The scissors feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable in Cersei's grip, but she handles it well enough, she thinks – well enough to snip away at her brother's hair where it needs it. It's nothing like anything she's ever done before, but it had felt like a natural progression from her insistence to wash it. In truth, scrubbing the dirt out of it had felt far more taxing, but at least it had been an intimate enough affair that she hadn't had audience for it.

As if in response to her thoughts, the audience in question winces as she boldly cuts off yet another golden strand. They're streaked with an ashier colour all of a sudden, she notices with more fondness than she wants to hold for him just now, and Cersei idly snakes her fingers through his hair as Tyrion speaks up. "It's getting a little short, isn't it?"

"It's all right." Jaime is as malleable as usual under her touch, but his eyes do stray up in question. "Didn't you have a woman doing this for us before?"

"She has an entire flock of them." Tyrion is the one to respond, to her climbing irritation; even more so when he goes on. "Believe it or not, our sweet sister has been downright ascetic recently. I even saw her lighting her own candles, if I recall correctly."

Jaime chances another look at her and then settles back into his seat when she glares in response. She had been certain that she'd told him not to move enough times for it to stick, but clearly, she'd miscalculated. Instead of relying on further obedience, Cersei puts one hand under his chin and tilts his head back to get at the front of his hair.

"I'd assume they might be a bit more experienced with this," he offers tentatively, though he'd accepted her offer eagerly enough. Cersei scoffs. The last thing she wants is her handmaidens fussing and hovering all around him, wondering what to do with him, when she can handle it just fine.

"They don't have experience with much more than trimming. And, yes, it's true – I was tired of having to endure them all the time."

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of your handmaidens in here ever since I've come home."

"I haven't been feeling up to entertaining company." Well, she had, but her definition of 'company' tends to be rather limited. It's only now that it's being fulfilled, and there's still something not quite right. It almost frustrates her; her own inability to enjoy what she has been given.

"Having servants qualifies as entertaining company now?" When she doesn't respond immediately and Jaime refuses to look away, she can hear her other brother shift in place, evidently alarmed. "Speaking of company, you might want to refrain from doing— whatever it is that you are doing with the doors unlocked."

"You don't have anything to worry about." The look in her twin's striking eyes turns heated when she holds his gaze, the smile playing on his lips hopeful even as he lets out a dejected sigh. "I'm as chaste as I can be."

He is, Cersei knows – she had been the one to make sure of that, after all – but Tyrion doesn't seem inclined to believe it. "Be that as it may, with the entire realm at our heels about this, it would be preferable if you could keep your private lives away from the eyes of the help. Or my eyes, for that matter."

Cersei's – otherwise admirable, in her own opinion – patience finally begins to run out. "These are my chambers. You're free to desert them whenever you like, in the event you haven't noticed. If you didn't go elsewhere in the evenings to sleep, I'd worry you'd forgotten how to leave."

Jaime scowls at that, but it's not the exasperated expression he tends to adopt when he hears them squabbling. It's certainly a look she's seen from him before, even if she can't quite place it, and her efforts are cut short when Tyrion inevitably fires back.

"Now of all times? I don't think so. I'd much prefer to see what comes out of this."

"I'm about done, I think." She runs her hand through Jaime's now-shorter hair to shake out any remaining irregularities and pulls back to let him do the same, biting back a smile as he crosses his eyes in attempt to look up.

"You left it to stick out a bit on the front."

"It looks balanced that way," Tyrion offers with obvious reluctance, and there are few testimonies that Cersei would consider more valuable than the praise of family members who want to pile anything but praise on her.

"I'm going on a walk through the gardens. Join me?"

Jaime's expression brightens even further as he shoots up to his feet. "Of course."

The unidentified unease somewhere deep inside her coils unpleasantly around itself and she squashes it down decisively. He would follow her everywhere, in things both mundane and world-shattering. It should be reassurance enough.

It's not – not as long as she can't follow when he goes through the same.

~.~

"It's— different."

"Bad different?"

"Just different. Tyrion seemed to like it, too." That frown dawns on his face again, familiar and alien all at once as Jaime trails his fingers through his hair. She likes it well enough, different or not – it's short on the sides and still longer on the front, standing up in a way it had been too heavy to do before when it had fallen on both sides of his face. "You've been spending time together, from what I gather."

Cersei shrugs as he finally looks away from his reflection in the water of the fountain. She could have taken him to any of her mirrors, she supposes, or the perfectly still water in her bath, but it's different here, in the exact spot where she had professed her love for him in front of Ned Stark. He has no idea, of course, but by now, she's in the reluctant process of trying to adapt to the fact that they have rather a lot to catch up on. "We were at war. Who else to rely on, if not family?" She had been a fool for it, as it had turned out, or Myrcella might have still been here, and the next words carefully break through the lump in her throat to make their way out. "You weren't here."

"That's precisely what surprises me. Usually, you would be at each other's throats the moment I was gone."

He's poking around for something, but what is it exactly, Cersei can't determine. "None of us knew when you were coming home. The entire time I thought— we thought— I never knew if I would—" She is Cersei Lannister and words do not fail her, although, "I had no way of knowing if I would ever see you again. You were gone."

I hated you for it, she wants to say; wants to scream and punch her fists bloody on his gilded armour, and scar her hands on the hilt of his shining new sword. She wants the imprints of her dirty, dirty hands all over his white cloak; all over him. I hate you, I hate you, I love you.

She says none of it, and the fact that he looks even more unsettled by what little he had heard is all the more puzzling in result. She doesn't think she would be able to bear it if even the most palatable parts of her are too much for him, now of all times. "And he just spent his days in your rooms in the meantime?"

"We had plenty to talk about, oddly enough." Jaime had never been this attentive of the guests she would entertain at court before – had only seemed this incensed on the rare occasions she'd been forced to share her time with Robert for any reason at all. Increasingly lost but just as unwilling to admit it, she ventures again, "You've always pushed us to get along better. Why is it a problem now?"

"It's not a problem." Her twin shakes his head, as if the question alone is ridiculous. "I'm glad. Who said it was a problem?"

There is one, but she knows better than to push now and instead, Cersei seats herself down on the edge of the fountain, happy enough to let him follow her example until he gets far too close than he should be in any open space, his good hand resting on her knee.

Thinking of which...

"Here?" she has an appointment to take care of around noon and someone is sure to come remind her sometime soon, but teasing is fine; even more so when he doesn't know that's what it is. She can't quite let him back in just yet; not with the irrational sting of betrayal still lingering on the back of her mind, warning her that it might happen again despite all the evidence pointing otherwise.

"Anywhere," Jaime says, voice breathy enough to quicken her pulse, his grip on her tightening, still gentle but insistent all the same. There's no harm in letting him work himself up, even if she has no intention of letting it go on for long. "Here, or out in front of the city gates or on the fucking Iron Throne, if that's what you want. Better yet, if the entire court gets to see." He steals a quick kiss – only on her cheek, fleeting and barely there, but still a victory that she hadn't intended to give him just yet. She feels as if she can't bear his touch, all of a sudden – like that alone is a danger to her relative peace of mind, too, in the event that he disappears again. Letting him relearn all of her – letting herself give everything that she can back to him where it belongs – isn't as easy now that she knows that it might not last forever.

Still, he continues. "Would you like them to see? I would. Might be best of you invite the Tyrells along, too. No better way to send a message than that."

This time, she's compelled to laugh, more pleased than she'd ever let him see. It's easy, getting a reaction out of him, but somehow it never gets old.

"Is that what worries you? My future husband would be more interested in you than me, if rumours are to be believed."

Her teasing smile goes unreturned and Jaime's eyes flash back at her with an intensity that makes heat pool low in her stomach. She wants to drown in this emotion; in his need to keep her his in spite of anything the rest of the world has to say about it. "I'm going to kill him if he doesn't remember his place. Father should have known better."

"When has Father ever known better?" She squeezes his hand in hers; merely a reassurance, if not a surrender. "Not even Myrcella was spared."

"You know, I kept thinking of her. I had no idea that any of this had happened, of course, and I thought— we could have wed her to Joffrey."

That is enough to make her pull away, confusion breaking through the reluctant tendrils of lust starting to wrap their way around her. "Why would we do such a thing?"

"Just imagine." His thumb idly rubs at her palm, but Cersei is far too focused on this new line of thought to let it distract her. "It would show them all that we're untouchable; as untouchable as the Targaryens used to be. We have enough power on our side to make sure we'd hold the Throne either way. And once we'd wed them, we could—"

She can tell where this is going, as it so often happens with Jaime's schemes, and really, this one has got to be his worst one. "We could use them so that we could get what we want. Is that it?"

Her twin sighs, exasperated. "Seeing as it can't possibly happen anymore—"

"It never would have. They aren't—" There aren't a great many terrible things that her firstborn is not, Cersei recognises distantly, and still, "They aren't like us. Joffrey loves her in his own way, I'm sure, but not in the way—"

"Well, of course not." Some of that unshakeable confidence is back and she's as glad to see it as she's powerless to do anything to push him away when he comes closer still, lips ghosting over her skin, his fist already closing around the skirt of her gown as if he means to put his mouth where his declarations shouldn't have been able to reach her. "No one loves anyone the way I love you."

"Your Grace?"

It's not often these days that Cersei resorts to any communication with the gods, but she almost does it now as one of her handmaidens swans into view. The Red Keep is rife with gossips and spies, but perhaps just this once, she's grateful for all the unsubtle chaperoning done on her behalf.

"Yes?" She calls out, a perfectly pleasant smile painted back on her features even as she hears Jaime curse under his breath as he pulls his hand away.

"The goldsmith said that you sent for him. Will you be receiving him in your study, or—"

"I'll go to him. More fitting, I think." She'll need to be there for the entire process, after all.

Jaime huffs his disapproval as soon as they're alone again, but doesn't make a move to rise after her, clearly aware that it's something she'll be doing alone. "An odd time for jewellery, isn't it?"

Cersei allows herself a smile this time around. "It's rather pressing, I'm afraid."

~.~

Her mere presence unnerves the craftsman, she can tell that much, but for once, Cersei isn't willing to budge. "Nothing too flowery, please. Make it elegant but not entirely bare of detail."

"Of course, Your Grace."

"And make sure the strap is adjustable. It needs to be easy to wear."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"A little bigger, I think."

He stops for all of a moment. "It will be rather heavy, Your Grace. Gold is— well, I certainly don't need to tell you, but—it won't be entirely comfortable if it gets any bigger than that."

Despite herself, Cersei sighs. It's a strange, unfamiliar sensation, and one that she doesn't ever want to feel again – being so cripplingly unable to make things right. There is no making things right for Jaime to begin with, of course, and she can't grow him a new hand, but she can remind him of who he is. She can gift him with something halfway useful; extend it as a truce between them, as unwilling as she is to forgive him for the transgression in the first place.

It's unfair, she knows, especially seeing as he doesn't quite understand why she's still keeping a careful distance between them, though Cersei really rather thinks he should. She's vengeful and possessive and her love is a wicked beast with claws and teeth bared at its targets; a combination only a Lannister could love. He had known that when he had chosen to love her, surely. She had certainly seen it looking out of his eyes, mirrored right back at her, every time he had reminded her of every little, insignificant thing she loves about him; even the things she hates about him and about them both. There are days when she thinks it's too much love for her heart to take and days when she wants nothing more than to berate him for every stupid, thoughtless decision that had led them here, but she understands him, always. Hoping for the same in return should be a given, really.

"Make it bigger either way. My brother is a Lannister. The weight of gold doesn't bother us much."

"Of course not, Your Grace."

The process takes well into the evening, despite – or perhaps precisely because of – the man's painstaking precision, and Cersei doesn't leave his side the entire time. This is not about her, after all. It's about Jaime, and he deserves the very best, even when she wants to show him nothing but her scorn.

~.~

She's being punished for something. What it is exactly, Cersei can't tell, but she can feel it, all the way down to her bones. It's just about the only thing she can feel – the world is fuzzy and muted, time slowing to a lazy trickle, and all of it passes her by, both unnoticed and uncaring.

All of it seems so meaningless; the trial, the witnesses, the endless rituals that mourning a king requires. Joffrey had always relished the attention, but he isn't here anymore and so none of it matters; none of it but the unquenchable thirst for justice that had carried her through life ever since the wedding. Rage is the only thing keeping her up, and late at night when her exhaustion makes it fizzle out for a while, she collapses in her bed all over again, falling into uneasy sleep that doesn't seem to bring any relief at all.

Though she knows he'd made at least a minimal effort for her sake, Jaime hadn't seemed anywhere near this affected – not that she had expected him to, of course. What she hadn't expected had been the way her grief had been, bizarrely enough, one more item on the list of things she'd been punished for, now through his hand instead of only just the gods's.

I can make you another child, he'd assured her back in the Great Sept, voice strangely earnest despite his iron grip on her wrists; despite her protests falling on his deaf ears. As always, she's the only one required to listen. Another son in place of Joffrey. But she doesn't want another son, or another child, or—

There's a knock on the door, curt and impatient, and Cersei tenses, pulling the thick blankets further up her body. "Leave."

The door creaks open anyway and she doesn't have to look to know that it's someone from her family – no one else would dare. She doesn't turn away from the window, determined to make good on her command and disregard him – whoever he happens to be – into paying any mind to what she's saying, but, as it so often happens, it doesn't quite work. A moment later, she can feel the bed shift under an additional weight and she closes her eyes as an arm wraps around her waist, pulling her close, the warmth of him seeping onto her skin despite the several layers of a Kingsguard's uniform – whatever is left of it once he's taken off the armour.

She refuses to give him the pleasure of responding at all – not with her body, at least. "Did you not hear me?"

"I heard you." To her displeasure, he settles in, nuzzling into her neck, making no move to follow her orders. "I just thought—"

"I know what you thought." She turns around at last; sits up and lets the covers pool around her waist just to let the helpless slide of his gaze down her naked body fuel her anger further. "You thought you could do as you pleased, the same way you always do. What does it matter what anyone else wants? The Lion of Lannister has to see his needs being met. Did you come up here on your own volition? Or did the gods happen to force you into action again?"

His infuriating confusion, as if he'd had no clue what this outburst is about, finally gives way to reluctant understanding. "I don't rely on the gods to make my choices for me."

"No? They were the ones to make you love me, you said. If they can no longer do that, I'm sure Father will be happy to hear that he's just got his heir back."

Terror, pure and all-consuming, steals its way over her twin's features and he follows her into a seating position, reaching out before his hand falls back by his side, like he's not sure if he's allowed to touch her. Good, Cersei thinks, tears brimming back to the surface without her permission. If this is the only alternative to his indifference towards her wishes, then perhaps it's for the best. His violence must be exhilarating, she supposes, but hers is so much worse than she ever wants to let him see. Why should she be the one to hold back? He never had. He certainly hadn't made as much as an effort at it when he had fucked her through her protests on the worst day of her life.

"I don't understand," he says at last. It seems to be a painful thing to admit and this time, he's more decisive, fingers curling around her shoulders as if trying to ground her. It doesn't work. It's as if there's a glass wall rising between them all of a sudden, trapping them in different worlds, each equally incomprehensible to the other. "One moment you want me to apologise for being taken prisoner and the next you're sending me away?"

There's an edge of betrayal to his tone that he shouldn't be entitled to, and Cersei bristles even as something inside her mellows by a fraction. "I'm not sending you away. You're a free man; you can do as you please. Your choices are yours to make. Not mine. Not the gods's. Yours. What is it that you want?"

"You." He doesn't hesitate; not even for a moment. It's just one word, but laced with enough disbelief to make her think, if only for an instant, that perhaps he's telling the truth – the answer is obvious because there had never been anything else. "Do you even need to ask?"

"How can I not? I've had to endure your endless speeches on what we should do and you've never once asked yourself if it's what will keep us – us, and our House, and our children – safe. You want all of these things, but they seem to have very little to do with me."

She doesn't realise that she's looking for something specific until he speaks it into existence. "I've only ever wanted any of it with you. What I said, about the children—" He looks perplexed again, and it's soon mixed with anger. "Is this about Joffrey?"

"Of course it's about Joffrey." Most things are, and if they're not, they're about Jaime, but he doesn't need to hear that – the last thing she needs to remind him of is that she just has him and Tommen now; that they are the only ones she could even try and keep safe. It would give him more of the sort of power that he's already drunk on and she's not quite sure she can bear that just now. "You could make me ten more children and I would love them all, but this – this loss – won't ever hurt any less. I will see Tyrion killed for what he's done, and if Father fails to do that, then he'll pay for it as well. I'll go as far as I have to and I need you to know that. If this is what hateful is, then so be it. " She carefully pulls his hand away from her shoulder and holds it in her own, grip almost painfully tight, more to make him remember this than to reassure him. "I want you to know that before you make your choice."

"I've made my choice a thousand times already." He spits the words out, bitter and spiteful and everything she knows so well from the darkest parts of her own mind, and a part of her, hidden away from prying eyes, sings at the sight of it. Yes, she wants to say, starving and desperate and too ashamed to say a word out of it out loud, yes, see me, know me, love me.

And he will. He has to – they are one and the same, after all, and she's loved him through everything.

"I'm glad to hear that." Considering the maelstrom of emotions churning inside her, her voice comes out startlingly calm. "Sleep well, brother."

She snuffs out the last remaining candle in the room, plunging them both into darkness, and forces her body to remain lax when they both lie back down and Jaime's arms wrap around her again, forehead resting on her shoulder as if he's meant to be there; as if he's content with just this regardless of the venom they'd just hurtled at one another. Perhaps it really is that simple, for him – there must be a reason why she's the only one among them hesitant to make the sort of sweeping promises that he so often indulges in. There must be something about her that is far too scared to bare the worst parts of her the way he does, and the fact that he doesn't seem to mind only serves to make it so much worse.

But this is a worry for another day. Cersei closes her eyes, decisive, and wills herself into deserting the waking word for at least a little while.

For the first time since the wedding, she finds herself sleeping through the night.

~.~

It's much later – after the trial, after the other trial, after she finally finds herself pushed close enough to the edge to force her father into submission – that Cersei dares to let her twin have a look into the heart of her, no matter how wretched he finds it. This is it – everything that he's ever asked of her encapsulated into a single confession that will either destroy them or free them for good, and the reverent fear in his gaze looks like triumph, like an absolution, like their every dream taking shape all at once. She drinks it in and it's exactly what he wants, so perhaps it's all right, this lack of satiety – he couldn't possibly blame her when they'll both always want so much more than what they had been offered.

I love my brother, she says, and it's the truth. The shackles of Tywin Lannister's severe gaze commanding her every move finally fall to her sides and she slithers out of them and into Jaime's arms, and he takes it, of course; drinks in every word even as he does what he can to protect himself from what he must assume is another delay, another false promise. She loves this, too – the way his eyelids flutter shut, the boyish awe in his eyes when he inevitably seeks her out again, the ecstatic disbelief, his eager lips on hers. She could live in it for the rest of this life and into whatever follows after that. I love my lover.

He goes lax under her touch, looking at her like she's made of gold when she sinks to her knees, still pouring her heart out with the only words she can find. His eyes are hazy with want now and Cersei briefly thinks of putting her mouth on him, but just now, she feels far too greedy for that, and knows it's going to be echoed in him – he likes her at his feet but would much prefer to have all of her, and she wants more than that, still; wants to crawl under his skin where she can be sure she won't ever be alone again and rebuild them both anew, now that the truth is out. She'll announce it to the rest of the world if he asks her to; would do anything, just to keep this.

"I only see what matters," she says at last, leaning down to kiss the cool gold of his hand – the one he can't feel, but the one she'd gifted him with. Hateful. She really is, she must be, but he knows. He's always known.

Jaime yanks her up by the hair, hungrily laps up her fervent kisses, and the sense of relieved victory that overwhelms her makes her feel free and feather-light; makes her reassure him again that it doesn't matter if someone sees as he shoves her onto the table and pushes her skirts up to get at bare skin. Cersei claws at his neck to keep him near, almost hoping that she'd draw blood, and throws her head back when he thrusts into her with a groan, neither bothering to quiet themselves for once.

"That's right," Jaime forces out through gritted teeth when her voice rises ever higher, escaping the walls of their temporary hiding place. It truly doesn't feel like it matters, at least for as long as she's riding this high, and it seems to be contagious, with the way he beams back at her, vicious and needy. He grips her waist with his good hand to the point of near-pain until she arches up into him and props her head up with his golden one so that he can kiss her, crowding her in until she can't move even an inch out of his embrace, off the table and directly into his arms, suspended halfway up in the air with nothing but him holding her steady. "Tell them, tell them all."

Cersei stares up at the high ceiling – at the Kingsguard's sigil painted above, a reminder of their age-old duty – and follows his breathless, ardent commands, and hopes, despite herself, that he'll make good on his promise from the Sept; that his seed will take root again, the rest of the world and its consequences be damned.

Give me everything, she urges him, only for it to come out as another breathless, wordless whimper as she holds him closer than she'd thought possible before. She wants everything he can offer and every other little piece left behind after that, and it's a rush; knowing that she'll get it, no matter what it costs him – what it costs the rest of the world. It's a rush, being loved the way she is. Give me everything, and I'll tell them all.