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Last time he had seen her, a smear of blood had marked her cheek, the unmarred one, granting her moon complexion a hint of terrestriality. He hadn’t had time to reach out for her, to sweep away those red drops and that look of disbelief that she sometimes reserved for his actions only, unnerving him, but spurring him on at the same time; except this look had resembled relief and it was so clear and tender in her eyes that he hadn’t minded it one bit.
Yes, we’ve both survived, he had wanted to tell her, shaking away her doubts, making her yield in his arms.
And all his reticence, his holding back in the middle of the night, when the inciting cold and one too many glasses of ale had made it almost impossible to stall, started to crumble in front of the realization that yes, they were indeed both alive.
And if he could go back to the night before, so close yet already out of touch, he would tell her, come here, he would beg her, I’m tired of pretending you miss my dreams every night, when you are always there, stubborn and sulking. My dreams don’t exist outside of you.
Later he will find himself in his empty bed with his tired hand, the only one left, wrapped around his cock and his nose pressed in the fur she had given him, because, “it’s too cold here, you’re not used to this cold, take mine too.”
“And what do you know about the cold, wench?” he had teased her, because that was what she expected of him. “We should spare some fur and cuddle together.”
The want had been real, even if the words sounded light.
And then her astonishing eyes had blazed with indignation and a hint of something else even if he was surely joking, and jokes are allowed in times of war, but she must have missed the way his voice had broken toward the end.
So he’ll keep stroking and stroking, pretending she’s there, nostrils full of her indefinable smell as he’ll try to prolong the pleasure and fight the lump in his throat because she will always be a dream and nowhere to be found.
↝
He finally spots her one day later.
He’s so used to seeing her stoic and unbothered by the snow, that the novelty of a timid ray of sun bothering her eyes almost takes his breath away.
She normally carries herself differently, that’s true, her broad shoulders wide and imposing, her chin stubbornly high, challenging, her whole appereance arousing for some stupid, unfathomable reason he will never understand.
Not today.
The smear of blood is gone, but there's a tiredness in her ridiculous eyes, a slowness in her path that he doesn’t like to find there, it doesn’t sit right with her magnificence. And then she winces, bending slightly to the right, confirming his suspicions, unaware that he’s only a few feet behind her and he can see.
He moves closer, minding his footfalls so that she doesn’t hear him approach, until he’s able to finally smell the sweet lemon oil she has used to wash her hair, probably moaning while her fingers digged in her scalp, finally relieved and carefree, probably thinking of someone.
How much he wishes it was him.
“Are you ok?” He briefly grabs her hand, but she’s faster, pulling it away. If she’s startled by his presence, she doesn’t show it.
“We won the battle, of course I am.”
It annoys him sometimes how her wellness seems to depend on intangible things, like heroism and honor, while he spends his quiet moments thinking about silly things like tickling her all over until there are happy tears in her eyes, until his playful tickle turns into something else, teasing the sweet ache he’s sure to find between her legs.
He likes her in her armor, he had decided it long ago. The color perfectly matches the depth of her eyes when she’s lusting over something, but maybe he likes her more when she wears simple clothes, like now, and he can better guess her inexistent curves under the thin clothes.
She seems more reachable, less severe.
As she walks away, his feet move on their own, following her, as if he hadn’t spent the previous day at her heels, checking her movements at the corner of his eyes, being too afraid of losing her, too afraid of leaving too many things unsaid.
But now the words seem to fail him and he’s only able to follow her quietly, inventing stupid speeches in his mind that he will never deliver.
↝
During the feast, though, when a wildling asks her to dance, he can’t follow her.
And Gods, he was sure she would say no, because dancing is silly and unnecessary and there’s something wrong in the way she keeps touching her ribs, but her cheeks are too rosy from the wine she can’t hold, so she says yes, trapping his protests in his lungs. He can’t look away even when she’s twirling in another man’s arms, showing a glimpse of freckled skin every time she twirls too fast and her shirt escapes from her breeches.
She keeps laughing and has he ever made her laugh like that? With those big eyes constricting in two small bright slits and locks of hair curled on her sweated temples.
He hasn’t, not once, he’s sure.
Her smiles toward him have always been tinged with that familiar disbelief.
She seems so carefree right now, he almost fails to recognize her.
Until he spots it again, the tiredness in her bones, a small familiar frown when the wildling’s fingers curl around her hip. And then she meets his eyes and maybe he guesses wrong; maybe she doesn’t need his help, she has never really needed him after all, even when he liked risking his own life to save hers, but he’s there in a blink, pulling her in his arms, away from unfamiliar ones, because it’s his turn to feel her throaty laugh against his neck.
He chuckles, not feigning surprise as she scowls at him instead. “Ah, don’t give me that look.”
“What look?”
“The one with which you pretend to be extremely annoyed by my intrusion. Really, wench? You should cover me in kisses.” She blushes, lowering her eyes. “What?” he starts again, “you’re remembering now? Distant memories of a past night?”
“Shut up,” she snaps, fidgeting in his grip.
“Make me.”
She sighs, “that would be an impossible feat to achieve.”
“Would it?”
“Harder than fighting a White Walkers’ horde for sure.”
“Ah, if you only knew…”
She calms down, one of her hands tentatively rests on his chest. They stay in silence for some seconds as he accommodates her body in his arms, treasuring the way her fingers sneak up when she doesn’t pay them attention, accidentally brushing the tips of his hair.
“Show me,” he eventually whispers against her temple, as his hand slides along the middle of her back.
“Show you what?”
He chuckles, inhaling her suspicion and the sweet lemon in her hair. “Show me where you’re hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“It’s not nice to lie, wench,” he chastises her.
“It’s just a scratch,” she whispers back. “And you’ve ruined my dance.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“It’s really just a scratch.”
“I wasn’t talking about the scratch.”
She frowns at him, retreating and when she’s about to protest a little bit more, he takes her wrist, tugging at her arm.
“Come with me.”
↝
Once in her room she winces the moment he lets go of her wrist. “It’s nothing,” she immediately says when he looks alarmed.
He ignores her, gently taking her arm again to examine her wrist. “Pretty scratch you have here.” He looks at her skin, red and swollen, the cut stretching until disappearing under her sleeve.
“I told you it was just a scratch.”
“It’s a wound and it needs cleaning.”
“I’ve been wounded many times, this is not a wound.”
He sighs, “then let’s call it a cut. Are you satisfied with my choice of words?”
She plays mute as he carefully cleans and dresses her wound. He risks a glance at her as she helps him tie the bandage around her skin. She’s so close, he can count the freckles on her nose.
“Thanks,” she eventually says, barely audible. “You can go now.”
“Lift your shirt,” he tells her instead. “Please.”
“M-my shirt?”
“You hurt your ribs too, let me check it.”
“What does it change if you see?”
He shrugs, “I want to make it better.”
“So now you’re a Master, who knew?”
He smirks, her boldness inciting him. “I can be anything you want.”
She sighs with a mix of exasperation and disquiet, until her fingers curl around her shirt, raising it to expose her stomach.
He stares at her skin for seconds, finding new bruises and familiar freckles, fighting a stupid lump in his throat. He tries saying something, but his wittiness seems to fail him.
“You’re..”
..hurt, heartbreaking, magnificent.
“You’re a fucking pig-headed wench.”
Her nostrils flare while her indignation makes her take a step toward him. “That’s how you plan on making it better? By insulting me?”
He swallows, ignoring her proximity and, without dismissing her gaze, grabs the ointment he previously stole in the kitchen. When he struggles with his left, she opens the bottle for him, taking it not too gently from his hand.
There’s no exasperation in her gesture, just a tired tenderness that she’s not even aware of.
“I can do it alone,” she says, fidgeting with the bottle. Then she must see something in his eyes, because she quickly adds. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“Brienne..” And he says her name like a fond thought. “You only bother me when you disappear.”
For a moment he wants to take his words back, especially when she looks at him like she’s trying to decipher some ancient language that he has never heard. But then she frowns, slightly, as she opens her mouth to say something. Her blush disappears behind her neckline and he wonders how warm her skin could be there. She gives him the bottle back. “You can use your stump,” she finally says, clearing her throat. “If you want.”
She doesn’t give him the chance to say something back, to find a stupid quip to dissolve her words’ impact on him, because he’s still gaping like a fish while he pours ointment over the raised, white scar. He looks at it, mesmerized, and then at her again because the notion of her not being repulsed by him is still inexplicable somehow.
She hisses when he presses his stump against her belly, making silly circles on the bruises he finds there, totally clueless, totally lost in her proximity. “It’s cold,” she says, barely a whisper.
“Always complaining, wench,” he tries to be bold and playful, but his voice is too loose to make light of it, and he hardly recognizes the sound. “It smells good,” he adds, pointlessly.
She sighs when he presses a little harder. “It smells like grass.”
“Of course it does,” he teases her, “it’s herbal and I don’t know, there’s probably honey too.”
“Honey? It’s going to be so sticky.”
He closes the distance, whispering in her ear. “Maybe it will make you sweeter, the Seven only know how much you need it.”
She scowls a little more as his stump slides up behind her shirt until her fingers curl around his wrist, asking him to stop or to go on, he really doesn’t know.
She holds her breath as his lips caress her ear again.
“That wildling who danced with you,” he starts.
“What about him?” she asks.
“He keeps following you like a fucking lost puppy.”
She snorts as he mentally realizes how he’s the lost puppy who keeps following her all over, how she probably sees right through him.
“He's falling for you, isn’t he?”
“He’s not.”
“Stubborn, are we?”
She shrugs and he bites his lip to repress a chuckle. “I don’t blame him,” he finally says, glancing sideways at her. “I fall for you every day.”
Before she can protest or grant him those pretty eyes full of disbelief once again, he turns her body so his front is against her back, fingers curling around her hip to keep her close. It almost makes him laugh how she could overpower him with a single look, yet she shows no resistance in the way she decides to surrender to him.
“Raise your arms,” he breathes out against her neck.
“Why?” She asks, half trembling.
“I want to check your back too.”
“My back is fine,” she tentatively says, “only old scars.”
“Then I want to see your old scars.”
“It’s not a pleasant sight, I’m afraid.”
“Stop fighting me. Show me,” he says it against her hair, the fine strands brushing his lips. “Show me the places where the others gave you scars.”
“You gave me one too.” she says faintly, and yet he feels it so hard.
He stiffens, struggling with the hem of her shirt, looking at her shoulder blades contracting under the cloth, until some seconds after, she raises her arms and he slowly pulls off her shirt, awkwardly, fidgeting.
He sees her arm bending to cover her breasts, due to the cold or the modesty, he doesn’t really know, but his fingers itch to pull it away. For a moment he stares at her skin until his eyes focus on the scar running under her shoulder blade and before she can say something, he closes the distance to trace its contour with his lips.
“Jaime,” It comes out so sweet, his legs almost give away.
“Why did you kiss me that night?” he asks her, words muffled by her skin.
She stiffens in his arms as he traces another scar above.
“Wh-what night?”
He huffs. “The night of the battle.”
“I.. I didn’t.. I don’t remember, it was the adrenaline before the battle, yes, it was-”
He chuckles against her nape, her skin covered in goosebumps. “It was you and me under the moonlight, screams of enemies in the background, the smell of blood and fear, and then you grabbed me and you kissed me, so hard and sweet that I no longer fucking cared about the war and all I wanted was more. But before I could say something, you flew away, Oathkeeper in your hand, the moonbeams kissing your armor.”
“I.. I don’t-”
“Who gave you this one?” he asks her, digging his fingertips in her lower back. She arches, resting against his chest, his lips following the shell of her ear.
“I fell.. when I was a kid,” she pants.
“You fell?” he asks her, tenderly and when she nods, brushing his temple with her own, he embraces her body, pulling her more firmly in his arms.
“What are you doing?” There’s no panic in her voice, just something resembling wonder.
“Who made you fall?”
“Why do you care?”
“I’d like to have words with him.”
She almost smiles while he holds back the urge to replace her hands on her breasts with his palm. “My brother,” she says, “We were fighting. I was running away, probably avoiding a strike and- ”
“You like running away, don’t you?”
“I.. I didn’t know what to do.”
Her voice is so faint, a gush of tenderness makes him bend to kiss her shoulder. Don’t run away from me anymore, he wants to tell her. “Where’s the scar I gave you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
She turns in his arms, slowly, the tips of their noses now brushing, her breasts sliding against his chest until he can feel her nipples hardening against him.
“I’m sure I gave you one too,” she says.
“Oh you’d like that, wouldn't you?” He smirks, putting a lock of hair around her ear.
She sighs as he keeps staring at her lips. When she reaches out to unlace her breeches, he holds his breath. He kneels in front of her while she still hasn’t finished pulling them down.
“Jaime..”
“Show me.”
She’s there, almost naked in front of him, only a scrap of cloth left to defend her modesty, as he takes in every inch of her body. His breath hitches as she reaches between her legs, traces the thin line of a scar on her inner thigh. He follows it, hating to find it there and hating that a small part of him almost enjoys the mark he left on her body. “This one must have been ugly,” he finally says.
“It was.. at the beginning, but..”
“But what?”
“Look, it healed so nicely,” she whispers and her sweetness makes him want to cry. He bends to lap at the soft, marked skin, moving slowly, and when her fingers suddenly curl in his hair, he whimpers in gratitude or relief, he doesn’t know. She opens her legs a little more and he shifts on his knees, teasing with his nose the edge of her small clothes. She pulls at his hair until he looks up at her; she’s probably trying to guess his intentions. He wonders what she can see in the dark pools of his eyes.
Please, he begs her, even if he knows that she would never make him beg.
“Is it true?” she asks him then.
He makes a sound, half a hum, half a moan.
“The thing you said earlier, is it true?”
“What did I say earlier?”
She hesitates for a few seconds that seem so very long, “that you fall for me every day.”
“Do you really need to ask?” he says, both amusement and tenderness in his voice.
He stares at her until her frown turns into a shy smile. She tears at the cloth then, with a confidence that he has only seen on her in battles. And finally he can see her, magnificent, a little nervous yet fierce and so real. Her hair is darker there, the skin beneath it freckled and goosebumped, and she doesn’t retreat, not even slightly, when with one desperate swipe, he parts her cunt with his tongue.
She lets out a moan, or maybe he does, as his arms circle her body to pull her against his mouth. And he starts licking, with long, slow strokes at first, and then devouring her, restlessly, like he wants to commit her taste to memory and he’s running out of time, almost forgetting that there’s no need to rush anything.
Almost forgetting that they’re still alive.
Later he would muse that she tastes like salvation.
And when her moans turn louder, he hits the same spot with more pressure, using his beard, his hair, anything to give her more friction. He likes brushing his nose against her every time he goes deeper in his exploration, loving the way her breath becomes heavier and labored until he realizes that it’s still not enough and he needs more. He bends her leg, gently, resting it on his shoulder, opening her wider to his mouth. When his tongue is finally inside her, her hips push against him and it’s overwhelming and unnerving at the same time, because he needs it to be perfect and it’s hard to synchronize his thrusts while she moves against his mouth, restless and awkward, but Gods the taste of her shouts down every stupid worry he has.
He doesn’t care, he’d take her eagerness rather than some pointless expertise anytime.
“Calm down,” he finally says, stroking her hip to soothe her jitters. “We have plenty of time.” Though he doesn’t know if he’s saying it to reassure her or himself. Her fingers loosen their grip in his hair, but they’re still there when he starts kissing her again, lingering slowly in those places that make her knee tremble against his head in anticipation. She frames his face, thumbs caressing his cheeks, and he glances up at her, holding her gaze while his lips close around her clit, sucking it gently. And he keeps sucking it, never letting it go, until the pleasure overwhelms her and she can barely keep her eyes open. He stops, mercilessly teasing her and she seems so annoyed, his heart stretches due to the familiarity.
“Look at me,” he whispers and only then he presses the tip of his tongue against her clit and starts licking again, holding her gaze like he was holding his future.
When she comes, she pulls his hair a little too roughly as he grunts against her.
He waits for some seconds until she calms down, their fingers intertwine, naturally finding each other. He stands up, then, inexplicably shy, ready to face regret and embarrassment; but the moment he’s eye level with her, she takes his face in her hands, kissing him like it was the only vital thought in her mind.
And has he ever been kissed like that? With that same longing and sweetness, but a hint of clumsiness too, and his arm circles her back, pulling her closer because he doesn't want to miss a single brush of her lips.
When the kiss ends, he doesn’t let her go, panting against her mouth.
Her hands, fidgety, immediately sneak down to unlace his breeches as he takes care of his shirt.
“Have you thought about this?” she asks him, suddenly timid again, her eyes fixed on his feet. He grabs her hip, needy, before lightening it to a caress. He makes her retreat then, until her knees find the mattress behind her. As he waits for her to lay down, he stares at her, lost in all her body’s damaged glory. When his skin touches hers, it’s slippery and slick between them from the ointment he applied, and they both shudder.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he says, pointing at the bruises on her belly.
“I don’t care.”
He shrugs, “I do.”
“You didn’t answer me,” she says in a whisper, fidgeting with her hands until her palm presses on his chest.
He bends down to kiss her wrist. “I didn’t want to touch myself at first,” he whispers. “I thought I couldn’t feel anything using my left hand, it felt awkward, and my grip was weak.” She frowns as he moves a lock of hair from her forehead. “Then I thought, this is how she would touch me, hesitant and shy, her grip would be soft too, it would be awkward. So I touched myself with my left hand and it was so good, because I imagined it was you.”
She doesn’t say anything, eyes huge staring back at him, waiting for more words, eager for more honesty, even if soaked with indecency. Her hand in the meantime slides down between their bodies until she tentatively palms his cock.
She presses against it, touching his forehead with hers.
“Like this?” she asks him, circling his erection.
“More tightly,” he breathes out, starting to slowly thrust into her hand.
“And then did you think about something else?”
He chuckles, counting in his mind how many times he had come with her name on his lips.
“I thought about your legs wrapped around my waist, tight and strong. Your weight pressed on me, pinning down my arms until I could barely move. I thought about finding you wet every time I touched you because you were already thinking of me.”
His fingers reach down to play with her cunt. “Wet like this,” he says, putting two fingers inside her, in and out, collecting her wetness as she trembles against him. “I thought about your breasts.”
“M-my breasts?”
“I saw them in Harrenhal. They were small but firm, pale in the candlelight and your nipples were dark and full, begging to be sucked.”
He looks down at her breasts, then he starts tracing the peaks of them, leaving a slick outline with his wet fingers, hissing as her thumb circles the tip of his cock.
“Like this,” he says, his lips closing around her nipple, rediscovering her taste there, as her fingers slide up and down around his cock. When she arches, offering him more, he rests on his elbow, teasing the other breast with his fingers.
“You thought about my breasts,” she pants, “but they’re small.”
“Yes,” he says as he drags her flesh into his mouth. “They’re just the right size.”
Her grip around him falters a little and he suddenly removes her hand, pinning it above her head.
“Have you?” he asks her, “have you ever thought about it?”
He doesn’t even let her answer at first, kissing her instead. His tongue finds hers as he starts teasing her entrance with his cock.
“I tried not to at first,” she suddenly says, breaking the kiss. “I was afraid that the more I thought about it, the more it would never happen but then..”
“Then what?”
“Then I couldn’t wait to go to bed to do it…”
“To do what, Brienne?” He teases her, emphasizing her name.
“To touch myself and imagine it was you.”
He sighs, resting his forehead on hers. “How did I make love to you, in your mind?”
“You were sweet and gentle,” she says.
He enters her and they both hold their breath. “Like this?” he asks her, moving slowly over her. She winces slightly, trying to accommodate his length inside her. His hand is still pinning hers, caressing her palm with his fingertips, while his stump rests next to her head. As he finds the right pace, and watches her frown slowly disappear, she turns to kiss it.
“Brienne,” he sighs against the scar on her cheek. He traces its contour with his tongue as her lips press against his stump again. Then he turns her face, needing her eyes on his. He likes gauging her reaction at every thrust, trying to guess the angle she likes more, stopping until her hips impatiently bump against his.
He smiles as he starts rolling slowly into her, giving her everything she wants.
“You were gentle at first,” she says seconds later, “but then..”
“Then what?"
“Then I needed mor-”
He muffles her words with his lips and he starts fucking her with powerful thrusts, increasing his speed as he lifts one of her legs, wrapping it around his waist to go deeper. “Like this?” he asks her as she moans in his mouth, spurring him on. Her short nails leave light marks on his back. “Touch yourself,” he whispers then, feeling her contracting around his cock. “Give yourself pleasure.”
“You’re already giving me pleasure.”
“It’s not enough, I want to see you fall apart.”
She surprises him, taking his stump and putting it between her legs. He feels his heart fluttering in his chest, humbled by the knowledge that she treasures every part of him, even the damaged ones untouched by beauty.
“Fuck,” he says as she rubs against him. His rhythm goes erratic as he keeps thrusting, swallowing her moans every time her lips are too close and he can’t hold back.
He starts pulling away then, on the verge of coming, but she stops him, coaxing him back inside her body. “Stay,”
He holds his breath, looking down at her. “Are you sure?”
“Stay, please,” she breathes out. “If you want it.”
He sighs in relief, overwhelmed by the need to claim her completely.
She frames his face with her hands as he spends inside her.
↬
He stares at the shadows of their bodies on the wall, mesmerized by the way the edges waver in the candlelight.
Her long fingers restlessly find new ways to caress his skin, his hair, the length of his nose.
“Was it what you expected?” she asks him then, his face resting on her chest.
He looks up at her, her gaze hesitant, but never sweeter. “It was perfect. It was so fucking real.”
She smiles, pleased by his answer, and faint lines appear at the corner of her eyes. Her body is so imperfect and real, it makes him feel grounded, while his heart soars at the realization that anything before her was a sham; what he used to call love, a fraud finally unmasked by the truthfulness of her affection.
When he wakes up later to find her straddling his body, he doesn’t even have the time to feign surprise as she takes him inside her. And when he starts guiding her movements, hand on her hips, she dismisses his touch, pinning his arms above his head instead, trapping him there.
He playfully tries to break free, but he can’t, and his cock grows impossibly harder at the realization that she owns him.
He loves every moment of it.
He loves how her weight makes his legs feel numb; how her eyes, dark blue and free of her usual shyness, challenge his own, asking for more. He loves her breasts flattened against his chest when she bends to kiss him, as he tries to catch her lips over and over each time she lifts and sinks back down, taking him deeper inside her. And when they’re about to come, stealing each other’s breath, she circles his wrists, fingertips pressed on his pulse points, as her thighs tighten around his hips.
He has never come harder in his life.
When she stands up, and he can finally feel his legs again, he misses her immediately.
“Where are you going?”
She returns, straddles him again and he spots the bottle of ointment in her hand.
“You’re wounded too,” she points out as he sits up, one arm circling her back because she’s already been far away for too long. He likes feeling the heaviness of her in his lap, her legs around him and her heels pressed against the small of his back.
She puts some oil on her palm and then rubs it on a meaningless bruise he wasn’t even aware of. “I’ve been wounded many times,” he shrugs.
She smiles, recognizing her own words. Then she clears her throat, blushing for something she hasn’t said yet. “But now you have someone to take care of your wounds.. if that is what you want.”
He holds his breath and then pulls her closer until his lips land on hers. “You’ve been doing it since the day I met you.”
↬
Later she’s fast asleep next to him, while he seems unable to close his eyes.
A part of him realizes that he’s still afraid to lose her.
“Don’t disappear again,” he mutters against her shoulder.
He used to count sheep to fall asleep as a kid, but during one of those nights after his mother’s death, when the sleep refused to come as usual, his father had told him not to rely on something as meaningless as those silly animals. So he’d found new things to count, solid things: the sigils of the different houses, all the shades of red in their closets, and all the paintings in their castle.
He chooses to count her freckles that night.
Always there, precious and solid in their persistence.
As he starts counting them, fingertips pressed against every new one he finds, careful not to bother her sleep, his eyelids become heavy.
He can’t wait to dream of her, he thinks as her arm tightens around his waist, he can’t wait to wake up and discover it wasn’t a dream.
He can’t wait to tickle her all over until she cries happy tears.