ink on a pin, underneath the skin (asoiaf, jaime/brienne, pg13)

[janie_tangerine]

It had seemed such a good idea at a time.

Same as Cersei’s ideas always used to seem good.

We are one and the same, she always used to say. We should get something to prove it.

So when she said, we should get matching tattoos, he hadn’t said no. Maybe green like our eyes, what do you say? That had sounded good, too. Maybe you could draw it for us, but not so obvious that people might figure it out. Something just for us?

Jaime had — it’s not like art hasn’t been about his only talent, up to these days.

Yeah.

Up to these days.

He stands in front of the shop, looking down at his useless right hand.

Cersei, of course, said that it was entirely his fault before blocking his number. Of course he was. He was the one who went for a drive while angry as hell and after having drunk a couple whiskey glasses when his tolerance always was shit after she told him she and Robert Baratheon were engaged and they were done.

Just like that.

It’s not that he lost it. He only crashed because he lost control of the car while turning a curve and pretty much smashed it against a thankfully abandoned building. Too bad that he was going really fast and the car turned over on itself and glass exploded all over his right arm, and now he’s here with a few cut tendons that prevent him from painting properly, a few months of not great results at branching into sculpture and other means of doing art, because maybe if he never regains enough dexterity in his right hand at least he can still do his job even if he hates what he has so far, and a bloody useless mess of ink on his right inner arm.

He had drawn it, years ago. It was a beautiful drawing. All clean, black lines, around a simple, round emerald inked in light green, put in the middle of a design that was meant to look like stylized crown.

Well, after his accident, his arm has turned into such a mess of scars you can barely guess that, but the emerald has survived, in one of the few pieces of unmarred skin, looking up at him like some fucking joke, and —

He wants it gone.

He needs it gone. He can’t look at it without thinking about Cersei and about how she told him that it would mark them both forever when she came up with the idea, and he — he wants to stop. She’s gone. He knows she is. She didn’t even visit in the hospital once. He’s too busy trying to handle knowing that she most likely never cared as much as he did to have a blatant, obvious reminder of her inked on his fucking skin.

So he breathes in and out, in and out, and opens the door of the shop.

He picked this one place for a few specific reasons.

One: it’s on the opposite side of town from where most people in his family live, so there’s no risk they will ever run into him while he’s around the area.

Two: anyone who named a shop Avalon Ink must be into Arthurian legends as much as he is, and if he thinks that he was this close to get a job illustrating this new adaptation for a children’s book of Arthurian retellings before his accident he wants to cry, so he won’t.

Three: it’s not pretentious, the website only showed examples of already inked tattoos or the owner’s art without wasting time with anything else and it had a nice, clean design all in different blue shades that really appealed to the eye.

So he booked an appointment here by email.

Fuck, he really hopes it can be removed.

He walks inside — huh. The walls are all light blue, and while it’s not really large, it looks cozy, with the white sofa in the entry, some fresh flowers here and there and the walls covered in pictures of tattoos. It’s hardly the super-sleek modern place with white walls and everyone wore lab coats and at least twenty people working around the clock where Cersei brought them when they got theirs done some three years ago, but he likes that it’s small and welcoming and that the walls are covered in drawings and that it looks, well, like a damned tattoo shop, not like a dentist’s study.

A bell rings over his head as he closes the door.

“Coming!” A voice yells from the upper floor, and — wait, is that a woman? He hadn’t even checked who was the owner, the form didn’t specify it, but even if it is, well, who cares? As long as she can do her job, he gives zero fucks.

A moment later, heavy steps fall on the wooden stairs as someone descends, and then he’s in front of the damned tallest woman he’s ever seen in his life — Christ, she has an inch or so on him and large shoulders that for a moment made him wonder if he had been mistaken before. She’s wearing a pair of jeans showing off a pair of long, muscular legs, a Blind Guardian t-shirt that has seen better days and was definitely cut for a man, not that she has much of a bosom to show herself, and now that Jaime takes a better look, someone definitely broke her nose once or twice. Her cheeks are covered in freckles, visible, and she has her straight, pale blonde hair in a messy bun, while her large, rough fingers are stained in ink.

Most likely the tattoo artist, then.

And still, even if she’s hardly a sight to see, he can’t help noticing that she has lovely eyes. Large, with long eyelashes, a lovely shade of blue that makes him think longingly of all that blue paint in his house that he hasn’t touched in weeks.

“Mr.… Lannister, I suppose?” She asks, extending her left hand.

Oh. She must have read the form from beginning to end, since he did specify what he needed and where he needed it.

“The one and only,” he grins, not really feeling it, but not faking it, either. He holds out his left, shaking her hand. She has a strong grip. “And you would be the owner, I suppose?”

“I am,” she says. “What, you didn’t check?”

“I just looked at the website and booked because it seemed like the place I needed. No, I didn’t check who owned it.”

She raises an eyebrow, looking fairly unimpressed. “Brienne Tarth,” she tells him. “Please, this way.”

She nods towards the upper floor and he follows her there — there are two rooms, and she immediately opens the door to the one on the left. The room where she inks people must be on the right, he supposes, and then follows her inside a small office. There’s a desk under a very large window, very cluttered, but there’s enough empty space in the middle. The walls are covered in either drawings or a few movie posters, and there’s a picture on the desk that’s obviously her and her father some ten years ago. The wall behind him has a few bookshelves that look about to fall on themselves and a vinyl record player with a stack right next to it.

He thinks he likes it, but that’s not what he’s here for.

He sits down.

“So,” she tells him, “in your e-mail, you said you needed a… removal? Can I see?”

“Sure,” he says. “And yes, I do. It’s — a long story, but suffices to say, I got a tattoo a few years ago and I want it gone, if possible. But — it’s on the arm I hurt in an accident recently.”

“Show me,” she says, all nonsense, and he shrugs and moves his long sleeve up before lying it down on the table in between them.

She takes in the sight — the emerald, the broken lines, the scars on his skin (some whitened, but some are still red. Not bright, it’s been a few months. But still healing.).

“What is it that you want exactly?” She asks, still keeping it extremely professional and without saying a word about the pitiful condition of it. He decides he likes her already.

“Well, I’d like the emerald removed. Completely. The rest too — if it’s possible.”

She nods. “Can I touch over there? I need to make sure of something.”

At least you asked, he doesn’t say. No one else who has done it recently that wasn’t Tyrion actually did. Cersei didn’t even volunteer for it, though. Of course she didn’t. “Feel free,” he shrugs. He expects her to prod, but instead she merely brushes her fingertips against the edges of his wounds, and he barely even feels it. For a moment, she looks troubled.

Then she breathes in.

“Mr. Lannister,” she starts, “I will be sincere with you so that no one else tries to take advantage.”

“… Wait, what do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says, “that I see that you are in a great hurry to remove this. It’s obvious, you — sorry if it’s inappropriate, but one can feel the vibe coming off you. Now, I won’t say that I wouldn’t welcome such a job right now, actually, I need it, and I could try to do it, but it would be… unethical.”

“Unethical?”

“Well, I should probably start from the beginning. The safest and quickest way to remove dark colors is using laser technology, but it can leave scarring, and most of the dark lines on your arms are over other scars that are still healing, so I don’t know how good of an idea it would be and I certainly wouldn’t want to potentially damage anything even further by doing it. On top of that, laser is good for dark colors, but the lighter they are, the harder it is to remove them. That emerald is light green, which makes it fairly difficult to work with, and it would require a more in-depth penetration of the laser. And to finish it all off… it’s an extremely painful procedure and it can mean side-effects. Now, if removal is what you want, as much as I could use the money, I can’t accept this job, not if it would mean potentially hurting a client. But I suppose that you might go to someone else, and others might not have many scruples and accept it regardless. So, if anyone else actually accepts it, then they are unprofessional arses who should have their license removed. That said, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this. I hope you see my point.”

For a moment, Jaime is floored — he hadn’t even thought about all of those possible side-effects and she does have a point, actually more than one, and he can’t risk losing the arm for good or damaging it any further, but — on one side, he wants it gone so much it hurts.

On the other… if she’s right and it damages his arm for good?

He swallows, looking back up at Brienne Tarth and her blue eyes that look… as if she gets it and as if she’d really like to help him out, but not like this.

“I see,” he says, “and — well, thanks for being honest. I mean, given that I kind of need that arm to work and it’s damaged already, I’d rather keep it reined in. Still — wait, did you say you could use the money?”

She shrugs. “The rent has gone up and I had a round of unexpected expenses in the last year or so. Also, once this was the only shop in the area, but when some five years ago that other place five blocks from here opened, well, business has plummeted.”

… Shit, isn’t that the place he went with Cersei to get this blasted ink? It is, now that he thinks about it.

“It did? Strange. I mean, looking at your work on the internet, it looks good. And given my damned job, I’d like to think I know.”

She smiles sadly. “Thank you, but being good has never meant anything in any field when it comes with my looks, Mr. Lannister.”

He nods, noticing how tight her voice is. He can hear that there’s something else behind it.

Then he realizes something else she said before.

“Humor me a moment,” he says. “You said, if removal is what I want. That implies I have another option, other than keeping it. I’d hear your opinion, since you’ve been nice enough to not scam me once.”

She half-laughs, as if she doesn’t want to but kind of can’t help it. “Well,” she says, “you could remove it and potentially cause further damage. Or, you could wait for those wounds to scar for good and then cover it up and change the emerald’s color, or cover it completely with something else.”

Oh.

He hasn’t considered that, but — “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“It’s going to take a while, admittedly,” she goes on, “because some of these wounds are healing, but it means you could actually, well, think about it. You could come up with something that actually incorporates the other lines or you could draw over them completely, and it be a significantly lesser risk than laser removal. As far as the emerald goes, well, either you change it into another type of stone and we just cover it in a darker color — red or blue or purple would probably be enough, though a shade of blue maybe would be best because it’s closer, or I could just draw over it in black and change it completely. Of course, it would take a few sessions at least, and I wouldn’t dare touching any of that scarring until your doctor tells you that it’s safe, but I think it would be a less dangerous option. If I’m still open by then, of course,” she adds, obviously trying to joke about it and utterly failing. She doesn’t look like humor comes to her easily.

He thinks about it. On one side, he wants that tattoo gone as soon as possible.

On the other — she’s most likely right. What if he does something colossally stupid and ruin it even more because he just couldn’t wait? And — covering it up doesn’t sound too bad. He did like the tattoo idea. He just doesn’t want it to be Cersei’s anymore, not when she hasn’t even called since that one visit at the hospital.

“And you would take that one job?”

She shrugs. “Of course. Again, if I last long enough that your arm heals.”

He glances at her table — there is a sketchbook that doesn’t look filled. He grins. “What if I make you a deal?”

“A deal?”

“I make sure you don’t have to close and you cover that up for me, how about it?”

“Mr. Lannister, I couldn’t accept anything that wouldn’t be a payment for my work, I —”

“Chill,” he says. “Can I have that sketchbook?”

“Of — of course,” she asks, handing it over.

“You know,” he says, “I chose this shop also because of the name. Fancied Arthurian legends, when you were young?”

“I might have. Why?”

“I did, too,” he sighs, opening on the first blank page and grabbing the first black felt-tip pen he sees on the desk. Then he uncaps it.

His hand isn’t good enough to paint anymore, but he can still draw decently enough to be recognizable, never mind that his signature hasn’t changed, and even if he can forget detail right now, it’s going to be enough, he thinks as he starts sketching the most recognizable Holy Grail he can think of.

“See,” he says, “I was very much into those legends.” The tip travels through the sheet, up, down, and he wishes everything else came as easy as this these days. “I also had to give up on illustrating a whole lot of them because I hurt my arm just before accepting that one job.”

“I — I’m sorry,” she says, obviously meaning it. “But — what are you doing?”

He signs that sketch, then turns the page and tries to give his best impression of Arthur and Mordred’s last fight. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she scoffs. “I draw, too. I do know some of modern art.”

“Then you know I’m good enough that my original work is valued.”

He can see the moment she gets it, her eyes going so wide it would almost be comical, if not for the circumstances. “So,” he says, keeping on working, “I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m — I’m listening.”

“I’m drawing you another couple of these. Any art gallery is going to pay you enough to survive for a while, if I guess how much you might pay for rent here. You use the money to stay open and I come back to discuss how we should cover my arm, how about it?”

He raises his eyes from the sketch, looking up at her. Her lips are parted, showing a hint of white teeth, and she blinks once, twice. “Really?”

“Why the hell not? Costs me nothing and you actively advised me on how to not fuck up my life any further when — well, if you hadn’t, I would have agreed to the laser treatment if someone else proposed it. I don’t know if I want to look for another opinion.”

“I could be lying,” she says.

He laughs. “Yeah, refusing money? Please.”

“… Fair,” she agrees. “And well, if you really want to — I suppose I would be a fool to say no.”

Jaime gives her another smirk and turns the page. He starts coloring in black inside the sheet, only leaving in white a sketched Lancelot and Guinevere after tracing their edges.

Yeah. A forbidden love affair in between a valiant knight and his blonde, beautiful queen, destined to end up in disaster. If only he had seen the parallels before.

If only he had known.

“Good. So, three on four. Pick the next one.”

She narrows her eyes. She thinks about it. “Tristan and Iseult?”

“Nice,” he agrees, moving on to the next page. “What, you enjoy a nice romantic story?”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Maybe. What if I do?”

“Wasn’t judging you,” he quips back, and starts moving the felt tip on the page again. He makes this one with inverted colors, drawing the black background around the white figures and working with negative space just for a kick.

Fuck, doesn’t it feel good. If only he could do it properly. Still, it’s better than nothing, and five minutes later he’s done and has signed it with a white pen she had lying on the side. Nowhere near his best work, but his name does have weight, thank you very much.

“Here,” he says, pushing the notebook back towards Brienne. “That’s your rent.”

“Thank you,” she says, sounding like she’s about to cry. “I — I don’t know how —”

“Nonsense. Cost me nothing. Also, talking our business. Is there anything we can do now?”

“Well,” she says, “I’ll need your doctor to write me a note saying that your arm is safe to ink on when it’s time. Nothing personal, but if I did it without that would be fairly unethical, too.”

“Very well. Then?”

“Then — well, it’s going to take a while to work on, given the size of that scarring, so if I were you I would spend a couple of weeks thinking about what I really want inked on that arm, and come back here with ideas so we can discuss it. Then I can start working on it and next time I’ll have a sketch ready, then I can make modifications and so on. I mean, it’s your body. It should be up to you to decide what goes on it.”

He bites back a noise — yeah. Good point. If only he had fully decided what had gone on his damned body when he got the first tattoo.

“And that means you should think about it for as long as you need.”

“That’s — good advice, I suppose.” He sighs. “I just want it gone, but — I suppose falling prey to a hurry won’t help anyone.”

She shrugs minutely. “Mr. Lannister, I actually do understand what you mean with wanting it gone, but it’s not the kind of thing that you want to rush. I know something about it. So,” she goes on, changing topic, “would another appointment two weeks from now be good for you?”

Gods. He doesn’t want to look at that damned tattoo for two weeks. “Sure,” he says. “Tell me when.”

She gives one to him exactly two weeks from now, same hour. Then she bites down on her lip.

“Wait,” she tells him as he stands up. “Just one moment.”

She opens a drawer and comes up with another Sharpie. “Can you come by the window?”

He nods and does — the sunlight is pouring in now, and when she holds out a hand for his wrist, he wordlessly moves his arm over. She turns it so that his wrist is facing her.

“What is a thing you like looking at?” She asks.

“Sorry?”

“A thing you enjoy looking at. Don’t think about it too much.”

He shrugs, figuring that beauty won’t really answer that question. Never mind that it’s such a subjective answer, it means all and nothing.

“Flowers,” he shrugs. “I mean, I’m shit at keeping plants alive, but I do like looking at them. Why?”

She says nothing and opens the Sharpie, then eyes his arm and —

Oh.

She starts drawing all over it, stems raising from his scarred, red wrist. She draws leaves all over the connected red welts on his arm, the tip becoming lighter if it comes across a rawer part of it, then she draws a few blooms on the top, under his elbow, before moving down to where she left the emerald uncovered. She quickly completely covers it in black primrose petals before she draws another couple not far from it, and then she leaves his wrist be and closes the Sharpie.

“That one,” she says, “is the strongest I have. I usually use it to draw just before I start inking. It’s not… well, it does wash away, at some point, but it sticks for a good week before it starts to fade. Better than looking at it, right?”

She gives him a tentative smile and for a moment he thinks, she might not look like much but her eyes really glow when she does. Then he smirks back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I like that solution. So what, you’re going to draw me a new one two weeks from now?”

“Given that you just about saved my job for another six months, I think it’s the least I owe you even if then you change your mind, isn’t it?”

He laughs, and this time it’s not forced.

“Fair, fair. See you in two weeks then.”

“I will be here. And thank you again,” she replies, almost shyly.

Jaime thinks that it’s highly unlikely that he will change his mind, and as he goes back home, he wonders, what do I want on there?

——

That’s one question.

He ponders it in the next days as he glances down at his arm in the morning. Brienne hadn’t lied — the Sharpie sticks for a good week, and then it starts fading, but it’s still better than looking at that damned emerald staring up at him.

Fact is: he doesn’t know.

On one side, he would want that emerald completely covered, but inking the entire arm in black doesn’t quite appeal, and at this point he’d need an idea for the whole arm that might incorporate that space… but then again, since the accident, his inspiration has gone to shit.

Which is why now he’s working on something else.

He glances down his microscope, sparing a moment to feel thankful for the umpteenth time that while his math grades might not have been the best and his reading skills suffered until he figured out something could be done about dyslexia, he always aced chemistry, which meant that the moment he had the means he could put together a small laboratory to actually make pigments and sell them, and while before it was his side project more than anything else… well, these days his hand is good enough for mixing pigments at least, so he’s putting more time on it.

“Boss!” Peck shouts from the other side of the room, where he’s handling the shipments — well, he also mans the social media and whatnot. Shit, Jaime needs to start updating the YouTube channel with tutorials at some point soon.

“Yeah?” He asks, moving back.

“We’re almost out of that glowy yellow, how long before we can put it back in stock?”

He thinks about it. “I was thinking of doing more glowy stuff during the week anyway, say two weeks or so.”

“On it,” Peck says, going back to it. Jaime turns to the microscope. If he can get this orange slightly warmer… he shakes his head. “Bronn!” He calls.

His brother’s best friend since elementary school who has somehow ended up working for him and Jaime has stopped asking how it happened, moves from his stool and glares at him.

“Yeah?”

“You think I can make this warmer with some more barium sulfide?”

Bronn takes a look, hums. “Probably. But like hell you are handling potentially poisonous stuff that you avoided up until now when your hand is still healing.”

“Aw, that’s adorable. Do you care about me that much?”

“No, I care that you pay me and only your insane arse would hire me for this job,” Bronn mutters, pushing him out of the way.

Fair enough — Jaime is one hundred per cent sure Bronn has learned chemistry way past high school because they binged Breaking Bad once upon a time and he decided to take a crash course, but thing is — it turned out that he actually was damn good at it, and when Jaime’s previous chemist moved to France and he had no one to call at short notice, he asked him and he actually aced that job, so he hired him and nothing’s gone awry yet.

But no one else would probably hire him, that’s true.

“Then turn that a warmer shade possibly on the red side, and if you find a better way to do it great, I’ll go see if I can get things started on the glowy pigments stock.”

“Yeah, well, get someone else checking it over.”

“Hey, it’s damaged, not useless, and none of the shit that goes into the glowy pigments is toxic.”

“Nevertheless, shut the fuck up and don’t try to make it worse for yourself.”

Jaime decides that it can’t be too bad if some people actually care about it, and sighs before calling down Addam from the other room where they send the materials down to the main lab. He’s going to have to suck it up and help him since Sandor Clegane is on vacation for another week.

Meanwhile, he thinks about that damned tattoo, glancing at the now slightly fading black lines along his arm.

What do I want there?

Nice question.

That he has no answer to.

——

Two weeks later, he comes back to the shop with — very, very vague ideas.

Brienne Tarth, though, does seem way less tense than last time.

“Mr. Lannister,” she greets him again, and Jaime can’t help thinking that the leather jacket she’s wearing this time doesn’t look bad on her at all.

“Given that you look way less troubled than last time, do I have to assume my ruse worked?”

“It might have,” she says. “Thank you. Actually, those sketches sold for more than what you had pictured.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’ll be here for a year, hopefully. So, should we talk?”

He nods and follows her in the cozy office upstairs. He takes the usual seat and she joins him on the other side of the table. “So,” she asks, “have you thought of anything?”

He shakes his head. “Not exactly. I mean, the original tattoo wasn’t… my idea, let’s just say. And I drew it, but it was what… the other person wanted, pretty much. I know I don’t really feel like inking the entire thing — I mean, I don’t want it only covered in a lot of black. It never was my thing.”

She nods. “I see. So, about that emerald?”

He makes a disgusted face. It’s visible again now, under the last of the Sharpie. “I don’t know. I suppose that maybe if it was possible to — make it part of something else we could just change the color, but — I guess I’m also in a bit of a block about everything, so I don’t have much other input.” He hates to admit it, but since that accident he hasn’t felt like creating anything either on his own.

“Well,” she says, “can I be extremely frank with you?”

“Please. Wouldn’t want anything but.”

“If you hate it that much, you should cover it with something you equally love. Or like. Because then not only it won’t remind you of the original, but — you will have made it part of something you actually do like, and it does help.”

“Hm. You know, my brother could have said that.”

“What?”

“Never mind. He wrote a couple of poems on that one specific matter. I — I see what you mean,” he sighs. “Thing is — and what if the person who made me get that was… the person I thought I couldn’t love more than anything else in the world and now the only thing I love as much, as in, my job, is in a drought?”

He doesn’t know why he’s telling her this. But he needs to tell someone and she looks like she might get it. God, he just hopes he’s not doing something colossally stupid.

She sighs. “I don’t usually tell clients this,” she says, “but — you did save my hide and my shop and my business at least for the foreseeable future, so I think I’ll make an exception.”

“You don’t have to —”

She shakes her head and shrugs off the leather jacket. She has bare arms underneath, and he can see that a lot of them are inked, but she doesn’t leave him time to notice how exactly. She turns her back to him, slightly raises up her tank top and shows him the lower half of her back.

“Do you see that rose?” She asks.

He squints. Oh. Right, there’s one, on the small of her back, with black petals, but it’s kind of lost in the context of… the rose lying next to a rock with a sword sticking from it, the blade running along her spine. He can’t see the handle since it’s most likely under her bra, but he thinks he gets the gist.

“Is that… Excalibur?”

“Yes,” she says, moving the tank top down and covering her skin. “The rose was — in the crest of my high school hockey team. We all got it when we won the local championship in my second to last year.” She sighs. “I thought I was friends with them. I also was the only girl in the team. And — the third year, a lot of them started trying to ask me out, and I felt flattered, and I almost said yes to one of them, until the coach, who was very old school and hated that he had a woman in the team never mind that I definitely scored them enough goals to win… well, apparently it was a bet to see who’d get to take my v-card,” she sighs, and Jaime about blanches at hearing it.

“The hell?” He asks. “What kinda arses were you in school with?” Seriously? She’s definitely a nice person, she wouldn’t deserve it, and she was in their team on top of it? What the fuck.

She laughs. “Terrible ones. I quit the team just after and they didn’t win that year, but — well. I hated that I had it on me, then I tried to have it removed but I was told my skin was too sensitive and it would be better to just cover it. They asked me what books I liked, I told them, they gave me the idea and — well, now I like it a lot more than before. It’s something I’ve loved for all of my life and those arses, were, were part of it. Better remember they existed and I got over them then trying to pretend they never were there.”

He nods, getting the point, and — well. That’s a point. He doesn’t think he could ever delete Cersei from his life, as much as he wishes he could. Maybe — maybe she has the right of it.

“So what if I told you that if you asked me that question, I’d give you the same answer?”

“Well, you did help me pay the rent with Arthurian legends, I figured that out. Well, no one says you can’t have a sword on that arm.”

“… Really?” He asks. He hadn’t thought it would fit, especially with the scarring.

“Can you show it to me again?”

He does.

She takes a good look at it, frowning.

“I think,” she then says, “that the emerald could go into a hilt, and it wouldn’t be too hard to make it go all over your arm. That doesn’t solve the issue of covering the scarring around it, but —”

“Wait,” he says. “I think — well. Arthur’s first sword did break according to some versions, right?”

“It did.”

“Right. You could have a whole sword coming out from pieces of an old broken one?”

“You mean, a sword within another?”

“Is — is that too much?” He asks, but then she shakes his head.

“No,” she says. “I think — can I take a few pictures of the arm? The whole of it? So I can use them as a reference and give you a prospect next time.”

“Feel free.”

She finds a camera on the bookshelves behind her back and spends the next few minutes taking pictures over pictures of his right arm from fifteen different angles, and then she nods in satisfaction as she puts it back.

“I can have something for you in a week, I think,” she says. “Would that be fine with you?”

“It would. Anyway, my doctor said it should be another three months before you can ink, so there’s time.”

She nods. “You really are eager to have it gone, aren’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?” He snorts back.

“I’ve been there,” she answers. “Maybe — maybe you would like updates?”

“As in?”

“I’ll sketch on copies of those pictures,” she says. “I could text them to you. Or email, if you’d rather.”

Huh. Not a bad idea.

“Texting would be nice. It’s just, well, I feel like scratching it out if I look at it.” He doesn’t know why he’s telling her that, all over again, not at all, but he likes how she doesn’t look at him as if she thinks he’s overreacting.

Same as everyone else bar Tyrion and the people he employs has until now.

She smiles slightly and takes out her cellphone. “Well then, Mr. —”

“Listen, not to be inappropriate and such, but given that we should text and we’re showing each other personal parts of ourselves, I think it’s kind of ridiculous that we’d be that formal. Also, I hate formal.”

“You mean —”

“You can save it with my damned name, if you’d like.”

She swallows, her throat working up and down for a moment. “Then I suppose you can save with Brienne,” she agrees cautiously, her eyes suddenly looking a warmer shade of blue. He’s probably imagining things.

They exchange numbers. Then she nods and accompanies him to the door. He’s about to leave, but then —

“I also wanted to scratch that off my back,” she confesses. “I understand. Oh, I just realized — maybe you’d like that to be covered again?”

Actually yes, he would. “What if I do?”

She tells him to wait and finds another couple Sharpies in the entry, then comes back on the doorstep. “Something else you like looking at?” She asks.

“Bonfires,” he replies, remembering the few times he managed to drag his brother to the beach during the summer and they’d stare at the sea with a fire going on right next to them.

She glances at what’s left of her former drawing, turns the stems into fire, covering the emerald again, then she uses a red one and an orange one to draw flames inside the spaces left in between the black lines.

“Better?” She asks.

“Yeah,” he answers, deciding that he really likes how she can manage to actually see shapes inside the mess on his arm.

“Then — see you in a week. I’ll text you as soon as I have something.”

‘I’ll be waiting,” he says, and heads out of the door as she shuts it behind him.

——

She texts him three days later, while he’s boxing up the last of this batch of glowing pink pigment.

It’s a photo of the picture she took of his arm lying upside down — the emerald is embedded inside a sleek hilt, while the blade goes all the way up to his triceps. The attached message is about whether he’d like the hilt larger or the blade shorter or longer, but all he’s thinking about is imagining something like that in place of the perpetual reminder of the worst decision he ever took and he thinks, I’d like that.

He texts back saying that it looks good but he’ll check better later, then asks if the blade has to be grey.

It can be any color you want, she replies. It’s your tattoo, not mine.

He thinks about what Cersei had said.

It’s our tattoo. Ours.

He feels like throwing up all over again.

“Peck,” he calls out instead, “you can put the pink back in stock.”

“Got it!”

Bronn is thankfully still working on that orange because he’s determined to not use toxic materials as much as he can manage, so he doesn’t ask Jaime what the hell is up.

He glances at the flames on his arm, at the hidden emerald beneath it that he needs gone like he needs breathing.

Soon.

Soon, hopefully.

Three months is not that long.

——

He has to skip his appointment the next week because a gallery has apparently sold an old painting of his and they wanted to discuss if he had a replacement to give them, but she says it’s no problem and sends him another couple pictures with different options on how his scars could turn into pieces of broken steel. He says he likes the second one best, she says duly noted and gives him an appointment another seven days from now. Of course, by now her drawing has faded.

He’s tempted to tear out that damned emerald all over again.

But no. He would just set everything back. He comes back home to find a letter, with an RSVP for Cersei’s fucking wedding to fucking Rhaegar Targaryen. He throws it in the trash, then takes it out and burns it before ditching it.

Then he takes his phone and texts Brienne.

What did you do when you really wanted to tear out that rose?

He presses send without even thinking about it. Then he freaks out for a moment — that was wildly inappropriate, damn it, and even he can get that, fuck, he hopes she doesn’t decide he’s being completely rude and overstepping boundaries —, but minutes later he gets an answer.

Think about how those arses would have gloated knowing they got to me.

Just that, sure, but — okay. Fine. That sounds sensed —

His phone rings again.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t get to me. But I’d have strangled myself before letting any of them know.

Before she can regret sending it, he pens an answer.

Good point. He thinks about the rest for a moment. You’re right. Sorry, I just felt a mighty need.

The phone rings again. I get it, don’t worry.

Nothing else, but fair enough — she probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.

He thinks of how much he would hate it if Cersei knew she had that much power over him still.

Suddenly, he doesn’t want to ruin his arm any further anymore.

——

When he realizes he’s actually looking forward to the appointment, it’s when he looks at his arm two days before it’s time and realizes most of the Sharpie drawings have faded away.

He could redo them himself, true enough, but he’s not sure his left wouldn’t start shaking the moment he tried to, so he decides he’ll just wait and bear it and wear long sleeves meanwhile. Meanwhile, he’s working on that orange pigment (Bronn figured it out, bless his knack for accidental chemistry), thinking that it could have worked perfectly if he had to actually ink those flames on him.

He won’t, it’s not what he wants, but — it’s a good color. He likes it. Maybe he could bring it over to Brienne and ask if she could find a way to replicate it to cover the green, but then he realizes that it most likely isn’t dark enough.

He breathes in and goes back to his pigment. He has physical therapy later in the afternoon, too, and fuck, if only it was quicker, if only it worked, if only he could draw properly again and not just sketches —

Yeah, he wishes.

Too bad patience never was his strong suit if not when it came to waiting for his sister and now he exhausted that, too.

——

“So,” Brienne tells him as he finally walks inside her office two days later, right on time, “I took into consideration what you told me about the pictures I sent. And, I think I have something, but I’ll need further input, of course.”

“Show me then,” he says, “can’t wait.”

“I can hear it,” she deadpans, and hands him a few pictures of his arm, where she drew all over again.

Oh.

As she drew it, the outer part of his arm would be covered in an intricate picture of broken pieces of steel, all still partly attached to each other but falling towards the outside. It’s obvious from the three pictures he’s looking at that it would cover the entire arm, and somehow she managed to find a way to cover all the scarring he has on the outer side.

But on the inside —

She made the blade with a very small grip and a slender, simple hilt that only has the emerald in the center of it, and since the grip isn’t long, it doesn’t look awkward since it wouldn’t go around his wrist.

“Now,” she says, “that’s to show you what would go where, but,” she grabs a sketchbook from the side, handing it over opened on the central page, “this is the proper drawing. Of course, I can still change everything and it’s nowhere near definitive.”

He nods, looks down at it, and —

Holy shit.

Put it like this, the blades have details. He can see that some of the edges are jagged so that they can exactly follow the scarring on his arm, while the hilt actually would have details around the jewel — she made it flowers, same as the ones she had drawn on his arm before.

“Christ,” he says, “you sure you want to keep on doing tattoos and not, you know, upgrade? Because holy shit, you’re good.”

She snorts. “Thank you, but I’d like to keep on paying my rent and you don’t know if I tried already or not.”

“… Do I want to know why you’re making tattoos, then?”

“The only agent who agreed to represent me said that it was a go if I could do some… Banksy kind of stuff. I mean, never showing my face and the likes.”

“… The fuck? You have to make art, not to be a model.”

“If only you were an agent,” she sighs. “But anyway, I mean, this has been a more rewarding job, I think.”

“Really?”

She looks up at him. “People want tattoos for a lot of diverse reasons, Jaime. A lot of them are rewarding, if you can help them getting what they want. I mean, when I got that one, it immediately made me feel better about years of getting shit for my looks, I figured it wouldn’t be too bad to pay other people the same favor. So, I imagine the general design is fine?”

“Fuck, it’s more than fine,” he says. “Honestly, it’s — I had no idea you could involve the whole of it.”

“I never said I wasn’t good at my job,” she smirks, and maybe he does like how the blue of her eyes twinkles as she says it. He kind of likes it when she lets down her guard. “So, I suppose we could discuss details?”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, I suppose the coloring would be one.”

“… The coloring? Beyond the emerald, you mean?”

“No, I mean all of it. You have to stick with it your entire life, you should have the last word on all of it.”

He doesn’t tell her, you don’t know how much I needed to hear it.

“I — hadn’t thought about it beyond that. Why, what do you suggest?”

“Well, you need a color for the hilt. Gold? Silver? Black?” She shrugs. “You tell me. It doesn’t have to be realistic, it could be pink for all I know.”

“Yeah, no. Nice shade to produce, but I’ll pass.”

“What, you make pigments?”

“In my spare time,” he says. “You ever want a discount for tattoo-friendly stuff, let me know.”

“I could take you up on it in a while,” she mutters. “Anyway, that’s one thing. Of course, if the flowers on the hilt should be different or a different color, that’s doable. And as far as the blade goes, well, it should be grey but I had mine glowing, so really, it’s up to you.”

He considers it.

“I guess — the broken blade can be grey.” It could have been green, but he doesn’t want it in front of his eyes if he can help it. “The whole one — I don’t want it too weird, but maybe some red or orange shading?”

“I don’t see why not,” she says. “You have a warm tone of skin. It wouldn’t look bad on that at all, if you just want the steel to reflect it. Of course, it’s going to take longer sessions.”

“I imagined that,” he shrugs. “Not a problem. I have a high pain tolerance.”

Brienne raises an eyebrow. “Somehow, I had the feeling,” she says. “Well then. How about the blade and the flowers? Or maybe you want some time to think about it?”

“If I want the flowers to pop up they should be a different color, right?”

“Well, either clear hilt with dark flowers or the contrary.”

He doesn’t want a gold hilt, though, and silver wouldn’t… really work, he thinks.

“Can I get back at you on that?”

“Of course,” she tells him. “It’s not like you don’t have time before we can start inking.”

“Too bad. By the way, do you think you can go and cover it again?”

She smiles, slightly. He thinks, I kind of want to see her smiling fully, and where did that come from? Then she opens a drawer and takes out ten different Sharpies, each a different color.

“And what would you like me to cover it with?”

He comes out of the shop with flowers with petals made of flames drawn all over his forearm and wrist, and he’s kind of sorry he can’t keep that one because it’d be badass, but no way it would work as well as the one they have decided on.

He goes back home where his momentarily good mood is ruined by a glance at the three empty canvases in the living room. He sighs, texts Bronn he’ll be at the lab later tomorrow and to please start working on that shade of light purple that they need to restock, then looks at his calendar.

Two months.

Two months and he can get the damned tattoo done, and in two weeks he’ll be at Brienne’s again to finalize the rest of the design, and then he’ll be — maybe not free of fucking Cersei but if she’s right maybe he’ll be able to start putting her behind him for once.

It’s not that long, in comparison to… his entire life, isn’t it?

——

At lunch, they’ve made enough progress with restocking the purple pigment — they’ll be done in two days at most — so he decides that maybe, maybe, he could go up to his studio. Technically it’s above the lab, in the same building, but he hasn’t set foot there in weeks, not when he can’t even paint at home.

Might as well give it a go.

He tells Bronn to call him if there’s the need, then he goes upstairs and opens the door.

Everything is exactly as he’d left it, with the empty sofa and some half-filled canvases in the corner and sketchbooks and supplies abandoned on the desk, and he hates it. He grabs his favorite sketchbook, the one where he used to do charcoal drawings or preparatory sketches, and turns it to a fresh page — the last one is from three days before the accident. It’s Cersei’s profile, not shaded yet, but he did her nose and chin and eyes and cheekbones and hair, and even as he stares at the white page after, he feels like she’s fucking watching him from behind the other sheet and from his arm, even if he can’t see that damned emerald right now.

He hates it. He fucking hates it.

Right. Right. It’s not that he needs details, even if it was something he loved doing back when, well, when his right hand still worked the way it was supposed to. He can start off easy. Maybe something safe. He could go and try to sketch the opposite building — can’t be too hard, especially given how ugly it is.

Well then. He sits on the nearest chair, takes a breath, tries to stick to copying it as much as he can manage, and then the door opens.

“Bronn, I told you to call if —” He starts, and then the sketchbook falls from his hands.

He stands up, staring at Cersei, feeling his arm itch.

“Get out,” he says, flatly.

Cersei stares back at him and doesn’t.

“You didn’t RSVP,” she replies.

“Well, if someone doesn’t RSVP they usually mean to say they’re not coming,” he says. “And I’d really appreciate it if you left.”

“You’re not coming,” she says. She doesn’t seem amused.

“Oh, why the fuck would I? I don’t know, you say we’re meant to be since always, then you say we’re not, I’m currently unable to do my job because of that and as much as I could have avoided taking that drive, I really don’t feel like talking to you right now. But I should come to your wedding now? For fucking real? Get lost.”

“Father isn’t going to like it.”

“Father can also get lost as well, I didn’t make myself a name in my field thanks to his help.”

She smiles. Fuck, she’s not going to leave, is she?

“Jaime, don’t be unreasonable,” she tries again, and then he glances at her forearm.

The skin is slightly reddened, and the emerald part of her tattoo is still visible, but —

Ah.

She did laser it, didn’t she?

She notices where he’s looking at.

“Oh,” she shrugs. “Well, tattoos aren’t convenient in my future line of work.”

“I imagine you went to the place where we got it, didn’t you?”

“Of course. They gave me a discount.”

Right. She can, huh?

“Cersei, please just fucking leave,” he says. “If you ever gave a shit about me, ever, leave. I can’t look at it right now, I can’t look at you right now and you have no right to be here.”

“You’re being unusually childish even for your standards,” she shrugs. “Come on, did you really think —”

“Oh, how interesting,” Bronn says from behind her, and Jaime doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy to see him. “He had just told me he was here for inspiration and I need him to get his head clear if he wants to give us that new red pigment, and on your wedding day we have to watch Good Omens at my place.”

“You have to do what?”

“Watch TV, he promised a while ago. So, how about you come downstairs with me?”

He smiles slightly, and — thing is, Cersei hates him, but he’s been Tyrion’s friend for years and she remembers that he’s been a night guard for a fairly exclusive night club for a while and that he did break a few bones, in that time. Bronn winks at him as she turns on her heel and gets downstairs, and Jaime immediately locks the door, decides he’s going to give the man a raise, and drops on the seat feeling like he could vomit.

Or like he could burn the damned thing off his skin.

That seems like a fucking good idea right now, except that no, no, he can’t, he’d set himself back, he’d risk ruining his damned arm for good, and fuck, she lasered it and got a discount —

He grabs his phone and calls Brienne. He has no fucking clue of why he’s calling her when she never gave him permission to, but he needs to talk to someone who’d get it and he knows no one else —

She picks it up.

“Jaime?” She asks, cautiously.

“Brienne.” He knows he sounds like he’s run a marathon. “Listen, I know you never said I could call, but — shit.”

“Hey, it’s — it’s fine. You don’t sound well, though.”

“I just, that tattoo I need to cover. I had a matching one with another person. With whom it really went… sour. And she’s the reason I got into that accident.”

“I — I see,” she says. “And?”

“And, she just showed up at my work place asking why I’m not going to her wedding, tried to put some blame on me for — things, never mind, and then I saw her arm.”

“She lasered it, didn’t she?”

“… How do you know?”

“I guessed,” she says, sounding sympathetic. “I’m — I’m sorry,” she says, and fuck, at least she sounds like she means it. “But that’s not what you called me to hear, right?”

“No,” he says. “I mean, I just — on one side I feel like carving that damned thing out of my skin already even if I know I’d fuck things up even further, but on the other… shit, I haven’t drawn anything that wasn’t your sketches since the accident, nothing feels right anymore and I didn’t really need to see her again, and she showed up when I told her I didn’t want to, and — yeah. I don’t even know what I called for, but —”

“You called someone that you knew went through the same thing,” she says, and gods, how is she sounding so calm? “It’s all right. Really.” She takes a breath. “I don’t know your situation,” she goes on. “I mean, specifically. But I can see this person really hurt you, hasn’t she?”

“What if she did?”

“Well, after I quit the team I threw away all my shirts. Not the trophies because I won that stuff, but if you have anything of this person’s around… I’d try that. But that said — listen, I get wanting to hurry, but you know you don’t want to hurt yourself any further and the fact that you’re calling says all, so just think that a month from now that ink will be part of something you picked for yourself and at least you will have had the metaphorical balls to not pretend it never happened.”

… That’s a point, he decides. “You — you might be right,” he sighs. “I know you are, actually. It’s just — I hate that now she suddenly doesn’t care anymore when I’d have died for her.” He doesn’t know he’s ever admitted that to anyone.

For a moment, she says nothing — he can hear her breathing, though, and he thinks, maybe I shouldn’t have said it, maybe —

“I’m sorry,” he says a moment later. “I shouldn’t have put that on you.”

“Can you drop by after closing time?”

“… What?”

“I close at seven PM. Can you come here then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I could. Why?”

“You’ll know. And don’t do anything stupid, all right?”

“I won’t,” he says, and — he actually means it, he realizes as he closes the call.

Huh.

He puts the phone away, looking at that sketchbook. He grabs it back up, turns it on a fresh page, grabs a piece of charcoal and presses it so hard against it, it breaks in two.

He starts moving it.

——

Half an hour later, the page is a mess of black scratches that are torn in more than one place. He wonders if he should grab some chalk and try to see what happens if he tries to draw on it, but then he decides that maybe he doesn’t want to know. He tears that page out, puts it on the desk, grabs his jacket and decides that he can walk all the damned way to Brienne’s place given how damned far it is. Maybe he’ll clear his head.

He goes downstairs, tells Bronn he’ll get a raise from the effort and sets on seeing how much he can actually last before taking a bus. But — it’s three in the afternoon. He has four hours.

He thinks he’s going to try and walk as long as he possibly can.

——

“What the hell did you do?” She asks the moment she opens the door, at five past seven.

“I walked all the way here,” he shrugs.

“I can see it,” she observes, letting him in, then closing the door.

Then she tells him to go upstairs, but instead of going to the usual room, she brings him into the other one. The one where she actually inks people.

Then she hands him a white piece of paper.

“What —”

“Congratulations,” she tells him, “you’re getting a free job.”

“What?”

“Sit down, think on something you really would like to have inked on you regardless of everything else, write it down if it’s a line or a quote or tell me if you want me to draw it, just don’t make it too big.”

“But —”

“Wait.”

She seems to think about it for a moment, then she gets rid of her leather jacket, again, and while this time she’s wearing a regular blue t-shirt, he can see that her arms are covered in ink.

Holy shit. He can barely see skin at this point, or better, he can, but it’s not smooth or uncovered for more than a few inches.

“Let’s say,” she sighs, “that I got one every time I felt in your specific situation.”

The first thing he thinks is, how many people fucked this woman over in her life, because it’s more than fifteen just on one arm. The second, though, is that they’re beautiful. None of those tattoos is tacky and they’re actually put together in a way that makes them harmonize with each other, and he can see that a lot of them on both sides are words mixed together.

Oh.

He looks at at the one on her shoulder. It’s small print, but neat and readable, in dark blue.

“Somehow,” he says, “Ani DiFranco does seem your type of thing.”

She snorts. “No bonus points for guessing, that’s what everyone says.”

Jaime keeps his eyes on the I am not a pretty girl, that is not what I do, I ain’t no damsel in distress, and I don’t need to be rescued staring up at him from the pale, freckled skin underneath.

“And that might have been the first one I got,” she shrugs. “It was before the one on my back.”

“Before?”

“A few classmates told me that this guy I didn’t find unattractive liked me just before Valentine’s Day,” she sighs. “I bought it and I asked him if it was true, he said he’d never even have considered dating someone as hideous as I looked but if I wanted I could have his leftover chocolate.”

“The fuck?”

“I went and got that the next day. It felt good, honestly.” She smiles, even if it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t know how healthy it is but I mean, it’s my job, so it’s not like it’s ever going to be a problem. And hopefully you won’t need more than one, if you want to.”

“You know what,” he says, starting to see what she means. “You’ve got a point. Uh, can I have a minute?”

“You can have as much as you want. I mean, it’s going to stick, I wouldn’t have you pick something you’re not sure of. Also, it’s not like I had anything planned for tonight. I’ll make myself some tea while you consider, how about it?”

“Okay,” he agrees, and she leaves the room.

He stares at the white piece of paper. For a moment he draws a blank, then he thinks.

Okay. He needs something he can look at that will make him think that Cersei doesn’t deserve his damned time any more than what she already got from him. It should make him think of supposedly nice things looking at it.

He needs something that at least is tied to stuff he likes.

Huh.

Maybe —

Maybe he got it.

——

She comes back half an hour later, with two tea mugs.

“Did you choose?” She asks.

He hands her the piece of paper. “But not in my handwriting, it’s bad enough,” he tries to joke. She reads it, then grins slightly. This time it does reach her eyes a bit.

“Led Zeppelin are always a nice choice,” she says. “Can’t say you have bad taste.”

“Well, I’d have been disappointed if you didn’t approve,” he jokes back, and she’s grinning tentatively in return, and what is he doing here?

She shakes her head. “Right. We can go over how you want it written and where and so on.”

She hands him a book full of possible font choices as they go back inside her office. It takes them an hour or so to pick one and decide where he wants it — inner arm, on the other side, so it mirrors the first one. They go back to the chair where she turns on the light.

“I suppose you won’t want local anesthesia?”

“Please,” he says, “how long is it gonna be? Twenty minutes? I can handle it.”

She nods, gets the needles ready and leans down.

He relaxes, or tries to, except that he hadn’t realized that she would be this fucking close to him. He can see her freckles up close as she moves and quickly, efficiently inks his arm with that thin needle. Her hair is sticking to her forehead, but it’s a nice shade of blonde, he thinks, especially if seen up close and not from afar. And as she leans over him for a moment, he realizes they’re so close that if he leaned up a bit they’d touch, and for that matter her rough hands with ink under her fingers are so very gently as they touch his arm and turn it over as she keeps on inking words under his skin.

Shit. He likes how it feels. His heart suddenly beats faster, he doesn’t know why but it does, and he breathes in, realizing that they’re sharing the same air here —

“Done,” she says, breaking his reverie.

What.

Has it really been just twenty minutes? Fuck. He lost track of time, hasn’t he?

Brienne leans back and surveys her work. Jaime looks down at his arm, where

and if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last.

when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll

is inked in two lines over his arm, perfectly readable, even if the skin is slightly reddened. It’s in black, thin, in a nice, cursive font he really did like, and — he thinks he likes how it looks. He nods at her, feeling like words are stuck in his throat and he can’t talk right now.

Brienne turns over and covers it with a piece of gauze.

“You’ll have to keep it covered a while, no washing for a few days. I’ll give you some cream if the skin gets irritated.”

“Thanks,” he says, not trusting his voice right then. “Uh, are you sure that —”

“I’m fine for the next year,” she says dryly. “I can afford it, especially for you.”

He doesn’t want to admit that maybe he did flush a bit, hearing that.

“You really did appreciate those sketches, didn’t you?”

She shrugs minutely, her voice suddenly becoming smaller as she puts her tools away. Her fingers are stained in ink.

Same as his own used to be in paint, he thinks bitterly.

“I opened this place with the money I made, well, with commissions.” She sighs. “In the sense, I actually did do something other than tattoos, but people just bought it from me and then made them pass as if I made them.”

“The hell?”

She shrugs. “As stated. Couldn’t find an agent, my looks are what they are and I was honestly done with people telling me they could consider my work in exchange, for, well, other favors. And I did have to give up my rights on that art, but at least it paid a lot. Enough to stop doing it and rent this place.” She closes the a drawer after putting away some pieces of paper in it. “The place was completely falling apart, though, so I renovated it completely. I mean, I did everything myself. Plumbing, electricity, the walls and so on. The owner gave me a discount for it, of course. Then for a while I did specialize in… covering scars from surgeries.”

“… That is why you were that good at incorporating my damned wounds into that design?”

“I had practice,” she smiles sadly. “Then I had to also open to other bookings because that didn’t really cover the rent regardless, and I kind of wanted to save up to buy it, but that didn’t really quite work out until now. I mean, the moment I did seem to have steady business other than my main one, that parlor opened and — well. They’re sleeker, they’re cooler I suppose, and since it’s more than one person working there of course it takes them a lot less to ink people than it takes me to prepare a whole elaborate design and so on. So I barely made enough to cover the rent until you came in.” She breathes in, finally meeting his eyes again. “And if you hadn’t I probably would have been forced to close, which would have meant throwing ten years of efforts down the drain, so yes, I really appreciated that you did that. Clear enough?”

He thinks it is.

He also doesn’t know what to say that might not sound insensitive, so he goes for his usual.

As in, deflecting.

“Well, I really appreciated that you might have been the first person in years who hasn’t tried to fuck me over, so let’s consider it an even debt, shall we?”

She does smile a bit at that, long enough that it shows a bit of her teeth. He thinks it lights up her eyes. And damn, doesn’t she have pretty eyes indeed.

“Fine,” she agrees. “Let’s. Of course, let me know if you have any issues with it — if nothing happens in the next week or so, it should be good to go.”

He nods, and realizes that it’s almost ten PM and he walked all the way here.

“And what if I’m kinda starving here, I could do with eating something and since you also closed now because of me, I might pay you dinner?”

She takes a moment to answer, but then —

“All right. There’s a good Chinese around the corner.”

“I’m good with it,” he says, and goes downstairs, waiting for her to close the shop. She gets out of the door wearing the leather jacket again, drowning in it, an azure scarf around her neck, locks the door and leads him to the Chinese in question.

Turns out: it’s good.

Turns out: there’s an all you can eat option.

Half an hour after their first courses arrive, Brienne is looking at him with admiration.

“And people used to think I had appetite when I was playing hockey,” she says, but it doesn’t sound mocking or anything of the kind. Nor does it sound like she’s telling him to quit, which is how Cersei would have most likely sounded.

“Hey, I walked for half of the entire day and I haven’t had lunch. Also, it’s not bad at all.”

She reaches for her second serving of dumplings. “Skipping lunch is not a good idea.”

“I know,” he sighs, “I wouldn’t have if that person hadn’t shown up. Anyway, really, thanks for not hanging up on me or anything.”

“It’s fine,” she assures him. “It’s just, I don’t want to presume anything, but if this person distresses you that much, maybe you should consider pressing charges or something of the kind?”

“I wish,” he sighs. “But let’s just say explaining the police why you want your twin sister on a restraining order isn’t a thing I’m really itching to do right now.”

For a moment, he expects her to press or look at disgusted as she should feel, if she guessed what he has just implied.

But then —

Her eyes go wide, as if she’s taking in that info, but then she doesn’t sneer and her stare doesn’t turn judgmental.

“To make you feel like that, she must be a piece of work,” she mutters, reaching for another dumpling. “Then again, I guess she might be the kind of person who’d tell people guys were into them to set them up for humiliation, so if she is, I’m not envying you whatsoever.”

“Thanks,” he says, unable to keep the relief from his tone. “Maybe after she gets married she’ll go back to ignoring me.”

“I hope for you she does, but if life has taught me anything is that those people don’t deserve the amount attention you give them most of the time.”

With that, she goes back to finish her dumplings and he attacks his meat again.

But —

She had a point, didn’t she?”

——

He lets her drive him home later. She doesn’t accept any further thanks, and he watches her car speed away in the night, then he glances at his left arm.

He smiles a tiny bit.

——

A week later, the tattoo is perfectly healed and — she was right. Looking at that whenever he feels like dying inside because that goshdarned emerald is still inked on him and not on Cersei anymore makes him feel a lot better, and honestly, he does like how it looks on him. He never thought he was the person who’d want tattoos in the first place, he never liked the idea of something that permanent that he could change his mind about, but he thinks he’s getting the hang of it.

Then he goes to his doctor and turns out, his wounds are doing far better than they had pictured, so he could actually start inking in ten days or so rather than waiting that much longer and fuck, he had no idea he could feel this elated at the thought.

He calls Brienne from his studio to inform her.

“That’s good,” she says, and she sounds genuinely happy for him. “Just, have you decided how you want to cover that stone?”

Oh. Right. He told her he wanted the flowers of the same new color as the soon-to-be-former emerald, but not which one.

“Uhm,” he says, “listen, I still don’t know. But I suppose that we might need more than one session for it to be finished, so — what if next time I come I tell you what I want and you see if it’s doable, unless you have to ink it first?”

“Not a problem. And no, I don’t have to. So I’ll see you in ten days and we can start with the outer blades?”

“Sounds right,” he says, and then he wonders, the hell do I do now?

He shakes his head, grabs back his sketchbook that he had left back when Cersei visited.

He turns it over on that portrait of his sister’s he made last, before the torn away black page.

Suddenly, his eyes burn when he looks at it.

Then he grabs a charcoal — good thing he hadn’t shaded it.

Then he starts drawing over it.

He doesn’t exactly think about it — he just does whatever he feels like, and suddenly his hand is moving without his authorization and while the stroke isn’t really straight and he could do better, he’s barely paying attention as he turns his sister’s oval, flawless face into one that has an entirely different shape, as he tries to make her eyes larger, as he crosses away half of her long hair, smudging it to create a black background and turning them straighter, as he enlarges her nose, giving it a broken twist —

Shit.

Shit, he realizes as he blinks and clears his eyes, noticing that his hands are covered in black stains and that Brienne’s face is staring up at him from within Cersei’s, or maybe after having swallowed Cersei’s portrait whole.

Oh.

Oh.

Could it be that —

Could it be that —

He hasn’t realized that he might actually be into Brienne?

——

The more he thinks about it, the more he comes to the conclusion that… he most likely is.

Christ, he’s been pining after her for weeks at this point, he’s called her and not Tyrion when he needed someone to stop him from doing something stupid, he keeps on staring at that lovely, pure shade of blue of her eyes whenever he meets her, he wants her to draw on his arm, his heart was beating out of control when she gave him the other tattoo, he had thought she was close enough to kiss —

Wow. Wow. He’s a goddamned idiot. But then again, what experience does he have with being into people that Are Not Cersei? Right. Not many.

And shit, he should probably tell her, though maybe after she’s finished his tattoo, but —

But then he has the idea.

Suddenly, everything is very, very clear. Suddenly, he knows exactly what he wants on his arm, because even if she doesn’t care for him that way and she most likely doesn’t, she still did help him out more than anyone else has up until this point, and fuck, given all the crap he has guessed she’s gone through, maybe —

Maybe she’d like it.

Also, if he did his calculations right —

He smiles.

It’s going to take some time, but he thinks he might have come to the right conclusion.

——

When he tells Bronn the list of what he needs in his lab within a week, Bronn doesn’t comment and merely stares at him in a way that’s not impressed whatsoever. But then —

“Well,” he says, “at least you’ve seemed to stop moping after your bloody sister. Good enough,” he says, and tells him he’ll go find him whatever it is he needs.

Jaime grins.

He’s kind of looking forward to it.

——

Of course, the materials are late, which means that he goes to Brienne’s place with nothing, but when he tells her that he’s still thinking about it, she says that they’re looking at at least three different sessions — one for the broken pieces of blade, one for the whole blade and one for the handle, so he still has time to tell her until the next one.

She warns him that it’s painful as hell, but he’s gone through worse, and honestly, he barely even notices it when she’s this close to him as she inks his whitened scars, carefully following the design, turning his arm into a mess of broken pieces of steel. He can stare into that large, lovely eyes, and maybe he thinks, how soft would her lips feel, and fuck, he kind of wants to look at all of her tattoos, each single one of them, and ask her what’s the story behind each one, but now he can only see glimpses of some sun rays on her neck and he’s dying to ask.

But he doesn’t.

He goes back home with his arm wrapped in gauze, an appointment a week from now and a recommendation to not try and look at it, and —

And to a message from Bronn saying that his stuff has arrived, and what does he need it for?

——

The next day, he grabs his stuff and tells Bronn to not disturb him as he heads for his corner of the lab.

“Is there a reason why you wanted ferrocyanide?” Bronn asks as he heads to his bench.

“Yeah, because I needed it?”

“Hopefully not to do anything dumb,” Bronn deadpans.

“Hopefully not,” Jaime cuts him off.

Then he starts on his usual process, mixing iron and the potassium ferrocyanide together and waiting for the reaction — it’s his usual to-go process for his one shade of pulverized Prussian blue pigment that he only bothers to make once per year because it doesn’t sell that much and it’s not worth that much more effort. Still, he needs slightly different. He waits until it reacts the way he needs it to, but as he suspected it doesn’t quite get to the point of blue he needs it to be, and so he waits a bit longer, finalizing his plan and wondering if Tyrion is going to murder him if it’s not legally feasible, but it should be.

The moment he can, he moves to the chrome mordant dying part of the process, hoping that Bronn doesn’t start bitching at him because he should avoid it when his arm is Still Not Healed, he grabs the last component he had ordered and adds a bit of synthetic ultramarine Klein, then adds some more and —

Huh.

It might have worked, he thinks. He’s going to let it rest for a while and verify it later, and meanwhile he’s going to call Tyrion and ask about the legalese behind what he wants to do.

——

Thankfully, it’s not undoable, or so it seems. And when he goes back to his table and finally has his powder, it does look the right shade.

He grabs some of it, goes upstairs, mixes some water with it, grabs he first brush he sees, opens the sketchbook to that Frankenstein of a Brienne-Cersei portrait, then dips it in the bright blue he has just put together, and then he tries to paint over the eyes.

Huh.

He turns the page over, painting on a fresh one.

Fuck him. He did get the right shade, after all.

He grins to himself.

Oh, he will have her answer when he goes back next time.

——

“How is your arm doing?”

“Moderately hurts in the ways you said it should,” he says, trying to not give out how hard his heart is beating.

On the way here, he had wondered, will she think it’s too much, but then he had decided that he never did things halfway in his life, and he also likes to think he’s not a coward. So he’s going to do it.

“So,” he says, “I think I know what I want to do with that emerald. But — it’s also something else.”

“All right,” she says. “What color did you decide on?”

“I think we should be in your office for me to explain,” he says.

“… All right,” she says, and leads him upstairs.

He’s about ready to reach into his shoulder bag and take out the package.

Then he stops dead in his tracks when he notices that the last sketch he made for her is on the desk, the one she suggested.

He looks at her.

Brienne’s cheeks flush in a way he’s sure they’ve never quite flushed yet.

“Is that —” He asks.

She breathes in. “I did sell the other three,” she says. “And I got enough to be covered for a year. But — I really liked this one.” He can barely hear her now. “So I thought I’d keep it. I kind of wanted to frame it, but — well. Might be that I will have to sell it anyway, but I just… couldn’t do it the first time around.”

Jaime feels his throat go so dry, he has to clear it twice before he can go on.

“You just liked it?”

“Well, I was kind of flattered you actually would… you know, do it because I asked, but — I loved it, for that matter. It’s just, it might be a sketch but it’s lovely. I like the negative use of space. And I thought — never mind. That would be ridiculous. So, what color do you want on the hilt?”

Might it be that it’s actually not as hopeless as I thought? He thinks. Then he sits down. She follows.

He opens his bag, taking out the nondescript little black box with his studio’s name on it that he uses as a package for all of his other pigments, then hands it over.

“Oh,” she says, “is it one of yours?”

“Yes, but it’s not just that. Open it.”

She does, taking out the small bottle inside it.

Then her eyes go wide as she looks at the label.

“Jaime, what is that?”

“What are you reading?”

“Brienne blue?”

He leans back on the chair. “Then you still haven’t turned blind. The shade is right next to it. Now that I look at it, maybe I should have made it slightly lighter, but I think I got the gist.”

“Of my eyes?” She asks, and he’s glad to notice she immediately recognized the hue.

“So what if it is?” He grins, but not to the point where she might think he’s joking.

He’s not joking whatsoever.

“You — you actually made —”

“I suppose you should hear the whole story.” He breathes in. “Yes, I made it because I wanted it to be the same color as your eyes. Yes, I might have realized I’m into you, and no, I’m not joking. Yes, I want that on my skin, or anyway the closest you can get to it while mixing your colors, because regardless of what are your feelings, I happen to really like that color and if I hadn’t come to your place my life might be way worse right now, regardless of whether we consider debts paid or not. So, actually, I had a proposition for you regardless of whatever’s your opinion on that.”

“A — proposition.”

“You inspired that color. I could absolutely sell it — I’m making a good living out of that these days, and I know people who’d kill for such a shade. But since I wouldn’t have without you, I’m entirely willing to have you split the royalties on it with me. As in, you’d get half the money from any sale of that blue. And believe me, that would cover your rent. I’m established, you know.”

Her lips part, then close, then part again.

“You’re serious,” she says, and he’s glad she’s not asking.

“Deadly,” he grins back. “So, do you think that shade is doable?”

“I — I can get close to it, yes,” she says, her fingers shaking as she opens the small box. “Uh, can I —”

“Be my guest.” She finds some water and a brush, she does have some around, and grabs the sketch she had made of his final tattoo where both flowers and emerald were still blank. She glances at him for a moment, then mixes the powder, her brush coming out of the cup covered in thick, soft blue.

She paints the flowers and the emerald, turning it into a sapphire, and — yeah. They do look like her eyes.

“You’re sure about this,” she says, putting the brush away.

“Sure I am. As stated, regardless of everything, it’s a lovely shade. Blue would work well, covering green. And it’s pretty calming to look at. I think I’m absolutely sure.”

She sits on the desk, right on his side. “And what if — one of the reasons why I didn’t want to sell that fourth sketch was that — I figured that if I never saw you again after we were finished… then I’d have something of yours around?”

He stands up at once, and she follows as he does and takes a step towards her. They’re close now. Close as they were during that first tattoo. Fuck, she only has to lean down that half-inch and they’d kiss, and.

“What if I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a while and I really think we should put a remedy to it?”

“I — oh, fuck it,” she says, and a moment later she has leaned down, her mouth meeting his — he grasps at her shoulders, his tongue meeting hers at once, his hand going to her neck, and shit, her hands around his waist are tentative at first but then when she grabs him tighter he moans into her mouth, just a bit, and she doesn’t kiss like Cersei at all — she kisses like she wants to take her time with it and she wants to feel every inch of his mouth she can manage to touch, and her hands are really, really gentle as they hold up his face, but he thinks he likes it, fuck, and he wants to do it again, so he leans back, breathes in and does it again, and again, and by the time they part enough to actually talk, it’s been… a while, he thinks, but then he looks at her and those blue eyes of hers are so bright he could drown in them, and her rough ink-stained fingers are on his face and he likes how they feel.

He likes it very much.

“So,” he says, “are we getting one fake blade done before I can show you —”

“I knew that was coming,” she groans, but it’s — obviously she’s joking. And her fingers are still shaking. “But yes. We are. Actually, go sit in the other room while I compose myself, why don’t you?”

“I guess I do want you composed if you have to ink me.”

He totally stresses the last two words.

She goes red in the face and tells him to go already.

He does, and decides that he has had the best idea ever, when it came to confessing one’s feelings.

——

Later, she’s turning his arm into that orange-red blade they discussed, and when he asks her about the tattoos on her arm he can see from this vantage point, she quietly tells him.

 

Three weeks later

“So,” he says, “I can finally take it off?”

“Yeah,” Brienne tells him from her place next to him on the sofa in his studio. It’s currently covered in a fairly dirty sheet, there’s a sketchbook on the ground where he has drawn some ten different versions of her face and while none of them is exactly how he wanted it, at least he can draw now, better than before. The other half of the sheet is thrown on their waists and Jaime has pretty much done nothing for the previous hour because she forbade him to take off the bandage on the last part of his tattoo until now, and he figured he’d just go take a shower after doing it.

“I think you should have the honors,” he tells her. She rolls her eyes and strips away the bandage, revealing the black hilt over the blade, those blue flowers nested inside and the sapphire, of a blue that does indeed almost match her eyes. You can’t see any hint of the green underneath.

“Well,” he says, “it is gorgeous.” And he certainly likes to look at it now. He had missed looking at his arm and not feeling like it didn’t belong to him. “But, I have a feeling I have brighter sapphires at my disposal now.”

She snorts, leaning down, her naked frame standing against the pale azure of the sheet. Turns out, she didn’t have a giant tattoo all over her back. She inked all of her front as well, including her small breasts — they’re covered in black, abstract swirls that go all the way to her shoulders where they turn into more lyrics, and damn but if Jaime couldn’t look at her all damned day.

Still, his favorite might be one that she just got on her collarbone, with the exact same piece of Stairway to Heaven he got on his arm, in that same shade of blue she used to ink the sapphire.

(She just showed up with it one day, refusing to tell him why, but he thinks he grasped it.

I have one for everything of import that happens to me, she had told him when they left her place together the day they kissed.)

He leans down, kisses it once, twice, and then moves back up to meet her mouth.

“Well,” she says, “no one is preventing you to look at them.”

“Good,” he smiles back, “because I intend to have my fill. And by the way, I am painting you later. I need to see if that shade of blue works as an acrylic.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, her voice maybe shaking a bit, and he leans down for another kiss as she moans into his mouth.

Yeah, well, neither is he, and neither are their tattoos, but he has a distinct feeling that he’s not ever going to want to delete his own.

Not at all.

End.