DOG ROSE - PLEASURE & PAIN
THE MARBLE balustrades of Caecilia's personal balcony are close to freezing against her legs. It is the coldest night she has ever felt in the Reach, but she cannot force herself to return to the warmth of her bedroom behind her. Lunette sits beside her, curled beneath a thick blanket stolen from the wind-whistling Horn Hill, cradling a hot wine between her hands.
They stare up at the stars. The beauty of winking lights staring back down at them, reaching out long arms as if trying to touch them. It is peaceful out here in the quiet of the night.
Janna's birthday is drawing to a close with the moon rising higher in the sky. They had danced the night away in the grand hall draped in gold – curtains, statues, gilded paintings of the beautiful blonde daughter hanging on every wall. Even the food seemed to be dipped in gold.
The people of the Reach could starve, but those in Highgarden will still eat their weight in gold.
Caecilia could barely bring herself to wait the night out. Janna was laughing as she spun around the dancefloor. Her husband is helping to besiege Storm's End. Mina drank and drank and drank until she fell asleep sprawled against the wall, her handmaidens giggling around her body as they tried to help her to her bed. Her husband is in the North fighting the Stark bannerman. They have not heard from their husbands in a month.
For all they know, they could be dead.
Her sisters would celebrate for a week.
Suddenly, there is a shout – a scream, rather – and the two ladies share a look before they jump to their feet. The shouts are coming from the grand hall. Lunette leaves behind the wine glass and the blanket, remnants of the chill that has crawled into Highgarden. They run through the hallways in pale pink and purple nightgowns, respectively, bare-feet slapping against cold floors. There are drunk ladies in extravagant gowns crying hysterically outside the door, faces shoved into embroidered handkerchiefs. Caecilia pauses, hand on the gilded doorknob separating them from the screaming coming from inside the hall. Lunette is trying to comfort the hysterical ladies, arms around them, offering soothing words.
Caecilia steps into the hall.
There is a trail of blood leading to the longest table in the middle of the hall. Dark red blood drips off it. A halo of blonde hair splattered in it rests towards her. She takes short, slow steps towards the mess. Towards the few sober ladies trying to clean the blood-splattered boy on the table. Towards her mother who is walking towards her and telling her not to get closer. To return to her quarters and wait the night out. Let the healers deal with this. Caecilia stay away. Caecilia go back to your quarters. Caecilia stop.
She does not stop.
She stares down at the golden-haired boy strewn on the table, the blood pouring from a slashing, gaping wound in his chest. It is deep. There is so much blood. She could reach her hand through the wound and touch his heart, hold it between her fingers, feel it beat through the palm until the rhythm joins her own. Only then, would she and Jaime be truly joined.
Her fingers land in the blood pooling on the table. She stares down at it, at the redness seeping into her skin. She could lift it to her lips, taste what she has never tasted before, and let him into her bloodstream. She would never be without Jaime again.
Her bloodied fingers card through his damp golden locks.
Her beautiful Jaime. Her brilliant Jaime. Her bloody Jaime.
Caecilia looks up at the healers. "Can I help?" The pale-faced, pale-haired man stares back at her. He has been the family healer for as long as she can remember. She is sure he has helped to birth her and all of her siblings. His hands are withered and veiny and pockmarked.
She cannot allow him to touch Jaime.
Her bleeding, slashed Jaime.
"That is a bad idea, Caecilia."
She shakes her hand and refuses to lift her hands from Jaime's bleeding body.
"Teach me how to help him."
The healer glances between her and her mother and then, very slowly, nods. He calls an assistant to bring a bowl of water for her to wash her hands. Another assistant to bring his tools. Soon, the salted water is held in front of her and she is scrubbing the blood from the crevices of her hands. It stings a cut she was unaware she had received. Jaime groans, muffled by the grit of his teeth. She did not think he was awake.
The healer teaches her to clean the blood from his body. To clean him. The exact way she should move her hands against his skin. His eyes remain closed, but every so often, he lets out a groan as she presses too hard on the bruises that have begun to spring up. The healer packs the wound. When Jaime's body is clean and the wound has been packed, the healer hands over thread and a needle. It has been cleaned. It will do the job, he says.
Together, they stitch the wound.
When it is done, Caecilia stares down at the pale body beneath her. He is not usually this pale. Not usually this quiet. Her beautiful Jaime, scarred. She barely recognises it. Barely recognises him.
Her hand curls over his cheek.
"His room is already being prepared," claims her mother, standing near the windows. She moves closer until she is on the other side of the table, staring down at the bloodied, bruised body of Jaime Lannister. Everybody else has left the room. "My sweet flower, war makes a widow of us all. You would do well not to embarrass your husband."
Olenna Tyrell sweeps out of the room and Caecilia is left alone, finally, to bandage up the man she loves.
She will never love Trevyr like this.
This love peels at her skin with deep claws. It bites and it tears and it ravages until she is a sanguinary mess of rose petals left waiting to be collected. It is Belladonna swallowed like stone, churning in her stomach, vomiting up confessions of heartache she had tried to keep secret. It is a love that forces her to stop and stare because there is nothing greater than this feeling swelling inside of her.
It is always going to be Jaime.
She cannot hate her heart for having chosen him. Can she?
THE SUN is just beginning to rise when he stirs.
Caecilia has not slept, sat on a chair she had scraped across the room to sit as close to him as possible, refusing to let go of his clammy hand. Lunette had been by, hours ago now, to bring her some water. Everyone had gone to bed, later than expected even for the party, shocked into awakenedness by the sudden arrival of a bloodied body.
She runs her thumb over his cracked knuckles.
"'Tis a beautiful sight to wake up to." His voice is thick in his throat. Caecilia immediately pours a glass of water. He pushes himself up to rest on his elbows, squeezes his eyes shut, and then opens them again when she touches him gently on the shoulder. He smiles and reaches up to press his hand against hers.
"Drink this."
"Whatever you say, my Lady."
He takes the water from her and drinks. Drinks greedily. Letting it spill over his chin, drip onto the fresh bed sheets. This spare room in her corner of the tower, a few doors down from her very own quarters. It is the room he always sleeps in when the Lannisters visit. It is a room so entirely familiar to them. The pale cream walls, the four-poster deep green bed, the windows covered in pale curtains to allow some sunlight to swim through. She has spent many a night in this room, tending to the fire, washing wine down her throat, giggling quietly into Jaime's neck.
She uses a handkerchief to wipe the water from his chin and he catches her around the wrist. She stares into those eyes she never thought she'd see again. Those green eyes like long, twining ivy clutching at her heart. She had almost gotten used to the idea of having said goodbye to Jaime.
She has always been a liar.
"I thought maybe you were dead."
She collapses onto the bed and into his arms. He groans at the initial contact, still unused to the pain ebbing in his body, but soon his arms twist around her to hold her as close as possible. His body is warm. It is not what she expected after all that blood loss but she will not complain. Her Jaime back in her arms.
She presses a kiss to his chest, just above the top of the bandages protecting his stitches.
"Who did this to you? My beautiful Jaime. Who did this?"
He scatters kisses atop her head, fingers tracing the length of her spine. Her beautiful Jaime has been scarred forever. Slashed into as a reminder of whatever managed to touch him. She touches the fragile skin through the bandages and he hisses through his teeth. Her fingers burn as she drops them from his pain.
"I could not see them. I was attacked in the night."
"Why were you travelling at night?"
"The King sent me to talk to my father. To get him to send Lannister troops. I was forced from my horse and I could barely see as I tried to fight. I woke up and saw you standing over me, your fingers in my hair, tears on your cheeks. I thought I had truly died and the Seven had sent me one last reminder of the life I was supposed to have."
"Jaime–"
"You should have been my wife, Cece."
She dips her head to rest on his collarbone and inhales the musty scent of the earth still clinging to him. He will have to stay here until his wounds heal or his father sends a coach to carry him to Casterly Rock. She will sit by his bedside, feed him soup, and kiss him while they pretend there is no war going on beyond the walls of the castle.
It will be a good life even if it lasts only a few weeks.
"Let me pretend to be your wife while you are here."
She can feel Jaime's smile against the top of her head.
"I would like that very much. My wife."
Just for a week, she can pretend that Trevyr does not exist and she cannot break his heart. She can lay in Jaime's arms, nurse him back to perfect health, and let him call her wife just as he was supposed to. They can lock themselves up in this room and nobody will ever know that they cannot escape from the warm touch of the other. Just for a week. Trevyr will never have to know.
"I like the way you say it. My husband."
They giggle quietly together as the sun starts to leak through the drawn curtains. She tilts her head up to finally look at him again, to see those green eyes that she has committed solely to memory, to trace her fingers along the length of his jaw. He dips his head until their lips are just barely touching.
"I truly believed I would never see you again. Yet, here you are."
"Jaime," his name on her lips allows her to kiss him just a little. His eyes flutter shut at the soft touch. "We can never truly stay away from one another. The Seven know our love is true." He hums and inches forward to kiss her deeply. His mouth slots against hers, fitting perfectly, and they move in sync. As one.
His fingers tickle her spin, trace her hips, and fall down her thighs. He slowly tugs up her nightgown, inch by inch, kissing her deep and slow. Being gentle with her in ways he never has been before. She whines as she presses against him. He has never been so slow before. She needs him to rip into her, to tear her body open and drink from her so that they can be fully connected. She has always needed Jaime roughly.
"I am taking my time with you," he whispers, moving his lips from her mouth across her jaw. He moves languidly, as if tasting everything her skin has to offer. His teeth nip her ear and she stifles a moan into the skin of his neck. He chuckles. His hand rests on her thigh, gripping equal parts fabric and flesh. He kisses all over her face, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her closed eyelids. He kisses until he has touched all parts of the skin and then he moves lower, across her neck, lower still, licking at her collarbones.
His tongue swirls across her nipple and she arches into him.
He does not stay for long. He moves lower still, teeth nipping where they can reach, sucking bruises into her stomach. Lower. He grazes her thigh with his tongue and stares up at her, green eyes shockingly bright in the golden sunlight trying to reach them through the window.
"Let me taste you."
"You will pull your stitches."
He smirks, still holding tightly onto her thighs, and flips onto his back, taking her with him. She sits above him now, hovering just over his grinning mouth, staring wide-eyed down at him below her. She has never been above him like this.
"I can taste you like this. My darling wife."
For the next week and a half, they remain alone in the room together. Caecilia leaves every so often to collect food from the kitchens, but they keep solely to one another. He fucks her into the bed every night, gaining strength as the days go on, whispering loving confessions into her skin, kissing her whenever and wherever he can.
She waves him off as he enters the carriage sent by his father. Lunette stands beside her, arms linked, both of them watching as it disappears in the distance. Her mother tells her to visit the healer with a low voice and the two ladies stare at each other.
She will never get the chance to tell him that the baby is his.