Chapter Text
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life!
[...]
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men who strove with gods." -- from Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson
Jaime
Robb had told it true: this winter, however long it reigned, would be cold and hungry.
The first weeks were not so terrible. Once most of the smallfolk were settled in the winter town, the stones of Winterfell seemed almost to sigh in relief. Ravens were able to be sent out, and the household staff relaxed as the castle emptied. Robb and his staff still had the difficult task of managing a winter for which they were underprepared and undersupplied – but it did not feel quite so overwhelming as it must have when the keep was filled with the cries of hungry children.
There was still plenty of work to be done, though, ways in which Jaime could make himself useful. He continued to help guard the peace in the winter town a few days a week. Robb had at first thought this an unlikely job for Jaime, who, he had said, “was not generally a calm, unprovoking man”. And it was true that this would be the kind of thing Jaime absolutely hated in King’s Landing. But the problems of King’s Landing that couldn’t be solved with a sword either weren’t actual problems, or weren’t within Jaime’s power to solve.
Here, though, it was winter, and the smallfolk did not give a fuck who was king, who influenced him, or who’s ass would next warm a metal monument a thousand leagues away, when they were cold and starving here. The fights, both verbal and physical, had real, visceral, urgent reasons behind them, and Jaime found that stepping in and resolving a fight scratched a similar itch to winning one. He surprised himself each time he settled a disagreement without pulling out his sword, but he found himself beginning to prefer it: his strength was not fleeing as fast as autumn did, but it was fleeing all the same.
Robb had been accompanying him as they passed by a blacksmith who Jaime had once managed to save from the fury of two twin men he had fucked, mistaking one for the other. The blacksmith had smiled at them, given a polite “M’lord, Ser Jaime,” and was on his way. Jaime had walked several steps further before realizing that Robb was stopped, moth agape, where they had encountered the man; he had apparently had a long-standing grudge against knights, and was often heard proclaiming he would kill the next one he saw, melt him down, and forge him into cookery.
“Ah, well,” Jaime had replied, thinking with glee that if Robb had any idea how smug he would be for the next week, he never would have told him that, “I doubt that it’s that he likes me that much – only that it would be a shame to waste my countenance on pots and pans.”
Robb had rolled his eyes at him; as with Cersei, Jaime was frequently the target of that particular action. Rather unlike with Cersei, however, it did not invoke in him a feeling of shame he would quickly squash, but something more pleasant and warm.
***
A few moonturns, sixty slaughtered cows, and a stone of lost flesh and muscle later, Jaime was finding that pleasant warmth less and less often.
Until now, Jaime would at least see Robb at every dinner. The Starks and Lannisters always shared their evening meals at the same small table, now, like they were playing at being family. It was a game that the Starks were very, very, good at, and Jaime could not stand people being better at something than him in his presence, so he decided to get good at it, too. He told stories from court that would have turned Lady Stark’s ears red but made the children dissolve into laughter, offered Arya fighting advice, and once challenged Bran, who had boasted of his climbing skills, in a race to the top of the First Keep the next day. Robb and Tyrion had both insisted that he at least wait until Spring, you idiot, and drunk on wine and the novel feeling of all eyes at a table looking at him with affection, Jaime had agreed. It was only later that night that he had remembered what spring would cost.
(“I’m sure we could get you a grappling hook,” Robb had said, attempting to lighten the mood, but sounded just a smidge too hesitant. Jaime had appreciated it, but kissed him silent before he could start thinking of other tools he could attach to Jaime.)
As the weeks pressed on, though, both food and time with Robb became more strictly rationed.
Even at dinner, he had barely seen Robb, who was running himself ragged making sure thousands of people were fed and warm and safe and well-governed. When he returned to their bedchamber at dusk, Jaime was more like than not to find only Grey Wind stretched across the bed, with a grudgingly accepting look on his face that Jaime was sure reflected on his own. The gods knew that Jaime had no place at Robb’s side; he had escaped his own lordling training decades ago, and had switched places with Cersei half the time, in any case. He would be of better use embroidering a cloak than in running a castle. More to the point, it would not do for Robb to be seen in closer counsel with Jaime than he already was.
It was a situation he was no stranger to, of course, but the secrecy was beginning to cut him deeper here, confined by winter in the company of forthright Northerners, than it had in King’s Landing, where duplicity was standard dress. And by almost all measures, his “situation” was much improved: no longer must he stare blankly at walls while his sister’s husband ravished a whore, nor sneer at the contemptuous glances of Ser Barristan or the cloaks unworthy of the title. At Winterfell, even those who clearly disliked him treated him with respect, and in some cases almost approval, and he still got to share Robb’s bed every night. He had worthy work, and worthy company, even when it wasn’t Robb. Jaime well knew that most royal mistresses could not be so fortunate.
It was ridiculous to expect anything more, Jaime was well aware – and yet, he continued to miss Robb like a newly-married bride whose husband had left for battle.
One night, though, in his brother’s infinite but smug generosity, Tyrion had convinced the children to take an early dinner, and invited both Jaime and Robb to his quarters for a more private meal.
Jaime, despite having strained not to look like he was rushing, arrived first. To avoid comment on any disappointment that showed on his face, he immediately began interrogating Tyrion on his instruction of the children, a charge he had taken up in lieu of Maester Luwin, whose primary duty was now advising Robb. He was in the middle of arguing for Arya to be included – it would keep her from being underfoot, at the very least, and spare Jaime an uncomfortable clenching in his gut whenever he saw her face as the boys left her – when Robb walked into the room.
As he looked at him, Jaime felt that he finally came to an understanding of the phrase stars in their eyes. He didn’t trust that his own looked much different; the sun and the moon might have been there as well, for all he knew*. It wasn’t surprising, then, when, after a few loaded seconds, Tyrion slammed a goblet on the table and said, “Sit down and eat, Lord Stark; you can fuck my brother later, and with more than just your eyes.”
A lovely blush crept up Robb’s cheeks, then, and the pink was a major improvement on what had been pale and gaunt. He stepped forward and collapsed into the chair next to Jaime’s, a bundle of exhausted limbs.
Tyrion’s eyes softened, and he barely even lectured them about inviting scandal; instead, he gave Robb good advice about running a castle while Jaime piled more food on his plate: an accurate display of our uses, Jaime thought. Tyrion had even excused himself soon after eating under some transparent pretense, in order to give the two of them a few moments alone.
(Jaime hoped that was Tyrion’s intention, anyway, and that he wasn’t being expected to kill Robb or end their affair.)
As soon as his brother left, Jaime turned to get a better look at Robb. Bags bloomed under his eyes, and a shadow of stubble that would be considered unkempt in some parts of the South -- though certainly not Jaime’s -- framed his face. Someone had clearly tried to wrangle his curly hair, but Robb had obviously not suffered their efforts for more than a minute, and if Robb had had a proper bath since winter’s arrival, Jaime was a Targaryen bastard.
In short, he looked like shit, and Jaime told him so.
Robb barked out a laugh. “Better that I look like it than be it.”
Jaime raised an eyebrow, said, “I didn’t realize the two were mutually exclusive,” and before his mind could register what he was doing, his body was rising from his chair, moving behind Robb, and running his fingers through his hair.
Cersei never let me do this,he thought, and he fought to keep his hands moving through Robb’s tangles, not being particularly gentle about it. Cersei had been quite protective of her hair, and he hadn’t blamed her. If the gods had crowned her with beauty, her hair had been her crown jewel: gleaming silk that marked her as especially blessed, as if the Seven had been spinning gold and decided to award Cersei with their scraps.
(Robb’s hair was not like that, in either way: his curls were auburn and thick and coarse, not that he minded, but if Jaime were to crown any part of him, it would be his eyes, two beams of a blue situated somewhere between sea and sapphire.)
Robb’s amused and relieved sigh broke him out of his thoughts.
“I hadn’t realized that lions were such attentive groomers,” Robb said. As he and Jaime spent more time together, Robb had apparently decided to try his hand at teasing. Like in most everything, he was a fast learner.
Jaime grinned widely, knowing it would go unseen. “Well, we are proud, after all,” he responded. “We can hardly have our mates going around looking like they were chewed up and spit out by a giant moose.”
At that, Robb turned around to face him, stars lighting up his eyes again, and when Jaime realized why, it was his turn to blush. For a second, he thought he might actually change his mind about this whole thing, decide that hundreds of thousands of lives aren’t worth accidentally saying things he actually means and other people telling him things they sincerely mean and —
Robb, in an impressive show of strength, grabbed Jaime by the shoulders and pulled him around the chair and into his lap, wood creaking below them. He put his lips on Jaime’s, cruelly gentle, until Jamie sighed and leaned into him, returning gentleness with heat. He moved his legs to either side of the chair and entwined his fingers in Robb’s curls, thoroughly undoing his earlier work, and gripped him hard. Robb let out a gasp, but quickly followed it up by taking Jaime’s bottom lip between his teeth and biting down.
It should have been embarrassing, how hard he got after that, but all shame had left him after that first time in the bath, and when Robb pushed his face back an inch or two, all Jaime could feel was awestruck.
“Wolves are strong,” Robb said, gasping, in answer to whatever drivel Jaime had said about lions, “And lions don’t need to worry themselves about them.”
Wolves are terrible at sigil-based flirtations, Jaime thought.
“Wolves live in packs, and are supposed to work together,” Jaime actually said. “Also, who said the lion was worried? Maybe the lion is just irritated because if the wolf works too hard, he’s not in their bed.”
Mayhaps lions aren’t so good at it, either.
He’d mention something to Tyrion later, Jaime decided. He’d probably want something more to do than teach the sproutlings, anyway: there were no whores here, as far as he was aware, and a finite supply of wine. And Jaime was notinclined to share the dutiful wolf whose claws now sank so deeply into his back.
“Mm, you have my sincerest apologies,” Robb replied, “I’ll have to make it up to you later tonight. A wolf has a responsibility to his mate, after all, and though we have your brother’s permission, I don’t think he meant for us to fulfill that responsibility here.”
Jaime growled and meant to get his teeth into Robb’s, but his lips were caught by the other man’s first, and this time they were not gentle: they pushed hard against Jaime’s as if they meant to knock him to the floor. Jaime responded in kind, pushing back into Robb, who wrapped his arms around him and lifted them back up to their feet.
They maintained the kiss for a little longer, their equal and opposite forces keeping them in one spot, encircled in each others’ arms. Eventually, Robb stepped back, the stars in his eyes now eclipsed by sunlight that both scorched and warmed Jaime.
In the end, Robb agreed to delegate some of his tasks for tonight to Luwin, but warned Jaime that if he was not “ready and waiting” in their room when he finished meeting with the maester, he would have to settle for Grey Wind.
Jaime nearly ran over three servants before he realized he had left the chambers.
***
When Jaime wasn’t helping in the winter town, and Tyrion was otherwise occupied, he often found himself in charge of the noble children. He soon became their favored minder, and wasted no time in lording this over Tyrion.
(“It is hardly a surprise that they prefer wooden swords and wrestling to learning their letters,” Tyrion had quipped at Jaime one day, words dripping with only half his usual sarcasm and not a small amount of frustration.
“I am glad to hear you finally admit it, brother,” Jaime had laughed, and got a splash of Dornish red on his doublet for his trouble.)
It was a strange sort of happiness that filled Jaime when he was with the children, who smiled at him and hugged him and gave him compliments like it was the easiest thing in the world, and did it all openly. He could not examine the feeling too closely – a soft but solid bubble that seemed to fill his chest, and return some part of him to his own childhood – without it turning brittle and bitter, warping both itself and his own perspective.
The first time it had happened, the children had been playing one of their usual games. The three would rotate the roles of knight, armed with a wooden sword; dragon, marked by a long strip of silk for a tail that was definitely some ordinary red, certainly not Lannister crimson; and princess, denoted by an old dress of Sansa’s that Arya had made off with. (Though of the three of them, she, unsurprisingly, grumbled the most about wearing it.)
All Jaime knew was that at some point in their game, he was no longer watching Knight Bran chase Dragon Arya chase Princess Tommen; instead, there was Knight Joffrey, laughing without malice for the first time Jaime had ever heard, and Dragon Myrcella, still sweet but now also unrestrained and playful. Tommen, of course, was unchanged physically, but his carefree and comfortable laughter painted him as much of a stranger to that boy of King’s Landing as Bran to Joffrey.
Jaime had blinked and the image had gone away. The happiness had returned, too, soon enough, but not without bringing decidedly unhappy thoughts that would surface hours later, rolling restless in a Robbless bed.
I could have never had this with them, he would try to remind himself; somehow, it failed to help.
They’re better off without me, he would think, They have their mother, but that thought was no longer as comforting as it once was, and obviously Robert wasn’t any better. If there were some worthy adults in their lives, clearly they didn’t do Joffrey any good, and they surely would be someone in their parents’ employ: a tie formed by and dependent on coin.
How clever of me to start caring now, he thought, tossing and turning as much as he dared, sandwiched between Grey Wind and Robb, who had come to bed at last. When I have never been more unable to act.
They would live, Jaime was certain – he had made it certain. It was the only thing he had ever been able to do for his children. He gave them their lives, and now, he has managed to ensure they’d keep them, in spite of their family’s folly. But that wasn’t the same as ensuring their lives would be good, or that they themselves would be. Robb had done far more in that regard for Tommen alone than Jaime ever had for any of them.
It wasn’t the first time he had the thought, but it had never sat so ill as it did now.
But what right did he have, really, to feel their loss, when he had never taken the trouble to win them?
***
***
Dawn came, begrudgingly, but with rosy fingertips that brushed the cold dead earth outside.
For the first time in what seemed an age, he woke to find Robb beside him, awake and taking him in as if committing him to memory.
Jaime wanted to return his gaze with a jape, but he could bring none to mind. Instead, he pressed his lips to Robb’s for a brief but sweet lingering, just because he could, and allowed whatever words his mind couldfind to fall out of his mouth.
Those turned out to be, “Thank the gods for Jon Arryn’s timely death,” which caused Robb to snort, a sound somehow both gravelly and high-pitched that Jaime’s clearly broken ears registered as music.
Still, Robb’s brows frowned in concern. “You didn’t sleep well,” he accused, softly.
He was correct, obviously, but by the Seven, could Jaime not get more than a minute through the day without having to contemplate his failures?
“Does my lord take that as personal offense?” He snapped, only half-regretting it – he’d rather snark with Robb than continue his wallowing.
“Certainly,” Robb responded, unbothered. “I take it as a personal offense done by whatever has caused you distress.”
It would never not be shocking, how earnest and tender these practical Starks could be, without ever losing honesty. There was humor in it, yes – a gentle rejoinder to Jaime’s attempt to change the subject – but it was the kind of humor that had no object of ridicule guiding it.
He had to turn away from it, and leapt out of bed. “You’ll find the matter is almost entirely self-inflicted,” he told Robb, “So unless you intend to challenge me to a duel — which I would quite enjoy, in fact – you will have to leave your offense unaddressed.”
Jaime then found, for the first time since he’d started, a problem in openly sharing rooms with a lover: it made it rather difficult to sneak off after a quarrel, inappropriately dressed, in the knowledge that the costume of your public life was somewhere else, waiting for you to put it back on, and you could feel like you’d won something by not letting your partner have the last word.
So as he bumbled around the room, searching for boots and trousers and shirts as quickly as possible while maneuvering around a direwolf who had decided to leap off the bed as well and whine at him beseechingly, Robb had plenty of time to respond. He clearly did not mind letting a tense silence build first, until Jaime had to sit back down on the bed to pull on his boots.
“As always, I am sure you give yourself too much credit,” Robb responded, still softly, still without a trace of actual rebuke. “I would not try to fight your battles for you, Jaime. I know better than that. But I could help you devise a strategy.”
Even with Robb at command, one hundred thousand men would not be enough to win thisJaime thought. Whatever this was. His guilt? A newly developed and poorly timed sense of responsibility? But his irritation had waned, as quickly as it had come; Robb had not given him any good soil for it to grow in.
He finished with his boots, and forced himself to look back at Robb. He had been silently but constantly pining for him for weeks, and now that he had him, here Jaime was, sniping and scratching at him because he dared to show concern for him. He sighed, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade, so he did not have to look Robb in the eyes when he spoke next. He was still not entirely sure what, exactly, he was about to say, but Jaime suspected it would reveal something about him he had managed to keep hidden until now, and couldn’t bring himself to face Robb’s revulsion.
“I need to write to your mother, I think,” Jaime’s mouth ended up uttering. Though I’m like to need Winterfell’s strongest wine for the task.
Robb frowned and tugged at his ears, as if they had somehow failed him. “My mother,” he said slowly, almost the cadence he used when talking to Hodor.
Jaime gritted his teeth and took a steadying breath. As it frequently did, his mouth had jumped far ahead of his mind, and he needed to bring it back. “It is — it is not only the king, that my family needs protection from.”
“Who else could possibly harm your sister?”
Jaime forced a smile, and it hurt so much to do so that he knew the result must be something twisted. “You’re asking the wrong question, my lord. A better one would be: who all could my sister possibly harm?”
Cold understanding finally showed on Robb’s face, and every mental facade that Jaime had put up to make him able to bear Robb’s affections began to crumble. To protect the honor of his sister, and his house – that’s what Robb had admired of him, that’s what truly had made him hungry for Jaime. He could not have imagined what Jaime did to make it bearable, and so he had imagined Jaime as being able to bear anything, out of noble duty to his family. But how noble would Robb think it that Jaime protected the woman and son who would both be lifelong terrors to Robb’s sister?
The gods had agreed to spare the Starks and Lannisters whatever pain a war would bring. But a sword had never been his sister’s weapon, and she would have too many years of forced idleness and too many potential victims in arm’s reach for Jaime to believe that she wouldn’t find ample targets for her rage. And in more than one way, Jaime had given Cersei the means and opportunity to wield it.
As he had told Tyrion, he had more or less sworn fealty to Robb. And that surely included his family.
“You want her to break Sansa’s betrothal,” Robb whispered.
Jaime nodded firmly, as if he hadn’t just realized he wanted that moments before Robb did. “Joffrey — Joffrey is – “
Joffrey is the worst of all of us. Joffrey is my son, my monster, that I set loose on the world. The mirror image of mine and Cersei’s self-absorption.
Before Jaime could open his mouth to say any or all or none of it, Robb gripped his hands with both of his, warm and steady and unangry.
“You don’t have to say it,” Robb said, quietly, “If it’s so bad that you think words are the best option, and to my mother — well –”
Jaime half-smirked, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Yes, the situation is that bad. I would trust your mother far more than your father in untangling Sansa unscathed.”
He had not paid very much attention to the elder Stark daughter when she was here, except to note that her doe-eyed innocence had seemed out of place both for a Tully and a Stark. Joffrey had loudly observed, pleasingly, that she was “pretty, but dull,” and Cersei had agreed with a smirk. Neither Rhaella nor Cersei had ever been so naive, and yet suffered under their marriages all the same. For a Northern girl, entranced by the idea of a heroic golden prince, only to be met with Joffrey….
I was not so different, Jaime realized,And I was several years her elder.
Robb was still frowning; a new expression appeared on his face, and it took a moment for Jaime to name it as uncertaintyI.“My mother is a savvy woman, and she adores Sansa; she may very well have gone to my father about it already.”
“I’m sure you have the right of it,” Jaime replied, truthfully. He had liked Catelyn Tully much more than her sister; it was just that he admired her uncle much more than the both of them. “But will she be able to convince your father to break his agreement with his dear king? He does so loathe oathbreaking.”
If he could see me now, would he judge me more or less for fucking his son than killing a king?
“He’d do anything to protect one of us,” Robb insisted, “Even if it meant dishonoring himself.”
Jaime couldn’t say why he was continuing the argument; the elder Starks would hardly appreciate his meddling, and bringing up the issue to Robb should have been more than enough to appease any sense of responsibility for Sansa’s welfare.
Besides, Robb was likely right. Not even rigid and honorable and loyal Ned Stark could fail to spot the degradation of the Red Keep and its ruler, and his wife certainly wouldn’t. At the very least, no wedding could occur until Sansa flowered, and surely Cersei would try to wait for he and Tommen’s return, if for their scheme’s sake, rather than sentiment’s.
But trusting in the whims of nature and of Cersei seemed two equivocally bad ideas. And he considered Robb’s words – it was evident Stark loved his children, Jaime could not dispute that, and moreover, he clearly loved them as themselves: as bastards and unladylike girls and girls who dreamed of knights and sunshine instead of wolves and snow. But he was so cautious, so careful in acting, if not in judging: even if he was convinced the betrothal needed to end, would he act quickly enough to ensure it before a ceremony, while keeping his family safe and the royal family unoffended?
Jaime thought not, but also knew better than to say so to the man’s son.
“Be that as it may,” Jaime said, as beseechingly as he could manage, “It will undoubtedly put them in a dangerous situation, politically and otherwise. Your father, and your mother, will need to be convinced it’s worth it, and that they need to do it soon.”
“But you think it’s necessary,” Robb said, a fearful half-question, and Jaime nodded again. “And that they need to hear it from you, from someone who has every reason to defend him.”
Jaime could see despair creeping into the creases of his eyebrows, into the pallor of his cheeks. He reached up and pulled Robb close, almost cradling his cheeks, now inches from his own face.
“You won’t,” Jaime started, horrified to hear his voice shake, “I won’t let you have to worry and wonder like I have, like I did, knowing it’s happening and powerless to stop it, your sword and your strength and your titles counting for nothing much, in the end, your oaths and your obedience serving only those who don’t deserve the honor. And then, after years of it, of your sister pretending so well that it doesn’t happen that you may occasionally forget it does, she will have formed her own kind of mental protection, the only kind available to her, but it will have warped her, and you will pretend not to notice, just as she pretends not to know that you can put your sword in a king anytime you like, and that you won’t, even though you did before for some reason that wasn’t her.”
Sometime during this speech, a part of him went away, high and feather-light, and now looked down on himself as he sobbed in Robb’s embrace. Another part continued on in his head:
And since you’re a pretty useless shield, you consent to be her tool, because any that she had ever had had been ripped away. And fair’s fair: you’ve ceded most of the privileges blindly afforded you simply for being born with a cock, and now you’re more equal, as twins should be. And you continue to love her because you should, because it’s what you do, because it’s how you bear it. And you would have cut and stabbed and slain any enemy until you shattered in her hand, if a wolf had not taken you for his own.
***
In the end, the letter was a joint struggle between the two of them, with Tyrion serving as an exacting, ruthless editor.
Not long after the raven was sent, Jaime began to feel conscious of a shivering in his right hand. Robb and Tyrion did not fail to notice his discomfort, of course, but whatever else he had become, Jaime was still stubborn, and he refused to be coddled. When Luwin, of all people, attempted to suggest that he take a day off from his winter town duties — obviously at Robb’s behest — Jaime simply smiled, put on his furs, and went out the gate, staying out several hours past his usual time. When his snow-soaked gloves were ripped off of him upon his return, it was apparent that the fingertips of his right hand had numbed and darkened.
(Robb had been unamused, and had steadfastly denied putting Luwin up to anything. The fucking Jaime had received afterwards was punishing, certainly, but only in a way that made him want to do it again.)
Over the course of a fortnight, the blackness steadfastly marched past his knuckles – despite Jaime finally heeding Robb, Luwin, and half of Winterfell by staying indoors – until it was almost knocking at the gate of his wrist.
***
Robb
“It must be today, Ser,” Maester Luwin told the idiot patient, still somehow mostly golden and radiant despite his right hand looking livid and rotten, as if it had been dipped in some kind of noxious pitch. “The rot has gone deep into the bones and sinnew, but only in your hand – if we take it, we can prevent it spreading to the rest of your arm.”
At the beginning of the winter, Robb hadn’t been able to decide whether or not it would be a mercy to take Jaime’s hand before its time, but he had offered anyway. He had offered under heavy blankets, with his body curled around the taller and older man, in a harsh whisper against his neck, so that Jaime might have the excuse of sleep to avoid the question. But Robb had felt golden locks swing across his head before he had even finished speaking. “The ones who pass the sentence must swing the sword,” he had said, firmly and only half-ironically. Robb had bit down his desire to respond in earnest – that it could hardly be said that gods felt the weight of responsibility towards their subjects or allowed moral scruples to stay their hands – and pressed his lips to his lover’s shoulder instead.
He did not think that Jaime realized just how much of an anchor he had been for him since his family left for King’s Landing. The man liked being useful, that was obvious, but it was more than that. Somehow, Jaime had faith in him, and not in the way that his parents believed he would do a good job as Lord of Winterfell, because they loved him and raised him all his life, but in a way that felt more trustworthy and manageable, because Jaime came to believe after being committed to doubt. When Robb had realized he meant to go with him and Bran to the frozen well, he had been both shocked and terrified, because he thought once Jaime had realized what kind of place the North was, he would take Tommen and himself out of it as soon as possible. But instead, Jaime had not only accepted the gods, but returned to them and cleaved to them as his own.
Robb knew he had not done it out of sentiment, but out of practical fear, but that only made it a more Northern thing to do.
But Robb had, apparently, failed to realize that what Jaime meant by the gods swinging the sword was wringing every last minute of use out of his hand and waiting until the last possible second before he consented to having it amputated.
Maester Luwin, who Jaime had steadfastly avoided ever since he had had the gall to express concern, had taken one look at bloated, blackened fossil that had once been Jaime’s right hand, and cursed both he and Jaime for their carelessness. After Jaime finally consented to the amputation, Luwin summoned a servant to obtain Robb’s sword, and another to fetch Tyrion.
Both Robb and Jaime blanched as the men left.
“Really, Maester Luwin,” Jaime said, in a poor attempt at casualness, “There was no need to involve my brother. His glee that he will no longer be the only deformed Lannister may distract Lord Stark from making a clean cut.”
Gods, Robb knew that he had offeredto do it, and there was really no one else that could – no one else that Jaime would trust, anyway – but he still felt as if he were being asked to lay siege on Casterly Rock. And in a way – wasn’t he? Robb somehow found it hard to believe that Tywin Lannister would accept that it was really Northern gods who had taken Jaime’s hand and that Robb was just the reluctant collector.
Besides – there was the matter of the clean cut. It felt ridiculous, craven even, to be apprehensive about this, when just a few moons prior, Robb had not hesitated in killing two wildlings to save a boy he barely knew. Jaime surely wouldn’t hesitate, and he wouldn’t thank Robb for doing so. But before, with Tommen’s captors, there hadn’t been time to think: he could only act. And once this winter had begun, when he wasn’t working, he had avoided having to think about what he had gotten into with Jaime by fucking him. Now, it felt like he had all the time in the world to think about what a sacrifice the knight had made for their families, how to spare him as much pain as possible, how Jaime would go on without his sword hand, how his family would react. How much his presence was both instigator and soother of a frightening desire he wished to never lose.
Before Jaime, Robb had never taken anything he hadn’t the right to. And it hadn’t been taking, technically; Jaime had offered himself to him, both in court and in the baths, and then later, to the gods. But somehow, it still felt like taking – from the King? From his sister? – except that if he felt guilty, it was only for not feeling guilty.
But this – even though Jaime had offered the gods anything, surely he hadn’t expected this. Even if he had gone with the knowledge of the gods’ ruthlessness, surely this was too much to ask from a man whose loyalties were not bound to House Stark, but kept offering them up anyway, as if he couldn’t help it.
Robb blinked as fingers, wonderfully calloused, held his chin and tilted it down, so his eyes met Jaime’s. His stare held no comfort or sympathy; only steel and trust.
“Don’t make me wish it were your brother here instead,” Jaime warned, his voice only shaking a little.
Robb could only nod into his palm; he wanted to close his eyes, escape from the scrutiny of a man for whom he felt far more responsibility than he surely had the right to, but he forced himself to hold his gaze. His green eyes cut him as they always did, but also held him steady.
Jaime rubbed gentle circles over his stubble with his thumb. “I’ll make you a deal, Stark – though you’d think I’d have enough of them,” he said, pausing to smile warily. “Do not hold back, do not hesitate, make it clean, and – if you wish it – I,” he hesitated, doubt creeping into his eyes for only a second before hardening back into resolve, “Even after this winter ends – if there is an after, I suppose I should say – I shall remain by your side, in whatever capacity you like, for as long as you like.”
Robb felt his eyes widen; he had been expecting Jaime to jape, to distract him from his nerves by promising some lewd sex act afterwards, but certainly not — well, what amounted to Jaime’s person, and his own power over it. A different method of lifelong service to another.
But it wasn’t Jaime’s service that Robb hungered for, so he brought the man’s fingers to his lips, and then bowed his head in reverence, and to let him know in just what capacity Robb intended to have him, looked him in the eyes again and said, “I take this man.”
Robb was not sure if Jaime was aware that men’s matches were somewhat common in the North; he had not let himself consider it before winter began, when their both being men would have been the least of the problems with the match. But now, Jaime had essentially forsaken the Kingsguard; Robb had been made Lord of Winterfell, and with years of winter in store and his father’s new position, he was likely to remain as such permanently. To whom, or to what petty squabbles, should they have to submit themselves to, now?
Perhaps it would even make the breaking of Sansa’s betrothal more feasible, though Robb dreaded the thought of having to send his mother another alarming letter.
Jaime, though his eyes widened in surprise, gripped his fingers tightly and nodded his assent. When he looked up again, his eyes seemed to glisten, in contrast with the next words out of his mouth: “It’ll make an odd sight, you carrying me, but at least I’ll be a little lighter.”
Forgetting entirely what he would soon have to do, Robb felt his face being split by his grin. Beside him, Grey Wind somehow growled happily, and bent over to lick Jaime’s face. As the man pretended to grumble over it, Robb could only think to himself, What an odd wedding this will be, giddy and frightened and avoiding other thoughts like what “you carrying me” implied and the any number of consequences of this decision. There could be no feast, none of their parents present, and the only highborn lady in attendance would be Arya.
Lost both in thought and in not thinking, he barely heard the door open, but he did manage to register an exhausted, exasperated, and resigned voice sigh, “I’d be angrier, but as unlikely it seems, I might soon actually be Father’s favorite son.”
***
Jaime
Later, after the cutting and the bleeding and the burning and, eventually, the fainting, Jaime would muse, likely under the influence of milk of the poppy, that it couldn’t have been often that one got their hand chopped off immediately after being betrothed, by their betrothed.
Apparently, he had said this out loud, because a familiar voice snorted and replied, “Yes, you never could do things the easy way, could you?”
“Shut up,” Jaime muttered, “You’re not my mate.”
He was lulled back to sleep by simultaneous sounds of laughter and embarrassed groaning.
***
The next time he woke up, he was in his bed. Or Robb’s. Theirs.
He wanted to claim he had no idea what possessed him to make that stupid vow – because that’s what it had been, really – or that it had been a desperate attempt to distract from the loss of his hand, but neither of those things were true. Jaime had done it for the same reason he did most things: he wanted to.
Jaime turned his head to the right, figuring to get the sight of his mangled limb over with, and only just managed not to scream like a maiden at the sight of Grey Wind sitting on the floor by the bed, eyes watching him – only instead of yellow, they were piercing blue.
And then Jaime blinked, and they were yellow again, and Grey Wind somehow took that as permission to get up on the bed and sniff at his bandaged nub, then look up again, looking almost defensive, as if to say, ]I know what it looks like, but I promise I didn’t eat it.
And Jaime couldn’t help but laugh, and in a minute or two Robb was bounding into the room, as if he’d ran all the way here, and climbed on the bed, less gracefully than Grey Wind, to snatch the laugh from him with a kiss, and give him sweetness in return.