Chapter Text
Lambert stood in front of the hazel tree, studying the young branches stretching up to the cloudy sky. Autumn stripped the tree of its leaves and made it easy to examine it for it's variety of branches. Tasked with choosing his own switch meant that he was tasked with choosing how it would hurt him.
A thicker branch would bruise him and a thinner branch would raise welts. Both would last for one full day, or two if Eskel was very rough with the switch, even with his witcher healing. There was no option that was better or worse than another, no leniency to search for, or stubbornly refuse.
He grabbed a branch that was well between thick or thin, one which had the potential to bruise or to welt, and he scowled at it angrily as he cut it free with his knife. He carried it to the grand veranda stretching around the west wing of the inner fortress, where Eskel was basking in the sunlight and looking out over the courtyard.
Lambert watched him from the corner of his eye, hopeful for instructions but receiving none. He didn’t need directions for preparing a switch and was glad to not be coached through the process. He hoped he would receive instructions in the form of being told to put the switch by the door for use if he misbehaved again.
Instead he sat down on the cold surface of a stone bench, feeling the cold seep through his trousers into his skin and dreading the next time he sat down. He bitterly considered ignoring the fresh welts and bruises and sitting right back down here where the cold could soothe him. That is, if he didn’t prefer to run somewhere far away to be well and truly alone.
The sharp edge of the knife ran along the switch, peeling up the thin layer of bark and cutting away the knots and smaller twigs. Scrape by scrape he transformed the dry branch into a thin willowy switch.
Lambert looked up at Eskel and felt the heat of rage building up under the collar of his shirt. Anger was easier to embrace than anything else swirling tumultuously inside of him. He would never admit it, but he was scared, and hurt, and betrayed.
He replayed the other’s words in his mind, Eskel’s assurance that he would only use his open hand and only on Lambert's rear end. Eskel’s hand was hardly merciful, but his leader had given his word. Lambert had to believe his anger was rooted in that and not truly the switch.
After all, a switch couldn’t hurt him like live steel and he never flinched from someone drawing a sword against him.
Lambert had resolved that he would endure whatever Eskel did to him because he didn’t fear anything and he wouldn’t cower away now. But he knew that when the switch hit him, some special sense of trust he had placed in the other would be gone and Lambert feared that all the way down to his core. He didn’t know what he would do with himself if he couldn’t trust Eskel of all people.
He rolled the switch between his fingers, checking it for bark, or notches, and finding none. His heart weighed heavily in his chest as he examined it for Eskel, wanting to prove that he could do this as well as anything he was tasked with, and wanting to present the leader of the pack with his best work even with the knowledge that he would use it against him.
Lambert stood up and tucked away his knife into his boot before stepping forward to present the switch. Eskel turned his full attention to him and then took the switch to examine it.
His calm golden eyes moved up the length of the switch along with his fingertips, testing the weight, the balance, the shape, the flexibility. “I’d guess that this is your best work. I haven’t had you cut a switch before so I can’t compare, but this is pretty damn perfect.” Eskel looked past the switch to Lambert, “It looks like you gave it your full attention.”
The younger wolf shrugged, struggling to feel much pride in the review he was receiving with the anticipation of what would come after. Eskel settled both hands on the switch and then bent it past the limits of its flexibility until it snapped in two. Lambert flinched with surprise. The older wolf folded it and snapped it apart again, this time causing Lambert to shout, “Hey!”
“I’ll admit you did a good job, but I’m not going to hang it above the mantle to show it off.” He chuckled, almost teasing the man in his charge before he threw the fist full of stripped twigs over the ledge.
“Why did you have me cut a fucking switch if you weren’t going to use it?” Lambert demanded, letting all of his pent up angst come pouring out through his tone.
“I wanted you to sit quietly and think about the hiding you’re going to get. Seemed like a good way to do it.” Eskel answered with a grin that proved just how pleased he was with his creativity. He slid off his perch on the balustrade down to both feet. “Was the fear of getting your ass whipped with a switch enough to keep you in line?"
“Fuck you!” Lambert answered immediately, almost shouting back at the other, “I wasn’t afraid of you or the switch!”
The leader of the pack nodded, understanding the actual answer by the way he was answered, “All right, let’s go.” He sat down on the bench where Lambert had been sitting and settled in comfortably before patting his thigh. “Lower your trousers, Lambert.”
The younger man growled to make his frustration known but undid his trousers before pushing them down as requested. Eskel watched how far the trousers came down with carefully hidden bemusement. The first time Eskel had the man lower his trousers the leather waistband brushed the hem of his chemise. The next time there was a sliver of skin visible between the two. They had done this more than a few times since then and now when the trousers came down they reached the top of his knees.
Eskel guided Lambert over his knees without saying anything, although he desperately wanted to ask about the tiny detail. He wondered if it was intentional, considering it was difficult to believe it would happen by accident. He wondered if the other was trying to tell him something or trying to get something through that small act. But he also knew that if he had to ask what Lambert expected then he would fail whatever was expected of him and would no longer be allowed to do whatever he was supposed to do.
Eskel drew up the man’s shirt to expose the curve of his rear, bared from the base of his spine all the way down the backs of his thighs. His skin was chilled from sitting on the marble bench and his body was as tense as stone. Eskel bounced his palm lightly off the flexing glutes as he commented, “You’re cold, and tense .”
“I was pretty angry," Lambert admitted in a tone that implied he still had plenty of anger to work through.
"Angry?" Eskel repeated with confusion and Lambert could feel the larger man's legs shift underneath him and a steady stare bore into the back of his head, but he refused to turn his head and meet his eyes. He only nodded. Eskel waited for an explanation then asked, "Because you thought I was going to use the switch on you?"
Lambert shrugged, refusing to commit to an answer and admit he had thought so, in case it made him seem stupid. He worked hard to earn and keep the older man's opinion of him as a smart man and he refused to admit to anything that could challenge it.
"I figured that you would think I'd take the switch to you.” Eskel admitted, “But I expected you to be worried, and then relieved." He patted said backside as he explained his intention and the current realization, "Made you angry instead." Eskel silently scolded himself in his thoughts for thinking Lambert would be afraid of anything. Lambert wore his anger like armour so that nothing else, not even fear, could reach him. Eskel realized he'd taken a stressed and angry man looking for release and only wound him up further, even if he had managed to distract him.
“I’m sorry.” Eskel apologized. Lambert opened and shut his mouth a few times in false starts before finally clamping his jaw shut and refusing to say anything. He wasn’t sure how to respond. He doubted that anyone had ever actually apologized to him. It was different than saying ‘I’m sorry’ with some degree of pity as they took in the shit show that was his life. This came with taking responsibility for some small part of it.
“Does this mean you’re not going to spank me?” Lambert asked, his voice full of annoyance as if he were having his time wasted. He started to push himself up.
Eskel weighed his forearm down on the other’s back, his elbow between strong shoulder blades and his hand wrapping around his waist. “You’re still getting a spanking. If you relax.” He popped the naked rear with his open palm again, bouncing off the tense muscles and earning an annoyed scoff from Lambert but no protest. “Either way, you’re staying put until I let you up.”
Lambert grumbled in reply but stopped fighting against the weight pressing him down. He bitterly wondered how he ended up in these conversations when he was already bent over with his ass up. He wondered how he spent so much time in this position that there was beginning to be something familiar about his medallion hanging between the ground and his face.
He stayed in place on Eskel’s lap, unwilling to move at first, and then slowly adjusting to find a more comfortable way to hang over the larger man's knees. Eskel waited patiently with one hand on Lambert’s bottom and the other hand on his waist, over his shirt, watching calmly as Lambert shifted. He lifted a hand off the ground and put it under his shoulder, on Eskel’s thigh. His legs were entangled in his lowered trousers, but he had enough freedom to kick up one boot and cross his legs at the ankle, shaking his toe as he waited.
Lambert found himself secretly debating if he should insist on cutting another switch and preparing it all over again to have Eskel use it on him. It didn’t matter to him that he didn’t want a switch taken to his backside, or any other part of him; back, hands, thighs included. What mattered was if his brother-in-arms thought for a moment that he was afraid of the switch. Lambert needed to prove that he wasn't afraid.
By the time Lambert’s backside was no longer chilled from sitting on the cold marble bench he had relaxed into his role as a subordinate, pliant and ready for discipline at the hand of the pack leader. Eskel patted the curve of his rear and asked, “Ready?” He felt the younger man brace himself but otherwise remain prone as he nodded.
Eskel adjusted slightly from a resting position to a ready position as he lifted his hand then started to spank the younger man with quick, stinging slaps that brought his blood to the surface and made his skin warm. Lambert flinched in very small, subtle ways that would be impossible to detect by anyone without enhanced senses. Anyone would think that the youngest witcher didn’t react to pain and Eskel didn’t mind playing along until Lambert was fully ready to let down his guard and cry.
He let Eskel spank him with his hand, without any mention of cutting another switch, only because of what the other had assured him during a talk some time ago. He would only hit him with his open palm, and only on Lambert’s backside. Lambert wanted to let his friend keep his word. Lambert struggled in silence with a decision that was out of his hands; whether or not to insist on the switch, as he rocked under the force of the heavy blows to his sit spot.
Lambert felt tears burning his eyes sooner than he expected. From the rhythm and force of the slaps against his upturned bottom he knew that Eskel was not even done warming him up yet. His bottom was pink with the curve blossoming red under Eskel’s attention when a hint of salt changed the flavour of the sweet garden air. Eskel knew the other had started to cry. He stopped briefly, only to rub his warm palm over Lambert’s flank, waiting for any indication that he would say their agreed-upon word, “leather”.
Eskel was cautious of those boundaries now, both his own and Lambert’s. He knew a true guild leader would not be. The guild leader when Eskel had been a young witcher, several decades ago, definitely did not stop to consider anyone’s boundaries. Vesemir was far more gentle, but didn’t ask for his charges’ boundaries when he was responsible for disciplining any of them. But he wasn’t Vesemir, Eskel reminded himself, and the school of the wolf did not need a leader. Lambert did.
Eskel adjusted his grip, it was the only warning that the warm up was over and the real spanking was beginning. The first strike made Lambert inhale sharply and tore his attention away from the internal debate. All of his attention was occupied by the burning hand-sized prints on his asscheeks. He unlocked his ankles, bracing the toes of his boots to the ground to try to stop himself from kicking, he likely could have avoided reacting much at all until Eskel’s hand drifted below the sit-spot to spank the crease where Lambert’s thighs met his bum.
Lambert drew his legs up in a reflexive reaction to the sting against sensitive, not often touched skin. The realization that, despite himself, he’d moved, brought a whimper from his throat. It distracted him for the briefest moment, making him feel betrayed by his own body and ashamed of his weakness. But Eskel carried on with the spanking, without slowing down or missing a beat, and never taunting the other for his reactions. It allowed Lambert to forget his own hold ups again and let the last defensive wall come down.
He kicked and squirmed through the spanking, reacting as much as the burn in his backside provoked a response from him, and staying as still as the hand on his waist asked him to remain. At some point he planted his toes on the ground and jerked forward, lifting his hips up to avoid a swat by catching it on the backs of his thighs instead of his burning rear. Lambert whined as several spanks landed on the well presented target of his backside and he started to tuck his hips in an attempt to hide himself when Eskel’s voice cut through the sharp smacks, “Stay right there.”
Lambert’s hands squeezed Eskel’s thigh where it remained under his shoulder, desperate for anything to hold onto in that moment. The toe of one boot lifted from the ground, resisting the impulse to kick up behind him.
Eskel’s hand came down hard across the middle of Lambert’s arse, getting the sit spot of both cheeks and layering the blows atop one another. Each well-aimed smack was a little bit softer than the one that came before it. Lambert still had enough awareness of his balance to feel the rocking pressure lessen little by little, although the softer smacks on his reddened skin felt as sharp and painful as any of them had been. It hurt, and each spank made him fight to hold back a whimper bubbling up from deep in his chest, but he could feel the end approaching.
Finally the weather-worn and sword-calloused hand just rested on his arse. Lambert finally took a deep breath, knowing from previous encounters that Eskel would allow him a moment like this to catch his breath and stop the flow of tears before pulling him to his feet and meeting his eyes. He didn’t fight against the weight on his back, even though he was sure Eskel would not swat his bottom again to keep him in line. The fight had left him along with everything else, and whatever had lead to him being here on the veranda overlooking the garden with the hazel tree.
“I’m going to let you up and I’m going to go get some drinks.” Eskel started. Lamber bit his lip hard to stop himself from saying anything, terrified of the impulse he had to offer to fetch the drinks. “I want to talk about what happened.”
“Gods Eskel,” Lambert tried to growl, “It’s fine!” He tried to summon up any of the hostile tones in his voice that usually kept people at bay.
“I want to talk about what happened.” Eskel repeated, emphasizing that he wanted.
“And what if I don’t want to?” Lambered sniffed, neither sounding or feeling cocky with his burning arse raised up on the other’s lap.
“I’ll wait until you’re ready to talk.” Eskel answered calmly, “I’ve got all day and nowhere to be, Lambert.” He huffed and dropped his head down, a silent submissive expression. The pack leader continued speaking, “You can clean yourself up, take as much time as you need. When you’re ready you can find me in the great hall, and we’ll talk.” He wiped his cheeks dry as Eskel shifted and was ready to face the other when he was put on his feet again.
They stared at each other, Lambert watching the path of Eskel’s eyes, and Eskel firmly resisting the urge to look at the stretch of well-toned muscular naked legs. Lambert finally nodded to confirm he understood and accepted, and the taller man stood up and left.
Lambert stared at the marble bench that had been so cold on his backside so recently. He remembered his plan to sit down on his freshly whipped ass and let the cold stone soothe the worst of the fresh pain from the switch.
A part of him reminded himself that he could still sit down. He could rest here with his trousers around his knees, or he could pull them up for the sake of modesty and take a seat and the marble surface would suck all of the lingering warmth out of his skin.
He reached behind himself to brush the back of his hand under the hem of his chemise, over his rear to confirm that there was no pain anymore, just heat. But rather than sit down for even a moment he found himself righting his trousers and lacing the front then going straight to the grand hall where Eskel had summoned him to talk.