Chapter Text
By the time Bronn found himself tasked with accompanying the recently dismissed former captain of the Kingsguard to Riverrun, he had spent enough time with Jaime Lannister to be able to see right through his facade of focus and purpose. Not, it had to be said, that the Kingslayer was all that good at masking his true emotions, even to strangers.
This was particularly true of the man when he was four flagons deep into a cask of ale, and Jaime was showing little sign of slowing down. “Another,” he grunted, absently pushing his flagon across the bar, where it was swiftly picked up and filled by the barkeep. In Bronn’s experience, innkeepers were rarely as willing and he would dare say eager to let their customers build up a tab, but he’d seen the man’s eyes flick over that ridiculous gold hand when Jaime had first sat down, and suspected it had everything to do with that tired old Lannister saying. It also made Bronn doubt the man would cut Jaime off any time soon, and that meant that the job fell to him.
He knocked Jaime’s shoulder with his own, causing ale to slop over side of the flagon and drip down onto the man’s leg, and the fact that Jaime did not complain told Bronn that he was already further gone than he ought to have let him become. They were no longer in Kings Landing after all, and while the Lannisters might have friendly forces in this region, Bronn didn’t think there was a place in the Seven Kingdoms where Jaime Lannister did not have an enemy. And he was hardly being subtle about his identity this evening.
“Finish that, when I'm taking you to yer bloody room,” he told him, gruffly, and cast a glance around the crowded inn for any signs they might run into trouble. There had been a time when only the most brainless of fools would even consider making a move against Ser Jaime Lannister, Captain of the Kingsguard, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the Kingslayer, but Bronn hadn’t known him then. The Jaime that he knew was not the Jaime whose name had been written into the Book of Brothers, and word was starting to get out. And an intoxicated knight with one hand would be an attractive target to any of the opportunists that frequented places lacking repute like this- Bronn had been one of those people, he knew.
Jaime wasn’t thinking about those things though- he didn’t at the best of times, but right now he lacked even the capacity. He raised the ale to his lips and sipped a tiny amount, with a quick little glance at Bronn to make sure the sellsword saw what he was doing. There was a slur to his speech. “I’ve been putting myself to bed since I outgrew my septa’s care, Bronn. I can manage it now.”
In the time that Bronn had known him, Bronn had rarely seen Jaime drink, let alone drunk, preferring to keep his senses sharp. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had changed his mind this time; Jaime hadn’t been himself since he’d been all but thrown from Kings Landing on the orders of the boy king, his own nephew or more if the rumours were to be believed, but the man had not picked a good time or a place to drown his sorrows.
“Right,” he scoffed. “Doubt you could even manage the stairs yourself, ya cunt, and yer not gonna be one of these lot’s lucky pay day until I get paid. Come on.”
Bronn snatched the ale from Jaime’s hand and drained it himself in a few gulps before dragging Jaime off his chair and approximately to his feet. Jaime swayed, and Bronn shoved an arm under his shoulders to stop him from becoming acquainted with the tavern’s stained floor. “I’m fine,” came the inevitable whine, but Bronn roundly ignored it, and made short work of dragging Jaime up the stairs. And to every eye that turned to the two of them like vultures waiting for their prey to falter, he made sure the exposed blades of his daggers caught the flickering candlelight.
“I told you, I’m fine, Bronn, and I’m not done- when did your delusions of grandeur become so blinding that you started to think it appropriate for a jumped-up sellsword to give orders? To me?” Jaime had tugged himself free of his grasp and stumbled into the rented room, feet scuffing on the rough floor boards as he nearly lost his balance.
Bronn did not rise to Jaime’s insult- he'd been doing this far too long to let him get under his skin so easily. He settled himself against the door to make it quite clear that Jaime would not be returning to the bar to continue drowning his sorrows, crossing his arms over his chest with an imperious expression as he watched Jaime clumsily start to undo his jacket . The lack of reaction from him failed to starve the conversation, through, and the man carried on with scarcely a break.
“If I want to drink, I’ll drink. I’ve earned that right, I’ve more than fucking earned it, I’ve given everything to this fucking-” Jaime had slipped his jacket off one shoulder but now was confronted with a task that presented a challenge to his dexterity at the best of times, and now he was not quite up to it. The sleeve snagged on the binding of his hand, and at another time Jaime might have paused to look at and fix the problem, but now he just tugged and huffed and finally simply tore the metal appendage from his wrist and sent it flying across the room with a cry, and a sharp intake of breath that could easily have been the precursor to a sob. It marked the wood, and thudded solidly on the ground, and Bronn decided that he wasn’t going to just let Jaime work this one out of his system.
The room wasn’t large, and Bronn crossed it in a couple of strides, grabbing Jaime hard by the shoulders and pushing him backwards onto the bed before he did more damage.
The backs of Jaime’s knees hit the bed hard and he all but fell backwards onto the mattress, the alcohol he’d consumed doing little to help with his disorientation. His left hand clutched at the covers for purchase and he pulled his right into his lap, feeling vulnerable and incomplete now that the moment had passed. The hand truly did little to combat those ever-present feelings, useless as it was for everything except its carat value, and even that wasn’t as high as the thing purported itself to be to the untrained onlooker.
The bed dipped down beside him as Bronn took a seat, but Jaime didn’t look at him until he found his arm indelicately grabbed, and then saw that the sellsword had retrieved the golden hand, which still shone like the day he’d got it. He’d told Cersei he’d have more use for a hook, at least with that he might have been able to do things with it, but as usual, his choices were ignored. He pulled at Bronn’s grasp and shook his head. “Don’t. It’s stupid, it’s just fucking pointless,” he protested, words muddling, but Bronn’s grip was stronger than his weak attempts to fight.
“Don’t be an idiot, let me fuckin’ help you.”
His tone brooked no argument, so Jaime didn’t attempt it; he stared down at the leather binding of the hand with a hollow expression, the anger from mere moments ago fading as quick as it had come to that gnawing emptiness Jaime had been trying to ignore from the moment he’d tugged his white cloak from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor of the throne room. He’d donned that cloak at sixteen, full of dreams and ambitions that were dashed before the Mad King before the year was out, and had spend his life since then trying to repair the damage to his honour and his legacy, and all he had to show for it was this gods be damned piece of jewellery that would be more at home on Cersei’s wrist than his own.
And he could not quiet his thoughts; his little trick of going away inside could hardly work when all his torments were of his own mind, and there was no separating the good and safe from everything he wanted to hide from when he could scarcely think straight. He clutched at Bronn’s hand, busy with the lacing, and didn’t hear his question until he had repeated it for a second time, and shook his head to confirm that no, the hand was not too tight. It was more comfortable than it had been the first time, and no one had asked him then- not that it mattered.
“Bronn,” he breathed, still holding onto Bronn’s hand- or wrist, he hadn’t cared but for to have an anchor- and didn’t care to wonder if there was a conclusion to that sentence. He focussed on the solid mass of the sellsword’s shoulder as he leaned on it with increasingly little care for how close he was getting, the warmth of another body next to his. It was so seldom that Jaime could be close to another human being like this, with the exception of Cersei, but that was on her terms and her terms alone. When he’d been a fresh faced recruit to the guard, drunk on wine now that his father was not in sight to moderate him, he'd sat like this with Ser Arthur Dayne while the Sword of the Morning chuckled at him for how quickly the wine had gone to his head. He’d called Jaime ‘brother’ and Jaime had felt his chest swell with pride that he might ever be considered on the same plane as a great knight like Ser Arthur.
He’d been a boy then, or as good as, and basking in the glow of a fierce warrior was enough of a joy in itself that it had been far too late before Jaime realised that his attachment to Ser Arthur, and a few of the others, went a little beyond the brotherly bond that he had prepared himself for. And wasn’t that just Jaime to a tee, he’d often thought bitterly; seeking affection in all of the wrong places.
It never felt like the wrong place in those lonely moments, though.
His hand sneaked up Bronn’s arm, and over to his chest, and Bronn looked as though he might be about to say something, so Jaime put a stop to any argument with his lips, surging up to meet him and twisting his hand into his shirt. The sellsword’s stubble was rough on his chin and his mouth moved in time for the barest of moments before Jaime found himself kissing air with Bronn’s hand hard on his shoulder, holding him just out of reach.
“You’re fucked, Jaime,” he told him, and truthfully Jaime was a little too far gone to be able to read the expression on Bronn’s face properly. His mouth was a little downturned, brow furrowed, but his eyes flickered to Jaime’s lips.
“Not yet, I’m not.” He tried to close the distance between them again, chasing that heady high that would allow him to check out of his current reality and all the problems that came along with it, but he met the resistance of Bronn’s hand and could not overcome it. “Bronn, come on, just tonight.”
Bronn did not relax his grip, far too practised in the art of not giving Jaime Lannister what he wanted just because he asked. It was perfectly clear that the man was not in the right state of mind to be doing anything like what he intended, not physically and certainly not mentally. Bronn wasn’t about to pretend he had never bedded a person who’d consumed a thimbleful of wine, but he wasn’t in the business of being anybody’s morning after regret. Especially not when they’d been on the verge of tears not a moment before.
“I’m not gonna help you do something stupid that you’re gonna blame me for tomorrow, alright? You gotta sleep this off.” All of this; the alcohol, and everything else that was going on in the man’s head.
Hurt flooded his face, and his grip on the other man’s shirt twisted. His words slurred, indignation and hurt overlapping. “Do you not want me?” Jaime’s eyes were on his golden hand, the neat lacing that Bronn now understood Jaime couldn’t even tie or undo himself, and its cold, gleaming fingers. He was easy to read; his eyes shined brighter when he was in pain.
“I didn’t say that,” Bronn countered.
As though that were an invitation, Jaime let go of Bronn’s shirt and reached down to cup the other man’s crotch through his trousers, applying pressure just so. “Then have me; I’m not gonna blame you tomorrow, I want it.”
There was far less gentleness when Bronn grabbed his wrist this time, jerking his hand away from that intimate place and holding it between the two of them. With his other hand, he grabbed Jaime’s face by the chin to make the trumped up drunk look him in the eye.
“You don’t know what you want, Jaime. For how much you fuckin’ highborns spend on wine, you can’t hold your damn drink.”
Jaime pulled his head back from the sellsword’s hand, pink spots appearing at his cheekbones, and he made to pull himself to his feet. “I told you, I’m fine. Let go of me; I’ll find someone who wants me.” His tone suggested the knight- was that former now, too?- didn’t think it would be particularly hard, and Bronn suspected he was right.
He wasn’t about to let the facts be proven either way. He didn’t release his grip, and grabbed the waistband of Jaime’s breeches to pull him back down the moment the other man rose an inch from the bed. “You’re not going anywhere in the state you’re in, Jaime. Practically carried your ass up the stairs and I’m not about to do it again.”
“I don’t need your help,” came the bitter reply, along with a swat at his hand that actually hurt some, the metal jarring his knuckles. “Get off me; I’m free of my vows and I’m going to celebrate.”
He tightened his grip on Jaime’s wrist, and gave the man a shove hard enough to send him sprawling backwards onto the bed, reeling. Before he could recover, Bronn pinned his ankle with a well placed knee, and pressed Jaime’s good hand into the mattress. As much as the idea of bedding Jaime in this state repulsed Bronn, he knew there were plenty of men in the inn downstairs who would not hesitate, and the idea burned in his chest.
“You’re not leaving this room until you’re sober. Don’t bother trying.” They had both sparred together long enough to know that the Jaime that had returned from the Battle of the Whispering Wood did not have the strength to win that fight.
Though, had Jaime made more use of the other techniques he apparently knew, Bronn might have had a little more hope for his training. “Then let’s celebrate here,” he suggested, jackknifing from anger to seduction in the heartbeat it took for Jaime to arch up to meet Bronn’s lips again.
His teeth caught his lip as Bronn shoved him down again, and the sellsword huffed an exasperated breath at the man. “Gods, you’ve honestly never been told no in your fuckin’ life, have you?”
“No,” he replied, sweetly, and pressed his thigh between Bronn’s legs, It was the limit of his movement in that moment, but evidently the man intended to take advantage of every tool at his disposal to get what he wanted. Bronn moved back a little, but couldn’t go far- he wasn’t sure how he was ending up the one trapped. “I can tell you want it- I can feel you want it,” he murmured, grinding against the growing hardness as best as he could manage.
Bronn had to wonder where he’d learned this. As much as it was not a true surprise that Jaime had an interest in men- Bronn knew the man better than most- there had been no rumours that the sellsword had heard to suggest it before today, and stories of a conquest like that were unlikely to be kept quiet. Wherever it had come from, Jaime was good, and frankly the man was starting to test Bronn’s control. He sucked a shallow breath, and had to stop himself as he naturally began to press back against Jaime, biting his lip.
“Nice try, princess. Try again when you’re sober.”
Jaime let out a whine of frustration and flopped back onto the bed, his golden hair putting the faded, worn covers to shame. “If you’re not gonna give me what I want, get off me.”
Bronn shook his head. “I’ve already told you, it’s not happening. You’re staying right here until I know you won’t do anything stupid. Well,” Bronn paused, and laughed. “At least until you’re in a fit fuckin’ state to make a stupid decision for yourself.”
Finally getting the message that he would not be getting what he wanted tonight, the fight went out of Jaime, and his expression settled on sour and tired. He turned his face away in what Bronn would term a signature Jaime Lannister sulk, and huffed. “You know the offer won’t be on the table tomorrow,” he informed him, haughty as was possible when his consonants weren’t quite as sharp as they ought to be.
“Exactly,” Bronn replied, with finality. Jaime did not look back at him, and the sellsword was satisfied enough with that to release the man’s wrist and get up from the bed.
Jaime didn’t move, glaring resolutely at the wall with his jaw set. Good enough, Bronn figured. He sighed and left the room, feet blocking out the thin light that slipped through the crack under the door as Bronn settled in for the night watch. There was little noise from within the room, bar for the heavier breathing of sleep a short while later. Bronn listened as he kept his watch, careful not to let the gentle sounds guide him towards slumber himself. He’d done the right thing, he knew that- and it was just as dissatisfying as ever.