Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is nothing like always coming second, in heartbreaking, breathtaking ways.

You feel it in the back of your throat, in the straining muscles of your neck, in the way your heart roars into your ears, your rushing blood its messenger, hoping to be killed for the crime of affection, of belief, of trusting one last time, despite every warning sign. There is nothing like it for setting your body, your mind, your faith on fire, for emptying you out onto the ground like a tube of drinkable yogurt and throwing the stripped plastic shell of you in the garbage where you belong. Are you in a landfill somewhere? Is your soul the only thing keeping you out of hell?

The city lights are assaults on your eyes, but you keep walking, keep talking, keep thinking like you'll drown yourself in a haze of sensation. You wish you'd brought your sunglasses, though they'd make you look like a fool. Sunglasses in winter -- everyone would know you for the asshole you were. Everyone is in their winter coats, bundled up against the cold, and for a second, you wonder if you will ever be warm again. If fate will ever be that kind to you, a forgotten relic of a time when things were easy, when people were easy, when you could trust and believe and run headlong into love with both arms open.

People are quick to say you are too trusting for your own good, but scatter when you smirk and remind them you are what she made you. Some yearning part of you that still believes in fairytales and redemption is still her creature, her trusting knight, her sweet boy, whatever she wanted you to be at any turn. You are her reflection, her face in the mirror, her words in action. Isn't that what she told you? The message has twisted within you, twisted you along with it, shattered your posture and your smile, her claim splashed all over you like her disdain.

You'd left her dorm room crying. She had made you cry in the warmth of her room, had closed the door after shoving you out into the hallway, dry eyed all the while. You'd outlived your usefulness. She didn't need you now, not when she had Osmund Kettleblack and God knows how many others. How many others had there been? All through high school, this semester, how many had there been? And you hadn't noticed a single one, stupid Jaime, stupid, trusting, loyal Jaime, a dog groveling at her feet for the barest scraps of affection.

Your tears had frozen on your cheeks, your face a tragic mask of sorrow, and when you wipe your cheeks, little shards of ice pour off you like a waterfall.

One of your gloves falls off as your hand returns to your side and you nearly trip over your own feet reaching for it, ignoring the voice in your head that sounds so achingly like hers when your cold, shaking fingers close around it. Of course you dropped something, of course you look so stupid picking it up, of course it was you who--

"You dropped your other glove." A rough hewn voice says, and your eyes focus on the strangest face you've ever seen, a Picasso piece attached to the body of a hockey player (a type of body you once had, a type of body you once knew well), and something in your heart says "this is someone who won't hurt you".

Something in your heart says here, Jaime, this will be good.

You know better than to listen to your heart.

"I don't think I know you." You say instead, accepting your glove and tugging it over your scarred right hand as quickly as you can. The burns ache when the temperature drops, like the skin is splitting and swelling and screaming all over again. "I don't think I've seen you before. I'd remember, see. I'd know your face."

"I'm Brienne." She says. "Brienne of Tarth." Her shoulders are broad beneath her jacket, straining the fabric. Your mouth waters despite the cold. "I'm, um, well, I'm headed that way. To the CVS. If that's okay." She points beyond you, into the strangely lit half-darkness, the school-owned storefronts gaudy and dripping with colored light and the small businesses hidden by the smokescreen of night. She is asking you to move aside. Asking you to disappear. You know that feeling. You hate that feeling. "I need, uh, a toothbrush. My roommate dropped mine."

"Do you need company?" You find yourself asking. "In, uh, the CVS? I can-- I can help you find the best toothbrush. The best, uh, toothbrush bargain." She always told you you were stupid. You've never felt it so intensely, never wished so desperately for Tyrion's way with words. Maybe then you would be able to explain Brienne's eyes to her in a way she's never heard. "I'm Jaime."

"It's nice to meet you, Jaime." Her smile is crooked, endearingly so, and her cheeks flush, like she's self-conscious about it. You want to tell her that she shouldn't be, that she looks beautiful, but the words shred themselves to pieces in your mouth. You swallow them back and they catch in your throat, balling up, banding together. "I-- I mean, I'd like it. You never know how much danger one's in, in a CVS."

"C'mon then, Brienne. Let's have the night of our lives."

Why were you even heading in the direction you were? Who were you supposed to meet? It's all a blur, and you wonder if you were heading anywhere in particular at all. It would be your style, to run off in a fit of pique, with no destination in mind, with no plan. Your father had always hated you for it. So had Cersei. But you'd never met Brienne, and you'll likely never see her again after you find her a toothbrush, so it better be a fucking good one.

Chapter Text

Fluorescent lighting turns everything half-dead and grayed out, and you are the example which defines the rule. Something on the door jingles as it swings shut and it sets all your nerve endings groaning and complaining like feet sliding on black ice, your heart beating ten thousand miles a minute, jackrabbiting out of your chest into your throat. Or maybe that's because you see her face clearly now, out of the yellow glare of the streetlights. Others might say that it does her no favors, but you see the truth in her eyes, the gentleness in her smile, and feel welcome, for the first time in your life. You have never felt whole before, with anyone other than Tyrion, and you know nothing about this girl other than her name and the fact that she needs a toothbrush, but you feel dizzy with anticipation.

"Jaime?" She frowns. "Are you okay?"

You are delirious with joy. Cersei's never asked that question once. But you stuff it down somewhere deep inside you, in your dumpster of a heart, among lost keys and memories that have outlived their usefulness, because people will always find a way to disappoint you. Especially people you've just met. You are too eager. You have always been trusting to a fault and beyond, a regular Buzz Lightyear in love, rushing headlong toward a goalpost of affection that always seems to run as fast as you do. If life is a marathon, not a sprint, you have been running for far longer than twenty-six point two miles. You have been running forever. Toward what, you don't know, but you are running all the same, aching, broken legs fallen by the wayside long ago.

"The toothbrushes are, uh, that way, I think."

Cersei would never be caught dead in a CVS or in any store where you could buy a bag of chips for two dollars and change. In this space, so marked by her permanent absence, you bloom a little, gain a little confidence, spread little, worn wings and take flight. You run ahead of Brienne, like a little child in a candy store, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and eager to help in any way possible. You imagine you might have run like this more as a child if your father hadn't been so strict, if your mother hadn't been so dead, if your brother hadn't been so much your responsibility. Instead, you learned to package yourself into smaller and smaller boxes, learned to put everyone in the world in front of yourself, learned to set your body on fire to keep everyone warm. And Cersei had taken full advantage. She had known you for the coward you are all along, the pushover you are, the--

"Jaime, that's five toothbrushes." The ghost of a laugh you'd missed still blankets Brienne's face and you long for time to fold back in on itself, to replay the moment. "I only need one."

Brienne's got a tube of toothpaste in her hand, the corners of the cardboard box crumpling in under the force of her grip and she waves it like a wand, a rueful smile on her face. You want to tell her to be silly more often, that goofiness suits her, but the silence is impossible to break. It's almost musical, little patches of perfection scattered over Sheryl Crow's "You're Still The One" playing over antiquated speakers, a muted, crackling movie soundtrack. You glance up at the speaker and smile. She follows your eyes up to the little red box in the wall and laughs, a glorious, joyful guffaw, a horse-like snort and a howl all in one, and you smile wider, so wide you feel like you might shatter apart.

"You have a great laugh." You say, and she frowns instantly, on guard. "It's got character. It's-- It's unique. You sound... you sound like you're really happy when you laugh, and that's rare, y'know? Real, uh, real hard to find." You've misstepped, you've gone too far, you've done what you've always done and set things on fire. You always ruin everything, poison in the veins of the ones you love, the ones you like, the ones you accompany to a CVS too late at night and watch prowl the aisles like a lioness. "I like it a lot. Really. I wish I could-- I wish I knew how to--" You let out a beleaguered sigh. "Forget it. Toothbrush, toothpaste."

The toothbrush you tossed her is blue, like her eyes, but not quite. She spins it around in her hand, considering. You feel like you are being judged.

"You mean well, I think." Brienne says, after a few minutes. Her eyebrows are still drawn together, her jaw clenched tight. "I like the toothbrush. It's blue."

"Like your eyes, but not quite." You blurt out. "It's not the right blue. It's, uh, more intense, more-- like the sea, like the sea near Tarth."

"I'm Brienne of Tarth." She laughs. "Of course it is. Have you been?"

"I've been... around there." You scrub at the back of your neck, which you're sure is flushed red under your sweaty palm. "Traveled some. Around, uh, King's Landing and stuff. We're in King's Landing but... you know, in the area."

You saw Tarth from a plane window, on your way back from your last visit with Elia and Oberon before you all went off to college. It was nothing more than a flash in the pan of the ocean, a little Eden surrounded by sea. It had stolen your breath away. You can see the self-same sea in Brienne's eyes, the roiling, churning power of it. Your knees are more than a little weak, so you keep moving. Keep trucking through it. The only thing your father had ever liked about you was your tenacity.

"In the area." She says softly. "You're not from around here, though. Westerlands, right? The accent threw me off, at first. I've got a teammate, she's from..." She frowns for a split second. "Jeyne Westerling. She's from... somewhere called The Crag?" Her face twists and turns in confusion or outright disbelief, and you wonder how much she'll laugh when she hears your hometown is called Casterly Rock. "That's a ridiculous name."

"Where are you from?"

"Evenfall."

"Oh, like that's any better." You tease, and she rolls her eyes. "I can't say a word against The Crag. Casterly Rock boy, born and bred."

"Oh, disgusting." Brienne stuck out her tongue, miming gagging. "Well, you've done me a service with this toothbrush, so I can't hold it against you."

"A knight's favor." You joke, and then wish dearly that you could take the words back. It's too much too soon, too serious too soon, and Cersei had always told you that--

"I always thought I'd like to be a knight." She says thoughtfully, like she actually means it. At once, you can see it. Brienne in full armor, riding into battle, majestic and dangerous and built to win. Something potent thrums thready in your veins. You don't know where she'll find a battle in this day and age, but you'd ride into it with her. "My teammates joke about it. Like I'm their knight, saving them from danger."

"Teammates?"

Brienne looks surprised.

"I play hockey." She says, and that little flame in your heart goes dark.

She's got the build for it, the shoulders for it, the strength for it. God, she could probably break you in half with her thighs. How didn't you see it before? Your mouth is dry and your armpits are sweaty. You need to go now. You need to get the hell out of here before you say something that you'll regret to the one person that's been decent to you since you moved here.

Your hand hurts so much more, like this is revenge, like this is a reminder.

There's no way she knows who you are.

There's no way she knows what it meant to you. You look nothing like you did in the commitment photos, fresh faced and barely fifteen, hair curling down over your ears and over your forehead. No, you're old now, before your time, an awful shadow of the golden boy that had signed his letter of intent with a flourish and a smile. Your name is history, even in hockey circles, and even the weirnet had forgotten about you by the time you arrived on campus, hand safely in Cersei's and eyes drilling into the center of the Earth.

"I'm Jaime Lannister." You say, forcing the words through chattering teeth, chopped up into ungainly, unwieldy pieces. You don't meet her eyes. "I was supposed to play hockey here. It's, uh, cool to meet someone else who, who, uh, well--" You don't play anymore. A long time ago, you would've said "someone else who plays". But that's not you anymore, is it?

So you do the only thing you know how to do, these days, when you see something that is too good for you. A promise of something you will never deserve.

You turn on your heel and you run.