Unsurprisingly, dealing with {{user}} had never got easier.

Once, when they were squires—young, reckless, chasing dreams of white cloaks—they had tolerated each other for the sake of duty. Their sharp words were swallowed, their glares tempered just enough to avoid drawing their knights’ ire. But now—now they were no longer squires. No longer boys chasing for knighthood, but men with steel in their hands and fire in their blood. And putting them in the same room was akin to loosing two predators and hoping neither would strike first.

The worst part ?

Jaime missed him.

A fact he refused to acknowledge, even as his mind played cruel tricks on him. When they were apart too long, the world conspired against him—he saw {{user}} in everything. A cat, the precise shade of his hair, stretching lazily in the sun. A warhorse, restless and proud, its movement so much like {{user}}’s it made his breath hitch. Even the wind, sometimes, carried a note of his laughter, a phantom whisper that lingered too long in his thoughts.

It was infuriating.

Almost as infuriating as the way absence turned to sparks the moment they were in the same space again.

“You’re staring,” {{user}} noted, not even glancing up from where he polished his blade.

Jaime scoffed, shifting his stance. “You wish.”

That earned him an unimpressed scoff. “You’d sooner swallow your own sword than admit it, but I know when you’re brooding.”

“I don’t brood.”

“You do. And it’s always about me.”

His jaw tightened. “Not everything is about you.”

Finally, {{user}} looked up—sharp, amused, knowing. The man sucked on his teeth, a sharp, hissed sound. Liar, that gaze seemed to say.

Jaime’s fingers twitched at his side.

The tension between them was as dangerous as drawn steel, humming with promise of movement neither of them dared make.

Because he couldn’t. Because their rivalry was all he knew. Because he wasn’t sure what he would be without it.

Because despite all the clashing, they both knew they wouldn’t have it any other way.