Riding back to King's Landing alongside Jaime – and they were damn lucky they'd found horses who'd escaped the battle or else this would've been a very long walk – Bronn realised that he was very much fucked.
Or rather: not fucked, which was precisely the problem.
Fuck.
"Only I get to kill you." He'd meant it, he'd meant every word of what he'd said. As long as Jaime owed him, he wouldn't let anyone kill him – that privilege was Bronn's alone. Jaime was Bronn's alone. His alone to kill, of course. Nothing else. At least that's what he'd believed were his reasons until today, until he'd thrown himself in front of a bloody dragon to save the one-handed cunt.
Now … well. He'd refused to fight the Mountain for Tyrion, because that? That would've been suicide. Not entirely certain suicide – there might have been a chance of Bronn winning. He hadn't survived as a sell-sword for over 20 years by being a sub-par fighter; most sell-swords died much younger than him. Still, it would've been insane to endanger himself for no good reason at all. Tyrion had paid well, he'd been annoying but funny, and Bronn had liked him more than most of the people who'd bought his services before. Didn't mean he was willing to throw all caution to the wind and act like an idiot. He was smarter than that, he'd always been smarter than that.
Only apparently he wasn't anymore, because now he was the fucking guy who'd not only thrown caution to the wind, but thrown himself in the way of dragonfire to save his employer. And for what?
A castle and a chest of gold? Those were fine things, very fine things indeed, and it wasn't as if he was getting younger. He could use a nice place to live and the gold to maintain it, not to mention a sweet little high-born bride or some whores – or both. But all of that wasn't a reason to risk being burnt to a crisp almost certainly. Not when he'd survived this hell of a battle, had survived the beast blasting the ballista to smithereens. He should've got the hell out of there right then and there.
Instead . . .
They were riding in grim silence, Jaime's jaw rigid, eyes distant as he was probably imagining telling his cunt sister of a queen about the battle. She'd lay into him, insult and humiliate him, Bronn had no doubt, and afterwards she'd fuck him and Jaime would let her, because he was a besotted idiot who didn't know what was good for him.
Exactly like Bronn.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck all of this very much.