Disclaimer: I, of course, do not own A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, or Jaime and Brienne. I'm just taking them out for a spin and will return them home before midnight.
Warning: Really brief torture and rape mentions. So brief I'm not even sure it's worth warning about...especially in this fandom.
A/N: A belated submission for J/B Appreciation Week (Longing). I...don't even know what to call this fic, except I don't think I'm ever going to get that PWP ficlet written. *sigh*
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He wants. He wants.
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The wench smells of sweat and horse, leather and steel and home. Her odors are as familiar to him now as his own. In their room at the inn, she tells him to go without ever saying a word so she can bathe those smells from her skin outside his presence, away from his burning eyes.
It takes all his strength of will to go.
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He wants. He wants...
He wants his hand back, to feel the weight of steel in his palm and know he can wield it as easily as he once had. He's learning to use his left hand but he will never be as good—as quick—as effortlessly skilled as he had once been. There are nights, deep in his cups, aching from the bruises the former King's Justice has inflicted, that he considers giving up. Stop trying, stop working, stop striving...
"Are you so craven?" the wench whispers in his ear and he remembers being on his back staring up at a beautiful sky, waiting to die, and he wants...he wants...
*/*/*/*/*
He wants his brother back. He wants to see his smile, hear his voice, laugh at his sharp humor even when it's directed at him. He'd only ever wanted to protect him, his little brother, so hated by their sweet sister, so reviled by their sweet father. He'd been young, too, he wants to tell him, when he told the lie that damned them both. Younger than his years, truly, still hearing the screams of burning men, the cries of a raped woman, the orders to 'burn them all'. He was still clinging to his love for his sweet sister, clinging to his faith that she loved him as much as he loved her, using both as ways to go away inside, to hide from the contempt of the realm and the memory of two tiny, bloody bodies laid at the foot of a throne.
"Monster," the wench whispers in his ear and he cannot deny it, although he wants...he wants...
*/*/*/*/*
He wants to still love his sister, to be the man he used to be. He knows how to do that; he's been that man for so long. It's easy and he wants something to be easy.
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He wants spring and peace and his children alive. He wants to stop himself from pushing that boy from the tower. He sees the boy still, falling, and knows he would do it again if need be even though he failed anyway. He failed to protect any of them: his children are dead and his sister's fate is unknown to him, here at this nameless inn, somewhere in the Riverlands, with the wench bathing alone in a room upstairs.
*/*/*/*/*
He wants to fill his page in the White Book, be remembered for more than breaking oaths and killing his king. He's done other things worth remembering, has he not?
"You were well away. Why come back?" the wench whispers in his memory. A bear, a bear and a maiden fair, and he wants...he wants...
*/*/*/*/*
Sapphires and islands and eyes too blue to be real, honor and gentle hands and warmth when there was naught in his world but pain and the stench of rotting flesh. He sent her away with a quest and a sword and wanted to call her back, ask her to stay—with him—in that festering hellhole of betrayals and lies. But she is not for him—not for that city—she's better than both. She deserves more than either can give.
But he wants.
He wants.
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He wants to see her again. Her eyes surely cannot be as clear and beautiful as he remembers.
He wants to speak with her again—if he can get the stubborn wench to speak at all.
He wants to watch her fight, he wants to cross swords with her again, he wants to be as skilled as he once was and see which of them would prevail if he wasn't in chains and weakened by a year in a cage.
He wants to see her stripped of the armor that can't be seen. He wants to see her smile. He wants to see her laugh. He wants to see her...happy. Would those eyes be even more beautiful when alight with joy? Would such a thing be possible?
He wants to see her in her cups, flushed and slurring. Would her walls thin? Her edges soften? Would she lean on him then?
He wants to comfort her, protect her, support her. She's a warrior, and strong, and he wants to fight by her side. He wants to be her shield in battle and he wants to lock her in a tower with the other maidens so he can be her knight and die at its foot defending her honor.
*/*/*/*/*
Honor.
What he wants from her tonight has nothing to do with honor and everything to do with lust and grief and guilt and love and want—so much want—and he's torn by it, devoured by it—like a lion's teeth, a lion's claws, it hurts and rips and tears at everything he is, deep inside.
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He wants...he wants.
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