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janie_tangerine1.
I’ve got the solution, he had thought.
It could work, he had thought.
After all, it was… almost obvious, in its simplicity.
Of course, he had no idea what had happened to Cersei that turned her eyes wide when he reached for her, that made her shake her head when she said no no I can’t stand the idea of hands touching me, it never had been a problem before, but since Baelish offered her some new number he has no idea of because she hasn't shared she's been like that, and.
And.
Maybe she just… the pressure was too much or maybe Baelish tried to put a move on her, and thing is, he wishes they were in a position to tell him to fuck off, but when your father died just after the fucking stock crash and your once rich family has been left without a cent and none of you actually has a marketable skill… he certainly can’t blame Tyrion for having convinced Baelish to let him handle the accounting instead of giving him a number, he loathed the idea of actually go out and perform, and Cersei certainly hadn’t relished working in a circus either, and he had been the only one out of the three of them who actually hadn’t completely hated the job, but here they are, and he had thought she had been fine with their knife throwing number… and she had.
Up until Baelish had asked her whatever he did ask her and she had come out of his office saying that and she still did the number with him but she’s away from his touches all the time since and they haven’t kissed or touched or fucked since then and he’s going fucking mad with it — it’s been the longest they’ve been… not touching since he came back from boarding school at sixteen, and she keeps on saying that he’s her other half and she loves him so much and he’s her life but she just can’t can’t can’t let him touch her, and —
And he loves her so fucking much, and Tyrion’s not been with them for months because once they stopped in this town in New Jersey where a local magazine owner was looking for an accountant and he disappeared overnight saying that he’d save money and to not say hi to Cersei from him and that he was welcome to show up any time but no way he was sticking with a fucking traveling carnival, and the rest of their relatives has also disappeared wherever rich people who lose all their money do, and he can’t —
He can’t stand it.
He can’t stand it.
And the more he thinks about it, the more… the more he can’t help thinking it could work it could work it could work it could work.
Of course, it would be… a sacrifice.
A big sacrifice.
But still he wouldn’t suffer the tormenting agony that’s being far away from the other half of his soul, and if he didn’t —
If he didn’t —
He could —
He could.
He nods to himself. He’ll take a small leave of absence, find a doctor, come back.
How hard can it be? He can live without that, after all.
Certainly not without Cersei.
Oh, not at all.
2.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
He can barely hear whoever’s talking to him.
A female voice. One he knows, just — one he’s never… heard much. Or for long. Who is that, he knows her, he surely does, he just can’t place the name —
“Lannister, what the fuck?”
I was trying to end that tormenting agony after all, actually no, more than one, it’s not just one now, it’s not just Cersei, it’s not just her —
“What have you done to your hand?”
That too, that too, it was supposed to be what was going to make sure she’d let him touch her again, fix him, the cure to whatever ailed her, and then —
“Was a cure,” he slurs, feeling sleepy and nauseous, his stomach curled on itself, his legs not holding themselves up while someone pulls him to his knees, whoever this woman is sure as fuck she’s strong —
“A cure?”
She sounds shocked. Why would she be? It was. It had been so easy. It had been the solution —
“Fuck this,” the voice says, whoever it belongs to, and she puts a cup to his lips and he tastes bitter coffee, and he drinks just a bit before he throws up throws up throws up throws up —
He closes his eyes and passes out.
He hears someone calling his name.
He can’t answer. He wishes he could stop tasting the vomit at the back of his throat that has been lodged there since he walked in on Cersei and Robert Baratheon with his hands around her waist.
3.
He opens his eyes and wakes up on a bed that’s not his.
Not theirs, though —
Right now, it wouldn’t be his, he thinks.
Never mind that.
The tent is blue.
The one he and Cersei slept in was green. And this bed is a lot smaller and less comfortable, though still enough for one grown person, and his head is pulsing and he wants to scream and his right wrist is screaming along with his head, oh, yeah, his right wrist —
“Drink this,” the female voice from before says from his left.
He turns, reaching automatically for the mug in front of him, it’s warm with green tea inside it, he can smell it, and then he finally sees who the hand offering it to him belongs to.
Oh.
It’s the new strongwoman, Brienne Tarth — he’s never talked to her beyond small talk because he could see that Cersei hated her, and so they never really interacted, and he supposes he’s in her bed now, and she’s staring at him with wide, worried blue eyes from a homely face with cheeks stained with freckles, a twice broken nose and red, full lips. She’s wearing male garb, hiding her large frame behind black trousers and a hemp beige shirt, and her straw blonde hair is tied messily behind her head, and her shoulders are fucking large, but then again… he supposes that’s why she was hired for that job.
He takes the tea. Sips it.
His throat hurts. He wants to take the cup with his right hand.
He can’t.
He feels like throwing up again.
“Now,” she asks, “not that I want to make this any worse, but can I ask you why you don’t have a hand that last I recall was perfectly functional and I found you over there with — with this?”
She holds out the half-empty box of Veronal pills that had most likely fallen on the ground after he swallowed the first handful.
“I mean,” he croaks back, “what suggests you that the two things are not linked?”
“Oh, I absolutely can see that,” she replies, still staring straight at him, “except that since I don’t know what reason would someone whose living is tied to throwing knives have to — to ask someone to cut off their dominant hand, the fact that you tried to, you know, kill yourself swallowing this doesn’t exactly explain itself now. Just saying.”
Thing is.
She doesn’t — he can’t even fault her.
No one would even begin to guess why — why he’d do that. And he can’t even lie about it — it’s obvious from the way that stump looks that it was a surgical removal, and that Qyburn guy he found to do it certainly wasn’t working legally but knew his business and —
What did she say —
Someone whose living is tied to throwing knives —
Suddenly, the entirety of what he’s just done crashes on him.
What —
What —
Oh, fucking hell, fucking hell, of course he went and swallowed half of that box and she found him and he wishes she hadn’t, oh fuck what is he going to do now what is he going to do now —
Before he knows it, she’s grabbed his head and put some kind of bucket underneath.
He throws up again, and again, the image of Cersei kissing Robert with his fucking hands running over her breasts and hips and thighs burned behind his retinas, and fuck fuck but then did she lie or what, then what was she —
He groans, spits some more in the bucket.
“What happened,” he croaks, “since I left?”
“And came back without —”
“Please just answer me that question. Other than Baelish having hired Robert Baratheon or whatever the fuck his name is.”
“That’s his name. He’s the new strongman, Baelish thought having two would be a good fit for… whatever’s his plan here. And he’s been doing with your sister the number Baelish wanted her to do with me for the last week or so —”
“Wait,” Jaime says, his blood running cold, “Baelish wanted her to do a number with you?”
“What,” she sneers, the blue in her eyes hardening, “think I’m too low for that?”
Oh, fuck, what has he just implied, he —
He never thought that, he never thought she was bad at her job, he never —
“No,” he says, “I just — it’s not about you. I swear I’ll — I’ll explain. Just — I had no idea. Can you tell me first?”
She stares at him, her eyes turning soft again.
“Very well. When he hired me, Baelish thought that your sister would be perfect for one of those numbers where the… pretty, light girl does the acrobatics and gets caught every time she jumps, if you get my meaning. Which I agreed to, it’s not like I had a choice. She was asked while I was in the office and she said that there was no way she’d let me touch her even if it was just work, and when Baelish said that we needed the money and a very good reason was needed to refuse she started saying that she couldn’t stand the idea of being touched lately and the moment he tried to touch her arm to calm her down she started shrieking and saying it was unthinkable, and it’s lasted until he hired Robert. Then suddenly that wasn’t a worry anymore and they are doing the number together and I’m just — well. Doing my thing and sighing while people comment on how unbecoming I look. Satisfied?”
No.
Not really.
Not really, because —
If suddenly it was a worry anymore after Robert was hired —
“I’m a fucking idiot,” Jaime says, not even bothering to whisper it. “I’m the biggest fucking idiot that ever lived.”
She bites down on her lip, moving the bucket away from him, and he’s grateful because at least he’s not smelling vomit anymore, except that now it’s all crashing back on him again and —
Oh fuck. She — she pretended just because she didn’t want to — to fucking perform with Brienne here who admittedly isn’t that fucking terrible, and she didn’t tell him, and she let him —
She let him —
“Do you think,” he asks, feeling an hysterical laughter bubble up in his throat, “that I could have back those pills?”
“And make me complicit in letting you die? Fuck that,” she says, “I threw them away. Now, can I know what the hell is going on here, or do I have to guess? Because as much as we’re not exactly friends, you never struck me as, you know, suicidal. Or — or whatever that is.”
He laughs. He has to.
“How about you guess and see how good your imagination is?”
He’s nowhere near sure he can say it out loud.
She looks back at him. She does look a bit unnerved —
But then she breathes out.
“Well, you and your sister always looked… a bit too much on the we don’t talk to anyone else side. Or at least, you did. Look like that. And she started saying that she didn’t want to be touched, and now you pulled that shit after asking me —“
She stops.
She blanches.
Then she looks back at him.
“She — you did that — because she wouldn’t let you touch her?”
… He had thought she looked dull, back when Baelish hired her.
He thinks he has to reassess that statement.
“Yes,” he admits, weakly.
“You — you two were —”
“Yes,” he admits again, not bearing to look at her. He really doesn’t need to see at how much she’s most likely judging him already, and who wouldn’t? “Yes, we did, she — she always said we were a soul in two bodies and that’s how it always felt and then she just wouldn’t let me and so I thought that like this she would, she said she couldn’t bear to feel hands on her, and — and so I thought, it wouldn’t be a bit sacrifice if it meant I could hold her again, and now I find out that it was — whatever it was, and she seems to like Robert Baratheon well fucking enough, and as you pointed out I really fucked my career over spectacularly, whatever prospects of it I had, so — thanks for giving enough of a fuck to save my sorry arse before, but honestly, if you can find me more of those pills —”
“Didn’t peg you for a coward like that,” she interrupts, calmly, and —
Wait, what?
He turns to look at her.
She’s not looking at him like she’s disgusted or anything of the kind.
But — definitely like she means that.
“Excuse me?” He wheezes. “Oh, now that’s cowardice. You said I ruined myself.”
“No, I said that it seemed like a fucking stupid decision to take when it was a healthy hand. I never said that. You know you have a left one?”
He wheezes again.
“That I can’t fucking use for much at all and my number is throwing knives. I don’t think it’s going to be very viable.”
“Or maybe,” she stares back, “you could practice throwing them with the left until you get good at it.”
He laughs harder, then raises up his right wrist. “Oh, sure, because now I will have a queue of beautiful girls ready to stay there to be my fucking target practice? When I look like this and I can’t use the left? Honestly, are you that much of an optimist or are you just daft? Because —”
“Oh, you look like that. And I have to make my way in the world looking the way I look, go cry about it to someone else. You want a target?” She stares at him. “Very well. You can come find me when I’m not rehearsing. Not that Baelish has me in line for a number these days.”
“… Wait,” he asks, “you want me to practice on you?”
“You said no one would let you? I have certainly nothing better to do, no one exactly talks to me around here because your sister is much more popular and after I got asked out on a bet by half of the acrobats —”
“What did you just say they did?”
“You heard it fine the first time. Never mind. Not any news. And if you threw a real knife in my face, you think I wouldn’t catch it bare-handed? Please. I could.”
“Oh, sure, and you’d do that out of the kindness of your own heart?”
She shakes her head. “What part of you did that because your sister wouldn’t want me to touch her in some number did you miss?”
Her voice is thinner now, and Jaime blinks. Once, twice. Wait, what did she just —
Did she just imply that —
“Tarth,” he says, “it’s — you know it’s nowhere near your fault and that if I did that it’s on fucking me?” He might have issues, but he’s not so fucking petty that he would —
“And still,” she said, “your sister loathed the idea of me and her sharing a number so much she put on that entire show and whatever you two are to each other it got so bad you felt like you had to cut a fucking hand off, and — it was still because of me somehow, and I was the asshole who found you just before you were about to suffocate on those fucking pills, so now — I know it’s not my fault. Still, I’d feel like shit washing my hands off — whatever it is."
Jaime can just stare at her.
“We barely talked since you got hired,” he says.
“Well, yes, I am aware.”
“And — you — you’re sure of that?”
“I wouldn’t be proposing it if I wasn’t now, would I?”
He keeps on staring.
He just —
He doesn't know what to make of her. He’s sure that bar his brother no one ever gave this much of a fuck about what he did with his life, at this point, and —
And —
“Why?” He blurts. “You have — you have no reason to do it. It’s not your fault. You don’t even know me. My own twin sister couldn’t — couldn’t bring herself to, you don’t have to.”
“I don’t,” she agrees, “and I still think it would be the at least decent thing to do. Fine, you’d be a coward if you just threw in the towel now, but it doesn’t mean you have to not throw it and do everything on your own. Honestly, would you feel better giving up or doing that number in a few months and making sure your sister sees you survived… that?”
He takes a breath. Considers it. Looks up at the blue tent above him — her eyes are a prettier shade, he thinks, and where did that come from, and —
She’s right, he realizes.
She’s right, and fuck’s sake, why would he give Cersei the last word even on —
We came into this world together and we’ll leave it together, she always used to say —
He reaches for the bucket, throws up into it again, then takes another very deep breath.
“You’re right,” he says, “you’re right. I will — ah, fuck,” he groans, realizing something else.
“What? Do you still feel sick?”
“I mean, that’s not going away soon, but — Cersei made it pretty clear that I’m not welcome in our former tent anymore, and Baelish isn’t going to pay me until I actually make him a profit. And there’s nothing else I can do like this.”
What a fucking idiot. Maybe if he didn’t assume he’d spring that on Cersei like a fucking surprise —
“I never said I was kicking you out.”
“… You’re not?”
What is even her deal, Jaime asks himself. He’s just — where he comes from, people just — aren’t like this. They don’t — they aren’t decent for free.
She shakes her head, handing him a glass of water. “You really look shocked,” she says, sounding… sad? “Is it because you can’t conceive sharing a tent with me?”
“What?” He exclaims. “No, uh, I didn’t even think that,” he shakes his head. “It’s just… you know that Cersei and I come from… money.”
“It would be a bit hard to miss,” she half-smiles back at him, not showing her teeth. He knows they’re crooked, Cersei couldn’t shut up about that.
“People don’t — do anything out of the goodness of their own heart. Not in my experience.”
She looks at him, then sighs and puts her hands in between her knees, biting down on her lip.
“Well, I come from… the kind of people who were doing okay before the crash and then lost everything after, except my mother died long before and my father — he couldn’t support two people with what work he found, and I was old enough to go out and find something to do, and… this was the easiest choice. But — I mean, it was a couple of years before I had to. And the better-off neighbors helped us with rent and so on, even if they had little to spare, and I took it to heart. That was the kind of person I wanted to be. This wasn’t what I wanted to be when I was younger, but I’ll make do. Anyway, I can see what you mean, but really, I don’t… this doesn’t have strings attached. It’s out of decency.”
Thing is —
Fuck that.
She means it, he realizes as he stares back at her, and suddenly he feels tired, and the last week catches up to him as he feels like fainting and his stomach curls on itself all over again and he can’t even look at his wrist, but —
But he doesn’t feel wholly miserable.
“Get some sleep,” Brienne says, “I’ll convince Baelish to still give you dinner.”
“But — where are you —”
“I’ll worry about that, Lannister.”
“… Maybe all things considered you can call me Jaime,” he says, and she smiles a bit wider, a hint of teeth showing, and maybe they’re crooked but he doesn’t think they’re ugly.
“Well then. Jaime,” she says, and then leaves the tent.
He turns on his side and goes to sleep.
He is tired, after all, and he has a few long months in front of him.
4.
Was it this hard to learn with the right, he thinks as he sits down on the nearest chair and turns his left wrist over and over.
“Does it hurt?” Brienne asks, sounding… honestly concerned.
Thing is, it used to weird him out at first.
Now, it doesn’t anymore. It’s been long enough that he knows she means it.
“Yes,” he sighs, “but nothing I wasn’t expecting. Fuck, at least I didn’t hit you at all today.”
She half-smirks, reaching for the small refrigerator she keeps in her tent — it’s one of the few luxuries he noticed she allowed herself, differently from — well. Cersei always insisted that they had to make sure their tent didn’t look shabby, which meant that they really didn’t save much because she’d always be buying something to decorate it with, and they’d have silken sheets that everyone in the company seemed to envy them, while Brienne’s really is sparse — she bought a second mattress for him and other than that she only has the fridge and a nightstand with a picture of her father and a full bookshelf, but that’s about it.
She takes a Pepsi bottle out, opens it and hands it over to him before sitting down in front of him.
“No,” she confirms, “which means that maybe next time you could try with real knives.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you fuck it up I’ll catch them, don’t worry. Maybe don’t aim at my face, it’s already enough bad off without any external help, but you threw well. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
He scoffs. “Come on,” he says, “it’s not that unfortunate.”
“Please,” she says, “you don’t need to lie. I’ve heard it enough.”
After a couple of months of throwing knives at her and sharing her tent, he has other opinions.
He can’t fucking believe how he ended up like this.
He should have just talked to her first without giving a fuck about Cersei’s opinion, and maybe now he would still have the right hand.
“And I’m not lying. It’s nowhere near unfortunate. For one, you do have very pretty eyes, and if you took care of that hair it would look a lot better, and the freckles are nice. Just to start.”
She blushes, reaching down and getting a Pepsi for herself.
“Yeah, sure. Anyway. Really. We can upgrade, I think. And we’d be right on time — I did tell Baelish three months.”
“I should hope I manage,” he mutters, “before he kicks me out.”
“He won’t,” Brienne says, “and if he did I’m still not kicking you out.”
At that, he kind of wants to tear up.
He doesn’t, but —
“You — you wouldn’t?” He had figured that at some point she’d want back her solitude. “I mean, if I’m not being a nuisance —”
“I had missed having company,” she says quietly. She takes a sip of Pepsi, looking at her hands holding the bottle. “I never had many friends growing up. And here, well. Your sister hates me, so… no one actually really cares to talk to me.”
He feels a pang of shame to his stomach, making it close on itself all over again.
Yeah.
It’s not like he ever did different until —
Until she saved his life, fuck that noise.
“Too bad,” he says, “because I think they’re missing out. And for what it’s worth I’m sorry I didn’t even question her.”
“Thank you,”she replies, quietly, her cheeks flushing a bit more, and —
“Just for science,” he blurts before he can stop himself. “You said… this wasn’t what you wanted to do. What — what was it?”
She looks down at the bottle, not turning her eyes towards him. “Open a bookshop,” she says quietly. “But — well. That calls for having the money. Still, if — if this entire stint goes right…” She lets her voice trail, then takes another drink. “I mean, Baelish doesn’t pay us that much, but he still pays more than any other carnival I was with. I’ve… made a bit, and I saved before. I mean, you can see that I don’t exactly buy many things, but it’s not like I want to live like this, so no point in decorating, right?”
He nods, feeling that his throat is too dry and tight to answer.
Maybe he could have considered that angle, before letting Cersei spend all of their money on trying to make their tent look like their father’s house.
“Well. It’s nowhere near enough to rent a shop or start a business, but at this rate in another couple years I might. Also, well. When I talked to Baelish about —” She gestures in between the two of them. “This. As it is he takes sixty per cent of the money I make him and I take forty, so since you also were involved I managed to convince him to get the cut to twenty per cent for him, forty for me and forty for you. Which means that if we make even barely more money than I do on my own now, it would take maybe one year instead of a couple, if I save. So… maybe I can get there sooner than I thought. And what about you?”
What about me.
He laughs.
“I wanted to fence,” he says, “and I never quite learned to do anything else. Other than throwing knives. And — well. You’ve been way smarter than either me or Cersei up to now. I guess now I can actually save something, if it goes well.”
“It will,” Brienne says. “Or well, it will if people don’t get too put off by me being part of it, but at worst you can find someone who’ll take my place.”
“… Wait, why now?”
She looks up at him, shrugs, her eyes clearly stating that she thinks he’s being an idiot.
“I am not the kind of person people come to see outside my usual schtick, so.”
“Well,” he says, finding out he means it, “I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else, so. Let’s just hope it goes well.”
“I like that plan,” she replies softly, nodding, drinking more of the Pepsi. Jaime is not staring at her arms and at how he can see the muscles under the tight long-sleeved shirt she’s wearing.
“Me, too,” he admits, finding out that he does, even if —
Fuck.
He really had no plan, before, and he doubts Cersei has it, either, and if he manages to put some money on the side, what is he even going to do with it?
Well.
He can think about that later.
As in, after he figures this out for good and they actually see if they can make some earnings out of this.
He’s also finding out he doesn’t miss Cersei half as much as he thought he would when he thought he couldn’t fucking live without her.
He’ll — he’ll think about what that means later. Now, he’s going to finish his drink and get dinner and rest his hand, and tomorrow they’ll practice again —
And maybe in a month they’ll be ready.
Fuck, he hopes they are.
5.
“Does — does this look decent?" Brienne asks, and Jaime would like to reply are you out of your fucking mind, decent doesn’t cover it, but something tells him that she wouldn’t buy it.
Still.
The outfit that Gilly, their tailor, put together for their new number is hardly just decent. Cersei used to wear a more revealing golden and green set that would show off her curves and breasts and that she always said was the best thing about their shit job; Brienne’s is more modest, a long silken blue dress that really does match her eyes, and he can see that Gilly has sewn some padding in it to make her breasts look slightly bigger, not that he thought there was the need, with a few tasteful embroidered silver flowers, the waist moved up to just under her breasts so she cuts more of a slender figure, and —
“It looks great,” he says, meaning it, donning his matching, less grand blue uniform Gilly made him and cursing that she couldn’t just put a damned zip on it — she said it would look bad, but the laces aren’t exactly ideal with one hand, he wishes she at least put buttons —
“Here,” Brienne says, lacing it up for him, moving closer, her breath warm just above his mouth, and Gilly told her to let her hair loose and she styled it a bit, now it’s curling over her shoulders in timid waves, but it’s clean and soft if not as luscious as Cersei’s, and —
“Thank you,” he says, breath caught in his throat. “You — you look really — really good, by the way,” he goes on, “and I’m not saying it for flattery.”
“Well, let’s just hope everyone else agrees with it.”
“Hey, you just have to stand there tied to that wheel and look pretty, and hope that I don’t faint while I throw. Not too bad, is it?”
“You’d better not faint, Jaime,” she snorts back, her fingers tying the last knot on his shirt, and then lets it go, smoothing it down. It doesn’t sound so awkward on her lips anymore, not like it used to in the first few days.
“I won’t,” he says, and — he means it.
It can be done, he thinks.
It can work. It can work it can work it can work, and even if he can barely stare at his own fucking right wrist these days, he won’t let that stop him.
Cersei can choke on laughing about how she was sure their little number would go to shit, which she’s been doing since she got wind of what they were planning, he decides, and follows her out into the main tent.
Apparently it was packed full.
Most likely people who were just morbidly curious of seeing how such a number would work, but let them be. As long as they keep on coming and it works out, he doesn’t care.
6.
“How much did you say is our cut?” He half-shouts after she comes back into her tent and informs him of how much she got from Baelish.
“Exactly what you heard,” she says, smiling so wide her teeth do show and she’s obviously not being self-conscious about it, and —
Fucking hell.
“Are you saying we made a full hundred dollars just for this entire evening?”
She hands him his forty, keeping the other half. “We sure did. Or well, we had twenty for the first showing in the afternoon, but apparently word got out and here we are.”
Fuck.
He looks at the money, his thumb running over the not-so-crispy green paper.
“I — I never got this high of a cut before,” he blurts.
“… How?” She blinks. “I mean, I usually get ten or fifteen at most considering how Baelish robs me if it goes well, but I thought your show got a lot more attention?”
Thing is — it did. He thinks they did make more than that. It’s just —
He shrugs. “I don’t know, Cersei handled it after Tyrion left. And she always said my half was what we got from him, but — I mean, it’s not like we didn’t pool it. It was her spending most of it anyway.”
Brienne looks at him, then shakes her head and closes his fingers around his notes.
“Well, if you don't have a savings box feel free to get one of mine, but that was the half. And he says he wants us to be doing it regularly.”
“Oh, so now he realized it was profitable?”
She shrugs. “Apparently. Also, your sister was outside his office and was livid.”
“Of course she was.” She pauses. “You know, it’s going to sound petty, but — I liked that better than… my own number.”
“Oh, did you. Risking to get knifed is your thing now?”
She shakes her head. “No, uh, it’s that.” She stops, breathes, stands up to put away her money. “I chose my poison because I had the right build. But… what we just did today. It’s usually… pretty girls getting the knives thrown at. And — no one laughed and no one was whistling that I looked like a man, and I never get to wear — this kind of thing.” She smiles, closing the small box she keeps her savings in — well, one of the multiples, he learned, but he can see why she doesn’t trust banks these days. “It felt good. For once. So, if — if we do it again, I won’t be the one complaining.”
Thing is — Jaime would have agreed on principle. He hasn’t seen that much money all at once in his hands since the crash, as pathetic as it sounds, and if he actually gets to save some money for once maybe he could — find better to do at some point, so he’d have just told her to quit her usual schtick and just focus on this one number, but.
But.
“What if I say that I get what you mean but I don’t think there’s anything to laugh at, here? All the contrary?”
He stands up, slipping the money under his mattress — he’ll retrieve it later.
“What?” She whispers, her wide, pretty blue eyes staring into his, the blue dress still falling down perfectly on her in the dim light of the tent, and —
He reaches out, putting his left hand on her hip, grasping it under the silken cloth. She doesn’t move away.
“You’re hardly ugly, I think,” he says, making sure he sounds as serious as he feels, and her eyes go a bit wider, her lip trembling —
“Jaime, I’m —”
“You’re not,” he says, “and — this is not a pity thing or a thank you thing, it’s a I’ve been sharing a tent with you for months and in the last one I’ve been staring at you way more than it would be proper if we cared about property, and I just — I’m glad you felt pretty before, because you should, but — but fuck, this is going to sound really corny but it just shines out of you, I think.”
“What would shine out of me?”
“That you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t kick me out just because she’s that decent,” he smiles back, “and I really fucking want to kiss you right now, so if you don’t want me to then say it now, but —”
He never finishes that sentence — she kisses him first, not letting him finish that sentence, her mouth slamming against his, awkwardly and without any finesse like someone who’s never kissed anyone else but just the fucking idea makes his blood boil and he kisses her back, hard, and when she moans into his mouth he presses up against her, his right arm going around her back, forgetting that he doesn’t have a hand for a moment, and he freezes when he does, moving it away, but then she kisses him harder and says that she doesn’t give a fuck before she’s moaning into his mouth again and again and again and he’s holding on to her hip so much it has to hurt but she doesn’t seem to care —
She moves back, hands going to his face as if she can’t fucking believe it, and his throat feels tight and dry and her hands are so large and warm and just the right amount of rough —
“I didn’t — I didn’t dare presume you might actually want me back,” she blurts, and —
“Want you back?”
“I have eyes,” she snorts, “and — after you actually started talking to me, I knew you were nothing like your sister. And — come on, really? Wasn’t it obvious? She did come up to me about it.”
“… Cersei talked to you?”
“A while ago,” Brienne replies. “She just… came up to me, started asking questions, I just deflected them, told her that we were just friends and making ends meet, she — she said that it was obvious I was in love with you and I shouldn’t get my hopes high. Or — have any at all. Because — well. She also said you would never get over her regardless. She seemed to find that notion particularly pleasing.” She stops. “I — I told her to get lost. Not that I had hopes in the first place. I didn’t think — it could ever happen.”
“Did she say anything else? And you know, you could have told me.”
“Honestly, it didn’t feel like something else I should worry you with,” she shrugs, her right hand finding his left, their fingers threading together, and oh he had missed this, “and — if you didn’t, I didn’t want to make things awkward.”
He nods, tentatively grasping back at her fingers.
“I can see why, but — I do. And I think,” he says, “maybe we want to bring this to your bed instead of standing here like two teenagers?”
“I can be persuaded,” she smiles, and when he pulls her dress away she’s warm and firm and her skin is pale and freckled all over, and he takes great delight in kissing all the way down her chest, licking all over those constellations peppering her shoulders and her breasts, which might be small but are perky if you lick and suck at them enough, and when he moves his hand in the middle of her legs she’s wet, and she moans so loudly when he does that he can’t help it, moving a couple fingertips in, curling them clumsily because he’s not used to do this with the left but she screams and screams and screams until he has two fingers inside her fully, and she keeps on shaking and clenching on them and when she screams louder and drenches them she almost crashes on top of him, taking deep breaths and deep breaths, looking down at him like she had no idea, and — well, she wouldn’t, if —
If it was her first time, isn’t it?
“I think,” he says, “that you should come sit on here,” he grins, and her eyes go wider before she does it at once, her firm, firm thighs around his head as she lowers herself down on his face and he starts licking her and she screams again and again as she pours and pours and pours on his face, and he keeps on swallowing and licking her, his tongue caressing her cunt and sliding inside as he tries to not grin too hard and he swallows and swallows and swallows, and by the time she’s come on his face again and again and again, his cock is so hard and he’s leaking so much that the sheets are drenched, but then she notices and shakes her head and slides back and back and takes it into her hands and slowly, slowly starts to move down on it —
He screams this time.
She's wet and scorching and her hands are so so so gentle as they touch him even if she’s trembling and shaking all over, and she’s riding him like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do and he looks up at her and see her hands and her breasts and her flat stomach and feels her legs around him and fucking hell —
“I’m —” He blurts, “I can’t — I won’t hold on much longer, Brienne —”
She curses under her breath, and then shakes her head and clenches around him and comes around his cock screaming his name and at that point he can’t hold back anymore — he lets go inside her, moaning her name, his chest and arms shaking with the force of it as the bed creaks, white blinding light behind his eyes as he comes and comes and comes —
“Fuck,” he blurts a few minutes later, opening his eyes and looking at Brienne who’s also panting like she’s just ran a fucking marathon, her crotch wet and sticky with his come and fuck oh god he came inside her he —
“Don’t worry,” she says, “I, uh, my period. I was on it until a couple of days ago. I — I’m pretty sure nothing just happened. And if it did, well. I wanted it.” She flushes, smiling shyly all over again, and he can’t help reaching out with his left, curling it around her hip, moving his head to the crook of her neck.
“Well, fuck,” he says, “best sex I’ve ever had.”
“… Really?” She says, sounding surprised. “But — it was — I never —”
“You meant it,” he whispers back, “and it made all the difference. I felt —” He takes a breath, closing his eyes. “Like you wanted to be with me. If it makes sense.”
“It does,” she nods, her voice trembling, and then he looks back at her and she’s smiling tentatively, and —
“It did work, didn’t it,” she says, sounding awed, and he can’t help grinning a bit wider.
“You know,” he says, “no reason we can’t make that number raunchier. Oh, maybe not just now, but a couple of weeks from now? I’d be delighted.”
She goes red in the face, probably remembering how he used to do it with Cersei, how people flocked also because they knew they were siblings and the whole taboo aspect of it was drawing them in, not that they knew it wasn’t an act.
“Really?” She says.
“Absolutely,” he nods. “Deal?”
She looks back at him for a moment, and then she smiles ever so wider.
“Yes,” she says, and kisses him again.
For the first time in months, he doesn’t remember that he doesn’t have the hand when he touches her back, and when she doesn’t recoil, he smiles wider into the kiss.
7.
“If you’re interested in knowing, your sister was seething,” Brienne grins, coming into their tent, it’s theirs now, and Jaime likes the sound of it, in a blue dress more revealing than her old one had been, just as she slides Jaime his half.
“What the — seventy?”
“Yes,” she grins, “today was apparently very fruitful. And it seems like everyone was coming over to see us, which means Baelish made a shitload of money. We had more people than her and Robert for sure.”
Jaime has to laugh at that — serves Cersei fucking well that even if he hates that his lack of hand and her lack of femininity are absolutely what Baelish markets to make people flock over. But still, he’s made a lot of money in the last year, so he’s not going to complain. It’s not like he has to do it forever.
“Then we’ve made a miracle, I think,” he smiles back. “And she was seething… just because?”
“I think that us kissing in front of everyone when it ended did rile her up. She asked me if it was a pity fuck.”
“Sure she did. As if she hasn’t heard us, same as everyone else.”
Brienne shakes her head, putting her money away before sitting next to him again. “I told her that I’ve never been pity fucked once in my life and asked how it was going for her.”
“Oh, feisty,” he laughs. “And how did that go?”
“She about stomped her feet and ran away. Sandor Clegane was about to laugh his ass off, and to make him laugh —”
… Considering that Clegane hates the whole freak show stint more than anyone else in the carnival and that he can’t wait to leave same as they do, Jaime can only imagine the scene, and honestly, it’s delightful, but still.
Right.
He should discuss that with her.
“About Clegane,” Jaime says, “I think that I have news for you.”
“Sure,” Brienne says. “What? Is he quitting? I mean, I suppose he’d tell you, but —”
Of course he would, because in the last year they ended up becoming friends because everyone but Brienne avoids the two of them in lieu of the state of his face and hand respectively, and honestly, they’re a fucking carnival, he thinks. Outsiders should stick for each other, and instead they don’t talk to him anymore because of that and well —
Clegane has been the main freak show attraction for years, but he’s the only one who actually is not a fake, which means that everyone gives him a wide berth because half of his face is burned, and honestly, what the hell, but he’s a pretty nice guy when you get to know him.
And — well.
He did tell Jaime a few things.
“Not exactly,” he replies, “but he did say that he wants to fuck off here as soon as possible. You ever asked him what he wanted to do with his life?”
“Never came up,” she shrugs, “also he doesn’t talk to me about that.”
“Well, we were having a drink the other day. He said he hates this circus, pun intended, and that he only ever went for it because he was about to starve, but that he wanted to sell books except that given the state of his face he never even presumed he could afford to run a business.”
He can see when Brienne gets where he’s aiming at.
“Wait, he wants to sell books?”
“Which is what you want, and I informed him, and he hummed and said that he also doesn’t really spend his money.”
Brienne’s mouth falls open. “You mean that —”
“He said he’s willing to pool resources together with you if it means you can open that shop somewhere that’s agreeable to the both of you and that he can quit this job faster. And,” he says, anticipating her objection, “I think I’d like to pool resources too. I have been saving a bit this last year too, didn’t I?”
The way she smiles when he says it, he thinks his heart loses a couple of beats.
“You mean — all three of us could put our savings together and…?”
“He said how much he had. I never was great at math, but… if you said at this rate you could quit in a year, I think in another six months we’d have enough to leave, get the business and rent someplace to go with it and I mean, he said he doesn’t mind if he hears us at night because he hears us already all the fucking time anyway, so… what do you say?”
He knows what she’ll say, but he still grins wide the moment she kisses him and kisses him and kisses him and whispers against his mouth, yes yes yes of course yes, and he kisses her back and decides that considering how everything between them started — maybe it is a bit of a miracle that they got as far as they did, but —
But he has a feeling that this time he’s doing the right thing, and he has just her to thank for it, but he can show her exactly how much he appreciates that she didn’t let him die a year ago.
For now —
For now he kisses her back, and if everyone out there, Cersei included, is hearing?
Even fucking better.
He thinks he likes that all of them know, especially when he had to hide for years and he’s fucking tired.
But now?
Now it’s not.
And fuck everything, it did work out in the end. Not how he had thought he would. But he thinks he can work with this, and when they’ll get out of Dodge it will even more, and now Brienne is pushing him back on the bed and he has better things to think about.
But fucking hell, it did work, and there’s no tormenting agony to be had anymore, and he’s never been happier, and for now… for now, it’s more than enough.
End.
