Notes:
I wanted to write a story in which Jaime/Dany could work without Brienne or Jon suffering. I don't know how they would get to this point, but here they are.
"Your Grace."
Daenerys stops writing, and the quill scratches through the page. Ink splatters, and the candle on her desk sputters.
The Kingslayer stands in her doorway, holding a dagger. Skeins of silk rest in the crook of his right arm, and linen strips hang over his shoulders. His shadow flickers in the candlelight.
The dagger gleams silver and gold.
Dany gets up and crosses the room to push the door shut. "Kingslayer."
He smiles, sharp and thin, pressing back, pushing the door open against her. "I have a name, you know. You've heard Brienne." The space is wide enough for him to step into the doorway. He does so, quiet as a cat.
Dany steps back, draws herself up tall. She winces at the effort it takes to keep her back straight, at the sharp pain in her side. "Tell me, Kingslayer, why are you in my chamber with a knife?"
He takes the linen off his shoulders, stepping further into the room, lets it fall to the table with a whump. He pulls pots of ointment from a bag at his hip, tosses the thread beside them, and stabs the dagger into the table. "Bandages won't cut themselves."
"Where's Jon? Brienne?"
The Kingslayer sits down at the table, and sets a basin of wine over the fire to boil. He begins to slice the linen into strips. "Recovering, which you won't do if I can't look at you."
Dany sinks into her bed, wincing at the pain in her side. "You care so much about my well-being?"
He rolls his eyes, dagger still slicing. "Sam's busy. We'll thank him for it when Jon and Brienne come back well. You need to stay well, too."
Dany rolls her eyes back. "So I should let you, a man who has every reason to want me dead, treat my wounds?"
The Kingslayer stops and looks at her. "I didn't agree to this marriage so I could kill you." He smiles, gold as the dagger's hilt, sharp as its blade. "I still have my left hand." His gaze darkens. "I'd prefer more pleasurable things."
Dany gets up from her bed, clasps her hands behind her back, and draws herself up beside him. She doesn't have a throne here. But she is still Queen. "You watched your men burn alive at my orders."
Gathering the strips into a pile, he turns his attention to the skeins of silk, cutting off a few long threads. After a few botched attempts, he manages to thread the needle. He gets up from the desk, moving behind her. "I did."
Dany's arms are still clasped behind her, and she flinches when he puts his hand over hers and pulls her arm away to expose her bloodstained shift.
The Kingslayer's voice is quiet, but not gentle. "You were going to wait to have this seen." Dany feels his hand tremble as he opens her shift at the side. The laces are soaked, stained red.
Muscle throbs wetly under the long, deep gash. He pours wine onto a cloth, and scrubs at the wound, steadying her with his right arm. Dany sucks in a breath, then lets it go as the pain ebbs. "You endured imprisonment under my reign."
If the Kingslayer notices her formality, he ignores it. "I did." He pulls the needle through her wound harder than necessary. Each stitch is a hot sting. "And you," he jerks the needle, "were going to wait," he pulls the thread sharply, "to have this seen."
Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut against the pain. "I know you and your wife would prefer a more traditional arrangement."
His touch is still not gentle. "You know, do you?"
"You wed me under duress."
He stops pulling so hard then. Dany opens her eyes, and feels his hand halt at her side, brush the edges of the wound, then down, coming to rest on her hip.
"Did I?"
He ties off the thread, daubs her wound with a fresh cloth, and reaches for a pot of ointment, coating his fingers. The ointment smells of pine and mint.
His touch is something sweeter than gentle now, though his hand still shakes. "You were going to wait to have this seen."
She has no need for the Kingslayer's rage, delicate and warm. She has her own, hot and harsh. She could anoint him with her dragonfire.
Her thoughts turn to another wounded man she knows. "It was difficult for you and Jon to come to peaceful terms."
His fingers barely whisper against her skin. The softness is there again, in his voice and in his touch.
"We made rather more than peace, I'd say."
"My husband set aside certain grievances."
He moves behind her, to undo the laces at her back. "But you will not."
"No. I will not."
"Am I so repulsive, Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen?"
She knows by his tone that he is smiling, in that damnable way only he can. But as he pulls her shift down her shoulders, she feels the tension in his body.
"Your wife attempts to convince me otherwise."
The Kingslayer strokes the small of her back. "Our wife is a smart woman."
She cannot understand the softness of his touch.
She is a queen, and a kingslayer is salving her wounds. Dany channels Jon then, all the ice of his North, all of Brienne's strength, all the power of her own station. She steps away from him.
"So am I."
The Kingslayer turns his back to her, stride clipped as he moves to the table, leaning against it. Another pot of ointment rests there, closed and waiting for use. He wrenches the latch open. "You're as stubborn as Brienne. As ugly of heart, too."
His golden dagger cuts well. Dany sinks into the chair with the force of it.
"Someone once told me my heart was gentle."
He swirls the ointment in its pot, rubs a little on his fingers. His eyes flicker to Dany's. They are a forest after early spring rain, lonely and haunted, yearning. "That must've been before the war."
She holds his gaze, though she will not let herself yearn. "Long before."
"Did you love him?"
"I think, perhaps, I did."
He kneels behind Dany with a resigned sigh, the pot of ointment beside him. "And now you've given the rest of your love away."
Dany lifts her head to the ceiling and closes her eyes. "Kingslayer. You fought well today, you, Brienne, Jon."
He smooths the ointment into the skin at the back of her neck. "And you, and Drogon." His fingers crush the herbs.
Dany can smell lavender and chamomile. She inhales the scent. "The Starks think we are ridiculous."
He gathers her waist-length hair in his hand, runs his fingers through it, lets it fall. "Your father would burn me alive, and laugh as he did it."
"My father was a true Targaryen."
He brushes her hair away from her neck to expose the scrapes. "Daenerys."
"Kingslayer."
He smooths a thick layer of ointment onto her skin. "Marriage has certain implications." He rests his stump on her shoulder, and the feel of the puckered skin is not unpleasant.
He rubs tiny circles into an abrasion underneath her shoulder blade, and she hisses with pain. "It was a necessary political union."
He scrapes out more ointment from the pot. "So many vows feel necessary." It's particularly cold. "This was not simply necessary." He rubs particularly hard. "It was desired." It is particularly painful. "Would you have let these wounds go bad?"
She shivers at the cold, and arches her back as more pain jolts through her. When she's recovered enough to reply, she says, "Brienne loves you."
The Kingslayer sighs. "And I her. If you won't listen to me, then just-" He shuts his eyes tight, clenches his fist, rubs circles around his maimed arm. "Ask our lady about what it means to desire what is necessary." His hand is at her shoulder now, his stump warm around her waist as he pulls her up, pulls her back against him. "I have more to give."
She swallows, stiffens, shrinks away from him, if shrinking can be done in an imperious way. "Jon is perfectly receptive."
The scents of lavender and smoke linger in the air.
"Damn her." The Kingslayer sits on her bed, pulls Dany to sit beside him. He takes her hand. It's not wounded, but he rubs ointment in. His hand is warm, calloused, and the fine hairs on his arm tickle her pleasantly.
She supposes she should get up, that a queen would not share her bed with her semi-estranged husband, but she's too exhausted from blood loss, injury, and emotion. So she asks the only thing that comes to her. "Would you have married her?"
He laces their fingers together, strokes her palm with his thumb. "Ask Brienne."
Dany wonders if Sam knows of a cure for excessive eye-rolling. "I don't think Brienne wants to discuss her husband's former lover with his current wife."
He grins and this time the forest is full of summer light, bright green and lush.
He nudges playfully at her shoulder. "Did you just admit to being my wife?"
She brushes ointment over his stump, gently, softly. "Kingslayer. I know how you cared for Cersei."
"She was my gold, and you are my silver."
"And you have a silver tongue."
He grins wickedly. "I will swear fealty without ever speaking."
"Kingslayer. If I willed it, you would never speak."
His stubble scrapes deliciously against the side of her neck. "It's that gentle heart of yours." His breath is hot in her ear. "I can pledge with fingers or cock, if you'd prefer."
Dany shivers. "I do not have a gentle heart, Ser."
He traces her collarbone with his fingers. "And I am not a man of honour, your Grace."
"Brienne knows that best of all."
"And she and Jon know the many forms my allegiance takes. Should I ask them about your heart?"
She pulls away from him and puts her hands in her lap.
"Your soldiers did not ask about my heart."
He takes her hand in his and looks at her steadily. "You can't hurt a man who makes a vow he desires."
She looks back at him."Cersei hurt you."
"A desire alone is not a vow."
Dany closes her eyes, bows her head. "I burned your men alive."
"Your father burned men alive."
Brienne has told her everything. It was a vow he desired, a vow he fulfilled.
"And you slayed him."
"He deserved it."
"Do I deserve it?"
"You've already decided." He smiles against her shoulder. "You can't will me to hate you."
"Jaime."
His mouth is warm, soft, gold as his dagger.
He will anoint her with his anger, his desire, and his vow.
Notes:
Thank you for reading. I would be delighted to know your thoughts.