doors whenever he was in either a pissy or adrenaline-filled mood. Considering this was Lambert, that meant all the gods damned time!
Once, a teenager locked his Prius with unnecessary force as soon as the witchers came into view. Lambert detoured straight for him and his car, tugged the handle, leaned in like a car salesman sensing a lucrative sale and smiled sharply as he said, “It’s still locked! Great job, sport!” The kid flipped Lambert off before pulling away. Lambert flipped the kid off in return before sending a wink his way. Lambert’s cackles could be heard following him down the street as the kid nearly drove into a bush, face bright red at Lambert’s antics.
Next time it was a dude in gym clothes who spotted them as they walked past and straight-up bolted to his jeep, slamming the lock button four times as soon as his arse was on the seat. “Don’t worry!” Lambert called after the retreating jeep, “Your overpriced protein powder is safe from us!” He paused and tilted his head when he thought of what he had said. “Well, they are safe from Geralt and Eskel. I will 100% steal your shit. But not today.”
Geralt had turned slowly to Lambert. His expression would have scared a lesser man. “Do you ever shut up?”
Lambert, however, was not a lesser man and just grinned at Geralt cheekily. “Sure, I do,” Lambert answered. I take breaks when I sleep.”
“That’s a lie,” Eskel muttered as he shoved Lambert as he passed him.
“You still talk in your sleep. You once tried to order a kebab at 2 a.m. while recovering from potion toxicity.”
Lambert beamed at this new information. How had Eskel never mentioned this before? “Did I get it?”
“You cried when the dream kebab didn’t show up.” Eskel deadpanned at him.
“Tragic. That’s absolutely tragic. In fact, it’s so tragic we should get kebabs now to fix it,” Lambert said before leading them to his favourite place. Eskel and Geralt shared a long, suffering sigh as they followed in their younger brother’s chaotic wake.
Geralt sighed when he realised it was going to be another day full of the same bullshit they always dealt with.
Until it wasn’t …
They were passing through the kind of cul-de-sac that made Geralt’s teeth ache. All pastel houses with fake shutters and cookie-cutter houses that were exactly the same as the house before it. The three witchers stood out like a sore thumb. Grubby and covered in blood and viscera as they were, the stench of drowners cleaning them. The fools in this neighbourhood had thought themselves untouchable from monsters and things that could rip them apart limb from limb, feeling they were too good for a witchers services, at least they had until they were desperate and a bunch of their rebelling teens were nothing but bones at the bottom of their once idyllic lake.
Geralt was wandering down the street, ignoring the looks they were getting as Eskel and Lambert bickered, feeling grateful that they rarely went on hunts alone now. Their pay was deposited straight into a bank account and shared equally with all the witchers left in their schools.
There weren’t many of them left, but they at least now always had enough food to eat and a home to go to, something they had never been able to rely on in the past. New witchers couldn’t be created, not that any of the others would allow it to happen anyway, and so the last of them hung on. Fighting monsters the way they always had and still being treated like shit for it. Nothing new, Geralt thought with a sigh.
He sighed even louder when he looked up at the noise Lambert made when he spotted a car idling away in the direction they were heading.
Geralt couldn’t help but notice how out of place the car looked. It was bright yellow, the only spot of colour in the whole depressing neighbourhood, and even that was hard to tell, considering the amount of mud and dust covering it. If their car was anything to go by, whoever drove it obviously wasn’t concerned by looks.
Geralt didn’t trust whoever owned that car on principle. One should look after one’s tools, whether it was a car, a sword, or a calculator. Whoever owned that car obviously couldn’t care less about the vehicle that transported them around.
Unfortunately, Lambert had no (or at least very few) principles, and as soon as he noticed the car window down, he veered towards it like a dog chasing a mailman. A dog that fully intended to bite.
Eskel sighed as he followed Lambert, not sure if he was doing damage control or going to egg him on today. “Here we go,” he called back to Geralt, who just grunted at them both, already fed up with their shenanigans. He had expected Eskel, of all people, to behave better than Lambert.
Lambert reached for the handle, grinning at Eskel, who was already laughing. “Don’t worry, it’s …”
The door swung open, causing both Lambert and Eskel to stand there in shock. Lambert whispered, “ … unlocked . ”
“Need a lift?” was heard from inside the car.
The man inside smiled widely as though an aggressive and armed stranger hadn’t just approached him. He was young-looking, with bright eyes, dimpled cheeks, and curls that looked a little too artfully tousled to be accidental.
Lambert stared at him in surprise when he didn’t start screaming in his face immediately.
Eskel peeked over his brother’s shoulder, unsure if he should drag Lambert away or not. Geralt reached for his sword because you never knew what people were going to do, and he would rather become the Butcher again than let his idiot brother get hurt right before his very eyes.
“I mean …” the man continued, completely unperturbed by the three large, glaring men towering over him as he sat in his driver’s seat with a smile. You all look a little footsore. I’ve got snacks and Spotify Premium. Do you want to hop in?”
“… Are you high?” Lambert finally blurted out, genuinely confused.
The man let out a laugh that could only be described as musical before he tilted his head, and his smile softened in the face of Lambert’s confusion. “Only on life and a concerning amount of caffeine.”
“You know we’re Witchers, right?” Eskel asked from where he stood, just as bemused as Lambert.
“Indeed, I do,” the man said, his voice rising in what the witchers would normally classify as excitement, but obviously, that couldn’t be the case here. “I’ve always wanted to get to know a Witcher. You’re legends! Tragic, brooding men who are full of mystery and Destiny. It’s a very sexy vibe, if I may say.”
“You may not …” Geralt growled out, trying to figure out the trap here. There had to be one. People, especially humans, didn’t want to just meet them.
“Noted. But still true,” the man added, not bothered by Geralt’s grumbling in the slightest.
The man, Jaskier something or other, held a hand towards Geralt as he introduced himself. “Jaskier. Bard. Songwriter. Professional disaster. And you handsome men are?”
Geralt looked at the offered hand like it might explode.
Lambert took it wearily before shaking it and muttered, “Lambert. Gremlin. Sarcasm enthusiast.”
“Charming is what you are,” Jaskier said brightly, and the witchers were stumped to realise he actually meant it. There wasn’t a lie on the man. “So. Carpool?”
There was a silence that lasted an uncomfortable length as the witchers stared at the man in the car. He stared back, smiling softly.
Eskel finally shrugged and broke the silence before pushing Lambert into the front seat as if this was his fault. “Fuck it, we’ve done dumber things.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jaskier said brightly as the witchers gingerly fit themselves inside Jaskier’s much too small for 3 fully grown witchers’ cars.
Geralt glared as he settled next to Eskel, his hand never too far from any number of daggers. He refused to take his eyes off the odd man who was offering them a lift. “He’s obviously insane,” he muttered loud enough for even Jaskier to hear.
“I prefer the term odd, not crazy, thank you very much,’” Jaskier said as he finally started the car. “I also need an address. Oh, and Lambert, wasn’t it? There’s gummy bears in the glove box,” he said with a smile.
Lambert reached forward before quickly noticing the unopened bag of sweets and fishing them out. “Fuck yeah, why didn’t you say that to start with?” he asked as Jaskier laughed beside him. Both of them ignoring the holes Geralt was glaring into the back of their heads from his place behind them.