fic: what strange bedfellows we make, my lady (Game of Thrones, Jaime/Sansa)
Title: what strange bedfellows we make, my lady
Characters: Jaime/Sansa
Rating: PG13
Summary: A Stark and a Lannister make an alliance to stay alive.
Author's Notes: ~800 words. Written for the Non-Canon Ficathon. Prompt: pretty baby, you put all your hope in something so cold and easily broken. Nothing here belongs to me. Comments and feedback are always appreciated. Set post-ADWD.
She’s already in his tent when he pushes the flaps back and enters. In the Dragon Queen’s camp, she’d been given her own to stay in, but since rescuing her from the Mad Mouse, a hedge knight no match for the Kingslayer even with only one hand, she’d refused to part from him. A Stark and a Lannister, an unlikely match. But before dragons, both lions and wolves are cowed.
Jaime ties the tent flaps to keep the frigid winter air out. He shakes the fur from his shoulders and brushes the snow from him before moving towards her and the hot coals.
Sansa sits on the bed pallet, her legs crossed beneath her as she mends the cloak in her lap. She hasn’t bothered to deign him with a look, head bowed, red hair around her like an extra layer of warmth. Kissed by fire, the wildlings say, and he agrees. Ice and winter and snow might be the Stark way, but Sansa’s is a burning ice.
He casts a look at the needle she holds, mindful of her mood. When he’d found her, chasing rumors and false sightings, amidst the chaos of the realm dealing with broken Houses and no ruler, he’d been surprised at the change. Gone was the young girl obsessed with the idea of her perfect prince. Now a woman, she’d learned fully the game and how to make allies.
She finally looks up at him, head inclined to see his standing figure. “The queen means to move against the Freys tomorrow.”
Jaime holds his hands over the coals, warming them from where even the fur lined gloves hadn’t been enough. Winter had come for the entire realm, no matter how hard the South had pretended it couldn’t reach them. He gives her a grin. “No doubt that pleases you.”
She flicks those blue eyes at him, her fingers working quickly on the cloak. Sometimes, she’s warm to him, a small smile at his words and even a laugh. Other times, she looks at him with disdain, and he thinks the only reason she keeps him with her, because it’s truly that, is so he won’t cause anymore problems for her. The Starks, or what’s left, had thrown in with Daenerys upon her landing in Westeros.
“It pleases me greatly,” Sansa says, lips pulled back and teeth bared.
When they’d been found and taken before the new queen, Sansa had promised her the knights of the Vale in return for vengeance. And for her life, as Daenerys had no love for the Starks and the sins of Sansa’s father. She had even less for Jaime; he’d been spared because of Tyrion. For now.
“Did our queen speak of anything else?” He asks, unbuckling his sword belt and putting it and his steel within distance should he need it. He may no longer be of the Kingsguard, but he will never not be a soldier.
“You would know if you had been there.”
“Ah,” he sits next to her. “But we can’t all have the favor of her, my sweet. I’d rather she not feed me to her dragons. Besides, I thought you’d jump at being with your husband.”
Sansa Lannister’s her real name despite the curl it brings to her mouth when said. Jaime had once joked to her that she was trading one Lannister for another with him in her bed. She’d paid him back by raking her nails down his back that night.
She smiles. Then, her hands still. Quietly, she says, “She talked again of turning South when she’s done here. Of going to King’s Landing.”
“Did she now?” The dim light from the coals glinted off his golden hand.
“She won’t have use of us anymore if she turns that way. We have to turn her North. Convince her she needs to deal with Stannis now.” Her blue eyes are serious and hard, and again he wonders where the little girl who used to copy his sister’s hair and dress went. She has the look of her mother and her will too.
Broken things the two of them. Her with her family lost and he with his gone too. Lions and wolves in bed together. It makes for danger, especially in a camp where both are practically hostages rather than friends of the queen.
She’s right. As long as they are useful, she’ll tolerate them. Sansa might make it out, might make it back North to raise Winterfell again. Jaime... Jaime would likely end up given to her dragons.
“I want us to live,” Sansa says next to him.
The wind howls outside of the tent. By tomorrow more snow will have fallen.
Jaime takes her hands in his left, thumb passing once over the fine bones of her wrists. Promises, promises, so many he’s made. “We will.”