[ fic ] what stays and what fades away ; cersei/jaime, game of thrones
Written for the prompt "you are the silence in between what I thought and what I said..." by midnightblack07 at the Nostalgia Fest 2011. Originally posted here. Mild spoilers for the first book/season if you aren't all the way through, but that's really it.
what stays and what fades away » game of thrones. cersei/jaime. pg-13. 1,068 words.
They need each other, whether they are children or adults; they are one person together and they cannot exist without. warnings: incest. I own nothing.
Unlike the rest of the world, they've never needed to rely on words.
(And this is only one of the ways in which they've always been unlike the rest of the world.
Or apart from it, at least.)
[you are the hole in my head]
Jaime gets his knee slashed open when he is ten years open and practicing swordplay. Years later, he will still remember how at first he only feels surprise. He watches the blood well out, much slower than he would have imagined, and it isn't until it's dripping down his calf that he becomes acutely aware of the pain, oh, there you are, all of the sudden.
Cersei comes rushing into the room when the Maester is sewing him up, and holds his hand while he grits his teeth. Later, she tells everyone who will listen (everyone she makes listen) that she knew as soon as he was hurt, that she felt pain in her leg too.
And Jaime tells his twin he believes her, because he knows she wants him to. Or maybe because he is young enough to believe it himself.
The mind's memory is a selective bitch sometimes, he decides, when he tries to think back later and he doesn't know the answer.
[you are the space in my bed]
When they are fourteen years old, it only takes a look. Cersei will catch his eye at dinner when she plans on sneaking to his chambers that night, and she will tilt her head and twirl a lock of her hair while he watches. She's always liked how easily captivated Jaime was by her.
And they don't need words at night either, not when she's crawled into her brother's bed and Jaime's fingers are splayed across her hipbones as he fucks her and she has to bite her lip in order to stay quiet (because they do need to stay quiet).
Even later, when they lie there in the dark, Cersei is content to listen to her brother breathing and try and match him, breath for breath, until it sounds as if there truly is only one person in the room.
[you are the night-time fear]
With her father, it is different. It takes too many words from Tywin Lannister to make her understand what he is saying when he tells her he is taking her away from King's Landing.
"But--" she tries to say, drawn up in all her imperious rage. But Jaime. Jaime has joined the Kingsguard, Jaime is in King's Landing for her, and they cannot be separated.
She tries to act lofty, sputters other excuses, tries to refuse, but her father views her airs as childish instead, and she is dragged back to the Rock.
She would kick and scream if she thought it would do her any good.
[you are the morning when it's clear]
If there were a way that Jaime could have escaped standing there in the sept watching Robert Baratheon drape his golden cloak over Cersei's shoulders, he would have taken it. He had never imagined that he would miss his sister's marriage, but then, he had always imagined that he would be the one to marry her. It went against all reason, but imagination was not the realm of reason.
He watches her marry Robert in silence, and for the first time he can remember he is unsure of what his sister is thinking.
As he stands there, he thinks of the throne room, the way his sword slid through Aerys Targaryen's back so easily. He thinks of the Iron Throne, standing there for him to take it, and he imagines that he had, that he'd ignored Ned Stark and remained seated, pronounced himself King and made Cersei his Queen, the rest of the kingdom be damned.
In all honesty, he's never wanted to be King. But he's always wanted Cersei.
[i will disappear in plain sight]
The years that follow are tedium compared to the years of the rebellion. It is easy to get caught up in the idea of war, the idea of a throne, Jaime thinks. It is far more difficult to know what to do when the war is over and the throne is won. But that is not his concern.
They all grow older, and there is nothing glorious about this part. Jaime is relieved as he watches Cersei learn to hate Robert, and furious in turn when he watches his king degrade and disrespect his sister time and time again, fostering and ensuring the continuance of that same hate.
Robert fucks his whores, an unrelenting stream of them, it sometimes seems. And Jaime finds Cersei, steals her time from the king and makes love to her desperately, presses his mouth to hers as if he could clean all traces of Robert away.
He kisses her to silence her too, for even now they still have to be quiet.
[heaven help me
i need to make it right]
Cersei does not believe the news when Varys tells her. Her brother is her brother, he is the greatest knight in all the Seven Kingdoms, and he would not be captured by some traitor's rebel son. Jaime has been away long enough, and she needs him returned to her in King's Landing. He cannot be some prisoner, to be executed at the whim of a boy whose father was just killed by her son.
The irony makes her hysterical, and she laughs, because it still does not feel real. She would know. If this were the truth, she would have felt it. Something. Like when they were children, and Jaime got that scar on his knee.
It has been so many years, but she is so convinced that she felt it. She didn't need to hear her brother's cry or see the wound. She felt it, because Jaime is her other half, her twin, and they are but one person together.
She knows that he is unharmed, because she would have felt anything else. She knows that he is still alive, because she did not feel anything.
She knows that he is still alive, because she is still alive, and she has known since she was a child that she could not be alive in a world without Jaime.
We came into this world together, she thinks, and then adds another clause:
And we will leave it together.
what stays and what fades away » game of thrones. cersei/jaime. pg-13. 1,068 words.
They need each other, whether they are children or adults; they are one person together and they cannot exist without. warnings: incest. I own nothing.
Unlike the rest of the world, they've never needed to rely on words.
(And this is only one of the ways in which they've always been unlike the rest of the world.
Or apart from it, at least.)
[you are the hole in my head]
Jaime gets his knee slashed open when he is ten years open and practicing swordplay. Years later, he will still remember how at first he only feels surprise. He watches the blood well out, much slower than he would have imagined, and it isn't until it's dripping down his calf that he becomes acutely aware of the pain, oh, there you are, all of the sudden.
Cersei comes rushing into the room when the Maester is sewing him up, and holds his hand while he grits his teeth. Later, she tells everyone who will listen (everyone she makes listen) that she knew as soon as he was hurt, that she felt pain in her leg too.
And Jaime tells his twin he believes her, because he knows she wants him to. Or maybe because he is young enough to believe it himself.
The mind's memory is a selective bitch sometimes, he decides, when he tries to think back later and he doesn't know the answer.
[you are the space in my bed]
When they are fourteen years old, it only takes a look. Cersei will catch his eye at dinner when she plans on sneaking to his chambers that night, and she will tilt her head and twirl a lock of her hair while he watches. She's always liked how easily captivated Jaime was by her.
And they don't need words at night either, not when she's crawled into her brother's bed and Jaime's fingers are splayed across her hipbones as he fucks her and she has to bite her lip in order to stay quiet (because they do need to stay quiet).
Even later, when they lie there in the dark, Cersei is content to listen to her brother breathing and try and match him, breath for breath, until it sounds as if there truly is only one person in the room.
[you are the night-time fear]
With her father, it is different. It takes too many words from Tywin Lannister to make her understand what he is saying when he tells her he is taking her away from King's Landing.
"But--" she tries to say, drawn up in all her imperious rage. But Jaime. Jaime has joined the Kingsguard, Jaime is in King's Landing for her, and they cannot be separated.
She tries to act lofty, sputters other excuses, tries to refuse, but her father views her airs as childish instead, and she is dragged back to the Rock.
She would kick and scream if she thought it would do her any good.
[you are the morning when it's clear]
If there were a way that Jaime could have escaped standing there in the sept watching Robert Baratheon drape his golden cloak over Cersei's shoulders, he would have taken it. He had never imagined that he would miss his sister's marriage, but then, he had always imagined that he would be the one to marry her. It went against all reason, but imagination was not the realm of reason.
He watches her marry Robert in silence, and for the first time he can remember he is unsure of what his sister is thinking.
As he stands there, he thinks of the throne room, the way his sword slid through Aerys Targaryen's back so easily. He thinks of the Iron Throne, standing there for him to take it, and he imagines that he had, that he'd ignored Ned Stark and remained seated, pronounced himself King and made Cersei his Queen, the rest of the kingdom be damned.
In all honesty, he's never wanted to be King. But he's always wanted Cersei.
[i will disappear in plain sight]
The years that follow are tedium compared to the years of the rebellion. It is easy to get caught up in the idea of war, the idea of a throne, Jaime thinks. It is far more difficult to know what to do when the war is over and the throne is won. But that is not his concern.
They all grow older, and there is nothing glorious about this part. Jaime is relieved as he watches Cersei learn to hate Robert, and furious in turn when he watches his king degrade and disrespect his sister time and time again, fostering and ensuring the continuance of that same hate.
Robert fucks his whores, an unrelenting stream of them, it sometimes seems. And Jaime finds Cersei, steals her time from the king and makes love to her desperately, presses his mouth to hers as if he could clean all traces of Robert away.
He kisses her to silence her too, for even now they still have to be quiet.
[heaven help me
i need to make it right]
Cersei does not believe the news when Varys tells her. Her brother is her brother, he is the greatest knight in all the Seven Kingdoms, and he would not be captured by some traitor's rebel son. Jaime has been away long enough, and she needs him returned to her in King's Landing. He cannot be some prisoner, to be executed at the whim of a boy whose father was just killed by her son.
The irony makes her hysterical, and she laughs, because it still does not feel real. She would know. If this were the truth, she would have felt it. Something. Like when they were children, and Jaime got that scar on his knee.
It has been so many years, but she is so convinced that she felt it. She didn't need to hear her brother's cry or see the wound. She felt it, because Jaime is her other half, her twin, and they are but one person together.
She knows that he is unharmed, because she would have felt anything else. She knows that he is still alive, because she did not feel anything.
She knows that he is still alive, because she is still alive, and she has known since she was a child that she could not be alive in a world without Jaime.
We came into this world together, she thinks, and then adds another clause:
And we will leave it together.