Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 3 - Brienne, Part 2)
Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 3 - Brienne, Part 2)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 4,441 this chapter (~ 32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content, language
Summary: An unlikely trio - Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick - set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 - Podrick
Chapter 2 - Brienne, Part 1
This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!
Brienne
Sansa froze and stared at Jaime. Her mouth worked. “N-not dead?” She swayed for a moment, then seemed to gather herself once more. Brienne and Podrick stood as well, and he placed a hand on Sansa’s elbow to steady her.
“Your mother is changed, my lady,” said Brienne. “We thought it best to protect you from … from seeing her as she is now. I am sorry if we were misguided.”
Sansa looked at Podrick, who merely nodded.
Whatever she had been expecting to hear, this clearly wasn’t it. She slumped back into her chair, her face pale and blank. Podrick sank to a knee beside her.
“Tell me,” she said to Podrick. He opened his mouth to speak; but when the words proved too strange to utter, he looked to his companions.
Brienne sat on the wooden stool while Jaime remained standing behind her. “When your mother was alive - ” Brienne began.
“I thought you said she was alive,” said Sansa.
“What I said was that she was not dead,” corrected Jaime, not unkindly.
“She is not herself,” offered Podrick in a quiet voice, and Sansa searched him with her eyes. “I do not know what she is now. What I mean to say is - I’m sorry, my lady - Lady Catelyn - ”
“Is now Lady Stoneheart,” finished Brienne for him, “and the apparent leader of a rogue group called the Brotherhood Without Banners.”
At Sansa’s insistence, Brienne related the whole story as she knew it, how she’d brought Jaime to the Brotherhood to save Podrick’s innocent life and how Podrick, in turn, had saved theirs the night before their hanging. Podrick added his part of the tale, recounting how he had watched Ser Hyle Hunt hanged when Brienne had not returned in a timely fashion. He had fully expected to be next, so escape was the only option.
“But Podrick, you hadn’t done any wrong!” cried Sansa. “My mother would never have used you as a pawn to capture the Kingslayer!”
“As I said, my lady, she is changed,” said Brienne. “The world exists in black and white for her now. Revenge is all, redemption is a lie. A sinner can have no future.” As she said this she looked up at Jaime, who watched Sansa carefully.
“Your lady mother is not dead,” he said, kneeling next to Brienne, “but neither is she alive. She is somewhere in between, I think. I do not know what magic made her so.”
Sansa looked, horrified, from Jaime to Brienne to Podrick. “It is true, my lady,” he murmured. “I am sorry.”
Sansa stared at him, and her hands twitched as though she wanted to touch him, or strike him. To his credit, he did not balk, but returned her gaze with an open expression. She set her jaw. “I would see her for myself. You will take me to her.”
“Lady Sansa - ” started Jaime.
“How can I trust any of you if you will not take me to her? This tale is absurd! Magic! Pah!” she cried wildly. “I will see her for myself!”
She made as if to go to the door and out into the snow, but Podrick hurriedly caught her by the elbow and whispered to her. She snarled something back between gritted teeth. He replied, and she stopped pulling away. He dropped his hand and they stared at each other for a few seconds, the air between them fraught with intensity, until Sansa finally nodded. Podrick’s brow furrowed and he drew himself up.
The two approached the hearth and he cleared his throat. “Ser Jaime, Ser - Lady Brienne. I shall escort Lady Sansa to the Brotherhood to see her lady mother.”
“You will not,” said Jaime.
“It is too dangerous,” said Brienne at the same time.
“All the same, Podrick and I will leave tomorrow,” said Sansa. She leveled her gaze at Brienne. “Unless I am, in fact, your prisoner.”
The silence in the room was terrible as the two older knights and the young lady and squire stared at each other. Brienne should have known it would come to this, if Sansa ever learned the truth.
What choice did they have now?
She knelt on the floor, looking up at her lady. “I swore to protect you, Lady Sansa. My place is by your side. I shall escort you.”
Jaime groaned and cast his eyes about the room as if he could find someone else there who might take his part. Brienne could not look at him, and so kept her gaze on Sansa’s hard expression. At last he sighed heavily. “All right, then. We begin our journey to the Brotherhood on the morrow.”
“Thank you, Sers,” said Sansa. She stepped aside and crossed to the small bed in the corner to prepare for sleep.
The two knights stared at Podrick, who squirmed.
“I thought you were my squire,” said Brienne.
“I - yes, my lady, Ser, I am! I merely - I thought - ”
“You followed your conscience,” said Jaime. “It is right for a man grown to do so.” He turned to the ladder and began his awkward climb. “Though I am not happy about what your conscience told you to do.”
Podrick reddened, mouth open, and Brienne could not help but smile at him. “Good night,” she said, taking a lamp and climbing the ladder. She and Jaime would leave Podrick to clean up and take the first watch, as he usually did.
There was a small, half-circle window built into the wall of the sleeping loft, a surprising extravagance in such a modest home. Heavy clouds crossed the moon now and again; but the ground, blanketed in snow, was so white that it seemed almost bright inside. A short table stood beneath the window, and Brienne placed the oil lamp on it and looked around. The straw mattress appeared worn but clean, and a few personal items lay scattered about the perimeter: a comb, a broken mirror, an ancient baby’s rag doll propped in the corner, an empty chamber pot. The ceiling hung low over their heads, forcing them to stoop to move about and to inspect the ticking upon which they would rest.
There was no sense in lamenting the turn things had taken downstairs, and Sansa did not need to overhear them speaking ill of the woman who had been her mother, so neither talked of it. Instead, Jaime took the broken mirror and sat on the bed. He looked squarely at Brienne. “We need to remove your bandage.”
Brienne unconsciously brought her hand to her left cheek.
“It must be healing,” he went on. “You change the dressing every day. It may be time to leave it off and let it breathe.”
Feeling more vulnerable than she would ever wish to admit, Brienne could not bring herself to speak. But she knew Jaime was right. She had delayed removing the linen for long enough. She had not seen herself in a mirror yet and had been tending her wound by feel, or by letting Podrick be her eyes - but only when Jaime was otherwise occupied. She would avoid looking at Podrick’s face whenever he helped her, for she could not bear to see revulsion in his guileless eyes if her face looked as terrible as she feared.
Brienne sank onto the bed beside Jaime and he handed her the shard of mirror. She held it on her lap and fingered the edges delicately, as if it were a knife whose sharpness she could not estimate. Small shuffles and clinks from downstairs told her that Podrick was washing their dinner bowls and spoons, and Brienne tried - unsuccessfully - to place her mind there instead of on what she and Jaime were about to do.
Jaime began to peel away the cloth while she kept her eyes downcast. Neither word nor breath escaped his lips as he removed the linen and set it aside on the table. His fingers found her face and moved from her cheekbone downward over her scarred cheek and onto her jaw and neck.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
Brienne cleared her throat. “My cheekbone and jaw. Less feeling, in between.”
“As I expected.”
Somehow Brienne could not bear to see herself in the mirror yet. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to see Jaime’s reaction to her disfigurement first, before she passed judgment on herself. Before she could consider otherwise, she looked at him. His gaze did not remain on her ruined cheek, but met her eyes at once. His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set.
“How is it?” she whispered.
Jaime’s throat worked. He looked from the wound back to her eyes. “You look even more formidable, my lady.” A wry smile started in his eyes and eventually worked its way down to his mouth, which quirked upward in a tight-lipped grin.
Brienne surprised herself with a breathy laugh, though her heart was thundering with dread. Do it! she told herself, and she brought the mirror up.
It was bad, but not worse than she had imagined. She thanked the gods that the wound was smaller than she’d thought it would be. But the scarring was pink and angry, a ragged, mouth-shaped brand. She could see the carvings those horrible teeth had dug down her cheek, like fingernails raked through dirt. Her breathing, already shallow in anticipation of the awfulness she would see, quickened in anger. Yes, she had scars all over her body, wounds she’d earned in battle fairly; but this was her face, her face, and Biter had done it purposely to violate her. She might have died if not for Gendry, but now she was saddled with the memory of that foul act for the rest of her days.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she cursed under her breath, for crying would make her eyes swollen and render her ruined face even uglier. Besides, she did not cry, would not cry. She set aside the mirror and cursed again, angry with herself for caring, so late in her life, for her appearance. And then she barked with laughter, realizing she hadn’t known what a gift an unmarred face, even hers, had truly been. But she had borne hardship in her life; she could bear this. She would bear it.
While she struggled inwardly, Jaime’s eyes followed her every subtle shift in mood; and he seemed to be trying to assess whether he should speak or simply allow Brienne’s tide of emotion to roll in and crash wherever it may. His hand had somehow ended up resting upon her knee, and the calm assurance Brienne felt from the weight of it there was comforting. In that simple moment she saw Jaime once again restraining himself from trying to fix her, like nearly every other man she’d known had tried to do. He allowed her to be no more or less than who she was.
And at last she finally understood - knew it from her flushing skin inward into her very bones - that she loved him. She looked away, wondering if she could bear that, too.
Downstairs Podrick had finished cleaning up the dinner things and trod softly to where Sansa lay, probably still wide awake, on her small bed. Brienne heard him spread out a blanket and some furs on the floor. Then the whispering began. She and Jaime raised their eyebrows and smiled at each other.
He put on his sternest voice. “You have the first watch, Podrick, unless you’ve forgotten.”
Then ensued much scrambling and apologies and gathering of sword and wet cloak. Podrick had nearly reached the door when Brienne called out, “You may sit by the fire. Just stay awake and keep the door bolted.”
“Yes, my lady. Ser. I won’t. Fall asleep, I mean. I’ll stay awake.”
As Podrick settled into the chair Sansa had vacated, Jaime and Brienne stifled their snickers and crawled under the furs together, and somehow that was the end of any discussion about the scars on Brienne’s face.
Her heart pounded; after all, their little roost in this loft was the first place they’d had any semblance of privacy together. She wondered if Jaime kissed her - would he want to kiss her again, now that he’d seen her disfigurement? She batted the thought away - whether she could keep from sighing and moaning as she usually did when they reached for each other while Podrick and Sansa slept. She doubted that Sansa would sleep much tonight, if at all, and she didn’t relish the thought of the two downstairs hearing what she and Jaime got up to under their furs. Even so, she knew if he wanted her she wouldn’t resist his advances. There was a certain freedom in surrender, she realized. The Kingslayer’s whore she was, in name and probably quite soon in deed, and that was that.
As she lay back on the straw mattress, a sharp twinge caused her to hiss in pain. She sat up, rubbing her ribs. Jaime silently rose with her and began, with his one hand, to pull her heavy woolen shirt and linen undergarment over her head. Like an obedient child, she helped him by lifting the other side until she was bare from the waist up except for the fabric binding her chest. Where was her modesty? How soon after she’d met Jaime had it fled? For there was no question that she would let him undress her to view her wounds. The light from the lamp and the bright snow outside gave her nowhere to hide, but she sat up straighter. There would be no shame in this.
Jaime’s own hiss escaped his teeth as he saw the purple bruises peeking from under the cotton binding that flattened and protected her small breasts. He untucked the edge and began to unwrap it, with Brienne helping to pass the fabric around her back until she was naked.
She’d always thought that allowing herself to be disrobed by a man was fantasy, something that would never happen in her waking life; or, if it did, it would be part of some humiliating horror she was forced to endure for a man’s sport, as when she’d had to don a dress to fight a bear, or worse, if Vargo Hoat and his men had been crueler than they’d been greedy. So she was surprised by how captivated she felt when Jaime’s hand passed gently over her bruises, feeling her ribs with his fingertips.
“Take deep breaths in and out,” he whispered, bringing his ear to her lips.
She obeyed and he listened, keeping his hand on her ribcage. He must be listening for a rattle, or wheezing, indicating fluid in her lungs from a broken rib; but they both knew her injuries couldn’t be as bad as that. Still, she had to acknowledge his thoroughness, and a smile stole across her face as she wondered about his other motives for undressing her. His eyes were downcast, probably inspecting her breasts, and he must feel the thundering of her heartbeat under his hand, which somehow embarrassed her more than being naked did. She looked away and tried to slow her frantic heart by imagining being examined by a maester; but it had been many years since she had submitted to any such prodding, and no maester had ever made her heart flutter like Jaime did. And his ear was right next to her mouth, begging to be kissed.
Jaime sat back and looked her in the eyes, exhaling in relief. “You’ll heal,” he whispered.
His hand was still on her ribs. She nodded. Of course. She always did. They regarded each other silently. A sweet, sad longing churned deep between her legs. She placed her hand on top of his.
As always, Jaime would begin as a gentleman, or as much of one as he was likely to be. He barely breathed his next words. “Brienne, can you keep quiet if I do this?”
Leaning forward, keeping his eyes open, and pressed his open mouth to hers, and the sudden, throbbing desire in her loins nearly made her whimper. He slid his hand upward until it cupped her breast and he gave it a squeeze, and still, somehow, she didn’t make a noise. She reached for his hips, for they were too far away from her aching pelvis and the fire within. But he wouldn’t come closer, not yet, for there was her body to explore, at last, and as he pulled back his eyes seemed to feast on it. A small smile crossed his face and he hummed quietly, satisfied, and brought his mouth to her left breast, keeping his hand on the right and running his thumb over her nipple. Brienne’s eyes closed, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. His tongue on her nipple seemed somehow larger and yet more precise than it had been inside her mouth a moment ago, and she thought she might pass out from the thrill of it.
Jaime’s warm breath made her shiver as he slid his mouth up her breastbone and neck and across her jaw, right underneath her scars. “I want to feel you,” he breathed when he reached her mouth again. Grasping the hem of his woolen shirt, he tugged it deftly over his head, and slung it to the side, then reached for the linen shirt underneath, though Brienne had to help a bit with that as it hugged his body more snugly than the wool. Now shirtless, he slid his hand down to her hip and reached behind her with his other arm. He sat up on his knees and pulled her firmly to him, and she felt his need, hard and insistent, between her legs and his muscular chest against her own naked breasts. She moaned.
Jaime stopped kissing her and his green eyes glimmered like emeralds in the lamplight. “Shhh,” he breathed into her mouth, but Brienne silenced the reprimand with her tongue. He quickly lowered her onto the mattress and kissed her, grinding his manhood into her through their breeches, over and over again, until she thought she might have to beg him to take her, dignity be damned.
But Jaime had other ideas. Propping himself up on his elbow, he shifted so that his length was pressed into her thigh and he slid his hand down inside her breeches, beneath her smallclothes, until he found her sex. The wet heat he found there made him moan, and he pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes as if he were in a dream. “Shhh,” whispered Brienne, and Jaime kissed her to silence her cry as he pressed the warm heel of his hand against her sex and slipped a finger inside her.
Brienne’s maidenhead had probably been lost long ago from the physical exertion of riding horseback, and she’d given herself the widow’s comfort for years, knowing that no man was likely to give her any pleasure. But when Jaime slipped a second finger inside her and began to rub the nub of her desire with his thumb, her eyes fluttered shut and she surrendered to the knowledge of his hand. He started slowly, rolling her sex under his thumb with the practiced, undeniable rhythm of an ocean wave tumbling over itself to reach the inevitable shore. She turned her head to the side and they lay forehead to forehead as he silently ministered to her need. She bit her lip and furrowed her brow to keep from making a noise, tilting her hips upward to take his fingers in even deeper. Jaime’s breath shuddered in and out against her lips and she kissed him, feeling his own unrelenting want against her hip. At last he found the rhythm that she knew would bring her to her inexorable finish. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound as she felt her body’s yearning slowly building, building under his touch - and with a rush of exhalation it was released, pulsing and contracting around his fingers. She whimpered, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing the sound. She ran her hands up over his jaw and into his hair, grabbing handfuls of it as she kissed him back, hard, and wondered with a certain amount of giddy wickedness what else this man was capable of doing to her.
Jaime slipped his fingers out of her and sat back, knees spread, and waited. Brienne sat up and unlaced his breeches. He released himself and, with her juices still on his fingers, grasped his length and began to stroke. Brienne could not take her eyes off of him. He must know she’d never touched a man, and in their nights of tussling under the covers, though she’d tentatively squeezed him through his breeches, she hadn’t yet reached for his naked manhood. Now, with the lamplight and the white light of the fallen snow making his angular face glow with an ethereal beauty - and despite purple and green bruises all over his shoulders, arms, and torso; despite lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes from too many nights with little sleep; and, yes, despite missing a hand - he looked like a god, beautiful and perfect, perhaps one that the Seven had cast away jealously in punishment for his physical splendor. While Jaime rubbed himself, he kept half-lidded eyes on Brienne as he watched her watching him. She sat up on her elbows and wondered how his manhood could fit into her, but it must be possible, and she knew now that it would happen. Perhaps not tonight - because she didn’t want to stop him, not until he’d shown her how best to pleasure him - but soon, soon, she promised herself.
Brienne watched Jaime’s movements for a while longer and, finally, drawing on a new sort of courage she hadn’t known she possessed, she knelt almost behind him, spreading her thighs around his right thigh and buttock. She pressed her sex into his hip and her breasts into his arm and ribs. She held his left hip with her hand, keeping him close. Then, as she tucked her chin on top of his shoulder - for once glad of her height, for it meant that she could watch - she reached for him with her right hand. He let go and she wrapped her fingers around his girth, thrilling at the soft moan she elicited from him, and at the new sensations of smoothness and rigidity under her fingers; and she began to slide her hand over him, as she’d seen him do. His warm, soft skin moved over the stiffness, and she found herself smiling. She kept at it, slowly, marveling at the wetness she saw gleaming on the tip of his manhood and wondering how soon she’d bring him to climax.
“Faster,” he commanded in a rough whisper. She obeyed, and almost immediately she was rewarded by his release. He produced a handkerchief to capture his seed instead of letting it spew onto the bedclothes, and his hips thrust involuntarily as she continued to stroke him. She looked at his face and felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw the utter abandon in his expression; his eyes were closed, his brow knit, his mouth open in a silent sigh of ecstasy. His mutilated arm reached behind him to draw her even closer to him. It seemed right to continue to touch him until his shuddering had completely ceased, and so she waited until he’d turned to kiss her to release him.
Jaime folded the handkerchief neatly and handed it to her, and she gratefully accepted it and cleaned the rest of his seed from her fingers, grinning in what she was certain was a silly manner as she did so. She lowered her gaze, blushing and smiling. He pulled her to him and, placing his finger under her chin, tilted her face to his. He whispered, with a grin, “You’ve been holding back, my lady.” He kissed her again, his hand rough in her hair at the nape of her neck and his breath hot against her mouth. “I cannot wait to try that again.”
“You flatter me,” said Brienne, still blushing.
“Not at all. Flattery is what one resorts to when the truth is not an option.”
“Your moral code is interesting, Ser Jaime.” But she kept on grinning like a fool.
“Come and lie down with me, wench,” he whispered. And she did.
As they settled down beneath their covers and watched the white flurries through the windowpane, Brienne was grateful for the heat rising from the fireplace downstairs, and glad that they had one night of true shelter before they wound their way back to Lady Stoneheart. Soon Jaime turned his body toward Brienne, and she mirrored his position. His hand found hers and held it.
“We should sleep,” whispered Brienne. Jaime nodded.
But they continued to look at each other. Brienne couldn’t begin to guess what Jaime was thinking as he gazed at her, but the intensity of his eyes made her feel somehow intriguing, desired, and even a little beautiful. It was confusing, for she had never been any of those things; but she was quickly growing addicted to the feeling that she might be, at least in his eyes. She wanted to talk about what they’d done, and tell him how bloody amazing he had made her feel, and how incredible the act of pleasuring him had felt to her … but somehow she couldn’t. It felt almost as if to speak of it would break the spell, and she had no intention of doing that. So she just looked at her lover and prayed to the Seven, all of them, to keep her from driving Jaime away.
“What will we do after Winterfell?” asked Jaime, his gaze dropping for a second to her hand in his; but then he looked into her eyes again. He’d spoken almost casually, as if he were merely making conversation.
But Brienne’s heart leapt into her throat, for she wondered the same thing, every day and night. After Winterfell Jaime would return to King’s Landing, and she … she wasn’t certain where she would go. Perhaps a visit to her father was warranted, though he’d implied that his welcome would be warmest if she happened to bring home a promising candidate for her lord husband. So it would be a cold visit home. After that, she did not know.
But Jaime had said we. What will we do after Winterfell?
Brienne surprised herself by giving Jaime the truth. “Whatever you like.”
To be continued … Chapter 4 - Sansa
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 3 - Brienne, Part 2)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 4,441 this chapter (~ 32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content, language
Summary: An unlikely trio - Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick - set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 - Podrick
Chapter 2 - Brienne, Part 1
This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!
Brienne
Sansa froze and stared at Jaime. Her mouth worked. “N-not dead?” She swayed for a moment, then seemed to gather herself once more. Brienne and Podrick stood as well, and he placed a hand on Sansa’s elbow to steady her.
“Your mother is changed, my lady,” said Brienne. “We thought it best to protect you from … from seeing her as she is now. I am sorry if we were misguided.”
Sansa looked at Podrick, who merely nodded.
Whatever she had been expecting to hear, this clearly wasn’t it. She slumped back into her chair, her face pale and blank. Podrick sank to a knee beside her.
“Tell me,” she said to Podrick. He opened his mouth to speak; but when the words proved too strange to utter, he looked to his companions.
Brienne sat on the wooden stool while Jaime remained standing behind her. “When your mother was alive - ” Brienne began.
“I thought you said she was alive,” said Sansa.
“What I said was that she was not dead,” corrected Jaime, not unkindly.
“She is not herself,” offered Podrick in a quiet voice, and Sansa searched him with her eyes. “I do not know what she is now. What I mean to say is - I’m sorry, my lady - Lady Catelyn - ”
“Is now Lady Stoneheart,” finished Brienne for him, “and the apparent leader of a rogue group called the Brotherhood Without Banners.”
At Sansa’s insistence, Brienne related the whole story as she knew it, how she’d brought Jaime to the Brotherhood to save Podrick’s innocent life and how Podrick, in turn, had saved theirs the night before their hanging. Podrick added his part of the tale, recounting how he had watched Ser Hyle Hunt hanged when Brienne had not returned in a timely fashion. He had fully expected to be next, so escape was the only option.
“But Podrick, you hadn’t done any wrong!” cried Sansa. “My mother would never have used you as a pawn to capture the Kingslayer!”
“As I said, my lady, she is changed,” said Brienne. “The world exists in black and white for her now. Revenge is all, redemption is a lie. A sinner can have no future.” As she said this she looked up at Jaime, who watched Sansa carefully.
“Your lady mother is not dead,” he said, kneeling next to Brienne, “but neither is she alive. She is somewhere in between, I think. I do not know what magic made her so.”
Sansa looked, horrified, from Jaime to Brienne to Podrick. “It is true, my lady,” he murmured. “I am sorry.”
Sansa stared at him, and her hands twitched as though she wanted to touch him, or strike him. To his credit, he did not balk, but returned her gaze with an open expression. She set her jaw. “I would see her for myself. You will take me to her.”
“Lady Sansa - ” started Jaime.
“How can I trust any of you if you will not take me to her? This tale is absurd! Magic! Pah!” she cried wildly. “I will see her for myself!”
She made as if to go to the door and out into the snow, but Podrick hurriedly caught her by the elbow and whispered to her. She snarled something back between gritted teeth. He replied, and she stopped pulling away. He dropped his hand and they stared at each other for a few seconds, the air between them fraught with intensity, until Sansa finally nodded. Podrick’s brow furrowed and he drew himself up.
The two approached the hearth and he cleared his throat. “Ser Jaime, Ser - Lady Brienne. I shall escort Lady Sansa to the Brotherhood to see her lady mother.”
“You will not,” said Jaime.
“It is too dangerous,” said Brienne at the same time.
“All the same, Podrick and I will leave tomorrow,” said Sansa. She leveled her gaze at Brienne. “Unless I am, in fact, your prisoner.”
The silence in the room was terrible as the two older knights and the young lady and squire stared at each other. Brienne should have known it would come to this, if Sansa ever learned the truth.
What choice did they have now?
She knelt on the floor, looking up at her lady. “I swore to protect you, Lady Sansa. My place is by your side. I shall escort you.”
Jaime groaned and cast his eyes about the room as if he could find someone else there who might take his part. Brienne could not look at him, and so kept her gaze on Sansa’s hard expression. At last he sighed heavily. “All right, then. We begin our journey to the Brotherhood on the morrow.”
“Thank you, Sers,” said Sansa. She stepped aside and crossed to the small bed in the corner to prepare for sleep.
The two knights stared at Podrick, who squirmed.
“I thought you were my squire,” said Brienne.
“I - yes, my lady, Ser, I am! I merely - I thought - ”
“You followed your conscience,” said Jaime. “It is right for a man grown to do so.” He turned to the ladder and began his awkward climb. “Though I am not happy about what your conscience told you to do.”
Podrick reddened, mouth open, and Brienne could not help but smile at him. “Good night,” she said, taking a lamp and climbing the ladder. She and Jaime would leave Podrick to clean up and take the first watch, as he usually did.
There was a small, half-circle window built into the wall of the sleeping loft, a surprising extravagance in such a modest home. Heavy clouds crossed the moon now and again; but the ground, blanketed in snow, was so white that it seemed almost bright inside. A short table stood beneath the window, and Brienne placed the oil lamp on it and looked around. The straw mattress appeared worn but clean, and a few personal items lay scattered about the perimeter: a comb, a broken mirror, an ancient baby’s rag doll propped in the corner, an empty chamber pot. The ceiling hung low over their heads, forcing them to stoop to move about and to inspect the ticking upon which they would rest.
There was no sense in lamenting the turn things had taken downstairs, and Sansa did not need to overhear them speaking ill of the woman who had been her mother, so neither talked of it. Instead, Jaime took the broken mirror and sat on the bed. He looked squarely at Brienne. “We need to remove your bandage.”
Brienne unconsciously brought her hand to her left cheek.
“It must be healing,” he went on. “You change the dressing every day. It may be time to leave it off and let it breathe.”
Feeling more vulnerable than she would ever wish to admit, Brienne could not bring herself to speak. But she knew Jaime was right. She had delayed removing the linen for long enough. She had not seen herself in a mirror yet and had been tending her wound by feel, or by letting Podrick be her eyes - but only when Jaime was otherwise occupied. She would avoid looking at Podrick’s face whenever he helped her, for she could not bear to see revulsion in his guileless eyes if her face looked as terrible as she feared.
Brienne sank onto the bed beside Jaime and he handed her the shard of mirror. She held it on her lap and fingered the edges delicately, as if it were a knife whose sharpness she could not estimate. Small shuffles and clinks from downstairs told her that Podrick was washing their dinner bowls and spoons, and Brienne tried - unsuccessfully - to place her mind there instead of on what she and Jaime were about to do.
Jaime began to peel away the cloth while she kept her eyes downcast. Neither word nor breath escaped his lips as he removed the linen and set it aside on the table. His fingers found her face and moved from her cheekbone downward over her scarred cheek and onto her jaw and neck.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
Brienne cleared her throat. “My cheekbone and jaw. Less feeling, in between.”
“As I expected.”
Somehow Brienne could not bear to see herself in the mirror yet. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to see Jaime’s reaction to her disfigurement first, before she passed judgment on herself. Before she could consider otherwise, she looked at him. His gaze did not remain on her ruined cheek, but met her eyes at once. His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set.
“How is it?” she whispered.
Jaime’s throat worked. He looked from the wound back to her eyes. “You look even more formidable, my lady.” A wry smile started in his eyes and eventually worked its way down to his mouth, which quirked upward in a tight-lipped grin.
Brienne surprised herself with a breathy laugh, though her heart was thundering with dread. Do it! she told herself, and she brought the mirror up.
It was bad, but not worse than she had imagined. She thanked the gods that the wound was smaller than she’d thought it would be. But the scarring was pink and angry, a ragged, mouth-shaped brand. She could see the carvings those horrible teeth had dug down her cheek, like fingernails raked through dirt. Her breathing, already shallow in anticipation of the awfulness she would see, quickened in anger. Yes, she had scars all over her body, wounds she’d earned in battle fairly; but this was her face, her face, and Biter had done it purposely to violate her. She might have died if not for Gendry, but now she was saddled with the memory of that foul act for the rest of her days.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she cursed under her breath, for crying would make her eyes swollen and render her ruined face even uglier. Besides, she did not cry, would not cry. She set aside the mirror and cursed again, angry with herself for caring, so late in her life, for her appearance. And then she barked with laughter, realizing she hadn’t known what a gift an unmarred face, even hers, had truly been. But she had borne hardship in her life; she could bear this. She would bear it.
While she struggled inwardly, Jaime’s eyes followed her every subtle shift in mood; and he seemed to be trying to assess whether he should speak or simply allow Brienne’s tide of emotion to roll in and crash wherever it may. His hand had somehow ended up resting upon her knee, and the calm assurance Brienne felt from the weight of it there was comforting. In that simple moment she saw Jaime once again restraining himself from trying to fix her, like nearly every other man she’d known had tried to do. He allowed her to be no more or less than who she was.
And at last she finally understood - knew it from her flushing skin inward into her very bones - that she loved him. She looked away, wondering if she could bear that, too.
Downstairs Podrick had finished cleaning up the dinner things and trod softly to where Sansa lay, probably still wide awake, on her small bed. Brienne heard him spread out a blanket and some furs on the floor. Then the whispering began. She and Jaime raised their eyebrows and smiled at each other.
He put on his sternest voice. “You have the first watch, Podrick, unless you’ve forgotten.”
Then ensued much scrambling and apologies and gathering of sword and wet cloak. Podrick had nearly reached the door when Brienne called out, “You may sit by the fire. Just stay awake and keep the door bolted.”
“Yes, my lady. Ser. I won’t. Fall asleep, I mean. I’ll stay awake.”
As Podrick settled into the chair Sansa had vacated, Jaime and Brienne stifled their snickers and crawled under the furs together, and somehow that was the end of any discussion about the scars on Brienne’s face.
Her heart pounded; after all, their little roost in this loft was the first place they’d had any semblance of privacy together. She wondered if Jaime kissed her - would he want to kiss her again, now that he’d seen her disfigurement? She batted the thought away - whether she could keep from sighing and moaning as she usually did when they reached for each other while Podrick and Sansa slept. She doubted that Sansa would sleep much tonight, if at all, and she didn’t relish the thought of the two downstairs hearing what she and Jaime got up to under their furs. Even so, she knew if he wanted her she wouldn’t resist his advances. There was a certain freedom in surrender, she realized. The Kingslayer’s whore she was, in name and probably quite soon in deed, and that was that.
As she lay back on the straw mattress, a sharp twinge caused her to hiss in pain. She sat up, rubbing her ribs. Jaime silently rose with her and began, with his one hand, to pull her heavy woolen shirt and linen undergarment over her head. Like an obedient child, she helped him by lifting the other side until she was bare from the waist up except for the fabric binding her chest. Where was her modesty? How soon after she’d met Jaime had it fled? For there was no question that she would let him undress her to view her wounds. The light from the lamp and the bright snow outside gave her nowhere to hide, but she sat up straighter. There would be no shame in this.
Jaime’s own hiss escaped his teeth as he saw the purple bruises peeking from under the cotton binding that flattened and protected her small breasts. He untucked the edge and began to unwrap it, with Brienne helping to pass the fabric around her back until she was naked.
She’d always thought that allowing herself to be disrobed by a man was fantasy, something that would never happen in her waking life; or, if it did, it would be part of some humiliating horror she was forced to endure for a man’s sport, as when she’d had to don a dress to fight a bear, or worse, if Vargo Hoat and his men had been crueler than they’d been greedy. So she was surprised by how captivated she felt when Jaime’s hand passed gently over her bruises, feeling her ribs with his fingertips.
“Take deep breaths in and out,” he whispered, bringing his ear to her lips.
She obeyed and he listened, keeping his hand on her ribcage. He must be listening for a rattle, or wheezing, indicating fluid in her lungs from a broken rib; but they both knew her injuries couldn’t be as bad as that. Still, she had to acknowledge his thoroughness, and a smile stole across her face as she wondered about his other motives for undressing her. His eyes were downcast, probably inspecting her breasts, and he must feel the thundering of her heartbeat under his hand, which somehow embarrassed her more than being naked did. She looked away and tried to slow her frantic heart by imagining being examined by a maester; but it had been many years since she had submitted to any such prodding, and no maester had ever made her heart flutter like Jaime did. And his ear was right next to her mouth, begging to be kissed.
Jaime sat back and looked her in the eyes, exhaling in relief. “You’ll heal,” he whispered.
His hand was still on her ribs. She nodded. Of course. She always did. They regarded each other silently. A sweet, sad longing churned deep between her legs. She placed her hand on top of his.
As always, Jaime would begin as a gentleman, or as much of one as he was likely to be. He barely breathed his next words. “Brienne, can you keep quiet if I do this?”
Leaning forward, keeping his eyes open, and pressed his open mouth to hers, and the sudden, throbbing desire in her loins nearly made her whimper. He slid his hand upward until it cupped her breast and he gave it a squeeze, and still, somehow, she didn’t make a noise. She reached for his hips, for they were too far away from her aching pelvis and the fire within. But he wouldn’t come closer, not yet, for there was her body to explore, at last, and as he pulled back his eyes seemed to feast on it. A small smile crossed his face and he hummed quietly, satisfied, and brought his mouth to her left breast, keeping his hand on the right and running his thumb over her nipple. Brienne’s eyes closed, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. His tongue on her nipple seemed somehow larger and yet more precise than it had been inside her mouth a moment ago, and she thought she might pass out from the thrill of it.
Jaime’s warm breath made her shiver as he slid his mouth up her breastbone and neck and across her jaw, right underneath her scars. “I want to feel you,” he breathed when he reached her mouth again. Grasping the hem of his woolen shirt, he tugged it deftly over his head, and slung it to the side, then reached for the linen shirt underneath, though Brienne had to help a bit with that as it hugged his body more snugly than the wool. Now shirtless, he slid his hand down to her hip and reached behind her with his other arm. He sat up on his knees and pulled her firmly to him, and she felt his need, hard and insistent, between her legs and his muscular chest against her own naked breasts. She moaned.
Jaime stopped kissing her and his green eyes glimmered like emeralds in the lamplight. “Shhh,” he breathed into her mouth, but Brienne silenced the reprimand with her tongue. He quickly lowered her onto the mattress and kissed her, grinding his manhood into her through their breeches, over and over again, until she thought she might have to beg him to take her, dignity be damned.
But Jaime had other ideas. Propping himself up on his elbow, he shifted so that his length was pressed into her thigh and he slid his hand down inside her breeches, beneath her smallclothes, until he found her sex. The wet heat he found there made him moan, and he pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes as if he were in a dream. “Shhh,” whispered Brienne, and Jaime kissed her to silence her cry as he pressed the warm heel of his hand against her sex and slipped a finger inside her.
Brienne’s maidenhead had probably been lost long ago from the physical exertion of riding horseback, and she’d given herself the widow’s comfort for years, knowing that no man was likely to give her any pleasure. But when Jaime slipped a second finger inside her and began to rub the nub of her desire with his thumb, her eyes fluttered shut and she surrendered to the knowledge of his hand. He started slowly, rolling her sex under his thumb with the practiced, undeniable rhythm of an ocean wave tumbling over itself to reach the inevitable shore. She turned her head to the side and they lay forehead to forehead as he silently ministered to her need. She bit her lip and furrowed her brow to keep from making a noise, tilting her hips upward to take his fingers in even deeper. Jaime’s breath shuddered in and out against her lips and she kissed him, feeling his own unrelenting want against her hip. At last he found the rhythm that she knew would bring her to her inexorable finish. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound as she felt her body’s yearning slowly building, building under his touch - and with a rush of exhalation it was released, pulsing and contracting around his fingers. She whimpered, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing the sound. She ran her hands up over his jaw and into his hair, grabbing handfuls of it as she kissed him back, hard, and wondered with a certain amount of giddy wickedness what else this man was capable of doing to her.
Jaime slipped his fingers out of her and sat back, knees spread, and waited. Brienne sat up and unlaced his breeches. He released himself and, with her juices still on his fingers, grasped his length and began to stroke. Brienne could not take her eyes off of him. He must know she’d never touched a man, and in their nights of tussling under the covers, though she’d tentatively squeezed him through his breeches, she hadn’t yet reached for his naked manhood. Now, with the lamplight and the white light of the fallen snow making his angular face glow with an ethereal beauty - and despite purple and green bruises all over his shoulders, arms, and torso; despite lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes from too many nights with little sleep; and, yes, despite missing a hand - he looked like a god, beautiful and perfect, perhaps one that the Seven had cast away jealously in punishment for his physical splendor. While Jaime rubbed himself, he kept half-lidded eyes on Brienne as he watched her watching him. She sat up on her elbows and wondered how his manhood could fit into her, but it must be possible, and she knew now that it would happen. Perhaps not tonight - because she didn’t want to stop him, not until he’d shown her how best to pleasure him - but soon, soon, she promised herself.
Brienne watched Jaime’s movements for a while longer and, finally, drawing on a new sort of courage she hadn’t known she possessed, she knelt almost behind him, spreading her thighs around his right thigh and buttock. She pressed her sex into his hip and her breasts into his arm and ribs. She held his left hip with her hand, keeping him close. Then, as she tucked her chin on top of his shoulder - for once glad of her height, for it meant that she could watch - she reached for him with her right hand. He let go and she wrapped her fingers around his girth, thrilling at the soft moan she elicited from him, and at the new sensations of smoothness and rigidity under her fingers; and she began to slide her hand over him, as she’d seen him do. His warm, soft skin moved over the stiffness, and she found herself smiling. She kept at it, slowly, marveling at the wetness she saw gleaming on the tip of his manhood and wondering how soon she’d bring him to climax.
“Faster,” he commanded in a rough whisper. She obeyed, and almost immediately she was rewarded by his release. He produced a handkerchief to capture his seed instead of letting it spew onto the bedclothes, and his hips thrust involuntarily as she continued to stroke him. She looked at his face and felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw the utter abandon in his expression; his eyes were closed, his brow knit, his mouth open in a silent sigh of ecstasy. His mutilated arm reached behind him to draw her even closer to him. It seemed right to continue to touch him until his shuddering had completely ceased, and so she waited until he’d turned to kiss her to release him.
Jaime folded the handkerchief neatly and handed it to her, and she gratefully accepted it and cleaned the rest of his seed from her fingers, grinning in what she was certain was a silly manner as she did so. She lowered her gaze, blushing and smiling. He pulled her to him and, placing his finger under her chin, tilted her face to his. He whispered, with a grin, “You’ve been holding back, my lady.” He kissed her again, his hand rough in her hair at the nape of her neck and his breath hot against her mouth. “I cannot wait to try that again.”
“You flatter me,” said Brienne, still blushing.
“Not at all. Flattery is what one resorts to when the truth is not an option.”
“Your moral code is interesting, Ser Jaime.” But she kept on grinning like a fool.
“Come and lie down with me, wench,” he whispered. And she did.
As they settled down beneath their covers and watched the white flurries through the windowpane, Brienne was grateful for the heat rising from the fireplace downstairs, and glad that they had one night of true shelter before they wound their way back to Lady Stoneheart. Soon Jaime turned his body toward Brienne, and she mirrored his position. His hand found hers and held it.
“We should sleep,” whispered Brienne. Jaime nodded.
But they continued to look at each other. Brienne couldn’t begin to guess what Jaime was thinking as he gazed at her, but the intensity of his eyes made her feel somehow intriguing, desired, and even a little beautiful. It was confusing, for she had never been any of those things; but she was quickly growing addicted to the feeling that she might be, at least in his eyes. She wanted to talk about what they’d done, and tell him how bloody amazing he had made her feel, and how incredible the act of pleasuring him had felt to her … but somehow she couldn’t. It felt almost as if to speak of it would break the spell, and she had no intention of doing that. So she just looked at her lover and prayed to the Seven, all of them, to keep her from driving Jaime away.
“What will we do after Winterfell?” asked Jaime, his gaze dropping for a second to her hand in his; but then he looked into her eyes again. He’d spoken almost casually, as if he were merely making conversation.
But Brienne’s heart leapt into her throat, for she wondered the same thing, every day and night. After Winterfell Jaime would return to King’s Landing, and she … she wasn’t certain where she would go. Perhaps a visit to her father was warranted, though he’d implied that his welcome would be warmest if she happened to bring home a promising candidate for her lord husband. So it would be a cold visit home. After that, she did not know.
But Jaime had said we. What will we do after Winterfell?
Brienne surprised herself by giving Jaime the truth. “Whatever you like.”
To be continued … Chapter 4 - Sansa