It's not long before Selwyn exits. Neither of them wants to have long arguments about her poor choices tonight, and Brienne is far too exhausted for her patented stubbornness to carry her through whatever is happening between them right now. Whatever these odd, lingering looks are, Brienne couldn't parse them on her best day. And she's at the bottom of one of her worst right now.
Selwyn continues watching her from the other side of the door as he steps out. He's slow to turn, and blinks when he finds Jaime hadn't gone far, but seems to be guarding the door. Out here, he can stand easily at his full height and unlike his daughter no one ever made him feel bad for taking up space, but praised him for it. He's a man used to having an entire island recognize and respect him, who hasn't had to deal with mainlanders in ages.
He pulls the door nearly shut, without latching it. What Brienne hopes he does is leave them in peace for now, but she knows better.
"Her weight in sapphires," he says to Jaime without preamble. He remembers that raven well, and remembers the others that had followed, assuring him of his daughter's intact virtue. "A bold gamble, to save something in hopes of taking it for yourself later."
JAIME LANNISTER
A part of him spirals, Selwyn unknowingly tripping over a wire attached to a loss he’s not sure the man knows is related to those ravens that spoke of virtue and sapphires. Fingers he no longer possesses twitch and itch and it’s all he can do not to rub the edge of his stump against his clothing to banish the tingly feeling that overcomes him.
“And very presumptive of you to assume it was taken. You cannot take what was freely and willingly given.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Selwyn hums his disbelief, but doesn't speak more on it. He knows his daughter too well to believe this isn't just Renly Baratheon all over again. But he just can't determine how full of shit Jaime is, either. So he watches him another moment, before taking another step away.
"She's asking for you," he says, and barely contains the scorn he wants to express more directly. Then he bows, perfunctory, and with a my lord his long legs carry him back to the rooms he's been given.
If Brienne wasn't so exhausted, she might have handled him better. But she's sat on the edge of the bed with a cup of water in her hand she's gulping down like she hasn't drunk in a week.
JAIME LANNISTER
Jaime holds his composure until the moment he’s stepped into the room and shut the door soundly behind him. Then he’s letting out a shuddering breath and gives into the urge to rub the edge of his stump against his clothing, harshly, as if trying to spark some measure of true sensation in it instead of the phantom feelings of a hand no longer there.
He would remain there, spiraling farther into a void he knows all too well, if not for needs that supersede his own need to wallow in personal misery. So he shakes the arm and wraps the fingers of his left hand about the maimed wrist to squeeze and twist against it, pushing off the door to come stand before her.
Silent. Half because he’s still winding down from that spark of unwanted adrenaline and half because he’s leaving her room to speak first.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Brienne doesn't anger easily. She gets frustrated and she doesn't accept injustices she can correct, but she doesn't feel pure anger often.
The cup thunks down onto the floor because she's too tired to get up and put it back on the table across the room. Instead, she leans forward to wrap her arms around Jaime's midsection and pulls him into her, and hangs on tightly as she buries her face into his abdomen.
She's angry and guilty, and she just wants to hold him.
JAIME LANNISTER
Jaime stumbles a bit as she tugs him closer, but relents easily, letting himself be pulled, pliant as ever when it comes to her. His arms drape against her shoulders and after a moment, he’s able to bring himself to let go of his wrist and instead thread his fingers through her hair as she presses her face into his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
He doesn’t know what for, exactly. For the dragon? For believing she was dead? For putting her in this position with her father? He’s just sorry. That this is the way things are, that the word around them can’t be as simple as things between them are.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
"Don't," she says after pulling back to look up at him. If anyone has anything to be sorry for, she thinks it's herself for not handling her father more readily. But it's too complicated, and she's too muddled. She should be dead and instead she's holding onto Jaime and trying to make sense of all of this.
She tugs him again, this time more of a suggestion than a demand. He was what she thought about on that barren island with that stinking dragon. He was who she never thought she'd see again. She's afraid of so many things and they're all likely to die soon and she's sick of being afraid of wanting.
"Lie with me?"
JAIME LANNISTER
She’s sick of being afraid of wanting and Jaime is tired of hiding. Tired of concealing his feelings for those around him, especially when none of the reasons seem to matter anymore. People know Tommen is his son, they know that he’s taken Brienne to bed, even if their relationship is far, far more than simply fucking under some archaic Westerland definition that the noblility still cling to and have applied to them. They aren’t capable of understanding what it is between them and Jaime doesn’t care to make them understand so much as he refuses to hide it from them.
Lord Selwyn’s disapproval and what he thinks Jaime took from his daughter be damned.
He nods, and toes off his boots, shrugging out of the shadowcat cloak she’d left for him and shedding his sword belt before he climbs onto the bed with her, scooting close and holding his arms open.
BRIENNE OF TARTH
She eagerly fills the space he makes for her, winding her arms around him in turn, and holding him tightly to herself. The physical touch is immediately soothing but she stays silent a little longer, letting his warmth wash over her.
"I'm not sorry," she finally says into his neck. "I couldn't lie, not about you. I couldn't do that and look your son in the eye afterward."
JAIME LANNISTER
“My son...” He holds her tighter, pressing his mouth to her forehead for a moment that drags out before he continues. “You protected him. Kept him safe from that beast. Tommen is alive because of you, and you endured Seven knows what while at the mercy of that dragon and here you are, enduring your father’s scorn because you’re not sorry that you’re with me, because you refuse to lie about it. What did I do to deserve you?”
His phrasing has changed, no longer calling himself outright unworthy. He’s still critical of his own self, but he’s working on it. And he’s trying. And that matters, right?
BRIENNE OF TARTH
All that matters is that they try, really. She hasn't had time to process any of it, but Brienne has seen what fates both the north and the south hold for them all, and it's either death or death, and she's not sure how she's managed to escape both thus far. Her luck is going to run out eventually.
She's too weak to crush him to herself but Brienne's arms tighten a little more as she rides out remembering what happened, and how she'd held onto the barest hope of distracting it away from Tommen.
"It's only what you did for me," she counters, tearful and wry at once. "Only I had a magic sword instead of a fresh wound when I did it."
JAIME LANNISTER
Oh no. The tearful sound of her voice brings his own back to the forefront, eyes watering with unshed tears. It’s another truth that only she knows, that in spite of how cold most perceive him to be (and her father undoubtedly sees him as), Jaime is quite the emotional person and will cry at the drop of a hat if with the right person.
Even Twyin and the beatings Jaime received for crying when it was such an unbecoming thing for a young lord to do couldn’t completely do away with the softness in his heart.
“A bear is not a dragon, Brienne.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
"It would have been a worthy death," she whispers, clinging to him and trying not to fall apart in his arms. It only half works. It was the most terrified she's ever been, and she still doesn't know how she survived it.
She shakes just thinking about it again, and at least it's only Jaime here to see the real effect surviving a dragon has on a person.
JAIME LANNISTER
Jaime loops his arms beneath hers and pulls her up so that he can peer at her face instead of down at the top of her head. “Don’t. Don’t make this about worthy deaths and honorable fates... I truly thought I had lost you.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
She should be lost. She should be at the bottom of the sea or picked apart on the rocky shores of Skane, or roasted and eaten by the dragon she wounded. She has to shine these things up like the stories or else the uselessness sets in and everything she's fought for her entire life feels meaningless.
"It happened so fast. One moment it was too high to see and the next, it was on top of us."
JAIME LANNISTER
There’s nothing he can compare such an experience to. The only dragon Jaime ever faced was a delusional, mad old man with too much power and control over people at his disposal who was hellbent on sending King’s Landing up in flames. A man he’s certain actually believed himself a dragon, incapable of being burnt.
He wasn’t a dragon. And the only battle Jaime waged that fateful afternoon was with himself against the vows that he had broken in a panic stopping that madman.
“Shhh,” he soothes, brushing his clothed forearm against her cheek, having lied down to the left of her instead of the right, pinning the arm that still has a hand beneath his head when he turned on his side to face her. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re alive. People will sing songs in the moons to come of the great lady knight who tamed a dragon.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
She lets it roll over her, secure in Jaime's presence enough to fall apart a little bit. None of the words she tries to say come out all that coherent, but she tries to tell him what happened in bits and pieces. Holding on to it while it thrashed and wheeled high up in the air, and being stranded on an island beaten by cold and wind. Waiting to die as dragon food, and making the absolutely mad choice to climb back onto the thing. As if it didn't want to leave her alone there.
"I thought I'd never see you again," she finally says, breaths coming a little slower now. Her hand releases his waist to brush up into the beard curling at his chin.
JAIME LANNISTER
“And I you. When Podrick handed me Oathkeeper...”
He can’t say it, because he hadn’t let it out then. Jaime had put a damper on his feelings then, immediately, clamping down hard on them so as to not let anyone see just how sorrowful he felt in response to the devastating news that his lover had perished. He’d redirected his focus to Tommen and seeing to his son’s safety and wellbeing, not letting anyone see him fall apart, but also being unashamed to say that he missed her dearly.
She hadn’t hid, and neither had he.
“I would be lying if I said I hadn’t given a serious amount of thought to riding south and sneaking into the Red Keep to confront the Dragon Queen over the actions of her beast.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Brienne makes a little sound of dismay at the idea, grasping at him as desperately as if he'd just promised to go deliver retribution right now.
"He found it," she says, and aside from knowing her family had survived, it's the best information she's heard all night. The sword that Jaime gave her was not lost after all. "And he looked after Tommen? Like I asked him?"
JAIME LANNISTER
He isn’t going anywhere, Rosa (and Addam) are holding down the Westerland camps right now. Jaime is free to remain for however long he pleases. His men know that she’s back and thus know where he is — let them know. He still isn’t ashamed to provide a constant vigil over his injured beloved. Isn’t that what the maidens of song did for the wounded, heroic knights they loved?
(Still the maiden. Still okay with it.)
“He did. Tommen has taken quite the shining to him. Sansa granted him asylum in the North. He stays with Rickon. Arya’s watching him.”
BRIENNE OF TARTH
Her heart swells at the news. It's a soothing balm to everything else to know that he's not being shunned but welcomed openly by the Starks. It makes her sigh with relief, and lets her relax and sag against him a little more.
"Good," she says, and because she's tired and coming down off of a rush of emotions, she repeats it drowsily. "He's a sweet boy. Has your smile. And the nose-wrinkle, too. I think I told him to tell you to sod right off if you didn't like him..."
JAIME LANNISTER
Jaime gathers her up closer, shifting onto his back so that she can lay partially atop him with his arms keeping her secure in his embrace.
“He didn’t tell me that... Thankfully, there was no reason for him to. Sleep, Brienne. You’re exhausted. I’ll be here when you wake. I’m not going anywhere.”
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24 -- DONE
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