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janie_tangerineIt’s been six months since Jaime ran into Brienne.
If he actually believed in the gods, he’d be thanking them every single day for that stroke of luck, but he doesn’t, so he just - feels generally thankful for it.
He didn’t follow her out of sensing the opportunity of a lifetime - it took him exactly half an hour to grasp that this woman is everything but just a convenient way to fame, and he didn’t care about that - he only ever wanted to make enough money to live comfortably with songs, he had enough fame when he still introduced himself using his surname.
But -
But the thing is that the moment she let herself drop her guard at least around him, after that fight a week after their first meeting, she turned out being… way more than what he had already grasped.
For one, in six months he has found out that while her sense of humor is abysmal she apparently finds his own hilarious, which… is a novelty, because until now only Tyrion ever did. Also, she will go without eating for a week if it means giving her meager coin to poorer villages, and she’s actually pretty well-versed when it comes to songs and music - she can’t play instruments or anything but she has an immense knowledge of ballad repertoire, almost as good as his, but then again… she did say she wanted to be in songs, didn’t she.
Also, she pretends she doesn’t care for her status as a lady witcher, but Jaime had recognized that she had been a woman from her embroidered flowers on her cloak, and he can see that whenever she buys a dagger or weapon she always chooses well-crafted, maybe even decorated ones, with flowers on the handle and such, and sometimes she looks at hair ribbons in markets, even if she never buys any.
Also, she does actually listen to him when he speaks, which… is a novelty, because again, only Tyrion did, and when he ended up telling her more about his shitty family she had shrugged and said she perfectly understood why he left, which… no one really had before.
It had taken Jaime a week to finish the first song, embellishing a bit one of those hunts she took on in the first few days, where she refused payment because it was obvious the farmers who hired her barely had any money to feed their five children - he had made sure to make it sound like the fight had gone on for longer than it actually had, then dedicated an entire stanza to discussing her kindness and sense of justice and fairness, and if the refrain hammered on how much she’s a friend of humanity and she should be paid her just dues and after a week sleeping on the ground and being turned away from inns he couldn’t even begin to imagine how she had done it for months and taken it with a shrug.
So, he had worked on it for the better part of said week because he wanted it to be good, and then he played it for her while they camped on the outside for the umpteenth time and she broke down in tears after trying to argue that it hadn’t taken her two days to finish that particular fight and he had reminded her that songs are embellished, and then she started crying and told him that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.
Jaime had taken the compliment and started playing it in the villages where she took contracts and lo and behold, he was right - Toss a Coin to the Lady Witcher is entirely more successful than any of the horribly sad songs he wrote to try and exorcise Cersei from his mind, and it actually worked, because after the first three times he played it people started getting it and for the first time the innkeeper let them sleep there for the night.
After two months, they actually had enough coin to pay regularly for a room, in between the two of them, because people did toss coins at Brienne
(when she tells him they’re far better than stones he about wants to murder someone again)
and he also started handling the negotiations - Brienne, bless her, is too kind for them, and he still grew up with his damned father, he knows how to make sure he gets paid -, which means that now she could actually afford hot baths after coming back from a hunt.
It had taken Jaime until month five to tentatively suggest that if she didn’t want to wash monster guts from her hair it wouldn’t be a problem to do it, he had done it for his brother enough times. And it’s not that Brienne couldn’t wash her hair, but that she obviously didn’t relish doing it and honestly, she only used plain soap and while in the end said hair was clean, it still looked dull and badly kept.
“I mean,” he had said, “I wouldn’t mind, and it could look a lot better than that.”
Brienne had looked at him very, very skeptically. “And how so? Just so you know, it used to be dull and brittle even before the trials. At least it’s stronger now.”
Jaime, who other than having spent his entire life stuck to his sister and therefore being privy to all the concoctions she used, had ideas.
“How about you let me try it next time?” He had just asked instead. “If it doesn’t work, no loss.”
She had eventually agreed, and good thing she didn’t seem to suspect that Jaime’s reasons to propose such a thing also had a lot to do with the fact that by then he knew he was attracted to her in ways he had never imagined he could be attracted to anyone that wasn’t Cersei, and actually he hadn’t been attracted to Cersei this way either.
But it’s not his fault if he gets to see her fight every other day and gods but she’s bloody magnificent when she does, if when she uses those two swords at the same time he about feels his blood boil, if she has the loveliest smile he’s ever seen on a woman because she smiles rarely but it reaches her eyes every time she does, if every time he looks into her eyes he thinks he could write twenty song just about how they’re so gorgeous and how that particular shade of blue is exactly the same shade as the clearest sky when the sun is up and no clouds mark it, and it’s not his fault if he wants to punch in the teeth anyone who ever convinced her that no one could want her like that.
And so what if since she obviously doesn’t even suspect it because she wouldn’t even presume that someone might be into her like that? He’ll relish any single chance he has to be close to her, and patience if a voice that sounds like Cersei’s whispers in his ear that he’s pathetic. He learned to ignore it.
So, the first time he had used a nicer soap than the plain one Brienne usually has with her, an olive one, and if as he washed blood off that almost white hair he thought it was way softer than she made it sound when she described it, well, he didn’t have to share that with anyone else. Then he had used a slightly rose-scented oil that he’s fairly sure was the last rage in between his sister’s circle of… acolytes, he wouldn’t have called them friends, and then he had brushed it properly instead of just putting it in a towel and let it dry the way she usually does, and guess what, it wasn’t neither dull nor brittle, after.
Brienne had spent minutes staring at it in the mirror before thanking him sounding like she could cry.
“Anytime, wench,” he had said, and she rolled her eyes but didn’t protest - apparently she really hated being called my lady, and when he jokingly asked her if she’d have rather had wench she said actually yes, and - well. It kind of stuck. “I could do it again next time.”
She hadn’t said no.
So, he’s spent a month washing monster guts off her hair and honestly, he does like it. He might have bought some of those pretty hair ribbons she always looks at but never buys, planning to give them to her when… it feels like it’s the right occasion, though he knows how it sounds.
The thing, he thinks as he sits down on his bed, putting his lute against the wall, is that while she is clueless that he’s very much interested in her, he also… well. Honestly, he’s only ever bedded his fucking twin sister and the more time he spends away from her the more he just knows that he hadn’t had a choice in it and that he only… felt some things because she convinced him that he did. Hells, it took him weeks to realize that his physical reactions to Brienne weren’t a fluke, and the way his stomach turned on itself in the good way when she smiles at him is something he’s only felt for her and not for Cersei, and by the time he knew for sure around month two he just couldn’t fucking believe that he spent twenty years of his life assuming that he was in love with Cersei when this was how it was supposed to feel like. Which means that he’s… completely fucking unequipped to court her or anything because he doesn’t know where the fuck to start from and she is hardly the kind of woman you court the usual way, regardless, so - so he just sticks to the hair washing and he hopes she gets it one day.
Which means he’ll probably get blue balls for the next ten years because Brienne is completely fucking oblivious and while since he started being sort of famous he’s had girls throwing themselves at him he really doesn’t care for bedding strangers. Brienne did tell him she wouldn’t have minded if he did and he said he didn’t want to and he wasn’t even lying, so -
So that’s about the one thing about his life that’s not going exceedingly well right now.
Never mind that it was a conversation he wishes he could erase from his mind because at that point he told her he wouldn’t mind if she brought someone up and she looked at him like he had gone insane, replied that no one wanted to be with a damned witcher and that all of the others usually go to whorehouses, but they’re men, and the two times she found a whorehouse where they also offered male companionship she was turned away and anyway, she wouldn’t want to do it with someone who doesn’t want her for real, which meant she hadn’t even considered it.
As if. If only she knew he wants her for real.
That stated... things could be worse, he thinks preparing the bath water once again.
“... Did you drown in selkiemore guts or what,” he says, as Brienne looks down in disgust at her armor, which is, in fact, covered in said guts.
“It’s easier to kill them from the inside,” she shrugs, taking it off and dumping it in a corner where Jaime had already put a towel knowing that she hates to leave blood on the floor of their rooms. “Shit, it’s going to take me hours to wash it off.”
“Just get in the bath, wench. I’ll give it a scrub before it sticks too much.”
“... You don’t have to -”
“I know, and I don’t mind.” Jaime says, and cleans off the worst of the guts on the armor before he leaves it on a cleaner towel and goes to find his usual soap and oils. She has some scars on her collarbone, new, now that he notices, but she doesn’t look too banged up, except that the moment he tells her to lean down so he can start washing her scalp he realizes that she’s fucking tense.
“Wench, your shoulders are like, rock. I mean, more than usual. Care to share with the class?”
She shrugs again. “I made that monster swallow me,” she says. “It’s kind of cramped in there.”
Jaime thinks about that chamomile oil he just bought this morning, which was supposed, according to the chemist, to do wonders to keep his hands in good shape and the skin not too dry.
“Are you sure you don’t want a massage, later?” He asks, lathering her hair in soap, feeling how soft it is under his fingertips.
“A what?”
“A massage, wench. To make you feel more relaxed and give those poor shoulders of yours a moment of respite. What, no such thing where you come from?”
“Not really,” she says, shrugging. “I guess it can’t hurt.”
“You really have trust in my skills,” he huffs before lathering her hair in another round of soap because these guts really are sticking to the roots while she heats the water again.
It takes him a while, but finally her hair is clean and he lets her get out of the tub, moving back.
“I imagine I should lie down on the bed?” She asks, tentatively.
“I need access to your shoulders, so… yes?” He asks, not turning towards her - she is not exactly too forward about him seeing her naked, for reasons he can only imagine, and so he never looks when she gets out of the tub. When she clears her throat, she’s lying down on her bed, a towel wrapped around her waist reaching the middle of her long, long legs, hair pulled back so it doesn’t touch her shoulders. Thoughtful.
“Right,” he says, getting the oil and pouring some of it on his palms, “just - try to relax. I mean, you could break my hand if you didn’t like it.”
“I’d just tell you no,” she mutters. “I don’t break hands unnecessarily.”
He takes in a deep breath, moving with his knees around her waist, trying to not think about those long, gorgeous legs stretching behind him, and starts massaging her shoulders very, very slowly.
It takes him a while, because she’s a fucking living knot, that’s what she is, and he has no idea of how she actually didn’t scream out in pain until now, but at some point he does manage to get her muscles to relax, and he doesn’t miss that she breathes in sharply but doesn’t tell him to stop, and so he pours some more and moves over her back, his fingers brushing over more scars than he’d like to see, but maybe he thinks he likes seeing them on her because they mean she has survived until this point, hasn’t she, and the more he goes on, slowly, the more he feels that she’s not holding herself tight like a damned livewire anymore, and he only stops when he reaches the small of her back, and gods he wants to lean down and kiss her shoulders and her spine but he won’t, he knows she’s not interested and that’s it.
“So,” he says, “see my point?”
He expects an immediate answer.
When it doesn’t come, he looks down at her, and -
Wait a moment. Her neck is completely flushed, and she’s breathing maybe faster than her usual, and she’s gripping the sheets of the bed kind of maybe too strongly -
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
He moves his knees to the other side of the bed, trying to not faint.
“Brienne?” He tries, trying to not sound like he’s about to have a heart attack. “Are - is - I mean, are you -” Shit, now words are failing him?
And fuck, he sees her shoulders become tense again as she slowly moves up to his knees, grabbing a blanket to cover up her frame, her hands suddenly shaking as she holds it up to her chest and looks everyhwere but at him.
Her face is scarlet. Her shoulders are a deeper shade of pink. Gods, she’s blushing all over and he thinks he wants to kiss her more for it, but -
“I’m sorry,” she says, miserably, and as she clutches the blanket he can see that her small breasts look pretty damn stiff under it.
Gods, was she -
“For what?” He says, trying to not sound like he’s about to faint. “I mean, that can happen. It’s normal, if you… like the touch. But really, it’s fine, no need to -”
“No one ever touched me like that,” she blurts, still not looking at him, and he tries to not tell her that it’s a damned pity, “and I know you wouldn’t mind, I can feel that you don’t, and you’re even too kind for offering, but - you’re doing even too much, no one should -”
“No one should what, be decent to you? Come on, I don’t do anything I don’t want and I think you know that.”
“Then it’s worse,” she half-sobs.
“... wench, honestly, can you please say it straight? I can get a hint, but this is rather fucking confusing and I don’t get it. I mean, I get it that you’re embarrassed that turned you on, but really, it’s fine -”
“That’s because,” she spits out, “I want you to touch me like that and there is no bloody way you actually would want me like that and you would deserve better anyway, and I shouldn’t let myself suffer knowing you will never -”
I want you to touch me like that -
Jaime is going to faint.
“That, my lady,” he says, putting his hands on her shoulders, stopping her mid-sentence, “is entirely your assumption and a completely wrong one, for that matter.”
She goes silent, her eyes meeting his.
“Jaime, I cannot take any japing from you, please -”
“You say you can smell if I’m lying, right?”
“I can -”
“Then I dare you to look at me in the eyes and tell me I’m a liar when I say that I’ve been into you since the moment I saw you fight for the first time and that didn’t change and actually it got worse since I’ve known you and there is nothing that I would like to do right now more than finishing that massage and getting to touch those magnificent legs of yours before making sure that if you’re turned on you get as many orgasms out of it as you can possibly handle, and, if you would let me, kiss you at some point. Come on, tell me I was lying.” He lets himself smile. “Because I know I’m not.”
He stares back at her, not breaking eye contact, but he doesn’t really feel any need to because he wants her to see it, and then she goes from guarded to disbelieving, shaking her head.
“You - you’re not lying.”
“Not at all,” he confirms. “And as you noticed, I do not bed whoever I notice because I don’t care for… that. But I’ve been wanting you for months, so -”
“You can’t,” she protests.
“And why?”
“I’m - people don’t bed us, not willingly, and I’m even worse than the others because at least most of them are actually attractive men, I’m not -”
“Now,” Jaime says, “never mind that I could want you because you’re the best person I know and that would be enough, but I think you are very, very wrong. Actually, do you mind laying down again without the towel?”
“Jaime -”
“Please, humor me. I need to do something else, and I’m told that thorough massages do wonders for relaxing one’s muscles.”
She nods, laying back down tentatively, and she throws the towel on the ground and the moment Jaime finally sees that whole expanse of long, long legs and all the muscle in her ass, he thinks he will need a lot of self control here.
“So,” he says, grabbing the oil again and starting to rub it slowly along her sides before he reaches her ass, and when he does she moans a bit and he gods he wants her to do it louder, “for one, you have legs of a damned goddess and you don’t want to think how many times I went to sleep thinking about how they’d feel around me.”
“You didn’t,” she protests.
“Oh, I did, and,” he goes on, kneading a bit on her thighs, and gods they’re long and firm and that pale skin with a few more freckles is begging to be kissed, but hopefully later, “some of us who have been good at sword fighting can appreciate some fine muscle. I mean, again, not that I haven’t imagined your arms around me, too. I’m an equal opportunities kind of guy. That, though,” he goes on, wiping his hands on the sheet and then moving back up to her shoulders, undoing the bun holding up her hair, “would be ignoring that you have the most beautiful hair, whatever you think of it, and a mouth that begs to be kissed, and that’s without mentioning your frankly astonishing eyes, and I thought you would have understood that I had a problem with them from the fact that I always spend a stanza trying to describe their color in each damned song about you I wrote, and if you think that anyone writes thirty songs about one person just out of business reasons, you’re sorely wrong.”
“Jaime -” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
Not in the bad way, though.
“Now,” he says, “I know that you have a magnet for arses, and that no one has ever kissed you proper, so if when you turn on your back you actually want to kiss me, I will be delighted to kiss you as proper as I can manage and whatever else her ladyship - pardon, the wench desideres. If not I can take a no for an answer, but it would be rather stupid if we both wanted each other and did not act on it now, wouldn’t it?”
He moves back so that she can actually move, and he has to stop himself from gasping in awe when she does - gods, her breasts are stiff and the hair on her crotch is as pale blonde-white as her hair’s, and she’s looking at him with eyes that seem a bit darker, pupils dilated, and -
She kneels, moves closer.
“You mean that,” she whispers.
“You know I do,” he replies, dead serious, and then her mouth is on his, almost tentative, and her lips are warm and soft and plush under his own and oh fuck this he can’t hold back anymore and so he moves his hands to her hair and deepens the kiss, getting her to part her lips, and then -
Then it’s like she’s burning inside out - she kisses him savagely, her hands grasping his hair and pulling him in like she’s starved for it and Jaime immediately kisses her back, and maybe he’s delighted when she actually takes control of it, her fingers framing his face strongly but delicately, and he moans into her mouth once, twice, and a moment later he’s tumbled on his back and gods he’s still clothed and she’s not and he really needs to be out of his damned breeches and shirt now -
Then she moves back at once, as if she’s been burned.
“I’m sorry,” she starts again, “I knew I was wrong -”
“Did you see me objecting?” Jaime interrupts her.
“But -” She shakes her head. “This is not how it’s supposed to go.”
“I say it goes however we want it to,” he says, “and honestly? This is how I always imagined you would be with me.”
“... Like this?”
“I always quite liked the thought of you ravishing me, my lady,” he says, and now she’s not correcting him. “Now, if you would come up higher, I think I know something you might like.”
She swallows, doing it, kneeling right over his face, and Jaime doesn’t waste a goddamned second before he buries his head in the middle of her thighs, grasping at them with both hands, feeling the warm muscle he just massaged before under his fingertips again, and maybe another time he will ask her to just make him feel them, but now he’s more interested in kissing the soft, warm flesh around her cunt - he takes his time, going slow at first, nipping a bit here and there, licking his way towards the center, and it’s not long before her hands go tentatively to his hair, gently, and it just makes him harder, fuck he needs to get a grip or he’ll come in his damned breeches. He takes his time until he hears her moan, and then he sucks on her clit proper, shivering as he feels how fucking wet she is right now, and then he goes a bit faster and she screams his name, her thighs clenching around his head a tiny bit and he shouldn’t be so aroused by the fact that she could probably snap his neck right now if she wanted to.
But he knows she wouldn’t, and so he keeps on eating her out until he can feel that she’s close because she’s definitely forgotten to be quiet and she’s become more tense, her hands grasping at his hair, and then she moans louder and clenches down on him and he swallows down all of that sweet, sweet drink coming out of her cunt, moaning when she cards her fingers through his hair tentatively, and he doesn’t move until she’s done and he’s licked her clean, and when he meets her eyes she looks dazed, like she can’t believe it just happened, and so what if he grins a tiny bit, winking at her?
“Still doubting that I cannot wait for you to fuck me stupid?” He asks, and a moment later her hands are on his red chemise, undoing it shakily at first but with more surety after, and then she’s taken his breeches and smallclothes off, and she’s looking down at him as if he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen and considering that Cersei used to look at him the way she looked at herself in the mirror, it’s… a very welcome change. He makes a show of lying on the mattress, winking at her and saying he’s only waiting for her, and he kind of expects her to just sink on him, but -
But no, she leans down to kiss him softly, mouth first, cheeks after, eyelids after, and then she’s making his way down to his neck and a burn scar, and then downwards and downwards, her hands touching him all over, and gods she’s scenting him and it’s hotter than it has any right to.
And since he can’t fucking keep his mouth shut, he has to ask.
“How do I smell like?”
She half-laughs. “Arousal,” she says, and gods she’s still blushing, “not that I couldn’t see it.”
“And do you plan to do anything about it?”
“Actually, yes,” she says, and then she does sink down on him, and gods she’s so wet he slides in without a problem, but she does it slow, and rolls her hips even slower until she finds a good rhythm and then she about screams at the third time he thrusts into her as he follows her motions.
“Good,” he moans, “please do it again -”
And she does but she takes her time, and after a bit she reaches up behind him and moves her arms around him, holding him up so easily, and gods he needs to ask her to pin him down next time because she could and he wants it enough that he almost comes just thinking about it, but he tries to hold on for a while longer and he only does let go when she’s clenching around him again that hard as his hands touch her breasts and she moans into it again and again, and she doesn’t stop riding him until he’s completely spent and her legs are covered in come and the sheets have some blood on them, and then she pulls off him and drops to his side, tentatively touching his shoulder.
He hooks his ankle with hers and then her arms are around him, and gods she’s so strong but also so goddamned gentle, he can’t handle it. Her fingers find his hair again as his own grasp at the small of her back and her heart is beating entirely too fast for her own standards and Jaime wants to burst.
“So,” he whispers, “do you think you might want to go another time? That was nowhere near the minimum of what I want you to do to me.”
She smiles back, tentatively.
“What if - it’s not the minimum of what I thought I would do to you, if I could?”
“I think,” he says, “that we should stay in tomorrow. We will go to sleep very late, I think.”
“For once we could,” she replies, and then she’s kissing him again, slowly, like she can’t believe it’s happening, and that just won’t do, but it’s alright.
He has all the time in the world to make sure she gets it.
And he thinks he could write a few ballads about it just for the two of them.
Oh, yes, he thinks as he drags her on top of him again, his hand finding her cunt, he will do just that.
