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janie_tangerineThis time, it’s not him intruding on her while bathing.
Jaime thinks it’s somehow ironic when the door leading to Winterfell’s hot springs opens and Brienne walks in, wrapped in her fur cloak and looking like she’s not too sure of her welcome.
He leans against the stone of the pool, looking up at her. He tries to remember what he said in Harrenhal to try and rile her up.
It somehow doesn’t come to him, and anyway, he’s entirely too tired to try and do it, not when it’s the first bath he’s taken in weeks and when he feels so tired that he could sleep for two moons.
If only any of them could afford it.
“My lady,” he says. “I see that we’re in a similar happenstance as when we had that delightful conversation in Harrenhal, aren’t we?”
“We might be,” she agrees, moving closer to the opposite edge to where he’s lying. “And I wanted to talk to you without others around, but the chances were not… many. And —”
“What, some people are already whispering behind your back because you vouched for me when Daenerys Targaryen asked why she shouldn’t feed me to her dragon already?”
“Maybe,” Brienne agrees, “but I don’t care for that. I just thought that it would be best to do it where no one else could hear. You didn’t seem to relish in the prospect of explaining the queen why exactly you’re here, did you?”
“I don’t relish in the prospect of explaining Aerys’s daughter anything,” he admits, figuring he should have it out of the way. “By the way, I should thank you for that endorsement. I have a feeling without it they would have been entirely less swayed.”
Tyrion also did try to stand up for him, even if his opinion was not deal breaking on account of Daenerys suspecting he only said it to save his neck. And they only agreed fully when Bran Stark out of everyone said that it was his destiny to be here and that he held no ill will against Jaime because if he hadn’t pushed him out of that bloody window he couldn’t have fulfilled his own destiny or played his own part.
Jaime pledged his sword to him anyway. After all, Snow doesn’t need it, Sansa has Brienne’s and Arya sure as the seven hells doesn’t. It was accepted. They gave him permission to go around the castle even if he understood that people would keep an eye on him, they told him to show up for their much needed war council tomorrow that can now be run knowing the full stakes or most of them, and he figured he would go and take a damned bath because his entire body was hurting after days of riding with little rest or respite, never mind that he was filthy.
“You’re welcome,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
Part of him rejoices silently at hearing that.
Another, though —
“Brienne,” he says, realizing that he sounds tired but — what can he do if he is? —, “I’m afraid that at this point we might just rehash our previous experience in Harrenhal without you standing there like a damned log and me having to get aches in my neck to look at you.” He tries to wink at her after.
He doesn’t know how much it works, but she seems to think about it for one moment before she nods and starts disrobing without saying a word.
He’s startled — he hadn’t exactly imagined her to not protest such a suggestion, but then again… the Brienne he had known in the beginning of their acquaintance certainly wouldn’t have told him to fuck loyalty, would she?
She wasn’t wearing armor under the cloak, so she’s quick to take off her breeches and shirt and boots. She places everything near the edge of the pool and at that he notices that her chest is more scarred than he remembers — there’s some healed wounds on her hips, and faded bruises over he back and legs, and some fresh ones she most likely gained during training.
Time has passed, hasn’t it, he thinks wearily as she cautiously lowers herself inside the pool. She does try to make sure he doesn’t get a good look at her naked chest before she submerges her entire body in the warm water until only her neck and shoulders are out of it.
“Is your neck faring any better now?” She asks, sounding almost amused.
“Much, thank you,” he deadpans. He can look at her in the eyes now, at least. “So, what was it you wanted to discuss? I’ll admit there was — plenty I might have wanted to, as well.” He wishes he could bother to tease her the way he used to, before, but somehow he’s too tired for it.
“I just wanted to say that I knew you would come through.” She looks at him straight in the eyes and for a moment he feels his heart skip a beat, and maybe he hadn’t expected that but not so deep down he had hoped to hear it.
“You — you knew?”
“Ser Jaime, you haven’t given me any reason to think you might not for a very long time,” she says. “Maybe others. But I saw how you looked in the pit when you saw that wight’s hand. It was obviously you knew what was at stake.”
“I did,” he admits, sighing. “But it wasn’t enough, I guess.” His voice turns bitter at that, even if he hadn’t exactly planned on it, and he can see that she notices from the way her eyes squint just before he looks down at his right wrist, barely submerged under the water.
“Is this about why you’re here with what forces you took from Riverrun and not with your full army?”
“That’s why Edmure Tully is here with what forces he had in Riverrun and I’m here with a handful of soldiers, but thank you for putting it in a way that would make my role in it sound more dignified,” he says, and damn, he had wanted to lighten up the situation, not to sound even more bitter.
“Do you know no one —”
“Brienne, I might have behaved in a rather stupid way recently, and maybe even farther than that, but I’m not such an idiot. I know they expected an army and not me, pretty much.”
She doesn’t try to push that angle. “I wasn’t talking about an army, though,” she presses. “I was talking about you.”
He shrugs minutely, finding it in himself to look up at her again. She looks mildly worried. Why —
“Ser,” she says a moment later, her hands disappearing under the water. “I would not presume for you to share anything you don’t wish to.”
“Even if we made a habit of oversharing while bathing together?”
Her cheeks turn red as she shrugs, not disagreeing. “Maybe. But you look troubled, and I know it’s not just because of how you arrived here in the first place. And since I was the one telling you to, shall we say, go against your family, and your loyalties, and here you are, I feel like it would say nothing good about me if I wasn’t willing to hear you out, if you wish to discuss it.” It comes out of her in bits and pieces, as if it’s costing her a lot to say it and as if this is not the usual situation she finds herself in.
And yet.
And yet he can see what does it mean that she asked him, and on one side he could tell Tyrion, but he doesn’t know if he’d want to hear it or if he could answer anything that was not well, haven’t I told you so for years, and she offered, and if she hasn’t judged him worthless and honorless until now —
“I am troubled,” he admits, not bothering to hide the weariness in his voice. “I’ve been since Cersei blew up Baelor’s sept, but — on the way here, I realized… things, maybe.”
“Such as?” She prompts him when he doesn’t go on. He shrugs. “Just after I came back, I — I couldn’t look at her and recognize the person I thought I — you know that.” She nods. He figures he should go on. “She seemed to care for naught but keeping the throne even if her plans would make sure she would lose it sooner rather than later, she wouldn’t listen to me if I tried to counsel her somehow, she sounded cold even when discussing our — Tommen’s death.” He takes a breath. “I was — honestly questioning everything I had done up to that point. I think she knew. No, I know she did.”
She says nothing, standing up slightly straighter.
“I — might have started to doubt a few things at that point.” He should look at her as he speaks. He doesn’t know if he can. “Then she — stopped denying what we were. To others, I mean.”
“As in… not hiding it anymore?”
“No. She let the maids see, she — didn’t try to deny it anymore. It was — the one thing I wanted and she knew it, I think. I suppose a stronger man would have held on and kept on doubting, but I didn’t. I didn’t, and when she told me she was with child and that it was mine and she would tell that it was instead of hiding it… for a moment it felt right, and then she added that I shouldn’t betray her again, or else. She didn’t have to say it, but — it was clear. I should have thought about it. And I still stayed because I didn’t know how not to.”
Brienne gives him another nod. She’s not leaving, so he supposes he hasn’t said anything that will change her mind about him yet.
Yet.
“Then you showed up at the dragon pit,” he says. “And told me to fuck loyalty and made me wonder for a hell of a long time how could you say such a thing, but — I did try to talk to her. More or less. And she did talk to Tyrion and when she agreed — I thought she meant it. I really thought she understood that we were risking our lives here. And honestly, it was the only time I actually did want to lead that army somewhere.”
“And then?”
He looks up at her. He owes her that much. “When she saw me organizing the army she stopped it and said that of course we weren’t helping you, pretty much implied that I was a right complete dimwit if I ever thought it was an option, she said that if we let you fight it out our child would rule Westeros when it was pretty clear that even if it was ours, and if she was pregnant, there wouldn’t be any land left to rule anymore. I said I would go regardless and that I made a promise, that — thing that used to be Gregor Clegane was there, long story short she accuses me of conspiring against her, I said that if she didn’t want me to leave she should give the order and the only reason she didn’t was that she didn’t believe I was actually going to do leave.”
Brienne gives him a small nod, hearing that he’s not done.
“Which was why I tried to make it for Riverrun as fast as I could.”
“Did she send people after you?”
“Obviously. She had to spare them for me, not to fight for the living.”
“So what it is that you realized? If that was what you wanted to discuss, of course.”
He doesn’t know if he wants to say it out loud.
But he should. He should, if he wants to come clean with her and if he wants to come clean with himself. Maybe there’s a reason why he did this in a pool, again.
“People who love each other wouldn’t do such a thing,” he says. “I mean, if she really did, she — she wouldn’t have threatened to kill me, would she.”
Brienne seems to want to say something, but then she says nothing and instead takes a couple steps farther, obviously moving where the pool is deeper, until she’s sitting next to him. Not touching, but just enough to if they should want it.
“So I had to start thinking if she ever really — I mean, who says to someone they love that they will murder them for disagreeing with their admittedly suicidal notions? I wouldn’t have said it to her. And at the same time she only did give me what I wanted the moment I was really thinking of — I don’t know what, but not going along with her plans was about it.”
“For one,” Brienne says, “I am most glad she did not, but — do you want the honest outside opinion, for what mine is worth, or are you figuring it out for yourself?”
If only he knew. “I think it’s both,” he admits. “It’s not that I don’t have it figured out. I think I have, some. But I don’t know if I can even trust my own opinion and for that matter — I might have understood something else that I never let myself until I left.”
She nods, her eyes going to her knees before she looks back at him. Has she grown out her hair just slightly? He can’t be sure.
“If you ask me, if a person loves someone else the way I always assumed it would feel like… they don’t accuse that someone of being a right complete dimwit for either trusting their word or wanting to do the right thing. I — when Renly was alive, the thought that he might be one for doing things that were… in hindsight, not exactly smart thinking, wouldn’t even pass my mind. If the next thing they do is trying to kill them or threatening them… I wouldn’t want to presume to know better than you, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of love I would want for myself, in the world where someone such as myself finds any.”
His heart feels a pang at hearing that she still thinks that it’s not something that happens to her when —
When —
“I don’t know,” Jaime says, “there are rumors you have a wildling admirer around the castle, or so your squire informed me.”
She groans. “Well, it’s not reciprocated and I like to think I wouldn’t settle, even if the gods know — never mind. Even if I should find myself in an arranged situation with someone I didn’t love, I still don’t think it would be fair or honorable of me to treat them like that.”
On one side, he kind of feels relieved because if someone else thinks that it wasn’t fair behavior, at least he doesn’t have to listen to the part of him whispering that he should have never left her or disappointed her so — not that it’s the strongest part of him, right now.
“Was that was you assumed, too?”
He shrugs. “I just,” he admits, “I don’t even know what of it was real or not. Did she only give me what I wanted so I’d stay? Is she even pregnant at all? And is it mine, if she is?”
“Would that have made you stay?”
“Given the rest? If I knew it was mine and that she was telling the truth I might have considered, because — I guess she realized that I did want — never mind. I have more reasons to doubt it than not.”
“… She realized that you did want to father your children?” She asks, her voice barely audible.
“I have a feeling I haven’t hidden it too well,” he sighs, finally admitting it out loud.
She hasn’t moved her eyes from his, and he can see her teeth biting down on her lip for a moment. Biting down hard.
“What it is that you aren’t saying?” He asks.
“I don’t think it’s my place to share such a thing.”
“I don’t think it’s even remotely something you should be worrying about. I’m asking, if I went back to King’s Landing now she’d ask for my head and ser Strong would certainly take it, you’re one of the fourt people who doesn’t outright hate me in this place and we’re most likely going to die fighting the undead. Also, we’re both naked in a bath, again, you convinced me to follow my gut when you told me to fuck loyalty and you’re wondering if it’s your place to share your thoughts? Please,” he laughs bitterly, “I think we’re a bit past now.”
She seems to be about to object. Then bites down on her lip again, stops, puts a hand on his arm very tentatively and he goes still at once.
She’s gentle, he notices.
The same way she was in that other bath —
“I’m saying — if you ask me, she is showing very poor judgment, and not only when it comes to lending us her army.”
“… Really. When it comes to what else, then?” He asks, his voice coming out way less surer than he’d like.
He doesn’t want to hope that he understood right. He doesn’t want to hope that she means, when it concerned him, because if she did — if she did —
“The last time we were in such a situation,” she says, “you shared something with me that you never had before.”
“Yes. And?”
She breathes in. “If I tell you, I want your word that it won’t… get out of this room and that you won’t think ill of me for it, and that you will spare me any amusement it might cause you to hear it.”
“You have it,” he says, even if he’s not sure of why would she ask for such a thing. “Why, are you sharing your best-kept secret that’s been eating at you for years?”
“And what if I was about to?”
Suddenly, he doesn’t feel like making fun of the situation anymore. “Very well,” he says. “I won’t share. Do tell.”
“Your sister has extremely poor judgment in assessing how lucky she might have been and when it comes to assessing your character.”
For a moment, he can’t believe she just said that.
“Wait, what —”
“Any woman should be lucky of having with her someone who wants to father her children and doesn’t care for her just for her dowry, especially if it’s… mutual. And she especially really doesn’t know you as much as she thinks she does if she thinks you’re anywhere near a right complete dimwit, even if you can be impossible and you are half of the time. But you’re also the kind of person who will trust me to find Sansa Stark with her father’s sword, jump into bear pits for someone you barely even know, who’ll leave everything to fight for the living, who risked his reputation and honor to save half a million people and who only ever asked of her to not have scraps of time anymore, or did I guess wrong from what you said?”
“No, but —”
“If she couldn’t see you for yourself but just for what was useful to her, then she has incredibly poor judgment.”
She moves her stare down at that, her hand going to her wrist, pretending to scrub away dead skin, and — are her cheeks flushing?
And if she can’t look at him now… did she just imply that Cersei should consider herself lucky to be with him out of everyone but she didn’t realize it?
And wait, what did she say before…?
It doesn’t sound like the kind of love I would want for myself, in the world where someone such as myself finds any?
Oh, for —
“I think you are omitting maybe a small piece of information, are you?” He asks, hoping it comes out sympathetic and not as if he’s making fun of her. It’s the last thing on his mind right now, but he has resigned himself to never quite managing to say the right thing when he’s around her.
“If I am,” she says, “it’s because I don’t wish for the two of us to spend what might be the next few days in an extremely awkward situation, and since it seems like you guessed already, I would appreciate it if you could pretend it never happened. Something you gave your word you would do.”
“I gave my word that I wouldn’t tell anyone and I wouldn’t amuse myself at your expense,” he says, “but I’m in no way amused. I’m entirely serious. And I think that if I told you what it is that I figured out on the way here, you won’t think I should forget it.”
“And what it is that you figured out on your way here, ser?” She doesn’t sound too convinced.
He can imagine why. He turns to his side, reaches out with his left, grasps her elbow gently. “I’ve done unspeakable things to — to preserve what I had with her. I’m not sure it was worth it and maybe I was a fool because I couldn’t see for a long time that it wasn’t… what my heart had wanted. For a long time.”
“A long time?”
“I don’t jump into bear pits without weapons for just about anyone,” he says, and then her eyes meet his again — and they’re so wide and blue he could drown in them —, “and maybe I didn’t want to admit it to myself because I didn’t think I could want to be with anyone but Cersei because that was how it always was and I never even considered otherwise.”
“Ser, don’t —”
“Strange how you always sounded like the picture of loyalty and told me to fuck it, isn’t it?”
He holds her stare, figuring that as bad as that might have come out she has to see that he means it.
Her mouth falls open.
“You haven’t just said that —”
“I said exactly what you think I just did,” he says, moving slightly closer. “And if I understood what you implied before… then if we are to die soon, I honestly would rather act on it than die without having told you, and I don’t think awkward situations are what I’m imagining in between us right now.”
Brienne looks at him for a long, long time. The water is still hot, thankfully, and she’s so close that he could touch more, if only he had the guts to, but it’s up to her now and he doesn’t want to ruin whatever it is that just happened —
The last thing he expects is for a strangled noise to come from the back of her throat before she puts a hand on the back of his head and kisses him.
The motion is fast and harsh, as if she had been holding back from doing it, but —
But then she doesn’t take that kiss or anything of the kind. Her mouth is tentative on his after the first touch, but when he parts his lips in encouragement she wastes no time kissing him properly, and it’s obvious she has little experience with it if at all, but she’s slow and thorough and her tongue touches his after running over his lips once, twice, and her hand is so gentle at the back of his head that he can barely feel it, and as he raises up his hand and cups her cheek with his left palm she kisses him harder, like someone who had never thought she’d get to do this but now that she has the chance she sure as the seven hells will, and that about undoes him — he moans into her mouth, wanting more, and she drags him closer until they’re flush against each other and he’s taking deep breaths against her mouth when they have to part for proper air.
When he looks into her eyes, she seems incredulous, but in the good way.
“No,” he says, “definitely nothing awkward going on here.”
“You — you wanted this — since when?”
“I can’t say,” he says, “but when I told you that sword I gave you would always be yours, maybe I was thinking about something else instead,” he admits, his heart beating fasterfasterfaster, he hadn’t meant to blurt that out but seeing her after so long and then seeing her leave had maybe left him with a deep sense of wrongness, and when he came back to King’s Landing and saw the sept gone in flames, that was when he realizes exactly how wrong things were and how Cersei had more in common with Aerys than not —
But then it only took very little for him to ignore it.
Only everything he ever asked of her, and it wasn’t much, admittedly.
Hells, he thinks, am I really that weak?
“Is something amiss?” She asks, and oh, her hand is right over his heart, and she can feel it, can’t she —
“No,” he says, “quite the contrary. I just…” His left hand cups her hip, feeling how warm her skin is, how firm it is underneath it rather than soft. It feels right. “I could have done this before. Much before. And I didn’t let myself even see it until now, and I should have —”
“I didn’t admit it to myself for a long time either and I thought it was hopeless,” she interrupts him. “I think wondering about how much sooner we could have done this won’t help now.”
“It won’t,” he admits. “It won’t, but — you know that I won’t be able to keep part of that word now, do you?”
“What — what do you mean?”
He shakes his head, kissing her again, and he groans into her mouth when she grabs his waist and drags him up, his legs around hers, her arms around his back, water splashing behind them outside the rim of the pool. This time it’s frantic, and he wishes he could avoid being in a hurry when he doesn’t have to and he knows no one will have their heads if they walk in on them, but it’s ingrained and not even with the new open doors policy in King’s Landing he could shake it off him —
“I mean,” he says when he breaks apart for breath again, “that I can’t let it stay in this room. I can’t walk out of here pretending it never happened. I can’t do it again. I can’t hide it. I can’t do this if we don’t tell anyone. Not after —”
She kisses him again, and again, not letting him finish, and then —
“When I asked you that,” she says, “I hadn’t thought you could — never mind. I release you from that one vow then.” She half-smiles at that, and it lights up those large, pretty blue eyes of hers, and then her hands are in his hair, and — “I don’t see why I would want to hide it, anyway.”
“No?” He asks, leaning down again, his hand cupping her breast — it’s stiff against his fingers, as small as it is, and she moans slightly as he experimentally squeezes that firm flesh. All of her is firm, he can’t help noticing. All but her eyes —
“Why would I want to hide it, if the man I’ve loved for — a frankly embarrassing amount of time actually didn’t want to keep it hidden, himself?”
The moment she says it, she looks horrified for a moment, as if she’s maybe said too much, but the moment it leaves her mouth he leans back down and kisses that look out of her face — gods, he hasn’t even wanted to presume she could feel more than… he doesn’t want to say friendship because that’s already beyond whatever this thing between them is, but that she would want him back when he hadn’t even dared presuming anything of the sort and would have been happy for a chance to die fighting by her side, and now that she’s said it —
“Then I would be overjoyed,” he says when they part again, “if the woman I loved back would not presume she can’t tell me that.”
Then that is when he realizes that maybe this has gone far enough — they’re naked, he can feel how taut and stiff her breasts are against his chest, and he’s hard enough that he’d probably come in and embarrassingly short time if she just reached down, and it’s not how they should —
“Though maybe we should take it to your bed,” he says, leaning down, his nose brushing against hers. “This doesn’t seem ideal —”
“Jaime, if you ask my honest opinion, my bed is too far, we might have waited long enough and I don’t see a more fit place than — here, actually,” she counters, her voice suddenly lowering, and —
Oh.
In a pool.
Of course she thinks it’s the most fitting place where they could do this the first time —
“Why,” he asks, “because you’ve been wanting to since then?”
“I don’t know if I knew,” she admits, “but I was not blind.” Her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink as she says it, and he has to grin at that, and then her hands are on his face again, and she has that look she always gets when she’s about to tell him something that will make his knees buckle, he knows that — “And I never thought it was… something that might happen.”
“So what,” he goes on, relishing in the fact that he can actually waste time teasing her, and patience if he wants her so much he could burst with it, “now that it has will you show me what it is that you’ve been thinking about doing in such a situation?”
“Gods, I missed it,” she says, “as much as I thought I never could. I mean, your nagging.”
“You missed it?”
“I’m not repeating it.” She doesn’t sound as if she means that, though, but then she shakes her head as she draws him slightly closer. “I missed you, though,” she admits, her voice dropping lower.
“Not going anywhere,” he whispers against her mouth. “Hopefully that is mutual, too.”
“Oh, I’ll show you what’s mutual here,” she says, and then she’s kissing him again, and she’s standing up, and he goes along with it, figuring that she won’t let him slip over the tub’s stone if he loses his balance, but it’s so that she can sit on the edge of the tub, bringing him with, her legs parting, and then she grabs his left hand and puts it in between them even if she’s flushing dark scarlet, and the moment his fingertips touch her cunt he notices that she’s wet, and not with just the bath’s warm water.
Given that his dick is pressing against her thigh and that he’s so hard it’s painful if he lets himself think about it
(but he hasn’t until now, he has practice ignoring that, doesn’t he)
he has a feeling that’s indeed very much mutual, and for a moment he thinks that they really should wait and do this on a bed because she deserves better than losing her maidenhead to him on the stone ground, but when he looks at her eyes again all protests die there — she doesn’t look like she wants to wait, and maybe they did wait too much, after all, and so he leans down and kisses her again as she throws one of her legs behind his back, his left hand still on her cunt as he tries to pleasure her even if the angle is not ideal, but it’s apparently enough even if his fingers aren’t as skilled as his right hand’s would have been, because she’s moaning inside his mouth and her hand is grasping at his hair pushing him down —
He slips two fingers inside her as he gains better access, and the leg she has around his back presses down, as if she wants more as she’s writhing underneath him and her mouth crashes against his again and again, and he can’t hang on that much longer.
“Fuck,” he says, “I need — I need —”
“Yes,” she groans back, her other leg crossing on his back, too, and then he’s slipped inside her and her thighs are around his hips pushing him downwards as if she wants him to sink in her as much as he does, and shit, she’s wet and tight and warm all over, and when she lets out a little moan the moment he moves, he knows he’s not going to forget it, nor any other noise she’s making because of him —
He moves back and pushes again when her legs draw him closer, and closer, and she shivers in pleasure when his hand moves down to her right breast and caresses it just as he keeps on thrusting, and he’s close and hells, there’s nothing he wants more than coming inside her right now, but —
“I’m close,” he wheezes, her hands running through his hair all over again and isn’t he glad he hasn’t cut it the moment they gave him a room, “maybe —”
She understands a moment later, her grip lessening, their pace slowing down, looking up at him in understanding, and —
“Maybe now is not the right time,” she whispers, her voice hoarse, “if we have to fight, but — I’d be glad to, after we live.”
For a moment, he only hears the first thing she said, but then the rest crashes over him anew, and —
“Wait, did you just say —”
“I can’t risk it now,” she says, sounding… regretful?, her legs still encircling his back even if not tight, “not when we don’t know what’s going to happen, and the last thing I want is being with child and losing it and I think it’s the last thing you might want, too, but if we win this war and we both survive… do you think I’d say no?”
He could ask her if she means it, he could tell her that he didn’t really think she did want children in the first place, but now as her hand goes to his face, still so gently, but as he stares down at her half-smile and flushed cheeks, so different from how put-together she is usually
(because she’s rarely vulnerable around most people, is she)
he can only lean down and crush his mouth against hers again before he pulls out, and then —
Then they’re back in the water, her hand around his hard-on, the other one around his back, and now he is moaning inside her mouth, again and again —
“You — you wouldn’t?” He manages, in between kisses, feeling stretched out and burning all over and he can’t remember the last time it felt this all-consuming and so wholly right and gods, he’s so close —
“Do you think,” she groans, “anyone ever thought they would want it with me?”
It sounded almost like it pained her to say it, and for a moment he wants to press, but he can imagine and right now his blood is boiling and hers is, too, and he can’t ask, not when he can barely think and the prospect of living through this entire mess of a hopefully last war he has to fight and then going somewhere with her, wherever she wants, and bedding her properly every damned time they want without having to fight for it at every corner looks so beyond sweet right now that he thinks he could lose that hand all over again if it means they get it —
“I want everything with you,” he says instead, and the noise she makes at that is something he wants to die remembering, damn it, and then she’s saying me too, me too against his lips as her hand strokes his dick faster and faster and faster and then he throws his right arm around her neck, slamming his mouth against hers as he comes against her hand, and it’s so strong that for a moment he blanks out as he shudders all over and spills with her fingers still jerking him off, and she’s warmer than the water around them except that then it means both are scalding hot, and hadn’t he craved it when coming here meant going towards the worst cold he’s ever felt, when he’s been feeling it in his bones for longer than he’d have liked to admit, doesn’t he want to drown in it —
He opens his eyes a moment later, or so it seems, but — they’re sitting on the steps leading down inside the tub, he’s in between her legs and she has her arms around his waist, and wait, did he —
“Don’t tell me I passed out,” he groans.
“You might have,” she smiles back, but she does look very satisfied of this development.
“Wait, are you laughing? What have I done to you now?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “if the first time I actually — do this with someone, I guess, they pass out for good reasons then I think I’m allowed some satisfaction, or am I not?”
“I won’t be the one disagreeing,” he says, feeling lighter than he has in months if not years, and hells but she does have a lovely smile, when she lets herself do it —
“For that matter,” she says, “you’re saying that I am laughing, but it’s not as if I’ve ever seen you smile like that until now.”
He thinks about it.
She’s probably right. Has he ever done it openly in front of her? They have exchanged a lot of stares, haven’t they, but he doesn’t think he ever… smiled at her like he’s doing right now.
“I had no reason to,” he replies, “but I think I have now. Especially if it turns out you’re so good at this, you make men feel like they just about died in all the best ways.”
Her arms curl around him tighter.
“Well, let’s hope that it’s the only way either of us do,” she says, quietly, and now she sounds dead serious — he looks down at her, his right wrist going to her collarbone. She doesn’t recoil from the touch.
“What you said before —” He starts, feeling his throat contort in a knot, but he has to talk about it. “I mean, I know things look dire now —”
“Jaime Lannister,” she says, “if we both survive this war along with the rest of Westeros, I suppose, I — nothing would make me happier than sharing my life with you, if it wasn’t clear enough. I didn’t — I never thought I’d get to have that, with anyone, but —”
“And what if I told you that I would be greatly disappointed if we didn’t survive? I should probably mention that I did see your fair island on the way to Dorne.”
“Did you?”
“It looked lovely, from the outside,” he says. “Maybe you could show me around?”
“I’d be glad to,” she says, moving slightly closer. “You’d like it, I think. It’s not very grand, but —”
“I think I am done with grand.”
“Well, I can assure you my father would be uttermost glad to see me showing up with a marriage prospect.”
“And not with a few songs written about your honorable deeds?”
“Maybe both things,” she concedes, and suddenly he has a vision where she does show him the place, and it’s as green as he remembers it, and the sky is as blue as her eyes and the sea reflects it, and there are children with her eyes that he doesn’t have to keep far away from and who could call him father without dropping dead a moment later or feeling horrified that he would be, and he wouldn’t have to hide anything, not with her —
A moment later, her fingers are on his face again, and wait —
“Is there something wrong?”
Shit. He cried in front of her?
“No,” he says, shaking his head, “no, everything is right if we don’t count that we need to survive this war, but it was — I thought about it.”
“What?”
“Going back to Tarth with you.”
“And —”
“And I think I would like that very much,” he says. “Even if I don’t like that you’re obviously still wanting unless I missed something before, and I don’t think I should leave you wanting right now.”
Her cheeks flush red as she smiles slightly again.
“I won’t be the one stopping you,” she breathes as his left hand reaches her cunt again, feeling that she’s still wet and warm, and she clenches around his fingers as soon as he slips them inside —
“Good,” he says, “because we have to make up for lost time however it goes, if you ask me.”
Then he doesn’t speak anymore because he has to make sure she doesn’t leave this place wanting, and from the way her arms clutch him as his fingers push inside her again and again and again she won’t, and maybe he does grin in satisfaction as she screams his name over and over.
Oh, he can’t wait for when her entire island hears her — or him, too.
And he’s going to do anything in his power to make sure it does get to happen. After all, he did think once he wanted to die in the arms of the woman he loved, and if it’s this kind of death, he’s entirely down with indulging in it as many times as they possibly can —
And when he does for real, then he definitely still wishes that is how it will go…
But just, not right now. Maybe in years. A hell of a lot of years.
Yes, he decides as Brienne’s arms clutch at him and she clenches again round his fingers and he can feel her peaking while her legs cross behind his back again and she asks for more, that’s a plan he absolutely can get behind.
And he’ll do everything to make sure they actually get to have it.
End.
