He finds Jaime Lannister sitting on the Iron Throne, pale and haughty, his white cloak and armour spattered with blood. Aerys's body is cooling on the floor, and Ned's eyes dart from the dead king to the body on the throne.
"On the streets they're calling you Kingslayer already. I didn't want to believe it," he says. "Get up, Lannister. That's not your place."
Lannister doesn't move. He remains seated, slouching, bloodied sword laid unsheathed across his knees. "Are you making a claim, Lord Stark?" And then he says, "I was there when Aerys killed your father and brother, you know, and he wasn't merciful enough to do it with a sword. You should thank me."
Ned tightens his hold around Ice's hilt. He saw the carnage on the streets of King's Landing, the blood on the cobblestones and the air was thick with smoke, the sound of children wailing in the distance. He's had enough of the ambition of Lannisters.
"Get up," he says, again. "That throne won't belong to your family, no matter how many children your father murders to get it."
For an instant surprise flickers in Lannister's eyes, quickly replaced by lazy arrogance. "I don't know, Stark," he drawls. "Will you make me?"
Ned's feet take him without thinking to the foot of the throne. His family died here, he thinks. Lannister watches unblinking, and Ned vaults up the steps to the throne, sword in hand, until he's close enough to grab the insufferable boy by the shoulder.
"Don't provoke me," he whispers. "You wouldn't like what I can do."
Surprisingly, Lannister lets himself be hauled up. His breathing is loud and harsh in Ned's ear, the shape of his armour heavy and solid against Ned's body. There is a speck of blood on his jaw.
Lannister steps away, and Ned's hand falls from his shoulder.
"I'll leave you, then," he says. "I will be in my room in the White Swords tower, awaiting trial. Enjoy your victory, my lord."
When he's halfway through the throne room, he turns around.
"You should take it, Stark," he says, loud enough to be overheard by Ned's own northmen and Lord Tywin's men spilling into the room. "Make yourself king. You'd be better at it than all the fools who tried to claim it."
Soldiers gossip, and nowhere does gossip spread faster than in King's Landing. It runs through the streets of the smoking city to the camps beyond, flying as fast as dozen of ravens, to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms before dawn.
In the span of one night, Jaime Lannister has killed a king and made another.
.
.
Lord Tywin tries to plead with Ned to have his son released from his vows. It was clear that he expected something from his intervention in the war: the office of Hand, perhaps, or his daughter for a queen, as it might have happened had Robert survived.
Instead, Ned Stark sits the Iron Throne, and the Lord of the Rock wants his heir back but will not have it. Only Ser Barristan remained of Aerys's Kingsguard, and Jaime Lannister's skills were famed throughout the realm. Ned lets himself be persuaded to change Lannister's sentence from the Night Watch into a full pardon and gives the boy back his white cloak and white sword while the entire court looks on, and Tywin's eyes burn green and cold.
"You made yourself an enemy, Your Grace," Lannister says once they're alone. Or nearly alone: Ethan Glover's eyes bulge and some of Ned's northmen shifts, uneasy. Lannister laughs. "It's not a threat. My father doesn't like his plans tampered with. He wanted me back in the Rock, and you said no."
Ned tells himself he doesn't care about the wishes of Jaime Lannister. The boy is an oathbreaker and unrepentant killer, and every word out of his mouth seems to be some kind of challenge. Still he clears his throat, and asks, "Would you have wanted to go back to Casterly Rock?"
"Would you want to go back to Winterfell?"
That is hardly a fair question at all. Ned misses Winterfell with every breath. He was made for the North, not this silken trap of a city that's snagged him tightly in its strands, and he's stumbling half-blind and clunky in the darkness. But he has a duty here, and so here he remains.
Lannister's eyes gleam, knowingly. "Quite."
.
.
Lannister has a way of getting under his skin. Ned finds himself overly conscious of Jaime's eyes on him, the drawl of his voice, his insufferable arrogance. It feels as though he's challenging him with every breath, and Ned can't stop thinking about it. He wants to shake that composure out of him, wants to pin Jaime to the wall, put his hand over that mouth so he'll finally shut up.
He can't stop looking at Jaime's lips.
The first time he kisses him it's to make him stop talking, and Jaime laughs as if he's been expecting this all along. His lips twist into a grin against Ned's mouth, bright eyes burning, and Ned doesn't quite want to let him go.
"Is that why you kept me close at hand?" he says, and Ned feels the warm brush of his breath against his own mouth. "I think you've been wanting this for a while. I think—"
When Ned pushes him up against the wall, he falls quiet.
.
.
The first time he cuts himself on the Iron Throne, he's fucking Jaime against it.
It's the middle of the day, and he'd been sitting on the bloody thing all morning until he sent everyone out, and now his fingers slip as he grasps for hold, sharp edges cutting into his palm. His other hand's in Jaime's hair, long and golden, to keep him in place as he thrusts into him, and his mouth's on the back of Jaime's neck and Ned thinks, idly, about marking him there.
Jaime's whispers are a stream of filth, obscene things Ned never knew could be appealing until he heard the sounds coming from Jaime's lips, and he knows that later he's going to remember this moment and burn red at the memory of that voice in his mind. His legs are shaking as he comes inside of him, and Jaime laughs loudly and turns around, smugness radiating off him in waves. He reaches for him and Ned lets him, panting, lets that mouth press kisses into his neck, lets Jaime's hand close around his own and wrap around Jaime's cock, hard and wet.
"Make me," Jaime says, and laughs against Ned's skin.