tell me when you hear my silence (asoiaf | cersei/jaime)

[fiachairecht]

tell me when you hear my silence. a song of ice and fire - grrm, cersei/jaime. soft book 1 missing scene in the winterfell godswood. 1k words, rated t.

for copacet in relationshipping.

The North does not like Cersei Lannister.

It's a ridiculous thought, one she should feel silly for indulging, especially since Lady Stark has been nothing but welcoming - and yet, she feels the right of it in her bones. Winterfell's godswood towers above her, near-naked tree branches painted with an ominous sheen of newly fallen snow. It is, she feels, only a matter of time before they fall on her.

The very air bids her feel unwelcome, forces her under furs and separates her from Jaime as the two of them must put forth their courtly faces for a new audience. The North's hatred of her is as incontrovertible a truth as Jaime is mine.

Her brother appears at her side as if summoned by the thought, and perhaps he might have been. He wraps his arms around her waist with the same joyous lack of caution that she always ends up desiring from him but rarely gets. This deep in the godswood, they have a snowed-in world where he is hers alone, and she could do whatever she wanted to him. She sinks back into his body with relief: this trip has made moments alone together too rare.

"What are you hiding from, sister?" His breath is warm against her ear, and she can feel the curve of his smile pressed against the thin strip of bare skin above the collar of her cloak.

"A Lannister does not hide," she says. Not for long, in any case, and in truth, it's not as if she's hiding: Jaime knows exactly where she is, and they were given free reign of the woods.

It would, in any case, be difficult to feel hidden when the trees here are such an immediate presence, their faces far more piercing and far more alive than any found in Casterly Rock's own godswood. She and Jaime had run naked through that wood as children, on the hunt for small animals or each other's clothes or the fallen branch that looked most like a sword. The weirwood of their home was so twisted one could hardly see the remnants of its face, but that did not stop them from making up stories, from hunting the spirit neither of them quite believed was still there.

Cersei cannot see Winterfell's weirwood from where she stands, but she suspects the rest of the trees, sentinels and soldiers alike, can see just as well. She shivers at the thought, and Jaime wraps his arms tighter around her. His presence grounds her, as always, reminds her that they are, at the very least, hidden from any mortal eyes that would make their lives difficult were someone to glimpse their embrace. If the old gods wished to judge her, well, she had faced and dismissed worse from the septons.

"Would my lady care for a turn around the woods, then?" Jaime asks.

She laughs, almost despite herself, turning to loop her arms around Jaime's neck and smile up at him. One day, she thinks, she will be at peace with how much taller than her he's grown. "Why would I need to walk?" she asks in return, as innocent as only Jaime can make her feel. "Is there something in the deep woods more tempting than what I have in front of me?"

Jaime shakes his head slowly, and the woods around them are so silent and they are pressed so close together that Cersei imagines she can hear the brush of his hair against his furs. He steps backwards, and Cersei steps with him, her right foot forward as his left foot moves back, and all is as it should be.

"I dreamt of this last night," he says, when his back hits the trunk of an oak tree. The branches above shiver, loose yet more of their leaves.

Cersei reaches up to pluck one of the brittle orange leaves from his golden hair. "I dream of this every night," she says, and despite everything she cannot quite keep a hint of reproach from her voice.

"My dreams have the more comfortable beds," Jaime replies easily, but he cups her cheeks with gloves warm from being pressed so close to her body, and she forgives him immediately.

"When have we ever needed beds?" she asks, and surges up to kiss him, hard and open-mouthed and full of everything she has wanted to say over the past days as the crowded swirl of life in Winterfell kept her mouth shut.

Jaime is too preoccupied kissing her back for many moments to answer, but when Cersei finally pulls back just enough to rest their foreheads together and breathe against his mouth, he smiles and says, "Well. I do remember a bit of fun in Robert's bed, while he was away."

Satisfying as the memory is, Robert is the last person she wants to think about right now. "It will be our own marriage bed soon enough, I promise," she says, and even through the layers of winter clothing separating their skin, she feels his heart beat faster. "But we can make our own fun, for now."

Jaime, ever obliging, bends down to kiss her again. His hands trail down her body, under her cloak to grip hot and tight around her hips. She maps the warm familiarity of his mouth and feels his heart beat quick and strong against her own chest.

Their mingled breaths hang heavy in the air between them as Cersei moves her kisses to her brother's stubbled cheeks, down the long line of his neck. His hands flex around her hips, and her skin burns with his touch despite the clothing beneath them.

When her fingers find his belt, he groans with the pleasure of anticipation. "Cold," he says, but the protest has no real weight behind it.

"Not if it's you," she whispers. "Not if we're creative. It's been too long."

He laughs: he has never been able to deny her, not this, not anything. He slips his thigh between hers under her skirts, and she smiles as his eyes widen at the heat he finds there.

"Kiss me again," she orders, and his lips steal the words from her mouth as she begins to work her fingers under the waistband of his loosened trousers. No matter what the North feels for her, Jaime loves her, and that is all that will ever matter.