winterlude (jaime/brienne, others, og13)

[janie_tangerine]

“What’s the matter?” Brienne asks as she walks out on the ramparts. Jaime has been there for a while, obviously dying of cold but still not actually coming back in, and fine, there’s still enough sun out in the morning so it could be worse, but she’s never seen him purposefully seeking cold in his entire life and this is just weird.

 

He shrugs.

 

And says nothing.

 

All right.

 

This is bloody damn weird, she decides. He hasn’t not been talkative even after Lady Stoneheart when she had feared he would not even speak to her again in the first place, and now he is? After they did their duty by Catelyn Stark (not the ghost of what she had become) and brought Sansa Stark back to Winterfell (with Sandor Clegane’s help, but they still did), reunited her with her siblings who were thankfully already arrived, all after Stannis Baratheon and Jon Snow took Winterfell again, never mind that now his brother his here, too, along with the dragon queen they allied themselves with, and they seem to have found at least a basic understanding if not more?

 

“Nothing,” he finally says.

 

“My arse,” she mutters, wondering when he rubbed off on her this much.

 

He smiles at that, slightly. Then he sighs and looks down again.

 

Brienne follows his stare. They’re over the yard. It’s full of commoner kids throwing snowballs at each other — she can see Rickon Stark in the middle of them too with Arya watching like a hawk from the corner, but she’s not stopping him from doing it. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary. Actually, she’s beyond glad that they are doing something as mundane as throwing snowballs, given everything those kids went through since the war started. Not that they haven’t, either, but still. And there’s a lot more to go, Brienne thinks sadly, but right now there’s no sight of the White Walkers, Stannis has gone back south to treat with the supposedly living Aegon Targaryen in the Stormlands, so it’s hardly a surprise that they’re choosing to spend time in something more frivolous.

 

“Jaime,” she tries again, “there’s obviously something wrong or you wouldn’t be freezing out here looking at children doing stuff children have been doing since the dawn of time. You can tell me, you know? I mean, it’s not like you haven’t told me worst.”

 

He sighs, taking in the point. “Yeah, I guess you’re not wrong. But — it’s really not that important.”

 

“And maybe I still want to know,” she presses.

 

He breathes in again, turning his eyes at her. “It’s nothing, but — well. I used to do that in Casterly.”

 

“What, snowball fights?”

 

“Before I left to squire.” He shrugs again. “We did get snow. Not this same cold, but we still did. I’d throw them at Tyrion if he passed by. I might have slipped a few inside my sister’s dresses, too, and she hated it, but — well. I just was thinking about how easy things were back then.”

 

She thinks of how he and Tyrion have been civil but coldly distant. She knows why and she did try to tell Jaime that he did the best he could under the circumstances and that what eventually mattered is that he did come clean about it with his brother because he knew he was the right thing to do, but it didn’t really stick.

 

“Well,” she says, “I mean, no one says you can’t join them.”

 

He laughs, but it’s not the genuine kind of. “Wench, I think you’re missing a few fundamental facts.”

 

“As in?”

 

“Oh, let’s see. One: it’s already a miracle that Arya Stark hasn’t murdered me yet and that they actually agreed to have me around in the first place, and sure as hell no one is expecting me to waltz into the yard and do it. Two: it’s already a miracle that Aerys’s damned daughter hasn’t pressed too much to have one of those dragons burn me yet and let’s not even discuss that I wish they were anywhere but here, but never mind that. Three: I think I’m far too old for that, never mind that I don’t think that’s how Tyrion is going to forgive me if he ever does. Four, and most important: how many damned hands you need to make snowballs, wench? Last I checked, it was two.”

 

He looks down at his right golden hand in distaste before he covers it again with a glove that most likely does nothing to not make his wrist freeze. “So,” he says, “it’s sweet that you’d care, really, but I doubt that’s ever going to happen and it’s probably also very idiotic of me to even be thinking about it.”

 

Brienne can’t remember the last time he sounded that self-deprecating, and it floors her so much that she can’t even find an immediate answer for it.

 

His eyes go soft a moment later, though. “But it’s nice that you’d care,” he says, and then he turns his back on the scene and goes back inside their room.

 

For a moment, she stays there, not moving, looking at his back as he disappears inside the castle.

 

Then she looks back down at the yard.

 

Fine. It’s not that he wasn’t right on a lot of things.

 

Still — his voice sounded lighter as he recalled his childhood. She can see why he’d miss the simpler times. And honestly, she kind of envies him that he even thinks about that — not that there was any snow on Tarth, but she never had siblings for bad or good not counting her brother and he wasn’t around enough for her to do any of those things with him, so she always was on her own most of the time and her childhood was hardly the kind you spend playing with other kids. She never did that kind of thing. So, the fact that he’d have no issues just going down and doing it if he could makes something inside her go warm as she notices how wistfully he’s looking at that yard, and she can’t help feeling a certain sadness, as usual, knowing what people think of him when he’s just told her that his greatest wish right this moment is… throwing snowballs at his brother.

 

Nothing anyone would expect of the Kingslayer now, is it?, she thinks bitterly. She wouldn’t have expected it either, years ago.

 

But now she knows better, doesn’t she?

 

She looks down at the yard and at the people around it.

 

Well.

 

She doesn’t think Rickon Stark out of everyone would have issues with it. Arya might, but Sansa has talked her into realizing Jaime is not as terrible as she had made him out to be and Bran has as well when he was the one who should have had more objections to his presence here, and at that point she had to relent, and she also wanted Brienne to teach her a few extra tricks, so… maybe she could just use that as a leverage even if she’d have done that anyway. Sansa might definitely be swayed. She doesn’t know about Jon Snow, but from what she’s seen of him since they arrived here, he’s in dire need of having fun. She also doesn’t know about Daenerys Targaryen but she’s kind of kept to herself most of the time since she got here so she might probably not even care.

 

Still, she is not the person in her entourage that Brienne should convince.

 

For a moment she thinks, am I seriously considering going up to a Hand of the Queen to ask him to please forget everything for one single morning and throw snowballs at his brother?

 

Then she thinks, I killed Lady Stoneheart for him and I was going to get hanged for him and I’ll stop at this? Not bloody likely.

 

Honestly, asking such a simple thing is nothing in comparison, and she thinks of how sad he had sounded before —

 

Oh, to the seven hells with it.

 

She can do this for him, it can’t be too hard.

 

——

 

First, she goes to Sansa because if she has her approval, it becomes entirely easier. Sansa looks delighted at the prospect, saying that she had missed it and Jeyne had as well and they should totally take some time for some mindless fun once in a while, and says that she’ll drag Jon to it kicking and screaming if she has to, and that Rickon won’t have any issues whatsoever. Good. She would have asked Bran if he hadn’t wheeled up to the two of them, said that he knew why Brienne was asking, that he wholly has nothing against it, and said that he’d have liked to participate, if he could have. He sounds wistful at that, and Brienne is suddenly reminded of what he had said when they arrived here, her and Sansa and Jaime —

 

(Ser, if you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t have learned what I did, and if there’s something I had to make terms with is that some things are meant to happen. Besides, I know why you did it. I will accept your apologies if you have them, but I bear you no ill will)

 

— and usually he looks older than his years, but now he does look like a boy his age who really resents being stuck on a chair while his siblings get to have fun.

 

Brienne has a feeling that most of the Stark children really, really would like to go back to the olden times before the war broke out.

 

If only they could.

 

Arya is a bit harder to convince, but the moment Brienne promises her she’d be amenable to teach her one specific move that Arya has been envying her for weeks, most objections are gone.

 

Also, both Sansa and Arya assure her that they can drag others to the appointment, so — well. Now if she can convince Tyrion to be there, she’s done her job.

 

If she can, but she’s realized that apparently she can do a lot when it comes to Jaime Lannister’s well-being or what would make him happy, and so she will.

 

Sure as the seven hells it beats having to pick in between his life and one’s vows, anyway.

 

——

 

“My lady,” Tyrion says after a long, long pause the moment Brienne is done speaking. “I’m — did you just ask me to be in the yard two days after tomorrow for throwing snowballs at my brother?”

 

“What if I did?” She shrugs, looking at him in the eyes and trying to not sound too confrontational.

 

He stares at her, taking a sip from his wine goblet. “I would ask you if he told you why exactly our relations could be better right now.”

 

“He did,” she says.

 

“And you still asked?”

 

“I still did,” she nods, drinking some of her own wine. At least he did offer her some, so she figures he has no issues with her specifically.

 

“I think,” he says, “I don’t need to explain you how that one specific episode made sure that I thought for the rest of my life no one would ever want me the way I happened to have been born.” His mismatched eyes bear into hers, and she thinks, I understand that, even too much. “And I thought he out of everyone never would agree to such a thing.”

 

“My lord,” she answers, “believe me, I understand. But what if I told you that your brother is about the one person who made me think anyone could love me the way I had been born?”

 

“I would find out we might be somewhat at odds,” he replies. “I mean, I can somehow believe that. But what he helped my father doing, it ruined my life and my… former wife’s, for that matter. It’s not going to be fixed by throwing snowballs at each other.”

 

“I wouldn’t expect that at all,” she says, realizing that this is not going to solve the situation. She clears her throat. “I don’t know if he ever told you about slaying the Mad King.”

 

“I’m afraid you are the only one he ever told in private because he chose to and not because he had to.”

 

“I would suggest you ask him for the details,” she presses. “But — I understand what you meant. Maybe I could forgive now the people who made me feel the same as you do, maybe. But — I will just tell you something and let you think on it.”

 

“Very well. Go ahead.”

 

“Your brother, he — he might not have been the target of your father’s hate same as you were, but he did tell me about — your wife. He said he couldn’t find a way to tell him no and that he regretted it the moment it happened, and — he also said, he tried to not even think about it most of the time because it would only make him more miserable. He took a kick to that stump of his more than once while we were on the road together, and one was because he did something that spared me from incurring in that same fate when he had no reasons to do it. It took me a while to understand it fully, but — I think killing the Mad King broke something inside him that only started getting fixed lately. I — I had to do something similar, as everyone knows.”

 

“What, the not so legendary revived —”

 

“She wasn’t the woman I swore myself to,” Brienne presses. “But I had to kill her, for him, and if it had happened before I left my island and joined Renly’s army and before everything else that made sure I could handle it without losing myself, I would have. And when she was alive and gave me that task, of bringing him to King’s Landing, I thought he was remarkably — I don’t know how to put it, honestly, but at times I felt like I was years older than him even if it’s actually the contrary. Now not so much, but then — I did. I don’t think he would have hurt you so if he hadn’t been  hurt as well himself, before. And I think you two should discuss the matter properly.” She finishes her wine. “What I know is that he could forgive me for lying to him about Lady Stoneheart and that no one else ever looked and me and saw what I wanted them to see except for maybe Lady Catelyn when she was alive, but not in the same way he did. And if he wants to throw snow at Arya Stark for the fun of it before the world as we know it might die, I think I can try to make sure he has that chance. I agreed with the others to do it at sunset two days from now. If you want to be at the godswood by then, I would be delighted and I think he would be, more than I ever could. If not, I understand and so would he. And I’m not saying you have to forgive him, but I think that if you two really talked, you would come to a quicker understanding. Have a good night.”

 

She stands and bows before he tells her that he’ll consider what she said, and she nods and goes back to the hallway and their room.

 

She doesn’t know if it’s going to work.

 

Still — well, even if he doesn’t come, hopefully others will.

 

——

 

“Wench, what in the seven bloody hells? It’s barely fucking morning.”

 

She rolls her eyes and drags him out of bed. “Dress,” she says, “there’s a very good reason.”

 

“What, that you want to watch the sunrise with me?” He groans. “We can do it inside, you know.”

 

“That’s not it. Come on, dress. I wouldn’t be dragging you out if there wasn’t a very good reason. Also, leave the hand,” she says as he eyes the golden one on the nightstand.

 

“But —”

 

“You won’t need it.”

 

He groans something about her being impossible, but puts on his clothes and furs regardless — she does the same, not caring for her armor. She highly doubts this is the day the White Walkers will come upon them, not with the last news they got from the Wall — as in, that they aren’t in sight, not yet. She waits as he wraps himself in his fur coat and follows her out of the room.

 

The castle is empty at this time of the day, which is also why she chose it — even if they end up going back to the yard rather than staying in the godswood, no one is going to see or talk about it while breaking their fast. He grumbles as they walk, stopping just outside the wood’s limits. The sky is barely violet, but it’s enough to see, she figures.

 

“Right,” he says, “we’re at the godswood. Now what?”

 

“Now I think we wait a bit,” she says, glancing around. She’s sure that —

 

“Wench, who even should we be waiting for —”

 

He never finishes that sentence because right then a perfectly shaped snowball hits him in the face.

 

“Seven hells,” he says, turning towards the direction it came from —

 

Where Bran Stark is very comfortably being carried on his brother’s back and is smirking at the two of them like he’s entirely proud of that hit.

 

Jon Snow, on his side, is also half-smirking. “Well,” he says, “Sansa made a convincing case that we needed to have some fun. He really wanted to come with, we figured it’d be a compromise.”

 

“Lady Brienne had the best idea,” Sansa says, showing up from behind him, and — oh. There’s her friend Jeyne Poole, too, who’s dragging Theon Greyjoy with, and he looks as convinced of this as Jaime was a minute ago, but Jeyne is looking at him with a face that said we should do this and so you’re not running. Fair enough.

 

A moment later, another ball hits Jaime square in the chest.

 

“Honestly,” Arya says, coming up from behind a tree along with Gendry Waters and Rickon, “I only said yes because I get to learn sword moves in return and I suppose that this will suffice if I want to wipe that smirk off your face, but I’m starting to see the merits.”

 

“What the — you convinced them to —” Jaime whispers, his eyes going slightly wider in the violet light coming in from the sun.

 

“You wanted to,” she whispers, sheepishly. “I figured why not.”

 

“But I can’t —” He starts.

 

“Oh, I’m told this works in teams, doesn’t it?” She asks, raising her voice. “I mean, not that I ever had the chance to do it myself, but —”

 

“Absolutely,” Sansa confirms, grabbing a snowball and shaping it quickly into a round form. “It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”

 

“Then I can team up with you,” she tells Jaime, hoping she’s not flushing, but the way he looks at her as she says it, it looks like she’s just gifted him something entirely more precious than a chance to not worry about the impending end of the world.

 

“But wait,” Jon Snow says, “I think there’s others coming in a moment.”

 

“Others?” Jaime asks.

 

“Oh, hello, ser, my lady.”

 

“Pod,” Brienne grins as she sees her squire coming up to them, “nice to see you up and about.” He got injured fighting a few bandits on the way to the castle, so she didn’t know whether he might come or not, but she still had warned him.

 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he says, and she tries to not look like she might cry when she notices the rope burn around his neck, perfectly mirroring hers.

 

Maybe they all need a break, here.

 

“I guess why in the seven hells not,” comes from behind them, and Jaime’s double-take as he sees Sandor Clegane walk up and move next to Sansa, planting himself right behind her. Right. She did say she’d bring others along. Now if only —

 

“I guess we should make the teams now,” Rickon says after a few moments when no one else shows up.

 

“Not so fast,” comes from their side, and —

 

Oh.

 

Daenerys Targaryen, who has not been around much if not to talk to Jon or Sansa or to make sure her dragons don’t burn the nearby village, comes out in the open in her white fur coat with Tyrion walking behind her, and Brienne thinks that Jaime is really not noticing how awed she’s looking as she takes in the sight of the snow covering the entire ground. He’s too busy staring at Tyrion, who in turn is looking everywhere but at his brother.

 

“Nice to see you could come, my lord. Your Grace,” Brienne says, trying to not forget her courtesies, as awkward as they are.

 

“I’ve never done this,” she says, grabbing a handful of snow. “The way Lady Sansa described it when she asked me if I was interested in doing this, it sounded… interesting. I would like to try it out.”

 

Sansa claps her hands. “Excellent! So, I guess three teams would be good? We’d be even, at least. Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne are one, or so it seems.”

 

“Gendry’s with me,” Arya says at once. “And I’m not with you.”

 

“I’m with her, too!” Rickon proclaims, going to Arya’s side.

 

“Very well, I’ll be with Jeyne then.” Sansa grins.

 

Daenerys takes a look at her pick, then grins Sansa’s way. “I think I should like trying my luck with the lady who was so nice to invite me in the first place.”

 

Sansa says she’ll be delighted to have her. Jon clears his throat.

 

“I think,” he tells Bran, “that both this and Lady Brienne’s team have enough strength to them and we should go to Arya’s. Just if you agree.”

 

“Oh, I absolutely do,” Bran says, and they move over to Arya’s side.

 

“Well,” Pod shrugs, “I’d feel bad going anywhere else.” And then he moves next to Brienne, of course he does. She shouldn’t feel so moved by it, but she does.

 

Clegane grunts something under his breath and says he’s not moving, so he’s with Sansa. Obviously.

 

Greyjoy glances at his choices, obviously discarding the team with Jon and Arya at once. For a moment he seems tempted to go with Jeyne, but —

 

“Hells, it seems like yours is understaffed,” he says, and moves to their side. It’s obvious that it him hurts to walk, but she doesn’t remark on it.

 

There’s only Tyrion remaining. Admittedly, he could join either of the other teams — he is friends with Snow, she has seen it in the days they’ve been here, and he’s Daenerys’s Hand, of course he might, and at this point she expects him to.

 

Then he huffs and turns in their direction.

 

“My lady,” he tells Brienne, “I have a feeling you and Pod might be the only assets to this team, so I guess I might at least help with the numbers.”

 

“Speak for yourself,” Greyjoy says, “I have a pretty damn good aim.”

 

No one says, but you’re lacking fingers, thankfully.

 

Jaime, though, looks like he’s about to cry as Tyrion walks up next to him. Maybe they’ll talk later. Brienne sorely hopes they do.

 

Then Arya leans down, quickly shapes a handful of snow into a ball and sends it straight into Clegane’s face.

 

——

 

So: Brienne hadn’t even assumed they had a chance in the seven hells of winning this entire game, but she had figured winning it wasn’t the point.

 

They don’t win, but against all odds, they don’t go down as the last of the three.

 

It turns out that Sansa’s team is very much hindered by the fact that only she and Jeyne actually have any experience with handling snow, which means that regardless of how good Clegane might be with a sword he’s useless at snowballs, while Daenerys keeps on wasting time trying to make the balls perfectly round or throws them too much to the side. Meanwhile, Arya’s team is pretty much a war machine — Jon might not be technically doing anything but he moves swiftly and makes sure Bran doesn’t get hit, Gendry Waters, after deciding he didn’t have enough experience to be useful himself, sets on handing Bran already shaped balls rather than throwing them, and both Arya and Rickon are ruthless, which means they win hands down.

 

Their team, though, isn’t half as terrible as everyone might have thought from the get-go or as everyone might have guessed from the odds. It turns out that Theon Greyjoy actually does have excellent aim and that he can hit someone square in the face if handed the snowballs, so both Tyrion and Pod end up sticking to his side to hand him already shaped spheres while Brienne, who has learned quickly how this works, hands Jaime as many as she can while she throws some of her own, and turns out that Jaime’s not half as bad as aiming with his left as he had figured, and Tyrion can use his height to his advantage since most people aiming at them don’t look down when they should, so by the time it’s obvious that Arya’s team has won, it’s obvious that they’ve managed a fairly respectable second place.

 

That’s not what’s important, Brienne thinks as victors are declared. What was important is that she hadn’t seen Jaime grinning this hard in months if not ever — maybe just when they kissed for the first time? — and that he did seem to enjoy every damned moment of it. She might have shuddered in fear for a moment when he threw one of his balls at Daenerys so that it’d hit her neck, but she had just smirked and retaliated — badly. (Brienne supposes she did hear everyone else out when it come to the subject of her father, then.) He even made a few jokes about how the two of them are a quite effective team also at this and he shouldn’t have been surprised, and Brienne had admittedly flushed at all of them —

 

But in the good way.

 

“Look at that,” Theon Greyjoy snorts as they all catch their breath, “the most crippled team winning over the dragon queen, now that’s interesting.” He doesn’t say it loud enough that anyone else hears, Brienne does only because she’s standing next to him, but she can’t help smiling just slightly at that. Fair point. That’s probably why Tyrion looks in a remarkable good mood. She wipes sweat off her forehead, looking up at the sky — it’s pink now.

 

“Well,” Sansa says, coming closer to her, her cheeks flushing almost as red as her hair, “I think it was an excellent idea.”

 

“Was it?”

 

Sansa nods to her right where Arya is tentatively talking to Greyjoy who looks fairly surprised that she would, Daenerys is complimenting Jeyne on her aiming and at least not keeping to herself, Tyrion or Jon Snow and the atmosphere looks way more relaxed than it usually is when all of the people in this place are together.

 

Oh, and Tyrion has just walked up to Jaime and told him that maybe he should come to his room later because they really should talk.

 

Brienne half-smiles.

 

“I don’t think I have to say it, do I?” Sansa tells her.

 

Brienne supposes she doesn’t.

 

——

 

“So,” she tells Jaime later, as they walk inside the hot springs — they both agreed they needed to wash given how much dried sweat they had on each other —, “do you see why it was necessary for you to get up that early?”

 

“I might have,” he replies, folding his clothes away on a piece of rock. Brienne takes off her shirt before meeting his eyes again and — oh. He’s looking at her in that exact same way he had when he told her that as far as he knew, no one in Westeros was willing to get hanged for the likes of him, and her heart skips a beat as she gets rid of her breeches and smallclothes. “You asked him, didn’t you?”

 

“I might have,” she says. “But regardless, you had a point. It was fun, after all.”

 

He shakes his head, his cheeks still flushed from the cold. “It wasn’t just — fuck. I can’t believe you actually organized that just because —”

 

“Why not? It was a fairly harmless wish. And everyone appreciated the idea, if you had missed it.”

 

“I hadn’t. It’s just — never mind.” He shakes his head as Brienne gets down into the water and joins her a moment later. “I meant,” he goes on after a long moment of silence, “I can’t really think of many people who’d have done it. Or, well, gone farther than telling me I was being ridiculous.”

 

“You weren’t,” she says. “Gods, it was the most harmless thing anyone could have asked for. And if people couldn’t imagine you wanting it, then it just means they didn’t pay attention, but it’s their loss.” Years ago, she couldn’t have been as bold as she is right now.

 

Now, she really doesn’t care.

 

He puts his left hand on her shoulder before straddling her a moment later. “Most people don’t,” he agrees. “But you do, don’t you?”

 

“Of course I do,” she breathes in reply. “I don’t willingly choose to get hanged for just about anyone.” That came out slightly shaky, maybe. She clears his throat. “In comparison, that was really nothing much.”

 

“I don’t know,” he says, “it meant a lot more than that just the same,” and then he’s leaning down and kissing her and she’s kissing him back, her hands grasping at his back.

 

She can imagine why it would, but honestly, given how it went?

 

She’s already thinking on when they can feasibly do it again.

 

It was fun, after all.

 

 

End.