It was a measure of how worried Tyrion was that he was actually forgoing the wine and the whores on their journey to Winterfell.

He’d dug up every scrap of information he could find about the North, the Starks, Winterfell itself and was determined to drum this wealth of knowledge into Jaime’s head, as though Jaime cared, as though anything mattered in the world now that he’d had this soulmark branded on his arm, tying him to Ned Stark’s son.

Jaime had attempted to hide the mark, but that had only worked for a few days; the mark was glowing with pain by the time the ravens arrived from Winterfell, a stiff letter in Ned Stark’s hand reporting that his eldest son Robb had developed a soulmark on his sixteenth nameday, the direwolf of House Stark with the lion of House Lannister facing opposite. He asked if any of the Lannisters had reported a soulmark on their arms to the Citadel, and just like that, Jaime’s life was done.

Robert had slapped his knees and roared, pleased that the gods had marked his old friend’s house for favor, even if it had meant his friend’s heir was saddled with the Kingslayer. He’d promptly released Jaime from the Kingsguard before he or Cersei could have uttered a word of protest, but what could they have said? No, Jaime would prefer to live his life as a eunuch in a white cloak rather than live with his intended? That he wanted to ignore a sign from the gods?

He could still remember Cersei’s rage, the smashed glasses and spilled wine, every word hissed out between her teeth like the sound of a whip. The fury and betrayal in her face when she’d tried to kiss him, embrace him, and it all went wrong, his mark flaring with pain, nausea cramping his stomach, until he couldn’t bear her touch anymore and had to twist his body away from her. Her, his sister, his lady, his other half.

Tyrion rapped his knuckles on the wooden table, jerking Jaime out of his reverie. “You’re not even listening, are you?”

“Of course I am,” Jaime said, gesturing with his goblet. Someone had to drink the wine, if Tyrion wouldn’t. “The North remembers, blah blah, direwolves, blah blah, Bran the Builder, blah. Did I leave anything out?”

A muscle jumped in Tyrion’s jaw, but he didn’t shout. Instead he let out a long exhale of breath, and looked Jaime in the face. “Jaime, it’s done. You could flee for Essos tomorrow and it would not change the essential fact that you are bound to Robb Stark and as such, can no longer be with anyone else.”

He didn’t say Cersei’s name; they were in an inn, never mind that they were in a private room, all the walls could have ears. It didn’t matter, they both knew what he meant.

Jaime stared into his brother’s face. “You're glad this happened, aren't you? That I've been taken away from the Kingsguard, from Cersei, and that there's no way for me to come back."

If he'd denied it, Jaime didn't know what he would've done, but Tyrion immediately burst out, "Of course I am! This could be your salvation, if you weren't too stubborn to realize it!"

"My salvation?" Jaime growled, outraged.

Tyrion scrubbed at his hair in frustration, hissing, "Yes! Yes, it is! You would've never left on your own, Cersei would have never let you go, and with every year, the risk of exposure and scandal would have increased. Now you're safe, and Cersei is safe, and our family is safe." He stared into Jaime's face and said, emphasizing each word, "This is a gift. Stop sulking and be grateful."

He promptly left, lowering himself from the chair with a dark, pointed look at Jaime as he took the wine away with him, and Jaime was left alone to ponder the wreck that his life had become.

And beneath his sleeve the mark ached, a low, throbbing pain that didn’t stop.

The Lannisters’ arrival to Winterfell was imminent, and Robb was desperately afraid he would faint for the first time in his life.

His fretting had become so obvious that even Theon had given up on his japing, everyone watching him with confusion and sympathy, because no one knew what to say. This was a gift from the Gods, but how could it be a gift to be forever linked to the infamous Kingslayer?

His father had been grim-faced throughout, his voice clipped as he shared the little he would about Ser Jaime Lannister that was worthy of praise. “He’s as handsome as they say, and he’s as good with a sword as they say. He doesn’t lack physical courage, and he’s brilliant in battle.” He’d hesitated as he looked at Robb, but refused to sweeten his assessment with any kind lies—for his father, Jaime Lannister was an oathbreaker, who’d stabbed the Mad King in the back the moment it became politically feasible to do so and not a moment before, and there was nothing about the man to admire.

And so Robb had thought the same, right up until his first vision had come, a nightmare of green fire and a mad king laughing, Robb screaming himself awake with the words ‘burn them all’ echoing in his ears.

The dreams didn’t stop, the memories didn’t stop, and little by little, Robb accepted them to be true…even if he had no idea what to do about them, not yet.

But now the day of the Lannisters’ arrival at Winterfell was here at last, and Robb was near light-headed from lack of sleep, and a wave of Lannister knights and servants were entering the courtyard, the sun glinting off their golden armor, the whole scene unreal, like a dream.

Ser Jaime’s arrival felt like part of the dream too, a shining golden knight, too beautiful to even seem real—was there one physical flaw to the man? If there was, Robb couldn’t see it, and Lannister’s perfection only made him more aware of the dark smudges beneath his eyes, how pale and drawn he looked from his sleepless nights.

Though if anyone knew about sleepless nights, it was Lannister.

Sansa let out a little happy sigh as Lannister dismounted—she was the most optimistic of everyone in Robb’s family, insisting that the Gods would not make a mistake, that surely everything would work itself out. And to do her justice, Jaime Lannister did look like a knight out of a song, with his golden hair and handsome face, his chin lifted as he smirked at them all. “What a charming family. Lord Stark, you are blessed indeed.”

Robb could practically hear his father’s teeth grinding as he made the introductions, first his mother, and then going to Sansa and Arya and Bran and little Rickon, leaving Robb for last.

Lannister’s gaze sharpened as he looked at Robb, and Robb could hear the edge to his voice as he said, “Ah. You’re the one who’s meant to be my other half.”
Robb’s tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth, and for a moment he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to speak at all. Lannister was just so—he was here and Robb had been reliving his nightmares for weeks now, how in the hells was he supposed to address the man?
His mind utterly, horrifically blank, Robb opened his mouth and asked the very last question he should ask, and the only question he could ask.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about the wildfire?”

If Robb had ever believed that his dreams were nothing more than a delusion, Jaime Lannister’s face would have put an end to that. His skin went gray, the smooth smirking expression on his face changing to one of disbelief and shock. He even took a faltering step back, as though Robb was a threat.

“How,” Lannister choked out, then fell silent, staring as if he’d just seen a ghost.

“Robb, what is this?” his father asked, and Robb realized too late that they were in front of an audience, in front of everyone, and this was the absolute last place he should have started this conversation. “Why are you asking about wildfire?”

“It’s nothing,” Lannister said sharply, and whatever restraint Robb had left shattered at that.

“Nothing?” he asked in disbelief, taking a step forward. Lannister didn’t retreat any farther, but he watched Robb as though he was a viper, waiting to strike. “It’s the reason you killed the Mad King, and you call it nothing?”

“Jaime, what’s happening?” It was Lord Tyrion, the Imp, who was speaking now, awkwardly dismounting from his horse and approaching his brother, a worried look on his face.

Lannister looked to be beyond words now, staring at Robb with wide, stricken green eyes, as though he were a ghost made flesh. “I…”

Robb knew that everyone was watching, that he was turning this meeting into an outrageous spectacle, and yet some instinct drove him forward regardless. “During the last days of the Rebellion, King Aerys ordered his pryomancers to lay out wildfire caches underneath the city. The city had been sacked by Lannister forces, and you were in the throne room with the King, begging him to surrender. An honorable surrender, you said. It would keep everyone safe—the princess Elia, the children, even Aerys himself, little though the Mad King deserved it.” Robb was standing in the keep of Winterfell as he spoke, but he was there too, in a throne room he’d never seen before except in the borrowed nightmares of a man he’d never met before today. He could almost feel the armor of the Kingsguard on his body, the white clock fluttering behind him as he strode forward.

“But the King didn’t care about saving the lives of his grandchildren. He wanted to watch his enemies burn, and he didn’t care how many innocents burned with them,” Robb continued, his voice rising over the murmurs of the crowd, of his mother’s anxious voice asking, “Ned, what is he saying?”

“Burn them all, Aerys said,” Robb continued, and everyone could see Jaime Lannister flinch at the words. “You couldn’t believe it at first, even though you’d seen the barrels of wildfire, hidden in the tunnels. But then the pyromancers started to leave, they were going to set the city ablaze, slaughter countless innocents, all on the word of a mad king too evil and insane to rule.” Robb felt the echo of a sword he’d never swung in his hand, the weight of it heavy, his hand slick with sweat as he lifted it up for a blow he’d never delivered.

“So you killed them. And you killed the king who gave the order.” Robb swallowed, coming back to himself—to the crisp morning air in Winterfell, to the shocked silence of the audience around them, to Jaime Lannister’s stricken, pale face, as Robb recounted a decades-old nightmare for them all.

Lannister was breathing heavily, and he burst out, “How—how could you—”

“Sometimes, with a Marked pair, the gods offer up visions of the past,” Robb said, his voice sounding as though it came from a distance. “Maester Luwin said it was…it was given as a gift. So we could reach a better understanding of each other.”

Lannister burst out into wild, raw laughter at that, nearly hysterical. “A better understanding!” He bent over double, gasping for air, even as his brother reached out to him, confusion and worry written all over his face.

“Robb,” his father said, stepping forward to grip his arm. “Robb, is this…is this true?”

Robb took a breath. “Have I lied, Ser Jaime?”

Lannister didn’t speak, even with his brother anxiously shaking his elbow, murmuring softly, “Jaime. Jaime, you have to answer.” Lannister shook his head, denying it still, and Robb demanded incredulously, his temper spiking, “What possible reason could you have to deny it now?”

Lannister lifted his head at that, teeth bared in a snarl and his eyes narrowed with fury—and even as Robb’s stomach clenched at the sight, he met Lannister’s gaze squarely. They were bound together for the rest of their days, there was no point in retreating now.

And Lannister must have realized that as well, as his face twisted, and then he looked away, muttering roughly, “It’s true.”

Robb felt his knees turn to water with relief—at last, at last he’d said it—even as the crowd gasped around then and Ned Stark let out a string of curses he’d never expected to hear from his father, all he could feel was relief, because it was done, the truth revealed at last.

*

“Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected,” Tyrion Lannister says later that afternoon.

They were all gathered together in his mother’s solar, and Robb asked, his earlier bravado having deserted him the moment that Jaime Lannister stalked off to his guest quarters without a second look back for him, “How is he?”

Tyrion gave him a sharp glance, then shrugged a little. “Quiet. Shaken.” He paused, then said, “I’d heard stories of the visions that a Marked pair could receive, but to actually witness it…truly, the gods move in mysterious ways.”

His father, who’d mostly been silent since they’d retreated to the solar, finally spoke. “Robb, how did you know your visions were true?”

Robb shakes his head, helplessly. “I didn’t think they were, not at first. But they were so…so vivid and consistent, they came night after night and never changed, not once. They had to be real. My imagination isn’t that good. Or that awful.”

His imagination couldn’t conjure anything as awful as the Mad King, with those gleaming eyes, those disgusting long fingernails, and that hoarse rattle of a voice muttering, Burn them all.

“Forgive me, I still don’t understand,” Catelyn said, lifting up her hand. “I can accept that this is true, but what I can’t understand is why no one, not even my husband, has heard this story before now.” She turned to look at Tyrion. “You honestly expect us to believe that your brother told no one—”

“Lady Stark, if I’d known the truth, my brother wouldn’t have carried the name Kingslayer for all these years,” Tyrion said bluntly. His mouth pursed, and he said, more carefully, “I knew…I knew his time in the Kingsguard under Aerys weighed on him. I knew he’d seen terrible things. But believe me, the first I heard of the wildfire plot was today, from your son’s lips.”

“But why wouldn’t he say something?” Robb’s father burst out, frustrated. “He’s had years to speak, to defend himself. We all knew what Aerys was, he would have been believed. All he had to do was speak.”

Tyrion frowned, pacing a little. Robb watched him curiously—he made an interesting figure, it was true, but somehow within just a few moments of meeting the man, his lack of height dwindled in importance, not when compared to his obvious force of personality, the clear intelligence in his face. Robb had heard that the man was a lush and a whoremonger, but he looked sober and presentable now. “The only thing my brother would say,” Tryion said at last, and Robb could hear the frustration in his voice, “was that…it didn’t matter. That no one cared why he did what he did, just that he’d done it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Robb said without thinking. “Of course it matters! He didn’t do it for ambition, he didn’t do it as part of some Lannister plot, he did it to save thousands of lives! How can that not matter?”

Tyrion was watching him now, a sad little smile on his face. “I don’t know, but he’s convinced it doesn’t.” His eyes flickered, and he gave Ned and Catelyn an odd little look before saying, “Of course…as far as our father was concerned, it didn’t matter.”

Ned looked affronted. “You mean to say that your father knew the truth of the affair, and he never said—”

“What I mean to say,” Tyrion said, each word deliberate, “Is that for years now, it’s served my father perfectly well to have his son known as the infamous Kingslayer. Just as it serves him still to have the notorious Gregor Clegane in his service, no matter his crimes against the Princess Elia and her children. It’s…it’s like the Rains of Castamere, you see? If you can believe those at the head of House Lannister can act without honor, that there’s nothing we won’t do to achieve our ends—”

“Then nobody will act against them,” Ned said, voice thick with disgust. “And this is the house my son is binding himself to.”

“Your son is bound to my brother,” Tyrion pointed out. “Unless you’re going to still insist that he has no honor, even despite your own son’s testimony?”

Ned’s mouth thinned a little, but he nodded his head, acknowledging. “Of course.” He looked to Robb and said, “It does matter, that you’re bound to a man who hasn’t forgotten his honor after all.”

Robb knew it was true, but he also knew that, for whatever reason, Jaime Lannister wouldn’t thank him for revealing the truth about him. Robb couldn’t understand it, a few weeks of carrying this secret with him and he was ready to go mad from the horror of it; how could Jaime carry it with him for all these years and never speak of it? How could it not be anything but a relief, to have the truth out at last?

"I'm not going," Jaime said.

Tyrion looked at him, deeply unimpressed. It didn't seem right that Tyrion had gotten up before him this morning, but here they were, with Tyrion sober as a judge and Jaime the one nursing a hangover. “You’re going if I have to drag you out of bed by the hair,” he said, flatly. “Or do you think you can just hide in here all day and only emerge to sit like a silent lump at dinner?”

Jaime scowled. Dinner had been an excruciating ordeal—the Stark bannermen wouldn't be coming until later, for the actual wedding, but it had still been the entire household of Winterfell watching him, pity and confusion in all their faces, and all of Jaime's sharp, clever words had become dust on his tongue.

So he'd forced the food and that awful Northern ale down his throat, and kept his head down so as to avoid anyone's gaze—particularly Robb Stark's—and had promptly fled back to his guest quarters the second he was able, ordering more wine for himself on the way, which he'd promptly guzzled down until he could finally fall asleep in a drunken stupor.

It could only be a brief respite and he knew it. Ned Stark had insisted that they delay the question of who would stay heir to their house until Robb reached the age of eighteen, insisted that Jaime stay in Winterfell until then, and Tywin had acquiesced, so desperate by then to get Jaime out of the Kingsguard that he would have agreed to almost anything. So that meant that Jaime would be here for two years, at least, and Tyrion was right, he'd have to find a way to live here, and antagonizing everyone in Winterfell was not the way to do it.

But his head was pounding, and he still felt scraped raw and exposed, so Jaime rolled over in his bed and muttered, "I'd like to see you try."

He probably should've expected Tyrion's fist in his hair, but he certainly hadn't expected Tyrion to pull quite so hard, it was a miracle he didn't have a chunk of hair missing from his scalp.

But for all of Tyrion’s warnings, Jaime was at his most obnoxious while Catelyn Stark stiffly escorted him through the walls of Winterfell. He sauntered and smirked, cheerfully called Catelyn his goodmother every chance he got, and counted it as a victory every time he saw her lips thin.

Finally, once he’d won an irritated huff of breath from her, Jaime said, in his most innocent tones, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lady Stark, surely I’m keeping you from your duties.”

She paused, and tilted her head a little at him. “Not at all,” she said, her voice calm, even if her blue gaze (so like her son’s) was sharp and knowing. “I’ve cleared my entire day, Ser Jaime, I’m completely at your disposal. There’s nothing more important than showing my son’s future consort around his new home.”

Seven fucking hells. “How generous of you,” Jaime said, through his teeth. “Still, you must be bored.”

“Not at all,” Catelyn said smoothly. “And besides, your brother warned me you’d be like this.”

Jaime nearly choked on his tongue. “I’m sorry? My brother what?”

Catelyn was actually smirking at him now. Oh, it was a faint little smirk, easily deniable, but there it was all the same. “Your brother was kind enough to warn me of any…little foibles you might display today, and preemptively begged my pardon.”

"Begged your pardon!" Jaime repeated, his voice rising, so furious he could barely see—now Tyrion was conspiring against him with the Starks? But Catelyn just raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed by his outrage, and Jaime caught the rest of his words behind his teeth.

Once she was satisfied he wouldn't start shouting again, Catelyn continued in her measured way. "I won't pretend to understand you, ser, but that will not stop me from my duties."

Jaime rolled his eyes. "Of course not, you're a Stark, there's nothing you love so much as duty."

Catelyn's mouth twitched. "You'll be a Stark too by the week's end," she pointed out. "At least while you're in the North."

He flinched at hearing that, and Catelyn didn't miss that either, her eyes narrowing as she watched him.

In desperation, Jaime blurted out, "You cannot possibly approve of any of this. I'm twice your son's age, my reputation is lower than dirt, and my family is a byword for treachery all throughout Westeros. Why are you pretending otherwise?"

But Catelyn looked at him with bewilderment, as if he was the strange one here. “The gods have marked you for my son,” she said. “It’s not for me to approve or not.” She started to walk down the corridor again, tossing over her shoulder, “Though if you could refrain from constantly behaving at your worst, that would certainly be helpful.”

“You haven’t seen me at my worst,” Jaime promised her.

Catelyn turned to face him, still with that faintly baffled look to her, as if she couldn’t understand him at all. “Why on earth would you want me to?”

And what could Jaime say to that?

Through gritted teeth, Jaime straightened his shoulders and said, "Lady Stark, I beg your pardon, but I have to cut this short. If you'll excuse me?"

Catelyn tilted her head at him. "Certainly, ser."

Jaime bowed his head, and walked off, his back stiff and anger lengthening his stride. Gods, but he needed to hit something right now.

*

Theon let out a low whistle, admiring. "He‘s even more talented with a sword than I expected."

Robb just nodded, at a loss for words. They were watching Jaime Lannister spar with some of his knights in the yard, from the landing above, far enough away so they likely wouldn't be overheard but close enough to watch everything, including the sheen of sweat on Lannister's skin, the way his linen shirt (which he was already stripped down to by the time Theon had dragged Robb outside) clung to his back and shoulders.

He'd already knocked four men to the ground, trained knights, all of them fully-grown men, two of which had at least three inches and a full stone of weight on him, and he'd made it all look so easy, practically inevitable—of course he wouldn't be beaten, of course none of his challengers could land a blow on him.

Theon smirked at Robb and said, sly, "Suppose you're not so wroth over being bound to the Kingslayer now, are you?"

Robb punched him in the shoulder, not bothering to check the force of the blow. "Don't call him that."

"All right, all right, I was only japing," Theon grumbled, rubbing his shoulder.

Robb was going to scold him further, but a loud roar came out from the yard—Jaime had knocked his latest opponent down into the dirt, another Lannister knight who was calling out, in mingled amusement and alarm, "I yield! I yield, my lord!"

Huffing, as if he was annoyed he hadn't been given a better fight, Jaime pushed his hair off his forehead and helped haul the knight up to his feet. "Next!" he called out impatiently, swinging his sword in his hand.

"Well, his temper certainly hasn't improved from this morning," a voice said wryly, and Robb turned to see Lord Tyrion approaching them, his father and mother a step behind.

"Lord Tyrion," Robb said, nodding his hello, but couldn't help but press, "His temper?"

"Ser Jaime was a little short this morning when I gave him a tour of Winterfell," his mother explained, with a quick warning glance at Tyrion that Robb didn’t miss. "Nothing too concerning."

His father snorted at this, but didn't argue. Robb grimaced as well, looking back down at where Jaime was standing, hand on hip, waiting for the latest victim to step up. There didn't look to be many takers, either from the Lannister knights, or from the Winterfell household.

"I shouldn't have confronted him in public," Robb muttered. "I knew I should have waited, I just—it was all I could think of."

"You did my brother a great service yesterday," Tyrion says, looking at him sharply. "He'll realize that, once he stops being such an ass."

“What about you, Ser Rodrick?” Jaime called out, and Ser Rodrick didn’t look exactly pleased to be named, but he stepped forward, ready to face his inevitable defeat, only to have Jon, who’d been watching in the crowd, pipe up.

“I’ll go.”

“What is he doing?” Theon asked, speaking for, well, everyone. Robb couldn’t understand it, Jon was never the type to put himself forward, let alone step into a spectacle like this…

And then Jon nervously glanced up to where they were watching, and Robb understood. His brother was trying to help.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance he’ll take it easy on my brother?” Robb asked, the question mostly rhetorical.

But as if he’d heard them, Jaime did glance up at the landing where they were watching, his expression unreadable–but it didn’t matter, he was looking at Robb, finally, after a night and a day of watching Jaime Lannister’s gaze turn anywhere but at Robb, he was meeting Robb’s gaze at last.

I want to be the only thing he can think to look at. Robb couldn’t have said where the thought came from, but it felt right, a lingering warmth low in his belly, even after Jaime had looked away and said to Jon, “Well, let’s see what Ned Stark’s bastard can do with a sword.”

Jon squared his shoulders and lifted his wooden sword, and then they were at it—but this was different, Robb could already see it, Jaime was holding himself back, testing Jon’s limits rather than galloping over them. They went through several passes, Jon managing to parry every blow, before Jaime pulled back, considering.

“Again,” he said, and they did go again, and Robb felt the pride rising up in him, pride in Jon for stepping forward, for holding his own against Jaime Lannister, even if it was only a sparring session where Lannister was clearly checking himself.

Jon lost, of course, this wasn’t a song or a fairytale, but he’d lasted longer than anyone could’ve expected, and Jaime was saying, “You need to build up the strength in your arm, and your footwork is too sloppy. Whatever drills you’re doing now, you need to double them—” The advice went on, all of it given in an unimpressed tone, but it didn’t matter, not compared to the slow-dawning joy on Jon’s face as he realized that Jaime Lannister, likely the best swordsman alive in all of Westeros, took him seriously.

“How is Jon getting a lesson in sword-fighting from Jaime Lannister?” Theon hissed, outraged. “Of all the gods-damned luck—”

“He made his own luck,” Robb said, smiling. Not just for Jon, but because this felt like the first real thing he could hold on to, something from Lannister that felt true, that wasn’t a false smile worn like armor or the stiff line of his back as he walked away.

Robb realized that his father was watching him now, assessing him in that quiet way of his, and Robb straightened, the smile falling from his face. Ned didn’t say anything, just stepped forward to the railing and called out, “Ser Jaime.”

The yard went silent, and Robb could see Jaime’s back stiffening; when he turned to face them, his face had gone cold again, mouth thin and his jaw tight. “Lord Stark,” he said, and Robb could practically hear his teeth grinding.

“I’d like you to join me in my solar for a private word,” Robb’s father said.

Robb’s stomach was already sinking, even before Jaime smiled tightly and dipped his head low, the sneer back in his voice as he said, “As my future goodfather commands.”

He sauntered off, all southern arrogance once more, and as he left, Tyrion said, “I’d like to join you, if you wouldn’t mind—”

“I would mind,” Ned said, but not unkindly. “With all respect, Lord Tyrion, I can’t get the true measure of your brother if you’re shielding him.”

Tyrion’s lips thinned, but he said, “Try and see it from my brother’s perspective. He comes here to marry a boy he hardly knows, the son of a man who despises him, only to have the most painful incident of his life exposed and discussed before strangers.” He turned to Robb and added, urgently, “I don’t blame you for it, you did my brother a service, but he won’t see that yet, all he can see is the exposure and humiliation. Let him have another day for his temper to cool, and then we can all—”

Ned just shook his head. “No. I’ll speak to him now.” As Tyrion opened his mouth to argue some more, Ned walked away, with Robb’s mother following.

“When my father says he’ll do a thing, he does it,” Robb explained to Tyrion, who was now scrubbing at his dark blond hair in frustration.

“Oh believe me, the Stark stubbornness is becoming quite familiar to me,” Tyrion said, clearly disgruntled. He sighed, and looked up at Robb. “Well, come on then. If your father’s going to take Jaime’s measure, then I’m going to take yours, young Stark. Walk with me.”

He sauntered off, much in the way his brother had, utterly confident that Robb would follow. And, after sharing a bemused glance with Theon, Robb did.

*

It hurt, keeping the smile on his face as he stood there in Ned Stark’s solar, but Jaime managed it somehow. “Your bastard son might become half-decent with a sword someday, if he got proper training,” he said, lightly. “Of course, I can see how that would be awkward. Wouldn’t want him to outshine any of your trueborn children.”

Stark didn’t respond to the jab about Jon Snow, which was yet another maddening thing to stoke Jaime’s temper—fathering the bastard was the one weakness Ned Stark had ever shown, the very least he could do was flinch when Jaime flung it at him.

Instead, he nodded to the chair facing his desk and said, in tones so polite Jaime almost thought it was a jape, “Will you sit down?”

“I’ll stand,” Jaime said, unable to keep the snap from appearing in his voice. Stark’s eyes flickered up to look at him, and then he nodded a little, and sat down in his own chair.

Jaime realized his error immediately, with the difference in their positions, it was almost as if Jaime was being called down to face his own father, made to stand there like an idiotic boy and listen to every mistake he’d made—

“Tell me about it,” Stark said.

Jaime could taste the bile in his mouth. “No,” he said flatly, and he could hear Tyrion’s huff of exasperation in his head—Stark already knew, he was about to become Jaime’s kin, what was the point in baiting him now?

There was no point, except for Jaime’s battered pride, and the fact that Ned Stark could have asked, all those years ago, and he hadn’t. Jaime saw no point in answering him now, when it was far too late to do any good.

But Stark was looking at him like he could see it, the wound covered by scar tissue that Robb Stark had taken a knife to and made newly bleed once more, and he said, “I’d forgotten how young you were when you joined the Kingsguard. Fifteen, wasn’t it?”

Jaime’s throat was so tight that it almost hurt to answer, “Yes.”

“That didn’t seem very young to me, then,” Ned said quietly. “It does now, with my eldest barely a year older than that.”

“Don’t,” Jaime said, his hands curling into fists at his side. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

Stark looked at him, then asked, “What would you have of me, then?”

“Nothing,” Jaime spat out. Stark just looked at him, that dour honest face blank and unreadable, and a blinding fury rose up in Jaime, so thick he thought he would choke on it.

“You self-righteous shit,” he spat out, forgetting that this man was about to be his goodfather, that it was his castle Jaime was standing in, his son that Jaime would be marrying at the end of the week. “You never had to sit there and listen to Aerys raping his wife while she begged for him to stop, you never had to sit there and watch him burn victim after victim, you weren’t there when he decided to destroy an entire city, and yet you sit there and judge me? Me?”

His chest was aching, his head was pounding, and Ned Stark just sat there and took it, as Jaime vented nearly two decades’ worth of anger and shame at his head.

“By what right does the wolf judge the lion? By what right do you judge me, when your friend Robert looked at the broken bodies of Elia Martell’s children and smiled? When you killed Arthur Dayne at the Tower of Joy? What possible right do you have to—”

His vision blurred, his throat closed up, and Jaime turned away, faced the wall rather than let Ned Stark see one more inch of him.

For several moments the only sound in the room was that of Jaime’s harsh breaths, as he attempted to piece together some sort of composure.

When Ned finally spoke, his voice was soft with weariness. “I should have asked you what happened that day. And for whatever role I played in leaving you to carry this burden alone, I ask your pardon.”

Jaime gritted his teeth, but didn’t speak. It shouldn’t have mattered, hearing that, and he hated that it did.

Ned continued, saying next, “But whatever anger you still hold for me—I only ask that you not turn it towards my son.”

That got Jaime to turn around and look at him, as nothing else would have. “I haven’t done anything to your son,” he pointed out, indignant.

“You’ve avoided him since you arrived at Winterfell,” Ned said, and Jaime scowled, because that was the truth, and it had been perhaps a futile hope that it wouldn’t go without comment from any of the Starks. “I can’t imagine you welcomed this bond, any more than we did at first. But—it’s here. You’re here. You’ll be his spouse and his partner, as he’ll be yours.”

“So?” Jaime prodded.

Ned’s eyebrow rose, and he said evenly, “So don’t be an ass.”

A huff of air escaped Jaime’s mouth before he could stop it, and if it wasn’t a laugh, it wasn’t not a laugh either. “I was wondering how long it would take to crack that composure of yours,” he said. “Your wife’s lasted longer than you have.”

“Cat’s always been the patient one of the two of us,” Ned said, undeterred. “Well? Will you think on what I’ve said?”

As if Jaime would be able to do anything else. He didn’t admit to that, however, just shrugged and said, “I’m here, aren’t I?”

*

Gods help him, but Jaime was almost looking forward to going on this morning ride with Robb Stark, if only to escape Tyrion and his lecturing. “What on earth do you know about courting someone?” Jaime had asked, waspish.

“More than you,” Tyrion had said, and launched right back in, as if after two days he already knew how to deal with the Starks better than Jaime did, except that it was probably true, fuck him. Tyrion had certainly been quite cozy with Lady Stark last night at dinner; he’d even seen Catelyn chuckling at one of his brother’s jokes.

Robb was waiting for him in the stables, and he greeted Jaime with a hesitant smile, nodding at Jaime’s new cloak as he said, “I see Sansa gave you her present already.”

The fur cloak was heavy on Jaime’s shoulders, the weight and bulk of it unfamiliar to him, but he was warmer than he’d been at any point since he’d come north. And it had felt…churlish, to reject the gift, especially when it had come with Sansa Stark’s bright, earnest face as she’d carefully presented the cloak to him this morning. “It was kind of your sister to make it,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “She’s even made one for Tyrion, he swears he’ll never take it off so long as he’s here.”

“I’m glad,” Robb said, a corner of his mouth tilting up. “Can’t have you southerners freezing in your thin silks.”

“How dare you,” Jaime said dryly, mounting his steed. “Those are the finest silks that Westeros has to offer, even if they’re painfully inadequate for this frozen pit.”

He’d thought Robb would frown at the insult to his home, but Robb just scoffed, swinging himself up into the saddle. “If you think this is cold, I hate to see what you’ll be like when a true winter comes.”

With any luck, they would be living at Casterly Rock well before a true winter arrived, but Jaime held his tongue on that. See, Tyrion, I can learn, he thought to himself, and smiled at Robb instead. “Shall we?”

He didn’t miss the sudden flush that rose to Robb’s cheeks, but Robb nodded and said, steadily enough, “Of course.”

To Jaime’s relief, they don’t speak very much as they travel out of Winterfell. He’s almost able to lose himself in the ride, enjoying the wind in his hair and the unfamiliar scenery. They have to slow down once they get back into the woods proper, the path narrow enough that they can no longer ride side by side.

Jaime stared at the back of Robb’s head, and tried very hard to think about how this was the first day that his mark had been quiet on his arm, no pain whatsoever. He’d been stoking his anger deliberately since his arrival at Winterfell, Jaime could admit it now, even if only to himself. With his anger at a boil, it was easier to shut everything else out—the dull ache in his arm, the instinctive desire to look for Robb Stark when he entered a room.

This wasn’t real. It was a compulsion brought on by the Mark, Jaime hadn’t chosen it, he didn’t want it—but the litany of reasons to hold onto his anger were slowly crumbling, weakened by Ned Stark’s apology, by Tyrion’s arguments, by Sansa Stark shyly offering him the cloak she’d spent weeks making for her brother’s intended.

It had been weakening from the moment he’d looked into Robb Stark’s face and seen the last thing he’d expected to see—understanding.

Jaime set his teeth, glaring at Robb’s dark curls. If the gods were going to take him away from Cersei and everything he’d known, bind him to a boy half his age, Jaime almost would have preferred it if Robb Stark had been a fool, had been as dull and self-righteous as his father. Seven hells, he could at least have been ugly.

“Here we are,” Robb said, as they emerged upon a stream. They both dismounted and led their horses to the water, and Robb knelt down as well, splashing the water over his face. Jaime hesitated, then joined him, shivering as he cupped the water in his hands and drank—the water was delicious, but so cold it made his teeth hurt.

“Are we sure the North isn’t in winter already?” he grumbled, shaking out his hands.

“Oh trust me, when it’s winter you’ll know,” Robb said, voice dry. “But…I didn’t bring you here just to have you drink at this stream.”

Jaime turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. Robb sounded nervous, for the first time since Jaime had met him—not that they’d spoken much since their first meeting. “Oh?” Jaime asked. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Stark. Why am I here?”

Robb looked at him for a moment, then stood to walk away, pacing a little. It was nothing like their first meeting at all, when Robb had looked at him with the faraway gaze of a seer and methodically stripped Jaime down to the bone. Here, he looked like what he probably was—a handsome sixteen year old boy, untested and ill at ease as he attempted to communicate with his bondmate, who was twenty years older and a stranger to him.

Finally Robb turned around and said, bluntly, “I’m sorry for our first meeting. How I…how I spoke to you. The truth needed to come out, I still believe that, I just…I wish I’d done it better.”

“You mean that wasn’t on purpose?” Jaime asked. Robb looked bewildered, and so Jaime elaborated, “I thought you blurted it out as soon as you could to spread the news that your future husband wasn’t quite the oathbreaking monster the kingdom thought I was.”

Robb looked shocked at the idea. “I—it wasn’t calculated.” He paused, then admitted, “Honestly, I was so sleep-deprived I barely knew what I was doing. All I could think about was…getting it out of my head and out into the open. However I could.”

Jaime thought back to their meeting, and he thought he could remember it now—the desperation in Robb’s voice as he’d insisted on having the truth from Jaime. He could understand it now, a little better. Of course Robb had been at his wits’ end, living out another man’s nightmare. Of course he’d be desperate to confirm it as truth.

They were quiet for a moment, the only sound around them the quiet rushing of the steam, the birdsong in the trees. It was a beautiful spot, Jaime had to admit, lush and green, the sunlight filtering through the trees.

“How did you stand it?” Robb asked quietly. “Two whole years in the Kingsguard, watching over the Mad King.”

“I endured it because I had to,” Jaime said. “To be fair, I hardly knew what I was in for when I made my oaths. I thought…gods help me, I thought it was an honor.” He smiled bitterly, stretching himself out on the ground, letting his cloak fall to use it as a blanket. “I was something of an idiot at fifteen, you see, I still believed in honor and chivalry then. To be knighted by Ser Arthur Dayne, to be judged worthy of guarding my King…it was like a dream.”

And to never be parted from Cersei…but that was something he was hardly going to admit to Robb now.

“I didn’t have the wits to realize I was being used as a hostage to ensure my father’s good behavior,” Jaime continued. “Much in the way your friend Theon Greyjoy is being used to ensure his father’s good behavior.” Robb looked pained at the comparison, but didn’t argue. “And once I was in the Red Keep…I was trapped. Like everyone else there.”

He paused, then asked the question that had been lingering at the edge of his mind for a while. “Is that the only vision you’ve had, of what I witnessed during Aerys’ reign?” Robb nodded, and Jaime said, “I’m glad. You shouldn’t have those memories in your head.”

He actually meant it, too.

But Robb frowned a little. “You were my age, when you lived through Aerys’ rule. If you lived it, then I can stand to hear about it.”

“What, you want to hear about what it was like?” Jaime asked, disbelieving. “You want to hear about your grandfather being cooked in his own armor, while the entire court watched it happen and no one, not even me, said a word in protest? Or guarding the King’s bedchamber and listening to him rape and beat his wife, night after night, knowing that no matter what I did or didn’t do, I was breaking my oaths?” His voice was rising, and Jaime checked himself with an effort; Robb was watching him with horror, those blue eyes wide in his pale face.

But Robb squared his shoulders, like he was readying himself to face an adversary, and said, swallowing hard, “Yes. If it helps me understand you better, then…yes. I want to hear it.”

It took Jaime a moment to find his words. “Has anyone ever told you, boy, that you’re too fucking honorable for your own good?” He wanted to say the words with a sneer, but he knew he hadn’t.

“No,” Robb said, then the corner of his mouth tilted up. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re too fucking stubborn for your own good?”

A huff of laughter escaped Jaime’s mouth. “More times than I can count.”

It was a good moment, and Jaime was content to let it linger; he didn’t look away from Robb, which was how he caught the shift of the mood as it happened, Robb’s eyes moving over his face, the hint of a flush to his cheeks as his eyes sparkled with interest—with attraction.

It was nothing new, watching someone admire his looks, Jaime had received that admiration his entire life, and he hadn’t ever cared, but this was the first time he actually thought of doing something about it. He couldn’t have explained why, not to himself and certainly not to Cersei if she were here—but she wasn’t here, not in this quiet green place, where Jaime felt…clean and at peace, for the first time in twenty years.

“Could I…” Robb paused, then asked, lifting his chin up. “I hadn’t had the chance to ask before, but…” Jaime raised an eyebrow, questioning, and Robb said in a rush, “I’d like to see your mark. Please.”

“As my future husband commands,” Jaime said, and he’d meant it to sound like a tease, a jape, but it didn’t quite sound like that at all. He got up to his feet, slowly, pushing up the sleeve of his tunic to expose the mark on the inside of his forearm.

Robb let out a soft noise at the sight of it, lifting his hand as though he meant to reach out—before visibly checking himself, his hand still caught mid-air.

“It’s all right,” Jaime said, barely recognizing his own voice. “It’s your Mark, after all, just as much as it’s mine.”

He took a few steps forward, and that was enough for Robb, who did reach out, his hand solid and warm as it curved around Jaime’s forearm, his thumb moving across the wolf’s head, the delicate touch sinking into Jaime’s skin like a brand, hot and overwhelming.

Jaime looked up into Robb’s face, watched those blue eyes growing wider as Jaime stepped closer, his lips parting—and Jaime leaned in, and kissed Robb Stark’s soft-looking mouth, sharp and quick, as if he’d been dared to do it.

If it had been a test, Jaime wasn’t sure which of them had passed. He’d meant—he was almost sure he’d meant it to be brief, except that Robb was inhaling sharply against his mouth, and then he was kissing Jaime back, clumsy and ardent, and at the first tentative pass of Robb’s tongue against his mouth, Jaime abruptly lost his entire mind, a wave of hot lust running through him as he clutched at Robb’s hips, pushing Robb back against the trunk of the great oak tree behind him, pinning him there.

Robb gave as good as he got, his hands clutching at Jaime’s leather jerkin, gasping into Jaime’s mouth as Jaime held him still and took him, captured his mouth in bruising kisses and let his hips rock forward mindlessly, working his thigh in between Robb’s legs and feeling a savage triumph as Robb groaned against his mouth, rubbing his erection against Jaime’s thigh.

It was madness, it was too much and too soon, except that it was also the best thing Jaime had felt in weeks, and why not, when the gods had given Jaime to Robb and to the North in the first place? Why not take whatever pleasure he could get with this boy and his soft mouth and lean, strong body?

Testing, Jaime reached between them and lets his hand rest on the ties to Robb’s breeches, and Robb made a high, desperate noise in his throat, gasping out, “Oh holy hells, please—”

Jaime grinned, finding that he liked the sound of Robb’s desperation. “As you wish,” he says lowly, nipping at Robb’s throat, the soft shell of his ear, as he made quick work of the ties and slipped his hand in, curling his fingers around Robb’s cock. It was already leaking at the tip, and the sobbing breath Robb took as Jaime started to touch him in earnest was sweet to Jaime’s ears.

It didn’t take very long, just a few pulls and Jaime’s thumb moving back and forth over the slit of Robb’s cock before Robb was spilling over into his fist, his face buried in Jaime’s neck as he came apart. Jaime was left hanging onto his control by a thin thread, he could almost taste the echo of Robb’s lust, an accelerant to his own, and he was already reaching for the ties to his own breeches when Robb stirred, saying hoarsely, “Wait.”

And it was Robb’s fingers nimbly working his breeches open, and Robb flicked his gaze up at Jaime, pausing for just a moment before he took a breath, and slowly slid down to his knees.

It was plain as a pike that Robb didn’t know what he was doing, but that didn’t matter, not when his mouth was hot and wet and on his cock. Jaime barely stifled a yell when Robb’s tongue swirled around the head, his fist pressing against the bark of the tree as he tried not to grab too hard at Robb’s curls, tried not to choke him with the restless shifting of his hips.

Robb’s blue eyes flicked upwards again, his mouth obscenely stretched around Jaime’s cock, and then he swallowed, and Jaime gasped and came in Robb’s mouth, cursing all the while.

He felt dazed, afterwards, as if he’d received a blow to the head. “Where on earth did you learn to do that?” Jaime asked, washing his hands clean in the stream.

“In the brothel at Wintertown,” Robb said absently, and as Jaime turned to look at him, eyebrows raised, Robb clearly realized how it sounded and said quickly, “Not like that!”

“Oh?” Jaime asked, grinning as he sat back on his heels. “How did you mean it, then? Go on, tell me about your scandalous adventures in the brothel.”

Robb glared at him a little for that, but huffed and said, “It wasn’t like that, I don’t go visit whores, not like Theon does. It isn’t honorable.” He glanced at Jaime, and admitted, “And I don’t—I mislike the thought of fathering a bastard.”

Ah. Robb was watching him warily, waiting for the barb; Jaime smiled gently and prodded, “But this time?”

There was a flicker of relief on Robb’s face, before he theatrically groaned and said, “But once the Mark appeared, Theon insisted I should at least know what I was doing, so he dragged me down to the brothel, where I…” It was incredible, how red his face was now. “I got…lessons.”

“Lessons?” Jaime repeated, gleeful. “Were there diagrams? Texts you had to copy and memorize?”

“It was more of a practical demonstration,” Robb muttered. “Ros and Satin were very helpful.” He paused, then said, “Though really, most of the explanations were just plain common sense.”

“Such as?” Jaime prodded, wondering idly just how far that blush went down Robb’s chest.

“Go slow, use oil, pay attention.” Robb frowned a little, then added, “I hadn’t thought to bring the oil with me, I’ll remember it for the next time.”

Jaime’s eyebrows flew up again. “The next time?”

Robb looked at him and said, dryly, “Apparently I need to stay prepared, in case you decide to ravish me against a tree again. I wouldn’t want my husband to think me lacking.”

Jaime stared at him for one wild moment, then burst out laughing. Robb was chuckling too, so obviously pleased with himself and his joke that it made the whole thing even funnier, and Jaime laughed until his sides hurt. There were tears standing in his eyes by the time he finally composed himself, and when he opened his eyes, Robb was watching him still, smiling, his face full of…

Jaime’s stomach lurched, because that was hope in Robb Stark’s face, hope that he and Jaime were reaching an accord, an understanding, that this everlasting bond would in fact be a blessing from the gods. And of course he was hopeful, why wouldn’t he be, he was a sixteen year old boy who’d forever had the world at his feet, who’d never had a single thing go wrong in his entire gods-blessed life—of course he would think that being tied to Jaime was a good thing.

Jaime tore his gaze away, making a show of brushing off the dirt and grass as he got to his feet. “We should probably head back.”

When he finally looked at Robb again, the smile on his face had faded, but the light in his eyes hadn’t gone. “Of course,” Robb agreed, and they went to mount their horses for the ride back to Winterfell.

The bannermen were all arriving, and it was Robb’s duty to greet them alongside his mother and father, to be present and make a good showing as the Stark heir–and all Robb could think of was Jaime. Jaime, Jaime, Jaime.

He could feel the bond flickering to life between them, like the beginnings of a campfire slowly being fed with kindling, soft breath stirring the embers to life. Robb could sense Jaime now, at least some of the time, a presence in the back of his head that never quite left. Sometimes he could even feel flashes of what Jaime felt—unease, amusement, unhappiness.

He hoped that last emotion would fade, with time. His mother had counseled him on it, warned him that love and trust would take time to build, that he shouldn’t be discouraged if it came slower than he wanted.

As if Robb had conjured him up just by thinking of him, Jaime appeared in the courtyard—wearing Lannister colors, yes, but the fur cloak was over his shoulders. Lord Umber, the latest of their bannermen to arrive, visibly paused upon seeing him, but he took Jaime's outstretched hand without blinking, saying next, "Ser Jaime. I see you're as handsome as they say. Are you as good with a sword as they say, too?"

Jaime's mouth curved up, and he replied, "No. I'm much better."

Umber liked that, letting out his booming laugh. "Hah! We'll see, we shall see about that."

And to Robb's relief, it went on like that throughout the whole day and into the evening, Jaime in a far more mellow mood than he'd been his first few days here, greeting each of their guests with an easy charm that was impossible to resist, and it seemed that no one could resist. Robb watched it happen over and over again, the eyes moving over Jaime with disbelief—is that really him, how is he that handsome, I'd like to see what he can do with that sword. Jaime looked completely unconcerned with the scrutiny, not even seeming to notice the way that Alys Karstark or Ardal Manderly were ogling him, though Robb did, and glared at them both for it.

Tyrion was also circulating throughout the Great Hall, and Robb held his breath over that too, he didn't want to see his future goodbrother insulted in his home, and was relieved to see Jon keeping close to Lord Tyrion the whole time. But even that seemed unnecessary after a moment, as Tyrion very obviously had at least the same amount of charm as his brother did, if not more, he'd even succeeded in getting Lord Karstark to laugh at something he’d said.

Relieved, Robb turned back to where Jaime was greeting Dacey Mormont with a smile and a kiss to her hand—there was nothing in it, Robb knew that, and yet as Dacey gawked up at him, the color flooding her cheeks, Robb found himself stepping forward and pointedly hooking his arm through Jaime's.

Thank the gods, Dacey came to her senses quick enough, saying to Robb unabashedly, "Well, your soulmate's handsome enough to turn the head of a septa, congratulations."

"Thank you," Robb said, dryly, and Dacey grinned at him.

"Don't tell me you're jealous," Jaime murmured in his ear as they walked away, his breath warm against the shell of Robb's ear. Robb shivered a little, but said stoutly, "Don't be ridiculous. I mislike the way people keep staring, that's all." He eyed Jaime up and admitted, rueful, "Though Dacey's right; with your looks, you must be used to it."

Jaime just rolled his eyes, further proving Robb's point, except that he said, "As if half the crowd here aren't gawking at your good looks, rather than mine." Robb would have blushed at the compliment, except that Jaime said next, "Frankly, so long as I don't hear the title Kingslayer thrown around, I'll be fine."

"They wouldn't dare," Robb said, affronted at the thought of it. "Also I'm sure they've all heard the truth of it by now."

Jaime hummed, but didn't argue. But now that Robb was looking more closely, he thought he could see it, the tension Jaime was carrying at the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes were constantly scanning the crowd, as if he was waiting for an attack or a threat to emerge.

"Should we sit down, get you something to eat?" Robb offered.

"Please," Jaime said. "And a drink as well—I'll even take that dirty water that you call ale."

Just for that, Robb flagged down a servant to bring them two tankards of ale, and Jaime grinned at him and downed half the tankard in one go, barely making a face afterwards. They were seated next to each other, so close that their thighs were brushing together, and the candlelight was doing remarkable things to Jaime’s hair, turning it to pure gold.

They were at a feast, in front of the entire North and Robb’s family, it wasn’t right for Robb to be staring at Jaime like this, his body going hot all over as he remembered what had happened in the woods, with Jaime’s thigh between his legs, Jaime’s hand on his cock, what it had felt like to go down on his knees for Jaime and—

His entire face red, Robb quickly buried his face in his own tankard, but even that didn’t do any good, because once he emerged, Jaime was watching him, eyebrow raised and his expression amused.

“What?” Robb said, defensive; Jaime smiled and didn’t answer.

They were seated next to each other at dinner too, and Robb prayed to all the gods that no one could see how he was flushing as he put meat on Jaime’s plate. Jaime was no help, of course, smiling knowingly at Robb and leaning in to whisper in his ear, “What an attentive husband I’ve found.”

Robb’s knife landed on his plate with a clatter, Jaime’s smile only growing larger as it did, and Robb hissed under his breath, “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Jaime’s smile deepened. “Do I need to?”

Robb glared at him, because the answer was obvious, and he turned to his tankard and downed the rest of it in one long gulp.

A few seats down, Tyrion was speaking to Dacey Mormont, saying, “Since Lady Sansa was kind enough to outfit me with a proper fur cloak, I do plan to see more of the North than I have so far, now that I’m assured I won’t freeze to death along the way.”

“Anything in particular you’d like to see?” Dacey asked.

“Well, I certainly do want to see the Wall, it sounds extraordinary. And of course, I’d like to visit the godswood before the wedding ceremony, I've never seen a proper weirwood tree before," Tyrion said lightly.

Lord Roose Bolton's head went up at that, as he asked, "So there will be a ceremony in the godswood, then?"

The table quieted, people around them waiting for the answer, and Tyrion blinked innocently. "Of course. We are in the North, after all, where else are weddings performed?”

Roose Bolton's eyes were glittering a little, and Robb was sure he heard malice in the man’s soft voice as he prodded, "And the ceremony in the sept? Will that be taking place before or after?"

"What ceremony in the sept?" Tyrion asked coolly. "The only wedding rites I know of happening will be the ones in the godswood, before the old gods of the North."

That was not the plan, and the frozen look on Mother's face made that perfectly clear, but Tyrion was still meeting Lord Bolton's gaze calmly, and next to Robb, Jaime leaned in and whispered, "I don't know what Tyrion is up to, but believe me, we should let him get on with it."

Robb nodded a little, and within just a few moments he saw that Jaime had the right of it; there was a release of tension around the table at Tyrion’s words, as though people had heard something they weren't expecting to hear but that they approved of utterly. Robb even saw Greatjon Umber nodding along, saying something to his son and looking pleased.

His mother’s lips were pressed tightly together, and his father’s expression was very carefully blank, but Jaime pressed his thigh against Robb’s under the table, reassuring, and Robb leaned in against him, willing his body to relax.

Eventually the feasting came to an end, and Robb was so weary by this point that his head felt like it was swimming, but he wouldn’t ignore the summons to his mother’s solar, particularly when the invitation wasn’t just for him.

“What happened to your plan of charming Catelyn Stark?” Jaime asked his brother as they made their way up the stairs, and Tyrion huffed.

“This is just a very small bump in the road,” he insisted.

But his mother was pacing when they entered, lines deepening in her forehead as she saw them all. “Thank you for joining me, I will try to keep this brief,” Catelyn said, folding her hands in front of her. “Lord Tyrion, I…appreciate your tact when dealing with Lord Bolton, but I don’t wish to see your brother forced into forsaking the Seven. Lord Stark built a sept for me when we wed, there’s no reason the old gods and the new can’t coexist here in Winterfell.”

Jaime looked at Robb, who looked helplessly back—his mother’s faith has always been something Robb respected without fully understanding; he attended his mother’s sept and his father’s godswood, and he never worried about the conflict between either. It wasn’t until tonight that Robb realized that might have been a mistake.

Meantime, Tyrion was looking at his mother with a faint frown. “I assure you it’s not a problem,” he said slowly. “Jaime’s never been very devout, and even if he were, the political situation here requires that Robb and Jaime make vows in the godswood, and nowhere else.”

“What political situation?” Robb’s mother asked, eyebrow raised, and Tyrion paused again, looking at her strangely, before turning to his brother.

“Don’t look at me,” Jaime said, shrugging. “You started all this in the first place.”

Tyrion gave his brother an exasperated look, before turning to his mother with an apologetic expression on his face. “Lady Stark, it was not my intention to alarm—”

Impatient, Robb’s mother interrupted him. “Lord Tyrion. You are a charming man, but charm is not what I want from you right now. I want honesty. What political situation?”

Tyrion didn’t speak at first, then he lifted his chin. “All right. Forgive me for saying it, but Lady Stark, it’s clear that you think the greatest threat to your son’s rule here is Jon Snow. It’s not.”

Robb stiffened, and he saw his mother do the same. “You sound very confident about that, Lord Tyrion,” Catelyn said, and Robb winced at the frost in her tone.

“Tyrion,” Jaime said, warning, and Tyrion turned his head to look at his brother, saying in an aggrieved tone, “I had meant to wait before bringing it up, allow me some tact.” He sighed and turned back to face Catelyn. “I am as confident about this as anyone can be in this changeable world,” Tyrion said. “A week’s time is enough to see Snow’s affection for his siblings, Robb included, and moreover, the boy simply doesn’t have the needed personality for a conspiracy or coup to rise up around him. Can you imagine him managing to keep a secret of that magnitude even for a day?”

“No,” Robb said immediately, putting as much force behind it as possible. “And he wouldn’t even if he could.”

“People do change,” Catelyn said coolly, and Robb turned to his mother, betrayal like ice in his stomach. He opened his mouth to say the gods only knew what, but Jaime put a hand on his arm, the faint pressure a warning.

“They do,” Tyrion said. “But rarely, and never all at once. If Jon Snow were to turn on your son, it would be years in the making, and very far in the future, if it happens at all. But what is here, now, is the North’s resentment of your religion, and therefore their resentment of you and the children you raised in the light of the Seven.”

His mother’s lips were pressed so tightly together that they were a thin line in her white face. “Resentment,” she repeated, very softly.

Robb’s stomach was churning, remembering Roose Bolton’s glittering, malicious gaze, and the silence around his father’s table. “My mother has never tried to convert or force anyone into worshiping her gods.”

“No, of course not,” Tyrion said quickly. “And I haven’t heard anyone claim otherwise. It’s just…” He paused once more, before sighing heavily and saying, “You don’t know, do you, that the servants here refer to the sept as Lady Stark’s sept. Some of your bannermen too. Not the sept, or even the Winterfell sept, but Lady Stark’s sept.”

Robb had noticed the way that Tyrion had been everywhere in Winterfell these last few days, talking to everyone from the serving maids to Ser Rodrick to their blacksmith, and hadn’t thought anything about it—Tyrion Lannister was so obviously the sort of man who enjoyed hearing his own voice that he’d never thought to think twice about seeing him talk to everyone. He hasn’t thought it was for this, to gather information on his family and his home, and reveal things about them both that even Robb hadn’t seen.

“She’s a southern lady,” Jaime said into the silence, mildly. “They can’t be surprised she worships the Seven.”

“They’re not surprised, but they don’t like it,” Tyrion said, finally pushed past all tact and soft diplomatic words. “And they really don’t like that she’s raised her children to follow her gods as well as the old ones. And now the heir to Winterfell’s marrying another southerner, and not just some soft southern lady, but the Lannister heir—it could cause problems. Not now while Ned Stark lives, but in the future.” He turned back to Catelyn and said, with real sympathy, “My lady, forgive me—you can worship how you please. Your son’s husband cannot. Their children cannot.”

His mother was pale and stiff with mortification, and beyond that, alarm. “And you think one ceremony in the godswood will solve this?”

“No,” Tyrion said. “But it’ll be a start. Particularly because your bannermen will all be hopeful that some of their children will marry your younger children, and then once Robb and Jaime adopt their heir, that it will be their grandson ruling in Winterfell. They’ll be dormant and content, so long as that’s a possibility.”

A muscle jumped in his mother’s jaw, and she said, still all frost, “So now you mean to direct all my children’s future marriages, Lord Tyrion?”

“I don’t mean to direct,” Tyrion said, remarkably humble, given how he’d just finished lecturing Robb and his mother on the politics of the North, and told his mother all the ways she’d misread her position in Winterfell. “Only to warn, and to advise.”

“He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,” Robb said, later, once Tyrion and Jaime had departed.

“I asked him for honesty,” his mother said, looking very tired. “I cannot blame the man for giving it to me.” She looked down at her hands and added, very low, “Particularly when it involves the danger I’ve apparently put my son in.”

“Mother,” Robb began, but with no way to continue. Catelyn smiled a little, bitterly, and shook her head. “It’s all right, Robb. It’ll be all right.”

She was his mother, so Robb believed her, even though he still worried that she’d be proven wrong.

*

“Be honest with me,” Robb said to Theon and Jon the next morning at breakfast, when they were among the first to rise. “Have you heard the sept here referred to as my mother’s Sept?”

Theon and Jon were rarely in accord, even when Robb wished they would be, but it gave him no pleasure to see them looking at each other with identical grimaces. “Fuck,” Robb muttered. “And you didn’t think to say anything?”

“What could we say?” Theon asked. “Your father built that sept for her, were we supposed to question his judgment because of servants’ gossip? Bring your mother’s wrath down on our heads?”

She wouldn’t have been wrathful, was what Robb wanted to say, but he knew it wasn’t true. Tyrion Lannister might have been able to speak hard truths to his mother, but Jon, his father’s bastard, and Theon, a Greyjoy hostage, wouldn’t have been given the same latitude.

“Is she very upset about it?” Jon asked, and Robb paused before answering. There was no resentment in Jon’s voice, no hint at all that he was enjoying Lady Stark’s discomfort, and Robb remembered his mother’s cold words from the night before and felt that unhappy twist in his stomach again.

He’s so good, Robb thought. At least Tyrion Lannister can see that, even if my mother can’t.

“She’s not pleased,” Robb said at last. “But…I think she sees the wisdom in it.” He hoped so, at least.

“At least it means one less delay before you’ve got your new husband in your bed,” Theon said slyly, and Robb tried not to blush, he did, but his face was growing hot, and it only got hotter as Jon and Theon stared at him.

Theon started to grin. “I’d wondered what you and Lannister could’ve been up to in the woods all that time. Couldn’t resist getting a taste before you made your vows?”

Robb thumped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be crude,” he muttered, face flaming.

“That’s not a denial,” Jon murmured, sly, and Robb stared at his brother in betrayal.

“What, you too?”

Jon grinned. “You’ve already been Marked, that’s as good as a wedding. And it’s not as if either of you can sire bastards with each other. So? Did you?”

Robb was so red by this point he could have burst into flames, but he nodded, and Theon whooped. “Not—just hands. And mouths.”

Theon looked so smug, as he said, “So the trip to the brothel did do you good,” he said, chuckling. “You’re welcome, Stark.”

“I don’t recall thanking you,” Robb retorted.

“Ah, I’ll get my thanks during the bedding ceremony,” Theon said with a wink. “I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to seeing Jaime Lannister in his smallclothes—”

“There’s not going to be a bedding,” Robb said immediately, a hot wave of anger coming over him at the thought of it.

Theon blinked, then smirked. “Not willing to have anyone else see your husband naked, is that it?” he teased, and Robb could feel himself flushing, but it was true. He’d seen the way that everyone looked at Jaime, from the serving maids to some of the knights to even Septa Mordane, who he’d occasionally seen blinking at Jaime in sheer disbelief that the gods could make a man so fair. And that was fine, Robb understood it, but to have strangers touching—

“No one is touching him on our wedding night except for me,” Robb said, his voice flat. Theon’s eyebrows rose, and he shared a look with Jon that Robb refused to read anything into.

“Lot of disappointed wedding guests,” Jon said, mild, and Robb scoffed.

“Aye, and they’ll just have to live with their disappointment,” he said, and thankfully there was no more talk of any bedding ceremonies after that.

There was still one major ceremony to go through, and Robb met with Jaime in the godswood to discuss it.

Jaime was already waiting for him there, looking closely at the weirwood tree, at the oozing red sap dripping from its mouth and eyes. "Who carved the faces into these trees?"

"The Children of the Forest, if you're a believer," Robb said easily. In his fur cloak, Jaime could've been any believer coming to worship before the old gods. It was a bright day, and sunlight streamed through the branches and red leaves of the weirwood tree to catch in Jaime's hair, outlining the planes of his face in gold.

"So tell me how weddings work, for believers of the old gods," Jaime said.

Robb cleared his throat. "Well, we'll be standing before the tree, obviously."

"Oh, obviously," Jaime said with a smirk.

"It's fairly simple," Robb said, before walking through it all, how his father would be performing the rite, how it would be Tyrion giving Jaime away ("He's going to love that," Jaime interjected) and the words they would say to each other, to seal their marriage.

"Well now, that is straightforward," Jaime said, sounding pleased. "If you knew how long a wedding can take in a sept, you'd be grateful to Tyrion for getting us out of the whole thing." He paused, then added more delicately, "I hope Tyrion didn't upset your mother too much last night. Sometimes he's so focused on being clever that he forgets to be polite."

"No, it's all right," Robb said immediately, then considered. "Well. My mother might take a little more time to admit it, but she meant what she said, about preferring honesty to charm." He shook his head, remembering Jon and Theon's lack of surprise at breakfast this morning, and added, "Only a few days, and your brother has discovered things about my family and my home that I didn't even know."

"Oh, don't worry," Jaime said, moving to sit down on one of the weirwood tree’s oversized roots, before pausing. "I am allowed to sit on this, yes? It's not considered sacrilegious?"

"It's your Seven that always fuss over sacrilege," Robb said, amused. "Sit where you like."

Jaime did, then said, "Don't worry over it. By now Tyrion has a half-dozen schemes at the ready to solve any lingering resentment in the north about southern invaders marrying into House Stark."

Robb wanted to laugh, but checked himself. Eyebrow raised, he asked, skeptical, "Hundreds of years of history, and you think it can be solved in the blink of an eye?"

"Well," Jaime drawled, "You haven't had a Lannister to solve the problem for you before."

Robb barked out a laugh at this, and Jaime grinned back at him. "I hate to put your brother at work solving tangled political realities, but if he's volunteering..."

"Oh please, this is the sort of thing Tyrion lives for," Jaime said, smiling fondly. "Truthfully, I think he’s enjoying the chance to be my protector, for once. Usually it’s the reverse.”

Surprised and curious, Robb asked, “What did you need to protect him from?”

Jaime was quiet for a moment, then he said, “My father and sister, mostly.” He gave Robb a slantwise glance and asked, “Or has the North somehow been unaware of Tywin Lannister’s loathing for his younger son?”

Robb chose his words with care. “It wasn’t hard to guess, but I’d hoped…I hoped the tales were exaggerated.”

“If anything the truth is probably far worse,” Jaime said. “Not every highborn family is like yours. And my family in particular is…unhappier than most.”

He didn't say it with sadness, more like he was sharing a simple fact. That made the picture he painted even bleaker, and it cast a different light over the last few days—Tyrion defending his brother at every turn, moving through Winterfell as though he would drink up all its secrets in one great gulp if he could, why he’d confronted Robb’s mother over the politics involved in this wedding.

“Would you like your brother to stay in the North?” Robb asked. “After we wed?”

Jaime didn’t speak for a long moment, his eyes searching Robb’s face. At last he said, slowly, “I would.”

“Then he shall,” Robb said. “I’ll have to speak to Father, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Another long pause, and in that pause Robb felt a flash of emotions that weren’t his, wary disbelief and fragile hope mixed together, and then it was gone, leaving Robb to ache in its aftermath.

You can trust me, Robb wanted to say. But that wouldn’t do any good, he already knew. Whatever life Jaime had lived since the death of Aerys Targaryen, it had left him jaded and distrustful. If Robb was going to gain Jaime’s trust, he’d have to earn it, and it would take time.

So instead of pushing, Robb just smiled and asked, “So? How do you find our godswood?”

“Magnificent,” Jaime agreed, and he sounded relieved too. “Though I had wondered if you had an ulterior motive in asking me here, given yesterday‘s exploits—“

All the blood in Robb’s body immediately flooded his face, at least the blood that wasn’t traveling south. “I wasn’t, I hadn’t,” he stuttered, reduced to babbling in the face of Jaime Lannister’s slow, teasing smile.

“Oh?” Jaime prodded, getting to his feet with more grace than should have been possible. “So you weren’t looking for me to ravish you against a tree once more?”

“Not these trees,” Robb said weakly, a little scandalized, and Jaime laughed at him, but softly. He kept coming forward, and Robb stood his ground, dazed, wondering if Jaime really would, and if so, if he’d possibly be able to resist—

But the kiss that Jaime gave him was brief, a light brushing of his lips against Robb’s and then he was gone, stepping back. “Shame. We’ll just have to wait until the wedding, then.”

As he sauntered off, Robb stared at his retreating back and he decided at some point, he was absolutely going to get his own back—even if the gods only knew how he’d manage it.

After all that, the actual wedding passed by in a blur. Jaime moved through it all in a daze, moving where he was told to move, standing where he was told to stand, saying what he was told to say.

The only thing that felt real was Robb’s warm, solid hands in his, Robb’s solemn young face as Jaime stared right into his eyes, dark in the torchlight, and said hoarsely, “I take this man.”

Robb’s hands tightened compulsively around his, and like that, it was done—Jaime was his, he belonged to Robb Stark and to Winterfell and to the North, all of his other oaths crumbling to dust before this one.

If Robb could see how unsteady Jaime was, he gave no sign of it, other than his firm grip as they accepted the cheers and congratulations of the small crowd around them–most of their guests were waiting back in the Great Hall of Winterfell, it was only their families and a select few bannermen at the actual ceremony.

Jaime realized, after a moment, that the congratulations were sincere—Lord Umber clapped him on the shoulder so heavily he thought it might have been a blow from a hammer, but Umber’s grin was broad and real, and Jaime accepted his congratulations in bemusement, and went on to the next man, Lord Manderly, who shook his hand heartily and said he looked forward to seeing Jaime spar in the yard. Even Ned Stark was smiling, the lanterns illuminating his face as he embraced Robb, smiling over his son’s shoulder at his wife, happy at this occasion—at watching his son marry Jaime.

In one week, Jaime’s reputation had been restored to him. It was a gift Jaime had never thought to ask for, something he thought the gods could never fulfill, and he could’ve howled with disbelief over it, that it was Robb Stark, a sixteen year old untested boy, who had handed him back his honor and the world’s respect.

And it would be the world, and not just the North; Tyrion had made it clear the tale was spreading out through the kingdoms, ravens flying out from Winterfell along with the whispers within its halls, and somehow the entire thing had become Tywin’s fault, with the Starks and their bannermen all deciding that Tywin had kept the true facts of King Aerys’ death hidden on purpose, set Jaime’s reputation and honor on fire for his own dark ambition.

Jaime could see Tyrion’s hand in that, but when he’d tasked his brother with it, Tyrion had just shrugged, unrepentant. “It’s basically true,” he’d said. “Father could have had the story from you years ago. Ned Stark didn’t ask, it’s true, but neither did he, and he let you carry the name Kingslayer all these years.”

Robb murmured in his ear as they walked back to Winterfell, leading the procession, “Are you all right?”

Jaime shook his head, coming back to himself. “I’m fine,” he said, and was determined to make it be true.

Because what reason did he have to not be fine?

It was easier once they were back in the Great Hall, even with the cheering and the music and all those smiling faces—it was just another feast, and Jaime was a Lannister, he knew how to behave at a feast, when everyone’s eyes were on him.

But Robb was more anxious, his hand curling in the small of Jaime’s back as they moved to their seats, at the center of the great table. He was picking up on Jaime’s distress, Jaime realized, and so he leaned in quickly and murmured, “I’m all right, I promise you.”

Robb looked at him for a moment, blue eyes searching his face, and then he nodded, accepting it—accepting Jaime’s word. “All right.” He turned to the room with a smile, the handsome young heir celebrating his new marriage.

And sitting next to him, Jaime smiled as well, and the incredible thing was how easily the smile fit on his face.

He could even find relief in it, that it was done and settled. And there was…there was something sweet in seeing how gleeful Robb’s siblings were, at how easy it was to make them smile. Sansa blushed even more easily than Robb, particularly when Jaime bowed to her and asked her to dance, and the color was still high on her cheeks as Jaime led her through the steps. Arya wouldn’t dance, as Robb had warned him, but she would corral him in a corner with her brother Bran, the two of them pressing him for details of his last tourney triumph, if Loras Tyrell really did have a cloak made of living flowers to wear in the joust—

“He does,” Jaime had told them, “And it’s even more ridiculous in person.”

Robb had finally dragged him away, saying to his siblings, “I’m taking him back, you can pester him later,” ignoring Arya’s protests as he’d led Jaime through the crowd, his arm wrapped around Jaime’s waist.

“I don’t mind telling your sister about what a prat Loras Tyrell is,” Jaime said, amused.

“Hm? Oh no, that’s not it, Alys Karstark has been eyeing you for ages and I think she’s getting up the nerve to ask you to dance,” Robb said, casting a dark eye at the Karstark girl, and Jaime had to laugh.

“If you’re this jealous now, I have no idea how you’ll handle the bedding ceremony in a few hours,” he teased, and Robb paused, looking surprised.

“We’re not having a bedding ceremony,” he told Jaime, and as Jaime’s eyebrows went up, the color rose in Robb’s cheeks as he said defensively, “I’m not having strangers put their hands on you during our wedding night.”

Jaime stared back at him, his mouth going dry. It ought to have been funny, a young man’s meaningless posturing, and yet, something in Robb’s matter-of-fact assertion, that he’d claimed Jaime as his and would treat him as such, before the whole world—

Robb was looking back at him, startled, his eyes wide and very blue, and Jaime gritted out, his voice hoarse, “How much longer do we need to stay here?”

“I—” Robb cleared his throat, and said faintly, “An hour? Maybe?”

“Fine,” Jaime said, and before he stepped back, let his hand trail along Robb’s hip, drinking in Robb’s sharp inhalation of breath, the spike of lust Jaime felt in his head that was a mirror to his own.

The last hour was an excruciating wait, Jaime gritting it out through sheer stubbornness, fixating on whatever random detail he could, such as Catelyn Stark gliding her way through the hall, speaking to Northern lord after Northern lord—she was caught in conversation with one of them now, Lord Glover, if Jaime remembered correctly, a thoughtful look on her face. With any luck, she’d taken Tyrion’s advice under consideration.

Tyrion was in the thick of it, of course, holding court at one table. He’d settled in well, these past few days, better than Jaime could have ever imagined. It was too early to hope for, well, for anything, but Tyrion hadn’t been drowning himself in wine as was his usual habit, and if he’d visited the local brothel, Jaime hadn’t heard of it.

The North could be good for him, Jaime couldn’t help but think, and that just led him to think of Robb’s offer, so easily given, without any conditions, because he knew it would make Jaime happy, and Robb wanted his husband to be happy.

Seven hells, Jaime knew nothing about being a husband. Bedding the boy was one thing, Jaime could do that much, but marriage? A partnership? What on earth did Jaime know of that?

He started at the feeling of a hand curling around his knee; Jaime turned to find Robb watching him, a line of worry appearing between his eyebrows.

Jaime let out a breath and admitted, “It’s annoying that you’re already reading me so well.”

“That’s what the bond is for,” Robb pointed out, but the worry was already starting to ease in his face.

“Yes, but why can’t I read you like that?” Jaime demanded, and Robb’s lips quirked up in a smile.

“Well, I’m not nearly as emotional, so perhaps—”

“Emotional?” Jaime hissed, only slightly playing up the outrage, and Robb was outright smiling now as he said, “You must admit, you’re definitely the more dramatic of the two of us—”

“Says the boy who greeted me by promptly announcing he’d had a vision from the gods,” Jaime retorted, but he was smiling as well; it was easy to smile like this, when Robb was inviting him to be part of the joke, when he was reaching out with an open hand.

“That was just being practical,” Robb said, defending himself, but then he glanced over Jaime’s shoulder and sighed with relief. “Father’s given me the signal, we can slip out now to avoid the bedding,” he said, and Jaime turned to see Ned Stark watching them, Ned giving a careful nod when he met Jaime’s gaze.

The musicians started playing a rowdy Northern song, and Lord Umber gave a shout as the floor filled with dancers, and in the general chaos, it was easy for Jaime and Robb to slip away.

They didn’t speak as they moved through the corridors of Winterfell, already becoming more familiar to Jaime over the past week; Robb was gripping his hand tightly, as though he feared Jaime would slip off into the darkness if he didn’t hold on.

They went to Robb’s quarters, the quarters that Jaime would share with him going forward, and as Robb closed the door behind him, Jaime saw that the servants had already been hard at work, moving his things to this room—that was his sword next to Robb’s, his trunk in the corner of the room.

“Do you want some wine?” Robb asked behind him, his voice nervous and hoarse. Jaime turned to look at him, and Robb nodded at the table. “They left some wine for us, if you wanted—”

“I think we’ve put this off for long enough,” Jaime said, his voice remarkably even, considering that he was practically vibrating from tension and lust, his body strung tight like a bow. “Don’t you?”

Robb blinked at him for a moment, the light from the fire bringing out the fiery tint to his curls, and then he was striding forward and pulling Jaime into a kiss, his mouth hot and tasting of spiced wine. Jaime responded immediately, pulling Robb in closer with an arm around Robb’s trim waist, his free hand stealing up to grip Robb’s soft hair, and he could have groaned with relief; at least this wouldn’t be a problem, whatever else was in Jaime’s future, bedding Robb Stark would never be a chore.

Even if he hadn’t already known that Robb came to this union a virgin, it would have been obvious, Robb’s hands were clumsy as he pulled at Jaime’s doublet, the ties to his trousers, hands moving over Jaime’s body as though he couldn’t decide where to begin.

To do him justice, Jaime was only marginally better, he’d managed to yank Robb’s doublet loose and had gotten a hand underneath it and Robb’s linen undershirt, and had promptly become distracted by the miles of smooth skin beneath his hands, at the high, desperate noise Robb made as Jaime’s hand moved along his flat stomach to trace the line of hair underneath his navel. “Wait, wait,” Robb pleaded, gasping as Jaime bit at his throat, “We at least have to get our clothes off—”

“I promise you, this can be done with our clothes on,” Jaime muttered, but he saw the sense in it, and they parted long enough to strip out of their clothes, Jaime going hot as he saw Robb’s wide-eyed, admiring gaze as he finally got free of his doublet and undershirt—thank the gods, he’d kept himself in good trim these past few years—and then Robb took off his undershirt and Jaime’s mouth went dry at the sight of his bare chest, all pale skin and a dusting of dark chest hair.

Robb flushed at his attention, the pink blush spreading down his chest, and he said in a tight voice, clearly almost at his breaking point, “Get your clothes off, otherwise we’ll never get anywhere tonight.”

“As my husband commands,” Jaime said, and the smile on his face made up for how breathless he sounded.

Once they’re both naked, Robb pushes the pile of furs on the bed to one side, moving to get onto the bed before he freezes, turning to Jaime with wide eyes. “How, I mean, which of us—”

“You can take me this time,” Jaime said, trying to sound relaxed about it. “I wouldn’t want your lessons to go to waste.”

They hadn’t, that much became obvious quickly. Robb was more patient than Jaime would have been, at his age; his hands were gentle as they moved along Jaime’s back, between his legs, as Jaime turned his face into the pillow and tried to force the tension out of his body.

The first slick finger did little for him, at least not right away, it wasn’t until Robb crooked his finger that Jaime started to swear, and pant, and found himself pushing back into Robb’s hand, his legs unconsciously spreading wider for the second finger, groaning as Robb finally gave it to him.

“Gods, what did they teach you in that brothel?” he found himself demanding, turning his head to look at Robb over his shoulder.

Robb looked absolutely wrecked, his mouth red from where he’d been biting at it, color high on his cheeks. “Ros showed me what to do on Satin,” he said, and Jaime found himself grinding his teeth at the thought of Robb putting his hands on a whore, and then Robb was saying, “She made him shriek with pleasure, by the end of it.” His blue eyes were hazy with lust as he said, “I watched what she did to him and I thought about doing that to you, and I—”

Jaime cursed, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees as he ordered, “Then get on with it, Stark.”

He wasn’t looking, but he could hear the smile in Robb’s voice as he said, “As my husband commands.”

Jaime would’ve said something clever, except that Robb was lining himself up and then slowly pushing his cock into him, gasping, his hands tightening on Jaime’s hips, and Jaime shuddered, his head hanging low as he breathed through the burn and stretch of it.

It did hurt, at first, and he was grateful for Robb holding himself still, for his obvious care—but then Robb kept holding himself still, and as the hurt faded and the heat rose up, Jaime found himself wanting more.

“Whatever lessons this Ros woman gave you, clearly they were incomplete,” he said, hoarsely. “At some point you’re supposed to move—”

“You really don’t ever stop talking,” Robb said, incredulous, but he was moving, finally, a sharp thrust, and then another, lightning bolts moving through Jaime’s bones as he did, and he was groaning and trying to match Robb’s rhythm, his hips shamelessly moving back, and then Robb stopped, holding himself still once more, his breathing loud and harsh in the room.

“Robb—”

“Give me a minute,” Robb pleaded, leaning forward so that he was curled over Jaime’s back, the weight of him a hot brand on Jaime’s skin, his breathing coming in warm puffs along the nape of Jaime’s neck. “I just, I need a minute to—”

There was a flush of pride at that, that Robb was already so desperate that he was nearly on the verge of losing it completely, spilling early, except that Jaime was also desperate, he was also on the verge of losing it completely, so he snapped back,“You’re sixteen, a warm breeze could get you hard, we’ll just go again—“

“Gods above, stop talking,” Robb said in desperation, and before Jaime could make another retort, Robb reached around to take Jaime’s cock in his hand, and Jaime abruptly lost the breath to make a single word.

It was a short fall after that, Jaime coming apart between Robb’s cock and Robb’s hand, utterly humiliating noises spilling free from his mouth as he gave it up like the whores who had taught Robb how to do this, and the embarrassment would’ve killed him if it hadn’t been for Robb’s voice cracking in his ear, Robb’s soft mouth pressed against his shoulder as he came, spilling slick and hot inside of Jaime.

Jaime was of absolutely no use in the aftermath, his face still turned into the pillow as Robb heaved himself out of the bed and to the nearby basin of water; the most he could do was mutter, “I can manage that,” as Robb returned to gently wipe up the mess between Jaime’s legs.

“I want to,” Robb said, gently guiding Jaime onto his back so that he could clean Jaime’s cock. Jaime lay back against the pillow and watched him, this boy who was still mostly a stranger to him, for all the intimacies they’d already shared, for all that Jaime belonged to him now.

Stop sulking and be grateful, Tyrion had lectured him, and the awful thing was that Jaime could see the day coming where he would be grateful, grateful that he’d been greeted with Robb Stark’s guileless blue eyes and honest faith, grateful that he’d been given the chance to turn away from his bed of incestuous lies and dishonor.

Robb was looking at him now, his gaze faintly quizzical, and Jaime put a smile on his face. “Looks like your lessons weren’t left incomplete after all,” he drawled, and Robb rolled his eyes.

“You’re never going to let me forget about that, are you,” he said, dropping the cloth to the floor and stretching out next to Jaime.

“Oh, I probably will,” Jaime said. “In about five to ten years.”

Robb laughed and groaned in the same breath, rubbing at his eyes as he said, “Is there any way I can distract you?”

You already are too much of a distraction, Jaime could have said, but instead he answered, “Oh, I think you’ll find a way.” He moved to roll on top of Robb, his husband, sliding their mouths together, rocking against him, already knowing that the lust and desire would make the rest of the night easy, and he was proven right.

That would be the trick to surviving this, Jaime decided. He had to take it moment by moment, one step in front of the other—if he thought of this as the rest of his life, if he thought about how he would be separated from Cersei for the rest of his life, he would go mad from the weight of it all. But moment to moment, he could survive that.

He was a Lannister. He knew how to survive anything. Even his own marriage.