Work Text:
unedited
–
Blood and sweat and terror: she smelled it still, even when the dead had been burned, and the undead long since slain. Not even the scent of ale could make her forget.
She’d watched men die, had stabbed through flesh and taken lives herself; but... it had been something else, caught in the throng of battle, helpless, unable to save even women, children, from monsters that came in the dark.
Jaime was better at pretending that he didn’t care. His golden hair brushed over his forehead as he leaned down with a laugh, the ale in his tankard sloshing over the sides, the hand which gripped it turning viscid. His brother, the dwarf, stifled a snort, pouring himself more wine to bolster his mirth. Their gazes flitted to her, every now and again, and each time, Brienne tried to smile, tried to laugh – they were alive, they had won, defeated the Night’s King... she should be as jovial as them.
“Drink,” said Tyrion, with a loud chuckle, “Pod, drink!”
His former squire did as he was told, cheeks flushed from the amount he’d already downed with each of Tyrion’s correct surmises. Brienne turned to pat his back when he began to cough – still a child, she thought. Good. Let him be. For as long as he can.
From before her, Jaime watched, from the corner of his eye he let himself wonder what this woman was thinking, where she kept disappearing off to. He gave a smile at another of Tyrion’s jokes, but kept his gaze on her; once, before, long ago when he’d known her not as well, he’d thought she looked half a beauty in the dim light.
When Brienne smiled, Pod’s apologies turning to bashful murmurs, Jaime thought she was the most wonderful creature he ever beheld. No, not like Cersei: with her plump lips, cascading curls of gold, features so beautiful that many a man had fallen victim to her smiles. No... Brienne was so much more.
So much more.
“You have a golden hand.” It was Pod’s voice which brought him back. Jaime turned to the boy with a look of disbelief.
“Yes,” he replied, slowly, “No shit.” He slammed his golden hand onto the table. “That’s not how the game works, squire.”
“Pod,” Tyrion called over the rim of his wine goblet, “you fool. Drink!”
Brienne managed a laugh. She felt almost bad for the poor boy. Apart from on the battlefield, he was always so flustered, he almost seemed stupid. She knew better though. She could ask for no better squire.
“Brienne,” Jaime all but exclaimed, raising that golden hand in a mock salute. “I believe it is my turn. Now. Let’s see.” His eyes seemed to glitter in the lamplight. With a grin, he said, “You have no brothers, nor sisters.”
Brienne shook her head, releasing her grip on her tankard and leaning back. “I told you that.”
“No!” Jaime leaned forward over the table, closer to her. “No. I surmised that.”
“No,” said Brienne, but Tyrion had already begun to shout, “Drink! Drink! Drink!”
Conceding, though in truth she didn’t agree, Brienne raised her ale to her lips. When she lowered it, the bottom lip of her wide mouth reflected the dim light, wet from her drink. Her gaze went to Jaime. He was staring.
“Pod, I shall allow you a moment’s respite.” Brienne turned to the (supposed) Queen’s Hand. “My lord. I believe, you were... Hm.” Brienne pursed her lips together, tasted the lingering traces of ale on her lips. “You were married. Before Lady Sansa.”
Tyrion shared a glance with Jaime. Brienne looked to the latter as well, if just for a moment. He was grinning at Tyrion, and, with a nod, encouraged his little brother to drink. Tyrion gave a giggle, and took a hearty sip.
“You’re a virgin.”
It came so quick Brienne was left dazed. The others fell just as silent. Pod had the decency to look a little aghast; Tyrion, whose curiosity won over etiquette, simply watched for her reaction (one of growing discomfort, in fact); but Jaime, out of all of them, she could not read. The combined weight of their gazes drew her to her feet, and, with a hurried, “Excuse me,” she left the table.
It wasn’t so much shame: she was a lady (though she insisted otherwise), of course propriety demanded she remain a virgin till marriage. And marriage, she had no plans of doing that. She’d never felt the need to be intimate with a man. It was the question itself, the lack of propriety, the casting of each of their individual judgements, that made her feel like this – like she needed to leave.
Let these men drink themselves silly. Brienne would mourn the dead tonight. Properly.
Without a maid to help, Brienne set about starting a fire in her chambers. Flames sputtered to life, and in their growing light she began to undress, keeping close to evade the chill of the night.
In her undershirt, she crouched to stoke the fire, rubbing her legs over the breeches she’d kept on in dislike of the cold. It was then that a knock on the door startled her. She had expected to be left alone for the night. Unless if Lady Sansa noticed her leaving and sent a maid after her to help her to bed, Brienne couldn’t think who it might be.
After a fleeting moment, a voice called. “Brienne. It’s me.” He sounded half-drunk. Jaime.
“What?” She stood, brushing her thighs, not to be rid of dust or dirt, but out of a sudden nervousness just as strong as that which she had felt at the table just before. What could he want?
“Can I come in?”
Into her chambers? Why? Brienne was all at once very much aware of her clothing circumstances. “Uh. No. No, I’m half-disrobed.”
Silence. Then, there was a chuckle: low, but she could hear it through the wood. “We’ve bathed together, Brienne.”
That was true... Brienne was much more clothed now compared to then, when he’d appeared out of nowhere and climbed into her bath despite her shock. She weighed her options: Turn him away. Or let him in. Both, she did not entirely like.
A few moments passed, and, she sighed. “Fine,” she called. “All right. Come in.”
Crouched again to mind the fire, Brienne didn’t dare look at him once he entered, glad to have something to do with her hands, with her head, instead of looking like a fool in front of him.
His footsteps drew close. He spoke, and his voice came from just behind her, from above where he stood.
“It looks stoked enough.” He chuckled when she stabbed at the logs she’d just added into the fireplace. She was stubborn, he knew that well. “Come, Ser Brienne. That’s enough.” Again, she poked and prodded. “Brienne.”
She gave no answer.
“Why did you leave the table?”
She froze.
She hissed, “Go away.”
Jaime’s words held none of the mockery she had grown accustomed to on their travels. He sounded almost curious. Almost sorry. “It wasn’t shame, was it?”
Brienne set the fire iron down. The logs had begun to crackle, bursts of sparks flickered above the dancing flames. Memories of burnt flesh clung to her nose. Without glancing up at him, she growled again, “Go. Away.”
“No.” His answer caused her to scoff. A loud laugh then ripped from her throat and Brienne turned, standing in a sudden she towered over him. Jaime tilted his head, just a little, to look into her fiery face. They were so close their breaths mingled in the little space between. He said again, “No.”
“I don’t have the time for your antics, Lannister.”
As she made to brush past him, Jaime smiled, “But you do. You’re in your chambers. Alone. Whilst everyone else is in merriment.”
Brienne said nothing, and turned her nose up at him. Challenging.
Jaime’s smile grew. “Why did you leave? Brienne of Tarth?”
Traces of firelight danced on his face, those that made it past her large form from the gaping fireplace. His hair turned to gold. Glittering, just as his golden hand did. Brienne turned her gaze from him, to the hand, to him, to the hand again. The hand he had lost so she would not lose her so-called honour – rather, he had saved her from a horror she, like too many women, would have had to carry with her for the rest of her life.
“I’m tired of being judged.”
Just a murmur, but Jaime heard it, thanks to the quiet of her chamber. It dawned on him, just as it did her, in that moment, just how alone they were. Not lonely. Alone – together.
Jaime’s voice softened. It surprised him just as much as it did her. “I wouldn’t judge you.” Her sapphire gaze lifted to his face once more. Jaime’s breath caught in his throat. Hurried, he added, “Nor would Podrick. Nor would– No, Tyrion might. But that doesn’t matter.”
Brienne closed her eyes, as if tired of him. She inhaled, deep. That night, when the dead had come, and she’d been pressed to him from the surge of their decomposing bodies, she’d smelled the stench of battle. Neither of them had been safe from wounds. Jaime had a gash across his torso, and it bled into his tunic, so much that she could smell its metallic scent under his armour. Now, he smelled of nothing, save for perhaps the scented oil he’d managed to find from the generous Lady of Winterfell.
“It doesn’t matter.” She opened her eyes. Shrugging, she repeated, “It doesn’t matter.”
Jaime, left speechless, could only gaze up at her. The tension had begun to melt, her shoulders relaxed, under the thin undershirt her chest rose and fell with breaths not laboured from emotion. Relief – Jaime felt... glad: glad that she felt no hurt from his brother’s game.
But there was something else: a pain that flickered in the blues of her eyes.
“It matters to me.”
This time, it was Brienne who was left speechless. She couldn’t avert her gaze, however; tentative at first, she drank him in, the sight of him, the strong curve of his jaw, obscured just so underneath a growing beard streaked with silver here and there, the little cuts that still needed healing from the battle scattered across golden skin, and, as the seconds passed, she fell into a daze at the beauty of his eyes, the green becoming overwhelmed with his dilating pupil.
When he leaned in to kiss her, she couldn’t tell. It happened so fast – and yet not. A brush. And then another. Testing, awaiting protest. Until his lips were pressed to hers, and hers to his. His warm hand rose to touch her cheek; the stick of dried wine coated her skin. It was an alien feeling, not just to her, she who had never felt the touch of a man aside from fatherly embraces, and kicks and punches from knights and bandits alike, but also to Jaime; this was nothing like with Cersei, both fighting to gain the upper hand, and though he’d fight back, he knew she’d win – she’d always win.
He kissed her with tenderness; he sought not to take, but to give; let the man who had been labelled violent, Kingslayer, be gentle, with the woman deemed too brutish to be a lady.
He withdrew with a smile. “I surmise, Ser Brienne, that you have never been kissed.”
She was quiet a moment. Then, with a shake of her head, she said, “I have no ale to drink, ser.”
“Ah,” the fireplace crackled, Brienne stood flushed, and he placed a quick kiss to her lips again, “something which we must remedy,” and pulled her along to retrieve some wine from the corner of the room.
His hand left hers to pour their wine, and, with what seemed like momentary lethe, his other rose to take it again. The cool gold brushed her skin. He realised much too soon, and lowered that arm to his side, clearing his throat as he continued to pour. Brienne stared at the red liquid. She’d have thought it looked like blood had she done it herself. But, now, it just looked like wine.
What ale coursed through her gave her the courage to do what she might not have dared without it: her hand reached for his golden fingers. He wouldn’t feel it, her touch, but he caught the movement in his peripheral. It was his turn to tense.
Brienne traced the etchings in that gold, designs as beautiful as was fit for a Lannister. A cripple, she’d heard him call himself. Half a man. Half a knight.
But she’d never respected him more than she did after what he sacrificed. Half a knight could not fight in the greatest war and survive. Half a knight would not have come to fight that war.
Her hand closed, as much as it could, around his golden hand.
Jaime turned his head. And Brienne smiled.
That was enough. The words needn’t have even been said. Jaime’s smile returned, and he forgot the wine, instead reaching to taste her lips. He’d do so for the rest of the night, if she’d let him. But, after a few more stolen kisses, Jaime pressed his lips to the tip of her nose, and bid her goodnight.
“Tomorrow,” he said, rising, “we’ll do that again.”
Brienne graced him with a blush. She cleared her throat. “Mm. Perhaps.”
Jaime grinned. “Perhaps, she says.” He laughed and crossed to the door. “Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Be prepared, Ser Brienne. I’ve made you a knight. I’ll make a Lannister of you yet.”